Elysium Industries MCSFR (Molten Chloride Salt Fast Reactor) - Ed Pheil @ TEAC10

Ed Pheil gives overview of Elysium Industries MCSFR, a Molten-Salt Reactor which uses inexpensive Chloride Salts, and Fast-Spectrum neutrons. It offers fuel flexibility and efficient consumption of fissile and fertile fuels.
www.elysiumindustries.com/
ThoriumRemix.com/ Video shot by volunteers and edited by Gordon McDowell as part of ongoing Thorium Remix project. Thorium Remix is Patreon funded.
ThoriumEnergyAlliance.com/ Presented at TEAC10 ( Thorium Energy Alliance Conference #10 ) on 2019-10-01 ( Oct 1st, 2019 ).

[@gordonmcdowell]

Gord here! I finance travel and video capture and editing with a Patreon campaign. ​www.patreon.com/thorium ...and if you pledge only $1/year that's still a really big deal to me. I need both social reinforcement (many PEOPLE supporting) as well as actual financial support. So whichever you might have to offer, please do pledge something. Quite possibly, for 2020, I won't travel to a single conference. We will see. But I would be perfectly happy working with what I've shot to this point. Frankly, the most important asset I'm missing is not something I could ever get myself... that is laboratory footage. And at this point I expect the footage exists already, shot by everyone doing MSR work. Getting that is a matter of creating a communications piece stakeholders are comfortable letting me slot lab footage into. So if I'm spending any Gord-hours I can simply writing and editing, then I'm not-at-all feeling robbed by Covid-19. My communications with ORNL have been quite positive, and in regards to pieces like this. It is crazy-slow, but good. The very best value I could offer MSR advocates is to help ORNL create and release presentations and interviews like this themselves. They do already create educational and promotional pieces, but not at the volume nor specificity we want. ORNL MSRW went from zero public videos from ORNL MSRW 2017, to 3 from ORNL MSRW 2018, and it looks like we will (eventually) get 9 from ORNL MSRW 2019. Maybe 2020 won't happen, but they're aware that MORE is what MSR advocates want. ORNL sure don't need me to do this, except to get the ball rolling and demonstrate demand. If ORNL (and all National Labs doing nuclear R&D) did this themselves, I could gladly become irrelevant to the creation of these basic video assets and focus more on narrative. It is the narrative videos which tend to have a bigger impact. But I can't create narrative pieces without interviews such as these. (And lab footage.) So, again, if you can do Patreon then head here... www.patreon.com/thorium ... if that doesn't work for you please let me know what mechanism does. Thanks for your support, -Gord

[@robertweekes5783]

I recommend setting up a Subscribe Star account as well, Patreon has gotten really political/ pro-censorship and a lot of youtubers are boycotting it. Keep up the great work Gord !! 👍🏼👍🏼

[@jimrobcoyle]

@@robertweekes5783 I, too, left Patreon after their censorship of several content creators who worked in the scientific reality surrounding the 9/11 mythology. Give yourself a PO Box, Gordon, so you can receive money orders.

[@sahinyasar9119]

I think this reactor is perfect for mars colony. Though i wonder is this can work with Chlorine perchlorate either.

[@andreskristopher4780]

instablaster

[@MrVaticanRag]

I appreciate what you are doing Gordin - I'm now forced into retirement Locked down in Jakarta but I do endeavour to put my spoke in supporting what you do and in particular pushing for our ThorCons here whenever I have the opportunity.🥝🥝🍻

[@gavinridley5727]

Absolute beast of a reactor designer, he is. I really hope to see Elysium go far!

[@semireckless]

My view is that Ed's reactor design is about the most elegant piece of technology of ANY kind that has ever been designed in human history!

[@philipwilkie3239]

I've watched almost every MSR video out there; and I'm impressed with this one more than all others. Quite a while back I concluded that fast was the correct way to go, controlled primarily by geometry and temperature. Eliminating the moderators gets rid of so many lifecycle problems. I just wish I had a big wad of cash to back these guys with. It could change the world.

[@johnstreet819]

I wish you did too.

[@anteeko]

Also have a look at moltex, beautiful simple design too

[@red-baitingswine8816]

Thorcon's mass production plan (using ship-building facilities to construct entire, full size power plants as large, floating modules) also seems excellent. Using Elysium's fast reactors in them seems even better.

[@red-baitingswine8816]

What are the logistics/politics of getting an Elysium power plant going on Mars and the Moon with SpaceX? Elon has the money.

[@samuelforsyth6374]

@@red-baitingswine8816 for space we use Pu-238, to risky to launch a full on reactor just yet, once we have 30~50 years of refinement possibly

[@49andrew]

Thanks Gordon. I think Elysium has taken major steps beyond other MSR designs - there's a lot to like about the MCSFR.

[@Admiral642]

been waiting for this update, by far my favorite reactor design. One size, waste burning at high fission products penetration. Chloride salts which have already been approved due to extensive previous use, ya definitely best in my opinion.

[@EdPheil]

We made a configuration for a 500MWth version that fit in the Virginia Class sub reactor compartment, but smaller enginerooms, that allowed a 1.7x speed increase. No reprocessing, no refueling, indeed a life of multiple ship core. Pump it out and into the next generation sub. No weapons grade material involved.

[@CaffeinatedSentryGnome]

Would that design also be suitable for civilian transport ships?

[@jbepsilon]

@@EdPheil Is the fuel salt water soluble? That is, what happens if a MCSFR powered ship sinks, and in, say, 100 years the reactor rusts through?

[@martinkral7222]

@@EdPheil This is why your presentation are believable. You have done most it already for the Navy.

[@EdPheil]

@@jbepsilon There are already submarine cores in the bottom of the ocean. The corrosion of metals in cold anaerobic ocean bottom is very slow. These existing reactors are not corroding through in any measurable radioactivity releasing way. Generally corrosion requires oxygen and heat accelerates that, but neither occur on the bottom of the ocean.

[@spoonikle]

I have been loving these frequent uploads

[@lukelehmann4783]

Continue the geat work, your videos are really good

[@sealpiercing8476]

I'm so glad to hear that Pheil and co. are making progress! It sounds like they've got good answers to the important questions.

[@manatoa1]

My favourite reactor so far. Burns waste and weapons material, liquid cooled and fueled, chloride salts sound simpler than fluoride. I also like it's modular vs integral design. Seems way more serviceable. Thorium can come later.

[@MrRolnicek]

I have a surprise for you :-) Read through the replies of the other comments here. Ed himself came by and confirmed that instead of Thorium "coming later", Thorium can come at the same time. This very same reactor can burn it no problem.

[@manatoa1]

Yeah, I saw his replies in one thread and then read through them all. It's so nice to have someone like him take the time to actually delve into the comment section. I still prefer the Pu-SNF fuel cycle to start because I think it makes an awesome pro-nuclear argument. Having the kind of fuel flexibility that the MCSFR has is great, though. I hope we'll see a variety of reactor designs actually get built so we can see which works best in the long run. Thanks for the heads-up, and have a great day.

[@martinkral7222]

@@MrRolnicek There is so much depleted uranium you don't need thorium for a long time. Beside, there is no supply chain developed for thorium like there is for DU.

[@MrRolnicek]

@@martinkral7222 I know. I'm just pointing out that this marvelous reactor can happily breed and burn Thorium just as well as Uranium

[@Nixeu42]

Chloride salts are indeed simpler than fluorides at first blush. But there is a complication, due to the fact that Chlorine-35, the most common isotope of chlorine, captures neutrons and produces the radioisotope Chlorine-36, which then decays into argon and sulfur. Which means you need to do some amount of isotopic separation with your chlorides beforehand, which is expensive. Until now, I've generally seen it considered prohibitively expensive, so I'm surprised to see anyone using chlorides instead of fluorides. Perhaps the costs of separation have gone down enough to make it feasible.

[@fordgrunt351]

Great video Ed Pheil as always. Definitely heard some more detail on the reactor design features which was fascinating - like the drain/pump system what a great idea - no freeze plug required! Very exciting design I wish you and your company the very best 👍🏻

[@martinkral7222]

The no freeze-plug circulating salt is a new concept for his reactor. This is what sets his design apart of every other MSR that I have looked at.

[@mburnzy9269]

I hope Elysium and Moltex Energy are both successful.

[@martinkral7222]

TerraPower is also building a similar molten chloride salt fast reactor design as Elysiums

[@sammcrae8892]

We need a number of new and innovative designs to be developed and deployed. There may someday be a basic general use reactor type for most applications, but we need to develop a wide range of types using a variety of different techniques. Even if we someday master fusion -- after all, it's only 30 years away, we will ALWAYS need fission Reactors as well. I just saw the other day, that a company that is developing and trying to get small modular LWRs deployed in Utah I think, just got a billion dollar grant from the government. Another plus for Trump. Regardless of what you think about any political party or person; if one of them moves safe, economical (if not smothered in BS regulations.), efficient, and sustainable truely green and carbon neutral nuclear power forwards, then they have my support. We have been spinning our wheels since the 50s, we should be building 5th or 6th generation nuclear plants by now. All the problems they complain about climate change environmental pollution and everything else could be solved with plenty of energy we could pull the carbon out of the atmosphere and use it for internal combustion fuel as well as taking our recycling right down to the atomic level if we just had the energy to do it but instead we're still burning fossil fuels just to power our homes and our electric vehicles that are supposed to be green. We will never be able to easily store energy from renewable sources even if we did have plenty of wind, solar, and geothermal power. The battery storage for that would be so incredibly expensive and inefficient that it would be stupid to do that; when we have safe clean and effective nuclear technologies that we could be developing and using instead.

[@mburnzy9269]

@@sammcrae8892 Exactly right Sam!

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

Thoracon has an interesting design in the works right now too. Theirs is a mixed (thorium and uranium) reactor. Slow neutrons and not a waste burner. We can use all these reactor designs for now. Eventually the most cost effective designs will win out and come to dominate. That may take 50+ years.

[@Innomen]

Is it just me or does this sound like the best reactor design yet? Are there any major features missing? I mean jesus... It sounds like the best of all worlds.

[@chapter4travels]

The only thing in the way is the NRC, EPA, DOE and various other alphabet agencies designed to kill innovation in nuclear.

[@sealpiercing8476]

​@@chapter4travels The NRC has legal obligations to ensure people are designing safe reactors. One of the easiest ways to slow the NRC down, especially in dealing with anything new, is to cut their funding, and congress has certainly been doing that. They should have more funding so they can work faster (by hiring people). The DOE does all sorts of things, among them funding R&D which has definitely benefited molten salt reactors all these university groups contributing research don't get their funding off the back of a truck, among other channels. The EPA will do a reasonable job stopping hyperclass bozos from poisoning your water for half a percent more profit, if they're allowed to work. That said, scaremongering about nuclear is pretty trashy and I hate it, and they've definitely had an untoward influence on these agencies. I wouldn't hold it against the agencies in question...

[@DriveCarToBar]

There is the fact that such a reactor has never been built or operated anywhere. While it draws heavily from the MSRE at Oak Ridge, this thing has never been built. Which puts it years away even if it were to catch all the green lights from NRC, DoE, etc. Something like the Liquid Metal reactors Ed was talking about have actually been built here, studied extensively (EBR-1 and EBR-2) and there are current LMFBRs running in Russia as we speak. They also operated previously in Japan and France. This means real world data. Not to detract at all from Ed Pheil's groundbreaking work. Just trying to be realistic.

[@billfoote8617]

@@sealpiercing8476 NRC budget is up $35M from 2018 to 2019

[@phamnuwen9442]

​@@sealpiercing8476 Since solar and wind kills more people per kWh than nuclear, I wonder where the safety regulator is for those sources...

[@AndreiAndrei-pg8eg]

sleek design

[@hygri]

This really is fabulous work.

[@BenJamin-rt7ui]

Excellent stuff.

[@larrydugan1441]

Imagine if the money dumped into windmills had been spent optimizing and installing this technology!

[@manatoa1]

This is a great video. There's a lot in here I haven't heard from him before, and I think I've seen all of his interviews and presentations on KZbin. Thanks Ed and Gordon!

[@martinkral7222]

He has an excellent video on fuel management. I learned a lot of new chemistry trying to look everything up. His reactor design will require chemical engineers.

[@manatoa1]

@@martinkral7222 I'm not sure I've seen that one. Is it on KZbin? If you wouldn't mind, could you link to it?

[@kronovore3583]

A "burner" of our copious fissile and fertile nuclear waste, low pressure, fewer components, no Wigner effect, no core fires, a modular design for scalable power output and pluggable straight into the existing power grid - all great news for a power reactor. I hope the DOE/NRC looks favorably on this great MCSFR design.

[@chapter4travels]

For all the reasons you described the NRC will hate it and do whatever they can to suppress it.

[@kronovore3583]

@@chapter4travels Sadly so, my friend. What an opportunity lost. Humanity really needs to wake-up and utilise some of the most energy dense matter on this planet in a responsible manner.

[@robertweekes5783]

“I don’t trust freeze seals.” DAMN, this guy is hard-core 👍🏼👍🏼

[@robertweekes5783]

How about the lock it away for 40 years concept, that’s pretty freaking cool ! Robotic maintenance for the win ⛓⚙️🛠🔩

[@davidelliott5843]

It's great to see another waste burning fast reactor. The Moltex fast spectrum waste burner also uses chloride salts with the fuel held in vertical fuel tubes. Their heat transfer salt is the same chloride salt species but contains no fuel. It has a highly negative temperature coefficient, used with passive cooling to prevent it overheating. It's naturally load following. Heat transfer to heat exchangers is entirely by natural convection. Heat is removed from the reactor by a tertiary "solar" salt. In regulatory terms that's entirely outside the nuclear island. As Ed says, it's all about minimising the regulatory input.

[@Luvloot]

Thank you Gordon. I say build one of each. Let's get the ball rolling. And we will weed out the good and the bad as time goes on.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Very good, ..understatement

[@govnr99]

I absolutely love Ed Pheil's designs and watched and re-watched every interview I could find. One question I have always had with this design is this: If the reactor has no moderator, and it is already critical, what is the safety value of the drain tank? Wouldn't it just be draining fissioning fuel into another vessel? Does the configuration or design of the drain tank stop the fissioning somehow? I can easily see the value of the drain tank for maintenance, especially with this new constant-pump, no freeze-plug design.

[@gordonmcdowell]

Removing moderator stops fission. That mechanism isn't available to Ed. But he does have geometry and reflectors (to sustain it in reactor). And boron type stuff to absorb neutrons (in drain tank). Can still have a drain-tank which prohibits fission.

[@EdPheil]

The drain tanks are multiple thin tanks that break up the fuel salt into multiple regions to maximize neutron leakage, so it is not a critical configuration. There is large volumes of clean salt between the tanks to absorb neutrons and tank walls to absorb neutrons. Not boron. Boron is a thermal poison, not a fast spectrum poison. Using boron would require adding a moderator, a bad direction.

[@gordonmcdowell]

@@EdPheil Thanks for explaining that. Note to self on Boron.

[@davidcampbell1420]

@@EdPheil I wanted to apologize to you if I offended you the other day. I'm sorry. I really respect and look up to you :(

[@davidschwartz5127]

Sounds great I want to hear more about this power source!

[@EdPheil]

Search "pheil" "Elysium" Also on Titans of Nuclear

[@piotrd.4850]

Badass introduction and establishing of credentials xD

[@n1mbusmusic606]

One of the good ones.

[@ThatsMrPencilneck2U]

This reactor works very differently from other molten salt designs I've seen promoted. I shouldn't be surprised. The early information I've read on the subject really showed how wide open the possibilities of the concepts that were explored in the Lithium MSR developed in the 1960's. This design falls along the lines of what one article described as an "Actinide incinerator." Molten Salt reactors do not have to breed U233 from Th, nor do they have to be optimized for aviation.

[@mrrolandlawrence]

The bit where you can consume DU though. Thats what got my ears pricked up! The modular design is great as well. This reactor design really has thought about TCO and the electricity generation side too. Fantastic work

[@ravener96]

Just as a note, you can make DU breeder reactors if i remember right, its about the same tech wise as the straight thorium breeders like the MSRE or the other molten salt thorium reactors.

[@Alorand]

I wish I had a couple of billion dollars to invest in helping accelerate these getting built.

[@leerman22]

Can't increase the speed of government.

[@thesilentgod7863]

really love MCSFR design. this and MCFR (terrapower) are my picks, though if i had to choose i'd probably take MCSFR. i hope both succeed

[@EdPheil]

MCFR = MCSFR I just like to use the "Salt" like the other acronyms is "Metal" in LMR, "GAS" in HTGR, "water" in LWRs. "Molten chloride..." means nothing to most people, but "molten chloride salt" means something.

[@adamdanilowicz4252]

@@EdPheil What do you think of Terrapower's molten salt concept, and do you think this is a sign that they're somewhat giving up on their travelling wave reactor?

[@johnmcentegart007]

Very informative presentation on MSRE technology.

[@ALulzyApprentice]

I'm totally new to this. This design is genius to me. I'm not an academic so it might as some 2045 nextgem sh111t. Did watch the linger video featuring this guy and was amazed. The economics of this is what we need.

[@ancapftw9113]

He went over to the Fallout universe and hired a few ghouls to operate the reactor, with one of the more intelligent supermutants doing the heavy lifting. Those people in the photo were just interdimensional immigrants he paid to educate.

[@scotthadler6490]

Fascinating

[@davidtwyford8755]

let us not forget the ability of these to bring fresh water(desal) to the vast majority of the worlds populations that spend most of the day obtaining fresh water.

[@briangardner3050]

Ed....has forgotten more...than the rest of these upstart nuclear power guys...GO ED

[@dannyobrian5957]

At last we may see this producing

[@williamolenchenko5772]

Good luck with what appears to be an excellent, innovative approach. My concern is that the politicians are married to "renewables" and will subsidize them with taxpayer dollars even if they have to cover half the country with solar cells and wind turbines. The environmental impact of disposing solar cells will be swept under the rug too.

[@NoRegertsHere]

Wonder if they have to abide by the same environmental restrictions as mine sites

[@christopherleubner6633]

The reactor can run on almost anything fissionable. Th232,U238, Pu240, you name it those fast neutrons will split it. Running some UF6 gas in the secondary heat exchanger will allow you to make extremely high purity plutonium 239 if desired, also beryllium lithium fluoride salt can be used to make tritium as well as being a heat transfer medium.

[@wazza33racer]

being able to use up all the existing nuclear waste is a huge selling point.........very hard to argue against that. Even if most new reactors are thorium, having some of these sucking up the spent fuel waste would still be very useful. This design could get the concept of high temp/ liquid salt reactors into operation as a bridge to get acceptance to wide scale use. Although the speaker comes across as very mundane, he actually gives a good impression of technical knowledge and being able to overcome the political and cost problems. In the real world, those are the major obstacles and objections from extremist/marxist greens that are always blocking the adoption of better nuclear technology.

[@billfoote8617]

Fast reactors are necessary to burn up the long lived wastes that are chemically sorted from the thermal ThMSR or UMSR designs. You'd build a fleet of MSRs and a handful of fast reactors.

[@phamnuwen9442]

@@billfoote8617 What would be the point of a thermal MSR if this is as efficient, versatile and simple as it looks?

[@wazza33racer]

@@billfoote8617 that makes sense............horses for courses.

[@manatoa1]

Yeah, I think being able to burn "nuclear waste" gives fast reactors a huge public relations/political advantage. Kind of like thorium which has managed to avoid being associated with bombs, waste, and Chernobyl so far. Having a factually good reactor is at most half the battle.

[@pokekick4185]

Multiplying the amount of available fuel you have world wide by 4 A fast reactor that breeds U 238 into Pu 239-242 and beyond. Th 232 is 3 times more abundant than uranium and often found in valuable ore deposits for other minerals. Also to operate as a sealed reactor for a country that you think will use nuclear fuel to make weapons.

[@brendan9698]

This does sound like the best of all the MSR, I can't wait to see the first one in operation in early 2150. I know what you are thinking, that a rather optimistic time frame for the government, but considering the dire strait of the planet, I know the politicians will go full steam ahead.

[@Alessandro-1977]

Just curious, is this a single fluid reactor ? My question is: is it possible to use thorium in this reactor (even with no blanket) as primary fuel in order to produce the fissile uranium 233 to start up thermal spectrum fluorides reactors ?

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

Yes, Ed talks about using thorium in this reactor in another video.

[@curumosaruman6616]

A great presentation, I'm anxious to learn more about the design. However, the website is way out of date and contains almost no technical information. I would really appreciate more up-to-date design images and a whitepaper. Please, as a minimum, include PDFs of your presentations.

[@daviddyck4199]

Is there anyway DOD could be convinced to build the first one to consume plutonium from decommissioned weapons in order to expedite regulatory issues?

[@vincentcleaver1925]

Am I the first one to read MCSFR as McSafer?! C'mon, people, work the human factors!

[@Nixeu42]

The design looks exceptionally well done, and I quite like the modularity. My only concern/confusion is about the necessity with chlorides to separate out the Cl-35 isotopes, as they have a habit of capturing neutrons and then decaying into argon and sulfur. That was what pushed people into using fluorides in the first place, as it was an added layer of complexity and cost. Has isotope separation become cheap enough to be feasible, or is there some other factor at play here?

[@Atommagi]

I think maybe Cl-35 is catching neutrons in the thermal region, but this is a fast reactor, so it's not an issue. I might be wrong.

[@molnibalage83]

It wold worth to add time stamps in description about main sections of the presentation.

[@gregmattson2238]

I hate the fact that these things aren't being built at mass scale right now. it makes absolutely no sense.

[@antonia2548]

Any news/update about this interesting project ? I have the impression that the clever idea of fast chloride MSRs in general didn' t evolve too much from this video

[@babyelian77]

By the way, I noticed in previuos videos that the T_out reactor was about 650 C (due to material uncertainties) while here is even increased to 750 C. Just curious, what did it change to do that ?

[@martinkral7222]

I think he is testing at INL. Maybe there?

[@sarikajain1606]

Hope to see such reactors in india , in the future. Best advantage is utilisation of waste nuclear fuel

[@MaxB6851]

Can it be fueled with Thorium as that is unlikely to leave behind radioactive waste.

[@budward7846]

The design on their website bears little resemblance to the presentation. It still shows freeze plugs, for example instead of the continuous flow system.

[@ravener96]

Most likely they have a lot of options to use and will use whatever gets them accepted fastest. Salt plugs are viewed as a safe option and has been tested in practice.

[@Cromius771]

Ed Pheil what is the life span of the pump? I think that would be what's going to break most often.

[@youcantata]

How to handle high temperature (melting point) of sodium chloride? Tungsten alloy? Mixing with other low-melting salt?

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

It's not just sodium chloride. It's a eutectic mix of several salts, so a lower melting point then just sodium chloride. Sufficiently lower to allow normal stainless steel to be used.

[@davidtwyford8755]

What produces the start up heat?

[@1inspiration466]

Question for Ed Pheil: At 8:48 you stated that "these people are all zombies, they'd all be dead". Is that because of the heat, radiation, or both? I figured just the heat because my understanding is that those metals and below ground structures are enough to contain the radiation but I was hoping you could clarify.

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

It's the radiation (neutrons) primarily. Building it underground prevents horizontal neutrons but not neutrons going upwards toward the zombies.

[@DriveCarToBar]

I really like the idea of the MCSFR, and it's grown on me more than the LMFBR like EBR-2. I realize Ed said that fuel fabrication is 90% of the fuel cost, but does that still hold true for an LMFBR that is running on spent fuel from LWRs? I mean, the fuel is already close to its final useful form that a LMFBR could use, is it not? I realize EBR-2 used its pyroprocessing to make its fuel, but since you don't need to refine Uranium from ore if you're using spent fuel, what's that do to the cost? Roger Blomquist also stated once that they don't remove actinides nor do they remove all the fission products. And would you be running the MCSFR as a breeder to produce new Pu? I thought that was one of the benefits of the LMFBR is that you take your solid fuel out, pyroprocess it and run it right back in or send it to other nuclear reactors (including LWRs) that can't reprocess and reuse fuel? I am ecstatic about the giant steps that seem to be happening. KZbin apparently got its algorithm fixed because I recently discovered Illinois EnergyProf channel with all his videos on nuclear power and energy. Truly a golden age!

[@EdPheil]

The MCSFR can purify used fuel, but only needs to very infrequently. We chose to do it when the reactor vessel needs replacement, every 40 years using current materials, longer if we get new better materials. We initially do not plan to maximize breeding, because we do not need to. We will do iso breeding plus enough extra for offsetting fission product negative reactivity build up, so we do not need to purify as often, as that is more expensive. That yields about 1.014 breeding ratio per year, or a doubling time of 50 years. The goal of this reactor is to minimize cist, maximize revenue options, not maximize Breeding, as that is not publically desirable, nor needed, since there is already millenia of fuel available. Maximizing breeding was envisioned because we thought we would run out of fissile, but we aren't, and it is not even close.

[@DriveCarToBar]

@@EdPheil thanks for the explanation, it's helpful to get an idea of how you see this reactor working in the real world. And more so, thank you for actually commenting on these videos. It means a lot, that you took time to actually read replies and comment.

[@EdPheil]

The LMFBR still makes solid fuel every 4 years or so, and requires reprocessing to separate Plutonium, so yes is much more expensive than liwmquid chloride salt fuel.

[@NoRegertsHere]

@@EdPheil Ed, you doing any work with Australia at all?

[@MrVaticanRag]

What materials are the pipework and the reactor made of if the life is expected to be 40 years and working up to near 900C?

[@chapter4travels]

They don't plan to go to near 900c, much lower so they can use pre-qualified stainless. They will work on getting some of the alloys approved for higher temperatures later.

[@CatboyChemicalSociety]

#20million4change

[@tiespijnaker8770]

The best option short term. Please like and share this video, I did.

[@chapter4travels]

What do you consider short term?

[@offroadsnake]

I want the factibilty of plutonium/thorium mix with a less plutonium for South america market we have a tlatelolco treaty

[@davidtwyford8755]

Is there a working system operating?

[@FranceBernardof0609]

The question that some people ask like me, is what is the resistance of all construction and thermal transfer materials to the chemical corrosion of salt at very high temperature (700°) over a very long period of time (7 or 8 years)? Is that not the main difficulty for an operational MSR? Do you have some clues and certainty regarding this major question? Thank you for your answer.

[@chapter4travels]

If they keep the fuel salts clean, there is no corrosion issue. This is very easy to do btw.

[@jaybruce593]

I know this is an old video, but the YT algorithm only just presented it to me, and while I normally associate Gordon McDowell with enlightening videos advocating Thorium based reactors, but this was something different and utterly fascinating, an actinide consuming reactor that has much the same benefits as a LiFTR but with a better ability to consume spent fuel and or weapons grade material as part of nuclear disarmament efforts. Assuming we can get the metallurgy in place to support these molten salt reactors for half a century plus, why bother building anything else?

[@babyelian77]

I think bc fluorides based reactors are excellent for thorium cycle, while chlorides MSR are optimal for waste/transuranics destruction and (depleted) uranium/plutonium cycle. They are different reactors, targeting different fuel options and cycles

[@PhilosopherRex]

A lot of intelligent design considerations. I wonder about pump lifetimes and corrosion generally though. I didn't hear anything about that in the talk.

[@EdPheil]

Each talk is limited in length to about 20 minutes. You can cover only so much. But, I have covered those concerns in other talks. Search "pheil" "Elysium" on KZbin or Titans of nuclear, etc. There are a lot of talks out there.

[@PhilosopherRex]

@@EdPheil thanks, will have a look.

[@EdPheil]

Molten salt, fluoride or chloride, is less corrosive than the hot water of LWRs. Please don't confuse water or oxygen contaminated salt with clean water. Salt in water reactors is corrosive, water in salt reactors is corrosive. Oxygen in water OR salt is corrosive. Keep both clean and salt is less corrosive.

[@EricLidiak]

How would we modify the design to serve on a ship, where we need to account for the ship's movement?

[@user-vc7gh6qb2r]

I think the eVinci Micro Reactor from Westinghouse Nuclear would be more suited for cruise ships & cargo ships. It is 5+ Megawatts and can fit inside a shipping container. It uses heat pipes to transfer the heat and a stirling engine to generate power. Search KZbin for "eVinci Micro Reactor" and see. Or go to Westinghouse Nuclear website and see their webpage about it.

[@babyelian77]

And an other question, which cost penality (for example, per MWe) is there between a saturated steam turbine and a high efficiency super-critical steam one ? Besides costs reasons, I think there is still a reason to go for the higher efficiency system in order to avoid water cooling and ease sites choice

[@EdPheil]

High efficiency comes with water cooling. High Thot, and low water Tcold on the Power conversion system. Maybe you meant high temperature Thot of power system, so you can afford to have high temperature Tcold PCU, and ignore the loss if efficiency by not using water for lowering Tcold?

[@babyelian77]

Yes, doct. Pheil, exactly my thought, I was thinking about the possibility to site them in, say, desert or arid sites, where water is not readily available - that I guess it's much easier in a high efficiency plant

[@EdPheil]

Or we are evaluating the Holtec HI-COOL Air cooled condenser in conjunction with a combined condensate/feedwater pump feedwater heating capability in the pumps to reduce pump/heater costs, and related maintenance. www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=holtecinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/acc-brochure.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiIu7_z9ofmAhWBrFkKHZifCLUQFjADegQIBBAV&usg=AOvVaw3hh13zpZg3LEhzzDCI4Nf4

[@travismoore7849]

My idea is to have a seperate tube in a tube that used lead for a thermal transfer fluid and radiation shield.

[@canadiannuclearman]

Q: If this is high temp can you use it to break the water molecule to make hydrogen?

[@chapter4travels]

Yes, 24/7/365. Stick it on a floating barge in the ocean making hydrogen and liquid fuels all day long.

[@sarikajain1606]

How long do you imagine before such reactors become main stream? In this decade, or the next?

[@chapter4travels]

Unfortunately, next, same for Moltex Power.

[@phamnuwen9442]

The Elysium design indeed looks very interesting. I love the quick change system for the heat exchangers. Are there not even control rods in the core? Just homogenous fuel salt? A cost estimate would be useful. If the thermal efficiency is 40% for the "low temp" 750C version, what kind of efficiency would you achieve with a 1000C reactor?

[@Drewmikola]

Thermodynamics tells us that with the Carnot equation. 1 - (Tcold / Thot). 40% at 750C gives us a Tcold of 450C. Assuming all things being equal, at 1000c you can hit 55% efficiency.

[@phamnuwen9442]

@@Drewmikola That would be a 5GWth/2.75GWe reactor. With modular assembly line construction I imagine this could be very inexpensive.

[@DriveCarToBar]

@@phamnuwen9442 It would change the reactor considerably in the case of the Elysium MCSFR. 1000C is going to soften your steel quite a bit. Perhaps Ed Pheil has changed his design parameters but in previous videos, he talked about using regular stainless steels to construct the reactor. That's not going to work with salt temps of 1000C (more than 1800F) The steel is going to be pretty soft at those temps. Of course, some of the nickels alloys like Hastelloy would be OK approaching 1000C, but even that is pushing your luck. If the idea is to keep the reactor cost effective using materials that are already nuclear qualified, temps that high are a no-go.

[@phamnuwen9442]

@@DriveCarToBar Agreed, hence the 750 degree cheap and easy (relatively speaking) version would be the first product and higher temperatures and efficiencies would be a potential long term goal as I understand it.

[@EdPheil]

We have no operational control or shutdown rods. But, there are initial fill rods for loading fuel, which are removed after all pumps are started, but before reactor startup. The reason is, we have no temperature monitoring/control without flow.

[@oceanhouse8080]

OK, now build one, right now, you can use my backyard

[@EdPheil]

NIMBY Nuclear In My Back Yard!

[@NoRegertsHere]

@@EdPheil not too far away surely!

[@Bruh-vp6qf]

If loss of power occurs for an extended period of time what happens to the fuel in the drain tank?

[@Alessandro-1977]

Likely, it freezes. So, if you want to return it to core, you have to heat it up (if I recall correctly, +300 °C)

[@Bayliss21]

Do you require funding?

[@bwilson4web]

Missing is how this reactor achieves "NEGATIVE COEFFICIENTS OF REACTIVITY". Thermal expansion from higher temperatures helps by making the reactor core less dense. So a spherical core with angled 'overflow' pipes to accelerate reducing the critical mass might work. But I'm wondering if 'voids' (i.e., boiling of the reactive core salts and holding the bubbles) may be involved? Speculation, a series of inverted cups could hold the 'boiled', salt-based, fuel to quickly and efficiently reduce the critical mass. But this does not address removing the radioactive gas by-products from the cups.

[@oscariglesias9004]

Radioactive gas fission products are removed like any other msr, and the boiling point of molten salts are way higher than operation temperatures, there is a huge temperature gap to allow the thermal trip to stop pumps and drain the salts in the tank. No boiling salts on sight.

[@EdPheil]

Yes, Noble Gasses come out on their own, in the pump intake, and Nobel metal particulates come out naturally outside the core as well, most in the heat exchangers because the temperatures drop and there are nickel alloys.

[@CaffeinatedSentryGnome]

@@EdPheil so changing the heat exchangers would be how you harvest the noble metals?

[@bwilson4web]

@@EdPheil Speculation but I wonder if electrodes at the intake side of the heat exchangers could deposit selected products to minimize thermal collection in the heat exchangers. Those are pretty large objects and disassembly to recover a layer would be a challenge.

[@EdPheil]

We are not harvesting Nobel metals at this point, just designing to accommodate their deposition. The Nobel metal collection, if economic,can be done when too many tubes get plugged. I have not heard of an economic case for harvesting Nobel metals.

[@alexp.8291]

Interesting project, but I still don't understand how they think to get the fissile start-up, considering the uranium and plutonium in LWR spent fuel is at max 1% fissile each (~1% uranium and ~1% plutonium) - you need much more than that. You have at least to separate that ~1% uranium from the rest of nuclear waste stream (to increase the fissile content), or am I wrong?

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

Ed talked about that. Current plans are to use excess plutonium from weapons programs that they want to dispose of. Just needed for startup and it would be denatured by the Pu240 in the spent fuel immediately to make in non weapons grade.

[@babyelian77]

I didn't t understand, at last, if it possible to build a single 5000 MW th or 2000 MWe reactor as said at about 2:00 min and in which configuration ?

[@EdPheil]

The MWe limit is controlled by the grid, not the reactor. 1200MWe is about right for the US and EU grid based on how much backup power is available. Chinese and India and others have or will have larger grids, so can handle higher than 1200MWe max. 5000NWth assumed US 1200MWe/3000NWth, and 2000 MWth for syn-fuel, H2, district heating/A/C ND other process heat applications.

[@EdPheil]

There is a desire to limit RV and Hx size to 4m to allow road shipment, but that is not a requirement, so higher powers are viable if it is ocean based or navigable rivers for delivery.

[@babyelian77]

Thanks doct. Pheil, very interesting !

[@bkparque]

Just waiting for an ipo

[@martinkral7222]

After 2026 when he stated his first prototype critically.

[@MnrBugi]

I'd even take a spac for that matter. Someone should poke chamath

[@bkparque]

@@MnrBugi a lot can change in 5 yrs. Id rather not wait that long. Id rather look for othe ipo like ultra safe nuclear corp

[@PaulHigginbothamSr]

So unbolting the top of the heat exchanger will not be a human operation. Or unbolting the pumps with remote processing. The metal thickness on the reactor vessel, and heat exchangers needs to also be monitored. I am pretty sure you can measure vessel thickness with neutron counters remotely operated. Plateing out with noble metals must also be measured daily. Measuring noble metal thickness might be more difficult but heat transfer ability can certainly be measured.

[@natureb2267]

What would kill the little people in this diagram? Heat or Radiation exposure?

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

Radiation exposure. Without question. Maybe heat too.

[@daybrown3221]

how far from the vessle is a health risk?

[@martinkral7222]

Day Brown, I suspect the outside of the building that it is housed in.

[@uggligr]

I heard somewhere that there are 72,000 bombs worth of plutonium in the world as of a few years ago. How long will these reactors last with this amount of fuell? Assume all new powerplants are MCSFR. How many years will it take befpre we need tp swotch tp thorium fuel?? Thank you.

[@gordonmcdowell]

We'd never run out of Pu as reactor-grade Pu is constantly created in existing reactors. Such Pu is not suitable for nuclear weapons, even if it was chemically separated from the other fission products and actinides. (Which this reactor would not do, nor would Moltex SSR-W to be built in Canada.) A fast-spectrum MCSFR can use Thorium as fuel as well, but I don't see a scenario where that would be necessary, that's just a flexibility bonus. The proliferation danger is pure Pu-239, not reactor-grade Pu. Pure Pu-239 is created intentionally in military reactors (and in the case of India, a research reactor), not in civilian reactors. There's a LOT of nuclear fuel (uranium) to bridge gap from today to breeder reactors. Once any economically viable breeder reactor fleet starts operating, there's no such thing as "running out" of any nuclear fuel. They're just too efficient, and we have too much of every type of potential fuel to use any of them up. That includes Plutonium, not just natural fuels like Uranium and Thorium.

[@uggligr]

@@gordonmcdowell Hi, Gordon, thanks for your reply. My main driver to videos like this is an antiproliferation agenda. I like Ed Pheil's reactor. If you look at the Wikipedia article "critical mass" you will see that all plutonium isotopes except Pu-244 have a listing. Pu-238 and Pu-241 have heating problems but a clever designer can get around those. Pu-240 has a high neutron background but once again, this problem can be solved. Uranium does have a similar problem, everything except U-238 is a nuclear explosive. I decided to try to phrase my question as simply as possible. That's why I asked about plutonium. I am also concerned about U-234, Pa-231, and Th-230 because they might be unguarded. By restricting this to one element, the question becomes much easier: we have a great big pile of nuclear explosives, how long would it take to get rid of them? If a relatively simple answer is available, complexities would be easier to understand, especially by the lay public. Remember this: the thorium/MSR community is trying to replace old, obsolete, inefficient reactors with something better. Someday LFTRs will burn off all their dangerous explosives as the reactors run, but in the meantime we've got this huge stinking pile to get rid of. Reactors need to evolve as world conditions change, which oes for a lot of equipment, not just reactors.

[@kenlee5509]

Deliver _multiple reactors_ to _each_ customer, stagger their starts to provide for downtime scheduling, with no loss of service to the customer.

[@robreeve]

What downtime?

[@kenlee5509]

@@robreeve He mentions primary radiator replacement, also if someone drops a forklift on the primary...

[@martinkral7222]

@@kenlee5509 What forklift. His plant will probably use internal cranes. He said the downtime is every 40 years for salt purification. I suspect the core can be drained/pulled out by the crane and replaced/filled in a matter of days, maybe less. If the reactor is on the grid, shouldn't be a problem. If the reactor is smaller for a local grid, then a secondary reactor should be on site also.

[@kenlee5509]

@@martinkral7222 Forklifts falling from the sky are a trope of engineering, What forklift? The one that just drove out of that C-135 above you, of course, it's always there, waiting for the perfect moment ... :)

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

@@robreeve Most frequent failure is going to be the heat exchangers. That's why Ed designed them to be easy to replace. Even so you are going to have to shut it down for a couple of hours to remove old leaking heat exchanger and drop in a new one.

[@drmosfet]

I would have liked to know, how much of a burden are we adding or taking away from future generation's, regarding storage of hazardous material. And how hot & how long?

[@CaffeinatedSentryGnome]

the waste from this would need to be stored for 100 years

[@EdPheil]

Thanks Greg. I can't explain everything in a 20 minute talk, LOL.

[@martinkral7222]

@@EdPheil One ton in is still one ton out, right?

[@MrMoggyman]

@@martinkral7222 Nope! Fuel consumption is >99.9%. Residual

[@jimtrowbridge3465]

@@martinkral7222 Yes, still one ton (close to it). It's just that the one ton out would be non radioactive materials (noble metals). Along with short lived (100 years) radioactive waste. You could of course calculate the actual loss of mass of the fuel by calculating 1.2 gigawatts x 40 years (or whatever interval you choose) then use Albert's E=MC squared to obtain the lost mass.

[@davidwalters9462]

Not sure about the 40 year lockdown...what about pump maintenance? I don't know of any pump that can run continually in high temps and radiation for that long without changing out the motor or the pumps.

[@babyelian77]

I don't think he meant that, rather that you CAN run for those years, *excluding* ordinary/extra-ordinary maintenance, various casualties, accidents, etc...

[@nicholasgrubb151]

These various Generation 4 prospects need a massive amount of investment., but provide us with the only way out of the Climate Emergency. Solution. Put a UN administered levy of say 10 dollar cent a litre on aviation kerosene and ship's bunker. This to be disbursed to the top ten contenders, to super stimulate them forward. The levy has to be international or wont work.

[@darrenmarchant1720]

can this be fueled from mars regolith?

[@leerman22]

It's a breeder so yes. Cooling it with high outlet temps would be needed probably for blackbody radiation if the terrain isn't a good enough infinite heatsink.

[@ozloon2000]

yes there is Thorium on Mars

[@EdPheil]

I would expect to find Actinides on Mars, do yes.

[@EdPheil]

If there is Thorium on Mars, there is uranium. You can just detect the high gamma from Thorium from orbit, so there is more info on Thorium extent. One question I have is whether there was water in Mars, to decrease the uranium ore densities, like on Earth.

[@martinkral7222]

@@EdPheil This is funny to me. Lets solve the earth needs first.

[@konradcomrade4845]

now I like this reactor type best. it can start with steam-heat exchangers, then easily scale up and prove its reliability and economics (don't buy the cheapest steam-turbine, buy a good one; or buy a reliable used steam-turbine, which is still in good condition). Then, later on, a CO2-heat exchanger can be added and a CO2-Brayton-cycle turbine (at least 700 MW_el minimum, because of "gap-losses" of smaller machines!) could be developed. Kirk Sorensen's LIFTER could profit from this development, too. His startup then could concentrate on Protactinium separation and Tritium sequestration. Then the world can easily switch from gas- to ElectricBattery-Vehicles! Not doing it the hard way. Public discussion and politics are so wrong about it. Let the experienced engineers lead technology; not the professors in academia nor the filibuster-experts in Washington! Professors are for answering questions, but You need to ask them the right questions firsthand! They are usually very specialized in their knowledge.

[@4Nanook]

Nanook I do not like this particular design because they are not continuously removing fission products. This means the drain tank must be able to dissipate large amounts of heat from decaying fission products in the event of an emergency shutdown. Much better to use a fuel cycle where you are continuously removing the fission products. Also requires active cooling rather than just a melt plug for emergency shut down. This leaves you open to Fukashima type failures.

[@gordonmcdowell]

"the drain tank must be able to dissipate large amounts of heat from decaying fission products" why is that hard? I'm not defending any of EI's choices, but I know Thorcon uses a drain tank, they don't remove fission products, and their simulations show they're able to passively dissipate the heat in the drain tank.

[@actorrayzorray]

I prefer a stirling heat absorbing glass reactor.

[@EdPheil]

Who says we won't use a Stirling cycle. I did not talk about the PCU.

[@MysterySemicolon]

I think about the only thing I disagree with is the assumption about the lifespan of fuel sources. I guess if uranium reactors of current design keep going and generating spent fuels they can keep going longer, but it seems to be a big hiccup if the technology really takes off and you have hundreds of of these in operation over the world. I would think having it run in conjunction with thorium-based reactors would be a best of both worlds type of scenario.

[@chapter4travels]

Not a problem, we have already figured out how to extract uranium from seawater economically. pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta07180c?fbclid=IwAR116nrLKRO8tluSTakVhpLBJrz2j2GgLjFg-ZnQ45cFojAhqAX44UurXa0#!divAbstract

[@babyelian77]

Fluorides based reactors are excellent for thorium cycle, while chlorides MSR are optimal for waste/transuranics destruction and (depleted) uranium/plutonium cycle. Anyway, using already produced depleted uranium/TRUs waste, we can easily satisfy current world electrity needs for more than 20 thousands years, it's much more you can even imagine, with no need of low-grade or seawater uranium

[@davidwilkie9551]

Most impressed by Ed, but I know nothing about the fine details, and they all matter.

[@konradcomrade4845]

in a chloride-salt reactor, You ultimately get Tritium-Chloride ( H/D/T-Cl_gas, corrosive, acidic, radioactive) in Kirk Sorensen's LiFTER it would be Tritium-Fluoride ( not less aggressive, corrosive)! Would the structural material of the tank, which could be weakened over time by the (neutrons-) Wiggener-effect, hold up for 40 years? hot Hydrogen (and Tritium too) tends to diffuse into metals and make them brittle. How would You treat the first problem, sequester the off-gases, and handle/store Tritium+He3? I think You need a chemist like Stephen Boyd on Your team! the necessary chemical processing plant would make a small-scale MCSFR uneconomical. So I think ultimately You should go for it like Elon Musk does: full scale, and solve upcoming problems on the run. Make sure, no flood-waters can come close to the drain tank and any firemen in the neighborhood know what a fast-neutron reactor is like!

[@paulwinters4727]

i hope all u nuclear engineers collaberate to get as many development ideas into action as is humanly poss. why not use graphene rods to transfer heat from reactor to co2 turbines ? can heavy magnets help with reactor deisgn ?

[@MrRolnicek]

Graphite is structurally weak and doesn't conduct heat very well as far as I know. CO2 turbines are in the prototype stage so nobody actually has a working one. I suspect it will take NASA to realize they need a lightweight, small, reliable and plentiful source of power for their Moon base to order the final development of the CO2 turbine so they can stick some type of molten salt reactor with CO2 turbine next to the Moon base for cheap reliable power. I don't see how magnets are very useful, what is the problem you're trying to solve? There is that pump design with no openings by Copenhagen atomics (I think) which would use magnetic bearings (and if you look at that presentation Ed Pheil was very interested in those) that makes it imposibble for fission products to leak around the pump shaft since there is no such thing. Plenty of designs even in LWR also use magnets to hold shutdown rods out of the reactor, making it shutdown quickly and automatically in the case of power loss.

[@Bibitybopitybacon]

@@MrRolnicek he said graphene not graphite my dude.

[@MrRolnicek]

@@Bibitybopitybacon He said "graphine" which is neither so I assumed he meant graphite since no one was able to make a rod out of graphene yet.

[@DriveCarToBar]

@@MrRolnicek www.swri.org/press-release/swri-gti-ge-supercritical-CO2-pilot-power-plant GE is working on it and it looks promising!

[@EdPheil]

Graphite heat exchanger tubes in a fast reactor high fissile density fuel might take the heat exchangers critical, in addition to the core. A Very bad situation.

[@sd_pjwal]

Is there any attempt made to educate the anti-nuclear (human) movement about these sort of developments?

[@Harrzack]

Paul Walker Helen Cauldicot should be arrested for crimes against humanity! How much real progress has her fear mongering cost the world (and made huge profits for her). 🤦‍♀️

[@EdPheil]

Yes, we talk with some anti-nuclears, but it is slow going. There IS interest though with some, like convincing Nevada that Yucca Mtn is not a waste dump, but a nuclear fuel energy repository/source.

[@martinkral7222]

@@EdPheil There is just the main tunnel at Yucca. There is only one side bore hole to test the canisters loading horizontally. Most canisters stand vertical. It would cost another $10 billion on top of the already $15 billion spent to build out Yucca for interim storage. Holtec HI-STORE CISF in New Mexico is a $3 billion capital investment to build the first phase that would handle 500 canisters (mostly from decommissioned sites). The complete build out would handle 10,000 canisters. This is the best way to store nuclear fuel for your conversion process to liquify the solid fuel rods. In my opinion, Yucca is impractical both cost wise and too politico.

[@SkypowerwithKarl]

“Information not for export” thank god! Stop our technology drain.

[@craigrmeyer]

It bums me out to understand that I’ll never be smart enough or educated enough to be able to tell whether my man here actually knows what he’s talking about, or is making any bad assumptions.

[@EdPheil]

I have been working on alternate reactor designs mostly for the Navy for 35 years. I left the Naval Nuclear Lab helping start up two new reactors per year, and one refueling/yr. I was also an operator training Navy students.

[@craigrmeyer]

Ed Pheil Are there any reasons/incentives for the Navy to try one of these newfangled gizmos instead of yet another iteration on the convention?

[@martinkral7222]

If they were interested in MSR, Ed would have built it while he was in the Navy.

[@ambientsoda106]

Each person having their own plutonium reactors...non weapons grade plutonium...

[@loungelizard836]

Nothing like playing to a packed room, eh?🙁

[@EdPheil]

The point is, this is the only nuclear conference that tries to video on nuclear topics, so is a good source for educating the general public on new types of reactors to the younger generations that use KZbin etc for a modern information source.

[@MnrBugi]

@@EdPheil maybe reach out to Rogan? Would he be interested in something like this?