Watts: Book Review of “Super Fuel”

Posted on wattsupwiththat

This is a book review by a guest on watts' blog.

quote:

Like all warmers, his grip on reality is a bit weak. One example of this is on page 55 where he states “the container ship Altona, bound for China and carrying a load of 770,000 tons of uranium concentrate.” The biggest ship on the planet carries some 500,000 tonnes and the world yellowcake market is about 80,000 tonnes per annum. Perhaps he meant 770,000 lbs instead of tons, but nobody else in the editing and publishing chain picked up the mistake either

Comment:

I may have my own review shortly.  As of the moment, I'm looking at other stuff that has been written about this book.  Unfortunately, this review is kind of the same thing I've been ranting about for awhile on this blog.  It is bashing the opposition instead of looking for a way to come to common ground.

Sure, there's a lot to argue about when it comes to global warming.  But the whole point of the discussion about thorium is that, when developed, it will make the whole argument moot.  So, why bother arguing?

It seems that both sides of the ideological divide are taking positions that are self-defeating.  You can't power an industrial society with renewables, insisting upon it will only bring ruin.  On the other hand, you can't insist on always doing things the same old way.   Otherwise, we'd all be driving Model T's, or even still be on horseback.  There's room for improvement and this is an improvement.  So, stop letting the ideology make people stupid.  Use your head, not your heart.

I cited the above quote because of the tendency to focus on some small point of error, as contrasted with treating the entire book as a serious attempt to explicate something complex, but very important.  Therefore this review is disappointingly petty in that regard. But not all of the review is negative.

As for the video cited, it has a few errors. But don't let that dominate your perception of it. It has some valuable points and those points were there.

Here's the video by a San Diego TV station KUSI:



Update:

Here's another review:

Book Review: Super Fuel: Thorium-Green Energy Source For The Future by Richard Martin


A review of the review is that it isn't too bad.