Targeted alpha therapy is an example of a technology that is used to kill dispersed cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma. A radioisotope that undergoes alpha decay is chemically bonded to an antibody and injected into the body. The antibody seeks out and binds to the desired cell, then after a certain time period, the attached radioisotope decays and the alpha particle emitted during the decay kills the targeted cell. Targeted alpha therapy has shown great promise but has been strongly limited by the supply of suitable radioisotopes. The most promising is bismuth-213, which has a half-life of ..read more

Senator Tuberville is not backing down. In a continued campaign to move away from fossil-fuel consumption, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R) of Alabama is pushing for a transition to a new kind of clean energy: thorium. As we’ve discussed on this website, the Department of Energy, in a stunningly short-sighted move, is currently seeking to destroy our stockpile of U-233, an endeavor that will cost the United States nearly half a billion dollars and return nothing of value. However, this resource is the catalyst that can fuel clean, inexpensive thorium reactors. Tuberville’s new bill, the Thorium E ..read more

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Most Americans were skeptical. But when the United States began working on the Apollo program, other countries recognized that this was more than an impossible wish. This was very possible. This was a race. If we could go back to more than 50 years ago and tell those doubtful Americans about the success of not one but six successful moon missions, they might hardly believe us. 50 years from now, what technological feat of this century will our descendants look back on ..read more

The Department of Energy has some overdue homework, and the US Senate is asking about it. To receive testimony on the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration on atomic energy defense activities in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2023 and the Future Years Defense Program, from 57:04 to 62:27 Here’s a transcript from the exchange between Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. Last Wednesday, Sen. Tuberville recently submitted S.4242, the Thorium Energy Security Act, to the Senate for its review and considera ..read more

Today our hopes for a thorium-powered future took a huge step forward as Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas introduced the “Thorium Energy Security Act” in the United States Senate. S.4242 – A bill to provide for the preservation and storage of uranium-233 to foster development of thorium molten-salt reactors Text of the bill. PDF Press Release: Tuberville, Marshall Introduce Bill to Save Clean, Safe Nuclear Power This bill states it is in the best economic and national security interests of the United States to resume development of thorium molten-salt ..read more

For many, many years now, we have endeavoured on this blog to help the public understand the value of uranium-233 and the unique advantage that the United States possesses with their U-233 inventory. But for just as long, we have lamented that the Department of Energy is bent on the destruction of this valuable material. The Office of Nuclear Energy made a determination back in the 1990s that they didn’t see any value for U-233 in their future programs. They’ve never asked industry whether they saw a value for it, and they’ve never reconsidered this bad decision. But it set in motion a series ..read more

Senator Roger Marshall, M.D., of Kansas, a Republican, serves on the Energy and Natural Resources; Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committees. Will U.S. or China hold keys to the 2nd nuclear era? With Weinberg’s departure from the lab, the seed of the thorium fuel cycle, Uranium-233 (U-233), sat at Oak Ridge National Lab mostly forgotten. With the discussion on a closed fuel cycle dimming, the Department of Energy deemed the U-233 waste and transferred ownership to the Office of Environmental Management DOE’s ..read more

The United States is facing a budget deficit of $1.5 trillion this year, and the new Republican-led House of Representatives (where spending originates in the US government) is looking for ways to save money. We in the thorium community have a significant idea for how the government can save $500 million dollars accelerate the development of LFTR help NASA explore deep space save thousands of lives from cancer It’s pretty simple–cancel the Department of Energy’s plan to destroy the uranium-233 stored at Oak Ridge National Lab. For over ten years, the DOE’s Environmental Management division h ..read more

The People’s Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology, it was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) annual conference on Tuesday, January 25. An article in the Wenhui News followed on Wednesday (Google English translation). Chinese researchers also announced this development on the Energy from Thorium Discussion Forum. Led by Dr. Jiang Mianheng, a graduate of Drexel University in electrical engineering, the thorium MSR efforts aims not only to develop the technology but to secure intellectual property rights to ..read more

I had an idea today–since U-233 represents something like a “catalyst” for the prolonged consumption of thorium in a LFTR, and since a LFTR can be built that has a unity conversion ratio (makes as much U-233 as it consumes), then perhaps a nation that developed a large supply of U-233 could “rent” it to nations that want to start LFTRs but lack the ability to get or make U-233. In a similar manner to the nuclear waste fund (1/10th of a penny per kilowatt*hour) the nation that “rents” U-233 to another nation could levy a rental fee on the electrical energy produced with “their” U-233. That way ..read more