China found in U.S. archives an energy source that could power its future for 20,000 years - and made it work

I’m not exaggerating. In the 1960s the U.S. - specifically Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee - invented a revolutionary type of nuclear reactor that could run on thorium instead of uranium (much more abundant and cheaper), with no meltdown risk, generating 50x less waste, and requiring no water. Then, due to messy politics, they killed the program in 1969 and fired the visionary behind it.

Afterwards the declassified blueprints for the project sat forgotten in archives for decades. That is until Chinese scientists found them and decided in 2011 to run an experimental project in the Gansu desert to see if they could make it work.

A few days ago, after 14 years of work, they finally did.

Here is the full story - how the technology works, the bureaucratic politics that killed it in America, and why this could genuinely be game-changing.