Nuclear Safety Primer

Energy from Thorium blog provides a series of basic articles on nuclear safety worth looking over.

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Highly recommended for anyone wanting to become more informed on safety issues in nuclear power. Al Fin sees nuclear energy as a very useful baseload energy source that needs much wider implementation. The Thorium fuel cycle is inherently safer than the current Uranium fuel cycle, since Thorium is not easily bred to weapons grade materials.

Nuclear fission is a bridge technology meant to provide clean, reliable energy for both special-use applications (long distance ships, space colonies, remote location facilities), and general electrical energy provision. Nuclear fusion with direct conversion to electricity (without requiring heat engines) and without significant radioactive waste, is the ideal energy form for the indefinite future--in addition to solar, geothermal, OTEC, biomass/biofuels, and renewables specific to location. Farther out, matter-antimatter reactors and even more exotic forms of energy will probably be required.

For more information on progress on the Bussard electrostatic confinement reactor, see NextBigFuture