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)
“The most recent solar minimum, solar cycle 23-24 minimum, was unusually long (266 spotless days in 2008, the most since 1913), and the magnetic field at the solar poles was approximately 40% weaker than the last cycle; and unusually complex (the solar wind was characterized by a warped heliospheric current sheet, HCS, and fast-wind streams at low latitudes: the fast-wind threads the ecliptic more commonly in 2008 than 1996.) This complexity resulted in many effects observed from Sun to Earth, with many observations indicating unusual conditions on the Sun, in the heliosphere, and in the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and upper atmosphere of the Earth.
This remarkable set of conditions provide the scientific community with an exceptional opportunity to assess the nature and structure of a very quiet Sun, and an upper atmosphere relatively devoid of solar influences, helping to provide a better understanding of the relative roles of solar activity and internal variability in the dynamics of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Such an understanding requires a multidisciplinary approach.
The main goal of the conference is to bring together the solar, heliospheric, magnetospheric, upper atmosphere, and ionospheric communities to debate and discuss interdisciplinary work and reach a better understanding of the nature and structure of a very quiet Sun, and of an upper atmosphere relatively devoid of solar influences, and in doing so, to help clarify the role of solar activity in the dynamics and variability of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere relative to the internal variations.”
http://chapman.agu.org/solarminimum/
Big Oil; We want to buy your TV station.
Gore; How much will you give me?
Big Oil; $100 million. But there’s a condition.
Gore; Which is?
Big Oil; You have to accuse some people we don’t give money to of getting money from us.
Gore; Uhm….why?
Big Oil; So they are distracted from who we actually give money to.
Gore; Oh, I see, you mean people like…. $100 million. I’ll take it. Done.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” Winston Churchill
phizzics says:
March 12, 2013 at 1:05 pm
…
I wonder if I could attain the rank of Lieutenant by using their links and then dropping comments that express support for the articles they’re targeting? Would they throw me out? I think I want to become the first Reality Drop Dropout.
————-
Lucia beat you to it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/lucia-drops-some-reality-on-the-gorebots/
Once I explained to my three sons that the Al Gore South Park Episode “ManBearpig” was a sarcastic shot at his position on Global Warming they totally got it. They are all now denialists in training.
Saw this nice picture of Al Gorzeera the other day:
http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/2/9/7/8/9/1/al-gore-the-goracle-75981847529.jpeg
I believe, cannot remember where i read it, that the CanadianCandu reactor could handle a switch to Thorium cycles without too big a change.
Big Oil funding is keeping temperatures flat and well-below the climate model forecasts.
And increasing Antarctic sea ice to record levels etc. etc.
We can’t seem to get the environmentalists or climate scientists to focus on facts. It is not what they are interested in.
Doug says:
“PS: Brad, remember, i before e, except after c”
Our species’ grasp of science is not sufficient to seize the weird vein of foreign oil dependence, their feisty ignorance not withstanding.
That video was very impressive! so how much is the thorium coalition paying you (j/k) 😉
Well we all know that Al’s tobacco growing slave owning family have been far too close to power for years to be comfortable with in the first place but Al has ruined his own reputation with his forked tongue act and taking on Anthony will rebound against him.
After the Sarah Palin debacle, regarding the “Bullseye” target affair ( http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sarah-palins-crosshairs-ad-focus-gabrielle-giffords-debate/story?id=12576437 ), you’d think some bright Algorian would realize the seriousness of using a “crosshair targeting” symbolism with the vindictive instructions – “Destroy Denial (/Deniers)” attached.
Heaven help Gore if any skeptic gets hurt by one of his more zealous followers.
For the record, Anthony is very generous and gives equal shares of his Big Oil and Koch money to all who visit and leave a comment.
Brad, check your mailbox. You’ll see that your share from Anthony is exactly equal to Anthony’s and everyone else’s here; share and share alike. Oh wait… I forgot! Anyone who asks Anthony directly about his Big Oil funding gets a double share. It’s your lucky day, Brad!
(Best that I [/sarc]. Brad might be out there checking his mailbox.)
Germany already had a working Thorium reactor, but physicist (sic!) Merkel shut it down.
For a man (or woman!) to truly deserve respect, it’s not so important that they have the right friends – it’s important that they have the right Enemies!
And Anthony *Definitely* has all the right enemies.
Here’s an example of the conspiracy theory mentality that pervades the thinking of some of the biggest AGW cheerleaders. The group-think is hilarious.
Good post and your answers to questions were well articulated, Anthony.
France actually generates 84.6% of it’s electricity from Nuclear, exports 30% of it’s total, has a small but increasing number of Nuclear engineers studying Thorium AND is constructing the ITER Fusion reactor complex down south near Marseilles, it also has new generation (type 3 +) Uranium reactors under construction; what ever electrical problems are facing other European countries, e.g. The U.K. and Germany, they wont be troubling France.
Thanks for your well-informed presentation.
WRT:
I hoped someone can correct me if I am misinterpreting this, but it seems to be saying that all parts of the temperature signal are either spurious – or attributable to CO2?
No natural causes?
Well done Mr Watts. Good to see LFTR getting another look somewhere on Earth. Nice to hear about the Japanese with the hydrate mining. If they can pull that off it will make the shale gas glut look like a drop in the bucket.
” mnhawk says: March 12, 2013 at 1:00 pm Is there a leader board for the children out there destroying denial? ”
My son did a paper up for school on the topic of renewable energy. He did a great presentation on LFTR and when someone in the class said “but thorium isn’t renewable” the reply was “it is as renewable as the rare earth minerals used in wind and silicon in solar”. Classic moment. I was so proud 🙂
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….?”
Why is it that this would even be a problem? Every left wing NGO receives funding via TIDES, the left wing money laundering operation, and TIDES in turn gets donations by Soros et al.
The fact that leftists launder the donations makes it ok? Why is money laundering of donations even legal?
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….?”
Why haven’t you asked whether Anthony receives money from the Rockefeller foundation? 350.org is in part funded by them. If the Koch brothers are evil, what about Rockefeller’s?
Peter says:
“Doug says:
“PS: Brad, remember, i before e, except after c”
Our species’ grasp of science is not sufficient to seize the weird vein of foreign oil dependence, their feisty ignorance not withstanding.”
I dub this the cleverest reply of the year.
Matt says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:12 pm
“Germany already had a working Thorium reactor, but physicist (sic!) Merkel shut it down.”
No, the HTR in Hamm Uentrop got shut down long ago, late 80ies I think, after they were not perfectly honest about a small Strontium dust leak. Problem with Strontium is its dustiness, so it can accumulate and form hotspots.
You don’t want hotspots.
Anthony, a different take on the world being “broken”
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/19/googles_impossible_plan_to_fix_our_broken_world/?utm_source=scribol.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=scribol.com