The Thorium Energy Conference (ThEC13) gathered some of the world¿s leading experts on thorium
technologies to review the possibility of destroying nuclear waste in the short term and
replacing the uranium fuel cycle in nuclear systems with the thorium fuel cycle in the long
term. The latter would provide abundant reliable and safe energy with no CO2 production no
air pollution and minimal waste production. The participants representatives of 30 countries
included Carlo Rubbia Nobel Prize Laureate in physics and inventor of the Energy Amplifier
Jack Steinberger Nobel Prize Laureate in physics Hans Blix former Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rolf Heuer Director General of CERN Pascal
Couchepin former President of the Swiss Confederation and Claude Haegi President of the
FEDRE to name just a few. The ThEC13 proceedings are a source of reference on the use of
thorium for energy generation. They offer detailed technical reviews of the status of thorium
energy technologies from basic R&D to industrial developments. They also describe how thorium
can be used in critical reactors and in subcritical accelerator-driven systems (ADS) answering
the important questions: ¿ Why is thorium so attractive and what is the role of innovation in
particular in the nuclear energy domain? ¿ What are the national and international R&D programs
on thorium technologies and how are they progressing? ThEC13 was organized jointly by the
international Thorium Energy Committee (iThEC) an association based in Geneva and the
International Thorium Energy Organisation (IThEO). It was held in the Globe of Science and
Innovation at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Geneva Switzerland in
October 2013.
