Wouldn’t it be something…

(Via Jerry Pournelle)

If the country that may be our next great enemy could also be the country that gave us a safe route to energy self-sufficiency?

Clean nuclear power, made fool-proof via the laws of physics, with the handy by-product of hydrogen?

Physicists and engineers at Beijing’s Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen.

My, but wouldn’t the eco-freaks be in a quandary. This would have the potential to be more fun that the proverbial mule and two bales of hay.

Not to say being able to tell OPEC to go drink their oil.