Green Technologies & Alternative Fuels

Introduction to Thorium the fuel of the future.
This is intended to be a location for discussion and education about the value of thorium as a future energy source. Despite the fact that our world is desperately searching for new sources of energy, the value of thorium is not well-understood, even in the "nuclear engineering" community.

The fundamental basis for considering nuclear energy over chemical energy is the binding energy released in each case. Chemical energy is released when the electron configuration of atoms is rearranged through a chemical process (combustion, digestion, etc.) Electrons are bound to nuclei with binding energies measured in electron volts (eV).

The protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus, on the other hand, are bound with energies measured in millions of electron volts (MeV). Thus, rearranging the nucleus of an atom releases roughly a million times more energy than chemical energy release.