Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: South China Morning Post, citing Chinese state media, reported that an experimental reactor developed in the Gobi Desert by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics has achieved thorium-to-uranium fuel conversion, paving the way for an almost endless supply of nuclear energy. It is the first time in the world that scientists have been able to acquire experimental data on thorium operations from inside a molten salt react…