I was thinking more about advanced uranium reactor designs rather than thorium. For example, a lot of SMR designs are sealed, making it harder to access fuel/waste during the lifetime or modify operation. Some are also fast neutron reactors, burners not breeders. That means they contain less total fissile material initially than they otherwise would, and consume a large proportion of what would otherwise be fissile or long lived waste.
Yes, you do have to be concerned about people opening them up and modifying them to breeder reactors—but honestly, I think that “Don’t allow sales to people who will do that, and also require monitoring to prevent modification” is enough to deter most of the problems, and for what’s left, the difference between being able to do that and being able to figure it out for yourself is not nearly as high a hurdle as it was 50-70 years ago.
I was thinking more about advanced uranium reactor designs rather than thorium. For example, a lot of SMR designs are sealed, making it harder to access fuel/waste during the lifetime or modify operation. Some are also fast neutron reactors, burners not breeders. That means they contain less total fissile material initially than they otherwise would, and consume a large proportion of what would otherwise be fissile or long lived waste.
Yes, you do have to be concerned about people opening them up and modifying them to breeder reactors—but honestly, I think that “Don’t allow sales to people who will do that, and also require monitoring to prevent modification” is enough to deter most of the problems, and for what’s left, the difference between being able to do that and being able to figure it out for yourself is not nearly as high a hurdle as it was 50-70 years ago.