'Rabbits sometimes make mistakes or grow lazy. That's when the tortoise seizes its chance': Chinese scientists make nuclear power breakthrough using abandoned US research

A top down view of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 1960s molten salt reactor experiment, an early precursor to the Chinese reactor. .

For the first time ever, scientists in China have refueled an experimental nuclear reactor without shutting it down — a significant advance in weaning the world off fossil fuels and onto more efficient, low-carbon energy sources

The breakthrough, achieved using a prototype molten-salt design which runs on liquid thorium instead of uranium, means that China "now leads the global frontier" in nuclear innovation, the project's lead scientist, Xu Hongjie, said during an April 8 meeting at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.