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Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Hyperion and LFTR: Charles Barton at Nuclear Green Discusses Small, Factory Built Nuclear Reactors

Charles Barton at Nuclear Green discusses the advantages and costs of small, factory-built, sealed nuclear reactors. These plants, such as the Hyperion slated to be installed in Galena, Alaska, which uses conventional nuclear fuel but with a technology vastly different from that of conventional large light-water reactors; and the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, a technology that India is aggressively developing and whose fuel, thorium, is much more plentiful than uranium and utilizes a much safer, cleaner technology that results in steeply reduced levels of "waste".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

cool....................................................................................................

luke said...

Laura,
I would very much like for you to become the first member of the suburban empire "team" (that I wish to develop)
Please email me a contact address.

I have been following your blog and comments on kunstler and am very impressed with not only your writing, but temperament... you would add a fresh voice to my cynical one.

Luke
editor@suburbanempire.com (sometimes it takes me awhile to check mail)

Nudge said...

G'morning Laura:

Thanks for the posts on FTA .. great stuff. But I wanted to ask you something and couldn't quite figure out where to email you.

That book you recommended in last week's thread on CFN .. I ordered it and am hoping to receive it soon. It was cheap used hardcover from Abebooks.com of course .. none of that trade paperback stuff.

Would it be possible to hold a discussion about it at some point? I am open to your place, my place, some other place, email, whatever works best. My email address can be found on the About page at FTA.

Thanks in advance.

consultant said...

Hi Laura,

I agree with the arc of your thoughts about the need for nuclear power if we want to keep the lights on into the near future.

Here's the problem I'm having. We, the United States, can't do the simple stuff anymore. We can't keep idiots from crashing a White House state dinner, and then when it happens, we can't arrest them, or at least, take the guy out back and give him a much deserved ass whipping (excuse the language) for being a total jerk.

We can't or don't want to separate the trivial and stupid from news that's actually worth our attention.

In short, we are no longer a serious nation. And if that's true, which I think it is, I can't endorse putting potentially dangerous materials in the hands of fools. Just like I don't let kids run around holding scissors.

The other thing is, as a now foolish nation, we won't get these things built anyway because, well, they're too complicated (hard), they make too much sense, and unless some group stands to make untold billions off of them, no one will do it because we don't do things unless we can make a gazillion dollars.

If these things are built, they'll be built off the grid; garage projects. This is where some future terrorist will get hold of the stuff for a future 9/11.

Our big institutions are caught in a culture of narcissistic excess and the right thing or the smart thing is not on the agenda.

When your culture is broken, things get very screwed up and take a long time to fix. That is if circumstances and good fortune provide you that time.