Alvin Weinberg Foundation
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This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch. |
Contents
Background
The Weinberg Foundation is a UK-based not-for-profit organisation and pressure group 'dedicated to driving the uptake of safer, cleaner and affordable energy fuelled by thorium' [nuclear energy].
Launched at the UK House of Lords in September 2011[1] the Foundation describes itself as a 'communications, debate and lobbying hub', 'dedicated to advancing the research, development and deployment of safe, clean and affordable nuclear energy technologies to combat climate change and underpin sustainable development for the world'. [2]
Thorium-fuelled nuclear fission technology was pioneered in the 1960s by Alvin Weinberg, Director of the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In a 2012 submission to the UK government's Energy and Climate Change Committee the Foundation argued for 'substantially increased' Government funding for research and development into this technology on the basis that:
- Thorium has many advantages over uranium including being more abundant, more energy dense and producing significantly easier to manage waste products.'
- New reactor designs, such as the molten salt reactor, can also drastically reduce the generation of waste and offer other significant safety and efficiency advantages over current reactor designs. A prominent molten salt reactor design, the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), offers inherent safety features, generates very small quantities of waste and can use legacy waste as fuel. In addition, it is proliferation resistant, more efficient and less costly to construct than current reactor designs.[3]
People
- Baroness Bryony Worthington, Patron. Climate change policy expert and campaigner, made a Labour peer in November 2010, is Labour's shadow energy and climate change minister in the House of Lords
- Kirk Sorensen, nuclear engineer and the keynote speaker at Weinberg Foundation launch in UK Parliament
- Lawrence O'Hagan, CEO. 'A physicist by background, Laurence co-founded The Weinberg Foundation with John Durham after moving on from his long career as a successful software architect and CTO of a global technology organisations'.[4]
- John Durham, Chairman. 'An active philanthropic environmentalist, John has been focused on innovative ways of influencing UK policy to tackle climate change since his retirement from the software industry in 2005'.[4]
- Neil Endicot, Parliamentary Secretariat. He is the primary contact and coordinator of the UK Parliament’s Thorium Energy All Party Group (APPG). He has worked in UK and EU energy policy for the last six years.[4]
- Mark Halper, Blogger in residence. Halper is a UK-based freelance journalist 'who writes about everything from media moguls to subatomic particles'.[4]
- David Martin, Research. Involved with the Weinberg Foundation since November 2011. 'As a long-committed environmentalist, he has a wealth of experience of researching environmental and energy issues for the private, political and NGO sectors'.[4]
- Laurence Watson, Junior Projects Officer. 'Laurence has spent the years since his physics degree working and campaigning on energy policy and climate change, most recently with the UK Youth Climate Coalition.[4]
Affiliations
- New All-Party Parliamentary Group on Thorium, created 1 March 2012 with Baroness Worthington and Julian Huppert MP respectively as chair and vice-chair. [5]
Funding
Contact, Resources and Notes
Contact
- Address:Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
- Website:http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/thorium_wf
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weinbergfoundation
- Email: david.martin@the-weinberg-foundation.org
Resources
- House of Lords Hansard, Energy: Nuclear Power, Question for Short Debate, Asked by Viscount Hanworth, 22 April 2013, acc 15 August 2013
- Energy and Climate Change Committee Written evidence submitted by the Weinberg Foundation (NUC 20), www.parliament.uk, July 2012, Prepared 1st March 2013
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Last chance to protest before the EU snuffs out thorium energy in Europe, The Telegraph, 9 January 2013
Notes
- ↑ Duncan Clark,Thorium advocates launch pressure group, Environment Blog, theguardian.com, 9 September 2011 21.33 EST
- ↑ Weinberg Foundation, Facebook profile, acc 15 August 2013
- ↑ Energy and Climate Change Committee Written evidence submitted by the Weinberg Foundation (NUC 20), www.parliament.uk, July 2012, Prepared 1st March 2013
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Who's behind it?, The Weinberg Foundation, acc 15 August 2013
- ↑ New All-Party Parliamentary Group on Thorium, acc 14 August 2013, See also: http://www.appg-thorium.org.uk/
