I served aboard USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659, as a Nuclear Machinist's Mate and Engineering Laboratory Technician. That means I cared for the nuclear reactor and all associated systems, while monitoring for anomalies, as well as radiation exposure of the crew. Naval Nuclear Reactors are incredibly compact, yet incredibly powerful. The S3G reactor was about the size of Radiant's design that's capable of 1MW. However, due in part to much higher enrichment levels, S3G cores *far* surpassed this level of energy output. While working for DuPont after the Navy, I worked on Naval Fuels, and Defense Nuclear Waste. We were perfecting vitrification of high-level nuclear waste over 35 years ago! That 90 MT of spent fuel languish in onsite storage all across the country is a travesty. As for the SMR or MSR question, that's an "and-both" issue, not an "either-or" one. There is no "Silver Bullet". Only silver buckshot. So, in addition to the first-off-the-tongue renewables of solar, wind and hydro, *we must quickly expand production capacity, while investing heavily in geothermal and wave/tidal.* Geothermal and wave/tidal are akin to stable, baseload generated by natural gas, coal and nuclear, and we've barely scratched the surface of what these energy sources can deliver to humanity and the planet. SMRs have their place. Designs are approved and projects are already underway. No, they don't have all of the benefits of MSRs, but we urgently need the capacity. It's a bit like the tortoise and the hare, where MSRs are the former. Working down the existing spent fuel inventory, while generating a fraction of the waste of traditional reactors designs, that's also toxic for a far shorter period of time. That's the promise that we should work towards. In addition to all this, there are EVs, ground source heat pumps and hybrid water heaters. There are biomass, carbon capture and synthetic fuels. There are smart grids, distributed grids and vehicle-to-home. Hell, there's even white paint. We need it all. And we need it now!
@@zber9043 Quaise's approach has merit. But theirs is a large, centralized implementation. It's not necessary to drill miles/kilometers deep to gain significant advantages. Heating and cooling buildings is a significant contributor of global greenhouse gas emissions. Conditioning the built environment is all about the "Delta-T", that is the temperature differential represented by source and desired temperature. The smaller the gap, the lesser the energy needed to get to the desired temperature. We only need bury relatively small loops between 6 and 10 feet down to reach stable temperatures year round. Horizontal ground loops can be used to as a heat sink when cooling, and a preheater when heating. The same goes for heating water. As I said in my original comment, "silver buckshot." We need every solution. Like yesterday.
Politicians :" Meh, coal and gas are cheaper, and those huge corporations are sponsoring us. People will vote for the other team if their living standards get a 3% decrease, so why bother. "
Very interesting & informative post. Hopefully it won't be long before people realise wind & solar are a waste of time, promoted by politicians who want to look good. Nuclear & tidal seem to be the obvious choice.
It is worth pointing out that the reason for the difference between the longevity of the waste from uranium-based fission reactors is the presence of higher atomic number actinides. This isn't the only difference between the thorium and uranium decay paths, they can be separated fairly easily and most of them have medical or other industrial uses. It is a political decision not to allow the reprocessing of nuclear waste. Things have changed since Carter made that decision, it might be time to take another look at reprocessing all of the waste. The remaining lot has the same shorter lifetime for thorium wastes.
Environmentalists would fight you tooth and nail to prevent the use of burning nuclear waste as energy. Not only that but they would also prevent you from reproducing.
@@dr.vanhellsing Modern environmentalist groups are enemies of humanity. Their ultimate goal is the reduction of the human race to nothing more than hunter gatherer/subsistence societies, they view mankind as a plague that needs to be contained or eradicated.
@@jaffacalling53 Seems that all coments here, apart from @Jesus saves are talking about US. There is world out there, where these statements are not true, as they're generalizations of how things or *'environmentalists'*, whatever that means for you,* are in US. None of the green parties un EU opposes nuclear power or human civilization. Another matter, if and how they're 'green.' I'm not talking about extremists or animal rights nuts, i haven't met them. Unfortunately majority of poor countries will not have resources or political power to go nuclear. Those opposing nuclear, unless they champion for Thorium-only, have no clue of nuclear physics, biology or geology. No point of giving them any platform, not even critically.
@@vitalijslebedevs1629 Pretty sure every major green party in Europe opposes nuclear power, some of those idiots are so far gone that they even protested funding ITER. The Green morons even managed to infect the more center parties in Germany, which is why their reactors are all shut down even though the Greens aren't even the majority party there.
You answered the waste question in the video already. Fast reactors use waste from thermal reactors as their fuel, cutting the time needed for storage to about 500 years just like the thorium reactors. Fast reactors are also highly efficient in their burnup, meaning that the existing waste represents a tremendous amount of fuel waiting to be used.
Even if that was true, which I doubt, micro reactors are a _spectacularly_ stupid idea when you factor in just how hard they would be to secure against ignorance and malice. Making a dirty bomb out of one of these things is horrifyingly easy: Just place a sturdy water tank near one, wire up a water heater inside, bolt the tank shut and run like hell. No explosives or skills required at all. Going postal would be going to a whole new level.
@@Spacedog79 A gigawatt of nuclear power with small 1 MW reactors will require 1000 reactors. That's a lot. And a GW isn't that much. Burying and hardening reactors will be prohibitively expensive and still not protect against determined nutters. You underestimate the dogged stupidity and creativity of idiots. And we have to plan for irrational behavior as Putin has just demonstrated.
@@davidk7544 Look at Germany, we've already seen that we don't have a solution to the intermittency apart from more fossil fuels. France on the other hand is sitting pretty with all their Nuclear, that is the way to do it.
I like the idea of mircoreators. The world's rate of changing resource requirements (need more, need more), change in technology (knowledge increase), micros would fit the bill of small, flexible for varying installations. After installation, if a more efficient microreactor was found, it could possibly replace the current reactor; hard to do with a full size nuclear reactor.
Obviously there are lots of details to work out, but micro reactors in concept allow for loads of options toward the goal of decentralizing electricity generation. It is interesting that many people are alarmed about the management of nuclear waste. Clearly, it is an important part of the process, but If only we had been storing the toxic biproducts of our means of energy production in the last 100 or so years instead of letting it float away into the atmosphere (and accumulate) we would be dealing with a very different type of challenge to keeping the planet able to sustain life.
Nuclear waste is only waste if its useless. Check out the candu reactor and new research on SMR variants. We can fuel the SMR reactors for 100+ years with the junk we cant figure our what to do with (or use unenriched uranium which is cheaper and reduces proliferation risk)
@@Dirtyharry70585 It's extremely difficult to reach the Sun with existing rocket technologies, although you can get pretty close. If you're just going to dump nuclear waste it's far easier and cheaper to place them on the Earth's ocean beds in subduction zones.
As someone involved in the Nuclear Industry, I've always maintained that micro reactors, the size of your home boiler one-day can eventually be safe enough to be installed in households. Clean, limitless energy and a modular design that allows fuel to be easily changed after it's spent. A whole cycle and industry can be made on reprocessing existing spent rods and redelivery back to households, with the only upfront cost of energy simply being to pay for the reactor itself and the refuelling. Annual inspection and monitoring can be done via cellular or internet, and of course plenty of safety systems to shut itself off during the event of failure. Generating excess power? Just feed it back into the grid. It's really as simple as that. Power cut or your reactor stops working? Use batteries installed in your home to work in conjunction with any solar panels you may have.
I wonder what the calculations would say about this scenario. SMRs work due to economy of scale but that doesn't mean it would continue to scale down to reactors small enough to power a single home. I suspect the smallest it would be feasible to go is around a megawatt.
At that point though there's no need for a grid..... Why expend tax money or pay a monthly service fee to maintain a grid when every building / home is already adequately powered for years if not decades at a time? It really doesn't make a lot of sense at that point.
As you point out, there are some regulatory issues. SMR's are still working with regulators to figure out how many staff are needed at multiple-reactor SMR sites for example. Current law requires a certain staff per reactor but when you have 8 or 12 identical reactors, Nuscale proposes a given operator can handle several reactors at once. I know this is a small issue, but staffing and security traditionally based on 'per reactor' needs to be reviewed and worked out. (one of the 'regulatory issues' you mention). With current nuclear plants, staffing is a significant part of O&M costs, so it is important to address.
Good point. There would be economies of scale at the power plant as well, by having a reactor farm and not just one reactor. Power plants are a 24/7 operation, so you need to staff for 24/7 and not just Mon-Fri 8 hours a day. This doesn't seem like much, but a full week ends up being around 4 times the man-hours of just Mon-Fri 8-5. You'd need a minimum crew/shift, in case someone's sick or Jeff needs to use the bathroom. Making a reactor farm with 8 or 12 reactors makes a lot of sense.
Just to mention: It's not only the end of the "nuclear chain" (the final waste), it is also the beginning and the middle. You need to dig out the raw uranium in the first place, and that generates already huge heaps of radioactive mining overburden (OK, in South Africa, so who bothers (that was irony)). Then you have to process that in chemical plants with all the environmental problems those have (and constant spill-offs of radioactivity). Then you need to enrich and concentrate it in gas centrifuges, generating another sort of waste as a byproduct. Then you have to process it to create fuel elements (again: waste). After the fuel elements are used, you have the "middle circle" where you have to wait for the worst radioactivity abates, then break them up, and again do all the chemical and fabrication processes to build new elements, this time handling also plutonium, not just uranium, and again generate waste, even more active than in the first round. This is true for SMRs also, only a bit slowed down. Then you distribute these materials everywhere into thousands(?), or hundreds of thousands(?) mini-reactors everywhere, in the best case under some quality control and maintenance comparable to, let's say, civil aircraft (in the best case, if there would be better control it would cost much more, and civil aviation needed a long time and many deaths to develop their standards). So these machines with their inventory are lying around everywhere, in varying states of maintenance and probably some state of rot. Hey, everybody should have one in their garage, right? Shiny animations just don't show the reality that is coming up. In advertisements, all cars are shiny but look in the streets for a reality check. Not to forget: For all that SMR business to start we would need decades only to replace only a fraction of fossil energy, but we don't have that time.
Hi matt. I was interested to see that some of the imagery you employed for illustration was provided by GE* which I believe is a major producer of fuel rod dependent nuclear reactors as well as fuel elements. As I understand the matter nuclear fuel rods are particularly wasteful of nuclear fuel due to formation of Radon gas pockets within the pellets they contain and that cavitation necessitates such diminished efficiency that premature replacement is necessary well before all the fuel in a pellet is depleted. The pellets can be and are recycled, but the whole process is exceptionally inefficient and unnecessarily expensive and produces waste by products with a phenomenally long half life. The obvious implication is that companies producing pelletized fuel for reactors dependent upon a core employing fuel rods derive lucrative income from doing so. Those companies therefore have a substantial vested interest in perpetuating less desirable and essentially obsolete reactor designs. In addition to these considerations responsibility for decommissioning fuel rod production and recycling facilities undoubtedly rests with those companies. The cost of the latter process will be substantial to say the least and may well result in some exceptionally fragrant bones being brought to light which a such vested interests might be extremely anxious to keep as secure as possible from political and public scrutiny. In terms of potential for creation of jobs and income from construction and operation of such reactors, when it comes to potential for having to store intensely hazardous, long-lived pollutants resulting from nuclear waste resulting from their operation surely economic factors should be resolutely minor considerations? On the other hand Liquid Flouride cooled Thorium Fueled reactors use the majority of their fuel, can produce more of all elements requisite to their function, produce relatively small quantities of waste with a short half life and are particularly safe and resilient to factors such as natural disasters.
True, just MSTR's are in their infancy design and development wise. There is finally some public interest due to some champions of the technology, while it's confined to few small companies and not much backing from any goverment. My guess is that MSTR's, or anything fuelled by Thorium, needs to be proved to be viable and reliable on a scale not reached yet. Where to find enough funding to design, make and prove anything considered small or modular, if the first designs are not commercialised yet? After all, nations using and producing nuclear fuels are roughly tge same having nuclear arsenal. So the defense ministries allways prefer enriched Uranium or Plutonium over Thorium, far too weak to make a viable nuclear weapon. Latest developments with Russia with their few apparent nuclear allies are not making decomissioning of Uranium infrastructure to make place for the elusive, albeit abundant Thorium implementation. It's like switching from AC to DC or ICE to EV's. It can be done only if there is enough demand to invest in infrastructure to make that switch. Big old things change hard, but should happen, if the global politics don't escalate that crisis on EU border into WW3. In the powder-keg worthy times like these, all nuclear plants reminds tge public opinion of risks not present at times of peace.✌
@@vitalijslebedevs1629 All of this is people dependent. And if humans can't control themselves then power from any and all means must be used. We don't want to see people starving because the system broke down.
Yes I following the thorium reactor designs and I'm hoping they are building some soon for evolution prior to going into mass production. If Thorium reactors are what they say they are we are gong to be much better off with Thorium than wind and solar.
@@sonnyshaw3962 IMO it can't be simple this or that in energy production. We need both and all viable options. Energy is literal power in all senses, that's why now cancelling of one country will make everything, not only oil and gas, more expensive. And to @Brad Manson, no, people shouldn't starve because of the loss of control by some big idiots in charge. I'm afraid - some will though, as allways, but let's hope not all of us.
Actually steam is pretty dangerous. It had key role in every major nuclear accident. It's fine to use steam for the energy generation part, but water shouldn't be inside the reactor core.
@@zorroinhell5549 All nuclear disasters have been a problem with the pressure containment unit of the water. Water under eminence heat and pressures creates a ton of steam that can seriously injure people, just look at a kettle with a stout.
I work in renewables but honestly believe more in nuclear. When it comes to cost and meeting net zero, something that is often overlooked is that renewables are not dispatchable (as in you can't decide when they generate) and there is not current technology for storing energy between seasons, meaning that it is very expensive to run a reliable net zero system off them, whereas nuclear solves this, also without turning the countryside into industrial wasteland. If those LCOE's were adjusted for firm power, solar would be near infinite as it produces nothing in winter evenings.
@@jimj2683 Maybe southern Chile has a source of constant renewable energy, but most places don’t. I’m with Cameron; unless we get a revolution in energy storage, we’re going to need nuclear to get off fossil fuels.
@@RyanWilliams222 Are you dumb? I was talking about exporting the energy from a country with low cost green energy to countries with high cost green energy.
@@jimj2683 exporting means spending extra energy to actually move it. So in reault you will make it expensive. That is the reason why "the world" does not use sachara desert as world wide solar generator. The transport loses are humongous.
Those LCOE looks like they are from the Lazard paper that is pure propaganda. It have been debunked a large number of times. Those number is even higher than the strike price for HPC that did include a sort of kick back system to the UK government. Pretty much the grid pays HPC £92.50 minimum, then it kicks back about £20 to the grid via installation and also about £4 directly to the government. In Finland the strike price was €50.
It is hilarious how every time anyone in media wants to show a nuclear power station, they show a picture of cooling towers. Cooling towers are of course vast and imposing structures, but they are basically empty and contain nothing more threatening than water and water vapour. Their function is to cool water from a steam generator, being coal fired or nuclear. The white clouds emanating from them is water vapour. Their characteristic shape is the result of a mathematical computation to find the design that requires the least amount of material to construct them.
I personally like airships but don't like blimps so the smaller plants like this excite me cause we're getting closer and closer to something usable for a electric airship. Thank you for the video this is exciting.
Airships still to slow now to make it properly viable would only be for tourism stuff. (joyrides) Fastest airships are still slower than cars average trip speed (which is most countries with decent roads is around 45-50mph Average speed) And in larger countries where average trip speeds are 60-65mph as might only go past 1 town within 100 miles.
@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs we kinda do. The good year blimp is a airship. Tho I prefer the pretty ones. Pirates of the Caribbean style ships going through the clouds.
It doesn't sound to me like were going to get everything we want out of any type of energy production but I feel SMRs and nuclear in general are better then what we currently have.
wait think about it do you seriously want regular morons controlling these things when professionals can allow existing plants to meltdown that could be a bad thing just saying safe does not take stupidity into consideration people will find ways to make these thing melt down that happened with Chernobyl after all
@@raven4k998 you take a look at the history of nuclear power the number of incidents is extremely minimal. Like well under 1%. So though yes you can say that that's a concern it's not a huge one and the death and injury rate with nuclear is lower than any current form of energy production and use type we use now. It's also technically the cleanest form of energy we have. Yeah I hear what you say when you say stupid, including yourself and myself, the average intelligence of we the human race is not all that great. But I think that could be mitigating if we actually had education systems that taught us how to be critical thinking intelligent human beings instead of just stuffing a lot of facts into our heads that we really don't ever use. Also we would probably have to retool the communication systems that we have so that we're not broadcasting a lot of stupid into people's lives which is the current state of radio and television. But maybe if we grew smarter people people would be less interested in all the stupid on the internet and television that there is.
@@WayneBraack yeah but how many power plants right now is 1% over how many with those smaller plants think about it 1% becomes more often when you have more plants silly goose after all the same thing is with covid 19 which kills 1% why fear covid 19 and not smaller more abundant nuclear power plants all over the place vs larger ones that are not as abundant?
@@raven4k998 , care to put that in terms of accidents or deaths per KWH? I'd be willing to wager that, all in all, nuclear is orders of magnitude more safe and in addition to it already being orders of magnitude less expensive. You want the next gen of clean energy? We have to be suffiently prosperous to afford the development of better forms of power. To afford it we HAVE to use nuclear as the cheapest. Prosperity + necessity = high-tech solutions
@@PureAmericanPatriot Nuclear is the new pandemic kid it's as deadly as covid 19 with deaths don't believe me we can irradiate you for you to find out lol
The most important factor moving forward is the decentralization of the grid, it's the only way we can keep aging grids alive without the complete overhaul of transmission systems.
But don't forget economies of scale. Bigger generating units tend to achieve lower cost/MWh compared to smaller ones (I was a bit surprised with these SMR numbers, I must say). If (big generation + grid) costs are lower than micro-generation units then there's no economic rationale to switch. The first electric systems were quite decentralized but, as technology improved, it became the way it is now. Maybe technological progress makes it turn around again...
@@nunocarmona its coz big plants can't be built in factories/shipyard this makes then cost way more, Modular Reactors can be standardized and built in factories/shipyards massive lowering the cost, as an example ThorCons ones they are building in shipyards which is probably the biggest at 0.5 Gigawatts
@@nunocarmona one of the costs of nuclear people don't understand is government. The larger sites are more cost effective due to fees government has on the sites. The fees and charges don't scale so larger sites are more cost effective. If the government wasn't trying to kill the industry quietly it would make more financial sense for smaller modular units prefabricated then distributed.
I really like this _concept,_ I hope execution can be as good as promise. On a related note, ¿why can’t we make the reactor itself the disposal vsl? Build the reactor far far underground- roughly 1,ØØØ feet below ground (placing it below even global average for ground water). When the facilities are deactivated permanently, remove that which must be removed, then fill the remaining cavities with either water or concrete, or some combination thereof, or even something else entirely.
Coz thats removes the positive side of having a small modules in the first place - the ability to build them almost everywhere. So instead of having one dump for the waste - on one location, you have thousands of them all over the place.
Fast neutron reactors don’t have to use liquid metals for cooling, there are several designs is being developed that use molten salts, either as a cooling medium for solid fuel elements, or as carrier liquid for dissolved fuel. Elysium and Moltex Energy both use the latter approach.
The engineering challenges associated with MSRs are massive though. The corrosive properties of salts and the elevated operating temperatures mean longevity is a real issue. There's also the operational requirement to keep the primary loop hot at all times, or the salts will solidify and functionally destroy the the reactor.
Regarding the "waste" concern, modern reactors such as molten-salt based could easily separate out the useful materials for medical isotopes, xenon gas, etc - all valuable. We don't do this today because solid fuel randomly traps these valuable things all mixed up, it's like tossing your entire pantry on the floor - a worthless mess - but do it while the reactor runs, and you have value-added and less waste.
"Easily" separated? Only for truly bizarre versions of interpretation of "easily". I'm seeing a lot of misinformation about nuclear, and unless you're willing to store the waste in your own basement (which you could never assure for the life of the waste), you shouldn't be advocating.
There's not a single working MSR in the world, only prototypes, which means we're at least 20 years away from any meaningful energy supply from this reactor type. And that is generously assuming they actually work and the break-through will be in the next few years. By that time it will already be too late to mitigate the climate catastrophy we're heading for. Massive and immediate build up of renewables (wind, solar etc.) is the *only* way forward, that can actually save us..
@@RavensEagle Oak ridge ran a test reactor back in the 60s and as I understand it, "communist" occupied China finally has their prototype reactors, based on the Oak ridge research by the way, up and running.
Hey Matt, did the LCOE numbers take into account the 60% cost reduction through commercialization mentioned earlier in the video? And thanks for yet another awesome video!
I'm fairly confident that the LCoE calculations are done after the fact, not as a future estimation. That is, the numbers that you see are essentially what each power generation source has cost per what it has produced. Granted, this is the first time I've seen any LCoE that takes batteries into account for renewables, even though they are a vital element of it.
LCOE is really flawed. It doesn't take a lot into account. A newer study by the UN concluded that nuclear is actually significantly cheaper than wind, solar, and hydro. Also, construction times and costs of nuclear power plants are also much lower than that of wind, solar, and hydro.
@@DanskeCrimeRiderTV That really isn't remotely surprising. A mere 24 hours of storage already makes them cost-prohibitive. Energy collectors would have to be able to cover for dips in collectible energy over YEARS to equal dispatchable generators.
Solar is unstable. They has quiet low over-the-year production in mild climate. And very low production during winters. So in winter you'll get less than 1/20 of summer production. Moreover there could be weeks without sun and massive snowfalls when you'll get nearly nothing. How to compensate those winter drops? To build x20 more power and storages capable for storing for weeks. It would be economical disaster. Of course there are climate zones where solar energy is profitable.
@@DanskeCrimeRiderTV Tiny reactors are suffering from scaling problems. You will inevitably contaminat more material when using smaller reactors per MWh. Second problem is insurance. Today normal reactors are highly underinsured because insurances including a meltdown would make them uneconomic. There are security problems. You can protect a dozen of nuclear reactors from terrorists but would this work for thousands spread all over the country? And would they keep up the training standards for the operators? And the last part is: the amount of uranium is simply limited. It was calculated that we had enough Uranium for 200 years worldwide if we keep on going. If we step up the use we will run into problems very soon.
I've wondered about this myself past several years... I'm well aware of the arguments that are against nuclear energy. I just wish we could start on this micro and modular reactors on a trial basis and see it grow gradually. Simultaneously reducing dependence on Fossil fuels. Especially with the EV boom, that's happening and going to grow exponentially, we need these power packed modular reactors urgently... everywhere. Icing on this would be using these for hydrogen powered fuel cell EVs. Can't wait to get to that future... quality of life will be better especially in developing countries like India etc , where i am. Great video... please keep them coming on this topic. 🙏
Exactly! Approve some small-ish pilot programs. Get these things out in the field (isolated and safe) to put them through their paces, shake out bugs, etc. I feel certain that nuclear HAS to be a part of our energy future. I am a huge fan of solar, hydro, and even wind (although I have reservations about wind). But nuclear MUST be part of our solution. The intermittency of renewables is a big problem. Nuclear does not have that problem. The more I learn about small and micro nuclear reactors, the better I like the idea. Think of them sort of like washing machines. Factory production has made washing machines completely ubiquitous, cheap, reliable. If you have more laundry that needs washing, you get another machine, and add more as needed. You don't have to predict how much laundry you "might" be washing in 10-20 years. Start with what you need, and scale up as you go. With the new designs coming, that is exactly what we can do with energy. It also helps the energy grid remain flexible enough to respond to changes in population and energy consumption that is NOT predicted. Some areas suddenly grow, some areas don't or even shrink. Small and micro nuclear can easily respond to those changes. Initially a bit higher $/mWh cost, but the flexibility is worth it. Even more, as designs get refined, the manufacturing becomes more refined, and price will drop. Again, think of them like washing machines.
We are building them in Canada. We got the GE Hitachi and the ultra safe nuclear reactor mentioned in the video being built in Ontario. New Brunswick is building the Moltex reactor. But that might take longer as it's still being designed.
Well, I am not an expert but have spent a brief period of my life working in the nuclear industry as a draftsman mostly on ultrasonic test blocks for welds. I don't like molten metal reactors because they exhibited a lot of technical problems that could result in plant fires and loss of coolent accident s. I also became disillusioned with the long storage times needed for uranium plutonium cycle reactor wastes and the extreme toxic nature of plutonium. All of this was unknown until the industry tried developing uranium to plutonium reactors. ( As you can see this was a job early in my career and I am nearing retirement now) The cost of the huge plants of that era, long construction times, & technical difficulties at that period of history indicated costs higher than solar & wind energy with a legacy of extremely toxic wastes for thousands of years to come. Over the years, it was determined that breeding fuel from Thorium, a very abundant substance, could produce much shorter lived wastes with easy in plant reprocessing of nuclear fuels provided that a molten salt reactor was used. ( solid reprocessing is very difficult) It is also very difficult and hazardous to make bomb grade fuel from thorium breeders with the results of a poor performing nuclear bomb. ( found out through research that the USA performed a nuclear test with a U233 bomb) Molten salt Thorium reactors and pebble bed reactors ( probably a non-breeding reactor for the latter) lend themselves well to modular/factory made/ smaller units. When using a helium or CO2 generation loop with a closed loop bryton cycle turbine the trend of the slow passage of slightly radioactivity is not only slowed but re generation loop can take full advantage of the higher core temperatures of the reactor core for a higher efficiency plant. In short, we have learned a lot about making nuclear plants over the years and perhaps it is time for the USA and other nations to at to work at creating a cost effective and far safer nuclear industry. An international and joint effort should not over burden anyone's economy for the remaining research needed to accomplish this.
we have known 50-70 years ago how to create safer and better reactors except the US nuclear committee killed it because it couldn't make nukes out of the waste and spent decades propagandizing people into believing those weren't feasible or an option. This should be common knowledge now but the more I learn and the more I see...the more I am amazed at how well propaganda works because people don't bother to question anything they are told.
I don't have any experience working with nuclear reactors or anything but from what I have heard and seen from people like you and videos like this, I think nuclear needs to be a much bigger component to tackling the climate crisis then it already is. From my experience, the main issue with nuclear and renewable energy (actually nearly any energy source) is mining. I think if we can find a non toxic method of mining uranium, thorium and other nuclear elements we could safely and cleanly power the world off of them. Like I said I have no experience working with nuclear reactors but I have some second hand experience with mining (my dad worked in a nickel mine/acid plant) and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 On mining I can only go by what I read and view on videos. Mining thorium results in a very low amount of mine tailings. ( left over removed and piled up mine materials) As most of the material mined is usable to breed the thorium into U-233, the fissionable material that is used in the reactor to make heat and power. Uranium mining on the other hand, produces large amounts of low level radioactive mine tailings that can become airborne dust. This is a huge environmental problem in parts of Australia and in the state of Nebraska, USA. Whether the mining is performed by open pit ( strip mining) or from tunneling; I really can't comment on. I do know that strip mining often releases a lot of harmful materials into the water table from coal strip mines near where I grew up. To get a better answer you will need to talk to a mining engineer or a knowledgeable miner.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 Check out anything by Dr. James Conca, or any of his appearances in videos or podcasts. He has decades of knowledge on everything from mining, to splitting, to the disposal of nuclear fuel. The crazy thing about nuclear fuel and waste, is that there is so much potential energy in so little material. Not to mention, unlike every other industry, the toxic waste quickly (much quicker than you would expect) degrades back into harmless materials. Not only do we already have access to more Uranium than we currently need, there is technology on the horizon to extract more than we would ever need, safely from sea water. Over 7 decades of nuclear power has resulted in fewer deaths than literally any other source of power generation. More people in the world (especially emerging countries) die from the inhalation of smoke from wood/coal annually, than have ever died from anything related to nuclear energy.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 wasnt the issue he pointed out to me the most was that except for that one type of reactor, that the rest of them were like double the cost per MW that solar and wind offer. thats what really caught my eye. also I did learn that we could litteraly build like a shit ton of panels and wind out in the dessert. the way you transport it around the country is instead of using our normal AC power lines. You would have to build Dedicated DC power lines that would disperse this energy around the country. China is already doing this and building this and they ahve about 29 of these DC lines in place already. when i heard this it just seemed like "WHY ARENT WE DOING THIS?" another aspect of solar that I like better, is I would much rather the goverment give me a giant tax credit and maybe financing to help me buy my own panels? why? it increases my ability to own my own life better. have more security and in a sense freedom in a country that dosent really create it for many except about 10% of the population. To me, efforts like that, do more than just create power, the empower us to live better lives.
I work in High Voltage Transmission in Canada. In all honesty the two things holding back nuclear development the most is irrational fears specifically of the older generations and regulations. The rate of energy emergencies is growing every year due to population increase yet other than wind, no new plants are being built. Additionally due to environmental crusading many of the baseload plants have been shut down or converted and derated (Coal plants converted to Nat Gas generate about 10% less power). combine that with the intermittency of wind it just creates a nightmare for those trying to keep the power on. All of this puts tremendous strain on the grid all in the name of virtue signaling. For example we cannot burn coal anymore for "carbon goals" but it is perfectly fine to load it on a train car, transfer it to a boat and let China burn it in their super inefficient setups instead of our highly regulated systems with scrubbers and CCS systems... which were all shut down doubling the price of power in 3 years.
Great to see industry expert feedback. Nuclear is critical and PR is a mess. Everyone seems to think we just need renewables but mass transmission, and storage (especially seasonal) is a pipe dream for reaching 100%. Replacing nuclear with solar and natural gas is a lateral move at best. Biomass is also a big loophole in climate agreements.
@@ccibinel There is also one very important thing they do not talk about regarding renewables that is more known in the industry but not know outside. There is a subtype of electricity that helps support stability and is required for powerful mechanical devices called "Reactive Power" . The thing about Reactive Power is it is required for many things but is primarily created as a by product of spinning mass generation (non-Inverted AKA Thermal plants) Renewables do not produce enough MVar or inertial properties to maintain grid stability nor large mechanical loads. (ie industrial settings like refineries or grain elevators). In my opinion it is absolutely a pipe dream, renewables are great for a supplement to reduce fossil fuel consumption... but nothing more, and once it gets to be 30% of a grid's total net generation problems start to occur.
@@ccibinel Actually the real issue with renewables in some areas is the politics of storage. For example in the UK the cost of electricity actually goes negative at points. If you had a 100kWh battery bank and even a 3kW solar PV roof you could most likely draw from the grid when prices go negative and sell when they peak. When solid state Sodium Ion cells are in production then the 100kWh battery banks will be no bigger than current 30kWh battery banks. However the cost of battery banks is outrageous compared to what they should be. It's about £1000 per kWh including installation. The LG INR18650-F1L in one off pricing if you go to somewhere like NKON (In the Nether Lands) works out £0.2 per Wh so £200 per kWh or £3000 for a capacity the same as a Tesla 15kWh power wall which costs upwards of £12,000 installed. The electronics and casing are not expensive either £1000 for both would be over the top. So my conclusion is the shareholders just don't want domestic level storage as it would affect profits. There are also flow batteries that would fit under the stairs (just) in many houses that have a capacity of 1MWh. IE enough for a small industrial unit. Again that would affect profits. The only solution being pushed is gridscale. I wonder why LOL.
When I think of small nuclear reactors, the first thing that comes to mind is the nuclear reactors that power ships and submarines of the U.S. Navy. Can they provide ideas that can be used for civilian applications, or is everything about them a military secret? What does the U.S. government do with the radio waste from those reactors, or is that something that I would rather not know?
I don'th think size is really the limiting faction, it's production methods and mass production to allow them to be way more afforable. Navies usually don't have the same interests as a commercial company so I doubt naval reactors are a good blueprint.
They cook the waste into high potency radioactive fentanyl and smoke it. Hence why Biden is so fucked up. Brains rotting quickly, all that nuclear energy is spent
From what I read a while ago they do not remove the fuel from US submarines like what happens at decommissioned power plants, instead the entire reactor compartment of the submarine is cut out, filled with cement and then buried. There is a site in the US where 30 or so are buried, a sort of mass grave for reactor compartments. This is still marginally better than what we Brits and the Russians do as both of our countries just anchor old subs in port with a plan to process the reactors at a time when technology allows, though we Brits at least tend to our dead subs annually to make sure they aren't leaking or sinking while the Russians completely neglect theirs. I have no idea what the French do with their retired subs but I would imagine they park them somewhere like we do.
A couple of arguments: It remains to be seen how economical it will be to add additional reactors when more power generation is needed. You mentioned Thorium reactors as having less waiste. That only occurs when "fuel reprocessing" is used, and that also requires hugh regulatory licensing and red tape, and not to mention the political and other misinformation generated by anti-nukes. Also, maybe in future videos on nuclear, can you not use the images of 55 gallon drums as how we currently store unspent nuclear fuel? But I agree that the best option to get "generation 4" nuclear started is to use solid fueled reactors that use TRISO fuel (a few of reactors you showed use TRISO). I'm not too keen on using water though as I wonder if large containment domes are needed to contain a steam explosion.
I've studied electrical engineering and my engineering thesis was also on plasma reactors, which touched a little the subject of fusion. I was interested in energy market for at least a decade now and I can honestly say - *SMR ain't gonna happen, or at least not on the large scale.* Electricity is a universal commodity, which means that lowest price wins, with rare exceptions. Microreactors ro SMRs having theoretical LCOE higher than PV and wind before they're even mass produces is already market loss, and this is without following trends of those sources. Photovoltaics are getting cheaper every year, with theoretical costs in orders of magnitude lower than now. Battery costs will drop below 50$/kWh on pack level before end of this decade, which would make even gigantic home supplies cheap. Both of the above are near no-maintenance, with maybe exception of cleaning your PV once in a while, while any reactor will require maintenance as well as refueling and fuel regeneration. Microreactors might come in handy on freighters and similar applications, but only if they provide enough power at low cost. Entire nuclear sector exist pretty much as a sideproduct of atom bomb production, and it never was cheap or affordable as people often stated. To even be remotely viable in near future, we must be talking about LCOE around 40$/MWh or cheaper, which is closest to thorium, which doesn't yet *work.* Possible applications I might see would be large cruise ships and freighters, and possibly larger trains if reactors were small enough. It's a cool concept, but people won't overpay for electricity to have it from cool source.
@Jesus Saves PV + battery installation doesn't need to be hooked up to grid either, and the cost of such installation is already lower than estimate cost for SMR at mass production, which doesn't exist. And both PV and battery installations are still dropping in cost sharply, where nuclear has seen no progress in last 20-30 years.
@@bencoad8492 Both solar and wind are cheapest sources of electricity next to hydro, which has extremely limited availability anyway. Lack of grid batteries, which have never been necessary before is completely different thing, which will be solved separately in next decade or so. Cheapest li-ion is already at 65$ per kWh and other chemistries aim at
@Jesus Saves 2017 was 5 years ago, so half a decade. Making excellent progress doesn't really matter, if overall energy cost is higher than PV and wind. 3rd world doesn't have any infrastructure to deal with nuclear waste nor facilities to recycle such waste. This would literally make them fully dependent on more advanced countries draining them from money. Water purification and waste treatment can be run with just PV, and even without batteries for much cheaper than you'll ever get with SMRs. Especially for 3rd world, electricity cost is the most important, and solar needing no maintenance as well is just a big winner here.
The main problem with nuclear waste is it is being wasted. Even after its is called waste it still has close to 90% of its fuel. This fuel could be recovered by reprocessing it and reused in the reactor. This reprocessing can be done on site which would reduce the over all waste problem.
I think "spent" comes down to a minimum watts per square cm seconds output? The power generation side is a steam cycle, and failure to superheat correctly means turbines may not survive the onslaugt of vapor.
@@flinch622 "spent" fuel can be reprocessed and reused. The point is it can be reused and if done correctly this process could possibly be done onsite or next door to the power plant without issue. Making the fuel last 10x longer or more and drastically reducing waste
I just want to point out that the Soviet nuclear submarine program had a vessel which was powered by a reactor cooled with a lead bismith mix, If I remember correctly the downside of this design was that if the reactor ever stopped being critical the metal inside would solidifyTurning the entire thing into a very expensive brick of radioactive metal.
Radiant's design is interesting - but I'll be curious how they handle helium migration as helium REALLY permeates through a lot of systems. That was one challenge in Colorado that used helium cooled reactors. You're either going to have to top-off such a system regularly or have some very fancy re-cap methods.
Freeman Dyson did an interview about how he and others designed small reactors for hospitals and the like that are fail safe. He said they demonstrated one and tried to make it melt down and couldn’t do it. Anyway it was cool
What ever happened to the CANDU reactors that were being built in Canada? I thought they were designed to use spent fuel rods from “traditional “ reactors and able to utilize up to 95% of the remaining fuel in the rods. Will the micro reactors be able to power container ships, thus eliminating their need of bunker fuel and its massive carbon emissions? Thanks for sharing this insightful video series. Wishing you and your team a great week.
Not a bad idea to use them as a power source for our ships in the oceans, but will we enforce bringing them back to port instead of dumping the old fuel over
Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors like the ones you have in Canada are not really seen anymore as the future of nuclear energy. They actually produce more waste than conventional PWRs and also the core design needs to be more robust, since the power density is lower than in PWRs. Canada and Argentina have both already discarded the possibility of building more of these reactors, with only India remaining as the one willing to build more of them (because they already developed their indigenous tech based on them). And as to nuclear waste recycling, that's on fast reactors, which are the next big thing in the nuclear industry. They are able to recover the remaining energy from spent fuel used in PWRs while at the same time transmutating the actinides into much less of a problem, since they decay faster.
Micro reactors and SMRs are both able to provide marine propulsion for container ships. This issue is being discussed in a much more political debate than technical, since many ports refuse to accept nuclear-powered vessels, although they have safety systems much more reliable and trustworthy than current diesel-powered ones. There is a high expectation that Molten Salt Reactors will be the ideal solution for naval applications due to their enhanced properties in proliferarion resistance and inherent safety. The first ones are expected to come online by 2030, with ThornCon and Terrestrial Energy being the expected market leaders in the West. China has a very mature and well developed program on Molten Salt Reactors and should have the first one up and running by the end of this decade.
The main benefit of CANDU and PHWR is that they operate on unenriched uranium. At the time of design, Canada didn't have any enrichment facilities. Natural uranium was the only option. The secondary benefit of CANDU is that they don't have to be shutdown to refuel or shuffle the fuel rods. PWR burns up to 5% of the U-235. CANDU burns up to 7%. It burns a little more, but not much more and not 95%.
If 1 MW is a microreactor, then 5 kW must be a nanoreactor. When I was in university back in the 1980s, there was a SLOWPOKE facility right at the entrance to campus. It was a nuclear reactor that was walk-away safe in the downtown of a city of 2 million. There is another one just like it currently in downtown Montreal, also 2 million population. When Canada was looking into getting submarines in the 1990s, SLOWPOKE was floated as their power plant.
Ditto! I think personally the idea of a Ford Nucleon is both terrifying and cool! I think technically it's probably quite feasible especially if it used a closed fuel system like an eVinci-style reactor that is only designed to be refueled after being dismantle. I suspect if we ever see nuclear-powered transport it would use similar technology to prevent leaking and terrorism...
Also I did my senior project on a particular micro reactor design from INL. Microreactors won't replace large-scale power plants or likely even compete with SMRs. They really make financial sense for off-grid communities like logging/mining towns, military bases, or fast deployment for disaster relief. They could see some commercial thermal production too. Basically it's a lot cheaper than trucking in diesel fuel every week, but not even close to competitive with a power line to a larger nearby generating station. They're super F-ing cool, but most of society's electricity will come from more concentrated sources because we tend to live in concentrated areas.
The only good place for micro-reactors is in outer space, off of earth. There, you eject the waste products on a trajectory towards the sun, and you are done. Here on earth we have yet to find a safe way to deal with the waste products, and they last a million years. Our children's child will curse our name if we keep using nuclear.
10,000 years is a long time to have to store a hazardous material. The amount of waste would pile up over time and I think we would just be asking for trouble. I like the idea of Thorium reactors since the fuel is plentiful and they can help dispose of conventional nuclear waste. Definitely need more research on the issue.
I can't imagine how micro reactors could have widespread deployment from a security perspective. There maybe some individual use cases, but they would need to scale the security hurdle too. Having hundreds at a particular location doesn't make sense either. SMR's are just a better alternative when you consider all the operational aspects.
Even widespread use of SMRs means they got to be deployed everywhere around the world, including where the "regulatory framework" can just evaporate (revolutions etc), people start shooting at them or terrorists take out the fuel and make dirty bombs.Nothing like that has ever happened, which makes the risk impossible to calculate, but again, in order to make a dent in climate change those reactors would need to be almost everywhere...
The security comes from the lack of risk they pose. Micro reactors use low grade nuclear fuel, which is useless for weapons or even improvised "dirty bombs". As small as they are, they can be effectively protected by the same security measures and levels, your local bank uses.
@@AaronCMounts ANY nuclear fuel can be used in a dirty bomb! I was a nuclear plant supervisor in the Navy and worked at several nuclear utility plants afterward. I know a lot more than your average bear. Bank security is nowhere near adequate for any nuclear facility.
@@AaronCMounts That is highly dubious. Any radioactive material, even that used for medical purposes can be abused for dirty nuclear bombs. And none of that technology or the infrastructure for it has been developed so far. It's pie in the sky thinking.
@@tgmct Can you show me how radioactive these micro-reactors are expected to be? As the video clearly said, they use low-grade fuel. Can you show where they're at serious risk of releasing hazardous levels of radiation if tampered with?
In Norway about 70% of total power consumption is taken from the grid direct to factories and industry, I can see micro reactors helping a lot with that. In times of little rain and warm dry summers, having micro reactors to run the factories and leaving a lot more power for the private marked would help the people ALOT, we have INSANE power bills lately, since like October of 2021 the price of power has just been of the charts here. In my area it is 8 to 10 times as expensive as last the last 5 years for me, putting me back around 350 to 450$ pr month just in power, and I have a tiny house and barely use power lol.- Having micro reactors in combination with huge battery "banks" in mountains and such should be a thing, but they have wind on their brain the once running Norway, and to be honest, is sucks, WAY to much downtown and not enough production when on. Also our nature takes a huge beating and well birds like eagles are dying in a rate never seen before, they crash into them. All in all, bad for Norway and not many want them here, they look bad, sound bad, do bad for nature and all in all ARE just a bad product. We have around 70-80% water based power plants here, combining it with coolant for smaller micro reactors should be a easy job, they already have the huge halls and "buildings" in the mountains of Norway, a switch or even combo could be a perfect combo. And when it comes to waste disposal, Longyearbyen (Svalbard) the island of coal production WAY up north that is part of Norway is laying down the coal mines over the next years, why not make them into permafrost controlled storage areas? It is cold, DEEP, low population area on a island WAYS away from anyone or anything. Also one micro reactors could run all of Longyearbyen easy.
You might check out the Dual Fluid Reactor. If the hype can be believed, it can run on uranium, thorium, or even nuclear waste. Plus the design uses molten lead (yes, lead!) for coolant, so that gives them the benefits of metal cooled reactors.
*I am all for going Nuclear. After 55 Years of fail safe testing FRANCE has proven running 76 reactors is safe and makes the cheapest power out of ALL other Ideas and is 6000% cheaper than the BEST renewables. If we are serious about putting 50,000,000 electric cars on the road in the next 12 years lets NOT power them with coal fired electric power plants which is what we are quickly heading for.*
People say that nuclear power isn't an option due to weapons proliferation. Who needs nuclear bombs when after the curse is lifted I become the most powerful mage alive? Think on that...
I read about a concept for a micro fusion reactor that used stacked X-Ray solar panels to turn radiation directly into electricity, and the panels themselves were the shielding.
@@diegoantoniorosariopalomin2206 That brings up the point that PV panels on a planet around any other star would also not be Solar Panels as they are not processing photons from Sol.
I'd like them to go small enough to install in my home as a localised power source instead of from who knows how far away a plant, better yet small enough to plug individual appliances into.
I don't think its a good idea to be allowing radioactive material to be sold to individuals. Most people would use it properly, but then terrorists and other illegal crime would use it in dangerous ways. IE building bombs.
@@wiseconqueror533 I don't mean for individuals to transport, maintain or use directly, what I mean is it would be installed & startes by the company selling them and repairs etc would be handled by them under their warranty, after which it will cost the home owner for each instance of maintenance, like with boiler systems, it's also fine if those services are handled by the electric companies, the point is to reduce reliance on the grid
Hello Matt Have you studied the SL1 accident? Who would own small reactors and therefore the waste? What is to keep a SMR owner from, at the end of reactor life, just filing bankruptcy and walking away? This is a common practice in the mining industry.
And the coal and gas industries as there are numerous vacant coal mines that sit with exposed coal deposits and other harmful water and chemicals and thousands of abandoned gas pipes still emitting small amounts of gas into the atmosphere. It's pretty insane.
Most likely you wouldn't own, but lease the reactors. At the end of life you just return it to the manufacturer, who deals with the waste. And of course there should be a backup plan in case the manufacturer goes bankrupt. Or, I saw concepts where you can just leave the reactor in the ground, as it functions as a waste repository too. These would run for decades, so you wouldn't run out of space any time soon.
I love your videos. Although I must say, I was disappointed that a video about micro nuclear reactors never once mentions their actual size. That’s like doing a video on the worlds richest man without talking about his actual net worth.
@@cedriceric9730 when you encase your quasai-inert, solid ceramic fuel… in high strength, corrosion resistant alloys, yeah it’s pretty expensive to reprocess. But the ability to dissolve an actinide salt into either water or another molten salt would seriously make reprocessing cheaper. Fluids are superior to solids in this regard, and a fluid fueled reactor would make it much more affordable
You listed the cost of solar beating out nuclear, but does that cost include the price of proper disposal of the windmill parts and battery parts? or does it get thrown in a waste yard? did you include the cost of the entire chain in those prices?
In short, thanks to what @@mnfchen said... the answer to that, Layarion, is absolutely yes. It does include those things. It's sort of like how people try to use wind turbines killing birds as an argument against them. Sure, they have that problem, but to a lesser extent as what they're replacing.
@@StreamingF1ydave You'd have to remove the $5.9 TRILLION (yes, trillion, not billion, though to be fair this is worldwide from 2020) from the fossil fuel to have a fair comparison if you're going in that direction.
I think modular reactors are absolutely the way to go. As we've seen with Elysium Industries, modular reactors have the potential to build up to medium- to large-scale plants. Having scalable units means that zoning for nuclear doesn't have to be so widespread, which potentially opens up more land area for deployment given the smaller footprints. And as Matt explained, modularity allows for utilization of the global transportation system, which can cut down costs and avoid other red tape of moving such large equipment. Renewables work so well because they're so modular/distributed. Different locations can adopt the technology at different times, and owners can supplement their installations as cash flow or other reasons allow it. Modularity also allows for greater manufacturing flexibility. Different ratings for products can be allowed depending on customer needs, and supply chains can be better relied upon since the sheer scale of components is smaller (more manufacturers can accompany the tech, which means more competition and all of the benefits of capitalism). Storage and containment are definitely an issue here. Nuclear plants are centralized and away from the public to prevent radiation leakage/exposure given plant failure (even though there are plenty of protections to prevent this). Distributing more radiative material means that the risk of public contamination goes up, so the risk analysis is definitely complex. But again as Matt showed, Nuclear is the 3rd or 4th least deathly of all of the energy sources. Lots of things in life are relatively radiative too, like flying, so the risk might not seem as great as what some people believe. It all comes down to climate change. We can implement renewables + storage waaaay faster than centralized thermal plants, so I'd be more on board with nuclear if commercial demonstrations of SMRs existed. In the meantime, society can get so much more bang for its buck by deploying more wind & solar + storage. The IPCC AR6 confirms this
Honestly, I'm not sure these "micro" reactors are small enough. Take a look at radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTGs, and Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY). Because I'm still waiting for the 2.5 meter cubed, 15 Mw, self contained reactor from the video game "Space Engineers". The building I live in houses two apartments and could run rather nicely on 10-15 Kw, even during an Ohio winter. If I could get that with an operational life of 50 years, it could be sunk into the foundations.
@@cappuccino-1721 The thermoelectric material PTZ materials degrade from fast neutron & high energy gamma bombardment & from thermal gradients varying.
You aint getting 15Mw from a RTG. 15Mw is 15,000,000 watts. The RTG mounted on the Mars rovers gives 110 watts. The 3 massive RTGs on the Voyager space probe each provide..... 160 watts. A typical home needs 6000 watts (6kW). So yes, the 'Space Engineers' reactor could run one house, as long as you are prepared to, several times a week, fly into outer space to a nearby asteroid to gather the necessary feul to keep it running ;)
@@Debbiebabe69 The Top-ROCC and SEEK IGLOO radar systems in Alaska use RTGs. Five kilograms of strontium-90 generates 240W electrical using thermocouples. Sterling engines triple the electrical output over thermal couples.
I think that micro reactors show promise while the human species works out fusion Anna renewables in a global scale. The other thing that micro reactors bring to the table is a long term power source for space flight… they are small enough to take components to space and assemble them, and once the technology is better known and standardized, could more easily be manufactured and produced in space and/or on other planets/moons/asteroids/etc… I’m not a physicist. I don’t know what minimum power production would do in terms of extending useful life from 5-6 years out to longer periods, but I imagine that designs can be made to meet the power budget of a space station, a Mars mission, or a Moon or Mars base for relatively long periods of time, which will be a game changer for survivability… with sufficient power, oxygen reclamation or production is much simpler, “grow lights” become possible, etc…
Generating power isn't really a major concern for space colonization. The main point is that 99.999% of all people may think it is a good Idea when considering it superficially, but tend to quickly realise that there minor component of "adventure" doesn't really outweigh the massive drawbacks of the having to live in very hostile environments. Basically, not having the protection of Earths magnetic field means you need to live the majority of your live in very robust housing containers, with very small windows (if any). So going to Mars or to an asteroid will basically be identical to spending extended periods of time in a Submarine, or spend the Antarctic Winter in a research station. Or, to be honest, to being in a prison. You'll never take extensive walks outside of your station just in a space suit, not unless you want to get a extensive collection of cancers within the first year. Plus: Living on any other planet in our solar system, or on an asteroid or in a space-station, already requires you to have a close-to-perfect sustainable lifestyle. Even the guys on the ISS are not allowed to constantly order new stuff from Amazon, since just transporting something 400 km up is massively expensive. So once you have the technology to go to space for extended periods of time, in a way that the people going won't consider an extreme restriction to their quality of life, you basically also ran out of all reasons to go. You don't need any backup planets because we figured out how to not ruin the one we have; and you don't need to find new sources of raw materials, because you figured out almost perfect recycling. The only justification to go to space at that point is scientific entertainment, and it's much more cost-efficient to do this with radiation-resistant robots than with easily perishable humans. And the robots are getting better all the time, wile the humans havn't changed all that much in the last 100 000 years (just from the biological perspective).
the simplest way to extend the lifetime is to use weapons-grade uranium like the US navy reactors, which can go 25 years without refueling. a breeder reactor has a similar lifetime for the similar reason of being able to use more of the fuel mass, though the very low quantity of excess neutrons makes very small breeder reactors less practical because smaller reactors are going to loose a higher fraction of nutrons out the sides.
Except Matt forgot to mention that micro reactors are a _spectacularly_ stupid idea when you factor in just how hard they would be to secure against ignorance and malice. Making a dirty bomb out of one of these things is horrifyingly easy: Just place a sturdy water tank near one, wire up a water heater inside, bolt the tank shut and run like hell. No explosives or skills required at all. Going postal would be going to a whole new level.
@@madshorn5826 Pretty sure they have safeties that prevent this approach not to mention how hard it would be to get a sturdy water tank and such into a nuclear power facility for malicious purposes. It's also scarily easy to make dirty bombs or worse without needing to break into a nuclear power facility, the hard part for nuclear stuff is getting the materials but there are plenty of other options if you're goal is to just kill everyone/commit suicide (because if these things can make such big and powerful bombs there's no way you're escaping unscathed). Nuclear has it's issues and limitations but I think you've fallen for some negative propaganda.
@@madshorn5826 Just imagine how scary it would be if most citizens had access to operating self-propelled, multi-ton metal death machines and operated them with little regard for themselves or others! Oh wait...
Hello, enjoying the video. I have worked in the nuclear industry in the USA and would love to see out country stream line the entire process where generators and components can be easily replaced and readily available. I worked for BWXT and know that they are always on the forefront of this technology.
Great job, Matt! I always thought that uranium based reactors need to be of a certain size as the statistics of neutron production require a certain critical mass to keep nuclear fission up, which is also an important safety measure to control the process. Reducing the size now to SMR or even micro reactors requires a much higher enrichment of U235. Is this not extremely costly and also quite dangerous in handling? Just wondering.....
A more optimized design allows for less coolant used, less enrichment, more safety and less fuel overall, than conventional huge power plants, at a lower power rating.
There is definitely a dance on moderation, size, and the chain reaction. But in the past I think the size is based on a output vs fuel situation. The bigger and more fuel you put into it the more efficient that fuel is used and more power output. Reactors would be designed for like 1GW instead of 300MW. This made more sense when reactors were thrown together with much less regulation, and easier to build a big thing on site. Now the need is to get a reactor built on an assembly line, and don't change the reactor design. Just add more of them. Get them operating safely, cleanly and cheaply.
@@dodaexploda I would just like to politely point out that you just described existing nuclear tech. There is nothing slapdash about existing reactor design or facilities. Not to say no need to innovate, the CanDu reactors (still decades old, modular, and operating to-date without an accident) offer the ability to refuel without taking the reactor offline. All of the things that make SMRs attractive (other than the fantasy that they are better because they don't exist yet) can already be found in just about any existing or under construction nuclear facility. Were SMRs to bring to light any innovation that didn't already exist, the next logical step would be to scale it up.
@@thebojinator1 I think you're making a mistake when referencing the Candu reactor. I do believe it's properly referred to as the "Mighty CANDU reactor". :D I really love those reactors. I'm not sure I agree with you in regards that SMRs don't have anything to bring to the table. The smaller size alone can be worthwhile especially in more remote locations where you don't need GWs of power. I just recently learned of a propsed steel plant that will run on electrcity alone and use 300 Mw of power. Perfect for a dedicated SMR. Also the smaller size might make it easier for the economics of scale. It's likely easier and cheaper to build more smaller parts then fewer larger parts. A comparison could be SpaceX Raptor rocket engine at $1 million vs SLS's RS-25 engine at $40 million. Starship's booster has 33 engines bringing the total cost to $33 million. SLS has 4 engines which brings the cost to $120 million. There is obviously differences in how they are made and contracts, etc. But something to ponder either way.
@Doda Exploda Clearly I would be preaching to the choir, as evidenced by your proper correction of my misuse of CanDu without the associated qualifiers! I guess the only thing I wanted to dispell is the misnomer that existing reactors can't/aren't already modular and able to be factory built. I fully agree, and have stated in other comments on this video, SMRs and advanced nuclear tech definitely have their place. I just want to quantify (as I feel was not well addressed in the video, not nec. your comment) that SMRs don't necessarily compensate for deficiencies with existing tech, rather offer a low carbon, energy dense, alternative to the fossils that are currently being used in remote and hyper-industrial locations. It's one small nuance, I know, but sadly we all face an uphill battle on changing the perception of existing nuclear power!
I'm happy as long as we keep working on perfecting nuclear energy along with the other stuff.... what i hate is when people want to simply discard it as dangerous and useless when it clearly has a bright future with many uses. We just have to invest into it, just like we did it with solar and wind power, which was quite inefficient and bad just a few decades ago. Who says we can't do that with nuclear as well?!
I mostly hate it being described as dangerous whereas in practice it's not at all, as shown by the death count tables...even in you include the deathtool of the bombings of nagasaki and hiroshima, they're still tens of times safer than fossil sources. It's just misinformation green lobby groups keep propagating to keep their govt. grant coming in, seeping taxes _and_ raising energy prices in one fell swoop.
@@RawandCookedVegan There's plenty abandoned mines that can be used to store the waste. It's a lot safer than just blowing it up in the air like fossil plants do 😂
@@RawandCookedVegan What wasn't mentioned in the video is the option of recycling or reprocessing nuclear waste. Storage is the barbaric way of dealing with nuclear waste.
Just wrote a paper on hybrid fusion-fission nuclear reactors that would transmute waste into more stable compounds during operation. I probably didn't do a great job, but would be interested in hearing you talk about it
I think in general the topic of reactors that are built to neutralize or recycle nuclear waste, is a topic that deserves more recognition in general, also to act as a balance to the ever-old argument of "what about the waste" when discussing anything nuclear related.
Getting energy from your neighbor is fine until they decide to use it as leverage against you. SMRs and micro nuclear give you the ability to be independent with years worth of stored energy. With nuclear you don't need to overbuild or spread out to minimize the impact of a cloudier or less windy month/year.
This is always the way nuclear was intended. I remember watching a documentary with one of the main guys who designs reactors all around the world. He said they where always supposed to be small and he's been telling them they have been doing it wrong for 40 years but nobody would listen. The smaller ones are also far more stable and far less dangerious. Also more efficient.
@@worldcomicsreview354 I was thinking about how we could get sunlight photos to solar panels on the dark side of earth but all I can think of is Lazer beams. Problem is I bet there's a bunch of power loss from bouncing Lazer beams from space solar panels to mirrors all the way to the dark side into the solar powerplants .I was thinking maybe fiberoptic but it's so dumb to rub fiber optic to the other side of earth. Just not feasible
We no longer need Large Nuclear breeder reactors, when small Nuclear reactors are safer is to replace , and maintain. Their is a lot of Positive reasons to have small Nuclear reactors and you do not have to have them in one area for coverage and supply with SMR.
I've always been curious if there would be a day where there is a small 'neighborhood' reactor that would be distributed across cities and in the basements of large buildings... Would be really cool
The part that is always a difficult sell for me on nuclear is what happens when something goes really wrong. As a technologist I recognize that all designs take into account “acceptable” risks of failure, some more than others, and that there is no perfect, fool-proof design. This problem only increases when you mix it with municipal pressures and even more when someone stands to make money even if something deemed too old to continue to run is kept online. No matter how well you engineer a nuclear reactor, when it fails in the worst way it’s a lot worse than a wind turbine failing in the worst way. Or a solar farm. Or possibly even an oil-fired plant.
And the toxic smoke released into the atmosphere for everybody to breathe is not a danger in an accident involving fossile fuel? We have to be realistic...
I must confess to being in agreement. While I like the idea of micro nuclear reactors, if there are hundreds of thousands of these things being deployed then that is lots of options for disasters due to negligence or malice. If SMRs are designed to fit on a truck trailer, they're also easy for a determined group of terrorists to steal and turn into a dirty bomb. Consider the Goiânia accident in Brazil, where some inappropriately abandoned radiostopic medical equipment lead to widespread contamination, panic and a massive cleanup effort. I feel like nuclear reactors get more dangerous as they get smaller just due to inevitably less security and care surrounding them. Until the day people stop being lazy, stupid and malicious then there will still have to be extensive red tape surrounding the deployment of a nuclear reactor of any size.
@@blakewalsh9489 nuclear material is already transported on trucks and stored in containers. Why would you want to steal a full smr, of you can simply steal the fuel truck...
If you look to the global long term environmental effects of the Chernobyl disaster, wich was pretty much a worst case scenario when it comes to radiation spread. There were more or less none. Yes local human losses, and an exclusion zone around the site. Even 5 of those each year would not be a long term planetary threat, either to humanity or life in general on this planet. And human losses from that scenario is far lower than the yearly deaths and ecology decline due to carbon based energies. Not in anyway trying to ignore the human suffering dying from radiation poisoning, just pointing out that 5 Chernobyls/year would be a huge improvement both for the environment and when it comes to reducing human suffering on a global scale compared to the impact of the current energy setup. Not saying we should build insecure nuclear plants, just trying to point out that if you try to see the whole picture, you pretty soon realize that even with a few accidents, nuclear still wins out.
Thank you for this video! I love it when you revisit topics after some progress has occurred. Hopefully small modular reactors will have a place in our decarbonized future. We could really use a power source that's constant and dependable to back up the more intermittent sources.
Hi, Mack here. Nuclear Engineer by education, radiation shield manufacturer by trade. I went to school where NuScale was born out of, Oregon State University and there was a 1 MW TRIGA reactor operating there. In fact, you could walk on top of it while it pulsed to over 2000 MW and see the blue Cherenkov radiation glow. Fact checker, tidbits of information, and personal opinions. Each NuScale module is rated for 77 MW, they would be up to 200 MW with a water pump, however, natural buoyancy and gravity allow passive safety, ie the core can cool off without pumps. A NuScale 12 Module pack is 924 MW. On the thermal/fast reactor talk: Thermal neutrons are neutrons with the same temperature as their medium. Ie, 2200 m/s at room temperature* faster at higher temperatures, which means lower cross section, which means inherent safety. This is also known as negative reactivity temperature coefficient. Helium is also non corrosive making it very simple from a materials prospective. Helium does not interact chemically with reactor materials. However, due to its low density, it cannot be as energy dense. A LWR, or HWR has a power density of about 100 W/cm3. Low power density and low pressure are required to make reactors safer, this is why we build containment vessels around big water reactors. Beware of liquid sodium cooled reactors, they are low pressure, however, very high power density. If sodium contacts water it will explode, which is undesirable from a safety prospective. A lot of new designs will push for higher performance, however, safety should be considered first. But not to a point that it crippled the nuclear industry. Rickover always asked others if they would be comfortable putting their kids into a nuclear submarine while the core was failing, that attitude has lead to the safest operator of nuclear reactors in the world. Ultra safe nuclear also has micro reactors, their materials engineer also came from SpaceX. I was kind of sad not to see any mention of them here because their reactors are going to space! The moon, Mars, and beyond! On SMR technology, It will be a part of the future, heck, it’s already a part of the US Navy giving the US a major tactical advantage. Micro fission/fusion reactors in the form of 700 lb missiles already exist too. This technology would be great if we figure out how to get highly enriched fuel into reactors without any risk of people getting weapons from it. Even in the large reactors we have today the fuel is only 5% enriched. If we had 50% enriched fuel the fuel lifetime would go from 4.5-6 years to 45-60 years with very high capacity factor. The idea that we use fossil fuels in the face of collapse is ridiculous. People argue we should hold out until fusion energy, my take is (evidenced by my logo), fusion energy has been around for 4.5 billion years and will remain for another 5 billion years. It is present on 1/2 of the earth at all times, with a 25% capacity factor. We really are just sitting around a fusion campfire we call the sun. Anybody who puts up a solar panel is exploiting nuclear fusions. Anybody who relies on seeing using sunlight relies on fusion power. Any plant based life is fusion powered. Any oil is still fusion powered. If we want serious nuclear fission reactors, we should vertically monopolize the supply chain and just go for it. Pick a spot in the desert (I would recommend where all the nukes were tested) and test innovative cores in a nuclear bunker underground. We test them all until they safely fail 1000 times in an accelerated timeline. From there, we decide which ones are acceptable, and which ones are not. Any resource needed, included cooling, should just be provided. Pick another spot in the desert (or ocean), maybe Hanford (maybe the pacific), and build a massive complex that has plenty of cooling water, cooling air, build massive manufacturing and transportation capabilities, and crank out large reactor after reactor with special attention on minimizing human labor consumption. We should make enough energy for the entire world to live up to American standards, and boost American living standards to space age energy standards. Including full access to RTG technology for space exploration/exploitation. From there, we figure out how to make a 1 Gigavolt world distribution. 1 Megavolt country distribution. 1 Kilovolt Underground town distribution. 1 volt home distribution (avoiding fires). Or, whatever works best, I am not an electrical engineer and I am okay with saying that. Whatever is safest. Allow experts to maintain the safety of the power source for the entire world in one place. The jobs would be one month at sea, and the rest of the year at home. This model would work well because power spikes around the world in different times would levelize the power consumption to some extent. If there are demand spikes, the nuclear site should have a giant thermal battery which is hooked up to supplement the steam turbines, or sCO2 turbines. This thermal battery could be a large molten pool of lava for all I care, and should probably be managed by mechanical engineers, but that’s how it should be done. All nuclear waste should be packaged up and thrown into the thermal battery to keep heating it. Why waste precious nuclear heat? It’s not waste if we still use it. Extract all uranium and transuranic elements from waste and repackage it for fuel. Isotopes get packaged for space exploration. Any gamma emitters sunk in a pool of water for heat extraction. Also! There should be a large desert covered in aluminum foil nearby to offset the waste heat emitted from the power plants. It’d be huge, but that would bring balance back to the world. We ditch gas powered and electric cars and use pressurized superheated water or hydrogen powered cars. I am a nuclear engineer and I believe that nuclear power is too cheap to meter. However, that should not come at the expense of wasted life and failed dreams when we are tasked with making new reactors and licensing them. It should not come at the expense of displaced humans when reactors fail. Reactor failures should not be exploited for press propaganda. Reactors should be able to completely fail safely, and if they cannot fail (ships and cities for instance), then they should not be built, or, they should operate in a manner where there is 0 (or very near 0 such as NuScale) chance of radioisotope release. We should have a place where if a reactor does go wrong, it can be quickly and appropriately handled. I would be a large proponent for a central place where we can selectively make it rain, and collect the radioactive waste on the ground without having to dig it up. This place would have very little population, and no risk of anybody being displaced in case of emergency. It could technically be a large nature reserve as nothing would hopefully not go wrong for hundreds of years, but when it does go wrong, we can take care of it “promptly” and efficiently. This place would have all enrichment facilities, waste disposal, weapons disposal, power generation, fissile material breeding, and mining if possible. Regulatory professionals, IAEA inspectors, and resources would be available for any innovator to come and innovate successfully in 1 year, start to finish, housing and appropriate stipend provided. Enough resources would exist for a power plant to be built in one year start to finish rather than a decade. Enough capital would exist for reactors to go online at any moment. 7900 GW base power would allow for every human to have 1 kW freely. Beyond this, money would come from people consuming more than 1 kW at any moment. This would incentivize people to store energy in their home air, water tanks, etc. which I also have ideas for. My facility would even have a large pool of heavy water with neutron fluency to burnup the little last bit of u235 in fuel waste, and have various pits with different energy neutron fluxes to breed new fuel and isotopes. Nobody would ever have to worry about energy again and we could live happily ever after. If a future human wanted to have a campfire, they would not have to worry about the carbon emissions because we took care of the carbon problem in the 21st century. In my theoretical facility, it would be perfectly inspected at all times allowing anybody access to the information resulting in surety of the safe operation of the facilities at a quick glance. Technically a site like this could exist in the ocean where nobody lives, winds are reliable. It’d be a lot of effort, but that would be taking care of the generations of humans after us investing in their success. Also, there is a push for fuel to maintain its waste completely. But why not capture it and remove it constantly so that in the abnormal case of a failure, there are no harmful isotopes to mess up humans? I know this is what will happen in molten salt reactors, but I imagine that solid fueled reactors could benefit as well?
One of my favorite things about these micro nuclear plants is the shutting down of these coal plants and the infrastructure and generation ability is still there instead of using coal you use nuclear for your heat source to make the power
@@HamguyBacon What's right with coal? It is the worst of all possible energy sources, it pollutes worse than anything else, it kills more people than anything else, it's the equivalent of using stone tools when bronze and iron left them behind long ago.
@@krashd Coal is the most easily obtainable and energy dense fuel source 2nd to Gasoline. Pollution has not been a problem since the 1970's when smokestacks were mandated to capture pollutants before it went into the atmosphere, coal does not kill people but radiation from Nuclear does.
@@zacherickson5444 Coal may not be renewable but the same could be said about nuclear, The environment does not get damaged from mining coal, you're literally moving one pile of resources to another location. Pollution has not been a problem with coal since the 1970's. Coal is the most Energy dense and easily obtainable material 2nd to Oil.
You should do Fast Breeder reactors next! I've been a big fan of Oklo inc.'s development; and although they didn't pass their first NRC evaluation - Fast Breeders (using higher actinides as fuel - like plutonium) in concert with uranium and thorium sources can reduce most all waste to the 500-200 year danger zone. Overall, I think small nuclear (and hopefully eventually geothermal) can provide baseload to variable wind and solar sources. It's just a good anchor to have just in case wind isnt consistent and the sun's hiding behind the clouds. Loving the content!
Micro reactors are ideal for off-grid remote locations. I hope more investment is put into them! Also, I would like to raise a point I really don't see being often discussed: Replacing existing coal-fired plants with SMRs is a competitive and realistic way of achieving significantly cheaper nuclear energy while also maintaining jobs for the local community. It is important to note that, while renewables do create new job opportunities, they are mostly during the construction phase (since you don't need to operate a wind turbine or a solar panel) and don't really require high-level of education, so people might end up getting paid lower. Another very important topic is land occupation. Nuclear power is able to generate a great deal of energy using a very small area of land when compared to renewables, so for countries with not so much land available, nuclear power should be really considered as a competitive energy solution. One last thing: current nuclear waste is able to be reprocessed in especialized facilities and then used as both MOX fuel or recycled in fast reactors. That's partially the reason why so many countries are not willing to bury their nuclear waste stockpile deep underground. Because they are still a considerable source of energy in advanced reactors. This matter involving nuclear waste recycling is much more political than technical, really! There are technical solutions ready, but political affairs continue to delay their deployment!
One point I think is overlooked here and that is the cost of wind and solar when there is no wind and no sun. That costs is very very high and should be factored in to the unit coast based on averaged generating performance, say over a year. Nuclear would then look more respectable. The benefits of base load can not be dismissed when considering security of supply.
I keep finding disappointing that even when we talk about nuclear energy we still have steam power technology involved for the production of electricity. Our limitations to transform the atomic, solar and heat energy straight into electricity is frustrating and wasteful. I'd be happy to see us breaking through this limitation in my lifetime.
Regarding nuclear power, alphavoltaic and betavoltaic cells are a thing that exist. Though not very powerful, they last for a crazy long time and if someone ever optimises them for battery packs your phone or some appliance remotes could last years before needing a recharge (or in this case a replacement cell). That being said, considering steam turbines can reach almost 80% efficiency it's still not that bad
Steam is the working fluid, there has to be some kind of working mechanism or battery/ mining involved, if one requires renewables.. Renewables are the real problem.... Grid sized renewables do not have near as much benefit as do personal sized remewables, then the power company's job would only have to be the capacitor. Everyone seams to think renewables are the answer, Renewables and efficiancse at "Micro on a macro scale" and non lazy Peoples is the answer, but the educated need jobs and the Peoples need there Conveniences... So here we are.
@@6969smurfy Without going into the opinion about renewable energy, my comment about the use of steam tech also applies to fossil fuel sources. Coal/gas power plants use similar technology, just the energy source to power all differs.
@@atrumluminarium "alphavoltaic" and "betavoltaic" are words I have never seen before but immediately knew the significance of lol Are these ways to make *use* of nuclear waste? I saw the issue with the megatons of waste sitting around, waiting for safe disposure, but if those things are giving off energy, can't we still harvest it? Can you slap electrodes on lead to make their waste containment cell a battery? lol
Why is steam bad? Because it's old? Pressurised steam is insanely powerful, why do you think steam engines were invented "first"? Because even the crudest, least-refined one can still do a lot of work.
When fusion power gets figured out: people will be dumbfounded they didn’t realize it sooner and scientists will understand that following Galileo’s perspective, a solar panel is our home’s electrical outlet for our working fusion reactor: the sun
People listen to too much main stream media which loves a bit of fear. There is always the carbon fossil fuels industry that do not want any more nuclear. Man is such a thick species that needs politicians with backbones to say no more to these big money men who just think of their industries and bribe self serving politicians.
Fusion will always be 35 to 45 years away. It was being researched when I was born in the 60's and there has been a lot of scientists who have worked entire careers, retired and died without solving the fusion question. It's a huge waste of money.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 I don't think this correct. Democrats are the party that claim to strongly oppose big oil, but they are also the only party that wants to ban nuclear power outright. The majority of Republicans, which recieve most of the oil industry donations, also love nuclear, both fusion and fission.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 I think we've gotten to the point where the capitalist impulse is making oil and gas companies invest in all kinds of alternative energy technologies. Of course, they don't want oil and gas to stop tomorrow, but they are motivated to be ready for the inevitability of alternative sources dominating the energy market. They may try to slow down others where they haven't invested money, but my bet is their full steam ahead with trying to establish dominance in alternative energy.
@Jesus Saves I bet if fission gets massively deregulated, companies will be much more willing to invest in improving fission and solving fusion. Right now, a company could try to solve fusion only for government to ban it, so there is no incentive to invest.
Hi Matt, great subject, have you looked at the Pebble Bed Modular Reactors(PBMR) developed by Professor Rudolf Schulten of Aachen University in Germany in the late 1950’s. It was later picked up by South African who made further developments and could generate 400MW. It seems safer than other small modular reactors. I look forward to an Undecided on PBMRs.
I live in Indonesia. Because of geographical and cultural issues the idea they could build and manage a nuclear reactor here is terrifying. But if they favored mini or micro reactors technology, I think I could live with that.
@raynaldo arlen k.eman Ya gak bisa. Japan aja kena. Padahal etos dan disiplin mereka 1000 kali lebih bagus daripada etos kerja orang Indonesia. Kalau ada sentral nuklir di Indonesia ku yakin 100% akan ada kecelakaan. Etos tidak bisa diajarin. Itu tumbuh atau tidak. Ya di Indonesia tidak tumbuh. Kelebihannya orang Indonesia bukan di disiplin. Ditambah lagi masalah alam yang tidak ramah. Bunuh diri itu namanya. Tapi kalau sentral nuklirnya mikro bisa saja dibangun di Indonesia. 100, 200 tidak masalah karena ketika akan ada kecelakaan, dampak kecelakaan itu akan lokal saja. Sebenarnya negara Barat pun sudah mulai mau beralih ke sentral kecil atau mikro. Meledak pun tak masalah. Jauh lebih aman.
@@Kiev-in-3-days In every culture, there is a cohort of the curious, eager, and disciplined. I think you should give your countrymen a chance to prove themselves.
Hey Matt, love your videos. What about helium-3? We've heard a lot about helium-3 in the last decade, but the idea hasn't really taken off. And now, China is trying to mine helium-3 from the moon. Will helium-3 solve our hunger for energy?
It won't. We can't even sustain a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction for long, let alone derive any power from it, and we're decades away from being able to. Helium-3 fusion is _much_ harder to ignite and sustain, and so is at best a next-century-at-the-earliest speculative power source
I imagine a micro reactor, say the size of a car engine, would probably run best on an ultra low critical mass fuel like Curium-247. Which is basically unobtainium :/ Something like that would need massive amounts of other reactors to produce such a fuel in quantity. Also, I feel like in general, a true micro reactor would need a fuel that’s so high quality, and purity, that it’s indistinguishable from weapons grade fuel. Or a subcritical mass that’s exposed to some sort of neutron generator, Californium-252 maybe? Also unobtainium Idk, I feel like the actinides further down the series would be really good for this kind of application
Sorry to be back on the soapbox. The SLOWPOKE (acronym for Safe LOW-POwer Kritical Experiment) uses 93% highly-enriched uranium-235 (I wonder about U-233) and beryllium-9 as consumables. So, yeah, Rusty nailed it.
This complements the idea of a residential central plant for heating and cooling (including hot water); I believe I read it from Carrier. Maybe electrical power with battery storage could be implemented.
@Eliza Coleman NPP are way safer than you think only old generation reactor with design flaws (Tchernobyl) or placed in high risk area (Fukushima) are dangerous, cooling water used is also perfectly safe to swim in as the contaminated one is running in a closed circuit at the core Even the spend fuel pool is safe to swim in as only getting a few meter from the spend fuel rods can get you irradiated
@Eliza Coleman yes you would. A micro reactor would generate no less than 200 kW, more than enough for one house, so I would share with my neighbors :-)
Why not just bury the ones NASA has been using for DECADES under everyones house? O.o Besides the fact the Power Companies would fight it like crazy since they have monopolies on Electricity. :/
Their sweet spot of size and output is likely to be closer to something that can power a neighborhood while many can power a small town collectively. No regulatory body is going to approve an individual domestic use.
I have long thought that Micro-Reactors are the path of the future. I have also wondered why couldn't the fuel be the spent nuclear fuel from the larger reactors? It is still highly radioactive for 10,000 years. Let's capture that energy.
They are already using helium to cool as in The China based technology. Helium is a gas at room temperature. I think a closed system that has a cold liquid helium tank, tubes that are honeycombed surrounding the full length of each single waste rod, which heats the liquid helium to gasify and causes massive pressure through a propeller/ turbine, generating electricity, (and perhaps even cooling the rod to faster safety levels?) then those tubes gravity feed back through refrigerant coils to the liquid helium tank. When the fuel rod becomes not hot enough to keep up a baseline wattage output, it might be safer to dispose of, then next waste rod is placed in the system.
@@barbaralemons4741 A China textile factory can make 500,000 pairs of socks every day, ship them half way around the world and Walmart sells them 3 pair for $1 and everyone makes money. If you can understand why that cannot and will not happen in a U.S. textile factory, you may be able to understand why what happens in China means nothing in the U.S.. The U.S. has built and tested just about every type of nuclear reactor over the last 70 years and has more experience than any country on earth. The problem is not the type of reactor or the cooling method, it is just that in the U.S. we cannot construct new nuclear on schedule or withing budget and it does not matter if it is a BWR, PWR, SMR. Molten salt. Most nuclear projects in the U.S. have been canceled after spending billions and those that were completed took 15 years and were 100% over budget. Do we have 15 years to build and test out a new design and if that works, spend another 15 years constructing more of these????
@@clarkkent9080 That was before the weather went to shit and the insurance companies stated having to pay out multiple times a year. FEMA's going to have to start triaging what help they can bring. That's what's different. Also, machine learning and AI can evaluate designs so much faster... cheer up. Once money is leaking, $#!+ gets fixed.
The one thing that could make a significant difference to household kitchen food hygiene would be a small unit about the size of a microwave to irradiate food before consuming. It would eliminate pathogens, bacteria, viruses, etc etc... Gamma radiation is used routinely to sterilize medical, dental, and household products. Food irradiation is the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation, such as from gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams.
The more components a system has, the higher must be the reliability of of each component. If you have hundreds instead of a dozen nuclear reactors, each of the micro reactors must be much safer than the current nuclear reactors to achieve the same level of safety. And as we currently see in Ukraine, each nuclear plant is a potential military target. Those concepts pop up every 20 year or so, just like Zeppelins in aviation.
Another point. With recycling (multiple times) the spent fuel the fissile and fissionable materials can be used, leaving only a relatively small quantity of highly radioactive but short lived waste.
Nuclear is literally the most green and environmentally friendly energy solution in existence. People are still too afraid of the fact that we didn't properly know how to control it back in the 80's. Chernobyl was nearly 40 years ago!
I don't have good space for solar panels on the roof of my house. I don't have space for a big ground-loop heat pump in my yard. I do however have space to dig a hole and place a nuclear reactor in my small backyard if it can fit in 1 or 2 cubic meters. I mean, how small could you make a nuclear reactor if all it had to power was a single home?.... I doubt it'd have to be much bigger than that right? I'd much rather spend 10k on a 'small home' nuclear reactor than the same amount on solar panels that'll produce
@@Echidna23Gaming I'll do you one better, the 'rest' heat not directly converted to electricity could be used to heat your house in a radiator loop! :) moar efficiency !
SMRs do actually use a moderator. they are small molten salt reactors that use the thermal expansion properties of the salts to moderate the nuclear reaction.
Excellent video. SMR/larger nuclear/green hydrogen and renewables like wind(electromagnetic induction) are part of UK's energy policy to make sure no fall out from external factors. In 2020 renewables generated 43 per cent of Britain’s electricity while gas, oil and coal contributed about 40 per cent. The remaining capacity was filled by nuclear. Still lots more work to do but I'm optimistic. Great start has already been made so far! Further the luxury car and aerospace company Rolls Royce are pushing for SMRs in UK. This will backed up EDF who are building the large nuclear(2026-30) and EON/Siemens have been building wind turbines in North Sea. These companies iare already integrated in the neoliberal British energy market/ Moreover the world's largest electrolyser plant for green hydrogen has already been built in UK Already they've helped Royal Dutch Shell in Germany and the largest fertilizer plant in Norway to back up their use of natural gas to green hydrogen in the event of high prices and Russian threats. So the aim is to get 100% from renewable resources for energy/food self reliance and meet net zero climate obligations. Electricity generation from renewables are due to beat the 2035 target most likely. Final point SMRs are also part of the country's nuclear submarine deterrent "Trident" .What's more I suspect more will be built for Australia too. UK wants to help Australia(being bullied by China) and US wants to pivot to Asia for obvious reasoning. The UK and US agreed to supply them instead of French diesel submarines.
For greater public acceptance, I think these could still be located underground. But this seems to be an outstanding direction. Let's disassemble and dilute warheads and build these with security at the highest level of focus (i.e. permanent underground installations), rather than portable. I wonder what kind of outcome could be expected with an intentional terrorist or accidental destruction incident? I'm a big fan of nuclear. Most of the costs are fighting the legal battles. The US will be surpassed by China and others whose populations are less likely to be fearful. That's why we still have waste in limbo.
I'll borrow a line or two from my above discussion to think about in regard to those who think burying nukes is a solution to safety concerns. ' If Chernobyl had been allowed to melt through the last barrier to the water table below the reactor, ALL of Europe would have had NO DRINKING WATER. Only the incredible heroic action of both Russian helicopter crews and later, firefighters and miners who tunneled BELOW the reactor, saved Europe... at the cost of their own lives and debilitating radiation exposure injuries.'
@@stanmann8399 You watch too many movies!!! The China Syndrome is NOT real. That's why Americans are so incapable of informed decision making. Because they forget the informed part. All modern reactors are protected from the worst case scenario with lots of neutron absorbing lining. If they melt, they are contained, but ruined for thousands of years. Underground systems can be contained with ZERO contamination risk. The problem is that IDIOTS build reactors on the surface near active and dangerous fault zones, or in the case of Chernobyl, NO CONTAINMENT DOMES AT ALL, plus the human error.
Someone wise had said that nuclear energy is great if the reactors are located far away (so that the question of nuclear waste or nuclear malice does not arise). This is precisely what the Sun has been doing for us, providing abundant (solar) energy, which is really nuclear energy !
Matt, love your channel from day one. Regular watch for me. However, being a pacific northwesterner, I feel obligated to offer my insights your way on this, the pronunciation of the word Oregon. Phonetically it would be spelled; OR-EE-GUN. Oregon. Or Ee Gun. Oregon. Thanking you from the Home of Nike, Intel, Boing, Hewlitt/Packard's global R&D center, and all the rest here in the "silicone forest" keep making awesome non-bias videos for the masses :-)
I'd like to see _pico_ nuclear energy - a reactor about the size of a compressor/condenser for a split air conditioning system that could produce upwards of 30 kW continuously, enough to power my house, including HVAC, plus lighting and electric vehicle recharging. Every man's house could be his homestead.
Terrible idea. The history of small decay generators and medical equipment with radiation sources shows how easy an entire city can get exposed to radioactive material, just because it showed up unexpectedly.
@@nonyabisness6306 although i disagree with pico reactors all of the issues with contamination are due to uneducated people in low income countries. Of course some of the stupidity i see daily in the U.S. by diy enthusiasts might end up the same
@@patricktennant1585 It's just weird to me that we generally dump a shitton of regulations on anyone running a nuclear power plant, but then tout the idea of giving random private citizens access to mini reactors. Either it's dangerous or it isn't. And frankly I don't trust random citizens with proper maintaince and disposal. Let's say you buy one, who will do maintaince? Who will dispose of it? What if the company that made them goes under? Does the state now have to do it? Does the owner pay? If so will some people just dump it? Will the state control what happens with the reactors? Can they even do that if it finds widespread adoption? It's just not a good idea and it offers absolutly no benefits. Instead of 100 small reactors you can just build a big one. Less security risk and the same power output.
Has anyone ever thought of using reactors from decommissioned subs and other ships who were still fueled in order to power something like a base, or civilian use like a desalination plant?
The problem with this approach is that you'll going to distribute radio active material widely. You may debate how bad that really is, imho the dangers of radioactive pollution are often exaggerated, it is something to consider. Just look at what's happening in Ukraine now. There have already been safety concerns for at least 2 nuclear reactor sites and a radio-lab. How many would that have been if every village of a few thousand people would have it's own micro reactor? Even in ordinary times, it's hard to protect micro reactors to a level comparable to larger reactors raising the risk of successful sabotage/terrorist attacks. As always, we've to balance the pros and the cons, not sure which way it would tip.
Neat. The viability of nuclear vs. battery-bank renewables will definitely depend on the location. For example, in Bocas del Toro, Panama (where I'm from), you can only hope for an average of around 4 hours of sun per day for much of the year, and you can easily get three weeks straight of overcast. This makes the battery requirements insane. So, like with all these technologies, they will fill in their niches!
@@priatalat Idk, I don't think most people would want to be around one of 50 points of failure that could expose them to radiation for an unknown amount of time. Yeah maybe it's a bit extra panic, but when there's 2000 or more tiny reactors around a country, it's a question of when some error will happen. Idk, maybe we can put it in some exceptionally perfectly safe system.
@@Direblade11 As a person who works with radiation, microreactors terrify me. Radiation leak is one thing, but the radioactive substances leak? Thanks, but no.
@@Direblade11 If it's a salt-based reactor, the systems wouldn't need to be pressurized at all, and you could just bury it underground and dig it up every couple decades to refuel it
Still taking the thorium cost at face value, despite thorium reactors requiring similar tech to fast reactors with reprocessing and the fuel and waste disposal costs not being the bottleneck? Thorium has some nice properties, but little about it is inherently cheaper, never mind significantly so. Molten salt looks promising, but is actually more useful for fast uranium reactors than thorium. Micro is a commercial non starter because it solves problems that don't exist and creates whole new ones (similar to thorium in that regard). Being mobile is a regulatory, security, and proliferation nightmare. SMR are in the sweet spot where factory mass production is possible, but they are still inconvenient enough to move that they can be kept track of. Specifically for the numbers given by radiant; 7 years of fuel is overkill for almost all use cases, and makes it significantly more of a hazard. 1 year would be fine. The only use case I can see is small temporary military facilities (particularly if they are moving towards lots of EVs), and in that role fielding a reactor with 6 years of caesium 137 build-up strikes me as moronic. To avoid significant contamination in the case of it being attacked (which it has to expect) you would want to keep waste stockpiles low. Oh, wait. I see. It is intended for Mars... It actually seems ideal for that. Like many of Elon's projects, great for Mars, sort of useless here (not a criticism).
I've been advocating for micro reactors predicated on Naval Subs for... well... literal decades now. I find it morbidly amusing that most of the "Green Energy" proponents back technologies that are incredibly harmful to wildlife (Wind Turbine's LFE), incredibly toxic to the environment (Solar panels), incredibly destructive to the environment with a massive carbon footprint (nickel based batteries), or location/climate dependent (geothermal, hydro, tidal). Yet, when those Greenies asked why they don't back the lowest carbon footprint, least ecologically destructive, highest-return on fuel consumed per power output... the only actual "Green" energy solution... it's like they believe Nuclear technology has not advanced one iota from the days of Chernobyl or 3 Mile Island. It brings to mind an interesting theory. Maybe the political party backing "Green Energy" solutions, slushing hundreds of billions of taxpayer finances into ecological and technological dead-ends, isn't pro-energy at all. Maybe that "political party," regardless of Country or label, is actually ANTI-ENERGY... and the best way to deny energy is to destroy existing energy resources while refusing to research valid ecological and technological energy productions. With that theory in mind, framing the "political party" backlash, regardless of country or label, to halt Nuclear Research in the taxpayer sector and raise barriers to the research in the private sector, suddenly clarifies into a very recognizable pattern of allegiances and alliances. At the heart of it, every "political party" regardless of country or label that has blocked reactors like Toshiba's deep-batteries or Westinghouse's AP1000's has ties to... socialist financing. Interesting, no?
One point to add that maybe I missed in your video. There is an enherant limit as a target for prolification of storage material with things like molten salt reactors and the same is true with fast reactors. Some high grade material is required at start up but after that it sort of sustains itself. Though some chemical processing is required. So in a world gone mad it makes nuke material much safer
I served aboard USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659, as a Nuclear Machinist's Mate and Engineering Laboratory Technician. That means I cared for the nuclear reactor and all associated systems, while monitoring for anomalies, as well as radiation exposure of the crew. Naval Nuclear Reactors are incredibly compact, yet incredibly powerful. The S3G reactor was about the size of Radiant's design that's capable of 1MW. However, due in part to much higher enrichment levels, S3G cores *far* surpassed this level of energy output.
While working for DuPont after the Navy, I worked on Naval Fuels, and Defense Nuclear Waste. We were perfecting vitrification of high-level nuclear waste over 35 years ago! That 90 MT of spent fuel languish in onsite storage all across the country is a travesty.
As for the SMR or MSR question, that's an "and-both" issue, not an "either-or" one. There is no "Silver Bullet". Only silver buckshot.
So, in addition to the first-off-the-tongue renewables of solar, wind and hydro, *we must quickly expand production capacity, while investing heavily in geothermal and wave/tidal.* Geothermal and wave/tidal are akin to stable, baseload generated by natural gas, coal and nuclear, and we've barely scratched the surface of what these energy sources can deliver to humanity and the planet.
SMRs have their place. Designs are approved and projects are already underway. No, they don't have all of the benefits of MSRs, but we urgently need the capacity. It's a bit like the tortoise and the hare, where MSRs are the former. Working down the existing spent fuel inventory, while generating a fraction of the waste of traditional reactors designs, that's also toxic for a far shorter period of time. That's the promise that we should work towards.
In addition to all this, there are EVs, ground source heat pumps and hybrid water heaters. There are biomass, carbon capture and synthetic fuels. There are smart grids, distributed grids and vehicle-to-home. Hell, there's even white paint. We need it all. And we need it now!
great post. Have you looked at Quaise energy? They have a great concept and it makes me think geothermal will really happen.
Thanks for a great response!
@@zber9043 Quaise's approach has merit. But theirs is a large, centralized implementation.
It's not necessary to drill miles/kilometers deep to gain significant advantages. Heating and cooling buildings is a significant contributor of global greenhouse gas emissions. Conditioning the built environment is all about the "Delta-T", that is the temperature differential represented by source and desired temperature. The smaller the gap, the lesser the energy needed to get to the desired temperature.
We only need bury relatively small loops between 6 and 10 feet down to reach stable temperatures year round. Horizontal ground loops can be used to as a heat sink when cooling, and a preheater when heating. The same goes for heating water.
As I said in my original comment, "silver buckshot." We need every solution. Like yesterday.
Politicians :" Meh, coal and gas are cheaper, and those huge corporations are sponsoring us. People will vote for the other team if their living standards get a 3% decrease, so why bother. "
Very interesting & informative post. Hopefully it won't be long before people realise wind & solar are a waste of time, promoted by politicians who want to look good.
Nuclear & tidal seem to be the obvious choice.
It is worth pointing out that the reason for the difference between the longevity of the waste from uranium-based fission reactors is the presence of higher atomic number actinides. This isn't the only difference between the thorium and uranium decay paths, they can be separated fairly easily and most of them have medical or other industrial uses. It is a political decision not to allow the reprocessing of nuclear waste. Things have changed since Carter made that decision, it might be time to take another look at reprocessing all of the waste. The remaining lot has the same shorter lifetime for thorium wastes.
I am 100% onboard with this! 👏
Environmentalists would fight you tooth and nail to prevent the use of burning nuclear waste as energy. Not only that but they would also prevent you from reproducing.
@@dr.vanhellsing Modern environmentalist groups are enemies of humanity. Their ultimate goal is the reduction of the human race to nothing more than hunter gatherer/subsistence societies, they view mankind as a plague that needs to be contained or eradicated.
@@jaffacalling53 Seems that all coments here, apart from @Jesus saves are talking about US. There is world out there, where these statements are not true, as they're generalizations of how things or *'environmentalists'*, whatever that means for you,* are in US. None of the green parties un EU opposes nuclear power or human civilization. Another matter, if and how they're 'green.' I'm not talking about extremists or animal rights nuts, i haven't met them. Unfortunately majority of poor countries will not have resources or political power to go nuclear.
Those opposing nuclear, unless they champion for Thorium-only, have no clue of nuclear physics, biology or geology. No point of giving them any platform, not even critically.
@@vitalijslebedevs1629 Pretty sure every major green party in Europe opposes nuclear power, some of those idiots are so far gone that they even protested funding ITER. The Green morons even managed to infect the more center parties in Germany, which is why their reactors are all shut down even though the Greens aren't even the majority party there.
You answered the waste question in the video already. Fast reactors use waste from thermal reactors as their fuel, cutting the time needed for storage to about 500 years just like the thorium reactors. Fast reactors are also highly efficient in their burnup, meaning that the existing waste represents a tremendous amount of fuel waiting to be used.
Even if that was true, which I doubt, micro reactors are a _spectacularly_ stupid idea when you factor in just how hard they would be to secure against ignorance and malice.
Making a dirty bomb out of one of these things is horrifyingly easy: Just place a sturdy water tank near one, wire up a water heater inside, bolt the tank shut and run like hell.
No explosives or skills required at all.
Going postal would be going to a whole new level.
@@madshorn5826 What are you talking about? Micro reactors would be placed underground and hardened against attacks. No such thing would be possible.
@@Spacedog79
A gigawatt of nuclear power with small 1 MW reactors will require 1000 reactors.
That's a lot.
And a GW isn't that much.
Burying and hardening reactors will be prohibitively expensive and still not protect against determined nutters.
You underestimate the dogged stupidity and creativity of idiots.
And we have to plan for irrational behavior as Putin has just demonstrated.
let's implement renewables to their limit then bring up nuclear.
@@davidk7544 Look at Germany, we've already seen that we don't have a solution to the intermittency apart from more fossil fuels. France on the other hand is sitting pretty with all their Nuclear, that is the way to do it.
I like the idea of mircoreators. The world's rate of changing resource requirements (need more, need more), change in technology (knowledge increase), micros would fit the bill of small, flexible for varying installations. After installation, if a more efficient microreactor was found, it could possibly replace the current reactor; hard to do with a full size nuclear reactor.
Obviously there are lots of details to work out, but micro reactors in concept allow for loads of options toward the goal of decentralizing electricity generation. It is interesting that many people are alarmed about the management of nuclear waste. Clearly, it is an important part of the process, but If only we had been storing the toxic biproducts of our means of energy production in the last 100 or so years instead of letting it float away into the atmosphere (and accumulate) we would be dealing with a very different type of challenge to keeping the planet able to sustain life.
Nuclear waste is only waste if its useless. Check out the candu reactor and new research on SMR variants. We can fuel the SMR reactors for 100+ years with the junk we cant figure our what to do with (or use unenriched uranium which is cheaper and reduces proliferation risk)
Elon’s rocket to the sun, let it on convert the nuclear waste
@@Dirtyharry70585 what. no.
any steps away from oil addiction, are good for future generations.
@@Dirtyharry70585 It's extremely difficult to reach the Sun with existing rocket technologies, although you can get pretty close. If you're just going to dump nuclear waste it's far easier and cheaper to place them on the Earth's ocean beds in subduction zones.
As someone involved in the Nuclear Industry, I've always maintained that micro reactors, the size of your home boiler one-day can eventually be safe enough to be installed in households. Clean, limitless energy and a modular design that allows fuel to be easily changed after it's spent.
A whole cycle and industry can be made on reprocessing existing spent rods and redelivery back to households, with the only upfront cost of energy simply being to pay for the reactor itself and the refuelling. Annual inspection and monitoring can be done via cellular or internet, and of course plenty of safety systems to shut itself off during the event of failure.
Generating excess power? Just feed it back into the grid. It's really as simple as that. Power cut or your reactor stops working? Use batteries installed in your home to work in conjunction with any solar panels you may have.
Say it brother.
I'm a LFTR Kirk Sorensen FLIBE Energy fanatic myself though, he's got a vision.
I bet we have the technology to do that today. People have been brain washed to think Nuclear Energy is a dooms day machine.. It's just not so.
I think it would be better to put one central reactor in a neighborhood, so as to not have more culs-de-sac.
I wonder what the calculations would say about this scenario. SMRs work due to economy of scale but that doesn't mean it would continue to scale down to reactors small enough to power a single home. I suspect the smallest it would be feasible to go is around a megawatt.
At that point though there's no need for a grid..... Why expend tax money or pay a monthly service fee to maintain a grid when every building / home is already adequately powered for years if not decades at a time? It really doesn't make a lot of sense at that point.
As you point out, there are some regulatory issues. SMR's are still working with regulators to figure out how many staff are needed at multiple-reactor SMR sites for example. Current law requires a certain staff per reactor but when you have 8 or 12 identical reactors, Nuscale proposes a given operator can handle several reactors at once. I know this is a small issue, but staffing and security traditionally based on 'per reactor' needs to be reviewed and worked out. (one of the 'regulatory issues' you mention). With current nuclear plants, staffing is a significant part of O&M costs, so it is important to address.
Good point. There would be economies of scale at the power plant as well, by having a reactor farm and not just one reactor.
Power plants are a 24/7 operation, so you need to staff for 24/7 and not just Mon-Fri 8 hours a day. This doesn't seem like much, but a full week ends up being around 4 times the man-hours of just Mon-Fri 8-5. You'd need a minimum crew/shift, in case someone's sick or Jeff needs to use the bathroom.
Making a reactor farm with 8 or 12 reactors makes a lot of sense.
Just to mention: It's not only the end of the "nuclear chain" (the final waste), it is also the beginning and the middle. You need to dig out the raw uranium in the first place, and that generates already huge heaps of radioactive mining overburden (OK, in South Africa, so who bothers (that was irony)). Then you have to process that in chemical plants with all the environmental problems those have (and constant spill-offs of radioactivity). Then you need to enrich and concentrate it in gas centrifuges, generating another sort of waste as a byproduct. Then you have to process it to create fuel elements (again: waste). After the fuel elements are used, you have the "middle circle" where you have to wait for the worst radioactivity abates, then break them up, and again do all the chemical and fabrication processes to build new elements, this time handling also plutonium, not just uranium, and again generate waste, even more active than in the first round. This is true for SMRs also, only a bit slowed down.
Then you distribute these materials everywhere into thousands(?), or hundreds of thousands(?) mini-reactors everywhere, in the best case under some quality control and maintenance comparable to, let's say, civil aircraft (in the best case, if there would be better control it would cost much more, and civil aviation needed a long time and many deaths to develop their standards). So these machines with their inventory are lying around everywhere, in varying states of maintenance and probably some state of rot. Hey, everybody should have one in their garage, right?
Shiny animations just don't show the reality that is coming up. In advertisements, all cars are shiny but look in the streets for a reality check.
Not to forget: For all that SMR business to start we would need decades only to replace only a fraction of fossil energy, but we don't have that time.
Great points!🧐😬😅
Hi matt.
I was interested to see that some of the imagery you employed for illustration was provided by GE* which I believe is a major producer of fuel rod dependent nuclear reactors as well as fuel elements.
As I understand the matter nuclear fuel rods are particularly wasteful of nuclear fuel due to formation of Radon gas pockets within the pellets they contain and that cavitation necessitates such diminished efficiency that premature replacement is necessary well before all the fuel in a pellet is depleted.
The pellets can be and are recycled, but the whole process is exceptionally inefficient and unnecessarily expensive and produces waste by products with a phenomenally long half life.
The obvious implication is that companies producing pelletized fuel for reactors dependent upon a core employing fuel rods derive lucrative income from doing so.
Those companies therefore have a substantial vested interest in perpetuating less desirable and essentially obsolete reactor designs.
In addition to these considerations responsibility for decommissioning fuel rod production and recycling facilities undoubtedly rests with those companies.
The cost of the latter process will be substantial to say the least and may well result in some exceptionally fragrant bones being brought to light which a such vested interests might be extremely anxious to keep as secure as possible from political and public scrutiny.
In terms of potential for creation of jobs and income from construction and operation of such reactors, when it comes to potential for having to store intensely hazardous, long-lived pollutants resulting from nuclear waste resulting from their operation surely economic factors should be resolutely minor considerations?
On the other hand Liquid Flouride cooled Thorium Fueled reactors use the majority of their fuel, can produce more of all elements requisite to their function, produce relatively small quantities of waste with a short half life and are particularly safe and resilient to factors such as natural disasters.
True, just MSTR's are in their infancy design and development wise. There is finally some public interest due to some champions of the technology, while it's confined to few small companies and not much backing from any goverment.
My guess is that MSTR's, or anything fuelled by Thorium, needs to be proved to be viable and reliable on a scale not reached yet. Where to find enough funding to design, make and prove anything considered small or modular, if the first designs are not commercialised yet? After all, nations using and producing nuclear fuels are roughly tge same having nuclear arsenal. So the defense ministries allways prefer enriched Uranium or Plutonium over Thorium, far too weak to make a viable nuclear weapon. Latest developments with Russia with their few apparent nuclear allies are not making decomissioning of Uranium infrastructure to make place for the elusive, albeit abundant Thorium implementation. It's like switching from AC to DC or ICE to EV's. It can be done only if there is enough demand to invest in infrastructure to make that switch.
Big old things change hard, but should happen, if the global politics don't escalate that crisis on EU border into WW3. In the powder-keg worthy times like these, all nuclear plants reminds tge public opinion of risks not present at times of peace.✌
@@vitalijslebedevs1629 All of this is people dependent. And if humans can't control themselves then power from any and all means must be used. We don't want to see people starving because the system broke down.
Yes I following the thorium reactor designs and I'm hoping they are building some soon for evolution prior to going into mass production. If Thorium reactors are what they say they are we are gong to be much better off with Thorium than wind and solar.
@@sonnyshaw3962 IMO it can't be simple this or that in energy production. We need both and all viable options. Energy is literal power in all senses, that's why now cancelling of one country will make everything, not only oil and gas, more expensive.
And to @Brad Manson, no, people shouldn't starve because of the loss of control by some big idiots in charge. I'm afraid - some will though, as allways, but let's hope not all of us.
Helps to explain why this feels like an infomercial…
you make boiling water for a steam engine sound real fancy.. but sounds good to me.. more safer
That is the essence of every reactor ever built. Steam.
Actually steam is pretty dangerous. It had key role in every major nuclear accident. It's fine to use steam for the energy generation part, but water shouldn't be inside the reactor core.
@@andrasbiro3007 Why
@@andrasbiro3007 Does this process produce any kind of toxic waste? Also, what is done with the waste?
@@zorroinhell5549 All nuclear disasters have been a problem with the pressure containment unit of the water. Water under eminence heat and pressures creates a ton of steam that can seriously injure people, just look at a kettle with a stout.
I work in renewables but honestly believe more in nuclear. When it comes to cost and meeting net zero, something that is often overlooked is that renewables are not dispatchable (as in you can't decide when they generate) and there is not current technology for storing energy between seasons, meaning that it is very expensive to run a reliable net zero system off them, whereas nuclear solves this, also without turning the countryside into industrial wasteland. If those LCOE's were adjusted for firm power, solar would be near infinite as it produces nothing in winter evenings.
South Chile has very constant strong winds in one direction. Best way to export the energy is as E-fuels.
@@jimj2683 Maybe southern Chile has a source of constant renewable energy, but most places don’t. I’m with Cameron; unless we get a revolution in energy storage, we’re going to need nuclear to get off fossil fuels.
@@RyanWilliams222 Are you dumb? I was talking about exporting the energy from a country with low cost green energy to countries with high cost green energy.
@@jimj2683 exporting means spending extra energy to actually move it. So in reault you will make it expensive. That is the reason why "the world" does not use sachara desert as world wide solar generator. The transport loses are humongous.
Those LCOE looks like they are from the Lazard paper that is pure propaganda. It have been debunked a large number of times. Those number is even higher than the strike price for HPC that did include a sort of kick back system to the UK government. Pretty much the grid pays HPC £92.50 minimum, then it kicks back about £20 to the grid via installation and also about £4 directly to the government.
In Finland the strike price was €50.
It is hilarious how every time anyone in media wants to show a nuclear power station, they show a picture of cooling towers. Cooling towers are of course vast and imposing structures, but they are basically empty and contain nothing more threatening than water and water vapour. Their function is to cool water from a steam generator, being coal fired or nuclear. The white clouds emanating from them is water vapour. Their characteristic shape is the result of a mathematical computation to find the design that requires the least amount of material to construct them.
I personally like airships but don't like blimps so the smaller plants like this excite me cause we're getting closer and closer to something usable for a electric airship. Thank you for the video this is exciting.
Airships still to slow now to make it properly viable would only be for tourism stuff. (joyrides)
Fastest airships are still slower than cars average trip speed (which is most countries with decent roads is around 45-50mph Average speed)
And in larger countries where average trip speeds are 60-65mph as might only go past 1 town within 100 miles.
@@tbas8741 the point isn't speed. Its luxury. If you wanna cross the ocean you wouldn't buy a yacht.
Airships are pretty sweet. Maybe we will have them again.
@@Krill_all_health_insuranceCEOs we kinda do. The good year blimp is a airship. Tho I prefer the pretty ones. Pirates of the Caribbean style ships going through the clouds.
It doesn't sound to me like were going to get everything we want out of any type of energy production but I feel SMRs and nuclear in general are better then what we currently have.
wait think about it do you seriously want regular morons controlling these things when professionals can allow existing plants to meltdown that could be a bad thing just saying safe does not take stupidity into consideration people will find ways to make these thing melt down that happened with Chernobyl after all
@@raven4k998 you take a look at the history of nuclear power the number of incidents is extremely minimal. Like well under 1%. So though yes you can say that that's a concern it's not a huge one and the death and injury rate with nuclear is lower than any current form of energy production and use type we use now. It's also technically the cleanest form of energy we have.
Yeah I hear what you say when you say stupid, including yourself and myself, the average intelligence of we the human race is not all that great. But I think that could be mitigating if we actually had education systems that taught us how to be critical thinking intelligent human beings instead of just stuffing a lot of facts into our heads that we really don't ever use. Also we would probably have to retool the communication systems that we have so that we're not broadcasting a lot of stupid into people's lives which is the current state of radio and television. But maybe if we grew smarter people people would be less interested in all the stupid on the internet and television that there is.
@@WayneBraack yeah but how many power plants right now is 1% over how many with those smaller plants think about it 1% becomes more often when you have more plants silly goose after all the same thing is with covid 19 which kills 1% why fear covid 19 and not smaller more abundant nuclear power plants all over the place vs larger ones that are not as abundant?
@@raven4k998 , care to put that in terms of accidents or deaths per KWH? I'd be willing to wager that, all in all, nuclear is orders of magnitude more safe and in addition to it already being orders of magnitude less expensive.
You want the next gen of clean energy? We have to be suffiently prosperous to afford the development of better forms of power. To afford it we HAVE to use nuclear as the cheapest.
Prosperity + necessity = high-tech solutions
@@PureAmericanPatriot Nuclear is the new pandemic kid it's as deadly as covid 19 with deaths don't believe me we can irradiate you for you to find out lol
The most important factor moving forward is the decentralization of the grid, it's the only way we can keep aging grids alive without the complete overhaul of transmission systems.
But don't forget economies of scale. Bigger generating units tend to achieve lower cost/MWh compared to smaller ones (I was a bit surprised with these SMR numbers, I must say). If (big generation + grid) costs are lower than micro-generation units then there's no economic rationale to switch. The first electric systems were quite decentralized but, as technology improved, it became the way it is now. Maybe technological progress makes it turn around again...
@@nunocarmona its coz big plants can't be built in factories/shipyard this makes then cost way more, Modular Reactors can be standardized and built in factories/shipyards massive lowering the cost, as an example ThorCons ones they are building in shipyards which is probably the biggest at 0.5 Gigawatts
@@nunocarmona one of the costs of nuclear people don't understand is government. The larger sites are more cost effective due to fees government has on the sites. The fees and charges don't scale so larger sites are more cost effective. If the government wasn't trying to kill the industry quietly it would make more financial sense for smaller modular units prefabricated then distributed.
I really like this _concept,_ I hope execution can be as good as promise.
On a related note, ¿why can’t we make the reactor itself the disposal vsl? Build the reactor far far underground- roughly 1,ØØØ feet below ground (placing it below even global average for ground water). When the facilities are deactivated permanently, remove that which must be removed, then fill the remaining cavities with either water or concrete, or some combination thereof, or even something else entirely.
That sounds like a tremendous amount of work excavating not to mention costwise when you could just work on making the facilities safer and/or smaller
Coz thats removes the positive side of having a small modules in the first place - the ability to build them almost everywhere. So instead of having one dump for the waste - on one location, you have thousands of them all over the place.
Because the drilling is insanely expensive and laborious.
Fast neutron reactors don’t have to use liquid metals for cooling, there are several designs is being developed that use molten salts, either as a cooling medium for solid fuel elements, or as carrier liquid for dissolved fuel.
Elysium and Moltex Energy both use the latter approach.
Well I guess salts kind of technically counts as molten metal. What is a salt anyway if not a metal ion bonded to a nonmetal ion...
The engineering challenges associated with MSRs are massive though. The corrosive properties of salts and the elevated operating temperatures mean longevity is a real issue. There's also the operational requirement to keep the primary loop hot at all times, or the salts will solidify and functionally destroy the the reactor.
Regarding the "waste" concern, modern reactors such as molten-salt based could easily separate out the useful materials for medical isotopes, xenon gas, etc - all valuable. We don't do this today because solid fuel randomly traps these valuable things all mixed up, it's like tossing your entire pantry on the floor - a worthless mess - but do it while the reactor runs, and you have value-added and less waste.
Ok is a molten salt reactor already built and how many and where?
If not then what you are saying is basically just allot of hot air.
"Easily" separated? Only for truly bizarre versions of interpretation of "easily". I'm seeing a lot of misinformation about nuclear, and unless you're willing to store the waste in your own basement (which you could never assure for the life of the waste), you shouldn't be advocating.
How do I find more information on this? Books, resources?
There's not a single working MSR in the world, only prototypes, which means we're at least 20 years away from any meaningful energy supply from this reactor type.
And that is generously assuming they actually work and the break-through will be in the next few years.
By that time it will already be too late to mitigate the climate catastrophy we're heading for. Massive and immediate build up of renewables (wind, solar etc.) is the *only* way forward, that can actually save us..
@@RavensEagle Oak ridge ran a test reactor back in the 60s and as I understand it, "communist" occupied China finally has their prototype reactors, based on the Oak ridge research by the way, up and running.
Hey Matt, did the LCOE numbers take into account the 60% cost reduction through commercialization mentioned earlier in the video? And thanks for yet another awesome video!
I'm fairly confident that the LCoE calculations are done after the fact, not as a future estimation.
That is, the numbers that you see are essentially what each power generation source has cost per what it has produced. Granted, this is the first time I've seen any LCoE that takes batteries into account for renewables, even though they are a vital element of it.
LCOE is really flawed. It doesn't take a lot into account. A newer study by the UN concluded that nuclear is actually significantly cheaper than wind, solar, and hydro. Also, construction times and costs of nuclear power plants are also much lower than that of wind, solar, and hydro.
@@DanskeCrimeRiderTV That really isn't remotely surprising. A mere 24 hours of storage already makes them cost-prohibitive. Energy collectors would have to be able to cover for dips in collectible energy over YEARS to equal dispatchable generators.
Solar is unstable. They has quiet low over-the-year production in mild climate.
And very low production during
winters. So in winter you'll get less than 1/20 of summer production. Moreover there could be weeks without sun and massive snowfalls when you'll get nearly nothing. How to compensate those winter drops? To build x20 more power and storages capable for storing for weeks. It would be economical disaster.
Of course there are climate zones where solar energy is profitable.
@@DanskeCrimeRiderTV Tiny reactors are suffering from scaling problems. You will inevitably contaminat more material when using smaller reactors per MWh. Second problem is insurance. Today normal reactors are highly underinsured because insurances including a meltdown would make them uneconomic. There are security problems. You can protect a dozen of nuclear reactors from terrorists but would this work for thousands spread all over the country? And would they keep up the training standards for the operators?
And the last part is: the amount of uranium is simply limited. It was calculated that we had enough Uranium for 200 years worldwide if we keep on going. If we step up the use we will run into problems very soon.
I've wondered about this myself past several years... I'm well aware of the arguments that are against nuclear energy. I just wish we could start on this micro and modular reactors on a trial basis and see it grow gradually. Simultaneously reducing dependence on Fossil fuels.
Especially with the EV boom, that's happening and going to grow exponentially, we need these power packed modular reactors urgently... everywhere.
Icing on this would be using these for hydrogen powered fuel cell EVs.
Can't wait to get to that future... quality of life will be better especially in developing countries like India etc , where i am.
Great video... please keep them coming on this topic.
🙏
Exactly! Approve some small-ish pilot programs. Get these things out in the field (isolated and safe) to put them through their paces, shake out bugs, etc. I feel certain that nuclear HAS to be a part of our energy future. I am a huge fan of solar, hydro, and even wind (although I have reservations about wind). But nuclear MUST be part of our solution. The intermittency of renewables is a big problem. Nuclear does not have that problem.
The more I learn about small and micro nuclear reactors, the better I like the idea. Think of them sort of like washing machines. Factory production has made washing machines completely ubiquitous, cheap, reliable. If you have more laundry that needs washing, you get another machine, and add more as needed. You don't have to predict how much laundry you "might" be washing in 10-20 years. Start with what you need, and scale up as you go. With the new designs coming, that is exactly what we can do with energy. It also helps the energy grid remain flexible enough to respond to changes in population and energy consumption that is NOT predicted. Some areas suddenly grow, some areas don't or even shrink. Small and micro nuclear can easily respond to those changes. Initially a bit higher $/mWh cost, but the flexibility is worth it. Even more, as designs get refined, the manufacturing becomes more refined, and price will drop. Again, think of them like washing machines.
We are building them in Canada. We got the GE Hitachi and the ultra safe nuclear reactor mentioned in the video being built in Ontario. New Brunswick is building the Moltex reactor. But that might take longer as it's still being designed.
Well, I am not an expert but have spent a brief period of my life working in the nuclear industry as a draftsman mostly on ultrasonic test blocks for welds. I don't like molten metal reactors because they exhibited a lot of technical problems that could result in plant fires and loss of coolent accident s. I also became disillusioned with the long storage times needed for uranium plutonium cycle reactor wastes and the extreme toxic nature of plutonium. All of this was unknown until the industry tried developing uranium to plutonium reactors. ( As you can see this was a job early in my career and I am nearing retirement now) The cost of the huge plants of that era, long construction times, & technical difficulties at that period of history indicated costs higher than solar & wind energy with a legacy of extremely toxic wastes for thousands of years to come. Over the years, it was determined that breeding fuel from Thorium, a very abundant substance, could produce much shorter lived wastes with easy in plant reprocessing of nuclear fuels provided that a molten salt reactor was used. ( solid reprocessing is very difficult) It is also very difficult and hazardous to make bomb grade fuel from thorium breeders with the results of a poor performing nuclear bomb. ( found out through research that the USA performed a nuclear test with a U233 bomb) Molten salt Thorium reactors and pebble bed reactors ( probably a non-breeding reactor for the latter) lend themselves well to modular/factory made/ smaller units. When using a helium or CO2 generation loop with a closed loop bryton cycle turbine the trend of the slow passage of slightly radioactivity is not only slowed but re generation loop can take full advantage of the higher core temperatures of the reactor core for a higher efficiency plant. In short, we have learned a lot about making nuclear plants over the years and perhaps it is time for the USA and other nations to at to work at creating a cost effective and far safer nuclear industry. An international and joint effort should not over burden anyone's economy for the remaining research needed to accomplish this.
we have known 50-70 years ago how to create safer and better reactors except the US nuclear committee killed it because it couldn't make nukes out of the waste and spent decades propagandizing people into believing those weren't feasible or an option.
This should be common knowledge now but the more I learn and the more I see...the more I am amazed at how well propaganda works because people don't bother to question anything they are told.
I don't have any experience working with nuclear reactors or anything but from what I have heard and seen from people like you and videos like this, I think nuclear needs to be a much bigger component to tackling the climate crisis then it already is. From my experience, the main issue with nuclear and renewable energy (actually nearly any energy source) is mining. I think if we can find a non toxic method of mining uranium, thorium and other nuclear elements we could safely and cleanly power the world off of them. Like I said I have no experience working with nuclear reactors but I have some second hand experience with mining (my dad worked in a nickel mine/acid plant) and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 On mining I can only go by what I read and view on videos. Mining thorium results in a very low amount of mine tailings. ( left over removed and piled up mine materials) As most of the material mined is usable to breed the thorium into U-233, the fissionable material that is used in the reactor to make heat and power. Uranium mining on the other hand, produces large amounts of low level radioactive mine tailings that can become airborne dust. This is a huge environmental problem in parts of Australia and in the state of Nebraska, USA. Whether the mining is performed by open pit ( strip mining) or from tunneling; I really can't comment on. I do know that strip mining often releases a lot of harmful materials into the water table from coal strip mines near where I grew up. To get a better answer you will need to talk to a mining engineer or a knowledgeable miner.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 Check out anything by Dr. James Conca, or any of his appearances in videos or podcasts. He has decades of knowledge on everything from mining, to splitting, to the disposal of nuclear fuel.
The crazy thing about nuclear fuel and waste, is that there is so much potential energy in so little material. Not to mention, unlike every other industry, the toxic waste quickly (much quicker than you would expect) degrades back into harmless materials. Not only do we already have access to more Uranium than we currently need, there is technology on the horizon to extract more than we would ever need, safely from sea water.
Over 7 decades of nuclear power has resulted in fewer deaths than literally any other source of power generation. More people in the world (especially emerging countries) die from the inhalation of smoke from wood/coal annually, than have ever died from anything related to nuclear energy.
@@jazzthedinosaur2183 wasnt the issue he pointed out to me the most was that except for that one type of reactor, that the rest of them were like double the cost per MW that solar and wind offer. thats what really caught my eye. also I did learn that we could litteraly build like a shit ton of panels and wind out in the dessert. the way you transport it around the country is instead of using our normal AC power lines. You would have to build Dedicated DC power lines that would disperse this energy around the country. China is already doing this and building this and they ahve about 29 of these DC lines in place already. when i heard this it just seemed like "WHY ARENT WE DOING THIS?" another aspect of solar that I like better, is I would much rather the goverment give me a giant tax credit and maybe financing to help me buy my own panels? why? it increases my ability to own my own life better. have more security and in a sense freedom in a country that dosent really create it for many except about 10% of the population. To me, efforts like that, do more than just create power, the empower us to live better lives.
I work in High Voltage Transmission in Canada. In all honesty the two things holding back nuclear development the most is irrational fears specifically of the older generations and regulations. The rate of energy emergencies is growing every year due to population increase yet other than wind, no new plants are being built. Additionally due to environmental crusading many of the baseload plants have been shut down or converted and derated (Coal plants converted to Nat Gas generate about 10% less power). combine that with the intermittency of wind it just creates a nightmare for those trying to keep the power on. All of this puts tremendous strain on the grid all in the name of virtue signaling. For example we cannot burn coal anymore for "carbon goals" but it is perfectly fine to load it on a train car, transfer it to a boat and let China burn it in their super inefficient setups instead of our highly regulated systems with scrubbers and CCS systems... which were all shut down doubling the price of power in 3 years.
Great to see industry expert feedback. Nuclear is critical and PR is a mess. Everyone seems to think we just need renewables but mass transmission, and storage (especially seasonal) is a pipe dream for reaching 100%. Replacing nuclear with solar and natural gas is a lateral move at best. Biomass is also a big loophole in climate agreements.
It's almost like the collapse was planned
@@ccibinel There is also one very important thing they do not talk about regarding renewables that is more known in the industry but not know outside. There is a subtype of electricity that helps support stability and is required for powerful mechanical devices called "Reactive Power" . The thing about Reactive Power is it is required for many things but is primarily created as a by product of spinning mass generation (non-Inverted AKA Thermal plants) Renewables do not produce enough MVar or inertial properties to maintain grid stability nor large mechanical loads. (ie industrial settings like refineries or grain elevators). In my opinion it is absolutely a pipe dream, renewables are great for a supplement to reduce fossil fuel consumption... but nothing more, and once it gets to be 30% of a grid's total net generation problems start to occur.
@@ccibinel Actually the real issue with renewables in some areas is the politics of storage. For example in the UK the cost of electricity actually goes negative at points. If you had a 100kWh battery bank and even a 3kW solar PV roof you could most likely draw from the grid when prices go negative and sell when they peak. When solid state Sodium Ion cells are in production then the 100kWh battery banks will be no bigger than current 30kWh battery banks. However the cost of battery banks is outrageous compared to what they should be. It's about £1000 per kWh including installation. The LG INR18650-F1L in one off pricing if you go to somewhere like NKON (In the Nether Lands) works out £0.2 per Wh so £200 per kWh or £3000 for a capacity the same as a Tesla 15kWh power wall which costs upwards of £12,000 installed. The electronics and casing are not expensive either £1000 for both would be over the top. So my conclusion is the shareholders just don't want domestic level storage as it would affect profits. There are also flow batteries that would fit under the stairs (just) in many houses that have a capacity of 1MWh. IE enough for a small industrial unit. Again that would affect profits. The only solution being pushed is gridscale. I wonder why LOL.
we should just put the radioactive waste in your basement San Onofre has a lot do you want some?
When I think of small nuclear reactors, the first thing that comes to mind is the nuclear reactors that power ships and submarines of the U.S. Navy. Can they provide ideas that can be used for civilian applications, or is everything about them a military secret? What does the U.S. government do with the radio waste from those reactors, or is that something that I would rather not know?
I don'th think size is really the limiting faction, it's production methods and mass production to allow them to be way more afforable. Navies usually don't have the same interests as a commercial company so I doubt naval reactors are a good blueprint.
The waste gets removed from the submarines at night in Bremerton and transported down the freeways to Hanford is my guess.
They cook the waste into high potency radioactive fentanyl and smoke it. Hence why Biden is so fucked up. Brains rotting quickly, all that nuclear energy is spent
Uranium cores are changed up every few years.
From what I read a while ago they do not remove the fuel from US submarines like what happens at decommissioned power plants, instead the entire reactor compartment of the submarine is cut out, filled with cement and then buried. There is a site in the US where 30 or so are buried, a sort of mass grave for reactor compartments. This is still marginally better than what we Brits and the Russians do as both of our countries just anchor old subs in port with a plan to process the reactors at a time when technology allows, though we Brits at least tend to our dead subs annually to make sure they aren't leaking or sinking while the Russians completely neglect theirs. I have no idea what the French do with their retired subs but I would imagine they park them somewhere like we do.
A couple of arguments: It remains to be seen how economical it will be to add additional reactors when more power generation is needed. You mentioned Thorium reactors as having less waiste. That only occurs when "fuel reprocessing" is used, and that also requires hugh regulatory licensing and red tape, and not to mention the political and other misinformation generated by anti-nukes. Also, maybe in future videos on nuclear, can you not use the images of 55 gallon drums as how we currently store unspent nuclear fuel? But I agree that the best option to get "generation 4" nuclear started is to use solid fueled reactors that use TRISO fuel (a few of reactors you showed use TRISO). I'm not too keen on using water though as I wonder if large containment domes are needed to contain a steam explosion.
I've studied electrical engineering and my engineering thesis was also on plasma reactors, which touched a little the subject of fusion.
I was interested in energy market for at least a decade now and I can honestly say - *SMR ain't gonna happen, or at least not on the large scale.*
Electricity is a universal commodity, which means that lowest price wins, with rare exceptions.
Microreactors ro SMRs having theoretical LCOE higher than PV and wind before they're even mass produces is already market loss, and this is without following trends of those sources.
Photovoltaics are getting cheaper every year, with theoretical costs in orders of magnitude lower than now.
Battery costs will drop below 50$/kWh on pack level before end of this decade, which would make even gigantic home supplies cheap.
Both of the above are near no-maintenance, with maybe exception of cleaning your PV once in a while, while any reactor will require maintenance as well as refueling and fuel regeneration.
Microreactors might come in handy on freighters and similar applications, but only if they provide enough power at low cost.
Entire nuclear sector exist pretty much as a sideproduct of atom bomb production, and it never was cheap or affordable as people often stated.
To even be remotely viable in near future, we must be talking about LCOE around 40$/MWh or cheaper, which is closest to thorium, which doesn't yet *work.*
Possible applications I might see would be large cruise ships and freighters, and possibly larger trains if reactors were small enough.
It's a cool concept, but people won't overpay for electricity to have it from cool source.
lol people are over paying for a cool source already, aka solar/wind :/
@Jesus Saves PV + battery installation doesn't need to be hooked up to grid either, and the cost of such installation is already lower than estimate cost for SMR at mass production, which doesn't exist.
And both PV and battery installations are still dropping in cost sharply, where nuclear has seen no progress in last 20-30 years.
@@bencoad8492 Both solar and wind are cheapest sources of electricity next to hydro, which has extremely limited availability anyway.
Lack of grid batteries, which have never been necessary before is completely different thing, which will be solved separately in next decade or so.
Cheapest li-ion is already at 65$ per kWh and other chemistries aim at
@Jesus Saves 2017 was 5 years ago, so half a decade.
Making excellent progress doesn't really matter, if overall energy cost is higher than PV and wind.
3rd world doesn't have any infrastructure to deal with nuclear waste nor facilities to recycle such waste.
This would literally make them fully dependent on more advanced countries draining them from money.
Water purification and waste treatment can be run with just PV, and even without batteries for much cheaper than you'll ever get with SMRs.
Especially for 3rd world, electricity cost is the most important, and solar needing no maintenance as well is just a big winner here.
The main problem with nuclear waste is it is being wasted. Even after its is called waste it still has close to 90% of its fuel. This fuel could be recovered by reprocessing it and reused in the reactor. This reprocessing can be done on site which would reduce the over all waste problem.
I think "spent" comes down to a minimum watts per square cm seconds output? The power generation side is a steam cycle, and failure to superheat correctly means turbines may not survive the onslaugt of vapor.
@@flinch622 "spent" fuel can be reprocessed and reused. The point is it can be reused and if done correctly this process could possibly be done onsite or next door to the power plant without issue. Making the fuel last 10x longer or more and drastically reducing waste
I just want to point out that the Soviet nuclear submarine program had a vessel which was powered by a reactor cooled with a lead bismith mix, If I remember correctly the downside of this design was that if the reactor ever stopped being critical the metal inside would solidifyTurning the entire thing into a very expensive brick of radioactive metal.
yikes
😳
Radiant's design is interesting - but I'll be curious how they handle helium migration as helium REALLY permeates through a lot of systems. That was one challenge in Colorado that used helium cooled reactors. You're either going to have to top-off such a system regularly or have some very fancy re-cap methods.
Freeman Dyson did an interview about how he and others designed small reactors for hospitals and the like that are fail safe. He said they demonstrated one and tried to make it melt down and couldn’t do it. Anyway it was cool
It would be life-saving to do this for hospitals. Hospitals always need backup energy anyway
What ever happened to the CANDU reactors that were being built in Canada? I thought they were designed to use spent fuel rods from “traditional “ reactors and able to utilize up to 95% of the remaining fuel in the rods. Will the micro reactors be able to power container ships, thus eliminating their need of bunker fuel and its massive carbon emissions?
Thanks for sharing this insightful video series. Wishing you and your team a great week.
Not a bad idea to use them as a power source for our ships in the oceans, but will we enforce bringing them back to port instead of dumping the old fuel over
Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors like the ones you have in Canada are not really seen anymore as the future of nuclear energy.
They actually produce more waste than conventional PWRs and also the core design needs to be more robust, since the power density is lower than in PWRs.
Canada and Argentina have both already discarded the possibility of building more of these reactors, with only India remaining as the one willing to build more of them (because they already developed their indigenous tech based on them).
And as to nuclear waste recycling, that's on fast reactors, which are the next big thing in the nuclear industry. They are able to recover the remaining energy from spent fuel used in PWRs while at the same time transmutating the actinides into much less of a problem, since they decay faster.
Micro reactors and SMRs are both able to provide marine propulsion for container ships. This issue is being discussed in a much more political debate than technical, since many ports refuse to accept nuclear-powered vessels, although they have safety systems much more reliable and trustworthy than current diesel-powered ones.
There is a high expectation that Molten Salt Reactors will be the ideal solution for naval applications due to their enhanced properties in proliferarion resistance and inherent safety. The first ones are expected to come online by 2030, with ThornCon and Terrestrial Energy being the expected market leaders in the West. China has a very mature and well developed program on Molten Salt Reactors and should have the first one up and running by the end of this decade.
The main benefit of CANDU and PHWR is that they operate on unenriched uranium. At the time of design, Canada didn't have any enrichment facilities. Natural uranium was the only option. The secondary benefit of CANDU is that they don't have to be shutdown to refuel or shuffle the fuel rods.
PWR burns up to 5% of the U-235. CANDU burns up to 7%. It burns a little more, but not much more and not 95%.
If 1 MW is a microreactor, then 5 kW must be a nanoreactor. When I was in university back in the 1980s, there was a SLOWPOKE facility right at the entrance to campus. It was a nuclear reactor that was walk-away safe in the downtown of a city of 2 million. There is another one just like it currently in downtown Montreal, also 2 million population. When Canada was looking into getting submarines in the 1990s, SLOWPOKE was floated as their power plant.
I honestly think these are the coolest thing, I desperately want to know how small we can physically push designs.
Ditto! I think personally the idea of a Ford Nucleon is both terrifying and cool! I think technically it's probably quite feasible especially if it used a closed fuel system like an eVinci-style reactor that is only designed to be refueled after being dismantle. I suspect if we ever see nuclear-powered transport it would use similar technology to prevent leaking and terrorism...
Good explanation; not too simple, not too complex, so well balanced.
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Also I did my senior project on a particular micro reactor design from INL. Microreactors won't replace large-scale power plants or likely even compete with SMRs. They really make financial sense for off-grid communities like logging/mining towns, military bases, or fast deployment for disaster relief. They could see some commercial thermal production too. Basically it's a lot cheaper than trucking in diesel fuel every week, but not even close to competitive with a power line to a larger nearby generating station. They're super F-ing cool, but most of society's electricity will come from more concentrated sources because we tend to live in concentrated areas.
Awesome. Thanks for clarifying!
Super cool comment
The only good place for micro-reactors is in outer space, off of earth. There, you eject the waste products on a trajectory towards the sun, and you are done. Here on earth we have yet to find a safe way to deal with the waste products, and they last a million years. Our children's child will curse our name if we keep using nuclear.
10,000 years is a long time to have to store a hazardous material. The amount of waste would pile up over time and I think we would just be asking for trouble. I like the idea of Thorium reactors since the fuel is plentiful and they can help dispose of conventional nuclear waste. Definitely need more research on the issue.
There is a lot of research and knowledge on Thorium see you tube searches
Thanks
I can't imagine how micro reactors could have widespread deployment from a security perspective. There maybe some individual use cases, but they would need to scale the security hurdle too. Having hundreds at a particular location doesn't make sense either. SMR's are just a better alternative when you consider all the operational aspects.
Even widespread use of SMRs means they got to be deployed everywhere around the world, including where the "regulatory framework" can just evaporate (revolutions etc), people start shooting at them or terrorists take out the fuel and make dirty bombs.Nothing like that has ever happened, which makes the risk impossible to calculate, but again, in order to make a dent in climate change those reactors would need to be almost everywhere...
The security comes from the lack of risk they pose. Micro reactors use low grade nuclear fuel, which is useless for weapons or even improvised "dirty bombs". As small as they are, they can be effectively protected by the same security measures and levels, your local bank uses.
@@AaronCMounts ANY nuclear fuel can be used in a dirty bomb! I was a nuclear plant supervisor in the Navy and worked at several nuclear utility plants afterward. I know a lot more than your average bear. Bank security is nowhere near adequate for any nuclear facility.
@@AaronCMounts That is highly dubious. Any radioactive material, even that used for medical purposes can be abused for dirty nuclear bombs. And none of that technology or the infrastructure for it has been developed so far. It's pie in the sky thinking.
@@tgmct Can you show me how radioactive these micro-reactors are expected to be? As the video clearly said, they use low-grade fuel. Can you show where they're at serious risk of releasing hazardous levels of radiation if tampered with?
In Norway about 70% of total power consumption is taken from the grid direct to factories and industry, I can see micro reactors helping a lot with that. In times of little rain and warm dry summers, having micro reactors to run the factories and leaving a lot more power for the private marked would help the people ALOT, we have INSANE power bills lately, since like October of 2021 the price of power has just been of the charts here.
In my area it is 8 to 10 times as expensive as last the last 5 years for me, putting me back around 350 to 450$ pr month just in power, and I have a tiny house and barely use power lol.-
Having micro reactors in combination with huge battery "banks" in mountains and such should be a thing, but they have wind on their brain the once running Norway, and to be honest, is sucks, WAY to much downtown and not enough production when on. Also our nature takes a huge beating and well birds like eagles are dying in a rate never seen before, they crash into them. All in all, bad for Norway and not many want them here, they look bad, sound bad, do bad for nature and all in all ARE just a bad product.
We have around 70-80% water based power plants here, combining it with coolant for smaller micro reactors should be a easy job, they already have the huge halls and "buildings" in the mountains of Norway, a switch or even combo could be a perfect combo.
And when it comes to waste disposal, Longyearbyen (Svalbard) the island of coal production WAY up north that is part of Norway is laying down the coal mines over the next years, why not make them into permafrost controlled storage areas? It is cold, DEEP, low population area on a island WAYS away from anyone or anything.
Also one micro reactors could run all of Longyearbyen easy.
You might check out the Dual Fluid Reactor. If the hype can be believed, it can run on uranium, thorium, or even nuclear waste. Plus the design uses molten lead (yes, lead!) for coolant, so that gives them the benefits of metal cooled reactors.
*I am all for going Nuclear. After 55 Years of fail safe testing FRANCE has proven running 76 reactors is safe and makes the cheapest power out of ALL other Ideas and is 6000% cheaper than the BEST renewables. If we are serious about putting 50,000,000 electric cars on the road in the next 12 years lets NOT power them with coal fired electric power plants which is what we are quickly heading for.*
People say that nuclear power isn't an option due to weapons proliferation. Who needs nuclear bombs when after the curse is lifted I become the most powerful mage alive? Think on that...
I read about a concept for a micro fusion reactor that used stacked X-Ray solar panels to turn radiation directly into electricity, and the panels themselves were the shielding.
those panels would be photovolataic, but not solar, since they are not getting energy from the sun ( or any star )
@@diegoantoniorosariopalomin2206 That brings up the point that PV panels on a planet around any other star would also not be Solar Panels as they are not processing photons from Sol.
I'd like them to go small enough to install in my home as a localised power source instead of from who knows how far away a plant, better yet small enough to plug individual appliances into.
no.
Yes
I don't think its a good idea to be allowing radioactive material to be sold to individuals. Most people would use it properly, but then terrorists and other illegal crime would use it in dangerous ways. IE building bombs.
@@wiseconqueror533 I don't mean for individuals to transport, maintain or use directly, what I mean is it would be installed & startes by the company selling them and repairs etc would be handled by them under their warranty, after which it will cost the home owner for each instance of maintenance, like with boiler systems, it's also fine if those services are handled by the electric companies, the point is to reduce reliance on the grid
Hello Matt
Have you studied the SL1 accident?
Who would own small reactors and therefore the waste? What is to keep a SMR owner from, at the end of reactor life, just filing bankruptcy and walking away? This is a common practice in the mining industry.
And the coal and gas industries as there are numerous vacant coal mines that sit with exposed coal deposits and other harmful water and chemicals and thousands of abandoned gas pipes still emitting small amounts of gas into the atmosphere. It's pretty insane.
Most likely you wouldn't own, but lease the reactors. At the end of life you just return it to the manufacturer, who deals with the waste. And of course there should be a backup plan in case the manufacturer goes bankrupt.
Or, I saw concepts where you can just leave the reactor in the ground, as it functions as a waste repository too. These would run for decades, so you wouldn't run out of space any time soon.
I love your videos. Although I must say, I was disappointed that a video about micro nuclear reactors never once mentions their actual size. That’s like doing a video on the worlds richest man without talking about his actual net worth.
From the video, they are smaller than a semi trailer.
It can fit within a cargo container
I hope someday we all can have tiny reactors in our homes.
Still need to solve decommissioning and entombment. Once it gets cost competitive to use.
@@davidmccarthy6061 That problem will never get solved , it's just inherent to fission to have unacceptable fuel processing cost
@@davidmccarthy6061 better than putting the waste in the atmosphere.
@@cedriceric9730 when you encase your quasai-inert, solid ceramic fuel… in high strength, corrosion resistant alloys, yeah it’s pretty expensive to reprocess. But the ability to dissolve an actinide salt into either water or another molten salt would seriously make reprocessing cheaper. Fluids are superior to solids in this regard, and a fluid fueled reactor would make it much more affordable
Nuclear diamond batteries, if they can be scaled up, can last 10,000 years, uses waste from nuclear power plants, and is totally safe.
You listed the cost of solar beating out nuclear, but does that cost include the price of proper disposal of the windmill parts and battery parts? or does it get thrown in a waste yard? did you include the cost of the entire chain in those prices?
If we want to include end2end costs, what about costs to dispose nuclear waste? What about costs of national security over nuclear fuel?
In short, thanks to what @@mnfchen said... the answer to that, Layarion, is absolutely yes. It does include those things. It's sort of like how people try to use wind turbines killing birds as an argument against them. Sure, they have that problem, but to a lesser extent as what they're replacing.
That said, what happens to the cost of solar/wind when you remove the $6.6 billion in subsidies?
@@StreamingF1ydave You'd have to remove the $5.9 TRILLION (yes, trillion, not billion, though to be fair this is worldwide from 2020) from the fossil fuel to have a fair comparison if you're going in that direction.
@@KuariThunderclaw fossil isn't subsidized
Your videos are always so well put together and educational. Much appriciated, Matt.
Agreed .... very useful information
I think modular reactors are absolutely the way to go. As we've seen with Elysium Industries, modular reactors have the potential to build up to medium- to large-scale plants.
Having scalable units means that zoning for nuclear doesn't have to be so widespread, which potentially opens up more land area for deployment given the smaller footprints.
And as Matt explained, modularity allows for utilization of the global transportation system, which can cut down costs and avoid other red tape of moving such large equipment.
Renewables work so well because they're so modular/distributed. Different locations can adopt the technology at different times, and owners can supplement their installations as cash flow or other reasons allow it.
Modularity also allows for greater manufacturing flexibility. Different ratings for products can be allowed depending on customer needs, and supply chains can be better relied upon since the sheer scale of components is smaller (more manufacturers can accompany the tech, which means more competition and all of the benefits of capitalism).
Storage and containment are definitely an issue here. Nuclear plants are centralized and away from the public to prevent radiation leakage/exposure given plant failure (even though there are plenty of protections to prevent this). Distributing more radiative material means that the risk of public contamination goes up, so the risk analysis is definitely complex. But again as Matt showed, Nuclear is the 3rd or 4th least deathly of all of the energy sources. Lots of things in life are relatively radiative too, like flying, so the risk might not seem as great as what some people believe.
It all comes down to climate change. We can implement renewables + storage waaaay faster than centralized thermal plants, so I'd be more on board with nuclear if commercial demonstrations of SMRs existed. In the meantime, society can get so much more bang for its buck by deploying more wind & solar + storage. The IPCC AR6 confirms this
We should have electricity generation at the zip code level of granularity totally minimizing power lost through transmission; a huge savings.
Honestly, I'm not sure these "micro" reactors are small enough. Take a look at radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTGs, and Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY). Because I'm still waiting for the 2.5 meter cubed, 15 Mw, self contained reactor from the video game "Space Engineers". The building I live in houses two apartments and could run rather nicely on 10-15 Kw, even during an Ohio winter. If I could get that with an operational life of 50 years, it could be sunk into the foundations.
Problem is, RTG's only generated a relatively small amount of power with a short lifespan.
@@cappuccino-1721 The thermoelectric material PTZ materials degrade from fast neutron & high energy gamma bombardment & from thermal gradients varying.
You aint getting 15Mw from a RTG.
15Mw is 15,000,000 watts.
The RTG mounted on the Mars rovers gives 110 watts.
The 3 massive RTGs on the Voyager space probe each provide..... 160 watts.
A typical home needs 6000 watts (6kW). So yes, the 'Space Engineers' reactor could run one house, as long as you are prepared to, several times a week, fly into outer space to a nearby asteroid to gather the necessary feul to keep it running ;)
@@Debbiebabe69 The Top-ROCC and SEEK IGLOO radar systems in Alaska use RTGs. Five kilograms of strontium-90 generates 240W electrical using thermocouples. Sterling engines triple the electrical output over thermal couples.
I think that micro reactors show promise while the human species works out fusion Anna renewables in a global scale. The other thing that micro reactors bring to the table is a long term power source for space flight… they are small enough to take components to space and assemble them, and once the technology is better known and standardized, could more easily be manufactured and produced in space and/or on other planets/moons/asteroids/etc… I’m not a physicist. I don’t know what minimum power production would do in terms of extending useful life from 5-6 years out to longer periods, but I imagine that designs can be made to meet the power budget of a space station, a Mars mission, or a Moon or Mars base for relatively long periods of time, which will be a game changer for survivability… with sufficient power, oxygen reclamation or production is much simpler, “grow lights” become possible, etc…
Generating power isn't really a major concern for space colonization. The main point is that 99.999% of all people may think it is a good Idea when considering it superficially, but tend to quickly realise that there minor component of "adventure" doesn't really outweigh the massive drawbacks of the having to live in very hostile environments. Basically, not having the protection of Earths magnetic field means you need to live the majority of your live in very robust housing containers, with very small windows (if any).
So going to Mars or to an asteroid will basically be identical to spending extended periods of time in a Submarine, or spend the Antarctic Winter in a research station. Or, to be honest, to being in a prison.
You'll never take extensive walks outside of your station just in a space suit, not unless you want to get a extensive collection of cancers within the first year.
Plus: Living on any other planet in our solar system, or on an asteroid or in a space-station, already requires you to have a close-to-perfect sustainable lifestyle. Even the guys on the ISS are not allowed to constantly order new stuff from Amazon, since just transporting something 400 km up is massively expensive.
So once you have the technology to go to space for extended periods of time, in a way that the people going won't consider an extreme restriction to their quality of life, you basically also ran out of all reasons to go. You don't need any backup planets because we figured out how to not ruin the one we have; and you don't need to find new sources of raw materials, because you figured out almost perfect recycling.
The only justification to go to space at that point is scientific entertainment, and it's much more cost-efficient to do this with radiation-resistant robots than with easily perishable humans. And the robots are getting better all the time, wile the humans havn't changed all that much in the last 100 000 years (just from the biological perspective).
the simplest way to extend the lifetime is to use weapons-grade uranium like the US navy reactors, which can go 25 years without refueling.
a breeder reactor has a similar lifetime for the similar reason of being able to use more of the fuel mass, though the very low quantity of excess neutrons makes very small breeder reactors less practical because smaller reactors are going to loose a higher fraction of nutrons out the sides.
Phenomenal video, this channel has become my definitive source for nuclear energy developments. Thanks Matt!
👍 Really appreciate that. Thanks!
questionable intentions/intrests, for clear information on all reactor types go here ua-cam.com/users/gordonmcdowell
Except Matt forgot to mention that micro reactors are a _spectacularly_ stupid idea when you factor in just how hard they would be to secure against ignorance and malice.
Making a dirty bomb out of one of these things is horrifyingly easy: Just place a sturdy water tank near one, wire up a water heater inside, bolt the tank shut and run like hell.
No explosives or skills required at all.
Going postal would be going to a whole new level.
@@madshorn5826 Pretty sure they have safeties that prevent this approach not to mention how hard it would be to get a sturdy water tank and such into a nuclear power facility for malicious purposes. It's also scarily easy to make dirty bombs or worse without needing to break into a nuclear power facility, the hard part for nuclear stuff is getting the materials but there are plenty of other options if you're goal is to just kill everyone/commit suicide (because if these things can make such big and powerful bombs there's no way you're escaping unscathed). Nuclear has it's issues and limitations but I think you've fallen for some negative propaganda.
@@madshorn5826 Just imagine how scary it would be if most citizens had access to operating self-propelled, multi-ton metal death machines and operated them with little regard for themselves or others! Oh wait...
Hello, enjoying the video. I have worked in the nuclear industry in the USA and would love to see out country stream line the entire process where generators and components can be easily replaced and readily available. I worked for BWXT and know that they are always on the forefront of this technology.
Great job, Matt! I always thought that uranium based reactors need to be of a certain size as the statistics of neutron production require a certain critical mass to keep nuclear fission up, which is also an important safety measure to control the process. Reducing the size now to SMR or even micro reactors requires a much higher enrichment of U235. Is this not extremely costly and also quite dangerous in handling? Just wondering.....
A more optimized design allows for less coolant used, less enrichment, more safety and less fuel overall, than conventional huge power plants, at a lower power rating.
There is definitely a dance on moderation, size, and the chain reaction. But in the past I think the size is based on a output vs fuel situation. The bigger and more fuel you put into it the more efficient that fuel is used and more power output. Reactors would be designed for like 1GW instead of 300MW. This made more sense when reactors were thrown together with much less regulation, and easier to build a big thing on site. Now the need is to get a reactor built on an assembly line, and don't change the reactor design. Just add more of them. Get them operating safely, cleanly and cheaply.
@@dodaexploda I would just like to politely point out that you just described existing nuclear tech. There is nothing slapdash about existing reactor design or facilities. Not to say no need to innovate, the CanDu reactors (still decades old, modular, and operating to-date without an accident) offer the ability to refuel without taking the reactor offline. All of the things that make SMRs attractive (other than the fantasy that they are better because they don't exist yet) can already be found in just about any existing or under construction nuclear facility. Were SMRs to bring to light any innovation that didn't already exist, the next logical step would be to scale it up.
@@thebojinator1 I think you're making a mistake when referencing the Candu reactor. I do believe it's properly referred to as the "Mighty CANDU reactor". :D I really love those reactors. I'm not sure I agree with you in regards that SMRs don't have anything to bring to the table. The smaller size alone can be worthwhile especially in more remote locations where you don't need GWs of power. I just recently learned of a propsed steel plant that will run on electrcity alone and use 300 Mw of power. Perfect for a dedicated SMR. Also the smaller size might make it easier for the economics of scale. It's likely easier and cheaper to build more smaller parts then fewer larger parts. A comparison could be SpaceX Raptor rocket engine at $1 million vs SLS's RS-25 engine at $40 million. Starship's booster has 33 engines bringing the total cost to $33 million. SLS has 4 engines which brings the cost to $120 million. There is obviously differences in how they are made and contracts, etc. But something to ponder either way.
@Doda Exploda Clearly I would be preaching to the choir, as evidenced by your proper correction of my misuse of CanDu without the associated qualifiers! I guess the only thing I wanted to dispell is the misnomer that existing reactors can't/aren't already modular and able to be factory built. I fully agree, and have stated in other comments on this video, SMRs and advanced nuclear tech definitely have their place. I just want to quantify (as I feel was not well addressed in the video, not nec. your comment) that SMRs don't necessarily compensate for deficiencies with existing tech, rather offer a low carbon, energy dense, alternative to the fossils that are currently being used in remote and hyper-industrial locations. It's one small nuance, I know, but sadly we all face an uphill battle on changing the perception of existing nuclear power!
I'm happy as long as we keep working on perfecting nuclear energy along with the other stuff.... what i hate is when people want to simply discard it as dangerous and useless when it clearly has a bright future with many uses. We just have to invest into it, just like we did it with solar and wind power, which was quite inefficient and bad just a few decades ago. Who says we can't do that with nuclear as well?!
I mostly hate it being described as dangerous whereas in practice it's not at all, as shown by the death count tables...even in you include the deathtool of the bombings of nagasaki and hiroshima, they're still tens of times safer than fossil sources. It's just misinformation green lobby groups keep propagating to keep their govt. grant coming in, seeping taxes _and_ raising energy prices in one fell swoop.
@@rey_nemaattori What about the waste?
@@RawandCookedVegan There's plenty abandoned mines that can be used to store the waste. It's a lot safer than just blowing it up in the air like fossil plants do 😂
@@rey_nemaattori Ok, but you have to agree it isn't an elegant solution. 500 years is a long time.
@@RawandCookedVegan What wasn't mentioned in the video is the option of recycling or reprocessing nuclear waste. Storage is the barbaric way of dealing with nuclear waste.
Just wrote a paper on hybrid fusion-fission nuclear reactors that would transmute waste into more stable compounds during operation. I probably didn't do a great job, but would be interested in hearing you talk about it
Interesting
Interested to learn more about it.
It's definitely more academic papers, but with recent breakthroughs in fusion maybe it's closer to being explored in a real world example
I think in general the topic of reactors that are built to neutralize or recycle nuclear waste, is a topic that deserves more recognition in general, also to act as a balance to the ever-old argument of "what about the waste" when discussing anything nuclear related.
Well this is how the terminators are powered, so clearly it works in the future for sure!
Getting energy from your neighbor is fine until they decide to use it as leverage against you. SMRs and micro nuclear give you the ability to be independent with years worth of stored energy. With nuclear you don't need to overbuild or spread out to minimize the impact of a cloudier or less windy month/year.
This is always the way nuclear was intended. I remember watching a documentary with one of the main guys who designs reactors all around the world. He said they where always supposed to be small and he's been telling them they have been doing it wrong for 40 years but nobody would listen.
The smaller ones are also far more stable and far less dangerious. Also more efficient.
I hope this works out. We need clean energy solutions now, not 10+ years from now. But solar/wind isn't going to be feasible everywhere.
Solar isn't feasible 12 hours out of every 24.
@@timennis3456 If only most households were not at home during the day, most days, eh?
@@worldcomicsreview354 I was thinking about how we could get sunlight photos to solar panels on the dark side of earth but all I can think of is Lazer beams. Problem is I bet there's a bunch of power loss from bouncing Lazer beams from space solar panels to mirrors all the way to the dark side into the solar powerplants .I was thinking maybe fiberoptic but it's so dumb to rub fiber optic to the other side of earth. Just not feasible
We no longer need Large Nuclear breeder reactors, when small Nuclear reactors are safer is to replace , and maintain.
Their is a lot of Positive reasons to have small Nuclear reactors and you do not have to have them in one area for coverage and supply with SMR.
I've always been curious if there would be a day where there is a small 'neighborhood' reactor that would be distributed across cities and in the basements of large buildings... Would be really cool
Yea, neighborhood grids are definitely going to be completely different in 10 years. It’ll be interesting to see what tech gets deployed where.
The only reason we don't already have that is that there are powers that be who want energy centralized.
@Kearnu Phoenix And "environmentalists" who don't want any new nuclear.
And terrorists who would love it if cities had dozens or hundreds of potential dirty bombs they could blow up.
They would not be “really cool” nuclear reactors are very hot, like really hot 🥵 ☢️
The part that is always a difficult sell for me on nuclear is what happens when something goes really wrong. As a technologist I recognize that all designs take into account “acceptable” risks of failure, some more than others, and that there is no perfect, fool-proof design. This problem only increases when you mix it with municipal pressures and even more when someone stands to make money even if something deemed too old to continue to run is kept online. No matter how well you engineer a nuclear reactor, when it fails in the worst way it’s a lot worse than a wind turbine failing in the worst way. Or a solar farm. Or possibly even an oil-fired plant.
And the toxic smoke released into the atmosphere for everybody to breathe is not a danger in an accident involving fossile fuel? We have to be realistic...
I must confess to being in agreement. While I like the idea of micro nuclear reactors, if there are hundreds of thousands of these things being deployed then that is lots of options for disasters due to negligence or malice. If SMRs are designed to fit on a truck trailer, they're also easy for a determined group of terrorists to steal and turn into a dirty bomb. Consider the Goiânia accident in Brazil, where some inappropriately abandoned radiostopic medical equipment lead to widespread contamination, panic and a massive cleanup effort. I feel like nuclear reactors get more dangerous as they get smaller just due to inevitably less security and care surrounding them. Until the day people stop being lazy, stupid and malicious then there will still have to be extensive red tape surrounding the deployment of a nuclear reactor of any size.
@@blakewalsh9489 nuclear material is already transported on trucks and stored in containers. Why would you want to steal a full smr, of you can simply steal the fuel truck...
Wind farms fail every day, just ask migrating birds. Solar takes up an absurd amount of space. When oil fails, nations go to war.
If you look to the global long term environmental effects of the Chernobyl disaster, wich was pretty much a worst case scenario when it comes to radiation spread. There were more or less none. Yes local human losses, and an exclusion zone around the site.
Even 5 of those each year would not be a long term planetary threat, either to humanity or life in general on this planet. And human losses from that scenario is far lower than the yearly deaths and ecology decline due to carbon based energies. Not in anyway trying to ignore the human suffering dying from radiation poisoning, just pointing out that 5 Chernobyls/year would be a huge improvement both for the environment and when it comes to reducing human suffering on a global scale compared to the impact of the current energy setup.
Not saying we should build insecure nuclear plants, just trying to point out that if you try to see the whole picture, you pretty soon realize that even with a few accidents, nuclear still wins out.
Thank you for this video! I love it when you revisit topics after some progress has occurred.
Hopefully small modular reactors will have a place in our decarbonized future. We could really use a power source that's constant and dependable to back up the more intermittent sources.
Hi, Mack here.
Nuclear Engineer by education, radiation shield manufacturer by trade. I went to school where NuScale was born out of, Oregon State University and there was a 1 MW TRIGA reactor operating there. In fact, you could walk on top of it while it pulsed to over 2000 MW and see the blue Cherenkov radiation glow.
Fact checker, tidbits of information, and personal opinions.
Each NuScale module is rated for 77 MW, they would be up to 200 MW with a water pump, however, natural buoyancy and gravity allow passive safety, ie the core can cool off without pumps.
A NuScale 12 Module pack is 924 MW.
On the thermal/fast reactor talk:
Thermal neutrons are neutrons with the same temperature as their medium. Ie, 2200 m/s at room temperature* faster at higher temperatures, which means lower cross section, which means inherent safety. This is also known as negative reactivity temperature coefficient.
Helium is also non corrosive making it very simple from a materials prospective. Helium does not interact chemically with reactor materials. However, due to its low density, it cannot be as energy dense. A LWR, or HWR has a power density of about 100 W/cm3. Low power density and low pressure are required to make reactors safer, this is why we build containment vessels around big water reactors.
Beware of liquid sodium cooled reactors, they are low pressure, however, very high power density. If sodium contacts water it will explode, which is undesirable from a safety prospective.
A lot of new designs will push for higher performance, however, safety should be considered first. But not to a point that it crippled the nuclear industry. Rickover always asked others if they would be comfortable putting their kids into a nuclear submarine while the core was failing, that attitude has lead to the safest operator of nuclear reactors in the world.
Ultra safe nuclear also has micro reactors, their materials engineer also came from SpaceX. I was kind of sad not to see any mention of them here because their reactors are going to space! The moon, Mars, and beyond!
On SMR technology, It will be a part of the future, heck, it’s already a part of the US Navy giving the US a major tactical advantage. Micro fission/fusion reactors in the form of 700 lb missiles already exist too.
This technology would be great if we figure out how to get highly enriched fuel into reactors without any risk of people getting weapons from it. Even in the large reactors we have today the fuel is only 5% enriched. If we had 50% enriched fuel the fuel lifetime would go from 4.5-6 years to 45-60 years with very high capacity factor.
The idea that we use fossil fuels in the face of collapse is ridiculous. People argue we should hold out until fusion energy, my take is (evidenced by my logo), fusion energy has been around for 4.5 billion years and will remain for another 5 billion years. It is present on 1/2 of the earth at all times, with a 25% capacity factor.
We really are just sitting around a fusion campfire we call the sun.
Anybody who puts up a solar panel is exploiting nuclear fusions.
Anybody who relies on seeing using sunlight relies on fusion power.
Any plant based life is fusion powered.
Any oil is still fusion powered.
If we want serious nuclear fission reactors, we should vertically monopolize the supply chain and just go for it. Pick a spot in the desert (I would recommend where all the nukes were tested) and test innovative cores in a nuclear bunker underground. We test them all until they safely fail 1000 times in an accelerated timeline. From there, we decide which ones are acceptable, and which ones are not. Any resource needed, included cooling, should just be provided.
Pick another spot in the desert (or ocean), maybe Hanford (maybe the pacific), and build a massive complex that has plenty of cooling water, cooling air, build massive manufacturing and transportation capabilities, and crank out large reactor after reactor with special attention on minimizing human labor consumption. We should make enough energy for the entire world to live up to American standards, and boost American living standards to space age energy standards. Including full access to RTG technology for space exploration/exploitation.
From there, we figure out how to make a 1 Gigavolt world distribution.
1 Megavolt country distribution.
1 Kilovolt Underground town distribution.
1 volt home distribution (avoiding fires).
Or, whatever works best, I am not an electrical engineer and I am okay with saying that. Whatever is safest.
Allow experts to maintain the safety of the power source for the entire world in one place. The jobs would be one month at sea, and the rest of the year at home.
This model would work well because power spikes around the world in different times would levelize the power consumption to some extent. If there are demand spikes, the nuclear site should have a giant thermal battery which is hooked up to supplement the steam turbines, or sCO2 turbines. This thermal battery could be a large molten pool of lava for all I care, and should probably be managed by mechanical engineers, but that’s how it should be done.
All nuclear waste should be packaged up and thrown into the thermal battery to keep heating it. Why waste precious nuclear heat? It’s not waste if we still use it. Extract all uranium and transuranic elements from waste and repackage it for fuel. Isotopes get packaged for space exploration. Any gamma emitters sunk in a pool of water for heat extraction.
Also! There should be a large desert covered in aluminum foil nearby to offset the waste heat emitted from the power plants. It’d be huge, but that would bring balance back to the world.
We ditch gas powered and electric cars and use pressurized superheated water or hydrogen powered cars.
I am a nuclear engineer and I believe that nuclear power is too cheap to meter. However, that should not come at the expense of wasted life and failed dreams when we are tasked with making new reactors and licensing them. It should not come at the expense of displaced humans when reactors fail. Reactor failures should not be exploited for press propaganda. Reactors should be able to completely fail safely, and if they cannot fail (ships and cities for instance), then they should not be built, or, they should operate in a manner where there is 0 (or very near 0 such as NuScale) chance of radioisotope release.
We should have a place where if a reactor does go wrong, it can be quickly and appropriately handled. I would be a large proponent for a central place where we can selectively make it rain, and collect the radioactive waste on the ground without having to dig it up. This place would have very little population, and no risk of anybody being displaced in case of emergency. It could technically be a large nature reserve as nothing would hopefully not go wrong for hundreds of years, but when it does go wrong, we can take care of it “promptly” and efficiently.
This place would have all enrichment facilities, waste disposal, weapons disposal, power generation, fissile material breeding, and mining if possible. Regulatory professionals, IAEA inspectors, and resources would be available for any innovator to come and innovate successfully in 1 year, start to finish, housing and appropriate stipend provided. Enough resources would exist for a power plant to be built in one year start to finish rather than a decade. Enough capital would exist for reactors to go online at any moment. 7900 GW base power would allow for every human to have 1 kW freely. Beyond this, money would come from people consuming more than 1 kW at any moment. This would incentivize people to store energy in their home air, water tanks, etc. which I also have ideas for.
My facility would even have a large pool of heavy water with neutron fluency to burnup the little last bit of u235 in fuel waste, and have various pits with different energy neutron fluxes to breed new fuel and isotopes.
Nobody would ever have to worry about energy again and we could live happily ever after. If a future human wanted to have a campfire, they would not have to worry about the carbon emissions because we took care of the carbon problem in the 21st century.
In my theoretical facility, it would be perfectly inspected at all times allowing anybody access to the information resulting in surety of the safe operation of the facilities at a quick glance.
Technically a site like this could exist in the ocean where nobody lives, winds are reliable. It’d be a lot of effort, but that would be taking care of the generations of humans after us investing in their success.
Also, there is a push for fuel to maintain its waste completely. But why not capture it and remove it constantly so that in the abnormal case of a failure, there are no harmful isotopes to mess up humans? I know this is what will happen in molten salt reactors, but I imagine that solid fueled reactors could benefit as well?
One of my favorite things about these micro nuclear plants is the shutting down of these coal plants and the infrastructure and generation ability is still there instead of using coal you use nuclear for your heat source to make the power
what's wrong with coal?
@@HamguyBacon So, so many things. Non renewable, pollution, environmental damage from mining etc. Coal is literally history.
@@HamguyBacon What's right with coal? It is the worst of all possible energy sources, it pollutes worse than anything else, it kills more people than anything else, it's the equivalent of using stone tools when bronze and iron left them behind long ago.
@@krashd Coal is the most easily obtainable and energy dense fuel source 2nd to Gasoline. Pollution has not been a problem since the 1970's when smokestacks were mandated to capture pollutants before it went into the atmosphere, coal does not kill people but radiation from Nuclear does.
@@zacherickson5444 Coal may not be renewable but the same could be said about nuclear, The environment does not get damaged from mining coal, you're literally moving one pile of resources to another location. Pollution has not been a problem with coal since the 1970's.
Coal is the most Energy dense and easily obtainable material 2nd to Oil.
You should do Fast Breeder reactors next! I've been a big fan of Oklo inc.'s development; and although they didn't pass their first NRC evaluation - Fast Breeders (using higher actinides as fuel - like plutonium) in concert with uranium and thorium sources can reduce most all waste to the 500-200 year danger zone. Overall, I think small nuclear (and hopefully eventually geothermal) can provide baseload to variable wind and solar sources. It's just a good anchor to have just in case wind isnt consistent and the sun's hiding behind the clouds. Loving the content!
Micro reactors are ideal for off-grid remote locations. I hope more investment is put into them!
Also, I would like to raise a point I really don't see being often discussed: Replacing existing coal-fired plants with SMRs is a competitive and realistic way of achieving significantly cheaper nuclear energy while also maintaining jobs for the local community. It is important to note that, while renewables do create new job opportunities, they are mostly during the construction phase (since you don't need to operate a wind turbine or a solar panel) and don't really require high-level of education, so people might end up getting paid lower.
Another very important topic is land occupation. Nuclear power is able to generate a great deal of energy using a very small area of land when compared to renewables, so for countries with not so much land available, nuclear power should be really considered as a competitive energy solution.
One last thing: current nuclear waste is able to be reprocessed in especialized facilities and then used as both MOX fuel or recycled in fast reactors. That's partially the reason why so many countries are not willing to bury their nuclear waste stockpile deep underground. Because they are still a considerable source of energy in advanced reactors.
This matter involving nuclear waste recycling is much more political than technical, really!
There are technical solutions ready, but political affairs continue to delay their deployment!
One point I think is overlooked here and that is the cost of wind and solar when there is no wind and no sun. That costs is very very high and should be factored in to the unit coast based on averaged generating performance, say over a year. Nuclear would then look more respectable. The benefits of base load can not be dismissed when considering security of supply.
Biggest problem with nuclear is people perception of nuclear.
I keep finding disappointing that even when we talk about nuclear energy we still have steam power technology involved for the production of electricity. Our limitations to transform the atomic, solar and heat energy straight into electricity is frustrating and wasteful. I'd be happy to see us breaking through this limitation in my lifetime.
Regarding nuclear power, alphavoltaic and betavoltaic cells are a thing that exist. Though not very powerful, they last for a crazy long time and if someone ever optimises them for battery packs your phone or some appliance remotes could last years before needing a recharge (or in this case a replacement cell).
That being said, considering steam turbines can reach almost 80% efficiency it's still not that bad
Steam is the working fluid, there has to be some kind of working mechanism or battery/ mining involved, if one requires renewables..
Renewables are the real problem.... Grid sized renewables do not have near as much benefit as do personal sized remewables, then the power company's job would only have to be the capacitor.
Everyone seams to think renewables are the answer,
Renewables and efficiancse at "Micro on a macro scale" and non lazy Peoples is the answer, but the educated need jobs and the Peoples need there Conveniences...
So here we are.
@@6969smurfy Without going into the opinion about renewable energy, my comment about the use of steam tech also applies to fossil fuel sources. Coal/gas power plants use similar technology, just the energy source to power all differs.
@@atrumluminarium "alphavoltaic" and "betavoltaic" are words I have never seen before but immediately knew the significance of lol Are these ways to make *use* of nuclear waste? I saw the issue with the megatons of waste sitting around, waiting for safe disposure, but if those things are giving off energy, can't we still harvest it? Can you slap electrodes on lead to make their waste containment cell a battery? lol
Why is steam bad? Because it's old? Pressurised steam is insanely powerful, why do you think steam engines were invented "first"? Because even the crudest, least-refined one can still do a lot of work.
When fusion power gets figured out: people will be dumbfounded they didn’t realize it sooner and scientists will understand that following Galileo’s perspective, a solar panel is our home’s electrical outlet for our working fusion reactor: the sun
People listen to too much main stream media which loves a bit of fear. There is always the carbon fossil fuels industry that do not want any more nuclear. Man is such a thick species that needs politicians with backbones to say no more to these big money men who just think of their industries and bribe self serving politicians.
Fusion will always be 35 to 45 years away. It was being researched when I was born in the 60's and there has been a lot of scientists who have worked entire careers, retired and died without solving the fusion question. It's a huge waste of money.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 I don't think this correct. Democrats are the party that claim to strongly oppose big oil, but they are also the only party that wants to ban nuclear power outright. The majority of Republicans, which recieve most of the oil industry donations, also love nuclear, both fusion and fission.
@@Vile_Entity_3545 I think we've gotten to the point where the capitalist impulse is making oil and gas companies invest in all kinds of alternative energy technologies. Of course, they don't want oil and gas to stop tomorrow, but they are motivated to be ready for the inevitability of alternative sources dominating the energy market. They may try to slow down others where they haven't invested money, but my bet is their full steam ahead with trying to establish dominance in alternative energy.
@Jesus Saves I bet if fission gets massively deregulated, companies will be much more willing to invest in improving fission and solving fusion. Right now, a company could try to solve fusion only for government to ban it, so there is no incentive to invest.
Hi Matt, great subject, have you looked at the Pebble Bed Modular Reactors(PBMR) developed by Professor Rudolf Schulten of Aachen University in Germany in the late 1950’s. It was later picked up by South African who made further developments and could generate 400MW. It seems safer than other small modular reactors. I look forward to an Undecided on PBMRs.
I live in Indonesia. Because of geographical and cultural issues the idea they could build and manage a nuclear reactor here is terrifying.
But if they favored mini or micro reactors technology, I think I could live with that.
@raynaldo arlen k.eman Ya gak bisa. Japan aja kena. Padahal etos dan disiplin mereka 1000 kali lebih bagus daripada etos kerja orang Indonesia. Kalau ada sentral nuklir di Indonesia ku yakin 100% akan ada kecelakaan. Etos tidak bisa diajarin. Itu tumbuh atau tidak. Ya di Indonesia tidak tumbuh. Kelebihannya orang Indonesia bukan di disiplin. Ditambah lagi masalah alam yang tidak ramah. Bunuh diri itu namanya.
Tapi kalau sentral nuklirnya mikro bisa saja dibangun di Indonesia. 100, 200 tidak masalah karena ketika akan ada kecelakaan, dampak kecelakaan itu akan lokal saja.
Sebenarnya negara Barat pun sudah mulai mau beralih ke sentral kecil atau mikro. Meledak pun tak masalah. Jauh lebih aman.
@@Kiev-in-3-days In every culture, there is a cohort of the curious, eager, and disciplined. I think you should give your countrymen a chance to prove themselves.
Hey Matt, love your videos. What about helium-3? We've heard a lot about helium-3 in the last decade, but the idea hasn't really taken off. And now, China is trying to mine helium-3 from the moon. Will helium-3 solve our hunger for energy?
It won't. We can't even sustain a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction for long, let alone derive any power from it, and we're decades away from being able to. Helium-3 fusion is _much_ harder to ignite and sustain, and so is at best a next-century-at-the-earliest speculative power source
From the Moon !?😵💫did I miss something? Have to look that up…
I imagine a micro reactor, say the size of a car engine, would probably run best on an ultra low critical mass fuel like Curium-247. Which is basically unobtainium :/ Something like that would need massive amounts of other reactors to produce such a fuel in quantity.
Also, I feel like in general, a true micro reactor would need a fuel that’s so high quality, and purity, that it’s indistinguishable from weapons grade fuel.
Or a subcritical mass that’s exposed to some sort of neutron generator, Californium-252 maybe? Also unobtainium
Idk, I feel like the actinides further down the series would be really good for this kind of application
dont forget factcheckerium-34, or sjworium-117... those are highly energetic and easy to consume with no one being worried about using them up
Sorry to be back on the soapbox. The SLOWPOKE (acronym for Safe LOW-POwer Kritical Experiment) uses 93% highly-enriched uranium-235 (I wonder about U-233) and beryllium-9 as consumables. So, yeah, Rusty nailed it.
This complements the idea of a residential central plant for heating and cooling (including hot water); I believe I read it from Carrier. Maybe electrical power with battery storage could be implemented.
Nuclear needs to be a component of our green energy future.
Based on what? TEPCO or GM`s profit margins?
@Jordy Schol probably based on a simple grasp of reality.
@@hamsterminator Why can't it be a part of our reality?
If they built one small enough I could put in my house, I would totally use it!
@Eliza Coleman NPP are way safer than you think only old generation reactor with design flaws (Tchernobyl) or placed in high risk area (Fukushima) are dangerous, cooling water used is also perfectly safe to swim in as the contaminated one is running in a closed circuit at the core
Even the spend fuel pool is safe to swim in as only getting a few meter from the spend fuel rods can get you irradiated
@Eliza Coleman yes you would. A micro reactor would generate no less than 200 kW, more than enough for one house, so I would share with my neighbors :-)
Why not just bury the ones NASA has been using for DECADES under everyones house? O.o
Besides the fact the Power Companies would fight it like crazy since they have monopolies on Electricity. :/
Their sweet spot of size and output is likely to be closer to something that can power a neighborhood while many can power a small town collectively. No regulatory body is going to approve an individual domestic use.
You!!? I wouldn't trust you with a stapler!
I have long thought that Micro-Reactors are the path of the future. I have also wondered why couldn't the fuel be the spent nuclear fuel from the larger reactors? It is still highly radioactive for 10,000 years. Let's capture that energy.
After that, we can start talking about atomic powered cars and airplanes. A nuke in every garage!!!!!!
They are already using helium to cool as in The China based technology. Helium is a gas at room temperature. I think a closed system that has a cold liquid helium tank, tubes that are honeycombed surrounding the full length of each single waste rod, which heats the liquid helium to gasify and causes massive pressure through a propeller/ turbine, generating electricity, (and perhaps even cooling the rod to faster safety levels?) then those tubes gravity feed back through refrigerant coils to the liquid helium tank. When the fuel rod becomes not hot enough to keep up a baseline wattage output, it might be safer to dispose of, then next waste rod is placed in the system.
@@barbaralemons4741 A China textile factory can make 500,000 pairs of socks every day, ship them half way around the world and Walmart sells them 3 pair for $1 and everyone makes money. If you can understand why that cannot and will not happen in a U.S. textile factory, you may be able to understand why what happens in China means nothing in the U.S..
The U.S. has built and tested just about every type of nuclear reactor over the last 70 years and has more experience than any country on earth. The problem is not the type of reactor or the cooling method, it is just that in the U.S. we cannot construct new nuclear on schedule or withing budget and it does not matter if it is a BWR, PWR, SMR. Molten salt. Most nuclear projects in the U.S. have been canceled after spending billions and those that were completed took 15 years and were 100% over budget. Do we have 15 years to build and test out a new design and if that works, spend another 15 years constructing more of these????
@@clarkkent9080 That was before the weather went to shit and the insurance companies stated having to pay out multiple times a year. FEMA's going to have to start triaging what help they can bring. That's what's different. Also, machine learning and AI can evaluate designs so much faster... cheer up. Once money is leaking, $#!+ gets fixed.
Just think about the energy we could capture off the heat an internal combustion engine makes that is wasted now.
The one thing that could make a significant difference to household kitchen food hygiene would be a small unit about the size of a microwave to irradiate food before consuming. It would eliminate pathogens, bacteria, viruses, etc etc...
Gamma radiation is used routinely to sterilize medical, dental, and household products.
Food irradiation is the process of exposing food and food packaging to ionizing radiation, such as from gamma rays, x-rays, or electron beams.
The more components a system has, the higher must be the reliability of of each component. If you have hundreds instead of a dozen nuclear reactors, each of the micro reactors must be much safer than the current nuclear reactors to achieve the same level of safety. And as we currently see in Ukraine, each nuclear plant is a potential military target.
Those concepts pop up every 20 year or so, just like Zeppelins in aviation.
Complexity is the enemy of reliability.
Other side of that same medal: if each single reactor has less parts and you don't throw them all next to eachother it is in fact a safer solution.
Everything that has the potential to go wrong, will go wrong if the random conditions are right.
By your logic? coins should be snapping in half all the time.
@@JohnnyWednesday At least snapped coins don´t contaminate whole countries, when they snap :)
Another point. With recycling (multiple times) the spent fuel the fissile and fissionable materials can be used, leaving only a relatively small quantity of highly radioactive but short lived waste.
Nuclear is literally the most green and environmentally friendly energy solution in existence. People are still too afraid of the fact that we didn't properly know how to control it back in the 80's. Chernobyl was nearly 40 years ago!
I don't have good space for solar panels on the roof of my house.
I don't have space for a big ground-loop heat pump in my yard.
I do however have space to dig a hole and place a nuclear reactor in my small backyard if it can fit in 1 or 2 cubic meters.
I mean, how small could you make a nuclear reactor if all it had to power was a single home?.... I doubt it'd have to be much bigger than that right?
I'd much rather spend 10k on a 'small home' nuclear reactor than the same amount on solar panels that'll produce
@@ayporos You could put it under your patio and have a nice heated floor during cold nights
@@Echidna23Gaming I'll do you one better, the 'rest' heat not directly converted to electricity could be used to heat your house in a radiator loop! :) moar efficiency !
SMRs do actually use a moderator. they are small molten salt reactors that use the thermal expansion properties of the salts to moderate the nuclear reaction.
Excellent video. SMR/larger nuclear/green hydrogen and renewables like wind(electromagnetic induction) are part of UK's energy policy to make sure no fall out from external factors. In 2020 renewables generated 43 per cent of Britain’s electricity while gas, oil and coal contributed about 40 per cent. The remaining capacity was filled by nuclear. Still lots more work to do but I'm optimistic. Great start has already been made so far! Further the luxury car and aerospace company Rolls Royce are pushing for SMRs in UK. This will backed up EDF who are building the large nuclear(2026-30) and EON/Siemens have been building wind turbines in North Sea. These companies iare already integrated in the neoliberal British energy market/ Moreover the world's largest electrolyser plant for green hydrogen has already been built in UK Already they've helped Royal Dutch Shell in Germany and the largest fertilizer plant in Norway to back up their use of natural gas to green hydrogen in the event of high prices and Russian threats. So the aim is to get 100% from renewable resources for energy/food self reliance and meet net zero climate obligations. Electricity generation from renewables are due to beat the 2035 target most likely. Final point SMRs are also part of the country's nuclear submarine deterrent "Trident" .What's more I suspect more will be built for Australia too. UK wants to help Australia(being bullied by China) and US wants to pivot to Asia for obvious reasoning. The UK and US agreed to supply them instead of French diesel submarines.
For greater public acceptance, I think these could still be located underground. But this seems to be an outstanding direction. Let's disassemble and dilute warheads and build these with security at the highest level of focus (i.e. permanent underground installations), rather than portable.
I wonder what kind of outcome could be expected with an intentional terrorist or accidental destruction incident? I'm a big fan of nuclear. Most of the costs are fighting the legal battles. The US will be surpassed by China and others whose populations are less likely to be fearful. That's why we still have waste in limbo.
Ah don't worry World War 3 is coming, nukes will fly.
I'll borrow a line or two from my above discussion to think about in regard to those who think burying nukes is a solution to safety concerns.
' If Chernobyl had been allowed to melt through the last barrier to the water table below the reactor, ALL of Europe would have had NO DRINKING WATER. Only the incredible heroic action of both Russian helicopter crews and later, firefighters and miners who tunneled BELOW the reactor, saved Europe... at the cost of their own lives and debilitating radiation exposure injuries.'
@@stanmann8399 You watch too many movies!!! The China Syndrome is NOT real. That's why Americans are so incapable of informed decision making. Because they forget the informed part. All modern reactors are protected from the worst case scenario with lots of neutron absorbing lining. If they melt, they are contained, but ruined for thousands of years. Underground systems can be contained with ZERO contamination risk. The problem is that IDIOTS build reactors on the surface near active and dangerous fault zones, or in the case of Chernobyl, NO CONTAINMENT DOMES AT ALL, plus the human error.
Someone wise had said that nuclear energy is great if the reactors are located far away (so that the question of nuclear waste or nuclear malice does not arise). This is precisely what the Sun has been doing for us, providing abundant (solar) energy, which is really nuclear energy !
Matt, love your channel from day one. Regular watch for me. However, being a pacific northwesterner, I feel obligated to offer my insights your way on this, the pronunciation of the word Oregon. Phonetically it would be spelled; OR-EE-GUN. Oregon. Or Ee Gun. Oregon. Thanking you from the Home of Nike, Intel, Boing, Hewlitt/Packard's global R&D center, and all the rest here in the "silicone forest" keep making awesome non-bias videos for the masses :-)
Very cool! We need more nuclear so that we can get rid of all dependency on coal.
Why?
@@PhinAI
I think these videos explain why pretty well.
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- ua-cam.com/video/EhAemz1v7dQ/v-deo.html
- ua-cam.com/video/cO6txCZpbsQ/v-deo.html
- ua-cam.com/video/hX2aZUav-54/v-deo.html
- ua-cam.com/video/J3znG6_vla0/v-deo.html
Enjoy!!
I'd like to see _pico_ nuclear energy - a reactor about the size of a compressor/condenser for a split air conditioning system that could produce upwards of 30 kW continuously, enough to power my house, including HVAC, plus lighting and electric vehicle recharging. Every man's house could be his homestead.
Terrible idea. The history of small decay generators and medical equipment with radiation sources shows how easy an entire city can get exposed to radioactive material, just because it showed up unexpectedly.
@@nonyabisness6306 although i disagree with pico reactors all of the issues with contamination are due to uneducated people in low income countries. Of course some of the stupidity i see daily in the U.S. by diy enthusiasts might end up the same
@@patricktennant1585 It's just weird to me that we generally dump a shitton of regulations on anyone running a nuclear power plant, but then tout the idea of giving random private citizens access to mini reactors. Either it's dangerous or it isn't. And frankly I don't trust random citizens with proper maintaince and disposal.
Let's say you buy one, who will do maintaince? Who will dispose of it? What if the company that made them goes under? Does the state now have to do it? Does the owner pay? If so will some people just dump it? Will the state control what happens with the reactors? Can they even do that if it finds widespread adoption?
It's just not a good idea and it offers absolutly no benefits. Instead of 100 small reactors you can just build a big one. Less security risk and the same power output.
cool. heyo matt
Matt! Native Oregonian here. Oregon is pronounced like "Organ". Love your videos!
Has anyone ever thought of using reactors from decommissioned subs and other ships who were still fueled in order to power something like a base, or civilian use like a desalination plant?
It’s not as simple as that. RR in the uk are using what they know from subs to develop something for the civil nuclear side.
Yes, having micro reactors getting flooded or sabotaged is brilliant.
This.
Widespread distribution of soft targets so everyone gets their fair share of radioactive contamination (including the water tables).
The problem with this approach is that you'll going to distribute radio active material widely. You may debate how bad that really is, imho the dangers of radioactive pollution are often exaggerated, it is something to consider. Just look at what's happening in Ukraine now. There have already been safety concerns for at least 2 nuclear reactor sites and a radio-lab. How many would that have been if every village of a few thousand people would have it's own micro reactor? Even in ordinary times, it's hard to protect micro reactors to a level comparable to larger reactors raising the risk of successful sabotage/terrorist attacks. As always, we've to balance the pros and the cons, not sure which way it would tip.
Neat. The viability of nuclear vs. battery-bank renewables will definitely depend on the location. For example, in Bocas del Toro, Panama (where I'm from), you can only hope for an average of around 4 hours of sun per day for much of the year, and you can easily get three weeks straight of overcast. This makes the battery requirements insane. So, like with all these technologies, they will fill in their niches!
I've always imagined a community, or even individual homes having these tiny reactors. So let's hope this is the future!
I would not want nuclear power on a super small scale like that. Someone would manage to irradiate their block.
@@Direblade11 It's not like the home owners are going to maintain it, there will be trained professionals to make sure everything is running smoothly.
@@priatalat Idk, I don't think most people would want to be around one of 50 points of failure that could expose them to radiation for an unknown amount of time.
Yeah maybe it's a bit extra panic, but when there's 2000 or more tiny reactors around a country, it's a question of when some error will happen. Idk, maybe we can put it in some exceptionally perfectly safe system.
@@Direblade11 As a person who works with radiation, microreactors terrify me. Radiation leak is one thing, but the radioactive substances leak? Thanks, but no.
@@Direblade11 If it's a salt-based reactor, the systems wouldn't need to be pressurized at all, and you could just bury it underground and dig it up every couple decades to refuel it
Still taking the thorium cost at face value, despite thorium reactors requiring similar tech to fast reactors with reprocessing and the fuel and waste disposal costs not being the bottleneck? Thorium has some nice properties, but little about it is inherently cheaper, never mind significantly so. Molten salt looks promising, but is actually more useful for fast uranium reactors than thorium.
Micro is a commercial non starter because it solves problems that don't exist and creates whole new ones (similar to thorium in that regard). Being mobile is a regulatory, security, and proliferation nightmare. SMR are in the sweet spot where factory mass production is possible, but they are still inconvenient enough to move that they can be kept track of.
Specifically for the numbers given by radiant; 7 years of fuel is overkill for almost all use cases, and makes it significantly more of a hazard. 1 year would be fine. The only use case I can see is small temporary military facilities (particularly if they are moving towards lots of EVs), and in that role fielding a reactor with 6 years of caesium 137 build-up strikes me as moronic. To avoid significant contamination in the case of it being attacked (which it has to expect) you would want to keep waste stockpiles low.
Oh, wait. I see. It is intended for Mars... It actually seems ideal for that. Like many of Elon's projects, great for Mars, sort of useless here (not a criticism).
I've been advocating for micro reactors predicated on Naval Subs for... well... literal decades now. I find it morbidly amusing that most of the "Green Energy" proponents back technologies that are incredibly harmful to wildlife (Wind Turbine's LFE), incredibly toxic to the environment (Solar panels), incredibly destructive to the environment with a massive carbon footprint (nickel based batteries), or location/climate dependent (geothermal, hydro, tidal).
Yet, when those Greenies asked why they don't back the lowest carbon footprint, least ecologically destructive, highest-return on fuel consumed per power output... the only actual "Green" energy solution... it's like they believe Nuclear technology has not advanced one iota from the days of Chernobyl or 3 Mile Island.
It brings to mind an interesting theory. Maybe the political party backing "Green Energy" solutions, slushing hundreds of billions of taxpayer finances into ecological and technological dead-ends, isn't pro-energy at all. Maybe that "political party," regardless of Country or label, is actually ANTI-ENERGY... and the best way to deny energy is to destroy existing energy resources while refusing to research valid ecological and technological energy productions.
With that theory in mind, framing the "political party" backlash, regardless of country or label, to halt Nuclear Research in the taxpayer sector and raise barriers to the research in the private sector, suddenly clarifies into a very recognizable pattern of allegiances and alliances. At the heart of it, every "political party" regardless of country or label that has blocked reactors like Toshiba's deep-batteries or Westinghouse's AP1000's has ties to... socialist financing.
Interesting, no?
Government crashes a part of the economy. Then tells the sheeple that more government is the answer. Nationalizes said sector.
Rinse and repeat.
One point to add that maybe I missed in your video. There is an enherant limit as a target for prolification of storage material with things like molten salt reactors and the same is true with fast reactors. Some high grade material is required at start up but after that it sort of sustains itself. Though some chemical processing is required. So in a world gone mad it makes nuke material much safer