Submitted by Jo Boyle on Thu, 18/10/2018 - 13:37
Why India wants to turn its beaches into nuclear fuel. The full article can be found at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181016-why-india-wants-to-turn-its-beaches-into-nuclear-fuel
Dr Geoff Parks and Professor William Nuttall are quoted in the article …
Today all commercial nuclear plants run on uranium, a fact at least partly down to geopolitics. The West’s development of nuclear energy was inextricably linked to the development of atomic bombs and uranium’s by-products are much easier to weaponise. “In a different era maybe a different choice would be made and we'd have headed down the thorium route in the 1950s instead, but we are where we are,” says Geoff Parks, a nuclear engineer at Cambridge University.
William Nuttall, a professor at the Open University specialising in energy policy, understands how India’s historical perspective could make thorium attractive. But there’s little sign of an impending squeeze on uranium, so global markets provide a sustainable route to energy security, he says. It’s also entirely possible to decarbonise without nuclear. “Nuclear has attributes that mean it's beneficial in respect to climate change and energy security, but its case is not manifest,” he says.