It marks the first long-term, stable operation of the technology, putting China at the forefront of a global race to harness thorium – considered a safer and more abundant alternative to uranium – for nuclear power.
The experimental reactor, located in the Gobi Desert in China’s west, uses molten salt as the fuel carrier and coolant, and thorium – a radioactive element abundant in the Earth’s crust – as the fuel source. The reactor is reportedly designed to sustainably generate 2 megawatts of thermal power.
Very nice explanation and only nitpicking, but saying that Thorium is much much safer than uranium implies that uranium nuclear plants are unsafe. In reality uranium nuclear power has one of the best safety records in energy production.
Uranium reactors are for the most part very safe, and I personally think we should consider building more of them. The problem with them is when something goes wrong, it can go very very wrong contaminating a huge area. Now granted more modern reactor designs make that sort of issue much less likely, but the worst case scenario of a uranium reactor, no matter how unlikely, is still a lot worse than the worst case scenario of a thorium reactor.