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• +1

  A reply on Talk: Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture

  Mar 13 2012: Likewise you did a great presentation and I am just showing my support from the world of IT. Oppressive copyright issues have throttled innovation lots in that industry and it is just crazy they want to press for even more nonsense surrounding this issue.
  
  It is human nature to mimic, copy, share and co-operate. WHY FIGHT HUMAN NATURE?
  
  I know it is an ask, but please update our blog on the bills progress. Might be we need to organise another SOPA like campaign to hi-light it.
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Why isn't america doing this...

  Feb 13 2012: Not so sure you are an idealist more of a realist in so much as you understand to educate people is a slow process. My easiest get in is in asking people what do they think of when they hear the word nuclear. When they reply about weapons bombs and waste you can start really drilling down into what it is they are missing out on. I find if you go slow enough so they can keep with you every step of the way they feel enlightened and at the same time stupid for not hearing about it before. That is when you explain that not all good ideas make it onto Fox TV or into the Daily Mail newspaper.
  
  Best think you can hope for is to start spreading the word a little at a time. Family friends, customers, strangers even. So long as you do it in a non-threatening and non evangelical way most are responsive. You just need to push the right buttons when it comes to what they think is important and what is not.
  
  How to do it is an open question. But surely if people can understand the splitting of the atom (and I find they do remarkably) they can understand the Thorium cycle.In fact in some ways the Thorium cycle is easier to understand because by it's very nature it is circular. Th->Pa->U233 => Th
  
  Ok that is not a very good ascii representation but you get my drift. When you explain to people how Thorium is the fuel because it is used to make Uranium233 which is fissile and makes the heat and while doing that makes more U233 they kinda 'get it'. Pictures are easier though ;)
  
  Anyway.. it is a challenge to think up new and creative ways to capture the public's imagination but then that is what advocacy is all about :)

• A comment on Conversation: Why isn't america doing this...

  Feb 12 2012: Well it is more a tragedy of history than any mysterious conspiracy. Kirk did a good Google Talk on this which gives some of the background and thinking around MSR research.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

• A reply on Conversation: Is it possible to avert global warming by replacing "fossil coal" with biocoal?

  Feb 8 2012: This is where the LFTR can save the planet. Place them on the coastlines of arid regions and the by product waste heat (~ 30-40 C) can be used for low pressure desalination combined with the power generated to pump fresh water over the deserts and grow savannas and forests terraforming the region. This would actively reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere without adding to it. Totally reversing global warming in decades and making previous desert areas of the planet habital and able to be used for food production.
  
  This is just one way LFTR technology can change the future of civilization forever by saving the planet instead of killing it.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Kirk Sorensen: Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

  Jan 26 2012: In the LFTR configuration the Brayton Cycle would best be utilised with gas rather than steam, specifically Helium has been mentioned, as it is a noble gas. More research needs to be done into that though.
  
  Yes, it is true other power generation systems such as solar can use both molten salts and a Brayton Cycle turbine, the difference of course is one would take up about 1 sq km and the other would take up 100 sq km. Guess which is which?
  
  Solar is also unable to produce a constant base load 24/7/365 where as a LFTR of course can, for years.
  
  Also here in the cold, wet and windy UK we neither have the spare land nor spare sun for any meaningful solar power generation. ;)
  
  Solar will never be 'one size fits all' however LFTR's could very well be.

• A comment on Talk: Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?

  Jan 25 2012: *sighs* This talk is hardly philosophy, merely just language semantics. Self is unique. It is your perception of how you and the universe interact. It cannot be duplicated, it cannot be replaced and it cannot be analysed from without, only within.
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Kirk Sorensen: Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

  Jan 25 2012: "What I'm worked up about is people seem to have blind faith, and reading the comments here scatterings of facts based on a 'youtube power point presentation',"
  
  I don't quite follow this but feel it is a clumsy attempt at an insult. Blind faith is what you have when you believe in something that cannot be proved. Just what is it about the Liquid Fuel Thorium cycle that is wrong?This is physics and chemistry and whether you have education in them or not they are the building blocks of the modern world YOU currently live in.
  
  If people come across as zealots or impassioned advocates it maybe because it is actually a GOOD IDEA (tm) whose time has come.I myself have a background in engineering and like most engineers have a practical view of new technologies wanting cited proof and experiments to show they work.
  
  This is EXACTLY what we have from the MSR experiments back in the 60's and 70's, from which all the hard questions were answered by people who were a LOT smarter than both you & me. It should be a no brainer when the SAME MAN,(Alvin Weinberg) who designed (and patented) the most popularly used reactor currently in use today and has been for the last 50 years, decided he could do better and called his OWN work, unsafe and not the best solution.
  
  These are not just some ethereal wispy ideas. These are facts. Verifiable and documented. Please spend some of the time you take commenting actually looking those facts up.
  
  The biggest single question people come up with when they look at LFTRs is.
  
  "Well if it is so good why did we not do it before?"
  
  like this is some sort of cause and effect hypothesis.The truth is technologies CAN slip through the cracks.I commented elsewhere how biodiesel fuels were envisioned over a 100 years ago by the INVENTOR of the technology himself. Yet here we are 100 years later warring over natural oil reserves desperately implementing subsidised biofuel production to wean our dependance off it, Something to chew over don't you think?

• A reply on Talk: Kirk Sorensen: Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

  Jan 24 2012: Yes by inherent design a LFTR can not suffer a 'meltdown' because the fuel is already melted in order to operate. In solid form it ceases to react. And because it operates at normal (atmospheric) pressure nothing will explode.Thus using just gravity liquid fuel can be drained away into a passively cooled storage tank/area in the event of total power loss. In other words, it is inherently safer than any of the current generation of nuclear reactors, all of which require large bodies of water for cooling, and suffer disastrous consequences if for any reason water cannot be fed to the core. Meltdown and BANG!

• A reply on Talk: Kirk Sorensen: Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

  Jan 23 2012: @Candy
  
  Well it is not hard to verify the facts of course. Physics, after all, is not subjective and the experimentation and research papers have all been done. It does seem incredible that such a technology was set aside.. but it does not surprise me really.
  
  Another example that comes to mind is that the inventor of the diesel combustion engine, a Rudolph Diesel, first demonstrated his working engine in Paris running off peanut oil. He had the vision that the engines would be ideal for farmers and farm machinery as they could quite literally grow their own fuel as well as food. Unfortunately (Hmmm) Rudolph mysterious fell overboard from the ship he was traveling from Europe to London and died. Because he was dead and his vision lost it did not take any time at all for the establishing petrol chemical companies to 'appropriate' his technology and substitute a sustainable organic fuel with an oil derived version.
  
  Perhaps it is not as sinister as I make it sound, but the facts are there and we all know what a slavish dependance we now have to the pursuit of oil. Cannot help speculate what the world would have been like if Rudolph's dream had come true.
  
  In much the same way I think Alvin Weinberg was a visionary beyond his time but it is more of a tragedy that here we are 40+ years later looking back at what a paranoid perverted world we have become.
  
  Kirk goes into quite a lot of detail about why Molten Salt Reactors and LFTRs never realised their potential in this Google Tech Talk. I urge you to watch it and show to any like minded individuals.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI
  
  in addition if you have another 2+ hours to spend you can check this charmingly misleading titled LFTR in 5 minutes but watch it to it's conclusion I think you will have a much better understanding of why the idea of LFTR produces such excitement in people with a cleaner vision of the future.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

• A reply on Talk: Kirk Sorensen: Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

  Jan 22 2012: It is a very short talk covering quite a lot of material but that unfortunately has to be the case when there are so many misconceptions about nuclear power. Part of the problem advocates face is the continued public perception nuclear = unsafe = bombs. With LTFRs this is not the case but they are still nuclear power and so get lumped in among the rest.
  
  I would recommend if you can spare the time watch these charmingly misleading 5 minute summery of LFTRs but watch the full hour+ of it to really understand what is going on.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4
  
  And there is also a very good Google Tech Talk where Kirk explain why Molten Salt Reactors where not pursued beyond the 70's. It is a tragedy that the expertise and experience was lost and of course slowly forgotten over the years.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI