Nuclear Physicist Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder Small Nuclear Thorium Reactors are Coming to Europe

[@BHRxRACER]

Is it rude to point out she gained a lot of weight? This isn't good for her health. Elina if you're reading this, get in shape while you stil can. It gets harder the more you get fat.

[@mariagavriilidou7525]

YES IT IS RUDE TO MAKE A COMMENT LIKE THAT! The fact that you had to ask that indicates that your brain understood that it is wrong but you went ahead and still wrote that comment. She is an intelligent woman and her body has nothing to do with you nor gives you the right to comment on it. It's extremely disrespectful and extremely rude. If she was a man you would NEVER have said anything about his body. You should have known better. I hope you reflect on your comment, delete it and never comment on anyone's body ever again!!!

[@JGRGilbert]

@BHRxRACER we are here for the science. Please post a link to your KZbin videos so that we can criticise your appearance!

[@MisterMooo]

She cute tho

[@BHRxRACER]

@@mariagavriilidou7525 I say harsher things to men, and even harsher to my family and friends.

[@joaobarros6744]

Yes it's rude. Think about this, if I suddenly started pointing out all your "flaws" regarding your health, would you appreciate it? E.g The posture you sit at a computer, the screentime you have per day, you sleep hygiene, you not getting enough hours of sleep, you eating processed and greasy food, you eating more than you need, you not doing enough exercise as you should, you not brushing your teeth as well as you should, do you test all the water you drink? etc etc etc I could go on on how all of us make personal choices regarding health and that's fine. Eat a burguer, don't exercise that much, have bad posture sometimes, use to much cellphone now and then, but imagine the pain in the *ss that would be if everyone just kept commenting on your choices in life...

[@ren2704]

In France, one of the reasons why we are interested into thorium is that it seems there are very large deposits within our country.

[@Amermito]

France has to some of its biggest producers of uranium are slipping from there grasp, or are starting to sell to China for more money.

[@rogermorey]

BUT...The alternative U238 is already mined and purified. It also doesn't have to go through the protactinium phase. Nearly free vs very expensive to purify as Thorium is still quite rare.

[@jiminverness]

@@rogermorey Thorium is actually between 3 and 4 times more common than Uranium.

[@alexandrejulio]

How many thousand of thorium tonnes are in European France? kzbin.info/www/bejne/g2O7YZ6ids-HbbM How patient are french forces, in regard of Wide-Bandgap & lead-inclusive eletronics? kzbin.info/www/bejne/bWXMmpSOfrunkKs

[@quietackshon]

So how do they synthesis U233?@@rogermorey

[@deniskhafizov6827]

9:15 Actually, we do build small reactors in serial production. Many countries build nuclear submarines and ships in series. Some of them are even trying now to convert the already time-tested designs into civil power plants, like Rosatom and their Lomonosov power barge.

[@spvillano]

There are also reactors for sale that are conventional molten lead reactors, direct burial that are intended to power entire villages. Bury the reactor, wire it up, enjoy. Once the fuel is depleted, the lead freezes, the reactor is excavated and scrapped, the replacement installed in its place. The only fly in the ointment is, the intended market simply can't afford the things.

[@Ornithopter470]

The reactors for naval applications aren't really built in series, they're built on-site, to a unified-ish design. Exact locations of valves and such can vary somewhat.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

@@Ornithopter470 Nearly all the nuclear submarines are built in series, like Virginia class or Type 094.

[@rogermorey]

@@deniskhafizov6827 And they are all inexpensive and provide Gigawatts of free power? The record of the reactors is not public knowledge. You and I just don't know.

[@rogermorey]

@@spvillano Yep safety, competitive and nuclear mostly don't go together.

[@leftcoaster67]

Sabine in general is informative. But I think this highlights specialists can provide more of a deep dive. She does kind of ping pong on her opinions. But she's smart enough to admit when she makes errors, or changes opinion. Elina you're awesome. Thank you for the great content.

[@douginorlando6260]

Only when she makes extremely stupid claims. She apologized for claiming air density drops with altitude because gravity drops with altitude. My guess is she is paid to push climate agenda lies and sometimes simply reads a script written by non technical climate change experts.

[@gutpunch6724]

An excellent breakdown on this subject. Clear, understandable, and informative. Thank you for producing this content.

[@Doo_Doo_Patrol]

Yes, great propaganda on both sides.

[@gutpunch6724]

Like you would know. 🤣🤣🤣🤡@@Doo_Doo_Patrol

[@robertsmith4681]

It's like watching a debate between a theoretical physicist and an engineer ... Separated only by a common language.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thanks a lot, I am a physics and a nuclear engineer so more like physicists^2+1 engineer 👩🏽‍🔬☢️

[@arctic_haze]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist Sabine is a theoretical physicist so it is not really her field.

[@alexandrejulio]

​@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist , here's a communicator from India, with an argument regarding U233 [and U232] use in weapons. Do you agree with it? kzbin.info/www/bejne/bWXMmpSOfrunkKs In my perspective it's easier to enrich U235 within U238 than deplete U232 within U233... unless you leave U232 to decay during some centuries?

[@CloudyMcCloud00]

@@arctic_haze She's a bit too fond of getting her face on camera every single day (imo).

[@arctic_haze]

@@CloudyMcCloud00 This is how she (Sabine) earns money. She is not employed as a physicist at this time.

[@SuiLagadema]

I think you would really like the channel "Periodic Videos". They don't only talk about chemistry, but when they talk about radioactive elements they always speak about the applications. They have a video titled "Thorium Cow" in which they use thorium to create isotopes that are use in radiotherapy, and I'm guessing also for angiograms since you need contrast to see malformations or blockages in the circulatory system. If anything, I'm more of a physics guy, but I do really enjoy how they present the information in a very digestible way (and that's coming from someone who almost failed chemistry but passed biochemistry with flying colors ahah)

[@Failure_Is_An_Option]

Kid... the adults in the room have the periodic table down...

[@Amermito]

The funny thing is in many ways the coal they use now is more radioactive then the nuclear power plants that keep that radiative contained .

[@paulanderson7796]

It's absolutely true. You're correct.

[@derradfahrer5029]

... during "normal" operation.

[@Alastair510]

I have a friend who works on waste management at a well-known large site. The rules (about radiation levels) are so strict, that the backup gas generation plant has to be off-site. Otherwise, the radiation emissions from the gas would exceed permitted levels on the 'contaminated' nuclear plant.

[@spvillano]

Aw, come on now, what's wrong with that radioactive ash slurry leaking from the dikes and into rivers where drinking water is drawn from? The US has largely been moving away from coal, despite the former POTUS claiming he'd bring it back, away from coal and nuclear, both being too expensive and maintenance intensive. Now, we're heavily utilizing natural gas. Because CO2 is good, it turned Venus into the wonderful garden spot that it is today. I'll just get my hat...

[@Lightkie]

"the coal they use now" sounds suspiciously like Elina's claim that Germany replaced nuclear energy with something other than renewable energy "from one day to the next". They were not all shut down at the same time but over two decades with the last three NPPs almost a year ago. Incidentally, last year, Germany produced less electricity from coal than in the pandemic year of 2020. In fact it was the lowest since 1959 with renewable energy rising to over 50% for the first time.

[@BobB-w4q]

I greatly appreciate two different perspectives from qualified nuclear physicists.

[@ronaldlebeck9577]

Sabine is more into quantum physics, particle physics, and astrophysics.

[@oscarwester5579]

Well at that point youre really just nitpicking. Those specializations of physics are extremely close@@ronaldlebeck9577

[@fionafiona1146]

​@@ronaldlebeck9577 cute that she is excited about stuff but it's really cringe worthy to see her be bad on subjects from human biology to energy infrastructure.

[@user-pf5xq3lq8i]

Sabine pushes the man made climate change lies. She is a wef puppet.

[@avishalom2000lm]

@@fionafiona1146 it's the whole mystique from Einstein that if you are a theoretical physicist, you must be qualified to give an opinion on anything under the sun. Knowing the mysteries of the universe will not help you if your car breaks down on the side of the road.

[@DonaldKronos]

Thorium is much more common than uranium, and while it is easier to separate the Isotopes in a molten salt reactor, it would still be harder to extract from it materials for making nuclear weapons, because the reaction chain doesn't so easily produce such isotopes compared to the reaction chain of uranium. Sadly, that's why uranium was chosen in the first place, not because it was safer but because it was more dangerous, and some people wanted to make use of the damage they could use it to cause. Instead of saying that nuclear power is still dangerous, I think what Sabine should have said is that radioactive materials are still hazardous, or at least risky, but it seems to me her point was that people worry because they still don't fully understand, and of course it's true that there is not enough understanding out there because such things are not easy to communicate clearly and there's not enough discussion of them happening to compensate for that fact. Also, just to be clear, they are fission reactors, not fusion reactors. Such thorium based reactors are safer because they don't run the same risk of a runaway fission reaction that the uranium-based reactors do. The devices are designed to actively keep the reaction at a high enough level that power can be extracted from it, rather than having to actively prevent the reaction from reaching a dangerously high level. Also, the drain off system is passive, but preventing it from draining off is active, so if the reactor stops working properly the solid salt plug that prevents the molten salt from draining off will fail to be actively cooled and will thus get melted by the molten salt, which will passively remove the plug and allow the salt to drain off into storage tanks. There are of course experts out there who can explain this way better than I can, because I am not an expert on the subject, but I understand it well enough that I figured I could at least try to explain some of what I do understand of it. I hope you find it helpful. Unfortunately, as far as calling something dangerous that should have instead been called risky, the same thing is happening to artificial intelligence right now. It's not dangerous but rather there is a risk that dangerous humans might use such tools to do dangerous things or to guide its evolution in dangerous directions. If we teach an artificial intelligence to Value benevolence then we don't have to actively prevent filter what it's allowed to say, because the safety mechanism then does not need to rely on external activity, just as the drain off system in a molten salt reactor does not need to rely on being activated when it's needed, because if the reactor fails then the solid salt plug will fail to be cooled and the safety measure of draining the liquid salt will then happen without any outside active intervention having to take place. Thinking ahead is important, in both cases, and it's better to build a slightly risky system that minimizes its own risk automatically than to build a hazardous system that requires constantly actively preventing the hazard from causing damage. I hope I've stated that clearly enough to be helpful.

[@davidrowewtl6811]

An excellent addition. I have one point to add. We have a clear, affordable, timely, safe, solution with wind, solar and storage to go on with now. We don't need any stop gap before fusion, IMHO.

[@user-lp5wb2rb3v]

With all due respect, formatting as paragraphs would be helpful.

[@user-lp5wb2rb3v]

@@davidrowewtl6811 nuclear is much more energy dense, that it makes solar useless

[@karhukivi]

You cannot mine either thorium or uranium at crustal abundance levels of only a few ppm. Thorium does not readily form economic deposits - deposits of uranium are far more common than thorium

[@Cragified]

@@davidrowewtl6811 Making an assumption economical and productive fusion power will happen with certainty is absolute insanity. It's been 20 years away for 60 years now. Fusion is trying to put energy into something and getting more energy back. No other power production takes that approach for good reason. Even fission is simply a harnessing of a naturally occurring process that happens on Earth.

[@sststr]

Sabine is one of the very few science communicators I actually really like and trust, so it's great to get your take as a nuclear expert on her take on (thorium) nuclear.

[@stuntmonkey00]

Sabine is... problematic. She's brilliant and being an outspoken is important, but she gets herself into trouble by wading into fields outside of expertise, and if you watch closely she is disingenuous with how she represents the other sides of her arguments. She has an important thing to say about philosophy of science and how resources have been squandered in particle physics, but she's firmly on the minority side of dark matter/MOND, and uses passive aggressive language in her videos to that effect. I used to like her a lot, but her audience is also telling of that... nobody watching her really understands the topics, the comment section is just effusive empty praise about how smart she is. I mean, naturally, in most of YT physics channels the majority of the audience probably doesn't understand fully some of the advanced topics, but she's inadvertently building a problematic following of not so smart people watching a smart person to feel smart about themselves. I do mean problematic, not completely terrible. She was of the first to pull back the curtain on the delayed choice quantum eraser phenomenon (though PBS Spacetime actually did almost get it right in their original series... just after the fact in the discussion about their challenge question of the week). She undoubtedly has a sharp wit and can be very funny. You can learn a lot of things from her channel. But she is also abrasive and borderline unbecoming of an educator at times. The average person needs a solid foundation of the science presented clearly, and to be honest, channels like Fermilab, Sixty Symbols, Deep Sky videos and Dr. Becky do a much better job of not only laying out the concepts, but showing how scientists arrive at each concept and the strengths of short comings of each finding or theory.

[@andoletube]

@@stuntmonkey00 Indeed, she is way out of her depth in the fields of medicine and medical research. She reveals herself at times to be grossly under researched and towing certain company/governmental lines. I unsubbed from her after discovering this. I can't trust her on other areas if I can't trust her on this important area.

[@stuntmonkey00]

@@andoletubeI finally un-subbed from her after she did a drive-by on an older Dr. Becky video about JWST imaging galaxies that are older that what current models predicted. Like, she didn't exactly call her out, but she went on a spiel about how dark matter proponents were just conveniently re-fitting their models to accommodate this data instead of properly re-evaluating their theories. And then flashes a thumbnail of a Dr. Becky video, which was months old by that time. If you had actually watched the video, Dr. Smethurst actually fully laid out the process of how those models were derived, and how they were built on assumptions that people knew wouldn't hold up but which were a starting point anyways. Basically we see galaxies older than the age of the universe because their computed age is based on an incomplete model, with new data we wouldn't be calculating the age of those galaxies as old. And this was all step-wise laid out. And this is because Dr. Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist and Dr. Smethurst is an astrophysicist... once again, Sabine dipping her toes into a field she isn't an expert in.

[@andoletube]

@@stuntmonkey00 Yes, I remember that video. She does tend to drive-by some of her YT contemporaries. I know part of it is for comedic effect but the insinuations are sometimes unprofessional and misleading. The final straw for me was her videos regarding metabolic disease. She was scathing towards proponents of the ketogenic diet as a means of treating metabolic syndrome and fell right in line with the badly ageing American Heart Association and WHO guidelines - who are woefully outdated and have been well-exposed for shoddy research and cherry-picked data dating right back to Ancel Keys in the 1960s. This is research which has been thoroughly debunked and revealed to be bought and paid for by large food corporations. She seemed to be completely unwilling to go into that aspect of it. This shows me that she is generating content for views rather than for truth.

[@jamesdellaneve9005]

@@andoletube It was the climate change ones that had me unsub her channel. Even if the catastrophists are correct. Their policies suggestions will lead to the end of the West, energy poverty and mass starvation.

[@etmax1]

@ around 12:00 Elina, please note that Sabine has already said it's a Thorium SMR. As far as I'm aware LWR SMR is struggling to be cost effective at the smaller size, ie. to simplify the statement, efficiency and cost per kWh is inverse proportional to size by some factor.

[@CarlNeal]

Thank you for the analysis!! It is good to have a variety of well reasoned view points on this topic.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Glad you enjoyed it!☢️👩🏽‍🔬

[@jlp1528]

I thought U233 is hard to make bombs with because it gives off so much gamma radiation, but maybe I have incorrect information. Edit: It's U232 contamination that gives off the gamma, thank you for correcting me.

[@madarah8533]

The U232 contamination is what is responsible for the gamma radiation but youd want very pure U233 for a reactor anyway. This means Thorium reactors produce exactly the kind of material that is good for making weapons.

[@jlp1528]

@@madarah8533 That's it, yes! So yeah, assuming you can handle it enough to run it through pretty standard enrichment processes and then deal with the waste, I suppose it's possible. Oddly enough, as long as you keep the fuel in the reactor long enough, this isn't a problem for uranium reactors. Although Pu239 is produced, so are a bunch of even numbered plutonium isotopes. This is why there is a difference between weapons-grade and reactor-grade plutonium, in a similar though subtly different way than uranium enrichment levels.

[@YellowRambler]

Look up thorium for nuclear bombs a long time ago on Google, long story made short sort of, Thorium required a lot more effort, bad shelf life, poor yield on explosions, easily detectable because of the gamma radiation, At least that was the reason/excuse I found? It would be nice to see a non-bias video on this subject, but these days non-bias anything is few and far between.

[@claywynn4507]

@@jlp1528 "So yeah, assuming you can handle it enough to run it through pretty standard enrichment processes and then deal with the waste, I suppose it's possible." Famous last words! You need to be specific about the formation of U232 in the Thorium U233 reactor and how to handle the resulting decay high energy gamma (requires much shielding thus much $$$). Otherwise you come across as a used care salesman.

[@mr_happygolucky7095]

I believe the critical mass of U233 is lower than U235 or any Pu isotopes ( at least ones with reasonable half-lifes)

[@meyersfarber]

old nuke here, veteran of the US political war against nuclear power, and it's great to see a young person using her expertise to advocate for the proper use of the newer nuclear technologies to address the very real problems we face

[@willowwisp357]

Me too, I feel completely cheated of a wonderful profitable career saving the world from petroleum with clean nuclear power. Instead I integrated industrial control systems for 35 years. Damn the pencil neck bean counters that without proper investigation condemned us to unsafe nuclear power plants for decades because they refused to listen to the guy that developed both uranium and thorium who explained the problem and was forced into retirement so those lazy bureaucrats didn’t have to think about a new way of doing nuclear.

[@jazjobse946]

The US wants to rule the world that is why no other reactor were built as it was US that told the world no new systems would be allowed.

[@antispindr8613]

Seems that the nuclear industry is getting far better using well paid trolls to undermine honest debate and push its half-truths/disinformation.

[@tomhalla426]

I think the negative learning curve on conventional reactors is a matter of lawfare. As the intervenors are actually prohibitionists on nuclear power, any cost increases and delays are a goal, not a thing to be avoided.

[@johannesswillery7855]

Exactly.

[@faroncobb6040]

I don't think so, most of the reactors recently built, under construction, or abandoned in the west, have had strong government support. IMO the real problem is that most western engineering companies have been taken over by by bean counters who prioritize cutting costs and sucking up government money over actually maintaining engineering expertise. Examples include Boeing being disastrous at everything they touch lately, Ford and GM losing billions of dollars per year failing to make EVs profitably, the US Navy spending billions to build the LCS and Zumwalt class destroyers then scrapping them without ever putting them in service, and much more. I'm not as familiar with what happens in Europe, but I do know that the development of the Arianne 6 rocket has been very delayed, way over budget, and has almost completely failed to achieve the cost savings that were the whole point of replacing the Arianne 5.

[@tomhalla426]

@@faroncobb6040 I would suggest that dealing with bureaucrats and NGOs is the major skill of the “engineering firms”. They are so “regulated” it is a part of the lawfare. As long as they satisfy DEI requirements, actually building anything becomes secondary.

[@kennethferland5579]

This excuse is getting old, EVERY country is seeing the same negative learning curve as it expanded nuclear power. The fact that nuclear power has nothing driving down costs is hardly surprising when you see that each generation of reactors is a decade long.

[@bluecedar7914]

kennethferland5579 more like three decades long.

[@jeffweiss2131]

Thank you, great job explaining your perspective and filling the blanks from Sabine's presentation.

[@anakimluke]

hey elina thanks so much for the video! I really appreciate the edutuber community keeping themselves in check! It really make me feel like I'm getting informed the best way there is! :)

[@JustAKidder]

Sabine has one of the few channels that I have to listen at normal speed…love the content, love your enthusiasm!

[@TDBoedy]

Thorium in a molten salt reactor will feature uranium to get it started. The point is that right now it is largely tossed into mining tailing piles. Thorium's decay chain includes U-233 which is a hard gamma emitter - which i NOT useful for nuclear weapons, is hard to handle and is easily observable by most nations with the capable sensor systems. Thorium is best in a fast spectrum reactor to take advantage of its breeding cycle. In a thermal spectrum reactor you can just do uranium chloride for a molten salt fuel.

[@mosslomas591]

Chloride salt reactors are proposed for fast spectrum reactors. Thorium is the only thermal spectrum breeder reactor fuel cycle as it can produce more than 2 neutrons at sub mev range

[@garymartin9777]

Everything I read says it IS usable to make nuke weapons although potentially with less yield than U235.

[@CHIEF_420]

⚛ 🧂

[@perryallan3524]

Here is what we know about thorium as a reactor fuel: In the 1960's the USA produced many tons of it for both a weapons development program and for what was assumed to be a large commercial power plant operation (the USA built 4 thorium cycle commercial power plants in the 1960's - 1970's). What the US found out that the extraction of thorium and conversion into reactor fuel from rocks and dirt was significantly more expensive than the extraction or uranium and conversion into reactor fuel from rocks and dirt. I have not heard that this has changed. So the fact that there is waste materials with thorium in them does not change the conversion into useable fuel cost. I have no idea where you are getting your information on U233 for bombs. Not only does U233 make a great bomb (the USA built and tested one - and reports are that India and Russia did the same); but that the USA seriously considered using it to replace Pu239 as a bomb material. It turns out the cost of production of weapons grade U233 is significantly more expensive than the production of weapons grade Pu239, largely due to the base thorium fuel cost vs base Uranium fuel cost. I doubt that there is any significant radiation detection issues with U233.

[@richardburden6035]

U-232, not U-233 is a hard gamma emitter. Weapons-grade U-233 is made by sequestering protactinium-233, half-life 28 days, produced by neutron capture by thorium-232. Such sequestration is usually necessary also to achieve above break-even breeding in a slow neutron reactor, because without it, the protactinium-233 will capture another neutron and decay to U-234 (fertile, but not fissile) or less often, U-232 (fertile, semi-fissile). So much easier to use a fast breeder! It's also cheaper and easier to make supercritical amounts of weapons-grade plutonium than weapons-grade U-233 or U-235, which is the main reason why it is used. It's far easier to make a bomb with weapons-grade U-235, and somewhat easier with weapons-grade U-233, due to much lower spontaneous release of neutrons.

[@patrickday4206]

My father was a civil engineer in the United States and remodeled nuclear power plants. The problem was they were leaking then through cracks in the foundations and leaching into the water tables causing people to get thyroid cancer. Nuclear power is a problem when not properly maintained and greedy people will decide the lawsuits are cheaper than the repairs

[@fionafiona1146]

Don't forget the virtually indefinite storage issues. Germany had nuclear power and waist for many more decades than most locations and in 2008 one of the "final" storage destinations was proven leaking. That didn't keep people from voting in "pro nuclear" candidate Angela Merkel (just after her party lost most high ranking members to a financial scandal) and canceling all plans that would have built energy resilience or even sovereignty. I am aware the Anglosphere has a hard time telling apart Atom-Austieg from Atom-Austieg-Austieg-Austieg but I assure you the former was solid policy that would have avoided the mess of the later (including buying into natural gas and not knowing what to do with Baltic electricity dropping below 0€ct) because that actually included the decentralised renewable energy and infrastructure development it would have taken to make a smoother transition. I am quite glad that Solar panel innovation and wind energy developments got deployment back up to 2009/2012 levels respectively by 2021 but that gap, ripped by CDU/CSU "conservative"

[@gerarddearie-zd2gb]

"Phasing out nuclear power was the dumbest mistake Germany ever made as a country..." The Polish corridor is giving you side-eyes right now.

[@ubahfly5409]

Yeah she better not let the grandparents hear her say that! 😂 🇬🇷

[@elvinhaak]

Yes... kind of .... we will probably find out that the dumbest mistake is to shut down coalplants and coalmines... before having energy-sources that don't make our countries less dependend on other countries that we don't want to depend on in Europe like Russia, Iran, Irak and other countries for gas (we know how that went sofar already), oil and Uranium. We now import lots of those sources from those countries here in Europe and making our countries pretty relient on nuclear fuells at the moment from the now political block around Russia. And yes, Nuclear is not yet limited with sanctions because of that. Also therefore, Thorium could be one of the better legs then Uranium since we have more of that relatively easily available in the Western-European-countries. But we will certainly need a blend of energy for the next generations to come if we want to maintain our current quality of life.

[@HelmutRockstroh]

She already explained that AH (Nazi) was evil! as compared to dumb.

[@michaels4255]

Facilitating the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 was dumber.

[@appliedfacts]

Yeah...well...STRATICALLY speaking the Polish corridor was pretty smart. MORALLY speaking...yep, it beats phasing out nuclear power.

[@lamina566]

One advantage of SNTR's is they can be co-located with existing manufacturing processes which are energy intensive which provides 2 significant benefits: 1. Substantially reduces the energy lost due to transmission from centralized power plants; 2. Increased reliability due to eliminating the impact of electrical power disruptions due to weather and centralized power generation disruptions.

[@elvinhaak]

And, not to forget, much less impact due to cables all around countries and much less political problems with implementing all this overland-cabling. Another advance for the companies will be taxes and costs since in many countries here in the EU a lot of the energy-cost is actually taxes for buying and transporting the energy. There will be some taxes of course with producing it yourself but it is far less. This can ofcourse also been seen as a negative because of less controled tax-income for the countries.

[@robertweinmann9408]

You forgot the ability to use waste heat from the reactors for industrial processes. Big increase in total efficiency.

[@elvinhaak]

Yes, absolutely! @@robertweinmann9408

[@spvillano]

@@robertweinmann9408 we barely utilize heat rejection systems even to moderate levels, which is a shame. But, it's cheaper to generate heat anew locally than to transport it even a fairly short distance from plant grounds, due to initial costs of piping insulated pipes and maintenance.

[@georgegonzalez2476]

But there's a huge drawback too-- reactors have to run at full or at least a steady power level to not poison themselves with Xenon buildup. Once you throttle back you are stuck at zero power for three days for the Xenon to decay. Which means you are forced to run the production process 24/7 as much as possible. Quite a drawback for most industrial processes.

[@propelegant]

Talking as a complete amateur I would like to raise some interesting historical background. The Light Water Reactor (LWR) was developed by Alvin Weinberg to provide propulsive power to The American Navy submarines ( it could be described as the first compact nuclear reactor). The United States Airforce decided they wanted a nuclear-powered aircraft design which led to the development of the Thorium reactor. The American Administration decided to scale up the LWR design to generate domestic power. This decision was challenged by Wienberg who preferred his LFTR design which proved to be inherently safe as it is not pressurized and will shut down safely in the event of a fault.

[@QEngineering]

The biggest advantage to a thorium reactor is PR. People who are afraid of nuclear power are also afraid of uranium and plutonium, so by saying "hey we use this thing called thorium" makes them feel better.

[@M0rmagil]

I don’t think the people afraid of nuclear power are particularly concerned about what fuels the reactor. The depth of their “thinking” goes NUCLEAR BAD!

[@raymondsmith6870]

It is actually safer than uranium from the meltdowns side.

[@spvillano]

@@raymondsmith6870 for a molten salt reactor. For a standard rod and pellet reactor, the risk is essentially the same. Which is *really* low with modern designs and updated designs (TEPCO wouldn't have had the mess at Fukushima had they installed the strongly recommended hydrogen gas scrubber and vent system, as well as raised their seawall. But, they saved money by rapid unscheduled disassembly of their reactors via an impressive demonstration of hydrogen explosions within a confined space.

[@anonymes2884]

Kind of like renaming "NMR" to "MRI" ? I'm not totally convinced the same applies here because (as in that case) I suspect it's the "nuclear" part that people don't like (very few lay people know the difference between uranium, plutonium or thorium in terms of risk - they _hear_ "nuclear reactor" and _think_ "Chernobyl, meltdown, radioactive waste" etc.). (sure, I guess you could try to avoid saying "nuclear reactor" at all but anyone fooled for long by that tactic shouldn't be making _any_ decisions about power generation IMO :)

[@spvillano]

@@anonymes2884yeah, ignorance rules excessively. Don't get me started on how many cooling tower images I've seen in memes and blathers against nuclear power that were air conditioning cooling towers, power station cooling towers that had no generation capabilities, coal plant cooling towers, etc. Hell, just tonight I saw one video showing coal power plant chimneys, while the video host blathered about how awful nuclear anything was. Then, there's the no such thing as good radiation, all should be eliminated. OK, I'll happily shut off the biggest radiation source around here - the sun. Gotta get rid of lights as well. No, can't have a cell, that's also EM radiation. Oh, gotta get rid of the now largest radiation source in the room, the radiation objector's body heat...

[@picksalot1]

This is the first time I've head that Thorium used in a Reactor can directly produce Weapons Grade Materials. This is not the "safe" alternative it has been presented as. Thanks for your analysis of Sabine's video.

[@perryallan3524]

Yes, its one of the common lies. A Molten Salt Reactor would in fact be a perfect reactor design to produce weapons grade material.

[@andrzejsamorzewski146]

I don't see any problems with that, as long as we don't export this technology to enemy countries.

[@mariusmorawski5595]

@@andrzejsamorzewski146 If it's useful for making weapons-grade material, this kind of technology will "export itself" sooner rather than later. Whether you like it or not.

[@spvillano]

@@mariusmorawski5595no reactor produces weapons grade material, that has to be separated by some rather expensive processes to isolate the specific weapon isotope from isotopes that'd either trigger a prompt critical state before assembly of a supercritical mass has completed or even poison the chain reaction. That's why gas centrifuges were a big deal with Iran, although their usage still appears to be simply HEU and not weapons grade purity for their main medical and industrial isotope breeder reactor. It was built to only run on HEU. Since Iran mines their own uranium and has processing facilities, it makes economic sense to not buy it from abroad. And despite panic mongers trumpeting gloom and doom, had Iran wanted weapons, they'd literally have several hundred by 2015 and by now, around a thousand. But then, I actually worked on nuclear weapons in the military, so I do know a wee bit about that side of the house.

[@mariusmorawski5595]

@@spvillano I didn't mean to imply that it directly produces weapons-grade material without any further steps. Sorry if I was unclear.

[@georgelewis3047]

"everybody can agree this is the dumbest thing Germans have ever done" REALLY??? Are you that history-free?

[@adurpandya2742]

Sabine puts out a new video everyday it seems like, on a wide range of subjects. At this point, I’m suspicious on how accurate she is.

[@b89john]

Both Elina and Sabina offer (very) informed opinions. You can check their opinions. You can see where their opinions diverge and why. Neither claims to be error free. Sabine has on several occasions admitted to mistakes. If you think she may be inaccurate both of these women are mature enough to defend their perspective or change it if it is shown to be flawed. So to help us all to be better informed, please tell us why you are suspicious of Sabine’s veracity: have you specific videos in mind where she has misrepresented the issues?

[@adurpandya2742]

@@b89john Its simple - I don’t believe she can accurately or deeply cover all the subjects she makes videos on in the time given. Proving this takes too much effort so I don’t bother proving this. I just find other sources of info.

[@anonymes2884]

Prof. Hossenfelder often seems to me to actively court controversy in the process of straying way outside her area of expertise, a cynic might suppose as a way to garner views. To be clear, I have no issue with people holding and robustly defending contrary views if well-founded. My problem is with _being_ "a contrarian", which is just another type of bias - _against_ the consensus, regardless of merit - but disguised as a sort of performative "speaking truth to power", which often feels disingenuous to me. And at least the last time I checked, her citations were behind a Patreon paywall which is very bad form for science videos IMO, especially from a working scientist.

[@asmodon]

Her video on capitalism was so embarrassingly bad I unsubscribed. She didn’t even look up the definition of capitalism and just assumed that its the same as market economy. As an economist I cringed so much. She even admitted that she didn’t really research for it. She just talked out of her *ss, because apparently social sciences are easy or something.

[@eichhornchenwibbleflup7688]

@@asmodon Ah - I have had this argument with friends educated in other fields. I studied history, so I know what capitalism is... :-P But they were arguing against capitalism and didn't even know how to define it... they had basically constructed a straw man that they were wildly hacking at...

[@peterclarke3020]

Although the video did mention the idea of using the heat output of a thorium reactor it didn’t really go into this enough. A standard uranium pressurised light water reactor runs at about 300 deg C. A thorium reactor can run at 800 deg C Which is hot enough for industrial process heat for several industries - leading to significant efficiency gains. It’s the use of molten salt and not only causing that for cooling, but dissolving the fuel into the salt that allows for much better fuel burn up, as well as complete equilibration of the fuel. Separate cooling loops inside heat exchangers separate the radioactive side from the external side. Mention was made of safety, although the freeze plug method was not mentioned specifically.

[@highlanderthegreat]

yes they had a back up plan, but it was russian oil,,,,,....lolololol

[@vahidfarsi812]

Thorium is more refined, it takes way less effort to enrich and therefore produce way less radioactive waste!

[@JGRGilbert]

Everything I've come across before about thorium power has said that it can't be used to produce material for nuclear weapons. I've even seen this cited as one of the reasons why the USA stopped research into thorium power after building the prototype molten salt reactor at Oak Ridge.

[@takashitamagawa5881]

From what I understand, in the molten salt reactor configuration, fissionable Uranium 233 is present as an intermediate product in the cycle. Not available in spent fuel, but it exists long enough that it can be drawn off and diverted.

[@JGRGilbert]

@@takashitamagawa5881 From a little reading on Wikipedia, it does seem that ²³³U based weapons probably have as much development work required as thorium reactors, so the immediate threat of proliferation may be lower than from established reactor technologies.

[@mikefallwell1301]

India's first nuclear device used uranium 233 but it was not a practical bomb

[@wwoods66]

"it can't be used to produce material for nuclear weapons" "can't" is an overstatement. It definitely _can_ be done, but making weapons-grade U-233 looks to be at least as hard as making weapons-grade U-235 or Pu-239. What probably can't be done is doing it _covertly._ So if a government is willing to tell the world they're going to become a nuclear state, they can... But they'll probably choose one of the two routes used by **every** other nuclear-power wannabee since the 1940s: enrich the U-235 in natural uranium or transmute U-238 into Pu-239.

[@perryallan3524]

@@wwoods66 Actually, its far more likely that it can be done covertly with a MSR than any other reactor type. The key to weapons grade materials is to short cycle the fuel in the reactor to limit in the case of Pu239 the generation of Pu240 from Pu239 absorbing another neutron. Too much Pu240 and you cannot build a bomb. That's why countries use special weapons production reactors where they can limit the fuel to only several months in the reactor (push rod sections through a graphite reactor). Most power plants are intentionally designed to have fuel assemblies (or blocks) in a reactor for 11-51 months which generates far to much Pu240 for weapons use. Its easy for international inspectors to track refueling outages (they last weeks as they involve a lot of disassembly, moving for fuel assemblies or blocks, and reassembly) and count the number of fuel assemblies and blocks in a spent fuel pool (while reading the serial numbers). While U233 makes a great bomb (and the thorium fuel cycle runs on U233 once its seed fuel us used up), it has a similar problem with U234. Again the fuel must be short cycled to limit U234 (and the US used the same weapons production reactors to build a successful U233 bomb, and I've read that India and Russia have done the same). A MSR is the perfect reactor to short cycle fuel in as all you have to do is drain it into some storage bottles and refill the reactor and primary loop from a fresh molten salt fuel supply (this likely could be done in literally a few hours). Repeat as often as you like. How do you track missing liters or gallons of molten salt fuel/daughter product (and maybe you only drain 1/3 or 1/2 of it). How can you determine if a bottle or tank if full or empty, etc. Its a major question the international inspectors are trying to figure out.

[@isaacthedestroyerofstuped7676]

I think part of the reason they want to use Thorium is PR! It doesn't sound as scary; nearby and anti-nuclear nation, like Germany, could be more willing to open up to its use. Also, I am not familiar with EU legislation on Uranium vs Thorium which could effect how readily the fuel can be transported between the France and the Netherlands.

[@albertusvanlubeeck9161]

My issue with thorium proponents is their narrative that all nuclear energy is bad, except for thorium. This isn't accurate and only fuels anti-nuclear sentiment. Thorium has its place and uses, just like all other forms of energy production.

[@marknovak6498]

"Nuclear is dangerous", is just too general. any danger needs to be discussed in the context of a specific threat.

[@fionafiona1146]

People often forget how dangerous hydroelectric infrastructure is too. Hydro electric infrastructure can scarcely be comprehend by individuals but nuclear is fully outside most peoples range (including myself)

[@rogermorey]

Can you separate breeder reactors capable of producing Plutonium for bombs from development of the same reactor for Thorium? Would you advocate for development on the taxpayers of such a reactor for export? U238 feedstock is currently available to the public and is largely untracked.

[@perpetualrabbit]

How much uranium goes into a nuclear weapon? At the very very minimum, around 15 kg. How much thorium needs to be used as fuel before you get this minimum of 15 kg uranium as a byproduct? Several tons of thorium. So, I would NOT regard the use of thorium as a great risk for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, because the needed uranium can be much more easily produced in the traditional ways: ultracentrifuges. Unless I am totally wrong about the numbers, and I would very much like to be corrected in that case.

[@Kelnx]

For someone who comes from the nuclear industry it's all been so strange to me this weird push for thorium, especially all of the pie-in-the-sky language used about it. People don't realize that an entire fuel cycle, safety program, and multiple levels of engineering and operational practice has to be developed that all already exists for LWRs. I'm sure plenty of lessons learned can and will be incorporated into a Thorium reactor both design and operation, but there are going to be specific things that crop up that just aren't known about now and I really don't see the advantage of basically rebooting nuclear energy. In the 40s and 50s, the choice was between U-235 and Thorium, and they chose U-235. People can criticize that choice and often do, but it's a lot reset all the way back to that decision and basically start over without a solid answer to the question: Why?.

[@danilooliveira6580]

while I agree, I also fully believe we can do both at the same time, Thorium has a place in our energy future if we take the time to develop it, Uranium is not infinite, and while we can extend our deposits for centuries if we recycle and breed more fuel, its always a good idea to have an alternative, specially for countries that lack good Uranium deposits. China already has some molten salt reactors in operation, and should have comercial reactors powering the country soon.

[@fiddiehacked]

The SMR designers are aware that U has a well developed supply chain. Most will merely mention Th (because it is a popular topic among science-challenged persons - like politicians). Nearly all SMRs will utilize U-235 with HALEU/MOx to start. Then the Molten Salt Reactors, after a couple decades of operating experience, will assess the feasibility of switching to U-238 or Th-232 gradually.

[@NullHand]

It may be related to the much higher abundance of Thorium over Uranium. Especially since Thorium is a now a problematic mine tailing by-product of the rare Earth elements boom.

[@CHIEF_420]

LWR costa demasiado mucho dinero y es más peligroso que MSR con Thorium. LWR "meltdown" es más fácil

[@douginorlando6260]

Once details are worked out, China will be rolling small thorium reactors off the factory line. Expect 12 new reactors per year per factory.

[@tobyw9573]

My understanding is that Thorium requires a breeder reactor, but breeder reactors can change the waste to isotopes that are safer ( or more dangerous), and that breeders can also use the waste reactor fuel that is stored as waste from earlier generation reactors (10 pct efficient) and use 90 percent of the remainder. (90 pct of 90pct). I've read that there is roughly enough existing reactor waste to last 100 years or more.

[@tobyw9573]

I have not done the research but I am seeing in our local area there are electrical substations which may be able to work with SMRs using the existing grid in our area with many small towns judging by the size of the power line insulators. Perhaps there are some savings there.

[@rogermorey]

However a breeder reactor is agnostic as to fuel. It is way easier to breed U-238/Pu-239. It is hard to conceive of a breeder reactor that would accept thorium and wouldn't accept U-238. It is a great proliferation risk if exported, and not a great thing to have explored and known.

[@nathanwilson7499]

@@rogermorey There are two classes of breeders: fast breeders like sodium-cooled ones (GE Prism, EBR II, Monju, Super Phenix) and thermal breeders (Light Water Breeder Experiment). The fast/thermal comes from the typical energy of the neutrons that support the reaction. It turns out, thermal breeders can only use Thorium, but fast breeders can use either. This is because for breeding, each fission event must release at least one neutron to propagate the fission, and another to support breeding. When Thorium atoms fission, they always release just barely over two neutrons, but Plutonium only releases more than two neutrons when the fission is caused by a fast neutron. Slow neutrons are much more reactive than fast, so fast reactors require a much larger (or more highly enriched), more expensive fissile loads to operate. Nearly all neutrons are born fast, but can be slowed to thermal speeds with a moderator like light water, heavy water, graphite blocks, or some molten salts like FliBe. Moderators can also add other desirable side-effects, such as forcing the reaction to stop when the temperature gets too hot. So most commercial reactors are thermal reactors today, and can't breed plutonium cycle.

[@rogermorey]

@@nathanwilson7499 Not so. U238 breeds with fast or slow neutrons. It has a much better cross section than thorium and will breed with a better ratio n both conditions.

[@rogermorey]

Conventional commercial light water reactors like the AP!000 get about 1/3 of their total power from plutonium, while not designed as a breeder, it still converts a small but significant part of the U238 in the core. Breerder reactors running U238/Pu-239 are problematic to run, but way easiier than an unproven Th-232/U233 cycle that is still nascent in devlopment needing extremely hot temperatures in a setup that would be very very difficult to maintain over time..

[@tarmaque]

Sabine is a very smart lady, and when she speaks of "the dangers" of nuclear energy I think she's referring to the "perceived dangers." We've been conditioned by years of fearmongering to think that anything "nuclear" is dangerous to the environment and human life. Sabine didn't go out of her way to assuage those fears, but that wasn't really the point of this video. Perhaps if you, Elina, as a nuclear physicist were to suggest to Sabine she address those fears more deeply she would do so.

[@bartroberts1514]

You may want to go back through Sabine's many, many videos on the exact subject you say she hasn't addressed yet.

[@tarmaque]

@@bartroberts1514 _Addressed in this video,_ not "never addressed."

[@bartroberts1514]

@@tarmaque You mean you're asking for Sabine to take down the video that in your opinion doesn't cover in enough detail a subject Sabine has repeatedly covered in the past, and edit it so it repeats that content, to please your preferences? People don't need to be told what to think of safety, not even those whose views of safety differ from your own. Everyone is entitled to their own level of risk tolerance. Meanwhile, the expense of nuclear according to the EIA is above that of every other form of power generation. It seems malicious to pay more to make more people uncomfortable and unhappy.

[@RocketSurgn_]

@@bartroberts1514 The expense is so high precisely because of the wildly misinformed fear of nuclear power that led to canceling construction projects, fights to prevent new plants being built and then even removing what plants there were in places like Germany. With fewer and fewer plants being made or maintained the cost of both new ones and upkeep on existing ones gets driven up. Saying everyone has a right to their own ignorance only goes so far as it harms everyone around them, and pushing back against fear based on misunderstandings and lies is important. A lot of people also feared the covid vaccines because of fear mongering and many many more people died that otherwise would have because of that ignorance.

[@bartroberts1514]

@@RocketSurgn_ Cite? Show your work? Proof? Evidence? The only ignorance I'm seeing is ignoring to provide legitimate and credible sources for wildly speculative claims. Nuclear plants are too large and their commodity (electric power) too ubiquitous to be particularly susceptible to economies of scale arguments. Nuclear was expensive before Three Mile Island, before Chernobyl (which cost 5% of Ukraine's GDP every year since the incident in containment and related losses), before Fukushima. Perhaps you contend overreactions to Windscale, Kyshtym, and SL-1 led to too high costs? If so, the costs didn't stop Goiânia or Tokaimura, or the other three incidents. So, I have to doubt your economic argument. And the fate of Zaporizhzhia remains uncertain. As you appear to be in favor of vaccination and other measures to protect the public health against pathogens, I note the inconsistency of pretending one form of diligence is prudent, and the other ignorant. And none of this requires nuclear to be very wildly dangerous -- we don't need to answer that question one way or the other -- to see it as uneconomical. Water, more economical and as dispatchable. Geothermal, more economical, and as dispatchable. Both of those can act as storage with little additional cost. Wind, more economical, even with storage. Solar, more economical, even with storage. Both of those dropping rapidly in price because their technology is getting less expensive (unlike nuclear, where MSNR and Thorium are _more_ expensive), and their size does benefit from economies of scale.

[@SethRosenAFE-LLC]

I've been following thorium cycle MSR tech for a few years, since seeing a talk by Kirk Sorensen. Depending on how the reactor is configured, whether you use heavy water as a moderator, or graphite moderator, or you design a fast reactor or a breeder, will all determine what your fission products are. Using it as a waste burner only requires processing once, whereas solid fuel must be reprocessed many times to make new fuel. The ability to process out fission products has to be designed into the system, this is the only way to extract proliferation material, some designs don't have in-line processing of the fuel, and are just swapped out and refurbished. So the big pluses for me with thorium cycle MSR in general is the ability to burn waste and breed it's own fuel. As well as being able to refuel online. Look at what Copenhagen Atomics is doing, they are on track to have a waste burner up and running in 2028. I also like the idea that this reactor type can supply 550C heat for carbon free process heat for industry, imagine all the industries that would impact.

[@zarahandrahilde9554]

Sabine: phasing out nuclear energy is the dumbest thing the germans have ever done me: 😬

[@spvillano]

I'm a few miles upriver from the old TMI plant. The remaining functional unit was shut down for good in 2019, as it cost twice as much per kilowatt hour for power from there compared to natural gas generated electricity. So, it depends upon the market. I sure as hell couldn't afford a doubled electric bill though!

[@fionafiona1146]

I am aware the Anglosphere has a hard time telling apart Atom-Austieg from Atom-Austieg-Austieg-Austieg but I assure you the former was solid policy that would have avoided the mess of the later (including buying into natural gas and not knowing what to do with Baltic electricity dropping below 0€ct) because that actually included the decentralised renewable energy and infrastructure development it would have taken to make a smoother transition. I am quite glad that Solar panel innovation and wind energy developments got deployment back up to 2009/2012 levels respectively by 2021 but that gap, ripped by CDU/CSU "conservative"

[@fionafiona1146]

​@@spvillano Imagine how much cheaper energy could be following 2005-9 plans for both renewable deployment and transport infrastructure. Söder is so scared of regionally flexible elecicity pricing because Bavaria FAILED to even do the minimum they were federally required to and has the highest location based daily electricity prices in Germany (compared to the arguably less stabile windy northern states), his personal advocacy against the energy infrastructure like "suedlink" should be remembered with every of the 65ct/KWH that people pay when electric energy exceeds what Bremen can use or get away.

[@danielnigel6920]

She was/is right tho. Germany economic politics is generaly almost suicidal

[@fionafiona1146]

@@danielnigel6920 Are you aware of the difference between Atom-Austieg and Atom-Austieg-Austieg-Austieg?

[@timdavis6913]

I just found your channel and subscribed. Thank you for your content!

[@Garnichgutt]

I when I went to school I remember nuclear power being portrayed very negatively. Obviously my 10-18 year old self was very much of the same mentality. The "nuclear waste" problem was very much something that you heard over and over again ( I graduated school in 2013, so Fukushima was really fresh and everyone in my closer surrounding was really happy about the decision to shut down nuclear energy at the time- myself included. I also know my parents are kind of traumatized by the aftermath of Tschernobyl and with that I dont mean "real horrible stuff happening" but a very deep rooted fear of "dont go outside" "dont eat mushrooms" basically all the things that they were told as children. I have often talked to them in recent years on nuclear power and all arguments end whenever that fear surfaces. Its a bit sad, cause both are really open to new ideas in most regards, but nuclear power is like a demon that was finally banished to them. I doubt that I am the only one with this kind of expirience in germany and i believe this is a very typical relationship of my generation with nuclear energy. Most of my friends by now are very much for nuclear energy while 15 years ago I doubt a single one wouldve said so. Also I am really happy I found this channel!

[@michaelgoetze2103]

I don't see how we will free ourselves from coal and gas without a mix of nuclear and renewables. When more people start realising that the opposition to nuclear should get less, especially with safer technologies.

[@fionafiona1146]

​@@michaelgoetze2103we have lost nearly a decade (accounting for 40% of now deployed renewable energy available in Germany) to "pro nuclear" politicians. If wind and solar deployment as well as energy infrastructure development had proceeded according to plans passed in the Bundestag by 2009 that would have ment reaching today's energy availability from 100% renewable electricity, assuming 0 improvements or increase of the 2009 level.

[@fionafiona1146]

I personally did revisit the topic multiple times since Abitur but haven't found arguments that convinced me of the benefits of nuclear power. Before 2000? Sure In other space? Be my guest There is no example of deployment where nuclear energy (using a conflict mineral, in centralised energy infrastructure, at the high end of "low carbon" technology, giving finite benifit at virtually indefinite cost) makes sense to me. Ps. Just because there are worse ways of generating electricity (Braunkohle, Balkonkraftwerk) doesn't mean it's appropriate to scale something detrimental.

[@Garnichgutt]

@@fionafiona1146 I high efficency in terms of space, long term sustainability, guaranteed relatively cheap output would be 3 valid reasons that come to mind first. Different reactortypes can solve different problems including the waste from older generation reactors. I am by no means saying we should abandon renewables but there is alot in favor of nuclear energy. Once fusion is available that probably can replace most of the heavy lifting in energygrits.

[@fionafiona1146]

@@Garnichgutt aren't those arguments equally applicable to geothermal? Even the absurdly scaled white elephant project Söder was crowing on about would be cheaper and more resilient than nuclear (conflict mineral!!!) I don't have high expectations of fusion power ( 10 years away 😉) and seriously doubt it'll have a smaller footprint/less than the current 40g/Co2/KWH if it ends up deployed. Household energy use is allredy less than half of 1990s levels and energy negative buildings start to pick up market share, at this rate the high energy consumption areas that merit such centralised power infrastructure will be rare past the 2050s.

[@georgkrahl56]

I wonder how these small and especially very small Thorium reactors will be started. I would not be surprised to learn that weapon grade Uranium has to be used.

[@The_Dark_Lord-69]

14:05 Elena , I'm a nuclear engineer too who has more than 15 years of experience in a PWR power plant. I happen to have studied a thorium cycle in a much greater detail. Yes, it is possible to create U233 bomb with Thorium cycle, but it is more difficult to do so compared to producing Pu239 bomb with a Candu or RBMK. Also, Pu239 bomb is safer to handle than U233 bomb. U233 will always be contaminated with U232. There is no practical method of eliminating U232 impurity. LFTRs or general, Molten Salt Reactors can be designed in such a way that they don't have online reprocessing system. Same safeguard systems installed in PWRs to prevent fissile materials from being diverted to weapons programmes can also be installed in MSRs like Thorcon or Terrestrial MSR designs. The unprocessed material can then be sent to weapons nation for reprocessing like how things are done with LWR fuel.

[@takashitamagawa5881]

The energy density of any nuclear fuel is enormously high relative to chemical fuels that release energy through combustion. However the conventional large scale light water nuclear reactors can only use a fraction of that energy before the fuel pieces become mechanically unsuitable and need to be replaced. Hopefully MSRs using thorium or uranium can increase that utilization and reduce the waste problem, as well as having shorter-lived radioactive decay products.

[@holden5478]

Nuclear power is the only true "green" solution for global power demand. We need more and better reactors! We need more people getting into the field like Elina! Keep up the good work!

[@fionafiona1146]

What makes other energy source less "green"?

[@ThatsMrPencilneck2U]

I've heard lectures that the proliferation risk with a Thorium MSR depends on your design. For instance, a reactor can be started with it's maximum fuel, and breed at a rate 1 to 1, or very slightly less, the unscrupulous government would have to take their reactor off line in a very noticeable way to get at the fuel. As the reactor could be started with an odd mix of fissile material, Plutonium, Uranium, Neptunium, and such, figuring out exactly what you have to work with might not be that easy. Of course, the longer the reactor has been around, the more likely it is to be U233. Then, I'm told it's near impossible to get U233 that isn't contaminated with U232, and they are impossible to separate. The USA did make a bomb with this stuff, but that was back in the 1950's, when American physicists were at the top of their game, and really having fun making new and different kinds of bombs. They were good enough to make bombs with the highly contaminated Plutonium waste from LWR's.

[@NinaFelwitch]

I don't like Sabine. But she's completely right on that one thing. Phasing out nuclear was a huge mistake.

[@szaszm_]

Were you alienated by her video in favor of capitalism, or something else? Although I'm in favor of a well regulated free market, I recognize that many people hate capitalism with a passion, with many strong points against it, especially when they also believe that the communist utopia is a possibility.

[@notmyproblem88]

lol

[@fionafiona1146]

I won't disagree Atom-Austieg-Austieg-Austieg was a stupid (I was quite upset in 2013/14) but the original Atom-Austieg (2005-2009)came with plans that would have built renewable energy availability and transport infrastructure that exceed even current grid connected electricity in Germany (as neccesary to decarbonise further industries and buffer usecases)

[@davidweihe6052]

The major advantage to using thorium reactors is that no one else uses them, so we can still make believe that it will not have any problems (yeah, that’ll happen ;-).

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@Elina - Hi, did you know that before they decided to shut down all nuclear power plants, they were already building gas and coal plants OUTSIDE of Germany through multinational energy companies, to supply THEM with power. All the benefits, and the pollution pressure is on others. There's one on the Dutch Maasvlakte, built around 2009.

[@zagreus5773]

Who are "they"? The German government? I'd be pretty surprised if the German government pays for power plants in the Netherlands, especially back in 2009 when there was barely any pressure an reducing CO2 emissions.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@@zagreus5773 Yes, German govt, and I was as surprised as you when I heard about it, but the fun part was , I heard about it in one of the offices that belong to the power plant in Europoort ;) And who told you there was barely any pressure on preventing pollution? You mean they've become even stricter since, because that is the fact.

[@zagreus5773]

@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 I know that there was no effort on reducing CO2 emissions in 2009, because I live in Germany and I keep track of that stuff ;) Reducing CO2 was a non-issue back then, the only ones that cared were the Greens, who had 10% and were not part of the government. Can you give me more info on that? You said "through multinational companies"? So how did Germany pay for it? Did they give funds to those companies for free? This just sounds very hard to believe and if you heard about it at the office water cooler, then that seems to be just hearsay. People spread all kind of nonsense around the office.

[@fionafiona1146]

​@@zagreus5773 so why would the original Atom-Austieg by the anti nuclear green party have included the Wind and solar power subsidies that resulted in the highest installed capacity on the planet and grid connection additions not seen again until 10 years later? Atom-Austieg-Austieg-Austieg had 3 steps and the one before 2009 was my favourite trajectorie.

[@fionafiona1146]

​@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 thanks for trying to point out the obvious, some people might need to hear more of this. Ps. The German government was also investing in building energy resilience at home from 2005 until 2009...I was unhappy with those who stopped that in favour of willful ignorance.

[@stevehunt7044]

I am extremely impressed by Elina's mastery of subject and communication. Wow!

[@perryallan3524]

Thanks for your video. I actually did a long response to Sabine's video that explained a lot of things she did not understand or got wrong (I'm was a nuke plant engineer); but its buried back towards the beginning of the comments (Best to search for it using "oldest 1st" and its posted in 2 parts as its that long. However, is are some of the key points. There is absolutely no evidence that SMRs will be cost competitive to large central stations; and tons of evidence to the contrary. The SMR idea is not new - it was first proposed in 1955 and the first planed SMR was in Elk River Minnesota a 22 MWe BWR which went online in 1964, and was shutdown in 1968 due to technical issues. However, by then it was known that it would never be economical due to the cost of the required staff. The same is true today as you have to have a security staff to protect from terrorism threats, a radiation protection staff to respond offsite to any leaks of radiation offsite beyond regulatory limits, a dedicated training staff, etc. well above just an operating and maintenance staff. It also takes about 40% more in materials and construction cost to build a plant twice the size, which will likely not require any staff increase (and when they get large enough to require a staffing increase - its just a modest staff increase). As a comparison NuScale had a NRC approved design and had a NRC approved site for 6 50 MWe SMRs (300 MWe total). The construction quote, with anticipated inflation adders of $1 Billion, came in at about the likely same cost for building a single AP1000 (~1150 MWe: we've learned a lot very time consuming and expensive lessons at VC Summer and Vogtle that significantly reduces the next construction project in the USA - assuming we use the same contractors and key staff that built Vogtle) and the plant staff size for the 6 units would be about the same as 1 AP1000 well. So both the construction and operating cost would be not quite 4 times a large central station on a cost per KWhr basis. It's been known since the late 1970's that large central stations are far more economical than a series of smaller plants. Dozens and perhaps up to 100 SMR sized plants world wide that were built in the 1960's - 1980's have been shut down due to their uneconomical cost. The concept that SMRs will be mass produced is nothing more than wishful thinking for the following reasons because to mass produce and bring down the cost of anything you need a standard design, a proven design, and enough volume for many years to justify building the automated manufacturing facility. Standard designs cannot exist as nuclear power plants have to be designed for the local earthquake and other factors. A slight change in seismic design conditions can result in a major change in piping, structures, tanks, and many components. No one want to pay for a "worst case" plant for their location as it would be vastly over priced for their site. A reality is that none of the SMR designs have been proven to be long term economical and reliable. The worldwide nuclear industry has hundreds of plants that were shut down earlier than they could have been, and in some cases very early in their plant life, because some design idea that looked so promising did not work out - and it was too costly to modify the plant to a better design. The reason we can build reliable light water reactors today is because the USA built 104 power plant reactors using something like 76 different designs for various components, systems, etc. Europe and the rest of the world add a good number of unique design ideas to that list. After 40-50 years of operation we can look back and pick out for each system, component, and control strategy, which design ideas worked out best for long term reliability and cost. Thus, plants like the Westinghouse AP1000 geneartion 3+ passive safety are very reliable. While some of those design concepts can be applied to some of the proposed SMRs, others cannot and SMR designers are left to guess at what will work... It will take decades to know for sure once their design starts up; and if they are wrong in a major way... At this point we have no proven long term reliable commercial SMR (and naval reactors are far too expensive). Then you have to have the quantity to justify automating production. Airplanes are still largely hand assembled which is why they cost so much. They have an advantage in that there are standard designs and many of the parts can be produced with automated techniques. I estimate that you would likely need 500 units a year for at least 10 years to justify automated construction equipment that could dramatically lower the construction cost. However, even with the smallest SMR we don't need that many. As far as truck mounted nuclear power plants. Totally laughable. Have you even visited any steam cycle power plant - they are huge for a reason. You would be able to fit the reactor for a 40 MWe plant on a truck (we can fit a 1400 MWe reactor on a specialized truck). But not the reactor and the steam generators combined, much less the turbine, condenser, generator, feedwater heaters, and all the piping, pumps, valves, and other things like a control and locker rooms. Add in that for radiation safety inside the containment building, and radioactive system rooms in the "auxiliary building" will be a lot of space and concrete shield walls. They are just talking nonsense about the size of these plants. In reality the components will be transported to the site - and piping, wiring, etc will be field built to connect it all. Same as has always been done. Have a great day,

[@12pentaborane]

Man I think you should make a couple videos on your knowledge and experience in the US nuclear industry. I've seen you in a few comment sections regarding nuclear reactors and learned more from them than the video.

[@senefelder]

I remember your comment! You seem to know what you are talking about. Do you make KZbin videos or have a blog? I would love to learn more from you

[@perryallan3524]

@@senefelder Thanks for the comment. I do not have a blog or make videos. I have some health issues that prevent me from making that kind of time and energy commitment. I wish it were otherwise.

[@senefelder]

@@perryallan3524 I hope that your health issues get resolved soon

[@mickinmerton8053]

Thanks Elina. I've been subscribed to Sabine's channel for some time and had seen the video but you gave an interesting perspective, I've now subscribed to your channel. As Sabine said somethings in physics (or geometry) use less resource when bigger, in which case economies of scale will not help, is this true?

[@kennethferland5579]

The SMR concept is a boondogle, because it presents a false narrative to the public that CONVENTIONAL reactors are not already modular, THEY ARE. The critical machinery that runs every part of a powerplant is already built offsite and delivered, the reactor vessel, the turbines, the generators etc etc. The only thing we do at a construction site is connect them with pipes. The reason nuclear power plants take forever to build is the CONTAINMENT STRUCTURE, a massive reinforced concrete bunker able to withstand a plane crash from the outside, and a release of all the pressurized steam inside. Your not going to get around the regulatory demand for containment which means the whole claim of rapid cheap manufacture is a lie.

[@fionafiona1146]

But it's a politically convenient lie. I haven't thought of it in context but the virtually unshealded nuclear reactors that operated lighthouses around the northern coasts of the Soviet Union were "modules" exactly in line with the promotional materials Sabine featured

[@TheOneTonHammer]

I love Sabine's delivery. There's no wasted time. She gets right to the point and explains things clearly for a general audience. She's doesn't sugarcoat the truth and still has time to poke fun every once in a while, especially at herself. Very entertaining and informative overall. On the other hand. in her quest to be direct, she has left out context, as she's done here.

[@Novatur]

First view from Kashmir❤

[@riaanswart3106]

Google's speech to text changed Elina's spoken "fission" to text "fusion". That suddenly makes SMRs sound a lot hotter! 🤪😜

[@johnnydarling8021]

1:15 IDK, I think Germany has done some dumber things than that! (whispers: "no one mention the war")

[@maritaschweizer1117]

Both world wars could have ended differently. Stupid is something that is obvious before making a decision. A majority of Americans were against beeing involved into the world wars and without Americas involvement the world would look different.

[@johnnydarling8021]

@@maritaschweizer1117 I'm not trying to single out Germany, it just worked for the bit. Honestly, America has gotten into a bunch of dumb wars after WW2. Again, the joke was just how it was phrased that this is the dumbest thing a country has ever done, could apply to a lot of things.

[@TDBoedy]

The risk is minimal in a molten salt reactor because the reactor vessel has not only a drain tank but a basin that say there is a breach in the reactor because of a terrorist RPG attack or missile strike or something that the material will end up in the basin and then into the drain tank. The drain tank will contain heat sinking so it can passively radiate. The thorium salt mix will be separate from the solid graphite moderator channels and so the reaction will stop. It will be hot, but should cool relatively fast in the right design of tank without active cooling.

[@kennethferland5579]

You seriously think we should build a reactor with no containment sttructure such that somthing a pathetic as an rpg could penetrate a reactor building? We design Nuclear reactors containment structuresto withstand the impact of a fully loaded 747 impacting them and that is not going to change.

[@TDBoedy]

It doesn't require a containment structure because there can't be a steam explosion. It doesn't use water as a heat transfer mechanism. It operates at atmospheric pressure. That's what the containment is for. The drain tank and catch basin will have the appropriate shielding to deal with the decay heat and moderate radiation as it cools. Because it doesn't need to be near water you can put it in a mountain if you want. You can keep it away from more ecologically vulnerable areas such as coastal and riverine areas. This makes all kinds of security easier. Thanks for your input.@@kennethferland5579

[@perryallan3524]

@@TDBoedy You know nothing about why containment buildings exist. They exist not to contain steam - but to prevent the leakage of any radioactivity from inside them to outside. If you get a leak and a spray of molten salt/fuel/daughter products you will have radiation issues all over containment as radioactive particles get into the air. You have no idea how it spreads. If you have steam generators inside a containment building they also have to contain a main steam line rupture; but they exist to prevent radioactive contamination to the public. The design requirements of containment buildings i not going to change for a MSR. It might be a bit smaller and perhaps not quite as thick. But it will be there.

[@TDBoedy]

@perryallan3524 wrong. It's to contain the steam when the water boils off and flashes. All nuclear.poer accidents from 3 mile.to chernobyl are precipitated.by a loss of power to supply cooling. Molten salt is the opposite. It requires active cooling to keep salt from draining from the tank. Loss of power doesn't result in a runaway reaction nor steam explosion that would breach the vessel. There is no water in a molten salt reactor.

[@pchunter168]

[@zazenora7225]

Your fallout gameplay introduced me to you, but the more videos I watch... You are amazing!!! Thank you for these explanations.

[@douginorlando6260]

Once details are worked out, China will be rolling small thorium reactors off the factory line. Expect 12 new reactors per year per factory. Expect turn key support including quick installation and waste pick up.

[@KarlaKloppstock]

I love this format of scientific discussion made available for those of us, without specialized knowledge in the field. Thanks Elina!

[@joeandorian7719]

The advent of conservative forces in Germany are a big reason why this has happened. Russia has worked very hard to undermine German politics and turn energy policy towards Russia.

[@DonaldKronos]

In an earlier comment I posted, I tried to clarify something and I think I did a poor job of it, so I'll try again. Effectively, I think she was trying to politely say that people are afraid of nuclear power in general because they think of it as dangerous, and they don't know enough to think otherwise about a safer variant of it. Also, the safety in the runoff system isn't that the molten salt will freeze, but rather that it will be safely contained and no longer effectively actively encouraged to convert stable isotopes into fissionable ones. I know that's an incomplete explanation, but you understand this stuff well enough that I I think it's probably enough of an explanation to point you in the direction of figuring out the rest. You'll probably end up understanding it better than I do.

[@ctuna2011]

One of the promises of Thorium reactors or Salt reactors was that It might be able to burn some of the existing waste. Upon looking into this a Second time it looks more complicated as Thorium turns into Uranium 233 and some other complex stuff before the fissile process , and there is still some radioactive waste but with much less of half life. Any comments?

[@mosslomas591]

Un-moderated fast spectrum reactors probably more suited to utilise spent fuel which is still almost entirely u238. Hi energy neutrons can fission this directly and hi neutron flux means plenty of opertunity for absorption and transmutation to Pu 239. Needs more enriched fissile material to start however. Some level of waste burn may be possible at thermal spectrum using heavy water moderator

[@perryallan3524]

Burning the U233 is going to create essentially the same waste daughter products as burning U235 or Pu239. I totally fail to see where the claimed less and better waste spent fuel. Fast neutron reactors (liquid sodium cooled) have been promoted for this use since the 1960's; and if fact you can stick the waste back into any other reactor and burn most of it up with time (just not as fast as a fast neutron reactor).. It has not been done because once separated during fuel reprocessing all that waste is significantly hot radiation wise - and no one wants to handle it and get it back into a reactor. As an example. Fuel assemblies with U235 or Pu239 (or a mix of them) emit so little radiation that people just guide them into the storage vaults wearing just light gloves. There is no radiation hazard. A semi truck can deliver multiple fuel assemblies per truck (I'm not sure how many - but at least 9 per truck, and perhaps twice that). That waste fuel... is so radioactive that it must be handled under water at all time. Is shipped in special high radiation fuel containers which are full of water with 1 or perhaps 2 fuel assembly per truck. These containers must be transferred into the spent fuel pool, opened underwater, then the fuel assembly lifted and stored in the spent fuel rack. Since no one in the world is doing this now... despite claiming the ability to do so. I fail to see why anyone is going to do it with molten salt reactors.

[@intrepidpursuit]

Imo, the reason to use thorium is much more political and social than because of sound engineering. People are less scared of thorium and drives home the point that it is new technology that cannot fail the way previous designs have. Thorium may be critical to getting people back on board with nuclear.

[@brandonhunter3036]

Nice video Elina 👍 Do you have any reaction videos to the ongoing advances in nuclear fusion science & tech? I caught your remark that it seems ambitious but are you generalizing or speaking to any one technology approach in particular?

[@kirkhamandy]

Wait what? Your comment about the weaponization via U233 I didn't know. I just went down a Google rabbit hole to learn more! Th232->Pa233->U233 😳

[@alexhajnal107]

²³³Pa

[@nathanbanks2354]

Went through that rabbit hole a few years back. India's Shakti V nuclear test in 1998 as part of the Pokhran-II tests used Thorium for a bomb, but it fizzled. What I found interesting was that the study I read that talked about non-proliferation advantages of thorium presumed the use of fuel rods, but everyone who alluded to the safety of Thorium seemed to talk about Molten Salt Reactors. (If I recall, the difference is based on how quickly you can extract the Pa233 from the neutron source to insure you get pure U233 in the end.) I was glad Hossenfelder got that right.

[@XRP747E]

I really like the format encompassing the critique of Sabine. Excellent.

[@howardb.728]

A very balanced and considered review of Sabine's presentation - thank you so much for the effort and dedication to education - as a very old person - I really appreciated the gentle approach to commentary - applaud you !!!

[@justhouz]

In France, a startup named Jimmy Energy (named after Jimmy Neutron cartoon character) is planning to build SMR to produce heat for indutrial units that previously used natural gas. One of the first industry to use it could be a unit that produce alcohol from sugar destined to spirits, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

[@dibenp]

Thank you so much for this content. I appreciate listening to your valuable experience and perspective. I also hope that people and countries will wake up to a diversified approach, including nuclear energy, to more effectively and holistically remove fossil fuels from our energy consumption systems.

[@williamolenchenko5772]

You cannot start a chain reaction using thorium fuel alone. It has to mixed with uranium or plutonium. Then the thorium can be converted to U-233 in the reactor, which is fissile.

[@stnickleless]

Hi! What a great video. I have subscribed. Thank you so much. I love how you explain things, your English and vocabulary are great! Thank you.

[@deomemann3182]

Great video Elina! What about Old vintage lenses from 70s with Thorium oxide on optics? In some lens the Thorium on the lens had 500cpm.

[@Xerion1]

I love hearing takes from subject matter experts on other scientist's opinion.

[@koenth2359]

Elina, I have two questions concerning the non-proliferation issue you mention. I suppose with the weapons-grade materials you are referring to the (fissionable) U-233. The standard argument is that it is not possible to do this covertly, or move the uranium around, because it always will contain traces of U-232, which has a decay chain that quite readily starts to emit very hard gammas that can be detected, even through shielding. 1.What is your response to that argument? 2 Why would only countries that already have a nuclear weapon be interested in this? (Or are you saying that other countries won't allow nations to become nuclear powers this way?) Thanks for answering! Edit: also see the article "Proliferation protection of uranium due to the presence of U-232 decay products as intense sources of hard gamma radiation*" (2022, Kulikov et al.)

[@garynapolitano1270]

Your videos are simply awesome! Informative, entertaining and well thought out.

[@MrVeps1]

One of the reasons I've heard that thorium is a really popular idea in some countries is that there are loads of places where we aren't allowed to dig, because we aren't allowed to isolate the thorium, but we also aren't allowed to leave "thorium contaminated waste" behind, so there just huge parts of other ore seams where mining is illegal. There is a huge amount of thorium that has been dug around, awaiting easy exploitation. At least that's how I've understood the legal stuff around thorium.

[@carloslegorreta675]

Sabine’s sense of humor is fantastic 😂

[@XavierBetoN]

I- the topic 'can't be made nuclear weapons': I think Dr. Hossenfelder meant by this is not "not possible", but meant "impractical". Anything can be a weapon if you try hard enough, it's like saying "water won't kill" but I can kill you with water if you ask. That "little bit of effort" you mentioned increases the cost, while even without readily processing thorium power production market, the available prices are cheaper than enriched Uranium (power grade). II- topic about 'why use thorium, France has lots of mOx Plutonium fuel' You mentioned "why make new kind of reactor with own challenges" -same reason why they made satellite network when we had fiberoptic network. The new type of reactor mentioned as Thorium SMRs are already having less risks, not to mention more efficiency, compacter design. Uranium comes from certain countries mostly(Russia, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Canada, Uzbekhstan while Thorium can be supplied from another certain countries(European countries). IF the Thorium SMR market becomes more widespread, it could easily outpass the availability of Enriched-U Rs. You're telling that you'd give Sabine Hossenfelder a homework, but it seems like you haven't done any homework about this particular topic. (with all due respect to your nuclear physics general knowledge, you already know that you need to enrich it to use in reactor, and build a power plant and complex systems in order to use that, and it's not carry-able as thorium fuel without military escort, it's about the market research). In this video, I realized you become more criticizing-motived, rather than educative-motived. Would be glad to see you doing more homework* about the topic, and reveal richer information in future. I know I criticized you too much, sorry, you started it. -sincerely yours, good luck in the sector & One Love doc

[@kullatnunu2087]

Wrong from the start. It was not a mistake for Germany to phase out nuclear power. For a nuclear physicist like you who most likely is biased to promote nuclear power by neclecting some of the important downsides of nuclear power it might look like. 2:04 _"...Scientifically, politically and logically..."_ How about economically and financially?

[@nbx2au]

Thank you Elina. Nicely done. Any thoughts on Australian position of banning the technology ? Maybe a short vid would be great .

[@mateuszm809]

did I missed part, where You explain that smr runs on higher density of neutron flux, and thus their dimensions they leak a lot more of them to surrounding equipment than bigger cousins? if I remember correctly, thorium is running on fast neutrons - and this is the reason for unique capability to deal with nuclear "trash" that are ussually neutron hungry scavengers: and we can wait them out, burn out with neutrons, or separate them

[@idio-syncrasy]

I love Sabine. She won't get everything correct and sometimes she is just raising a point ot view. She seems like a trustworthy person. I appreciate scientific discussion and clarification. If she prompts reasonable and knowledgeable reaction then she and you are doing a good job. Thank you for your contribution to society.

[@douginorlando6260]

Sabine was solicited and bought by climate agenda pushers because she seems trustworthy.

[@pisquared1827]

The reason for making the statement that Thorium cannot be used for making nuclear bombs is that natural which is mostly thorium 232 contains a small amount of Thorium 231, which when hit by a neutron turns it into uranium 232 instead of uranium 233 which is the fissile nuclear material used to fuel the nuclear power station. Uranium 233 produced in the reactor is a potential nuclear material, but the small amount of uranium 232 in the bred nuclear fuel is highly radioactive emitting high levels of gamma rays. This makes the fissile uranium 233 difficult to steal or hide, and nuclear weapons that use this fissile uranium would be easy to locate from space due to their gamma ray signature. The gamma ray radiation level would also cause electronics in the missile or plane carrying the warheads malfunction. The way around this is to stockpile the fissile uranium for say 50 - 100 years to allow decay of the uranium 232.

[@timonousiainen354]

One thing about these small reactors I would like to have discussed somewhere is how difficult would it be to safeguard them against terrorism. I worry that if they are located here and there, all around the world, then it will be very expensive to guard properly. Of course, you could install them side by side in one site and still get benefits from cheaper construction, but then you could not get benefits from having the reactor close by, for example, to provide local source of heating in cold countries.

[@roof35]

What I learned from other nuclear physicists (I am by no means an experts!!) is, that although a Thorium reactor can produce fissable isotopes that could be used in nuclear weapons, these are not "readily available" for that purpose. That's why Sabine possibly said "can produce nuclear weapons" with emphasis on "can", where she should also have said "... but this is not an easy task". Correct me if I'm wrong. Furthermore the IAEA has procedures in place for inspection of reactors and its products and wastes. Maybe part of the concept of a Thorium reactor should be combined with some treaty to safeguard non-proliferation (NPT).

[@sodster68]

Thank you for giving us clarification on the subject of nuclear physics. I find that media, especially i Sweden where I live, is very biased and also can't grasp the technology so your channel is a great source of information for me. All the best.

[@EFazy]

Hi Elina! As a Hungarian citizen, we have a goal to build Paks2. This is a conventional van, with Russian VVER-1200 reactor vessel, and possibly by French/German controll system. Based on a current situation, there are a lot of questions about this here. If you have time, and looking for a topic, I really would like to have more information from you about this VVER's (history, pros/cons, known problems, etc) Thanks! :)

[@perryallan3524]

The VVER is an "ok" plant design of the past. It's not a great design and does not include the latest safety features. But Russia sells and build them cheap. A much better design is the Westinghouse AP1000, which many countries are planning to build. The designers of the EPR have admitted that the design has problems and needs to be reworked. I'd stay away from it.

[@seanphurley]

France got ot so right and germany so wrong it is heartbreaking

[@dilvishpa5776]

In the late 1980’s I read a document by the US Department of Energy discussing how to make nuclear energy palatable to the general public. The two main objections to nuclear power are safety and cost. They pointed out that in order to be acceptable as “safe”, nuclear reactors were regulated to have x10,000 the safety levels as coal powered energy plants, and that this high safety requirement was largely responsible for their high costs.

[@barry7608]

Thanks I love your vids and the way you pause to make comments. I’m not ignorant of the basic process, but several magnitudes down the ladder from yourself and Sabine. It’s said that a feature of Thorium salt reactors is that should things go pear shaped the fuel can be allowed to go solid, which I imagine requires a massive heat dump or process to achieve it. My question, failures human or mechanical lead to unwanted events, but what if the ‘heat dump’ fails? The next phase of matter is vapour and a huge amount of energy can then be stored explosively. Surely claiming it will go solid is a little optimistic and simplistic?

[@coolcat23]

Thanks to my favourite nuclear physicist for this great video. I believe what Sabine meant with "dangers"/"risks" are possible technical issues, such as leaks. The molten salt isn't just strawberry marmalade that one can wipe away. Anything involving radioactivity requires higher safety levels, does it not, and any technology can fail for one unforeseen reason or another (usually a confluence of unforeseen circumstances). Yes, Sabine should have elaborated on what exactly she was referring to, but I don't think she makes an invalid point. I definitely do not think that she forgot to insert "perceived" before "dangers"/"risks" or took it as being understood that it needed to be implicitly inserted (as another comment here suggested).

[@tommarbach6483]

I believe the arguments around “melting the core” is bad things happen when this occurs with a light water reactor. The inherent safety of a well designed LFTR reactor is that once the molten salt melts the drain plug and drains into reservoir the reaction stops as the geometry of the container is not conducive to producing neutrons and the reservoir is built of a material that traps neutrons.

[@JetDom767]

Awesome video Elina, Sabine is a great commenter on nuclear energy as she is so critical of Germany's mismanagement of energy production, I think as well people assume thorium and smr's are the same when as you stated it can still take the form of the gen 2 and 3 reactors just on a smaller scale.

[@bufo333]

I think the main danger for these types of reactors as if they are used as proposed they will be installed in distributed large industrial facilities not affiliated with the Power industry, and without serious regulation, these will probably be managed by average companies that will cheat and cut corners, I could see the reactor being not maintained corrosion of pipes is a big issue with thorium MSR's, or an accident could expose the thorium salt mixture to the environment and employees in the building, even if cooling and solid ,if you have an exposure at a typical company and uninformed people are exposed to the material directly. It is much more dangerous than a diesel generator, unless you drink the diesel, there is not a lot of long term health effects an average employee would experience even if they were exposed to the diesel.

[@factnotfiction5915]

However, a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of radiation is easily detectable. So leak detection and examining exposure is quite easy; thus there isn't as much of a danger - unlike say with carbon monoxide or other potential leaks.

[@bufo333]

@@factnotfiction5915 Maybe its the American in me, but I have never worked for a competent company that would not put their employees at risk. Even in. highly regulated industry they will take fine after fine rather than do the right thing.

[@factnotfiction5915]

@@bufo333 Oh yes, the NRC does levy fines; but they tend to have you shut down your reactor first when you screw up. The sorts of companies that are going to install 10-50 MW thermal reactors for process heat are not 'average' companies; but ones that fire people for failing safety audits. Why would you possibly risk an entire plant's existence, let alone production output, for lack of meeting a safety standard? Having a source of process heat (nuclear or not) is integral to a chemical plant's existence - it isn't something you can skate by without, and thus it isn't something you want to skimp on.

[@johnpalmer5614]

I have followed Sabine for several months and find her videos honest and informative. Her interests are quite varied in the physics field Appreciate your comments. - John