What You Need to Know: Thorium Nuclear Power

We fixed the audio and re uploaded. Sorry for those who are getting the notification on this a second time!

The long awaited Thorium video is here! I hope you all enjoy as I take a critical look at the benefits and drawbacks of this fascinating form of nuclear power. Does it hold the key to near limitless nuclear fuel? Or is it merely a technical curiosity? Watch and find out!

[thattimestampguy]

0:27 The Basic Idea 💡
4:06 Why Bother Doing This?
11:42 27 Days
12:40 Why Not Bother?

[maxheadrom]

Finally!!!! An information I can trust about thorium!

[Christoph]

Whish I had a lecturer as good as you when I was at uni. Love your videos keep them coming.

[profxtreme]

I really appreciate quality presentations like this, thank you. Difficult material explained well about a topic like this can help open minds. I think Thorium reactors are certainly worth exploring as experiments in some level even if we don't end up scaling production. What we could learn may well be worth the cost even if Thorium itself remains a novelty. I would love a video going into more detail about the economics of reactor construction/operation and ways we could improve costs without taking short cuts on safety (maybe producing more, smaller megawatt reactors and thus scaling production?). Nuclear power will be needed more than ever if we are serious about environmental progress (renewables don't strike me as a serious effort).

[myth-termoth]

I love this chanel. The intro is brief and the information is densely packed.

[kylethompson]

This channel is HUGELY underrated. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

[profounddevices]

well stated and balanced arguments. i also appreciate the economic view. i was unclear about why no full scale thorium reactors in usa, but this helped clear it up. i know now we have an abundance supply of uranium and 60yrs of technical experience working with it. currently we have a world surplus of uranium, unless uranium becomes extremely expensive there is no reason to do this. thanks!

[daniellarson]

Sir: Thanks for putting out this video. I also note there are some extremely well thought out comments that are well worth reading. There certainly do seem to be a lot of advantages to Thorium coupled with the Molten Salt Reactor. Perhaps a safe prediction would be that we will see one built on this Earth in the next 10 - 15 years?

[richardgray]

Thank you for producing both the original video and this revised version a well. You produced a good presentation the first time and now with the second version clarified the advantages and disadvantages even more. Nourishing food for thought.

[paulanderson]

A long half life means slow decay. Hence why uranium 238, with it's 4.2 billion year half life, can be bare handed completely safely. U238 is routinely used as a radiation shield in sensitive radiation measuring instruments. It's also widely used as armour plating for military combat vehicles due to it's density and ductile nature. Presidential and ministerial reinforced limousines are also built with U238 to stop projectiles.

[LFTRnow]

We know very well how to make vacuum tubes, they work well and meet our needs, and we've solved a lot of problems with them. Clearly, while it would be nice to explore this "transistor" thing, it may become interesting some 100s of years in the distant future.

[williamfennell]

Thanks,
I’ve become a fan of these videos recently. Informative and entertaining.
The fact that this particular vid on thorium and MSR is from the not too distant past, I’m wondering if recent events have altered your position on the economic viability.
In particular China has leveraged enormous amounts of financial and technical resources to revive the thorium MSR concept first proposed by ORNL.
Current US advocates Kirk Sorenson of Flibe Energy and ThorCon CEO Lars Jorgenson would probably agree that without the financial and political advantages of China, the near term market for small companies like theirs will rely on their ability to deliver an economically competitive alternative to fossil fuels.
Recently they have both given presentations that targets delivery of small modular reactors at a price point competitive with coal.
…and China is supposedly very close to completion of a full scale MSR prototype.
Has there been any new discoveries from any of the noted thorium proponents to suggest they are moving the technology towards fruition?

[marker]

Another use for these is emergency power systems at existing nuclear.

[neilnelson]

However safe you feel light water reactors are, nuclear power has a bad reputation because of radiation releases from light water reactor accidents. A significant portion of the light water reactor cost is due to safety requirements. The restriction of the light water reactor to low temperatures confine their use to generating electricity without the heat applications available to molten salt reactors.

[Zomfoo]

Gamma rays?

Doc Bruce Banner,
belted by gamma rays,
turned into the Hulk.
Ain’t he unglamo-rays!

[chriscummings]

This is a phenomenal video. Thank you for sharing!

[ninefox]

Thank you for this succinct explanation, very useful.

[coffeefiend]

ThorCon is making a test Thorium Power Plant that can be made and installed in 2 years instead of the 6 years it takes for a Uranium Power Plant. They will be testing for several years yet, but keep an eye out.

[GkTheodore]

Although I disagree with your view on whether we should implement the technology based on costs alone, I appreciate your cool-headed approach and explanation.
My rationale:
1) We started building Uranium-cycle reactors from day 1, with only a fraction of the research done on Thorium cycle reactors so far.
2) I find it difficult to put a "cost" on polluting someone's ELSE's piece of land for tens of thousands of years AND still have a clear conscience!

[beback_]

Thank you. Every other video I've seen is either too technical or not technical enough.