Nuclear Power: Small Modular Reactors
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Small Modular Reactors are a promising area of nuclear technology that may be the pathway forward to cheap, safe, and sustainable energy.
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Credits:
Nuclear Power: Small Modular Reactors
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 390, April 13, 2023
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Special Thanks to Last Energy www.lastenergy...
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.c...
I have a message for Isaac, and anyone finding this channel!
There isn’t a Wikipedia page on topics that Isaac covers that are more fun than his videos.
This is, by far, THE best place for diving deep into all of your futuristic fantasies. There isn’t a better channel on RUclips that produces as much quantity, as good quality, and as much depth on topics like this. It’s truly impressive, and, Isaac, if you’re reading this, many of us would like to know more about yourself. 🙃 Specifically what drove you to have such a career.
I'm sooo tempted to make an SFIA Wiki!
Seems like a topic for the live stream that's happening every month, friend ;)
@@howiefuzz6894 There were some folks trying it at one point but I didn't have the time/energy to assist much and it fell a bit to the wayside :)
@@howiefuzz6894 "I was there for the Edit Wars on the Whaleguns page. Bad times. We'd barely fended off the English language purists before the misdirected whaling history buffs arrived."
@@isaacarthurSFIA I just heard you're relatively close to East Palestine. Any symptoms? If so, contact independent journalist Ryan Christian of The Last American Vagabond, I'm sure he could use your input, maybe even appear on one of his streams?
p.s. you won't find him with google, he's been deplatformed quite heavily.
SMRs, one of those rare cases where No User Servicible Parts Inside is entirely legit. "Yes, you have a right to repair. No, you don't have a right to irradiate the entire neighborhood."
I like the idea of treating the entire reactor as waste when the fuel becomes depleted. Perhaps we can build SMR farms in clusters of concrete cubicles (reinforced, of course). Then whenever a reactor is depleted just bury it in clay, cement, and boron. When an entire group of reactors are buried, build need cubes on top and repeat.
Whatever the case, it would be nice to store waste in a geologically stable mountain but in practice we tend to store spent fuel in pools I dry-storage casks on-premises (uhh, parking lot). Maybe we need to just build the emigr facility inside a sarcophagus. Seems like we might find a better way to waste that climate change mitigation money.
Lol no. You lost the right to repair a long time ago fool.
@@DJRonnieG As long as the radiation exceeding harmful levels is kept inside the reactor when refueling it would be a needless waste of money and resources to scrap the entire machine.
"Irradiating the neighborhood DOES void manufacturer warranty"
We must consider ourselves warned-
@@DJRonnieG I've got a better idea. We'll bury all the old reactors at the end of your street.
SMRs have three significant theoretical advantages:
1. Walk-away safe
2. Scalable due to their modular design
3. Mass producible via assembly line due to their modular design making them much cheaper than traditional large reactors
1) No reactor is walk-away safe for all its failure modes. This is a nuclear con - where they come up with one or more ways that a reactor is "safer", they then ignore the other ways a reactor can explode or melt down and leak, and lyingly declare the whole thing to be "safe". There *is* a difference. 80 miles per hour is "safer" than 90, but neither is "safe". 2) Scalability is doubtful and has not yet been demonstrated at grid scale/duty: a) you have to have to have one or more reactors idle, which is expensive, 2) you can't just switch reactors on and off without increasing wear and tear 3) There is a time-lag on start-up and ramp-down, per ChatGPT, for instance:
"a) Ramp-Up:
Ramping up a NuScale Power Module involves increasing its power output from a lower level (or from a shutdown state) to a desired power level. The ramp-up process typically takes several hours to reach full power. This gradual increase allows for the controlled adjustment of reactor conditions to ensure safety and stability.
...
b) Ramp-Down:
Ramping down a NuScale Power Module involves reducing its power output from a higher level to a lower level or to a shutdown state. Like the ramp-up process, the ramp-down process is not immediate. It is also a controlled procedure that can take several hours to ensure safety and stability.
The exact ramp-down time can vary depending on factors such as the reactor's operating conditions and the desired power reduction level. Typically, it takes several hours to ramp down a nuclear reactor safely.
It's important to emphasize that the specific ramp-up and ramp-down procedures for NuScale SMRs would be determined by the reactor's operators and would follow strict safety and regulatory guidelines. These procedures are designed to prevent sudden or unsafe changes in reactor conditions.
Overall, NuScale SMRs, like other nuclear reactors, are designed for continuous and stable operation, and any changes in power output are carefully managed to ensure the safety and reliability of the system. *Rapid and frequent adjustments to power output, as may be needed for load-following, are not a typical use case for nuclear reactors like NuScale SMRs.*"
Me again: Powering modules on and off every day is expensive, suboptimal and even dangerous. In practice, SMR power plants will have to be all on or all off - barring fuel changes and maintenance. *During peaks and troughs in demand, bulk power storage, imports and other power sources will have to bail nuclear out - the same as it does now*. Nuclear is baseload. Period.
Point 3: Careful what you wish for. Have you somehow managed to invent mass production without recalls? These are not Peppa Pig toys. Difficult to envisage SMR recalls, but there are two choices - they have to repair the reactor as little as, 1000 feet from your house, defuel and disconnect it and perform a round trip through your neighbourhood with a highly-radioactive reactor.
@@grahambennett8151 yes, molten salt nuclear reactors are in theory walk away safe. Same as nuclear fusion reactors.
@@grahambennett8151central generation is stupid.
It is stupidly expensive to transmit the future volume of electricity that the no fossil fueled world needs.
How many fusion power station is there in this planet? Zero.
How many molten salt nuclear stations? Almost zero.
So what if they are walk away safe if they are not commercially viable?
And they are not really walk away safe anyway, those high temperatures molten salt are extremely explosive in the present of air and moisture. They need to be sealed off at high temperatures if not pressure.
I am disappointed Isaac didn't mention the Argentine CAREM SMR. We were the first country to finish a design and start to build it. We are behind schedule due politicians screwing the budget, but we were 20 years ahead of the rest of the world, until China made theirs.
CAREM is 25MW for the experimental one, which will be scaled up to 50 and 100 and you can put several of them to increase output as needed. The idea is to build small nuclear plants at low cost close to demand points and fast using serial production of the reactor's components.
Sorry but except of new name yours reactor don't differ from 50 experimental reactors
It doesn't sound like you're ahead of NuScale in the USA, with their 77MW reactors.
@@simon2493 Actually it does. Is one of the most advanced, safe and simplest of the lot. It use 100% passive cooling, no moving parts, no auxiliary equipment like most of the US projects.
No pumps, no active control. Is a self contained reactor. There is plenty of english papers from nuclear tech sites explaining it.
Also is not a "new" name. CAREM has been on development from decades. It is on construction and only held back by the governments wasting money in anything but where is needed.
@@cacogenicist They have a different concept, is more complicated and tradition outside the small modular part. CAREM are an escalable design, you can make them produce less or more, or have traditional reactors output just pairing several of them. The design can produce 20MW up to 120, the 25MW is the tech demonstrator.
It is a fully self contained reactor without active control, cooling, moving parts. It cools by convection and the physics make it impossible to fail as it operate in a very difficult and rare spectrum of equilibrium and any deviation self corrects by pure physics. You can read papers of it on international sites of nuclear technology.
RUclips deletes comments with links, so google: neimagazine feature
carem argentinas innovative smr
We could have had it working 10 years ago if not for the corrupt and inept governments withholding funding. So the CONEA (nuclear scientific authority) and INVAP go slow on it.
I'm interested in this subject but have never heard about it. Thank you>
Next episode: Super Weapons
Me: "Finally, it's time for Isaac to do a deep dive on the 40k universe!" 😅❤
That's next month, for hive worlds :)
The biggest problem with nuclear power is the havoc the anti-nuclear activist create and the public misperception regarding the issue.
Indeed. Nuclear=bad thing and then they point to nuclear missiles to nuclear power being extremely dangerous.
The public perception is entirely self-inflicted and a good lesson on dealing transparently with risks rather than sugar-coating them. The industry has been talking about absolute safety for decades, which is not only a ridiculous concept on its face but also posed a problem whenever there _was_ an accident. Afterwards the line always was "oh yeah, those were the old reactors, but our new ones are absolutely safe!" and now you're blaming the, _public_ for not buying that line anymore?
@@unvergebeneid yes because I'm part of the "public" but I'm not an uneducated moron. Nuclear physics are not that complicated or hard to understand on a basic level. I originally learned it in highschool. So my issue is less with them not trusting the goverment and more with them somehow not having a basic understanding of general physics, biology or chemistry. Easily swayed or spooked like cows in a herd. Fear of covid vaccines, fear of nuclear power, fear of GMOS. It's all stupid and irrational fears that wouldn't be there in the first place if they were educated
100%
@@unvergebeneid the coal power plants in Germany alone kill about as many people every year by running regularly as the Chernobyl disaster is estimated to have killed.
The next worst energy related nuclear disaster in history is Fukushima in which the radiation killed no one but maybe caused a slight increase in cancer risk for the surrounding population. but hundreds of high risk patients died because of the panic in attempting to move them.
One look at the statistics & it should be obvious to anyone that nuclear energy is one of the safest forms of production in the world. Even solar causes more estimated deaths per tWh because of toxic materials used in semiconductor production & poor safety standards in overseas factories.
Beyond that I would say the public perception is probably mostly the fault of the nuclear weapons industry.
The vast majority of radioactive waste released into the environment is related to weapons testing.
2.5 million people are estimated to get cancer as a result of weapons testing.
& the military never gave a shit about proper disposal of waste.
I always wonder how much damage the Simpsons have done to the environment by putting a cartoonish image of dangerous, polluting nuclear energy in front of us for 30+ years.
I wonder about the damage that must already have been done for anyone to watch the same cartoon show for 30+ years. It was edgy and insightful and a great parody of the 1980s sitcom family, but it has long since become quasi mainstream if not formulaic.
I wonder if it was done on purpose.
I wish there was more sponsored videos like this. You know, actually promoting promising technologies that need support of the people rather than another crappy website or mobile game.
Thanks, though the sponsor for the episode is Brilliant, not anyone in the energy industry, just for clarification :)
Everytime I watch your videos I realize how bright our future is, despite current bleak times. Thank you!
Thank you, Mr. Arthur for covering this topic.
Sure very bright, rather radiating ^^. What could possibly go wrong with private nuclear reactors ... not that we have already found a way to safely store nuclear waste. Just look at how institutions responsible for oversight and safty describe the viability and limitations of nuclear waste disposal sights and you will soon realize that these sale pitches are the last attempts to stay in buisness from a failing industry. So not having central reactors with government oversight which already the industry is trying to avoid to safe money, but then having not hundreds but thousands of small reactors that at some point after 20 to 50 years (if looked after regularly) would then also become nuclear waste, beside that there is also a that much higher chance for critical failure for spills or even explosions should something go critical.
And you are like, damn they showed us a way out of the energy crises lets do this damn the consequnces. ftw
for every problem there is a solution if you look for it, but usually most people dont hear of the solutions only the problems
@@kinngrimm you have more reading to do, nuclear storage is wildly overcautious to be honest, the current measures proposed at sites like yucca are insanely overbuilt, partially to give people like you some solace but it didn't work anyway....
Also SMRs are designed to be pretty low power, most of them are walk away safe meaning the reactor can passively cool in a scram shutdown scenario instead of needing external pumps and generators running for three days. Basically you cannot make them do the bad thing
I have a feeling most of your concerns are addressed, they just haven't been addressed in well cut videos with clickbaity titles so you didn't pay attention
The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades.
Romanian here, very excited about the rise of SMRs.
Aka compact and higher enegy ratio, thertically, even to compact fusion/ fission, and compact antimatter, etc and thus: type 1 society
Last time I was this early, I was buying a small modular reactor. Wait a sec . . .
welcome, time traveller
@@NoNameAtAll2 Greetings. I'm just happy I made it in one piece. My partner said my safety wasn't guaranteed.
Are you sure that wasn't a small monorail reactor?
I live right next to one of the biggest Thorium deposits in Norway. I kind of hope the back-wards people in that area will give in eventually, so people can get jobs extracting it and what not.
calling it backwards is condescending in a non warranted way.
Thorium doesn't magical reduce cost of operating nuclear reactor in any meaningful way.
In a response to all here:
Thorium ends up with lots of rare earth's with it, so if you could cheaply deal with the Thorium, or even make money off it, the mine would pay big bucks.
Thorium doesn't reduce the cost of operation, it's just easier to refine into fuel, and it's usually part of rare earth mine tailings.
Fast reactors, or breeder reactors in general, are the future. I'm just upset that the Versatile Test Reactor was shelved.
@@treasurehunter3744 about this future concepts it's certainly interesting, but estimating LCOE is night impossible and at the same time fission to have equal if not higher.
@@treasurehunter3744 Easier to refine thorium into fuel? Who has so far done it cost effectively? I was always told that was one of the technical barriers thorium breeders presented.
Jack Devanney has written several articles detailing about buffer zones, how that complicates the “compactness” for SMRs in terms of real estate, and potential mitigations. That might be worth a search and read for those interested in the discussion
The buffer zones have grown in response to demands from anti-nuclear activists, but these still take real estate than a solar farm with an equivalent power output. ATST, we need to remember the solar farm only produces power during full daylight (sunny days starting an hour after sunrise & ending an hour before sunset). Wind Turbines have to get waivers from the Endangered Species Act, because they kill 10,000+ Raptors (including Bald Eagles) a year. Meanwhile, the argument about buffer zones is an argument for larger, more powerful power plants, not no nuclear power plants.
We've gotten really good at controlling reactors, based on decades of experimentation and practical experience. It's also not fair to intimate that older reactors are just left in their original state to run as safely as the technology of the day permitted. They are constantly upgraded and, as many of the things which make reactors safer today are more about sensors and control than big hunks of steel and concrete, old reactors can, for the most part, be upgraded as technology improves.
It would be so cool if Isaac was cast as a professor in some hollywood movie. explaning the threat to the heores and helping them figure out solutions to impossible problems.
My kids when they were around those ages. Thought that the big power plant a half hour away from us was a cloud factory
Clouds don't just grow on trees.
Was watching one of your previous videos, and let me say, I didn't think mic quality made a difference, but man, this new video not only sounded good, but was interesting as well!
As someone whose been trying to get into a nuclear safety program for a few years now, SMR scare the bee gees out of me. People want to build hundreds, maybe thousands (I have seen city-by-city and neighborhood-by-neighborhood proposals) of independent reactors that need to be secured and supported (moving fuel/waste.) The more you move something, the higher the odds of something going wrong, and I don't trust people not to do something stupid, intentionally or unintentionally (war.) I question the "put it anywhere" promise, seeing as how we still have houses sliding off the hills they're built on. Bigger reactors also tend to have a strong efficiency advantage, and I believe that Traveling Wave Reactors will become a major part of the nuclear fuel life-cycle in the future. That brings with it a whole other side to the logistics. I've also heard a lot of claims regarding cost efficiency from scale. That usually doesn't kick in until you're building several thousands or tens of thousands of something, so I doubt that will ever pan out, especially with how many different SMR designs are kicking around today.
17:52 Pu239 gets created in small amounts by naturally occurring breeder reactions in uranium deposits.
Haha, Romania mentioned! Greetings from Romania, Isaac! Been a fan for a while now! ❤🇷🇴
The NuScale SMR project (the ONLY SMR project in the U.S.) was to come online starting in 2029 and was supposed to replace electricity from coal plants that are closing.
Instead, NuScale and the Utah utilities announced Wednesday (11/ 8/23) they're terminating the project after a decade of working on it. The cancellation comes amid supply chain problems, high interest rates and a failure to obtain the desired tax credits.
Please please make a ChatGPT/AGI video. You did already make machine rebellion etc but I’m dying for your take on all of this
This
To be honest, as a computer scientists I couldn't help but notice that Isaac's AI and computer-science related videos were often one of the weaker ones. It's just not his strong suit. Which is fine. No person can know everything but I'm always disappointed rather than excited when I see a topic along those lines pop up in my feed.
@@unvergebeneid as a budding biologist I'd say his biology and life science videos are but again he's not a biologist. They're still good but just not as thorough as his physics videos.
I think this is why I love SFIA, and why I love the idea of space in general. I'm not particularly intelligent and see the massive potential of all these technologies and I'm firmly on the pro nuclear side of things.
Right there with you my friend I'm not very good at talking about what I just saw or learned like the pros but I truly love the way they break it down to us in a much easier understanding cause I'm totally in love with the very idea of space and the evolution of the industry in this day and age is absolutely mind blowing amazing keep up the good work for us out here that love and enjoy this topic
Give yourself a little more credit for intelligence. You found the best place to learn it and gain more with every episode you watch!
Was just having a conversation on solar vs SMR yesterday. ...and now you come out with this video. Quantum Cheeseburger Effect?
Thank you for this.
Nuclear currently is the only viable option for large scale green energy. Solar and wind work at small scales, but they're still too expensive and inefficient to power whole towns, at least not without supplemental sources.
Solar has been plummeting in price and still is. It already is way cheaper than nuclear, especially when you remove state subsidies because no private entity will insure nuclear power plants.
Of course for solar you need to add the costs for storage but those are coming down fast, too.
Depending on country one or another type of green energy already replaced in huge chunks nuclear energy and its effectivness is still increasing. With upcoming better batteries, there isn't even anymore the old argument viable that it is just to soften peaks as one then can safe the energy from those peaks for the rest of the day. Even in cloudy areas due to no more effective solar cells, they are viable.
Besides all that though. Nuclear energy still has one main issue not solved, there is neither a way to store nuclear waste safely for millenia to come or inform those who come afterwards what those sites are all about when they find the crumbling infrastrucutre and leaking waste. Nore is there sofar a way to chemicly change nuclear waste into not-radiating other materials that then could be reused for other purposes. Breeders may reuse some waste, but also produce even more dangerous materials in the process. Thorium reactors are still not a thing or have you heared any success from the Chinese test reactor that should have already been online now for months. I would assume they would have bragged about it by now. Thorium molten salt was not followed up for several reasons, one being that the brine is so corrosive that no material would withstand it. Please let me know if you have actual scientific proof there has been successful energy production with molton salt reactors that deliver energy reliably over a prolonged time. Don't get me wrong i would love to see the Chinese succeed in this one aspect as that is the only form of nuclear energy i even remotly would support as "green" energy. Till then nope, no deal.
And solar requires a lot of mining of rare earth materials which causes deforestation & creates a lot of pollution.
@@kinngrimm Spent fuel reprocessing solves the long-term storage problem. After burnable fuel is extracted the remaining waste consists of fission byproducts that decay to safe levels in 300-500 years. It also very effectively extends fuel supply.
Next month has some interesting episode topics
Top 5 plausible and easy fusion reactors.
Number 5: the fusion bombs.
Number 4: hydro electric power.
Number 3 the Mouchot solar steam engine of 1866.
Number 2 : the biosphere and bio fuels in use in fuel cells or combustion engines.
Number 1: Dyson Swarm. Or Saharan photovoltaics.
I'll have you know this got a hearty chortle.
@@12pentaborane thank you 🙏
I'm actually somewhere in the middle when it comes to nuclear power. Its mostly the energy companies I don't trust, not the technology. I'd LOVE to have a bunch of smaller nuclear reactors with more updated safety features. Notice I said updated. That's because I understand the importance of maitenence with large scale dangerous technologies. If the company that owns it isn't going to maintain it, then they shouldn't build it. Period. Its like parents when their kids want a pet. "Are you going to feed it, and water it and clean up its poop?" Only in this case the "poop" could potentially kill people. And this metaphor is apt. Recently in Mother Earth News they covered a breach of the keystone xl pipeline in which bitumen leaked into a waterway near it. The energy company and department of energy covered up the damage for MONTHS before word finally got out. Bitumen doesn't float away downstream, it SINKS to the bottom of a waterway. So their irrisponsibility means drinking water may have been compromised for god knows how many homes, businesses and farms and they cover that shit up? This is why Monsanto and other GMO companies are so hated. Because they're so narcisistic about their reputation that they ruthlessly try to discredit anyone who publishes a study possibly pointing to roundup being dangerous. That same reasoning applies here. If you keep your fuckups a secret, and other people's health could be at stake if you don't disclose it, you have no right to hide or to cry "trade secrets" and sick your lawyers on ordinary folks. And now because of their selfishness and greed, the reputation of GMO technology is probably tainted for the forseeable future.
Monsanto has probably destroyed the reputation of a potential technology they themselves use worse than any company has done for any other technology. Very sad.
@Jim Frazier And yet we still had a massive blast at BP several years before Deepwater Horizon. And BP gave us tons of reassurances it had learned its lesson. Take it from the inhabitants of Bhopal India, as soon as they can't turn a profit, all companies let the asset not turning a profit decay and break rather than disassembling and mothballing it or selling that asset to someone else or even *gasp* selling it to a local government so that THEY can run it. Heaven forbid companies take care of their investments, what's next, communism? >.<
They only give a damn when its conveinant. Which is why when I hear about a great new technology my first question is "Are we responsible enough to deal with it." And if a company isn't and they screw up, they should be prosecuted for negligence with NO MERCY. If they go out of business so be it. When big business screws up, its more than just their shareholders on the ilne, its their workers' ability to take care of their families, the health of communities, and the general wellbeing of everyone even peripherally in contact with that company on a regular basis.
Until companies start planning for the long term and value a solid foundation over a quick buck, we aren't going to be ready for large scale space colonization or advanced futuristic technologies. Shame too, I have asthma and autism, I'd love some cybernetics to help mitigate those. Imagine eye implants that tell you what a person's facial expression means! Do you know what a game changer that would be for me? Or how about respirocytes used for severe asthma and drowning victims?
@@General12th right, i should be calling them bayersanto. >.< capitolism is fine, just don't be a dick and know when to stop.
@@AnimeShinigami13 Don't forget all the responses to protests against the pipeline with Keystone swearing up and down in interviews that the pipeline going over that river was safe and the protesters were just not being reasonable. Politicians favoring the pipeline treating the protesters like terrorists...
@@Vaeldarg the worst thing about that is the protestors were right. there's already been a leak leaking bitumen into waterways. bitumen sinks, so its not going far. but the water's ruined in that area. and they tried to cover it up. it was in my most recent issue of Mother Earth News. They have a section for Eco related news every issue. The leak happened sometime last fall if I remember right. And they covered it up even from the locals.
SFIA making things crystal nu-clear
I have a novel idea: build big nuclear power plants fast. Like we did 60 years ago. Brett Kugelmass and Last Energy are awesome though, hope they succeed.
I was hoping you'd touch on this tech. Nice!
Alpha radiation is not dangerous. It penetrates even less than beta radiation. In fact, the preferred decay mode for RTGs is a pure alpha emitter because it can be shielded by about 10cm of air, or 0.01mm of water.
No, alpha radiation is the most easily shielded, not 'not dangerous', those two are not the same thing.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Yes, but dangerous is a relative term. Compared to all other forms of nuclear radiation, it is the least dangerous, being incapable of penetrating the dead layer of skin. When considering strictly internal exposure it is comparably dangerous to the others, but if you're going to compare external exposure of alpha, beta, neutron, and gamma radiation (as you did in the video), alpha is the least dangerous.
@@FourthRoot I won't debate the point, given that I don't think we actually disagree anyway, especially as the script says alpha and beta when discussing penetration and I apparently skipped alpha in the narration, obviously it could have been phrased better, but I don't - especially with pressurized reactors or smaller ones that might have more casual staff - like to ignore the inhalation or swallowing option, or what damage it can do to equipment.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'm sure we do agree. I was referring specifically to 12:07 - 12:22
I think you misspoke, you said that beta radiation does not penetrate skin (true), but lumped alpha in with neutron and gamma radiation as "dangerous".
Not here to debate, just pointing out an error you may wish to correct.
@@FourthRoot Oh no, I definitely misspoke, your complaint was legit, the captions/transcript have the comment right:
"The type matters too, as Alpha and Beta Radiation are incapable of penetrating human skin, whereas Alpha, Gamma, and Neutron Radiation are all rather dangerous and indeed Alpha and Neutron Radiation are what we often use to induce fission in bigger atoms. "
Sadly the only correction youtube permits are to captions, and those were already right anyway, my narration flubbed and I was looking at the script so wasn't sure what you were refering to. There's a worse one a minute earlier where I've got a picture of pair of tritium particles on screen while cheerfully discussing He-3 :)
Would an antiproton and an electron annihilate? I was just thinking about how hard it would be to make antihydrogen cause you have to deal with making anti-electrons and anti-protons. If particles only annihilate with their antiparticles, is it possible to make a hybrid atom with an anti-proton and an electron?
Romania is already building micro nuclear plants and is a good thing.
can we get a video on using planets or moons as batteries? that would be an awesome megaproject video
Yet another informative episode on something I hope to see catch on.
Nuclear and SMRs are but one front of developing new advanced energy sources for the future and I always appreciate your calm nuance on this point.
Wonderful episode Isaac.
Can you make an episode about the nuclear-powered cruise missile build by Russia ? I understand they use a liquid isotope, and the reactor is minimal. Looks like Russia is leading on small reactors, build in "tubes" under 2m in diameter and under 10m length, way ahead of what I see in US;
They have also a working one powering the nuclear underwater drone Poseidon.
What are your thoughts about their designs ? Thank you in advance.
I have just finished reading Doctor Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Nukes" this video is a great companion for the book.
I know most of those terms but I like to hear you talk
Small. Like Godzilla is pocket-sized....hmm, that gives me an idea...
Actually, more like T. Rex is pocket sized - Godzilla is the big brother 2 GW facility.
When younger, I wondered if cooling towers were where clouds come from.
Nah they are reaction thrusters for stabilizing the Earths orbit.
Believe or not after Three Mile Island there was at least one national columnist in the US writing about the water vapor clouds from the cooling towers being the radioactive smoke from the reactors.
I thought the CNN special "Pandora's Promise" was pretty good at outlining the fossil fuel industry's history of antinuclear advertising/lobbying.
We could also copy France's nuclear power industry as they've been doing it pretty well for awhile now.
I think you should take a closer look at space-based solar. It's something that will catch the world by surprise.
"Atomic Train" sounds like the name of a really wicked rock band.
The 4887.439 tons of spent fuel generated in one year by 10,000 20MW micro reactors can fuel 52 1GW Molten Salt Reactors for 100 years. 940 kg of natural thorium in a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) can generate 1 gigawatt (GW) of electricity for one year. The 37,112 tons of unused depleted uranium processed to obtain the 4888 tons of enriched uranium can fuel 394 1GW Molten Salt Reactors for 100 years.
Ultimately, SMRs are at the mercy of the same regulatory problems as larger plants. The NRC is one government agency that seems actively hostile towards the industry it regulates and the hoops through which anyone wanting to build a new reactor must jump are deliberately absurd. Without reform for the whole process and a new process that permits SMRs (which pose less risk to the public than traditional plants) to be licensed and to operate under less stringent regimes, I just don't see them taking off in the US.
Overall, our nuclear industry may have entered a terminal decline where grid operators will stop building or requesting life extensions on reactors because the future looks so dire and none of them want to be the last one holding the bag, trying to prop up the entire regulatory apparatus and specialized supply chain on their own.
Errata 12:08 Alpha particles are most easily stopped by skin, air, paper, etc. The Beta particles are more penetrating. Gamma are true ionizing photonic rays and penetrate the furthest.
And even Gamma rays can be stopped with 5 meters of water, soil etc.
@@TraditionalAnglican the fact you need a full foot of lead plus some to stop gamma rays really says something
a rail less atomic train designed to go over ice? Now that would make snowpiercer way cooler :D
There are already dozens of SMRs. The Navy runs them.
Anyone notice how a super powerful energy beamfromspace anywhere will have to burn some birds that get in the way unless they have large perfect repellent measures around the receiver?
Oh, well. Fry 'em.
My point is those board will waste the energy and block that portion of the receiver they land on and most likely damage it on impact too.
Yeah I am not convinced they are a good idea for planets with life on the surface. Great for Mars and the Moon lol.
Place the receivers away from migratory pathways, or float the receivers above the heights that birds typically fly at.
Actually, the beams can be made wide and spread out enough (at least with microwave beams) that they're either harmless, or at least weak enough to be more painful than actually damaging, so that the birds will just... freak out and move out of the 'cone of heat'. The downside is that this requires very large (though not necessarily solid, metal mesh suspended from a series of towers with crops or natural parks or whatever growing under it works just fine) antennas to receive them, and they might also make the transmitters slightly larger? It's typically assumed that you'd use this kind of power beam design around Earth so that you don't have to deal with everybody else trying to keep you from having access to a death ray, anyway.
I severely doubt SMRs are more power dense than larger reactors, and if they are, just stack a bunch in on place. Centralisation comes with management and security benefits.
But you will be able to ship and commission these anywhere so factories and other buildings can have their own source of nuclear power. And there are plans for micro modular reactors that are the size of 2 water heaters that could be used to power big electric semi trucks, spacecraft, etc. They also don’t heat up nearly as much and are far less of a risk of overheating. Even if it isn’t as power dense, this gives nuclear energy a lot more flexibility with what you can use it for and where you can use it
@@Mishkobt convincing any regulatory agency in the world to let you have nuclear reactors in nearly unrestricted areas will be a really tough sell
I'm actually pro nuke, but damn, if you're going to complain that we can't have nuclear power because stupid consumers, no sale. We have been very lucky that un-failsafe reactor designs haven't caused even more than a couple of pure disasters and dozens of scary smaller 'incidents'. Knowledge and respect will get us there...
Yeah, I mean, over the last 65 years we have killed less than 100 people with civilian nuclear power, so let's lock that baby down until perfect.
Whereas we have continued to kill 1000s each year with coal, 100s each year with natural gas, 100s each year with wind, 100s each year with solar, and every once in a while, 10,000s with hydro. But we have to make nuclear perfect.
1:05 it would be nice if you would give a time to skip to (or use video chapters)
as for safety ... we should aim to bring chance of _accidents_ close to zero.
- as for chance of malicious misuse / sabotage / etc ... sure, put in defenses, but at some point it's impossible to do better, since a sufficiently intelligent agent will always find another way.
- it's the same with AGI, reactors, weapons, even public transport or anything really ...
A very high-pressure/low-temperature electricity-only reactor like NuScale never had a chance of being economical. The only reactor that has a chance of being economical is a very low-pressure/high-temperature industrial heat source with hundreds of applications, the least of which is making electricity.
@Isaac_Arthur , they are still too big, but what if such reactors could be build to fit the cargobay of Starship, would an SMR on Mars make a big difference when it comes to power for their mission on Mars, or would it be overkill and solar panels will do just fine, since they receive more valuable electromagnetic radiation from the sun, even at that distance.
The biggest problem I see, although I really like nuclear energy, is that although it’s deemed safe by those who support it I imagine it can’t be safe if someone wants to bomb it. Which essentially allows a small group, that has relatively minuscule amounts of power relative to large nations, the ability to “nuke” others.
That being said, I have no idea how much of a concern this is but I can imagine it being an attack vector. Certainly not EVERY nuclear plant can be kept secure.
Maybe I’m missing something(?)
This is really my only concern, it seems that they’ve dialed in the engineering aspects of the plant so I think that we’re good on that front.
Just in time!
I was wondering if it was theoretically possible to get handheld reactors or at least reactors the size of say, microwaves
that would be cool
theoretically possible ? yes , but practical would say No . Isaac?
So a handheld dirty bomb you mean? 😄
RTGs are a better choice
@@paperburn Why would it not be practical?
When discussing nuclear power you should also get into mining the fuel which is a dirty process. this may cause as much problems as disposing of the waste
Really dirty? Compared to what? Copper nickel lithium aluminum steel? Uranium “mines” are not even mines anymore. They are insitu, a pipe in the ground pumping water.
10:50 you have two atoms of tritium labeled as helium three.
One of the few mistakes I’ve ever noticed on your channel. Keep up the great work!!!
f$%#, there's always one that slides by the folks reviewing the vids too but that one is nearly as irritating as the time I typo'd the title
I like the idea of SMRs in principle, but I suspect their bigger brothers are a bit easier to make resistant to ideological obsessives with private planes and drones packed with explosives.
SMR’s will work in space, esp the 50 ton versions that can be chucked at Mars & the Asteroid Belt on SpaceX Starships or using orbital assembly.
Iran has actually done a lot of research into “bunker buster”-proof bunkers with ultra high performance concretes. I bet that same technology has applications in protecting distributes nuclear power plants.
Even blown up they should ve quite safe for the surrounding area.
Happy Arthursday 🎉🎉🎉🎉 Early gang
14:31 disappointed that you perpetuate the hysteria. In a video about SMRs you also talk about atomic weapons. Let's try to dispel the 70 years of atomic hysteria and talk about how to build a better atomic future.
I think its pretty unrealistic to expect an episode on nuclear energy not mention nukes Chris. You don't convince folks nuclear power is safe by ignoring the 900 pound gorilla in the room, that merely makes folks think you're delusional or dishonest.
@@isaacarthurSFIA 732k subscribers. you have the power to change the narrative.
@@isaacarthurSFIA yes, thank you for not sweeping that under the carpet. Especially with many smaller facilities, safety of those facilities is bound to go way down.
But that is the core human psychology conundrum.
The "scary" factor of nuclear weapons poisons consumer feels about civilian power.
So we now have the worst of both worlds.
All the weapons of an advanced civilization with none of the power sources.
A lot of your videos talk about rtgs but not stirling radioisotope generators which are about 4 times as efficient. NASA was working on it but canceled development to save money.
Just build 4 packs of 250 MW SMRs and combine with 8 steam turbines.
Everything gets to be cycled off for maintenance. I hope I get to see this happen.
13:00 - what is so 'brutal' in small reactors that navies routinely operate? It is actually a SIZE that causes problems to - pardon my french - baloon. 19:18 - uhm most of Russian helicopters have isotopic smoke/engine fire detector....
8:43 why "virtually impossible" instead of impossible...? if it's"virtually" impossible but not TOTALLY impossible, that means it's still *doable*. just like how properly guiding explosions to move something to make it move how you want it is virtually impossible, but we have rocket science for a reason.
i would appreciate it if someone would explain this to me.
thank you.
The critique about nuclear energy isn't entirely about reactor safety. There are the same arguments that are true for all energy sources based on limited supply of fuel: you're not truely energy independant, there is a market and at some point it will be all gone. Then there is the fact that it produces toxic and radioactive waste and byproducts that can't be recyled but must be safely stored for 100.000 years or more. Often storage conditions are suboptimal and unsafe.
If it's "hot" enough we need to store it for 100K years, then it's "hot" enough to use as the fuel source for small RTG reactors.
We have billions of years worth of fuel and nuclear waste is an asset, not a liability.
@@chapter4travels idk if this stuff is an "asset" unless you plan to manufacture a lot of weapons, like DU rounds for tanks. Also do you have any sources on uranium reserves lasting a billion years?
I think he is referring to breeder reactor fuels as well as asteroid mining.
@@hyrumhanson3390 might be the case. But then he's using scifi as an argument against something that actually happens at this moment.
Would be really cool today video on mass converters like the star track replacator
20:00 Finally starts to get to the topic of the video.
I consider any company that doesn't have an actual reactor to be a Nuclear Grifter.
And no one without experience should ever get a job.
You have to have a building before any construction drawings are even started.
Heavy water ski resort cracked me up.
those light reactors..? are they based on submarine ones?
Also how submarine ones are able to not radiate immense amounts of heat being stealth in the process?
Does this mean geothermal energy is out or, can the two coexist?
14:55 r/NonCredibleDefense is SO HARD right now.
So ridiculous. Any economist or engineer can inform you about fixed costs: planning, getting approval and a license, Lawyers, Decommissioning bonds, staff, and many more. That’s why plants try to be as large as possible, to make those costs a smaller part of the total. Modular small reactors, if they even work, are going to cost much more per megawatt. Asking a utility to pay more up front for uncertain technology, that’s going to be a hard sell. Also national rules for power plants would have to be heavily revised to allow these to exist. Not gonna happen. Shouldn’t happen.
Yawn yikes congrats you're not just wrong you're super wrong my fellow
@@YourCapyPal_3DPipes1999 Yeah, sure. You give lots and lots and lots of blab, blab, blab, but not one real number. Respected sources, like the German nuclear agency, they estimate that it's a no-go. It would take thousands of SMR's built per factory to get them to be cost-competitive. And there is no place where trucking out 6,000 SMR's from would be feasible. Also the leveled cost of electricity from SMR's is, even using optimistic numbers, way way up there, around 3 times the cost of solar or wind. Next time try less general unfounded blab, less CGI of unbuilt ideas, and more facts. All we see out there is like six dozen different paper designs, not a single operating plant besides that Russian icebreaker conversion. Pitiful.
-How much Nuclear do we need? -...Yes, I mean, not full Edward Teller (he wanted to make highways with atomic bombs, blast oil rigs, etc.), but yeah, you get it. Thank you for this great video!
I'll just drop it here at 20:15: Supertrain!
The US needs to fix its train derailment and bridge collapse issues before even thinking about SMR's.
And in which part of the European Caliphate do you reside?
It's true, there are a LOT of infrastructure issues that need addressing.
That's one of the most idiotic ideas ever (Problems with X, therefore we shouldn't do Y)
When he suggests drink and snack you know it's gonna be a good one
Best crossover episode ever! Love the show and ToN
The thumbnail for this video made me wonder how big of a rocket you'd need to drive the earth around like a space ship
I have the idea to build a small CANDU reactor to power a neighborhood in a post-government scenario. All you need is a source of natural uranium, which can be purchased right now, and a few solar panels to power hydrolysis to obtain heavy water. Over about a decade, if not a couple years, you can refine the amount of heavy water you need, and you find a source of uranium to mine in that time, and begin design and construction of the reactor.
In a post-government scenario, someone comes and takes it from you.
@@sleadaddy in a post government scenario I give it to them in exchange to join their raiding party. It's not really the kind of thing that can be easily moved though.
Will be easier to burn coal or oil.
@@Argentvs maybe coal but oil needs to be refined
Awsome...and no more words
as long as they are passively save and operate at low pressure, im all for building new reactors everywhere.
everything else is just asking for trouble.
that would not be the type of reactor that is gonna be build if you start building one today. I assume you red something about newer reactor designs, that are not really being build yet?
@@MusikCassette its been many years ago... 10... 15?... idk. that i read about it, i just assumed that that would be what we are building by now. why would anyone in their right mind still build highpressure reactors that need hundreds of safetysystems to not explode?
@@tomduke1297 sadly Pressurized water reactors like the EPR are still considert state of the art. We get more safty features. we get more energy from the same amount of fuel, but we are still stuck with fundamentally flawed designs.
is Californium the smallest possible fission bomb?
i'd be more worried about a coal plant in my city than a nuclear reactor. the health effects are severely underreported.
21:17 This is not completely true. It's possible for a reactor to produce more electricity than heat if you use a fission fragment reactor. They directly convert charged particles produced from fission into electricity. Efficiencies of over 90% are possible.
“Possible”
Theoretically, perhaps. Nobody has built a successful high efficiency direct conversion reactor anywhere, ever. Huge practical problems with megavolt electrodes, can’t allow release of fission products, etc. And it’s not 90%, as the energy in the neutrons is lost to direct conversion.
@@Nill757 Which is why I said it's possible, just like nuclear fusion for electrical generation is also possible, but you're never going to get a practical implementation of it with the cynicism you expressed just now. And no, over 90% efficiencies is absolutely possible, look it up yourself.
@@thuggeegaming659 "cynicism"
I'm an engineer, and I'm familiar with the literature on direct conversion. You're confused, 90% is not possible w/ fission; the literatures suggests high efficiency is theoretically possible with some aneutronic forms of fusion which are not remotely plausibly now.
BTW, the way complicated challenging tech breakthroughs occur are by people like me who put in the years and work to obtain the skills to determine what might work w/ some effort, and what's nonsense wishful thinking. You're the other guy, who with no work would wish a thing into existence. You're the guy who makes Theranos, WeWork, FTX, Nikola scams work on a credulous public, and shouted down the not-so-fast critics as non-believers.
@@Nill757 Lol no you're not an engineer, you're a troll. It absolutely is possible, you are objectively incorrect.
Ad hominems are a sign of anger and frustration when you can't formulate a cogent argument. . Next!
@@thuggeegaming659 Read Moir, R. W.; Barr, W. L. 1973.
Once upon a time there was a vast and empty void. It was an endless expanse of nothingness, with no matter, energy, or even light.
But within this emptiness, there was a tiny spark. It was a singularity, a point of infinite density and temperature, where the laws of physics as we know them break down. And from this spark, the universe was born.
At the very beginning of time, the universe was incredibly small and hot. All the matter and energy that would one day form galaxies, stars, and planets was packed into a tiny, zero-dimensional space. This space was so small that it could hold just a few elementary particles, the building blocks of matter.
But even in this tiny space, something incredible was happening. The particles were held together by a powerful force, known as the Strong Nuclear Force. This force is responsible for binding the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom, and without it, the particles would simply fly apart.
As the universe expanded and cooled, the particles began to combine to form atoms, molecules, and eventually, the first stars and galaxies. And yet, even as the universe grew and evolved, the Strong Nuclear Force continued to hold the particles together.
As scientists peered deeper into the structure of matter, they discovered that the particles themselves were made up of even smaller building blocks, known as quarks. And once again, the Strong Nuclear Force was there, binding the quarks together to form protons and neutrons.
The story of the Strong Nuclear Force is intimately connected to the story of our universe. It is the force that holds matter together, from the smallest particles to the largest structures in the cosmos. Without it, the universe as we know it could not exist.
And so, as we gaze up at the stars and ponder the mysteries of the universe, let us remember the tiny, zero-dimensional space that holds our quarks together with the Strong Nuclear Force, and the role it has played in shaping our cosmic history.
another great video
ah. nothing like a new Issac Aurthur video to listen to while im playing rimworld.
I have heard about SMRs for years now so are they in use yet? I've lots of plans for them but are they viable yet?
Commercially none in use, but every single nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier is using SMR's, so they're not a new concept.
@@bootstrapbill447 Makes sense
Uh... 25 MW and 50 tons gives 0.5 MW/ton, not 2 MW/ton. Still amazingly light though.
thanks isaac
Now Put few greenhouses next of each of this SMR and use waste heat to heat them for cheap ;)
Simply visualization with forest next to SMR are not appealing, put few hectares of greenhouses next to, and will look more profitable, local groceries production all year around ;)
@Conon the Binarian Why not is logical, if you put additional radiation sensor in each greenhouse you have nothing to worry about.
Small modular reactors are very powerful. They have the power to extract tons of taxpayers' money without producing a damn thing except waste that will be toxic for hundreds of thousands of years.
No drink and snack today, drink and cigar instead
No pressure reacators should be the only ones used
Thank you sir.