"By definition if a problem is unresolved despite years of work on it, there is a finite chance that it can't be resolved."

By definition, when Mhaze (a climate-science denying anti-scientist) is claiming something, there's a chance it can't be resolved with the real world.

How many 'years of work' have they invested in it? What knowledge base are they building on? Not the various experimental reactors, some of which ran successfully for years, mentioned in this wiki?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

The original scientists involved thought the MSR was a brilliant concept, and just thought it would need a few decades of R&D to iron out the wrinkles. Video's show them eating lunch with Kirk Sorenson, and Kirk asking them how they dealt with certain problems.

Can you name one of those problems? Just one? As for the chemistry of the corrosive liquid fluoride, they've already got some solutions for certain temperatures, but not for super high.

"Molten salts can be highly corrosive and corrosivity increases with temperature. For the primary cooling loop, a material is needed that can withstand corrosion at high temperatures and intense radiation. Experiments show that Hastelloy-N and similar alloys are suited to these tasks at operating temperatures up to about 700 °C. However, operating experience is limited. Still higher operating temperatures are desirable – at 850 °C thermochemical production of hydrogen becomes possible. Materials for this temperature range have not been validated, though carbon composites, molybdenum alloys (e.g. TZM), carbides, and refractory metal based or ODS alloys might be feasible."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#Oak_Ridge_National_Laboratory_molten_salt_breeder_reactor

The overwhelming thrust of the article you referenced was the TIME LIMITS, not the TECHNOLOGY LIMITS. They did not say they would NEVER be able to solve whatever technical problems they were thinking of, just that it was difficult in the limited time available. They didn't like the research time being cut in half.

That is all.

Maximum,

I appreciate that your motivation here is to try to salvage a degree of self-esteem (having been so badly humiliated on so many other occasions we've crossed swords) by finding errors, no matter how slight, in anything I write.

But if you'd bother (and I know you won't) to go through the whole conversation over a series of threads over the past two months, you'd see you're barking up the wrong tree.

In the end you're playing semantic games over the world "may" in regards to the most inconsequential portion of that discussion. If you bothered you'd see that my main point to Alan was about timing. I never disputed that the problems may be resolved, (although equally they may not), but only that Alan's assertions that we can adopt thorium now are not based on any empirical facts.

But keep trying. Its always fun. The way the Roadrunner has fun with Wily E Coyote.

"I appreciate that your motivation here is to try to salvage a degree of self-esteem (having been so badly humiliated on so many other occasions we've crossed swords) by finding errors, no matter how slight, in anything I write."

As a fan of MSR's, I was genuinely interested and a little troubled by the way you phrased what you said. The MSR / LFTR is my favourite rector. So I definitely wanted to read about any intractable, unsolvable problems with the technology! I *had* to read your source material, capiche? When you finally contributed your source and I read it I was quite relieved. I was also confirmed in my view that we just cannot trust you to quote sources objectively, as you always have a spin to put on it.

I was only pointing out that the article *you* quoted did not actually say what you tried to make it say.

Ha ha ha, but oh man, dude: *you're* the anti-science climate denier. That's a whole world of tinfoil hat right there. But as to crossing swords? Yours is nerfed, as the following posts demonstrate.

You cherrypicked the Working Group to try and disprove any extreme weather events.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18419#327516

You smugly dismissed the Working Group’s SPM (which summarises the data findings *and* forward projections) while pretending in the previous post to respect the Working Group.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18419#327522

Crossing swords? Yeah, right, you just tell yourself that. Every time you misquote a source it just adds to your bad rep

Poor Maximum,

If you won't read the source material.....

You presume I hadn't linked to the SCMP because of some nefarious claims. But I have in fact provided that link on several occasions in previous threads trying to get some realism into Alan's thinking. But having joined the conversation half way through you remain clueless on that.

You might also note that I didn't quote but paraphrased and if you think that my paraphrasing was wrong that has more to do with your comprehension skills than my summarising. Actually we both know that neither is true but that instead you are just trying to play semantic games on the most minor point of my post in order to achieve what you think is a victory. Oh dear!

As to your other links, do you really want to re-litigate that issue having been so badly humiliated last time around?

"You presume I hadn't linked to the SCMP because of some nefarious claims. But I have in fact provided that link on several occasions in previous threads trying to get some realism into Alan's thinking. But having joined the conversation half way through you remain clueless on that."

OK, look, I didn't read the other threads where you were chatting with Alan. I'm prepared to calm down and admit that sometimes it is difficult to write concisely and exactly in every single post online. Maybe this is a case of what welfare people call communication 'noise'. We have a history that has made me suspicious of your intentions, and maybe I'm being a bit overly harsh in this case. I agree with you that the MSR is *not* yet ready to roll off the production line. I remain hopeful that in a few decades it will roll off the production line as some of the cheapest power the human race has ever produced, but until that time we should produce AP1000's.

Now if only you would agree that climate science was legitimate, and that the SPM is merely an abbreviated, concise version of the IPCC's findings, and that extreme weather events will increase with global warming, we'll be roughly on the same page.

There's already too much debt and apathy in South Australia and too many local and interstate anti-reactor + anti-waste dump protesters to sink all of Ben Heard's schemes.

Reprocessing + dumping would cost the Australian taxpayer $10s of Billions

This is noting that commercially successful nuclear reprocessing plants have proven failures in all countries - except countries that cross subsidize reprocessors from more expensive nuclear weapons schemes (+ Japan with a hugely inefficient taxpayer funded multi-$Billion plant) see all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_sites

Pete