Cosmo Magazine today has a report on a promising technology - nuclear energy using thorium as the fuel instead of uranium. According to the story, thorium creates the possibility of "green nuclear" and if the facts are correct, it sounds pretty dang cool.

What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.

The people involved in this are the real deal, including Italian Nobel physics laureate Carlos Rubbia, a former director of one of the world's leading nuclear physics labs, CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.

Imagine what might have happened if instead of spending half a trillion dollars on a war of aggression in Iraq, some of that money had been spent on exploring real energy alternatives to fossil fuels and traditional nuclear.