Thor Energy - thorium fuel a viable option to uranium

Named for the Norse god of thunder, thorium is a lustrous silvery-white metal. It’s only slightly radioactive.

Thor Energy AS has evaluated the possibility of utilizing Norway’s thorium deposits (or other thorium resources) for nuclear energy production within an international context.

The company has completed a 2-year thorium fuel cycle feasibility study which concludes that thorium-based nuclear fuel has several advantages over uranium-based fuel, including better waste characteristics, improved proliferation resistance, and abundant raw material supply.

Thor Energy has established a consortium that will fund and run a 5-year thorium irradiation project to be conducted at the Halden Nuclear Reactor in Norway. The specially constructed rig with fuel rods containing thorium fuel will be loaded into the reactor by  April 2013. 

The fuel rig is ready and awaiting thorium fuel rods

Thor Energy is owned by Thor Corporation a holding company which also has shares in businesses related to thorium fuel, thorium mining and separation of rare earth elements (REE).  Fen Minerals holds the mining rights to the Fen deposits in South Norway, which are rich on thorium and rare earth elements (REE). The third company is Norwegian Separation Technology, a company in the process of developig a novel separation method for REE.