Revisiting Thorium Energy - The Future of Nuclear Power?

Video script and citations:

Get my achieve energy security with solar guide:

Follow-up podcast:

👋 Support Undecided on Patreon!

⚙️ Gear & Products I Like
Tesla and smart home gear:

Undecided Amazon store front:



Abstract Ocean Tesla Accessories:
15% Discount - Code: "Undecided"

Jeda Tesla Wireless Charger/USB Hub:

Tesla Referral Code:
Get 1,000 free supercharging miles
or a discount on Tesla Solar & Powerwalls

Visit my Energysage Portal:
Research solar panels and get quotes for free!

And find heat pump installers near you:

Or find community solar near you:

👉 Follow Me
X

Instagram

Facebook

Website

📺 YouTube Tools I Recommend
Audio file(s) provided by Epidemic Sound

TubeBuddy

VidIQ

I may earn a small commission for my endorsement or recommendation to products or services linked above, but I wouldn't put them here if I didn't like them. Your purchase helps support the channel and the videos I produce. Thank you.

[xoso]

9:01 Thorium is an unwanted byproduct of the rare earth mining process used for making electronics. If it is more expensive to mine that cost would be covered by the rare earth mining process. Also the USA has a huge store of already mined and separated Thorium sitting in containers out in the desert.

[AlphaAurora]

I think the desalination plant integration idea is probably the best seller. Freshwater is a huge stresser that will come up in the near future (think 5-10 years)

[briangarrow]

I remember the father of a coworker of mine discussing MSR’s back in the early 1980’s. He was a engineer and a boilermaker who was Superintendent on many different power plant construction jobs. He had worked at Oak Ridge and at the Hanford Reservation, along with multiple other energy facilities. I wish he was still living, it would be great to pick his brain today.

[bobcharles]

I think the omission here is the small modular reactor development which applies modern mass production technology to the construction of nuclear power stations and decimates both the cost and construction time. There is no reason why Thorium MSR cannot be supplied modular.

[carrdoug]

Pretty good breakdown of this technology. As far as comparing msr reactors to renewables, there are some unfair/inaccurate biases that always raise their ugly heads. If the promise of msr technology is realized, their construction, regulatory and operating costs will be a small fraction of light water reactors. Solar and wind costs are always presented with a 4 hr battery backup. This is fine with a renewable contribution of 20 - 40%. The costs rise exponentially once they are relied on for 80%, and another exponential rise for 100% reliance.
A likely candidate for the best "battery" is molten salt or other thermal storage. This would work well with nuclear as well, making a mixed system of renewables and nuclear an easy visual. Of course if we pursued nuclear more aggressively, there wouldn't be an intermittency issue. Nuclear equals constant, reliable energy, with boatloads of heat. Heat for not only desalination, but hydrogen production, heavy industrial processes, heating the local community and more. The waste can be used for things like medical isotopes. MSRs are not just of the lftr design. Fast neutron designs can be employed to use much of the nuclear waste already in storage.
Well worth pursuing. 👍

[benmcreynolds]

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors "LFTRs" are seriously the future. I love their design, their safety nets, the commonalities of the resources, the beta decay map. It would greatly improve the future power grid and we can finally move past our painful learning growing pain days of nuclear power that sadly timed up with a war and when we didn't respect the safety nets that were necessary while learning about this science and power source. There is so much untapped potential to create stability to our power grid with no emissions so our atmosphere improves, the climate stops heating up, there is so much positive to gain from safe and smart nuclear power.

[davidwells]

There are lots of people asking about the claim of "burning up, " old nuclear waste in Thorium reactors. I posted a response to one such comment asking about it, and figured there were so many others it would probably be best to post it outright so others can see the explanation and hopefully it will address questions or concerns, or simply those wanting to hear about the potential for Thorium to "burn up" old nuclear waste products.
First, the main issue with this concept: The ""burning" of old nuclear waste, specifically plutonium (the primary nuclear byproduct of the classic Uranium-based light-water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plant) doesn't occur in Thorium-based plants. The process is actually used to create a new fissile material for use in the current nuclear power plants. The process of generating electricity via the fission of Uranium is far more complex than most people realize. It's not as simple as melting uranium and dumping it in a rod and boiling water. The uranium refinement process involves creating a granular black powder known as UOX, or Uranium Oxide. This material is formed into the nuclear rods which generate heat via fission, boiling the water, which spins turbines, which generates electricity.
The Plutonium is created when U-235 (the type most common isotope of Uranium used in nuclear energy generation and some fission-based nuclear weapons) is fissioned and releases Neutrons, which can then be absorbed into U-238, which is present in the UOX fuel pellets used to make rods. When U-238 absorbs several neutrons, it becomes U-239, which beta-decays into Neptunium 239, which beta-decays into Plutonium-239. That Plutonium is the nasty material we usually associate with nuclear waste byproducts. While U-238 isn't fissile enough to generate the heat and energy necessary to maintain the fission reaction that generates the heat used for electricity generation, Pu-239 is. Now, Plutonium can be used in other types of nuclear reactors, like "fast neutron reactors, " but it can also be mixed with UOX as a fissile material to make rods for classic LWR fuel.
Here's where the "burn-up" of Pu can occur. Instead of mixing UOX with PuOX to make MOX (mixed oxide fuel, composed of uranium oxide and plutonium oxide) pellets for fuel rods, Thorium oxide, or ThOx can be mixed to make (PuTh)Ox, or Plutonium-Thorium Oxide, which can them be used to made fuel rods for classic LWR nuclear power plants. It can also be added to UOX to make (UTh)OX, which works like traditional nuclear fuel pellets and rods, but reduces the amount of Plutonium generated during the fission process. the Thorium absorbs neutrons and becomes U-232, which can absorb another neutron and become U-233, which is fissile and can be reused as even more fuel.
Essentially, Thorium can be used in CURRENT nuclear power plants to extend the quantity of uranium fuel (by becoming U-232, and then U-233), or can be combined with Pu-239 to create a new fuel source out of our stockpiles of nuclear waste byproducts.

This is where the misconception of Thorium plants burning Plutonium plants comes from. Plutonium can be used to make a new fuel source for CURRENT nuclear power plants, not as a fuel source for FUTURE Thorium-based fuel power plants.

This still accomplishes the desired goal of burning plutonium from our piles of nuclear waste, resulting in less nuclear material proliferation, and thus less potential nuclear weapons. This idea is already used in some places, and can be used in almost every single current nuclear power plant.

Now, Thorium-based fuel in FUTURE Thorium power plants (they're still being designed and tested, they're not fully viable yet) would use a different method to generate power. Instead of creating powdered Oxides, turning them into fuel rods, and using those to generate power, Thorium *breeds* Uranium-233. Thorium itself CANNOT generate sufficient heat to run a power plant. But remember, just like in fuel rods, Thorium can be bombarded with neutrons, and it becomes U-233 (that's why it's called fertile, or a breeder; it is used to create a fissile material that can be used as fuel, but thorium cannot be used as a fuel by itself). If we wanted to be technical, Thorium plants are *actually* U-233 plants, since it can only generate enough heat to run a power plant once the thorium has been bred into U-233.


I know this is a massive amount of information, but hopefully it will help anyone who is curious about Thorium and its *multiple* potential uses a as a fuel source through breeding, extending Uranium stockpiles, or being used with old nuclear waste (plutonium) to create a new fuel source for old nuclear power plants. Also, sorry for any typos. I had to type this up in a hurry and didn't have time to spell check.

[zaneflory]

I work with Uranium fueled pressurized water reactors, and I've been super fascinated with the differences between Thorium MSR's and what I work with. This video was extremely concise and well explained. Thanks, Matt!

[felixpeel]

I think positives to nuclear like footprint, which allows less habitat destruction and energy density, are overlooked too much due to fear and complexity. Wind and solar is simple for people to get their heads around but I’d rather one “small reactor” and Forrest area around it vs a huge field of solar panels. Thoughts to square footage as a consideration?

[williamsmith]

(11:05) Terrapower isn't building a molten chloride fast reactor in Wyoming. It's building its liquid sodium metal fast reactor (Natrium) in Wyoming. Using molten salt for thermal energy storage DOES NOT make Natrium an MSR.

[timbeard]

Two questions:
- I seem to recall hearing somewhere that thorium reactors could actually be used to consume nuclear waste from traditional nuclear power. Is this true? If so, that alone would seem to be a huge advantage.
- How adjustable is the output of a thorium plant? Is it only suitable for base load or could it replace the highly reactive gas power plants without resorting to batteries?

[nftawes]

I've explored much "fringe" science over the years, & your channel is pretty much a list of my favorites—the discoveries that I KNEW would soon advance tech exponentially. Thanks for keeping me informed of how my imagined future is finally arriving!

[markdavich]

9:03 "While Thorium is more plentiful than uranium, it is more expensive to mine" is not exactly accurate. It's a byproduct (a nuisance) that has to be separated out of other commercial mining processes. In other words, there are stock piles of the stuff just waiting for something to be done with it. Also, it isn't a rare earth element like uranium.
In regards to the waste half-life being just 500 years, it's also worth noting that the fuel cycle in an MSR can further exhaust that fuel - we can use an MSR to eliminate existing stock piles of nuclear waste while benefiting from the useful 'waste' isotopes for medical purposes, space flight and many other applications.

[JamesEDenning]

Matt, could you say more about MSRs "burning up" radioactive waste from pressurized water reactors? I understand this is possible, and if so, that may, in the near term, be as important a use as producing energy.

[engineercliff]

One minor confusion. The TerraPower (Bill Gates) design only uses Molten Salt to hold the energy (heat) from the reaction for later use. It uses liquid sodium for cooling, and is a fast neutron design.

[JoeFeser]

Great video, as always. I have been asking and wondering for years, why are we so against Thorium. Yeah, we will get there with solar and wind someday but we can't just stop and just hope the newer items will be enough. Let's get on board with Thorium.

[rogerbeck]

I am certain that the planet needs some form of consistent energy to work alongside the renewables. Thorium appears to be the most acceptable (politically) before fusion can be relied upon.

[jgt]

If I remember correctly, a molten salt reactor first achieved criticality in the mid sixties. Due to the large amount of investment in what is our current form of nuclear energy technology, such competition could not be allowed. This was the explanation I heard in an interview by one of the developers of the reactor. We are not unfamiliar with many examples of valuable technology and products being suppressed by powerful special interest. Hopefully the Chinese showing interest in this technology will make this less likely to happen.

[fountainvalley]

The cost of solar needs to be increased to include enough battery storage to allow for a constant output on a 24/7 basis. So if you want a 100 megawatt solar plant you need enough batteries and solar panels to provide 100 megawatts 24/7.

[jamesmdeluca]

Greetings:
Although you mentioned briefly that thorium reactors have spent fuel waste with a shorter half-life than conventional light water reactors (pressurized and boiling water reactors) you failed to mention that molten salt fueled and cooled reactors can use light water reactor spent fuel as its fuel, being a potential solution to existing stored spent fuel; we get energy while significantly reducing the volume of existing spent fuel and significantly reducing the lifetime of its radioactive spent fuel.
Thorcon is presently working on a demo molten salt reactor for Indonesia that will operate on the least expensive fission fuel available at the time. The reactors will then be manufactured in Korean shipyards similar shipbuilding, towed to the shore closest to their need and settled on the seabed where they will be connected to the grid. Multiple units will work in parallel as power capacity is required. The reactors themselves will be delivered as sealed pots that will be swapped with second units that are available side-by side with collant/fuel pumped from the old pot to the new so refueling downtime is limited and providing radioactive decay time before the old pot is refurbished. Factory construction will enable reduced expense as improvements can be handled during manufacture.