A Few Unpolitically Correct Insights

The first insight is into what makes for a Schwazzenegaresque work of art. Is it simply being one step removed from Hitleresque as I suspect it to be? Well, Arnie played a robot who goes around collectively punishing all of his enemies (which just happen to be all humanity) and following its programming like a Necron. How much more fascistic can you get than a necron? How much more neurotic and anal retentive can you get than being a machine that follows its programming? The evidence seems conclusive does it not?

Ahh, but maybe the fact Schwazzenegar became a member of the Hitlerite Republican Party has nothing to do with his audience's perception of his work! And what about Conan the Barbarian? Doesn't that sound sufficiently psychopathic? And psychopaths are the opposites of right-wing authoritarians, just as the Joker is Batman's opposite. BUT, observe this cutting analysis which shows how far Conan is from being a loose cannon, he is a momma's boy forever tied to her apron strings. He only acts like a psychopath becasue he comes from a psychopathic (ie, barbarian) society.

The second insight is the fact that 'noble' is an intrinsic thus anarchistic quality. Now, this may seem bizarre, but where's the fun mathematically proving it to be true? People don't listen and people don't give a shit about anything important or new or novel, at least as far as a creative genius defines novel, so let's skip all that tedious math and get to the fun part: following the implications of an "insane" axiom to their logical conclusion until someone's puny brittle mind shatters.

The first implication has to do with Putin being noble. We know that Putin is noble because he is Tarzan and Tarzan is a noble savage whose nobility is undisputed and unchallengeable fact. Putin and Tarzan are not right-wing authoritarians or fascists, they are manly Moralists who care for the little people and enforce standards. We know Putin is a moralist because he is honest and straightforward, unlike all the dishonest lickspittle Euro politicians, he told journalists that Africans shouldn't be celebrated because they are cannibals. And he said it because it's true.

Secondly, what makes them noble is the fact they themselves have to break the standards they were raised by and that surround them in order to act BETTER than everyone else. Tarzan is noble because he behaves better than an animal (ie, a noble savage is not a savage) and Putin is better because he doesn't behave like a Russian or a KGB man or a mafia boss. Russia's standards might be low but few Russians have the testicles to rise above them. Putin is the man with the balls to be better than his contemporaries and to lead them into a bright shining future. Even if he has to break a few skulls to do it. Napoleon did it, Alexander did it, and now Putin is doing it.

Thirdly, if nobility is an intrinsic thus anarchistic qualitty then why is it that right-wing authoritarians value it so much? Well, it's because right-wing authoritarians are all coprophiliacs eating the food their mummy preprocessed for them from her ass. They are traditionalists who assimilate all of the values and traditions of the precvious generations. And in order to climb the ladder, their ancestors had to break more than a few rules because reality simply doesn't work the way Necrons' ossified brains want to believe. So they, being born to privilege are intrinsically better than their non-coprophilic ancestors. That is why RWAs believe they have the intrinsic quality of nobility which their ancestors (who were ennobled and entitled) lacked. In fact, it's precisely the reason why you have to be born to the upper class and can't simply climb up to it to be really noble as far as the upper classes and RWAs are concerned.

The third insight has to do with what each gender wants. Now, a lot of people regurgitate the idiocy that women desire power. But if this were strictly and logically true then women would do the things that are necessary to acquire power. Things like going out on explorer starships called Enterprise um Spanish Galleons called the Santa Maria in order to explore strange new continents and seek new slaves. But women have never done any of those things, EVER, in all of human history, and they have stayed the fuck away from political power too. Why? Because women are highly risk averse.

Now, when people really want something then they're willing to take risks to get it. 1% chance of winning 100 million dollars? Are you kidding? I'm in! When the reward is HIGH enough then even a low chance of success seems amazing. But apparently, the reward of Power is NEVER high enough to get women to move their asses. Blatantly evident to anyone with a mind, women don't want power and have never wanted it. Yet equally, there is SOMETHING about power which they DO want, otherwise it wouldn't turn them on so damned much.

What do women want? They want to be indulged like the emotionally underdeveloped mental children that they are. That's why taking risks FOR power is inconsistent with their USE of power. Because being indulged means never taking the risks yourself. Other people indulge you, OTHER people have the POWER TO indulge you. And you yourself do nothing. So if women who lust for power don't actually want power at all, and certainly are willing to do virtually nothing for it, then is it the case that men want power?

NO. Men do NOT want power. Men want ... to be wanted. That's why they value beauty, because beauty guarantees that you're desired. That, or handsomeness, or power. Yeah, power guarantees that women want you. Aaand that explains why anarcho-communists like Clinton and anarchists like Thatcher (who could never be accused of being a woman) got into politics. Why? Because they were wanted there. Everyone wanted them.

Men are good for something in the world after all whereas ever since the uterus has been devaluad, women are pretty much worthless. And they know it and they are pissed. That's why they've been complaining ever since the fertility rate fell down from 12 children per woman.

Finally, and this insight isn't original, but the simple fact that radiation is the safest thing in the universe. We know that extra radiation isn't harmful to life and that radiation is necessary for living things to function. So obviously there's the dose of radiation necessary to thrive and there's the dose that will kill you. And for water, it's 2-8 liters a day to thrive and 20 liters will kill you. For air, a mere 15 bar will make nitrogen toxic and removing the nitrogen is cheating of course. For radiation? ONE MILLION TIMES the necessary dose starts getting lethal.

Fear of radiation is like fear of cannabis. Oh no, it'll kill you! It'll give you cancer! It'll make Mexicans rape our women! People hate radiation because it's GOOD, because it's BETTER than they are. Because people are SCUM. Because people LIKE evil. If people met an angel, they'd murder it. That's why they murder nuclear power plants, because they are angels. Angels that provide poor humans, and not just elite scum, with heat and power so they don't starve and freeze to death. Yeah, let's murder them all! Because we want evil, because we want starvation and death. People make me sick.

Nuclear Power Should Never Be A Popular Issue

You know, I'm not just well-read on nuclear issues, I'm also reasonably well-read on anti-nuclear activists.

So I can tell you that when anti-nuclear activists in Canada categorized the Canadian government's financing the construction of nuclear power plants in China as a multi-billion dollar "subsidy" instead of a LOAN to be paid back with interest ... that was entirely typical of anti-nuclear activists everywhere in the world.

How can that possibly be? Well, it's because the nuclear industry is one of a few major industry (eg, semiconductors), that is a genuinely modern industry. It could not possibly have existed in the past because no part of it is comprehensible to a non-analytic. EVERY part of it is HUGELY complex. Every ASPECT of it is hugely complex. There is nothing about it that is simple.

There is absolutely nothing about the nuclear industry that your typically mentally retarded zealot is even remotely capable of comprehending or understanding. Not one thing. And that is why everything which spews out of anti-nuclear advocates is a lie, a misdirection, or a misrepresentation of some kind. Without exception.

In fact, not even the 'iconic imagery' of nuclear power plants is accurate. Not even something as simple as that. Every journalist who wants to pass off a picture of a nuclear power plant looks for cooling towers. Only, coal plants have cooling towers too. Most power plants do. What identifies nuclear power plants are the containment buildings with their domes.

Non-analytics and non-experts in the field literally couldn't get a single thing right.

Did you know that the steel pipes in a nuclear power plant, the ones that transmit high pressure high temperature steam, aren't even steel? :D They're metal and they're an alloy, but they're not principally made out of iron. They're made out of nickel - hasteloy. Or the cheap ones are just internally lined with hasteloy but you can't exactly dismiss the lining as unimportant because it's what makes the pipes work. Even something that simple. And it's so across the board.

Nuclear power should NEVER be a popular issue because the vast majority of the population is totally incapable of understanding or comprehending any aspect or component of its operation. Nuclear power is one of those wondrous areas where human civilization has completely outstripped its pathetic magical-thinking forebears. It probably won't surprise you to find out that the French nuclear union is explicitly communist.

Come to think of it, that's WHY zealots hate nuclear power so much. Because literally no part of it is comprehensible to them. Because it's a monument to their idiocy.

Nuclear Industry Needs More Accidents To Prosper

Nuclear accidents are a bad thing? A terrifying or worrisome thing?

(scoff) Yeah right. I've got news for you, supertankers cause oil spills, coal plants kill a million people each and every year in Western Europe! Hydroelectric dams break, causing enormous deadly floods. And oil refineries blow up too. And guess what? That's ALSO "simply damage we can't undo yet". But the difference is that nobody expects them to! EVER. But nuclear? It's so fucking clean that you almost realistically expect it to be 100.000% clean. What a fucking joke!

No industrial activity will EVER be totally clean. Absolutely NOTHING in physical reality CAN be. Worse comes to worse, protons decay! Enough eons pass and you've got a small but non-zero chance of a micro-black hole forming by quantum tunneling and destroying something. Everything dies, all things. Everything comes to dust. But nuclear? You seriously expect it to be ETERNAL. Because it's the power of the GODS! Talk about unrealistic expectations.

The truth is this. If a Chernobyl happened each and every year, it wouldn't be a big deal. How many people died from those two incidents? 50-something? It beats the million people who are dying from air pollution in Europe each and every year.

I'm not an apologist for the nuclear industry because I think it's got nothing to apologize for. As far as I'm concerned, we should have MORE nuclear accidents because then people would get fucking used to them! But no, realistically, Fukushima is the last nuclear accident that's gonna happen in the next century. Fucking crap.

Enviros Caused The Financial Collapse

One regulatory perspective is that environmentalism has played a much greater role than people think. It induced a deep skepticism about anything involving the manipulation of nature or material objects in the real world. The response to environmentalism was to prohibit scientists from experimenting with stuff and only allow them to do so with bits. So computer science and finance were legal, and what they have in common is that they involve the manipulation of bits rather than stuff. They both did well in those forty years, but all the other engineering disciplines were stymied. Electric engineering, civil engineering, aeronautical, nuclear, petroleum—these were all held back, and attracted fewer talented students at university as the years went on. When people wonder why all the rocket scientists went to work on Wall Street, well, they were no longer able to build rockets. It’s some combination of an ossified, Weberian bureaucracy and the increasingly hostile regulation of technology.

I just read this passage in an interesting article which you have to take with a grain of salt cause the guy's a dumbass right-libertarian who talks about blind spots but is remarkably blind himself.

BUT this part seems true, especially about scientists and engineers being brutally prohibited from playing with nuclear bombs. Think about what could have been done!

Nuclear cannons to launch huge amounts of supplies into orbit cheaply. A nuclear Orion starship. Nuclear bombs as demolition charges for mining / quarrying / canal digging.

Think about it: what kind of a dirty bastard would play on the stock market if they had even a slim chance of playing with LIVE NUKES! It's not even a contest, there is just no fucking way!

So it's clear, the enviros did wreck the world! They wrecked it by causing the financial collapse. And they caused THAT by causing the financialization of the world in the first place. Enviros hate industrial economies with a passion and they quite gleefully destroyed the First World's industrial economies "by accident".

Now if only the criminal justice system could see to it that causing widespread poverty (and thus mass death) was a crime so that it was okay to kill environmentalists in self-defense. But that will never happen because judges are middle upper class and they interpret laws (which being contradictory can be used to logically conclude anything) in a typically middle upper class way.

Power Glows - Only Nuclear Power Glows

There was a rambling useless discussion on Rod Adams' Atomic Insights blog about moving away from self-destructive marketing by the nuclear industry. Because all that emphasis on safety is just as self-destructive as an American politician declaring out of the blue "no, I am not a homosexual".

Then there was the stupid suggestion by someone that the nuclear industry emphasize how "green" it is. Except that too is self destructive since “green” is a propaganda word owned by the enemy. And what's so laughable about green is it's the colour of money in the USA. Hence the colour of the rich. Which is of course who bankrolls the anti-industry anti-human movements.

I of course have an obvious proposal to all this aimless useless confused scratching of heads among pro-nuclear advocates. I propose we call nuclear a BLUE power source. Mmmm blue. In fact, it’s a GLOWING BLUE power source. And since we all know from cartoons and anime that Power Glows it behooves pro-nuclear advocates to use this obvious selling point.

(And it's true too. Stars glow. Supernovas glow. Quasars glow. Lightning bolts glow. Lasers glow. Even fire and lava glow! And if you count sonoluminescence then even sound waves glow ... if they are powerful enough. Glow => Power in the human mind.)

Take a look at this picture which could easily have come off of a pro-nuclear advertisement (but didn't) and tell me that doesn't give you a warm glow inside. Fuck all that submarines and electricity shit. That's all fucking worthless. You want a message that will resonate with people? Keep it simple.

Only nuclear energy glows with power. Because REAL power glows!

The corollary is that so-called “green” energy sources don't glow because they are WEAK! And equally obvious, to me anyways, is the reason why Gaians hate nuclear energy. Because it is powerful. And this conflicts with their submissive worship of Gaia.

Future of Nuclear

There are many incredibly ridiculous people who talk about transitioning away from nuclear power and towards weak ambient power sources (the propagandistically misnamed "renewables"). In these people's views, the world is entirely static and unchanging but there is this magical fairy called The Future that will transform their chosen power source (through magic) to do anything they wish, irregardless of the laws of physics.

Ridiculous is a grossly inaccurate term for this batshit insane magical thinking. I happen to know all of the developments promised for wind, solar and nuclear and while some of the future developments of wind (but not solar) are impressive, they don't actually nullify that source of energy's inherent weaknesses. And future developments in nuclear power aren't "impressive", they are revolutionary.

Some of these ridiculous people are putting a 25 year timeline to "transition away" from nuclear power. Which is entirely ridiculous and unrealistic. At least if they'd said 100 years then I could allow for solar power satellites or other such technology but whatever. Within 25 years, wind power will almost certainly gain high altitude from kites, wings or other techniques and so bump up to a solid 40% reliability onshore, improve economics and siting issues, and reduce the infrasound pollution problems.

Nuclear Revolution

Within 25 years, revolutionary technologies like small nuclear, high temperature nuclear and nuclear gas turbines will all come online. With some luck even thorium, molten salt and chemist's designs will be developed, though the time horizon there is more realistically 40 years to deployment. Why do I say these are revolutionary? Well,

• small nuclear plants will do away with the enormous expense (and unsightliness) of long-distance transmission lines, something that wind power will never be able to do since it actually multiplies transmission lines (another dirty side of wind power that's rarely spoken of)
• high temperature nuclear will be vastly more efficient (thus cheaper) and assuming the temperature is high enough allow entirely new applications like providing heat for industrial process, something ambient power sources will NEVER be able to do (sun-powered forges have been tried & failed already while electric arc furnace mills will move out of the country rather than pay for expensive electricity)
• nuclear gas turbines will allow NPPs to be dispatched (ramp up and down) very rapidly, opening up the potential to displacing single-cycle gas turbines and even hydroelectric dams. The competitor here is natural gas, ambient power sources need not apply!

So in 25 years, nuclear power will be entrenched as never before. It will definitely be powering mining sites, oil rigs, remote towns, and small islands. It will probably be competing against hydroelectric dams. And it will possibly be used in the chemical industry at refineries.

Thorium, molten salt, and chemists' designs are all equally as revolutionary, though their advantages are far more esoteric. Things the typical end user hardly cares about but the mining industry, nuclear industry and politicians definitely will.

In other words, for all the delusional crap about transitioning "away from" nuclear power, the reality is the future will involve transitioning TOWARDS nuclear power. Something we have honestly just barely begun. Something even France has barely begun when you keep in mind the massive potential of nuclear power.

Not Just Energy

And I haven't even mentioned laser enrichment which will collapse the price of fuel for nuclear power plants down to raw uranium, utterly changing the game there. It will also drastically shorten the acquisition period for nuclear bomb material, as well as make this activity undetectable. Both of which are excellent news for everyone who hasn't lived under the umbrella of peace provided by nuclear missiles. Something which anyone who's read about the confrontation Khrushchev had with the suicidal madman JFK will agree with.

Yes so when I said we had a glorious nuclear future, I wasn't restricting this to nuclear energy. The only fly in this ointment is truck bombs. Nuclear truck bombs to be exact. Bombs whose provenance you can't trace. Missiles are great for peace. Truck bombs, not so much. Or are they? Maybe a few rich cities getting blown up by terrorists will make the world's rich people take seriously the demands of disenfranchised poor people. When a poor person can light a nuclear fire in your gated community, the balance of power between rich and poor is going to change drastically. We'll be living in very interesting times.

I won't mourn when Tel Aviv is incinerated. I'll be too busy laughing at all the politicians scrambling to remake this world into a socialist paradise where poor people are happy, happy, happy.

Germany's New Old Anti-Nuclear Stance

I was asked to comment about the seeming about-face in nuclear policy in Germany. Well, there is no about-face in Germany. They were always nutso anti-human romantic fascists on the subject of energy and always will be.

The narrative seems to be "we trusted the nuclear industry and they lied" but this is a blatant fucking lie. They NEVER trusted nuclear power. They are delusional fuckers if they think they ever did. The nuclear industry is by far the safest industry. Safest does not mean "risk-free" since NOTHING like that is even remotely theoretically possible. Even if you had an entirely white-collar industry, you could still say that X engineers died of heart attacks during the tenure of their jobs. Or that X artificial intelligences died from their supporting hardware undergoing proton decay.

But "risk-free" is the exact standard the Germans want it since they hate, positively HATE, nuclear power as a deep down gut reaction. It isn't even paranoia, it's hatred. Any misstep, any stumble, even one that is recovered from fully, is an excuse to hate nuclear power as far as the Germans are concerned. The reason I say this is the extreme similarity between the poor white racists in the USA and Germans, each claiming victim status to justify their hatred.  It isn't fear they're displaying since fear is something to be fought and conquered. They're displaying resentment, bitterness and smug vindication. All emotions tightly associated with hatred.

You probably have no idea but the media over there in Germany is claiming that 1) Fukushima is as bad as Chernobyl, a claim which is unbelievably bald-faced lying since the radiation at the front gate of Fukushima at its worst was never as bad as 20 kilometers away from Chernobyl. 2) the exclusion zone the Japanese drew will be a permanent radioactive graveyard for the next 100,000 years. Another claim which is unbelievable in the sheer audacity of its lying since radiation levels should die down to insignificance around Fukushima within a year. And this year-long period is a severe blow to me personally since I expected it to be done within 3 months or so before I looked up the facts.

The exclusion zone in Japan could last for longer than a year for purely political reasons. Just as surely the anti-nuclear revival in Japan could continue. But I have severe doubts that will happen given that Japan is up against the wall economically. And they were up against the wall BEFORE the tsunami hit and did one trillion yen in damage and killed ten thousand people. Can Japan afford expensive anti-human policies? No. Will the political pressures for rational industrial policies overwhelm the anti-human hatred? That is a very good question and I am eager to see.

Needless to say, Germany is a lost cause. But then again, I considered it a lost cause ever since Merkel started talking about raiding the German nuclear industry in order to pay for the morbidly obese subsidies they've given the parasitic German solar and wind industries. Because of course they couldn't kill off those deadbeat industries even when the German government is running ridiculous deficits. No, I had my "what the fuck is this shit?!?" moment about the German nuclear industry a long time ago. Germany's attitude after Fukushima barely made me pause. Though the German media's blatant lying about what did and will happen at Fukushima did piss me off.

A Response To George Monbiot's Turnaround on Nuclear

I just read the most fascinating article by George Monbiot and I had to respond.

Still the Same

George, you still profess hatred for "the liars in the nuclear industry" (whoever they might be, I'm at quite a loss) but embrace the anti-human scumbag liars in your own "green" movement. What a paragon of truth and moral rectitude you are!

It's by no coincidence that green is the colour of money. It's because you and your ilk are just foot-soldiers of the aristocracy waging endless war against humanity. Yes, you still are an anti-human eco-zealot in my book even if you've repented of your most grievous sins.

It Almost Sounds Like ...

Your article was surprising since it almost sounds like you've read my blog posts, something I doubt. Starting with your switching from the false & misleading term "renewable" to the technically correct ambient (low-powered hence weak and useless).

But mostly, it almost sounds like you've read my scorning hatred of you self-righteous egotistical assholes that sanctimoniously decree everyone not your rich white elite selves ought to freeze in the cold and the dark, in misery, starvation, disease and poverty. "Sustainably", that is to say, forever.

Man vs Nature

I keep hearing recently all this moronic talk of "loving the land", from people who ignore the corollary "hate humanity". The converse is true of course, to love humanity you have to hate the land. Because humanity is at war with a capricious fickle nature and always will be until one of them is destroyed. And since nature is stupid, I guarantee you it won't be nature that wins.

It amazes me how anyone can be so twisted up inside, so anti-social, and let's face it downright psychopathic as to love filthy dirt above human beings! But whatever, yeah, you're still one of those moronic saps that "loves the land" George. The proof is in the fact you still haven't rejected the twisted up "deep ecology" scum that hate humanity with a passion and want us all to die. In the eternal war of man versus nature, you side AGAINST humanity.

Still a Tool

I know you haven't read my blog posts and are on the whole incapable of learning. You're just reacting to personal experience, even if that personal experience is on TV. The proof of this is you still haven't learned about the Wet Sahara effect or about Freeman Dyson's comprehensive denunciation of the whole field of "climate research".

(I note here that I didn't need that denunciation. I recognized the smell of crap coming off of the field years before Dyson weighed in to tell us exactly where the crap was and exactly how large it still is.)

George, you still harp about "climate change" as if it were a bad thing. Though I suppose it actually is a bad thing for your entrenched aristo masters. But then, it's not news that you're still a tool, is it? You're a journalist (or columnist, whatever) which obviates even the possibility of you mattering on your own terms.

What It's All About

And since you are a tool, this article had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the industrial needs of England. Coal has been written off because of those nasty coal-miners' unions. Gas has been written off because any pipelines pass through France. Which leaves nuclear and ... nothing else. It's that simple.

This article isn't about the change of heart of a person of principle, since you haven't changed your heart and you have no principles. This article is about England's industrial policy, pure and simple.

Orwellism isn't limited to the USA

So-called "third way" politics in the last decade meant right-wingers using left-wing rhetoric. It was loathesome crap. Fortunately it was self-limiting since "third way" politicians couldn't get away with their lies when their subjects were suffering for it.

More worrying is so-called "civil society" which refers to NGOs paid for and ruled by aristocrats. (They follow the corporate model with shareholders after all, not the cooperative model at all.) What "civil society" means as an ideal is the opposition to responsible government (whether democratic or dictatorial) in favour of rule by aristocrats ... through the back door.

The development of "civil society" is a scourge on any country that has it. China most recently has been beset by nutballs promoting weak ambient power sources (so-called "renewables"). South Korea has been beset by anti-nuclear nutballs.

While we're on the topic, so-called "renewables" are another Orwellism since there is nothing particularly renewable about power derived from thermonuclear reactions in the Sun that doesn't apply to fission power derived from burning already radioactive remnants of supernovae.

Remnants that can be found in plenty both in the granite that makes up all mountains and in the seawater of every ocean. Cheaply enough to be economical too, if we had to go that route. And since the Sun will become unusable in a mere 5 billion years whereas thorium should still be usable for ten billion of years, fission is actually MORE "renewable".

This scourge of "civil society" has brought about calamity in nation after nation. Witness the so-called "environmental" (another Orwellism! they're really the anti-industrial / anti-human movement) NGOs in Germany which flourished so well under Nazism.

Thanks to its "environmental" movement, Germany has a psychotic national energy policy, one totally divorced from physical reality. Billions of euros are being forcibly taken from ratepayers and taxpayers in order to "pay" for "investments" that produce neither electricity nor reduce CO2 emissions.

And it's not just money going down the drain or Germans being impoverished thanks to the ideals of fascists. It's also Germany's nuclear know-how that's stagnating and being dismantled instead of flourishing and sharpening. It's also tens of thousands of Europeans having their lives shortened thanks to German coal plants.

The so-called "environmental" NGOs only reveal themselves as the bought and paid for aristocratic, anti-human scum they are when they fail to protest coal plants (in the USA) or natural gas plants (in Germany) despite both of these putting out copious greenhouse gases.

No, Orwellism isn't limited to the USA. It's found all over the world. Because of course there are magical-thinking idiots willing and eager to buy that double-speaking tripe the world over.

Orwellism is also found in every subject. History for example. How many people know Sparta as the loathsome North Korea-esque cesspit of oppression it really was? How many people know Plato and Socrates as the lying anti-democratic pieces of shit they really were?

Apparently George Lucas was right, people are not only magical-thinking idiots, they're the kinds of idiots that desperately want to be ruled by kings. And you know what? I sincerely desire they get exactly what they wish for. Because I want to see their faces when they're being lashed and I get to tell them 'I told you so you dumb motherfucker'.

Fusion Will NEVER Be Viable

I've never been interested in fusion because I knew it wouldn't be viable for at least 50 years. Why bother worrying or hyping about it when it's crap? Well, I just did a spot of research into it and what I've found is simply amazing.

The main line of research is crap because the fuel they need to use (tritium) would cost millions per kilogram. This compares extremely poorly to uranium which can be had for less than 100$ per kg. Even extracting uranium from seawater costs less than 1000$ per kilogram.

Note that there isn't much conversion needed since all proposed fusion processes produce energy per kilogram of fuel at rates roughly equivalent to fission of uranium.

Let's not forget the fact that D-T fusion produces 30 times (*) the amount of neutron radiation per kilogram as uranium fission. Neutron radiation is the kind that causes things to become radioactive. I hope you love nuclear waste because D-T fusion makes fission look waste-free.

The yo-yos who want to go to the moon to mine Helium-3 say crap like "that 25-tonne load of He3 would worth on the order of $75 billion today, or $3 billion per tonne". Of course, this is a blatant lie. Helium-3 isn't worth $3 billion per tonne, it costs $3 billion per tonne. What it's actually worth if you're using it as fuel in a fusion power plant is less than $50,000 per tonne, or 60,000 times less than they're claiming.

This doesn't mean that helium-3 mining can't happen economically. It just can't happen with chemical rockets. You need nuclear (fission) rockets to get to the moon and mine that helium-3 economically. And I'm really assuming here that it'll be economical, but if you're going to be using nuclear fission rockets, if nuclear fission has gained that much political and social respectability, then why bother with a fusion reactor at all?

Why harness the power of a twinkling little star when you can harness the power of a supernova? That's where all Uranium comes from, from the r-process running up the neutron drip line, from the blazing heart of an exploding stellar super-giant. The hype around fusion defies comprehension even as mindless sun worship. Don't people realize our sun is nothing, nothing, compared to something that outshines a galaxy. It's like wishing to cuddle up to a candle when you have a roaring bonfire next to you.

But that's not where the fun ends with fusion research. You see, there's an "alternative" line of research which advertises being able to use everyday normal crap like Borax (boron) and that its reactors will be so cheap they could be built in someone's garage ....

Well problem is they can only do that if the fuel is totally pure. Boron must be purified from 80% to >99.7%, otherwise those dippy little reactors built in people's garages will kill everybody near them. The best part is that even though Borax costs $2 per kilo, pure boron costs around $5000-10,000 per kilogram depending on its purity. And you want to use that for fuel? Yeah, that's not going to happen. Don't expect any economies of scale either since industry is already making the stuff in massive quantities.

But the fun doesn't end there. You see, pure boron in fusion reactors wouldn't cut it. No siree, you need pure boron-11. Because if you shoved any boron-10 (which is 20% of natural boron) into your garage-built fusion reactor, it would ... kill everyone around it. What you really want is pure boron-11 and as it happens we do have plenty of boron-11 around since boron-10 is used as a neutron radiation absorbent by ... the nuclear fission industry.

So you see, it's beautiful. It really is. If you try to build fusion reactors to replace fission reactors then those fusion reactors won't have any fuel. The only way we'd ever have little fusion reactors in people's garages is if we have giant fission plants in every city.

*: deuterium (2 nucleons) + tritium (3 nucleons) -> helium-4 (4 nucleons) + 1 neutron for 20% of mass. In comparison, uranium (235 nucleons) + neutron -> a smorgasbord of stuff + 2.5 neutrons on average, for a net production of 1.5 neutrons (0.6% of mass) on average.

Reply to a Tree Hugger's Change of Heart on Nuclear

Here is my reply to Geoff Russel's 'Rethinking Nuclear'. For obvious reasons, it will disappear from Geoff's site.

In order to reduce the USA's CO2 emissions by just half, carbon has to be completely eliminated from the power generation industry. Carbon can be eliminated from power generation quite easily by adopting nuclear power plants. It can be eliminated at a massive profit, with the side-effect of freeing up most rail transport capacity from coal transport, thus making railways a viable passenger transport again. It cannot ever be eliminated by any combination of solar, wind or other ambient (what you mistakenly call "renewables") power. The sun doesn't shine at midnight and the wind never blows throughout the night.

These are simple and obvious facts. Renewables are a very bad technology if your goal is to decarbonize the power industry. You claim to have that goal. And if you do not then you are an idiot. But having that goal, your proposed solution is an epic failure. Thus you are an idiot.

It's worse than that. You seriously propose a politically non-viable perfect solution (IFR) against a semi-viable good solution (Gen III). That makes you an idiot squared.

It's even worse than that. For decades, you have been mindlessly railing about the "risks" of nuclear power out of a puerile hatred of big business. In all of that time you didn't give a flying fuck about the millions dying from poverty, the lack of electrification, and the lack of industrialization. Fuck no, you loved that they were dying.

You said it yourself, the only thing that changed the game for you is another hysterical paranoid threat to your personal survival, the threat of global warming. Because nobody (big business) and nothing (nuclear) can ever be allowed to ameliorate and better the world unless YOUR fat white elite ass benefits. You are a despicable scumbag and an idiot to the third power.

And that's not even the worst part of it. Because you see, the worst part of it is that you are a lying fucking HYPOCRITE. You go out of your way to accuse and condemn Howard & Zwitkowski of craven selfish cronyism. Craven selfish cronyism which you engage in yourself!

You are an abomination to all that is good. You are a blight on this planet and in this universe. You are an offense to morality. You are a stain on moral humanity.

My most serious proposal for how you personally can better the world is this. Shoot yourself. Put a bullet through your head and spare the world of the misery of having you in it. That is how you can best help save the world. By removing your miserable awe-inspiring idiocy from it.

I'm reproducing this comment on my blog since idiots, lacking the capacity for a rational response, do idiotic things when the offensive truth is pointed out. But hey, the notion of the unvarnished truth being offensive is exceedingly offensive to me.