Consider supporting my work... www.patreon.com/thorium ...I collect at-most yearly, so if you pledge $1 there's no way you can't afford it. I use Patreon as a lazy-person's blogging platform and you'll get a heads-up and extra context when a video is released. If there's something I need peer-review on I'll post privately. Yes, $1 will get you those... is basically an anti-nuke filter. I don't want the riff-raff seeing work in progress. The NEXT Lab tour was fantastic. I think this video is a good reflection of what-all I try to do... aside from Rusty giving me some 1-on-1 tour, he let me microphone him while he milled around and I think there's really good insights he shared during that. The excerpt from the TEAC12 presentation is a chroma-key with slides... and almost all the footage was shot 4K. I'm pretty happy with how this video turned out. Not sure I made an effective argument that ACU's journalism program should somehow be embedded in NEXT Lab... Rusty makes a good counter-point that the research centre is designed to NOT require special access to monitor it... but from my own perspective, if I lived in Abiline I'd be wondering how to construct a reality tv show following the MSRR in great detail. I hope that ACU students clue-in that MSRR.... the licensing... the build... the deployment... is significant and worth documenting in detail as it moves along.
Abilene is stepping ahead of the entire USA. This is so important as to not be downplayed in any way and should be sped up 10 times and many of these reactors need built nationwide. This may be the most important thing being done in America today. It needs desperately to be shown corrosion is no problem when rigorous de-watering systems are in use. Tellurium also needs a very good way to remove from the sytem also.
Finally, a serious LFTR research center in the USA. Not since the seventies have we done this at ORNL . You will have many impediments in your way, not so much technical but political. Why? Because it will be successful hence cut into petroleum, other nuclear, foreign parallel competitors, renewables as well as the fusion folly. This IS the only logical energy solution for clean unlimited energy. I wish you the best success.
The father of the MSR movement is Kirk Sorensen, of FLIBE Enerby, who located the old MRS plans at Oakridge in around 2012. China grabbed the plans and has been setting up MSRs. They had several startups last year alone. We are ten years behind China. Kirk Sorensen came to the conclusion that government funding is necessary to get MRS, or LFTRs, going quick enough to keep up with China and make a difference. Private companies have a hard time raising funds because the turnaround on the investment is too distant.
History happens in weird ways sometimes. Necessity of the time demands a safe emission free form of energy. The growth in electrical use and the replacement of fossil fuels demands more electricity. Then there's this guy sitting at a desk at NASA looking for ways to power stuff on the moon and finds this 50 year old experiment with Molten Salt. He has this Eureka moment and the message has slowly spread ever since. It's almost like a science fiction story. "The Truth is out there." - Fox Muldur
I agree. However India has a good setup. Is the NRC a bunch of Tards? Yup. i think it takes several industries working together to get a proper reactor running. there's already some failed facilities in different arenas that would suffice for a proper 50W test reactor...dry, grid connected, out buildings, etc. What is indicated in the video is that there is a demand for high grade materials...rad. or not. Do we have the forges? Do we have the metals? Do we have the mines? IS even the rails enough to get mats to/from all over? no. It's gonna take the govt. getting serious about material availability and material research, and transportation, etc. Could you 3d print a space shuttle tile with graphene embedded that won't break 30 foot long that can be slipped into a hastelloy pipe? I mean, we aren't there. India and China are not gonna run forever. Even if we had the 50 yr. Th power in a bottle, it would take 40 years to replace what we got now infrastructure-wise. it's so daunting.
There are about a dozen private companies that have MSRs ready to go. The NRC is the big holdup. Also, Westinghouse has the lobby at the NRC and they are still pushing Light Water Uranium Reactors.
I am so excited this is happening, and want to help however I can to get it to happen faster. I hope sometime soon my neighborhood will have a molten salt nuclear reactor of it's own.
Germany has a few traditional nuclear plants in various states of decommissioning. Seems like the perfect place to build a molten salt reactor. The electrical infrastructure to transfer the newly produced electricity is all there, including emergency generators, ect. Think about it.
Perhaps there is hope for Germany. I've seen articles where the bloom is off the Rose for their Green Party. Options which would not have been considered a few years back now may be allowed in open discussions.
@@frucajse Germany always had a section of the population that were always against nuclear power, let alone nuclear weapons being deployed here. Fukushima caused a new wave of cross-party anti-nuclear sentiment that the politicians couldn’t ignore. There wasn’t any emergency plan in case a similar accident were to happen. Then, a lot of people realized that in case of a radiation event, nobody’s home insurance would cover there property losses. Millions could end up homeless with nowhere to go, and Germany already has a massive shortage of housing in most places. Germany also was partially covered with fallout from the Chernobyl accident, which still is detected to this day in wildlife, soil and plants, especially mushrooms, so that was another big factor. It wasn’t just the Greens who pushed this movement to decommission these plants. Unfortunately, nobody ever envisioned the war in Ukraine breaking out and stupidly chose to become totally reliant on natural gas from Russia to power much of the industry and cities with electricity. It was too late to ultimately stop the shutdowns in 2022.
The Tritium issue has been dealt with adequately. It can be used in developing medical isotopes and reduce the high cost of this valuable cancer treatment method.
So cool to see this, considering my parents AND grandparents met at ACU, so I wouldn't be here without it. Family reunions were the 2nd home from the Admin building down College St., and we'd walk to events around the campus. Now my other long time interest in MSRs are there.
Wow that radar tank level sensor is amazing! Just the fact that it can see around the pipes corners, would suggest that the pipes are acting as a sudo-waveguide. Can imagine that this would be pretty hard to setup for a reliable indication. The pipes would have to be nearly free of imperfections to prevent false returns and a loss of signal strength. Edit: My bad.... you said laser level. From my experience it hard enough setting up similar (radar and guided wave) systems at remote oil-n-gas sites in Texas, when I worked for Emerson. Question: Has there been any investigation investigation into system where the capacitance of the chamber is used to monitor the salts level? Aircraft have long used a similar system to monitor the fuel levels in-flight, as floats or radar measurement doesn't work when the fuel can slosh about.
I really hope this gets approved and significant progress is made in the field of neutron resistant materials and these type of reactors become reality!
Yes, that's a good take. Unfortunately I didn't know about my own province's 2008 nuclear exploration until well after I learned about nuclear power. So all my frustration is after-the-fact.
😃Good day from GOONELLABAH, NSW! 🌏I am an engineer promoting the Copenhagen Atomics reactor. Thorium encourages me, and it will be a Game-Changer in Energy.
Thanks Gordon - Another good video. It surprised me that this thing is being done at a private university. This sort of thing seems like the big public Universities would have taken it and run with it. Those cash rich Ivy league schools could be doing this with loose cash. This is not the type of thing I equate with a Christian school. with less than 4,000 students. However, I am a long way from Texas. We are slowly nudging towards a time when more nuclear reactors will be built. This appears to be an example. Nice shirt. It's all about "U" and well maybe "Th."😊
Now that the Advance Act passed the Senate and will be signed by the President, will the NRC be more receptive to this project or just as obstructive as ever.
@ 17:15 he mentions "Corrosion". Corrosion is directly proportional to contamination of the salt, ergo the purer the salt the less corrosion. Copenhagen Atomics sells salt that is 99% pure, so corrosion is no longer an issue.
Nuclear involves alchemy. Atoms turn into other atoms. You know what is going to turn into what so you can still prevent corrosion but you'll want to have a purification system in place at all times and if you want a commercial reactor that's there to run as long as possible at full power without needing to be touched, you'll want to study exactly what happens with the tiny impurities over a long enough time. You'll want solve the corrosion issues 5 times over and then pick the 3 cheapest methods and use them at the same time in the commercial reactor.
@@MrRolnicek Yea "Alchemy" isn't a thing, I think your talking about Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. Nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus of an atom is changed. but not Alchemy, Alchemy is a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy that aimed to transform base metals into gold, cure diseases, and prolong life. Please choose your words carefully, thank you.
@@MrRolnicek This is a good take. Just replying to help emphasize it isn't the original state of the salt which matters the long run. I'm sure it matters, but even with Kairos (just salt as working fluid coolant) I expect interaction with the pipes will result in impurities. Still, no sense starting with impure salt.
It's great to see someone doing more than just talking about these reactors. Hopefully there won't be push back from the incumbent Nuclear Energy providers, because the Oak Ridge experiment was killed expressly to support them, and the legislative framework was framed around their needs.
Great video. Like that they stress the research direction to open up options and reduce licensing costs. It's also nice that they get chemistry department interested in potential research. Hope this opens the door for more nuclear research departments at other universities which in turn makes it easier to encourage more commercial applications.
Really glad, that a university is moving forward with this. And I'm not surprised to see, it's in Texas. They seem to have a very healthy focus on innovation there, with attracting the bitcoin miners in 2021 and SpaceX & Tesla.
Since You are in Texas and somehow look inconclusive of what to accomplish with this MSRE, something which ORNL hadn't already accomplished, how about the following: Tritium separation in the 1st SaltLoop and the 2nd Loop, too. Then testing the thermal capability of the hot secondary Loop to do refining of different crude oil grades? Salt doesn't burn, and if You enclose the distillation column in inert Argon gas the whole facility is fire-proof, even if a leak occurs. Probably a lot of practical Chemistry to be learned by these experiments; valuable for the future! 50yrs ago I visited Gundremmingen, the Block C 1300MW LWR before start-up (which the ... Plum out of their heads German politicians have shut down now, prematurely). Impressive from the huge Turbine hall to the large hyperbolic-shaped, very_thin_concrete_wall cooling tower, to the 3m thick Bio_rad_shielding, and the reactor inside. The four main feeding water- and the steam- pipes were designed so that the Reactor building could differentially settle 30cm more than the adjacent machine hall over its lifespan because it was so heavy! The whole reactor foundation area was 2m filled up higher than the surrounding area because it was close at the Danube river, where flooding could, and recently did happen.
I think chloride salt reactors are more promising. Ed Pheil from Elysium makes very convincing arguments for it. What are the reasons that fluoride chemistry is preferred?
Fluoride salts have higher density, lower heat capacity, higher viscosity, and higher thermal conductivity compared to chloride salts at least from what I have read, there may be others as well
@markburton5292 maybe I misunderstand your comment, but none of the points you mentioned is an advantage. Furthermore with chloride salts you wouldn't have the lithium 6/7 refinement problem ( there is nobody today who does this refining commercially) to prevent the tritium byproduct which falls foul with the weapons crowd. Also the melting temperature of the chloride salt mix is lower than the fluoride mix. Additionally you could get paid for the spent light water reactor fuel the chloride reactor could consume.
Alvin Weinberg and his mentor Eugene Wigner are the people you should ask. Also, Kirk Sorenson is a good source of why using FLiBE is the best way to go and there are plenty of videos of him talking on the subject. It's basically the chemistry, is my understanding. Dry uranium tetrafluoride process preparation using the uranium hexafluoride reconversion process effluents. www.ipen.br/biblioteca/cd/inac/2007/pdf_dvd/R08_1808.pdf
@@franztafferner9661 do explain why those aren't advantages. when the very nuclear sites talking about the salts list those as advantages. Again I am not a expert I read papers on it but I see those points raised as advantages for that salt not only in nuclear but also in solar salts so I don't know why you say they aren't. Yes the melting point of chlorides are lower but that also means you have a lower total heat transfer capability again I'm looking at this from a layman's view My understanding in both fluoride and chloride salts can be used to "burn" spent fuel from a LWR that is just a matter of processing. now could there be a reason to use chloride instead sure maybe there are. Personally, I don't care which they use I just want to see the advancement of MSR technology.
@markburton5292 I whole heartedly agree with your last sentence. I just think that a chloride reactor as proposed by Ed Pheil has simpler chemistry and metal hardware. It works as a fast neutron reactor and as such can complete the fuel cycle. I am far from qualified to write a treatise on the subject, but search on u tube There are other chloride reactor concepts from "moltex" and a Dual Fluid Reactor from a German group. If you have the time...
Thank you for sharing. FInally seeing someone do something with that Oakridge report I read more than 10years ago before starting my energy studies. If you have use for a masters energy systems science student, I am academically free from my shackles shortly! I'd love to come over and see it, so many ideas for optimisation of the energy budget and interia control to load match.
33:20 Georgia Tech, is my niece's husband's colledge, a good school. My old CivEng student days study mate is the President of the Australian Nuclear Association. He has a Masters Degree in Nuclear Physics. He makes presentations and travels to nuclear sites. He has teamed up with a Professor of Electric Engineering. Together they spoke about the renewables problems. Both ignored the new Battery Vehicles and the storage capacity and utility factor when parked 23hrs every day, 20million in the next decades. Neither addressed the world wide CO2 emissions and Australia's military defence budgets exploding. Both gave EXPERT OPINIONS outside their expertise, very confident.
It's too bad that our bureaucracy is still holding back this development whereas other countries such as China are way ahead of us in the development of these reactors
SMRs, Small modular reactors, cost $2billion for each generator plant. Per 300 mW. Battery Vehicles are getting cheaper and rooftop solar PV is cheaper than windows $/m2 if utility paperwork and delays are removed. Panels are a few $s 200. Inverters are a few $s An electrician a days pay. With a Battery Vehicle and Rooftop PV, electricity can be dirt cheap offgrid. A little LNG in midwinter days is ezi pezi. Petroleum for bitumen roads and petrochemical industry means some Petroleum will always be available.
A floor in a molten salt nuclear reactor could be a bunch of interlocking "cups" with convenient handles for remote operators to be renoved. A research molten salt reactor should only deal with the salt without the radioactive components, to test the mechanics and the chemistry. No nuclear regulation needed.
Both of your ideas are good! Your idea about building an example minus the radioactive material has me wondering about the power requirements to keep it molten, and also run a heat exchanger for the generation of steam.
@@TH-camOdyssey If you don't put a load on the heat exchanger, the heat input can be measured and indicate thermal losses. I would think every part of the reactor and pipes would have electric heaters wrapped around it, under any insulation. Upon startup the salt, in molten state, would be loaded, and mechanical tests commence. After successful results the nuclear material can be added. Dump tanks would likely also have electric heaters, of immersion type, for keeping the salt from hardening. The Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core reactor could be controlled by removing the heavy water moderator. I'm sure those guys have better ideas.
I remember reading about Thorium and liquid salt reactors ~10 years ago and running across some VERY strong opinions stating this wasn't possible....despite being built and proven in the 60's and abandoned because it couldn't be weaponized like what we have today.
The 1960's reactor was just a proof of concept. Today, the engineering standards and expectations for nuclear reactors are much higher. There are still significant engineering challenges and though China seems to have a thorium MSR operating, they seem to be keeping quiet about the details.
As Alberta looks at what kind of nuclear it will be deploying in the future (even the NDP leader, Nenshi, fresh off winning the leadership race, he is pro-SMR) the lack of Alberta salt loops at universities seems like an indicator we won't be pursuing any MSR variant.
@@gordonmcdowell There are university departments, especially physics, that are scrambling to pull in new students. You'd think that a nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry and nuclear engineering trifecta would be the sort of thing University boards would want to use for funds lobbying. They need a "salesman" like ACU has.
The Moltex version has no flowing salt and not radioactive pumps or valves. Their fuel is contained in fuel tubes inside the reactor. Any leak stays inside the reactor case which sits inside a 7ft thick concrete box. It has no internal pressure no pressurised water. None of the components that make PWR so risky. Moltex still cannot get a licence because they don’t have any of the components that cause the hazards in PWR. They can’t click the boxes.
Seems there need to be new regulations, that reflect the possibility of thorium and MSRs. So far, I haven't heard any government officials speak on that, here in Germany or worldwide. India is an exception, because their nuclear energy program involved thorium from the beginning, at least as a concept.
33:02 the interdisciplinary team should have included a Transmission Construction Engineer to cost out the 'to the customers costs'. Bigger amounts of electricity means bigger grid capacity. To millions of customers. Australia has had a Royal Commission investigation when simple upgrade costs were passed onto the millions of customers. The reactor will have great value in the medical materials with short life spans. This is a real thing and is a problem when transporting Lucas Heights radiated material in Sydney to Perth Hospital for medical treatments. The reactor will have great teaching value and research value. Nuclear will always have a place. Nuclear limitation and benefits are being researched here. A small campus or local suburbs generation capacity will be useful. If the alternative of Rooftop renewables and Battery Vehicles is viable then this is a very good way to find out.
multi use facility What it says on the tin. the facility is used for more than one thing. i.e. Part of the building is a research reactor and another part is a chemical lab, or a racketball court.
This is great, but there were too many questions like "Are you going to transport the reactor with the fuel in it. Something that is completely irrelevant, and some random detail that he obviously had not thought about. I felt sorry for Rusty as you asked what materials are going to be here and are you going to allow people to walk in the room when reactors are here.
Nuclear submarines are PWRs. Use solid fuel and water coolant. There were a small number of sodium-cooled fast-spectrum subs but I don't think they're considered successful or not. But I do know there's NEVER been a Molten-Salt Reactor sub, ever. MSR are in the test-reactor phase, not the deploy-commercially or deploy-in-subs phase.
@kenlee5509 the MSR was an experimental reactor. Not a bomb. The project failed because sodium is highly corrosive, collects actinides and has a tendency to solidify in pipework. There's some old film about it on TH-cam.
This tour guide went from thinking he was going to talk about nuclear reactors to understanding he is a babysitter. At about 13 minutes he is finally understanding he's talking about fire codes in mixed use buildings, what it felt like to decide to do his job, and other information suitable for a first grade field trip. He stops talking about anything relevant and just answers questions like "Why did you make a floor?" _we didn't want people to fall into holes_ "If I step on a crack, will it break my mother's back" _yep._ "What do you think about season 2 episode 6 of lexx" _it wasn't my favorite moment of my life, I think I had gas that day_ "Does your wife think you do anything with guys, late at night?" _What do you even mean? Yaknowhat, nvm. She thinks we go to Applebee's for an appetizer sampler, because she works there, and we do eat the samplers_ "If you could have a pet squirrel or a pet velocoraptor, would you take them to a drive through car wash?" _well I guess I'd choose-_ "You don't have to choose the pet, just tell me if you would take your pet to a drive in carwash" _I don't see why not_ "Well, velocoraptors are extinct, I dunno if you know that" _so, then, I guess I wouldn't take my pet velocoraptor to the car wash_ There you have it. This guy locks his pets in in gas stations while he gets a car wash. Please comment, tip me, like the video, smash the subscribe button an odd amount of times unless you are already a subscriber. In that case, buy my patreon and receive a small picture of me holding the flat earth on my back
Rusty went over the technical aspect of MSRR in his previous day's presentation at TEAC12. I (edited and) posted that video too. Search: MSRR TEAC12 and you'll see both. I didn't ask Rusty any questions that I hadn't already heard the answers to. I conducted the tour after having watched Rusty's presentation, and having listened to 2 in-depth podcasts (Titans of Nuclear, Power Hungry) which are both available on TH-cam. I don't actually need him to restate stuff, if I needed to repurpose that info into a narrative piece (which always remains my highest priority) I'd grab it from any of those 3 sources.
@@gordonmcdowell well I hope you saw at least a little humor in my narrative. I didn't expect any discussion about the building's code, so that was fun. But, otherwise I don't think I expected anything on the person who gives tours or the personal life of other techs or the licensing process for the subject, and that's cool, but unexpected when I'm looking to something else
29:24 old technology like land lines is superseded by modern technology. My point is that transmission lines maybe the cost limitation on nuclear electricity generation. Texas is in the sunbelt of the USA. Renewables and Battery Vehicles can test this molten salt reactors economics. I am not saying that nuclear technology is safe or dangerous. I am saying that there is an economic problem with all grid electricity. As a worldwide solution, a solution that will make fossil fueled CO2 emissions countries turn off their old and build nuclear industries may have far more costs than we all realise. In very cold latitudes turning on the nuclear electricity in the low light winter months to charge the battery vehicles and lights and heating etc. May be an absolute necessity. The utilization factor of the reactor may not be the best. The grid utilization factor may not be the best. But it may be the best for those latitudes.
40:55 new technology for the world is a problem as I have said. These are good people but even experts miss something in other fields. Australia was going to have French submarines and spent half a $billion before a young man pointed out the advantage of USA nuclear submarines. We all can make mistakes.
This is interesting but they've only got a hole in the ground. China has already built a 2MW pilot reactor and it's operating. Given the costs of building anything nuclear in the US, it'll be cheaper to just buy the MSR from China. They're building more next gen nuclear fission plants than anyone else on the planet right now. These kinds of university reactors have been around forever and pretty much nothing has come out of them other than as a training source for nuclear engineers.
We assume China's TMSR-LF1 is operating, but we don't know. SINAP (China) 's silence is curious, since they were quite public about the build and the licensing. MSRR seems like a very, very big deal to me. The reactor itself is far less important than the exercise in running a new licensing workflow through NRC. This workflow has never been tried before and is THE ONLY WAY to build the building before getting an NRC license. Now there's a building. Waiting for an NRC license. The optics are pretty, pretty... pretty good.
Also, why is a single operational reactor design all that's needed? The Soviets came up with the reactor at Chernobyl. If they came up with that design first, would you be happy with them selling that design all around the world? Let's seen dozens of designs that we know work and see which ones are the most efficient, cheapest, and most reliable
@@gordonmcdowell Doubting everything China does while swallowing everything the US does as God's given truth is what's wrong with the country these days. Too much fake news about China and there's too much fake news given to the US people as well from the so-called free press.
@@blackoak4978 The shotgun approach to engineering is seldom the most efficient, especially for things as expensive and nuclear power plants and especially in the highly regulated US market. Far more efficient to pick one design and iterate as needed to incrementally improve it.
@@daniellarson3068 It isn't a serious question. "have always failed". Uh, sure. Corrosion is a thing, but the point of MidnightVidsions "question" wasn't to ask a question.
Reading here it sounds like a Copenhagen company in Denmark has addressed the corrosion by producing salt that is 99% pure and claims this salt will not cause corrosion in these Thorium Molten Salt Reactors plumbing. No excuses now , so let’s get it on and make any other improvements along the way . Our electrified system is way behind.
Step away from the exciting technology, and look at the attitudes of the people here. Pure "can do" in action. This is why the US is the only superpower in the world, and why it will continue to be so. Here in Europe, we are shackled by the "precautionary principle" and under led by our politicians. Until we import more of the "can do" stuff, we will lag behind. Well done to all who have helped push this forward so effectively.
The U.S. is the sole superpower because of the dirty tactics of the CIA and the intervention of the U.S. military around the world. We certainly don't have a "can do" attitude any more. China is a country with a "can do" attitude.
This is the 10th video I've posted that you've commented on. Your 1st comment (10 videos ago) talked-up solar and batteries. It is clear you don't actually watch the videos, because none of the comments you make are video specific. If I tossed down your 10 comments, and the 10 videos you commented on, you'd never be able to put them back together. Any reason I shouldn't block you? (Aside from the boost in engagement your useless comments bring?)
@gordonmcdowell Good comment, Gordon. I am making the point that nuclear electricity has economic limits. You should get stuck into my arguments. If CO2 emissions elimination is the target of nuclear electricity, then a bigger national electric grid is needed to get the greater amount of electricity to the millions of customers. This grid cost is a fundamental constraint on nuclear electricity generation and transmission to the customers. If you are genuinely interested in successful using nuclear electricity, you might find a solution against what I am saying. Australia is facing the nuclear question again from the same political party that stopped nuclear in Australia. The federal LNP, the business party, promotes economic common sense. But I think that they have been hijacked by a faulty economic argument. They should support my point and protect the existing national transmission grid by unloading it from all buildings and diverting the electricity into new business. I know it is hard to accept my insights, and you have not wimped out. I am not against Australian nuclear submarines, I am not against existing nuclear electricity plants, I understand cold latitudes bigger problems. The technology in the video is impressive and internal combustion engines are impressive. When the sun comes up and the cash flows to the grid stops, particularly in the long, sunniest months, then conflict will hit hard, and it will be a government trying to manage energy cash flow. Nuclear promoters know new grid is extremely expensive and so promote existing generation sites. Nuclear promoters say distant renewables new expensive new grid and so are not cheap. Nuclear promoters agree Electric Vehicles, Battery Vehicles, are in our future. Auto manufacturers know that many know this. I would appreciate more than opinions. I do make an effort to respond to people commenting as they have taken their time to think. My construction career has given me useful understanding.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Why do you say "If CO2 emissions elimination is the target of nuclear electricity, then a bigger national electric grid is needed to get the greater amount of electricity to the millions of customers" ? Just deploy right-sized reactors where the power is needed. You can't just deploy solar/wind where the power is needed, solar/wind are geographically constrained. Solar/wind need more transmission lines. This is illustrated today in Germany where their 10 Billion Euro north/south SuedLink transmission line only began in 2023, and is needed to bring wind power from the north to the industrial centres of the south. Why are you commenting your generic anti-nuclear arguments HERE on THIS VIDEO? You're still doing it. Prove to me you've watched the video before you leave your next comment or you're blocked off the entire channel.
In case you've been off the planet for 5+ years, biology has been debunked and now ignored as men/boys can be women/girls and even have babies and chest feed. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot and homophobic. The atheists have won!
Ok, say you get your wish. They do some sort of audit and realize they are creationists or some such. What next? Should this program end? Where will it go next? Will you stop good research from happening because there's unrelated bad research next door? Take the wins where you can get them. I would rather 10 research labs like this than 1 at MIT. More people looking into it is more ideas tested out and a quicker move to rolling out the technology. As for the bad research, that's what peer review is for. Let something good BE something good
"I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever". - Sir Isaac Newton I could provide scores of quotes like that. Most of the great scientists have been theists, if not Christian. Anti-Christian bigots like you are a threat to western civilization.
This project in someway doesn’t make sense . Especially since most of the workings of the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor was proven and working way back in the sixties at the Oak Ridge Laboratory . Plus there are other labs subsequently working on molten salt reactors with the idea of mass production. So my question is ,what is holding up this already proved technology from benefiting us in these past decades and right now? Is it the existence of the petrodollar and it’s control over the world’s economy that’s fighting this relatively cheap and safe abundant energy source ? Right now ,China has a brand new Thorium Molten Salt Reactor pilot plant up and running using mostly that same proven technology that we here in the states developed back in the sixties that was purposely defunded by President Nixon to protect the existing energy industry and the petrodollars screwing us and the world for money and control of the general population. We the citizens ,need to clean house of paid off politicians and their greedy donors plus their corporate media that’s covering for them . Time to wake up people. All this research is just another stalling tactic because after all,we could have had this technology benefiting us all up and running and making improvements along the way for years now if it wasn’t for our current and past corrupted government and military regime. Don’t just take my word for it . Do your own research, ask questions and then make others aware.
ACU has essentially found an NRC exploit to license the reactor. The hold-up is licensing. You're speculating about the reasons behind the hold-up but the mechanism is licensing. This ACU Next Lab project is very important because an operating MSR is of better value in licensing more than our historic record of MSRE. While Moltex (in Canada) and Kairos and TerraPower are in various stages of work on their own MSR permutations, ACU's will be (knock on wood) operating first. And I personally can only leverage SINAP's TMSR-LF1 as much as China is willing to talk about it. SINAP website has been silent about it. The last we heard was that an operating license was issued for TMSR-LF1 at the end of 2023. Since then, complete silence.
The idea that a significant amount of nuclear material is being manipulated in what is essentially a ordinary urban neighborhood chills me to my bones. There is no condition in which an ordinary neighborhood could be quickly evacuated without much planning, including regular full-court dress rehearsals of the people. The way this guy talks makes me cringe.
LOL......when I herd the term "Methodist Prayer Breakfast" I almost wet myself.......how woke can you get when a religious group can have an influence on an energy research facility.....just tell them if the faculty goes bad they will be the first to get to Heaven......LOL..
In case you've been off the planet for 5+ years, biology has been debunked and now ignored as men/boys can be women/girls and even have babies and chest feed. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot and homophobic. The atheists have won!
@@mikewurlitzer5217 This video has nothing to do with that. ACU has nothing to do with that. This is all based on ACU's NEXT Lab being COMMUNICATED to "Methodist Prayer Breakfast". That's not Rusty getting funding, or altering policy. That's Rusty keeping the community(s) in the loop. Please don't try pivot this to an unrelated topic. Please re-listen to that moment before following up on this.
"I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever". - Sir Isaac Newton I could provide scores of quotes like that. Most of the great scientists have been theists, if not Christian. Anti-Christian bigots like you are a threat to western civilization. Also, look up the definition of "theocratic", you dolt.
Dear all Australian politicians, stop playing politics for the sake of it, stop taking ideology as the platform and get on with working for our nation by looking at all the alternatives from a unbiased informed perspective before the next election. I don't know the answer but butting heads is rubbish. @australianlabor @liberalpartyofaustralia @AustralianGreens @LibertarianAus @thenationals @SkyNewsAustralia
If you are open to thinking, you must understand that the national electrical grid that does the job of getting electricity to the millions of customers. The national grid is a $TRILLIONS infrastructure investment and must have cash flow. Electricity is dirt cheap to generate. Even nuclear is promising to match coal fired electricity. Australian generation price is 5cents kWh and grid electricity is 50cents kWh. The grid makes electricity expensive. With 20 million vehicles in 20 years being battery vehicles and parked 23 hours every day, then 20 million big vehicle batteries will be FREE to the customers to power the homes and buildings at night and most of the day with dirt cheap rooftop electricity and no grid costs. Both sides of politics can agree on this. This is as it is dirt cheap. The grid can be energised by the 20million buildings rooftop solar PV and 20million Battery vehicles.
@rexmann1984 Wow. No CO2 emissions is the main point. 20years is the time frame. Replacing fossil fueled electricity generation with nuclear will take 20years. 25gW is today's generation plant capacity for Australia. 20million vehicles in Australia and 1million new vehicles annually means 20years minimum to have 100% Battery Electric Vehicles. 20million buildings with cheap rooftop solar PV. Everyone will have enough cheap rooftop electricity and storage to disconnect from the national grid. Save on energy costs. Save on petroleum costs. The grid that needs to sell on avg. 400gWh x 50cents = $200million to the 20million customers DAILY or it will go broke. Even people like yourself can stay connected to the grid if you want to. And use rapid chargers to fill up. The biggest problem will be that the government will be carrying a new LNP economic disaster, like Snowy 2, and French submarines, and gas supply shortages, and letting 3,000 covid passengers off the ship in Sydney, in the middle of an epidemic.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Oh this is all for the CO2 God? I had no idea. By all means do whatever is needed. Put me on a treadmill for eight hours a day if it means lowered CO2.
@rexmann1984 let me say you may be right that CO2 emissions may not be a problem. It has been suggested that the China population is reducing and may collapse. And that Russia has a similar problem. Food production is also a developing problem worldwide. Just my comment. Both sides of Australia's politics are playing politics.
Consider supporting my work... www.patreon.com/thorium ...I collect at-most yearly, so if you pledge $1 there's no way you can't afford it. I use Patreon as a lazy-person's blogging platform and you'll get a heads-up and extra context when a video is released. If there's something I need peer-review on I'll post privately. Yes, $1 will get you those... is basically an anti-nuke filter. I don't want the riff-raff seeing work in progress.
The NEXT Lab tour was fantastic. I think this video is a good reflection of what-all I try to do... aside from Rusty giving me some 1-on-1 tour, he let me microphone him while he milled around and I think there's really good insights he shared during that. The excerpt from the TEAC12 presentation is a chroma-key with slides... and almost all the footage was shot 4K. I'm pretty happy with how this video turned out.
Not sure I made an effective argument that ACU's journalism program should somehow be embedded in NEXT Lab... Rusty makes a good counter-point that the research centre is designed to NOT require special access to monitor it... but from my own perspective, if I lived in Abiline I'd be wondering how to construct a reality tv show following the MSRR in great detail. I hope that ACU students clue-in that MSRR.... the licensing... the build... the deployment... is significant and worth documenting in detail as it moves along.
This is a game changer for the nuclear industry.
Congratulations to the ACU team on making great strides in solving some of our biggest challenges!
I want one in my backyard.
Great strides dr freeman
Abilene is stepping ahead of the entire USA. This is so important as to not be downplayed in any way and should be sped up 10 times and many of these reactors need built nationwide. This may be the most important thing being done in America today. It needs desperately to be shown corrosion is no problem when rigorous de-watering systems are in use. Tellurium also needs a very good way to remove from the sytem also.
Great video Gordon. Thanks.
This tech was worked out in the 60s. Crazy that it has to be done under the umbrella of research.
Great that projects like this are finally moving forward! More power to them!
Finally, a serious LFTR research center in the USA. Not since the seventies have we done this at ORNL . You will have many impediments in your way, not so much technical but political. Why? Because it will be successful hence cut into petroleum, other nuclear, foreign parallel competitors, renewables as well as the fusion folly. This IS the only logical energy solution for clean unlimited energy. I wish you the best success.
The father of the MSR movement is Kirk Sorensen, of FLIBE Enerby, who located the old MRS plans at Oakridge in around 2012. China grabbed the plans and has been setting up MSRs. They had several startups last year alone. We are ten years behind China. Kirk Sorensen came to the conclusion that government funding is necessary to get MRS, or LFTRs, going quick enough to keep up with China and make a difference. Private companies have a hard time raising funds because the turnaround on the investment is too distant.
History happens in weird ways sometimes. Necessity of the time demands a safe emission free form of energy. The growth in electrical use and the replacement of fossil fuels demands more electricity. Then there's this guy sitting at a desk at NASA looking for ways to power stuff on the moon and finds this 50 year old experiment with Molten Salt. He has this Eureka moment and the message has slowly spread ever since. It's almost like a science fiction story. "The Truth is out there." - Fox Muldur
I agree. However India has a good setup. Is the NRC a bunch of Tards? Yup. i think it takes several industries working together to get a proper reactor running. there's already some failed facilities in different arenas that would suffice for a proper 50W test reactor...dry, grid connected, out buildings, etc. What is indicated in the video is that there is a demand for high grade materials...rad. or not. Do we have the forges? Do we have the metals? Do we have the mines? IS even the rails enough to get mats to/from all over? no. It's gonna take the govt. getting serious about material availability and material research, and transportation, etc. Could you 3d print a space shuttle tile with graphene embedded that won't break 30 foot long that can be slipped into a hastelloy pipe? I mean, we aren't there. India and China are not gonna run forever. Even if we had the 50 yr. Th power in a bottle, it would take 40 years to replace what we got now infrastructure-wise. it's so daunting.
Going by that guy's stomach anything's possible.😂😂😂
Nice that someone is moving forward!❤
There are about a dozen private companies that have MSRs ready to go. The NRC is the big holdup. Also, Westinghouse has the lobby at the NRC and they are still pushing Light Water Uranium Reactors.
I am so excited this is happening, and want to help however I can to get it to happen faster. I hope sometime soon my neighborhood will have a molten salt nuclear reactor of it's own.
Great idea on integrating transparency into this project. Good luck.
Germany has a few traditional nuclear plants in various states of decommissioning. Seems like the perfect place to build a molten salt reactor. The electrical infrastructure to transfer the newly produced electricity is all there, including emergency generators, ect. Think about it.
For Germany is important to push high cash flow green madness other things are prohibited them from the friends
Perhaps there is hope for Germany. I've seen articles where the bloom is off the Rose for their Green Party. Options which would not have been considered a few years back now may be allowed in open discussions.
@@frucajse Germany always had a section of the population that were always against nuclear power, let alone nuclear weapons being deployed here. Fukushima caused a new wave of cross-party anti-nuclear sentiment that the politicians couldn’t ignore. There wasn’t any emergency plan in case a similar accident were to happen. Then, a lot of people realized that in case of a radiation event, nobody’s home insurance would cover there property losses. Millions could end up homeless with nowhere to go, and Germany already has a massive shortage of housing in most places. Germany also was partially covered with fallout from the Chernobyl accident, which still is detected to this day in wildlife, soil and plants, especially mushrooms, so that was another big factor. It wasn’t just the Greens who pushed this movement to decommission these plants. Unfortunately, nobody ever envisioned the war in Ukraine breaking out and stupidly chose to become totally reliant on natural gas from Russia to power much of the industry and cities with electricity. It was too late to ultimately stop the shutdowns in 2022.
They're decommissioning reactors because the public is very against nuclear in Germany. Try selling "nuclear research" and see how well you do
The Tritium issue has been dealt with adequately. It can be used in developing medical isotopes and reduce the high cost of this valuable cancer treatment method.
This is decades overdue. Glad to see this research continuing. We desperately need clean energy.
So cool to see this, considering my parents AND grandparents met at ACU, so I wouldn't be here without it. Family reunions were the 2nd home from the Admin building down College St., and we'd walk to events around the campus. Now my other long time interest in MSRs are there.
Really inspiring project
Nice tour.
Wow that radar tank level sensor is amazing! Just the fact that it can see around the pipes corners, would suggest that the pipes are acting as a sudo-waveguide. Can imagine that this would be pretty hard to setup for a reliable indication. The pipes would have to be nearly free of imperfections to prevent false returns and a loss of signal strength. Edit: My bad.... you said laser level.
From my experience it hard enough setting up similar (radar and guided wave) systems at remote oil-n-gas sites in Texas, when I worked for Emerson. Question: Has there been any investigation investigation into system where the capacitance of the chamber is used to monitor the salts level? Aircraft have long used a similar system to monitor the fuel levels in-flight, as floats or radar measurement doesn't work when the fuel can slosh about.
I really hope this gets approved and significant progress is made in the field of neutron resistant materials and these type of reactors become reality!
Had me at: "Thank you for coming down and contributing to our city's economy" (to out of state activists).
Yes, that's a good take. Unfortunately I didn't know about my own province's 2008 nuclear exploration until well after I learned about nuclear power. So all my frustration is after-the-fact.
I’ve been waiting for this for years
Me too
😃Good day from GOONELLABAH, NSW! 🌏I am an engineer promoting the Copenhagen Atomics reactor. Thorium encourages me, and it will be a Game-Changer in Energy.
Thanks Gordon - Another good video. It surprised me that this thing is being done at a private university. This sort of thing seems like the big public Universities would have taken it and run with it. Those cash rich Ivy league schools could be doing this with loose cash. This is not the type of thing I equate with a Christian school. with less than 4,000 students. However, I am a long way from Texas. We are slowly nudging towards a time when more nuclear reactors will be built. This appears to be an example.
Nice shirt. It's all about "U" and well maybe "Th."😊
My “Th” shirts are all worn out. Need to order more.
Now that the Advance Act passed the Senate and will be signed by the President, will the NRC be more receptive to this project or just as obstructive as ever.
@ 17:15 he mentions "Corrosion". Corrosion is directly proportional to contamination of the salt, ergo the purer the salt the less corrosion. Copenhagen Atomics sells salt that is 99% pure, so corrosion is no longer an issue.
Nuclear involves alchemy. Atoms turn into other atoms. You know what is going to turn into what so you can still prevent corrosion but you'll want to have a purification system in place at all times and if you want a commercial reactor that's there to run as long as possible at full power without needing to be touched, you'll want to study exactly what happens with the tiny impurities over a long enough time. You'll want solve the corrosion issues 5 times over and then pick the 3 cheapest methods and use them at the same time in the commercial reactor.
@@MrRolnicek Yea "Alchemy" isn't a thing, I think your talking about Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. Nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus of an atom is changed. but not Alchemy, Alchemy is a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy that aimed to transform base metals into gold, cure diseases, and prolong life. Please choose your words carefully, thank you.
@@MrRolnicek This is a good take. Just replying to help emphasize it isn't the original state of the salt which matters the long run. I'm sure it matters, but even with Kairos (just salt as working fluid coolant) I expect interaction with the pipes will result in impurities. Still, no sense starting with impure salt.
It's great to see someone doing more than just talking about these reactors. Hopefully there won't be push back from the incumbent Nuclear Energy providers, because the Oak Ridge experiment was killed expressly to support them, and the legislative framework was framed around their needs.
Great to see MSRR progress.
Great video. Like that they stress the research direction to open up options and reduce licensing costs. It's also nice that they get chemistry department interested in potential research. Hope this opens the door for more nuclear research departments at other universities which in turn makes it easier to encourage more commercial applications.
Really glad, that a university is moving forward with this. And I'm not surprised to see, it's in Texas. They seem to have a very healthy focus on innovation there, with attracting the bitcoin miners in 2021 and SpaceX & Tesla.
Since You are in Texas and somehow look inconclusive of what to accomplish with this MSRE, something which ORNL hadn't already accomplished, how about the following: Tritium separation in the 1st SaltLoop and the 2nd Loop, too. Then testing the thermal capability of the hot secondary Loop to do refining of different crude oil grades? Salt doesn't burn, and if You enclose the distillation column in inert Argon gas the whole facility is fire-proof, even if a leak occurs. Probably a lot of practical Chemistry to be learned by these experiments; valuable for the future!
50yrs ago I visited Gundremmingen, the Block C 1300MW LWR before start-up (which the ... Plum out of their heads German politicians have shut down now, prematurely). Impressive from the huge Turbine hall to the large hyperbolic-shaped, very_thin_concrete_wall cooling tower, to the 3m thick Bio_rad_shielding, and the reactor inside. The four main feeding water- and the steam- pipes were designed so that the Reactor building could differentially settle 30cm more than the adjacent machine hall over its lifespan because it was so heavy!
The whole reactor foundation area was 2m filled up higher than the surrounding area because it was close at the Danube river, where flooding could, and recently did happen.
Powerful Stuff, Powerful People.
Go For it……..
I think chloride salt reactors are more promising. Ed Pheil from Elysium makes very convincing arguments for it. What are the reasons that fluoride chemistry is preferred?
Fluoride salts have higher density, lower heat capacity, higher viscosity, and higher thermal conductivity compared to chloride salts at least from what I have read, there may be others as well
@markburton5292 maybe I misunderstand your comment, but none of the points you mentioned is an advantage. Furthermore with chloride salts you wouldn't have the lithium 6/7 refinement problem ( there is nobody today who does this refining commercially) to prevent the tritium byproduct which falls foul with the weapons crowd. Also the melting temperature of the chloride salt mix is lower than the fluoride mix. Additionally you could get paid for the spent light water reactor fuel the chloride reactor could consume.
Alvin Weinberg and his mentor Eugene Wigner are the people you should ask. Also, Kirk Sorenson is a good source of why using FLiBE is the best way to go and there are plenty of videos of him talking on the subject. It's basically the chemistry, is my understanding.
Dry uranium tetrafluoride process preparation using the uranium hexafluoride reconversion process effluents.
www.ipen.br/biblioteca/cd/inac/2007/pdf_dvd/R08_1808.pdf
@@franztafferner9661 do explain why those aren't advantages. when the very nuclear sites talking about the salts list those as advantages.
Again I am not a expert I read papers on it but I see those points raised as advantages for that salt not only in nuclear but also in solar salts so I don't know why you say they aren't.
Yes the melting point of chlorides are lower but that also means you have a lower total heat transfer capability again I'm looking at this from a layman's view
My understanding in both fluoride and chloride salts can be used to "burn" spent fuel from a LWR that is just a matter of processing.
now could there be a reason to use chloride instead sure maybe there are.
Personally, I don't care which they use I just want to see the advancement of MSR technology.
@markburton5292 I whole heartedly agree with your last sentence. I just think that a chloride reactor as proposed by Ed Pheil has simpler chemistry and metal hardware. It works as a fast neutron reactor and as such can complete the fuel cycle. I am far from qualified to write a treatise on the subject, but search on u tube There are other chloride reactor concepts from "moltex" and a Dual Fluid Reactor from a German group. If you have the time...
Thank you for sharing. FInally seeing someone do something with that Oakridge report I read more than 10years ago before starting my energy studies. If you have use for a masters energy systems science student, I am academically free from my shackles shortly! I'd love to come over and see it, so many ideas for optimisation of the energy budget and interia control to load match.
Yay go MSR!
I hope Next is successful. We'd love to see these manufactured at scale for Australia!
I would love to see continuous updates on the research.
33:20 Georgia Tech, is my niece's husband's colledge, a good school.
My old CivEng student days study mate is the President of the Australian Nuclear Association.
He has a Masters Degree in Nuclear Physics.
He makes presentations and travels to nuclear sites.
He has teamed up with a Professor of Electric Engineering.
Together they spoke about the renewables problems.
Both ignored the new Battery Vehicles and the storage capacity and utility factor when parked 23hrs every day, 20million in the next decades.
Neither addressed the world wide CO2 emissions and Australia's military defence budgets exploding.
Both gave EXPERT OPINIONS outside their expertise, very confident.
It's too bad that our bureaucracy is still holding back this development whereas other countries such as China are way ahead of us in the development of these reactors
Vote Trump and hopefully Elon will help us out.
I want one in my backyard.
SMRs, Small modular reactors, cost $2billion for each generator plant. Per 300 mW.
Battery Vehicles are getting cheaper and rooftop solar PV is cheaper than windows $/m2 if utility paperwork and delays are removed.
Panels are a few $s 200.
Inverters are a few $s
An electrician a days pay.
With a Battery Vehicle and Rooftop PV, electricity can be dirt cheap offgrid.
A little LNG in midwinter days is ezi pezi.
Petroleum for bitumen roads and petrochemical industry means some Petroleum will always be available.
Can we get it licensed for brisket? Or at least a NewYork strip?
Keep on keepin' on good sir!
Thank you, once again!
A floor in a molten salt nuclear reactor could be a bunch of interlocking "cups" with convenient handles for remote operators to be renoved.
A research molten salt reactor should only deal with the salt without the radioactive components, to test the mechanics and the chemistry.
No nuclear regulation needed.
Both of your ideas are good! Your idea about building an example minus the radioactive material has me wondering about the power requirements to keep it molten, and also run a heat exchanger for the generation of steam.
@@TH-camOdyssey If you don't put a load on the heat exchanger, the heat input can be measured and indicate thermal losses.
I would think every part of the reactor and pipes would have electric heaters wrapped around it, under any insulation.
Upon startup the salt, in molten state, would be loaded, and mechanical tests commence.
After successful results the nuclear material can be added.
Dump tanks would likely also have electric heaters, of immersion type, for keeping the salt from hardening.
The Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core reactor could be controlled by removing the heavy water moderator.
I'm sure those guys have better ideas.
The chinese are a very long way ahead already. Thanks for the update Gordon!
I remember reading about Thorium and liquid salt reactors ~10 years ago and running across some VERY strong opinions stating this wasn't possible....despite being built and proven in the 60's and abandoned because it couldn't be weaponized like what we have today.
The 1960's reactor was just a proof of concept. Today, the engineering standards and expectations for nuclear reactors are much higher. There are still significant engineering challenges and though China seems to have a thorium MSR operating, they seem to be keeping quiet about the details.
If only UofA, Calgary, could emulate ACU in this particular aspect.
As Alberta looks at what kind of nuclear it will be deploying in the future (even the NDP leader, Nenshi, fresh off winning the leadership race, he is pro-SMR) the lack of Alberta salt loops at universities seems like an indicator we won't be pursuing any MSR variant.
@@gordonmcdowell There are university departments, especially physics, that are scrambling to pull in new students. You'd think that a nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry and nuclear engineering trifecta would be the sort of thing University boards would want to use for funds lobbying. They need a "salesman" like ACU has.
The Moltex version has no flowing salt and not radioactive pumps or valves. Their fuel is contained in fuel tubes inside the reactor. Any leak stays inside the reactor case which sits inside a 7ft thick concrete box. It has no internal pressure no pressurised water. None of the components that make PWR so risky. Moltex still cannot get a licence because they don’t have any of the components that cause the hazards in PWR. They can’t click the boxes.
Seems there need to be new regulations, that reflect the possibility of thorium and MSRs. So far, I haven't heard any government officials speak on that, here in Germany or worldwide. India is an exception, because their nuclear energy program involved thorium from the beginning, at least as a concept.
33:02 the interdisciplinary team should have included a Transmission Construction Engineer to cost out the 'to the customers costs'.
Bigger amounts of electricity means bigger grid capacity.
To millions of customers.
Australia has had a Royal Commission investigation when simple upgrade costs were passed onto the millions of customers.
The reactor will have great value in the medical materials with short life spans.
This is a real thing and is a problem when transporting Lucas Heights radiated material in Sydney to Perth Hospital for medical treatments.
The reactor will have great teaching value and research value.
Nuclear will always have a place.
Nuclear limitation and benefits are being researched here.
A small campus or local suburbs generation capacity will be useful.
If the alternative of Rooftop renewables and Battery Vehicles is viable then this is a very good way to find out.
The approval process is there to ensure that oil-n-gas can profit at the expensive for the environment, for just that much longer.
multi use facility
What it says on the tin. the facility is used for more than one thing.
i.e. Part of the building is a research reactor and another part is a chemical lab, or a racketball court.
NRC Exploit: "also a racketball court"
@@gordonmcdowell I heard there is a spent fuel pool table somewhere in the gaming room? Billiard Salts?
@@kenlee5509 Ha.
Whoohoo!! Thorium!! :D
This is great, but there were too many questions like "Are you going to transport the reactor with the fuel in it. Something that is completely irrelevant, and some random detail that he obviously had not thought about. I felt sorry for Rusty as you asked what materials are going to be here and are you going to allow people to walk in the room when reactors are here.
About time
Good stuff. Glad my name isn’t rusty towell
I hear he thought about changing it to Greasy Rag.
@@stdorn or Crunchy Bitz.
Purple shirt is my spirit. hes my soul. 😂
where does the fuel come from?
Most likely EBR (lightly) used fuel.
I wonder if this is the reason nuclear submarine use salt for their nuclear reactor
Nuclear submarines are PWRs. Use solid fuel and water coolant. There were a small number of sodium-cooled fast-spectrum subs but I don't think they're considered successful or not. But I do know there's NEVER been a Molten-Salt Reactor sub, ever. MSR are in the test-reactor phase, not the deploy-commercially or deploy-in-subs phase.
What are you talking about?
Palestina need one for Energy and to desalt water. How fast can you build one ?
They would try and make a "Boom" out of it, not to mention the utter lack of Education in their "Culture"...
Palestine isn't in any kind of state to operate a nuclear reactor
There are good reasons the MSR was not persued. It was built.
Define "good", "Can't be for bombs?" "Was in the wrong state?" "Nixon's friends wanted to do a pure sodium one?" what?
@kenlee5509 the MSR was an experimental reactor. Not a bomb. The project failed because sodium is highly corrosive, collects actinides and has a tendency to solidify in pipework. There's some old film about it on TH-cam.
This tour guide went from thinking he was going to talk about nuclear reactors to understanding he is a babysitter. At about 13 minutes he is finally understanding he's talking about fire codes in mixed use buildings, what it felt like to decide to do his job, and other information suitable for a first grade field trip. He stops talking about anything relevant and just answers questions like
"Why did you make a floor?"
_we didn't want people to fall into holes_
"If I step on a crack, will it break my mother's back"
_yep._
"What do you think about season 2 episode 6 of lexx"
_it wasn't my favorite moment of my life, I think I had gas that day_
"Does your wife think you do anything with guys, late at night?"
_What do you even mean? Yaknowhat, nvm. She thinks we go to Applebee's for an appetizer sampler, because she works there, and we do eat the samplers_
"If you could have a pet squirrel or a pet velocoraptor, would you take them to a drive through car wash?"
_well I guess I'd choose-_
"You don't have to choose the pet, just tell me if you would take your pet to a drive in carwash"
_I don't see why not_
"Well, velocoraptors are extinct, I dunno if you know that"
_so, then, I guess I wouldn't take my pet velocoraptor to the car wash_
There you have it. This guy locks his pets in in gas stations while he gets a car wash. Please comment, tip me, like the video, smash the subscribe button an odd amount of times unless you are already a subscriber. In that case, buy my patreon and receive a small picture of me holding the flat earth on my back
Rusty went over the technical aspect of MSRR in his previous day's presentation at TEAC12. I (edited and) posted that video too. Search: MSRR TEAC12 and you'll see both. I didn't ask Rusty any questions that I hadn't already heard the answers to. I conducted the tour after having watched Rusty's presentation, and having listened to 2 in-depth podcasts (Titans of Nuclear, Power Hungry) which are both available on TH-cam. I don't actually need him to restate stuff, if I needed to repurpose that info into a narrative piece (which always remains my highest priority) I'd grab it from any of those 3 sources.
@@gordonmcdowell well I hope you saw at least a little humor in my narrative.
I didn't expect any discussion about the building's code, so that was fun. But, otherwise I don't think I expected anything on the person who gives tours or the personal life of other techs or the licensing process for the subject, and that's cool, but unexpected when I'm looking to something else
Coal and oil industries must love nuclear power.
Hail the algorithm!
😊
#MSR
#Thorium
Thorium or uranium or spent fuel!
Here are my seven words for the algorithm... um, eight. I mean 13 words.
@@gyrateful Fine, Fine, Fine! Here are 7 more!
As always, if someone telling you it's easy from the start, but nobody hasn't done it successfully some information may be, just maybe missing 😂
29:24 old technology like land lines is superseded by modern technology.
My point is that transmission lines maybe the cost limitation on nuclear electricity generation.
Texas is in the sunbelt of the USA.
Renewables and Battery Vehicles can test this molten salt reactors economics.
I am not saying that nuclear technology is safe or dangerous.
I am saying that there is an economic problem with all grid electricity.
As a worldwide solution, a solution that will make fossil fueled CO2 emissions countries turn off their old and build nuclear industries may have far more costs than we all realise.
In very cold latitudes turning on the nuclear electricity in the low light winter months to charge the battery vehicles and lights and heating etc. May be an absolute necessity.
The utilization factor of the reactor may not be the best.
The grid utilization factor may not be the best.
But it may be the best for those latitudes.
Takt time ? KPI 300. ? #POWHKIA
1:10 You can't tell me he isn't a minion.
Encryption!
40:55 new technology for the world is a problem as I have said.
These are good people but even experts miss something in other fields.
Australia was going to have French submarines and spent half a $billion before a young man pointed out the advantage of USA nuclear submarines.
We all can make mistakes.
N=3
This is interesting but they've only got a hole in the ground. China has already built a 2MW pilot reactor and it's operating. Given the costs of building anything nuclear in the US, it'll be cheaper to just buy the MSR from China. They're building more next gen nuclear fission plants than anyone else on the planet right now. These kinds of university reactors have been around forever and pretty much nothing has come out of them other than as a training source for nuclear engineers.
We assume China's TMSR-LF1 is operating, but we don't know. SINAP (China) 's silence is curious, since they were quite public about the build and the licensing.
MSRR seems like a very, very big deal to me. The reactor itself is far less important than the exercise in running a new licensing workflow through NRC. This workflow has never been tried before and is THE ONLY WAY to build the building before getting an NRC license. Now there's a building. Waiting for an NRC license. The optics are pretty, pretty... pretty good.
China also has major issues with keeping those Nuclear Reactors from leaking, as well as the fact that their "Quality" is highly suspect.
Also, why is a single operational reactor design all that's needed?
The Soviets came up with the reactor at Chernobyl. If they came up with that design first, would you be happy with them selling that design all around the world?
Let's seen dozens of designs that we know work and see which ones are the most efficient, cheapest, and most reliable
@@gordonmcdowell Doubting everything China does while swallowing everything the US does as God's given truth is what's wrong with the country these days. Too much fake news about China and there's too much fake news given to the US people as well from the so-called free press.
@@blackoak4978 The shotgun approach to engineering is seldom the most efficient, especially for things as expensive and nuclear power plants and especially in the highly regulated US market. Far more efficient to pick one design and iterate as needed to incrementally improve it.
Molten salt reactors have always failed through the corrosiveness of the salt. What are you doing to reduce the corrosiveness of the salt?
Oh, which ones?
They use the stuff in solar installations to store heat. Somebody must have figured it out.
@@daniellarson3068 It isn't a serious question. "have always failed". Uh, sure. Corrosion is a thing, but the point of MidnightVidsions "question" wasn't to ask a question.
Reading here it sounds like a Copenhagen company in Denmark has addressed the corrosion by producing salt that is 99% pure and claims this salt will not cause corrosion in these Thorium Molten Salt Reactors plumbing. No excuses now , so let’s get it on and make any other improvements along the way . Our electrified system is way behind.
Molten salt “foot”
I hear it goes through socks really fast, I hope you can get better soon.
Won't the molten salt ignite due to moisture in the air? *watches on* Nope. Cool.
Lol. This guy is going to study exotic materials here too.. I.e. novel materials not made by humans...😉
Step away from the exciting technology, and look at the attitudes of the people here. Pure "can do" in action. This is why the US is the only superpower in the world, and why it will continue to be so. Here in Europe, we are shackled by the "precautionary principle" and under led by our politicians. Until we import more of the "can do" stuff, we will lag behind. Well done to all who have helped push this forward so effectively.
The U.S. is the sole superpower because of the dirty tactics of the CIA and the intervention of the U.S. military around the world. We certainly don't have a "can do" attitude any more. China is a country with a "can do" attitude.
When the reactors fail and stop, how long and how much does it cost to get it working again.
Nobody has a spare $2billion reactor to turn on. 😮😮
This is the 10th video I've posted that you've commented on. Your 1st comment (10 videos ago) talked-up solar and batteries. It is clear you don't actually watch the videos, because none of the comments you make are video specific. If I tossed down your 10 comments, and the 10 videos you commented on, you'd never be able to put them back together. Any reason I shouldn't block you? (Aside from the boost in engagement your useless comments bring?)
@gordonmcdowell Good comment, Gordon. I am making the point that nuclear electricity has economic limits.
You should get stuck into my arguments.
If CO2 emissions elimination is the target of nuclear electricity, then a bigger national electric grid is needed to get the greater amount of electricity to the millions of customers.
This grid cost is a fundamental constraint on nuclear electricity generation and transmission to the customers.
If you are genuinely interested in successful using nuclear electricity, you might find a solution against what I am saying.
Australia is facing the nuclear question again from the same political party that stopped nuclear in Australia.
The federal LNP, the business party, promotes economic common sense.
But I think that they have been hijacked by a faulty economic argument.
They should support my point and protect the existing national transmission grid by unloading it from all buildings and diverting the electricity into new business.
I know it is hard to accept my insights, and you have not wimped out.
I am not against Australian nuclear submarines, I am not against existing nuclear electricity plants, I understand cold latitudes bigger problems.
The technology in the video is impressive and internal combustion engines are impressive.
When the sun comes up and the cash flows to the grid stops, particularly in the long, sunniest months, then conflict will hit hard, and it will be a government trying to manage energy cash flow.
Nuclear promoters know new grid is extremely expensive and so promote existing generation sites.
Nuclear promoters say distant renewables new expensive new grid and so are not cheap.
Nuclear promoters agree Electric Vehicles, Battery Vehicles, are in our future.
Auto manufacturers know that many know this.
I would appreciate more than opinions.
I do make an effort to respond to people commenting as they have taken their time to think.
My construction career has given me useful understanding.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Why do you say "If CO2 emissions elimination is the target of nuclear electricity, then a bigger national electric grid is needed to get the greater amount of electricity to the millions of customers" ? Just deploy right-sized reactors where the power is needed. You can't just deploy solar/wind where the power is needed, solar/wind are geographically constrained. Solar/wind need more transmission lines. This is illustrated today in Germany where their 10 Billion Euro north/south SuedLink transmission line only began in 2023, and is needed to bring wind power from the north to the industrial centres of the south.
Why are you commenting your generic anti-nuclear arguments HERE on THIS VIDEO? You're still doing it. Prove to me you've watched the video before you leave your next comment or you're blocked off the entire channel.
im concerned that a Theological School is hosting this... id want an audit of there other science departments namely biology
In case you've been off the planet for 5+ years, biology has been debunked and now ignored as men/boys can be women/girls and even have babies and chest feed. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot and homophobic. The atheists have won!
Ok, say you get your wish.
They do some sort of audit and realize they are creationists or some such. What next? Should this program end? Where will it go next? Will you stop good research from happening because there's unrelated bad research next door?
Take the wins where you can get them.
I would rather 10 research labs like this than 1 at MIT. More people looking into it is more ideas tested out and a quicker move to rolling out the technology.
As for the bad research, that's what peer review is for. Let something good BE something good
@@blackoak4978 yes. it lose all funding in that case until they instate real science. these people are not to be trusted
"I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever". - Sir Isaac Newton
I could provide scores of quotes like that. Most of the great scientists have been theists, if not Christian.
Anti-Christian bigots like you are a threat to western civilization.
This project in someway doesn’t make sense . Especially since most of the workings of the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor was proven and working way back in the sixties at the Oak Ridge Laboratory . Plus there are other labs subsequently working on molten salt reactors with the idea of mass production. So my question is ,what is holding up this already proved technology from benefiting us in these past decades and right now? Is it the existence of the petrodollar and it’s control over the world’s economy that’s fighting this relatively cheap and safe abundant energy source ?
Right now ,China has a brand new Thorium Molten Salt Reactor pilot plant up and running using mostly that same proven technology that we here in the states developed back in the sixties that was purposely defunded by President Nixon to protect the existing energy industry and the petrodollars screwing us and the world for money and control of the general population.
We the citizens ,need to clean house of paid off politicians and their greedy donors plus their corporate media that’s covering for them . Time to wake up people. All this research is just another stalling tactic because after all,we could have had this technology benefiting us all up and running and making improvements along the way for years now if it wasn’t for our current and past corrupted government and military regime. Don’t just take my word for it . Do your own research, ask questions and then make others aware.
ACU has essentially found an NRC exploit to license the reactor. The hold-up is licensing. You're speculating about the reasons behind the hold-up but the mechanism is licensing. This ACU Next Lab project is very important because an operating MSR is of better value in licensing more than our historic record of MSRE. While Moltex (in Canada) and Kairos and TerraPower are in various stages of work on their own MSR permutations, ACU's will be (knock on wood) operating first.
And I personally can only leverage SINAP's TMSR-LF1 as much as China is willing to talk about it. SINAP website has been silent about it. The last we heard was that an operating license was issued for TMSR-LF1 at the end of 2023. Since then, complete silence.
The idea that a significant amount of nuclear material is being manipulated in what is essentially a ordinary urban neighborhood chills me to my bones. There is no condition in which an ordinary neighborhood could be quickly evacuated without much planning, including regular full-court dress rehearsals of the people. The way this guy talks makes me cringe.
Do you live in Abilene?
LOL......when I herd the term "Methodist Prayer Breakfast" I almost wet myself.......how woke can you get when a religious group can have an influence on an energy research facility.....just tell them if the faculty goes bad they will be the first to get to Heaven......LOL..
In case you've been off the planet for 5+ years, biology has been debunked and now ignored as men/boys can be women/girls and even have babies and chest feed. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot and homophobic. The atheists have won!
Not a productive attitude.
@@gordonmcdowell Agree but also the censorship of posts is very non-productive and only fuels the theories we are being played.
@@mikewurlitzer5217 This video has nothing to do with that. ACU has nothing to do with that. This is all based on ACU's NEXT Lab being COMMUNICATED to "Methodist Prayer Breakfast". That's not Rusty getting funding, or altering policy. That's Rusty keeping the community(s) in the loop. Please don't try pivot this to an unrelated topic. Please re-listen to that moment before following up on this.
"I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever". - Sir Isaac Newton
Shut your pie hole.
You can't do proper science at a theocratic university! What if the resulting science disagrees with the religious dogma?
"Molten Salt?! Frankly I find the idea of a salt that is melted as offensive to my religious beliefs!"
"I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever". - Sir Isaac Newton
I could provide scores of quotes like that. Most of the great scientists have been theists, if not Christian.
Anti-Christian bigots like you are a threat to western civilization.
Also, look up the definition of "theocratic", you dolt.
Artificial scarcity of energy is on the horizon. Changes everything.
Dear all Australian politicians, stop playing politics for the sake of it, stop taking ideology as the platform and get on with working for our nation by looking at all the alternatives from a unbiased informed perspective before the next election. I don't know the answer but butting heads is rubbish. @australianlabor @liberalpartyofaustralia @AustralianGreens @LibertarianAus @thenationals @SkyNewsAustralia
If you are open to thinking, you must understand that the national electrical grid that does the job of getting electricity to the millions of customers.
The national grid is a $TRILLIONS infrastructure investment and must have cash flow.
Electricity is dirt cheap to generate. Even nuclear is promising to match coal fired electricity.
Australian generation price is 5cents kWh and grid electricity is 50cents kWh.
The grid makes electricity expensive.
With 20 million vehicles in 20 years being battery vehicles and parked 23 hours every day, then 20 million big vehicle batteries will be FREE to the customers to power the homes and buildings at night and most of the day with dirt cheap rooftop electricity and no grid costs.
Both sides of politics can agree on this. This is as it is dirt cheap.
The grid can be energised by the 20million buildings rooftop solar PV and 20million Battery vehicles.
@@stephenbrickwood1602Wtf is wrong with you? My car battery isn't "part" of the fracking grid.
@rexmann1984 Wow.
No CO2 emissions is the main point.
20years is the time frame.
Replacing fossil fueled electricity generation with nuclear will take 20years. 25gW is today's generation plant capacity for Australia.
20million vehicles in Australia and 1million new vehicles annually means 20years minimum to have 100% Battery Electric Vehicles.
20million buildings with cheap rooftop solar PV.
Everyone will have enough cheap rooftop electricity and storage to disconnect from the national grid.
Save on energy costs.
Save on petroleum costs.
The grid that needs to sell on avg. 400gWh x 50cents = $200million to the 20million customers DAILY or it will go broke.
Even people like yourself can stay connected to the grid if you want to.
And use rapid chargers to fill up.
The biggest problem will be that the government will be carrying a new LNP economic disaster, like Snowy 2, and French submarines, and gas supply shortages, and letting 3,000 covid passengers off the ship in Sydney, in the middle of an epidemic.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Oh this is all for the CO2 God? I had no idea. By all means do whatever is needed. Put me on a treadmill for eight hours a day if it means lowered CO2.
@rexmann1984 let me say you may be right that CO2 emissions may not be a problem.
It has been suggested that the China population is reducing and may collapse.
And that Russia has a similar problem.
Food production is also a developing problem worldwide.
Just my comment.
Both sides of Australia's politics are playing politics.
$5 billion , Turkish lira . #POW
$5 billion, antarct8ca. Yuan. #KIA
$5 billion LNG .
NEEDS 10,000 : 3 * 33%
I buy, you fly. #369