From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2014 12:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Climate models
On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Chris de Morsella <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Solar PV is here today
Solar PV has been here for 60 years and THOUSANDS of times more money has
been spent developing it than has been spent on LFTR R&D, and yet solar PV
is still just a rounding error in our total energy budget.
Haha - if you call the almost 150 GW of currently installed solar PV
capacity a rounding error that is your prerogative. 150GW is however a
significant amount of energy production capacity no matter how much you
desire to minimize its importance. The global installed capacity of solar PV
has also been doubling every two or so years for quite a while now and is
projected to surpass 300GW of globally installed PV capacity by 2017.
Just a rounding number?
In your world maybe.
Compare this capacity with the current capacity of LFTR which is 0 watts.
> I see the practical technological limits that constrain what can actually
be accomplished.
Apparently not.
>> Oh for heavens sake! There is no Uranium shortage and Thorium is 4 times
as abundant and easier to separate from it's ore than Uranium is, and we can
only get energy from .7% of the Uranium but we can use 100% of the Thorium!
So do you REALLY want to say we shouldn't consider Thorium because we can't
get enough of it??
> Wrong again
I want to know if I really understand you correctly, are you saying that a
major problem (or even a minor problem) with using Thorium for energy is
that there isn't enough of it? Is that really your position?
No it is not my position and never has been - though I take issue with your
reserve figures. The big issues with LFTR are that it simply does not exist
and in order to bring it into existence would require a large scale
concerted multi-decadal effort. The entire sector - not just the reactor
units themselves, but the entire logistical supply chain - has to be built
out from nothing.
This has always been my position, but you choose instead to frame my
position as being other than what it is for your own argumentative purposes.
> the world is facing a recoverable uranium peak that will be reached within
a decade or two (at current extraction rates, if nuclear is ramped up peak
uranium will be reached that much sooner).
Uranium prices are the lowest they've been in 8 years. I found a chart for
the last 5 years:
So? That is a temporary effect of the highly successful ex-Soviet bombs to
reactor fuel program that the US and post-USSR Russia negotiated in the
1990s. Give it another ten years.
And so I would like to make a public bet with you and see if you're willing
to put your money where your mouth is. You say the shit will hit the fan
within a decade or two, so if before April 4 2024 there is widespread
reactor shutdowns because of Uranium shortages (and not due to temper
tantrums from environmentalists) then, assuming I'm still alive, I will send
you $1000; if there are not widespread reactor shutdowns because of Uranium
shortages before April 4 2024 then, assuming you're still alive, you only
needs to send me $100. So do we have a bet? Come on I'm giving you 10 to 1
odds!
At current rates of nuclear power production the current reserves will last
longer than ten years - but they will not if nuclear power is ramped up as
an energy generation source. When the world begins to hit peak uranium very
much depends on whether more reactors are built or not.
>> You are the one making the claim that extracting 12 grams of Thorium from
one meter of dirt would take more energy than the Thorium could produce, so
it is up to you to show it's true; although nobody would be dumb enough to
bother with such dirt when there is ore that contains 50% Thorium available.
> Whatever.
Yes, whatever.
Yeah whater
> I do not inhabit the same magical thinking universe you seem to live in.
How nice for you, therefore by accepting my bet you can make an easy $1000.
Nice polemic. what assurances do I even have that you would actually pay. It
is mere bluster on your end. As I said - and it is just common sense the
date we hit peak uranium very much depends on how many operating nuclear
power plants exist in the world. If nuclear power is ramped way up - as the
pro nuclear folks would have us do - then we will hit that wall sooner. If,
instead, as seems likely nuclear continues to get phased out then we will
not hit the uranium supply peak until a later point in time. Can you follow
this simple reasoning?
Chris de Morsella
John K Clark
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