Thorium never took off because you can’t make nuclear weapons with it, not because it was a bad technology.
Guess what. Most people don’t give a shit where their power comes from, as long as they feel it’s cheap.
Blockquote Thorium never took off because you can’t make nuclear weapons with it, not because it was a bad technology.
This is wrong. Thorium turns into U-233, which can be enriched for nuclear weapons. We don’t need to worry about nuclear weapons in regards to nuclear energy for the most part, because for most nuclear reactors, they can’t produce weapons-grade material.
Blockquote The one hypothetical proliferation concern with Thorium fuel though, is that the Protactinium can be chemically separated shortly after it is produced and removed from the neutron flux (the path to U-233 is Th-232 → Th-233 → Pa-233 → U-233). Then, it will decay directly to pure U-233. By this challenging route, one could obtain weapons material.