Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: LFTR and Market Failures
by
niemivh
on 24/07/2012, 16:50:00 UTC
Is anyone aware on this forum about the promise of LFTR technology?  

LFTR in 5 Minutes is an awesome introduction indeed.

THORIUM POWAH!

OP question is answered at ~56 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4&t=56m

"market failure"? No. The atomic energy commision shot it down.

The "market failure" part is that the technology has been available to the world for a while and no one in your precious "private sector" took up the challenge of attempting to make it.

Because the people in your precious "public sector" discouraged them, and in one instance (see above) flatly told them no, you cannot do it. And now, all the private sector money is tied up in delivering fuel to the technology that the "public sector" pushed so hard to get going. So, it's as I said all along: Not market failure, market distortion, by government action.

Problem: you took that tiny snippet of the video and deemed that that information was enough for you to conclude anything really intelligent or wise regarding what happened to cancel the program.  Of course, when one's world-view is so simplistic as to have to only keep an eye out for "the gov'ment" to knee-jerk a conclusion regarding something so complex, then one's "lookout" and "watch patrol" will never go far without being satiated on this superficial (and ultimately meaningless) level.

I'm glad I started this line of conversation, I've got Libertarians actually discussing real historical events rather than their unimaginative thought-experiments.  

Here's some obvious problems with your shoe-horning of this situation in regard to this real historical event:

*  FACT: The Technology happened solely due to government funding.  QUESTION YOU SHOULD HAVE:  Why did the Private Sector not beat them to the punch?
*  FACT:  After the traditional nuclear power industry realized that they could monetize the nuclear fuel industry these events happened and LFTR was shut down.  QYSH:  How much money would all these energy industries have lost, had LFTR's potential been realized?  ANSWER:  It's in the TRILLONS of dollars.