mellowyellow
Well-known Member

The molten salt thorium reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was shut down in 1969. (Wikimedia Commons: ORN)
Scientists in China are about to turn on for the first time an experimental reactor that's believed by some to be the Holy Grail of nuclear energy — safer, cheaper and with less potential for weaponisation. The US abandoned thorium in favour of uranium as a fuel source in the early 1970s. Construction on the thorium-based molten salt reactor was expected to be finished this month with the first tests to begin as early as September, according to a statement from the Gansu provincial government.
Molten salt plants don't use water for cooling like traditional nuclear power plants and so can be built in desert areas, the paper says, such as China's sparsely populated western regions…………………
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-28/china-thorium-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor-energy/100351932