melting Ice Sheets /Global Warming etc

It would seem that there are several good reasons for moving away from
fossil fuels, of which their possible contribution to global warming, by
carbon dioxide emission, is only one
These are
1/Vladimir Putin
2/Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
3/ diminishing reserves
4/the dynamic growth to our economies and societies that would result from
new technologies tobe generated in their replacement.
Nuclear power is set for a revival, thanks to work by Imperial College
scientists in the UK in collaboration with their US oppos; to those who
object on grounds of the NPT ( proliferation) and the problems of accidents
and radioactive wastes, it appears that using Thorium rather than Uranium or
Plutonium has several attractions
a/ no nuclear weapons potential at all
b/ fewer and less active wastes-which can now be "glassified" thanks to
collaborative work done in the Technion Institiute at Haifa and at the
Russian Kurchatov Institute
c/There is a good deal more thorium to be mined than uranium-India for
instance has vast deposits
d/Being less active, Chernobyl style accidents are more likely to result in
a puff than a bang!.

As an aside , why do we ( the West) not propose that Iran be allowed - or
even helped - to go nuclear, as long as Thorium based technology only is
used?
If Iran adopts this idea, we could take her protestations of peaceful
intentions as sincere. She would even gain business and prestige as the
pioneer of a new technology of global importance, without having the
stranglehold that geographical possession of vast oil reserves now threatens
us with,. Honour and pride satisfied?
If she refuses, then we all, and especially the ever watchful Chiefs of the
Israeli Air Force, know exactly where we/they stand...on the road to
Megiddo.

Deal?

Thorium based nuclear power could, with present work, be declared feasible
within a few years of ongoing research - some reports say 2-3 years.With
resolution, a planning cycle could commence leading to mass construction by
the early 2020s- we would then gain time for more definitive solutions such
as helium3 fusion and/or solar power satellites. Keep our rockets/space
technologies active advancing over the coming years, too.

We must drive home the lesson that, whatever is proven to be the final truth
about anthropogenic global warming, the answers do not lie in hair shirts,
hyper-regulation/taxation, and global misanthropy, but in science,
technology, ingenuity and, above all, resolution!
Humanity usually fares best not by solving problems but by rendering them
irrelevant...

Michael Martin-Smith
From: "Aidan Karley" <name1_name2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: If all the Ice Sheets Melt?
Date: 18 May 2007 11:53

In article <1179355736@xxxxxxxxx>, Wayne Throop wrote:
What keeps them from measuring isotpopic ratios and
drawing the obvious conclusions? And/or why aren't
such conclusions valid?

There is some evidence from dendrochronology - there is
apparently a noticeable change in 14-C/13-C ratio in wood that grew
through the late 1800s and early 1900s, which is compatible with the
recorded changes in atmospheric CO2. (Fossil fuels have essentially a
zero content of 14-C ; soils and biologically-cycled carbon which has
been stored for less than ~60000 years will have noticeable 14-C ;
atmospheric carbon had a more-or less constant level of 14-C, dependent
on the intensity of cosmic and solar radiation.)
Atmospheric 14-C levels spiked in the early 1950s as a
consequence of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, rendering carbon
dating unusable for anything that 'closed' after about 1950. Not that
it's much use for periods of much less than a couple of centuries.

--
Aidan Karley, FGS,
Aberdeen, Scotland
A light wave is more like a crime wave than a water wave.


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