Swiss.info reports that the Transmutex company is developing a new type of nuclear reactor that burns thorium instead of uranium. These power plants would be able to produce electricity safely without highly radioactive waste—an ambitious project which could change the landscape of nuclear energy.
Thorium is a weakly radioactive metal that occurs abundantly in rocks in almost the entirety of Earth’s crust. “It is much more democratic than uranium,” says Federico Carminati of Transmutex. Most of the uranium currently used as nuclear fuel is extracted from mines in Kazakhstan, Australia, and Canada.
There are many advantages to a thorium reactor using a particle accelerator, according to Carminati. The radioactive decay time of thorium by-products is much shorter than that of uranium; 300 years instead of 300,000. The amount of hazardous waste would also be significantly reduced. “We are talking about a few kilograms instead of tons,” Carminati says. The thorium cycle would also have the advantage of preventing nuclear proliferation. The by-products of thorium fission cannot be used to make an atomic bomb, he says.
