Small Modular Reactors Explained - Nuclear Power's Future?
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Small Modular Reactors Explained - Nuclear Power's Future? Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deal... and enter promo code UNDECIDED for 84% off and 4 extra months for free! With the growing popularity of solar and wind, we sometimes forget another powerful low-carbon energy source: nuclear. It can be a divisive topic, but there's a really interesting alternative to building out massive, expensive nuclear plants that's worth talking about: Small Modular Reactors. What are they? What are the benefits? And do they really address the downsides of nuclear energy?
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What do you think about SMRs? Go nuclear or go home? Be sure to check out my video Liquid Air Battery Explained - Rival to Lithium Ion Batteries? ruclips.net/video/yb1Nuk3_t_4/видео.html It was a fun one!
I think the renewables and liquid air storage are a better bet. If something goes wrong, it's like popping a big balloon instead of nuclear disaster. It's the difference between power generated by the sun and wind and that generated by invisible poison rays that when spent turn into invisible poison producing waste that lasts longer than most civilizations.
Smaller, modular power sources that you won't mind being in your neighborhood make more sense than scary nuclear power plants. Even if nuclear is safe, it's expensive to make it so and renewable/liquid-air will probably win on price.
Go nuclear!
Liquid Air battery, we already have these, it's called gasoline.
Thank you. Great balanced presentation of this technology. It didn't change my mind about nuclear being too expensive. In the UK 3 proposed nuclear plants have been cancelled due to costs and the single reactor being built is way over budget already. The waste in most countries is being stored in ponds and planned to be put in deep holes, hoping for the best. The Uk has many hundreds of tons of spent fuel sitting in rotting pools. It will take decades to decommission all our existing closed nuclear reactors and cost 100's Billions of pounds.Its just too much trouble compared to the alternatives.
@@etsio6972 That is a bit sad, knowing that most energy in Norway already comes from renewable sources, mainly hydro.
Tell me, what will you do with your nuclear waste in 1, 10, 100, 1000 or 10000 years?
Having served on Nuclear submarines, I have first hand seen the benefits of smaller versions of the nuclear reactor.
Alan I am truly envious of you sir! That is what I wanted to be growing up. In another life, perhaps 😄
I will never work for a large scale reactor plant, but I would be all ahead full for life at an SMR. USS Florida B! Hoo Ya!
We definitely need better energy sources but.... if you think nuclear waste is safe??? Don’t think many engineers would agree with that. The damage to a Chernobyl will last for 500 years before they can repopulate that city! Scientists are studying the effect of radiation on the animals there and while interesting the data is not good. Three Mile island most have forgotten about but it was very close to going complete melt down, now that area is completely closed off for hundreds of years . Fukushima’s reactors are still leaking into the Pacific Ocean. Seeing that cancer rates are rising it would probably be safe to reduce human exposure to radiation ☢️ to help reduce chronic exposure. So man made accidents and natural disasters have caused 3 cataclysmic events. Autopsies can reveal peoples ages based on radiation exposure in this earth based on the amount of radioactive isotopes found in the bones. These are factors that must be considered for its long long future with mankind.
@@davideade542 Blah Blah Blah. Small nuclear energy is the way to go until we can get the Stellarator ready.
@@UltraGamma25 so then you’re in favor of moving to Chernobyl?!! Just you. Living there all alone except for the dark eco tourist who take your picture as you succumb to slow radiation poisoning and bleed from orifices! No thanks! Or are you volunteering to accept the dispensed uranium to house at your house until your brief demise? Not sure what you’re in favor of? Blah blah blah...... perhaps small nuclear reactors are better .... let’s be extremely cautious as 500 years is a BIG mistake. Paying attention to details helps one not repeat the past! Blah blah blah
We should name the small nuclear reactors Pylons. Then when we exceed the capacity of a region’s pylons there should be an automatic warning of “MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS.”
Power OVERWHELMING
Upvote for starcraft reference
You need more minerals.
_Insufficient vespene gas._
People in the 40s ...
I work in the Nuclear Industry with about 75% of the operators being my company's customers. SMRs are smart as hell. The have no meltdowns, No waste, no emissions, can burn current nuclear waste for fuel, can eliminate power lines through forests, and are totally scalable. We should be running towards this technology.
Are there resources where I can go to find out more about the potential for SMRs?
@@beyondtwominutes Yeah, I'd like to know too.
Got the news today that Alberta will be
The only reason the SMR runs on uranium is because powerful resource corporations want to sell more uranium. If we pursue Thorium Molten Salt reactors the fuel would be virtually free and therefore not profitable. We could have unlimited free energy but the uranium miners are holding us back.
Hi Lee, which SMR companies do you like/trust the best? How does NuScale compare on that list?
The thing with Fukushima was, they had an external pool for the spent fuel rods. I believe all US nuclear reactors have that pool underground. Fukushima also had only a 30ft floodwalls, the tsunami was over 40ft in height. Chernobyl was built with cost savings, lack of a reactor containment building (to prevent the blast and nuclear fallout from escaping to the outside environment) and the fuel rods had graphite tips. It wasn't until after Chernobyl that the Soviet Union had put in containment buildings around the RBMK reactors.
Chernobyl was graphite moderated as well, not the most safety redundant....All fast breeder reactors are.onlg good for making weapons grade fissile material....so.... its a counter intuitive behavior in my humble opinion....
Thorium. Cheap safe versatile
The soviets in general had low consideration for human life, including their own citizens' lives
As a member of the Soviet then Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Physical Society, the care about the lives of anyone who is not a member of the elite Sekretariat is still of no value, to a degree unimaginable to anyone in the West. The "modern" Russia is nothing more than a massive, quasi-legalized world wide drug smuggling kleptocracy headed by the third worst kleptocrat on the planet, behind only the Rothschilds (by orders of magnitude) and Xi Jingping - a wholly-owned stooge of the Rothschilds, who totally control all of the much greater than US$50 Trillion that they have stolen from the generally wonderful Chinese people, or at least they used to be up until the early 1990's. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is beyond any doubt the most evil group of cretins on the planet only exceeded by the world controlling Rothschild Cabal. Notice that no one ever dares to even mention their name in any public forum as they and their entire family will be murdered within 48 hours. I was a Chief Scientist for the infinitely corrupt CIA and BATF and the mostly corrupt FBI, NSA, NRO, DIA, ONI, etc, and 27 others whose existence are totally secret and unknown to the American public. Three of my fellow physicists and Chief Scientists for the abovementioned 3-letter agencies, despite being retired for over 13 years, have been murdered, or officially involuntarily "suicided" (in Washington DC speak "Fosterized", as he was shot execution style 3 times in the back of his head at the order of Hillary Clinton while she and her staff thoroughly "sanitized" all of his records.
All of those cretins who are conceited enough to believe themselves to be fully human, only have the shape and form of a human. Any cretin so profoundly stupid as to care more about some intentionally asinine entertainment, be it some football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, ... , etc. ad infinitum has the mentality of a 3 year old - hardly the mark of an adult human, when a great many other animals exceed that level by far, as in at least an order of magnitude or greater. For those few who may read this with an IQ above room temperature Celsius, go to RUclips and search for "Federal Reserve Fraud" or "Federal Reserve Scam" and start from there, and follow on where that leads.
Our current, severely demented demented but always quite stupid President Biden (and, far worse yet, the sub-protohumanoids who ever voted for him as Senator or, worse yet,, as President) and his exceedingly corrupt crime family are but highly paid stooges of the infinitely evil, massively murderous Rothschilds and their wholly controlled, despotic Rothschild Cabal, the Illuminati, and the Bilderberg Group. Do your own homework instead of watching TV or other braindead endeavors. Absolutely everything in the world is controlled by the utterly corrupt and evil Rothschilds, as the more intelligent of you will find out.
They are above ground, but Fukushima had it electric supply knocked out, and its diesel generators as well. Had the generators been better protected, the plant would most likely have survived.
SMR's have existed for a very long time. They're known as nuclear submarines.
Yes in part.....But those are technically micro fission reactors since SMRs have become too large to fit inside submarines....but most of the 20+ SMR variants originated from NAVAL reactor research.
and very reliable and safe. crazy how we have that tech yet cant even have a government ran electrical grid based on it and even have their own trained/training naval personnel to operate them.
And those nuclear submarines have even smaller, tiny actually, nuclear bullets.
@Pedro Daniel Lopes Ferreira 50000 years!!!! Your entire comment is filled with both irrational fear and gross misinformation......Do some homework before posting comments.
@Pedro Daniel Lopes Ferreira There are about 5000 container ships in service globally. A big one can carry 10,000 cargo containers. The video shows an SMR fitting into a cargo container (typically 40 feet long by 8 feet wide by 8.5 or 9.5 feet tall).
So, the total number of SMRs we need doesn't seem too huge.
We can finally achieve that world from the Fallout games where everybody's lawnmower is powered by a fission reactor.
Yes but don't shoot it whatever you do.
@@Duncan_1971 don't punch it also.
Why stop with a lawnmower? I want my swing to be fission reactor powered as well.
@David Rodgers At's least it's solid and you could conceivably bury it, unlike CO2. Also, I believe a single fuel load lasts for years, so the volume of material is small.
@David Rodgers ...a Pipboy!
I was stationed on a nuclear cruiser USS South Carolina CGN37 for 3 years. We travelled all over the world and never stopped once for gas. That being said we did lose power once or twice in the middle of the ocean when the reactor scrammed. Its kinda unnerving working/sleeping 18 feet away from a reactor for 3 years. I ultimately feel its a very safe and efficient way to make power.
What you describe is the difference between anecdotal evidence and reality. Anecdotally, you survived two near disasters (scrams), so what. The reality is, that the guy who didn't survive the nuclear disaster is not around to dispute your "anecdotal" evidence with his own "anecdotal" evidence that they are very dangerous and extremely inefficient way to make power.
@@WeBeGood06 true is that nuclears disasters had very few victims (short and long term). If you consider how many people kill polution from coal energy, its another league. All options have downsides. Natural gas is not carbon free, renewables needs backups and massive storage system (and is not effectivelly usable for all destination) and nuclear is potentionally dangerous and have radioactive waste. You have to choose priorites.
@@WeBeGood06 LOL @ scrams being disasters. What the reality is you have no practical experience working around nuclear equipment (obvious with your comment) and yet you presume to tell the world of your worldly experience because "you know stuff"
@@WeBeGood06 well probably the scramming was part of the security system so I wouldn't say it might have been a disaster. And sure the marine wouldn't have chosen these stuff if it wasn't reliable lol. Or do you really think that the military put inefficient and dangerous stuff in billions of dollars of carriers and submarines?
@@WeBeGood06 A scram is not a near disaster it is simply a ways to shut down a reactor quickly, either manually or from automatic functions that protect the core.
Very small issues, you forgot Finland, they started with permanent storage, and the waste is much less than fossil fuels and can be handled or even reused in future designs.
i might watch his videos with grain of salt if he missed this fact that other channels got... then again its not like it's crucial to the video and the point is still there. One plant in finland isnt going to solve everything.
Digging a deeper hole in the ground like they did in Finland does not solve the problem of nuclear waste containment for 100,000 years. Just fooling yourself if you think it is. The storage is far from 'permanent'. It is just creating a headache for future generations.
@@waynemcleod6767 it's arguably better than pumping greenhouse gases. Any energy source has drawbacks and problems
It would be better if we could use the waste and reprocess it to reuse as fuel, but enriching waste is something countries dont like because its easy to weaponize it
also i dont understand when you say it isn't permanent. nobody is planning to dig the waste up. Its not a solution for all the nuclear waste of the future, but its a permanent solution for the waste it can hold
@@silingbiling Cancer
Put a breeder reactor beside a regular one, and they'll use the vast majority of each other's waste. I remember the figure being over 90% efficiency.
Couple things you forgot to mention...
1. nuclear energy is the largest source of carbon-free electricity in North America in Europe.
2. Nuclear energy has a much smaller land footprint (200-300 times smaller) and mining requirement (10 times less) than wind and solar.
3. Sweden and France decarbonized their electricity grids in under 15 years with nuclear (fastest in history other than hydro).
4. No one has ever been killed from nuclear waste from commercial reactors.
What about the LCOE comparison ? If renewables are cheaper, why bother building nuclear ?
(I'm quite amazed that even Bill Gates is investing in nuclear while renewables' LCOE is lower.... Is there something wrong with this measure ?)
@@benoitodille5617 yeah, the main problem is that LCOE doesn't include "integration costs". Which is an understated way of saying that if you want a 100% renewable electricity system that is reliable, you have to build tons of storage (batteries, pumped hydro, etc) and/or overbuild capacity and transmission lines, and be ok with over generating wasting electricity a good portion of the time. Which are both expensive.
It's worth noting that 100% renewable has never *actually been done* unless
1. You have a ton of hydro (norway, costa rica)
2. You have a ton of geothermal for baseload (iceland)
And these are very geographically dependent.
California, Denmark, and Germany have among the highest penetration of renewables on their grids. They also hold the distinction of having some of the most expensive electricity in the US and Europe.
"System LCOE" is the term used to describe actual cost of you want to google around a bit.
Peace!
@@EricMeyer9 thanks for the answer ! I will definitely search for this "system LCOE".
I already dug into the "material footprint" of renewables and it's quite surprising how it is mining-intensive...
@@EricMeyer9 I found the original study on System LCOE (from Germany), it is very interesting and seems serious !
www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.mcc-berlin.net/uploads/media/Ueckerdt_Hirth_Luderer_Edenhofer_System_LCOE_2013.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjVze_Zs8vtAhWlxYUKHe3YA98QFjADegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw0yr3p1_LFFZ1XUh3G6AV5p
However it is from 2013... I wonder if generating costs of renewables have not decreased since...
And I found backup costs quite low.
I didn't understand what were "Full-load hour costs" which indeed represent 70% of over-costs...
And, to be honest, I didn't quite understand what were "overproduction costs".. is it the fact that we have to build more power capacity to have a secure baseload ?
Surely, I'll investigate that :)
@@benoitodille5617 Also the popular LCOE statistics of late are artifacts of how private financing for projects works. While system/grid projects are built often from public funds, the expectation is that the power producers themselves have to be privately financed. And nuclear is seen as a "risky" investment these days because so few projects exist and a lot of them face opposition and risk cancellation before startup. That means that not only the overnight costs increase 2-3 fold, but the interest rate demanded by the private investors is very high and leads to most of the LCOE consisting of just interest payments back to those private investors. If you could fund nuclear power plants with low interest government backed loans, the LCOE drops to half or a third of the publicized LCOE for nuclear. And this isn't the case with other energy sources that are not so sensitive to interest payments.
bugs me that back in 2009, something similar in the 'Toshiba 4S' was hyped in the press. Reminds me of the old graphene joke: it can do everything except leave the lab.
The problem with graphene is that it's super expensive to manufacture.
The problem with graphene is actually just a failure of how the public is presented scientific research and how the general public are taught to consume scientific media. Graphene is a rather useful material, but the development of plants that can make it take time to build, experts are learning things as they go, and then they need to find people willing to add graphene to their products. So while it's funny to say "oh graphene can't leave the lab," it's a generally frustrating thing for engineers and scientists to see. What the public sees as a waste of time, money, and energy, they should be seeing as possibilities.
@@gaussmanv2 I like your explanation better.
Yaa, graphene, oh my good, the way it was hyped and marketed I remember, where the hell is it now.
Maybe the 4S was released but it's just classified.
What if I told you we're inventing a machine that takes 10,000-year-dangerous waste and turns it into 300-year-dangerous waste and gets rid of 98% of it? SMR! (Moltex SSR-WB, for example)
ABSOLUTLY! The Elysium design using chloride salts and a fast reactor is a great design also. Thanks
That is something we need to see working in the real world, regardless of any planned expansion of nuclear power. I'd love to see those tackling the waste that has already built up. And if it works, that is a timeline that can realistically be dealt with, we have bottles of wine that are older than 300 years. And if the volume/mass reduction is that significant, nuclear could become viable.
I still doubt it can be done quickly enough to matter for climate change though.
@George Mann I presume you're NOT a democrat.
Well, sure. When will they come? 2100?
@@anders21karlsson Already happening in India, China, 11 in USA, 2 in Canada.....but far more in University research labs around the world not to mention many gov science research vessels...
Be careful when comparing cost/ kWh! In case of renewable, you must integrate the storage capacities, and extra costs for medium voltage network, then you can compare apples with apples.
They always seem to leave out the cost of subsidies when they price renewables. I believe all things considered nuclear is the Cleanest, cheapest, most reliable per megawatt of generation.
@@jluvs2ride you're right, and it's not clear how they're pricing those megawatts over the lifespan of the facilities. Cost per kilowatt is rising specifically because they've lost market share with the (sometimes unnecessary and often politically motivated) decommissioning of existing nuclear plants.
@@jluvs2ride The oil and coal industries are also heavily subsidized.
@@JollyOldCanuck and they actually work.
@@jluvs2ride
Easily.....
Here's another trade-off nobody's talking about... if a well-executed SMR strategy is employed, long-distance high voltage transmission lines will be a thing of the past. High-voltage over lines are expensive to build, dangerous and expensive to maintain, inefficient, environmentally damaging, and take up huge swaths of land that should be wilderness. SMRs put the power WHERE you need it.
and if every roof had solar you wouldn't need SMR. Nuclear energy is just another con game, but if you think it's cool let's build tons of them only question I have is considering how our languages change over time what sign do we put up so people 100 generations in the future know not to go there?
@George Mann George, you are spot on. Renewables are beaten by the logistics. Solar is fine for reducing or zeroing a domestic power bill, but is grossly insufficient to power heavy industry, including increasing demand for transport electrification, greatly increased cooling and desalination which become essential as the globe warms. And then of course there is the risk of universities energy sources, what happens if a solar storm takes out all the solar panels.
@@spudknuckles1815 Solar panels wont run my air conditioning or appliances in the evening or at night.
Also rooftop solar kills more people that nuclear on a per Kwh basis because people climb up on ladders to scrape the snow off of their panels.
Rooftop solar may be a good augmentation for commercial businesses with large roofs who can employ techs to safely access the panels, but this doesn't solve the need for baseload power.
@@jimgraham6722 The cost of renewable or "green" energy sources is often miscalculated on purpose.
For example: You can get the energy costs from solar and wind unbelievable cheap, if you don't build storage solutions and build way too much "green" energy sources. On every sunny and windy day the price will get extremely low (because way too much is produced), so the average price for "green" energy gets also very low.
But other energy sources that have to produce electricity, when the "green" energy is not available, have still to be maintained (produce less, but maintenance costs stay the same) and this energy sources get sometimes extra taxation to support the "green" electricity that does not get stored properly.
The result are seemingly cheaper prices for "green" energy that do not find there way to the consumer.
This article shows that the overall price of electricity increased in Europe, but it fails to mention why the taxes increased and what this has to do with the seemingly cheap "green" energy:
strom-report.de/electricity-prices-europe/
I am not against renewable energy, but the statistics are often questionable.
@@xijinpingpong4426 Jin agree all you say.
I live off grid and have domestic solar and wind with battery storage as well as some capacity to load shed (stopping water pumps etc).
To be assured of 24/7 supply I have had to overbuild the system to cope with seven consequetive overcast (or smoke filled) windless days. I originally thought five days would suffice but in recent years have had to increase by two.
My minimum daily usage (with load shedding) is 5 kWh, the house is heavily insulated so doesn't need aircon and only minimal heating, additionally lighting cooking, hot water is all ultra efficient. The solar array to power this is 5kW and wind turbine 1kW. The battery is 25kWh.
I live in a generally sunny location and nine days out of ten generate far more power than I can use. But when extended periods of adverse weather sets in we just get by.
I happened to watch the documentary 'Pandoras Promise' - it talks about the same subject - safe modular reactors.
Totally agree, great movie, and debunks a lot of the fears about nuclear. It is already safer than almost every power technology today, but it's still important planning to get right to prevent a Fukushima, like not putting the plant on the oceans where there are chances of an event like that.
About safety I'm disappointed these videos and discussions don't mention the obvious, that accidents like Fukushima wouldn't have happened if they weren't running first-gen reactors decades after their intended lifespan. Ironically at least some fault lies with hippy environmentalists who oppose investment without proposing a viable alternative.
@@jeebus6263 A couple of things:
1. Your statement is spot-on. During the post-war boom, we built things, all things, quickly and without the unimaginable red-tape there is today. I believe that generation assumed it would always be that way. Elevated freeway worn out? Replace it, no big deal. Power plant getting old? Build another! In 20-25 years they'll have gone through several new generations anyway. Those who built nuclear-plants in the US in the 1960s and 1970s had no idea how impossible their children would make building a water fountain in 2020.
2. Hippy environmentalists are neither hippies nor environmentalists. They're sad, ignorant people who desperately need to be a part of something. I would say the biggest hinderance - the one that gets the ignorant-but-otherwise-rational people headed down to the town hall to protest "NOT IN MY BACKYARD!" - is the relentless pop culture attack on all things nuclear. The Simpsons "green goo". The China Syndrome movie. Most recently the HBO Chernobyl series. Naked fear mongering presented with little or no context.
@@brianp6965 i mostly agree, the suspicion was reasonable when radiation was poorly understood and government programs were intended for weapons production rather than energy. Towns exposed to radiation in US, UK, and elsewhere (some not by accident) took decades to understand the link with cancers etc. Now anyone can buy a geigercounter, governments and corporations don't have means or incentive to mislead. We really haven't seen a serious conversation in media or otherwise, it's something politicians are still hesitant to advocate.
Well the whole nuclear industry is on it's way out. I'm always amazed when people group it with clean energy. When a reactor breaks we have 100 square miles of deadly poison ground and water for 10,000 years. Coal can't come close to that kind of damage to life on Earth.
That said, I believe using small reactors in space is the safest form of power. When the core wears out you just send it into the sun, or Jupiter. You never have to live around spent fuel rods.
The best small reactors would be ones that used spent fuel rods from large reactors. They still generate major heat, but not enough to melt through steel, and can last more than 20 years at these reduced levels.
If newer small modular reactors can be made to passively shut down, be proliferation-resistant, and use existing nuclear ‘waste’ as fuel (thereby greatly reducing an already existing problem), I would say it’s worth considering.
and most importantly economically.
...too bad they CAN"T do any of that and so the major problems of the old style massive reactors would still exist in smaller reactors which would exist in far greater numbers.
Smaller yet still conventional reactors is an asinine idea.
A reply here seems to claim that it cannot be done, but of course these are real technologies backed by real science and engineering.
@@Kezoman1 And electric cars will never have a range of over 120 miles, right? Since you want to deny the existence of technologies that existed 15 years ago.
@@specialopsdave I read your opinion but see no proof that the specific criteria listed is being demonstrably addressed. Being sceptical of nuclear power does not make one a luddite. Grid load fluctuation is easily and safely addressed already with even more robust solutions coming on stream in the next year e.g. wind into hydrogen. None of these suffer from the current major failings of nuclear - decommissioning costs, waste management and security. I confess to being highly irritated by both extremes on this topic - if it can be demonstrated to work (criteria defined earlier) then great, let's use it. If it can't then shelve it. Regardless let's get on with what we can do.
The LCOE is a bad benchmark when comparing intermittent (e.g. solar, wind) to non-intermittent sources (e.g. nuclear) as the LCOE does not take into account the provisions that have to mitigate the intermittency. So additional costs (like storage or backup) that are required by intermittent power sources are not taken into account with the LCOE.
A better way would be comparing complete systems: so nuclear vs. solar and wind with storage and backup facilities.
Actually, the LCOE of 2021 does include batteries for solar, a mere 4 hour backup if I recall. As well as includes batteries as a standalone item. Whether combined or not within the LCOE, the data is still there and shows that wind and solar are more expensive.
OR, Adding a smattering of these to the grid to compensate for load. One of these in a typical transforming yard would hardly be noticed.
Is nuclear waste disposal included in the cost?
@@porcorosso4330 Yes. The costs of waste disposal and decommisioning of the nuclear power plant is part of the kWh pricetag.
@@matth.imaging8952
Doesn't seem right. Since they need to keep the waste safe for more than thousands of years, I would think the storage/disposal cost itself will be astronomical.
"No country has found a solution to nuclear waste", i think you might be omitting Onkalo in Finland.
It makes great tank rounds.
Oh! Has Finland found a way to stop fission? Well then, we can go and clean up all the mess that has been left behind by Nuclear energy! Start with Fukashima and then Chernobyl and then Winscale and so on and so on... Go Finland!
You can't get rid of nuclear waste because everything in the universe is nuclear waste. The only solution is to fire it into the Earth and call it a day because the core is radioactive anyway.
@@PeterMilanovski You can't stop fission as matter by definition is not stable because everything has a half life, however, 10^18 for photons and 10^34 for protons are a longer than the age of the universe.
@@KRYMauL you talk about photon's and protons like you have actually seen it!!! Could you possibly be the only person in human history who has seen them with your own eyes or you are possibly another person who is using a theory like it's a fact?
Let's just face it, you don't know what photon's and protons are! For all that you know, they probably don't even exist, there could be something altogether different inside an atom but unlike you, I don't easily subscribe to an idea without actual evidence.
Show me a real picture or video of photon's and protons neutrons or electrons and then we have something to talk about... Until then, your just kidding yourself if you think that you know what's inside an atom and that you have the ability to educate others.. you don't have a clue!
The age of the universe hahahaha ROFL how do you know how old it is? Were you there when it was born? You are so gullible...
although I'm hungry, but the name of my country is Hungary :D
Thank god i thought i was the only one. and by the way, wanna have snickers?
Well played Sir.
Well played indeed
is Harold Pinter of Hungarian origin
@@aspopulvera9130 I'm not even Hungarian, and that annoyed* me too. (*About as much as a small hangnail)
It’s interesting that the choice of Nuclear power plant design had more to do with who’s state got to make them than any safety considerations. The Nuclear Weapon material producer was a secondary consideration … thank you Dick Nixon ! ! !
I don't know why anyone would bother with the renewables given all their problems when we have nuclear.
For me it's quite the opposite: why bother with nuclear when we have renewables? For renewables, what exactly are "all their problems"? Solutions for storage, intermittency, distribution and environmental impacts are developing faster than the incremental and often incompatible advances in reactor design. Nuclear technology has many problems besides public misconceptions about radiation. The most glaring problem is, we've run out of time.
I guess you were thinking of food when you wrote about Hungary? :D
lol why its eye-catching when professional people do such mistakes :D (othewsie wehn I tpye, I carp all orve adn I dnot care!)
It is insane that we have not adopted thorium cycle reactors. Even things like the pebble bed reactor would be incredible. In addition this would enable the hydrogen economy.
Can you expand on your comment?
@@mrgyani If we were to employ SMRs or Thorium Cycle reactors then we could have an over abundance of electricity, so much so that inefficient cracking of water would not be an issue and then we could have abundant hydrogen for fuel cells etc… (Desalination via reverse osmosis for California is another vastly inefficient process that could be enabled by a vast surplus of electricit)
You can't fuel reactor only with thorium since it is a fertile nuclide (it produces fissile nuclide u233). U233 has a major disadvantage which is low fraction of delayed neutrons. E.g., for u235 this number is around 0.0066, and for u233 it is just 0.003. Hence, to operate a reactor on thorium, one needs twice faster control rod mechanisms and automation.
...not to mention that the only reasonable way to do breeding with thorium is with a molten salt, where the fuel is circulating and all the precursors for the delayed neutrons are leaving the core!
I just don't understand how people can think that nuclear energy is controversial. besides that, the US had a solution for long term storage of waste, they just never built the damn thing
What is the solution to storing highly radioactive material for 500k years? There is NO bedrock on the planet that is safe for even a fraction of that time, nor encapsulation made that can survive that long. Todays storage methods world wide are already leaking.
Send the waste to the outer reaches of the universe.
@@ulfasplund3514 yeah, the problem is just that nobody has built the long term storage, so the problematic storage is all short term on-site that is over capacity. the material that really is too risky to store is still usable in newer reactor designs. and for the rest, we had a site picked and planed out. but a few leasing problems and one guy in congress killed the project. I'd say that trading one already lifeless mountain in the sun blasted desert is a good trade for a practical technology that can make a truly massive contribution to saving the entire planet. not perfect. but perfect is the enemy of good
"Hungry" Ok Matt my country loves food but its called HungAry.
Derp. US Navy has been doing this for decades. About time that the rest of the US got onboard.
I think that since existing nuclear stations are still maintained and kept operational, SMR and other solutions will always find places for implementations, which will improve the status of nuclear power compared to other sources. In addition, nuclear waste being still radioactive means that it still releases lots of energy in some form of radiation. Eventually, someone will find a practical way to generate energy even from this nuclear waste.
Marry small modular reactors with thorium technology and you have the perfect solution.
then attach it to a hydrogen generator
SMV have a pricing problems, thorium reactors even more. So less waste but you pay ~4 times more then for renewables?
*SMR
@@Kamikater2the priceing is because everyone one is invested in shitty oil companies and big pharma sucks their dick
Where I live, Ontario, Canada, we get about 58% of our electricity from unclear Power. No Coal, about 6% from Natural Gas. Hydro, solar and wind make up most of the balance
@George Mann I used to work in the wind industry back in the 1990s. Ontario has no real resource except for a few small areas on the parts of the shores of the Great Lakes where they are exposed to wind coming from the West over the water. The true potential for wind energy in Canada is in the coastal areas of Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. Wind energy needs to be combined with the kind of Hydro where you have large reservoirs, such as in Quebec and Labrador. The reservoirs essentially act like batteries to counter the intermittency of wind power. What would make sense would be a national hydro/wind policy where Ontario imported electricity from Quebec and Atlantic Canada. It will never happen though because it makes too much sense. Hydro-Quebec's average cost of producing power is 20$ per MWh, although the marginal cost of new capacity of both grid-scale wind and hydro is now over 100$. Add another 20$ for long distance transport on the 735 kV lines.
Unclear power? Lmao
@@Alex_Plante China and India are building the 1MV HVDC powerlines needed for bulk transfer of electrical energy around their countries. The rest of us need to catch up.
When people want to talk up solar and wind they talk about 'capacity'. A nuclear plant of 1GW capacity delivers 1GW of power, night and day, in every kind of weather. A solar or wind plant of 1GW almost never delivers 1GW.
Way back in the 1970's several pneumatic engineers argued that wind and some hydro needed to be driving compressors directly not generating electricity up the pole. Compressed air can be stored cheaply in sealed concrete tanks and pipes and under ground voids. Then generators running off the compressed air would power the grid on demand. There are also two pneumatic solar solutions. However it's really only viable if you not using electricity to drive the compressor.
These experts on compressors were shouted down by the dynamo engineers, the battery people and the people that thought high temperature superconductor storage would solve the intermittency. Every one had their money in other patents or carbon credit schemes. The pneumatic engineers have been proven right; direct wind to electricity has failed and high temp super conductors failed too as a storage tool. Subsequent attempts to build a pneumatic wind technology get shuts down very quickly. The green house lobby is not about climate it's about taxing energy to fund political causes; a technology solution will never be accepted.
Nuclear it is expensive because over reactionary regulations. Wind and solar are cheap because of massive government handouts.
Not fair comparison.
Hydro power is more cheaper than solar panels and wind power. 0.01 dollars 1 kwh of electricity
Over reactionary for 10 years Fukushima 3 melted down reactors have been poisoning the Pacific and no end in site because you can’t remove the molten corium out of containment molten fuel and many of the mox rod stored on top of the exploded reactors joined in the nuclear molten mess and is some where under the buildings or under the Pacific non contamination on going . Radiation is in Pacific and increasing . Salmon stocks and steelhead were greatly increasing in the Fraser and rivers of British Columbia prior to Fukushima but are dangerous low now .
Herring had a massive die off around the entire Pacific with bleeding from the eyes gills 2 years after the accident starfish around the Pacific had a massive wasting disease , marine mammals were starving many other Pacific events . Rain was radioactive over many parts of North America after the explosions . Testing ceased safe levels were increased to fit the rising levels .National geographic magazine several years ago had large article that there is no safe level of radiation and low level were very harmful also . Again having worked in biomedical electronics and industrial electronics I took every precaution when working on X-ray equipment and never used any tig welding radioactive tips working in industry . Any way read every look at everything but believe nothing till you can prove it to yourself
This presented a picture of an industry with more certainty than is actually warranted.
Although you got to the issues in the end.
I guess you missed the part about China producing a demonstration reactor by the end of next year.
The issues are political. Big oil is the biggest sponsor of renewable energy. Nuclear is the long term answer but lobbyists are making it rain for wind and solar.
@@jwatson181 so-called renewables rely on resource extraction just like fossil fuels, so that's right up big oil and big coal's alleys.
@@MrTaxiRob not to mention, you will need oil as a backup. For instance, Germany built coal plants after their green new deal. It never hurts that renewables coat more for the end user.
@@jwatson181 - "The issues are political."
That doesn't say much. Could you clarify.
- "Big oil is the biggest sponsor of renewable energy."
What sponsor? Do you mean investor? What makes you think that those companies prefer to make a bad investment instead of a good one?
I am hoping technologies like the Traveling wave reactor and other reactors that can burn old fuels turning them into energy, great instead of storage.
BS Its A Nuclear END One Way Or The Other Any Time Now Do The Math
@@FixItStupid Troll sense is tingling.
Terra is building the Nartrium right now!
Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity
This is more true than people expect. The rejection of nuclear led to more coal, and in terms of public health effects, it's difficult to see coal coming out on top even if every nuclear reactor on the planet suffers a meltdown: www.reddit.com/r/nuclear/comments/jtm6hm/how_bad_is_meltdown_world/
sweet. start dropping these to replace substations across the grid.
I'd suggest starting in the worst areas for solar long term, polar regions need it more than near the equator.
I'm sure some years ago now I watched a lecture on small nuclear reactors and there was a variant where by the reaction stopped naturally if the temperature rose to high, would last about 30 plus years.
At the moment yet another UK Government is kicking the can down the road on the high cost of decommissioning old Royal Navy submarine reactors, so there is the usual need to sort out who pays for the clear up. Small mass produced reactors is one type I feel has a chance.
One reason I feel SMRs are being pushed is they open up military possibilities as at some point the Army for example are going to have to go electric. SMRs producing hydrogen from water supplies in the field of operation would make that change over less daunting and in a way a better option than what they have now. This is only my opinion but things like this happening in the background are normally what push advances.
I think that was one of the LFTR or thorium reactor videos.
“Small” modular reactors? 300mw is more than the Ford Class aircraft carriers. Sounds good to me.
Yes, it's enough to power a small city. Who says a power station can't hold more than one reactor, it's actually standard practice. :)
That's not entirely true, the reactors used on the Ford class output 700MW thermal each, not the best comparison for a reactor that is just providing electrical power. Even the Nimitz class are bigger than the SMRs at 550MW thermal each.
@@VJCastle 700mw each is the thermal output. According to wiki which I’m embarrassed to rely on, it ends up being translated into 125mw each of electrical output and 260mw each of propulsion. I admit I thought the output was 125mw total each and that the propulsion was electric and thus less than the , but the answer is in between.
300 MW is still very small in comparison to modern plants like the Framatome EPR (1650 MW) or the Mitsubishi APWR (1800 MW). SMRs are mostly the trend of reducing efficiency of the power supply as much as possible, like renewables do too. There is no reason to build a smaller power plant than necessary, as it just gets more expensive by that.
@@KarlKarpfen I understand the utility of larger power stations, and just wish we weren't so bad at building them. Experienced builders like GE Hitachi, aren't just claiming that their reactors are cheaper or quicker to build - they are claiming a significantly lower cost per MWh which quite frankly is the only metric that matters. A power station housing 4 BWRX-300 reactors is 1.2GW, while the cost of each reactor is less per MW than had they used larger reactor vessels.
My family has worked in the nuclear industry for 43 years and myself as a security analyst for 18 years. This by far is the smartest thing I’ve seen. Now regarding the radioactive wast, if their refueling is 20 years this is far less than my power plant, the largest nuclear power producer in N.A. Building onsite dry cask storage would be a solution and would have a far less footprint and is extremely safe.
1:30 IMO it's better to go by generation statistics, rather than capacity. As you know, nuclear has much higher capacity factor than wind or solar, so this is especially relevant at this point in the video.
YES! That is a totally unfair comparison. The total amount of power available is very different. Most wind has a 30% capacity factor while solar by it's nature has a 50% capacity factor. Nuclear has had a 95% capacity factor. I find it amazing that he lists refueling as a negative for Nuclear. Every plant has to shut down for maintenance from time to time.
@@williamphillips3375 It's just amusing that you think capacity factor is everything. I think 95% is a bit exaggerated, but whether it's 90 or 95, obviously it can't exceed 100. You can only exploit that for so much. Yes, refueling IS a negative factor. With nukes, this generally takes quite a while. In the future, this may not be an issue, but for now that's about where we are. Of course, if you're in France and have a couple dozen reactors, and neighbors who have lots of juice that you can import, mostly from other sources, it's not such a big deal. And yes, it cuts both ways. Germany can import juice from France's nukes when it's dark, and Denmark can get German PV electricity and French nuclear when the wind is slack. I'm concerned with the trends, and the trends are that nuclear is dying, mostly for economic reasons.
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But if you're in, say, New Zealand, I wouldn't recommend building nukes. The whole country might need, what, two or three reactors? If that's most of your generation, you're really SOL. Of course, they're not going down that road.
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BTW you really should learn to spell little words like "its." It's really not that hard. Geez.
@@ronaldgarrison8478 Yep, missed a word. I also missed the exact capacity factor for Nuclear. Currently 91%. www.ans.org/news/article-183/us-nuclear-capacity-factors-resiliency-and-new-realities/ The refueling is done in the fall and is planned for several years in advance. The new Small reactors range in size from 1 MW to 300 MW. New Zealand or the Philippines could easily match the size needed. Refueling is NOT a negative when the reactors last for 20 years, or as in the case of NuScale there are several reactors on a single site so that the refueling only means a slight decline in capacity. Well planned and accounted for. Not a negative. The trend that nuclear is dying for economic reasons has to do with the billions of subsidy given to wind and solar. Try removing that subsidy and see what happens to costs. Also, try requiring that Natural Gas have enough reserve fuel on hand to make it through a month and see what the cost of NG production becomes.
@@williamphillips3375 Where to start? Or maybe just to finish. First, I'm not here to advocate for gas, and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make regarding it. It sounds as though you're saying it gets an implicit subsidy, and some rule needs to be changed. Maybe. Whatever.
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Small reactors go as low as 1 megawatt. That doesn't mean much. If it was 1 milliwatt, no real difference. The typical size, or average size, is more relevant. How efficient are those smaller reactors, and what do they cost per megawatt? That's what matters.
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You can certainly arrange things so that downtime for refueling is reduced. Yes, you can have a whole bunch of smaller reactors instead of a bigger one. Just having a whole lot of reactors, of whatever size, in close proximity, however you make that happen, helps in that regard. Some reactors, such as CANDU, can be refueled as they run. But is that economical, and safe? The overall picture has to be considered.
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Just as a side topic, speaking of CANDU, I've heard the proliferation issue for that reactor type argued both ways. Some say CANDU is good for preventing proliferation, some say it's a terrible risk (pointing to India's bomb as an example). How do you size that up?
@@williamphillips3375 the funny thing is AGR reactors never needed to be shutdown for refuelling
MSR SMRs? Probably the best choice.
MSRs sort of suck atm
At this point MSRs are a meme
Perhaps a promising choice if they can "burn up" (i.e. transmute) nuclear waste into short-lived isotopes. There are presently 250000 tonnes (at least) of high-level nuclear waste Worldwide, so we need an awful lot of MSR SMR's !
Even For terrorists i guess
When I think of the word "nuclear", I think of what my family was like before I was born.
Or "happy".
Lol….when you came along it quickly became a Chernobyl incident…I know exactly how you feel….lol👍
Dispensing with nuclear waste is a trivial problem compared to climate change, and I’m sure future generations will rather deal with that than famine and floods.
11:50 Have you familiarized yourself with the Finnish Onkalo project in Eurajoki?
Have you heard of Hesajoki?
That is partially due to the excessive regulations that Nuclear suffers from.
Yes, exactly. While so called “green energy” is getting reduced regulations and increased subsidies, nuclear is overly regulated, shunned and resisted by government. If you want to see an example of government corruption and crony capitalism just look at the energy industry. Perfect example of federal government picking winners and losers.
Excuse me? 1. Nuclear energy has had more than itˋs fair share of subsidies in the past. 2. What about the Waste for the next 1.000.000 Years or so??
@@ingoclever1722 Problem has long been solved.
@@hotrodsather 😂 enlighten me. With sources please.
@@ingoclever1722 The fucking internet!!! Duh, they put it in a barrel and hide it in a mountain.
I have a slight correction: the CANDU type reactors dont need to stop to refuel. Its refueled while it runs. The rods are changed in cycles. It happens 2 times a week. Its fully automatic.
And keep in mind that the condensed steam from the turbines in a nuclear power plant can heat a 20k people city. I am from Cernavoda (Romania) and the heating is almost free. You cut a lot of costs there too. Imagine in a cold climate how efficient this is.
Radioactive waste can again be used to generate electricity....... Why not do that?
As it stands right now it is cheaper to mine and process uranium than to reprocess spent fuel rods. It would take a lot of R&D money to bring the cost down and the anti-nuke crowd have done everything they can to block any public discussion of waste recycling.
@@VictorGallagherCarvings You’re right. Which is why the public desperately needs to be re-educated on nuclear technology. They need to know that we have learned from our past mistakes and truly have better systems.
@@VictorGallagherCarvings sounds like issues that can be overcome. Or ideally ignored. Just start tossing the waste fuel in the reactor (I know that is over simplified) at a 1:10 or even 1:100 ratio. Slowly but surely the nuclear fuel disappears.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Again an oversimplified thought process but this is a RUclips thread so....
@ Back in the early seventies, burn everything reactors were proven to work and work well. Unfortunately the combination of a powerful oil lobby and and the growing anti-nuke movement made it easy for the politicians to kill research into that type of reactor. Also reactors are licensed and designed for a specific fuel type. The cost of licensing is one of the reason you will never see thorium reactors in the states. But on the bright side countries like India are willing to commit to long term research and thus free themselves from western tech dependency.
@@VictorGallagherCarvings and the moment India does it watch the US scramble to either invade, assassinate or economically suppress them. Or if we're lucky they'll scramble to roll back the bullshit laws and regulations.
SMRs are definitely the way to go. They could be used to produce Hydrogen and become very localised ( big savings on transportation ) The cost per MW would be much smaller if they were subsidised as much as renewables are.
@Rui Albano I’m not sure how you are coming up with ‘Thousands’ ? In the U.K. Rolls Royce have proposed 16 plants which equates to approx 160 SMRs. Because of their small size and being manufactured as a complete unit at a dedicated facility, the safety of each unit would be vastly superior.
It's good, when the small reactors are designed as "dual fluid reactors".
My country, Romania just signed with USA partnership to build SMRs and I'm mega hyped!
I need one of these vSMR's for my offgrid estate
I need one for my secret spaceship !.😁
I Know, or hooked up to a big bitcoin farm...
I can't believe you made a video about SMRs and failed to mention one of the most advanced such projects from one of the most experienced companies in the world: Rolls-Royce. The British government has funded the development of this technology and it will almost certainly go ahead here. A focus on the RR costs and plans would have been much more interesting.
Your comment caught my attention. Please. Tell me more of RR development of this technology. Very interesting.
Monazite is the best isotope to use, just saying as I am a metallurgical lab technician doing research for MSR's to extract thorium from monazite "Molten Salt Reactor's" are the future ,we are working for companies emerging out of India for ground breaking tech for power the supply industry and it can be safe to handle 6 weeks after use ready to go back to the environment. this has been a know fact for more than 50 years.
Most interesting Matt. How much does one SMR unit weigh? Can we boost them to the Moon and Mars effectively? You definitely have me thinking.
I recommend you take a look at NASA's Kilopower project, which is a solid state micro reactor designed for this very purpose.
If it can be transported by a standard semi, than Starship would be able to take it to the moon or Mars one day. Likely too heavy for any other rockets that cannot refuel in orbit though. Maybe SLS.
www.nuscalepower.com/technology/technology-overview
weight (presumably in short tons, and for 1 module) 300 tons.
With what Fact Not Fiction shows (300t), that wouldn't be possible to send to space at all. Not even close. However, those also wouldn't be able to be transported by semis, like the video showed. My guess is that they are wanting to shrink it down to closer to 40t per module. That is what would be needed for the transpiration options the video showed. If so, sending it to the Moon would be possible on Starship and maybe SLS (doubtful though).
@@anthonypelchat It is unclear for what the 300 t is. Perhaps it is the total of what you need (ex building), but each piece is small enough to be transportable by truck.
Great work as always, Matt! Nuclear (energy in general) is one of our all time favorite topics and we always look forward to your videos!
Plant Votgle (waynesboro GA that you mentioned) is all the reason to shift focus from single one-off mega reactor projects, to modular standardized factory reactors installed in parallel at a site. I used to live nearby in Augusta, GA, and if you even mentioned that project (Savannah River Site), people would roll their eyes
I honestly think that projects like new Vogtle are tools in a grand scam. It's supposed to cost too much. It's supposed to be late. It's not intentional, but it's intentional. All this to kill nuclear by fossil fuel interests. The electric utility industry and Georgia Power are politically OWNED by the fuel industry. Yes, SMR nuclear is the only logical approach. It's much better than wind & solar because these are not reliable, huge eyesores, take up too much land, result in lots more condemnation of property and I believe in the end cost more than SMR. I love SMR.
Simple solution to waste nuclear fuel. It isn't waste, it's fuel waiting to be reprocessed into new fuel.
Absolutely. most countries would pay us for that stuff.
I think as we seen with President Trump and the middle East peace deals all the problems they come up with are not real problems just excuses meant to hide the fact that are not working for the American people.
It is extremely expensive, highly polluting and technically difficult to reprocess nuclear waste, and... wait for it - no one is willing to buy it.
@@jackfanning7952 Only if you use the purex process to produce solid fuel. Much easier once you move to liquid fuel.
@@bobthebomb1596 No market for it and no investors.
@@jackfanning7952 The US, UK, France, Russia and China all have stockpiles of radioactive waste and unwanted weapons grade plutonium. Do you suggest leaving it where it is? Burying it? Or using it as fuel to produce clean energy?
Thanks for sharing Matt! Your video on SMR's was unbiased and professional.
It's the earthquake that knocked out two sources of grid power for the Fukushima plant, not the first tsunami. The first tsunami didn't do much of anything serious to the NPP as the sea walls were high enough. Behind those sea walls were the diesel generators the plant was now relying upon to cool the reactors after auto-scram from the earthquake.
The second tsunami though went over the walls and flooded the diesel generators. They had been warned for decades that the sea walls weren't high enough but they ignored the warnings to keep expenses down for profit margins. Now you have reactors that have been scrammed so they cant produce power to cool themselves and external power is required to cool them over nearly a day but no power was available. This is the disaster unfolding.
Since NPPs are almost always near the seas for the water for cooling, they should be mandated to have powerlines run out into the water by half a mile or more to a surface connection point so that ships can deploy there and use their internal generators from fossil fuel or nuclear to feed NPPs to cool the plant during these events.
Thorium reactors and such seems like a good option since they can also get Uranium versions that could help with medical treatments and space based reactors since the old material from the first test reactors of the molten salt reactors.
I honestly don't get the hype about Thorium. A Molten Salt Reactor or High Temperature Gas Cooled reactor on Uranium will be more than safe and these can run on waste from current reactors. Hence we got all this Uranium sitting around which we need to get rid of anyway. So why bother with Thorium?
So you use a reactor for 20 years. Pull it out and store it for 100 thousand years. Hummmm. Somebody needs to come up with some use for the nuclear waste.
90% of the potential energy is left over in the spent nuclear fuel which very much could be used (and would decrease waste volume) - this is however uneconomical given the low prices of uranium.
Long term storage of high level nuclear waste. One option would be to copy mother nature: ruclips.net/video/pMjXAAxgR-M/видео.html or by reprocessing spent fuel: ruclips.net/video/UA5sxV5b5b4/видео.html .
We can generate electricity from nuclear waste. OR............. We could just put all the waste into a volcano to give it an energy boost and wipe out the main problem here, humans.
The 100000 year figure is so stupid. It assumes
1. radioactive isotopes don't decay at the rate we know they do (waste is hits same radioactivity as natural uranium ore within 1000 yrs)
2. Future civilizations will be advanced enough to go miles underground and open a feet- thick concrete and steel vessel (not easy) but not smart enough to realize it's dangerous.
This is so farfetched and a total distraction when air pollution literally kills 8 million a year.
wrong reactors last up to 40 to 100 years before they should be decommissioned
I told my dad this would happen, back when his NRC was under attack by the Sierra Club and other morons. "Dad, we're ot going to have a choice!"
I love this stuff, Aerospace student here
At one time they had an experimental nuclear engine and I think there was a plane on problem was fall out
Lead cooled fast neutron SMR during low demand you could use the heat for thermal decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen or anything that might be hydrogen fuel cell powered or for rocket fuel
The Russians already have such a machine connected to the grid.Nice thing about it it eats spent nuclear fuel.
While security and proper operation would be a major concern, these could be used to power the massive cargo ships that account for a good chunk of total emissions
They are called "small modular reactors", but they really aren't that small. And on board a ship you can only use reactors which are optimized for weight. And yes, carrying around nuclear fuel is a very bad idea.
@@Andreas-gh6is in the case of air craft carriers and submarines all the fuel is contained in the reactor itself and is actually smaller than the petroleum fuel counterpart
@@ADHDgonewild7 yes. But critically those reactors are optimized for weight, which SMRs, being used on land, are not. The "small" in the name is quite misleading. They still require a massive building with lots of concrete to be safe. The "mobile" reactors are optimized for weight and volume, not for safety or cost. And even very little radioactive material is dangerous. Both in an accident and as the material for a dirty bomb.
Concerns about safety of SMR's, do small scale destructive testing.
“Gotta love that name”😂😂
Would be perfect for universities, who generally keep the power on in every building 24/7. Not to mention would be easily staffed
@@ContentConfessional MIT has this
And harvested to make a “small” boom.
Unlike the other energy types Nuclear has seen increasing regulations and safety nets. They are still our best source of clean energy but people are uninformed about them which causes the fear that leads to regulation that balloons the costs.
@Tim Norris Nuclear is expensive but only because of how heavily regulated it is. It is not dirty as its basically a giant steam generator all that vapor that comes out of them are water. It is only dangerous if mismanaged, Chernobyl? communist incompetence, Fukushima? mismanagement, built on a fault line, and hit by 2 tsunamis that were stronger than it was rated to withstand and it still didn't explode, 3-Mile Island? lack of QA, mismanagement, lack of staff training. There are hundreds of nuclear powerplants around the world running just fine day in and day out to provide us all with electricity.
If you are worried about global warming the economics of energy don't matter to you anyway and nuclear is the best option to replace coal power in the short term and once coal is completely phased out we would have more time to switch over to fully renewable tech.
With tech like Thorium coming back into the spot light and now these micro nuclear plants, the future is looking bright.
I kept hearing it as ASMR. In a whispered voice, "Now then. Sit back, relax and listen to the sound of nuclear reactor coolant systems gently bubbling away."
Lmao😂
The only questions remaining are - how much and do they come with same-day shipping
Dude the spelling of hungry is HUNGARY
Hungary is an example of why nuclear sometimes can be dangerous. The current regime is batshit full nazi crazy. How can they be trusted to keep the reactors safe?
@@headcrab4090 Orban prevented Europe be overrun via the Balkan route. Merkel is the batshit.
it strange when a democratically elected president, doesn't give a shit about the opinion of other European countries and their leaders. His only motive is to stay in power, spend all the money to bullshit causes while giving most of it, to his close family and friends. Slowly leading the country out of the EU
For a sovereign state, it is certainly better to listen to the leaders of other states than to the will of its own people. The leaders of the EU states have only the best intentions with the interests of Hungary. During the Soviet era, the leaders in the Kremlin also knew better what was better for its vassal states in the Eastern Bloc, right?
It's a bit harsh to compare the EU to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless even Orbán doesn't take into consideration what's the best for Hungary. His only motivation is to keep the EU founded money in the pocket of their own.
Some of the SMRs you mentioned like the TerraPower MCFR already solve the waste issue, they use it as their fuel and turn it in to energy.
Terra is already sourcing parts for natrium they bought 200,000 sq feet in Everett.. they are gonna build it in Idaho.
That's not how it works...
Spent fuel is no uniform stuff... It's a complicated mix of many isotopes... Most not useable as fuel... Reprocessing is dangerous and very costly...
Excellent video as usual MATT. I am so happy this is going on as all of us know the greens aren't really about the environment they are about power and making you do what they tell you to do. If the greens really cared about the environment they would be all over nuclear power. Although you didn't say so, I suspect the major reason for delays and cost overruns can be directly pointed at green groups complaining about this and that. So I say, Go Nuclear.
I'm buying a used nuclear sub' for my small town.
Sir this is a wendy's
I like your reports. Thank you for covering this important industry. I don’t think you gave the ability for MSR reactors to re-process spent fuel enough time. Nor the ability they have to burn other fuels like thorium, which would allow and almost inexhaustible fuel source. But thanks for The current analysis of the players in the industry, and the opportunities that are coming online very soon. Lots of good research happening in this field.
01:07 So proud seeing Slovakia here :D
nuclear may end the world though
Slovakia is an advanced nuclear nation.
...ask the US Navy, we have been running nuclear reactors since the 1950's no problems. And our reactors go on for decades without refueling. MM1/SS, Retired here.
I would love to see if that waste could be used to power cargo ships
Middle school math: Any number divided by zero equals infinity. Every night, solar power output drops to zero but the capital cost payback meter keeps spinning. LCOE is a meaningless metric for this situation. For the utility, every KW of installed solar capacity has to be replicated by reliable 24-7 capacity. Adding solar to the mix drives cost up, not down.
Eh, if it's good enough for the Perseverance Rover, it's good enough for me.
not a nuclear fission reactor on the rover. It just uses a decaying metal to slowly create heat and turns that into electricity. not much in common with a reactor.
@@julianwallace9620 I believe it's Plutonium to be exact
I see. Are you radiation hardened like the perseverance rover?
@Julian Wallace is that what an RTG is?
@@ovencake523 yes
Main advantage of nuclear over solar and wind is the number of hours it can produce energy. Wind is typically 3000 hours/year and solar 1000 hours/year whereas nuclear can procure electricity roughly 8000 hours/year. When comparing the cost of renewables one has to factor this in. That is, if one wants 100% fossil free electricity production without nuclear power then one has to take into account the cost of energy storage. Would be great to have a video on this topic.
Matt, I invariably find your content very interesting indeed but I have some difficulty with your ultra-rapid fire verbal delivery. I suggest you reduce your word rate by about 1/3 to 1/2. It is particularly difficult to take in the sometimes complex diagrams / charts whilst comprehending what you are saying. I am Knocking on a bit in years I admit, but I do watch a lot of similar RUclips content and your delivery is by some margin the most difficult to follow. You sound almost like those ‘terms and conditions apply’ statements crammed in at the end of ads on TV and radio because airtime costs money. The aforesaid is offered as constructive criticism.
Try the playback speed control.
I turn him up to 1.5x because he doesn't talk fast enough for me. His base rate must be a bit above average though, because most of the time I use 1.75 or 2x.
I'm all for Solar and Wind generation but when comparing them with Nuclear, you must include the cost of grid storage to make Solar & Wind really work
Excellent timely factual analysis and educational discussions !
Most appreciated.
The outputs of those reactors are pretty small compared to what we have, and in a sense they are just miniaturized versions of pretty conventional Nuclear Reactor designs. FBRs and MSRs are the biggest weapons we have against climate change, taking the most energy out of the mined materials and waste reduction, so making SMRs that used those principles could also be great, or making bigger reactors easier to deploy through large scale prefabrication, then you could just mount them at the site, like what's done with concrete structures. Nuclear is expensive because of a small demand and therefore extremely limited supply. Solar panels and windmills are built at the scale of millions of units, unlike Nuclear reactors.
Antinuclear policies take a big role in this as well. There are a few factors to this. One is that "big fossil" doesn't care about Solar and Wind because they know that those sources aren't a real replacement for Natural Gas or oil based fuels because they are way too intermittent, being just a complementary source for coal and gas, allowing for market manipulation, unlike the very consistent, energy dense, and on demand output from Nuclear, although Nuclear isn't much of a deployable, more of a baseload source, although it can be throttled up and down but pretty hard to completely shutdown and restart unlike CCNG or Diesel generators. But they can be used in a cogeneration setup, increasing efficiency and reducing energy consumption of the nearby industry and even central heating and sanitary water heating. Just like Iceland does with Geothermal (which is basically second hand Nuclear).
Even them, excess energy can be used for pumped hydro or synthetic fuel synthetizers like alkanes or green Hydrogen. Which could be used as fuel for CCNG and Diesel powered plants in times where RES, especially Wind and Solar weren't doing shit.
Hydro is a little better than Solar or Wind but it's extremely limited in deployment areas, although it has other economic development around it, such as irrigation or consumption water. Then from other RES perspectives, only Tidal and Geothermal are somewhat reliable but very limited in where they are rentable to deploy.
The other factor against Nuclear is fear mongering in general. The known Nuclear disasters have very proven causes that new Nuclear power plants would take into account. And even then, the consequences of those disasters have been ballooned up by antinuclear activists
So if we really want a reliable solution to the energy problem, Nuclear is absolutely necessary.
What about the radioaktive fuel: Uran
We’re to put it ?
And what about the CO2 and other chemicals used in the mining process...?
And the Transport of Uran around the world ?
like i mean cmon, its not perfect, but fairly superrior
The real answer is molten salt reactors with thorium fuel.
Of which there are none actually existing and operational commercially
@@notMattGarska oak ridge labs built 3 in the late 50s. At this time the television was huge and filled with vacuum tube. We have come a long way since then. Today you got a tv phone computer in your pocket. We did it before we can do it again. Unless idiocracy is real and people are getting dumber. Which reminds me thank you for your comment.
Santa Susanna failed because molten salt erodes parts. So did Crescent Dunes concentrated solar. So did Phenix and Superphenix fast breeder. Molten salt is literally the worst idea for engineering.
@@karlInSanDiego so salt erodes the materials of the 50s. Have we stopped making improvements in materials?
SMR waste would not be too bad if you also made powerplants that used betavoltaic power generation and then standardize the formfactor of SMRs and the spent ones could then just be "plugged in" to these facilities and used to generate even more power as they decay even more over time.
20% of americas electricity is ALREADY emission free because of...you guessed it, nuclear!!!
Thorcon
... generated by old nuclear reactors that are having their operating licences extended up to potentially 100 years - there will be terrible accidents due to component radiation embrittlement - after which there will be a major public outcry and the USA will then move completely away from nuclear power to renewables in combination with energy storage. Thorium reactors have much the same problems, being U233 reactors in disguise - containment radiation embrittlement - hard Gamma emissions during operation - dangerous waste streams and the list goes on.
There are reactors that actually use waste for fuel. I believe they are called fast reactors.
As a non-professional, I love your videos. I would like more information on the liquid salt cooled reactors where the fuel can simply be dropped into a larger container, as per PBS.
Walkaway Safe, Molten Salt, Small Modular Reactors sounds good. I’d like to see them used in great proliferation around high density urbanized-industrialized areas, big population areas and out into their suburbs. The idea would be to not only feed the power grid, supplant the power grid, but to also supplant drinking water purification systems on multiple levels from straight desalination for direct household use, to filtration and cleaning fresh water existing natural water storage bodies. For example make Clear Lake in Northern California clear and pure once more. Power water filtration systems to purify and clean Lake Tahoe. And what’s this talk around Thorium being abundant and found in every country, and it has only has a 300 Year half-life and can be reprocessed and reused as fuel which isn’t useable in nuclear bombs? Is that for real talk or disinformation? And why is David Adair saying go with small modular thorium reactors? He’s becoming quite the voice recommending them.
" I’d like to see them used in great proliferation around high density urbanized-industrialized areas, big population areas and out into their suburbs. "
are you for real or some weird villain out of a comic book ?
@@bobsaturday4273 I’m a small town Realtor who apparently thinks like comic book villain. 👍🖖
Bear in mind when you quote "LCOE" that is the cost of MWh at the terminals of the generator. It doesn't cover the cost of storage or backup for intermittent sources such as solar and wind. we also need many more transmission lines. Australia has a $15B transmission line program to cope with renewables. So this is why LCOE in your charts is not corresponding with the reality of electricity supply choices by utilities and governments.
How could you have missed Flibe Energy ( flibe-energy.com/ ) from your list??
Without Kirk Sorensen, this whole conversation might not even exist.
The security issues involved with small modular reactors would be a nightmare to police.
Why? You think you can slip a reactor under your arm and sneak out of the building? Look up MODULAR. You can't just open it up, it is a module. It does not get refueled there. They switch it with another module and the old one goes back to the factory where it is reconditioned or whatever. Like your laser toner cartridge. Also one of the main plans is to have several in one area producing the output of a more conventional reactor.
What?
People can't even be trusted with batteries, so why not give them fissionables 🤣
Maybe you can't, but people with advanced degrees in nuclear sciences can.
@@dustinmorrison6315 History teaches us that when something is widely spread, people will get their hands on them, get tinkering on them, to understand them, to play around with them and especially if they can't or won't spend large sums of money for a proper engineer with the required degrees.
@@rolandtennapel5058 I don't think these are so small that kids will be able to shoplift them and play with them... If that's what you're worried about.
@@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug Nope, more worried about garage inventors and those extreme survivalists going nuts with some of these. Given all the toxic waste that's already being dumped (and that's just the stuff people actually know and understand)... In practice, can't even trust people with acids and alkali's (over-zealous housekeepers, amongst others), let alone fissionables. Some idea's, great as they may be, simply can't be trusted in the hands of the populace.
@@rolandtennapel5058Nuclear waste from thorium reactors cannot be used to make bombs or explosives.
There has to be additional Water for Emergency cooling because the heat has to get vented and it gets vented with steam so eventually it will run out of water if it’s a closed system
Hello. What was your source for the passive cooling systems? I’d look to study it for my heat transfer project!
horrible fuel burn ratio. 1% or something like that?. solid fuels is no good.
better to work on thorium salt
Or a Uranium Salt. There's no benefit to Thorium over Uranium aside from abundance.
@@travisbeagle5691 just like burning platinum versus burning rock i think. rather burn rock.
@@-Big_Big Platinum if you're talking U235, Not nearly so for the other 98-99%. Also that other isotope is often the major constituent of the supposed waste people attempt to lecture us on. Thorium is great but it isn't some godsend people like Kirk Sorensen say it is. That and any reactor one can breed Uranium with can do the same with Thorium if they so choose.
@George Mann I know and I'm not knocking it as it's certainly a viable option. That being said a fast reactor offers more flexibility in their fuel mix and less of a need for complex and proliferation concerning on- line fuel reprocessing. These can be MSRs and in fact the majority of the MSR programs the US is looking at funding are fast breeders.
When I read the title of this video, I see "stealable lethal apocalypse." All the catastrophic problems with nuclear power don't strike me as getting solved by miniaturization. If anything, modularizing a reactor seems worse.
It's easier to cool a small reactor rather than a big one.
1. Suface area to volume ratio
2. Waste heat is a fixed percentage of the fuel's output when the reactor is off. Larger reactors can melt down even when they're turned off without cooling.
3. Failures are less catatrophic since they handle much less energy