The Other Clean Nuclear Energy
And the dirty secret to why it isn’t used
Nuclear energy has a bad name these days. Whilst it can provide us with carbon-neutral energy the toxic byproducts and potential risk each reactor poses aren’t so eco-friendly. We already have 250,000 tonnes of nuclear waste stored away that will remain deathly radioactive for another 10,000 years, and the Chernobyl and Fukushima catastrophes are stark reminders of the devastation wreaked on the environment and us, when things go wrong. This has caused many to turn to nuclear fusion as a cleaner alternative. However, replicating the Sun on Earth is rather tricky, so viable fusion reactor technology is likely decades or even centuries away. So should we give up on nuclear energy? Maybe not, as uranium has a cleaner, safer cousin, thorium.
When I say cousin, I mean that literally. Thorium is one across from uranium on the periodic table, so it shares many of uranium’s unique abilities, except without some of the drawbacks.
If I were to give you a lump of uranium ore used in today’s nuclear reactors you would soon die from the radiation. If the piece was large enough and included some neutron reflectors it could even go critical, killing you with a sudden burst of radiation. But what does this mean?
