Technology could provide enough energy for humans for billions of years

Molten salt nuclear reactor technology from the Cold War era has been proven to be able to be applied to create clean, sustainable and safe energy for the Earth for tens of billions of years.

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A sample of thorium metal. Photo: Wikipedia

According toBusiness Insider, humans are facing an energy crisis due to rapid population growth. Renewable energy technologies such as wind energy or solar energy cannot become the main solution for the future, while traditional nuclear energy technology creates toxic radioactive waste, and fossil fuels emit too much carbon emissions.

Molten salt reactors could solve all of these problems. They are one of the safest energy technologies in the world, currently supplying 20% ​​of the US’s energy needs. While that figure will fall to 10% by the 2040s as some older plants are shut down, they are still an energy technology for the future.

"It is clean and reliable, has essentially the same effect as the fossil fuels currently in use, and emits no carbon.", said Kirk Sorensen, chief technology officer of energy company Flibe Energy.

The fuel for this reactor is thorium, a mining waste. This radioactive metal is three times more abundant than uranium 235, the fuel for traditional nuclear reactors.

Instead of using solid nuclear fuel rods as in conventional reactors, this technology uses a liquid mixture to convert thorium into uranium 233, causing a fission reaction that produces more energy but creates much less nuclear waste.

In 1959, physicist Alvin Weinberg of the Manhattan Project (which built two atomic bombs dropped on Japan) calculated that if all the thorium in the Earth's crust was used up, there would be enough energy for humans to use for tens of billions of years.

Despite such outstanding advantages, because it was too difficult to use thorium in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the US government stopped testing these reactors in 1969 and continued to use solid nuclear fuel.

According to VNE