On Jun 21, 12:49*pm, "D. Peter Maus" wrote:

* *I'm intrigued by the Thorium nuclear, though. That would seem to
have promise.

FYI - Thorium fuel is mixed into a liquid solution for its reaction.
It has an apparent high neutron density, which means that you get a
lot of juice for modest fuel amounts; it generates a waste product far
smaller than the comparable U/Pu reactor, and the half-life is
measured in hundreds rather than 10,000s of years, so it's a heck of a
lot easier to manage, and then afterward can be disposed of as an
ordinary ash material. Typically designed Thorium reactors appear to
have no mechanism by which they can "melt down" as their reactions can
be highly controlled through concentrations; and despite the fact that
thorium is not a household name, we have gobs of the stuff. Moreover,
if you add existing nuclear waste that nobody wants to the Th reactor,
the darn thing can burn that stuff up too!

They have been used on subs.

Why don't we have them? Probably because they are incapable of
generating weapons-grade material as a by-product, which made them
less desirable than U/Pu designs for R&D by the military.

It strikes me that we could use this characteristic as either a
bargaining chip or a "gotcha" for Iran - if we offered to ease up on
them if they use thorium reactor tech instead of what they're doing
for the nukes, and they still balked, it would be mighty damned hard
for them to explain away their stubborn attitude about their nuke
development. OTOH, if they embraced the thorium idea, a potential
disaster might be defused.

More details:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html

If you have lotsa time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8

Bruce