Useful timecodes: 00:00 DOE changes regarding Molten Salt Reactors. 01:34 Multitude of Molten Salt Reactor companies and designs. 03:36 Kirk analogy between PC revolution and pending MSR revolution. 04:36 Why do some MSR use Thorium but most do not? 08:35 How can academia help MSR effort? Research of value to everyone? 09:27 We need students who have played with salt. Skills for students? 10:17 Electromotive series. Separate Fission Products. 11:48 Chloride salts vs Fluoride salts. 12:22 MSRE experience with Fluoride Salts, Graphite, Hastelloy-N. 12:58 Acquiring U233 (Uranium-233) to seed LFTR. 2 Inventories. 13:31 Online chemical reprocessing embraced with LFTR. Proliferation? 16:07 Multiple revenue streams, not just sale of electricity. 19:38 Electricity generation seeing lack of innovation. (Time traveler.) 22:39 Carbon tax challenges. Kirk sees energy remaining inexpensive. 25:20 Wind and solar using grid as battery, the biggest subsidy. 26:51 Biggest challenge is not engineering, is communication. 27:40 Techno-optimism vs dystopia fiction. 30:10 Positive messages: We live longer lives. Cancer challenge. 31:25 Messages being heard that Thorium is not just energy. 32:07 DOE meetings Advanced Energy means Molten Salt Reactors. 33:20 Funding remains hardest challenge. DOE GAIN $2.6 Million PNNL. 33:56 Nitrogen Tri-Fluoride. NF3. Extract Uranium from Molten Salt. 34:38 Student? Exciting developments to work on.
Where is the part of the machine that cooks bacon? We need a Bacon Loop, built into the secondary heat exchange, in the lunchroom. Pizza ovens between pipes...
I think Gordon McDowell should as well, if it were not for Gordon we wouldn't even be here discussing Thorium, so thank you, Gordon McDowell, we couldn't have gotten anywhere in bringing Thorium up if not for you.
I think the "If" question is no longer a question. We're now down to "when". Yes, Kirk, Alvin Weinberg, and Gordon deserve massive appreciation from humankind. Humankind just does not yet know it. It will.
Kirk Sorensen is extremely unique. Besides being brilliant, he is remarkable articulate. A rare combination.................... He's the right person at the right time.............. Keep an eye on this guy...............
Yes James Hanson is a great scientist but back in 1988 was not so great as a PR man he is a lot better now. Scientist need to go to Toastmaster and train themselfs on PR and become like "spin doctors" sad but true.
Found Kirk Sorensen in 2009, he really championed nuclear to me as a viable ace of spades option against fickle renewable powers. This practically lost art of non-fallout LFTR tech that was invented by Oak Ridge Nat Labs for keeping strategic nuclear bombers of the pre-ICBM era in indefinite flight readiness for tense cold war situations. Strange how this almost this forgotten invention may be the stepping stone we need to slow destroying our biodome until we can create more effective solutions.
The strange thing though is that they are re-using spent fuel at the INL facility. This smells of some wealthy elitists trying to score big on government dollars. I dunno; I read a lot of nuclear physics stuff. There really isn't a problem. Activists pretending to be smart made a problem that stupid politicians listened to.
Something's not adding up here. Kirk says that MSRs aren't profitable enough to attract investment - but apparently HC plants are. Does this evaluation include all the subsidies, direct and indirect, for HC based power plants (including drilling subsidies, wars for control of oil fields, etc., etc.)? How have all our power plants historically been built? Have they always been subsidized? If so, then why haven't MSR reactors yet been subsidized?
My uncle worked at Oak Ridge and I've always at least casually followed what they have done since childhood. So proud that Kirk is doggedly pursuing his dream.
@@NerdyNEET I tell you what. You give them the trillions of dollars needed to develop it and the 100s of trillions of dollars to clean up their messes without harming us and we will talk. After 70 years of being the most subsidized industry in the world and nuclear energy is still not safe and still not economical and still hasn't disposed of a thimbleful of the incredibly toxic waste than will be dangerous for more than a million years. Still telling lies and insulting anyone not foolish enough to believe them and pay for their unbelievably expensive mistakes.
I thought I was going to die before these technologies were implemented. Now it seems that funding is available, and the political will is materializing. Great job Kirk, your dedication has been successful. Nothing could make me happier for you and Flibe Energy.
I'm so glad to see this technology finally getting some attention. I've been following Mr. Sorensen for quite some time and his enthusiasm is contagious. It's hard not to agree because there are so many positives. Nuclear got a bum rap because bad men wanted the boom boom instead of cheap safe energy.
I have followed the progress on the evolution of LFTR designs & the history by Kirk Sorensen & was enamored by the quality of concept, safety design, flexibility of products produced, the safe, energy productive elimination of the standard fissile products from Uranium & plutonium, as well as the nearly complete burn-up of U & PU. Thank You Kirk! FREE
I've been following Kirk and the LFTR design for a while and I'm glad to see that some progress has been made and Kirk has been awarded some funding. It's hard to believe that billionaires don't care enough to throw some money his way. The greedy just want to be richer than they already are, it's frustrating!
It was Gordon's videos on Kirk Sorenson that got me excited about LFTR. So, I enjoy watching Kirk Sorenson updates! Let see Kirk's new lab. Is Flibe able to prototype the chemical extraction?
This is an awesome way of thinking and I hope the right people get on board with this technology. I totally agree in the LFTR process and am following the development programs closely.
I am looking at the future of nuclear energy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. I don't see anything.
This changes everything! really want to see Kirk succeed...Mr Sorensen has always been the face of the 'Thorium movement' in my mind... he's grown more 'sophisticated'...: ) always a great teacher of nuclear physics, LFTR tech... now I can hear his "political diplomacy" chops... 'sales/marketing' legs (which can be confounding as nuclear physics at times!... '; P Kirk is becoming wise, government/corporations finally giving him recognition (and funds!) he deserves... let's not forget, even Microsoft rode to success on the back of IBM... (by leasing DOS...) that is how it's done...
Kirk-Thank you for your continued leadership in the Th Molten salt nuclear reactor evolution. I am a retired professor of organic chemistry who has followed the efforts of your community to overcome the political obstacles to modern nuclear. I totally agree with your assessment of the difficulty of getting risk venture money into your arena. However, your focus on medical isotopes COMBINED WITH THE PROMISE OF CONSUMPTION OF OUR STOCKPILE OF NUCLEAR WASTES should attract huge public support. The cost of ANY of the stored nuclear waste products is going to be born by the government, and if you build this into your business plan with an aggressive PR program, I believe your objective will be realized. Clearly you have thought about this, but simply consider the power of the social network to multiply a well-crafted message. Best of luck.
The nukies have been slowly and steadily spending all of the public's money and destroying their own credibility for the last generation. You have none left. Wall Street won't touch nuclear with a ten foot pole and the public is tired of throwing good money into nuclear meltdowns. After seventy years of the biggest business failure in human history it is time to stop wasting money and lives on nuclear.
@@jackfanning7952 Bro, if you think nuclear is so big and scary, with about 30 deaths directly attributed from all of history (Chernobyl) … Then look up the estimated _yearly_ deaths globally from air pollution, it’s over 100,000 according to World Health Org - the real enemies to human health are coal, oil & nat gas💡
@@jackfanning7952 “losing credibility & spending all the public’s money” - if you’re talking about fusion you have a good point. Fission has been paying for itself for over 50 years and is poised to take the next big leap 💫
@@robertweekes5783 I am not your bro and nuclear advocates have been lying about bthe number of deaths due to nuclear energy since the beginning...with the help of the World Health Organization. Beside, the WHO has a better weapon of mass destruction now, developed at the Wuhan Lab with taxpayer dollars by Fauci and his minions.
And thanks to Kirk Sorensen for creating that interest & enthusiasm. Thanks too to Gordon McDowell for his selfless work in getting this message out to the public. UA-cam has contributed, if not made possible, this gigantic dissemination of information about LFTRs/MSRs. Kudos to all!
Heh, tired yes. Remarkable that they keep going though. What if it's all just an elaborate experiment by some aliens, they tell some guys how to solve all our energy problems, but then brain wash some other guys with more power to squash the whole thing, then sit back and wait to see if we ever recover..
I’m trying to work and listen to Kirk and found I just had to hold the phone in my hand while I’m getting my tools together. I couldn’t break away from his talking!
Can wait for next progress. I deeply believe that nuclear power is the future! Although it'll be really hard to success. Because I can imagine all the lobbing around coal, oil and gas field - government, big companies even the media against this incredible move forward.
A huge opportunity for Australia to embrace Molten Salt Reactors. We have the space, the reserves of Thorium but our government is still pushing coal and gas power generation......
There's a hopefully useful video here on Australian nuclear: ua-cam.com/video/nKiUR5gg240/v-deo.html ...I've used a bit of Ben Heard in my 6.5h Thorium video and pretty much enjoyed his talks any time he's caught on video.
War is racketeering. Oil and Gas are an integral part of the last 120 years of man made conflict. The Sun is nuclear the core of the earth is nuclear. Neaclear is peace, Peace is the fundamental essence of matter. I hope Someone would: Build One NOW! 4:48 until 6:21 Cheap 5:50 Fast it is all in there Safe it is all in there
Kirk hit the nail on the head about Australia. No politician will make a long term decision that will have them thrown out short term, eg carbon tax. Could you really think of an Australian politician saying we are going to get on the front line with development and widespread use of gen 4 nuclear energy. Too many coal / oil / gas votes out there. We will eventually have them, (nuclear power plants) but they will have ‘made in China’ on the data plate.
Gordon, Glad to see a new MSR video. Also very glad to see progress on MSR development. I have regularly sent letters to government officials urging them to develop MSR. Kirk may find DR Jerry Tennats' book on Healing is Voltage as well as his You Tube videos on the same topic interesting. He talks about Alzheimer's, He has the best handle on why we get sick and how to cure it than anyone else I have seen, and I have been researching health issues for over 30 years. Thought about it and decided to post this separately from my previous post. Also IMO the reason progress stopped so quickly after the 1960's was due to the deep state Globalists realizing that they needed to keep their monopoly on energy and oil to make lots more money. So they shut down all that they could. Shutting down the MSR development was a part of it.
Kirk I hope you can pitch Thorium LFTR reactors for a Multitasking type facility. I speak to so many people to inform friends and family about yours and my vision for the future. Like women that are in our lives, they the LFTR reactors like the women in our lives could do so much for our civilization. We will see a change very soon, I’m glad to see the new advancements in this field. Keep up your good work. 👍
You would think that the traditional power companies would be eager to fund this research, to enable long term profitability. They subsidize solar. Certainly they are aware of the potential that Thorium would provide. Is it just that greed, making that profit right now, is more important than even future profits and viability? I really hope this technology is developed into usable reactors in the next few years, for America to take the lead should be a no-brainer.
Is there exploration of LFTR peaker plants? Traditional nuclear is used for baseline. If there is a LFTR that can only perform in shirt runs it would still be valuable in the peaked space. Considering renewables LFTR could contribute for 4 hours of peak usage in the evening or be available for 4 days of polar vortex. I understand that doing baseline is preferred for cost reasons but there are profitable spaces in peaking. I'm not saying LFTR should never be used for baseline rather I have not seen discussion on the peaking part of the market.
Going from non-radioactive thorium to radioactive uranium created from neutron bombardment of non-radioactive thorium is well... more insanity. Your lifetime might be very short and your wallet much thinner.
If Kirk Sorensen can get a MSR with the chemical processing and separation down, he will have a revenue machine. He will be providing the world so many needed chemical products besides just heat and electric.
Ten years ago, I was in despair. My thinking at the time was: PWR's / LWR's will probably never get over the scientific illiteracy and public relations hurdle (although that may be changing), solar and wind have an utterly undeserved "darling" reputation and will never scale up to meet the needs of humankind, and yet we must stop burning things to keep energy poverty and human slavery at bay. And, my mother too was afflicted by dementia (now deceased) Then I watched a youtube vid of Kirk giving a google tech-talk about Thorium and Fluid-Fueled reactors. At its conclusion my heart was filled with hope for humankind. My optimism for humanity was lifted to the sky that day, and it remains there today. Thank you Kirk, for all that you have done to raise awareness and move the Thorium ball forward ! (BTW, that 1.5" ball of "garden variety" Thorium can power you entire life at US standards, folks!!!) Kirk, I am sad to see you looking so somber when being interviewed one-on-one by Gordon, but heartened to listen to your closing speech. If you ever need encouragement, I will give it to you without reservation - any day of the week, any time of day.
Hope he reads this comment. We were TIRED more-so than somber. To the point there's some humorous back-and-forth about it but I didn't want to distract from the LFTR / Flibe discussion by including it. If I ever post that moment of video I'll share it at you.
It's really fascinating watching people who really know what they're talking about go on and on. The lingo is so specialized that anyone who isn't in the field can't add anything at all useful the conversation.
Natural resources and services are estimated to be worth $125 trillion per year to the human economy. But we don't charge fees to industries when they put pollution or deplete resources. So prices give bad information about what the real costs are of what we do. When we make prices honest (charge appropriate fees), industries and consumers will pursue sustainable options. Sharing proceeds from fees to all people would end poverty. Biological Model for Politics and Economics: gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2010/03/biological-model-for-politics-and.html
Tax, in general, sucks. The thing with nuclear energy though is that the current systems are great. The strange thing though is that they are re-using spent fuel at the INL facility. This smells of some wealthy elitists trying to score big on government dollars. I dunno; I read a lot of nuclear physics stuff. There really isn't a problem. Activists pretending to be smart made a problem that stupid politicians listened to. ...Still, I wonder which one of them owns land that has a lot of resources.
My hope is that 10 years or so down the line, Universities start making degree programs that combine nuclear and chemical engineering to serve the demands of a growing Molten Salt Reactor industry. My second hope is that they dub this an 'Alchemical Engineering Degree'
Good shit. A few points: 1. Korea is building PWR for $5B, meaning a payback of 10 years, not 20. No doubt could you improve on this with a MSR. 2. Kirk should try to explore crowd funding if he has money problems. I wouldn't mind investing a few thousand dollars, even if I couldn't touch it for say ten years.
For electrochemistry in fluoride salts, is Hastelloy (or other nickel superalloys) suitable as an electrode to separate all conceivable elements/species, or are tungsten or zirconium suitable?
great work Gordon...........thanks for the video. We need Thorium and we need it soon. The continued progress of mankind relies on cheap,abundant energy to maintain standard of living and to overcome the conflict surrounding resources which is being used every day for gross manipulation of politics.
The issue we have with some renewable technology is we don't build machines to be recycled we say it is and it can be, but we don't do it because the amount of energy to disassemble and recycle it is more expensive than buying new materials.LFTR's aren't subject to weather conditions or use of external storage to support the power grid.With new electric cars we will need to double the power grid to cope with charging of transport vehicles.
Few questions, What was Kirk going to say? When he reached for the microphone. "He can't talk about It there"? 🤔 Is there a video of the London visit he references?
Yes good to see movement in MSR programs here. It really is about the hearts and minds over the tech to get this going. Fukushima is the elephant in the room, even though it is different , and outmoded tech. I just wonder if we have time before we suffer from the death by carbon.
Artistically I like the guy being interviewed in the garden with a water feature more than the driving around in cars or moving around on trams stuff you do in other videos: it's relaxing and has a nice herbal vibe that might help bring in the light green hippies. :-)
Generally there's no time to plan stuff like that out. Dr. Holcomb was a rare exception where my whole day was dedicated to that interview as I waited for my flight. (Whatever happened to red-eye flights!? I want to hop on a plane at 10pm and sleep through the flight. No-can-do.) Visually I'd like to try a bike-ride interview but the wind would probably ruin it.
@@gordonmcdowell Cheers man, I hear you on activist-beggers-can't-be-choosers. If *only* you were fully funded with a whole team to produce state of the art, award winning docos! Thanks for the fantastically valuable work you've already done. You give me hope.
I'm an engineering student, working towards a double major in Nuclear and mechanical engineering. Your comment caught my eye. I've been doing a lot of reading. Isotopically pure si-28 has a really low chance at absorbing thermal neutrons, and even when it does, it remains silicon. That is untill it absorbs a total of 3 neutrons, at which point it may undergo beta decay. The beta decay produces Phosphorus. What I find conceptually interesting is that the semiconductor industry has infrastructure to produce large mono-crystaline boules of silicon. To me, that screams perfect pipe material. However the fluorinated state of pure silicon _could_ make it an incompatible material. I wanted to ask what you have seen that dissuades you from your idea about silicon nitride. If you have any links, that would be great!
@@retovath It was just a sort of a flash thought, not something I've given extended time too. But apparently Hydrofluoric acid eats Silicon Nitride, (and most silicates unfortunately). My concern was that if we end up with the molten fuel becoming too high in PH the material would undergo excessive wear / failure. I was interested in Silicon Nitride for it's mechanical strength, hardness, and high melting point (1900 ℃ ).
@UCCvIh8u46Wm-ZslruCN_tOA What you were saying about Si-28, might be very handy, should we have a need to incorporate the turbine house inside a containment structure. Silicon Nitride bearings are already making inroads into consumer equipment. Though this wouldn't necessarily help if the coolant is already Helium, which is my personal preference.
I'm sorry but I don't get the point Mr. Sorensen makes at 18:33: "... if you remove krypton and xenon from the reactor, then that changes how they would have otherwise decayed in other fission products." How is that possible?
How do you heat the molten fluoride, is it simple resistive heaters in the bottom of the vessel, so if it cools down, is it hours to get it up and running (runny) again or days, can you use it as a peaked plant ? If we are using solar would it not be sensible to run grids East to West to extended the daylight hours input ? How do you refine Thorium, surely you can't just dump the ore in the molten salt bath, as it has to be kept incredibly pure, with no oxides. Can you contain the molten fluoride in normal stainless steel vessels ? How do you Fire in the neutrons ?
Is the ThF4 melted in a vacuum or are there compatible vapors? Is there any data on gasses soluble in the molten salt? Am I mistaken thinking of it as a kind of solvent? Chemistry is not one of my strengths. Any other materials besides the graphite and that special steel that are long term compatible? How about SiO2? Any other properties that are publicly available? The comment about electrochemistry picked my interest from the instrumentation perspective.
The central idea about Fluoride salts is that by bonding every element to a Fluorine atom, they become individual inert molecules that can be easily separated from other salt molecules of different weight. Tall tank vessels can separate either liquids or vapors. Separation by molecular weight is commonly done in oil refineries. Centrifuges can increase the rate of separation, which is most important if the molecules are similar in weight or are co-soluble. The final step is to remove the fluorine atoms by providing an element far more reactive to Fluorine than the refined product.
Hi everyone I want to share with you that I found this video so inspiring that I finally decided to dedicate my life to make this future possible. I'm from Argentina so I'm going to study the science of communication in order to get this information to the people that most need to join our fight for a brighter future the youngest. Thank you for reading this.
That is awesome. Yay, communication. If you haven't heard "You Are Not So Smart" podcast, that's my own go-to source on communications and why people believe what they believe. Is nothing nuclear, but a lot of communication challenges are tribal or self-blinders and it gets one thinking about those aspects.
@@gordonmcdowell I've been checking out the channel and I enjoyed it pretty much thank you. I can imagine that in order to achieve this goal we'll have to discover several ways to deliver a message that connects the hearts and minds of the people in order to make them realize that making the future of our world better is a must mindset. As you said it's nothing nuclear, so I will remain hopeful and try my best to unfold those blindfolds to show people that we need this to happen. keep up the good work, you are doing great!
In a 2 fluid system that was proposed I have noticed that graphite is used as a moderator and for structural support to separated fuel from the blanket salt. I have listened to other videos from Gordon McDowell, and one of them was from Dr. Stephen Boyd where he was talking about not using silicon carbide in the molten salt reactor back in 2013 when the video was published. In that video he mentions that graphite cannot be used because it is not a structural material and it will fall apart. Graphite also swells and contracts under high neutron flux which causes cracks. If this is really the case then how would it be possible to build a 2 fluid reactor where graphite is used? If graphite is used, how long would the graphite last inside the reactor until it would eventually need replacement and what would be the cost of replacing it? Can irradiated graphite be recycled whether it has structural damage or not? Are there any other proposed materials that can act as a moderator and for structural support to separate the fuel and the blanket salt other than graphite that can handle the environment inside the MSBR.
Dr. Stephen Boyd's observations is criticized in that the silicon carbide issue was probably detected in poorly manufactured SiC. Yes, the graphite in a thermal-spectrum MSBR will change size and have a finite life-span. As a structural material though, it is separating 2 fluids of basically identical pressure and supported at top and bottom... it isn't a load-bearing thing. I'd love to hear more of Kirk defending graphite too, but you'll note some attacks (like John Kutsch) saying Kirk doesn't have a "magical material" which can seperate the fluids... John should know Kirk is using graphite (Kirk has always planned on graphite) but I-MSR uses graphite for moderation purposes... so John isn't going to strongly dis graphite when they're using graphite too.
@@gordonmcdowell, thanks for the reply How long will the graphite in a thermal-spectrum reactor last until it will eventually have to be replaced, and what would be the cost of replacing it, not only as a moderator in a 2 fluid system, but as a barrier between the blanket and the fuel salt? Can irradiated graphite be recycled and/or repaired whether it has structural damage or not? Are there any other proposed materials that can be used besides graphite which can be used as a barrier between the blanket and fuel salt, and/or as a moderator? Silicon Carbide has been thrown around, but that is still questionable.
@@stanm25 Stanislav...you might be interested in looking Terrestrial Energy's (www.terrestrialenergy.com) design (the I-MSR that Gordon mentions). They decided to design around the 'life span' of graphite. They propose running their reactor core for 4 years and then setting it aside for 1-2 years for cooling. You would then return the reactor to them for refurbishment and reprocessing of the salt. I think Kirk is designing for replacement of the graphite in the reactor. I think this is something that Oak Ridge Labs explored as part of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment.
Kirk says Chlorides cannot convert Stored Nuclear Fuel to chloride salt fuel. Elysium, ANL, and INL already converted burned MOX SNF to chloride salt fuel a year ago. Since we actually reduced it to practice, INL marked the report Export controlled. We are trying to get that fixed with INL.
it would be interesting to find out how the dangerous, dirty uranium/plutonium reactors were chosen to be developed over salt-based in the first place. Oak Ridge proved the salt concept was possible in the 60's...
It wasn’t one talk. There was a too-short technical one and the techno-optimist one. The only moment which plays straight well is the forum and I do intend to edit that for iThEO to show its entirety. Nothing technical was cut, I can tell ya.
Build One NOW! 4:48 until 6:21 Cheap 5:50 Fast Safe Scalable No proliferation Export them to the world Make Diesel with them Make water with them Make fertilizers with them Recycle plastics with them Kick ass around the world Go Thorcon GO! We need the next generation
in Kirk's original concept, which is close to Alvin Weinbberg's the separation of Protactinium -233 -232 -231 and it's decay to U , outside of the reactor is essential and very recommendable. I would like to take this a step further: the electrolytic cell, where the HF is split back to H2 and F2 should be followed (at least in a bypass-stream ) by centrifugal isotope-separation of Deuterium and Tritium from 1H1H. It is possible to do it by kind of nano-filtration , too (AAAS Science magazine 1, January 2016, p68) ! Then there should be some research about how to use T economical, until there is a real demand for T from fusion-tokamaks! Maybe using Tritium instead of protons in a spallation_neutron generator would be quite effective. Making MSR-Th-breeders more neutron-abundant and have a safer margin from power- excursion! As late nuclear inventor Alvin Weinberg said: Tritium would have to be sequestered, eventually. I think MSRs should be considered more as an exothermal chemical-plant, than a pure power-plant.
This is 2 short talks and a forum discussion combined. (And, obviously, an interview.) Neither talk really worked on its own, with a great deal of winding-up and winding-down and talk about lunch and being sleep deprived. People who backed my Patreon project have access to the full day capture, complete with empty-room-cameras-running. The forum discussion will be released in full soon, but not the 2 short talks. If you want a talk that worked as delivered, it was the ORNL MSR Worshop NF3 talk: ua-cam.com/video/E6xu4QhMkD8/v-deo.html ...which preceded this one.
SANSA Clip+ devices. They do not timestamp. They are kinda crap, but fast to deploy. I've looked for inexpensive replacement and only found worse. (Ammoon made a light-blue similar thing more recently buyable on eBay.) Biggest prob is most cheap recorders overmodulate the audio. These Clip+ have Rockbox installed, only way to get 44kHz and control recording level as factory (SanDisk?) firmware is 22kHz and too loud. I'd consider a replacement but would need to be small. For walk-and-talk have tried AirPods but sound is meh. ua-cam.com/video/YR1o2M8ZLb4/v-deo.html
@@gordonmcdowell Lol, does the job excellently! Really nice effect circling back through different conversations occurring simultaneously. Wish you could patent that!
Can both heat and other more profitable products be produced jointly and "synergistically" in a MSR, or are the two more or less mutually exclusive in their use of MSR capacity? And how the hell can an energy source as insanely productive as nuclear, in the safer and apparently very adaptable MSR context, be more expensive than burning any kind of hydrocarbons?
FP can be pulled out of an MSR using online chemistry... that's the point of Chemical Kidney is some FP are valuable but some FP will stall reactor (absorb neutrons) so they need to be taken out continually anyway. Hydrocarbons (such as natural gas) require very little hardware to harness, and the regulatory process for nuclear takes time and money to get thru. Nuclear fuel (even LEU) isn't expensive, but then in many cases neither is coal or natural gas. Electricity is cheap, and it is the cost of hardware which is a primary consideration for utilities... not the cost of fuel.
@@gordonmcdowell Thanks. I think I understand. I say tax new hydrocarbon plant construction until MSR is a better investment, then temporarily increase subsidies for MSR until it's more attractive (also restart heavy metal mining so that Thorium is basically free). If MSR power plants are a no brainer, as it appears to me, then banks should be able to lend at rates as good or better than those for low credit risk home loans. After MSR gains a foothold and public acceptance, increase carbon taxes until hydrocarbons at least pay their own externality costs. And let's start some public banks, which might be more willing to invest in projects with long range economic benefits.
Something's not adding up here. Kirk says that MSRs aren't profitable enough to attract investment - but apparently HC plants are. Does this evaluation include all the subsidies, direct and indirect, for HC based power plants (including drilling subsidies, wars for control of oil fields, etc., etc.)? How have all our power plants historically been built? Have they always been subsidized? If so, then why haven't MSR reactors been subsidized?
There's a point in the conversation when Kirk mentioned the advancement of technology. He brings up the fact that nuclear hasn't changed as much as a server farm which would be very different from what it was 50 years ago. In his example he brings up a point that he doesn't quite touch on enough which is when things go wrong with that technology the only thing that happens is nothing. If the phone breaks or if the network goes down it stops working now that might cause other things to go wrong like airplane towers not talking to each other and the like but the device itself just stops working. Much the same way if a nuclear power plant stops working it's bad because it keeps on doing its thing until it gets under control. A thorium reactor on the other hand is like a cell phone when it stops when something goes wrong it just stops working. The safety is inherent.
Nonsense. Onshore wind is the cheapest way of producing energy. Period. Solar is catching up and the battery storage and EV revolution will make them mainstream. But it won't be enough, so existing nuclear and new thorium will also be needed.
@sgg You are living in the past and unable to see what is happening right before your eyes. Watch Tony Seba's presentation on Clean Disruption. Decarbonization must happen within years not decades and the EV and battery revolution will accelerate deployment of renewables.
@sgg You seem to know what you're talking about and I'm a bit new to the topic, so I'm curious what is your take on tidal power which is more regular and consistent than solar and wind?
I want one of these scaled down to produce 8-10kw for one or two houses perhaps in a shipping container in the back yard. Can this be scaled? Then we could really create personal autonomy in our cultures. What Kirk says at 3:37 about having a vision? I have a vision of a culture based in personal power autonomy. Virtually no transmission losses. Private self sufficient people free to be their own producer.
As long as the nuclear and petroleum lobbies govern the world, there is little change for thorium implementation! Only strong political will and knowledgeable citizens can change things!
Honest question spilling over from another forum if anyone can chime in. Is there enough fissile (fissible sp?) Or useable Thorium? I only ask, as for the first time in years an internet user said there isn't.
There's not a lot of U-233 the preferred fissile. Kirk is confident he can secure enough for a pilot reactor and will test the pilot while creating more U-233 for a fleet. The plan was to use LFTR-49 for that although not sure if that still is plan articles.thmsr.nl/the-flibe-energy-lftr49-the-triple-ace-in-nuclear-gen-iv-design-ea9bffcd71dd As far as enough-thorium (enough fertile) yes, there's enough thorium to fuel human's energy needs. Any breeder reactor where fertile-and-not-fissile is used for fuel would have access to basically infinite energy resources.
Sooo, why hasn't india been included in the non-proliferation treaty? They have the first operational thorium reactor yet everyone ignores what they could do with it? Not to mention very little international attention is given to thorium in comparison to uranium in terms of research and understanding...
India's developing AHWR www.barc.gov.in/reactor/ahwr.pdf and not LFTR. It uses solid MOX fuel containing Thorium. Good different approaches are being tried, but won't be as efficient as LFTR... basically they'll put up with that because it is similar to conventional reactors but India has lots of Thorium.
@@gordonmcdowell of course, it's cheaper and puts out relatively the same power, tho I'd be concerned with the spent fuel processing to enrich u-233. LFTR seems exciting tho, hopefully their including betavoltaic materials in their research, tapping into just the heat aspect of nuclear energy is kinda a waste considering what even spent fuel and graphite puts off.
@@Drake5153 Graphite is solid so recycling it into useful material would be more complex than Fission Products in the salt, thought I still hope it is pursued in the future. I agree even heat generated by FP could be useful... all today's reactors already harness FP heat, with FP being extracted in LFTR hopefully that heat can be put to use where an entire reactor would not be suitable... possibly a something like a micro-reactor but without the actual fission taking place, just FP heat.
VRtechman MP3 players. Sansa Clip+ loaded with Rockbox firmware. Used to be an inexpensive solution but they aren’t so cheap anymore. Old things hard to find. Big stashes of cheap refurbs depleted.
In June of 2022, Tommy Tuberville, (R-Ala), introduced the Thorium Secrutity Act of 2022. It is aimed at ordering the halt of the DOEs destruction of the Throium bound U233 that is stockpiled from the 60s product. The U.S. is exclusive in this possession of this important seeding material.
Has Sorensen given presentations to AOC et al. (for the resolution on climate change) on MSRs? I think they're reasonable people and would appreciate info from non-PWR sources.
I hate when these shows that should be a simple interview because they have the interesting material but the director wants to bounce around 2-3 angles on 4 different people saying a sentence each at a time.
Are you referring to the panel discussion? It is, in full, here: ua-cam.com/video/2x7do-_MTD0/v-deo.html ...and that's part of the ThEC2018 Playlist which is here: ua-cam.com/play/PLKfir74hxWhPll2rp9pJO2oiCceFccHls.html
in Kirk's (best )ThMSR-Design the Pa233 decays outside in a separate tank to U233. in Your interview with Jean-Pierre Revol at CERN (where I got the idea for my proposals), he mentioned that this U-fuel addition needs to be done at the same temperature as is in the reactor-core, for not disturbing reactivity, but maintaining the negative criticality coefficient ( 21:10 in that interview). So Kirk's concept needs an extra heater for fuel-addition at appropriate temperature. An accelerator augmented reactor seems to need a lead target, to produce the neutrons. Would the hot, liquid lead be compatible with FLiBe, wouldn't it react to [ Fl- Pb+] ? Could Spallation-Neutrons be produced outside the reactor and then transfered to the Core? (ask experts at the Munich - Garching MPI-Forschungs-Reaktor ! ) Are other target materials feasible? I still adhere to this accelerator augmented breeder, because of the promised versatility and safety. What would magnetic fields do to FLiBe? Would the reactor be EMP-proof?
Are you insinuating the reactor is a bomb? Because to-date it has been the chemistry of water which has led to the propulsive force which spreads radioactive isotopes during accidents (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima) and not any nuclear-bomb type behavior. Reactors, even conventional reactors, can not function like nuclear bombs. If you believe that then you've been mislead. The reactor design proposed here does not use water as coolant, and so hydrogen and oxygen are not dissociating into 2 distinct explosive gasses. Also, water expands when it changes to steam, as happened at TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima... another propulsive force addressed by NOT using water as coolant. FluidFuelReactors.com/
Radiation decreases with the square of the distance. If the plane is long enuf, a LFTR unit could be in the tail and not need much shielding. Given how big Jumbo jets are getting, how long need it be? If further, it is a seaplane then it would not be bringing radioactivity risk, such as aircraft collision, to airports. However, there already are reactors in navy ships in harbors. I dont see LFTR replacing jet engines. But there are new counter rotating propeller designs capable of over 500 mph, and do it quieter. If you recall the jet that splashed down on the Hudson river, you can see how a sea plane would eliminate the commute to a metro airport so the net duration of the trip would be similar.
Useful timecodes:
00:00 DOE changes regarding Molten Salt Reactors.
01:34 Multitude of Molten Salt Reactor companies and designs.
03:36 Kirk analogy between PC revolution and pending MSR revolution.
04:36 Why do some MSR use Thorium but most do not?
08:35 How can academia help MSR effort? Research of value to everyone?
09:27 We need students who have played with salt. Skills for students?
10:17 Electromotive series. Separate Fission Products.
11:48 Chloride salts vs Fluoride salts.
12:22 MSRE experience with Fluoride Salts, Graphite, Hastelloy-N.
12:58 Acquiring U233 (Uranium-233) to seed LFTR. 2 Inventories.
13:31 Online chemical reprocessing embraced with LFTR. Proliferation?
16:07 Multiple revenue streams, not just sale of electricity.
19:38 Electricity generation seeing lack of innovation. (Time traveler.)
22:39 Carbon tax challenges. Kirk sees energy remaining inexpensive.
25:20 Wind and solar using grid as battery, the biggest subsidy.
26:51 Biggest challenge is not engineering, is communication.
27:40 Techno-optimism vs dystopia fiction.
30:10 Positive messages: We live longer lives. Cancer challenge.
31:25 Messages being heard that Thorium is not just energy.
32:07 DOE meetings Advanced Energy means Molten Salt Reactors.
33:20 Funding remains hardest challenge. DOE GAIN $2.6 Million PNNL.
33:56 Nitrogen Tri-Fluoride. NF3. Extract Uranium from Molten Salt.
34:38 Student? Exciting developments to work on.
@gordonmcdowell Great video, and thank you very much for the update. I've been dying to hear of some kind of movement forward on this, with the DoE.
Where is the part of the machine that cooks bacon? We need a Bacon Loop, built into the secondary heat exchange, in the lunchroom.
Pizza ovens between pipes...
7:13 Thomas claps.
Kirk let's take this thing critical... Also thank you for pushing this.
I can actually think about it and I love it
I used to be convinced I had a low iq but this stuff is coming so easily
If and when we get thorium MSRs up and running, I think we should reward Kirk with the Nobel Prize for peace.
I think Gordon McDowell should as well, if it were not for Gordon we wouldn't even be here discussing Thorium, so thank you, Gordon McDowell, we couldn't have gotten anywhere in bringing Thorium up if not for you.
Maybe the Chinese will thank and reward these guys when they’ve finished their massive projects, leaving the west in the dust...
We gotta thank Taylor Wilson as well.
I think the "If" question is no longer a question. We're now down to "when". Yes, Kirk, Alvin Weinberg, and Gordon deserve massive appreciation from humankind. Humankind just does not yet know it. It will.
and economy IMO
Kirk Sorensen is extremely unique. Besides being brilliant, he is remarkable articulate. A rare combination.................... He's the right person at the right time.............. Keep an eye on this guy...............
Yes James Hanson is a great scientist but back in 1988 was not so great as a PR man he is a lot better now. Scientist need to go to Toastmaster and train themselfs on PR and become like "spin doctors" sad but true.
You noticed him like a decade into this, congrats. We already have an eye on him and others.
Found Kirk Sorensen in 2009, he really championed nuclear to me as a viable ace of spades option against fickle renewable powers. This practically lost art of non-fallout LFTR tech that was invented by Oak Ridge Nat Labs for keeping strategic nuclear bombers of the pre-ICBM era in indefinite flight readiness for tense cold war situations. Strange how this almost this forgotten invention may be the stepping stone we need to slow destroying our biodome until we can create more effective solutions.
Finally, It seems thing starts to move. I wish good luck to Kirk and his team!
Captain Kirk may his enterprise be a success...XD
The strange thing though is that they are re-using spent fuel at the INL facility. This smells of some wealthy elitists trying to score big on government dollars. I dunno; I read a lot of nuclear physics stuff. There really isn't a problem. Activists pretending to be smart made a problem that stupid politicians listened to.
@@walperstyle You said it and indeed: you REALLY dunno.
@@harrickvharrick3957 Do, go on.
Something's not adding up here. Kirk says that MSRs aren't profitable enough to attract investment - but apparently HC plants are. Does this evaluation include all the subsidies, direct and indirect, for HC based power plants (including drilling subsidies, wars for control of oil fields, etc., etc.)? How have all our power plants historically been built? Have they always been subsidized? If so, then why haven't MSR reactors yet been subsidized?
My uncle worked at Oak Ridge and I've always at least casually followed what they have done since childhood. So proud that Kirk is doggedly pursuing his dream.
wdwerker that’s neat glad I found the community that doesn’t make me sad about life everyone interested in this I’m happy to talk too!!!!
Gordon, you batted this one out of the park. Brilliant work! Lets hope the "Mainstream" media notices.
Kirk is so good at using analogies to explain things, I could listen to him talk all day!
I have watched older videos about MSR and this development is great news. New nuclear reactors are badly needed to replace the old ones.
It’s nice to hear some things are moving along
Agreed, this has taken forever.
Yeah - to non-nuclear energy - cheaper, cleaner and oh so much safer.
@@NerdyNEET I tell you what. You give them the trillions of dollars needed to develop it and the 100s of trillions of dollars to clean up their messes without harming us and we will talk. After 70 years of being the most subsidized industry in the world and nuclear energy is still not safe and still not economical and still hasn't disposed of a thimbleful of the incredibly toxic waste than will be dangerous for more than a million years. Still telling lies and insulting anyone not foolish enough to believe them and pay for their unbelievably expensive mistakes.
@@NerdyNEET If you want to communicate with me, spit it out. don't send me propaganda videos.
@@NerdyNEET I don't care if it is the Easter Bunny. You want to communicate with me, spit it out. Don't send me links tosomeone else's crap.
I thought I was going to die before these technologies were implemented. Now it seems that funding is available, and the political will is materializing.
Great job Kirk, your dedication has been successful. Nothing could make me happier for you and Flibe Energy.
I'm so glad to see this technology finally getting some attention. I've been following Mr. Sorensen for quite some time and his enthusiasm is contagious. It's hard not to agree because there are so many positives. Nuclear got a bum rap because bad men wanted the boom boom instead of cheap safe energy.
I have followed the progress on the evolution of LFTR designs & the history by Kirk Sorensen & was enamored by the quality of concept, safety design, flexibility of products produced, the safe, energy productive elimination of the standard fissile products from Uranium & plutonium, as well as the nearly complete burn-up of U & PU.
Thank You Kirk! FREE
Gordon - Thanks for the most useful information on this subject that I've seen in a long time. Keep up the excellent work!
I've been following Kirk and the LFTR design for a while and I'm glad to see that some progress has been made and Kirk has been awarded some funding. It's hard to believe that billionaires don't care enough to throw some money his way. The greedy just want to be richer than they already are, it's frustrating!
It was Gordon's videos on Kirk Sorenson that got me excited about LFTR. So, I enjoy watching Kirk Sorenson updates! Let see Kirk's new lab. Is Flibe able to prototype the chemical extraction?
This is an awesome way of thinking and I hope the right people get on board with this technology. I totally agree in the LFTR process and am following the development programs closely.
I love hearing that this effort in MSR and LFTR is still going strong. I still see it as future.
I am looking at the future of nuclear energy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. I don't see anything.
Look thorium transforms into uranium 233 no plutonium as such that they dont like it no weapons ronadam
Great video! Thanks for all your work Gordon.
Very inspiring work Gordon, please keep it up.
This changes everything! really want to see Kirk succeed...Mr Sorensen has always been the face of the 'Thorium movement' in my mind... he's grown more 'sophisticated'...: ) always a great teacher of nuclear physics, LFTR tech... now I can hear his "political diplomacy" chops... 'sales/marketing' legs (which can be confounding as nuclear physics at times!... '; P Kirk is becoming wise, government/corporations finally giving him recognition (and funds!) he deserves... let's not forget, even Microsoft rode to success on the back of IBM... (by leasing DOS...) that is how it's done...
Kirk-Thank you for your continued leadership in the Th Molten salt nuclear reactor evolution. I am a retired professor of organic chemistry who has followed the efforts of your community to overcome the political obstacles to modern nuclear. I totally agree with your assessment of the difficulty of getting risk venture money into your arena. However, your focus on medical isotopes COMBINED WITH THE PROMISE OF CONSUMPTION OF OUR STOCKPILE OF NUCLEAR WASTES should attract huge public support. The cost of ANY of the stored nuclear waste products is going to be born by the government, and if you build this into your business plan with an aggressive PR program, I believe your objective will be realized. Clearly you have thought about this, but simply consider the power of the social network to multiply a well-crafted message. Best of luck.
It’s great to see Flibe Energy getting big contracts now!! DOE discussing thorium! Slow and steady progress can win the race
The nukies have been slowly and steadily spending all of the public's money and destroying their own credibility for the last generation. You have none left. Wall Street won't touch nuclear with a ten foot pole and the public is tired of throwing good money into nuclear meltdowns. After seventy years of the biggest business failure in human history it is time to stop wasting money and lives on nuclear.
@@jackfanning7952 Bro, if you think nuclear is so big and scary, with about 30 deaths directly attributed from all of history (Chernobyl) …
Then look up the estimated _yearly_ deaths globally from air pollution, it’s over 100,000 according to World Health Org - the real enemies to human health are coal, oil & nat gas💡
@@jackfanning7952 “losing credibility & spending all the public’s money” - if you’re talking about fusion you have a good point. Fission has been paying for itself for over 50 years and is poised to take the next big leap 💫
@@robertweekes5783 I am not your bro and nuclear advocates have been lying about bthe number of deaths due to nuclear energy since the beginning...with the help of the World Health Organization.
Beside, the WHO has a better weapon of mass destruction now, developed at the Wuhan Lab with taxpayer dollars by Fauci and his minions.
Always enjoy listening to Mr. Sorensen on these topics!
We are very fortunate to have Kirk Sorensen speaking for this science and future industry
And thanks to Kirk Sorensen for creating that interest & enthusiasm. Thanks too to Gordon McDowell for his selfless work in getting this message out to the public. UA-cam has contributed, if not made possible, this gigantic dissemination of information about LFTRs/MSRs. Kudos to all!
Thanks again for these uploads, Gordon!
It sounds like they are tired, tired of explaining how great this is while almost no country picks this up
Both India and China have been pushing Thorium reactors for the last 5 yrs at least. Their R&D is being super funded at high levels.
Heh, tired yes. Remarkable that they keep going though. What if it's all just an elaborate experiment by some aliens, they tell some guys how to solve all our energy problems, but then brain wash some other guys with more power to squash the whole thing, then sit back and wait to see if we ever recover..
India has
We need someone with BIG BALLS to jump feet first... Similar to the initiation of Intel. One page business plan and then BAM...
Tell the nukies to take their hands off of my wallet and their poison out of the atmosphere.
Thank God for so many things, and the Thorium MSR is definitely one of them! FINALLY - Yeah!!!
Is your god named Satan?
Great work, as usual Gordon. EVERYONE - Please sponsor Gordon on Patreon. Go there now and pledge now!!
Best. Comment. Ever. www.patreon.com/join/thorium?
I’m trying to work and listen to Kirk and found I just had to hold the phone in my hand while I’m getting my tools together. I couldn’t break away from his talking!
It is amazing how hard it is to teach an old dog (our world) new tricks (Thorium MSR)
Can wait for next progress. I deeply believe that nuclear power is the future! Although it'll be really hard to success. Because I can imagine all the lobbing around coal, oil and gas field - government, big companies even the media against this incredible move forward.
Gordon, I have few heroes in my life, you are one of them.
A huge opportunity for Australia to embrace Molten Salt Reactors. We have the space, the reserves of Thorium but our government is still pushing coal and gas power generation......
There's a hopefully useful video here on Australian nuclear: ua-cam.com/video/nKiUR5gg240/v-deo.html ...I've used a bit of Ben Heard in my 6.5h Thorium video and pretty much enjoyed his talks any time he's caught on video.
I agree with you mate.
War is racketeering. Oil and Gas are an integral part of the last 120 years of man made conflict. The Sun is nuclear the core of the earth is nuclear. Neaclear is peace, Peace is the fundamental essence of matter. I hope Someone would:
Build One NOW! 4:48 until 6:21
Cheap 5:50
Fast
it is all in there
Safe it is all in there
Most Australian governments are pushing useless wind turbines and closing coal plants. Are you paying attention??
Kirk hit the nail on the head about Australia. No politician will make a long term decision that will have them thrown out short term, eg carbon tax. Could you really think of an Australian politician saying we are going to get on the front line with development and widespread use of gen 4 nuclear energy. Too many coal / oil / gas votes out there. We will eventually have them, (nuclear power plants) but they will have ‘made in China’ on the data plate.
As always, Kirk gives a very inspiring and positive speech. Keep it up!
Gordon, Glad to see a new MSR video. Also very glad to see progress on MSR development. I have regularly sent letters to government officials urging them to develop MSR. Kirk may find DR Jerry Tennats' book on Healing is Voltage as well as his You Tube videos on the same topic interesting. He talks about Alzheimer's, He has the best handle on why we get sick and how to cure it than anyone else I have seen, and I have been researching health issues for over 30 years. Thought about it and decided to post this separately from my previous post.
Also IMO the reason progress stopped so quickly after the 1960's was due to the deep state Globalists realizing that they needed to keep their monopoly on energy and oil to make lots more money. So they shut down all that they could. Shutting down the MSR development was a part of it.
Kirk I hope you can pitch Thorium LFTR reactors for a Multitasking type facility. I speak to so many people to inform friends and family about yours and my vision for the future. Like women that are in our lives, they the LFTR reactors like the women in our lives could do so much for our civilization. We will see a change very soon, I’m glad to see the new advancements in this field. Keep up your good work. 👍
Congratulations to Kirk, and thanks to Gordon.
You would think that the traditional power companies would be eager to fund this research, to enable long term profitability. They subsidize solar. Certainly they are aware of the potential that Thorium would provide. Is it just that greed, making that profit right now, is more important than even future profits and viability? I really hope this technology is developed into usable reactors in the next few years, for America to take the lead should be a no-brainer.
Is there exploration of LFTR peaker plants?
Traditional nuclear is used for baseline. If there is a LFTR that can only perform in shirt runs it would still be valuable in the peaked space.
Considering renewables LFTR could contribute for 4 hours of peak usage in the evening or be available for 4 days of polar vortex.
I understand that doing baseline is preferred for cost reasons but there are profitable spaces in peaking.
I'm not saying LFTR should never be used for baseline rather I have not seen discussion on the peaking part of the market.
Going from uranium to thorium MSRs is akin to going from bottle rockets to warp drive. I seriously want to see this in my lifetime.
Going from non-radioactive thorium to radioactive uranium created from neutron bombardment of non-radioactive thorium is well... more insanity. Your lifetime might be very short and your wallet much thinner.
You're giving me hope for humanity. It took a lot... but you did it.
If Kirk Sorensen can get a MSR with the chemical processing and separation down, he will have a revenue machine. He will be providing the world so many needed chemical products besides just heat and electric.
Ten years ago, I was in despair.
My thinking at the time was: PWR's / LWR's will probably never get over the scientific illiteracy and public relations hurdle (although that may be changing), solar and wind have an utterly undeserved "darling" reputation and will never scale up to meet the needs of humankind, and yet we must stop burning things to keep energy poverty and human slavery at bay.
And, my mother too was afflicted by dementia (now deceased)
Then I watched a youtube vid of Kirk giving a google tech-talk about Thorium and Fluid-Fueled reactors. At its conclusion my heart was filled with hope for humankind. My optimism for humanity was lifted to the sky that day, and it remains there today.
Thank you Kirk, for all that you have done to raise awareness and move the Thorium ball forward ! (BTW, that 1.5" ball of "garden variety" Thorium can power you entire life at US standards, folks!!!)
Kirk, I am sad to see you looking so somber when being interviewed one-on-one by Gordon, but heartened to listen to your closing speech. If you ever need encouragement, I will give it to you without reservation - any day of the week, any time of day.
Hope he reads this comment. We were TIRED more-so than somber. To the point there's some humorous back-and-forth about it but I didn't want to distract from the LFTR / Flibe discussion by including it. If I ever post that moment of video I'll share it at you.
It's really fascinating watching people who really know what they're talking about go on and on. The lingo is so specialized that anyone who isn't in the field can't add anything at all useful the conversation.
I'm brown latino from the USA. The concept of Carbon Taxes sucks. 🤨 I'm with Mr. Sorensen, Thorium all the way.
😁👊🏾🇺🇸
Natural resources and services are estimated to be worth $125 trillion per year to the human economy. But we don't charge fees to industries when they put pollution or deplete resources. So prices give bad information about what the real costs are of what we do.
When we make prices honest (charge appropriate fees), industries and consumers will pursue sustainable options. Sharing proceeds from fees to all people would end poverty.
Biological Model for Politics and Economics:
gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2010/03/biological-model-for-politics-and.html
Tax, in general, sucks. The thing with nuclear energy though is that the current systems are great. The strange thing though is that they are re-using spent fuel at the INL facility. This smells of some wealthy elitists trying to score big on government dollars. I dunno; I read a lot of nuclear physics stuff. There really isn't a problem. Activists pretending to be smart made a problem that stupid politicians listened to. ...Still, I wonder which one of them owns land that has a lot of resources.
Why does being a brown Latino have to do with anything
Great stuff! I would love to hear more on these Alpha targeted Cancer treatments Kirk touched on.
My hope is that 10 years or so down the line, Universities start making degree programs that combine nuclear and chemical engineering to serve the demands of a growing Molten Salt Reactor industry.
My second hope is that they dub this an 'Alchemical Engineering Degree'
keep 'em coming Gordon!
Is there a way you could develop low-temperature vapor deposition to line the interior of pipes with diamond?
Grafite instead of diamonds far cheaper they are made of graphite neutron capture fermi ronadam
Good shit. A few points:
1. Korea is building PWR for $5B, meaning a payback of 10 years, not 20. No doubt could you improve on this with a MSR.
2. Kirk should try to explore crowd funding if he has money problems. I wouldn't mind investing a few thousand dollars, even if I couldn't touch it for say ten years.
I was thinking exactly this with crowdfunding. Conventional funding options now have competition!
For electrochemistry in fluoride salts, is Hastelloy (or other nickel superalloys) suitable as an electrode to separate all conceivable elements/species, or are tungsten or zirconium suitable?
great work Gordon...........thanks for the video. We need Thorium and we need it soon. The continued progress of mankind relies on cheap,abundant energy to maintain standard of living and to overcome the conflict surrounding resources which is being used every day for gross manipulation of politics.
The issue we have with some renewable technology is we don't build machines to be recycled we say it is and it can be, but we don't do it because the amount of energy to disassemble and recycle it is more expensive than buying new materials.LFTR's aren't subject to weather conditions or use of external storage to support the power grid.With new electric cars we will need to double the power grid to cope with charging of transport vehicles.
Few questions, What was Kirk going to say? When he reached for the microphone. "He can't talk about It there"? 🤔 Is there a video of the London visit he references?
Why is this not widespread on (inter)national TV?
Yes good to see movement in MSR programs here. It really is about the hearts and minds over the tech to get this going. Fukushima is the elephant in the room, even though it is different , and outmoded tech.
I just wonder if we have time before we suffer from the death by carbon.
Can we get the slides that Kirk used?
I never got them.
@@gordonmcdowell the slide with all the by products in a web chart would be good if you asked him
The real Captain Kirk shooting for the stars... !
Artistically I like the guy being interviewed in the garden with a water feature more than the driving around in cars or moving around on trams stuff you do in other videos: it's relaxing and has a nice herbal vibe that might help bring in the light green hippies. :-)
Generally there's no time to plan stuff like that out. Dr. Holcomb was a rare exception where my whole day was dedicated to that interview as I waited for my flight. (Whatever happened to red-eye flights!? I want to hop on a plane at 10pm and sleep through the flight. No-can-do.) Visually I'd like to try a bike-ride interview but the wind would probably ruin it.
@@gordonmcdowell Cheers man, I hear you on activist-beggers-can't-be-choosers. If *only* you were fully funded with a whole team to produce state of the art, award winning docos! Thanks for the fantastically valuable work you've already done. You give me hope.
Has there been any work on the use of High Temperature Ceramic for LFTR fuel transport and reactor vessels?
Dang can't use Silicon Nitride.
I'm an engineering student, working towards a double major in Nuclear and mechanical engineering. Your comment caught my eye. I've been doing a lot of reading. Isotopically pure si-28 has a really low chance at absorbing thermal neutrons, and even when it does, it remains silicon. That is untill it absorbs a total of 3 neutrons, at which point it may undergo beta decay. The beta decay produces Phosphorus. What I find conceptually interesting is that the semiconductor industry has infrastructure to produce large mono-crystaline boules of silicon. To me, that screams perfect pipe material. However the fluorinated state of pure silicon _could_ make it an incompatible material. I wanted to ask what you have seen that dissuades you from your idea about silicon nitride. If you have any links, that would be great!
@@retovath
It was just a sort of a flash thought, not something I've given extended time too. But apparently Hydrofluoric acid eats Silicon Nitride, (and most silicates unfortunately).
My concern was that if we end up with the molten fuel becoming too high in PH the material would undergo excessive wear / failure.
I was interested in Silicon Nitride for it's mechanical strength, hardness, and high melting point (1900 ℃ ).
@UCCvIh8u46Wm-ZslruCN_tOA
What you were saying about Si-28, might be very handy, should we have a need to incorporate the turbine house inside a containment structure. Silicon Nitride bearings are already making inroads into consumer equipment.
Though this wouldn't necessarily help if the coolant is already Helium, which is my personal preference.
@@retovath
I think it's anything Hydrogen Fluoride that gives us a problem. But I'm not a chemist.
chemiday.com/en/reaction/3-1-0-620
I'm sorry but I don't get the point Mr. Sorensen makes at 18:33: "... if you remove krypton and xenon from the reactor, then that changes how they would have otherwise decayed in other fission products." How is that possible?
How do you heat the molten fluoride, is it simple resistive heaters in the bottom of the vessel, so if it cools down, is it hours to get it up and running (runny) again or days, can you use it as a peaked plant ?
If we are using solar would it not be sensible to run grids East to West to extended the daylight hours input ?
How do you refine Thorium, surely you can't just dump the ore in the molten salt bath, as it has to be kept incredibly pure, with no oxides.
Can you contain the molten fluoride in normal stainless steel vessels ?
How do you Fire in the neutrons ?
3:28 "Can I say something about that?" "No." XD
Is the ThF4 melted in a vacuum or are there compatible vapors? Is there any data on gasses soluble in the molten salt? Am I mistaken thinking of it as a kind of solvent? Chemistry is not one of my strengths. Any other materials besides the graphite and that special steel that are long term compatible? How about SiO2? Any other properties that are publicly available? The comment about electrochemistry picked my interest from the instrumentation perspective.
The central idea about Fluoride salts is that by bonding every element to a Fluorine atom, they become individual inert molecules that can be easily separated from other salt molecules of different weight. Tall tank vessels can separate either liquids or vapors. Separation by molecular weight is commonly done in oil refineries.
Centrifuges can increase the rate of separation, which is most important if the molecules are similar in weight or are co-soluble.
The final step is to remove the fluorine atoms by providing an element far more reactive to Fluorine than the refined product.
Hi everyone I want to share with you that I found this video so inspiring that I finally decided to dedicate my life to make this future possible. I'm from Argentina so I'm going to study the science of communication in order to get this information to the people that most need to join our fight for a brighter future the youngest. Thank you for reading this.
That is awesome. Yay, communication. If you haven't heard "You Are Not So Smart" podcast, that's my own go-to source on communications and why people believe what they believe. Is nothing nuclear, but a lot of communication challenges are tribal or self-blinders and it gets one thinking about those aspects.
@@gordonmcdowell I've been checking out the channel and I enjoyed it pretty much thank you. I can imagine that in order to achieve this goal we'll have to discover several ways to deliver a message that connects the hearts and minds of the people in order to make them realize that making the future of our world better is a must mindset. As you said it's nothing nuclear, so I will remain hopeful and try my best to unfold those blindfolds to show people that we need this to happen. keep up the good work, you are doing great!
In a 2 fluid system that was proposed I have noticed that graphite is used as a moderator and for structural support to separated fuel from the blanket salt. I have listened to other videos from Gordon McDowell, and one of them was from Dr. Stephen Boyd where he was talking about not using silicon carbide in the molten salt reactor back in 2013 when the video was published. In that video he mentions that graphite cannot be used because it is not a structural material and it will fall apart. Graphite also swells and contracts under high neutron flux which causes cracks.
If this is really the case then how would it be possible to build a 2 fluid reactor where graphite is used?
If graphite is used, how long would the graphite last inside the reactor until it would eventually need replacement and what would be the cost of replacing it?
Can irradiated graphite be recycled whether it has structural damage or not?
Are there any other proposed materials that can act as a moderator and for structural support to separate the fuel and the blanket salt other than graphite that can handle the environment inside the MSBR.
Dr. Stephen Boyd's observations is criticized in that the silicon carbide issue was probably detected in poorly manufactured SiC. Yes, the graphite in a thermal-spectrum MSBR will change size and have a finite life-span. As a structural material though, it is separating 2 fluids of basically identical pressure and supported at top and bottom... it isn't a load-bearing thing. I'd love to hear more of Kirk defending graphite too, but you'll note some attacks (like John Kutsch) saying Kirk doesn't have a "magical material" which can seperate the fluids... John should know Kirk is using graphite (Kirk has always planned on graphite) but I-MSR uses graphite for moderation purposes... so John isn't going to strongly dis graphite when they're using graphite too.
@@gordonmcdowell, thanks for the reply
How long will the graphite in a thermal-spectrum reactor last until it will eventually have to be replaced, and what would be the cost of replacing it, not only as a moderator in a 2 fluid system, but as a barrier between the blanket and the fuel salt? Can irradiated graphite be recycled and/or repaired whether it has structural damage or not?
Are there any other proposed materials that can be used besides graphite which can be used as a barrier between the blanket and fuel salt, and/or as a moderator? Silicon Carbide has been thrown around, but that is still questionable.
@@stanm25 Stanislav...you might be interested in looking Terrestrial Energy's (www.terrestrialenergy.com) design (the I-MSR that Gordon mentions). They decided to design around the 'life span' of graphite. They propose running their reactor core for 4 years and then setting it aside for 1-2 years for cooling. You would then return the reactor to them for refurbishment and reprocessing of the salt. I think Kirk is designing for replacement of the graphite in the reactor. I think this is something that Oak Ridge Labs explored as part of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment.
Kirk says Chlorides cannot convert Stored Nuclear Fuel to chloride salt fuel. Elysium, ANL, and INL already converted burned MOX SNF to chloride salt fuel a year ago. Since we actually reduced it to practice, INL marked the report Export controlled. We are trying to get that fixed with INL.
it would be interesting to find out how the dangerous, dirty uranium/plutonium reactors were chosen to be developed over salt-based in the first place. Oak Ridge proved the salt concept was possible in the 60's...
Thank you for the subtitles.
Do you have a full-length version of this talk?
It wasn’t one talk. There was a too-short technical one and the techno-optimist one. The only moment which plays straight well is the forum and I do intend to edit that for iThEO to show its entirety.
Nothing technical was cut, I can tell ya.
@@gordonmcdowell Thank you.
As long as they keep their eyes on wind and solar power purchase agreements. Is there a pathway to 2 cents a kwh? Is there a solution to waste?
Aren't the Dual Fluid Reactors better than Molten Salt Reactors?
Glorious video Gordon.
our greatest hope. truly.
This brings joy
Build One NOW! 4:48 until 6:21
Cheap 5:50
Fast
Safe
Scalable
No proliferation
Export them to the world
Make Diesel with them
Make water with them
Make fertilizers with them
Recycle plastics with them
Kick ass around the world
Go Thorcon GO!
We need the next generation
in Kirk's original concept, which is close to Alvin Weinbberg's the separation of Protactinium -233 -232 -231 and it's decay to U , outside of the reactor is essential and very recommendable. I would like to take this a step further:
the electrolytic cell, where the HF is split back to H2 and F2 should be followed (at least in a bypass-stream ) by centrifugal isotope-separation of Deuterium and Tritium from 1H1H. It is possible to do it by kind of nano-filtration , too (AAAS Science magazine 1, January 2016, p68) ! Then there should be some research about how to use T economical, until there is a real demand for T from fusion-tokamaks! Maybe using Tritium instead of protons in a spallation_neutron generator would be quite effective. Making MSR-Th-breeders more neutron-abundant and have a safer margin from power- excursion! As late nuclear inventor Alvin Weinberg said: Tritium would have to be sequestered, eventually. I think MSRs should be considered more as an exothermal chemical-plant, than a pure power-plant.
Why does that camera keep moving like that? What are they cutting out?
This is 2 short talks and a forum discussion combined. (And, obviously, an interview.) Neither talk really worked on its own, with a great deal of winding-up and winding-down and talk about lunch and being sleep deprived. People who backed my Patreon project have access to the full day capture, complete with empty-room-cameras-running. The forum discussion will be released in full soon, but not the 2 short talks. If you want a talk that worked as delivered, it was the ORNL MSR Worshop NF3 talk: ua-cam.com/video/E6xu4QhMkD8/v-deo.html ...which preceded this one.
America needs to really get behind these.
Woo, some good news :D
What type are the little clip voice recorders? I assume they timestamp to the video automatically? Pretty awesome!
SANSA Clip+ devices. They do not timestamp. They are kinda crap, but fast to deploy. I've looked for inexpensive replacement and only found worse. (Ammoon made a light-blue similar thing more recently buyable on eBay.) Biggest prob is most cheap recorders overmodulate the audio. These Clip+ have Rockbox installed, only way to get 44kHz and control recording level as factory (SanDisk?) firmware is 22kHz and too loud. I'd consider a replacement but would need to be small. For walk-and-talk have tried AirPods but sound is meh. ua-cam.com/video/YR1o2M8ZLb4/v-deo.html
@@gordonmcdowell Lol, does the job excellently! Really nice effect circling back through different conversations occurring simultaneously. Wish you could patent that!
Can both heat and other more profitable products be produced jointly and "synergistically" in a MSR, or are the two more or less mutually exclusive in their use of MSR capacity?
And how the hell can an energy source as insanely productive as nuclear, in the safer and apparently very adaptable MSR context, be more expensive than burning any kind of hydrocarbons?
FP can be pulled out of an MSR using online chemistry... that's the point of Chemical Kidney is some FP are valuable but some FP will stall reactor (absorb neutrons) so they need to be taken out continually anyway.
Hydrocarbons (such as natural gas) require very little hardware to harness, and the regulatory process for nuclear takes time and money to get thru. Nuclear fuel (even LEU) isn't expensive, but then in many cases neither is coal or natural gas. Electricity is cheap, and it is the cost of hardware which is a primary consideration for utilities... not the cost of fuel.
@@gordonmcdowell Thanks. I think I understand.
I say tax new hydrocarbon plant construction until MSR is a better investment, then temporarily increase subsidies for MSR until it's more attractive (also restart heavy metal mining so that Thorium is basically free). If MSR power plants are a no brainer, as it appears to me, then banks should be able to lend at rates as good or better than those for low credit risk home loans. After MSR gains a foothold and public acceptance, increase carbon taxes until hydrocarbons at least pay their own externality costs. And let's start some public banks, which might be more willing to invest in projects with long range economic benefits.
Something's not adding up here. Kirk says that MSRs aren't profitable enough to attract investment - but apparently HC plants are. Does this evaluation include all the subsidies, direct and indirect, for HC based power plants (including drilling subsidies, wars for control of oil fields, etc., etc.)? How have all our power plants historically been built? Have they always been subsidized? If so, then why haven't MSR reactors been subsidized?
There's a point in the conversation when Kirk mentioned the advancement of technology. He brings up the fact that nuclear hasn't changed as much as a server farm which would be very different from what it was 50 years ago. In his example he brings up a point that he doesn't quite touch on enough which is when things go wrong with that technology the only thing that happens is nothing. If the phone breaks or if the network goes down it stops working now that might cause other things to go wrong like airplane towers not talking to each other and the like but the device itself just stops working. Much the same way if a nuclear power plant stops working it's bad because it keeps on doing its thing until it gets under control. A thorium reactor on the other hand is like a cell phone when it stops when something goes wrong it just stops working. The safety is inherent.
We must get rid of the solar panel and wind craziness and go full nuclear.
Nonsense. Onshore wind is the cheapest way of producing energy. Period. Solar is catching up and the battery storage and EV revolution will make them mainstream. But it won't be enough, so existing nuclear and new thorium will also be needed.
@sgg You are living in the past and unable to see what is happening right before your eyes.
Watch Tony Seba's presentation on Clean Disruption.
Decarbonization must happen within years not decades and the EV and battery revolution will accelerate deployment of renewables.
@sgg You seem to know what you're talking about and I'm a bit new to the topic, so I'm curious what is your take on tidal power which is more regular and consistent than solar and wind?
Why isn’t this stuff on the news like all the time. Like this is probably some of the most important stuff for the human race _Ever._
I want one of these scaled down to produce 8-10kw for one or two houses
perhaps in a shipping container in the back yard. Can this be scaled?
Then we could really create personal autonomy in our cultures. What Kirk says at 3:37 about having a vision? I have a vision of a culture based in personal power autonomy. Virtually no transmission losses. Private self sufficient people free to be their own producer.
I find it very encouraging
As long as the nuclear and petroleum lobbies govern the world, there is little change for thorium implementation! Only strong political will and knowledgeable citizens can change things!
Honest question spilling over from another forum if anyone can chime in. Is there enough fissile (fissible sp?) Or useable Thorium?
I only ask, as for the first time in years an internet user said there isn't.
There's not a lot of U-233 the preferred fissile. Kirk is confident he can secure enough for a pilot reactor and will test the pilot while creating more U-233 for a fleet. The plan was to use LFTR-49 for that although not sure if that still is plan articles.thmsr.nl/the-flibe-energy-lftr49-the-triple-ace-in-nuclear-gen-iv-design-ea9bffcd71dd As far as enough-thorium (enough fertile) yes, there's enough thorium to fuel human's energy needs. Any breeder reactor where fertile-and-not-fissile is used for fuel would have access to basically infinite energy resources.
@@gordonmcdowell thanks for the answer. Is his main hurdle money or access to the materials?
Sooo, why hasn't india been included in the non-proliferation treaty? They have the first operational thorium reactor yet everyone ignores what they could do with it? Not to mention very little international attention is given to thorium in comparison to uranium in terms of research and understanding...
India's developing AHWR www.barc.gov.in/reactor/ahwr.pdf and not LFTR. It uses solid MOX fuel containing Thorium. Good different approaches are being tried, but won't be as efficient as LFTR... basically they'll put up with that because it is similar to conventional reactors but India has lots of Thorium.
@@gordonmcdowell of course, it's cheaper and puts out relatively the same power, tho I'd be concerned with the spent fuel processing to enrich u-233. LFTR seems exciting tho, hopefully their including betavoltaic materials in their research, tapping into just the heat aspect of nuclear energy is kinda a waste considering what even spent fuel and graphite puts off.
@@Drake5153 Graphite is solid so recycling it into useful material would be more complex than Fission Products in the salt, thought I still hope it is pursued in the future. I agree even heat generated by FP could be useful... all today's reactors already harness FP heat, with FP being extracted in LFTR hopefully that heat can be put to use where an entire reactor would not be suitable... possibly a something like a micro-reactor but without the actual fission taking place, just FP heat.
It is INSANE that ITER (the fusion plant) get 20 billion + USD, and this (or similar designs) just a few pennies relatively.
What are those devices on their Lapels!? 🤔
VRtechman MP3 players. Sansa Clip+ loaded with Rockbox firmware. Used to be an inexpensive solution but they aren’t so cheap anymore. Old things hard to find. Big stashes of cheap refurbs depleted.
In June of 2022, Tommy Tuberville, (R-Ala), introduced the Thorium Secrutity Act of 2022. It is aimed at ordering the halt of the DOEs destruction of the Throium bound U233 that is stockpiled from the 60s product. The U.S. is exclusive in this possession of this important seeding material.
Has Sorensen given presentations to AOC et al. (for the resolution on climate change) on MSRs? I think they're reasonable people and would appreciate info from non-PWR sources.
I hate when these shows that should be a simple interview because they have the interesting material but the director wants to bounce around 2-3 angles on 4 different people saying a sentence each at a time.
Are you referring to the panel discussion? It is, in full, here: ua-cam.com/video/2x7do-_MTD0/v-deo.html ...and that's part of the ThEC2018 Playlist which is here: ua-cam.com/play/PLKfir74hxWhPll2rp9pJO2oiCceFccHls.html
in Kirk's (best )ThMSR-Design the Pa233 decays outside in a separate tank to U233. in Your interview with Jean-Pierre Revol at CERN (where I got the idea for my proposals), he mentioned that this U-fuel addition needs to be done at the same temperature as is in the reactor-core, for not disturbing reactivity, but maintaining the negative criticality coefficient ( 21:10 in that interview). So Kirk's concept needs an extra heater for fuel-addition at appropriate temperature.
An accelerator augmented reactor seems to need a lead target, to produce the neutrons. Would the hot, liquid lead be compatible with FLiBe, wouldn't it react to [ Fl- Pb+] ? Could Spallation-Neutrons be produced outside the reactor and then transfered to the Core? (ask experts at the Munich - Garching MPI-Forschungs-Reaktor ! ) Are other target materials feasible?
I still adhere to this accelerator augmented breeder, because of the promised versatility and safety.
What would magnetic fields do to FLiBe? Would the reactor be EMP-proof?
its ment to be 21:10 into this: Jean-Pierre Revol - Interview on Thorium Energy via Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) @ ThEC13
why would anyone need a thermonuclear reactor?
Are you insinuating the reactor is a bomb? Because to-date it has been the chemistry of water which has led to the propulsive force which spreads radioactive isotopes during accidents (TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima) and not any nuclear-bomb type behavior. Reactors, even conventional reactors, can not function like nuclear bombs. If you believe that then you've been mislead. The reactor design proposed here does not use water as coolant, and so hydrogen and oxygen are not dissociating into 2 distinct explosive gasses. Also, water expands when it changes to steam, as happened at TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima... another propulsive force addressed by NOT using water as coolant. FluidFuelReactors.com/
Radiation decreases with the square of the distance. If the plane is long enuf, a LFTR unit could be in the tail and not need much shielding. Given how big Jumbo jets are getting, how long need it be? If further, it is a seaplane then it would not be bringing radioactivity risk, such as aircraft collision, to airports. However, there already are reactors in navy ships in harbors.
I dont see LFTR replacing jet engines. But there are new counter rotating propeller designs capable of over 500 mph, and do it quieter. If you recall the jet that splashed down on the Hudson river, you can see how a sea plane would eliminate the commute to a metro airport so the net duration of the trip would be similar.
Radiation is 1/distance. Electric field is 1/(distance)^2