Thorium is a by-product, and extraction of thorium requires methods that are costlier than for uranium. So, as it stands, the amount of thorium that can be pulled out of the ground in a cost ...

Idaho National Lab partners with Clean Core to test a new thorium-based nuclear fuel that may improve safety, cut waste, and ...

The radioactive decay time of thorium is just 300 years, compared to 300,000 for uranium. And according to Transmutex, its system would produce much smaller amounts of this hazardous waste.

A variety of the element thorium, thorium-229, has an unusually small energy jump, accessible to lasers. Until recently, scientists didn’t know the size of that jump very well.

As shown in the map below, created using the most recent comprehensive data on thorium reserves from the IAEA, the element can be found in large quantities across the globe.

However, there are several economic and technical obstacles making the deployment of thorium challenging. Despite its abundance, the metal is currently expensive to extract. “The mineral monazite, ...

For years, scientists have produced this species of actinium by waiting for thorium (element 90, with one extra proton than actinium) to decay.