Heh. Apparently, I must be destroyed for having an opinion. From Al Gore’s “Reality Drop” project, the GoreBots have been given the orders.
What’s all the hullabaloo about? An interview I gave with a website that covers energy issues.
I’m sure now the “Cooked up” conspiracy theory ideation that I’m in the employ of “Big Oil” will get even wilder. The fact is though, I’m not employed by “Big Oil” nor any energy company. I’m not employed by any NGO either.
Read the entire interview by James Stafford here to see what’s got them in a tizzy. One of the things I talk about in the interview is the need to move forward with energy, and surprise, it isn’t about oil. It is about Thorium powered reactors.
My observation on Thorium power from the interview last week is backed up today by the fact that the Chinese are moving forward on the taxpayer funded work we discarded in a big way, and was handed to them by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
From an article in the Telegraph:
The thorium blueprints gathered dust in the archives until retrieved and published by former Nasa engineer Kirk Sorensen. The US largely ignored him: China did not.
Mr Jiang visited the Oak Ridge labs and obtained the designs after reading an article in the American Scientist two years ago extolling thorium. His team concluded that a molten salt reactor — if done the right way — may answer China’s prayers.
See this NYT article from March 11th: In Search of Energy Miracles
Among the new nuclear approaches, fission reactors based on thorium are especially intriguing, offering potentially huge safety advantages. The basic concepts were proved in research by the American nuclear establishment in the 1960s, but the idea was ultimately abandoned by the Nixon administration in favor of a riskier approach called breeder reactors, which turned into an $8 billion black hole.
An engineer in Alabama, Kirk Sorensen, has helped excavate the old thorium work and founded his own tiny company, Flibe Energy, to push it forward. But it will surprise no one to hear that China is ahead of the United States on this, with hundreds of engineers working on thorium reactors.
“They’re doing laps around the track, and we haven’t even decided if we’re going to lace up our shoes,” Mr. Sorensen said.
Here’s a 5 minute video summing it up:
And, there is a petition you can sign if you agree.
US White House Petition
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
focus the bulk of American regulatory and technical prowess on developing a test Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. (LFTR)
Do you recieve money in any capacity from any oil company or NGO, directly or indirectly? Same for Koch Brothers interests….?
Reply. [Did you not “read” the first sentence of the thread? “I’m sure now the “Cooked up” conspiracy theory ideation that I’m in the employ of “Big Oil” will get even wilder. The fact is though, I’m not employed by “Big Oil” nor any energy company. I’m not employed by any NGO either.” Mod]
REPLY2: And that goes for Koch, as well as indirect funding as well. Some shared ad revenue with wordpress.com (where WUWT is hosted) along with the tip jar and some prints, calendar and mug sales are it. – Anthony
Good for you. Good on USA.
Oh for crying out loud, Anthony… why do you keep giving those clown activists so much attention? It’s like arguing about the meaning of life with a 12-year-old, i.e., a waste of time.
Do you mean you haven’t got millions of Middle Eastern petro dollars like some fat bore we all know?
Do you receive any government grants to carry out research?
REPLY: Nope, never even applied for one – Anthony
Anthony,
The Gorebots are non-rational kooks. Ignore their conspiracy based delusional accusations.
That their fearless leader and so many other AGW opinion shapers actually engage in what they are accusing you of is just another source of endless entertainment.
“… an $8 billion black hole.” NYT excerpt
. ..= one day of Obama deficit spending!
Brad says:
March 12, 2013 at 11:05 am
Do you recieve money in any capacity from any oil company or NGO, directly or indirectly? Same for Koch Brothers interests….?
===========================================================================
I consulted for many big oil companies, and still have an interest in some wells. I just put another $50 in the tip jar. I’m sure that invalidates any science presented here.
PS: Brad, remember, i before e, except after c
I’m starting a new campaign.
Let’s rename Kenji to “Big Oil”. Then you can turn your company ownership over to Kenji er “Big Oil” actually….
The you can hold interviews on TV in the company of your new employer. He can handle the difficult questions. I can hear him now.. Is the Globe Warming? Woof Woof!. Is the Climate Change Disruptive? Bow Wow! Once people see it’s “true” that should generate a good laugh –maybe even at the Gorey ones expense.
You can add in that boring scientificky stuff that is not covered by the important policy setters — your new boss will handle that! Woof!
Nothing like working for “Big Oil” — maybe he can do something about your Pay Rate!
Lol – as a Fort McMurray oil sands worker with my wife in upper management here, I can confirm we ain’t paying you anything Mr. Watts. But you have on occasion mentioned the Keystone Pipeline – and only ended up with ten thousand eco little devils that hated you. Now you just had to venture out into Thorium reactors? And gain even more demonic worship? Having all the AGW fans already hating you not enough? Would it be fair to say you top the list on the world’s most hated list? I cannot think of one single individual on planet earth more hated than you. Sure you weren’t a sh*t disturber in grade school?
Are you now, or at any time have you ever been, a failed politician, happy to join any passing bandwagon playing flute music, which offers an enormous gain in your personal wealth based on specious nonsense?
Then again, the eco-Fourth Reich will have something else to divert them now that Japan has managed to extract gas from deep sea methane hydrates. That’ll keep the little buggers (the bots) busy for a bit! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21752441)
Thanks Brad – for proving once again that as soon as you hear information and facts you (and the many other warmists/alarmists) don’t like, go into the standard “Are you in the pay of BIG OIL” stance. I’m sure Anthony (and me) would greatly like to be receiving BIG OIL money to refute your position. But I think the cheque has gotten lost. Brad – and Joe Public – please lose that BIG OIL arguent. Its so out of date and worn out. Oh – here comes the postman. Maybe he as my cheque. (sarc)
Just for information, in the summer of 1960, a friend of mine, Norm Snidow, was operating a thorium solid fuel (pin type oxide) powered reactor designed by Babcock and Wilcox at Consolidated Edison Indian Point, NY The plant is a short distance north of New York City. Quite successful but the momentium was for Uranium fuel.
Hi Anthony. (Sarc on>) Can you please tell me how to contact Big Oil. I need to get rich fast. As a minimum I need to become as rich as Al Gore.
Fluoride? Who’s going to handle THAT!!
Thorium’s a possibility – it even has its own website, which I visit from now and then.
But fast reactors (Generation IV reactors) are the far closer reality and every bit as safe as a Thorium reactor, and has the added ability to burn up all our nuclear waste, which I might add,contains enough residual energy to provide all the energy this country needs for the next 1000 years. Russia’s world class nuclear company has already deployed fast rectors and
they are due for widespread commercialization probably in the next 5 to 7 years. If Thorium
reactors prove more cost-effective they will prevail, otherwise it looks to me like fast reactors will, along with water reactors are the future. I have no bets one way or the other.
Objectively, the US DOE should be spending at least as much on Thorium flavors of Nuclear energy as it does on fusion research.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) looks to me like the commercial challenge it is down to a chemical refining engineering problem. You must reprocess the entire fluid body of the reactor in the span of a month or two and pyro-chemically separate the reactor poison daughter products at an economical yield. This is an unsexy aspect of the LFTR that gets too little discussion in videos like that above.
We shouldn’t be under the assumption that there is no radioactive waste. But what there is seems to be of very short half-life or quite manageable quantities. In any case, the radioactive waste is likely orders of magnitude less than some fusion designs currently funded for research. Hence, my conclusion that LFTR deserves at least as much funding as fusion.
LFTR might not be low hanging fruit, but it is much closer to our reach than fusion.
Anthony, I could care less where you get your funds from, NOMB, I do care about your ideas, please keep expressing them here. Thank you.
The only way the ecos would accept thorium power would be if you could convince them that it was made from concentrated sunbeams.
I wish “Big Oil” or “Big Coal” or whatever other “Big” group that is being demonized by the CAGW crowd would but big bucks into dispelling the lies surrounding the myth.
I also wish those so concerned with where Anthony and others earn their money would be as concerned with where their heroes are getting theirs.
India is also deep in thorium research according to this you tube video.:
At least you aren’t aiding and abetting Al Qaida like some not to be mentioned former Vice Preisdent. Funding terrorists is fine, working for oil companies is evil. So the goracle says….
One of the good things about NOT having a world government is that individual countries are free to pursue their own energy and economic policies. Even if one or several nations embrace economic suicide (*cough* USA *cough*), others can choose growth and technological advancement (*cough* China *cough*). Good for them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9924836/Japan-cracks-seabed-ice-gas-in-dramatic-leap-for-global-energy.html
Japan cracks seabed ‘ice gas’ in dramatic leap for global energy
Japan has extracted natural “ice” gas from methane hydrates beneath the sea off its coasts in a technological coup, opening up a super-resource that could meet the country’s gas needs for the next century and radically change the world’s energy outlook.