New Delhi: After more than a decade of tireless work, Chinese scientists have reached a milestone that once existed only in old American blueprints. Reports this week confirmed that Beijing has successfully demonstrated the conversion of thorium into uranium using a liquid-fuel molten salt reactor, unlocking a near-limitless source of nuclear energy once left behind by the United States.

The two-megawatt thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) was built deep in the Gobi Desert by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The institute confirmed to the South China Morning Post that this marks the first time a system has technically proven that thorium resources can be used as a stable and viable nuclear fuel.

First launched in 2011, the project carried t

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