Letter: Put our energy funds into new nuclear technology

To the Editor:

The Forum editorial stating that the production tax credit for wind energy must be extended failed to mention that this subsidy transfers the real cost of wind energy to all taxpayers and effectively double the wholesale cost of electricity for all ratepayers (RE, Aug. 22).

In Goodhue County we sleep with the nuclear bogeyman every night. We hardly even think about it. Nuclear energy gets a bad rap because of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and human error. But there is a better nuclear option that does not produce weapon-size byproducts or long-term waste storage issues: the liquid fluoride thorium reactor.

The LFTR works. If perfected, it could provide energy even cheaper than coal and power the entire world for at least the next thousand years. Unlike current light water uranium reactors, the LFTR can be load-following. The LFTR is an inherently safer design. Criticality is almost self-regulating. If overheating should occur, the core can be drained into non-critical mass storage containers that can be air cooled even if there is no backup power system. The LFTR reactor doesn’t require siting near a water source.

We need reliable energy just to support our current population and technology level. We need cheap energy for our economy to recover.

Wind power is low density expensive and a backwards step technologically. The future belongs to thorium, a safe and abundant nuclear fuel that has an energy density 6 million times the energy density of coal. Thorium produces no greenhouse gases. None.

This where our country should be spending energy research dollars. We pioneered the technology we should perfect it and secure its benefits for our future generations. Or we will be buying thorium reactors made in China.

Rick Conrad

Goodhue

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