The Stupidity of Our Federal Government

12/26/25:

I'll add this and possibly other of the most visited embedded videos.

Title: Jim Kennedy - Link Between Thorium and Self Reliance in Rare Earths & Energy @ TEAC4

Author: gordonmcdowell



10/16/25:

 

With my skin-suit theory, I'll posit a new corollary to it as follows: If it is potentially a very good thing for the USA to have, the leftists will try to destroy it. The point being that America already has it too good, and doesn't need any more good things because the rest of the world doesn't have enough of these good things.

 

The U.S. has more rare earth minerals than any nation on Earth—an estimated $12 trillion worth.

But thanks to endless permits, lawsuits, and land bans, we depend on China and Russia for critical materials.

We don’t have a mineral shortage—we have a leadership shortage. pic.twitter.com/MX61aQrlx3

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) October 15, 2025

 P.S.  Maybe it isn't the "stupidity", but something else.  Let's say "malice" instead.   That is, the malice of the political left.  Could Trump reverse this?  Perhaps.  But Trump had better deal with the deeper issues, which is this malice of the left.  It has no end to it.  Something like this, but actually not based upon anything real, but mostly phony grievances conjured up out of thin air.

 

Trump DOES get it, as shown in video below; but why can he not just deal with them in the way the need to be dealt with?

 

🚨 BREAKING: President Trump UNLEASHES on the fake news and Democrats for accusing him of "weaponizing" the justice system

"DON'T tell me about us going after them. If anything, we've been very, VERY SOFT. I wouldn't be that soft, I'll tell you that!"

"They want to put my SON… pic.twitter.com/cHYBOke8kQ

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 15, 2025

3/3/25:

It bears repeating, even at the risk of being tiresome. The speaker here is distinguishing between two different types of ores. There's an ore with Thorium in it, which also holds all of the Rare Earths we're looking for, and another without Thorium. This other kind is preferred for some strange reason, and consequently, we do not obtain the Rare Earths. It isn't from the lack of Monazite ore, in which the Thorium resides, it is because the regulators are prohibiting it due to the TINY amount of radiation that Thorium emits.

Pretty silly, eh? It isn't any more dangerous than all kinds of other things we already do, but it is prohibited as if it were some of the most dangerous substances out there.

A banana has more radioactivity in it than a equal mass of Thorium. It's dumb policy. The talk above is over 10 years old. Evidently, the policy still exists. But we can buy it from Ukraine! What nonsense.

3/2/25:

With all the talk about rare earths these days, it seemed well to remind everyone that there is no shortage of rare earths in America. Instead, the shortage is in the brain power. Wherever you find Thorium, you find rare earths. There's a lot of thorium deposits in America. So all the talk is wrong anyway. Quick update: It should be mentioned that any offer to purchase any such thing from Ukraine is a total gift. One has to wonder why the offer was even made at all. There are two optional explanations: 1) stupidity, or 2) treason. Either one is not good.

5/28/13:

On vivid display in the Jim Kennedy talk at TEAC4 last year.  By the way, I'm going through each of these in sequence and this is the fifth of the series.  Anyway, he closes with this one, enough to get this old man's blood pressure up through the roof.  It should get yours up too if you care anything at all about our future.

link to financial times.com article

link to Washington Times article

At long last -- a molten-salt reactor is almost ready to go

 

 

Jet fuel from sea water

9/10/25:

You don't even need molten salt reactors for this tech. You could use what the Navy uses for flat tops. They've got ships that could be obtained for a cheap price, and it would have plenty of space to install a crap load of equipment.

It was at technology readiness level (TRL)- 6 in 2016. Why not further along today? Because something is wrong, obviously. I am more inclined to think that the techonology barrier is NOT the problem.

A nuclear powered flat top can produce a LOT of energy. Just sayin'.

11/16/16:



Molten salt reactor technology can enable this:





TRL of six:

It is possible because there is far more carbon dioxide in water than in the air:

The process does not require electrolysis in order to obtain hydrogen:

Keep in mind that molten salt technology is nearly 50 years old.  We could have had this decades ago.  Why don't we?  Because something is wrong.

A day that would live in infamy if a nation had any honor left to lose

https://t.co/uzoH2ZG2A2 --- I've written about this for years. Technology developed here in America is given away by Obama to the Red Chinese. Absolutely disgrace to our nation that we allowed China to beat us in something that was invented here 1st.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) May 7, 2025

This country dishonors itself continually, then wears a badge of honor to celebrate their self-proclaimed virtue.

 

Perhaps it is fitting that the only thing that this country seems to be good at anymore is in rewarding those who would destroy it.

 

Some would point to me and ask why I am tearing down the country. If asked thusly, I'd answer with that I'm only reporting what our alleged leaders have done with their inheritance. But we choose our leaders. Yes, and we will likely reap what we've sown.

 

This is a dark day. A day of mourning for a wayward nation should take place, but only a celebration for its self-immolation.

 

P.S. This looks like the insides of a tokomak, which is a fusion reactor. There's no reason for a fission reactor to look like this.

 

 

Thorium 2017

3/5/25, 10:58 AM:

There hasn't been enough of a follow up from me on this subject. Well, there's some discussion out there not covered here, and here's something I'll link to here.

Kirk Sorensen's response linked to above was to a guy that I've posted on recently. Turns out that Peter Zeihan is a Stratfor guy. I knew a little about Stratfor, so it wasn't unfamiliar territory for me.

Current events don't seem to revolve much around this, except maybe for data centers. Data Centers will need a lot of energy, and chemical based energy just isn't going to cut it these days, and so-called renewables are ridiculous in most contexts, especially data centers.

Here's Zeihan's video that Sorensen responded to.







I think the trouble is the lack of knowledge all along the continuum of the mindshare on the entire subject of energy. Throwing out some terms I've seen used, as you may note. Doesn't mean I understand them, but it may make me seem smart.

What I mean is, people need to smarten up out there. The solution is right in front of us, but we refuse to see it.



2:00 PM:



Here's another Kirk Sorensen video. If you listen to this guy enough, you will be a believer too.











8/9/17:

Excellent educational video that will show you the advantages of the thorium molten salt reactor.

It is a very complex subject, but the material can be mastered and understood provided that the person is interested enough.

If you aren't interested, you are making a mistake.  Polls show things are not on the right track.  You cannot get back on the right track unless you understand why things are on the wrong track.  Here is a video that will show you why we have been on the wrong track with regards to energy.  This cascades into other areas.  For example, if we had made the right decisions in the seventies, it would have avoided the Energy Crisis of the seventies, and possibly even the terrorism of the recent age.

We need this technology.  The shame is that we could have had it forty years ago.  It is still not too late.

Too slow

https://t.co/aFleB1nw8N --- Balls to the wall y'all.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) February 25, 2025

Faster please?

Copenhagen Atomics Progressing to Mass Production of Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors by NextBigFuture

By Brian Wang

Read on Substack

The commies don't give a rat's ass about climate change

UPDATE:
10/3/24;

11:23 AM:

The denial of a launch license to SpaceX for their Flight 5, is motivated by politics. I use it as yet another example of how the commies don't want America to succeed at ANYTHING, unless it serves them of course.

What if you want a free country with the Bill of Rights upheld? Musk bought Twitter to enhance free speech. The commies really hate that with a passion. They went as far as jailing another free speech advocate, and threaten to jail Musk, if he doesn't kneel to their demands.

That ain't America as we all knew it. It is more like Soviet Style politics. It should have no place in a free country.











10:39 AM:

It isn't just the molten-salt reactor that they oppose. It is virtually ALL energy projects, except those that are questionable at best. That would include solar and wind. Solar and wind are intermittent. The sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow. Ask yourselves this question: Why are they so insistent upon something so impractical, when something practical like nuclear is within reach?

Their main objection is nuclear waste. Nuclear waste can be managed. But they won't allow it, while stirring up tremendous fears about it. Molten salt reactor tech could remove 99% of the waste now produced, while enhancing safety far above even the best water based, solid based nuclear reactors. This is but one tech. Others are available, but the technical hurdles are much higher. Why insist upon those, when the lower hanging fruit was right there for the taking? Molten salt reactor tech was feasible 50 years ago. It still is, but now only China is allowed to have it. WHY?

None of this will see the light of day in our debates about our future. Censorship will see to that. The commies are running a stealth campaign to overthrow our current system while claiming to be champions of it. The two ideas cannot exist simultaneously unless at least one of them is being used as a ruse. Nobody will make that argument. Why not? I've tried, and I'm being ignored. Others have tried, and have been ignored. WHY?

9:20 AM:

It's just an issue that they can use.

This administration does nothing constructive about anything. Indeed, it does the exact opposite. This administration won't lift a finger to help, but will lift an iron fist to hurt. The inaction is a feature not a bug. These anti-Americans WANT pain and destruction.

If they really wanted to do something about so-called climate change, they would have funded the molten-salt reactor. It was technology developed right here in the USA, and stopped for no good reason. Instead, the commies foisted an "energy-crisis" upon us, while they deprived us of this technology that would have ended carbon emissions.

Personally, I don't believe carbon emission are even very harmful at all. But even if I was wrong about this, the molten-salt reactor would have addressed this. Instead of rediscovering it, and putting it to use, the Obama Administration gave it to the communists in China.

This proves that the commies are out to HURT America in every way they can. They want the Revolution, as the ends justify the means. The Biden Administration is doing this harm deliberately to PUNISH America. They want to blame America and the Western World for "climate-change", but they do NOTHING constructively to stop what they claim that they care about. I've written about this time and time again. All to no avail.

Stop pulling your punches. This is for all the marbles. Act like it.

Molten-salt reactor "news"

Thorcon news ( not exactly news, but what the heck). I've sorta followed Thorcon for years now. I first heard of it on the Thorium Energy Alliance. I have the link on my private blog, but I made no note of it. Besides, it is out of date. Too bad about that if they aren't active anymore. But this Thorcon news is fairly recent. Maybe six months old.



Thorcon News page link

Brave AI summary of news page!

- Bureau Veritas and ThorCon have partnered for the Technology Qualification and development of a 500MW molten salt nuclear power barge in Indonesia.

- The Indonesian government has approved ThorCon's demonstration plant, and site feasibility and grid integration studies are in progress.

- ThorCon has signed MOUs with various Indonesian entities for the development and operation of the power plant.

- A 50 MW thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR) for power generation or marine vehicle propulsion is being studied in collaboration with Indonesia’s Defence Ministry.

- The TMSR-500 liquid fission power plant, presented at the International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems, can supply Indonesia's electricity needs in 2026-2027.

- ThorCon's safety features do not rely on skilled operators or faultless software, making it a reliable energy source.

The X factor--- the human element

4/7/24:

I was going to post this exact same thing as a new post. Not that everything in that post would have been in this post as updated, but the general idea of an "X" factor definitely was the idea.

I would add another idea that hasn't caught on. That idea would be the Stirling Engine in automobiles. For some strange reason, they have not been adopted, but the Stirling Engine can be made to work just fine, and there's evidence to prove it. But DO note that nobody in the automotive industry is interested in it. Why not?

Until Elon Musk jumped into the automotive field with his battery powered cars, there was a decided reluctance to use them. In my opinion, batteries are too heavy for cars, but that hasn't stopped it from making a big splash. The enthusiasm is wearing off, however. I wouldn't throw out the battery in cars, but it might happen.

The best use for Stirling Engines would be in a hybrid, and the best use for batteries would be in a hybrid. Just my opinion, but my opinion is not just my opinion. Yet nobody that I know of in the automotive space is going to go this direction. It may take the "X" factor to bring that about. But who knows how long that will take?



end update of post dated 7/27/12:

When probing the reasons for why great ideas don't take hold, one may want to consider the NFL draft.  Each year, the National Football League holds a draft in order to select the most promising young players to develop into the next stars in the American game known as football.  The success in the draft is a key determinant in a team's success.  Millions of dollars are spent evaluating prospects.  Despite all this probing and measuring of talent, the process is hardly foolproof.  There some elusive factor in success which is not so easy to probe and measure.  It is this elusive quality that often gets missed during this expensive process.  As a consequence, many prized prospects don't make it, and some players become superstars, but are initially overlooked in this process.  It is this elusive quality that could be seen as an X factor-- an unknown and unpredictable quality that can go undetected.  It is a distinctly human element seen not only in sports, but in life in general.

So, when asking why the LFTR hasn't been adopted, this can be a reason given.  It is like the NFL draft.  Sometimes the best players get by the evaluation process.  Sometimes a highly touted player doesn't succeed as expected.  The same can be true for ideas.  The liquid thorium reactor may well be a superstar that has gotten overlooked.  It's failure to get noticed should not be seen as a failure of an idea, but instead, it is the failure of those who evaluate ideas to see the potential in it.

Back to the NFL draft, there's a player right here in Houston that wasn't even drafted.  Arian Foster is now considered to be one of the best running backs in the league.  He has made All Pro two years in a row.  But this same team spent a number one pick in the draft for David Carr, who never made it as a great quarterback in the league.  Other examples are Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. He was drafted in the sixth round, but should have been rated much higher.  He will be in the Hall of Fame some day.  Clearly, the process to pick the best players failed--- and you can't blame the team.  It failed Houston with Carr and failed again in the case of Arian Foster.

Besides the NFL, are there other examples in life where a highly rated person or idea fails, or an underdog succeeds surprisingly?  Consider presidential politics.  Harry Truman v. Thomas Dewey in 1948 could be an example.  In sports, perhaps the 1969 New York Mets could be another.  Or the 1980's Olympics, where the American hockey team beat the Soviet Union team.

In studying the idea of the LFTR, one can be amazed at the continual failure for good and accurate information to be communicated to the public.  The public is misled on the risks of nuclear power, as it can be seen in previous posts.  The public is also misled about the ability of solar and wind to provide the necessary amount of energy needed to power an advanced technological society.  Consequently, billions of dollars are wasted on solar projects like Solyndra, yet LFTR technology goes begging for money needed to complete the commercialization of LFTR technology.  It is not the amount of money that gets spent, but the quality of thinking behind the spending of the money.  How can the public make the best possible political decisions when there is so much false and misleading information being put out?  Success in evaluation is difficult even with the best possible information, as can be seen with the NFL.

Besides false information, there could also be the hostility of the incumbency.  The Tiberius Syndrome comes to mind.  During the Roman Empire, the Emperor Tiberius had a man beheaded for bringing him an idea on how to commercially mine aluminum.  Tiberius saw the new metal as a threat to his interests.  The superiority of the invention was not in question.  Clearly, under some circumstances such as this, a superior idea does not get adopted.  The commercialization of aluminum had to wait for 2000 years.

So, if it isn't just simple human error, it could actually be something more serious, like outright hostility.  In either case, it is the human element that leads to a failure--- not the idea itself.  Even with an active means of finding the best possible outcome, like drafting the best possible athletes for a professional football team, you could still go wrong.  But life is not just a game.  It could be a matter of life and death.  We have to do better than the Romans, unless we want to be like the Romans.

Sunday Reflection: The future will be better than we think if politicians don’t ruin it

8/7/23: Update to post made on Mar 4, 2012

Why no Roman Industrial Revolution?

This post seems more relevant today than it did then. We have a government that is dedicated to destroying its own country. You don't have to ask for many more reasons why a civilization failed. It had way too many people in powerful positions that did not give a damn about the country that they ruled...

As it applies to Rome, so shall it apply to America. There are simply way too many people that are supposedly in its service who care nothing for it, otherwise, they wouldn't be doing what they are doing. Not only what they are doing today, but things that they've done in prior years. The Obama Administration was going to destroy all work on molten- salt reactors, but it was discovered by patriots, so they couldn't. Instead of developing it fully, they gave away the technology to CHINA.

This is not an isolated example of their malevolence towards the people they claim to serve. After all, what the hell did we just go through with the COVID business? That was manufactured to HARM this country for political gain. To think otherwise is to put your heads in the sand. They'll gas light us all forever to cover it up, too. It hasn't given the results they really wanted, so they'll try something else. AGW will be their next excuse. If it isn't that, it will be something else.

It is the Tiberius Syndrome because the Emperor Tiberius had a man executed for inventing something revolutionary that would benefit all of world's people, but not Tiberius himself. That's how a civilization will eventually crumble into dust. It is not a hard thing to understand if you are willing to see things as they really are.

We have a lot of leaders in the GOP who claim to be all for "rule of law". But the Democrats trample all over it, and what do they do? Nothing! What could possibly be the reason for failure to do something when something is indicated? It is either malevolence, or indifference. Given that the GOP loves to run against its own base, I'd say more the former than the latter.

The Democrats are just plain hateful. The GOP COULD do something, but they won't. Yet, people wonder why the Roman Empire didn't have an Industrial Revolution. It didn't have one because the leadership didn't give a shit. History may not repeat, but it was famously said by someone to rhyme. It sure looks like that these days if you care to listen carefully enough.

the original post follows:

washingtonexaminer.com  h/t Instapundit

quote:

Ironically, this point is made by the authors’ opening anecdote. As recounted by Pliny the Elder, a goldsmith proudly displayed to the Roman Emperor Tiberius a shiny plate he’d made from a new metal extracted from clay (aluminum) using a secret method only he understood.

The emperor was indeed impressed: He saw this new shiny metal as a possible threat to the value of his large gold and silver stockpiles, so instead of rewarding the goldsmith, he had him beheaded.

Comment:

My sentiments exactly.

It looks as if the politicians have already screwed up the thorium fuel cycle molten salt reactor.  This would have improved life immensely, but it isn't available now, nor will it be unless something changes soon.

They may well have screwed up the space program and cold fusion.   But that may seem to be a bit over the top, thus the use of the word "may".  If only the thorium reactors were the only way the politicians screw things up.

For example, we get further restrictions on the ability to use energy.  Prices go up, and the standard of living will go down.  This doesn't have to happen, but it will if things continue in the direction that it is going.

NEW NUCLEAR REACTOR! Safe Nuclear Energy for 1200 Years!?

No, it's not new. It's only "new" because the tech was given away during the Obama Administration. Looks like it won't be developed here in the US. Shame on our "leadership".

TEAC is still around

Here are more oldies, but goodies. TEAC is the Thorium Energy Alliance. They are big boosters of the use of Thorium for nuclear energy. Not sure if Kirk Sorensen was in that group, but there's a video out there with Sorensen in it as well that's about 2 years old. Perhaps he's still going too?

If memory serves, it was Kirk Sorensen who kept the Oak Ridge research from being destroyed for all time. Rather than doing that, the Obama Administration decided to give it away to China. While that was better than destroying it, it could have been done here in the USA which is where the technology originated.

Now China has developed the technology and is deploying it. /Homer Simpson "doh!" moment

While it is good that the USA and Western Europe are getting off their duffs and doing something, it could have been sooner and more forcefully done. Better late than never, the guy in this here says. Not familiar with Eric Meyer, though. Looking for John Kutsch, and there he is. I'll include another video embed below.









And now the video of John Kutsch. As I wrote above, this guy and Kirk Sorensen are the reasons this tech survived.

It's a shame that he couldn't do more, but he did a LOT. By the way, only 1k people have watched the video. What a shame.







Here's what John Kutsch is doing today... Sure hopes he succeeds.

Thorcon, the Most Advanced Nuclear Reactor on the Planet

 

Looks like they've got the ok to build one that will be in service in 4 years. Unless I'm misunderstanding something...

It will be located in Indonesia.

Thorcon news

Thorcon

thorcon news link

The link is about the progress being made on the molten-salt reactor technology.

Molten-salt reactor technology promises a virtually inexhaustible supply of energy with a minimum of waste products.

Electricity consumption

While researching that Climate 2 thing, I came across a bit of info here that may be worth mentioning.

It isn't about Climate 2, it is about how much electricity the USA uses.  Here's a snippet:

source

How much is that in one day?

Divide 3.9 billion by 365 gives about 10.7 million megawatts hours per day.  How much per hour?

About 450k megawatts hours per hour.  A gigawatt-hr is 1000 megawatt-hr.  About 450 gigawatt-hr per hr.  That means about 450 gigawatt-hr size plants could serve the USA.  A little over 1 gigawatt-hr per million citizens.

What does all that mean?  In order to replace all the coal-fired plants with molten-salt reactors, you'd spend maybe half-trillion.  That puts the ridiculous rhetoric of the thought-challenged Democrats into perspective.  

Incidentally, that is the DEVELOPMENT price of just one molten-salt reactor.  Once developed, they will be a lot cheaper.

But we don't need to spend anything at all since there is no AGW.

A "Green" New Deal That Could Work

It would work in the sense of reducing or eliminating carbon based fuels.

It would work in the sense that it would be more economical than solar or wind.

It would work in the sense that it would be 100% available, as opposed to other "green" technologies, like solar, wind, thermal, and hydropower.

The only opposition that can be made would be on the basis of safety and waste.  In reality, nothing is 100% clean, nor 100 % safe.  But this isn't bad.

If you want to do a fundamental change in how we do energy in the advanced world, this is the way to go.

By the way, Sorensen has some great comments in this video.  If there is any one person who would be responsible for the rebirth of this concept, it would have to be this guy.  There are others, of course.  But this guy has got all the arguments down pat.

Update:

Helpful bullet point provided by author in comment section:

Of particular interest to me is the underlined points

Synthetic Fuel from Seawater: The Science

Reposted on ,

3.3.19:

The point of this video, is that you can make fuels from seawater in order to power aircraft in war zones.  This may be economical in that application.  However, it may not be economical elsewhere, such as every day life.

It is economical in war zones because of a war zone's remote location, and lack of transportation infrastructure.   Long supply lines are EXPENSIVE.   Hence, the idea is to shorten the supply lines, and make it more economical to operate in a war zone--- get it?

Now, the Greenies want us to operate the economy as if the whole world is in a war zone.  Naturally, this does not make much sense, and may well be entirely unnecessary.

Nevertheless, these turkeys believe it.  One of these days, this solution here may be considered the best of a bad lot.  Assuming of course, that we are allowed even this.

( I think $25 a gallon is a target price for this concept to make sense in a war zone.  I posted this to give you an idea of the insanity of the so-called Green New Deal. )


10.30.13:

Comment:

One of the fuels mentioned was methane.  This seems interesting to me because methane can be used very efficiently.  It can be used in a fuel cell or in a turbine.  Perhaps the CO2 can be recaptured and recycled as well.

ThorCon still working on Molten-salt reactor

Note:

My understanding of this is that it doesn't have to be thorium.  Uranium can work just fine.  As a matter of fact, this outfit was stated as explicitly as only interested in doing what could be done now, as opposed to looking for the absolute perfect solution "one of these days" in some future time.

In other words, according to this article, in five years, they could be set to ramp up to assembly line production of molten salt reactors.  It would be a world changing event.

It will take five years to study and test this concept.  That is where they are NOW.  This doesn't have to wait for anything but the testing.

I'd say that this is a big deal.  Even so, five years seems like a long time.  But better than never.