The Science council for Global Initiatives

Robert Hargraves graduated with honors in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1961, also completing a physics major. He earned his PhD in high energy nuclear physics at Brown University in 1967, then became Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College, teaching the first computer science courses while also Associate Director of the computation center. He founded a software company and then became vice president of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1980. He was an information systems management consultant for Arthur D. Little from 1982 to 1994. He joined medical device maker Boston Scientific as Vice President and Chief Information Officer, retiring in 2000.

He occasionally lectures at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and teaches at Dartmouth Osher. He is a 2016 co-founder of Thorcon International, developing a 500 MW molten salt nuclear reactor power plant to be produced in a shipyard to demonstrate generating electric power for Indonesia at a lower cost than from burning coal or LNG. He has written articles about nuclear power for the Wall Street Journal and Real Clear Energy. His most recent book is New Nuclear is HOT!

Dr. Hargraves SubStack

A message from Tom Blees, president of SCGI

We've recently added two dynamic individuals to our SCGI advisory group: Van Snyder and Robert Hargraves. Both of them have been producing thought-provoking articles on energy systems—particularly nuclear power—for years. And both have recently published books on the subject.

We will be posting selections from their writings in the coming weeks on their advisor pages here on our SCGI website. A recent piece by Van heads up our current newsletter. And here is an article by Bob Hargraves. Full disclosure: Bob is a co-founder of Thorcon, which is the focus of this article. Lest one feels that it smacks of boosterism, I'd just like to add my endorsement of its message. I've been involved with Bob and the other members of the Thorcon team for several years now, and I consider their system to be the most promising new nuclear concept for rapid and massive global deployment. Take a look and see if you get a frisson of optimism for our nuclear future:

A world of good

By Dr. Robert Hargraves

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft just committed billions of dollars to power their data centers with ample, reliable electricity from nuclear power. These competitors realize they must provide more energy-intensive computing for artificial intelligence and information search services. Each, with over $100 billion cash on hand, can afford whatever it costs in this competition. Will this make nuclear power globally affordable?

Beyond such services industries, energy is an essential component of the $40 trillion global production sector — agriculture, industry and manufacturing. These activities have achieved low costs through decades of improvements in uses and costs of energy from burning fossil fuels. People in rich nations benefit from the inexpensive food, affordable transportation, and powerful smartphones.

Only LOW COST nuclear power will impact our future.