Well said and written. Any sensible human would condemn the use to nuclear weapons in all but the last resort (as Japan 1945 was, despite ideologs of the left who conspire to push the alternatives).

Indeed, given the power of economic influence, cyber threats and even virial attacks, nuclear weapons in todays world would be less effective, it would seem!

"Radiophobia" is the luddite calling of the 20th and 21st century. Nuclear power should promise a stronger economy for those smart countries who adopt it. Perhaps historians of the 22nd century will write about the successful strategy to "de-power" much of the "green believing world".

We to blame, as we have encouraged/indoctrinated generations of children to hate nuclear and love renewable energy.

I think another Japanese nuclear event namely Fukushima is weighing more heavily on people's minds. Because of that fear they have mythologised unreliable energy sources into a quasi religion that will save us. They dismiss well documented evidence that wind and solar is a facade for gas fired electricity. The fact we had a reliable baseload dominated grid just a decade ago is regarded as a quirk. Batteries are not yet even minuscule yet somehow they will help bring this salvation.

Therefore I suggest that people who dismiss nuclear are either not fully rational or are to some extent deluded. It will be interesting to see if Germany can shut its remaining reactors by 2022 despite them providing 13% of their electricity. In Australia the pending closure of major coal plants will bring these realities to the surface. I just hope they leave transmission and cooling ponds intact for something to replace them.

" … life was short and miserable". Now it's long and looking more miserable by the day, thanks to the sour Left with their doom and gloom and scare mongering. Climate change, high priced electricity, too many people, multiculturalism and loss of identity and democracy, politicians and experts. Maybe it's time for another tidy-up to put things back on track.

What a little ray of sunshine you are ttbn. I guess you woke up this morning and what could be better than that?
Remember Solar is Nuclear so use it! ! ! ! !

Yes Wade into more events like this http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-05/the-explosion-was-captured-from-multiple-angles/12525422?nw=0

ttbn, has long been a coal-fired fossil fuel ethusiest. Concedes grudingly that we will need dispatchable power 24/7 forever and a day! And that it can be either coal or nuclear?

Well, if, CARBON-FREE, MSR thorium is cheaper, cleaner and safer than coal? And able to be built in SMR's that we can ship anywhere, in shiping containers as ready to use, factory assebled,, mass produced modules?

That also produce medical isotopes as an almost free byproduct, that could underpin a new medical tourism outcome worth annual billions and regional airlines and cities, working their backsides off?

That would have to be a bad thing for coal mining and around 12,000 CMEFU members? We had no trouble sacrificing 60,000 textile and footwear jobs in the name of economic rationality/trickle down economics!

And could we use those same home-grown industries here and now!?

The sun is nuclear! Yes but it is not 24/7 and not the cleanest, safest, cheapest option! Moreover, solar voltaic comes with, hidden from view, mountanious toxic waste! Why do you think we don't do solar panels here, genius? Just invent the best, then outsource the manufacture!?

I commend the article and applaud/recommend the Author for rare common sense and above average inteligence/pratical pragmatism!
Alan B.

"It is possible to use U-233 in a nuclear weapon, and in 1955 the USA detonated a device with a plutonium-U-233 composite pit, in Operation Teapot. The explosive yield was less than anticipated, at 22 kilotons" [STILL, THIS THORIUM BOMB WAS MORE THAN THE HIROSHIMA BLAST!].

see http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium.aspx

The future of solar and wind electricity generation is limited.
The cost of attempting to get 100% by 100% reliability is so high we
will never reach it. It will be realised by even the dumbest politician
that it can never be affordable.
Nuclear and coal and gas will sit there offering the only affordable
electricity and as coal & gas Energy Return on Energy Invested declines
there will only be one choice left.

Doesn't matter who hates the idea of nuclear to have no electricity will
not be acceptable. No choice means no choice.

It is "technically" possible to make a nuclear bomb from U233!

Yes, it is possible and indeed it is possible to make a fusion bomb with an unstoppable chain reaction that just goes on and on, from other nuclear material.

All nuclear reactions have downsides in the wrong hands!

One recalls stories of a navy rating pinned to the solid concrete ceiling by a fuel rod from an early conventional reactor, that just let go under extreme pressure. (300 atmospheres?)

Pressure that is avoided in an MSR! MSR operates at less pressure than the tires on your car!

MSR can be used to burn up weapons grade plutonium. Or the nuclear waste other folk pay us to store for annual billions, even though in MSR technology, the remaining unspent 98% energy quotient becomes newly available!

Pete is one of those radiophobia Luddites, mentioned in the extremely well argued article?

Terrorists could come and steal from the reactor while operational?

Ha ha. First the gamma rays would blind them/fry their brain/turn their testicles to mush and the heat would cook the crap out of them for what. A few grams of white-hot molten U233? And then only after they gotten past security!

And while we know how to shield such a reactor to make it less radioactive than a banana. Not so newly minted U233!

Why do you think we do not as yet have a thorium bomb?

The only way to safely handle it is to burn it down until there's nothing left to react! Over 25-30 years.

Even so even this final product, emminally suitable for the long life space batteries our flegling space industry will need.

We can make it here for almost nothing or import a now increasingly rare product, for billions!?

I get that some of our latter-day luddites have vested interests in solar voltaic installing, Pete!? Hence their ill-informed contarian commentary?

Ill-informed commentary, that if followed will, condemn us to another depression and decades of being a servile dog, banana republic!

Good outcome for Pete and his ( I'm alright Jack) anti-recovery Buddies?
Alan B.

Explosion? Smolosion!

Here's a bang just one-Seventh the size of the 1950s THORIUM BOMB
http://youtu.be/5yFZsGAJukU?t=42s