What is well informed and how to choose a side!!!

I have been watching how the "media" such as Fox News and even those on the opposite side handles manipulating the public. What I've noticed is that extremists like Glenn Beck will spew out a list of the enemies and say for instance Brave New Foundation has the following supporters and thinks that by inferring they are the enemy the viewers will buy it. I'm sure that even some of the statements are wrong but what's important here is that there is no intellectual content. No journalism. All there is is pure evangelical style ranting and this alone is suppose to be enough to convince viewers who are the enemy. This is a sign we should do away with Televisions if this is the kind of airtime is being made available.

More than ever it has become clear that the masses who try to survive are finding it impossible to care any more because the misinformation is so rampant and they have no energy left to actually research the truth. The truth does matter and your opinion counts.

more later...

Can Bush advisor republican strategist Romney be so misinformed?

Romney's Worst Foreign Policy Mistake

More attempts to derail democrats are pretty divisive.

Rod Adams on Nuclear Energy's Energy Density

Rod Adams's discusses his personal experience and gives an excellent example of how dense nuclear energy really is. We could be using nuclear fuel in much the same way he describes. Also read Kirk Sorensen's TEAC2 Talk on how inter-dependent reactors are the fastest route to 2020 energy independence.

Bill Gates on TED. Very important speech

Watch Bill Gates amazingly good speech on TED about what challenges we face to save the environment.

In a nutshell. How can we prevent climate change and save billions of lives.

He does not use scare tactics he simply explains the best way to improve the quality of life. Nuclear advocates should be happy that he speaks so well and concisely about the benefits of Nuclear Energy also he mentions twice that "liquid" is a valid competing strategy.

Frightening GOP Behavior

I want to call the Republicans hypocrites but that's not strong enough a word and evil is touch extreme but there is no doubt that divisiveness is a result of their tactics. The biggest criticisms that Republicans hurl at people remind me of the total lack of compassion among racially motivated disputes such as those between Jews and Palestinians. I've also seen it between Russians and non-Russians and of course White Americans and Black Americans. What I'm trying to say is that it is not so much that I am concerned with such small minded behavior but that it is so unanimously small minded. The really sad thing is that the actual policy differences are not that great between Republicans and Democrats. That's why I can't help wonder what else could be driving their unanimous vote. When cliches like "united we stand, divided we fall" have no other intelligence behind their decisions it reveals a serious character flaw. What is this Partisan crap. I say too many minds have been infected with the notion that there is strength in bringing down your opponent even at the cost of straying from your own values. Power for power's sake. Greed for greed's sake. Can this really be their motivation?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Nuclear Power for energy consumption and Nuclear Proliferation have nothing to do with each other!!

DV82XL explains how Nuclear Power for energy consumption and Nuclear Proliferation have nothing to do with each other.

It’s the tendency the nuclear nerds have to want to share their knowledge that is the Nuclear Energy advocate’s Achilles heel. The best counter argument to any claims by anti nukers is to let the historical record demonstrate that no parallel has ever existed.

At the risk of offending some individuals, certainly not my aim, I’d like to give an analogy. Let’s assume you are a politician and tempted by a beautiful woman to pay her for sex but the woman turns out to be an undercover police woman. You are arrested for taking the bait so to speak. Well, kind of an extreme example but when an anti nuker raises the proliferation issue as a concern to nuclear energy investment or research, by responding at the technical level you are taking the anti-nuker’s bait and you look foolish in the eyes of the frightened masses.

So a jedi or samurai or zen master might suggest you take a breath and relate to the less technical minds rather than the 2% who might have some idea of what you are saying.
It’s the non-technical minds that need winning over.
Make it a history lesson not an esoteric science discussion.

Thorium Condensed

Thorium as a nuclear fuel is proliferation safe and zero carbon footprint
Gordon McDougall has edited together various talks on Thorium Molten Salt Reactors
called LFTR's. They could be the answer to the world's energy needs and a carbon free source.

16 minute version
Link: http://thoriummsr.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/remix-of-tech-talks-on-thorium-down-to-16-minutes/

10 minute version
Link: http://www.archive.org/download/ThoriumRemix2009/Thorium-34-10MinVer-480x360-NoBookends.mp4

Those Who use Marketing vs. Those Who Market the Marketing Hype.

I was noticing the trends of numerous websites and discovering the really opportunistic ways various organizations and marketing gurus and guru wanna-be's keep exploiting those who are legitimately trying to market their products on the internet. Many people are seduced by the promise of free secrets or free information or software and then find out that they eventually have to pay to actually get the knowledge or information to the marketing secret or angle. I'm one of those who has been solicited and conned. Now I am even more sympathetic to the ordinary businesses wanting to succeed on the internet. I want to add my two cents to the giant list of existing blogs and marketing hype and hopefully help some small business or individual to get a grasp on what kind of things are needed to get traffic to your websites and to attract visitors to buy.

Like it or not making money on the internet is not as simple as the marketers claim. The concept of search engine optimization and pay-per-click is unfortunately totally inadequate for the majority of products being sold on the internet. Also what has started happening in recent years is that the massive quantity of websites out there trying to do what you're doing has continually been reducing the effectiveness of any techniques you may have discovered.

Learn to recognize when you're being conned or seduced. Get away from the built-in deception of the apparent instant response,instant gratification that the browser seems to offer.

When guru wanna-be's package the obvious in new ways. You will find the following expressed in different ways to make obvious choices appear more scientific and clever.

1. Like make sure your product is sellable.

2. Do a campaign to announce your site launch

3. Capture as many visitors relevant information as possible.

4. Take advantage of word of mouth and the social marketing opportunities.

5. Learn the Search engine tricks.

6. Make money off of advertising

The primary goals are getting traffic and making sure that your product or service is really interesting to visitors.

.. Stay tuned this article will be finished soon.

Nuclear Physics 101 (in progress)

Hydrogen Fuel
Biodiesel Fuel
Canada's Green Party
Batteries and Supercapacitors



Nuclear Physics 101
Nuclear Paradigm Shift
Can Auto Dealers Go Green
Wind and Other Energy Alternatives
The Obama team needs a primer on Nuclear Physics. And so do most people who care about the future and want to do something about the damage being done to our planet. The four generations of Nuclear Energy development and the latest rediscovered fertile to fissionable Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) design which for lack of a better word I'll refer to as THOR. I really mean Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR). But that's a mouthful and the catalyst is Thorium so lets call it THOR coming from the name for the God of lightning.

Since it is 60 years old in concept it's hard to think of it as fourth generation reactor design but it is being classified as such along side of the souped up Light Water Reactors (LWR) and upgrades of the traditional reactor designs that produce so much more dangerous nuclear waste.

The nuclear industry keeps boasting about it's safety record since Chernobyl and relatively harmless Three Mile Island incident. What is conveniently unspoken is that they still need to store significant amounts of radioactive fuel. So what else is new? Actually THOR or LFTR is what's new to most of us and very different from the traditional view of nuclear reactors.
It's the alchemists dream, turning iron into gold, living forever, an abundant energy source a dream at least in terms of nuclear energy.

Nuclear Physics 101
(without gluons, quarks, leptons, fermions, hadrons, bosons and antineutrinos.)

The only naturally occurring source of nuclear fuel is Uranium. Thorium is not a fuel, technically, but later I'll explain the Thorium Cycle which produces fuel. We'll come back to this. Uranium is found in trace amounts and needs processing to be as pure as possible. The ability to create man made Isotopes of radioactive elements is partly what is keeping the nuclear industry alive. And although very expensive to build Nuclear Reactors are still the most efficient electricity producers ever.

Nuclear energy is not new it's just new to humans. They started to understand it about 100 years ago. But nuclear energy was around when the first stars were born and the big bang occurred. In fact, have you ever wondered how the center of the earth stays hot and keeps molten lava flowing. It is the presence of thorium and uranium changing from one state to another perpetually releasing energy and heat that causes the melting rock.

Let's look at it's chemistry. Transuranic elements are the elements that are heavier than Uranium (element 93) and more unstable than the lighter elements and no longer exist naturally. Over the earths history they all decayed or converted to other substances then vanished. An unstable element is called "radioactive" however everything is radioactive to some degree. The elements that decay the fastest and have a significant level of decay are called "radioactive" and they have a short half-life and are often the most toxic.

Uranium is getting scarce and has been expensive to process. The industry has come up with some creative ways to produce fissile Uranium including breeder reactors and the dismantling of nuclear bombs to use the Uranium for fuel. Plutonium is very familiar to us and is generally man made by using nuclear fission. Because these elements are unstable they will convert to stable or unstable isotopes meaning they will have an atomic weight more or less near the natural weight plus or minus a few neutrons. For instance 238U is the normal atomic weight of Uranium but they have some 235U and 234U mixed with it. Just trace amounts can weaken Uranium's fissile ability so Uranium is processed by chemical means either into its useful concentrated 235U or into depleted Uranium-238 which is useless for energy but used in weapons ammunition. So a fissile element is able to convert to a new element and in the process releases energy. Note:E=mC2 the famous Einstein formula which explains where the energy comes from in a nuclear reaction. What happens when observing the binding forces in order of the smallest atomic weights to the largest the atoms actually reverses their ability to bind and these atoms are described as too large. So the ideal binding elements are, no surprise, iron and nickel. But really the study of the elements properties are the key. The elements instability are caused by their size.
It's actually the opposite in gravitational forces of large bodies. The larger the object the greater the density.

Radium (element 88) was the first synthetically recreated radioactive element back in 1936. Now various isotopes of Uranium and Plutonium are the most used in Nuclear Power plants. The atomic number indicates the number of protons in an element. Fission is dependent upon the unstable elements being able to absorb the uncharged unstable neutrons. Actinides (now called Actinoids) are all radioactive and are typically created during fission in nuclear reactions. Their order starts at a lower atomic weight (89-103) than Transuranics (93-118) however they also include some of the transuranics (93-103).
Thorium has 90 protons and is element 90. In it's natural state it has an equal number of
protons and electrons.


Neutrons are uncharged and unstable. This unstable state therefore can be harmful but also very useful. Here's where the clever idea came from to manipulate the isotopes.
If you think of the nucleus as a big ball of protons and neutrons and the forces that bind them together as having a limited range of say... the diameter of an iron or nickel atom... what happens when you have a really big atom like uranium where the protons at the north pole are beyond the attraction range of the protons at the south pole?
Now the electromagnetic forces with their long range can start to cancel out some of the overall binding energy since the protons hate each other electromagnetically.
Now imagine this ball like a drop of liquid, suspended in space. Then a neutron comes along and makes it wobble... wibble... and at some point, the nucleus elongates and you have enough protons outside that short range from each other. The strong nuclear force starts to isolate to binding these two future twins and the electromagnetic force between these two hemispheres is the only force remaining.... PING... fission. The smaller pieces added together require a lot less energy to stay together because more of the protons are in range of each other. The leftover energy is that ping that sent them flying away from each other. The kinetic energy (plus the lesser gamma and neutron energies) of the 2 fission fragments flying away from each other is equal to the "mass defect" between U-235 and FP1 + FP2 (Fission Product 1 + Fission Product 2). As it turns out, all the parts put together in the original uranium atom have a higher mass than the pieces after fission. The mass difference got turned into an energy of approximately 200 MeV (pronounced mega-electron volts). Of this energy, 168 MeV is the kinetic energy of the FP1 and FP2 running away from each other, an average of 2.43 neutrons are emitted with a kinetic energy of ~2 MeV each, and a ~30 MeV gamma.


This curve is one way of expressing how all the stuff of the world behaves according to the size of it's nucleus (Uranium at 235 is really proud of it's nucleus) and compares that nucleus size to how strong each nucleon (neutrons and protons) is glued together. When we fission a heavy nucleus, we are really just taking energy that was stored as mass from when some star went kablooey a kazillion years ago and pushed a bunch of elements together very tightly, all kinds of heavy stuff was made. Since the short range nuclear force can only hold such a big atom together, all we ever find is Uranium since it's pretty stable. Who knows, maybe that Uranium atom was something really big at first but decayed to where it is now. If it wasn't for the kablooey, we wouldn't see atoms much bigger than nickel or maybe cobalt.

The Thorium Cycle
This is a process which starts as Thorium then converts to Protactinium-233 and then decays after 27 days to become Uranium 233.
Molten salt melts at higher temperature than pressurized water and it is safer in reactors because it does not require high pressures that Light Water Reactors and CANDU reactors need so that the water remains in a liquid state. Fluoride salt has some very stable qualities. Fluoride is the salt of choice for THOR LFTR's (undecided but I'm tempted to use THOR instead of LFTR's but that might defeat our cause) ... ... to be continued

Nuclear Paradigm Shift While We Were Not Looking

Hydrogen Fuel
Biodiesel Fuel
Canada's Green Party
Batteries and Supercapacitors


Nuclear Physics 101
Nuclear Paradigm Shift
Can Auto Dealers Go Green
Wind and Other Energy Alternatives

Thorium is the 90th element in the periodic table not far below Uranium and Plutonium. Its use in the form of a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) specifically Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) has re-emerged in recent years as a surprisingly neglected alternative approach to creating nuclear energy. In fact I was amazed at what I did not know and had been kept secret for so many years. For instance. Why did the idea of a safer technology get shoved aside in favor of Light Water Reactors? Some say it was because the safer MSR was not able to produce Nuclear Weapons grade fuel. How different things could have been if the MSR's were developed instead of the water cooled
and more dangerous and expensive and toxic variety.

A quick list of advantages. Current Scientists and Engineers are saying that Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors:
1) eliminate the need for fuels that produce carbon emissions therefore removing one of the root causes of war. It's true we fight to defend what we need. And for too long we have needed energy in the form of fossil fuels. And that needs to change. Our military leaders know that and more than anything they want to change that basic story. That is why our message of thorium-based power enabling US energy independence resonates so strongly with them. It will also resonate well as a deterrent to allowing countries such as Russia from bullying other countries in need of their fossil fuels.
2) can consume waste nuclear fuel. LFTR's in the modern view are actually two Nuclear Plants in one. They can provide energy and burn up Nuclear Waste. Imagine where Pakistan, Iran and North Korea would be if this technology had been pursued back in the 1960's when it was first proposed.
3) safer and more stable since they don't reach high enough temperatures for meltdown
and therefore do not require expensive containment or high pressure water.
4) provide a means for third world countries to improve their economies by replacing
high carbon emission methods with far cleaner technology and cheaper than coal plants.
5) are much more difficult or nearly impossible to produce nuclear weapons
6) are less expensive than traditional reactors because the byproducts are far less toxic and do not require expensive containment.
7) Thorium is abundant and stockpiles are already stored so very little if any mining is required
8) Robert Hargraves makes a convincing argument that it will lower the worlds population.
energy=industry=jobs=education=birth control=population control
9) LFTR's can potentially assist in Hydrogen Production, heat buildings,
help in the desalination process.
10) will produce far more energy than wind or solar power ever could

The story stretches back to the days when Italian Physicist and Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi came to America during Mussolini's anti Jewish campaign. Fermi's wife was jewish. Eugene Tigener and Alvin Weinberg, both chemists, were also part of Fermi's team and worked together to create the first nuclear chain reaction. The team eventually split in different directions. Fermi went to Argonne National Laboratory and Tigener and Weinberg went to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The MSR was first concieved by Eugene Tigener when working with Fermi. Later when the idea of a nuclear powered plane was proposed the MSR took shape as a prototype for flight. It never was completed but the reactor plans lived on after 1960 as pet projects of Tigener and Alvin Weinberg. Called the "chemists reactor" Weinberg led the field of Nuclear Power and Molten Salt Reactors were a favorite design of both Tigener and Weinberg.

Why were they able to make them smaller?

Biggest fears about Nuclear Power no longer an issue with proposed MSR (Molten Salt Reactors) LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor)

Old Way: Radiation Leak or Meltdown New Way: Meltdown is not possible since it is already contained under no pressure in a molten state below dangerous temperatures

Old Way: Used to create Nuclear Weapons New Way: Thorium makes it very difficult to produce nuclear weapons

Old Way: Disposal is hazardous New Way: Not hazardous anymore. LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors can use waste Uranium and Plutonium to create energy so it will eliminate existing nuclear waste

Old Way: Too expensive New Way: Many engineers feel that low cost reactors are totally possible and they can be made cheaper than coal plants.

Read more about thorium at Kirk Sorenson's Forum energyfromthorium.com or Charles Bartons Blog NuclearGreen.blogspot.com

Hansen's letter to Obama had influence of Kirk Sorensen

The Aim High lecture and book by the same title by Robert Hargraves is also a fascinating look at the LFTR solution. Segment from Aim High Lecture

Get on the Bandwagon. Improve Business by Helping Consumers Fulfill Their Green Dreams.

Hydrogen Fuel
Biodiesel Fuel
Canada's Green Party
Batteries and Supercapacitors


Nuclear Physics 101
Nuclear Paradigm Shift
Can Auto Dealers Go Green
Wind and Other Energy Alternatives
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein


"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

The future that auto dealers face appears bleak if they choose to continue along the traditional path. Dealers need to look for new ideas in answering the big question:

"How far is the cooperation between car manufacturers and our nations growing need for energy independence going to go?"

And this begs the question: should auto dealers wait for the "Big 3" to provide the leadership to initiate change? The manufacturers are part of the problem since they have been slow to embrace change where it counts. Factors such as satisfying shareholders and keeping up with the pace to match the consumer wants and needs have been poorly implemented.

The relatively new model of the auto industry has moved toward service and zero percent financing. This trend has grown thin as viewed among those who have felt the credit crunch and wisened up about what is expected from a service contract. Is it a myth that Japanese vehicles outperform Ford, Chrysler and GM? Japanese car popularity is due to the belief that the cars outlast and surpass the traditional American and European cars. Three decades of consumer reports are testament to these "so-called" generalities. It could be argued that Japanese cars have become less reliable in more recent years. In other words the playing field has been leveling off. Investors would see this as a good thing. An idealist would be disappointed. The competition could be catching up. Let's hope.

Now with upstarts like ZENN Motor Company (ZMC) arriving on the market and if their ideas prove to be widely accepted then both Japan and the US and the whole capitalist system have to think twice before designing vehicles or anything that lasts. In traditional investment schemes "honesty" and "quality of life" have counted little as a motivating force behind profit making.

The producers of tomorrow need to ask whether they want to be a part of the revolution or continue to burden society with their half-hearted or deliberate production of low "shelf-life" products. Catherine Scrimgeour, Public Affairs Manager for ZMC said that partner EEStor is creating a "battery (supercapacitor) that outlives the vehicle."...and in addition "80% of the moving parts are no longer needed to run the vehicle." That seriously affects the traditional model of servicing.

ZMC also recognizes the need to provide car owners with a means to convert their existing vehicles. They are making retrofits a part of their business plan. With the next generation ZMC model to be introduced in 2010 (some are skeptical) the hope is that their plan to introduce the new supercapacitor model which has forecasts of 400 km per charge and can be recharged in 5 minutes and will travel at speeds over 100 km/hph, this kind of technology will revolutionize the auto industry and other industries. We're seeing the need for diverse thinking and a willingness to adapt to be the required mindset for success.

"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." - Henry Ford

Cars don't need built-in obsolescence just manufacturers think that profit requires it. It's like the Maytag serviceman ads where the serviceman has no work. So how about improving the planet? Even existing vehicles can be given more trouble free lives by retrofitting.

Even the fact that ZMC has gone public on the stock market the cynic in us has to ask whether a true long lasting product can be a wise strategy for investors.

With the right mindset there's no need to get left behind. We do have the shining example of the Toyota Prius which has had good publicity. A New York Times story covered how a Prius owner had prepared his home for a possible repeat of a blackout in 2003 and in doing so was prepared for the next blackout in 2006. He had placed a UPS (universal power supply) in his home to keep the basic electrical needs running including his furnace. The Prius was the energy source to keep the UPS charged which without a charge would have lasted only a few hours or possibly less. The recommended technology is an inverter to regulate the voltage and something like solar panels or batteries to supply a charge. In this case the Prius was the energy source whereas an equivalent in the past might have been a noisy diesel generator in the backyard.

Is retrofitting one solution to modernizing the dealership?

There is a huge following of the green movement with the help from such people as Barack Obama and Al Gore among many others. Not only will automobiles play a part in a cleaner environment by consuming alternative fuel but they will also start to be used in place of diesel generators and encourage a grid infrastructure whose influence to other industries will eventually catch on. An automobile being connected to the home power will help home owners save on their electric bill but also help the country lower its need for carbon dioxide producing electricity generation.

So yes, auto dealers have a place in restoring the economy and the ability of the consumer to have more control in contributing to the economic outlook as well as helping to save the planet.

So how about retrofitting? Turning repair shops and service centers into retrofitting centers is accepting reality. Many dealers have already started retrofits of various kinds. Careful consideration should be given before tooling a shop for all alternative fuel solutions. There are a number of different solutions out there. Biodiesel, hydrogen, fuel cell technology, compressed natural gas and perhaps less known compressed air vehicles have recently been suggested as the new saviours. Another exciting development is the supercapacitor which will no doubt be a huge part of the next generation of electric vehicles and the growing trend towards self sufficiency and the concept of shared power grids where private citizens become both consumer and energy provider.

"Hybrid" technology, a term used by Obama in his recent address when selecting his Energy team, has also become synonymous with the accepted direction for Japanese makers and now Chevrolet and other "big 3" and european designs. For example the Toyota Prius that rescued the home owner in a blackout did not come ready-made there was a small retrofit the owner made to enable the vehicle to supply his home with power. With climate change the challenges ahead like the recent power failure in Toronto's west end had people stranded without heat for 25 hours while crews had to dry out a flooded transformer. With temperatures below -20 Celsius incidents like these could become more and more frequent and automobiles can be retrofitted to provide power in these kinds of emergencies.

Diesel vehicles need small adjustments to make them run on vegetable oil. I've heard quotes from $0 to $2000. It depends on the kind and quality of the replacement fuel. It's called Biodiesel and Germany takes it very seriously. Eliminating the carbon footprint is the goal of marrying Biodiesel to diesel engines. No conversion is necessary if the fuel is created properly. Now the State mandates in the US are more interested in a B20 Diesel Mix which is 20% Biodiesel and 80% Petroleum Diesel which requires no retrofit. In the spirit of the inventor of the diesel it is worth noting that the first diesel back in 1900 was meant to run on non-polluting peanut oil. There are dozens of homegrown and new companies finding solutions to creating alternative fuel. With ethanol and other forms of biodiesel the versatile diesel engine has provided us with a means by which to standardize. The range is significant in the adaptable nature of diesel engines. I think we're going to find vehicles being offered that can choose from one of several alternative fuel and diesel mixtures at the same time. The vast size of the US and Canada with it's long roads and highways is, and has always been part of the need to pioneer new technologies. Hybrid vehicles and multi-fueled vehicles may be part of the solution. Consumers will buy more cars if they know they can travel anywhere and keep the car going.

Last but not least it does not hurt to be up on the latest gadgets. GPS systems and iPOD and audio and communication accesories are a big deal for consumers. The hands free cell phone is becoming a requirement by law. So these upgrades should all be doable and understood by service departments.

Now what about the sales staff? They need to become more than just sales people. They can be cut in to getting the potential retrofit client. It would only be fair. This means more specializing for sales staff.

The greening and the social networking are two paradigms of the 21st century. Social networking often referred to as web 2.0 has been kind of low on the dealers totem pole of priorities. That will be my next subject in an upcoming article.

Harold Pinter

In 1958 Harold Pinter wrote the following:

"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

This and much more are discussed in this interview with Charlie Rose.

Harold Pinters life recently came to my attention from the annoucements of his death. I had no knowledge of his illness or even if he was still alive. This interview is a good intro to discovering this amazing person.