Good News: Small Nuclear Thorium Reactors are Coming to Europe

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Phasing out nuclear power is the dumbest thing the Germans have ever done. Each time I say this on twitter, people come and tell me that Hitler did a few things that were even dumber. I disagree. Hitler wasn’t dumb, he was evil, he knew full well what he was doing. I’m not at all sure the current German government knows what it’s doing, and that isn’t a good thing either.

The German opposition to nuclear power is especially curious as our next door neighbours, the French and Dutch have no hesitation to use nuclear power to its full potential. Indeed, companies in both countries recently teamed up to bring small thorium reactors to Europe. Let’s have a look at what’s new.

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00:00 What’s New
04:28 Thorium Reactors

#science #technews #tech #sciencenews #nuclear

Phasing out nuclear power is the dumbest thing  the Germans have ever done. Each time I say   this on twitter, people come and tell me that  Hitler did a few things that were even dumber.   I disagree. Hitler wasn’t dumb, he was evil, he  knew full well what he was doing. I’m not at all  

Sure the current German government knows what  it’s doing, and that isn’t a good thing either. The German opposition to nuclear power is  especially curious as our next door neighbours,   the French and Dutch have no hesitation to use  nuclear power to its full potential. Indeed,   companies in both countries  recently teamed up to bring  

Small thorium reactors to Europe.  Let’s have a look at what’s new. The news is that two companies, Naarea of  France and Thorizon of the Netherlands, have   signed a partnership agreement to work on thorium  fuelled small nuclear reactors. Thorizon, as the  

Name indicates, specializes on using Thorium as  nuclear fuel. Naarea is already working on small   nuclear reactors, and they want to combine their  technology with the Thorium cores from the Dutch. In case you’re wondering what their logo  is supposed to show, that’s a radish. Yes,  

A radish. Because, as they explain on the  website: “The radish is a root vegetable   that leaves no waste, as the entire plant is  edible.” I looked it up and you know what it   turns out that radish leaves are indeed edible,  I had no idea. Ok, but back to nuclear power. 

Small modular rectors have in recent  years received a lot of attention. The   idea is that rather than building one huge  and expensive nuclear plant at location,   you build smaller reactors that can then be  transported to the place you want them. That  

They’re modular means you can combine them to  get a higher power output. Saying that they’re   small is maybe somewhat of an overstatement.  Not like you an put them into your pocket,   but they’re just about small enough to be put  onto a truck and be transported on the road.

Small modular reactors could solve two  big problems with current nuclear power,   which is that nuclear power plants are expensive  and take a long time to build. Though if the   small reactors really solve these  problems, only time will tell. The two companies who have signed this  agreement say they want to be catering  

In particular to the industry where such a  reactor wouldn’t be connected to the public   electric grid. This makes a lot of sense because  that way they can be put to use even faster.  Suppose you have some energy intensive process in  the manufacturing industry. Just take the factory  

Off the grid, plug it onto a modular reactor,  and the carbon footprint goes down dramatically,   regardless of what the rest of the country  does. You can also use the heat from the   reactor directly, rather than making electricity  from it first, which improves efficiently. The two companies each produce  somewhat different reactors though,  

Naarea is working on what they call  an extra small nuclear reactor that   will generate roughly 40 Megawatts of  electricity, and they hope it’ll be done   by 2030. Thorizon is working on a reactor  with roughly 100 MegeWatts that is targeted   at larger industrial customers. They want  to have a pilot system ready before 2035.

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And use the discount code Sabine to get 15% OFF. But let’s talk a little more about those thorium   reactors. Almost all currently operating  nuclear reactors run on uranium. The only   exception is one reactor in China which  runs on thorium, though there are a few  

Small test projects in the works. There are  also some reactors, like the CANDU reactors,   can run on either thorium or uranium though  they all currently do run on uranium. Thorium has attracted attention in the  past decades as an alternative nuclear  

Fuel because in Earth’s crust it’s about 3 to 4  times more abundant than uranium. It also can’t   be as readily used for nuclear weapons, though  if you make some effort that’s still possible.  The real advantage is of thorium reactors  is however that they can use essentially  

The entire thorium, not just a small  fraction of it, as is the case with the   normal uranium reactors. This, I assume,  is why Naarea has the radish as a symbol,   though maybe it means that their reactors will  be red with green leaves on top, you never know.

That the thorium can be used almost entirely  means that thorium reactors produce more energy   from the same amount of fuel as uranium. As a  consequence, thorium could last for thousands   of years. Thorium is also a waste product of the  rare-earth mining industry, so trying to put it  

To use is a good idea. The downside is that since  there is currently no dedicated thorium mining,   it might go into short supply quickly, so  there’s some commercial challenges ahead. The small nuclear thorium reactors work not with  solid fuel rods, but with the fuel dissolved into  

A liquid salt. This is why they’re called “molten  salt reactors”. Modern molten salt reactors as all   newer reactors come with passive safety features.  This means that in the case of a loss of power   oxygen masks will drop out from the panel above  your head. Just checking if you’re listening. In  

The case of a loss of power, the nuclear fuel will  be automatically dumped into a place where it will   cool rather than, in earlier reactors, go on to  heat up and potentially cause the core to melt. That said, nuclear power is still dangerous,  and I fully understand that many people  

Are opposed to the technology because of  the risk. However, everything has risks,   and I think one also needs to take into account  the risk of not using nuclear power because that   means continuing to usi other sources of energy  which also have risks. Nuclear power technology  

Has changed a lot in the past 50 years and I  really think Germany is missing the bus by not   investing into it. So in case you’re from the  German parliament, denkt nochmal drüber nach. Thanks for watching, see you tomorrow.