Thorium in the ground is not fissile (a fuel) it is fertile (creates fissile material when it absorbs a neutron). So it is like the raw material for a breeder reactor. Once you get into this fuel cycle you can keep feeding in natural Thorium only. The net effect is that in the long run you well get out less waste (the "daughter" isotopes) using this process than just using the Uranium as a fuel. But there will be waste. From the mining site, through the processing, and during the operational cycle(s).

          To optimize the system for Thorium, the reactors should be redesigned. This is an engineering issue and I could say let them worry about that. Uranium was used because that was a relatively easy way to go. It was almost literally child's play. Once Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strausmann detected the fission process in Uranium, everybody knew how to make a reactor. Well, that is except for the engineering · · · of course. My point? A Thorium fuel cycle could replace a Uranium fuel cycle if we invested in the engineering to optimize for that cycle.

          I think the Thorium cycle would be cleaner than the Uranium cycle. Uranium fueled reactors are safe to the level that Thorium fueled reactors would not have a safety advantage. So, while I would not call it a clean option it is a safe option.

          Now for the hard part: I have some friends that work at reactors and others that were in the nuclear navy. If all involved in the industry were like those individuals I know well, I would fully endorse this sort of energy production. But, such is not the case.

          I know too many people in the industry that are more concerned with pleasing the people that control their economic lives than they are concerned with doing the right thing. I do not trust private companies to run nuclear power plants safely. So, if all this industry was run by a government agency headed by someone like Hyman George Rickover I would have no adverse opinion to express.