Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

.
Question 1

Are all three types of nuclear power (conventional uranium/fission, proven thorium/fission and will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion) technologies that are or could be employed today?

Answer 1

Conventional uranium/fission has been employed since the 1950’s for propulsion of the U.S. Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers and for commercial electrical-generation power plants.

Proven thorium/fission was demonstrated with an 18-month continuous demonstration project at the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN in the 1960’s -- so it could have been employed for the last 5 decades.

Will-o’-the wisp hydrogen/fusion, after consuming untold amounts of money for the last 5 decades for an energy source that possesses NO ADVANTAGES over proven thorium/fission and MANY DISADVANTAGES compared to proven thorium/fission, is still at least a decade away from success which is NOT GUARANTEED according to The New Yorker article and is still at least two decades away according to a more candid article in The New York Times.

Question 2

Do all three types of nuclear power share the advantages of (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?

Answer 2

Yes.

Question 3

Do conventional uranium/fission and will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion suffer from the same problem = they are both, in essence, trying to control a nuclear/thermonuclear bomb explosion in order to extract energy -- in contrast to proven thorium/fission which is incapable of exploding?

Answer 3

Yes.

Question 4

Does proven thorium/fission have the following advantages over both conventional uranium/fission and will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion -- (1) LFTR’s (Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure, (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, (3) thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste, and (4) thorium is so stable that it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

Has will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion consumed massive amounts of research funds for more than 50 years?

Answer 5

Yes.

Question 6

Have the managers of the will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion research project which is building an experimental plant in Southern France, conceded that will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion technology will not be commercially viable for AT LEAST ANOTHER DECADE, IF EVER?

Answer 6

Yes.

Question 7

Does the will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion experimental plant being built in Southern France require magnets WEIGHING 2 MILLION POUNDS to suspend in a vacuum the nuclear-fusion material because there are no substances on earth capable of containing it?

Answer 7

Yes.

Question 8

Can we expect an explosion equivalent to a hydrogen/nuclear bomb if the electric current powering the 2-million-pound magnets fails?

Answer 8

Ominously, the cheerleader article in The New Yorker ignores this question!!!

Question 9

What is the sole advantage of the will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion technology claimed by its apologists?

Answer 9

That hydrogen is more plentiful than uranium.

Question 10

Under the unlimited-supply-of-hydrogen-from-seawater assumption, was the vaunted “hydrogen economy” of the second President Bush based on hydrogen/fusion?

Answer 10

No.

The second President Bush championed hydrogen-burning automobiles because burning or oxidizing hydrogen [2H2 + O2 > 2H2O] produces no greenhouse gases -- only H2O which is water.

During his first term in office, several car manufacturers (including BMW) produced models that would burn hydrogen rather than gasoline and there were scores of hydrogen fueling stations for servicing them in Europe and California. Most of the hydrogen was obtained by using electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen -- the opposite of burning hydrogen [2H2O > 2H2 + O2] -- so the entire process made no sense from an environmental viewpoint so long as there was still a single coal-fired electrical-generation plant on the grid because all of the energy contained in the hydrogen fuel had been derived from carbon-producing coal [moreover, most of the energy from burning the coal had been wasted in the process of converting it to electricity].

In other words, the idea made no sense from an environmental viewpoint until the last coal-fired electrical-generation plant has left the grid AND ANY OTHER CARBON-FUEL-FIRED ELECTRICAL-GENERATION PLANT SUCH AS ONE THAT RUNS ON NATURAL GAS has also left the grid, because the “elephant in the room” that no proponent of the hydrogen economy seemed to want to admit was that the additional electricity for the hydrogen economy has to be generated by nuclear power for the whole idea to make sense from an environmental viewpoint.

Hydrogen fusion is NOT a chemical process BUT RATHER the nuclear process behind the hydrogen/nuclear bombs which release energy as hydrogen atoms [each hydrogen atom contains one proton in its nucleus and one electron orbiting around the nucleus] are fused together to produce helium [ each helium atom contains two protons in its nucleus and two electrons orbiting around the nucleus]. Forcing two hydrogen atoms together (fusion) means that since like forces repel each other (e.g., the positive ends of two batteries or the negative ends of two batteries), the two hydrogen atoms do their best to repel each other until, figuratively, they “reach the altar whereupon Albert Einstein pronounces them a couple in a release of energy analogous to the 'kiss' in a marriage ceremony” that only Albert Einstein really understands. [The rest of us, including nuclear scientists who claim to understand, can only accept it the way we/they accept that gravity exists because we have witnessed both -- we can’t explain why either happens but only that both do happen -- that is to say, in an alternate universe neither would have been required to happen.]

Question 11

How long would currently-known supplies of uranium and thorium last if 100% of the world’s power came from conventional uranium/fission and/or thorium/fission? How rapidly could additional uranium and thorium deposits be discovered and developed if demand increased? Would this likely be similar to the way the world’s production of oil & gas TRIPLED since Jimmy Carter’s claim as President that it had already peaked?

Answer 11

Short Answer Re Thorium = centuries if not millennia!!!

Long Answer Re Thorium, taking the 3 parts to the question in reverse order --

World oil & gas production when President Carter as President proclaimed that it had already peaked was approximately 30 million barrels/day. According to http://www.cia.gov, world crude oil production was 89.02 million barrels/day for 2012 (the latest information available) and world natural gas production totaled 3.452 trillion cubic meters for all of 2010 (latest information) or the crude-oil equivalent of about 44.63 million barrels/day -- for total current oil & gas production of approximately 135 million barrels/day OR MORE THAN 4 TIMES THE LEVEL THAT PRESIDENT CARTER OPINED AS PRESIDENT WOULD BE THE ALL-TIME PEAK!!!

President Carter was oblivious to at least the following factors that increase production of any natural resource even though, in theory, Mother Earth’s supply of that natural source is limited -- (1) recovery technology improves (when Carter was President, less than 5% of heavy oil was recoverable and now we even see commercial production from tar sands (e.g., Canada) and shale (viz., gas fracking); (2) production technology improves (the limit on the depth of Outer Continental Shelf for exploration/production has increased dramatically since Carter was President and, after all, according to http://www.noaa.gov, more than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans); (3) the number of countries with substantial oil & gas production has increased exponentially since Carter was President when a small number of oil-exporting countries (OPEC) was holding up the world to pay an exorbitant ransom; and (4) as prices rise, vast reserves that had been uneconomic at lower prices suddenly become commercially viable.

For the same reasons, uranium and thorium supplies can also be expected to increase in the future.

Adequacy of uranium and thorium supplies???

***************
For electricity???

According to http://www.cia.gov > world factbook (and selecting “world” rather than a particular country), approximately 7.5% of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear plants, all of which run on uranium.

According to the World Nuclear Association (http://www.world-nuclear.org), the world’s currently “proven” reserves of uranium represent approximately 80 years of usage at current rates.

According to the Weinberg Foundation article posted in the Reference Materials section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org, only 1% of the total energy in conventional uranium fuel rods can be used before the rods degrade and must be replaced, whereas 99% of the available energy in thorium can be accessed.

Also, according to the Weinberg Foundation article, thorium is 3-4 times more abundant than uranium.

Therefore, 80 years “proven” uranium reserves * 3 (minimum thorium abundance factor) * 99 (usable energy – thorium vs. uranium) = 23,760 years for current thorium supplies!!!

Even if the percentage of electricity generated from nuclear is increased from 7.5% to 100%, then the result = 1,782 years for current thorium supplies!!!

***************
For all energy (not just electricity but, e.g., gasoline and AvJet, aka kerosene)???

The CIA’s world factbook doesn’t help us with this question because, laughably, it no longer reports the world’s coal production/usage as if ignoring it will mean it doesn’t exist. Though at the same time, the CIA’s world factbook began reporting in its world energy section “carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy”!!!

However, we are bailed out by the International Energy Agency which breaks down the sources of the world’s total energy = 81.4% fossil, 5.8% nuclear and 12.8% renewable.

So if we calculate for the increase of nuclear to 100% from 5.8% for all energy usage, rather than from the 7.5% for electricity only, the result is still 1,378 years for current thorium supplies!!!

SO WHY ARE WE WASTING SO MANY DECADES AND SO MUCH MONEY ON A PROBLEM THAT IS AT LEAST 1,000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE??? [Recognizing that the time frame may shrink a bit as the earth’s population increases -- which will probably be offset by increased thorium availability for the same reasons that oil & gas production has more than quadrupled since Jimmy Carter, as President, opined that it had peaked!!!]

Question 12

Are known supplies of thorium in the world already 4 times the amount of the world’s uranium supplies?

Answer 12

As noted in Answer 11, the world’s thorium supplies are 3-4 times its uranium supplies.

Question 13

Since only 1% of the total energy in uranium fuel rods can be accessed before they degrade and have to be replaced whereas 99% of the energy in thorium is accessible, does this really mean that FOUR HUNDRED TIMES AS MUCH ENERGY is available from the world’s currently-known thorium supplies as is available from its currently-known uranium supplies?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Even if U.S. decision-makers opt for (1) continuing to kowtow to Russia and Middle Eastern oil-producing countries for AT LEAST ANOTHER DECADE, and (2) continuing to watch the destruction of the American economy as it continues to pile up foreign debt -- how do we know that will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion bomb technology can ever be harnessed for domestic-energy production???

Answer 14

We don’t!!!

Question 15

And even if it can eventually be harnessed, how do we know that it will be more economic than oil & gas or than coal-fired electric plants -- the way proven thorium/fission is??? After all, on the many occasions in the past when we have discussed either energy or global warming, nobody has ever favored invading China to prevent it from continuing to bring on line a new monster-sized coal-fired electric plant EVERY WEEK!!! [And all of us have always conceded that many if not most of the world’s nations will continue to use the most economic energy source regardless of damage to the environment.]

Answer 15

We don’t!!!

And from article in The New Yorker talking about 2 MILLION POUND magnets and the implied zillions of miles of electricity-transmission lines, the economics look dismal!!!

Which we have always recognized means that we would have to invade other countries militarily if we want to force them to do something uneconomic!!!

Question 16

Wouldn’t it make more sense to replace both coal and oil & gas NOW with proven thorium/fission while re-evaluating the need for will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion research for that distant day when the world’s existing and to-be-discovered-in-the-future thorium supplies become exhausted???

Answer 16

Of course!!!

Question 17

And hasn’t this been true for the past 50 years since proven thorium/fission was demonstrated in an 18-month-continuous demonstration project at the U.S. Oak Ridge National Nuclear-Research Laboratory back in the 1960’s???

Answer 17

Of course!!!

Question 18

Accordingly, since so many of us like mysteries on TV or in books, and since the detectives always look for who benefits from the crime -- the “elephant in the room” is who benefits from the nation’s continuing to Shun The Promised Land in favor of Wandering In The Wilderness For Another 50 Years (100 years total vs. only 40 for the Israelites in the Bible) by continuing to shun proven thorium/fission??? Coal companies??? Oil companies??? Oil-exporting countries such as Russia and Middle-Eastern Kingdoms??? Anyone who does not believe in American Exceptionalism in the world??? Anyone who believes America is The Great Satan??? Any American Pols who accept “campaign contributions” from any of the foregoing (keeping in mind that foreign contributions have to be funneled through intermediaries)???

Answer 18

Yours Truly only asked this question to pique everyone’s interest.

And, although I am open to persuasion, the answer doesn’t strike me as important.

After all, for our 2/14/2008 meeting 6 years ago, we studied Homo Politicus by Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank and The Squandering of America by Robert Kuttner (20-year Columnist for Business Week), both of whose thesis was that America has “The Best Government That Money Can Buy” because nothing gets done in the cesspool that is Washington DC except as a result of bribes (aka campaign contributions) -- though Kuttner does elaborate that the “campaign contributions” are often the result of EXTORTION by the Pols rather than BRIBES of the Pols.

So during the last 7 days since posting the Short Quiz Questions, Yours Truly has considered whether it is worth trying to do anything about what our Pols have done, however much actual criminality might be involved (bribery, extortion and foreign-source “campaign contributions”).

Who would investigate and prosecute??? U.S. attorneys report to the Attorney General who reports to the President.

During a 40-year business career, Yours Truly always recognized that except under extraordinary circumstances, you should always make your pitch to the top decision maker because, otherwise, you have more than one person who needs convincing and, if you have only made your pitch to an underling, your problem of now convincing two people is compounded by the fact that the underling may not be as effective in pitching the real decision maker as you yourself could have been.

And who is the top decision maker???

President Obama.

And we already directed a Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign imploring him to champion thorium nuclear reactors following our 9/11/2013 meeting.

[And even directed a Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign toward the then-Secretary of D.O.E. Dr. Steven Chu following our 10/10/2012 meeting imploring him to allocate a portion of his vast R&D budget to champion thorium nuclear reactors.]

The conundrum???

To get President Obama to have the culprits prosecuted, we would first have to convince President Obama to champion thorium nuclear reactors.

I would be more than satisfied if we could just get him to champion thorium and forget about the prosecutions.

After all, on 1/20/2014, I proposed as the topic for one of our future meetings Nelson Mandela’s autobiography because of its bottom-line message that healing and progress can best be achieved by forgiveness for the past and a focus on the future.

And it strikes me that if we seem vindictive, we have no chance of achieving our main objective which is developing thorium.

[Cal Burgart]

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---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: The World's Supply of Hydrogen]
From: Calvin Burgart
Date: Sun, June 1, 2014 4:14 pm MDT
To: John Karls
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good question.. I do not know for sure... but I am thinking the fusion
process gets such a huge amount of energy per fusion, and that getting
the hydrogen via fission energy is much less. I did some Googling to see
if I could find some numbers that would piece it together, but for the
time I spent, I didn't get very far.

Cal


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: Re: [Fwd: The World’s Supply of Hydrogen]
From: John Karls
Date: Sun, June 1, 2014:10 am MDT
To: Calvin Burgart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Cal,

Sorry my question was so verbose which is the apparent reason why you
overlooked it.

Succinct version = Does it require less energy to obtain hydrogen from
water molecules than is obtained by fusing the hydrogen so obtained? And,
if so, by what factor (assuming the hydrogen was obtained, directly or
indirectly, by uranium fission)?

Your friend,

John K.


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: The World’s Supply of Hydrogen]
From: Calvin Burgart
Date: Sat, May 31, 2014 7:39 pm MDT
To: John Karls
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think getting hydrogen and then using it in ways that nuclear, hydro,
solar and wind can't be used is good... like in a car - is a good idea.
But only if it can be done without squandering resources. Of course,
thorium, still seems to be the big one for sustainable carbon free
energy production. Hydro and thus more dams is not all good, and solar
and wind are good for creating power for getting hydrogen, but not good
for a base load on an electric grid, which nuclear of whatever flavor is
great doing. I think it takes a whole system of energy sources... and an
approach that eliminates carbon polluting sources. Natural gas (well
actually it isn't natural anymore with the fracking) is better than coal
but not the answer.

Rambling.

Yes, let's meet up sometime soon.


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: The World’s Supply of Hydrogen
From: John Karls
Date: Fri, May 30, 2014 9:58 am MDT
To: Calvin Burgart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Cal,

Thank you for the Heads Up re the blog about Obama nuclear policy.

Which reminded me that I had been intending to ask you a question about
hydrogen fusion.

By way of background for my new question, you may not have noticed that
the 18-question Short Quiz for our recent nuclear-fusion meeting contained
Q&A-9 through Q&A-11 dealing with the availability of hydrogen, uranium
and thorium.

[Q&A-9 through Q&A-11 accompanied one of the RL weekly newsletters but,
for your convenience, are reproduced below from
http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.]

Q&A-10 about the Hydrogen Economy touted constantly by the second
President Bush during his first term, might be interpreted by
non-cognoscenti (of which you obviously are NOT one) as an irrelevant
aside.

But the real purpose of its inclusion (which, unfortunately, I did not
spell out) was to question whether hydrogen really is plentiful.

After all, if we have to obtain hydrogen from water and if the hydrogen
has to be obtained from the water by nuclear power (i.e., uranium
fission), is there any net energy gain???

It would seem to me that the amount of energy we would obtain from using
the hydrogen for fusion cannot exceed the amount of energy we squandered
in extracting the hydrogen from the water with fission.

Moreover, the Weinberg Foundation article you provided said (as reported
in Q&A-11) that only 1% of the total energy in conventional uranium fuel
rods can be used before the rods degrade and must be replaced.

So doesn’t this mean that we squander 99% of the potential energy of the
uranium in order to extract hydrogen from water before getting back no
more than the 1% of that energy when we fuse the hydrogen???

*****
I realize that fission and fusion are magically NOT subject to the old
conservation-of-energy principles (except as constrained by Einstein’s old
New Rule (E = MC-squared)) and that you may well tell me that the energy
from the hydrogen fusion is a zillion times greater than 100 times the
amount of energy required to obtain the hydrogen from water but, if so,
I’d be interested in reading some literature on the topic.

*****
Are you still in Utah now that Snowbird closed after last weekend???

And would you be interested in another of our gabfests???

I hope all is well with you.

Your friend,

John K.

PS = Two Questions for Extra Credit

1. Did you know that the crazy-looking mad scientist who appeared in a
zillion Hollywood movies in the 1930’s and 1940’s was in fact Albert
Einstein because he adored so much appearing in movies if only in cameo
roles? [NB: he was, however, only credited with appearing in one movie in
which he played himself.]

2. Did you ever see the classic cartoon showing Einstein scratching his
head in front of a blackboard on which he had written “E=MA-squared,
E=MB-squared, E=M_”?


************************************************************
Question 9

What is the sole advantage of the will-o’-the-wisp hydrogen/fusion
technology claimed by its apologists?

Answer 9

That hydrogen is more plentiful than uranium.

Question 10

Under the unlimited-supply-of-hydrogen-from-seawater assumption, was the
vaunted “hydrogen economy” of the second President Bush based on
hydrogen/fusion?

Answer 10

No.

The second President Bush championed hydrogen-burning automobiles because
burning or oxidizing hydrogen [2H2 + O2 > 2H2O] produces no greenhouse
gases -- only H2O which is water.

During his first term in office, several car manufacturers (including BMW)
produced models that would burn hydrogen rather than gasoline and there
were scores of hydrogen fueling stations for servicing them in Europe and
California. Most of the hydrogen was obtained by using electricity to
separate water into hydrogen and oxygen -- the opposite of burning
hydrogen [2H2O > 2H2 + O2] -- so the entire process made no sense from an
environmental viewpoint so long as there was still a single coal-fired
electrical-generation plant on the grid because all of the energy
contained in the hydrogen fuel had been derived from carbon-producing coal
[moreover, most of the energy from burning the coal had been wasted in the
process of converting it to electricity].

In other words, the idea made no sense from an environmental viewpoint
until the last coal-fired electrical-generation plant has left the grid
AND ANY OTHER CARBON-FUEL-FIRED ELECTRICAL-GENERATION PLANT SUCH AS ONE
THAT RUNS ON NATURAL GAS has also left the grid, because the “elephant in
the room” that no proponent of the hydrogen economy seemed to want to
admit was that the additional electricity for the hydrogen economy has to
be generated by nuclear power for the whole idea to make sense from an
environmental viewpoint.

Hydrogen fusion is NOT a chemical process BUT RATHER the nuclear process
behind the hydrogen/nuclear bombs which release energy as hydrogen atoms
[each hydrogen atom contains one proton in its nucleus and one electron
orbiting around the nucleus] are fused together to produce helium [ each
helium atom contains two protons in its nucleus and two electrons orbiting
around the nucleus]. Forcing two hydrogen atoms together (fusion) means
that since like forces repel each other (e.g., the positive ends of two
batteries or the negative ends of two batteries), the two hydrogen atoms
do their best to repel each other until, figuratively, they “reach the
altar whereupon Albert Einstein pronounces them a couple in a release of
energy analogous to the 'kiss' in a marriage ceremony” that only Albert
Einstein really understands. [The rest of us, including nuclear scientists
who claim to understand, can only accept it the way we/they accept that
gravity exists because we have witnessed both -- we can’t explain why
either happens but only that both do happen -- that is to say, in an
alternate universe neither would have been required to happen.]

Question 11

How long would currently-known supplies of uranium and thorium last if 100% of the world’s power came from conventional uranium/fission and/or thorium/fission? How rapidly could additional uranium and thorium deposits be discovered and developed if demand increased? Would this likely be similar to the way the world’s production of oil & gas TRIPLED since Jimmy Carter’s claim as President that it had already peaked?

Answer 11

Short Answer Re Thorium = centuries if not millennia!!!

Long Answer Re Thorium, taking the 3 parts to the question in reverse order --

World oil & gas production when President Carter as President proclaimed that it had already peaked was approximately 30 million barrels/day. According to http://www.cia.gov, world crude oil production was 89.02 million barrels/day for 2012 (the latest information available) and world natural gas production totaled 3.452 trillion cubic meters for all of 2010 (latest information) or the crude-oil equivalent of about 44.63 million barrels/day -- for total current oil & gas production of approximately 135 million barrels/day OR MORE THAN 4 TIMES THE LEVEL THAT PRESIDENT CARTER OPINED AS PRESIDENT WOULD BE THE ALL-TIME PEAK!!!

President Carter was oblivious to at least the following factors that increase production of any natural resource even though, in theory, Mother Earth’s supply of that natural source is limited -- (1) recovery technology improves (when Carter was President, less than 5% of heavy oil was recoverable and now we even see commercial production from tar sands (e.g., Canada) and shale (viz., gas fracking); (2) production technology improves (the limit on the depth of Outer Continental Shelf for exploration/production has increased dramatically since Carter was President and, after all, according to http://www.noaa.gov, more than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans); (3) the number of countries with substantial oil & gas production has increased exponentially since Carter was President when a small number of oil-exporting countries (OPEC) was holding up the world to pay an exorbitant ransom; and (4) as prices rise, vast reserves that had been uneconomic at lower prices suddenly become commercially viable.

For the same reasons, uranium and thorium supplies can also be expected to increase in the future.

Adequacy of uranium and thorium supplies???

***************
For electricity???

According to http://www.cia.gov > world factbook (and selecting “world” rather than a particular country), approximately 7.5% of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear plants, all of which run on uranium.

According to the World Nuclear Association (http://www.world-nuclear.org), the world’s currently “proven” reserves of uranium represent approximately 80 years of usage at current rates.

According to the Weinberg Foundation article posted in the Reference Materials section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org, only 1% of the total energy in conventional uranium fuel rods can be used before the rods degrade and must be replaced, whereas 99% of the available energy in thorium can be accessed.

Also, according to the Weinberg Foundation article, thorium is 3-4 times more abundant than uranium.

Therefore, 80 years “proven” uranium reserves * 3 (minimum thorium abundance factor) * 99 (usable energy – thorium vs. uranium) = 23,760 years for current thorium supplies!!!

Even if the percentage of electricity generated from nuclear is increased from 7.5% to 100%, then the result = 1,782 years for current thorium supplies!!!

***************
For all energy (not just electricity but, e.g., gasoline and AvJet, aka kerosene)???

The CIA’s world factbook doesn’t help us with this question because, laughably, it no longer reports the world’s coal production/usage as if ignoring it will mean it doesn’t exist. Though at the same time, the CIA’s world factbook began reporting in its world energy section “carbon dioxide emissions from consumption of energy”!!!

However, we are bailed out by the International Energy Agency which breaks down the sources of the world’s total energy = 81.4% fossil, 5.8% nuclear and 12.8% renewable.

So if we calculate for the increase of nuclear to 100% from 5.6% for all energy usage, rather than from the 7.5% for electricity only, the result is still 1,331 years for current thorium supplies!!!

SO WHY ARE WE WASTING SO MANY DECADES AND SO MUCH MONEY ON A PROBLEM THAT IS AT LEAST 1,000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE??? [Recognizing that the time frame may shrink a bit as the earth’s population increases -- which will probably be offset by increased thorium availability for the same reasons that oil & gas production has more than quadrupled since Jimmy Carter, as President, opined that it had peaked!!!]


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Nuclear news or at least words
From: Calvin Burgart
Date: Thu, May 29, 2014 3:47 pm MDT
To: John Karls
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/201 ... nergy.html