I, like many nerds, discovered the possibility of thorium as a nuclear fuel from acomplex documentary starring thorium fanatic, NASA scientist, and brain-trust Kirk Sorensen.  You’d have to have a doctorate in physics to break down all the information Sorensen spews, but here’s what makes thorium exciting as a possible “clean” nuclear energy source:

Thorium, named after the Norse god of thunder Thor, is plentiful in the earths crust, burns almost completely in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), which is orders of magnitude safer than the uranium reactor, and it is also capable of burning spent nuclear waste.

How plentiful is thorium? A cubic meter of…Full Celsias Article