Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2008

it could be very lucrative.

it could be very lucrative.

I'm thinking of taking the profits from my Lehman Bros. stock to invest in thorium.

Hopefully you got in and out early.

The Thunder God went for a ride
upon his favorite filly
I’m THOR! he cried
his steed replied
you forgot the thaddle, thilly

better stay in the null and void for while Thor rages over that diss-comment.

More realistically how long do you think it will take the next administration to declare the Lemhi Pass as a ‘World Heritage’ sight, and permanently put it off limits to mining?

Its already a historical landmark of the Lewis-Clark exploration.

Yeah, but those are evil white guys, and best forgotten, not commemorated...

Why bother? Just discover an endangered insect and be done with it. No need to involve anyone else.

A Gift From the '70s: Energy Lessons

10/07/2008 11:20:08 PM PDT · by neverdem · 6 replies · 254+ views
NY Times | October 7, 2008 | JOHN TIERNEY

The presidential candidates claim to see America's energy future, but their competing visions have a certain vintage quality. They've revived that classic debate: the hard path versus the soft path. The soft path, as Amory Lovins defined it in the 1970s, is energy conservation and power from the sun, wind and plants -- the technologies that Senator Barack Obama emphasizes in his plan to reduce greenhouse emissions. Senator John McCain is more enthusiastic about building nuclear power plants, the quintessential hard path. As a rule, it's not a good idea to revive anything from the 1970s. But this debate is...
Questions for TMI's renewal {Three Mile Island}

10/02/2008 10:36:40 AM PDT · by shove_it · 7 replies · 190+ views
pennlive.com | 10/2/2008 | ERIC EPSTEIN

TMI-Alert Inc. sharply disagrees with the results of a recent poll paid for and released by Exelon on the relicensing of Three Mile Island. At issue are the questions that were not asked. The poll also failed to note that a majority of the folks who actually testified before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were against extending the license of TMI-1. When the community held a nonbinding referendum on May 18, 1982, more than 67 percent of the voters in Cumberland, Dauphin and Lebanon County opposed the restart of Three Mile Island. TMI and the NRC ignored the results. How many...
Why Nuclear Power Has Languished

09/30/2008 5:43:09 AM PDT · by Invisigoth · 6 replies · 48+ views
North Star Writers Group | September 30, 2008 | Llewellyn King

There is a joke of no known authorship that says, "No good deed shall go unpunished." So, alas, it has been with nuclear power. The gift was given to the world by the storied Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which wrote and promoted legislation that gave the public unique access to the licensing procedure for new nuclear plants. The idea was that this openness would encourage the public to take a greater interest in nuclear science and the civilian uses of nuclear. No other licensing procedure was so open or, as it turned out, so subject to distortion and abuse....
Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia

09/29/2008 6:39:09 AM PDT · by ETL · 8 replies · 209+ views
FoxNews.com | September 29, 2008 | AP

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy -- a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
US House approves Indo-US nuke deal

09/27/2008 4:03:32 PM PDT · by MyTwoCopperCoins · 2 replies · 178+ views
The Times of India | 28 Sep 2008, 0244 hrs IST | The Times of India

WASHINGTON: The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to approve the Indo-US nuclear deal that would allow the US to provide nuclear materials to India. While there was bi-partisan support for the Bill, a considerable number of Democrats voted against the Bill moved by party colleague Howard Berman, an opponent of the measure who was persuaded to change his line. While 120 Democrats voted for the Bill, 107 Democrats voted against. Of the Republicans, 178 voted for and 10 voted against. The deal still faces major obstacles in the Senate. The accord reverses three decades of US policy by shipping atomic...
An alternative nuclear-energy solution ( Design addresses Nuclear waste as fuel )

09/25/2008 11:26:42 AM PDT · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 24 replies · 122+ views
Long Beach Press-Telegram | 09/24/2008 06:59:45 PM PDT | Thomas D. Elias

here may be a workable way to solve most of America's energy problems, end dependence on foreign oil and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions with little pain. Remarkably, while proposals for renewed offshore oil drilling, new atomic power plants, expanded carbon trading and other proposed tactics abound in this year's presidential campaign, no one mentions the single most promising technique.This may be because its name contains the word "reactor." Combined with the fact that it depends on a sophisticated form of nuclear technology, that appears to make the notion of power plants using the Integral Fast Reactor anathema to today's...
Reid Testifies at Commerce Committee Hearing on Nuclear Waste, Yucca Mountain

09/24/2008 9:00:43 PM PDT · by mdittmar · 6 replies · 87+ views
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid | September 24, 2008 | U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

Washington, DC -- Nevada Senator Harry Reid delivered the following statement today at a hearing before the Commerce Committee regarding the safety and security dangers associated with the proposal to ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Both Reid and fellow Nevada Senator John Ensign spoke about the Department of Energy's unpreparedness to begin a massive nuclear waste shipping campaign. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery: "I want to thank Chairman Inouye, Senator Hutchison, and the members of the Committee for scheduling this important hearing. It has been a long time since the Senate has looked closely at plans...
Breeder Reactors, Uranium from Phosphate and Near Term Thorium usage

09/23/2008 2:48:43 PM PDT · by decimon · 8 replies · 34+ views
Next Big Future | September 22, 2008 | Brian Wang

How long Uranium can supply nuclear power is effected by the kinds of nuclear reactors that are used and the sources of Uranium that are used and
Anti-nuclear protesters detained in Turkey: Greenpeace

09/23/2008 12:33:10 PM PDT · by jmcenanly · 8 replies · 13+ views
AFP via Yahoo | September 23, 2008

ANKARA (AFP) - Police detained 40 protesters Tuesday in a demonstration against government plans to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant, a day before the tender process was to open, activists said. Several dozen members of environmental groups, among them Greenpeace, demonstrated outside the energy ministry in central Ankara, brandishing banners that read "No to nuclear." Some of the protesters, dressed in black overalls and their faces painted white, lay on the ground posing as corpses. Police officers detained about 40 people on the grounds that the demonstration was unauthorized, Greenpeace said. Overriding strong opposition from environmentalists, the energy ministry...
An exchange on coal: McCain hits Biden in Ohio today.

09/23/2008 10:28:08 AM PDT · by Anti-Hillary · 23 replies · 19+ views
Politico | 9-23-08 | Ben Smith

McCain hits Biden in Ohio today: I am going to put in place the priorities and policies that will create jobs in Ohio. One important way that we are going to create jobs here is with the development of additional nuclear plants and through investments in clean coal technology. Not only will investment in our energy infrastructure create millions of new jobs across the country, it will help lead our nation toward the important goal of energy independence. My opponent is against the expansion of nuclear power. His running mate here in Ohio recently said that they weren't supporting clean...
N-deal may support 250,000 American jobs: US Chamber

09/23/2008 5:29:03 AM PDT · by sidewinder009 · 6 replies · 48+ views
business standard | September 23, 2008

America's premier trade body has projected that the Indo-US nuclear deal could revitalise the US nuclear industry and support 2.5 lakh high-tech jobs in the country, much higher than the estimate of the Bush Administration. Lobbying lawmakers to approve the 123 Agreement before the close of the 110th Congress, the world's largest business federation, the US Chamber of Commerce, says that if American companies are allowed to compete in India, even modestly, it could support 2.5 lakh high-tech jobs. "If US companies are allowed to compete, a modest share of that business could support 250,000 high-tech American jobs," R Bruce...
Breaking News: Pelosi 'No Energy' Bill Part of House Draft CR

09/22/2008 7:37:12 PM PDT · by cp124 · 30 replies · 57+ views
Human Events | 09/22/2008 | Jed Babbin

House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi "drill nothing" energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning. The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing...
Breaking News: Pelosi 'No Energy' Bill Part of House Draft CR

09/22/2008 8:52:15 AM PDT · by PowerPro · 53 replies · 145+ views
Human Events | 09/22/2008 | Jed Babbin

House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi "drill nothing" energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning. The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing...

from the 7th.

Thanks...

Direct link to :

Energy From Thorium Discussion Forum

Wonder how this relates to the Integral Fast Reactor?

See this thread:

An alternative nuclear-energy solution ( Design addresses Nuclear waste as fuel )

Lookinging at the Blog (link above) I see reference to LFTR...more:

< The LFTR Emulates Natural Systems

**************************EXCERPT*******************************

The Rocky Mountain Institute advocates using the closed loop sort of materials and energy handling system found in nature:

Using nature as mentor, model, and measure often yields superior design solutions that profitably eliminate waste, loss, and harm.

Natural systems operate in closed loops. There's no waste—every output is either returned harmlessly to the ecosystem as a nutrient, like compost, or becomes an input for another process. In contrast, the standard industrial model of our age is a linear sequence of "take, make, and waste" — extract resources, use them, and throw them away — a process that erodes our stock of natural capital by depleting resources and replacing them with wastes.

Reducing the wasteful throughput of materials — indeed, eliminating the very idea of waste — can be accomplished by redesigning industrial systems on biological lines that change the nature of industrial processes and materials, enabling the constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles, and often the elimination of toxicity.

The LFTR had its origin in the desires of the great scientists, Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg to eliminate the wastefulness of early reactors. They saw that in order to eliminate waste from nuclear systems, materials had to flow from one process to another. Most reactors use a structured core with solid fuel that is moved mechanically in and out of the reactor. Nuclear fuel is designed only to serve as fuel in a nuclear reactor. It is difficult to reprocess. Eugene Wigner was trained as a chemical engineer, and thought in terms of efficient use of materials. And of the efficient transport of chemicals dissolved in, suspended in or bonded to liquids that flowed from process to process, within a chemical plant. Alvin Weinberg was trained in biology as well as in physics. He understood the role of fluid flow in live systems, and how fluids carried materials form one biological process to another. Weinberg also understood the transport of materials between organisms in environmental systems.

Wigner and Weinberg believed that reactors could, in effect, be turned into closed loop systems in which little would really go to waste. It is impossible, according to the second law of thermodynamics, to design a system in which nothing goes to waste. But it may be possible to design more efficient systems. Wigner and Weinberg determined that Thorium was a more efficient basis for nuclear fuel than uranium. The efficiency of the thorium fuel cycle rests on something called "neutron economy", that is the efficient use of neutrons produced in a nuclear process.

Neutron are the keys to both chain reactions and the creation of nuclear fuel inside reactors.

More :

The LFTR Answers RMI's Objections to Nuclear Power

********************************EXCERPT**************************

The Rocky Mountain Institute has identified a number of problems with the system of providing nuclear power through the use of Light Water Reactors. I agree in whole or in part with their assessment of LWRs. However, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor brilliantly all of the problems that the RMI points to. The RMI states:

It's too expensive. Nuclear power has proved much more costly than projected — and more to the point, more costly than most other ways of generating or saving electricity. If utilities and governments are serious about markets, rather than propping up pet technologies at the expense of ratepayers, they should pursue the best buys first.

Not only are LWRs but also renewable generating facilities are extremely expensive. The LFTR creates multiple potentials for cost breakthroughs:

1. Factory construction of small reactors, rather than onsite construction of large reactors.

2. Innovative approaches to reactor siting including reuse of old power plant sites, underground reactor placement, and underwater reactor placement.

3. Labor savings in reactor manufacture and operation.

4. Decreased interest carrying cost by greatly shortening manufacturing time.

5. Decreased facility building requirements.

6. An innovative approach to nuclear fuel that eliminates fuel enrichment and fabrication costs.

7. Eliminating the need for 95% of nuclear waste storage facilities.

8. Low cost inherent and passive reactor safety features, that rely on the laws of nature prevent
safety problems, rather than expensive engineered safety work around for safety issues.

The RMI states:

Nuclear power plants are not only expensive, they're also financially extremely risky because of their long lead times, cost overruns, and open-ended liabilities.

By building reactors in factories, and taking advantage of the many cost lowering features of the LFTR, the financial risks associated with the construction of nuclear power plants can be avoided. Factory built LFTR can be delivered, set up and be running within a few months of the initial order. Factory production methods assure price. The order price is the price electrical utilities will pay. Because of the inherent and passive safety features LFTR, the threat of nuclear accidents will no longer have the potential to create large open-ended liabilities.

The RMI states:

Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. True, nukes don't produce carbon dioxide — but the power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change.

The LFTR will dramatically lower not only nuclear construction costs, but cost less to build than renewable electrical generating facilities with similar 24 hour a day electrical generating capacities. Thus the LFTR will be the lowest cost path to reduction of CO2 emissions, and and thus to fighting climate change.

"The RMI states:"

Is this somemore of those GovernMental EnvironMental Dubious Dudes??? That statement of theirs is certainly dubious on it's face!!!

If this is an effort to answer each and every dubious objection of these dubious dudes, then I can tell you right now, it's a dubious exercise in futility of the interminable order!

I can see prima facia evidence of their prior pursuasion as anti-nuclear and it will always be impossible to pursuade them of the errors in their ways of thinking!!! (their cost argument is based on how stupidly high they, Jane Fonda and the GANG-GREEN attorneys have made the process in the first place!!!)

They're just like LIBERALS!!! In fact, I'd be willing to bet devalued dollars that they are indeed LIBERALS!!!

Well....RMI is Rocky Mountain Institute...and here is an article:

Little Green Lies

*********************EXCERPT*************************

The sweet notion that making a company environmentally friendly can be not just cost-effective but profitable is going up in smoke. Meet the man wielding the torch

Auden Schendler learned about corporate environmentalism directly from the prophet of the movement. In the late 1990s, Schendler was working as a junior researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank in Aspen led by Amory Lovins, legendary author of the idea that by "going green," companies can increase profits while saving the planet. As Lovins often told Schendler and others at the institute, boosting energy efficiency and reducing harmful emissions constitute not just a free lunch but "a lunch you're paid to eat."

Thanks for the ping. Will get back to this in due time.