In China’s remote northwest Gansu province, Chinese scientists successfully designed, and built, an experimental thorium-powered molten salt reactor—and they’re about to power it up.
Initially, 2024 was the projected completion date for the prototype; but a healthy research and design budget, plus a push from Beijing, thrust completion of the reactor ahead of schedule.
The technology behind the molten salt reactor isn’t new—Alvin Weinberg at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory operated a similar prototype in the 1960s; but conventional water-cooled reactors were put in use instead.
Pointedly, if the Chinese successfully switch from uranium to thorium and prove commercial viability of their new nuclear reactor, they hope to gain full intellectual property rights….