I went on to the Blog of Director, Jeremy Gibson: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2011/05/windfarm-wars.shtml#jump_more
it was a revalation to read it had taken 7 years to complete, but if it is repeated please do take the chance to watch it - compelling TV at its best.
I also felt compelled - to try to get the sad story of how thorium-fuelled, thermal breeder reactors were sidelined 40 years ago, when their adoption would have prevented the worst 40 years of planetry pollution and endangerment ever.
I put it to Mr. Gibson, as follows:
Many congratulations, Mr. Gibson; the most compelling TV I've seen in many a year and I saw my first bit in about 1948.
Everybody should know what we're doing without, in paying vast sums for inconsequential renewables, apart from the £1 billion we pay every year in hidden subsidies on our energy bills.
Have a look at this: http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_of_Generating_Electricity.pdf
You should note that nuclear is neck-and-neck with CCGT and if you add a carbon tax or fuel price increase, nuclear is ahead on its own. Onshore wind is money down the drain and offshore wind even moreso.
I Blog on "LFTRs to Power the Planet" at: http://lftrsuk.blogspot.com/
LFTRs are hundreds of times safer than LWRs and post-Fukushima, the sad, historical side-tracking of a thorium-fuelled, thermal, breeder reactor, which could have nullified the worst 40 years of planetary pollution and endangerment, needs telling - in spades.
It's a tale of powerful politicians and military generals controlling $billions of cold-war funds, in league with scientists with agendas, not having the foresight to switch from reactors which answered the military's problems to the right reactor for civil power production.
Alvin Weinberg, the doyen of Molten Salt Reactor design, operation and experimentation, invented and patented LWRs, of which the Fukushima reactors were the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) version. He railed against the use of LWRs for civil purposes, fearing loss-of-coolant/meltdown accidents (Fukushima-style). We, in the thorium-proponent camp know that LFTRs are very capable of coming through such natural disasters, because of their inherent safety characteristics - they are walk-away-safe.
Humanity will owe a debt of gratitude to the first documentary maker who gets this story onto front-line TV.
Everybody should know what we're doing without, in paying vast sums for inconsequential renewables, apart from the £1 billion we pay every year in hidden subsidies on our energy bills.
Have a look at this: http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_of_Generating_Electricity.pdf
You should note that nuclear is neck-and-neck with CCGT and if you add a carbon tax or fuel price increase, nuclear is ahead on its own. Onshore wind is money down the drain and offshore wind even moreso.
I Blog on "LFTRs to Power the Planet" at: http://lftrsuk.blogspot.com/
LFTRs are hundreds of times safer than LWRs and post-Fukushima, the sad, historical side-tracking of a thorium-fuelled, thermal, breeder reactor, which could have nullified the worst 40 years of planetary pollution and endangerment, needs telling - in spades.
It's a tale of powerful politicians and military generals controlling $billions of cold-war funds, in league with scientists with agendas, not having the foresight to switch from reactors which answered the military's problems to the right reactor for civil power production.
Alvin Weinberg, the doyen of Molten Salt Reactor design, operation and experimentation, invented and patented LWRs, of which the Fukushima reactors were the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) version. He railed against the use of LWRs for civil purposes, fearing loss-of-coolant/meltdown accidents (Fukushima-style). We, in the thorium-proponent camp know that LFTRs are very capable of coming through such natural disasters, because of their inherent safety characteristics - they are walk-away-safe.
Humanity will owe a debt of gratitude to the first documentary maker who gets this story onto front-line TV.
Colin,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your note to Mr. Gibson. Please keep in mind that I type the following with the best intentions.
If you want letters like the above to be read, you may want to:
1) Streamline your points.
2) Make it's easier to follow without requiring a visit to the links you give by supplying extremely short summaries of the information you want gained from the links.
3) Don't waste the reader's time by supplying links and information that are not absolutely required to make your point. Especially not early in the writing, before you have captured the reader's attention. Keep links to blogs, etc., at the end of the article if at all possible.
4) If an acronym is used, define it the first time it is used in every new article created.
Example: "We need more funding for Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR). The first step in gaining funds should be to raise awareness of LFTRs by capturing the attention of major media. In the United States, Public Radio may be a good place to start, targeting programs like Ira Flatow's 'Science Friday' (see: http://www.sciencefriday.com )"
Regards,
--John