You may find this surprising, but the NYTimes has found someone who wants the US government to do for the nuclear power industry what Obamacare is threatening to do to the health-care industry.
This is tougher than you think because he's a physicist, and when it comes to nuclear power, my experience is that the more you understand it, the less you're afraid of it. Science doesn't lend itself to hyperbole very often (global warming doesn't count because that's religion not science). But the NYTimes is determined to not learn anything ... apparently ever.
That's right - they want more 'Reform'. I'm guessing that means they'll pass something in the middle of the night using obscure and arcane parliamentary procedures, that allow them to circumvent the clearly expressed will of the American people, and then try to explain to us that it's all of our own good so we should just 'shut up and obey' them. It's so exhausting dealing with these people.
In the meantime though I saw this very interesting debate about the viability of 'clean energy'.
Debate: Clean Energy Can Drive America's Economic Recovery (iq2us.org) from Intelligence Squared US on Vimeo.
And from it I learned a few important things:
1. Bill Ritter (ex Colorado governor) is a total useless tool.
2. For the 'clean energy' industry, it's all about hiding the real cost by getting a subsidy.
3. Quoting Robert Bryce "If you're anti CO2, and you're anti Nuclear, you're pro blackout."
That third one seems to encapsulate the NYTimes position perfectly.
1 comments:
The feds decided in the 1950's to "permit" nuclear fission power generation using uranium because it produced U-239 that could be used for bombs. The "art" in plants like this involves placement of "fuel rods." As we have seen at Fukushima, the use of fuel rods can be unpredictable. There, the rods in storage got so hot the Zirconium cladding oxydized into hydrogen - and boom! But the spent rods have a nice collection of U-239, which was the whole point of "permitting" these types of reactors.
A thorium in liquid flouride salt reactor, on the other hand, would "consume" u-239, while producing only U-233 in a medium that makes it almost impossible to steal. Such a reactor operates at atmospheric pressure, not under high pressure like fuel rod powered boiling water reactors. If the thorium reaction gets "too hot", the liquid floride salt vessel simply boils off the excess heat. It does not result in production of explosive hydrogen - only noble gas isotopes that need to be contained. Furthermore, such a reactor does not generate “spent fuel” - Thorium remains in the reactor vessel until consumed for energy. At shutdown, unconsumed thorium is transferred to the next generation of reactor.
The trouble in the first instance is that the feds decided in its own best what type of reactor to "permit," rather than letting risk capital flow to the best solution for power production. As usual, the government solution created unintendend consequences and disaster.
http://energyfromthorium.com/
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