The Good Reactor – A Film About Thorium Reactors

Two Irish lads are making a documentary about Thorium reactors.  Frankie Fenton and Des Kelleher from Dublin, Ireland went on Kickstarter to raise £40,000′  Their 30-day Fundraising period just ended successfully on June 21st, with 756 backers pledging £46,800.  Congratulations, Boys!  Now the real work begins!

Note: With the pledge period over, this blog post is NOT a plea for money.  They got what they needed.

The promo is here.

The trailer is here.

The blurb from the Kickstarter page:

The Good Reactor

Up until the mid 1970s, research into thorium – a silvery-white metal – as an energy source in Molten Salt Reactors, was carried out by the US government. The initiative was shelved however, in favour of uranium due in part to the politics of the Cold War and uranium’s potential for weaponization. Today, there is a growing body of scientists and environmentalists seeking to resurrect this technology, believing that it is the solution that the world has been waiting for – a way to generate clean, safe, green energy.

For the last two years we have poured every penny we have into travelling around Europe and North America to speak to the people involved in this project, and their opponents, to try to uncover the truth about thorium: whether it is, as many believe, the solution to the energy crisis.

“A golf ball sized ball of Thorium contains all the energy you will use in your entire lifetime.”  —  Kirk Sorensen, leading advocate of Thorium LFTR reactors and the man who brought Thorium rectors to the world’s attention after they had been all but forgotten.

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This is the nuclear power they promised us way back in the 1950s.  But Richard Nixon killed the project in the early 1970s, after the first reactor had run successfully for over 2,000 hours.

Thorium in Space – And a New Idea

At Moon, Mars, or Asteroids, Which is the Best Destination for Solar System Development? Dennis Wingo discusses the future of space endeavors.  Among his very good comments is this:

<blockquote> Thorium reactors can be an export from the Moon to provide megawatts of power for space ships and to be delivered to Mars to provide power on the surface there.</blockquote>

Yes and yes.  Dennis shows that he is keeping up with developments on the Thorium LFTR front.  LFTRs are Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors, and they are the absolute future of energy production on the planet.  Unless someone comes up with a damned good reason otherwise, LFTRs will replace all coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power plants.

In Space

Thorium reactors will be needed in space, on Mars, on the Moon, and on asteroids.

I am jumping out of my skin, waiting for the first Thorium LFTRs to get up and running. Actually the second ones. Alvin Weinberg had one up and running 50 years ago at Oak Ridge.  So, you see, this is not a pipe dream.  Why not?  Because Alvin Weinberg also happens to be the man who invertned the current light-water nuclear reactors, the ones currently used in most nuclear power plants today.  If he invented LFTRs and had one running (for YEARS), you can be assured that it is not some pipe dream.

This is our future. This much Thorium will provide all the energy you will need for an entire lifetime.

Eric Ludendorff – The German General who ruined the 20th century almost all by himself

During World War I Eric Ludendorff, the German Quartermaster, was the man charged with running the war effort.  Five decisions of his – three in one year – screwed up the rest of the 20th century.  He had good reasons for his decisions, because Germany was getting horribly squeezed by the logistics of being in the middle and fighting a two-front war.   But at the same time his decisions were still being felt past the year 1990, and in some ways are still being felt today.