That would be a rational, well-informed counterargument against traditional nuclear power plants. It is not a counterargument against seed-level funding for R&D towards a completely new reactor technology, which has different economic and safety characteristics. Accelerator-based reactors, which are what have been proposed for publically-sponsored research in Norway, are a completely different beast. Yet they are treated as if it was a proposal to build 1050s Soviet-style reactors.
I am not trying to be hostile here, but you are making the exact same assumptions and fallacies as most of the Norwegian detractors to thorium reactor research. Although the criticism I was referring to in my post was rather the type you most commonly see: Uninformed dismissals of the type "We're still feeling the effects of Chernobyl", "Nuclear reactors are inherently unsafe" and "Nuclear waste cannot be handled in a safe way".
Traditional counterarguments to nuclear energy should not be enough to dismiss using a couple of million a year to look into promising, alternate solutions.
> ..would be rather 'pissing in the ocean' though on this issue, don't you think? (and thus could be considered a waste of money)
Again, as he stated. You are basing your hypothesis off of old nuclear technology. The same arguments were made against solar and wind. Many still believe it is a waste of money, yet we keep funding it. Why not also look into Thorium?
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That would be a rational, well-informed counterargument against traditional nuclear power plants. It is not a counterargument against seed-level funding for R&D towards a completely new reactor technology, which has different economic and safety characteristics. Accelerator-based reactors, which are what have been proposed for publically-sponsored research in Norway, are a completely different beast. Yet they are treated as if it was a proposal to build 1050s Soviet-style reactors.
I am not trying to be hostile here, but you are making the exact same assumptions and fallacies as most of the Norwegian detractors to thorium reactor research. Although the criticism I was referring to in my post was rather the type you most commonly see: Uninformed dismissals of the type "We're still feeling the effects of Chernobyl", "Nuclear reactors are inherently unsafe" and "Nuclear waste cannot be handled in a safe way".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcritical_reactor
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf35.html
Traditional counterarguments to nuclear energy should not be enough to dismiss using a couple of million a year to look into promising, alternate solutions.
>It is not a counterargument against seed-level funding for [thorium]..
Nor did i ever suggest it was! (NB: 'OTOH').
>a couple of million
..would be rather 'pissing in the ocean' though on this issue, don't you think? (and thus could be considered a waste of money)
> ..would be rather 'pissing in the ocean' though on this issue, don't you think? (and thus could be considered a waste of money)
Again, as he stated. You are basing your hypothesis off of old nuclear technology. The same arguments were made against solar and wind. Many still believe it is a waste of money, yet we keep funding it. Why not also look into Thorium?