Humanity will not change for coral or ice but will change for money

The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius predicts a tolerable climate-changed world.

Why is it tolerable? The IPCC predicts the ice caps and Greenlands ice will go away. They predict that the world will lose coral and animals and insects.

The world has been showing for decades that we can lose ice at the poles an in Greenland and we can lose animals and we can lose coral and we will not change.

The world has shown that those things can be lost and the world will not stop or upend the economy.

* the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.
* The world has lost roughly half its coral reefs in the last 30 years. Australia is paying to develop sunscreen for coral by putting a layer of chemical on the ocean surface to protect the coral. The reason is that Australia is willing to spend money to protect the billions in tourism and fishing

There have been millions dying prematurely from air pollution. US and Europe addressed the worst of the air pollution in the 1960s and 1980s. China also tolerated massive air pollution for economic development using coal and is now spending tens of billions to fix it. It was only when the populations in the cities would not longer tolerate smog filled air that serious action was taken.

The media coverage describes the described 1.5 degree celsius and 2.0 degree celsius worlds as grim.

The IPCC researchers estimated the global economic damages from warming — $54 trillion if the world warms by 1.5°C by 2100, $69 trillion if temperatures reach 2°C. They described a downpayment on fixing this at $48 trillion over the next 20 years. However, the costs on world transformation would continuing scaling to hundreds of trillions in the crash program that is proposed. Radical attempts to alter the world economy would be more costly than allowing higher temperatures.

The results for the baseline no-policy case indicate that economic damages along median temperature change and median damages (median-median) reach 4.5% of GDP by 2100, with an uncertainty range of 2.5% and 8.5% resulting from different combinations of temperature change and damages.

The predicted damages occur in the second half of the 21st century.

What is profitable to fix? Self-driving electric cars and cleaning soot and particulates from power

It is cost beneficial today to work at reducing soot and air pollution particulates. The health and economic benefits pay for themselves. It will be economically beneficial to convert to self-driving cars and trucks. This will boost the supply chain efficiency.

The Nobel Prize winning economist, William Nordhaus, has indicated that it is not worth trying to keep temperatures below 2.5 degrees celsius of change.

How can we speed up the clean up?

We have to research for better and more profitable clean technology.

Technology like Thorcon molten salt reactors could be built by hundreds at shipyards.

ThorCon is a graphite-moderated thermal spectrum molten salt reactor that will produce 250 MWe power. It will be cheaper than coal energy. Coal is 5 cents per kilowatt hour and Thorcon will be 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. The basic concept is similar to the MSRE (Molten Salt Reactor Experiment) in ORNL which was built and operated in the 1960s.

Thorcon is working with Indonesia and could have its first 1 GW commercial unit in 4-6 years.

Business as Usual World will be Economically stronger in 2060

The world will be very different by 2060. Population will increase from 7.7 billion people to 10.2 billion in 2060.

Asia’s population will go from 4.5 billion now to 5.2 billion in 2060.
Africa will increase from 1.3 billion now to 2.9 billion in 2060.

The world should get twice as rich by 2060 after adjusting for inflation.
Asia will get four times as rich by 2060.

Asia will be a richer on a per capita basis than Europe is today.
The world will have gone from 55% urban now to over 70% in 2060.

All of North America, Europe, Asia and most of South America and parts of Africa would have housing and air conditioning.

The world has been tolerating millions of premature deaths per year from air pollution for decades. This should not have been tolerated but it has. It would be twenties times cheaper to directly fix particulate and soot air pollution than to work on complete fixes for CO2. Fixing soot would reduce warming by 0.5 a degree or more and this would be faster climate impact because soot removal rapidly has an impact by making the color of snow whiter to reflect more heat away.

A wealthier world can fix more things.

Wealthier people will want cleaner air and a cleaner world and will be willing and able to pay for it.

80 thoughts on “Humanity will not change for coral or ice but will change for money”

  1. ‘don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes’ Maybe so, but impermeable graphite is a lot easier to keep in intimate contact with 550 C molten salt. (Candus only run at 310 C.) There’d be no way to weld the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it. Thorcon say they’ll just use

  2. ‘don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes’Maybe so but impermeable graphite is a lot easier to keep in intimate contact with 550 C molten salt. (Candus only run at 310 C.) There’d be no way to weld the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it.Thorcon say they’ll just use

  3. We can loose polar and Greenland ice… and life will flourish just like it did in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures were a lot more higher than 1.5 celsius…

  4. We can loose polar and Greenland ice… and life will flourish just like it did in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures were a lot more higher than 1.5 celsius…

  5. Yeah, the reverse CANDU geometry MSR, where the calandria is the molten salt and the pressure tube are actually low-pressure, double-walled, vacuum-insulated, water-moderator tubes, is my latest line of questioning for the MSR fanboi base… I even asked Ed Phiel (Elysium) and Robert Hargraves (ThorCon) on the AtomicInsights blog why continue to use graphite as opposed to the water tubes that I propose, but I heard only crickets. The sound of crickets in response to a well composed question is an answer in a way. Perhaps they belong to an echelon above licensed, practicing nuclear engineers with advanced degrees who develop $100M LWR reload designs every 18-months OR perhaps they are simply stunned by the simple brilliance of the idea… I’d bet on the former. I have managed elicit responses from ‘experts’ in the past, but perhaps the respectful tone I used in this case is less effective than my usual flippant overtone. So, other than that John, I don’t see your point about “welding the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it”. As an engineer, I don’t see how it would be difficult to penetrate a pool type MSR’s bucket wall with a dry tube? I don’t see how it would be difficult to route a low-pressure wet tube up the aforementioned dry tube. After all, I am simply proposing a CANDU geometry variant – one oriented with the gravitational field of course (unlike CANDU). That, and I know it would work neutronically – the core would be ‘more thermal’ and smaller. Please go check my more detailed comments on the NBF article discussing Transatomic’s closure and making their ‘IP’ public. Good for them; I can make my intestinal gases public too.

  6. Yeah the reverse CANDU geometry MSR where the calandria is the molten salt and the pressure tube are actually low-pressure double-walled vacuum-insulated water-moderator tubes is my latest line of questioning for the MSR fanboi base… I even asked Ed Phiel (Elysium) and Robert Hargraves (ThorCon) on the AtomicInsights blog why continue to use graphite as opposed to the water tubes that I propose but I heard only crickets. The sound of crickets in response to a well composed question is an answer in a way. Perhaps they belong to an echelon above licensed practicing nuclear engineers with advanced degrees who develop $100M LWR reload designs every 18-months OR perhaps they are simply stunned by the simple brilliance of the idea… I’d bet on the former. I have managed elicit responses from ‘experts’ in the past but perhaps the respectful tone I used in this case is less effective than my usual flippant overtone.So other than that John I don’t see your point about “welding the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it”. As an engineer I don’t see how it would be difficult to penetrate a pool type MSR’s bucket wall with a dry tube? I don’t see how it would be difficult to route a low-pressure wet tube up the aforementioned dry tube. After all I am simply proposing a CANDU geometry variant – one oriented with the gravitational field of course (unlike CANDU). That and I know it would work neutronically – the core would be ‘more thermal’ and smaller. Please go check my more detailed comments on the NBF article discussing Transatomic’s closure and making their ‘IP’ public. Good for them; I can make my intestinal gases public too.”

  7. Interesting – I missed that exchange last time round. I don’t really care who makes nukes – Yankee, Russian, white or tan – or what sort, as long as they make a ton of them. BWRs or Candus would probably do the job if they knocked out enough of them to get good at it.

  8. Interesting – I missed that exchange last time round. I don’t really care who makes nukes – Yankee Russian white or tan – or what sort as long as they make a ton of them. BWRs or Candus would probably do the job if they knocked out enough of them to get good at it.

  9. I would say the problem isn’t that a warmer world would be unlivable, it is that there are lots of changes we would have to make that would be more difficult/expensive than replacing fossil fuels with nuclear. Here is a somewhat plausible picture of a world with a lot more CO2 & mostly melted icecaps. http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM The author doesn’t think the end result would be all that horrible but the migration away from rising waters & from places that are getting less livable to places that are getting more livable would be messy.

  10. I would say the problem isn’t that a warmer world would be unlivable it is that there are lots of changes we would have to make that would be more difficult/expensive than replacing fossil fuels with nuclear.Here is a somewhat plausible picture of a world with a lot more CO2 & mostly melted icecaps.http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTMThe author doesn’t think the end result would be all that horrible but the migration away from rising waters & from places that are getting less livable to places that are getting more livable would be messy.

  11. It is nice that the initially/formerly unscrupulous business man is now a philanthropist. He is like a ‘whale’ customer at a casino. Dazzle him with BS and he’ll keep the money flowing. Not creative enough to come up with his own causes…

  12. It is nice that the initially/formerly unscrupulous business man is now a philanthropist. He is like a ‘whale’ customer at a casino. Dazzle him with BS and he’ll keep the money flowing. Not creative enough to come up with his own causes…

  13. Following statement is false: “Russians have their own flavor of these suckers.” MSRs are conspicuously absent from nuclear news out of the RF, which I follow. Chinese test reactors are on the scale of MSRE and in development. Thorium is irrelevant when the reactor needs enrichment to start-up and is not a breeder. The proposed barges would be un-powered, so how do they make it to ‘deep sea’ when the typhoon is a’comin’ towed at 5 km/hr. They also don’t need to dump tank the fuel – that freeze valve stuff is bunk – could use DRACS like PRISM. Also don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes. There is so much BS in MSR ‘designs’ – they actually don’t exist off paper since they closed the MSRE.

  14. Following statement is false: Russians have their own flavor of these suckers.”” MSRs are conspicuously absent from nuclear news out of the RF”” which I follow. Chinese test reactors are on the scale of MSRE and in development. Thorium is irrelevant when the reactor needs enrichment to start-up and is not a breeder. The proposed barges would be un-powered”” so how do they make it to ‘deep sea’ when the typhoon is a’comin’ towed at 5 km/hr. They also don’t need to dump tank the fuel – that freeze valve stuff is bunk – could use DRACS like PRISM. Also don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes. There is so much BS in MSR ‘designs’ – they actually don’t exist off paper since they closed the MSRE.”””

  15. The Russians and Chinese have their own flavor of these suckers. Thorcon is in partnership with Indonesia. The nice concept is that its, yes thorium, and yes, when hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones come our way, these ships can head out to deep sea (Like Forest Gump’s shrimp boats) making it safer. I am tired to the point of cynicism about Fusion, and hope that we can step-up wind and solar, but who knows?

  16. The Russians and Chinese have their own flavor of these suckers. Thorcon is in partnership with Indonesia. The nice concept is that its yes thorium and yes when hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones come our way these ships can head out to deep sea (Like Forest Gump’s shrimp boats) making it safer. I am tired to the point of cynicism about Fusion and hope that we can step-up wind and solar but who knows?

  17. Postulate, trying to tax Americans to pay for fixing climate change that in fact has nothing to do with them will get the people trying it shot dead, and that’s a good thing.

  18. Postulate trying to tax Americans to pay for fixing climate change that in fact has nothing to do with them will get the people trying it shot dead and that’s a good thing.

  19. Coral species evolved as far back as 525 million years ago. Several had gone extinct. Yet, despite the world being way warmer or way colder in that intervening time, corals came back. “the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.” Yeah…FROM OVERFISHING. ‘Global Warming’ had NOTHING to do with it. So if they try to pass that total búllshît, then why would any rational person believe the rest of what they say? Anthropogenic Global Warming: It not only isn’t real, its a fraudulent scam the artists of which no longer even pretend to hide the fact thereof.

  20. Coral species evolved as far back as 525 million years ago. Several had gone extinct. Yet despite the world being way warmer or way colder in that intervening time corals came back. the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.””Yeah…FROM OVERFISHING. ‘Global Warming’ had NOTHING to do with it. So if they try to pass that total búllshît”” then why would any rational person believe the rest of what they say?Anthropogenic Global Warming: It not only isn’t real”” its a fraudulent scam the artists of which no longer even pretend to hide the fact thereof.”””””””

  21. Bill Gates is already invested in two advanced nuclear designs via Terrapower: a solid-fueled fast reactor and a molten salt fast reactor. Recently he started Breakthrough Energy Ventures with Jeff Bezos and some other billionaires. That has a billion dollars to start with, and is investing in a bunch of climate-friendly ideas, including the MIT fusion project.

  22. Bill Gates is already invested in two advanced nuclear designs via Terrapower: a solid-fueled fast reactor and a molten salt fast reactor. Recently he started Breakthrough Energy Ventures with Jeff Bezos and some other billionaires. That has a billion dollars to start with and is investing in a bunch of climate-friendly ideas including the MIT fusion project.

  23. sdot;sdot;sdot; We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. The investment you speak of isn’t a handful of billions or hundreds of millions (the kind of money that the Big Philanthropists tend to spread around). It is hundreds-to-thousands of billions. sdot;sdot;sdot; Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing) NOT kidding: what a ridiculous waste of money it was. sdot;sdot;sdot; Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. No, let the utilities sell it for whatever they nominally get. The point of cheap power is to put it on the grids that already have millions of customers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. There is NOTHING wrong with the idea: but pwoer doesn’t come in colors. Also it doesn’t degrade (much) with distance like veggies, or cost much to move a hundred miles. Yes, “put the micronukes close to consumption”. ON the grid. Plan for the electrification of transportation going All Electric in the next 15 years. A fine idea. Just do NOT put them at convenience stores. The GRID already serves those. Perhaps the WHOLE grid doesn’t have sufficient power — high-peak — to service the all-electric vehicles. OK. Local. I’m favoring setting micronukes close to protected centers of the civic infrastructure. Under the local police headquarters parking structure? Or adjacent to city hall. Like that. sdot;sdot;sdot; Companies invest to charge employee cars. Why? To keep-the-valuable-employee incentive? There is no shortage of incentives that can suck up an endlessly profitable business’s extra cash, if it wants to funnel it that way. No. Instead, just make sure that there is a uniform, excellent and ubiquitous mandate for having employee/customer parking lots above a certain size outfitted with competent universal electric vehicle chargers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Plasma arc waste for bio char and syn

  24. sdot;sdot;sdot; We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up.The investment you speak of isn’t a handful of billions or hundreds of millions (the kind of money that the Big Philanthropists tend to spread around). It is hundreds-to-thousands of billions.sdot;sdot;sdot; Or take 5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)NOT kidding: what a ridiculous waste of money it was.sdot;sdot;sdot; Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest.No let the utilities sell it for whatever they nominally get. The point of cheap power is to put it on the grids that already have millions of customers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station.There is NOTHING wrong with the idea: but pwoer doesn’t come in colors. Also it doesn’t degrade (much) with distance like veggies or cost much to move a hundred miles. Yes put the micronukes close to consumption””. ON the grid. Plan for the electrification of transportation going All Electric in the next 15 years.A fine idea.Just do NOT put them at convenience stores.The GRID already serves those.Perhaps the WHOLE grid doesn’t have sufficient power — high-peak — to service the all-electric vehicles. OK. Local.I’m favoring setting micronukes close to protected centers of the civic infrastructure. Under the local police headquarters parking structure? Or adjacent to city hall. Like that.sdot;sdot;sdot; Companies invest to charge employee cars.Why? To keep-the-valuable-employee incentive?There is no shortage of incentives that can suck up an endlessly profitable business’s extra cash”” if it wants to funnel it that way.No. Instead just make sure that there is a uniform excellent and ubiquitous mandate for having employee/customer parking lots above a certain size outfitted with com”

  25. We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing) Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. Companies invest to charge employee cars. Have robust minigrid. Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle. Electrostatic air filters for city. Power container ship so not use diesel. Off-shore disaster relief. Many many uses.

  26. We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. Or take 5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. Companies invest to charge employee cars. Have robust minigrid. Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle. Electrostatic air filters for city. Power container ship so not use diesel. Off-shore disaster relief. Many many uses.

  27. Interesting – I missed that exchange last time round. I don’t really care who makes nukes – Yankee, Russian, white or tan – or what sort, as long as they make a ton of them. BWRs or Candus would probably do the job if they knocked out enough of them to get good at it.

  28. Interesting – I missed that exchange last time round. I don’t really care who makes nukes – Yankee Russian white or tan – or what sort as long as they make a ton of them. BWRs or Candus would probably do the job if they knocked out enough of them to get good at it.

  29. Interesting – I missed that exchange last time round. I don’t really care who makes nukes – Yankee, Russian, white or tan – or what sort, as long as they make a ton of them. BWRs or Candus would probably do the job if they knocked out enough of them to get good at it.

  30. Yeah, the reverse CANDU geometry MSR, where the calandria is the molten salt and the pressure tube are actually low-pressure, double-walled, vacuum-insulated, water-moderator tubes, is my latest line of questioning for the MSR fanboi base… I even asked Ed Phiel (Elysium) and Robert Hargraves (ThorCon) on the AtomicInsights blog why continue to use graphite as opposed to the water tubes that I propose, but I heard only crickets. The sound of crickets in response to a well composed question is an answer in a way. Perhaps they belong to an echelon above licensed, practicing nuclear engineers with advanced degrees who develop $100M LWR reload designs every 18-months OR perhaps they are simply stunned by the simple brilliance of the idea… I’d bet on the former. I have managed elicit responses from ‘experts’ in the past, but perhaps the respectful tone I used in this case is less effective than my usual flippant overtone. So, other than that John, I don’t see your point about “welding the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it”. As an engineer, I don’t see how it would be difficult to penetrate a pool type MSR’s bucket wall with a dry tube? I don’t see how it would be difficult to route a low-pressure wet tube up the aforementioned dry tube. After all, I am simply proposing a CANDU geometry variant – one oriented with the gravitational field of course (unlike CANDU). That, and I know it would work neutronically – the core would be ‘more thermal’ and smaller. Please go check my more detailed comments on the NBF article discussing Transatomic’s closure and making their ‘IP’ public. Good for them; I can make my intestinal gases public too.

  31. Yeah the reverse CANDU geometry MSR where the calandria is the molten salt and the pressure tube are actually low-pressure double-walled vacuum-insulated water-moderator tubes is my latest line of questioning for the MSR fanboi base… I even asked Ed Phiel (Elysium) and Robert Hargraves (ThorCon) on the AtomicInsights blog why continue to use graphite as opposed to the water tubes that I propose but I heard only crickets. The sound of crickets in response to a well composed question is an answer in a way. Perhaps they belong to an echelon above licensed practicing nuclear engineers with advanced degrees who develop $100M LWR reload designs every 18-months OR perhaps they are simply stunned by the simple brilliance of the idea… I’d bet on the former. I have managed elicit responses from ‘experts’ in the past but perhaps the respectful tone I used in this case is less effective than my usual flippant overtone.So other than that John I don’t see your point about “welding the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it”. As an engineer I don’t see how it would be difficult to penetrate a pool type MSR’s bucket wall with a dry tube? I don’t see how it would be difficult to route a low-pressure wet tube up the aforementioned dry tube. After all I am simply proposing a CANDU geometry variant – one oriented with the gravitational field of course (unlike CANDU). That and I know it would work neutronically – the core would be ‘more thermal’ and smaller. Please go check my more detailed comments on the NBF article discussing Transatomic’s closure and making their ‘IP’ public. Good for them; I can make my intestinal gases public too.”

  32. ‘don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes’ Maybe so, but impermeable graphite is a lot easier to keep in intimate contact with 550 C molten salt. (Candus only run at 310 C.) There’d be no way to weld the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it. Thorcon say they’ll just use

  33. ‘don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes’Maybe so but impermeable graphite is a lot easier to keep in intimate contact with 550 C molten salt. (Candus only run at 310 C.) There’d be no way to weld the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it.Thorcon say they’ll just use

  34. Yeah, the reverse CANDU geometry MSR, where the calandria is the molten salt and the pressure tube are actually low-pressure, double-walled, vacuum-insulated, water-moderator tubes, is my latest line of questioning for the MSR fanboi base…

    I even asked Ed Phiel (Elysium) and Robert Hargraves (ThorCon) on the AtomicInsights blog why continue to use graphite as opposed to the water tubes that I propose, but I heard only crickets. The sound of crickets in response to a well composed question is an answer in a way. Perhaps they belong to an echelon above licensed, practicing nuclear engineers with advanced degrees who develop $100M LWR reload designs every 18-months OR perhaps they are simply stunned by the simple brilliance of the idea… I’d bet on the former. I have managed elicit responses from ‘experts’ in the past, but perhaps the respectful tone I used in this case is less effective than my usual flippant overtone.

    So, other than that John, I don’t see your point about “welding the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it”. As an engineer, I don’t see how it would be difficult to penetrate a pool type MSR’s bucket wall with a dry tube? I don’t see how it would be difficult to route a low-pressure wet tube up the aforementioned dry tube. After all, I am simply proposing a CANDU geometry variant – one oriented with the gravitational field of course (unlike CANDU). That, and I know it would work neutronically – the core would be ‘more thermal’ and smaller. Please go check my more detailed comments on the NBF article discussing Transatomic’s closure and making their ‘IP’ public. Good for them; I can make my intestinal gases public too.

  35. ‘don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes’
    Maybe so, but impermeable graphite is a lot easier to keep in intimate contact with 550 C molten salt. (Candus only run at 310 C.) There’d be no way to weld the whole nuclear unit sealed with all that water in it.
    Thorcon say they’ll just use <5% enriched uranium, with no thorium, if they can't get hold of 20% enriched. Terrestrial Energy of Canada, who have a very similar design, have already opted for low enriched uranium.

  36. We can loose polar and Greenland ice… and life will flourish just like it did in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures were a lot more higher than 1.5 celsius…

  37. We can loose polar and Greenland ice… and life will flourish just like it did in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures were a lot more higher than 1.5 celsius…

  38. I would say the problem isn’t that a warmer world would be unlivable, it is that there are lots of changes we would have to make that would be more difficult/expensive than replacing fossil fuels with nuclear. Here is a somewhat plausible picture of a world with a lot more CO2 & mostly melted icecaps. http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM The author doesn’t think the end result would be all that horrible but the migration away from rising waters & from places that are getting less livable to places that are getting more livable would be messy.

  39. I would say the problem isn’t that a warmer world would be unlivable it is that there are lots of changes we would have to make that would be more difficult/expensive than replacing fossil fuels with nuclear.Here is a somewhat plausible picture of a world with a lot more CO2 & mostly melted icecaps.http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTMThe author doesn’t think the end result would be all that horrible but the migration away from rising waters & from places that are getting less livable to places that are getting more livable would be messy.

  40. It is nice that the initially/formerly unscrupulous business man is now a philanthropist. He is like a ‘whale’ customer at a casino. Dazzle him with BS and he’ll keep the money flowing. Not creative enough to come up with his own causes…

  41. It is nice that the initially/formerly unscrupulous business man is now a philanthropist. He is like a ‘whale’ customer at a casino. Dazzle him with BS and he’ll keep the money flowing. Not creative enough to come up with his own causes…

  42. Following statement is false: “Russians have their own flavor of these suckers.” MSRs are conspicuously absent from nuclear news out of the RF, which I follow. Chinese test reactors are on the scale of MSRE and in development. Thorium is irrelevant when the reactor needs enrichment to start-up and is not a breeder. The proposed barges would be un-powered, so how do they make it to ‘deep sea’ when the typhoon is a’comin’ towed at 5 km/hr. They also don’t need to dump tank the fuel – that freeze valve stuff is bunk – could use DRACS like PRISM. Also don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes. There is so much BS in MSR ‘designs’ – they actually don’t exist off paper since they closed the MSRE.

  43. Following statement is false: Russians have their own flavor of these suckers.”” MSRs are conspicuously absent from nuclear news out of the RF”” which I follow. Chinese test reactors are on the scale of MSRE and in development. Thorium is irrelevant when the reactor needs enrichment to start-up and is not a breeder. The proposed barges would be un-powered”” so how do they make it to ‘deep sea’ when the typhoon is a’comin’ towed at 5 km/hr. They also don’t need to dump tank the fuel – that freeze valve stuff is bunk – could use DRACS like PRISM. Also don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes. There is so much BS in MSR ‘designs’ – they actually don’t exist off paper since they closed the MSRE.”””

  44. We can loose polar and Greenland ice… and life will flourish just like it did in the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures were a lot more higher than 1.5 celsius…

  45. The Russians and Chinese have their own flavor of these suckers. Thorcon is in partnership with Indonesia. The nice concept is that its, yes thorium, and yes, when hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones come our way, these ships can head out to deep sea (Like Forest Gump’s shrimp boats) making it safer. I am tired to the point of cynicism about Fusion, and hope that we can step-up wind and solar, but who knows?

  46. The Russians and Chinese have their own flavor of these suckers. Thorcon is in partnership with Indonesia. The nice concept is that its yes thorium and yes when hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones come our way these ships can head out to deep sea (Like Forest Gump’s shrimp boats) making it safer. I am tired to the point of cynicism about Fusion and hope that we can step-up wind and solar but who knows?

  47. I would say the problem isn’t that a warmer world would be unlivable, it is that there are lots of changes we would have to make that would be more difficult/expensive than replacing fossil fuels with nuclear.
    Here is a somewhat plausible picture of a world with a lot more CO2 & mostly melted icecaps.
    http://www.worlddreambank.org/D/DUBIA.HTM
    The author doesn’t think the end result would be all that horrible but the migration away from rising waters & from places that are getting less livable to places that are getting more livable would be messy.

  48. It is nice that the initially/formerly unscrupulous business man is now a philanthropist. He is like a ‘whale’ customer at a casino. Dazzle him with BS and he’ll keep the money flowing. Not creative enough to come up with his own causes…

  49. Following statement is false: “Russians have their own flavor of these suckers.” MSRs are conspicuously absent from nuclear news out of the RF, which I follow. Chinese test reactors are on the scale of MSRE and in development. Thorium is irrelevant when the reactor needs enrichment to start-up and is not a breeder. The proposed barges would be un-powered, so how do they make it to ‘deep sea’ when the typhoon is a’comin’ towed at 5 km/hr. They also don’t need to dump tank the fuel – that freeze valve stuff is bunk – could use DRACS like PRISM. Also don’t need graphite – could use double walled vacuum insulated water tubes. There is so much BS in MSR ‘designs’ – they actually don’t exist off paper since they closed the MSRE.

  50. Postulate, trying to tax Americans to pay for fixing climate change that in fact has nothing to do with them will get the people trying it shot dead, and that’s a good thing.

  51. Postulate trying to tax Americans to pay for fixing climate change that in fact has nothing to do with them will get the people trying it shot dead and that’s a good thing.

  52. Coral species evolved as far back as 525 million years ago. Several had gone extinct. Yet, despite the world being way warmer or way colder in that intervening time, corals came back. “the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.” Yeah…FROM OVERFISHING. ‘Global Warming’ had NOTHING to do with it. So if they try to pass that total búllshît, then why would any rational person believe the rest of what they say? Anthropogenic Global Warming: It not only isn’t real, its a fraudulent scam the artists of which no longer even pretend to hide the fact thereof.

  53. Coral species evolved as far back as 525 million years ago. Several had gone extinct. Yet despite the world being way warmer or way colder in that intervening time corals came back. the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.””Yeah…FROM OVERFISHING. ‘Global Warming’ had NOTHING to do with it. So if they try to pass that total búllshît”” then why would any rational person believe the rest of what they say?Anthropogenic Global Warming: It not only isn’t real”” its a fraudulent scam the artists of which no longer even pretend to hide the fact thereof.”””””””

  54. Bill Gates is already invested in two advanced nuclear designs via Terrapower: a solid-fueled fast reactor and a molten salt fast reactor. Recently he started Breakthrough Energy Ventures with Jeff Bezos and some other billionaires. That has a billion dollars to start with, and is investing in a bunch of climate-friendly ideas, including the MIT fusion project.

  55. Bill Gates is already invested in two advanced nuclear designs via Terrapower: a solid-fueled fast reactor and a molten salt fast reactor. Recently he started Breakthrough Energy Ventures with Jeff Bezos and some other billionaires. That has a billion dollars to start with and is investing in a bunch of climate-friendly ideas including the MIT fusion project.

  56. sdot;sdot;sdot; We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. The investment you speak of isn’t a handful of billions or hundreds of millions (the kind of money that the Big Philanthropists tend to spread around). It is hundreds-to-thousands of billions. sdot;sdot;sdot; Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing) NOT kidding: what a ridiculous waste of money it was. sdot;sdot;sdot; Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. No, let the utilities sell it for whatever they nominally get. The point of cheap power is to put it on the grids that already have millions of customers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. There is NOTHING wrong with the idea: but pwoer doesn’t come in colors. Also it doesn’t degrade (much) with distance like veggies, or cost much to move a hundred miles. Yes, “put the micronukes close to consumption”. ON the grid. Plan for the electrification of transportation going All Electric in the next 15 years. A fine idea. Just do NOT put them at convenience stores. The GRID already serves those. Perhaps the WHOLE grid doesn’t have sufficient power — high-peak — to service the all-electric vehicles. OK. Local. I’m favoring setting micronukes close to protected centers of the civic infrastructure. Under the local police headquarters parking structure? Or adjacent to city hall. Like that. sdot;sdot;sdot; Companies invest to charge employee cars. Why? To keep-the-valuable-employee incentive? There is no shortage of incentives that can suck up an endlessly profitable business’s extra cash, if it wants to funnel it that way. No. Instead, just make sure that there is a uniform, excellent and ubiquitous mandate for having employee/customer parking lots above a certain size outfitted with competent universal electric vehicle chargers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Plasma arc waste for bio char and syn

  57. sdot;sdot;sdot; We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up.The investment you speak of isn’t a handful of billions or hundreds of millions (the kind of money that the Big Philanthropists tend to spread around). It is hundreds-to-thousands of billions.sdot;sdot;sdot; Or take 5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)NOT kidding: what a ridiculous waste of money it was.sdot;sdot;sdot; Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest.No let the utilities sell it for whatever they nominally get. The point of cheap power is to put it on the grids that already have millions of customers. sdot;sdot;sdot; Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station.There is NOTHING wrong with the idea: but pwoer doesn’t come in colors. Also it doesn’t degrade (much) with distance like veggies or cost much to move a hundred miles. Yes put the micronukes close to consumption””. ON the grid. Plan for the electrification of transportation going All Electric in the next 15 years.A fine idea.Just do NOT put them at convenience stores.The GRID already serves those.Perhaps the WHOLE grid doesn’t have sufficient power — high-peak — to service the all-electric vehicles. OK. Local.I’m favoring setting micronukes close to protected centers of the civic infrastructure. Under the local police headquarters parking structure? Or adjacent to city hall. Like that.sdot;sdot;sdot; Companies invest to charge employee cars.Why? To keep-the-valuable-employee incentive?There is no shortage of incentives that can suck up an endlessly profitable business’s extra cash”” if it wants to funnel it that way.No. Instead just make sure that there is a uniform excellent and ubiquitous mandate for having employee/customer parking lots above a certain size outfitted with com”

  58. We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing) Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. Companies invest to charge employee cars. Have robust minigrid. Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle. Electrostatic air filters for city. Power container ship so not use diesel. Off-shore disaster relief. Many many uses.

  59. We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. Or take 5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. Companies invest to charge employee cars. Have robust minigrid. Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle. Electrostatic air filters for city. Power container ship so not use diesel. Off-shore disaster relief. Many many uses.

  60. The Russians and Chinese have their own flavor of these suckers. Thorcon is in partnership with Indonesia. The nice concept is that its, yes thorium, and yes, when hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones come our way, these ships can head out to deep sea (Like Forest Gump’s shrimp boats) making it safer. I am tired to the point of cynicism about Fusion, and hope that we can step-up wind and solar, but who knows?

  61. Postulate, trying to tax Americans to pay for fixing climate change that in fact has nothing to do with them will get the people trying it shot dead, and that’s a good thing.

  62. Coral species evolved as far back as 525 million years ago. Several had gone extinct. Yet, despite the world being way warmer or way colder in that intervening time, corals came back.

    “the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.”

    Yeah…FROM OVERFISHING. ‘Global Warming’ had NOTHING to do with it.

    So if they try to pass that total búllshît, then why would any rational person believe the rest of what they say?

    Anthropogenic Global Warming: It not only isn’t real, its a fraudulent scam the artists of which no longer even pretend to hide the fact thereof.

  63. Bill Gates is already invested in two advanced nuclear designs via Terrapower: a solid-fueled fast reactor and a molten salt fast reactor. Recently he started Breakthrough Energy Ventures with Jeff Bezos and some other billionaires. That has a billion dollars to start with, and is investing in a bunch of climate-friendly ideas, including the MIT fusion project.

  64. sdot;sdot;sdot; We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up.

    The investment you speak of isn’t a handful of billions or hundreds of millions (the kind of money that the Big Philanthropists tend to spread around). It is hundreds-to-thousands of billions.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)

    NOT kidding: what a ridiculous waste of money it was.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest.

    No, let the utilities sell it for whatever they nominally get. The point of cheap power is to put it on the grids that already have millions of customers.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station.

    There is NOTHING wrong with the idea: but pwoer doesn’t come in colors. Also it doesn’t degrade (much) with distance like veggies, or cost much to move a hundred miles.

    Yes, “put the micronukes close to consumption”. ON the grid. Plan for the electrification of transportation going All Electric in the next 15 years.

    A fine idea.
    Just do NOT put them at convenience stores.
    The GRID already serves those.

    Perhaps the WHOLE grid doesn’t have sufficient power — high-peak — to service the all-electric vehicles. OK. Local.

    I’m favoring setting micronukes close to protected centers of the civic infrastructure. Under the local police headquarters parking structure? Or adjacent to city hall. Like that.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Companies invest to charge employee cars.

    Why? To keep-the-valuable-employee incentive?

    There is no shortage of incentives that can suck up an endlessly profitable business’s extra cash, if it wants to funnel it that way.

    No. Instead, just make sure that there is a uniform, excellent and ubiquitous mandate for having employee/customer parking lots above a certain size outfitted with competent universal electric vehicle chargers.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle.

    Hopelessly foolish sentiment. The amount of energy required would easily outstrip all present fuel use on vehicular traffic. Now, that’s NOT a good idea.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Electrostatic air filters for city.

    Don’t much need those if you’re migrating almost all of the local commercial and consumer transportation sector toward an Electric Vehicle infrastructure, and where the powers-that-be have imposed a tariff-for-being-conventional scheme that significantly cuts the older, more pollutive ways.

    sdot;sdot;sdot; Power container ship so not use diesel.

    Maybe… probably better is to power them using DIESEL instead of bunker oil. Bunker oil has enough sulfur that the exhaust is a significant polluter of the globe. Diesel can be made to not-do-so.

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy

  65. We need Bill Gates or Warren Buffet type investor to step up. Or take 5% of funds wasted by the Cavanaugh protesters in USA and invest that. (Just teasing)
    Make power at 3 cents and sell at four and have even more to invest. Put them at off ramps with conveience stores like a petrol station. Companies invest to charge employee cars. Have robust minigrid. Plasma arc waste for bio char and syngas to reclaim landfill and super recycle. Electrostatic air filters for city. Power container ship so not use diesel. Off-shore disaster relief. Many many uses.

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