"Thorium from my point of view should be a possible. India I read is building a thorium reactor presumably for power generation, but it has all gone quite."

Thorium remains a fantasy. No such reactor has been built apart from an experimental one in the US which failed to produce any power but did produce plenty of toxic waste.

The Indians have been promising a proof-of-concept model every year since 2010. Its more of a grant gather than a power solution. China likewise has promised a model in 2020 then 2022 and now no earlier than 2024 with no commercial model available before 2035.

A windmill has collapsed at the Alinta windfarm in WA. The second in two years (in different locations). Wouldn't want to be a sheep, cow or even farmer, wandering around under these things.

Alan B: "I have earned a living as a chemical engineer,..."

Personally, I strongly suspect that you've never studied engineering at uni. The mere fact that you can't even get the units for energy right (though you've been corrected numerous times over the years) indicates that you've probably never even studied science at the senior high-school level, let alone studied something as advanced and challenging as engineering at uni. Perhaps you could provide to doubters like myself some proof to your claim that you've been a chemical engineer.

By-the-way, if you really were an engineer then you will most likely be aware that engineering is a profession that requires mandatory registration. Claiming to be a qualified engineer and giving advice when not registered can land you in court facing charges. The minimum mandatory requirement is successful completion of qualifications compliant with the Washington accord* and to be registered.
(This is similar to how doctors can't practise medicine without the necessary qualifications and being registered.)

*: the Washington Accord is an international agreement on accreditation for tertiary level education courses (usually at least a degree) dealing with engineering.

That's a bit mean, thinkabit. I don't like phoneys either, especially this creep:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/fake-engineer-and-a-deadly-building-20120914-25xpd.html

I wouldn't think anyone here would come within cooee of the likes of that fellow. What concerns me more are all the qualified engineers presiding over the transformation of Eastern Australia's power supply into a pig's dinner, all for the sake of being woke. Will that get any of those clowns charged or de-registered?

I suspect that the coalition thought they could go along with all the renewable energy bs in the hope that smrs would come to the rescue.

I earned a living as a chemical engineer. That I was self taught, didn't matter to management who claimed I was the best that they had had/presided over a turnaround that took a nearly bankrupt company on the brink of closure to one recording three years of record profits and production.

As for units I see nothing wrong with KWPH. Nothing wrong with being self taught. Not too bad for a kid that didn't complete a single year of high school!

No school or uni. or degree can increase your IQ, just the, toffey nosed snobiness, that comes with privilege!

Go do fifteen years of research, yours, before you rubbish the work and contribution of others! You pain in the ass, cyber bully!

As for Oakridge and the toxic waste The funding was pulled before the reprocessing could run its full course, so naturally there had to be waste and burial, dug up to provide miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213.

I bet none of those casting aspersions have done little more than five minutes study on thorium, probably via some bogas St Petersburg, link?

Thorium was abandoned in the fifties/seventies due to the extreme difficulty of weaponizing it! And it would have put the fossil fuel industry/big nuclear out of business as well as seriously downsizing big pharma's profits! All lined up to shout it down and fight like hell in congress, until recently, to avoid its consideration ever.

Now on the table in the US, not here due to hidebound politics

Today during the energy crisis/engineered scarcity, thorium must be considered/on the table along with the mass production of the reactors, which under the right management/production model, could be rolled out at one a day!

As for the coal/gas "market", it costs us as much in real terms as it did a month ago in AUSD to mine our coal/gas from our ground. The only problem is the, greed is good, price gouging by the foreigners now in control thanks to moronic decisions by "brain dead" Aussie pollies.
Alan B.

Alan,

If thorium molten salt reactors became a reality, it would be easier to make nuclear weapons with them than with conventional reactors. The reason for this is that an msr would require continuous fuel processing to keep the reaction going. By such a method it might be possible to remove protactinium generated by the reactor, which would quickly decay to U233, from which you could make bombs.

https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/thorium-power-has-a-protactinium-problem/

With fuel rods and pebbles you can have international regulation of fuel reprocessing, making the production of nuclear weapons less likely.