HARVARD – Nestled on the periodic table of elements between actinium and protactinium lies thorium, a silvery radioactive element named for the Norse god of thunder.

Thorium advocates are heralding the element’s energy-producing properties, saying the element could change nuclear power as we know it.

And the pathway to this alternative nuclear fuel starts in an unlikely place – an office building in rural McHenry County.

Crystal Lake engineer John Kutsch started the Thorium Energy Alliance, an advocacy group that operates out of an office in Harvard.

At Thorium Energy Alliance, Kutsch and his band of about 1,000 scientists and active supporters are on the cusp of changing attitudes about the abundant and naturally occurring element, but they first need the regulatory framework to make it competitive with standard nuclear reactors.

Thorium is lumped in with uranium and plutonium in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 for its radioactive properties. The act provides guidelines for both the development and the regulation of the uses of nuclear materials and facilities in the United States.

But thorium is less radioactive than the uranium that powers the country’s 104 nuclear plants.

Thorium is a mildly radioactive alpha particle emitter, as opposed to uranium’s harmful gamma particles, Kutsch explained, meaning that thorium is not only safe to handle, it is proliferation resistant and can’t be made into weapons.

In the face of mounting pressure after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and near-misses such as the recent emergency shutdown of a unit at Exelon’s Byron Nuclear Generating Station, Kutsch said his efforts to create a new kind of reactor, called a molten salt reactor, are becoming more critical.

Also known as MSR, a molten salt reactor operates at higher temperatures than standard water-cooled reactors, but can’t overheat. And MSRs need no water to cool, Kutsch said.

In a standard reactor, a meltdown is a real threat, but not with an MSR, whose core already is molten.

“Fukushima never would have happened with a molten salt reactor,” Kutsch said. “… There would have been no explosion, no loss of power.”

For decades, the government has weighed its options for storing problematic spent nuclear fuel. Nuclear facilities keep waste in large, reinforced containment drums on site.

Yucca Mountain, outside Las Vegas, is the leading alternative for storing waste from the country’s nuclear sites. But Yucca Mountain has been the subject of bitter political debate by Nevada legislators who oppose it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nevada, doesn’t want it in his backyard, Kutsch said. “Right now, [spent nuclear fuel] just sits out in the parking lots.”

Thorium as an energy source is not new. The government and scientists ran a now-defunct molten salt reactor in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

But replacing the uranium-based nuclear plants in the United States is no small task. Billions of dollars already are invested in the current infrastructure, and those with vested interests say converting the country’s reactors is too high of a price to pay.

“There are small boatloads of fanatics on thorium that don’t see the downsides,” Dan Ingersoll, senior project manager for nuclear technology at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recently told the Washington Post.

“A thorium-based fuel cycle has some advantages, but it’s not compelling for infrastructure and investments,” he said. “… I’m looking for something compelling enough to trash billions of dollars of infrastructure that we have already, and I don’t see that.”

The United States has a stockpile of underground thorium, but it would have to be mined – likely sparking outcry from environmental groups. However, Kutsch said the country’s abundance of thorium reserves make thorium far less environmentally damaging than mining for coal, for example, and cleaner to produce than uranium.

Kutsch said other countries are on the brink of producing thorium for energy, so 2012 is a critical year for getting legislative backing for thorium use. Kutsch has made several trips to Washington, D.C., since starting the alliance in 2009. Politicians often recognize the benefits of thorium, but none is willing to publicly support an issue as politically explosive as nuclear power.

“There is a pebble holding back a giant boulder of innovation,” Kutsch said. “Once you pluck that pebble, the boulder will get rolling.”