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The main radioactive waste from rare earth mining is indeed Thorium. It is not a pretty easy to handle material. Check out https://projects.newyorker.com/stor
by mchannon 9y ago
The main radioactive waste from rare earth mining is indeed Thorium. It is not a pretty easy to handle material. Check out https://projects.newyorker.com/story/radioactive-nyc/ https://projects.newyorker.com/story/radioactive-nyc/ to learn how Thorium from rare earth refining a century ago made NYC into a radioactive waste site.
Thorium is not responsibly managed in landfills.
LFTR's have never "gotten off the ground". Even if they achieved some extraordinary combination of breakthroughs over the next 10 years, we wouldn't come close to using all the available Thorium that exists near the REE we have. As a fertile (but not fissile) element, Thorium demand will be inextricably linked to Uranium supply, even for LFTR.