Obama’s Rare Earths WTO filing against China – How about reviewing THORIUM regulation too?
Already, China is restricting supply so that REEs will be completely consumed domestically.
Heavy REEs are key to high-tech manufacturing… Obama barely scratched the surface on their importance. There are plenty of heavy REE in US not just waiting to be mined, but sitting in tailing ponds and waste streams.
A petition has been launched: http://wh.gov/5OX
And I’m willing to ship a free DVD to anyone keen on propagating this information. Email me gordonmcdowell@gmail.com I’ll fire one off from Kunaki to you.
The DVD contains THORIUM REMIX 2011 & a series of lectures:
- fluoride chemistry
- cancer-fighting medial isotopes
- thorium regulation
- politics that killed Th-MSR research
- thorium wasted in tailing ponds (along with heavy REEs)
- China’s REE monopoly
THORIUM REMIX 2011 gives an overview of how THORIUM can be consumed in a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (to end energy dependence), WHY solar/wind don’t cut it, and why EVEN IF YOU LOVE RENEWABLES you’re sort of stuck mining for heavy REE anyway… if you want to build the solar/wind components domestically!
I mean no matter how I cut this… worried about CO2 or not… loving renewables or not… wanting to reduce radioactive waste or not… partitioning heavy REE and thorium out of tailing ponds and putting those assets to use is a BIG WIN for everyone. (Except China.)
I’m working on a sequel. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gordonmcdowell/thorium-remix-2012-feature-film-to-propagate-hard
…but by the time the sequel is completed, China will be in a far stronger manufacturing position due to continued leveraging of their heavy REE monopoly, AND will have further overtaken US in Thorium Molten-Salt Research. If you want to address this NOW, the only means I can see is me mailing out DVDs, and people who care mailing them to representatives with cover letters.
If you’re willing to ping a congressman about this, I’m happy to ship a free DVD to you. Very happy to do so.
Note: Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor can be expressed Th-MSR. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor expressed LFTR. LFTR is a specific design category of Th-MSR reactors. Th-MSR is a design category within Gen4 reactors. Thorium consumed in a solid fuel reactor (such as India is pursing) is not an improvement over today’s reactors. India pursues (solid fuel) Thorium (reactors) because they lack Uranium resources. China is pursuing Th-MSR, the technology generally recommended by thorium advocates.