Wired Magazine wishes luck to Andrew Yang’s Thorium Dream

Andrew Yang Wants a Thorium Reactor by 2027. Wired Magazine author Daniel Oberhaus thinks he’s dreaming. Oberhaus goes through the cons of thorium reactors and molten salt reactors in general: materials that can contain the corrosive molten salts are needed; how to extract unwanted elements produced as thorium decays; the nuclear industry is conservative and there’s a lot of momentum behind uranium; and developing the infrastructure to process thorium fuel would take years.  

Doesn’t this sound like a routine opportunity for entrepreneurs and companies from outside to come in and disrupt a fossilized (pun intended) industry? Check out Terrapower and BASF‘s recent patents for a molten salt reactor and radionuclide separation.