America's Nuclear Supply Chain (Ditching Russian Uranium) || Peter Zeihan
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- Опубликовано: 6 май 2024
- We're finally seeing signs of life in Congress with the recent progress made on the establishment of a domestic uranium supply chain. This move aims to cut dependence on the Russians - who dominate global uranium processing.
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#nuclear #uranium #energy
As an Australian, I cannot express enough my frustration with my country's hopeless stance on the global nuclear supply chain.
With 40% of global Uranium and the most geologically stable continent on the planet, we could be a global leader in whole-of-lifecycle nuclear fuel supply, reprocessing and secure long term waste storage and our political leadership has their heads in the sand.
Imagine how much we could charge to take nuclear waste that other countries dont know what to do with, we have plenty of suitable locations to keep it for millenia. We could name the price and put the money into R&D for a proper renewables industry but like I have said for 30+ years, if our politicians were actually smart, they would be doing something else....
Fun story: the austrians built a nuclear powerplant in the 80s for a ludicrous amount of money. Once construction was complete and they were ready to turn it on, a referendum was called and the people decided they did not want this nuclear power plant, so it was never actually turned on and just rotted for the past almost half century. There is now an active nuclear reactor in austria however, a research one at the TU vienna. That one needs to be refuelled every couple of years (by the americans), for which they shut down like half the city centre for a day
Where is the unused nuclear power plant. ??
If I understand correctly, it is now a training facility for nuclear engineers because it is the only reactor that isn't radioactive. They use it to teach new engineers on how to build reactors correctly.
it happened on long island with the shoreham power plant also
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Zwetendorf
That is just a microcosm of austrian/central european voters and governments. No thought is given to anything other than idealistic bullshit.
Glad my country gets to help out! 🇦🇺🙌🇺🇸
Stop murdering backpackers
@@MrSimonw58 Are you talking about the two Aussies and one American who got murdered in Mexico? Surfers
@@MrSimonw58 Stop spreading unrelated BS!
@@MrSimonw58😂 I promise we will
Any mention of the disgusting Hillary Clinton? The $145 million giving to the Clinton Global Initiative to buy approval of the Uranium One deal?
This is similar to rare earths. The US production of rare earths crashed to virtually nil over the last several decades. That's because China went crazy mining their own rare earth metals (in extremely environmentally disastrous ways, thus they were mining them very inexpensively), and using them to produce electronics at a very low price. Meanwhile, US companies wisely realized they could never compete with that, and stopped mining them. Thus they are simply sitting there in the ground still ready for us to mine them when it makes economic sense (and, in the process, we have conserved them for later use). Exact same thing with the uranium. We've been using up the uranium that Russia has gone to the trouble to mine and procure, thus saving our own natural supplies.
Not quite on the Uranium. A Russian owned Canadian company bought a US company which mined Uranium. Once the Uranium came out of the ground it was shipped off to Russia. I believe Hillary Clinton, as secretary of State, signed off on the purchase, as well as Robert Mueller, the Trump Russia collusion investigator, who signed off on it on behalf of the FBI.
Keep telling yourself that. Restarting a production is not just a case of flipping a switch. The main thing that Zeihan is not covering is that the U.S. money moguls only do what suits their pockets, not what suits the US!
@@peterlangan1181the production was started once, it can be started again
@@peterlangan1181 It actually is, its a matter of will, not ability at this stage of human knowledge. But something tells me your ability prevents you from understanding that.
Thanks for that. Seems a shortsighted lapse in national security we can longer afford.
Why we are not building new plants baffles me
Foolish fear
Its because our leaders and rulers are truly self interested and not focused on doing thier job of improving and advancing society.
I didnt use to believe this but I was naive and do now.
Facetiously, it is because the NRC thinks that the R means "Restriction" and not "Regulatory".
Because we didn't need them. It didn't make economic sense. Now they will be built since we actually need them. No issue here whatsoever.
The new plants have been extremely expensive.
MIT was working a process to recycle spent uranium... we have more than enough to do this for a few 100 years. The issue is these processes are very similar to those used to enrich to the 90% and up required to make an explosive device. Thus it was banned, those laws need to change.
It’s also cheaper to mine the fresh stuff iirc.
@@Nun195 you are correct! Let's take the cheap and easy way out and burry our problems?
yes banned by jimmy carter a nuclear engineer of all things . duh. why don't we just copy what the french do as they reprocess spent fuel into new fuel. even have them design it for us . but noooooo we have to be different and reinvent the wheel so some high priced contractors can grease some politicians hands.
The technology to reuse both spent fuel and depleted uranium has been around for many decades. France reprocesses their fuel and has been for many decades. Breeder reactors are designed to take natural or even depleted uranium and convert it into usable Pu fuel. The only US breeder reactor was shut down by Jimmy Carter so that tells you how old the technology is as well.
@@persistentwindHe is right it is cheaper to buy enriched uranium from Russia than to do anything else that is how Russia became the world supplier of reactor fuel.
I believe Southern company just built 2 new reactors in Georgia. Before that the last one built in the US was Palo Verde in Arizona 60 miles outside of Phoenix which was built in the 80's.
My power bill has had a 8-$9 up charge for years and years.
Canada needs to expand production
Easily done. McClean Lake is coming back online next year, and Rabbit Lake has been suspended since 2016 due to low uranium prices. McArthur River recently re-opened at the end of 2022 with rising prices. These are some of best deposits in the world. There is plenty more uranium in Canada, but it's all low grade (~1%) stuff.
What your local Greta Turnberg would say?
Australia has had a massive block on Uranium anything ever since Maralinga. (If you don’t know about that bit of stupidity, look it up. TLDR, we became the only country to sell uranium to a foreign power, and then allow that power to conduct nuclear testing on our soil)
It’s good to see that we are moving forward with it now
Tdlr always talks about outdated stuff... like news 3 days later... 😂
I know where 6.2 million pounds of uranium in Australia is just sitting in the ground and it still hasn’t been mined.
😊
Any mention of the disgusting Hillary Clinton? The $145 million giving to the Clinton Global Initiative to buy approval of the Uranium One deal?
@@peterpanini96 would you rather have a report the same day or a report 3 days later that has been confirmed and looked into for errors?
The problem with an energy grid like this isn't congress or new laws. It's public support. Too many people are unjustifiedly terrified of nuclear power due to non-education and personal fears. I'm 100% for it across the board, as nuclear power is not only insanely clean but insanely efficient. But swaying public opinion will be THE issue.
DRINK UP DEI DACA IDIOCRACY. DECEPTION BY OMISSION IS FRAUD FRAUD F R A U D
Saskatchewan, Canada has the largest known high-grade uranium deposits in the world.
multiple mines were operationally in my childhood in New Mexico-I had a chunk of yellowcake in my rock collection I had from my uncle who lived near some of the mines
At least one of the mines has yellowcake so concentrated that they have to mine it from below, not safe to be within the deposit....
@@BrianKrug Cigar Lake grades at 18% and McArthur River at 17%.
@@garyshan7239 : So when did you die?
Just clicked to hear you say "nookilar" :D
i was just reading comments to see if someone else mentioned that. 'new-kew-ler". so many people say it wrong that they might as well change it.
@@aaronstein1 I wouldn't say it's wrong to say it like that, it's just cute. Like how Americans say aluminum.
@@hkszerlahdgshezraj5219 The -um spelling is one year older (the name was changed to -ium because it was thought to sound "more classical", not for any technical reason), it is formally accepted, and not incorrect. "Nook-ya-lur", on the other hand, is unforgivable nonsense.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Spelling
@@hkszerlahdgshezraj5219it's definitely wrong.
@@hkszerlahdgshezraj5219 call me a spelling nerd, but it doesn't spell that way. it's almost like a slang that's become accepted.
It was 1979 Peter. I remember because I was in third grade, lived an hour from there. and my parents were fighting viciously all the time and on the verge of divorce. On that Spring day, they actually for a moment seemed like they cared about each other and went from thinking we were all going to die to pulling together to get out of the fallout zone. When it was overeverthing seemed normal, but by Summer they filed for dovorce anyway and separated. In a strange parallel they seem to be like Congress today: petty, squbbling and dysfinctional, but can actually be functional in a crisis, at leadt until its over.
Interesting perspectives
Your story is the same as mine, but I'm 3 years younger and the divorce happened in 1983 instead of during TMI. I'm from about an hour away from there too.
yea best part about TMI was the SNL skit with Eddie Murphy cleaning it up with a mop and bucket!
Both plants at Three Mile Island are shut down now. The functioning older plant was shut down "early". You could see the cooling towers from my parent's house. Hunted and fished near the island many times.
@@leinbajr I lived in Lehigh Valley. What about you?
Thank you.
Fantastic material as always. Thx!
You got tshirts?
great !!! thanks
Good stuff
In the mid 80's my dad was a general mine foreman for United Nuclear Corporation in Glenrock, Wyoming where they mined Uranium yellow cake. Later, Silver King bought the mine and they started mining silver. It is interesting to see how your geopolitical analysis breaks down into the history that we lived and affected us.
Peter:
Do note that the Canadian reactor [Candu] 1) does NOT REQUIRE ENRICHED FUEL. 2) fuels continuously so has a shut-down only once in seven years, the shut-down at 28 years is longer than six weeks. The US machine, with its six-meter diameter 3000-pound flange, and has to be shut down for 6 weeks to refuel every 18 - 24 months. 3) The Candu has a smaller pressure volume diameter and requiring only 1/2 inch thick Zirconium to hold, not 13-inch thick steel, 4) The candy can 'burn' SPENT US NUCLEAR FUEL@ 9000 ppm and get 175% of the theoretical energy in it Or natural Uranium at 7000 PPM fissionable 5) depending on how you run it you get either 300 PPM or 150,000PPM Fissionables out of it
The US AEC will never allow this wonderful machine into the US, despite being able to inspect operating machines that have survived failures that would have destroyed the containment of a US machine, because it isn't invented in the US.
The biggest issue on the US regulation portion for CANDU is that it has a positive void coefficient, which the NRC is very against. The highly enriched heavy water is also crazy expensive, but my honest opinion is if everything is already crazy expensive, what more is $1 Billion for the heavy water, which makes it much more efficient.
CANDU is the best design though.
@@samuelnakai1804 It's only ~$60M for the amount of heavy water in a CANDU.
@MarkRose1337 my previous calcs for it was about $750 million.
It can't have regular water contaminant. It has to have 99.9% D20, which is pretty damn expensive, and lots of it.
It's been a while since I looked at the needed volume.
@@samuelnakai1804 I just googled price per ton, and a reactor needs about 500. I didn't check the purity!
@@MarkRose1337 quick back of the napkin calcs. 500,000 kg, Cambridge Isotope labs quotes 192 dollars per 100g of 99.9% D2O. This gets me about $960 Million for 500 tons of D2O, but I'm sure bulk orders can shave a significant portion of this cost off.
Thank You Peter!!
Canada also has Uranium Mines.
Thank you for your videos.
Yes, one miracle at a time with congress. :)
Australia only has a single research reactor (Lucas Heights) used to make TC 99. We don't refine past yellow cake and that's for export.
i think thats going to change fast, not so dumb skippy the bush kangaroo. Eric Jupp.
Uranium 235 is usually not used in bombs. Plutonium 239 is used for warhead cores.
True, but that's also fissile and the excess nuclear weapons plutonium has been diluted into fuel for civilian reactors.
How many nuclear bombs do we still have which rely on either uranium or plutonium? Hydrogen bombs are significantly stronger, I would imagine the vast majority are hydrogen, and they probably have a longer shelf life than anything radioactive.
@@LoganChristianson If I'm not mistaken, a thermonuclear device relies on a fission detonation to trigger the fusion detonation.
@@LoganChristianson They still require plutonium to ignite, generally.
@@LoganChristianson all nuclear bombs rely on plutonium or uranium. Hydrogen bombs are staged devices where the first stage is a plutonium fission explosion that then lights up a plutonium spark plug that then starts the hydrogen fusion. Then there's usually a casing of additional uranium that contributes significantly to the yield.
🎶Uraaaaaaanium fever has gone and got me down! Uraaaaaaanium fever is spreadin’ all around!🎶
Canada is probably not pursuing uranium enrichment as its CANDU reactor design does not require enriched uranium.
Ontario last fall decided to add eight new reactors to its existing sixteen, as well as changing its mind on the planned shutdown of four. Any ideas as to why it is the continents best jurisdiction for nuclear power?
It is because our government in Ontario has seen the results. My issue is why the rest of the world has not figured it out
@@marklittle8805 Probably because CANDU reactors are a relatively terrible reactor design.
Because Canada sells electricity over the border to the USA. That's how we managed to reverse the acid rain destroying all of the Eastern Woodlands.
Unfortunately, US coal & gas producers convinced Maine to block a high voltage transmission line from Quebec to Massachusetts a year or so ago.
And that lets them continue to lie about the USA being energy self-sufficient.
@@psychohistcompared to what - Chernobyl? In any case we are also pursuing Small Nuclear Reactors and one is planned for Estevan, Saskatchewan. This is the future not necessarily larger CANDU sites though that should not be ruled out.
@@bevpotter9938 Relative to central station light water PWRs like TMI or Seabrook. Small reactors are also foolish - the same amount of proliferation risk and almost as much accident risk for far less power generation. I grant that they're all better than graphite moderated designs like Chernobyl.
Awesome
good video uppp
URANIUM FEVER has done and got me down
With my gyger counter in my hand...
@@matthewmcclary7855 I'ma goin' out to stake me some govament land
By from Comeco, u have shares
Saskatchewan?
Most rich people stay rich by spending like the poor and investing without stopping then most poor people stay poor by spending like the rich yet not investing like the rich but impressing them
Exactly! My grandparents were so frugal but they had a TON of money on both sides. I remember my grandfather telling me "you want to make money while you sleep." And I guess that attitude passed down to my dad (RIP), because I remember going to his house one day and I had bought something I really liked, so I wanted to show it to him. So I said "Look at this!
Isn't it cute? It was on sale...I saved 50%!" My dad replied "Well, if you're spending, you're not saving." Obviously I had no retort, and that has always stuck with me.
Saving and investing wisely while prioritizing necessities and a few small luxuries in relation to one's total assets is a great approach. It helps ensure financial stability and I my for the enjoyment of life's little pleasures without compromising long-term financial goals. It's all about finding a balance that works for you!
very true, a huge part of my portfolio growth has come during this bear market. I've been able to scale from $180K to $572K in a short period of time.
How do you do that? I'm interested.
Thanks to my co-worker (Alex) who suggested
Ms Angela Christine Derle.
Peter, check out Kirk Sorenson, of Flibe energy and his information about molten salt thorium fueled reactors. This is available technology, right now, and is still decades ahead of anything like cold-fusion.
It wasn’t bipartisanship that got this bill passed, it was corporate interests and legalized bribes through campaign donations.
I really hope that SMR's can prove economical once the regulatory process is done. They seem like they could be good for baseload in places that don't have the funds to build a gigaton facility.
What about investing in / creating a reprocessing industry? We have quite a built up mountain of supply for reprocessing. Any momentum for investing in this side of the industry as part of the solution? This would then help with the "waste" side of the argument.
The waste side argument is all but dead ever since a way to totally break it down to nothing was found in 2019.
Yeah, that would help. Congress banned that process after the Three Mile Island incident, and things got even more paranoid after the Hanford (Washington state) situation came to light, so they'd have to try and pass legislation to allow that once more. As Peter mentioned, not much gets done in Washington DC these days.
@@matthewmcclary7855 Could you please post some links or other info on what your referring to? I thought you were going to say its not much of an argument since its not much volume anyway, or because it can be used in breeder reactors as it?
@@gibu002 I'm talking about ADS technology which takes the already stored waste, that lasts for over 240,000 years, breaks it down to uses with hydrogen and thorium, reducing the size from a barrel of waste to something as small as a ring size Jewel which then has a toxic lifespan of only 500 years. CERN is working on perfecting the process now and already has that option available. The highly reduced leftover amount cannot be used for weapons as it's not nearly as radioactive.
@@matthewmcclary7855 Found it. Accelerator Driven System. Thanks.
Nextgen in Saskatchewan is slated to produce a quarter of the worlds uranium once opened
Some corrections:
The process is mining --> refinement --> conversion to gas (usually) --> enrichment to 3-5% but no higher than 5% currently. No commercial reactors in the US have gone past 5% yet but there are designs in development to do so. It's not a technical barrier. It's a regulatory line that nobody has wanted to deal with just yet.
In fact, it requires quite little energy/work to raise the enrichment level further. There is higher enrichment used in research/prototype reactors and medical reactors and military reactors (esp naval). Higher enrichment makes for higher burnup, longer fuel life and smaller reactors.
So is the spinning down what happens at Pantex in Texas? I grew up around there and during the Cold War they were building our bombs, afterwards I knew they were taking them apart largely but I never knew what exactly that resulted in.
Hey Peter - I would like to hear more about those SMR (Small Modular Reactors) Westinghouse and others are developing. What are the market applications of those?
3:08 ... this congress ... to do ANYTHING .... This was very funny!!! 😄
Palisades in Michigan was just about to be decommissioned and is now being started back up (subject to change).
Thank god.
I’d be so curious to know your take on Small Modular Reactors like TerraPower…
What defense and security sources do you recommend to subscribe to?
99.94%, or as pure as the nation building the device can achieve.
Walter white levels. Not Jesse levels.
Purity on par with Ivory Soap...well done
@@Mr.Benson lol, yes
@@Justdont693 It's blue!
@@Mr.Benson I use the old Ivory Soap number as a meme for "so damn pure you can't tell the difference".
Sort of like the Old Testament numerology, when they say "40", they mean "enough". Evidently those folks didn't bother counting above 40 unless it was there sheep. Even their wives, smh.
The GOOD NEWS is that it's difficult for this Congress to do anything !!!!!!!!! The less they "do for us;" the better off we are.
Peter, Can please you do a video on the situation in Scotland with the chaos the independence movement is in ??
So there are going to reopen the Mountian Taylor Uranium mine in New Mexico
Facts
Congratulations Canada, you are going to get rich.
Yeah they have activated a Uranium mine here on the edge of the Grand Canyon and they have drilled through very sensitive water tables. Some of the springs in the Grand Canyon are coming up 'hot' now. There was also some very poor behavior on the reservations near us when they used to mine Uranium there, they even allowed locals to live in contaminated homes and messed up the local water supply. I am pro nuclear and in general I hate NIMBY's, but I became one. No easy answers.
Energy Fuels is it's name , stock symbol uuuu
No need to mine in populated or otherwise risky or difficult places. As Peter alluded, you have friends in Australia and Canada who are eager to sell you all that you could want.
Buy Canadian Uranium.
That won't help as Canada's nuclear power fleet is based on heavy water reactors not light water reactors and therefore doesn't need enriched uranium. That choice was probably made, in part, to avoid having a weapons-capable supply-chain, in addition to avoiding the expense of needing to build that supply chain at all. I guess Peter must know something I don't because he thinks Canada can help out a little, but I don't know what that would be.
I think you did one on Thorium, vs Uranium, in the past.
Update? Especially in the current climate.
TMI is now permanently shut down as well as Oyster Creek in NJ….
Three Mile Island occurred in 1979.
just curious what the point you're trying to make.
@@aaronkelley8909 Peter Zeihan said he wasn't sure if it happened in 1973 or 1979.
@@nicholasmaude6906 0h gotcha.
Any mention of the disgusting Hillary Clinton? The $145 million giving to the Clinton Global Initiative to buy approval of the Uranium One deal?
Just trow the roads in the ocean... 😂
How much does the uranium one sale affect this?
Can you remind me how much uranium is in modern nuclear weapons? Because the primary is usually plutonium, with some having a u238 tertiary. Some sources say the secondary fusion state uses U235 in the sparkplug and pusher but other sources say that's plutonium.
Time traveler moves a chair: Peter says I can't remember something
Really interesting shifts for certain central Canada interests.
What of molten halide Thorium reactors???
Small modular molten salt reactors (specifically Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors-LFTR). I value Peter’s insights immensely, but will respectfully disagree here. We (U.S.) invented and the Chinese have operationalized small modular molten salt reactors. They solve many problems: 1) LFTR are passively safe. a) If the power goes off, the freeze plug melts and the coolant/fuel salt drains by gravity into non-moderated underground safety tanks; b) They operate at atmospheric pressure; c) They have a negative temperature co-efficient of reactivity and cannot have a “run-away” meltdown reaction; and d) The fertile Thorium T232, fissile U235, and fissionable U238 are freely mixed in the circulating molten FLIBE salt. They do not reach criticality unless they are in the moderated reaction chamber. If the power goes out, they drain by gravity out of the reaction chamber and go sub-critical; 2) Depending on the blanket design, the un-moderated fast neutrons transmute (breed) “spent” U238 what we now consider “waste” that is stored on-site at our current LWReactors into burnable P239. This solves our nuclear waste problem by converting “spent” U238 (needing to be stored for 1 million years-10 half-lives) to highly radioactive fission products that reaches background radiation levels in 300 years-achievable by current human engineering; 3) The breeding/burning of “spent” U238 waste also provides us an estimated 150 years of the whole world power supply; 4) They co-generate immense amounts of very useful heat and increase Carnot Efficiency proportionally; and 5) They are built quickly, efficiently, and less expensively at a plant and shipped to their concrete-piping-electrical pads at locations around the country for their 7-10 year operating life.
We and the Chinese have solved the high-temperature alloys, on-line electrochemical fission products/poisons removal, and security problems. The small modular LFTRs could be built adjacent to current Light Water Reactors (LWR) which would supply the zero-carbon power for their construction. Putting LFTRs next to current LWR sites save immense time and money by already having 1) environmental and regulatory vetting and licenses; 2) high voltage transmission and power protection infrastructure; 3) secure locations; 4) cooling water; 5) human capital in the form of nuclear engineers and technicians; and 5) community acceptance from people who have lived without fear near a nuclear power station and love the great jobs and taxes those stations provide.
Uranium-fueled LWRs are susceptible to all of the problems that make the population fearful. The problem is that entrenched, powerful, incumbent corporate interests are deeply invested in uranium-fueled LWRs and push their financial interests by killing LFTR adoption at the expense of the nation and the environment.
I have not heard in America history that an inappropriate presidential candidate with active law suits to run for office. This individual is not able to solve multiple problems that America has. This is very scary for the future of SUA.
Anyone can have their day in court in America, whether or not it is appropriate or lawful is for the justice system to determine. Just because someone accuses someone of something does not give validity to the charges. I could discredit your comment by calling you a democrat troll but that doesn’t define you absolutely.
Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times: 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell.
Why do simpletons think the President has his hands on every lever of policy and productivity? Of course the figurehead in the Oval Office plays a large role in the direction of the administration, but there are many, many more dynamic people down the chain who execute policy. I'd much rather have a blowhard in the Oval office and sensible people in leadership positions versus DEI hires who steal luggage and dress up in women's clothing, take extended paternity leave, and think they are a woman as a man. Not hard to pinpoint my examples.
@@HubertofLiege Although someone who sues for three years to avoid a DNA test is kind of suspicious.
@@jeanlamb5026 what is ?
Good news? Tell that to the Havasupai people who’s ground water aquifer sits under Pinon plain Uranium mine, the Navajo people who’s land the radioactive ore will be transported through, and the Ute Mountain Ute people who’s land it will be milled on. Indigenous people are always the first to be taken advantage of with little regard for human or environmental safety.
Why are we not recycling our spent rods? Only a fraction of the fissile material in the rod is used for power generation.
Hey Peter here coming to you from the back of a dolphin! 🐬
Some of the ore up in Sask comes out at 17% enriched.
Nuclear Now, Oliver Stone 2023 film, everyone needs to watch and understand the need for Gen4 Nuc plants.
Recycling spent fissile material on site is a proven technology as seen with the 30 years of power generated by the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II, starting in 1964. Okla is one company that is at the forefront, with designs and has non-binding agreements with major suppliers. Of course politics and economics play a big factor in getting power plants built so it is impossible to know when that might start, but it is an interesting area of opportunity. Questions include whether a more decentralized network of smaller nuclear plants is safer across a variety of safety concerns from fewer high tension lines (shorter distances) to being more susceptible to one off attack but less susceptible to attack as a single point of failure.
We have nuclear fusion energy dispersed and maximised every day in Australia.
Australias, 20 million buildings can generate too much electricity when the technology is fully rolled out .
The lack of EVs and big batteries is holding Australia back.
Nuclear electricity promoters have to build a bigger grid capacity, and that can be $TRILLIONS.
Australia's grid is fragile, a big economic problem.
Australia needs to increase electricity energy from 15% by x7 to 100%.
The biggest problem is the fragility of the national electrical grid.
The new generation is ready to connect but needs more grid capacity.
Saskatchewan has a pile of the stuff
Zeihan's "nukelar" pronounciation is ballistic!
…and unrepentant
I really hope thorium reactors become a thing soon, and we can put uranium in the past.
We had our own complete supply chain for a long time until recently. Wyoming and its strip mines produced a lot of yellow cake that went into our own fuel, we just need to open that back up. There isnt much of a supply chain issue, we have facilities that make fuel still.
Couple corrections for the 6 or so staff who work with you Peter:
We don't spin down highly enriched uranium we down blend it
we don't pronounce fissile like "missile" but pronounce the last "i" as in "Isle". Think "fiss-Isle".
We have newer technology in the form of throrium rods and TRISO at Fort St Vrain in Colorado which got shutdown but was online for 8 years or so.
For others we have have regulations for recycling old fuel. You can find them in 10 CFR Part 72
Three mile Island occurred in 1979
It will take longer than 2 years, but we should be heavily funding molten chloride fast reactors. These can use depleted uranium, thorium, and even existing high-level radioactive waste as fuel. Only a tiny fraction of the enriched uranium is needed, and only really for the startup of the system. Additionally the whole regulatory framework can be simplified with regard to these reactors because they are inherently safer than our current breed of light-water reactors. The core is already molten, so it cannot melt down. The reaction can't "run away" because as it starts to overheat it expands, which slows down the reaction naturally, so it's self-balancing. There is no possibility of a steam explosion because the coolant is molten salt instead of high pressure water. This means significantly cheaper containment vessels and cheaper safety systems overall, which in turn cuts down on one of the biggest hurdles to building nuclear reactors: the massive upfront cost. Fuel will be cheap, or even free in the case of using existing waste products. And since the reaction more thoroughly uses up the radioactivity of the fuel, the mass of high-level waste is reduced, AND it has a much shorter half-life. Investing in these could set our country up for a century of low-cost energy production with no CO2 emissions at the generating sites.
The Three Mile Island accident was in 1979
Peter, you did mention in one of your videos that with the U.S. pulling back from globalization, you expected Congress, over time TBD, would drag more and more of the supply chains back to North America. Congrats on the prediction.
Does anyone else notice he says nucular instead of nuclear? It reminds me of Homer Simpson
It’s an American thing, increasingly accepted I’d say, alternate pronunciation. It used to really bug me, until I heard Steve Kotkin using it. If he says it’s an accepted alternate, I’ll go with that.
I don’t know what the shelf life of uranium is
Why we are not building new plants baffles me.
Georgia just added two....
Because politicians don’t want us to have nice things
@@stevendaniel8126 Seriously? That is good news.
It's largely due to cost and time.
Thanks to the costs associated government regulation compliance, and the timelines (10-15yrs to get them up and running, 8-13yrs of which is just cutting through red tape) - it's not an economically viable alternative to competing energy producing technologies.
But if you look at China, they've just in the last 10 years built nearly 100 plants, with almost another 100 on the way. And their total cost per mwh is lesser than solar and wind.
@@Hierosir China un-regulates everything that the party boss declares. We over-regulate the size of potato chip.
Thorium reactors are a better alternative. The concept worked at Oakridge .The type currently in use were pushed by the impact they would have on a particular area of the country. It was more political than scientific.
There is one type of nuclear-reactor design, Peter, that was pioneered by the Canadians that can use natural Uranium and that's the CANDU reactor.
It can burn a lot of different fuels, like MOX, and makes an excellent breeder reactor as well as it's not a single pressure vessel and runs for a very long time before needing to be refuelled.
The world has not been beating a path to the door of CANDU's and I don't understand it.
And yet even the Canadians aren't looking to build any more of them right now.
How come? @@Emfuser
@@marklittle8805 CANDU reactors have substantially higher capital costs, and nuclear reactors are expensive enough already.
Alright.
The Age of Miracles is Not Over!!!
Unless your Illinois and you are slowly ready to double down on Nuclear. Where you think the 2 younger ones are. Though the just got there fuel upgraded.
Pretty day out.
TMI - Three Mile Island was March 28, 1979. We have built over thirty new reactors since them - all U.S. Navy. These are for Aircraft carriers, nuclear subs *and* their replacement reactors. Most are refueled, a few had a new unit built because it was cheaper and more secure. Shipyards do not have cooling ponds for spent rods so the whole reactor is sent back to ____classified __
Improvements have been made in military reactors. Civilian reactors are, not say a joke, but have many bright good people working in a stupid and rigid system that tolerates mistakes and cost overruns.
Now, if we can get our laws at the fed level changed to permit recycling of waste product from power reactors (as is done in France) we can reduce our final waste volume AND it would be great step forward as we build out our power generation capability to scale up with the rise in manufacturing.
One problem is we don't have the skill set's on this from 50 years ago.
"hell of a way to boil water."
Uranium isn’t scarce, permits are
Canada has a city named Uranium City. The uranium in Northern Saskatchewan requires much less enrichment - it's up to a hundred times higher quality than anywhere else in the world. CANDU
Canadians don't need enrichment, they use PHWR or CANDU reactors which uses heavy water
As long as we keep Hilary away from our stockpile, we should be ok.
Nuclear power is criminally under-used, under-funded, and under-researched in the U.S. The fact that we have power grids which continue to be powered by coal here is insane.
Congress NOT doing stuff, is a good thing. But when they do decide to do something, this is a perfect example of something they should be doing.
Somebody kidnapped your backdrop = snow.
You say the canadians are building back their nuclear capacity. Can you do a video about that?