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The Norwegian government plans to conduct trial usage of the nuclear fuel thorium, considered by many to be one of the most promising future energy sources, at its existing nuclear facilities.
Business Insider reports that the Norwegian government will be conducting the trials in collaboration with the USA’s Westinghouse and Norway’s own Thor Energy.
Despite abundant oil reserves which have made Norway one of the world’s most affluent countries on a per capita GDP basis, the Scandinavian nation has always been a strong advocate of nuclear power, no doubt partially due to its extensive thorium deposits.
Thorium was in fact first discovered by a Norwegian mineralogist, who named the radioactive mineral after the Norse god of thunder.
Thorium is touted by many, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, as a preferable alternative to uranium as a nuclear fuel source. Its key advantages vis-a-vis uranium include greater abundance, improved power generation, less waste, and most crucially the fact that thorium plants are considered to be impervious to meltdowns.
China and India are also currently considering the inclusion of thorium-powered nuclear plants as significant components of their national energy portfolios.
The Norwegian trials will make use of an existing heavy-water nuclear reactor, instead of the molten salt or pebble bed reactors which are considered to be best suited to thorium power generation.
4 Comments
lummax
finally some common sense in the nuclear industry, people shuld read up on the theory and get behind this.
sollien
We own this thorium mining i Norway,and seek investors..
Look : http://www.reeminerals.no……regards Gunnvald Solli -email : [email protected]
T. Thayumanavar
India is doing good work already on thorium since it’s availability, and thorium reactor may be in place in few years…
arty
thorium was written about on this site earlier this year. I believe India has the largest deposits of it and the usa has enough known to power their needs for 1000 years. I find it odd that thorium isn’t more talked about,unless the big money won’t reap the benifits.