Andrew Yang Wants Thorium Nuclear Power. Here's What That Means.

[struggle4progress]

37. Backers overstate benefits

... Because thorium-232 is not fissile it requires significant amounts of fissile materials (ie plutonium-239 or uranium-235) to generate the neutrons necessary for transmute some of the thorium to uranium-233 - a fissile material that has a critical mass comparable to Pu. Unlike Pu, U-233 does not require implosion engineering to set it off, and can more readily be used in an improvised nuclear device. Several U.S. nuclear weapons were successfully tested using U-233.

• The main reasons interest waned in the use of uranium-233 for weapons were its radiological hazards and related costs. Of particular concern is exposure to uranium-232, which is co-produced and is 60 million times more radioactive than uranium-238 ...

• Another factor that may have influenced the decision to abandon the thorium fuel cycle is that thorium itself is more radioactive than uranium and thus requires additional precautions ... A worker spending time inside a thorium storage facility could ... In a little over six working days .. could reach the maximum annual U.S. occupational exposure limit of 5 rem.

• A molten salt reactor .. developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the late
1960's .. was abandoned and is costing the U.S. taxpayer ~$100 million to clean up the mess from this project.

• After several failed attempts to establish a thorium fuel cycle, the commercial nuclear industry also walked away from thorium fuels ...

https://www.nirs.org/wp-content/uploads/factsheets/thoriumbackersoverstatefacesheet.pdf