Dwapara Yuga: Thorium reactors

A recent Wired magazine article describes a renewed enthusiasm for Thorium-powered nuclear reactors.

Thorium has three key advantages over conventional Uranium-powered reactors -

1) It is much safer and less polluting

2) It is does not produce plutonium that can be used for nuclear weapons.

3) It is much more abundant

(1) and (3) meant that in the 1960s it was seen as the natural successor to Uranium but the Cold War and the perceived need for ever more nuclear weapons meant that research was essentially ended.

In the current energy pantheon, the major resources are oil, coal, gas and conventional nuclear energy, with wind, hydro, geothermal and solar playing relatively small roles.

Of course big oil would like to refocus to big gas, as Exxon's recent purchase of XTO signals but all the fossil fuels are unnecessarily polluting and a civilian nuclear power industry whose focus is energy and not necessarily a front for weapons manufacturing might fill the gap.