Fraudulent At Birth: The history of nuclear power

  

I'm going to write a book with the title above. Maybe it won't get past this blog site but it's a start. I want a place to put the information that I'm learning. I want to share difficult concepts in a comprehensive form. This book catalogues my journey from true believer to strong critic. I was misled, I was taught a lie and I believed a lie. Not just one lie but many lies. Uncovering one lie after another, my conclusion is that the nuclear industry is completely fraudulent.

 

Nuclear power, the power of the atom, is fascinating. The centre of an atom is held together with unimaginable strength – when nucleus is cracked, like cracking an egg, the energy released can blow up a city or boil water for electricity. It can cause disease or it can heal.

 

However, it is not “clean, affordable and reliable[1].” The industry uses the media to say the same thing over and over again, so often that many people believe it. All polluting emissions are not carbon dioxide. There is really nothing about nuclear power that is reliable. Affordable? Westinghouse and Areva have gone bankrupt. 

 

What if the only reason that there are so many supporters of this nefarious industry is that it has marketed itself relentlessly? Like cigarette companies in the 70’s and 80’s, full page ads appear in the magazines. They look like bonafide articles until, with our reading glasses, we identify the small print in the corner that says “advertisement”. 

 

I’m angry, angry that I was so misled and angry that so many continue to be misled. I’m angry with my profession – with its inability to come to terms with a scourge upon humanity and with its willingness to subvert health of populations to the nuclear industry. I’m also angry with the nuclear industry which has knowingly and purposely misled parliamentarians and populations and lied, denied and misdirected researchers.

 

Physicians knew that ionizing radiation affected human health from the very beginning of humanity’s interaction with it:

- miners in Czech and their “rotten lungs”

- radiologists in the early 1900’s who used their hands to focus x-rays 

 - dentists and doctors that diagnosed the “radium girls”, the clock painters

- members of various International ionizing radiation protection associations

             

The same silence from physicians during atmospheric atomic testing continues in an environment where nuclear power plants emitting ionizing radiation (especially tritium). 

 

The industry knew that ionizing radiation was bad for human health:

- International Atomic Energy Agency lobbied to silence the World Health

 Organization on matters affecting human health – and won.

            - Fired researchers when their results didn’t comply with the industry’s sales model

Eg. Dr. John Gofman, Dr. Thomas Mancuso, Dr. Joseph Mangano, Dr. Sternglass, Dr. Steven Wing and then trivialized them or discredited their work.

            - Held international meetings on the health of Chernobyl victims behind closed doors. 

 

In 2009, I met one of the shills for the nuclear industry. He questioned me on my credentials in such a manner that I asked for his name. He coyly said that he was “just a concerned citizen”. Later I learned that he was the President of the Canadian Nuclear Association. 

 

The new President and CEO for the same CNA, a Mr. John Gorman, a long-time registered lobbyist has met with the government minister in charge with rolling out Canada’s energy plans, Mr. Seamus O’Regan, a recorded eight times. Which leads to the question of whether  Mr. O’Regan sought any opinion other than that of the industry's.

 

Many people feel that they have to leave the decisions about nuclear power to “specialists” to form an opinion on nuclear power. This is not so; a science or engineering degree is not required. All that is needed are two facts. 

 

Fact one:  Nuclear power is a means to boil water – that is all that it does. Like coal, it oils water and the steam turns the turbines which produce electricity. Anything that will turn turbines would work as well. 

 

Fact two: The waste lasts for a hundred thousand years. It isn’t just a little poisonous, like a cup of bleach on the counter, it is big time toxic – standing next to a waste fuel rod, a fuel rod that has been “used up” in the reactor, for less than twenty seconds would result in death. This is not science fiction or hyperbole. There have been deaths among people in the early history of nuclear research. Not only is the waste poisonous but everything that the fuel has “touched” during the burning process is also radioactive and toxic. There is no recycling.

 

Ionizing radiation[2] – the type of radiation produced by nuclear power plants – causes cancers, autoimmune disorders, teratogenic[3] alterations and genetic damage. The nuclear industry itself does not deny this. It is not under contention. The industry simply fudges the truth, and then states that there is a level below which ionizing radiation is not harmful. This is a lie, uncovered countless times most recently by the National Academy of Sciences in its BEIR VII (Biological Effects of Nuclear Radiation) documents of 2007. Like the cigarette industry before it, the nuclear industry has successfully mothballed scientific research and trivialized researchers. It has even jumped past the financial sector to the governmental goldmine. It is truly a fraudulent industry.

 

The more we learn about small modular reactors, the more we dislike them. The words “recycling” or “reprocessing" are usually associated with the environmental movement but in the case of nuclear waste, the words are "repurposed". After a highly delicate process of dissolving the waste uranium fuel in high-temperature liquid sodium (salt?), the plutonium is separated to be burned as fuel – making more waste. The liquid sodium is now radioactive. 

Meanwhile plutonium is in high demand for the manufacture of nuclear bombs. That the push for SMNRs coincides with the build-up of UK nuclear weapons and the refurbishment of those of the USA cannot be an accident. 

 

Hence, the story ends with the plutonium, the major link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons suicidal. There are many things that we should be doing with our money instead of proliferating plutonium and arming a second MAD race to the bottom.

---

[1] Opening statement on the Canadian Nuclear Association website, 20.01.21

[2] The term “radiation” will be used throughout to mean this particular form of radiation, one that produces ions and oxidation products in molecules. The molecules might be in biological entities but also structural objects such as steel and concrete.

[3] Effects on the fetus during development.

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in urgent need of reform

 Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in urgent need of reform

There is an urgent need to reform the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and eliminate the agency’s strong tendency to prioritize industry needs over its primary mandate: protecting Canadians and the environment from radioactive hazards stemming from nuclear operations.

 

MPs tend to refer to the CNSC as a “world-class regulator,” just as Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan did in a recent keynote address that hyped the “SMR [Small Modular Nuclear Reactor] action plan for Canada.” MPs often respond to public concerns with assurances that the CNSC will look after things and base its decisions on science and

international best practices.

 

There is a jarring disconnect between such affirmative remarks by MPs and statements made in recent years about the CNSC by international peer reviewers, high-ranking Canadian officials and many others.

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently reviewed Canada’s nuclear safety framework. It identified numerous deficiencies including: not following IAEA guidance on nuclear reactor decommissioning, failure to justify practices involving radiation sources, inadequate management systems for transporting nuclear materials, and allowing pregnant nuclear workers four times higher radiation exposures than IAEA would permit.

 

In testimony before the House Standing Committee on Natural Resources, in November 2016, Canada’s Environment Commissioner said:

 

“the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission… was quite difficult to work with… I would say that the commission was aggressive with the auditors.”

 

In April 2017, the Expert Panel on reform of environmental assessment noted in its final report that it had heard many concerns about lack of independence at the CNSC:

 

“There were concerns that these Responsible Authorities (CNSC and NEB) promote the projects they are tasked with regulating…The term “regulatory capture” was often used when participants described their perceptions of these two entities.”

 

The nuclear industry publication, Nuclear Energy Insider, recently touted Canada’s “benign regulatory environment” as a reason for SMR developers to come to Canada to experiment with and promote “small”, “modular”, nuclear reactors.

 

A Globe and Mail article in November 2018, revealed that CNSC officials had engaged in backroom lobbying to exempt small modular nuclear reactors from environmental assessment. 

 

A June 2020 briefing session for MPs and media,“Sham regulation of radioactive waste in Canada,” by the Canadian Environmental Law Association and other NGOs, outlined several ways in which the CNSC was creating “pseudo regulations” to benefit the nuclear industry and enable substandard nuclear waste facilities to receive approval and licensing.

 

An email sent by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission on March 30, 2017, confirmed that the CNSC Commissioners had never refused to grant a license during the agency’s (then)17-year history.

 

A recent petition to the Auditor General entitled “Nuclear governance problems in Canada” noted that the CNSC has a mandate to protect health but lacks a health division.  A review of CNSC’s organizational chart reveals that the word health does not appear on it.

 

In November 2009, hundreds of workers at Ontario Power Generation’s Bruce nuclear plant breathed in plutonium dust (a by-product of nuclear-energy production) but the plutonium remained undetected for weeks. Many of the workers had not been given respirators. We believe it may have been the largest preventable exposure of workers to internal radioactive contamination in the history of the civilian nuclear industry. To our knowledge, no one was disciplined or held accountable for this incident.

 

In our opinion, based on many years of experience intervening at licensing hearings of the CNSC and its predecessor the Atomic Energy Control Board, the CNSC shows all the signs of being a captured regulator that prioritizes the needs of the nuclear industry over protecting Canadians and the environment.

 

Consider the background of CNSC’s current president, Rumina Velshi.  Before her appointment as CNSC president, she worked for Ontario Power Generation for eight years in senior management positions and led the OPG commercial team involved in a multi-billion dollar proposal to build new nuclear reactors. 

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that the regulatory body must be separate from “promoters of nuclear energy”. energy”. Placing an experienced promoter of nuclear business initiatives in charge of the CNSC seems to run contrary  to IAEA guidance.

 

During Ms. Velshi’s presidency, CNSC has expedited licensing processes for small modular nuclear reactors. It has also moved to allow entombment in concrete of the radioactive remains of old nuclear reactors, against the explicit advice of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

 

IAEA guidance also suggests that the CNSC should not report to the Minister of Natural Resources, given that the minister also has a mandate to promote nuclear energy under the Nuclear Energy Act. Even more

importantly, the binding international convention on Nuclear Safety to which Canada is party, clearly states:

 

“2. Each Contracting Party shall take the appropriate steps to ensure an effective separation between the functions of the regulatory body and those of any other body or organization concerned with the promotion or utilization of nuclear energy.”

 

Existing enabling legislation allows Cabinet to change the Minister to which the CNSC reports with a simple Order-In-Council decision.

 

CNSC’s tendency to prioritize industry needs is a throwback to the days

when its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Control Board, had a legal mandate to promote the nuclear industry under the Atomic Energy Control Act.

 

Times have changed, radioactive hazards are mounting, and bad decisions are being made. 

 

We need a nuclear regulatory regime that is truly focused on protecting the environment and the health of Canadians. Having the CNSC report to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change would be an important first step in the needed reforms.

Statement courtesy Lynne Jones and Gordon Edwards.

 

Speculation on cancer of the pancreas

  

Frustration - I've been involved in learning about the nuclear industry, reading and studying about the science and the effect upon human health.

 

In 1997, I had three patients with pancreatic cancer, the next year I had three – two of the first group had died, two more were diagnosed. The oncologist said that I had just run into a “cluster”. Over the following years I always had one victim whereas in the 1980’s, it was more likely 1 in 2 years. So I started to look into stuff like agricultural products and water quality. 

 

I stumbled across research done on radioactive fallout in the 1960’s. They looked at the numbers of children surviving their first year of life and noticed that the numbers kept getting better (immunizations, antibiotics, health of mothers). Then the curve levels off. The point at which it flattens coincides with the first atmospheric tests and fallout. The difference was 400,000 dead babies. 

 

Why did we not know this? The few scientists who were in the position to know this were threatened, muzzled, belittled, insulted, and trivialized – all the worst treatment that is aimed at whistleblowers by the more powerful.

 

We do know that radiation causes cancer – when we use it as a treatment, we are accepting a 8 – 16% increased risk of further cancers. Used in cardiac imaging, the risk of cancer as a result of such scans is 13%. 

 

The atomic plumes from the tests of the 1960’s spread over the prairies. We know that solid cancers take between 30 and 40 years to form and that cesium-137 affects the pancreas. I’m not saying that my patients had pancreatic cancer as a result of fallout but I am asking, why could there not have been a connection?

 

This industry was born in secrecy and has continued to misrepresent itself. It lies, distorts radiation science and trivializes opposition. After fifty years of studying radiation and health and learning about the mining and all things nuclear, I’ve concluded that it may be the most fraudulent industry in human history.

The Low Tar Cigarette of the Nuclear Industry

The nuclear industry has had no private money since 1978. There is no market for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs). No one really wants them. The nuclear industry, however, wants to sell them, peppers the media with advertising and persistently lobbies otherwise naive parliamentarians, This is not the first time that the environmental and health effects of an industry have been ignored by the medical profession. How long did it take to curb the tobacco industry?

Small modular nuclear reactors are not small - the units in advertising brochures weigh 100 tonnes and will be built into a structure a little smaller than Mosaic Stadium (Regina). They will be using enriched uranium which means that uranium will be trucked to the USA and returned to us.

 

Are they safe? Plans are to have high-temperature likely liquid sodium reactors which will eventually be abandoned in their remote locations after providing their lifetimes of electricity. Even before it is irradiated, liquid sodium is highly corrosive - and one of the reasons that the technology was abandoned in the 1960’s. Furthermore, sodium explodes upon contact with air. In effect, what is being promoted is a highly corrosive explosive radioactive liquid at high temperature circulating in miles of metal pipes cooling a nuclear reactor core - what hubris it is to call this “safe”. 

 

Are they Green? By this most people are asking whether they are carbon free. The carbon intensive part of the cycle is external to the power plant - the mining, milling and refining, the aforementioned trucking to the enriching facility and back to Canada, the manufacturing of the fuel rods, construction of power plants, etc. If you turn a blind eye to all of that, nuclear power is indeed carbon  emissions free when producing electricity. 

 

It is not emissions free however. Although the nuclear plant is not producing carbon dioxide when it's boiling water for electricity, all nuclear power plants emit tritium, a radioactive hydrogen, and the occasional atoms of iodine-129, strontium-90 or caesium-137, all radioactive elements.

 

The other distinctly non-green characteristic is the waste. It lasts forever and no one knows what to do with it. Canada has spent billions of dollars over the last fifty years looking for a place to put it and is still looking. Nuclear power is the only means of producing electricity that creates such long lasting volumes of waste. Everything is contaminated. All the broken bits of uranium are radioactive, the building and its contents are radioactive and even the clothing the staff wear is radioactive. There are too many reasons why Deep Underground Repositories don't work; they have already failed in Germany, in the USA, and in France. Finland is expects to being using its first DGR in 2025. Many of us believe that the waste is most safely and cheaply managed on site in a "Rolling Stewardship" model in the hopes that future technology will be able to use it. There is no easy answer.

 

Finally there is the effect upon the health of populations. Ionizing radiation has spread around the world from the first atmospheric test in June 1945 and the subsequent decades of atmospheric testing by the USA, Russia, and France. China, and the UK added to the radioactive rainfall. Is it by accident that the USA and the UK mounted research to explain the "epidemic of leukaemia" in the 1950's. Ionizing radiation has been proven to cause cancer at any dose, as well as autoimmune disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, atherosclerosis and heart disease. Additionally, it affects germ cells and fetal cells disproportionally. Could the fallout from weapons testing be responsible for what the American Cancer Society today still calls the "cancer epidemic"?

 

Am I being ridiculous? I stand on the shoulders of Dr. John Gofman, "Father of Lipidology", Dr. Linus Pauling, twice Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Drs Joseph Mangano, and Thomas Mancuso, Drs. Rosalie Bertell and Alice Stewart, Drs. Arthur Tamplin and Harold Knapp, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Drs Alex Rosen, Jeffrey Patterson & Ira Helfand, and, to name a few of many Canadian contemporaries, Dr. Fred Bass, Drs Nancy Covington, Michael Dworkind, Barbara Birkett and Courtney Howard, Drs Mary-Wynne Ashford, Cathy Vakil, Jonathon Down, Jeannie Rosenberg, Richard Denton, Neil Arya, Vinay Jindal and Donna Lougheed, among them professors of medicine, or specialists in their fields. 

 

Dr. Hermann Muller published his first work in 1927 proving that ionizing radiation caused genetic damage in fruit flies, a finding for which he received a Nobel prize. He continued experimenting with smaller and smaller doses and more generations of fruit flies. In the 1940's he concluded that there was no dose so low that it did not have an effect. The same conclusion was reached in 2007 by the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) VII of the National Academy of Science, USA.

 

I’m old enough to recall the battle that health care providers had with tobacco companies. I remember how the tobacco companies seemed to have parliamentarians and policy makers under their control. Physicians were complicit because they were addicted; the surgeons' lounge at Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon, was thick with blue smoke. The industry added filters, and increased the popular advertising line emphasizing individuality, freedom to choose and sexiness. Like nuclear power today, it sold itself as healthy, safe and clean. The final attempt was marketing the low tar cigarette.

 

Today, the Small Modular Nuclear Reactor is the low tar cigarette of the nuclear industry; it is everything else that its big brother is - and more - and will outdo larger reactors in cost per kilowatt. Like the tobacco industry, the nuclear industry has infiltrated the medical profession; many physicians have become convinced that nuclear medicine required nuclear reactors, not realizing that cobalt-60 was harvested from cyclotrons years before reactors. 

 

The Canadian Medical Association should take a strong stand on protecting our health and the health of future generations by opposing the "light cigarette" of the nuclear industry. The CMA should take a strong position in opposition to nuclear power and promote clean-ups of existing radioactive waste sites; it should also take an active participation in the on-going process of decommissioning. For far too long we've allowed the medical profession to be sidelined and our efforts on the behalf of the health of future generations minimized or belittled.

SMNRs Again.

 Dear Member of Parliament,

Re:  Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

Did you know that the government is planning to unroll a plan to pay millions of dollars to research and development of a technology that was abandoned forty years ago for safety reasons?

Did you realize that they are promoting it as part of a "green plan"? 

Did you know that they have exempted these nuclear reactors from environmental assessment?

Are you going to let this happen without a parliamentary debate?

Nuclear energy, even if the nuclear power plants are small, is still not "green", not "emissions free" and not available. The industry admits it will take ten or fifteen years to build and test a single SMNR, much less the two or three most likely candidates.

Doesn't nuclear operate without adding to the carbon load? Not counting mining, milling, transportation, enrichment, construction and then eventually the waste for which no one in the world has a solution. Enrichment itself requires the energy of a small city. An energy source that operates for three to five years and then leaves waste for hundreds of years is definitely not "green". The Canadian government should know, having put over a billion dollars into searching for a waste repository and coming up empty handed.

Don't be a rubber stamp this plan - make it part of a debate that puts more money into sustainable energy sources. Intermittent energy - wind and solar - can be "stored" in batteries or, even more sustainably as hydrogen, another emissions-free technology. The nuclear industry is derelict - it has not received private investment for over thirty years.

ICUCEC

 NUCLEAR REACTORS FOR SASKATCHEWAN ?

 

The Saskatchewan Government’s intention is to use taxpayer dollars to research and build small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in Saskatchewan. 

See supporting links at the end

NOT CLEAN!  All nuclear reactors create toxic radioactive waste. Everything - “spent” fuel bundles, the reactor vessel, all metallic components and the concrete structure ultimately become radioactive waste.

NOT GREEN!  Calling SMRs, or any other nuclear reactor, “green” ignores the massive footprint of greenhouse gases created in mining, milling, fuel fabrication, reprocessing, enrichment, transportation, decommissioning, and waste management. Routine radioactive pollution and toxic chemical effluents are emitted all along the nuclear fuel chain.    

NOT SAFE! Emissions from the nuclear fuel chain, including from reactors, can negatively impact human health. High level nuclear waste contains numerous man-made fission products, some fatal to humans within minutes of unshielded contact. Nuclear reactor accidents contaminate the land, air & water. 

NOT HEALTHY!  All nuclear reactors routinely discharge radioactivity into the air and water. The KiKK study in Germany found that leukemia in children increased the closer a child lived to a nuclear power plant. Other studies indicate that neonatal deaths and cancers at all ages increase in the vicinity of nuclear power plants. 

NOT SMALL!  While internet images show a single module of a reactor on a truck, they do not depict a full SMR power facility. With the infrastructure – containment building, exclusion zone, shielding, steam generator, turbine, etc. it would be as large as any medium sized power plant. 

NOT LIKE HOUSEHOLD GARBAGE!  Nuclear reactor waste has been produced in Canada since our first experimental ZEEP reactor in 1945, 75 years ago. But Canada has still not established a permanent method for safely dealing with the waste. “Recycling” or “reprocessing” is not what it sounds like - even more toxic solid & liquid waste byproducts are created. “Recycling” or “reprocessing” nuclear waste to create plutonium-based fuel for SMRs produces even more toxic solid & liquid waste byproducts and make it even more difficult to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. 

NOT NECESSARY!  In addition to combined-cycle natural gas plants in the near term, Saskatchewan can meet its energy needs by increasing sustainable & renewable energy strategies & technologies including: conservation, wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric imports from Manitoba, run-of-the-river hydro systems, and others. 

NOT COST-EFFECTIVE!  All types of nuclear reactors have historically cost much more than their initial estimates. Nuclear’s capital costs continue to increase dramatically while renewable energy costs are declining, as noted in an updated August 2020 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Investing in renewables create more jobs, and produces energy sooner at less cost. 

NOT ACCEPTABLE! For all of the above reasons and more - see links below - small modular nuclear reactors are not a viable choice for Saskatchewan. Let’s not saddle taxpayers, present and future, with this speculative, untested, untried, risky, expensive, non-competitive and unnecessary technology. 

References: 

Not Clean  

http://www.cleangreensask.ca/sites/cleangreensask.ca/files/Pollution%20from%20the%20Nuclear%20Fuel%20Chain.pdf

Not Green 

https://www.pembina.org/reports/ClearingThAir_Summary_final.pdf    

Not Safe  

http://www.cleangreensask.ca/sites/cleangreensask.ca/files/RADIATION%20AND%20THE%20HUMAN%20BODY.pdf

Not Healthy  

https://www.ianfairlie.org/uncategorized/new-french-study-on-childhood-leukemias-near-nuclear-power-plants/

Not Like Household Garbage 

http://www.ccnr.org/Hill_Times_GE&SO_Sept_21_2020.pdf

Not Necessary 

http://www.cleangreensask.ca/sites/cleangreensask.ca/files/Small%20Modular%20Reactors%20SMRs%20Sept%202020.pdf

Not Cost-Effective https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.pdf

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph240/kountz1/images/f1big.png    

Not Acceptable!  

Gordon Edwards et al: https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/883/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-%E2%80%93-case-wishful-thinking-bestEdwards video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-L4QvN3QIA

https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/872-873/small-modular-reactors-introduction-and-obituary

https://sppga.ubc.ca/news/professor-ramana-publishes-eyes-wide-shut-a-report-on-problems-with-small-scale-nuclear-plants/

http://www.cleangreensask.ca/sites/cleangreensask.ca/files/footprint%20poster%20with%20black%20background.pdf          

Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Co-operative. (ICUCEC)  Contact: murphyl@sasktel.net

Committee for Future Generations 1-306-304-1698   committeeforfuturegenerations@gmail.com

The Thorium "Dream Factory"

The Thorium “Dream Factory” (Updated 15.10.20)

When nuclear power was sold to a reluctant public in the 1950s, it was “safe, clean, cheap, dependable and virtually inexhaustible”. It took a few decades or longer for people to realize that these were lies. It is amazing that otherwise reasonable people are now falling for the same claim being made for another generation of nuclear reactors. Fact is, if it sounds too good to be true, it isn't true. 

Some of us are old enough to remember when Atomic Energy of Canada pursued thorium technology aggressively in the 1970's only to abandon it when the risk of nuclear weapons became evident.  One very small thorium reactor operated for five years in the 1960's at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  There is media buzz about thorium reactors in India and China but none have yet been built.  The technology to bump energy production from the 15 KW of Oak Ridge to something suitable for commercial use is just not there; theory did not translate into action.  Even the industry admits that developing the technology would be 30 to 40 years before scaled-up energy production would happen.

The Theory:  Thorium, Th-232, is lighter than uranium and about four times more widespread in nature. Its decay is rapid with less high-level waste (defined as waste with lots of short-acting gamma emitters).  A thorium reactor could act as a waste disposal unit for plutonium and produce uranium-233 for its own use. If such a reactor used a particle accelerator, it could be shut down quickly simply by turning off the neutron beam.  

Safety?  Referring to thorium-232 as a fuel is misleading. Thorium-232 has to be turned into uranium-233 by absorbing a neutron either fired at it by a linear accelerator or from the plutonium or uranium-235. The plutonium or uranium used to get the thorium started needs to be weapons grade. In the formation of uranium-233, U-232 also gets formed. Both U-233 and U-232 are extremely unstable.

A thorium reactor would use a molten salt in place of solid fuel. A meltdown accident is impossible.  Molten salt  in continuous flow is extremely corrosive; no one knows how well it can be sufficiently contained.  

Clean? This cycle is not clean.  It needs neutrons from another source to produce the fission cycle to get the process started.  Then it is run by using protons from the uranium-233. To keep it running, the uranium-233 needs to be continually stripped of  U-232 or the process clogs up.  If reprocessing is done, it requires acids and alkalis producing large volumes of high-level liquid nuclear waste.

Recycle nuclear waste?  Conventional reactors have created over 200,000 tonnes of waste so it would be a dream come true if a reactor could truly recycle that waste. There are a few radioisotopes that can be recycled; they are the ones that produce neutrons.  Thus the only wastes that can be “recycled” would be U-238 (Depleted Uranium), U-235 (conventional fuel still present in waste), Pu-239 and other “actinides”. 

Terrorist free?  If the reactor is “recycling” plutonium, it has to be transported to the reactor. This step by itself would require extensive security measures. The uranium-233 produced in the reactor is itself weapons-grade material. In 1955, U-233 was used in a bomb that was part of the USA Operation Teapot. 

Waste free?  This is the most bizarre claim. Of course, thorium reactors would produce waste. Uranium-232 has a highly toxic decay chain. It must be continually removed from the molten salt in order for the energy-producing reaction to continue; otherwise, the reactor just winds down. Would a fission reactor be waste-free? While the waste would probably be more short-lived, it's production would be uncontrollable. 

Cost? The biggest argument against following this line of research is that it is still theoretical and would cost unbelievable sums of money to develop.  None of the main companies within the nuclear industry are particularly interested without huge government subsidies – something the nuclear industry has relied upon for the last seventy years.  

Conclusion: Thorium is not a source of sustainable or renewable energy.  Besides generating a list of false claims, a thorium reactor, if it existed, would be, like conventional nuclear power plants, unable to connect to the “smart grid” of the future.

“With uranium-based nuclear power continuing its decades-long economic collapse, its awfully late to be thinking of developing a whole new fuel cycle whose problems differ only in detail from current versions.”  Amory Lovins, March 2009.