There is an interesting side-effect of mining rare-earth elements - abundant thorium, nearly always found with them.
The Chinese are now putting a great deal of effort into liquid fluoride thorium reactors - LFTR - designs and expect to have them on-stream by 2020. They will then be self-sufficient in energy supplies for decades. The LFTR is a brilliantly simple, reliable and, most importantly, fail-safe reactor cycle, producing fewer "nasties" (long-lived isotopes) than PWRs, etc. The original concept goes back to the 1960s, when the emphasis was on nuclear weapons, so the LFTR was not developed - it does not produce plutonium.
The West needs to play catch-up ASAP, or China will soon control the world's energy supplies!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
