Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

@TheBooban

2 жыл бұрын

There needs to be a solution for the waste. Burying it isn’t good enough. Reactors that re use the waste that results in a shorter half life seems to be just talk.

@thefbat5847

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheBooban nuclear waste is still much better than all the fossil fuel waste we've had. There's also a lot of research into nuclear fuel reprocessing such as hollow fiber ionic liquid reduction exchange process.

@LoneWolf-wp9dn

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheBooban ahhh putins shill are already here

@squee222

2 жыл бұрын

fun thing about historical fictions is that you never actually know what the outcome would have been if history played out differently. To assume there would be no issues with nuclear if we fully embraced it, I think is naive.

@squee222

2 жыл бұрын

@@thefbat5847 only reason nuclear waste isn't as big a deal as fossil fuel waste is that nuclear only accounts for a small fraction of our total energy consumption.

Many years ago I had a neighbor, Paul Kunming, who was a retired Westinghouse nuclear power engineer. He said Westinghouse made a major error by not incorporating desalination plants with nuclear power plants. If coastal cities could have a water supply, they'd want nuclear power plants.

@monad_tcp

2 жыл бұрын

It totally makes sense to use waste heat from the cooling system to power the desalination process. The solution for excess heat being dumped from nuclear plants on the ocean was right there ! use it to remove the salt, and have fresh drinking water.

@mikeall7012

2 жыл бұрын

Utilities would have retired them if they were included. The vast majority of US based Nukes have water purification plant. They are very rarely used and most plant have abandoned their purification systems. Instead most nuke sites rents RO trailers from GE or other 3rd party companies and use city water for the feed.

@lelandthomosoniii4743

2 жыл бұрын

Good point.

@phlodel

2 жыл бұрын

@@mikeall7012 I'm not referring to the small water purification systems have for use by their processes. I mean large scale plants to supply water for domestic and agricultural use. As in, the power plant would be the municipal supply.

@trentallman984

Жыл бұрын

Ocean going ships use the heat from the engines to make fresh water by lowering the pressure in a tank. It therefore boils at a lower temperature.

Had 3 separate msf plants on the cruise ship I worked on. It utilized waste heat from the main engines, so our water production would scale with ship speed(engine load)

@MaxB6851

Жыл бұрын

Three days after leaving Sydney on a cruise ship we noticed our cups of tea tasted slightly salty. That was because the fresh water taken on in Port Jackson had been used up and we were now using desalinated water. No problem, we changed over to coffee and didn't notice a salty taste again.

@1mezion

Жыл бұрын

@@MaxB6851 personally I think once you can taste any salt in the water that is not good

@SharukhSaifi

Жыл бұрын

@@1mezion I am not an expert but I think the same.

@Alucard-gt1zf

Жыл бұрын

@@MaxB6851 the whole point of desalination water is that's its not meant to taste salty

@1mezion

Жыл бұрын

@@Alucard-gt1zf exactly

One fact in favor of nuclear power should be pointed out: radioactivity is very easy to measure. Much easier than any other contaminant in water. It's a non issue.

@BuddyLee23

2 жыл бұрын

A very helpful fact when one of your nuclear plants goes full Fukushima and you can tell the world exactly how much contaminated seawater you have released into the ocean 😄

@gaius100bc

2 жыл бұрын

​@@BuddyLee23 Try to measure how many lives were lost due to Germany switching off their nuclear reactors and ramping up their coal and gas stations, fuelled with stuff bought from tyrannical countries around the world, who then went on to invest their euro profits in to guns, wars, murder and genocide - pretty hard to measure.

@jinruizhang

2 жыл бұрын

@@BuddyLee23 no much after a while because of how humongous the ocean is actually. The waters are constantly moving as well. The average levels lowers down to an insignificant one not too long afterwards.

@RanEncounter

2 жыл бұрын

@@BuddyLee23 If you believe that Fukushima made a meaningful impact in contaminating our oceans in the topic of making drinking water, you have a lot to learn about the amount of contamination released by Fukushima. Sure a part of ocean sealife suffered from the contamination, but it is far from the catastrophe the media has painted.

@nicholasstarinsky3357

2 жыл бұрын

ROFL. "Easy to measure", impossible to clean up once it goes boom.

One interesting note, dedicated desalination reactors can be MUCH cheaper than energy-generating reactors. That's because they don't need to pressurize the water to keep it liquid at very high temperatures. A desalination reactor can just pressurize water to just 4 atmospheres, raising the boiling point to about 140C. 4 atmospheres is easy to work with, it's less than the pressure in your faucet.

@thegreyghost5846

Жыл бұрын

Or you could use high temperature gas cooled reactors or molten salt reactors to generate electricity and use the waste heat to desalinate the water.

@AlexBesogonov

Жыл бұрын

@@thegreyghost5846 Sure. But then the reactor cost will be dominated by the energy-generating part.

@Aereto

Жыл бұрын

@@AlexBesogonov If people keep pushing towards electric vehicles for short range travel and commute, the transition can cause more strain to the power grid than green energy can keep up and have to resort to other fuel sources for on-demand power or baseline power. Hybrid systems are never cheap, but they make efficient use of resources by not letting the work go to waste. Using nuclear or other waste heat generating sources made for other purposes to desalinate water is more useful than you think. We don't get to have geothermal power or desalination unlike some countries, so best you count your blessings before you lose them.

@grast5150

Жыл бұрын

Alex and Aereto, you are both correct. We need both water and power. If we can push the use of nuclear for water product and have plant operate cheaply and with out issue, we can finally maybe change the public relation of nuclear is bad. Then we can talk about getting nuclear power online which is the only way to get off fossil fuels.

@thekinginyellow1744

Жыл бұрын

"...pressure in your faucet" uh, maybe in your country, but not in mine. only 2 ATM. sucks too, cause it used to be higher before "water saving measures"

I used to operate an MED for the purpose of concentrating grape juice. Kinda bothered me that we dumped millions of gallons of process water from the juice, as well as thousands of gallons of Ethanol down the drain. It costs a fairly good amount in wastewater treatment and i just think its stupid to dump fuel down the drain. This type of inefficiency is everywhere across food industry and i hope it gets some attention.

I've been saying this for years - In California, PG&E should work with the sate water agencies to repurpose Diablo Canyon for desalination. Pump the fresh water generated up over the coastal range and into the California Aqueduct.

@davidlangford1165

Жыл бұрын

Excellent informative video. The “greens” should pay attention.

@ivanlozano2019

Жыл бұрын

@@davidlangford1165 they won't. They are useful idiots to push half baked technologies that wouldn't and couldn't stand on their own yet, and increase energy profits.

@Clean97gti

Жыл бұрын

They still have San Onofre sitting there doing nothing. A couple new small modular reactors and a desal plant instead of the old broken steam generators and they'd be in business. Then pump the brine up and over the mountains and store it in the Salton Sea. The containment buildings are still in place at San Onofre, just need the reactors to stick inside.

@blastermanr6359

Жыл бұрын

"Just pump over the costal range." That a major challenge by itself.

@Clean97gti

Жыл бұрын

@@blastermanr6359 kind of. The pumping requirements are not trivial. It takes a lot of electricity to do it, but the engineering part is pretty well established at this point. It's more a political and financial problem.

As an Australian. Im just like WTF is with our tritium drinking limit

@SamSam-qk5zr

2 жыл бұрын

The thing is the tritium limits are just decided randomly without any scientific basis. Even with australian levels they haven't proved tritium is dangerous to health.

@gregorymalchuk272

2 жыл бұрын

@@SamSam-qk5zr They aren't random. They are deliberately chosen for ideological reasons to make it impossible to use nuclear energy.

@ravenlasky5286

2 жыл бұрын

"The Australian blood is probably full of tritium. This is a valuable resource. How can we extract it?" -Count Dracula

@AsbestosMuffins

2 жыл бұрын

you guys also have really high levels of arsenic in your ground water as well with no apparent adverse effects

@madsam0320

2 жыл бұрын

@@SamSam-qk5zr tritium is radioactive, retained like water inside our body if ingested and cause cancers, especially to our organs.

I'm surprised in countries that have deserts there aren't even an prototype of concentrated solar desalination plant. Edit: I see in the replies many people miss understood what i mean, i don't mean solar panels. Concentrated solar is made with mirrors pointed to an object in this example massive glass dome filled with water.

@luc_libv_verhaegen

2 жыл бұрын

Are you talking direct evaporation from concentrated solar, or are you talking about using concentrated solar to high yield solar cells? The energy needed to evaporate a cubic meter of water is 627kWh. This figure ignores heating the water, as you need only 91kWh to get from 20 to 100degrees, and that figure is dwarfed by the energy needed to evaporate the water. The energy needed to create 1 cubic meter of desalinated water from seawater through reverse osmosis is 2.5-4.0kWh. This is at least 150x times better. Why you need nuclear for this is beyond me, any country that needs desalinated water has excellent solar irradiation, and RO can happily be run only when excess energy is available.

@AsbestosMuffins

2 жыл бұрын

@@luc_libv_verhaegen problem is water systems have to run 24-7 so you need a baseline, not strictly a deal breaker though, plus ideally you'd be desalinating to fill reservoirs to help with shortages

@ihmpall

2 жыл бұрын

These countries usually wait for western or south Asian Asian countries to invent stuff.

@ImaskarDono

2 жыл бұрын

@@luc_libv_verhaegen I think, start/stop cycles will destroy the equipment. Or at least make it really hard to pay off, since "excess" is only a few hours per day.

@majicdude88

2 жыл бұрын

Desert environments, particularly in the Middle East and the Sahara, have crazy sandstorms that would destroy/bury solar panels.

Newer Molten Salt Reactors operate at higher temperatures, 450-650 range. Combining this with CO2 gas generators, which have as intake temperatures roughly around the same temperatures 500+ degrees, also means that the temperatures of the output of these generators is around 250 to 300 degrees. This allows for a even higher energy transfer efficiency than older PWR reactors. Furthermore, even the temperatures that come out of an MSR are warm enough as is to generate Hydrogen without first having to turn the heat into electricity (eliminating the efficiency loses related to heat to electricity process) so high water production, and, large hydrogen production (which is emissions-free), Now the hydrogen can be used as is for hydrogen based transport, however, going one step further and implementing Carbon Capture, and combining CO2 and Hydrogen can allow you to make synthetic fuels (pure, gasoline, kerosene, diesel). And this let me tell you is a holy grail moment. While still producing CO2, this synthetic fuel burns cleanly (no impurities based from refinement) and burns more potently, critically, it is cyclical in nature, you take CO2 out of the atmosphere (or out of the oceans) and then release it back into the atmosphere, it is net-zero. And the key difference is simple and highly attractive; we don't need to reinvent anything to make it work. This Fuel can be used in our current infrastructure as is... Airplanes, Shipping boats, Public Transport, personal transportation; all of this becomes carbon-neutral overnight, without the necessity or expenditure to change the entire fleet of transportation methods (which in itself constitutes a burden in the form of emissions and pollution, as we are retiring the older fleet before its lifecycle ends) Another fundamental win from this is opening up a market to which we can base our Carbon Capture too... Currently, we can capture tons and tons of CO2 from the atmosphere... but there is no market large enough to sell it too... meaning the Carbon Capture will never be a profit driven industry... however synthetic fuels however flip this... creates a market, allows Carbon Capture companies sell their CO2 to fund the construction of more carbon capture... once we have displaced all fossil fuels from the transport industry alone (fossil fuel power plants make no sense to convert to synthetic fuels) (at this point also technology and scale also has driven down the cost of Carbon Capture) governments can impose a carbon storage quota, 70% of what is captured is destined for synthetic fuel production, and the remaining 30% is for storage; thus now motivating the construction of more carbon capture and finally beginning the process of CO2 reduction in the atmosphere. Carbon Capture is energy intensive, and thus requires a large quantity of stably available electricity which is emissions-free, which again leads perfectly into the hands of Nuclear Energy...

@raunakshahi

2 жыл бұрын

Hmm yes I agree...

@victorhopper6774

2 жыл бұрын

co2 capture is not sustainable.

@stephanhazeu7317

2 жыл бұрын

@@victorhopper6774 why isnt it sustainable? I mean the ICC and most other reputable scientists already stated that simple reduction and complete net zero carbon emissions isnt going to be enough anymore. In essence weve started a chain reaction already as is where Carbon capture is the only way to reverse and undo the chain reaction... Actually i have 2 questions; Why do you think it isnt sustainable? And, what do you understand with unsustainable?

@victorhopper6774

2 жыл бұрын

@@stephanhazeu7317 beause life for humans requires oxygen at least 19% or we get goofier. we are at about 21 now.you have to keep freeing up the 02 for animals to survive so don't ''lock'' it up.

@stephanhazeu7317

2 жыл бұрын

@@victorhopper6774 who says we would go beyond that? There are about 200 years worth of industrial CO2 in the sky, and the first stage is to make it net-zero... which is the cyclical nature of synthetic fuel. If we dont store any of it at all, then we break even because we release it again... Only when we decide to store it do we capture and lock it down, the reality is your right, but we do need to remove atleast the 200 years of CO2 from the industrial revolution from the atmosphere... and noone said we would push beyond that, we dont have too, we are balancing our intake of CO2 with our output.

It's a no-brainer. The inherent safety and compactness of MSRs, along with their very high heat output, make them ideal for all sorts of industrial processes. Much of industry like steel etc needs heat rather than electricity

@SpeedemonR1

2 жыл бұрын

No brainer, if you don't have a brain, just like Justin Bieber

@Olivia-W

2 жыл бұрын

I wish we could split the planet for pro nuclear and anti nuclear people. The pro nuclear side would quickly go to a lot more fresh water, probably cheaper energy over the long run, generally progress... let's add hydrogen production to that and move to hydrogen cars while we're at it. Then a while after we can leave the planet with the anti-nuclear peeps...

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

Until there is a war or a flood or an earthquake it's safe....

@whathell6t

Жыл бұрын

@@rickcostin Basically, California.

@andrewk3210

Жыл бұрын

1. Switch from nuclear to solar in Germany where engineers are abundant and sun is scarce 2. Construct nuke plants in deserts 3. ??? 4. Profit!

Salt cooled nuclear in 1973, well I didn't know the tech was that old. They are working full speed on the molten salt reactors now. Definitely the best method of desalination.

@richardscathouse

2 жыл бұрын

Back to the 1950s in fact,

@kokofan50

2 жыл бұрын

That’s a sodium metal cooled reactor

@eckligt

2 жыл бұрын

Just to underline kokofan's point: Sodium does not equal salt. Sodium here refers to pure, metallic Sodium, not a compound that includes Sodium such as Sodium-Chloride a.k.a tablesalt. That being said, the US operated the world's first Molten-Salt Reactor in the 1960's at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

@RenegadeRanga

2 жыл бұрын

@@eckligt fair enough mate.

@rashidisw

2 жыл бұрын

pure metalic sodium, I remember seeing that being thrown to body of water and then BOOOM, lots of dead fish.

Modern desal plants are up to 90% water recoveries these days - very impressive. That minimises the input flow as well as the sea critters it effects. You then combine the brine outflow with the treated sewage outflows and bingo bango. Let's roll.

@FrankGarcia24

2 жыл бұрын

I wonder what ratio of brine to treated sewage are needed

@Hossak

2 жыл бұрын

@@FrankGarcia24 Don't forget stormwater runoff. That is not a zero figure.

@Hossak

2 жыл бұрын

@@FrankGarcia24 That can also be used for dilution. It starts to balance out yeah?

@nealtauss1715

2 жыл бұрын

... how does 'dilution' NOT fail.... at Scale.....

@Hossak

2 жыл бұрын

@@nealtauss1715 Every city and it's surround catchment is a significant surface area. A great majority of a modern city is covered with concrete/bitumen/smooth surfaces that have minimal water take-up. That means a lot of rainfall tends to end up as storm surge or in the associated seaward discharge systems of that city. Probably all of that water is not good enough quality to drink however it is ideal to dilute any saline/brine from a desal plant with some simple storage/surge capacity. Thus you should be able to offset the brine production through dilution from sewage/water runoff systems.

Another exceptional video, with excellent dictation. Your mastery of English is better than most native English speakers. Keep doing what you do in your style, its very much appreciated. Thank you.

@Asianometry

2 жыл бұрын

This helps me feel better after all the pronunciation corrections

@circuit10

2 жыл бұрын

@@Asianometry You're not a native English speaker? I knew you lived in Taiwan but I thought that English must be your first language because you have no accent at all (that I can recognise at least)

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

General Disaster ...Is the name inherent when talking about the nuclear industry

@M-Cycle

2 жыл бұрын

@@Asianometry There is another desalination technology - Humidification-Dehumidification. Here is a video - how it works and how it is better than traditional desalination tech. Would you like to talk about new tech on your channel? kzread.info/dash/bejne/gK6YsNmEcrm-hJs.html

@richardcowley4087

2 жыл бұрын

@Amethyst amercans do not speak English you lot speak pidjin english

Thanks for making all these videos they are very unique and always very interesting topics. I learn so much from them

The biggest environmental concern is what to do with the salt-enriched waste water. Great video otherwise, but you didn't even touch upon this.

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

Oh, dear how would extra salty water behave in salty water? We need to study saltiness while CO2 acidifies the oceans.

@hoangle2483

2 жыл бұрын

American fast food chains:" did you say unused extra salt ? I'll take the entire stocks"

@ronmaximilian6953

2 жыл бұрын

Mine for lithium and other useful minerals?

@PainterVierax

2 жыл бұрын

@@ronmaximilian6953 directly producing Na-ion cells for industrial storage of electricity.

@rolletroll2338

2 жыл бұрын

@@AstroGremlinAmerican don’t joke, this is a real environnemental concern arround the dessalanisation plants. But yes of course n1 priority is still global warming.

Nuclear desalination makes great sense. Nuclear generates lotsa heat and can be used to boil water... cools down the vapor and get clean water, rinse repeat.

@Monsterpala

2 жыл бұрын

Nuclear power does make great sense as well, the problem is the handling and damage potential. With two prime examples and a lot less or unknow near catastrophic events I am happy not to have to rely on this option.

@UmbraWeiss

2 жыл бұрын

@@Monsterpala You will see a bigger catastrophe when war happens because of Energy... New reactors are made in a way where things like those two cases are impossible to happen....

@jorgelozoya6739

2 жыл бұрын

@@Monsterpala 2 ejemplos buenos mis huevos, uno era un reactor militar pesimo (Chernobil) y el accidente de fukushima fue un evento sin precedentes, no este mamando. Buenas tardes.

@RCXDerp

2 жыл бұрын

@@Monsterpala Natural gas plant accidents and pollution kill more every year than nuclear ever did

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

@@UmbraWeiss You mean when war happens and they drop a bomb on your failsafe nuclear power plant?

Most informative. Thanks for the video!

Congratulations 👏 for such a wonderful presentation ❤️

You did a great job with this. Awesome channel...

Great video as always! Would've loved a little more coverage of the Indian plants though

Very good job, Molten Salt Reactors are a promising producer of heat with general less tritium production.

thank you for great work, i know this video took lots of your time to develop, thank you for your great work & all the great info in this video, god bless you.

Your Chanel is awesome. Congratulations from Spain.

Video doesn’t mention what happens to the salt after desalination.. if dumping it back in the ocean it increases the concentration and wrecks the ecosystem. It is another issue that needs to be addressed when these projects hit scale.

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

Good point, why not harvest the salt, we have a company here in SA that farms table salt from salt pans and exports brine. I have thought that if you were to cover the salt pans with glass houses you could have solar desalination by collecting the condensation and salt harvesting in one industry.

@johnellis5828

Жыл бұрын

Just don't dump it in the ocean then. Duh.

@tommylakindasorta3068

Жыл бұрын

@@johnellis5828 Dumping it in the ground wouldn't be any safer. It would pollute the surrounding land and water supply.

@abrahamevangelista4215

Жыл бұрын

Worth considering, most domestic and industrial would end up back in the water waste stream. In most cases you would be looking at a net neutral salinity.

@gtrguyinaz

Жыл бұрын

Put it out 20 miles into the ocean, now we dump it 1 mile out?

The desalination comes at a low price if it is thermally coproduced with electricity. The efficiency of the powerplant is only slightly reduced but you get the water for it.

Man, u're channel is awesome! Keep it going! The topics, the delivery. Not a typical "playing around" popular science channel :DI think I would l like to hear on Russia's perspective in the semiconductor industry since sanctions. Will it be able to do something with its Elbrus or not. And the breeder-reactors on fast neutrons. Just telling some (maybe) interesting ideas on future videos. Thanks!

Really excellent documentary! Outstanding!

Good video, I hope more people can design reactors to slowly but eventually replace coal and petroleum so they are only really used for plastics or classic cars.

I remember Jacque Fresco exhibiting a solar desalination plant that used a clear canopy over a canal to collect moisture from the evaporation off of water as it is heated by the sun, perfect for most equatorial zones. No energy plants required.

Never knew so many were in operation, great video.

An unexpected topic, but it is important and I enjoyed this. Thanks

I love the style of your vids. So unbiased and to the point. Very informative and insightful. Thank you!

@richardscathouse

2 жыл бұрын

Highly biased in this case, almost like it was paid for by the nuclear industry

@britzman9905

2 жыл бұрын

@@richardscathouse you mean the only realistic solution to meet climate goals industry?

Good job analyzing the water problem from a stand point of current engineering. I think you made the case that thermal desalination powered by nuclear energy is doable right now, no break throughs required. However, I have my doubts that this will be significantly advanced in the near to medium term. There is too much fear of nuclear power. "Nuclear water" is not a tagline that sells. This is a shame because sea water desalination can be cost competitive with many current dam and irrigation projects. For perspective, the minimum theoretical energy required is less than 1 Kw/hr per M^3. Stated differently, reverse osmosis of sea water requires a pressure head of ~ 300 M. For comparison the California water project pumps water up 400 M over the Tehachapi mountains. Yes, pre-treatment is currently expensive. Yes, practical osmotic systems may require multiples of theoretical pressure. But, desalination is not that much more expensive than other alternatives.

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

Fear has to give way to fear of not having power and water. The moms of America need to get over their fears.

@liesdamnlies3372

2 жыл бұрын

It’s even better than dams. You’re yoinking a little water (relatively speaking) from the ocean, vs destroying hundreds to thousands of hectares of land… I dunno why environmentalists would ever be for such projects over nuclear-powered desalination but…welp.

@jmtrad1906

2 жыл бұрын

Sadly the mob mentality is that nuclear = bad. Is harder to remove this fear from people than solve water crisis.

@makisekurisu4674

2 жыл бұрын

Wait until the small modular plants come into operation, everyone's working on it right now!

The effort you make to proper pronunciation is noticed, and extremely rare. I appreciate your dedication to proper aducation.

Congratulations on crossing 200k!

Yet another of my ideas has already been thought of but I was planning to send it into the middle of the desert to just be dumped there (that’s the only purpose (and free salt))

I think Finland follows now the EU directive mandating 100 Bq/l Tritium limit. It only make sense considering Finland is in EU the number of 30 000 is outdated.

Combing flash distillation with nuclear would be a good combo. In flash distillation, the brine is heated, not boiled. The brine would be at a higher pressure than the steam heating it, so any leaks will be from the seawater to the secondary loop, excluding tritium transfer from the secondary loop to the brine. Not so great for the plant now getting brine in the secondary loop, but great for keeping the product water radiation free.

Great Video! Love it!

There's a pretty efficient and cheap solar desalination method called TMSS. I think it's a type of MED.

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

Whatever. Solar is only as hot as the Sun gets on a square meter. We could burns leaves to boil water, too.

No mention of graphene or graphene oxide desalination? This relatively new technology basically stacks layers of graphene or graphene oxide close enough together for water molecules to pass through but block virtually everything else, without the high pressure required for reverse osmosis.

@Laotzu.Goldbug

Жыл бұрын

He did make a passing reference to "other membranes technologies". From an energy magnitude perspective this in probably equivalent to RO in terms of power infrastructure?

@Laotzu.Goldbug

Жыл бұрын

He did make a passing reference to "other membranes technologies". From an energy magnitude perspective this in probably equivalent to RO in terms of power infrastructure?

There’s another environmental concern you haven’t mentioned. Desalination obviously doesn’t remove all the water from seawater and at the end of the process you have leftover brine. This brine typically gets pumped back into the seawater source which significantly increases local salinity at the region of the outflow but also in theory could increase the entire source’s salinity over time. Besides the obvious, immediate impacts this can have on complex sea life there’s reason to be concerned about the impact of creeping salinity on phytoplankton, which globally account for 50-80% of the world’s photosynthetic conversion of CO2 to O2.

Dude thanks for this

"Agricultural use" means that at least some Co2 is removed & replaced with O2. Not a bad trade off.

@julkkis666

Жыл бұрын

Lol that would make nuclear energy a net negative for greenhouses :Ddd epic

The big problem with desalination is the host of imponderables-- like corrosion in the reactor coolant loops and corrosion in the brine loops. Everything looks fine from the outside until a pipe corrodes through or a valve gets stuck open or shut and then EVERYTHING has to be shut down for weeks, months, years, or forever. It's especially bad with sodium loops as the sodium remains radioactive for a very long time.

@alexandrosandreou8585

2 жыл бұрын

But the corrosive water won't be in the primary cooling loop of the reactor it will prob be in the secondary just like pressurised water reactors so how will the primary cooling loop of the reactor corrode ?

@alexandrosandreou8585

2 жыл бұрын

And in nuclear plants everything has back ups so if a valve gets stuck open or a pipe corrodes they can use backup valves and secondary other loops temporarily until the main ones are fixed that is just how Nuclear power plants in general work

@georgegonzalez2476

2 жыл бұрын

​@@alexandrosandreou8585 "Everything" has backups? Nope. I don't know of any reactor that has backup heat exchangers or main valves. Sometimes, there are dual pumps and dual generators but that's about it.

Very interesting info!

Was just thinking about it! And then the video dropped.

You covered much of the same information that was in my senior project, the main difference was that I focused on the use of SMRs to reduce overnight cost and more specific to the task of water scarcity to meet climate change issues. I enjoyed your video, happy to see good information for a positive use for nuclear energy.

@chapter4travels

2 жыл бұрын

Your time would be better spent focused on MSRs instead of tiny LWRs.

12:00 "up to 10-30% of fish embryos are being affected" .... at what scale ? Around the reactor ? You can't mean worldwide.

@johnl.7754

2 жыл бұрын

around the desalination plant.

If not mistaken, based on what I read. The by-product produced by desalination is a concentrated salt water. Since we harvested the "fresh" water component, the by product which is the super salty water gets discharged into the sea. Eventually, the sea will become a "dead sea" and there goes our seafood.

@killman369547

2 жыл бұрын

No it won't for one simple reason. The water cycle. All the water we take from the ocean through desalination will eventually make it's way back to the ocean.

@motimobo

2 жыл бұрын

Are you a comedian or something? The salt in the ocean is constantly diluted by rain.

Thorcon plan to build MSRs on barges or off shore platforms built in shipyards.

People are going to have to wake up about nuclear. It's far safer and pollution wise it's a no brainer. Yes when safety protocols and site placements are an afterthought, bad things happen. Those incidents while severe, are few and far between. Maybe someday we will find a better alternative but until then much like the fallout series, the future is the ⚛️!

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

The scared mothers of America need to be told about the dead birds and what happens to children when the power goes out. Sick of dumb people.

@TheHiddenPearl

2 жыл бұрын

@Zaydan Naufal people are almost ALWAYS confused because of ignoring and belittling knowledge! Ex. Trump

@BearMeOut

2 жыл бұрын

More people died from coal pollution than nuclear pollution Everybody knows about it But it's kill more slowly so the news reporter aren't interested

@sludgefactory241

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheHiddenPearl well to my recollection jobs were coming back to this country and gas wasn't 6 USD a gallon so ease enlighten me as to what facts were ignored and belittled? Thinking small minded people just spout and regurgitate info that is intellectually dishonest, but hey, what do I know, I'm just the chemically induced evil alter ego of a victorian scientist.

@sludgefactory241

2 жыл бұрын

@B well put

Wish Australia would stop being scared and build some bloody reactors. great video dont how you explain this shit so well.

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

Yep we are thinking of putting one in your back yard.....

@richardcowley4087

2 жыл бұрын

@@rickcostin clearly, you know fuck all about the subject

We need more of this

Congratulations 👏 and all the best for your success and happiness ❤️❤️

It's a winning combination. I used to be a nuke on a US Navy submarine. The reactor is just a heat source that doesn't require hydrocarbons like oil, gas or coal. Under pressure, the very hot water from the nuclear plant is pumped inside the tubes of a steam generator that makes the steam and sends it out of the reactor compartment in secondary piping (WITHOUT radioactivity) to drive turbines to make electricity. It's a simple thing to branch off some auxiliary steam to make fresh water from sea water as we did underway. We could produce about 10 thousand gallons of fresh water daily in the 1970s which was more than enough for the power plant and potable water for a crew of 140 men. Nuclear plants should be built in seismically quiet coastal areas with associated desalinization plants to make surrounding communities and regions plenty of fresh water. By the way, when you see those big cooling towers emitting huge plumes of environmentally safe steam, remember that all this heat energy is just being wasted to the atmosphere when instead, just a small portion of this non-utilized energy resource could be used in auxiliary capacities like desalinization that could benefit the utilities as a secondary but significant source of revenue in terms of the overall nuclear power plant's business model.

@hotmailcompany52

Жыл бұрын

What happened to the waste brine? I know for large industrial desalination there's enough to throw off local salinity levels if it's dumped back into the ocean

@davidlasoff8261

Жыл бұрын

@@hotmailcompany52 at sea, obviously this isn't a problem for a submarine BUT you bring up a good point for a stationary desalination plant onshore. I'm not an expert but it does seem reasonable to engineer an undersea pipe for about 2/3 km as long as depth is acceptable before reaching a discharge point where the salinity of the excess brine would diffuse naturally. Of course, experts and ecologists can get together to come up with a good X km if 2/3 km isn't far enough or unnecessarily far but I'm just giving it a guess here. Besides, this important issue that you raise is certainly being addressed by the environmental impact report which would be done before plant construction in most jurisdictions. After all, there are more than 19 thousand desalination plants in operation all over the world now.

Perhaps useful to think of a nuclear reactor + desalination plant as equivalent to a "peaker" power generation unit that can be operated 24/7 "for free" (uranium fuel and nuclear waste disposal being relatively inexpensive operating costs) with the electrical power that isn't needed by the electrical grid being put to productive use. Compare for example to a nuclear reactor + hydro power storage facility, feed nuclear reactor electricity into the grid when needed and use that electricity to pump water uphill the rest of the time. Such a combination is even more useful, but only works where the nuclear reactor can be built near a good site. Or compare to the notion of building dams in remote locations with the intention of using the electricity generated to smelt aluminum. The aluminum smelting plant and the desalination plant are similar: they both represent productive ways of using electricity where the nuclear power operator can control demand.

The major ways to do the separation seem to each possess residual challenges mainly architecture and material . In the past we found a small company in Tampa area having a truly different approach with a different type of membrane. We Purchased small test unit. Impressive. Resolves the energy, need for pre/post, and most of all the 'salt' issue. Checking just now we have just shy of 18 months of run time. Impressed. Not saying this to 'sell' for this company so did not provide name. If you want name please send me an email. Again - this is not a 'push' for the company but actual use feedback. In my opinion it could be a game changer today.

Thank you, nice video! Please consider listing sources of information ( most do it below video ) so viewers can verify that this is information not entertainment..

There was a plan in the early 1970's to build artificial islands off the coast of California, place nuclear power plants on them, and incorporate a large water desalination process. The selling points were pollution-free electricity and copious amounts of fresh water sent through undersea pipes to southern California. The islands would have had earthquake safety measures incorporated. The plan was not used for various reasons, but if it had worked as planned, it could have solved quite a few problems California suffers from now.

What to do with brack water that is left over? It can damage ocean habitats.

@Anenome5

2 жыл бұрын

It's rich in metals we need. Sodium is a promising new metal for battery tech that could replace lithium and is ubiquitous. Magnesium is a great building material similar to titanium. And other trace materials and chemicals can be harvested and sold to industry, such as chlorine.

@rexmann1984

2 жыл бұрын

It can also be added at the right times of day and locations to improve the habitat.

@lengould9262

2 жыл бұрын

@@Anenome5 Very expensive to take high saline desalination brine down to extraction of solutes. Then the salt needs to run an industrial process to separate the eg magnesium, Lithium and Sodium from the chlorine and each other. Very expensive, energy intensive. Dry salt deposits all over western N. And S. America's, very little mineral separation happening due to cost.

@theobserver9131

2 жыл бұрын

@@lengould9262 is energy the greatest expense? If so, using the same nuclear power plant for these processes could keep costs low?

@theobserver9131

2 жыл бұрын

Couldn't we just continue evaporating it and use the dried salt?

Excellent informative video the “greens” should pay attention.

Great video. Thanks

It's easy to get caught up with scary sounding things like tritium, but it's important to remember the reason there is such wildly different environmental standards for it is that these are basically guesswork. We have no evidence for harm from it at low doses so they just pick a number that sounds good. We only have evidence of harm from extremely high doses and no one has ever had enough to kill them.

@EDesigns_FL

2 жыл бұрын

Risk factors are based upon statistical analysis, not guesses. Each tritium atom has the to potential to emit beta particles which are capable of damaging DNA if they collide. Cells with damaged DNA can turn cancerous. Statistical analysis is used to determine the probability of this event, and this is compared to an acceptable risk factor to determine the concentration of tritium, or any other potential toxin, will be allowed.

@Spacedog79

2 жыл бұрын

@@EDesigns_FL Sure but this is theoretical, if you take in to account DNA repair mechanisms and the lack of real evidence that these low doses actually cause cancer then the number they choose is still just a guess plucked from the air, extrapolated from high dose numbers without evidence.

@kokofan50

2 жыл бұрын

@@EDesigns_FL statistics based on models with little evidence are guess work

@eckligt

2 жыл бұрын

@@EDesigns_FL I've heard several talks by Prof Geraldine Thomas who heads something called the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, and researches the toxicology of nuclear materials. She's quite adament that it's practically harmless in the concentrations that we could be talking about. The jist of her explanation is that: - The biological half-life of Tritium is around ten days (with some variation), while the nuclear half-life of Tritium is 14 years, so the chance that a given Tritium atom decays while inside your body is very low. - Not all beta emissions are created equal. Tritium's beta particles have particularly low energy. So even if it does decay inside your body, its damage is limited. Here's one of her appearances on the Decouple podcast: kzread.info/dash/bejne/X3-G1sqMg9aZZ5M.html

@EDesigns_FL

2 жыл бұрын

@@kokofan50 It might seem like that to someone who is not acquainted with how the analysis is conducted, but it's not. Physical testing is often done to verify models, but the advent of computer simulations has rendered this unnecessary for most work. That's how we were able to abolish testing of nuclear weapons. Likewise, computational flow dynamics and finite element analysis software and has rendered wind tunnel and physical testing unnecessary. It's all math.

Here in New Zealand we do the opposite to desalination. At the Manapouri hydro power station, we take 510m3 of fresh water per second and dump it into the sea to produce 800MW of electricity. That's 44 million cubic meters of fresh water per day. Makes that Soudi desalination plant look tiny in comparison.

@DruNature

2 жыл бұрын

wtf this is lunacy!!

@debochch

2 жыл бұрын

It gets crazier. There is a tunnel (9. 2 meters in diameter, 10km long) that is used to discharge the fresh water into the sea. Once operational, they realised it was too small to be used to operate the power station at full capacity. So they tunneled another one at 10 meters diameter. Just try and imagine how much fresh water flows through those two tunnels.

@TheBooban

2 жыл бұрын

@@debochch its just a dam. Without it, its just a river doing the same thing.

@debochch

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheBooban no. In normal dams, the water continues along the river, as you pointed out. At Manipouri, the water is diverted away from the river, through the mountain, and directly into the sea.

@ThomasBomb45

2 жыл бұрын

@@debochch either way, it is going into the ocean right?

I probably missed this, but can these powerplants also generate power? Is the desalination only a byproduct of cooling down steam or these dont even contain turbines and generators?

That was excellent. Thanks

Desalinated water is a solution to a lot of the worlds problems. It's a shame it hasn't become more widespread. People say it's too expensive, but the more we invest the cheaper it gets. I've seen proposals of solar powered Desal plants. Could even be used to change water tables and water cycles of otherwise dry regions. Just build water pipelines and pump excess fresh water.

@rap3208

2 жыл бұрын

Desalinated water is still very salty, unless perhaps you're to do the process several times until it's good enough to drink...but then it would make the water very expensive to produce. I worked in Saudi Arabia ang nobody drinks from the tap as the water is salty, we just used the water for bathing, cooking, washing clothes and other household needs.

@Jarms48

2 жыл бұрын

@@rap3208 we have it here in Australia. In several major cities. Can't taste the difference.

@rap3208

2 жыл бұрын

@@Jarms48 I doubt you desalination plant produces as much volume as the Saudi plants do. As I have said the more you try to remove the saltiness, the more expensive is the process.

@Jarms48

2 жыл бұрын

@@rap3208 Australia has 46 desalination plants across the country, we have more plants than Saudi but less production. Australia’s desalination process is more expensive than Saudi’s, which I presume is because it’s far more heavily treated. As I said, I never even tasted a difference here.

@motimobo

2 жыл бұрын

Desalinated water should have no salt at all by definition. If it's distilled then it will be completely pure.

For countries with excessive renewable power wouldn't it be cool to use the extra power for desalination instead of using battery storage? This creates water while reducing costs since you don't need batteries!

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

we do, in South Australia

@Planet_Xplorer

2 жыл бұрын

@@rickcostin I'm Aussie too but didn't know that. Aussie Aussie Aussie 😊

@rickcostin

2 жыл бұрын

@@Planet_Xplorer I've seen more comments on batteries being used for excess power production, which is only a problem for coal/gas and apparently nuclear plants that take ages to react to changes in demand and need to keep running even when there is no demand. My understanding is that batteries are used to stabilize the grid if there is an outage like the one we had in SA when a tornado took out a main transmission line. The state government was ousted because of a perceived over reliance on renewable energy, when it came down to the Victorians not closing their interconnector. Elon Musk stepped up to the plate with the worlds biggest battery in Jamestown SA which helps stabilize the grid when you have a lot of wind and solar power which is intermittent.

Amendment - in 1973, Kazakhstan was a Kazakh Autonomous Republic within the USSR and could not independently build a nuclear sodium reactor. This reactor was built by the USSR. The city was called Shevchenko in Soviet times, Aktau is a renaming after the independence of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan became an independent country at the end of 1991. It still cannot build nuclear reactors. It is very surprising to see such blunders in the video.

Really exciting possibilities... thanks.

Great Stuff! I was wondering if a ship based nuclear reactor could be used to provide energy for a mobile de-sal plant, for example on humanitarian missions via an form of deep-hulled vessel such as an amphibious assault ship? Would such a facility be effective, or even feasible?

I really hope they start using nuclear power to desalinate water. People need fresh water at a low cost.

@blastermanr6359

Жыл бұрын

That the major problem though. The technology is there. But not the economics.

@SanguineBlackBlood

Жыл бұрын

@@blastermanr6359 do you know what the words you are saying mean?

I worked in the engine room on a couple of nuclear submarines. Decades ago the ships were designed and built with steam powered distillation units. They had an electrically powered back up distillation unit that didn't really work. Halfway through the life of the submarine, the reactor needed a refuel. When my second sub went in for the refuel they ripped out both the steam and electrically powered distillation units and replaced them with reverse osmosis units saying that the increased energy efficiency alone was enough to justify the cost. And I have to be honest, we always had plenty of water to spare with the RO units, same can't be said for the stills.

Excellent idea. 👍👍

Molten salt/thorium reactors are far safer from meltdowns compared to uranium reactors

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

Let's consider all the things that could go wrong while things are already going wrong but you find no fault with them.

@thijsgadella

2 жыл бұрын

Normal reactors are safe already. Just take a look at the deaths per kwh, only solar and wind are better than nuclear

@kokofan50

2 жыл бұрын

Most MSRs are designed to use uranium, and thorium can and is being used in pressurized water reactors

@eckligt

2 жыл бұрын

Not really safer, but they achieve it in a different way that is easy for the lay public to grasp -- "already molten, so can't melt down".

What about using nuclear power to generate electricity to run a heat pump based desalination plant? Should be very efficient. The condenser side boils the water and the evaporator side of the heat pump condenses it back up. Probably very expensive though.

It must of been 20 years ago I was imagining this . The economics is where i fell short

This would be an interesting use for Small Modular reactors...

I thought this was a good idea 25 years ago. Seems a sensible use of excess power needs while simultaneously cooling reactors. In theory it would combat rising sea levels which just simply adding people (95% water) would not be enough to limit effects of melting ice. It all helps.

@autohmae

2 жыл бұрын

"In theory it would combat rising sea levels" My gut feeling is and guess (I've not checked the numbers) is the scale of the predicted sealevel rise far exceeds the amount of water we use/need. And it would just be a drop in the bucket.

@Riskninjaz

2 жыл бұрын

@@autohmae yes agree. But as people reproduce they contain water. Well it’s a step in the right direction for balancing human impacts on the earth.

@maltehoffmann3621

2 жыл бұрын

@@Riskninjaz The sea level would sink about 0.0027778 mm with 10 billion extra people each containing 100 liters of water. With an average sea level rise of 2.3mm in a year that's about 10.5 hours worth of sea level rise that is prevented.

@showmemo3686

2 жыл бұрын

Have to start somewhere. A lot of water will be required for irrigation of crops needed to feed us all and for animal husbandry. Yet I can see the anti nuclear crowd having a problem with this.

@nomdeguerre7265

2 жыл бұрын

If sea levels start to demonstrably rise then this withdrawal won’t be sufficient to counter it. But fortunately that doesn’t yet appear to be observably happening.

this is for sure a great video, and I enjoyed watching ! subbed and liked ! a fellow creator

@AstroGremlinAmerican

2 жыл бұрын

I'm a social justice warrior.

I work for an RO R&D company and we just completed our first 9 element 8040 system and increased its efficiency by nearly 50% So I expect the cost of RO to decrease quickly over the next decade, because of our tech and others. Desal seems to be at the end of its development capability, but RO is still in its infancy.

Always fun to rediscover a word used internationally that has roots in your language. brackish has Dutch roots and the word brak has of course the same meaning. Funnily, when I go out in the weekend and collect a huge hangover...I also say "I'm brak".

You keep mentioning "Kazakastan" in this video. Do you mean Kazakhstan?

Crazy to me how nuclear is coming back to the energy debate, seeing how much safer things have become and watching the whole fossil fuel thing play out. I do hope for our future that serious thought is given to going nuclear in a bigger way.

The United States has fielded about 200 such nuclear-powered de-salinization plants over the course of 68 years. Every nuclear-powered submarine and aircraft carrier ever commissioned has a very large appetite for very pure water. So, each is equipped with a steam-operated evaporator that produces about 10,000 to 15,000 gallons per day of distilled water from seawater. The waste is brine which is pumped to the sea. This process can be easily scaled up.

I recall telling my teachers and other adults 20 years ago that desalination plants would be the future as we will be able to take water from the ocean to Utah, Nevada, and also other areas for agriculture and human usage purposes. I see a future where we can transport water like we do with Oil. I don't see desalination plants to refill lake Mead or fill the rivers but to let those resources fill up on their own.

It’s Ka-zak-stan not kazakastan

@danielch6662

2 жыл бұрын

I thought he said kazakistan. Still wrong and a bit jarring though. Like how Chinese speakers love to "localize" the pronunciation of foreign names, making it completely unrecognizable.

The use of reactors for desalination is only hampered by current reactors that produce very nasty waste and weapons materials. Using thorium reactors would eliminate the waste and weapons materials issue as well as be capable of desalination as part of their cooling system. The concentrated brine can be pumped into evaporation ponds and the resulting salt used for other industrial purposes or diluted with raw seawater and returned to the ocean/sea it was taken from. By building multiple plants in areas where earthquakes and tsunamis are less likely and/or building facilities able to withstand them, water and power can be provided safely and in great quantities. The cost of running thorium reactors would be much less than uranium plants due to their inherent safety and lower radiation fuels and waste.

@cosmoray9750

2 жыл бұрын

American is out of control - mercenaries to assassinate kzread.info/dash/bejne/qoWGl7myhK6oY9Y.html

@RipleySawzen

2 жыл бұрын

He didn't mention nuclear waste because only fools think it's any sort of problem.

@nomdeguerre7265

2 жыл бұрын

Actually current designs produce a very small volume of dangerous waste. It’s said that over 90% of all nuclear waste has already been produced and most of that was from government nuclear weapons programs, not civilian power generation.

One issue often overlooked that this system helps mitigate is the amount of electricity required to then pump water through a distribution network, as this is often far more energy required than collecting the water. Where I live (Northern Ireland) our water supplier is the single biggest consumer of electricity on the network for example, and this is something that scales linearly with water requirements. So as water demands scale up and nuclear generation needs to increase to keep par, then electricity generation would also scale up at the same time resolving this issue, which would be a massive net increase in overall system efficiency.

So does desalination and the costs stated in the video also mean treated? Or is that a further step/cost?

Kazakhstan is not pronounced "Kazak-i-stan" (4:16)

@eckligt

2 жыл бұрын

I suspect it's an in-joke, but ... you're right of course.

@franklin2120

2 жыл бұрын

I scrolled down forever to find this comment

i'm very curious if anyone has looked into using concentrated solar (mirrors, heat tower and molten metal) to conduct desalination. Seems very viable in any dry, hot desert region with access to the coast. The middle east and baja california come to mind.

@Sedna063

2 жыл бұрын

Should be something the world bank could perhaps finance for Somalia or Mauretania. Imagine having a 1 GW solar park for a desalination plant.

@ImaskarDono

2 жыл бұрын

Nope, too much energy is needed this way. CSP is very weak.

@BearMeOut

2 жыл бұрын

Concentrated solar required a lot of area outside and exposed to temperature fluctuations and weather. Because many working parts are outdoor and spread out, it cost a lot of maintenance cost. That's why people put machine indoors and close together, because stuff will degrade slower, easy to travel when fixing, less money spent buying sparepart and hire less workers.

@motimobo

2 жыл бұрын

​@@ImaskarDono Concentrated Solar is very strong and all the energy required comes from the Sun. Solar power towers can heat salts up to 1000DegC which can then be pumped to evaporation ponds or green houses to distill salt water.

@ImaskarDono

2 жыл бұрын

@@motimobo check the actual economics of such projects. So far they are not working out. The materials are very expensive per kWh produced.

One thing most people miss is that heat energy cannot be converted to electrical energy at 100% efficency. Usually it is 33-50% efficient. So even if it requires twice as much energy thermal processes are still more energy efficent.

Good info.

Could you imagine if we had put in all that alternative energy money in nuclear? We’d be carbon neutral by now with no rolling blackouts and perhaps not be in such worry of these droughts.

Fill the world with Nuclear Desalination plants, solve water and energy problems. Seems like the best long term solution to these problems with current technology.

@steverempel8584

2 жыл бұрын

A good nuclear Desalination plant is a nuclear power plant first, and provides fresh water as a byproduct.

existing nuclear plants or thermal power plants in general near sea can adopt easy desalination setups. All power plants make waste heat...depending on temp and thermodynamic efficiency... a stirling engine using the plants waste heat that is typically exhausted can produce power...power enough to run pumps thru an reverse Osmosis membrane...or up a big water tower and let gravity do the work. The price of a 30-story apartment building is $36.5 to $80 million, so a large concrete tank to hold 20 million gallons could costs less.

I heard brine is a real issue. Dont know much about it but I was expecting that topic to be treated in the vid. Nice Job!

@kokofan50

Жыл бұрын

Use the brine to make hydrogen and reduce iron with the hydrogen

@AlejandroHerrera-fl1tn

Жыл бұрын

@@kokofan50 you still have Na+ and Cl-.