The future of Nuclear = Small, Mobile, Microreactors | Radiant
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
- The future of Nuclear looks nothing like the past: big, expensive, and stationary - instead it could be: small, mass-produced, and mobile. Radiant for Episode 48 of S³
Note: at 6:37 a big dummy (me, Jason) accidentally included a graphic from last week's episode 🤦🏼♂️ sorry!
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Note: at 6:37 a big dummy (me, Jason) accidentally included a graphic from last week's episode 🤦🏼♂️ sorry!
Radiant Cryogenic haha well doesn't matter,
Big success is the result of multiple big failures.
I was going to say that you mixed a visual from another episode here 😅
Wouldn’t even worry about it these docs are super good and y’all are doing great
You should pin this comment to the top
Love the videos man
Aerospace companies MUST be manufacturing companies, not just design and engineering companies. Radiant realizing this gives me a lot of hope.
Isn't manufacturing in itself a different skillset
@@rijodboy that's the point.
@@rijodboy Yes and it is a massive undertaking every company producing it's own product must take.
@@spdcrzy I think more are not spending on that and focusing on product development
@@Neoprenesiren I think more are not spending on that and focusing on product development
I work in the mining industry, and the need for power generation technology like this is immense.
Sure. Graphite core + radiation amazing part of life for anybody.
People don’t realize but new sources of power is the largest wealth shift that will happen in the next 20 years
Sure cool story bruh.... Wait until you heard why is tech like this not in the hands of the private sector, it's old news.
@@lcfflc3887 enlighten me is not in the hands of private sector
This channel is still CRIMINALLY underrated and undersubscribed.
no, it is a representation of how many people are interest in these, which is quite sad. The trend is the same for most 'science ' related channels.
@@Not_myactual_name There are science channels out there with 1+M subs. I think this channels needs lot more visibility because this is high quality content
It takes the longest to get first 100k subs, and then if channel is good, which it is, the subs shoot up much faster.
@@Not_myactual_nameI disagree it’s a fairly new channel (less than a year old) and the quality of content is top notch it just takes time to grow
Hidden gem to be sure. The quality and reasearch is up there with & better than top channels
Like 15 years ago, when I learned that all of our submarines and navy ships were powered by nuclear reactors, I immediately thought, “why is nobody doing this in the private sector”. It’s only now that I’ve discovered the reason: existing power structures and narratives. That will be the greatest barrier to Radiant’s success.
@Jordan.Vaughn A bigger barrier is the self inflicted disaster of having abandoned our industrial capabilities. The proposed reactor and many others of different designs may turn out to be very effective and efficient BUT the manufacturing capability is not there and it is the revival of this capability that will prove to be the key to any nuclear power plant success.
Experimental models and research in general are just the starting phase but we need realism if such reactors are not to remain "interesting toys".
And it is not only the manufacturing capability that may turn out to be a stumbling block. Our lack of craftsmanship is also a huge problem. These complex machines need a highly skilled workforce but as a consequence of our industrial decay, that workforce has shrunk to dangerous levels and nobody is interested anymore in having "greasy hands".
And finally, it is interesting that you bring up the nuclear navy. You certainly know that its development and growth was due to a remarkable man, Admiral Hyman Rickover. I really wonder if people like that who did not fear to swim against the tide and keept getting things done though personality strength will ever surge again in an era of political correctness and DEI control of industry and business.
Not all Navy ships. Only Submarines (SSNs / SSBNs) and Aircraft Carriers (CVNs). Everything else is still conventional, to include LHAs and LHDs. There was a period of time in which some of the smaller ships were nuclear powered, but that didn't last long.
@@pindapoy1596 When there is no conflict. People get weird. You can see it in the microcosm of people’s personal lives and the macrocosm of the government. It eventually calcifies the system itself with interminable rules and regulations. Watch how a war will wash all the shit away, then this company might stand a chance.
I don't think its due to nobody wanting greasy hands. I think it has more to do with the fact that submarines have endless supply of salt water for cooling purposes where other land based applications don't AND more importantly capitalism is already failing North America in many ways; I don't want to imagine how poorly a job the gov't would do regulating powerful Companies while they play with nuclear reactors.
@@fsteddy6576 You are mixing everything in one big salad bowl.
Greasy hands means that we have lost craftsmanship to build the readyors in factories and then placing them at the proper sites creating electricity generating plants.
Salt water cooling and capitalism again a re a wierd mixture of ideas. We do not really know how the new reacors will be cooled. Period. End of technical discussion.
Yes capitalism is failing and the cause is largely corporate greed. Shifting jobs and industrial production abroad for the sake of increased profits.
The poor performance of Government regulatory agencies is well known but the influence of lobbyists and the power of "I give you and you give me" should not be ignored.
If you watched the recent inquiry about power loss in Houston following a relatively low intensity storm, you could easily understand that the questions were not sharp and the answers were meaningless. At some point in time everybody was discussing tree pruning along the power lines right of way but that is minor compared to the fact that we do not produce anymore the required electrical equipment to improve the network and even if we had the components, there is no desire to invest..
Documenting the revival of American manufacturing. Top quality channel and video!
This is nothing but a little scam.
@@whatilearnttoday5295 This is just how startups work. Governments have stopped doing science, so this is how the world works now.
@@jooch_exe I'll stick with investing in companies which have a hope in hell of ever developing anything.
Western governments@@jooch_exe
@@whatilearnttoday5295have fun wasting your money
Its nice to see super smart people doing this instead of working in a hedge fund.
In my 70's, I hope to live long enough to see you folks selling these as fast as you can make them.
Hear these young people are a breed apart , grey beard here also.
I second you 70-year olds (I'm 76 here in 2024).
@@Jaji1948 Live long and prosper!
Unfortunately the powers that be dont want everybody to have cheap accessible power, they can't control people if that happens.
I wish Radiant success. With this tech we will prosper
There really is nobody doing it like S3.
Again, if S3 started a Venture Fund, count me in
Hey where did u get that last name, sound finnish (Rintamäki)
It is Finnish. Good eye!
:)
awesome how much they payed you 😂😂
It's nice to see someone modernizing fission. It seems like fusion is taking up all the attention, but that's still a fantasy for now.
not for long
What part in fission do they modernize?
@@__Dude_ they dont use uranium
@@heaven-is-realwhat do they use then?
@@heaven-is-real pretty sure he said they are with 20% enrichment. which would make it HEU highly enriched uranium, one of the guys even specified u-235 "for example".
Watching these videos, as a mechanical engineer, and listening to Doug and team speak of the work they are doing it's really humbling how utterly insignificant and meaningless the work I do is. I'm glad I'm also frequently reminded of the intelligence and the exceptionalism still present in the USA today, despite what I see in the mainstream constantly.
Consistency blown away by the sophisticated/stunning storytelling at S3 - exceptional. 🎯
This episode may be your best work yet, Jason. Well done.
A lot of quality improvement coming in the next weeks... plus some big news. Stay tuned.
Wow. Those machined graphite parts are crazy.
Honeslty, not many people appreciate the machine work.
@@austinshupe9626I don't. Never drilled graphite but I suppose it would be quite brittle
Dude this channel rocks! I’m a manufacturing engineer and I love to see technology made like this in the US!!
This is fascinating. New construction nuclear power is where I spent a large part of my career. I actually had a dream about Microreactors 30 years ago, I described it as a washing machine size reactor. Keep up the good work, you're on the right track.
Tell me more about it, I want to know
I wish companies like Radiant and their ambitious projects/products were as popular as a UA-camr who buys dumb cars and the like. Stuff like this is literally our world's future. 💜
The anti-nuclear folks will have to answer for setting us back so far on the path to net zero.
A great portion of the climate change movement is driven by anti-human grifters. It’s not about clean energy, it’s about power and a problem with no acceptable solution is perfectly suited for their agenda.
A lot of anti-nuclear comes from big oil and coal companies, it’s largely psyops. Very sad.
Don’t worry, they won’t.
Please go away... Maybe this'll work, but all the other concepts and the historical implementations are extremely dangerous, full of toxic crap, cost over runs and bullshit statements that border on criminally illegal. Illegal. Maybe this will be different. Proof is in the pudding. Talk to me in 18 months
There's no such thing as net zero. We will never get to that state all you can do is lower the emissions.
How do I invest ???
💯
Yeah
You just give them money and watch it disappear.
Buy rolls Royce stock
@@jabz4431 why is that?
Brilliant Radiant! I did not quite support or was keen in nuclear reactors since my school days in the 1970's but after viewing your video on the subject & the over- all view of your enthusiastic, radiant, technical explaininations it makes some sense as long as there is guarantee that no radio-active materials are released to the atmosphere in case of cooling failure or some other faults in the system or introduced faults to the nuclear reactors. If that safety aspect is 110% guaranteed then I am all for this potable, robust nuclear system. I really would like to witness your nuclear reactor system working in real life conditions & would be looking forward to your launching in 18 months time in 2028. You are also most welcome to trial this new nuclear reactor at my village in Nubia, Hanza Bay in Madang Province. Greetings from Madang, Papua New Guinea!
Well they didn’t go much into safety details. What they said is rather trivial about what needs to be done. There are other aspects though. Helium is a non renewable resource. What about shielding against terrorist threats, like an airplane or drone strike? The amount of radioactive material is enough to contaminate and make large areas inhabitable. What do they mean by mass production? If you see the problems that can be cause by orphan sources, imagine having a couple hot containers of the thousands produced , just abandonded. What happens if they go bankrupt? Who takes care of and pays for the old reactors and the cost of dismantling them? How will IAEA be able to control them? How are they avoiding the transmutation of the fuel elements into weapon grade material? What happens if someone steals them? What about radiation embrittlement of the materials during time? Are they also testing it?
I have a lot of questions and very little answers on their website.
SAFETY! . . . or LACK thereof: NO consideration at ALL for each reactor's end-of-life recycling/disposal requirements. The nuclear industry generates radioactive waste that remains dangerous for multiple human lifetimes, yet US politicians cannot agreeably implement the centralized/isolated/safe waste storage facility within Nevada's Yucca Mountain as we construe even more ways to spread its potential harmful waste planet-wide! 👎👎 @@lucianoag999
Great video. Hope to see S3 take a deep dive into Copenhagen Atomics some time in a future video. They are doing stuff that is even way beyond what these guys are building.
I am a 63 year old recently retired IT professional. I do not know why YT suggested this channel to me other than this process must involve coding. Seeing these young people striving towards the micri-reactor goal gives me hope for the future, and i am subscribing to witness their progress. I hope the regulators are not a bunch of old farts that are troublesome because they don't understand the technology.
Hear you hello from Australia its great to see these young people , grey beard here.
Unfortunately these fellows will be crushed by the powers that be..... the powerfull and corrupt will not let them succeed... 🤔🙄🇦🇺👌
@@rodmills4071 There be truth in that indeed.
@@rodmills4071 vote with your wallet. Those idiots in office will never give up their millions of dollars in lobbyist money unless they see that this tech is a boom bigger than any seen in recent history.
@@rodmills4071 I agree. Just like the Electric Car here in America. Yea they exist, but nothing near their potential of self charging. If electric cars never needed to be charged it would make gas engines obsolete and big oil corporations ain't having that. The result what we get is the Hybrid and the Tesla car. The cost is about the same if not more than gas cars and also require charging and other things to burden potential owners making them a big piece of shit.
Would love to know more about the technicals of this design, what passive safety designs are in this system? automatic control rod activation on powerloss etc. Could they bury it underground to protect against natural disasters? What kind of scalability does this system have?
Amazing - what an exciting time. Thanks for all the work to share this with us!
The last thing a roared deployed base needs is a small nuclear reactor. This is a huge benefit for mining or remote locations but to say it's going to save lives in military operations is legit insane. I was a Naval nuclear operator and have a professional background in nuclear engineering. If a forward small generator got hit it would make the surrounding base unlivable not forever, but for ten years would lose the full funding of that base. Bad idea militarily or we would have done it. The army had a program for nuclear tanks and the air force had one for nuclear aircraft (the airforce one never took off, and the army one blew up).
If everything a base needs could be run on electricity rather than all the equivalent fuel and supply lines, that could be a very beneficial trade-off. How hard would it be to dig a hole and bury one or more of these conex-trailer sized things when setting up the base, thus protecting it from most threats? For the military, not hard at all. Seems plausible. As for "losing the full funding of that base"...did you not see what Biden did when we left Afghanistan? Since when does the US military give a crap about retaining its assets? These guys are talking about the military idea for one obvious reason: because the military spends $$$ like there's no tomorrow.
That's why the generators are so small, it's harder to hit and much less fuel that it could potentially spill if attacked. The area gets exponentially bigger in a circle when expanded like a reactor, this reactor is exponentially smaller if you get what I mean so that there's going to be little spill at all and easy to clean up. I don't think it's as bad as you're thinking but I see your concern.
@@elongatedshrew5902 Have you been keeping up with modern drone warfare?
Nuclear reactor powered planes, automobiles, and homes make as much sense as nuclear powered submarines and ships IF the scale is appropriate to the use case and risk.
I'm not saying anything new, I am just stating the logical reasoning to justify why nuclear reactors on a small scale make sense or not.
Once we pass this reasoning we will see nuclear implementation at scale.
Sorry you’re a little off. You can come in and clean up the area which would make it functional again. Why you think it stay non livable for ten years is wired. The Army would just stand up units that would go handle these things with robotics in mind. This is just a simple engineering issue that can be solved but people keep acting like it’s impossible to integrate this stuff into military application when it’s done on military ships for ages.
No we haven’t done it because an incident happened and instead of fixing what happened we just gave up. The idea that if it’s beneficial we would do it is like saying the military uses common sense and things that are of benefit when we know that’s a lie because it’s run by humans. If you wanna move to the next step and actually save money and be more efficient then Nuclear is a way and maybe the way to move forward. There will be major issues and maybe people die but then you fix the issues with better engineering and implementation which will come with time and failure.
Where is the fuel sourced from? What is the plan for waste disposal? What security measures are taken to mitigate the proliferation of MUF (material unaccounted for)? What does the maintenance schedule look like?
And is there a fail safe mode? What happens when the active control systems shut down? But hey, we got some good shots of its undersized crane!
Proliferation?! It is not a fast breeder and is way too small for anything like that!
I’m assuming that a reactor that small would require a fuel enriched to around 20% or more, similar to what nuclear submarines use (also a compact reactor design). That kind of enrichment more than warrants controls to ensure the fuel doesn’t get into the wrong hands. Now we can debate whether that’s the responsibility of the reactor designers or their customers.
@@soundsoflife9549 Good. How about dirty bomb potential? Imagine capturing one of these and making dirty bombs to contaminate a major city's port, highway interchange, bridges. A truck of portapotties can shut down a highway for 8 hours.
@@mangarang Make these like those Delco sealed batteries. (are they all sealed now?). You get this thing delivered to you on a flatbed truck. It make high pressure steam for you for 5 yrs straight. Attach piping, controls, passive safety systems, and you're good to go. When it gets empty they swap in a new one, take the old one and refuel it at their facility. Now, how to stop theft? Seems solvable- not being the field I wouldn't know off the top of my head. You could use the same measures to stop the theft of military eqpt. Then again, military equipment isn't found where power plants are...
My God! You are quickly becoming my favorite channel.
Is this litterally the coolest and most relavant thing you can participate in?
I'm glad there are people just going for it. There's a LOT of debate about the viability of nuclear, so many studies and meta-analyses that claim nuclear is a waste of time. They might be right but I'd rather see us try and fail than not try at all. Good luck guys!
This nonsense is nothing but an investment scam.
I wouldn’t like them to fail and go bankrupt after delivering thousands of these reactors with no one to decommission them.
As a nuclear safety and licensing analyst I would love to be a part of this. So exciting! I have been waiting years for the nuclear renaissance to begin. The future is finally here. You've earned another subscriber.
I would appreciate if you would go more into the technical aspect of the companies you interview
I agree, I think many people who may be interested in these types of videos need deeper dives into the techincal parts. They said nothing specific to this SMR except the helium part and they just glossed over it
It's probably proprietary knowledge or they don't want to give away anything technical for financial reasons 🤷
So, in reality, it’s marketing fluff for hype and investors.
Just found this series... thanks for the FYI's keep up the good work.
I’m over here cheering you guys on.
I do not know how you got this idea, but, really, it is incredebly unique and marvellouse. Kudos to the work you do.
This channel is underrated afffff keep posting first time I am hearing about alot of these companies this is so sickkkkk
Projects like this are exactly why they tell us not to build concrete bases for our solar panels in our solar farms. When solar is replaced by something like small nuclear reactors it will be too difficult to remove the bases and turn the land back into farm land.
Dynamite
There is no way that these small reactors will produce cheaper energy than solar panels, even with battery storage.
@@huckleberryfinn6578 Why not? (and they come in different sized too)
@@huckleberryfinn6578a 200 watt solar panel is 3 x 5’. It would take 5,000 to generate a megawatt. And it would more than cover a football field. They would cost a million just for the panels. Based on 200 dollars as the low end cost for a 200 watt panel. Factor in batteries for nighttime production, not to mention cloudy days and degradation of the panels over time etc your argument begins to fall apart pretty quickly.
Great progress in nuclear power, an issue with mobile reactors would be security. Who would be responsible for the reactor once it's in place?
What about companies trying to reverse engineer one?
What about the maintenance?The waste, damage/leaks, repairs and replacement parts? Will it be highly trained nuclear experts that replace parts OR will it be your average Homer Simpson coming to fix your Nuclear Reactor?
Yeah the Russians did this and there's just random reactors forgotten in random places after the fall of ussr they were lost and a few were found and a handful of people died. This should be considered. Who is responsible for it's full lifetime? Who tracks them, who prevents the moisture of their material etc
i mean other companies reverse engineering one would be a good thing over all, as it would make these generators much more wide spread and available, which in our time where power is scarce in places, that's something we need. just like how when the seatbelt was created, they encouraged all other car companies to add them to their cars for everyone's sake, even though they could have made more money keeping it to themselves.
@@adelinyoungmark1929 Were not talking about a Seat belt. We're talking Radioactive elements. Look at the previous disasters that have happened because someone took apart medical devices. You can't trust your Mechanics to fix your car correctly, Boeing can't even build a plane correctly. Train companies can't even transport chemicals safely. Corporate trusts means NOTHING, at the end Profits will outweigh safety.
@@adelinyoungmark1929I doubt radiant would be fond of others copying their design, since nuclear power is a low demand market, meaning they will lose profits if competition arises.
Was going to leave a comment about how this video does little to hide its bias, but I rewatched the intro and the guy said the "fastest" way to reducing fossil fuel dependency is nuclear...not the best. And I am inclined to believe him, but until we have an effective solution for 99% of the radioactive byproduct, I don't think nuclear should ever be the main source of power gen. Still very cool what this company is seeking to do.
If Radian is reading this, you guys need to concern yourself with out reach and public education. The first thing on a laymen's mind is "Meltdown" and "fallout". Address that first, and put their minds at rest.
That's going to be a very tough nut to crack. Maybe if a lot of influencers started using them, i guess that might kickstart some acceptance. Other than that, I can totally see this project failing on just overcoming stubborn prejudice.
Can't blame people either. The term nuclear alone sounds threatening enough when a couple of spoiled brats have their hands on devices that will blast everyone and their neighbour to hell when things don't go their way.
First thing which comes to my mind is "Not economically viable" and "Been in development for 50+ years without any real progress".
@@nalixl It will fail because it's not viable and amounts to nothing but a scam.
By the time there is an actual product i think the climate will be extreme enough for the public to accept yesteryear's taboo.
Nuclear fallout and meltdowns are actually very good for the environment because people have to clear out of those areas and nature tends to balance out the radiation within the circle of life.
Very cool idea getting done here. It would work really well for very secure locations like military bases, or very remote locations like iceland, mars, moon. Greatly appreciate the level of ingenuity going on here.
Only issue I had is when tech bro said you could have a starbucks next to it, no problem and we could ship out like 60 of these a month after the first test one.
Centralized large nuclear power plants work because all the risk is managed in one place….security, failures etc. Much easier to plan for. Spreading out multiple small plants all over the globe greatly increases attack surface for bad actors and requires a lot more experts to keep them all from going boom.
If they can bring this to fruition and be able to manufacture it then it will absolutely be game changing.
They won't be able to do either of those things. They will take a lot of investor money and buy nice houses though.
@@whatilearnttoday5295 Why is that? Because what they are trying to achieve is not possible 'yet' so they use it as a ploy for funding their own lives?
@@Saltiumine There is no intention to ever deliver a product or service. Only to live the good life on investor funds.
@@whatilearnttoday5295 Ok albert einstein so youre confirming what i think. This is more like an advanced form of appreciation art. The aluminum foil is hilarious
@@Saltiumine they need highly enriched uranium, the type used in nukes, they can't deliver it anywhere except antartica maybe and space
I love watching others talk about their specialized field. So much passion and intelligence.
I'm on the darkest moment in my life. People like this give me hope.
The CEO sounds like real cool guy. Awesome company
Absolutely incredible tech! Wish these guys all the best and can’t wait to see what they pull off over the next 5-10 years.
Dang two questions.
Are the rotating control rods spring loaded to be able to shut on a loss of control power?
Is there a way to chemically poison the reactor when the working fluid is helium as an extra fail safe if you have a stuck/jammed control rod scenario?
Great, entertaining and educational ! Go on, S3! We love your work.
Great channel, but a note of advice; when you're interviewing someone and they're pointing at and talking about a diagram, please stop moving the camera.
Also, use a wider depth of field so that diagrams next to each other don't go in and out of focus
and that - my friends - is great storytelling -Thanks S3 !!!
This is an interesting idea, and I'd bet they'll even find some use for their design in military and remote scientific settings. I doubt it will catch on in any big way though. The failsafes they're installing are all well-meaning, but they are designing toward safety for relatively minor things going wrong. If one of these reactors gets hit by a tornado, hurricane, missile, or mortar it's toast and it will leak substantial radioactivity. That doesn't mean this is a bad idea, but it's only good for very niche applications.
It’s designed to be passively safe. The worst thing to happen is some pebbles get skattered around
@@kokofan50 No, the worst thing that happens is it irradiates everyone around it. You can make the reactor smaller but the radiation still requires the same amount of shielding.
The use cases mentioned in the video are jaw-droppingly awful.
1. De-orbiting from space, or launch failure.
2. Place in hot military combat zone.
3. Place in urban setting where they're one metal-bandit with an angle grinder and a truck away from their unit going into a scrapyard crusher.
This isn't a recipe for disaster; it's a whole cookbook.
@@EddieTheH no, the kind of radtion releasd from the fuel doesn’t leave the pellets.
@@bartroberts1514 we’ve put reactors in space before. Do you really think a reactor is just going to be left unguarded in anyway?
totally awesome, thanks for your hard work bringing this to the larger audience
No discussion of capability is complete without touching on how many KG of reactive product are created, and the time till those parts become safe again. We can talk about how reactor design and impementation has moved on since the 60's but we are not talking about the elephant in the room for fear of putting the average Joe off.
Perhaps the small scale reactors produce less highly radioactive waste per GW, perhaps not. Lets be told.
We need a new SI unit (Becquerel* KG * Years till inert) per GWH produced at a first guess.
Basically the ratio of time adjusted radioactivity risk vs power production over reactor lifespan.
Indeed. Plus we need to put a price on dealing with the nuclear waste. Because I think it would be much cheaper to deal with nuclear waste of one big reactor versus 10 smaller ones. As you would have to move and collect nuclear waste from these 10 to a central space.
The amount and type of waste are identical, because it uses the exact same fission process. But it's a trivial amount, no concern, unless it gets out into the environment. Not having water in the core, and using TRISO fuel, makes it practically impossible to leak any radioactive stuff.
As for risk, it's really just a few hundred years, after that it's more dangerous chemically. Don't eat it, and you'll be fine.
Also, most of the "waste" is actually unburned uranium, and transuranic elements, like plutonium. These can be used as fuel. The U-238 needs a different reactor type to burn, most of the rest can go back into the fresh fuel. Ironically, these are the less radioactive parts of the "waste". The really nasty stuff are the fission products.
@@NanneWielinga
If I understood correctly, they use 30% enrichment. Conventional reactors are more like 3-5%. This means up to 10x more lifetime for the fuel, 10-20 years. Assuming they can burn all of it, but I think they should be able to.
And then the core is small enough to be transported, so they'll probably do just that, take back the spent cores to a processing facility in a remote location, where the disassembly can be done safely. The waste could then be treated as any other kind. Ideally you want to recycle most of it.
@@andrasbiro3007 I disagree.
In addition to fuel, you have to consider irradiated core parts. Just the relationship of having many smaller reactors is going to mean that you have have more surface area/parts that are going to need treating as hazardous, and this ratio of mass of parts for GWh is going to be lower than for large plants - IE not identical.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63e24c2e8fa8f50e805a3e66/2022_Materials_Report_-_010223.pdf
Using the above UK figures for spent fuel there is ~7000 tHM (tonnes heavy metal) of irradiated fuel currently in the stockpile.
and approx 113 tHM of plutonium - none trivial!
Talking about plutonium as a trivial problem is nonsense, its one of the most toxic elements. I'm not sure but I dont think it existed before 1945, and is now measurable in adults. It similar to the slow deaths caused by coal - hard to quantify.
Now this is all a push back against you attempting to trivialize what I feel should be central to the new wave nuclear discussion, and better to be had than not. My original point was that some important aspects are not being discussed in the S3 video.
In terms of your line about it being impossible to leak radioactive stuff, I think the reactor model uses deflectors to contain/release neutrons. Here is a failure mode - error,fault or lack of site security causes these to contain when they should be releasing, giving a criticality, overheat and containment breach. There is no concrete sub structure for containment.
I'm actually pro nuclear (in the sense that its probably the only realistic option given people wont want to give up luxuries based on cheap energy) but only if the long term storage problem for the worst waste should be explored in tandem.
Great work gents! Big leap… love the vision and passion
"Minimum Viable Product" and "new nuclear reactor" are two phrases that should not go together. Startup culture is scary enough with artificial intelligence, but with something that can make a large explosion if things go wrong is terrifying.
Nuclear reactors can't explode. They melt. That's why it's called a meltdown. Stuff like this is why politicians and CEOs ignore the masses
Very odd how we took a massive detour from nuclear power decades ago. Godspeed S3, hope your future is bright.
Do they "iterate quickly" or do they "not get to do it multiple times"? The different employees are giving us conflicting statements within 2 minutes of each other.
I have a feeling they iterate subcomponents quickly but will only have 1 chance for whole system to work.
They mean "None of this stuff works".
There are likely a lot of sub assemblies outside of the core that can be easily iterated for efficiency. The design of the core on the other hand and the software that controls the reaction will be locked down by regulation very quickly.
I wish Radiant complete success in their venture. The world needs great products like this to solve the energy needs of the world. Hopefully they can overcome the many regulatory walls and the general lack of understanding that nuclear energy can be very safe and beneficial to human development.
Nice
I cant speak to their technology but their team leaders are speaking quite rationally. A rarity these days.
Complicated, expensive, dangerous and unpractical. Oh, an engineer’s wet dream.
Imo it's less dangerous than a lot of current power generation methods
Glad there are people who are creating new innovation and refining existing technology instead of being stuck on using the same technology for the last 50 years.
I would be more worried about terrorist attacks or theft of the nuclear material especially if these are widespread in low security areas.
Agree, the smaller these get the greater this issue becomes.
Doubt they are using HEU
I hope this takes off, it is ripe time to revolutionize the power generation industry. I wish success.
4:35 Speaking of regulatory hurdles. I can’t believe California is the state you want to be doing this kind of stuff in. I’m betting they will eventually grow to regret this decision.
He says as he's using UA-cam......
@@masterchaferI don’t see your point.
That is where funding, research base, top tech employees, top fabricators are all located.
Yeah...it's TOTALLY stupid why all the biggest and most successful tech companies all are HQed in high tax states. Those Californians and their insane progressiveness.
It's almost like these companies know that going to stupid (literally stupid because they are less educated) states that think it's a good idea to defund education and spend more money on sports programs than the actual whole learning thing...would be a recipe for disaster because in order to succeed you actually need an endless supply of highly educated people. Yeah good luck running any high-tech company in the flyover states. And even Florida and Texas wont work the companies.
Go ask Tesla what happened in their first Gigafactory that they built in Nevada. Expansion plans have been delayed FOR YEARS because they agreed that at least 50% of the workforce needed to be locals from the state...and there literally isn't enough highly educated graduates to staff the place. They even had to start a multiyear long program to increase graduating rates. You want to know the last thing these companies want to spend money on? Having to teach people how to be smart and skillful, especially when we have this thing called college that does it for you.
These companies have made the calculation over and over and over....and over. Leaving All the "regulatory hurdles", the high tax rates, and whatever anti-liberal complaints you can think of...Is nowhere near worth it when you can't hire the people you need. The big pools of educated people will ALWAYS be worth more...and high taxes pay for it.
Even Elon in his newfound rightwing love fest couldn't fully leave California. Noticed what he left behind? The "engineering" HQ...lol. Even Elon knows Austin, Texas wouldn't be enough to keep the engineer powerhouse that Tesla is on top if they fully left Cali.
This technology is overdue. Hats off to these engineers, you are changing the world and the way we view and use energy. Great work.
Well, Tony Stark built his, in a cave, with a box of scraps
A. That was fusion, not fission.
B. It wasn't real.
Also C. It affected Tony's health rather negatively.
Any half-decent nuclear scientist can assemble nuclear reactor right in garage if one can ignore safety/health concerns.
Smaller sizes do indeed lead to faster iteration. Intel and other microprocessor manufacturers introduced newer chips at a fast clip while IBM took years to release a new large mainframe.
Also true that it is much easier for a low-end, i.e. cheap producer to go upscale than it is for a high-end producer to add cheaper products to their line-up. High-end company culture just can't handle designing and building "cheap stuff".
0:38 young person wearing a mask halfway through 2024. Is he going to just do that for the rest of his life?
He might have a cold
The applications for a miniaturized nuclear reactor are nigh limitless. Truly portable, safe, relatively affordable energy that can be used virtually anywhere… at the very least, the technology that Radiant has developed will have an incredible impact in the aerospace industry.
UA-cam, stop with the notes on climate change - nobody wants them.
For those unaware Gen IV nuclear power (which is what this idea is) is the HUGE benefit that we have needed since the 1970's. Gen IV includes using Molten Salt Reactors (MSR's) as well as Small Modular Reactors (SMR's). Molten Salt Reactors are a kin to a giant battery that can absorb immense heat energy, and can later be converted into steam power (as most all nuclear is often a form of steam power). But this intermediary step of Molten Salt makes it much safer and easier to control.
SMR"s are great for a vast variety of purposes. Small towns, spaceports, large cities, mining operations, nuclear aircraft carriers.... all sorts. The real benefit to SMR's is that if they are produced in a factory setting like an iPhone, can get better and better as they keep making more of them. This is the beautiful idea of having manufactured SMR"s. Now using SMR's WITH MSR's is a great way to cover the baseload demand (say highest demand during winter) AND the highest demand during summer. This can be used alongside other traditional power plants, as well as wind and solar too.
It is not perfect but it is much better than what do today.
These can and will be used for general purpose, but also for AI (which Cloud GPU's currently use about 10x as much power as a traditional cloud CPU's do), Bitcoin, Electric Cars, moon bases, electrifying +50% more of the world that doesn't have the option to be and other purposes.
First episode I’ve seen. Excellent work! You’ve earned a subscriber.
Wow kid. I mean young man, you are doing as great of a job as these physicists! Way to go….
Liked and subscribed.
That's amazing.
Great work, and to bring back 50 years to our times is neat.
Your words " No body has done this"
It's gonna be amazing, just be ready to throw on a seat belt. Your thought & product will be huge.
Double thumbs up on bringing back the old times to what's needed & huge savings of fuel.
Prepare to be seen and heard.
Phenomenal work, phenomenal humans.
Are there safeguards just in case of Sabotage, Earthquakes etc? What if the reactor suddenly broke apart and exposed the fuel? What would be done? Would an ordinary person without nuclear expertise be able to 'shut things down' in case of an emergency? Has safety redundancy been included in the design? Is there a material when in contact with outside air that would create some sort of an oxidation layer that would seal any radiation from escaping? For example covering the outside of the fuel cell with this material. I think this idea of portable nuke is absolutely amazing. Good Work.
I’m really excited about your product & wish you all the best for release to market 🖖😎🇳🇿
6:52 One huge disadvantage of the control blades is that they not naturally close (or fall in a regular reactor) with a power loss in accidental situation, or with a DCS/ICC , electrical motor, or electrical diver failure.
I've not seen a return spring, or return blade in the design.
Safety is one of the main concern of people and a tour of all the safety and redundancy features would be a really nice addition !
Bravo you all! This is the most important work in the world today. Energy is civilization.
You fixed most of the main quirks that spook people with nuclear 🤗 well done we salute You
I feel like in order to get those graphite parts right they’ll have to machine them themselves, excited to see them making progress
This is really cool! Beat wishes on all of it!
"It's almost too big!" (talking about the crane)
"Yeah, but that's the way we like it."
Nice double take, there. 😅
Jokes aside, this is a brilliant video, and Radiant is doing excellent work. Go, boys, go!
There have been historical micro reactors used, mostly Military projects, the issue back then was negligence and having arguably untrained personnel maintain them and then disaster inevitably struck. If you look into the list of Nuclear reactor incidents in the World, you’ll see a few of them like the incidents at the Santa Susanna Field Lab back in the 50s / 60s north of Los Angeles.
"He Was Able To Build This In A Cave With A Box Of Scraps"
one of the biggest problems of the NPPs in the past was the negative ROI, there were no profitable nuclear reactors. If you can make them profitable I am sure regular people like myself will invest/co-invest in mass.
We, the humans of this planet, need a device like this. Good Luck!
Channel growing strong!! still an underrated gem though
I watched the first 5 minutes, it was interesting. I'll come back in 18 months when they're running that factory off one of these things.
Very interesting, but one point that seemed very silly was the idea of taking a fission reactor to the frontlines of a conflict. Normal fuel is "fine" when it gets blown up in the sense that as long as you avoid the initial explosion, youre fine. If your nucelar reactor gets blown up you suddenly have a the massive issue that your entire encampment is now a nuclear fallout zone for the foreseeable future. Radiation poisoning will quickly incapacitate your battlegroup. Add to that the fact that fuel is required not only on base but also in all your fighting vehicles, transport and armour. Youre not really going to be able to get rid of having to provide traditional fuel resupplies unless you somehow put nuclear reactors in all the vehicles too! (And you'll still have to resupply food and water regardless). I'd also imagine that its resupplies to units in the field where most of the mentioned casulaties occur, implying that having a nuclear reactor on base is not actually solving the problem anyway. So either you put a nuclear reactor at every single outpost in the AO, painting massive targets for hostiles to incapacitate your fighting force or their strategic advantage (when you have to immediately evactuate the advantageous ground you put the outpost on!) or you just power your primary bases with nuclear reactors, not solving the requirement to provide traditional fuels to frontline troops. Bad idea.
came here after watching the Boom Supersonic video and subbed right away.
This is awesome this will the beginning of something revolutionary
..but pls remember why we all cant have nice things and build accordingly so this has a future.
I shared both of these on X. Hope in 6-9 months they will let you come back and talk about further successful progress in what could be true game changer as great as Falcon--9, Booster + Starship.
This is brilliant
Just fabulous, thank you for giving hope to the world.
hey! this is a revolutionary move. you have done great a job guys.
Farmers, Miners and nuclear yimbys will love this. Lets hope the cost can be competitive with diesel gensets + fuel + logistics once done. 1MW will power my farm workshop, compute rack and the hydroponics for a month!
totally nerding out on this video, great stuff