Revival of Our Thorium-Fission Working Group

[johnkarls]

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---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: (1) Focus Book For Aug 17 Mtg + (2) Your Invitation To Join Revived Thorium-Fission Working Group
From: Reading Liberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, July 23, 2021
To: To Each of Our 207 Members One-By-One
Attachments:

RL-f405-Certified Mail Letter To Democrat Presidential Candidates.pdf

(129.43 KiB) Downloaded 144 times

RL-f716-Letter To The July 2019 Democrat Presidential-Debate Moderators.pdf

(156.43 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

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To Each of Our 207 Members One-By-One – for reasons explained in the 4 postings in Sec. 2 of www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.


Dear Friends,

[Information about our Wed Aug 17 meeting omitted.]


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YOUR INVITATION TO JOIN A REVIVED THORIUM-FISSION WORKING GROUP

The face of www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org‘s Sec. 8 entitled “Working Groups Currently Underway” says -

“During our 17 years of existence, we have had 5-6 so-called Working Groups whenever a particular policy issue (1) may require immediate action on the spur of the moment (rendering addressing it at the next regular monthly meeting impractical), and/or (2) may require long-term attention.

“Recent examples in the second category (‘long-term attention’) are --

“(1) Our 2016-2018 Working Group to oppose the Destruction/Extinction of Great Salt Lake to grow alfalfa hay to feed Chinese cows, and

“(2) Our 2018-2019 Thorium-Fission Working Group to solve global warming 100% in short order WITHOUT having to invade other countries militarily (such as China to prevent it from bringing on stream another monster-size coal-fired electric-generation plant EVERY WEEK) when the only economic green-energy source is nuclear (which even Bill Gates recognizes) and it is 100% safe if the fuel is thorium which is incapable of exploding so it cannot be used to produce a bomb, and which does NOT even need cooling systems or containment chambers.”

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The first attachment to this e-mail is a sample of the 4/5/2019 letter sent to each of the Democratic Presidential Candidates.

The second attachment to this e-mail is a sample of the letters sent to each of the Moderators of the first five Democratic-Candidate Debates.

[USPS tracking numbers for all candidate and moderator letters are available at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1781&sid=78f8c84e7 ... 81eea00f50.]

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The Suggested Discussion Outline for our meeting this past Wed (July 20) was featured in last week’s e-mail and is still available at viewtopic.php?f=700&t=2216&sid=78f8c84e ... 81eea00f50. Its last section said --

“Possible Action Campaigns???

“[Please see the many thorium-fission campaigns among our 50 campaigns over our 16.5 years of existence listed in viewforum.php?f=23&sid=bdd776d166909f9d0e65fde4a62ff17e -- the most recent is the 10th item on the list – our 2019 letters to the Democratic Presidential Candidates and the Moderators of their first five debates at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1781&sid=78f8c84e7 ... 81eea00f50.]

“2020 Presidential Candidates Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) are nuclear enthusiasts who have sponsored on behalf of Bill Gates, two pieces of legislation facilitating nuclear power – the Nuclear Power Energy Innovation and Modernization Act which became law 7/14/2019, and the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act which they introduced 3/27/2019 and key provisions of which became law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

“HOWEVER, contacting the MONOLITHIC Media is hopeless – after all, the topic of Global Warming itself (much less nuclear power) was never raised in any of the ELEVEN Democratic-Party Presidential Debates 2019-2020 despite all of our efforts (please see two paragraphs above).

“Query: Are there any Republican Senators/Congress-persons who might support, if they assume power following the mid-terms, ‘turning the ship around’ from wind/solar to nuclear??? [BTW, who were the Republican Co-Sponsors of the aforementioned nuclear bills???]

“BTW, the Paris Climate Accord does NOT specify how countries reduce carbon emissions – indeed, the U.S. has met its requirements due to natural gas fracking since natural gas, though a fossil fuel, is cleaner than fuels derived from crude oil. Accordingly, thorium fission would be “Jim Dandy” for complying with the PCA.”

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Your Invitation To Join A Revived Thorium-Fission Working Group

In discussing the just-quoted last section of the Suggested Discussion Outline, the attendees of our July 20 meeting --

(1) re-affirmed that we are a NON-PARTISAN PUBLIC-POLICY STUDY/ACTION group that does NOT waste time trying to get particular politicians elected – BUT GOES WITH THE WINNERS AND TELLS THEM WHAT TO DO; and

(2) decided to revive the Thorium-Fission Working Group.

[NB: One attendee questioned whether we should support uranium-fission instead of thorium-fission, but that question was left for consideration by the revived Working Group.]

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE REVIVED WORKING GROUP, PLEASE HIT YOUR REPLY BUTTON AND TYPE “JOIN WORKING GROUP.”


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AUG 17 MTG INFO –

Wed Aug 17 – 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm MDT via Zoom on “The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults.”

Please RSVP by hitting your Reply Button and typing RSVP.

There is nothing further you need to do such as any special Zoom training. We will send all RSVP’s a few days in advance a URL and meeting name/password.


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We look forward to seeing/hearing each of you on Wed Aug 17!!! Please be well!!!

Your friend,

John K.

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

[johnkarls]

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Our 4/5/2019 letter to each of the Democratic Presidential Candidates (which was the first attachment to our weekly e-mail of today (7/23/2022) contained a footnote which appeared at the very end at the bottom of its page 3.

It explained that widespread reports in early 2019 claimed that the U.S. had already achieved energy independence were all --

“based on an article from Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-75-years) which claims, under a banner headline ‘THE U.S. JUST BECAME A NET OIL EXPORTER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 75 YEARS’ that the U.S. was a ‘net oil exporter’ FOR ONE WEEK in early December 2018 -- while admitting in the body of the article that the net-export period would be ‘likely brief’!!!”

HOWEVER, the U.S. did indeed achieve energy independence for 2019 and 2020 as explained at viewtopic.php?f=631&t=2039&p=2785&hilit ... 72a8#p2785.

For your convenience, that posting is reproduced here --


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Research Project No. 3 – American Energy Independence
Posted by johnkarls » Wed Mar 03, 2021 3:45 pm
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Alternate Topic – Proverbial “One-Armed Wallpaper Hangers” Who Are Workaholics!!!

The Suggested Discussion Outline for our 3/10/2021 meeting was just posted this morning at 9:43 am MST – it is available at viewtopic.php?f=631&t=2038&sid=88562c39 ... 80fcc712c7.

Sec. C of the outline claimed that I am a proverbial “one-armed wallpaper hanger” who doesn’t have time to chase every possible research project and asked for volunteers to step forward to research 3 projects and report back at our March 10 meeting.

The third research project described in Sec. 3 was to investigate whether the United States is actually energy independent.

If you click on the link for the discussion outline in the third-preceding paragraph and then scroll down to Sec. C’s discussion of the third research project, you will see –

(1) Bloomberg “cherry picked” the energy import/export statistics FOR A SINGLE WEEK IN DECEMBER 2018 to claim that the U.S. had become energy independent, while admitting that their banner headline was misleading because the net-export period would be “likely brief.”

(2) Nonetheless, the rest of the media (they always behave like lemmings) immediately began trumpeting the claim of energy independence – a few citing the Bloomberg article but most not bothering to explain the basis of their claim.

(3) The CIA’s “World Factbook” reported for 2017 (the last year for which it contained such data at the time of the Bloomberg article) that the U.S. had an energy SHORTFALL of 23%.

(4) To make matters worse, Bloomberg cited support for its claim of energy independence from the American Petroleum Institute (a private organization of the American oil & gas industry) – whose website showed the NET-IMPORT GAP narrowed slightly in 2018 BUT WAS NOT EXPECTED TO BE ELIMINATED BY 2040.


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Today’s Research Report

Obviously, I am a hopeless workaholic because a mere 4 hours after posting the Discussion Outline containing an SOS for help on three research projects, of which the third was to investigate whether the U.S. is truly energy independent these days, I WAS BACK IN THE SADDLE.

The first stop was www.cia.gov > World Factbook > United States > Energy which gets you to https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ ... es/#energy.

I “began to smell a rat” since the Central Intelligence Agency has NOT updated its energy statistics since 2017!!! And even for 2017, most of its energy stats are still “estimates”!!!

So I began casting around for other sources that would be considered authoritative.

AND STRUCK GOLD!!!

QUICK NEWS FLASH – THE U.S. INDEED HAS BECOME ENERGY INDEPENDENT FOR 2019 AND 2020 AS A RESULT OF FRACKING!!!

Per the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency’s “Monthly Energy Review” (available at https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/mo ... df/mer.pdf) -- Table 1.1 entitled “Primary Energy Overview” (all numbers are quadrillion Btu) –

For 2010 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 58.159
Total U.S. Energy Production – 74.909
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 97.514
Net Imports – 21.690

For 2011 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 60.529
Total U.S. Energy Production – 78.108
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 96.872
Net Imports – 18.375

For 2012 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 62.296
Total U.S. Energy Production – 79.254
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 94.387
Net Imports – 15.801

For 2013 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 64.184
Total U.S. Energy Production – 81.866
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 97.130
Net Imports – 12.835

For 2014 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 69.622
Total U.S. Energy Production – 87.757
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 98.297
Net Imports – 10.971

For 2015 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 70.190
Total U.S. Energy Production – 88.295
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 97.407
Net Imports – 10.892

For 2016 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 65.430
Total U.S. Energy Production – 84.337
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 97.384
Net Imports – 11.259

For 2017 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 68.447
Total U.S. Energy Production – 88.129
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 97.660
Net Imports – 7.512

For 2018 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 75,758
Total U.S. Energy Production – 95.780
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 101.235
Net Imports – 3.610

For 2019 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 81.354
Total U.S. Energy Production – 101.437
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 101.471
Net Imports – (0.610) – i.e. Net EXPORTS

For 2020 –

U.S. Fossil Fuel Production – 75.734
Total U.S. Energy Production – 95.672
Total U.S. Energy Consumption – 92.974
Net Imports – (3.475) – i.e., net EXPORTS

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PS -

To forestall any wisecracks from wise guys/women regarding the last sentence of my Suggested Discussion Outline which said –

“Yours Truly would be willing “to bet the ranch” that even with fracking, the U.S. is NOT energy independent – even for energy consumption levels restrained by COVID.” –

(1) As explained above, I was justified in “smelling a rat” based on the CIA’s refusal to update its World Factbook.

(2) No, I did NOT have a “ranch” to bet.

(3) In any event, I accepted my own bet and beat myself!!!

(4) So even if I pay off the bet by transferring to myself a “ranch” that does not exist, I do not have an increased U.S. income tax liability because for taxpayers who itemize deductions, gambling losses can be claimed to the extent they offset gambling winnings (see, e.g., https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc419).

(5) And yes, I have always itemized deductions – indeed, for most of my life I followed in the footsteps of my parents and had charitable deductions in excess of the limitation of 50% of income.

(6) And no, I have learned my lesson and will refrain from tackling Research Project No. 1 (“Natural Gas – a “clean” fuel???) and Research Project No. 2 (Pope Francis’ Global Warming Crusade).

[johnkarls]

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This is an administrative post to maintain coherent ordering of the posts in this section.