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Two years ago, when I first wrote about accelerator funds, they were something of a curiosity. Give a team of smart engineers enough money—usually between $15,000 and $50,000—to keep them in ramen and air mattresses, mentor them, and then put them in front of investors.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at Daresbury science park in Britain have offered a glimpse into what might be the future of nuclear energy production by showcasing a scaled down particle accelerator; one, that when combined with others just like it, could produce nuclear energy based on thorium, rather than uranium. Dubbed the Electron Machine with Many Applications (EMMA), the accelerator, a much smaller version of the kind used in physics research, such as the Large Hadron Collider, could be used to provide an accelerated beam necessary for the type of nuclear reaction used in a theoretical thorium plant.