Thorium explained - the future of cheap, clean energy?

this episode is brought to you by brilliant click the link in the description below I've been exploring different types of clean energy generation and storage of my videos over the past few months and topic that has been mentioned a lot in the comments is thorium reactors thorium is often held up as one of the best paths forward for achieving a mix of cheap and clean energy generation for our grid even former presidential candidate Andrew yang was pushing for throwing reactors along with wind and solar so what is it why are there so many people excited about it and is it really the future of clean energy I'm Matt Farrell welcomed and decided in recent years we've seen a huge increase in the amount of solar and wind power being added to the grid which are often viewed as the ultimate clean energy power sources and there's a growing movement to provide better grid scale energy storage options to capture that energy generation for use at times when they may not be producing enough energy but some argue that that's not going to be enough so nuclear needs to be part of the clean energy mix and it's probably a good idea to quickly go over what nuclear energy is but just like I said in my fusion energy video I'm gonna keep this higher level because nuclear physics is clearly a very complex topic that's out of scope for this video and it hurts my brain just a little bit as always on include a link in the description to my research if you're interested but here's how it works at a high level all fish and based reactors use the same exact process it's a result of an extra neutrons slamming into a larger nuclide which splits into two smaller nuclide the splitting of the nuclide releases a massive amount of energy and produces more loose neutrons and those neutrons can start a chain reaction by slamming into more nuclides to continue the process it's a nuclear chain reaction and that reaction generates Heat nuclear reactors can then capture that heat turn water into steam which then turns a turbine to produce electricity all without producing carbon emissions associated with climate change but many today are scared off of nuclear energy because of disasters like Three Mile Island Chernobyl and Fukushima all of which came down to a failure in the cooling systems uranium-235 is the common fuel source used today and an out-of-control chain reaction can cause a catastrophic meltdown and this is fear around meltdowns that's holding back public interest in increasing the number of nuclear power plants but what if there was a nuclear reactor that still had no carbon emissions produces nuclear waste with dramatically shorter half-life a fuel source says three times as plentiful and how about no risk of meltdown enter thorium so where and why does thorium come into this frame is one of the 15 heavy metallic radioactive elements in the bottom of the periodic table and goes back to Swedish chemist jöns jakob berzelius who first isolated thorium in 1828 but it wasn't until 1898 that gerhard Schmidt and Marie Curie separately identified thorium's radioactive nature thorium 232 is the most stable of the 27 thorium isotopes which can be found in the minerals thoria Knight and monocyte for commercial purposes thorium is most often found in monocyte mining and is fairly abundant worldwide the countries with the highest estimated deposits are India Brazil Australia and the United States so what sets it apart from uranium 235 that's used in nuclear reactors today well uranium 235 is used because it's highly fissile the neutron speeds can can be controlled and slowed by using water as a coolant and regulator which increases the number of uranium-235 nuclides that split most uranium ore that we mined is uranium 238 and only contains about 3 to 5 percent of uranium 235 when uranium 238 absorbs an extra Neutron it turns into uranium 239 and then quickly into plutonium the material that we use for nuclear weapons the spent uranium 235 from a nuclear reactor contains very radioactive isotopes with a half-life of thousands of years so waste has to be stored safely for up to 10,000 years and with today's reactor designs which in the u.s. are fairly outdated small disruptions in the process can lead to catastrophic overheating and meltdowns thorium on the other hand isn't fissile which means it's not a good source for a fission reaction while it's not directly usable in a fission reactor when it absorbs a neutron it decays into protactinium then it can be chemically separated into uranium 233 which in turn can be used in a reactor is very efficient for fission reactions thorium is able to breed uranium 233 it's that ability to separate uranium 233 from the thorium that sets it apart from your rain 235 and 238 that's a lot of numbers we end up with a vast amount of waste from today's reactors that needs to be stored safely the waste from a thorium reactor is radioactive for about 500 years compared to up to 10,000 all of this is what makes thorium a unique option for nuclear fuel because it's more abundant than uranium can be turned into a usable fuel and dramatically reduces the amount of nuclear waste there's no shortage of reactor designs and concepts that can take advantage of thorium as a fuel source some of the reactor types you'll find are heavy water reactors high-temperature gas-cooled reactors boiling water reactors pressure water reactors faster Neutron reactors and accelerator driven reactors and that's still not all of them but you can really narrow it down to two major categories of reactor designs leading the way there's water or thermal reactors and molten salt reactors probably the reactor that's getting the most focus our molten salt reactors like the liquid fluoride thorium reactor or a lifter based on the acronym which uses thorium fluoride in a salt mixture that's melted into a liquid this is often referred to as a breeder reactor design thorium goes in fission products like uranium 233 come out it's the liquid nature of the fuel that makes this type of thorium reactor special it's both the coolant and the fuel so it can self-regulate the process to keep the temperature from getting out of control the simplest way to describe the how and why is that the liquid fuel is run through a reactor chamber filled with graphite rods these graphite rods are acting as a fission moderator because they're slowing down the speed of the neutrons much like water does in today's reactors which increases the probability of fission reaction remove the graphite rods from the equation and the fission chain reaction stops this is the biggest safety benefit over traditional nuclear reactors that we have in use today thorium based reactors are safer because the reaction can easily be stopped and they don't operate under extreme pressure in the event of a catastrophic incident in a liquid fluoride thorium reactor it will automatically drain the liquid fuel into a tank away from the graphite stopping the reaction there's essentially a walkaway safety factor to throwing reactors like this so why aren't we seeing thorium reactors everywhere in fact why aren't we seeing any thorium reactors and commercial use at all there's varying levels of inch investment in throwing reactors around the world while the principles have been understood for a long time there are still a lot of technical and practical challenges to overcome like finding materials that can contain the corrosive molten salts Lin when Hugh from mi t--'s nuclear reactor laboratories said in a wired interview there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of demonstrating molten salt reactor technology even for uranium based reactors molten salt reactors need to be demonstrated with a uranium fuel cycle before the system can be used for a thorium fuel cycle moving toward a thorium fuel cycle has a lot of unknowns countries like the US haven't viewed thorium is a leading candidate for nuclear power historically so there hasn't been a lot of funding towards the research in looking at the history as to why the u.s. settled on uranium as a fuel source instead of thorium goes back to the Cold War with the Soviet Union as I mentioned before uranium-fueled reactors produce plutonium which can be refined into weapons-grade materials which is used in nuclear bombs so the path the u.s. ended up going down has been set for a very long time now and shifting from a uranium based infrastructure to a thorium based one will take time but countries like China and India that don't have a long-standing uranium infrastructure have been investing heavily into thorium in 2009 China demonstrated the potential of thorium based fuels and has the first high-temperature experimental fluoride salt loop in operation India has one of the largest thorium reserves in the world and has a three-stage plan that focuses on reaching thorium reliance by the third stage it's about countries establishing self-reliant forms of clean energy generation to support massive populations solar and wind alone won't be able to support the rapidly growing baseline energy needs which is why they're investing so heavily into next gen nuclear reactors and thorium and while countries like the US have been lagging behind on thorium research compared to others there's still interest during his presidential run Andrew yang made the case to invest 50 billion dollars in the development of molten salt nuclear reactors wanting to get them online by 2027 him Bill Gates has been investing heavily into next gen nuclear he invested in Terra power in 2011 which is working on a next-gen nuclear reactor called a traveling wave reactor the biggest game-changer for this reactor is the ability to use fuel efficiently out uranium enrichment so we can use depleted uranium or nuclear waste as a fuel source we'd be able to reuse that waste restoring for ten thousand years and the design could also work for thorium sadly the test facility that we're building in China has been put on hold the Trump administration has put a lock on the potential for the Gates Foundation to keep nurturing China's nuclear innovations but Bill Gates remains convinced that nuclear energy is our single greatest weapon to combat climate change in the immediate future and requires significant investment into new designs and while not directly related to thorium in May of 2020 the US Department of Energy just started a new project called the advanced reactor demonstration program which is funding 230 million dollars into next gen nuclear there's worldwide recognition that while solar and wind are great and viable sources for clean energy by itself they aren't enough to get us to a hundred percent clean grid quickly a mix of solar wind energy storage and nuclear can help the world achieve that goal there's a lot of exciting potential around thorium it's going to be interesting to watch how this evolves over the coming years if you're like me and enjoy puzzling through how all this comes together and maybe you even want to get into researching and building future nuclear systems today's sponsor brilliant can help you with that in high school I struggled with algebra and calculus but I've been taking the calculus in a nutshell course which does a great job giving you a high-level overview for all the major pillars of calculus I really wish I had something like this back in high school it's not just calculus brilliant has over 60 courses including topics in mathematics science and computer science so whether you're a professional looking to keep up with the latest topics and learn new skills or someone who just enjoys learning and trying to understand how the world works brilliant is for you and what makes brilliant so great is that it breaks down complex concepts into digestible bite-sized chunks learn through doing with fun and interactive puzzles it's not about memorizing formulas it's about understanding the concepts and applying them to learn more go to brilliant org slash undecided where you can sign up for free and also the first 200 people will also get 20% off their annual premium membership thanks to brilliant and to all of you for supporting the channel and jump into the comments and let me know what you think about thorium and nuclear is part of the grid and as always a special thank you to all my patrons for your continued support it really means a lot if you like this video be sure to check out one of the videos I have linked to right here be sure to subscribe if you think I've earned it and as always thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Undecided with Matt Ferrell

Views: 400,016

Keywords: thorium, thorium energy, thorium reactor, thorium reactor explained, liquid fluoride thorium reactor, liquid thorium fluoride reactors, molten salt thorium reactor, clean nuclear energy, clean nuclear power, explained, lftr, lftr reactor, nuclear power, nuclear waste, nucléaire, tedx, undecided with matt ferrell, uranium, uranium 235, thorium explained, andrew yang, future of energy, thorium reaktor

Id: ZLrt_38LR3A

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020

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[u/RandysCookbook]

I remember reading about thorium as an elementary school student in the mid 2000s. Saddens me that a child could understand the benefits from a 1 page article, but many of our policy makers are simply unaware of it more than a decade later. We need a way to better glorify the role of science in our society.

[u/Skyhawk6600]

Green policy without nuclear energy is like a sandwich without bread. It's what holds it together and makes it work

[u/Hufflepuff173]

Thorium is great, and it definitely has a place in a clean energy future, but everyone seems to forget we already have uranium, which is also a great source of energy.