Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood today called for Australia to foster a closer relationship with India‚ around the joint development of a thorium‑based nuclear power industry.
“Nuclear power is the future of humanity‚ and Australia and India enjoy the world’s largest reserves of its most promising fuel‚ thorium‚” Mr Isherwood said.
“It is a beautiful opportunity for our two nations to collaborate on the development of a widely‑applied thorium nuclear power industry‚ which can be both a boon to our own nations in terms of power generation and water desalination‚ and a gift to the world.”
In a national webcast on 10th December‚ the CEC National Secretary highlighted the benefits of thorium:
“For power‚ we will develop a world‑class nuclear power industry using our unmatched supplies of the basic nuclear fuels‚ uranium and thorium. To not do so would be the height of idiocy. The rest of the world is clearly going nuclear‚ so we can either join them‚ or sit here sweltering in the dark. Even more‚ we can actually play a leading role in developing this industry worldwide‚ by not only processing our uranium and thorium for export‚ but by developing a whole new‚ high‑technology nuclear industry‚ including whole nuclear plants for export…
“We also have the world’s largest resources of thorium‚ ahead of India which is second. Now‚ once we throw off the shackles of British monetarism‚ these two minerals‚ in particular‚ open up an entire new world for ourselves‚ and for our neighbours…
“New generations of nuclear power plants have been designed‚ known as pebble bed reactors‚ which are absolutely safe and meltdown‑proof. And thorium is a great fuel for reactors‚ because almost all natural thorium is useable in a reactor compared with 0.7% of uranium. India has a rapidly‑developing research program into thorium reactors‚ and we should collaborate with her on that.”
In further comments Mr Isherwood said that thorium offers three other significant benefits above using uranium as a fuel source. Firstly‚ thorium yields 40 times more energy per unit of mass compared with uranium; secondly the thorium nuclear cycle requires free high energy neutrons to start the nuclear chain reaction‚ hence surplus plutonium from old nuclear war‑heads‚ which supply such neutrons‚ could be burnt up in the thorium reactors and finally‚ the thorium fuel cycle does not produce proliferable materials that can be used to build nuclear weapons.
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