TEDxYYC - Kirk Sorensen - Thorium
Kirk Sorensen discuss "Thorium" at TEDxYYC 2011. Kirk Sorensen is founder of Flibe Energy and is an advocate for nuclear energy based on thorium and liquid-fluoride fuels. For five years he has authored the blog "Energy from Thorium" and helped grow an online community of thousands who support a renewed effort to develop thorium as an energy source. He is a 1999 graduate of Georgia Tech in aerospace engineering and is also a graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee. He has spoken publicly on thorium at the Manchester International Forum in 2009, at NASA's Green Energy Forum in 2008, and in several TechTalks at Google. He has been featured in Wired magazine, Machine Design magazine, the Economist, the UK Guardian and Telegraph newspapers, and on Russia Today. He also taught nuclear engineering at Tennessee Technological University as a guest lecturer. He is active in nonprofit advocacy organizations such as the Thorium Energy Alliance and the International Thorium Energy Organization. He is married and has four small children. About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)Category: Tech
Author: TEDxTalks
Published (on YouTube): 2011-04-22
Published (here): 2012-05-23
Rating: 4.9627495; Votes:2255
Views: 141212; Favorites: 1098
Video duration: 11 min.
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Comments on «TEDxYYC - Kirk Sorensen - Thorium»:
moralreef on 2012-04-09
i actually agree ...
i actually agree with all of that! i think this is a first for youtube, people agreeing
bumpstart21 on 2012-04-09
Well, I thought ...
Well, I thought taxpayers provided most of the money even now. The GEs of the industry would need to be peeled away from the fossil fuel bunch perhaps with an exclusive manufacturing deal or something. If China makes progress it could be a Sputnik moment again in the U.S. and GE may sense the inevitable and get with the program. If congress could be emabarrassed with the fact China is plundering our ONL jewels to use against us too that would help move things along too.
moralreef on 2012-04-09
glad he said it, as ...
glad he said it, as i'd imagine a lot of people are just using this yet another crutch for more boring, droning anti-business/anti-government rhetoric
moralreef on 2012-04-09
so honestly, and i ...
so honestly, and i imagine pro-market randroids will hackle, but this is a case for the clunking, wheezing fist of the state to get some fucking innovation going. think strongly of ARPANET, minus the military subtext, and how our lives have been bettered from those initial concepts.
moralreef on 2012-04-09
well this is the ...
well this is the problem; GE, EDF and the like are the only ones that can really do this, the only people who have the money and the engineering integrity to make a safety case for the elements of a thorium reactor, and they've vested so much time and IP in so many aspects of uranium, theyre not going to spend billions on redefining the nuclear reactor on money theyre not going to get back
snacksguy on 2012-04-09
It sounded like ...
It sounded like they skipped over a lot of the speech. Why is that?
knetic491 on 2012-04-07
/watch?v= ...
/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI He's already done a very thorough talk about everything that went into these decisions. It's not about people being evil, it's mostly about executive decisions made about an energy style that was proven but not widely implemented. They did the best that they could, but we ended up with the wrong one. @bumpstart21
freelancergin on 2012-04-06
our politicians ...
our politicians probably won't let us do this here in the U.S., so the only hope is for other countries to use this research and fuel themselves and show the rest of the world that it can be done.
ihateflags1 on 2012-04-04
Also the reason ...
Also the reason that this is stupid is because the chinese goverment is already building these types of reactors.
gordonmcdowell on 2012-04-04
If you YouTube ...
If you YouTube search "THE THORIUM PROBLEM" I just posted a video about where thorium is found, and how it impacts the rare earth mining industry.
auroraglacialis on 2012-04-04
Hydrogen is also on ...
Hydrogen is also on Jupiter, so we just have to mine it to burn it here. That was a joke of course! My argument was a) that mining on the moon is not something that will happen in an economical fashion soon and b) resource distribution on Earth is way more complicated than "it is 4x as abundant as XY". Nd is more abundant than Thorium.And look at what is now scarce in the economy. Not because the element is rare, but because there are not so many concentrated resource depots.This is what I asked
Comocks on 2012-04-04
What are the ...
What are the possible dangers of thorium reactors? What kind of waste do they produce?
IamMANnumber1 on 2012-04-04
Tomorrow never ...
Tomorrow never comes. :(
ihateflags1 on 2012-04-03
This is a stupid ...
This is a stupid comment.
g6wings on 2012-04-02
Kirk - This sounds ...
Kirk - This sounds so good! Why doesn't someone jump on this!? If it's really this good - why are we not able to get an entity or OUR gov to do this in full scale - today!? You sound very knowlegeable about this - what's holding you/us up? Cant you build a small scale LFTR to prove the process!? I like the idea of a safer more stable USA/WORLD! I want everyone to be more capable and successful using a resource like this! Kudos for your enthusiasm and for the info! Lets make this happen!
itchcity on 2012-04-02
This looks awesome ...
This looks awesome but seems way too good to be true. What are the catches?
needthistool on 2012-04-01
wft
wft
fnerXVI on 2012-04-01
I didn't know that ...
I didn't know that we still burned coal.
Bibu231060 on 2012-04-01
Ce serait bien un ...
Ce serait bien un sous-titrage en français, surtout quand ils rigolent. Bon, il n'y a pas de lacs sur la lune, OK.
phantom12321800 on 2012-04-01
Coal sir. Oil is ...
Coal sir. Oil is no longer used in the US to produce electricity. Coal is the real ugly bug in this equation. Oil is slowly getting less and less attractive, but Coal is still plentiful in the US so the pressure to get away from it isn't mounting quite as quickly. This really takes the wind out of the arguments against it and leaves it to the environmental argument, but unfortunately many people don't care enough about that.
bumpstart21 on 2012-03-31
There are ...
There are significant forces which stand to loose big if LFTR become commercial reality. GE makes significant money on nuclear fuel rod manufacture and handling. The coal lobby is huge in this country and hauling coal is one of the most lucrative jobs for the railroads. Factor in big oil too.They arent worried about fusion becoming reality any time soon hence plenty government funding for that joke. LFTR on the other hand is too close. Imagine the renaissance LFTR would bring.
ThePerestroikan on 2012-03-30
Youtube isn't ...
Youtube isn't letting me post the link, but the Guardian ran two stories about it last year, and it also gets mentioned in the Thorium Remix 2011 video. Just google China + Thorium, they should be the top two results