.
**********
Editorial Comment: The documents posted herein are the product of our Global-Warming Thorium-Fission Working Group whose activities are chronicled in the Third Category of Section 6 of this Bulletin Board. The Third Category is entitled “REPRISE: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action” and comprises 18 postings from 3/15/2019 to 6/13/2019.
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From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
Subject: Reading Liberally Working Group’s Letter Sent April 5 To Democrat Presidential Candidates Re Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
Date: To be sent pre-dawn on Sun, April 7, 2019
Attachment:
Saboteurs deleted the foregoing document on 2/18/2022 - Here is a restoration -
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Dear Friends,
As you may recall, for the past 9 months I have been taking a sabbatical to write a second book, this one on the subject of “The National Audubon Society Executes Great Salt Lake Death Warrant.”
But that during the sabbatical, everyone would be free to propose Ad Hoc meetings (of which we have had several).
And that our regular “Short-Fuse Procedures” would be available for which action might be required before a regular meeting could be scheduled. [Pursuant to which our Great Salt Lake Working Group operated 2016-2017.]
We currently have two such Working Groups to which each of you was invited to participate.
This is an interim report on an action taken by our Working Group on Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action to which each of you was invited to participate by our E-mail of 3/16/2019.
********************
Certified-Mail Letter Sent To Democrat Presidential Candidates 4/5/2019
Attached is a sample copy of the certified-mail letter that was sent to as many of the Democrat Presidential Candidates on 4/5/2019 as had physical addresses that could be ascertained.
[NB: The list of names came from https://balletopedia.com’s roster of Democrat Presidential Candidates who had either officially declared or formed an Exploratory Committee. Please also note that to date, Joe Biden has NOT even formed an Exploratory Committee.]
Additional letters will be sent to candidates as they declare or as they form an Exploratory Committee.
IMPORTANT – you will note that the letter begins with a subject – “Re: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action - A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”
The Working Group thought the second part of the subject was necessary to ensure that the letter would be read by the Candidate or at least her/his Chief Policy Wonk -- rather than sent to the Most Junior Intern for disposal, probably without being read.
Drafting suitable communications for the Presidential Debate Moderators will be one of the many projects undertaken by the Working Group in the near future.
[Many reports on the Working Group’s activities have been reported on this website at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 546&t=1778.]
********************
USPS Certified-Mail Tracking Numbers
There follow immediately below the USPS Certified-Mail Tracking Numbers for the letters that were sent 4/5/2019 to the Candidates.
********************
E-mails To Presidential Candidates or Campaign Headquarters Without Physical Addresses
Letters were sent to the Campaign Headquarters of each candidate for whom such a physical address could be found.
For current office holders, a letter was also sent to the candidate at the address of the official office that the candidate holds.
One non-office holder (Marianne Williamson) had no physical address that could be located. She was sent an e-mail earlier today providing a Heads Up that the other candidates have been sent letters and that a sample can be downloaded from the posting of this e-mail in the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.
There were three office holders (Sen. Kamala Harris, Rep. Tim Ryan and Sen. Elizabeth Warren) whose Campaign “Headquarters” could only be contacted by e-mail. Each of their Campaign “Headquarters” will be sent a Heads Up when USPS reports her/his letter was delivered to the address of the official office that s/he holds -- so that the Heads Up can reference both that letter and the sample that can be downloaded from the posting of this e-mail in the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.
********************
If you have any questions or comments, I’m sure that none of you is shy!!!
Your friend,
John K.
PS -- To un-subscribe, please press “reply” and type “deletion requested.”
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USPS CERTIFIED-MAIL TRACKING NUMBERS FOR LETTERS SENT 4/5/2019
***************************
The Honorable Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator - New Jersey
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
540 Broad Street
Newark, N.J. 07102
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0068
The Honorable Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator - New Jersey
717 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0051
***************************
The Honorable Peter P.M. Buttigieg
Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
County-City Building
227 West Jefferson Blvd.
South Bend, IN 46601
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0075
[No contact info for Presidential Campaign, even by e-mail, per http://www.peteforamerica.com.]
***************************
The Honorable Julián Castro
Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 501
San Antonio, TX 78292
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0082
***************************
The Honorable John K. Delaney
Former U.S. Representative - Maryland’s 6th Congressional District
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 70835
Bethesda, MD 20813
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0099
***************************
The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard
U.S. Representative - Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 75255
Kapolei, Hawaii 96707
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0112
The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard
U.S. Representative - Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District
1433 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0105
***************************
The Honorable Kirsten E. Gillibrand
U.S. Senator - New York
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Frear Building
2 Third Street
Troy, NY 12180
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0136
The Honorable Kirsten E. Gillibrand
U.S. Senator - New York
478 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0129
***************************
The Honorable Maurice R. (“Mike”) Gravel
Former U.S. Senator - Alaska
[Former Senator Gravel officially declared as a candidate 4/2/2019. However, his announcement said that he did NOT expect to win and WOULD DROP OUT immediately after the debates. His “campaign” has NO CONTACT INFORMATION!!!]
***************************
The Honorable Kamala D. Harris
U.S. Senator - California
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0143
Early on, there were news media reports that Sen. Harris had announced that she would establish a campaign headquarters in Baltimore MD but so far, it is only possible to contact her campaign by e-mail per https://kamalaharris.org/ and per https://action.kamalaharris.org/.
***************************
The Honorable John W. Hickenlooper
Former Governor of Colorado
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 6377
Denver, CO 80206
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0150
***************************
The Honorable Jay R. Inslee
Governor of the State of Washington
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Inslee for America
P.O. Box 21725
Seattle, WA 98111
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0044
The Honorable Jay R. Inslee
Governor of the State of Washington
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504-0002
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0167
***************************
The Honorable Amy J. Klobuchar
U.S. Senator - Minnesota
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Amy For America
P.O. Box 18360
Minneapolis, MN 55418
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0266
The Honorable Amy J. Klobuchar
U.S. Senator - Minnesota
425 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0259
***************************
The Honorable Wayne M. Messam
Mayor of Miramar, FL
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Wayne For America
P.O. Box 278080
Miramar, FL 33027
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0280
The Honorable Wayne M. Messam
Mayor of Miramar, FL
2300 Civic Center Place
Miramar, FL 33025
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0273
***************************
The Honorable Robert Francis (“Beto”) O’Rourke
Former U.S. Representative – Texas' 16th Congressional District
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 3628
El Paso, TX 79923
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0174
***************************
The Honorable Timothy J. Ryan
U.S. Representative - Ohio’s 13th Congressional District
1126 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0228
[Rep. Ryan’s Presidential Campaign can only be contacted by e-mail, per https://secure.timryanforamerica.com/.
***************************
The Honorable Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator - Vermont
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Bernie 2020
P.O. Box 391
Burlington, VT 05402
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0198
The Honorable Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator - Vermont
332 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0181
***************************
The Honorable Elizabeth A. Warren
U.S. Senator - Massachusetts
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0204
[Sen. Warren’s Presidential Campaign can only be contacted by e-mail, per https://elizabethwarren.com/contact-us/.]
***************************
Ms. Marianne D. Williamson
[Ms. Williamson’s Presidential Campaign can only be contacted by e-mail, per https://www.marianne2020.com/connect
***************************
Mr. Andrew Yang
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
Friends of Andrew Yang
P.O. Box 214 - Midtown Station
New York, NY 10018
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 0211
**************************************************************************************************************
ADDENDUM – CANDIDATE LETTERS SENT SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE FOREGOING 4/7/2019 E-MAIL
The foregoing e-mail provided USPS Certified-Mail tracking information and other data about how the 4/5/2019 Candidate Letter was sent to each of 17 candidates who had either declared or formed an exploratory committee by that date.
The foregoing e-mail also said that the Candidate Letter would also be sent to any additional candidates if and when each declared or formed an exploratory committee.
Accordingly, the Candidate Letter was sent to 7 additional candidates on the dates indicated --
--------------------
Sent 4/15/2019
The Honorable Eric M. Swalwell, Jr.
U.S. Representative - California’s 15th Congressional District
407 Canon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 1130 0000 6995 1058
The only contact information for Mr. Swalwell’s Campaign Headquarters per https://ericswalwell.com was by e-mail at info@ericswalwell.com.
Accordingly, an e-mail was sent 5/13/2019 to info@ericswalwell.com with the subject “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action” and attaching a copy of the Candidate Letter sent to his governmental office.
--------------------
Sent 5/13/2019
The Honorable Michael F. Bennet
U.S. Senator - Colorado
261 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0000 0077 9090
A Google search for “Michael Bennet Campaign Website” produced nothing useful except https://secure.actblue.com which is a website used by quite a few of the other candidates for receiving campaign contributions – but provides no contact information for any of them.
--------------------
Sent 5/13/2019
The Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
(1) His official campaign website (https://joebiden.com) had no contact capability.
(2) News reports said he was considering Philadelphia as a location for his Campaign Headquarters, but none had been established.
(3) The Biden Foundation ceased operations 4/25/2019 per https://bidenfoundation.org.
(4) If you clicked “donate” on his official website (https://joebiden.com), you were transferred to https://secure.actblue.com which, as noted immediately above vis-à-vis Michael Bennet, is a website used by quite a few candidates for receiving campaign contributions – but provides no contact information for any of them.
Accordingly, I made a token $100 contribution via https://secure.actblue.com and, sure enough, was instantly deluged with incoming e-mails from info@joebiden.com.
An e-mail was sent 5/13/2019 to info@joebiden.com with the subject “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action” and attaching a sample copy of the 4/5/2019 Candidate Letter.
--------------------
Sent 5/13/2019
The Honorable Maurice R. (“Mike”) Gravel
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
P.O. Box 1052
Olympia, WA 98507
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0000 0077 9083
As noted in the 4/7/2019 notice to our 150 members set forth at the beginning of this posting, the 4/5/2019 Candidate Letter was sent to 17 candidates who had declared or formed an advisory committee AND FOR WHOM CONTACT INFORMATION COULD BE ASCERTAINED.
As also noted in the 4/7/2019 notice, an 18th candidate had declared as a candidate. However, his announcement said that he did NOT expect to win and WOULD DROP OUT immediately after the debates. And his “campaign” had NO CONTACT INFORMATION.
However, by 5/13/2019, his campaign had rented a PO Box, so the Candidate Letter was sent to him on 5/13/2019.
--------------------
Sent 5/13/2019
The Honorable Seth W. Moulton
U.S. Representative - Massachusett’s 6th Congressional District
1127 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0000 0077 9076
Mr. Moulton’s campaign website (https://sethmoulton.com/ ) provided no contact information.
--------------------
Sent 5/27/2019
The Honorable Bill de Blasio
Mayor – New York City
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0001 2123 0876
The Honorable Bill de Blasio
Mayor – New York City
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
157 13th Street
Brooklyn, NY11215
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0001 2123 0869
--------------------
Sent 5/27/2019
The Honorable Stephen C. Bullock
Governor of Montana
Governor’s Residence
2 Carson Street
Helena, MT 59601
USPS Tracking No. = 7018 3090 0001 2123 0852
A Google search for “Stephen Bullock Campaign Website” produced nothing useful except https://secure.actblue.com which is a website used by quite a few of the other candidates for receiving campaign contributions – but provides no contact information.
REPRISE: Presidential Candidates - Global Warming - Thorium
Request to FoxNews re False Claim U.S. Is Energy Independent
.
The following e-mail speaks for itself. However, the following comments are offered --
First, the subject of the letters sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates had been “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action – A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”
Although the first debate is not scheduled until the end of June, Fox News has been interviewing several of the Democrat candidates and is scheduled to continue doing so.
Accordingly, the following e-mail to Bret Baier was used, not only to request Fox News to stop reporting the false claim that the U.S. has become energy independent, but also to request Bret Baier to ask the Democrat presidential candidates about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt – IAW our certified-mail letter to each of the candidates.
Second, it should be noted that the e-mail states that I have watched Bret Baier’s “Special Report” on Fox News for a decade.
This is because I have always monitored what all sides are saying vis-à-vis any particular issue.
Accordingly, I also watch the PBS Newshour every evening Mon-Fri.
As well as the Sunday-morning flagship political talk shows of the four major networks – (1) ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” (2) CBS’ “Face the Nation With Margaret Brennan,” (3) NBC’s “Meet the Press With Chuck Todd” and (4) “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace.”
I also monitor regularly the New York Times and Washington Post.
As well as several British publications.
And, of course, Foreign Affairs Magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
[Other sources are consulted as needed.]
---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, April 24, 2019 1:26 pm MDT
To: Bret Baier via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
Attachment:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 24, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
As one of the viewers of “Special Report w/Bret Baier” for the last decade (congratulations on its recent anniversary!!!), it is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to inform you that many of the Fox News commentators and contributors have relied on Bloomberg for a FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The reasons for writing to you even though I cannot cite “chapter and verse” vis-à-vis Special Report itself are:
(1) As the anchor of the flagship news program for Fox, you are in a position to inform all of your colleagues regarding the truth and to implore them to uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truthfulness; and
(2) Since you frequently interview Democrat presidential candidates, and since the LACK of U.S. energy independence is so crucial in terms of (A) the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on the international oil & gas market which is dominated by OPEC and, in the case of Europe, on natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC), and (B) the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt -- perhaps you could ask the Democrat presidential candidates whom you frequently interview about thorium fission IAW the 3-page letter that they received recently, a sample of which follows below.
But back to the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The most recent repetition of this FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent was made last evening by Sean Hannity about 16 minutes into his program.
[I have e-mailed Mr. Hannity separately to inform him of the problem, but am writing to you as well for the two reasons stated above.]
At least Mr. Hannity has the integrity to show the source(s) of the information that he uses and for that I congratulate him.
While making the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. had become energy independent, the TV screen was displaying Mr. Hannity’s source – Bloomberg on 12/6/2018.
That article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) claims under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
*****
However, I trust that you will uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truth by reporting this travesty and how many Fox commentators and contributors were temporarily led astray by Bloomberg.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
PS –
And, perhaps more importantly, I trust that you will ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped for such questions by the letter which follows below.
BTW, the information about the Bloomberg article appearing above was contained at the end of that letter in the asterisked footnote following the PS.
**********************************************************************************
The following letter was sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates on 4/5/2019 on behalf of a 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years in the vicinity of my Utah ski house. Assuming your website will accept virtually unlimited data, that letter (using Sen. Booker’s copy as an example) is –
Harvard Club - Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
john@johnkarls.com
April 5, 2019
The Hon. Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator – New Jersey
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
540 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Senator Booker:
Re: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise
For the past 13.5 years, I have facilitated a public-policy study group in the vicinity of my Utah ski house comprising approximately 150 members including numerous science professors and including a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge - U/Tenn.
[Our Nuclear Engineering PhD has led several of our studies over the years concerning thorium fission and other nuclear issues.]
Every time our group has focused on global warming, I have begun the discussion by asking for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily, for example, China to prevent it from bringing on stream every week one new monster-size coal-burning electrical-power generation plant.
In all of those meetings over the years, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in using military force to coerce any country into using an uneconomic energy source, thereby reducing the standard of living of its citizens.
However, luckily there is an economic energy source that is abundant and safe.
You may not be aware that thorium/fission was proved feasible in the 1960’s when the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN conducted a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor. And that President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of exploding or being utilized to produce nuclear weapons.
Both conventional uranium fission and proven thorium/fission share all of the following advantages: (a) producing no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminating the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.
However, proven thorium/fission has the following advantages over conventional uranium/fission –
[These advantages are virtually identical to those listed by Dr. Victor Stenger in The Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-s ... 92584.html.]
(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure (this is both a safety and cost factor).
(2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled (this is also both a safety and cost factor).
(3) Thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.
(4) Thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste.
(5) LFTR’s can safely consume uranium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and from spent uranium-reactor fuel rods. Indeed, the Oak Ridge MSRE in the 1960’s was able to use U-235, Pu-239 and U-233 at the same time as thorium. [NB: Since former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of NV prevented the opening of Yucca Mountain NV as the repository for our spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods, the spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods have been left on site at each uranium-nuclear plant to remain cool in the equivalent of home swimming-pools even though many of those uranium-nuclear plants are situated in high-volume air corridors!!!]
(6) Because LFTR’s are economically practical in small sizes, they can be mass-produced in factories and assembled near electrical demand so that the huge energy losses during electricity transmission are virtually eliminated -- though to replace huge uranium reactors, it would only be necessary to assemble several of the small modular thorium reactors into a larger plant.
(7) In addition, thorium is so plentiful that proven thorium supplies are capable of supplying 100% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) for more than 1,000 years. Indeed, virtually all of India’s “sand” beaches comprise thorium.
[Our calculation was 80 years of “proven” reserves of uranium for current (electricity only) usage multiplied by 3 (the minimum abundance factor of “proven” thorium reserves vs. “proven” uranium reserves) multiplied by 99 (usable thorium energy content vs. usable uranium energy content) multiplied by 5.8% (the percentage of total worldwide energy including transportation fuels, that comes from nuclear plants) = 1,378 years.]
Proven thorium/fission has all of these advantages and only needs 2-3 years of final development = the equivalent of having already produced a Ford Model T proving an automobile is feasible but still needing 2-3 years of development (and relatively-modest funding) to design a Ford Fusion for mass production.
The relatively-modest funding for the 2-3 years of final development has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
[ThEC15 was a worldwide conference on thorium research that was held in Mumbai, India, in 2015 by the Government of India and two of its agencies, BARC and NPCIL, along with HBNI and IThEO. The ThEC15 website (http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/thec15-mumbai.html) contains 127 papers and speeches by 46 speakers from 30 different nations.]
So the question you are respectfully requested to consider is whether the U.S. Government should appropriate $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
Respectfully submitted,
John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003
PS: It is well known that large volcanic eruptions will throw into the atmosphere gases and dust particles whose shading of incoming solar radiation can cool the earth for months and even years.
[This has caused some wags to remark (however, true) that Global Warming can be solved by occasional, small nuclear wars which, of course, will be much more likely if a nuclear-arms race occurs between “The World’s Greatest ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’” (The U.S. State Department’s long-standing legally-required description of Iran) and “The Gulf Cooperation Council” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and Oman).]
In a similar vein, there has been research on seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances to achieve the same effect as volcanic eruptions or small nuclear wars. Such an approach (vs., for example, merely adopting the most economical energy source which happens to have no carbon emissions) is likely, at the very least, to incur legal liability. After all, The Russian Federation refused to ratify The Kyoto Protocol for many years because Global Warming would increase Siberia’s growing season -- until the European Union finally agreed to subsidize Russia’s economic loss. [Similar economic disparities were bridged in the Paris Climate Accord by the U.S. promising to adopt uneconomic measures virtually immediately in return for the world’s other great carbon polluters’ adopting uneconomic measures in the distant future.]
________________________________
* The seventh paragraph listing three advantages shared by uranium and thorium fission said “(b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC).”
The reason for the asterisk was that it has been widely reported recently that the U.S. has become “energy independent” so that it no longer must import oil & gas from the world market which is dominated by OPEC.
These reports are misleading if not fraudulent.
They are based on an article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) which claims, under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
The following e-mail speaks for itself. However, the following comments are offered --
First, the subject of the letters sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates had been “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action – A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”
Although the first debate is not scheduled until the end of June, Fox News has been interviewing several of the Democrat candidates and is scheduled to continue doing so.
Accordingly, the following e-mail to Bret Baier was used, not only to request Fox News to stop reporting the false claim that the U.S. has become energy independent, but also to request Bret Baier to ask the Democrat presidential candidates about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt – IAW our certified-mail letter to each of the candidates.
Second, it should be noted that the e-mail states that I have watched Bret Baier’s “Special Report” on Fox News for a decade.
This is because I have always monitored what all sides are saying vis-à-vis any particular issue.
Accordingly, I also watch the PBS Newshour every evening Mon-Fri.
As well as the Sunday-morning flagship political talk shows of the four major networks – (1) ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” (2) CBS’ “Face the Nation With Margaret Brennan,” (3) NBC’s “Meet the Press With Chuck Todd” and (4) “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace.”
I also monitor regularly the New York Times and Washington Post.
As well as several British publications.
And, of course, Foreign Affairs Magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
[Other sources are consulted as needed.]
---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, April 24, 2019 1:26 pm MDT
To: Bret Baier via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
Attachment:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 24, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
As one of the viewers of “Special Report w/Bret Baier” for the last decade (congratulations on its recent anniversary!!!), it is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to inform you that many of the Fox News commentators and contributors have relied on Bloomberg for a FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The reasons for writing to you even though I cannot cite “chapter and verse” vis-à-vis Special Report itself are:
(1) As the anchor of the flagship news program for Fox, you are in a position to inform all of your colleagues regarding the truth and to implore them to uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truthfulness; and
(2) Since you frequently interview Democrat presidential candidates, and since the LACK of U.S. energy independence is so crucial in terms of (A) the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on the international oil & gas market which is dominated by OPEC and, in the case of Europe, on natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC), and (B) the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt -- perhaps you could ask the Democrat presidential candidates whom you frequently interview about thorium fission IAW the 3-page letter that they received recently, a sample of which follows below.
But back to the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The most recent repetition of this FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent was made last evening by Sean Hannity about 16 minutes into his program.
[I have e-mailed Mr. Hannity separately to inform him of the problem, but am writing to you as well for the two reasons stated above.]
At least Mr. Hannity has the integrity to show the source(s) of the information that he uses and for that I congratulate him.
While making the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. had become energy independent, the TV screen was displaying Mr. Hannity’s source – Bloomberg on 12/6/2018.
That article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) claims under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
*****
However, I trust that you will uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truth by reporting this travesty and how many Fox commentators and contributors were temporarily led astray by Bloomberg.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
PS –
And, perhaps more importantly, I trust that you will ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped for such questions by the letter which follows below.
BTW, the information about the Bloomberg article appearing above was contained at the end of that letter in the asterisked footnote following the PS.
**********************************************************************************
The following letter was sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates on 4/5/2019 on behalf of a 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years in the vicinity of my Utah ski house. Assuming your website will accept virtually unlimited data, that letter (using Sen. Booker’s copy as an example) is –
Harvard Club - Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
john@johnkarls.com
April 5, 2019
The Hon. Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator – New Jersey
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
540 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Senator Booker:
Re: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise
For the past 13.5 years, I have facilitated a public-policy study group in the vicinity of my Utah ski house comprising approximately 150 members including numerous science professors and including a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge - U/Tenn.
[Our Nuclear Engineering PhD has led several of our studies over the years concerning thorium fission and other nuclear issues.]
Every time our group has focused on global warming, I have begun the discussion by asking for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily, for example, China to prevent it from bringing on stream every week one new monster-size coal-burning electrical-power generation plant.
In all of those meetings over the years, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in using military force to coerce any country into using an uneconomic energy source, thereby reducing the standard of living of its citizens.
However, luckily there is an economic energy source that is abundant and safe.
You may not be aware that thorium/fission was proved feasible in the 1960’s when the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN conducted a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor. And that President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of exploding or being utilized to produce nuclear weapons.
Both conventional uranium fission and proven thorium/fission share all of the following advantages: (a) producing no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminating the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.
However, proven thorium/fission has the following advantages over conventional uranium/fission –
[These advantages are virtually identical to those listed by Dr. Victor Stenger in The Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-s ... 92584.html.]
(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure (this is both a safety and cost factor).
(2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled (this is also both a safety and cost factor).
(3) Thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.
(4) Thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste.
(5) LFTR’s can safely consume uranium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and from spent uranium-reactor fuel rods. Indeed, the Oak Ridge MSRE in the 1960’s was able to use U-235, Pu-239 and U-233 at the same time as thorium. [NB: Since former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of NV prevented the opening of Yucca Mountain NV as the repository for our spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods, the spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods have been left on site at each uranium-nuclear plant to remain cool in the equivalent of home swimming-pools even though many of those uranium-nuclear plants are situated in high-volume air corridors!!!]
(6) Because LFTR’s are economically practical in small sizes, they can be mass-produced in factories and assembled near electrical demand so that the huge energy losses during electricity transmission are virtually eliminated -- though to replace huge uranium reactors, it would only be necessary to assemble several of the small modular thorium reactors into a larger plant.
(7) In addition, thorium is so plentiful that proven thorium supplies are capable of supplying 100% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) for more than 1,000 years. Indeed, virtually all of India’s “sand” beaches comprise thorium.
[Our calculation was 80 years of “proven” reserves of uranium for current (electricity only) usage multiplied by 3 (the minimum abundance factor of “proven” thorium reserves vs. “proven” uranium reserves) multiplied by 99 (usable thorium energy content vs. usable uranium energy content) multiplied by 5.8% (the percentage of total worldwide energy including transportation fuels, that comes from nuclear plants) = 1,378 years.]
Proven thorium/fission has all of these advantages and only needs 2-3 years of final development = the equivalent of having already produced a Ford Model T proving an automobile is feasible but still needing 2-3 years of development (and relatively-modest funding) to design a Ford Fusion for mass production.
The relatively-modest funding for the 2-3 years of final development has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
[ThEC15 was a worldwide conference on thorium research that was held in Mumbai, India, in 2015 by the Government of India and two of its agencies, BARC and NPCIL, along with HBNI and IThEO. The ThEC15 website (http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/thec15-mumbai.html) contains 127 papers and speeches by 46 speakers from 30 different nations.]
So the question you are respectfully requested to consider is whether the U.S. Government should appropriate $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
Respectfully submitted,
John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003
PS: It is well known that large volcanic eruptions will throw into the atmosphere gases and dust particles whose shading of incoming solar radiation can cool the earth for months and even years.
[This has caused some wags to remark (however, true) that Global Warming can be solved by occasional, small nuclear wars which, of course, will be much more likely if a nuclear-arms race occurs between “The World’s Greatest ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’” (The U.S. State Department’s long-standing legally-required description of Iran) and “The Gulf Cooperation Council” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and Oman).]
In a similar vein, there has been research on seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances to achieve the same effect as volcanic eruptions or small nuclear wars. Such an approach (vs., for example, merely adopting the most economical energy source which happens to have no carbon emissions) is likely, at the very least, to incur legal liability. After all, The Russian Federation refused to ratify The Kyoto Protocol for many years because Global Warming would increase Siberia’s growing season -- until the European Union finally agreed to subsidize Russia’s economic loss. [Similar economic disparities were bridged in the Paris Climate Accord by the U.S. promising to adopt uneconomic measures virtually immediately in return for the world’s other great carbon polluters’ adopting uneconomic measures in the distant future.]
________________________________
* The seventh paragraph listing three advantages shared by uranium and thorium fission said “(b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC).”
The reason for the asterisk was that it has been widely reported recently that the U.S. has become “energy independent” so that it no longer must import oil & gas from the world market which is dominated by OPEC.
These reports are misleading if not fraudulent.
They are based on an article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) which claims, under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
SECOND REQUEST to Fox News re Claim US Is Energy Independent
.
The following e-mail speaks for itself.
However, two sets of introductory comments were offered in the preceding section about the First Request to Fox News which are important.
In addition, Mr. Hannity was once again contacted separately, this time at 6:38 am EDT via http://www.hannity.com/contact.
******************************************************************************
Subject: SECOND REQUEST Re Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
Name: John S. Karls
E-mail: john@johnkarls.com
Sent: 7:35 am EDT 4/26/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
**********
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 26, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: SECOND REQUEST Re Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
There follows below the e-mail that I sent you at 3:26 pm EDT on 4/24/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret re Fox News’ FREQUENT FALSE CLAIM that the U.S. has achieved energy independence based on a FRAUDULENT CLAIM published by Bloomberg on 12/8/2018.
My e-mail explained that Bloomberg had published on 12/8/2018 under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” a FRAUDULENT CLAIM based on cherry-picking a single week in early December 2018 while admitting in the text of the article that the net-export period would likely “be brief”!!!
My e-mail proceeded to document that http://www.cia.gov‘s World Factbook discloses that the U.S. IMPORTED 23% OF ITS OIL & GAS DURING 2017, the last year for which CIA statistics are available.
And my e-mail then provided a cross-link (since the Bloomberg article claimed to rely on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration) to a current American Petroleum Institute graph based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration which shows that the U.S. will NOT become a “net oil exporter” through 2040, the end of the period covered by the graph!!!
LOOK FOR YOURSELF AT https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports
*****
The reason for contacting you on April 24 was that this FALSE CLAIM permeates the programs on Fox News (as well as some other media outlets).
And although since debunking the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg CLAIM in the asterisked footnote following the PS at the end of the 4/5/2019 letter from the 150-member volunteer public-policy study group that I have facilitated for the past 13.5 years to each of the Democrat presidential candidates (a sample copy of which follows below), I am not able to cite chapter and verse for the many times that this FALSE CLAIM had been made on Fox News, both before and after April 5, I seized upon Sean Hannity’s making the FALSE CLAIM about 16 minutes into his program of April 23 because the TV screen was showing his source as the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM of 12/8/2018.
And although I contacted Mr. Hannity separately, I contacted you as the anchor of Fox News’ flagship news program because you are in a position to alert all Fox anchors and contributors about the FRAUDULENT CLAIM of Bloomberg in order to maintain the reputation of Fox for accuracy and truth.
HOWEVER, 29 hours after remonstrating with Mr. Hannity, he repeated his FALSE CLAIM of U.S. energy independence in a question that he asked President Trump last evening (April 25) about 51 minutes into his program and that listed various accomplishments of President Trump’s Administration INCLUDING THE FALSE CLAIM OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.
PERHAPS I was wrong that you are in a position, as the anchor of Fox News’ flagship news program, to inform your colleagues of the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM OF U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, and that I should instead be contacting Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News.
[If nothing is heard from you in the next 24 hours, I will proceed to do so.]
*****
Interviews of the Democrat Presidential Candidates
You might have noticed that my e-mail of April 24 listed a second reason for contacting you, viz. that you have interviewed, and are scheduled to interview, several if not many of the Democrat presidential candidates.
And that the 4/5/2019 letter to the candidates from the volunteer 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years which exposed the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE in the asterisked footnote following its PS, had focused on the subject “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action: A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”
So the second reason mentioned in my April 24 e-mail to you for contacting you was a request that you ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped by our April 5 letter to them to answer such questions.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
******************************************************************************
Subject: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
Name: John S. Karls
E-mail: john@johnkarls.com
Sent: 3:26 pm EDT 4/24/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
**********
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 24, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
As one of the viewers of “Special Report w/Bret Baier” for the last decade (congratulations on its recent anniversary!!!), it is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to inform you that many of the Fox News commentators and contributors have relied on Bloomberg for a FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The reasons for writing to you even though I cannot cite “chapter and verse” vis-à-vis Special Report itself are:
(1) As the anchor of the flagship news program for Fox, you are in a position to inform all of your colleagues regarding the truth and to implore them to uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truthfulness; and
(2) Since you frequently interview Democrat presidential candidates, and since the LACK of U.S. energy independence is so crucial in terms of (A) the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on the international oil & gas market which is dominated by OPEC and, in the case of Europe, on natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC), and (B) the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt -- perhaps you could ask the Democrat presidential candidates whom you frequently interview about thorium fission IAW the 3-page letter that they received recently, a sample of which follows below.
But back to the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The most recent repetition of this FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent was made last evening by Sean Hannity about 16 minutes into his program.
[I have e-mailed Mr. Hannity separately to inform him of the problem, but am writing to you as well for the two reasons stated above.]
At least Mr. Hannity has the integrity to show the source(s) of the information that he uses and for that I congratulate him.
While making the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. had become energy independent, the TV screen was displaying Mr. Hannity’s source – Bloomberg on 12/6/2018.
That article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) claims under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
*****
However, I trust that you will uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truth by reporting this travesty and how many Fox commentators and contributors were temporarily led astray by Bloomberg.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
PS –
And, perhaps more importantly, I trust that you will ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped for such questions by the letter which follows below.
BTW, the information about the Bloomberg article appearing above was contained at the of that letter in the asterisked footnote following the PS.
**********************************************************************************
The following letter was sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates on 4/5/2019 on behalf of a 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years in the vicinity of my Utah ski house. Assuming your website will accept virtually unlimited data, that letter (using Sen. Booker’s copy as an example) is –
Harvard Club - Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
john@johnkarls.com
April 5, 2019
The Hon. Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator – New Jersey
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
540 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Senator Booker:
Re: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise
For the past 13.5 years, I have facilitated a public-policy study group in the vicinity of my Utah ski house comprising approximately 150 members including numerous science professors and including a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge - U/Tenn.
[Our Nuclear Engineering PhD has led several of our studies over the years concerning thorium fission and other nuclear issues.]
Every time our group has focused on global warming, I have begun the discussion by asking for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily, for example, China to prevent it from bringing on stream every week one new monster-size coal-burning electrical-power generation plant.
In all of those meetings over the years, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in using military force to coerce any country into using an uneconomic energy source, thereby reducing the standard of living of its citizens.
However, luckily there is an economic energy source that is abundant and safe.
You may not be aware that thorium/fission was proved feasible in the 1960’s when the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN conducted a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor. And that President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of exploding or being utilized to produce nuclear weapons.
Both conventional uranium fission and proven thorium/fission share all of the following advantages: (a) producing no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminating the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.
However, proven thorium/fission has the following advantages over conventional uranium/fission –
[These advantages are virtually identical to those listed by Dr. Victor Stenger in The Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-s ... 92584.html.]
(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure (this is both a safety and cost factor).
(2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled (this is also both a safety and cost factor).
(3) Thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.
(4) Thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste.
(5) LFTR’s can safely consume uranium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and from spent uranium-reactor fuel rods. Indeed, the Oak Ridge MSRE in the 1960’s was able to use U-235, Pu-239 and U-233 at the same time as thorium. [NB: Since former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of NV prevented the opening of Yucca Mountain NV as the repository for our spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods, the spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods have been left on site at each uranium-nuclear plant to remain cool in the equivalent of home swimming-pools even though many of those uranium-nuclear plants are situated in high-volume air corridors!!!]
(6) Because LFTR’s are economically practical in small sizes, they can be mass-produced in factories and assembled near electrical demand so that the huge energy losses during electricity transmission are virtually eliminated -- though to replace huge uranium reactors, it would only be necessary to assemble several of the small modular thorium reactors into a larger plant.
(7) In addition, thorium is so plentiful that proven thorium supplies are capable of supplying 100% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) for more than 1,000 years. Indeed, virtually all of India’s “sand” beaches comprise thorium.
[Our calculation was 80 years of “proven” reserves of uranium for current (electricity only) usage multiplied by 3 (the minimum abundance factor of “proven” thorium reserves vs. “proven” uranium reserves) multiplied by 99 (usable thorium energy content vs. usable uranium energy content) multiplied by 5.8% (the percentage of total worldwide energy including transportation fuels, that comes from nuclear plants) = 1,378 years.]
Proven thorium/fission has all of these advantages and only needs 2-3 years of final development = the equivalent of having already produced a Ford Model T proving an automobile is feasible but still needing 2-3 years of development (and relatively-modest funding) to design a Ford Fusion for mass production.
The relatively-modest funding for the 2-3 years of final development has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
[ThEC15 was a worldwide conference on thorium research that was held in Mumbai, India, in 2015 by the Government of India and two of its agencies, BARC and NPCIL, along with HBNI and IThEO. The ThEC15 website (http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/thec15-mumbai.html) contains 127 papers and speeches by 46 speakers from 30 different nations.]
So the question you are respectfully requested to consider is whether the U.S. Government should appropriate $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
Respectfully submitted,
John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003
PS: It is well known that large volcanic eruptions will throw into the atmosphere gases and dust particles whose shading of incoming solar radiation can cool the earth for months and even years.
[This has caused some wags to remark (however, true) that Global Warming can be solved by occasional, small nuclear wars which, of course, will be much more likely if a nuclear-arms race occurs between “The World’s Greatest ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’” (The U.S. State Department’s long-standing legally-required description of Iran) and “The Gulf Cooperation Council” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and Oman).]
In a similar vein, there has been research on seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances to achieve the same effect as volcanic eruptions or small nuclear wars. Such an approach (vs., for example, merely adopting the most economical energy source which happens to have no carbon emissions) is likely, at the very least, to incur legal liability. After all, The Russian Federation refused to ratify The Kyoto Protocol for many years because Global Warming would increase Siberia’s growing season -- until the European Union finally agreed to subsidize Russia’s economic loss. [Similar economic disparities were bridged in the Paris Climate Accord by the U.S. promising to adopt uneconomic measures virtually immediately in return for the world’s other great carbon polluters’ adopting uneconomic measures in the distant future.]
________________________________
* The seventh paragraph listing three advantages shared by uranium and thorium fission said “(b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC).”
The reason for the asterisk was that it has been widely reported recently that the U.S. has become “energy independent” so that it no longer must import oil & gas from the world market which is dominated by OPEC.
These reports are misleading if not fraudulent.
They are based on an article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) which claims, under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
The following e-mail speaks for itself.
However, two sets of introductory comments were offered in the preceding section about the First Request to Fox News which are important.
In addition, Mr. Hannity was once again contacted separately, this time at 6:38 am EDT via http://www.hannity.com/contact.
******************************************************************************
Subject: SECOND REQUEST Re Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
Name: John S. Karls
E-mail: john@johnkarls.com
Sent: 7:35 am EDT 4/26/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
**********
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 26, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: SECOND REQUEST Re Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
There follows below the e-mail that I sent you at 3:26 pm EDT on 4/24/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret re Fox News’ FREQUENT FALSE CLAIM that the U.S. has achieved energy independence based on a FRAUDULENT CLAIM published by Bloomberg on 12/8/2018.
My e-mail explained that Bloomberg had published on 12/8/2018 under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” a FRAUDULENT CLAIM based on cherry-picking a single week in early December 2018 while admitting in the text of the article that the net-export period would likely “be brief”!!!
My e-mail proceeded to document that http://www.cia.gov‘s World Factbook discloses that the U.S. IMPORTED 23% OF ITS OIL & GAS DURING 2017, the last year for which CIA statistics are available.
And my e-mail then provided a cross-link (since the Bloomberg article claimed to rely on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration) to a current American Petroleum Institute graph based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration which shows that the U.S. will NOT become a “net oil exporter” through 2040, the end of the period covered by the graph!!!
LOOK FOR YOURSELF AT https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports
*****
The reason for contacting you on April 24 was that this FALSE CLAIM permeates the programs on Fox News (as well as some other media outlets).
And although since debunking the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg CLAIM in the asterisked footnote following the PS at the end of the 4/5/2019 letter from the 150-member volunteer public-policy study group that I have facilitated for the past 13.5 years to each of the Democrat presidential candidates (a sample copy of which follows below), I am not able to cite chapter and verse for the many times that this FALSE CLAIM had been made on Fox News, both before and after April 5, I seized upon Sean Hannity’s making the FALSE CLAIM about 16 minutes into his program of April 23 because the TV screen was showing his source as the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM of 12/8/2018.
And although I contacted Mr. Hannity separately, I contacted you as the anchor of Fox News’ flagship news program because you are in a position to alert all Fox anchors and contributors about the FRAUDULENT CLAIM of Bloomberg in order to maintain the reputation of Fox for accuracy and truth.
HOWEVER, 29 hours after remonstrating with Mr. Hannity, he repeated his FALSE CLAIM of U.S. energy independence in a question that he asked President Trump last evening (April 25) about 51 minutes into his program and that listed various accomplishments of President Trump’s Administration INCLUDING THE FALSE CLAIM OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.
PERHAPS I was wrong that you are in a position, as the anchor of Fox News’ flagship news program, to inform your colleagues of the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM OF U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, and that I should instead be contacting Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News.
[If nothing is heard from you in the next 24 hours, I will proceed to do so.]
*****
Interviews of the Democrat Presidential Candidates
You might have noticed that my e-mail of April 24 listed a second reason for contacting you, viz. that you have interviewed, and are scheduled to interview, several if not many of the Democrat presidential candidates.
And that the 4/5/2019 letter to the candidates from the volunteer 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years which exposed the FRAUDULENT BLOOMBERG CLAIM OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE in the asterisked footnote following its PS, had focused on the subject “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action: A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”
So the second reason mentioned in my April 24 e-mail to you for contacting you was a request that you ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped by our April 5 letter to them to answer such questions.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
******************************************************************************
Subject: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
Name: John S. Karls
E-mail: john@johnkarls.com
Sent: 3:26 pm EDT 4/24/2019 via http://www.bretbaier.com/contact-bret
**********
Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
April 24, 2019
Mr. Bret Baier
Fox News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Mr. Baier:
Re: Fox News’ Frequent Reliance on the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg U.S.-Energy-Independence CLAIM
As one of the viewers of “Special Report w/Bret Baier” for the last decade (congratulations on its recent anniversary!!!), it is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to inform you that many of the Fox News commentators and contributors have relied on Bloomberg for a FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The reasons for writing to you even though I cannot cite “chapter and verse” vis-à-vis Special Report itself are:
(1) As the anchor of the flagship news program for Fox, you are in a position to inform all of your colleagues regarding the truth and to implore them to uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truthfulness; and
(2) Since you frequently interview Democrat presidential candidates, and since the LACK of U.S. energy independence is so crucial in terms of (A) the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on the international oil & gas market which is dominated by OPEC and, in the case of Europe, on natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC), and (B) the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt -- perhaps you could ask the Democrat presidential candidates whom you frequently interview about thorium fission IAW the 3-page letter that they received recently, a sample of which follows below.
But back to the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent.
The most recent repetition of this FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. has become energy independent was made last evening by Sean Hannity about 16 minutes into his program.
[I have e-mailed Mr. Hannity separately to inform him of the problem, but am writing to you as well for the two reasons stated above.]
At least Mr. Hannity has the integrity to show the source(s) of the information that he uses and for that I congratulate him.
While making the FRAUDULENT claim that the U.S. had become energy independent, the TV screen was displaying Mr. Hannity’s source – Bloomberg on 12/6/2018.
That article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) claims under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
*****
However, I trust that you will uphold the reputation of Fox News for accuracy and truth by reporting this travesty and how many Fox commentators and contributors were temporarily led astray by Bloomberg.
Sincerely,
John S. Karls
PS –
And, perhaps more importantly, I trust that you will ask future Democrat presidential candidates whom you interview so frequently -- about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and piling up of our foreign national debt.
After all, they should be fully prepped for such questions by the letter which follows below.
BTW, the information about the Bloomberg article appearing above was contained at the of that letter in the asterisked footnote following the PS.
**********************************************************************************
The following letter was sent certified-mail to each of the Democrat presidential candidates on 4/5/2019 on behalf of a 150-member public-policy study group that I have facilitated for 13.5 years in the vicinity of my Utah ski house. Assuming your website will accept virtually unlimited data, that letter (using Sen. Booker’s copy as an example) is –
Harvard Club - Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
john@johnkarls.com
April 5, 2019
The Hon. Cory A. Booker
U.S. Senator – New Jersey
Presidential Campaign Headquarters
540 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Senator Booker:
Re: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise
For the past 13.5 years, I have facilitated a public-policy study group in the vicinity of my Utah ski house comprising approximately 150 members including numerous science professors and including a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge - U/Tenn.
[Our Nuclear Engineering PhD has led several of our studies over the years concerning thorium fission and other nuclear issues.]
Every time our group has focused on global warming, I have begun the discussion by asking for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily, for example, China to prevent it from bringing on stream every week one new monster-size coal-burning electrical-power generation plant.
In all of those meetings over the years, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in using military force to coerce any country into using an uneconomic energy source, thereby reducing the standard of living of its citizens.
However, luckily there is an economic energy source that is abundant and safe.
You may not be aware that thorium/fission was proved feasible in the 1960’s when the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN conducted a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor. And that President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of exploding or being utilized to produce nuclear weapons.
Both conventional uranium fission and proven thorium/fission share all of the following advantages: (a) producing no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminating the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.
However, proven thorium/fission has the following advantages over conventional uranium/fission –
[These advantages are virtually identical to those listed by Dr. Victor Stenger in The Huffington Post - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-s ... 92584.html.]
(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure (this is both a safety and cost factor).
(2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled (this is also both a safety and cost factor).
(3) Thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.
(4) Thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste.
(5) LFTR’s can safely consume uranium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and from spent uranium-reactor fuel rods. Indeed, the Oak Ridge MSRE in the 1960’s was able to use U-235, Pu-239 and U-233 at the same time as thorium. [NB: Since former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of NV prevented the opening of Yucca Mountain NV as the repository for our spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods, the spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods have been left on site at each uranium-nuclear plant to remain cool in the equivalent of home swimming-pools even though many of those uranium-nuclear plants are situated in high-volume air corridors!!!]
(6) Because LFTR’s are economically practical in small sizes, they can be mass-produced in factories and assembled near electrical demand so that the huge energy losses during electricity transmission are virtually eliminated -- though to replace huge uranium reactors, it would only be necessary to assemble several of the small modular thorium reactors into a larger plant.
(7) In addition, thorium is so plentiful that proven thorium supplies are capable of supplying 100% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) for more than 1,000 years. Indeed, virtually all of India’s “sand” beaches comprise thorium.
[Our calculation was 80 years of “proven” reserves of uranium for current (electricity only) usage multiplied by 3 (the minimum abundance factor of “proven” thorium reserves vs. “proven” uranium reserves) multiplied by 99 (usable thorium energy content vs. usable uranium energy content) multiplied by 5.8% (the percentage of total worldwide energy including transportation fuels, that comes from nuclear plants) = 1,378 years.]
Proven thorium/fission has all of these advantages and only needs 2-3 years of final development = the equivalent of having already produced a Ford Model T proving an automobile is feasible but still needing 2-3 years of development (and relatively-modest funding) to design a Ford Fusion for mass production.
The relatively-modest funding for the 2-3 years of final development has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
[ThEC15 was a worldwide conference on thorium research that was held in Mumbai, India, in 2015 by the Government of India and two of its agencies, BARC and NPCIL, along with HBNI and IThEO. The ThEC15 website (http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/thec15-mumbai.html) contains 127 papers and speeches by 46 speakers from 30 different nations.]
So the question you are respectfully requested to consider is whether the U.S. Government should appropriate $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.
Respectfully submitted,
John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003
PS: It is well known that large volcanic eruptions will throw into the atmosphere gases and dust particles whose shading of incoming solar radiation can cool the earth for months and even years.
[This has caused some wags to remark (however, true) that Global Warming can be solved by occasional, small nuclear wars which, of course, will be much more likely if a nuclear-arms race occurs between “The World’s Greatest ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’” (The U.S. State Department’s long-standing legally-required description of Iran) and “The Gulf Cooperation Council” (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, and Oman).]
In a similar vein, there has been research on seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances to achieve the same effect as volcanic eruptions or small nuclear wars. Such an approach (vs., for example, merely adopting the most economical energy source which happens to have no carbon emissions) is likely, at the very least, to incur legal liability. After all, The Russian Federation refused to ratify The Kyoto Protocol for many years because Global Warming would increase Siberia’s growing season -- until the European Union finally agreed to subsidize Russia’s economic loss. [Similar economic disparities were bridged in the Paris Climate Accord by the U.S. promising to adopt uneconomic measures virtually immediately in return for the world’s other great carbon polluters’ adopting uneconomic measures in the distant future.]
________________________________
* The seventh paragraph listing three advantages shared by uranium and thorium fission said “(b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S.* and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC).”
The reason for the asterisk was that it has been widely reported recently that the U.S. has become “energy independent” so that it no longer must import oil & gas from the world market which is dominated by OPEC.
These reports are misleading if not fraudulent.
They are based on an article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) which claims, under a banner headline “THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS” that the U.S. was a “net oil exporter” FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be “likely brief”!!!
No wonder they are confessing their banner headline is misleading if not fraudulent!!! [Though that did NOT prevent other news media outlets from repeating the false claim, many citing Bloomberg and most of the rest citing no authority at all.]
By way of background, http://www.cia.gov’s World Factbook reports for 2017 (the last year for which it contains such data) that the U.S. produced only 9.351 million barrels/day of crude oil and had to import (net) 6.811 million b/d. The CIA also reported a slight natural gas surplus (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters). In other words, the CIA is reporting for 2017 total crude oil usage of 16.162 million b/d compared to total natural gas usage of only 13.088 million b/d of crude oil equivalent. Which meant the C.I.A. was effectively reporting a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!
But what about 2018 and beyond???
Bloomberg “cherry picked” ONE WEEK during December 2018 for its claim that the U.S. had become “a net oil exporter.” Which Bloomberg CONFESSES was based on statistics from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
HOWEVER, based on DOE’s Energy Information Administration is an American Petroleum Institute graph available at https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas ... de-exports that shows the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT IS NOT EVEN EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040, THE END OF THE PERIOD IN THE GRAPH!!!
Shame on Bloomberg!!!
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