https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/01/1115957/old-new-nuclear-technology/


China has once again beat everyone else to a clean energy milestone—its new nuclear reactor is reportedly one of the first to use thorium instead of uranium as a fuel and the first of its kind that can be refueled while it’s running.

It’s an interesting (if decidedly experimental) development out of a country that’s edging toward becoming the world leader in nuclear energy. China has now surpassed France in terms of generation, though not capacity; it still lags behind the US in both categories. But one recurring theme in media coverage about the reactor struck me, because it’s so familiar: This technology was invented decades ago, and then abandoned.

You can basically copy and paste that line into countless stories about today’s advanced reactor technology. Molten-salt cooling systems? Invented in the mid-20th century but never commercialized. Same for several alternative fuels, like TRISO. And, of course, there’s thorium.

This one research reactor in China running with an alternative fuel says a lot about this moment for nuclear energy technology: Many groups are looking into the past for technologies, with a new appetite for building them.


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