David Warmflash reports that nuclear power has long been a contentious topic. It generates huge amounts of electricity with zero carbon emissions, and thus is held up as a solution to global energy woes. But it also entails several risks, including weapons development - but not within domestic plants, meltdown - but such can and has been controlled, and the hazards of disposing of its waste products - but has been solved by on-site storage and will have the Yucca facility opened sooner or later. But those risks perceived by anti-nuclear adversaries and the benefits proclaimed by proponents of nuclear power all pertain to a very specific kind of nuclear energy - nuclear fission of uranium or plutonium isotopes.
There is another kind of nuclear energy that has been investigated for decades and, if the system can be designed, it may just demand a readjustment of our thoughts on nuclear power, not to mention those in the industry who build and operate such systems and those who finance such projects. However, there are problems with thorium reactor designs as China and India have recently discovered.
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