However, how is that better? Uranium mining is tiny and a non issue. Thorium is even more plentiful, literally a waste product. We have enough of that stuff for 1000s of years. We have the technology to use it on mass scale and it has PROVEN track record of replacing fossil fuels at mass scales.
Solar panel waste is further duplicated by the live cycle and the lack of life cycle planning in the global supply.
Uranium would most likely be picked for an industrial scale nuclear weapons program for a couple reasons but thorium does not eliminate these problems.
Furthermore many of the benefits people talk about when talking about Thorium is really about the reactor. Many of the same benefits could also be achieved with Uranium.
Thorium really shines for some specific reactor types.
Whats holding reactors back in general is regulation in all parts of the supply chain, from research to operational licenses, and a wide popular anti-nuclear feeling.
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/eere_pv/national_photovoltai...
Here is a map of the world…
https://globalsolaratlas.info/downloads/world
Northern Europeans are going to want to have some power lines to the south. Chile might be the new aluminum refining capital of the world. Africa would be energy rich.
1.1 billion hectares of land are farmed to feed the 7.5 billion people. That works out to 2000 square meters per person.
World energy consumption (all sources) runs about 18 terawatts, or 2400 watts per person. That is 58kWhr per day. Using an insolation factor of 3.0 (that is a 1W solar panel averages 3Whrs per day) each person will require 20kW of solar panels to replace ALL sources of energy. That is about 100 square meters of panels per person.
That's a lot, but not unthinkable. You could buy 8 pallets of panels today for $13k and cover a person, and it only takes 5% as much land as the land used to feed that person.