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To meet the tremendous world energy needs, systematic R&D has to be pursued to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear energy, which produces no green house gases and no air pollution, should be a leading candidate. How nuclear energy, based on thorium rather than uranium, could be an acceptable solution is discussed. Thorium can be used both to produce energy or to destroy nuclear waste. The thorium conference, organized by iThEC at CERN in October 2013, has shown that thorium is seriously considered by developing countries as a key element of their energy strategy. However, developed countries do not seem to move in that direction, while global cooperation is highly desirable in this domain. As thorium is not fissile, an elegant option is to use a proton accelerator to drive an “Accelerator Driven System (ADS)”, as suggested by Nobel Prize laureate Carlo Rubbia. Therefore, the accelerator community has an important challenge to meet: provide the required proton beam for ADS.
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