Over the recent years I have had certain passions which drove those closest to me mad. In the late 90's I was aware that we were heading toward an economic cataclysm. Anyone who studied economic history would be aware of Kondratiev waves. Much as predicting the arrival of winter, it was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when the crash would happen but like winter proper thinking economists knew that it was coming.
A specific modification of the theory of Kondratieff cycles was developed by Daniel Šmihula. Šmihula identified six long-waves within modern society and the capitalist economy, each of which was initiated by a specific technological revolution:
- (1600–1780) The wave of the Financial-agricultural revolution
- (1780–1880) The wave of the Industrial revolution
- (1880–1940) The wave of the Technical revolution
- (1940–1985) The wave of the Scientific-technical revolution
- (1985–2015) The wave of the Information and telecommunications revolution
- (2015–2035?) The hypothetical wave of the post-informational technological revolution
The 6th wave cited by Šmihula might be renamed the Blockchain Wave or even possibly the Alt Wave. This could the time when impossible dreams become reality.
One of the biggest psychological hurdles that people face when discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the question about where the money comes from. Members of the STEEM community are aware that "money" can be generated as simply as clicking a button. While it might have little value .001 SD (for beginners) a platform like STEEM would be a UBI if everyone on the planet joined and participated.
Cryptocurrencies could also be a means to achieve economic change for people by another method. As indicated in the video, everyone's energy cost (in the world) could be reduced to $1 per year. Canadians who have some of the least expensive energy costs spend a little more than 5% of household income spending almost $75 per week per average household. By diverting this cost of energy to a UBI program, at least in Canada each household would receive roughly $300 per month.
How can cryptocurrencies help to bring about Thorium use?
The largest hurdle faced by the companies involved in this field is the First Investor Hurdle. When a new technology is being introduced - the first pill, the first car etc - is very very expensive. Not only does a company face the cost of research but also the cost of creating the production lines. Cryptocurrencies are reasonably easy to create: new coins can be patterned after existing coins with their own logic and rules if necessary. The logistics of deployment is also fairly straight forward ... establishing a network of "miners" to support the infrastructure and agreements with exchanges to create buy/sell market places. There is a difficulty in the deployment ... but not in comparison to creating new technology or manufacturing facilities.
Thorium-based reactors have been shown to be more economical than uranium-fueled reactors. In contrast to conventional light water reactors using uranium, according to a 2013 report from the Bellona Foundation:
The capital costs of thorium reactors would be lower than conventional nuclear reactors; a 1 gigawatt (GW) thorium power plant would cost at most an estimated $780 million in comparison to capital costs currently of $1.1 billion per GW for a uranium-fueled reactor.
Less manpower would be required to operate the plant; for a 1 GW power plant, staffing costs may decrease from $50 million to $5 million.
Less radioactive waste is produced, perhaps one-tenth as little, by volume; thus, nuclear waste disposal for a 1 GW thorium power plant would cost an estimated $1 million or even less per year.
Source: National Center for Policy Analysis
I have put a request to Copenhagen Atomics for more information but at least some of their costing estimates are discussed in this whitepaper. An estimate of costs by Thorium Power Canada is as follows:
I have given a certain amount of thought about how the initial mining of a "Thorium_Coin" could be used to fund the initial research and development and construction of thorium reactors. For instance using the Waste Burner model, the "Burners" could be built and rented to existing facilities. The revenues could then go back to building more and to act as a dividend for members of the ThoriumIt community. Just pass that though your mind ... paving the way to an UBI and cleaning up the environment at the same time.