"An even better strategy would be for the U.S. to come to its senses.."

At this point in its history that would indeed be a miracle.

Posted by: Ken Nari | Feb 12 2013 20:37 utc | 1

US Bombers over Pyongyang made Dresden look like a weenie roast. They wouldn't dare do that now.

Posted by: ruralito | Feb 12 2013 21:05 utc | 2

It's quite funny watching the different reactions from the usual suspects. The west constantly threatens North Korea with "serious consequences" and then they act surprise when the Koreans go for the bomb??? What will you do if you're neighbors' powerful friends constantly threaten to blow up your house?

The US forgets it's their own short-sighted/dubious policies that's driving/driven countries like North Korea to go for the bomb and others like Iran vowing never to give up their nuclear program. Qaddaffi's become a poster child for any country that makes the fatal mistake of given up their nuclear program.

The funny thing is, the West find their security in their nuclear stockpiles, yet they scream these same weapons are forbidden to other nations. North Korea has just proven that any country can detonate the bomb if they ever decides to. At the this rate, the West will have to play along or risk becoming irrelevant before the end of this century.

Posted by: Zico | Feb 12 2013 22:43 utc | 3

Here's something dated a year ago, which I probably posted here once before. It sticks in my mind. China's President Hu Jin-tao said on 2 Jan 2012: “We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration.... We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant, and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond." (source)

Posted by: Parviziyi | Feb 12 2013 23:18 utc | 4

Commentary: Time to address root causes of nuclear crisis on Korean Peninsula

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-02/12/c_132166089.htm

"...In reality, the DPRK's defiance was deeply rooted in its strong sense of insecurity after years of confrontation with South Korea, Japan and a militarily more superior United States.

In the eyes of the DPRK, Washington has spared no efforts to contain it and flexed its military muscle time and again by holding joint military drills with South Korea and Japan in the region.

The latest nuclear test is apparently another manifestation of the attempt of a desperate DPRK to keep threat at bay.

At the same time, the escalating tensions also has highlighted the importance of trust building and the need of concrete and sincere efforts by all sides to prevent spiraling deterioration of the situation on the peninsular and any disastrous consequences.

For now, what's in dire need is for all relevant parties to keep calm, exercise restraint and accommodate each other's concerns so as to properly manage the current crisis.

In the long run, dialogue and negotiations, instead of confrontation and barbs trading, are the optimal means to eventually solve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

The six-party talks, which bring all parties concerned to the same negotiating table, remain to be the most viable platform to reverse hostilities.

It has come to a point for all parties concerned to think and act rationally to create favorable conditions to revive the long-stalled six-party talks and avoid a disastrous fallout."

Posted by: вот так | Feb 12 2013 23:31 utc | 5

Moscow calls for calm after DPRK nuke test

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_13/Moscow-calls-for-calm-after-DPRK-nuke-test/

"Moscow has called for not using nuclear tests by North Korea as a reason to heighten hysteria for war. This was announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The Minister also gave special attention to the need to resume Six-Party Talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula."

Posted by: вот так | Feb 12 2013 23:51 utc | 6

This might help explain North Korea's "paranoia." The recent election of the daughter of the fascist dictator Park, in south Korea is also noteworthy.

" Following the Inchon landing, US-UN forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried the offensive into the North. The Air Force launched over a million sorties and 698,000 tons of bombs (compared to 500,000 in the entire Pacific theatre in World War II), including 32,357 tons of napalm. Maj. Gen. Emmett O’Donnell Jr. testified before the Senate that the goal of the air war was to “put a very severe blow on the North Koreans for going too far in what we all recognized as a case of aggression….we now have at our command a weapon that can really dish out some severe destruction, and now let us go to work on burning five major cities to the ground and destroying completely every one of about eighteen major strategic targets.”21
"Much of North Korea was left, in O’Donnell’s words, a “terrible mess,” with an estimated million civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees, some of whom were napalmed by pilots under orders to “hit anything that moved.” Eighteen out of 22 cities were obliterated, including 75 percent of Pyongyang and 100 percent of Sinaju. LeMay stated that we “burned every town in North Korea – and South Korea too.” Hungarian journalist Tibor Meray reported: “we traveled in moonlight, so my impression was that I am traveling on the moon, because there was only devastation…every city was a collection of chimneys. I don’t know why houses collapsed and chimneys did not, but I went through a city of 200,000 inhabitants and I saw thousands of chimneys and that – that was all.”22

The bombing targeted all industrial plants in Northeast Korea as well as railroads, communications centers and the country’s electrical system. 1,200-pound bombs targeted DPRK leaders who hid in deep bunkers, while villagers were forced to live in caves where disease proliferated. Thousands of leaflets were dropped warning civilians to stay off roads and away from facilities that might be bombed, but independent observers felt the American ground forces were much too “quick to call in overwhelming close air support to overcome any resistance in flammable Korean villages.”23 An official army history reported that “we killed civilians, friendly civilians, and bombed their homes, fired on whole villages with occupants – women and children, and ten times as many hidden communist soldiers – under showers of napalm, and the pilots came back to their ships stinking of vomit twisted from their vitals by the shock of what they had to do.”24
British journalist Reginald Thompson described “holocausts of death and jellied petroleum bombs spreading an abysmal desolation over whole communities…. In such warfare, the slayer merely touches a button and death is in the wings, blotting out the remote, the unknown people below.” I.F. Stone stated that sanitized reports of the air raids reflected a “gay moral imbecility utterly devoid of imagination – as if the flyers were playing in a bowling alley, with villages for pins.”25
Racial dehumanization accounted in part for the lack of restraint in targeting civilians. Douglas MacArthur believed that “the Oriental dies stoically because he thinks of death as the beginning of life.” In May 1953, in blatant violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, article 56, US bombers struck three irrigation dams in Toksan, Chasan and Kuwonga, and then attacked two more in Namsi and Taechon. The effect was to unleash flooding and to disrupt the rice supply. An Air Force study concluded that “the Westerner can little conceive the awesome meaning which the loss of this staple commodity has for the Asian – starvation and slow death.” After the war it took 200,000 man days of labor to reconstruct the reservoir in Toksan alone. “Only the very fine print of the New York Times war reports mentioned the dam hits,” Bruce Cumings notes, “with no commentary.”26
According to a UN estimate, one out of nine North Korean women and children were killed during the war. J. Donald Kingsley, head of the reconstruction agency, called Korea “the most devastated land and its people the most destitute in the history of modern warfare.”27 For all the firepower and barbarism, the DPRK government was able to mobilize people quickly to rebuild roads and bridges destroyed in aerial attacks. General Matthew Ridgeway noted in a 1956 interview in Look Magazine that he had “seen whole sections of railroad bombed into scrap iron by aircraft and yet the enemy rebuilt the tracks in a single night and the trains ran the next day.” While inflicting serious damage on Chinese forces supporting the North Koreans, bombing did not “halt their offensive, nor materially diminish their strength. [Like the Vietnamese] the Chinese traveled light, with each man carrying his arms, his food and his weapon on his back. In a striking admission, Ridgeway added that “there is nothing in the present situation or in our code that requires us to bomb a small Asian nation back to the ‘stone age’…There must be some moral limit to the means we use to achieve victory.”28

(I'm not sure where I got this!!)

Posted by: bevin | Feb 13 2013 0:01 utc | 7

How funny is this? "Israel said on Tuesday that the international community must make clear to North Korea after its latest nuclear test that such activities cannot be tolerated."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/12/us-korea-north-israel-idUSBRE91B0ZD20130212

Besides the major nuclear powers, only Israel will be allowed to test nukes...

When Guiness will start publishing world records for arrogance and hypocrisy?

Posted by: JohnH | Feb 13 2013 0:08 utc | 8

Kim [now his dad]'s men get/got extra cigarettes and beer, because they handle rods and spent fuel without protective gear. Whatever I see about North Korea on Japanese TV [and I watch that rabbit box very little] paints a picture of a country that's in dire need of everything [literally]. The 'first' nuclear detonation hardly registered on the world's listening scales/ears. Also keep this and this in mind. As I'm not privy to behind-the-courtains info I guess NK's playing the same kind of game as Saddam Hussein back in the day [and lost].

side note: East Asia Intel is run from American servers. IP address: 218.128.15.6

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Feb 13 2013 1:47 utc | 9

Frankly, this just looks like one more example (in a long series) of the usa making noise and considering itself powerful and important while it is declining.

Actually I think that Russia just plays strategic games by seeming impressed by mutual destruction. In reality that option has been recognized as dumb and practically unfeasible because, even if the usa succeeded in destroying Russia (which is just a wet dream), the radiation and the severely crippled nature would slowly kill the americans, too (even if, which is another us wet dream, the Russians couldn't strike back).

Quite probably this stupid and arrogant american attempt will lead to 2 points:
- The Chinese are pissed off and understand even better that it's about time to rip out americas spine
- the Chinese will smile politely and think "you loud mouthed scum"

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Feb 13 2013 2:30 utc | 10

As b correctly states,
"The U.S. promised to North Korea to build it two reactors for electricity production should North Korea end its Plutonium program. North Korea did end its Pu program but those reactors were never build."

I first read about US duplicity toward NK here:
Crisis In North Korea (Desaix Anderson - 2003)
http://oldsite.nautilus.org/fora/security/0325A_Anderson.html

There's a North Korea specialist called Bruce Cumings whose (sane/sober) writings on NK are also worth perusing.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 13 2013 2:37 utc | 11

OK, was the test real? It is obvious that the every-man does not have seismic gear and we take media in this case as fact. If activity was seen, was this earthquake or a detonation? This "earthquake" has been upgraded to 5.1

Fact -N. Korea is pretty screwed in terms of life for the masses, N & S are divided, North is also repressed and sanctioned to hell and back. I still don't know why N. Korea has been such a long standing issue other than to keep it in limbo as a strategic location, possibly it is time to use that location?

To separate a detonation form a earthquake, one looks at the waves and depth, 1 Km suggests a detonation. What makes this all a bit fishy is the secondary wave of media reports, "Uranium or plutonium", not that is a bad question, just a poor question that would stimulate concern by Joe public. A series of earthquakes since 2001 in Colorado and New Mexico’s Raton Basin (including a 5.3 earthquake last year), that is just by fracking. What N.Korea need to do:

think that these are the main requirements for building a nuclear plant.

Build on earthquake fault zone.
Build on oceanfront property.
Build overbudget.
Produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Produce massive amounts of nuclear waste.
When shit hits the fan, cover up what you can, downplay the risks

That's it! Lesson from GE & Japan.

End of the day, most are stressing they are aiming at a delivery system etc, but in truth any plane would do, it does not need a Rocket, so if they wanted to strike, they could.

Notice the Iran called (Statement, press release) an end for Nuclear weapons after this 'true or not true' detonation/event; that was a funny political jab in many ways...

Posted by: Kev | Feb 13 2013 2:42 utc | 12

Gavan McCormack is also enlightening on NK, as is What's Left
http://gowans.wordpress.com/
where, in the sidebar under Categories, one can find numerous lucid analyses on North Korea.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 13 2013 2:57 utc | 13

Bruce Cuming's "The Korean War - A History" is essential reading.

The US air attacks on North Korea were openly genocidal in intent.

Among other reasons why north Korea feels embattled is the recent election of the late dictator Park's daughter to the presidency of the south.

"Following the Inchon landing, US-UN forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried the offensive into the North. The Air Force launched over a million sorties and 698,000 tons of bombs (compared to 500,000 in the entire Pacific theatre in World War II), including 32,357 tons of napalm. Maj. Gen. Emmett O’Donnell Jr. testified before the Senate that the goal of the air war was to “put a very severe blow on the North Koreans for going too far in what we all recognized as a case of aggression….we now have at our command a weapon that can really dish out some severe destruction, and now let us go to work on burning five major cities to the ground and destroying completely every one of about eighteen major strategic targets.”21

"Much of North Korea was left, in O’Donnell’s words, a “terrible mess,” with an estimated million civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees, some of whom were napalmed by pilots under orders to “hit anything that moved.” Eighteen out of 22 cities were obliterated, including 75 percent of Pyongyang and 100 percent of Sinaju. LeMay stated that we “burned every town in North Korea – and South Korea too.”

...British journalist Reginald Thompson described “holocausts of death and jellied petroleum bombs spreading an abysmal desolation over whole communities…. In such warfare, the slayer merely touches a button and death is in the wings, blotting out the remote, the unknown people below.” I.F. Stone stated that sanitized reports of the air raids reflected a “gay moral imbecility utterly devoid of imagination – as if the flyers were playing in a bowling alley, with villages for pins.”25
Racial dehumanization accounted in part for the lack of restraint in targeting civilians. Douglas MacArthur believed that “the Oriental dies stoically because he thinks of death as the beginning of life.” In May 1953, in blatant violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, article 56, US bombers struck three irrigation dams in Toksan, Chasan and Kuwonga, and then attacked two more in Namsi and Taechon. The effect was to unleash flooding and to disrupt the rice supply. An Air Force study concluded that “the Westerner can little conceive the awesome meaning which the loss of this staple commodity has for the Asian – starvation and slow death.” After the war it took 200,000 man days of labor to reconstruct the reservoir in Toksan alone. “Only the very fine print of the New York Times war reports mentioned the dam hits,” Bruce Cumings notes, “with no commentary.”26

According to a UN estimate, one out of nine North Korean women and children were killed during the war. J. Donald Kingsley, head of the reconstruction agency, called Korea “the most devastated land and its people the most destitute in the history of modern warfare.”27

Posted by: bevin | Feb 13 2013 3:42 utc | 14

Great news everyone! Syrian fighter jets have breached Israeli territory and send a warning to the Zionists!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF8G8msroX8

Posted by: Team America | Feb 13 2013 4:03 utc | 15

Off the track - I have just been watching the Manhunt in the US Chris Dorner; what I find odd is 'the whole situation' and why CNN never utters his mil background, as he srever in Iraq, but just ex-cop NRA?

Apparently he vowed revenge against those that got him fired from LAPD
Dorner allegedly shot the daughter of former LAPD captain and her fiance on Sunday and shot three cops, one fatally, early on Thursday

Massive Red Flag: Police have mistakenly shot two people who were in cars matching the description of Dorner i.e. Shoot to kill order! Just wonder what he knows as 'Shoot to kill' is imposed.

So, is this a man backed into a corner, and bullied by those who know how to work the system against the people that stand up to them and was trying to expose the LAPD for the corrupt, and poluted organization that it is; Or just another US random act of insanity that will be put to bed by saying he was 'nuts'?

R

Posted by: Kev | Feb 13 2013 4:36 utc | 16

IE: Team America

We interrupt our scheduled program for our national anthem...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qy4ulgYGxc

Posted by: вот так | Feb 13 2013 4:58 utc | 17

Chris Dorners MO is that he was a stand up guy. I think he was set up

Posted by: Fernando | Feb 13 2013 5:13 utc | 18

@ Kev/Fernando [#14/#16],

Another 'loner' that will end up in a 'Ruby Ridge' style assassination. As to his service, FOX et al get a hard-on parading military brass across screens telling us why 'we' have to bomb/invade/liberate a country, but Chris is a 'bad' boy, so linking him to the very same and corrupt LAPD makes him 'guilty by association,' imo. One thing's for sure: he'll be dead soon.

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Feb 13 2013 5:48 utc | 19

North Korea has right to have nuke .... if USA and west have any problem , they should annihilate their nuke first ...

Posted by: End | Feb 13 2013 6:27 utc | 20

It is kinda funny, when you think about it: the USA makes veiled threats to North Korea, and is surprised when the North Koreans show Uncle Sam the finger.

Q: So what does Uncle Sam do?
A: Makes veiled threats to the Chinese in the expectation that *they* will jump to attention.

Hellllllloooooooooo. If Uncle Sam's fist-shaking doesn't impress a pissant little country like North Korea then it certainly isn't going to impress a powerhouse like China.

Heck, what are those dudes at the State Department smoking?

Posted by: Johnboy | Feb 13 2013 9:33 utc | 21

a new test on nevada test side?

http://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/eqinfo/event.php?from=rss&id=gfz2013daoz

Posted by: muscat | Feb 13 2013 12:23 utc | 22

A funny piece for today. Look who's talking (again) about international obligations regarding nuclear issues:

These actions by the DPRK, in violation of its international obligations, must be met with a swift response by the international community.

Posted by: Michal | Feb 13 2013 12:34 utc | 23

Maybe the US should focus on its own wayward ally, which is a real threat to world security, unlike NK.

Posted by: Yonatan | Feb 13 2013 17:41 utc | 24

@7, not sure? sounds like the recent series by Oliver Stone.

Posted by: ruralito | Feb 13 2013 18:23 utc | 25

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Jeremy-Kuzmarov/3855

Googling the first quoted paragraph @ 14 brought me to the above google link.

Posted by: jawbone | Feb 13 2013 20:00 utc | 26

@ Kev [#12],

Q: Build on earthquake fault zone.
Build on oceanfront property.
Build overbudget.
Produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Produce massive amounts of nuclear waste.
When shit hits the fan, cover up what you can, downplay the risks

R: You leave me no choice but to sue you for seriously damaging several abs in my abdominal region, because of prolonged laughter after having read those remarks. When a 'Rosenthal & Partners' envelope hits your doormat, be very prepared :o)

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Feb 13 2013 22:52 utc | 27

... but this is what china did do: China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Feb 14 2013 5:37 utc | 28

@Dan R[27] Just changed my door number, then thought; R&P closed its door some time ago.

I just wish the world would turn to Thorium reactors it energy is a major concern, no more issues, but then again all would be equal or independent. But the Dragon is plotting, the thorium blueprints gathered dust in the archives until retrieved and published by former Nasa engineer Kirk Sorensen. The US largely ignored him: China did not. India has a new Thorium reactor, Norway is following.

Major players in the nuclear industry have had a vested interest in blocking thorium. They have huge sunk costs in the old technology, the weapon by-product was just to attractive, and bugger advantages regarding sustainability, reducing radiotoxicity and reducing proliferation risk, "What no War!", likewise One of the problems is actually BIG oil, they've known Thorium reactors (LFTR) will deliver everything mystic elusive 'fusion' has promised (Rabbit hole) without the enormous difficulties (Well it's impossible) and hell bent on a Green Bullshit path like sticking huge glass things on my roof and to assist a windmill peppered with a subsidy that will be terminated. Japan was in the most part a supply chain for the (An enrichment programme/MIL app) US and engineering by GE i.e. Washington.

So while the US is busy being Int police,and harvesting lone shooters to keep all happy, China is sitting back just watching, it is the only nation to invest in rare earth mineral processing and US slated them for doing so, but the 'ChiCom's' were smart, and always have been. I expect the demonizing by the US of Thorium to start this year, I did pick up an a nutty US senator a few weeks back threatening to strike secret tunnels in China that is supposed to be a 'Danger/threat', but appears to be a massive thorium build, small sized underground 'safe' effective reactors.

Anyhow good to see you have a laugh...

@Bevin #[14]. Never really looked at the impact of the US's insurgency on N.Korea, sounds like Cambodia etc. Will get the book and enlighten myself, yet again.

Back off on that track: The manhunt, Chris D, it is a weird saga, the manhunt went down to 25 officers once isolated, they called off other agency assistance, they burned the guy down, it was the police that set the fire. Before that, The LAPD Air Support Division resources include 17 helicopters ranging from four Bell 206 Jet Rangers to 12 Eurocopter AS350-B2 AStars. The LAPD also has one Beechcraft Kingair A200 and one unspecified and undenied drone. Just to note, I tried to post this comment on NBC a few other news sites and youtube and it was removed, freaky! I just dont get all of it, even Dorner burn his truck when he went to Bear Mountain. Wouldn't this just tip off his location, the logic is mad.

Maggie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother Emma Hernandez were delivering newspapers in a truck not even the same color as Dorner’s when LAPD officers shot Hernandez in the back, hospitalizing her. Though Carranza was not hit by gunfire, she was wounded by shattered glass from the windshield. According to their attorney, “There was no warning. There were no orders. No commands. Just gunshots.” As I said a 'Shoot to Kill' was the order, extrajudicial killing of a citizen.

In a Nutshell:

Tries to steal boat to escape to Mexico, boat prop wrapped in rope (He was in the Navy)
Loses his wallet (Found in one state)
Is the first known human target for airborne drones on U.S. soil (Black guy killed by a government drone, hmmm, Rodney King revisited).
Tries to drive to Big Bear in his truck (not an old jalopy), axle breaks, so sets it alight because he is hiding.
Woman is shot without warning by LAPD since her car is like his, even though the police know its burned out. They nailed that car, 60+ rounds. Note to self: Police need training in skill at arms.
Police went an shot up a second truck. Note to self: Lesson learned lecture
Police offer 1 million reward .
Tries to hide in cabin, in a ski resort because it is a place where 270 pound black men holiday.
Police radio in for a Fuel truck to torch the 'Coon' they wait and find his fireproof wallet (The one he lost in another state), it's Him.
AND
It all ends just about one hour before State of the Union when Obama will push for gun control, or not? (No).

One the bright side a business minded person is making a killing from "Not Chris Dorner, Please don't shoot" T-shirts, ideal for 81 year old women, skinny white guys and any black man in the LA area, and Obama did mention jobs and the economy in his speech, inspiring...

What are the chances?

Posted by: Kev | Feb 14 2013 8:02 utc | 29

@29, re: Dorner...

Sideshow. There are a couple good articles on Counterpunch about his motives and 'manifesto' that do sound reasonable. Still a sideshow. What was happening elsewhere while the plebs were focused on the saga-du-jour? Lots! Korea and US' ineffective bleating are now a tad less embarrassing (domestically, anyway). Failure in Syria, spotlight on Saudi drone base, spotlight on Iranian fighter jets, etc etc etc.

And Fukushima continues to smolder and spew. Sea lion pups here in SoCal are all very sick...but we don't know what could be causing that! Especially since the appropriate tests are not done, or if they are the results are not made public.

But never fear. Next week there will be another school shooting or a Republican senator caught getting a BJ, and we'll move a little further on down the road...

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Feb 14 2013 8:38 utc | 30

@30, At least France is happy, well Nicolas Sarkozy, he did try and push that out, the Dassault Rafale deal is clinched, it took Libya and Mali with the latter the closing, but worth a cool 12 Billion with India as the buyer. Syria, and Assad announced they are winning and Damascus is the proof of the pudding. Read the Sea-lion issue, the animals are coming in malnourished and dehydrated, but glow in the dark - Possibly Lionzilla will attack Tokyo one day as revenge? I have stemmed my fish intake, now buy farmed fish only; just wonder if that was the intention, consumer retention, cant have people fishing and eating for free now!

Posted by: Kev | Feb 14 2013 9:24 utc | 31

@ken - Thorium reactors

Nasty stuff and a huge proliferation concerns --> The Promise and Peril of Thorium

Posted by: b | Feb 14 2013 10:53 utc | 32

@ 32.
Thanks. The ~40% of that article I could comprehend made it interesting and useful as a future point of reference.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 14 2013 13:52 utc | 33

@b, presuming I am Ken - Proliferation is current and ongoing; fact; However, even allowing for the sheer ignorance of the basics of thorium fission pathways and MSR's, one might have thought that a practical method of disposing of the 1200 metric tonnes of plutonium currently stored worldwide might appealing?

Hey, I am all for renewable energy, I have solar, mostly off-grid, that includes water (deep well) but that is advocated, subsidized, yet not liked by Gov/Corp.

Ok, great write up, and an argument, also 'THE' demonetization as stated much like Diesel V's Petrol.

Thorium by itself does not sustain an chain reaction, but after absorbing neutrons it transmutes into Uranium-233(Key), thus an a chain reaction U233, thus in turn different nuclear properties than the Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 that fuel all conventional light water reactors today. The difference is Uranium-233 't' is fissioned by “slow neutrons”, U233 releases more neutrons per neutron absorbed in the reaction. As a result, U233 made from thorium could enable “slow neutron breeder reactors” which is safer than the “fast neutron breeder reactors” that have been tried repeatedly in the US, France, Japan, Russia, and India without making significant commercial headway. Hence India's recent thorium reactor.

In any breeder reactor there are opportunities to destroy nuclear waste, turn useless U238 (Th232) into useful nuclear fuel (enough in current reserves to power the entire world for thousands of years). In the past the trade-off has been between reactor core safety (PWR) vs fuel & waste economy (fast breeder). Obviously, the world has chosen core safety over waste economy, with the result that there is a lot of nuclear waste and some fuel proliferation concern.

Thorium solves nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation problems by enabling breeder reactors that work with “slow neutrons” instead of “fast neutrons.

There are of course, genuine thorium 'enthusiasts', who use their real names on the web. See http://energyfromthorium.com .

Thorium does offer one way forward - it is abundant, easily extracted, and produces more energy, and renders only a fraction of radioactive waste that urianum reactors do - and they decay to background levels over 300 years as opposed to 30000 years in the case of uranium. They can also be used to burn up uranium waste, solving another problem.

So what are we going to do? It is Nuclear or Coal/Gas - each as bad as each other - thorium does offer a possibility of reasonably clean and chap nuclear. And if China succeeds in developing pre-fab small reactors, that can be buried underground, and distributed close to the source of demand, then even if it does take 40 years, it is better than the largely dark future that we face otherwise.

In perspective:

(1) The Thorium Community contends that LFTRs can deliver clean, safe, and cheap power, and can also reduce the radioactivity of our existing megatons of spent fuel from a 300,000 year problem down to a 300-year problem, by using it as a secondary fuel.
(2) The pro-nuclear / anti-Thorium crowd contends that this is all pathetic nonsense.
(3) The anti-nuclear crowd agrees with the pro-nuke / anti-Thorium crowd, but they also want to permanently shut down the entire global nuclear industry forever, and switch the world over to wind and solar.

Building a test LFTR in an open forum, in front of the entire world, with the skeptics in the proverbial front row seats, is something that all three of these factions should strongly support, and it is happening, just the wrong side. Their reasons:
(1) Is self-evident.
(2) The anti-Thorium crowd should realize that the best way to end all this nonsense about Thorium is to encourage the Thorium crowd to actually go ahead and build the silly thing. And when it fails to perform, they will have made utter fools out of themselves in front of the entire world, and that will be that - However, it works and has been proven!
(3) The wind and solar proponents dearly want to abandon all things nuclear, but they have no solution to remediate the thousands of tons of existing nuclear waste. But if the LFTR works as predicted, it could become the last generation of reactors on earth, the Omega Reactor that cleans up the mess of all the previous generations of reactors, and truly buries nuclear energy forever.

Here's another way of thinking about all this:

The US alone has 70,000 tons of spent fuel. The Thorium club claims that a 1-gigawatt test LFTR fueled by 1 ton of Thorium will open the door to a method of greatly reducing the longevity of all existing spent fuel.
(a:) If the test LFTR fails, it will increase the pile of spent fuel by 1/70,000th, or .0000142%.
(b): If the test LFTR works, we will have an actual solution to the vexing problem of long-term waste, by reducing the radioactivity of that waste down to a 300-year span.
Therefore (c): Building a test LFTR to explore the feasibility of this remediation method entails a risk factor of .0000142%.

Even the most ardent anti-nuker should like those odds. China and India has done this - Thus the fuss...

Posted by: Kev | Feb 14 2013 16:49 utc | 34

U.S. sanctions disrupt international trade order: MOC

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-02/13/c_132167674.htm

Chinese patience has got to be wearing thin.

Posted by: вот так | Feb 14 2013 21:25 utc | 35

Henry Kissinger: "If You Can't Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf"

http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/index.php?news=3089

"In a remarkable admission by former Nixon era Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, reveals what is happening at the moment in the world and particularly the Middle East.

Speaking from his luxurious Manhattan apartment, the elder statesman, who will be 89 in May, is all too forward with his analysis of the current situation in the world forum of Geo-politics and economics.

"The United States is baiting China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them. We're like the sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try, it's bang bang. The coming war will will be so severe that only one superpower can win, and that's us folks. This is why the EU is in such a hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming, and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment..."

Posted by: вот так | Feb 15 2013 3:08 utc | 36

Bot Tak (36)

"O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment..." (quoting kissinger)

That's what it is, a dream.

And, of course, that's the way the usa still sees itself - be it reality denial or hybris (or both).

In my minds eye reality could be better described by asking who will fall first, kissinger or the usa.

Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Feb 15 2013 3:54 utc | 37

@36, you know Daily Squib is satire, right?

Mr Kissinger then added: "If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised."

Posted by: ruralito | Feb 15 2013 4:25 utc | 38

ruralito - 38

"@36, you know Daily Squib is satire, right?"

;)

Posted by: вот так | Feb 15 2013 4:39 utc | 39

@ BOT TAK #36 - The only flaw in this ideal is China do not engage, history is a great tool when one wants to see the bigger picture, in that; yes, the US will kick-off, it's in their nature; but - will China spar? Whatever the cause of the possible conflict scenario, whether it’s Taiwan, Senkakus/Diaoyus impasse, passage through the South China Sea, border disputes or posturing to something unique, Beijing will defuse Washington’s choice to intervene and call in its debts. The EU needs China, like the US needs China, China is a product generator, a work horse, and the sole processor of rare earth minerals sufficient for global demand, (Everything electronic) and China in ratio i.e. Chinese in the EU/US rest of the world for that matter is epic, all those little China towns! How many US citizens live in China? that sum is negligible, when a single City in the US can have millions 1st, 2nd and 3 generation, all deep down Nationalistic if pushed.

Both US and China cant afford a War, never mind that the World cant afford a War, if it did occur millions would die and it would be ugly, no more crispy Duck, world trade would stop and grind down to nothing, consumers may settle for 'home' products, but cant afford it, Banks and credit lines stopped, the DOW would cave and alliances would change, and the face of product sourcing would be a cluster fuck, and it is just plain stupidity for the human race and the planet. There is more chance that Burkina Faso would become the world's largest economy than a China/US War.

What China can do (And is) is buy-in or buy-out, it has the financial sway, US is in dept, and 51% of that debt is held in Asia, China having the largest chunk. China can dump a trillion, devalue the USD still pay top $$$ to any country or sell at bottom $$$ to any country, and there would be takers, and the US will suffer in epic proportions, likewise the EU. It's also in the Nature of China to be content with making a 'penny' profit irrelevant of scale, the West Nature is high profit, specific margins, if you blow that ideology, everything goes tit's-up! The people suffer -The West cant afford to make a penny although it may say 'in for a penny in for a pound'. War will will crush China's economy and U.S. but who's citizen can cope better? Look at the NY Backout, or Katrina, the population went bananas, raping, looting & pillaging, both events were a disaster, but also proves the weakness of the resilience of the people and displays the need for controlled assistance or it will create pure Anarchy. The Chinese (In China) although this generation is not a hardened have lived through decades of hardship, have farmed for food, and farmed for the Nation without any gratuity, they just accepted, we would never do the same; it's not in our culture - We go ape when the AC is in-op, no power, heating, water, entertainment and needing to live with extended families as a food stamp Nation, it would break the camels back.

As for Kissinger dreaming of this moment; what a sick senile old prick, and does not deserve to be a part of the human race, what a twisted veil spiteful turd; the thought that he would like to see the demise of Nations to aspire to one superpower by annihilation, death and War is just grotesque. It's insanity like that when I feel the danger, not just me, but my kids, friends, and for the people of the World, mostly who have no grievance and just want to get on.
The problem is their are many such Kissinger's and people who support his spew.

Thanks for that BOT, you just made my day grey - WTF...I will smear that link as far as I can, people need to read shit like that and see why the World is screwed.

Lastly, sorry for all the profanity, just venting- Kissinger is anal bile that needs flushed and treatment.

Posted by: Kev | Feb 15 2013 5:15 utc | 40

china is in an uniquely unenviable position...its the only country surrounded by nuclear powers on all sides, from countries which are openly hostile, semi-hostile, ambiguous or *allies*.

Posted by: denk | Feb 17 2013 15:02 utc | 41