More than half a century after physicist Alvin Weinberg first demonstrated a thorium molten-salt reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a global thorium renaissance may be underway.
At least that’s what the Thorium Energy Alliance (TEA) hopes. TEA’s eleventh conference, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, brought together engineers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts who believe thorium reactors could become a safer, generally superior alternative to conventional light-water nuclear reactors—though not overnight.
The crowd listens at the 2022 Thorium Energy Alliance Conference in the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. (Scott Medwid)
TEA and its allies argue that the light-water reactor industry and Cold War-era pressures to focus on weapons slowed early progress on thorium. Later on, according to Department of Energy veteran Ed McGinnis, tight federal budgets forced that agency’s leaders to focus on uranium and kick thorium to the curb….
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