LFTR Chemical Processing & Power Conversion - Kirk Sorensen
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- Опубліковано 2 лют 2015
- / thorium - Before touring UCB's Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET) to see how Dowtherm is used to confirm computer models for Molten Salt heat removal, Kirk Sorensen gave two in-depth presentations...
Kirk's presentations were at University of California Berkeley, and at the University of Utah. Both drilled down into the chemical processing needed to make LFTR possible (the "chemical kidney") and also the Super-Critical CO2 Turbine.
Those two presentations, along with extensive Q&A sessions after, are combined here and consolidated by topic.
Volunteers: Adam Freidin, Andrew McKay and Bram Cohen (of BitTorrent fame) all helped facilitate captures.
Musical Cue: kilowattsmusic.com
Some equipment was also paid for by Kickstarter supporters of "Thorium Remix", so that footage like this can be used in a free documentary.
If you would like to help support ongoing video production efforts yourself, please visit: / thorium
For more information on Kirk Sorensen, Flibe Energy and the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, please see: flibe-energy.com/ - Наука та технологія
The "Thorium - an energy solution 2011 remix" video was what convinced me on the technology but in terms of understanding LFTR specifically, it's operations and processing, I think this video does the best at explaining it. Excellent graphics too, which helps. I plan on bringing this up at a Climate change discussion at my college later this week.
Long awaited new material from Kirk and very well presented. The "kidney" process was very good and the CO2 tubine process was new to me.... Q&A session was also very interesting. Thanks Kirk and Gordon for a very informative video.
Some new supporters signed up... I appreciate that very much. I'd like to make it clear that even if you feel like you can't spare any meaningful funds to back video production, I'm dead-serious that $1/video is meaningful and impactful at my end.
I'm planning on releasing (at least for near-to-medium future) 3 "pay" videos each year. That's a total of $3/year if you support me at $1/video. I honestly tried to allow a minimum of $1/year, but Patreon does not facilitate yearly pledges, or yearly minimums. If I used a regular collection mechanism then I'd have to charge every month and that would mean a minimum of $12/year. I do realize $12 year is "a thing". I'm hoping that for anyone keen on Thorium, LFTR or MSR... that $3 is NOT "a thing". It might be a hassle to create a Patreon account, but I don't want money to be a deterrent.
So, why do I even bother to ask for $1/video if that will mean $3/year? Well, eventually I do hope to have a lot of people supporting me, and certainly it can add up to a very substantial amount. (Lots of people watch my videos so I have some visitor traffic to work with here.)
But most importantly, right now, if you look at the number of Patreon backers I have, right now it is 79. That is not good.
Any causal viewer of these videos weighing whether to support their creation will see that number and think "I don't want to be one of the only 80 people on the planet paying for these videos! Why should it fall on my shoulders?"
I mean there's a whole host of crowd-psychology at play. I can say that the $1318 total currently pledged per video probably does not present a problem, but I believe the "79 Patrons" looks weak. So if you're on the fence right now, wondering if it is worth your time or your money... if you think these videos are important then YES, because you'll have a bigger impact than you might think.
At $1/video ($3/year) you are NOT just contributing money... you are edging that "Patron" count up towards a less psychologically unappealing number, and that has a perpetual knock-on effect for every future viewer of the Patreon page who arrives after you. The money total may look ~1/1300 bigger, but the PATRONS total will be a whole 1/80 bigger.
Plus, I'd like to have that private-video channel of communication with supporters. I don't want to bounce early-edits off the anti-nuclear advocates who post rather stupid comments to my chapter videos. (It seems they can't sit thru an actual technical lecture.)
Thanks for any help -Gord
I don't know what criteria you use to charge for videos. I am happy to be charged for all your videos including videos like these.
Deepak Kumar
Well thanks. As you know some of my videos are VERY basic... so I certainly can't charge for all of them. For now I'd like to focus on the next "Th" chapter and this keeps me (financially) incentivized to work on it.
Pledged. I love this stuff. Big props to you & Kirk.
NEED Answers: Nuclear technology presently fits into a submarine, and so is reasonably small, and goes for decades. Can we harness thorium on a simpler level with fewer convoluted steps and salts? An issue of uranium being a rarer substance, so why is it required for the operation of this form of reactor as well? Can we harness thorium without the complex and convoluted steps using exotic materials, and processes not described in technically sufficient detail. When proper detail is added, so that scientists can duplicate effects or results, then, and only then is funding and production warranted, otherwise, it remains empty talk, pleading for funds by charlatans.
+Robin T Please see other videos produced by this author. The combined sum of the Kirk's talks on the subject address pretty much everything you've pointed out here. I'd like to clarify a few points you raise here:
Firstly, light water reactors (including submarines) use U-235 as a fuel. Submarines don't run for decades, they are, in fact, periodically refueled as part of a regular overhaul schedule. Submarines are also relatively inefficient, as their design goals (silent, longevity) are substantially different from civilian power generation. In addition, U-235 is extremely rare and requires massive amounts of refining to get to fuel grade quality, this, it's extremely expensive. We have very few submarines, so this doesn't matter to the Navy. Comparatively, it's like burning Platinum for fuel; which, for civilian power, is economically unsustainable. Finally, U-235 based reactors are also unstable, by nature, as criticality is achieved and maintained by riding a thin line that exists between 'useless' and 'meltdown'. LFTRs can't melt down and they run on a cheap fuel that is abundant. In fact, Thorium has no current commercial uses, and is actually a byproduct of rare earth mining.
Another point of clarification I'd like to make is is that a Thorium reactor doesn't use Thorium as a fissile material, as Thorium (TH-232) doesn't fission. Thorium is the 'fuel' in the sense that it is what you put into the reactor, but it's not what the reactor 'runs' on. In a LFTR that Kirk has described, the Uranium is created by fission of existing Uranium (U-233) in the presence of Thorium (TH-232), to produce TH-233, which emits a Beta particle, and decays to Protactinium, which, in about a month, decays again to U-233, starting the cycle over again. The point I am making is that the Uranium in the LFTR is made from Thorium in the LFTR, you only need enough U-233 to start the process; afterwards, the reactor makes its own fuel from Thorium.
So, unlike light water reactors, LFTRs don't use Uranium as a 'fuel'. Also, it's a different Uranium (U-233 vs U-235).
I always love Kirk's presentations. All the best to you all.
Great, a new video! I've only watched the two long ones and the Th-chapters a few hundred times :)
I love that Kirk is keeping up his enthusiasm. Has anyone that can make this happen started listening?
+Cruzer
That isn't the point. The point is that as long as someone points out the obvious the powers that be have to dance to his tune. Like headless chickens of an hot plate.
If there is only one answer he has to be right. Is he?
Simple questions have simple answers.
Uranium price being where it is means it's too expensive relative if left entirely to companies. A utility is in the business of selling power and that's all they care about.
The states which do do fuel recycling(which thorium would also need to compete against) do it largely for energy security reasons.
Amazing as usual Kirk.
That test reactor should generate electricity because the gas turbine cycle needs to be advanced and proven as well.
Very well done Gordon. Keep them coming!
Great merging and editing Gordon..thanks
I've been waiting for more videos.. Thanks!
Great stuff. This needs to happen! Excellent rant starting at: 55:56
Thanks for the excellent video! Superb editing! I am going to send this very, very video to my old environmental studies professors.
The thing I found most interesting was how the Thorium fuel cycle produces fewer actinides (which are the long term nuclear waste).
Great talk, thanks for sharing this.
Great video. Thanks for this Gordon!
Yay an update! I was getting worried.
I bought your stock LFTR! GO BABY GO!!
I noticed most of the people in the crowd were old, very old. Lets get some of these talks to the future generations? There were only a handful of college age kids in the audience that I could spot... We need to inform the people who are going to be in positions that can make a change in the next 10-30 years.
thank you very much for this video, it is greatly appreciated
Thank you for the vid!
Hey guys. If you were impressed with this amazing video, or any of Gordon Mcdowell's videos, please consider pledging a donation for them at Patreon.com/Thorium/ However, if you also want to help broadcast thorium to the public in a cool way, you can stop by teespring.com/thorium and pick up one of my shirts! The more we advertise this to the general public, the quicker it will be before we start funding this development in America!
Thanks!
prophet of a hopeful future..bravo
Thorium is unquestionably the best idea of the 20th century.4th
This man has turned into a verbal speed freak . Gunning it at 300 words per minute . I cant keep up .
Cool! Any Air Cooled designs that use Stirling Engines?
I'm not an engineer or a nuclear scientist or anything like that. I only have a powerful intellect to grasp this stuff. I really believe in LFTR and desire to obtain the education to work in the nuclear power industry and especially work with this technology in particular. I have done alot of reading about everything from the actinides to how LW & Candu reactors work to even understanding how criticality works. I'm to the point where i watch one of these Thorium videos with alot of technical talk and understand what you are talking about. Who do I talk to in order to obtain the degree in nuclear physics and engineering I will need to do the job. Again I have a rather deep understanding of nuclear energy radioactivity, everything from how decay works to hold fission products are formed. A lot of knowledge for a truck driver on disability with a GED.
Викентий Мадзин the only way is go to school get a engineering degree and a master's in nuclear engineering. (5 year path) you can reduce the cost by taking core classes at community college and transferring. I would consider chemical or mechanical engineering
So I'm curious. Can you just have two reactors? One that is meant to just produce u233 and one that is meant to burn the u233? I feel like one process of separation is easier than two. If you only have to separate out just u233 and add it to the second reactor rather than separating then reacting then separating again would that not be more efficient?
Does the graphite, in the core and the metals in the tanks/pipes degrade at the same same rates as a graphite reactor or a PWR? It looks like the most of the development heavy lifting will be done proving the chemical plant on the left side of block diagram. Good luck!
By the way, when you size your first modular reactor, you should look at powering Navy subs and aircraft carriers.
So have you guys put any thought to doing combined co-generation with LFTR or is it not worth the effort?
Shouldn't the drain tank be much flatter and wider in order to decrease neutron re-capture and have more surface area for dispersing waste heat in a shut-down situation?
Looks to me like the smartest heat transfer between salts is going to be running the intermediate salt through the reactor in some kind of heat exchange, rather than running the reactor salt through an external heat exchange.
Given the CO2 turbine is only theoretical, why not go with commercially available steam right now, with the intent to convert to CO2 if/when they become a reality? It is a technological delay we can avoid out the gate.
Any thoughts on a secondary external system to collect the decay heat from the fission product decay? What about holding the xenon in some kind of bubbler to collect the heat initially until it decays and can be sold as a commercial gas as helium? The heat can be used to generate secondary power and in the event of a control problem, it can be re-routed and bubbled through the main reactor to suck up the neutrons and stop the reaction almost instantly without going to the drain tanks.
Why not sequester the tritium and deuterium and use those as a way to bump up the neutrons within the reactor? Won't need U-235 or plutonium to keep the reaction going if additional neutrons can be introduced through a tritium/deuterium accelerator system.
Aarrrg, I have chemistry in a half hour! Dammit! I'll be back!
Halo4Lyf
Ayup. At least this one is close, usually I have to commute for a half hour to get to the college, so that's a plus.
yes a guideline would be to have a freeze plug and drain tanks for breeder reactors but not required for burner reactors which are a different design also being researched
This is another excellent presentation by Kirk Sorensen however like all his other presentations it avoids any mention of the practical issues around thorium molten salt reactors, some of which are technological and others are simply economical issues.
These issues however are well known among nuclear engineers and are the reason why neither the US nor France, Russia or the UK have for the past 50 years or more dedicated any significant funds to the development of thorium molten salt reactors, although all these countries have had enough nuclear engineering expertise and financial resources during all this time to do so.
For example, among the economical reasons is the fact that thorium molten salt reactors require either U-233 or Pu to get started. This leads to the calculation of a doubling time of 52 years (at full power) for a fast neutron thorium cycle reactor to breed enough U-233 to fuel another identical fast neutron thorium cycle reactor (in a scenario of country-wide deployment of thorium molten salt reactors). This implies among other things, that since it is doubtful that a thorium molten salt reactors can be designed to operate for 52 years at full power, a thorium cycle based nuclear industry as a whole would take centuries to deploy and additionally would not be self-sustainable, requiring other more traditional uranium based nuclear reactors to breed the required U-233 balance.
This presentation has a more balanced analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the thorium fuel cycle: thoriumenergyconference.org/sites/default/files/pdf/The%20Thorium%20Fuel%20Cycle%20-%20Daniel%20P.%20Mathers%20-%20NNL%20-%20ThEC13.pdf
There is a Denmark company working on the salt coolant loop as a proof of concept for using process heat.
Why do you have to moderate the neutrons with the graphite, does it slow them , how does that help
I have been watching the progress of LFTR for the past couple of years, and in this video, Kirk talks about separating protactinium, and letting it decay to uranium. I know that its been discussed that the reactor can't be used to produce material for a nuclear reactor, but given the half-life of both protactinium isotopes, one would just have to have a series of tanks, and continuously run fluorine through the tank for a month and a half to remove Pa 232 that decays to U 232. After a month and a half, the rest of the material in the tank would be Pa 233, and would give as very clean U 233, with none of the hard gamma radiation associated with U232. Yes, it would only mean that a quarter of the Pa 233 would come out as clean U 233, but it would be a means for separating the materials. At that point, it could be used in a nuclear weapon.
Am I wrong in my analysis? I am not advocating that a person does such a thing, but I think, if I am correct, it can be used for such purposes. But, maybe this removal, by taking out the uranium will drop the reactor below criticallity. I don't know. If anyone has the answer, I would like to know.
Late to this one, but from what I understand of how U-232 is formed, the incidence of parasitic neutron absorption that causes Th 232 to form Th 231, which decays into Pa 231. It requires a further neutron absorption to form Pa 232, which decays into U-232. There are 2 solutions that I can see: filtered out at the Pa 231 form in the Redex 3 stage as shown, or reintroduced into the fuel salt, forming U-232, which then goes through the fuel salt and either fissions, or absorbs another neutron to form U-233 (U-232 being both fissile and fertile), and unless I miss my guess, neither of these solutions would threaten criticality. Or, if the decay tank simply won't let the Pa 231 out, then you could just leave it where it is, parasitic neutron absorption being very low in the first place, and Pa 231 having a very long half life (32.5k years).
45:38 "...this technology was invented in the West - and can benefit everyone, I welcome the fact the Chinese are working on it, I think _we_ should be working on it as well..." Kirk, that is one of the most eloquent statments I have heard in a long time! I expect that you and your FLiBe venture are successful beyond your wildest expectations. I can only hope that the name "FLiBe" will replace Babcock & Wilcox and Westinghouse sometime in the future and people will refer to your company as "FLiBe Heavy Industries!" Hahhaaa
What is the service life of the graphite moderator?
In the subtitles at 40:39-40:41, there's a bit that says, "[inaudible 40:41]". The correct text is, "Oak Ridge looked at using NaK*, using sodium, they looked at using lithium".
NaK is short for "FLiNaK", or lithium fluoride/sodium fluoride/potassium fluoride eutectic salt.
Bryan Elliott Fixed. Thanks.
32:21 in the Fluorinator 2 where You really, reallly need to get the U out, probably a two-stage fluorination process could achieve higher "yield", higher Uranium_extraction_purity! Also would this be an additional point where You could/should extract Xenon and/or Tritium right here (additionally to Tritium sequestration in the CO2_thermal Loop), before pumping on.
Tritium is probably an extremely elusive/diffusive atom to be "sieved"out good enough. ( there is a "Sieving Deuterium article" in AAAScience Jan.2019 )
Perfection needed here, because I read that around ORNL they had cancers like crazy from the cleaning-Ladies to Alvin M. Weinberg's wife! Speculatively that could be from Tr (TrHO_inhalation? tritiated water) or Xe_inhalation ... (Neutrinos .. very unprobably) And You don't want to mix residual Tritium with the Hydrogen coming in at the HF_Electro_Column!!!
Could Xe be trapped outside the reactor_zone in a decay tank similar to Pa? before the Fluorinator2.
Love the chemical kidney concept and 5 he internal processing of fission products. My second thought though is that this concept requires a lot of plumbing. 2 loops, heat exchangers pumps. tanks, separation columns all working in a hot, caustic and radioactive enviroment. We have to ask, what if something goes wrong with any process? How would it be fixed or repaired? I'm not saying it can't be done. I am saying that it will be a challenge, perhaps mostly a materials challenge to make this work. Good luck to Flibe in their efforts.
What happens with the salts in the "kidney" part of the process when the freeze plug melts and drains to the drain tank? Does it stays in the fluorinators and protactinium decay tanks?
because they aren't critical in those states, i think leaving them there shouldn't be too much of an issue
Kirk's presentations make me want to go back and get a Masters in Nuclear Engineering but I know they won't teach me anything worthwhile
24:00 Virtually anything is affected by HF so how the heck are you going to handle HF, at 2 bar pressure, at high temperature, in a highly radioactive environment?
Platinum?
I have a possible way to fund his R&D. I am trying to get in contact with Kirk.
Kirk Sorenson is the ambassador of molten salt reactor technology. If it were not for him, none of the new gen. IV reactors would be here. Unfortunately, I think LFTR is a dead end. TransAtomic Power figured that out and folded.
I wonder if we can have a single fuel reprocessing plant serving 8 LFTR or DFR units all at once. >8GWe being serviced by a single on-line refueling plant fed by fuel salt pipes would make things simpler with scale. Plus fission products can be centralized and make a little more power for 10 years with it's own turbine and make enough power for backup systems. Fission products make around 10% of a reactor's power until it decays.
The reprocessing plant could also have a fuel salt buffer if a unit needs to be emptied without using the drain tank.
Unrelated to thorium, how did he get the laser pointer dot to be represented on the recorded slides?
+TheBugmenot2009 Camera on tripod capturing projected screen as part of frame. That section is isolated and distorted so captured image overlays slide (from Kirk). Then whatever changes in that portion of the image is presumed to be a moving pointer. Some color/luminosity filtering is used, but mostly it is whatever changes in the image presumed to be pointer.
It is not perfect so a lot of cleaning up required. Particularly when a frame advances... then everything changes and is all assumed to be pointer.
So this effect is disabled or edited around when slides advance.
Edited in Premiere Pro. Cameras are consumer gear.
Nice. Are we going to get a follow up video of work they are doing out at UBC!!!!!????!?
***** Oops ya, sorry typing fast, and didn't catch the typo.
I wish I had been able to attend this! I didn't know about it, though I live in Utah county
re: LFTR Chemical Processing & Power Conversion
This video ought to have chapter headings with the editor introducing each piece with a narration. He ought to look at the history of social funding in the dawn of the first utilities.
Michael McNeil I can't prioritize that as a stand-alone effort. I'm using some of this in TR2015, and I'll see what I can do there to help make it easier to follow. But I can't put too much effort into lectures... there's too many and I'll never get done stuff that may have bigger impact. All the lectures I'm releasing could be edited better.
+gordonmcdowell
So try putting one together that show us how to help. I would love to learn how to handle video but am too thick to try on my own.
A fast spectrum MSR (U238 breeder) wouldn't have to worry about Pa233. Np239 has a very short half life so all you need to do is get fission products out (and have a higher fissile content). In the future you can always modify it to run on thorium.
leerman22 I would like to see a chloride-uranium reactor. Fast breeder MSR, seems like the way to go. Simpler salt processing and single fluid. Couldn't be simpler.
Zypofaeser Problem is U238 and Np239 are tetra-chlorides while plutonium is a tri-chloride. You would have to dissolve in some sodium so chlorine doesn't bubble out and corrode the vessel.
I don't think the finicky nature of fast neutron control would really matter with a liquid fuel. Probably make them iso-breeders (no net gain in fissile inventory) and regular inspections for untrusted countries.
Does the fission cycle for U233 involve the generation of xenon gas? If so, will that generated xenon react with the hot fluoride salts present in the reactor to form XeF2 and XeF4? If not in the reactor vessel itself, during chemical processing xenon will most certainly react with fluorine to form these compounds. If so, can these chemical by-products be removed?
I'm pretty sure Xe cannot react easily as it is a noble gas. Likely it will just fizz out of the liquid and be collected for NASA.
leerman22 Xenon dose have a compound with fluorine but I think it must be made under special conditions.
David Vermillion
It is a very weak bond so we could easily rule it out. There is a reason why Nasa would use it in ion engines, it doesn't corrode the engine as for other reasons being how easily it can be ionized.
leerman22 I know I'm just saying for technical reasons.
Whats the deal with the hydrogen used in the process? Is there a danger of the hydrogen exploding if it heats up because of its proximity to the reactor?
Why not salt with an am-be source contained in the graphite matrix
Is there a reason to why Flibe Energy is a privately owned company? I would like to invest in the research and the company. Currently the only way i know how to help and by promoting these videos and on informing people about the LFTR.
its gorgeous to see someone sharing and hoping and also being pleasant with others work of some tech issue that would have been preferred to be kept in secret due to seizing for the beneficiary assets and besides also as a consecutive individual probably would have ended like been treated as guilty because of acting like a communist just like as a while ago...my questions are shaping about the side chain events..i mean if this energy efficiency succeeds in production all over the world so what will come next is it gonna get distributed freely to everyone or will there be agreements of global uniformity for the usage of the energy, while there are significant debates on earths poles status just because some tech giant countries doesn't want to unemploy their citizens and keep going onto exhale CO2 makes us noticing the ideological differences on basic issues of nature like they are some kinda so called metaphysical issues, i mean is this a revolution in your minds of making a better world or just a fix for keeping on having economic dominance like getting a zillon gigawats and still selling it with the highest price or if not so will this educational conferences be supported and enhanced by/with other social and economic uniformity programs for the idea of one country like a federation of earth sorta thing..i think this would be funny to ask such a thing but since i have heard there has been said unlimited energy it is becoming logic with so many questions more that should make people of the earth to face their past chasing after the energy itself which made some of us cry like in the movie fifth element...so infinity is something serious i guess just because none of us experienced it yet and it will have a date of birth that would extend with all of its ingredients inside so has it been considered to see the big picture more stable and has the term stable been considered objectively enough...i just want to say that we all know a person designed Windows but had not gone for the internet which is its most valuable extension that defines almost everything about it..will there be a better world or will it keep going on hustling to rip apart an opportunity from each other...like it still goes on today considering the planet, and sadly the living beings on it. i'm asking with no prejudice at all but with great admiration of the effort...
Wind and Solar have serious drawbacks not the least of which are environmental concerns. They both have to be heavily Subsidized to compete with conventional power sources and Neither can provide a Base Load. Despite the cries of "Free energy" from them they are expensive and dirty and recycling is either difficult and expensive or impossible and currently NOT Being done.
The utilities are on board for sure because of the lack of excess downtime.
Can the U233 be diverted for other defensive purposes?
If you mean the proliferation problem, U233 is as good as a nuclear fuel as U235 or Pu239, so it's theoretically possible. The "proliferation-proof" part of the Thorium cycle comes from the fact that you cannot breed effectively and economically pure U233 without some contamination of U232. The decay chain of U232 emmits a lot of gamma radiation which besides being a telltale, it would easily kill any closed packed electronics as in a nuclear bomb. U232 and U233 are not possible to separate with any know isotope separation method, and even then it would make more sense to enrich natural uranium to make a bomb.
Long story short U233 is always guarded by trace amounts of U232 mixed in, inevitably. The only way I can imagine to get rid of it is wait for U232 to decay away in 200-300 years or so, and then make a bomb...not very practical
U233 is a great nuclear battery fuel with a half life of 160,000 yrs
No it's not. The longer the half-life the smaller the power output, that's why we use Pu238, because it has a short half-life of 80 years, and even then it produces miniscule amounts of power. Another option is polonium that have a half life of 90 days and it produces proportionally better power. Something with a 1000 year+ half-live would produce less heat than an ant
U233 has already been made into a nuclear weapon in the U.S. for 1955 Operation Teapot "MET" and later Soviet union. It was mixed with other fissile materials for both tests. Initial yield was 33% lower than originally anticipated, but as it has a long half life, should be well suited for weapons. It was purified enough for weapons use at the time, records should still exist. The nuclear industry is full of fraud and they want to make new weapons. It is understandable that they want to run away from a history of cost over-runs, pollution, and disaster. Are the alternatives that bad?
regorester - You are being deceptive when you equate a test with a weapon. It is not impossible to purify, it is just much harder to weaponize than other more easily used fissile materiel.
While I agree with Kirk's design targets, there is one aspect I don' t understand : most of the other MSRs I saw are burners/converters at most, if not uranium only, while LFTRs are full thorium breeders, so what tech breakthroughs did Sorensen get to overcome thorium these breeder troubles ? Either he got something other didn't yet or they over estimate MSR fuel recycling/reprocessing problems...
I think essentially he's willing to tackle challenges the others are not. These chemical processes are expected to work, but have not all been tested. Flibe Energy is expecting to be able to license a non-appreciable breeder. So there's no expected show stopper, but the more one tries to tackle at once, the greater risk of suddenly hitting a technical challenge or a licensing challenge.
LFTR is a more advanced than a MSR burner. So I'd say this is a value judgement of how important is breeding.
I wonder how this reactor tech would work with a tesla turbine.
Seems to me that the basic concept of a Thorium based molten salt reactor is that the processing of thorium into a fissionable fuel material is accomplished as an inherent process within the reactor itself. Whereas current reactors depend on a totally external industry to process nuclear fuel.
19:00 Why does the coolant salt contain BeF2 ? FLiNaK (LiF NaF KF mix) does not contain the highly toxic Beryllium, its fluid range is wider (454-1570°C) and the fact that it has a higher cross section does not matter for the coolant!
Sure mon lemee clear up some space rright over here. YOU got it covered! Ye do. Keepen track?
Brayton engines would be the ideal heat engine to pair with your molten salt reactor.
Where can I find those original slides ?
If they're anywhere they'll be on EnergyFromThorium.com but I suspect this deck was never posted to public.
ok, thanks
"We need a source with all if the benefits ... (of coal)"
Old coal-fired electricity had low capital costs... particularly so in term of incremental capital cost per watt scaling up a plant.
That was true without pollution control. It's not true now, and that's why coal started dying even before CO2 became an issue.
But anyway, old coal could service load variability cheaply (as long as the load didn't swing too fast) because unused capacity was cheap.
Nobody expects nuclear capacity to be cheap. The LCOA of either wind or solar AT FAVORABLE SITES is now below 3¢/KWH. Nobody is claiming Nuclear can compete with that, not close.
What this means is that the only role available to Nuclear (for electric power generation in the USA) is as backup/peaking power. But that is low duty fraction, and so how the hell can high capital costs be recovered?
I liking these new developments with MSP & LFTR, i think the hold great promise for Africa (where i live) where modular infrastructure is badly needed & i think we can make it work because we don't have vested solar/coal interest & have good rare earth mineral deposits.
Have a few question that maybe @GordenMcdowell can answer pls; (1) what happens if the drain tank ruptures for some reason like in an earthquake? (2) Also, can a CO2 driven turbine system add to greenhouse gas emissions somehow?
Silas Okwoche to nr 2 he said it wil be a Closed Circulation
I know it's an old post, but I'll awnser anyway. The drain tanks can not rupture if they are embedded in a slab of concrete to passively absorb the decay heat, at least the last time I checked on LFTR technology some years ago that was the idea. The drain tank doesn't need to be a sofisticated piece of machinery, it only needs mass, so you can make them armored like an A1 Abrams if you want to.
Regarding leaks in the system, LFTRs are supposed to operate under slightly negative pressure, that way stuff tends to be kept in when there's a leak, and even if stuff comes out because someone pulled an Allahu Akbar on the reactor vessel, molten salt would tend to freeze and somehow plug the hole
And no, the CO2 turbine is a closed system, and the entire system works on a miniscule amount of CO2 compared to what a city emmits every minute.
17:47 he gets specific
I wonder how a thorium reactor would work on Mars, with .38 of Earth's gravity. Also, this waste tritium, any practical use for this?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Use
"As of the turn of the millennium, commercial demand for tritium is 400 grams per year and the cost is approximately US$30,000 per gram."
I'm not sure if having more available would facilitate increased usage & demand or not.
As-to reduced gravity on Mars, I do believe this increases reliance on pumps and using pressure to move fuel into a drain tank. So passive safety mechanisms would need to be rethought for low or zero gravity scenarios.
Tritium is used in pistol night sights as it will glow in the little glass tubes.
There should be an annual tradable cap on carbon ^mining^, based on each nation's population as af Year 2000, and atmospheric CO₂ levels. 10-year quotas could be auctioned within each nation, and proceeds used for research and alleviation of fuel poverty. Non compliant nations (hello China, USA) could have their exports reckoned against importers' quotas.
I keep hearing that the plans to kick off the Thorium fuel cycle will be to use U-235. My question would be: something has to kickoff the U-235 chain reaction. Why can't the same method be used to kick off the Th-232/U-233 cycle? Is it a question of density? Just not enough to sustain?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_neutron_source
Hi Erik, is not a problem of a neutron source to "kick off" the reaction, is the fact that we need a starting amount of fuel to "ingite". The US inventory of U233 is very low, the remains from the experiments done in the 60s, and what worse is that it was targeted for destruction in conventional rectors some years ago, so maybe it doesn't exist anymore, I don't know.
The U235 would be used to be the initial fuel load in the first breeders, once they have bred enough U233 to start more LFTRs, there is no need for further U235
I don't think we could depend on LFTR to make fuel for LFTR, the breeding ratio is low. Am expecting LFTR seeded by HEU or Pu.
Let's hope we have this problem in a few years, too many LFTRs to start and not enough starting fuel!
U235 is fissle, and "kicks" itself (alpha particles/radiation) into chain reaction just based on purity/density. In most reactors it is modulated with graphite rods. Plutonium can also reach chain reaction, but it is usually for weapons or waste created from U235 fission reactors. Big truth here is the origin of all alpha radiation for for fission in nuclear reactors (yep, thorium included) has to originally come from U235. Sorenson never seems to mention this, seems very deceptive in an industry full of fraud and disaster.
regorester - alpha radiation doesn't participate in fission in nuclear reactors so your comment seems strange. You will hear over and over plans to kick off the Thorium fuel cycle will be to use U-235 & some people like HEU or Pu. That is simply how it is generally planned. One LFTR can make fuel for two LFTRs and so forth, but the time scale is crazy long and likely exceeds the first one's lifespan in early gen nukes. Sorenson has multiple vids and deals with the starting fuel subject at length elsewhere, assuming those vids are still up.
This video might be better served by slowing it down a lot. As a patron I think I can afford an extra contribution, since the author already has the product it should be relatively cost effective.
Some anti-nuclear organizations will not support anything that will cause their organizations to be come obsolete
A very late comment. I've spent a large part of my career working hands-on in high level nuclear waste processing and my experience has not indicated any way to remove fission products via a "PowerPoint shape" module.
The cc seems to be a bit off. Is it just me?As a non english native speaker, they would help a lot
Sorry I don't have time or money to human-caption everything. If anyone wants to direct this video (or any machine-captioned video of mine) at CastingWords and pay for captions, then shuttle the result to me ( gordonmcdowell@gmail.com ) I'll integrate the captions back into the video.
He's the Elon of Nuclear
how small can it be built this LFTR? I want this for my home or car
I swear, Kirk has to make everything as expensive and impractical as possible. He's addicted to engineering dweebery for its own sake. Here's hoping some of the other Th startup companies can produce plans for a PRACTICAL pilot plant.
CHEMISTRY!
Do you suppose that you could use buckyballs for a moderator, treat them like a liquid and circulate them through their own "kidney," thereby increasing the effective life of the reactor itself? I don't like the solid carbon moderator, as proposed.
The moderator is also separating the 2 fluids. www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1468383
Experience with MSRs has not been very encouraging. All current designs draw upon the only two MSRs ever built: the 1954 Aircraft Reactor Experiment that ran for just 100 hours and the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment that operated intermittently from 1965 to 1969.
Over those four years, the latter reactor’s operations were interrupted 225 times; of these, only 58 were planned. The remaining were due to various unanticipated technical problems. In other words, the reactor had to be shut down at least once every four out of five weeks - that is not what one would expect of a reliable power plant.
I figure an experimental design would have "unanticipated technical problems". More should have been built.
gas for the turbine, what gas are we using
CO2.
Get this started, You can do it china is.
Even if they had to replace parts every 20,000 hours, I think it would still be more cost effective than a refuel for the LWR lol
We have the technology- build the cathedral.
7:58 'So with the thorium cycle you could potentially get down to 1.5% of the long-lived waste production of the uranium cycle.' I think that figure is really 10%, because the comparison should be: uranium cycle leaves 15% unfissioned, thorium cycle leaves 1.5% unfissioned.
Koen Th he’s comparing mined fissile not the LEU fuel fed to reactors.
@@gordonmcdowell No he is not, watch carefully: that is not what he says here, starting from 7:30. (If he meant mined ore he would get to an even lower number). Moreover you see Kirk hesitating a moment because he realizes it himself. 1.5% is just the fraction of fissile material that becomes transuranium in the Thorium cycle, whereas in the Uranium cycle (235-U) this is 15%.
Dont get me wrong, I believe Kirk and his message. He is an incredibly clever and fast thinking guy and I am sure he too is convinced that clear-cut, transparent and correct information is the best way to convince.
@@koenth2359 You're thinking that U-233 fission 90% then goes to U-235 and from there is the same for both. That's where u would get 10%. But as the video mentions later on, 8:05 or so, enriched uranium starts with a lot of U-238 (over 90%) which is one neutron absorption away from a transuranic, so it would be like this:
Thorium: U-233-> 10% absortion ==> U-235-> 15% absorption
Result: 1.5% actinide production
Uranium:
4-6% * ( U-235-> 15% absorption -> Actinide )
+
94-96% ( U-238-> 100% absorption -> Actinide. )
Result: approx 95% actinide production
To be fair Pu-239 fission rates are not reported but Pu-239 is indeed one of the main components of long lived waste anyway...
@@dskaz8926 Thanks for explaining, clear now! His conclusion (7:58) then precedes the explanation (8:06), but that may be due to this vid being a combination of two different talks.
At 4:12 Shouldn't it be "when Thorium absorbers a PROTON it becomes Uranium..." ????????
But he says "Neutron" ??
It that's not a mistake, how would that work, when it is the number of protons that makes something whatever Element??
Neutron. It is a neutron. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
gordonmcdowell
Ok thanks 👍
WIND!!! I know a big hole in the ground where non-recyclable wind generator blades are buried.🤫
Oh, 500-600°C I thought it was a thousand !
War between the 'continuous motion machine 'greenies'', and the scientists, who know what they're talking about.
A free idea that needs to be shared, by the World. You can't sell what you don't own. All these ideas are off UA-cam.
Water shortages and food shortages are caused by the lack of rain and snow or is it more likely, the lack of large amounts of electricity to make water.
Sunspots, cosmic rays, the Earth's Magnetosphere, jets stream, the amount of salt in the ocean water at the poles, and volcanic dust in the upper atmosphere, may be something you look into. Look at the history of solar cycles like the Modern Eddy Mimium we are now living in. Check the number of days in a now shorter and colder growing cycle we maybe living in as we look to feed the world.
Time for a total marketable idea to feed and water the World.
Well, well a water well, an old idea, but today we all can make water out of the air. Today we can use solar power, wind power, Wateroter or slow speed turbines, Natrium and or Thorium salt reactors and then use an atmospheric water generators and Seawater distillation systems to make water all day long even in the driest places on Earth.
Now let's take it to the next step.
I don't sell any of these ideas, or work for any companies I talk about, the question is, is now the time to market a total package and save the planet?
How would I change the world.
First Trump wants to build a wall, Bill Gates wants to reduce the population, I got a better idea. YES a better idea, that we can build and do today. Just search all these ideas I put together here to solve real World problems.
The applied future of Natrium or Thorium reactors that can make water and grow food, and can be used to feed the world.
Now we start by building a Magnetic Levitation Railroad between San Diego and the Gulf of Mexico to replace the Panama canal for shipping containers traveling at 250 miles per hour. Now also, using the same right of way, build an Irrigation Project to turn the Southern United States and Northern Mexico into a World class agriculture center. How do I power this project by using a liquid fluoride thorium reactor (acronym LFTR; often pronounced lifter) is a type of molten salt reactor. If you search for a map of Thorium deposits in the United States, you can see by the map we have tons of Thorium all over the United States. Check on UA-cam and search What they don't want you to know about Thorium, and other Thorium videos. Also search Natrium salt reactors, both types of reactors can be used to make power.
What am I going to power with Thorium Reactor or Natrium Reactor?
I would build:
Atmospheric Water Generators and Seawater Desalination plants.
With these plants I would make Electrical power, Drinking water, Irrigation water, mine the ocean for Rare earth minerals. Along the right away I would build fresh water fish farms based on Hydroponics for fish meat and fertilizer. Adding a third Thorium or Natriun reactor and by pumping desalinated sea water to the head waters of all rivers in the area, that water would replace water tables through natural filtration into the soil. Projects of this size could feed three to four time the population of the world, by turning the Sahara Desert, Central Africa and Australian Outback into gardens. I have been telling people about this for years.
Green houses made of transparent aluminum can be built in the far North and using Thorium or Natrium power plants with seven color LED grow lights, both the North and South poles could also be used to grow food. We can do this today.
12/12/2021
The use of transparent aluminum greenhouses underwater and in oceans can add additional grow areas for World food production.
Eddie Delzer 01/12/2019
Update 7/4/2021
Do you have a nearby moving river or stream? You can now place a slow speed water generator on the bottom of the stream and make power. The unit is called a Wateroter made in Canada. The Wateroters won't harm fish and can be scaled up to meet the needs of small towns or cities. Make the power miles away from the small town, sell the power to the power company than use the power to make water anywhere. Atmospheric water generators can make drinking water and irrigation water, and with a Wateroter, power can be made even in remote regions of the World. You just need moving water in streams, irrigation channels, fish ladders or even waste water outlet's. Garbage treatment plants can also use the power they make burning garbage to make water with atmospheric water generators and add storage tanks to supply small towns and cities. Adding Wateroters below dams can maximize electrical power made by any dam and replace power lost if the dam has a fish ladder or channel for fish to move up and down stream. A dam can be saved for flood control by adding these powered fish ladders and channels or notching the dam and putting in a flood gate to raise and lower the river during fish runs. Now people and fish can share the river.
Final idea, dealing with forest fires. You build and place 100,000 to 5,000,000 gallon water tanks on hilltops to protect your town. You cover the tanks with solar panels and add wind turbines to make power anywhere. You sell the power, drinking water and irrigation water, then by adding irrigation pipes down the hillsides, you can create fire lines that lasts up to 24 hours. You make these fire lines by adding TetraKO, by Earth Clean at a 4 to 6 percent solution to the water. Turn on these stand alone units remotely, your fire trucks can work elsewhere or resupply themselves with needed water. Fire protection, drinking water, irrigation water and stand alone power for any city or town in need. These ideas all can be done today, just search UA-cam, and then tell someone.
There are two kinds of books In life, The book of answers and the book of questions, both need looking at, take that idea with you.
Surely this is Elon country?...he should be in amongst all this! Will give Jeff B a rev too!
Steve Turpin hopefully they arrive safely on the ISS
I've watched most of the video series to date and to me at least, the first 15 or so minutes of preamble were a bit boring to me because I've heard it all before.
After that though it becomes quite interesting.
When previous videos discussed a chemical "kidney" for the purpose of on-line reprocessing Kirk wasn't kidding. That Bismuth/Thorium counter-current exchange is quite close to what happens in the human body; albeit with Na/K and H2O exchange through membranes and membrane proteins. One of the challenges I foresee though is in the electrolytic cell. You're reducing everything back to metal that then is introduced into the decay tank. What's stopping say the lithium or beryllium plating onto the electrodes?
I know nothing of tritium capture, but if what Kirk says is true about the potential of tritium escape only being within the supercritical CO2 stream, surely once the pressure is lower some oxygen could be introduced into the stream to turn gaseous tritium into heavy water. There are a lot of ways to dry out a gas stream; from passing it through a hygroscopic filter, to simple condensation. Since the gas turbine is a closed cycle, you could simply keep recirculating everything until you were sure that no tritium could possibly remain.
Nuclear is great for heat. That goes for fusion and fission. Small self contained units will heat a small home or a vehicle. They need heat. About 88 degrees max
I'm all for LFTR funding and continued research, but Kirk and some of the fanboys I saw in this video are dead wrong in at least one thing:
People have the right to choose the kind of energy they prefer to consume, this should be self-evident.
If the people in Vermont don't want a nuclear power plant there (for whatever reason, it doesn't really matter), they shouldn't be forced to accept it against their will.
Hey, if the people living in a certain area want to have a LFTR there, by all means, let them have it, but the same goes for the people who want to avoid nuclear reactors (again, their reasons don't really matter).
Can you imagine a world where some faction of people is demanding that all humanity live like the Amish? Where do more progressively minded factions draw the line? Pro-nuclear factions would do well to harp on radon being released by the mining and burning of coal and gas. Radon's 3.8 day half-life is smoking hot radioactive and, indeed, we might find that increased release of radon over the past 150 years might have some direct causality to increasing incidences of Alzheimer's and other diseases of aging.
The people have a right to choose. You, the individual consuming grid power, do not.
I don't understand why governments don't throw billions at this.
question: Is Rick Perry going to screw this up ? ...being the big oil tool that he is?
If money was no object could you build it today
Kirk should give a call to Elon Musk!
Elon musk is afraid of nuclear power, and is highly invested in solar power, which polutes much more than nuclear power, and also is much more dangerous(more deaths per kilowatt-hour).
That's a pity, Mike - but I completely believe it. There are some surprising instances of pretty sharp people who have an utterly unexamined quasi-religious bias against anything even "remotely nuclear." Sad.
I don't think that's true... ua-cam.com/video/arhW0-owX1g/v-deo.htmlh15m36s ...he's also made other vaguely positive pro-nuclear statements on camera. I just think it is a business he does not want to get into.
Really there's NO synergy between his Solar City and nuclear. Because nuclear still has a stigma if Musk started a nuclear venture it would serve to tarnish his pretty perfect brand. I think a lot of value he's created is tied up in his brand.
He IS the guy who talked about using fusion bombs to melt Mars ice caps on late night TV. So I don't think he's scared of nuclear tech the way many pro-renewable folk are.
I think there might, however - be a considerable synergy in regards to the battery production facility he is building. As you probably know, Thorium is a by-product of rare-earth mining, rare-earths being critical to current and new battery technology like the type used in Teslas.
Really? How long do you have to store nuclear waste?