I support that proposal 😁 Really an interesting series. You once mentioned 6 types of Gen IV reactors. While I heard of some I'm not sure to know of all six variants. Would like to learn on that.

I say skip to Gen V Funnel every penny being spent on frivolous fusion power into fission power. ya don't gotta be a rocket scientist to understand Lawson's criteria. It will be decades of it'll be here in thirty years before they admit defeat. Build us an SMR 500 megawatt thermal output that fits in a 40 foot hi-cube shipping container with a service life of 20 years so you can roll as many as needed to retrofit the current coal and natural gas turbogenerators at power stations and start enjoying that zero CO2 NO2 SO2 emissions nooclear goodness in the next five years. 😂

I'd love to hear more too, Elina. Also, in the UK I know highly radioactive waste is combined with glass (or at least it's called vitrification?) - would that affect its ability to be reprocessed into a future fuel as you mentioned?

I too want to hear more about this. I've been pro-nuclear all my life. I was born in the sixties and saw the disasters but I believe it is more efficient and less environmentally impacting than the other technologies

The gen 4 reactors are concept reactors and all have POTENTIAL technological advantages. But realize the same exact thing can be said of fusion

Франции не удалось справиться с управлением реактором Супер Феникс. Выступали зелёные. И даже был терракт против реактора.

Since no one has responded yet... It is quite simple. If the uranium enrichment (% of easily fissable uranium U-235) is naturally high enough uranium can sustain a nuclear chain reaction as long as there is a moderator like a graphite rod (Tsernobyl) or water (gen 2-3), as in the case of Okla. The moderator slows the neutrons down enough that they don't simply bounce off the uranium, but is absorbed splitting the Uranium, releasing fission products and even more free neutrons to hit other fissile Uranium atoms. As long as there is moderator (water) and the good Uranium concentration % stays at inside the sweet spot range the chain reaction can keep on happening naturally without any human involment. The reason Okla is so special, is that unlike in Okla most other natural Uranium deposits we know of did not have high enough % of this "good" easily fissile Uranium with the proper conditions to naturally start and continue process, but first requires us to enrich it to raise the concentration % up to the required sweet spot range that maintain the chain reaction. There are most likely a lot of such natural reactors all around the Earth, but Okla is the only one we have found so far To get a bit more technical on the "good" Uranium and sweet spot, here is a quote from world nuclear org that explains it perfectly: _"Uranium found in nature consists largely of two isotopes, U-235 and U-238. The production of energy in nuclear reactors is from the 'fission' or splitting of the U-235 atoms, a process which releases energy in the form of heat. U-235 is the main fissile isotope of uranium.Natural uranium contains 0.7% of the U-235 isotope._ _The remaining 99.3% is mostly the U-238 isotope which does not contribute directly to the fission process (though it does so indirectly by the formation of fissile isotopes of plutonium). Isotope separation is a physical process to concentrate (‘enrich’) one isotope relative to others. Most reactors are light water reactors (of two types - PWR and BWR) and require uranium to be enriched from 0.7% to 3-5% U-235 in their fuel. This is normal low-enriched uranium (LEU). There is some interest in taking enrichment levels to about 7%, and even close to 20% for certain special power reactor fuels, as high-assay LEU (HALEU)."_

@@Songfugel dang! You could make your own video on it! Thanks for the detailed response! Cheers!

@@Songfugel I know its simple on the surface but you could probably make a 1 hr video on the specifics. What radiation and isotopes and neutron activation goes on? I have so many questions besides, water moderates, boils off becomes non critical, repeat.

@@lexinexi-hj7zo true

@@Songfugel What are the concentrations of U235 at Okla and what are you proposing? Does this Okla approach only eliminate the enrichment process or are there other advantages? We still have to mine and separate out the Uranium from the dirt. What concentrations of Uranium are in the dirt?

Финансировать ядерную энергетику на должном уровне и правильно управлять её развитием под силу только государству.

Thank you so much for your comment. It means a lot 🙏🏼☢️👩🏽‍🔬

Huh

В России при каждом(если он будет 1 на АЭС) реакторе на быстрых нейтронах будет комплекс по переработке работавшего топлива и изготовлению нового.

gen IV is a pipe dream. it is economically obsolete, because each produced kWh costs 4-10x more than any other electricity source.

@dariojurisic I get that but as the hot core enters the water, it can cause an exploration due to rapid temperature change.

not a scientist but I think the only reason you can get the explosion from rapid temperature change is because the steam is taking up more space than the water was so if it is in like a pipe the pressure will build up, or in some situations the steam can cause like cavities of steam in the water and that is what then stops the cooling power because steam doesn't cool things down like water does and does not absorb the radiation particles so well. interesting note on core catchers, it was developed while Chornobyl was still hot and they feared the Caesium was burning through the floor, so a man developed the theory of a graphite and concrete sandwich underneath, excavation was done but then the melting things cooled down and they just filled it back in with concrete. They also considered injecting a whole bunch of nitrogen under there to freeze the ground, which seems like an insane idea!

Me too

It's my understanding that cultural inertia is the biggest hurdle to adopting a new generation of nuclear powerplants. Both governments and industry are extremely reluctant to change how they are doing something that they've been doing for decades. It isn't enough to say to them "Look! I have a new way to do your thing that is in every way better!" You have to overcome the entrenched mindset based on the sunk cost fallacy. They'd rather throw more money at what they have because they understand it, than to take a chance on something new that they don't understand.

Take a look at Terrestrial Energy, they are more than halfway through the Canadian licensing process, so before 2030 and others are not far behind. Each country has its own licensing process, Canada's is very long so others could be on the grid sooner.

I'm afraid the stubbornness of the regulatory apparatus and the corruption in the financial sources are major hurdles also. At plant Vogtle if an inspector found a single piece of rebar even 1mm out of place the whole form had to be ripped out and redone. We lost the project at V C Summer when Westinghouse and Toshiba made the money disappear without building the reactors. 18:42

It's not when, it's where en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beloyarsk_Nuclear_Power_Station

Usually about 1 % of the uranium in spent fuel is U235. There is also some U234 and U236.

As I understand it the current reactors only burn about 3% or less of the available fuel in the rods therefore there is about 97% of the energy or fuel still left in the so called 'waste fuel'. Of course that left over fuel has long lived actinides within the fuel rods that make it unsafe for long periods of time. I think the 'fast reactors' being developed could burn this waste fuel and actinides which would result in the leftover unburned fuel only needing to be stored for 200 to 300 years. In addition we could create thousands of years of electricity generation without needing to mine and process new fuel which would be a major benefit to the earth's environment. It's a win-win-win as I see it and I would not worry about building waste storage at all but charge ahead with new designs for waste fuel burning reactors that would eliminate the storage problem, create more energy and help save the environment. If we got serious as we did with the Manhattan Project or Moon shot I think it could be achieved in the next 10 years.

@@WJV9 Which can be 'easily' turned (converted) into UO2 pellets (Uranium dioxide) and reused as fuel in most Gen IV reactors types.. I think there are currently 6 Gen IV types.. GFR (Gas-cooled fast reactor), LFR (Lead-cooled fast reactor), MSR (Molten salt reactor), SFR (Sodium-cooled fast reactor), SCWR (Supercritical water-cooled reactor), and VHTR (Very high-temperature gas reactor)...