In 1965, Weinberg and his team built a working reactor, one that suspended the byproducts of thorium in a molten salt bath, and he spent the rest of his 18-year tenure trying to make thorium the heart of the nation’s atomic power effort. He failed. Uranium reactors had already been established, and Hyman Rickover, de facto head of the US nuclear program, wanted the plutonium from uranium-powered nuclear plants to make bombs. Increasingly shunted aside, Weinberg was finally forced out in 1973.
That proved to be “the most pivotal year in energy history,” according to the US Energy Information Administration. It was the year the Arab states cut off oil supplies to the West, setting in motion the petroleum-fueled conflicts that roil the world to this day. The same year, the US nuclear industry signed contracts to build a record 41 nuke plants, all of which used uranium. And 1973 was the year that thorium R&D faded away — and with it the realistic prospect for a golden nuclear age when electricity would be too cheap to meter and clean, safe nuclear plants would dot the green countryside.
I don't know anywhere near enough to judge this news. It does seem too good to be true. And that quality is only enhanced by not being a "solution" reliant on another narrowly available source for the power supply.
Thorium, eh? And we have lots of it? If this is good science, I'll pretend to believe in man-caused global warming if it gets the ball rolling on this.
But I'll still wait to see what the catch is.
UPDATE: Timely update on China and the rare earth elements issue cited above.
