456 comments on The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Paradigm
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The most promising thing to me about this technology is that it might be a way of relatively safely treating the nuclear waste we have already generated and more that we will inevitably generate from existing reactors. We owe it to any future generations to minimize the destructiveness of that toxic material to what ever degree we can.
But that leads to the inevitable moral hazard--that we will latch onto this technology and pretend that it is ok to go on producing more to such waste.
From a larger perspective, I think it is long since time for all of us, but especially those involved in research and development of energy sources, to think deeply about the consequences and purposes of providing more energy to a species that has proved itself (especially under Western ideologies, but often elsewhere to) to be enormously destructive of other species (driving them to extinction at something like 10,000 times the background rate, destructive of whole ecosystems (dead zones in the seas, rain forests annihilated...) and even destructive of the entire planet's ability to sustain complex life forms.
Can we guarantee that vast new sources of energy supplied to our destructive societies won't be used for further, short-sighted destruction? Will electricity no longer be used to more and more effectively convince people to by lots of consumer products that they don't need? Will this new energy no be used to further over-harvest already-threatened species? To transport, on purpose or by mistake, exotic species into areas that have no means of resisting their depredations? To enable developers to create further sprawling suburbs that gobble up farmlands and habitats?...
If this isn't a moment for general reflection on such issues, I don't know what would be.
Actually the Oak Ridge developers of LFTR technologies were acutely aware of environmental issues and the consequences of bad energy choices. ORNL Director Alvin weinbery was the first scientist to inform Congress of the danger of Anthropogenic Global Warming as a consequence of energy related CO2 emissions. We cannot control the wisdom of people in the future, but if we choose to disempower them because they might make bad choices, don't we make a bade choice ourselves?
+1
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
"Dis-empower" seems to conflate two (at least) meanings of power in this context. The physical power conferred on humanity by projects like this, and the other types of power that are not necessarily directly related to the former--political power, spiritual power, intellectual power...
Perhaps we have not learned anything from our grand experiments with vastly powerful technologies. That would be a pity.
But I think we have learned that humans as they exist today do not use physical power of the sort you offer to supply us very wisely. Indeed, we almost always use it in ways that destroys the richness of life. Given this record, it seems reckless to me to place more such power in our hands, at least until we have matured enough as a species to employ it in less harmful ways (that is until we have become more powerful in the other ways I mentioned).
If you invented the first chainsaw, and you were rightly pleased with your cleverness at doing so, would you hand the first proto-type to a six year old?
If you discovered how to make an atomic bomb, would you hand that technology over to your society, even if it was the society of Nazi Germany?
It is part of the responsibility of those developing such power to consider how it is likely to be used. Or do you think in the above examples the inventor would bear zero responsibility for the consequences of his discovery?
Our disagreement then is the disagreement between the party of hope and the party of that dislikes its own kind. Your Judgement then is not about nuclear technology, but a judgement against the human species.
Irrespective of the philosophical implications of whether man is ready for unconstrained power, I found this to be a very educational and fascinating article. Thankyou.
"dislikes its own kind."
Is someone who refuses to give a live chain saw to an infant someone who hates infants?
You are clearly reacting emotionally and non-rationally to my points. Take a walk in the woods, then come back and maybe we can discuss it further.
And please note that I thought the technology was potentially useful, just for a different main purpose than what you propose.
I find it interesting the way you took what he said and made it into something else. I suggest that you re-read what he actually said. He makes a valid point even if you do not like what he is pointing to.
An excellent article and probably about the most promising alternative energy source that exists today. Failing the development of controlled nuclear fusion, thorium breeder reactors would appear to be almost as good in terms of fuel security and environmental impact. Unfortunately, the more useful an energy source is, the more that it permits the exploitation of other resources and thus damage to the environment. That is after all, exactly what harnessed energy sources are intended to do.
This discussion brings us back to the problem that we live within perpetual growth machine, on a finite land space, with finite material and biological resources. We therefore face the problem that giving human beings a fantastic new energy source, would allow growth based economic systems to reap even more damage on the planet. This is a fundamental problem with any living system that grows within a finite environment. It can either choose to reach a stable state, or it can continue to grow until every resource is consumed and die off like bacteria in petri dish. Unfortunately, a cooperative Power Down or species-wide self-limitation would appear to be impossible in the present global political environment. The only way out of this paradox is for humanity to collectively agree to reduce population size (as China has taken steps towards achieving) and allow continued per capita economic growth. This would allow individual living standards to expand even as total GDP remained static. Gradual progression of technology, the development of compact agricultural systems, car-free cities, integrated waste management, etc, would allow environmental impact to gradually decline. Such a development would require the leadership of a body like the UN.
Ultimately, growth would appear to be an endemic characteristic of all living species and is only held at bay by physical restraint. This does not bode well for a species that is limited to the surface of only one planet. For this reason I think that anyone within post-oil community that still clings to the idea of economic growth or even technological growth for humanity in the future, either hasn't thought the problem through and is relying upon blind hope, or must be a space travel enthusiast.
The thorium electricity is clean for all practical purposes. A clean, abundant power source will enable us to do more with less resources and less pollution.
False. If you study some demographics you'll realize that urbanization and industrialization leads to much reduced nativity. In much of Europe, the population pyramid is inverted. Also, rich countries have all implemented stricter environmental standards, which poorer countries can't afford.
We can argue about the distant future, but for now, growth and tech is the only hope for humanity and the Earth. Without growth and tech, the population increase won't stop at the projected 9-10 billion, environmental standards won't continue to improve, and all available resources will be utilized by increasingly desperate peoples until collapse. The only way to go is forward, and I'm saddened that you and others strive in the opposite direction, putting your hope in authoritarianism and socialism, which have always proved counterproductive in the real world.
"A clean, abundant power source will enable us to do more with less resources and less pollution"
Ever heard of Jevon's Paradox?
"Without growth and tech, the population increase won't stop at the projected 9-10 billion"
How does that make even the slightest amount of sense?
Jevons' Paradox does not apply when resource constraints are present.
Isn't this nothing more than diminishing returns? Jevons' applies to a point, then declining returns begin to dominate?
Cheers
In OECD economies, it looks like the take back principle that Jevon's describes is only 10-50% depending on the sector and the technology used. So, we can expect 90-50% of the gains in energy efficiency to be net gains. There's not a lot of research on the dynamics of this, so it's not clear what the diminishing returns will be after more efficiency gains are achieved. Higher capital costs of the most efficient products as well as saturation effects (macro economic and micro/individual) appear to limit Jevon's Paradox as well. Case studies are rare for such an important subject, though.
You keep saying that.
Do you have any examples?
It sounds illogical.
Resource constraints are always present.
The example is the original context: Coal in the UK.
Coal mining is more efficient than ever in the UK, but the amount produced is lower than it used to be, as there is not that much coal left there. The UK consumes 1/3 as much coal as it did in 1965.
So coal mining became so efficient that it caused UK coal production to decrease?
Crazy.
(And this is because EROI fan Margaret Thatcher closed the coal mines because of those horrible low EROI coalminer/strikers demanded subsidies and the increasing availability of higher EROEI North Sea gas and ability to get higher EROEI coal shipped from Australia and South Africa.)
Jevon's paradox is alive and well.
Well, as I said, the data is quite clear-cut. Take a look at this gapminder graph.
Jeppen,
Have you lost your mind? Sustainable growth is a patent oxymoron and technology is most certainly not energy.
The human resource is a prime economic input. What faster way to deplete the earth's remaining non-renewable resources than to continue the practice of growing economies and populations?
Out of curiosity, what mechanism do you forsee that will force the global population to level off at 9-10 billion? If such a mechanism exists, what would be the negative ramifactions of throwing the switch now? Is 9-10 billion some form of optimum number? If so how was it derived?
Anyone got an idea of the dissipation involved with transitioning virtually all global energy requirements to electricity? Would ramping up all electric power consumption to support 9-10 billion people provide enough dissipation to continue global warming? Just curious.
I didn't say anything about "sustainable growth". I said growth is our only hope, and I mean short-term, say 50-100 years. Please realise that the energy used to create a certain amount of GDP (in constant dollars) has fallen about 25% in the last 15 years. Arguably, growth might not be sustainable forever, but for the next few centuries, it most definitely is.
The mechanism is empowerment and urbanization of women, mostly. Tech, growth and efficient agriculture makes people move into cities, get educations, get careers and so on. That makes birth rates drop like stones.
The negative ramifications of empowering women faster? Well, none, except for the odd conservative backlash, such as the Iran revolution. Please be my guest and fast-track this development.
No, 9-10 billion is not an optimal number. It is what demographers see as the most plausible peak. (Demographic forecast is not as uncertain as one might think. If current social and economic trends continue, this is what we'll get. If economic growth abates considerably, however, population growth will continue.)
Dissipation is not and will never be a cause of significant global warming. It is the trapping of heat that creates global warming, not the antropogenic creation of heat. Our creation of heat will always be insignificant compared to heat from the sun and from the Earth's core.
chitowncarl You have elevated a questionable supposition to the the status of unquestionable truth. Many resources are not in short supply, and can be substituted for resources which are. Recycling can also fill resource gaps. There is enough recoverable thorium to powere the world economy. Long term hlobal warming is unlikely because of Peak oil, Peak natural gas, and peak coal Thus whether yu think that the primary problem is peak fossal fuels, or anthropogenic global warming, the fact is that LFTR technology has the potential to rapidely replace fossil fuels, and to bring abundant energy to a world populatiob of 9 to 10 billion people.
Population growth is very much a function of energy availabilioty. many high energy societies see populations growth stop completely, and even population decline, thus a high energy global economy would be an economy that would not see population exploding.
Charles Barton: Population growth is very much a function of energy availabilioty. many high energy societies see populations growth stop completely, and even population decline, thus a high energy global economy would be an economy that would not see population exploding.
Speaking of questionable suppositions, that is grand one. Would you care to provide historical evidence of this function.
BTW the rates in the Stop Gap graph are misleading as regards gross increase, which is the number the planet and stressed communities feel each and every day, as the percentage rates of increase are now factoring upon such large bases. The 'gains' are also offset by the fact that as wealth might divert effort from reproduction it re-aligns it toward consumption.
Essentially, human behavior all comes down to the socially dominant, and thus re-inforced purpose(s) for living. It used to be family, and hence high birth rates, although only in agrarian societies, especially disenfranchised ones. Now the benchmark is wealth and status at the top end, chaotically desperate struggle at the bottom, and a mix of the two across the middle as people look both up and down from their rung on an increasingly slippery and isolating ladder.
You'll no doubt cite efficiency gains as an offset to consumption increase, but these efficiency measurements are always limited and linear evaluations. Unless people are pinned down and actively stifled each extra one will have considerable impact on the other people and the landscape around them.
Your simplistically confident view of the mechanics and trajectories in play is tragically common in the managerial class. Gaia help us.
If Dohboi, we had a clean unpolluting source of energy then perhaps we would not be removing mountain tops, or strip mining our landscapes for coal or other sources of power.
We think should lessen our impact on other species by not destroying their habitat...and also less auto pollution as well.
I see enormous gains and benefits.
Yes we are destructive. We destroy to get power.
We need to stop such activities and learn to live a more balanced life.
Will turning into savages fighting over a few remaining dregs of fading energy lessen that sceanario?
Airdale-I still watch and read about BLP..hydrinos for Eric Blairs sake....yet promise is shown there in Rowan Univ study and tests of the BLP reactor/whatever....so we seriously need a real breakthru...
As much a doomer as I am I will still root for my children's future.
This is the first GOOD news I have read in many moons.My gratitude to the author of this submission. Thank you Sir.
airdale,
the drawbacks of this technology are not listed in this article, but you can be assured that they are there because every "silver bullet" has had a drawback. Sometimes the drawbacks are so significant that the technological advance turned out to be no advance at all.
Whether it is Nate or Dohboi pointing it out, as long as new technologies are deployed within a mental paradigm that does not recognize the limits of the planet, we will simply destroy the planet faster.
Trains, cars, computers, airplanes, nuclear fission, the Internet: all were supposed to be the magic fix to bring prosperity and peace to the whole world.
Why hasn't world peace and global prosperity occured? Could it be that there is something else guiding how all these technologies are being used?
As far as I can tell, the only way out of this is a transformation of how we relate to and operate on the planet. Since that is unlikely to come in time, the other mechanism will get the job done: exhaustion of our resources until we have left the planet thoroughly denuded and no longer the biologically rich, wonderful one we inherited when we all arrived.
aangel wrote,
The words" the limits of the planet" are rhetorical. Some planetary resources are very limited. Some planetary resources can create environmental problems if they are used extensively. A thorium based energy economy could be sustained for several thousand years with no special mining for thorium. So unless you see extracting an already mined mineral from mine tailings as somehow exceeding the limits of the planet, then availability of thorium would not be a planetary not be anything like a limiting issue for quite along time.
Any nuclear technology will create radioactive byproducts. This is understood. One of the primary advantages of LFTR technology is that it includes a superior system for the management of radioactive byproducts. Superior that is compaired to other nuclear technologies. Depending on the byproduct management system employed the LFTR would either creat a small amount of waste - small that is compared to other forms of nuclear technology - or virtually no waste at all. The LFTR effectively destroys transuranium isotopes, which are alwys seen as the most serious component of nuclear waste. For this reason, scientists in both the United States and Russia have proposed that LFTRs be used as nuclear disarmament tools. LFTRs have some potential to create nuclear weapons material, as all reactors do. But that potential is limited by practical difficulties. It is unlikely that would be nuclear proliferators would chose LFTR technology as a route to nuclear weapons in preference to other well known, less technological challenging, and less expensive pathes to the development of nuclear weapons. Building LFTRs in the United States does not increase the likelihood that Gabon will acquire nuclear weapons.
So there are the challenges of dealing with radioactive materials, although the LFTR carries with it superior tools for the management of radioactive materials. There is also a theoretical use of the LFTR as a proliferation tool, but would be nuclear weapons builders would most likely choose simpler to master and technologically less challenging routs to the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
The LFTR does produce some waste heat, but waste heat can be more efficiently used by increasing LFTR thermal efficiency, or by using LFTR waste heat for space heating, or in sea water desalinization. It is hard to imagine LFTR waste heat exceeding some planitary limit.
The LFTR would occupie a small spacial footprint, Present NRC policy requires a land buffer around nuclear plants. Such buffers become in many instances nature preserves. Thus existing nuclear plants do not make lage environmental intrusions, although it might be argued that this is not the case for uranium mines. But there is no reason to mine thorium for a long time, because lots of it is already above the surface. Thus LFTR technology occuipes little land and much of that will be a virtual nature preserve.
Since one low cost LFTR housing option involves the placement of LFTRs in underground chambers, that would be immune to conventional terrorist attacks, terrorist would likely choose less hardened targets.
Thus the planetary limit argument would appear to be empty of content.
Charles,
I think your defensiveness is making you dense.
That kind of black-and-white rhetoric in response to a thoughtful response is just silly.
FACT: Thus far, every weapon system created has been deployed and used.
FACT: the employment of technology has brought us to the brink of our own destruction.
This shows ZERO ability as a species to manage our impulse control. We are like a child beguiled by balloons, who then pops them just for the fun of the pop.
The point is one we must tackle and must succeed in suppressing. Unlimited power leads to unlimited destruction. The reason lies in your response: arrogance. The arrogance of those who possess power in believing they can contain and control it is massive.
Your response to angel was no better. He, too, was pointing out our uncontrollable appetite. He was *not* talking about thorium, but of the consumption of other resources that unlimited energy would almost certainly, given the above point, allow. I do not think you read angel carefully, but skimmed and jumped to a conclusion.
ccpo, being very tired when i post does lead to writing mistakes. Is it not a matter of black and white thinking already, when someone makes the comment that human judgement is so poor that humanity cannot be trusted with this thechology? i take that resource over use is not a long term problem because ebentually recycling will be the cheapest form of mining. Aangel did raise the resource limitations issue in the context of a discussion of thorium, and although I was aware that he was talking about many other resources as well, It was reasonable to suppose that his observation both included and was directed to a thorium based energy economy. He certainly did not say, thorium excluded for the next few million years.
You accuse me of "black-and-white rhetoric", and then you make black and white statements like "the employment of technology has brought us to the brink of our own destruction". Technology and technological advances have had their dark aspects since the stone age. But it is black and white thinking to emphasize the dark side only. i would not argue that technological advances cannot have their dark side, but I would strongly deny that arguments that we should keep advanced energy technology out of the hands of future civilization because the pose real or imagined dangers. I favor handing the future options and tools that might solve some of their problems, and trusting a future society to choose its tools wisely. I dislagree with the argument that people are never capable of making wise choices.
FACT: it is extremely difficult to use LFTR technology to make weapons, and it has few of the drawbacks of e.g. climate change and toxic emissions associated with fossil fuels. It appears that both your objections 1 and 2 are ill-supported.
That's true. To be fully disclosing, we'd have to admit that the neptunium at the end of the fission chain might be used for weapons, and there's a reason for getting it out of the reactor as it improves the neutron efficiency (although it could also be left in to fission off).
Of course there are far easier paths to making a nuclear weapon. Countries that we're worried about getting nuclear weapons also use a very small percentage of global primary energy needs (Iran for example doesn't use a lot of electricity, so the reasons for Ahmedinnejad's nuclear program are clearly not much about electric power).
For an apparently intelligent man, and judging by your handle a self-considered Renaissance Man, you make some blindingly simple errors.
Re-read. The context of my comment has zero to do with thorium as a weapon fuel or with thorium reactors being an inherent problem.
Cheers
The response was to E-P, not to you.
And my response was not to you. Check the threading.
Ah I see that. But I actually do think you have a point, at least partially, since it's possible to make weapons through neptunium from LFTRs.
If I understand correctly,in LFTRs we can develop a fancier reprocessing in order to eliminate even Np and heavier elements, until Am or Cm, with no criticality constraints. This is particularly important if you feed at least the first reactors with a plutonium-transuranics fissile start-up
That doesn't make sense to me at all. Reprocessing doesn't eliminate Np - indeed that's the problem, it gets it out of the reactor. Np can be left in the reactor to fission off by excess neutrons, but it would be more efficient, from a reactor operating perspective, to get it out. The difference may be small, however.
Perhaps you mean this new reprocessing scheme contaminates the Np (with what?), rendering it useless?
Bear in mind that a LFTR has a miniature reprocessing plant working on line. With a fancier reprocessing you can put back into the reactor Np and heavier elements in order to trasmutate them to plutonium 239 and other fissile elements, at this point all elements eventually can be fissioned
IIRC, the "reprocessing" for LFTR is limited to:
There appear to be no steps that could effectively separate Np from Pu and Am (I'll take enlightenment from anyone with better knowledge).
Neptunium is just as easily removed by fluorination, and then it shouldn't be too difficult to do the separation by centrifuges since we're talking about a gaseous substance (although there may be other principles that could be used).
Engineer-Poet
As I understand it, the extraction of Neptunium-237 from core salts does not pose a major challenge, the rationality for doing so is that neptunium-237 is a neutron poison, and allowing it to stay in the reactor would lead into the problem of transuranium isotopes. Stripping it our leads to a proliferation issue. I regard neptunium to be potentially a far bigger proliferation issue than the extraction of u-233 from core salts. However, I also regard the Neptunium-237 problem to be solvable, by limiting LFTR sales to countries that already possess nuclear weapons, and countries that can be counted on to protect nuclear materials.
Yes, I am fully aware of that, and this is what the US would probably want to do. The problem is there's an economics 'excuse' if you will, to remove Np from the reactor as it is a neutron poison and getting it out is relatively easy (as you probably know from discussions on the thorium blog forums). So I understand the critique that this could eventually give some proliferation risk.
How can we trust the nuclear engineers and thorium reactor designers to make proliferation security their top design tradeoff priority?
They will be sorely tempted to remove pa-233 from the reactor blanket to facilitate reactor criticality. To be clear, the proliferation resistance of the thorium fuel cycle in the Lftr depends very much upon the details of how it is implemented.
In detail, on the one hand, hard gamma radiation from U-232 makes the U-233 from high burnup U-233-thorium fuel cycles more of a radiation hazard than plutonium.
On the other hand, because of its low rate of spontaneous-neutron emission, U-233 can, unlike plutonium, be used in simple “gun-type” fission-weapon designs without significant danger of the yield being reduced by premature initiation of the fission chain reaction.
In the case of the molten-salt U-233 breeder reactor, it is proposed to have continual chemical processing of a stream of liquid fuel in both the core and the blanket. Such blanket salt reprocessing arrangement offers a way to completely bypass the U-232 contamination feature because 27-day half-life Pa-233 could be separated out before it decays into U-233. Such production of pure Pa-233 must be avoided.
In any case, no fuel cycle involving the separation and recycle of U-233 would approach the proliferation resistance of unreprocessed U232/U233 core salt fuel mixes from which the radiation dose rate is on the order of one thousand rem per hour at one meter for decades after formulation.
The design of the Lftr must keep mixtures of U232 to U233 on the order of 5% to 10%. For proliferators, survival after such high radiation exposures is on the order of one to two days. However, the useful bomb fabrication working time of proliferators before incapacitation is on the order of only an hour or two.
Note, my proliferation safety criteria are higher than the lAEA criterion for nuclear fuel self-protection of lOO-rem per hour at 1 meter.
In deployments to countries where security cannot be guarantied such as the Philippines, Cambodia, or Vietnam, to guaranty that U-233 cannot be chemically separated from U232; the Lftr cannot be constructed with a blanket that surrounds the core.
In deployments to the first world, blankets may be permissible. It is in this blanket that Pa-233 is created and from which pure U-233 can be separated. If external reactor security cannot be absolutely guarantied, the blanket must be excluded. This will make the Lftr failsafe.
Chemical core salt reprocessing cannot isotopically separate U232 from U233.
It is important to note that any source of thermal neutrons can be subverted to produce pure U233 from thorium. This includes fusion, proton accelerators, and other reactor types including heavy-water reactors.
They can't divert significant amounts of Pa233 or U233, because then they run out of neutrons. As you noted, if they have a source of neutrons, then they don't need the reactor.
Since NO ONE has ever diverted U233 for bombmaking because it's so radioactive, so hot, so easy to detect, why would "they" use a LFTR for this purpose? Its so much easier to simply use an off-the-grid research reactor to create plutonium (as...Israel, Pakistan, North Korea have done). It is how Argentina, Libya, Brazil were *going* to make WMD. The LFTR is bascially proliferation resistance enough to discourage people from using it for U233...especially as ever LFTR made will be watched.
It is a specious argument, IMO.
David
Can it be that proliferators have no imagination or maybe they have bought their bomb making plutonium technology from AQ Khan?
Imo, The U233 bomb is a gun type device which is far easier for a terrorist to build than a plutonium bomb.
It’s the U232 mixed in the U233 that makes “it's so radioactive, so hot, so easy to detect”. Why do you insist on pure U233; that is a dangerous and foolish idea. My post lays out a path for a safe Lftr. Don’t you agree with it?
A rogue state is easy to deal with compared to terrorist because such a state can be deterred by the treat of destruction. A terrorist is not deterred by the treat of destruction.
Watching depends on people. People can fail. Such failure is catastrophic. Isotopic denaturing is passive and endures for all times and cannot fail. Why don’t you agree with it?
janap128 no nuclear technology is proliferation proof, but nuclear technologies are and can be proliferation resistant. This is the case for the LFTR. Rogue states choosing to build nuclear weapons would most likely choose the shortest, lowest cost and least technological rounts to nuclear proliferation over more challenging, and expensive routs. Since it is possible to produce weapons grade plutonium from natural uranium using graphite pile reactors, at a fairly low cost, the possession ofLFTR technology is unlikely to increase the probaboility that rogue states will build nuclear weapons. In the case of stats that aew deamed untrustworthy, the Pebble bed reactor his highly proliferation resistant, and would be an acceptable energy alternative.
Charles Barton, I am not concerned with rogue states. They have been controlled by the world for some time and have not yet acted in an irrational manor. On the other hand, terrorism is not controlled and is highly dangerous since terrorism is highly irrational and suicidal.
Terrorists cannot be allowed to get their hands on pure U233. If Lftr designers insist on producing pure U233, then the Lftr cannot under any circumstances be deployed in “states that are deemed untrustworthy” because of possible subversion by terrorists. That is most third world states including Pakistan and India.
I agree that the deep burn Pebble bed reactor is highly proliferation resistant, and would be an acceptable third world nuclear energy alternative to an Lftr using pure U233.
To be clear, Lftr using pure U233 can only be deployed in the US, UK, France, etc. But an Lftr using isotopically denatured U233 can be deployed anywhere in the third world.
Why can’t the Lftr internal design be centered on denatured U233? It seems like such a simple but absolutely essential safeguard to implement. Especially since such denaturing is an IAEA requirement through isotopic mixing for U235(20%) as well as U233(12%).
I'd be interested in seeing your proposal for generating sufficient denatured U-233 to supply unreliable nations. Or are you suggesting that only for the initial fuel load, and relying on a breeding ratio roughly equal to 1 to keep their systems running without any extraction of fissionables or protactinium required?
Obviously, denatured U233 can come from the blankets of Lftr breeders in the first world: US, UK, France, etc.
Yes, but how much? I didn't ask you if the material would be available, I asked you if it would be sufficient.
I seem to recall the potential breeding ratio of 1.09:1 for thorium. If the first world runs at 1:1, the third world would be limited to about 9% of the power of the first world. Do you think they'd settle for that?
I have noticed that the advocates of any energy technology never discuss its week points; so to with the Lftr. You’re getting close to understanding the Lftr dilemma.
The safer that the thorium fuel cycle is made through denaturizing the blanket salts with U232, the lower the maximum potential breeding ratio becomes. Removing PA-233 on a three day rotation gets the ultimate max breeding ratio to 1.09:1. The longer the removal frequency and/or the more denaturing that is done the more the breeding ratio drops. If we want a fail safe thorium fuel cycle, the breeding ratio may drop to under 1:1, that is, the reactor becomes subcritical and needs supplemental neutrons to stay alive.
There is a powerful temptation for the Lftr reactor designer to tradeoff proliferation resistance against breeding ratio to where the Lftr might become proliferation dangerous. But more neutrons can be added to the core by a periodic addition of enriched U235 light water reactor fuel to keep the reactor critical, but that costs an additional million or two dollars a year for operating expenses based on the size of the reactor.
I think that it is better to add other neutron producing technologies to a subcritical Lftr core reaction to form a fail-safe hybrid reactor. This will greatly clean the Lftr waste stream to the radiation level of coal ash in only a few hundred years. Adding additional enriched U235 extends the reactor waste cool down period to about 1000 years.
Human based security such as hot boxes and guards to make pure U233 safe will only be secure in the first world. The third world will just need to use windmills and solar panels, TRISO nuclear fuel, and coal. This is one of the unfortunate costs and consequences of terrorism.
But there is always a danger that a ‘no nothing’ politician may export this reactor type using pure U233 to the third world without appreciating the terrorist danger that is involved in his decision. To be very safe, an Lftr design that is failsafe in any situation and during any time in its long 100 year lifespan is what I would like to see happen. The engineers say perfect is the enemy of “good enough” but not for me.
janap128 You seem obcessed with prolifferation with a reactor that will most certainly be bought by nuclear powers, or by nations that coould easily become nuclear powers without LFTR technology. The point is not to build a proliferation proof reactor, but to sell the reactor to countries who are unlikely to use it for proliferation either because they possess nuclear weapons or because they they have signed an agreement to not do so, and have demonstrated a willingness to abide by that agreement. The United States has no motivation to use LFTrs to produce weapons grade materials, bercause it has a large surplus of U-235 in storck. Nore does likely customers, for exampleindia is building a fleer of LMFBRs which are much better proliferation tools. Ditto for Russis, China and Japan. France already has built two LMFBRs and coud build more if needed. These would be some of the prime customers for LFTR technology. How would selling LFTRs to these countries increase the risk of nuclear proliferation? The French are working on their own LFTR design, and unless they drop the project they will probably hbe producing them about 2030. So how are you going to stop france from selling LFTR to whom ever they choose?
We have seen from the operation of pakistani and South African proliferation efforts that proliferation is pervented by political obsticales, not by trying to control technology. You fall into the trap of trying to control the future, rathe4r than working toward international institutions and treaties that will control proliferation. What will stop an americaqnm politician from selling LFTRs to unreliable 3rd world countries, not to mention unreliable French politicians, indian politicians, russian politicians and Chinese politicians is an international treaty that they not do so.
Mankind is not universally directed by the better angels of our nature. It is prudent to rely on the unchanging constraints of physical laws and universal processes rather than the promises of leaders or international institutions or treaties between nations. These devices of man can change, be repealed, rejected, or ignored for the most mundane reasons. When the universal and unchanging processes of the universe are within our reach to protect and advance mankind, let us take full advantage.
True, nations can be controlled by either reason or by fear. But those who use terrorism to advance their agenda are not so controlled. We cannot permit the slightest possibility, take nothing for granted, leave no stone unturned, that such a potent power for good be subverted and delivered into the hands of suicidal madmen that are intent on the destruction of our civilization.
In this line of thought, we really shouldn't build dams either, since you can blow them up with diverted fertilizer. Hey, maybe we shouldn't use fertilizer either. Life is risk, and you just need to prioritize.
Any statement that begins with the sexist word ::mabnkind" is going to be a sweeping generality that is unsupported by fact. Do you believe that you know better what is good for "Mankind" than your feelows do? But this hadly justifies your anouncing a standard that if 5 times higher than the current international standard with only sweeping philosophical generalities to back you up.
Ok, let me restate the proposition in the most base and common terms. I will discard sweeping generality that is unsupported by fact. It is a matter of base emotion: hate.
IMO, terrorists are no better than roaches or rats and need to be dispatched as fast as possible, especially those who are planning to take out a city. In that light, I am lobbying for a better and faster insecticide. You and the IAEA just don’t hate enough; soft on terrorism.
By the way, for a 5% mix, the kill probability is an order of magnitude more than you support.
If you hate terrorists so much you'd want us to stop buying oil from them as quickly as possible.
But that doesn't seem to be your goal.
Why is that?
The Shippingport reactor ran a breeding ratio > 1.0 despite having no Pa-233 removal and the handicap of light-water coolant absorbing some neutrons, so this seems rather unlikely. Besides, the only need is to keep the reactor critical for its design lifespan; this might be achieved by e.g. re-arrangement of core reflector elements as the reactivity drops.
This introduces two major problems you didn't have before:
Half-baked fixes won't get you too far.
This is very good news; so why is there so much resistance to U232/U233 isotopic mixing?
I fear there is a definite need for “Half-baked fixes”.
There is less than a ton of U233 in the world right now so something must be used to breed U233. I favor neutron sources other than U-235/U238 for the reasons you list.
U233 breeding must be done only in the US, UK …etc; not third world countries.
The IAEA most definitely will regulate these breeders.
There are disadvabtages to denaturing LFTR core salts, It would be harder to breed using a denatured LFTR, and you would be be creating a transuranium problem that wuld be better to avoid if possible. LFTR core salts would be contained in a highly radioactive hot cell. Terrorists wishing to enter the hot cell probably would not live long enough to extract core salts. Security arrangements should make it unlikely that terrorists even enter the hot cell.
It’s a neutron economy problem then, which basically boils down to cost. In terms of cost, it does not make much sense to send 10 billon dollars to scan large numbers of cargo containers at all the ports of entry in the first world for nuclear bombs from terrorist, when a few extra dollars spent at the production point of the nuclear material will absolutely guarantee nuclear security.
Look around for some extra neutrons from more enriched core fuel, or from lasers, or from proton accelerators, or from fusion so that you can breed failsafe U232/U233. Or the Lftr designers may need to do some additional design work.
A transuranium problem( lots of plutonium in the waste) only comes from using U238 as a denaturant. 5% U232 mix won’t cause any transuranium problems.
I am concerned about out and out bribery, Pakistani or Saudi reactor operators simpatico to terrorists, or doing favors, threats to reactor operators or their family members, or fatwa’s requiring reactor personnel to provide U233 to their imams; the possibilities are endless and cannot all be foreseen let alone countered.
In short, the human flesh and spirit are weak and the terrorists are ingenious, but isotopic denaturing can only be defeated by using an easily detectable two billon dollar isotope separation plant that terrorists can’t afford, can be seen from space, and has a well policed and easily subvertable supply chain: i.e. Iran.
Janap128, Would a 1 to 20 U-238 to U-233 ratio really prevent weaponization of core uranium? Should LFTR's be sold to countries which cannot be trusted to protect core salts? Could diversion be prevented by limiting LFTRs sold to unreliable countries to one to one conversion ratios? Would terrorists have access to chemical processing facilities required to extract U-233 from fluoride salts? It seems to me that LFTR design should be undertaken first for the American energy market and for the energy markets of other nuclear powers, as well as countries which have proven track records of protecting nuclear technology from diversion. Pebble bed reactor technology should be the preferred technology for countries where there are concerns about diversion.
The IAEA rule is 12% (1 to 8) for U238 dilution. The IAEA rules for U232 denaturing is about 1 % (1 to 100), but for me, please make it (1 in 20).
No…… But back in May of 2008, G. W. Bush tried to trade Saudi Arabia nuclear plants for Oil. Realize, you can never tell what these politicians will do!
Any breeding ratio is acceptable if the denaturing of U232 to U233 is 5%. It’s up to the engineers to make it happen.
We must absolutely prevent terrorist access to pure U-233, no matter how it is implemented; better that pure U233 is never created; IMHO, the only failsafe way.
How can we stop politicians like G. W. Bush from doing crazy and dangerous things? It is better to make the Lftr idiot (...politician...) proof from the beginning.
janap128 what qualifies you to judge that the IAEA's U-232 denaturing rule is inade4quate. You views seem close to those of Jung min Kang and Frank von Hippel who appear to be unaware of the difficulty of extracting protactinium from liquid fluoride salts. But even Jung min Kang and Frank von Hippel that a 1% 232 content would produce a dose rate of 127 per hour, and thus is not fatal quick enough to suite you/
My father researched the problem for a number of years, and a complete protactinium cycle every 27 days might not be possible for a single fluid reactor. In a two fluid LFTR a 27 day cycle would not be necessicary. The Indians, at any rate plan to breed thorium in heavy water reactors, and it would appear that they are about to enter into an agreement with AECL which would likely lead to a technology transfer. You are perhaps aware that breeding thorium in heavy water reactors is an effective way to avoid producing U-232. Thus proliferation via thorium breeding will have to be controlled by an international effort, not by opposing LFTR R&D, or so denaturing the U-233 that it becomes effective breeding becomes impossible.
The heavy tampers used in less sophisticated U233 weapon designs typical of possible terrorist bomb efforts can provide much high levels of gamma attenuation - a factor of 100 or even 1000 over a modern light weight design with absorption that would be unlikely to achieve more than a factor of 10 attenuations.
The U-232 gammas also provide a distinctive signature that can be used to detect and track the U233 weapons from a distance. But, current bomb detectors are just retreaded industrial equipment. This crude bomb detection equipment currently deployed at ports around the world might not detect such a well shielded U233 weapon.
Until the sophistication levels of these port radiation detectors are increased, it is prudent to add an increased safety factor onto the standard U232 denature specification, IMO.
This disagreement may be academic since in an Lftr reactor where the fuel is reprocessed and recycled, the U-232 level could build up to 1000 - 2000 ppm (0.1 - 0.2%). In a system that is specifically engineered to maximize the U-232 fuel mixtures, concentration levels in the range of between 0.5 - 1.0% can be reached. However, I hope that some very good engineer can do more.
By the way, I am not opposed to Lftr R+D. I am opposed to any system that is engineered to produce pure U233.
Engineering a LFTr to produce pure U-233 seems unlikely. Engineering sa CANDU type reactor to do it seems much more a possibility And the Indians are very skittish about having their nuclear workers exposed to even nominal ammounts of radiation. 1% U-232 is the international standard, and its seems reasonable since many skilled workers would have to be sacrificed to build a U-233 bomb. Provided, and thei is very implausible terrorists could get a hold of the U-233 in the first place. My bet is that terrorists would find easier ways to carry out mass destruction.
There's really much bigger things to worry about. If a country wants weapons, they'll get them without being sneaky with a power reactor. You could easily make weapons with CANDU's, but no one does because its not a very economic choice.
So if I paraphrase your original objection:
"Things humans do create problems that can leave us f***ed, so even if we do our best to make technologies that don't create any serious problems, we're still f***ed."
You will excuse me if I don't find this either logically convincing or philosophically interesting.
We need calm, well reasoned arguments. This discussion is not going in the right direction.
I will delete whole threads, if need be. I suggest not discussing this further.
In fairness, you should have deleted both if you were going to delete at all. It was not I who was incorrect, after all. Leaving his there leaves an incorrect impression.
C'est la vie.
Cheers
Why do we need calm reasoned arguments?
The world doesn't work by reasoned arguments, it works at an emotional level, covered over by reasoning.
If someone believes in God, should scientists discount them, theirs no rational arguments for God.
Sometimes it is useful to acknowledge discontent.
Sunnata - That is a sublime understanding that is completely invisible to most technicians.
Until humanity honestly and sincerely grasps the nature and beauty of its own irrationality it will continue to plunge into waters too extreme for it optimal health and survival.
Currently only the media and and advertising sectors have their hands openly on the tiller, and they plot humanity's course in accord with the highest bidder. Science and its devotees seem entirely oblivious to this reality.
Put a better mousetrap in a brothel run by knaves and it is still a brothel run by knaves. Renovation is a metaphysical question, not a technical one.
This brothel is run by volunteers not knaves, and we only have so much time to spend and would rather not spend it babysitting. We have kept the forum open and free for almost 4 years and that format has many advantages. All Gail meant was to keep things civil. Disagreements, with facts and counterpoints, are part of the process. Opinions are welcomed too, if stated as such, logical and polite.
Nate
I appreciate your sentiment, but it seems you've taken the observations made by myself and Sunnata far too narrowly. They variously, and I thought quite obviously, refer to the breadth of global circumstance and not singularly to this forum, although it is very pertinent to this topic.
It is a popular notion amongst self-consciously rational people that emotion should play no part in a serious discussion. In reality this is an irrational belief. Emotion is indivisible from anything that anyone ever does or thinks. It governs what people see and do not see, and thus determines the quality and range of inputs that they have to process through their prized rationality.
What varies greatly in today's world is the degree to which people don't recognise and/or mask the expression of their emotional drivers. Thus considerations, processes, values, etc., can appear 'scientific' whilst being loaded with emotional color.
Sunnata made useful observation of this important but rarely acknowledged truth. I thought it worth applauding and expanding upon.
I agree the overhead created by unruliness or irrelevancy is a demanding issue. Where to draw the line is not an easy decision. Too quickly can censor important and enlightening expression that only threatens some people's sense of order rather than orderliness per se.
The problem of a new energy source feeding accelerated environmental destruction, has more to do with what human beings will DO WITH THE ENERGY, rather than the nature of the energy source itself.
For example, even if petroleum had turned out to be a clean, healthy fuel, with zero emissions and available domestically in almost unlimited supply in every nation, it would still have given us the problem of urban sprawl, mass-production farming, mass urbanization, mining and waste, deforestation, etc, and all of the terrible environmental destruction that these activities brought with them, simply as a result of the power that it gives us over our environment and our inability to sensibly limit and control our aspirations. The cheaper, the cleaner, the more available and more applicable the energy source is, the more it will tend to feed these sorts of problems.
When a growth based society is trapped within a finite environment, even its greatest successes begin to look like failures.
Antius....: I heat my home with natural gas, I cook my food with NG; heat my hot water and dry my closes. That call ALL be switched to electricity. I could power my car if I had a plug in hybrid or all electric "EV".
My wifes school, already energy 'efficient' could be powered by LFTR electricity. But that is standard.
Here are other "ideas". If LFTRs really provided the basis for "Thorium Economy", that is more electricity produced cleaner and cheaper than the way it is now, we can eliminate potentially huge invirornmental threat: mercury in billions of CFL. That is correct: get rid of them and go back to resistance lighting. Only kidding, I'm not really proposing that, but it's something to think about since the ONLY reason we've filled up our rooms with mercury containing light bulbs is cost of electricity and efficiency. It's all relative, don't you see?
But with massive amounts of electricity and process heat, we could end the use of 'coke' in industry (steel, chemicals), we can try high-energy applications in the chemical industry to create new materials. We can have a *serious* world wide desalination program that could provide potable water to dry regions and save our rivers and streams.
That's few ideas!
DAvid
David, you didn't respond to his point. Not only that, but you changed the topic. I haven't seen any of the three of you respond to this point yet, though it has been raised by at least three people.
Cheers
Agreed. The main point is not being addressed.
However, Brian Czech from the Center for the Advancement of a the Steady State Economy has:
Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All.
OK, let me block quote it here to refer to it:
I simply don't agree. We are trying to survive, and, live healthy and long lives. It is pretty much fact that the more energy you have access to, the more long lived you are, as a society. But I disagree with the premise, it is EXACTLY wars of energy and the pollution (particulate, chemical and CO2) that IS destroying this planet. That is the whole focus of this discussion.
Not if what we do is regulated. It's a question, ultimately, of politics and policy. Portland, OR, limited it's urban sprawl. European farming practices are simply *better* than American ones. Building mass transit cuts down on how much and how we use energy, cheaper, more abundant power produced locally implies less wars for energy. It allows for BETTER and more wide spread recycling, for example. The above quote is a prescription, again, for *poverty*. We have a huge difference in our views of human potential and the direction we think society needs to go.
Then we have to make this 'finite' (I don't actually agree here since we are talking philosophical differences) environment BETTER and more livable, not less, and you need more and more clean, cheap energy to do that. The LFTR points to this in the future, out beyond 2050 when we develop the Thorium Economy. This includes escaping this planetary environment to the rest of the solar system.
David
To have worldwide regulation enacted would require that we have sufficient people who have personally transformed their relationship to our place on the planet and the 'infinite growth' camp would have to be outvoted.
Good luck with that. I have been working on that for years, to very, very limited success. In fact, in all honesty I would have to conclude that my efforts have been a complete failure when viewed against what needed to be accomplished before time ran out.
DWalters: Portland, OR, limited it's urban sprawl.
Update yourself with a closer view of the latest results of that 'success'.
All sorts of bottleneck problems are becoming manifest due to the fact that squashing 1st World consumers closer together does not limit their footprint.
Smart Growth is a dumb fallacy designed to keep intelligent revue away from an impossible aspiration that is concomitant with unconscionable profit-taking.
And bloated consumption footprint is not just a burden on the robbed. It presents a deadly vulnerability within the physical security of the bloated.
dwalters: We can have a *serious* world wide desalination program that could provide potable water to dry regions and save our rivers and streams.
Arguably we could but without an unprecedented variation within current standards the water would be allocated to increased production and population.
Please tell me where and how it has been otherwise or tell me exactly how it might be otherwise?
I see. So, we condemn the world to continued poverty because you are *afraid* of growth. This is reactionary. It needs to be opposed. Humanity comes first, and to bring the majority of the worlds population out of poverty will require a lot more energy than we use and produce now. Your question is false. It is NOT otherwise...more water, more growth, and...BETTER growth...which comes lower population growth and an increasing standard of living.
David
Two things:
1) It is materially and historically evident that growth has directly caused the poverty you seek to quell.
2) The *better* brand of growth you seek to employ to redress the balance is vaporware. A dream. A Quixotic notion. No? Tell me your plan for it.
Regarding the latter:
Forget Africa for a moment. How are standard of living trends going in Inner East Los Angeles? What about Detroit? I know beyond any doubt that the fringes of burgeoning East Coast Australian cities are decaying into morbid enclaves of alienation and pointlessness. I shudder at the Los Angelisation that is relentlessly underway in SE Queensland, not because it makes any sense but because it makes so much profit for a very few. Most people can't afford the price tag of inner urban 'smart' growth, which is really just a marketing fraud to dress up plain old unsustainable growth, as is being now demonstrated as Portland O., chokes on its ingrowing footprint. Outer suburban densification delivers even worse outcomes. Yet the seeds of its eventual necessity continue to be sown in 'master planned' estates that displace ecology and farmland and implant onerous legacies of undeliverable social desire.
You want to use less coal and make life better. I applaud that. However your method of expanding fission and continuing to increase aggregate energy consumption exacerbates the core problem rather than addressing it. Your faith in the market to silently deliver a sweet spot regarding population is baseless. This crucial outcome has to be decisively sought, energised by its conceptual presence within common conversation. That can begin immediately. If it can't it is only due to self-censorship on the topic, which means it never can and we will have nature impose its ruling upon some inflated future. One delivered by this thorium bullet perhaps.
I want to use less coal by using less energy, delivered via a more modest, less populous, less centralised, more locally aware, locally autonomous and genuinely diverse society. If that is politically impossible due to greed then so is your aspiration for a growth driven transition to stability. The credit crisis begs us to invest in a new way. If enough people do not clamour for a new way out of this crisis, their corrupt representatives will dig the old rut to an even greater and more iniquitous depth.
Using less energy makes many more options possible than does using more energy. But they do require some cooperative thought as their parts are not readily obvious from within the familiarity of the energy fog.
Fond of tribal warfare?
might not be the utopia often imagined. That locally autonomous part can be quite the can of worms.
Fond of tribal warfare?
Fond of a globally homogenous police state?
As the machine gets bigger, us little cogs all get smaller and less significant. And then it breaks and we get 'tribal' warfare with no mores or decorum.
That locally autonomous part can be quite the can of worms.
That depends a lot on:
How you read and interpret history.
Your understanding of the vital parts of culture, the consequences of damage to those parts, when (and often why) that damage was wrought upon local cultures, and what their character might actually have been prior to that damage - ie how 'savage' were they really?
How clearly you perceive and understand the systemic incidence of modern violence.
I am not saying there have not been trade offs, and mind you I have cloistered myself in the taiga but not off the grid, so I certainly don't enjoy too close a contact with the machine but I am still connected.
I've spent significant time with the nonliterate remnant of a preliterate society. I don't claim to have had more than a glimpse of that society's former richness. There have been tradeoffs. I'm near twice the age I would have lasted in most societies predating the one I belong to. There are always trade offs.
My point is you might not get the tradeoffs you expect.
There's a whole sky up above. you know...
Aangel,
Do you know of drawbacks?
If so please state them. Boogy man in the closest is not playing fair.
As well as CCPO down below.
Hiding under bugaboos is not logical.
Sorry to be blunt but time is awasting. We need to fast track something if we are to have a chance. This seems fair to me.
I await the discussion of real drawbacks.Not those that state we will use it badly. That's a given but generations change and new orders come into being. Right now powering down is going to eliminate us unless something changes the future.
Airdale
Airdale
Airdale, i second that, Rational discussions of limitations are positive things, playing the fear card is not.
What you call fear I call "wisdom."
it is prudent to look for negative possibilities, but it goes well beyond wisdome besure that you are going to fund them.
At least one drawback I can see now is what I already pointed out: we'll will consume our planet until it is exhausted unless we fundamentally transform how we relate to the earth and our place on it.
Others drawbacks to this technology will appear over time. They always do. When they first appeared, cars were hailed as the way to keep cities clean from all the horse manure. Only later did we see problems they introduced (traffic fatalities, pollution, suburban sprawl, etc.).
As for our ability to use this technology Charles is advocating "wisely," I think our track record with many, many other technologies is very poor indeed.
I have no idea what you are referring to.
Cheers
Why?
Why would replacing investments in coal with investments in thorium result in faster destruction of the planet? Coal is dirtier and thorium likely won't be cheaper. We'll just replace something dirty with something clean. How can that speed up environmental harm?
Actually, it has, in relative terms. Poverty and wars have decreased dramatically. What remains is mostly due to socialist policies and in some cases due to deep-rooted religious and nationalist ideas.
That can only come about in the wake of prosperity.
No, that is just more of the same type of thinking that hasn't worked so far: "when the circumstances change then the humans will change." Technology is just another element of circumstance. Another way to call your "deep-rooted religious and nationalistic ideas" is being human.
What you are saying has been advocated for centuries in different forms by different people. Advocates of previous changing circumstances (technologies) sounded like this:
* "when rails stretch from sea to sea on every continent, everyone will be prosperous and peaceful"
...didn't happen
* "with the advent of the flying machine, people previously isolated will come to know each other and there will be peace and prosperity"
...didn't happen
* "if everyone has a personal computer, we will have access to the whole of knowledge and everyone will be peaceful and prosperous"
...didn't happen
* "with instantaneous and cheap communication via the Internet, THEN there will be peace and prosperity"
...didn't happen
or, for a little variety:
* "with only one superpower, there will be peace and prosperity."
...didn't happen
Are you seeing the pattern? A bit of research will turn up countless advocates for one technology or another who were thoroughly convinced that this time their invention or pet technology would finally usher in a new era for humans, and all have failed.
That's because transformation of how we live on the planet must happen by each individual on a personal level. It does not depend on circumstances, of which technology is just one of many.
Collectively, we are trapped in a hamster wheel running from one technological "panacea" to the next foolishly thinking that "this time it will be different" when it never is. We are trapped and most don't even know it. The only way out of the trap starts by seeing the trap.
The thorium reactors you and the others on this thread are advocating will do nothing more than prolong our rapaciousness. Perhaps we will push back the boundary of the energy limit, but only far enough for us to meet another limit, far before we reach the 9-10 billion people someone on this thread actually thinks the planet can bear.
Well, aangel, as I said, you're wrong. Tech does brings peace and prosperity, just not completely and right away. I don't know why anyone would expect sudden perfection - I think you overinterpret for the sake of argument.
Tech makes our societies more advanced and prosperous societies. It enables communication and necessitates education. It gives us an abundance which enables us to be generous towards one anouther and to devote attention to environmental issues. The abundance is destroyed by wars, so we avoid them - it is no longer possible for entire countries to benefit from wars. Slowly, science and education eradicates religiosity. That "personal level" of transformation happens large scale because of tech and all that comes with it.
Without progress, there is certain collapse. Perhaps you are right that there is collapse even with progress, but stats ARE improving, and our only chance is to continue to advance tech and grow economically. The next 50 years will prove critical.
The prosperity and abundance which technology has brought to any society has always had a cost.
I would feel more accepting of your POV if I was unaware of that cost. In order to support our technologically based "first world" lifestyles we have taken, by direct force or coercion, the materials we required to build them. In our own countries we remove mountain tops, deforest, destroy topsoil. We destroy the economies and political stability of 2nd and 3rd world nations to make our removal of their resources more efficient. A lot of the techno-gadgetry that we enjoy is manufactured in areas where a good wage is bare subsistence and a healthy work environment is unknown.
I find it humorous that you assert that technology has bought us the prosperity and time to pay attention to environmental issues. Quite likely the promotion of technology has created those issues.
I would have to rephrase your statement and say that "Tech makes SOME societies more advanced and prosperous." Then I would add the caveat that the method by which we have adopted technology has destroyed the potential for advancement and prosperity of others.
Our wars have been economic - this does not mean that folks have not died and environments have not been destroyed. We just don't see it because we do it elsewhere or we control the media sufficiently that our local excesses are not big news.
I firmly believe that every technology has an associated cost. Furthermore, I believe that it is the potential for profit - not improvement to society - which drives the expansion of technology. Cleaning up after yourself costs money and lessens profit, so it doesn't happen. Paying a decent wage costs money and lessens profit, so it doesn't happen. The use of technology does not appear to alter our basic human striving for advantage.
Regards
Al
No. We have generally bought them, and mostly mined them ourselves on our own first world soils.
This is a good thing, of course. It starts a positive spiral in such countries.
Perhaps compared with the 17th century, but not compared with the 1950-ies. We are way past the worst stage of development. Things are getting better, and no developing countries need to have as dirty industrialization periods as we had, b/c tech is better and cleaner now. The only way forward is to continue this path.
You would be wrong. It is far easier for any developing nation to have progress now than before, b/c widely available technology, as well as richer countries' demand for products, present lots of low hanging fruit, development-wise.
Uneducated leftist sentiments, I'd say.
Not compared with older tech. Some things are simply better.
We should be thankful. Profit is an excellent driving force for progress, much better than political whims and monuments.
If cleaning up doesn't happen, then the polluted area isn't owned by somebody that cares. Paying a "decent wage" shouldn't happen - wages should strictly be the result of market forces, so that unemployment is minimized and so that people gravitate towards more productive work. This improves standards of living the fastest. Minimum wages, for example, is sheer lunacy.
Let me guess, you are not an 8 year old battery recycler in Bangladesh.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.dust/index.html
I'm speechless
Al
Well, I'll say one thing. He paints a picture of the company that Nuke advocates have to side with.
and Jeppen Replies:
'No. We have generally bought them, and mostly mined them ourselves on our own first world soils.'
Uneducated centrist sentiments, I'd say. Just ask the Navajo how many reservations they were shuffled away from throughout Colorado, for example, when these otherwise desolate wastelands turned out to have mineral wealth under them.
Pathetic.
Jokuhl: Well, I'll say one thing. He paints a picture of the company that Nuke advocates have to side with.
What about this one?
Comment:
Our wars have been economic - this does not mean that folks have not died and environments have not been destroyed. We just don't see it because we do it elsewhere or we control the media sufficiently that our local excesses are not big news.
Reply:
Uneducated leftist sentiments, I'd say.
!??!
Where to begin to address that?
If someone is not paying attention to evident experience then fact and reality just don't apply within the dialogue. At least not until the walls begin to crumble so close to home that the tremors cannot physically be ignored.
And where would I begin to address THAT?
(What "economic wars" is the guy talking about? Protectionism? Ok, then I agree, but I don't think that is what he meant. It's obvious that first-world presence gives third-world countries enormous possibilities to fast-track their own economies through trade and simple use of knowledge produced by us.)
Read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. It will be enlightening.
Al
I don't really have the time or willpower to actually respond, but hey read this book!
Thhpppt.
I don't really have the time or willpower to actually respond, but hey read this book!
Thhpppt.
I simply thought you were talking about more modern theft from other nations, along the lines of "stealing Iraqi oil". Displaced locals have generally benefited from material extraction and come to enjoy the "first world lifestyles" that that extraction made possible.
Is this the Lullaby that helps you sleep at night?
Iraq (thank you) is a fine example. Niger Delta comes to mind. How about Chiquita Bananas? The Gold Trade, Diamonds, Chocolate Harvesting in West Africa, Uranium in the American West, and the Native health issues that have been conveniently side-stepped..
Not to mention computer manufacturering workers in China, and back office workers in India. but China and india seem to be prispering. And Niguria has a lot of well educated University graduates who someone will probably put to work soe day.
This criticism cannot apply to thorium technology which basically does not require any mining for thousands of years. Advances in mine safety technology would make thorium mining a safe profession for future Navajo miners. Navajo uranium miners were not subjected to more radon than non Navajos during the 1950's and 60's. Thus Navajos were not singled out for victimization by a cruel uranium mining industry.
Alakazaam points out what I should have written in my note: these technologies do not bring universal peace and prosperity, and the peace and prosperity they do bring is highly localized and unsustainable.
People don't often stop long enough to really understand what unsustainable actually means. It means that current trends will both stop at some point —which is precisely what is happening now.
BTW, a modern economy is just another technology, and right now it is in the process of collapse. So your assertion that more technology will do the job seems to make no sense to me. Of course you might say we need a different technology, but that is just jumping on the hamster wheel again.
aangel, what some might see as a collapse, others might view as a transformation. Is it not the case that while old technologies and institutions are dying, new technology and institutions are being born?
In ways they have brought peace, especially in the developed western world. We have not had a major war with one another in over fifty years, well over the average lifespan of less than two centuries ago. This was unheard of before our advances.
The debate here is the right one. Has our increased library and use thereof modified our basic primate behavior enough to allow us to truly prosper on this planet. These debates indicate we are approaching at least the possibility of such.
Access to and comprehension of the library does not progress evenly throughout the race. Maybe we are only at a major pinch point in the distribution and utilization of the information we have garnered and as this congestion is relieved our race's behavior will have been positively impacted enough to warrant at least a longer look at the problem. At least some more growth might be required to relieve the congestion in the information stream.
No doubt we have done great damage, but greater damage has been done when no humans were about. Who here claim's full comprehension of all the possibilities and thus the right to determine the only way forward.
"turning into savages fighting over a few remaining dregs of fading energy"
Airdale, did I suggest or advocate for or even mention this somewhere?
No you didn't state that specifically. It was my comment in the context that if we did not get some replacement energy device online very shortly and relied upon ...well whatever your main thrust was as opposed to the author thesis...then we would be turning into savages fighting....etc.....
Isn't it obvious that without something on the immediate horizon to break this fall that such as I propose regarding savagery would NOT happen?
Its hard to go way back up thread and revisit a post and then remember the replies and statements.
I find you a very reasonable poster. I mean you no disrespect. But I do differ with your views on that subject. Perhaps I overstressed somewhat.
Airdale-I do read between the lines and draw conclusions based on the contextAnd as you know I am very much a doomer but if something really sounds promising ...and I have been searching in vain quite a bit, then I will tend to be proactive on the subject..for what can be lost,,try and miss and forget it? Or try and try to get it.
I see no real pollution or ill effects. The money to test and develop can't be that great ..not compared to the trillions being tossed out the windows as we speak...
not be removing mountain tops, or strip mining our landscapes for coal or other sources of power.
Instead the reason will be to get at DIFFERENT minerals/atoms. Like, oh say, Phosphorous.
read about BLP..hydrinos for Eric Blairs sake..
And yet everytime I ask the 'hydrinos are real' people to show the cold when the energy level returns to the planetary norm, no one can show that.
Charles Barton has a similarly tough task - show that somehow THIS time man's machines and man's maintenance of their machines will be different. Thorium reactors do sound better - but I've heard 'sounds good' talk before. The 1950's rhetoric was about how fission power would be 'too cheap to meter' and how the US would have such demonstratively safe fission power that the US Government would not have to insure the industry. Yet the Anderson bill keeps getting re-upped and the meters keep getting upgraded - not removed.
I'm sure Thorium will be tried, and when it fails I won't be at all surprised. What will be surprising is the technology working as advertised.
This is the first GOOD news I have read in many moons.
And you believe that Hydrinos are real and that somehow YOU are gonna survive from foraging from the land and everyone else will just die. (VS the foraging lands being stripped bare)
Your position reminds me more of http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf than anything else Sir.
Well Eric I have a lot of land to forage on and I am good at foraging.
If others die from starvation then that is not my fault. I heeded long ago the yearnings to get back to the land. I put all my assets into that struggle and now is the payoff.
I can look in my pantry and see my canned goods. I can look to the future of using a woodgas burner to can my tomatoes. I can dig my partially started root cellar and be hopeful.
What are you doing? For yourself that is for I am a bit selfish about my own survival...I still ride my Harley mind you but I also have a very small Honda Trail 90 ..well two of them and some very old VW bugs that I might convert.
As the motto goes "country boys can survive"..quaint bullshit but yet for me I hope I am getting it right..
But would I trade it all for continued advances in the human race via technology and perhaps one day of us going to Mars? In a Chicago heartbeat.
So I follow anything that holds promise and hope for it but cover my bets as far as I can..
What am I doing wrong that tweaks young Eric Blair's nose hairs?
Airdale
Airdale, you are doing what can't be done by everyone. There is simply not enough space.
Powering down and carefully reversing growth, somewhat like decommissioning a reactor before not after it melts down, is the only way to hope to deal with the mess that your own preparations make clear you acknowledge is underway. Why you think the mess can be sorted with a new form of energy is completely beyond me.
Coal and oil are exceedingly dirty, but that is not their most essential impact. Until we can commonly desire, openly discuss and institute the means of behaving better than yeast, we will continue to decimate ourselves with too much energy.
dohboi I don't understand your argument. These LFTR nuclear reactors can provide all 7 billion people of the world with energy. Solar, wind, geothermal cannot provide it at a competitive cost. Why is that a problem?
Sorry to be so long to respond--busy week.
I'm not sure I can explain it better than I did in my first post on the thread,or better than many more eloquent than I who have taken similar stands here.
I would just ask you to imagine what people in the real world are most likely to do with a huge new energy source? Will they likely improve the chances for a livable planet, or will they use the energy to use up, disrupt, and pollute the only planet we have?
I realize that the question is so far outside of mainstream thinking that many will find it incomprehensible or offensive.
But if this point--when PO, GW, sixth and seventh great extinction events...--if this bizarre and unique moment in the history not only of humans but of life on earth is not the time to reconsider deeply held notions about human behavior and humans' place in the world, I just don't know what time would be.
Best to all,
Dohboi