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Topics of Discussion: Slide #1
Greetings and welcome to my presentation,
I’m Emmalie Cole and I will be discussing
how moving to an old yet new style of nuclear energy can be implemented
into our societies, which will create safer
jobs for those invested in nuclear energy.
As well as pointing out the positives, the negatives,
and overall outcome of making this switch.
Standard vs. Molten Reactors Slide: #2
So first, let us talk about how standard reactors
are different from molten salt reactors (or
MSREs), which I’ll be getting more into
those MSREs later on in this presentation.
What resources are being used and emitted
from our current nuclear power plants today?
Well, Uranium, Plutonium which is a by-product
from uranium after it is broken down and water.
Lots and lots of water.
Which actually makes these reactors dependent
to be around a certain type or amount of water
source.
In case of an emergency, like a meltdown they
use that water in the system in order to cool
the reactor’s core and prevent further damage.
Compared to a Molten Salt Reactor that utilizes
Salt, or fluoride salt to be exact.
Thorium as its main power source which is
actually taken from already broken down uranium.
So, you can use the old uranium from standard
reactors that have been pushed aside as waste
as the molten salt reactors main source of
energy, thorium.
Heated systems which means these reactors
don’t need or use water as a resource since
they are already liquified, these systems
are easily controlled and when danger arises
we simply stop adding fuel and it shuts itself
down.
Completely erasing the fear of a meltdown.
EDIT: I wanted to just go ahead and add this
little interjection edit here to correct myself
from the previous recording that it is not
possible to get thorium from uranium just
so you know for the rest of this presentation.
Thorium is actually transferred and broken
down or breeded into uranium.
Which is used in the molten salt reactors
but thorium is more easily abundant and available
for us to gather and use than uranium stores
that are currently known globally.
The Uranium Market: Slide #5
Ah!
The uranium market!
Well, where is uranium located?
If we take our attention to the left-hand
side we can see a infographic provided by
the World Nuclear Organization and we can
see all the countries who have available to
them uranium as a resource.
Well, uranium isn’t exactly abundant in
the United States sitting at about 4% or 2
L tons, um or really anywhere, except for
a handful of lucky countries.
This means uranium is basically imported,
which causes a higher price tag for those
currently using these standard reactors.
Looking at the FRED graph below we can see
uranium on a global scale has a sort of weird
trend from around $.26 per kilogram to its
highest rate to $1.40 which happened right
before the big recession of 2007 and 2008.
But looking at the infographic we should see
and be alarmed by the world total that has
been listed which is only at 59 L tons which
is left globally, it’s the world’s total.
Now [laughs] it’s not a very abundant resource
and if we don’t have an abundant resource
we shouldn’t keep mining it into extinction.
So, because it’s becoming scarce, prices
increase even more and don’t forget, it’s
imported!
That means on top of that we would already
have to pay it would go up even further, which
is kinda crazy if you ask me.
Slide #6
But we should remember just because price
rises as the uranium availability lowers that
certainly doesn’t mean that our demand for
this energy is going to just fade away with
that resource.
In fact, according to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (or the IAEA), “The annual
world requirements of uranium is expected
to grow from the present level of some 66,000
tonnes to nearly 82,000 tonnes of uranium
[needed and used] by the year 2025.”
Which is surprisingly close to us [laughs].
So, in 8 years the demand of uranium is increased
by 16,000 tonnes which equals out to 2,000
tonnes used and needed per year globally.
And with only 59 L tonnes left, that doesn’t
leave us with very much wiggle room.
Slide #7
Now, how can we achieve this new development
involving nuclear energy?
Well, I first off say “out with the old,
in with the new” system, that should be
number 1.
Making a switch to those who are using standard
reactors would actually benefit from hooking
up with the people who are making molten salt
reactors by selling those companies their
old uranium waste which is used as a broken-down
fuel for molten salt reactors.
That would give the older, standard reactor
companies the power to have an income to allow
them to change themselves, to change their
process.
We need to stop mining for uranium resources
which are depleting, fast.
And another big, big, the biggest I wanna
say is to educate others about the options
that are out there.
There’s not just molten salt reactors, they
also have a wide variety that are along the
same lines as MSREs that are just as efficient.
We just need to stop using wasteful methods
to produce energy.
So, in the next few slides I’ll be introducing
you to what I find as my favorite, the liquid
fluoride molten salt reactors that also have
thorium.
Liquid Fluoride Molten Salt Reactors: Slide
# 8
Now I want to introduce to you, liquid fluoride
molten salt reactors.
The first thing that you need to know, is
that, fluoride fuel is the main source along
with thorium, as like the power I wanna say
behind the fluoride fuel as an easier way
of putting it – as its main fuel system.
Instead of just uranium being broken down.
Now liquid fluoride molten salt reactors (MSREs)
do not have a risk of meltdowns, they are
walk-away safe, and they actually have been
pretesting this method since around 1960s,
1950s (early to middle 1950s).
So it’s already been tested, its already
been proven to work there’s no payment out-of-pocket
to have to do experiments to see if this would
work for companies trying to start these up,
it’s good to go.
The Cost of Salts: Slide #9
The cost of salts.
Well, just so you know with this FRED graph
I tried to specifically look up fluoride salts
for us but I was unable to find a specific
chart with fluoride salts as its main subject.
So, for this one we are looking at the producer
price index by commodity for chemicals and
allied products: salt, evaporated and solar.
We can see that by this graph that there’s
been a nice steady upward trend in 2013 onward.
Now this means companies who want to provide
the power plants using liquid fluoride molten
salt reactors would be able to actually make
a little bit more money than they have been,
which is a great starting point.
You wanna be able to make money on all fronts
to be able to have a successful cycle.
And I wanna go ahead and take the brief time
that fluoride salts, um, are actually very
abundant as well as thorium- I know that’s
not on here but I’m just throwing it out
there!
Um, these resources are abundant, cheap to
harvest and are all around just a great resource
to think about replacing standard reactors
with [who are just] using uranium.
Function Compared to Standard Plants: Slide
#10
Now, looking at both the function compared
to standard plants from an MSRE point of view,
I have two pictures here that will show us
how both of these work; and please excuse
my Paint mockup of a molten salt reactor but
I felt that the basic design was so simple,
that even I could just go into Paint and create
it.
Now, just for a little side note, these reactor
tanks along with the emergency drain tanks
this whole system is usually set-up underground.
It takes up a very small amount of land to
make these.
Whereas, now we look at the standard nuclear
power plant, it needs a massive area to be
able to have this set-up for it to be able
to function and I just wanna say just comparing
both of these images we can see that again
the obvious choice is in the simplicity that
the molten salt reactor offers us.
We should take advantage of how easy it is
to set-up a company if they were wanting to
use this type or style of nuclear energy.
The Negative Externalities of Both: Slide
#11
Now, the negative externalities of both of
these reactor types is that they still produce
waste but as we can see the standard or light
water reactor uses so much uranium first in
order to be put into the facility then produces
this crazy amount of excess waste.
Which isn’t just plutonium (the stuff used
for nuclear weapons) it’s also fission products
as well as uranium-238 and uranium-235.
That’s a lot of waste, or more specifically
a lot of radioactive waste.
Now, compared to MSREs or the liquid fluoride
thorium reactor we only need 1 ton of thorium
to be put into a facility that then converts
this thorium-232 into uranium-233 and then
that is burnt as the energy which than produces
only 1 ton of fission products as waste.
To the right we can see that it says in 10
years, 83% of fission products are stable,
now you might think that’s kinda a long
time [laughs] but if we read down below this
it states that 17% of fission products are
stored for approximately 300 years.
300 years.
With 1 ton of fission products is about the
same amount as the standard reactor so we
really don’t get any kind of a win out that
besides the fact that this is the only waste
by-product is the fission by-product.
There is no uranium waste since the uranium
is completely recycled within the liquid fluoride
thorium reactor as its fuel.
The Positive Externalities/ Impact of Switching:
Slide #12
We need to start thinking economically!
But first I want to take the time to mention
what Dr. Alvin Weinberg, the creator of molten
salt reactor technology had once said.
He says that, “Cheap and abundant nuclear
energy is no longer a luxury, it will eventually
be a necessity for the maintenance of the
human condition.”
Now, he also took the time to tell us that
there are two specific “burners and breeders
involved in fast or thermal spectra using
fluoride or chloride salt-based fuels and
a range of fissile or fertile consumables…[now,
these] are defined by using fluoride fuel
salts and the breeding [of] thorium into uranium-233
in the thermal spectrum.”
So it all happens inside the molten system.
Another way that we can think about this is
that the positive externalities that we can
go ahead and look at are money, jobs, being
able to balance out the current waste that
has been produced from standard reactors and
recycle that and clean up the mess that we
have already left behind.
So that way it’s not sitting around for
a few more hundred years.
Which would mean that would be [either] more
jobs created for the families that will be
needing this type of energy in the future
and if you start off with this as well – every
country uses nuclear power on some small scale
so you can even take this as a global corporation.
There are many people trying to do that right
now but I think the best way to really get
this point across is that by changing the
way we think about nuclear energy, will really
change the way that we can have a support
system for clean energy since nuclear does
not emit any type of CO2 and we wouldn’t
have to go and get rare resources.
Since thorium can be found and created easily
and fluoride salts are abundant on practically
every country continent.
Thank you very much, and uh, thank you for
watching.
End Credits: Slide # 13
Music used is by: JR Tundra
Art for slide #4 by: Marie-Laure Cruschi
Art for slide #7 by: Alex Eben Meyer
Thanks again for watching!
Please feel free to leave comments!
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