WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.970 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:01.970 --> 00:00:03.440 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:03.440 --> 00:00:05.400 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:09.493 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.493 --> 00:00:11.160 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: All right, let's get started. 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:18.380 align:middle line:84% So at the end of last week, we did this final calculation, 00:00:18.380 --> 00:00:20.600 align:middle line:84% if you remember, on solar and wind. 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:25.960 align:middle line:84% And the idea was to deal with the variability from weather 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:30.760 align:middle line:84% by having storage and continental scale transmission. 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:34.560 align:middle line:84% And we used this paper by Sheiner 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:36.760 align:middle line:84% to estimate how much we would need. 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:38.560 align:middle line:84% And I forgot to mention that the reason we 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:40.480 align:middle line:84% used this paper and not other papers 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:43.680 align:middle line:84% is because this one uses years of weather data. 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:46.660 align:middle line:84% So you get actual measures of reliability, 00:00:46.660 --> 00:00:51.240 align:middle line:84% not, like, one-year snapshot kind of stuff. 00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:58.240 align:middle line:84% So this gets you to 99.9% grid reliability, according 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:00.610 align:middle line:90% to 43 years of fluke weather. 00:01:00.610 --> 00:01:05.230 align:middle line:84% And we came up with this number of $131 per megawatt hour. 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:09.410 align:middle line:90% 00:01:09.410 --> 00:01:12.630 align:middle line:90% This is not the optimal system. 00:01:12.630 --> 00:01:13.770 align:middle line:90% We talked about that. 00:01:13.770 --> 00:01:15.470 align:middle line:90% This is just all renewables. 00:01:15.470 --> 00:01:17.450 align:middle line:90% It's not an optimal mix. 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:20.410 align:middle line:84% We, ideally, would have other things, also. 00:01:20.410 --> 00:01:23.530 align:middle line:90% But this is like an upper bound. 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:28.470 align:middle line:84% If we can't do better than $131, we're wasting our time. 00:01:28.470 --> 00:01:31.130 align:middle line:84% So we can use this as a basis for evaluating 00:01:31.130 --> 00:01:32.350 align:middle line:90% other technologies. 00:01:32.350 --> 00:01:34.130 align:middle line:84% Anyone know, off the top of their head, 00:01:34.130 --> 00:01:40.510 align:middle line:84% what the current wholesale price of electricity-- 00:01:40.510 --> 00:01:42.490 align:middle line:84% these are wholesale prices-- wholesale price 00:01:42.490 --> 00:01:46.850 align:middle line:90% of electricity in Boston? 00:01:46.850 --> 00:01:48.070 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Like $80. 00:01:48.070 --> 00:01:49.830 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: It's about $50. 00:01:49.830 --> 00:01:50.330 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:50.330 --> 00:01:54.390 align:middle line:84% So this is, like, 2 1/4 times more expensive. 00:01:54.390 --> 00:01:54.890 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:01:54.890 --> 00:01:59.100 align:middle line:84% So that just gives you a sense of how much more 00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:02.220 align:middle line:84% this version of carbon-free energy would cost. 00:02:02.220 --> 00:02:05.640 align:middle line:84% So we'll call this wind and solar. 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:12.660 align:middle line:90% 00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:14.147 align:middle line:90% This is like a litmus test. 00:02:14.147 --> 00:02:15.480 align:middle line:90% You have to do better than that. 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:18.920 align:middle line:84% Does anyone remember what the price of-- this, by the way, 00:02:18.920 --> 00:02:22.740 align:middle line:84% is per unit energy, megawatt hours. 00:02:22.740 --> 00:02:25.700 align:middle line:84% We never actually talked about price per unit of energy 00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:27.720 align:middle line:90% for nuclear, I don't think. 00:02:27.720 --> 00:02:29.160 align:middle line:90% I just show you some numbers. 00:02:29.160 --> 00:02:32.020 align:middle line:84% But we didn't spend a lot of time talking about it. 00:02:32.020 --> 00:02:33.920 align:middle line:84% The other way that we talk about nuclear, 00:02:33.920 --> 00:02:39.260 align:middle line:84% we tend to talk about capital cost, just buying a reactor. 00:02:39.260 --> 00:02:43.020 align:middle line:84% Anyone remember what the current EIA, the Department 00:02:43.020 --> 00:02:46.420 align:middle line:84% of Energy Information, Energy Information Administration, 00:02:46.420 --> 00:02:49.740 align:middle line:84% prediction is for the cost per kilowatt of capacity 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:51.880 align:middle line:90% for [INAUDIBLE] in your head. 00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:58.350 align:middle line:90% 00:02:58.350 --> 00:03:00.310 align:middle line:90% Nobody remembers. 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:00.950 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:03:00.950 --> 00:03:01.710 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: $7,500. 00:03:01.710 --> 00:03:08.030 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yes, $7,700 per kilowatt. 00:03:08.030 --> 00:03:11.990 align:middle line:90% This is for AP1000. 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:14.350 align:middle line:84% This is just the capital to build it. 00:03:14.350 --> 00:03:16.990 align:middle line:84% But because nuclear is mostly the capital cost, 00:03:16.990 --> 00:03:18.870 align:middle line:84% that's a reasonable number to have. 00:03:18.870 --> 00:03:23.430 align:middle line:84% So we have to do better than this, in terms of capital cost-- 00:03:23.430 --> 00:03:28.305 align:middle line:90% or not nuclear-- AP1000. 00:03:28.305 --> 00:03:29.930 align:middle line:84% All right, so these are our thresholds. 00:03:29.930 --> 00:03:32.510 align:middle line:84% This is what we have to beat if we're going to bring down 00:03:32.510 --> 00:03:35.110 align:middle line:90% the cost of nuclear energy. 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:35.690 align:middle line:90% Sound good? 00:03:35.690 --> 00:03:37.350 align:middle line:84% So we're going to try to do that. 00:03:37.350 --> 00:03:39.470 align:middle line:84% And we're going to talk about microreactors 00:03:39.470 --> 00:03:42.990 align:middle line:90% and their potential to do this. 00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:48.390 align:middle line:84% All right, so microreactors are all the rage. 00:03:48.390 --> 00:03:50.750 align:middle line:84% And if you work in fission, there's 00:03:50.750 --> 00:03:54.000 align:middle line:84% a good chance you're working on a microreactor. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:55.700 align:middle line:84% If you want to get a job in a startup, 00:03:55.700 --> 00:03:58.320 align:middle line:84% almost certainly, you'll be working on a small reactor 00:03:58.320 --> 00:04:00.400 align:middle line:90% or a microreactor. 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:06.832 align:middle line:84% So what is actually new with these microreactors? 00:04:06.832 --> 00:04:08.540 align:middle line:84% Well, it may seem obvious on the surface. 00:04:08.540 --> 00:04:11.200 align:middle line:84% But I think we really need to pick it apart 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:13.720 align:middle line:84% to try to understand where we're going to win here. 00:04:13.720 --> 00:04:17.880 align:middle line:84% Because just different is not necessarily better. 00:04:17.880 --> 00:04:22.280 align:middle line:84% So here's a history of reactors built in the United States, 00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:23.620 align:middle line:90% actually all over the world. 00:04:23.620 --> 00:04:25.440 align:middle line:84% Most of these are in the United States. 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:29.560 align:middle line:84% And the first takeaway is that there's 00:04:29.560 --> 00:04:32.600 align:middle line:84% nothing magical about the mere fact 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:34.640 align:middle line:90% that they are small or micro. 00:04:34.640 --> 00:04:36.960 align:middle line:84% So we call this a SMR region, which 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:40.180 align:middle line:84% is below a third of a full-scale plant. 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:44.700 align:middle line:84% We call it SMR, a Small Modular Reactor, or a small reactor. 00:04:44.700 --> 00:04:50.200 align:middle line:84% And then if you go down here to 150mw thermal, this is electric. 00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:51.180 align:middle line:90% This is thermal. 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:56.470 align:middle line:84% So the conversion factor is a factor of 3. 00:04:56.470 --> 00:04:57.570 align:middle line:90% So you get down here. 00:04:57.570 --> 00:05:00.290 align:middle line:84% And then we might call these the microreactors. 00:05:00.290 --> 00:05:03.390 align:middle line:84% And of course, all the major nuclear vendors, the French, 00:05:03.390 --> 00:05:05.110 align:middle line:84% the Koreans, the Japanese, the Russians, 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:09.970 align:middle line:84% they're all selling reactors that are mega reactors. 00:05:09.970 --> 00:05:12.570 align:middle line:84% But all the startups are trying to go down here, 00:05:12.570 --> 00:05:14.490 align:middle line:90% where we've already been. 00:05:14.490 --> 00:05:19.090 align:middle line:84% And the question is, why did we abandon these small reactors? 00:05:19.090 --> 00:05:21.450 align:middle line:84% And the answer was, we already know, 00:05:21.450 --> 00:05:25.650 align:middle line:84% because we found out that they weren't capital efficient. 00:05:25.650 --> 00:05:28.190 align:middle line:84% We did this regression with 342 reactors. 00:05:28.190 --> 00:05:31.170 align:middle line:84% We got this result that said that, for every doubling 00:05:31.170 --> 00:05:35.370 align:middle line:84% of reactor size, you bring down the cost by 20%. 00:05:35.370 --> 00:05:37.490 align:middle line:84% And then we did a little calculation on the board 00:05:37.490 --> 00:05:41.010 align:middle line:84% and said, well, what if we want to go from AP1000 size reactor 00:05:41.010 --> 00:05:45.050 align:middle line:84% at $7,700 per kilowatt of capacity? 00:05:45.050 --> 00:05:47.490 align:middle line:90% And we did this calculation. 00:05:47.490 --> 00:05:50.720 align:middle line:84% We said, there's your 20% cost reduction. 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:52.080 align:middle line:90% How many log2s? 00:05:52.080 --> 00:05:53.720 align:middle line:90% So you put your power in there. 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:57.780 align:middle line:84% And for new scale, a single module-- 00:05:57.780 --> 00:05:59.980 align:middle line:84% new scale is sold as-- and we'll talk about 00:05:59.980 --> 00:06:01.920 align:middle line:84% in a moment-- is a multiple module thing. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:07.900 align:middle line:84% But single module, we expected to cost 2.35 times more 00:06:07.900 --> 00:06:10.420 align:middle line:84% on a per kilowatt of capacity basis. 00:06:10.420 --> 00:06:18.255 align:middle line:84% So there's no a priori reason why going small would fix this. 00:06:18.255 --> 00:06:20.380 align:middle line:84% Now we're going to talk about other things going on 00:06:20.380 --> 00:06:21.440 align:middle line:90% in a moment. 00:06:21.440 --> 00:06:24.400 align:middle line:84% But we should have this scaling in our head. 00:06:24.400 --> 00:06:30.100 align:middle line:84% Now, this scaling was devised from historical data for PWRs 00:06:30.100 --> 00:06:34.220 align:middle line:90% or LWRs, Light Water Reactors. 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:37.580 align:middle line:84% So if we go to really small sizes 00:06:37.580 --> 00:06:40.700 align:middle line:84% or we go to reactors that are not LWRs, 00:06:40.700 --> 00:06:44.620 align:middle line:84% this scaling relationship arguably begins to break down. 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:46.500 align:middle line:84% So you couldn't really use this formula 00:06:46.500 --> 00:06:50.430 align:middle line:84% to predict the cost for many of the tiny reactors currently 00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:51.870 align:middle line:90% being talked about. 00:06:51.870 --> 00:06:55.790 align:middle line:84% However, the fundamental mechanism 00:06:55.790 --> 00:07:00.750 align:middle line:84% that drives this scaling, which is a geometric volume surface 00:07:00.750 --> 00:07:04.430 align:middle line:84% area kind of relationship, where there are things that 00:07:04.430 --> 00:07:09.910 align:middle line:84% don't scale with power, is still going to be present 00:07:09.910 --> 00:07:11.210 align:middle line:90% as you go to smaller reactors. 00:07:11.210 --> 00:07:15.450 align:middle line:84% So we expect this relationship, this general trend, to hold 00:07:15.450 --> 00:07:19.790 align:middle line:84% but maybe not this exact formula to hold for other technologies. 00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:22.550 align:middle line:84% All right, so one thing is they're small. 00:07:22.550 --> 00:07:24.370 align:middle line:84% That doesn't seem to really help. 00:07:24.370 --> 00:07:25.470 align:middle line:90% It actually hurts. 00:07:25.470 --> 00:07:27.950 align:middle line:84% The second thing is they're modular. 00:07:27.950 --> 00:07:30.230 align:middle line:90% Does modular help? 00:07:30.230 --> 00:07:33.590 align:middle line:84% Modular in and of itself is not very interesting. 00:07:33.590 --> 00:07:37.590 align:middle line:84% AP1000 is also a modular reactor. 00:07:37.590 --> 00:07:41.310 align:middle line:84% These are two modules from AP1000 being installed. 00:07:41.310 --> 00:07:44.270 align:middle line:84% They were built offsite in a factory 00:07:44.270 --> 00:07:47.060 align:middle line:90% by Chicago Bridge and Iron. 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:50.360 align:middle line:84% They're supposed to help solve the problems of trying to build 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:52.240 align:middle line:90% all these things in the field. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:55.640 align:middle line:84% In the end, it didn't really save very much money. 00:07:55.640 --> 00:07:57.600 align:middle line:84% It was actually counterproductive, 00:07:57.600 --> 00:07:59.560 align:middle line:84% because things didn't fit together, 00:07:59.560 --> 00:08:01.720 align:middle line:84% and they had to rework a lot of stuff. 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:05.880 align:middle line:84% But modules just by themselves are not the full story. 00:08:05.880 --> 00:08:07.660 align:middle line:84% So we got to look for something more. 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:12.320 align:middle line:84% And so these are the two things that are left on the table. 00:08:12.320 --> 00:08:15.720 align:middle line:84% Either the technology is just so fundamentally different 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:18.760 align:middle line:84% in how it is built that it really 00:08:18.760 --> 00:08:22.480 align:middle line:84% is cheaper than LWR, light water reactor, 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:24.680 align:middle line:90% because of some big change. 00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:27.160 align:middle line:84% And there are some big changes in the technologies 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:27.940 align:middle line:90% being discussed. 00:08:27.940 --> 00:08:30.440 align:middle line:84% For example, a lot of the current proposals 00:08:30.440 --> 00:08:32.020 align:middle line:90% don't use containments. 00:08:32.020 --> 00:08:33.799 align:middle line:90% There's a big cost change. 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:37.740 align:middle line:84% So other big changes, we could look at. 00:08:37.740 --> 00:08:41.919 align:middle line:84% The other thing is that small and modularity are actually 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:46.410 align:middle line:84% hinting at something else, some fundamentally different approach 00:08:46.410 --> 00:08:48.130 align:middle line:90% to fabricating reactors. 00:08:48.130 --> 00:08:50.090 align:middle line:84% And so we're going to look at what 00:08:50.090 --> 00:08:52.570 align:middle line:84% it means to actually do factory fabrication, 00:08:52.570 --> 00:08:54.370 align:middle line:90% and try to learn what we can. 00:08:54.370 --> 00:08:56.130 align:middle line:84% It's a tough problem, because there's 00:08:56.130 --> 00:08:59.810 align:middle line:84% only one reactor that's ever been factory fabricated 00:08:59.810 --> 00:09:02.230 align:middle line:90% in its totality in history. 00:09:02.230 --> 00:09:04.010 align:middle line:90% And those are Naval reactors-- 00:09:04.010 --> 00:09:08.290 align:middle line:84% and very little data about those reactors. 00:09:08.290 --> 00:09:13.210 align:middle line:84% So let's just cram through number 1. 00:09:13.210 --> 00:09:17.130 align:middle line:84% What is different about the ideas being proposed today? 00:09:17.130 --> 00:09:20.003 align:middle line:84% And just see if we can pick out winners. 00:09:20.003 --> 00:09:22.170 align:middle line:84% All right, so let's just start with the things which 00:09:22.170 --> 00:09:22.920 align:middle line:90% are not different. 00:09:22.920 --> 00:09:24.550 align:middle line:84% Let's start with the NuScale concept. 00:09:24.550 --> 00:09:25.830 align:middle line:90% Why am I starting here? 00:09:25.830 --> 00:09:28.097 align:middle line:90% It's actually a little PWR. 00:09:28.097 --> 00:09:29.930 align:middle line:84% The reason I'm starting here is because it's 00:09:29.930 --> 00:09:33.570 align:middle line:84% had 20 years of R&D. So of all the concepts, 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:36.110 align:middle line:90% this is the most mature concept. 00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:41.110 align:middle line:84% The design involves six small 77-megawatt modules. 00:09:41.110 --> 00:09:45.900 align:middle line:84% They live under water in this giant bathtub. 00:09:45.900 --> 00:09:50.340 align:middle line:84% And the idea is that, if there's a problem, 00:09:50.340 --> 00:09:52.340 align:middle line:84% it's very hard to have a loss of coolant 00:09:52.340 --> 00:09:55.700 align:middle line:84% because there's so much coolant everywhere. 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:59.820 align:middle line:84% And that makes them much more safe. 00:09:59.820 --> 00:10:02.420 align:middle line:84% Now, originally, these modules were designed to be 50mw 00:10:02.420 --> 00:10:03.260 align:middle line:90% thermal. 00:10:03.260 --> 00:10:07.700 align:middle line:84% But in the end, NuScale pushed them up to 77. 00:10:07.700 --> 00:10:08.760 align:middle line:90% Who can guess why? 00:10:08.760 --> 00:10:13.780 align:middle line:90% 00:10:13.780 --> 00:10:15.420 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Is it the cost? 00:10:15.420 --> 00:10:16.600 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Economics, yeah. 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:18.800 align:middle line:84% They couldn't make it work with 50s. 00:10:18.800 --> 00:10:24.580 align:middle line:84% So even here, that cost relationship is holding. 00:10:24.580 --> 00:10:28.740 align:middle line:84% So a key part of making NuScale economically viable 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:32.900 align:middle line:84% is to put six of these reactors in a single building 00:10:32.900 --> 00:10:35.540 align:middle line:84% and share a single containment, a single swimming 00:10:35.540 --> 00:10:40.070 align:middle line:84% pool, a single steam turbine, a single site, single licensing. 00:10:40.070 --> 00:10:43.610 align:middle line:84% So actually, at the end of the day, 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:47.110 align:middle line:84% this reactor is a full-sized reactor. 00:10:47.110 --> 00:10:50.310 align:middle line:84% It just happens to have the nuclear part broken 00:10:50.310 --> 00:10:53.150 align:middle line:90% into six smaller pieces. 00:10:53.150 --> 00:10:55.110 align:middle line:84% And that's the only way they can get 00:10:55.110 --> 00:10:56.530 align:middle line:90% the economics to really work. 00:10:56.530 --> 00:10:57.210 align:middle line:90% It's clever. 00:10:57.210 --> 00:11:03.750 align:middle line:84% But to call it as SMR is a bit of a deception. 00:11:03.750 --> 00:11:09.130 align:middle line:84% There are other versions that have not done this. 00:11:09.130 --> 00:11:10.470 align:middle line:90% So this is the Holtec. 00:11:10.470 --> 00:11:14.110 align:middle line:84% This is a one-third to one-sixth scale. 00:11:14.110 --> 00:11:18.630 align:middle line:84% It's just a traditional PWR, just built smaller. 00:11:18.630 --> 00:11:20.850 align:middle line:84% They haven't really done anything with it. 00:11:20.850 --> 00:11:23.830 align:middle line:84% This is as far as it's gotten as far as I can tell. 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:26.950 align:middle line:84% It's a nice graphic-- not even a really nice graphic. 00:11:26.950 --> 00:11:28.590 align:middle line:90% Here's a much better graphic. 00:11:28.590 --> 00:11:33.130 align:middle line:84% If you are a startup, you have to get your graphics right. 00:11:33.130 --> 00:11:36.042 align:middle line:84% This is what we learned from Oklo. 00:11:36.042 --> 00:11:37.810 align:middle line:90% You know Oklo Graphics. 00:11:37.810 --> 00:11:39.680 align:middle line:84% They are built in an A frame in the middle 00:11:39.680 --> 00:11:42.598 align:middle line:84% of the floors with no parking lot, no security whatsoever, 00:11:42.598 --> 00:11:45.140 align:middle line:84% much smaller than any building that would actually be needed, 00:11:45.140 --> 00:11:48.420 align:middle line:84% no administrative building, no power lines, no transformers. 00:11:48.420 --> 00:11:51.400 align:middle line:90% But they look beautiful. 00:11:51.400 --> 00:11:53.640 align:middle line:90% So this is Last Energy. 00:11:53.640 --> 00:11:55.620 align:middle line:90% It's a new-scale-like concept. 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:58.840 align:middle line:84% Instead of 77mw, they're pushing the size down even smaller 00:11:58.840 --> 00:12:00.560 align:middle line:90% to 20mw. 00:12:00.560 --> 00:12:06.140 align:middle line:90% So we expect the cost to go up. 00:12:06.140 --> 00:12:10.280 align:middle line:84% It's is about 3.6 times more expensive, instead of 2.3 times 00:12:10.280 --> 00:12:13.000 align:middle line:90% more expensive than AP1000. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:17.940 align:middle line:84% They scrapped the concrete containment, which is expensive, 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:23.720 align:middle line:84% and replaced it with a 12-inch-thick solid steel vault, 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:26.000 align:middle line:90% which is also expensive. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.200 align:middle line:84% And so who knows which is cheaper? 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:29.407 align:middle line:90% There's no water cooling. 00:12:29.407 --> 00:12:30.740 align:middle line:90% The thing is buried underground. 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:32.640 align:middle line:90% It's cooled entirely by air. 00:12:32.640 --> 00:12:34.240 align:middle line:84% So on a per-kilowatt basis, to have 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:36.550 align:middle line:84% all these fans cooling the reactor, 00:12:36.550 --> 00:12:38.650 align:middle line:84% maybe they tried to price up more. 00:12:38.650 --> 00:12:42.770 align:middle line:84% This is a concept that moves towards more safety, smaller 00:12:42.770 --> 00:12:48.130 align:middle line:84% reactor, better containment, fewer water issues and at 00:12:48.130 --> 00:12:48.950 align:middle line:90% higher costs. 00:12:48.950 --> 00:12:52.810 align:middle line:84% So the customer here is one who doesn't care about cost. 00:12:52.810 --> 00:12:56.610 align:middle line:84% They really only care about safety. 00:12:56.610 --> 00:13:01.490 align:middle line:84% Whether such customers exist remains to be seen. 00:13:01.490 --> 00:13:02.930 align:middle line:90% We can talk about that. 00:13:02.930 --> 00:13:06.290 align:middle line:84% Because there are a lot of data center 00:13:06.290 --> 00:13:09.010 align:middle line:84% customers who are signing contracts 00:13:09.010 --> 00:13:10.770 align:middle line:90% with some of these startups. 00:13:10.770 --> 00:13:13.430 align:middle line:84% Though, if you look into the details of those contracts, 00:13:13.430 --> 00:13:15.130 align:middle line:84% those contracts basically say, sell us 00:13:15.130 --> 00:13:17.730 align:middle line:90% electricity at regular prices. 00:13:17.730 --> 00:13:20.450 align:middle line:84% And then those companies can go buy electricity off the grid 00:13:20.450 --> 00:13:23.010 align:middle line:84% and then resell it to Amazon or whoever 00:13:23.010 --> 00:13:25.050 align:middle line:90% and fulfill their contract. 00:13:25.050 --> 00:13:28.690 align:middle line:84% But in the meantime, they have a deal with Amazon, 00:13:28.690 --> 00:13:31.130 align:middle line:90% and they can get better funding. 00:13:31.130 --> 00:13:35.020 align:middle line:84% So we have to be careful about whether people are really 00:13:35.020 --> 00:13:36.660 align:middle line:90% interested in paying more. 00:13:36.660 --> 00:13:39.220 align:middle line:84% But maybe there will be applications or people 00:13:39.220 --> 00:13:40.820 align:middle line:90% will pay more than the grid. 00:13:40.820 --> 00:13:44.880 align:middle line:84% OK, so beautiful renderings, probably very expensive, 00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:46.140 align:middle line:90% not [INAUDIBLE]. 00:13:46.140 --> 00:13:49.380 align:middle line:84% Here's another concept, if you can see it-- not really. 00:13:49.380 --> 00:13:51.060 align:middle line:90% This is from Deep Fission. 00:13:51.060 --> 00:13:53.700 align:middle line:84% They've gotten even smaller, from 77 00:13:53.700 --> 00:13:55.840 align:middle line:84% for NuScale to 20 for the previous one. 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:56.940 align:middle line:90% This is 15. 00:13:56.940 --> 00:13:59.080 align:middle line:84% They have thin lines here that you can't see. 00:13:59.080 --> 00:14:02.780 align:middle line:84% They're buried, these reactors, one mile underground. 00:14:02.780 --> 00:14:04.940 align:middle line:84% So there's another 50% cost increase 00:14:04.940 --> 00:14:07.540 align:middle line:90% because of the smaller size. 00:14:07.540 --> 00:14:10.500 align:middle line:84% Here, the hope is they can get rid of the containment 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:13.140 align:middle line:90% by burying it underground. 00:14:13.140 --> 00:14:16.597 align:middle line:84% Some problems with this-- one is that it's not actually isolated 00:14:16.597 --> 00:14:18.180 align:middle line:84% unless you backfill this whole surface 00:14:18.180 --> 00:14:20.180 align:middle line:84% and trap your reactor at the bottom of the hole, 00:14:20.180 --> 00:14:22.540 align:middle line:90% which they don't plan to do. 00:14:22.540 --> 00:14:24.580 align:middle line:84% Second is that drilling holes in the ground 00:14:24.580 --> 00:14:27.000 align:middle line:84% is much more complicated than you might know. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:31.060 align:middle line:84% So here's a photograph of a deep borehole. 00:14:31.060 --> 00:14:34.030 align:middle line:84% And you can see these weird ovals. 00:14:34.030 --> 00:14:39.030 align:middle line:84% And this happens because there's residual stress in the rock. 00:14:39.030 --> 00:14:42.810 align:middle line:84% And as you relieve the stress by creating a hole, 00:14:42.810 --> 00:14:45.390 align:middle line:84% the hole distorts and makes these shapes 00:14:45.390 --> 00:14:47.630 align:middle line:84% in the hole that's not a straight hole. 00:14:47.630 --> 00:14:49.070 align:middle line:90% And it is not round. 00:14:49.070 --> 00:14:51.350 align:middle line:84% And if you think you can drop a nice reactor down this 00:14:51.350 --> 00:14:54.130 align:middle line:84% without problems, you've got another thing coming. 00:14:54.130 --> 00:14:58.710 align:middle line:90% 00:14:58.710 --> 00:15:00.470 align:middle line:84% Let's also hope the reactors never 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:01.750 align:middle line:90% need servicing or anything. 00:15:01.750 --> 00:15:04.690 align:middle line:84% Because getting them back up-- anyway, 00:15:04.690 --> 00:15:06.010 align:middle line:90% it's kind of a crazy idea. 00:15:06.010 --> 00:15:10.030 align:middle line:84% But you can see how it appeals to the better safety crowd. 00:15:10.030 --> 00:15:13.550 align:middle line:84% But it's probably not going in the cheap direction. 00:15:13.550 --> 00:15:16.230 align:middle line:84% All right, let's get to some really different technologies, 00:15:16.230 --> 00:15:17.190 align:middle line:90% instead. 00:15:17.190 --> 00:15:20.290 align:middle line:90% So this is maybe more promising. 00:15:20.290 --> 00:15:21.870 align:middle line:90% This was UltraSafe. 00:15:21.870 --> 00:15:24.810 align:middle line:84% They were an interesting company. 00:15:24.810 --> 00:15:26.830 align:middle line:84% They wanted to do high-temperature gas graphite 00:15:26.830 --> 00:15:27.770 align:middle line:90% reactors. 00:15:27.770 --> 00:15:30.960 align:middle line:84% So these are reactors where the fuel is enclosed 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:33.840 align:middle line:84% in, TRISO fuel, little grains of sand 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:36.720 align:middle line:84% enclosed in some kind of graphite matrix 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:38.160 align:middle line:90% that does the moderation. 00:15:38.160 --> 00:15:40.460 align:middle line:84% And that is, then, cooled with helium, 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:43.960 align:middle line:90% which is nonreactive gas. 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:47.720 align:middle line:84% In their concept, each reactor produced 15mw. 00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:51.420 align:middle line:84% They claimed, it was obviously a size of a shipping container. 00:15:51.420 --> 00:15:55.863 align:middle line:84% But you'll see in a moment, that's not really realistic. 00:15:55.863 --> 00:15:57.280 align:middle line:84% They had a great team of engineers 00:15:57.280 --> 00:15:59.680 align:middle line:84% doing some good research, some good R&D. 00:15:59.680 --> 00:16:02.040 align:middle line:84% But they couldn't manage their financing, 00:16:02.040 --> 00:16:03.920 align:middle line:90% and they went bankrupt. 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:07.600 align:middle line:84% The company went and started another company called Valor. 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:11.455 align:middle line:84% That company is doing exactly the same thing. 00:16:11.455 --> 00:16:13.080 align:middle line:84% The upside of these reactors is they're 00:16:13.080 --> 00:16:16.520 align:middle line:84% relatively straightforward and simple to design. 00:16:16.520 --> 00:16:18.740 align:middle line:90% You have hot graphite. 00:16:18.740 --> 00:16:20.300 align:middle line:90% You have gas flowing over them. 00:16:20.300 --> 00:16:23.000 align:middle line:90% There's no phase change. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.040 align:middle line:90% There's reduced complexity. 00:16:25.040 --> 00:16:29.730 align:middle line:84% Because there's no fuel to melt, you potentially 00:16:29.730 --> 00:16:31.610 align:middle line:90% don't need containment. 00:16:31.610 --> 00:16:34.590 align:middle line:84% So there's all these ideas of cost savings. 00:16:34.590 --> 00:16:38.730 align:middle line:84% And the downside is that the power density is very low. 00:16:38.730 --> 00:16:40.970 align:middle line:84% So that means you've got a lot of reactor stuff 00:16:40.970 --> 00:16:44.030 align:middle line:84% to build for very little power output. 00:16:44.030 --> 00:16:47.210 align:middle line:84% It has that effect on the economy economics. 00:16:47.210 --> 00:16:50.050 align:middle line:84% But you can turn that lemon into lemonade 00:16:50.050 --> 00:16:52.730 align:middle line:84% by pointing out, well, if the power density is low, then, 00:16:52.730 --> 00:16:54.570 align:middle line:84% if you design this right, you can 00:16:54.570 --> 00:16:58.710 align:middle line:84% make this passively cool by radiative if you have an event. 00:16:58.710 --> 00:16:59.610 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:16:59.610 --> 00:17:01.873 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So there is no fuel to melt, you mean? 00:17:01.873 --> 00:17:02.790 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Not really. 00:17:02.790 --> 00:17:07.790 align:middle line:84% So the fuel is silicon carbide coated in a graphite matrix. 00:17:07.790 --> 00:17:10.550 align:middle line:84% It can withstand very, very high temperatures. 00:17:10.550 --> 00:17:11.930 align:middle line:90% It's not a metal. 00:17:11.930 --> 00:17:16.130 align:middle line:84% So it just turns into glowing embers. 00:17:16.130 --> 00:17:20.730 align:middle line:84% And then if you design it right, you can make it radiatively cool 00:17:20.730 --> 00:17:25.450 align:middle line:84% so that you don't have a puddle of molten fuel 00:17:25.450 --> 00:17:27.579 align:middle line:90% on the bottom of your reactor. 00:17:27.579 --> 00:17:31.680 align:middle line:84% So that's kind of the whole idea behind the TRISO fuel variables. 00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:34.940 align:middle line:90% 00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:37.600 align:middle line:84% There's another variant of this called X-Energy. 00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:41.500 align:middle line:84% Actually, they're one of the better-funded entities 00:17:41.500 --> 00:17:42.320 align:middle line:90% out there. 00:17:42.320 --> 00:17:44.400 align:middle line:90% This is a pebble bed concept. 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:46.280 align:middle line:84% So the fuel is in these individual pebbles. 00:17:46.280 --> 00:17:47.680 align:middle line:84% They put them in the top reactor. 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:51.683 align:middle line:84% They fall down, and they burn up. 00:17:51.683 --> 00:17:53.100 align:middle line:84% And every pebble comes out and has 00:17:53.100 --> 00:17:56.220 align:middle line:84% to be evaluated to figure out how much is burned. 00:17:56.220 --> 00:17:57.720 align:middle line:84% And then they got to put it back in. 00:17:57.720 --> 00:17:59.580 align:middle line:84% And they toss the pebble, and they cool it 00:17:59.580 --> 00:18:01.120 align:middle line:90% with helium-- same concept. 00:18:01.120 --> 00:18:03.700 align:middle line:90% 00:18:03.700 --> 00:18:04.920 align:middle line:90% This one is prismatic. 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:07.880 align:middle line:84% So the blocks are in these large prisms. 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:10.620 align:middle line:84% So they don't recycle the pebbles. 00:18:10.620 --> 00:18:13.420 align:middle line:84% Historically, the pebble concept is technically more complicated 00:18:13.420 --> 00:18:15.560 align:middle line:84% and got problems because it has abrasion. 00:18:15.560 --> 00:18:17.300 align:middle line:84% These pebbles rub against each other. 00:18:17.300 --> 00:18:20.300 align:middle line:84% And there's a whole lot of issues associated with sorting 00:18:20.300 --> 00:18:22.260 align:middle line:90% through 30,000 pebbles. 00:18:22.260 --> 00:18:24.750 align:middle line:90% But why did I say historically? 00:18:24.750 --> 00:18:27.750 align:middle line:84% I said historically, because we've done this before. 00:18:27.750 --> 00:18:30.150 align:middle line:84% These are not new concepts, these high-temperature gas 00:18:30.150 --> 00:18:31.110 align:middle line:90% reactors. 00:18:31.110 --> 00:18:32.690 align:middle line:90% Here are the new ideas. 00:18:32.690 --> 00:18:35.450 align:middle line:84% But actually, we've done all of these already. 00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:39.350 align:middle line:84% And we have some operating experience. 00:18:39.350 --> 00:18:41.070 align:middle line:84% The first thing to note by looking 00:18:41.070 --> 00:18:44.870 align:middle line:84% at these historical reactors is that most of them 00:18:44.870 --> 00:18:50.870 align:middle line:84% have operated kind of on the scale of one to two decades. 00:18:50.870 --> 00:18:53.870 align:middle line:84% You need to get these things up to four to six decades 00:18:53.870 --> 00:18:55.710 align:middle line:90% to make nuclear economics. 00:18:55.710 --> 00:18:58.870 align:middle line:84% So the lifetime of these reactors 00:18:58.870 --> 00:19:00.910 align:middle line:90% have not been very good. 00:19:00.910 --> 00:19:04.230 align:middle line:84% They also have really high cost per kilowatt hour 00:19:04.230 --> 00:19:09.130 align:middle line:84% if you adjust them on a capacity factor basis. 00:19:09.130 --> 00:19:13.110 align:middle line:84% So Fort Saint Vrain is the largest of these. 00:19:13.110 --> 00:19:18.490 align:middle line:84% It's at the top of what we would call a small reactor, 00:19:18.490 --> 00:19:19.990 align:middle line:90% a third of a full size. 00:19:19.990 --> 00:19:23.840 align:middle line:84% Prismatic, HTGR, so no pebble pedal problems. 00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:29.520 align:middle line:84% Cost was effectively $12,000 per kilowatt instead of-- 00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:34.040 align:middle line:84% this is all inflation adjusted-- instead of $7,700 per kilowatt. 00:19:34.040 --> 00:19:37.920 align:middle line:84% And the reason for that was because this reactor 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:41.360 align:middle line:84% had a lifetime capacity factor of 15%. 00:19:41.360 --> 00:19:45.760 align:middle line:84% 85% of the time, this reactor was being repaired-- 00:19:45.760 --> 00:19:48.120 align:middle line:90% just not great. 00:19:48.120 --> 00:19:51.080 align:middle line:84% The next best, most successful was AVR. 00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:53.280 align:middle line:90% This was a pebble version. 00:19:53.280 --> 00:19:55.600 align:middle line:90% It cost more money. 00:19:55.600 --> 00:19:58.580 align:middle line:84% AVR had a capacity factor of 62%. 00:19:58.580 --> 00:20:03.640 align:middle line:84% It's the highest of any HTGR reactor concepts-- 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:06.060 align:middle line:84% so, still being repaired 40% of the time. 00:20:06.060 --> 00:20:09.160 align:middle line:90% 00:20:09.160 --> 00:20:12.120 align:middle line:84% It is, today, the most strontium-contaminated facility 00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:15.360 align:middle line:84% in the world, because there were temperature excursions 00:20:15.360 --> 00:20:17.680 align:middle line:84% associated with the unpredictable cooling 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:19.760 align:middle line:90% of the pebbles. 00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:22.330 align:middle line:84% And so we would expect that problem is still 00:20:22.330 --> 00:20:24.163 align:middle line:90% not really a solved problem. 00:20:24.163 --> 00:20:25.330 align:middle line:90% There are some weird issues. 00:20:25.330 --> 00:20:28.410 align:middle line:84% But helium is not a great conductor. 00:20:28.410 --> 00:20:30.550 align:middle line:84% Density also goes down as it gets hotter. 00:20:30.550 --> 00:20:33.250 align:middle line:84% So its cooling capacity goes down and down as it 00:20:33.250 --> 00:20:35.830 align:middle line:84% gets hotter, which means, once the hot spot forms, 00:20:35.830 --> 00:20:38.610 align:middle line:90% it becomes problematic. 00:20:38.610 --> 00:20:41.970 align:middle line:84% So this issue led to fission products 00:20:41.970 --> 00:20:45.730 align:middle line:84% diffusing out of the fuel and contaminating-- 00:20:45.730 --> 00:20:47.610 align:middle line:90% coating the exterior fuel. 00:20:47.610 --> 00:20:49.630 align:middle line:84% Pebbles rubbed against each other, 00:20:49.630 --> 00:20:52.850 align:middle line:84% caused abrasion, caused very fine soot, dust. 00:20:52.850 --> 00:20:56.610 align:middle line:84% And the fission products adsorbed on the dust 00:20:56.610 --> 00:21:00.910 align:middle line:84% and then coated the entire reactor, all the cooling fans, 00:21:00.910 --> 00:21:02.270 align:middle line:90% all the heat exchangers. 00:21:02.270 --> 00:21:03.810 align:middle line:90% This thing is just a mess. 00:21:03.810 --> 00:21:06.330 align:middle line:84% It's just sitting there, because it's too 00:21:06.330 --> 00:21:12.610 align:middle line:90% radioactive to disassemble-- 00:21:12.610 --> 00:21:16.130 align:middle line:90% price, not great. 00:21:16.130 --> 00:21:18.210 align:middle line:90% China has a new one, HT-10. 00:21:18.210 --> 00:21:19.750 align:middle line:90% And they're bigger. 00:21:19.750 --> 00:21:21.493 align:middle line:90% This is the prototype 1. 00:21:21.493 --> 00:21:22.410 align:middle line:90% Look at the prototype. 00:21:22.410 --> 00:21:26.030 align:middle line:84% Price was very, very, very expensive. 00:21:26.030 --> 00:21:29.270 align:middle line:84% They have a one that they're marketing now called HTRPM. 00:21:29.270 --> 00:21:34.310 align:middle line:84% The capacity factor for that reactor, I believe, is now 16%. 00:21:34.310 --> 00:21:36.010 align:middle line:84% They're having the same problems. 00:21:36.010 --> 00:21:38.310 align:middle line:90% Nothing has changed. 00:21:38.310 --> 00:21:43.390 align:middle line:84% So when Valor and UltraSafe and X-Energy come to the scene, 00:21:43.390 --> 00:21:46.530 align:middle line:84% I think we have to view these claims with some skepticism. 00:21:46.530 --> 00:21:49.350 align:middle line:84% We've been here before in the 1960s. 00:21:49.350 --> 00:21:52.430 align:middle line:84% Smart people worked on these things 00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:56.590 align:middle line:84% and abandoned them and went back to PWRs for a reason. 00:21:56.590 --> 00:22:00.008 align:middle line:90% And lots of claims will be made. 00:22:00.008 --> 00:22:02.550 align:middle line:84% But many of the people who knew what was really going on with 00:22:02.550 --> 00:22:05.130 align:middle line:84% these reactors back in the '60s, they're gone now. 00:22:05.130 --> 00:22:07.750 align:middle line:84% They're not around to criticize these proposals. 00:22:07.750 --> 00:22:14.510 align:middle line:84% So we'll see if these things actually work as promised-- 00:22:14.510 --> 00:22:18.120 align:middle line:84% a lot of techno optimism but some naivete. 00:22:18.120 --> 00:22:20.280 align:middle line:84% So the next idea is, say, well, let's get rid 00:22:20.280 --> 00:22:25.960 align:middle line:84% of the helium and use something to improve the power density. 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:30.400 align:middle line:84% And the idea of this is to replace that helium coolant 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:34.600 align:middle line:84% with molten salt. So the traditional molten salt 00:22:34.600 --> 00:22:36.260 align:middle line:90% is called FLiBe. 00:22:36.260 --> 00:22:38.800 align:middle line:90% 00:22:38.800 --> 00:22:44.520 align:middle line:84% It stands for fluorine lithium beryllium. 00:22:44.520 --> 00:22:48.360 align:middle line:84% Now lithium is a great neutron absorber. 00:22:48.360 --> 00:22:51.540 align:middle line:84% And it makes tritium, which is hydrogen, 00:22:51.540 --> 00:22:54.800 align:middle line:84% which then permeates into metals and creates problems. 00:22:54.800 --> 00:22:56.780 align:middle line:84% So you don't want that hydrogen production. 00:22:56.780 --> 00:22:58.760 align:middle line:84% So to avoid it, you have isotopically 00:22:58.760 --> 00:23:06.720 align:middle line:84% modify this lithium enrichment to 99.998%, which 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:07.780 align:middle line:90% has never been done. 00:23:07.780 --> 00:23:10.440 align:middle line:90% 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:14.120 align:middle line:84% You have to purify it to this level. 00:23:14.120 --> 00:23:18.490 align:middle line:90% So this is one problem. 00:23:18.490 --> 00:23:20.930 align:middle line:84% Another problem with FLiBe is it turns out 00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:24.850 align:middle line:84% that any other chemical contaminants in the salt 00:23:24.850 --> 00:23:28.290 align:middle line:90% make the salt super corrosive. 00:23:28.290 --> 00:23:29.790 align:middle line:90% So it just eats away your metal. 00:23:29.790 --> 00:23:33.503 align:middle line:84% If you remember the Rickover memo, there are paper reactors, 00:23:33.503 --> 00:23:34.670 align:middle line:90% and there are real reactors. 00:23:34.670 --> 00:23:37.770 align:middle line:84% And he specifically says in his memo, in paper reactors, 00:23:37.770 --> 00:23:39.730 align:middle line:90% there's no corrosion. 00:23:39.730 --> 00:23:44.810 align:middle line:84% Yeah, this is a major corrosion issue that has yet to be solved. 00:23:44.810 --> 00:23:47.810 align:middle line:84% There are other issues with this. 00:23:47.810 --> 00:23:50.490 align:middle line:84% They plan to build the vessel for the Kairos reactor out 00:23:50.490 --> 00:23:52.010 align:middle line:90% of 316H. 00:23:52.010 --> 00:23:54.130 align:middle line:90% It's a kind of stainless steel. 00:23:54.130 --> 00:23:56.570 align:middle line:84% Given the temperatures at which this reactor 00:23:56.570 --> 00:23:58.570 align:middle line:84% is supposed to operate, this vessel 00:23:58.570 --> 00:24:01.650 align:middle line:90% will last about eight years. 00:24:01.650 --> 00:24:06.630 align:middle line:84% So we were hoping for a 40-year half lifetime, 00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:09.010 align:middle line:84% maybe a 60-year lifetime on a reactor. 00:24:09.010 --> 00:24:10.630 align:middle line:90% Eight years is just terrible. 00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:13.940 align:middle line:84% That means this thing better be damn cheap. 00:24:13.940 --> 00:24:18.500 align:middle line:84% Now the upside is that you get four times the power density. 00:24:18.500 --> 00:24:28.820 align:middle line:84% So you go from 5mw/m, our HTGR, into 10 to 20mw/m by using this 00:24:28.820 --> 00:24:29.940 align:middle line:90% better coolant. 00:24:29.940 --> 00:24:34.740 align:middle line:90% So that does shrink the reactor. 00:24:34.740 --> 00:24:41.520 align:middle line:84% If you assume just the economics of scale as, say, 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:46.020 align:middle line:84% the radius squared, then you can take 00:24:46.020 --> 00:24:51.400 align:middle line:84% the cube root of this, a factor of 4, and then square it. 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:52.900 align:middle line:84% And you get an estimate of something 00:24:52.900 --> 00:24:59.672 align:middle line:84% like 65% of the hardware cost of an HTGR for this reactor. 00:24:59.672 --> 00:25:01.380 align:middle line:84% But that's immediately offset by the fact 00:25:01.380 --> 00:25:05.108 align:middle line:84% that this thing has to be replaced so frequently. 00:25:05.108 --> 00:25:06.900 align:middle line:84% And you have to deal with all the corrosion 00:25:06.900 --> 00:25:08.300 align:middle line:90% issues which are not solved. 00:25:08.300 --> 00:25:12.230 align:middle line:84% This project has been funded by the father of the founder CEO 00:25:12.230 --> 00:25:14.270 align:middle line:90% who's running out of patience. 00:25:14.270 --> 00:25:17.110 align:middle line:90% We'll see where this goes. 00:25:17.110 --> 00:25:19.910 align:middle line:84% And these ideas have been around for a long time 00:25:19.910 --> 00:25:22.270 align:middle line:90% and haven't gone very far. 00:25:22.270 --> 00:25:27.310 align:middle line:84% But I think, all of this aside, the real problem is this. 00:25:27.310 --> 00:25:30.570 align:middle line:84% Compare the power density to that of a water reactor. 00:25:30.570 --> 00:25:33.490 align:middle line:90% 00:25:33.490 --> 00:25:39.430 align:middle line:84% A water reactor is a factor of 5 to 10 better. 00:25:39.430 --> 00:25:42.550 align:middle line:90% And water is cheap. 00:25:42.550 --> 00:25:45.050 align:middle line:84% And we know how to deal with water corrosion issues. 00:25:45.050 --> 00:25:50.070 align:middle line:84% So why do we really want to do this? 00:25:50.070 --> 00:25:53.090 align:middle line:84% These ideas, these salt-cooled reactors have never been built. 00:25:53.090 --> 00:25:57.350 align:middle line:84% So I can't show you actual numbers of what they have cost. 00:25:57.350 --> 00:26:02.150 align:middle line:84% But the idea has been around for 23 years. 00:26:02.150 --> 00:26:07.270 align:middle line:84% And so far, there are many, many unsolved problems. 00:26:07.270 --> 00:26:13.160 align:middle line:84% So I would say, TBD but not promising. 00:26:13.160 --> 00:26:14.160 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:16.240 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Why do you think it's so much bigger, 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:17.257 align:middle line:90% the power density? 00:26:17.257 --> 00:26:19.340 align:middle line:84% It is because the overall power is so much bigger, 00:26:19.340 --> 00:26:23.073 align:middle line:84% and then the amount of heat transfer area you need is just-- 00:26:23.073 --> 00:26:23.740 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: What? 00:26:23.740 --> 00:26:24.520 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] power density. 00:26:24.520 --> 00:26:26.600 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: So why-- oh, yeah, because well, just 00:26:26.600 --> 00:26:28.420 align:middle line:90% because the viscosity. 00:26:28.420 --> 00:26:29.312 align:middle line:90% You can run water. 00:26:29.312 --> 00:26:30.020 align:middle line:90% It has excellent. 00:26:30.020 --> 00:26:35.060 align:middle line:84% You can boil, huge heat transfer from phase change. 00:26:35.060 --> 00:26:43.520 align:middle line:84% There's a lot-- water is fantastic [INAUDIBLE] salt. 00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:51.280 align:middle line:84% So if this idea of dealing with molten salt reactors 00:26:51.280 --> 00:26:55.360 align:middle line:84% is not crazy enough for you, you can get rid of the fuel 00:26:55.360 --> 00:26:56.380 align:middle line:90% altogether. 00:26:56.380 --> 00:26:59.720 align:middle line:84% So in this concept, the fuel is still pebbles 00:26:59.720 --> 00:27:01.060 align:middle line:90% and instituted at the bottom. 00:27:01.060 --> 00:27:06.840 align:middle line:84% And it flowed up in through the dense molten salt. 00:27:06.840 --> 00:27:08.650 align:middle line:84% And you hope this thing doesn't freeze. 00:27:08.650 --> 00:27:10.770 align:middle line:84% You have to cool off the reaction. 00:27:10.770 --> 00:27:15.570 align:middle line:84% You could just dissolve the uranium in the fuel. 00:27:15.570 --> 00:27:18.530 align:middle line:84% This is called a molten salt reactor, 00:27:18.530 --> 00:27:21.810 align:middle line:90% where the fuel is liquid. 00:27:21.810 --> 00:27:23.212 align:middle line:90% There are lots of these ideas. 00:27:23.212 --> 00:27:24.670 align:middle line:84% So one of these was actually built. 00:27:24.670 --> 00:27:26.045 align:middle line:84% There's lots of these ideas now-- 00:27:26.045 --> 00:27:30.570 align:middle line:84% Terrapower, Terrestrial, Copenhagen, Naarea, Elysium, 00:27:30.570 --> 00:27:31.890 align:middle line:90% Natura. 00:27:31.890 --> 00:27:34.890 align:middle line:84% A bunch of companies are interested in doing this. 00:27:34.890 --> 00:27:37.450 align:middle line:84% It seems to me a little bit like, the crazier and less 00:27:37.450 --> 00:27:41.210 align:middle line:84% developed the idea, the more companies are interested in it. 00:27:41.210 --> 00:27:44.530 align:middle line:84% It may have had something to do with the state of funding. 00:27:44.530 --> 00:27:47.690 align:middle line:84% It's hard to do due diligence on things that haven't been done. 00:27:47.690 --> 00:27:49.810 align:middle line:84% The basic problem is that, now, all 00:27:49.810 --> 00:27:52.050 align:middle line:84% your fission products are not potentially 00:27:52.050 --> 00:27:53.190 align:middle line:90% leaching out of the fuel. 00:27:53.190 --> 00:27:54.210 align:middle line:90% They're in the fuel. 00:27:54.210 --> 00:27:57.050 align:middle line:84% And they're coating the inside of the reactor. 00:27:57.050 --> 00:28:01.530 align:middle line:84% The noble metals plate out against all surfaces and pumps 00:28:01.530 --> 00:28:02.030 align:middle line:90% and so on. 00:28:02.030 --> 00:28:05.290 align:middle line:84% So if you want to replace a pump or do some maintenance, 00:28:05.290 --> 00:28:07.740 align:middle line:84% you basically need to go in there with full radiation 00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:12.540 align:middle line:84% protection, because the whole reactor is radioactive. 00:28:12.540 --> 00:28:15.740 align:middle line:84% All the fission products that don't dissolve 00:28:15.740 --> 00:28:21.860 align:middle line:84% in the salt, things like iodine and radio krypton, 00:28:21.860 --> 00:28:22.742 align:middle line:90% they bubble out. 00:28:22.742 --> 00:28:24.700 align:middle line:84% And then you have to have separate systems that 00:28:24.700 --> 00:28:27.620 align:middle line:84% process all of these gases, which have, 00:28:27.620 --> 00:28:30.740 align:middle line:84% it turns out, to be quite a lot of heat in the out 00:28:30.740 --> 00:28:32.600 align:middle line:90% gas that has to be managed. 00:28:32.600 --> 00:28:36.380 align:middle line:84% So your safety actually becomes dominated by your ability 00:28:36.380 --> 00:28:40.820 align:middle line:84% to control these gases that come off the reactor, 00:28:40.820 --> 00:28:44.700 align:middle line:84% cool them and store them safely, as opposed to the reactor 00:28:44.700 --> 00:28:45.940 align:middle line:90% itself. 00:28:45.940 --> 00:28:47.820 align:middle line:90% That tends to be the problem. 00:28:47.820 --> 00:28:49.060 align:middle line:90% Maintenance is hard. 00:28:49.060 --> 00:28:50.860 align:middle line:90% These things are a mess. 00:28:50.860 --> 00:28:54.940 align:middle line:84% Just to give you an example of what's been done, 00:28:54.940 --> 00:28:56.600 align:middle line:90% MSRE is the most successful. 00:28:56.600 --> 00:28:59.180 align:middle line:84% It was a tiny 7 megawatt reactor. 00:28:59.180 --> 00:29:02.180 align:middle line:90% It operated 30% capacity. 00:29:02.180 --> 00:29:03.990 align:middle line:90% Here's the price. 00:29:03.990 --> 00:29:08.390 align:middle line:84% Here's the price with its capacity correction, $72,000. 00:29:08.390 --> 00:29:10.870 align:middle line:90% It's got to beat $7,000. 00:29:10.870 --> 00:29:13.070 align:middle line:90% These things are not cheap. 00:29:13.070 --> 00:29:16.210 align:middle line:84% Here's a small mini one, 2.5 megawatts thermal. 00:29:16.210 --> 00:29:20.390 align:middle line:84% It operated for 38 hours over nine days. 00:29:20.390 --> 00:29:23.550 align:middle line:84% And here's one that is supposedly built in China 00:29:23.550 --> 00:29:25.190 align:middle line:90% but has never run. 00:29:25.190 --> 00:29:31.470 align:middle line:84% And they claim it only costs $1,000 to build. 00:29:31.470 --> 00:29:34.470 align:middle line:90% We'll see. 00:29:34.470 --> 00:29:36.870 align:middle line:84% It's in the middle of the desert. 00:29:36.870 --> 00:29:41.150 align:middle line:84% I guess they're not hoping for success. 00:29:41.150 --> 00:29:45.470 align:middle line:84% So the point is that, all of what 00:29:45.470 --> 00:29:51.542 align:middle line:84% they call gen IV ideas move away from the economics of the PWR. 00:29:51.542 --> 00:29:53.750 align:middle line:84% And there's a reason why these ideas have been around 00:29:53.750 --> 00:29:56.070 align:middle line:84% for decades and decades and decades 00:29:56.070 --> 00:29:57.870 align:middle line:84% and have never really been built. 00:29:57.870 --> 00:30:00.510 align:middle line:84% They're being pursued today because there's 00:30:00.510 --> 00:30:03.680 align:middle line:84% a lot of money being dumped into the nuclear field. 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:07.800 align:middle line:84% And people are looking for ideas that are interesting to work on. 00:30:07.800 --> 00:30:12.160 align:middle line:84% But when we start looking from the perspective of reliability, 00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:15.720 align:middle line:84% of cost efficiency, they all kind 00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:17.800 align:middle line:90% move in the wrong direction. 00:30:17.800 --> 00:30:21.800 align:middle line:84% Now there are some really novel ideas, like the nuclear battery 00:30:21.800 --> 00:30:22.380 align:middle line:90% world. 00:30:22.380 --> 00:30:25.360 align:middle line:84% So this is something called the eVinci reactor that has 00:30:25.360 --> 00:30:27.120 align:middle line:90% been proposed by Westinghouse. 00:30:27.120 --> 00:30:29.620 align:middle line:84% It is supposed to be a TRISO fuel reactor. 00:30:29.620 --> 00:30:32.340 align:middle line:84% That was the little, tiny grains of sand reactor that don't melt. 00:30:32.340 --> 00:30:33.400 align:middle line:90% That's good. 00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:37.720 align:middle line:84% Graphite moderated-- just like the HTGRs. 00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:39.840 align:middle line:84% But it's supposed to get the heat out, 00:30:39.840 --> 00:30:42.080 align:middle line:84% instead of by flowing helium through it, 00:30:42.080 --> 00:30:44.920 align:middle line:84% instead, it's supposed to have heat pipes. 00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:47.920 align:middle line:84% There are lots of ideas in this direction, where 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:51.800 align:middle line:84% you have really small, totally different approach to-- instead 00:30:51.800 --> 00:30:56.120 align:middle line:84% of a pressure vessel with fuel in it and coolant, 00:30:56.120 --> 00:31:00.690 align:middle line:84% there are lots of other ideas of heat pipes and so on, batteries. 00:31:00.690 --> 00:31:04.210 align:middle line:84% And it's difficult to know what these things will cost. 00:31:04.210 --> 00:31:10.970 align:middle line:84% So now I want to look at some of these smaller battery ideas 00:31:10.970 --> 00:31:18.290 align:middle line:84% and try to estimate what have been said about these things. 00:31:18.290 --> 00:31:23.170 align:middle line:84% So this is just to remind you, that's our goal, $131 00:31:23.170 --> 00:31:26.170 align:middle line:90% per megawatt hour at the top. 00:31:26.170 --> 00:31:37.130 align:middle line:84% And here's the cost predictions that have been published. 00:31:37.130 --> 00:31:39.650 align:middle line:90% 00:31:39.650 --> 00:31:44.170 align:middle line:84% So I think there might be one more now 00:31:44.170 --> 00:31:45.810 align:middle line:90% since I made this chart. 00:31:45.810 --> 00:31:47.590 align:middle line:84% But at the time I made this chart, 00:31:47.590 --> 00:31:51.090 align:middle line:84% these were all the cost predictions. 00:31:51.090 --> 00:31:58.660 align:middle line:84% So these are for abstract, battery-style reactors that 00:31:58.660 --> 00:32:01.420 align:middle line:90% have yet to be fully designed. 00:32:01.420 --> 00:32:08.580 align:middle line:84% They are cost per unit energy, dollars per megawatt hour. 00:32:08.580 --> 00:32:11.083 align:middle line:84% And the yellow is-- they're first of a kind. 00:32:11.083 --> 00:32:12.500 align:middle line:84% Cost is what they predict it would 00:32:12.500 --> 00:32:14.580 align:middle line:90% cost to build a single reactor. 00:32:14.580 --> 00:32:17.420 align:middle line:84% And the purple ones are n-th of a kind, which say, 00:32:17.420 --> 00:32:18.840 align:middle line:84% once they build a lot of reactors. 00:32:18.840 --> 00:32:23.100 align:middle line:84% But they never specify how many is a lot. 00:32:23.100 --> 00:32:25.540 align:middle line:84% And we'll figure out how some of these numbers 00:32:25.540 --> 00:32:26.880 align:middle line:90% are being generated. 00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:30.100 align:middle line:90% 00:32:30.100 --> 00:32:35.020 align:middle line:84% All of these are assuming the reactor 00:32:35.020 --> 00:32:41.420 align:middle line:84% is running basically 100% of the time, 95% of the time. 00:32:41.420 --> 00:32:45.180 align:middle line:84% The reactor is assumed not to be load following. 00:32:45.180 --> 00:32:49.540 align:middle line:84% So if I asked you, what would you do to these prices 00:32:49.540 --> 00:32:54.460 align:middle line:84% if these reactors had to load follow, 00:32:54.460 --> 00:32:59.654 align:middle line:84% off the top of your head, what would you say? 00:32:59.654 --> 00:33:01.870 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 00:33:01.870 --> 00:33:02.822 align:middle line:90% It would go up. 00:33:02.822 --> 00:33:03.530 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Go up. 00:33:03.530 --> 00:33:04.970 align:middle line:90% But can you estimate how much? 00:33:04.970 --> 00:33:05.990 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Oof. 00:33:05.990 --> 00:33:08.150 align:middle line:84% I do not feel qualified to estimate that-- 00:33:08.150 --> 00:33:10.310 align:middle line:90% 3x? 00:33:10.310 --> 00:33:12.590 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Not 3x. 00:33:12.590 --> 00:33:16.590 align:middle line:84% Does anyone remember what a demand curve looks like? 00:33:16.590 --> 00:33:17.930 align:middle line:90% Here's the demand curve for you. 00:33:17.930 --> 00:33:22.430 align:middle line:90% 00:33:22.430 --> 00:33:23.890 align:middle line:90% Oh, here's how I would do it. 00:33:23.890 --> 00:33:27.310 align:middle line:90% I would say, here's the demand. 00:33:27.310 --> 00:33:30.110 align:middle line:90% Peak demand is 80,000. 00:33:30.110 --> 00:33:32.710 align:middle line:84% About half of it is on all the time. 00:33:32.710 --> 00:33:37.990 align:middle line:84% And the other half is on something like 40% of the time. 00:33:37.990 --> 00:33:42.590 align:middle line:84% So I would say this would be, like, 0.2 of the total. 00:33:42.590 --> 00:33:46.190 align:middle line:90% And this would be 0.5-- so 0.7-- 00:33:46.190 --> 00:33:50.870 align:middle line:84% so cost divided by 0.7, 70% capacity factor, 00:33:50.870 --> 00:33:52.710 align:middle line:90% something like that. 00:33:52.710 --> 00:33:56.420 align:middle line:84% 70% capacity factor would be 1.4 times. 00:33:56.420 --> 00:33:58.580 align:middle line:90% 1 divided by 0.71-- 00:33:58.580 --> 00:33:59.480 align:middle line:90% 1.4 times. 00:33:59.480 --> 00:34:01.680 align:middle line:84% So I would look at these numbers. 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:05.520 align:middle line:84% And I would multiply by 1.4 my head 00:34:05.520 --> 00:34:12.239 align:middle line:84% if I wanted to do a full grid of small nuclear batteries 00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:15.400 align:middle line:84% that had to do all the load following. 00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:17.639 align:middle line:84% This is a full grid of wind and solar 00:34:17.639 --> 00:34:20.080 align:middle line:84% that has to do all the load following. 00:34:20.080 --> 00:34:23.480 align:middle line:84% So now we're doing an apples to apples comparison 00:34:23.480 --> 00:34:28.864 align:middle line:84% if we compare this number to this times 1.4. 00:34:28.864 --> 00:34:30.239 align:middle line:84% Does that make sense to everyone? 00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:32.400 align:middle line:90% Yes? 00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:34.320 align:middle line:84% All right, I just want to make sure we're 00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:36.239 align:middle line:90% making a fair comparison here. 00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:40.320 align:middle line:84% All right, so obviously, there's a lot of variability here. 00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:42.280 align:middle line:84% So let's just go through these really quickly 00:34:42.280 --> 00:34:47.480 align:middle line:84% so you can see what has been said about these batteries. 00:34:47.480 --> 00:34:50.719 align:middle line:84% So first of all, CAREM is not actually a battery. 00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:55.210 align:middle line:90% This is a 25 megawatt reactor. 00:34:55.210 --> 00:34:56.469 align:middle line:90% It is not factory made. 00:34:56.469 --> 00:34:58.130 align:middle line:90% It's a traditional PWR. 00:34:58.130 --> 00:35:00.330 align:middle line:90% And it's just very, very small. 00:35:00.330 --> 00:35:03.850 align:middle line:84% And it's currently being built. And it's 00:35:03.850 --> 00:35:07.070 align:middle line:84% the only of these ideas being built in Brazil. 00:35:07.070 --> 00:35:09.770 align:middle line:90% 00:35:09.770 --> 00:35:12.490 align:middle line:90% Its design goes back to 1980. 00:35:12.490 --> 00:35:14.870 align:middle line:84% So it's been being built for 45 years. 00:35:14.870 --> 00:35:18.090 align:middle line:90% 00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:20.570 align:middle line:84% That's partly or largely because Brazil is not 00:35:20.570 --> 00:35:21.970 align:middle line:90% a very rich country. 00:35:21.970 --> 00:35:23.390 align:middle line:84% And they might have money for it. 00:35:23.390 --> 00:35:27.170 align:middle line:84% And then they don't have money for it and so on. 00:35:27.170 --> 00:35:31.410 align:middle line:84% According to the published historical cost data for what it 00:35:31.410 --> 00:35:35.330 align:middle line:84% actually cost, I've calculated the price of electricity from 00:35:35.330 --> 00:35:37.650 align:middle line:84% this reactor-- and you just have to trust me-- 00:35:37.650 --> 00:35:42.650 align:middle line:84% is $370 per megawatt hour based on the actual cost 00:35:42.650 --> 00:35:44.468 align:middle line:90% this reactor has cost them. 00:35:44.468 --> 00:35:46.010 align:middle line:84% But the reason I put it up here is it 00:35:46.010 --> 00:35:50.540 align:middle line:84% gives us a baseline for what a very tiny reactor has actually 00:35:50.540 --> 00:35:51.595 align:middle line:90% caused. 00:35:51.595 --> 00:35:53.220 align:middle line:84% All right, so now let's go through some 00:35:53.220 --> 00:35:54.600 align:middle line:90% of these more battery concepts. 00:35:54.600 --> 00:35:57.460 align:middle line:84% Jacopo Buongiorno in our department 00:35:57.460 --> 00:35:59.740 align:middle line:84% published the most optimistic estimate. 00:35:59.740 --> 00:36:02.120 align:middle line:84% He does not give a first of a kind cost. 00:36:02.120 --> 00:36:06.060 align:middle line:84% He gives only an n-th of a kind cost in his paper. 00:36:06.060 --> 00:36:09.580 align:middle line:84% And to design this reactor, which had never 00:36:09.580 --> 00:36:12.260 align:middle line:84% actually been designed yet at the time he published this, 00:36:12.260 --> 00:36:15.820 align:middle line:84% he decided to take the internals of the reactor 00:36:15.820 --> 00:36:18.860 align:middle line:84% and say it was basically the equivalent of a GE 90 jet 00:36:18.860 --> 00:36:23.740 align:middle line:84% airplane engine, which you could go either way. 00:36:23.740 --> 00:36:26.900 align:middle line:84% At one level, that's a high precision machine 00:36:26.900 --> 00:36:29.180 align:middle line:84% with real reliability constraints, a lot 00:36:29.180 --> 00:36:32.280 align:middle line:90% of complicated parts to make. 00:36:32.280 --> 00:36:36.620 align:middle line:84% It sounds kind of like a nuclear reactor. 00:36:36.620 --> 00:36:40.620 align:middle line:84% So you could say that it's a good concept. 00:36:40.620 --> 00:36:42.455 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, it's not a reactor. 00:36:42.455 --> 00:36:44.080 align:middle line:84% It doesn't have to deal with radiation. 00:36:44.080 --> 00:36:46.180 align:middle line:84% It doesn't have to deal with as much corrosion. 00:36:46.180 --> 00:36:50.750 align:middle line:90% So maybe it's-- who knows? 00:36:50.750 --> 00:36:54.030 align:middle line:84% Anyway, he comes up with an n-th of a kind cost that 00:36:54.030 --> 00:36:57.070 align:middle line:84% goes between-- you can see these bars are not actually 00:36:57.070 --> 00:36:57.690 align:middle line:90% error bars. 00:36:57.690 --> 00:36:59.510 align:middle line:90% They're ranges. 00:36:59.510 --> 00:37:01.450 align:middle line:84% He says the most probable is about 85, 00:37:01.450 --> 00:37:04.750 align:middle line:84% but his range goes all the way up to 355. 00:37:04.750 --> 00:37:09.070 align:middle line:84% So if we multiply by 1.4 to deal with the capacity factor 00:37:09.070 --> 00:37:13.270 align:middle line:84% correction, that goes from $120 per megawatt hour 00:37:13.270 --> 00:37:16.470 align:middle line:90% to $500 per megawatt hour. 00:37:16.470 --> 00:37:22.070 align:middle line:84% And so at the low end, you just beat out the non-optimal wind 00:37:22.070 --> 00:37:23.690 align:middle line:90% and solar grid price. 00:37:23.690 --> 00:37:26.910 align:middle line:90% 00:37:26.910 --> 00:37:31.390 align:middle line:84% NEI's numbers, Nuclear Energy Institute, 00:37:31.390 --> 00:37:33.470 align:middle line:84% they've also published estimates. 00:37:33.470 --> 00:37:35.570 align:middle line:90% This is a fantastic paper. 00:37:35.570 --> 00:37:37.670 align:middle line:90% They're not based on any design. 00:37:37.670 --> 00:37:40.310 align:middle line:84% In fact, they give absolutely no basis for their cost estimates 00:37:40.310 --> 00:37:44.590 align:middle line:84% whatsoever, except to say that they Surveyed microreactor 00:37:44.590 --> 00:37:45.710 align:middle line:90% companies. 00:37:45.710 --> 00:37:49.500 align:middle line:84% And then in appendix, they list all the microreactor companies. 00:37:49.500 --> 00:37:51.000 align:middle line:84% And they say none of these companies 00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:54.320 align:middle line:90% were consulted for this paper. 00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:59.685 align:middle line:84% So I don't know where they get their number. 00:37:59.685 --> 00:38:01.060 align:middle line:84% It seems to come out of thin air. 00:38:01.060 --> 00:38:02.480 align:middle line:90% But there's the number. 00:38:02.480 --> 00:38:05.320 align:middle line:90% They have $270 and $148. 00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:08.600 align:middle line:84% Idaho National Lab, which is our government 00:38:08.600 --> 00:38:13.880 align:middle line:84% lab that actually builds reactors, has a real design. 00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:16.880 align:middle line:84% It's not a completed design, but it's a real design. 00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:19.360 align:middle line:84% And they went and priced out their design, 00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:23.300 align:middle line:84% which they called Design A. And this is what it costs, 00:38:23.300 --> 00:38:30.440 align:middle line:84% $2,174 per megawatt hour if operated at 95% capacity. 00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:34.520 align:middle line:84% So then they say, well, what if we build a lot of these? 00:38:34.520 --> 00:38:38.280 align:middle line:84% So they came up with an n-th of a kind cost. 00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:41.280 align:middle line:84% And if you read very carefully in the paper, 00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:44.000 align:middle line:84% how did they come up with the n-th of a kind cost? 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:46.830 align:middle line:84% They run around to their colleagues and asked them, 00:38:46.830 --> 00:38:49.410 align:middle line:84% what do you think it should cost? 00:38:49.410 --> 00:38:52.210 align:middle line:84% And they took the average of that number. 00:38:52.210 --> 00:38:54.290 align:middle line:90% And that's that. 00:38:54.290 --> 00:38:58.232 align:middle line:90% So you can believe it or not. 00:38:58.232 --> 00:38:59.690 align:middle line:84% And finally, there's the Department 00:38:59.690 --> 00:39:02.050 align:middle line:90% of Defense called Project Pele. 00:39:02.050 --> 00:39:05.850 align:middle line:84% And there's actually only a single reactor here. 00:39:05.850 --> 00:39:08.890 align:middle line:84% It's really hard to know very much. 00:39:08.890 --> 00:39:11.450 align:middle line:84% Part of this reactor's uncertainty is that they say 00:39:11.450 --> 00:39:15.230 align:middle line:84% it's somewhere between 1 and 5mw, which, 00:39:15.230 --> 00:39:18.930 align:middle line:84% given the current budget, means a factor of 5 variation in a per 00:39:18.930 --> 00:39:21.050 align:middle line:90% unit energy cost. 00:39:21.050 --> 00:39:25.530 align:middle line:84% And that's why this has a huge error bar on it. 00:39:25.530 --> 00:39:31.850 align:middle line:84% Very little is known about the details of this reactor concept. 00:39:31.850 --> 00:39:37.290 align:middle line:84% So I think the key takeaway here is that no one is actually 00:39:37.290 --> 00:39:41.410 align:middle line:84% claiming that these microreactors are cheaper than 00:39:41.410 --> 00:39:49.380 align:middle line:84% conventional nuclear power, these battery-size microreactors 00:39:49.380 --> 00:39:51.660 align:middle line:90% are cheaper than-- 00:39:51.660 --> 00:39:55.040 align:middle line:84% we're putting small modular aside-- these tiny reactors, 00:39:55.040 --> 00:39:56.620 align:middle line:90% which is what these are. 00:39:56.620 --> 00:39:59.180 align:middle line:90% And that's interesting. 00:39:59.180 --> 00:40:01.060 align:middle line:84% So it really does depend on there 00:40:01.060 --> 00:40:05.700 align:middle line:84% being a market for these things that is not the grid. 00:40:05.700 --> 00:40:07.320 align:middle line:90% And those markets may exist. 00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:09.140 align:middle line:90% They may exist in heat markets. 00:40:09.140 --> 00:40:11.940 align:middle line:84% They may exist in remote locations 00:40:11.940 --> 00:40:16.020 align:middle line:84% where the grid doesn't exist, things like that. 00:40:16.020 --> 00:40:21.060 align:middle line:84% But this is they're not arguing this is the path forward 00:40:21.060 --> 00:40:25.180 align:middle line:84% to making nuclear cheap to solve the general climate change 00:40:25.180 --> 00:40:27.700 align:middle line:90% problem. 00:40:27.700 --> 00:40:29.540 align:middle line:90% So we could kind of stop there. 00:40:29.540 --> 00:40:30.260 align:middle line:90% But why? 00:40:30.260 --> 00:40:35.340 align:middle line:84% Because there's so much more to talk about. 00:40:35.340 --> 00:40:38.900 align:middle line:84% One of the issues is, I think this n-th of a kind cost 00:40:38.900 --> 00:40:42.190 align:middle line:90% methodology is kind of bad. 00:40:42.190 --> 00:40:44.190 align:middle line:84% Going around and asking your colleagues 00:40:44.190 --> 00:40:47.670 align:middle line:84% for what they think of your cost is not a good method. 00:40:47.670 --> 00:40:51.310 align:middle line:84% And I also think they're leaving some potential wins 00:40:51.310 --> 00:40:54.990 align:middle line:84% on the table when they go to n-th of a kind cost. 00:40:54.990 --> 00:41:00.110 align:middle line:84% So I want to talk a little bit more about, first, 00:41:00.110 --> 00:41:03.310 align:middle line:84% how realistic are these first-of-a-kind cost? 00:41:03.310 --> 00:41:05.310 align:middle line:84% And then let's look a little bit more 00:41:05.310 --> 00:41:07.830 align:middle line:84% at this issue of factory fabrication 00:41:07.830 --> 00:41:11.750 align:middle line:84% just to see if we can do better at figuring out what 00:41:11.750 --> 00:41:14.470 align:middle line:90% we can get for n-th of a kind. 00:41:14.470 --> 00:41:15.727 align:middle line:90% Sound good? 00:41:15.727 --> 00:41:17.810 align:middle line:84% All right, so let's just start with the beginning, 00:41:17.810 --> 00:41:20.470 align:middle line:84% which is do we believe these first-of-a-kind numbers to begin 00:41:20.470 --> 00:41:21.950 align:middle line:90% with? 00:41:21.950 --> 00:41:26.630 align:middle line:84% So generally, as nuclear reactor designs 00:41:26.630 --> 00:41:29.030 align:middle line:90% have become more mature-- 00:41:29.030 --> 00:41:31.190 align:middle line:84% remember, the ones I just showed you 00:41:31.190 --> 00:41:34.250 align:middle line:84% are as immature as they could possibly be. 00:41:34.250 --> 00:41:36.820 align:middle line:84% They're basically paper concepts. 00:41:36.820 --> 00:41:40.060 align:middle line:84% They generally, tend to get more expensive as they go up, 00:41:40.060 --> 00:41:41.060 align:middle line:90% as they get more mature. 00:41:41.060 --> 00:41:41.900 align:middle line:90% So here's NuScale. 00:41:41.900 --> 00:41:44.780 align:middle line:90% These are all in 2023 dollars. 00:41:44.780 --> 00:41:47.880 align:middle line:84% So they're all inflation adjusted. 00:41:47.880 --> 00:41:51.800 align:middle line:84% NuScale in 2007, in 2020, 2021, 2023-- and you 00:41:51.800 --> 00:41:56.760 align:middle line:84% see how the cost estimate just keeps growing 00:41:56.760 --> 00:42:00.372 align:middle line:90% as the design is filled out. 00:42:00.372 --> 00:42:02.080 align:middle line:84% They think, oh, we need this other thing, 00:42:02.080 --> 00:42:02.980 align:middle line:90% or we need that thing. 00:42:02.980 --> 00:42:04.480 align:middle line:84% Oh, this costs more than we thought. 00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:06.440 align:middle line:84% Oh, this is going to be hard to manufacture. 00:42:06.440 --> 00:42:08.860 align:middle line:90% And this is the same for Fusion. 00:42:08.860 --> 00:42:12.960 align:middle line:84% This is the exact same thing is going to happen in Fusion. 00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:14.900 align:middle line:90% So NuScale started at $5,800. 00:42:14.900 --> 00:42:19.800 align:middle line:84% And in the last three years, it has doubled and doubled, doubled 00:42:19.800 --> 00:42:21.680 align:middle line:90% and doubled. 00:42:21.680 --> 00:42:25.760 align:middle line:84% X-Energy here-- there's the initial cost. 00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:27.500 align:middle line:90% It's gone up by a factor of 4. 00:42:27.500 --> 00:42:30.870 align:middle line:84% I really wish this thing wouldn't vibrate. 00:42:30.870 --> 00:42:35.320 align:middle line:84% GE-Hitachi, this is a small BWR, same story, 00:42:35.320 --> 00:42:38.170 align:middle line:90% up by a factor of 4 1/4. 00:42:38.170 --> 00:42:41.010 align:middle line:84% So the takeaway from this is you really 00:42:41.010 --> 00:42:44.130 align:middle line:84% need to know something about how mature 00:42:44.130 --> 00:42:48.330 align:middle line:84% the design concept is when you look at these cost predictions. 00:42:48.330 --> 00:42:51.370 align:middle line:84% If you just take these numbers that are on these websites 00:42:51.370 --> 00:42:56.730 align:middle line:84% and they haven't actually done the design work, 00:42:56.730 --> 00:42:58.770 align:middle line:84% you can't take that as the final cost. 00:42:58.770 --> 00:43:01.210 align:middle line:84% But I want to give you a rule of thumb 00:43:01.210 --> 00:43:03.810 align:middle line:84% that you can use to apply so that you 00:43:03.810 --> 00:43:05.890 align:middle line:90% can be smart about this. 00:43:05.890 --> 00:43:09.570 align:middle line:84% And the rule of thumb is going to be based on the AP1000. 00:43:09.570 --> 00:43:17.090 align:middle line:84% So the original design was set to cost around $3,300 per 00:43:17.090 --> 00:43:18.890 align:middle line:90% kilowatt of capacity. 00:43:18.890 --> 00:43:25.690 align:middle line:84% And the completed one cost $20,000 per kilowatt 00:43:25.690 --> 00:43:26.230 align:middle line:90% of capacity. 00:43:26.230 --> 00:43:31.190 align:middle line:84% Remember, they now claim they can build it for $7,700. 00:43:31.190 --> 00:43:34.940 align:middle line:84% But the one we actually built costs that much. 00:43:34.940 --> 00:43:38.820 align:middle line:84% So the lesson is that, going from the early days 00:43:38.820 --> 00:43:44.660 align:middle line:84% to the start of construction, we saw the price triple. 00:43:44.660 --> 00:43:48.980 align:middle line:84% And then construction-related issues doubled the price. 00:43:48.980 --> 00:43:51.260 align:middle line:84% And then whether or not this is something 00:43:51.260 --> 00:43:54.820 align:middle line:84% we have to live with forever or not is what people argue about. 00:43:54.820 --> 00:44:01.900 align:middle line:84% So the DOE number is basically this number with some cost 00:44:01.900 --> 00:44:04.780 align:middle line:90% reduction from learning in it-- 00:44:04.780 --> 00:44:08.480 align:middle line:84% basically, what the $7,700 per kilowatt hour is. 00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:11.260 align:middle line:90% 00:44:11.260 --> 00:44:16.180 align:middle line:84% So you might say, well, maybe AP1000, 00:44:16.180 --> 00:44:18.460 align:middle line:84% maybe this cost escalation is a one-off. 00:44:18.460 --> 00:44:21.340 align:middle line:90% 00:44:21.340 --> 00:44:22.520 align:middle line:90% Probably not. 00:44:22.520 --> 00:44:24.300 align:middle line:90% And I'll tell you why. 00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:28.220 align:middle line:84% The Congressional Budget Office has done an evaluation 00:44:28.220 --> 00:44:31.900 align:middle line:90% of 75 nuclear plants in the US. 00:44:31.900 --> 00:44:36.190 align:middle line:84% And on average, they find that the finished reactor 00:44:36.190 --> 00:44:41.830 align:middle line:84% costs 207% more than the original reactor, 00:44:41.830 --> 00:44:45.870 align:middle line:84% according to their survey of 75 reactor builds. 00:44:45.870 --> 00:44:49.590 align:middle line:84% So I would argue that this construction-based cost 00:44:49.590 --> 00:44:51.590 align:middle line:90% escalation is not a fluke. 00:44:51.590 --> 00:44:54.350 align:middle line:84% But many people argue that we can somehow 00:44:54.350 --> 00:44:57.170 align:middle line:84% get past it if we just start building a lot of reactors. 00:44:57.170 --> 00:44:59.710 align:middle line:90% 00:44:59.710 --> 00:45:02.570 align:middle line:84% If we were to apply the same rule to NuScale, 00:45:02.570 --> 00:45:06.110 align:middle line:84% then we would expect this $21,000 number to eventually 00:45:06.110 --> 00:45:12.950 align:middle line:84% become $64,000, which would just be crazy. 00:45:12.950 --> 00:45:16.250 align:middle line:84% So it's just something to bear in mind. 00:45:16.250 --> 00:45:19.990 align:middle line:84% I guess I would say, bottom line, expect a factor of 2 to 3 00:45:19.990 --> 00:45:22.910 align:middle line:84% between the finished design and the finished construction 00:45:22.910 --> 00:45:29.230 align:middle line:84% and a factor of 3 between early-stage design 00:45:29.230 --> 00:45:32.260 align:middle line:84% and finished design, something like that. 00:45:32.260 --> 00:45:34.880 align:middle line:90% 00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:39.920 align:middle line:84% This is a factor of 3 1/2, a factor of 4. 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:44.360 align:middle line:84% These escalations are basically factors of 3. 00:45:44.360 --> 00:45:46.440 align:middle line:84% So that's kind of a good rule of thumb. 00:45:46.440 --> 00:45:50.880 align:middle line:84% So overall, factor of 3 times a factor of something like 2 00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:52.720 align:middle line:84% or factor of 3 for construction gives you 00:45:52.720 --> 00:45:56.192 align:middle line:84% something like 6 to 9 times the original cost estimate. 00:45:56.192 --> 00:45:58.400 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So is this just, like, a lack of foresight? 00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:01.040 align:middle line:84% Or is it just they need to price it this way in order 00:46:01.040 --> 00:46:03.900 align:middle line:90% to get the initial funding? 00:46:03.900 --> 00:46:07.487 align:middle line:84% Why are we so bad at estimating the costs from the get go? 00:46:07.487 --> 00:46:08.820 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: It's a good question. 00:46:08.820 --> 00:46:13.160 align:middle line:84% I sometimes wonder if it's malicious. 00:46:13.160 --> 00:46:17.760 align:middle line:84% It certainly has repeated itself in every single reactor build 00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:21.240 align:middle line:90% since Shippingport, basically. 00:46:21.240 --> 00:46:23.360 align:middle line:84% But it's also true that people are just 00:46:23.360 --> 00:46:27.100 align:middle line:84% notoriously bad at estimating the cost of mega projects. 00:46:27.100 --> 00:46:30.250 align:middle line:84% And you find these cost escalations everywhere 00:46:30.250 --> 00:46:32.130 align:middle line:90% in other projects. 00:46:32.130 --> 00:46:34.610 align:middle line:84% So it's some combination of these things. 00:46:34.610 --> 00:46:40.750 align:middle line:84% And I can't say what part is malicious and what part isn't. 00:46:40.750 --> 00:46:45.570 align:middle line:84% I certainly know, when I see the cost estimates for Spark, 00:46:45.570 --> 00:46:47.910 align:middle line:84% and they're like, well, it cost this today, 00:46:47.910 --> 00:46:49.690 align:middle line:84% but we're just going to divide this by 4, 00:46:49.690 --> 00:46:52.090 align:middle line:84% because we think we can get the price down. 00:46:52.090 --> 00:46:54.670 align:middle line:84% I'm like, well, that's unsubstantiated. 00:46:54.670 --> 00:46:56.810 align:middle line:84% You shouldn't really be doing that. 00:46:56.810 --> 00:46:59.630 align:middle line:84% And so that I call the malicious pricing. 00:46:59.630 --> 00:47:01.930 align:middle line:84% And I think there's a lot of that in the startup world. 00:47:01.930 --> 00:47:09.510 align:middle line:84% If we go back here, this company had pretty good engineering. 00:47:09.510 --> 00:47:12.073 align:middle line:84% And they said it was going to cost $10,000 per kilowatt hour. 00:47:12.073 --> 00:47:13.490 align:middle line:84% This company is building a reactor 00:47:13.490 --> 00:47:15.050 align:middle line:84% that's more complicated, because it's 00:47:15.050 --> 00:47:16.270 align:middle line:90% pebble instead of prismatic. 00:47:16.270 --> 00:47:19.250 align:middle line:90% And they're like, oh, $2,000. 00:47:19.250 --> 00:47:24.690 align:middle line:84% And you start rolling your eyes at that point. 00:47:24.690 --> 00:47:27.510 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:47:27.510 --> 00:47:30.400 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: In low cost, it's expressly encouraged, 00:47:30.400 --> 00:47:32.560 align:middle line:90% at least in the US VC culture. 00:47:32.560 --> 00:47:35.060 align:middle line:84% That's what, in the whatever workshops 00:47:35.060 --> 00:47:38.420 align:middle line:84% I attended, they would say, if you approach an investor, 00:47:38.420 --> 00:47:41.500 align:middle line:84% take your most optimistic case to the point 00:47:41.500 --> 00:47:44.425 align:middle line:84% that you're just not lying, and do that. 00:47:44.425 --> 00:47:45.800 align:middle line:84% Because they expect you to do it. 00:47:45.800 --> 00:47:47.217 align:middle line:84% So whatever you tell them, they're 00:47:47.217 --> 00:47:50.700 align:middle line:84% going to internally multiply by 4 or 5. 00:47:50.700 --> 00:47:53.060 align:middle line:84% But essentially, the one liner they say, 00:47:53.060 --> 00:47:56.300 align:middle line:84% is if you don't provide me a step change, I'm not interested. 00:47:56.300 --> 00:47:58.075 align:middle line:84% So if you say I'm going to be 10% cheaper, 00:47:58.075 --> 00:47:59.200 align:middle line:90% they don't want to hear it. 00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:02.020 align:middle line:84% They want to hear it, you'd be 2 times cheaper. 00:48:02.020 --> 00:48:04.600 align:middle line:84% So at least in the startup world, 00:48:04.600 --> 00:48:10.340 align:middle line:84% it just seems to be the game that is played. 00:48:10.340 --> 00:48:11.840 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: It seems to be true. 00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:14.680 align:middle line:84% That seems to be what I get from other people. 00:48:14.680 --> 00:48:17.060 align:middle line:84% If you just look at the history of what gets funded, 00:48:17.060 --> 00:48:20.100 align:middle line:84% the more audacious the claims, the more likely 00:48:20.100 --> 00:48:21.300 align:middle line:90% they are to get funded. 00:48:21.300 --> 00:48:23.220 align:middle line:90% I don't disagree. 00:48:23.220 --> 00:48:24.700 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:48:24.700 --> 00:48:26.570 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Do we have number? 00:48:26.570 --> 00:48:28.070 align:middle line:84% I'm just curious what the comparison 00:48:28.070 --> 00:48:29.630 align:middle line:90% is for other mega projects. 00:48:29.630 --> 00:48:32.150 align:middle line:84% Because bridges, for instance, notoriously 00:48:32.150 --> 00:48:34.390 align:middle line:84% do the same thing, where they end up massively-- 00:48:34.390 --> 00:48:37.090 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Dams, bridges, tons of stuff do this. 00:48:37.090 --> 00:48:40.670 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I'm curious as to if it's the same magnitude, 00:48:40.670 --> 00:48:42.590 align:middle line:90% roughly, if it's also 6x? 00:48:42.590 --> 00:48:45.300 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: That would be a really great paper. 00:48:45.300 --> 00:48:46.550 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: That's good to know. 00:48:46.550 --> 00:48:48.430 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, lots of great paper topics 00:48:48.430 --> 00:48:50.450 align:middle line:90% all over this thing. 00:48:50.450 --> 00:48:51.590 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:48:51.590 --> 00:48:55.090 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So do we expect that there's hopefully [INAUDIBLE] 00:48:55.090 --> 00:48:57.670 align:middle line:84% to your price [INAUDIBLE] idea, even though we think 00:48:57.670 --> 00:48:59.043 align:middle line:90% microreactors maybe-- 00:48:59.043 --> 00:49:01.210 align:middle line:84% we're not expecting them to be cheaper, necessarily, 00:49:01.210 --> 00:49:03.910 align:middle line:84% but that they will maybe avoid just escalation of price 00:49:03.910 --> 00:49:05.627 align:middle line:90% from design to construction? 00:49:05.627 --> 00:49:07.710 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, I think that's part of the hope-- 00:49:07.710 --> 00:49:12.910 align:middle line:84% is that maybe part of it is the mega project phenomenon. 00:49:12.910 --> 00:49:14.070 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:49:14.070 --> 00:49:16.710 align:middle line:84% But then it's counteracted by what you just 00:49:16.710 --> 00:49:22.390 align:middle line:84% said, this crazy VC nonsense and people pursuing ideas that 00:49:22.390 --> 00:49:25.040 align:middle line:90% are really not very mature. 00:49:25.040 --> 00:49:26.980 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Is the same true in other countries? 00:49:26.980 --> 00:49:28.920 align:middle line:84% Or is it just the US that's particularly 00:49:28.920 --> 00:49:30.840 align:middle line:90% bad at pricing mega projects? 00:49:30.840 --> 00:49:31.780 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Oh, no, no. 00:49:31.780 --> 00:49:32.800 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: This is across the board. 00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:33.900 align:middle line:90% It's more of a human thing. 00:49:33.900 --> 00:49:34.567 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Yeah. 00:49:34.567 --> 00:49:37.080 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:49:37.080 --> 00:49:42.220 align:middle line:90% All right, so where were we? 00:49:42.220 --> 00:49:45.920 align:middle line:90% 00:49:45.920 --> 00:49:48.920 align:middle line:84% All right, so I guess the point is, if you take this 00:49:48.920 --> 00:49:52.160 align:middle line:84% and you apply our factors of 2 and factors of 3 multipliers 00:49:52.160 --> 00:49:55.100 align:middle line:84% to these things, you see that the prices are just really, 00:49:55.100 --> 00:49:56.520 align:middle line:90% really high. 00:49:56.520 --> 00:50:00.040 align:middle line:84% They're all well, well, well above the $131 00:50:00.040 --> 00:50:03.040 align:middle line:90% per kilowatt hour. 00:50:03.040 --> 00:50:05.400 align:middle line:84% But we haven't done mass production yet. 00:50:05.400 --> 00:50:09.640 align:middle line:84% So let's see what we can do here. 00:50:09.640 --> 00:50:13.320 align:middle line:84% So the thing is, we're starting with the fact 00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:16.840 align:middle line:84% that no credible SMR vendor is claiming that these things are 00:50:16.840 --> 00:50:18.140 align:middle line:90% cheaper to begin with. 00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:21.480 align:middle line:84% But they all say it will get cheaper if we build lots. 00:50:21.480 --> 00:50:25.450 align:middle line:84% And the question is, do we have to build 10, 00:50:25.450 --> 00:50:29.090 align:middle line:90% or do we have to build 10,000? 00:50:29.090 --> 00:50:32.170 align:middle line:84% And so, generally, when people have looked at this-- 00:50:32.170 --> 00:50:33.690 align:middle line:90% they call it learning. 00:50:33.690 --> 00:50:36.650 align:middle line:84% People just look at the cumulative number of reactors 00:50:36.650 --> 00:50:42.753 align:middle line:84% built. And that this is how I've taught this class in the past. 00:50:42.753 --> 00:50:44.170 align:middle line:84% But it dawned on me recently, this 00:50:44.170 --> 00:50:47.250 align:middle line:84% is probably not the right way to look at the problem. 00:50:47.250 --> 00:50:49.410 align:middle line:84% Because it certainly matters whether you're 00:50:49.410 --> 00:50:52.450 align:middle line:84% building one reactor a year for 100 years or you're 00:50:52.450 --> 00:50:55.610 align:middle line:90% building 100 reactors a year. 00:50:55.610 --> 00:50:58.790 align:middle line:84% If you have a plan that's producing 100 reactors a year, 00:50:58.790 --> 00:51:01.410 align:middle line:84% you're going to have much better economies of scale 00:51:01.410 --> 00:51:05.170 align:middle line:84% than if you're producing one reactor a year over 100 years. 00:51:05.170 --> 00:51:09.690 align:middle line:84% So I think we need to look at both total number of reactors 00:51:09.690 --> 00:51:13.430 align:middle line:84% built and the rate of production. 00:51:13.430 --> 00:51:13.930 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:51:13.930 --> 00:51:15.388 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: OK, so this is a question 00:51:15.388 --> 00:51:18.470 align:middle line:84% that I haven't seen posed that often. 00:51:18.470 --> 00:51:22.620 align:middle line:84% But how much does standardized components 00:51:22.620 --> 00:51:25.120 align:middle line:84% versus standardized reactors make a difference? 00:51:25.120 --> 00:51:28.880 align:middle line:84% So for the Apollo program, by the end of it, 00:51:28.880 --> 00:51:30.660 align:middle line:84% we were getting very, very good at having 00:51:30.660 --> 00:51:33.320 align:middle line:84% standardized components for engines and all that stuff. 00:51:33.320 --> 00:51:35.700 align:middle line:84% And despite them being extraordinarily complex, 00:51:35.700 --> 00:51:39.780 align:middle line:84% they were fairly mass producible. 00:51:39.780 --> 00:51:42.180 align:middle line:84% For nuclear stuff, I haven't seen 00:51:42.180 --> 00:51:45.820 align:middle line:84% a lot of people considering, can I 00:51:45.820 --> 00:51:49.400 align:middle line:84% standardize all the components of my shield wall or whatever? 00:51:49.400 --> 00:51:52.180 align:middle line:90% 00:51:52.180 --> 00:51:54.940 align:middle line:84% And I don't know if anyone has actually ran the cost estimates 00:51:54.940 --> 00:51:57.060 align:middle line:84% on that, versus, if I have hundreds 00:51:57.060 --> 00:51:58.860 align:middle line:84% of the same component in a reactor, versus, 00:51:58.860 --> 00:52:02.980 align:middle line:84% I need 100 different components but I'm making 100 reactors-- 00:52:02.980 --> 00:52:07.900 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, I think what you're basically hinting at 00:52:07.900 --> 00:52:10.260 align:middle line:90% is the right kind of thinking. 00:52:10.260 --> 00:52:14.540 align:middle line:84% You want to basically have some internal component that 00:52:14.540 --> 00:52:16.600 align:middle line:84% is replicated that you produce a lot of. 00:52:16.600 --> 00:52:20.030 align:middle line:84% Obviously, you have a lot of spacers in an LWR. 00:52:20.030 --> 00:52:23.270 align:middle line:84% But they're still kind of boutique-ly made. 00:52:23.270 --> 00:52:24.950 align:middle line:84% If we could really get to the point 00:52:24.950 --> 00:52:31.470 align:middle line:84% where we made tons and just tons and tons of these things, 00:52:31.470 --> 00:52:34.310 align:middle line:84% I think that would be interesting. 00:52:34.310 --> 00:52:36.890 align:middle line:84% So I don't have an answer for you. 00:52:36.890 --> 00:52:38.630 align:middle line:84% I think there's another good paper topic. 00:52:38.630 --> 00:52:39.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:52:39.310 --> 00:52:40.450 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And they can actually-- 00:52:40.450 --> 00:52:41.283 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Oh, good. 00:52:41.283 --> 00:52:43.070 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] to a certain degree. 00:52:43.070 --> 00:52:46.510 align:middle line:84% In the most recent AP1000 Bill, mass-producible parts 00:52:46.510 --> 00:52:49.990 align:middle line:84% within the US was actually a core consideration. 00:52:49.990 --> 00:52:53.350 align:middle line:84% The main issue between, say, like a nuclear steam supply 00:52:53.350 --> 00:52:57.490 align:middle line:84% system and something you use for gas is the quality of the parts. 00:52:57.490 --> 00:52:59.990 align:middle line:84% So you would need a slightly different grade of steel, 00:52:59.990 --> 00:53:02.790 align:middle line:84% and you need a slightly different grade of concrete. 00:53:02.790 --> 00:53:05.030 align:middle line:84% But they were actually able to set up these vendor 00:53:05.030 --> 00:53:09.232 align:middle line:84% relationships with specialized manufacturers, who 00:53:09.232 --> 00:53:11.190 align:middle line:84% were able to create these steam supply systems. 00:53:11.190 --> 00:53:13.170 align:middle line:90% So there is some of that. 00:53:13.170 --> 00:53:15.710 align:middle line:90% But nuclear still would be-- 00:53:15.710 --> 00:53:19.120 align:middle line:84% they tend to be categorically different equipment requirements 00:53:19.120 --> 00:53:20.450 align:middle line:90% than any other-- 00:53:20.450 --> 00:53:22.200 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, the N-stamp is expensive. 00:53:22.200 --> 00:53:25.080 align:middle line:84% And that's why the falsified safety 00:53:25.080 --> 00:53:27.920 align:middle line:84% certificates in the Korean reactors were falsified. 00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:33.280 align:middle line:84% Getting to that nuclear-grade construction is hard. 00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:36.040 align:middle line:84% And you see companies like X-Energy, which 00:53:36.040 --> 00:53:39.220 align:middle line:90% are building prototype systems. 00:53:39.220 --> 00:53:41.440 align:middle line:84% None of those systems are N-stamps. 00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:43.380 align:middle line:90% They're all U-stamped. 00:53:43.380 --> 00:53:47.740 align:middle line:84% So they need pressure vessel requirements. 00:53:47.740 --> 00:53:50.160 align:middle line:84% But we haven't gotten to the point where they're actually 00:53:50.160 --> 00:53:53.240 align:middle line:84% doing the welds in a way that will stand up to radiation 00:53:53.240 --> 00:53:54.320 align:middle line:90% and things like that. 00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:57.800 align:middle line:84% So yeah, I think a lot of it is this N-stamped construction 00:53:57.800 --> 00:53:58.620 align:middle line:90% is very boutique. 00:53:58.620 --> 00:54:01.440 align:middle line:90% It's very expensive. 00:54:01.440 --> 00:54:02.680 align:middle line:90% We'll see to it. 00:54:02.680 --> 00:54:07.080 align:middle line:84% But potentially, all that could be scaled up. 00:54:07.080 --> 00:54:10.890 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I wanted to start by talking about 00:54:10.890 --> 00:54:12.140 align:middle line:90% the first of these two things. 00:54:12.140 --> 00:54:14.100 align:middle line:84% So the one is, how many did we build? 00:54:14.100 --> 00:54:16.050 align:middle line:84% And the other one is, how fast are we building 00:54:16.050 --> 00:54:17.270 align:middle line:90% them, the rate of production? 00:54:17.270 --> 00:54:19.290 align:middle line:84% So let's just start with the traditional way 00:54:19.290 --> 00:54:21.810 align:middle line:84% of looking at it, which is, how many have we built? 00:54:21.810 --> 00:54:24.963 align:middle line:84% And the question is, if we factory fabricate a reactor-- 00:54:24.963 --> 00:54:27.130 align:middle line:84% well, we know what the number is if we don't factory 00:54:27.130 --> 00:54:28.430 align:middle line:90% fabricate the reactor. 00:54:28.430 --> 00:54:29.412 align:middle line:90% We did the regression. 00:54:29.412 --> 00:54:30.870 align:middle line:84% I showed you the regression result. 00:54:30.870 --> 00:54:33.010 align:middle line:84% And the learning was 1% cost reduction 00:54:33.010 --> 00:54:35.570 align:middle line:84% for every doubling of the number of reactors, 00:54:35.570 --> 00:54:38.450 align:middle line:90% which was not great. 00:54:38.450 --> 00:54:40.310 align:middle line:84% But those weren't factory fabricated. 00:54:40.310 --> 00:54:43.050 align:middle line:84% So then, what about factory fabrication? 00:54:43.050 --> 00:54:46.190 align:middle line:84% So we have Naval reactors to go on. 00:54:46.190 --> 00:54:50.130 align:middle line:84% Unfortunately, I have yet to find US Naval reactor 00:54:50.130 --> 00:54:54.890 align:middle line:84% construction data, cost data to really derive 00:54:54.890 --> 00:54:56.750 align:middle line:90% anything on this front. 00:54:56.750 --> 00:55:01.810 align:middle line:84% However, there is one claim from the Soviets, 00:55:01.810 --> 00:55:05.250 align:middle line:84% from a manager of a Soviet Naval reactor 00:55:05.250 --> 00:55:08.530 align:middle line:90% factory in the Soviet Union. 00:55:08.530 --> 00:55:13.660 align:middle line:84% And he claims in a paper that he wrote in some obscure journal 00:55:13.660 --> 00:55:20.300 align:middle line:84% that their factory saw a 5% cost reduction for every doubling 00:55:20.300 --> 00:55:24.500 align:middle line:84% of the number of reactors they produced in their factory, which 00:55:24.500 --> 00:55:28.460 align:middle line:84% is 5 times better than what we are observing for sig build. 00:55:28.460 --> 00:55:32.340 align:middle line:84% So let's just see what that means. 00:55:32.340 --> 00:55:38.260 align:middle line:84% So here for comparison, are the observed learning rates 00:55:38.260 --> 00:55:41.860 align:middle line:84% for solar cells, which are phenomenally good-- 00:55:41.860 --> 00:55:47.940 align:middle line:90% and yeah, just solar cells. 00:55:47.940 --> 00:55:51.740 align:middle line:84% And you can see how you came from $40 per watt 00:55:51.740 --> 00:55:56.340 align:middle line:84% down to down here under $1 per watt. 00:55:56.340 --> 00:56:00.082 align:middle line:84% And that's because of this amazing power of learning. 00:56:00.082 --> 00:56:01.540 align:middle line:84% Now obviously, these are also being 00:56:01.540 --> 00:56:03.373 align:middle line:84% made in factories that are churning them out 00:56:03.373 --> 00:56:04.740 align:middle line:90% in large numbers. 00:56:04.740 --> 00:56:10.470 align:middle line:84% I've put the 5% learning rate on the plot arbitrarily. 00:56:10.470 --> 00:56:14.710 align:middle line:84% What matters is the slope, not the number. 00:56:14.710 --> 00:56:19.110 align:middle line:84% Because I don't have the number, the cost per kilowatt 00:56:19.110 --> 00:56:20.790 align:middle line:90% of the reactor on this chart. 00:56:20.790 --> 00:56:26.150 align:middle line:84% But you can just see how much slower that is. 00:56:26.150 --> 00:56:29.590 align:middle line:84% These faster learning rates make a big difference. 00:56:29.590 --> 00:56:33.390 align:middle line:90% So let's see. 00:56:33.390 --> 00:56:37.110 align:middle line:84% The DOE prediction for traditional nuclear was $80 per 00:56:37.110 --> 00:56:39.990 align:middle line:90% megawatt-- so twice-- 00:56:39.990 --> 00:56:42.410 align:middle line:90% OK, that's per watt capacity. 00:56:42.410 --> 00:56:45.550 align:middle line:84% But you can just multiply it by 2. 00:56:45.550 --> 00:56:53.430 align:middle line:84% And you can see that, if we built 100,000 reactors, 00:56:53.430 --> 00:56:57.910 align:middle line:90% we would be something like 20. 00:56:57.910 --> 00:57:02.510 align:middle line:84% So we would get the price down by a factor of 2 by building 00:57:02.510 --> 00:57:06.190 align:middle line:90% 100,000 factory reactors. 00:57:06.190 --> 00:57:10.840 align:middle line:84% It's not probably realistic that the market is that big, 00:57:10.840 --> 00:57:16.120 align:middle line:84% that we can build 100,000 of these things. 00:57:16.120 --> 00:57:18.040 align:middle line:84% We could work out on the board how many 00:57:18.040 --> 00:57:22.680 align:middle line:90% we would have to build up. 00:57:22.680 --> 00:57:24.100 align:middle line:84% It turns out, you need to build-- 00:57:24.100 --> 00:57:24.600 align:middle line:90% I forget. 00:57:24.600 --> 00:57:27.760 align:middle line:84% I have it somewhere in my notes-- 00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:32.480 align:middle line:84% lots and lots of reactors, more than 100,000 reactors. 00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:34.440 align:middle line:84% Oh, you need to build about a trillion reactors 00:57:34.440 --> 00:57:38.480 align:middle line:84% to get cost competitive if this is the only thing going on, 00:57:38.480 --> 00:57:40.600 align:middle line:90% this kind of learning. 00:57:40.600 --> 00:57:44.645 align:middle line:84% So I think this is probably not the whole story. 00:57:44.645 --> 00:57:46.020 align:middle line:84% So then I was thinking, OK, well, 00:57:46.020 --> 00:57:50.760 align:middle line:84% what is it about the factory fabrication 00:57:50.760 --> 00:57:54.160 align:middle line:90% that makes things cheaper? 00:57:54.160 --> 00:57:59.920 align:middle line:84% And at first, I thought, is it replacing manual labor 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:03.880 align:middle line:84% with machine labor and better quality machine labor 00:58:03.880 --> 00:58:06.130 align:middle line:84% and going from manual machines to, say, 00:58:06.130 --> 00:58:09.170 align:middle line:84% computer-operated machines and so on and so forth. 00:58:09.170 --> 00:58:14.250 align:middle line:84% So I looked into this a little bit. 00:58:14.250 --> 00:58:16.570 align:middle line:84% And I was trying to find a comparable technology 00:58:16.570 --> 00:58:20.830 align:middle line:84% with some comparable level of complexity as a reactor. 00:58:20.830 --> 00:58:22.330 align:middle line:84% And I thought, oh, Jacopo Buongiorno 00:58:22.330 --> 00:58:23.510 align:middle line:90% decided to use jet engines. 00:58:23.510 --> 00:58:25.410 align:middle line:90% So why don't I use jet engines? 00:58:25.410 --> 00:58:30.310 align:middle line:84% So here is the history of the CFM56 engine, 00:58:30.310 --> 00:58:34.650 align:middle line:84% which underwent a bunch of changes over time going back 00:58:34.650 --> 00:58:40.250 align:middle line:84% to the late 1970s, all the way up to today. 00:58:40.250 --> 00:58:44.370 align:middle line:84% Mid 2015s was the last order for this engine. 00:58:44.370 --> 00:58:47.930 align:middle line:84% And during this time, we have seen a lot of changes. 00:58:47.930 --> 00:58:50.370 align:middle line:84% We saw the introduction of advanced CNC, 00:58:50.370 --> 00:58:52.610 align:middle line:84% the introduction of 5-axis machining. 00:58:52.610 --> 00:58:54.730 align:middle line:84% We saw computer-controlled machining 00:58:54.730 --> 00:58:57.210 align:middle line:84% go for something that ran on tape to something 00:58:57.210 --> 00:59:00.970 align:middle line:90% that ran off of a CAD file. 00:59:00.970 --> 00:59:04.900 align:middle line:84% So there's been considerable advances in machining 00:59:04.900 --> 00:59:06.140 align:middle line:90% during this time. 00:59:06.140 --> 00:59:10.180 align:middle line:84% But the cost has basically been exactly the same. 00:59:10.180 --> 00:59:12.200 align:middle line:84% And so at first I was scratching my head. 00:59:12.200 --> 00:59:15.340 align:middle line:84% But when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. 00:59:15.340 --> 00:59:18.540 align:middle line:84% Basically, it appears that manufacturers are trading labor 00:59:18.540 --> 00:59:20.420 align:middle line:90% for machine for capital. 00:59:20.420 --> 00:59:23.560 align:middle line:84% And the price of the capital that they're buying, 00:59:23.560 --> 00:59:25.380 align:middle line:84% which is highly specialized, is going 00:59:25.380 --> 00:59:27.500 align:middle line:84% to be priced such that it's basically 00:59:27.500 --> 00:59:31.780 align:middle line:84% the same cost as their neighbor, maybe a little bit cheaper. 00:59:31.780 --> 00:59:36.480 align:middle line:84% So it kind of makes sense from a market dynamics perspective. 00:59:36.480 --> 00:59:37.980 align:middle line:84% As long as these machines are highly 00:59:37.980 --> 00:59:41.900 align:middle line:84% customized for the factory, for the application in hand, 00:59:41.900 --> 00:59:46.340 align:middle line:84% we don't really expect to see a lot of cost reduction 00:59:46.340 --> 00:59:49.740 align:middle line:90% just from the technology change. 00:59:49.740 --> 00:59:52.540 align:middle line:84% And it turns out, this is a cost per kilogram 00:59:52.540 --> 00:59:57.660 align:middle line:84% of engine manufactured, cost per unit thrust of engine 00:59:57.660 --> 00:59:58.400 align:middle line:90% manufactured. 00:59:58.400 --> 00:59:59.540 align:middle line:90% It's all the same. 00:59:59.540 --> 01:00:01.740 align:middle line:90% It doesn't go down. 01:00:01.740 --> 01:00:07.590 align:middle line:84% So I thought, OK, maybe the answer is something else. 01:00:07.590 --> 01:00:11.110 align:middle line:84% Maybe it's really the rate of production. 01:00:11.110 --> 01:00:15.310 align:middle line:84% And I would say this is the operative question. 01:00:15.310 --> 01:00:17.670 align:middle line:84% It turns out, there's not a whole lot 01:00:17.670 --> 01:00:20.890 align:middle line:84% on this in the literature about the rate of production. 01:00:20.890 --> 01:00:23.950 align:middle line:84% But here's the best thing I was able to find. 01:00:23.950 --> 01:00:33.950 align:middle line:84% This is a study done by NREL for these stationary fuel cells. 01:00:33.950 --> 01:00:36.950 align:middle line:84% So inside this fuel cell are these very carefully 01:00:36.950 --> 01:00:41.430 align:middle line:84% manufactured membranes and electrolytes. 01:00:41.430 --> 01:00:44.735 align:middle line:84% And they move protons or ions across these membranes. 01:00:44.735 --> 01:00:46.610 align:middle line:84% And they have to be very carefully assembled. 01:00:46.610 --> 01:00:48.350 align:middle line:84% And then there's some computer and control equipment 01:00:48.350 --> 01:00:49.250 align:middle line:90% and other things. 01:00:49.250 --> 01:00:52.710 align:middle line:84% So this is some complex process that is, as earlier mentioned, 01:00:52.710 --> 01:00:56.350 align:middle line:84% eventually built with out of many identical parts 01:00:56.350 --> 01:00:58.390 align:middle line:90% and mass produced. 01:00:58.390 --> 01:01:00.070 align:middle line:84% And then these things are dropped 01:01:00.070 --> 01:01:03.800 align:middle line:84% in to places that need backup generation. 01:01:03.800 --> 01:01:08.240 align:middle line:84% So these things are basically a kind of giant battery. 01:01:08.240 --> 01:01:11.800 align:middle line:84% And NREL has been a very extensive study 01:01:11.800 --> 01:01:14.340 align:middle line:90% done on producing these things. 01:01:14.340 --> 01:01:16.260 align:middle line:90% And this is their takeaway. 01:01:16.260 --> 01:01:18.960 align:middle line:90% 01:01:18.960 --> 01:01:21.422 align:middle line:84% If you produce 10 systems a year, 100 systems a year, 01:01:21.422 --> 01:01:23.380 align:middle line:84% you're here, 1,000 systems a year, you're here, 01:01:23.380 --> 01:01:25.800 align:middle line:84% 10,000 systems a year, you're here and so on. 01:01:25.800 --> 01:01:27.420 align:middle line:90% You do this math. 01:01:27.420 --> 01:01:29.560 align:middle line:84% And what they find is basically there's 01:01:29.560 --> 01:01:34.080 align:middle line:84% a 30% cost reduction for every tenfold increase 01:01:34.080 --> 01:01:35.400 align:middle line:90% in the production rate. 01:01:35.400 --> 01:01:36.660 align:middle line:90% Does this apply to nuclear? 01:01:36.660 --> 01:01:38.160 align:middle line:90% I have no idea. 01:01:38.160 --> 01:01:43.180 align:middle line:84% This would be a really good question for someone to study. 01:01:43.180 --> 01:01:48.680 align:middle line:84% There is a lot of work in the automotive world, which 01:01:48.680 --> 01:01:50.440 align:middle line:90% I'll show you in a moment. 01:01:50.440 --> 01:01:51.760 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 01:01:51.760 --> 01:01:55.680 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So the INL published a paper 01:01:55.680 --> 01:01:58.580 align:middle line:84% for the MARVEL microreactor, where they worked together 01:01:58.580 --> 01:02:02.900 align:middle line:84% with some manufacturing company to try and estimate, 01:02:02.900 --> 01:02:05.500 align:middle line:84% based on their workflow, what learning rates 01:02:05.500 --> 01:02:07.220 align:middle line:90% could be for microreactors. 01:02:07.220 --> 01:02:09.740 align:middle line:84% So it's obviously not real-world data. 01:02:09.740 --> 01:02:13.300 align:middle line:84% But they seem to go pretty in detail. 01:02:13.300 --> 01:02:15.120 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: I haven't seen this. 01:02:15.120 --> 01:02:16.580 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 01:02:16.580 --> 01:02:18.300 align:middle line:84% So do they do rate of prediction? 01:02:18.300 --> 01:02:20.840 align:middle line:90% Or they do per unit prediction? 01:02:20.840 --> 01:02:22.820 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So I vaguely remember, they 01:02:22.820 --> 01:02:25.980 align:middle line:84% looked at producing 10 per year or producing 01:02:25.980 --> 01:02:29.560 align:middle line:84% 100 per year and then kind of splitting up the tasks. 01:02:29.560 --> 01:02:32.940 align:middle line:84% And then based on what kind of scenario you have, 01:02:32.940 --> 01:02:34.568 align:middle line:90% they used different multipliers. 01:02:34.568 --> 01:02:35.860 align:middle line:90% It seems to be pretty detailed. 01:02:35.860 --> 01:02:37.437 align:middle line:90% And they work together with a-- 01:02:37.437 --> 01:02:38.520 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: A real company. 01:02:38.520 --> 01:02:40.980 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, that actually knows how this works. 01:02:40.980 --> 01:02:43.413 align:middle line:84% But it's all still obviously on paper. 01:02:43.413 --> 01:02:44.080 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Yeah. 01:02:44.080 --> 01:02:46.193 align:middle line:84% Do you remember, what was their conclusion? 01:02:46.193 --> 01:02:47.860 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Their conclusion was that they 01:02:47.860 --> 01:02:51.000 align:middle line:84% could get pretty high learning rates in the highest scenario, 01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:55.780 align:middle line:90% I think, like, 15% or something. 01:02:55.780 --> 01:02:59.890 align:middle line:84% So it wouldn't be an entire moving assembly line. 01:02:59.890 --> 01:03:01.590 align:middle line:84% It would be kind of like a rotating 01:03:01.590 --> 01:03:05.430 align:middle line:84% system, where it kind of moves between different workshops. 01:03:05.430 --> 01:03:12.910 align:middle line:84% And they seem to think that you could get decent learning rates. 01:03:12.910 --> 01:03:14.410 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: This is very interesting. 01:03:14.410 --> 01:03:15.250 align:middle line:90% We'll go look at it. 01:03:15.250 --> 01:03:17.630 align:middle line:84% 50% is the high end of what people 01:03:17.630 --> 01:03:23.390 align:middle line:90% quote for modular reactors. 01:03:23.390 --> 01:03:25.430 align:middle line:84% So did they have a certain production 01:03:25.430 --> 01:03:27.090 align:middle line:90% rate used to sustain that? 01:03:27.090 --> 01:03:29.630 align:middle line:90% 01:03:29.630 --> 01:03:31.938 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: It's been, I guess, a year and a half or more 01:03:31.938 --> 01:03:32.730 align:middle line:90% since I've read it. 01:03:32.730 --> 01:03:38.230 align:middle line:84% But they looked at, I think, 1, then 10, and 100 per year 01:03:38.230 --> 01:03:42.430 align:middle line:90% as their scenarios. 01:03:42.430 --> 01:03:45.008 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: And they think 15%-- 01:03:45.008 --> 01:03:46.050 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: In the highest. 01:03:46.050 --> 01:03:49.527 align:middle line:90% So in the 100th, 100x. 01:03:49.527 --> 01:03:51.610 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: And that's for every doubling produced? 01:03:51.610 --> 01:03:55.393 align:middle line:84% Or is that 15% off of the single unit cost? 01:03:55.393 --> 01:03:57.560 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: I think that would have been per doubling. 01:03:57.560 --> 01:04:01.160 align:middle line:90% I think that's-- but, yeah. 01:04:01.160 --> 01:04:03.920 align:middle line:90% I don't trust my recollection. 01:04:03.920 --> 01:04:04.980 align:middle line:90% I can look it up again. 01:04:04.980 --> 01:04:07.272 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, definitely want to look at this paper. 01:04:07.272 --> 01:04:10.840 align:middle line:84% Because I'm surprised I didn't find it. 01:04:10.840 --> 01:04:12.320 align:middle line:90% OK, super. 01:04:12.320 --> 01:04:15.200 align:middle line:90% Well, anyway, I took this. 01:04:15.200 --> 01:04:19.160 align:middle line:84% And I just thought, let's run with this, 01:04:19.160 --> 01:04:21.780 align:middle line:90% and see what we can do-- 01:04:21.780 --> 01:04:26.160 align:middle line:84% a 30% cost for every tenfold increase in the production rate. 01:04:26.160 --> 01:04:30.440 align:middle line:90% So here's kind of my thinking. 01:04:30.440 --> 01:04:35.520 align:middle line:84% All non-renewables generation in the US planned for the next five 01:04:35.520 --> 01:04:38.640 align:middle line:84% years is about 4 gigawatts of additional capacity 01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:43.600 align:middle line:84% per year, which is really remarkable, for the next five 01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:44.800 align:middle line:90% years. 01:04:44.800 --> 01:04:48.040 align:middle line:84% And this is really being driven by data centers. 01:04:48.040 --> 01:04:50.840 align:middle line:84% So while there's a lot of deals about data centers and nuclear 01:04:50.840 --> 01:04:56.170 align:middle line:84% out there, what it's actually being built is natural gas. 01:04:56.170 --> 01:04:59.050 align:middle line:84% So what if what if an SMR were to replace 01:04:59.050 --> 01:05:03.970 align:middle line:84% all of that natural gas that is coming online in the next five 01:05:03.970 --> 01:05:05.890 align:middle line:90% years here in the United States? 01:05:05.890 --> 01:05:10.030 align:middle line:84% So X-Energy says their reactor is 80mw. 01:05:10.030 --> 01:05:16.210 align:middle line:84% So that would be 50 units of capacity. 01:05:16.210 --> 01:05:19.910 align:middle line:84% And they say it costs $18,000 per kilowatt. 01:05:19.910 --> 01:05:22.170 align:middle line:84% That's their most recent price assumption. 01:05:22.170 --> 01:05:25.290 align:middle line:84% So if we assume a factor of 2 to 3, 01:05:25.290 --> 01:05:28.730 align:middle line:84% because that's an early price and we want to get to a real 01:05:28.730 --> 01:05:33.730 align:middle line:84% price, maybe we're something like $45,000. 01:05:33.730 --> 01:05:35.190 align:middle line:90% Maybe their price is correct. 01:05:35.190 --> 01:05:37.410 align:middle line:84% But historically, no one has been correct. 01:05:37.410 --> 01:05:40.850 align:middle line:90% And then we take the fuel cell. 01:05:40.850 --> 01:05:43.770 align:middle line:84% And we say, OK, if we could produce 01:05:43.770 --> 01:05:47.690 align:middle line:84% all of these at the same rate for gigawatts per year, 01:05:47.690 --> 01:05:51.530 align:middle line:84% then, instead of one per year coming out, coming out, 01:05:51.530 --> 01:05:55.620 align:middle line:84% we would have 50 per year coming out. 01:05:55.620 --> 01:05:59.900 align:middle line:84% And we would have the price drop down to this number, 01:05:59.900 --> 01:06:04.300 align:middle line:84% about $20,000, which is about the same price as AP1000 turned 01:06:04.300 --> 01:06:06.580 align:middle line:90% out to be. 01:06:06.580 --> 01:06:11.420 align:middle line:84% So you could potentially see how this 01:06:11.420 --> 01:06:15.860 align:middle line:84% would be competitive with traditional nuclear. 01:06:15.860 --> 01:06:18.720 align:middle line:84% If we could produce 500 reactors per year instead of 50, 01:06:18.720 --> 01:06:22.580 align:middle line:84% this comes down another 30% to $14,000. 01:06:22.580 --> 01:06:26.260 align:middle line:84% But you quickly run out of market, even 01:06:26.260 --> 01:06:28.180 align:middle line:90% with such a small reaction. 01:06:28.180 --> 01:06:31.800 align:middle line:90% So it's still too expensive. 01:06:31.800 --> 01:06:35.500 align:middle line:90% But who knows? 01:06:35.500 --> 01:06:37.200 align:middle line:84% So this is, I think, the real unknown, 01:06:37.200 --> 01:06:39.260 align:middle line:84% which is alluding to what has been said. 01:06:39.260 --> 01:06:41.740 align:middle line:84% What is the minimum efficient scales? 01:06:41.740 --> 01:06:44.640 align:middle line:84% And it turns out that, for automobiles, 01:06:44.640 --> 01:06:48.800 align:middle line:84% which are other complex objects, we have some real data. 01:06:48.800 --> 01:06:52.110 align:middle line:84% And so economies of scale for the industry suggests 01:06:52.110 --> 01:06:55.950 align:middle line:84% an automobile plant has to produce 200,000 to 300,000 units 01:06:55.950 --> 01:06:57.230 align:middle line:90% to be cost efficient. 01:06:57.230 --> 01:07:01.030 align:middle line:84% Engines should produce 400,000 units and transmissions 500,000 01:07:01.030 --> 01:07:02.470 align:middle line:90% units. 01:07:02.470 --> 01:07:07.030 align:middle line:84% And that just gives you a sense of why super cars cost so much 01:07:07.030 --> 01:07:14.350 align:middle line:90% more than your Ford Focus. 01:07:14.350 --> 01:07:17.250 align:middle line:84% So something like this is needed. 01:07:17.250 --> 01:07:19.270 align:middle line:84% Some conclusion like this is needed 01:07:19.270 --> 01:07:21.710 align:middle line:84% for the nuclear field in order for us 01:07:21.710 --> 01:07:23.870 align:middle line:90% to really know what we can do. 01:07:23.870 --> 01:07:26.330 align:middle line:84% But I think there is some work to be done here-- 01:07:26.330 --> 01:07:28.350 align:middle line:90% maybe some of it has been done-- 01:07:28.350 --> 01:07:33.290 align:middle line:84% to try to understand, where is the optimum size? 01:07:33.290 --> 01:07:35.550 align:middle line:84% Obviously, the smaller the reactor, the more you 01:07:35.550 --> 01:07:38.270 align:middle line:84% produce per year, the better your rate 01:07:38.270 --> 01:07:39.830 align:middle line:90% of production per year. 01:07:39.830 --> 01:07:42.150 align:middle line:84% So somewhere in there, there is an optimal. 01:07:42.150 --> 01:07:46.150 align:middle line:84% And it would be really neat to see someone try to pursue that. 01:07:46.150 --> 01:07:52.280 align:middle line:84% All right, that brings me to my last topic, which is, 01:07:52.280 --> 01:07:54.367 align:middle line:84% let's imagine there is a future here. 01:07:54.367 --> 01:07:55.700 align:middle line:90% I don't know exactly what it is. 01:07:55.700 --> 01:08:00.640 align:middle line:84% It does not really emerge from the review. 01:08:00.640 --> 01:08:02.700 align:middle line:84% But let's imagine there's a future. 01:08:02.700 --> 01:08:06.680 align:middle line:84% When will we see these reactors coming online? 01:08:06.680 --> 01:08:10.160 align:middle line:84% Well, the NuScale reactor has been, 01:08:10.160 --> 01:08:15.120 align:middle line:84% I mentioned already, under development for 20 years. 01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:17.600 align:middle line:84% The project actually has just been halted. 01:08:17.600 --> 01:08:19.880 align:middle line:84% But even before it was halted, they 01:08:19.880 --> 01:08:24.080 align:middle line:84% said they had planned to have the first unit in service no 01:08:24.080 --> 01:08:26.560 align:middle line:84% earlier than 2030, which would have been 01:08:26.560 --> 01:08:30.600 align:middle line:84% 25 years from conceptual inception 01:08:30.600 --> 01:08:34.240 align:middle line:84% to first unit, a quarter century. 01:08:34.240 --> 01:08:36.080 align:middle line:90% How about the AP1000? 01:08:36.080 --> 01:08:41.319 align:middle line:84% AP1000 started its life as the AP600 in 1984. 01:08:41.319 --> 01:08:48.330 align:middle line:84% The design was submitted to the NRC 10 years later in 1994. 01:08:48.330 --> 01:08:50.630 align:middle line:90% NRC approved it in 1999. 01:08:50.630 --> 01:08:54.770 align:middle line:84% So that's 15 years from conception to approval. 01:08:54.770 --> 01:08:57.069 align:middle line:84% Then they said, well, this reactor is not big enough. 01:08:57.069 --> 01:09:00.270 align:middle line:90% We need to redo the economics. 01:09:00.270 --> 01:09:01.810 align:middle line:84% They stretched it vertically to make 01:09:01.810 --> 01:09:04.729 align:middle line:90% it the AP1000 from the AP600. 01:09:04.729 --> 01:09:07.010 align:middle line:84% That took one year, not that hard. 01:09:07.010 --> 01:09:10.649 align:middle line:84% And then they resubmitted for another NRC license approval. 01:09:10.649 --> 01:09:11.910 align:middle line:90% That took four more years. 01:09:11.910 --> 01:09:14.569 align:middle line:84% So the total time from design conception 01:09:14.569 --> 01:09:19.529 align:middle line:84% to final license approval was 20 years, same as NuScale. 01:09:19.529 --> 01:09:21.649 align:middle line:84% So this just illustrates how long 01:09:21.649 --> 01:09:24.689 align:middle line:84% it takes to conceive of, engineer and license 01:09:24.689 --> 01:09:28.050 align:middle line:90% a reactor, 20 years, basically. 01:09:28.050 --> 01:09:33.109 align:middle line:84% And at five to 10 years of construction time on that, 01:09:33.109 --> 01:09:35.609 align:middle line:90% you get a quarter century. 01:09:35.609 --> 01:09:40.010 align:middle line:84% So I think the idea that a bunch of these reactors 01:09:40.010 --> 01:09:42.689 align:middle line:84% are going to come online and supply electricity 01:09:42.689 --> 01:09:44.946 align:middle line:90% for data centers is crazy. 01:09:44.946 --> 01:09:47.279 align:middle line:84% These data centers are not going to be here in 20 years. 01:09:47.279 --> 01:09:50.260 align:middle line:90% 01:09:50.260 --> 01:09:53.100 align:middle line:90% This is all just [INAUDIBLE]. 01:09:53.100 --> 01:09:55.780 align:middle line:84% And there's a lot of history from reactor to reactor 01:09:55.780 --> 01:09:59.340 align:middle line:84% to reactor that will support these timescales. 01:09:59.340 --> 01:10:04.780 align:middle line:84% If we are serious, we ought to be thinking about these reactors 01:10:04.780 --> 01:10:09.740 align:middle line:84% as something that is coming into a future world that 01:10:09.740 --> 01:10:14.500 align:middle line:84% has seen a quarter century of wind and solar installations. 01:10:14.500 --> 01:10:16.360 align:middle line:84% Because that stuff, as I already showed you, 01:10:16.360 --> 01:10:22.260 align:middle line:84% is happening at a gigawatt a day in China today. 01:10:22.260 --> 01:10:26.140 align:middle line:84% So in 20 years, when your first design comes online, 01:10:26.140 --> 01:10:28.700 align:middle line:84% that's the world in which it needs to compete. 01:10:28.700 --> 01:10:30.260 align:middle line:84% And that means these reactors need 01:10:30.260 --> 01:10:31.900 align:middle line:84% to be load-following reactors that 01:10:31.900 --> 01:10:34.820 align:middle line:84% are going to deal with the variability of a lot of wind 01:10:34.820 --> 01:10:36.260 align:middle line:90% and solar. 01:10:36.260 --> 01:10:40.460 align:middle line:84% And so this is now shaping your design space 01:10:40.460 --> 01:10:43.110 align:middle line:84% and how these reactors are going to operate. 01:10:43.110 --> 01:10:45.470 align:middle line:84% That, or they're going to be doing things that are not 01:10:45.470 --> 01:10:50.030 align:middle line:84% electrical grid, like maybe providing processes 01:10:50.030 --> 01:10:55.190 align:middle line:84% for manufacturing, this second-tier decarbonization 01:10:55.190 --> 01:10:59.750 align:middle line:84% efforts, making paper, making iron, things like that. 01:10:59.750 --> 01:11:07.270 align:middle line:84% So that's my bottom line conclusion for microreactors. 01:11:07.270 --> 01:11:09.110 align:middle line:90% Let's think far in the future. 01:11:09.110 --> 01:11:12.550 align:middle line:84% Let's think factory fabrication in large numbers 01:11:12.550 --> 01:11:14.290 align:middle line:90% at large production rates. 01:11:14.290 --> 01:11:16.830 align:middle line:84% We need a single standardized design, not 01:11:16.830 --> 01:11:19.270 align:middle line:90% 10 different competing designs. 01:11:19.270 --> 01:11:23.613 align:middle line:84% And let's just forget about electricity for now, 01:11:23.613 --> 01:11:26.030 align:middle line:84% unless you're really going to do like peaking or something 01:11:26.030 --> 01:11:28.230 align:middle line:84% like that-- probably something else. 01:11:28.230 --> 01:11:32.530 align:middle line:90% So that's my takeaway. 01:11:32.530 --> 01:11:35.697 align:middle line:90% 01:11:35.697 --> 01:11:37.530 align:middle line:84% I thought, since we have a few more minutes, 01:11:37.530 --> 01:11:39.447 align:middle line:84% maybe I can blast through this, unless there's 01:11:39.447 --> 01:11:43.568 align:middle line:84% any questions about what I've just mentioned. 01:11:43.568 --> 01:11:44.860 align:middle line:90% I wasn't planning to show this. 01:11:44.860 --> 01:11:47.160 align:middle line:90% But we do have 10 minutes. 01:11:47.160 --> 01:11:48.520 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 01:11:48.520 --> 01:11:52.160 align:middle line:84% So here's what people have said for small modular reactors 01:11:52.160 --> 01:11:53.560 align:middle line:90% or microreactors-- 01:11:53.560 --> 01:11:56.260 align:middle line:84% disaster relief, Arctic and remote communities, 01:11:56.260 --> 01:11:58.180 align:middle line:84% mining operations, island communities, 01:11:58.180 --> 01:11:59.920 align:middle line:90% remote military installations. 01:11:59.920 --> 01:12:01.840 align:middle line:90% Here's how my brain works. 01:12:01.840 --> 01:12:05.140 align:middle line:84% Disaster relief-- every now and then, you need reactors. 01:12:05.140 --> 01:12:07.440 align:middle line:90% This is not thousands per year. 01:12:07.440 --> 01:12:10.120 align:middle line:84% This is a couple reactors on standby. 01:12:10.120 --> 01:12:12.900 align:middle line:84% Arctic and remote communities-- we'll look at this in a moment. 01:12:12.900 --> 01:12:16.000 align:middle line:84% Remote mining operations-- we'll look at this in a moment. 01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:20.260 align:middle line:84% Island communities-- OK, how many islands are there? 01:12:20.260 --> 01:12:23.320 align:middle line:84% Remote military installations-- this is a little bit 01:12:23.320 --> 01:12:24.720 align:middle line:90% complicated. 01:12:24.720 --> 01:12:28.660 align:middle line:84% There are hundreds of military installations. 01:12:28.660 --> 01:12:31.360 align:middle line:84% But whether you want to actually put nuclear reactors there 01:12:31.360 --> 01:12:33.420 align:middle line:84% and whether it's a good idea is TBD. 01:12:33.420 --> 01:12:35.920 align:middle line:84% Because even if the reactor is not 01:12:35.920 --> 01:12:38.550 align:middle line:84% going to melt down because it's made of TRISO fuel, 01:12:38.550 --> 01:12:40.770 align:middle line:84% if you blow that thing up, those TRISO particles 01:12:40.770 --> 01:12:45.890 align:middle line:84% will fly a mile away and contaminate a huge region. 01:12:45.890 --> 01:12:50.210 align:middle line:84% And a mile is not unrealistic for a kinetic explosion 01:12:50.210 --> 01:12:51.730 align:middle line:90% of a microreactor. 01:12:51.730 --> 01:12:55.770 align:middle line:84% So whether you want to put these things in a war zone, 01:12:55.770 --> 01:12:59.210 align:middle line:90% I think is a bit crazy. 01:12:59.210 --> 01:13:02.070 align:middle line:90% But let's look at these things. 01:13:02.070 --> 01:13:04.338 align:middle line:84% And then let's look at this market, 01:13:04.338 --> 01:13:06.130 align:middle line:84% the developing world that currently doesn't 01:13:06.130 --> 01:13:09.290 align:middle line:84% have electricity, that doesn't have much of a grid 01:13:09.290 --> 01:13:11.050 align:middle line:90% and what we can do. 01:13:11.050 --> 01:13:13.290 align:middle line:84% All right, so let's do this real fast. 01:13:13.290 --> 01:13:16.330 align:middle line:84% So here's all the rural communities with installed power 01:13:16.330 --> 01:13:17.350 align:middle line:90% production. 01:13:17.350 --> 01:13:21.410 align:middle line:90% 01:13:21.410 --> 01:13:23.370 align:middle line:84% I forget the threshold requirement, 01:13:23.370 --> 01:13:26.356 align:middle line:84% because I wasn't planning to present this. 01:13:26.356 --> 01:13:30.130 align:middle line:84% Oh, this is total megawatt capacity. 01:13:30.130 --> 01:13:35.050 align:middle line:84% So it turns out, it's something like four to 20 reactors, 01:13:35.050 --> 01:13:39.300 align:middle line:84% depending on their size, in Alaska. 01:13:39.300 --> 01:13:41.280 align:middle line:84% And if you expand this to all of Canada, 01:13:41.280 --> 01:13:43.900 align:middle line:84% you get another 20 to 30 reactors. 01:13:43.900 --> 01:13:50.060 align:middle line:84% So you're talking 40, 60 reactors, something like this. 01:13:50.060 --> 01:13:53.118 align:middle line:84% And if you're hoping to get hundreds of produced per year, 01:13:53.118 --> 01:13:55.660 align:middle line:84% this is probably not going to give you the economies of scale 01:13:55.660 --> 01:13:57.860 align:middle line:90% you need. 01:13:57.860 --> 01:14:00.320 align:middle line:84% It turns out, mining operations are also not great. 01:14:00.320 --> 01:14:02.020 align:middle line:84% There's a couple of mining operations 01:14:02.020 --> 01:14:05.460 align:middle line:90% that need a lot of electricity-- 01:14:05.460 --> 01:14:09.260 align:middle line:90% maybe worldwide, a few dozen. 01:14:09.260 --> 01:14:13.260 align:middle line:84% And this is probably also not a sufficiently large market 01:14:13.260 --> 01:14:15.700 align:middle line:84% to create the mass production that we need. 01:14:15.700 --> 01:14:19.020 align:middle line:84% So the thing that's really left is actually this at the end. 01:14:19.020 --> 01:14:21.340 align:middle line:84% What can be done in the developing world? 01:14:21.340 --> 01:14:24.500 align:middle line:90% So here's what we did. 01:14:24.500 --> 01:14:29.740 align:middle line:84% We took satellite data that showed where all the lights are 01:14:29.740 --> 01:14:31.320 align:middle line:90% from space during night. 01:14:31.320 --> 01:14:33.540 align:middle line:84% And we used that as a proxy for how much electricity 01:14:33.540 --> 01:14:34.550 align:middle line:90% was installed. 01:14:34.550 --> 01:14:40.370 align:middle line:84% And we looked at GIS data for where people lived. 01:14:40.370 --> 01:14:43.410 align:middle line:84% And we had road network and land and topological data 01:14:43.410 --> 01:14:45.590 align:middle line:84% and so on and said, OK, let's find all the areas 01:14:45.590 --> 01:14:50.150 align:middle line:84% that the land is suitable for installation of a reactor 01:14:50.150 --> 01:14:56.630 align:middle line:84% where people are living but there's low nighttime light, 01:14:56.630 --> 01:14:59.830 align:middle line:84% indicating poor electrification of those countries. 01:14:59.830 --> 01:15:02.050 align:middle line:90% And we did that. 01:15:02.050 --> 01:15:03.830 align:middle line:90% And here's the results. 01:15:03.830 --> 01:15:06.790 align:middle line:84% Here's the electricity needed to raise everyone living 01:15:06.790 --> 01:15:09.770 align:middle line:84% in the world to Tier 5 electrification standard, 01:15:09.770 --> 01:15:13.350 align:middle line:84% according to the World Bank, which is 8.2kw hours per day per 01:15:13.350 --> 01:15:14.710 align:middle line:90% household. 01:15:14.710 --> 01:15:19.470 align:middle line:84% And you see that, especially here in Africa 01:15:19.470 --> 01:15:24.770 align:middle line:84% and here in India, a lot of potential for electrification. 01:15:24.770 --> 01:15:29.430 align:middle line:90% 01:15:29.430 --> 01:15:35.360 align:middle line:84% It turns out that these dark blue areas, the power 01:15:35.360 --> 01:15:38.160 align:middle line:84% density is too low, less than a megawatt, 01:15:38.160 --> 01:15:40.140 align:middle line:90% to really support a reactor. 01:15:40.140 --> 01:15:43.280 align:middle line:84% So we're kind of really interested in the green to red 01:15:43.280 --> 01:15:45.680 align:middle line:90% zones. 01:15:45.680 --> 01:15:47.400 align:middle line:84% Then what we did, we said, you need 01:15:47.400 --> 01:15:49.990 align:middle line:90% to be kind of close to a road. 01:15:49.990 --> 01:15:52.680 align:middle line:84% We can't be going through a forest or something 01:15:52.680 --> 01:15:53.940 align:middle line:90% to try to bring in a reactor. 01:15:53.940 --> 01:15:57.080 align:middle line:84% So you need to be close to a road, close to water or a rail 01:15:57.080 --> 01:15:59.120 align:middle line:90% networks. 01:15:59.120 --> 01:16:02.640 align:middle line:84% And you have to have physically stable ground. 01:16:02.640 --> 01:16:05.360 align:middle line:84% It can't be a wetland or anything like that. 01:16:05.360 --> 01:16:07.760 align:middle line:84% And we came up with-- this is the site 01:16:07.760 --> 01:16:11.400 align:middle line:84% ability, where you could site reactors of different sizes. 01:16:11.400 --> 01:16:14.520 align:middle line:84% And then we combine these things. 01:16:14.520 --> 01:16:18.720 align:middle line:84% And these are places where you could actually build reactors 01:16:18.720 --> 01:16:24.440 align:middle line:84% and there's not so much forest that you can't actually do it. 01:16:24.440 --> 01:16:26.200 align:middle line:90% So this is the hope. 01:16:26.200 --> 01:16:35.170 align:middle line:90% 01:16:35.170 --> 01:16:38.930 align:middle line:84% 78% of the 630 million people living in these areas 01:16:38.930 --> 01:16:41.490 align:middle line:84% could be potentially theoretically served 01:16:41.490 --> 01:16:45.410 align:middle line:84% with small nuclear-- so very exciting, in principle. 01:16:45.410 --> 01:16:46.952 align:middle line:84% And then we said, well, but you need 01:16:46.952 --> 01:16:48.410 align:middle line:84% to have a country where there's not 01:16:48.410 --> 01:16:52.050 align:middle line:90% a lot of corruption going on. 01:16:52.050 --> 01:16:55.450 align:middle line:90% You have to have laws that work. 01:16:55.450 --> 01:16:58.248 align:middle line:84% You have to have some minimum regulatory framework for safety. 01:16:58.248 --> 01:17:00.290 align:middle line:84% And you have to have an effective government that 01:17:00.290 --> 01:17:02.930 align:middle line:90% can manage this project. 01:17:02.930 --> 01:17:06.910 align:middle line:84% And you could debate how this should be done. 01:17:06.910 --> 01:17:11.530 align:middle line:84% But we said basically, Ukraine was like the threshold. 01:17:11.530 --> 01:17:13.610 align:middle line:84% Ukraine currently has nuclear that it 01:17:13.610 --> 01:17:15.610 align:middle line:90% inherited from the Soviets. 01:17:15.610 --> 01:17:18.490 align:middle line:84% It relies on the United States heavily 01:17:18.490 --> 01:17:21.450 align:middle line:84% to keep those nuclear plants safe and operating. 01:17:21.450 --> 01:17:24.770 align:middle line:84% It's kind of the threshold of where nuclear makes sense. 01:17:24.770 --> 01:17:26.630 align:middle line:84% So we just took the Ukraine and said 01:17:26.630 --> 01:17:30.620 align:middle line:84% you have to be at least as good as the Ukraine. 01:17:30.620 --> 01:17:37.100 align:middle line:84% And when you do that, you exclude 80% of the population. 01:17:37.100 --> 01:17:41.660 align:middle line:84% But that's still 98 million people. 01:17:41.660 --> 01:17:46.720 align:middle line:84% And then we said you need to not be in a war zone. 01:17:46.720 --> 01:17:53.906 align:middle line:90% 01:17:53.906 --> 01:17:56.640 align:middle line:84% And I don't know how this is shown on this plot. 01:17:56.640 --> 01:18:00.940 align:middle line:90% 01:18:00.940 --> 01:18:02.660 align:middle line:84% We did an exclusion of war zones, which 01:18:02.660 --> 01:18:05.540 align:middle line:90% I guess I don't have a slide. 01:18:05.540 --> 01:18:08.500 align:middle line:84% So what we found was that you still have room for about 01:18:08.500 --> 01:18:12.205 align:middle line:90% 300,000 reactors, potentially. 01:18:12.205 --> 01:18:13.580 align:middle line:84% And that's an interesting number, 01:18:13.580 --> 01:18:16.780 align:middle line:84% because 300,000 is where you really would get economies 01:18:16.780 --> 01:18:18.300 align:middle line:90% of manufacturing. 01:18:18.300 --> 01:18:21.060 align:middle line:84% And moreover, if you look at the cost of African electricity 01:18:21.060 --> 01:18:24.100 align:middle line:84% prices, there's something like $80 to $600 01:18:24.100 --> 01:18:28.870 align:middle line:84% per megawatt hour compared to that. 01:18:28.870 --> 01:18:31.670 align:middle line:84% Today, Boston is $50 a megawatt hour. 01:18:31.670 --> 01:18:35.590 align:middle line:84% So you could convince yourself that this would be affordable. 01:18:35.590 --> 01:18:39.110 align:middle line:84% But the flaw in the logic is that they 01:18:39.110 --> 01:18:43.990 align:middle line:84% want to spend that price and that that's scalable. 01:18:43.990 --> 01:18:46.750 align:middle line:84% And the real reason why the prices are that way 01:18:46.750 --> 01:18:49.950 align:middle line:90% is because it's not scaled. 01:18:49.950 --> 01:18:54.030 align:middle line:90% And no one can afford more. 01:18:54.030 --> 01:18:55.910 align:middle line:84% So you might look at these numbers 01:18:55.910 --> 01:19:03.150 align:middle line:84% and say, oh, $80 to $600, maybe some of these technologies 01:19:03.150 --> 01:19:05.670 align:middle line:90% would work. 01:19:05.670 --> 01:19:09.590 align:middle line:84% But the problem is, really, that's kind 01:19:09.590 --> 01:19:11.030 align:middle line:84% of like taking the poorest people 01:19:11.030 --> 01:19:12.447 align:middle line:84% and saying we're going to make you 01:19:12.447 --> 01:19:16.510 align:middle line:84% pay for the economies of scale for our reactors. 01:19:16.510 --> 01:19:19.790 align:middle line:84% And it turns out, as we later learned, 01:19:19.790 --> 01:19:23.510 align:middle line:84% of the 39 countries that are here in Africa, 01:19:23.510 --> 01:19:25.480 align:middle line:84% only two of these countries are actually 01:19:25.480 --> 01:19:28.520 align:middle line:84% able to cover their costs making electricity. 01:19:28.520 --> 01:19:33.360 align:middle line:84% The other 37 operate their electricity sectors at a loss. 01:19:33.360 --> 01:19:36.440 align:middle line:84% And they are basically subsidized by the government. 01:19:36.440 --> 01:19:38.480 align:middle line:84% But it's one thing for the government 01:19:38.480 --> 01:19:40.720 align:middle line:84% to subsidize electricity in the capital city 01:19:40.720 --> 01:19:42.703 align:middle line:90% so that they can operate a city. 01:19:42.703 --> 01:19:44.120 align:middle line:84% It's another thing to say, oh, now 01:19:44.120 --> 01:19:47.180 align:middle line:84% we're going to subsidize 100 million additional people. 01:19:47.180 --> 01:19:49.640 align:middle line:84% Where is that revenue going to come from? 01:19:49.640 --> 01:19:55.000 align:middle line:84% So it turns out that this hope doesn't really 01:19:55.000 --> 01:19:59.760 align:middle line:84% hold water when you consider developmental economics in play. 01:19:59.760 --> 01:20:03.320 align:middle line:84% But then this turned out to be the real thing. 01:20:03.320 --> 01:20:05.320 align:middle line:84% Where are you going to find all these people 01:20:05.320 --> 01:20:08.520 align:middle line:90% to run all these reactors? 01:20:08.520 --> 01:20:11.560 align:middle line:84% I think this is kind of a general problem for an expansion 01:20:11.560 --> 01:20:13.600 align:middle line:90% of nuclear in any country. 01:20:13.600 --> 01:20:17.720 align:middle line:84% If every reactor requires two engineers, then, 01:20:17.720 --> 01:20:22.570 align:middle line:84% for 400,000 reactors for five shifts, you're going to need, 01:20:22.570 --> 01:20:26.370 align:middle line:84% like, 4 million nuclear engineers. 01:20:26.370 --> 01:20:29.130 align:middle line:84% So either these things really do have to be completely 01:20:29.130 --> 01:20:34.330 align:middle line:84% computer controlled, or we have to have some massive expansion 01:20:34.330 --> 01:20:38.410 align:middle line:84% in reactor training to actually operate all these reactors 01:20:38.410 --> 01:20:40.130 align:middle line:90% that people are talking about. 01:20:40.130 --> 01:20:41.850 align:middle line:90% All right, I will wrap up there. 01:20:41.850 --> 01:20:43.720 align:middle line:90% We're out of time. 01:20:43.720 --> 01:21:22.000 align:middle line:90%