Kairos Power: 1st US Gen IV Reactor Construction Approval - February 2024

Kairos Power: 1st US Gen IV Reactor Construction Approval - February 2024 | NUCLEAR NEWS

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5 ай бұрын

This is Kairos Power's Hermes test reactor. It is a Generation IV reactor which in this case means it's a TRISO fueled, graphite moderated, fluoride salt-cooled, high temperature reactor, and it just got approval for construction in the United States. Let's check it out.
References:
Goldberg, S. M., and Rosner R., "Nuclear Reactors: Generation to Generation," American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2011.
Farkas, G., "From Gen I to Gen III," inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLC...
[1] "Fuel Rod" (flickr.com/photos/69383258@N0...) by Nuclear Regulatory Commission (www.flickr.com/people/6938325...) is licensed under CC by 2.0.
[2] Felts, M., "TRISO Fuels", Gen IV International Forum, 2019, www.gen-4.org/gif/upload/docs...
[3] U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, "TRISO Particles: The Most Robust Nuclear Fuel on Earth," www.energy.gov/ne/articles/tr...

Пікірлер: 59

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

CLARIFICATION: While this reactor uses molten salt coolant, it is not in fact a Molten Salt Reactor where the fuel and moderator are dissolved in the coolant. This reactor features discrete uranium TRISO fuel graphite pebbles with a molten salt coolant. This reactor also does not breed nor does it burn actinide waste. My apologies for the confusion and not including a schematic or layout of the reactor. See a schematic here: kairospower.com/technology/

@shawnnoyes4620 2 ай бұрын

Could the Kairos Power use TRISO Deep Burn Fuel -> Under the DOE Deep Burn program TRISO fuel is being investigated as a fuel form for consuming plutonium and minor actinides, and for greater efficiency in uranium utilization. The result will thus be to drive TRISO particulate fuel to very high burn-ups. In the current effort the various phenomena in the TRISO particle are being modeled using a variety of techniques.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 2 ай бұрын

@@shawnnoyes4620 That is a question beyond my expertise, unfortunately. Do you have a link you could share about TRISO Deep Burn? It sounds quite interesting. I know TRISO has some issues with very high burnups and fuel particles starting to fail, but I couldn't tell you more than that.

@entropyachieved750 5 ай бұрын

Exciting. It's the cleanest reliable energy we have

@DarkAgeTM 5 ай бұрын

Nice. Happy to hear there's more development and research done with nuclear energy.

@matthayward7889 5 ай бұрын

So interesting, and clearly explained. Thank you!

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

you're welcome! and thank you!

@calgarytek 5 ай бұрын

Well explained, thank you!

@jaxman1235 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for your thorough explaination! You always have a way of making technical things very understandable. Exciting times to live in. Keep up the great work.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

You're welcome! Exciting indeed, thanks so much.

@awesium4077 5 ай бұрын

The fact that it is a molten salt reactor with fluoride salt shows that some of the problems with LFTRs had to be solved, like coolant corrosion. After this, other problems, like u-232 gamma emission will need to be solved before LFTRs are made. Also, I tried to come up with my own reactor idea: a plutonium fast breeder reactor that uses supercritical CO2 as both a coolant and turbine working fluid. The reasoning behind this is that CO2 is inert, preventing the need for a bunch of loops that lower thermodynamic efficiency, unlike with molten metal coolant, and that sCO2 has better thermal properties than gaseous CO2 due to being more dense, and it also is more efficient as a working fluid.

@ravener96 4 ай бұрын

You get the mobility and pressure issues of water reactors though, and the risk of decomposing the coolant into carbon slag and free oxygen, but idk what temp that starts at.

@datman6266 5 ай бұрын

I still can't wrap my head around of how these new fuel cells look, how salt loop works, or how you swap fuel.. like how does this even look like?

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

whoops that is my fault for not including a schematic of this. it's not toooo much different than a current PWR layout, this isn't a molten salt reactor, just a reactor with molten salt coolant. but yes how you get the fuel in this while online is a good question. here's Kairo's webpage showing some of it kairospower.com/technology/

@thewindowsexperience489 5 ай бұрын

This is incredibly exciting!

@JonatanGronoset 5 ай бұрын

Woo! Nuclear advancements!

@Whatever_works 5 ай бұрын

Hi Charlie!

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

hello!

@Specialist1Aim 4 ай бұрын

Any news on fusion energy, great channel

@TheAtomicAgeCM 4 ай бұрын

thank you! we got a ways to go on fusion, can't count on it coming any time soon

@Specialist1Aim 4 ай бұрын

@@TheAtomicAgeCM excellent channel I like watching

@shawnnoyes4620 2 ай бұрын

google fission suppressed fusion hybrid Wally Manheimer or youtube "Wallace Manheimer: Fusion and Fusion Breeding | Tom Nelson Pod #185"

@MrWils25 5 ай бұрын

Has a timetable been projected for commercial power production with this technology? Also, what’s your shirt say? Couldn’t see anything below the second line.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

According to their website, they have "...the goal of a U.S. demonstration plant before 2030 and a rapid deployment thereafter." So, this test reactor I don't think is the demonstration plant, that would be the next one they build. Oh, my shirt says "You matter. Unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared. Then, you energy" hehe, it's a Neil DeGrasse Tyson quote.

@justinthomas7222 5 ай бұрын

Fluoride Salt? I wonder which salt. Fluorite is pretty plentiful, I think... Or maybe the stuff they put in our toothp- I jest! 🤣 Seriously though, good to see some progress on this front; while I think we need to keep diverse energy sources on hand (including limited fossil fuel use), nuclear absolutely needs to be on the table.

@philippatek3928 5 ай бұрын

Curious.. if they were to use molten sodium… would there still be any water pipes going near it for the steam creation? Because we’ve all seen the KZfaq videos of people throwing sodium chunks in rivers 🤣 just thinking on it a pipe ruptured and the two came in contact..

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

so that would be for liquid sodium metal. a liquid sodium metal reactor has the reactor loop interface with a secondary liquid sodium or molten salt loop that then interfaces with the steam loop. if there were a molten sodium salt reactor, a sodium salt does not explode on contact with water - sodium salt and sodium metal are two different things.

@warrenfindley6331 4 ай бұрын

Cool video. It sounds like you’re tired of talking about Chernobyl. 😂

@TheAtomicAgeCM 4 ай бұрын

haha with regard to this video, I felt it had to be mentioned but it's not relevant otherwise. In general, I find the topic fascinating but yes I do not want to get pigeon holed into being a Chernobyl channel. I also don't find the topic as.. perhaps complicated or mysterious as many people may think it to be. something like Chernobyl was kind of inevitable with a bad nuclear safety culture and a bad reactor design. Inevitable may be too strong a word but definitely not that surprising that it blew up. And then add the fact that I am also in no way an expert on Chernobyl. I read papers and such about the accident so I could make the later videos of that reaction series more valuable and less "reactionary" shall we say, but I'm definitely in the role of scientific translator/communicator and not someone who is doing original research on Chernobyl.

@martylost167 5 ай бұрын

Where in Oak Ridge are they going to build it? Former K25 site or ORNL or ?

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

The East Tennessee Technology Park, which is the former site of K-33. I'm not familiar with much of Oak Ridge other than ORNL and the general direction of Y-12 from ORNL. kairospower.com/tennessee/

@martylost167 5 ай бұрын

K-33 is part of the Oak Ridge K-25 site if people want to read about K-25. The K-25 building is gone and they are in the final phase of chasing the radiation for an all clear and clean. @@TheAtomicAgeCM

@TheLukeMcknight 4 ай бұрын

I heard a really interesting piece on BBC Radio 4 on Sellafield. I'd never heard of it, but it seems absolutely fascinating. It's been in operation since the 1940s. Produced plutonium for the UK's nuclear deterrent programme. Has produced nuclear power. But now all that's happening there is remediation and clean-up. It's like an object lesson in failing to plan ahead. It seems like the perfect topic for a future video. I'd be interested to hear your insights and thoughts on it.

@ravener96 4 ай бұрын

Sellafield is an example of half a century plus of criminal negligence. They have had several nuclear accidents, and even some planned actions could just as well be classed as nuclear accidents. Their waste disposal is basically to pulp whatever you want to get rid of into a slurry and pipe it into the ocean.

@umfuturopossivel2137 4 ай бұрын

What about the LFTR (Liquid Fluorid Thorium Reactor)?

@TheAtomicAgeCM 3 ай бұрын

what about it would you like to know?

@umfuturopossivel2137 3 ай бұрын

I watched almost all Kirk Soresen's videos, but how feasible is that?

@TheAtomicAgeCM 3 ай бұрын

@@umfuturopossivel2137 i haven't seen his videos and i haven't looked into the concept deeply, but in theory, there's nothing wrong with it. in practice, it's a stretch. there's basically no infrastructure for thorium right now, everything is uranium. there haven't been any commercial breeder reactors in the US. and a molten salt reactor has never been done commercially either. it's generally advisable to try just one new thing with a new engineering project, but this reactor would be trying three major new things. also, when it comes to breeding, why do we have to breed thorium? we can breed uranium into plutonium and achieve the same goal - although plutonium breeding is not presently politically feasible (plutonium most often means bombs)

@californiumblog 5 ай бұрын

YAY MSRs!

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

unfortunately not an MSR, just molten salt coolant. but this is a big yay regardless!

@hankrearden5460 Ай бұрын

You didn't mention the CANDU reactors

@TheAtomicAgeCM Ай бұрын

this isn't a video about candu reactors. oh I understand what you're saying. the generations thing wasn't meant to be an exhaustive list

@patrickptmonk8673 5 ай бұрын

We need more cost conscious nuclear reactors. Governments will never approve multi-billion dollar plant projects. Is there like a SpaceX of nuclear reactors? (A company trying to change the industry by removing bureaucracy and the high costs associated with it)

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

kairos power is a startup and has the goal of being lean in reactor development. however, I'm not sure there can be an exact analog to SpaceX in nuclear - I'm not at all familiar with the regulatory requirements for rockets, but all reactors need to be approved by the NRC. there's so much more to it than that but gives you an idea.

@HNedel 5 ай бұрын

To have that, the equivalent of NASA (NCR?) needs to have a competition to achieve certain goals. Like commercial crew and cargo programs - nasa said we need a new spacecraft that will be this cheap, provide it and you will get money. SpaceX was just one of the contestants. This approach reduced the cost of launches by more than half. This is the biggest red flag when people talk about nuclear - it’s too expensive, see the costs of Hinkley Point and the french EPR projects… well duh, it is expensive. But it’s like saying space flight is too expensive, look at the shuttle, it cost a billion dollars per launch and blew up twice. But there are cheaper and better alternatives now.

@shanewilson2484 5 ай бұрын

Why use molten salt as the heat transfer fluid rather than helium that is proposed for most of these TRISO ball type designs?

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

that's a good question. I just spent a little time researching, and helium cooled plants are limited in how big they can get. molten salt is more efficient at transferring heat than helium, so this FHR design is not limited to SMR sizes, you could make this FHR into larger reactor designs, too. www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2016/03/f30/QTR2015-4J-High-Temperature-Reactors.pdf

@shanewilson2484 5 ай бұрын

@@TheAtomicAgeCM I suspect that super hot molten salt is going to be a lot more wearing on those balls than super hot inert helium gas. Thank you for the link.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

i'm not a materials guy, but i would think the balls would be fine either way. they don't stay in the reactor for too too long either compared to a PWR/BWR fuel assembly

@shanewilson2484 5 ай бұрын

@@TheAtomicAgeCM Thanks for the feedback.

@umfuturopossivel2137 4 ай бұрын

People need to understand: nuclear power is green.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 3 ай бұрын

literally!

@SubvertTheState 5 ай бұрын

No way. Fuel pebble bed, MSR? Here's to a successful, power generating, economically lucrative, waste burning design!

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

well it does technically have molten salt coolant but it's not a molten salt reactor, that implies the fuel is dissolved in the coolant. But yes, best of luck to them! (this design can't burn waste either, unfortunately lol sorry if i burst any bubbles).

@HNedel 5 ай бұрын

Waste burning (and actually breeding of fissile material) is a major factor for a sustainable nuclear future, there should be a special nomenclature to differentiate it, like Gen IV+ or Gen V. I still don’t see the benefits of SMRs, they are just smaller, not really that cheap, and don’t solve many of the problems of existing reactors.

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

@@HNedel the hope with SMRs is that they can be more like a mass produced thing. almost all previous US reactors were custom, one-off designs. so the idea of building them in factories and smaller sizes that don't need the exclusion areas of large PWR/BWR reactors is hypothesized to bring down cost. that needs to be demonstrated, of course. i tend to be of the mind that there are no silver bullets. I think there could be a place for them (especially in industrial process heat which accounts for something like 1/5-1/4th of the US total carbon emissions) but I don't think they'll be the entire solution.

@peterolsen9131 5 ай бұрын

why are they deliberately avoiding the original design and concept that WORKED and try new configurations and materials instead of this half molten salt half pebble bed solid fuel mongerel and the safety of the original with it

@TheAtomicAgeCM 5 ай бұрын

the original what? the MSRE? this is a brand new design called an FHR. The MSRE was included in the video just because it used FLiBe, not because this FHR is an MSR, which it's not