What if we could turn back the clock to 1965 and have an energy do-over? In June of that year, the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) achieved criticality for the first time at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee.
Figure 1. Thorium is a relatively abundant, slightly radioactive element that at one time looked like the future of nuclear power. It was supplanted when the age of uranium began with the launching of the nuclear-powered USS Nautilus, whose reactor core was the technological ancestor of today’s nuclear fleet. Thorium is nonfissile but can be converted to fissile uranium-233, the overlooked sibling of fissile uranium isotopes. The chemistry, economics, safety features and nonproliferation aspects of the thorium/uranium fuel cycle are earning it a hard new look as a potential solution to today’s problems of climate change, climbing requirements for energy in the developing world, and the threat of diversion of nuclear materials to illicit purposes. Shown are thorium pellets fabricated in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, India, which has the task of developing a long-range program to convert India to thorium-based power over the next fifty years, making the most of India’s modest uranium reserves and vast thorium reserves.
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