Who Killed the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)?

[Maslo55]

102. your position

is based on faulty apocalyptic vision that there is an "end game" (whatever you mean by that), or better, that there will be an end game even with abundant clean energy source (without it there may indeed be), and by faulty assertion that Gen III+/IV nuclear energy such as IFR or LFTR is "too risky".

Yes, we must eventually address all these points you listed. While clean abundant energy wont solve all, its still better than nothing (status quo). It certainly wont lead to damage - which was your original point. That does not follow.

And in fact, cheap abundant energy can address majority of those issues you listed. Energy is the ultimate raw material. If LFTR promises deliver, it would be a complete game-changer. We can use the cheap electricity and heat for many things which are not economical or possible now. Large scale desalination of sea water, vertical farming, heat/electric catalysed production of hydrogen, carbon neutral fuels from CO2 and H2 (methanol, DME), ammonia (both for fertiliser and as a promising fuel), wide deployment of electric cars, cheap district heating, fission products of a LFTR include stable rare elements such as rhodium, ruthenium, palladium, technetium, cesium, xenon, neodymium, molybdenium and zirconium which are relied heavily on in modern electronics and industrial processes. These can be extracted from the waste. Medically valuable isotopes such as bismuth-213, very promising radiotherapy agent, are also in the LFTR waste..
LFTR is essentially a very efficient source of high intensity heat. How do you harness and utilise this energy for useful and interesting work is only limited by the laws of thermodynamics and the imagination.

The most important point, argued also by Kirk Sorensen, is that abundant energy increases quality of life, which is the most effective way to lower human population growth, even to turn it negative. If we want to stop overpopulation without resorting to killing or population control, increasing quality of life is the only way.