Thorium - Blog Posts
WELL begun; half done. That proverbor, rather, its obverseencapsulates the problems which have dogged civil nuclear power since its inception. Atomic energy is...
This article from The economist magazine talks about using Thorium as a Nuclear Fuel instead of Uranium. Thorium has several advantages over Uranium and in the view of the author of this article the most important is the relative resistance to proliferation compared to Uranium. I learned a few things from this article. The things I learned was that the US did build a few bombs out of U233 which is the fissile element formed from the fertile Thorium. I was always a bit unsure as to whether or not any bombs had been built. The article also confirms my prior understanding that U233 makes a poor nuclear bomb material because of the presence of small amounts of other radioactive isotopes that emit hard gamma radiation that messes up the other mechanisms required for a bomb.