Ideally too many designs don't drive the costs down. 1 to 2 winners means pressure to build the other onsite work is forced down and older power sites can transition to modular and reuse the same grid and other services already onsite. Note not one design is making any commercial power and the military have their ones floating out at sea or they can sink them...
@GaunletofDestruction Agreed....But then someone like Al Shabab or Boko Haram, murders the village grabs the fissile material and mixes it in with Plastic explosive and makes a dirty bomb. Humans....we fuck most things up given enough time
If you forget the accidents, then it's perceived as incredibly safe. I hope the constructors have a different approach to safety and learn from the accidents instead of denying they ever existed. But still there are going to be accidents and radioactive waste problems. If something can go wrong then it's going to happened soner or later.
Both Biden and Trump support nuclear power. The US Congress passed pro-nuclear legislation in 2019 with an overwhelming majority in the House and with zero no votes in the Senate. Politicians are on-board - now we need to change public perception and the minds of anti-nuclear environmentalists.
A picture of my home, Kodiak, at 0.46 Our energy is already 100% renewable from hydroelectric and wind, with six wind powered turbines on the ridge above town, but of course many other communities in Alaska could benefit.
Molten salt based reactors should be a definite focus for the future. Thorium fuelled especially given the amount of Thorium that is simply dumped currently.
Thorium is a known working technology. Fusion is where we need to be aiming, but it could be 10 or 1000 years away. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
@@beachboardfan9544 trust me, fusion has a lot more funding and focus than Thorium. Fusion energy produces magnitudes more radiation than MSRs, and will be extremely hard to contain/control once we learn how to get them going.
It’s a great piece of technology. Please keep it in the United States or with allies from who we benefit from. Every other week we get on the news about Chinese hackers hacking our systems. Our economy is tied to China and they seem to not give a fuck about that. If feasible, think about other trade deals that could benefit the US the most. Great video.
In India, a medical clinic went out of business and left a machine that used a radioactive isotope. The machine wound up in a scrap metal yard and was dismantled and the radioactive material contaminated many people including children because they were ignorant of what it was. Very Tight controls on what happens to radioactive material must be enforced.
Yes,but that has nothing to do with power reactors, that is doctors and the medical community, the regulators in India,reactors already save millions in India.
The small nuclear power stations being built by Russia are actually former marine-use reactors placed in a differently configured context. Not a bad idea since during the times when everyone in the neighboring city is angry at you; one can alway pull up anchor and leave town. I've worked at a total of four N-plants at two sites. "Small" or conventionally sized; nuclear plants always start out the same way. A older gentleman at one of my previous work locations told me that whatever the technology; nuclear plants always start out with the same degree of confidence and aspiration --- almost like the acquisition of a new, small pet dinosaur in the neighborhood. Everyone laughs as the tiny little dinosaur goes "Yap, Yap" as we give it a can of dog food. But the fact is five years from time present our dinosaur [even at the small size of 200 or so megawatts] will to have grown to the size of a large building and we are all trying to feed the thing with seventeen-hundred pounds of dog food a day or, as we have now found out, the thing is simply going to eat all of us. The radioactive waste dump trucks are leaving with the "product of the day" two-abreast lined up for miles. This is in fact what happened to the major world utilities when they decided to go in for a dime for nuclear power in the last century. Mark Twain lost a tremendous amount of money trying to develop a moveable type machine --- It was not until the 20th Century that movable type finally became a generalized reality with the invention of the LinoType Machine. Sometimes technologies just take a lot longer. A N obel Prize physics laureate once said; one can defy the laws of Nature, for a time, if one has enough money.
There is only one question. What is the lifecycle cost? For a small community (say pop 5,000) they can afford say $2k/year for power, so a 25MWe reactors 10 yr lifecycle cost (acquisition, installation, operation, removal and decommissioning) needs to be about $80M to make it decently profitable. Hopefully the technology has adjustable output, so that storage (expensive) is not required. If no adjustable output, then the reactor could probably be closer to 10MWe by itself and with a 10MWe fuel cell to provide 20MWe peak output over a 10MWe average demand. In any case the magic number is about $80M for 10 year lifecycle cost.
Have you seen Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporations MMR reactor? It outputs 5MWe over 20 years. It fits on the back of a truck, so you can truck it away and install a new one when it is spent. It is a high temperature helium cooled reactor so it can power variety of industrial process, do hydrogen production, drive turbines, district heating, store heath in molten salt tanks for later use etc. If they can pull it off, it seems like a really neat solution to me.
So what will you do when the inevitable second-hand market pops up for used parts and materials?? 'Industry' is concerned about churning a profit, not nonproliferation. And as for the excuse that 'safer' radioisotopes will be used: just remember what a boy scout (David Hahn) did with some smoke detectors and other simple items. Think about how much this 'venture' will really cost in the future.
The David Hahn story gives us 2 lessons: #1 - you don't need a civilian NPP to make a dirty bomb - so stop opposing them on this basis already. #2 - your typical nihilistic terrorist is likelier to off himself than hurt the public (not that I view Hahn as a terrorist).
What happens if the containment of the reactor is breached? How much radiation is exactly generated by a reactor of this scale, and what damages are done in case of terrorism. I see this as more of a potential threat than a benefit...
And they get downright hostile when you try to confront them about the deficiencies of wind and solar, or how no one ever seems to mention how all those wind and solar farms they're so proud of end up having natural gas plants attached as 'backups' that run more than the actual farms.
advanced modular reactors are already prototyped and being tested in china in hainan province ...they are typically 50 MW units bundled and cooled together ...for say 300 MW and cost 300 M $ whereas big ones 1.7 GW cost 7-9 B $ ..also data analytics and computer learning is helping monitor hazards ..
Yeah I just ordered mine on Amazon right after ordering the electric car! will need to charge the electric car! Free shipping! Don't wait! Act now! Orders yours!
One might think that humanity could better spend the energy to harvest the rare elements needed to power these lovely little disasters-waiting-to-happen on developing thermal energy solutions powered forever by the mantle of the planet. No?
th-cam.com/video/Sh6BKKFxN_g/w-d-xo.html www.westinghousenuclear.com/new-plants/evinci-micro-reactor They talked about microreactors for steel mills and manufacturing plants, for several decades I remember hearing about it as a kid. If we can de-grid some of our resources/manufacturing centers, the facilities can be moved to more out of the way locations. This also can be used as power for an off-grid high-speed electric train. I find it interesting the Westinghouse showed in the video a Stirling engine for transferring the heat energy to mechanical energy; the Stirling engine technology is over 200 years old, but it would be the most efficient and easiest to maintain and repair.
DOE needs to lead in getting this technology approved and help streamline the regulations so from application to on-line is no more than 4 years. If people want REAL green energy that is resilient and available 24/7/365 then it’s micro, mini and small scaled to the communities projected demand. DOE needs to be proactive and not back just one version like Gates Terrapiwer but all that meet the safety of Gen 4
There is no explanation of the time required to manufacture nor cost to taxpayer or customer. Are these theories or is there an actual model. If more expensive than renewables then should not be used.
How does the reactor cooling occur? That normally takes a vast amount of water and a large cooling tower. I see pictures of these things in the desert with no water or cooling system attached and it seems hard to believe, at best.
the purpose of a cooling tower is not to cool the reactor nuclear reactor make heat, not electricity the easiest way to turn this heat into electricity is to boil the water - and use an increase in pressure to drive turbines. but to make it work you need liquid water coming into a heat exchanger and steam coming out. you cant have steam coming into a heat exchanger because then there would be no increase in pressure and nothing to drive a turbine. which means you need something to cool steam coming out of a turbine and turn it back into a liquid - and that's a purpose of a cooling tower.
@@michazajac5881 Well, sure. Any thermal plant needs cooling. The reactor itself transfers heat to heat exchanger. That gets hot, does work in a turbine. Ultimately, we need to cool down the fluid running through the turbine. That goes to the cooling tower. Since that fluid took heat away from the reactor, I'd say the cooling tower does actually carry excess heat away from the reactor, even if reactor cooling isn't the primary purpose of the tower. But, my larger point is that you can't run a thermal power system like this with NO COOLING. The way these small reactors are often presented, it seems like they omit the cooling system and make it look like you literally bury a reactor in the ground with no noticeable way to cool it. That's not the way any thermal generator work. In fact, if they put a system like this in a hot place, like a dessert, the ambient heat will make the thermal plants considerable less efficient. There are even hot summers in the U.S. where nuclear plants have had to shut down due to summer heat. So, cooling matters and these plants are no exception.
@@kellycowan8966 You cool the reactor by pumping water through it's primary heat exchanger That's a whole purpose of having a reactor running so I'm sure every single one of them is going to have such a thing.
@@kellycowan8966 The plants in the desert tend to use the waste heat in a useful manner. Palo Verde in Arizona uses its waste heat to treat sewage. The waste heat cooling for a micro reactor can be air. Because it has lower power (1-10 MW) and higher temperatures (above 300 C) you can just use air to treat the waste heat.
@@factnotfiction5915 it's great to use waste heat for something useful, but I think my main point was to remind people that some cooling infrastructure, like a tower, would be required with these so-called micro-reactors. I commented that I had seen companies like NuScale showing pictures of the reactors buried completely underground, as if there was no need for cooling or even maintenance on the turbines. This is obviously inaccurate. They continue to draw pictures of just the reactor, often buried in a vertical shaft, with only the very top sticking out, and with no visible support buildings, cooling, high voltage transmission lines, etc. So, I think they are still giving a misleading impression of what the footprint for a reactor like this would really be like. It would likely have to be built in something that would resemble a small version of a conventional nuclear reactor. The facility would have to be located on a plot of land with secured access. Overall, these plants would probably be like the first reactors, which were sized for powering small towns instead of multiple cities. I don't buy the idea that economics of this would work for under 10-20 MW, when you factor in the cost of necessary support infrastructure. These facilities may be smaller and cheaper than conventional reactors, and they may be more economical with one or more factory-made reactors installed inside, without the need for massive concrete domes, or highly complex plumbing systems. But, it absolutely would have a footprint far larger than any of the pictures I have seen so far. I would also note that the efficiency of air cooling would be highly dependent on ambient air temperatures. I think many questions remain about the operations, performance, and safety of these reactors. Yet, the NRC seems willing to rapidly sign off on them, probably due to political pressure, and some utilities are lining up to buy them sight unseen. I think it seems a bit early to get excited about something that still has so many question marks.
All weasel words, all of them. Nobody has made a successful, economical and safe micro-reactor. All of these are "possibilities". Also, "industry-led" means the DOE has given up at throwing billions of dollars at the problem. Go ahead "look toward the future". You notice everything is "looking" and "future". Not a single word about siting, installation, cooling, efficiency, materials, proliferation, terrorism, redundancy, emissions, safety, reliability, economy, corrosion, maintenance, monitoring, scaling, licensing, or decommissioning. All blab. Blab sure is cheap and reactor CGI is not much more expensive.
So then what do you propose? A Gen IV MSR (Nuclear reactor)'s only waste are extremely valuable medical isotopes, and other ultra rare and valuable elements. What else offers such opportunities?
How does the reactor cooling occur? That normally takes a vast amount of water and a large cooling tower. I see pictures of these things in the desert with no water or cooling system attached and it seems hard to believe, at best.
Could you please explain a little more about how this works. Are the heat pipes cooled by air or water? Sufficient water for cooling is often not available, especially for those pictures of reactors in the desert. Air cooling would also seem to be a huge leap beyond what is typically used today. I would have to wonder if direct air cooling would be sufficient for most reactors and it seems like it would be a huge leap to imagine that something totally unproven could suddenly go in the backyard of every trailer park that wants to replace their diesel generator with a 1 to 10 MW reactor. I'd also wonder how it would be possible to harden this reactor enough that it could be sold to small customers all over the country/world without someone finding a way to open it up and use it for nuclear weapons proliferation. So, happy to talk more about this, but I've heard about these reactors for at least a decade and so far, no one seems to have satisfactory answers on cooling or proliferation issues.
@@kellycowan8966 You want to google molten-salt at neutral atmospheric pressures. The molten-salt disables the fission process if goes over temperature, while fission is allowed to occur when it is "too cool".
@@smallbluemachine Thanks. I have looked that up. The molten salt is a safety mechanism, which is great, to prevent the reactor from melting down. But, there still needs to be a regular cooling mechanism, like water cooling to dissipate the heat. Once the molten salt gets red hot, for instance, and stops the nuclear reaction, it's not going to cool down and allow the reactor to keep operating unless you dissipate the heat in some way. This is always a major issue for any kind of nuclear power system. I'm surprised that every time I see one of these systems advertised, there's a picture of it buried in the ground somewhere, like a desert, with no cooling system to be seen. There has to be a major secondary cooling system for a device like this to work. It's a very non-trivial part of the system.
@@kellycowan8966 actually molten salt is coolant, it turns into liquid state & spin turbine; waste heat can be sunk into ground o/& exchange w/ 2nd cooling (closed) loop (2nd loop could have water or some kind of lubricant with high boiling point). however, it's all good on paper == in reality, molten salt is corrosive & abrasive. Thereby there must be extra durability, but that comes with extra weight as well up to too high numbers for mobile versions.
Huge fan of micro reactors, would love to see them in the future
Doubt many poor rural communities could afford them and retain the skilled staff to manage them.
Ideally too many designs don't drive the costs down. 1 to 2 winners means pressure to build the other onsite work is forced down and older power sites can transition to modular and reuse the same grid and other services already onsite. Note not one design is making any commercial power and the military have their ones floating out at sea or they can sink them...
@GaunletofDestruction Agreed....But then someone like Al Shabab or Boko Haram, murders the village grabs the fissile material and mixes it in with Plastic explosive and makes a dirty bomb. Humans....we fuck most things up given enough time
mwnciboo there are steps to mitigate such things, I’m afraid though it would involve a more imperialistic stance as the world stands to do so
mwnciboo regardless let’s try it in the US and give this great gift to the world!
10 years without refueling! Clean energy. This is amazing technology that has been used safely for over 50 years.
If you forget the accidents, then it's perceived as incredibly safe. I hope the constructors have a different approach to safety and learn from the accidents instead of denying they ever existed. But still there are going to be accidents and radioactive waste problems. If something can go wrong then it's going to happened soner or later.
GIVE ME ONE RIGHT NOW!!! I need this for My Bit Coin mining operations.
hahhaa
Bit coiners have already put orders in for reactors.
@@paulbedichek2679 Please tell me you are joking.
If the president got behind these, it would boost their prospects (and investment backing) greatly. It would be a smart move, politically.
Yes, Trump is behind this, just read the update at the end of our article: mutualwelfare.org/what-do-we-really-know-about-nuclear-energy/
@@BienestarMutuo I shall fact-check that. I'm doubtful.
@@albertjackinson yes, we need to make our own research. see and heard everything, believe in nothing.
Both Biden and Trump support nuclear power. The US Congress passed pro-nuclear legislation in 2019 with an overwhelming majority in the House and with zero no votes in the Senate. Politicians are on-board - now we need to change public perception and the minds of anti-nuclear environmentalists.
A picture of my home, Kodiak, at 0.46
Our energy is already 100% renewable from hydroelectric and wind, with six wind powered turbines on the ridge above town, but of course many other communities in Alaska could benefit.
Shut up and take my money! Where can I buy one?
Molten salt based reactors should be a definite focus for the future. Thorium fuelled especially given the amount of Thorium that is simply dumped currently.
64bitAtheist FUSION OR YOURE A FOOL!!!!
Stop drinking the thorium koolaid
Thorium is a known working technology. Fusion is where we need to be aiming, but it could be 10 or 1000 years away.
Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
"could be 10 or 1000 years away" only cause people are wasting time and funding on thorium!
@@beachboardfan9544 trust me, fusion has a lot more funding and focus than Thorium. Fusion energy produces magnitudes more radiation than MSRs, and will be extremely hard to contain/control once we learn how to get them going.
Pile Of George I think you might be confusing the two, I'd like to know how you think fusion will produce worse radiation than a thorium based MSR.
It’s a great piece of technology. Please keep it in the United States or with allies from who we benefit from. Every other week we get on the news about Chinese hackers hacking our systems. Our economy is tied to China and they seem to not give a fuck about that. If feasible, think about other trade deals that could benefit the US the most. Great video.
I would like to see a Micro traveling wave reactor. Why not use the spent fuel from existing reactor power plants?
All the nuclear waste is the needed by the Biden appointee Mr DOG FETISH to make his morning smoothie
I sure would love to see these micro nuclear reactors up here in Alaska
That is the first place they are going an Air Force base there.
@@paulbedichek2679 Elmendorf AFB or Eielson AFB?
How about some actual info instead of filler bs.
Do some research. There are many sources on TH-cam. This is fascinating stuff!
Why no mention of keeping fissile materials out of the wrong hands and how to dispose of waste and decommissioned reactors in the presentation?
In India, a medical clinic went out of business and left a machine that used a radioactive isotope. The machine wound up in a scrap metal yard and was dismantled and the radioactive material contaminated many people including children because they were ignorant of what it was. Very Tight controls on what happens to radioactive material must be enforced.
Yes,but that has nothing to do with power reactors, that is doctors and the medical community, the regulators in India,reactors already save millions in India.
Way to pimp it, bro.
nano or pico. 1 reactor to power each home
The small nuclear power stations being built by Russia are actually former marine-use reactors placed in a differently configured context. Not a bad idea since during the times when everyone in the neighboring city is angry at you; one can alway pull up anchor and leave town. I've worked at a total of four N-plants at two sites. "Small" or conventionally sized; nuclear plants always start out the same way. A older gentleman at one of my previous work locations told me that whatever the technology; nuclear plants always start out with the same degree of confidence and aspiration --- almost like the acquisition of a new, small pet dinosaur in the neighborhood. Everyone laughs as the tiny little dinosaur goes "Yap, Yap" as we give it a can of dog food. But the fact is five years from time present our dinosaur [even at the small size of 200 or so megawatts] will to have grown to the size of a large building and we are all trying to feed the thing with seventeen-hundred pounds of dog food a day or, as we have now found out, the thing is simply going to eat all of us. The radioactive waste dump trucks are leaving with the "product of the day" two-abreast lined up for miles. This is in fact what happened to the major world utilities when they decided to go in for a dime for nuclear power in the last century. Mark Twain lost a tremendous amount of money trying to develop a moveable type machine --- It was not until the 20th Century that movable type finally became a generalized reality with the invention of the LinoType Machine. Sometimes technologies just take a lot longer. A N obel Prize physics laureate once said; one can defy the laws of Nature, for a time, if one has enough money.
There is only one question. What is the lifecycle cost? For a small community (say pop 5,000) they can afford say $2k/year for power, so a 25MWe reactors 10 yr lifecycle cost (acquisition, installation, operation, removal and decommissioning) needs to be about $80M to make it decently profitable. Hopefully the technology has adjustable output, so that storage (expensive) is not required.
If no adjustable output, then the reactor could probably be closer to 10MWe by itself and with a 10MWe fuel cell to provide 20MWe peak output over a 10MWe average demand. In any case the magic number is about $80M for 10 year lifecycle cost.
Have you seen Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporations MMR reactor? It outputs 5MWe over 20 years. It fits on the back of a truck, so you can truck it away and install a new one when it is spent. It is a high temperature helium cooled reactor so it can power variety of industrial process, do hydrogen production, drive turbines, district heating, store heath in molten salt tanks for later use etc. If they can pull it off, it seems like a really neat solution to me.
Yes,of course they are variable, no you don't refuel them there is no storage.
when small reactors finally become, we will have enough power to break gravity ♥
So what will you do when the inevitable second-hand market pops up for used parts and materials??
'Industry' is concerned about churning a profit, not nonproliferation.
And as for the excuse that 'safer' radioisotopes will be used: just remember what a boy scout (David Hahn) did with some smoke detectors and other simple items. Think about how much this 'venture' will really cost in the future.
The David Hahn story gives us 2 lessons:
#1 - you don't need a civilian NPP to make a dirty bomb - so stop opposing them on this basis already.
#2 - your typical nihilistic terrorist is likelier to off himself than hurt the public
(not that I view Hahn as a terrorist).
Yes,smoke detectors are dangerous reactors are not.
I think this would be the next best evolution heap compable to the transistor era.
It's 2022 where the heck is my micro reactor? I'm sure this project has been scuttled to push ethanol or something. Ugh
How to keep it cool? A microreactor will need some sort of super coolant to keep it from melting?
We need a micro in the 30kw range...perhaps the size of a dumpster or roll off container..that is affordable.
Nasa is commissioning a 40KW model but only for the Moon and space.
What happens if the containment of the reactor is breached? How much radiation is exactly generated by a reactor of this scale, and what damages are done in case of terrorism. I see this as more of a potential threat than a benefit...
Indeed!! 🤔🤔🤔
Pretty much none, they fired a shell into one close up,no radiation leaked.
I hate when people protesting against nuclear but they still allow coal power plants.
And they get downright hostile when you try to confront them about the deficiencies of wind and solar, or how no one ever seems to mention how all those wind and solar farms they're so proud of end up having natural gas plants attached as 'backups' that run more than the actual farms.
*Innovation & transformative times*
YES, please!
advanced modular reactors are already prototyped and being tested in china in hainan province ...they are typically 50 MW units bundled and cooled together ...for say 300 MW and cost 300 M $ whereas big ones 1.7 GW cost 7-9 B $ ..also data analytics and computer learning is helping monitor hazards ..
where do you got this information from
Right but those are much too big to be called micro reactors.
Michael reactors tied to a battery bank for peak distribution loads. With additional resources tied in with that to get carbon emissions down to zero
Yeah I just ordered mine on Amazon right after ordering the electric car! will need to charge the electric car! Free shipping! Don't wait! Act now! Orders yours!
One might think that humanity could better spend the energy to harvest the rare elements needed to power these lovely little disasters-waiting-to-happen on developing thermal energy solutions powered forever by the mantle of the planet. No?
Search for PLASMABIT drilling. Though a well-engineered reactor is very safe.
What's taking so long???
Why take the risk when renewables have come so far and get stronger every day. Can't remember when a solar, wind ran over budget into the millions.
What companies are working on this?
th-cam.com/video/Sh6BKKFxN_g/w-d-xo.html
www.westinghousenuclear.com/new-plants/evinci-micro-reactor
They talked about microreactors for steel mills and manufacturing plants, for several decades I remember hearing about it as a kid. If we can de-grid some of our resources/manufacturing centers, the facilities can be moved to more out of the way locations. This also can be used as power for an off-grid high-speed electric train.
I find it interesting the Westinghouse showed in the video a Stirling engine for transferring the heat energy to mechanical energy; the Stirling engine technology is over 200 years old, but it would be the most efficient and easiest to maintain and repair.
HOLOS gen
DOE needs to lead in getting this technology approved and help streamline the regulations so from application to on-line is no more than 4 years. If people want REAL green energy that is resilient and available 24/7/365 then it’s micro, mini and small scaled to the communities projected demand. DOE needs to be proactive and not back just one version like Gates Terrapiwer but all that meet the safety of Gen 4
EXPANDED LOGIC(SMR)
(AP)PRELOAD DUAL ADJUSTABLE RANGE.
MILITARY BATTLE TANK (SMRC)CARTRIDGE DRIVE.
There is no explanation of the time required to manufacture nor cost to taxpayer or customer. Are these theories or is there an actual model. If more expensive than renewables then should not be used.
Check out the Westinghouse eVinci Micro-Reactor
Just hope they can make them cheap enough so they can be bought by people everywhere.
How does the reactor cooling occur? That normally takes a vast amount of water and a large cooling tower. I see pictures of these things in the desert with no water or cooling system attached and it seems hard to believe, at best.
the purpose of a cooling tower is not to cool the reactor
nuclear reactor make heat, not electricity
the easiest way to turn this heat into electricity is to boil the water - and use an increase in pressure to drive turbines.
but to make it work you need liquid water coming into a heat exchanger and steam coming out.
you cant have steam coming into a heat exchanger because then there would be no increase in pressure and nothing to drive a turbine.
which means you need something to cool steam coming out of a turbine and turn it back into a liquid - and that's a purpose of a cooling tower.
@@michazajac5881 Well, sure. Any thermal plant needs cooling. The reactor itself transfers heat to heat exchanger. That gets hot, does work in a turbine. Ultimately, we need to cool down the fluid running through the turbine. That goes to the cooling tower. Since that fluid took heat away from the reactor, I'd say the cooling tower does actually carry excess heat away from the reactor, even if reactor cooling isn't the primary purpose of the tower. But, my larger point is that you can't run a thermal power system like this with NO COOLING. The way these small reactors are often presented, it seems like they omit the cooling system and make it look like you literally bury a reactor in the ground with no noticeable way to cool it. That's not the way any thermal generator work. In fact, if they put a system like this in a hot place, like a dessert, the ambient heat will make the thermal plants considerable less efficient. There are even hot summers in the U.S. where nuclear plants have had to shut down due to summer heat. So, cooling matters and these plants are no exception.
@@kellycowan8966 You cool the reactor by pumping water through it's primary heat exchanger
That's a whole purpose of having a reactor running so I'm sure every single one of them is going to have such a thing.
@@kellycowan8966 The plants in the desert tend to use the waste heat in a useful manner. Palo Verde in Arizona uses its waste heat to treat sewage.
The waste heat cooling for a micro reactor can be air. Because it has lower power (1-10 MW) and higher temperatures (above 300 C) you can just use air to treat the waste heat.
@@factnotfiction5915 it's great to use waste heat for something useful, but I think my main point was to remind people that some cooling infrastructure, like a tower, would be required with these so-called micro-reactors. I commented that I had seen companies like NuScale showing pictures of the reactors buried completely underground, as if there was no need for cooling or even maintenance on the turbines. This is obviously inaccurate. They continue to draw pictures of just the reactor, often buried in a vertical shaft, with only the very top sticking out, and with no visible support buildings, cooling, high voltage transmission lines, etc. So, I think they are still giving a misleading impression of what the footprint for a reactor like this would really be like. It would likely have to be built in something that would resemble a small version of a conventional nuclear reactor. The facility would have to be located on a plot of land with secured access. Overall, these plants would probably be like the first reactors, which were sized for powering small towns instead of multiple cities. I don't buy the idea that economics of this would work for under 10-20 MW, when you factor in the cost of necessary support infrastructure. These facilities may be smaller and cheaper than conventional reactors, and they may be more economical with one or more factory-made reactors installed inside, without the need for massive concrete domes, or highly complex plumbing systems. But, it absolutely would have a footprint far larger than any of the pictures I have seen so far. I would also note that the efficiency of air cooling would be highly dependent on ambient air temperatures. I think many questions remain about the operations, performance, and safety of these reactors. Yet, the NRC seems willing to rapidly sign off on them, probably due to political pressure, and some utilities are lining up to buy them sight unseen. I think it seems a bit early to get excited about something that still has so many question marks.
Wooooooooooooooooooow❤️👍❤️👍
2024 ?
Make energy naturally abundant and save trillions across the world. No more black hole energy bills.
Could this technology transfer over to rocket propulsion?
Well, of course!
With a tiny little problem to solve first - you need to invent EM drive...
Yes,happeneing now.
I'm guessing we're not going to get tiny reactors with the new administration.
EV's Hyperchargers!
Looks like a commercial... Show me the money.
one to run the tour bus
Chernobyl at your backyard.
2022? Nuscale says 2020
Saw a video by Motherboard that featured Nuscale. They said 2026. Lol.
NuScale is also not a micro reactor. Small, yes, but not that small.
👍
Drone and underwater robotics indistry in amrine sicn eam doceagkroahy is beter for start up
i want a few for pakistan
nuke cola?
I want to buy one for my bitcoin mining operation.
Why does he look like Ronald Reagan?
Micro reactors operated by who and located where? Just one accident or proliferation theft, and nuclear will take another 50 year hiatus. Do it right.
What could go wrong? First one is going to the AirForce there will be thousands.Lots of diesels will be out of work.
Work fast before the GOP takes power and starts cutting government programs again.
EA20B Mitglieder die sich das für die Hausaufgaben anschauen, cheers
All weasel words, all of them. Nobody has made a successful, economical and safe micro-reactor. All of these are "possibilities". Also, "industry-led" means the DOE has given up at throwing billions of dollars at the problem. Go ahead "look toward the future". You notice everything is "looking" and "future". Not a single word about siting, installation, cooling, efficiency, materials, proliferation, terrorism, redundancy, emissions, safety, reliability, economy, corrosion, maintenance, monitoring, scaling, licensing, or decommissioning. All blab. Blab sure is cheap and reactor CGI is not much more expensive.
Fallout
Nuclear energy is NOT clean power. Notice he said the focus is on "customer needs", not the environmental impact.
So then what do you propose? A Gen IV MSR (Nuclear reactor)'s only waste are extremely valuable medical isotopes, and other ultra rare and valuable elements. What else offers such opportunities?
It's nowhere near as dirty as your government wants you to believe either.
@@pilotgeorge2000 Coming to a neighborhood near you:
th-cam.com/video/ArfMu-sQm5E/w-d-xo.html
@@paulanderson79 And it's no where as clean as the elites would like you to believe.
@@justthebeginning1448 I don't follow advice from elites. I prefer physics. Belief is a dangerous emotion.
How does the reactor cooling occur? That normally takes a vast amount of water and a large cooling tower. I see pictures of these things in the desert with no water or cooling system attached and it seems hard to believe, at best.
Depends on the design, although a common one I'm seeing is sodium metal heat pipes
Could you please explain a little more about how this works. Are the heat pipes cooled by air or water? Sufficient water for cooling is often not available, especially for those pictures of reactors in the desert. Air cooling would also seem to be a huge leap beyond what is typically used today. I would have to wonder if direct air cooling would be sufficient for most reactors and it seems like it would be a huge leap to imagine that something totally unproven could suddenly go in the backyard of every trailer park that wants to replace their diesel generator with a 1 to 10 MW reactor. I'd also wonder how it would be possible to harden this reactor enough that it could be sold to small customers all over the country/world without someone finding a way to open it up and use it for nuclear weapons proliferation. So, happy to talk more about this, but I've heard about these reactors for at least a decade and so far, no one seems to have satisfactory answers on cooling or proliferation issues.
@@kellycowan8966 You want to google molten-salt at neutral atmospheric pressures. The molten-salt disables the fission process if goes over temperature, while fission is allowed to occur when it is "too cool".
@@smallbluemachine Thanks. I have looked that up. The molten salt is a safety mechanism, which is great, to prevent the reactor from melting down. But, there still needs to be a regular cooling mechanism, like water cooling to dissipate the heat. Once the molten salt gets red hot, for instance, and stops the nuclear reaction, it's not going to cool down and allow the reactor to keep operating unless you dissipate the heat in some way. This is always a major issue for any kind of nuclear power system. I'm surprised that every time I see one of these systems advertised, there's a picture of it buried in the ground somewhere, like a desert, with no cooling system to be seen. There has to be a major secondary cooling system for a device like this to work. It's a very non-trivial part of the system.
@@kellycowan8966 actually molten salt is coolant, it turns into liquid state & spin turbine; waste heat can be sunk into ground o/& exchange w/ 2nd cooling (closed) loop (2nd loop could have water or some kind of lubricant with high boiling point). however, it's all good on paper == in reality, molten salt is corrosive & abrasive. Thereby there must be extra durability, but that comes with extra weight as well up to too high numbers for mobile versions.