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There are definitely waste concerns. There are a number of other problems, though most have to do with getting up and running. Thorium is a by-product of rare-

There are definitely waste concerns. There are a number of other problems, though most have to do with getting up and running. Thorium is a by-product of rare-earth mineral mining. It is still radioactive, and it is also subject to all the regulatory red tape of handling any kind of radioactive material. Rare-earth mineral mining is extraordinarily destructive to the environment. When you read about rare-earth mineral mining, you should think "strip mining" because that is generally how it's done. China does it because they don't care at all about the environment, they care about cornering the market. Thorium reactors still include uranium to make them work. It may take eight years to exhaust the fuel, but you still have a pile of spent radioactive material that needs to go somewhere, and no one has solved that problem satisfactorily, which is bigger than the NIMBY issue of where the reactor goes in the first place.

NumberWangMan 5y ago
Would it be fair to say that it's not a problem that has really been solved because it's a relatively small and non urgent problem? The spent fuel isn't dangerous while it just sits there, and there isn't that much of it. My understanding is that most spent fuel just gets stored on site, because it's the easiest way. I guess my point is that having to deal with storing solid, static nuclear fuel seems like a pretty good problem to have, compared to having to somehow capture the billions of tons of CO2 that we've put into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels for power. And I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact, but it's important to note that this thorium and uranium mining would be competing with coal mining.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Also note that coal power plants release many times more radiation in the environment than nuclear power does.
- slowmovintarget 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm personally a proponent of these kinds of reactors over coal or traditional fission reactors. The post I was responding to was asking for devil's advocate instead of all rosy. I think the upside tradeoffs for this kind of nuclear power are preferable to going without.

NumberWangMan 5y ago

Would it be fair to say that it's not a problem that has really been solved because it's a relatively small and non urgent problem? The spent fuel isn't dangerous while it just sits there, and there isn't that much of it. My understanding is that most spent fuel just gets stored on site, because it's the easiest way. I guess my point is that having to deal with storing solid, static nuclear fuel seems like a pretty good problem to have, compared to having to somehow capture the billions of tons of CO2 that we've put into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels for power. And I'm not sure about the relative environmental impact, but it's important to note that this thorium and uranium mining would be competing with coal mining.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Also note that coal power plants release many times more radiation in the environment than nuclear power does.
slowmovintarget 5y ago
Yeah, I'm personally a proponent of these kinds of reactors over coal or traditional fission reactors. The post I was responding to was asking for devil's advocate instead of all rosy. I think the upside tradeoffs for this kind of nuclear power are preferable to going without.