Thorium fuel revisited

The only present viable way to ensure a reliable, dispatchable and uninterrupted electricity supply for base load that could conform with the requirement for the reduction of greenhouse gases is nuclear energy. In that respect there is increasing interest to take advantage of abundant thorium resources which can be transformed from fertile to fissile materials, that is nuclear reactor fuels. Thorium has been proposed as a safer proliferation resistant fuel that can be also used to promote civil nuclear energy in countries without nuclear weapons. Here the present state of thorium modelling, thorium resources and the concerns about its proliferation resistance is assessed.