Even before this announcement, China was well ahead of any other country in the development of thorium reactors.  At the 2013 Thorium Energy Conference in Geneva last fall, Xu Hongjie of the Chinese Academy of Science presented the following timeline (now two years old) for development of their TMSR (Thorium Molten Salt Reactor):
Even with this slow schedule of 2012, they had 334 full time engineers on the project and planned to double that to 750. So one might expect the accelerated timeline to double that again, or even triple it. That should be accompanied by a commensurate increase in theirannual budget of about $400 million. I should also mention that the project has a high-profile leader: Jiang Mianheng of the Chinese Academy of Science is the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.
Note also from this diagram that the Chinese are planning on using thorium reactors (which typically run at very high temperatures) to produce hydrogen, which can be done with a high-temperature heat source. Most hydrogen today is produced from natural gas, so this is another way to reduce fossil fuel use. Also, if hydrogen is cheap and abundant from non-fossil sources, it can be made into liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel using the Fischer-Tropsch process.
If you've never heard of a liquid-fuel thorium reactor (LFTR, pronounced "lifter"), it has many advantages over existing solid-fuel uranium reactors:
  • It can't melt down, because the fuel is already liquid in normal operation.
  • It is walk-away safe. If the reactor overheats it will shut itself down and cool passively without operator intervention, without water, and without electricity.
  • It produces almost no long-term waste, and some designs could use existing long-term waste as fuel.
  • It uses thorium, which is three times more abundant in Earth's crust than uranium. In fact, thorium is considered a waste product by rare-earth miners and they would pay you to haul it away.
  • It runs at ambient pressure, which means it cannot explode.
  • Because of the high temperatures, it can be air cooled instead of water cooled.
Published on Mar 10, 2012
A short video of Kirk Sorensen taking us through the benifits of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, a revolutionary liquid reactor that runs not on uranium, but thorium. These work and have been built before. Search for either LFTRs or Molten Salt Reactors (MSR).

FAQ
The main downsides/negatives to this technology, politics, corrosion and being scared of nuclear radiation. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors were created 50 years ago by an American chap named Alvin Weinberg, but the American Government realised you can't weaponise the by-products and so they weren't interested.

Another point, yes it WAS corrosive, but these tests of this reactor were 50 years ago, our technology has definately improved since then so a leap to create this reactor shouldn't be too hard.

And nuclear fear is extremely common in the average person, rather irrational though it may be. More people have died from fossil fuels and even hydroelectric power than nuclear power.
I added this video for a project regarding Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, watch and enjoy.

No, it would not collapse the economy... just like the use of uranium reactors didn't... neither did coal... This is because you wouldn't have an instant transition from coal... oil... everything else to thorium. We could not do that. Simply due to the engineering. Give it 50 years we might be using thorium instead of coal/oil (too late in terms of global warming, but thats another debate completely), but we certainly won't destroy the earths economy. Duh.

And yes he said we'd never run out. Not strictly true... bloody skeptics ... LFTRs can harness 3.5 million Kwh per Kg of thorium! 70 times greater than uranium, 10,000 greater than oil... and there is over 2.6million tonnes of it on earth... Anyone with a calculator, or a brain, will understand that is a lot of energy!!

Any more questions I will try and ask but read this first =)


https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/peti...

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-n...

http://www.change.org/petitions/to-nu...
If you have more time, thorium in 11 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kBCMEUuSNw&list=PLKfir74hxWhPsAXSrCy--ORaxxbXdWnXK
Published on Jul 29, 2013
http://ThoriumRemix.com/th/ By dissolving thorium into molten salts, it can be consumed far more efficiently than today's uranium oxide fuel rods.

The amount of waste generated, the amount of energy generated, and the expanded versatility of this new "Molten Salt Reactor" call into question our perception of nuclear power.

How safe can a nuclear reactor be, if we free ourselves from the "technological lock-in" of uranium oxide solid fuel?

Sampled Materials:

Coal, Freight and Passenger Trains In NSWhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRyEbE...

988 H Cat wheel loader feeding a conveyor belthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF7AUQ...

TNT Freighter being painted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC8ak1...

Pumpjack Oil Pumps Deliver Texas Crude Oilhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bugnfr...

Chaos at Düsseldorf Airport http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6J_WJ...

Crosswind Landings during a storm at Düsseldorfhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-hSj...

Bill Gates - Innovate to Zero! - TED Talkshttp://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html

"Th01" is "Th" thorium documentary Part 1.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/22/1286630/-China-moves-thorium-to-a-war-like-development-schedule#