meanwhile in China, instead on building more wind & solar..they spend money on development tech (what Austrlia should be spending its trillion of green Dollars on..we then would have a tech to make us a world energy super power).
China prepares to change world with introduction of revolutionary nuclear power station.
Thorium may sound like something out of a Marvel comic book, but the radioactive metal could provide a very real, renewable energy source.
Chinese scientists have been working on a molten salt nuclear power plant using thorium for years. They even created a prototype reactor in 2021, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The plan is to have a "safer, greener" power station up and running by 2025 in the Gobi Desert, where the small, experimental reactor is located,
Thorium plants are appealing because they don't need water for cooling. They transfer heat and make electricity with the help of liquid salt. Thorium is also more abundant than commonly used uranium, which isn't needed in the operation, as noted by the South China Morning Post.
Safety might be among the biggest wins.
The Post offers a descriptive visualization for how the process works: "Molten salt carrying thorium fuel enters the reactor core through pipes to undergo a chain reaction. After the temperature rises, it flows out the other side and transfers heat to the molten salt without thorium that is circulating in a separate loop.
"The hot but non-radioactive molten salt then flows into the electricity plant next to the reactor" to drive a turbine. More than 80% of spent fuel can be recycled, with the rest of the waste "solidified into glass" and stored underground in the desert, all per the Post.
The report notes that compact models could be used to power ships and military vehicles. It's part of an effort that ramps up through 2035, when China plans to have 150 advanced reactors. The U.S. has 93 reactors, for reference.
