"Something's wrong, perhaps a missing \item" error when using itemize

Question

I'm trying to make list using itemize, and I honestly can't see whats wrong with this. I'm sure I'm just missing something small.

\documentclass{article}
\author{}
\title{Essay research}
\begin{document}
\maketitle{}
\section{Alternative fuel sources}
Thorium based nuclear power stations offer advantages over classic uranium based ones:
\begin{itemize}:
\item Thorium-232 is much more abundant than Uranium-235
\end{itemize}
\end{document}

I get the following error thrown back:

./Essay notes.tex:9: LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item. [ \item T]
 ./Essay notes.tex:9: LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item. [ \item T]
 ./Essay notes.tex:9: LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item. [ \item T]
 ./Essay notes.tex:10: LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item. [\end{itemize}]

Answer 1

In my case, I was trying to apply [noitemsep] to a list, but I haven't imported the enumitem package.

Answer 2

You have got a ":" after \begin{itemize}.

Anything enclosed between \begin{itemize} and \end{itemize} must be after \item.