All of that may seem too good to be true, but amazingly it isn't. The basic science of thorium-based nuclear power was proven way back in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, then forgotten. More recently, it was re-discovered by Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer who worked on nuclear power for deep space probes. Sorensen and others are planning to build a modern version of it that they call the Liquid Floride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, aka "LiFTeR").
If thorium-based nuclear power is so great, why was it abandoned in favor of uranium-based nuclear power? The short answer is that the US military needed the enriched uranium that is produced as a byproduct of the uranium fuel cycle. Given current concerns about nuclear proliferation, that byproduct is now a major liability, of course.
Imagine a stack of four quarters in your hand. That amount of thorium is enough to generate all the energy you will use in your entire lifetime! This is the real "green" energy, folks. It is literally millions of times cleaner than coal-fired power, which the US currently uses to generate nearly half of its electric power.
And yes, thorium-based nuclear power is even cleaner than solar power -- orders of magnitude cleaner, in fact. The notion that solar power is particularly "green" is actually a modern myth. Huge amounts of collector material are needed to produce the tiniest amounts of power, and much of that material is hazardous. Solar power is great for remote, off-grid sites with lots of sunshine, but otherwise it makes neither economic nor environmental sense.
Thorium-based nuclear energy can also produce several useful byproducts, such as desalinated water and badly needed radioisotopes for the growing field of nuclear medicine.
Perhaps the most exciting potential application for this technology is for generating alternative fuels for transportation. Both coal and natural gas can be converted to methanol or hydrogen, but the conversion process requires an energy input. That energy input could come from cheap, ultra-clean, thorium-based nuclear power.
For a cost of approximately $200, an automobile with a conventional gasoline engine can be converted to a flex-fuel vehicle that can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol, or methanol. Since the US has an abundance of coal and natural gas, those fuels can be converted to methanol and used to drastically reduce or eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. We could then stop sending hundreds of billions of dollars every year to tyrannical governments that fund terrorism.
The US nuclear industry was on the verge of a comeback before the Japanese earthquake and tsunami caused major problems at their nuclear power plants. But those problems have been grossly exaggerated by the media, which has completely failed, as usual, to put the situation into proper perspective.
So far, the death toll due to radiation from the Japanese nuclear plants is zero, compared to many thousands of fatalities due to the earthquake and tsunami, yet the nuclear plants have received far more coverage than the incredible destruction that was caused directly by the earthquake and tsunami.
More importantly, the media completely ignores the fact that far more people have died from coal-fired pollution than from the Japanese nuclear plants even since the earthquake occurred. Major government studies have estimated that approximately 10,000 to 50,000 people die each year in the US due to pollution from coal-fired power plants, but for some reason the media never mentions these deaths.
The reality is that even conventional uranium-based nuclear power is still far cleaner and safer than all of the non-nuclear options for large-scale power generation. Yet thorium-based nuclear power is far cleaner and safer yet. The potential is truly revolutionary. To neglect to pursue it based on ignorance and irrational fear would be a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.
For more information, go to Thorium Energy Alliance. Join this organization and help to get the word out about this revolutionary new technology. And tell everyone you know too! See also Kirk Sorensen's site, Energy From Thorium.
[For some background on conventional uranium-based nuclear power, see Ignorance about Nuclear Power is Killing Us.]