Officials with Thorium Energy, based in Salt Lake City are excited about a sharp rise in the use of Thorium for nuclear energy production, as reported in the latest USGS minerals yearbook.

Jack Lifton, business development and corporate communications director of Thorium Energy, stated that the sharp increase is drawing attention to Thorium as a safe, greener fuel, which produces significantly less waste than uranium, and has no use in the manufacturing of nuclear weapons - unlike both the enriched uranium and plutonium used exclusively in today's existing reactors.

Thorium Energy has large reserves on the border of Idaho and Montana. Legislation pushed through Congress last year by Senators Harry Reid, D-Nev. and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has paved the way for U.S.-based thorium nuclear-fuel development and reactors.

Seth Grae, president and CEO of Thorium Energy, stated at the time that the bill represented a major milestone toward the recognition that the nuclear renaissance can best be achieved by encouraging new and innovative fuels designs.

The Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2008 was passed with the intent of establishing offices at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy to regulate domestic thorium nuclear power generation and oversee possible demonstrations of thorium nuclear fuel assemblies, according to Hatch's Web site.

Mining thorium in the Lemhi Pass is immediately feasible, because the deposits there are not only high-grade but also near the surface, Lifton said. The mining sites are close to roads, water and power as well as to long established towns and cities in Idaho and Montana.

The first major owner of the discovery were Sawyer Petroleum, then Union Pacific, Tenneco and finally Idaho Power Company (IPCO). Metallurgy tests conducted in the region estimate that the average mine run grade is approximately 5 percent or more of thorium oxide.

Credit: IBR Staff

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