My Campaign to develop Thorium Energy in our time
Posted by HocusLocus 9 years, 1 month ago to Technology
The Letters, already sent to their recipients in postal mail,
but if you know of any who would benefit from this message feel free to forward the links below.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181188043/201...
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181187119/201...
The video Thorium Remix 2011 to which I refer in the letters,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI...
(Essential physics and engineering topics on nuclear energy, a roadmap of current water reactor designs, descriptions of safety features and failures… and a compelling case for developing Thorium-based energy. This presentation is simply amazing!)
________
Letter to Halliburton Corporate
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181188043/201...
QUOTE:
I was raised on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and all my life I have been searching for signs that the optimistic ideology and visible might of the industrial age as portrayed in her novels is still with us. Modern marvels are often difficult to spot because they are enmeshed in the landscape. Our once-cherished infrastructure has become invisible, unlauded.
As of late focus on achievement seems to have shifted towards the miniaturization of gadgets, ethereal streams of data and the virtual constructs that appear only on computer screens.
But I do not think the consumption of foreign goods (even if designed and bankrolled by us) or the stock market majesty that is the ‘information age Internet bubble’ has the power to save us from collapse and extinction as a world power.
There is no physical infrastructure in there! Ultimately there is nothing in the Information Age anyone anywhere else cannot do as well, or better. In this fixation on the ethereal I believe as a people we have lost our way, have forgotten the joy and satisfaction of building things.
So we no longer make things. And because we are not self-sufficient in energy it is all doomed to fail. There is no opportunity left to create new wealth domestically through manufacture without incurring financial loss, so we are being lured into Ponzi schemes that are destined to fail. In absence of new and better ideas, Socialism and its inevitable heir Communism are right around the corner. Things are unraveling at an alarming rate.
Which is why I will dispense with the gloom to speak of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor and why I think Halliburton should help build it and deploy it in this country to get America back on its feet — and worldwide, to help satisfy the world’s insatiable desire to achieve a comfortable standard of living.
Specifically molten salt reactors, not the light and heavy water reactors of today, and specifically fluoride not sodium. This is not nuclear energy as it is used on the grid today.
... ENDQUOTE, CONTINUES IN PDF LINK ABOVE
________
Letter to Senator James M. Inhofe
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181187119/201...
QUOTE:
On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein sent an historic letter to President Roosevelt in which he warned quite clearly that the United States might suffer dire consequences should we not place a national priority on the study of the atom. He perceived that immediate action was necessary, not merely to maintain a lead in an emerging science. He perceived that our failure to do so might soon present an existential threat.
This is another such letter.
In the 74 years since, easily extractable oil in the lower 48 has gone boom to bust, and atoms are now providing roughly a third of our electrical power. But there has arisen a new threat.
As my children mature, if we carry on our present course they will inherit a world where we have devastated the economy and any renaissance of industry and energy self-sufficiency is not merely unlikely, but impossible.
We have slept for too long.
The time to gather acorns is in the Fall, and we are there now. Some seventy years ago had I climbed a rooftop in Duncan I might have been in clear sight of dozens of productive oil wells, and at night the flares burning off unwanted natural gas would light up the sky.
But we are not squirrels. We are clever enough to know that some day there will not be enough acorns. We are clever enough to gather, barter and transport things from other places at progressively greater cost, find ways to hide that cost; and unfortunately that same cleverness allows us to engage in whole eras of procrastination without innovation.
This is why I devote my time suggesting the idea that specifically, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) and the molten salt technology that makes it the "safest" possible reactor, represents the only possible energy source that is on the table today and will be still fulfilling its promise in one hundred years' time.
[...] I frankly do not understand just why and how the United States abandoned the path to energy independence to vie with others for energy on the global marketplace. Any superpower that does not attain self-sufficiency in energy production is operating at a loss, on borrowed time. It should have been quite evident as we began to see our world lead in manufacture and innovation decline.
[...] Even fusion research has been abused thus as a convenient backstop along with solar and wind, something so 'comfortably distant' that it is not perceived as an immediate threat by people terrified of radiation or by existing energy interests. Solar and Wind are unworkable paths leading directly to extinction, unworthy of discussion let alone massive funding. I demand base load energy and the same or greater level of prosperity for my children, not less. But I often find myself surrounded by people who seem unable or unwilling to do the math. In light of this existential threat I rue every penny spent on things that we know will not work well enough and soon enough to preserve our way of life.
... ENDQUOTE, CONTINUES IN PDF LINK ABOVE
but if you know of any who would benefit from this message feel free to forward the links below.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181188043/201...
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181187119/201...
The video Thorium Remix 2011 to which I refer in the letters,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG1YjDdI...
(Essential physics and engineering topics on nuclear energy, a roadmap of current water reactor designs, descriptions of safety features and failures… and a compelling case for developing Thorium-based energy. This presentation is simply amazing!)
________
Letter to Halliburton Corporate
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181188043/201...
QUOTE:
I was raised on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and all my life I have been searching for signs that the optimistic ideology and visible might of the industrial age as portrayed in her novels is still with us. Modern marvels are often difficult to spot because they are enmeshed in the landscape. Our once-cherished infrastructure has become invisible, unlauded.
As of late focus on achievement seems to have shifted towards the miniaturization of gadgets, ethereal streams of data and the virtual constructs that appear only on computer screens.
But I do not think the consumption of foreign goods (even if designed and bankrolled by us) or the stock market majesty that is the ‘information age Internet bubble’ has the power to save us from collapse and extinction as a world power.
There is no physical infrastructure in there! Ultimately there is nothing in the Information Age anyone anywhere else cannot do as well, or better. In this fixation on the ethereal I believe as a people we have lost our way, have forgotten the joy and satisfaction of building things.
So we no longer make things. And because we are not self-sufficient in energy it is all doomed to fail. There is no opportunity left to create new wealth domestically through manufacture without incurring financial loss, so we are being lured into Ponzi schemes that are destined to fail. In absence of new and better ideas, Socialism and its inevitable heir Communism are right around the corner. Things are unraveling at an alarming rate.
Which is why I will dispense with the gloom to speak of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor and why I think Halliburton should help build it and deploy it in this country to get America back on its feet — and worldwide, to help satisfy the world’s insatiable desire to achieve a comfortable standard of living.
Specifically molten salt reactors, not the light and heavy water reactors of today, and specifically fluoride not sodium. This is not nuclear energy as it is used on the grid today.
... ENDQUOTE, CONTINUES IN PDF LINK ABOVE
________
Letter to Senator James M. Inhofe
https://www.scribd.com/doc/181187119/201...
QUOTE:
On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein sent an historic letter to President Roosevelt in which he warned quite clearly that the United States might suffer dire consequences should we not place a national priority on the study of the atom. He perceived that immediate action was necessary, not merely to maintain a lead in an emerging science. He perceived that our failure to do so might soon present an existential threat.
This is another such letter.
In the 74 years since, easily extractable oil in the lower 48 has gone boom to bust, and atoms are now providing roughly a third of our electrical power. But there has arisen a new threat.
As my children mature, if we carry on our present course they will inherit a world where we have devastated the economy and any renaissance of industry and energy self-sufficiency is not merely unlikely, but impossible.
We have slept for too long.
The time to gather acorns is in the Fall, and we are there now. Some seventy years ago had I climbed a rooftop in Duncan I might have been in clear sight of dozens of productive oil wells, and at night the flares burning off unwanted natural gas would light up the sky.
But we are not squirrels. We are clever enough to know that some day there will not be enough acorns. We are clever enough to gather, barter and transport things from other places at progressively greater cost, find ways to hide that cost; and unfortunately that same cleverness allows us to engage in whole eras of procrastination without innovation.
This is why I devote my time suggesting the idea that specifically, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) and the molten salt technology that makes it the "safest" possible reactor, represents the only possible energy source that is on the table today and will be still fulfilling its promise in one hundred years' time.
[...] I frankly do not understand just why and how the United States abandoned the path to energy independence to vie with others for energy on the global marketplace. Any superpower that does not attain self-sufficiency in energy production is operating at a loss, on borrowed time. It should have been quite evident as we began to see our world lead in manufacture and innovation decline.
[...] Even fusion research has been abused thus as a convenient backstop along with solar and wind, something so 'comfortably distant' that it is not perceived as an immediate threat by people terrified of radiation or by existing energy interests. Solar and Wind are unworkable paths leading directly to extinction, unworthy of discussion let alone massive funding. I demand base load energy and the same or greater level of prosperity for my children, not less. But I often find myself surrounded by people who seem unable or unwilling to do the math. In light of this existential threat I rue every penny spent on things that we know will not work well enough and soon enough to preserve our way of life.
... ENDQUOTE, CONTINUES IN PDF LINK ABOVE
You're on target here too. The largest and shrillest opposition of course comes from old hippies who oppose anything atomic because they believe anything radioactive is bad. If folks like this were always in charge we'd never have tamed fire. And neo-hippies who were scammed into thinking that Wind and Solar for base load energy is a good idea. Oh it's a great idea all right, like a Disney movie is chock-full of great ideas, but is unworkable in practice. Never mind that it is unworkable economically and there's this energy storage problem. Wind and Solar base load energy is a fail simply because the first continent-wide freeze would be an extinction level event. See how I can dismiss Wind and Solar while avoiding politics entirely? That's the power of Objectivism. It operates from a principle that survival is paramount.
Ironically, another potential group who might be reluctant to embrace molten salt reactors are the folks who have operated light and heavy nuclear power plants for decades. Put yourself in their shoes. They have successfully managed to generate gigawatt-years of electricity and have managed, through know-how and a serious focus on safety, to avoid a Chernobyl or Fukushima in this country. They are conservative engineers who believe in baby steps, with the AP1000's passive safety features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000#Desi... being the logical 'next step' in the evolution of nuclear power. They are the nuclear heroes of our time --- and all that effort has been marginalized by a sensational radiophobic press and cultural misanthropy such as Homer Simpson, a funny man whose association with nuclear energy I find to be un-funny.
So LFTR with its unfamiliar chemistry is foreign to these nuclear professionals, many of whom managed to acquire degrees in nuclear engineering without even learning about the Molten Salt experiments of the 60s and 70s.
AND YET. When the influential industry web site Nuclear Street asked their constituency, "What nuclear reactor technology should we use for our future nuclear power plants?" the first suggestion and top vote-getter http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear-power-p... was the Molten Salt Reactor (LFTR -- Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) !! This is awe inspiring to me. It implies that these capable people are READY FOR POSITIVE CHANGE, something rare in this world.
If only... the investors would get behind them. That is the struggle in our time, to continue the process by which we first tamed fire, and 'burn' something that has a million times the energy density of a carbon-hydrogen bond, a fuel source that is present on every continent and virtually limitless in quantity.
There is the negative context in which capitalists seek through cooperation and influence to suppress emerging technology that might be threatening. There is also the kind of 'crony capitalist' who sees or senses interest in something among their competitors, something that could be BIG. They then try to get the jump on it. That is what I am trying to do, convince at least one of them that investing in Thorium research now is a short cut to the endgame.
If EVEN ONE deep investor's interest is piqued by my letters, or the knowledge that my letters are also in the hands of other investors motivates someone to move on it first... even a slight stirring of interest leads to concrete action... then a snowball downhill... I WIN.
AND WE ALL WIN. Because the first global entity that comes up with a mass-producible LFTR/Brayton unit will be able to site a limitless source of nuclear power with almost-zero fuel cost away from sources of coolant water (and populations who gather around water), allowing grids to be completely energized from places where all opposition to nuclear power is trumped by humans who understand the safety factor, and are economically ready for a local source of wealth. That is, wealth generated the old-fashioned way, the introduction of something new that changes the game and lowers the personal and corporate cost of living. I would rather it be the USA than China that does this. In order to bring LFTR to commercial deployment it would take a concerted effort as intense (but not as difficult) as putting people on the moon.
Socialist dogma has crept into my country. Too many seek to reduce the personal cost of living by increasing the corporate cost of living. This is why we are becoming a nation of truck drivers http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502265 delivering imported products from seaports instead of from domestic factories. We no longer make things.
From my Halliburton letter, QUOTE:
"[...] Perhaps if we could lower the cost of electrical grid energy substantially, in some coordinated national priority to occur within the same time frame we placed men on the moon. Energy is the catalyst of our modern life, as substantial as any physical product. Cheap base load electricity delivered by grid is the running water of the industrial age. Its effect on quality of life and economic health is analogous to the effect of clean drinking water on public health.
"When we look at the present economic state we see the middle class diminishing as our government continues to mint virtual money. There really is no way out of this mess except by producing; bringing into existence something new that can actually change the game.
"My dream is for a self-sufficient country with grids powered completely by molten salt reactors and ever-decreasing dependence on foreign oil, making full use of our own reserves for things in which petroleum excels — gas for heating, oil for transportation and a renaissance of domestic manufacturing utilizing an even grander scale of hydrocarbon chemistry to shelter, feed and clothe us — in abundance, with surplus for export."
ENDQUOTE
Politics Schmolitics. If Warren Buffet takes an interest, they'll fall into line.
Nope, just a devoted fan... perhaps, he'd even be a little uncomfortable to discover the true extent of my forceful enthusiasm and unconventional mix of opinion [ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5842... ] ... but I would feel privileged to work for Captain Kirk some day, even if it's sweeping floors. Being a fly on the wall as LFTR becomes reality would be as exciting as being at Mission Control for the footsteps on the Moon. Maybe more so, because at this juncture keeping the lights on and interrupting an endless cycle of petroleum wars seems more urgent than space colonization.
Lately I've been hanging out at Slashdot with a mix of eclectic weirdness [ http://slashdot.org/~TheRealHocusLocus ], trying to shine light on our culturally embedded irrational fear of radiation [ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5842... ] and at times giving a counterpoint to global warming hysteria residing there with analysis [ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5178... ] and failed attempts at satire.
The nuclear power folk really got shafted. When the hype about so-called 'renewable energy sources', a 'diverse energy mix', pure-CO2 temperature causation and ocean acidification started circulating they jumped right into it all, because they honestly believed that nuclear energy would be anyone's logical choice for the lion's share of any stable base load mix. They believed that deep down people would implicitly know that fixating on intermittent energy sources is an unworkable idea. They thought the carbon-neutrality of nuclear energy would make them instantly popular.
They could have not been more wrong. Because the very people (many scientists included) most enthusiastic about these things happen to be the same people who think nuclear energy is evil. Because... well... just because.
Gee... I could have told them that.