@@rayengel714 "i'm using numbers, you cant google btw." he literally says he cant be challenged on his claims. That's fishy at least. He is a sales person pitching to investors/press. Don't be to gullible. I don't say everything is wrong. But keep in in perspective.
The issue with nuclear is NOT safety it is the massive cost. The only thing that CA has actually produced is power point presentations. If they say it is so great and simple, BUILD one or shut up.
I like the point that we're ok with coal killing 1 million people a year, but nuclear isnt safe enough unless we reach 0. Much like driving will only ever be 100% safe if we set the speed limit to 0 kph
Achieving zero accidental releases is an impossible promise. Enough reactors over long enough time and something bad WILL happen. Telling people otherwise is a big lie. The real question to ask is - what is the actual hazard WHEN this happens and how do you handle it? Jack Devaney at Gordian Knot explores this is exquisite detail.
@@philipwilkie3239 And yet even in the worst case scenario of a reactor explosion, the overall risk to the public even after evacuation was minimal... Nobody turned into walking-talking tumors like in a Hollywood film... Which goes to show you even with the awful job of cleaning up and containing radiation that release is less of a threat than the coal-fired radiation and PM 2.5 launched into the atmosphere on a second by second basis right now!
@@andrewstokes5871 ourworld in data says, that coal causes 24.6 deaths / TWh in electricity production. The primary energy use of coal in 2022 was 44854TWh - which would make 1.1 million deaths. As only 10212TWh electricity were made from coal you could argue that this would only be 251000 deaths. But still, if you mine and transport coal you have deaths, if you burn it you get NOx and fine particels which will lead to respiratory diseases, which are the main cause for that high number of deaths.
I'm sharing this with my son to introduce him to this concept and make sure he's ready for the future that science and development would bring. I suggest we all share this with the younger people around us.
Good vision, if your son is still in the elementary school, enroll him in special classes of "speed reading", and if by the time he goes to college, he will need to learn how to type fast, i.e. like a secretary who can transcribe a document without looking at the keyboards.
I'm a (ex) chemical engineer, so I love this. Food for thought, and i love the very positive mindset. There was a japanese team who developed ion exchange for U extraction from seawater. Not economic but still interesting from a research perspective. Fabulous presentation, as always 👏 Always loved my trips to Denmark, Faroes, and Greenland ❤
Extracting U from seawater in an economically viable manner could definitely also be a game-changer. Let's see what the future brings! Glad you liked the presentation, and your visits to Denmark :)
I am so happy I found you guys! I am from India and we have failed to build Thorium reactor. Seeing you succeed makes me real happy since we have 20% of world's thorium reserve. India will likely be your biggest market, since India can't transition from a coal based grid to a solar/renewable grid, but we can replace coal with nuclear for sure. Your work significantly affects our future and I thank you for it. Looking forward to visiting you guys in a few years to collaborate on bringing this to India. Godspeed brother!
"We have failed to build?" Bruh we just completed the second stage successfully and have moved on to the third stage which will take around 4-5 years to fully develop and operational
Someone wake this guy up, India has officially entered into 3rd stage this. Foreigners are understandable but Some Indian are living under the rock. Within 5-7 years India will be operating this
@@BogenmacherD India is also increasing its Solar & Wind capacity. But we need a lot & lot of energy. We will have to utilize every source of energy there is as our energy requirement is also quite huge.
@@Abhishek-hi9tx Agreed, but you can actually produce a lot more electric energy than you could ever use with solar and wind alone. And this is actually what we will see all around the world in the very near future. No other form of energy production will be able to compete.
I am in my 60's and close to retirement. I have worked in Telecom for the past 40-some years, it has been interesting. However, if I was a young Engineering student these days, nuclear power would be the field I would be studying. This will be a very exciting field for decades to come.
I worked in the nuclear industry for 40+ years starting my career just as nuclear took off and retiring just before the contraction. The U.S. cannot build enough NPPs to keep up with the old ones retiring and today there are more than enough ex-navy nukes to fill any needed positions. I would never recommend nuclear as a career for young people.
@@clarkkent9080 I guess time will tell how it works out, but with all the new designs being proposed, a career on the design side of the industry looks to have promise. Who will fill the spots when the old Navy guys retire? The world is hungry for energy that does not produce CO2, nuclear is the natural fit for that.
@@whiskeytango9769 Twelve U.S. nuclear power reactors have permanently closed since 2012, with the most recent being Indian Point 3 on April 30, 2021. Another seven U.S. reactor retirements have been announced through 2025. In the last 40 years, only two new nuclear plants have been built and as of today, no more are under construction. The number of operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. is declining and new construction cannot possibility replace those retiring. Every U.S. navy submarine and aircraft carrier is nuclear powered. Navy reactor operators usually serve for 6 years so there are always many many ex-navy nuclear experienced people entering the work force and certainly many more than are needed to replace commercial nuclear personal retiring. While there are no new nuclear power plants under construction in the U.S. there is only ONE small nuclear power plant that may begin construction this year or next. The last two nuclear plants that were built took 14 years to construct. Given those facts, do you think nuclear is a good career path?
I was thinking about A.I but then saw few charts about energy consumption and oil reserves then immediately applied for Nuclear Engineering and thankfully got admitted.
Nuclear is just as needed now in 2024 as it will be 2044 or 2444... Even the relatively rudimentary technology in place now can do the job if we respected it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep striving for a cleaner and greener world of advanced reactors or alternative fuels like CA is doing. Kudos! As a Canadian, I look forward to the day when the last 14% of electricity in Canada not currently powered by nuclear or hydro is generated by advanced next gen Thorium or Uranium as well as renewables including closed loop geothermal....
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 I'm more excited about being independent of all entities who are currently getting into our shorts. I look forward to my own power supply that I can share with three neighbors who have comparable symptoms. We will export at fair market value through our systems. I mean if we are going to really update the system lets make it more robust seamless and redundant that way the whole city isn't out of power when one little thing happens.
Did you know? Caesium-137 can be transmuted to stable Barium 136 & 137 by proton bombardment (~13 MeV) from an accelerator. In the process, a gamma ray and a neutron is released, which could be absorbed by Thorium, for instance. Even this fission product has more to give, if used creatively and treated with respect. Keep-up the good work.
See "Mortality rate from accidents and air pollution per unit of electricity worldwide, by energy source". (Statista) Brown coal is worst with a death rate of under 33 annually (in deaths per thousand terawatt hour).
To make energy using thorium, a type of fuel, we need to add a special ingredient that helps keep the energy-making process going. Think of it like needing a spark to keep a fire burning. The only sparks that work for thorium are three rare and hard-to-get materials: U-233, U-235, or Pu-239. Getting these materials is not easy, which makes the whole process quite challenging but not impossible.
Yeap soo i wonder why we don't find yet good thorium triso good mix's yet And yet we don't have standards about that specialy regulations But the key it's that spark can Even be radiactive waste but the key it's yes/no plutonium For me plutonium it's a Big issue because for developing countries that want nuclear don't wanna be accuse of being irán 😂😂😂
There are other constraints. Thorium is not fissile. Upon bombardment T232 becomes T233, which if not removed from the reactor immediately accepts another neutron and becomes waste. The system has to remove the created T233 and store it externally for the month so it becomes fissile U233 and reinsert. I don't think we have any prototype for this T233 filter of corrosive 1200 degrees molten salt.... I think Thorium will be the on paper champ with no prototype for a long time.
I've been following the subject of Thorium powered nuclear reactors for about 10 years since Kirk Sorensen rediscovered the molten salt thorium fueled reactor concept and popularized it. I've also been doing more homework on the history of Thorium reactors. Its been tried several times for commercial reactors in the USA and never worked. I'm also concerned about the promise of very low molten salt corrosion. How is it that a tiny startup has exotic super alloys that don't corrode? Hate to say it but I've become doubtful of these promises.
@@sammavitae114 The U.S. .had 3commercial reactors that operated on Thorium cores in the 1970s and converted all three to uranium fuel for the same reason.....Thorium was not cost effective
I've been following the subject of Thorium powered nuclear reactors for 6 years with Kirk Sorensen and the Thorium Energy Conference 2018 in Brussels Belgium. Copenhagen atomics I believe in you!
Having seen only a couple of videos on the technical side of this, which were aimed at non-technical viewers like myself, it was interesting to hear someone talk about rolling it out as a business, with fairly specific dates etc. Thank you.
@@ThoriumEnergyAlliance You have been promoting Thorium since 2009 and today you have nothing to show for it. The issue with nuclear is NOT the isotope of concern OR the safety, it is the massive cost and switching to a completely new isotope with no established infrastructure will only increase costs.
@@clarkkent9080 boo! And a lot of people said man was never meant to fly. Oh ye of little faith. You know nothing. It will happen when it happens. It's in the works. Shit takes time. It's that simple.
I’m super glad to see these videos come out now from our TEAC 12! It was great fun and informative as usual. Thomas is a really nice guy and easy to talk to as well and his dedication is second to none. 👍
The most important difference to Uranium/ Plutonium cycle is Thorium breeding can be done in thermal spectrum. Making MSR reactors possible. But there are many different needs for energy and then different processes. Most forgotten is thermochemistry. Much more focus on this topic is needed.
@@chapter4travels MSRs have nothing to due with the type of fissile fuel used. The Terrapower Natrium reactor planned for the U.S. is a MSR that uses enriched Y235 as fuel and so called thorium reactors use either U233 or U235 for fission neutrons
@@clarkkent9080 Natrium is not an MSR, it uses HALEU metal fuel. It does use molten salt as heat storage but that's not part of the reactor. An MSR has the fuel dissolved in the salt.
Very inspiring! Wish you all the best of luck! I was a science reporter making radio programs about Carlo Rubbia's "energy amplifier" using thorium to produce fail-safe thorium-based energy.
Seems like the video I have been waiting for. Even as a child I knew that the UK paying the French vast sums of money to take our "spent" nuclear fuel at the time was insanity. I used to get up at 2am to watch Open University every day. Some of the Best information available in the days before the internet ~_^
In Australia at the moment there's this augment between renewables & nuclear ... but the thing is there's no off the shelf nuclear systems that governments can buy... What is the TOTAL PRICE?????? including the whole build ... not part .. not maybe ... The costings need to be public knowledge so our energy systems can be planned!!!!
Nobody knows until they build a few dozen or more. Everything about nuclear development is EXTREMELY slow. It's going to take a while, but uranium/thorium isn't going anywhere, there's plenty of time.
Why the mystery about reactors? I would guess that a reactor should be little different from building an equivalent gas boiler with similar amounts of high grade steel, fabrication and assembly costs. Less for a low pressure reactor.
All the best to the entire Team from Bharat 🇮🇳 India …worth exploring all options from our developing Nation’s perspective where Cost of Energy is the key to sustainable development of the future economy of Bharat 🇮🇳…
It's amazing calling out other companies like that because of heavy investment words when it's just practical science. Your character and integrity is outstanding ! 👏
@@SirGregoryFamilyUA-cam Funny enough I follow him on another platform, you shouldn't judge people it makes you seem arrogant. And him an I have interacted before when it came too energy innovation and the Thorium corrosion, scaling, reactor control in a extreme high temperature problem. But when it comes to business yes I am a good judge of character in real life. That is why I commended him calling that out, I'm sorry if you felt this was my first interaction to Copenhagen Energy. Are you in the energy innovation business also Sir Gregory or ?
@@WeylandLabs I can't take my eyes off the comma splice in the first sentence of your reply. I guess I'm a bit OC. Something else I have little tolerance for is the phrase "game changer" used in the title of this video. It's been so heavily overused that it has not only lost its impact but can also damage the credibility of a presenter.
@@SirGregoryFamilyUA-cam That's an interesting grammatical error you pointed out. I'm thankful the UA-cam comment section is not real academia or else my reputation could be on the line. 😂 The 'Game Changer' as a title is Marketing 101 with the UA-cam algorithm; we all know you cannot use complex language and verbiage in the title. You do understand the science behind Copenhagen Energy, right ? And using Thorium has the potential to bring a vast amount of clean, sustainable energy to tens of thousands of homes and residences. I would ask about your profession, but it seems you are a royal knight of spell checking and uninformed about how to properly understand marketing. Good day, Sir Gregory - Knight of the UA-cam Spellcheck !
@@WeylandLabs Do I understand marketing? I know it has some flimsy relationship with a product’s capability or potential. I also know UA-cam is a fact-free wild-west of charlatans and snake oil salesmen. I know too that most UA-camrs can’t even spell plagiarism, and that UA-cam effectively encourages that. But that’s a topic for another time and I normally don’t begin a sentence with a conjunction but sometimes I get reckless and write sentences I would rewrite if I had more time left but life is so short. As for game-changers, I don’t bother reaching any level of understanding any more; there are so many, and mostly they quickly disappear without a trace. These days I wait for them to actually change a game before I take an active interest. I appreciate the use of white space in your comments. So much easier to read. Nice chatting.
@clarkkent9080 we are doing it. We are constantly building, testing and refining every component for the reactor, as well as constant chemistry and physics lab work and constantly improving simulation software. All this to refine the technology and get the approvals needed for a criticality test. I hope you don't expect us to just build it and start it up without the proper approvals. We have plans to test a 1MW reactor in 2026.
U.S. Shippingport core #3 used and proved a Thorium- U233 reactor breeder in 1975. And you see how many there are in the world today. India is the only country interested in Thorium because you have no uranium reserves/
At last!!!! An update from Copenhagen Atomics. The Premium Thorium, New Nuclear company. Please keep on with sane, non-hyped answers to the doubters (be they Old Nuclear, Fusion, Fossil fuel or good old fashioned nuclear deniers).
@@clarkkent9080 Of all the Thorium promoters, Copenhagen Atomics seem to me to be furthest ahead, with the most progress towards an actual working reactor. Your comment is more appropriate when applied to Fusion research.
@@mrstevecox7 They are talking about a 1 Mw demo reactor but have not even begun discussions with ANY nuclear regulator agency. That alone is a 10 year + process. All they have is power point presentations and renderings to attract investors. Their non nuclear prototype can be built in a garage and proves nothing. They are a NuScale part 2 company. At least NuScale received $2.4 billion in taxpayer welfare and U.S. NRC fully approval for construction AND operation for their SMR along with government land on which to build before canceled the project due to ballooning costs. They are now being sued by investors for FRAUD. I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and invest !
@clarkkent9080 That is simply untrue. Of course we are in negotiations with several nuclear regulatory agencies. And have been so for several years, I might add. We will announce more on this matter later this year, so I suggest you follow our LinkedIn to stay updated. Also, if you are able to build a full scale prototype, and more notably design a pump, that is able to pump molten salt around at 700 degrees in your garage (or anywhere else for that matter), I sincerely applaud you. In addition, we do not want any taxpayer, which I have pointed out to you already several times.
Copenhagen Atomics is one of the more exciting energy companies to keep an eye on in the coming decade🎉 Solving global energy problems with innovative and groundbreaking technology with a focus on mass manufacturing. Makes me excited for the future!
@@xothehost123 Successful businesses with a real product don't need to beg for money. Not ONE well established and experienced nuclear engineering company is interested in Thorium. But a startup with no experience has the answer????? Really????
@@clarkkent9080 have you ever started a real business? How the fuck would you be a “successful business” if you don’t get to start the business in the first place? 😂 have you heard of Venture Capital? Why the biggest companies of today have all started “begging” for investors money? Facebook, Google, Apple. I don’t even care about this startup and the Thorium thing, but what you said was so stupid that it made laugh and had to say something. It’s amusing to see how out of touch some people are. Go ahead and start a business being from a working class family to see if you touch some grass and actually get to know how basic finance and startups economics work.
Makes enormous sense, safe, no downtime, all the thorium needed in mine tailings, almost no toxic waste, no water needed.. Its a crime that America doesn't use thorium.
The proposed costs and timescales are a fantasy. The cost and time to build of a Uranium PWR is due to the large amounts of concrete and steel involved, which is largely driven by safety concerns. How can you avoid that with Thorium reactors?
One huge advantage is that there is no pressure inside these reactors, therefor something like a pressure dome which requires a lot of concrete and steel is not needed.
Agree. These guys couldn't build a house in 18 months, let alone a nuclear power plant. Same with the commercial pathway. First commercial reactor starts construction before the demo is operational. Bullshit. The first investor will want years of operational history.
@@CopenhagenAtomics That is nonsense. The Thorium cycle is radiating much stronger than "normal" reactors, requiring big fat protection. The "crazy" radiation is also one reason why the metal of the pipes and containers ages and fails much faster. One more reason why nobody has ever built a productive Thorium reactor.
@@BogenmacherDInteresting. Do you have any additional information you could share on this? Does the radiation (probably nucleons, right) change the nuclei of atoms comprising the materials, then their chemical properties/bonds, which results in degradation of the materials? What's the timescale on this? Please share more!
@@CopenhagenAtomics SMR’s are inherently safer because the don’t need humans to shut down during any failure. It’s only when you scale them up that you have to build Saftey around them.
@@tommartens3731 The problem is not safety of reactors but price of reactors and safety of mining. Mining thorium is very safe as no extra mining needs to be performed.
As far as I understood SMR is just a different approach in size and on how to build reactors - independent of what nuclear technology is used in the actual reactor..
I wish you would focus on the energy deficit and the need for way more ener🎉gy due to 1. Population 2. AI 3. Peak oil and how coal is the default option. Why the duck curve limits the amount of renewables even though the cost is declining a lot. Then talk about breeding uranium reactors along with thorium reactors. Talk about how your design is smaller and more simple va fast reactors. I will try to email some concepts to frame the problem well.
A LFTR/pure thorium MSR is NOT simpler because it only has 2.3 neutrons/fission so requires dual online pyro-reprocessing systems vs a similar Fast Chloride MSR on U/Pu at 3.0neuttons/fission, not requiring any only pyro-reprocessing systems and able to operate or 40-60+yrs before recycling by breeding just enough excess Pu to offset fission product poisoning, this not needing to remove fuel for 40-60+yrs. A great simplification. A FC-MSR also doesn't require graphite or heavy water moderator in the core, another great simplification. A FC-MSR has no in-core structures, very simple. A FC-MSR doesn't use/produce weapons grade Pu239, like a LFTR makes 100% weapons grade U233, or late in life 60% U233 due to U234 build up, still weapons grade until 12% U233 is reached, at which condition closed cycle isobreeding is not possible. So, use of weapons grade U233 is a major complication of a pure thorium/U233 MSR/LFTR!
Peak oil won’t happen for 40-50 years. Horizontal drilling and fracking doubles recoverable oil, allowing the United States to produce as much oil as it has in the last 100 years.
You are always welcome to send your CV and a short cover letter to jobs@copenhagenatomics.com or stay updated on new open positions on our website copenhagenatomics.com
This should have been done decades ago. The US had two working test reactors at Oak Ridge in the 60's until Tricky Dicky Nixon scuddled the project. Next, we need to have someone resurrect the suppressed technology of water powered vehicles such as the inventors Stanely Meyer and Dennis Klien perfected.
The U.S. also had 3 commercial Thorium reactors and many others were built in other countries but today, there are no commercial Thorium reactors. I guess tricky dicky Nixon has global influence.
@@slabriprock5329 We all need to make people aware of suppressed technology. Stanely Meyer's technology would have changed the world. That is why he was assassinated. Hydrogen from water is very explosive and completely clean burning.
Good news indeed. The sooner CA get their first demonstration unit up & running for all to see the better, together with realistic prices, time scales for delivery, installation & full operation.
Just one note though, traditional nuclear may be your competitor but it is NOT YOUR ENEMY. Framing it that way does a disservice to both parties... Stick to fighting fossil fuels! I also hate when nuclear activists attack renewables.. They complement but don't complete directly either too, IMHO. One is base-load 24/7 great for industrial uses and keeping the grid stable, the other is "green" but not entirely reliable without massive grid-scale batteries which complicates matters a bit but is still the most affordable option around at this point... Even here in the oil empire of Alberta...
A good point; we should welcome creation of more spent fuel, with one caveat. Fast breeders should not be subsidized to destroy that "waste", which would squander a tremendous opportunity to accelerate deployment of nuclear, at great cost. Traditional reactors may fall short of replacing the U-235 they consume, but they do produce a wealth of transuranics, making spent fuel the best fissile resource on earth. It is a simple chemical process to recover the uranium, leaving a concentrated transuranic fuel salt which needs no enrichment. Ideally, that would be used to fuel U-233 production reactors. The key point is that fast breeders require too much fissile, and are very slow to breed enough for a new core. However, fast reactors with a thorium blanket, could produce U-233 at a rate allowing rapid deployment of thermal breeders (like the CA reactor), decoupling growth of nuclear from mining and enrichment.
I reside in a small European country, Croatia, which would surely benefit from your knowledge and investments. The problem is the government shows zero interest in changing the current state, with most improvements in industry initiated by the private sector. However, there is significant public interest in constructing a nuclear power plant, especially those that integrate nuclear waste management. This includes small modular reactors/breeder reactors, plasma gasification for disposing of the remaining radioactive waste, and heavy water, coupled with solid oxide fuel cell electrolyzers and hydrogen fuel cells. Additionally, membrane osmosis purifiers are used to remove impurities from water, allowing for the disposal of over 90% of mixed nuclear waste.
Whether we're talking about thorium or fusion there are two main issues that will continue to get in the way and prevent their widespread use: 1. Cheap and abundant energy doesn't generate enough profit and 2. They do not contribute to mass destruction. Unless the corporations building and running these plants can soak the consumer for more money through higher prices they won't be willing to invest enough to bring it to fruition. At least with uranium they can say "We have all this dangerous waste to deal with so we need to charge you more to help figure it out" and with fusion they'll say 'We'd love to offer this incredibly cheaply but we spent so much money over so many decades just trying to figure it out so we need to make up for that in the price we charge you". There will NEVER be abundant and cheap electricity for the general person. Our dependence on electricity is one of the key means governments can use to control their populations. We haven't achieved these reactors and technologies not because we haven't figured it out yet but we've been KEPT from figuring it out. Never underestimate human greed.
"cheap and abundant energy doesn't generate enough profit " well thats wrong, you actually just sell more of it, the cheaper it goes the more things you can do with energy, like i don't know, like doing actual recycling >_>, its biggest draw back is expensive energy just like Al refinery/smelting.
@@bencoad8492 Just because it is very cheap to produce does not automatically equate to it being SOLD to the consumer cheaply. If production costs were 1 cent per 100kwh do you think that's what you'll pay. More likely you'll be billed 20+ cents per kwh and given all sorts of excuses as to why. The cost of energy to the general public can, and will, be used a means of civil control. Don't do what "they" tell you to? Double your power costs. Still don't comply. We'll turn it off. There is no altruism in business.
Does Copenhagen anticipate ever designing a reactor to accommodate high temp sCO2 coolant for optimal thermal efficiency using a sCO2 turbine? Of course sCO2 turbines are also not ready for commercial use but they are being developed sort-of in parallel, and it seems likely they will become commercially available sooner than later. There must be significant efficiency on the table sticking with heavy and light water coolant...
I find it fascinating that when we decide to build something, we never discuss the extranalities of what that technology will produce. It's always an afterthought.
He's not telling you the whole story. Heck they don't even have a proposed waste storage system.... Watch Elina's thorium reactors and you'll see the atep He's not mentioning. Hint it takes 27 days.
IIRC Th can decay into U233. The UF4 can extracted by putting/bubbling F2 through the blanket and making UF6, which is volatile. This is incomplete. Kirk Sorenson has a pretty cool video on this. On a 10000 ft level it could right.😂
holy moly that was a bombshell. Thomas was incredible with his delivery of all this mind blowing information, really exciting stuff! That bit about being able to get 10x more out of spent fuel than the old reactors did out of it before it was used is insanity. I hope that Copenhagen and the nuclear energy community at large gets to spread their wings and really show the world how much of a gamechanger nuclear energy really is. prove the way with fission and then fusion comes along with the bat to blow the doors wide open.
Nuclear is not a fuel story. 10% of the ocean is hydrogen, which is also a viable nuclear fuel. Nuclear is an operations story with a very long political commitment horizon. The operations must be sustained to a high standard for centuries or longer, because there are security issues associated with the waste products. Street drugs are also not a fuel story. "One kilogram costs $1,000 to produce-and just one kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people." Good thing fentanyl is only sparingly soluble in water, or it might have the same terrorism potential as nuclear waste, if deployed as a chemical weapon against the civilian water supply. The traditional carbon economy is a fuel story that turned into a waste product story, once we burned a trillion barrels.
India has a working not prototype Fast Breeder Reactor producing 500 MW power. We have been researching Thorium reactors for 30 plus years and only reached the Thorium - Uranium 233 breeder stage or second stage in the process. It was revealed recently that India will take another 5 years to initiate a reactor (3rd stage) that will have sufficient fuel from stage 2 to run. What you are talking about is only an idea at this stage. So getting a viable miniature Thorium based reactor cycle working from this idea stage will take at least 15 years in this case if not more !
It's obvious that Copenhagen Atomics has better fundamental nuclear technology than India/BARC does. The ideas like the Onion reactor are not even part of our conversation. Plus, they are not using a 3 stage cycle either if you notice - which makes the process insanely complex for India. I have always felt we should have had an open collaborative approach with the guys working on this across the world, invested in high level simulation/tooling resources - instead we focused excessively on building this completely on our own in secrecy. Which was impossible considering the depth and advancement of the industrial base we needed to succeed
The only time I talk about LNT is when aggressively argue for the total disbandment of it's usage. Also, the comparison U vs Th is not fair. Are talking about the amount of fissile material, then there is infinity more resources on the U side since Th is not fertile, but if are talking about fertile material then the whole amount of U must be included as it can be used in breeder reactors j́ust like Th.
Thorium advocates always compare thorium in a breeder MSR to a solid-fueled pressure water reactor. They never compare thorium to a U235-based MSR, like the one used in the MSRE at Oakridge NL. Nor do they compare to a liquid-fueled U238 breeder.
The comparison is fair; U-233 is a one-time cost, with an economical path to production (see Curio @ TEAC12: ua-cam.com/video/_vXE3qoUNPU/v-deo.html), or it can just be grown in by running the reactor on transuranics or LEU for a few years (see CA @ TEAC11: ua-cam.com/video/MnxVdjtnvD4/v-deo.html). There is no economical path to deploying fast breeders, which require a massive fissile inventory, and take many decades to breed enough for another core. The only fast reactors that won't require some form of subsidy, are ones dedicated to producing U-233, which incidentally solves the non-trivial neutron leakage problem, by absorbing them in a thorium blanket.
Reducing spent nuclear fuel danger period from thousands of years to 300 years seems like a huge advancement. But 300 years is still a long time. Will future society be able to keep it safe? Will the housings stay intact? Will natural disaster or war cause release of the extremely dangerous material? Will funding continue to be available to maintain storage facilities?
From what I've heard the current waste can be used and reused in breeder reactors. Am I saying that correctly? By the time it's totally used up there will be very little left to actually store as nonusable waste.
Both thorium and U238 are fertile, not fissile. Both need a breeder reactor to be utilized. The difference is that the world has a shit tone of U238 already mined, milled, and stored waiting to be used. Actually, we pay a lot of money to store this ready-to-go fuel. Why not use it up first?
Because the companies don't want to pay for that reprocessing. Also because the power is not competitive if they have to. Also because running it through for another cycle just gives us another tiny percentage of the power, and then we have the same "waste" sitting around again, while we decide if we want to spring for another cycle. This new plan is more efficient and is actually sustainable.
@@no_rubbernecking You misunderstand, I'm not talking about reprocessing nuclear waste, I'm talking about pure U238 we have stockpiled from the enrichment processes. Also not use it in a solid fueled reactor but a liquid fueled breeder reactor where 95+% gets used up.
@@chapter4travels The reason is that Thorium is actually viable in a thermal spectrum. What you propose is absolutely a great idea and you could just toss this in a fast reactor that will eat it up and happily make you power. That reactor will eat both Thorium, Uranium, Plutonium, whatever you throw in. But if you want to go into the thermal spectrum (and there are many reasons to do so) you need to go for Thorium and even with Thorium the neutron economy is quite strict so you need to make sure you're not leaking too many neutrons out of the fuel cycle.
@@chapter4travels Thank you for clarifying. I pretty much had that figured out shortly after i tapped send. But i figured, well let's see what they say... they'll probably tear it apart, but it's all right. With that being said, i still feel this is the right time to be developing MSRs, and unlike most of the thorium community, i _am_ concerned about the safety record of classical nuclear power, and i also believe the proliferation risk is far lower with a thorium fuel cycle. I also have noticed in the last 20 years in the U.S. that even when the government bends over backward to promote new plants with current technology, they don't get deployed much because the cost is just not competitive with the alternatives. We have private, for-profit power in the U.S., and unless they can make more money with something new, they're just not going to do it. To fix the problem requires new public policy, which requires new levels of understanding among laypeople.
@@MrRolnicek The only real advantage of using a thermal spectrum that I'm aware of is the reactor can be smaller because you don't need as much of a fuel load to start the process. Smaller and cheaper, but how much does that outweigh free fuel?
At 21:00 you say your thorium molten salt reactor will be the worlds first thorium molten salt reactor? So does that mean that the Chinese thorium molten salt reactor prototype is not an operational reactor yet?
The Chinese 2 MWthermal Test MSR is the 3rd MSR test reactor. In the late 1950's - early 1960's the USA built one to test the concept of nuclear powered bombers. It failed in a very bad way in I believe only 2 weeks of run time and leaked highly radioactive molten salt/fuel/decay procducts. The Oak Ridge 10 MWthermal test reactor was the 2nd (which had a maximum output of 7.4 MW and broke down constantly). I'm not aware of Copenhagen Atomics working with any nuclear regulator for future approval of any reactor (its test reactor or a power plant). I would not hold my breath on it.
According to the press releases, the Chinese research MS reactors (2) are running successfully. Part of the research is determining the optimal stainless steel alloy. Reports suggest they have so far determined a higher proportion of nickel is needed compared to the Hastalloy-N used in the original Oakridge machine. I expect they will also have done a lot of work in salt chemistry and processes for extracting waste. These things only got superficial treatment in the Oakridge experiment. The press releases suggest a pre-production engineering prototype is scheduled to come on line in 2026. The first production MSR machines are scheduled to come on line in 2030. China is planning about 150 new nuclear power plants over the next couple of decades. Probably less than half of these will be small modular MSRs and they will mostly be used to service the west of the country. The baseload in the east will likely be Chinese versions of the EPR and APR 1,000s, possibly CANDU 9, as well as native designs such as pebble bed high pressure gas reactors, a design China leads in.
@@perryallan3524Strange view, Weinberg considered the MSR experiment highly successful given the state of the art. It proved the principle and racked up many hours of safe operation. I have seen no evidence that in terms of the objectives, it wasn't a success.
@@jimgraham6722 you have your data mixed up. Yes the Chinese test 2 MWthemal appears to be running fairly smoothly. However, its still way to early to know if the alloy they selected is going to work good enough. Your 1st mix up is that yes they have used an exotic super alloy with more nickle - which came out of about a 15 year several nation metallurgical research study of possible MSR reactor alloys (I have read some of the research papers regarding this). No one found any alloy that looked to be immune from the corrosion issues in an operating MSR. Your 2nd mix up is on the salt separation of daughter and chemical reaction products. Oak Ridge did not consider that at all. They later discovered the problems caused though. The concept of separation of the corrosive daughter and chemical reactants came out of again the last 15 years or so of research into how to control corrosion and other issues in an operating MSR. Up to this point its just been a theory, and they think they have a system that should work. But, this test reactor is the 1st testing of it with real radioactive daughter products and chemical reactants and I would not be surprised if they have to modify the system several times to make it work well enough. The hopes are that between the better alloy and the chemical separation working well enough that they can minimize the corrosion down to an acceptable level so they can build MSRs with at least 40 year operating lives. The actual researchers involved knows that it may be years before they really know if what they have works long term (long term reliability of equipment and components have to be proven too). The schedule you quote of the next test reactor in a couple years and a prototype power plant by 2030 is from the Optimistic Hype PR department. The actual researchers are figure 5-10 years for each step (and it may be 2 decades to get to a well functioning prototype power plant). Note that in all industries scale up of things from test stage to small protoype to fully functioning commercial units is fraught with difficulties - and most things don't make it into commercial service for extended periods of time - if ever. The Nuclear Power Plant world has dozens of prototype power plants that did not scale up and failed. So we can be hopeful. Just don't buy the hype about how fast this will go. Keep in mind that it took almost 5 decades of experience with many different designs to get a really well working PWR. A number of power plants were shut down very early because they had an unreliable design of some system or component (and I've personally been involved with extensive modifications of an early 1970 nuclear power plant to install more reliable equipment and systems).
Back in the mid to later 1960s, there was a salt core reactor in operation. It tested out but President Nixon cancelled funding for more work on it due to the U.S. desire to have nuclear reactors in operation in order to make nuclear weapons.
Someone is educating themselves is social media and YT videos. Where do people keep coming up with this BS that Thorium was abandoned and Uranium based PWR/BWR were chosen so we could make bombs? Hanford Wa. has been making weapons material, at their 9 reactors, since 1944, 12 years before the first U.S. commercial nuclear plant became operational and their weapons production reactors are very efficient graphite moderated reactors and DO NOT produce any electrical power. Savannah River site SC. Has been making weapons material since 1955 and their 5 production reactors are very efficient low pressure heavy water moderated reactors and DO NOT produce electric power. Thorium was tried at Shippingport and Indian Point commercial reactors in the 1970s and abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium. Weapons production reactors are NOTHING like U.S. commercial PWR or BWR power reactors and commercial power reactors have NEVER been used to produce Pu239 for weapons, since there has never been a need beyond what the efficient weapons production reactors could provide.. The U.S. currently literally has hundreds of TONS of Pu239 (takes less than 20 pounds per weapon). The U.S. has so much that 34 tons of weapon grade Pu239 is being treated so it can eventually be disposed of at a cost of billions. Your comment is like saying automobiles use gas engine because the military wanted jet fighters. God help us that people base their knowledge on social media and YT videos.
It was called the Oak Ridge Experiment and there is a full documentary here on yiutube produced by the original scientists... It did not use thorium, it used straight U235 and said they "could" use thorium.
Unfortunately, Mr Pedersen is not quite as well versed in nuclear reactor technology as he should be. The CANDU nuclear reactors in Canada operate using non-enriched U-238. Furthermore, they can be modified to use thorium instead of uranium. A significant challenge to wider adoption is that these reactors are heavy water reactors and therefore they require a much larger upfront investment for the deuterium. As a side note, they can also be refuelled while in use. That being said, if the CA reactors prove viable, I would love to see them adopted widely.
Indeed. And Russia has 2 reactors that use U238 the first from 1980. How can this guy be that inept? Perhaps Candu could use thorium. But there is a problem he didn't even mention. Once bombarded, thorium becomes thorium 233 and will become waste immediately if it accepts a neutron. Thus T233 needs to be filtered out of the medium and stored externally for a month before it becomes fissile U233... This one step of filtering and storing and reinserting sounds like a marvel on its own, yet no mention of this constraint. I'm sure investors enjoy his pep talk though.
We have lots of updates everyday essentially, some bigger than others though. For the bigger ones, I would recommend following our LinkedIn and Newsletter and watch in the coming months!
@@CopenhagenAtomics Love your business model - owning the entire product lifecycle and generating ARR from this is the only way forward. As an automation engineer in heavy industry I see massive opportunity everywhere - essentially move the expense from CAPEX to OPEX, move from govt regulation to industry classification and risk insurance - and the floodgates will open.
They are running at least 2 test reactors (one if a test MSR that started up in Aug 2023 to see if they have solved the corrosion & radiation embrittlement problem, and have a separation process that works to remove the corrosive and problematic daughter products. Since they are using an exotic custom super alloy... I'm sure that they have concluded that 316 SS will not work.
@@clarkkent9080 That 2 MWthermal test reactor is the MSR that went online in August 2023. It is my understanding that they have a test reactor that is using solid thorium fuel in fuel rods (or at least they used to have one a few years ago). If my memory is correct at least 6 countries build solid fuel thorium test reactors - and a few of those may still be running. I don't track the test reactors unless they make the news.
There is a UA-cam video which said the Chinese scientists have developed new materials which can withstand the MSR corrosion. And a few months back, another video talk about the Chinese is building 2 cargo ships supposedly power by thorium. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you, but I suppose if and when that cargo ship becomes reality, then we'll know that they've succeeded.
need one garbage can sized to power my prepper catamaran, water purification and walkin freezers onboard, will have to wait out the shit that is ongoing in the middle of pacific....
Fukushima and Tchernobil did kill way more than what he's saying. The environmental disaster and the later people who got cancer and everything and the cleaning did cause a LOT of damage more than 1 person died on place.
It's a fantastic idea. If the US DOE hasn't already met you, please reach out to them, they are interested in this. I'd like to use their money to build one of these near a military base here... =) Cheers!
the huge number 1 problem with Thorium is the time it takes to breed fissile U233 from fertile Th232. The half like of the intermediate isotope Protoactinium 233 is roughly 27 days, which is 10 times longer than the half life of the intermediate isotope Neptunium 239 in the U238 + n to Np239 to Pu 239. Therefore it takes 10 times longer to breed enough U233 fuel from Th232 as compared with the time it takes to breed enough Pu239 fuel from U238. Which is why the Indian project to run the country on Thorium was expected to take 70 years when it started over 50 years ago, and they're still in the early stages. We simply do not have the time to create a Thorium powered nuclear fleet.
The roughly 100 NUCLEAR power plants built in the United States prior to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission creation in January 1975 have never hurt a single human from radiation. Abolish the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and RESURRECT the American Nuclear Industry. AT LEAST give the NRC a MANDATE FOR COMMERCIALIZATION just like the FDA, FAA, and every other federal safety administration / commission.
The NRC was formed from the EXACT same people who were the AEC. The AEC was split into the NRC and DOE. The idea that changing three letters on their hard hats made a difference is insane. The NRC in 1996 established the combined construction and operation permit meaning that ANY of their approved reactor designs are 100% fully approved for construction and operation without ANY changes as long as the utility builds them according to the design prints. Now what is wrong about that?
@@clarkkent9080 Read literally. The NRC is a single-mandate commission, one for safety. Over fifty years it has multiplied the factors of safety regulations by multiple orders of magnitude for absolutely NO good reason; THAT is been the cause of the EXPLOSION IN EXPENSE and TIME OF CONSTRUCTION / INTEREST ON BORROWED MONEY. PRIOR to 1975 the 100 plants built averaged THIRTY-SIX MONTHS construction time. Abolish the NRC and you can build the same reactors as quickly or more quickly today. You are skirting the issue, I assume you work for the NRC, correct?
The NRC was created on behalf of the coal industry lobby to eliminate their competition. They are trying to reform it right now but they can't even get them to look at benefits when evaluating risk. They will not change.
@@clarkkent9080 The licensing process TAKES MORE THAN A DECADE TO COMPLETE and consists of a series of approvals by the NRC, including issuance of design certification, early site permits, limited work authorizations, construction permits, operating licenses and combined licenses for new nuclear power facilities. THE COST OF BORROWED MONEY over ABSURDLY LONG and complicated licensing times results in OVER 70% of the TOTAL COST of a nuclear plant. THAT KILLS THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. But you already know that.
Here's the deal about Thorium: The number of talks like this seem to be endless. The number of demonstration reactors are zero. Thorium is useless if you can't use it. Nobody cares about your arguments if there is no actual reactor. The ONLY argument that matters is SHOW IT WORKING. Stop talking about it and SHOW it. Until you do that, it's all snake oil. "We want to build one every day" NO. Just build 1. Show one single reactor in operation.
The USA had a thorium reactor going for 2 decades (late 60's to about 1980 I think). These are videos of it on YT. China built one and put into operation last year. This is not a theory, but large scale, reliable, repeatable systems still need developing, which is what CA does.
@@MrRobertjparsons I've been hearing these same arguments for 15 years. I can't know anything real about a reactor from the 70's that no longer exists. I can't know anything about a Chinese reactor that is totally shrouded in secrecy. There are no real measured statistics anywhere.
Everyone shares your frustration. The short YT comment length answer has three parts. One has been the nature of govt driven regulation that has placed massive hurdles in the path of ANY nuclear innovation for almost three decades now. The second is the challenge to finance given the huge risk of the regulator capriciously imposing almost unlimited costs and delays onto your project at any time. And lastly the need for any "first of kind" reactor to be actually successful given the hostile actors who will exploit ANY problems not matter how small or insignificant. This ugly combination has imposed on us a very constrained and cautious development path. Consider the massive funding put into wildly ambitious fusion projects by comparison. If just 1% of that funding had been available to GenIV fission we would be in a very different place.
@@philipwilkie3239 If the regulatory is fraudulent, expose the fraud. Nobody is naming names. Why not? The second argument is the same as the first. The third argument is the same as the first. Regulatory is simple. You say, "What are your requirements for us to do this particular thing?" then you follow the requirements. If the requirements are stupid or of a corrupt nature, show them. Expose them. But apparently nobody is asking these questions. Why not? Where are the requirements? Show us the roadblock in the requirements! 🤷♂
The USA built 4 thorium cycle power plants in the 1960's - 1970's using BWR, PWR, and HTGR designs. They all had problems where their equivalent U235 version did not. In fact, at least 2 of these reactors were refueled with U235 and ran for years. The USA also produced over 1 ton of U233 to seed thorium power plant cores to allow simple reprocessing of waste thorium fuel to extract the U233 (the stuck thorium cores into at least 1 existing BWR and 1 existing PWR to get the waste fuel for this - seeded with weapons grade U233 from weapons production reactors). The USA did perfect a PWR core that worked very well, and was running it in at least 2 BWRs. The USA concluded that conversion of thorium ore into usable reactor fuel was significantly more expensive than conversion of uranium ore into reactor fuel. That is what ended thorium rector development. The world could be running on thorium now -- if it was cheaper as over 90% of existing nuclear power reactors could have thorium cycle cores stuck in them today.
A couple of things mentioned in the video that are really not valid points. 1. Nuclear Accidents and deaths It was stated that deaths are due to the evacuations themselves or failure to administer stable iodine tablets. That's like saying if I shoot you with a gun the real reason you died is because you were not wearing a flack jacket, the gun didn't harm you, it was the bullet you should have protected yourself from. Had the nuclear plants never been constructed no evacuation or administering of tablets would be necessary. Clearly if Chernobyl or Fukushima were wind and solar farms instead, then a disaster that would wipe them out (say a tornado or earthquake) would not require the evacuation around the wind or solar farm for hundreds of kilometers, nor would there be danger to the population close to those plants. Regardless I agree the total number of deaths from nuclear accidents is very small compared to other energy generation methods like coal or biomass. Blaming the accident remediation as the cause of deaths makes your argument less credible and puts a question mark on the Thorium technology. Collatereral damage is a direct result of operating the plants in the first place. 2. No humans in the Thorium plant for up to 50 years. I get that there are autonomous cranes and equipment so no human operators. However humans will need to enter the plant to maintain the autonomous systems. Cranes will not operate for 50 years without the need to perform either preventive maintenance (lubrication/cleaning/pest control) or repairs such as replacing burned out motors etc. The idea that humans would not need to enter the plant for the entire life of the plant is fantasy. At the very least there would need to be regular inspections. Minimizing human interaction is a good strategy, I get why that is good, but please don't overstate the case. It makes the technology less credible when you exaggerate like this.
The speaker over blown the benefits of Thorium. Th232 is useless unless it absorbs a neutron and becomes Th-233 which is a fissile material. It will take seed Uranium material to start the first fission and generate the neutrons needed to breed Thorium. Thorium fuel cycle is an alternative to uranium fuel cycle and the conversion will need to be done inside a nuclear reactor. Unless the reactor design can breed thorium while sustain chain reaction for an extended period of time, spent fuel recycling (closed thorium fuel cycle) may be required to extract the useful Thorium 232 for subsequent use. The cost and technology complications of these will certainly out weigh any potential benefits of Thorium fuel cycle.
We need U233. And if Th233 accepts a neutron it becomes waste. So he's not even describing the step of removing Th233 immediately and storing for 27 days before it is U233.
Correction, Th-232 absorbs a thermal neutron and becomes Th-233 which is further decayed to be U-233 which is a fissile material. U-233 is similar to Pu-239, both are fissile material but need to be extracted through chemical recycling which is onerous and expensive. Plus, they are bomb material unless you can mix them with sufficient fertile Th isotopes and then they can make dirty bombs.
I am by no means an expert when it comes to nuclear power. So here we have someone who is enthusiastic about Thorium as nuclear fuel. But I'm a born sceptic, and so I tend to look for the other side, too. That leaves me with more questions than answers. So the questions that I think need answers are: 1. When Thorium absorbs a Neutron, it turns into Thorium 233, which then decays to Proactinium 233, which further decays to Uranium 233. Or, if Proactinium is further exposed to Neutron radiation, it turns into Uranium 234, which is, let's say, "undesirable". The process of filtering Proactinium is difficult and expensive (high temperatures, radiation, corrosion challenges). How does Copenhagen Atomics solve or circumvent this problem? 2. While Thorium worldwide may be available in relative abundance, this seems not to be the case for Europe (where CA is headquartered). Where do you plan to get the Thorium from? And would CA also license the technology to countries like India and China?
For someone who is not an expert, you are a logic expert and understand why Thorium has been tried in may reactors in many countries but today, there are no commercial operating reactors. They do however make sense for India that has massive Thorium reserves but no uranium.
I really hope this technology can be part of the story for nuclear, what surely needs to happen is to get in front of the right group of listeners. It seems this is a conference for interested parties, which is obviously important, but it’s government and energy industry that need to hear it and a commercial deployment needs to be part of it.
Exactly- and the attack on nuclear power safety regulation is the perfect trope for the entire energy sector to seize on to throw off ALL government regulation...after all, corporations always have perfect internal safety and health controls, don't they...
@@sluggo3slug I don't know anything about you so I cannot answer that question. I do know that Thorium has been tried many times in both demo and commercial reactors and in many countries since the 1960s and all attempts were abandoned. I also know that of all the major nuclear engineering companies around the world, not one is interested in Thorium. NuScale had $2.4 billion in government funding and free land on which to build and they canceled their SMR (build it in a factory) project due to ballooning costs and that was even before they moved the first shovel of dirt. And they are now being sued by their investors for fraud. If you know all that and still invest in CA then I can answer your question.
I find it very hard to believe that we can't make a reactor that is safe in this modern age, it makes sense as a base load solution over anything we are currently burning to do the job and seems complimentary to renewables. Just so long as it isn't taking funding away from expanding renewables to their practical potential.
Name one major industrial process designed by man and operated by man that is 100% safe? Safety is relative and dependent on your willing to accept risk. I do not believe safety is the issue with nuclear. The massive cost is the issue and so called new technology that has been tried many many times in the past will not reduce that cost
In France and UK, two "new" reactors are build. Both exceed both their time and financial plans by far, farer, the farest. I think those billions may have been better spent on research to get a new techology running.
@@leonlowenstadter9223 In the U.S. utilities tried to build 4 new AP1000s. 2 were canceled after spending $17 billion and 2 were completed 120% over budget and schedule.
Kirk Sorensen in one of his videos points out that profits from reactors come not from building them, but from the custom fuel modules they use in a razor/razor blade profit model. From that I'll extrapolate and suspect that some or even most of the resistance to LFTRs specifically is that that profit model is destroyed when your fuel is salts supplied in paper bags or plastic barrels. BTW, it also ticks me off to hear about new, "advanced" reactors that are just improvements on ancient technology.
So they are supplying fissile material in drums and paper bags? No criticality concerns...that is a new one on me. BTW, the uranium fuel cost to operate a 1 Gw large PWR is less than the cost for the plant staff wages
With the CANDU heavy water reactor, a constant problem was controlling the tritium produced in the deuterium (heavy water) by neutron bombardment. Have you provided for this?
People have known for ages about Thorium. Late '70s high school student knew we only used Uranium for the "by-products". That Thorium was safer by orders of magnitude.
Hogwash, pure thorium makes 100% weapons U233, when U only makes weapons grade in the 1st 2-3months after insertion, while locked up no removal, then is non-weapons grade due to transmutation to Pu240 a neutron emitter that causes predetonationof any weapon making it a dud.
6-18 months to bring a thorium reactor on line-you couldn't get the building constructed in that time! However, I do hope there is a great interest and success in building and operating these.
I love the full frontal attack on nuclear safety myths! More people in the industry needs to learn this communication technique.
By "communication technique," you mean LYING.
@@bimmjim I did not hear a lie here - but sure you can point me out ...
@@rayengel714 "i'm using numbers, you cant google btw." he literally says he cant be challenged on his claims. That's fishy at least. He is a sales person pitching to investors/press. Don't be to gullible. I don't say everything is wrong. But keep in in perspective.
The issue with nuclear is NOT safety it is the massive cost. The only thing that CA has actually produced is power point presentations. If they say it is so great and simple, BUILD one or shut up.
@@rayengel714 Google the cost of thorium......$150 per ounce....Uranium $78 per POUND
I like the point that we're ok with coal killing 1 million people a year, but nuclear isnt safe enough unless we reach 0. Much like driving will only ever be 100% safe if we set the speed limit to 0 kph
Exactly!
Achieving zero accidental releases is an impossible promise. Enough reactors over long enough time and something bad WILL happen. Telling people otherwise is a big lie. The real question to ask is - what is the actual hazard WHEN this happens and how do you handle it? Jack Devaney at Gordian Knot explores this is exquisite detail.
@@philipwilkie3239 And yet even in the worst case scenario of a reactor explosion, the overall risk to the public even after evacuation was minimal... Nobody turned into walking-talking tumors like in a Hollywood film... Which goes to show you even with the awful job of cleaning up and containing radiation that release is less of a threat than the coal-fired radiation and PM 2.5 launched into the atmosphere on a second by second basis right now!
How do you work out coal kills 1 million a year.
@@andrewstokes5871 ourworld in data says, that coal causes 24.6 deaths / TWh in electricity production. The primary energy use of coal in 2022 was 44854TWh - which would make 1.1 million deaths. As only 10212TWh electricity were made from coal you could argue that this would only be 251000 deaths. But still, if you mine and transport coal you have deaths, if you burn it you get NOx and fine particels which will lead to respiratory diseases, which are the main cause for that high number of deaths.
I'm sharing this with my son to introduce him to this concept and make sure he's ready for the future that science and development would bring. I suggest we all share this with the younger people around us.
Good vision, if your son is still in the elementary school, enroll him in special classes of "speed reading", and if by the time he goes to college, he will need to learn how to type fast, i.e. like a secretary who can transcribe a document without looking at the keyboards.
I'm a (ex) chemical engineer, so I love this. Food for thought, and i love the very positive mindset. There was a japanese team who developed ion exchange for U extraction from seawater. Not economic but still interesting from a research perspective. Fabulous presentation, as always 👏 Always loved my trips to Denmark, Faroes, and Greenland ❤
Extracting U from seawater in an economically viable manner could definitely also be a game-changer. Let's see what the future brings! Glad you liked the presentation, and your visits to Denmark :)
I am so happy I found you guys! I am from India and we have failed to build Thorium reactor. Seeing you succeed makes me real happy since we have 20% of world's thorium reserve. India will likely be your biggest market, since India can't transition from a coal based grid to a solar/renewable grid, but we can replace coal with nuclear for sure. Your work significantly affects our future and I thank you for it. Looking forward to visiting you guys in a few years to collaborate on bringing this to India. Godspeed brother!
"We have failed to build?" Bruh we just completed the second stage successfully and have moved on to the third stage which will take around 4-5 years to fully develop and operational
Someone wake this guy up, India has officially entered into 3rd stage this. Foreigners are understandable but Some Indian are living under the rock. Within 5-7 years India will be operating this
You can't transition to solar and wind? Why? Has the sun stopped shining in India? Has the wind stopped blowing?
@@BogenmacherD India is also increasing its Solar & Wind capacity. But we need a lot & lot of energy. We will have to utilize every source of energy there is as our energy requirement is also quite huge.
@@Abhishek-hi9tx Agreed, but you can actually produce a lot more electric energy than you could ever use with solar and wind alone. And this is actually what we will see all around the world in the very near future. No other form of energy production will be able to compete.
I am in my 60's and close to retirement. I have worked in Telecom for the past 40-some years, it has been interesting. However, if I was a young Engineering student these days, nuclear power would be the field I would be studying. This will be a very exciting field for decades to come.
Couldn't agree more
I worked in the nuclear industry for 40+ years starting my career just as nuclear took off and retiring just before the contraction. The U.S. cannot build enough NPPs to keep up with the old ones retiring and today there are more than enough ex-navy nukes to fill any needed positions. I would never recommend nuclear as a career for young people.
@@clarkkent9080 I guess time will tell how it works out, but with all the new designs being proposed, a career on the design side of the industry looks to have promise. Who will fill the spots when the old Navy guys retire? The world is hungry for energy that does not produce CO2, nuclear is the natural fit for that.
@@whiskeytango9769 Twelve U.S. nuclear power reactors have permanently closed since 2012, with the most recent being Indian Point 3 on April 30, 2021. Another seven U.S. reactor retirements have been announced through 2025. In the last 40 years, only two new nuclear plants have been built and as of today, no more are under construction.
The number of operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. is declining and new construction cannot possibility replace those retiring.
Every U.S. navy submarine and aircraft carrier is nuclear powered. Navy reactor operators usually serve for 6 years so there are always many many ex-navy nuclear experienced people entering the work force and certainly many more than are needed to replace commercial nuclear personal retiring.
While there are no new nuclear power plants under construction in the U.S. there is only ONE small nuclear power plant that may begin construction this year or next. The last two nuclear plants that were built took 14 years to construct.
Given those facts, do you think nuclear is a good career path?
I was thinking about A.I but then saw few charts about energy consumption and oil reserves then immediately applied for Nuclear Engineering and thankfully got admitted.
Nuclear is just as needed now in 2024 as it will be 2044 or 2444... Even the relatively rudimentary technology in place now can do the job if we respected it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep striving for a cleaner and greener world of advanced reactors or alternative fuels like CA is doing. Kudos! As a Canadian, I look forward to the day when the last 14% of electricity in Canada not currently powered by nuclear or hydro is generated by advanced next gen Thorium or Uranium as well as renewables including closed loop geothermal....
If they can be made just big enough to charge a battery or even replace it.
Is that even possible.
Im excited about geothermal's potential too...
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 I'm more excited about being independent of all entities who are currently getting into our shorts. I look forward to my own power supply that I can share with three neighbors who have comparable symptoms. We will export at fair market value through our systems. I mean if we are going to really update the system lets make it more robust seamless and redundant that way the whole city isn't out of power when one little thing happens.
@@chasl3645 yeah that'd be great.... It would be awesome if and when every home was able to have a cheap and reliable backup system....
Did you know? Caesium-137 can be transmuted to stable Barium 136 & 137 by proton bombardment (~13 MeV) from an accelerator. In the process, a gamma ray and a neutron is released, which could be absorbed by Thorium, for instance. Even this fission product has more to give, if used creatively and treated with respect. Keep-up the good work.
What the fuck is your point?
I love how you're optimistic and not stuck in old paradigms.
See "Mortality rate from accidents and air pollution per unit of electricity worldwide, by energy source". (Statista)
Brown coal is worst with a death rate of under 33 annually (in deaths per thousand terawatt hour).
To make energy using thorium, a type of fuel, we need to add a special ingredient that helps keep the energy-making process going. Think of it like needing a spark to keep a fire burning. The only sparks that work for thorium are three rare and hard-to-get materials: U-233, U-235, or Pu-239. Getting these materials is not easy, which makes the whole process quite challenging but not impossible.
Yeap soo i wonder why we don't find yet good thorium triso good mix's yet
And yet we don't have standards about that specialy regulations
But the key it's that spark can Even be radiactive waste but the key it's yes/no plutonium
For me plutonium it's a Big issue because for developing countries that want nuclear don't wanna be accuse of being irán 😂😂😂
There are other constraints. Thorium is not fissile. Upon bombardment T232 becomes T233, which if not removed from the reactor immediately accepts another neutron and becomes waste. The system has to remove the created T233 and store it externally for the month so it becomes fissile U233 and reinsert. I don't think we have any prototype for this T233 filter of corrosive 1200 degrees molten salt.... I think Thorium will be the on paper champ with no prototype for a long time.
U235 is relatively cheap at "spark" volume.
Thorium mit Neutronen beschiessen
I've been following the subject of Thorium powered nuclear reactors for about 10 years since Kirk Sorensen rediscovered the molten salt thorium fueled reactor concept and popularized it. I've also been doing more homework on the history of Thorium reactors. Its been tried several times for commercial reactors in the USA and never worked. I'm also concerned about the promise of very low molten salt corrosion. How is it that a tiny startup has exotic super alloys that don't corrode? Hate to say it but I've become doubtful of these promises.
If it is too good to be true..........
@johncook538_modelwerks Stay tuned!
France built a thorium plant but it was shut down. Why IDK … apparently not economically feasible for some reason.
@@sammavitae114 The U.S. .had 3commercial reactors that operated on Thorium cores in the 1970s and converted all three to uranium fuel for the same reason.....Thorium was not cost effective
@@clarkkent9080 Were any of them molten salt type?
I've been following the subject of Thorium powered nuclear reactors for 6 years with Kirk Sorensen and the Thorium Energy Conference 2018 in Brussels Belgium. Copenhagen atomics I believe in you!
Having seen only a couple of videos on the technical side of this, which were aimed at non-technical viewers like myself, it was interesting to hear someone talk about rolling it out as a business, with fairly specific dates etc.
Thank you.
I was excited about thorium reactors 24 years ago. All optimism has been beaten out of me.
I hope these guy reignite some hope for you
@@ThoriumEnergyAlliance You have been promoting Thorium since 2009 and today you have nothing to show for it. The issue with nuclear is NOT the isotope of concern OR the safety, it is the massive cost and switching to a completely new isotope with no established infrastructure will only increase costs.
@@clarkkent9080 boo! And a lot of people said man was never meant to fly. Oh ye of little faith. You know nothing. It will happen when it happens. It's in the works. Shit takes time. It's that simple.
@@ThoriumEnergyAlliance thorium is where it's at!
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 Then why don't you invest in this snake oil. Put up or shut up
I'm very glad to see the plan over the next few years. You guys are really doing a super job thus far!
Thank you! stay tuned
I’m super glad to see these videos come out now from our TEAC 12! It was great fun and informative as usual. Thomas is a really nice guy and easy to talk to as well and his dedication is second to none. 👍
The most important difference to Uranium/ Plutonium cycle is Thorium breeding can be done in thermal spectrum. Making MSR reactors possible.
But there are many different needs for energy and then different processes. Most forgotten is thermochemistry.
Much more focus on this topic is needed.
Thorium is NOT fissile. Thorium reactors breed URANIUM that is fissile.
MSRs are simpler and cheaper using U235.
@@chapter4travels MSR in a fast spectrum?
How efficient can that be.?
Or do you have a method for running U238/Pu239 in a thermal spectrum.?
@@chapter4travels MSRs have nothing to due with the type of fissile fuel used. The Terrapower Natrium reactor planned for the U.S. is a MSR that uses enriched Y235 as fuel and so called thorium reactors use either U233 or U235 for fission neutrons
@@clarkkent9080 Natrium is not an MSR, it uses HALEU metal fuel. It does use molten salt as heat storage but that's not part of the reactor. An MSR has the fuel dissolved in the salt.
Very inspiring! Wish you all the best of luck! I was a science reporter making radio programs about Carlo Rubbia's "energy amplifier" using thorium to produce fail-safe thorium-based energy.
Seems like the video I have been waiting for.
Even as a child I knew that the UK paying the French vast sums of money to take our "spent" nuclear fuel at the time was insanity.
I used to get up at 2am to watch Open University every day. Some of the Best information available in the days before the internet ~_^
In Australia at the moment there's this augment between renewables & nuclear ... but the thing is there's no off the shelf nuclear systems that governments can buy...
What is the TOTAL PRICE?????? including the whole build ... not part .. not maybe ... The costings need to be public knowledge so our energy systems can be planned!!!!
Nobody knows until they build a few dozen or more. Everything about nuclear development is EXTREMELY slow. It's going to take a while, but uranium/thorium isn't going anywhere, there's plenty of time.
Ask Koreans - they have just furnished NPP in similar climate (UAE) on time and on budget. Barakah, 5,6 GWe.
Why the mystery about reactors? I would guess that a reactor should be little different from building an equivalent gas boiler with similar amounts of high grade steel, fabrication and assembly costs. Less for a low pressure reactor.
@@tobyw9573 You are 100% correct.
quite easy to google world nuclear association new build/investing reactors
All the best to the entire Team from Bharat 🇮🇳 India …worth exploring all options from our developing Nation’s perspective where Cost of Energy is the key to sustainable development of the future economy of Bharat 🇮🇳…
I really hope CA is able to do all this and more!
It's amazing calling out other companies like that because of heavy investment words when it's just practical science.
Your character and integrity is outstanding ! 👏
Wow, you can really glean the character of a person just from watching a 32-minute video?
@@SirGregoryFamilyUA-cam Funny enough I follow him on another platform, you shouldn't judge people it makes you seem arrogant. And him an I have interacted before when it came too energy innovation and the Thorium corrosion, scaling, reactor control in a extreme high temperature problem. But when it comes to business yes I am a good judge of character in real life. That is why I commended him calling that out, I'm sorry if you felt this was my first interaction to Copenhagen Energy.
Are you in the energy innovation business also Sir Gregory or ?
@@WeylandLabs I can't take my eyes off the comma splice in the first sentence of your reply. I guess I'm a bit OC. Something else I have little tolerance for is the phrase "game changer" used in the title of this video. It's been so heavily overused that it has not only lost its impact but can also damage the credibility of a presenter.
@@SirGregoryFamilyUA-cam That's an interesting grammatical error you pointed out. I'm thankful the UA-cam comment section is not real academia or else my reputation could be on the line. 😂
The 'Game Changer' as a title is Marketing 101 with the UA-cam algorithm; we all know you cannot use complex language and verbiage in the title.
You do understand the science behind Copenhagen Energy, right ? And using Thorium has the potential to bring a vast amount of clean, sustainable energy to tens of thousands of homes and residences.
I would ask about your profession, but it seems you are a royal knight of spell checking and uninformed about how to properly understand marketing.
Good day, Sir Gregory - Knight of the UA-cam Spellcheck !
@@WeylandLabs Do I understand marketing? I know it has some flimsy relationship with a product’s capability or potential. I also know UA-cam is a fact-free wild-west of charlatans and snake oil salesmen. I know too that most UA-camrs can’t even spell plagiarism, and that UA-cam effectively encourages that. But that’s a topic for another time and I normally don’t begin a sentence with a conjunction but sometimes I get reckless and write sentences I would rewrite if I had more time left but life is so short.
As for game-changers, I don’t bother reaching any level of understanding any more; there are so many, and mostly they quickly disappear without a trace. These days I wait for them to actually change a game before I take an active interest.
I appreciate the use of white space in your comments. So much easier to read.
Nice chatting.
It is quite amazing how far we've come, such a pleasure to have been working for CA for several years now! Can't wait to see this baby humm!
Same here! Great work Malcolm
This should be shown to every science class in the world once a year
Why do they keep talking about it instead of doing it? Oh because it is all BS
Why should it be shown to every science class in the world once a year?
@clarkkent9080 we are doing it. We are constantly building, testing and refining every component for the reactor, as well as constant chemistry and physics lab work and constantly improving simulation software. All this to refine the technology and get the approvals needed for a criticality test. I hope you don't expect us to just build it and start it up without the proper approvals. We have plans to test a 1MW reactor in 2026.
Oh, you bet I'll show this to my students. And then dissect and analyze it. But not all of the results are going to be pretty....
India already did it, we’ve built worlds first thorium breeder reactor.
U.S. Shippingport core #3 used and proved a Thorium- U233 reactor breeder in 1975. And you see how many there are in the world today. India is the only country interested in Thorium because you have no uranium reserves/
@@clarkkent9080 yeah but we have the biggest thorium reserve almost 25% ish.. So why not use it... 😐
@@deltaandD7516 I agree and have said it many times that Thorium use makes sense in India but not for most countries
At last!!!! An update from Copenhagen Atomics. The Premium Thorium, New Nuclear company. Please keep on with sane, non-hyped answers to the doubters (be they Old Nuclear, Fusion, Fossil fuel or good old fashioned nuclear deniers).
We'll keep on, I promise!
All talk and no show
@@clarkkent9080 Of all the Thorium promoters, Copenhagen Atomics seem to me to be furthest ahead, with the most progress towards an actual working reactor. Your comment is more appropriate when applied to Fusion research.
@@mrstevecox7 They are talking about a 1 Mw demo reactor but have not even begun discussions with ANY nuclear regulator agency. That alone is a 10 year + process. All they have is power point presentations and renderings to attract investors. Their non nuclear prototype can be built in a garage and proves nothing.
They are a NuScale part 2 company. At least NuScale received $2.4 billion in taxpayer welfare and U.S. NRC fully approval for construction AND operation for their SMR along with government land on which to build before canceled the project due to ballooning costs. They are now being sued by investors for FRAUD.
I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and invest !
@clarkkent9080 That is simply untrue. Of course we are in negotiations with several nuclear regulatory agencies. And have been so for several years, I might add. We will announce more on this matter later this year, so I suggest you follow our LinkedIn to stay updated.
Also, if you are able to build a full scale prototype, and more notably design a pump, that is able to pump molten salt around at 700 degrees in your garage (or anywhere else for that matter), I sincerely applaud you.
In addition, we do not want any taxpayer, which I have pointed out to you already several times.
Copenhagen Atomics is one of the more exciting energy companies to keep an eye on in the coming decade🎉
Solving global energy problems with innovative and groundbreaking technology with a focus on mass manufacturing. Makes me excited for the future!
They have not built anything. These are sales pitches to investors. If their idea is so great why don't they just build it?
While your excitement is building, just keep a lookout occasionally at your weather station and prepare for the climate refugees.
@@clarkkent9080 where tf they would get the money from if it's not from investors?
@@xothehost123 Successful businesses with a real product don't need to beg for money. Not ONE well established and experienced nuclear engineering company is interested in Thorium. But a startup with no experience has the answer????? Really????
@@clarkkent9080 have you ever started a real business? How the fuck would you be a “successful business” if you don’t get to start the business in the first place? 😂 have you heard of Venture Capital? Why the biggest companies of today have all started “begging” for investors money? Facebook, Google, Apple. I don’t even care about this startup and the Thorium thing, but what you said was so stupid that it made laugh and had to say something. It’s amusing to see how out of touch some people are. Go ahead and start a business being from a working class family to see if you touch some grass and actually get to know how basic finance and startups economics work.
Hell yeah!!! It's on!
Makes enormous sense, safe, no downtime, all the thorium needed in mine tailings, almost no toxic waste, no water needed.. Its a crime that America doesn't use thorium.
Interesting video.
Glad you think so!
@CopenhagenAtomics Can you please provide a link to the Q and A for this presentation? Thanks.
CA et al technology is the reactor equivalent of smart phone, verses one with a dial and a bent bell . . . but safer.
I am not the world's best power supply engineer, but I understand money. This video is good.
The proposed costs and timescales are a fantasy. The cost and time to build of a Uranium PWR is due to the large amounts of concrete and steel involved, which is largely driven by safety concerns. How can you avoid that with Thorium reactors?
One huge advantage is that there is no pressure inside these reactors, therefor something like a pressure dome which requires a lot of concrete and steel is not needed.
Agree. These guys couldn't build a house in 18 months, let alone a nuclear power plant.
Same with the commercial pathway. First commercial reactor starts construction before the demo is operational. Bullshit. The first investor will want years of operational history.
watch the actual video, its supposed to be modular.
@@CopenhagenAtomics That is nonsense. The Thorium cycle is radiating much stronger than "normal" reactors, requiring big fat protection. The "crazy" radiation is also one reason why the metal of the pipes and containers ages and fails much faster. One more reason why nobody has ever built a productive Thorium reactor.
@@BogenmacherDInteresting. Do you have any additional information you could share on this? Does the radiation (probably nucleons, right) change the nuclei of atoms comprising the materials, then their chemical properties/bonds, which results in degradation of the materials? What's the timescale on this? Please share more!
Your work is really great
We need such tech for decarbonisation
You really didn’t explain how your reactor is so much better than SMR’s on an apples to apples comparison
Most SMR designs are based on conventional solid fuel light water reactors
@@CopenhagenAtomics SMR’s are inherently safer because the don’t need humans to shut down during any failure. It’s only when you scale them up that you have to build Saftey around them.
@@tommartens3731 The problem is not safety of reactors but price of reactors and safety of mining. Mining thorium is very safe as no extra mining needs to be performed.
As far as I understood SMR is just a different approach in size and on how to build reactors - independent of what nuclear technology is used in the actual reactor..
The reactor design by using heavy water as the neutron-modulating material makes me say "wow".
What an ingenius idea!
I wish you would focus on the energy deficit and the need for way more ener🎉gy due to 1. Population 2. AI 3. Peak oil and how coal is the default option. Why the duck curve limits the amount of renewables even though the cost is declining a lot.
Then talk about breeding uranium reactors along with thorium reactors. Talk about how your design is smaller and more simple va fast reactors.
I will try to email some concepts to frame the problem well.
A LFTR/pure thorium MSR is NOT simpler because it only has 2.3 neutrons/fission so requires dual online pyro-reprocessing systems vs a similar Fast Chloride MSR on U/Pu at 3.0neuttons/fission, not requiring any only pyro-reprocessing systems and able to operate or 40-60+yrs before recycling by breeding just enough excess Pu to offset fission product poisoning, this not needing to remove fuel for 40-60+yrs. A great simplification. A FC-MSR also doesn't require graphite or heavy water moderator in the core, another great simplification. A FC-MSR has no in-core structures, very simple. A FC-MSR doesn't use/produce weapons grade Pu239, like a LFTR makes 100% weapons grade U233, or late in life 60% U233 due to U234 build up, still weapons grade until 12% U233 is reached, at which condition closed cycle isobreeding is not possible. So, use of weapons grade U233 is a major complication of a pure thorium/U233 MSR/LFTR!
Peak oil won’t happen for 40-50 years. Horizontal drilling and fracking doubles recoverable oil, allowing the United States to produce as much oil as it has in the last 100 years.
@@raybod1775wasn't the fracking and cost of finding new wells getting more and more expensive by the day. Over two million wells and need for more.
I love the enthusiasm, seems like a very serious attempt to pull off this world changing technology. Would love to work there!
You are always welcome to send your CV and a short cover letter to jobs@copenhagenatomics.com or stay updated on new open positions on our website copenhagenatomics.com
This should have been done decades ago. The US had two working test reactors at Oak Ridge in the 60's until Tricky Dicky Nixon scuddled the project. Next, we need to have someone resurrect the suppressed technology of water powered vehicles such as the inventors Stanely Meyer and Dennis Klien perfected.
The U.S. also had 3 commercial Thorium reactors and many others were built in other countries but today, there are no commercial Thorium reactors. I guess tricky dicky Nixon has global influence.
Yep. Faxxx
@@clarkkent9080 does that mean we can't kick start these projects and get them moving forward again?
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to mention "Water powered cars" and remove all doubt.
@@slabriprock5329 We all need to make people aware of suppressed technology. Stanely Meyer's technology would have changed the world. That is why he was assassinated. Hydrogen from water is very explosive and completely clean burning.
Good news indeed. The sooner CA get their first demonstration unit up & running for all to see the better, together with realistic prices, time scales for delivery, installation & full operation.
Just one note though, traditional nuclear may be your competitor but it is NOT YOUR ENEMY. Framing it that way does a disservice to both parties... Stick to fighting fossil fuels! I also hate when nuclear activists attack renewables.. They complement but don't complete directly either too, IMHO. One is base-load 24/7 great for industrial uses and keeping the grid stable, the other is "green" but not entirely reliable without massive grid-scale batteries which complicates matters a bit but is still the most affordable option around at this point... Even here in the oil empire of Alberta...
A good point; we should welcome creation of more spent fuel, with one caveat. Fast breeders should not be subsidized to destroy that "waste", which would squander a tremendous opportunity to accelerate deployment of nuclear, at great cost.
Traditional reactors may fall short of replacing the U-235 they consume, but they do produce a wealth of transuranics, making spent fuel the best fissile resource on earth. It is a simple chemical process to recover the uranium, leaving a concentrated transuranic fuel salt which needs no enrichment. Ideally, that would be used to fuel U-233 production reactors.
The key point is that fast breeders require too much fissile, and are very slow to breed enough for a new core. However, fast reactors with a thorium blanket, could produce U-233 at a rate allowing rapid deployment of thermal breeders (like the CA reactor), decoupling growth of nuclear from mining and enrichment.
Traditional nuclear is trash and its the reason why nuclear didnt dominate
I reside in a small European country, Croatia, which would surely benefit from your knowledge and investments. The problem is the government shows zero interest in changing the current state, with most improvements in industry initiated by the private sector. However, there is significant public interest in constructing a nuclear power plant, especially those that integrate nuclear waste management. This includes small modular reactors/breeder reactors, plasma gasification for disposing of the remaining radioactive waste, and heavy water, coupled with solid oxide fuel cell electrolyzers and hydrogen fuel cells. Additionally, membrane osmosis purifiers are used to remove impurities from water, allowing for the disposal of over 90% of mixed nuclear waste.
Whether we're talking about thorium or fusion there are two main issues that will continue to get in the way and prevent their widespread use: 1. Cheap and abundant energy doesn't generate enough profit and 2. They do not contribute to mass destruction. Unless the corporations building and running these plants can soak the consumer for more money through higher prices they won't be willing to invest enough to bring it to fruition. At least with uranium they can say "We have all this dangerous waste to deal with so we need to charge you more to help figure it out" and with fusion they'll say 'We'd love to offer this incredibly cheaply but we spent so much money over so many decades just trying to figure it out so we need to make up for that in the price we charge you". There will NEVER be abundant and cheap electricity for the general person. Our dependence on electricity is one of the key means governments can use to control their populations. We haven't achieved these reactors and technologies not because we haven't figured it out yet but we've been KEPT from figuring it out. Never underestimate human greed.
"cheap and abundant energy doesn't generate enough profit " well thats wrong, you actually just sell more of it, the cheaper it goes the more things you can do with energy, like i don't know, like doing actual recycling >_>, its biggest draw back is expensive energy just like Al refinery/smelting.
@@bencoad8492 Just because it is very cheap to produce does not automatically equate to it being SOLD to the consumer cheaply. If production costs were 1 cent per 100kwh do you think that's what you'll pay. More likely you'll be billed 20+ cents per kwh and given all sorts of excuses as to why. The cost of energy to the general public can, and will, be used a means of civil control. Don't do what "they" tell you to? Double your power costs. Still don't comply. We'll turn it off. There is no altruism in business.
Amazing! Mass manufacturing nuclear power plant!! This is a paradigm change in the production of energy!
Does Copenhagen anticipate ever designing a reactor to accommodate high temp sCO2 coolant for optimal thermal efficiency using a sCO2 turbine? Of course sCO2 turbines are also not ready for commercial use but they are being developed sort-of in parallel, and it seems likely they will become commercially available sooner than later. There must be significant efficiency on the table sticking with heavy and light water coolant...
Ryan is that you? xD
I find it fascinating that when we decide to build something, we never discuss the extranalities of what that technology will produce.
It's always an afterthought.
India has a running thorium reactor with 500mw output.
Looks very promising. If all this is true, why is there not one thorium reactor already in operation? Who or what is in the way?
Reality?
He's not telling you the whole story. Heck they don't even have a proposed waste storage system.... Watch Elina's thorium reactors and you'll see the atep He's not mentioning. Hint it takes 27 days.
"Extract uranium into the blanket and we put it in the fuel salt"
Does he describe what happen in the blanket or is it a separate chemical process?
We want to continually extract the Uranium produced in the blanket into the fuel salt
IIRC Th can decay into U233. The UF4 can extracted by putting/bubbling F2 through the blanket and making UF6, which is volatile. This is incomplete. Kirk Sorenson has a pretty cool video on this. On a 10000 ft level it could right.😂
holy moly that was a bombshell. Thomas was incredible with his delivery of all this mind blowing information, really exciting stuff! That bit about being able to get 10x more out of spent fuel than the old reactors did out of it before it was used is insanity. I hope that Copenhagen and the nuclear energy community at large gets to spread their wings and really show the world how much of a gamechanger nuclear energy really is. prove the way with fission and then fusion comes along with the bat to blow the doors wide open.
Thanks for the support! Stay tuned
Nuclear is not a fuel story. 10% of the ocean is hydrogen, which is also a viable nuclear fuel. Nuclear is an operations story with a very long political commitment horizon. The operations must be sustained to a high standard for centuries or longer, because there are security issues associated with the waste products.
Street drugs are also not a fuel story. "One kilogram costs $1,000 to produce-and just one kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people." Good thing fentanyl is only sparingly soluble in water, or it might have the same terrorism potential as nuclear waste, if deployed as a chemical weapon against the civilian water supply.
The traditional carbon economy is a fuel story that turned into a waste product story, once we burned a trillion barrels.
India has a working not prototype Fast Breeder Reactor producing 500 MW power. We have been researching Thorium reactors for 30 plus years and only reached the Thorium - Uranium 233 breeder stage or second stage in the process. It was revealed recently that India will take another 5 years to initiate a reactor (3rd stage) that will have sufficient fuel from stage 2 to run. What you are talking about is only an idea at this stage. So getting a viable miniature Thorium based reactor cycle working from this idea stage will take at least 15 years in this case if not more !
India's Thorium cycle >> ua-cam.com/video/KgqpvpahiTU/v-deo.htmlsi=5d3wk1X5DUmoaRGS
It's obvious that Copenhagen Atomics has better fundamental nuclear technology than India/BARC does. The ideas like the Onion reactor are not even part of our conversation. Plus, they are not using a 3 stage cycle either if you notice - which makes the process insanely complex for India. I have always felt we should have had an open collaborative approach with the guys working on this across the world, invested in high level simulation/tooling resources - instead we focused excessively on building this completely on our own in secrecy. Which was impossible considering the depth and advancement of the industrial base we needed to succeed
@@utkarshsharma4628 India has a mature level and realistic approach towards thorium
@@utkarshsharma4628 it's obvious?
India cant get u233 so has to make there own
Copenhagen Atomics is still years ahead of everyone as far as I have seen, or have heard of. Thanks for the update, looking forward to more.👍🏻
LIEs OF GREED
The only time I talk about LNT is when aggressively argue for the total disbandment of it's usage.
Also, the comparison U vs Th is not fair. Are talking about the amount of fissile material, then there is infinity more resources on the U side since Th is not fertile, but if are talking about fertile material then the whole amount of U must be included as it can be used in breeder reactors j́ust like Th.
Thorium advocates always compare thorium in a breeder MSR to a solid-fueled pressure water reactor. They never compare thorium to a U235-based MSR, like the one used in the MSRE at Oakridge NL. Nor do they compare to a liquid-fueled U238 breeder.
The comparison is fair; U-233 is a one-time cost, with an economical path to production (see Curio @ TEAC12: ua-cam.com/video/_vXE3qoUNPU/v-deo.html), or it can just be grown in by running the reactor on transuranics or LEU for a few years (see CA @ TEAC11: ua-cam.com/video/MnxVdjtnvD4/v-deo.html).
There is no economical path to deploying fast breeders, which require a massive fissile inventory, and take many decades to breed enough for another core. The only fast reactors that won't require some form of subsidy, are ones dedicated to producing U-233, which incidentally solves the non-trivial neutron leakage problem, by absorbing them in a thorium blanket.
Reducing spent nuclear fuel danger period from thousands of years to 300 years seems like a huge advancement. But 300 years is still a long time. Will future society be able to keep it safe? Will the housings stay intact? Will natural disaster or war cause release of the extremely dangerous material? Will funding continue to be available to maintain storage facilities?
From what I've heard the current waste can be used and reused in breeder reactors. Am I saying that correctly? By the time it's totally used up there will be very little left to actually store as nonusable waste.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 If this is possible, why is i not being done?
@@stanleyhampton7185 I'm not sure? Maybe it's in the works. I have more to learn about latest nuke techs
Both thorium and U238 are fertile, not fissile. Both need a breeder reactor to be utilized. The difference is that the world has a shit tone of U238 already mined, milled, and stored waiting to be used. Actually, we pay a lot of money to store this ready-to-go fuel. Why not use it up first?
Because the companies don't want to pay for that reprocessing. Also because the power is not competitive if they have to.
Also because running it through for another cycle just gives us another tiny percentage of the power, and then we have the same "waste" sitting around again, while we decide if we want to spring for another cycle.
This new plan is more efficient and is actually sustainable.
@@no_rubbernecking You misunderstand, I'm not talking about reprocessing nuclear waste, I'm talking about pure U238 we have stockpiled from the enrichment processes. Also not use it in a solid fueled reactor but a liquid fueled breeder reactor where 95+% gets used up.
@@chapter4travels The reason is that Thorium is actually viable in a thermal spectrum. What you propose is absolutely a great idea and you could just toss this in a fast reactor that will eat it up and happily make you power. That reactor will eat both Thorium, Uranium, Plutonium, whatever you throw in.
But if you want to go into the thermal spectrum (and there are many reasons to do so) you need to go for Thorium and even with Thorium the neutron economy is quite strict so you need to make sure you're not leaking too many neutrons out of the fuel cycle.
@@chapter4travels Thank you for clarifying. I pretty much had that figured out shortly after i tapped send. But i figured, well let's see what they say... they'll probably tear it apart, but it's all right.
With that being said, i still feel this is the right time to be developing MSRs, and unlike most of the thorium community, i _am_ concerned about the safety record of classical nuclear power, and i also believe the proliferation risk is far lower with a thorium fuel cycle. I also have noticed in the last 20 years in the U.S. that even when the government bends over backward to promote new plants with current technology, they don't get deployed much because the cost is just not competitive with the alternatives. We have private, for-profit power in the U.S., and unless they can make more money with something new, they're just not going to do it. To fix the problem requires new public policy, which requires new levels of understanding among laypeople.
@@MrRolnicek The only real advantage of using a thermal spectrum that I'm aware of is the reactor can be smaller because you don't need as much of a fuel load to start the process. Smaller and cheaper, but how much does that outweigh free fuel?
Excellent communicator. After my own heart. Interesting topic. All strength to Copenhagen atomics. Would the presenter revert with contact details?
Let's go !
It's also still being used cause it can actually be used. It works.
So have you tested the concept with thorium?
At 21:00 you say your thorium molten salt reactor will be the worlds first thorium molten salt reactor? So does that mean that the Chinese thorium molten salt reactor prototype is not an operational reactor yet?
As I understand it it's a copy of the MSRE, built and operated back in the 60s at ORNL. So research, but not quite commercial.
The Chinese 2 MWthermal Test MSR is the 3rd MSR test reactor. In the late 1950's - early 1960's the USA built one to test the concept of nuclear powered bombers. It failed in a very bad way in I believe only 2 weeks of run time and leaked highly radioactive molten salt/fuel/decay procducts.
The Oak Ridge 10 MWthermal test reactor was the 2nd (which had a maximum output of 7.4 MW and broke down constantly).
I'm not aware of Copenhagen Atomics working with any nuclear regulator for future approval of any reactor (its test reactor or a power plant). I would not hold my breath on it.
According to the press releases, the Chinese research MS reactors (2) are running successfully. Part of the research is determining the optimal stainless steel alloy. Reports suggest they have so far determined a higher proportion of nickel is needed compared to the Hastalloy-N used in the original Oakridge machine. I expect they will also have done a lot of work in salt chemistry and processes for extracting waste. These things only got superficial treatment in the Oakridge experiment.
The press releases suggest a pre-production engineering prototype is scheduled to come on line in 2026. The first production MSR machines are scheduled to come on line in 2030.
China is planning about 150 new nuclear power plants over the next couple of decades. Probably less than half of these will be small modular MSRs and they will mostly be used to service the west of the country.
The baseload in the east will likely be Chinese versions of the EPR and APR 1,000s, possibly CANDU 9, as well as native designs such as pebble bed high pressure gas reactors, a design China leads in.
@@perryallan3524Strange view, Weinberg considered the MSR experiment highly successful given the state of the art.
It proved the principle and racked up many hours of safe operation. I have seen no evidence that in terms of the objectives, it wasn't a success.
@@jimgraham6722 you have your data mixed up. Yes the Chinese test 2 MWthemal appears to be running fairly smoothly. However, its still way to early to know if the alloy they selected is going to work good enough.
Your 1st mix up is that yes they have used an exotic super alloy with more nickle - which came out of about a 15 year several nation metallurgical research study of possible MSR reactor alloys (I have read some of the research papers regarding this). No one found any alloy that looked to be immune from the corrosion issues in an operating MSR.
Your 2nd mix up is on the salt separation of daughter and chemical reaction products. Oak Ridge did not consider that at all. They later discovered the problems caused though.
The concept of separation of the corrosive daughter and chemical reactants came out of again the last 15 years or so of research into how to control corrosion and other issues in an operating MSR. Up to this point its just been a theory, and they think they have a system that should work. But, this test reactor is the 1st testing of it with real radioactive daughter products and chemical reactants and I would not be surprised if they have to modify the system several times to make it work well enough.
The hopes are that between the better alloy and the chemical separation working well enough that they can minimize the corrosion down to an acceptable level so they can build MSRs with at least 40 year operating lives. The actual researchers involved knows that it may be years before they really know if what they have works long term (long term reliability of equipment and components have to be proven too).
The schedule you quote of the next test reactor in a couple years and a prototype power plant by 2030 is from the Optimistic Hype PR department. The actual researchers are figure 5-10 years for each step (and it may be 2 decades to get to a well functioning prototype power plant). Note that in all industries scale up of things from test stage to small protoype to fully functioning commercial units is fraught with difficulties - and most things don't make it into commercial service for extended periods of time - if ever. The Nuclear Power Plant world has dozens of prototype power plants that did not scale up and failed.
So we can be hopeful. Just don't buy the hype about how fast this will go. Keep in mind that it took almost 5 decades of experience with many different designs to get a really well working PWR. A number of power plants were shut down very early because they had an unreliable design of some system or component (and I've personally been involved with extensive modifications of an early 1970 nuclear power plant to install more reliable equipment and systems).
Back in the mid to later 1960s, there was a salt core reactor in operation. It tested out but President Nixon cancelled funding for more work on it due to the U.S. desire to have nuclear reactors in operation in order to make nuclear weapons.
Someone is educating themselves is social media and YT videos.
Where do people keep coming up with this BS that Thorium was abandoned and Uranium based PWR/BWR were chosen so we could make bombs?
Hanford Wa. has been making weapons material, at their 9 reactors, since 1944, 12 years before the first U.S. commercial nuclear plant became operational and their weapons production reactors are very efficient graphite moderated reactors and DO NOT produce any electrical power.
Savannah River site SC. Has been making weapons material since 1955 and their 5 production reactors are very efficient low pressure heavy water moderated reactors and DO NOT produce electric power.
Thorium was tried at Shippingport and Indian Point commercial reactors in the 1970s and abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium.
Weapons production reactors are NOTHING like U.S. commercial PWR or BWR power reactors and commercial power reactors have NEVER been used to produce Pu239 for weapons, since there has never been a need beyond what the efficient weapons production reactors could provide..
The U.S. currently literally has hundreds of TONS of Pu239 (takes less than 20 pounds per weapon). The U.S. has so much that 34 tons of weapon grade Pu239 is being treated so it can eventually be disposed of at a cost of billions.
Your comment is like saying automobiles use gas engine because the military wanted jet fighters. God help us that people base their knowledge on social media and YT videos.
It was called the Oak Ridge Experiment and there is a full documentary here on yiutube produced by the original scientists... It did not use thorium, it used straight U235 and said they "could" use thorium.
Unfortunately, Mr Pedersen is not quite as well versed in nuclear reactor technology as he should be. The CANDU nuclear reactors in Canada operate using non-enriched U-238. Furthermore, they can be modified to use thorium instead of uranium. A significant challenge to wider adoption is that these reactors are heavy water reactors and therefore they require a much larger upfront investment for the deuterium. As a side note, they can also be refuelled while in use.
That being said, if the CA reactors prove viable, I would love to see them adopted widely.
Indeed. And Russia has 2 reactors that use U238 the first from 1980. How can this guy be that inept?
Perhaps Candu could use thorium. But there is a problem he didn't even mention. Once bombarded, thorium becomes thorium 233 and will become waste immediately if it accepts a neutron. Thus T233 needs to be filtered out of the medium and stored externally for a month before it becomes fissile U233... This one step of filtering and storing and reinserting sounds like a marvel on its own, yet no mention of this constraint. I'm sure investors enjoy his pep talk though.
Exciting!
You guys have any new updates yet?
We have lots of updates everyday essentially, some bigger than others though. For the bigger ones, I would recommend following our LinkedIn and Newsletter and watch in the coming months!
@@CopenhagenAtomics Love your business model - owning the entire product lifecycle and generating ARR from this is the only way forward. As an automation engineer in heavy industry I see massive opportunity everywhere - essentially move the expense from CAPEX to OPEX, move from govt regulation to industry classification and risk insurance - and the floodgates will open.
I'd love to see some of these reactors powering Australia!
Perhaps some day.. depends on the AUS gov.
Just avoid Cobalt Thorium G.
Is China still working on Thorium Reactors or have they given up?
They don't work on anything. They copy it once done.
They are running at least 2 test reactors (one if a test MSR that started up in Aug 2023 to see if they have solved the corrosion & radiation embrittlement problem, and have a separation process that works to remove the corrosive and problematic daughter products. Since they are using an exotic custom super alloy... I'm sure that they have concluded that 316 SS will not work.
@@perryallan3524 They have a 2Mw demo prototype 1/4 the size of the U.S. ORNL demo reactor from the 1960s. What is the second one?
@@clarkkent9080 That 2 MWthermal test reactor is the MSR that went online in August 2023. It is my understanding that they have a test reactor that is using solid thorium fuel in fuel rods (or at least they used to have one a few years ago). If my memory is correct at least 6 countries build solid fuel thorium test reactors - and a few of those may still be running. I don't track the test reactors unless they make the news.
There is a UA-cam video which said the Chinese scientists have developed new materials which can withstand the MSR corrosion. And a few months back, another video talk about the Chinese is building 2 cargo ships supposedly power by thorium. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you, but I suppose if and when that cargo ship becomes reality, then we'll know that they've succeeded.
it's time we educate the environmentalists who serve as barriers to cheap energy.
need one garbage can sized to power my prepper catamaran, water purification and walkin freezers onboard, will have to wait out the shit that is ongoing in the middle of pacific....
Fukushima and Tchernobil did kill way more than what he's saying. The environmental disaster and the later people who got cancer and everything and the cleaning did cause a LOT of damage more than 1 person died on place.
Segregate self-important, ego-dominated characters from humanity if you want paradise on Earth!
It's a fantastic idea. If the US DOE hasn't already met you, please reach out to them, they are interested in this. I'd like to use their money to build one of these near a military base here... =) Cheers!
There are just too many problems to make a reusable rocket, and that's why nobody built one yet. Oh wait...
the huge number 1 problem with Thorium is the time it takes to breed fissile U233 from fertile Th232.
The half like of the intermediate isotope Protoactinium 233 is roughly 27 days, which is 10 times longer than the half life of the intermediate isotope Neptunium 239 in the U238 + n to Np239 to Pu 239.
Therefore it takes 10 times longer to breed enough U233 fuel from Th232 as compared with the time it takes to breed enough Pu239 fuel from U238.
Which is why the Indian project to run the country on Thorium was expected to take 70 years when it started over 50 years ago, and they're still in the early stages.
We simply do not have the time to create a Thorium powered nuclear fleet.
Seem like you know what you talk about.
Please sugest a good sourse for this informatio. 🙏🙏🏻
The roughly 100 NUCLEAR power plants built in the United States prior to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission creation in January 1975 have never hurt a single human from radiation. Abolish the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and RESURRECT the American Nuclear Industry. AT LEAST give the NRC a MANDATE FOR COMMERCIALIZATION just like the FDA, FAA, and every other federal safety administration / commission.
The NRC was formed from the EXACT same people who were the AEC. The AEC was split into the NRC and DOE. The idea that changing three letters on their hard hats made a difference is insane. The NRC in 1996 established the combined construction and operation permit meaning that ANY of their approved reactor designs are 100% fully approved for construction and operation without ANY changes as long as the utility builds them according to the design prints. Now what is wrong about that?
@@clarkkent9080 Read literally. The NRC is a single-mandate commission, one for safety. Over fifty years it has multiplied the factors of safety regulations by multiple orders of magnitude for absolutely NO good reason; THAT is been the cause of the EXPLOSION IN EXPENSE and TIME OF CONSTRUCTION / INTEREST ON BORROWED MONEY. PRIOR to 1975 the 100 plants built averaged THIRTY-SIX MONTHS construction time. Abolish the NRC and you can build the same reactors as quickly or more quickly today. You are skirting the issue, I assume you work for the NRC, correct?
The NRC was created on behalf of the coal industry lobby to eliminate their competition. They are trying to reform it right now but they can't even get them to look at benefits when evaluating risk. They will not change.
Wow The LIES ARE SO SICK THE GREED LIES Cancer Lotto Killing Ever Day Fool
@@clarkkent9080 The licensing process TAKES MORE THAN A DECADE TO COMPLETE and consists of a series of approvals by the NRC, including issuance of design certification, early site permits, limited work authorizations, construction permits, operating licenses and combined licenses for new nuclear power facilities. THE COST OF BORROWED MONEY over ABSURDLY LONG and complicated licensing times results in OVER 70% of the TOTAL COST of a nuclear plant. THAT KILLS THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES. But you already know that.
Great talk !
Here's the deal about Thorium: The number of talks like this seem to be endless. The number of demonstration reactors are zero.
Thorium is useless if you can't use it. Nobody cares about your arguments if there is no actual reactor. The ONLY argument that matters is SHOW IT WORKING. Stop talking about it and SHOW it. Until you do that, it's all snake oil. "We want to build one every day" NO. Just build 1. Show one single reactor in operation.
The USA had a thorium reactor going for 2 decades (late 60's to about 1980 I think). These are videos of it on YT. China built one and put into operation last year. This is not a theory, but large scale, reliable, repeatable systems still need developing, which is what CA does.
@@MrRobertjparsons I've been hearing these same arguments for 15 years. I can't know anything real about a reactor from the 70's that no longer exists. I can't know anything about a Chinese reactor that is totally shrouded in secrecy. There are no real measured statistics anywhere.
Everyone shares your frustration. The short YT comment length answer has three parts. One has been the nature of govt driven regulation that has placed massive hurdles in the path of ANY nuclear innovation for almost three decades now. The second is the challenge to finance given the huge risk of the regulator capriciously imposing almost unlimited costs and delays onto your project at any time. And lastly the need for any "first of kind" reactor to be actually successful given the hostile actors who will exploit ANY problems not matter how small or insignificant.
This ugly combination has imposed on us a very constrained and cautious development path. Consider the massive funding put into wildly ambitious fusion projects by comparison. If just 1% of that funding had been available to GenIV fission we would be in a very different place.
@@philipwilkie3239 If the regulatory is fraudulent, expose the fraud. Nobody is naming names. Why not? The second argument is the same as the first. The third argument is the same as the first. Regulatory is simple. You say, "What are your requirements for us to do this particular thing?" then you follow the requirements. If the requirements are stupid or of a corrupt nature, show them. Expose them. But apparently nobody is asking these questions. Why not? Where are the requirements? Show us the roadblock in the requirements! 🤷♂
The USA built 4 thorium cycle power plants in the 1960's - 1970's using BWR, PWR, and HTGR designs. They all had problems where their equivalent U235 version did not. In fact, at least 2 of these reactors were refueled with U235 and ran for years.
The USA also produced over 1 ton of U233 to seed thorium power plant cores to allow simple reprocessing of waste thorium fuel to extract the U233 (the stuck thorium cores into at least 1 existing BWR and 1 existing PWR to get the waste fuel for this - seeded with weapons grade U233 from weapons production reactors).
The USA did perfect a PWR core that worked very well, and was running it in at least 2 BWRs.
The USA concluded that conversion of thorium ore into usable reactor fuel was significantly more expensive than conversion of uranium ore into reactor fuel. That is what ended thorium rector development.
The world could be running on thorium now -- if it was cheaper as over 90% of existing nuclear power reactors could have thorium cycle cores stuck in them today.
A couple of things mentioned in the video that are really not valid points.
1. Nuclear Accidents and deaths
It was stated that deaths are due to the evacuations themselves or failure to administer stable iodine tablets. That's like saying if I shoot you with a gun the real reason you died is because you were not wearing a flack jacket, the gun didn't harm you, it was the bullet you should have protected yourself from. Had the nuclear plants never been constructed no evacuation or administering of tablets would be necessary.
Clearly if Chernobyl or Fukushima were wind and solar farms instead, then a disaster that would wipe them out (say a tornado or earthquake) would not require the evacuation around the wind or solar farm for hundreds of kilometers, nor would there be danger to the population close to those plants.
Regardless I agree the total number of deaths from nuclear accidents is very small compared to other energy generation methods like coal or biomass. Blaming the accident remediation as the cause of deaths makes your argument less credible and puts a question mark on the Thorium technology. Collatereral damage is a direct result of operating the plants in the first place.
2. No humans in the Thorium plant for up to 50 years.
I get that there are autonomous cranes and equipment so no human operators. However humans will need to enter the plant to maintain the autonomous systems. Cranes will not operate for 50 years without the need to perform either preventive maintenance (lubrication/cleaning/pest control) or repairs such as replacing burned out motors etc.
The idea that humans would not need to enter the plant for the entire life of the plant is fantasy. At the very least there would need to be regular inspections.
Minimizing human interaction is a good strategy, I get why that is good, but please don't overstate the case. It makes the technology less credible when you exaggerate like this.
The speaker over blown the benefits of Thorium. Th232 is useless unless it absorbs a neutron and becomes Th-233 which is a fissile material. It will take seed Uranium material to start the first fission and generate the neutrons needed to breed Thorium.
Thorium fuel cycle is an alternative to uranium fuel cycle and the conversion will need to be done inside a nuclear reactor. Unless the reactor design can breed thorium while sustain chain reaction for an extended period of time, spent fuel recycling (closed thorium fuel cycle) may be required to extract the useful Thorium 232 for subsequent use. The cost and technology complications of these will certainly out weigh any potential benefits of Thorium fuel cycle.
google downsides of Thorium
We need U233. And if Th233 accepts a neutron it becomes waste. So he's not even describing the step of removing Th233 immediately and storing for 27 days before it is U233.
google : Thorium downsides
Correction, Th-232 absorbs a thermal neutron and becomes Th-233 which is further decayed to be U-233 which is a fissile material. U-233 is similar to Pu-239, both are fissile material but need to be extracted through chemical recycling which is onerous and expensive. Plus, they are bomb material unless you can mix them with sufficient fertile Th isotopes and then they can make dirty bombs.
He is very optimistic for someone without a prototype.
I am by no means an expert when it comes to nuclear power. So here we have someone who is enthusiastic about Thorium as nuclear fuel. But I'm a born sceptic, and so I tend to look for the other side, too. That leaves me with more questions than answers.
So the questions that I think need answers are:
1. When Thorium absorbs a Neutron, it turns into Thorium 233, which then decays to Proactinium 233, which further decays to Uranium 233. Or, if Proactinium is further exposed to Neutron radiation, it turns into Uranium 234, which is, let's say, "undesirable". The process of filtering Proactinium is difficult and expensive (high temperatures, radiation, corrosion challenges).
How does Copenhagen Atomics solve or circumvent this problem?
2. While Thorium worldwide may be available in relative abundance, this seems not to be the case for Europe (where CA is headquartered). Where do you plan to get the Thorium from? And would CA also license the technology to countries like India and China?
For someone who is not an expert, you are a logic expert and understand why Thorium has been tried in may reactors in many countries but today, there are no commercial operating reactors. They do however make sense for India that has massive Thorium reserves but no uranium.
Good luck with it all.
This is a great Dane
One of many
Thanks for doing this talk, looks like India is about to build these for itself as it's thorium rich. I hope the UK looks into this .
I really hope this technology can be part of the story for nuclear, what surely needs to happen is to get in front of the right group of listeners. It seems this is a conference for interested parties, which is obviously important, but it’s government and energy industry that need to hear it and a commercial deployment needs to be part of it.
They have all heard these stories a trillion times and every time they turned out to be bullshit. ;-)
Good, Hope you can make this work 🙏
Regarding safety: He has only considered short term deaths. Radiation health effects over extended time were not considered.
Exactly- and the attack on nuclear power safety regulation is the perfect trope for the entire energy sector to seize on to throw off ALL government regulation...after all, corporations always have perfect internal safety and health controls, don't they...
DENMARK SHOULDNT BE ENGAGED IN SUCH HIGH TECH AREAS.
Why not? Denmark has for decades been on the forefront of innovative high tech areas
I’d like to invest in this company..
You may want to read what happened to the NuScale investors first
@@clarkkent9080 do you think I am an idiot?
@@sluggo3slug I don't know anything about you so I cannot answer that question.
I do know that Thorium has been tried many times in both demo and commercial reactors and in many countries since the 1960s and all attempts were abandoned. I also know that of all the major nuclear engineering companies around the world, not one is interested in Thorium.
NuScale had $2.4 billion in government funding and free land on which to build and they canceled their SMR (build it in a factory) project due to ballooning costs and that was even before they moved the first shovel of dirt. And they are now being sued by their investors for fraud.
If you know all that and still invest in CA then I can answer your question.
Well, looks optimistic for sure.
I find it very hard to believe that we can't make a reactor that is safe in this modern age, it makes sense as a base load solution over anything we are currently burning to do the job and seems complimentary to renewables. Just so long as it isn't taking funding away from expanding renewables to their practical potential.
Name one major industrial process designed by man and operated by man that is 100% safe? Safety is relative and dependent on your willing to accept risk. I do not believe safety is the issue with nuclear. The massive cost is the issue and so called new technology that has been tried many many times in the past will not reduce that cost
In France and UK, two "new" reactors are build. Both exceed both their time and financial plans by far, farer, the farest. I think those billions may have been better spent on research to get a new techology running.
@@leonlowenstadter9223 In the U.S. utilities tried to build 4 new AP1000s. 2 were canceled after spending $17 billion and 2 were completed 120% over budget and schedule.
Kirk Sorensen in one of his videos points out that profits from reactors come not from building them, but from the custom fuel modules they use in a razor/razor blade profit model. From that I'll extrapolate and suspect that some or even most of the resistance to LFTRs specifically is that that profit model is destroyed when your fuel is salts supplied in paper bags or plastic barrels. BTW, it also ticks me off to hear about new, "advanced" reactors that are just improvements on ancient technology.
So they are supplying fissile material in drums and paper bags? No criticality concerns...that is a new one on me.
BTW, the uranium fuel cost to operate a 1 Gw large PWR is less than the cost for the plant staff wages
With the CANDU heavy water reactor, a constant problem was controlling the tritium produced in the deuterium (heavy water) by neutron bombardment. Have you provided for this?
But when, i hope it will be soon but after following these Thorium youtube videos for a decade i have not so much hope left.
I heard the same promises about Thorium 20 years ago. Sounds great..😮😊
People have known for ages about Thorium. Late '70s high school student knew we only used Uranium for the "by-products". That Thorium was safer by orders of magnitude.
Hogwash, pure thorium makes 100% weapons U233, when U only makes weapons grade in the 1st 2-3months after insertion, while locked up no removal, then is non-weapons grade due to transmutation to Pu240 a neutron emitter that causes predetonationof any weapon making it a dud.
Precisely. Done correctly, thorium stores u233 on the side. Could be directly sold by a corrupt operator.
if thorium was a viable option Chinese would take advantage of it
They are..
@@CopenhagenAtomics thanks for feedback 🙏
6-18 months to bring a thorium reactor on line-you couldn't get the building constructed in that time! However, I do hope there is a great interest and success in building and operating these.