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TWO IRISH FILMMAKERS want to know if thorium could be the answer to the world’s energy woes – and they have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to finish a documentary on the topic.
Frankie Fenton and Des Kelleher want to raise £40,000 so that they can finish post-production on The Good Reactor, their documentary looking into the alternative nuclear fuel and whether it can generate clean, safe energy.
Documentary
They spent two years travelling around Europe and North America interviewing people on both sides of the debate for their documentary. Fenton told TheJournal.ie that all the funds raised will go exclusively into finishing the film, and they plan to work with professionals including animators, an editor, and distributors, as well as purchase stock footage.
Fenton said that when he was told by a friend about “this nuclear energy that could solve all the problems of the world’s energy crisis”, he didn’t believe him. When he investigated thorium himself, he became very interested and then started down the road of interviewing experts on the topic.
He spoke to thorium expert Kirk Sorenson about the issue, which was the first interview for the documentary.
I didn’t know if this was real or not – I kept on asking as many people as possible about it. If this stuff is true, what’s the story?
As well as those championing thorium, he spoke to thorium sceptics. The aim of the documentary is to have it as well-produced as possible, so that it can get out to a wide audience and spark a discussion about thorium.
Thorium is a radioactive chemical element which is more widely available than the uranium that powers nuclear plants, and as the Guardian explains, its proponents say that it could be used to generate large amounts of low-carbon electricity.
It has a number of benefits compared to uranium, as it is seen as safer with less potential for nuclear disaster; it is far more difficult to use its byproducts for making nuclear weapons and the waste it generates is not as dangerous for as long as uranium waste is.
The reactors that generate energy from thorium could burn up existing nuclear waste, said Fenton.
(Frankie Fenton/YouTube)
“We really just want people to talk about it. If this stuff isn’t true that’s absolutely fine,” said Fenton, adding their aim is to start a discussion or debate around the issue.
A UK government report last September said that the benefits of thorium have been “overstated”, the Guardian reported. It said that it has “theoretical advantages” but “while there is some justification for these benefits, they are often overstated”.
Fenton believes there is a “massive audience” for this subject, especially in the United States, and that “the actual subject matter appeals to more than one category of people”, as “climate change is in the news every day”.
We think it’s a really important film that needs to be made and the people need to know about.
“I could just make a terrible YouTube film but it would be a shame if that did happen. I think there is a really good story in it and very strong characters in it,” concluded Fenton. It is hoped that when the film is completed it will be shown in film festivals and distributed worldwide.
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I believe that if there are any more discoveries of zero point energy they will be bought up on the promise of development for mankind and then quietly hidden away.
There is too much money to be made in oil and it is vital to so many countries for revenue from Russia to the US to a host of different countries and economies.
It’s funny when you hear of people raving about phones recently out that can wordlessly charge from a base station yet an inventor(Nikola Tesla) well over a hundred years ago powered a town that was miles away wirelessly.
Many technologies have been hushed up that would provide radical advancements over our current power systems just as many known natural remedies that are better at fighting cancerous cells will never be made available to the masses(the thunder vine drug).
The Hutchinson Effect is a great place to start. While it has had many dejectors most of the footage is simply jaw dropping stuff. After the research Nikola Tesla, now that is a can of worms.
I found this age on tesla,a good and funny read.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
Check out a Gas called Brown’s gas. Look it up on you tube. It comes from water and has zero emissions. It’s in a small limited use. The Chinese at one point powered submarines using it
Brown gas – I get that a bit after a few pints of Guinness, it makes the walk home much easier …
Very true B Lowe but Edison was an “inventor” tesla was a physics/electrical engineering wizard. A man well ahead of his own era. I’m just being picky. (Big Tesla fan) :)
I agree Gar.
I have read every book on Tesla, the man was a true genius and instrumental to our way of life yet hardly anyone has even heard of him.
The idea that we can “get something for nothing” is as seductive as it is fundamentally false. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that it can be successfully be bought up and hidden away. Witness the recent intense spread of wind power and photovoltaic power, powered by the idea that we an get free energy from the environment and pay nothing for it. Irrespective of the fact that any power source where one cannot control the rate of production is utterly doomed and a waste of time and precious resources, it still hasn’t stopped these technologies from spreading like wild fire. So the argument that new sources of power can be bought up and hidden away is not consistent with reality.
The problem is that a lot of people don’t know anything about the topic of energy and thermodynamics, and yet paranoid wild opinions still get stated. Yes, Tesla did create a technology for wireless power transmission. And yes, it did work. However it was spectacularly inefficient, as a by-product of this another technology was discovered, going by the name of “radio”. In fact if you are to go to a transmission tower, with the right gear you could feasibly power a light bulb entirely over the air. It’s way more efficient to have a wired connection. If you go into the annals of the history of technology, many technologies died out not because they were squashed by corporate interests but because other technologies offered superior performance and efficiency (early 20th century battery-powered electric automobiles, tramways, etc). Poor efficiency is also the reason why electrolysis is not used on an industrial scale to power our economy.
Meanwhile, Brown’s Gas is simply a fraudulent idea. Yes Brown’s Gas can power an automobile, but it is produced by electrolysis which consumes far more power than that which can be harnessed. If you take electricity in Ireland, overwhelmingly produced by burning fossil fuels at a thermal efficiency of 30%, transport that electricity to your home at a thermal efficiency of 90%, and you use electrolysis at a thermal efficiency of 50%, which you then store in your automobile with a storage loss of 10% to power your car at a thermal efficiency of 25%, in effect, the overall thermal efficiency of using Brown’s Gas to power an automobile is 3.0%. Using standard petrol, all things being equal, has a thermal effiiency of 25%, or eight times more efficient.
Anyone promoting the use of Brown’s Gas is either guilty of ignorance or fraud.
Tesla was indeed a genius. Interestingly his pop culture fame died out while that of his nemesis Edison only grew over time (although in electrical engineering circles he is perhaps as important as Maxwell or Gauss). But to misunderstand his discoveries to further political goals is just as much of a mistake as ignoring him altogether.
Thorium research will follow its own path. Interestingly, its biggest impediment is the powerful anti-nuclear lobby, feeding on fear-mongering and pseudo-environmentalism than actual science. (If I hear one more argument in opposition to nuclear power that references Chernobyl, created and operated by one of the most brutal genocidal totalitarian regimes of the 20th century with no regard for the sanctity of human life or to the truth, I’m gonna start a rant!) For the moment, Thorium-powered nuclear power faces a very uphill battle to win over the hearts and minds of people. The Indians are supposed to soon start producing power with this technology. All it needs is one accident, however minor, for people to start attacking it.
Best comment I’ve seen for ages Joseph, thank you.
Cheers Mort
I am pretty sure I have just seen the Thortricity lads going around my estate.
Oil companies won’t allow it I’d imagine
Oil companies couldn’t stop nuclear power taking over as the main source of energy in France. Big companies come and go as the global economy changes.
Who owns the nuclear power stations?
Exactly, you’ll actually find if you do a bit of research that anything got to do with energy, steel, or other raw materials are owned by a very small group of people/families. As a knock on, emerging energy or raw material industries end up being owned or directly reliant on these superpowers
Niall, you’re just another conspiracy nut. EDF is owned by the French Government, not by a family.
I genuinely am not trying to stir up some sort of conspiracy lad, just read a few articles, watched a few documentaries (not YouTube ones!) n it’s true like
Niall, refer me to some of the articles and youtube and I’ll set you straight.
You should look at a 10 part documentary called ‘ the men who built America’ on discovery channel (was on few weeks ago but usually they’re repeated) then thers a few good ones on Netflix, if you have an hour to spare thers one called ‘Collapse’ which is very interesting. I’m not taking these as completely fact or anything, just joining the dots
Niall, that was 200 years ago!!
It was last century, goes right up to the thirties, that’s only 2 generations ago like power doesn’t just leave these families. But watch that Netflix one though its about 70mins long, v interesting n thers heaps of other good ones on it too. I am bearing in mind the article on the 7 deadly reads today about the human mind clutching on to conspiracies
These two need to watch their backs;
if they get too close there’ll be a car “accident somewhere down the line.
Here’s one that was made earlier, its on youtube which normally I avoid but it is the only copy of the programme that I could find. In it you will see that Thorium works fine and is very safe. Norway,India and China all have very advanced programmes running and these reactors do not produce plutonium, the can actually get rid of it [ some GM bacteria do that too but that's another day's work ]
I would be surprise if we also have a load of this stuff and it is been slyly (is that a word?) given away.
Most countries have plent of Thorium , world total is sufficient for 2000 years at present estimates and there is an enormous deposit on the far side of the moon. You could well be right Jason as most of our mining rights have been given away
Mort, if “our mining rights have been given away”, where’s the oil?
God only knows what deals were done with our oil and minerals
There is no God and no conspiracies.
What a good idea!
Just ask Tony Stark.
There was a Thorium high temperature testbed, running already on commercial scale in Germany. Unfortunately, the positive aspects of the Thorium cycle were negated by the problems with the Thorium fuel elements and the publicity deficit that nuclear power stations – or frankly everything “nucular” – carries after Harrisburg, Windscale, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi, no one in the “civilised” and “democratic” world is going to build a new, unproven reactor.
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