liquidfuelnuclear

Thorium Remix 2011 (2011)

Best documentary on Liquid Fuel, Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), of which LFTR is an example

Kirk Sorensen's 10 min TEDxYYC talk (TED.com) disrupts the Nuclear Industry (eg @NEI) by exploring Safer "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors" (LFTR), that we could+should+would have had, from the 1960's, if making bombs weren't the priority of the Cold War era.

"Thorium Remix" (so far 7 versions: ThoriumRemix.com) has been unpacking the contrasts, trade-offs, & opportunities between old Fuel Rod based dinosaurs & the new Liquid Fuel, Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), of which LFTR is an example ...to the horror of a complacent #BigNuclear industry (cf NEI's NEA16 panels to feel the inertia to change).

Clips from Sorensen's TED talk & others' eye-opening exposés move+shake us to promote MSR. Many have already encouraged a growing number start-ups to deliver their MSRs ASAP.

Viewers will shun & demand an end to Costly+Wasteful+LessSafe Fuel Rod based LWR & PWR (& even costly IFR) reactors, in favor of MSRs.

But "Thorium Remix" isn't SciFi.

Some MSR builders aim to have a working MSR "early next decade" (cf: Hugh McDiarmid in YouTube channel "TerrestrialMSR"); others will be quick to follow.

Contrasting "Thorium Remix" & Robert Stone's 2013 "Pandora's Promise," we find, that those who view Stone's doco first will tend to embrace a Fuel Rod dinosaur (eg, GE-H's IFR PRISM), featured in it.

Meanwhile. those fortunate enough to have viewed "Thorium Remix 2011" first, will tend to count themselves among the MSR (even if they label it the Thorium) Community, promoting safer, small, affordable MSR, knowing that it uses far less fuel & makes far less waste, with much a shorter required-storage period.

By 2013, Stone really should have known+included more about MSR.

But he - like the environmentalists who've been moved to support Nuclear Energy, since viewing "Pandora's Promise" - might not be quite as "technically minded" as their counterparts in "Thoriun Remix 2011." McDowell had the somewhat easier task of speaking to smart people, who get Climate Change, but who didn't come to the Cinema with a habit of anti-Nuclear feeling.

Instead of Helen Caldicott's fear mongering, we'd read (the late) Dr David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" (free PDF: WithoutHotAir.com), and done some calculations.

Some of us had already viewed Kirk Sorensen, David LeBlanc & others in Google Tach Talks. We needed trade-offs, figures & facts, that Sorensen, et al. offered, & McDowell captured so well, in "Thorium Remix 2011" etc.

With no past anti-nuke "shame or guilt" to inhibit us, LFTR & MSR were an easy sell. :-)