This is insanity. In 2011 the Oak Ridge Laboratories had a stockpile of 1400 kg U 233. They have been busy downblending it into depleted uranium to render it useless, and there is now only about 450 kg left.
Check out this video and see if you will get as upset as I did.
There is one minor error in the video. The Thorium-U233 reactors also produce Plutonium, but it only produces Plutonium238, which is needed for space exploration. We are out of Pu238, only Russia has some left.
The situation: The Department of Energy had 1400 Kg Uranium-233 stored at Oak Ridge National Lab. They are in process of downgrading it to natural uranium by downblending it with depleted uranium. They need 200 tons of depleted uranium to do the task, rendering it unusable for anything.
The decommissioning was approved in 2003 and in 2012 130 million had been spent, before the actual downblending started.
Stop the decommissioning immediately. Build our own Liquid Fluoride Thorium Nuclear Reactor and over time get 600 million dollars worth of electric power and 45g of Plutonium-238. We are out of Pu-238 and can do no more planetary exploration satellites.
The deep space satellites all had Pu-238 power sources. Only Russia has Pu-238 left, and the U.S. was banking on getting it for a friendship price. In addition there are significant unique medical applications in treatment of cancer that can be obtained by radiation from the byproduct of the Thorium process. Below are pictures of the Thorium process and what a Thorium Power plant might look like. (4)
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 