🇨🇳 CHINA DISCOVERS 1 MILLION TONS OF THORIUM: CLEAN ENERGY FOR 60,000 YEARS 🇨🇳
China has announced a groundbreaking discovery: over 1 million tons of thorium in the Bayan Obo mining complex in Inner Mongolia, a reserve that could power the national energy needs for about 60,000 years.
Chinese scientists, through a vast geological study, have identified 233 new deposits of this radioactive element, estimated to be worth 178 billion dollars, positioning Beijing as a potential world leader in thorium reserves.
Thorium represents a nuclear revolution compared to uranium: it is three times more abundant in nature, requires no enrichment, and generates energy with extraordinary efficiency – one ton is equivalent to millions of tons of coal, with no greenhouse gas emissions.
Thorium reactors, often using molten salts, produce minimal radioactive waste with decay in centuries rather than millennia, drastically reducing the risks of accidents and nuclear proliferation, as it cannot be used for weapons.
This breakthrough strengthens China's fourth-generation nuclear technology, already in advanced stages, and could accelerate the global transition from fossil fuels, reshaping geopolitical balances and energy markets.
Experts emphasize that, if exploited on a large scale, thorium would provide unlimited clean energy to the planet for thousands of years, freeing nations from conflicts over traditional resources.
For Italy and the EU, similar opportunities emerge with local thorium reserves, but investment in research for safe and sustainable plants is needed.
