Reply To: Competition from the Thorium reactor

[Tulse]

Axil, no offense, but I think you’re being a bit paranoid. First off, it is certainly not the case that all “greens” are against nukes (I would count myself among that number), and it is completely unjustified to claim that greens in general would be against a fusion technology that leaves no long-term radioactive waste and has no chance of catastrophic meltdown. In many ways, FF is an ideal green technology — it provides electricity with no CO2 or waste of any kind (helium is hardly a waste product); it is suitable not only for grid power but for large transport as well (ships and trains could be instantly zero-emission vehicles); it can be built very small and so does not require the investment of a huge utility (it is more “community-sized”); and it is suitable for remote locations, including Third World locales that don’t have a huge electrical grid and which might be tempted to use hugely polluting sources for power otherwise, such as coal.

As for the issue of “control” on the part of the government, again, that seems excessively paranoid to me. As has been states several times, there is nothing that a FF reactor will produce that can’t already be generated through more conventional means — there are already commercial sources for ions, x-rays, and neutrons. Given that, FF is no more a target for “control” than hospital cyclotrons or industrial ion beam milling machines, and not any more threatening than wind power or solar thermal generation.

And the notion that FF might go “black” seems silly to me, if for no other reason than the general approach is fairly straightforward and already very public, and there is nothing preventing other organizations or governments from pursuing the work if LPP’s work gets classified.