UKIP gets my vote, for Energy Policy alone! What does Nigel Farage think?

I don't know - he hasn't replied yet! 

This is what I emailed him nearly a week ago - Nigel, where are you?

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No single issue is more important to the well being and life style of my grandchildren than energy security.

Your energy policy is good enough for you to get my vote, in respect of your emphasis on nuclear power and your mention of thorium as a fuel. 

However, you are probably not aware that we have an imminent, unique opportunity to start along the road towards 500 years of energy security from the UK's most precious energy resource.



Any day now, the NDA could choose, or not, to use a GE Hitachi PRISM reactor to burn our plutonium stockpile. It will eradicate this proliferation problem, now costing us £80 million a year, by rendering the plutonium useless as a bomb making material in 5 years. And, it's payment by results - no satisfactory outcome - no cost to the UK taxpayer. Is this a no-brainer decision: Yes! Is supporting this a vote-winner: Yes! Is this something you would be prepared to pursue?

A further little taster about this first PRISM reactor - from the fuel produced by the plutonium burn-up, it will continue generating enough electricity to supply the needs of 750,000 people for a further 50 or 60 years.

PRISM is a Gen IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) and compared to the proposed 'New Nuclear' Gen III Light Water Reactors (LWRs), it is as advanced as an MP3 player over an old spool-to-spool tape recorder.

SFRs can be configured as a breeder reactor and this is where the 500 years of energy security comes into play. A fleet of breeder reactors can burn what the ill-informed and duplicitous call 'nuclear waste'. The UK has enough of this in existence to supply all of our energy needs for 500 years. The minuscule waste-stream produced, decays to background radiation levels in only 300 years - cheaply and safely stored.

PRISM reactors are inherently safe - they shut down according to the laws of physics, without human intervention, in the worst of accident conditions, such as the absence of  all electrical power and loss of safety devices.

They also operate at atmospheric pressure, so the UK has the nuclear expertise and manufacturing capacity to factory produce them in their entirety. It could mean manufacturing jobs, prosperity and growth we have not witnessed in 3 generations.

I am a retired manufacturing engineer and host the blog: PRISMs to Power the UK. You're not up against strong competition on the energy front: http://prismsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/parliamentarian-buffoon-or-jester-who.html

I hope you take the time to absorb this basic information and would be very interested in your opinion on the points I have raised. I sincerely believe it would do you and your party nothing but good to promote breeder reactors as a solution to the UK's energy security problems.

What a Forlorn Loser of a Billionaire!

What chance have I got, when there are clueless, defeatist billionaires 'trying to buy time for the world to wake up' and uttering stuff like:

 "... but if we mean to burn all the coal and any appreciable percentage of the tar sands, or even third-derivative, energy-intensive oil and gas, with 'fracking' for shale gas on the boundary, then we're cooked, we're done for" 

and: ""the absolute minimum hope of survival is a gracefully declining population""

This is theguardian article Jeremy Grantham, environmental philanthropist: 'We're trying to buy time for the world to wake up' 

This is a comment I made which theguardian is unlikely to print:

Talk about 'can't see the wood for the trees'. What an idiot! All of that personal wealth and control over £10s of billions and he's pratting about with AGW and 'saving the environment'. Why?

It's clean, safe and secure energy Mr Grantham. Nothing else will matter to a nation, when there are 10 billion of us, in just a few decades. The ¾ of the population, who currently use ¼ of the energy produced, will be fighting tooth and nail to reach our standard of living. We will be battling to hang on to our way of life.

I hope, for his grandchildren’s sake, this is metaphoric fighting talk because by 2050 we will need 3 or 4 times more energy than we use now, in the face of declining and evermore expensive fossil fuels and other resources.

One and only one technology has any chance of providing an energy-rich future to every individual on the planet, for all of time; it is that of the breeder reactor.

The UK is uniquely placed at the moment, because we have an imminent decision, likely to go the way of such a reactor, for burning our plutonium stockpile. We could lead the world into the inevitable era of the breeder reactor.

Get thinking clearly, Mr Grantham. Strive for peace and stability in a world where it is technically feasible for everyone to benefit from an energy source, free of greenhouse gas emissions and affordable by all.

People like you can make a difference to the speed of introduction of breeder reactor technology and it needs to be happening now.

" .... the forces of nature shut the reactor down .... "

Dick Lindsey: " .... being associated with some of the .... early pioneers in the nuclear business .... the attitude the designers brought with them, it was a can-do attitude and it stayed that way for all the years I worked here ...."

Dr Sackett: ".... the significance of EBR-II to the nuclear science community, was proof that reactors were safe .... that worst accident is complete loss of power to everything .... and failure of all the safety systems .... we did that at EBR-II and the reactor protected itself. It shut itself down safely .... "

Darrell Pfannenstiel: " .... we got to watch the forces of nature shut the reactor down .... we'd found a reactor that could protect itself .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... the day of the final test was one of the most exciting days of my time. To see all these colleagues, respected scientists from around the world, come and watch this event in a live reactor .... "

Darrell Pfannesteil: " .... if I [n]ever see another Pressurised Water Reactor again, it would not bother me. This is the technology to go with .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... there was a vision about EBR-II that had to do with secure energy, safe energy, clean energy .... some of the things that drove the vision of the people who started this, [it] is really compelling .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... The Integral Fast Reactor was the combination and integration of all the things we had learned from the EBR-II and the fuel cycle facility experience. It integrated all of the best of the technology that we had developed and discovered, not only here but worldwide .... "

Dick Lindsey: " .... this facility is one that virtually gives the Earth and its inhabitants an unlimited power supply .... "

Dr Sackett, talking about 4 distinct periods of testing in EBR-II's history. Period 1:
Dr Sackett: " .... One was its initial operation as a complete power plant, producing electricity, recycling fuel .... "

Period 4 included burning up transuranic elements in recycled fuel rods:
Dick Lindsey: " .... because we were burning the transuranics, .... that then would make our waste repository change[s] from a mega-thousand year problem to a thousand year, maybe at the most, and we have buildings older than that .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... used in a system like this, we already have enough uranium mined and set aside to supply the energy needs of the United States for several centuries .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... the debate in the senate initially started out as a debate over budgets and the Japanese stepped up and said 'We're willing to add another $60 million to the budgets at EBR-II. So they took away the budget argument. And then it became an argument about the political nature. If the United States terminates its work in nuclear power, the rest of the world might follow .... "

Dr Sackett: " .... when I had to go to the operating crews and tell themthat we had the order to shut EBR-II down, the reaction was not 'What is going to happen to me?' the reaction of all of the crews was 'Doesn't the Country realise what they're losing here?' .... "

Dr Sackett in tears - the integrity of this man is beyond reproach and his despair at the waste of this opportunity for the USA and the planet is visceral.

Dr Sackett: " .... I remember directing shutdown and the SCRAM and then just silence .... "

The most plausible conspiracy theory suggests it was Bill Clinton's payback to the environmentalist movement for its support.

Thanks again anti-nukes everywhere. It's only been the best part of a 20 year delay, but breeder reactors will prevail and there's still a chance that your children and grandchildren will not hate you quite so much.

Doesn't the Country realise what they're losing her?

Do yourself a favour and try to think if you can make a contribution to supporting a breeder reactor programme:  Making a Contribution: The Story of EBR-II

What is David Cameron's vision? What will be his legacy?

Dear Prime Minister,

One decision, more than any other, can secure a wonderful future for our Nation.

That decision will revitalise our manufacturing industries, leading to growth and prosperity not witnessed for several generations. It will meet our carbon targets with alacrity, whilst securing our energy supply for hundreds of years to come, with the incidental outcome of making our nuclear waste ‘problem’ evaporate.

On your watch, events are conspiring for you to make this decision, leave your mark on history and earn the grateful thanks of the generations of your children and grandchildren, as the UK leads the world into a pollution-free and energy-rich era.

The era is that of the inevitable global deployment of breeder reactors, which can supply all of the energy requirements – that’s electricity and carbon-neutral fuels for all transport and industrial processes (including seawater desalination) – for many thousands of years to come, for every individual on the planet, from inexhaustible uranium and thorium fuel sources. Your children can inhabit a planet free of the threats of energy wars, water wars, pollution and climate change.

Ignore the negativity coming at you from your renewable and (PWR) nuclear advisers, because energy from both technologies fall orders of magnitude short of the capabilities of breeder reactors. Look at the performance of the GE Hitachi PRISM Power Block, one of which you will surely be sanctioning, in the not too distant future, to economically dispose of our plutonium stockpile. Then, you can do the arithmetic for yourself.

This benign, that is, passively-safe reactor generates 600 MW of electrical power, capable of supplying all of the electricity needed by a city with 600,000 inhabitants. You will be aware that there are no impediments to its UK licensing, which you can surely expedite. You will also be aware that we have a fuel source, in our existing legacy waste, to power our nation for the next 500 years. About 30 PRISM Power Blocks would supply all of the 16 GW of our ‘New Nuclear’, which would be a credible first-step towards ‘PRISMs to Power the UK’ (the title of my new Blog).

The vessels and pipework of a PRISM are made from stainless-steel and operate at atmospheric pressure and these factors are of tremendous significance, because we have the technological expertise, experience and the manufacturing capacity to produce these reactors in their entirety, right here in the UK.

Crucially, you are at a point in history giving you the strongest possible position to negotiate a licence with GE Hitachi, for us to start to manufacture PRISMs in the UK. They are sure to consider an offer which can turn all of their endeavours thus far, into saleable hardware.

Do you have a vision for our country stretching beyond your watch? You could lead your Cabinet, Parliament, the UK and the world, into the era of the breeder reactor. Within your own lifetime, you will see some of the fruits of your decision, but that decision will influence far more greatly, the character of the world your children and grandchildren will inherit.

Energy decision time is now. If today’s national leaders, you included, get this singular decision on energy wrong, the outcome for future generations could be nightmarish.

I urge you most strongly, to look into the matters I raise and would very much appreciate your thoughts on our energy future.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Megson,

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This will be winging its way shortly, to the PM.