There is a fascinating and exciting technology that has been around for 70 years and can be used to fight the Green Scams and save the climate, to the extent it needs saving.
I have only heard one politician bring this up recently. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) was promoting the idea on a news appearance. I am talking about Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactors (LFTR). There are variations under consideration in terms of matrix and fuel, but the process is simple. I believe it was Oak Ridge that had one going for years in the 50’s. It worked fine, but no one wanted to fund it because, as I said at the end of the previous episode, it produces no plutonium. Eventually they just shut it down and shelved the technology.
LFTR BENEFITS...
...there are so many! I will not dive too deeply as the series must march on. But just consider this list. Then read up on LFTR’s. I believe Germany, Russia, China and India are working with this technology and India and China may have reactors already up and running.
First, they are small affairs. They produce power, not as much as a traditional nuke plant, but you can build and operate several less expensively than a traditional plant. In 2015 proponents of the technology estimated it would cost $5-7 billion to work out the particulars and build the first plant. Thanks to the Biden Regime, it would now cost a little more, but still very doable. Each plant after that would cost less; far less over time.
A LFTR, while performing its primary function, can burn off spent fuel from conventional nuclear reactors down to a tiny fraction of their present volume. Yucca Mountain = Solved!
The proposed fuel for these units is thorium. We have massive deposits of it in this country, unless Hillary wants to sell them all to Russia and China to finance Chelsea’s political career. (It’s worth checking to find out if all the “farmland” China is buying here sits on Thorium-rich land. If so, give them the boot.)
LFTR’s can produce a medical isotope called Bismuth-213 or Bi-213. The product is highly valuable to diagnosticians around the world.
A LFTR does not need water to cool the core. You can replace a massive wind farm with just one LFTR ANYWHERE and produce more power more reliably than the stupid wind farm. It would take two or three relatively small buildings that can even be tarted up to look appropriate to their surroundings. Do you remember that photo from the last episode?
LFTR’s don’t produce hydrogen. No hydrogen bubbles, no risk of hydrogen explosions.
I’ve heard these units called “walk-away safe”. While I’d never recommend turning your back completely on a nuclear reaction, it is obvious the staff for a LFTR can be much smaller than the army it takes to run a conventional plant. The operating systems would be much safer and simpler.
If a plant does overheat and has the LFTR equivalent of a meltdown, all the fuel and salt matrix drain into a containment tank under ground. The salt cools and hardens. The contents are fully contained. Crisis over.
I saved the big one for last. We hear from “greenies” all the time about the dreaded rise of oceans. It’s true; they’re rising a couple millimeters per year and have been doing so for 10,000 years. (I’m shuddering as I write this. At that rate, my house will be underwater in 500 years!) But what of exploiting that frightening prospect? California is in a drought. In my 64 years I’ve never known parts of California not to be, but there you are. They have been siphoning off water, valuable irrigation water, from neighboring states for a century. It’s high time they stopped, or at least curtailed the theft. Read on, dear friends.
I propose strategically dotting the west coast with LFTR’s. Considering how safe they are and the urgency of the need, we can ignore the NIMBY cries. I did a rough calculation and it seems one LFTR can desalinate enough water from the ocean to produce 7% of what Los Angeles consumes every day. That reduction, reliably provided, would have a huge positive impact on the reservoirs that are presently being drained in the West to serve cities that never should have grown so large in the first place. Las Vegas can pay for two or three LFTR’s and the pipeline to bring the water to them. The farmers along the Colorado River would be most grateful.
Northern California is also running out of water. It takes many gallons of water just to produce one almond. One! How many almonds do the respective trees produce? Almond farmers are sucking up an insane amount of water from a rapidly dying supply. It is most urgent Northern California start desalinating. And the present power grid can’t handle the job. That they haven’t built several of these LFTR’s and started fixing this problem is beyond me, and utterly inexcusable.
One final thought on areas like California. Let’s say they act like adults and build reliable desalination plants. Then, lo and hark, they have a rain boom. They suddenly get all the rain they need for a year. Well, yay. With a flick of a transfer switch, all the LFTR’s start making the cleanest power known to man and feed the pathetic grid additional power. Some would be able to do that most of the time anyway, while desalinating!
And as a bonus, they sell the salt from the desalinization process. Maybe some mad scientist can figure out a way to seed the northern edges of natural machines like the Gulf Stream to keep them running strong. It seems fresh water from northern ice melts makes them weaker.
So there you have it, the GOP green energy initiative. Candidates and office-holders: If you don’t start pushing this idea today you are out of your friggin’ minds! VOTERS: If you don't start screaming for this to be developed NOW, then you deserve all the green scams and windmills that can be thrown at you!