Portable Nuclear Power
623,827
Published 2021-11-22
NUCLEAR POWER
Of all the power sources available to man, none has been as extraordinary in energy yield as nuclear fission. In fact, a single gram of fissile nuclear fuel, in theory, contains as much free energy as the gasoline contained within a small fuel tanker truck. By the early 2000s, concerns over carbon dioxide emissions would bring about a renewed interest in nuclear power. And with this, came a myriad of developments that aimed at improving the safety and sustainability of large scale reactors. However, in recent years, a new paradigm in how nuclear fission reactors are created and utilized is starting to gain momentum.
NUCLEAR FISSION
To date, almost all nuclear power reactors extract energy from the process of nuclear fission. In this process, a fissile nuclear fuel is bombarded with neutrons. As the nucleus of the fuel’s atoms captures a neutron by the strong nuclear force, it begins to deform resulting in the nucleus fragments exceeding the distances at which the strong nuclear force can hold the two groups of charged nucleons together. This tug of war between the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force ends with the two fragments separating by their repulsive charge.
Because fission reactions are primarily driven by bombardment, establishing and regulating a sustained fission chain reaction becomes feasible through controlling the free neutron movement within a reactor. This characteristic allows for fission reactions to be "throttled", making it well suited for electric power generation.
FIRST REACTORS
The first practical nuclear reactor was developed during the early 1950s by the U. Known as the S1W reactor, it would see its first deployment on the USS Nautilus in January 1954. The S1W was a relatively simple and compact design known as a pressurized water reactor. The fission chain reaction can also be throttled by introducing neutron absorbers into the reactor core.
IMPROVEMENTS ON REACTOR DESIGN
Within a decade, the two circuit designs of pressurized water reactors would be reduced to a single loop configuration with the introduction of boiling water reactors. Designed primarily with civilian power generation in mind, a boiling water reactor directly produces steam by heating cooling water with the reactor core. This steam is then directly used to drive a turbine, after which it is cooled in a condenser and converted back to liquid water, and pumped back into the reactor core. Boiling water reactors still utilized water as the neutron moderator and chain reaction throttling via control rods or blades was also retained.
GAS REACTORS
In gas cooled reactors, an inert gas is used to transfer heat from the reactor core to a heat exchanger, where steam is generated and sent to turbines. Neutron moderation is accomplished by encasing the nuclear fuel in either graphite or heavy water. The effectiveness of how they moderate neutrons also permits the use of less-enriched uranium, with some reactors being able operate purely on natural uranium.
PEBBLE-BED REACTORS
These thin, solid layers are are composed of a 10 micron porous inner carbon layer that contains the fission reaction products, a neutron moderating, and protective 40 micron pyrolytic carbon inner-layer, a 35 micron silicon carbide ceramic layer to contain high temperature fission products and add structure to the particle, and another protective 40 micron pyrolytic carbon outer later. TRISO fuel is incredibly robust and resilient. They can survive extreme thermal swings without cracking as well as the high pressures and temperatures of fission cooling systems.
Gas cooled reactors work especially well with TRISO fuel because of their ability to operate at high temperatures while remaining chemically inert. When combined with TRISO fuel, they also offer incomparable levels of nuclear containment.
SMRs
SMRs are nuclear reactors of relatively small power generation capacity, generally no larger than 300 MW. They can be installed in multi-reactor banks to increase plant capacity and they offer the benefit of lower investment costs and increased safety through containment.
PROJECT PEELE
Called Project Peele, the program is planned around a two year design-maturation period where a generation IV reactor design will be adapted to small scale, mobile use. X-Energy, in particular, has promoted TRISO pebble bed technology as the ideal choice for such a rugged reactor design.
In addition, the full-scale deployment of Fourth Generation nuclear reactor technologies will have significant geopolitical implications for the United States while reducing the Nation’s carbon emissions.
SUPPORT NEW MIND ON PATREON
www.patreon.com/newmind
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Instagram - www.instagram.com/newmindchannel
All Comments (21)
-
▶ Check out Brilliant with this link to receive a 20% discount! brilliant.org/NewMind
-
I was expecting a bit more information about portable reactors. 15 min intro and then few words the subject itself. Overall interesting video and the title is good (clickable) but left with a feeling of unfinished video.
-
A lot of the cost associated with building fission plants is in multiple redundancies and material necessities such as the nearly complete absence of cobalt in the metals used in the plumbing it's easy not to add Cobalt but it's decently hard to make sure there is absolutely none
-
"Portable Nuclear Power" only touches on the subject for the last 2 minutes of the 20 minute video Probably could have used a better title there, buddy.
-
I work as an engineer for both BWRs and PWRs. In my opinion the BWR designs simplicity makes it a much better option, especially when considering GEHs latest paper designs. The ESBWRs are the safest gen 3+ design and could easily operate for 80 years if not longer. They also reduce the components which reduces maintenance and failure points. BWRs are also much easier to control during an emergency since it is easier to diagnose and mitigate failures and accidents.
-
3:15 Fun fact; that person is wearing gloves not to protect themselves from the nuclear fuel, but the nuclear full from them. Its perfectly save to hold that fuel in your bare hands. You probably wouldn't want to do so for a few hundred thousand years (and you certainly wouldn't want to swallow it), but holding it even for a few hours of even days isn't going to hurt you in the slightest.
-
I really want to see fission power and renewables take the lead in my lifetime. As much as I'd love to see fusion make a breakthrough, I fear it'll be 20 years away for my grandchildren as well.
-
Small modular reactors (SMRs), depending on their power-to-mass ratios, would be perfect for manned space exploration. They could be used on spaceships, base power for settlements on the moon and Mars, and for asteroid mining.
-
This is a really well done video, I love the visuals and the narration is, as always, superb. Thank you!
-
Nuclear engineer here. While the video does look really nice, there are a few corrections that should be made. First, it's Generation 2, 3 and 3+ (there is no Gen 2+). Secondly, the BWR does not "irradiate" less than a PWR, and certainly not the containment. The containment is the concrete building around the reactor, designed to protect the environment in case of an accident, it is not something that gets irradiated. BWR's are actually less secure from a radiation standpoint as just one leak from the primary system means it goes directly to the environment. Gas Cooled reactors have so many disadvantages that I can't explain in a comment... but that's why they weren't used.
-
As a layman in the field of nuclear power this video was very informative since I had no idea how the reactors worked or even the different systems they used. For my limited knowledge this was a great introduction. Thanks.
-
Imagine the anxiety the invention of nuclear energy caused in people making money out of fossil fuels.
-
Excellent video! I really liked how careful you were in explaining fission.
-
You missed the Canadian invention of the Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor. Some of the stories of how they were built around the world are fascinating.
-
I would give anything to watch the Cherenkov glow of initial startup of a full size reactor. It could be because I'm an engineer or it could be because it looks like magic. It's really one of the very few things I want to witness more than anything else possible along with other more out of reach things like seeing the earth from far orbit or grabbing a private sample of moon sand with a single handful. The only realistic thing I think I'll ever be able to do is to toss various rock samples into fresh lava flow. But I would absolutely love to to watch a nuclear reactor start up and glow so badly.
-
Are you saying there were no practical reactors before the S1W? We had the NRX running until 1993 and it went critical in 1947.
-
The models in this video were absolutely incredible!! I can't even imagine how long it took to make them. Great video! P.S. As an avid Godzilla fan, I feel qualified to comment on the models quality.
-
For a split second I thought the title was Potable Nuclear Power, and I was both terrified and intrigued.
-
As a youngster, I remember listening to Paul Harvey on the radio one morning in the late 80s .... I remember him saying something about a nuclear device the size of a gum packet being invented to power an electric car for many many years.
-
Saw a shorter article about the school bus size reactor that used salt’s for heat exchange in Popular Mechanics, your in depth video does a better job of explaining how we got to this point.
