Some infor about Thorium:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/kirk-sorensen-detailed-exploration-thoriums-potential-energy-source

Talisman Browns - 04 August 2012 11:09 AM

The United Nations released a new assessment of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown yesterday, saying the worst health consequences for millions of people may be yet to come.

“At least 100 times as much radiation was released by this accident as by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined” at the end of World War II, said a 32-page booklet released to mark the 14th anniversary of the disaster.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000426&slug=4017441

The answer is, going forward, to guard against the same Soviet sloppiness that led to the incineration of their space program at Nedelin—and to the Chernobyl disaster.

Fukushima’s disaster was good ole USA design - GE we brought good things to life…
CEO of GE says nuclear power “really hard” to defend financially — “At some point, really, economics rule”
http://enenews.com/breaking-ceo-of-ge-says-nuclear-power-really-hard-to-defend-financially-at-some-point-really-economics-rule

About 2,700 gallons of water from the spent fuel pool at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant drained into a wastewater system on July 22.
http://www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=5817&page=1

What is the safe level of radiation? ZERO!
http://www.nuclearreader.info/chapter4.html
http://concernforhealth.org/radiation-is-always-dangerous-says-world-health-organization-director-general/

Talisman Browns - 05 August 2012 05:35 AM

Fukushima’s disaster was good ole USA design - GE we brought good things to life…/

Placement of emergency power generators is up to the power company not the reactor designer/builder. Nor is the reactor designer/builder responsible for sub-standard maintenance of infrastructure.

The reactor was built 40 years ago. Meanwhile, the maze of coolant pipes, etc. has been maintained so poorly that (a) not all pipe welds can be visually inspected and (b) when pipes didn’t fit togther, they’d use heavy machinery to pull/deform them into place and hold them together while welding the seams shut. Sounds suspiciously like more Soviet-style sloppiness and negligence.

My informers repeat it is GE. The Fukushima reactors are mark 1’s and 3 of the designers quit and were hanged by the media because they said this could happen. The Mark 1 was desiged for subamarines in 1971.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Geiger counter reading 500 days after 3/11 - peaks at 4.15 counts per minute of cesium (man made radioactive fallout), normal reading is o.15- o.20 (radon wash out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeOvlH__TBM&feature=share

Remedy: Germany installed about 1000mw of wind energy, about 400 wind turbines in the first half of 2012. 1000mw is about equivalent to the output of one nuclear power plant. This was about a 26% increase over the same period in 2011. http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=7013

Innovation or just natural energy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuiPDBA3XZI

I don’t see any point in belaboring this. The Fukoshima plant was cited in the past for all sorts of violations and issues having nothing to do with the core reactor itself, but with all the lifelines that plug into it that keep it going and safe. (As in using heavy machinery to pull together coolant pipe that never fit right in the first place.)

As for Wikipedia, it’s free, you get what you pay for.

As for deforestation (noticed J’s earlier post), I already complained 15 years ago when our biggest financial industrial deal was outsourcing our deforestation to some (I believe it was Swedish) outfit.

Lastly to all the complainers and activists here:

#1: What is your solution to energy independence from Russia (directly) and energy independence from the EU (which in turn is increasingly dependent on Russia)? This has to be a economically viable and sustainable solution.

For example, just because natural gas prices are at a historic low doesn’t mean they won’t go back to 4-5 times the current price, which is where prices were not that long ago.

#2: Please answer #1.

All the rest of the debate here is pointless.

#1
Energy independence is conditional upon what standard of living Latvians expect and deserve; and what is to be considered a normal lifestyle going forward (see Prometheus).  There is a natural organic solution, that if it was planted in 8% of America’s agricultural land would replace ALL gas imports for the US (for example).  Over 50,000 products can be made from it, its seeds are the most nutritious bio-available food next to mother’s milk ...
Once oil prices quadruple due to ‘peak oil’ - we will see the vaults open up with cheap energy solutions… since oil companies and vulture investors have the patents to free energy models (Tesla, etc)
#2
You miss the point of this thread entirely then - or take it as an unfounded attack upon your status quo.  Latvians (Balts) have been valued by the Commonwealth and the former CCCP as being aware and capable of dealing with disasters, including nuclear. Sticking your head in the sand is un-Latvian, and an insult to your ancestors who have perservered and your children (future generations) who will have to wipe the sand from your eyes.
Potentially devastating swelling and cracks discovered at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant reactor No 1, while spokesman denies problems
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/LNPPone_cracks
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/28/us-japan-nuclear-tuna-idUSBRE84R0MF20120528
Radioactive kelp is California’s “most under-reported story of the spring” — “It’s been somewhat radioactive off-and-on for months”
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/04/09/trace-levels-of-radiation-found-in-seaweed-along-southern-calif-coast/
These nuclear reactors are on the verge of wiping out the northern hemisphere.
Please provide a source for your assertions re. US non-culpability in Fukushima’s General Electric Mark 1 nuclear reactor designs.
#3
Meanwhile Finland struggles to cap the genie of its new nu clear energy plant and the US has to deal with extending the shelf life of its old plants.
“In a move that flabbergasts its critics, Progress Energy Florida plans to spend more than $200 million of its customers’ money to upgrade the Crystal River nuclear power plant.
This is the same plant that:
• Broke three years ago during another upgrade project.
• Has not produced a kilowatt of power since.
• Would cost at least $3 billion to repair including related power expenses.
• May never be restarted°”
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/article1244093.ece

N.B. Wikipedia is not peer reviewed? How much do I have to pay for information for it to be deemed credible - incredible

#1:At the present time, energy independence from Russia is an unrealizable dream. There is no such thing either for Latvia, Lithuania, or for that matter for the Russians themselves. Why? Because we have sworn allegiance to perpetual “growth” and given over our independence to the leadership of one fascist (self and limited interest) regime or another.

I am with TB (see above #2) as it confirms my gut sense that “Latvians (Balts) have been valued by the Commonwealth and the former CCCP as being aware and capable of dealing with disasters”.... Unfortunately, both capitalism and communism have managed to screw up the self-sufficiency of Latvians, and appears to have come to a second life at LOL.

I am both perplexed and amazed at how wedded everyone is to our unsustainable life style: lots of cars, paved highways, most everyone living in a city and not giving a f*** about the countryside, seashore covered by plastic garbage, nuclear energy boiled water turning turbines, going to Madonna or Lady Gaga concerts—all simply to see to what year seven billion people (9 by 2050) can sustain an unsustainable life style.

As for myself, I have not yet given up on the horse. I am told that a well known stable in Burtnieki, about 18 km from my place, still keeps a prize stud, who someday may help reproduce the work horse of days past. My neighbour whose grandfather once raised horses in Abrene, and whose father was one of the few nearby farmers still driving about our pagasts a horse drawn cart, claims that if he had to, he would know enough to break in a horse.

For all that, I believe that TB is on to something by advocating an “organic solution”. It also seems to me that Vecrumba is all too ready to make pact with Goethe’s devil.

Alas, lost my longer response in progress,...

Short response, TB, what the U.S. can plant is utterly irrelevant. We’ve already seen the Gazpromization of Latvia. The Russian government and its energy monopoly have us by our tender privates.

#1. What part of Gazpromization is not acceptable do people not understand?
#2. What are we going to do about it?

Estonia has enough shale oil to last half a century or so. Lithuania is building nuclear. Latvia has the (if I recall) one of the largest if not the largest natural gas storage facility in Europe. Oops, supplied by the Russians, controlled by the Russians, so sorry. We’ve already made a deal with the devil where our future sovereignty and autonomy are concerned, and it’s NOT the European Union that’s the problem.

Since I’ve been remiss in presenting links…
http://www.icds.ee/fileadmin/failid/Merle_Maigre-Energy_Security_Concers_of_the_Baltic_States.pdf

“As the first hydrogen explosion rocked the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) officials scrambled to prevent a second blast, at one point weighing the use of firearms to shoot a hole in the reactor building to release the pressure.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-07/tepco-weighed-using-firearms-to-avoid-fukushima-explosion.html

TB:

I don’t want to overstate the obvious, but if I were you - based on what your activist “informers” have apprised you of so far - I’d rethink any temptation to inhale any more of that high-quality Japanese weed. Stick to Acapulco Gold. There are indeed some human rights violation issues involved with the Mexican hemp crops, but my informers tell me that it has never been known to glow in the dark or be a truly sustainable energy source….so, absolutely no worries there.

Ar smaidu,

Al

Sign up for a chance to glow

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must not make final licensing decisions until it has completed a rulemaking action on the environmental impacts of highly radioactive nuclear waste in the form of spent, or ‘used’, reactor fuel storage and disposal, as required under the landmark Waste Confidence Rule decision of June 8th by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, according to a petition filed today by 22 groups and 2 individuals. This petition is to ensure that the environmental analysis directed by the Court is meaningfully incorporated into the licensing of nearly 35 reactors in a number of states.”
http://news.yahoo.com/nrc-petitioned-stop-final-licensing-decisions-nearly-three-202607680.html
http://www.cleanenergy.org/images/testimony/WasteConfidenceCourtDecision_USCA11-1045_StateNYetal_vsNRC_060812.pdf

N.B. who just won his 18th gold @ Olympics - Labais!
http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/08/06/banned-athletes-stunning-marijuana-claim/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APvCEqwvOg

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.”~Helen Keller

What informs me in my orientation and hence opinions are also news from the business world, and the projection of the state of finances and business in the near future.
The following from ZeroHedge:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-08/knight-capital-just-warm-big-one

#1. What part of the Gazpromization of Latvia is not acceptable do people not understand?
#2. What are we going to do about it? Realistically?

I don’t see any option than Lithuania replacing its nuclear power capability. Quite frankly, it has no choice as the EU has left it high and dry regarding the cost of the EU-mandated takedown of its Soviet reactors. Lithuania has to become an energy exporter again.

Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass on Nuclear Contamination and Cancer Part 1 “A Tsunami of Knowledge”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPO7Tft0YlQ&feature=relmfu

#1 I agree (not sure what your point is) In 1990 the slogan was independence “ar pastalām” - Latvians were willing to give up Russian cheap energy for freedom - now?
#2 Do you agree there is no safe level of radiation and long-term small doses are geneticly fatal.
That “Nuclear is the most inefficient method of producing electricity for the resources spent. It is actually a net loss.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br2__eDpL98&feature=youtube_gdata
So to realistically deal with the problem is through innovative technologies (thinking outside the box) and revolutionary social change. How realistic is that?  The Kingdom of God is close at hand./Jesus
#3 The port of Rīga main export has always been hemp (by a nautical mile) The war of 1812 was a direct result of blocking the crucial Russian hemp export to the Royal Navy. In 1937 Popular Mechanics cover feature was on new technologies to harvest hemp, this threatened the establishment’s status quo, so hemp prohibition was ‘railroaded’ through Congress.
Any major paradigm shift cannot occur without rebellion and violence.  We have the establishment’s reality, anything thing else is not credible, not realistic, blah,blah.blah
I have outlined the problems and the solutions - take it or leave it

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.”~Helen Keller