Technology can provide enough energy for humans for billions of years

Cold War-era molten nuclear reactor technology has been proven to be used to create clean, sustainable and safe energy for Earth for tens of billions of years.

According to Business Insider, people are facing an energy crisis because of population growth too fast. Renewable energy technologies such as solar or wind power can not be the main solution for the future, while traditional nuclear power generation generates toxic radioactive waste, while fossil fuels Excessive carbon emissions.

The "molten salt" nuclear reactor can solve all of these problems. It is one of the safest energy technologies in the world, meeting 20 percent of America's energy needs. But that figure will drop to just 10% by the 2040s as some older plants are shut down, which is still an energy technology for the future.

A sample of thorium metal. (Photo: Wikipedia).

"It's clean and reliable, basically having exactly the same use of fossil fuels being used, and it does not emit carbon," said Kirk Sorensen, chief technology officer of energy company Flibe Energy. know.

The fuel used for this reactor is thorium, the waste from the mining process. This radioactive material has three times the abundance of uranium 235, the fuel for a traditional nuclear reactor.

Instead of using solid nuclear fuel rods as in conventional reactors, the technology uses a mixture of liquids to turn thorium into uranium 233 , causing fission to produce greater energy but produce more fuel. Nuclear discharges are much less.

In 1959, physicist Alvin Weinberg of the Manhattan Project (building two atomic bombs thrown into Japan) calculated that using up the amount of thorium in the earth's crust could have enough energy for humans. used in tens of billions of years.

Despite such advantages, but because it was too difficult to use thorium for nuclear weapons, the US government stopped testing these reactors in 1969 and continued to use nuclear fuel. solid form.