ThorCon's Thorium Converter Reactor 2019-10 Update by Dane Wilson @ TEAC10

I have spent 28 years at the Oak Ridge National Lab during which time I met many of the former msre leaders and unfortunately many of them are not the best in law in particular one of the people that I met earlier when I got to Warren L was dick Engel and Mac thought Mac is still around dick died a year and a half ago and the two of them are the ones that really gave me my education in both assault systems and circulation of molten salts all right today i represent talk on looking at a thorium converter reactor our present target is for that market to be the markets where people want electricity at a low cost in fact we are going to be competing against coal as the target competitor and want to produce it at the city at a cost that is cheaper than coal towards that end the most salt reactor is ideal because you can pump things wrong you don't need a mausoleum to maintain the system or you can build it somewhere else and to it in our case ship it and in our case we are looking at building it with the block technology that has been developed for the shipbuilding industry which is very rapid so we keep support the fact that it's a multi salt reactor and built on block technology allows us the opportunity to have a very low cost and and fortunately compete with coal okay so what is our intention here I'm intention is to produce at least for demonstration purposes a prototype that will be built in a hall in an in a shipyard under the block technology approach will pretest that will then tow that to Indonesia and notice with the market we have chosen this one that wants power but does not want power based upon coal because they have the example of China facing them we will settle that up offshore and power it up so essentially we plant a toe 174 by 76 meters ship if you want to call it that way that is essentially a 500 megawatt power plant the site and power it up and demonstrate that once we have demonstrated that we can then move on so that's our present target within that power unit which represents about 557 megawatts of thermal energy we the way tokens concept is is that we will have the plant operating in such a way that each power module is composed of what we are calling two cans we will be operating one can for four years move the fuel over to the second can and love the first can to cool down in place before taking it out to take it back to the factory so the modular concept is important to us and you'll see why on my next slide because that allows us to do things like ensure that we're going to get that reactor can out of the system before failure as a cool assuming that we have done our modeling right so how do we convert the heat generated within the reactor we have three so close the molten salt loop which contains if the fissile material within it exchanges its heat with a non-physical radioactive salt in the second loop which then converts that to convert excess heat across to a sole of salt loop the sodium potassium nitrate salt before that interacts to invert the seat over with a water loop the reason for that sodium potassium nitrate salt it gives us an isolation between the nuclear side and in the non-nuclear side of the system and secondly any tritium that may have transported itself across all those diced rule tricks are we going to impose the collect regime should be oxidized in the nitrate potassium like sodium nitrate salt and therefore we finally stopped the small amount that gets their overall thermal efficiency here the system morals is approximately 47.6% sorry 47.7% assuming we have a 20 degree in put water annum and much and a little bit lower about 46.4% assuming we have about a 30 degree centigrade input water most likely will be closer to 30 degrees in Indonesia so the modularity as I spoke to Claudia is implemented via the cam the can essentially shown here in red is the structure within that can we have what we call because we did not want to use the term pressure vessel we call it a pot within that pot is the reactor it's not a pressure vessel we operate under about 3 bar 4 bar odd moves it's not a pressure vessel it's a can within that is the moderator in other cases it's graphite just like in a molten salt reactor experiment up along which the molten salt flows below the pot are the same freeze vials as or similar to what was used in the msre except we have gone to four on each one and we can therefore drain even if all if three fails we can still dream we have redundancy inside there and that drains into our dump tank we have now segmented the dump the dump tank and the bottom there and all of this sits within a cold war the cold wall is fundamental to all our removal of heat from the system the cold wall takes the heat away from the else that it can it takes the heat away from the dump tanks the cold wall operates passively this is an absolutely passive device you can shut everything else down it will keep on circulating the water up the cold wall and into the cooling pond which is shown off on the right there that cooling pond has a capacity if we have nothing else going on and we cannot refill it for 147 days of cooling that is way past what happened a fish akuma okay we can cool and I haven't yet taken into account and I shall avoid it for the time being the water we have in the basement gives us additional time so we can walk away from this plant for a long time allow things to cool down if something happens which is unlikely to occur and still be okay without really said anything to the atmosphere and again all of this is by not recirculating no pumps to provide the coolant what is the target right now our target for the next step is to build a non visual test plant using the same technology and by the block technology to build it and once we build this we will test this non physical test plant in all possible manner that we can think of and some that we presently cannot conceive or to ensure that physically and from a control point of view in the absence of vision we can control this this this pot this arrangement this non-fissile plant once we have completed that we can then move on to the next step which would be having building a plant in which we would put fissile material into it and move on here is the update where we are at and I will the first two bullets on this slide I will go into a little bit more detail but I'm going to keep us on time we have done some modeling and how we have had some model and done for us on a Fukushima type accident and that has shown that we are ok with our reactor as as designed we've also had some simulation done for TOI in this hall through the North Atlantic storms and that may say wait a minute you guys said you go into Indonesia why North Atlantic not all antic if you can drag your ship to the Lord Atlantic storm you are seaworthy for the world if you can't survive not the North America not all antics storms you are now restricted in where you can ship your ship so therefore that's what it was bottled on we also have morold an aircraft strike on to that how and see what would happen and I'll show you some results for that we also have one going to gain projects with the Argonne National Laboratory one of them concerns soil property measurements we are not using the molten salt that was used in the molten-salt reactor which was fly we have a slightly different system right now it's a sodium beryllium fluoride salt and therefore we need some some properties taking from that now my new work was done on that back in the msre days there are numbers out there for it but there are some properties we need that are missing so we are trying to get to its measure the second project at the other National Lab is the some development of electrochemical sensors in order to measure chemistry measure redox potential the redox potential is critical for us controlling things like corrosion and other reactions within the system and sauce and solubility of fission products in solution etc etc and one of the things we are also extremely interested in is can we detect the evolving plutonium level in our salt mine remember now we're going to be trying to detect a very small quantity a very very very small quantity of plutonium in a vast sea of uranium so this is an interesting question as to how that can be done but if it can't be done it gives us another way of keeping track of what's in that fuel and what's going on with it so we know how would what how to handle the final thing that has occurred recently that I want to talk about I shan't present any actual data on that is a study performed by the Indonesian agency peachtree tech for the government in indonesia they looked at whether talk on claims about its safety its cost its supply chain etc etc was truly valid we selling a kiss i overselling our position over sell in our case etc ah that report or that eight-month study came back and said oh talk on is not really of a salad those guys know what they are doing and they're presently writing up that report it is our understanding that they will recommend make a recommendation to the president of indonesia to move forward with talk on as a post as the nucleus plant for indonesia the first nuclear power I should back up Indonesia does have isotope medical production reactors going stifled laughter the first one on that slide the talk on Fukushima response what the analysis shows is that let's assume we have the first case earthquake occurs and the earthquake sensors on our system triggers assault the freeze valves to open up and we begin to dump the salt it also releases the shock down rods three of them they are redundant you only need one but we have three for emergency the release the rods they open up the freeze files we begin to dump the salt we therefore know we have lost all power and we have lost all cooling and the primary loop as a result of that essentially what is the end result the end result is that the reactor is in a save configuration the salt is in the dump tank it is really easy to eat quietly without concern passively to that cold wall and it's going up into the Cold War I'm going this way they react they see our calculation says that we are approximately 750 degrees max in the fuel is the maximum temperature for not a very long time either but that's the max temperature we are achieved our system can withstand that without a problem in fact we could probably go back up and restart that really will restart that 1a so now you are above that is you have a total system blackout so you've lost out you've lost your cell reboilers you have no power okay in this particular case we make the assumption that because of that what we have is that the T's shut down rods still release come on down of course the temperature is rising even though the sharp long rods are down so the freeze valve will open up we don't the salt reactors once more in a safe configuration radiated heat lovely to the cold wall and we are good maximum tension temperature in the fuel as a result of that is approximately 8 on 50 degrees C with the materials were using we're not particularly concerned the third scenario is the worst one in which you've also lost all you have a total station blackout but now your trip your rods don't release the CID case it just stuck all three rods stuck remember we only need one but all three of them are stuck in that case our maximum fuel temperature arises to 1,000 degrees C again the freeze valves will open up and don't assault but we have gotten to a thousand degrees C we end up at about 0.5% creep and our materials for all the mechanical engineers and material angel inside ah no big deal 5% 0.5% creep it's almost like okay that occurred however we will replace that can because the 50 the control rods failed to release so we will condemn that can take it out and move on reinstall in you can inside yet notice that in the particular one I'm showing which is the very first scenario we are looking at about seven minutes at which we begin that release from the system moving on to the second analysis that was done for us the tone of the howl through the North Atlantic storm analysis shows that this vessel this hull whatever you want to call it can withstand 1g forces for days now let me repeat that one g-forces what is okay and it's fine a typical reactor about point four G's four seconds at most a minute is the requirement on that we can go so we can really rough this thing up and get it to where we gotta go it will function the third scenario that was looked at is the aircraft strike so this is your scenario of 911 yeah craft comes flying into your building an aircraft well all is all intents and purposes it's a skin on a on a frame so the main damage comes from the engines of course in 911 the fuel also pasta caused a problem with the heat generation there but we are flying a eight ton engine into our vessel the eight-ton engine strikes our vessel and in this case our sangwich well structure with sand filling it will be same if we had concrete inside there but with Sandy a nice reason five for using sand because you can then pump things out if you need to refloat and stuff like that but with the sand inside here the maximum penetration when that engine hits the structure at 200 meters per second is 200 millimeters that's your maximum penetration into our structure our maximum deflection on the inner wall of the sandwich is 300 millimeters again not much the net result is that we have no effect as a result of that strike on our silo okay so he said that's great okay but remember the silo surrounds the Cold War that important mechanism we have for keeping the reactor cool so that's fine and that's and that cold wall surrounds the can so again the key and it's fine we may want to do some inspections but the can is fine and within that is a primary loop containing deficient products and the fissile material that also will be fine as a result of the aircraft strike so the net result of all of these analysis says so far our projections are correct and we will keep on going we keep on moving we are going down that long and winding road that's all of us know who is in this business but we keep putting one foot in front of the other and we are moving forward thank you [Applause] [Applause] did the Indonesian nuclear regulator have a look at your design and provide any feedback minimal look at the design that is lead sort of the following step to the present review that babbitt Ihnen and batman had looked at so they did not look at the detail aspects of the design from a point of view of the reactor physics performance and so forth but they looked at it from a point of view of the safety does it meet the safety requirements Dane how many of these reactors can you generate with your current model let's say per year per decade or what is small efficient shipyard can generate somewhere between 10 to 20 plants of one gigawatt size per year when will you have your first commercial plant operational or at least one for concept purposes okay the what Indonesia would like is that they can say that they will have a commercial plant producing the electricity for them by 2026 which means that we have to have a demonstration plant that we can test in all possible failure modes somewhere in the timeframe of 10th of 2024 to 2025 can you discuss price points we have met over projections are better than the price requirement for electricity by the Indonesian government they have a target we have shown that we can be below that but I don't want to give you an exact number is you plan to load the fissile salt at the shipyard now put it in when you get to the destination yes they're resist something not there is something not shown in my quick overview dia is that we have a separate approach what we operating will be called a kinship that will actually bring the cans into that to that site with its fissile material either in it or separate from it depending upon whether we are doing a an upgrade of sorry no upgrade having to make a fuel or not - that can as it is operated so we do have to lose some make a fuel as it is operated but right now the plan is to bring that separate from the the fuel bring the fuel separate access to see have any real sense of what I did have pictures of that and I'd strip them out okay one of the reasons I stripped it out is that I had a picture from the honda shipyard in it and i hadn't gotten permission to use the picture so i stripped that one out completely one more question just cuz of the size you described how do you get to land can we get it in land the one I showed you is for balancing out into the water so we're actually going to be that plant is gonna sit in the sea in the ocean to see whatever you wanna call it and bring your power in for the land version of that the blocks will be put together in as large as we can carry once we get to the site with the necessary are all in equipment and then the final structure welded together there a word yes it is the construction is modular yes the block construction is a for those of you are unfamiliar with it a block construction of a ship is a modular type construction where you put together much like the way Clayton Homes operates in East Tennessee mm you said that you're gonna ship the salt every four years to a new can then kind of keep the same craft fight for those four years know the graph at life we are projecting right now is four years the whole of that can is pulled out including this fuel and everything else and taken back if the graphite life is four years yes that the system is going to be running for more than four years why not when I sit when I think of system I think about the whole plant polluting the power generation part and everything else the actual can that read part that I showed you on Earth pictures which you were to be a call in the can that will be removed every four years well actually every eight just because we gonna do four years cool down once we drain the salt out of it and let it sit there for four years to cool down so that the radioactivity and it decreases significantly makes it easier for handler but that whole piece gets removed of the can not of the power plant okay so can a has operated for four years but use power I take my soul out that I can and I just let it sit that salt goes into can be can be starts but using electricity and four years later I take Kyani out I put another can into that position for Kenny very good you

Channel: gordonmcdowell

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Keywords: ThorCon, Dane Wilson, TEAC10, Molten Salt Reactor, Thorium

Id: C2tWXaMm94Q

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ENrgStar]

You can see how proud and excited he is about this when you look at his smile while he talks about it. I’m excited with him.