[TLI]

Best thing now is thorium fission reactors.

Yep.

Check out the runtime and maintenance for the unit.

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/129913-world-s-first-thorium-reactor-ready-to-be-built-for-cheaper-safer-nuclear-energy

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[Ozark Tom]

Thorium doesn’t fission in the manner U235, U233, and Pu239 does. Through a multi-step breeding process with a few intermediate products, Th232 can be converted to U233.

U233 goes boom just fine, and has been tested at a previous time. It’s less of a hassle to make Pu239 in the correct purity.

If the U233 produced from Th232 is salted with U232, a potent Gamma emitter, it is considered denatured. It’s easy to make the U233 contaminated with U232, thus hazardous to process, by sloppy procedures in the breeding process from Thorium.

There is perhaps not quite four times as much Thorium available as Uranium, but probably 95% of the material could be converted to energy producing fuel in a breeding reactor system.

Uranium 238, about 99% of all available, can be converted to Pu239 and added into the mix as reactor fuel. There in the fuel cooling pools 96% of the initial energy remains as unburned U235, the Pu239 produced in reactor operation, and the U238 blended to reach fuel grade.