I am thrilled that Thorium LFTR technology is finally coming to market, and that this company putting its best features to use. But, I resent that he never, even once, mentioned Kirk Sorensen who rediscovered this technology after the US Government shelved it in the 70's, and has been advocating it for over a decade, nor the US Researchers in the 1950's who pioneered it for 20 years. This whole presentation is presented as if Copenhagen Atomics invented it from scratch. He starts by saying that he is "one of the co-inventors of a new nuclear technology", and then goes immediately into telling everyone about liquid salt Thorium reactors; thus, implying that THAT is what he invented. What this company has done is great, and worthy of praise, but they did not invent liquid salt thorium reactors, nor even rediscover them. They are standing on the shoulder of giants, and don't even mention their names.
We refer to Kirk Sorenson in several other videos. But true: Alvin W., Kirk S. and several others deserve a big thanks for bring this technology to life. Copenhagen Atomics has invented and patented a few unique areas of this tech and this is why we can get the price very far down. (also known as thermal spectrum thorium breeder).
@@CopenhagenAtomics I skimmed a few of your other videos to check, but didn't see anything. I suppose I jumped the gun. I'm glad they're getting credit. I apologize for not giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it didn't seem to me like that perspective came through clearly in this video. However, as @michaelnurse9089 pointed out, perhaps nowadays this topic is mainstream enough that such attribution can be assumed. Upon second examination, towards the end of the video, I suppose you do mention explicitly that you're the only company in the world building full-scale Thorium reactors, which would seem to imply others have hands in the field. Perhaps I'm spending too much time in the toxic side of the internet. I apologize for the accusation.
I'll be amazed if they ever get 1 unit built. They offered no details beyond the old thorium hope and dreams that have been around since the 1950's. If they prove me wrong I'll be overjoyed at their success and I'll buy this man a beer.
meanwhile, China has already built the world's first, non-experimental, fully-operational 2mw thorium reactor...... in the middle of the desert. and is on track to build to 373 MWt capacity by 2030.
China has annnounced issuing of a permit to build its first operational thorium reactor in the Gobi Desert, following on the experimental reactor it has been operating already. And China has huge plans to gear up nuclear over the next 10 years. Im betting China will lead the way on this.
@@elliekwong3180 A working prototype does not tell you whether the risk you're taking will be "once per 10,000 years of operations" or "once per 10,000,000 years of operation". Given that Chinese authorities have a corruption problem, I fully expect them to have multiple Fukushima-grade or worse disasters if they every start to build these things en masse.
I would have liked to to have seen at least some discussion of the technical side of these reactors, a basic overview of their design and construction, along with an explanation as to why this design and construction method allows for such a low price
ruclips.net/video/dEUxEZ2sfUM/видео.html The reason for the low price, is because they're small, once they've built one, they can just copy it really quickly.
I am writing a book about them so just ask. The most important thing about the price is that they build everything in thin (for a nuclear reactor) stainless steel plates. Stainless steel is cheap to produce and a lot of companies are able to produce parts in the dimensions needed. Why can they get away with using stainless steel instead of expensive alloys or coatings? Because they are world leading in producing clean (oxygen and water-free) FLiNaK salt. No oxygen and water, no corrosion. They are also the MSR company with the most hours of testing, so they have proven that their stainless steel equipment work and do not corrode in molten salt, it is not a theory. Their MSR is also a SMR - a small modular reactor. Because of the small (shipping container) size, it is easy to mass produce on an assembly line and then transport to where it is needed. They expect to produce one 100 MW thermal reactor every day. If you want to take a look at the core design, search for "copenhagen atomics onion core". You will see that it consist of steel plates bend only in one direction, again easy and cheap for subcontractors to produce.
@@migBdk Do you have a list for interest in your book? I think this kind of system is the future of green energy and would like to read more about it... Good luck!
China and canada have prototypes to say nothing of the oak ridge reactot shut diwn because it couldnt produce weapons grade uranium in the early 1990s@koenraad4618
If you already had prototype, I'd be cheering. Without working prototype these are almost empty words to me. Nevertheless good luck! It sounds amazing on paper.
The moment they have a working prototype they won't need to promote their tech. People/govs will be lining up to buy it. Development is expensive and it takes time. Good work guys and keep it up. We need more people working (and failing) on real solutions with real potential
I really appreciate that you have focused on the advantages, but dealt with safety and waste in a pragmatic and supportive manner. Of course what is missing are the challenges that still need to be overcome for this technology, such as the availability of Li-7 to scale up, the management of by-products, the legislative effort, reprocessing challenges etc.
Let's also not forget the Tellurium embrittlement issue along with moderator expansion/contraction issues like IMSR has where the core must be changed every 4 years.
If you really have a game changer -dont wait for our do nothing to move on it. Please offer the tech to Uropean and Asian countrys and build several there first. That should wake up our sleeping senate and congress to fast track one of your systems in the US.
@@willtabacchi1408 It's the usual nuclear industry play - report on all the advantages and ignore all the unsolved issues. Also, nuclear power means low-probability, high-damage failure risks, and it's so easy to just ignore such scenarios because humans are bad at intuiting expected value and tend to brush aside everything that may happen once per 10,000 years of operation. Let's just say that once per 10,000 years sounds okay at first glance, but not if you have thousands of reactors operating, but you don't _see_ risks so it is so easy to skim over risks, and the nuclear industry has been doing that for decades now and is under continuous pressure to keep playing this game since every reactor is such a huge investment with a humongous gain so we'll continue to see incomplete presentations from that industry.
I hope not cause South Africa is way too unstable a country for any risky new technologies. Especially with your government that seems to have tried to kill the CEO of one of your energy companies.
@@CopenhagenAtomics For European countries, here in the Netherlands we kind of had an energy crisis recently. I would *love* it if we could have one of the first thorium reactors in operation... What could i do to get you guys build one in the Netherlands?
Its not up and running just big talk and all torium plants so far have failted becouse if Corrosion problems ec. I only realy beleave when its actuly running and powering homes
What is incredible? It is incredible to bring it onto the table when they have clearly nothing to offer, except old dated charts and promises on nothing to come to fruition till 2025 and 2028.
China has a thorium reactor. It is a 2-megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR-LF1) located in Wuwei, Gansu province. The reactor was constructed by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was granted an operating license in August 2021. The TMSR-LF1 is currently undergoing testing and is not yet operational.
Let's say they can double that to 4MW? How many to provide 50% of the global electricity requirement? . How long to approve the design globally? . Would other countries rely on China for the supply of reactors? (That would be a politically "interesting" discussion?) . Would China open source the design? . I suspect the nuclear route would (will?) lead to 20 years of "negotiation" while the oil cartel rubs their hands in glee.
@@rogerstarkey5390 The new offshore wind turbines have a peak of 14-15MW and are supposed to produce 80GWh of electricity a year. That's averaged almost 10 MW of continuous power. Nuclear power stations in the small MW range are just for testing. You need at least 1 GW stations, even better 2-3GW, so security and all the support stuff is reasonable. Germany alone would need around 30 3GW stations if they chose to swap to it completely. China probably 200.
The molten salt reactor at Dounreay suffered from major corrosion problems from the molten salt and operated intermittently. The chemical composition was also hard to control. The presenter put forward all the known advantages of the Thorium cycle, but did not address the operational issues of the MSR. I would be delighted if Copenhagen Atomic has solved these problems and can deliver cheap energy, but they need to demonstrate they can reliably operate a reactor over a period of years.
Hi! You are quite correct. We still do need to demonstrate that. It is still early days, but stay tuned! Some of the previous issues we have solved however. The corrosion issue you mention, has been addressed through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel.
When government runs a project, they see only who gets to profit from the corruption. When problems arise, their friends are already rich and they are happy to abandon hope. When a private company faces challenges - metallurgy in this case - they simply SOLVE them. THIS is how we went from "Who killed the electric car" to Tesla/SpaceX/XAI. We need MANY more of these independent startups working on those issues. I predict that the greatest hurdle faced by Copenhagen Atomic will be governmental regulation, oversight and sabotage.
I am most happy to hear your enthusiasm for TSR. I understand that China, after testing a prototype, has announced that it will construct a TSR in the Gobi Desert, so it looks like it has solved the problems with salt.
MSR and Thorium have an excellent future. I have been a big fan of both and now even more excited to see real world applications of this power source that we have been just sitting on.
@@skierpage Thorium did already, also Fusion did last year in America, dunno what you talking about. It is a political agenda nothing more. If you can't see that, then sorry open your eyes and mind what science field got pushed the last 20 years. Same with EV cars, but other than that they have a good point to be here right now not so all the wind turbines. At least not together, we ruin our economy vs China, India and South America.
@@CopenhagenAtomics / I wish you guys best of luck. At this point I imagine the hurdles are less about the tech and more about regs, licensing, permits, etc.
This Thorium reactor tech is a game-changer! As much as Fusion will be a game-changer (someday!) and will finally get us to a "post-scarcity" time for energy worldwide. Thorium is the bridge technology that can get us over the hump power-wise until we get commercial scale Fusion!
Employing thorium-232 as part of the fuel cycle isn’t what’s significant, it’s the reactors themselves. The versatility in fertile/fissile nuclear fuels and the inherent safety of liquid fuel/coolant designs is what potentially makes these reactors vastly superior. As the initial response mentions, none of this is new and they’ve yet to prove that it’s viable in many regards.
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 : Check out China's second generation thorium reactor. I believe, India built the first generation reactor. You high tech eagles could take a look. It is not a state secret.
My dad worked on Thorium LFTR reactors back in the 60s. Given all of the technical reasons they stopped, which are still holding back these reactors, good luck in solving them all. The concept is solid. And you will have to get around the political issues, too. Just googled his name and found the papers he's mentioned to me- one written in 1960, another in 1970.
The real reason molten salt thorium reactors weren't put into use despite numerous advantages is that they can't be used to produce weapons grade plutonium, which our current reactor design was made specifically to do. The part where they also produce energy is really just a useful byproduct.
This feels like a kickstarter sales pitch. So very light on actual technical data or specs. 12 minutes in before you disclose that you havent even got a commercially viable product and are still in prototyping.
most abundante energy available...??? except for solar of course. Solar provides more energy every day of the year than any other energy source could possibly dream of.
meanwhile, China has already built the world's first, non-experimental, fully-operational 2mw thorium reactor...... in the middle of the desert. and is on track to build to 373 MWt capacity by 2030.
The bulk of the criticism is that it had 40% downtime and the corrosive effects of the hot salt, when it was running at Oak Ridge. If you look at the reactors running logs, the reason for the downtime was to inspect and analyze the damage caused by radiation and corrosion. Normal operating procedure for any new untested technology. The obstacles to acceptance of thorium power is more political than technical.
@@cathodion Thats the nature of a "Company". They aren't relying on government subsidy that come from our taxes and we have no control over how it is spent or who gets to pocket it.
My guess: There will be no insurance company, that will partner with copenhagen atomics. 300 years expiry time for the atomic waste is - from a human life perspective - still a problem. Do you know what will be in 100, 200, even 300 years? Look back in history. Noone knows. What was the technological, social and cultural situation 200--300 years ago, thus in the 18th century? Which amount of this waste must be managed in 100 years, if this reactor type would be used intensively?
That's cool and all, but what's your solution for the corrosion problem? Have you managed to find a solvant that doesn't destroy all the piping? Or piping that doesn't die from the sort of pH that molten salts typically have?
We have developed a method for purifying the salt to such an extent that corrossion does not occur even in stainless steel. To further the advancement of molten salt research we are actually supplying other companies, universities and national labs with these purified salts.
@@CopenhagenAtomics That's wonderful news! I'd heard, perhaps wrongly, that the salts themselves were corrosive... Do they stay pure after your process or are you cleaning them up constantly, not unlike water in a cooling loop where removing the ions water creates through reactions with metals slows down corrosion? Or maybe even a corrosion inhibitor?
@@benjaminponcet96 It is my understanding that the salts themselves are not corrosive. It is salt dissolved in water that is corrosive. Getting all the water out is the key, or so I have read. As an aside, I have melted salt in an electric pot designed to melt lead. When it melts, it looks essentially like water, but dangerously hot of course. When it starts to melt, it looks very much like ice melting to water. I would unplug the pot and the salt "froze" into a solid puck that would simply pop out of the pot. No corrosion in the pot at all.
@@CopenhagenAtomics Thank you! I cannot stress enough how happy it makes me to see people advancing this OH SO VERY NEEDED technology 50+ years after it's proof of concept success. The corrosion problem is often cited but it never appeared to me to be unsolvable. Way to go guys!. Alvin Weinberg rejoices wherever he is.
Thorium Molten Salt Reactors were already "the future of energy production" over 50 years ago when I took my first steps in engineering. I'm a patient man, but I won't (and obviously can't) wait another 50 years for someone to make good on his promise ... or just to present the next schedule.
I’ve been a ‘believer’ in Thorium Floride molten salt reactors for many years but believe the limitation as in the material science of the pumps and pipes as the salts are very corrosive especially under heat and pressure- has Copenhagen Atomics cracked the material science?? 🤞🤞
Hi, great question! Yes, we have addressed the issue of corrosion through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel. Furthermore, we have developed an active magnetic bearings pump to reduce the wear and tear of the pumps. Ps. There is no pressure in our reactors.
@@CopenhagenAtomics thanks CA for taking the time to reply- purifying the salt seems a good direction as you stop the problem’at source’ rather than having to re-engineer the entire system- also the reuse of waste again seems a double win. Good luck scaling up . Looking forward to seeing progress
@@CopenhagenAtomics that if possible would require filters those require maintenance... and how is the reactor supposed to work with purified salt? isn't the radioactive material in the salt the part that keeps the reaction going and as well the part that creates the material wear and tear?
@@CopenhagenAtomics The active magnetic bearing pump ALONE is worth its own discussion/presentation! I assume it is incredibly energy efficient in its own right!
🎉 Exciting! Sounds like you have made great progress in the last couple of years. Very sad I never got an email about the original crowdfunding round 😞
It is very sad that countries do not encourage investment in these types of energy, despite the great energy crisis that leads to energy poverty. And at the expense of taxpayers, when huge taxes are collected to promote renewable sources, but some money is not allocated to such an important thing, which solves the problem of nuclear waste and offers a stable source of energy.
The U.S. tested a demo MSR using Thorium in the 1960s and 3 commercial reactors tried Thorium cores in the 1970s but all were abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium based reactors. Other countries have tried them and abandoned them for the same reasons. The fuel in a nuclear power plant is just a small cost in the production of electrical power. Even if Thorium was cheaper than Uranium it would make little difference. And since Thorium does not fission and Thorium reactors are actually U233 breeder reactors that must reprocess spent fuel which is very expensive, Thorium reactors are more costly to operate as has been proven many times. These start up companies have to come up with a new and improved product to get taxpayer welfare and that is really all they want. If Thorium is so great, the simple question is why are private investors not interested?
@@tommyb.6866 OK gen Zer, open your pocket and become an investor instead of waiting for taxpayer welfare. Your so called education apparently comes from YT videos and not reality
LFTR has been promising wonderful things for the longest time, yet there's still nothing actually delivered. Fingers are crossed but hopes are tempered.
Bro, come and work in India. There is plenty of thorium here. They have been working on thorium for >30 years and still cant see the light at the end of the tunnel.
He did say "company", whereas the experimental/demonstration reactor in China was built by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That one was already completed and very close to starting operation. So technically he was correct, but still a little sneaky because he might have created the impression that they are the only entity doing this when there is indeed competition and the competition is ahead of them.
I worked for BNFL about 22 years ago and the talk then was about thorium. Lots of technical issues, mostly with the waste. Good luck. Let me know how that goes.
Thorcon has some excellent mass production ideas for complete, full-size fission power plants - have you and/or Elysium discussed collaboration with them, to improve their (thermal spectrum) reactors?
@@zangetsu2k8 an unproven improved method of nuclear power generation is a nice possible future win, but calling it "the best news I've ever heard" is a strange take. There is no market whatsoever for thorium power, unless you know of a Chicago Exchange where people are actively trading thorium generation futures. China has a tiny 2-megawatt research thorium reactor, big whoop. Meanwhile in 2022 the world installed 295 gigawatts of wind and solar power because it's quick and cheap and everyone forecasts it will get cheaper still. To me that's really good news, but you do you.
@@skierpage there's no quick and cheap about wind power, I don't know how they do it in other countries, but here it only looks quick and cheap on paper, most of the cost is put on every citizen in transmission cost. they need to build infrastructure to handle many small generators which usually costs just as much as the turbine itself. but that cost goes straight to the consumer. and quick? takes some 10 years to get a wind park going, same as a new full size nuclear plant. and the cost of decommission the turbines after some 15 years is not even included in the lifecycle calculations.
@@zangetsu2k8 nobody cares what you think, the Levelized Cost of Electricity reports from Lazard are clear. Hundreds of gigawatts of wind and solar get installed each year because they're cheap and quick. You are nuts if you think it takes 10 years to construct a concrete pad, deliver the tower, and install the turbine and vanes. Let's pick a project from the Wikipedia article "List of wind farms in the United States", the 912 megawatt Los Vientos wind farm in Texas. "Construction commenced in 2012 and was completed in 2016". And the wind farm can start delivering electricity the moment one turbine finishes construction, unlike nuclear. It's certainly the case that fossil fuel companies try to gin up a whole bunch of fake outrage over renewable energy, turning neighbors against farmers who are able to generate a second income from their land. Their disinformation obviously worked on you. Heating on wind and solar doesn't get a single nuclear plant built.
I'm guessing the idea from previous videos is to breed thorium into U-233 in a frozen thorium salt blanket surrounding the reactor in a 1.5 fluid design. However a common concern with thorium breeders is that this produces pure U-233. Pure U-233 is a potential weapons material and so this is unlikely to be allowed by nuclear regulators. Typical solutions such as adding natural uranium into the blanket salt would result in production of long-lived waste, which is counter to the stated goals of Copenhagen atomics. How does Copenhagen atomics intend to address this issue?
The blanket is not frozen. You cannot make pure U-233 inside the reactor. Thus our thorium reactor make U233 + U232 + U234, which have never been used for weapons, because other methods are much better. > unlikely to be allowed by nuclear regulators. --> Not true. If you call natural thorium long lived waste, then yes!
@@CopenhagenAtomics Ah I was going by a video released 4 years ago on this channel "Copenhagen Atomics Waste Burner in 5 minutes" which has labelled a "Frozen Thorium Salt Blanket". Perhaps the design has changed since then, there's not a lot of information available on the Copenhagen Atomics design. I would have thought the regulators aren't going to ask whether it's the best way to build a bomb, they're going to ask if it's possible. My understanding is that even if contaminated with U-232 and U-234 the purity of the U-233 is high enough to form a viable (even if inefficient) weapon. The concern will be what if a rogue actor steals the reactor or syphons off the uranium and uses it to build a weapon. No enrichment would be required so the technology to do this might well be within the capabilities of some terrorist organisations, for example.
Cheapest energy in the world is still a few people working together, instead of against eachother. For a few liters of water and a pound of renewables (food) they make incredible stuff happening. Far more than converting water into steam. (For which all energy suppliers seek more and more complicated ways.)
I agree this is some what deceptive… Thorium reactors have been around for a long time but we’re not pursued because of they could not be used to make bombs which was the central goal of the nuclear industry during the Cold War. The idea of a SMR (Small Modular Reactor) has also been proposed before but has not realized… hopefully these guys and maybe China, India and others will succeed.
If you can convince your home country Denmark to be one of the first two countries to build one of these in their backyard then the rest of the world may listen. Good luck with it. I think it is a good concept.
Finally someone is taking Thorium serious. I wrote a paper on Thorium 10 years ago in undergrad. Australia and India were co-researching malten salt systems but went nowhere with it. Australia is full of Thorium.
@@clarkkent9080 They took it very serious in the 30's and 40's but it lost to Uranium for obvious military reasons and this has always been a hurdle. Turning to Thorium which is capable of deteriorating Plutonium should have been in production in the 70's with the realization of global warming.
@@marlinblack6597 You apparently know very little history. Where do people keep coming up with this BS that Thorium was abandoned and Uranium based PWR/BWR were chosen so we could make bombs? Hanford Wa. has been making weapons material, at their 9 reactors, since 1944, 12 years before the first U.S. commercial nuclear plant became operational and their weapons production reactors are very efficient graphite moderated reactors and DO NOT produce any electrical power. Savannah River site SC. Has been making weapons material since 1955 and their 5 production reactors are very efficient low pressure heavy water moderated reactors and DO NOT produce electric power. Thorium was tried at Shippingport and Indian Point commercial reactors in the 1970s and abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium. Weapons production reactors are NOTHING like U.S. commercial PWR or BWR power reactors and commercial power reactors have NEVER been used to produce Pu239 for weapons, since there has never been a need beyond what the efficient weapons production reactors could provide.. The U.S. currently has so much Pu239 that 34 tons of weapon grade Pu239 is being treated so it can eventually be disposed of at a cost of billions. Your comment is like saying automobiles use gas engine because the military wanted jet fighters. God help us that people base their knowledge on social media and YT videos.
I hope this is real, I say that because I have heard promises like this before, then years go by and nothing happens. These things are never as simple as these salesmen make them out to be. I hope this time is different but I won't get my hopes up. I have no doubt we will get there eventually, I am just very skeptical when it sounds to good to be true and it will all happen in 3-5 years, for some reason that is always the time frame promised in these presentations.
@@alvinseah5423 Chinese regulations? I didn't know that was a thing. In all seriousness, a massive 500 million dollar experimental reactor that took years to build and is only now beginning to start testing, is a far cry from pumping out modular reactors in the next three to five years. The more I look into it, the more far fetched it seems. I am not saying that thorium reactors won't be a potential energy solution. Just that like most of these presentations, it is absurdly optimistic. You have to take these things with large doses of salt.
As an Austrian, I am so optimistic that nuclear energy could save our environment, despite the fact that this country is a lost cause when it comes to this technology.
@@CopenhagenAtomics Refreshing to hear! Sadly, absolutely no chance here! People commonly have a reaction that is seemingly post-traumatic when it comes to nuclear energy! I've already listened to conversations going like: "I immediately changed my electricity provider after finding out, that they sell some energy from nuclear sources!" Electricity providers hence hide the fact that they sometimes provide power from nuclear sources. Being fiercly and stubbornly anti-nuclear has sadly become a matter of national identity and changing that is pretty much impossible (in my view).
New technology? So the Thorium Reactor at Oak Ridge that ran from 1965 to 1969 was a new technology? Bearing in mind that the first nuclear power station was built in 1951.
So, please someone tell me is there an actual prototype running already? how was the cracking and corroding f the Hasteloy-N container solved? and if so how do I invest?I thought CA was so far just experimenting with ways to separate the different reaction by/intermediate products from the molten salt, did they now actually develop a working reactor prototype?
No. They have a "water prototype". They want investor money "to test the entire system with non-radioactive molten salts". Their hilarious claim of "price matching" solar when they don't know anything seems very Trevor Milton inspired.
@@xartech well I dont agree. I happen to think that thorium has a future and I know for a fact that most green energies are far from the panacea most people make it out to be and in fact they will never ever cover demand. My onlypoint is that we should be getting back to the point at which we were in the 70s in the US. Having a working experimental reactor figuring out challenges one at the time.once they have it ill litterally give them all my savings
Hey! Great questions! As @xartech says the first full-size prototype (Loop 6.0) is with water. The reason for water is that it has almost the same viscosity as molten salt, and is much cheaper build to get results, which has provided us with great insights that we have altered in loop 6.1 that we are running initial tests on at the moment. 6.1 will run with 700 degree molten salt and then next step 6.2 is with radioactive material. We have addressed the issue of corrosion through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel that our first reactors will be build in.
Cancer rates and other health issues are contested in the regions of long standing LWRs, let alone those that we know discharged harmful radiation or melted down even. Regardless, I’m very happy to hear your advances in Thorium. Thanks and keep up the good work!
It’s been proven long ago that coal fired plants put much more radioactive material into the local environments. Which is easy bc nuclear power plants don’t release any radiation to the local environment.
@@ConspiracyLoon The increase in thyroid cancers as a result of the Chornobyl accident are well established. After decades of research and follow-up we have a good handle on the scale of the impact. While extremely unfortunate for those effected the impact is magnitudes smaller than what is regularly suggested in the media and by certain groups. annals.edu.sg/pdf/40VolNo4Apr2011/V40N4p158.pdf
It would be awesome if only our materials science technology was advanced enough to come up with some kind of material that could contain the incredibly caustic environment that superheated high pressure salt causes…like many inventions, it looks great on paper.
Apparently that is precisely what these guys have achieved. I think it has to do with low water, low oxygen molten salt. Apparently Copenhagen atomics has done a lot of testing of their stainless steel technology so have high confidence already. My remarks are based on other comments to this video
There has NEVER been a corrosion issue with a salt that is redox controlled - The MSRE showed ZERO corrosion - this fable came about when someone postulated that corrosion MIGHT be an issue - and that has been taken up as an actual issue by people basing their knowledge on pure speculation
@@CopenhagenAtomics ... mmm ... Imagine a nation's main energy source being shut down, if the company responsible don't like the nation's actions/politics. Case in point; Western companies leaving Russia over night. Strategic considerations like this are pretty serious.
@@channel-zz8kk ... food, transistors and steel are generic consumables, available from many sources. Infrastructure, like water supply or power generation, is uniquely designed for, and 100% tied to, a specific nation/region. It can't be replaced easily, and definitively not within weeks, months, years or even decades in some cases. Strategic infrastructure is, and always have been viewed as strategic for this very reason. If it were easily replaceable, it wouldn't be strategically important, just important to be able to acquire, like food, transistors or steel.
Uranium and thorium are both used as nuclear fuel, but they have some key differences that make uranium more commonly used.One of the main reasons is that uranium is more easily obtainable and more abundant than thorium. Uranium can be found in many parts of the world, while thorium is more rare and is primarily found in a few countries, such as India and Norway. Another reason is that uranium can be used in both thermal and fast neutron reactors, while thorium can only be used in thermal reactors. This means that uranium can be used in a wider range of reactors and can be used in more advanced reactor designs.Finally, uranium can be used in both light water reactors and heavy water reactors, while thorium can only be used in heavy water reactors. This means that uranium can be used in a wider range of reactor types, and can be used in both pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. Overall, while thorium has some advantages over uranium, such as being less radioactive and producing less nuclear waste, uranium's greater availability and versatility make it more commonly used as a nuclear fuel. Hm, He said Thorium is avaliable in most countries in earth, I knew it otherwise.
Hi! You are unfortunatly misinformed. Thorium is 3 to 4 times more abundant on the crust of the earth than uranium. In addition, as almost all thorium found is thorium-232 it does not need enrichment, whereas only about 0.7% of the uranium on earth is the fissionable U235. See more in this study from earlier this year www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2023.1132611/full
Hi! The price will eventually be $20 / MWh. Although we do expect the first reactors will be more, it is still cheaper than other sources. Moreover, it is difficult to compare an intermittent energy source to that of a baseload energy source.
@@CopenhagenAtomics 'it is difficult to compare an intermittent energy source to that of a baseload energy source' -not really - you just add storage to the price. + decommision.
@@channel-zz8kk I´m not neglecting anything. Wind and solar projects used to be uneconomical vanity projects, that does not have to be the case anymore. Storing waste for 300 years however - is a red flag for me.
Perhaps you can tell us how many people have died from nuclear waste the last 70 years? And compare that to the thousands who die from fuel poverty every year. As for solar power. It's all about eroei. Some estimates have it that solar power here at 57° North doesn't even make back the energy used to manufacture the solar panels.
Well, you've certainly figured out how to extract more hype, and separated that completely from details. I didn't hear about one "invention" in there, only things that have been established as part of the theoretical benefits of Thorium for decades, most of which were realized in previous Thorium demonstration reactors. You aren't "able" to produce this many reactors, you haven't built your prototype. If wishes were all it took, we'd believe you, but 100x come-ons for investors in straight into SEC investigation territory, and looks more like Trump University than anything I'm comfortable with. I believe in Thorium, but I don't believe in slide shows. What did you invent? What patents to you have? What technologies are you using? What are the fundamental engineering challenges? What happens when a 100% private owned energy company decides to squeeze an economy? What happens when unexpected contingencies make it cost effective to declare bankruptcy? This may be the most counterproductive presentation I've ever seen.
I toured Europe a month following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The radiation plume had subsided by then, but still was cause for concern. The weather was strange on one of the days and I got sick. I'll never know it it was from eating contaminated food. Sweden destroyed their grain and dairy products and killed much of their livestock because it ate contaminated feed. This was no joke, although a waiter in Stockholm tried to make light of it. He said 'At least I learned how to make chicken Kiev...First you preheat the city to 350 degrees'.
funny tales. But please check your info and math and physics. More people die from coal power plant every day than has EVER died from nuclear power plant problems. Unfortunately most people want to make energy policy decisions with feelings, and then they wonder why it turns bad.
Please go public so we can all invest and make this a reality. The world needs this, and our leaders are way to inept and controlled by the energy companies to lead the way for this innovative technology.
We are expecting an IPO in 2026. Until then it is possible to invest when we have investment rounds, you can sign up for the investment newsletter on our website: www.copenhagenatomics.com/contact/
I love the comparison on the deadliness of the fuel types! Its great to tell the people that the big Oil is running this coal and oil production. We still need Oil and Coal for poorer countries which rely on the infrastructure they aleredy have. Richest countries should get into this fast as possible! Show some repsonsibility, its about time.
Good luck with politics. We have a masive energy crisis in South Africa all because of poltics. There are people with money poised to start private energy generation for the first time in South Africa after our government deregulated power generation a couple of months ago. The money that coal generates is a huge obstacle and people with power will protect those interests.
Thorium or Uranium Nuclear reactors have always been our best options. Our energy needs are only going to increase. Local power companies need to focus on distrution only and get their asses in gear. Burning anything to make large scale power should of been ahut down decades ago.
Green energy, cheap? He is on the hit list. Nuclear tech is much cleaner than people think and also safe if precautions are taken. The only issue is that it takes many years and money to build.
![THORIUM: World's CHEAPEST Energy! [Science Unveiled]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U434Sy9BGf8/mqdefault.jpg)
I am thrilled that Thorium LFTR technology is finally coming to market, and that this company putting its best features to use. But, I resent that he never, even once, mentioned Kirk Sorensen who rediscovered this technology after the US Government shelved it in the 70's, and has been advocating it for over a decade, nor the US Researchers in the 1950's who pioneered it for 20 years. This whole presentation is presented as if Copenhagen Atomics invented it from scratch. He starts by saying that he is "one of the co-inventors of a new nuclear technology", and then goes immediately into telling everyone about liquid salt Thorium reactors; thus, implying that THAT is what he invented. What this company has done is great, and worthy of praise, but they did not invent liquid salt thorium reactors, nor even rediscover them. They are standing on the shoulder of giants, and don't even mention their names.
Virtually anyone watching this knows all that.
We refer to Kirk Sorenson in several other videos. But true: Alvin W., Kirk S. and several others deserve a big thanks for bring this technology to life. Copenhagen Atomics has invented and patented a few unique areas of this tech and this is why we can get the price very far down. (also known as thermal spectrum thorium breeder).
@@CopenhagenAtomics I skimmed a few of your other videos to check, but didn't see anything. I suppose I jumped the gun. I'm glad they're getting credit. I apologize for not giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it didn't seem to me like that perspective came through clearly in this video. However, as @michaelnurse9089 pointed out, perhaps nowadays this topic is mainstream enough that such attribution can be assumed. Upon second examination, towards the end of the video, I suppose you do mention explicitly that you're the only company in the world building full-scale Thorium reactors, which would seem to imply others have hands in the field. Perhaps I'm spending too much time in the toxic side of the internet. I apologize for the accusation.
This respectful conversation makes my heart happy. I wish all interweb commenters could behave as such. Keep carrying the fire
This is more common than you think...
I'll be amazed if they ever get 1 unit built. They offered no details beyond the old thorium hope and dreams that have been around since the 1950's. If they prove me wrong I'll be overjoyed at their success and I'll buy this man a beer.
@speedyham545 As mentioned elsewhere, this is a marketing video, not a technical "This is how we're going to do all this" video.
meanwhile, China has already built the world's first, non-experimental, fully-operational 2mw thorium reactor...... in the middle of the desert. and is on track to build to 373 MWt capacity by 2030.
China has annnounced issuing of a permit to build its first operational thorium reactor in the Gobi Desert, following on the experimental reactor it has been operating already. And China has huge plans to gear up nuclear over the next 10 years. Im betting China will lead the way on this.
@@trekpac2 : I know China was piloting the second generation of thorium reactor. Sounds like it worked for them.
@@elliekwong3180 A working prototype does not tell you whether the risk you're taking will be "once per 10,000 years of operations" or "once per 10,000,000 years of operation". Given that Chinese authorities have a corruption problem, I fully expect them to have multiple Fukushima-grade or worse disasters if they every start to build these things en masse.
Best of luck to you guys! The world needs it.
I would have liked to to have seen at least some discussion of the technical side of these reactors, a basic overview of their design and construction, along with an explanation as to why this design and construction method allows for such a low price
ruclips.net/video/dEUxEZ2sfUM/видео.html The reason for the low price, is because they're small, once they've built one, they can just copy it really quickly.
I am writing a book about them so just ask.
The most important thing about the price is that they build everything in thin (for a nuclear reactor) stainless steel plates.
Stainless steel is cheap to produce and a lot of companies are able to produce parts in the dimensions needed.
Why can they get away with using stainless steel instead of expensive alloys or coatings? Because they are world leading in producing clean (oxygen and water-free) FLiNaK salt. No oxygen and water, no corrosion. They are also the MSR company with the most hours of testing, so they have proven that their stainless steel equipment work and do not corrode in molten salt, it is not a theory.
Their MSR is also a SMR - a small modular reactor. Because of the small (shipping container) size, it is easy to mass produce on an assembly line and then transport to where it is needed.
They expect to produce one 100 MW thermal reactor every day.
If you want to take a look at the core design, search for "copenhagen atomics onion core". You will see that it consist of steel plates bend only in one direction, again easy and cheap for subcontractors to produce.
@@DKTAz00 That video shows the unit underground covered in concrete while this video shows them above ground lined up in a warehouse. What changed?
@@chapter4travels It seems they switched to above-ground encasement of the containers. You can see them in this video, but its not explained.
@@migBdk Do you have a list for interest in your book? I think this kind of system is the future of green energy and would like to read more about it... Good luck!
Hope this technology is successful and goes forward at pace. The world certainly needs it.
Nobody knows, there is no prototype reactor that has been tested.
Peter needs it, not the world
@@koenraad4618 China already had one on commercial running at the moment......
China and canada have prototypes to say nothing of the oak ridge reactot shut diwn because it couldnt produce weapons grade uranium in the early 1990s@koenraad4618
If you already had prototype, I'd be cheering. Without working prototype these are almost empty words to me. Nevertheless good luck! It sounds amazing on paper.
The moment they have a working prototype they won't need to promote their tech. People/govs will be lining up to buy it.
Development is expensive and it takes time. Good work guys and keep it up. We need more people working (and failing) on real solutions with real potential
Thorium reactors were built in the 50s
Thorium is not a new idea. They didnt build those since you cant do nukes with it...
To build one you need a lot of effort and a lot of cheers from people so, the politician fund these endeavours.
The engineers ran an MSR at full power at Oakridge, for thousands of hrs in the '70s, then Pres Richard Nixon canceled the program.
I really appreciate that you have focused on the advantages, but dealt with safety and waste in a pragmatic and supportive manner.
Of course what is missing are the challenges that still need to be overcome for this technology, such as the availability of Li-7 to scale up, the management of by-products, the legislative effort, reprocessing challenges etc.
Li-7?
it's a fission reactor, not a fusion one...
@@mikez2779 the molten salt is
F7LiTh, it requires isotropically enriched Lithium
Let's also not forget the Tellurium embrittlement issue along with moderator expansion/contraction issues like IMSR has where the core must be changed every 4 years.
If you really have a game changer -dont wait for our do nothing to move on it. Please offer the tech to Uropean and Asian countrys and build several there first. That should wake up our sleeping senate and congress to fast track one of your systems in the US.
@@willtabacchi1408 It's the usual nuclear industry play - report on all the advantages and ignore all the unsolved issues. Also, nuclear power means low-probability, high-damage failure risks, and it's so easy to just ignore such scenarios because humans are bad at intuiting expected value and tend to brush aside everything that may happen once per 10,000 years of operation. Let's just say that once per 10,000 years sounds okay at first glance, but not if you have thousands of reactors operating, but you don't _see_ risks so it is so easy to skim over risks, and the nuclear industry has been doing that for decades now and is under continuous pressure to keep playing this game since every reactor is such a huge investment with a humongous gain so we'll continue to see incomplete presentations from that industry.
THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, the real future of energy!! Please pick the UK.
We already have a subsdiary operating in the UK called UK Atomics.
LOL! This Thorium nonsense goes perfectly with post-Brexit Britain
I really hope the country I'm from can adopt this technology. South Africa 🇿🇦 ♥️
Please help us assemble 100 supporters in SA.
I hope not cause South Africa is way too unstable a country for any risky new technologies. Especially with your government that seems to have tried to kill the CEO of one of your energy companies.
@@CopenhagenAtomics For European countries, here in the Netherlands we kind of had an energy crisis recently.
I would *love* it if we could have one of the first thorium reactors in operation...
What could i do to get you guys build one in the Netherlands?
I have been thorium development for the last 25 years. It has been a long wrong so it is nice seeing an incredibly great design coming into being.
* long road?
Its not up and running just big talk and all torium plants so far have failted becouse if Corrosion problems ec. I only realy beleave when its actuly running and powering homes
... ditto!
So is this the real deal now? If so, the company should have a massive injection of experts and funding to make this a reality, like yesterday!!
What is incredible? It is incredible to bring it onto the table when they have clearly nothing to offer, except old dated charts and promises on nothing to come to fruition till 2025 and 2028.
China has a thorium reactor. It is a 2-megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor (TMSR-LF1) located in Wuwei, Gansu province. The reactor was constructed by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was granted an operating license in August 2021. The TMSR-LF1 is currently undergoing testing and is not yet operational.
I heard they overcame some of thorning issues with the first generation thorium reactor. Wish them full success.
Let's say they can double that to 4MW?
How many to provide 50% of the global electricity requirement?
.
How long to approve the design globally?
.
Would other countries rely on China for the supply of reactors? (That would be a politically "interesting" discussion?)
.
Would China open source the design?
.
I suspect the nuclear route would (will?) lead to 20 years of "negotiation" while the oil cartel rubs their hands in glee.
@@rogerstarkey5390 you should ask CN after the US stop doing stupid sanctions
@@rogerstarkey5390 The new offshore wind turbines have a peak of 14-15MW and are supposed to produce 80GWh of electricity a year. That's averaged almost 10 MW of continuous power. Nuclear power stations in the small MW range are just for testing. You need at least 1 GW stations, even better 2-3GW, so security and all the support stuff is reasonable. Germany alone would need around 30 3GW stations if they chose to swap to it completely. China probably 200.
@@jamesstripling4810 Sour grapes. Real sour. Wonder what your country's doing?
The molten salt reactor at Dounreay suffered from major corrosion problems from the molten salt and operated intermittently. The chemical composition was also hard to control. The presenter put forward all the known advantages of the Thorium cycle, but did not address the operational issues of the MSR. I would be delighted if Copenhagen Atomic has solved these problems and can deliver cheap energy, but they need to demonstrate they can reliably operate a reactor over a period of years.
Hi! You are quite correct. We still do need to demonstrate that. It is still early days, but stay tuned!
Some of the previous issues we have solved however. The corrosion issue you mention, has been addressed through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel.
When government runs a project, they see only who gets to profit from the corruption. When problems arise, their friends are already rich and they are happy to abandon hope. When a private company faces challenges - metallurgy in this case - they simply SOLVE them. THIS is how we went from "Who killed the electric car" to Tesla/SpaceX/XAI. We need MANY more of these independent startups working on those issues. I predict that the greatest hurdle faced by Copenhagen Atomic will be governmental regulation, oversight and sabotage.
I am most happy to hear your enthusiasm for TSR.
I understand that China, after testing a prototype, has announced that it will construct a TSR in the Gobi Desert, so it looks like it has solved the problems with salt.
That prototype was just built this year and they said the testing will last 5 years before they even test the auxiliary systems.
OMW, South Africa needs this badly!
Our power outages are diminishing the hopes of many people's future. We have a grid. We just need more juice.
No, what you need are responsible people in positions of power, but I'm afraid that would be interpreted as racism.
@@ljuboizsiska5448 That too.
@@ljuboizsiska5448 That's the absolute truth. It's also crazy S Africa has these problems with an abundance of energy from the sun....
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
You guys DID it and something happened. Look up this chemical mixed with chromium in pottery. No need to repeat the history. ❤
@@kenpe1455 - yeah, but someone keeps turning off the sun for half the day... that guy should be fired.
MSR and Thorium have an excellent future. I have been a big fan of both and now even more excited to see real world applications of this power source that we have been just sitting on.
Depends on political ideology not science for this to happen.
@@Icezapp1no, it depends on new reactor designs actually being cheap per megawatt•hour. NONE have demonstrated that!
@@skierpage Thorium did already, also Fusion did last year in America, dunno what you talking about. It is a political agenda nothing more. If you can't see that, then sorry open your eyes and mind what science field got pushed the last 20 years. Same with EV cars, but other than that they have a good point to be here right now not so all the wind turbines. At least not together, we ruin our economy vs China, India and South America.
Been waiting for this to go mainstream for 50 years… still waiting.
For 40 years everyone had forgotten about the technology. Now we are at least someone actually attempting to make it mainstream.
@@CopenhagenAtomics / I wish you guys best of luck. At this point I imagine the hurdles are less about the tech and more about regs, licensing, permits, etc.
@@CopenhagenAtomicsand where is the prototype? You are advertising nothing but hot air.
"For growth countries like Poland" Love back, from Poland ❤
This Thorium reactor tech is a game-changer! As much as Fusion will be a game-changer (someday!) and will finally get us to a "post-scarcity" time for energy worldwide.
Thorium is the bridge technology that can get us over the hump power-wise until we get commercial scale Fusion!
Thorium is not new it just failed so far and talking isnt realy anything new
Employing thorium-232 as part of the fuel cycle isn’t what’s significant, it’s the reactors themselves. The versatility in fertile/fissile nuclear fuels and the inherent safety of liquid fuel/coolant designs is what potentially makes these reactors vastly superior. As the initial response mentions, none of this is new and they’ve yet to prove that it’s viable in many regards.
Let's hope that this container sized torium based fission power idea will work. Please make ASAP a working model.
@@bofink5377why ASAP lol
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 : Check out China's second generation thorium reactor. I believe, India built the first generation reactor. You high tech eagles could take a look. It is not a state secret.
My dad worked on Thorium LFTR reactors back in the 60s. Given all of the technical reasons they stopped, which are still holding back these reactors, good luck in solving them all. The concept is solid. And you will have to get around the political issues, too. Just googled his name and found the papers he's mentioned to me- one written in 1960, another in 1970.
and the name ?
links? names?
One thing about having radioactive liquid salt is it tends to corrode the piping too fast to anyone's liking. But China has managed to crack the code
The real reason molten salt thorium reactors weren't put into use despite numerous advantages is that they can't be used to produce weapons grade plutonium, which our current reactor design was made specifically to do. The part where they also produce energy is really just a useful byproduct.
@@PackthatcameBack They can produce weapons grade Uranium 233
This feels like a kickstarter sales pitch. So very light on actual technical data or specs. 12 minutes in before you disclose that you havent even got a commercially viable product and are still in prototyping.
It’s been known for years that thorium has the most abundant energy available!
At last someone is taking this to the next level 👏👏👏👏👏👍
most abundante energy available...??? except for solar of course. Solar provides more energy every day of the year than any other energy source could possibly dream of.
Yes, not really new technology
@gordonhowell - WOW; never knew the sun features on the periodic table?
@@robervine7721 You didn't specify anything. Based on your sentence I could easily argue that hydrogen has more potential in fusion reactors.
meanwhile, China has already built the world's first, non-experimental, fully-operational 2mw thorium reactor...... in the middle of the desert. and is on track to build to 373 MWt capacity by 2030.
The bulk of the criticism is that it had 40% downtime and the corrosive effects of the hot salt, when it was running at Oak Ridge. If you look at the reactors running logs, the reason for the downtime was to inspect and analyze the damage caused by radiation and corrosion. Normal operating procedure for any new untested technology.
The obstacles to acceptance of thorium power is more political than technical.
Bureaucrats and Politicians are always the potholes in the road to advances in everything.
Any company who is prepared to fund the whole life cycle costs deserves support from investors. I'm in.
They're not prepared to fund it... that's why they need your money.
@@cathodion Thats the nature of a "Company". They aren't relying on government subsidy that come from our taxes and we have no control over how it is spent or who gets to pocket it.
My guess: There will be no insurance company, that will partner with copenhagen atomics. 300 years expiry time for the atomic waste is - from a human life perspective - still a problem. Do you know what will be in 100, 200, even 300 years? Look back in history. Noone knows. What was the technological, social and cultural situation 200--300 years ago, thus in the 18th century? Which amount of this waste must be managed in 100 years, if this reactor type would be used intensively?
India already built the first generation thorium reactor. China built the second generation thorium reactor. Check them out.
That's cool and all, but what's your solution for the corrosion problem? Have you managed to find a solvant that doesn't destroy all the piping?
Or piping that doesn't die from the sort of pH that molten salts typically have?
We have developed a method for purifying the salt to such an extent that corrossion does not occur even in stainless steel. To further the advancement of molten salt research we are actually supplying other companies, universities and national labs with these purified salts.
@@CopenhagenAtomics That's wonderful news! I'd heard, perhaps wrongly, that the salts themselves were corrosive... Do they stay pure after your process or are you cleaning them up constantly, not unlike water in a cooling loop where removing the ions water creates through reactions with metals slows down corrosion? Or maybe even a corrosion inhibitor?
@@benjaminponcet96 words from one of our partners: shorturl.at/akI17
@@benjaminponcet96 It is my understanding that the salts themselves are not corrosive. It is salt dissolved in water that is corrosive. Getting all the water out is the key, or so I have read. As an aside, I have melted salt in an electric pot designed to melt lead. When it melts, it looks essentially like water, but dangerously hot of course. When it starts to melt, it looks very much like ice melting to water. I would unplug the pot and the salt "froze" into a solid puck that would simply pop out of the pot. No corrosion in the pot at all.
@@CopenhagenAtomics Thank you! I cannot stress enough how happy it makes me to see people advancing this OH SO VERY NEEDED technology 50+ years after it's proof of concept success. The corrosion problem is often cited but it never appeared to me to be unsolvable. Way to go guys!. Alvin Weinberg rejoices wherever he is.
Thorium Molten Salt Reactors were already "the future of energy production" over 50 years ago when I took my first steps in engineering.
I'm a patient man, but I won't (and obviously can't) wait another 50 years for someone to make good on his promise ... or just to present the next schedule.
The technology had also been virtually forgotten for 40 years. Thank you to Kirk Sorensen for bringing it back.
It's a bit like fusion... Always "we will have it in 30 years, I promise"
Awesome! I'm so sick of people not understanding how beneficial nuclear is. In todays day and age, nuclear is safer than ever! Build it, build many!
That must be why so many investors are interested....NOT
I’ve been a ‘believer’ in Thorium Floride molten salt reactors for many years but believe the limitation as in the material science of the pumps and pipes as the salts are very corrosive especially under heat and pressure- has Copenhagen Atomics cracked the material science?? 🤞🤞
Hi, great question! Yes, we have addressed the issue of corrosion through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel. Furthermore, we have developed an active magnetic bearings pump to reduce the wear and tear of the pumps.
Ps. There is no pressure in our reactors.
@@CopenhagenAtomics thanks CA for taking the time to reply- purifying the salt seems a good direction as you stop the problem’at source’ rather than having to re-engineer the entire system- also the reuse of waste again seems a double win. Good luck scaling up . Looking forward to seeing progress
@@CopenhagenAtomics that if possible would require filters those require maintenance... and how is the reactor supposed to work with purified salt? isn't the radioactive material in the salt the part that keeps the reaction going and as well the part that creates the material wear and tear?
@@CopenhagenAtomics The active magnetic bearing pump ALONE is worth its own discussion/presentation! I assume it is incredibly energy efficient in its own right!
@@Drakkart it is the fluoride in the salt that is the primary issue. Not the thorium. It will be interesting to see how the test reactor works.
Go go go! Save the world
Thorium energy does not save the world. It merely creates more prosperity. A better world require your action.
GLAD TO HEAR PROGRESS FROM YOU GUYS! 🙂
I wish you all the luck in the world we do need this! Sooner than later.
🎉 Exciting! Sounds like you have made great progress in the last couple of years. Very sad I never got an email about the original crowdfunding round 😞
South Africa would really benefit from something like this.
South Africa might want to start by making it's coal fired plants secure before it looks at having nuclear power plants.
It is very sad that countries do not encourage investment in these types of energy, despite the great energy crisis that leads to energy poverty. And at the expense of taxpayers, when huge taxes are collected to promote renewable sources, but some money is not allocated to such an important thing, which solves the problem of nuclear waste and offers a stable source of energy.
I’m 100% in favor of thorium nuclear power. I hope this is successful! ⚡️
Im really excited for this success, great job! The faster we get this around the globe the faster we improve the quailty of life.
Sorry for breaking your illusions.
You better forget this "improving quality of life" nonsense.
Much needed tech to make the Hydrogen economy work! Good luck!
A hydrogen economy is a fantasy.
To begin with, we do want to focus on use cases such as hydrogen e.g. for ammonia production, rather than electricity to the grid.
I am familiar with the LFTR story. The US had it running for years.
So I have only 1 question: When can you deliver a power plant, and at what cost?
This makes me so happy. This is innovation pushing the economy in everyones favor, thus making us able to devote even more resources towards science.
The U.S. tested a demo MSR using Thorium in the 1960s and 3 commercial reactors tried Thorium cores in the 1970s but all were abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium based reactors. Other countries have tried them and abandoned them for the same reasons.
The fuel in a nuclear power plant is just a small cost in the production of electrical power. Even if Thorium was cheaper than Uranium it would make little difference. And since Thorium does not fission and Thorium reactors are actually U233 breeder reactors that must reprocess spent fuel which is very expensive, Thorium reactors are more costly to operate as has been proven many times.
These start up companies have to come up with a new and improved product to get taxpayer welfare and that is really all they want.
If Thorium is so great, the simple question is why are private investors not interested?
@@clarkkent9080 OK BOOMER
@@tommyb.6866 OK gen Zer, open your pocket and become an investor instead of waiting for taxpayer welfare. Your so called education apparently comes from YT videos and not reality
LFTR has been promising wonderful things for the longest time, yet there's still nothing actually delivered. Fingers are crossed but hopes are tempered.
Bro, come and work in India. There is plenty of thorium here. They have been working on thorium for >30 years and still cant see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Heard about this tech quite a while back.
Glad to hear it has been developed and that we will soon see it's fruit.
They tried it in the 60’s, uranium won cause the enriched uranium could be used for atomic bombs… go figure…..
Soon ??? In another 40+ year's or something ???
About time somebody talked sense. Thorium molten salt modular reactors are the only way to go for the future. John Eric Hoare, a British citizen.
Couldn't agree more! We have a subsidiary, UK Atomics, through which we will hopefully bring the technology to the UK
Any private company with investors can do so any time they want. But what they want is taxpayer welfare
John Eric who?
12:42 I believe that China build first Thorium reactor in recent times.
He did say "company", whereas the experimental/demonstration reactor in China was built by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That one was already completed and very close to starting operation. So technically he was correct, but still a little sneaky because he might have created the impression that they are the only entity doing this when there is indeed competition and the competition is ahead of them.
I worked for BNFL about 22 years ago and the talk then was about thorium. Lots of technical issues, mostly with the waste. Good luck. Let me know how that goes.
Thorcon has some excellent mass production ideas for complete, full-size fission power plants - have you and/or Elysium discussed collaboration with them, to improve their (thermal spectrum) reactors?
Just build it. Stop giving talks, stop speculating. Build them. Build a 1000, 10,000, and lets leap into the future.
Just emerged this brand new 75 year old technology could completely revolutionize everything.
A small 100 dollar ball of thorium can provide energy for one human its entire lifetime. That is just crazy.
this is probably the best news I've ever heard! thank you guys for making this happen.
How is it great news that in 5 years they hope to start an assembly line to begin finding out how much it actually costs per megawatt•hour?
@@skierpage please elaborate on that. How is it not great news that we might see other than just china owning the market for thorium power
@@zangetsu2k8 an unproven improved method of nuclear power generation is a nice possible future win, but calling it "the best news I've ever heard" is a strange take. There is no market whatsoever for thorium power, unless you know of a Chicago Exchange where people are actively trading thorium generation futures. China has a tiny 2-megawatt research thorium reactor, big whoop. Meanwhile in 2022 the world installed 295 gigawatts of wind and solar power because it's quick and cheap and everyone forecasts it will get cheaper still. To me that's really good news, but you do you.
@@skierpage there's no quick and cheap about wind power, I don't know how they do it in other countries, but here it only looks quick and cheap on paper, most of the cost is put on every citizen in transmission cost. they need to build infrastructure to handle many small generators which usually costs just as much as the turbine itself. but that cost goes straight to the consumer. and quick? takes some 10 years to get a wind park going, same as a new full size nuclear plant.
and the cost of decommission the turbines after some 15 years is not even included in the lifecycle calculations.
@@zangetsu2k8 nobody cares what you think, the Levelized Cost of Electricity reports from Lazard are clear. Hundreds of gigawatts of wind and solar get installed each year because they're cheap and quick. You are nuts if you think it takes 10 years to construct a concrete pad, deliver the tower, and install the turbine and vanes. Let's pick a project from the Wikipedia article "List of wind farms in the United States", the 912 megawatt Los Vientos wind farm in Texas. "Construction commenced in 2012 and was completed in 2016". And the wind farm can start delivering electricity the moment one turbine finishes construction, unlike nuclear.
It's certainly the case that fossil fuel companies try to gin up a whole bunch of fake outrage over renewable energy, turning neighbors against farmers who are able to generate a second income from their land. Their disinformation obviously worked on you.
Heating on wind and solar doesn't get a single nuclear plant built.
Great job! 👌👌
Thank you!
I'm guessing the idea from previous videos is to breed thorium into U-233 in a frozen thorium salt blanket surrounding the reactor in a 1.5 fluid design. However a common concern with thorium breeders is that this produces pure U-233. Pure U-233 is a potential weapons material and so this is unlikely to be allowed by nuclear regulators. Typical solutions such as adding natural uranium into the blanket salt would result in production of long-lived waste, which is counter to the stated goals of Copenhagen atomics. How does Copenhagen atomics intend to address this issue?
The blanket is not frozen. You cannot make pure U-233 inside the reactor. Thus our thorium reactor make U233 + U232 + U234, which have never been used for weapons, because other methods are much better.
> unlikely to be allowed by nuclear regulators. --> Not true.
If you call natural thorium long lived waste, then yes!
@@CopenhagenAtomics Ah I was going by a video released 4 years ago on this channel "Copenhagen Atomics Waste Burner in 5 minutes" which has labelled a "Frozen Thorium Salt Blanket". Perhaps the design has changed since then, there's not a lot of information available on the Copenhagen Atomics design.
I would have thought the regulators aren't going to ask whether it's the best way to build a bomb, they're going to ask if it's possible. My understanding is that even if contaminated with U-232 and U-234 the purity of the U-233 is high enough to form a viable (even if inefficient) weapon. The concern will be what if a rogue actor steals the reactor or syphons off the uranium and uses it to build a weapon. No enrichment would be required so the technology to do this might well be within the capabilities of some terrorist organisations, for example.
@@CopenhagenAtomics U232 is highly radioactive and humans can not be around it.
Cheapest energy in the world is still a few people working together, instead of against eachother. For a few liters of water and a pound of renewables (food) they make incredible stuff happening. Far more than converting water into steam. (For which all energy suppliers seek more and more complicated ways.)
Molten salt technology already exists. To name himself 'inventor' he could have explained his innovation.
I agree this is some what deceptive… Thorium reactors have been around for a long time but we’re not pursued because of they could not be used to make bombs which was the central goal of the nuclear industry during the Cold War. The idea of a SMR (Small Modular Reactor) has also been proposed before but has not realized… hopefully these guys and maybe China, India and others will succeed.
If you can convince your home country Denmark to be one of the first two countries to build one of these in their backyard then the rest of the world may listen. Good luck with it. I think it is a good concept.
This sounds absolutely wonderful. The big energy corporations will not like this at all . I suspect that they’re going to stop all this quickly .
If they buy some of these reactors their energy costs will go down and profits go up. What's to not like?
and why would they not like it? they are after profits, not sticking to an specific technology, profit.
They will invest in it, it is also the solution for transport logistics on large ships.
Don't travel on any planes this guy goes on.
Finally someone is taking Thorium serious. I wrote a paper on Thorium 10 years ago in undergrad. Australia and India were co-researching malten salt systems but went nowhere with it. Australia is full of Thorium.
The world took it serious in the 1960s and 1970s and abandoned it in every case as too expensive.
@@clarkkent9080 They took it very serious in the 30's and 40's but it lost to Uranium for obvious military reasons and this has always been a hurdle. Turning to Thorium which is capable of deteriorating Plutonium should have been in production in the 70's with the realization of global warming.
@@marlinblack6597 You apparently know very little history.
Where do people keep coming up with this BS that Thorium was abandoned and Uranium based PWR/BWR were chosen so we could make bombs?
Hanford Wa. has been making weapons material, at their 9 reactors, since 1944, 12 years before the first U.S. commercial nuclear plant became operational and their weapons production reactors are very efficient graphite moderated reactors and DO NOT produce any electrical power.
Savannah River site SC. Has been making weapons material since 1955 and their 5 production reactors are very efficient low pressure heavy water moderated reactors and DO NOT produce electric power.
Thorium was tried at Shippingport and Indian Point commercial reactors in the 1970s and abandoned as too costly compared to Uranium.
Weapons production reactors are NOTHING like U.S. commercial PWR or BWR power reactors and commercial power reactors have NEVER been used to produce Pu239 for weapons, since there has never been a need beyond what the efficient weapons production reactors could provide..
The U.S. currently has so much Pu239 that 34 tons of weapon grade Pu239 is being treated so it can eventually be disposed of at a cost of billions.
Your comment is like saying automobiles use gas engine because the military wanted jet fighters. God help us that people base their knowledge on social media and YT videos.
I hope this is real, I say that because I have heard promises like this before, then years go by and nothing happens. These things are never as simple as these salesmen make them out to be. I hope this time is different but I won't get my hopes up. I have no doubt we will get there eventually, I am just very skeptical when it sounds to good to be true and it will all happen in 3-5 years, for some reason that is always the time frame promised in these presentations.
China has built a thorium reactor and it just got regulatory approval to start operations.
@@alvinseah5423 Chinese regulations? I didn't know that was a thing. In all seriousness, a massive 500 million dollar experimental reactor that took years to build and is only now beginning to start testing, is a far cry from pumping out modular reactors in the next three to five years.
The more I look into it, the more far fetched it seems. I am not saying that thorium reactors won't be a potential energy solution. Just that like most of these presentations, it is absurdly optimistic. You have to take these things with large doses of salt.
A number of teams have built thorium reactors over the years. The difficulty is building one commercially competitive with other power plants.
@@bluecedar7914 Oh really, I would interested to read about that, do you have references?
@@bluecedar7914 can you give details on which team has managed to build a working thorium reactor?
As an Austrian, I am so optimistic that nuclear energy could save our environment, despite the fact that this country is a lost cause when it comes to this technology.
Likewise here in Denmark, at the moment. But public perception has definitely changed.
@@CopenhagenAtomics Refreshing to hear!
Sadly, absolutely no chance here! People commonly have a reaction that is seemingly post-traumatic when it comes to nuclear energy!
I've already listened to conversations going like: "I immediately changed my electricity provider after finding out, that they sell some energy from nuclear sources!" Electricity providers hence hide the fact that they sometimes provide power from nuclear sources. Being fiercly and stubbornly anti-nuclear has sadly become a matter of national identity and changing that is pretty much impossible (in my view).
New technology? So the Thorium Reactor at Oak Ridge that ran from 1965 to 1969 was a new technology? Bearing in mind that the first nuclear power station was built in 1951.
Think the novel tech is the salt purifying to not have the reactor turn into swiss cheese from corrosion.
Its not 'new tech' but it is the correct solution for energy, thanks
So, please someone tell me is there an actual prototype running already? how was the cracking and corroding f the Hasteloy-N container solved? and if so how do I invest?I thought CA was so far just experimenting with ways to separate the different reaction by/intermediate products from the molten salt, did they now actually develop a working reactor prototype?
No. They have a "water prototype". They want investor money "to test the entire system with non-radioactive molten salts". Their hilarious claim of "price matching" solar when they don't know anything seems very Trevor Milton inspired.
@@xartech well I dont agree. I happen to think that thorium has a future and I know for a fact that most green energies are far from the panacea most people make it out to be and in fact they will never ever cover demand. My onlypoint is that we should be getting back to the point at which we were in the 70s in the US. Having a working experimental reactor figuring out challenges one at the time.once they have it ill litterally give them all my savings
Hey! Great questions! As @xartech says the first full-size prototype (Loop 6.0) is with water. The reason for water is that it has almost the same viscosity as molten salt, and is much cheaper build to get results, which has provided us with great insights that we have altered in loop 6.1 that we are running initial tests on at the moment. 6.1 will run with 700 degree molten salt and then next step 6.2 is with radioactive material.
We have addressed the issue of corrosion through our method of purifying the salts. We can purify these salts to such an extent that corrosion occurs at such a low rate that it is not a concern, even for stainless steel that our first reactors will be build in.
When we can arrange for optimum solar radiation as and when needed then it's game over for nuclear!
right on Copenhagen, all the best
Cancer rates and other health issues are contested in the regions of long standing LWRs, let alone those that we know discharged harmful radiation or melted down even. Regardless, I’m very happy to hear your advances in Thorium. Thanks and keep up the good work!
bollocks
It’s been proven long ago that coal fired plants put much more radioactive material into the local environments. Which is easy bc nuclear power plants don’t release any radiation to the local environment.
Cancer is a red herring.
@@freetrade8830 thyroid medication rates in Ukraine, post April ‘86? What have they been attributed to? 🤔
@@ConspiracyLoon The increase in thyroid cancers as a result of the Chornobyl accident are well established. After decades of research and follow-up we have a good handle on the scale of the impact. While extremely unfortunate for those effected the impact is magnitudes smaller than what is regularly suggested in the media and by certain groups. annals.edu.sg/pdf/40VolNo4Apr2011/V40N4p158.pdf
Super excited for this
It would be awesome if only our materials science technology was advanced enough to come up with some kind of material that could contain the incredibly caustic environment that superheated high pressure salt causes…like many inventions, it looks great on paper.
Apparently that is precisely what these guys have achieved. I think it has to do with low water, low oxygen molten salt. Apparently Copenhagen atomics has done a lot of testing of their stainless steel technology so have high confidence already. My remarks are based on other comments to this video
I'm sure they have never considered this most well known of issues.
There has NEVER been a corrosion issue with a salt that is redox controlled - The MSRE showed ZERO corrosion - this fable came about when someone postulated that corrosion MIGHT be an issue - and that has been taken up as an actual issue by people basing their knowledge on pure speculation
every county could have their own reactor, eliminating the weaknesses in large scale power grids.
need more than one.
Generation of the Power, at least for households, should have never been up to Private/Market forces in the first place...
Are you suggesting Private/Market forces create bad or more expensive energy than other "forces"?
@@CopenhagenAtomics ... mmm ... Imagine a nation's main energy source being shut down, if the company responsible don't like the nation's actions/politics.
Case in point; Western companies leaving Russia over night.
Strategic considerations like this are pretty serious.
@@channel-zz8kk ... food, transistors and steel are generic consumables, available from many sources.
Infrastructure, like water supply or power generation, is uniquely designed for, and 100% tied to, a specific nation/region. It can't be replaced easily, and definitively not within weeks, months, years or even decades in some cases.
Strategic infrastructure is, and always have been viewed as strategic for this very reason. If it were easily replaceable, it wouldn't be strategically important, just important to be able to acquire, like food, transistors or steel.
Uranium and thorium are both used as nuclear fuel, but they have some key differences that make uranium more commonly used.One of the main reasons is that uranium is more easily obtainable and more abundant than thorium. Uranium can be found in many parts of the world, while thorium is more rare and is primarily found in a few countries, such as India and Norway. Another reason is that uranium can be used in both thermal and fast neutron reactors, while thorium can only be used in thermal reactors. This means that uranium can be used in a wider range of reactors and can be used in more advanced reactor designs.Finally, uranium can be used in both light water reactors and heavy water reactors, while thorium can only be used in heavy water reactors. This means that uranium can be used in a wider range of reactor types, and can be used in both pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. Overall, while thorium has some advantages over uranium, such as being less radioactive and producing less nuclear waste, uranium's greater availability and versatility make it more commonly used as a nuclear fuel.
Hm, He said Thorium is avaliable in most countries in earth, I knew it otherwise.
Hi! You are unfortunatly misinformed. Thorium is 3 to 4 times more abundant on the crust of the earth than uranium. In addition, as almost all thorium found is thorium-232 it does not need enrichment, whereas only about 0.7% of the uranium on earth is the fissionable U235. See more in this study from earlier this year www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2023.1132611/full
I can service my shop’s solar installation with a ladder, voltmeter, soldering pen and a 1/2 wrench. How much more complicated is this?
Lots - But it should produce power at night.
Didn't see the price per kwh. Given that solar is now 10p kwh in the UK, I would love to see how you will match that from the first reactor.
Hi! The price will eventually be $20 / MWh. Although we do expect the first reactors will be more, it is still cheaper than other sources. Moreover, it is difficult to compare an intermittent energy source to that of a baseload energy source.
Is that price per kwh for solar based on actual electricity produced, or the rated capacity of the plant?
@@CopenhagenAtomics 'it is difficult to compare an intermittent energy source to that of a baseload energy source' -not really - you just add storage to the price. + decommision.
@@channel-zz8kk I´m not neglecting anything. Wind and solar projects used to be uneconomical vanity projects, that does not have to be the case anymore. Storing waste for 300 years however - is a red flag for me.
Perhaps you can tell us how many people have died from nuclear waste the last 70 years? And compare that to the thousands who die from fuel poverty every year.
As for solar power. It's all about eroei. Some estimates have it that solar power here at 57° North doesn't even make back the energy used to manufacture the solar panels.
I pray this will be as amazing as you advertise.
This is atupendous.
Stay tuned! Of course it is still early days, but we are working tirelessly to advance the development
Well, you've certainly figured out how to extract more hype, and separated that completely from details. I didn't hear about one "invention" in there, only things that have been established as part of the theoretical benefits of Thorium for decades, most of which were realized in previous Thorium demonstration reactors. You aren't "able" to produce this many reactors, you haven't built your prototype. If wishes were all it took, we'd believe you, but 100x come-ons for investors in straight into SEC investigation territory, and looks more like Trump University than anything I'm comfortable with.
I believe in Thorium, but I don't believe in slide shows. What did you invent? What patents to you have? What technologies are you using? What are the fundamental engineering challenges? What happens when a 100% private owned energy company decides to squeeze an economy? What happens when unexpected contingencies make it cost effective to declare bankruptcy?
This may be the most counterproductive presentation I've ever seen.
Exciting concept! 👍🇩🇰
I am 78 yo and I have been listening to this BS for much longer than I can remember. Thorium is always the next big thing, but it never is.
Could you say why?
@@Simon-sw4ov A scientist could tell you much better than I could. They can't seem to make it work.
Exciting!
nice man, welcome to try and work with switzerland :)
you are the future!
Hope this goes well. It will be a game changer for an already great technology :-)
Very exciting. I wish you all the luck in the world.
Great Scott!!! Keep up the good work
Wow, this looks fantastic.
I have been hearing about this green nuclear for almost 40 years, let's hope that this becomes a reality in this decade 🙏
We will do our best
@@CopenhagenAtomics Be assured of our total support 🙏
I toured Europe a month following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The radiation plume had subsided by then, but still was cause for concern. The weather was strange on one of the days and I got sick. I'll never know it it was from eating contaminated food. Sweden destroyed their grain and dairy products and killed much of their livestock because it ate contaminated feed. This was no joke, although a waiter in Stockholm tried to make light of it. He said 'At least I learned how to make chicken Kiev...First you preheat the city to 350 degrees'.
funny tales. But please check your info and math and physics. More people die from coal power plant every day than has EVER died from nuclear power plant problems.
Unfortunately most people want to make energy policy decisions with feelings, and then they wonder why it turns bad.
Excellent!
If this could streamline and massively reduce nuclear cost & waste and deliver fast... then I'm for it
in the right locations.
Please go public so we can all invest and make this a reality. The world needs this, and our leaders are way to inept and controlled by the energy companies to lead the way for this innovative technology.
We are expecting an IPO in 2026. Until then it is possible to invest when we have investment rounds, you can sign up for the investment newsletter on our website: www.copenhagenatomics.com/contact/
@@CopenhagenAtomics Awesome keep doing great work! This is going to be a gamechanger!
In the late 1950s, a prototype was built and operated in Oak Ridge, TN...
Quite correct. It is unfortunate that it was discontinued, imagine where we would be now with that tech.
I love the comparison on the deadliness of the fuel types! Its great to tell the people that the big Oil is running this coal and oil production.
We still need Oil and Coal for poorer countries which rely on the infrastructure they aleredy have.
Richest countries should get into this fast as possible! Show some repsonsibility, its about time.
Excellent work guys, thank you so much for your hard work and passion, All the luck in the world
FINALLY !! I am so proud.
Good for them.
Best of luck you will need it.
So cool, I hope the politicians in Denmark will realize what an opportunity this is for the both the Danish economy and the world's climate!
Ha! don't hold your breath.
Good luck with politics. We have a masive energy crisis in South Africa all because of poltics. There are people with money poised to start private energy generation for the first time in South Africa after our government deregulated power generation a couple of months ago. The money that coal generates is a huge obstacle and people with power will protect those interests.
we can build one reactor every day! we already building the first reactor! we plan to manufacture first reactor somewhere at 2025. nice!
Thorium or Uranium Nuclear reactors have always been our best options. Our energy needs are only going to increase. Local power companies need to focus on distrution only and get their asses in gear.
Burning anything to make large scale power should of been ahut down decades ago.
Green energy, cheap? He is on the hit list. Nuclear tech is much cleaner than people think and also safe if precautions are taken. The only issue is that it takes many years and money to build.
Yea the most expensive method to generate power and 16 years to build, a minor issue
Save the world and make a 100x - go for it!
Approved. Now hurry up and do it.
I truly hope you are totally successful! It sounds too good to be true.
;-) LOL, then it is probably not true. .
Godspeed! Because we need this rn