WEBVTT - Creating the Second Atomic Age 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.396 Pushkin. When I was a kid in the nineteen eighties, 0:00:22.836 --> 0:00:25.956 I lived about forty miles from a nuclear power plant. 0:00:26.116 --> 0:00:28.676 It's called Santa No Frey was right by the freeway, 0:00:29.076 --> 0:00:31.596 and whenever we drove past it, me and my family, 0:00:31.916 --> 0:00:35.036 we would all hold our breath, like, you know, to 0:00:35.116 --> 0:00:38.316 protect ourselves from the radiation or whatever. So one of 0:00:38.316 --> 0:00:42.436 those ritual family jokes, those things you do a million times, 0:00:42.756 --> 0:00:45.636 not really because they're funny, but because they're just what 0:00:45.676 --> 0:00:51.436 you do. I'm telling you this, because that joke, that ritual, 0:00:51.516 --> 0:00:54.476 that holding our breath, it speaks to what the vibes 0:00:54.556 --> 0:00:58.156 were in the eighties about nuclear power, right. That was 0:00:58.196 --> 0:01:02.476 a moment of like peak nuclear fear. There had been 0:01:02.476 --> 0:01:06.956 the three Mile Island nuclear accident in nineteen seventy nine. Yeah, 0:01:06.956 --> 0:01:10.356 the Simpsons with Homer Simpson always most causing a meltdown, 0:01:10.436 --> 0:01:13.116 and then more seriously in the eighties you had the 0:01:13.316 --> 0:01:18.596 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. So we were very scared of nuclear 0:01:18.596 --> 0:01:23.196 power at the time. But looking back, looking back from today, 0:01:23.436 --> 0:01:27.036 I wonder if maybe we were scared of the wrong thing, 0:01:28.036 --> 0:01:32.956 because today it looks increasingly likely that we may need 0:01:33.236 --> 0:01:38.396 more nuclear power alongside more renewables. In order to stop 0:01:38.436 --> 0:01:42.996 burning fossil fuel and contain the risk of climate change. 0:01:43.316 --> 0:01:46.676 So looking back, maybe instead of being afraid of a 0:01:46.676 --> 0:01:50.076 world with nuclear power, we should have been afraid of 0:01:50.116 --> 0:01:59.476 a world without nuclear power. I'm Jacob Goldstein and this 0:01:59.556 --> 0:02:01.716 is What's Your Problem, the show where I talk to 0:02:01.756 --> 0:02:05.596 people who are trying to make technological progress. My guest 0:02:05.636 --> 0:02:09.556 today is Yasser Arafat. He's the chief Technology office at 0:02:09.676 --> 0:02:13.036 Hollo Atomics. Earlier in his career he worked for the 0:02:13.076 --> 0:02:16.676 federal government at the Idaho National Lab, where he designed 0:02:16.676 --> 0:02:21.036 a nuclear microreactor that he called Marvel. Now at Allo, 0:02:21.596 --> 0:02:24.916 Yasser is trying to commercialize a version of that reactor. 0:02:25.836 --> 0:02:29.156 His problem is this, how can you mass produce nuclear 0:02:29.196 --> 0:02:32.996 reactors in a factory in a way that's safe, scalable, 0:02:33.156 --> 0:02:37.116 and cheap. We mostly talked about the reactor that Yaser 0:02:37.116 --> 0:02:39.956 has designed to be mass produced in a factory, but 0:02:40.076 --> 0:02:43.076 to start we talked about the on again, off again 0:02:43.236 --> 0:02:47.196 history of nuclear power in the United States. 0:02:49.236 --> 0:02:52.316 Yeah, I mean, the sort of nuclear really starts from 0:02:52.556 --> 0:02:55.476 the especially in the US in the fifties, right, we've 0:02:55.476 --> 0:02:59.196 had the Atomic Energy ec was amended right to allow 0:02:59.996 --> 0:03:03.476 nuclear industry to be privatized in nineteen fifty four, and 0:03:03.516 --> 0:03:05.836 that kind of you know was you know, that paved 0:03:05.876 --> 0:03:10.276 the way to the construction off the first commercial power plant, 0:03:10.556 --> 0:03:14.476 I should say, in shipping Port, Pennsylvania, which began operations 0:03:14.556 --> 0:03:17.316 like fifties, I think fifty eight and fifty eight, and 0:03:17.356 --> 0:03:21.676 shipping Port really symbolized this beginning of this new dawn 0:03:21.876 --> 0:03:26.436 of the what we called the first atomic Age. And 0:03:26.836 --> 0:03:28.956 if you post there for a second, up until then, 0:03:29.276 --> 0:03:32.316 if you think about it, for the last million years 0:03:32.396 --> 0:03:38.716 or so, humanity really used combustion as their primary source 0:03:38.756 --> 0:03:40.116 of power for growth. 0:03:40.276 --> 0:03:44.076 For you know, for most of that time, we burned wood, 0:03:44.516 --> 0:03:47.596 and then for like a brief moment of one hundred 0:03:47.636 --> 0:03:50.876 two hundred years, three hundred years, we burned cold, a 0:03:50.916 --> 0:03:52.636 little bit of natural gas, a little bit oil. But 0:03:52.836 --> 0:03:53.996 you're always burning something. 0:03:53.996 --> 0:03:57.436 What's burning something, it's always combustion, right, So that was 0:03:57.436 --> 0:04:01.796 really a pivotal moment, and really humanity first unlocked that 0:04:02.436 --> 0:04:07.716 amazing new modern way of creating energy by splitting atoms. 0:04:08.116 --> 0:04:10.836 It was a big pivot moment and then entered the 0:04:10.836 --> 0:04:13.636 seven sixties and mid seventies. So from the sixties to 0:04:13.676 --> 0:04:18.756 seven mid seventies, we call this the golden age of nuclear, right, 0:04:19.356 --> 0:04:21.996 and that's when really like, we built a ton of 0:04:22.036 --> 0:04:25.676 reactors commercially in the United States, about fifty five of thems. 0:04:25.756 --> 0:04:28.156 You know, up until mid seventies, there was a lot 0:04:28.196 --> 0:04:31.756 of optimism about nuclear and a lot of the investments 0:04:31.876 --> 0:04:34.676 went in there. However, when you when you started approaching 0:04:34.756 --> 0:04:38.276 the mid seventies and if all these nuclear problems around, 0:04:38.876 --> 0:04:42.996 it also invoked the creation of a regulatory body, right. 0:04:43.476 --> 0:04:47.436 The NRC was formed in the mid seventies, and you know, 0:04:47.636 --> 0:04:53.316 new regulations started getting imposed on plants and automatically things. 0:04:53.556 --> 0:04:57.436 You know, the cost went out when regulations became tighter. 0:04:57.636 --> 0:05:00.756 The NRC is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 0:05:00.276 --> 0:05:03.156 That's correct, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And then right after, 0:05:03.436 --> 0:05:05.996 you know, just a few years later, nineteen seventy nine, 0:05:06.036 --> 0:05:09.676 that's when Three Mile Island happened, right. I was in Slovenia. 0:05:09.996 --> 0:05:13.076 We had a partial meltdown of a reactor and there 0:05:13.076 --> 0:05:17.316 was a widespread public concern of fear. Sure nobody died 0:05:17.356 --> 0:05:20.436 from that accident directly, but it really like you know, 0:05:20.476 --> 0:05:22.676 shook the public quite a bit and really put a 0:05:22.676 --> 0:05:26.836 lot of emphasis on the potential safety risks, and that 0:05:27.116 --> 0:05:32.236 in turn made the regulatory activities even stricter. 0:05:32.556 --> 0:05:38.356 And so that's basically like new construction of nuclear power 0:05:38.396 --> 0:05:42.196 plants more or less stops in the US after that, right. 0:05:42.076 --> 0:05:44.756 Pretty much, that was the nail in the coffin for decades. 0:05:44.796 --> 0:05:45.876 It stopped, exactly. 0:05:46.316 --> 0:05:49.756 And so you know, it's interesting for me personally because 0:05:50.076 --> 0:05:53.036 so I was growing up in the nineteen eighties, right, 0:05:53.556 --> 0:05:57.236 and that was definitely a time when what we would 0:05:57.276 --> 0:06:02.756 now call the vibes were like anti nuclear basically, right, 0:06:02.916 --> 0:06:06.916 Like nuclear power was this scary thing, and nuclear waste 0:06:06.996 --> 0:06:09.676 was this scary thing that lasted forever. And you have 0:06:09.756 --> 0:06:14.516 Chernobyl in there somewhere, which is like very bad and 0:06:14.716 --> 0:06:20.276 very scary, right, and people did die, right and and 0:06:20.476 --> 0:06:23.276 what and so so you know, that was what I 0:06:23.276 --> 0:06:25.676 grew up with. And then just in the last few 0:06:25.716 --> 0:06:30.876 years there has been this shift, right, Like, intellectually I 0:06:31.036 --> 0:06:37.556 get now why nuclear power is good. I get intellectually 0:06:38.276 --> 0:06:43.036 in fact that certainly coal fired power plants are super 0:06:43.116 --> 0:06:46.876 dangerous and literally thousands of people die every year from them. 0:06:47.156 --> 0:06:49.356 They just die in a way that is invisible, right, 0:06:49.396 --> 0:06:51.796 because it's not like there's some accident, it's just that 0:06:52.156 --> 0:06:55.796 coal fired power plants, emit pollutants that clearly are in 0:06:55.836 --> 0:06:58.276 the aggregate killing people. We just don't know which people 0:06:58.356 --> 0:07:02.516 and when, right, Like that seems pretty unambiguous. So I'm 0:07:02.556 --> 0:07:07.556 at this point now where like, intellectually I think I'm 0:07:07.556 --> 0:07:09.676 pro nuclear. I'm pro nuclear, So I do have this 0:07:09.796 --> 0:07:13.236 question about tail risk, right, tail risk seems like a 0:07:13.276 --> 0:07:17.596 thing with nuclear power that I haven't quite figured out. 0:07:18.076 --> 0:07:21.676 But I still have the emotional wariness, right can you 0:07:21.716 --> 0:07:22.596 bring me around? 0:07:23.196 --> 0:07:26.796 Sure? And rightfully, So, when you've gone through that era, 0:07:27.396 --> 0:07:31.316 that stigma, that feeling, that fear kind of like lags. 0:07:31.396 --> 0:07:33.876 It stays there for a very long time. And so 0:07:34.676 --> 0:07:37.756 you know, if you kind of fast forward, that had 0:07:37.796 --> 0:07:44.916 a real implication as how the energy infrastructure ecosystem kind 0:07:44.956 --> 0:07:47.596 of shape in the United States. Right, So you see 0:07:47.596 --> 0:07:52.116 a big lag after Chernobyl obviously TMI and Chernobyl, and 0:07:52.116 --> 0:07:55.396 then in nineteen nineties and then two thousands is where 0:07:55.596 --> 0:07:59.436 we started like seeing you know, some murmurs about like hey, 0:07:59.516 --> 0:08:02.116 you know, is there you know, renewed interest And really 0:08:02.116 --> 0:08:04.196 in the two thousands, you know, when people are talking 0:08:04.236 --> 0:08:06.796 about climate change and they start looking around and see, okay, 0:08:06.836 --> 0:08:09.516 what can really what can we do? About it, the 0:08:09.516 --> 0:08:13.076 concerns about climate change and the need for low carbon 0:08:13.196 --> 0:08:16.356 energy sources. It renews some of those interests. Yes, we've 0:08:16.356 --> 0:08:19.196 seen a lot of growth in solar and other renewables, 0:08:19.516 --> 0:08:21.076 but really, at the end of the day, you know, 0:08:21.156 --> 0:08:23.316 you chilled the customers the new back in their head. 0:08:23.956 --> 0:08:27.716 They need something dispatchable. They wanted some real clean base 0:08:27.836 --> 0:08:28.276 or power. 0:08:28.436 --> 0:08:32.596 So dispatchable and base load basically means always available whenever 0:08:32.636 --> 0:08:34.356 you need it now, like solar and wind. 0:08:34.436 --> 0:08:37.196 That's correct, that's great. So in two thousand and five, 0:08:37.236 --> 0:08:39.996 you see some policy changes, right, you see the Energy 0:08:40.036 --> 0:08:44.916 Policy Act that providers some incentive to revive the industry. Okay, 0:08:45.356 --> 0:08:48.316 and so that kind of like sparked. You know, you've 0:08:48.356 --> 0:08:51.396 seen like you know, after many decades, we've built Plan 0:08:51.556 --> 0:08:56.436 Vogel that just Unit three one operational last year. Unit 0:08:56.436 --> 0:08:59.036 four went online this year, so you know, it's it's 0:08:59.036 --> 0:09:02.356 a big achievement for a nuclear after such a long lag. 0:09:02.596 --> 0:09:05.396 So this is the project in Georgia, like the first 0:09:05.716 --> 0:09:09.356 new nuclear power plant in decades. 0:09:09.596 --> 0:09:12.396 That's correct, that's correct. The two units, I think there 0:09:12.396 --> 0:09:17.476 were originally two other units being pursued in summer, but 0:09:17.556 --> 0:09:21.196 then those projects stalled, but these two have continued and 0:09:21.276 --> 0:09:23.516 then Unit three and four just came online and now 0:09:23.556 --> 0:09:26.916 millions of homes are being powered from this clean source 0:09:26.956 --> 0:09:30.756 of energy. However, these are first of a kind units, 0:09:30.796 --> 0:09:32.196 and there's a lot of first of a kind of 0:09:32.276 --> 0:09:34.876 risk that went along with it. So it's a mix 0:09:34.916 --> 0:09:38.316 of optimism on one side that hey, we just built 0:09:38.356 --> 0:09:41.196 new power plants after so many decades, But on the 0:09:41.236 --> 0:09:44.476 other hand, oh, you know, the cost went off, it 0:09:44.516 --> 0:09:47.076 took longer to build it. You know, it's really the 0:09:47.116 --> 0:09:50.556 first of a kind, and that kind of challenge is 0:09:50.556 --> 0:09:53.316 what we are living through right now, right it's really 0:09:53.396 --> 0:09:57.436 the project costs are high. There's a lot of risks 0:09:57.876 --> 0:10:01.476 and uncertainties around how long can we actually take to 0:10:01.476 --> 0:10:04.996 build one of these? But the good news is, hopefully 0:10:05.076 --> 0:10:07.116 we built two of these units, we'll learn from it 0:10:07.276 --> 0:10:09.636 and we can do it faster and better and and cheaper. 0:10:09.676 --> 0:10:11.716 I mean, is it's sort of like we never, at 0:10:11.796 --> 0:10:14.996 least in this country, learned how to build a modern 0:10:15.076 --> 0:10:18.356 nuclear plant, Like we build nuclear plants like literally fifty 0:10:18.436 --> 0:10:20.276 years ago, and then we kind of stopped and now 0:10:20.316 --> 0:10:22.996 we got to start from not quite zero but kind 0:10:22.996 --> 0:10:23.836 of scratch again. 0:10:24.036 --> 0:10:26.596 So if you look at the infrastructure, right, we don't 0:10:26.596 --> 0:10:29.356 build big things anymore. 0:10:29.436 --> 0:10:32.036 Much less nuclear power plants. Like even the tunnel. Right, 0:10:32.036 --> 0:10:34.356 they're building a tunnel from New Jersey to New York 0:10:34.396 --> 0:10:36.476 under the Hudson River. It's gonna cost I don't know, 0:10:36.596 --> 0:10:40.076 fifteen billion dollars or something. That's just a tube under 0:10:40.116 --> 0:10:40.916 the river. 0:10:41.796 --> 0:10:43.996 And it's it's it's all common across the board. It 0:10:44.036 --> 0:10:48.356 is because when you build something bespoke and a very 0:10:48.436 --> 0:10:52.796 giant complex project, we lost that muscle to really execute 0:10:52.836 --> 0:10:54.556 such ginomics projects in this kind. 0:10:54.476 --> 0:10:58.356 Of Well, so you were walking us very elegantly toward 0:10:58.436 --> 0:11:02.956 the dream of micro reactors, right, like, away from giant 0:11:02.996 --> 0:11:06.116 bespoke projects and toward the dream of a sort of 0:11:06.636 --> 0:11:09.356 factory built put it on the back of a truck 0:11:09.836 --> 0:11:11.956 nuclear reactor, which is in fact what you're working on. 0:11:12.236 --> 0:11:12.876 That's correct. 0:11:13.156 --> 0:11:17.476 So tell me about microreactors, right. Microreactor is this word 0:11:17.916 --> 0:11:21.156 that I've heard, like smart people say for a few years, 0:11:21.236 --> 0:11:23.516 and I get from the name that it is a 0:11:23.556 --> 0:11:27.876 reactor that is small. But like to start telling me, like, 0:11:27.916 --> 0:11:30.396 what is the dream of microreactors? Why is this what 0:11:30.516 --> 0:11:32.956 smart people talk about when they talk about nuclear power? 0:11:33.036 --> 0:11:38.236 So microreactors are really defined very small transportable reactors that 0:11:38.356 --> 0:11:43.276 are between one to you know, ten or twenty megawatt electric. 0:11:43.236 --> 0:11:47.876 So that's maybe whatever, less than a tenth the size 0:11:47.876 --> 0:11:51.676 maybe one hundredth the size of a of a power plant. 0:11:52.276 --> 0:11:56.676 Truly micro truly Okay, so they're micro, Like, why is 0:11:56.716 --> 0:11:58.956 that appealing? Like, what's the rationale there? 0:11:59.156 --> 0:12:02.956 So there are three key features that makes these small 0:12:03.116 --> 0:12:08.756 reactors attractive microreactors in general. First, there, because of their 0:12:08.876 --> 0:12:13.596 small size, they're in envision to be fully factory built, ah, 0:12:14.036 --> 0:12:18.556 not smaller components or modules. And then bring to site. 0:12:18.596 --> 0:12:21.116 You build a whole thing in a factory. That's number one. 0:12:21.476 --> 0:12:25.836 And you can also transport them using standard roadways or 0:12:26.236 --> 0:12:29.876 railways or or you know through the sea. Right, Okay, 0:12:30.156 --> 0:12:31.036 that's number one. 0:12:31.516 --> 0:12:32.916 So you build it in a factory and put it 0:12:32.956 --> 0:12:34.996 on the back of a truck, and that is going 0:12:35.076 --> 0:12:41.036 to be, in theory, wildly cheaper than building a bespoke 0:12:41.276 --> 0:12:44.316 power plant every time. I mean, it's just like like 0:12:44.396 --> 0:12:46.596 a building a car, right, Like if you had to 0:12:46.596 --> 0:12:49.316 build a car from scratch every time somebody wanted a car, 0:12:49.396 --> 0:12:51.916 it would literally cost millions of dollars. But if you 0:12:51.956 --> 0:12:53.676 make a thousand of the same car in a factory 0:12:53.756 --> 0:12:55.596 or one hundred thousand of the same car in factory, 0:12:55.636 --> 0:12:58.036 it gets wildly cheaper. That's the that's part one of the. 0:12:58.036 --> 0:13:00.436 Dream, and that's really the main idea. Right when you 0:13:00.516 --> 0:13:03.996 do repetition of the same thing over and over again, 0:13:04.316 --> 0:13:06.436 you can learn how to bring the cost down faster 0:13:06.876 --> 0:13:09.356 you learn it. You're building in a controlled environment, meant 0:13:09.676 --> 0:13:10.436 you're bringing. 0:13:10.196 --> 0:13:14.516 The industrial revolution. Like we've known this for hundreds of years. Literally, 0:13:14.596 --> 0:13:17.316 adamstraethroat about this in seventeen seventy six. 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:17.756 That's right. 0:13:17.796 --> 0:13:19.956 If you build things in a factory, they get weight cheaper. 0:13:20.036 --> 0:13:24.116 Okay, However, yeah, there are some downsides of a small reactor. 0:13:24.116 --> 0:13:27.076 From a physics perspective. You have higher leakage and the 0:13:27.076 --> 0:13:30.596 economies of scales against you, so you have filtified other 0:13:30.756 --> 0:13:33.476 ways to offset the costs. 0:13:33.476 --> 0:13:36.476 So there's a cost. It doesn't just scale down in 0:13:36.516 --> 0:13:41.356 an elegant way. It gets worse on certain dimensions. 0:13:40.796 --> 0:13:43.436 Like for example, if you look at a current power plant, 0:13:43.636 --> 0:13:46.916 a water water cooled power plants that are basically the 0:13:46.956 --> 0:13:48.956 infrastructure you know, that's the basis of all of the 0:13:48.996 --> 0:13:51.596 nuclear power plants, commercially found today in the US. So 0:13:51.636 --> 0:13:54.316 if you look at those, you have around one hundred 0:13:54.476 --> 0:13:58.996 systems that that's around the nuclear reactor to keep it happy, 0:13:59.076 --> 0:14:03.596 to make it work functionally, operationally, safer. One hundred systems, right. 0:14:03.596 --> 0:14:06.716 One hundred different Like when you say systems, like, what's 0:14:06.796 --> 0:14:08.636 one of the hundred systems you're talking about? 0:14:08.676 --> 0:14:12.156 Chemical and volume control system? Are you know, a high 0:14:12.156 --> 0:14:15.516 pressure injection system for safety? There are various systems that 0:14:15.836 --> 0:14:19.156 ensure that the reactor runs properly, right, huh. 0:14:19.196 --> 0:14:21.796 And so for a microreactor, you cannot build one hundred 0:14:21.796 --> 0:14:25.396 systems for every microreactor because then you lose all the 0:14:25.436 --> 0:14:26.956 cost benefits you have gained. 0:14:27.236 --> 0:14:29.156 And now all of a sudden you have to think like, Okay, 0:14:29.276 --> 0:14:31.236 is that the right technology to scale down? Because if 0:14:31.276 --> 0:14:33.076 I scale it down, I still in one hundred systems 0:14:33.156 --> 0:14:35.796 even I'm beyond. They might be smaller, but it's not 0:14:35.876 --> 0:14:38.236 going to help me on economics of scale. Yeah, so 0:14:38.236 --> 0:14:40.436 you have to kind of rethink the problem a little bit. 0:14:40.476 --> 0:14:43.316 So that's number one is factory made, second is transportation. 0:14:43.516 --> 0:14:47.916 The third one is it's self regulating. Right, if you 0:14:47.916 --> 0:14:52.156 look at a current large scale conventional power plant, you 0:14:52.196 --> 0:14:54.996 have hundreds of people working in the power plant to 0:14:54.996 --> 0:14:55.476 make sure. 0:14:55.316 --> 0:15:00.476 It works well, Homer Simpson famously, Well, let's not go there. 0:15:01.836 --> 0:15:05.316 I apologize. Is that an annoying How do you? Are 0:15:05.316 --> 0:15:07.836 you tired of that? I'm sorry. It's lazy on my part. 0:15:07.996 --> 0:15:11.196 Yeah, no, I mean it is. It does portray I 0:15:11.236 --> 0:15:14.956 mean Simpsons. My whole entire generation grew up watching Simpsons, right, 0:15:15.316 --> 0:15:18.516 and so it portrayed some things about nuclear power plants 0:15:18.516 --> 0:15:21.716 that its not necessarily painting the right picture. 0:15:22.716 --> 0:15:26.876 It's capturing so that the Simpsons launched in the eighties, right, 0:15:26.996 --> 0:15:32.156 So it is capturing that sort of peak anti nuclear zeitgeist. 0:15:32.356 --> 0:15:33.636 That's right, that's right, that's right. 0:15:34.196 --> 0:15:37.276 So okay, so I apologize, I have derailed us. 0:15:37.916 --> 0:15:42.916 So factor that makes a microaractor unique is the ability 0:15:43.036 --> 0:15:46.116 to self regulate. So instead of needing hundreds of people, 0:15:46.636 --> 0:15:51.036 you need one or two operators to run the system. 0:15:51.316 --> 0:15:56.036 That means the machine itself must be able to ensure 0:15:56.156 --> 0:16:00.716 safe operations without relying on people or if there's a 0:16:00.796 --> 0:16:04.236 human error, it kind of self regulates itself. 0:16:04.516 --> 0:16:11.156 So you actually came up with an idea for you 0:16:11.436 --> 0:16:16.196 came up with a design for a microreactor, right, You 0:16:16.356 --> 0:16:18.436 were you were. It was your previous job. You were 0:16:18.436 --> 0:16:20.596 working for the federal government right as a as a 0:16:20.636 --> 0:16:25.036 researcher at a lab dedicated to to figuring out microreactors. 0:16:25.076 --> 0:16:27.156 And as I understand that there was actually like a 0:16:27.196 --> 0:16:30.676 particular moment when you had an idea, which seems like 0:16:30.716 --> 0:16:33.036 it never actually happens, but I always love it when 0:16:33.076 --> 0:16:35.476 it happens, So tell me about this moment. 0:16:35.876 --> 0:16:40.676 Sure, So after a month I joined Idaho National Laboratory 0:16:41.316 --> 0:16:43.876 and they really hired me in to establish or to 0:16:43.956 --> 0:16:48.876 help them establish the DOV Department of Energy microreactive program. Okay, 0:16:49.156 --> 0:16:53.036 and very soon after I helped kind of establish the program, 0:16:53.396 --> 0:16:58.876 I realized, instead of having smaller projects and specific problem areas, 0:16:59.276 --> 0:17:02.236 we need to put them together into a test reactor. 0:17:02.916 --> 0:17:06.356 We have to build a prototype, a real test reactor 0:17:06.716 --> 0:17:10.676 that shows everyone what a microreactor is, How does it operate? 0:17:10.716 --> 0:17:13.196 How many people do we need to operate it? Can 0:17:13.276 --> 0:17:16.196 it be co located in a neighborhood, for example, and 0:17:16.276 --> 0:17:19.996 operate safely? Now, right after, after about a month or softer, 0:17:20.116 --> 0:17:22.636 I joined iron L. I realized, let me go ahead 0:17:22.636 --> 0:17:25.556 and pitch this to the Department of Energy, And I 0:17:25.596 --> 0:17:27.916 did that to the lab leadership. They liked the idea. 0:17:28.676 --> 0:17:30.756 I went to Department of Energy. They thought it was 0:17:30.796 --> 0:17:35.276 an important thing to do. And so the question becomes, okay, 0:17:35.596 --> 0:17:38.196 what size, what should be the technology? 0:17:38.196 --> 0:17:40.876 And now you got to design it right. Everybody's like, yeah, great, 0:17:40.916 --> 0:17:43.276 go do it. Now you gotta do it right. What 0:17:43.396 --> 0:17:48.156 is the most basic, like plane vanilla explanation of what 0:17:48.316 --> 0:17:51.476 is going on in the core of a nuclear power plant, 0:17:51.556 --> 0:17:53.636 just generically any nuclear power plant. 0:17:54.516 --> 0:17:56.796 So what you're really looking for is, you know, you're 0:17:56.956 --> 0:18:01.516 you're splitting larger heavy atoms. In our case, it is 0:18:01.636 --> 0:18:06.356 mostly uranium, right, and there's a specific isotope called urinium 0:18:06.356 --> 0:18:09.756 two thirty five. It's a fecile material. If you hit 0:18:09.836 --> 0:18:13.556 it with the neutron, it splits and into you know, 0:18:13.596 --> 0:18:17.556 fragments of you know, other nuclei and some neutrons and 0:18:17.596 --> 0:18:21.356 some energy. But you also release other neutron as part 0:18:21.396 --> 0:18:25.316 of that splitting. So what you want a nuclear reactor 0:18:25.956 --> 0:18:29.596 is for that secondary neutron to go hit another nuclear 0:18:29.716 --> 0:18:34.036 nucleus and then continue on that and that perpetuates into 0:18:34.636 --> 0:18:39.756 a chain reaction, right, and the process of fission splitting 0:18:39.836 --> 0:18:42.676 up the nucleus releases large amount of energy, and that's 0:18:42.716 --> 0:18:45.516 the energy we want to essentially take out of the 0:18:45.636 --> 0:18:50.716 fuel through a coolant into and dump it into a turbin. 0:18:51.076 --> 0:18:53.956 You capture the energy as heat and then it's just 0:18:54.036 --> 0:18:57.396 like any other power plant, but instead of burning fossil 0:18:57.396 --> 0:19:00.516 fuel to get the heat, you're splitting uranium atoms. 0:19:00.156 --> 0:19:03.276 To get precisely so after you take the heat away 0:19:03.396 --> 0:19:06.596 and send it to a secondary system, to a turbine, 0:19:07.236 --> 0:19:10.116 it's no different than a coal power lane or a 0:19:10.236 --> 0:19:11.196 natural gas. 0:19:11.716 --> 0:19:15.436 And so what is the what is the challenge? What 0:19:15.516 --> 0:19:18.236 is the problem you're trying to avoid in that setting? 0:19:19.316 --> 0:19:22.276 So, I mean from a reactor physics perspective, you want 0:19:22.276 --> 0:19:24.876 to make sure that when you when you want heat 0:19:25.716 --> 0:19:29.156 and you can generate a chain reaction to to emit 0:19:29.236 --> 0:19:31.196 this heat and capture it and use it in a 0:19:31.276 --> 0:19:34.916 useful way. You want to be able to control it effectively, right, 0:19:35.116 --> 0:19:39.916 that's what involves you know, the whole reactor. If you're 0:19:39.916 --> 0:19:43.116 able to control this chain reaction, then you are functioning 0:19:43.596 --> 0:19:47.076 you know, power reactor. You don't want an uncontrolled reaction. 0:19:47.156 --> 0:19:48.796 You want to be able to control it so you 0:19:48.836 --> 0:19:51.716 can you can ensure that you can safely remove this 0:19:51.836 --> 0:19:55.596 heat without breaking anything. That's the whole premise of a 0:19:55.676 --> 0:19:56.876 nuclear reactor, right. 0:19:57.076 --> 0:20:00.276 I mean, an uncontrolled reaction is like a bomb. Right, 0:20:00.356 --> 0:20:02.196 It's like a terrible bomb. 0:20:02.356 --> 0:20:03.236 That's exactly right. 0:20:05.276 --> 0:20:08.196 Coming up after the break, the alser goes to Walmart 0:20:09.476 --> 0:20:12.556 winds up designing a new kind of nuclear reactor. 0:20:21.156 --> 0:20:24.956 So these ideas were You know, when you're a reactor designer, 0:20:25.276 --> 0:20:28.276 you're then I thinking about all the various iterations and 0:20:28.276 --> 0:20:33.716 permutations and combinations of what makes a nuclear technology feasible. Right, 0:20:33.996 --> 0:20:37.356 And if you look into it, mostly the combination of 0:20:37.396 --> 0:20:42.356 fuel and coolant used in a reactor defines a nuclear technology, 0:20:42.396 --> 0:20:44.796 and there's like, you know, about one hundred, one hundred 0:20:44.796 --> 0:20:48.396 and twenty combinations out there. Mostly we've tried almost every 0:20:48.396 --> 0:20:50.236 combination in tests in the past, right. 0:20:50.796 --> 0:20:53.956 So you basically you got to make the fission reaction happen. 0:20:53.996 --> 0:20:55.756 You need some fuel to do that, and then it's 0:20:55.756 --> 0:20:58.276 going to generate a crazy amount of heat, so you 0:20:58.356 --> 0:20:59.996 got to keep that from getting out of hand with 0:20:59.996 --> 0:21:02.596 the coolant. Like, those are the two things you got 0:21:02.596 --> 0:21:02.756 to do. 0:21:03.236 --> 0:21:06.116 That's every reactor designers to pick that. You're then I 0:21:06.156 --> 0:21:09.756 thinking about different technologies, right, It's not really fully formulated 0:21:10.116 --> 0:21:13.356 is in your subconscious mind. So the moment I was 0:21:13.396 --> 0:21:16.556 thinking about let's go build a reactor in i n 0:21:16.676 --> 0:21:20.196 L for the microreactor program, I started thinking about what 0:21:20.276 --> 0:21:24.436 should be the technology and then it really happened in 0:21:24.756 --> 0:21:28.316 a suddenly overnight I woke up and I said, okay, 0:21:28.356 --> 0:21:30.276 you know what I think. I know what it is, 0:21:31.196 --> 0:21:33.876 but I really have to put that on paper. I 0:21:33.996 --> 0:21:37.476 did go to Walmark, got some colored pencils and a 0:21:37.476 --> 0:21:40.956 big paper and started sketching it up how that system 0:21:40.996 --> 0:21:43.836 is going to look like. Now, that's just an idea. 0:21:43.956 --> 0:21:47.636 Obviously we took that idea and really started making the 0:21:47.716 --> 0:21:51.556 requirements to build a reactor. Some things evolved, but fundamentally 0:21:51.596 --> 0:21:55.236 it was the same concept that I sketched up a 0:21:55.276 --> 0:21:57.596 few days before Christmas in twenty nineteen. 0:21:58.076 --> 0:22:00.956 So what was the concept? What was the design? 0:22:01.156 --> 0:22:04.196 So really looked at all those different iterations and came 0:22:04.276 --> 0:22:09.836 down with what's called a sodium thermal reactor. Right. It 0:22:09.916 --> 0:22:13.996 is basically using uranium or coonium hydrite, the same fuel 0:22:14.036 --> 0:22:16.836 that we use in a lot of research reactors around 0:22:16.836 --> 0:22:18.796 the globe. We have a lot of data on it. 0:22:18.836 --> 0:22:21.316 If we understand it very well, if you couple that 0:22:21.676 --> 0:22:26.556 with a very high conductive coolant like sodium liquid sodium 0:22:26.596 --> 0:22:29.396 in our case, all of a sudden you can have 0:22:29.476 --> 0:22:34.116 a low pressured h nuclear reactor with a high power 0:22:34.156 --> 0:22:38.276 density and low enrichment need. So that really was the 0:22:38.316 --> 0:22:42.356 basis the fundamental technology choice for Marvel. 0:22:44.996 --> 0:22:46.076 Why do you call it Marvel? 0:22:47.356 --> 0:22:53.436 Huh? Well, that's because I wanted to name that people 0:22:54.356 --> 0:22:57.276 can remember easily, and that does not sound like a 0:22:57.676 --> 0:23:01.996 scary Greek god. Smart and and and it can it 0:23:01.996 --> 0:23:03.156 can shine the light. 0:23:03.356 --> 0:23:04.756 You know, you don't want to call it. You don't 0:23:04.756 --> 0:23:06.556 want to call it Icarus, right, you know what to 0:23:06.596 --> 0:23:07.956 call it? Nuclear actor Icarus? 0:23:07.996 --> 0:23:10.476 And that's right, that's right. And also like it's a. 0:23:10.356 --> 0:23:12.956 Prometheus, don't call it perm Yeah, what's what's it an 0:23:12.956 --> 0:23:13.516 acronym for? 0:23:13.876 --> 0:23:15.996 Oh god, it has a very long name, so it's 0:23:16.036 --> 0:23:21.436 just just do it. And it's Microreactor Applications Research and 0:23:22.516 --> 0:23:27.036 microature Applications Research, Validation and Evaluation project. And it's very 0:23:27.716 --> 0:23:30.196