Thorium Fuel Cycle Explained in 1 Min

Рет қаралды 16,092

Copenhagen Atomics

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 46

@robertweekes5783 Жыл бұрын

Kirk Sorensen will be remembered for rediscovering and popularizing this amazing technology!

@CopenhagenAtomics Жыл бұрын

Indeed! Kirk S. has done some amazing work in repopularising this technology, we owe him a debt of gratitude!

@Umu_Eri Жыл бұрын

Great animation and explanation

@CopenhagenAtomics Жыл бұрын

We're happy you liked it!

@marcusfleuti2672 Жыл бұрын

This we must make happen. Not midage windmills and silicon sand plates which don't produce any power in 85% of their lifetime.

@Feinrizulwur Жыл бұрын

A necessity for comming centuries.

@ThatJay283 10 ай бұрын

not just one starting ingredient. you also need something fissile to get the cycle started. with uranium, the necessary uranium-235 is already bundled with the uranium-238 to get the cycle started, and with already used fuel, there's enough plutonium-239 and delayed neutrons to do this too. the advantages of thorium isn't from thorium itself, its the amazing breakthrough that is breeder reactors.

@dennyli9339 Ай бұрын

Its cheap and can be used in dry area...if used in Central Asia desert, will have the benefit of no contamination of ground water

@gabrielbosia1719 21 күн бұрын

Well done, great explanation !!

@CopenhagenAtomics 20 күн бұрын

Glad you liked it!

@MalcolmAkner 8 ай бұрын

Damn, what an excellent little summary of our fuel cycle! Nice animations as well, 10/10!

@retokaderli9010 28 күн бұрын

Hope to see this soon at the PSI in Switzerland 👍🏻

@gator1984atcomcast 28 күн бұрын

The reason Thorium is no used in a breeder reactor is often omitted. A chemical extraction process needs to be added to the process. Thus, although thorium reactors have been built, they have not caught on.

@chapter4travels Жыл бұрын

The same can be said U238, except we have vast reserves of U238 already mined, and refined that governments will pay someone to take off their hands.

@jlp1528 Жыл бұрын

Unfortunately, too many people are too scared of the plutonium in the U-238 fast breeder cycle. Ironically, if they knew about isotopes, they would know that a long enough burn time renders said plutonium unsuitable for bombs. I'm hoping eventually we do get fast breeder reactors of all kinds, but thorium seems more promising at the moment.

@chapter4travels Жыл бұрын

@@jlp1528 It's just an excuse to be anti-nuclear. Debunk that one and they will just pick the next one on their list.

@brianwild4640 Жыл бұрын

Unfortunately uranium is not as common as thorium and and needs enriching before it can be used and produces longer lives waste

@ThatJay283 10 ай бұрын

@@jlp1528 I'd be happy with both tbh. the amazing thing about breeder reactors is the technology. this technology is the same whether it's uranium + plutonium or thorium + uranium, so breeder reactor plant operators can really just pick whatever fuel cycle makes the most sense and use that. they could even use both fuel cycles at the same time. what's more important is this amazing technology is actually built and utilised. the biggest arguments facing nuclear energy right now are initial cost and time. so whatever we can do to reduce these, like by actually making next generation nuclear reactors such as this, will be amazing. this is because the other advantages of breeder reactors is from their hotter temperatures. running hotter allows them to utilise fast neutrons. one design uses molten salt fuel and molten lead coolant which allows much better heat capacity/transfer than using water which allows it to be smaller and more efficient. this kind of reactor could literally just be plonked into a coal plants boiler room and then start producing steam, run that through its already existing turbine, coolant systems and electrical systems, and boom you got clean electricity with much lower initial investment.

@MalcolmAkner 8 ай бұрын

Not really. U238 only fissions with high energy neutrons (fast reactors). The neutron leakage from those reactors are very significant (some up to 50%) and difficult to design away. U233 works with slow neutrons (thermal reactors) which vastly increases the likelihood of a fission event happening. Neutron leakage from thermal reactors can be in the single digit %. The inventory of Th232 is vastly greater than that of total uranium, out of which only 0.7% is the U235 that we currently use. We need to switch to the thorium cycle to scale up nuclear energy, so that it can power human civilization up until the point that the sun swallows our planet.

@juandelacruz1520 7 ай бұрын

I love to see it working and be commercialized with in these year.

@Koolstuffdude. 29 күн бұрын

Now, this is quality

@CopenhagenAtomics 25 күн бұрын

thanks! stay tuned

@Ecusfug 4 ай бұрын

hey, one question: if the 100mw t reactor only has 200kg of fuel, and the fuel is the only heat carrier, how do you remove the 100mw of energy with the fuel staying in the designed temparature range? ...

@CopenhagenAtomics 4 ай бұрын

So the fuel salt will go through a plate heat exchanger, transferring the heat to a secondary loop of fluoride salt without radioactive materials in it, which will subsequently go through another plate heat exchanger transferring the heat to a third loop system of nitrate salt which is the heat being delivered to the customer.

@sirpantuflas.6582 2 ай бұрын

"Where a fuel cycle is like a never-ending power loop. It's where nuclear energy begins and ends". So it does end or not?

@mehmetcaglar2953 2 ай бұрын

where is plutonium who activitates thoruim

@consultorweb200 4 ай бұрын

Excellent, very illustrative video to understand how the magic of creating highly controlled energy occurs. It would be interesting to know if there are thorium molten salt reactor modules for sale. In Peru we urgently need new portable electric power plants for the industrial growth that is coming big with the mega ports to be inaugurated soon to powerfully increase the international trade of natural resources and inputs between the countries of South America and the Asian continent.

@consultorweb200 4 ай бұрын

In Peru there is abundant thorium to work on the production of small molten thorium salt reactor modules and thus be able to market and export them to the world. Likewise, in Peru there is a deposit, perhaps the largest in the world, to provide thorium and rare earths that can supply high-tech industries and conversion to clean energy.

@adrianthoroughgood1191 2 ай бұрын

@@consultorweb200it is very far away from commercial yet. There is only one experimental thorium reactor under construction in the world so far, in China. When more experimental reactors have been built and run to check for long term material stability (it's very very hard to stop the molten salt from corroding the pipes) then commercial design development can start. I expect that would begin with large scale reactors before small ones. One advantage of molten salt is online fuel reprocessing to remove fission products. This means the reactor can just keep running for a very long time without needing to be shut down to refuel. I don't think this could be done in a small form factor. Small reactors are usually sealed units that need expensive highly enriched fuel and then run for a certain number of years until they stop, and then the whole reactor gets thrown away. If you want SMRs soon then they will probably have to be traditional uranium ones.

@JordanValnet Ай бұрын

For now, none of this kind of reactor is working (only experimental ones). They built one in China if I remember. Let's see how it goes. Then maybe it's gonna lead to commercial reactors (and maybe some would be for sale).