I think the coolest part of molten salt reactors is the safety plug. It gets too hot, plug melts and drains the fuel. This feature is fully automatic and at the same time passive! Needs no power, no controller, no human intervention. Just works. You should mention this in video :)
@Sergio Ribeiro In any industry there's always somebody who eventually will think it's a good idea to start running a test to locate issues with unstable equipment at 3 am when it's nice and quiet and just before the next shift comes on. Possibly with a mind to also identify any faulty gauges.
@@SofaKingShit totally understanding what you're saying. I'm a maintenance technician and I can assure you that it is impossible to make anything idiot-proof. Idiots are extremely creative.
There's no reason for not doing this except government incompetence. Germany went totally batshit by closing down their nuclear plants after Fukushima, even compensating with fossil fuel generators. There is corruption in this. Certainly they can afford and have the know know to get thorium working.
Someone’s probably mentioned this already but thorium reactors can produce plutonium, but in the form of Pu-238. And that’s actually useful for powering space probes and rovers, especially any that have to work in the dark or too far from the sun for solar power to be an option. Both Voyager probes used it, as do Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars. I wonder if China is looking at this and if their space agency is planning to use domestically produced Pu-238, or whether China will become an exporter to other countries’ space agencies.
238 can easily turn into 239, which can be filtered out, which would give china a lot of easy access to the most dangerous nuclear material, which will likely be sold to pakistan and north korea
@@mike4402 If that were the case other nations would of picked up Thorium nuclear tech a long time ago, the knowledge has been around for many decades, to circumvent the need for uranium based reactors to produced weapons grade plutonium 239 with "ease". In other words, it isn't as "easy" as you think it is to take a thorium reactor and convert its by-products into high grade material for nuclear weapons.
Like in Germany, where fairly safe designs get shut down "because of Fukushima". Replicating the Fukushima catastrophe in Germany would be literally impossible. But that doesn't matter to the politicians. But everybody seems OK with importing electricity from French nuclear power plants at the same time...
@@redrichard9801 "it wasn't built on a fault line the earthquake did not cause the Fukushima problem the tidal wave did the work." Lets look at the pacific fault lines Look at Australia Big difference And the tidal wave was caused by the fault line So as I said No one had foresight on that one
The UK Nuclear Research facility at Winfrith in Dorset were also involved in the development of LIFTER (molten thorium salt ) reactors back in the early 60’s - I knew a German physicist who worked there as a young man. He told me that it was shelved more due to problems arising from lack of suitable materials for handling the molten salts at high temperatures as well as gamma shielding problems due to U233 production in the generation process.
I studied the nuclear industry in the late 70s and I came to the same conclusion Thorium is the safest and cleanest solution for the world energy needs but I agree politics have killed any such suggestion in my country Australia
Doesn't help the the frist one built was rushed then China kicked the professionals that built it off the project once completed and it's now leaking nuclear material and is being told by the people who built it and the professionals to shut it down...
Thorium is literally safe to be around after an hour. The reason it was never used in the US is because of rich, powerful people that were already invested into the systems we use now.
In the UK the left leaning press publishes opinion pieces arguing that we must return to pre-industrial revolution life styles alongside articles warning that "pro-nuclsar propagandaists" must be ostracised.
Anton, you wonderful person. I love your videos and am so glad you’ve done one on Thorium MSRs. But since I know a bit about this topic I see a few things that need minor corrections. 1. Graphite Rods aren’t used to slow the reaction down. They are actually used to speed it up. Their function is to slow down the neutrons born in fission. Slow neutrons have a higher probability of fissioning other nuclei than fast neutrons. So, more probability of reaction means more reactivity. This also explains why the dump system works so well on an MSR. When you remove the liquid fuel from the moderator graphite, the reaction stops. Water serves this moderator purpose in most other reactors. This makes a reactor need less fissionable material and therefore less enrichment. Most reactors today use these slow neutrons, also known as the thermal spectrum. Some reactors do not slow down the neutrons and are know as “fast” spectrum reactors which need much more fissionable material and higher enrichment. These “fast” reactors have other advantages and disadvantages. Back to the point on control rods, any MSR “control” rod would have to function the same as any other reactor control rod by absorbing neutrons completely and thus slowing the reactor down. MSRs have an advantage here because the can be designed to operate at just barely critical levels since being liquid fueled they can add new fuel as needed. Solid fueled reactors cannot add fuel while operating so they depend on control rods more heavily since they are built with a great deal of excess fuel and possible reactivity so they can operate for an extended time. Hence fewer control rods needed in MSRs and less danger from excess fuel as well. 2. Thorium isn’t a Nuclear fuel. It is a precursor. Kind of like wet wood isn’t good fireplace fuel. It needs to be dried first. The actual nuclear fuel in a thorium MSR is Uranium isotope 233. This is created by thorium 232 capture of a neutron to become thorium 233 and then through atomic decay turning into Uranium 233. This process is known as “breeding” wherein a “fertile” isotope is “bred” into a “fissile” isotope to become your fuel. This is the same process used to breed Uranium 238 into Plutonium 239 in other reactors that rely on Uranium 235 as fuel. In this traditional fuel cycle, the majority of your Uranium in the reactor is 238 but a small percentage is the fuel of 235. Usually about 3 to 5%. The Plutonium can be bred on purpose for other uses such as weapons or fuel, but it won’t be bred at a positive ratio in the thermal spectrum. Thorium’s advantage is that it can be used to breed at a positive ratio in the thermal spectrum where Uranium cannot. Since fast reactors can be tricky, a nuclear fuel that can be bred in the thermal spectrum is a big deal. Hence, any thorium reactor concept is inherently a Breeder reactor where thorium is ultimately consumed but Uranium is still the nuclear fuel. This also explains why thorium reactors waste doesn’t last as long as uranium reactor waste. Any time a fissile isotope fissions, it’s daughter products half life’s are actually short. The long lived isotopes of Plutonium that include Pu239, 240, 241 and the other transuranics that are bred in traditional reactors are the long lived waste problems that are spoken of so frequently. Since Thorium starts clear down at 232, once it captures a neutron and becomes fuel it’s chance of capturing a neutron without fissioning is very low. And even if it does, it has to pass through becoming Uranium 235 which also readily fissions. This means the vast majority of the fuel fissions without any chance of becoming a long lived radioactive transuranic. And hence less radioactive waste from thorium reactors. 3. Although generally it is far more difficult and nonsensical to build a nuclear weapon using Uranium 233 from a thorium reactor, some physicists would correct you and say it can be done. It would be correct to say it is far less likely though. 4. Lastly, A molten salt reactor doesn’t mean only thorium and thorium isn’t only workable in MSRs. You can actually use Uranium and Plutonium in MSRs and you can breed Thorium into Uranium 233 in Solid fueled reactors. In fact, both companies you mentioned (ThorCon and Terrestrial Energy) are building Uranium MSRs. They see the Uranium fuel cycle as easier to license with the possibility of thorium MSRs in the future. The US company most prominently working on a true Thorium MSR is Flibe energy by Kirk Sorenson of UA-cam and TEd talk fame. The sad thing here is that after years of pushing this concept, it looks like China is going to beat Flibe to the market. Especially sad considering that much of the initial research was conducted in the US only to be given freely to the Chinese later on, partly through the efforts of Kirk Sorenson to publish Oak Ridge’s information online. In any case, thank you for your excellent videos, and sorry for the book I just wrote to you correcting things.
Thanks for commenting. Anton's video reminds me of my own journey stimulated by the promise of Thorium fuelled MSRs. Actually for me, this knowledge formed the gateway to more awareness of nuclear power technology by stimulating my curiosity as to why this promising tech was shelved. That led me to a deeper understanding of everything related to energy and electricity power production especially the realization that existing nuclear power technology is already the safest power production technology known to mankind. Indeed I see MSR designs as the future way forward due the cost savings possible by major reductions in safety systems needed by pressurized water reactors. In other words the promise is NOT for increased safety, rather for major cost reduction. Whether using the Uranium-235 fuel cycle or a Thorium-232/Uranium-235 fuel cycle (note that a Thorium-232 fuel cycle would by very complex due to significant neutron flux density reduction) the key factor is the use of molten salts as both a fuel carrier and heat transfer agent. The ultimate fuel economy would be possible using MFRs (molten salt fast reactors) which would continuously fission all those Actinides that present such a waste dilemma to those who fear the current nuclear reactor spent fuels and resist any sequestration efforts.
Tout à fait d'accord. La filière du Thorium a été abandonnée du fait qu'elle ne permet pas le développement de bombes nucléaires. C'est le cas aussi en France ou Degaulle n'était malheureusement intéressé que par la production d'armes.
Yes, clean energy From China, The same country that builds fake solar panels and fake wind turbines, the same country using the dirtiest coal power plants.
@@Shuffledudee I forgot there are internet experts everywhere that know all... Your "what about isms" are not furthering the discussion in a positive manner. Go troll somewhere else.
I’m always surprised when I learn that there have been safer nuclear reactor technologies available in the past, such as what you show in this video and the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) in Idaho that in 1986 proved that it could suffer a complete cooling system shutdown due to the way it was designed and still cool down on its own. However, instead of utilizing these safer technologies, governments around the world have stuck with more risky technologies, and they wonder why they’re facing a PR battle. I won’t be surprised if the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which could have been avoided by these better technologies, has a grave impact on the entire planet at some future date given the problem of long term storage of all the contaminated water coming out of there as they attempt to keep it cool. And In April the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water from that power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years. Like that’s a good idea. 😳 Sounds like a good topic for a future video. 😉
@@etuanno yeah didn't the volunteers that helped clean everything up experience insignificant levels of radiation, I imagine then the overall effect is extremely safe
The oil lobby is everywhere for sure. Anything they can do to delay the reducing demand for fossil fuels will be done. Unlike many of the worlds other obstructionist rants (mostly based on racism and political power to one type of human) the petroleum obstructionist are actually very smart people. So if there is a way they can delay progress they will find it and do it very effectively. Ever wonder why Hydrogen is getting a lot of media attention lately? Because the petroleum companies want to make it using methane or coal, so we keep burning their products for energy and transportation but think we are being green because the endpoint is "emission free".
No. The thorium breeder project at ORnL never had more than a shoestring budget. All the “official” reactor development funds were being gobbled up by the fast breeder reactor project at Argon. Of course, Bill Clinton killed the fast breeder “because we didn’t need it”, and now we don’t have either a thermal or a fast breeder. We’ve been using the warmed over 1950s PWR ever since. Now it heavily subsidized “renewables” that are the major threat.
Once china shows the way, there's going to be no stopping these reactors from becoming the main power generators for this planet. So laughably simple in construction, there's nothing that can compete with it on price. It's actually cheap enough that smaller cities and larger towns can pool their money together and build one to supply the city with power in the same way that people pooled their money together and built water mains back in the day. This is like that, only for power.
Finally at least someone is even talking about Thorium. Saw one documentary about this amazing energy source like 8-10 years ago. It's totally safe and seemed amazing. EU is idiotic for not using it!
@@altergreenhorn So was Trump crying about European defense spending and trade policy, just a show for rubes at home, when he could just have given the order.
Thorium is a nasty metal. But, so is uranium. At least thorium cannot be made into weapons. As Mr Antov says, it's the very reason why the government decided against any research into it. If it can't be weaponized, why bother?
As he was saying that, I thought "Smart Move!!".... they would be selling energy, not weapons, and the Good Will would be incredible!!! Smart move indeed....
Idiot 🤣 Don't trust/believe that their safety protocols are where they show be before opening them up all over the world... Sorry about the idiots thing but no is thinking things through anymore
Chinese engineer here,yes,we are developing this kind of reactors in mega scale now. Thanks to oak lab, also the Shanghai institute developed a new material could hold the acid at 800 degrees
I wrote to my local MEP, when we had such things, about LFTR as it's something I've been interested in for years now. Her response was typical, she said that the EU was "looking at it" but that they felt it wouldn't be a viable technology for another 70 years. That's what vested interests sounds like.
In a Democracy you have to accept that you won't always get your way. Public perception matters greatly, considering the public elects representatives. But the fact is that, if China succeeds, other countries will follow suit. I don't think it's exactly "vested interest". If my interest is in helping the people but I'm unelectable, then I won't really succeed at much. We also have the issue of national ego in which we always want to be the first to do stuff. Saying: "we don't think this technology will be viable for a while" just sounds like the usual, classically expert, cautious approach of the EU and I'm personally all for it: "let's mostly used tried and tested methods and if some other country wants to go gung-ho we'll copy them after they succeed or learn from their mistakes if it leads to disaster" That is, at least in my opinion, a great approach. But as said, it doesn't feed the national ego of always wanting to be #1 in the new exciting thing. As a side note, EU based groups make up some 30% of all peer reviewed works (globally), so I wouldn't say we're in any way lacking in Scientific efforts. At least they wrote back, which is better than representatives in either the US or China would usually do.
Unfortunatly your MEPs response is typical. They really have no clue about such things with the odd outlier who has worked in the energy sector. It also does not help that many green groups have also turned to chasing the money rather whats best for the planet. In the UK WTE plants have been constantly rejected while other countries like Germany have manage to do away with landfills. Are they perfect , no but it's better than landfill the tech is here and relativly cheap. Also means we would not have to ship our rubbish to places like India away from oversight reducing energy costs and not making toxic places in other peoples countries. At the same time the gov gives grants to 'power stations' that generate no power and have no facilties to, at least they have not done the 'solar roadways' snake oil yet.
@@nickkorkodylas5005 oh, in Germany it was tried, and with a certain degree of success. The collateral damage, however, was admittedly slightly on the high side. As long as we haven't come up with systems that work better than democracy in practice, I guess we're "stuck" with it.
I’m interested in Thorium for many reasons, including one that it is inherently ‘safer’. Hope Thorium really takes off. I also agree with you that nuclear is heavily stigmatized and politicized.
@@eagle1de227 No…that never occurred to me 🙄 Stigmatized, because of Chernobyl. Because of Fukushima. Chernobyl was caused by Russian incompetence, Fukushima, by a nearly 9.0 earthquake. Stigmatized because of NIMBY. Stigmatized because of short term thinking, overzealous, and reactionary people. I consider myself very environmentally conscious, owning two electric cars, and using a drip irrigation system extensively to water my organic garden. I favor nuclear energy because of tech like the one proposed in the video. It can be made safer. I am all for solutions that mitigate AGW, the number one problem faced by this world. I am all for solar, wind and geothermal as well. It is time to stop being over anxious about Nuclear, and start addressing climate change urgently.
@@fireofenergy I agree some environmentalists take the view that all nuclear is bad, but environmental concerns are the reason why *I* choose to support safer nuclear energy, such as the one being proposed. Human caused global warming is the clear and present danger to most all life on this planet. The only one we have. We need to get serious about addressing it. Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Geothermal.. everything we can use, and improve.
The reason thorium wasn't fully researched and implemented was due to the military. Uranium was chosen as it was easier to enrich for weapons grade materials, as a result a lot of the early nuclear developments and reactor designs were also focused in that direction.
My understanding of molten salt reactors is that they use somewaste nuclear material from regular uranium reactors to keep the reaction going. The result is a safer form of uranium material that is used in nuclear power sources for space satellites. So we reduce the amount of uranium waste and the long term storage requirements of that waste.
I thought a moderator, contrary to what it's name might sound like, actually facilitates nuclear reactions not by blocking neutrons, but by slowing them down enough so that they are thermal and much more likely to interact in the nuclear reaction.
That is true in pressurized water cooled reactors and submarine nuclear propulsion plants where controlled fission is from thermalized neutrons especially where reactor power is controlled by increased steam demand where cooled moderator water passing through the steam generators increases fission in the reactor core, then as steam demand is lowered the moderator heats up so the water is less dense reducing the number of neutron collisions with the hydrogen nucleus in the water molecules reducing reactor power again. He hasn't gone into a lot of detail here, but hits the high points mostly and is a good general summation. You can google Molten Salt reactors and find out more details. As for details on Submarine Nuclear Propulsion and their civilian powerplant equivalents I haven't stood a watch on a Boat in over 40 years and while I have retained much don't have oral and written tests I have to pass on a weekly to monthly basis and most of my reference materials have only partly become declassified over the years
A moderator can both speed up or slow down the reaction. Speed up in high pressure water by creating more thermalised neutrons, slow down in this type by absorbing or, rather slowing down neutrons.
I am afraid it is impossible to prevent accidents with uranium reactors at least because of human factor. There will always be accidents as seen from history, let’s hope it will be rare. Molten salt reactors were dumped, guess why, no uranium for nuclear bombs while running molten salt ones, so it was abandoned long time ago. Hope that China will prove to everybody that it is a better way. Cheers
LFTR is a con game. Don't get suckered into it. First off, they don't start with just ²³²Th. They can only go critical with many-weapon amounts of weapons grade ²³³U, which is also easy to extract from the ²³³Pa it also produces on the way to making the ²³³U in the core. Second, it doesn't actually exist, and has no near term prospects of ever existing. There are real and serious challenges, among them around proliferation, in making the FLiBe that's supposed to be integral to how it works. There are not actually alloys that can hold those fluoride salts, and the ones alleged to be promising have cobalt in them, which makes for the well and truly nasty ⁶⁰Co.
10:42 No. A moderator is not a "turn off"-switch. It's actually the opposite. A moderator slows down neutrons in order to sustain the reaction. Without a moderator, the reaction stops.
I admire China, their infrastructure and work ethic are second to none and they haven't spent the past 100 years initiating coups and wars all over the planet.
Late 50s to early 60s the Oak Ridge folks built a great testbed reactor. The tech China is using is based on those experiments and the experimental reactor the US built. They asked for the documentation, and it was given to them.
Imho you forgot the biggest advantage, liquid salt Thorium reactors don't need any pressure to run other than getting the stuff through the pipes and does not produce a phase change on pressure loss. They are just like a big open heater pots, not like Uran reactors that use supercritical water that increases in volume 1000 times on pressure loss, like "booom" 💥
This the only thing I can agree with China on. I blame ultimately Nixon for preventing this from developing in America. The production of cheap energy is certainly something that could be the catalyst that kicks of WWW3...
Nobody would have to steal anything if we weren't beholden to intellectual property rights unto the death of people who could benefit from that info being free.
Absolutely amazing! There is a bunch of problems solved by this technology, including a great political one you just mentioned indirectly, wonderful Anton: A nation can use this technology without being seen as a threat to others.
Anton failed to mention the potential for molten salt thorium reactors to breed fissionable isotopes thereby converting almost 100% of the thorium into energy instead of the 1% in uranium reactors.
The problem with all such nuclear plants is that you only hear from scientists, never accountants. In other words, is this economical? You don't hear a word about that. The drop in the cost of renewables in the past few years means almost certainly thorium reactors are never going to pay for themselves.
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1:46 easy to use solar panels when you have a portable sunshine
Not sure china has actually solved all of the technical issues associated with a molten salt reactor. However, they appear committed to developing a functional full scale design of what was originally demonstrated at Oakridge National Lab in the 1960s. There are many reasons for developing safe affordable energy source available to the entire planet. China has committed significant political, financial and technical resources that have provided them a 10 year head start on everyone else.
This should be done in multiple nations. The physics is solid, and the more Thorium reactor projects being developed at once, the more chance there is of engineering issues being quickly identified and solved. China should not be the only nation working on this.
US firm are making their experimental Thorium reactors in foreign countries like Indonesia. There's not yet any breakthrough that can decisively convinced the larger capital owners to invest in it.
It’s truly amazing how there’s so many experts in the world who agree what’s the best course of action in terms of technology But all the decisions are made by people who are completely ignorant of the topic. And their decisions are almost always based on feelings and not facts. It’s shameful
In this age of computers you would think this company could hire a team of people to accelerate application paperwork and quietly educate individual senators and congressmen with a careful persuasion plan, similar to this video. A quiet revolution would be the strategy, with careful education along your lines. A very well done video. I am totally in favor of quietly replacing all of America’s conventional nuclear plants with molten salt and thorium.
China: Let’s build thorium reactors and solve our energy crisis. America: Let’s build gender and racial tension and create a social crisis. China-1 America-0
This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. China is notoriously bad at infrastructure, and their entire water management system is now failing, flooding out towns and cities, and killing hundreds of thousands. And now they plan to build tons of reactors? Ummm... yeah.
@@Mr.Ekshin "Notoriously bad at infrastructure, and their entire water management system is now failing" Same thing happening here in the Divided States of Merica:)
@@gaim44 - We don't have dams and levees collapsing, entire cities underwater and hundreds of thousands of people drowning in our streets. America may have some small level of crumbling infrastructure... but ours is, on average, at least 50 years older than China's. Most of America's major infrastructure was built post-WWII, or about 70 years ago. About 90% of China's major works are essentially brand new... built in the last 10-20 years.
@@anthornic2281 - Yeah, I mean who could have foreseen something as unlikely as RAIN when designing a vast water management system? Especially in an area prone to... ummm... monsoon seasons? Face it... they didn't plan this stuff that well, then cheaped out on materials and construction. That's why China has brand new cities that are already crumbling.
Thorium reactors is a very good idea, the wasteproducts are radioactive for a much shorter period (300 years). And there is less waste in the first place. The Uranium lobby makes it very hard to get it done.
@@bhbluebirdknowing little about molten thorium reactors and politics aside it seems promising. I live 25 miles from a nuclear plant, I'd rather live 500 miles from a thorium reactor.
@@bhbluebird I did REALLY like the idea of doing it on a ship in international waters lmao, but I doubt its something you want eventually dumped in the ocean.
HEY MY AUSSIE GOVERNMENT. Sounds like a great way to power a submarine without china’s “hurt feelings” over nuclear proliferation. Also allow up to go to NZ too and make them in Australia as not based on weapon making materials.
China is operating 220 coal plants right now, and if I remember right, they have 18 under construction and another 42 in the planning stages, both in China and neighboring countries. Those 60 new plants alone will blow away everything we do to reduce our carbon output. BUT they are also working on both modern conventional nuclear and the MSR/thorium cycle. They are smart enough to know that whoever figures out thorium will have the answer to humanity's energy needs for all time. Now imagine if Al Gore had his only-Nixon-could-go-to-China moment with nuclear energy 25 years ago. We might be 100% carbon-free on electricity right now. But libs really would rather talk about raising taxes on carbon users (everyone) rather than actually reduce carbon. Sigh...
The reason why it is so difficult for governments to convince citizens, that it is all safe is simply, that during the catastrophes of Fukushima and Tchernobyl the respective governments first tried to covre ervrything up and even later tried to cover things up and hide crucial information. Nuclear enrgy in theory could be safe,but in reality its a mess of business and politics that makes it unsafe and not trustworthy
please do an internet search and watch anyone of the versions: Onkola Finland; Into Eternity 300 years of storage is still a really, really long time for humans.
300 years is not a long time. That storage system isn't feasible for a lot of countries that have a lot of seismic activity or densely populated countries. The location was chosen because it would never be used by any near future civilizations for living. It's very rare solution for most counties unachievable
Can you do a video on the Fusion reactor being built in Washington by Helion Energy? Which should be bigger news, but is it fake or unproven or what? Would love to hear your take on it!
i fuckin love u... I've been trying to find a video like yours in order to show it to my friends and family so it would become easier for them to understand this... thank u very much!
India is also experimenting with Thorium reactors, but with a better focus on smaller models that can fit in a cargo container, can operate totally independently and remotely and each can supply energy for about 100,000 people. Of course, because it is dispersed it cannot be used to colonize its neighbors like China's massively expensive projects. Anyway, India has far superior mathematicians and engineers to China.
Thanks Anton for your performance. I do still have some issues with your accent. I looked for captions, but there is only auto generated English. I need punctuation to understand well. You can easily upload your texts in UA-cam studio. UA-cam will do the timings automatically. It's very easy to do and will improve your videos. Thanks
Also something to Add. Eventualy ICBM is vastly increasing in its reliability and capability, making it superior delivery method of Choice Development of many Bomber were slowly getting cut, as ICBM and rocket technology matured XB-70 Valkyrie and Nuclear powered bomber is just one of those
Anton - why nuclear airplanes? Why not nuclear-powered hot-air-suspended zeppelins? They don't need hydrogen or helium for lift, and the "waste" heat of the system can go straight into the lift cells.
Engineers and scientists are the only people who will solve the energy future for the world. Thorium has been a leading solution and now China is building the first Thorium reactor we are a step nearer. The USA still have the technical ability to build a Thorium power plant but sadly has decayed politically and lost the ambition.
A bit of numbercrunching would do, like halftime of U235 is 7 000 000 000 years, half time of an executive is 4 years and the amount of decaying atoms in 235 g of U235 is 6 to the power of 23. People know that, you dont.
Let's hope some politicians watch this even if it is by accident, maybe you should change the featured picture to something else with dollar sign bags.
Anton, you open by saying, "..Something went wrong; thorium never happened..". Plain & simple: it had no weapons potential versus it's dev. costs, thusly perpetual warfare/threat-of-war was a far more lucrative & exclusively beneficial 'Future' to strive towards than peace-oriented power generation.
But the fact is that what the United States has done or is doing now is propaganda: China is doing such a thing (and the United States has not done it). As for what China is doing (correct), the US propaganda must do such a thing, but the result is only for political vote hype, and everything is suspended after the election.
THe only reason China is doing it is because India has already made a few and most importantly they are starved for power and they lack Uranium to make a normal nuclear reactor (something the US has no issue with, we have the largest reserves of uranium in the world) which is more efficient and lacks the constant upkeep since molten salts are highly reactive and destroy their containment.
I hope China is successful w this reactor…the whole world can learn from this…ive had experience in nuclear design during the 80s…I think this alternative design is best as well. Then we can follow…
@@ProjectEmily it was there but some problems on container alloy was making it not able to be use for long time. But it is achievable by to day technology on metallurgy.
I did simulation work for a Thorium ADSR during an internship a number of years ago. I'm glad to hear more countries are putting more resources into developing Thorium reactors.
@@DJBillionator the same thing that happens when people ask smug leading questions because they didn't know the difference between an ADSR and a molten salt reactor and also erroneously believe that the term "molten salt" exclusively means "molten sodium chloride": nothing good 😉
@@DJBillionator Most of the molten salt reactors use fluoride salt. Some of the designs included lead or chloride. The only project that I know of that potentially would have used sodium (as a secondary coolant, primary being fluoride) was the US Aircraft Reactor Project.
Anton I just wanna say you’re an inspiration to me, you’re one of the people that keeps my fascination with the world going, even through tough times. I’m doing my masters in the Philosophy of Science, you’re one of the reasons I chose it over philosophy of mind.
Honestly, either subfield is a good choice. Philosophy of Science (the focus of my undergrad minor) is basically useful RIGHT NOW for education, science communication, law, journalism, or pretty much any area where it is vitally important to prevent misinterpretation of science. I think it's also useful for discussions around how best to approach mysteries at the frontiers of physics; Sabine Hossenfelder is an excellent voice in this field right now. Philosophy of Mind is a less mature subfield in some ways, perhaps a generation or two away from becoming relevant to the frontier of technology, but I would be shocked if the growing sophistication of neural networks, human-machine interfaces, and end-of-life medical science don't turn what is right now mostly an academic curiosity (the nature of consciousness) into a vitally important practical question. I consider functionalism useful but painfully reductive; we're going to need to move past it soon.
The money had been spent by the navy to make PWRs for subs (and later) for ships. Westinghouse simply scaled it up. Nixon wanted to keep the technology in California, so he shut down the Weinburg MSRE project. Three Mile Island meltdown came a few years later and PWR costs went ballistic.. Weinburg was right all along.
@@DisplayLine6.13.9 The dirty bomb idea isn't really going to work because the salt fuel (like any irradiate fuel) is crazy radioactive. But unlike solid fuels, the salt mixes the various isotopes making it even harder to refine the required materials than it would be to build a bomb factory from the ground up. That's why it was never used in bomb factories.
@@davidelliott5843 Ehh just to be on the same page a dirty bomb is not something actually doing a nuclear reaction. It's a conventional bomb with radioactive material around it. The explosion scatters the radioactive material into the environment. Irradiating the area of the explosion. Even radioactive wast material can be used this way.
You can burn 95% of uranium waste rod in a thorium reactor. This significantly shrinks our nuclear waste problem. And it generates clean electricity. It's a win/win :)
To be specific, LWR spent fuel wouldn't be burnt up in a Thorium reactor, but a modified molten salt reactor that's designed for fast spectrum Plutonium-breeding (the majority of spent fuel is U-238 (fertile, doesn't split but accepts neutrons) which needs to be made into Plutonium 239 (fissile, can be split apart for energy) as a U-233 breeder reactor (fueled by Th-232) doesn't have the right configuration to allow it.
@bk_16 Sure, but the fuel efficiency of MSRs is so great that it'll likely take like... millennia, to completely go through the spent fuel cache, so it's not super relevant as a solution for "destroying nuclear waste" at least on our timescales
I was always been a fan of Molten Salt Reactors for years now. I am glad to hear someone is going to do it, because this will prove it is safe and doable. Politics destroyed our chances and set us back many years.
Jimmy Carter was on a nuclear submarine as part of its crew. One of the big problems of nuclear energy are the corporations themselves. Just look at Fukushima and the mess created by that business community.
Anton, I’ve recently subscribed. Regardless if you take the time to read these comments, I want to share that I appreciate your efforts to educate the general public. I think you are doing a fine job of tapping into viewers curiosity. With so much mind numbing repetition uploaded daily to UA-cam, your videos reinforce the notion that learning should indeed be a life long pursuit.
I've been talking about this for years, and usually get called a conspiracy theorist lol. Thanks for doing a video on it! The West will definitely regret letting China get ahead on this one, thanks military industrial complex.
Yes, I keep waiting for the US to put some money and effort into this technology that was originally developed in the late 60s and early seventies. Many other countries have been busy copying this information for years.
Yeah I've been rambling on about how Thorium reactors are going to be a big thing. Its a shame the US stonewalled the technology so much due to competing older reactor technology. Honestly I hope China does figure it all out and reduces their pollution, even if the CCP is insidious, their not stupid.
The problem was the whole, "Energy Too Cheap To Meter" thing. I mean, it wasn't actually going to be that; there's still a huge infrastructure investment involved. -But it was going to be waaaaay cheaper than oil, which would quickly shift power away from the Elites. (They're mostly all oil barons, after all.) The only way regular nuclear was 'allowed' was to come up with a way to make it cost equivalent with oil. -And dirty and scary and easy to make people hate it. The weapons thing was, I think ancillary. It's not like you couldn't build two kinds of reactor. Imagine! Making people hate Genuine Free Energy.
@@michaelputnam2532 The push for renewables by politicians is linked to the fossil fuel industries. Look at countries like Germany or States in the US like CA, the less nuclear and the more renewables, the more coal plants that have to be turned on to compensate for the duck curve and inconsistencies of renewables for large scale power grids. Pushing for renewables over Nuclear is just a way to delay the death of fossil fuels as the primary source of energy production.
@@michaelputnam2532 It's the fossil energy companies' way to keep fossil energy alive. Look at Total campaign "Commited to Renewables, Commited to Gas" on this subject
Well the government bureaucracy also stands in the way.. It goes like this.. "I'd like to build a thorium reactor". response from Govt "You cant build one because we dont have any data on them." They always demand something that can't exists until one is built and tested.
@@AIM54A Except, the reason we don't have the data on them (now) is that we have already sold the documentation, from ORNL Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, to the Communist Chinese... go figure!
@@AIM54A lol that's not the reason it wasn't done. The reason it was never done is 100% coz the military wanted the biproducts of uranium enrichment. If you pay attention to politics for more than 5 minutes, you figure out pretty quickly that the military industrial complex calls the shots. Politicians are just the tools
I don't know if doing that is enough to cancel out everything they have done and are still doing. Wonder what happened to all those protestors and Hong Kong. Or them lying about the Olympics.
@@cjzisgood I can and have, just the work camps and the killing of hundreds of people In them like this is the holocaust kinda make it seem like it's meaningless. Or the fact they keep fucking with other countries and show no interest in international law.
@@scorchinorphan1687 that's not the china I see, my friend. Don't be brainwashed by the western media who is causing all the chaos in the world and victimized china all along.
@@timall4her207 they literally have concentration camps, but I guess we forgot the Hong Kong Protesters because China gave them their freedoms and everything wanted and needed. Once again, they were still caught lying to their entire country saying they won the Olympics. It's like saying Western media brainwashed us to hate North Korea. They're bad counties, and you supporting it disgusts me. You don't care about the countless religious, Christians and Muslims included, people gathered up and put in work camps, or the fact it's been known China has been doing this for close to 2 years. They also continue to antagonize Japan, India, South Korea, and numerous other countries in the area by breaking international law, this isn't America they do it to, they do it to the countries all around them, and they have reported on it as well. Numerous of them have recorded sinking Chinese fishing vessels that had been watched and recorded going into other country waters to fish, then retreat into Chinese waters when caught/an attempt at calling them is made.
Also, you can feed nuclear waste from existing nuclear plants into the process and work it down into shorter half-life substances. And a lot of the by-products are rare sought after elements. Even in a world of free fusion energy, there is a place for these.
Scientists are finding new and better ways to dispose of the waste i believe that they discovered some type of bacteria feeding on the waste grom the tragic accident in Fukushima
@@notsure1350 Absolutely I've made the same argument with those who are freaking out over climate change Earth would find a way to Eradicate us before we do her
@@notsure1350 when talking about nature it is not a 'us against them' discussion. We are nature as much as we are part of it. If we want to solve any problems we will have to accept this. But as long as governments say god bless and alluh akbar after each speech we are doomed to destroy ourselves indeed
Amazing how the lack of destructive use means what could have been a revolutionary, safe, environmentally friendly and abundant energy source, never came to fruition. Imaging how different the planet could be right now. Says alot about the human race
scientist: we have invented a safe, abundant source of energy that can be used in many conditions politician: but can u turn it into a bomb scientist: no, that's why it's so good- politician: funding CANCELED
The problem with the human race us that while most of us are OK, a large proportion of the people who have a drive to power are psychopaths or sociopaths...
Anton, the diagrams you used for conventional uranium reactors were for PWR. You mentioned the hydrogen explosion at Fukushima. Those reactors were BWR type, and there is no steam generator in this reactor type. Steam generates in the reactor and directly drives the steam turbines. I agree that thorium is the way to go for nuclear energy.
I tend to agree. Thorium when properly developed and implemented seems to have the potential to fill the obvious gap between green energy and consumption untill we figure out fusion. As someone who protested against any form of nuclear decades ago I'm convinced we need fission to meet climate goals. This type of reactor seem to avoid the obvious danger of current fission reactors. Waste that stays dangerous for millennia with human nature responsible for it's safe keeping. And of course the fact it's very hard to make weapons grade fission material with these reactors.
There are steam generators in PWRs (thats how you get steam for your steam turbine lol) it is just on another loop "behind" the heatexchanger. Nevertheless, hydrogen is produced both in PWR and BWr under normal operation all the time via Zircaloy clading and water interaction and water molecule dissasociation by neutron flux. But I agree Gen IV and especially liquid fuel is the way to go.
you're right, it was difficult to find all of the diagrams I wanted for this video for security/copyright reasons. I had to use what I could find and had permission to use unfortunately
The gamma rays split any moisture in the air to H & O so this must be recombined using a heating system or the like. Not a problem in normal operations - Fukushima had no power to run an exhaust fan for removal
Molten salt reactors are not limited to only thorium, they can also use uranium and even the very dangerous, long-lived, transuranic waste generated by current reactors.
@Peter Rabbit It's deeper then politics, we cannot do anything truly interesting anymore, cultural malaise, and a risk averse society more interested in managed decline then any kind of greatness.
the point is that thorium reproduces. it's called milking the thorium cow, and its biproducts can be used to treat cancer patients. you CANNOT do this with other nuclear elements.
The oil cartel has so much power in the US, we could have had gas and diesel free vehicles and fossil fuel free energy long ago. People have developed things like this have disappeared before.
If there was money to be made someone would do it. Rich people know only greed. They have already formed Big Lithium (and the prices are going up). Thorium has promise but watch a real nuclear scientist talk about it, its not all roses.
Batteries are the real issue. Hard to go on road trips when it takes a long time for the battery to charge. Hybrids are the best of both worlds in that regard.
@@peterroberts4415 They are talking about Nikola Tesla's vision of the future. Not the car manufacturer. But I hear ya on your point. I'm sure better minds than ours will figure that problem out one day.
I have always wondered if the lack of thorium reactors for power generation was because directly after WW2 and the Cold War uranium nuclear was needed for plutonium. Afterwards it was, well we have the technology so why bother with thorium
@@csehszlovakze We take that as an affirmation that the primary driver was weapons development. The world needs more clean energy, not more super-weapons. It's just so insane that we keep going along with this.
According to other sources, Nixon killed the ORNL molten salt program because of lobbying from HPLW reactor manufacturers. Also the ORNL TMSR operated several thousand hours over a multi year period.
One of the main problems that stopped the nuclear powered plane was was the weight, and size of shielding for the nuclear reactor. Although the Russian flew one without the shielding, contaminating the crew and the environment.
One of the main problems is Tellurium embrittlement and the need for graphite of which doesn't have the safest track record and makes it expensive to build and maintain.
There have been a few nuclear powered planes. A Russian bomber and a few US black projects. Also a defunct VTOL (vertical takeoff landing) plane from the 1950's. Never did solve the shielding problems (as far as i know.)
@@paulmobleyscience the graphite problem, known as Wigner energy, doesn’t exist in a LIFTR because they run hot enough the displacements can return to the lattice. That’s how these were “resolved” in Windscale, by heating the graphite up enough to release the energy.
Another big problem with nuclear aircraft is in the event of an accident. Like 70% of airliner accidents are at take off or landing, and airports are directly next to populated areas for convenience. A nuclear accident would condemn the whole airport and would be huge risk to the neighboring city. Nuclear aircraft really only make sense for specific military applications (SR-69) or space applications ;) While hydrogen or electric aircraft make more sense for civil.
🤔 I find it ironic that the millitary saw no use for thorium, when as a portable power source it could power exoframes, lasers, rail guns, and other millitary grade toys.
The military did, but thought it was a pointless investment. Why research better weapons when you can invest in a one-time bomb you can use to threaten everyone into doing what you want?
@@patrioticwhitemail9119 You are correct that they tested the above mentioned. They have tried and tested everything. What it boils down to is cost and availability. Your comment is infantile when the technology clearly isn't there and you're not taking the political landscape back then into account. It's not like they put all their eggs in one basket. The millitary applications of today is clear evidence of that.
U.S. Government: "So, what makes this thorium so special." Engineers: "Well, it works just as well as uranium, it can't be used to make weapons..." U.S. Government: "Yeah, we're not interested. We only fund things that go boom here."
@@braindamaged1700 interesting 🤔, would it have been about losing money, if it was made eventually, for use in cars etc?, just thinking aloud, as i know nothing about it, and you seem to know more than i do 😂
It wasn't about that. It was about long-term profit made from the solid fuels. For instance, GE could build your reactor at cost, but you're locked in to buying fuel rods from them for the life of the reactor. This doesn't (and can't) happen with MSRs. MSR/LFTR fuel is literally just salt mixed with thorium and some uranium, and not much else. Almost anyone can make the fuel, unlike the proprietary fuel rods that are necessary for a regular, uranium-fueled nuclear reactor.
@@davegrenier1160 I mean it’s not table salt, it’s thorium fluoride, so it’s going to have a bit of a manufacturing process. But yeah it’s not going to be proprietary or extremely expensive like solid fuel.
Maybe 50 years ago. Today the US (and Russia as well as UK) is under treaty obligation to destroy quite a bit of their excess weaponsgrade Plutonium, and noone really knows what to do with it. These reactors (fast spectrum reactors) could use it as part of their fuel.
What ‘went wrong’ was we turned towards nuclear weaponry as our focus all these decades. Like space-planes and smarter space travel was neglected for ballistic missile technologies. Such a deal.
Exactly correct. The operators on the Thorium reactor at Los Alamos were bored. It was too easy to run. Never any problems. But, compared to Uranium reactors, the isotopes Thorium reactors produce are massively inconvenient for weapons. Not impossible, mind. But seriously massively inconvenient. So we got Uranium.
No. People chose not to invest in it. You for example could have, you didn't. I am assuming you aren't a prisoner atm. You can go out tomorrow and start work on one.
@@chrisallum9044 huge complex problems like "the system" aren't solved by a "gung ho pull your bootstraps up" attitude. that shit gets nobody anywhere. at some point we're gonna have to look at ourselves (not you alone, us collectively) in the mirror and own up to actually solving problems instead of expecting one super genius to just show up with all the solutions cuz he "worked really hard at it".
@@chrisallum9044 And have FBI and nuclear regulatory commission and fcc at my door detecting any emissions during transfer. I’d like to work on one but the legallity involved is harder than getting space launches approved
This is the best explanation of thorium vs uranium reactors i could find. No politics, it is also up to date, with added sources for further reading. We couldn't ask for more. China is on right path, hope other countries will learn from their lesson about producing energy for civilian use.
@@Narukosaki Rhodium has nothing to do with thorium reactors, except for maybe being found in traces. Yes, U233 is fissionable fuel coming from neutron bombardment of Th232 which then becomes Th233. Through beta decays it becomes U233, being fissionable it is used as a fuel in this kind of reactors.
I though so. What's important is people realising we won't survive in the long term without going full nuclear. At this point it doesn't even matter if PWRs are starting point because we might already be too late. Sun and other stuff is a joke made for rich to exploit poor.
I think the coolest part of molten salt reactors is the safety plug. It gets too hot, plug melts and drains the fuel. This feature is fully automatic and at the same time passive! Needs no power, no controller, no human intervention. Just works. You should mention this in video :)
Idiot-proof? :P
@@thhseeking nothing, NOTHING is idiot-proof.
@Sergio Ribeiro In any industry there's always somebody who eventually will think it's a good idea to start running a test to locate issues with unstable equipment at 3 am when it's nice and quiet and just before the next shift comes on. Possibly with a mind to also identify any faulty gauges.
@@SofaKingShit totally understanding what you're saying. I'm a maintenance technician and I can assure you that it is impossible to make anything idiot-proof. Idiots are extremely creative.
There's no reason for not doing this except government incompetence. Germany went totally batshit by closing down their nuclear plants after Fukushima, even compensating with fossil fuel generators. There is corruption in this. Certainly they can afford and have the know know to get thorium working.
Someone’s probably mentioned this already but thorium reactors can produce plutonium, but in the form of Pu-238. And that’s actually useful for powering space probes and rovers, especially any that have to work in the dark or too far from the sun for solar power to be an option. Both Voyager probes used it, as do Curiosity and Perseverance on Mars. I wonder if China is looking at this and if their space agency is planning to use domestically produced Pu-238, or whether China will become an exporter to other countries’ space agencies.
238 can easily turn into 239, which can be filtered out, which would give china a lot of easy access to the most dangerous nuclear material, which will likely be sold to pakistan and north korea
great point! thank you for clarifying
@@mike4402 just great
@@mike4402 If that were the case other nations would of picked up Thorium nuclear tech a long time ago, the knowledge has been around for many decades, to circumvent the need for uranium based reactors to produced weapons grade plutonium 239 with "ease". In other words, it isn't as "easy" as you think it is to take a thorium reactor and convert its by-products into high grade material for nuclear weapons.
@@lmao7183 „would of” 🙄
Politicians' understanding of nuclear power comes entirely from The Simpsons.
Like in Germany, where fairly safe designs get shut down "because of Fukushima".
Replicating the Fukushima catastrophe in Germany would be literally impossible. But that doesn't matter to the politicians.
But everybody seems OK with importing electricity from French nuclear power plants at the same time...
@@daszieher
Thanks Japan for building a nuclear plant on a farking fault line
@@daszieher Australia would be the perfect place to start some monstrous nuclear fuel synthesis plant
Middle of Australia
@@redrichard9801
"it wasn't built on a fault line the earthquake did not cause the Fukushima problem the tidal wave did the work."
Lets look at the pacific fault lines
Look at Australia
Big difference
And the tidal wave was caused by the fault line
So as I said
No one had foresight on that one
In Slovakia, we joked about it,... In Japan, brewery explodes, Germany Closing all breweries....
The UK Nuclear Research facility at Winfrith in Dorset were also involved in the development of LIFTER (molten thorium salt ) reactors back in the early 60’s - I knew a German physicist who worked there as a young man. He told me that it was shelved more due to problems arising from lack of suitable materials for handling the molten salts at high temperatures as well as gamma shielding problems due to U233 production in the generation process.
I studied the nuclear industry in the late 70s and I came to the same conclusion Thorium is the safest and cleanest solution for the world energy needs but I agree politics have killed any such suggestion in my country Australia
Doesn't help the the frist one built was rushed then China kicked the professionals that built it off the project once completed and it's now leaking nuclear material and is being told by the people who built it and the professionals to shut it down...
Thorium is literally safe to be around after an hour. The reason it was never used in the US is because of rich, powerful people that were already invested into the systems we use now.
In the UK the left leaning press publishes opinion pieces arguing that we must return to pre-industrial revolution life styles alongside articles warning that "pro-nuclsar propagandaists" must be ostracised.
Ditto for all Western countries because of their piss ant enviros and political leaders.
@@robertcole7874 the one in Guangdong?
Anton, you wonderful person. I love your videos and am so glad you’ve done one on Thorium MSRs. But since I know a bit about this topic I see a few things that need minor corrections.
1. Graphite Rods aren’t used to slow the reaction down. They are actually used to speed it up. Their function is to slow down the neutrons born in fission. Slow neutrons have a higher probability of fissioning other nuclei than fast neutrons. So, more probability of reaction means more reactivity. This also explains why the dump system works so well on an MSR. When you remove the liquid fuel from the moderator graphite, the reaction stops. Water serves this moderator purpose in most other reactors. This makes a reactor need less fissionable material and therefore less enrichment. Most reactors today use these slow neutrons, also known as the thermal spectrum. Some reactors do not slow down the neutrons and are know as “fast” spectrum reactors which need much more fissionable material and higher enrichment. These “fast” reactors have other advantages and disadvantages.
Back to the point on control rods, any MSR “control” rod would have to function the same as any other reactor control rod by absorbing neutrons completely and thus slowing the reactor down. MSRs have an advantage here because the can be designed to operate at just barely critical levels since being liquid fueled they can add new fuel as needed. Solid fueled reactors cannot add fuel while operating so they depend on control rods more heavily since they are built with a great deal of excess fuel and possible reactivity so they can operate for an extended time. Hence fewer control rods needed in MSRs and less danger from excess fuel as well.
2. Thorium isn’t a Nuclear fuel. It is a precursor. Kind of like wet wood isn’t good fireplace fuel. It needs to be dried first. The actual nuclear fuel in a thorium MSR is Uranium isotope 233. This is created by thorium 232 capture of a neutron to become thorium 233 and then through atomic decay turning into Uranium 233. This process is known as “breeding” wherein a “fertile” isotope is “bred” into a “fissile” isotope to become your fuel. This is the same process used to breed Uranium 238 into Plutonium 239 in other reactors that rely on Uranium 235 as fuel. In this traditional fuel cycle, the majority of your Uranium in the reactor is 238 but a small percentage is the fuel of 235. Usually about 3 to 5%. The Plutonium can be bred on purpose for other uses such as weapons or fuel, but it won’t be bred at a positive ratio in the thermal spectrum. Thorium’s advantage is that it can be used to breed at a positive ratio in the thermal spectrum where Uranium cannot. Since fast reactors can be tricky, a nuclear fuel that can be bred in the thermal spectrum is a big deal.
Hence, any thorium reactor concept is inherently a Breeder reactor where thorium is ultimately consumed but Uranium is still the nuclear fuel.
This also explains why thorium reactors waste doesn’t last as long as uranium reactor waste. Any time a fissile isotope fissions, it’s daughter products half life’s are actually short. The long lived isotopes of Plutonium that include Pu239, 240, 241 and the other transuranics that are bred in traditional reactors are the long lived waste problems that are spoken of so frequently. Since Thorium starts clear down at 232, once it captures a neutron and becomes fuel it’s chance of capturing a neutron without fissioning is very low. And even if it does, it has to pass through becoming Uranium 235 which also readily fissions. This means the vast majority of the fuel fissions without any chance of becoming a long lived radioactive transuranic. And hence less radioactive waste from thorium reactors.
3. Although generally it is far more difficult and nonsensical to build a nuclear weapon using Uranium 233 from a thorium reactor, some physicists would correct you and say it can be done. It would be correct to say it is far less likely though.
4. Lastly, A molten salt reactor doesn’t mean only thorium and thorium isn’t only workable in MSRs. You can actually use Uranium and Plutonium in MSRs and you can breed Thorium into Uranium 233 in Solid fueled reactors. In fact, both companies you mentioned (ThorCon and Terrestrial Energy) are building Uranium MSRs. They see the Uranium fuel cycle as easier to license with the possibility of thorium MSRs in the future. The US company most prominently working on a true Thorium MSR is Flibe energy by Kirk Sorenson of UA-cam and TEd talk fame. The sad thing here is that after years of pushing this concept, it looks like China is going to beat Flibe to the market. Especially sad considering that much of the initial research was conducted in the US only to be given freely to the Chinese later on, partly through the efforts of Kirk Sorenson to publish Oak Ridge’s information online.
In any case, thank you for your excellent videos, and sorry for the book I just wrote to you correcting things.
Thank you for your "book" it made good reading.
@@Martin-se3ij
Glad I wasn’t too boring
Thanks for sharing. You really know your stuff. I learned much from this. 👍🌻🌻
Best comment this week!
Thanks for commenting. Anton's video reminds me of my own journey stimulated by the promise of Thorium fuelled MSRs. Actually for me, this knowledge formed the gateway to more awareness of nuclear power technology by stimulating my curiosity as to why this promising tech was shelved. That led me to a deeper understanding of everything related to energy and electricity power production especially the realization that existing nuclear power technology is already the safest power production technology known to mankind.
Indeed I see MSR designs as the future way forward due the cost savings possible by major reductions in safety systems needed by pressurized water reactors. In other words the promise is NOT for increased safety, rather for major cost reduction.
Whether using the Uranium-235 fuel cycle or a Thorium-232/Uranium-235 fuel cycle (note that a Thorium-232 fuel cycle would by very complex due to significant neutron flux density reduction) the key factor is the use of molten salts as both a fuel carrier and heat transfer agent. The ultimate fuel economy would be possible using MFRs (molten salt fast reactors) which would continuously fission all those Actinides that present such a waste dilemma to those who fear the current nuclear reactor spent fuels and resist any sequestration efforts.
Tout à fait d'accord. La filière du Thorium a été abandonnée du fait qu'elle ne permet pas le développement de bombes nucléaires. C'est le cas aussi en France ou Degaulle n'était malheureusement intéressé que par la production d'armes.
I have been waiting for news on this after reading about them. Great job as always!
U excited for how much this will strengthen their concentration camp's.
@@dont-touch-mepg1392 No the technology that might give us clean power. Go troll elsewhere.
Yes, clean energy From China, The same country that builds fake solar panels and fake wind turbines, the same country using the dirtiest coal power plants.
@@Shuffledudee I forgot there are internet experts everywhere that know all... Your "what about isms" are not furthering the discussion in a positive manner. Go troll somewhere else.
@@Shuffledudee you don’t belong to science channel
they've been using molten thorium salt on hot cheetos for years
Lol
Ha!!!
Nice! You need to eat only once every ten years, I suppose. 😀
I’m always surprised when I learn that there have been safer nuclear reactor technologies available in the past, such as what you show in this video and the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) in Idaho that in 1986 proved that it could suffer a complete cooling system shutdown due to the way it was designed and still cool down on its own. However, instead of utilizing these safer technologies, governments around the world have stuck with more risky technologies, and they wonder why they’re facing a PR battle. I won’t be surprised if the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which could have been avoided by these better technologies, has a grave impact on the entire planet at some future date given the problem of long term storage of all the contaminated water coming out of there as they attempt to keep it cool. And In April the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water from that power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years. Like that’s a good idea. 😳 Sounds like a good topic for a future video. 😉
To be fair, the overall contamination will be very low.
@@etuanno yeah didn't the volunteers that helped clean everything up experience insignificant levels of radiation, I imagine then the overall effect is extremely safe
@@glacialimpala That's when the radioactive elements weren't diluted yet.
Thanks for always explaining things so well that someone like me can keep up with the sciences I love.
go to collge
@@augustsmith9553 pay his college
@@augustsmith9553 You should go to scool.
I wonder if the fossil fuel industry might have played some part in keeping the thorium reactor from being developed.
Bingo. They will fight to keep petro killing us for decades to come.
i wonder how many scientists in the field have met an early death?
The oil lobby is everywhere for sure. Anything they can do to delay the reducing demand for fossil fuels will be done.
Unlike many of the worlds other obstructionist rants (mostly based on racism and political power to one type of human) the petroleum obstructionist are actually very smart people. So if there is a way they can delay progress they will find it and do it very effectively.
Ever wonder why Hydrogen is getting a lot of media attention lately? Because the petroleum companies want to make it using methane or coal, so we keep burning their products for energy and transportation but think we are being green because the endpoint is "emission free".
Military power only because the wanted more nukes!.
No. The thorium breeder project at ORnL never had more than a shoestring budget. All the “official” reactor development funds were being gobbled up by the fast breeder reactor project at Argon.
Of course, Bill Clinton killed the fast breeder “because we didn’t need it”, and now we don’t have either a thermal or a fast breeder.
We’ve been using the warmed over 1950s PWR ever since.
Now it heavily subsidized “renewables” that are the major threat.
Well explained, thanks .
Yes,could be done long ago,good safe way to produce electricity.
Very clever China
i hope we can get these up and running globally soon, this would really be a big step in the right direction
Once china shows the way, there's going to be no stopping these reactors from becoming the main power generators for this planet. So laughably simple in construction, there's nothing that can compete with it on price. It's actually cheap enough that smaller cities and larger towns can pool their money together and build one to supply the city with power in the same way that people pooled their money together and built water mains back in the day. This is like that, only for power.
India already has a few; the US did as well (having invented it) but then abandoned it.
If this deliver, half the step for climate change are done.
I want to see somewhere harvest the heat in citys and roads, cooling towns and making power
wrong direction, solar and wind turbines, is the right direction, it supports battery technology to grow
Finally at least someone is even talking about Thorium. Saw one documentary about this amazing energy source like 8-10 years ago. It's totally safe and seemed amazing. EU is idiotic for not using it!
EU is US colonie they can't do anything major without approval from the master.
For real we can't even agree on our gender lol good for china for building a thoroum reactor
@@altergreenhorn So was Trump crying about European defense spending and trade policy, just a show for rubes at home, when he could just have given the order.
Totally safe? There's no such thing. Turn it into a gas and spray it into the air. You can cut ya finger with a bit of paper. :)
@@klausluger7671
Not sure what you are:
-very naive
-plane stupid
-paid troll
This guy just seems like a genuinely nice person. I wanna be his friend 😂
I fantasize that he's not a professional scientist with a PhD but a well-read amateur who works as a fry-cook.
@@KutWrite 😂😂😂
I’d like to share a beer with him!
@@KutWrite Makes Piroshki as a day job :P
That's how gay stuff starts off ... and then... well you end up in the chocolate factory
Selling thorium power plants to other countries makes the world safer.
Thorium is a nasty metal.
But, so is uranium.
At least thorium cannot be made into weapons.
As Mr Antov says, it's the very reason why the government decided against any research into it.
If it can't be weaponized, why bother?
As he was saying that, I thought "Smart Move!!".... they would be selling energy, not weapons, and the Good Will would be incredible!!! Smart move indeed....
Idiot 🤣
Don't trust/believe that their safety protocols are where they show be before opening them up all over the world...
Sorry about the idiots thing but no is thinking things through anymore
@@mikebar42 oh come on, man. I'm sure China's safety protocols are top tier. Just look at their research labs in Wuhan. Safe as can be...
Oh shut it. Mr.CCP
That is really interesting. I've been hoping someone would build a molten salt reactor.
yanks had it for 18 mths. no good for military,so canned. 1956
I think India has been working on one too.
You do seem like the kind of person who visits nuclear reactors for fun
I actually did back when they let us look down into the pools full of spent fuel rods. It was awesome.
Wait you wouldn't?
Nuclear reactors are spotlessly clean as opposed to oil turbine installations which are filthy.
Chinese engineer here,yes,we are developing this kind of reactors in mega scale now. Thanks to oak lab, also the Shanghai institute developed a new material could hold the acid at 800 degrees
I wrote to my local MEP, when we had such things, about LFTR as it's something I've been interested in for years now. Her response was typical, she said that the EU was "looking at it" but that they felt it wouldn't be a viable technology for another 70 years. That's what vested interests sounds like.
In a Democracy you have to accept that you won't always get your way. Public perception matters greatly, considering the public elects representatives. But the fact is that, if China succeeds, other countries will follow suit.
I don't think it's exactly "vested interest". If my interest is in helping the people but I'm unelectable, then I won't really succeed at much. We also have the issue of national ego in which we always want to be the first to do stuff.
Saying: "we don't think this technology will be viable for a while" just sounds like the usual, classically expert, cautious approach of the EU and I'm personally all for it: "let's mostly used tried and tested methods and if some other country wants to go gung-ho we'll copy them after they succeed or learn from their mistakes if it leads to disaster"
That is, at least in my opinion, a great approach. But as said, it doesn't feed the national ego of always wanting to be #1 in the new exciting thing. As a side note, EU based groups make up some 30% of all peer reviewed works (globally), so I wouldn't say we're in any way lacking in Scientific efforts. At least they wrote back, which is better than representatives in either the US or China would usually do.
Unfortunatly your MEPs response is typical. They really have no clue about such things with the odd outlier who has worked in the energy sector. It also does not help that many green groups have also turned to chasing the money rather whats best for the planet.
In the UK WTE plants have been constantly rejected while other countries like Germany have manage to do away with landfills. Are they perfect , no but it's better than landfill the tech is here and relativly cheap. Also means we would not have to ship our rubbish to places like India away from oversight reducing energy costs and not making toxic places in other peoples countries.
At the same time the gov gives grants to 'power stations' that generate no power and have no facilties to, at least they have not done the 'solar roadways' snake oil yet.
Better than hearing 10-15 years away every four years.
@@TechTehScience _>In a Democracy you have to accept that you won't always get your way._
Fully agreed. Democracy is an obstacle we must overcome!
@@nickkorkodylas5005 oh, in Germany it was tried, and with a certain degree of success.
The collateral damage, however, was admittedly slightly on the high side. As long as we haven't come up with systems that work better than democracy in practice, I guess we're "stuck" with it.
I’m interested in Thorium for many reasons, including one that it is inherently ‘safer’. Hope Thorium really takes off.
I also agree with you that nuclear is heavily stigmatized and politicized.
It will alright...
In Chinese laser drone bombers...
You can thank our piss ant enviros and political leaders for that 🥴
have you ever thought about it maybe stigmatized for a reason?
@@eagle1de227 No…that never occurred to me 🙄
Stigmatized, because of Chernobyl. Because of Fukushima. Chernobyl was caused by Russian incompetence, Fukushima, by a nearly 9.0 earthquake.
Stigmatized because of NIMBY.
Stigmatized because of short term thinking, overzealous, and reactionary people.
I consider myself very environmentally conscious, owning two electric cars, and using a drip irrigation system extensively to water my organic garden. I favor nuclear energy because of tech like the one proposed in the video. It can be made safer. I am all for solutions that mitigate AGW, the number one problem faced by this world. I am all for solar, wind and geothermal as well. It is time to stop being over anxious about Nuclear, and start addressing climate change urgently.
@@fireofenergy I agree some environmentalists take the view that all nuclear is bad, but environmental concerns are the reason why *I* choose to support safer nuclear energy, such as the one being proposed. Human caused global warming is the clear and present danger to most all life on this planet. The only one we have. We need to get serious about addressing it. Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Geothermal.. everything we can use, and improve.
The reason thorium wasn't fully researched and implemented was due to the military. Uranium was chosen as it was easier to enrich for weapons grade materials, as a result a lot of the early nuclear developments and reactor designs were also focused in that direction.
If you want to build bases on the moon or Mars, this technology makes it possible.
and do you think that the elites don't know this?
The last thing the elites want is a self-sufficient population they can't skim off the top of.
Someone needs to guinea pig.
@@benegeserit1 they dont, they're ignorant
Hmm
My understanding of molten salt reactors is that they use somewaste nuclear material from regular uranium reactors to keep the reaction going. The result is a safer form of uranium material that is used in nuclear power sources for space satellites.
So we reduce the amount of uranium waste and the long term storage requirements of that waste.
I thought a moderator, contrary to what it's name might sound like, actually facilitates nuclear reactions not by blocking neutrons, but by slowing them down enough so that they are thermal and much more likely to interact in the nuclear reaction.
that is correct
That is true in pressurized water cooled reactors and submarine nuclear propulsion plants where controlled fission is from thermalized neutrons especially where reactor power is controlled by increased steam demand where cooled moderator water passing through the steam generators increases fission in the reactor core, then as steam demand is lowered the moderator heats up so the water is less dense reducing the number of neutron collisions with the hydrogen nucleus in the water molecules reducing reactor power again. He hasn't gone into a lot of detail here, but hits the high points mostly and is a good general summation. You can google Molten Salt reactors and find out more details. As for details on Submarine Nuclear Propulsion and their civilian powerplant equivalents I haven't stood a watch on a Boat in over 40 years and while I have retained much don't have oral and written tests I have to pass on a weekly to monthly basis and most of my reference materials have only partly become declassified over the years
A moderator can both speed up or slow down the reaction. Speed up in high pressure water by creating more thermalised neutrons, slow down in this type by absorbing or, rather slowing down neutrons.
I am afraid it is impossible to prevent accidents with uranium reactors at least because of human factor. There will always be accidents as seen from history, let’s hope it will be rare. Molten salt reactors were dumped, guess why, no uranium for nuclear bombs while running molten salt ones, so it was abandoned long time ago. Hope that China will prove to everybody that it is a better way. Cheers
Thx Anton for the amazing explanations every time!
Just a small point Anton, the USSR actually flew a nuclear powered aircraft as opposed to the US putting a test reactor in an aircraft
LFTR reactors can be much safer and can't melt down
LFTR is a con game. Don't get suckered into it.
First off, they don't start with just ²³²Th. They can only go critical with many-weapon amounts of weapons grade ²³³U, which is also easy to extract from the ²³³Pa it also produces on the way to making the ²³³U in the core.
Second, it doesn't actually exist, and has no near term prospects of ever existing. There are real and serious challenges, among them around proliferation, in making the FLiBe that's supposed to be integral to how it works. There are not actually alloys that can hold those fluoride salts, and the ones alleged to be promising have cobalt in them, which makes for the well and truly nasty ⁶⁰Co.
@@davidfetter But we had working nuclear reactors in the 60's without the aforementioned problems
@@davidfetter what does LFTR stand for?
@@noneofyourbusiness4133 Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor and btw is a real thing and not a con at all lol.
@@peacefindersimply5001 enter argument + "lol" at something you don't understand
10:42 No. A moderator is not a "turn off"-switch. It's actually the opposite. A moderator slows down neutrons in order to sustain the reaction. Without a moderator, the reaction stops.
Good on China. Wish my own country had pushed on with this idea when it was first thought of.
I've got reasons to dislike China, but hearing this news is changing how I think.
@@Drake00075 China isn't a country to be admired, but there certainly is a lot of misinformation being spread about them
I admire China, their infrastructure and work ethic are second to none and they haven't spent the past 100 years initiating coups and wars all over the planet.
Late 50s to early 60s the Oak Ridge folks built a great testbed reactor. The tech China is using is based on those experiments and the experimental reactor the US built. They asked for the documentation, and it was given to them.
Imho you forgot the biggest advantage, liquid salt Thorium reactors don't need any pressure to run other than getting the stuff through the pipes and does not produce a phase change on pressure loss.
They are just like a big open heater pots, not like Uran reactors that use supercritical water that increases in volume 1000 times on pressure loss, like "booom" 💥
This the only thing I can agree with China on.
I blame ultimately Nixon for preventing this from developing in America.
The production of cheap energy is certainly something that could be the catalyst that kicks of WWW3...
but... but... the US needs nukes... you can't make nukes out of thorium refinement...
As I remember exactly that was designed by Bill Gates foundation, USA do not wanted it and only China agreed to do it.
Finally, China will have some technology that WE can steal. :D
@@anthonyjames4247 - LOL... Not sure if serious.
Nobody would have to steal anything if we weren't beholden to intellectual property rights unto the death of people who could benefit from that info being free.
@@Neocyberman1 Filthy greedy billionaires is the main problem
@@Neocyberman1 Yeah, let's just give our enemies the technology that gives us the advantage in conflicts. So smart.
@@anthonyjames4247 🤣🤣🤣
that thorium couldn't be used to make nuclear bombs is a fitting example of why we are where we are, power, greed.
California has a reactor that runs on Karens.
I've wondered why we don't do this. Drop a Karen in water, it'll boil. Drop her in holy water, it steams on contact.
Far more susceptible to melting down where ever and whenever
Florida has one running on bath salt
@@leenux1707 Yeah, but you also have ones running on thrashing alligators.
At least there'll never be a fuel shortage
Absolutely amazing! There is a bunch of problems solved by this technology, including a great political one you just mentioned indirectly, wonderful Anton: A nation can use this technology without being seen as a threat to others.
Anton failed to mention the potential for molten salt thorium reactors to breed fissionable isotopes thereby converting almost 100% of the thorium into energy instead of the 1% in uranium reactors.
Only antimatter gives 100%
its like 95% burn up, but don't think thats into energy more stable non radioactivity like lead.
@@tolep My anti-matter containment is working but I worry what happens if a car runs into a power pole. 😬
that almost 100% alone already suspicious
The problem with all such nuclear plants is that you only hear from scientists, never accountants. In other words, is this economical? You don't hear a word about that. The drop in the cost of renewables in the past few years means almost certainly thorium reactors are never going to pay for themselves.
1:46 easy to use solar panels when you have a portable sunshine
Try that in Britain. All you'd get here is rust and moss!
Not sure china has actually solved all of the technical issues associated with a molten salt reactor.
However, they appear committed to developing a functional full scale design of what was originally demonstrated at Oakridge National Lab in the 1960s.
There are many reasons for developing safe affordable energy source available to the entire planet.
China has committed significant political, financial and technical resources that have provided them a 10 year head start on everyone else.
This should be done in multiple nations. The physics is solid, and the more Thorium reactor projects being developed at once, the more chance there is of engineering issues being quickly identified and solved. China should not be the only nation working on this.
I think India is looking at Thorium but I'm not sure.
US firm are making their experimental Thorium reactors in foreign countries like Indonesia. There's not yet any breakthrough that can decisively convinced the larger capital owners to invest in it.
It’s truly amazing how there’s so many experts in the world who agree what’s the best course of action in terms of technology But all the decisions are made by people who are completely ignorant of the topic. And their decisions are almost always based on feelings and not facts. It’s shameful
In this age of computers you would think this company could hire a team of people to accelerate application paperwork and quietly educate individual senators and congressmen with a careful persuasion plan, similar to this video. A quiet revolution would be the strategy, with careful education along your lines. A very well done video. I am totally in favor of quietly replacing all of America’s conventional nuclear plants with molten salt and thorium.
China: Let’s build thorium reactors and solve our energy crisis.
America: Let’s build gender and racial tension and create a social crisis.
China-1
America-0
America is just a world's laughing stock at this point
@@yonathanrakau1783 Did I start too early?
> "Something went wrong..."
Thorium reactors wouldn't make nukes.
This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. China is notoriously bad at infrastructure, and their entire water management system is now failing, flooding out towns and cities, and killing hundreds of thousands. And now they plan to build tons of reactors? Ummm... yeah.
@@Mr.Ekshin "Notoriously bad at infrastructure, and their entire water management system is now failing" Same thing happening here in the Divided States of Merica:)
@@gaim44 - We don't have dams and levees collapsing, entire cities underwater and hundreds of thousands of people drowning in our streets. America may have some small level of crumbling infrastructure... but ours is, on average, at least 50 years older than China's.
Most of America's major infrastructure was built post-WWII, or about 70 years ago. About 90% of China's major works are essentially brand new... built in the last 10-20 years.
@@Mr.Ekshin The floods were caused by heavy rains which were much worse than those in Germany...
@@anthornic2281 - Yeah, I mean who could have foreseen something as unlikely as RAIN when designing a vast water management system? Especially in an area prone to... ummm... monsoon seasons?
Face it... they didn't plan this stuff that well, then cheaped out on materials and construction. That's why China has brand new cities that are already crumbling.
That will be the end of the oil business.
Thorium reactors is a very good idea, the wasteproducts are radioactive for a much shorter period (300 years). And there is less waste in the first place. The Uranium lobby makes it very hard to get it done.
Rest of the world:
"We cant do this cuz people are scared."
China:
"I dont understand that logic. I'm trying to get shit done."
Gates and Buffet have funded TerraPower to create one of these things -- in Wyoming.
@@bhbluebirdknowing little about molten thorium reactors and politics aside it seems promising. I live 25 miles from a nuclear plant, I'd rather live 500 miles from a thorium reactor.
@@bhbluebird I did REALLY like the idea of doing it on a ship in international waters lmao, but I doubt its something you want eventually dumped in the ocean.
About damn time that this technology goes beyond the conceptual stage.
The inside of the salt chamber needs to be built with multiple layers. Ceramic, clay, carbon foam and starlite foam etc
HEY MY AUSSIE GOVERNMENT. Sounds like a great way to power a submarine without china’s “hurt feelings” over nuclear proliferation. Also allow up to go to NZ too and make them in Australia as not based on weapon making materials.
China is operating 220 coal plants right now, and if I remember right, they have 18 under construction and another 42 in the planning stages, both in China and neighboring countries. Those 60 new plants alone will blow away everything we do to reduce our carbon output. BUT they are also working on both modern conventional nuclear and the MSR/thorium cycle. They are smart enough to know that whoever figures out thorium will have the answer to humanity's energy needs for all time. Now imagine if Al Gore had his only-Nixon-could-go-to-China moment with nuclear energy 25 years ago. We might be 100% carbon-free on electricity right now. But libs really would rather talk about raising taxes on carbon users (everyone) rather than actually reduce carbon. Sigh...
I remember watching a documentary with George Lucas on molten salt reactors!
That video came up in my recommended right before this one did, I watched it and saw this video and I was like WHAAAAAAAAAAAA NO WAY
It will be a huge worldwide game changer if China can scale this up to be price competitive with Coal-fired plants.
You cant WEAPONIZE it thats why a lot of countries didn’t use it
The reason why it is so difficult for governments to convince citizens, that it is all safe is simply, that during the catastrophes of Fukushima and Tchernobyl the respective governments first tried to covre ervrything up and even later tried to cover things up and hide crucial information.
Nuclear enrgy in theory could be safe,but in reality its a mess of business and politics that makes it unsafe and not trustworthy
please do an internet search and watch anyone of the versions:
Onkola Finland; Into Eternity
300 years of storage is still a really, really long time for humans.
300 years is not a long time. That storage system isn't feasible for a lot of countries that have a lot of seismic activity or densely populated countries. The location was chosen because it would never be used by any near future civilizations for living. It's very rare solution for most counties unachievable
make that 500 years
Nixon cancelled the LFTR research I think, not Kennedy.
Can you do a video on the Fusion reactor being built in Washington by Helion Energy? Which should be bigger news, but is it fake or unproven or what? Would love to hear your take on it!
Since I was a kid fusion technology has always been twenty to fifty years away, though now that hope seems more realistic than ever.
They have done all of nothing. Just alot of talk and ribbon cutting. It's a research and development company. I hope they can do it
i fuckin love u... I've been trying to find a video like yours in order to show it to my friends and family so it would become easier for them to understand this... thank u very much!
India is also experimenting with Thorium reactors, but with a better focus on smaller models that can fit in a cargo container, can operate totally independently and remotely and each can supply energy for about 100,000 people. Of course, because it is dispersed it cannot be used to colonize its neighbors like China's massively expensive projects. Anyway, India has far superior mathematicians and engineers to China.
Thanks Anton for your performance.
I do still have some issues with your accent. I looked for captions, but there is only auto generated English. I need punctuation to understand well.
You can easily upload your texts in UA-cam studio. UA-cam will do the timings automatically.
It's very easy to do and will improve your videos.
Thanks
Your content brought me out of darkness and depression the other night 💚💚💚💚much love
Also something to Add.
Eventualy ICBM is vastly increasing in its reliability and capability, making it superior delivery method of Choice
Development of many Bomber were slowly getting cut, as ICBM and rocket technology matured
XB-70 Valkyrie and Nuclear powered bomber is just one of those
Super! I can now imaging, more planes, trains, ships using this MSR. Thanks Anton, you are a wonderful human specie.
Anton - why nuclear airplanes? Why not nuclear-powered hot-air-suspended zeppelins? They don't need hydrogen or helium for lift, and the "waste" heat of the system can go straight into the lift cells.
Engineers and scientists are the only people who will solve the energy future for the world.
Thorium has been a leading solution and now China is building the first Thorium reactor we are a step nearer.
The USA still have the technical ability to build a Thorium power plant but sadly has decayed politically and lost the ambition.
"We must not allow a mineshaft gap"
A bit of numbercrunching would do, like halftime of U235 is 7 000 000 000 years, half time of an executive is 4 years and the amount of decaying atoms in 235 g of U235 is 6 to the power of 23. People know that, you dont.
Let's hope some politicians watch this even if it is by accident, maybe you should change the featured picture to something else with dollar sign bags.
I saw this gem in my recommended
Anton, you open by saying, "..Something went wrong; thorium never happened..". Plain & simple: it had no weapons potential versus it's dev. costs, thusly perpetual warfare/threat-of-war was a far more lucrative & exclusively beneficial 'Future' to strive towards than peace-oriented power generation.
How to make the USA do something - say China is doing it 😂
Years ago China would do things because US was doing them.
But the fact is that what the United States has done or is doing now is propaganda: China is doing such a thing (and the United States has not done it).
As for what China is doing (correct), the US propaganda must do such a thing, but the result is only for political vote hype, and everything is suspended after the election.
THe only reason China is doing it is because India has already made a few and most importantly they are starved for power and they lack Uranium to make a normal nuclear reactor (something the US has no issue with, we have the largest reserves of uranium in the world) which is more efficient and lacks the constant upkeep since molten salts are highly reactive and destroy their containment.
True…. And how to get rid of trump.
- tell him Obama could hold his breath for 10 minuttes
But by then it will be too late. At least they have Elon. Perhaps he could take all politicians to Mars.
I hope China is successful w this reactor…the whole world can learn from this…ive had experience in nuclear design during the 80s…I think this alternative design is best as well. Then we can follow…
What books do you recommended.
This technology can't be used for
weapon..... so it is abandoned for a long time!
I hope the entire world learns from this !
that would be the first that someone builds a copy of something made in china
@@ProjectEmily it was there but some problems on container alloy was making it not able to be use for long time. But it is achievable by to day technology on metallurgy.
I did simulation work for a Thorium ADSR during an internship a number of years ago. I'm glad to hear more countries are putting more resources into developing Thorium reactors.
What happens when molten sodium comes into contact with water?
@@DJBillionator the same thing that happens when people ask smug leading questions because they didn't know the difference between an ADSR and a molten salt reactor and also erroneously believe that the term "molten salt" exclusively means "molten sodium chloride": nothing good 😉
@@DJBillionator Most of the molten salt reactors use fluoride salt. Some of the designs included lead or chloride. The only project that I know of that potentially would have used sodium (as a secondary coolant, primary being fluoride) was the US Aircraft Reactor Project.
Its sad that it's political in the US. The left side doesn't want any kind of nuclear power.
Except the CCP is completely incompetent, and will do ot in the most filthy way possible
Anton I just wanna say you’re an inspiration to me, you’re one of the people that keeps my fascination with the world going, even through tough times. I’m doing my masters in the Philosophy of Science, you’re one of the reasons I chose it over philosophy of mind.
That's nice science itself doesn't motivate you as strongly as a person does.
@@DJBillionator pretty big brain william
Honestly, either subfield is a good choice. Philosophy of Science (the focus of my undergrad minor) is basically useful RIGHT NOW for education, science communication, law, journalism, or pretty much any area where it is vitally important to prevent misinterpretation of science. I think it's also useful for discussions around how best to approach mysteries at the frontiers of physics; Sabine Hossenfelder is an excellent voice in this field right now. Philosophy of Mind is a less mature subfield in some ways, perhaps a generation or two away from becoming relevant to the frontier of technology, but I would be shocked if the growing sophistication of neural networks, human-machine interfaces, and end-of-life medical science don't turn what is right now mostly an academic curiosity (the nature of consciousness) into a vitally important practical question. I consider functionalism useful but painfully reductive; we're going to need to move past it soon.
thank you Azan, hope you go far!
If I were in charge of the Star Trek franchise, I would make sure Anton gets a cameo as often as he wants! :)
"Right...So you're telling me that we can't use this stuff to obliterate a metropolis??? What a waste of money this is!"
Great Sarcasm my Friend!
Can't you just make a dirty bomb out of it ?
The money had been spent by the navy to make PWRs for subs (and later) for ships. Westinghouse simply scaled it up. Nixon wanted to keep the technology in California, so he shut down the Weinburg MSRE project. Three Mile Island meltdown came a few years later and PWR costs went ballistic.. Weinburg was right all along.
@@DisplayLine6.13.9 The dirty bomb idea isn't really going to work because the salt fuel (like any irradiate fuel) is crazy radioactive. But unlike solid fuels, the salt mixes the various isotopes making it even harder to refine the required materials than it would be to build a bomb factory from the ground up. That's why it was never used in bomb factories.
@@davidelliott5843 Ehh just to be on the same page a dirty bomb is not something actually doing a nuclear reaction. It's a conventional bomb with radioactive material around it. The explosion scatters the radioactive material into the environment. Irradiating the area of the explosion. Even radioactive wast material can be used this way.
You can burn 95% of uranium waste rod in a thorium reactor. This significantly shrinks our nuclear waste problem. And it generates clean electricity. It's a win/win :)
thank you! I just asked this question!!
brilliant idea!
of course we ( usa ) will be the last to do it 😢….😡
As it is great in many ways. Like burning almost any isotope existing. There is 1 little but.. If molten salt meets water, the bang is way Something.
To be specific, LWR spent fuel wouldn't be burnt up in a Thorium reactor, but a modified molten salt reactor that's designed for fast spectrum Plutonium-breeding (the majority of spent fuel is U-238 (fertile, doesn't split but accepts neutrons) which needs to be made into Plutonium 239 (fissile, can be split apart for energy) as a U-233 breeder reactor (fueled by Th-232) doesn't have the right configuration to allow it.
@bk_16 Sure, but the fuel efficiency of MSRs is so great that it'll likely take like... millennia, to completely go through the spent fuel cache, so it's not super relevant as a solution for "destroying nuclear waste" at least on our timescales
@@spacefacts1681 maybe not in our lifetimes but it's a start and makes use of existing waste.
I was always been a fan of Molten Salt Reactors for years now. I am glad to hear someone is going to do it, because this will prove it is safe and doable. Politics destroyed our chances and set us back many years.
India has been working on building a bunch of these for a few years now. I'm also glad it's picking up steam globally.
It always seems that way.
Jimmy Carter was on a nuclear submarine as part of its crew.
One of the big problems of nuclear energy are the corporations themselves.
Just look at Fukushima and the mess created by that business community.
Well said
Way past overdue.
Anton, I’ve recently subscribed. Regardless if you take the time to read these comments, I want to share that I appreciate your efforts to educate the general public. I think you are doing a fine job of tapping into viewers curiosity. With so much mind numbing repetition uploaded daily to UA-cam, your videos reinforce the notion that learning should indeed be a life long pursuit.
I've been talking about this for years, and usually get called a conspiracy theorist lol. Thanks for doing a video on it! The West will definitely regret letting China get ahead on this one, thanks military industrial complex.
Yes, I keep waiting for the US to put some money and effort into this technology that was originally developed in the late 60s and early seventies. Many other countries have been busy copying this information for years.
Yeah I've been rambling on about how Thorium reactors are going to be a big thing. Its a shame the US stonewalled the technology so much due to competing older reactor technology. Honestly I hope China does figure it all out and reduces their pollution, even if the CCP is insidious, their not stupid.
Same here dude, I've been talking about Thorium reactors for years now, wondering why nobody's building one...
The problem was the whole, "Energy Too Cheap To Meter" thing.
I mean, it wasn't actually going to be that; there's still a huge infrastructure investment involved.
-But it was going to be waaaaay cheaper than oil, which would quickly shift power away from the Elites. (They're mostly all oil barons, after all.) The only way regular nuclear was 'allowed' was to come up with a way to make it cost equivalent with oil. -And dirty and scary and easy to make people hate it. The weapons thing was, I think ancillary. It's not like you couldn't build two kinds of reactor.
Imagine! Making people hate Genuine Free Energy.
The Chinese are building this thing for a while now, glad to hear it's working now.
I bet a lot of American politicians had a personal/financial interest in the oil industry as well.
I bet a lot more are currently making money off of renewables. Lots of money in Green Energy, if you get to make the rules.
@@michaelputnam2532 Na the boomers control all that and there completely lockrd into the fossil fuel industry.
This was how the war machine captured the US nuclear electric market.
@@michaelputnam2532 The push for renewables by politicians is linked to the fossil fuel industries. Look at countries like Germany or States in the US like CA, the less nuclear and the more renewables, the more coal plants that have to be turned on to compensate for the duck curve and inconsistencies of renewables for large scale power grids. Pushing for renewables over Nuclear is just a way to delay the death of fossil fuels as the primary source of energy production.
@@michaelputnam2532 It's the fossil energy companies' way to keep fossil energy alive. Look at Total campaign "Commited to Renewables, Commited to Gas" on this subject
So you're saying, the reason we can't have Thor reactors is that they don't make good cold war bombs? Crazy.
Only in 'Murica!
Well the government bureaucracy also stands in the way.. It goes like this.. "I'd like to build a thorium reactor". response from Govt "You cant build one because we dont have any data on them." They always demand something that can't exists until one is built and tested.
@@AIM54A Except, the reason we don't have the data on them (now) is that we have already sold the documentation, from ORNL Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, to the Communist Chinese... go figure!
@@surlyogre1476 it was open sourced not sold.
@@AIM54A lol that's not the reason it wasn't done. The reason it was never done is 100% coz the military wanted the biproducts of uranium enrichment.
If you pay attention to politics for more than 5 minutes, you figure out pretty quickly that the military industrial complex calls the shots.
Politicians are just the tools
It’s about damn time somebody started seriously making a thorium reactor it’s about damn time Way to go China!
I don't know if doing that is enough to cancel out everything they have done and are still doing. Wonder what happened to all those protestors and Hong Kong. Or them lying about the Olympics.
@@scorchinorphan1687 Can you see some positive news about China from your media？China will not do anything good in your news
@@cjzisgood I can and have, just the work camps and the killing of hundreds of people In them like this is the holocaust kinda make it seem like it's meaningless. Or the fact they keep fucking with other countries and show no interest in international law.
@@scorchinorphan1687 that's not the china I see, my friend. Don't be brainwashed by the western media who is causing all the chaos in the world and victimized china all along.
@@timall4her207 they literally have concentration camps, but I guess we forgot the Hong Kong Protesters because China gave them their freedoms and everything wanted and needed. Once again, they were still caught lying to their entire country saying they won the Olympics. It's like saying Western media brainwashed us to hate North Korea. They're bad counties, and you supporting it disgusts me. You don't care about the countless religious, Christians and Muslims included, people gathered up and put in work camps, or the fact it's been known China has been doing this for close to 2 years. They also continue to antagonize Japan, India, South Korea, and numerous other countries in the area by breaking international law, this isn't America they do it to, they do it to the countries all around them, and they have reported on it as well. Numerous of them have recorded sinking Chinese fishing vessels that had been watched and recorded going into other country waters to fish, then retreat into Chinese waters when caught/an attempt at calling them is made.
Also, you can feed nuclear waste from existing nuclear plants into the process and work it down into shorter half-life substances. And a lot of the by-products are rare sought after elements. Even in a world of free fusion energy, there is a place for these.
Especially usefull for starting up a fusion reactor
Scientists are finding new and better ways to dispose of the waste i believe that they discovered some type of bacteria feeding on the waste grom the tragic accident in Fukushima
@@anti-liberal7167 nature always finds a way to balance, even if that means it has to eradicate us.
@@notsure1350 Absolutely I've made the same argument with those who are freaking out over climate change Earth would find a way to Eradicate us before we do her
@@notsure1350 when talking about nature it is not a 'us against them' discussion. We are nature as much as we are part of it. If we want to solve any problems we will have to accept this. But as long as governments say god bless and alluh akbar after each speech we are doomed to destroy ourselves indeed
I love these longer, nearly 20-minute long videos -- and it's about thorium reactors! I love it!
Indeed 🤔 i love thorium molten salt technology
I agree. I really like these longer videos. I never heard of this technology before - great content!
Amazing how the lack of destructive use means what could have been a revolutionary, safe, environmentally friendly and abundant energy source, never came to fruition. Imaging how different the planet could be right now. Says alot about the human race
scientist: we have invented a safe, abundant source of energy that can be used in many conditions
politician: but can u turn it into a bomb
scientist: no, that's why it's so good-
politician: funding CANCELED
The problem with the human race us that while most of us are OK, a large proportion of the people who have a drive to power are psychopaths or sociopaths...
@@therearenoshortcuts9868 Agreed.
It says a lot about liberals. They saw the China Syndrome over 40 years ago and decided all nuclear is bad.
@@scottm7341
What they think is irrelevant in the next decade China is going to build Molton salt nuclear reactors they don't have a choice.
Anton, the diagrams you used for conventional uranium reactors were for PWR. You mentioned the hydrogen explosion at Fukushima. Those reactors were BWR type, and there is no steam generator in this reactor type. Steam generates in the reactor and directly drives the steam turbines. I agree that thorium is the way to go for nuclear energy.
I tend to agree.
Thorium when properly developed and implemented seems to have the potential to fill the obvious gap between green energy and consumption untill we figure out fusion.
As someone who protested against any form of nuclear decades ago I'm convinced we need fission to meet climate goals.
This type of reactor seem to avoid the obvious danger of current fission reactors. Waste that stays dangerous for millennia with human nature responsible for it's safe keeping.
And of course the fact it's very hard to make weapons grade fission material with these reactors.
There are steam generators in PWRs (thats how you get steam for your steam turbine lol) it is just on another loop "behind" the heatexchanger. Nevertheless, hydrogen is produced both in PWR and BWr under normal operation all the time via Zircaloy clading and water interaction and water molecule dissasociation by neutron flux. But I agree Gen IV and especially liquid fuel is the way to go.
you're right, it was difficult to find all of the diagrams I wanted for this video for security/copyright reasons. I had to use what I could find and had permission to use unfortunately
@@whatdamath Doesn't matter, you're still a wonderful person.
The gamma rays split any moisture in the air to H & O so this must be recombined using a heating system or the like. Not a problem in normal operations - Fukushima had no power to run an exhaust fan for removal
Molten salt reactors are not limited to only thorium, they can also use uranium and even the very dangerous, long-lived, transuranic waste generated by current reactors.
@Peter Rabbit It's deeper then politics, we cannot do anything truly interesting anymore, cultural malaise, and a risk averse society more interested in managed decline then any kind of greatness.
the point is that thorium reproduces.
it's called milking the thorium cow, and its biproducts can be used to treat cancer patients.
you CANNOT do this with other nuclear elements.
@@erikchristian3894 This dude got triggered over nothing. lol
@Peter Rabbit Yes, I caught the reference, I just find the red team/blue team stuff boring and unhelpful. Both teams are full of corrupt parasites.
@@A_piece_of_broccoli You can breed plutonium (which can also be used a fuel) with a uranium fueled molten salt reactor.
The oil cartel has so much power in the US, we could have had gas and diesel free vehicles and fossil fuel free energy long ago. People have developed things like this have disappeared before.
If there was money to be made someone would do it. Rich people know only greed. They have already formed Big Lithium (and the prices are going up). Thorium has promise but watch a real nuclear scientist talk about it, its not all roses.
Batteries are the real issue. Hard to go on road trips when it takes a long time for the battery to charge. Hybrids are the best of both worlds in that regard.
@@peterroberts4415 They are talking about Nikola Tesla's vision of the future. Not the car manufacturer.
But I hear ya on your point. I'm sure better minds than ours will figure that problem out one day.
Do you really think there were free energy? Are you a troll?
I have always wondered if the lack of thorium reactors for power generation was because directly after WW2 and the Cold War uranium nuclear was needed for plutonium. Afterwards it was, well we have the technology so why bother with thorium
it's harder to separate the bomb material (U233) from high gamma emitters (U232) that's why U238 was preferred to Th232 for breeder reactors.
@@csehszlovakze We take that as an affirmation that the primary driver was weapons development.
The world needs more clean energy, not more super-weapons. It's just so insane that we keep going along with this.
It was always politics as to why thorium was never done for commercial use.
According to other sources, Nixon killed the ORNL molten salt program because of lobbying from HPLW reactor manufacturers. Also the ORNL TMSR operated several thousand hours over a multi year period.
There were no real benefits in creating a whole new idunstry based on Thoruium.
One of the main problems that stopped the nuclear powered plane was was the weight, and size of shielding for the nuclear reactor. Although the Russian flew one without the shielding, contaminating the crew and the environment.
One of the main problems is Tellurium embrittlement and the need for graphite of which doesn't have the safest track record and makes it expensive to build and maintain.
There have been a few nuclear powered planes. A Russian bomber and a few US black projects. Also a defunct VTOL (vertical takeoff landing) plane from the 1950's.
Never did solve the shielding problems (as far as i know.)
I understand that the Soviet version eventually killed the pilots…not enough safety due to weight of sheilding
@@paulmobleyscience the graphite problem, known as Wigner energy, doesn’t exist in a LIFTR because they run hot enough the displacements can return to the lattice. That’s how these were “resolved” in Windscale, by heating the graphite up enough to release the energy.
Another big problem with nuclear aircraft is in the event of an accident. Like 70% of airliner accidents are at take off or landing, and airports are directly next to populated areas for convenience. A nuclear accident would condemn the whole airport and would be huge risk to the neighboring city.
Nuclear aircraft really only make sense for specific military applications (SR-69) or space applications ;) While hydrogen or electric aircraft make more sense for civil.
🤔 I find it ironic that the millitary saw no use for thorium, when as a portable power source it could power exoframes, lasers, rail guns, and other millitary grade toys.
The military did, but thought it was a pointless investment. Why research better weapons when you can invest in a one-time bomb you can use to threaten everyone into doing what you want?
My god you are both so....stupid! Did you miss a UA-cam turn or something?
@@LordZordid your comment, being completely void of anything even resembling meaning, is laughably dismissable. Why did you bother?
@@LordZordid I'm open to suggestions on how I can add wrinkles to my brain. If you have none, then stfu.
@@patrioticwhitemail9119 You are correct that they tested the above mentioned. They have tried and tested everything. What it boils down to is cost and availability. Your comment is infantile when the technology clearly isn't there and you're not taking the political landscape back then into account. It's not like they put all their eggs in one basket. The millitary applications of today is clear evidence of that.
U.S. Government: "So, what makes this thorium so special."
Engineers: "Well, it works just as well as uranium, it can't be used to make weapons..."
U.S. Government: "Yeah, we're not interested. We only fund things that go boom here."
Funny but inaccurate, it couldn’t be scaled down to fit in a sub & it is very proficient in “nuke cooking”
@@braindamaged1700 interesting 🤔, would it have been about losing money, if it was made eventually, for use in cars etc?, just thinking aloud, as i know nothing about it, and you seem to know more than i do 😂
It wasn't about that. It was about long-term profit made from the solid fuels. For instance, GE could build your reactor at cost, but you're locked in to buying fuel rods from them for the life of the reactor. This doesn't (and can't) happen with MSRs. MSR/LFTR fuel is literally just salt mixed with thorium and some uranium, and not much else. Almost anyone can make the fuel, unlike the proprietary fuel rods that are necessary for a regular, uranium-fueled nuclear reactor.
@@davegrenier1160 I mean it’s not table salt, it’s thorium fluoride, so it’s going to have a bit of a manufacturing process. But yeah it’s not going to be proprietary or extremely expensive like solid fuel.
Maybe 50 years ago. Today the US (and Russia as well as UK) is under treaty obligation to destroy quite a bit of their excess weaponsgrade Plutonium, and noone really knows what to do with it. These reactors (fast spectrum reactors) could use it as part of their fuel.
What ‘went wrong’ was we turned towards nuclear weaponry as our focus all these decades. Like space-planes and smarter space travel was neglected for ballistic missile technologies. Such a deal.
Exactly correct.
The operators on the Thorium reactor at Los Alamos were bored. It was too easy to run. Never any problems.
But, compared to Uranium reactors, the isotopes Thorium reactors produce are massively inconvenient for weapons. Not impossible, mind. But seriously massively inconvenient. So we got Uranium.
bingo
No. People chose not to invest in it. You for example could have, you didn't. I am assuming you aren't a prisoner atm. You can go out tomorrow and start work on one.
@@chrisallum9044 huge complex problems like "the system" aren't solved by a "gung ho pull your bootstraps up" attitude. that shit gets nobody anywhere. at some point we're gonna have to look at ourselves (not you alone, us collectively) in the mirror and own up to actually solving problems instead of expecting one super genius to just show up with all the solutions cuz he "worked really hard at it".
@@chrisallum9044 And have FBI and nuclear regulatory commission and fcc at my door detecting any emissions during transfer. I’d like to work on one but the legallity involved is harder than getting space launches approved
This was a very well organized and interesting summary of this technology.
Im so glad you liked it, thanks for watching
Lol
Yes, that is Anton's style. He is doing a great job.
Except he forgot the dark side of the topic...
@@eagle1de227 Which is...?
Well Anton is one of the brightest scientist in the world today.
This is the best explanation of thorium vs uranium reactors i could find. No politics, it is also up to date, with added sources for further reading. We couldn't ask for more. China is on right path, hope other countries will learn from their lesson about producing energy for civilian use.
It is a uranium reactor. It coverts Thorium-232 which is non fissile to U-233 which is fissile.
@@Narukosaki Rhodium has nothing to do with thorium reactors, except for maybe being found in traces.
Yes, U233 is fissionable fuel coming from neutron bombardment of Th232 which then becomes Th233. Through beta decays it becomes U233, being fissionable it is used as a fuel in this kind of reactors.
@@codaalive5076 I apologize I did not see my phone's autocorrect Miss corrected of course it's thorium
I though so. What's important is people realising we won't survive in the long term without going full nuclear. At this point it doesn't even matter if PWRs are starting point because we might already be too late. Sun and other stuff is a joke made for rich to exploit poor.
@@codaalive5076 or new form of generating energy is developed