MovieChat Forums > Pandora's Promise (2013) Discussion > Missing coverage of Molten Salt Reactors

Missing coverage of Molten Salt Reactors


Pandora's Promise was a fantastic documentary, but I was disheartened that it didn't cover the incredibly promising Molten Salt Reactor design (aka the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor or LFTR).

This was IMHO a big mistake, as the LFTR has huge potential as a next generation safe, clean and limitless energy supply. For an excellent video explaining the potential of the technology check out:

http://youtu.be/P9M__yYbsZ4

Thankfully China isn't ignoring this technology:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html

So why did Pandora's Promise ignore it, instead looking at the Integral Fast Reactor? Strange.

Anyway - great film :-) I hope it can help turn the tide of opposition against Nuclear, it's really our only hope against pollution and runaway climate change.

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Not sure, but he didnt mention their immense promise in the extras

....

http://soundcloud.com/dj-snafu-bankrupt-euros

Coz lifes too short to listen to Madlib

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Agreed. I was disappointed in the lack of information regarding LFTR's since there was only a fleeting mention of a Thorium reactor toward the very end.

Whining about film inaccuracies is like pointing out that Sci-Fi isn't filmed on location in space.

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Unless the breeder reactor is part of the solution, the fuel will run out at some point. The problem with the breeder is the complexity ... and humans have shown we cannot be responsible and smart enough to prevent a Fukushima. It is the human factor that is the problem ... people, especially people acting out of profit and greed cannot be trusted to create something safe.

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"people, especially people acting out of profit and greed cannot be trusted to create something safe."

That's nonsense. Look at the Airline industry, the automotive industry, the construction sector - all with excellent safety records, improving over time.

The Nuclear sector has an impeccable safety record. Nuclear energy is far safer than Wind or Solar, even when you factor in Chernobyl. Google "Deaths per TWh", and tell me which kind of power has the lowest deaths per unit of energy produced.

Even Fukushima was precipitated by an unprecedented natural disaster - it survived the earthquake fine, it was only when a 40 metre wave crashed over the seawall and flooded the diesel generators that it had an issue.

Molten Salt Reactors by design, by the laws of physics and chemistry, are inherently safe. Meaning it requires no humans to keep them safe. Existing pressurised water reactors are not, which is why we should invest in bringing Molten Salt Reactors to market, and phase out coal, gas and existing nuclear with them.

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yeah, general motors allowing a fault with their ignition lie unaddressed for over 10 years is a great example. people died from it.

The nuclear sector does not have an impeccable safety record. The japanese plants were an are using 40 year old machinery. They're managed by a bumbling bunch of baffoons making 'mistake' after 'mistake'.
Fukushima was preceded by a nasty natural disaster, that's very true, but the crux of the problem is in the even of a natural disaster like that we have no way of turning off the fire. We don't have that technology yet.

I'm in agreement on moving on to the next level of technology. it's the smart move.

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You are ignored....

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> That's nonsense.

You are ignorant and arrogant.

> Molten Salt Reactors by design, by the laws of physics and chemistry, are inherently safe.

Yeah, right.

> Even Fukushima was precipitated by an unprecedented natural disaster

No, the way it failed showed the idiocy of its design, not to mention the fact that so much waste was stored onsite. Do you even know what you are talking about ... doesn't sound like it. Keep those blinders on, because it doesn't matter, the nuclear industry has screwed themselves, and probably all of us too by being completely stupid and irresponsible.

The measure of this problem is not your confidence, you don't know anything and you certainly cannot express it in a way that will convince or reassure. This is not a joke, there is radioactive contamination all over the world from Fukushima and there is no real plan to clean it up even years later. How many of these do you think we can afford?

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I'm not trying to be arrogant. If I am being, I apologise, but this is a hugely important debate. I'm trying to present facts as best I know them, as best I can find them from reputable sources on the internet.

According to all the evidence I can find, Nuclear Power is the safest form of energy generation available on the market today. Nuclear Power has the lowest deaths of any energy source, even lower than wind or solar:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a -price-always-paid/

If you shut down all the Nuclear power plants, and replaced them with Coal (which for example Germany has done: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-14/coal-rises-vampire-like-as-ge rman-utilities-seek-survival.html), you'd get considerably more deaths. 2500 times more deaths, according to the above figures.

Indeed, Scientific American claims the exact same thing:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/04/0 2/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fos sil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/.

Yes, Fukushima was a terrible disaster and many people were displaced from their homes, but all energy sources have huge costs. Coal power has displaced far more people and contaminated more land mass as a result of fly ash spills, which release huge volumes of heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury and arsenic into rivers and ground water supplies:

http://earthjustice.org/features/coal-ash-contaminated-sites

But these never get sensationalised in the press, unlike with Nuclear, because fly ash spills are boring. Nothing to fear. The press survives on ratings, and nothing gets more eyeballs on the TV than TERRIFYING THE PUBLIC. And there's nothing more terrifying than an invisible killing force: RADIATION! Except the harms of radiation have been overblown beyond all proportion. You'd get more radiation stood on Guarapari beach than you would in Fukushima.

That's the whole point of this film. People have been misled. People have been brainwashed, and are led by fear and emotion, completely ignoring any facts and science.

There is something far far far worse than a Nuclear disaster that people should be afraid of, and that's Catastrophic Climate Change. We can build all the windmills and solar panels we want, but they're not going to save us. Just ask Germany about that:

http://www.thegwpf.org/german-co2-emissions-rise-year-row/

Germany has spent $263 billion on renewables, only to have their CO2 go up. If they had spent that money on Nuclear, their country would be CO2 free:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/germany-s-270-billion-renewab les-shift-biggest-since-war.html

France generates 80% of their electricity from Nuclear, and has the lowest electricity prices in Europe, and the lowest CO2 emissions.

People really do need to reevaluate their preconceptions, and that's why Pandora's Promise is such a timely and important film.

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No one's denying that coal is a sh!tty way to generate power. Saying the cost of solar or wind is more dangerous than nuclear needs a lot more support than just saying it and moving on to explain how coal is bad, which nobody is denying.

"Yes, Fukushima was a terrible disaster and many people were displaced from their homes, but all energy sources have huge costs. " Sounds like you're making excuses there. I don't think a wide spread disaster with repercussions we are still finding out about is really a 'cost'. It's something we should have avoided, it should never have happened by the level of technology we've got up to on a science we still don't have enough facts and skill on. It happened through negligence as much as anything. That's why there is no confidence. Because there is betrayal.

That betrayal is not going to be fixed by shouting down valid responses to it. It can only be fixed by acknowledging these glaring faults and addressing them and being seen to be addressing them. "Nothing to see here, move along" isn't going to work, even if problems have been solved they need to be seen to have been acknowledged and solved.

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What is missed from the discussion of nuclear power versus other CO2-lite energy sources (solar, wind, etc.) is that like the airplane, automotive and construction industries the nuclear power industry has learned from each mistake, accident and disaster and improved safety margins by orders of magnitude. 2nd generation nuclear designs need energy to CONTROL the fission reaction. 4th generation nuclear requires energy to SUSTAIN a fission reaction. Huge difference when it comes to safety. Power goes out and a 4th generation plant shuts down. A 2nd gen plant on the other hand melts down.

More critical though is how to deal with the nuclear waste created by 2nd generation nuclear power plants. Only 5% of a fuel rod is actually used to generate power before it is retired and when it's retired the nature of the nuclear fission reaction has irradiated it even more. We can wait 10,000 years for it to be half as radioactive or we can continue the nuclear fuel cycle, via 4th generation fast breeder reactors, and consume that waste as a nuclear fuel and cut the cool-down period to 20 years rather than 10,000. It's 'just nuclear science' to be blunt. Re-jig protons and neutrons to create benign non-radioactive fuel rods.

The perfect solution is to build small 4th generation nuclear reactors at the current 2nd generation nuclear power plants where all of the nuclear waste is stored. Consume that waste to generate power, reduce the radioactive life time of the 'waste ' by 3 orders of magnitude, generate clean energy, lower our CO2 footprint, help to level off CO2 PPM levels and save the planet.

It's really that simple. Do we have the smarts to, as a species, clean up after our 20th century selves and save humanity? We have the technical smarts but I'm not optimistic we have the political smarts. We have to try though. It's a moral responsibility when you consider the waste we've created.

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Yep , radioactive contamination all over the world .... Ok ?!?! You are ignored ...

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