I remember reading somewhere that the US started work on Thorium reactors in the 60s and 70s, but abandoned work for reasons. China picked up on that old work.
“Rabbits sometimes make mistakes or grow lazy. That’s when the tortoise seizes its chance,” Xu told the meeting, referring to the US abandoning its molten salt reactor research in the 1970s after initial experiments.
American scientists pioneered molten salt reactor technology – including building a small test reactor in the 1960s – but the project was shelved in favour of uranium-based systems.
“The US left its research publicly available, waiting for the right successor,” Xu was quoted as saying. “We were that successor.”
I remember reading somewhere that the US started work on Thorium reactors in the 60s and 70s, but abandoned work for reasons. China picked up on that old work.
From the article
The reasons being that the US empire wants to enrich weapons grade plutonium and that US and EU nuclear buildouts are threats.