Are there any movies of you dancing around in a Bikini on a Beach?

It's your Friendly Nuclearhood Physicists

And you can sit there with a mask on your face like uhm CatWoman

5 million pellets for a 1000 MW plant

_" many fuel pellets do you guestimate"_ - that reminds me of that scene from "Full Monty" movie, in which one of these guys tried to figure out the income of proposed show - "that'll be fifty tickets, times ten quids each, and that'll be... uh... that'll be... a lot" ;-) So my guestimate is A LOT. A quite lot of them, to be precise... : )

The answer to these questions will always be YES!

Any tours showing how it all works in a visual manner would be awesome!

I think she gave a tour of her lab once.

I wonder how she manages to work with those crazy nail's? You definitely won't be in any glove boxes anytime soon with them or if you had to, then you'd be chopping them off.

@@TheManLab7forget work, how does one wipe their ass with those nails

It would be interesting but I'm aware of the basics. Once you have thorium, it is basically nearly 100% Th232. This isotope is the "fuel" but it would need a different kind of enrichment to get the reactor started. Thorium requires one neutron (and some time) to breed from Th232 to U233 and it is U233 that provides the energy from fission when hit by the next neutron. That fission generates new neutrons, but until enough U233 is lying around in the reactor it needs to be boosted initially by something else that generates neutrons. This could be HAELU (just under 20% enriched uranium) or other such fuels. Once the U233 is being bred at a good rate, the added fuel should no longer be needed. The preparation of the thorium to work in the reactor will vary by the reactor itself. A LFTR for example uses fluorine, so before use the thorium and its carrier salt are converted to fluorides (probably using HF). The reactor runs at a high enough temperature that the thorium fluoride and its carrier salt melt, and is used to generate further heat from the nuclear reaction (mentioned earlier regarding U233). Other thorium reactors use it in a solid form (typically mixed with uranium) or as a different salt, such as a chloride reactor (using chlorine rather than fluorine) or any number of other options.

Two reasons for the high cost of nuclear reactors in the United States are one, there is no standard reactor designed that has built up a learning curve. Two, reactors in the United States are designed for a very long lifetime with big upfront Capital costs

Did you say Radon gas smells good? I always thought Radon has no scent.

@@wolpumba4099 Uranium smells good, the ore, fresh from the ground, under in the mine, underground. I was a diamond driller underground, and we could smell it it when we were drilling through high grade ore. Also You could smell the ore from the trucks driving by on the ramps, and the ventilation would blow down into your drift and set your prism to red for 10 minutes, but you'd just wait till it went back to green-yellow. You'd get a smell from the ore they were carrying to surface if they were hauling from a stope that day. And at the end of shift If the wind was blowing the right way, as we came out the portal from the mine the smell would blow right in our faces from the ore piles, you could see it steaming, cause we were up in the north and it was cold. Geology also used to come sniff the core as well, that's how you could do like a quick guestimate of the quality of how good the core was. The more stench it had, the better grade it was lol. Everyone was there sniffing core, it probably wasn't good for you haha.

@@daniellysohirka4258 Interesting!

@@wolpumba4099 The Uranium we were doing was in hard rock mine, they also had soft rock mines where they had to freeze the ground with brine first then blast the rock after, like Cigar Lake and McCarthur River, the only open pit I saw was at McLean Lake for Areva. Butat Rabbit lake we used conventional stope mining, where you put in cable bolts in the foot wall and hanging wall with grout, then you drill all your 360 degree rings down the drift, after the shotcrete guys are done, that provides shielding, because you'll be in the ore zone most likely from a long hole drill, not like a diamond drill, where we can drill from 400 meters away to potentially find veins. Once they drill all through rings they load their cut to the breakthrough, which has bigger holes to make sure the blast does not freeze, and breaks through to the next level. And load probably just 6 rows at a times, as they don't want too much much at once, right. In this mine it's only around 5-7% grade Uranium is what the geologists told us when they would come and probe our holes at the end of hole. We do that because the core could be sent off site. But, the muckers had the wear PAPD or I can't really remember what they were called, but some kind gas masks as they were mucking in the stopes, because of the radiation. And it was freezing underground because of the ventilation. It was over 1 million CFM and there was icicles hanging off the back (which is the roof in underground terms). We always had an alpha dust on our chest to collect uranium dust during shift, a OSLD badge, and Dosimeter to count mSv during our shift, also the Prism at our drills and they were in each Refuge Stations, and Portable Refuge. We also carried on our belt a hard plastic covered case, but inside was an emergency breathing appartis. But it was some type of quick scrubber to get back to safety, if you accidently went into somewhere bad. There were bulkheads put up everywhere, so you knew where not to go.

@@daniellysohirka4258 I asked Gemini to make a summary and a glossary because I didn't quite understand your mining jargon. *Summary* * *Hard Rock Mining:* Employs conventional stope mining techniques for uranium extraction. * *Drilling:* * Long hole drills used in the ore zone for blasting * Potential diamond drilling from up to 400m away for vein location * *Blasting:* Loaded in sections to prevent large amounts of muck at once, breakthrough holes ensure proper blasting. * *Mucking:* Muckers wear protective gear due to radiation exposure. * *Ventilation:* Powerful ventilation systems lead to freezing temperatures underground. * *Radiation Monitoring:* * Alpha dust collectors worn by workers * OSLD badges and Dosimeters track radiation levels * Prism devices located at drills and refuge stations * *Safety measures:* * Emergency breathing apparatus carried by workers. * Bulkheads used to delineate restricted areas. *Glossary* * *Bulkhead:* A wall or barrier built underground to partition a mine * *Cable Bolt:* A long steel bolt used to reinforce rock in underground areas. * *Drift:* A horizontal passageway in an underground mine * *Grout:* A fluid cement-like material used to fill gaps and reinforce structures. * *Muckers:* Miners responsible for removing blasted rock (muck). * *OSLD Badges:* Optically stimulated luminescence dosimeter badges monitor radiation exposure. * *Prism Device:* Radiation monitoring device that potentially measures a variety of factors. * *Shortcrete:* Sprayed concrete, generally used to provide support and lining in mines. * *Stope:* A step-like excavation method used for mineral extraction.

I have a video on this on my channel ⚛️

Great! Thanks . I will watch it.

The majority of U-238 doesn't have all that many uses. There is the experimental chemistry aspect to it, but the labs which work on chemistry of uranium don't use much - I used to work in one of them (I didn't personally work with uranium, but I worked alongside other chemists who did), and the entire lab used less than 100 grams per year. It does find uses in nuclear reactors - the fuel in most civilian power production reactions is mostly U-238, since the fuel rarely requires more than about 5% U-235 enrichment. In a typical reactor using mainly U-235 as the primary fissile isotope, approximately 70% of the energy produced over the lifetime of the fuel comes from fission of U-235, with the remaining 30% coming from a variety of different plutonium isotopes, all of which are fissile. With the exception of MOX (mixed oxide) fuel, the plutonium is not present in the fuel prior to insertion into the reactor, but is created during operation by neutron bombardment of U-238. As the reactor is run, the proportion of plutonium will gradually increase, reaching a maximum when the rate of plutonium fission (which begins as soon as some is produced) becomes equal to the rate at which it is consumed. Reactors using MOX fuel also get roughly the same proportion of their energy from plutonium fission, but have a head start on this since some plutonium oxide is mixed with uranium oxides when the fuel is made, so they start fissioning both U-235 and plutonium right from the start of operation. Then there are fast breeder reactors, which use fuel with far higher U-235 enrichment (about 20%), and do not use neutron moderation, hence the description of fast, which refers to average neutron velocity. The fuel in breeder reactors is still about 80% U-238, but these reactors convert far more of the U-238 into plutonium. They also produce plutonium at a much faster rate than they consume it, which is why they are called breeder reactors. The other nuclear purpose U-238 is used for is as an inertial tamper for some nuclear warhead designs, and as a fission secondary in multi-stage nuclear weapons: These weapons use a conventional plutonium or highly enriched (80% or more) U-235 fission weapon to create the temperatures necessary to ignite a relatively small amount of nuclear fusion fuel. This contributes some of the explosive energy but more importantly releases large numbers of very high velocity neutrons, much faster than the neutrons produced in any nuclear reactor. These high velocity neutrons have such a large amount of energy that they cause any U-238 present to fission, and the large number of them ensures that almost all the U-238 present will fission. So the fusion fuel effectively catalyses the fission of U-238 in a highly efficient way, which then contributes most of the explosive energy of the weapon. Non-nuclear uses for depleted uranium (U-238) tend to involve its high density, since it is far more dense than lead. One use you probably have heard of is for high density kinetic penetrator rounds for artillery guns, specifically armour piercing rounds for anti-tank guns. The acronym used for such rounds is APFSDS, which stands for Armour Piercing, Fin Stabilising, Discarding Sabot: They are essentially a narrow, sharp pointed solid depleted uranium dart-shaped projectile, with flight stabilising fins at the base, fired from a smoothbore gun barrel (the stabilising fins make it fly straight without needing to spin while in flight, so a rifled barrel is not necessary), with a detachable sabot or spacer which allows the dart to be fired from a much larger calibre gun with more propulsive power, the sabot falling away shortly after the round exits the barrel. The armour piercing effect is partially due to the sheer density of the solid uranium dart, but this is also enhanced by the other physical properties of the uranium metal: It is much harder than lead, and is also pyrophoric - when subjected to friction with other hard materials, it spontaneously ignites, literally burning its way through armour plating and acting as an incendiary, setting fire to any flammable materials it hits, such as anything inside a tank or other armoured vehicle it is fired at.

They spin really fast. The gas inside goes supersonic, it's something like tornado times 1000.

"Serious consequences" citation needed.

This is true, but what is important is how many times more energy you get OUT of the fuel vs the preparation put into it. This is known as EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested or Input). Nuclear power has such a high density of energy output, that even though the reactors only use about 5% of the fuel put in them (about 95% is "waste" and removed to be put in a cooling pond, then put in cask storage), the EROEI is still about 75x. Newer reactor designs and fuels could do even better but ~75x is one of the highest numbers you can get and the highest when talking about reliable output (wind can hit 75x, but it isn't reliable since it depends on the wind).

Nuclear is dirt cheap when you take the cost/time/challenges of building the bloody reactor itself. Once they are up and running they generally work silently and effortless for 60,70,80+ years... Ontario is principally nuclear powered and it's only expanding it's fleet... Bruce is one of the largest nuclear sites in the world and Pickering and Darlington are nothing to sneeze at either!

@@LFTRnowI often think how "silly" it is to haul oil, diesel with diesel truck to various places... nuclear fuel has minimal problem in this as energy density is so high per kg. People will likely use EROEI 1:1 still but cant build any industry for that, only for moving produce to more remote locations for people to use.

I was just thinking something. How hard would it be to make a small reactor that could run on 10-20 pellets that could power a whole home for 5-10 year? And another thing. How much would it thake to make a nuclear bomb from thies pellets? Theres alot of countryes who have nuclear power bot no bombs. Not that i wish for more of them. More of interest of how hard it would be if they wantet to. Thank you for another great video Elina. Looking forward to the next one.

@@Funnyboy2402I thought of same, small reactors (SMR) could over time get to house size scale. Nuclear bombs need from 5% to enrich to 80-90% so that is very hard to do. Enrichment to 5% is already pretty challenging process with many steps in this video.

Why for Biden?

Now do the same set of calculations using unrefined U238 in a fast neutron, molten salt breeder reactor.

The U-235 is fossil, however the U-238 will absorb a neutron and become Plutonium 239.

@@vikingsoftpaw Thinking about when a fission occurs it puts out 3 neutrons. So there is a statistical chance of converting U-238 to Pt 239. So you probably get an eventual slightly positive drift in fuel as per being fissile There is also the issue of what generates the initial neutrons that I guess have to hit other U-235s or Pt 239s?

You can and it's called a nuclear device. The electron energy will immediately decay into a lot of heat that is sometimes used to trigger a fusion reaction

@@mikefallwell1301 a lot of heat ??

@@igorbarsowski2380 considerably more than the core of the Sun

​@@mikefallwell1301 Well, the beautiful thing is that they generate heat and then use this heat to heat water so that the steam turns the turbines. Then the steam rotates the magnets and coils in a rolling motion to create an electric current. Well, my question is next: Is there another technology to transform electrons in atomic nuclei into the rapid movement of electrical energy without generating heat ? without the need to generate steam and without the need to rotate magnetic fields ?

I'm fairly sure that uranium (at any state of enrichment) has never been used in any RTGs. It simply isn't suitable, because the half life is far too long, meaning it is nowhere near radioactive enough to generate the kind of heat required to make RTGs work. The isotopes used for that need to have a half life measured in a few tens of years: The RTGs used on long duration space probes (such as the Voyager and Cassini probes) use plutonium-238, which has a half life of 88 years, since this is short enough to make reasonably large pellets of plutonium metal (or sometimes plutonium oxide) glow red hot if well insulated. This is enough to make reliable RTGs which can operate for several decades - the Voyager probes were launched in the 1970s and are still sending signals back to earth today. The next most common isotope used for RTGs is strontium-90, which has a half life of about 29 years: This has not been used for RTGs powering space probes, but the Soviet Union constructed many RTGs of this type to power radio transmitters in remote northern lighthouses, which was the only practical method for producing consistent power output during the 6 months of darkness of the arctic winter. The RTGs used for this were much smaller than the plutonium versions used in spacecraft, with a much lower output of about 10 watts, though they could provide this consistently for several years, which after all was the whole point.

no

it is actually pretty easy to make one, the difficult part is getting it to not trigger until you actually want to fire it