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Thorium (A Chinese Energy Miracle or Not)

An autonomous region in Inner Mongolia known as the Bayan Obo mining complex started production of Thorium Th an element with huge abundant potential for nuclear energy production when it becomes fertile after being hit by neutrons in a fission reactor started with enriched uranium fuel. 

Thorium up to 5X more abundant than uranium such that many energy experts agree that Thorium Fuel Cycle in breeder reactors can provide almost limitless energy for many thousands of years in millions of fission reactors. 

China uses more electrical energy than any country on Earth & also the largest emitter of pollutants because the CCP has relied heavily on exploiting the dirtiest cheapest capital cost way of making terawatts of electricity, at thermal coal power plants that boil water by combusting coal a fuel so cheap that an entire train car full of coal fuel only costs about $65 USD2025 amazingly. 

When coal combusted however it emits huge amounts of particulates poisonous to lung tissues, toxic heavy metals such as mercury & arsenic, & even naturally occurring radioactive elements present in coal become metal oxides in the fly ash emitted from coal power plants, producing an array of toxic emission types from coal power emissions making it the cheapest way of making electricity but also the most harmful to public & environmental health, not even considering all the destruction of nature that happens to harvest the amount of coal that China consumes annually. 

The CCP government of China however engaged in an ambitious development investment build out to mix solar PV, solar Thermal, Hydro, Wind & Nuclear Fission reactors to decarbonize their electrical grid & energize the future of China without burning ever more coal.

Outside of China a global renaissance for Nuclear Energy happening as more people at every level of society recognize and acknowledge that we have a urgent & increasing need to broadly decarbonize electricity & even all sources of energy in the future when much better batteries & more forms of natural energy recovery are more feasible on a LCOE basis, such as Ocean Thermal Power OTP. 

Many ways of making electrical energy are so much more expensive than coal, natural gas, diesel, gasoline, propane, butane, solar panels, wind turbines, river dam power generation, or God forbid, storing gigawatt hours of electricity in Lithium Ion batteries, though not typically NMC, in stationary grid battery systems the slightly heavier more robust & longer lasting stable LFP or lithium ion phosphate batteries are assembled into huge arrays in both series & parallel, with charging & inverters integrated into server like racks in air cooled by fan motors steel cabinets themselves arrayed on concrete slabs in close proximity to an electrical substation such are connected too. 

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