Reactors safe to live near.

All nuclear reactors need not be thought of as A-bombs about to explode. Carlo Rubbia has proposed the design of a relatively inexpensive energy source using induced fission reactions of a Thorium isotope to produce heat and electricity. Advantages of his design include: the relative abundance of Thorium, the ability to scale down the reactor size to provide energy to places away from electrical grids, the use of fission reactions far below criticality eliminates the danger of explosion of meltdown., the potential for "incinerating" dangerous or long half life isotopes produced in standard reactors so that long term storage can be avoided, no completely new technologies are required to develop this concept in contrast to the situation with fusion reactors.

Tags: CERN, hazardous isotope incineration, heat transfer, high energy protons, low cost energy, molten lead, Rubbia, safe nuclear energy, subcritical fission, synchrotron, thorium