Some Fiction on Nuclear Energy
Here’s another article by Robert Hargraves on the safety and cost-effectiveness of nuclear. If you have the stomach for it, read how the reporting of Fukushima spread unwarranted fear, and see if you can figure out the author’s explanation of how nuclear can be less expensive than coal.
I have a minor issue with this: none of it is true. The news coming out of Japan is that the status of the Fukushima plant continues to get more dire every day, and the #1 reason that we don’t have more nuclear plants in the U.S. is that they are fabulously expensive.
Sorry if I sound a little peeved, but I am. The world of energy is complex, and the technology, the economics, and the politics surrounding the subject make this a fantastically complicated morass. Essays packed with pure fiction like this only make a bad situation worse.
I’ve read some of his comments… he is not really promoting nuclear in the general sense but nuclear in the best sense (search LFTR). HE is correct because a super dense form of energy will take far less material. Far less material will cost far less (until you add in the costs of fear perpetrated by those who would lose profits)!
Edit, Those who stand to lose profits are the fossil fuel guys, the solar guys, the wind guys, and the (conventional) nuclear guys. There is nothing wrong with putting solar panels on the roof, but to say that the world can NOT run on nuclear in the absence of fossil fuels is just plain ludicrous (at this time).
Therefore, it is the development of the least expensive, most abundant source that should be rightfully considered by everyone (lest one does not believe the effects of excess CO2 is not pressing).
Anyways, LFTR (in case you still don’t know, is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor) SHOULD be developed and scaled up to global proportions because a serious problem needs an even more competent solution! Does not mean we have to “stop” wind and solar…
Don’t believe me, listen to Kirk Sorenson (NASA dude). Nobody can counter this rational and most logical solution (except by any other means other than logical and rational, such as from an emotional or fearful POV) .
Remember, the major nuclear accidents would NOT have happened had they not been of the LWR ( which use water with solid fuels) so your argument about Fukashima is pointless in your… attempt to put down Mr. Hargraves.
I am not going to list all the (not so) boring details about the MELT DOWN PROOF concept invented by Alvin Weinberg many decades ago, instead, I want you to consider the following…
In a typical year, humanity consumes many BILLIONS of tons of coal, many BILLIONS of tons of other fossil fuels at GREAT EXPENSE to lives and the entire biosphere as we know it. AND humanity also consumes about 65,000 tons of uranium (very inefficiently). Why would any energy related businessman want a fuel that can do all that with JUST 5,000 tons of thorium in a machine that requires no (very expensive) fuel rods?
Edit, again… and the media…