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dog's gonna bark
Greensburg was wiped out by a 1.7 mile wide tornado in 2007. Like 90%+ of the town was flattened. There was a TV series on the rebuild process.
Outside of brewpubsters with artisan facial hair, Vermonters are largely unthrilled. Boondoggle is a much-used word 'round these parts, ayup.
Can we stop with this nonsense? It's been uttered for several years now and it's not happening. If it didn't happen when uranium was $136 per pound, why would it happen when uranium is $25 per pound 10 years later? Uranium is incredibly common too. We are in NO danger of running out. Not in our lifetime, not in your kids lifetime, not in their kids' kids lifetime. By then, we might be all in on renewables. But I assure you, nuclear power will never be fed by thorium.
We will be fusing atoms of hydrogen before any of these resources run out. Then we are off to a new planet.
Wind and solar projects growing rapidly. Making the complete crossover to renewables isn't happening anytime soon, but we are getting closer to an inflection point, IMO.
I have nothing against solar or wind power, but until storage/battery technology gets to where it needs to be they are going to remain somewhat niche sources of energy. And even then, they are far from suitable for all areas. I live in the PNW, solar will never be a huge component of our energy production West of the Cascades. We just don't get enough sun. Nor is it very windy.
It hasn't happened because there is a lot of expensive research involved, much of which China is currently doing. One does not simply say "I want to built a thorium reactor" and start construction the next day. The price and supply of uranium has little to with anything - the big issue is safety concerns. That is why it's next to impossible (outside of the South) to get a nuclear power plant built and there are more nuclear plants being decommissioned than built. Trying to make uranium reactors safe is a ridiculously expensive process. The first nuclear plant in 20 years was commissioned in 2015 (Watts Bar 2) and 4 more are scheduled to be built in 2019/2020. When those 5 go online they would just match the 5 that were decommissioned over the past decade. 35 reactors are over 40 years and headed towards decommissioning.
As for thorium never being used in a nuclear plant, China plans to have a liquid fuel plant operational by 2035.
We can argue whether they by then, but doubters sound like the people mocking hydrogen by saying "hydrogen is the energy of the future...and always will be!". Yet here we are with Japan making huge moves with hydrogen, building hydrogen cars and infrastructure (double the number of fueling stations from 80 to 160 by 2020). A report just came out that estimated 20 million fuel cells vehicles will be on the road by 2032.
