Re: LFTR time
Yes you need uranium or other fissiles to start a thorium reactor but think of it as a starter motor and once the thorium reactor is running you can syphon out enough fissiles to start a new one relatively easily.
Thorium (Th-232) is not fissile. It needs to be bred up into U-233 in a very hot dense breeder reactor to produce lots of neutrons in a small volume to breed more U-233 and to fission that U-233 to release energy and breed and fission more U-233. Molten-salt reactor designs complicate an already difficult engineering challenge for breeding fuel by moving the incredibly radioactive fuel stream around the reactor in pipes that corrode and leak very easily.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
