Posts Tagged Kirk Sorensen
Thorium Remix 2012 – Semi-Raw Footage
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Environment, thorium on 2012-08-31
Am hard at work on THORIUM REMIX 2012, the working title of my upcoming thorium documentary. One cost came up I hadn’t prepared for, so I launched a new Kickstarter campaign to cover it.
As you can see, yes I will be traveling to Shanghai. I appreciate the continued support. If you’ve never heard of THORIUM REMIX but would like to help support my efforts, please feel free to pitch in some token amount. In return you get immediate access to THORIUM REMIX 2011 as a DRM-free download, and (for $3) receive access to THORIUM REMIX 2012 once an edit exists.
I’ve been sorting through shot footage since the conclusion of Thorium Energy Alliance Conference #4 (TEAC4). Up until recently this has been slow going, as different types of events consist of footage that might be easier or harder to edit.
TEAC4 was particularly difficult to organize. Many volunteers helped collect audio & video that would have otherwise been very difficult/expensive to capture. But sorting through multiple perspectives (including audio-only captures) and placing them on an 8-hour timeline was quite challenging.
In contrast, recording engineers who worked under Alvin Weinberg on the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, was very straight forward. Editing the footage? Very straight forward.
ORNL MSRE Engineers
Here Dick Engel, Syd Ball & James Crowley discuss their work on molten salt reactors with Kirk Sorensen and Baroness Bryony Worthington.
Kirk Sorensen Pre-Lunch Chroma-Key
Here’s another multi-cam shoot. But all the cameras and audio recorders started & stopped at the same time, so putting footage in sync was not a big deal.
Keeping at it
If you’re keen on seeing thorium developed as an energy resource, please consider backing my current kickstarter project. I am not hurting for funds, but even the smallest amount lets me ping you via Kickstarter, and ultimately helps us illustrate that this is a technology people care about.
I’ll keep you in the loop (certainly more than my rare updates to this blog will), and once an edit is crowdsourceable I do hope to leverage people’s skills. Volunteers were invaluable at TEAC4. Volunteers will again become invaluable as all this semi-raw footage is dropped into a narrative structure.
This process is very similar to the construction of THORIUM REMIX 2011. Lectures and technical exchanges were posted to YouTube for everyone to see. Then the raw footage was remixed into a single larger narrative structure.
If you compare my 2011 assets against 2012 assets, you’ll see I’ve got much greater flexibility to craft a narrative. Kickstarter funds will also help pay for post-production work such as CGI and music.
Update 2012-09-28
The embedded ORNL Th-MSR researcher video was updated to a tighter edit which incorporates dinner conversation (as well as interview footage). The original semi-raw interview footage can still be found here.
TEDxYYC Video – Kirk Sorensen on Thorium
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Environment, thorium on 2011-04-23
On April 1st, Kirk Sorensen spoke to a Calgary TEDxYYC audience about the potential of Thorium as an energy source. Kirk’s TEDxYYC video is now available.
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| 0:50 | 0:50 | 10 years working at NASA, designing sustainable lunar colonies. |
| 1:38 | 1:38 | Almost all nuclear power on Earth uses water as a coolant. Some use water at 150 atmospheres of pressure, as needed to generate electricity effectively. |
| 2:24 | 2:24 | Liquid water at 300 degrees Celsius will flash into steam (taking up 1000x more volume) if a leak occurs. This is why today’s nuclear plants need large, expensive concrete containment structures. |
| 3:04 | 3:04 | Today’s reactors extract less than 1% of the energy stored in their uranium oxide fuel, and must be constructed next to large bodies of water. |
| 3:54 | 3:54 | Why not use molten salt instead of water? Liquid fuel instead of solid fuel? |
| 5:11 | 5:11 | Molten salt reactor feature: The freeze plug. Would have been handy in Japan. |
| 6:01 | 6:01 | And then Kirk heard about thorium, and things got even more interesting… |
| 7:34 | 7:34 | LFTR vs conventional nuclear power. 200x more efficient. Enough power to pull CO2 from atmosphere and create new “fossil fuels” from it. |
| 8:18 | 8:18 | Do we have enough thorium? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Holy crap, yes. |
If you find the LFTR concept to be as exciting as I do, then there is something you can do right now, to help accelerate investigation and implementation of this technology. You can help promote this video.
You see, this isn’t just any old YouTube video. It is a TEDx video. That it was shot at Calgary’s TEDxYYC event, and uploaded to the TEDxTalks YouTube channel means it has the potential be a TED Talk video. If this YouTube video you see before you has good viewing stats, then it may one day be seen by everyone who visits TED.com.
So please consider doing any of the following:
- LIKE the video on YouTube.
- Add the video to your FAVORITES on YouTube.
- Tweet about the video. Suggested URL: http://youtu.be/N2vzotsvvkw
- Share the video on Facebook.
- Blog about it, with the video embedded.
- Email the video. Consider people outside your circle of family and friends. (Federal representative?)
And if you’ve never done so, be sure to check out EnergyFromThorium.com, where other folks from all walks of life interested in this technology can learn more, monitor it’s progress, and see how they can help out.
2011-10-21 Update:
THORIUM REMIX 2011 is finally complete. This is my recommended video resource for learning about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (a type of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor). It begins with a brief summary comparing LFTR to Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR).
Kirk Sorensen in Calgary to speak about Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR)
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, thorium on 2011-03-09
Kirk Sorensen is coming to Calgary to speak about Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, on March 31st 2011 at Protospace and April 1st at TEDxYYC!
In a nutshell, I believe of all Canadian provinces, Alberta has the most to gain by investigating this technology: In the future our oil exports will be less attractive as carbon trading markets mature, and currently we burn (waste) natural gas as a source of heat used in oil sands extraction. The faster we can improve oil sands extraction efficiency, the faster we stop haemorrhaging carbon credits.
Bill Dickie (Alberta Minister of Mines and Minerals 1971-1975) has observed the Stelmach government polled 1024 Albertans and found only 25% object to new nuclear projects.
The Stelmach government opened the door Monday to nuclear power in Alberta — rejecting a moratorium and saying it will consider the controversial energy option on a case-by-case basis — but vowed no public dollars will be invested in any project.
The province announced its nuclear power policy the same day Energy Minister Mel Knight rolled out the results of the province’s public consultation on the issue. A telephone survey of 1,024 Albertans, which incorporated input from stakeholder groups, found about one-quarter of people want the government to refuse projects. Two in 10 said the province should encourage proposals and 45 per cent of people polled want nuclear power plants considered on a case-by-case basis.
With those numbers in hand, Knight said Monday that Alberta is open for business on nuclear power. But he stressed the province won’t cough up a penny and hinted the lack of subsidies might dissuade companies from proceeding in Alberta. “We’re not putting a moratorium on nuclear,” Knight told reporters. “We are not proponents of nuclear energy,” he added. “We need power and proponents that want to build (nuclear) in the system in Alberta are welcome to do so.”
Of course without the United State’s (wartime) government spending, there’s no telling how long it would have taken for nuclear power to be adopted as a power source. Then again, without the wartime priority for bomb-making material it could have been LFTR which dominated the nuclear power industry, rather than relatively inefficient light water reactors.
As everyone following LFTR technology knows, China is taking the lead on this. I wonder why the Chinese aren’t not leaving such an initiative to the private sector?
Calgary tally of Kirk Sorensen events
TEDxYYC April 1, which is sold-out, but an after-party is open to everyone, at Velvet Lounge 6:30pm. The TEDxYYC speakers will all be live-streamed on the TEDxYYC website.
MRU (Mount Royal University) will host a talk by Kirk at 3:30pm March 31 in Lincoln Park Room (J-301).
2011-03-12 UPDATE
Japan! Nuclear power plants! This…
…Kirk may just touch on these events, and I’ll be asking him how LFTR would have behaved under similar circumstances.
2011-04-16 UPDATE
He came. He spoke. It was awesome.
His TEDx video is in the hands of TEDxYYC, I’ll certainly be sharing it here once it is available to the public.
Kirk also spoke at Protospace and MRU, both lectures also recorded. So that’s 3 very different talks, plus random banter driving between locations and waiting for a flight at the airport.
Something very good will come of this footage.
2011-10-21 Update:
THORIUM REMIX 2011 is now complete. This is my recommended video resource for learning about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (a type of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor). It begins with a brief summary comparing LFTR to Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR).
Oil Sands Extraction – LFTR in Alberta?
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Environment, thorium on 2009-11-23
THORIUM REMIX 2009 has been well received, so I’ve cut it down further to 10 minutes and put the subject in a Canadian context: How about using a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor to power oil sands crude extraction?
Bill Dickie (Alberta Minister of Mines and Minerals 1971-1975) pointed out the Stelmach government just polled 1024 Albertans and found only 25% object to new nuclear projects…
Calgary Herald: Alberta would welcome private nuclear power, Stelmach gov’t says (excerpt follows)
The Stelmach government opened the door Monday to nuclear power in Alberta — rejecting a moratorium and saying it will consider the controversial energy option on a case-by-case basis — but vowed no public dollars will be invested in any project.
The province announced its nuclear power policy the same day Energy Minister Mel Knight rolled out the results of the province’s public consultation on the issue. A telephone survey of 1,024 Albertans, which incorporated input from stakeholder groups, found about one-quarter of people want the government to refuse projects. Two in 10 said the province should encourage proposals and 45 per cent of people polled want nuclear power plants considered on a case-by-case basis.
With those numbers in hand, Knight said Monday that Alberta is open for business on nuclear power. But he stressed the province won’t cough up a penny and hinted the lack of subsidies might dissuade companies from proceeding in Alberta. “We’re not putting a moratorium on nuclear,” Knight told reporters. “We are not proponents of nuclear energy,” he added. “We need power and proponents that want to build (nuclear) in the system in Alberta are welcome to do so.”
Premier Ed Stelmach, however, said Monday in his “Ask Premier Ed” online video that nuclear energy is a “viable option” in Alberta.
“This is one way of keeping down the carbon footprint,” Stelmach said, noting the United States is “very high” on nuclear energy.
The premier acknowledged nuclear waste is a worry for many, but said new technology is key to addressing concerns.
I’m got some useful feedback on REDDIT, and forum pertaining to LFTR’s potential in Alberta…
Depleted uranium can be used as fuel in fast reactors. However, it is not usable in CANDU. CANDU is a thermal reactor, not a fast reactor: it does not breed fuel. It runs on fissile U-235. It can run on (0.7% U-235) natural uranium because it is very efficient at using U-235, not because it burns U-238 (not self-sufficiently, anyway). Conventional reactors are extremely wasteful, as they throw away over 99% of the starting material (because they can not feasibly burn U-238). A closed fuel cycle, with reprocessing and fast reactors, increases fuel efficiency by 100x – hence decreases fuel demands by 100x, and waste production by 100x. The transuranic elements, the most important of nuclear waste, are not left over but are consumed as fuel. Fast reactors can import these waste components from other reactors and burn them. They are waste incinerators. Thorium fuel cycles are basically the same – substituting U-238 with Th-232, and Pu-239 with U-233. They have the same basic advantages as plutonium-cycle fast reactors – fuel efficiency, waste burning. - deleted
Somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 of a barrel of oil is needed to extract 1 barrel of oil. This is a very significant amount. I can not speak for other people. My primary concern with nuclear reactors are the usual concerns about cost, fuel production, safety, disposal, and cost. If the benefits of nuclear can be had without the drawbacks, then I will dance a little jig. It’s the promise of fusion, after all. - MechaBlue
Canadians are slightly anti-nuke, but the primary problem is that the oil companies already own the natural gas. They just drill a hole and it comes out of the ground to be burned for free, so from their point of view why would they use nuclear? They used to burn natural gas off as waste. You would have an easier time selling the idea of a Thorium reactor in terms of providing people with cheap power. Even then, in Alberta, the “lines provider” will be taking most of the profit from delivering that power. The reason why consumers are stuck with heavily polluting mines and power generation is primarily political. The current generators have used regulatory means to exclude newcomers because it isn’t in their best interest to lower their profits. - raghead
Use of nuclear energy for in situ gasification of coal (via high temperature steam) could reduce mining deaths. High ash coal deposits could also be exploited. Non-volatile poisons could be left in situ and the gas could be cleaned of volatile poisons and suspended matter before use. The process may also be feasible as an alternate for bitumen deposits like Alberta sands. - jagdish
Indian thorium solid fuel fast breeder will be up in 2011 at Kalpakkam This is unrelated to LFTR, which is a thermal spectrum reactor working with liquid fuels. - tt23
2011-10-21 Update:
THORIUM REMIX 2011 is now complete. This is my recommended video resource for learning about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (a type of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor). It begins with a brief summary comparing LFTR to Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR).
Thorium Remix 2009
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Environment, thorium on 2009-11-15
Update: Further trimmed video’s length to 16 minutes! That’s as brief as I can possibly make it.
Kirk Sorensen’s Google Tech Talk “Energy from Thorium” made a big impression on me. But when I recommended it to others, the typical response was “it’s 82 minutes long”. So I shortened it. In fact, I combined 3 Google Tech Talks on Thorium into first a single 25 minute summary (below), and now a 16 minute summary (above).
If you are care about climate change, energy independence or nuclear fission byproducts (some take thousands of years to decay), then please check this out. The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) is a fascinating concept, and watching a remix may be the fastest way to get up to speed. Prefer reading copy? Chemical & Engineering News just posted an excellent Thorium overview.
197 minutes of Google Tech Talks were reviewed and compressed to make this video. The video quality is what it is because it is all second generation YouTube content. Should anyone knowledgeable about LFTR pay a visit to Calgary (or Edmonton), I’ll be happy to record a lecture on the subject, and provide a sharper summary video.
Canada’s oil sands may represent the most likely scenario for LFTR adoption in Canada. Regardless of the energy source used to extract oil from bitumen, Alberta will be responsible for emitting a lot of CO2 as oil sands development continues. That appears politically inevitable. The resource is in the ground, we’re going to dig it up. Hopefully it will proceed as slowly as possible (as the bitumen will only increase in value over time), and as efficiently as possible.
LFTR R&D might be only considered “Oil Sands R&D” in the short term. But if it enables Canada to expand our CANDU reactor line to include liquid-fluoride thorium reactors, we wouldn’t just have better energy options at home, but more reactor options for export.
With that in mind, I created a MP3 audio-only version (6 MB), and an iPhone/iPod friendly MPEG-4 version (115 MB).
Those alternate formats are the 25 minute version, not 16 minute version. If you want to take a stab at creating a still shorter version (I think a video needs to be under 8 minutes to go viral), a high quality MPEG-4 version of the 16 minute remix is right here (89 MB). Giv’er.
2011-10-21 Update:
THORIUM REMIX 2011 is now complete. This is my recommended video resource for learning about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (a type of Thorium Molten Salt Reactor). It begins with a brief summary comparing LFTR to Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR).