I have been meaning to post on this subject for a couple of weeks, but lack of attention and problems with BLOGGER have delayed me somewhat. Actually the delay has helped because I remembered a jolly song about the elements (including the transuranic ones) composed and performed by Tom Lehrer which makes a nice complement.
The inspiration was reading a piece on Wired.com all about the potential of thorium as a much more acceptable nuclear fuel than are uranium or plutonium. The writer of the article gives some interesting background material as to why research into thorium was halted as the USA proceeded with research into U-235 and plutonium. Well worth reading and if the hypothesis is correct, then maybe we'll be able to get the cheap electricity that we were promised in the 1950s! (though I doubt it personally given the greed of the electricity companies).
In fact it seems that India, with reportedly 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is moving forward quite rapidly in this technology. Whilst it's true that there is no free lunch, it does appear that there is a number of advantages to using thorium.
As a reward for reading the above, here as promised , is Tom Lehrer's little song accompanied by an interesting video accompaniment.
The inspiration was reading a piece on Wired.com all about the potential of thorium as a much more acceptable nuclear fuel than are uranium or plutonium. The writer of the article gives some interesting background material as to why research into thorium was halted as the USA proceeded with research into U-235 and plutonium. Well worth reading and if the hypothesis is correct, then maybe we'll be able to get the cheap electricity that we were promised in the 1950s! (though I doubt it personally given the greed of the electricity companies).
In fact it seems that India, with reportedly 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is moving forward quite rapidly in this technology. Whilst it's true that there is no free lunch, it does appear that there is a number of advantages to using thorium.
As a reward for reading the above, here as promised , is Tom Lehrer's little song accompanied by an interesting video accompaniment.
Until the next time
No comments:
Post a Comment