Who Killed the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)?

[GliderGuider]

100. Maybe this will help

Last edited Sat Dec 31, 2011, 01:41 PM - Edit history (1)

The predicament that humanity finds ourselves in extends far beyond the simple issue of C02 and climate change. The following excerpt is the opening of an article I wrote earlier in the year to sketch out my views more completely.

A 50000 Foot View of the Global Crisis

We are now well into a global crisis that may mark the end of this cycle of human civilization. In this note I present a summary of what’s going on as far as I can tell, as well as a scenario for how things might develop over the next 75 years or so.

Because the global predicament manifests itself in some way in virtually every area of human endeavour, any useful approach to it must be massively cross-disciplinary. Fruitful areas for investigation include:

Human Issues:

• Politics
  
• Economics
  
• Finance (especially the characteristics and behaviour of money)
  
• History
  
• Anthropology
  
• Sociology
  
• Neuro-psychology
  
• Agriculture

Energy and Resource Issues:

• Peak Oil and oil production in general
  
• Classical electrical generation (coal, nuclear and hydro power)
  
• Renewable electrical generation (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and biomass)
  
• Biofuels (including ERoEI considerations)
  
• Rare Earth metal supplies
  
• Copper and Iron ore concentrations

Environmental Issues:

• Ecology (especially related to carrying capacity and footprint)
  
• Climate change
  
• Ocean acidification
  
• Methane tipping points (permafrost and oceanic hydrates)
  
• Species extinctions (including oceanic overfishing)
  
• Deforestation and desertification
  
• Fresh water depletion
  
• Soil fertility depletion
  
• Pollution: chemicals, heavy metals, radioactive waste, eutrophication, oceanic debris fields etc.

General issues:

• Complex adaptive systems and resilience theory
  
• Complexity theory and “Liebig’s Law of the Minimum”
  
• Geoengineering
  
• Genetic engineering (especially related to agriculture)
  
• Habitat loss due to human numbers/activity
  
• Overpopulation
  
• “Peak Food”

Each of these 30 points is a field of study on its own. When we realize that “the global problem” is a result of interactions between them, we are faced with a combinatorial explosion of issues that must be considered even to understand what’s going on, let alone to make recommendations.

C02-free energy will address some of these issues, but not all. And IMO nuclear power of any sort is far too risky to be building out this close to the end game. Let renewables to what they can. There are many other places where we can apply our efforts, to issues that will have more far-reaching benefits for the planet, at far lower risk and cost.

Did that help explain my position?