The Black Vault

Has anyone here ever done a google search on Thorium and its use? I've read a lot about it, and think it would be a fun discussion between reasonable people. I am just wondering if anyone here has thoughts on it or if they are familiar with it?

Also, John, is there a way I can contact you about some of the functions of this forum? I tried to send you a private message to ask the questions, but it would not allow me to enter any text in the text box.

Thanks to all who are willing to participate in a reasonable discussion,

Danny

PS John, saw you on last night's edition of "Unsealed"... looks like you have dropped a few lbs!!

I'll pass you message on to John, but you should be able to write to him if you go to the BV home page.

There was a thorium post, have to see if I can find it, but it was about Thorium as a possible power source. As a Welder I am familiar with Thorium, because in TIG welding (Heliarc), the Tungsten welding electrode, is alloyed with Thorium, to raise its melting point. Typical heat of the welding arc in Heliarc welding is 10,000 F. depending on the shielding gas. Argon is a cooler gas, while Helium or mixture gases are hotter and up to 11,000 F. Most common is the 2% thoriated tungsten. Thorium is radioactive about the level of what is in a illuminated watch. They did tests on it when they were worried the welders were exposed to trace elements of the thorium while sharpening the point on the tungsten. The tungsten has to have a sharp point, and it erodes with high temp use, so the welding routinely sharpens his tungsten.

Some believe they can use that low level radioactivity for power production.

Greeny2,

The tungsten has to have a sharp point, and it erodes with high temp use, so the welding routinely sharpens his tungsten.

I could never keep count of the number of times I have seen a welder do just that.



TIG is indeed a nice clean weld in the hands of a good skilled welder. Strong too!!

I broke my Craftsman Chain Wrench many years ago by putting a pipe on the end of it for more leverage. A tig welder put it back together for me and it continues to serve me unto this very day. We would also shorten up our larger 10 and 12 inch Crescent Wrenchs for tight spaces by cutting out the middles and having a TIG welder put them back together in shortened form. A good TIG Welder can do a nice professional job. We would do the same thing with a combination wrench set ..shorten them up for tight spaces. Of course today you can buy stubby wrench sets but in those days we made our own. TIG modified wrenches were the ticket in those days..just what the doctor ordered.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Kybasser wrote:Also, John, is there a way I can contact you about some of the functions of this forum? I tried to send you a private message to ask the questions, but it would not allow me to enter any text in the text box.

Thanks to all who are willing to participate in a reasonable discussion,

Danny

PS John, saw you on last night's edition of "Unsealed"... looks like you have dropped a few lbs!!

Yes, please feel free to email me at my email john@greenewald.com. However, if it is simply a board issue - post it here for others to see as well: black-vault-website-forum-support-f36.html There are MANY features here on the board, that can be used, and I am here to help. We should keep in public, so others can see what they can utilize in regards to features as well.

Anything else can be emailed privately.

By the way, thank you for the compliments on the dropping of the pounds. I have more to lose

Thanks John. I was going to use the "ignore poster" or the whimsily named "foes" function of this board so I would not have to pretend some posts were not made. The function simply would not let me add users to the "foes" list to hide their posts, and the box kept coming back empty after confirming the action. It was very similar to the issue I had trying to send you a private message to ask about that function. In that, I was able to get the PM addressed, but the site would not allow me to click in the text box area to type the message. I was just wondering if you had some of the functions turned off? I just didn't want to clutter the board up with this kind of trivial stuff. I have been a moderator on other outdoor forums, and I try to respect all rules, and so I thought I would try to just keep the board clean. I hadn't seen the other board.

As for the thorium, I've read several articles, written last calendar year, that had suggested there should be a working model of a thorium powered engine in a car by the year 2014. The thought was that 7 grams of Thorium would be the equivalent of something like 750,000 gallons of gasoline, or some such huge number. I am not familiar with this substance. It was mentioned that Thorium is radio active, but that an aluminum chamber would block any radioactivity from escaping. They also said the engine would end up weighing in the 700 lb. range, and that it would possibly out live the car, and could then be taken out and put in a new body.

What I find so interesting about this is that back in high school, in physics class, in the mid 1970's, we were doing experiments where we separated water molecules, distilled water, and then burned off the hydrogen, and let the oxygen just escape into the air. I've always thought if high school students could create a combustible gas that easily back then, then why don't we have cars that are now run on hydrogen, or in essence, we should be using distilled water as our fuel source. I do realize there would have to be more to it than just separating the molecules and pumping the gas into the combustion chamber, but it seemed something engineers should have been able to accomplish.

All that said, brings me to the next point, even if Thorium could be used, and the set up was a little complex, using lasers and steam powered turbines to create the electricity, they said the biggest hurdle was miniaturizing the turbines to a size they could fit in the car. Apparently the thing works by the lasers melting the thorium that apparently has a sizable difference in it's melting and boiling points, and this would give off the radioactivity to generate heat to create steam, then convert to electricity and we would essentially have electric cars with plenty of power and no worry of the battery going dead. I personally feel that the fossil fuel industry has the richest lobby in DC, and that any such patents for such an engine would be bought up by the big fossil fuel companies and locked away from sight.

I had no idea of the use in welding. I was just wanting to see what others thought of this technology, as it is something I have just begun to investigate.

Thanks for the answers, and reading such a long post... I'll be looking for more input... some of you seem very well versed in a lot of different areas of expertise.

Danny

blackvault wrote:

Kybasser wrote:Also, John, is there a way I can contact you about some of the functions of this forum? I tried to send you a private message to ask the questions, but it would not allow me to enter any text in the text box.

Thanks to all who are willing to participate in a reasonable discussion,

Danny

PS John, saw you on last night's edition of "Unsealed"... looks like you have dropped a few lbs!!

Yes, please feel free to email me at my email john@greenewald.com. However, if it is simply a board issue - post it here for others to see as well: black-vault-website-forum-support-f36.html There are MANY features here on the board, that can be used, and I am here to help. We should keep in public, so others can see what they can utilize in regards to features as well.

Anything else can be emailed privately.

By the way, thank you for the compliments on the dropping of the pounds. I have more to lose