I have been reviewing papers, including a couple that go back to the 1970's on development issues confronting MSR/LFTR technologies before they can be useful tools for generating commercial technology.  My purpose is to test a common criticism of MSR technology, namely that it is vaporware.  

The first document I reviewed was WASH-1222, a document prepared during the 1970's to evaluate MSR technology.    The Purpose of WASH-1222 is generally understood to have been to have the dismissal of the Molten Salt Breeder Reacto as a competitor of the ill famed LMFBR.  Thus the writers of WASH-1222 were motivated to uncover flaws in the MSBR concept.  

The other two documents were prepared since the beginning of the 21st century, and express views that are more favorable to the MSR/LFTR.   I use the term MSR as a generic term that includes both thorium cycle and uranium cycle reactors, as well as different the use of chloride salts as well fluoride salts as fuel carrier/coolants.  The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is a Thorium fuel cycle, fluoride salt, MSR.  

That's how long it's been since an atomic bomb has been dropped on human beings. Everyone seems to notice Hiroshima Day, and the first bomb. Few people seem to notice Nagasaki Day, the anniversary of the last atomic bomb ever dropped on human beings. But to me Nagasaki Day is the more important anniversary. It means we made it through another year safely again.

Below the fold are some people who did remember Nagasaki Day:

How many of you know that on June 5th, 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he was appointing a task force to oversee the nation's nuclear arsenal, and the nuclear procurement process?

Didn't know that? Well, it's true. Don't feel bad though. The MSM only reported high level resignations at the air force, and gave sketchy details about some of the lax accountability with regard to nuclear weapons.

But there is far more to the story. And, if you heard Gates' press conference on C-span, and happen to know a little background, you would understand that something a lot bigger than a shake-up of air force leadership is happening.

The hot air networks will isolate soundbites and applause lines, the wire services will emphasize Obama's call for a united front against terrorism, especially in Afghanistan. But Barack Obama's speech today before a quarter of a million Europeans--some who came from Poland and the Netherlands and across Europe to Berlin to hear him--was a call for a greater unity, for a world united to foster equality, freedom and peace.

He used the Berlin airlift of 1948 as his central metaphor--the moment, so soon after the horrific bombings that turned many cities in Europe and Japan into literal holocausts--that wave upon wave of American airplanes dropped not bombs but food, to sustain the people of West Berlin.

And from across the Atlantic, we could hear the chants in Berlin: Yes, we can.

Most media attention to Barack Obama's speech on foreign policy yesterday focused only on Iraq and Afghanistan--two of the five priorities he outlined, in a comprehensive vision that linked foreign policy to the health and safety of America.

The third element--which is also the subject of Obama's latest campaign ad is the control of nuclear weapons.

Today is the 63rd anniversary of the first explosion of an atomic bomb, yet these apocalyptic weapons are still at large, and nothing has been done in the past eight years to control them.  We are in danger of forgetting how dangerous they are--but fortunately, Barack Obama has not forgotten, and he has the courage to make this a priority.

You may have heard, "truth is stranger than fiction," and indeed, that often seems the case.  While that strange truth is usually just entertaining and innocuous, there are times when it is exactly the opposite... stupefying, shocking, even threatening.

Mimicking Ripley is not the intent here, though.  It is simply to point you to a variety of recent articles, some of which just bring a smile, some that give pause for thought, and some that deal with very serious issues.  Not surprisingly, many involve government and elected officials at various levels.

Aside from the trivial 'fun' articles, many are important but have been beneath the radar for whatever reason.  They need greater exposure, for they often have implications that scream for attention.

The entries here do not comprehensively quote their referenced sources, except for maybe a one or two line teaser that might pique your interest, and, of course a link, along with maybe short comment. Better that you follow the links and look in the horse's mouth yourself:)   Hope you enjoy.

Cheers:)

Thorium doesn't get mentioned much these days, but it is a great solution to the energy problems that we are facing as a world.

Of course, nuclear energy has a bad name in America, because of nuclear waste, potential for accidents, proliferation issues.

What if there was a fuel that didn't have the problems that uranium has?

What if there was a fuel that was more abundant that uranium?

What if there was a fuel that America has in plenty, enough to last thousands of years?

When it comes to his foreign policy, John McCain is a revisionist historian and a particularly clumsy one at that.  Having asked Americans to ignore his record as the master of disaster on Iraq, John McCain similarly underwent an election-year transformation from rabid France-basher to born-again multilateralist and fawning Francophile.  Now, the McCain campaign is hoping to erase any vestiges of John McCain's 2007 pledge to expel Russia from the G8.

    According to published reports Pakistani nuclear scientists have been shopping around advanced nuclear technology to the highest bidders. Advanced blueprints have been found on computers that belonged to these scientists that were part of a nuclear smuggling network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan. Our government has a knack of creating these madmen through a deliberate policy of benign neglect and a policy of supporting tyranny for the sake of political expediency. This is another example of how our unwillingness to gauge the world realistically and inability to access friends and foes has created a possible nightmare scenario in the near future.

The New York Times is trying to sell the story that Iran was the primary client of the A.Q. Khan nuclear network, and received miniaturized warhead designs. http://www.nytimes.com/...

That is about as accurate as Judith Miller's stories that Iraq had WMDs.

The fact is, as James Risen told us, by the late 1990s Iran caught on to the fact that Khan's network operated as a CIA front.  A failed effort to transfer bogus warhead designs to Iran was code-named Operation Merlin.

The Agency had a major role in creating and nurturing A.Q Khan's nuclear program.  It was originally part of the 1976 deal that CIA Director George H.W. Bush made with Princes Kamal Adham and Turki al-Faisal, co-heads of Saudi external intelligence, the GID. In exchange for Saudi funding of U.S. intelligence operations banned by the Democratic Congress since the Church Commmittee hearings, the Agency looked the other way as the Saudis implemented their own covert operations around the world, including Pakistan's bomb program, influence operations and financial frauds inside the U.S., which included BCCI and the S&L scandals.

MORE below . . .  

Today, the WaPost quotes a leaked, draft report due out this week, by David Albright, an American and "former top UN Weapons Inspector".    The leaked draft report  claims that countries like Iran, North Korea and Libya may have acquired designs for an "advanced nuclear weapon", which could fit on their missles.

The problem with this "evidence" is that the Swiss government destroyed the "designs" (at the direction of the IAEA), so that it cannot be further analyzed with skeptical eyes.   In other words, the claims are based on evidence which no longer exists.

This is baseless propaganda, by a Washington think-tank.

**UPDATE 9:41am EDT** The NYTimes now has the same story at the top of their front page, but with sourcing from "US Intelligence sources", and significantly more reporting.

Remember how President Bush begged the Saudis to pump more oil, and they said, wellll, maybe 300,000 barrels more? Were you wondering what we offered in return?

According to this White House fact sheet dated May 16th, the US is committing to

pave the way for Saudi Arabia's access to safe, reliable fuel sources for energy reactors and demonstrate Saudi leadership as a positive non-proliferation model for the region.

In other words, we'll be selling them nuclear fuel.

Does that seem like a good idea?

Does it seem like something that you and I should be out there clamoring against?

Does it seem like something that we should demand that John McCain either "denounce and reject" or own up to?

One of the key issues surrounding the nuclear energy debate is the proper disposition of spent fuel rods. There are numerous concerns that encompass this issue, from radioactive contamination to nuclear proliferation fears, and about the only consensus that experts can agree on is the sheer complexity of the problem.

In paying very close attention to this historic presidential primary battle and how it will wind down, a life-imitating-art moment occured.  It was brought home in the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama, and the real drama of our general election.  The fairly recent identification of the Clinton campaign to Rocky Balboa had me thinking of pop-culture characters where our candidates were concerned, but it suddenly came to me that we were being directed to think about the wrong characters and the wrong movie.

I started out looking to write on the gas tax debate. I was quickly distracted though because the repeal of that tax via the Clinton-McCain plans is so stupid and there really is no debate. I also thought that enough had been written on that already. I ended up reading an interesting OpEd in the WaPo written by The Rt. Hon. Lord Waddington QC who is currently Chairman of the European Reform Forum. He is a former UK Home Secretary under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  He embraces the idea that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. What I found more interesting though is his idea about how to deal with this problem. His prescription for dealing with Iran is fomenting a popular rebellion against the Iranian government through supposedly pro democratic groups.

One of the first times that I followed Barack Obama's work in the Senate after his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention was during his 2005 trip with Senator Richard Lugar to Russia, Azerbaijan, and especially Ukraine, the former Soviet republic that took the brave and admirable step of disarming its nuclear weapons in 1996.  While the objectives of their meetings in Kyiv (Ukraine's capital) and Donets'k (a prominent industrial city in eastern Ukraine) centered on issues of nuclear proliferation, Obama met with President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yuliia Tymoshenko to facilitate, along with Lugar, an additional agreement pertaining to the threat of biological terrorism that, in Obama's words, "will help Ukraine improve its capacity to diagnose, detect, and respond to public health threats by providing Ukraine with more modern central reference libraries and a network of regional epidemiological monitoring stations."

... at 4 PM in the Diplomacy Room at McQuaid Hall! We missed the "closely timed" announcement last time they announced Grossman's presence there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com...

Don't miss the opportunity this time! It looks to be JUST announced hours ago late on "bury the news" Friday.

Let's rec this up so we can get good participation, and perhaps get some good youtubes of his responses to these questions!

Let's find out what have happened to our nuclear secrets that Sibel Edmonds as documented he's been giving to Pakistan through Turkish and Israeli moles. Let him and Seton Hall officials that they should be having teachers that teach them how to conduct REAL diplomacy, not TREASON!

Two years ago, I posted a diary on John McCain's naked political ambition extending to the point of the asburd accusation that the Clinton administration was responsible for North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons, even though Korea had acquired them five years into the Bush administration.

I was reminded of this in the context of the debate between Hillary Clinton and Obama last night on the subject of when, and whether, to negotiate with hostile foreign governments. I sort of wished at the time McCain was in on the conversation, so we could see exactly how illogical and dangerous a thinker he is in contrast to our two leading Democrats.

Follow the link to my original post above for full context, and more on the contrast to the Democrats on the flip.