Conservation Impacts on the Global Scale

This was my APUSH paper on thorium, element 90 on the periodic table and a lesser known source of energy. This paper should provide some background on thorium and specifically, why thorium was rejected as a source of energy (as well as the Molten Salt Reactor, the reactor that would use thorium as a primary fuel source). As we progress as a society, thorium should be kept on the radar as a source of energy because of its abundance and potential to be used in breeder reactors, especially as we advance nuclear technology (in the way of fusion, uranium, etc.) Thorium first brought the attention of influential scientists such as Glenn Seaborg and Eugene Wigner in early 1942 when its product Uranium-233 was shown to be fissile, or usable in nuclear fission. It would later dazzle the likes of John F. Kennedy due to its promise of creating vast amounts of energy and prove successful as a fuel in the Molten Salt Reactor, a radical type of nuclear reactor that promised to change the face o

Here's my application essay for the Global Scholars Program.  I think seeing the distinction between pure science and the applications of science has opened my eyes to what we as a society need to do on a global scale to create greater general well-being. I have always had a strong connection to the sciences as a whole, but have only recently been aware of the repercussions technology has on the global scale. While we in the United States have the freedom to worry about creating cutting-edge technology, people in many parts of the world still have to suffer from problems that for the US would be easy to solve, that is, they require no new innovation to implement. I was struck by a statistic brought up in the last unit of AP Biology, that millions of children still die from diarrhea each year despite hypothetically being a problem one can easily resolve with antibacterial substances such as a chlorine tablet. Many of the problems on a global scale don’t yet warra