Today’s power plants use as a fuel a special kind of Uranium, U-235, which is burned in a chain process whereby the neutrons from one nuclear decay induce the next decay. Neither Uranium-238, which is roughly 100 times more abundant than U-235, nor Thorium, which is even more accessible, is used to produce energy on a large scale.
当今的核电站使用一种特殊的铀元素（铀235）作为燃料，通过从一个原子核裂变反应中释放中子并引发另一原子核裂变的链式反应来产生能量。但不管是储量比铀235丰富一百倍的铀238还是更容易从自然界中获取的钍都无法被大规模地用于生产能量。