The thing is, nuclear waste is already an extremely low concern. It’s really not that bad and only creates problems on rare occasions. We should work towards more energy efficient reactors, not waste efficient ones.

Shocked but not shocked that financing/interest costs are overwhelmingly the largest barrier to new nuclear. Maybe we need a global non-profit nuclear corporation to be created that can roll out advanced nuclear to where it's needed first, coal-intensive countries that need to rapidly shift their power production to carbon free...? ;-)

I can't describe how exciting it was to find you doing a video on thorium reactors! Very few people explain things as easily as you do

One thing people do is often conflate molten salt reactors with Thorium fueled reactors, MSR's can run with any fissile fuel, including U235 and Plutonium, we could run them with "spent" nuclear fuel to breed Plutonium.

Looks like someone improved his 3D modelling skills again 😄. Thanks for the informative video

Hes back. And just when we needed him most

Elysium Industries molten salt fast reactor is the greatest reactor i have seen around. Please look it up. Its brilliant.

Bro why do u not have more subs like this content is so good

Your channel deserves so much more recognition. Thanks!

these videos are incredible. I have no background in any of this but you explain it very well. The animations look so good and are very helpful

You forgot to mention that, while they use slow neutrons, thorium breeders produce significantly less high-level waste just due to their lower atomic mass. And using fast neutron reactors to burn high-level waste is promising also.

Wow this is an excellent review and explanations of reactors! 🙌🏼

It's been a while! Great to see a new episode from one of the greatest channels!

You are a pillar in the KZfaq scientific community. Thank you for putting these videos out.

Best science channel ever, and good to see the quality of your videos are improving as well

Keep these videos coming

Amazing video on thorium nuclear energy. Thank you.

Love your content!

Thank you for all this important information and the nice animations that make it better to understand. Within a few years we will know a lot more because many different ideas are studied and treid out for example in Canada.

Sam o nella once told me thorium is a pretty cool guy

Nicely done 👍

I love your videos, best on YT

Thank you so much for this video! It gave a great introduction to the topic for those that don't quite know it well, but had some very useful insights into the deeper mechanics, such as the absorption/fission ratios! I am interning at the Wendelstein Fusion plant, and a lot of what I can see there is telling me that it just won't be ready in time to have a meaningful impact. Your video has sparked interest in me to pursue MSRs as a potential career path again, because it sounds MUCH more feasible to extract the Pa-233 from the salts than to ever get fusion to work. And goodness we need new energy sources ASAP...

Superb video !

Excellent video

Thanks for this well balanced video about nuclear power.

Great video! 🙏👍

I think I need to watch this video about 3 times, before I can understand everything said. But I'm happy to do so :D

11:18-11:50 and that is ladies and gentlemen one of the simplest inditement of capitalism. Very clear, societal goals will always be an afterthought to the profit motive. It's a great video btw accurate to the details and explains it quite well to the layman. One more thing, as far as I know at least in the case of a LFTR the plan is to use fluoride volatility for the seperation of Pa from U due to the fact that uranium has higher oxidation states available while Protactinium does not, and they also have a significant difference in phase state under chemical processing conditions (protactinium tetrafluoride is liquid while the uranuim hexafluoride is a gas at that temperature and pressure) which makes the separation a somewhat simple process.

Honestly, i want Gordon McDowell to do an update to his excellent megadocumentary on thorium, featuring these excellent explanations. Previously, i've been lead to believe that separating out the protactinium was a not-quite-that-hard chemical problem, where one proposed solution was to exploit the different properties of... something-heptaflouride and something-hexaflouride. If you have even more to share on the topic of advanced nuclear, i'd LOVE to hear it. These videos are great.

There are quite a few companies working on MSRs using the U/Pu fuel cycle - this will be a much easier way forward to real world reactors.

I'm so excited for thorium reactors.

This is the thorium video I've been waiting for... so much "thorium is perfect", "thorium is useless" videos on KZfaq. I've been waiting for an informed technical discussion of the pros and cons.

but why: smart enough to gain graduate-level understanding in multiple scientific fields and effectively communicate that knowledge me: yes the floor here is made of floor

I love your videos

So cool

Excellent video! Btw, are you animating metaballs? It is what it looks like and I'm just curious.

I like the animations.

Note about 10:00 in: if you're already experiencing problems with reactor core coolant being exposed to air ... dissolving your fuel into that coolant will result in radionuclides being exposed to open air -- ie. your coolant is now radioactive.

I was introduced to thorium by salmonella and I can finally see how they probably work

Worth getting in my nuclear energy playlist.

Oh yeah, a new "But Why?" video is out! :D

I like nuclear power, it's clean and safe. But I don't go for Thorium because the intermediate stage between Th232 and U233 is Pa233 which has a half life 10 times longer than Neptunium 239 and therefore it takes 10 times longer to breed U233 from Th232 as compared with breeding Pu239 from U238. It's not something that can be engineered around. India has a project to build a fleet of Thorium reactors as they have lots of Thorium. 50 years ago It was projected to take 70 years, it's still in its early stages. Because we need to switch to non-fossil fuels quickly then investment is better directed to wind and solar.

There is plenty more fast reactors then just NaK and Salt/Sodium. There is also Helium and Lead. Its also a bit more complicated than reactors are just thermal and fast. With reactors that is traditionally thermal have some fast spectrum, specially so for say like SCWR reactors. Then there also exist plug in fuel cell. Sort of a upgrade for old reactors. Those already exist, but are not in use (well possibly in India). the main reason they are not in use is that due to how regulation works they are not economical.

What happened to the video about electronegativity? I loved that one

Hello! Thanks for this comprehensive review. Thorium reactors tend to have either fans or complete dismissal, so it is good to have something objective that covers all aspects. Do you have a twitter account?

de broglie is pronounced de broy Always pog to see nuclear love

Ok if u want to use sodium as coolant the reactor room must filled with non reactive atmosphere but in such a environment for repairs or emergency will be interesting. Floride salt coolant will need a miracle material for its pipes.

And that, boys and girls, is why we will fuel our molten fueled and molten salt cooled 4G reactors with recycled water fuel, initially from Canadian CANDU reactors. One you have that going, you can spend the money you made into the new Thorium fuel cycle.

Flige Energy has solved the problem of the Thermal Salt Reactor. The Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor looks to be ready for production by Kirk Sorenson of Flibe Energy.

I hope they figure it out. With that kid of energy we could power co2 scrubbers and electrolysers to make carbon neutral synthetic hydro carbon fuels out of the air for planes, trains, boats and automobiles with no necessary modifications. Redefining the whole definition of energy sector. That would ruffle some feathers though if any country couldmake its own hydro carbon energy though wouldn't it?

can you make a video about nuclear fusion please? There are quite a few very promising fusion projects these days such as Helion and SPARC/commonwealth fusion. We seem to finally be somewhat closer than '30 years away'.

Proposed Thorium reactors will be more efficient converting U238 to plutonium due to the cross section of U238. They could also tailor the salt for preferred mix. The extra production of transuranics is less of a concern to nascent bomb producers.

7:16 de broccoli wave???

But, u234 captures thermal neutrons to become, TaDa U235, which IS fissionable, so I fail to see the problem here and wonder why you excluded this tiny detail?

The future looks bright, cherenkov bright.

I like the videos but do have to say the sequence could reasonably be interpreted as based on a negative attitude vs a balanced attitude to Thorium: odd way order of presenting the information especially as molten salt reactor advocates don't want to use solid fuel, but chemically and in-line process to remove Protactinium. Molten salt fuels were mentioned, but not till 9:45 minutes or so.

The more you know! 🌈🌟

U233 is a gamma source, rather than U-235 which is an alpha source...which means handling U233 is a major problem...

Should method Change without water, direct generat electric

Of the six proposed fourth-generation nuclear reactor types, the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) is the only type with high fuel efficiency, no danger of explosion, and does not generate substantial amounts of plutonium. The fissile uranium-233 produced by the MSR is difficult to use for weapons because of the presence of highly radioactive uranium-232. While other Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) can serve as a short-term solution, MSRs are considered a more promising mid-term solution due to their potential to address these issues more comprehensively. Hopefully, we will have fusion by the time we run out of uranium and thorium. With the molten salt reactor, 7.5 million tons of uranium will be exhausted in a thousand years at an annual consumption of 7500 tons. Using thorium will extend it by a couple of thousand years. The differences between Light Water Reactors (LWR) and Thorium Molten Salt Reactors (TMSR) are significant in fuel utilization and waste production. LWRs use approximately 0.5-1% of uranium fuel, leading to the generation of long-lived radioactive waste due to inefficient energy conversion and the use of enriched uranium. In contrast, TMSRs can achieve fuel efficiency of up to 98%. This is achieved by converting fertile thorium-232 into fissile uranium-233, substantially reducing waste production and more manageable radioactive waste. Uranium Molten Salt Reactors (UMSR) will produce more plutonium but are just as effective as TMSRs. 940 kg of natural thorium in a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) can generate 1 gigawatt (GW) of electricity for one year. In comparison, generating the same amount of energy in a Light Water Reactor (LWR) would require mining 210 tons of uranium. In an MSR, the storage requirement for 83 percent of the spent fuel is 10 years, and 300 years for the remaining 17 percent, whereas in an LWR, 24.44 tons of spent fuel need reprocessing and storage for 200,000 years. MSRs can utilize the spent fuel from LWRs. A coal power station will need to burn 3.5 million tons of coal and emit 10 million tons of carbon dioxide to produce the same amount of energy for one year. That amount of coal contains 3 to 14 tons of uranium, 3 to 14 tons of thorium, and an average of 84 tons of arsenic. MSRs can adjust power output to match electricity demand, thanks to the inherent and automatic load-following capability provided by the fluid nature of the molten salt coolant. A key safety feature of MSR is that it automatically adjusts to prevent overheating. This is achieved through a "negative thermal reactivity coefficient," which means that as the temperature rises, the reactor's reactivity decreases, preventing a runaway chain reaction. Additionally, the MSR has a "negative void reactivity coefficient," ensuring that the reactivity decreases if there is a loss of coolant or boiling, preventing potential overheating. These safety measures help keep the reactor stable and safe under various conditions. Looking ahead to 2040, China plans to deploy Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) for desalination of seawater, district heating or cooling, hydrogen production, powering of ships equipped with thermoacoustic Stirling generators, and power plants with supercritical carbon dioxide turbines within its borders and globally. In the Earth's crust, thorium is nearly four times more abundant than uranium. Every atom of natural thorium can be harnessed, unlike natural uranium, where only 1 out of every 139 atoms can be used. China produces thorium as a byproduct of its rare earth processing. Similar to the trends observed with solar and wind technologies, MSR costs are anticipated to decrease with the scaling up of production and the development of robust supply chains.

Why can't we use gallium in fast reactors? it's pretty unreactive and has a low melting point (26 degrees celsius or something)

Ah yes, science, something I definitely understand.

After these next generation reactors come online we need to build multipurpose reactors ones that can make red hydrogen and produce power for a given area. Thus supplying stored energy and On demand energy. When the grid isn't needed it can be used to create hydrogen at an increased rate. Effectively storing the nuclear energy that was going to go to waste anyways while idle at low power draw when demand is low. But I do believe for a great deal of large and medium size off line power needs, hydrogen is going to overtake battery especially when resources are going to become harder to get a hold of with coming skirmishes and wars. Hydrogen power and burning uses far less precious metals and far less needs to be especially recycled at end of life. I believe the Japanese are ahead of the rest of the world in red hydrogen.

@6:27, if talking about "mass of thorium on Earth" you should take the full earth's crust mass (~3x10^18 tons) and multiply by ppm (12 ppm or 1.2x10-5). That gives about 3.6 x 10^13 or 36 TRILLION tons (not "6.35 million tons"). I expect you used the "reserves" numbers, but reserves change based on price of the material and its volume of consumption. The world USES very little thorium, so the reserves are far lower than what is really on Earth. Also, Thorium is found in PERCENT quantities (~10%) in monazite sands, which is where rare earth elements come from (those needed by high technology, such as neodymium for motors and generators). That thorium is actually a WASTE product of the mining and so we would have access to massive amounts of thorium if we just consumed even that much. In any case, if you then combine thorium on earth with burnup-rate you are well into the millions/billions of years. We won't run out.

Thorium and fast reactors are the future!!!!

It's refreshing to see a realistic video on fission. I will upset a lot of people but the Thorium/MSR fanboys and girls believe everything these MSR companies are selling. These things need way too much regulatory oversight and materials development to be practical in the short term. As this video shows Uranium solid fuel is understood. The newer TRISO solid fuel is a lot safer than the solid fuel in Gen 1-3 reactors AND it is already licensed. Kairos Power and X-Energy use TRISO and their reactor designs don't require exotic, and unlicensed, materials. I'm guessing they will be the first to become reality and the MSR companies will continue to raise money for their very long R&D programs. I think this is the actual business model of some of these MSR companies.

Salmonella academy made a great video on this

what is 'fizzle'?

I am actually working at a nuclear experiment lab working on salt reactor research right now

There needs to be a lot more research into newer and cleaner reactors but it's never funded...

1:30 I think you forgot americium 242 and instead have two times americium 241.

The technology we have no took decades and centuries to perfect. everyone writes off strange new tech way too fast.

I kinda just realize even today with nuclear energy we still use it to boil water to spin turbine. I wonder how much energy is wasted in that process (considering water's high heat capacity) and is there a more direct way to harness the energy directly.

I have 3 words for you: Solar freaking roadways

The current BWR nuclear reactor designs are built to create weapons-grade plutonium; the electricity they produce is just a sideline.

WE JUST CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!

If it isn't energy making the world go 'round, it's money.

You unlike public school, Teach Physics Poetically!!!

The trouble with cheap energy is that it's hard to produce profitably.

U-235 is already great. The current gen reactors are already great. Don't hold out for perfect when really good already exists.

Great video. 👏👍 You sound like Bill Gates at his younger days.🙂

"Molten Salt Reactors and the Prospect of Limitless Clean Energy" There fixed it for you, thorium has got nothing to do with it.

President Nixon scuttled the Oak Ridge molten salt thorium reactor program in the early 1970's in favor of a fast breeder reactor. It sounds like you want us to make the same mistake today.

Fission energy will only last for a few billion years with our current uranium reserves so we should try to switch to nuclear fusion asap.

fizzle

Why not just find the fundamental frequency of the element then design a radio to tune into it. This isn't my idea in fact the man who proved rhis also that a inverse wave form at a higher impulse amplitude nullifies radioactivity

I would probably need a solid 20 hours of research to understand everything you said here

There is no logical reason why we aren’t using molten salts. They can be used both as a burner and breeder reactor. We could easily burn nuclear “waste” from old fuel cells, while having the safest design that has ever been developed in nuclear technologies. With the most efficient method for fuel distribution burn up. Molten salt all the way!

There is a private, capitalist solution on its way. Go read about Moltex Energy. Their goal, build a molten fueled, molten salt cooled, Small Modular Reactor who's startup and running costs are lower than a combined cycle gas plant who's design does _not_ require any new Nuclear Steels to be designed, tested and approved but the IAEA and the rest of the world's national nuclear safety and regulation bodies. Let's say that again: _A Molten Salt SMR that uses no New Nuclear Steels and is cheaper to build and operate than a combined cycle gas plant._ And the first one will be built in Canada before 2030. Go 🇨🇦 and 🇬🇧 Go!

I find it weird that most of Nuclear energy is extracted by boiling water. Surely there's a more efficient way but idk?

Use co2 instead of water to spin a turbine

Minute 17.

Never say limitless, that's a lie the fusioneers tell.

Fission is a waste of time and an endless rabbit hole of problems. Fusion may work out some day but now money needs to go to improving photovoltaic and battery technology.

whatever nuclear fuel cycle you can think of, the power generating scheme is still based on James Watt design= heat water under pressure, expand the steam through a turbine/piston/Stirling/whatever, condense the low pressure steam. Repeat. The trouble with this is it only uses the energy of the steam. The energy used to boil the water in the first place is WASTED, and that accounts for about 60% of the energy provided by the reactor. Then you get the nuclear reaction by products. EPA and DOT have written thousands of pages (killing a lot of trees in the process) on how these wastes should be stored/transported/disposed of. There is no limitless clean energy. To make the concrete-steel structures to house the reactor, you need to pour CO2 into the atmosphere, as limestone is turned into Portland cement, and iron ore is turned into steel. Then there is the huge amount of Diesel fuel used by the trucks and bulldozers at the construction site. Then there are the thousands of gallons of gasoline from the company's lawyers cars going back and forth from City Hall, Sacramento, Washington to work out the permits, taking city, state, federal officials to dinner...CLEAN energy? give me a break!

U

If solar electric plants are less expensive than the nuclear plants, why we digging to this rather than energy storage? Seems dumb.

Fluoride ions are oxidizers? Tell me you havent studied chemistry without telling me you havent studied chemistry. 🙄

thorium mod from terraria