Okay, maybe not totally inspired by his essay, but Gerrits' post on the Fukushima nonsense, and it's impact has made me decide to make known my observations on Humanity's energy brokers fascination with limited supply energy as opposed to renewables. "Wait, what has that got to do with Fukushima?" one may ask. I will get to it, but Uranium is also something of limited supply such as Oil/coal and gas.

Yes, I do recall research for renewables and how the Nuclear Industry we have in place now pushes for the "green energy" of Nuclear power. Oddly, a Nuclear Reactor engineer even stated that reactors for using cheaper, easier to find and more plentiful Thorium was looked at years ago for safe, clean nuclear power. So, why Uranium? Why indeed.

As TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima have shown, and yet we make the same collective mistake here, Nuclear power using Uranium is dangerous, oh sure the Nuclear people will tout that those are just three cases out of thousands, but they fail to tell you or let you know that when a Nuke gets to such a point it is not the numbers of the now aging and decrepit in some cases here in the US and Eastern Europe, but the major impact well past the national boundaries they have when they go critical as they have. While TMI was handled well enough to shut it down, it stays basically offline and not used. Chernobyl is needing a new sarcophagus made to replace the crumbling original, the place is still unsafely radioactive for long term dwelling, and has caused radiation related issues from the plume into much of Europe to this day with increased incidents of thyroid cancer and such.

Fukushima is the same way, get ready for the thyroid cancer outbreak of Japan that has started., evacuated homes and towns, just like Chernobyl, but unlike the Ukraine which maintains the ban of the going back in to dwell in the gift of atom, Japan has changed their tolerance levels for safe exposure, guaranteeing more cancers and radiation related deaths and sickness. These are the most glaring "Cons" for Nuclear power, there are more.

1) villages around mines that do not have sufficient safety regulations and protocols get uranium dust scattered over their land and in their homes.

2) Nuclear waste is hard to transport with many dangers, then there is disposal or storing it. Europe dumped theirs into he Atlantic Ocean for decades, and that has to have soon some impact on food supplies, and does, again thyroid cancers and polluted beaches, we shoved barrels into old salt mines and such, but in the 1950's, such a storage place in Russia went boom. How long before the US suffers such a boom?

3) It is more about other uses than power: Most reactors only give 30% of their output to the grid, and when the Uranium is at a proper point, the nations with Nuclear arsenals make that into Plutonium for their Nuclear weapons, they may take such off the hands of allies to stockpile more weapon grade nuclear fuel to increase the size of, or to update their arsenals.

The stated "Pros"

1) Clean efficient energy: Hmm, remember the 30% output? why do these power plants not go higher? maybe in other nations not interested in weaponized nuclear material they do go higher? But again Thorium could do the same job.

2) It has been used safely for decades: Pleas see TMI/Chernobyl/Fukushima.

3) It is affordable, yet the cost over-run for the plants is passed on in increased power bills? How is that affordable except to the power companies?

The United States and China are now working on joint Thorium reactor projects to make reactors that can replace the old Uranium ones, (which will have to be left to sit and rot as they are far to dangerous to break up and dispose of once they are decommissioned.

So why Thorium? well, 1) It is far more plentiful than Uranium(currently Uranium has maybe 50yrs left of stocks), and can be obtained more easily and safely than Uranium.

2) It is actually safer, if the reactor for thorium is breached, it can no longer maintain the reaction, thus shutting it all down and making the Thorium safe to handle in short order, unlike uranium as we have seen making it deadly to approach as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

3) It cannot be weaponized....that is right, thorium reactors are strictly for peaceful energy production, the thorium is lousy at making bombs(they actually tried to do it!), and thus nations seeking safe, effective, and peaceful nuclear programs would be able to do so with the thorium reactors.

But again, I observe the love of the more money making power supplies from the ground that the Corporations over the decades have gone for, and I share these possibly obvious to some observations and also hope to enlighten those who have not known of the darker aspect of Nuclear power.

Humanity still has been slow to develop their power needs away from Uranium, Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal. I will post a Observation report for Fossil Fuels in time, this got longer than planned.

Peace.