Nuclear Physicists are Revisiting a Safer Alternative to Uranium

Nuclear Power Industry

Date posted: 09/21/17

Dom Galeon reports that until such time that scientists figure out how to stabilize nuclear fusion, the most powerful energy source available remains its relatively less powerful cousin, fission. While there are already a number of countries using nuclear fission reactor plants, there’s still a lingering unfounded shadow of fear over the technology, thanks to several cases of nuclear meltdowns in the past, which, aside from the Chernobyl disaster, has not killed or irradiated anyone. But to give a small number of nuclear adversaries some comfort, nuclear fission can be made even safer. That’s long been the promise of a nuclear reactor technology that uses naturally occurring, mildly radioactive thorium salts instead of uranium. Now, a Dutch nuclear materials firm called NRG has successfully begun testing nuclear fission using thorium salts. It’s the first one since thorium experiments at the Oak Ridge National Lab in the U.S. ended in the early 1970s. More than 45 years later, thorium-based nuclear fission is still as promising as ever.