I’m trying to persuade folks in my area of the East Coast of the People’s Republic of Canuckistan (formerly Canada) to look at Small Modular Reactors for regional & industrial power as well as setting up at least one AI data centre.
FINALLY someone’s talking seriously about thorium reactors!
They’re much safer than uranium-fueled reactors. The big advantage is that they cannot melt down. Another big advantage is that you can’t make plutonium or U-235 from thorium. (Of course, that’s a disadvantage from a military standpoint.) It’s also less polluting in the mining and refining phases.
Don’t forget that thorium reactors, specifically LFTRs, can use ‘depleted’ fuel from Gen II and some Gen III reactors for fuel since they are de facto breeder reactors. We can make use of all of that stored ‘depleted’ fuel and do away with the need to store it away for 25,000+ years.
The same is true of other MSRs (Molten Salt Reactors).
Sorry to interject. I’ve done and published analyses on Th/U233 vs U/Pu239 fuel cycles. Quite similar. Both create about the same fission products and have decay heat issues. Both generate bomb making material, eg U233 is just as powerful as Pu239. U333 is easier to use in a bomb and harder to detect than Pu239. Both are waste management concerns, indeed U233 travels easier through the ground than Pu239. Molten salt reactors (regardless of fuel) do have advantages vs high pressure water or gas coolant.
The real point is that, now that we don’t have Soviet or Chinese proxy agitprop poisoning our attitude about the _actual_ danger of nuclear power in general, we are actually seriously thinking about energy “too cheap to meter” again.
With the public imagination now unleashed we’re now seeing practical and imaginative proposals. For instance, the notion of mini-reactors being installed in urban areas at the bottom of very deep wells. That would effectively make a reactor little more than an enhanced geothermal source.
December 9, 2025 at 12:52 am
JTC
Nukes have been the answer for power generation and more since the ’60’s. All hell was rained upon them to stop them and the advancements they enabled. And now, full circle, and with new tech making so much better we will get back to what could have been, and what might have been, for these past 60 years…so much time lost to stupid and evil.
I remember back in1954 when the Nautilus was the first nuclear-powered submarine. The prediction was, “Power so abundant they won’t even monitor how much you use.”
Then the “Green” movement filed lawsuits to make reactors insanely expensive, and in 1979 the Three Mile Island “disaster*” brought the whole industry to a halt across the U.S. (We were 30 miles away, in Lebanon, Pa. The problem wasn’t the reactor it was the Pennsylvania government’s pitiful response.)
* The only U.S. disaster where no one was injured, and no private property was damaged.
Someone else who’s read Petr Beckmann’s The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear.
December 9, 2025 at 4:27 am
Too Tall
J,
The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear by Petr Beckmann is an amazing book.
A work of non-fiction that is a good read and also works well as a textbook for engineering, economics, and political science.
December 9, 2025 at 10:42 am
The 300
I remember reading an article in the late 70s that revealed that the commies in the antiwar movement were looking for a cause after we pulled out of Vietnam and no one would rally to them anymore. They went with the antinukes push, both for weapons and for power as The Cause around which to coalesce the left. Once The Great Red Hope collapsed in 1992, they went straight to globull warming as their primary scam to finally get control of the means of production. If their true goal was sustainable energy that wouldn’t affect the climate, they would’ve been running to nuclear instead of windmills and solar, but they didn’t. At least not until now, when the tech bros like Bill Gates decided they need a bunch more juice for their AI farms and they know the peasants won’t put up with THAT much dark and cold to save the planet while the tech bros replace them with bots.
Fact of the matter is that if someone came up with a Back To The Future type Mr. Fusion that you could keep in your basement, the government would fund some physicists to “discover” that the neutrino emissions from Mr. Fusion rip at the fabric of spacetime and will develop a singularity in 97 years that will swallow your whole neighborhood.
A resilient, anti-fragile network of thorium SMRs is exactly what this country needs. Even better than the low cost and environmental benefits is that it enables the creation of a competitive market in electricity generation to get us all out of the ridiculously over-regulated, expensive, and corrupt cost-plus monopoly system that hobbles our economy today. I’ve read that there is more energy in the thorium that exists in our coal than there is in the coal, and apparently it is not difficult to extract.
But this Blood guy? It seems to me that the poor judgment and willingness to support evil which he revealed with his first two ideas make him unsuitable for one of Zed’s daughters.
She could be playing a much longer game, too. Get caught with illegals or H1B’s, no big deal. Get caught with unlicensed nuclear materials and the government gets a lot more interested.
Having done Subs , with included Reactors (PZR) Pressurized Water Reactors, Rickover Designs. I agree. with using shore power cables to supply electricity to external sources . The articles on Thorium reactors is really neat.
Sorry… Cheyenne Mountain id HQ for NORAD (or its modern equivalent). However, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been discussed as a nuclear waste storage ‘facility’ for decades now. Not even close to happening, but….
I learn so much from this toon. Thoughts on super critical CO2 and geothermal? Small modular nuclear reactors – why all the massive build up of data centers for AI when in 10 years the energy hubs could be the size of a 1,000 sqft house.
36 Comments
I think Johns only focus is on the top of that dress yielding to gravity.
I mean, mine sure is.
I had a pair of 38C I saw on a regular basis back in the early 80s… They had my undivided attention, nothing else matted at that moment.
I’m trying to persuade folks in my area of the East Coast of the People’s Republic of Canuckistan (formerly Canada) to look at Small Modular Reactors for regional & industrial power as well as setting up at least one AI data centre.
FINALLY someone’s talking seriously about thorium reactors!
They’re much safer than uranium-fueled reactors. The big advantage is that they cannot melt down. Another big advantage is that you can’t make plutonium or U-235 from thorium. (Of course, that’s a disadvantage from a military standpoint.) It’s also less polluting in the mining and refining phases.
Also, while uranium ore bodies (horsmatite) are relatively rare, thorium is about as common as lead In metamorphic rock strata.
It would take the human race a few million years to “run out” of usable natural thorium resources.
clear ether
eon
Don’t forget that thorium reactors, specifically LFTRs, can use ‘depleted’ fuel from Gen II and some Gen III reactors for fuel since they are de facto breeder reactors. We can make use of all of that stored ‘depleted’ fuel and do away with the need to store it away for 25,000+ years.
The same is true of other MSRs (Molten Salt Reactors).
Sorry to interject. I’ve done and published analyses on Th/U233 vs U/Pu239 fuel cycles. Quite similar. Both create about the same fission products and have decay heat issues. Both generate bomb making material, eg U233 is just as powerful as Pu239. U333 is easier to use in a bomb and harder to detect than Pu239. Both are waste management concerns, indeed U233 travels easier through the ground than Pu239. Molten salt reactors (regardless of fuel) do have advantages vs high pressure water or gas coolant.
The real point is that, now that we don’t have Soviet or Chinese proxy agitprop poisoning our attitude about the _actual_ danger of nuclear power in general, we are actually seriously thinking about energy “too cheap to meter” again.
With the public imagination now unleashed we’re now seeing practical and imaginative proposals. For instance, the notion of mini-reactors being installed in urban areas at the bottom of very deep wells. That would effectively make a reactor little more than an enhanced geothermal source.
Nukes have been the answer for power generation and more since the ’60’s. All hell was rained upon them to stop them and the advancements they enabled. And now, full circle, and with new tech making so much better we will get back to what could have been, and what might have been, for these past 60 years…so much time lost to stupid and evil.
I remember back in1954 when the Nautilus was the first nuclear-powered submarine. The prediction was, “Power so abundant they won’t even monitor how much you use.”
Then the “Green” movement filed lawsuits to make reactors insanely expensive, and in 1979 the Three Mile Island “disaster*” brought the whole industry to a halt across the U.S. (We were 30 miles away, in Lebanon, Pa. The problem wasn’t the reactor it was the Pennsylvania government’s pitiful response.)
* The only U.S. disaster where no one was injured, and no private property was damaged.
Someone else who’s read Petr Beckmann’s The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear.
J,
The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear by Petr Beckmann is an amazing book.
A work of non-fiction that is a good read and also works well as a textbook for engineering, economics, and political science.
I remember reading an article in the late 70s that revealed that the commies in the antiwar movement were looking for a cause after we pulled out of Vietnam and no one would rally to them anymore. They went with the antinukes push, both for weapons and for power as The Cause around which to coalesce the left. Once The Great Red Hope collapsed in 1992, they went straight to globull warming as their primary scam to finally get control of the means of production. If their true goal was sustainable energy that wouldn’t affect the climate, they would’ve been running to nuclear instead of windmills and solar, but they didn’t. At least not until now, when the tech bros like Bill Gates decided they need a bunch more juice for their AI farms and they know the peasants won’t put up with THAT much dark and cold to save the planet while the tech bros replace them with bots.
Fact of the matter is that if someone came up with a Back To The Future type Mr. Fusion that you could keep in your basement, the government would fund some physicists to “discover” that the neutrino emissions from Mr. Fusion rip at the fabric of spacetime and will develop a singularity in 97 years that will swallow your whole neighborhood.
It’s “settled science.”
Javier and Mari as business partners?
Did not have that on my Bingo Card.
SMR’s. Small Modular Reactors. Decentralized grid. Free market competition. Lions, tigers, bears. Oh my.
Dogs and cats living together –
Mass hysteria!
Especially hilarious considering the quote above of (Dr) Petr Beckmann…
Heinline mentioned this briefly in The Puppet Masters in 1951
It was also a prime mover in “Doc” smith’s novella “The Vortex Masters”, where individual businesses had their own nuclear power plants.
Zar Belk!
Great but why can’t she hookup with some good looking rugged farm, western type instead of this grease ball?
Precisely. Trust meter still showing ‘0’.
A resilient, anti-fragile network of thorium SMRs is exactly what this country needs. Even better than the low cost and environmental benefits is that it enables the creation of a competitive market in electricity generation to get us all out of the ridiculously over-regulated, expensive, and corrupt cost-plus monopoly system that hobbles our economy today. I’ve read that there is more energy in the thorium that exists in our coal than there is in the coal, and apparently it is not difficult to extract.
But this Blood guy? It seems to me that the poor judgment and willingness to support evil which he revealed with his first two ideas make him unsuitable for one of Zed’s daughters.
Blood’s only half listening.
I assume his brain is wholly focused on the idea that a dairy farm might be a very good investment right now.
Nice! Distract and redirect.
Seems as if Mari has been pulling the puppet’s strings. It’s not good to be the puppet.
She could be playing a much longer game, too. Get caught with illegals or H1B’s, no big deal. Get caught with unlicensed nuclear materials and the government gets a lot more interested.
Having done Subs , with included Reactors (PZR) Pressurized Water Reactors, Rickover Designs. I agree. with using shore power cables to supply electricity to external sources . The articles on Thorium reactors is really neat.
I always explain to people that nuclear reactors are just fancy hi-tech ways to boil water and make steam to turn turbines to get ‘electricity. https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1749
That said, Mari has a nice pair of Thorium reactors, ready for output production
Actually, I think those run on a rare isotope of Calcium!
Zar Belk!
Sure they’re not Titium powered ?
That’s like tritium, but there’s only two of them.
Are we sure that is not Jo (or Jeff)? Enticing Blood to South America, away from the ranch.
Re; Nuclear Reactors: not being knowledgeable
personally, I have always wondered if in time
a use for the waste product will be found.
I believe at this time a lot of N. waste is stored
in Cheyenne Mt. in Colorado.
I mean Beetles eat animal Dung.
Sorry… Cheyenne Mountain id HQ for NORAD (or its modern equivalent). However, Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been discussed as a nuclear waste storage ‘facility’ for decades now. Not even close to happening, but….
I learn so much from this toon. Thoughts on super critical CO2 and geothermal? Small modular nuclear reactors – why all the massive build up of data centers for AI when in 10 years the energy hubs could be the size of a 1,000 sqft house.
Mari: My speech bubbles are up here!
[everyone else] : Huh?
Had a short chat with an AI asking opinion on preferred future power source… it said geothermal. Didn’t go into details.