China Fires Up World's First Thorium-Powered Nuclear Reactor

Months after satellites picked up a massive nuclear fusion facility in China's Sichuan province, the country's nuclear industry has blown the lid off fission tech. During a private meeting earlier this month, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed the successful operation of a thorium-powered nuclear reactor located in the Gobi Desert. The team had achieved "full-power operation" last June, according to South China Morning Post, and recently succeeded in reloading the reactor while it was powered up — a world first. It's a major milestone for nuclear power. Thorium offers a more accessible but less weaponizable alternative to uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association, which notes that "thorium-based power reactor fuels would be a poor source for fissile material usable in the illicit manufacture of an explosive device." The Gobi Desert reactor is a two megawatt research unit engineered to use molten salt as fuel carrier and coolant. A molten salt reactor ( ... Read full article.