thorium reactors

[monicaazz]

I'm looking for information about thorium reactors – how do they work, and what's the current state of development?

[jamess]

I kept seeing thorium come up in energy debates, so I read until my eyes hurt. It isn't some magic box, but a molten salt breeder design where thorium turns into fissile uranium-233 inside the salt itself, and that single choice is what separates Copenhagen Atomics from everyone still fiddling with solid fuel rods. So when people ask me how a thorium reactor actually behaves, I point at the liquid fuel loop, the 40 foot container footprint, the 50M upfront plus 2M yearly per unit, and the roughly 9 USD/MWh over 50 years at 90 percent capacity factor. Mass production targets of one unit per day per assembly line and a first chain reaction planned at PSI in 2028 matter too, along with waste that stays hazardous for about 300 years instead of 100,000. The real question was never the physics, but whether they hit that schedule and survive licensing.