Well done Osama! Some interesting (and to some, perhaps surprising) facts about one of the more misunderstood commercial power reactor designs operating today.
Thanks so much Jeremy. These are some top facts I have on mind when I get asked questions about the CANDU reactor. Grateful for your time to watch this video, thanks for being an inspiration for all nuclear educators Jeremy!
Yes! Another great video about one of my most favourite reactors! In my humble opinion, the CANDU is one of the most underestimated, unappreciated reactor designs out there. I mean, it's one of the most robust and safe reactors one could hope for. It can use the spent fuel from PWRs as fuel, it makes those medical isotopes, it will run quietly for years on end making electricity without nasty greenhouse emissions etc. And after seeing the Bruce Power videos about how they totally refurbished their Bruce 1 reactors so they can go for another 35 yrs or so, what's not to like? A good friend of mine and me engage regularly in mental exercises on how to solve my country's energy problems. Like Germany, here "nuclear power" is also a very dirty word. And it's all politically driven. We have one NPP, an aging (49 yrs old) PWR in Borssele. We're like; "Why don't they build a CANDU right next to it?!? They have the space. It can use the spent fuel from the neighbours next door to close the fuel cycle. It can make hydrogen for heating houses and as fuel for hydrogen cars. And it will be a backup for when they have to replace the old PWR with a new one. After they replaced the old one we're set for decades to come! Why are they futzing about with the not-so-green biomass?!? There's nothing green about it!" Maybe you need to come over and do a lecture for these governmental nincompoops^^
Swoka, you are extremely forward thinking, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Hydrogen production via nuclear would be an incredible application of the technology. Germany had incredible MOX facilities and usage (recycled fuel), using DUPIC with CANDU would be incredible. Hahaha would love to do a presentation in Germany!
@@OsamaBaig I'm not in Germany, but next door in the Netherlands^^. And just like in Germany, we have the same illogical, ideologically driven adversity against nuclear power. We do have a 2 billion $$ state-of-the-art LNG pipe-works in the ground that could very easily be converted for use with hydrogen produced by a CANDU (or other reactor type), but Dutch government wants to rip it all out of the ground and use those b*tt-ugly heat pumps instead. Where the electric power is supposed to come from to run these, they don't have an answer to that. Lunacy, sheer lunacy! As to Germany, they had a really good thing going there with their award-winning NPPs. And they were already solving the nuclear "waste" problem with the MOX facilities they had. The choice to completely do away with nuclear is just absolutely mind-boggling to me. I would spend my last savings to see you give a detailed lecture/ presentation in Germany and do the biggest mic drop in the history of mic drops. That would be money well spent!
Osama, great material, but please consider lowering the level of the background music track relative to your voice track 🙂. I was super happy to see this content about the outstanding CANDU technology, but it was a bit hard to hear!
That's some mighty good CANDU attitude!!!!!!! Very good video. I'd be happy to see a block diagram tour of our candu reactors and all of the interesting ins and outs of them. Also all of my fellow Canadians, share this video! Let's show some pride in our fleet and get Osama some views!
YESS Doda, thats a dream of mine! Being able to give virtual vlog type tours of nuclear facilities to people on this channel. The plant is a very exciting place to be and I'd love to one day document those experiences
The fun thing about CANDUs is that they are basically RBMKs that are on the side, and scrapped Graphite and light water as primary moderator and coolant respectively. Making them substantially safer than the RBMK (if the reactor vessel cracks the reactor simply shuts off) , while keeping its favorable features, running on NU and online refueling. It can further burn used LWPWR SNF, and can also burn thorium with some design tweaks. Tbh, a pretty mature technology for the short term future of nuclear power.
Thank you Osama for extolling the virtues of CANDU reactors (ps Rumania will be building the latest). Quick question. When you say CANDUs are the only source of Tritium, you mean commercially I am guessing? Presumably the US and Russia have their Tritium breeders from Li6 to maintain the thermonuclear stock-pile 'battle ready' given its 12.5 year half life. Right?
@@OsamaBaig Let's hope Putin has forgotten to restock his tritium supplies for these 'other' purposes. Cheers and keep up the good work. PS I would love to visit the Moltex burners when they are finally built in Canada.
Very good video Osama!!! The coming Tritium shortage should cause a CANDU building spree. Coupling H3 with DUPIC maybe a home run. Question how does a CANDU unit produce Mo99 for hospital use? I know NRU does but I'm not sure I consider that a CANDU. More a reason reactor, a very old one!!! A very productive old one.
Yes indeed, large scale tritium production for Fusion reactors and using DUPIC would be a very good goal. The way CANDU's produce Mo-99 or any other isotope is by inserting these isotopes into the reactor core while its operating. When you introduce these isotopes to a neutron source, they become activated. Of course, there are calculations you've got to make in order for the Mo-99 targets to be exposed to the right amount and for the correct period of time. Next you've got to harvest them, package and ship them across to facilities in the world. This is an over simplification of the process, however there is a LOT of design, safety analysis and regulatory approvals involved in the process
It is astounding to me that all the engineering and obvious benefits of CANDU were clearly identified 5 years before I was born, benefits so convincingly good that certain people could use it to secure their objectives of constructing weapons of mass destruction to the extreme of 50X capability of destroying humanity, instead of protecting the whole Gaian Planetary Ecology and preventing needless mega deaths.
Hi Osama, The Indian three stage nuclear program uses the combination of Candu type reactor and fast breeder to mutually feed each other. Could you make a video on the international opinion on this unique Indian endeavour!
Can't say I'm crazy about production of radioisitopes for cure for cancer. Its awfull. Controled cost effective nuclear fusion will never be achieved, so the tritium remains a problem, luckily not so longterm. Im interested about further enhancing of the neutron economy. Can it be done with beryilium coating inside the reactor.
@ 07:39 I had to chuckle a bit. "... D+T fusion is the easiest to achieve". It's more accurate to say "D+T fusion is the least hard to achieve (for net power gain)" which is still 99.99% impossible 🤨🤔
DUPIC is a future topic I want to have dedicated videos on. However, in the meantime check out this research paper on page 361 and section 2.4.2 it has more information on cost comparison for DUPIC fuel. It also has a lot of information on the technical specifics of re-processing www.researchgate.net/publication/264177252_The_status_and_prospect_of_DUPIC_fuel_technology
@@OsamaBaig This is a very cool video. Please make the video about DUPIC because at first, it sounded like a ponzi scheme to me. "Too Good Too Be True" type of vibe.
Sir, I have a question, let’s just say a country is at war and a nuclear power plant is attacked, can it meltdown or no, what are the safety precautions in place
Simple answer is no Jivin, in my humble opinion. There are two reasons for this. #1- Reactor containment buildings surround a nuclear reactor. These are some of the hardest structures in the world. They are designed to withstand impact from a commercial jet flying into it at full speed. The design and Engineering behind the heavy concrete and rebar that holds these containment buildings is superb #2 Nuclear power reactors are assets. It is in no nations best interest to damage these reactors
Hi Ed Pheil, I believe you posted the same comment on a Linkedin Video post as well. Net output of commercial grade tritium being supplied to Fusion research reactors across the world comes from CANDU. I'm curious to know what is the annual tritium supply of Watts Bar compared to the entire CANDU fleet in Canada and South Korea? Which one has a larger commercial tritium output
What is the downside? There must be something otherwise it wouldn’t be the third most popular? I thought that candu where obsolete technology, replaced by newer design, is there a renaissance of this type? Will the new small modular reactor will use candu?
All reactor tech has its unique upside and downsides. However, popularity of a reactor design is not directly correlated to its performance. CANDU was developed much later and did not have the massive technical capabilities that the United States had to export/develop its technology. This might be some reasons why its the 3rd most popular. Moreover, I don't think CANDU is obsolete. It can be used strategically for medical isotope production and burning Nuclear waste from PWR Reactors.
CANDU is physically bigger than PWRs so can't be used in nuclear subs. The real benefit of nuclear power technology was to create nuclear submarines For submarines you need a physically small reactor with a lot of power and ideally a 30-50 year life without refusing. That's not possible with CANDO I'm not sure/convinced that CANDU is better than BWR/PWR for stationary power storage but it seems like a reasonable reactor that has proven itself to be workable unlike say the British AGRs which while intersting were arguably a mistake and the Brits have moved over to PWRs
@@OsamaBaigCANDU can't be used for nuclear subs as it'd physically bigger/heavier than PWRs The trump card of nuclear reactors was enabling the navy to build nuclear subs You need a reactor that is physically small and powerful and ideally one which doesn't need refueling for 30+ years You can do that with a highly enriched uranium PWR you can't do that with a CANDU 1952 first nuclear sub 1957 first commercial nuclear power plant So they just built what they knew (nuclear ships) but bigger If Canada had dreams of independent nuclear ships they probably would have gone PWRs too
Well done Osama! Some interesting (and to some, perhaps surprising) facts about one of the more misunderstood commercial power reactor designs operating today.
Thanks so much Jeremy. These are some top facts I have on mind when I get asked questions about the CANDU reactor. Grateful for your time to watch this video, thanks for being an inspiration for all nuclear educators Jeremy!
I did actually know four of those facts, but I was very pleased to learn that fusion was dependent on CANDU-produced tritium. Thanks!
Wonderful, thanks for sharing David!
Fusion is NOT dependent on CANDU reactors for tritium. .ost of the worlds tritium is produced from Lithium-6 in reactors like Watts Barr 1&2.
It is heavily reliant on it because it is one of the easy and cheapest way to make because it is a byproduct of electricity. Sorry for my bad English.
Yes! Another great video about one of my most favourite reactors! In my humble opinion, the CANDU is one of the most underestimated, unappreciated reactor designs out there. I mean, it's one of the most robust and safe reactors one could hope for. It can use the spent fuel from PWRs as fuel, it makes those medical isotopes, it will run quietly for years on end making electricity without nasty greenhouse emissions etc. And after seeing the Bruce Power videos about how they totally refurbished their Bruce 1 reactors so they can go for another 35 yrs or so, what's not to like?
A good friend of mine and me engage regularly in mental exercises on how to solve my country's energy problems. Like Germany, here "nuclear power" is also a very dirty word. And it's all politically driven. We have one NPP, an aging (49 yrs old) PWR in Borssele. We're like; "Why don't they build a CANDU right next to it?!? They have the space. It can use the spent fuel from the neighbours next door to close the fuel cycle. It can make hydrogen for heating houses and as fuel for hydrogen cars. And it will be a backup for when they have to replace the old PWR with a new one. After they replaced the old one we're set for decades to come! Why are they futzing about with the not-so-green biomass?!? There's nothing green about it!" Maybe you need to come over and do a lecture for these governmental nincompoops^^
Swoka, you are extremely forward thinking, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Hydrogen production via nuclear would be an incredible application of the technology. Germany had incredible MOX facilities and usage (recycled fuel), using DUPIC with CANDU would be incredible. Hahaha would love to do a presentation in Germany!
@@OsamaBaig
I'm not in Germany, but next door in the Netherlands^^. And just like in Germany, we have the same illogical, ideologically driven adversity against nuclear power. We do have a 2 billion $$ state-of-the-art LNG pipe-works in the ground that could very easily be converted for use with hydrogen produced by a CANDU (or other reactor type), but Dutch government wants to rip it all out of the ground and use those b*tt-ugly heat pumps instead. Where the electric power is supposed to come from to run these, they don't have an answer to that. Lunacy, sheer lunacy!
As to Germany, they had a really good thing going there with their award-winning NPPs. And they were already solving the nuclear "waste" problem with the MOX facilities they had. The choice to completely do away with nuclear is just absolutely mind-boggling to me. I would spend my last savings to see you give a detailed lecture/ presentation in Germany and do the biggest mic drop in the history of mic drops. That would be money well spent!
Osama, great material, but please consider lowering the level of the background music track relative to your voice track 🙂. I was super happy to see this content about the outstanding CANDU technology, but it was a bit hard to hear!
That's some mighty good CANDU attitude!!!!!!! Very good video. I'd be happy to see a block diagram tour of our candu reactors and all of the interesting ins and outs of them. Also all of my fellow Canadians, share this video! Let's show some pride in our fleet and get Osama some views!
YESS Doda, thats a dream of mine! Being able to give virtual vlog type tours of nuclear facilities to people on this channel. The plant is a very exciting place to be and I'd love to one day document those experiences
@@OsamaBaig that would be pretty stellar. Is there anything stopping you from doing that?
The fun thing about CANDUs is that they are basically RBMKs that are on the side, and scrapped Graphite and light water as primary moderator and coolant respectively. Making them substantially safer than the RBMK (if the reactor vessel cracks the reactor simply shuts off) , while keeping its favorable features, running on NU and online refueling. It can further burn used LWPWR SNF, and can also burn thorium with some design tweaks. Tbh, a pretty mature technology for the short term future of nuclear power.
Yes
Super informative! Awesome! Thank you 😉
Thank you Osama for extolling the virtues of CANDU reactors (ps Rumania will be building the latest). Quick question. When you say CANDUs are the only source of Tritium, you mean commercially I am guessing? Presumably the US and Russia have their Tritium breeders from Li6 to maintain the thermonuclear stock-pile 'battle ready' given its 12.5 year half life. Right?
Yes, CANDU's are the only source of "commercial" tritium. Since Russia and US have their own tritium stockpiles for "other" purposes
@@OsamaBaig Let's hope Putin has forgotten to restock his tritium supplies for these 'other' purposes. Cheers and keep up the good work. PS I would love to visit the Moltex burners when they are finally built in Canada.
Wonderful video, thanks Osama
Thanks so much Gabika!
Very good video Osama!!! The coming Tritium shortage should cause a CANDU building spree. Coupling H3 with DUPIC maybe a home run. Question how does a CANDU unit produce Mo99 for hospital use? I know NRU does but I'm not sure I consider that a CANDU. More a reason reactor, a very old one!!! A very productive old one.
Yes indeed, large scale tritium production for Fusion reactors and using DUPIC would be a very good goal. The way CANDU's produce Mo-99 or any other isotope is by inserting these isotopes into the reactor core while its operating. When you introduce these isotopes to a neutron source, they become activated. Of course, there are calculations you've got to make in order for the Mo-99 targets to be exposed to the right amount and for the correct period of time. Next you've got to harvest them, package and ship them across to facilities in the world. This is an over simplification of the process, however there is a LOT of design, safety analysis and regulatory approvals involved in the process
It is astounding to me that all the engineering and obvious benefits of CANDU were clearly identified 5 years before I was born, benefits so convincingly good that certain people could use it to secure their objectives of constructing weapons of mass destruction to the extreme of 50X capability of destroying humanity, instead of protecting the whole Gaian Planetary Ecology and preventing needless mega deaths.
Yes! We need more CANDUs! Why aren't we building them?
Also, please lower background music volume for future vids.
Hi Osama, The Indian three stage nuclear program uses the combination of Candu type reactor and fast breeder to mutually feed each other. Could you make a video on the international opinion on this unique Indian endeavour!
Great video, thanks.
Appreciate it, thanks Lars!
Can't say I'm crazy about production of radioisitopes for cure for cancer. Its awfull. Controled cost effective nuclear fusion will never be achieved, so the tritium remains a problem, luckily not so longterm. Im interested about further enhancing of the neutron economy. Can it be done with beryilium coating inside the reactor.
@ 07:39 I had to chuckle a bit. "... D+T fusion is the easiest to achieve". It's more accurate to say "D+T fusion is the least hard to achieve (for net power gain)" which is still 99.99% impossible 🤨🤔
Every nuclear reactor makes tritium one of the issues with Fukushima was that it released tritium into the local.water supply.
How complicated and expensive is it reprocessing of spent PWR fuel for use in a CANDU reactor compared with "fresh" fuel?
DUPIC is a future topic I want to have dedicated videos on. However, in the meantime check out this research paper on page 361 and section 2.4.2 it has more information on cost comparison for DUPIC fuel. It also has a lot of information on the technical specifics of re-processing www.researchgate.net/publication/264177252_The_status_and_prospect_of_DUPIC_fuel_technology
@@OsamaBaig This is a very cool video. Please make the video about DUPIC because at first, it sounded like a ponzi scheme to me. "Too Good Too Be True" type of vibe.
with it's circular shape probably RBMK fuel is more suitable for insertion into Candu.
Sir, I have a question, let’s just say a country is at war and a nuclear power plant is attacked, can it meltdown or no, what are the safety precautions in place
Simple answer is no Jivin, in my humble opinion. There are two reasons for this. #1- Reactor containment buildings surround a nuclear reactor. These are some of the hardest structures in the world. They are designed to withstand impact from a commercial jet flying into it at full speed. The design and Engineering behind the heavy concrete and rebar that holds these containment buildings is superb #2 Nuclear power reactors are assets. It is in no nations best interest to damage these reactors
@@OsamaBaig Alright, thank you for answering my question! ;)
Interesting info. Unfortunately, the music really interferes with your excellent commentary. It's unnecessary and distracting.
Most of the world's tritium is produced in reactors like Watts Barr pwr's in the US, formed from Lithium-6.
Hi Ed Pheil, I believe you posted the same comment on a Linkedin Video post as well. Net output of commercial grade tritium being supplied to Fusion research reactors across the world comes from CANDU. I'm curious to know what is the annual tritium supply of Watts Bar compared to the entire CANDU fleet in Canada and South Korea? Which one has a larger commercial tritium output
What is the downside? There must be something otherwise it wouldn’t be the third most popular?
I thought that candu where obsolete technology, replaced by newer design, is there a renaissance of this type?
Will the new small modular reactor will use candu?
All reactor tech has its unique upside and downsides. However, popularity of a reactor design is not directly correlated to its performance. CANDU was developed much later and did not have the massive technical capabilities that the United States had to export/develop its technology. This might be some reasons why its the 3rd most popular. Moreover, I don't think CANDU is obsolete. It can be used strategically for medical isotope production and burning Nuclear waste from PWR Reactors.
CANDU is physically bigger than PWRs so can't be used in nuclear subs. The real benefit of nuclear power technology was to create nuclear submarines
For submarines you need a physically small reactor with a lot of power and ideally a 30-50 year life without refusing. That's not possible with CANDO
I'm not sure/convinced that CANDU is better than BWR/PWR for stationary power storage but it seems like a reasonable reactor that has proven itself to be workable unlike say the British AGRs which while intersting were arguably a mistake and the Brits have moved over to PWRs
@@OsamaBaigCANDU can't be used for nuclear subs as it'd physically bigger/heavier than PWRs
The trump card of nuclear reactors was enabling the navy to build nuclear subs
You need a reactor that is physically small and powerful and ideally one which doesn't need refueling for 30+ years
You can do that with a highly enriched uranium PWR you can't do that with a CANDU
1952 first nuclear sub
1957 first commercial nuclear power plant
So they just built what they knew (nuclear ships) but bigger
If Canada had dreams of independent nuclear ships they probably would have gone PWRs too
the background music is louder than your voice...
Really, I thought it was an okay volume. Maybe your not listening with headphones Andreas
@@OsamaBaig correct