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The fuel cannot melt down in a thorium reactor because it is already molten, and reactions slow down as it cools.
WSJ: After Japan's Earthquake and Fukushima Disaster, Matt Ridley on Gas-Fired Generation and Thorium | Mind & Matter
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Lightbridge Corporation, a pioneering nuclear-energy start-up company based in McLean, VA, is developing the Radkowsky Thorium Reactor in collaboration with Russian researchers.
FORBES: Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.
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Rival ideas withered, among them the thorium liquid-fuel reactor, powered by molten fluoride salt containing thorium.
WSJ: After Japan's Earthquake and Fukushima Disaster, Matt Ridley on Gas-Fired Generation and Thorium | Mind & Matter
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The irradiated fuel can then be unloaded from the reactor, the U-233 separated from the thorium, and fed back into another reactor as part of a closed fuel cycle.
FORBES: Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.
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Professor Egil Lillestol of Bergen University has been pushing thorium for some years now, and thinks that Norway should set the trend in building a prototype accelerator-driven reactor in which a massive particle accelerator converts thorium-232 to uranium-233 by irradiating it with slow (spallation) neutrons generated by the impact of a 1.6 GeV proton beam on a lead target.
FORBES: Thorium Nuclear Power -- A Lesson From Norway
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Thorium is bred into 233Uranium inside the reactor, but only enough is made to keep the LFTR running, so no stockpiling occurs.
FORBES: UK Parliament Group to Study Thorium Reactors
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What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.
FORBES: Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.
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Yes I have seen the advocacy for Liquid Fluoride Thorium reactors and there are some apparent tantalizing advantages over current Uranium reactor designs like ability to burn plutonium as a starter fuel, less production of transuranics, higher fuel burn efficiencies, etc.
FORBES: The Future of Nuclear Power: Cheaper and Safer?