China leapfrogs US in Energy Race
China just announced a new step in it’s Thorium-fueled Nuclear Reactor Energy System rollout that will increase it’s current capacity by twentyfold and eventually eliminate it’s dependance on foreign oil and coal. Thorium (Th, atomic weight 90) is more abundant and cheaper than the heavier “nuclear” metals Uranium, U, 92 or Plutonium, P, 94.
Thorium based nuclear reactors are more stable because they use a fluid core so they cannot meltdown
Safer because more passive components are used
More energy efficient producing more fuel than they consume
More environmentally friendly because they can consume other nuclear waste with byproducts of less half life and 10 times less
Politically safer because the byproducts are not weapons grade
Worse, China has begun cornering the market on the technology registered as much intellectual property and cornering as much materials and human resources as possible. They estimate in 2050 China will be producing as much as 25% of the worlds nuclear power and if the projections for plant costs are reasonable for the technology the cost may fall below 6.6 ¢/kWe-h making it cheaper than coal or oil.
We had best get our shit together.
Sources:
[Wenhui News] (Google Translated)
[MIT] http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
[Wired] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/china-thorium-power/
[Wikipedia] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
[World Nuclear Association] http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf53.html