“A Bright Future” Virtually Ignoring Uranium Costs & The Plethora of Thorium (Among Other Thorium Advantages)

[solutions]

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Subject: “A Bright Future” Virtually Ignoring Thorium-Fission
From: Solutions
Date: Sat, May 13, 2023 4:31 pm PDT
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
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Dear John,

Your reply of 5/2/2023 (viewtopic.php?f=740&t=2335&sid=1299d844 ... 662281ac58) said, inter alia --

“I believe that whether “A Bright Future” is a “cruel hoax…..” is a legitimate question for discussion. After all, it ignores cost considerations virtually completely as documented in the Suggested Answers to the Short Quiz.”

What will be your most-important comments at our May 17 Zoom meeting?

Your friend,

Solutions


---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: “A Bright Future” Virtually Ignoring Uranium Costs & The Plethora of Thorium (Among Other Thorium Advantages)
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sun, May 14, 2023 11:21 am MDT
To: Solutions
Attachment:
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you for your e-mail.

FIRST, “A Bright Future” ignores all sources of carbon-pollution except those resulting from electricity generation – other sources, such as transportation (ships, airplanes, diesel trains, motor vehicles), are also significant.

SECOND, instead of saying “A Bright Future” ignores cost considerations “virtually completely” – I probably should have said that it talks about cost considerations “incoherently” with zillions of vignettes, the gist of which is difficult, if not impossible, to discern.

THIRD, “A Bright Future” ignores the overwhelming loss of electricity’s energy during transmission.

FOURTH, in addition to the elimination of the need to transmit electricity over long distances, “A Bright Future” ignores all of the advantages of thorium-fission over uranium-fission that we catalogued in our 4/5/2019 letter to the Democrat Presidential Candidates and that are virtually identical to particle-physicist Prof. Victor Stenger’s list in the Huffington Post (our 4/5/2019 letter was an attachment to the 2019-2020 Democrat Presidential-Debate Moderator letters and is available at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1781&sid=1299d8447 ... 662281ac58).

FIFTHLY AND PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY, “A Bright Future” whose raison d’être is to promote nuclear energy as the only practical solution to global warming, ignores the plethora of thorium in the world, vs. the scarcity of uranium, as stated as thorium advantage no. 7 in the attachment to our letters to the 2019-2020 debate moderators –

“(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.]”

What does NOT jump out at the casual reader???

(1) “Proven” reserves of uranium only comprise an 80-year supply for the current level of usage which is for only a small percentage of electricity generation.

(2) Our above calculation demonstrates that “proven” reserves of thorium (including all those “sand” beaches in India) are sufficient to supply 100% of TOTAL worldwide energy (including transportation including airplanes) for 1,378 years.

(3) HOWEVER, 80 years of “proven” uranium reserves for only 5.8% of total worldwide energy MEANS THAT IF THOSE RESERVES WERE USED FOR 100%, THEY WOULD ONLY LAST 4.6 YEARS!!!

I’ve just spent more than 2 hours trying to research what the prospects are for additional uranium reserves and could not find anything worthwhile to report.

[I am guessing that since the demand for uranium is projected to decline slightly for the foreseeable future, there is no interest in ascertaining whether significant additional uranium deposits could be found.]

Your friend,

John K.

PS – We always send to RSVP’s 60 hours in advance of each meeting the Zoom URL, etc. I will call attention to this e-mail in order to save time during our meeting.