Thorium distracted, but...

Long-time Townsend Brown inquirer Jan Lundquist – aka 'Rose' in The Before Times – has her own substantial archive to share with readers and visitors to this site. This forum is dedicated to the wealth of material she has compiled: her research, her findings, and her speculations.
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Jan Lundquist
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Thorium distracted, but...

Post by Jan Lundquist »

Bear with me on this. Thorium (U-233) has been pinging all over the place for me.

It has been claimed that the Nazi Bell was actually a thorium based breeder reactor. (See The Dreaded UFO Topic). It might well have been, as thorium is an ideal nuclear fuel, yielding more fissile material than it consumes. The waste by-product is also far less harmful than the depleted uranium rods from the present generation of nuclear power plants.

After the NRL's demonstrated success with thorium based thermal diffusion, the US seemed interested in pursuing U-233 technology. Oak Ridge National Laboratory even had their own breeder/reactor operating until 1969, when public policy settled on a nuclear power grid based on Uranium 235 based reactors. Thorium was a dead issue until China's 2021 announcement of the a "game changing" thorium fueled reactor reignited an interest in this new old technology.

The reason for this thread is because I had another, unexpected thorium ping while digging into events around April 14, 1955, when Townsend told Cornillion he could not meet him for dinner in Philly as he had to return to Washington that evening.

The US was conducting nuclear testing at the Nevada Proving Grounds on a nigh weekly basis, then As the story goes, the MET tower test scheduled for April 15, was to use a calibrated plutionium-U235 core. Unfortunately, the Los Alamos weapon designers decided to try an untested, and not calibrated plutonium/U-233 (thorium) core instead and the test effects personnel were not informed of the change. Consequently, the test results were unusable to the Department of Defense.

i have accepting that as the truth, the whole truth, and nuttin' but the truth. Test missions varied according to whether a test was conducted for the Atomic Energy Commission or for the DoD, but the AEC was the grand ringmaster. if the results were unusable to the Dod, were they equally unusable to the AEC? Was MET a spectacular waste of money, time, and effort, or is the story another Prairie Chicken? And lastly, is it relevant to Townsend's need to be in D.C. on the 15th?
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Paul Schatzkin
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Re: Thorium distracted, but...

Post by Paul Schatzkin »

Hmmm.... 🤔

Two things while I'm in the muddle of a third...
Jan Lundquist wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 7:06 pm The reason for this thread is because I had another, unexpected thorium ping while digging into events around April 14, 1955, when Townsend told Cornillion he could not meet him for dinner in Philly as he had to return to Washington that evening.
Where does that tasty morsel come from?

I really am going to have to do something with those Cornillon tapes...
the MET tower test scheduled for April 15...
I am congenitally unable to let an acronym go unexpanded. You dropped this one in mid-sentence. What's a 'MET'? I assume it's not a ballplayer from New York... 🤣
Paul Schatzkin, author of 'The Man Who Mastered Gravity' https://amz.run/6afz
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It's "a multigenerational project." What's your hurry?
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"We will just sail away from the Earth, as easily as this boat pushed away from the dock" - TTB
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Jan Lundquist
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Re: Thorium distracted, but...

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MET was a Measurement Engineering Tower test performed for the DoD. MET is also short for metrology or measurement science using calibrated instruments and proven measurement standards. This is why a calibrated core would have been essential to obtaining valid results.

And yet, we are to believe that every single brainiac Los Alamos engineer who worked on the MET weapon design was a big dummy,unable to grasp the basic principle of the test mission. Sure thing, Jill.

I hope you do get into the Cornillion tapes again, Paul. All I have to work from is the first person narrative in his written report which begins around page 100 or 110 of the Montgolfier report.

Much of the story he tells comes from Shank and Rose and leaves me with the impression that the two men were public props serving on a a need to know basis for a specific purpose and period of time. I believe Townsend and Shank's path would have crossed at Wonderland, during the war/post-war period when we were filming and studying a-bomb explosions. Mason and Townsend may have met through the Oh So Social, as they both came from the top of the social stratum.

But the conversation gets historically rich when he relates his encounter with Townsend. It is also interesting to read the emphasis Townsend puts on materials development.
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David Osielski
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Re: Thorium distracted, but...

Post by David Osielski »

Just reading this. Our family lives less than 1/4 mile from one of the Kerr-McGee thorium Superfund sites in West Chicago, IL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr-McGee
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Jan Lundquist
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Re: Thorium distracted, but...

Post by Jan Lundquist »

Oh, dear, David!

Are you concerned about the proximity?
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David Osielski
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Re: Thorium distracted, but...

Post by David Osielski »

No concerns about proximity. It actually wants me to get closer! Former Speaker Dennis Hastert & his SuperFund site funds cleaned it all up. Just the "synchronicities of proximity." I always seem to feel like I'm at the "right PLACE but the wrong TIME" who doesn't believe in coincidences. My great uncle was on the USS Cutlass, I work at only 1 of 12 colleges in the country with a Roger Babson anti-gravity stone, Morgan/Collins/Brown/Taylor names are ALL OVER my genealogy research...
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