This week China announced they were about to bring online a nuclear reactor that used thorium to power the reaction rather than uranium. There is some skepticism about this claim given that China is making it, but it appears to be a significant event. There were many comments about how the United states is once again falling behind China. It was also a bit surprising because China doesn't really care about clean energy.

China claimed this was the first commercial thorium nuclear reactor. The United States had a quasi-commercial thorium nuclear reactor in the late '70s and early '80s. It was shut down and the industry essentially abandoned the pursuit of building thorium reactors because of the general distrust of nuclear reactors at the time. I had to do a little research to find out why this was a significant event.

As it turns out thorium is much more abundant in nature than uranium. A a nuclear fission reactor using thorium is much more stable than uranium. There is much less nuclear waste from a thorium reactor. The plutonium that is a byproduct can also be used in the reaction process. The footprint is also smaller than a uranium reactor. In fact, a thorium reactor the size of a Coca-Cola vending machine could be used to power apartment buildings, manufacturing plants, or a facility as large as the Pentagon. The cost is also very low and very competitive with other sources, especially when compared to solar and wind energy. And let's not forget how environmentally unfriendly these so-called renewable energies are.

So why haven't we pursued thorium reactors? For the same reason we have continued to pursue solar and wind energy. Politics. The defense industry pushed uranium because it is much easier to weaponize uranium. Plutonium is also a byproduct in the fission of uranium but does not burn up in the reaction as it does in a thorium nuclear reaction. Plutonium was used in one of the two bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War Two. Plutonium is a better fuel for a nuclear bomb because the fission reaction is much easier to start, is easier to sustain, and it takes less plutonium to create a larger explosion than uranium.

The defense industry used their money and influence with the politicians to push the uranium nuclear reactors. They buried the thorium reactors with misinformation and money. Had we continued to pursue that source of energy in the '70s our world would be much different than it is today. Cheap, reliable, sustainable, clean energy would have been the norm by now. I'm sure the environmental wackos are happy at how things turned out because it has made them rich pushing their solution which has not delivered everything thorium reactors promised.

It's just another example of why we should have a federal government that does not meddle in the operation of the free market, picking winners and losers based upon whichever special interest can buy their influence.