If Nuclear Power Has a More Promising Future …

The president of Northern Virginia-based Thorium Power Ltd. says he has a way to make nuclear energy safer, less expensive and more effective. So why isn’t he getting more reaction?

In a drab Moscow building set amid acres of Cold War architecture, Seth Grae peers down through 30 feet of water into IR-8, an old nuclear research reactor. In IR-8’s glowing blue maw, he sees the future — one he claims will revolutionize the way we think about nuclear power.

Cars and nuclear power plants both run on fuel, he begins, and aims his analogy straight ahead. Cars that once took leaded gasoline now run on a newer, less toxic and environmentally more benign gas: unleaded. The same concept holds true for the 104 nuclear power plants that supply 20 percent of this country’s electricity, Grae says, as well as for the dozens of new reactors expected to come online worldwide in the next few decades.

Washington Post