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The Underappreciated Element That Could End Our Oil Dependence
Imagine an energy source that is abundant, safe to generate, and produces very little waste. Now imagine just 8 grams of the substance is able to power the badass Cadillac you see above for an entire century. Too good to be true, right? Scientists are only starting to catch on to thorium, but it could take at least a few more decades to develop it for mainstream use — and that might be too little, too late.
I know what you’re thinking, but thorium is not the magical force that powers Thor’s hammer. It was, however, named after the Norse god of thunder when it was discovered in Norway in 1828.
Thorium is a dense material — found at No. 90 on the periodic table — that is four times as abundant as uranium and much more safe. Unlike uranium, it’s almost impossible to turn the nuclear waste from thorium into a weapon, and if struck by something like a tsunami, as we saw with the nuclear plants in Japan in 2011, thorium-boiled water would simply cool down and drip safely into storage.
A few American companies have been working on making the thorium dream come true. Laser Power Systems from Connecticut is trying to develop a thorium-powered engine that uses heated thorium to steam water and spin a mini-turbine. The idea is extremely exciting, especially if you want to one day drive that cool-looking thorium concept car Cadillac developed in 2009.
Another company, Flibe Energy, started by Kirk Sorensen, the former NASA scientist who re-popularized thorium research at the turn of this century, has been looking at developing molten salt thorium reactors.
But these companies are underfunded, and the U.S. is far behind countries like China, Norway, Japan and India, who have been pouring far more resources into developing the thorium clean-energy theory that the US discarded in the 1970s. That’s right — U.S. scientists were researching thorium after WWII, but when a test with uranium-plutonium energy went successfully, the Nixon administration canned thorium research. The U.S. military also preferred uranium because it could be turned into nuclear weapons — something the U.S. was excited about during the arms race during the Cold War.
But the Cold War is over and now many scientists are warning that climate change could be the greatest threat facing civilization, not mutually assured destruction.
This year, we saw our first example of a “climate change refugee.” The clock is ticking, and our dependence on oil is both bad politics and bad for the planet.
Other clean-energy alternatives have not panned out as much as we would have liked, either. Wind and solar energy are becoming less popular as many scientists are discovering they will never be able to alleviate our reliance on fossil fuels, especially for the developing countries who are powering their way up the world economic food chain.
Some countries have turned to nuclear power — like France, which relies on nuclear energy for 80% of its electricity. But the U.S. has been highly skeptical of nuclear power since the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl tragedy. As of 2011, 104 nuclear plants in 31 states produced 20% of the nation’s electricity, but many plants that were built in the 1970s have closed down, and only four new ones are being built.
Less investment in potentially dangerous uranium-plutonium reactors is what thorium advocates want, but many researchers and analysts predict it will take until the 2030s or 2040s for widespread deployment, if all is going well at research facilities overseas.
At this point, most people don’t know about thorium — and that’s a problem. What the element needs is government support, financial backing and a visionary leader. A guy like Elon Musk at Tesla would be nice.