The CANDU Story

[@jimgraham6722]

Thanks for the update. As an Australian I have immense respect for the CANDU program. It is a very safe, proliferation resistant system. It has set Canada up for leadership in the civilian nuclear energy field. Australia will acquire nuclear power but it is still a political issue and will need a change of government. My hope is Australia will eventually partner up and acquire CANDU plants. Australia's post GHG energy needs probably has space for three to four Darlington scale plants. As coal and gas gets phased out the need will become increasingly urgent.

[@acwojtkowiak]

You have too many naysayrers there currently, they will continue derailing any effort to go nuclear. The successes of tbe nuclear need to be pointed out over and over.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Can you undo a Murdock induced frontal lobotomy, rhymes with Candu.

[@WeatherManToBe]

As a Canadian, saying it's proliferation resistant is absolutely hilarious 😂

[@paullafreniere3393]

​@@WeatherManToBe Please explain

[@WeatherManToBe]

@@paullafreniere3393 India was given candu's and then made bombs with it anyways

[@Whayles]

Patriots are proud of their country because of what it does. Nationalists are proud no matter what their country does. Sounds like you are patriotic, you are proud of something great your country has done.

[@gordonmcdowell]

Didn't watch it on KZbin, just consumed the podcast. But I gotta comment somewhere. This was great.

[@bunsw2070]

This guy's a salesman. I live in Toronto. My electric bill has gone from $15 a month to over $120 a month in the last 25 years. We've probably spent over $1 trillion on these nuclear programs and yet the plant that I work at has to shutdown from 3pm to 9pm on hot days because the electrical grid can't cope. Management cancelled the projects they had to update our biggest equipment and it's likely that it will shut down and move to a poor country. There are massive fines on carbon output. We're committing su!c!de and this guy is cheering it on.

[@tonyhladun9081]

In the early 70's I worked at Sheridan Park in Ontario with another guy and we ran a computer model of the CANDU heat transport system. It was the time that the pressurizer was added and there was significant boiling in the core so the pressure and temperature transients were a concern. I guess what we did worked because the CANDU's have had long and safe lives. At that time there were two things in favour of CANDU that were not mentioned in the video. First, the use of natural uranium fuel is inherently the most safe. If you made a pile of CANDU fuel nothing would happen. Heavy water would have to be present and in an accident you can't get water to stay where it's +1,000 C. The second is that not needing enriched fuel made the system best for preventing nuclear arms proliferation. With light water reactors you either had to buy enriched fuel from the US so they controlled you or you didn't so they saw you as an enemy and tried to control you. There was a discussion of modular construction and I'd like to comment on that. For a time I was CEO of Intergraph in Canada. Intergraph sold computer based graphic modelling of plant designs. AECL had a license for our software. In my time the Hibernia platform was successfully designed using our software. Here's what it is today docs.hexagonppm.com/r/S3D11PDS. It makes modular design very feasible.

[@shawnnoyes4620]

I like your "CANDU" attitude :)

[@daniellarson3068]

This CANDU thing seems to work pretty well. Why don't they build some in the US? Is it the use of heavy water? Why not build one South of the new Gordie Howe bridge? And no, I'm not Canadian.

[@dodaexploda]

It was regulated out of the US. When there is a loss of cooling accident it slowly heats up and if you don't do something for 7 days it has a problem. Which is kinda funny because one of the selling features of the GE Hitachi SMR is that it in an accident it can be safe for 7 days, after which you have a problem.

[@daniellarson3068]

@@dodaexploda Interesting - Seems like the US would be a very good market for this reactor. Maybe Canada should ruffle a few feathers in US Regulatory circles. A mature technology that solves a real world problem in a less expensive manner than its peers ought to have widespread appeal to those who worship market solutions.

[@dodaexploda]

@@daniellarson3068 the US would be an excellent market for this reactor especially considering that they can run on spent fuel from a pressurized water reactor like the US uses. Not only that, it runs BETTER than it would from natural uranium. The US could be using the same fuel twice.

[@daniellarson3068]

@@dodaexploda According to the internet, it can use Thorium as well. For many years, there has been talk of building Fermi 3 South of Detroit. This would be right in the backyard of CANDU country. Thanks for responding.

[@dodaexploda]

@@daniellarson3068 no problemo. Yup it can apparenlty run on Thorium as well.

[@mikethelakesidelogger8757]

Everyone seems to give reverence to hydro generation. While dams are important for water management, then hydro power, they are an awful choice when built with main purpose being power generation. The Site C project for example 13,500 acres of land are lost, some farming much of it First Nations hunting and trapping territory. Many more hundreds of acres are lost to transmission rights of way as the dam is in a remote region of the province. If we do a thought experiment comparing this project to Voltgle nuclear plants in Georgia USA, notoriously the worse example of a nuclear build we find that Voltgle is actually cheaper than Site C if we use the build cost versus the annual power generation. About 15% less. And Voltgle is where the power is needed without the ecological and societal impact of a Site C. Just imagine if the best and brightest minds were to focus on building nuclear generation, how the cost could come down and the benefits that could be realized. We fear nuclear because it is an unknown, something we are not familiar with but there things we do everyday that are potentially more dangerous but because they familiar we don’t give them a thought. Flying on a commercial aircraft for instance.

[@cristoforestman]

Are there any news about Cernavoda 5?

[@JaakkoNiemi-jm7ko]

Finland next builds should be CANDU and we should handle the technology.

[@AndrewLambert-wi8et]

DEEP HOLE DRILLING USED TO MAKE THE TUBES. SAME USED TO MAKE BIG AND SMALL GUNS. CALANDRIA HOLES MADE WITH A LARGE VERTICAL DRILLING MACHINE.

[@stanmitchell3375]

Pipe is formed by a mandrel, no drilling

[@comment8767]

These people are fairly normal ... almost no Canadian accent.

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

The scary thing for nuclear electricity generation is that the grid doesn't care where it's electricity comes from. The grid does care about its customers cashflow and keeping customers connected to the grid. Heavier industrial users want to connect to the grid, commercial developers can not commence construction if grid capacity is not ready. Think about if everybody in your street wanted clean 3phase electricity when you wanted to increase your own needs to 3phase supply. And all the other streets in your neighbourhood. The grid could not do it. Even a farmer wanting a new supply to his offgrid buildings has to wait after paying $60,000 or more for the new line. So just to keep the existing grid safe and stable and cashflow stable then dirt cheap rooftop PV from existing millions of customers and supplying the new heavy using industrial customers is happy days.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Captain Cook vs Captain Bligh, interesting people in the Empire that "lost" and gained territories in the name of monarchs. To whom or what are we respectful of enough, to trust, serve and commit our lives..

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

If nuclear electricity power station was the size of a shoe box and cost nothing it would still need millions and millions and millions of km of transmission grid. To millions and millions and millions of customers and $BILLIONS and $BILLIONS of cashflow yearly. In Australia $100sBILLIONS every year. Now if you understand nuclear power electricity then you understand simple business wanting to be paid for its investment. The national grid costs $TRILLIONS and was built over 10 decades. A 10% return to cover the fixed investment and the maintenance and emergency repair teams that work 24/7 is reasonable. The grid also must pay the generation plant owners something. So yes nuclear is amazing and every dictatorship should have its nuclear electricity industries as well to stop CO2 emissions worldwide.

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

Grid blindness is will full dishonesty. BVs, battery vehicles, and rooftop PV, and electric homes and businesses will combine to break nuclear cashflow and more importantly the grid cashflows. Everytime the sunshines. Nuclear is only economically viable if demand is 24/7. The grid is economically huge and dead if the customers go offgrid when the sunshines. The grid will combine with the customers excess supply of dirt cheap electricity. Customers in the millions will need maximum value from their BV's and rooftop PV. Millions and millions and millions of customers and millions and millions of km of grid will dictate cashflow arrangements.

[@GulmoharBloom]

But nuclear provides baseload power that is necessary for industrial and infrastructure processes. It also directly strengthens electrification of homes and businesses

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

@@GulmoharBloom do some simple maths. Millions of rooftops x a few m² with PV and all grid connected. 20% of all rooftops can easily outperform the central generation. In Australia, 25gW x 24hr = 600gWh 20 million 7kwh PV x 5hr = 700gWh But Australia needs 400gWh avg only. For example. So batteries filling up over 5 hours and discharged over 19 hours, no grid cash flow. It's the grid that needs 90% of normal cash flow. Nuclear is tiny but can not switch up and down. But if a little rooftop PV and BVs oversized battery parked 23hrs every, then nuclear economics is f..... Nuclear know this and wants Australian government disaster insurance, government construction, and then sell to private money with government cashflow Garrentees. Taxpayers' money. We have 100s of these government started projects, including poles and wires, tunnels, toll roads,hospitals, coal fired electricity power stations, and foreign investors in tax havens. SMRs are perfect for wealthy parking cash in government guaranteed investments. Open your eyes and follow these matters. Nuclear promoters will constantly talk about the technology, and when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow and base load and millions and millions of battery vehicles are rapid charging. For the first time in history your vehicle will be fueled up daily and the daily drive will make little difference to the full battery. The battery vehicles battery is oversized. BVs built for the long drive but parked 23hrs every day. Simple matter, 10,000 miles per year, 8,760 hours per year, 27 miles per day. Parked 23hrs every day. This is normal and V2G is a worry to grid owners. Talk to people interested in better thinking about this, government money can easily be wasted as we all know. Nuclear if running keep using it. But be smarter than the bs stuff. I am a Construction Engineer with decades of experience including the power industry. I am pissed of with the crap, and half talking.

[@chapter4travels]

What % of households globally are rich enough to: 1. Have a home in the first place and not an apartment or dirt floor hut. 2. Rich enough to afford a solar/battery system big enough to supply their own needs but also with the excess capacity to supply the grid? 3. Rich enough to afford oversized battery electric cars? 4. And these rich people don't mind not using their expensive BEV if the grid needs it. I think that breaks down to 11 people total globally.

[@daniellarson3068]

@@chapter4travels 😊

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

@chapter4travels they are not the problemo.

[@MarkMcelligottPeaches]

Any fission process using the cold water high pressure approach is the old technology that is completely controlled by both Westinghouse and General Electric that fund these megaprojects via the international monetary fund and the world bank for the purpose of supporting the current nuclear fuel and infrastructure system worldwide. This worldwide centralized control system of nuclear power is based on old technology that has no incentive for innovation. The new nuclear power technology using smalll molten thorium fluoride salt reaction technology that is intrinsically far more safe and efficient with very small and much less waste products than any Coldwater fission process. This presentation is just a marketing job for the current nuclear industry supplies such as Westinghouse and, General Electric.

[@daniellarson3068]

Well - Neither GE nor Westinghouse built CANDU reactors as was plainly stated in the video. Nor has the presenter of these videos decried new technologies in his other videos. Whereas, you may be correct in that existing reactor manufacturers will wish to recoup their investments in BWRs and PWRs, this video did not impress this viewer as marketing for these products.

[@paullafreniere3393]

Why are 70 companies worldwide currently in a race to develop SMRs, etc?

[@daniellarson3068]

@@paullafreniere3393 Necessity is the "Mother of Invention." Let's hope they get a chance to try out some of these paper reactors with a real build.

[@MarkMcelligottPeaches]

@paullafreniere3393 An Small Modular Reactor (SMR) is a reactor construction technique. It is not a reaction process. SMR is a new whitewash cover for the 1950s fission reaction process currently allowed in the civilian energy production regulatory agencies around the world. The site construction is cheaper and more efficient than the regular non SMR reactors but the energy output from a cold water SMR is much smaller which requires more reactor construction for the same power generation which on the whole is actually less efficient. The only real viable SMR is a thorium fluoride molten salt reactor that generates more power than a cold water uranium reactor at scale! The reason why 70 countries are applying for SMRs is because these SMRs fall within the current nuclear power regulatory agencies requirements in these 70 countries which currently negate the application of the thorium fluoride molten salt process. This keeps the fuel processing requirements in place which keeps the Westinghouse and GE corporations flush for the years to come. Face it, China is full in on the thorium fluoride molten salt process and before the decade is out China will be a century ahead of the collective western countries including the US on power generation.

[@MarkMcelligottPeaches]

@@daniellarson3068 To be correct, GE and Westinghouse do not build nuclear reactors. They create the uranium fuel pellets that are placed in the reactor rods that the candu reactor utilizes.