So.... I realized I moved my hands around _a lot_ in this video and the lighting changes (the weather was weird). Don't let it distract you. Live and learn, and enjoy! 🙂
The US originally developed this technology at Oak Ridge over 50 years ago, but it got shelved and forgotten until recently. I'd say it's time has come finally.
The Oak Creek molten salt reactor program ended because of very significant issues with corrosion and that the reactor tripped due to equipment or control issues over 400 times in just 4 years (where light water reactors might have tripped 10 times a year). They shelved it because they could not see any economical solutions to the issues in the day. My current information is that they have still not solved the corrosion issue of the molten salts (they have reduced it considerably; but not enough to project a 6-8 decade operation life of current light water reactors without problems)
@@aaronking5170 While that is true - its also true that it takes decades of operation and several design interations to get specific nuclear technology to work long term. Currently well designed and well run/maintained light water reactors trip about once a year (although they often do a partial downpower for unplanned repairs 2-3 times a year). It has taken over 50 years of modifications, design changes, and operating run time to get there. A number of light water reactor component and system designs didn't make it through the process and were discarded along the way (and I've personally had a hand in some of the changes to get to modern reliability). I have full faith that whatever they design now as a molten salt reactor will have noticeable teething issues related to long term run time. While the design and equipment might be modifiable so the plant can continue to run. They might also not be. Look at the list of early shut down light water and high temperature gas cooled power plants in the USA. A number of plants never made it anywhere near their initial design lifespan; and most of the ones that did have had their lives extended for at least another 20 years. I'm predicting that it will take $30-$60 Billion dollars and at least 40 years of continuous operation before we really have reliable working molten salt reactors. Nuclear power has proven to kill most major design ideas at the test power plant stage (less than 100 MW electric output).
@perryallan3524 I agree with most of what you say, but I suspect that 40 years and $30 billion years is much more than is needed. I don't have a good reason for that, sort of a hunch. It'll probably take 10-20 years and $10 billion at most, but that's just my opinion. Thankfully, it's possible to build passively safe uranium reactors and we also can make fast breeder reactors to deal with the U-238 problem - we don't even need thorium (but it's still cool).
It has unfortunately it's happening in a Chinese dessert, because of all the red tape in the western part of the world. They might be making a giant container ship that also runs on Thorium. You sleep you lose, I hope the western nuclear industry enjoy there 50+ year nap 😴. Even the Russian ROSATOM should be worried someone might eat there lunch 🥪.
Direct carbon capture is horrendously inefficient due to how diffuse it is in the air, but offering a way for industrial plants to make money by capturing their CO2 at the smokestack for use in synthetic fuel processing might be more economically viable. Portable micro nukes is pretty cool though, and so is the Silicon Carbide fuel.
I worry about the cost of security for a micro reactor. They will rarely be cost effective if they have to be secured like an existing nuclear power plant. If not secured to that level - then how do we prevent terrorist from steeling them and getting access to the radioactive fuel to create a "dirty bomb". There may be an answer... but, its certainly an answer that will have to be resolved.
In of March 2019 by invite only to a conference held inside MIT's Electrical Dept. I gave a presentation on nuclear aerospace. However, my own niece thinks I am "Dr. Strangelove" due to monster movies and comic books.
synthetic fuel created by nuclear power is also more energy dense & cleaner burning. as nature does not have exactly the same lengths for the hydrocarbons, they dont burn 100% uniformly. by comparison synthetic fuel is created in a controlled process.
I wish people used logarithms for large numbers ... in general. 230 million ? - so much focus on the "details" and the "m" has almost all the meaning there, yet still it's 2 more zeroes ... ^8.36 - clear, starts important, details are less and less important .... - Most importantly: easier to compare between each other, etc... - Even better if we used base 2 log, more clarity in first number right away, but base 10 is quite deeply rooted, and having "8 zeroes" is relatively simpler to people ...
The diversity of products is an absolutely bad sign. Some of these projects are even in opposition. There will be a winner. A better govt grant situation would be a single committed development such as with original PWR designs. This half in half out investment is lauded as risk reduction but ensures the likely failure of all of these projects.
Well said, there is nothing to add, except asking if Alvin M. Weinberg should not design PWR/BWR and then propose MSR on Th cycle for new generation of reactors now considered 4th? I believe he was right about it.
I disagree. This is the kind of development and testing that is needed to figure out what will work, and molten salt reactors will need decades of testing and operation to ensure that we have solved the problems identified in the 1960's; and I have not seen any real progress on the corrosion issue with the molten salts. You forget that it actually took decades to make light water PWR reactors work well. Please note that one of the nuclear power plants I worked in was licensed under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) "Atoms for Peace" initiative (predating the NRC). A lot of things did not meet NRC regulations and we had to modify the plant to bring it up to early NRC specs, or were granted waivers; and that was on a plant that only required double redundancy of the early NRC regulations (The NRC changed to triple redundancy requirements later as double redundancy did not have enough equipment reliability for over a decade after the NRC was formed - we modified and replaced a lot of equipment to make it more reliable). Note that Indian Point 1 and several other early commercial nuclear power plants were not upgradable to "acceptable" NRC standards from the AEC licensing and was shut down well before its expected life. Note that Indian Point 1 was a 275 MW electrical outpu thorium fueled light water reactor commercial power plant design online in 1962: it was later changed to U235 fuel due to economics. Also the USA also tested a light water thorium fueled breeder reactor (Shippingport 60MW electric output- Core load 3) which produced 39% more fuel than it burned in 5 years of operation: There is nothing new about thorium, the light water thorium power plant reactors of old could melt down, and the U233 that thorium reactors actually burn and generate would make great atomic bombs. While I am skeptical about molten salt reactors - I support the 3M research project on isotope separation. I suspect it has many other nuclear applications.
@@codaalive5076 Correct. And that's fine but at the time it was critical that they said no to continued development and committed to any design. The same can even be seen in France and Englands nuclear projects. The perfect is the enemy of the good so to speak.
No point watching beyond 1:40, as everything further is "as we all know". What's the point? I wish for a video that has information that most of us do not know.
Basic stuff I learnt in school: CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live. Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
Thermal isn't plentiful or easy to reach everywhere. Wave energy is like other renewables; requiring very expensive parallel infrastructure when it makes more than around 20% of energy mix. Such sources are often not energy dense enough meaning we have to also count enourmous CO2 releases when making materials for them, replacements, recycling of turbine blades and solar panels is problematic, etc. We needed safe, energy dense sources like nuclear many years ago in order to prevent temperature rise. This is the reason most of us support whatever type of reactors can be built first, PWRs are the most known and researched...
Good job at making video. We need information about various projects, thanks a lot. Efforts seem way too dispersed to succeed, $230 million is not a lot of money even for one project like fuel rods or synthetic fuel. America was extremely successful when government stepped in financing research and building of reactors, i believe they will do it the same way once again.
Basic stuff I learnt in school: CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live. Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
Lots of new stuff in the nuclear industry lately. Those small reactors could save a lot of cost on long distance transmission towers by locating the source near the load.
Because we need simple reactor that will limit CO2 like no other technology? Jets are releasing a lot, so do oil&coal plants, cars, military, trucks, homes, production of materials like cement or steel and so on. Idea of generating fuels like hydrogen with nuclear reactors isn't new at all, you might want to check some of AB's older videos where he discusses this matter.
Basic stuff I learnt in school: CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live. Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
I wonder. Why don't use GE's synthetic fuel production technology to turn every industrial emission to synthetic hydrocarbon fuel? That'll be a revolutionary technolgy to reduce Carbon emission all over the world.
Как я понимаю у США сейчас НЕТ готовых решений по атомной энергетики. А верить в честность стартапов по атомной энергетики это глупо. Все может быть, как с Элизабет Энн Холмс.
You are correct in saying there is no such thing as emission free energy, almost everyone following this things knows it although many don't mention this. Nuclear is so energy dense and last long enough CO2 releases isn't a problem compared to sources like renewables, i believe hydro comes close to nuclear in terms of energy density.
So.... I realized I moved my hands around _a lot_ in this video and the lighting changes (the weather was weird). Don't let it distract you. Live and learn, and enjoy! 🙂
You also have a chapter labeled ‘Motel Salt’. All hail our master, Autocorrect!
I didn't notice excessive Hand Waving until you mentioned it.
Why not just use the Hydrogen produced?
"Wave your hands in the air
Like you don't care" :)
The US originally developed this technology at Oak Ridge over 50 years ago, but it got shelved and forgotten until recently. I'd say it's time has come finally.
The Oak Creek molten salt reactor program ended because of very significant issues with corrosion and that the reactor tripped due to equipment or control issues over 400 times in just 4 years (where light water reactors might have tripped 10 times a year). They shelved it because they could not see any economical solutions to the issues in the day.
My current information is that they have still not solved the corrosion issue of the molten salts (they have reduced it considerably; but not enough to project a 6-8 decade operation life of current light water reactors without problems)
@@perryallan3524 But it did prove the concept was sound. All that would be required is further technical advancement to make it a sound technology.
@@aaronking5170 While that is true - its also true that it takes decades of operation and several design interations to get specific nuclear technology to work long term. Currently well designed and well run/maintained light water reactors trip about once a year (although they often do a partial downpower for unplanned repairs 2-3 times a year). It has taken over 50 years of modifications, design changes, and operating run time to get there. A number of light water reactor component and system designs didn't make it through the process and were discarded along the way (and I've personally had a hand in some of the changes to get to modern reliability).
I have full faith that whatever they design now as a molten salt reactor will have noticeable teething issues related to long term run time. While the design and equipment might be modifiable so the plant can continue to run. They might also not be. Look at the list of early shut down light water and high temperature gas cooled power plants in the USA. A number of plants never made it anywhere near their initial design lifespan; and most of the ones that did have had their lives extended for at least another 20 years.
I'm predicting that it will take $30-$60 Billion dollars and at least 40 years of continuous operation before we really have reliable working molten salt reactors.
Nuclear power has proven to kill most major design ideas at the test power plant stage (less than 100 MW electric output).
@perryallan3524 I agree with most of what you say, but I suspect that 40 years and $30 billion years is much more than is needed. I don't have a good reason for that, sort of a hunch. It'll probably take 10-20 years and $10 billion at most, but that's just my opinion. Thankfully, it's possible to build passively safe uranium reactors and we also can make fast breeder reactors to deal with the U-238 problem - we don't even need thorium (but it's still cool).
It has unfortunately it's happening in a Chinese dessert, because of all the red tape in the western part of the world. They might be making a giant container ship that also runs on Thorium. You sleep you lose, I hope the western nuclear industry enjoy there 50+ year nap 😴. Even the Russian ROSATOM should be worried someone might eat there lunch 🥪.
You rock. Please keep the content coming.
I love this latest development in energy
Finally the US is waking up
Direct carbon capture is horrendously inefficient due to how diffuse it is in the air, but offering a way for industrial plants to make money by capturing their CO2 at the smokestack for use in synthetic fuel processing might be more economically viable. Portable micro nukes is pretty cool though, and so is the Silicon Carbide fuel.
The term is CCS, Carbon Capture and Storage. Generic but that's the term instead of DCC for capture from the atmosphere.
Micro Nuclear Reactors may be a great solution for cleaning up polluted water to produce clean, safe fresh water. And water desalination.
Exactly, anywhere a localized power source or specialized heat is needed in remote locations, these would be great
I worry about the cost of security for a micro reactor. They will rarely be cost effective if they have to be secured like an existing nuclear power plant. If not secured to that level - then how do we prevent terrorist from steeling them and getting access to the radioactive fuel to create a "dirty bomb". There may be an answer... but, its certainly an answer that will have to be resolved.
Thanks for one more great video.
In of March 2019 by invite only to a conference held inside MIT's Electrical Dept. I gave a presentation on nuclear aerospace.
However, my own niece thinks I am "Dr. Strangelove" due to monster movies and comic books.
If interested I can furnish bibliography on how nuclear cam circumvent light barrier for even interdimensional travel between parallel universes..
So if we cancel the F-35 we can pay for the Advanced Nuclear Program 1791 times. I'm thinking that is a bargain.
Seems to be worth it yep. I actually don’t get how they managed to get so many software problems in a single new plane..
Another great vid. Have you heard of CER-LIQ-MESH reactors? Or Nano-Hetero structures reactors.
Thanks! I haven't heard of them, I'll have to check it out
synthetic fuel created by nuclear power is also more energy dense & cleaner burning. as nature does not have exactly the same lengths for the hydrocarbons, they dont burn 100% uniformly. by comparison synthetic fuel is created in a controlled process.
I wish people used logarithms for large numbers ... in general.
230 million ? - so much focus on the "details" and the "m" has almost all the meaning there, yet still it's 2 more zeroes ... ^8.36 - clear, starts important, details are less and less important ....
- Most importantly: easier to compare between each other, etc...
- Even better if we used base 2 log, more clarity in first number right away, but base 10 is quite deeply rooted, and having "8 zeroes" is relatively simpler to people ...
I thought it's gonna be a jet engine run on reactor heat.
Number one two and three for anything nuclear is/was Kodak Corporation.
First like, first comment, last round of funding :D
The diversity of products is an absolutely bad sign. Some of these projects are even in opposition. There will be a winner. A better govt grant situation would be a single committed development such as with original PWR designs. This half in half out investment is lauded as risk reduction but ensures the likely failure of all of these projects.
Well said, there is nothing to add, except asking if Alvin M. Weinberg should not design PWR/BWR and then propose MSR on Th cycle for new generation of reactors now considered 4th? I believe he was right about it.
I disagree. This is the kind of development and testing that is needed to figure out what will work, and molten salt reactors will need decades of testing and operation to ensure that we have solved the problems identified in the 1960's; and I have not seen any real progress on the corrosion issue with the molten salts.
You forget that it actually took decades to make light water PWR reactors work well. Please note that one of the nuclear power plants I worked in was licensed under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) "Atoms for Peace" initiative (predating the NRC). A lot of things did not meet NRC regulations and we had to modify the plant to bring it up to early NRC specs, or were granted waivers; and that was on a plant that only required double redundancy of the early NRC regulations (The NRC changed to triple redundancy requirements later as double redundancy did not have enough equipment reliability for over a decade after the NRC was formed - we modified and replaced a lot of equipment to make it more reliable).
Note that Indian Point 1 and several other early commercial nuclear power plants were not upgradable to "acceptable" NRC standards from the AEC licensing and was shut down well before its expected life. Note that Indian Point 1 was a 275 MW electrical outpu thorium fueled light water reactor commercial power plant design online in 1962: it was later changed to U235 fuel due to economics.
Also the USA also tested a light water thorium fueled breeder reactor (Shippingport 60MW electric output- Core load 3) which produced 39% more fuel than it burned in 5 years of operation: There is nothing new about thorium, the light water thorium power plant reactors of old could melt down, and the U233 that thorium reactors actually burn and generate would make great atomic bombs.
While I am skeptical about molten salt reactors - I support the 3M research project on isotope separation. I suspect it has many other nuclear applications.
@@codaalive5076 Correct. And that's fine but at the time it was critical that they said no to continued development and committed to any design. The same can even be seen in France and Englands nuclear projects. The perfect is the enemy of the good so to speak.
@@perryallan3524 The point mainly regards project management. Not particulars of technology.
I agree ☝️ also there is more than efficiency gained in scale there’s also safety in scale.
No point watching beyond 1:40, as everything further is "as we all know".
What's the point? I wish for a video that has information that most of us do not know.
😅
Basic stuff I learnt in school:
CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live.
Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
did he say general atomics?? fallout 4 predicted it! XD nuclear annihilation not too far away haha
Why arent we using thermal energy from drilling deep into the Earth? Why arent we using wave energy, its pretty much free and endless.
Thermal isn't plentiful or easy to reach everywhere. Wave energy is like other renewables; requiring very expensive parallel infrastructure when it makes more than around 20% of energy mix. Such sources are often not energy dense enough meaning we have to also count enourmous CO2 releases when making materials for them, replacements, recycling of turbine blades and solar panels is problematic, etc.
We needed safe, energy dense sources like nuclear many years ago in order to prevent temperature rise. This is the reason most of us support whatever type of reactors can be built first, PWRs are the most known and researched...
t
There is no such thing as carbon or emissions free energy. Every one needs to stop telling this lie.
Good job at making video. We need information about various projects, thanks a lot.
Efforts seem way too dispersed to succeed, $230 million is not a lot of money even for one project like fuel rods or synthetic fuel. America was extremely successful when government stepped in financing research and building of reactors, i believe they will do it the same way once again.
Basic stuff I learnt in school:
CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live.
Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
Lots of new stuff in the nuclear industry lately. Those small reactors could save a lot of cost on long distance transmission towers by locating the source near the load.
If the general electric project works why limit it to jet fuel (high grade kerosene)?
Because we need simple reactor that will limit CO2 like no other technology? Jets are releasing a lot, so do oil&coal plants, cars, military, trucks, homes, production of materials like cement or steel and so on.
Idea of generating fuels like hydrogen with nuclear reactors isn't new at all, you might want to check some of AB's older videos where he discusses this matter.
Basic stuff I learnt in school:
CO2 it is part of the natural ecosystem. It is basically food for trees, and the trees use CO2 to make oxygen… We humans a all animals need oxygen to live.
Please get over the CARBON-CRAP-TAX!
I wonder. Why don't use GE's synthetic fuel production technology to turn every industrial emission to synthetic hydrocarbon fuel? That'll be a revolutionary technolgy to reduce Carbon emission all over the world.
Как я понимаю у США сейчас НЕТ готовых решений по атомной энергетики. А верить в честность стартапов по атомной энергетики это глупо. Все может быть, как с Элизабет Энн Холмс.
A transportable micro nuclear reactor in a country with insecure border, what could possibly go wrong.
Spasex can use GE airplane reactor if it can produce the fuel their raport engines use
actually, why wouldn't GM just create a space engine,if Ilon Mask could start from scratch, GM could do it in their sleep ,no?
There is no such thing as emissions free energy. Every one needs to stop telling this lie.
So you're saying solar panels and wind turbines have emissions?🤣
@@spicychad55 2 words “mineral extraction” nothing comes out the ground for free, even if small there will still be emissions.
You are correct in saying there is no such thing as emission free energy, almost everyone following this things knows it although many don't mention this. Nuclear is so energy dense and last long enough CO2 releases isn't a problem compared to sources like renewables, i believe hydro comes close to nuclear in terms of energy density.