Two Huddersfield university professors are backing an alternative to uranium-fuelled nuclear power.
Professors Bob Cywinski and Roger Barlow attended a conference of the world’s leading scientists in Geneva.
News that Eggborough power station in Yorkshire will probably stop generating in 2015 – and that the National Grid could pay factories to switch off electricity at peak times to ensure a continued supply to homes – has lent added urgency to the issue of energy capacity and security.
The need for new, safe and environmentally sound sources of energy is widely acknowledged.
And professors Cywinski and Barlow are major advocates of the use of thorium as a safe and plentiful source of carbon-neutral nuclear power.
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element which produces a radioactive gas, radon-220.
Carbon neutral nuclear power is a field of science and technology that is gaining increasing global support.
The 2013 Thorium Energy Conference, known as ThEC13, was held at the home of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.
Prof Cywinski, who hosted a discussion session on thorium-reactor physics, was a member of the international scientific advisory committee that helped organise the conference.
He worked alongside Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, plus Nobel Prize winner Carlo Rubbia.
At the conference, Prof Barlow gave a talk on the accelerator technology required for sub-critical thorium-fuelled nuclear power stations.
There was widespread media coverage of the conference and Prof Cywinski was interviewed by Australia’s ABC network.
“We need nuclear energy, otherwise there is a good chance the lights will go out,” said Prof Cywinski.
Interest in the use of thorium as a source of nuclear power is growing in the UK and is being promoted by the Weinberg Foundation, whose patron is Baroness Worthington, a leading environmental activist and Labour’s shadow spokesman on energy and climate change.
She recently visited the University of Huddersfield, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate.
