That's not a bad presentation at all. It was a good point that Jeff Navin made that just one of these plants gives about ten times the energy storage as is currently in all of Australia today. I hadn't realized that. It's really quite amazing. And we could easily expand that. Just add more molten salt storage tanks! I suspect that once you heat up that salt then this energy can be stored almost indefinitely in an insulated tank -- to use whenever you need it. This is a very efficient energy storage technology. It's the only really good energy storage technology we actually have. This is going to be hugely more efficient than trying to store energy in lithium batteries! But of course what really matters isn't efficiency but cost. Perhaps it's too early to say what this is going to cost, since this is a brand new technology.
Once you have MSR power plants, you don’t need wind and solar at all! We don’t need to use up valuable land for these windmill farms and large solar arrays.
0:22 Economic investigator Frank G Melbourne Australia is still following this very important and informative content cheers Frank a 70 year old man and running a "Public UA-cam channel" can now see a great compelling solution for energy efficiency one word WOW ! 😊 2:394:4210:24
why. if you can provide reliable base load power, do we need to integrate it with wind and solar. wind and solar will just screw everything up--only bring back the worries when the sun doesn't shine and the wind stops blowing.
That’s politics, you can’t say what is going to happen you have sneak nuclear energy security up on people and let them experience the benefits. Stable, affordable energy, what an innovation!
Batteries are becoming extremely cheap. The combination of wind and solar with batteries can easily make up for those times. Batteries will be half price from where they are in one year!
Fast breeder reactors exist that can be fuelled with both U and Th... and nuclear waste from early generation reactors. It's just cheaper to use U fuel inefficiently.
Contractors used to say how customers will remember a bad job and the continuing problems long after they have forgotten what a good job cost. Well it is surprising what a great job Nuclear Power Generation is for the people health and wealth wise and got a poor reputation from polluters getting subsidised rights to cause long lasting problems. And people who have benefited from the Industrial Revolution shouldn't complain about their fossil fuels too much, it's the politics of greed that poisons minds against the necessities of life. This Reactor has great characteristics for placing next to Coal Power as they are winding down, and are an obvious choice for Industries. (We were told rooftop solar was going to do that, then the Goal Posts were shifted) Very interesting presentation thank you.
What I didn't hear was when the project would be up and running. Not likely before 2030 and that's only if they are able to demonstrate that all the innovations work out of the gate, which is unlikely. There is a huge unknown to make this viable in the long run and show the fuel efficiency and re-use they are hoping for. The "Traveling Wave" phenomena it depends on is theoretical and never been demonstrated as far as I know. This is what is supposed to allow reusing spent fuel and burn off the fissionable byproducts that are so harmful to the environment.
This is not a traveling wave reactor, that's a completely separate technology that TerraPower is working on. They are also working on a Molten Chloride fast reactor, again as a separate project.
@@chapter4travelsshould also consider fast breeder tech, which is currently in use. Proliferation worries are moot nowadays. US is stuck with old legislation preventing breeders.
Increasing uranium burn is still a step towards efficiency. It seems it's a bit more efficient than conventional reactors without reprocessing. I've not readen about mixing thorium in this design.
Only a problem if it leaks. It's melting point is 98C would turn to hard butter like pliable metal soon after leaking and could capture the leaks in a bath of oil, where it sinks to the bottom. Hope they don't have a sprinkler system installed though.
Australia is the 4th biggest Uranium producer in the world. I'd hope Australia would use their own resources, but given the crazy way our politicians behave, who can tell... It's already bizarre enough that it's mined and sold, but is illegal to use in the country, aside from OPAL at Lucas Heights.
So 25 tonnes of Uranium per SMRs 300mW. 80 SMRs is 2,000 tonnes of uranium. 400 SMRs is 10,000 tonnes of uranium. So 2,000 tonnes at 5% = 100 tonnes at 100% enriched uranium. ??? U-235. That sounds about right for any nuclear industry to produce. 200 countries in the world producing CO2, they will have their own nuclear industries??????
300MW. I'd be very disappointed if it was only a 300mW reactor. Even the first reactor to generate electricity produced about 200Watts. Perhaps you meant MW. The amount of fuel needed for this reactor was not mentioned in the presentation, nor is it on their website, or in the public versions of documents lodged with the US government and associated regulatory bodies. As far as fuel goes, the US government says they will need 40 tonnes of high assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) by 2030, however, it's not clear how many reactors this would be used in, or the longevity of this stockpile, but this Terrapower reactor will use HALEU. Current production in the USA is less than 1 tonne a year, though a new plant is being built to make up for the inability to buy from Russia based company, Tenex.
@cerealport2726 Australia exports yellowcake. They have very large ponds to catch the waste. These ponds are in the tropical flooding area and have the risk of bursting and poisoning downstream eco systems. More yellowcake to the world??? Who knows what impacts will follow.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 No current working Uranium mines exist in the topics. Check your facts, if you have the mental capacity. Mining at the Ranger mines stopped many years ago, and ore processing stopped about 3 years ago. Rum Jungle was mined in the 1940s, and this was done very poorly to say the least. Nonetheless, should they ever decide to exploit Rum Jungle in the future, current mining processes would not repeat these mistakes.
It like your part way to a Molten Salt Reactor, it great your getting rid of the water out of the nuclear part, but you are still using fuel rods? What will be your uranium burn efficiency? Is it still only 1% with the other 99% of the uranium being contaminated and requires 20,000 years of specialised storage? How will you source the right type of uranium so you can use it to contaminant the low grade uranium especially if you're reactor catches on, you will probably need something similar to a Molten Salt Reactor to make more of high grade uranium that this reactor can't make for it's self. Sadly we might have to buy better safer reactor from China because of the bureaucratic red tape against the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. There might be a statue someday of Alvin Weinberg standing in china next to the prototype reactor, you can use your own imagination as to what possible statue gesture is used in the direction of Richard Nixon gravesite.
A coolant leak isn't so safe if the reactants are mixed into the coolant. Modular system components keep the system more resilient to failure. How about fast breeder reactors that can be fuelled with both unenriched uranium and thorium... and burn nuclear waste from older designs?
How much do we have to pay for the ectricity thats wath i want know if this goes a head,at moment we getting ripped off i cant believe that the power companies making so much profit are charging so much,we only have 27 million people here.
So one thought that jumped at me at the @9:22 minute mark is that terra power took a struggling community, that would be most hurt by the closing of politically incorrect coal, the coal suddenly shuts down, so they called them up, and now they have a state and community that is bending over backwards to have this new nuclear plant installed in their community. Has anyone looked into just why the 4 coal plants were shut down? Did Bill Gates himself or his donation put any pressure on this? Maybe working through the EPA or federal govt to have the 4 coal plants shut down? The more you know about Bill Gates and how his foundation operates the more you'll see this as possible.
@@chapter4travels understandable but my question was mainly towards how the decision making process went to decide to close down the coal plant. Did Bill Gates and his foundations put any pressure on that decision so that they could set up their terra power plant in its place? This state is really red and has little environmentalism red tape and is incredibly pro business. So it's odd to me that Bill Gates, who is about as left as they come and used to pulling levers of govt to get what he wants, wouldn't put pressure on this community externally so that he could get what he wants. I'm not saying that this power plant is bad by any means, just that Bill Gates should not be trusted to act altruistically.
@@chrisking7603 I do, I just don't trust Bill Gates and the Gates foundation. They have a track history of shady shit and not all of it is pro US. Not saying this power plant is bad by any means, but I do wonder how the decision making process went to shut down this coal power plant in the first place and if the gates foundation had anything to do with it...
@@hans2five I have no inside information but if I had to bet, I'd say it's the other way around. There are lots of states with aging coal plants and I bet several states were lobbying to have the Natrium plant in their state. This happens all the time with any industry, they have their pick of states, usually with tax incentives thrown in.
Generation is a small part of electricity costs. The grid itself is extremely costly. 3 to 5times more electricity means a horrendously expensive construction of bigger grid capacity. Add those costs to the nuclear generation costs. I can tell you that you will not be using trucks to transport EXTRA electricity to the ends of the National Electricity Grid.
@buildmotosykletist1987 All grid electricity is too small because most energy is fossil fuels. To replace fossil fuels, the grid capacity has to be monstrously big. The customers will not be able to pay for the massive cost of the new monstrously big grid capacity. The grid was brilliant when dirt cheap fossil fuels could be used without restraint. Fossil fuels carried the majority of the energy demand load from the population. With cheap batteries and the sun shining on rooftop PV, the grid for home and building use, customers will not need grid electricity.
@buildmotosykletist1987 you confuse rooftop solar PV with distant energy. Rooftop is at the customer's building/ home. Distant energy must have the grid to the millions and millions and millions of customers. Grids make dirt cheap electricity, very expensive electricity. That is the biggest problem for all distant electricity. Rooftop PV biggest advantage is no grid costs and a big fat oversized battery parked 23hrs every day and all night.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 : Roof top is fine as a supplement but can't supply baseload power. Nuclear, coal, gas or hydro are required. The current grid will not require the extensive increase that renewables requires.
Solar rooftop PV is cheaper than windows $/m2. Std windows. All buildings have windows. 20million buildings connected to the Australian national electric grid. PV electricity is not a problem. Storage of electricity is the problem.
20million vehicles in Australia. 20million EVs with big 100Kwh battery is 2,000 giga watt hours of dispatchable stored electricity. Most vehicles are parked 23hrs every day. Most vehicles daily drives are 7kwh, and can be topped up daily, ezi pezi. 2 decades to replace all ICE vehicles. One, 1, decade to achieve 1,000 giga watt hrs daily storage. Nuclear electricity would mean 80 SMRs, just to replace existing fossil fueled generation. 400 SMRs for a full electric future. Decades and decades and .... $TRILLIONS and.... Will the government ban 20million rooftop solar PV to protect the nuclear electricity cash flow????
just like photovoltaic panels that are quietly being exported to their country of origin for disposal as the truth about recycling them is just too painful
Truthfully, waste from all reactors has to be reprocessed to remove the actinides with long half lives. The remains have much shorter half lives, and we can feasibly imagine what to do with them. Current fuel costs just make it cheaper to stockpile the waste without addressing the long term issue.
ENGINEERS BIGGEST MISTAKE is to solve the wrong problem. Snowy 2, $2billion is now projected to be $12 billion project and may be a decade late. Engineering can do, but economic engineering it is a disaster.
It was politicians poking their incomprehension into engineers' recommendation that more test cores needed to be drilled before committing to Snowy2. Politicians wanted to make the headlines, leaving the engineers to deal with the unexpected enroute slush encountered by the tunnel borer.
That's not a bad presentation at all. It was a good point that Jeff Navin made that just one of these plants gives about ten times the energy storage as is currently in all of Australia today.
I hadn't realized that. It's really quite amazing. And we could easily expand that. Just add more molten salt storage tanks!
I suspect that once you heat up that salt then this energy can be stored almost indefinitely in an insulated tank -- to use whenever you need it.
This is a very efficient energy storage technology. It's the only really good energy storage technology we actually have.
This is going to be hugely more efficient than trying to store energy in lithium batteries!
But of course what really matters isn't efficiency but cost. Perhaps it's too early to say what this is going to cost, since this is a brand new technology.
Once you have a power plant like this there will be no need to replace wind or solar when they wear out. A huge savings!
Snow hydro, west gate n metro tunnels over budget!! I don’t believe they’ll close the power stations.
Once you have MSR power plants, you don’t need wind and solar at all! We don’t need to use up valuable land for these windmill farms and large solar arrays.
@@tspidey007 That's my point. Once the existing ones fall apart/fail, there is no reason to replace them.
Refueling?
@@dexterroy Uranium is dirt cheap.
0:22 Economic investigator Frank G Melbourne Australia is still following this very important and informative content cheers Frank a 70 year old man and running a "Public UA-cam channel" can now see a great compelling solution for energy efficiency one word WOW ! 😊 2:39 4:42 10:24
Nice
Leveraging solar thermal technology, without the mirrors, could also be used to store excess pv and wind to eliminate curtailment.
Please, bring these reactors to Sweden a.s.a.p.!👍
Vi har redan bättre teknik än Na; läs gärna på om Blykalla..!
But you have own projects to build reactors like this one but based on lead coolant
@@Ayvengo21Yes I know but Sweden could use both concepts.
kinda unrelated, but I think it's time to revert element names like Sodium to Natrium, Potassium to Kalium, etc.
Don't know why they ever changed them to begin with tbh
And lead to ... amusement for kids of all ages.
why. if you can provide reliable base load power, do we need to integrate it with wind and solar. wind and solar will just screw everything up--only bring back the worries when the sun doesn't shine and the wind stops blowing.
That’s politics, you can’t say what is going to happen you have sneak nuclear energy security up on people and let them experience the benefits. Stable, affordable energy, what an innovation!
Batteries are becoming extremely cheap. The combination of wind and solar with batteries can easily make up for those times. Batteries will be half price from where they are in one year!
Because solar and wind are cheap
@@JumpingJack-w2l they are only cheaper because they are doing their own math.
@@JumpingJack-w2l : Solar and wind are VERY expensive. Why is the UK closing down their wind farms?
This is still a Uranium reactor, not Thorium, so nuclear waste and storage are still an issue.
can thorium be used as a fuel source, waiting w/ anticipation for atrium to come on line
Fast breeder reactors exist that can be fuelled with both U and Th... and nuclear waste from early generation reactors. It's just cheaper to use U fuel inefficiently.
Contractors used to say how customers will remember a bad job and the continuing problems long after they have forgotten what a good job cost.
Well it is surprising what a great job Nuclear Power Generation is for the people health and wealth wise and got a poor reputation from polluters getting subsidised rights to cause long lasting problems.
And people who have benefited from the Industrial Revolution shouldn't complain about their fossil fuels too much, it's the politics of greed that poisons minds against the necessities of life.
This Reactor has great characteristics for placing next to Coal Power as they are winding down, and are an obvious choice for Industries.
(We were told rooftop solar was going to do that, then the Goal Posts were shifted)
Very interesting presentation thank you.
The question is? why aren't we building nuc's by the dozen in every corner of the world.
Way to go Bill Gates! Solving the energy and climate change crisis by reusing nuclear wastes and cutting down our carbon dioxide footprint.
What I didn't hear was when the project would be up and running. Not likely before 2030 and that's only if they are able to demonstrate that all the innovations work out of the gate, which is unlikely. There is a huge unknown to make this viable in the long run and show the fuel efficiency and re-use they are hoping for. The "Traveling Wave" phenomena it depends on is theoretical and never been demonstrated as far as I know. This is what is supposed to allow reusing spent fuel and burn off the fissionable byproducts that are so harmful to the environment.
This is not a traveling wave reactor, that's a completely separate technology that TerraPower is working on. They are also working on a Molten Chloride fast reactor, again as a separate project.
@@chapter4travelsshould also consider fast breeder tech, which is currently in use. Proliferation worries are moot nowadays. US is stuck with old legislation preventing breeders.
atrium talks about uranium, can thorium be a substitute?
No.
Increasing uranium burn is still a step towards efficiency. It seems it's a bit more efficient than conventional reactors without reprocessing. I've not readen about mixing thorium in this design.
No. Not yet but the research ic continuing.
In a fast breeder reactor, yes both U and Th can be in the fuel. There's several examples using liquid metal coolants... from Na to Hg to Pb.
Muito interessante...
Smelling a lot of "I'm not anti-nuclear, but" in these replies
Evolução, gostaria tradução em português do Brasil
Using Natrium as coolant, what could possible go wrong?
It reacts to water, but that is no issue. I promise!
Only a problem if it leaks. It's melting point is 98C would turn to hard butter like pliable metal soon after leaking and could capture the leaks in a bath of oil, where it sinks to the bottom.
Hope they don't have a sprinkler system installed though.
Lead and mercury coolants have seen use in fast breeder reactors.
Will Australia produce its own uranium???
Or buy Russian uranium, or Kazakhstan uranium or Chinese uranium, or USA uranium.?
Well, they already export a lot of it.
@chuckygobyebye
Australia exports limited amounts of uranium ore.
And only to countries that allow inspections and have signed the treaty.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Australia exports yellowcake, not ore.
@@chuckygobyebye
Yes, I was keeping it simple.
Australia is the 4th biggest Uranium producer in the world.
I'd hope Australia would use their own resources, but given the crazy way our politicians behave, who can tell...
It's already bizarre enough that it's mined and sold, but is illegal to use in the country, aside from OPAL at Lucas Heights.
So 25 tonnes of Uranium per SMRs 300mW.
80 SMRs is 2,000 tonnes of uranium.
400 SMRs is 10,000 tonnes of uranium.
So 2,000 tonnes at 5% = 100 tonnes at 100% enriched uranium. ??? U-235. That sounds about right for any nuclear industry to produce.
200 countries in the world producing CO2, they will have their own nuclear industries??????
300MW.
I'd be very disappointed if it was only a 300mW reactor. Even the first reactor to generate electricity produced about 200Watts. Perhaps you meant MW.
The amount of fuel needed for this reactor was not mentioned in the presentation, nor is it on their website, or in the public versions of documents lodged with the US government and associated regulatory bodies.
As far as fuel goes, the US government says they will need 40 tonnes of high assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) by 2030, however, it's not clear how many reactors this would be used in, or the longevity of this stockpile, but this Terrapower reactor will use HALEU.
Current production in the USA is less than 1 tonne a year, though a new plant is being built to make up for the inability to buy from Russia based company, Tenex.
@cerealport2726 Australia exports yellowcake.
They have very large ponds to catch the waste. These ponds are in the tropical flooding area and have the risk of bursting and poisoning downstream eco systems.
More yellowcake to the world??? Who knows what impacts will follow.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 No current working Uranium mines exist in the topics. Check your facts, if you have the mental capacity.
Mining at the Ranger mines stopped many years ago, and ore processing stopped about 3 years ago.
Rum Jungle was mined in the 1940s, and this was done very poorly to say the least. Nonetheless, should they ever decide to exploit Rum Jungle in the future, current mining processes would not repeat these mistakes.
@cerealport2726 yep, no more mistakes, smarty pants.
It like your part way to a Molten Salt Reactor, it great your getting rid of the water out of the nuclear part, but you are still using fuel rods? What will be your uranium burn efficiency? Is it still only 1% with the other 99% of the uranium being contaminated and requires 20,000 years of specialised storage? How will you source the right type of uranium so you can use it to contaminant the low grade uranium especially if you're reactor catches on, you will probably need something similar to a Molten Salt Reactor to make more of high grade uranium that this reactor can't make for it's self.
Sadly we might have to buy better safer reactor from China because of the bureaucratic red tape against the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. There might be a statue someday of Alvin Weinberg standing in china next to the prototype reactor, you can use your own imagination as to what possible statue gesture is used in the direction of Richard Nixon gravesite.
A coolant leak isn't so safe if the reactants are mixed into the coolant. Modular system components keep the system more resilient to failure.
How about fast breeder reactors that can be fuelled with both unenriched uranium and thorium... and burn nuclear waste from older designs?
How much do we have to pay for the ectricity thats wath i want know if this goes a head,at moment we getting ripped off i cant believe that the power companies making so much profit are charging so much,we only have 27 million people here.
So one thought that jumped at me at the @9:22 minute mark is that terra power took a struggling community, that would be most hurt by the closing of politically incorrect coal, the coal suddenly shuts down, so they called them up, and now they have a state and community that is bending over backwards to have this new nuclear plant installed in their community. Has anyone looked into just why the 4 coal plants were shut down? Did Bill Gates himself or his donation put any pressure on this? Maybe working through the EPA or federal govt to have the 4 coal plants shut down? The more you know about Bill Gates and how his foundation operates the more you'll see this as possible.
That coal plant was already scheduled to be shut down, that's why they picked that site.
Increasing number of coal and nuclear are reaching end of life, who wants them to be replaced with something better?
@@chapter4travels understandable but my question was mainly towards how the decision making process went to decide to close down the coal plant. Did Bill Gates and his foundations put any pressure on that decision so that they could set up their terra power plant in its place? This state is really red and has little environmentalism red tape and is incredibly pro business. So it's odd to me that Bill Gates, who is about as left as they come and used to pulling levers of govt to get what he wants, wouldn't put pressure on this community externally so that he could get what he wants. I'm not saying that this power plant is bad by any means, just that Bill Gates should not be trusted to act altruistically.
@@chrisking7603 I do, I just don't trust Bill Gates and the Gates foundation. They have a track history of shady shit and not all of it is pro US. Not saying this power plant is bad by any means, but I do wonder how the decision making process went to shut down this coal power plant in the first place and if the gates foundation had anything to do with it...
@@hans2five I have no inside information but if I had to bet, I'd say it's the other way around. There are lots of states with aging coal plants and I bet several states were lobbying to have the Natrium plant in their state. This happens all the time with any industry, they have their pick of states, usually with tax incentives thrown in.
Generation is a small part of electricity costs.
The grid itself is extremely costly.
3 to 5times more electricity means a horrendously expensive construction of bigger grid capacity.
Add those costs to the nuclear generation costs.
I can tell you that you will not be using trucks to transport EXTRA electricity to the ends of the National Electricity Grid.
Renewables require a far more extensive and expensive grid than nuclear.
@buildmotosykletist1987 All grid electricity is too small because most energy is fossil fuels.
To replace fossil fuels, the grid capacity has to be monstrously big.
The customers will not be able to pay for the massive cost of the new monstrously big grid capacity.
The grid was brilliant when dirt cheap fossil fuels could be used without restraint. Fossil fuels carried the majority of the energy demand load from the population.
With cheap batteries and the sun shining on rooftop PV, the grid for home and building use, customers will not need grid electricity.
@buildmotosykletist1987 you confuse rooftop solar PV with distant energy.
Rooftop is at the customer's building/ home.
Distant energy must have the grid to the millions and millions and millions of customers.
Grids make dirt cheap electricity, very expensive electricity.
That is the biggest problem for all distant electricity.
Rooftop PV biggest advantage is no grid costs and a big fat oversized battery parked 23hrs every day and all night.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 : Roof top is fine as a supplement but can't supply baseload power. Nuclear, coal, gas or hydro are required.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 : Roof top is fine as a supplement but can't supply baseload power. Nuclear, coal, gas or hydro are required. The current grid will not require the extensive increase that renewables requires.
😂😂😂😂
Solar rooftop PV is cheaper than windows $/m2. Std windows.
All buildings have windows.
20million buildings connected to the Australian national electric grid.
PV electricity is not a problem.
Storage of electricity is the problem.
20million vehicles in Australia.
20million EVs with big 100Kwh battery is 2,000 giga watt hours of dispatchable stored electricity.
Most vehicles are parked 23hrs every day.
Most vehicles daily drives are 7kwh, and can be topped up daily, ezi pezi.
2 decades to replace all ICE vehicles.
One, 1, decade to achieve 1,000 giga watt hrs daily storage.
Nuclear electricity would mean 80 SMRs, just to replace existing fossil fueled generation.
400 SMRs for a full electric future.
Decades and decades and ....
$TRILLIONS and....
Will the government ban 20million rooftop solar PV to protect the nuclear electricity cash flow????
Warm sunny latitudes do not need cold latitude solutions. 😮😮
Unfortunately politics will naively infect good sense.
Radwaste management ..n for 4th generation of nuclear ..Korea take fab n logistic innovation
So what happens to the waste? What about the plant in 80yrs time? Let's not mention that. How convenient.
just like photovoltaic panels that are quietly being exported to their country of origin for disposal as the truth about recycling them is just too painful
Truthfully, waste from all reactors has to be reprocessed to remove the actinides with long half lives. The remains have much shorter half lives, and we can feasibly imagine what to do with them. Current fuel costs just make it cheaper to stockpile the waste without addressing the long term issue.
@@-r-495can check out recycling companies in Oz using pyrolysis to recover 100% reusable product from old pv
ENGINEERS BIGGEST MISTAKE is to solve the wrong problem.
Snowy 2, $2billion is now projected to be
$12 billion project and may be a decade late.
Engineering can do, but economic engineering it is a disaster.
It was politicians poking their incomprehension into engineers' recommendation that more test cores needed to be drilled before committing to Snowy2. Politicians wanted to make the headlines, leaving the engineers to deal with the unexpected enroute slush encountered by the tunnel borer.