REPRISE: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action

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This section includes the final report on the National Audubon Society plus the ad hoc meetings during the sabbatical described in the following e-mail.

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From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
Subject: Another John Karls Sabbatical To Write Another Book
Date: [This Is The Regular Weekly E-mail To Be Sent Pre-Dawn Sat, June 16, 2018]
Attachments:
-----------------------------------------------------

Dear Friends,

Many of you will probably recall the 4/19/2014 notice 4 years ago that I would be taking a sabbatical to write a book about the materials in the third and fourth sections of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org entitled “Inner-City Holocaust and America’s Apartheid ‘Justice’ System (In Honor of Jonathan Kozol and In Memory of John Howard Griffin).”

The time has come to write another book (this time on the topic of “The National Audubon Society Executes Great Salt Lake Death Warrant”) and, accordingly, I will be taking another sabbatical.

*****
Ad Hoc Meetings

As was the case 4 years ago, there may be Ad Hoc Meetings such as the 2 that occurred during that 9-month sabbatical.

If anyone would like to propose a topic for an Ad Hoc Meeting, please forward it to me and I will include it in the next Pre-Dawn Saturday E-mail (which may be irregular rather than weekly during the sabbatical if there are not a lot of proposals).

RSVP’s for the Wednesday evening 4-5 weeks after the Pre-Dawn Saturday E-mail containing the Ad Hoc Meeting proposal will be put in touch with the proposer.

If the minimum quorum for our regular meetings of 6 RSVP’s is attained, the group will have authority to issue one of our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns. However, the normal promotional Short Quizzes, Suggested Discussion Outlines, etc., will not be provided.

*****
Short-Fuse Campaigns

As set forth on the face of the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org entitled “General Info and Info Re Next Meeting,” we have a Short Fuse Procedure for situations in which action would be required before the next meeting could be scheduled (for example, a governmental unit is soliciting public comments for a limited period).

In such cases, our Pre-Dawn Saturday E-mail invites all of our approximately 150 members to participate in a Short-Fuse Working Group.

This procedure will also be available during the sabbatical.

*****
Length of the Sabbatical

The 12 participants for our 6/13/2018 meeting were curious how long the sabbatical might last.

It is noted that the 2014 sabbatical 4 years ago lasted 9 months.

However, this time the events of the final chapter of the book to be written have yet to occur.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press "reply" and type "deletion requested."

NB: Please do NOT block our e-mail because you are too embarrassed to request a deletion -- 10 of our approximately 150 regular e-mail recipients use Comcast.net which has an algorithm blocking all e-mails from a website for which a certain percentage of recipients have requested blockage AND 3 of our regular meeting attendees who use Comcast.net now can NOT receive our weekly e-mails.

[Posted 6/14/2018]
johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

REPRISE: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action

Post by johnkarls »

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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 On Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action
Date: To be sent pre-dawn on Sat, March 16, 2019
Attachment: 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.]

********************
Proposed Working Group on Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action

It is respectfully suggested that a “Short-Fuse” Working Group be organized to take additional effective action regarding one of our long-time positions -- solving global warming 100% without military action by promoting the development of thorium fission.

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.

Each of our meetings on solving global warming with thorium fission (and other nuclear issues such as Fukushima Daiichi) has been led by Calvin Burgart who earned his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn when it was conducting in the 1960’s a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium nuclear reactor.

[President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of producing an explosion.]

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 –

(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Floride 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.]

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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 at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.

********************
Our Past E-mail Campaigns, Etc., on This Issue and The Democrat Party Making Global Warming the Central Issue for 2020

By way of background, the first section of http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org entitled “General Info + Info Re Next Meeting” contains info about our 30 Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns plus 4 Reports and 3 Reprises during our 13.5 years of existence.

[The 4 reports were issued by our Great Salt Lake Working Group regarding their activities 2016-2017 and the 3 reprises comprised reports of how our positions in the E-mail Campaigns were later directed at other decision makers.]

Our position on Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action – With Thorium Fission (comprising 2 E-Mail Campaign and 2 Reprises) is described in the attachment to this e-mail.

This e-mail, in effect, is a third Reprise Report because the attachment comprises a handout that I provided to each of the attendees of the 2/26/2019 meeting of the Salt Lake Committee on Foreign Relations on the topic of Global Warming.

[The first two items in the handout comprise a request as soon as the meeting was announced to our speaker to be prepared to opine on thorium fission and a “follow up” 2 weeks later. And creating a handout for attendees was a last-minute brainchild because it occurred that they would have no idea what the speaker was talking about.]

In discussions leading up to the SLCFR meeting on Feb 26 with Calvin Burgart and with George Kunath (one of my former NYC partners with whom I have had a weekly multi-hour gabfest for more than 31 years and who has been a pillar of Reading Liberally), we agreed that a new Working Group should be formed.

After all, each of the Democrat Presidential Candidates seems to be making Global Warming and “The Green New Deal” the central issue of her/his campaign – indeed, Jay Inslee (Governor of Washington), in announcing his candidacy, said that Global Warming would be THE ONLY ISSUE of his campaign.

So one mission of the new Working Group would be to contact each Democrat Candidate about thorium fission.

A second mission would be to contact the CEO’s of major tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

[George Kunath had been reading George Gilder’s “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy” whose Chapter 6 chronicled how Google located its acres and acres of computer equipment that provide Google’s “cloud” for users to store their data “free” but subject to “data mining” by Google clients – near a dam in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge so that Google could qualify for (aka, “steal” in the non-legal sense) cheap hydroelectricity. The estimated $5 billion cost of developing a thorium-fission commercial prototype is “pocket change” for the big data companies and would offer them the possibility of “life after death”!!!]

The third mission is open-ended – conjuring what else we can do to promote thorium fission and then doing it.

For example, contacting the moderators of the Democrat Presidential Debates.

********************
Please RSVP as soon as possible if you are interested in joining the Working Group.

Your friend,

John K.

PS -- To un-subscribe, please press “reply” and type “deletion requested.”

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Info About First Working Group Meeting - Everyone Welcome

Post by johnkarls »

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----- Original Message -----
From: john@johnkarls.com
To: readingliberallyemaillist@johnkarls.com
Bcc: (The “To” and “Cc” Addressees Listed At The Beginning of the Email Text Below)
Sent: Fri, 22 Mar 2019 15:00:28 -0700
Subject: Meeting Of Thorium Working Group
Attachments:
1. The E-mail Appearing Immediately Above Comprising The Posting To Which This Is A “Reply”
2. The Attachment To The E-mail Appearing Immediately Above (available for download there)



To: The Thorium Working Group --

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Eric Kaufman
Jay Hansen
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Cc: Undeclared Possible Member --

Kael Weston



Dear Friends,

Thank you all for volunteering for the Thorium Working Group.

[Including, perhaps, Kael Weston who has said several times that he would like to attend our next RL meeting but hasn’t yet inkled whether that means our Working Group.]


*********
Date of Our First Meeting

Would each of you please reply with your availability for meeting this coming week Mon-Fri at 7:00 pm.

I’ll match schedules in order to maximize participation and communicate the results.


**********
Venue for Our First Meeting

Since Eric and George will be participating by Skype (and I don’t know where you, Fern, are living these days – Sandy UT or Park City),

and since the remaining three participants live in Sandy UT and have expressed a preference for meeting in Sandy vs. the library downtown,

I will volunteer my digs provided everyone promises to close their eyes on the way to the dining room since Faux Fox (my rescue dog) creates havoc constantly. [If you, Fern, are living in Park City, you may want to participate by Skype.]

However, if Calvin volunteers to host so that his girlfriend can participate – ditto Jay re his wife – I would be happy to defer.


**********
Suggested Discussion Outline

Last Saturday’s e-mail to our 150-plus members inviting them to join the working group (which is, for your convenience, the first attachment to this e-mail) had said we would focus on whom to contact and, impliedly, what to say to them.

[NB: You don’t have to worry about execution logistics, since Yours Truly always does the grunt work of implementing the will of the group in sending out communications.]


A. Whom To Contact

A-1. Fern Lovett Baird has commented that we should contact young people who tend to be enthusiastic about environmental issues – please give some thought beforehand to how this can be done (e.g., are their youth organizations or periodicals that we could contact?).

A-2. Each of the Democrat Presidential Candidates.

A-3. Each of the Democrat Presidential-Debate Moderators, as they become known.

A-4. Each of the CEO’s of big-tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.) for the reasons described in last Saturday’s e-mail (the first attachment to this e-mail).

A-5. Others???


B. What We Have Said In The Past

A-1. The second attachment to this e-mail was attached to last Saturday’s e-mail

A-2. The portion of the second attachment highlighted in bold red on pp. 2-3 has been included in all of our e-mail campaigns beginning with our 10/10/2012 campaign to DOE Secretary Stephen Chu and our 11/23/2013 campaign to President Obama.

A-3. The bold red text was reviewed and edited both times by Calvin Burgart (our PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn) who led our meetings on both those dates.


C. What To Say Now (Which Can Vary Depending On The Targets)

[Please be prepared to offer your thoughts on this!!!]


D. Some Random Thoughts About What To Say Now

D-1. Explaining thorium (as can be seen from the bold red text on pp. 2-3 of the second attachment) takes quite a bit of space.

D-2. Whatever we say needs to be accurate (hopefully we can rely on Calvin again for approving any technical points).

D-3. If we decide, basically, to adopt the bold-red text, we will probably need “a hook” to get the recipients to read it.

D-4. An executive summary probably wouldn’t work because exec summaries are typically used because of the common wisdom that nobody will read more than one page – but it is respectfully suggested that the bold-red material can’t really be summarized further without serious sacrifices.

D-5. It is respectfully suggested that the best “hook” for Democrat Presidential Candidates would be a subject such as – “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action (An Issue That We Will Be Suggesting To Every Presidential-Debate Moderator).”

D-6. It is often effective for targets who are liberal in conventional political terms to cite authorities that are liberal in conventional political terms (and vice versa). For example, it might be nice to say cryptically that the advantages of thorium in the bold-red text are similar to those listed by Dr. Victor Stenger in the Huffington Post – the Huffington Post article is accessible from the Reference Materials section of our bulletin board for our 10/10/2012 meeting.

D-7. Re-reviewing our past statements

For example, the paragraph in the bold-red text about the advantages shared by both uranium fission and thorium fission claim in both the second and third items that America is NOT energy independent.

HOWEVER, there have been quite a few recent claims in the conservative news media that America is now energy independent, usually citing the same source.

I suspect that this claim is false since 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.

I’m guessing that the energy-independence claim is based SOLELY on a natural gas surplus produced by fracking (total gas production of 772.8 billion cubic meters in 2017 vs. consumption of 767.6 billion cubic meters per the CIA) which is now resulting in substantial exports of natural gas so that American consumers do NOT benefit from plummeting domestic gas prices.

After all, 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 a SHORTFALL in energy independence of 23% for 2017!!!

I will track down by the time of our meeting whether my suspicion is correct (and the source of the false information) or whether our energy production has grown 23% in two years.

Either way, we should footnote this somehow in our statements because many readers are bound to be aware of the claim of energy independence.

Otherwise, of course, our credibility would be destroyed (NB: it may even be necessary to provide an explanation so that the reader who thinks we are wrong can be cued as to why we are right).


**********
Any other topics/points, of course, are welcome.

And any new members, of course, are welcome.

Thank you for volunteering!!!

Your friend,

John K.

PS for Kael Weston – I will be dropping you from our e-mail list unless you indicate you will participate.


----- Original Message -----
From: john@johnkarls.com
To: readingliberallyemaillist@johnkarls.com
Bcc: (The “To” and “Cc” Addressees Listed At The Beginning of the Preceding Email Text)
Sent: Sat, 23 Mar 2019 02:38:47 -0700
Subject: So This Coming Wed Evening It Is - Directions Attached

Dear Friends,

So this coming Wed evening at 7:00 it is - driving directions attached.

For those attending in person, please try to arrive on time so that the meeting isn't interrupted constantly by answering the door.

BTW, 15-20 minutes early is fine - I will provide our normal quantity of cookies and coffee (both high test & decaf).

FYI, everyone responded except Jay, but we'll just have to hope he is available Wed because that is the only day the other 5 of us had free in common.

And, after all, it was our normal day of the week to meet each month.

Please remember the request to close your eyes on the way to the dining room!!!

Looking forward to seeing everyone Wed evening, if only by Skype for some of you.

Your friend,

John K.

PS for Kael - you will now be deleted from our Working Group e-mail list - I hope you enjoyed the "bird's eye view" into how we operate.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Current Thorium Research

Post by johnkarls »

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Last evening (March 23) at the Utah Symphony, I was seated next to an engineer who is very-widely read on numerous topics and who knew, inter alia, more than I do about thorium fission and current thorium research.

[He identified himself as “Malcolm” and said he would like to join our Thorium Working Group meeting this coming Wednesday evening.]

The reason for mentioning all this is that he started me on the road of investigating what research is currently being conducted and by whom.

He said that M.I.T. is currently conducting thorium research.

Unfortunately, I did not get the name of the professor(s) who is/are conducting the research.

And just as unfortunately, my daughter Hilary Karls who graduated in 2005 from M.I.T. with a double major in economics and electrical engineering and is a computer techie in Silicon Valley, has not sent me anything at all about M.I.T. doing anything on thorium research.

HOWEVER, in trying to track down this lead, I stumbled across “Thorium – Energy for the Future – Select Papers from THec15” by A.K. Nayak and Bal Raj Sehgal available on Amazon.com from Blackwell’s U.K. for $176.55.

Our previous E-mail campaigns regarding thorium had mentioned that “virtually all of India’s ‘sand’ beaches comprise thorium” so it should be no surprise that India is pursuing thorium research.

And “THec15” was a worldwide conference on thorium research held in Mumbai, India, in 2015 by the Government of India and two of its agencies, BARC and NPCIL, along with HBNI and IThEO. According to the Amazon description of “Thorium – Energy for the Future – Select Papers from THec15” –

“This book comprises selected proceedings of the ThEC15 conference. The book presents research findings on various facets of thorium energy, including exploration and mining, thermo-physical and chemical properties of fuels, reactor physics, challenges in fuel fabrication, thorium fuel cycles, thermal hydraulics and safety, material challenges, irradiation experiences, and issues and challenges for the design of advanced thorium fueled reactors. Thorium is more abundant than uranium and has the potential to provide energy to the world for centuries if used in a closed fuel cycle. As such, technologies for using thorium for power generation in nuclear reactors are being developed worldwide. Since there is a strong global thrust towards designing nuclear reactors with thorium-based fuel, this book will be of particular interest to nuclear scientists, reactor designers, regulators, academics and policymakers.”

LUCKILY, I stumbled across http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/news/ ... now-online which reported that “all of the material from the conference has now been collected and published on the ThEC15 website" (so there is no need to shell out $176.55 and wait 2-3 weeks for delivery from the U.K. for merely some “select papers” from the conference).

The ThEC15 website itself is located at http://www.thoriumenergyworld.com/thec15-mumbai.html and contains 127 papers and speeches by 46 speakers from 30 different nations.

BTW, there is an article about the conference in the November 2015 issue of Science Magazine which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and which is usually considered by America’s foremost research scientists as their first choice for publishing the results of their research.

[Full disclosure – my brother-in-law, Richard Nicholson, was the long-time Executive Director of AAAS and Publisher of Science Magazine after being the long-time Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation.]

Nevertheless, the materials on ThEC15 are “way over my head” so any readers of this posting who are better qualified to peruse the materials, are implored to do so and report back on important and/or interesting items.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Kirk Sorensen, CEO of Flibe Energy, Will Participate

Post by johnkarls »

.
It turns out that Flibe Energy is already engaged in developing a Liquide-Fluoride Thorium Reactor commercial prototype using the MSRE technology developed 1951-1976 at the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn.

By way of background, Calvin Burgart (PhD in Nuclear Engineering from Oak Ridge – U/Tenn; BS in Nuclear Engineering from Penn State) has led all of our meetings on thorium-fission (and other nuclear matters such as Fukushima Daiichi) since our 10/10/1012 meeting for which our focus book was “Super Fuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source For The Future” (Macmillan 5/8/2012) by Richard Martin.

Cal was aware of Flibe Energy and that its CEO was also a graduate of the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn.

So Cal sent an e-mail to the CEO via the OakRidge alumni database to acquaint him with our organization and invite him to participate in our Thorium Working Group meeting this coming Wed evening March 27.

Kirk Sorensen accepted and will be our fourth Skype participant!!!

There is a wealth of information on Flibe Energy’s website.

Cal says that the Board of Directors is extremely impressive.

Other tidbits from http://flibe-energy.com --

(1) Mission Statement

Our mission is to develop modular thorium reactors to supply the world with life-saving medicines, sustainable and clean energy, fresh water, and fuels.

(2) Additional Information from the Home Page

We Stand at the Dawn of the Thorium Age

Thorium is the key to creating life-saving medicines to fight cancer and to produce clean, efficient, reliable and sustainable energy. The full potential of thorium is best realized through molten-salt reactor technology, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Dr. Alvin Weinberg from 1951 until 1976. Flibe Energy has taken the Oak Ridge work and enhanced the design into the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), a molten-salt reactor design that can utilize thorium more effectively and efficiently than ever before. Thorium becomes Earth’s most abundant stored energy resource when used in the LFTR.

The salts used in the LFTR are combinations of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride (LiF-BeF2) salts often called “F-Li-Be.” Unlike current materials used in nuclear reactors, liquid FLiBe is impervious to radiation damage and incredibly chemically stable. FLiBe can hold enormous amounts of thermal energy safely and at low pressures yet at high temperatures, helping us finally realize the dream of a compact, affordable power system that can be mass-produced to meet the world's needs for power and other essential materials. We have named our company after this amazing mixture that makes thorium reactors possible.

We plan to develop LFTR technology in stages, beginning with a small production reactor, proceeding to a larger demonstration reactor, and arriving at a full-scale commercial prototype system appropriate for large-scale deployment and that could be arrayed for multi-gigawatt installations.

(3) And below a picture of what appears to be a steel ball bearing about 1 inch in diameter -

The LFTR represents the ultimate energy source that will propel humanity forward into a "thorium age" of energy independence, human advancement, exploration of new frontiers, and sustainable development. Using LFTR technology all the energy you will need for your entire life will be contained in a small ball of thorium that you could hold in your hand and will be worth a few cents. Please follow the links on this site to learn more and we hope that you will help us succeed on our important mission.

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Additional Menu Options

• Energy Landscape
• Tech Introduction
o Thorium Fuel Cycle
o Liquid-Fluoride Reactors
• LFTR Technology
o Power Conversion System
o Products
o EPRI Report
• Company
o Directors
o Advisors
o Investors
• Media
o Flibrary
o Myths vs. Facts

Contact Information

Flibe Energy, Inc.
Cummings Research Park
7027 Madison Pike NW, Suite 108
Huntsville, Alabama
USA 35806

Newest Blog Posts

• Molten Salt Reactor Article in Knowable Magazine 2019/02/25
• TVA Public Meeting, Murfreesboro, TN 2019/02/20
• 50th anniversary of U-233 start of MSRE 2018/10/08
• Fluorination Work under the MSRP2018/07/12
• Fluorination Technical Background Info 2018/07/11
• Flibe Energy awarded $2.6M to develop NF3 fluorination 2018/07/10


Reading Liberally Editorial Comment –

Which is offered by a person who spent the last part of his career as an investment banker in London (NB: Brits call them “merchant bankers” and for people who are not familiar with the financial industry, the “bread and butter” of investment banking firms since time immemorial has been public underwritings of corporate stock/bonds and, since the valuation of companies is their essence, mergers & acquisitions – investment banks are NOT stock brokerages and they are NOT hedge funds).

The most impressive aspect of the Flibe Energy website is the last “blog post” entitled “Flibe Energy Awarded $2.6M to develop NF3 flourination 2018.07.10” BECAUSE $2.1 MILLION CAME FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY!!!

WHICH IS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE “GOOD HOUSEKEEPING SEAL OF APPROVAL”!!!

However, when we focused on “Super Fuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source For The Future” (Macmillan 5/8/2012) by Richard Martin, his estimate of the total cost of developing the first commercial prototype was $5 BILLION.

So obviously, the $2.1 MILLION grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is merely “seed money” to see whether private investors are willing to put up the $5 BILLION or whatever.

It would appear that Flibe Energy and its CEO, Kirk Sorensen, have been working hard to raise the $5 BILLION or whatever since receiving the DOE grant last July.

Three good questions for Kirk on Wednesday evening would be –

(1) In applying for the DOE grant, what was Flibe Energy’s estimate of the cost of developing the first commercial prototype?

(2) How long did Flibe Energy estimate in the DOE grant application, would be required to develop the first commercial prototype once the $5 BILLION or whatever is raised.

(3) Is there any information on DOE’s website about the Flibe Energy grant? [SEC rules for underwritings (as distinguished from “crowd funding” which Yours Truly has always marveled has lasted so long since most “crowd fundings” are obvious criminal violations of The Securities Act of 1933, as amended) would require in the Public Offering Statement information from the DOE rather than merely Flibe Energy’s word for what the DOE might or might not have done.]

BTW, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the DOE grant to Flibe Energy on 7/10/2018 resulted from our 9/20/2017 e-mail to Ivanka Trump which is featured in the attachment to our 5/16/2019 E-mail to our 150-plus members kicking off our Thorium Working Group.

[That e-mail is the original posting to which this is the third “reply” and the attachment containing, inter alia, the text of our 9/20/2017 e-mail to Ivanka Trump is available in the original posting as an Adobe.pdf file available for download.]

[If, indeed, Flibe Energy’s DOE grant is the result of our e-mail to Ivanka Trump (we’ll probably never know but many of our e-mail campaigns have been effective), then I would say (1) Bravissima, Ivanka!!!, but (2) there is still plenty of work to do raising the $5 BILLION or whatever.]

BTW, it would probably be wise to mention Flibe Energy and its DOE grant in anything we send out, such as to the Democrat Presidential Candidates, the Democrat Debate Moderators, the CEO’s of the Big Data companies, etc.

Though since they are all liberal in conventional political terms, it would NOT be wise to point out in describing the “seal of approval” that DOE is part of the Trump Administration.

Enough said!!!

Respectfully submitted,

John Karls

PS – The venue for our Wednesday evening meeting has changed to Cal Burgart’s home in Sandy UT.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Meeting Cancellation + Way Forward

Post by johnkarls »

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---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Meeting Cancellation + Way Forward
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Tue, March 26, 2019 11:49 am MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The “To” Addressees Listed Below
Attachment:
HCNY-Bulletin-2019-04.pdf
(15.51 MiB) Downloaded 405 times
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Thorium Working Group Members -

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Eric Kaufman
Jay Hansen
George Kunath
Kirk Sorensen
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to cancel our meeting for tomorrow evening.

Calvin Burgart (PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. Nuclear Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn, BS in Nuclear Engineering from Penn State) has been our resident nuclear expert, leading all of our many nuclear-issue meetings since our 4/13/2011 meeting on Fukushima Daiichi.

He was also scheduled to be the host for tomorrow evening’s Working Group meeting for the three of us who would have been participating in person (vs. the 4 who would have been participating via Skype from NYC, Austin, Huntsville AL and Park City UT) even though his girlfriend Linda had suffered a serious stroke in January and Cal had been her primary caregiver since her release from the hospital.

This past Sunday, Linda suffered another setback requiring hospitalization and, at this point, it is not certain whether she will be returning home before tomorrow evening.

[Cal had felt able to host tomorrow evening’s meeting because Linda had been scheduled to fly out yesterday to visit her sister who is on her deathbed.]

Without Cal to rely upon for technical matters, I don’t feel that the meeting can be productive and, accordingly, am cancelling it with a sad and heavy heart (foremost for Linda and Cal, but also for our group).


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART I – LECTURE/PRESENTATION AT THE HARVARD CLUB OF NYC

During the last 24 hours, two new ideas were developed.

The first???

If Kirk Sorensen is willing, trying to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot for him at the Harvard Club of NYC for May.

The attachment to this e-mail is the HC/NYC’s April Bulletin. The 22 “lectures/presentations” on pp. 14-27 are examples of what I am talking about.

The HC/NYC has approximately 15,000 members, most of whom are Law or B-school grads and many of whom are wealthy investors and/or occupy important positions in the financial industry.

If we are able to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot, then financial executives and wealthy investors who would normally NOT read more than a sentence (much less a paragraph) about an investment opportunity from anyone other than their normal sources which are overflowing with “sure bets” featuring incredible returns (such as corporate buyouts) -- could probably be hooked by a listing in the HC/NYC Bulletin with a title such as “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action.”

The second idea???

It has been widely reported recently that the Harvard U. endowment has topped $37 BILLION.

Accordingly, if we were able to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot, I would propose sending a Special Invitation to each of the Trustees of the Harvard Endowment Fund.

Presumably they would seriously consider having Harvard invest in a thorium fission project that has DOE’s “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” – especially since solving global warming would be a PR coup for Harvard!!! [In addition to the potential profit from the investment.]

And, though I haven’t investigated yet who the Trustees are, I am certain that they are among the world’s most sophisticated investors in their own right.

There’s nothing like creating effective “buzz”!!!

Questions for Kirk Sorensen –

(1) Would you be willing to participate in a “lecture/presentation” at the HC/NYC if one can be arranged?

(2) Could you provide me with a link to your DOE application (assuming one is available online)?

(3) Could you provide me with a link to DOE’s approval which I assume had many pages of comments and conditions (assuming DOE’s approval document is available online)?

(4) In applying for the DOE grant, what was your estimate of the cost of developing the first thorium-fission commercial prototype?

(5) In your grant application, how long did you estimate would be required to develop the first commercial prototype once the $5 BILLION or whatever is raised?

I’ll look forward to your replies.


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART II – DRAFT COMMUNICATION TO DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Since we are unable to meet tomorrow evening to discuss this, I will proceed to prepare a draft that builds on the material that has been featured in all of our campaigns since our 2012 e-mail campaign to DOE Secretary Stephan Chu and our 2013 e-mail campaign to President Obama.

[That material comprises the bold-red material on pp. 2-3 of the attachment to our 3/16/2019 e-mail to our 150-plus members kicking off our Working Group – it is available for download as an Adobe.pdf file at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 546&t=1778.]

I will take into account the various considerations that were listed in the Suggested Discussion Outline for our meeting tomorrow evening (which, as mentioned above, had to be cancelled).

[The Suggested Discussion Outline is available at the web address in the second-immediately-preceding paragraph by scrolling down to the first “reply” entitled “Info About First Working Group Meeting – Everyone Welcome.” In particular, the seven issues raised in Section D of the Suggested Discussion Outline will be addressed in the draft.]

The draft will be circulated to each of you for comment as soon as it is ready, hopefully within the next week.


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART III – MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

Other ways of promoting thorium fission mentioned in the Suggested Discussion Outline, such as contacting youth groups/publications and contacting Democrat Presidential Debate Moderators, will have to await a later date.

Unfortunately, I am only a proverbial “one-armed wallpaper hanger”!!!

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Thorium Working Group Status Report

Post by johnkarls »

.
---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Thorium Working Group Status Report
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, April 10, 2019 2:55 pm MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The “To” Addressees Listed Below
Attachments:
HCNY-Bulletin-2019-04.pdf
(15.51 MiB) Downloaded 238 times
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Thorium Working Group Members -

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Eric Kaufman
Jay Hansen
George Kunath
Kirk Sorensen
Yours Truly


Dear Friends,

Re: Status Report

For the sake of good order, it seemed appropriate to provide a status report at this time.

The most-recent STATUS report which listed 3 “ways forward” was contained in the 5/26/2019 meeting-cancellation e-mail that, for your convenience, follows immediately below.


*****
Way Forward – Part II

We had been working on “Way Forward – Part II – Draft Communication to Democrat Presidential Candidates” and the certified-mail letter to Democrat Presidential Candidates was mailed last Friday.

As was reported last Sunday to all of the approx. 150 recipients of our regular e-mails.

[That e-mail is posted on our website at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1779 and the letter itself is the first attachment to this e-mail.]

We now have a “breathing space” until the moderators of the first Democrat Presidential Debate are announced and they begin to formulate their questions.

And it is respectfully submitted that our communication to the moderators should be a brief cover letter attaching our letter that was sent to the candidates themselves, since the moderators should know what the candidates were told (in addition to which there is not a lot to say).


*****
Ways Forward – Part I Off-Shoot

You might be amused to know that over the weekend March 30-31, I decided to make a one-day trip to NYC on April 17 even though it means giving up two ski days.

The reason???

You might have noticed that the 3/26/2019 Meeting Cancellation had mentioned 3 "ways forward" of which "Way Forward: Part II" was the candidate letters that we have been working on.

But "Way Forward: Part I" was getting Kirk Sorensen a "lecture/presentation" spot at the Harvard Club of NYC similar to the 22 lectures/presentations listed on pp. 14-27 of the Harvard Club's April Bulletin, another copy of which is attached hereto for your convenience.

Because the HC/NYC has 15,000 members, most of whom are Law or B-School grads who occupy important positions in the financial industry and many of whom are substantial private investors.

HOWEVER, I noticed on p. 18 of the Harvard Club Bulletin for April (please see the attachment) that Eric Schmidt and two other top Google/Alphabet executives are giving a presentation on a book they have authored giving tribute to "The Trillion Dollar Coach" who provided the "IDEAS behind the thrones" for much of what Google, Apple, etc., did.

So in line with George Kunath's idea from Chapter 6 of George Gilder's "Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy" which our Study Group has been discussing in various e-mails because it tells how Google located its ACRES AND ACRES of warehouses housing all of the computer equipment providing Google's version of the "cloud" in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge so that Google could "steal" cheap hydroelectricity -- the thought germinated March 30-31 to drop in for the presentation and ask a Q like --

"In paying tribute to Bill Campbell, you are not only praising his past ideas but implying that ‘the torch has been passed’ and you will try to emulate him in the future -- so would providing cheap, safe power for everyone in the world, not just for Google, and solving Global Warming 100% almost immediately for a mere $5 billion which would be a ‘drop in the bucket’ for Google/Alphabet, be something that would be worthy of Bill Campbell's memory???"

I'll toy with how much I can add to the Q concerning all the advantages of thorium contained in our letter to the Democrat Presidential Candidates without "going over the line" of being perceived as trying to deliver a lecture rather than ask a question. [I’ll probably include quite a bit in a script, but with ways of cutting it short depending on the reaction of the audience and of Eric Schmidt, et al.]

After all, there are 500 HC/NYC members registered to attend the lecture in the Club's Harvard Hall and I wouldn't want to offend either them or Eric Schmidt, et al.

Though I am quite well known among the Club’s membership from having participated in quite a few of the Club’s discussion/action groups over the decades, from prominent positions in the legal & financial industries and, not least, from having tossed more than 3,000 bouquets to opera stars and ballerinas, mostly in Europe but many in NYC.

HOWEVER, when I return, quite a bit of work will be needed on George Kunath’s idea regarding --

(1) Which big-data companies to contact, and
(2) Who the key decision makers are in each company.

Re key decision makers, 51% of Google’s voting power was retained, following the public offering of its stock, by its two founders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) converting their previously majority control into a small special class of stock with Super Voting Rights.

And their post-IPO 51% voting control was preserved when Google was dumped under a new holding company (Alphabet) so that many of Google’s businesses could be stripped out and put under the new holding company, and so that new businesses could be undertaken outside Google but under the new holding company.

During a 52-year career in international law and international investment banking, Yours Truly has always worshipped a Cardinal Rule that you ALWAYS pitch the key decision maker(s) DIRECTLY.

Because if you pitch an underling, then you have an additional person to convince. And, moreover, the underling will never do as good a job at pitching the key decision maker as you would.

So you might wonder why I am going to NYC next week to pitch Eric Schmidt, et al.

Two reasons.

The most important reason is to de facto pitch the 500 audience members. [And I’ll have plenty of extra copies of my Q (with our candidate letter attached) to provide to every audience member who inquires and to try to provide afterwards to Eric Schmidt, et al.]

The secondary reason is that Eric Schmidt, et al., should be “push overs” for worshipping their idol in this manner and, as converts, effective proselytizers. After all, they are trying to honor “The Trillion Dollar Coach” and convincing them to do so in this manner should be a “slam dunk.”

[Full disclosure, I am NOT the angel this section makes me out to be because I am carpe’ing the diem (or actually, carpe’ing the vesperum following the mid-day presentation of Eric Schmidt, et al.) to attend the Metropolitan Opera.]


*****
Other Ways Forward

The following e-mail had mentioned other ways forward that had already been suggested.

And there are probably other ways in which we can advance the cause that we haven’t even invented yet.

So until we can schedule our next meeting (we await breathlessly the report of Cal Burgart, our PhD in Nuclear Engineering from Oakridge-U/Tenn re the rehabilitation of his partner Linda whose second stroke in 3 months forced a cancellation of our first meeting), please everyone consider which Big Data Companies (and which key decision makers) we should be contacting, what we should tell them (probably based in large part on the info in the candidate letters), and what else we should be doing.

Your friend,

John K.



---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Meeting Cancellation + Way Forward
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Tue, March 26, 2019 11:49 am MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The “To” Addressees Listed Below
Attachment:
HCNY-Bulletin-2019-04.pdf
(15.51 MiB) Downloaded 158 times
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: Thorium Working Group Members -

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Eric Kaufman
Jay Hansen
George Kunath
Kirk Sorensen
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I am forced to cancel our meeting for tomorrow evening.

Calvin Burgart (PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. Nuclear Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge – U/Tenn, BS in Nuclear Engineering from Penn State) has been our resident nuclear expert, leading all of our many nuclear-issue meetings since our 4/13/2011 meeting on Fukushima Daiichi.

He was also scheduled to be the host for tomorrow evening’s Working Group meeting for the three of us who would have been participating in person (vs. the 4 who would have been participating via Skype from NYC, Austin, Huntsville AL and Park City UT) even though his girlfriend Linda had suffered a serious stroke in January and Cal had been her primary caregiver since her release from the hospital.

This past Sunday, Linda suffered another setback requiring hospitalization and, at this point, it is not certain whether she will be returning home before tomorrow evening.

[Cal had felt able to host tomorrow evening’s meeting because Linda had been scheduled to fly out yesterday to visit her sister who is on her deathbed.]

Without Cal to rely upon for technical matters, I don’t feel that the meeting can be productive and, accordingly, am cancelling it with a sad and heavy heart (foremost for Linda and Cal, but also for our group).


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART I – LECTURE/PRESENTATION AT THE HARVARD CLUB OF NYC

During the last 24 hours, two new ideas were developed.

The first???

If Kirk Sorensen is willing, trying to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot for him at the Harvard Club of NYC for May.

The attachment to this e-mail is the HC/NYC’s April Bulletin. The 22 “lectures/presentations” on pp. 14-27 are examples of what I am talking about.

The HC/NYC has approximately 15,000 members, most of whom are Law or B-school grads and many of whom are wealthy investors and/or occupy important positions in the financial industry.

If we are able to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot, then financial executives and wealthy investors who would normally NOT read more than a sentence (much less a paragraph) about an investment opportunity from anyone other than their normal sources which are overflowing with “sure bets” featuring incredible returns (such as corporate buyouts) -- could probably be hooked by a listing in the HC/NYC Bulletin with a title such as “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action.”

The second idea???

It has been widely reported recently that the Harvard U. endowment has topped $37 BILLION.

Accordingly, if we were able to obtain a “lecture/presentation” spot, I would propose sending a Special Invitation to each of the Trustees of the Harvard Endowment Fund.

Presumably they would seriously consider having Harvard invest in a thorium fission project that has DOE’s “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” – especially since solving global warming would be a PR coup for Harvard!!! [In addition to the potential profit from the investment.]

And, though I haven’t investigated yet who the Trustees are, I am certain that they are among the world’s most sophisticated investors in their own right.

There’s nothing like creating effective “buzz”!!!

Questions for Kirk Sorensen –

(1) Would you be willing to participate in a “lecture/presentation” at the HC/NYC if one can be arranged?

(2) Could you provide me with a link to your DOE application (assuming one is available online)?

(3) Could you provide me with a link to DOE’s approval which I assume had many pages of comments and conditions (assuming DOE’s approval document is available online)?

(4) In applying for the DOE grant, what was your estimate of the cost of developing the first thorium-fission commercial prototype?

(5) In your grant application, how long did you estimate would be required to develop the first commercial prototype once the $5 BILLION or whatever is raised?

I’ll look forward to your replies.


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART II – DRAFT COMMUNICATION TO DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Since we are unable to meet tomorrow evening to discuss this, I will proceed to prepare a draft that builds on the material that has been featured in all of our campaigns since our 2012 e-mail campaign to DOE Secretary Stephan Chu and our 2013 e-mail campaign to President Obama.

[That material comprises the bold-red material on pp. 2-3 of the attachment to our 3/16/2019 e-mail to our 150-plus members kicking off our Working Group – it is available for download as an Adobe.pdf file at viewtopic.php?f=546&t=1778.]

I will take into account the various considerations that were listed in the Suggested Discussion Outline for our meeting tomorrow evening (which, as mentioned above, had to be cancelled).

[The Suggested Discussion Outline is available at the web address in the second-immediately-preceding paragraph by scrolling down to the first “reply” entitled “Info About First Working Group Meeting – Everyone Welcome.” In particular, the seven issues raised in Section D of the Suggested Discussion Outline will be addressed in the draft.]

The draft will be circulated to each of you for comment as soon as it is ready, hopefully within the next week.


********************
WAY FORWARD – PART III – MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

Other ways of promoting thorium fission mentioned in the Suggested Discussion Outline, such as contacting youth groups/publications and contacting Democrat Presidential Debate Moderators, will have to await a later date.

Unfortunately, I am only a proverbial “one-armed wallpaper hanger”!!!

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Thorium Working Group Status Report

Post by johnkarls »

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Regular E-mail
Subject: Next Thorium Working Group Meeting + Report on Campaign Against Fake News Re Energy Independence
Date: Sun, April 28, 2019
Attachment: -----------------------------------------------------

To: Thorium Working Group Members

Cc: The other approximately 150 recipients of our regular e-mails

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 to create Working Groups to take action which might be required before a regular meeting could be scheduled (pursuant to which, e.g., our Great Salt Lake Working Group operated 2016-2017).

We currently have two Working Groups to which each of you was invited to participate and this is another interim report re 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.


********************
Next Working Group Meeting

If you are a member of the working group, please reply by tomorrow evening with your availability to meet 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Mon - Thur of next week (May 6-9).

On Tues morning I will e-mail the results of matching schedules to maximize participation.

Discussion topics will be based on the following information.


********************
The Top Five Officials of Google/AlphabetInc

Last Sunday’s report to all 150 of our members described the certified-mail letters that were sent April 19 to the top five officials of Google/AlphabetInc.

[A copy of last Sunday’s report including a copy of the letter available for download, is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1780.]

There has been no response from any of the five, which is not surprising.

After all, the letters were appeals to their consciences and I have found over the decades that such appeals often take time and the results, if any, are often indirect (and impossible to prove).

The gravamen of the appeal was George Gilder’s “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy” and its description in Chapter 6 of how Google had located its acres and acres of warehouses containing all of the computer equipment providing Google’s version of the “cloud” next to an old dam in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge so that Google could displace previous users of cheap hydroelectricity.

Our Working Group had had on its agenda contacting all of Big Data’s large energy users for which the $5 billion development costs of the first thorium-fission commercial prototype would be a “drop in the bucket” in order to make appeals to their consciences.

Now that the special circumstances for making contact with Google April 17-19 are past, it is time to consider at our next meeting which additional Big Data companies should be contacted, who the key decision maker(s) in each company is/are, and what should be said to her/him/them.


********************
Our April 5 et seq. Letters to the Democrat Presidential Candidates

A copy of a sample April 5 letter is attached to this e-mail because several of its features will be discussed in detail in the next section of this e-mail.

[Details, such as USPS tracking numbers, are available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1779.]

You may recall that the subject of those letters was “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action: A Subject We Will Be Requesting Every Presidential-Debate Moderator To Raise.”

Accordingly, it is time to consider at our next meeting what to say to the Debate Moderators as their selection is announced and they begin to formulate their questions.

[It is respectfully suggested that they should be provided with copies of what the candidates received and that there is not a lot more to say to the moderators other than to implore them to ask about global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.]


********************
Last Week’s Campaign Against The FAKE NEWS Re Energy Independence

The reason for attaching to this e-mail the sample April 5 letter to the Democrat presidential candidates was to discuss in detail the two items on its page 3.

The reason for including those two items was to provide answers to the obfuscation that the candidates are likely to encounter in trying to discuss such issues as global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.

*****
The PS Issue

You may recall that during Jan/Feb of 2018, IAW our long-standing position on Global Warming and Thorium Fission I contacted Prof. Michael B. McElroy, Harvard’s Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and the Chair of its University-wide Committee on the Environment.

Because he was scheduled to give a presentation to the Harvard Club of NYC on 2/8/2018 on the topic of “Climate Change: Real or Hoax.”

[A thorough report of my contacts with Prof. McElroy are available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1700.]

The problem???

Not only did Prof. McElroy fail to respond.

Harvard appears to have gone down the DEAD END described in the PS to our April 5 letter to the Democrat presidential candidates.

On 3/27/2019, the PBS Newshour presented a lengthy interview of David W. Keith, Harvard’s Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard’s Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS, where Prof. McElroy also hangs his hat) and a Professor of Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is also Executive Chairman of Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company focusing on the commercialization of capturing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

[The transcript of the PBS Newshour interview of Prof. Keith regarding seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances to achieve the same effect on Global Warming as large volcanic eruptions and as occasional, small nuclear wars – is available at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/as-pl ... pheric-co2.]

Additional Issues With The Harvard Approach

The PBS Newshour interview made clear that Prof. Keith has been a pariah in the scientific community for several decades for pursuing his research on this approach.

But that the Global Warming “establishment” is now becoming desperate.

The PS in our April 5 letter suggests one problem with Prof. Keith’s approach – that taking affirmative action to affect the earth’s atmosphere (vs. merely adopting the most economical energy source which happens to have no carbon emissions) will entail legal liability (if not worse).

Citing the Russian Federation’s refusal to adopt The Kyoto Protocol for many years because Global Warming would increase Siberia’s growing season – and the European Union’s finally having to subsidize Russia’s economic loss.

But the stupid PBS interviewers!!!

And we often lament about how stupid are the news media upon whom we are forced to rely!!!

[Which, when we focus on news media incompetence per se, we always discuss in terms of the “lynching” of Tom Brady so that by putting the issue into a sports context, nobody feels her/his “ox is being gored.” The most thorough discussion of the “lynching” of Tom Brady is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... d168#p1951 in a posting labeled “Indictment of the Amn News Media - Tom Brady = Exhibit A” and the two postings that immediately follow it entitled “Indictment of the Amn News Media - Krauthammer vs. Brady” and “Original NFL Report Proved Scientifically Tom Brady Innocent.”]

The interviewer and Prof. Keith obviously worked out in advance inserting into the interview the concept that seeding the earth’s atmosphere with various substances is like “turning down the global thermostat”!!!

Without it occurring to the interviewer the NEXT OBVIOUS QUESTION!!!

What happens if, in the future, the “global thermostat” has to be turned up???

Is what they have done irreversible???

And getting into the weeds a bit, most of us will recall from our high school and college science courses the concepts of solubility and specific gravity.

For example, most of us know that the earth’s atmosphere comprises many different gases – approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, and various other gases (such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, methane, and ozone) comprising trace elements that compose the remaining 0.1%.

First question = Would the substance that Prof. Keith proposes to use combine chemically with any of these other gases to create a molecule that blocks some of the sun’s rays??? Or would it remain intact and be suspended in the atmosphere’s solution like its other components are suspended???

Second question = Would the new substance have such a high specific gravity that it would eventually sink to the earth’s surface??? Or would it have such a low specific gravity that it would remain in the earth’s atmosphere forever???

Third question = If the new substance will remain in the earth’s atmosphere forever, how do we either remove it or counteract it if we need, sometime in the future, to turn up the earth’s “global thermostat”???

Enough already (for now) on the Harvard approach!!!

Except who is going to pay Russia for using it???

And for any inability to rein it in, if that proves necessary???

*****
The Footnote Issue

Most of the third page of our April 5 letter to the Democrat presidential candidates was devoted to the FAKE NEWS that the U.S. has achieved energy independence.

This FAKE NEWS is debunked by our footnote.

I became aware of this FAKE NEWS by seeing a TV interview about 4 months ago of Joseph Lieberman (US Democrat Senator from CT 1989-2013 and Al Gore’s Vice Presidential running mate in 2000).

He made the false claim without citing his source.

But it was fairly simple to discover that he must have been relying on the FRAUDULENT article in Bloomberg 12/8/2018.

Since the FRAUDULENT Bloomberg article has permeated the news media ever since 12/8/2018 and it directly conflicts with the seventh paragraph of our April 5 letter (which paragraph has been contained in all of our materials on thorium fission since our 10/10/2012 e-mail campaign to the D.O.E. Secretary Stephen Chu and our 9/11/2013 e-mail campaign to President Obama), the seventh paragraph was asterisked.

The asterisk’s footnote on page 3 destroys the basis for the Bloomberg report by pointing out, inter alia –

(1) It cherry picks ONE WEEK in early December 2018; AND

(2) Its sources (the American Petroleum Institute and DOE’s Energy Information Agency) CURRENTLY SAY that the U.S. energy independence described by Bloomberg WILL NOT EVEN BE ACHIEVED BY 2040!!!

HOWEVER, since sending out the April 5 letters and dealing with Google April 17-19, I have kept out a sharp eye for the FALSE CLAIM of energy independence in the news media.

And encountered the perfect example this past Tuesday (April 23) when Sean Hannity made the FALSE CLAIM about 16 minutes into his TV program – “perfect” because while he made the FALSE CLAIM, the TV screen displayed his source as the 12/8/2018 Bloomberg article!!!

My ensuing “war” with Sean Hannity and Bret Baier of Fox News is recorded in the second and third postings of http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1779.

It remains to be seen whether Sean Hannity and Fox News will purge this FAKE NEWS from their broadcasts.

If not, this will be yet another instance of the media purveying FAKE NEWS.

HOWEVER, I (and hopefully you) will “keep a sharp eye out” for Bloomberg’s FRAUDULENT claim of U.S. energy independence appearing in other news media outlets.

After all, global warming, thorium fission, the LACK of U.S. energy independence, and our gaping balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt are serious issues!!!


********************
Other Items For Our Working Group Agenda

Anyone???


********************
Again, please respond by tomorrow evening with your availability for next week.

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Thorium Meeting TOMORROW--Venue/Logistics/Discussion Outline

Post by johnkarls »

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The 7 Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Thorium Meeting TOMORROW (Wed) – Venue/Logistics/Discussion Outline
Date: Tue, May 7, 2019 – 2:19 am MDT
Attachment: NicklausRoad-DrivingDirections.pdf
-----------------------------------------------------


To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Kirk Sorensen
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

Re our meeting TOMORROW (Wed May 8th) 7:00 pm MDT - 9:00 pm MDT.

********************
Venue

For those attending in person, the venue will be my place (driving directions attached).

Please arrive a few minutes early so that our meeting can start promptly at 7:00 pm and not be interrupted by late arrivals. [The welcome mat will be out at 6:30 pm.]

I will provide our normal complement of coffee, decaf and cookies.

[As usual, please disregard the state of the premises caused by constant havoc from Faux Fox (my rescue dog) augmented by being on opioids all last week following cosmetic surgery to minimize droopy eyelids which were making it difficult to see anything – stitches come out later today.]

********************
Skyping From NYC – Huntsville AL – Austin TX – Park City UT

The Skype conference will be set up approximately 10 minutes before our 7:00 pm start.

The way it has worked in the past (but no guarantee since Skype is always updating their software) is that you can join any time, including if you arrive quite late.

If you have any trouble, please call me on my cell 917-270-1280.

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline

*****
I. Democrat Presidential Candidate Letters & Debates

We agreed on the text of the certified-mail letters that were sent 4/5/2019 to each of the candidates who had declared or formed an exploratory committee (additional letters were sent to candidates who declared/formed later).

A copy of the letter (and details such as USPS tracking numbers) is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1779.

Discussion issues –

1. What to provide the Presidential Debate Moderators as they are identified and begin to formulate their questions (the first of the six is scheduled for June 26/27 by NBC, MSNBC & Telemundo).

[It is respectfully suggested that the Moderators should be provided an exact copy of what the candidates received, in addition to which there is not a lot else to say.]

2. Whether to provide reminders to the candidates of what they received (perhaps with copies of what is being sent to the moderators).

3. Whether to do anything about the “town halls” of individual Democrat presidential candidates with Fox News moderators –

3(a). It is too late for the 4/15/2019 “town hall” – Bernie Sanders by Bret Baier & Martha MacMacCallum in Bethlehem PA.
3(b). Yours Truly also decided to do nothing for the 5/8/2019 “town hall” – Amy Klobuchar by Bret Baier & Martha MacCallum in Milwaukee WI.

4. HOWEVER, there are already “town halls” scheduled (A) 4/19/2019 – Pete Buttigieg with Chris Wallace in Claremont NH, and (B) 6/2/2019 – Kirsten Gillibrand with Chris Wallace from somewhere in Iowa. AND there are rumors that quite a few other Democrat candidates are in discussions with Fox News about additional “town halls.”

5. NB: The issues related to the Fox News “town halls” warp around on Section III below re Sean Hannity’s fake news about U.S. energy independence.

*****
II. Huge Silicon Valley Energy Users (and other corporations)

This idea was sparked by George Kunath’s report that George Gilder’s “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy” had described in its Chapter 6 how Google had located its acres and acres of warehouses containing all of the computer equipment providing Google’s version of the “cloud” next to an old dam in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge so that Google could displace previous users of cheap hydroelectricity.

Yours Truly “carpe’d” the “diem” to make a one-day trip to NYC to attend a presentation on 4/17/2019 by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle at the Harvard Club of NYC to discuss their new book honoring “The Trillion Dollar Coach” who had been the “power behind the throne” at both Google and Apple, among others.

The letter sent afterwards to the two Google “founders” (Larry Page and Sergey Brin who still retain 51% voting control of Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc., where Page is CEO and Brin is President) as well as Schmidt, Rosenberg and Eagle is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1780.]

However, many issues remain –

6. What additional companies should be contacted? [Huge energy users for which the $5 billion development cost of a commercial thorium prototype would be “a drop in the bucket”?]

7. Who is/are the key decision maker(s) in each of those companies?

8. What should be said to each of them?

[The letter to Page/Brin/Schmidt/Rosenberg/Eagle had an ethical overtone because they were trying to honor their mentor. It is respectfully suggested that the letters to other companies should, at their heart, contain all the same pros/cons that we have been using in our other attempts to influence the thorium public-policy issue, but the new letters will have to be couched in terms of investment attractiveness and “life after death” for Big Data, rather than the ethical-overtone opportunity presented by the Google/Alphabet special circumstances.]

9. NB: In yesterday’s weekly gabfest that George Kunath and I have had for 31.5 years and counting, George suggested the possibility of contacting Warren Buffett because one of Berkshire Hathaway’s many businesses is providing electricity in quite a few states that has been generated by wind and/or solar.

10. It is respectfully suggested that unless time is sufficient tomorrow evening to get into the issue of Buffett and wind/solar, this idea be left with George Kunath to develop because --

10(a). As we have studied many times in the past, hydro is by far the cheapest source of power followed by nuclear (which most European countries exploit to the max – e.g., according to http://www.cia.gov the last time we studied this issue, France generates 15% of its electricity from hydro but there are only so many rivers and areas that can be dammed, so 75% of its electricity is generated by nuclear after a substantial portion of its nuclear-generated electricity is exported); and

10(b). As we have studied many times in the past, fossil fuels are the third-most economical, which is why coal, oil & gas set the market price for energy; and

10(c). So-called renewables (solar and wind) have never been economic and exist only where substantial governmental subsidies are available – which is why we have always begun every one of our discussions of Global Warming over the years with the request 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.

10(d). And a minor point is whether it is worth contacting Microsoft and Bill Gates since (A) Warren Buffett seems so obsessed with solar and wind, and (B) Buffett and Gates are such close friends, playing bridge together over the internet every week and Buffett giving all his wealth in $5 billion annual chunks to the Gates Foundation with a pledge to leave whatever he has left to the Gates Foundation in Buffett’s will.

IF ANYONE HAS ANY SPARE TIME BEFORE TOMORROW EVENING, IT IS REQUESTED THAT S/HE RESEARCH WHICH COMPANIES ARE HUGE ENERGY USERS (TYPICALLY BECAUSE THEY HAVE CREATED THEIR OWN “CLOUDS” FOR MARKETING TO THE PUBLIC) BUT ALSO SUCH HUGE ENERGY USERS AS AMAZON – FOR WHICH $5 BILLION WOULD BE “A DROP IN THE BUCKET” – AND WHO THE KEY DECISION MAKER(S) ARE AT EACH SUCH COMPANY.

*****
III. Sean Hannity’s FAKE NEWS False Claiming U.S. Energy Independence

Initial protests with Sean Hannity and Fox News concerning the false claim about U.S. energy independence are available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 377d#p2418.

The reason for making the protests is that the false claim directly conflicts with the primary reasons for promoting thorium fission (or even renewables) as stated in the 7th paragraph of our 4/5/2019 letter to the Democrat presidential candidates available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1779 – “(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.”

As pointed out elsewhere, Sean Hannity’s FAKE NEWS about U.S. energy independence was the reason why the seventh paragraph of the Democrat candidate letter was asterisked and Sean Hannity’s FAKE NEWS thoroughly debunked in the asterisk’s footnote on page 3 of the letter.

Sean Hannity’s CONTINUED FALSE FAKE-NEWS CLAIMS and our two requests to him to “cease and desist” --

11. The “perfect” example of Sean Hannity’s false fake-news claim occurred about 16 minutes into his TV program of 4/23/2019 -- ”perfect” because, as he falsely claimed that the U.S. had achieved energy independence, the TV screen disclosed his source as the 12/6/2018 Bloomberg article that is thoroughly debunked on page 3 of our 4/5/2019 Democrat candidate letter. [I protested at 2:19 pm the following day via http://www.hannity.com/contact.]

12. The next example occurred about 51 minutes into his TV program of 4/25/2019 as he was interviewing President Trump – Sean Hannity had THE GALL to include U.S. energy independence in a list of President Trump’s accomplishments as part of a question and, no surprise, President Trump did not pause to correct Sean Hannity’s fake news, thereby making President Trump an accomplice to spreading the fake news. [I protested at 6:38 am the following day via http://www.hannity.com/contact.]

13. The next example occurred about 14 minutes into his TV program of 4/29/2019 when Sean Hannity pulled the same stunt with Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan – by including U.S. energy independence in a list of accomplishments of the Trump Administration in a question and, no surprise, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan did not pause to correct Sean Hannity’s false claim.

14. The next example occurred about 32 minutes into his TV program of 5/2/2019 when Sean Hannity pulled the same stunt with Eric Trump – by including U.S. energy independence in a list of accomplishments of the Trump Administration in a question and, no surprise, Eric Trump did not pause to correct Sean Hannity’s false claim. [For good measure, Sean Hannity repeated the false claim about 50 minutes into the same program, though this time during commentary rather than during an interview.]

15. The next example occurred about 45 minutes into his TV program of last evening (5/6/2019) during the course of an interview of Karl Rove. This time Karl Rove AGREED with the FALSE CLAIM of U.S. energy independence and rhapsodized for a couple of minutes about how beneficial achieving energy independence was for the U.S.!!!

16. SINCE SEAN HANNITY HAD ALREADY IGNORED TWO REQUESTS TO “CEASE AND DESIST” WITH SPREADING HIS FALSE FAKE-NEWS CLAIM (and the two protests sent to Bret Baier had also been futile), it seemed obvious to Yours Truly that only a request from President Trump (or President Trump’s Re-Election Campaign) to “cease and desist” would have any impact.

17. Accordingly, Yours Truly sent the e-mail on 5/3/2019 to both President Trump and to Lara Trump who heads his Re-Election Campaign that follows immediately below this Suggested Outline.

18. I am at my wits end about what else can be done about Sean Hannity’s false fake-news claim which completely “takes the wind out of the sails” of our thorium campaigns.

19. But I would appreciate a discussion of this problem tomorrow evening because during the brainstorming someone else may come up with a solution.

20. Though, full disclosure, I no longer think there is a solution until the first Democrat candidate debate June 26/27 when our communications to the NBC/MSNBC Moderators will expose to their networks Sean Hannity’s false fake-news claims. [Presumably the derision with which NBC and MSNBC will treat Sean Hannity will finally shame him into “ceasing and desisting.”]

BTW, Sean Hannity’s false fake-news claim not only affects what we are trying to do with the Democrat presidential candidates, but also affects what we are trying to do with the large corporate energy users.

*****
IV. Kirk Sorensen and Flibe Energy

Our 3/27/2019 meeting had to be cancelled for the reason described in our 3/26/2019 cancellation notice. The notice is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 377d#p2407.

However, Kirk Sorensen had indicated that he would participate in the meeting.

And he has been helpful in one or two short e-mails providing important information about thorium in general (vs. in connection with his Flibe Energy).

However, the 3/26/2019 meeting-cancellation notice had discussed, inter alia, the idea of obtaining for Kirk a lecture/presentation slot at the Harvard Club of NYC because its 15,000 members are primarily Law or B-School Grads “many of whom are wealthy investors and/or occupy important positions in the financial industry.” And also rhapsodized that we could invite the Trustees of the Harvard Endowment ($37 billion at last count).

The 3/26/2019 meeting-cancellation notice proceeded to pose 5 questions for Kirk –

(1) Would you be willing to participate in a “lecture/presentation” at the HC/NYC if one can be arranged?
(2) Could you provide me with a link to your DOE application (assuming one is available online)?
(3) Could you provide me with a link to DOE’s approval which I assume had many pages of comments and conditions (assuming DOE’s approval document is available online)?
(4) In applying for the DOE grant, what was your estimate of the cost of developing the first thorium-fission commercial prototype?
(5) In your grant application, how long did you estimate would be required to develop the first commercial prototype once the $5 BILLION or whatever is raised?

Kirk has not responded.

And I am guessing that the reason is that the answer to the first question is negative.

Because the website for his Flibe Energy makes eminently clear that in raising its capital (presumably the $5 billion which has been estimated by many experts), Flibe Energy is using an exception to complying with S.E.C. requirements (registration statements, financials, etc.) that is available if the only offerings are made SOLELY to so-called “sophisticated investors” for whom S.E.C. safeguards are unnecessary.

And I am guessing that the attorneys for Kirk and Flibe Energy have advised that participation in a “lecture/presentation” at the Harvard Club of NYC might violate the “sophisticated investor” exception because Kirk and Flibe would not be able to document the background of every attendee.

[Indeed, the write-up of the lecture/presentation in the Harvard Club’s monthly bulletin might itself comprise an “offer” to all 15,000 members, at least some of whom as recent graduates might not qualify as “sophisticated investors.”]

I only mention this because some of our Working Group might be wondering whether this idea has “slipped through the cracks” and this is my attempt to explain my surmise why it hasn’t “slipped through the cracks” even though it is not being pursued.

*****
V. Other Ideas

Anyone???

********************
I look forward to a good discussion tomorrow evening!!!

Your friend,

John K.


*************************************************************
This is the e-mail that was sent on 5/3/2019 in four segments due to length limitations (5:47 am MDT, 5:50, 5:53 and 5:55) to President Trump via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and at 6:04 am MDT to Lara Trump via http://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact.


Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
May 3, 2019

The Hon. Donald J. Trump
President of the United States

Dear Mr. President:

Re: Sean Hannity Setting You Up As A Purveyor Of Fake News Re Amn Energy Independence

Whether or not intentionally, Sean Hannity is setting you up as a purveyor of fake news re American Energy Independence.

And the mainstream media will have a field day ridiculing you when they discover your participation in the deception.

*****
Original Bloomberg False Claim

Sean Hannity has been trumpeting incessantly the false claim that the U.S. has become energy independent for the first time in 75 years.

[Sometimes Sean Hannity has disclosed the source of that false claim such as about 16 minutes into his TV program of April 23 when the TV screen stated while Sean Hannity made the claim that his source was Bloomberg on 12/6/2018.]

That claim is based on a Bloomberg article (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 Bloomberg was 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-OIL-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!!!

But shame also on Sean Hannity for not realizing what he is doing to you and your supporters by trapping you/them into being unwitting purveyors of FAKE NEWS!!!

*****
Examples of Sean Hannity Trapping You and Your Supporters

As mentioned above, Sean Hannity made his false claim about 16 minutes into his TV program of April 23 while the TV screen stated his source as the 12/6/2018 Bloomberg article.

At 2:19 pm on April 24, I protested via http://www.hannity.com/contact with the foregoing information virtually ver batim.

Example 1 Trapping You.

BUT ABOUT 51 MINUTES INTO HIS TV PROGRAM OF APRIL 25 WHEN HE WAS INTERVIEWING YOU, HE HAD THE GALL TO INCLUDE IN A LIST OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS ACHIEVING AMERICAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS!!!

ESPECIALLY GALLING because you could hardly have been expected to have paused to correct Sean Hannity on this point – which makes it appear that you were agreeing with it!!!

AND ALL THE MORE GALLING because having trapped you into apparently agreeing with the FAKE NEWS of American energy independence, Sean Hannity has exposed you to ridicule from the Mainstream Media of being a purveyor of such FAKE NEWS!!!

Example 2 Trapping Mark Meadows & Jim Jordan.

About 14 minutes into his TV program of April 29 during an interview of Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, Sean Hannity pulled the same stunt!!!

Listing American energy independence among the accomplishments of your administration with, as expected, neither Mark Meadows nor Jim Jordan correcting Sean Hannity.

Thereby trapping them into being purveyors of the FAKE NEWS.

Example 3 Trapping Your Son, Eric Trump.

About 32 minutes into his TV program of last evening (May 2), Sean Hannity pulled the same stunt during an interview of your son, Eric Trump.

Thereby trapping your son Eric Trump into being a purveyor of the FAKE NEWS.

[For good measure, Sean Hannity repeated the false claim about 50 minutes into last evening’s program during commentary, i.e., not during the course of an interview.]

*****
My Second Protest To Sean Hannity

As previously mentioned, I protested the day after his April 23 false claim.

And I protested again on April 26, the day after his interview of you trapped you into being a purveyor of his FAKE NEWS.

Obviously, Sean Hannity is oblivious to the way he is setting up you and your supporters to ridicule for purveying FAKE NEWS about American energy independence.

It would appear that the only way to get Sean Hannity to “cease and desist” is for your office to make an official request to him to do so.

Good luck!!!

Sincerely,

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

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Thorium Mtg Update - FedExToSeanHannity+PresTrump+FoxNewsCEO

Post by johnkarls »

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The 7 Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Thorium Mtg Update - FedExToSeanHannity+PresTrump+FoxNewsCEO
Date: Tue, May 7, 2019 – 8:14 pm MDT
Attachment: -----------------------------------------------------


To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Kirk Sorensen
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

You may recall that in Section III of the Suggested Discussion Outline for our meeting tomorrow (Wed May 8th) e-mailed to you pre-dawn this morning, I was despairing that anything could be done before the Democrat candidate debate June 26/27 about Sean Hannity’s false fake-news claims of U.S. energy independence which “take the wind out the sails” of our thorium campaigns.

Since Sean Hannity had already ignored two requests to “cease and desist.” And e-mails to President Trump and his Re-Election Campaign suggesting that he/they also request Sean Hannity to “cease and desist” with making President Trump and his supporters Co-Purveyors of Sean Hannity’s False Fake-News Claims of U.S. Energy Independence appeared to have no effect.

[The Suggested Discussion Outline is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 0fef#p2423.]

HOWEVER, after sleeping on the problem, it seemed obvious from a half-century business career that the solution would be to inject more drama into the situation.

ACCORDINGLY, the attached letter was FedEx’d Overnight to Sean Hannity with copies FedEx’d Overnight to President Trump and the CEO of Fox News.

AFTER ALL, it’s one thing for e-mails to be forwarded to the most-junior intern for disposal, probably unread.

AND IT’S QUITE ANOTHER THING for the most-junior intern to ignore a FedEx Overnight letter. Especially when even the most-junior intern should realize the boss would NOT appreciate being blind-sided by a possible inquiry from the President of the United States about WTF the boss is doing to the President.

Enough said.

Though Section III of the Suggested Discussion Outline still merits consideration of whether, if the FedEx’s are ineffectual, anything further should be done prior to the June 26/27 Democrat presidential debate.

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

May 8 Meeting Report

Post by johnkarls »

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-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: May 8 Meeting Report
Date: Thu, May 9, 2019 – 7:35 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------


To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

For the sake of good order (including recording the assignments that various of us have undertaken), the following record of our meeting of last evening is offered. Please feel free to revert with any corrections/comments.

This record makes frequent references to the Suggested Discussion Outline which is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... b812#p2423.]

*****
Resignation of Kirk Sorensen

Section IV of the Suggested Discussion Outline addressed one of our long-standing objectives of obtaining for Kirk Sorensen a lecture/presentation slot at the Harvard Club of NYC.

And addressed several inquiries that had been received why we appeared to be making no progress re this objective.

I recounted that Kirk had sent several e-mails to both myself and to Cal Burgart providing general information about thorium-fission, but that he had ignored 5 questions posed to him on 3/26/2019 regarding his Flibe Energy Company including whether he would be willing to participate in a lecture/presentation at the Harvard Club of NYC if one could be arranged.

And then I noted that the Flibe Energy website makes eminently clear that in raising its capital (presumably the $5 billion which has been estimated by many experts), Flibe Energy is using an exception to complying with S.E.C. requirements (registration statements, financials, etc.) that is available if the only offerings are made SOLELY to so-called “sophisticated investors” for whom S.E.C. safeguards are unnecessary.

As a result of which I surmised that Kirk is NOT able to participate in a lecture/presentation at the Harvard Club of NYC because his attorneys would NOT be able to document that every attendee was a “sophisticated investor” – and indeed the listing of the lecture/presentation in the monthly bulletin which goes to the 15,000 members of the Harvard Club of NYC might itself be viewed by a zealous prosecutor as an “offering” and presumably some of the 15,000 members do not qualify as “sophisticated investors.”

All of these comments in the Suggested Discussion Outline were intended as a “friendly suggestion” that Kirk and his Flibe Energy might get into serious trouble as a result of Kirk’s participation in a group such as ours that is aggressively trying to raise financing for developing a commercial thorium-fission prototype such as Kirk’s Flibe Energy is proposing to do.

No criticism of Kirk since he is not an attorney himself.

He apparently conferred with his attorneys because he resigned from our Working Group within 24 hours of receiving the Suggested Discussion Outline.

We agreed at our meeting that WE WISH HIM GOOD LUCK!!!

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. I – Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates

Jay Hansen immediately objected to the first sentence of the Outline that our Working Group had “agreed” on the text of the certified-mail letters that were sent 4/5/2019 to each of the candidates.

Jay had made 4 suggested changes, one of which was accepted and 3 of which were rejected by the other Working Group members.

Jay had then explicitly acquiesced in the rejection of the 3 changes before the letters were sent.

It was agreed that whether “acquiescing” constitutes “agreeing” is akin to such semantic issues as whether “surveillance” is a type of “spying.”

But on to more important matters.

First, it was agreed that the Moderators for the regular Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates beginning June 26/27 should be provided with a copy of the 4/5/2019 letter that was sent to each of the candidates.

Second, it was agreed that the Moderators should be provided with a short covering letter.

Third, it was agreed that the best way of catching attention would be to include in the short covering letter 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer, that could be asked of the candidates (such as the importance of energy independence so that it is unnecessary to kowtow to oil-exporting nations and the importance of energy independence so that America does not continue to pile up massive foreign debt for our oil imports – as well as more specific questions addressing Global Warming in general and addressing thorium fission in particular).

Fourth, it was agreed that each of the candidates participating in each debate should be provided with a copy of whatever we send to the Moderators (which, of course, would include the letter that each of the candidates had long-since received from us).

Fifth, Jay Hansen agreed to edit/polish the questions if Yours Truly provided some initial-draft questions.

Sixth, Jay Hansen insisted that we should provide documentation for the statement we have been making in our letters to the candidates, etc., that the cost of developing the first commercial thorium-fission prototype “has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion.” In this regard, I pointed out that --

1. The source of that figure came from p. 230 of “Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin (Macmillan 2012) which Cal Burgart had proposed as the focus book for our 10/10/2012 meeting which he led.

2. But even more interesting would be the estimated cost included in the application of Kirk Sorensen’s Flibe Energy to the U.S. Department of Energy in obtaining a $2.1 million grant last July to finance the fund-raising of the actual $5 billion (or whatever) development cost. [For which the ultimate fund-raising of $5 billion or whatever, as mentioned above, Kirk and Flibe are relying on the “sophisticated investor” exception to the S.E.C. rules.]

NB: What the amount of the cost estimate was provided in Flibe Energy’s grant application to D.O.E. was one of the 5 questions posed 3/26/2019 to Kirk which he ignored. I will undertake, as my post-meeting assignment, trying to obtain information from public sources about Flibe’s D.O.E. application and information about the conditions specified in the grant.

Seventh, it was agreed to do nothing with respect to the “town halls” that are being conducted by Fox News with individual candidates. This despite the fact that the Fox News Moderators are posing about half of the questions themselves with only half coming from the local town-hall attendees. Our reason for not doing anything about the “town halls” was that an individual candidate is unlikely to try to separate her/him-self “from the pack” by taking a stand on nuclear energy which has been so controversial ever since Jane Fonda’s “China Syndrome” movie in 1979 – and the resulting prejudice that has been perpetuated/augmented ever since by the Mainstream Media.

[We noted that on several other issues, several of the candidates have forged a joint position (sometimes even co-sponsoring legislation) and this would be more likely to occur vis-à-vis investigating nuclear to solve Global Warming as the candidates, as a group, think they may be about to be asked some of our 4-5 questions by the Debate Moderators.]

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. II – Huge Silicon Valley Users (and other corporations)

First, nobody had taken time beforehand, as urged in the Suggested Discussion Outline, to research which companies are huge energy users for which $5 billion would be “a drop in the bucket.”

Second, George Kunath accepted as his post-meeting assignment the generation of an initial list of such companies and the key decision maker(s) in each of those companies.

Third, at George Kunath’s instigation, he and I re-hashed briefly the 45-minute discussion we had had during our weekly multi-hour gabfest last Monday about the handful of hard-left states (estimated at 18) that have enacted energy deregulation as a result of federal 1992 bi-partisan enabling legislation. Energy de-regulation means that the electricity company that connects your home to the grid provides you with the option of the source of that electricity (and merely acts as the conduit, though it may also be one of the source competitors). The reason why the enabling 1992 federal legislation was bi-partisan is that liberals wanted to provide liberal individuals with the ability to opt for higher-priced wind/solar-generated electricity. While conservatives wanted to eliminate the ability of state regulators to approve exorbitant rates to finance uneconomic energy sources such as wind/solar. [It is interesting that of the handful of states that have enacted energy deregulation, virtually all are hard-left so-called “blue” states that are trying to provide “freedom of choice” to individuals who would like to opt for higher-priced solar/wind-generated electricity.]

Fourth, Cal Burgart disputed the surmise in the Suggested Discussion Outline that contacting Warren Buffet (one of whose Berkshire Hathaway businesses is solar/wind) and his close friend, Bill Gates, would be a “lost cause.” Cal claimed that Bill Gates is a strong proponent of nuclear energy. Accordingly, Cal accepted as his post-meeting assignment providing evidence that this is true.

Fifth, it was agreed that whatever we send to each of the key decision makers in the various target companies should probably vary depending on whether, such as Cal claims for Bill Gates, they are already favorably inclined toward nuclear. Or, for that matter, vary for those who are unfavorably inclined and vary for those who have no known pre-disposition.

Sixth, there was no discussion of how we would produce these varied communications. Which may have been due to meeting exhaustion, or may have been due to the realization that we are a long way from determining who the key decision makers are and what their pre-dispositions, if any, are.

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. III – Sean Hannity’s False FAKE NEWS Claiming U.S. Energy Independence

First, we agreed that Sean Hannity’s behavior is appalling!!! And that we will proceed “full speed ahead” in our approach to the Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates (as described above) which will “lay waste” to the reputation of Sean Hannity and Fox News if they do not “cease and desist” from this false FAKE NEWS!!!

Second, we agreed that if the FedEx-Overnight letters that were sent 5/7/2019 to Sean Hannity with FedEx-Overnight copies to President Trump and to the CEO of Fox News prove to be ineffectual, there is probably nothing further that can be done before the Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates.

[A copy of those letters is available for download at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 5db7#p2426.]

BTW, it is noted that in his recent campaign appearances, President Trump has been making the claim that the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of oil & gas.

This claim is true, even though the U.S. is still left woefully short of being energy independent (which means, despite being the world’s largest oil & gas producer, having to rely on millions of barrels/day of crude oil imports from the world market which is dominated by OPEC).

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. V – Other Ideas

Nobody had any other ideas for approaches we should be pursuing.

*****
As usual, comments or corrections are welcome.

Please undertake your assignments as expeditiously as possible and report back by e-mail directly to each of the other Working Group members (vs. solely to me for re-distribution).

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Progress Report Following Our May 8 Meeting

Post by johnkarls »

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-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Progress Report Following Our May 8 Meeting
Date: Thu, May 16, 2019 – 5:08 am MDT
Attachment:
RL-f508-BillGatesNuclearInvestment.docx
(15.43 KiB) Downloaded 174 times
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To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

This is a progress report following up on our May 8 meeting.

[The 5/9/2019 Report On Our May 8 Meeting follows below for your convenience.]

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. I – Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates

Jay Hansen agreed to edit/polish 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer, for inclusion in cover letters to the Democrat Candidate Debate Moderators to which a copy of the letter sent to the candidates on 4/5/2019 would be attached – if I took a first crack at drafting the 4-5 questions.

It is respectfully suggested that the following should be the 4-5 questions for inclusion in the cover letters --

1. Do you believe solving global warming is important?
2. Do you agree that hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are the only sources of clean energy?
3. Do you believe that it is possible to make a dent in the problem without using nuclear energy?
4. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever become economic?
5. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever be practical because of only intermittent availability?
6. Do you believe that the best way to solve global warming 100% in the near future would be developing a cheap and safe source such as thorium fission?

And yes, I realize that there are 6 questions rather than 4-5, and that the 6th is 29 words rather than 25.

Although only Jay agreed to edit/polish the questions, it is respectfully suggested that if anyone else has any comments, s/he should feel free to provide them.

*****
The meeting report recorded that the source of the $5 billion estimate by experts for developing the first commercial prototype of a molten-salt thorium reactor was Page 230 of “Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin (Macmillan 2012) which Cal Burgart had proposed as the focus book for our 10/10/2012 meeting which he led.

However, I also undertook to make a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) Request to the U.S. Department of Energy for a copy of Kirk Sorensen’s “seed money” application to ascertain his estimate of the cost and the time that would be required to develop the first commercial prototype.

That request has been made (DOE will advise, before proceeding, how much they will charge for compliance which could easily amount to several thousand dollars).

It is respectfully suggested that whether or not we obtain Kirk’s estimates, they should NOT be used in anything we send out to candidates, corporate decision makers, etc. – because doing so would likely upset Kirk’s attempt to rely on the “sophisticated investor” exception to complying with S.E.C. rules since we would become a de facto “shill” for Kirk and his company.

And, accordingly, it is respectfully suggested that we should proceed with our projects while giving no regard to the FOIA request.

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. II – Huge Silicon Valley Users (and other corporations)

On March 8, Cal Burgart disputed my surmise in the Suggested Discussion Outline that contacting Warren Buffet (one of whose Berkshire Hathaway businesses is solar/wind) and his close friend, Bill Gates, would be a “lost cause.” Cal claimed that Bill Gates is a strong proponent of nuclear energy. Accordingly, Cal accepted as his post-meeting assignment providing evidence that this is true.

Cal was apparently so stimulated by our meeting that before retiring for the evening on May 8, he had e-mailed the attached article describing how Bill Gates had invested in an experimental nuclear project in 2011 and was quoted as saying in a letter –

“Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day." He added that "problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."

George Kunath undertook generating a list of companies which are huge energy users for which $5 billion would be a “drop in the bucket” and who the key decision makers are in each of those companies.

However, George has been focused on other issues.

Accordingly, I made a Google search for a list of the most prominent “cloud” providers and obtained the following list from https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/clo ... providers/. [The financial info following unfamiliar names was obtained from SEC filings per its “Edgar” service.]

• Kamatera – must be private since not listed with the SEC
• phoenixNAP - must be private since not listed with the SEC
• Amazon Web Services
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Platform
• Adobe
• VMware – only $8.9 billion of revenues and $2.1 billion of income for FY-2/1/2019 [shareholder equity was $14.66 billion at 2/1/2019, a SIGNIFICANT DROP from $21.21 billion at 2/2/2018!!!]
• IBM Cloud
• Rackspace – only $1.01 billion of shareholder equity at 9/30/2016 (most recent SEC filing)
• Red Hat – only $ 1.61 billion of shareholder equity at 2/28/2019
• Salesforce – only $15.61 billion of shareholder equity at 1/31/2019
• Oracle Cloud
• SAP
• Verizon Cloud
• Navisite – SEC’s Edgar produces only a $ 2 billion IPO Prospectus for Charter Communications Operating, LLC
• Dropbox – only $2.13 of shareholder equity at 3/31/2019
• Egnyte – must be private since there was an exempt IPO in 2011

It is respectfully suggested that we concentrate on the following companies (Google has already been covered by my 4/22/2019 report to you, a copy of which is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 8e20#p2415) --

Amazon
Microsoft
Adobe
IBM
Oracle
SAP
Verizon
Berkshire Hathaway [per Cal Burgart’s info about Warren Buffet’s BFF, Bill Gates]

I would suspect that the key decision maker at Microsoft would still be Bill Gates, whom Cal Burgart has already demonstrated to be a keen nuclear-energy supporter.

Re the remaining companies, this will comprise an SOS while George Kunath is focused on other issues, for everyone else to try to try to ascertain who the key decision maker(s) are, and whether s/he or they have a known position on nuclear energy.

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. V – Other Ideas

A passing thought in the last 24 hours = judging from the reaction of Joe Biden to AOC’s criticism of him regarding “The Green New Deal” and global warming, perhaps it would be worthwhile sending to AOC a copy of the letter we have sent to the candidates.

Any comments re AOC anyone???

********************
Thank you all for your participation and continuing efforts!!!

Your friend,

John K.


-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: May 8 Meeting Report
Date: Thu, May 9, 2019 – 7:35 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------


To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

For the sake of good order (including recording the assignments that various of us have undertaken), the following record of our meeting of last evening is offered. Please feel free to revert with any corrections/comments.

This record makes frequent references to the Suggested Discussion Outline which is available at viewtopic.php?f=546&t=1778&p=2423&hilit=sorensen&sid=78c0e21d649c3127e6a62056db16b812#p2423.]

*****
Resignation of Kirk Sorensen

Section IV of the Suggested Discussion Outline addressed one of our long-standing objectives of obtaining for Kirk Sorensen a lecture/presentation slot at the Harvard Club of NYC.

And addressed several inquiries that had been received why we appeared to be making no progress re this objective.

I recounted that Kirk had sent several e-mails to both myself and to Cal Burgart providing general information about thorium-fission, but that he had ignored 5 questions posed to him on 3/26/2019 regarding his Flibe Energy Company including whether he would be willing to participate in a lecture/presentation at the Harvard Club of NYC if one could be arranged.

And then I noted that the Flibe Energy website makes eminently clear that in raising its capital (presumably the $5 billion which has been estimated by many experts), Flibe Energy is using an exception to complying with S.E.C. requirements (registration statements, financials, etc.) that is available if the only offerings are made SOLELY to so-called “sophisticated investors” for whom S.E.C. safeguards are unnecessary.

As a result of which I surmised that Kirk is NOT able to participate in a lecture/presentation at the Harvard Club of NYC because his attorneys would NOT be able to document that every attendee was a “sophisticated investor” – and indeed the listing of the lecture/presentation in the monthly bulletin which goes to the 15,000 members of the Harvard Club of NYC might itself be viewed by a zealous prosecutor as an “offering” and presumably some of the 15,000 members do not qualify as “sophisticated investors.”

All of these comments in the Suggested Discussion Outline were intended as a “friendly suggestion” that Kirk and his Flibe Energy might get into serious trouble as a result of Kirk’s participation in a group such as ours that is aggressively trying to raise financing for developing a commercial thorium-fission prototype such as Kirk’s Flibe Energy is proposing to do.

No criticism of Kirk since he is not an attorney himself.

He apparently conferred with his attorneys because he resigned from our Working Group within 24 hours of receiving the Suggested Discussion Outline.

We agreed at our meeting that WE WISH HIM GOOD LUCK!!!

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. I – Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates

Jay Hansen immediately objected to the first sentence of the Outline that our Working Group had “agreed” on the text of the certified-mail letters that were sent 4/5/2019 to each of the candidates.

Jay had made 4 suggested changes, one of which was accepted and 3 of which were rejected by the other Working Group members.

Jay had then explicitly acquiesced in the rejection of the 3 changes before the letters were sent.

It was agreed that whether “acquiescing” constitutes “agreeing” is akin to such semantic issues as whether “surveillance” is a type of “spying.”

But on to more important matters.

First, it was agreed that the Moderators for the regular Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates beginning June 26/27 should be provided with a copy of the 4/5/2019 letter that was sent to each of the candidates.

Second, it was agreed that the Moderators should be provided with a short covering letter.

Third, it was agreed that the best way of catching attention would be to include in the short covering letter 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer, that could be asked of the candidates (such as the importance of energy independence so that it is unnecessary to kowtow to oil-exporting nations and the importance of energy independence so that America does not continue to pile up massive foreign debt for our oil imports – as well as more specific questions addressing Global Warming in general and addressing thorium fission in particular).

Fourth, it was agreed that each of the candidates participating in each debate should be provided with a copy of whatever we send to the Moderators (which, of course, would include the letter that each of the candidates had long-since received from us).

Fifth, Jay Hansen agreed to edit/polish the questions if Yours Truly provided some initial-draft questions.

Sixth, Jay Hansen insisted that we should provide documentation for the statement we have been making in our letters to the candidates, etc., that the cost of developing the first commercial thorium-fission prototype “has been estimated by many experts at $5 billion.” In this regard, I pointed out that --

1. The source of that figure came from p. 230 of “Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin (Macmillan 2012) which Cal Burgart had proposed as the focus book for our 10/10/2012 meeting which he led.

2. But even more interesting would be the estimated cost included in the application of Kirk Sorensen’s Flibe Energy to the U.S. Department of Energy in obtaining a $2.1 million grant last July to finance the fund-raising of the actual $5 billion (or whatever) development cost. [For which the ultimate fund-raising of $5 billion or whatever, as mentioned above, Kirk and Flibe are relying on the “sophisticated investor” exception to the S.E.C. rules.]

NB: What the amount of the cost estimate was provided in Flibe Energy’s grant application to D.O.E. was one of the 5 questions posed 3/26/2019 to Kirk which he ignored. I will undertake, as my post-meeting assignment, trying to obtain information from public sources about Flibe’s D.O.E. application and information about the conditions specified in the grant.

Seventh, it was agreed to do nothing with respect to the “town halls” that are being conducted by Fox News with individual candidates. This despite the fact that the Fox News Moderators are posing about half of the questions themselves with only half coming from the local town-hall attendees. Our reason for not doing anything about the “town halls” was that an individual candidate is unlikely to try to separate her/him-self “from the pack” by taking a stand on nuclear energy which has been so controversial ever since Jane Fonda’s “China Syndrome” movie in 1979 – and the resulting prejudice that has been perpetuated/augmented ever since by the Mainstream Media.

[We noted that on several other issues, several of the candidates have forged a joint position (sometimes even co-sponsoring legislation) and this would be more likely to occur vis-à-vis investigating nuclear to solve Global Warming as the candidates, as a group, think they may be about to be asked some of our 4-5 questions by the Debate Moderators.]

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. II – Huge Silicon Valley Users (and other corporations)

First, nobody had taken time beforehand, as urged in the Suggested Discussion Outline, to research which companies are huge energy users for which $5 billion would be “a drop in the bucket.”

Second, George Kunath accepted as his post-meeting assignment the generation of an initial list of such companies and the key decision maker(s) in each of those companies.

Third, at George Kunath’s instigation, he and I re-hashed briefly the 45-minute discussion we had had during our weekly multi-hour gabfest last Monday about the handful of hard-left states (estimated at 18) that have enacted energy deregulation as a result of federal 1992 bi-partisan enabling legislation. Energy de-regulation means that the electricity company that connects your home to the grid provides you with the option of the source of that electricity (and merely acts as the conduit, though it may also be one of the source competitors). The reason why the enabling 1992 federal legislation was bi-partisan is that liberals wanted to provide liberal individuals with the ability to opt for higher-priced wind/solar-generated electricity. While conservatives wanted to eliminate the ability of state regulators to approve exorbitant rates to finance uneconomic energy sources such as wind/solar. [It is interesting that of the handful of states that have enacted energy deregulation, virtually all are hard-left so-called “blue” states that are trying to provide “freedom of choice” to individuals who would like to opt for higher-priced solar/wind-generated electricity.]

Fourth, Cal Burgart disputed the surmise in the Suggested Discussion Outline that contacting Warren Buffet (one of whose Berkshire Hathaway businesses is solar/wind) and his close friend, Bill Gates, would be a “lost cause.” Cal claimed that Bill Gates is a strong proponent of nuclear energy. Accordingly, Cal accepted as his post-meeting assignment providing evidence that this is true.

Fifth, it was agreed that whatever we send to each of the key decision makers in the various target companies should probably vary depending on whether, such as Cal claims for Bill Gates, they are already favorably inclined toward nuclear. Or, for that matter, vary for those who are unfavorably inclined and vary for those who have no known pre-disposition.

Sixth, there was no discussion of how we would produce these varied communications. Which may have been due to meeting exhaustion, or may have been due to the realization that we are a long way from determining who the key decision makers are and what their pre-dispositions, if any, are.

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. III – Sean Hannity’s False FAKE NEWS Claiming U.S. Energy Independence

First, we agreed that Sean Hannity’s behavior is appalling!!! And that we will proceed “full speed ahead” in our approach to the Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates (as described above) which will “lay waste” to the reputation of Sean Hannity and Fox News if they do not “cease and desist” from this false FAKE NEWS!!!

Second, we agreed that if the FedEx-Overnight letters that were sent 5/7/2019 to Sean Hannity with FedEx-Overnight copies to President Trump and to the CEO of Fox News prove to be ineffectual, there is probably nothing further that can be done before the Democrat Presidential Candidate Debates.

[A copy of those letters is available for download at viewtopic.php?f=546&t=1778&p=2426&hilit=update&sid=6927145865a90f464409e684c5745db7#p2426.]

BTW, it is noted that in his recent campaign appearances, President Trump has been making the claim that the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of oil & gas.

This claim is true, even though the U.S. is still left woefully short of being energy independent (which means, despite being the world’s largest oil & gas producer, having to rely on millions of barrels/day of crude oil imports from the world market which is dominated by OPEC).

*****
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. V – Other Ideas

Nobody had any other ideas for approaches we should be pursuing.

*****
As usual, comments or corrections are welcome.

Please undertake your assignments as expeditiously as possible and report back by e-mail directly to each of the other Working Group members (vs. solely to me for re-distribution).

Your friend,

John K.

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2

Post by johnkarls »

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-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2
Date: Fri, May 17, 2019 – 7:27 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

To:

Fern Lovett Baird
Lisa Corsetti

Cc: The Other Thorium Working Group Members –

Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Fern and Lisa,

Thank you very much for your prompt, and extremely helpful, reply to the May 16 Progress Report.

Yes, Question No. 2 does overlook biomass which Al Gore regarded as a hoax/fraud, particularly as regards corn ethanol.

[But what can one expect from what we have always called “The Best Government Money Can Buy”???]

Biomass comprises the reverse of photosynthesis.

In other words, solar energy is used by plants to combine carbon dioxide and water to produce sugar and oxygen – 6CO2 + 6H2O > C6H12O6 + 6O2.

Animals access the solar energy stored in the sugar by oxidizing (i.e., burning) it – C6H12O6 + 6O2 > 6CO2 + 6H2O.

The same is true with oxidizing/burning biofuels – the most common of which is burning wood in stoves and fireplaces but which also incudes Al Gore’s abomination of corn ethanol.

The argument of the corn ethanol lobby is that oxidizing/burning corn ethanol, though it produces carbon dioxide just like other carbon fuels produce carbon dioxide/monoxide, merely “balances the books” against the reduction in carbon dioxide produced by the corn plants.

True, the “books” are “balanced.”

But we are still burning a carbon fuel!!!

Wouldn’t it be better (Al Gore’s argument) to use the corn to feed the world’s burgeoning population and, if it is not needed for that purpose, to simply plow it under and use solar/wind as our energy source instead of the corn???

[Or use nuclear instead, according to Bill Gates.]

The same is true for the wood of our forests (and any other plants you might care to mention).

[Burning wood “balances the books” but produces carbon dioxide. Better to use solar/wind/nuclear which produce no carbon gases.]

[And no, this is NOT an invitation to debate preventing forest fires by having controlled burns.]

**********
It’s been so long since we have studied biomass over the years and concluded, with Al Gore, that it is a hoax/fraud that I “slipped a gear” and forgot all about it when formulating Question No. 2.

Thank you, Lisa, for saving us (or at least me, since someone else may have caught it) quite a bit of embarrassment!!!

It is respectfully suggested that rather than spending 292 words to explain why biomass is a hoax/fraud (like was just done above), Question No. 2 be eliminated and Question No. 3 be re-located after Questions 4 and 5. The new lineup –

1. Do you believe solving global warming is important?
2. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever become economic?
3. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever be practical because of only intermittent availability?
4. Do you believe that it is possible to make a dent in the problem of global warming without using nuclear energy?
5. Do you believe that the best way to solve global warming 100% in the near future would be developing a cheap and safe source such as thorium fission?

Any further comments anyone???

Your friend,

John K.


----- Original Message -----
From: Fern Lovett Baird
To: "John Karls” <john@johnkarls.com>
Cc: Eric Kaufman
Sent: Thu, 16 May 2019 11:44:23 -0600
Subject: Fwd: Progress Report Following Our May 8 Meeting

I only have your email address so if you want to share with the others John, below is a reply to your list...

Fern Lovett Baird

Please pardon iPhone edits.

Begin forwarded message:
From: Lisa Corsetti
Date: May 16, 2019 at 11:00:18 AM MDT
To: Fern Lovett Baird
Subject: Re: Progress Report Following Our May 8 Meeting

Hi Fern,

You might want to point this out to your group:

In the list of clean energy options for questions for Democratic candidates, they left out bio-fuels.... Bio-fuels can have a huge role in that they can be used to power diesel engines and even someday, jet aircraft....

Lisa

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 5:36 AM Fern Lovett Baird wrote:

This is how it’s going...

Please pardon iPhone edits.

Begin forwarded message: [Which was the 5/16/2019 Progress Report available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... a03a#p2432.]

solutions
Site Admin
Posts: 212
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:38 pm

More About Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2

Post by solutions »

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From: Solutions
To: john@johnkarls.com
Cc:
Subject: Re: Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2
Date: Sat, May 18, 2019 – 4:08 pm MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Dear John,

Did Lisa Corsetti reply to your response of last evening (two items down) to her e-mail of yesterday morning (three items down)?

Any further thoughts about the content of the exchange?

Your friend,

Solutions


-----------------------------------------------------
From: john@johnkarls.com
To: solutions
Cc:
Subject: Re: Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2
Date: Sat, May 18, 2019 – 11:52 pm MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Dear Solutions,

No, there has been no reply.

Presumably because there is nothing further that can be said on behalf of the biomass cause.

Further thoughts???

*****
Re the biomass hoax/fraud –

To put the biomass hoax/fraud in its starkest terms, consider the Amazon River Basin’s fabled “rain forest” which most environmentalists consider the “crown jewel” of nature’s ability to combat Global Warming.

[In terms of the previous correspondence May 17-18 with Lisa, the ARB “rain forest” comprises nearly half a continent that does nothing but engage in turning carbon dioxide into oxygen via photosynthesis - 6CO2 + 6H2O > C6H12O6 + 6O2.]

Now suppose that success greets the DOE experiment Lisa described.

[Which I suspect, since I am such a cynic, comprises nothing more than a successful attempt by the corn ethanol lobby to get the American taxpayer to pick up the tab for research (1) for ways to lower the cost of producing ethanol from corn, and (2) for ways to generate diesel resid and AvJet kerosene from corn in addition to ethanol.]

But let’s put aside the issue of the source of the DOE experiment’s sugar (C6H12O6) that is being converted into carbon fuels (diesel – gasoline – AvJet), since Lisa hasn’t answered the source question.

In other words, let’s concede that the source of the DOE experiment’s sugar might be any plant life. And presumably would be whatever plant life can be cultivated to produce sugar (C6H12O6) the most efficiently.

Now comes the moment of truth!!!

The world is going to produce all of its diesel/gasoline/AvJet from whatever plant life can be cultivated to produce the sugar (C6H12O6) the most efficiently.

It really doesn’t matter what that plant life is.

Because the real issue is where in the world will there be sufficient room to cultivate the necessary quantity of that plant life to produce all of the world’s diesel/gasoline/AvJet in the wake of the assumed success of the DOE experiment.

A shrewd guess would be that the only “unused” area of the world large enough to grow that quantity of plant life???

The Amazon River Basin’s “rain forest” of course!!!

But the biomass apologists would say “no worries”!!!

Because once the Amazon River Basin’s “rain forest” is destroyed in order to grow the new biomass plants, the carbon dioxide/monoxide produced by the new biomass fuels will be offset by the reduction in carbon dioxide produced by the photosynthesis of the new biomass plants!!!

BUT NO, the “books” are not “balanced”!!!

Because nothing has been recorded on the “books” for what could otherwise have been accomplished with the land on which the biomass plants are grown!!!

Whether that would have been continuing to leave the Amazon River Basin’s “rain forest” intact!!!

Or, the Al Gore equivalent vis-à-vis corn and ethanol, plowing under all corn not needed to feed human beings and using wind/solar to provide any energy shortfall resulting from any ethanol shortage!!!

[Or providing for any energy shortfall with nuclear per Bill Gates!!!]

The significance of the Amazon “rain forest” example???

Presumably the world’s carbon fuels (diesel/gasoline/AvJet) will produce the same amount of carbon gases regardless of whether the diesel/gasoline/AvJet comes from biomass or from oil & gas.

But the permanent destruction of the Amazon “rain forest” in order to produce the diesel/gasoline/AvJet from biomass rather than oil & gas is an UNMITIGATED TRAGEDY!!!

And it is difficult to appreciate this principle when dealing with the smaller-scale Al Gore comment of plowing under the corn that is not needed to feed humans.

Though “Truly Enlightened Ones” know that even on a “micro level” it is UNWISE to permit biomass scraps to be burned based on the FALSE ARGUMENT that the carbon gases produced by burning the biomass scraps are “balanced” by the carbon-gas reductions from producing the biomass scraps -- BECAUSE the biomass scraps can be used for “landfill” and the energy that would have been produced from burning them can be obtained instead from wind or solar (or nuclear).

*****
Lisa’s comments about nuclear aviation

Lisa remarked that one of the advantages of biomass would be the production of AvJet which, she claims, would be required since nuclear is unsuitable for commercial aviation.

I pointed out that decades ago there were serious plans to produce nuclear aircraft.

And pointed out that just like nuclear propulsion is required to permit America’s submarines to remain submerged for 9 months at a time without refueling (and prevent precious space in America’s aircraft carriers from being squandered on fuel oil for propulsion at more than 60 mph – the actual maximum speed is classified), the range of commercial airliners is limited by the space and weight required at takeoff for all the fuel that will be necessary for the entire flight (which is one of the reasons why the longest non-stop commercial flights -- from California to Australia, which is longer than NYC to Tokyo, and, in the old days, from NYC “over the pole” to Singapore -- are so expensive!!!).

But no, I didn’t today run into my best ski buddy who my most recent e-mail to Lisa said was a retired U.S. Navy Nuclear Sub Captain who, as a radiation-shielding expert (at least on submarines), would presumably have quite a bit to say about radiation-shielding for nuclear aircraft.

[I don’t run into him that frequently because he is strictly a “back country” skier and, since shattering my leg skiing 7 years ago just after my 70th birthday, I don’t even ski “off piste” anymore.]

However, I am guessing that whatever would have been the weight of the required radiation-shielding in the nuclear aircraft planned decades ago was offset, at least partially if not completely, by the elimination of all the weight of the AvJet fuel.

And I am guessing that, just like was mentioned in my May 9 Report on our May 8 Meeting (available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 5a12#p2432), Jane Fonda’s “China Syndrome” movie in 1979 and the resulting prejudice that has been perpetuated/augmented ever since by the Mainstream Media, has “poisoned the well” for all things nuclear.

Including nuclear airliners.

*****
Conclusion

As already expressed directly to Lisa, I am immensely grateful that she raised the issue of biomass in relation to Suggested Question No. 2 so that we could focus on eliminating the question (or including in the Cover Letter to the Democrat Debate Moderators a 292-word explanation why biomass as “clean” energy is a hoax/fraud).

Thank you again for your inquiry.

Your friend,

John K.

PS –

Do you think it would be desirable to include in the Cover Letter to the Democrat Debate Moderators a similarly-lengthy discussion of electric vehicles???

After all, most of the public takes its cue from the Mainstream Media which worships electric vehicles!!!

Without taking into account how the incremental electricity necessary to power the vehicles is generated!!!

And the fact that if America’s currently-operating 4 million electric vehicles were NOT permitted on the road, AMERICA’S OLDEST, DIRTIEST, COAL-FIRED ELECTRIC-GENERATION PLANTS could long since have been closed or, in other words, taken “off the grid”!!!

Which is why electric vehicles (unless their energy source is INDEPENDENT OF THE GRID such as from the owner’s own solar panels to power her/his vehicle IN ADDITION TO her/his residence) ARE A DISASTER!!!

[My thought is that such ignorance/mendacity on this issue, and other similar nonsense that may be raised, should be countered ONLY as it is raised, rather than trying to produce a 1,000-page Julia Child “Cook Book” of recipes good for countering any ignorance/mendacity that might be encountered during the Democrat Candidate Debates!!!]


-----------------------------------------------------
From: john@johnkarls.com
To: Lisa Corsetti
Cc: Fern Lovett Baird; Calvin Burgart; Jay Hansen; Eric Kaufman; George Kunath
Subject: Re: Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2
Date: Fri, May 17, 2019 – 9:14 pm MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Dear Lisa,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

And for clarifying that you were thinking about a DOE research project to use yeast/bacteria to convert sugar into fuel.

However, you did NOT explain where the sugar comes from.

And why the resulting fuels, which are obviously carbon fuels, would be any less polluting from a carbon viewpoint than diesel (aka resid) – gasoline – AvJet (aka kerosene).

Accordingly, the research would appear to suffer from the same analysis as that already laid out.

*****
Reur comment about aviation, you may be aware that decades ago, there were serious plans to produce nuclear aircraft. Which was during the salad days of nuclear for submarines and aircraft carriers.

[Which would go a long way to solving long-range flight logistics – we used to have non-stop commercial service from NYC “over the pole” to Singapore which required “light loading” both vis-à-vis the number of passengers and the amount of baggage in order to accommodate the extra fuel required.]

Yours truly was a U.S. Navy Officer 1967-1970 and one of my best ski buddies is a retired nuclear sub captain. Next time I see him, I’ll ask him what he thinks about shielding airline passengers from radiation since he would be an expert on radiation shielding, at least in submarines.

*****
BTW, I take it that your e-mail moniker indicates you are a skier.

You might be interested to know that Cal Burgart, Jay Hansen and Yours Truly (the 3 local participants in our Working Group) are all serious skiers who spent their careers elsewhere (Cal in Southern California, Jay in the NJ – MI – IL) and Yours Truly (NYC & London).

I can’t speak for the others but I still ski 100 days/year at age 77 after smashing my leg skiing 7 years ago.

All of us ski Alta/Snowbird. [And for decades, my other ski house was at Kitzbuehel AT]

Where do you ski???

Your friend,

John K.

PS – I would be interested in knowing where the DOE sugar comes from and whether the resulting carbon fuel is any cleaner carbon-wise than the carbon fuels we already have. [And please don’t just provide a cross link unless it clearly answers these two questions.]


-----------------------------------------------------
From: Lisa Corsetti
To: john@johnkarls.com
Cc: Fern Lovett Baird, Calvin Burgart; Jay Hansen; Eric Kaufman; George Kunath
Subject: Re: Biomass and Suggested Question No. 2
Date: Fri, May 17, 2019 – 10:25 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hi John,

Actually, I was not referring to ethanol at all. I'm thinking about the research going on at Department of Energy to reprogram yeast and bacteria with entire metabolic pathways that allow the yeast to convert simple sugars into diesel-like fuel, gasoline-like fuel and jet-like fuel. Jet airline travel is not going to disappear in future. Wind and solar likely will not be the solution for green jet travel. I also believe nuclear reactors on jet airliners will not happen for obvious reasons of safety. I do not know enough about batteries and whether they could power an electromagnetic jet engine for airline travel. Solutions for the future need to address jet travel. Anyway, just my two cents. :)

Kind regards,
Lisa


**********
[Thereupon followed the string of e-mails contained in the immediately-preceding section of this bulletin board.]

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Editing Questions For Democrat Debate Moderators

Post by johnkarls »

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Jay’s Edited Questions For Democrat Debate Moderators – Comments Requested By Tomorrow
Date: Mon, May 20, 2019 - 5:11 am MDT
Attachment: -----------------------------------------------------

To: The Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Lisa Corsetti -- (Please see PS)
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

Jay e-mailed 81 minutes before sending the following e-mail to say he had been on “an out-of-state junket” but would look at the questions “shortly.”

For the sake of good order, please provide any comments on the following by tomorrow (Tues) evening.

For the sake of comparison (although Jay appears to have started virtually de novo), and since Jay appears not to have seen the two e-mail exchanges with Lisa Corsetti which resulted in a revision of the original questions, the revised questions were --

1. Do you believe solving global warming is important?
2. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever become economic?
3. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever be practical because of only intermittent
availability?
4. Do you believe that it is possible to make a dent in the problem without using nuclear energy?
5. Do you believe that the best way to solve global warming 100% in the near future would be developing a cheap and safe source such as thorium fission?

Keeping in mind that we have already agreed at our May 8 meeting --

(A) that the Democrat Candidate Debate Moderators will be provided a copy of the certified-mail letters that were provided to each of the candidates which contain quite a bit of information (a sample copy of those letters is attached for your convenience); and

(B) that the moderators would be provided a short cover letter containing 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer --

the following observations are respectfully submitted vis-à-vis Jay’s questions --

(1) I believe U.S. environmentalists will bristle at Jay’s first question for two reasons -- first, it implies that the impact on the economy should be the only consideration whereas environmentalists believe that the impact on the environment is paramount, and secondly, it is bound to offend U.S. environmentalists who will interpret the question as America failing to take any responsibility for global warming (however much I agree with Jay that he is intending to call attention to the Paris-Climate-Accord problem of getting India and China to do anything other than promise to do something in the distant future in return for the U.S. promising to do something immediately).

(2) Jay’s revision to Q-2, which is now only a possible follow-up, seems to have lost its essence which is whether solar and wind will ever become economic.

(3) No quarrel with Jay’s Q-3, which is essentially equivalent to the original.

(4) Re Jay’s Q-4, he appears to be asking the candidates whether they have read our certified-mail letter to each of them (a copy of which is attached to this e-mail for your convenience). So the purpose of the Q is unclear unless the information it contains is intended for the debate audience rather than the candidates. Presumably this is Jay’s objective and I applaud it as very clever.

(5) Also re Jay’s Q-4, the info about Bill Gates’ views (which were unearthed by Cal Burgart IAW the assignment he undertook following our May 8 meeting), I had intended to highlight it for the Moderators as part of the intro for the Q’s (as well as documenting for the Moderators the source of Gates’ comments). So the issue is whether debate viewers would care enough about the views of Bill Gates to include them in Q-4 and whether it would then be desirable for them to be provided with the source documentation.

[NB: We also agreed at our May 8 meeting to provide each of the candidates with a copy of whatever is sent to the Moderators, the bulk of which would be the certified-mail letters they originally received -- so the candidates would be informed of Gates’ views and their source by virtue of the short covering letter to the Moderators even if not included in Q-4.]

(6) My only reaction to Jay’s Q-5 is remembering President Kennedy’s response to an embarrassing Q at a press conference immediately following the “Bay of Pigs Disaster.” After describing at length the disaster, the reporter disdainfully asked: “Would you care to comment?” President Kennedy grinned and said “No” and immediately called on the next reporter, to thunderous applause!!! However, my reaction is irrelevant to the issue of whether Jay’s Q is too weak in permitting candidates to punt with one or two platitudes. It is respectfully suggested that the best way to pin them down would be to add to the original Q-5: “If not, why not?”

*****
Thank you, Jay, for your thoughtful contributions!!!

And everyone else, please provide any comments by tomorrow (Tues) evening.

Your friend,

John K.

PS for Lisa Corsetti – It is unclear whether your two exchanges of e-mails implied a willingness to become a member of our working group. Members are only expected to undertake assignments for which they volunteer and comment to the extent they want. But if you would like to part company, simply hit your “reply” button and type “deletion requested.”


-----------------------------------------------------
From: Jay Hansen
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com; Fern Lovett Baird; Calvin Burgart; Eric Kaufman; George Kunath
Subject: Edited questions for Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates
Date: Sun, May 19, 2019 – 9:14 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hi John,

Thanks for providing suggestions for the questions. Here are my edited versions – pretty much what you provided but in broader bits.

• How important do you believe the adverse effects of global warming are to the US economy; and do you have suggestions for how the US might lead China, India, and others to do their part to repair their obscene carbon emissions?

• [Follow-up: Since your opinion may be that hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are the key and most important sources of clean energy to drive the US economy, do you believe that it is even remotely possible to make a dent in the carbon emissions problem without using nuclear energy; and can you support that claim?

• Do you believe that solar and wind power generation with their intermittent availability will ever become more than minor contributors to the US power economy?

• Are you aware of previously developed, proven technologies from the 60’s that could potentially solve global warming in the near future; safe and scalable, relatively inexpensive nuclear sources such as thorium fission? According to Bill Gates, "Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day." Gates also has pointed out that "problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."

• Can you comment on your plans to provide safe and abundant power to decrease global carbon emissions?

Best regards,

Jay Hansen

johnkarls
Posts: 2033
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Update and SOS

Post by johnkarls »

.
-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Update and SOS
Date: Wed, May 22, 2019 – 10:19 am MDT
Attachments:
RL-f522-Moderator Cover Letter + Attachment.pdf
(157.02 KiB) Downloaded 134 times
RL-f508-BillGatesNuclearInvestment.docx
(15.43 KiB) Downloaded 143 times
-----------------------------------------------------

To: The Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

Thank you, everyone, for all of your efforts so far.

**********
Democrat Debate Moderator Questions & Draft Letter

The suggested questions for the Debate Moderators to ask are contained in the attached Draft Letter.

The questions were revised IAW Jay’s comments, my reaction to Jay’s comments, and comments received from the rest of you by yesterday’s deadline.

Essentially, the revised questions reflect pulling apart Jay’s absolutely-wonderful Question 4 into its two component parts to create New Question 4 and New Question 5 with more info in the latter about the Oak Ridge thorium demonstration project. And putting some teeth (“If not, why not?”) into the final Q.

Barring a disaster, the Q’s should now be regarded as final.

Though the remainder of the COVER letter is subject to revision.

However, the sample candidate letter which is attached to the moderator letter is a historical document and, as such, is not subject to change.

[It is included to provide an appreciation of how everything fits together.]

Comments about the remainder of the COVER letter –

1. The June 10 date is a guess at the optimal time for sending the letters, which I think should be timed for arrival about 2 weeks before the June 26/27 debates to obtain proper consideration from the candidates and the moderators.

2. The subject (“Re:”) is retained from the candidate letter for its provocativeness.

3. The sub-heading (second line of the “Re:”) is intended to prod the moderators into asking our questions.

4. The first 4 paragraphs are intended to introduce our group, and to emphasize both the importance of our group and some key aspects of our issue. They are a boiled-down and edited version of the introductory paragraphs of the candidate letter. As such, they need to be inserted here rather than rely on the moderators to flip the page from a letter that fails to capture their attention.

**********
The Letters to CEO’s/Key Decision Makers at Silicon-Valley Companies (and Other Large Energy Users)

My 5/9/2019 e-mail (the third following e-mail for your convenience) which contained the original draft questions for the debate moderators also provided a progress report on the CEO letters.

From among nearly 2 dozen large energy users, it identified the following companies for which the $5 billion to produce the first commercial-prototype of a liquid-fluoride-thorium reactor would be “a drop in the bucket” –

Google/Alphabet
Microsoft
Adobe
IBM
Oracle
SAP
Verizon
Berkshire Hathaway

The 5/9/2019 e-mail posited that –

1. Google/Alphabet were already taken care of by my correspondence with their 5 key decision makers following the 4/17/2019 NYC Harvard Club meeting (details available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 24f4#p2415).

2. The key decision maker at Microsoft would still be Bill Gates, whom Cal Burgart has already demonstrated to be a keen nuclear-energy supporter.

3. The key decision maker at Berkshire Hathaway, of course, is Bill Gates’ BFF, Warren Buffet.

The 5/9/2019 e-mail then contained an SOS while George Kunath is focused on other issues, for everyone else to try to try to ascertain who the key decision maker(s) are in the remaining companies, and whether s/he or they have a known position on nuclear energy.

Nobody responded to the SOS re the remaining 5 companies. However, to “move the ball down the field” a bit, their CEO’s (and other salient info) were identified during the last 3-4 hours (Proxy Statements, where applicable, via SEC’s Edgar service) -

Adobe – (per 3/1/2019 Proxy Statement)
Chairman, President & CEO = Shantanu Narayen
Largest shareholders = FMR LLC (7.77%); The Vanguard Group (7.64%); BlackRock Inc (6.67%)

IBM – (per Wikipedia)
Chairman, President and CEO = Virginia Marie (“Ginni”) Rometty

Oracle – (per 3/26/2018 Proxy Statement)
Chairman and CTO = Lawrence J. Ellison
CEO = Safra A. Catz
CEO = Mark V. Hurd
Largest shareholders = Larry Ellison (30.6%); The Vanguard Group (5.6%); BlackRock Inc (5.6%)

JSK Notes = (1) “CTO” in Ellison’s official title means Chief Technology Officer; (2) I’ve heard of Co-CEO’s before for other companies, but never a CTO and 2 plain CEO’s – isn’t having 2 CHIEF Executive Officers an oxymoron???; (3) I have a zillion America’s Cup sailing stories about Larry Ellison, including why the America’s Cup was held 2010-2017 by the mom-and-pop San Francisco Yacht Club (since re-named the Golden Gate Yacht Club) rather than the aristocratic St. Francis Yacht Club (Ellison is a member of both).

SAP SE - (per Wikipedia)
SAP is an acronym for the German equivalent of Systems Applications and Products
SAP is a German multi-national company headquartered in Walldorf Germany
Founders = Dieter Hopp, Hans-Werner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tschira, Claus Wellenreuther
Chairman = Hasso Plattner
CEO = Bill McDernott

Verizon – (per Verizon.com > about > our company > verizon’s executive leadership)
Chairman and CEO = Hans Vestberg

Accordingly, it is respectfully suggested that the recipients of our letters should be –

Google/Alphabet – already taken care of last month
Microsoft – Bill Gates
Adobe – Shantanu Narayen
IBM – Virginia Marie Rometty
Oracle - Lawrence J. Ellison
SAP – Hasso Plattner
Verizon – Hans Vestberg
Berkshire Hathaway – Warren Buffet

Next step???

SOS to everyone to try to ascertain any attitudes of Shantanu/Rometty/Ellison/Plattner/Vestberg/Buffet toward nuclear energy in general and thorium in particular.

Your friend,

John K.


-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Jay’s Edited Questions For Democrat Debate Moderators – Comments Requested By Tomorrow
Date: Mon, May 20, 2019 - 5:11 am MDT
Attachment: RL-f405-Certified Mail Letter To Democrat Presidential Candidates.pdf
-----------------------------------------------------

To: The Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Lisa Corsetti -- (Please see PS)
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

Jay e-mailed 81 minutes before sending the following e-mail to say he had been on “an out-of-state junket” but would look at the questions “shortly.”

For the sake of good order, please provide any comments on the following by tomorrow (Tues) evening.

For the sake of comparison (although Jay appears to have started virtually de novo), and since Jay appears not to have seen the two e-mail exchanges with Lisa Corsetti which resulted in a revision of the original questions, the revised questions were --

1. Do you believe solving global warming is important?
2. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever become economic?
3. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever be practical because of only intermittent
availability?
4. Do you believe that it is possible to make a dent in the problem without using nuclear energy?
5. Do you believe that the best way to solve global warming 100% in the near future would be developing a cheap and safe source such as thorium fission?

Keeping in mind that we have already agreed at our May 8 meeting --

(A) that the Democrat Candidate Debate Moderators will be provided a copy of the certified-mail letters that were provided to each of the candidates which contain quite a bit of information (a sample copy of those letters is attached for your convenience); and

(B) that the moderators would be provided a short cover letter containing 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer --

the following observations are respectfully submitted vis-à-vis Jay’s questions --

(1) I believe U.S. environmentalists will bristle at Jay’s first question for two reasons -- first, it implies that the impact on the economy should be the only consideration whereas environmentalists believe that the impact on the environment is paramount, and secondly, it is bound to offend U.S. environmentalists who will interpret the question as America failing to take any responsibility for global warming (however much I agree with Jay that he is intending to call attention to the Paris-Climate-Accord problem of getting India and China to do anything other than promise to do something in the distant future in return for the U.S. promising to do something immediately).

(2) Jay’s revision to Q-2, which is now only a possible follow-up, seems to have lost its essence which is whether solar and wind will ever become economic.

(3) No quarrel with Jay’s Q-3, which is essentially equivalent to the original.

(4) Re Jay’s Q-4, he appears to be asking the candidates whether they have read our certified-mail letter to each of them (a copy of which is attached to this e-mail for your convenience). So the purpose of the Q is unclear unless the information it contains is intended for the debate audience rather than the candidates. Presumably this is Jay’s objective and I applaud it as very clever.

(5) Also re Jay’s Q-4, the info about Bill Gates’ views (which were unearthed by Cal Burgart IAW the assignment he undertook following our May 8 meeting), I had intended to highlight it for the Moderators as part of the intro for the Q’s (as well as documenting for the Moderators the source of Gates’ comments). So the issue is whether debate viewers would care enough about the views of Bill Gates to include them in Q-4 and whether it would then be desirable for them to be provided with the source documentation.

[NB: We also agreed at our May 8 meeting to provide each of the candidates with a copy of whatever is sent to the Moderators, the bulk of which would be the certified-mail letters they originally received -- so the candidates would be informed of Gates’ views and their source by virtue of the short covering letter to the Moderators even if not included in Q-4.]

(6) My only reaction to Jay’s Q-5 is remembering President Kennedy’s response to an embarrassing Q at a press conference immediately following the “Bay of Pigs Disaster.” After describing at length the disaster, the reporter disdainfully asked: “Would you care to comment.” President Kennedy grinned and said “No” and immediately called on the next reporter, to thundering applause!!! However, my reaction is irrelevant to the issue of whether Jay’s Q is too weak in permitting candidates to punt with one or two platitudes. It is respectfully suggested that the best way to pin them down would be to add to the original Q-5: “If not, why not?”

*****
Thank you, Jay, for your thoughtful contributions!!!

And everyone else, please provide any comments by tomorrow (Tues) evening.

Your friend,

John K.

PS for Lisa Corsetti – It is unclear whether your two exchanges of e-mails implied a willingness to become a member of our working group. Members are only expected to undertake assignments for which they volunteer and comment to the extent they want. But if you would like to part company, simply hit your “reply” button and type “deletion requested.”


-----------------------------------------------------
From: Jay Hansen
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com; Fern Lovett Baird; Calvin Burgart; Eric Kaufman; George Kunath
Subject: Edited questions for Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates
Date: Sun, May 19, 2019 – 9:14 am MDT
Attachment:
-----------------------------------------------------

Hi John,

Thanks for providing suggestions for the questions. Here are my edited versions – pretty much what you provided but in broader bits.

• How important do you believe the adverse effects of global warming are to the US economy; and do you have suggestions for how the US might lead China, India, and others to do their part to repair their obscene carbon emissions?

• [Follow-up: Since your opinion may be that hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are the key and most important sources of clean energy to drive the US economy, do you believe that it is even remotely possible to make a dent in the carbon emissions problem without using nuclear energy; and can you support that claim?

• Do you believe that solar and wind power generation with their intermittent availability will ever become more than minor contributors to the US power economy?

• Are you aware of previously developed, proven technologies from the 60’s that could potentially solve global warming in the near future; safe and scalable, relatively inexpensive nuclear sources such as thorium fission? According to Bill Gates, "Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day." Gates also has pointed out that "problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."

• Can you comment on your plans to provide safe and abundant power to decrease global carbon emissions?

Best regards,

Jay Hansen


-----------------------------------------------------
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
To: The Thorium Working Group Members Listed Below
Subject: Progress Report Following Our May 8 Meeting
Date: Thu, May 9, 2019 – 7:35 am MDT
Attachment: RL-f508-BillGatesNuclearInvestment
-----------------------------------------------------

To: Thorium Working Group Members –

Fern Lovett Baird
Calvin Burgart
Jay Hansen
Eric Kaufman
George Kunath
Yours Truly

Dear Friends,

This is a progress report following up on our May 8 meeting.

[The 5/9/2019 Report On Our May 8 Meeting follows below for your convenience.]

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. I – Democrat Candidate Letters & Debates

Jay Hansen agreed to edit/polish 4-5 questions, each 25 words or fewer, for inclusion in cover letters to the Democrat Candidate Debate Moderators to which a copy of the letter sent to the candidates on 4/5/2019 would be attached – if I took a first crack at drafting the 4-5 questions.

It is respectfully suggested that the following should be the 4-5 questions for inclusion in the cover letters --

1. Do you believe solving global warming is important?
2. Do you agree that hydro, nuclear, wind and solar are the only sources of clean energy?
3. Do you believe that it is possible to make a dent in the problem without using nuclear energy?
4. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever become economic?
5. Do you believe that solar and wind will ever be practical because of only intermittent availability?
6. Do you believe that the best way to solve global warming 100% in the near future would be developing a cheap and safe source such as thorium fission?

And yes, I realize that there are 6 questions rather than 4-5, and that the 6th is 29 words rather than 25.

Although only Jay agreed to edit/polish the questions, it is respectfully suggested that if anyone else has any comments, s/he should feel free to provide them.

*****
The meeting report recorded that the source of the $5 billion estimate by experts for developing the first commercial prototype of a molten-salt thorium reactor was Page 230 of “Superfuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future” by Richard Martin (Macmillan 2012) which Cal Burgart had proposed as the focus book for our 10/10/2012 meeting which he led.

However, I also undertook to make a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) Request to the U.S. Department of Energy for a copy of Kirk Sorensen’s “seed money” application to ascertain his estimate of the cost and the time that would be required to develop the first commercial prototype.

That request has been made (DOE will advise, before proceeding, how much they will charge for compliance which could easily amount to several thousand dollars).

It is respectfully suggested that whether or not we obtain Kirk’s estimates, they should NOT be used in anything we send out to candidates, corporate decision makers, etc. – because doing so would likely upset Kirk’s attempt to rely on the “sophisticated investor” exception to complying with S.E.C. rules since we would become a de facto “shill” for Kirk and his company.

And, accordingly, it is respectfully suggested that we should proceed with our projects while giving no regard to the FOIA request.

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. II – Huge Silicon Valley Users (and other corporations)

On March 8, Cal Burgart disputed my surmise in the Suggested Discussion Outline that contacting Warren Buffet (one of whose Berkshire Hathaway businesses is solar/wind) and his close friend, Bill Gates, would be a “lost cause.” Cal claimed that Bill Gates is a strong proponent of nuclear energy. Accordingly, Cal accepted as his post-meeting assignment providing evidence that this is true.

Cal was apparently so stimulated by our meeting that before retiring for the evening on May 8, he had e-mailed the attached article describing how Bill Gates had invested in an experimental nuclear project in 2011 and was quoted as saying in a letter –

“Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day." He added that "problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation."

George Kunath undertook generating a list of companies which are huge energy users for which $5 billion would be a “drop in the bucket” and who the key decision makers are in each of those companies.

However, George has been focused on other issues.

Accordingly, I made a Google search for a list of the most prominent “cloud” providers and obtained the following list from https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/clo ... providers/. [The financial info following unfamiliar names was obtained from SEC filings per its “Edgar” service.]

• Kamatera – must be private since not listed with the SEC
• phoenixNAP - must be private since not listed with the SEC
• Amazon Web Services
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Platform
• Adobe
• VMware – only $8.9 billion of revenues and $2.1 billion of income for FY-2/1/2019 [shareholder equity was $14.66 billion at 2/1/2019, a SIGNIFICANT DROP from $21.21 billion at 2/2/2018!!!]
• IBM Cloud
• Rackspace – only $1.01 billion of shareholder equity at 9/30/2016 (most recent SEC filing)
• Red Hat – only $ 1.61 billion of shareholder equity at 2/28/2019
• Salesforce – only $15.61 billion of shareholder equity at 1/31/2019
• Oracle Cloud
• SAP
• Verizon Cloud
• Navisite – SEC’s Edgar produces only a $ 2 billion IPO Prospectus for Charter Communications Operating, LLC
• Dropbox – only $2.13 of shareholder equity at 3/31/2019
• Egnyte – must be private since there was an exempt IPO in 2011

It is respectfully suggested that we concentrate on the following companies (Google has already been covered by my 4/22/2019 report to you, a copy of which is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 8e20#p2415) --

Microsoft
Adobe
IBM
Oracle
SAP
Verizon
Berkshire Hathaway [per Cal Burgart’s info about Warren Buffet’s BFF, Bill Gates]

I would suspect that the key decision maker at Microsoft would still be Bill Gates, whom Cal Burgart has already demonstrated to be a keen nuclear-energy supporter.

Re the remaining companies, this will comprise an SOS while George Kunath is focused on other issues, for everyone else to try to try to ascertain who the key decision maker(s) are, and whether s/he or they have a known position on nuclear energy.

********************
Suggested Discussion Outline Sec. V – Other Ideas

A passing thought in the last 24 hours = judging from the reaction of Joe Biden to AOC’s criticism of him regarding “The Green New Deal” and global warming, perhaps it would be worthwhile sending to AOC a copy of the letter we have sent to the candidates.

Any comments re AOC anyone???

********************
Thank you all for your participation and continuing efforts!!!

Your friend,

John K.

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