Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

RMI's Reinventing Fire is Missing at Least Three Key Elements – Uranium, Thorium, and Plutonium

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The above video is inspiring, seductive and well produced. It makes a number of important points, but it is missing at least three key elements that would change it from being a vision that is as unreachable as a mirage to something that is tangible, optimistic and achievable. Those elements are uranium, thorium and plutonium – the fuels for fission, the world’s new fire. (Disclaimer – The linked video is a bit dated and does not have the pizazz or production values of the RMI video. Are there any volunteers for an effort to improve the quality and reduce the boredom while retaining the message?)

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  2. Agreed – that is why I called it “inspiring” and “seductive”. Fluff sells pretty well – but there is no reason why we cannot use “fluff” techniques to sell a system that has real and important improvements over more “popular” energy sources.

  3. I noticed Amory Lovins said “ultimately” wrt to replacing natural gas. How long is ultimately?
    If you look at the history of energy, the higher power density energy source wins. During each transition lots of people start working on solar and wind, but they lose out to the higher density fuel. Folks rarely learn history. 🙂

  4. The more I learn about Amory Lovins and his acolytes the more I want to puke! Yes, there is an application for wind and solar ( and I hope to capitalize on it by doing good for those who would not otherwise have access to ANY electricity for 10-20-30 years), but to pretend that they can replace sources that are inherently more energy dense with any other combination is delusional. Just look at the land-use footprint of their solar farm as an example. Argh!
    These pretenders would need to change the laws of physics in order to achieve their utopian dreams. I’ll bet none of them have spent a week, much less a month, away from their comfortable, climate-controlled lifestyle where they can adjust things at the flick of a switch.