The news media in China and the world have been replete lately with “horror” stories about the toxicity of the air pollution/smog that has beset Beijing and other parts of China. While the levels of pollution in the air have been chronically, dangerously high in many Chinese cities in the past, the situation continues to deteriorate to the point that it is endangering the lives of the people living in them. This situation is forcing China to seek cleaner alternative sources of energy. To this end, China is moving forward rapidly with the development of nuclear reactors that use thorium as their fuel source. In fact, China is taking the world lead in thorium reactor technology with the rest of the world watching closely, and,in some cases, working with China as is the U.S. to make thorium reactors a reality. Why? I have written about thorium technology and China in the past, but I think the possibility of building thorium reactors to replace uranium reactors is such an important one for China and the world that the subject should be revisited. New thorium reactors have the potential to enable China to become an even greater industrial powerhouse in the world than it already is.
On January 18, 2013, there was an article written by Ambrose Evans-Prichard which was posted on the “Telegraph” website out of London on January 18, 2013 entitled, “China Blazes Trail for Clean Nuclear Power from Thorium.” This article is at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html?goback=%2Egde_2101080_member_202073776
In his article, author Evans-Prichard reports in part:
“The Chinese are running away with thorium energy, sharpening a global race for the prize of clean, cheap, and safe nuclear power. Good luck to them. They may do us all a favour.
Princeling Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin, is spearheading a project for China’s National Academy of Sciences with a start-up budget of $350m.
He has already recruited 140 PhD scientists, working full-time on thorium power at the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear and Applied Physics. He will have 750 staff by 2015.
The aim is to break free of the archaic pressurized-water reactors fueled by uranium — originally designed for US submarines in the 1950s — opting instead for new generation of thorium reactors that produce far less toxic waste and cannot blow their top like Fukushima.
“China is the country to watch,” said Baroness Bryony Worthington, head of the All-Parliamentary Group on Thorium Energy, who visited the Shanghai operations recently with a team from Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory.
“They are really going for it, and have talented researchers. This could lead to a massive break-through.”
The thorium story is by now well-known. Enthusiasts think it could be the transforming technology needed to drive the industrial revolutions of Asia — and to avoid an almighty energy crunch as an extra two billion people climb the ladder to western lifestyles.
At the least, it could do for nuclear power what shale fracking has done for natural gas — but on a bigger scale, for much longer, perhaps more cheaply, and with near zero CO2 emissions.
Technology for the molten salt thorium process already exists. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee built such a reactor in the 1960s. It was shelved by the Nixon Administration. The Pentagon needed plutonium residue from uranium to build nuclear bombs. The imperatives of the Cold War prevailed.
The thorium blueprints gathered dust in the archives until retrieved and published by former NASA engineer Kirk Sorensen. The US largely ignored him: China did not.
Mr Jiang visited the Oak Ridge labs and obtained the designs after reading an article in the American Scientist two years ago extolling thorium. His team concluded that a molten salt reactor — if done the right way — may answer China’s prayers.
Prince Jiang says China’s energy shortage is becoming “scary” and will soon pose a threat to national security. It is no secret what he means. Escalating disputes with with India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and above all Japan, are quickly becoming the biggest threat to world peace. It is a resource race compounded by a geo-strategic struggle, with echoes of the 1930s.
You can view it as a technology race or a joint venture in the common interest. It hardly matters which. If the Chinese can crack thorium, the world will need less oil, coal, and gas than feared. Wind turbines will vanish from our landscape. There will less risk of a global energy crunch, less risk of resource wars, and less risk of a climate tipping point.”
This is a very important article and somewhat of a must read I think for international businesses that are considering outsourcing their manufacturing to China, or starting new manufacturing businesses there. Thorium salt reactors could potentially be the answer to China’s growing energy gap and could change forever the future of China, and the world.
Hawkeye in China
– LEX SMITH