Lecture 1: Core - Nonconventional (Non-PWR/BWR) Reactors

[@marianmarkovic5881]

First reaktor in Czechoslovakia was CarbonDiOxide cooled, heavy water moderated using natural uranium,...

[@heikojakob6491]

No word about the THTR-300 and it'sproblems? It was a high temperature graphite moderated, helium cooled pebble bed reactor.

[@freakshow1997]

please be aware that the russians have operated the BM 300 since 1983 (!) and the BM 800 since 2016. both are sodium cooled fast reactors. So, feasibility is high, we can build these things. Fance has Phenix and super phenix which could have operated very well by now (but were closes by the weird green politicians)

[@williamkalal7793]

We will have to buy our reactor technology from Putin. His reactors use Uranium mined in Alaska.

[@maggot00yay]

Damn, I hate to admit it, but I'm jealous of all people studying at MIT... only if I studied harder when I was young, I could be there... :/ But awesome videos, I can have a taste of heaven.

[@codaalive5076]

It's a pity the didn't go on with MSRs all over the world. Gen3+ PWR is not far from Gen1 or 2, although they have some added safety features and other things. So far only China really made progress with MSR based on thorium cycle, they should put online 2MW design this month and go on to ~100MW until 2030. I believe they will because their culture supports advancements like this. I watched another lesson by dr. Short from 2020 or so, he got really good at it.

[@matsv201]

About the HTGR i would say they fesability gone up quite a bit since 2012. China installed the first actually reactor last month, and Iran have ordered 2 of there own from China. The time to build seams to be around 3 years, that is pretty fast. And its also have a decent capacity of around 100MWt. The BN-600 was finished in Russia in the 1980-tys: The BN-800 was finished 2014 (so two years after this video). It seams to work fine and is producing power commercially today. The BN-1200 designwork is nearly finished and they plan on start building it 2020 or something like that. (the BN-1800 design seams to be scraped) Also the VVER-1700 also russian reactor is a supercritical reactor, very simular to the current VVER reactors, but super critical. Designwork is ongoing and there supose to be a build start soon (a few years), but not solid date yet. There is a lead reactor project ongoing in Canada. They will build it quite soon, but i don´t know when the first prototype will be built.

[@WadcaWymiaru]

This is crap reactor! Thorium one can be build under one year, and fuel cost ~30$ per kg, not over 5000 for 5% enriched uranium...Thorium is ALWAYS 100%!

[@BruceDuncan]

Hi from Scotland. Your educational geography trip has been approved. Come and visit 2 of the remaining 7 AGRs which at NOT in England! You're right though, the politics of the winning design is fascinating...

[@LFTRnow]

If only the DOE was looking into MSRs. Based on the info from tours of ORNL, they are giving away the tech, and ignoring it instead favoring pebble bed & TRISO fuel, as well as some dabbling in SMAHTR modular reactors. In addition they are destroying or have destroyed the U233 generated decades ago which could have been harvested for useful materials or used in new MSR designs as clean startup fuel (no transuranics). Ah well. Good class, nice to validate the info I've gotten & see the designs.

[@1over137]

Awesome. Loved it. When you mentioned Lithium to Tritium I made a face, paused it and sat counting protons and neutrons on my fingers trying to work out how that is possible. The only thing I could come up with was that if you subtract tritium from lithium + n, you are left with Helium. Anyone know, is this an split due to the neutron kenetic energy or is lithium 7 unstable and alpha decays to Tritirum? The later sounds more plausible.

[@williamkalal7793]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. These are theoretical reactions which will only occur with a 50% probability in a Thorium rich environment conducted on Earth 616

[@coderider3022]

Agr are huge things.they don’t do online refuelling as planned and due to the fractures output is limited.

[@MrEddieG420]

I live between OPG Pickering and OPG darlington. I fish the warm water outlets from candu plants all the time… massive carp love the warm water and massive pike and Muskie hang out on the edge of the warm water picking off food.

[@mutiur7396]

Who are these three guys?

[@lithostheory]

RBMK is actually an elegant design with a lot of good things. Shame the Soviets ruined it by putting incompetent people in charge of a bloody nuclear reactor. Chernobyl was one of the worst accidents for humanity. Not because of the radiation release, but because of the stigma it brought onto nuclear energy and the damage that has done to the climate.

[@davidwilkie9551]

The innate promises of a pure-math Polar-Cartesian self-defining universal system of Gold-Silver Rules, is that understanding this connectivity is to automatically argue with, not against an individual, together towards coherence-cohesion objectives, a parallel coexistence in/of vertically integrated holographic resonance bonding, perspectives vanishing-into-no-thing. (We don't need another Hero) Excellent Teaching of the technology.

[@thrunsguinneabottle3066]

Superphenix in France was operational for only a few days out of its twelve year existence. It had too many technical problems. Its predecessor, the smaller Phenix WAS a success. The French are apparently working on a new Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor. Personally, I don't like even the IDEA of a heat exchanger, which has sodium on one side, and water on the other.

[@zapfanzapfan]

Interesting class. You have a student pub called Asgard? Damn, I should visit! :-)

[@ianprado1488]

Same

[@jamesmorton7881]

ORC power from the waste heat ? Economics ( time to build ), (loans, cost over time), ( time to break even) Current nuclear plants take about 6 year for construction with a very large investment required before power generation begins. Politicians just do not last long enough and have short time though processes . Orbital thermal or PV designs would have the lowest environmental cost. Fusion power has far to many materials and control issues. Nuclear will have to bridge our power needs to a fully renewable energy future.

[@VicVlasenko]

RBMK - РБМК - Реактор Большой Мощности Канальный and yes, a lot of these reactors are still working (in CIS)

[@matsv201]

11 left.. Really just the Chernobyl once and the Ignalina once that been closed down. From 2019 they will start closing them down about one a year over a 15 year period.

[@WadcaWymiaru]

RBMK is actually a GOOD desing reactor! The Czarnobyl-4 exploded because all safety systems were off, and exploatation rules were broken! That's HOW it happen: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXPCm6KdgJird5I

[@krashd]

@@WadcaWymiaru No, it was a terrible design.

[@WadcaWymiaru]

Positive reactivity is good thing not bad. You can kill reaction by rising water level. (for good with Xenon pit) Look: if RBMK was in TMI operators would easy tell the water level in the reactor because core would increase the power. (causing drum separator to forced shut-down) in Fukushima RBMK would gave japanese ~20 times more time to bring cooling back because decay hat is like 10 MW (from 3200 MW/heat) because fuel is so little enriched(1.8%). Add fact BWR can't operate on 840 kPa, nominal is 400 kPa (Fukushima, reached in march 12) when RBMK 6500 kpa is norm. (6.9 megapascals in drum) Russian reactor has ANOTHER usefull feat: you CAN remove the rods when reactor RUN! Impossible in BWR or PWR...

[@WadcaWymiaru]

Pebble one looks like crap...thorium is the only answer: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3yWZ2qKbM1pkLs 22:00 - guy forgot to tell, this reactor has a buffer, controll rods inside 24h. Czarnobyl-4 exploded because lack of water, buffer and automatic shut-down system off! P.S. Molten salt thorium reactor can use MANY salts, not only FLiBe! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor#Fused_salt_selection My faw is NaF-ZrF4 mixture! It looks resilient and cheap! This mixture with thorium fluoride melts in ~400 °C! With no tritium creation! And Hastelloy-N is badass resistant to corriosion!

[@theq4602]

Why not use liquid aluminum as a coolant? It melts at 660 degrees C and boils at 2470 degrees C. And it is relatively chemically stable and neutron transparent.

[@leerman22]

+David Vermillion Probably because it's melting temperature is way too high. FLiBE and FLiNaK melt before 500 degrees C

[@matsv201]

You really don´t want a coolant that have a melting temperature of more than a few hundred degree. Other vice you will have a very big problem with heat transfer as well as cold start up. Also, Aluminum have a very low thermal capacity so its not that well suited.

[@1over137]

I'm still lost on what the bio-fuels are doing here though. Are you using the heat to process the raw biomass to produce fuels?

[@David-lq2xg]

I think he was referring to oil refineries

[@KrazyKittyTailz]

Very good lecture by the MIT NSE Dept. Think Prof Short's a bit too much in love with his pointer HA HA!

[@andrewlambert7246]

high temp reactor for hydrogen production

[@freakshow1997]

The direct manufacture of hydrogen is NOT an immediate goal for these reactors. First and foremost, electricity must be made. It doesn't make sense from a thermodynamic point of view to make hydrogen, if we are still using fossil fuels for electricity and hydrogen production. Please think about this.

[@romulus2225]

Very cool lecture; thanks for posting this.

[@DiamondSane]

That was nice

[@shivant3173]

Awesome

[@agh.abolfazl204]

we want a lecture from professor Bonjiorno . if he start the lecture by Bonjiorno, im Frank Bonjiorno

[@andrewlambert7246]

pressurised heavy water reactor

[@andrewlambert7246]

india has built a soduim fast reactor

[@PHYSICSworldDatabase]

Thnx sir for the video...very informative and nice :) #PHYSICSworldADatabaseofPhysics

[@bulgingbattery2050]

Looks like Mark Zuckerberg.

[@MJTO93]

You are not aware of the fact north korea is already in possession of nuclear weapons, are you?

[@TheVinscee]

this is about generating electricity .

[@cnlvu]

Well, let's hope North Korean don't watch this :)

[@anhedonianepiphany5588]

This is extremely basic and well-known information. Most high school physics students comprehend this rudimentary outline of next generation reactor technologies. This is as true today as it was when you commented "8 years ago".