China gets the jump on new, cheap, safe, modular nuclear technology — Thorium!

The article mentions the US experiments on Thorium reactors at Oak Ridge in the sixties. Says they were stopped because of “shifting priorities”. The main reason was attacks by the Greens, in particular Greenpeace which by then had become rabidly anti-nuclear. The US government just didn’t have the stomach to fight Greenpeace fear-mongering, with the hippy “peace & love” movement in full flight and Greens deliberately conflating nuclear bombs with nuclear energy.

China is not so stupid. Thorium reactors will eventually be on all ships, trains, maybe even planes. Small Modular Reactors can power villages and factories. China has 20,000 years, at least, worth of thorium. 

I wonder how much thorium Australia has. Maybe we could jump a generation and go straight to thorium. Last week an ABC Australia poll of viewers — who skew heavily left — voted 62% that “Australia should develop nuclear energy”. Yay! Let’s get in with it.

ADDED: I had no sooner posted the above, than YouTube pushed me a video from Copenhagen Atomics about their thorium reactors.  Here’s their great vid “Energy future unveiled”.

I commented at the video: “Australia should be at the head of the queue!”. Sweden and Denmark both have strong nuclear power sectors. Note the segment in the video about the safety of nuclear. It’s the safest of all. 1000x safer than coal! Now that most Australians want nuclear, it’s up to pollies to get going. They’ll have to fight the Greens. Who no doubt will try to block them at every step. Despite they say “follow the science”; they don’t. Not when they don’t like it. Like nuclear. And GM foods, btw.