Forget Small ... What About Micro Nuclear Energy?

Correction on NuScale: "A single NuScale Power Module (NPM) provides 77 megawatts electric (MWe), with a 12-module design resulting in a total gross output of 924 MWe."

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[ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt]

I served aboard USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659, as a Nuclear Machinist's Mate and Engineering Laboratory Technician. That means I cared for the nuclear reactor and all associated systems, while monitoring for anomalies, as well as radiation exposure of the crew. Naval Nuclear Reactors are incredibly compact, yet incredibly powerful. The S3G reactor was about the size of Radiant's design that's capable of 1MW. However, due in part to much higher enrichment levels, S3G cores *far* surpassed this level of energy output.

While working for DuPont after the Navy, I worked on Naval Fuels, and Defense Nuclear Waste. We were perfecting vitrification of high-level nuclear waste over 35 years ago! That 90 MT of spent fuel languish in onsite storage all across the country is a travesty.

As for the SMR or MSR question, that's an "and-both" issue, not an "either-or" one. There is no "Silver Bullet". Only silver buckshot.

So, in addition to the first-off-the-tongue renewables of solar, wind and hydro, *we must quickly expand production capacity, while investing heavily in geothermal and wave/tidal.* Geothermal and wave/tidal are akin to stable, baseload generated by natural gas, coal and nuclear, and we've barely scratched the surface of what these energy sources can deliver to humanity and the planet.

SMRs have their place. Designs are approved and projects are already underway. No, they don't have all of the benefits of MSRs, but we urgently need the capacity. It's a bit like the tortoise and the hare, where MSRs are the former. Working down the existing spent fuel inventory, while generating a fraction of the waste of traditional reactors designs, that's also toxic for a far shorter period of time. That's the promise that we should work towards.

In addition to all this, there are EVs, ground source heat pumps and hybrid water heaters. There are biomass, carbon capture and synthetic fuels. There are smart grids, distributed grids and vehicle-to-home. Hell, there's even white paint. We need it all. And we need it now!

[edreusser]

It is worth pointing out that the reason for the difference between the longevity of the waste from uranium-based fission reactors is the presence of higher atomic number actinides. This isn't the only difference between the thorium and uranium decay paths, they can be separated fairly easily and most of them have medical or other industrial uses. It is a political decision not to allow the reprocessing of nuclear waste. Things have changed since Carter made that decision, it might be time to take another look at reprocessing all of the waste. The remaining lot has the same shorter lifetime for thorium wastes.

[Kylem]

As someone involved in the Nuclear Industry, I've always maintained that micro reactors, the size of your home boiler one-day can eventually be safe enough to be installed in households. Clean, limitless energy and a modular design that allows fuel to be easily changed after it's spent.

A whole cycle and industry can be made on reprocessing existing spent rods and redelivery back to households, with the only upfront cost of energy simply being to pay for the reactor itself and the refuelling. Annual inspection and monitoring can be done via cellular or internet, and of course plenty of safety systems to shut itself off during the event of failure.

Generating excess power? Just feed it back into the grid. It's really as simple as that. Power cut or your reactor stops working? Use batteries installed in your home to work in conjunction with any solar panels you may have.

[larrycox]

I like the idea of mircoreators. The world's rate of changing resource requirements (need more, need more), change in technology (knowledge increase), micros would fit the bill of small, flexible for varying installations. After installation, if a more efficient microreactor was found, it could possibly replace the current reactor; hard to do with a full size nuclear reactor.

[Spacedog]

You answered the waste question in the video already. Fast reactors use waste from thermal reactors as their fuel, cutting the time needed for storage to about 500 years just like the thorium reactors. Fast reactors are also highly efficient in their burnup, meaning that the existing waste represents a tremendous amount of fuel waiting to be used.

[TheMeganusspli]

Obviously there are lots of details to work out, but micro reactors in concept allow for loads of options toward the goal of decentralizing electricity generation. It is interesting that many people are alarmed about the management of nuclear waste. Clearly, it is an important part of the process, but If only we had been storing the toxic biproducts of our means of energy production in the last 100 or so years instead of letting it float away into the atmosphere (and accumulate) we would be dealing with a very different type of challenge to keeping the planet able to sustain life.

[cazza]

I work in renewables but honestly believe more in nuclear. When it comes to cost and meeting net zero, something that is often overlooked is that renewables are not dispatchable (as in you can't decide when they generate) and there is not current technology for storing energy between seasons, meaning that it is very expensive to run a reliable net zero system off them, whereas nuclear solves this, also without turning the countryside into industrial wasteland. If those LCOE's were adjusted for firm power, solar would be near infinite as it produces nothing in winter evenings.

[volkerkoenigsbuescher]

Just to mention: It's not only the end of the "nuclear chain" (the final waste), it is also the beginning and the middle. You need to dig out the raw uranium in the first place, and that generates already huge heaps of radioactive mining overburden (OK, in South Africa, so who bothers (that was irony)). Then you have to process that in chemical plants with all the environmental problems those have (and constant spill-offs of radioactivity). Then you need to enrich and concentrate it in gas centrifuges, generating another sort of waste as a byproduct. Then you have to process it to create fuel elements (again: waste). After the fuel elements are used, you have the "middle circle" where you have to wait for the worst radioactivity abates, then break them up, and again do all the chemical and fabrication processes to build new elements, this time handling also plutonium, not just uranium, and again generate waste, even more active than in the first round. This is true for SMRs also, only a bit slowed down.

Then you distribute these materials everywhere into thousands(?), or hundreds of thousands(?) mini-reactors everywhere, in the best case under some quality control and maintenance comparable to, let's say, civil aircraft (in the best case, if there would be better control it would cost much more, and civil aviation needed a long time and many deaths to develop their standards). So these machines with their inventory are lying around everywhere, in varying states of maintenance and probably some state of rot. Hey, everybody should have one in their garage, right?

Shiny animations just don't show the reality that is coming up. In advertisements, all cars are shiny but look in the streets for a reality check.

Not to forget: For all that SMR business to start we would need decades only to replace only a fraction of fossil energy, but we don't have that time.

[LFTRnow]

Regarding the "waste" concern, modern reactors such as molten-salt based could easily separate out the useful materials for medical isotopes, xenon gas, etc - all valuable. We don't do this today because solid fuel randomly traps these valuable things all mixed up, it's like tossing your entire pantry on the floor - a worthless mess - but do it while the reactor runs, and you have value-added and less waste.

[hightechredneck]

I work in High Voltage Transmission in Canada. In all honesty the two things holding back nuclear development the most is irrational fears specifically of the older generations and regulations. The rate of energy emergencies is growing every year due to population increase yet other than wind, no new plants are being built. Additionally due to environmental crusading many of the baseload plants have been shut down or converted and derated (Coal plants converted to Nat Gas generate about 10% less power). combine that with the intermittency of wind it just creates a nightmare for those trying to keep the power on. All of this puts tremendous strain on the grid all in the name of virtue signaling. For example we cannot burn coal anymore for "carbon goals" but it is perfectly fine to load it on a train car, transfer it to a boat and let China burn it in their super inefficient setups instead of our highly regulated systems with scrubbers and CCS systems... which were all shut down doubling the price of power in 3 years.

[mike-rayner-videos]

you make boiling water for a steam engine sound real fancy.. but sounds good to me.. more safer

[informationcollectionpost]

Well, I am not an expert but have spent a brief period of my life working in the nuclear industry as a draftsman mostly on ultrasonic test blocks for welds. I don't like molten metal reactors because they exhibited a lot of technical problems that could result in plant fires and loss of coolent accident s. I also became disillusioned with the long storage times needed for uranium plutonium cycle reactor wastes and the extreme toxic nature of plutonium. All of this was unknown until the industry tried developing uranium to plutonium reactors. ( As you can see this was a job early in my career and I am nearing retirement now) The cost of the huge plants of that era, long construction times, & technical difficulties at that period of history indicated costs higher than solar & wind energy with a legacy of extremely toxic wastes for thousands of years to come. Over the years, it was determined that breeding fuel from Thorium, a very abundant substance, could produce much shorter lived wastes with easy in plant reprocessing of nuclear fuels provided that a molten salt reactor was used. ( solid reprocessing is very difficult) It is also very difficult and hazardous to make bomb grade fuel from thorium breeders with the results of a poor performing nuclear bomb. ( found out through research that the USA performed a nuclear test with a U233 bomb) Molten salt Thorium reactors and pebble bed reactors ( probably a non-breeding reactor for the latter) lend themselves well to modular/factory made/ smaller units. When using a helium or CO2 generation loop with a closed loop bryton cycle turbine the trend of the slow passage of slightly radioactivity is not only slowed but re generation loop can take full advantage of the higher core temperatures of the reactor core for a higher efficiency plant. In short, we have learned a lot about making nuclear plants over the years and perhaps it is time for the USA and other nations to at to work at creating a cost effective and far safer nuclear industry. An international and joint effort should not over burden anyone's economy for the remaining research needed to accomplish this.

[Armystrong]

It doesn't sound to me like were going to get everything we want out of any type of energy production but I feel SMRs and nuclear in general are better then what we currently have.

[whotknots]

Hi matt.

I was interested to see that some of the imagery you employed for illustration was provided by GE* which I believe is a major producer of fuel rod dependent nuclear reactors as well as fuel elements.

As I understand the matter nuclear fuel rods are particularly wasteful of nuclear fuel due to formation of Radon gas pockets within the pellets they contain and that cavitation necessitates such diminished efficiency that premature replacement is necessary well before all the fuel in a pellet is depleted.

The pellets can be and are recycled, but the whole process is exceptionally inefficient and unnecessarily expensive and produces waste by products with a phenomenally long half life.

The obvious implication is that companies producing pelletized fuel for reactors dependent upon a core employing fuel rods derive lucrative income from doing so.

Those companies therefore have a substantial vested interest in perpetuating less desirable and essentially obsolete reactor designs.


In addition to these considerations responsibility for decommissioning fuel rod production and recycling facilities undoubtedly rests with those companies.

The cost of the latter process will be substantial to say the least and may well result in some exceptionally fragrant bones being brought to light which a such vested interests might be extremely anxious to keep as secure as possible from political and public scrutiny.

In terms of potential for creation of jobs and income from construction and operation of such reactors, when it comes to potential for having to store intensely hazardous, long-lived pollutants resulting from nuclear waste resulting from their operation surely economic factors should be resolutely minor considerations?

On the other hand Liquid Flouride cooled Thorium Fueled reactors use the majority of their fuel, can produce more of all elements requisite to their function, produce relatively small quantities of waste with a short half life and are particularly safe and resilient to factors such as natural disasters.

[aulcamedia]

It is hilarious how every time anyone in media wants to show a nuclear power station, they show a picture of cooling towers. Cooling towers are of course vast and imposing structures, but they are basically empty and contain nothing more threatening than water and water vapour. Their function is to cool water from a steam generator, being coal fired or nuclear. The white clouds emanating from them is water vapour. Their characteristic shape is the result of a mathematical computation to find the design that requires the least amount of material to construct them.

[nevernether]

I personally like airships but don't like blimps so the smaller plants like this excite me cause we're getting closer and closer to something usable for a electric airship. Thank you for the video this is exciting.

[mikefochtman]

As you point out, there are some regulatory issues. SMR's are still working with regulators to figure out how many staff are needed at multiple-reactor SMR sites for example. Current law requires a certain staff per reactor but when you have 8 or 12 identical reactors, Nuscale proposes a given operator can handle several reactors at once. I know this is a small issue, but staffing and security traditionally based on 'per reactor' needs to be reviewed and worked out. (one of the 'regulatory issues' you mention). With current nuclear plants, staffing is a significant part of O&M costs, so it is important to address.

[jeffhyche]

The main problem with nuclear waste is it is being wasted. Even after its is called waste it still has close to 90% of its fuel. This fuel could be recovered by reprocessing it and reused in the reactor. This reprocessing can be done on site which would reduce the over all waste problem.

[daetslovactmandcarry]

I really like this _concept, _ I hope execution can be as good as promise.
On a related note, ¿why can’t we make the reactor itself the disposal vsl? Build the reactor far far underground- roughly 1, ØØØ feet below ground (placing it below even global average for ground water). When the facilities are deactivated permanently, remove that which must be removed, then fill the remaining cavities with either water or concrete, or some combination thereof, or even something else entirely.

[srinivasraokaruturi]

I've wondered about this myself past several years... I'm well aware of the arguments that are against nuclear energy. I just wish we could start on this micro and modular reactors on a trial basis and see it grow gradually. Simultaneously reducing dependence on Fossil fuels.
Especially with the EV boom, that's happening and going to grow exponentially, we need these power packed modular reactors urgently... everywhere.
Icing on this would be using these for hydrogen powered fuel cell EVs.
Can't wait to get to that future... quality of life will be better especially in developing countries like India etc, where i am.
Great video... please keep them coming on this topic.
🙏