WEBVTT - The Power of Thorium 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.000 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.159 the podcast that looks at the future and says I 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.560 can see behind your eyes the things that I don't know. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.840 I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm La I'm Joe McCormick. Okay, guys, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.880 you know I'm feeling I'm feeling kind of powerful today. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:28.920 For one thing, I've got the mystical acts in my hand. 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.680 It's the sound of the misqu Okay, on a scale 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.400 of like one to Genghis Khan, how powerful I'm gonna 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:42.080 go with Alexander the Great, So that's like a seven 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.080 or an eight? It's eight nine? Yeah, how many kill 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.400 A lots of power? Is that? Well, you'd have to 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.599 melt him down first, but then you could put him 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.080 through some nuclear reactions and thus gain power, and hey, 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.000 nuclear power. You know, I was gonna talk about the 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.800 future of sneakers, but now I think I want to 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:02.960 talk about the future of nuclear power. You know, when 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.760 I look at your head sometimes I just think facile material? 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.480 Do you Yeah? Not fast stile? I know. Okay, So 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.040 you're talking about the material. What does fission? Right? Right, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.600 material that you know, it shoots off neutrons, things that 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.880 cause heat and energy and power. Right, So we really 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.040 wanted to talk about the future of nuclear power. Obviously 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.319 our listeners would like us to talk about that as well, 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:36.039 and we're not talking specifically about uranium nuclear power, although 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.760 we will address that in this episode as well. We 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.959 wanted to talk about thorium. Thorium. This is a user 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.920 requested topic, So we had a user ask us to 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.280 do an episode on thorium. So you should take that 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:51.040 as a note of encouragement. If you want to hear 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:52.960 us do a topic in the future right on end, 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.200 tell us what it is and it may end up 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.640 becoming a topic on the show. But what's the deal 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.440 with thorium? Well, first let's talk about what's the deal 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:03.880 with nuclear power in general? That should be a good 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.000 place to start. Why nuclear power plants? So you know 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.680 coal power plants, right, You know how we're getting power 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.639 from that? We essentially we burn coal and we use 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.600 that heat to uh create steam. You know, we turn 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:23.120 water into steam and steam turns turbine, which creates entirely 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:28.200 excellent works of fiction about dirigibles. Yes, yes, it always, 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.519 but more importantly turns turbines. Yes, it more importantly turns turbine. 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.680 Steam powers many things, including the imagination. But but one 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.160 of the problematic byproducts of this process I got a 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.800 little alliterated of there is that coal creates greenhouse gasses, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:45.919 lots of them. When you burn coal, you get a 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.120 lot of greenhouse gases and other toxins, and that is 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.200 bad for the environment. Yeah, it's significantly a contributor to 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.360 global warming and climate change. And so a lot of people, 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.760 of course have been looking into clean energy. But you 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:01.839 are ready know this. You've heard this. So you've heard 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.480 about solar, you've heard about wind power. But there is 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.800 another energy that a lot of people think of as 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.160 the sort of big elephant in the room when it 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.560 comes to clean energy, which is nuclear. Right. It was 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.840 kind of the clean energy of the nineteen fifties, and 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:24.560 and nuclear power is clean ish, right right, well cleaner, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.800 And so I want to make a distinction here. No 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:34.160 power source is without any greenhouse gas emissions, because even 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:39.160 nuclear you have to say, mine uranium and transport that 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.360 uranium to the size so that it's never gonna have 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.600 like zero carbon emissions. But when you can look at 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:50.280 it you can say basically, nuclear power is mostly carbon 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.560 free and there are no direct carbon emissions from the 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.520 reactor itself. Yeah, so you've got that. You also know 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.760 that it's very it's I mean, it is quite powerful. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.480 You can power you can supply a whole power bread 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.440 with it. A single a single nuclear reaction like a 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.960 single atom splitting. You know, we hear about the splitting 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.560 of the atom and how powerful it is in actuality. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.280 If you're talking about one individual reaction, it's like two millivolts. 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.400 It's really really small. But the thing is it happens 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.760 an aggregate. You've got not just one atom represented here, 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.360 you have billions of atoms represented. So when those when 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.200 you have that many reactions happening, that adds up really quickly. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.080 So they are very powerful reactions. It's it's efficient, and 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:35.080 it's reliable. Yeah, assuming everything is working properly in the facility, 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.320 everything is reliable. And thus we turn to the cons. Right, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.880 so the cons of nuclear power. Okay, so, um, you 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.120 got a little bit of some leftovers, right, You've got 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.360 nuclear waste. This is material that nobody should go putting 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:52.640 their hands in or letting their kids play in. Yeah, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.960 you're not going to end up being like the teenage 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.160 mutant ninja turtles, You'll end up getting very sick. Right, 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.000 It's stuff that you need to go something very safe with, 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.480 put it away where nobody can get to it, ideally 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.960 like bury it in assault mine under the earth, encased 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.720 in a big thing of graphite, so that nobody gets 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.240 anywhere near it. And you you might need to keep 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.800 facilities like that secure because if you happen to get 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.520 your hands on some of this material, it's possible that 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.120 you could use it for nefarious purposes. Sure. Yeah, this 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.279 is dangerous, dangerous stuff, and so and it stays dangerous 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.880 for a really long time, like well beyond your your lifespan. Yeah, 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.440 and we'll talk about that a little bit more later on, um, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.680 but but more presently, this is assuming I mean, these 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.360 are these are the normal operational cons to nuclear power. 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.000 What happens when stuff goes wrong. Well, we've got a 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:46.919 couple of examples of that, right, I mean, there's some 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.840 that we can point to that that range from range 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.680 of severity from this was bad too. We still don't 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.919 know how bad this is. Yeah, the things like Chernobyl 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.960 and Fukushima, those those would be in the latter category 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.200 when there is a meltdown, and it's not just that 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.680 this is a local, timely disaster, but it's a disaster 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.640 that lingers and can have significant effects for years afterwards. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.760 And even a disaster like Three Mile Island, which wasn't 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.080 a meltdown, it was more it was a leak of 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.440 steam where there was a worry that it had released 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.000 radioactive steam into the environment. Uh and I mean, in fact, 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.200 that was what happened. It wasn't as severe as a 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:32.479 full meltdown, but still was an incredibly yea, it at 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.120 least caused a lot of worry. Yes, well, yeah, exactly. 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.320 So these are you know, there's some real concerns that 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.520 go with it, which is what kind of brings us 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.839 to thorium, because thorium, at least the proponents of thorium 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.800 have a very different story they'd like to tell about 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.599 using that as a nuclear fuel as opposed to what 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.080 we usually use, which is uranium or sometimes a mixture 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.320 of uranium and plutonium. Uh So, what's the story on thorium. 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.760 It's an element on the periodic to able right, Yep, 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.200 that's an actinied, Yes, it is an actinid. It's very dense. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.280 It's one of those that if you look towards the 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.360 bomb of the elemental table, that's where you're gonna find it. 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:14.560 It was discovered by Yawn's Jacob Berzelius. Yawn's Jacob Berzelius, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.200 I love it, okay. Uh, he was a swell guy 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.920 back in He discovered thorium, and he named it that 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:29.640 after the great god of thor god of should have 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.880 probably he probably is he? Actually, I'm sure, I'm sure 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.559 after a long day of fighting giants he gets pretty 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:44.280 thor Yeah you agreed before he moaned, alright, so at 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.880 any rate? Uh puns and and and slips of the 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.560 tongue aside. Yes, he named it after the god thor So. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:55.880 Thorium is mildly radioactive. Yes, it is radioactive, but not 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.960 so much that it would you know, it's it's not 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:00.640 the kind of stuff that in the movies you come 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.000 in contact with it and then and then moments later 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.200 you're you're dead or you're dying. Right, I mean, you 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.400 still don't want to use it to make a face moisturizer, 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.280 but probably not. It's found most often in nature, is 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.880 part of a rare earth phosphate mineral called monosite. And 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.880 we've been using thorium for a while, not in a 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.920 nuclear power use, but in other uses as an alloying 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.640 agent to strengthen magnesium at high temperatures and also to 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.360 coat tungsten filaments in television sets and other electronics. So 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.760 if you have an old TV, you may just have 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.240 yourself a little miniature thorium nuclear power plant. But not really, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.439 because that's not what's really going on. Okay, so you're 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.520 gonna hear us throughout this podcast saying something with isotope notation. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.440 So that's going to be the name of an element 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.360 followed by a number. The name of the element tells 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.359 you how many protons it has, so it's something like uranium, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.960 and then the number after that is the mass number, 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.640 which will tell you not just how many protons, but 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.080 also how many neutrons, as so protons and neutrons added 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.720 together gives you that number. Different isotopes of the same 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.280 element have different properties and can have vastly different properties 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.000 in fact, especially for radioactive materials, so like uh for 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.160 simple example, carbon twelve has six protons and six neutrons 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.360 and carbon thirteen has six protons and seven neutrons. So really, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.160 what the larger numbers tell you is how many more 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.320 neutrons it has than the base level of the elements, 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.520 because if I had a different number of protons, would 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.880 be a different exactly. Yeah, if you change the number 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:29.640 of protons, you've got a different element on your hands. 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.200 And in fact, that's kind of what happens in a 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.760 in a way with this this fission. You have elements 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.600 that decay into other more stable elements when something happens. So, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.720 for example, in a regular nuclear reactor, you have uranium 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.640 that will change into isotopes of plutonium. Yeah. Yeah, In fact, 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:53.160 uranium will spontaneously undergo fission on its own, but you 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.480 can actually induce it to happen by bombarding it with neutrons. So, uh, 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.360 there's a great uh visual zation. I read about this, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:03.040 and in fact, I want to say, this was in 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.479 how stuff works and how nuclear power works. So imagine 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.200 that you have a pool table and you've got a racked. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.839 You've got a rack of pool balls that are tightly 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.120 packed together, and you hit it with a cue ball 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.240 and they scatter around. Okay, well, now imagine that instead 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.520 of it being this two dimensional pool table, it's a 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.760 three dimensional space where you have little packs of these 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.360 racked cuball or pool balls, and you hit it with 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.120 the cue ball that represents the neutron. You bombard this 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.280 this atom with those different balls split apart, and then 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:39.000 they hit other clusters of racked pool balls that are nearby, 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.760 and those split apart and they hit other clusters. That's 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.240 what we talk about when we say a nuclear reaction. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.439 This it is in fact, yeah, And if you are 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:53.400 able to have enough of the reactive material packed together, 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.400 once you start this reaction, it'll just perpetuate itself as 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.120 long as there's enough of that nuclear material in the 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:04.240 right the right configuration. Right. So, with a uranium based 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.160 nuclear power plant, the way this works is they pack 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.400 that uranium and it's uranium two thirty five I believe, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.320 and it has to be enriched to two or three 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.920 percent uranium two thirty five. Uh. It's packed into little 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.040 little pellets and those pellets are arranged in rods. So 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.280 you've got these rods of uranium two thirty five and 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.080 you then submerge them into water and you allow this 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.640 reaction to start and it begins to perpetuate itself and 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.800 it gives off this little bit of energy per reaction, 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.480 but there are millions of reactions happening which immediately starts 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:41.720 to heat up the water and after that it's a 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.600 lot like the coal plant. Actually, yeah, you're really using 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.000 that energy to heat water, to preferably water that's in 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.760 a closed system that's not connected to the uh to 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.440 the fusion core at all, so it's a separate water. 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.440 You have a heat exchange where you exchange the heat 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.520 with this uh this this tube of water that's essentially 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.720 going around that then turns it too steam turns turbines, right, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.280 because you're also using water to keep the system at 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.360 an appropriate temperature so that you don't have meltdown exactly. 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.280 And a meltdown is when you get this uncontrolled nuclear 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.840 reaction where the material just gets hotter and hotter, and 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.320 since you're not able to cool it off, it literally 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:21.960 melts into a pool of extremely dangerous stuff, which is 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.240 what happened at Chernobyl and it's what happened at Fukushima. 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:30.240 And because they were unable to monitor and maintain that 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:34.640 temperature because all of their systems failed and uh, that's 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.480 that's one of the drawbacks to uranium based nuclear power plants, 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.199 that that that opponents will bring up They say that 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.400 if the factory was to lose all power, like everything, 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.200 all backup systems, kind of like what happened at Fukushima, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.520 then you would no longer be able to circulate water 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.600 and continue to cool down the core, and it would 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.439 just keep heating up until it had a meltdown. That 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.320 you have to maintain power in order to keep it safe, 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.199 and that one of the things that the people who 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.440 who propose a specific implementation of thorium nuclear power say 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.640 isn't a problem with their approach. Okay, so we've talked 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.960 about how a standard uranium reactor works. How does a 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.800 thorium based nuclear reactor work. A couple different ways You 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:21.520 could do it. You could do it essentially the same 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.600 way as the uranium power plant. Yeah. Yeah, you can 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.720 put thorium straight into a water cooled well, not straight 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.000 into you would need to make a few changes. Yeah, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.760 but but but into into a water cool nuclear reactor. 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.839 But um. But the thing about thorium is that although 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.440 it will not undergo this change all on its own 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.160 the way that uranium will if you've bombarded with neutrons 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.800 um it uh will or if you bombard thorium two 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.560 thirty two, which is the operative type of thorium I 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:51.240 believe in these discussions with neutrons, it turns into thorium 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.640 two thirty three and then eventually decays into uranium, uranium 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.160 two thirty three to be specific. Right, that's the sweet spot. Now, 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.000 what you're actually doing is you're using the uranium in 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.079 a thorium reactor, the uranium that the thorium turns into 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.280 when you bombard it with neutrons. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.720 So a lot of people say, look, when you're calling 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.320 these thorium nuclear power plants, they're really uranium nuclear power plants. Well, 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.080 but you do need a you don't need a little 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.560 starter bit of uranium and and that will kick off 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.080 this this nuclear reaction and then uh and then every 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.440 little bit of uranium that is created out of that 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.720 forgers the nuclear reaction. Right. So there, But there there's 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.800 another way you can do this which still has this 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:42.720 this process of thorium decaying into uranium and then uranium 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.160 undergoing fission. It's still that same process, but it's a 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:50.760 different implementation, which involves liquid fluoride. Right, liquid fluoride thorium 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.680 reactors or lifter reactors. Yeah, and I'd say this is 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:59.040 right now the most interesting thorium technology. It's certainly the 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.200 one that's getting a most attention, I would say, based 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.040 upon all the research I was doing, because it winds 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.200 up being safer from meltdown certainly, and and and a 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.080 couple other things. Okay, but so so how does how 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.000 does this whole salt thing work out? Well, you gotta 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.560 dissolve the thorium into these this fluoride salts. You also 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.680 dissolve the uranium into the fluoride salts. And so imagine 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.520 that you've got a chamber. UH. This chamber does not 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:26.960 have water in it, so you don't worry about using 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.360 water to cool it down. It doesn't have any active 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.720 cooling system. It's all. It's all UH incorporated directly into 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.480 the implementation here of this reactor core. You've got a 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.280 graphite core that inside of it, you've got this this 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:45.640 UH salt and uranium mixture. And on the outside of 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.080 the graphite core, you've got it surrounded by thorium. All right. Now, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.000 when the uranium starts to undergo fission and starts to 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.520 release these high energy neutrons, they will pass through this 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.920 graphite core, encounter thorium on the other side, convert that 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.440 into uranium, which through a mechanism that I have no 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:05.920 idea how it works. I'm just gonna be perfectly honest, 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.840 because I couldn't find any explanation of how the mechanism worked. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.920 That uranium will then go into the core to keep 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.840 perpetuating this, uh, this reaction. It generates the heat. You 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.560 still use a heat exchanger to do this whole water 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.480 to steam to turbine approach that we've been talking about 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.240 this whole time, but instead of using water to cool 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:28.760 down the system, the molten salts themselves actually act as 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.520 a coolant. They keep it under control because the boiling 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:36.080 point of this these molten salts is higher than the 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:40.160 operating temperature of the reactor itself, way higher, like almost 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.360 a thousand degrees higher. Yeah, and because the salts are molten, 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.120 it doesn't really make any sense for them to melt down. 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.520 They already melted. It's already melted. So the ideas that 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.480 you've already built a chamber that's able to withstand all this, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.680 now that's part of the the considerations we have to 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.080 talk about. The will will address those in a second, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.800 I thought the neatest thing about this is that it 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.320 can have a passive UH safety system. So you know, 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.119 I mentioned in the other one that in order to 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.879 prevent a meltdown you have to continuously circulate water to 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:13.240 keep the reactor cool. But this approach, you don't do that. Instead, 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.480 they have essentially what's called a frozen salt plug. So 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.840 you've got these liquid salts that have been frozen by 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.359 having a specific tube where you are putting a special 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:25.960 blower on it to lower the temperature. Right, So you 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.320 still need energy to to keep this this frozen plug 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.800 frozen exactly. But if the power goes out, the frozen 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.600 plug melts, and then all of that molten material will 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.800 go funnel through into another chamber, a specific holding chamber, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.840 where it will rapidly, according to thorium proponents, cool and 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.760 solidify and thus even possibly be ready to be used 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.080 at a future date. So even in a worst case scenario, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.399 again according to the people who are really behind thorium UH, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.520 then you just end up with a big solid lump 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.399 of fuel that you can still use in the future. 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.439 And hypothetically, this entire lifter process takes place at normal 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.520 atmospheric pressure near to normal atmospheric pressure. One of the 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:15.000 great dangers of of the water cooled nuclear systems is 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.040 that they are under extremely high pressure. Right when you 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.359 increase pressure, you also increase the boiling point of any 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.840 given material. So the more more pressure a material is under, 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.640 the higher it's boiling points going to be. And that 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.000 you're exactly right, Lauren, that those nuclear power plants have 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.080 systems that are under extreme pressure, and that's one of 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.800 the things that makes them so potentially dangerous. If there 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.160 is a failure in the system to contain that pressure, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.760 you can have explosive results. And we're talking about steam escaping, 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.119 like steam that's been pressurized to great levels and and 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.600 heated to incredible temperatures. Obviously, that would be very dangerous 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.159 to anyone in the immediate vicinity. And if that steam 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.240 in fact carries with it radioactive material, obviously that would 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.960 have greater concerns for an even larger area. Okay, So, 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.159 so all of this so far sounds like it's a 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.320 you know, pretty good benefits of thorium or at least 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:11.280 of of lifter reactor systems over traditional water reactor systems. 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.000 What are some of the I mean is is thorium itself? 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.280 Does that have any particular benefits? Yeah? Well, uh so, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.400 one of the things is that thorium is much more 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.520 abundant in nature than uranium. Uh And there are a 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.760 lot of different figures because it's hard to know exactly 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:28.800 how much of a mineral we have on Earth. But 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.840 uh what that What most people say is that thorium 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.640 is about three to four times more plentiful on Earth 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.960 than uranium is. And according to the International Atomic Energy 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.720 Association slash Nuclear Energy Agency Red Book, the planet Earth 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.960 has an estimated four point four million tons of total 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.679 known and estimated thorium, and if you want to go 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.359 with a more optimistic figure, according to the World Nuclear Association, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.280 it might be something more like five point four million. 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.439 Uh So, why does this matter? Are we about to 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.919 run out of uranium? Well not exactly, and it seems 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.640 unlikely actually that will ever completely run out of uranium. 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.840 But the thing is cost um As it becomes more 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:16.359 difficult to locate and extract new reserves of uranium, that 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.520 leads to an increase in price. So relative abundance and 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.640 ease of extraction actually does matter. Yeah, obviously, Like if 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.600 you if you get to a point where you could say, well, 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.240 technically we still have x amount of this fuel out there, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.840 but it's going to require you know, a hundred and 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.359 fifty percent of the effort that we put forth in 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.440 the past. You have to offset that some way. So 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.080 there's like another return on investment question here, that is 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.320 it is it worth to go and get that fuel? 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.959 If getting the fuel itself, is that difficult to do? 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.159 And thorium it gives us an alternative. Yeah, Thorium, as 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.040 I mentioned before, it's found in the natural rare earth 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.240 mineral monocite, and there's like I read about there's some 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.120 big vein of that up in Idaho or something. It's 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.159 it's apparently not that hard to come by. Yeah, there 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.840 was one guy. I saw a YouTube video where a 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.800 guy was talking about the person was a strong advocate 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.159 for thorium power plants, and I I was about how a 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.879 front of his had a rare Earth mind in the 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.040 United States and he estimated that he would be able 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.880 to get enough thorium out of his one mind, which 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.960 he said was not particularly special, uh, to power the 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.840 entire globe for a year. Well, whether that's true, we 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.800 don't know, but I don't. I wouldn't rule that out. Yeah, 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:32.960 I mean, if that's if that is true, then obviously 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.200 that would be a big boon. I mean, that would 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.480 be one of the big pros of thorium. Sure. What 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.520 about the waist it produces, Yeah, that's a big one. Uh. 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.960 And so it's gonna be really difficult to nail down 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:51.440 actual numbers about the comparative advantage thorium lifter technology offers 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.600 over a regular nuclear power reactor in terms of the waste. 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.480 But pretty much everybody's in agreement that it's gonna be 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.800 better some degree. Right. A lot of people are saying 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.119 that it will produce a hugely smaller amount of waste 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.600 just in terms of huge a much smaller amount of 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.399 waste just in terms of volume. I saw a figure 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:20.080 saying between a thousand to ten thousand times less nuclear waste. 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.679 That's pretty incredible. Yeah. Another another figure I saw it 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.760 was an advocate saying that it would be tents of 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.240 a percent of the volume. That's um I mean, and 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.280 that could very well be true. The counter arguments I've 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.520 heard on that, by the way, are mostly uh mostly 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.800 this is all conjecture, obviously, but they're mostly centered around 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.040 the idea that if these nuclear power plants end up 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.560 being uh like, if we end up making lots more 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.000