User talk:David MacQuigg/Sandbox/ThorCon nuclear reactor

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search

IAEA as a reliable source

The International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA is a regulatory agency under the United Nations.
From Wikipedia editors:
Submission declined on 13 March 2022 by Mako001
The IAEA source seems to be just a report that ThorCon themselves have written, so it doesn't make it any better.
Additional comments from Wickey, 28 April 2022:
I don't know what IAEA does and does not. I observe that the "filing" is from ThorCon and I do not see a source that confirms that IAEA reviewed the ThorCon input in the document, and if, what were the results. Here is a docx of the June 2016 filing. It is written by Seong-Deuk JO and Robert Hargraves. The pdf is dated Feb 2017; the docx March 2017. They are exactly the same. According to this document, p. 17, Seong-Deuk JO is or was an IAEA employee for promoting nuclear energy. According to the same page, ARIS is responsible for presenting all reactor systems in a standard way, balanced and objective, using a standard template. Robert Hargraves, is mentioned as a team member of ThorCon here.

Responses:
"The IAEA review was originally drafted by me, according to the outline and rules that they laid down. IAEA people reviewed, edited, critiqued it repeatedly until it was published, by them." - Robert Hargraves, Founder of ThorCon, 11 March 2022. "There were dozens of interactions between IAEA editors and me. The tables of tech specs were required by IAEA and filled in by me and checked by others. There can be no more accurate source." -- Robert Hargraves, Founder of ThorCon, 15 March 2022.

The IAEA has nuclear experts on staff to review proposed reactor designs. They are funded by numerous countries, and have no incentive to do anything other than protect the public interest. Companies providing information to the IAEA have no incentive to lie or exaggerate. Loss of credibility with a regulatory agency would be a serious problem. A document reviewed and published by the IAEA should be a more reliable source than even a peer-reviewed journal.