What’s the catch? Why aren’t these things being build by the hundreds around the world?
“What’s the catch? Why aren’t these things being build by the hundreds around the world?”
Well, the big big big reason why uranium vs thorium is because in the 50’s and 60’s it became clear that weapons-suitable materials would not be produced by Th reactors. So that nugget is the fundamental germ, the fundamental synapse-switch by which the U-dominated nuclear industry arose and the Th route was discarded.
Th reactors have been known about since the late 50’s and early 60’s, indeed, a successful one was built at Oak Ridge and run for, I believe, a few years (including shutting it off for the weekends) before being abandoned. Th reactors have a lot of advantages but themselves present the specific challenge of irradiating their surroundings with gamma radiation and MUCH more intensely than U reactors. They produce much, much less “waste” but the waste they produce is very radioactive and very dangerous...from the exposure, not the bomb-making standpoint.
It should be pointed out that the article here is about an intriguing new hybrid concept which would allow mixing Th with MOX material in a way that would allow the use of Th in already existing reactors. (Th and U reactors are very very different in construction) No doubt, there would still be byproducts that would present engineering challenges as far as handling, but at least we could be getting rid of some of the nuclear “waste” that has been built up to the extent of hundreds of tons all over the world. A net positive, at least as far as I understand it so far. Add in the safety improvement of going to a lower-pressure system and eliminating a lot of the requirement for U-refining and it’s IMO a BIG, non-subtle net positive.
They cannot easily be weaponized, hence, governments had less interest in building them.
Anything using radioactivity of any kind is evil, dontchaknow.
/sarc