- The document argues that California's policies exclude nuclear energy which could provide emission-free energy 24/7 without the environmental impacts of renewable energy sources. - It advocates for investing in molten salt reactors which are inherently safer, more efficient, and produce less waste than traditional pressurized water reactors. Molten salt reactors could meet California's emissions reductions targets at lower costs while supporting economic growth. - Thorium, which is abundant and produces less waste than uranium, could power molten salt reactors to provide unlimited, cheap, clean energy for California and beyond if the state invested in developing the technology.

1. Comstock’sThoriumMoltenSaltReactorOpinionPiece byWalterHorsting
California’s 21st Century Blind Spot - Energy
California is adopting Germany’s tunnel-vision that excludes the most important source
of emission free energy, nuclear energy. Germany has become a cautionary tale for
California, an example of where the wrong energy policies are damaging, perhaps
mortally wounding, its economy, punishing consumers and the poor while undermining
the green objectives, of reduced CO2 emissions. How does renewable energy save
nature by displacing and killing nature with massive energy farms?
Renewable energy also requires inefficiently-run backup fossil fuel generators and
pumped water energy storage dams.
Germany Wind intermittent supply chart below:
http://www.finadvice.ch/files/germany_lessonslearned_final_071014.pdf
California can and should end building bird and bat-killing wind mills and square miles of
bird-frying, concentrated solar installations.

2. Comstock’sThoriumMoltenSaltReactorOpinionPiece byWalterHorsting
A 21st Century investment in inherently safe compact nuclear energy that runs twenty-
four hours a day is wiser; the World will leave California and the US in its wake with 4th
Generation nuclear. It all comes down to the amount of Energy Returned on Energy
Invested (ERoEI) that impact society’s elevation.
See Energy Returned on Investment below as discussed by Forbes’ James Conca, FEB 11, 2015.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/02/11/eroi -a-tool-to-predict-the-best-energy-mix/
Why are California and Germany turning their backs on nuclear energy?
In the 1960s, the U.S. didn’t choose wisely scaling up the Navy’s nuclear power plant
for civilian power. During the cold war the U.S. needed bomb making material, and the
safety of the reactor was not the primary consideration. Unfortunately, our current
Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fleet’s first generation design creates several
problems:
 Only 5% of a PWR’s fuel pellets are “consumed” before they become
contaminated with fission by-products and must be replaced – then safely stored
for two-hundred thousand years.
 PWRs use water pressurized to 170 atmospheres, which require expensive
plumbing, massive containment domes and redundant cooling and power backup
systems.

3. Comstock’sThoriumMoltenSaltReactorOpinionPiece byWalterHorsting
 If cooling the reactor becomes impossible due to lack of water or electricity, there
are serious plant and safety issues.
Despite these issues, PWRs have provided the safest form of energy worldwide. Except
for Chernobyl, a plant that was illegal everywhere but in the USSR, now the Ukraine.
No one has died from radiation from commercial nuclear power production anywhere in
the world. Millions die every year from burning dung, two-stroke engines, absence of
pollution controls on coal & oil and the lack of cheap electricity.
What is the way forward?
Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) are a Tesla Model D auto when compared to PWRs being
a Stanley Steamer 1st generation auto. 4th Generation MSRs are 200 times more
efficient than our PWRs. Nuclear energy is 5 million times more energy dense than wind
energy. The MSR was developed in the 1960s for its inherent safety, fuel & thermal
efficiency, low pressure design and being worthless for weapons:
 The MSR uses 99% of its fuel while producing only tiny amounts of short-lived
waste.
 MSRs operate at low pressure, explosive decompression is not possible, and no
containment dome is required. The fluid is inert with the atmosphere and water.
 If electrical power is lost – as at Fukushima, the liquid fuel in a MSR passively
gravity drains into cooling tanks and solidifies.
 The cost per KWh is much less for an MSR plant compared to a PWR.

4. Comstock’sThoriumMoltenSaltReactorOpinionPiece byWalterHorsting
 MSRs are compact and can be made on assembly lines, which lower costs and
encourage improvements; they are dramatically less complex than a Boeing 787.
 MSRs can also be used for desalination and a wide array of high thermal
industrial processes due to its efficient high thermal design.
 MSRs will produce needed short-lived medical isotopes for cancer treatments.
California’s policies will not reduce climate change by any significant measure. We are
burning more fossil fuels due to the closing of the San Onofre Nuclear Generation
Station, backing up our intermittent “renewables.” We will need to use pumped water
storage dams or expensive battery storage to store the renewable energy. Today
California’s peak excess solar power is being discounted to the states of Nevada and
Utah. Meanwhile, industry continues to leave the state for lower cost energy and
emissions regulatory concerns.
What could California do with abundant, cheap, 24/7, emission-free energy?
California can eliminate most emissions and reduce the cost of living for everyone. We
can lower the energy cost for Desalination and Municipal Waste Water recycling by a
factor of four. Industry can afford to power emission-free cement production, metal
smelting, chemical processes and conversion of garbage to synthetic fuels. Most
importantly, nuclear power will allow the State to meet its emissions targets without
stunting economic growth, while allowing more funds to flow to water, transportation and
the welfare of all. Cities will be able to afford their own MSR plants and supply energy
at costs as little as $.03KWH. With large scale desalination, the state can afford to
divert more water to the central valley’s farms that supply low cost food.
How can we start down this path?
California can invest one year’s carbon credit fees into developing a test reactor at our
national labs in the Bay Area. China is developing the Oak Ridge National Lab’s MSR
design on a ten-year crash program; goal is global ownership. California should lead
the world in green nuclear energy -
a $1 Trillion annual market by
2030. California can invest in
building ocean going power and
desalination platforms to help
reduce worldwide emissions and
slack the thirst of much of the
world. And we can stop the visual
blight of inefficient, intermittent
renewables that require massive
changes to the power grid. We
can build a vibrant export market
for emission free industrial
processes. We can simply add a
Nuclear Power check mark on all
our energy bills.

5. Comstock’sThoriumMoltenSaltReactorOpinionPiece byWalterHorsting
The Future Thorium Economy
At UC Berkeley during WWII, Thorium was found to be transmutable into U-233 a
fissionable fuel. Thorium is a common as lead and is five-hundred times more prevalent
than the rare isotope U-235 used in PWRs. Our advanced electronics and renewable
energy devices use Rare Earth Elements (REE) for the super magnets, and
microprocessors which are found with high concentrations of Thorium. Every year ten-
thousand tons of the Thorium is discarded into tailing ponds due to the production of
REEs; enough Thorium to power the entire planet using MSRs without additional
mining. Imagine exchanging the waste of renewable energy for unlimited, cheap, 24/7
energy.
California can be a water-impoverished polluter, a bird and bat-killer, a heavy subsidizer
of inefficient, short-lived, renewables or a leader in the development of modern, clean,
green, 24/7, low-waste, emission-free nuclear power. It is time for California take its
blinders off and embrace safe nuclear energy, saving nature from green energy
industrialization.