The Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor: Why Didn't This Happen (and why is now the right time?)

[raypsi1]

Gr8 video Kirk have you solved the graphite moderator trouble in the LFTR yet is copper graphite laminates the answer? Or are you moving toward graphite pellets rolling around?

[piecharthosen]

energy independence is absolutely required for a segregated country to thrive. This is very exciting.

[Av3rnus]

This will be eventually, the question is whether it will come too late.

[HyperactiveHandfull]

We are more focused on squeezing profits out of old tech, old media, and old companies to really be in a position to where we can innovate. We are too greedy and inefficient. If we let China do this first, then they deserve to have the tech rights to it.

[mgleisspersonal]

Well, everybody knows that the U.S. is finished. China is the future. If Mr. Sorensen really wants to see this happening, I would pack my bags and move to China.

[ClockworkGearhead]

@mgleisspersonal You're assuming China will never have to deal with their population, one day.

[SuppenHahnBier]

nice history lesson, but its kind of short on the Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor and why it should be used today.. only the last 6 minutes

[nicholasrnr]

@SuppenHahnBier I think the history lesson was required as a preface to the point he was trying to make. It gave substance to the last 6 minutes that, without, would have lacked a real "punch" if you will. I think it's kind of nice to hear WHY he feels its not being used today (in a discussion style) and not just a cut and dry bullet format list of reasons. But to each their own I suppose.

[TheAngrycrow]

Word ! Let's move up to bio already. Snuff the solid state machines.

[arubaga]

Sen. Al Franken:

Can you tell me what the role of Thorium may be? What the thinking is on Thorium, as a fuel, what the advantages are and what the disadvantages are?

Peter Lyons, Under Secretary of Energy:

We are certainly interested to look at Thorium as a possibility, particularly as a possibility for the future, but fact remains that we have the entire fuel cycle built up on Uranium, and it would be a dramatic shift and a very costly shift to move on any sort of short time scale to Thorium.

[a1mint]

@arubaga But here's the kicker. Some other country might make it, and then the Americans will feel more antiquated and stupid than ever before.

[arubaga]

You can clearly see a parallel in "Who Killed the Electric Car". The US nuclear industry did not want the Molten Salt Reactor technology because it can impact their business, such as in new competitors, obsoleting existing plants, and reduced uranium solid fuel revenue stream. They made sure MSR does not occur by letting the officials at DOE know what they want.

[TheNecromancer077]

36 minutes D:

[DrakeDorosh]

Just because Nixon told the public that they needed a "fast breeder reactor for peaceful purposes" and just because he doesn't understand nuclear physics does not overturn the assertion that the defense department wanted a domestic energy system that supplied plutonium for the cold war.

[ZraveX]

Very informative, thanks!

[davemartin8686]

Like most Americans I think I like vanilla more than chocolate, but I'm not exactly sure.

[cb7pwn]

how in the absolute fuck did i get here!? lol

[Blyledge]

And what happens when the cooling system of a molten-salt reactor fails? Because the cooling system of the reactor is ALWAYS the failure point. We won't be able to spray a million gallons of water on it. We won't be able to bury it in a million tons of concrete. No fire department on earth will be equipped to damp it. A meltdown of a molten-salt reactor will always be a worst-case scenario. By design.

[sinawas]

@Blyledge Isn't that why they build in a drainage system that allows the nuclear fuel to be drained into a passively cooled tank?

[Knepperify1]

@Blyledge

Simple, really. If the cooling fails the molten-salt gets hotter.

A metal plug or two at the base is made with a metal of known melting point that will dissolve if the reactor over heats. The thorium drains into a collection pan where it becomes non-reactive and you simply restore the plug and put the salt back into the reactor vessel.

You don't need to bury thorium as its half-life is short as well as any products of said reactor.

[OfficeThug]

@Knepperify1 Actually the plugs are made of FLiBe salt, just like the molten salts in the reactor. The plugs are kept cool enough to remain solid by external fans. If the salt heats up too much, the plugs overheat and melt. The fans can also be manually stopped to purge the molten salts for scheduled shutdowns (they did this every weekend with the ORNL MSR project, before going home). If power is cut off, the fans stop and the plugs also melt then.

[OfficeThug]

@Blyledge Actually if the salt does leak from the reactor (the worst case scenario) it quickly expands because it's no longer under slightly-higher-than-atmospher­ic pressure. As it expands, nuclear reactions cease, the salt cools very rapidly and eventually solidifies. The salt is insoluble in water and stays put until you clean it up. Because the salt is reprocessed constantly during operation, there is very little Radioxenon present in it at any time to escape into the environment.

[ThomasEJC]

@Blyledge Have you even watched the video?

[rickholmes68]

Excellent Presentation Kirk. I've been following your work for some time now and as a layman with no scientific background it's taken me many hours of listening to your presentations and those of your peers to understand how important your work is. I think that a 3 min video presenting the case for Thorium power that could be understood by anyone. Simple diagrams, powerful pictures from nature and the key non technical points put across in a video that could go viral on facebook and google+ 

[SevenSixTwoNato]

Good video.

Kirk, you should produce a documentary on LFTR and raise awareness, I think it would allay a lot of the anti-nuclear sentiment in the alternative energy community.

[DustininSD]

Why do Google tech talks always have such poor audio and video? High school AV clubs produce higher quality material than this.

[therealericmeyer]

Fantastic presentation, Kirk! I'm surprised google hasn't jumped on this yet. Their electric bill must be pretty high...

[lacker101]

He isn't being misleading, energy density issues of ANY power source compared to nuclear has been known for quite sometime. What he did not go further into is how billions of people in Asia are not going to accept low power production from renewables as their economies develop. The efficiency and throughput simply isn't there to make it a national agenda. Thus you have India/China cranking out maximum coal plants, and drawing up plans new breeding reactors. Maybe a few solar plants for good PR.

[0MoTheG]

the data center - solar power plant argument was so far fetched. the data center is there because of the availability of clean power and cooling. there is no need for a connection of the two. He did not go into the technical and savty problems but pitched it as a pure political issue. I liked the beginning but the rest was propaganda / misleading. There has not been one success story in breeding reactors but plenty money sunk.

[0MoTheG]

Great! Someone talking about neutron energy and cross section, usually this is omitted. Sad that he was apologetic about complexety. The trend to make things easy has gone to far in the US.

[eberaldo]

wait a second...sweEden?

[guitarbeast777]

+e>=====*=====<-e

[geonerd]

Poor Nixon, he don't get no respect! :)

Kirk, if you're there - keep up the good work! Thorium seems to be developing a very real 'Buzz' recently. I've seen pro-Th posts in all manner of forums, ranging from photography to motor oil to the comments on Hulu. Given another year, I think Th will reach k=1 in the public mind, with the grovelling politicians soon to follow.

[SealTeam1]

Great video! Keep up the work on Thorium Reactors!

[clumma]

Fort St Vrain was also thorium breeder.

[kirkfsorensen]

@clumma Ft. St. Vrain didn't hit a conversion ratio higher than one, so it wasn't a breeder. The thorium-U233 dioxide final core at Shippingport did have a conversion ratio higher than one, proving that thermal breeding in thorium was truly possible.

[clumma]

@kirkfsorensen In the technical sense of the term, sure. I've heard "isobreeder" for reactors with conversion factor exactly 1... what's the term for something with a conversion factor < 1... "converter"?

[lennyhome]

Half of the video is about conspiracy theories nobody really cares about. Just make a really good reactor that uses a very economical cycle and pay the politicians instead of worrying about them.

[kirkfsorensen]

@lennyhome No conspiracy theory here. Nixon wanted a fast-breeder reactor and made it national policy. Thus when Weinberg proposed a VERY different alternative it was squashed and he was fired. Not a conspiracy, just a regrettable outcome.

[lennyhome]

@kirkfsorensen American politics are influential in the rest of the world but other countries have enough resources to pursue nuclear energy. The problem is that, after all the bad publicity from the media, what Joe Public demands to reconsider nuclear energy is a breakthrough. Not just a better reactor, but an awesome new reactor that's so good that not even the stupidest and most corrupt politician and/or Hollywood star can deny. That, in my opinion, should be the focus.

[un2mensch]

@kirkfsorensen Thank you for being a champion for this cause. I've been following your work for years, and will be doing so for many more.

[ISMOPANAMA]

@kirkfsorensen What will be a Conspiracy is if by 2020 the USA is still using these "Planet Sterilizing" power sources while China leads the way with a dozen Thorium Reactors or more. Global Elites seem to have used up the USA and it seems they are moving on to China next, leaving the once great USA in Economic/ Social/ Political shambles.

"The Dragon is Awaking while the Eagle is Starving"

[vegnagunL]

@kirkfsorensen It always deppends on how you look at it....

Conspiracies happens everywhere in families, friends etc... the word conspiracy is just used when cames to people of governament, companies, but camom we are all people...

[OtakuBozu]

@kirkfsorensen Do the fission products from a fission by a fast-neutron differ from those of a fission by a thermal-neutron in their proportion of which isotopes of which elements get produced? I'm just curious.

[shmore]

Good editing for a google talks video, thanks.