Created by Jeremiah Josey and Rana, president of the Student Guild
We live in a finite world. Our world has a limited time until its end. There are 7.753 billion people who are trying to survive every day out there. Climate change is real and our world continues to warm. If we don’t do something about climate change, we will never live in the same world that we used to live in. Our lives might change completely. We are responsible for all the actions that we have done to the world and nature. So it is time to correct our mistakes and take the action!
“Nuclear energy, in terms of an overall safety record, is better than other energy.”
Bill Gates
We all know that wind and solar are not enough to stop climate change. We need a combination of nuclear, solar, and wind because nuclear energy has zero carbon emissions. That’s what we need! Do your research, ask what you want to ask at the end of the day you will see that nuclear is the only answer. Now we have an even better option which is Molten Salt Fission Energy Technology. It is safe, reachable but needs committed research and development programs worldwide. We need to convince the world that now nuclear power is safer than ever.
Students have the power of changing minds, creating new ideas, and supporting each other. At this point we are going to do all the things that we can do since still we have time. We are going to interview nuclear engineers, nuclear energy experts, and people who are interested in nuclear power to learn how we can reach a net-zero carbon economy with nuclear power. Also, we are going to learn how Molten Salt Fission Energy Technology can be accepted by regulators and what can we do about Thorium-based fuel. We are going to publish blogs about every interview. We interview people as much as we can. This way we will create a new era about Molten Salt Fission Energy Technology and Thorium fuel. It is a long journey but hopefully, at the end of it, we will have smiles on our faces with champagnes in our hands.
Our first interview is with Professor Akira Tokuhiro of Canada. He recently stepped down as the Dean of the Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science at Ontario Tech University in Canada. Also, he was in the American Nuclear Society’s President’s Committee on the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in Japan. As international nuclear energy expert readers of this interview will gain a rare insight few will experience in their lifetime.
Prof. Akira Tokuhiro
Our interview with Professor Tokuhiro will be one of many coming over the next several months as we bring you key insights on an industry rarely discussed outside.
Thorium Network Student Guild continues to inspire people all around the world. Come and join our team! You can find the Student Guild member application on this page:
Post created by Jeremiah Josey and the team at The Thorium Network
A Little Nuclear History
In the sixties, the United States built a new, super-safe, highly efficient Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). Fuelled by uranium dissolved in a very hot, liquid salt, the MSR had performance and safety advantages over water-cooled, uranium-powered, solid-fuel Light Water Reactors (LWRs) – also called “conventional” reactors.
LWRs are cooled with normal (light) water, a term used to distinguish them from reactors cooled with “heavy” water – deuterium. LWR pellets contain 3.5 – 5% U-235, with the remainder being “inactive” U-238 for dilution, but deuterium cooled reactors can utilize un-enriched U-238. (Most nuclear reactors in use today are LWRs).
Alvin Weinberg, the Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratories, proved the superiority of MSRs in hundreds of tests during 22,000 hours of operation, but due to the success of conventional reactors in Admiral Hyman Rickover’s submarines, water-cooled reactors became the choice for commercial power production. Weinberg, who protested that MSRs were safer and more efficient, was fired, and the MSR program was terminated, partly for political reasons [See more about Dr Weinberg’s firing here].
“I hope that after I’m gone, people will look at all the dusty books ever written on Molten Salt and say hey, these guys had a pretty good idea, lets go back to it.”
There was a second reason: The Cold War was heating up, and the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle of LWRs could be adapted for making bombs. However, making a weapon with MSR technology is more difficult and dangerous.
The Atomic Energy Commission also knew that MSRs could generate abundant, low cost, 24/7 electricity while breeding their own fuel from U-238 or Thorium – and that Thorium would create less waste than conventional reactors.
If we had switched to MSRs in the 1960’s instead of burning carbon, we would have eliminated much of the CO2 that created Climate Change and reduced the toxic emissions that have caused medical expenses in the billions of dollars.
From the April, 2013 Scientific American: “Dr. James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said that just our partial reliance on carbon-free nuclear power since 1971 has saved 1.8 million lives that would have been lost due to fossil fuel pollution. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of natural gas use would not mitigate the climate change problem and would cause more deaths than expansion of nuclear power.”
Dr. James Hansen
US Health Burden
Carbon-fuelled power plants cause at least 30,000 premature U. S. deaths/year.
Because we rejected MSRs, almost all of the electricity we have generated with nuclear power has been produced by high pressure, water-cooled LWRs, which require a containment dome. MSRs do not.
Unfortunately, according to Michael Mayfield, head of the Office of Advanced Reactors at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC is “unfamiliar with most, new small reactor technology, [including MSRs] and has no proven process to certify one.” (2010)
In 2013, the U. S. Energy Information Administration predicted that world energy use will increase 56% by 2040. Most of that increase will come from burning carbon-based fuels, which will add even more CO2 to our already damaged biosphere.
We must replace CO2-creating power plants with GREEN nuclear power plants!
When Radiation Is Safe and When It Isn’t
The largest obstacle to expanding nuclear power is the fear caused by misinformation about radiation safety, so let’s begin with a question intended for seniors like me: “Do you still have your toes?”
This foolish sounding question refers to a machine that, during the [19]thirties and [19]forties, stood near the entrance of every up-to-date shoe store in America. Called the ADRIAN shoe fitting machine, it was ballyhooed as the perfect way to see if one’s shoes fit properly.
Attractive ads with photos of the marvellous machine proclaimed, “Now, at last, you can be certain that your children’s foot health is not being jeopardised by improperly fitting shoes. If your children need new shoes, don’t buy their shoes blindly. Come in and try our new ADRIAN Fluoroscopic Shoe Fitting machine. Use the new, scientific method of shoe fitting that careful parents prefer.”
The customers, usually children, inserted their feet into an opening while their parents watched the image in two viewing ports. Unattended children would often repeatedly switch sides to watch their siblings’ toes wiggle. It was fun, and no-one gave a thought to X-ray exposure.
Despite these fairly high exposures to children who frequently hopped onto the machine just for fun, no malignancies or other damage to the feet of foot-radiating junkies like me were ever reported.
Now, as I travel the country with my presentations on nuclear power, “renewables” and radiation safety, I always ask the seniors in my audiences, all of whom instantly recognize the machine, if they still have their toes.
During 2016, I queried some 1,000 seniors, but I never found any evidence of damage. However, my tale of the shoe-fitting machine always brought laughter and an opportunity to talk about the Merchants of Fear whose hype created a new 20th century word: radiophobia.
All natural substances contain radioactive material. In fact, beer contains thirteen times as much radioactivity as the cooling water discharged from a nuclear plant – Modern Marvels
“We’ve accepted for decades that millions of people are allowed to be killed by combustion pollution and mass produced weapons. We’ve accepted for at least 100 years that the planet’s climate and oceans can be allowed to be changed for the worse because of our love of combustion. We even accept poverty and all its ill effects, simply due to our general inaction. But the safest form of energy production, nuclear power, is foolishly married to fear of nuclear weapons.” – Dr. Alex Cannara
Radiation from nuclear power is just a tiny part of the “industrial” sliver.
We are bathed in radiation for our entire lives – 2/3 from cosmic radiation and elements like radon, and the rest from elements within us plus from consumer products like smoke detectors and medical use. We all have some 4,400 beta/gamma decays per second throughout our bodies for life, largely from Potassium-40 in foods like bananas and potato chips. (Living beside a nuclear power plant for a year is less “dangerous” than eating bananas and potato chips.)
Living beside a nuclear power plant for a year is less “dangerous” than eating bananas and potato chips.
Because radioactive elements are constantly decaying, our ancestral life forms evolved during times when radiation levels were far higher than they are today. As a consequence, they evolved some very effective ways to repair the damage to the DNA in our cells caused by radiation and oxidation, which is why we are told to favor anti-oxidants like grapes and greens. (DNA is “short” for deoxyribonucleic acid, a complex, spiral, chain-like molecule that contains our genetic codes.) If you irradiate E. coli bacteria for many generations, the bacteria evolve amazing radiation resistance, surviving huge doses of radiation, and some fungi even thrive on radiation.
“Fear and paranoia are the two most common forms of radiation sickness.” Mike Conley, Road Map to Nowhere
However, even the highest natural background radiation rate is insignificant compared to the damage caused by our internal chemistry. DNA bond breaks caused by oxidation and toxins occur more frequently than breaks caused by background radiation. Our bodies are actively repairing DNA damage every second of our lives.
DNA Structure
If people understood that “…we have billions of cells that die every day and must be replaced, they will be better able to accept the fact that our bodies have efficient repair mechanisms that can handle low level radiation”. Science Magazine, March, 2015. (Adults have about 37 trillion cells.)
“Each cell contains a coiled mass of DNA that carries the thousands of genetic instructions that we need to run our bodies. These strands of DNA undergo thousands of spontaneous changes every day, and DNA copying for cell division and multiplication, which happens in the body millions of times daily, also introduces defects.
DNA can be damaged by ultraviolet light from the sun, industrial pollutants and natural toxins like cigarette smoke. What fights pandemonium are our DNA repair mechanisms.
“In the 70s, Dr. Lindahl defied orthodoxy about DNA stability by discovering a molecular system that counteracts DNA collapse, and Dr. Sancar mapped out how cells repair DNA damage from UV light.
“People born with defects in this system, when exposed to sunlight, develop skin cancer, and Dr. Modrich showed how our cellular machinery repairs errors that arise during DNA replication, thereby reducing the frequency of error by about 1,000.”
Unintended Consequences Series – created by Jeremiah Josey and the team at The Thorium Network, 2 January 2022, updated 16 July 2023
Preface to Update – Dr. George Arthur Erickson passed away on July 14, 2023, at his home near Eveleth, Minnesota, at the age of 90. Out of our respect to his great contributions to advancing the adoption of Thorium energy – the key objective of our organisation – this series will remain largely intact. Changes will be made to account for him no longer being with us.
Obituary of Dr. George Arthur Erickson
Continuing now from the first edition…
To start the new year we will be publishing episodes from the book “Unintended Consequences: The Lie that Killed Millions and accelerated Climate Change“.
Written by best selling science author Dr. George Erickson. Each week we be posting part of Dr. Erickson’s book onto our web page and social media channels in a bite size episode. There will be more than 40 episodes. Sign up for regular reminders of the next episode and spend the next 10 months learning from someone with first hand experience in the effects of climate change, and knowledgeable in the only real alternative we have for carbon free energy: safe, clean, green Liquid Fission Thorium EnergyTM, fuelled by Thorium.
Dr. Erickson is was the best-selling author of five pro-science books, a former bush pilot in Alaska and Canada, a retired dentist, a former vice president of the American Humanist Association, a member of the National Centre for Science Education and a member of the Thorium Energy Alliance.
Dr. Erickson exchanged climate change and energy emails with Dr. James Hansen, the former chief scientist at NASA (whom George Bush clashed frequently when the president tried to silence James on his climate change position). Dr. Hansen is quoted often in Dr. Erickson’s book, “Unintended Consequences: The Lie that Killed Millions and Accelerated Climate Change“.
In Unintended Consequences, Dr. Erickson exposes the lie that created our excessive and fraudulent radiation safety standards and the damage those regulations have caused. He expresses his dismay with “greens” in their profit of promoting low efficiency, intermittent supply, carbon reliant solar panels and bird and bat-killing, carbon-dependent windmills, yet oppose 90% efficiency, environmentally friendly, carbon free, super safe nuclear power.
Because of the increasing damage from climate change, Dr. Erickson made the latest update to his book update of this book FREE. You can buy the paperback off Amazon.
A prolific writer of climate change and energy op-eds, Dr. Erickson’s self funded his travel campaigns to give climate change and energy presentations at colleges, schools, universities, service clubs and affinity groups.
“Your writing is brilliant and so clear.” Dr. James Hansen, former chief climate scientist at NASA.
“By comparing the safety, reliability and emissions of nuclear reactors to carbon combustion and unreliable wind and solar, Dr. Erickson sends a message to people who love the earth – nuclear is the rational way forward.” Dr. Tim Maloney
“Unintended Consequences is excellent. I will recommend it widely.” Dr. Martin Goodman MD
“This great book reveals why the green movement is wrong on nuclear energy.” Mathijs Beckers
“Universal Consequences is rational thought for those seeking a sustainable planet.” Dr. Rod Coenen
After retiring near Virginia, Minnesota, United States of America, Dr. Erickson initiated and led a campaign to build a USD 1.2 million indoor tennis facility for his hometown. He helps coach the Virginia boys and girls tennis teams, funds scholarships at the Mesabi Range Community College and donates all of his book profits to educational charities. He is married and has two sons.
Coming up next week, Episode 1 – Why I care by Dr George Erickson of Unintended Consequences.
I love all the colours chosen for a gas that has none. There is no smell either. Pink, green, blue, grey, black, yellow, white, maroon… I’m making them up now, but it doesn’t matter. There is an odour coming from this “new hydrogen economy”. Hydrogen is not an “energy source”. It’s how we can transport energy. From where it’s made to where it’s consumed. The colours are a clever way of identifying the source of the energy before conversion into hydrogen. But be clear, hydrogen is not a “fuel” that replaces “fossil fuels”. Lithium is useless until energised in a Li-Ion battery. Hydrogen is useless until you make it, or rather separate it, from it’s most common bonded atomic partner – Oxygen. Then again I do enjoy a good drink of oxidised hydrogen. The most common form of hydrogen on earth – water – is not useless at all.
Hydrogen on the surface is “better” than hydrocarbons. It has twice the energy density. Fossil fuels, incidentally are stores of energy: you dig them up, or pump them out, and immediately convert them to heat. Remember that our most common need for energy is low cost heat. Hydrogen as a fuel is yet to find that low cost convertibility to a low priced, abundant fuel. It is easier to transport the energy via electrons, than lug around a much heavier proton with a electron attached to it.
For pipes and storage tanks, the metallurgy of hydrogen makes problems because it can embrittle many materials. It’s a very small molecule and creeps into all kinds of places. Hydrogen has a very wide explosive range: 4 to 74%, and will ignite with sunlight. It’s tricky stuff to work with.
I don’t see hydrogen becoming anything other than another energy distraction. Much the same way that ethanol was 20 years ago. But we are not adept at learning from our mistakes. There will be regions that will benefit for reasons other than are written here.
Hydrogen has a very wide explosive range: 4 to 74%, and will ignite with sunlight. It’s tricky stuff to work with.
Thorium Molten Salt Fission Energy technology making electricity is a viable proposition. The technology hurdles where identified and addressed more than 50 years ago. Yes, hydrogen production using Molten Salt Technology is a very viable option – where it is needed. The Energy Return on Investment (EROI) of energy from Molten Salt Fission Energy Technology is 30 times better than any oil equivalent and 512 times better than wind and solar. (Anyone remember fuel ethanol? The EROI is somewhere between 0.9 and 1.1 – pitiful).
Let those numbers sink in… That’s where you’ll find the real gold at the end of the rainbow.
Post by Jeremiah Josey and the team at The Thorium Network
This is a great piece of history. The late Professor Mike Driscoll of MIT, known for his work on fission breeding (where more fuel is produced than is consumed – go figure!) asked the question of the origins of the word “breeder” to Dr. Alvin Weinberg. This is Dr. Weinberg’s response with Dr. Eugene Wigner’s handwritten addition. 12 April 1976.
Post by Jeremiah Josey and the team at The Thorium Network
More than 50 years since the MSRE ended in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, another starts up. This time in China. Whilst Oak Ridge’s machine was 8 MWt, China’s is 2MWt. This article by Gernot Kramper was published in the German Star online magazine on September 20, 2021. Well done China.
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