I don't like to sound conspiratorial, but I think Thorium is essentially equivalent to the mythic clean coal, as somehow the green nuke. It is basically a political move by big energy to siphon off `green energy' money for nuclear power development with its toxic waste problems, expensive energy production, environmental pollutions, and so forth.
.....
If this were true, Exelon Power -- the U.S.'s largest operator of nuke plants and a former beneficiary of my magical IT consulting skillz at their energy futures trading center (so yes, a company I know rather well) -- would big-up thorium as the 'green' solution to our woes.
But they don't. In fact, Exelon CEO John Rowe has repeatedly stated his non-interest in thorium-based designs.
“What we have now works pretty well,” says John Rowe, CEO of Exelon [...] “and it will for the foreseeable future.”
Source -
Search the Exelon Power website for "thorium" and you'll receive zero results. Search for "wind" and you'll learn about the company's portfolio of wind generation assets.
Here's Exelon's page about their 'sustainable' initiatives:
<http://www.exeloncorp.com/energy/Pages/overview.aspx>
If anything, Exelon's PR promotes the idea of 'clean nuclear' as being the successful running of *existing* assets/designs at optimal efficiency and 'sustainable' energy as a mixed portfolio consisting of the usual power generation suspects (gas fired, hydro, etc) but modernized, shiny and ultra safe.
Mythical 'clean coal', by contrast, is heavily promoted by several of the coal sector's leading lights.
Clean Coal USA's member list is a who's who:
<http://www.cleancoalusa.org/docs/members/>
No, thorium reactor design -- waste toxicity, mining dangers and all -- isn't the darling of "big energy" but of a growing cadre of climate concerned scientists and activists. Worried that we won't move fast enough and with the necessary precision to reduce our emissions and ramp up truly 'green' power systems (which have their problems too but what doesn't?) before our carbon load is too high, they're looking to thorium as a somewhat less harmful, high energy output alternative.
For example,
James Hansen
<http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/thorium-google-talk-and-jim-hansen-now.html>
and
Kirk Sorensen
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8>
My point isn't that they're right so let's all shut up and get on the thorium train. My point is that "big energy" isn't involved at the moment.
.d.