Thorcon Just OBLITERATED Nuclear Energy’s Biggest Problem
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/techfor...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We talk about Thorcon's Nuclear Reactors that are designed to be mass manufactured in shipyards.
#thorcon #nuclearpower
The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/techforluddites07211
Every single day, it is India this, India that, and all the while India does nothing.
China has been operating a thorium reactor for the past 10+ years, as an experiment, and they have constructed a *REAL* thorium power generator producing electricity and now it is doing just that, contributing to China's vast network of power grid.
Do you see China goes around boasting to the world what they have accomplished ? Do you see the Chinese so proudly proclaim to the world that their thorium power generators are so advanced ? While the Chinese done nothing of that, why the Indians are so fond of boasting things that India has yet to construct ?
What the hell is wrong with India ?
1:07 "Like _p??? plants_ and batteries" - help please
Woman if you're not gonna talk of Stirling we are done forever...
I will never try again to be your first.
Not even one only singular time..
Loving you = )
The biggest fusion reactor in our solar system,1,300,000 Earths fit inside in side it. We need to use more of that energy to make good small fusion energy to become ubiquitous on earth. All the world working together in peace for a greater could make this and other good things happen fast before it's too late.
@@fiftystate1388 Peaker plants are power plants that only run a few hours during peak power demand. In America gas is cheap and gas turbines are cheap so most new peakers are gas turbines. I have no idea what's cheapest in India, but most likely gas or oil since coal generally takes too long to start up.
Me: **Shows up to my ThorCon interview wearing a blonde wig and an awesome cape, wielding a huge foam hammer**
ThorCon Interviewer: "..."
Me: "Oh..."
xd
Didn't really get the point of the middle earth scene why it is in there at all. Totally breaks the narrative
Thank you for helping to promote the change. Ever since I learned about thorium reactors (20yrs ago) I’ve asked again & again why this is not being used as a stop gap solution till we get over the Fusion hump, since it seems always to be 20 years away since the 80s.
It's unfortunate that Uranium has been so useful in weapons. Without that fact, we might have saw thorium reactors earlier rather than a reactor to use the uranium already being extracted for weapons which is so much more volatile and dangerous.
well.. it would hurt the existing industries profits, and potentially make india , turkey, brazil and australia top economic super powers.
most of the worlds thorium is in those countries, after all.
can't have that, can we. i mean, how dare anyone else get a chunk of the energy fund pie.
@@kenabi
I’d like to see those countries become super powers.
@@kenabi Did you know when Ore is sifted and sorted for Titanium, they discard TONS of Thorium that today sits around in PILES, ready to ship??
Fusion has always seemed to be 20 years away since the 60s, not the 80s. Probably since the late 50s.
"negative temperature coefficient of reactivity" - now that's a term I haven't heard talked about for a while. Very important, and often mis-understood.
Jargon os intellectuals, not phrasing of Humans. Can you convert that mess for Humans to comprehend?
@@linyenchin6773 Negative temperature coefficient of reactivity: As the temperature increases, the reaction slows down.
Positive temperature coefficient of reactivity As the temperature increases, the reaction speeds up.
Chernobyl was the result of a positive temp coefficient, it's basically a runaway reaction: more heat = faster reaction = more heat = faster reaction... and so on.
@@andrewmackenzie2638 why can’t you have a runaway reaction the other way? Is it just easier to warm something up with an exogenous source than to cool it down? Hell if I know.
The Nuclear Navy thanks you for your service.
@@vknight7497 because the whole point of a nuke plant is to put out heat that creates pressure that is used to make electricity. With a positive TCoR you're getting a feedback loop that results in ever increasing pressure until the containment fails and adios muchachos.
With a negative TCoR there's a maximum temp/ pressure you can realistically hit. You over engineer to be safe above that and you're golden- no feedback loop exists to ruin everyone's day.
This is a well-done, clear and technically accurate video that is worth a watch. It doesn’t just talk up a single company or technology but treats the concepts fairly.
Way too optimistic
Doesn't address corrosion
Dismisses the price of the fuel (but then says "unavailable" - flawed economic logic)
MSR safety and Modular construction: Great concepts - Best wishes - hope they're right
The negative temperature coefficient of reactivity was not correct for Thorcon, only for LFTRs or MCSFRs with higher fissile to fertile + fission product cross section ratios.
except for...CO2 is plant food...not a bad thing...the elephant in the room is Carbon Monoxide...the stuff that kills you in your car...why these scholarly elitists cannot utter the term Carbon Monoxide as the bad is really really weird...
@@boondoggle3898 You don't understand the science but you dismiss the scientists. Everyone knows carbon monoxide is poison. Can you sum up why it's dangerous in one sentence? This is a chance for you to turn this into a dialog.
@@boondoggle3898 Too much of anything is a bad thing.
We produce more CO2, now, than the existing biomass can absorb -- and in some places with the most vital biomass (rain forests), the people are destroying it.
We're cooking the planet, and no amount of screaming, crying, whining or denying, will change that reality.
We need to shift away from fossil fuels ASAP. We should've done it, a long time ago.
I love the idea behind (relatively) small and scalable reactors like these or a helium pebble-bed. Thorcon seems to have covered all the bases as far as construction, installation and safety (assuming qualified operators). The choke point for me came when you spoke about using an uninhabited island there in Indonesia to store the "spent" fuel pots. That part of the world is quite active tectonically and it would just plain suck to have a tsunami like the ones in 2004, 2010 or the pair in 2018 sweep over the island. To start gaining public acceptance of fission power, recycling of the "spent" fuel needs to become a top priority.
I totally agree on that choke point assessment. The concept of not being "economically feasible" to deal with hazardous waste is simply a non-starter. If the energy produced is insufficient to convert its waste stream into stable products that can be reintegrated into the natural environment without long term hazards to life, then we are bound for an unsurvivable situation for humans and other species alike.
The idea that one can abandon their waste where it can easily be ignored like NYC did by barging out and dumping theirs in the ocean is already producing the inevitable negative consequences. Anyone who has witness the results of Love Canal, Hanford Wa, and Beruit Lebanon knows how hidden and subsequently ignored hazards DO come back to cause serious problems. Storing these irradiated (steel?) containers full of radioactive waste in an uninhabited area where it will not be observed while casings decompose and or get washed away by all matter of natural phenomena is more than simply being irresponsible and most certainly cannot be viewed as being an "economically feasible" situation to recover from.
@@rabbytca
The "what to do with the waste?" issue has been the *one thing* that has held me back about nuclear power. We are just not disposing of it well anywhere AFAIK.
The US has a *big* waste disposal issue already and we don't have very many plants and aren't really building *new ones* .
Certainly newer plants should have less of this issue built into it, but Thorcon's solution is "put it on an uninhabited island"?! Terrible!
The fact it keeps being brushed off by proponents concerns me. It's like the cryptocurrency people ignoring the miners irl affects on the supply of computer parts and electricity usage, or the rare earth mineral issue for electric cars and their batteries.
I want better solutions and am fine with a stop gap, but covering the very basics of what to do with the waste stream seem important before building and investing in anything new.
the waste produced by nuclear is far less than the waste produced by coal, the difference is definitely what can be done with it. I'm all for nuclear energy.
However, while this was a very informative video it made me ask some questions. Does any heat get transferred into the ocean? That's kinda the same symptom happening from carbon emissions. Air quality might get better, but warming oceans still equates to death.
Also they use the term small and it has to be carried it pieces by the largest tankers in the world... Doesn't sound all that small, so how much area and habitat would we be destroying in leveling the seafloor to place these plants down? A lot of the oceans ecosystems are already in trouble.
And lastly, they are talking about the ocean... The one of the most corrosive things in our planet. How are they going to inhibit corrosion, and physical damage, and after these structures are discarded how are they going to handle the waste? Several of peoples hulking structures and projects exist as skeletons all over, already.
@@vixiannaatheria2555 We very much want to reuse the fuel. It is worth tens of millions of dollars to us (beside being the right thing to do). But that will require negotiation with the US since Indonesia has signed a treaty with the US promising not to reprocess the spent fuel. Those negotiations take FOREVER. Japan and Korea have been working on this with the US for decades. We don't want to hang around and watch coal plants be built in the mean time. The spent fuel won't go anywhere. It won't hurt much to wait 20 or 30 extra years to reprocess it.
Remember that our waste is stored in robust relatively small containers. The alternative dumps 90% of their waste into the atmosphere and the remainder is stored in large "mud" lakes. Even in the US the dams holding those lakes have broken, killing people and killing rivers.
Please let's not keep building coal while we wait for the perfect nuclear solution.
Just to give you the idea of scale - waste to supply enough electricity for your lifetime - including your share of industrial electricity usage - would fit inside a 1 Liter bottle. It is so small that it is no problem to store it very safely.
@@trysin4704 That's a secondary concern of mine too when I saw it placed in the ocean floor. At least these plants can't cause a meltdown or explosion that puts radioactive nonsense circulating into the world's oceans forever, but the destruction of and disruption of sea life with the placement of these modules isn't something to ignore either...
Personally I think nuclear is the way to go
It has been the way to go ever since the advent of the Gen IV reactor.
Nuclear is not just the way, it is the only way.
It's not THE way to go but one of many, for sure. The SUN is the closest fusion reactor Earth has and bombards the earth with more than 8,000 times the energy we consume in a year. Reactors require fuel that will only keep us going for a couple hundred years but the sun can provide us with more than enough energy for at least a billion years.
@@MrMR-hp6ed fusion IS nuclear.
@@orionstark no...fission is nuclear. you're confusing fission with fusion
You hit the nail on the head right at the end. We need to mass produce power plants and nuclear is the way to go. Not sure about the whole sinking it in the harbor or estuary bit but hey, if we can store 24,000 tons of ammonium nitrate in a harbor why not a nuclear power plant.
Ok, bad joke, I'll see myself out.
ahhhhhhaahhhaaaaa
Israeli missiles can reach Mach 8, faster than the human eye can see, also Ammonium Nitrate needs to be mixed at just the right ratio with diesel to combust, and still requires a detonator
*Just saying*
Oh, not to mention the Israeli security company that installed security cameras at Fukushima, which bore a striking resemblance to a mini nuke. Engineers habe said the whole point of an expansion chamber is to make explosive meltdowns impossible, it would mean a serious review of every reactor on earth, which of course never happened. Just weeks before Japan had recognized Palestine as a Nation State
Then there's the USS Liberty, and the Israeli spies caught with plans to the local Nuclear Reactor or the fsst breeder reactor in the Negev, used to provide nukes to Germany, South Africa, France, Italy, India, Pakistan and N Korea, all made from stolen US Nuclear technology, and of course they're not party to the international disarmament treaties. Arbon Milcham, Director of Mr and Mrs Smith still receives awards years after admitting he stole 200 Nuclear triggers and gave then to Israel. Arnon also made "the Lone Gunman" where govt spooks remotely hijack a plane to fly into a building and spark a massive multi generational war in order for military contractors to profit, it aired in June 2001
@@uncannyvalley2350 No it wasn't, it was the Rothchild funded space lasers. Everyone knows that! (/s)
China does not care about clean coal tech. They don't have to build dirty coal power stations.
Brilliant video on the topic, it’s time to sell this Safe energi plant to the public, so they really understand the pros and cons. Nicely done, thanks.
All sounds good, but one question. In our crazy world, who will guarantee that the used material will not fall into the hands of some wacko group for nefarious purposes?
You "Tech for Luddites" folks make great videos. This is another great video. I really wish Thorcon could scrape together some b-roll of SOMETHING lab or industrial looking... or if they could collaborate with you directly. I don't know the camera policies in a shipyard, but nothing would be more impressive than a guided tour of such a manufacturing process while the tour guide explains how things could be adapted to Thorcon's needs.
And you should pin a TH-cam comment with your Skill Share link. I think many people will see a top-comment who will not see TH-cam Description.
They can't. it is just vaporware.
@@jerrymctee5996 You are aware that The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment was a thing, right? An MSR operated at Oak Ridge. And China is completing their TMSR-LF1 right now, likely will be powering it up before the end of 2021.
Wonderful propaganda. Pravda or CGTN would be proud if they had made this propaganda piece.
i might've lenraed a thing or too at shcool but nun of my teachers were sedomrepuls
It's way past time you guys started talking about molten salt reactors. They are our best option. Kirk Sorensen's flibe LFTR molten salt reactor is also top notch.
They Have on this channel
LFTR uses and makes weapons grade fuel, so not commercially viable. Thorcon is one of the good non-weapons thermal alternatives to LFTR.
@George Mann It's a matter of getting the fuel cycle started. LFTR's a thermal spectrum reactor, it can't burn thorium directly like a fast spectrum reactor can. As a result, it has to be primed with highly-enriched uranium to start. Then, because of the fuel reprocessing, it isolates high purity Pa-233, which can be used to make weapons grade U-233 by avoiding neutron contamination that leads to non-fissile U-232 and U-234. It's a wonderful reactor in theory, with a lot of useful non-energy applications like Kirk says, but in practice there's a lot of exploitable features.
@@mattbrody3565 So? Any nation state that wants nukes today, could handily get their hands on them. They're not some super secret super difficult high-tech weapon, just pure enough fissile material and some explosives. The real trick is keeping these materials out of the hands of terrorists, but that's why nuclear power plants have strict security.
Also worth considering, isolating Pa-223 and U-232 as a small organisation is exceptionally difficult, due to their high radioactivity. It's no good if the people making and delivering the bomb keel over and die of radiation sickness before they can even get the weapon to where they want it to be, and any leak or compromisation of where they are and what they're doing is an open invitation to let every elite antiterrorism unit like GIGN or GSG-9 kicking down their front door.
Did you even watch the video? This video is talking about a molten salt reactor . . .
Generally insane Public perceptions?, why has the public accepted imminent death by allowing funding for overbloated military spending, on weapons made by multinational corporations instead of prioritising electricity generation using much of the same technology, and reject health and welfare for everyone else not military. (No, it's observation, not a question)
Why do "leaders" promise more "war against whatever" instead of constructive support for what is working? (Also an obvious question.., but not really, when a "Stoney Silence" is kept about Commercial in Confidence "Strategic Interests")
10:24 "Don't say I don't give you knowledge to drop at parties" LOL LOL Hehehe
Is not one danger of using graphite as a moderator is that the failure of the cooling medium means the moderator sustain fission hence the core can melt down.
Using water as a moderator as well as the coolant means that a loss of cooling shuts the reaction down.
What have I missed ?
This is a concern in a solid-fueled reactor. ThorCon is a liquid fueled reactor. In extreme error scenarios, the liquid fuel heats up, and this causes the freeze plug at the bottom to melt. If the freeze plug fails, then some other pipe will melt, and the liquid fuel will flow out of the core and into the drain tanks beneath the core by simple gravity. The drain tanks have no graphite, and they are carefully arranged to be the exact opposite configuration necessary for criticality.
The vast majority of the high cost of nuclear reactors has nothing to do with the actual construction cost but is the result of near-impossible regulatory nonsense caused by the public's fear of nuclear.
What is their solution to the problem of nuclear waste from the power plant that is poisonous and has to be stored for a very long time? That has always seemed to me to be the biggest problem with nuclear power.
She covered that at 11:33
@@henryyopp9094 Thank you. Yes, she says it will be shipped off to one of Indonesia's uninhabited islands. This is not a clean, safe, permanent solution. This is exactly the kind of thinking I was concerned might be going on.
Want to see more videos from you. You are one of the valuable creators in India.
Always informative. What an exciting prospect. Thank you.
A very well done video! It sounds like a viable way to produce nuclear reactors more quickly and more cheaply due to using facilities used to this type of manufacture.
Big green is going to have to step up their propaganda game to continue to squash this technology. Going to have to send out a few thousand more lobbyists with deep pockets to "persuade" government officials around the world into keeping the "nuclear is too dangerous" mentality alive.
If you do nuclear right, you don’t need to mess with that “renewable” nonsense.
France deployed nuclear power very quickly. They standardized one design and made their power grid reliable and comparatively inexpensive. Definitely cheaper than “renewables”.
“renewable” nonsense.?
just because the carbon goals set by the elites are literally impossible to reach.
that there is literally not enough silver on earth to make all the solar panels needed.
that every wind turbine require 900 lbs of rare earth metals.
there just may be enough rare earth materials to make this delusion come true.
we just have to turn over ever feet of the earths surface until we do.
all the mining for rare earth materials would create a massive amount of carbon byproducts.
you have to believe in the science! and a miracle material may appear to save us all, sent from the heavens.
before this entire fraud is exposed and the world economy collapses under its own weight.
@@brusso456you won’t find me defending wind and solar.
Ehh not sure about building something to sit on the water.
To me it sound like a maintenance nightmare.
The guys behind it have a ton of ship-building experience so that’s one thing I’m pretty convinced they’ll get right.
@@TechforLudditesSira I am confident too that they can make it work.
My issue is more with the WHY.
If there is an advantage to putting it in the water I can't see it honestly.
But they are smarter men and women than me so they know what they are doing I guess.
Great presentation!. There are a lot of details to explain and you covered most of them.
Another advantage of not needing pressurized water is that during a major loss of pressure, steam can split into hydrogen & oxygen as I understand by being catalyzed by zirconium in the fuel rod jackets. That leads to a hydrogen explosion such as in Fukushima. No pressurized water so no hydrogen explosion.
Once these and other molten salt reactor designs get established in as many countries as possible, I don't see the point of mixing renewables into the same grid.
Yep!
We thought going too far into the weeds with hot zirconium cladding reacting with steam would defeat the purpose of trying to simplify a somewhat complex process.
That’s why we like to give a shoutout to Gordon Mcdowell. His videos are long, detailed, with question answer sessions etc :)
Great video as always
Very intriguing, especially the part about shipyards being the machine that builds the machine is a very interesting idea!
I am all for nuclear power however Fukushima has taught us that reactors located near the ocean can be a very bad idea the design would need to be fail safe as in not requiring any outside power in a worst case scenario as there will be tsunami's in the future as well.
“The public has a negative perception of nuclear power” …. Once they sit in the dark and cold for a few days that would change 😳😁
It's only control freaks recking havoc with civilization. I was taught to think for myself. I don't know about you but mythical John Q Public don't exist.
@@dalethomasdewitt But not, apparently, to spell? Perhaps the word you meant was “wreaking”?
our power company has shut down our state only nuke, ahead of schedule. the lights are still on and lots of wind turbines too and lights and my TV works just fine when the wind is calm too. Duh.
@@donaldbarry5074 Rekt
@@jerrymctee5996 yeah, who needs natural habitats, their just animals... right?
0:15 wait are we not talking about Canada ? 😅
1:13 the cost of managing intermittency skyrockets. So true, but very few youtubers dare to say it.
cost of nuclear will put power out of the reach of many too.
renewable with storage is still cheaper.
and cheaper than nuclear and cleaner is geothermal.
drilling tech makes it available anywhere.
and you can put it anywhere power is needed, without mining or burning something.
no future fuel needs, no waste.
@@hg60justice I live in Hungary, there is not much sun and wind in the winter, I don't think renewable will be an viable option in the winter.
Geothermal should be good here, the thermal gradient is higher then average, but there is no such powerplant just spas.
Thorcon should do like Natrium and store energy in molten salt. Natrium uses their molten salt fuel to heat large amounts of non-fuel molten salt.
@@hg60justice Entropy always wins. Geothermal is no more inexhaustible than Hydro is. To be practical you need a tremendous amount of underground heat near the surface and you can't get that just anywhere.
@@patrickweaver1105
heat is better in some places.
a test one is going in saskatchewan right now.
they had no problem making it work there.
you just need to drill deep enough.
and lower temp systems could be boosted with heat pumps.
it would easily replace the baseload problem from fossil fuels.
unlike intermittent wind and solar.
You know when you undestand you are simply promoting this for unsientific reasons?
When you mix image of solar panels and eolic generators.
This is not "a new technology" its just a new kind of security system for nuclear generators that are still very bad for environment.
The problem with nuclear are the exaust combustible and the risk of natural events as earthquakes.
So this doesnt solve in any way the problem with nuclear.
Shame in you.
Love your channel! Thanks for another great video!
Thanks! 😃
My problem with nuclear power is the waste problem and eventual accidents. There is an ongoing search for longtime storage, where the waste can be stored for several thousand years. Indonesian Islands don't seem safe to me, with earthquakes and tsunamis and rising sea levels. And what happens when the tractor collides with a ship and it breaks open? If water mixes with radioactive parts, like the salt, the problem is worse than on land.
Been following this company for a while now, and while they appear to be one of the fastest movers in this area, it's still depressingly slow. :(
TerraPower is designing a MCRE prototype Plutonium burner for France, Orano to be built at INL.
300kWe
One pump
Cooled through an RVACs like system through the reactor vessel walls.
NaCl-43PuCl3 fuel salt
I wonder if there is a way to tie a unique Bitcoin to a specific reactor? By doing this one could produce a fungible token currency that is limited further by its specific identity to an energy producing asset. This may raise interests in both technologies. Just thinking. I recognize that It contradicts the indestructibility of Bitcoin.
It is slow because they want the governments to build and take responsibility for this technology. Anyone can build one if you have the money to back it up.
Go live in Chernobyl's exclusion zone. You can get very close to nuclear stuff there. Reportedly, due to the inadequate clean-up, Fukushima is also another place in which you can get close to your beloved nuclear power. Go play around among their plastic bags of contaminated dirt. Have fun, fun, fun, until the cancers take your fun away!
Part of the reason nuclear development is slow is regulation and buraucracy. Nuclear could have started replacing a lot of coal power fifty years ago, but "environmentalists" waged a propaganda war on the technology by confusing power plants with nuclear weapons. This made R&D extremely slow and expensive and investments in new projects very uncertain. Basically, the "environmentalists" managed to almost criminalize the use of nuclear power.
So when "environmentalists" fear monger about climate change and pollution from coal power, remember that they are the ones who prevented nuclear from eliminating much of these negative side effects.
all this was developed in the 1950's & made illegal in the USA due to it not being able to make nuclear bomb materials
Would these modular reactors also make it feasible to replace the coal furnaces in coal power plants, to run the existing turbines and generators with nuclear instead of coal? That would reduce the CO2 output and make use of existing generator parts in the coal plants.
Not really. The steam is at different temperatures and pressures. Coal steam plant would not function adequately.
CO2 is plant food...not a bad thing...the elephant in the room is Carbon Monoxide...the stuff that kills you in your car...why these scholarly elitists cannot utter the term Carbon Monoxide as the bad is really really weird...
Very informative update on Thorium reactors. They were passed over in favour of reactors that create bomb making materials right at the start of nuclear power. Unfortunately the deafening silence that surrounds them continues to impede their development. For the last 10 years this new Thorium reactor has been discussed and nothing has happened. Elon Musk should get involved because he needs them for Mars, and we would see some very quick develoments.
Also needs them to charge up all those cyber trucks.
@@jimgraham6722 Yes, for baseload to go with solar power on earth and for baseload and waste heat generation on Mars colony.
Actually China is developing a Thorium reactor as we watch this...
Nope. Bad idea.
@@jerrymctee5996 nah the US was doing research into it. From what I have seen it's lower risk than current ones producing weapons material. Gets humanity out of that bad loop...
Well it's about time that someone started looking at using Molten Salt Reactors. Now just convince the Wingnuts in North America please. Dumb as a sack of Rocks..
Building an offshore reactor off the Indonesian coasts sounds like asking for trouble. It has witnessed cataclysmic earthquakes & tsunamis and will remain that way because of it being on one of the most volatile spots on the Ring of Fire.
The powerplant hull rests on the seafloor, most likely over gravel. This is done to isolate it when the seafloor shakes. Earthquakes should be no more problematic for it as they are for floating structures
@@vipondiu What about Tsunamis? Is it just going to be far out enough out to shore to not be hit?
It will have its own harbor and be able to resist a 15 meter tsunami. Should be safe.
@@lorenwilson8128 No on site civil engineering project?
Anything will be better than what is going on now and if this system is faster in the works than Thorium so be it. Thorium will be the best but not the fastest so let this be first so Thorium can be done the correct way.
finally a tech channels thats not all about just new phones.
We should have shifted over to Thorium 40 years ago.
I love thorium and molten salt reactor design and potential.
Glad to see your video. Thanks
>>> saying "OBLITERATE" in the title = the worst title you could have chosen, IF you seriously want to inform /counteract prejudice, fear, and ignorance and doiubt about this very important new technology.
This is a reactor with uranium molten salts, not thorium.
this is not a Thorium reactor
Modular construction is simply going to have to be the way to go for future reactors, it's just so much cheaper. Not a big fan of sinking them, the Indian Ocean is on the Ring of Fire, remember the 2004 earthquake that decimated Indonesia? But the basic idea of modular construction is an eminently sound one, and using shipyards to build them is a novel idea. Personally, I kinda like the idea of vertical integration and build myself a reactor manufacturing plant to produce them myself, but I can understand not wanting that kind of overhead on your books and outsourcing the manufacturing as long as they can meet your tolerances.
You could say the idea... holds water.
In other ThorCon videos, they talk about Earthquake safety and tsunami safety. The ThorConIsle ship will survive both just fine.
Note that by "sink", they don't mean "underwater".
Instead of these gaint reactors why can we use small ones like ones used in nuclear powered ships subs ,these are cheaper and faster to produce ,by using them in large enough numbers we can achieve the same with less complexitys.
Because of the constraints of size, nuclear submarines use highly enriched Uranium.
Plus they have a massive amount of cooling available on account of being in the sea :)
But it’s not totally unfeasible. Only thing is that there are less expensive ways to get nuclear energy.
@@TechforLudditesSira got it 👍🏼 . Thanks maam for replying ☺️ ,I hope ur channel become one of the best educational channels of Utube .
These are not giant reactors. They are meant to retrofit existing outgoing grids. Modularity is the key to kick start civilization's basic key need.
Sticker price is the least important metric for a power source. It's only become popular in recent years because it helps wind and solar look good. What really matters is ongoing operating costs. In that respect nuclear is extremely cheap and gets cheaper the bigger you go.
@George Mann Wind and Solar would be good in India and China because they have so many people who live off the grid with no power at all. So to them even intermittent power is good compared to what they have now. Small villages could have a big solar array with power only needing to be sent a couple of miles at best. But as the entire country is hooked into one big grid they will become less and less viable except for people who want household solar for their personal use.
I was hoping this was about thorium reactors.
It is, sort of.
11:37 Sounded good up to where we dump the waste on uninhabited islands! :(
2 and 3 on one natural gas turbines with HRSG steam turbines are still the way to go imo.. there's been recent developments on using accelerated biodegration of crude oils to rapidly produce natural gas. which burns VERY cleanly, produces tremendous amounts of electricity in combined cycle power plants, is scalable, and doesn't require us to ship nuclear waste to islands in Indonesia..
In a swimming pool too cool off 😁
@@Matthew-zs8nm That sounds a bit "Pollyanna" to me- crude oil, as it comes out of the ground has a whole stew of molecules you are not accounting for- sulfur, sulfur dioxide, heavy metals- a whole bunch of "not good". You would need a burn to achieve virtual 100% energy conversion of all that. Go any place near a refinery- those huge plants are trying to recover as many of those molecules as they can find a market for, for as many as they can produce. The trash has to be got out either before or during the refining process- you still have literal tons of very difficult to dispose of crap. FR
@@Matthew-zs8nm How about reducing the use of natural gas so you do not need oil?
as an australian, we would likely be supplying that uranium (happily) to indonesia, we could probably store the waste too, especially if it turns out we can use the waste as fuel too! as long as the native aboriginals to whichever area used get both a say in it... and a cut $$$!
Great video and nice of you to mantion the other chanel's that talk about this and maybe putting a link to their videos in the description? Anyways i hope not youst we nerd's see this video but alot of people that support renewable energy as the only successor to coal, gas ect.
And yes the video and chanel deserves figures in hudrets of milions not thousands
Greenpeace being against nuclear power makes me not take them seriously. It's like that annoying kid that's "against everything".
I agree completely and it is embarrassing being an environmentalist when you have these Green Peace kids or too lazy to research nuclear power properly
I guess when the "let's hide the waste on remote islands" gets replaced by an adult plan the kids are happy to re-consider.
As long as radioactive waste can be eliminated and a melt down is physically impossible, then I am all for nuclear.
Well done. I'm convinced nuclear power is the only currently viable alternative to carbon fuels, so this is a very encouraging project.
A little naive in my opinion.
Been hearing about Thorium for years. What specific milestone is this video celebrating? Or is it just marketing fluff?
The mass production to make it economically viable by driving the cost down from 5-10 billion to around 1-2 billion and cutting down initial construction from 5+ years to a single year. So you're cutting both the time and initial investment by a factor of five, making it far more economically attractive.
Marketing fluff. The biggest problem, corrosion of the molten salt containment, is still unsolved.
@@wermagst In this model, the containment chamber is replaced every five years, which solves the long-term corrosion problem by virtue of not needing to contain it longer than that while remaining economically viable.
Some years ago I had the opportunity to tour Oakridge laboratory in Tennessee. While I was there some of the team that had built the prototype Thorium reactor there and I got to sit and chat with them over coffee. The way they described building it and the hope they had in the design always made me a little sad because others didn't seem to share that enthusiasm. I am truly glad to see that is finally changing.
How is this a Thorium reactor? it's a normal uranium reactor, the name of the company is Thorcon, which is misleading. Please tell me where Thorium is mentioned is this video, I cannot find it
@@dreamtreater Thorium, was mentioned as a secondary fuel additive to extend the life of a can. The primary reason I'm optimistic about this design is how little would need to be adapted to go pure Thorium. In the U.S. where I'm from we use variations on pressurized water. Moving to Thorium requires replacing everything aside from the employees with that design. With the system in the video, you add an in-loop fueling system and that's it.
I'm not a huge fan of the whole " money makes the world go round" mentality, I also know it's a factor of consideration. This unit utilizes an existing financial ecosystem without being dependent.
Jeez, learn to speak without such strong accent and get some work done on those ears!
I'll believe it when I'll see it. I'm always suspicious when something sounds too good to be true.
It usually isn't.
Nice to see Gordon getting a shout out. He does have MOUNTAINS of content that's really informative. Don't just stop with Gordon though, as there's other documentaries and plenty of books on the subject. That said, there's still so much content posted on Gordon's two channels, you'll have more than enough information to go through before you even get the opportunity to start digging into other information sources.
Yea but he may be factually correct but economically so wrong.
@@jerrymctee5996 About?
Are these designs aircrash proof ?
Yes, actually. Thorcon has the analysis on their website for a jumbojet skimming the water and crashing into them at speed.
I imagine people worrying a lot about sea level rise and tsunamis with the reactor and it's waste products being in close proximity to the ocean.
No, it can't blow up or leak.
@@gregbailey45 The reactors will be sitting in the water near shore. I imagine they could be shifted by a heavy wave or cargo vessel impact. Potentially even knocked on its side... She mentioned the used fuel containers being placed on an island, but the elevation wasn't very clear. 80 years rusting in salty air on an island with slowly rising sea levels, and increased storm strength. Hopefully they will be high enough to stay mostly safe.
Superbly presented.
Gordon has been doing a comprehensive job for a long time now. The abstract observation from which is how the Black Death of Fossil Fuels has all the money to distort perceptions completely in reverse of the facts. "Really old" people remember how Nuclear Power was going to be "too cheap to Meter", except instead there's been no financial return at all on most of the expenditures associated with the second best system, the one used for the embarrassing excess of bomb manufacturing. It is a planet killing absurdity, fast and slow attrition, deception and total poisoning of the the Democratic ideals that made the weaponry possible, and diplomatically unnecessary.
"It is a planet killing absurdity, fast and slow attrition" -- What are you talking about? Stop listening to pseudoscience fearmongers. Even among the atomic bomb survivors, there is zero evidence of heritable genetic damage.
@@hewdelfewijfesupposing you read before going off half cocked, there's not zero evidence of heritable damage, it's generally eliminated short-term, but there is is plenty of suppressed evidence of militaristic policy that the reason why we don't have Nuclear Power is because fossil fuel interests have made threats to destroy it to eliminate competitors, while they fight over markets using conventional weapons, and threaten us with Nukes aimed at "alternative" Power Generation.
It's an actual war of attrition, very evident in the current north east European context, if you stop listening to the sound of your own voice fossil fool.
I like the way she skips over the elephant in the room _ nuclear waste that is dangerous for thousands of years, & leaves a gigantic waste problem for generations to come. Putting your faith in a man backing a dangerous programme - Andersson/TED, with absolutely no counter voices is media bias. All very cheerful. Have we not learned our lessons yet? The hubris of some is astounding. Unless the nuclear waste can be neutralized, then we should not be using such a high-risk technology.
Waste is not an issue. Your understanding of the dangers of waste is exaggerated a million fold. It's not as dangerous as you think it is. Disposal is easy, cheap, and safe. Any plausible leak will result in exposures to the public of thousands of times less than background, aka harmless. Also, do you know about the natural nuclear fission reactors underground at Oklo Gabon? A billion years ago, there were natural underground nuclear fission reactors. After a billion years in a water rich environment, the plutonium moved 5 ft.
Thank you for mentioning Elysium Industries and by extension, Ed Pheil. I hope for an episode for this simple - in - concept power + waste cleanup process using already mined and stored energy.
Nuclear power is not the way to go. A number of years ago they deemed zero-point energy a disruptive invention as it would replace all other forms of energy production. So this safe, low-cost energy was put on the shelf. Since then, they have tried 5 more times to give this free energy to the public, and each time they shelved it. What the public needs to do is demand that they shut down all the dangerous energy sources and demand we are allowed the free zero-point energy.
An interesting fact about the waste from a molten-salt reactor: the radioactive half-life is only around 350 years. That means very cheap waste disposal (e.g., dump them in disused salt mines!), if the nuclear medicine industry doesn't grab it first!
Prove it.
half-life doesn't mean it's not radioactive after 350 years LoL And that's my main critique of nuclear power. You can store it where you want and as safe as you want, the fact is, it will stay with us for thousands of years. Nobody can foresee the future, especially not as far as that. So why not rather use energy that doesn't pollute it's surroundings for thousands of years?
@@Loren1389 Finland has ready figured out the problem: dig a really deep hole in a place that isn't prone to earthquakes. Also, 700 years isn't thousands of years lol
@@Loren1389 that 350 years bring it down under the level of background radiation ie no worse then standing next to slab of any old rock. hate tell you but ALL rock is radioactive and we are in flood of radiation from space every day all day EVEN YOUR OWN BONES are radioactive. dose makes the poison
@@jerrymctee5996 uh just go look at the Thorium fuel cycle... and the decay chains...
Thanks!
There's hope-finally- for nuclear. What was your reference to "gordon?" Gordon McDowell perhaps?
They did say my full name. And that's not at all expected... very nice of them to do that.
either way the world will need more and more power and cost will aways come at a cost but at what cost
Killing the integral fast reactor was a disastrous us policy decision
True! The USA could have been a leader in clean, cheap energy with the IFR taking waste from other reactors and creating fresh startup fuel for a fleet of molten salt fast reactors.
It was intentional... If you already have a no-carbon solution, than you just can not push the "renewables", especially when those are more polluting (at the current tech level) than literally anything else.
Dumping the cans on some "uninhabited island" is no way of dealing with the problem of nuclear waste. Currently no one on this planet has any solution how to safely store the waste, which apart from being radioactive is also incredibly toxic even in tiny trace amounts and must under no circumstances seep out into the environment, fall into the wrong hands or be blown into the atmosphere by some crazed terrorists. Additionally Indonesia is a seismic hot spot area.
In France and most other countries nuclear energy is only commercially viable because the costs of dealing with the waste are borne by the tax payer, not the company. Nuclear energy in reality is more expensive than any other kind of energy.
And in many cases the waste is just stacked in some corner on site because -as I said- no safe long-time storage solution exists. But these guys want to transport the stuff by boat(!) for hundreds of miles and leave it on an island somewhere.
Plus: The reason for the thick concrete walls in existing nuclear power stations is not only the dangerous stuff inside but also the dangerous madmen outside. And even they couldn't withstand a 9-11-style attack. How is a shipyard to construct a floating power station that can withstand terrorist attacks?
To see the problem of safety reduced as a problem of cost, as is done in this video, should turn your stomach.
How is this channel not way more popular? Super smart content, delivered in a way that makes it really easy to understand… and she’s really witty and funny. A gifted teacher.
Delivery is questionable. I find her accent hard to understand.
@@69elchupacabra69 her speech is flawless. You should do some self examination of why you think this.
@@richardcharlesworth2020 You know praising flaws as if they weren't there is just as patronizing as it is condescending to mock said flaws.
@@69elchupacabra69 Being "not American" is not a flaw. The vast majority of people in the world are "not American".
@@altrag When tf did I say her being not American is the flaw? I only talked about her accent. I myself am not even an American. Fuck hell stop projecting your bigotry.
Turbine fairy...perfect!
The USA has been siting on this technology since the 1950s. They built a test reactor in Oakridge Tennessee that ran flawlessly and we ended up selling the used molten salt to India. It makes me sick that no one knows about this as humanity comes to an end because of Global Warming. Mad props to my favorite aerospace engineer Kirk Sorensen formerly from NASA.
"as humanity comes to an end because of Global Warming" and with that you lost all credibility.
We had a good run.....but, all good things must come to an end.
The main problem with this and any nuclear energy process is that you still need to mine and refine uranium and store the spent fuel. We need renewables, not more mining of fossil fuels.
And you need to do more research, sir!
@@gregbailey45 Really - So they don't mine uranium ore? They don't have to refine it? They don't have to find a long-term storage location? Research, I have done enough research to know the issues still exist. nuclear energy is many steps above coal and other fossil fuels, but nuclear is not without it's problems and is Not renewable. That is the Main problem - it's Not renewable. Maybe you're the one that needs to do some basic research.
Thank you for directly coming to the topic and no obnoxious over the top delivery. Needed a perspective on nuclear energy for my work, this has been extremely helpful.
Huh, Huh, Huh. I got some questions: doesn't the molten salt fuel eat through most reactor and containment methods, because it is SO CORROSIVE. Does it not react with water explosively, so if it were to receive a leak of water drops or worse, if the containment were to break and the fuel were released into the atmosphere, the results would be plumes of vaporized radioactive fuel for the residents of surrounding counties to breathe in deeply? Finally, in computing the cost of nuclear power did you figure in the cost of depopulating areas the size of US states as you nuclear industry folks accomplished in Chernobyl and Fukushima? Are you advocating planting the nuclear power plants in the ocean bottom now, so you can honestly say that you cannot reach or fix or prevent the underground radioactive leaks, when they occur, to limit your expenses? Are you totally nuts?
Go live in Chernobyl's exclusion zone. You can get very close to nuclear stuff there. Reportedly, due to the inadequate clean-up, Fukushima is also another place in which you can get close to your beloved nuclear power. Go play around among their plastic bags of contaminated, radioactive dirt. Those are going to leak soon, what with having been exposed to the sun and wind for close to ten years, so you will soon have nice, radioactive dirt that you can use to grow your own crops. Have fun, fun, fun, until the cancers take your fun away!
Great video. I’ve mentioned this to you before though - content in English has too meanings
Content as in peacefully happy (this is pronounced kənˈtɛnt like you did)
Content as in what is contained within and your intended use of the word (this is pronounced ˈkɒn.tent).
Note the differences in the pronunciation of the ‘o’
Very nicely presented. Thank you.
While I am skeptical of nuclear energy in general, this technology directly addresses the high capital cost which is one of my major objections.
Not to mention that No reactor has been decommissioned to the point where the site can be used for any other purpose, the ongoing costs to the sites tend to mount up of hundreds if not thousands of years.
If you have any questions about nuclear power, I'd be happy to answer them.
A funny, intelligent and gorgeous lady, I’m quite a lot in love!
Great video! Thanks y'all
This quickly became one of my favorite channels.
Let's address the elephant in the room: Water and fuel next to each other. And fuel pumped around like water. NOPE. A primer circuit break is a disaster.
Build a lead circuit, and leave the fuel in the pot, far from any water. In case of break, it's just lead. And in case of overheat, you just use the freeze plug and drain the pot.
I would be surprised if they did not have a secondary salt circuit like sodium cooled reactors have a secondary sodium circuit
@@ValExperimenter
So a break in the heat exchanger will lead a sodium-water explosion with contaminated primer sodium? Lead is the way. Put a bunch of bismuth in it, and it will flow over 130C. In case of disasterous primer break, it will just flow out, and solidify, even even entombing the contamination.
@@bandiras2 I did not suggest using sodium in the secondary circuit even though it has been used successfully in that role for many years. I suggested using a secondary salt circuit. There is extensive experience using molten salt as a heat transfer and energy storage fluid.
@@ValExperimenter
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
A low melting point, with high boiling point non corrosive salt then. I don't see the problem with that. I still prefer lead, because it's shielding properties. Primer liquid will be radioactive, and lead can contain it in case of spill.
I always thought the way to go with a molten salt reactor was a helium brayton cycle using thorium fuel. Thorium is much cheaper and more abundant than uranium. . The constant pressure system can't have a catastrophic steam explosion like you can get with a high-pressure boiling water system, the helium is unreactive so it can't have an explosive chemical reaction with the fuel, and the radioisotopes of helium are very short lived so even if the working fluid is released, there won't be widespread radioactive contamination. as for dealing with a break in the primary circuit, the floor of the containment chamber should drain into safe fuel storage to catch any fuel leaks.
I noticed you didn't mention molten salt is incredibly corrosive how do they handle this?
Generally speaking, things are only corrosive relative to other materials. For instance, water is very corrosive to salt crystals.
But for this topic, molten salts do tend to be more corrosive than other materials. However, they're mostly only corrosive in the presence of water (no water in the salt systems) and are using alloys known to not be significantly corrosive to molten salts regardless.
But perhaps the most important point is that all the plumbing containing the radioactive fuel salt is within the cans that are replaced every 4 years. So while the plant itself may have a lifetime of decades, the fuel salt plumbing will constantly be replaced long before any significant corrosion can arise.
I love hearing her speak.
Can we talk about the steam too? Would be ideal to have it liquid as output..
Hmm not sure if i’d trust a ship welder with welding a nuclear reactor aren’t there people that specialized in that field?
Yes, there are specialists, but the reason they exist and are needed is because a PWR nuclear reactor is a 9inch thick steel scuba tank the size if a school bus, with giant piping to match. The welds need to be pristine and x-rayed for the slightest flaw.
That massive material, and the difficulty and quality assurance that go with it, are needed because the water is literally at 90 to 150atm of pressure.
Thorcon's design, and other MSR, are at ambient pressure; only a few atmospheres from pump and head pressure. That's the kind of force your home plumbing is under.
So while the quality assurance will actually likely be better in an assembly line-like shipyard environment, the absolute quality, and danger for a failure of quality, is actually much lower.
Its why im never afraid of a cooking pot boiling on the stove, but paranoid of a sealed pressure cooker in the same circumstance, despite the pressure cooker being 6x as thick.
You don't need a specialist welding anything in Thorcon's design, because there's nothing under enough stress to need special craftsmanship. Its a sign of safety, rather than a lack thereof.
I hope I'm not the only one who has to look away from her as she talks. Watching her talking during the video has me constantly rewinding to catch what she is saying... 50 years old and I still manage to be stunned by her beauty.
I'm 68, you'll get over it but still be able to appreciate it.
She is so hot I wish I could meet a girl like that and con her into giving me her eternal love and devotion. I would definitely worship the ground she walked on...jeje
@@davidrolando999 You'd give her the best 45 seconds of her life, too!
Grmm I don't know how I like the idea of a power plant that will release nuclear waste being tethered to the ocean floor...
Somebody has been letting the engineers out of the closet again! NOt so sure how pleased about the "offshore" positioning, but it has tremendous possibilities. FR
More Chernobyls and Fukushimas? Huh, Huh, Huh. I got some questions: doesn't the molten salt fuel eat through most reactor and containment methods, because it is SO CORROSIVE. Does it not react with water explosively, so if it were to receive a leak of water drops or worse, if the containment were to break and the fuel were released into the atmosphere, the results would be plumes of vaporized radioactive fuel for the residents of surrounding counties to breathe in deeply? Finally, in computing the cost of nuclear power did you figure in the cost of depopulating areas the size of US states as you nuclear industry folks accomplished in Chernobyl and Fukushima? Are you advocating planting the nuclear power plants in the ocean bottom now, so you can honestly say that you cannot reach or fix or prevent the underground radioactive leaks, when they occur, to limit your expenses? Are you totally nuts?
Go live in Chernobyl's exclusion zone. You can get very close to nuclear stuff there. Reportedly, due to the inadequate clean-up, Fukushima is also another place in which you can get close to your beloved nuclear power. Go play around among their plastic bags of contaminated, radioactive dirt. Those are going to leak soon, what with having been exposed to the sun and wind for close to ten years, so you will soon have nice, radioactive dirt that you can use to grow your own crops. Have fun, fun, fun, until the cancers take your fun away!
How can such a reasable, logical person support claims of "global warming"? There is no scientific evidence for that. With current tech coal doesn't have to be dirty.
I've always believed nuclear power is the only way to solve our ever increasing energy needs. Perception is the problem.
Are the safety numbers proofed (death / TWh)?
May be nuclear industrie learned from photovoltaik industrie the advantage of mass production for power plants.
Could this lead to nuclear driven ships & shipping companies?
Great video again! Thanks for your hard work on it. Consider dropping it as an NFT?
Locating these power stations on the seafloor is problematic. Sodium (molten or solid)and sea water dont mix and would be susceptible to leakage and (far worse) tsunamis. If water came in contact with that sodium it would explode and contaminate the ocean waters with uranium which can't be contained. Land based is far safer.
These people have built ships all their lives. I think they know a thing or two about keeping water on the right side if the steel :)
@@TechforLudditesSira All ships leak. Just ask a sailor. But containment is the big danger. I'm sure it's vary safe...but. If something did go wrong what then? There are earthquakes, tsunamis, liquefaction. where the land meets the sea, there are many forces at work. I get it, most people live within a short distance from the sea but for the same reason you must use care. Those same people need that sea to live.
"solar power is cheap"
"but day turns to night and monsoon clouds cover the country for three months"
Hence it's not actually "cheap". The proper way to describe unreliable power is "useless".
That doesn't makes it useless, just to be managed. There are plenty of off grid sites/buildings/... that rely solely on solar and storage without any problem and which can be cheape overtime (depending on the cost of the batteries).
@@MDP1702 Yes, it's very niche. To power an entire country solely with wind and Solar is fruitless. You're not powering Tokyo with that. The more unreliables you add to the grid, the more expensive and unreliable they become.
Germany and Denmark are just throwing their heads against the wall trying to power everything on solar and wind, and they don't even come close to being clean. It's painful to watch. Meanwhile France is just chilling, always with low emissions. They were sold a complete lie.
@@infini_ryu9461 You can definitely power an entire nation with wind and solar, it just might not always be the most practical, a lot depends on position, climate, management, ... It is essentially just different from how we managed powergrids untill now. The main point/problem now is grid storage to become cheap enough, which would be around 2030-35, at that point a renewable grid will actually be cheaper than most grids today. Only cheaper and more flexible new nuclear (like thorium) might be able to challenge such a setup.
As for Germany, it becomes cleaner, the problem is that they phased out nuclear for reasons that had nothing to do with the climate or emissions, just politics. In 2020 44% of Germany's power production was from renewables, or 37% from wind (23.6%), solar (8.9%) and hydro (3.3%). This while solar isn't even close to reaching full potential. And the reason why Germany's transition was so expensive, was because it was a frontrunner, starting when renewables were still much more expensive. This isn't any different for other early adopters (pc's, EV's, smartphones, ...). Their emissions due to power production went down by 42% since 2013 and are around half of what is was in 1990. This while between 1998 and 2013 it remained stable at around 350-400 million tonnes co2eq vs +-220 million tonnes in 2020 (and to be clear 2019 already saw a large reduction too at +-260 million tonnes, so it isn't just covid if you're wondering).
In Denmark 46% of power is produced by wind and 3% by solar. Here we see a similar trend in emissions, more or less stable between 1990 and 2010 at around 17-20 million tonnes of co2eq vs 4 million tonnes of co2eq in 2019 (sharp drop between 2010-2015: 17,6 => 7,4)
There are only around 5-6 countries in the world that have an equal % of nuclear as Denmarks renewables and even equaling Germany's renewables %, you only have around 10 countries that do this with nuclear (and a country like Belgium with 50% nuclear will phase it out completely in the next decade most likely, with no support at all to build new powerplants, so renewables are best to replace it, both politically as well as in terms of public opinion).
France is exporting large amount of power every year, this allows their power to remain cheaper than if they didn't, since it allows them to keep a larger share of nuclear running. However if this wasn't possible (because their neighbours didn't need/want it), France would either have to scale down nuclear (to around 60-65% probably) or allow its price to rise. As more people in France might get solar panels, keeping this high % of nuclear in the mix will be really challenging, since this solar can be cheaper and if it undercuts nuclear, it will reduce the baseload that nuclear can currently monopolise due to its low costs. Also it will be curious how France's new nuclear reactors will impact things as time goes on, considering it will drive up the price, even if they can lower the price than what is now expected.
The next decade will be decisive to determine whether nuclear+renewables, nuclear or renewables will win out mostly. Though as it stands, renewables are the favorite, with a nuclear+renewables mix (close?) behind it and almost no chance for mostly nuclear to win out (due to for now higher expected costs compared to previous generations, low public support, building time and difficulty, ...).
@@MDP1702 It's not only different, it's useless. Just burn fossil fuels, you're going to be doing that anyway or importing clean energy from a neighbour as Denmark does.
@@infini_ryu9461 So you don't actually want an honest conversation, should have said that immediately.
The biggest problem with nuclear energy is RADIATION AND NUCLEAR WASTE! Waste plutonium created by reactors is deadly to human life for a half-life of 24,000 years, a radiological life of 240,000 years.
That’s true, nuclear waste kills far FAR too many people every year.
This is what the world needs to work on. Free, clean, universal energy. Either we evolve, or we collapse.
Then utilize that energy to provide food and shelter for one and all, at no cost, so that we may be finally free to actually do something other than look for jobs to sustain ourselves.
@@vgaportauthority9932 don't forget universal health Care that is paid by the government for free to us
Huh, Huh, Huh. I got some questions: doesn't the molten salt fuel eat through most reactor and containment methods, because it is SO CORROSIVE. Does it not react with water explosively, so if it were to receive a leak of water drops or worse, if the containment were to break and the fuel were released into the atmosphere, the results would be plumes of vaporized radioactive fuel for the residents of surrounding counties to breathe in deeply? Finally, in computing the cost of nuclear power did you figure in the cost of depopulating areas the size of US states as you nuclear industry folks accomplished in Chernobyl and Fukushima? Are you advocating planting the nuclear power plants in the ocean bottom now, so you can honestly say that you cannot reach or fix or prevent the underground radioactive leaks, when they occur, to limit your expenses? Are you totally nuts?
Go live in Chernobyl's exclusion zone. You can get very close to nuclear stuff there. Reportedly, due to the inadequate clean-up, Fukushima is also another place in which you can get close to your beloved nuclear power. Go play around among their plastic bags of contaminated, radioactive dirt. Those are going to leak soon, what with having been exposed to the sun and wind for close to ten years, so you will soon have nice, radioactive dirt that you can use to grow your own crops. Have fun, fun, fun, until the cancers take your fun away!
While his particular thorium reactor is not my favorite so far, and some things like waste disposal should be more along the lines of the Finnish method, it is a good step in the right direction for many talking points about viability. Future development should continue. That said, I live off grid with solar and I can see that much of the hype is faux environmentalism or short term thinking. The energy n word is going to need some further review. The current r&d for energy is exciting, but people don’t seem to grasp just how much energy we will need as cars become electric. We will either all die from climate change in 200 years, or get real with our public funded technology research on high output energy sources and make them safer. Non pressurized, self shut down walk away safety and location. Those are very important indeed.
We don't need a technology left over from the1950's. Solar power and wind is the future, not giant concrete radiating hulks.
love your videos, you really know how to explain the topic, keep on making videos, there great, thanks again hun
well, coming from the oil/gas sector, i can say, there is and will not be any shortage of competent plant operators. many operators are technically sound enough to operate plants. u just have to weed out the ones who would rather meet dead lines and look good for the boss, and sacrifice safety, from the ones who would also walk the safety talk.
Mass producing nuclear plants, it reminds me of the Fallout franchise LOL.
only awful unsafe ones, not the ones being discussed in these videos.
This is how intelligent people form their opinions.