1h04m09s04f Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive substance found everywhere TR2016a
Channel: Thorium Remix
Date: 2017-04-26

http://ThoriumRemix.com/ Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive substance found just about everywhere on this planet.

We have lots and lots of thorium.

And it has some unique properties. One of them is-

If you hit thorium with a neutron, the thorium will absorb the neutron and it will turn from Thorium-232 into Thorium-233.

It's going to decay into Protactinium-233, and then it will decay in about a month to Uranium-233. 

Uranium-233, if you hit it with a neutron, it will fission.

In addition to releasing all that energy, it will release 2 or 3 additional neutrons.

Alright- So you need 1 of those neutrons to go find another thorium.

And you need another 1 of those neutrons to go find another Uranium-233, to continue the reaction.

You've fissioning Uranium-233 but you're making a new one.

You can almost think about it as a pseudo-catalyst. 

If you had some Uranium-233 you could catalyse the burning of thorium indefinitely.