ThorEA organised, and the Weinberg Foundation sponsored, a lunchtime “fringe meeting” at the Liberal Democrats’ conference in York on Saturday March 8th.

It was held in the Bootham Room of the Hilton Hotel in York, next to the Barbican centre where the conference was taking place, from 1-2 pm.The nominal capacity was 50, and the room was full.

We had three talks from::

• Professor Bob Cywinski, on the potential thorium has for solving the energy crisis
• Professor Rebecca Seviour, chair of ThorEA, on the opportunities for UK scientists and engineers
• David Martin, of the Weinberg foundation, on the political situation

(We will upload a link to David’s talk as soon as we can.)

These were followed by a very lively discussion session. People were interested and generally supportive, with lots of questions about the technology and the politics. The Liberal Democrats have moved, at their last conference, from an anti-nuclear position to one which recognises that some nuclear power may be necessary to keep the lights on while reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and are thus in a good position to offer new ideas to the public..

Further meetings at other party conferences may follow…

A comment piece entitled “Thorium fuel has risks” by Dr Stephen Ashley and colleagues in the 6 December 2012 volume of Nature raises concerns about the proliferation resistance of thorium in some operational contexts.

2012 sees the turn of Shanghai to host the IThEO Conference, http://www.itheo.org/thorium-energy-conference-2012, which is entirely appropriate, because China is taking the lead in exploring fresh approaches to nuclear fission in its quest for sustainable, environment-responsible energy that can be delivered reliably and in quantity.

The Chinese initiated action to find viable energy sources significant enough to wean the country off its dependence on carbon-based energy. The large amounts of Thorium being produced as a by-product of its rare earth mining operations, is a further incentive. ThEC12 is being partnered by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) – a senior academic institution of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), which has been given specific responsibility for the Thorium Energy utilization programme in China.

The initative in China makes us believe that the Thorium Energy implementation door against which we’ve been pushing, may finally be starting to open.

AREVA, the global nuclear power industry leader and a major player in the renewable energy sector, has signed a collaboration agreement with the Dalton Nuclear Institute.

More information

The next ThorEA meeting will be held on the 7th March 2012. We are pleased to welcome Prof. Hamid Abderrahim to speak at the meeting about the MYRRHA project which he leads.

The meeting will be held at Trinity College, Oxford University. Please contact the meeting organiser for more details about attending.