China's thorium survey finds 'endless energy source right under our feet'

- <i>&quot;Just five years of mining waste from a single iron ore site in Inner Mongolia contains enough thorium to meet</i> US household energy demands <i>for more than 1,000 years, according to the report published in Chinese journal Geological Review in January.&quot;</i><p>Remarkable that Chinese writers reference *American* household energy use as their benchmark. This must be the zeitgeist of the time: &quot;rising middle class approaching American living standards&quot;. Americans are ashamed of what they perceive as their own energy decadence. But Chinese validate material wealth.<p>I read an unrelated article the other day which dovetails in to this: a Chinese paper heralding a figure of double-digit growth in... energy consumption. They wrote about it as a barometer of economic health. The difference between East&#x2F;West mindsets is just so stark!