The nature of the liquid fuel is that as the fuel heats up, the atoms spread apart, and automatic cooling begins because the mass of the fuel goes subcritical. Once it's cooled off enough, the atoms are closer together, and fission resumes automatically. Thorium reactors theoretically produce vastly smaller amounts of radioactive waste, reducing the long-term storage costs somewhat. I would phase out of operation all currently licensed reactors quickly as modern reactor replacements can come on stream. I recently saw a small packageable reactor that can be put together in a modular fashion. This design uses or could use the liquid fuel system or the thorium reactor system. The construction costs would be far lower, with a quicker point of profitability being achieved. If we can finally resolve our current long-term nuclear waste storage dilemma, there could come a time when nuclear and renewable energy sources replace all fossil fuel energy sources, but that's a long way off at this point.
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