The Future Of Nuclear Power - Holtec SMR 160

this technology could save the world by kickstarting a nuclear Revolution but how when you look at the data nuclear power seems utterly extraordinary its carbon emissions are minuscule at four grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour the same level as solar power and significantly lower than the six gram per kilowatt hour of wind power but is also incredibly safe nuclear averages 90 deaths per Tera hour of energy produced a statistic that includes horrific disasters like Fukushima compare that to wind power at 150 deaths per terawatt hours or solar power at 440 deaths per terrible hours and even monstrous numbers of coal power at a hundred thousand deaths per terawatt hour with all of this in mind nuclear energy should be a beacon of sustainability and the power source of the future but thanks to the sky high price of reactors and how painstakingly slow it is to construct them nuclear power has fallen out of favor luckily though whole Tech and then genius smr-160 may have solved this critical flaw when I say nuclear power is expensive and slow I really mean it take the 3.2 gigawatt size World C nuclear power plant being built in Britain it is predicted to take 12 years to construct but the actual date of arrival could easily surpass that plus the total price to build this plant is estimated to be up to 30 billion pounds or equivalent to 36 billion dollars which is just a monstrous sum of money like imagine trying to pitch this build to an energy company uh yeah so this new to power plant right it's going to cost you several tens of billions up front it's going to take a good chunk over a decade to build uh and even once it's all built it might be a few years until it's gums online you know but but it's gonna be good what do you think yeah you see the issue is is that for significantly less I can build solar and wind power and they take only a few years to build so we're gonna go with them with conversations like this happening in the background it is no wonder nuclear power is falling out of favor but this is where holtex SMR 160 comes in SMR stands for small modular reactor unlike typical nuclear actors which use a handful of massive custom-built reactors that need to be carefully built on site smrs are small enough to be built off-site in a factory and then transported to location where they can be stacked together to make a whole power plant this makes smrs far cheaper to build and more flexible and more scalable than traditional nuclear power but this is a relatively new concept and companies are still trying to design reactors to meet regulations so as of yet no smrs are commercially available however haltex 160 seems to be one of the most promising smrs it doesn't depend on external water sources for cooling allowing it to operate in arid areas which is something traditional nuclear power and other smrs really struggle to do each module costs a billion dollars and takes up 15 000 square meters for that you will get an output of a 160 megawatts what's more the power plant that it will be a part of will only take three years to construct and it should have a lifespan of at least 80 years and then once on those modules have reached the end of their life they can be hot swapped out for new ones this means that if we built size well C with smr-60s it would only use 20 modules costing a tidy 16.4 billion pounds or around 20 billion dollars will require again only three years to build and will actually be two hectares smaller than the current plant size moreover the site can be expanded or shrunk over time to match demand keeping operational costs as low as possible but whole Tech is just the Geniuses and they have yet another trick up their sleeves which makes the 160 even better the 160 produces power the same way almost every other nuclear power plant does through closed loop steam-powered turbines but the steam the 160 emits is at a far lower pressure and temperature than others at 700 PSI and 313 degrees Centigrade poltec has also applied for a patent for a multi-stage compressor to get the pressure higher while keeping the temperature lower because of these two factors 160s can be used to recycle old coal-fired power plants and turn them into nuclear power plants coal-fired plants are surprisingly large as they need plenty of space to handle the coal and Ash that they produce this can be cleared giving plenty of space to install enough 160s then the furnace can be removed and the 160s and their multi-stage compressor can be hooked up to the old closed loop steam turbine system to make a fully functional nuclear power plant recycling coal plants like this makes construction even cheaper as you don't need to build the turbine system or the vast infrastructure required to connect it to the energy Grid or buy new land put a nuclear power plant on now remember the whole Tech doesn't need an external source of water to keep it cool so unlike every other nuclear power plant it can be stored far away from rivers or the sea this means that every single old coal-fired power plant out there could be turned into a ultra low carbon emission nuclear power plant using the 160. but this is where a recent study by the U.S department of energy comes in it found that hundreds of coal power plant sites across the U.S could be converted into nuclear power plants which means there is plenty of opportunity to use this technique but unlike other smrs the 160 isn't a concept that will never see the light of day Hall Tech is already working with the UK Canadian Japanese and U.S governments to get their design regulated and approved and they seem to be trucking along with this plan really smoothly what's more they have applied for a 4.7 billion dollar Federal Loan to build a manufacturing sites for the 160 which they seem to be likely to get by the way this is the type of loan that Tesla used to grow so it has some history with producing some fantastic projects as such whole Tech is expecting a 2029 launch date for the 160. so holtec has a moderate actor that can be used pretty much anywhere in the world takes only a fuse to install is insanely cheap and can work with already existing infrastructure to drop prices and potentially construction time even further with technology like this at our fingertips nuclear power will be a no-brainer and it can take its rightful place as a leading Planet saving technology now it will take time for these smrs to emerge but I can safely predict that when they do it will kick-start a nuclear Renaissance thanks for watching if you liked it then go ahead and subscribe and like the video it really helps the channel out and means I can keep on making more of them again thanks so much for watching and don't forget the future is bright [Music]

Channel: Planet Earth & Beyond

Views: 12,271

Keywords: science, tech, technology, sustainability, environment, climate change, future, innovation, eco-friendly, eco, eco friendly, listenable, video essay, EVs, Electric Vehicles, Tesla, Musk, Elon Musk, SpaceX, EV, Nuclear, nuclear power, atomic, atomic power, nuclear energy

Id: bwSHEPovxPc

Length: 7min 53sec (473 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 21 2023