ThorCon's Thorium Converter Reactor 2019-10 Update by Dane Wilson @ TEAC10
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- Опубліковано 17 лип 2024
- Dane Wilson recently retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he worked on materials and systems for use in molten fluoride salts, high temperature gaseous environments, and other pernicious working fluids of interest to energy and hydrogen production. Dane has a BSc in physics (solid state), MS in material science and engineering and PhD in metallurgy (corrosion and surface science).
ThorCon is a molten salt fission reactor. Unlike all current nuclear reactors, the fuel is in liquid form. It can be moved around with a pump and passively drained. This 500 MW fission power plant is encapsulated in a hull, built in a shipyard, towed to a shallow water site, ballasted to the seabed. ThorCon is a straightforward scale-up of the successful United States Oak Ridge National Laboratory Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE).
The complete ThorCon is manufactured in 150 to 500 ton blocks in a shipyard, assembled, then towed to the site. This produces order of magnitude improvements in productivity, quality control, and build time. A single large reactor yard can turn out twenty gigawatts of ThorCon power plants per year. ThorCon is a system for building power plants.
ThorCon has been working with the Indonesian government to add reliable electric power to the grid. In 2019 the Ministry of Energy completed a successful study of the safety, economics, and grid impact of the 500 MW prototype ThorConIsle. Phase 1 is to build and test it with step by step commissioning, ending in a type license for future power plants. Phase 2 is shipyard production of ThorCon plants to provide an additional 3 GW of cheap, reliable electric power.
ThorCon: thorconpower.com
Thorium Energy Alliance: thoriumenergyalliance.com/
This video captured for future use in Thorium Remix projects: thoriumremix.com/ - Наука та технологія
This is the first time I ever have heard a MSR vendor even remotely committing to any kind of date other than "within a decade" for up and running MSR power plant.
While the 5-6 years into the future seems like a long time, I've been watching MSR/thorium documentaries on youtube for even longer than that by now, so I'm very happy to hear this.
Imagine the year 2025, humans setting foot on Mars for the first time and the first non government-lab produced MSR power plant up and running.
Perhaps there is hope for humanity after all!
Mars is not gonna happen by then. The moon on the other hand though.
@@travisbeagle5691 Depends on how much faith you have in Elon time.
You may have a very valid point, but please don't kill my dreams.
Humans on Mars would be so awesome.
@@NomenNescio99 Sorry, I'm just being a realist here. If SpaceX was where it is at now maybe 5-10 years ago, I'd say they got a good shot at it. As it sits, I'd say they have a good shot at getting to the moon about the same time as NASA's Artemis program. Mars might be something for 2030 or so though.
@@travisbeagle5691 Time will tell.
I'm actually even more excited about the possibility of working MSR by then than I am about space exploration.
And I've been a trekkie for the last 35 years of my 46 years of life so far.
We have achieved economical fusion! - 2080
I hope Indonesia is wildly successful and makes the anti nuclear western countries look like fools. We need a good wake up.
Pleeeeaaaaase do that.
look at Sasha Sagan - For Small Creatures Such As We, this is of "Planetary Society"
"anti nuclear western countries" lets no lump in tomany people with that. When you can have a single person file a lawsuit to stop the construction of a reactor than the Government isn't doing it's job.
Nothing is without technological problems, but the liquid fluoride thorium reactor has been built and tested decades ago. It is a long way yet before it could be made operational commercially, but what I have seen so far shows it is possible.
YESYESYESYESYES kill it shut the hippies up! b4 its too late!
Making history in real time. Thank you for these videos @gordonmcdowell!
Don't call it a Pot, call it a Reactor Vessel. I just convinced DOE to use Reactor Vessel for the generic term, since many advanced reactors have low pressure systems. They were using Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) or Pressure Vessel (PV), but agreed to Reactor Vessel (RV). RV sounds more professional than Pot and is less ambiguous, more commonly used than Pot.
Go be a busy body elsewhere and stop dictating others speech. No one cares for forced adoption. Let it settle naturally and avoid unnecessary conflict.
@@hahahano2796 If you knew who you were being snarky with, you would regret it.
Question: how good is Dana Durnford (reporting on UA-cam about Fukushima Daiichi). I like his independent standpoint. Undeniably he has acquired some expertise, but how good is he?
@@hahahano2796 DR. Pheil, if I'm not mistaken, is writing about Official language to be used in plans, communications and transmittals of fact for the engineering and licensing process. You just whizzed on one of the half dozen major players from the American nuclear development world. I'd say you need to tie it in a knot and be glad he is still working to figure out how we will afford all the electricity that it will take to cool all the hot air you generate!
@@chapter4travels I'm not a scientist and not familiar with Pheil's status. I see that he has done, and is ready to do, something of real consequence - in addition to asking for funding - unlike many of the albeit interesting people in these videos. Apparently the "establishment" is dragging its feet and will resort to any gaslighting/tactics short of actually doing something helpful (I can say what common sense dictates Pheil can't).
the seeds of progress can transfer from a dying nation to a rising nation. As the west falters and falls into endless nattering and navel gazing it warms my heart to know that countries like india, indonesia, ukraine and others have not descended into a death spiral of technological/bureaucratic stagnation and cultural relativism.
The future will belong to those who believe in themselves and who are willing to attempt new things.
The west is more interested in diversity and social justice than real advancement, we are no longer hungry but complacent.
Thorcon seems to be making great progress. Thanks for showing us, Gordon!
This would be great if it all comes together as scheduled. I visited the Fukushima Plant last week and have a good feeling of the problem. I'm very interested if over time this type of plant comes to the rural areas of Japan.
I've been following ThorCon for at least 4 years now and I'm very encouraged that the Indonesian Gov't has remained committed to its development. Constructing the non-fissile demonstration plant is the next big step. Having worked in the shipyards of Korea and China, for FPSOs twice the Length of the proposed TCI, the envisioned 500 ton modules are mature technology, it is only the materials for the "Can" and salt loops that remains to be proven, but as I understand Hastelloy-C www.steelforge.com/hastelloy-c/ is what's being proposed for now. ThonCon is probably closer to operation than anyone outside China. Great presentation, and thank you, Gordon, for the most in-depth continuing coverage of MSR development! thorconpower.com/design/
Thorcon is not using hastelloy, just stainless. Their 4 year can cycle lets them inspect the piping and replace if necessary.
@@chapter4travels probably the worst idea since they built Chernobyl without a pressure vessel.. The alloy originally studied at Oak ridge is Hastalloy N. Unfortunately, the Obama administration gave the all the MSR research and samples to China (yes, gave it to them and didnt keep a copy). BTW, Stainless, even without a corrosion issue cannot handle the temperatures in an MSR unless you ran it at bare minimum operation temps (and god forbid if it ever ran a little hot!!)
@@darikmatters8866, Of course it can or they wouldn't be using it. It's a fully tested and pre-qualified material.
@@chapter4travels LOL.. your stupidity is showing again, the material cannot be per-qualified. There has not been enough time for testing.. They need to run what are called "hot loops" for years and years under different parameters to certify and qualify a material for use in a nuclear power-plant.. Even Hastalloy N has issues with this particularity hostile environment... There is a Chromium ion migration issue that still needs to be solved to use the most tested material (which was specifically designed for the Li/Be fluoride molten salt environment with a high radiation flux density) we have let alone a iron based alloy...
@@darikmatters8866 Here you go. www.oecd-nea.org/science/pubs/2013/6409-sr-smans.pdf
Wow! I'm going to start my search now for the bottle of champaign I will use to celebrate the day that Indonesia receives its first Kwh from this reactor.
Excellent news.
Maybe the UK, with it's ailing shipyards, should consider buying into this technology?
@@tommorris3688 Solid fuel technology is far less efficient than liquid fuel.
No one states that thorium lifters are new (quite the reverse). They do produce waste; however they produce less of the heavier transuranic isotopes than a U235-based reactor and it is easier to reprocess the waste that is produced to remove useful isotopes.
MSR's canbe made to burn U235 and plutonium as well as thorium when required.
@@tommorris3688 The hard gamma emissions are actually quite useful as they reduce the liklihood of weapon proliferation. In a reactor setting however they are not a problem. If personnel did need to approach the reactor the solution would be to open the freeze plug and drain the core. It is far harder to deal with a solid fuelled reactor which has lost its coolant.
@@tommorris3688 You talk od zealots then quote Helen Caldicott to back up your argument!
I feel no need to continue this discussion.
@@tommorris3688 I only see one zealot in this thread...
@@tommorris3688 Helen is something beyond a loon, "crazier than a bag of schizophrenic ferrets tripping on LSD" comes to mind. Bringing her up as anything other than a poster child of anti-nuclear activism only outs you as one of them. An apparent ignorance of the inverse relationship between radiation intensity and duration and the barest fundamentals of how an MSR would operate, disregard for the near impossibility of fashioning U-233 into a weapon, and probably whatever you said after bringing up the candlelight lady confirm it.
You and your ilk are the equivalent of faith healers and humorists "criticizing" the "zealotry" of people with even a layman's understanding of modern, i.e. _actual,_ medicine. The only people who take you seriously are your fellow cult members.
Can you bring it to Australia so we can have relief from costly renewable energy
Our greenies won't allow it
Glyn Camilleri tell them Greta is on board coming across the ocean
I too wish we could bring a few of these to Australia, but unless we can convince people it's safe, it won't happen.
I also think as long as the 'N' word is involved, greenies and the poorly educated will be against it.
Andrew Mackenzie we can't even have N submarines.. We went down the most ridiculous path... Between Bill Shorten's anti Japan stance... Saving Pines seat by building In SA.... 50 billion dollar dud subs
Cheaper than coal doesn't mean cheaper than renewables.
Just build the thing already! I really fear sometimes we've lost the ability to to do big engineering, even conventional nuclear plants are taking decades to build.
Man. Things are getting very exciting for the USA
What? Thorcon is a Singaporean owned company, designers in the US, building in South Korea, for deployment in Indonesia.
@@EdPheil HAHAHAHA let me correct myself: things are getting exciting for Texas. You think thorcon is the only company developing thorium technology? That's funny.
@@dragonslayer6000
I never said Thorcon was the only MSR developing thorium.
I only said they are not really a US company. Took the technology to Asia.
China will probably have an MSR running next year. They have a gas-cooled, pebble bed reactor prototype running. They are also developing a US, TWR, Travelling Wave Reactor using Terrapower technology. The US government canceled Terrapower cooperation. Given investment in prototypes is the next big step. The technology, designs and research are available. Testing of materials is a major time factor. But Generation 4 reactors can be built within 10 years. 5 other Gen 4 reactor types are also in development. MSR and Gas-Cooled Reactors are very promising. Relatively simple and highly meltdown resistant, built-in, inherent design features. Gen 4 fission reactors are much cheaper, lower risk and much faster than Fusion reactors. China has also tested a research fusion reactor producing plasma at twice the temperature of the sun for 100 seconds. The current world record. The ITER International Fusion Research reactor will be complete in France in 2025. Already costing over $10 billion. But it is still far from being a working power plant. They then plan to build a larger research reactor after that. Fusion is far from being practical unless a novel design has a significant breakthrough. The US government is now willing to help Gen 4 reactor development. A more flexible approach to licensing new Gen 4 reactors is vital. Current US policies were built around existing PWR reactors. And it is a very slow and expensive process. The designs of Gen 4 reactors are evolving though mainly in testing and design. So new prototypes will have novel new design features. So the technology is still advancing even without prototypes. Partly in using computer technology for modeling and simulation. And chemistry. Managing salts with ionic bonds with various molecules gives lots of scope for research for chemistry. This can be done with universities and other educational groups. At relatively affordable research. This could benefit MSR and LFTR type reactors allowing operators of such reactors to manage the many materials found in the salts. Removing unwanted or very useful materials off line while the reactors are in operation. Other groups are testing materials for the construction of reactors.
Terrapower is a Bill Gates start up. He and his engineers went to China because the AEC wouldn't let them have a license to do their testing anywhere in the US. But Deej wants to save jobs. If China has the fast lane on MSR development, their iron and steel industry is more than capable of mass producing a viable design. The ThorCon is going to be built in Hyundai's ship yards- in Korea. India is well on the way, using their own resources to fabricate; India is thought to have the largest thorium reserves in the world. Where is America in this? Waiting on the AEC to issue a license to do the research on American soil. We are losing the technology game- and this program is a bell weather for why.FR
whoops
TerraPower got TWR yanked out of China in 2015 by the US gov't for helping china build an SMR usable in the South China Seas.
@@fredericrike5974
The AEC hasnt existed since the 1970's. It is now the NRC as regulator. The NRC would allow them, they just thought it would take too long in the US. They were right. But, the US yanked them out of China.
@gordonmcdowell I just started watching a lot of molten salt+thorium fuel cycle videos. It seems like another, in a series of sales pitches. I enjoy the promise, and want to be sold on it. I may be off base here and not specific to this video, but how come no one mentions the Monju reactor (sodium cooled fast neutron) and the subsequent fire? (and maybe how their design will avoid similar fate) or how about the costs in dollars and time it has taken to store the contaminated salts at Dounreay or Superphénix (both also sodium cooled fast neutron)?
You're conflating sodium with salt. Folks pursuing MSR were (and are) very aware of sodium's chemical reactivity. Fluoride Salts are very chemically stable. If they ever came into contact with water they'd immediately solidify (the water would flash to steam, but the FLiBe would freeze). Not so with sodium. ua-cam.com/video/8Pyq8kCeiYs/v-deo.html
so Tritium will be filtered out (sequestered) in this projected concept. This is good. What will You do with it, long as no Fusion-reactor is running? The conventional nuclear industry just deposes it into the ocean-waters (spoiling the fish that way). Does Xe135 pose a problem in MSRs? Would there be an advantage, if it were stripped off and stored outside of the neutron-flux?
Tritium decays over time to helium 3 with a half-life of 12.3 years. Its beta decay is also very weak. Its stopped completely by 6 mm of air. The decay has also so little energy that it has a very hard time destroying things like DNA.
Long story short the decay of tritium is like burning yourself on a 50 degree plate versus plutonium being 2000 degrees blast furnace. to give a sense of scale.
@@pokekick4185 Yeah I like Your answer, but then again, why are there cases of leukemia in children around nuclear reactor sites? Neutrinos?
There seem to be increased (small, genetic,) anomalies in people, borne in the mid-1950s (nuclear-bombs testing); (look at 1. Prince Charles' ears, and 2. the ears of the elder brother of my friend (he used to get teased for that), 3. a boy with almost crippled, bent legs in a village, also of this age). Then 4. a boy, kind of disabled, who was borne shortly after 1986 (Chernobyl) in a nearby town (probably Caesium). Of course, it mustn't be Tritium or Reactor-Neutrinos, it could be a Terra-eV cosmic ray. I can continue my suspicions with farmers mouth - to - mouth reports about dead-borne calves, near the 2*1300MW Gundremmingen-Reactors (Germany)!
We consumers of energy seem to be cornered between CO2-Problem and Neutrino + (maybe not really Tritium)-Problem.
First of in Europe and america nuclear reactors are build on industrial sites. A research compared cancer rates between industrial sites with and without nuclear reactors found no difference in cancer rates. Increased amounts of death around nuclear reactors seem to correlate really well with air pollution.
Should we really add the damage done by nuclear bomb testing to nuclear reactors? Seems like 2 ideas that with totally different goals and track records.
We also have been getting better at medicine and people with larger and larger health defects don't die in childhood anymore. Ask your parents/grandparents about how many children died in their family's before the 1940's.
I am also not saying Chernobyl didn't cause a lot of radiation exposure and didn't throw fission products and reactor fuel into the atmosphere but these where a lot more dangerous than tritium. Lucky for us a event like Chernobyl will never again happen in the future. Reactors with that construction mistake are all either modified or decommissioned. fukosima was also a 40 year old reactor hit with pretty much the worst hit nature could throw at it. A earthquake with 9 on the Richter scale. A 8 meter tsunami. And it only caused 1-2 deaths of the 15000 death from the natural disaster. The amount of nuclear waste that got into the environment was also low and the background radiation around there is already back lower than some american city's or most of the middle east.
Can you also give better statistics because calves being born dead can happen and you need some quite good research and other measurements to say that it was the nuclear reactor that did it. Not the bull having a few genes that increases the chance of death borne calves, Not more stress than normal cows. Science is not build on anecdotes. If a farmer doesn't like a nuclear power plant nearby then of course the power plant has killed his calves. That's good old bias.
Secondly you are constantly being bombarded with neutrino's from the sun. They are weak interacting particles You need multiple cubic meters of material cooled to near 0K to be even measure them. They don't have the energy to destroy your DNA.
Also take some science classes instead of reading conspiracy theory's.
I'm not a big fan of putting something like that into the ocean. However I'm happy that MSRs are finally making steps ahead.
U.S. Navy has a remarkable safety record actually operating SMR in the Ocean (mostly subs). ThorCon is transporting sealed, non-operating cans.
Nuclear is our safest power tech, safer than a outboard motor.
for a lot of nations, this makes good sense. As a baseload station, this will work nicely mixed with renewable energy sources plus various means of energy storage. Allows decommissioning of old dirty coal-burning power stations. I will, however, take up a couple of issues, this will, in early days of construction, not be as cheap as made out, these things never are, part of that is due to developmental issues in terms of production, lack of production experience, unforeseen technical issues that always appear. This is why this does need government support to offset early production cost overruns. As experience grows, then the cost of production will come down. Need to see a small scale demonstration unit first.
A reactor as free from the xenon neutron capturing problem as Thorcon or indeed any other MSR makes every so-called "renewable energy" device worthless. It's cleaner, more reliable, and perfectly capable of meeting peak loads as adequately as anything except perhaps pumped hydro storage, which can outperform gas turbine "spinning reserve" in that it can spin idle on less than 1% of the turbine's full power, whereas gas burns 30% of its full power fuel, just to spin idle ready to take up a dropped or sudden load.
The history of the enemies of nuclear is that they learned more about demonizing it to the ignorant multitude than the engineers needed to learn about building the reactors inexpensively. Specifically what Thorcon Power calls their "prototype" was a reactor designed by Alvin Weinberg, to eliminate the weaknesses he identified in his first design, the ubiquitous PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor)
The great thing about base load service from nuclear is that the fuel cost is negligible, so the nearer you can run to 100% capacity, the less the capital cost and permanent personnel cost. But the advantage of nuclear for all over reduction of CO₂ emissions is that, if you have peak grid load capacity of nuclear, you have lots of quite consistently available off-peak power.
So, he says that after the 4 year operating life of the first can is up, the salt will be moved to the second can. Do we know when or if the salt is getting processed to remove fission products?
he completes his sentence as the removed one will be suspended and processed (cleansed ) in order to turn back into production AGAIN.
@@cankutbayhan thank-you, I didn't hear that.
@@cankutbayhan That's him talking about the dry can, isn't it? That's not him talking about the salt.
He did mention that the ship carrying the can would either carry (in a separate container) the make-up salt (which implies the other option is that it'll carry the starting salt).
It's entirely possible that after the initial salt they'll never replace the full volume of it, only fractions.
@@MrRolnicek the amount that salt could or could not be chipped off is not my task to debate. But obviously, it is a well-known by-stand in this process and a matter at hand inevitably.
AFAIK you want to keep the radioactive fission products in the reactor as along as possible, and burn them up.
That's the nice thing: Depending on the MSR design you can keep most of the radioactive fission products in solution in the fuel salt, until the day you decommission the reactor, and you get a equilibrium between creation of fission products and burn up of fission products - this is unlike with conventional solid fuel, where you have to replace the fuel because the solid fuel pellets start to crumble and release the fission products as e.g. volatiles.
And AFAIK over time you add some fresh fuel salt - but this depends the actual design, I don't know what ThorCon will do with their.
Fingers crossed, this will become global base-load supply.
As soon as it’s a success what’s the bet that one of the major powers will attempt to corner the thorium market just to stymie competition
Thorium is everywhere, can't happen.
Could the "can" be recycled just by replacing the moderator, is it the only part that gets irreversibly damaged by radiation? Because it could be non-marginal consideration from the cost point of view.
I am sure that as they get more more experience with running this thing, they will find that some steps and precautions are unnecessary
Proximo, I imagine the "can" would be too hot, as in radioactive, to work on, making the complex task of changing the moderator beyond economical feasibility.
Yes the Can and most of its contents can be cleaned, inspected and reused. The moderator does wear out - though there is some hope of recycling it as well in the future. Various portions (bearings, dry gas seals, heat exchanger tubes) have a shorter life (16 years??) so have limited recycling opportunities. The radiation level is high enough that all work would have to be done robotically.
@@larsjorgensen4123 Thanks very much for your answer, since it's contaminated would have to be specially (safely) stored if not reused that would also generate additional costs.
@@proximo1033 That's why they have the "cool down" period, so storage is only 4 years, then it can be recycled at minimal cost
Gordon. What do you hear as the target date in 2020 that China will go online with its Thorium Molten Salt Reactor?
davidgmillsatty they are building a liquid fuel test reactor now. Visa problem kept them out of ORNL MSRW 2019. I have no fresh info.
@@gordonmcdowell When Kutsch mentioned last August that China was going online with a 2.5 mega watt molten salt thorium reactor in six months was that a fairly certain date or was Kutsch just guessing?
@@davidgmillsatty1900 Assume was based on this: samofar.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019-TMSR-SAMOFAR%E2%80%94%E2%80%94Yang-ZOU-PDF-version-1.pdf ...presented in July 2019. I would bet going critical but not full power (2MWTh=full power) in 2020. Any takers?
@@gordonmcdowell On page 12 of the pdf at the top of the table it says SF1 and after that all references are to LF1 so I assume that SF1 is a typo. Then I am not sure what the difference is between LF1 and TMSR -0 is. Do you know?
@@davidgmillsatty1900 Page 6 shows TMSR-0 is a mock up.
It seems to be very simple design. 1st generation of MSR. By this, they don't solve the combustible pollution... They just replace it every 5 years.
It could be built and operational in 2 years without paper work / safety regulation.
Did they look at the jet engine impacting the pond walls, and what happens to the cooling water? Ignoring the reactor effects.
They did. The models show no penetrating breaches of the outer hull. (Big 30cm dent on the inside that would need to be repaired eventually.)
Question about the ThorCon Hull: it looks rigid and maybe it is. But settling it in shallow tidal waters? A cubicle and a rectangular shape is not an ideal form in coastal waters. it would be better if it had a shape like that of shells or clamps - these marine lifeforms have adapted to live in tidal, dangerous waters for 100s of millions of years - if a harsh tsunami-wave hit, a clamps-like hull would better withstand and be at less risk of eventually toppling-over! ! The drain-tanks with passive freeze-valves wouldn't work if toppled-over.
It's a double hull filled with concrete meters think, it's not going anywhere.
Reminds me of the freight ships carting sea cans. Could sit on an existing hull that is big enough to carry it.
Why do I see it hard to believe that an impact with a Boeing 777 or bigger would only dent it 200 mm. That's like 5 inches...
A plane is very lightweight. I'm told the skin on an airliner is about 1mm thick. So the impact really comes down to the jet engines and the landing gear plus fire danger from the fuel. Check out the video of an F4 crash test into a concrete block to gain a visual appreciation for what happens. The F4 is much more compact and dense than a commercial airliner.
It's true, if you shot an aluminum pellet at a steel wall. How far do you think it would penetrate?
Lightweight plane, pellet or a 385,000 lb projectile at 400 MPH...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
They came to that conclusion through Finite Element Analysis. Much of the world is counter-intuitive.
200mm is 8”. Thorcon uses steel backed by sand, instead of concrete. Steel is ductile, and bends instead of breaking, and the sand absorbs energy without being damaged at all. It is like sand/gravel being used in gun ranges or run away truck ramps.
My questions are, with the heat condenser and the coolant. Will it have enough heat capacity to maintain operation of the reactor without having your coolant be too warm and the condenser work fast enough to remove the heat at a rate with constant operation to have enough cold coolant to cool the salt fast enough. As to hit your ROI you want that thing running at high temps, and the coolant/ heat condenser possibly over long periods of reliable steam production may not keep up. I'm sure you guys are doing good math and estimates. But things break down and the heat condenser seems to be a failure point that needs redundancy or a backup replacement on standby and constant checks on its operation. Wouldn't want it in drain tanks without cold coolant ready. Nice surface area on the drain tanks, that is good design.
Also the cold wall, will there be a secondary containment? Considering the corrosion. Replacing the can is expensive, blanketing the can and using maybe Cathodic protection can protect it, but I have my doubts in long term it will leak and a secondary containment will actually maybe long term, allow for leakage and cost savings while you than can drain the can and replace it when it is economically viable to do so?
Although I love the modular designs, I think smaller is great, but the trade offs might make it harder to be viable in the long term economically at this point.
@@tommorris3688 Germany tried that. They can't even make Renewables viable. Like they said they have to be more viable than Coal. Because that is what Germany is relying on.
Re-newables are only good on a individual level not on a state grid level. Imo, it needs to be reliable and powerful. Both of which renewables are not. You need to power industry, and be reliable. For hospitals and emergency services. Wind turbines need oil to lubrikate the gears. Costal turbines are great but need to have grates to protect marine life.
Nuclear is the only way forward. Imho
Greens are either pro nuclear, or primativists. Imho. You can't run Solar from china with out all the waste. Also they haven't had a good recycling program for them yet. Also with batteries is a soft spot for renewables economic viability. Great for individuals weak on a state grid.
@@tommorris3688 No LFTR makes modular reactor designs possible. Due to not needing a massive containment. Steam expands 1000 times the volume of water. LFTR does not need to be pressurized.
Small scale reactors do not exist as of yet. LFTR could get smaller designs but not small enough to be transported on a truck bed yet. However, the turbine seperatly you could get them pretty small.
Oil gets subsidized as well due to exploration risks of coming out dry and the costs it would have. It encourages exploration. Just like Nuclear subsidies encourages first movers to take the initial cost.
So Germany needs Hydro from anouther country to be self sufficient? What happened to green energy? Wind turbines need to be maintained as well. As do solar panels need to be cleaned to work efficiently. All that costs money.
Nuclear however can have higher initial costs but lower costs in operation. Why doesn't Germany dam up their rivers? At modest cost? Coal is one of the cheapest forms of Electricity generation to date. Also one of the dirtiest.
@@tommorris3688 You obviously know nothing, so I know you're not even a Fossil Carbon mole.
@@tommorris3688 Russia has two reactors running, slightly inferior to the IFR EBR-2 design, but on-line with 600 and 800 MW. Clinton and the Sierra Club killed the IFR funding. EDF has successful enemies in the EU power companies. So did even the German nuclear power plants.
The only problem I have with this is no long-term study has been done on what it would mean if the unit was abandoned after... three-and-a-half years (perhaps because of a worst-case scenario of war or international political strife- which I understand is the motivation to fast-track this...). If no US Navy crew was standing by to continually grind and re-paint, and considering that unwanted fission products will not be continually removed from the system- how long before oxidation and long-term 'inattentiveness' becomes an issue for the rest of Southeast Asia (due to an unforeseen event or set of circumstances)?
Abrupt abandonment is not a problem we have considered. Since the power plant is inside a hull one could deballast and tow it away from the conflict zone to deploy for use elsewhere (or decommission if that was the desire). Long term (multiple decades) there was a problem at MSRE with the cold fuel storage. Not a difficult problem to solve now that it is know. If this is the only problem you have then I think we have done a pretty good job.
Dilution is the best at reducing radiation levels. I know it sounds bad but I believe using the ocean to dilute and cool would be best in case of a completely catastrophic failure.
That is a good question. (They have to cover plane strike for marketing, but "How long until the ocean dissolves its way into the pot in a walk-away situation at [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,...] years from the first day of fission.) Looking at the wrecks of oil tankers and cruise ships around the world it seems to depend on exposure to wind, tide, waves, swell, ocean temperature and storms. (That's a fun pile of Navier-Stokes equations to solve.) My first guess would be: between 5 and 90 years, depending on location. [There are ships from WWII that still haven't fully broken up off the coat of California.])
Well, it looks like that timeline is out the window.
Can thorium reactors be miniaturized so units can be sent to Mars to power habitat and machines such as bulldozers?
No! The smallest thermal MSR is NaOH moderated. Graphite moderated is always large per MW, like gas reactors.
@@EdPheil They use plutonium for this tasks since not much power is needed. Even if Pu "battery" opens during accident it wouldn't be a problem as some think. Thorium is best for producing energy on a large scale, also hydrogen, desalination of water, etc.
@@codaalive5076
You are confusing Pu238 decay heat source being for low power, with Pu for fission being as equally capable as U233 from thorium, or U235 fission. Any fission produces exactly the same energy per fission. U233/Th is no better or worse than U235 or Pu239/240/241.
We already have reactors for space, solid fuel, heat pipes,radiators to disperse heat,KiloPower.Rovers already are nuclear powered on Mars now.
Where does the low pressure within the can during operation come from?
Salt has very high melting and boiling temperature at atmospheric pressure. Table salt is around 800 degrees Celsius for melting and around 1400 degrees boiling temperature.
Sslt has very low vapor pressure at up to 1000-1400C. Low pressure is maintained by a pressurized cover gas to reduce off gassing of higher oxidation state fissiles & sweep up the off gassing noble gas fission products, xenon, krypton, helium and hydrogen (p, d, t) as HF.
What about hypersonic missile strikes?
Wnergy independence is what helps avert "missile strikes". Enough energy, and one can use it to supply abundant water, food and electricity. We're more likely to have "missile strikes" in a world where everyone is too frightened to build energy infrastructure, and scarcity gives reason for conflict.
So what would happen? The molten salt, if blown out of the reactor, freezes when it hits water. While frozen it traps radioactive materials inside. Eventually the FLiNaK will dissolve in seawater, but there's time to retrieve the radioactive material. Water is an excellent radiation shield.
My only question is how will it deal with water from a Tsunami or typhoon? Since it was the tsunami that initiated the downfall of Fukushima.
When it arrives on site, it is submerged, and sits either partially or completely underwater. I don't know how big a wave it could withstand, but i'd honestly be the most concerned about LACK of water before a tsunami (the water on the shore receedes before a tsunami), which i got the impression is part of the cooling.
Like quakes, Tsunami or typhoon is a surface phenomenon.
The hull is 30 meters tall so a wave or tsunami of 10m or less will not have any impact. The hull is designed for North Atlantic storms with accelerations greater than 1g so a typhoon won't hurt it. There are some locations on earth with very high tsunamis but these generally require the land to be shaped like a lens focusing the tsunami - our response is pick another site.
If you really want to be certain you can spend an extra $200M/GWe and use iron ore for ballast. This will hold the hull down on the seabed even in a 30+ m high tsunami. (The turbine hall will get flooded and totally trashed but there would be no release).
As for loss of cooling (for example during the water outrush just before the tsunami arrives) this is handled the same as any other event that cuts off cooling. Fission is stopped (shutdown rods drop), the fuel is drained, and it is cooled by natural circulation to the decay heat removal pond.
The thing that caused Fukushima’s problems was the loss of power to cooling pumps. The old style solid fuel reactor requires pumps to circulate water for cooling. (Active cooling).The reactor was scrammed so there is no power generation. The diesel generators were washed away and the batteries kicked in. Problem was the batteries could only supply power for less than 6 hours. Remember that the whole coastline was destroyed so there was no ability to get the system repaired before the cooling water got converted to hydrogen and then exploded. This design uses passive cooling meaning that it doesn’t require water circulation pumps. He mentioned 147 days supply of water for passive cooling. Think of it of no human intervention for 147 days and it would still be ok.
The downfall of Fukushima was abandoning real government oversight. The plant operator kept reducing maintenance due to a need to increase profits. That plant was 40+ years old and should have been decommissioned at best and refurbished at least after 20 years. Neither happened. So abandonment can be construed in several ways.
I love my president of Indonesia... Bravo Pa Jokowi ❤❤❤
How deep is Thorium located?
From few to hundreds of meters, very easy to mine. For now it is being thrown away in known locations which are all over the world available to every country, even those who aren't friends with US. So we could power the world with only that "waste" for a lot longer than 1000 years. Uranium is so fashionable because of lobbies which can pay big money to stay alive.
@@codaalive5076 Incorrect. uranium is widespread and plentiful, so it is cheap. REE and Th deposits are very difficult to find and are often very small deposits as they form in very unusual geological settings. For example, almost every country in Europe has uranium deposits large and small, but only Sweden (as far as i know) has a small thorium deposit, really only a small quarry in a national park- (so no mining there! There are also enormous uranium deposits that will be producing for a long time, e.g. Olympic Dam in Australia where the uranium is a by-product of copper, iron and gold production and good for about 400 years. There is no thorium deposit anywhere to match that. If you know of one, give its name and the reserves.
@@karhukivi "As far as i know only Sweden"... Inform yourself, thorium is ~3 times as common as uranium and very easy to mine, then process. Mining of thorium is also much cleaner than uranium, beside we have plenty of it already mined and only this amount could power the world for a long, long time. Here is information i found in about 1 min. of Google search, hope IAEA's paper is good enough: www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf
@@codaalive5076 OK for Europe (as I referred to) they include Norway in the list. But there is uranium in Germany, France, the UK, Poland, Czech republic, etc., but no deposits of thorium in those countries. Look at page 44 of the article you linked Section 5.1 paragraph 2, first sentence "The present knowledge of thorium resources in the world is limited and incomplete because
of the relatively low-key exploration efforts arising out of insignificant demand". In fact, there is plenty of exploration for REEs (and Th) going on right now, but it is difficult and not very successful.
Yes, 3 x times more "abundant" in the Earth's crust, that is 12 ppm Th as opposed to 4 ppm for U - but you cannot mine deposits of 12 ppm. Don't confuse crustal abundance with deposit grade. An "assured reserve" does not imply economically viable to mine, it only means it is present there. You're clearly not a geologist with 30+ years of mineral exploration experience.
@@karhukivi As geologist with 30 y of experiences you should know about abundance of already mined thorium. It can be used as a fuel when we decide to do so, fact is it would last a long time without additional mining. Beside, it is much cheaper, simpler and less dangerous to make fuel from Th. IAEA wrote this: "The present knowledge of thorium resources in the world is limited and incomplete because
of the relatively low-key exploration efforts arising out of insignificant demand." It reads they don't know enough yet, there are other papers which go deeper into this matter. Also, do you know how much energy can be had from U, any how much from Th being breeder? Breeder makes more fuel than it consumes, it is not perpetuum mobile but not far from it. Get back when you find out more or write scientific paper about this matter. I find it pretty interesting north Americans are often against Th use, despite A. Weinberg running MSRE to show it was the only path for civil use. And he was designer of PWR, guess he knew this things much better than you and me.
Bad idea. You place the power plant inland, and you can protect it against tsunamis. A ship by the coast will bear the brunt of the force of a tsunami as it transitions on the continental shelf. This ship will be parked on a coastal strip that is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. The most geologically active area on the planet. It will not be a question of if a major, completely devastating tsunami will hit that ship and tumble it inland with immense force, but WHEN. The reactor design looks very sound. Why not make provisions to sail it over in a modular system and assemble it on higher grounds inland?
Many locations are not susceptible to tsunamis, like the west coast of Japan, or up navigable rivers, or estuaries.
...what is a wigger?
Ok but instead of towing this floating thing, they could just turn it into a proper ship
You mean something like this? ua-cam.com/video/OsKLBS2-FTI/v-deo.html
Since this things was supposed too sit in one place once it's towed to a destination, making it to be a proper ship would be a waste.
@@hamobu Agreed, except it's "supposed to", not "too".
@@kevintrye7605 Thorcon, Russian KLT-40S, & Seaborg Technologies CMSR are all barges. It is not economically feasible to make it as a self powered ship if it is sitting at a dock all the time.
Heat flux density. Thorium spells a future for humanity, a quantum leap for peace and progress.
@@tommorris3688 Seaborg requires Reprocessing and only uses 1% Plutonium of SNF. Elysium's MCSFR does not require Reprocessing only conversion from oxide to chloride and consumes 99.9% of the residual Pu AND residual uranium, which is 95% of SNF.
ua-cam.com/video/_ou_xswB2b0/v-deo.html
Fu - ku - shima, not Fu - Shu Kima
I say it wrong. I say nuclear wrong too (weird inflection). That shit is hard, after you've said it wrong twice.
Language is a tool for communication. If you understood the intention of the thought then it has been used successfully. If you were searching google earth for Fushukima then Dr Wilson failed. (Thank you for your input.)
why aren't more people Thorium seriously?
Thorium reactors don't produce any great amount of weapons grade plutonium. Oak Ridge and other American research sites were working on thorium in the late 50s and early 60s- had a successful design, too. Research was defunded to create "breeder reactors"; all uranium reactors produce plutonium- breeders produce plutonium in much larger quantities. Now you know! So as long as Iran had uranium reactors, it would always be capable, ultimately, of producing some of the nastiest weapons known. So does any nation with uranium fueled nuclear reactors. After you have the fissionables, the engineering is doable by any nation that can build ships and jet engines- just need to work out the engineering.FR
@@fredericrike5974
Thorium produces weapons grade U233 as good as plutonium, or better, but Thorcon denatures it to less than 12% to prevent proliferation.
@@EdPheil The process as the '50s-'60s era experiments showed didn't produce "useable amounts" of weapons grade material. this was the primary reason the Defense Dept was a big booster for uranium based reactors, all of which produce significantly more fissile material, some "tuned" reactors producing even more. thorium reactors have already been shown to liberate more energy from "spent" fuel materials than the uranium based reactors could, leaving much smaller and less radioactive waste. Among the waste materials that could be usefully run through this process are the barrels of irradiated water from the water cooling loops needed to help control such reactors. There are thousands of such bbls at the Glen Rose Nuclear Power Plant in Texas waiting till they are stable enough to blend with "clean" water and be released into the environment. I imagine there are hundreds of thousands of these all over the country. Additionally, the US has already got enough thorium in the piles of waste from uranium mining to make enough power to run the US for several decades. I appreciate your comment, but I know I am not a nuclear engineer or scientist and can only work from what I'm told. FWIW, sources, as they do in all reports, matter. Some of mine include AEC reports back before the renaming- but I'm 70, so that is just past yesterday for me.
@@fredericrike5974
All three ORNL MSR cores used HEU to guarantee a negative temperature coefficient.
LFTR can not both isobreed U233 from Th and burn SNF, not poisble as U233 has way too few neutrons/fission.
The reason DOD didnt use it is because it didnt breed fissile fast enough, but that was vecause the US wanted a large arsenal, but most small countries, or groups only needafew, which U233 can do, and it is better than Pu239 because the weapons can be simpler gun type. I have veen a nuclear engineer for 36 years, 32 yrs of that designing every reactor you can imagine for the US Navy.
@@fredericrike5974
Fission of any type of fissile releases exactly the same amount of energy, thorium/U233 is no better or worse.
Is this the plant I've seen that people quote as potentially "Chernobyl at sea"? Or is this some other reactor?
If this is the one that they say I think those people who say that are dumb.
The ship in question: Akademik Lomonosov. The reactor used: modified KLT-40. The answer: completely different reactor. Time to find this information:
There is one big problem with thorium that nobody ever mentions - it does not readily form economic deposits. Although it is more abundant in the crust (12 ppm) than uranium (4 ppm) you can't mine these elements at those levels. The word "abundant" is unfortunate, as it implies "plentiful" which thorium is not. There needs to be a geological process to concentrate an element to a point where it can be extracted, same as with iron, lead, copper and gold etc.. This is then a matter of chemistry and economics to extract the elements or the oxides as required. Uranium is chemically mobile in oxygenated water and there are at least 14 types of deposits that can be formed, so almost every country can find some uranium. Not so with thorium, there are only two types of deposits, pegmatites and monazite sands. India has unique and extensive monazite deposits and relatively little uranium, which is why they are leaders in thorium reactors. Europe, Australia and N. America have plenty of uranium deposits but few thorium ones. Thorium costs about 100x more than uranium as a result. Security of supply is another issue, e.g. if your supplier turns out not to be so friendly in the future.
One need not mine Thorium from Thorium mines... it is a byproduct from Rare Earth deposits. China is stockpiling massive quantities of Thorium. They did not need to create a "Thorium Mine" to do this.
ThorCon is a converter. Not super-efficient, but great way to get MSR into commercialization and iterate from there. Once a true Th-MSR breeder is in operation then it isn't a question of natural-Th competing with natural-U it is Natural-Th vs U-235 (less than 1% of natural-U). Of course fast-spectrum U-MSR could then also turn it into natural-Th vs natural-U again.
Yes, thorium is associated with REE deposits and many exploration companies are actively exploring for both REE and Th deposits. However, there is far less readily available thorium than uranium because of its difficult geochemistry. Uranium remains the cheap substitute for the more expensive and scarcer thorium.
@@karhukivi Thorium is not scarce. Thorium is a byproduct of rare earth production and theoretically, at least, is almost free.
@@charlesaanonson3954 Try buying some! Thorium behaves chemically like the lanthanides so is often found with them. They are called "rare" for a reason, not of abundance, but because they are rare to form economic deposits. The distribution of Th or REE deposits is not anywhere as ubiquitous as uranium, so e.g. if France decided to switch to thorium nuclear power, they would have to import all their thorium mainly from China, which if a trade war intervened, cold lead to supply problems. This is not the case with uranium, deposits are found almost everywhere thanks to its ability to form economic deposits fairly readily.
@@karhukivi You are correct about Thorium. Thankfully the reactor in the video can run on a mixture of Thorium and uranium, (and even plutonium.) So its fuel source is already mined and sitting in the car park of every "nuclear" power station in the USA. It can literally burn nuclear waste, (no need to toss it in the sun.)
one advantage of an MSR sitting on the sand in coastal water would be, that it will be mobile on short notice. Just in case, that NASA would detect an incoming asteroid, with her trajectory directly upon the reactor-site!!!
If they allow them to fill the ballast tanks and voids with sand instead of concrete mobility is possible.
your math on the heated salts is slightly off. Also, realistically, you need at least 3 "cans" but practically speaking you need 4. With 3 "cans" if you powered up can A) it would generate electricity from 2024-2028 then cool for 2028-2032 then removed in 2033 and new can A installed 2034. can B) would sit as back up/standby from 2024-2028, generate energy from 2028-2032, cool for 2032-2036 removed in 2037 replaced in 2038. can C would sit as back up/standby from 2024-2032, generate energy from 2032-2036, cool from 2036 to 2040 removed in 2041 replacement installed 2042. With only two cans you will have at least 2 years of ZERO energy production starting in 2032. again, 4 cans would give you better time allowances for maintenance and give you an additional back up should one of the cans be outside of tolerances.
He said 500 mW is their target. Depending on the size and temperature they run at. Also with other factors such as efficiency of turbine and waste product build up. Down time ext. I think it is realistic as he said modular and one can is good for a modular design. So each can will have a cooling and containment solution. independent of each other.
Once the first boat is producing electricity, (2024..2028) the plan is to have a sister ship added next to her a few years later so that they can stagger the rest and replacement cycles.
Moltex style convection is better than pumping molten salt.
Moltex is a completely different design so that comparison is moot. I wish Moltex was this far along.
Looking at climate change I suggest we try both RIGHT NOW and see which reduces coal consumption the fastest.
@@tommorris3688
Moltex is horrible at burning today's SNF, only does
@@tommorris3688
ua-cam.com/video/I-DeS87LzPo/v-deo.html
@@tommorris3688
Solar & Wind are far dirtier & more dangerous, requiring masively more mining of reasources/MWe and orders of magnitude more land devastation & killing of trees & birds, bats, bees.
Them: Thorium MSR isn't ready yet
Us: I'M ON A BOAT, I'M ON A BOAT, TAKE A LOOK AT ME FLOATING ON A BOAT (reference: ua-cam.com/video/avaSdC0QOUM/v-deo.html )
"Allows us to avoid building a mauseleum" - by which you mean a containment building? That sounds like one of the most staggeringly stupid ideas since Chernobyl. In Indonesia. One of the world's most active tectonic areas. Yeah right.
It's on a ship Muppet
@@mozzalid33 All the more reason for containment then - crew in close proximity and nowhere to run if there's a problem. And the name's Kermit.
@@vipertwenty249 I like that you are thinking Viper. What problems do you anticipate?
@@recklessroges Someone said after I made that comment that there was a plan to undertake the tests on a ship at sea. Obviously that would get around the geological risks asscociated with Indonesia. I did express concern though that in such a constricted environment as a ship, the crew and technicians would be at higher risk if any accident were to occur. So in my opinion, proper care to provide adequate containment would be very wise - better to have it and not need it that to need it and not have it.
2-1/2 minutes in and am horrified.. Since this will be a seagoing ship that is to be scuttled it will be close to the seashore and at sea level.. Indonesia in one of the world hot spots for Volcanic and seismic activity and is at high risk of tsunamis (not to mention civil and religious unrest)... Unless they design this for full submersion with water infiltration this is a folly that could lead to a disaster worse than Chernobyl . I am a big proponent of nuclear power (especially MSR and Thorium designs) but stupid is stupid
There is no nuclear material in the "ship" until it is anchored in its final site. The last thing to go into the overall plant is nuclear material.
@@chapter4travels you missed the point entirely... if you build a reactor based on scuttling a seagoing vessel the only places you can scuttle it are very, very bad places to put a reactor (especially Indonesia, which is one of the most seismically active places on the planet)... how and when you get fuel to the reactor was not the subject of my post...
@@darikmatters8866 These are some of the smartest people in the world and you think they didn't consider this?
@@chapter4travels LOL... clearly you are not one of them... This has nothing to do with smart people making decisions, this is ALL politics and business.. Indonesia has been pining for a nuclear power-plant for years and they see this as a way around their lack of construction skills and experience.
@@darikmatters8866 LOL, this has nothing to do with politics, if it did, it wouldn't get built at all. Not sure what planet you are from.
Please, the word is: eTcetera not eGGcetera, breakfast has got nothing to do with it.
Plus, he Spoonerized "Fukushima".
I'm glad that despite speaking multiple languages and being a nuclear engineer Dr Wilson was able to speak clearly enough for all of us to understand that he meant etc. (Thanks for the English lesson.) Do you have anything useful to add? The topic is Saving the planet from humans burning it with coal by using fission.
I'm uneasy about this, because the likes of ISIL would just love to take a fishing ship, sticks 100 tons into it, park such a ship next to a reactor and blow it all up. Even if it was in a Muslim country. See the 'Management of Savagery'. This is hard to do with a car bomb because really big cars are rare, but ships..
Ship bomb was the first human source of an explosion heard over 80 kilometers away. Back in the 16th or maybe 17th century. Look up 'hellburner'.
What ships have they attacked? An Egyptian ship in 2015 with zero casualties? Very worst, very unlikely scenario is a steam explosion from Molten Salt contacting sea water right before the molten salt freezes into a solid.
@@gordonmcdowell you could just as well ask about airliner strikes in summer of 2001. At that point in time, no one has yet used an airliner as a weapon.
But it was a real possibility, but wasn't on people's minds because it just hasn't happened.
And also, Islamists have used a rubber dinghy to blow up as a US destroyer, killing 15 and wounding 39.
The reactor is surrounded by an earthen berm, so that is not possible. Assuming they could even get that close.
Angela Merkel dislike this video!
She had to cave to the green party and scrap fission to stay in power. (Which makes her a good politician and I leave history to judge her.) Germany has made lots of progress on burning wood more efficiently for heating, so maybe they can engineer a solution to climate change, (before the Black Forrest, that they saved from acid rain in the 1980s goes up in flames like Australia and California.)
I like molton salt reactors but this design scares me it is an accident looking to happen. Something goes wrong radiation all over the ocean. Is this the only way anyone knows how to cool off a reactor. The reactor needs to be made in a way as to have little or no waste heat. This is another example of wasting energy and make something good into something dangerous. Bigger is not always better the same with the larger fusion reactors.
Clement, (hi again) check out Lars newer presentation where he discusses various disaster scenarios. ua-cam.com/video/oB1IrzDDI9g/v-deo.html ...there's an index of subjects in the meta-data and repeated in pinned comment. I don't think wasting heat from a high-temp Gen4 is a concern... parasitic heat loss is a great way to achieve passive safety (to disperse decay heat). It is the direction Terrestrial Energy went with their MSR too, despite their I-MSR being land based.