kebu77

Oil Is Still the Key to U.S. Economic Future

Fitz & Davewmart: A good layman's background article on thorium fission - -
www.washingtonpost.com...
"If Nuclear Power Has a More Promising Future ... Seth Grae Wants to Be the One Leading the Charge
The president of Northern Virginia-based Thorium Power Ltd. says he has a way to make nuclear energy safer, less expensive and more effective. So why isn't he getting more reaction?"

A brief excerpt shows how nuclear power got derailed from being peaceful and safe - -
"Like some other early reactors, Shippingport ran uneventfully for a few years on thorium-based fuel. But in civilian reactors, thorium was soon eclipsed by uranium. The United States and the Soviet Union, along with a few other countries, had already built vast infrastructures to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, which provided full-blown uranium-based industrial complexes. Also, Cold War powers believed they could muddy the waters of intent by enriching uranium for military purposes and for civilian nuclear energy in the same buildings.
"With thorium in its core, Shippingport became the first U.S. commercial nuclear plant to be decommissioned, in 1982. But by then the whole industry had turned on its head. Nuclear's growth in the United States was already slowing for a mix of economic reasons in the late '70s. In 1979, the near-core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear station near Harrisburg, Pa., dealt the industry's prospects a body blow by turning public opinion against it.
"And that is where those prospects have mostly stayed...."

It seems that the nuclear industry is now so wedded to uranium that "not invested here" is the biggest threat to a transition to thorium.