I have high hopes for Thorium Reactors. Just sad for USA that China is leading this research.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html

Quote :

The aim is to break free of the archaic pressurized-water reactors fueled by uranium -- originally designed for US submarines in the 1950s -- opting instead for new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima.

"China is the country to watch," said Baroness Bryony Worthington, head of the All-Parliamentary Group on Thorium Energy, who visited the Shanghai operations recently with a team from Britain's National Nuclear Laboratory.

Quote :

The Chinese are leading the charge, but they are not alone. Norway's Thor Energy began a four-year test last month with Japan's Toshiba-Westinghouse to see whether they could use thorium at Norway's conventional Halden reactor in Oslo.

Very interesting, EE. While nuclear is obviously not my area of expertise, I am an ardent proponent of a diversified energy platform for the US. I would very much like that platform to be as safe as possible, as I'm sure most people would as well.

One paragraph that interested me in particular was the one stating that many Greens were endorsing the technology. They may have some other wackadoodle political viewpoints, including thinking that the wind industry is Evil Incarnate, which completely pisses me off particularly since my hippy-dippy sister is a Green, but this seems promising. Cool! Thanks for sharing!!

On an aside, their issue w/Wind is a result of ignoring current SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY and looking at extremely dated windfarms (Altamont Pass, in particular) and continuing to call-up dated (circa early '80s) bird-kill data from before we knew about micro-siting to avoid such things. Ticks me off to NO END. One of my best friends is an Ornithologist... major big time bird lover, and agrees with me 100%. He's done a lot of consulting work on wind farms and certainly knows of what he speaks. /Rant over... sowwy! /

Here's a 5-minute YouTube video describing Thorium reactors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uK367T7h6ZY

Very interesting. Thanks, EE.