Renewable Nuclear: All about Breeder Reactors

Рет қаралды 6,168

Күн бұрын

In the early days of nuclear power uranium was thought to be a critically rare mineral. Nuclear engineers sought to solve this problem with a special type of reactor that produced more fissile material than they consume. Nick Touran joins me to discuss and explore the long term sustainability of nuclear power.
0:00 - Introduction: Nuclear Historian Nick Touran Returns to Decouple
0:48 - The History of Breeder Reactors: From Uranium Scarcity to Abundance
3:13 - How Breeder Reactors Work: Harnessing the Power of Uranium-238 & Thorium
6:56 - Minimizing Nuclear Waste: Breeder Reactors and the Circular Economy
11:06 - The Challenges of Reprocessing Spent Nuclear Fuel: Proliferation Concerns & Economic Barriers
16:01 - The Rise & Fall of Breeder Reactor Programs: From Clinch River to Superphénix
22:03 - Technical Hurdles & Operational Experience: Sodium Fast Reactors & Beyond
33:35 - The Long Road to Commercial Viability: Lessons from Candu & Advanced Reactors
42:05 - Innovation & Investment: Who Will Fund the Future of Breeder Reactors?
50:02 - The Future of Breeder Reactors: Sustainability, Economics & Global Energy Security
54:32 - Fueling a Nuclear Future: Insights from the Net-Zero Nuclear Summit
57:01 - Conclusion: The Importance of Breeder Reactor Development
Support Decouple on Patreon: / decouple
Learn more about Decouple Media: www.decouplemedia.org

Пікірлер: 127

@taimosomer3511 19 күн бұрын

About molten salt reactors - Copenhagen Atomics is building whole fleet of 25 MW molten salt reactors for fertilizer plant in Malaisia, 1 GW overall if memory serves me correctly. Sounds like commercial.

@AngelicaAtomic 14 күн бұрын

By all means have them in to talk but they don’t have a certified reactor and so never split an atom. Their designs are based on modeling and as such their public announcements need to be taken with a pinch of…salt

@wombatillo 14 күн бұрын

@@AngelicaAtomicExactly. Vaporware is very common in the space and nuclear industries. When they have their first reactor go critical, the odds start looking a lot better for commercialization. When that moment is more than a two years away it's all just promises, talk and lofty goals. I hope they succeed but the world needs solid results.

@philipwilkie3239 10 күн бұрын

@@AngelicaAtomic At present Copenhagen Atomics are running two full scale reactors non-fission - ie kept molten by external electricity. This is an essential exercise that will yield important improvements without the hassle of dealing with high level radiation. It is if you think about it one of the advantages of MSR's in that you can probably eliminate >80% of the bugs in your design in this relatively low-risk manner. The next step is a small fission loop - for which the physics is well understood and closely modelled. The challenge is not to "split an atom" as you sneeringly put it, that part is trivial - it is all the other thermal, transport, chemical, redox control and maintenance questions that need to be completely resolved before it can be mass produced. All this takes time - just as for example it takes Boeing or Airbus at least 7 years to certify a new airframe - you would expect something of this nature to be approached methodically and carefully.

@Brommear 20 күн бұрын

I worked in the French nuclear industry in the 1980s. Superfinix cost about ten times as much as a standard reactor plant, the technical issues were enormous but it was really the cost per kW was prohibitive. This was done at scale - some 1200MW output.

@FernandoWINSANTO 11 күн бұрын

... and it was a failed experience, google Superphénix for info. The Ohma breeder in Japan is under construction.

@captainfatfoot2176 21 күн бұрын

This is something I’ve wanted to learn more about for a while. Thanks for doing this episode

@isaacgevj3262 21 күн бұрын

Me too

@FernandoWINSANTO 11 күн бұрын

@@isaacgevj3262 Mr Google has the answer, don't be shy.

@FernandoWINSANTO 5 күн бұрын

@@isaacgevj3262 google Simi Valley reactor accident

@ryccoh 21 күн бұрын

Finally some exotic reactors to talk about

@ronwalker4998 21 күн бұрын

Great discussion .. I've been waiting for this one

@stijn2644 21 күн бұрын

been looking forward for one of these for a long time.

@happyhome41 21 күн бұрын

Absolutely LOVE the Nick Touran - Dr. Keefer interaction - SO illuminating, and Dr. Keefer read my mind asking the questions I wanted to ask. Well done !!!

@microburn 21 күн бұрын

Thanks for the interesting info! Looking forward to listening

@aliendroneservices6621 21 күн бұрын

51:44 *_Levi_* Strauss made jeans. You're thinking of *_Lewis L._* Strauss, chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1954.

@user-yd6gm1sh4b 20 күн бұрын

Говоря об экономической рентабельности ядерной энергетики, Вы не обсудили самый ключевой момент - технологии обогащения урана. Именно из-за обладания технологией газового центрифугирования последних поколений, Росатом смог стать лидером рынка по обогащению, а также снизить стоимость уранового топлива. Имхо.

@jkelly11785 20 күн бұрын

Great episode!

@wgavacado 20 күн бұрын

What a wealth of knowledge!!

@rationalpear1816 17 күн бұрын

I’m going to have many question. 1. I’m a big supporter of nuclear, but with all the reports of countries and states doing whole days on solar/wind and price of batteries coming down, I’m not sure it makes as much sense. 2. Why do we always pretend like nuclear waste has to be stored for 100s of 1000s of years or millions? Like we aren’t going to have any technological progression? The future humans might be super pissed we made it so had to access the useable nuclear “waste”.

@antonmorozov5193 14 күн бұрын

Solar/Wind can not be "base" producer, you can't control when and how much energy it produces. Batteries - ok, but there is not enough materials(like lithium) to turn Wind/Solar to stable energy. Plus far as I could find Solar/Wind+batteries + natgaz is way more expensive than nuclear + natgaz.

@jeffbenton6183 13 күн бұрын

Batteries storage is three times more expensive than nuclear at nuclear's worst. We know that nuclear can be done for the half the cost it is currently on the US without compromising on safety (we've done it before). Batteries are getting cheaper, but nowhere near fast enough to outcompete nuclear. Then you have to consider how much more land use and mining that wind and solar require and Batteries add even more mining. Batteries storage is never going to dominate the grid. If enhanced geothermal was achieving costs comparable to wind and solar without storage, then there'd be a case that nuclear was fast reaching obsolescence - but that isn't the case.

@wilfriedhahn5053 20 күн бұрын

If you want to know more about thorium breeder reactor talk to Thomas Jam Pedersen at Copenhagen Atomics. They already build the second prototype.

@AngelicaAtomic 14 күн бұрын

They’ve never split an atom tho. Don’t get me wrong I love their moxie but we just don’t know until they get a reactor certified

@vikingsoftpaw 14 күн бұрын

The Canadian designed CANDU can be refueled while operation.

@waywardgeologist2520 21 күн бұрын

Molten Pb fast reactor.

@wombatillo 14 күн бұрын

Molten lead or some alloy of lead is quite hot and not exactly easy on metals it touches. Molten lead can corrode stainless steel for example. There are better steels and super-alloys but the expenses in construction and spare parts skyrocket.

@dugiejoness5197 17 күн бұрын

How about high temperature two-fluid breeder reactors? The first fuel circuit contains a eutectic alloy of uranium and chromium, and the second one contains a coolant. Then all this chemistry is easier to install and secure.

@riderpaul 15 күн бұрын

Now that silicon carbide 3D printing is possible what about something like bismuth and using the gas phase of bismuth. I'm sure it's been thought about what are the downsides?

@Hamstray 20 күн бұрын

there is 3d model of superphenix available on energyencyclopedia. you can see the mechanism of the rotating plugs and the control/shutdown rod structure attached in the center plug which needs to move out of the way even when just moving the subassemblies from the breeding blanket. supposedly the BN reactors support online refueling. don't know how that works though. (they are listed under online refueling in wiki but it seems to be missing citation. maybe they just disregard safety during the reloading process.)

@maasl3873 21 күн бұрын

The integral fast reactor in the United States was the best breeder reactor ever built but was shut down because of political decisions. It could reprocess its own fuel in the facility, could shutdown on its own when the reactor gets hot and so had everything you would want from a fast breeder reactor. But what we need is first of all the regulations to built cheap safe nuclear reactors, nuclear plants and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants.

@TheDanEdwards 21 күн бұрын

"cheap safe nuclear reactors"

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@TheDanEdwards No, they go together perfectly, you just have to use the right technology. There is no physical reason for a low-pressure/high-temperature nuclear power plant to cost any more than a natural gas or coal plant.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

Until regulators reverse the LNT radiation regulations, nuclear will always be much more expensive than it needs to be. The Linear no Threshold theory for radiation has been debunked for decades, yet they cling to it like a bible.

@croftegan7993 21 күн бұрын

Seems like molten salt reactors are the way to go.

@josehawking5293 21 күн бұрын

Inevitably so.🤔

@waywardgeologist2520 21 күн бұрын

Fast or slow?

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@waywardgeologist2520 Both. I would think that breeders would be more expensive than burners so a mix would seem like a good idea.

@BioHazardCL4 20 күн бұрын

Unprototyed reactors are not for an extremely conservative industry with capital issues.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@BioHazardCL4 Except MSRs are proven with prototypes. The MSRE in Oakridge National Lab did just that.

@waywardgeologist2520 21 күн бұрын

Imagine the production of useful elements from this process.

@Th-233 11 күн бұрын

The most interesting isotopes (Bi-213 and Ac-225) come from the thorium fuel cycle. (for Targeted Alpha Therapy, see kzfaq.info/get/bejne/otqZiJiLur6vc3k.html) Many other useful and often valuable isotopes may also be extracted online in a molten salt breeder.

@richardburden6035 20 күн бұрын

Less than 1%. Natural U is only 1/140 U-235, and enrichment is far from 100% efficient. Plus, spent fuel is usually not reprocessed to recover residual fissile, and when it is, only Pu and U is recovered, and buildup of U-236, etc. in slow neutron reactors prevents full re-use. So, without breeders, we use 1 part in 285 of U in LWRs with no reprocessing; about 30% better with reprocessing, as in France, and about 1 part in 135 in CANDU reactors. We might use more than 1 part in 285 in LWRs once-through if uranium gets expensive, because then we'll spend more money on enrichment, to leave less U-235 in the tailings.

@waywardgeologist2520 20 күн бұрын

56:01 the discussion focused too much on Na reactors.

@davidpetzer5725 21 күн бұрын

MSR , FLIBE ??

@waywardgeologist2520 20 күн бұрын

24:25 Na what could go wrong. How many operations do we use Na

@jimgraham6722 21 күн бұрын

Energy is not just an economic issue it is also strategic. Nuclear is the strategic part of the equation, renewables the economic part. If civilisation is to be sustained, both are needed, in considerable abundance.

@ABa-os6wm 21 күн бұрын

We dobt need nuke bombs.

@jimgraham6722 21 күн бұрын

@@ABa-os6wm Agree, but that cat's out of the bag and will remain so for quite some time to become.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

Renewables require 100% backup and if that backup is nuclear, what's the point of the renewables in the first place?

@FernandoWINSANTO 11 күн бұрын

@@ABa-os6wm Thanks for mentioning. Enthusiastic fun club with little know-how think they can just shovel in that waste in those breeders (even before bouiding them and set up costly recycling) and forget about it.

@FernandoWINSANTO 11 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travels Some investors only have money tu build a $300 000 000 gas plant or less to erect a wind farm .

@waywardgeologist2520 20 күн бұрын

55:39 it doesn’t matter if it increases the cost for fuel three times given the social license cost. There are 88,000 tons of spent fuel rods are just sitting waiting to be processed and used as new fuels.

@nwrked 21 күн бұрын

as of today I understand the economics of uranium being cheap; but the point is: don't make the "waste" unusable, because we'll use it later.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

But, what if the reactor that utilizes the waste is cheaper, more reliable, and versatile than the really expensive, inefficient pressure water reactors that are generating the waste. When we run out of waste, they switch to natural U238 or thorium.

@nwrked 20 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travels as I wrote, "as of today"...

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@nwrked as I wrote "what if"...

@nwrked 20 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travels as of today, there's no what if.

@chapter4travels 19 күн бұрын

@@nwrked Sure there is, several companies have been working on this.

@stephenbrickwood1602 18 күн бұрын

Net billing. Net metering. Distance metering. 😊 5cents feedin, 50cents supply. 5cents kWh electricity value. 45cents kWh grid rental costs. This is unfair to the people closest to the power plants. The wealthy in distant city penthouses should carry more of the long grid costs. 😮😮😮 😊 kw x hours x distance = true costs. 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

@BioHazardCL4 20 күн бұрын

Wacky reactors are always fun. Imagine if nuclear needed to be really efficient with fissile material for some reason.

@yooper8778 21 күн бұрын

Dr. Keefer, That was a great video! Dr. Touran is a national USA treasure. I would love to sit and pick his mind. I want to know what he thinks we should be doing with our energy future. He should write the USA energy plan. Thanks! BuBu

@nathanway20690 20 күн бұрын

Lftr is the future

@waywardgeologist2520 21 күн бұрын

10:42 bury them, no. After storing them extract out useful elements that are no longer radioactive.

@stormrunner0029 21 күн бұрын

Question. You have heard of spent Uranium bullets. Why wouldn’t we be able to use these same bullets on drilling bits? Or do we already? You talk of the differences in cost to run a plant. What would a power plant’s profit be if it is successful? Thinking about breeders should be essential, if it is a good disposal of conventional nuclear waste. With the advances in metallurgy we should be able to do this easily. May cost more, because it is new. Depleted uranium tubing. I’ll bet it is unbreakable, and will not wear through soon. Start batting around some ideas guys. Not all are feasible, but we have to think outside the safety box to advance. We’ll find ways to make the ideas safe. This discussing brings to mind a video I saw years ago about why Uranium is so “dangerous”. It was about a rebellious plant worker in the 50’ and 60’s who would go down to the heavy water pool everyday at the start of his shift and fill his coffee cup with heavy water and take it back to his office and sip on it all day. No harm done. The reason, stated in the video, that Uranium is so dangerous, is so no one will want to steal it. It’s in every home, or should be. “But, but, but… that’s a different kind!” You don’t think the establishment BSs us? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pt2Ip8KWqtq9oGQ.htmlsi=2SmObLCXjwRJtYS0

@Hamstray 20 күн бұрын

hardness and density aren't the same thing.

@davidwilkie9551 21 күн бұрын

Nuclear Submarines were built as the perfect counter to Nuclear weapons, kind of fighting fire with fire sword of Damocles balance of terror. The balance of power is turned inward against the civil power adaptation to circumstances that is the environmentally destructive Dark Money Economy. Nothing more to say except listen to the Geologists talk about the inevitability of expected catastrophic changes we can only make partial, not even proportional adaptions to. Base load of government regulation responsibilities are drifting way off the happy medium and the logical connection between perceptions of wealth +/-, are divorced from the concept of sustainable metastable proportioning of energy availability before the catastrophic failures of Planetary calendar emulation.

@iancormie9916 18 күн бұрын

Seems like the way to deal with Sodium and water/steam reactions would be to switch to CO2 turbines.

@yooper8778 21 күн бұрын

What about using super-critical CO2 instead of the water loop in the NaCL FAST reactors? What about FLIBE instead of NACL? What issues do these present? We are not going to figure this stuff out if we don't study them seriously. I am with Dr. Weinberg - "burn metal".

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

These guys are stuck in the past and don't want to hear a word about advancements. Stick with the tried and true regardless of cost and lack of versatility.

@chrisjohns38 20 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travels That's a little bit extreme. At least one of those two critters has learned a lesson or two about what it takes to actually develop a feasible commercial reactor. It takes more than you might conceive. So discussing things that are actually viable is the only credible discussion. Unless you believe what future batteries will do for solar power :)

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@chrisjohns38 The discussion is about the Brayton Cycle generators. Antique pressure water reactors can't produce high enough temperatures for this technology. Nor can it provide high-grade industrial heat which has a demand that is double electricity alone.

@chrisjohns38 20 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travelsoh rats, I thought the discussion was about breeder reactors. Have you any references for functional commercial Brayton cycle power plants? Last time I checked there was a pilot plant at Sandia. While you’re checking on that, take look at the real cost of all of the additional pressure piping and vessel materials to work at the higher temperature and pressure required for Brayton cycles to function and get back to me when you’re not busy inventing a fusion powered rocket ship. Yes, Brayton cycles work. No they are not economically feasible. Yes, fossil fuels are unfortunately the most cost effective way to produce high temperature process heat at the moment.

@Th-233 10 күн бұрын

sCO2 power cycles are coming and will improve economics, but even today, MSRs can use the same steam cycles that coal plants do. Even those are a great improvement over the huge and expensive low-temperature nuclear steam cycles, which are a large fraction of plant cost.

@davidanalyst671 21 күн бұрын

I still want a series on India's thorium breeder reactors. They sound badass, they say they have started, but I can't find any details

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

I believe they are trying to do solid-fuel thorium breeders and that is the problem.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@chrisjohns38 The problem is the solid fuel, regardless of uranium or thorium or a mix, the pellets can only go so long before you have to reprocess them all over again. Not so for liquid fuel.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@chrisjohns38 Agreed, fast neutron MSRs are a ways off but thermal spectrum burner MSRs are very close. Terrestrial Energy is 2/3rds through the Canadian regulatory licensing process. Thorcon Power has the go-ahead to build their prototype in Indonesia and Copenhagen Atomics is in negotiations with El Salvador for their first of a kind.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@chrisjohns38 Unfortunately the NRC is pushing new technology or adaptations of older MSR technology overseas.

@chrisjohns38 20 күн бұрын

@@chapter4travels no! ⁠⁠that is not true. They don’t design or license reactors, they do confirmatory reviews and calculation. I was involved with design, licensing, repairs/modifications and operating licensed nuclear power plants and shipping/storage containers. Submit a complete application and you shall get a license. I can tell you first hand that when you hear the argument that the NRC is stopping someone from building a nuclear plant or other licensed product, their stuff is BS. If you want, I’ll find a couple of docketed submittals that I can smell from here!

@jeebusk 16 күн бұрын

even as an engineer who knows more than the average person, this guy is hard to follow. it's more like he's just thinking out loud and not explaining very well or speaking clearly, still it's helpful to hear the names of programs etc.

@sufoguets 13 күн бұрын

Tthey other day I came across a new song called Damaged by October ends , they is gonna blow up soon. React to it ASAP 🔥

@michaelhromanik9753 19 күн бұрын

Thermal Breeder Reactors are possible using Thorium. They are less complex than a Fast Breeder, with the process successfully demonstrated at the Shippingport Reactor in Pennsylvania. However, There was only a 1.4% increase in fissile material from that process. I suspect the low reproduction rate is why this method is not being discussed now. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station

@chapter4travels 21 күн бұрын

or you take the waste and/or millings and utilize them in a molten chloride fast breeder and they make energy until nothing remains. Time for you guys to get past the antiquated and soon to be obsolete PWR world.

@chrisjohns38 21 күн бұрын

It’s not soup yet. INEL is just getting close to seeing if the chloride salts can handle radiation and pretty much nothing has been done regarding corrosion.

@chapter4travels 20 күн бұрын

@@chrisjohns38 Not yet but it is on its way at the usual snail's pace of nuclear. Every MSR start-up, burner, or breeder has a strategy for corrosion. They all learned from the original MSRE. Anti-anything non-PWR folks love to spew out corrosion like it's an impossible barrier that will force us to stick with old-school outrageously expensive PWRs that will never replace fossil fuels.

@davefroman4700 17 күн бұрын

Centralized generation will never compete with renewable and storage. Nuclear is already the most expensive form of generation to build in the world. And in the time it takes to bring a single reactor online? You can install 20x as much renewable and storage, for half the cost. By the end of the decade China will be putting enough renewable and storage into the global market? To be equal to plunking down 15 nuclear power stations, a year.

@michaelhromanik9753 21 күн бұрын

The reality of Fast breeder Reactors is that they can't be kept running. Their "Time On-Line" percentages are horrible. France's SuperPhenix had an Operating Ratio of 14.4%. The Japanese Breeder Reactor's Operating Ratio was close to zero. That's after close to 70 years of trying by every nuclear capable country on the planet. They are just too complex and too hard to maintain without something messing up. Russia is currently operating the only "Commercial" Fast Reactors at above 50%, and they do so by just letting Sodium fires happen. They isolate the fires and just leave the reactor operational. Nobody else on the planet would accept that as a "Standard Operating Procedure."

@Rawdiswar 21 күн бұрын

Reference material?

@michaelhromanik9753 20 күн бұрын

@@Rawdiswar Germany spent $4 Billion on constructing a Fast Breeder that they never operated. It was turned into an amusement park. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNR-300

@waywardgeologist2520 20 күн бұрын

@@michaelhromanik9753 sodium has issue but it isn’t the only material.

@Cougar4ik 20 күн бұрын

@@Rawdiswar There is one interesting video on youtube called "Webinar 024: BN-600 and BN-800 Operating Experience" from "The Generation IV International Forum" channel. According to it Michael is talking nonsense.

@Rawdiswar 20 күн бұрын

@@Cougar4ik Wow thanks

@johnsmedley8843 20 күн бұрын

Nuclear is just rubbish. I walked round nuclear reactors in the UK in 1978, it was dirty , old fashioned even then. Just look at the ongoing costs of Hinkley point C , that will be the most expensive building ever, latest cost estimates £45bn for 2.8 GW. And that not even factoring the decommissioning costs! I know people who make a very lucrative living out of decommissioning nuclear plants, a job for life.

@ANTON_ZHYKOV 11 күн бұрын

Nuclear power plants outside Western countries are significantly cheaper. As an example, the Belarusian nuclear power plant cost $ 6 billion for 2.4 GW and seven years of construction.