Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

If you don’t mind taking a 36-minute-long drink of water from a fire hose, here’s the most visible spokesperson for the thorium nuclear reactor, Kirk Sorensen, speaking a few years ago at Google.  The essence of his talk is the history of nuclear power, and one leaves the talk with an extremely good and balanced overview of the subject. 

We come to learn exactly how and why the (U238/Pu239) fast breeder reactor came to prominence at the expense of thorium (Th232/U233).  But predictably, Sorensen doesn’t leave the podium without a reminder that it’s not too late to develop this safe (low pressure), efficient (high temperature), non-threatening (very low weapons potential) solution with very little nuclear waste ramifications.

He also points out that the transition away from fossil fuels without nuclear will be intensely difficult, if not impossible.  Some of this part of the presentation is inaccurate, but that’s not entirely his fault:  a part of that is the dramatic decline in the levelized cost of energy we’ve experienced in the three years since he gave the talk.

Good stuff.