4 ms·

How long will our supplies of uranium and thorium last? There's never been a commercially viable thorium reactor.

• mcv 7y ago
  That's the big thing that keeps surprising me about thorium. It's supposed to be great, cheap, abundant, and much safer than uranium, and yet nobody is actually doing it. If the claims about thorium are true, you'd think we'd see thorium plants popping up all over the place by now.
  • keanzu 7y ago
    > great, cheap, abundant, and much safer than uranium Some of the claims are true. Cheap, abundant and safer. It's the "economically viable" part that's tricky. No-one has solved that yet. India has a ton of thorium and are highly motivated to build a commercial reactor but haven't been successful yet.
  • willis936 7y ago
    MSRs have to deal with some truly harsh materials for very long periods. Getting that to be reliable for 30+ years of on time is not easy.