Unit 4 Post Thorium

Global Issues   Andrew du Bois

Unit 4 Thorium: The Best Alternative Energy Source

The element thorium, in the organic form of Thorium-232, can be developed to create energy at a rate that is faster and a price that is cheaper than coal. Another major benefit of thorium is that it produces slightly more than 3% of the hazardous waste than a light water nuclear reactor creates. And, unlike its nuclear counterpart, the waste created by a thorium reactor, that is the waste that isn’t able to be extracted and formed back into distributable energy, is only environmentally toxic for 300 years. That is 1000 times less than the duration currently produced nuclear waste should be stored. This makes developing a long term storage solution for thorium waste much simpler than one for nuclear waste, which has been sucking up precious government funds through failed projects, exemplified by the Yucca Mountain fiasco that took $10 billion in government money and is still not functioning. If those reasons are not enough to convince one that thorium is the best form of alternative energy available, there is always the fact that so little of it is required to produce a reaction that the supply could never run out, supplying the planet with cheap and efficiently produced energy for as long as humans inhabit it. There are many innovations to explore when dealing with thorium, but in my opinion the most effective and the one that would bring the most benefit is a reactor that uses a substance known as molten salt. This molten salt reactor, or MSR, combines thorium and Uranium-233 into a salt mixture. The fluid then goes through the reaction, which removes the toxic waste, along with excess uranium, which can then be used again in a separate reaction. The unique aspect of a molten salt reactor is that the mixture acts as both the reaction to transfer heat into energy and as the matrix to combine the two isotopes, which initiates and sustains the reaction. To make all of this possible, it will require sufficient start up funds from the government to set up a series of reactors across the country. There will not need to be many reactors established, as the energy from a thorium reaction can be used to provide power to an immensely large radius of population. The cost to set this up, however, will not be a major issue. Despite the fact that developing a molten salt reactor does take sufficient funding, once it is created, all that is needed is a steady influx of thorium, which is naturally occurring and easy to obtain, and a supply of graphite which is used to regulate the reaction. A waste disposal site will also need to be established, but as previously mentioned waste products from the reactions are scarce and need to be kept out of the environment only for 300 years, so disposing of waste products should not be an issue. Another great aspect to thorium is, as previously discussed, the supply is endless and the waste is minimal, so there will be no need to curb the consumption to preserve the resource. People can be as wasteful as they please with the energy provided to them from a thorium development plant, because the environmental hazard is minute and there is no way the population could exhaust the supply. Once developed, the facts surrounding thorium can be displayed to the public, and, aside from the heads of oil and traditional nuclear power companies, it would be difficult to convince anyone to support another type of energy, as it is nearly impossible to find a way to produce fuel at a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/Thorium/

http://www.thoriumenergy.com/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/11/is-thorium-the-biggest-energy-breakthrough-since-fire-possibly/

This is a diagram of how a molten salt reactor would function

 The benefits of thorium energy and of the molten salt reactor are explained in this video

Open Yucca Mountain

The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, more commonly known simply as Yucca Mountain, is located in Nevada near the border with California. Nuclear power has long been a priority for the United States, as it provides us with a high powered form of energy which is relatively easy and cost efficient to maintain. A major problem with nuclear energy is how to deal with the fuel rods, which conduct the reactions creating the energy in the main reactors, once they become used up, or spent. Spent fuel rod disposal poses such a difficulty because they remain radioactive for vast durations of time, in many cases for over 1 million years. In the event that somebody from a later generation would stumble upon the repository and not be aware of it’s contents, it could not only cause a great deal of pain and suffering for the person who discovered it, but it could release radioactive toxins into the air, harming anyone near the point of release. This reason is exactly why I believe Yucca Mountain is the most logical choice as to where and how the nuclear waste should be stored. Yucca Mountain is a highly secure facility which is deeply embedded in the rock structure underneath a massive valley with no civilization in sight. The possibility of somebody stumbling across the facility in essentially the middle of nowhere are very slim, and in the event some explorer would discover it, there are warnings and depictive symbols placed all around the entrance to designate it as a site with major consequences should it be entered without taking the proper precautions. Another main point the opposition to the Yucca Mountain facility brings up when arguing for the continued closure of the facility is that the air around the facility will be polluted with radioactive material, which, if potent enough, could have major health effects on anybody in the near vicinity. However, this topic has been studied in great detail, and the findings show that the dose of radiation which inhabitants of nearby areas would be exposed to after 10,000 years of operation would still be over 100 times less than what somebody is exposed to while getting a simple medical procedure such as a hip X ray. As if these facts aren’t reason enough to put public unrest over the issue of Yucca Mountain to bed, the United States Senate conducted a major study in 2006, which was detailed in a report titled “Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet”. The paper was extensive, but reached several conclusions reinforcing the safety, security, and efficiency of Yucca Mountain. The conclusions stated, among other things, that the cost of not continuing on with the project would be immensely higher than simply operating the facility, nuclear waste disposal is a strong boost to national security, and that studies by geologists and environmentalists have proven that the facility is a safe environment to store radioactive material in, with little risk to the public who reside in surrounding areas for generations to come. A final reason which convinces me that Yucca Mountain repository needs to be reopened immediately is that the reason that it was closed down seems to be a very trivial and almost invalid. The federal government ceased funding the project in 2011, which is when it closed. The leader of the shutdown movement, and also the leader of the United States: President Obama, stated his reason for closing the facility was a politically motivated one, and not a choice based on security or safety concerns. Simply attempting to appease his environmentally conscious support group by closing the facility is an unacceptable reason to shut down a repository which could easily solve the ever pressing problem which is dealing with the waste produced from nuclear energy, which is only increasing and needs a permanent storage site immediately.

Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Entrance to the facility

A look inside the laboratory of Yucca Mountain

http://tessasglobalissues.blogspot.com/p/unit-3.html: This link is to Tessa's blog post about the Svalbard seed vault
http://globalissuesblake.blogspot.com/p/unit-3.html Blake's post about American food waste was eye opening about the amount of glut our country truly has
http://globalissuescatherinholmes.blogspot.com/p/unit-three.html This is Catherin's post about the poor lunches being given to the students of our schools, and the nutritional hazards these meals create

Garrick, John B. "Yucca Mountain: Pro & Con." IEEE Spectrum. IEEE, Oct. 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

Rojstaczer, Stuart. "PRO / Yucca Mountain / Yucca Mountain: A Pragmatic Solution to Storing Nuclear Waste." SFGate. San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

Farnham, Alan. "Nuclear Waste: Yucca Mountain Gets Reprieve As Storage Site." ABC News. ABC News Network, Aug. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2013.

          McDonaldization

              McDonaldization is a process which is occurring all across the world, and while it is tying cultures together through globalization, it is also causing negative consequences throughout society. McDonaldization is a term created by a sociologist named George Ritzer when he wrote his book The McDonaldization of Society in 1993. He describes this term as what happens whenever a culture begins to show traits and characteristics similar to those displayed by the major fast food company McDonald's. These traits were defined by Ritzer into four categories: Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability, and Control. The trait of efficiency is displayed when a government or society attempts to complete a task such, such as providing education reform, in the cheapest and shortest way possible. By doing this, nations can save much needed revenue, but at the same time will have to make sacrifices as to the overall quality of the project they are going after, such as the poor quality of meat used in McDonald's food. This is a major downside to McDonaldization, and has taken a major toll on countries such as Zimbabwe, which actually lost points in it's rating of quality of education since 1970. The second characteristic of a country going through McDonaldization, Calculability, refers to a major emphasis placed on quantity rather than quality. The fast food industry exemplifies this by providing a massive amount of food to consumers, but the food provided is very much below the standard of "good food". This has earned these corporations a great deal of income, but the consumers of their products, many of whom simply cannot afford to dine at higher quality establishments, suffer from the lack of nutritional value provided by the lacking food. Colleges which attempt to take in the highest number of students and give them degrees from a standardized curriculum in the shortest amount of time, such as the University of Phoenix, are being called "McUniversities", because the education they provide is below par with the rest of the colleges across the country, but the number of students which the university graduates is astounding because the students know they can quickly and easily get a degree. Predictability is the third characteristic demonstrated by McDonaldization. It is the trait which shows that people will return to a place, whether it be a fast food restaurant or a government sponsored organization, as long as they know that they will receive the same product that they got the previous time they were there. The element of giving a consumer knowledge that they will receive a product identical to the one they got last time, makes the necessity of the food to have good quality drop, because they know there is no chance the product they desire will be of significantly lesser quality. The final characteristic, which is control, states that the governing body which is acting along the principles of McDonald's management should have complete control over employees, practices, or the properties which guide the government's decisions. North Korea's military is the ideal example of this trait, as they require all men born in the country to enlist and serve. For this reason they have the largest active military in the world, and they can know now that their size will only increase, due to their strict laws. Because the government is in complete control of the futures of the men of their country, they are guaranteed to have an incredibly large active military for generations to come, so they can use precious financial resources on more important aspects of society, such as education and healthcare. This result of McDonaldization proves to be a very positive one, but the end product of the process usually results in a government more concerned with gaining revenue as opposed to helping the people who populate and support the nation it presides over.

A typical schoolhouse in Zimbabwe:

About.com article on McDonaldization: http://sociology.about.com/od/Works/a/McDonaldization-of-Society.htm

"McDonaldization.com - What Is It?" McDonaldization.com - What Is It? McDonaldization, 2000. Web. 04 Oct. 2013
Crossman, Ashley. "The McDonaldization of Society." About.com. About Sociology, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.
Visconti, Virginia. "The McDonaldization Thesis." IU Thesis. Indiana University, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.

Unit 1 Topic- Chemical Weapons in Syria

Recently the Syrian government has been accused of a very serious global crime: Using chemical weapons on its own people. There has been some debate as to whether or not the Syrian government, headed by President Bashar Assad, was responsible for the heinous attacks or whether it was rebel forces in Syria, who many say are becoming more and more radical as the president continues to oppress his people. Both the rebels and Assad blame the other, but there are reports that the less well funded rebels don't have the capability to acquire or utilize such complex weapons. Upon learning of the attack, the global community issued an almost immediate response, both verbally and in the form of UN investigators to determine whether or not chemical weapons were used, and if so which ones. There was more controversy coming out of Syria when the inspectors began their investigation. They were traveling in marked vans, one of which came under sniper fire, which debilitated the vehicle but failed to injure anyone inside. As with the chemical weapons attack, Assad and the rebels continue to point fingers at each other. Approximately one year ago, President Obama learned of Syria's potential to use chemical weapons on their own people, which he warned would be "crossing the red line", and would trigger a serious US response. As of now, no nation has engaged in military conflict with Syria as they wait for the UN to deliver the results of its investigation, but the United States, France, Great Britain, and their Middle Eastern allies have said that there will most likely be a "punitive attack". Many Syrians feel as though that would be inadequate, simply slapping Assad on the wrist will not be near enough to convince him to put his tyrannical and oppressive regime to a halt. Already engaged in an extremely violent civil war, it would seem as though the last thing Syrian people would want would be outside intervention, especially in the form of military attacks. However, that seems to be the only possible option left, as the UN and the United States have been warning Assad that using chemical weapons would surely lead to a response. If there is no action other than simply stating how morally wrong these attacks were, than there will be no reason in Assad's eyes not to continue issuing such malicious attacks on the citizens of the very country he is supposed to lead. The most probable option for response is currently firing several tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria. Cruise missiles, though ominously named, are relatively small missiles in comparison to the rest of the United States artillery. It is suspected that several missiles will be fired at various locations, such as the launch points for the chemical weapons, airports, and military headquarters. With a recent White House cabinet meeting, and as more warships pile up on the coast of Syria, the possibility of a military response from the United States, France, and/or Great Britain is ever growing, though nothing has been declared officially in regards to responsive action.

CNN Interview

 CNN Western Intervention Article

CNN Missile Strike Article

Chicago Tribune Syria Chemical Weapons Article

Intro

I enjoy playing and watching soccer. I no longer play for the school or for a club, because I hurt myself and lost my competitiveness. I played competitively for over 10 years, but currently I just play pick-up games with friends. I also enjoy watching soccer, and my favorite team is Arsenal. I try to stay up to date on results and news, so I can continue talking about the game with my friends who all still play.