If it is so profitable, how come nobody has done it?

YOURSAY 'The truth is the world has yet to master the technology to commercially separate and concentrate the thorium'.

'Lynas' thorium can generate RM4 trillion in energy'

Just Me: I hope nuclear physicist Abdul Rahman Omar knows what he is talking about. Rare earth plants produce thorium hydroxide of about 30 percent purity as a by-product.

For electricity generation, you require thorium of a purity of 99.999 percent. Rare earth plants, including ARE (Asian Rare Earth), have generated thousand of tons of thorium hydroxide.

If what he says is true, then our government should be already using them by now. Why have they not used it yet?

The answer is simple, the world has yet to master the technology to commercially separate and concentrate the thorium.

Hence rare earth plants worldwide are storing them as industrial waste and have no idea what to do with them.

Due to the inability of these commercial processes, electricity generators are still using uranium for commercial electricity generation.

China's thorium project for electricity generation is not commercially feasible and is only being done on a pilot scale. They have no idea how to deal with such a huge amount of thorium hydroxide they have now.

Cloudnine: If you can extract so much energy which can be translated to billions of dollars, would Australia or the United States give that to us?

If that was so, the world's energy problems would be solved. Why is it still not solved?

Are we waiting for our local universities to do the final research? With the kind of value Abdul Rahman is talking about, we won't be given a chance. The West would long have gotten hold of the rare earth even at the point of a gun.

Pondering Why: Like all the failed grandiose projects that short-sighted former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad executed to date, please advise us if there is a single reactor in the world that uses thorium to generate the quantum of energy that you had stated.

The answer is no. China with its vastly superior brain pool, funds and political will, has yet to find a way to use thorium to produce energy for its energy-starved economy.

A timeline has yet to be defined on when this technology will be available. It will take very many years with superior research and development plus a huge amount of funds, to harness the energy from thorium.

Matured and responsible leadership will not commit to this impractical and currently dangerous endeavour.

Please advise your corrupt political masters that the nation has woken up and as such are not prepared by buy further lies from Umno-BN.

Broken Foot: Whilst I agree that thorium molten salt reactor (MSR) may be the way to go, till today nobody has been able to come out with a working model.

It may prove to be another lofty promise like wind-generator technology. Thorium is already abundantly available in this country without Lynas contributing to it.

The big question is what are you going to do with all the thorium waste accumulated, if the MSR technology turns out to be a dud.

They are betting on something that still remains a theory and they themselves have no knowledge of.

If they are wrong, Kuantan and its surrounding areas could possibly be uninhabitable for generations to come.

Temenggong: Abdul Rahman is right, although thorium reactors are still 20 years away, fossil fuels will be depleted soon, and nuclear and thorium power is inevitable.

Hero325: Does anybody believe all these stories - that we have got so many smart people around, helping to turn waste into a trillion-ringgit business?

By the way, there are a lot of thorium waste in China and elsewhere, we should enter into a contract to purchase the waste before other people rush for it.

Boiling Mud: One should study and understand the detrimental epidemiological impact on the health of those people who are affected by the harvesting and processing of rare earth in China before citing it as a safe example.

So does it mean for the sake of raking in RM1 billion to RM2 billion a year, we should forsake the well-being of those people who would be affected by the Lynas thorium waste?

Where is your conscience and moral when you said that, Abdul Rahman Omar?

AGM: I don't think that whether thorium could possibly, in the distant future, be a viable fuel source, is the question.

The elephant in the room is, after 54 years of corruption and mismanagement, and the resulting pathetic state of government institutions, can Umno be trusted to provide the transparency and oversight necessary for such a dangerous venture?

Personally, I wouldn't trust them to look after my cat.