Think Global, Act Local

What are the biggest threats facing Humanity today? - Nuclear War - Global Warming - World Hunger - Toxic Foods and Malnutrition Unfortunately the list goes on making the extinction of the human species an ever-present danger. With the threats so severe, why do we continue living as though it’s someone else’s problem? As a Health Coach I know that real change happens when individuals take responsibility for their circumstances. They understand that no matter what happened before, or how we got here, it’s our problem now. The stage has been set on which we play out our lives. It is said that there is a solution for every problem and we see examples everywhere – Nettles and Doc Leaves, Flies and Spiders, Slavery and Abolition etc. What if there is a solution to global problems locally on our doorstep? A little known technology may be a key factor. In the 1960s the US Navy funded nuclear research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Two fuel types were considered, Uranium and Thorium, each requiring its own reactor design. The uranium fuel type provided the US Navy with a propulsion system for its submarines and Plutonium for nuclear weapons. ‘Job’s done, thanks lads; close up the site and go home’ The team of scientists investigating the Thorium option was disbanded; their protests went unheard. They had designed and built a reactor that ran fault free for five years. Even then it was well understood that the Thorium solution was far superior to Uranium for civil use –  50 times more efficient  Much more plentiful ore – Five times more Thorium than Uranium on earth  Shorter half-life waste products – 300 years instead of 100,000 years  ‘Walk Away Safe’ – these reactors cannot melt down or explode. At worst they cool down and stop. The US Navy had no interest in a reactor that ran at 700 degrees and didn’t provide bomb making material so for over 50 years we have ignored a technology that holds real promise for solving the world’s energy problems and for realising the original dream of nuclear to provide energy that’s ‘too cheap to meter’. A few years ago the original laboratory manuals from the Oak Ridge facility were found in a nearby children’s library. A nuclear physicist, Kirk Sorensen, photographed them meticulously and distributed DVDs to the physics departments of every university in America. He has been racing ever since to develop a Thorium reactor for commercial use. Such is the demand for nuclear isotopes for medical applications that Sorensen looks upon the generation of electricity from the Thorium reactor as a low value by-product. In Europe, Copenhagen Atomics formed by Thomas Pedersen et al, is positioning its Thorium venture as ‘Energy Recycling’. Spent fuel rods from conventional reactors can be processed into pellets and re-burned in the reactor to release their unused energy. The fuel is changed such that waste products then have a much shorter half life. Around the world the race is on to realise the promise of this technology. The Chinese want to improve the air quality in their major cities and the Singaporeans want to achieve independence from fossil fuels while accommodating a reactor, which is expected to have the real-estate footprint of two shipping containers. – Land is expensive in Singapore. So does Thorium have a role to play in Northern Ireland and the UK Brexit negotiations? Might Copenhagen Atomics enter into collaboration with QUB and Irish universities in a UK funded project to not only realise Pedersen’s dream but to provide free electricity on the island of Ireland? Might Northern Ireland emerge as a world leader in the manufacture and export of Thorium reactor sub-assemblies? The same technology holds the promise for decommissioning the world’s nuclear weapons – a peace-dividend indeed! Safe, clean and cheap electricity – what’s not to like? See ‘Superfuel’ by Richard Martin and YouTube presentations by Thomas Jam Pedersen at TEAC 7.