Sorensen has remained firmly convinced that his thorium reactor, fully named liquid fluoride thorium reactor, is short lftr (pronounced ‘lifter’), is the ultimate in clean, safe and abundant energy. //

A lftr in its full form will be a superb energy machine. This machine can burns thorium and may do so with 99% efficiency. This means a lftr-powered electricity plant will deliver a year of electricity for a western city of a million, with one single tonne (1000kgs) thorium. The resulting ‘waste’ can be worked up as precious (rare earth) metals or can simply be stored for about 500 years – nothing compared to a regular nuclear power plant. The Earth has plenty of thorium, enough to last us for tens of thousands of years.

This thorium reactor is very safe: the core consists of a vessel of a molten salt mixture at high temperature (650C) at nearly atmospheric pressure. There’s simply nothing that can explode, and the smart design makes sure that if anything goes wrong, the machine shuts itself down without human interference. In case of any malfunction, the hot melt drains away safely into passively cooled drainage tanks.