ABSTRACT
Ludington, Michigan, an industrial-age town built on the shores of Lake Michigan, was recently the subject of a National Public Radio (NPR) story that described its coal-powered ferry. Born in the nuclear age, Ludington Pumped Storage was designed to capture the energy produced at peak capacity when demand was low. Ludington Pumped Storage was originally designed as an ancillary technology for a nuclear tomorrow that never arrived, and another pumped storage facility was planned farther north. Uranium-fueled nuclear generation of electricity is a formidable foe, or suitor, because some artifacts exist. A very real problem occurs when comparing an existing technology and its attendant drawbacks, in the case of uranium fuel, with an as-yet unrealized technology in the form of thorium. Thorium as quasi-object has a fighting chance against the uranium-object-in-fact. The quasi-object is a fantasy and a phantom, an unrequited love and a desire for more than the status quo.
