Reply To: Mind, Spirit, Science connection?

[mjv1121]

Some more facts and numbers to cheer or weep over:

It seems that the biggest problem China has with coal, is transportation – the conventional rail system is working at capacity, so most of the coal is delivered by truck, leading to horrendous traffic problems.
Apparently, China already has plenty of thorium stock piled – a “by-product” of rare-earth mining – currently they have no use for the thorium.

“Hey, I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t we use the thorium to make electricity – its much easier, much safer and much cheaper than present nuclear and we can get that damn coal out of our transportation system.”

but what about the cost?

It looks like ITER will cost the best part of of $20 billion, which is quite a lot. Experiments are due to start in 2019.

China is spending $300 billion by 2020 on its electricity powered high speed train network.

I think its safe to say that the thorium reactor project will be sufficiently funded.