<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 Keith Henson </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:hkeithhenson@gmail.com" target="_blank">hkeithhenson@gmail.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"></blockquote><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">>> don't see solar power satellites providing energy cheaper than fossil<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>fuel anytime in the immediate future, to me even terrestrial solar and wind<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>seem too dilute and intermittent to compete with coal economically.<br><span class="">
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</span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>The dilute factor isn't as much of a problem in space where you don't<br>
have to support the concentrating surface against gravity and wind.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">I agree, space would help a little at solving the dilution problem, but it would make the power distribution problem much worse. </div></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">
><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">></div> The only fuels I can think of that<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div> have a chance to beat coal in both the short term and the long are Uranium<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div> and Thorium. In the case of Thorium by long term I mean billions of years,</span></blockquote><span class="">
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</span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">> </div>I am slightly curious how you computed this. Even without growth, I<br>
have never seen estimates for how long thorium will last that exceed a<br>
few centuries.<br></blockquote><div><br></div>Thorium is much more common than Uranium, in fact it's almost twice as common as Tin<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">, </div>Thorium has only one isotope and<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> unlike Uranium </div>a Thorium reactor can <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">use</div> 100% of it.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br><div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">I</div>f at random you picked one cubic meter of rock anywhere <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">on</div> the Earth's crust you would find about 12 grams of<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>Thorium in it<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">, </div>if placed i<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">t in</div> a Thorium reactor<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>those<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>12 grams would produce the energy equivalent of 37 tons of coal, enough to power one person's western middle class lifestyle for about a decade. One ton of <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">T</div>horium contains as much energy as 3 million tons of coal<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>and <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">t</div>h<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"></div>e<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> U S </div>Geological Survey's latest estimate says that<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>just<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>one company, Thorium Energy Inc, has 915,000 tons of<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>Thorium reserves in Idaho and Montana. That alone could replace coal for about 450 years, and that's just from the claims that one company has in 2 states. And Norway has as much Thorium as the entire USA, and Australia about twice as much, and India has about 3 times as much. </div><br>It would only take 2000 tons of Thorium to equal the energy in 6 billion tons of coal that the world uses each year. There is 120 TRILLION tons of Thorium in the earth's<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>crust and if the world needs 10 times as much energy as we get from just coal then we will run out of Thorium in the crust <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">of</div> this planet in 6 billion years.<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>And we've already discovered Thorium deposits on the Moon and Mars.<br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> John K Clark</div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>