Chinese Tech Breakthrough Leapfrogs World To Green-Energy Solution

30 April 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

This month, China announced that after 16 years of its research on the possibility of replacing dangerous Uranium-based nuclear power reactors by a much safer and lower-cost thorium-fueled type of reactor (which type the U.S. Government gave up on in 2003 and has never yet revived), China now has in operation the world’s first actual experimental operating one in the Gobi desert. All nuclear-power reactors till now needed to be at a river or other water-source in order to cool it down and thus avoid meltdowns, but a thorium-fueled one doesn’t need any water at all and is in the desert for much the same reason why the U.S. Government did in its deserts the research developing its atomic bomb in 1945: to minimize the number of deaths if a catastrophic failure occurs during the development phase. In theory, the thorium-type reactors can be designed so as to prevent any such meltdown, but only now has such a reactor been placed into actual operation. However, it will probably be fully developed to spread around the world no sooner than about ten years from now. As it comes to replace fossil fuels for the generation of electrical power, it will be the only possible way to prevent out-of-control global warming, except for the one that I have been proposing since 2020. However, on 12 July 2022, I also endorsed the thorium-fueled reactor-type as being the only possible technological fix for the problem; and, now, it has been proven to be workable; so, that’s the way the world will likely be heading.

On 11 April 2025, China’s Wenhui Daily headlined (all of this is autotranslated from the Chinese) “After building the Shanghai Light Source, he pioneered a new generation of nuclear energy for 16 years” and reported:

The world's only fourth-generation molten salt reactor nuclear energy system built and operated, the 2-megawatt thermal power experimental liquid fuel thorium-based molten salt reactor (TMSR), has been put into operation in Wuwei, Gansu. At present, the technical team is cooperating with domestic nuclear energy companies to promote the industrial demonstration application of thorium-based molten salt [TMSR] reactors, and Shanghai will also become a supply chain base.

At the 11th "Serve the Country Forum" held by the Shanghai Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently, Researcher Xu Hongjie, Director of the Academic Committee of the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Head of the Thorium-based Molten Salt Reactor Nuclear Energy System Technology Overall Group, revealed that due to its excellent performance, the global research and development enthusiasm for molten salt reactors continues to rise, and "China is at the forefront of the world in this field."

After 15 years of perseverance, Shanghai's first large scientific [nuclear-research] facility, the Shanghai Light Source [see this], was built; after 16 years of pioneering, the world's only operational thorium-based molten salt reactor was built. Xu Hongjie, who turned 70 this year, said that in the "nuclear field", there is no "short, flat and fast" shortcut. "To accomplish things in this field, you must have determination and be prepared to do one thing for 20 to 30 years.” …

In 2009, the Shanghai Light Source had just been completed. Starting from the major strategic needs of the country, the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to develop advanced fission nuclear energy "out of nothing". At that time, the leaders of the Academy hoped that Xu Hongjie could propose the topic and lead the project. "Since the country needs it, I will do my best." Just when the Shanghai Light Source was in its heyday, Xu Hongjie left the lively stage of the light source. At the end of 2009, the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics formally proposal to develop a thorium-based molten salt reactor - another pioneering work almost "starting from scratch" began. …

The United States gave up developing molten salt reactors in the 1970s and made all its R&D technical data public, waiting for "someone who is destined to learn from it later." "Some American experts pointed out that giving up the development of molten salt reactors was a 'forgivable mistake'." Xu Hongjie believes that the Chinese team is that "someone who is destined to learn from it" - not only did they read every paper thoroughly, but they also reproduced it in the laboratory. "We not only mastered all the technologies mentioned in the literature, but also carried out secondary innovation.” …

"People who work in nuclear power have to be self-aware," said Xu Hongjie. Although the safety of molten salt reactors far exceeds that of existing technologies and can even be built in densely populated cities, "during the research and development stage, we should still consciously go to sparsely populated areas." In the vast Gobi Desert in Wuwei, Gansu, this team did not publish papers or apply for any awards. Instead, they worked hard for more than eight years to build a 2-megawatt thermal power liquid-fuel thorium-based molten salt experimental reactor.

Overcoming difficulties such as off-site construction and harsh natural conditions, the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor construction team simultaneously promoted safety inspection, civil engineering, installation, commissioning and other work. During the construction phase, many researchers were away from home for more than 200 days a year, and the longest was more than 300 days, staying at the site of civil engineering and equipment installation. In order to concentrate resources to build the experimental reactor as soon as possible, the only newly built living facility in the entire park covering an area of 1,000 acres was a canteen.

Finally, at 11:08 on October 11, 2023, the experimental reactor reached criticality for the first time; and at 10:12 on June 17, 2024, it reached full power operation for the first time - this marked that my country has the world's unique thorium-based molten salt reactor (thorium uranium fuel cycle) research platform. …

Today, while further promoting the research and development of thorium-based molten salt reactor technology, the team is working closely with the domestic industry to accelerate the industrial demonstration and application of thorium-based molten salt reactors. "Many key materials and technologies are independently developed by us, which can be directly industrialized to form a supply chain for thorium-based molten salt reactors." Xu Hongjie believes that as long as the application market for thorium-based molten salt reactors is opened, a related industrial chain can be formed quickly. …

[We have] research and development and main equipment manufacturing bases in Shanghai, and (nuclear-related) experiments and demonstration application bases in Gansu, to create a clean and efficient energy system covering the "Belt and Road" region, and provide strong support for national energy security.

Then on April 18th, Pakistan’s The Express Tribune newspaper headlined “China has world’s first thorium reactor in landmark for clean nuclear energy”, and reported that,

Chinese scientists reloaded fuel into the working reactor in the Gobi Desert without halting operations, a feat revealed during a closed-door meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on April 8, according to Guangming Daily.

The 2-megawatt experimental unit, designed to run on thorium, uses molten salt as a coolant and fuel carrier. Project chief scientist Xu Hongjie confirmed that the reactor had reached critical milestones, including full-power operation in June 2024 and successful in-operation fuel reloading four months later.

Reloading fuel into a working reactor allows for continuous power generation and reduces downtime compared to traditional refueling methods that require shutting down the reactor. Such “down time” isn’t merely wasteful but also greatly increases risks to safety-of-operation. There are numerous features of TMSRs that make them enormously safer than the existing nuclear electricity generators. This type of nuclear reactor will almost certainly now be the answer that the world urgently needs for the energy-future, which is beginning in China. (Oddly, within mere days after China’s announcement of its historic breakthrough, state politicians in the U.S. rushed bills into the hopper for the U.S. to start competing with China on this.)

For the past 25 years, China has consistently had vastly higher rates of economic growth than has the U.S. or any one of its colonies ('allies') anywhere in the world, and has also consistently had vastly higher percentages of its public approving of its Government than has been the case in the U.S. or any of its colonies. Furthermore, China already leads the world in the development of its human capital, and this might be the major reason why the country’s economic-growth rate has been so terrific for so long. Moreover, China’s citizenry have vastly higher persentages who trust their Government than does the U.S. or any of its colonies. In addition, China’s head-of-state has a higher approval rating from his citizens than any other nation’s leader does. Finally, I should also mention that a higher percentage of Chinese consider their Government to be a democracy than in any other country surveyed. This is the case, though China — unlike any of those other countries — has no public elections, no political campaigns, and no competing political Party(s), and those attributes (those “no”s), as I have explained, are actually necessary in order for an authentic democracy to be able to exist, though those attributes are generally considered to apply instead to dictatorships (but Western political theory ignores the reality: that what’s necessary in order for an authentic democracy to be able to exist is to have all of those “no”s in ONLY the right way. Maybe China’s system does that, but the system that I have proposed has no political Party at all. None. The basic point there is that the problem is far more that the Governments in existing ‘democracies’ are corrupt than that they are simply incompetent.

In any case, the superiority of China’s Government over America’s Government has now become blatant, and China’s breakthrough in nuclear-power technology is only yet another example of that Chinese superiority: it is the superiority of that nation’s current (since 1978) Governmental system.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.