THORIUM ?

THORIUM

Twilight of Abundance, 

http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/tyger-growl-knowing-of-burt-rutansince.html

In this book by David Archibald, he weighs in heavily about thorium-burning molten-salt reactors [p163ff] : 

 “But it is what China is undertaking in thorium that is of greater interest and concern. China’s curiosity was triggered by a July 2010 American Scientist article on thorium reactors written by two American physicists, Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir…. Amazingly, it was only six months from reading the Hargraves-Moir article article to [China] committing to a major new thrust in nuclear research. This is in stark contrast with the billions of dollars spent in the United States, Europe, and Australia in recreating medieval fear and superstition, and calling it climate science.

Hargraves followed up the 2010 American Scientist  article with a book titled Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, an exhaustive analysis of thorium technology and the economics of alternative technologies, both nuclear and renewable. Meanwhile, China has announced that it intends to patent as much intellectual property on thorium reactors as possible. After all the pioneering work undertaken at Oak Ridge at U.S. taxpayer expense, China is set to reap most of the benefits of commercializing this technology.”

 ?

 Copyright 2012 by Robert Hargraves, Hanover NH 03755

Printed in Great Britain by Amazon.co.uk, Ltd, Marston Gate, no date given.

An article in The Economist has this to say on the subject of thorium:

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21600656-thorium-element-named-after-norse-god-thunder-may-soon-contribute

 My tuppence worth:

“Homo sapiens (modern humans) is the only surviving species in the genus, all others having become extinct,”  advises Wikipedia.  The only activity that enables us to continue remaining ‘sapiens’ is the acquisition of information to continue our survival advantage, as hinted at in  http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/brainology-101-midwives-hold-thenewborn.html . Acquiring information requires energy, and there being no limit to our ignorance, there is theoretically no limit to our needs for energy.

In the light of Dr John Morgan’s CATCH-22 OF ENERGY STORAGE http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/reality-check-6-saturday-13-september.html 

an account of the EROIE  “the ratio of the energy produced over the life of a power plant to the energy that was required to build it” and the possibility of sustainable renewals for the life of our grandchildren’s grandchildren and beyond, if feasible.

I suggest that more use of Sankey diagrams might best illustrate these energy ins and outs. as in http://altenergymag.com/emagazine.php?art_id=1673  ,perhaps.

PS:  added on 20 OCT 2014

Huber & Mills give much better reasoning about energy transformations, a short introduction is given at  http://tinyurl.com/pcw3zwx   and   http://tinyurl.com/obhq3w9 .

Hargraves'  unquestioned acceptance of the AGW Fraud and illustrating their scare stories with more smoking chimneys showing 'pollution' alright, but no invisible CO2 which harms no man or beast and is loved by plants - as in http://tinyurl.com/ot2hlp4 casts a heavy shadow of bias over the rest of the book.  cf. http://tinyurl.com/ptgrz34