Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN on the use of thorium as a
cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors.
Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – produces as much
energy as 200 tonnes of uranium. A mere fistful would light London
for a week.
Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It even scavenge the
plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It’s
the Big One," said Kirk Sorensen, chief nuclear technologist at
Teledyne Brown Engineering.
It can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of
years, and it’s essentially free. No need to deal with uranium or
oil cartels.
Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a
by-product and the US and Australia are full of thorium.
The Norwegian group Aker Solutions has bought Dr Rubbia’s patent
for the thorium fuel-cycle, and is working on his design for a
proton accelerator at its UK operation.
UK and France have shown no interest probably due to their
respective oil industries.