Safe nuclear: India’s thorium reactor

By Mark Halper | May 8, 2012, 4:10 AM PDT

Sunset over Kerala, India, where there is a lot of thorium in the beach sands. Some people think the sun should set on conventional uranium reactors in favor of safer thorium, a substance that is plentiful around the world.

One of my recurring themes on the energy blog here at SmartPlanet is that the world can have a safer nuclear future, provided the industry shifts to altogether different types of reactors and fuel.

I’m not talking about the passive cooling technologies that are bolt-ons to conventional uranium-fueled, water-cooled reactors, although those do augur safety improvements.

Rather, I’m referring to reactors that run on thorium instead of uranium fuel, and/or that depart from the water-cooled designs used in almost all of the 430+ commercial reactors operating around the globe today. They have generic names like “molten salt reactors” and “pebble bed reactors.”