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A bunch of people have tried to rebrand our most energy-dense fuels (uranium and thorium). "Terrestrial Energy" comes to mind. And the unofficial Thorium PR lea

A bunch of people have tried to rebrand our most energy-dense fuels (uranium and thorium). "Terrestrial Energy" comes to mind. And the unofficial Thorium PR lead, Kirk Sorensen, rebranded the Thorium-Molten Salt Reactor (T-MSR) as the LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) because "lifter" sounds better. As an engineer I'm a stickler on accurate naming so this suggestion bothers me, and I think the opposing forces will easily be able to point out that it's just a rebranding of advanced nuclear reactors and hurt proponents' credibility. I wish we could just teach people to weigh risks of things like nuclear reactors versus their real benefits (clean air that has saved 1.8 million people already, 24/7 reliability, tiny land/fuel/waste/transportation footprints, etc.) but on the other hand people are more emotional than not. I'm sure you're right that a sweet new name on a nuclear reactor would be a help. Honestly I consider focus on Thorium fuel itself to be an attempt to rebrand the much broader but equally capable advanced nuclear industry.

snarfy 9y ago
Unfortunately regardless of what you wish, people do not weigh the risks. They have knee jerk reactions to terms like 'nuclear reactor'. It's human nature and shouldn't be ignored. Is it more important that it have an accurate name or that it's accepted by the public?
- ZoF 9y ago
  What's more important, an educated populace or your maintained feeling of intellectual superiority? People aren't as dumb as you think.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  Definitely the latter. I just hope to find other ways to influence people's feelings about things like nuclear reactors. If some epic rebranding is what it takes, then that's great. I feel that it will take more than that.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    Any such rebranding would probably last about as long as it takes people to learn that the facilities are built by nuclear contractors, regulated by the NRC, and employing nuclear operators.
    - bonesss 9y ago
      More importantly: any such rebranding would ignore how we got into the current predicament to begin with... Oil, gas, and coal companies have known about climate change for decades, and it represents a threat to untold megabillions worth of profits and business. It is no coincidence they have been pushing anti-nuclear FUD, sponsoring hack research, pushing "green" blogs, NIMBY campaigns, and such for decades. Coordinated, professional, smear campaigns masquerading as environmental issues. Leaked presentations and marketing materials have shown those companies have triangulated the issue quite simply: They cannot win on facts. They cannot convince everyone to keep fossil fueling it up on the merits of their argument. They can, however, cause enough confusion and knee-jerking to keep the "debate" about climate change open to paralyze political action. They have also pushed pie-in-the-sky green solutions which are superficially satisfying but fundamentally entrench their interests until we're past the point of no return. Push the starting line so far forward that we just have to give up. That the "environmentalists" on the left have spent 20+ years pushing the strategic interests of Big Coal and Big Oil using their resources and bad science is the result of willful manipulation. That manipulation is a response to the threat of atomic energy and climate change legislation in light of our global infrastructure cycles. That is to say: if you call fission "grandmas apple pie" it will be a very short time before we're all convinced that grandmas apple pie is dangerous, impractical, too expensive, poorly thought out, not scalable, not feasible, and impossible to do right. Forget what the stats say. Do not look at Ontario. Pretend France is not real. There will be blogs. There will be glossy signs. There will be "grassroots activism", tweet campaigns, and coordinated messaging about Big Grandma and the cancerous properties of Pie. The anti-GMO people will now be anti-grandma, too. We are playing a game against well-connected oligopolists... We only get to win if we win. They get to win if they win, or if the clock runs out. So guess what the strategy is?
- the8472 9y ago
  You're not really proposing "acceptance by the public". You're proposing to spin the euphemism treadmill to gain some temporary ignorance by the uninformed. Until some negative event hits the news again and everyone will once again associate them with that. I think honesty will get you much further. Instead of making bold promises that everyone has heard before ("these are fail-safe", "unsinkable" etc.) just point at the radioactive dust emitted by coal plants instead. Or open pit mining for coal. Or CO2 emissions. Don't claim to be perfect, just better than the competition.
Retric 9y ago
The problem is they need huge subsides to cover the risks, and even then it costs more than other clean alternatives. How much solar/wind + pumped hydro can you buy just from the costs associated with Fukushima Daiichi cleanup / evacuation etc? Even coal which has long been the cheapest but dirty option is having trouble competing.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  > Even coal which has long been the cheapest but dirty option is having trouble competing. *with $2 Natural Gas The solar/wind $23/MWh production tax credit is not really something that's easy for anyone to compete with, except natural gas. [1] You're right that nuclear needs to get its costs down, especially to play in the west. We know it can be done because the French electrified nearly their entire grid with nukes in 10 years for reasonable costs, and the Koreans, bless their hearts, have been building Gen III plants at very reasonable prices. (Alas! their new president is riding an anti-nuclear platform.) With the recent Toshiba/Westinghouse issues regarding the US AP1000 plants, it's pretty unlikely to see any big new nukes anytime soon. But the world moves on and China is building lots of nukes. Fukushima will be really expensive. Building tornado-hardened designs in tsunami zones does not pay off, so we should not do that. But building appropriately hardened designs is a pretty solid non-emitting solution. Nukes produce 65% of the carbon-free electricity in the USA right now; they're already our climate champions. [1] https://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc https://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-...
  - bonesss 9y ago
    > Building tornado-hardened designs in tsunami zones does not pay off The big issues are keeping our construction, engineering, and regulatory agencies active with the subject material and with industry, and allowing saner reactor technologies into commercial use. Fukishima was not far off from surviving that catastrophe as was. More robust training for emergency response would have avoided them pumping the water the wrong way, and something as simple as raising their backup generator a few meters off the ground would have done the trick. More vitally, pushing techs into commercial production like thorium-salt reactors (among many others!), would provide failure modes that are INSANELY better than what we get from light water reactors. It's just about the most insane thing to do with radioactive power sources... surround them with something under pressure that violently expands and tries to go right to the atmosphere... I think the tsunami zones should be fine for reactors, we just need to start with reactor designs that will thrive in failure. Your molten salts turning into rock and keeping themselves contained during a breach or flood, for example, is something that's highly amenable to disaster planning.
hedora 9y ago
Reactor -> plant
djsumdog 9y ago
One of the major problems is we were told our current reactors would provide safe and environmentally fuel. The trouble is it's not as clean as most people think. Mining Uranium ore does have a significant environmental impact. There have been leaks at plants; trace amounts of tritium has been found around breeder reactors like Watts Bar (and TVA has bought up more and more of the land around the area). The waste, currently held on site at most plants, is another big issue. Engineers will tell you it's depleted and encased in half a meter of concrete that won't break down for tens of thousands of years. Some of these containers are already leaking. There have been several recent controversies recently on the Yukka Mountain facility. While newer reactors may not have these problems, the fact is there are problems we weren't aware up that cropped up from our traditional Boiling/Pressurized Water Reactors that companies will not fess up to. That's why people are apprehensive. I don't think that will go away unless someone discovered how to make Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) viable .. which would also involve understanding how/why they world, and getting them to work consistently (which no one has).
- Turbots 9y ago
  or, you know, get fusion to work /sarcasm
- godelski 9y ago
  I'm going to start off saying we NEED Yucca Mountain, BUT you seem to think this stuff is more dangerous than it is. Myself and many others that work with these technologies aren't actually happy about the new John Oliver episode. > Mining Uranium ore does have a significant environmental impact. I'm glad you bring that up. To actually understand how much of an impact we need to compare it to things. The human mind isn't good at putting into perspective raw numbers when they are that large, it's just "a lot". When you include the mining of both solar and uranium plants, you actually get around the same total environmental impact. I make this comparison because I've never heard anyone complain about the switch to solar. When we compare to coal mining, fracking, or oil drilling, uranium is tiny. Or even comparing to computers and cell phones. > The waste, currently held on site at most plants, is another big issue. I carry a vial of tritium around in my pocket? Why? Because it glows and is a fun conversation. I have no worry about it irradiating my junk because it is a beta emitter that has low penetrating power (~6mm of air). The danger of tritium is soft tissue. So just don't drink it or rub it in your eyes. Granted a leak is more worrisome, but its danger is nowhere near that of the heavy elements. There will always be some waste, but nuclear has done a pretty good job compared to other energy sources because of the fear. Some fear is healthy, especially with this tech. But, again, we NEED Yucca Mountain. There's not much waste, but we should put it in the proper place. > While newer reactors may not have these problems, the fact is there are problems we weren't aware up that cropped up... You're discussing concerns about decades old technologies. Remember, that was the same era we were arguing over lead in gasoline, asbestos, and aerosols. Sure, we have problems today, but it isn't the same magnitude. No one in their right mind would shoot a nuclear waste container, or even put it in that small of a container anymore. Things have really changed in the last 50 years, and nuclear tech has been progressing in that time too. >I don't think that will go away unless someone discovered how to make Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) viable Call it what it is, cold fusion. I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. But ITER and other fusion facilities are showing promising results. But fusion is not just a different ballpark from fission, it is a completely different game (energy and safety).

snarfy 9y ago

Unfortunately regardless of what you wish, people do not weigh the risks. They have knee jerk reactions to terms like 'nuclear reactor'. It's human nature and shouldn't be ignored. Is it more important that it have an accurate name or that it's accepted by the public?

ZoF 9y ago
What's more important, an educated populace or your maintained feeling of intellectual superiority? People aren't as dumb as you think.
acidburnNSA 9y ago
Definitely the latter. I just hope to find other ways to influence people's feelings about things like nuclear reactors. If some epic rebranding is what it takes, then that's great. I feel that it will take more than that.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  Any such rebranding would probably last about as long as it takes people to learn that the facilities are built by nuclear contractors, regulated by the NRC, and employing nuclear operators.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    More importantly: any such rebranding would ignore how we got into the current predicament to begin with... Oil, gas, and coal companies have known about climate change for decades, and it represents a threat to untold megabillions worth of profits and business. It is no coincidence they have been pushing anti-nuclear FUD, sponsoring hack research, pushing "green" blogs, NIMBY campaigns, and such for decades. Coordinated, professional, smear campaigns masquerading as environmental issues. Leaked presentations and marketing materials have shown those companies have triangulated the issue quite simply: They cannot win on facts. They cannot convince everyone to keep fossil fueling it up on the merits of their argument. They can, however, cause enough confusion and knee-jerking to keep the "debate" about climate change open to paralyze political action. They have also pushed pie-in-the-sky green solutions which are superficially satisfying but fundamentally entrench their interests until we're past the point of no return. Push the starting line so far forward that we just have to give up. That the "environmentalists" on the left have spent 20+ years pushing the strategic interests of Big Coal and Big Oil using their resources and bad science is the result of willful manipulation. That manipulation is a response to the threat of atomic energy and climate change legislation in light of our global infrastructure cycles. That is to say: if you call fission "grandmas apple pie" it will be a very short time before we're all convinced that grandmas apple pie is dangerous, impractical, too expensive, poorly thought out, not scalable, not feasible, and impossible to do right. Forget what the stats say. Do not look at Ontario. Pretend France is not real. There will be blogs. There will be glossy signs. There will be "grassroots activism", tweet campaigns, and coordinated messaging about Big Grandma and the cancerous properties of Pie. The anti-GMO people will now be anti-grandma, too. We are playing a game against well-connected oligopolists... We only get to win if we win. They get to win if they win, or if the clock runs out. So guess what the strategy is?
the8472 9y ago
You're not really proposing "acceptance by the public". You're proposing to spin the euphemism treadmill to gain some temporary ignorance by the uninformed. Until some negative event hits the news again and everyone will once again associate them with that. I think honesty will get you much further. Instead of making bold promises that everyone has heard before ("these are fail-safe", "unsinkable" etc.) just point at the radioactive dust emitted by coal plants instead. Or open pit mining for coal. Or CO2 emissions. Don't claim to be perfect, just better than the competition.

Retric 9y ago

The problem is they need huge subsides to cover the risks, and even then it costs more than other clean alternatives. How much solar/wind + pumped hydro can you buy just from the costs associated with Fukushima Daiichi cleanup / evacuation etc? Even coal which has long been the cheapest but dirty option is having trouble competing.

acidburnNSA 9y ago
> Even coal which has long been the cheapest but dirty option is having trouble competing. *with $2 Natural Gas The solar/wind $23/MWh production tax credit is not really something that's easy for anyone to compete with, except natural gas. [1] You're right that nuclear needs to get its costs down, especially to play in the west. We know it can be done because the French electrified nearly their entire grid with nukes in 10 years for reasonable costs, and the Koreans, bless their hearts, have been building Gen III plants at very reasonable prices. (Alas! their new president is riding an anti-nuclear platform.) With the recent Toshiba/Westinghouse issues regarding the US AP1000 plants, it's pretty unlikely to see any big new nukes anytime soon. But the world moves on and China is building lots of nukes. Fukushima will be really expensive. Building tornado-hardened designs in tsunami zones does not pay off, so we should not do that. But building appropriately hardened designs is a pretty solid non-emitting solution. Nukes produce 65% of the carbon-free electricity in the USA right now; they're already our climate champions. [1] https://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc https://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-...
- bonesss 9y ago
  > Building tornado-hardened designs in tsunami zones does not pay off The big issues are keeping our construction, engineering, and regulatory agencies active with the subject material and with industry, and allowing saner reactor technologies into commercial use. Fukishima was not far off from surviving that catastrophe as was. More robust training for emergency response would have avoided them pumping the water the wrong way, and something as simple as raising their backup generator a few meters off the ground would have done the trick. More vitally, pushing techs into commercial production like thorium-salt reactors (among many others!), would provide failure modes that are INSANELY better than what we get from light water reactors. It's just about the most insane thing to do with radioactive power sources... surround them with something under pressure that violently expands and tries to go right to the atmosphere... I think the tsunami zones should be fine for reactors, we just need to start with reactor designs that will thrive in failure. Your molten salts turning into rock and keeping themselves contained during a breach or flood, for example, is something that's highly amenable to disaster planning.

hedora 9y ago

Reactor -> plant

djsumdog 9y ago

One of the major problems is we were told our current reactors would provide safe and environmentally fuel. The trouble is it's not as clean as most people think. Mining Uranium ore does have a significant environmental impact. There have been leaks at plants; trace amounts of tritium has been found around breeder reactors like Watts Bar (and TVA has bought up more and more of the land around the area). The waste, currently held on site at most plants, is another big issue. Engineers will tell you it's depleted and encased in half a meter of concrete that won't break down for tens of thousands of years. Some of these containers are already leaking. There have been several recent controversies recently on the Yukka Mountain facility. While newer reactors may not have these problems, the fact is there are problems we weren't aware up that cropped up from our traditional Boiling/Pressurized Water Reactors that companies will not fess up to. That's why people are apprehensive. I don't think that will go away unless someone discovered how to make Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) viable .. which would also involve understanding how/why they world, and getting them to work consistently (which no one has).

Turbots 9y ago
or, you know, get fusion to work /sarcasm
godelski 9y ago
I'm going to start off saying we NEED Yucca Mountain, BUT you seem to think this stuff is more dangerous than it is. Myself and many others that work with these technologies aren't actually happy about the new John Oliver episode. > Mining Uranium ore does have a significant environmental impact. I'm glad you bring that up. To actually understand how much of an impact we need to compare it to things. The human mind isn't good at putting into perspective raw numbers when they are that large, it's just "a lot". When you include the mining of both solar and uranium plants, you actually get around the same total environmental impact. I make this comparison because I've never heard anyone complain about the switch to solar. When we compare to coal mining, fracking, or oil drilling, uranium is tiny. Or even comparing to computers and cell phones. > The waste, currently held on site at most plants, is another big issue. I carry a vial of tritium around in my pocket? Why? Because it glows and is a fun conversation. I have no worry about it irradiating my junk because it is a beta emitter that has low penetrating power (~6mm of air). The danger of tritium is soft tissue. So just don't drink it or rub it in your eyes. Granted a leak is more worrisome, but its danger is nowhere near that of the heavy elements. There will always be some waste, but nuclear has done a pretty good job compared to other energy sources because of the fear. Some fear is healthy, especially with this tech. But, again, we NEED Yucca Mountain. There's not much waste, but we should put it in the proper place. > While newer reactors may not have these problems, the fact is there are problems we weren't aware up that cropped up... You're discussing concerns about decades old technologies. Remember, that was the same era we were arguing over lead in gasoline, asbestos, and aerosols. Sure, we have problems today, but it isn't the same magnitude. No one in their right mind would shoot a nuclear waste container, or even put it in that small of a container anymore. Things have really changed in the last 50 years, and nuclear tech has been progressing in that time too. >I don't think that will go away unless someone discovered how to make Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) viable Call it what it is, cold fusion. I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. But ITER and other fusion facilities are showing promising results. But fusion is not just a different ballpark from fission, it is a completely different game (energy and safety).