Nuclear Energy Study Group at Dartmouth OSHER

Black Swallowtail Butterfly
Wikipedia

Dr. Robert Hargraves of Thorcon Power (the Do-able Molten Salt Reactor) and I  will begin leading a four-session study group this afternoon. The study group is a course at Dartmouth OSHER, and the title of the course is Nuclear Power: For Climate and for People.

The course is oversubscribed (has a waiting list).  I always have some butterflies in my stomach before starting something new.  Anything new, despite how familiar some parts of it might be.  Yes, I have taught other courses and been on many stages. Yes, that helps.

I remember an Aikido sensei who told my class: "If you have butterflies in your stomach, make them fly in formation."

I am starting a new course this afternoon, with Bob.  All right.  Get in formation, butterflies!

Nuclear Power:

For Climate and for People

MIT Prof Kerry Emanuel, in his 2017 OSHER@Dartmouth summer lecture, raised awareness of the potential for nuclear power to reduce CO2 emissions that force global warming. Building more nuclear power plants is opposed by many on the grounds of health, safety, and expense. Fission power plants can provide inexpensive, ample power, especially for developing nations desperate to advance prosperity of growing populations. In four sessions we’ll cover the arguments against and for nuclear energy.

We’ll  first have a tutorial on energy, power, sources, uses, value to civilization and prosperity, energy poverty, and civil unrest where there is little. Second, we’ll review Emanuel’s lecture and book on global warming, CO2 in the air and ocean, the solar/ wind bandwagon, and the politics of IPCC, Kyoto, and Paris.  Third, we’ll cover how nuclear power works, why it’s opposed, and the future potential of energy cheaper than coal. Finally, we’ll cover activities of social organizations fighting for/against nuclear power.

There are no required texts for this course.

Robert Hargraves has taught OSHER@ Dartmouth courses on energy, politicized science, and internet money.
Meredith Angwin led The Grid and other courses for OSHER@Dartmouth.

4 sessions, 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM January 18 through February 8, 2018 DOC House - Hanover, NH

Men and Energy: When Energy was Expensive, But Lives were Cheap

From Robert Hargraves book
Thorium, Energy Cheaper Than Coal

Women and Energy

On Thursday, April 30, Howard Shaffer and I were guests of Bill Sayre on the Common Sense Radio program of WDEV. Near the end of the program, Bill asked me to comment on the role of energy in improving women's lives.

 Image from
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

This is one of my favorite subjects, and I was happy to answer.  I referred to Robert Hargraves' chart on prosperity versus birthrate, for many different countries.  As prosperity goes up, birthrate goes down.  In poor countries, women's lives are limited by gathering fuel, cooking over smoky biomass stoves, drawing water, having multiple pregnancies, and losing young children to death.

In a poor country, there's not much room for education (or even time to rest quietly) in women's lives.  When a country becomes richer, energy use goes up and women's lives improve.

(The chart above comes from Hargraves book: Thorium, Energy Cheaper Than Coal.  I wrote more about that chart in my post that reviewed the book.)

Men and Energy, Starting with Ice

As I mentioned, I was on the program with Howard Shaffer.  After I talked about women's lives, Shaffer spoke about men and energy.  Before the use of fossil and nuclear energy, the world relied only upon renewables. In those days, a high percentage of men had very dangerous jobs.

Shaffer spoke specifically about an industry that grew in New England, until electricity became common: Ice Harvesting.  Men would go out on the New England lakes in winter, cut ice and cart it into large ice houses, where it would be protected from the summer heat with straw.  Later the ice was  shipped to cities, where dairies, hospitals and restaurants used great quantities of ice to keep food and drugs cool. "Ice boxes" at home prevented food from rotting during the hot days of summer. Shipping lake ice from New England was big industry, though it had some competition from manufactured ice, usually made with ammonia.  Needless to say, you didn't put lake ice in your drink, unless you wanted to get sick. Ice was only used for keeping things cold. You didn't eat it.

That industry ended as energy became more common and less expensive. The first home electric refrigerator was sold in 1913. This marked the beginning of the end of the lake ice trade of the 1800s.

Harvesting ice was dangerous work.  It was probably not more dangerous than other occupations of the time (my husband's family were miners), but it was definitely hazardous.   Men died harvesting ice.

But let's talk about something really dangerous.  Log Drives.

Log Drives

Rumble rumble rumble….oh…that's just the log train going by….

Log Drive near Sharon, VT

I live in Wilder, Vermont, close to the Connecticut River, and close to a small railroad track that runs near the river.  On weekdays, two trains a day run along that track. The morning train mostly carries logs to a plywood factory, and the evening train mostly carries plywood from the factory.  I find the sound of the two trains quite comforting. There's the morning train, and then there's the evening train: their noise adds a rhythm to my life at home. Yes, if these trains ran as often as the New York Subway, the noise would be annoying.  But they don't run all the time.  They are just the log trains.  The morning train.  The evening train.

Before logs were shipped by train, there were log drives on the river itself: the Connecticut River Log Drives. Logs were harvested, rolled down to the river, tied up into rafts, and poled and shoved down the river by "shantymen."  The log drives on the Connecticut River started in about 1865, and only ended in 1918.  Men guided the rafts. Men fended off log rafts that threatened the bridges. They frequently died at this work.

Railroads, whatever their problems, are much safer than log drives.

I first heard the song "The Jam at Jerry's Rock" when I was in high school. The version I heard was set in Canada.  The version I have on this post is set in Michigan.  Log drives were dangerous…all over.

It's a short song, and worth listening, in my opinion.  If you go to YouTube, you can see comments on its history.



Men and Energy

As Shaffer pointed out, you can get ice from the local lakes and store it all summer. That's what men used to do, before electricity. The ice was limited in both usefulness and availability, and it cost men's lives.

Similarly, you can float logs down a river, or you can ship them by rail. Before abundant energy, the cost of shipping logs by water was considered cheap. It was paid in men's lives.

Abundant energy enables women to live healthier lives with less drudgery and more education. Abundant energy enables men to have jobs that allow them a better chance at living to an old age.

All hail to abundant energy!  (And of course, nuclear is my favorite kind!)

Martingale Reveals Design for Mass-Produced Nuclear Power Plants

ThorCon Nuclear Island
Entire structure is underground
Thorcon graphic used with permission

Martingale reveals a bold approach to solving the global issues of poverty, pollution, energy security, and climate. The ThorCon liquid-fuel nuclear reactor design is detailed at thorconpower.com.

ThorCon is a complete system of power generation modules, interchange maintenance, and liquid fuel service that produces energy cheaper than coal. Principal engineer Jack Devanney led a four-year skunkworks project that has created a new kind of nuclear power plant, integrating proven technologies with breakthrough approaches to manufacturing and licensing. Production can start by 2020. Today Martingale is publishing its design for cheap, reliable, CO2-free electricity at thorconpower.com.

Former MIT professor Devanney’s background in shipbuilding created respect for low-cost, high-precision, block-unit manufacturing at Korean shipyards. He saw how such prefabricated blocks could enable production of enough nuclear power plants to make a global difference, a hundred a year.

Author Robert Hargraves writes that selling so many power plants requires clear, simple economics, cheaper than coal. Coal is today’s energy choice of developing nations, now planning to build over 1400 gigawatt-size coal power plants to enable their economic development.

Lawrence Livermore Lab veteran nuclear scientist Ralph Moir says that today’s nuclear power industry is wedded to expensive solid-fuel nuclear reactors, even though the simplicity of liquid fuels was demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Moir and Devanney modernized that design for mass production. ThorCon uses uranium and thorium fuel dissolved in molten salt to create a power plant that makes electricity cheaper than coal.

Stanford engineering alums Chris Uhlik and Lars Jorgensen contributed to the design of passive safety functions that operate without mechanical or electronic controls, even with no power. The reactor is 30 meters underground. Overheating drains the fuel salt from the reactor. There are four barriers between the fuel salt and the atmosphere. ThorCon is walk-away safe.

Taking another lesson from Oak Ridge, Martingale advocates a return to staged testing of physical prototypes for new nuclear reactor designs. This made the US the world standard for nuclear designs in the 1960s. Martingale supports adoption of the same license-by-test model that has enabled US leadership in aviation and drug discovery.

Martingale is designing ThorCon in the US while targeting its first installations in forward-looking countries that support technology-neutral nuclear regulations and see the benefits of the license-by-test process. ThorCon opens up a practically limitless supply of low-cost, reliable, carbon-free power by 2020.

--------

My contact for this announcement is Dr. Robert Hargraves, a member of the ThorCon design team. Hargraves has been a strong supporter of Vermont Yankee (I love his blog post Vernon New Hampshire about why Vernon should secede from Vermont.) He has many other posts at this blog, such as The Politics of Fear.  I also strongly encourage you to look at his website: Radiation, the Facts.

While supporting existing nuclear facilities, Hargraves has continued to work on developing the next generation of nuclear plants.  His book, THORIUM, Energy cheaper than coal, is a review of world-wide energy issues....and a proposed solution.

Discussion note.  There's a great discussion of this technology at Rod Adams Atomic Insights blog post about the ThorCon announcement. Here's the link to the post:  ThorCon --Demonstrated Molten Salt Tech Packaged with Modern Construction Techniques.   Adams himself is the inventor of the Adams Engines (tm) which can use nuclear heat sources for a gas turbine.

There are more than sixty comments on Adams' ThorCon blog post: many of the comments are from engineers and material scientists.   Much as I love to have comments on my blog, I think my readers will enjoy a better discussion by commenting on Adams blog.

Doing the Numbers on Solarizing: Guest Post by Dr. Robert Hargraves

Dr. Robert Hargraves

I attended Solarize Hanover at the high school Thursday evening, an event put on by many well-intended neighbors. To fight global warming from CO2 emissions they recommend rooftop PV solar panels for electricity that our utility company, Liberty, would otherwise generate from natural gas. An investment of $20,000 for a 5 kilowatt-peak-power PV system would “net" 6000 kilowatt-hours per year of electricity. At about 15 cents/kWh otherwise paid to Liberty this saves the homeowner $900. Solarize Hanover claims an investment payback of 7-12 years. This is only possible through extensive subsidies. Almost half of the $20,000 is recovered by tax credits, placing that cost on other citizen taxpayers.

Other Liberty utility customers also provide a subsidy because of “net” metering. On sunny days the PV solar panels indeed generate 5 kW of power for a few mid-day hours, but the average household consumption is only about 1 kW, so roughly 4 kW of the power (80%) is sent back to Liberty, which is required to buy it at the 15 cents/kWh rate. This raises Liberty’s costs, because it would normally buy cheaper electricity from hydro, nuclear, or natural gas generators at about 5 cents/kWh. This raises rates Liberty must charge other customers. This other-customer subsidy is roughly 80% x (15-5) cents/kWh x 6000 kWh = $480 per year.

CO2 emissions saved by avoiding burning natural gas for electricity are 333 grams/kWh, so each such Solarize Hanover home reduces emissions by 6000 x 333 grams = 2 tonnes of CO2 per year. World CO2 emissions from coal-fired generation of electricity are 10 billion tonnes/year and are expected to double as developing nations prosper.

-------

Dr. Robert Hargraves is the author of Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal and an occasional guest blogger on this blog.  I have always been particularly fond of his humorous post: Vernon, New Hampshire?  He is also the author of many more scholarly works, and I recommend his website on radiation safety limits. Exposure limits for radiation should be set a lot higher than they are currently set.

This post appeared as a letter to the editor in the Valley News, October 28. However, the Valley News edited out the sentence on the calculation of other-customer subsidies.  This is the complete letter.

"No Safe Dose" is Bad Science. Updated. Guest Post by Howard Shaffer

Linear Function Graphs
from Wikipedia

Update: Robert Hargraves new Video "Radiation is Safe Within Limits" is now posted at Rod Adams blog. Adams gives a shout-out to this post, also.  These two posts make a very good pair!


 The non-existent risk of low level radiation

At his blog, Atomic Insights, Rod Adams recently posted Resolving the issue of the science of biological effects of low level radiation.  In this post, he encouraged people to sign a letter urging the American Nuclear Society (ANS) to address the issue of unreasonable fear of low levels of radiation.  There is now a great deal of evidence that, below a threshold value, increases in radiation exposure do not lead to increases in cancer.

Adams provided a link to the letter, which urges the  ANS to ask for a review of newer evidence (studies done after 1956) concerning the use of Linear Non Threshold (LNT)  to predict cancer deaths from radiation.  LNT asserts that there is no threshold for increased cancer risk.

 "Protecting" against very low levels of radiation increases the cost of nuclear plants, but the LNT model says we must protect against any level of radiation, no matter how small.  Rod and I are happy to assert that LNT increases the cost of building and operating nuclear plants, but does not lead to an increase in public health outcomes.

The crowd goes wild

Once Rod had posted, the comments came thick and fast, starting with a one-line comment that Rod was tilting at windmills.   (I encourage you to read the comments and join the conversation.)

I  was very impressed with Howard Shaffer's comment, and I obtained his permission to use it as a guest post, as below.  I did a few edits, with his permission.

------

The consequences of assuming No Safe Dose: By Howard Shaffer 

Bob Hargraves, Meredith Angwin and I have all gone  head to head with the nuclear opponents and the Helen Caldicotts brought in to Vermont. We have gone through all the logical arguments on cost, alternatives etc. We needed to be face to face, up close in public meetings in order to FEEL the fear that is driving their single minded opposition. Fear that drives elderly ladies to repeatedly chain themselves to the plant gates and get arrested, and many other examples.

As for evidence, see the election results here in Vermont.

Let me repeat part of my post from ANS Nuclear Cafe, A CAN-CAN Dance around Vermont Yankee Decommissioning:

In Vermont, in the very emotional political fight over Vermont Yankee, we directly experienced the effects of the misuse of BEIR VII. Deb Katz  http://www.nukebusters.org/ and others endlessly repeat “any amount of radiation is harmful” to energize the opponents AND make EVERY event at the plant seem like the “sky is falling.”

Enough FEAR has been created to keep driving the opponents, so they always find a new issue. Now it is “all fuel in Dry Casks NOW” which is also being used in the SONGS fight.

We need to get a BEIR VIII. I believe that it will take Congress requiring it in an appropriation bill to get it done. We also need Congress to set the time limits on exposure from High Level Waste Repositories to a few hundred years, not thousands as decided by a court case. end post

Perhaps ANS can get Ann Bisconti to do a poll asking what people believe about radiation.

The Fear Campaign

The LNT issue is in the middle of the largest issues of our time, starting at the middle of the last century.

• The Environment as limited. History shows that we believed the earth to have unlimited resources and be an unlimited sewer. (At one point, the chemical industry saw chemical injection underground as a legitimate disposal method. Where were the studies on the effects done before this was started?) Fear of fouling our own nest and ruining the earth is legitimate.
•  Fear of nuclear war. Einstein was right that World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones.
• Out of these came fear of planetary pollution from atmospheric weapons testing. The BEIR committee was persuaded by powerful personalities to extend the evidence from the excess cancers in atomic bomb victims to low levels of exposure and to “zero” exposure (which does not exist). This was done to boost the fear campaign they thought was needed to get the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty. 

"Ban the Bomb" was a Fear Campaign. I agree with the goals of that particular campaign.  But  history shows that Fear Campaigns get out of hand and have a life of their own. Forgive me for using Racism, Suppression of Women, and Anti-Semitism to name a few. None of these are supported by evidence, but take a long time to erase.

Howard C Shaffer III

The irony of nuclear power is that it meets these fears by providing a bridge – a long one- to a planet of total sustainability. The opponents of nuclear power have never answered the question of HOW we get from here to there. For example,”What do we do about Coal Miners?”

We who believe in nuclear power have a lot of work to do. It’s time to face up, as Rod says, to the realization that the public needs to be told that some of them bought into a Fear Campaign that outgrew its original purpose and the facts were not true. The campaign was well motivated but the wrong approach.  It is time to get back to the facts.

Nuclear Power for the Anti-Nuclear Set: Guest Post by John McClaughry

John McClaughry
at a recent dinner in his honor

Nuclear Power for the Anti-Nuclear Set
A Guest Post by John McClaughry


 For decades, the various New England anti-nuclear groups have waged incessant warfare against the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and Entergy, which bought the plant from a coalition of Vermont utilities in 2002. The outcome of that struggle now lies in the Federal court system, where Entergy has already won one signal victory.

 It’s important to keep in mind that, leaving the particulars of the Vermont Yankee battle aside, the anti-nukies are fundamentally opposed to nuclear energy in any form whatever. Only old timers now remember that the Sierra Club was once pro-nuclear, which it viewed as the saving technology that would make the damming of California mountain streams unnecessary.

Interestingly, the Sierra Club, at least, does not totally slam the door on nuclear even today. In its 2006 energy policy statement it said “while it is possible that a different approach to nuclear power might substantially address these issues, the likelihood is remote given the decades of research and investment already made.”

 What different approach to nuclear power might conceivably avoid the environmental issues that caused the Sierra Club’s opposition? To answer that question it’s necessary to review the origins and development of nuclear power, dating back to the 1950s.

That story is ably told in a book published in 2011 by Richard Martin, entitled Super Fuel. Martin

LFTR Image from Energy From Thorium blog
http://energyfromthorium.com/lftradsrisks.html

details the long battle between the demanding and acerbic Admiral Hyman Rickover, who wanted nuclear engines based on known technology right now to propel his fleet of submarines, and the gentle visionary Alvin Weinberg, longtime director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who envisioned a nationwide fleet of thorium-powered electric plants, using molten fluoride salts as moderator and coolant.

Rickover, a savage bureaucratic infighter, got what he wanted, and in 1972 Weinberg was fired. The nuclear industry put its muscle behind the hugely expensive liquid metal fast breeder reactor. It in turn was shelved in 1984 after Congress spent $8 billion on the Clinch River Breeder without turning a shovelful of dirt.

As Martin puts it, "Light water reactors and their younger cousin, the liquid metal breeder, won out because of technological intransigence rooted in the military origins of the U.S. nuclear program."

From 1965 to 1969, however, Weinberg's molten salt reactor experiment had operated successfully, in the later months with thorium-derived U-233 fuel. By 1973, with Weinberg gone, molten salt was rejected, and thorium was dead. Rickover's uranium-based industrial empire was preserved. any cheaper, safer and environment-friendly alternative was shelved.

Now, forty years later, the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is again emerging as one of the six “Generation Four” nuclear power technologies now viewed as most promising alternatives to traditional light water reactors.

Without going too far into technical details, the LFTR would almost certainly produce electricity cheaper than coal, because of lower capital and fuel costs; use a fuel that is in almost inexhaustible supply, both in the U.S. and elsewhere; operate continuously, in baseload or peaking mode, for up to 30 years; be factory-built and deployed in compact 100-megawatt modules close to the end use of the power; contribute nothing to air or water pollution and need no water for operation; safely consume long-lived transuranic waste products from current nuclear fission reactors; produce high-temperature process heat that can make hydrogen fuel for vehicles; and be walkaway safe.

This is not pie in the sky. The physics is sound, and every part of the LFTR has been successfully tested. What has not been accomplished is the efficient integration of all of the technology features into a marketable product.

The reason it has not is the determined opposition of companies that offer competing nuclear technologies: either light water reactors like the current improved version of Vermont Yankee, the AP-1000, or liquid metal fast reactors like the Russian BR-600, or exotic helium cooled pebble bed reactors under development in China.

Most of the present anti-nuclear groups are so mindlessly opposed to anything nuclear that they’ll probably denounce the LFTR if and when it appears. Still, more rational anti-nuclear groups like the Sierra Club, which is terrified at the menace of global warming, could possibly find in the LFTR the “different approach” that would win their support (and put coal out of business.)

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John McClaughry, formerly a nuclear reactor physicist, is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute (www.ethanallen.org).

 Meredith Angwin is director of the  Energy Education Project which is part of the Ethan Allen Institute.

Note from Meredith: When speaking about the LFTR, I always want to be sure people are aware of Dr. Robert Hargraves excellent book: Thorium, Energy Cheaper Than Coal.

New EPA Radiation Guidelines: Please Comment Today or Tomorrow

New Guidelines for Response to Radioactivity Releases

The EPA published new guidelines for response to radioactivity releases.  These guidelines can be considered to be "in light of" Fukushima, where hasty evacuations caused hundreds of deaths.  Here's  the EPA announcement.  Tomorrow is the deadline for comments on these guidelines.
You can email comments to:
a-and-r-docket@epa.gov
Be sure to mention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2007-0268.

EPA and IAEA

An ANS blog post describes the guidelines: New EPA Guidelines for Response to Radioactivity Releases by Jim Hopf.  Among other things, the new guidelines say that a public dose level of 2000 mrem the first year and 500 mrem in subsequent years is the guideline for evacuations.  Apparently, this is not much of a change from previous guidelines.

Meanwhile, the IAEA has issued a publication called Actions to Protect the Public in an Emergency due to Severe Conditions at a Light Water Reactors. (Note: that link leads to a long pdf which will take time to download.)  The IAEA publication might be considered the international version of the EPA proposed guidelines. It seems more complete in its analysis, and more liberal in its guidelines for health and safety.

Okay.  I haven't done the hard work of comparing these two documents, but it seems that both sets of guidelines are well thought out. The EPA document has been broadly attacked, and it is worth supporting it with a brief email. I did.

A little context on the numbers. You can get about 500 mrem a year by living in the granite hills around here, for heaven's sake. According to the NRC, the average American gets 620 mrem per year: half from background and half from medical, air travel, etc. Move uphill on a granite mountain and the background dose will surely go up.

Hargraves Review of the EPA Guidelines

Dr. Robert Hargraves has reviewed the EPA and IAEA documents, and this is the email he wrote to the EPA in support of their new guidelines. Basically, he concludes that the EPA document is over conservative.

Dr. Robert Hargraves
author
THORIUM Energy cheaper than coal

EPA,

I appreciate the importance of your work to guide emergency response in the event of a radiological emergency. The lack of such guidelines for Fukushima drastically increased the harm to the public from overly aggressive evacuation and relocation. Having rational guidelines in place will strike a balance between radiological harm and relocation harm. You published PAG Manual, http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/er/pag-manual-interim-public-comment-4-2-2013.pdf and asked for comments.

The IAEA has just published a similar document, Actions to Protect the Public in an Emergency due to Severe Conditions at a Light Water Reactor, http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/EPR-NPP_PPA_web.pdf. I recommend that the EPA draft document be compared to this IAEA document and that the differences be explained, rationalized, or eliminated. It makes little sense for documents from EPA and IAEA to differ. Why should US guidelines be so different from international guidelines?

The differences are enormous. The EPA guideline document is far too conservative. For example, on page 7 of the EPA PAG draft, relocation of the public is recommended if radiation doses will exceed 20 mSv in the first year, or 5 mSv/year thereafter.

"2 rem (20 mSv) projected dose first year
Subsequent years, 0.5 rem (5 mSv)/year
projected dose"

In the IAEA document, page 59, relocation is recommended only for radiation doses exceeding 200 mSv/year (25 microSv/hour).

EPA's guidelines are excessively conservative, by a factor of 10 (200 mSv/20 mSv) in the first year, and a factor of 40 (200 mSv/5 mSv) in the subsequent years. Repeating my observation...

EPA RECOMMENDED DOSE LIMITS ARE TOO LOW BY A FACTOR OF 10 TO 40 !

Over 1000 people died near Fukushima from the stress of unnecessary relocation. The EPA-recommended guidelines will cause similar, unnecessary public harm in a US radiological emergency.

I recommend that the EPA review its draft recommendations and set radiological dose exposure limits based on evidence of observed public harm from ionizing radiation.

LFTRs, a Disruptive Technology; Guest Post by Fred Moreno

This is a letter written to me and Robert Hargraves, which I obtained permission to share on my blog.  I have edited it a little:

Dear Robert:

Thanks for your book Thorium Energy Cheaper than Coal which I have just completed.  Besides providing a further education on the topic, in reading the first page reviews, I saw one by Meredith Angwin which caused a distant memory to light up... I found her email address and we have struck up a conversation of shared interests.

I was motivated to write after reading your appendix with the paper that again retraces the history of LWRs and the evolution of the latest generation systems from Westinghouse et al.  Their investment causes them to have little interest in any new technology that may detract from their established history and embedded corporate strategic heading.  As you know, this is common in companies/industries that grow long in tooth.

Disruptive Technologies

If you are not aware of the work of Clayton Christensen at the Harvard Business School, you should review his work on "disruptive innovation" in light of the Westinghouse strategy and disruptive characteristics created by LFTR.  In short, Christensen showed through research that markets change need, and differing needs cause changes in buyer preference which old suppliers can not adjust to meet. So they die.  He started with disk drives, and broadened his research.

Some examples:

In disk drives, for years the driver was lower cost per megabyte which meant huge disk drives.  I am

sure you remember the refrigerator size drives, lined up in rows, that serviced IBM 360's at computer centers to which we brought stacks of punch cards.  Mini-computers (DEC VAX being most notable example) could be put in a closet so that small hard disk drives were preferred despite much higher $/MB cost.  Small size was more important.  The 8 inch Winchester and then 5 inch Winchester drives emerged, and a whole new industry of disk drive companies thrived.  Interestingly, IBM did not make the transition, and the 8 inch guys could not transition to 5 inch who could not transition to 3 inch shock hardened units for lap tops.  Once established, the established players could not match the cost structure and demands of the next smaller step.

Research showed this happened in the past again and again. American clipper ships were unsurpassed in ability to sail around the Horn at low cost with high reliability. Steam ships were unreliable, expensive, and exploded.  But clipper ships could not navigate rivers and canals, and it was on the Mississippi River and elsewhere that steamships found a solid footing and matured to eventually take over.  Number of clipper ship companies that made the transition:  zero.

Earthmoving was dominated by huge steam shovels.  Figure of merit: dollars per cubic yard of soil moved.  Bigger was better.  Until the post WWII housing boom when somebody cobbled together a small hydraulic powered scoop that fitted on the back of a Ford rubber tire ag tractor and was driven by the agricultural power take off coupling.  It was a kludge, but for cutting trenches around tract houses, it beat hand work by miles.  Time goes on, and hydraulic backhoes have become huge and dominant in earth moving.  Survivors from the steam shovel days: a couple that now make huge drag lines for open pit mining.

Avant Loader in Sweden

Bigger seems better, until it isn't

You see the pattern is clear in the context of LFTR: The proposed GEN III huge "modular" LWRs are derelicts of the past.  They must be bypassed because the market demands something with different requirements - mass production, easily shipped and quickly erected at smaller, easier to find sites, economy from production line manufacture instead of economies of scale, and all the other benefits you know so well.

So as you pursue your quest for LFTR, and given your bully pulpit, I suggest you incorporate the lessons of "disruptive innovation" to show that costs, risks, performance, and other benefits arise from adaptation to the changes in market demand.   "Disruptive innovation" needs to be a primary strategic element of LFTR commercialization attracting a new generation of business entrepreneurs not bound to the views of the past.  It is a message that rings strongly with the venture capital set, all of whom have carefully read Christensen's work.   It needs to be part of the LFTR equation.

Sincerely,

Fred Moreno, a retired Yankee Techie now resident on the SW coastline of Western Australia

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 I worked with the author, Fred Moreno, at Acurex in the 70s.  Moreno has a BSME from University of California and an MSME from Stanford University. He retired from his position as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Silicon Valley technology company. The company made robotic systems for use in the semiconductor manufacturing business.  Moreno now lives in Australia.

Radiation Superstition: Guest Post by Bob Hargraves

Radiation Superstition by Robert Hargraves

Nearly a million people each year die of breathing particulates from burning coal; the climate temperature may increase 2°C this century; more than a billion people have no electricity.  Yet within

our reach is a solution to these global crises of increasing air pollution deaths, climate change, and the

Coal Mine, Wyoming

growing populations of nations trapped in energy poverty.

The welcome growth of the global middle class increases energy demand. If the world's economy prospers enough to allow everyone to enjoy just half of the electricity benefits that Americans now take for granted, world electric power generation will triple. Most electricity will come from coal burning, which grew 8% worldwide in 2011. Germany leads the way, building more coal plants. Wind and solar power are too intermittent and too expensive to displace coal worldwide.

Nuclear power is the solution within reach; it's safe and affordable, with low environmental impact. Yet opposition to it borders on superstition, defined by Merriam-Webster as a "belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation ... a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary".  Let's explore evidence.

People rationally fear possible accidents spreading deadly radioactive materials. Indeed massive doses of radiation did kill 38 emergency workers at Chernobyl, and the fallout of short-lived iodine resulted in 4000 cases of thyroid cancer and 15 deaths. However there is no evidence of the thousands of hypothetical deaths predicted by extrapolation of deadly exposures to lower radiation doses. Opponents of nuclear power have now hyped this death number up to one million, without observable evidence.

Low-level radiation

Using simplistic mathematical extrapolations from the effects of high-radiation accidents, nuclear power opponents claim that no amount of radiation is safe -- not even the low-level natural radiation that comes from the sky and from earth's radioactive potassium, uranium, and thorium created billions of years ago. Potassium is in our food and our bodies. Rocks contains the thorium and uranium that decays to radon or fuels electric power plants.

Reporting about the Fukushima accident created hysteria without basis. A UN scientific committee charged with investigating the accident's health effects reported in December that no radiation health effects have been observed among public or workers, and it cautioned against extrapolation to predict health effects of low-level radiation. Radiation superstition causes great harm. Japan is wasting billions of dollars preventing repopulation of radiologically safe areas. Hundreds have died from evacuation stress. Importing liquified natural gas to replace nuclear power has driven Japan's balance of trade negative.

People unnecessarily fear low-level radiation from accident-dispersed material, buried waste, or medical procedures. EPA required Yucca Mountain engineers to limit accidental releases to just 1/20th of natural radiation for 10,000 years. Dental X-ray technicians routinely drape lead blankets on patients to protect them, but it would take over 10,000 such X-rays to observe any health effect.

Prolonged radiation exposure is safe at natural environmental levels; each cell rapidly repairs DNA strand breaks: one per second per cell. Early life evolved when the natural radiation rate was 3 times greater than now. Today people living in places where natural radiation is 5 times normal exhibit no more cancers. People living in mile-high Denver get more cosmic radiation, but exhibit no more cancers.

Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal
Available Through Amazon

Radiation dose rates are as important as doses. High radiation rates overwhelm natural cellular defenses. Doses deadly to Chernobyl workers would have no effect if spread over a lifetime. Cancers are destroyed by multiple concentrated radiation treatments, allowing time between for less-irradiated tissue to recover. In 2012 MIT radiation researchers discovered no DNA damage from exposure rates 30 times as great as natural radiation, and Lawrence Berkeley Lab scientists actually observed how low-level radiation stimulated repair within cells. Long-term, low-dose radiation is benign.

Nuclear industry and shipyard workers exposed to low-level radiation developed fewer cancers. Accidental contamination of building steel by recycling a medical radiation source exposed 8000 Taiwan residents to radiation 7 times natural levels over 30 years, and cancer rates were dramatically reduced. Last year the Dose Response Journal and the American Nuclear Society published compendia of articles evidencing how low-level radiation is benign or healthful.

The vague radiation regulation, "as low as reasonably achievable" encourages ever more costly impediments to affordable nuclear power. This could be fixed with "as high as reasonably safe" limits that are set with evidence, as practiced for other environmental hazards. Nuclear power can solve our energy, climate, and poverty crises. Should we forsake the future of the planet by clinging to a superstition?

Background of this post:

This post first appeared on Rod Adams blog, Atomic Insights.

On Adams' blog, you can follow many related links about this post.

The post was written as an op-ed, but rejected by a large number of papers, despite its reasonable length and tone, and Hargraves' impressive resume.

On my own blog: Monday Blue Ribbon to Robert Hargraves
Vermont Yankee Explained (the animation) by Robert Hargraves
Plus, Hargraves excellent suggestion that Vernon leave Vermont and join New Hampshire (what's a river, anyhow?)


Hargraves Resumé:

Author: THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal
Energy policy study leader: ILEAD@Dartmouth
Vice president: Boston Scientific
Management consultant: Arthur D Little
Vice president: Metropolitan Life
President, DTSS
Assistant professor of mathematics: Dartmouth College

PhD, physics, Brown University
AB, mathematics and physics, Dartmouth College

Radiation Fears: Shaffer and Hargraves

In the past two days, Howard Shaffer and Bob Hargraves have written powerful blog posts about  fear of radiation.  Also, we have a new host for the Nuclear Blog Carnival.

The Anti-Nuclear Movement

Fluoride protester.
Not in Vermont. We don't have palm trees.

At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Shaffer posted Understanding the anti-nuclear movement: Pieces of the Puzzle.     Vermont has a highly visible anti-nuclear movement, a low rate of child vaccinations, and recent debates about water fluoridation (I kid you not).  Facts don't matter very much in this context.

Visit the anti-nuclear world-view with Shaffer. It has some virtues (I don't let anyone push me around!), but is mostly a huge drawback for society as a whole.

Radiation Superstition

Chiba Refinery in flames

At Atomic Insights, Rod Adams hosts an op-ed by Robert Hargraves: Radiation Superstition. The Chiba Refinery burned for ten days after the Japanese earthquake---ignored by the media.  Dose-response curves---ignored by the media.  LNG dangers---ignored by the media.  The superstition about harm from small amounts of radiation--constantly trumpeted by the media.

Hargraves has a Ph.D. in Physics and was vice president of Boston Scientific.  He recently spoke to the ChineseAcademy of Sciences  about thorium reactors.    In the run-up to March 11, Hargraves sent this op-ed to many prestigious journals, and was rejected by all of them.  See the list at the end of the article.

We pro-nuclear people don't try to speak only to an echo chamber of other pro-nuclear people.  That's just what happens after the main stream press rejects us. Many reporters would rather quote an anti-nuclear activist than a pro-nuclear scientist.  I guess they are more likely to get a an attention-grabbing quote from an activist.

The Carnival

Carnival 147 of Nuclear Bloggers is up now.  This is the first time it has been hosted at the blog Things Worse Than Nuclear Power.  This site describes itself as "Comparing energy sources---the take from a couple MIT engineers."  There's a new look to this Carnival. For example, it  features quick-links, separate from the summary descriptions, so you don't have to scroll very far to decide what to read.  The list is right up-front.  Great job, Things-worse!  Lots of links to important posts on Fukushima, of course.  It's that time of year....

Friendly Nuclear Bloggers, Carl Sagan, and More

Lifestyles of the Galaxies Next Door
Compendium of Galaxies from the Spitzer Space Telescope
(My tribute to Carl Sagan)

On Sunday night, I took part in an Atomic Show podcast with Rod Adams, Margaret Harding, Andrea Jennetta, and Cal Abel.   The title of the podcast is Atomic Optimists,  and you can hear it or download at the link.

The group was very optimistic about the future of nuclear energy. We are a group of friends, at least the on-line variety, and we had a great time talking about our favorite subject: nuclear energy.

We were optimistic, as reflected in the title of the podcast: Atomic Optimists.  However, we weren't optimistic about everything. As Rod Adams wrote: We worried together about the fact that some leaders in our nation seem to be happy to be directing a post industrial economy despite the fact that people still want things, not just services like those provided by lawyers and accountants.

Carl Sagan

Shortly after the podcast, my friend Bob Hargraves, author of Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal, sent me a quote from Carl Sagan that seems very relevant to Rod's comment.  Here's the quote from Sagan:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carnival 144

Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers number 144 is now up, hosted at ANS Nuclear Cafe and compiled by Will Davis.  This Carnival takes on the big picture (is biomass green? do radiophobia and chemophobia have similar roots?), the small picture (Vermont Yankee, sigh), and the really big picture (fusion, economics). And more, much more!  Visit the Carnival and have a good time!

The Vermont Renewable Scene: It's Awkward (for me)

On Saturday, December 1, the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network (VECAN) held its annual conference at the Lake Morey Resort. The theme of the conference was meeting Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan goals of 90% renewables for all energy uses by 2050.  If you remember, the Comprehensive Energy Plant was pushed through by the Shumlin administration in 2011. I blogged about the plan extensively, for example, in the post Hurry Up. Hurry Up.  Renewables. Don't Pay Attention to the Gas Pipeline.

Talking to the Press

The day before the VECAN meeting about the renewables goal, John Gregg of the Valley News emailed me to ask if I would be willing to comment on whether the 90% goal was reasonable.  He emailed that Jon Wolper was attending the conference and writing the article.  I emailed back that of course I would be willing to comment. I have a great deal of respect for John Gregg, and I was very happy to be asked.

Actually, I didn't just say: "Yes, I'll comment." I wrote a long email to Gregg and Wolper about renewables.

The day after the meeting, on Sunday, the Jon Wolper article appeared in the Valley News: Vermont Energy Advocates at Fairlee Conference Eye 90 Percent by 2050 Goal.   It includes a quote from my email. I think it is an excellent article.

The article starts:

Fairlee — For a group of about 300 energy officials and advocates brainstorming how to accomplish a certain state plan yesterday, adjectives reigned.
They said that Vermont’s Comprehensive Energy Plan, which is meant to get the state to 90 percent renewable energy usage by 2050, was bold. It was huge. Audacious. Ambitious. Extraordinary.
Also, essential.

The article ends with the following quote from me:

“No, it is not possible by 2050,” wrote Meredith Angwin, a physical chemist, in an email. ....
“It may never be possible," she said.

I think the Valley News article was clear-eyed about the challenges.

Talking to the Ethan Allen Institute

When I'm quoted in the press, I usually send a link to various people at the Ethan Allen Institute. The Institute is the parent organization for my Energy Education Project.  Rob Roper, the new president of the Institute, emailed me after he received the link to the Valley News article.  Roper said he thought that I had probably said more than "not possible...may never be possible."  Did I give my reasons for "not possible" in the email I sent the reporters?

I assured him I had sent quite a lengthy email to the Valley News, with reasons and links and everything. I sent him a copy of the email.

In Roper's opinion, the incomplete quote in the article was used to portray me as a "negative Nellie." Roper has written a letter to the editor about my quote.

Talking to my Blog Readers

At this point, I will close the blog post with an edited version of the email that I sent to the Valley News.

• In terms of the Valley News, I know that reporters have space constraints, and I don't feel I was quoted badly.  
• In terms of the Ethan Allen Institute, I understand Roper's point.  

So it is up to you, dear readers, to tell me what you think of the quote and the email.

Here it is:
***********

Hello Jon and John

Thank you for asking me for my opinion!

About 90% renewable energy...your substantive question...no, it is not possible by 2050.  It may never BE possible, unless our "behavior modification" includes dropping our population to far less than it is now.  You see, renewable energy is pretty land-intensive, and we just can't devote that sort of land area to it and keep any type of society as we have it now.
--------
Note: the original meeting announcement said this about the keynote speaker:

 Dr. Martenson will speak to why he believes a 90 percent renewable energy goal is now a necessity. 
"Getting to 90 percent renewable by 2050 is critical. To get there, however, will require major behavior modification by governments, corporations and individuals.."
-----------
I encourage you to look at this free book on the web...Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air

http://www.withouthotair.com/

You can download the book, or the synopsis, for free. My son-in-law, a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia, uses this book as one of the texts for his first-level energy course.  MacKay is a professor at Cambridge and  scientific advisor to UK on climate change.  I am not recommending some off-the-wall book here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._C._MacKay

Closer to home, you might want to interview Dr. Robert Hargraves, who has a recent self-published book on a type of new reactors (thorium reactors) which has gotten wonderful reviews by Nobel-prize winners.  Hargraves lives in Hanover.

Hargraves recently spoke in China to a very good reception by some very important people
http://energyfromthorium.com/2012/11/04/lftr-leader-jiang-mianheng-addresses-itheo/

And he gave a recent seminar at Dartmouth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS2JrWa_Wkc

Here's his book
http://www.amazon.com/THORIUM-energy-cheaper-than-coal/dp/1478161299

The important thing, from your point of view, is that the first half of the Hargraves book expands on MacKay's book.  If renewables can supply what we need in the future, then we don't need thorium or any nuclear source, or really, any energy-dense source at all (coal, etc.)  Except that...renewables can't do it for a modern society. Worth reading the book or watching the first part of the Dartmouth talk.

Well, this is long enough!  I just hope it is helpful!

Best,
Meredith

Engineering Adventures with Nevil Shute

Poster for No Highway in the Sky
from Wikipedia

Once again, I will be leading a course at ILEAD at Dartmouth.  This time I will lead a 4-session course in January called Engineering Adventures with Nevil Shute.  Below is a reprint of  the ILEAD catalog description of the class.

*******************

 Engineering Adventures with Nevil Shute

In this course we will read two of Nevil Shute’s  lesser-known books: Slide Rule (his autobiography) and No Highway, (which presaged the failure of the early De Havilland Comet airplane).

Based on these books, we will discuss the troubles that can befall engineering projects.  The books include issues of changing specifications, the difference between private enterprise and "government work," and how quirky individuals affect the outcome of projects.

The course will be participatory. We will discuss issues from the books, then we will trade "war stories": similar problems and solutions with our own projects.

The material will be of interest to engineers and non-engineers. If you have been involved in a big project, such as building a house, you have the background to enjoy this course.

Discussion group members should plan to read both books.

************************************

MEREDITH ANGWIN has a MS in Physical Chemistry. Though most of her life was spent in nuclear energy research and problem-solving, she also worked extensively with fossil fuels.  She likes to talk about technical subjects in a relatively non-technical fashion. For many years, her job title was "project manager." Consequently, she often wonders how projects get managed.

***************************************

In this class, we are also going to watch the movie, No Highway in the Sky, in an optional extra class session.

I have led courses at ILEAD before, specifically:

• All Around the Coal Boiler
• Energy Safari with Robert Hargraves. 

Robert Hargraves did most of the work with Energy Safari.  I was co-leader of the course, and I have several posts about it on this blog.

Leading a course like this, as opposed to a leading a course in energy technology, will be a new adventure for me. Wish me luck!  I will post about the course occasionally.

Thanksgiving Cheerfulness: Hargraves on LFTRs plus DOE Awards Cofunding for SMR

For Thanksgiving, I want to share two cheerful looks into the future of nuclear energy.

First, Robert Hargraves presentation: Thorium, Energy Cheaper Than Coal,  on November 9 at the Jones Seminar on Science and Technology at Dartmouth College  Here's a link to his book, too.




Second, a link to the Business Wire announcement that Babcock and Wilcox has been awarded Department of Energy cofunding for the mPower SMR (Small Modular Reactors).  Small, affordable, and with lots of passive safety features.  This may be the reactor of the future.

Have a good Thanksgiving!

Robert Hargraves Presentations on Thorium Power

Radio Tomorrow

Save the date and time.

Tomorrow, Thursday October 25 at at 11 a.m, Dr. Robert Hargraves will discuss his book Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal, on WDEV radio in Vermont.  It will be streaming on the Internet.

Hargraves will be on Rob Roper's show, which is co-sponsored by the Ethan Allen Institute.  The Ethan Allen Institute is the home of the Energy Education Project: I'm the director of that project.

Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal is a very important book.  I reviewed it very favorably on this site. I also recommend Hargraves own site about the book, which includes endorsements from winners of the Nobel Prize in physics.

Hargraves will be on the radio for the entire hour, from 11 to 12, and you can listen from your computer by clicking either flash or no-flash at the bottom left on the WDEV website.  You can also call in to ask questions: the number is 802.244.1777.

Learn about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). Ask questions of Hargraves.  Try to catch this show!

Dr. Robert Hargraves

Engineering Seminar November 9

On November 9, 3:30 p.m.,  Hargraves will give an engineering seminar at Dartmouth on Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal.  Obviously, you can't come to the seminar unless you live near Dartmouth. However, Dartmouth will post a video of the talk later in the month.  When they do, I will link to it.  If you live within striking distance, try to attend this seminar.  I'll be there.

In Between: China

From October 29 through November 1, Hargraves will be at the Thorium Energy Conference in Shanghai, giving a talk on Thorium, Energy Cheaper than Coal. Both China and India are ahead of the United States on advanced fuel cycle reactors like the LFTR.  But that's another blog post for another day!  Meanwhile, if you don't want to travel to China, consider listening to the Rob Roper show tomorrow or stopping by Dartmouth's School of Engineering about two weeks from now.

A Book I Loved: THORIUM: Energy Cheaper Than Coal by Bob Hargraves

Disclosure

First of all, let me acknowledge that I know Dr. Robert Hargraves and have worked with him on various energy projects, such as co-teaching the Energy Safari course last fall, and founding the Coalition for Energy Solutions.  In the acknowledgements at the end of THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal, Hargraves thanks me and my husband, George Angwin (among others) for editorial reviews of an earlier draft of the book.

I wanted to say this upfront, because I think this is a terrific book, and I would think the same if I didn't know Bob Hargraves at all.  This is not just a book about thorium reactors. It's a book about energy policy and energy choices.  Even if you don't care a bit about thorium, you will benefit by reading this book.

You can buy the book at Amazon: THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal.

Hargraves also has a useful website about this book: THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal.  In this website, he includes the chapter headings, giving you an idea of the sweep of this book.  A partial list of chapters:

• why we need energy (energy and prosperity)
• analysis of energy sources 
• the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor LFTR
• safety 
• sustainability 
• energy policy

Cheaper than Coal and why it matters

The idea behind this book is not fear.  It is not about doom from existing nuclear plants, or even from global warming. The title tells much of the thesis: nuclear energy can be cheaper than coal.  Why is this important?

Prosperity and birth rate,  from Hargraves

Coal was the fuel that brought the industrial revolution and made Western nations prosperous. Now that Western nations are prosperous, we are beginning to turn away from coal, at least to some extent.  However, many developing nations are following the Western path to prosperity: "We'll start with coal."  If the wealthy countries wag their fingers at the developing world about coal, they quite rightly get fingers wagged back at them: "When our people are even half as prosperous as your people, we will enjoy a conversation with you about optimum energy sources.  Until then, you rich guys, don't be such a bunch of hypocrites."

Throughout the book, Hargraves emphasizes that nuclear power (specifically LFTRs) can undercut the price of coal, or the price of cheap natural gas. Hargraves stresses that carbon taxes are not going to be a global solution to the problems of fossil fuel use. LFTRs can be inexpensive and they produce almost no greenhouse gases or air pollution. They can be a large part of the solution.  People all over the world will attempt to lift themselves out of poverty.  Hopefully, people will use nuclear energy instead of coal, and thereby make a better world for all of us.

Technologies Reviewed

Fossil or nuclear?  Are those really the choices?

For those who may say: "We don't need fossil or nuclear, we can do everything with renewables" Hargraves has a well-researched answer.  The book includes almost 100 pages of "doing the numbers" on renewables, and showing they are not a solution for a modern society's energy needs.

One feature of the Hargraves book is that he estimates costs for the different renewable technologies, and explains his estimates.  David MacKay's excellent book, Sustainable Energy--without the hot air, also analyzes renewable technologies. However, MacKay's book mainly asks whether the renewable technologies will provide enough energy for society (without using all the land for energy production). Hargraves estimates the costs, because, after all, the book is titled: THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal.  Hargraves knows that people will choose inexpensive energy to lift themselves from poverty to prosperity.  Cost matters.

Though Richard Martin's book Superfuel was all about LFTRs, the technology of LFTRs was not particularly well-expounded in that book. In THORIUM, there are over 100 pages about LFTRs. The information includes charts and illustrations, description of the different varieties of LFTR, information about the technical challenges that LFTRs have overcome, and about many of the technical challenges remaining.  I don't know anywhere else you could obtain this information so clearly and concisely. The information is out there, no doubt, in thorium forums and papers (and Hargraves references these).  But if you want a quick-course on LFTRs, not a personal-research-project on LFTRs, this is the book for you.

Hargraves also reviews other types of advanced reactors: Integral Fast Reactors, pebble beds, etc.  All sections of the book contain very helpful illustrations (and lots of them) and references. The list of references and bibliography is truly impressive.

Technology Overstated?

I can hear it.  Somebody is going to say that I have been taken in by a paper reactor.  Do I know that the LFTR will work? Do I know that the LFTR development task section of Hargraves' book (pages 227-247) lists all the necessary tasks? Do I know that all the development tasks, listed or not, will be completed?  Of course not. I don't know these things, and neither does Hargraves, and neither does anybody else. I also know that materials development work is often much harder than it looks at the beginning.  LFTR development is not certain.

Molten Salt FLIBe

However, several advanced reactor concepts are in development at this time. New types of reactors will be developed in the near future.  In my opinion, the Hargraves book makes an excellent case for expanded work on the LFTR.

My One Gripe

Early in this post, I said:

This is not just a book about thorium reactors. It's a book about energy policy and energy choices.  Even if you don't care a bit about thorium, you will benefit by reading this book.

As a matter of fact, that statement also expresses my one major problem with the book.  The sections on energy policy, renewables and costs are top-notch (as are the sections on advanced reactors).  The energy policy sections should interest every citizen and every policy maker.  But will  the average citizen or policy maker pick up a book about advanced reactors?

I think that this book consists of two fine books packed in one cover:

• a book on energy choices and energy policy 
• a book on advanced reactors, especially the LFTR  

Of course these two topics are related, but putting them in one book makes a rather thick book (470 pages). Though it is well-written and well-illustrated, I think its size alone is a bit intimidating.

I urge you to buy it.  You can read the whole thing and enjoy it. Or you can just read the sections of interest to you and use the rest as reference.

In either case, this book is a major achievement, and should be on the bookshelf of people interested in energy in general, renewable energy, nuclear energy, and advanced reactors.  In other words, it will be helpful to pretty much everybody.

Reminder: You can buy the book at Amazon: THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal.

Note: The book cover is by Suzy Hobbs Baker of Popatomic Studios.  I am on the board of directors of Baker's not-for-profit, and I love her work.