WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.982 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:01.982 --> 00:00:03.958 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:03.958 --> 00:00:11.180 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:11.180 --> 00:00:14.200 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: All right, well, it's 11:05, so let's get started. 00:00:14.200 --> 00:00:19.800 align:middle line:84% So far, we have talked exclusively about nuclear 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:21.540 align:middle line:90% for electrical markets. 00:00:21.540 --> 00:00:24.380 align:middle line:84% And the problem is that, in those markets, 00:00:24.380 --> 00:00:27.360 align:middle line:84% wind and solar have become so cheap in recent years 00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:30.140 align:middle line:84% that they've kind of displaced nuclear. 00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:32.439 align:middle line:90% That's the bottom line story. 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:35.120 align:middle line:84% But there's another market that nuclear hasn't traditionally 00:00:35.120 --> 00:00:38.480 align:middle line:84% been in that we ought to consider if we're thinking 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:44.280 align:middle line:84% about decarbonizing all systems, and that is thermal markets. 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:47.320 align:middle line:84% So thermal markets, which is to say 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:50.120 align:middle line:84% that just the provision of heat to do 00:00:50.120 --> 00:00:52.920 align:middle line:84% some kind of industrial process, often a chemical 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:57.480 align:middle line:84% process which requires heat, to either accelerate or initiate 00:00:57.480 --> 00:01:01.340 align:middle line:84% that reaction, endothermic reactions. 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:05.180 align:middle line:84% These heat sources typically consume-- 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:09.420 align:middle line:84% are responsible for about 50% of emissions 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:11.260 align:middle line:90% from the industrial sector. 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:13.640 align:middle line:84% So in the decarbonization effort, 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.580 align:middle line:84% this is a potentially large opportunity 00:01:16.580 --> 00:01:21.480 align:middle line:84% for nuclear, which is, by its nature, a heat generator. 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:26.920 align:middle line:84% So here is this essentially the situation with nuclear 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:28.460 align:middle line:90% when we're making electricity. 00:01:28.460 --> 00:01:31.100 align:middle line:84% We have some amount of energy coming out of the nuclear power 00:01:31.100 --> 00:01:33.180 align:middle line:90% plant, which is thermal energy. 00:01:33.180 --> 00:01:36.980 align:middle line:84% And then, in a way, we could price it. 00:01:36.980 --> 00:01:40.300 align:middle line:84% We know the price from all these data 00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:42.420 align:middle line:84% that we have been looking at for electricity, 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:44.980 align:middle line:84% and we can back out the price for heat 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:47.300 align:middle line:90% by dividing by some efficiency. 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:50.500 align:middle line:84% And so, in most reactors, the efficiency 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:55.120 align:middle line:84% is somewhere around 30% to 40%, something like that. 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:58.450 align:middle line:84% And so this gives us a price for the seat. 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:03.530 align:middle line:84% And what is nice about that is that if we 00:02:03.530 --> 00:02:07.050 align:middle line:84% look at the other things, like wind and solar, 00:02:07.050 --> 00:02:10.370 align:middle line:84% well, they don't produce heat ever. 00:02:10.370 --> 00:02:15.170 align:middle line:84% So you can get heat, but you do it by resistive heating. 00:02:15.170 --> 00:02:19.710 align:middle line:84% So for every dollar you spend to get a megawatt of electricity, 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:23.863 align:middle line:84% you get the heat at exactly the same price 00:02:23.863 --> 00:02:25.530 align:middle line:84% because resistive heating is effectively 00:02:25.530 --> 00:02:28.490 align:middle line:90% 100% effective, 100% efficient. 00:02:28.490 --> 00:02:35.590 align:middle line:84% So there's no economic gain for wind and solar to provide this. 00:02:35.590 --> 00:02:37.930 align:middle line:84% And so it turns out to be fairly expensive 00:02:37.930 --> 00:02:39.270 align:middle line:90% when we compare it to nuclear. 00:02:39.270 --> 00:02:41.530 align:middle line:84% So here, nuclear on the high end is more 00:02:41.530 --> 00:02:45.310 align:middle line:90% expensive than wind and solar. 00:02:45.310 --> 00:02:48.470 align:middle line:84% This is, of course, $130 per megawatt. 00:02:48.470 --> 00:02:51.730 align:middle line:84% Does anyone remember what this is? 00:02:51.730 --> 00:02:57.230 align:middle line:84% This is the Sheiner calculation, where 00:02:57.230 --> 00:03:00.290 align:middle line:84% the whole grid is stabilized with overbuild and storage. 00:03:00.290 --> 00:03:05.270 align:middle line:84% So this is what is required if you want to reliably just plug 00:03:05.270 --> 00:03:10.650 align:middle line:84% in to your wind and solar grid and run a resistive heater. 00:03:10.650 --> 00:03:15.483 align:middle line:84% You need something of this scale to do it. 00:03:15.483 --> 00:03:17.650 align:middle line:84% We'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. 00:03:17.650 --> 00:03:20.190 align:middle line:84% But that's why I'm assuming for the price. 00:03:20.190 --> 00:03:23.970 align:middle line:84% And here's $200 per megawatt this is your target. 00:03:23.970 --> 00:03:26.030 align:middle line:90% This is more realistic. 00:03:26.030 --> 00:03:28.170 align:middle line:84% But even at the realistic levels, 00:03:28.170 --> 00:03:31.430 align:middle line:84% you're getting heat at a cheaper price than what 00:03:31.430 --> 00:03:33.170 align:middle line:90% wind and solar can do. 00:03:33.170 --> 00:03:36.530 align:middle line:90% And that's the real win here. 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:38.710 align:middle line:84% This is the headline that you should take away. 00:03:38.710 --> 00:03:39.210 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:03:39.210 --> 00:03:42.930 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: How does this compare to natural gas-based furnaces, 00:03:42.930 --> 00:03:44.230 align:middle line:90% for instance? 00:03:44.230 --> 00:03:45.470 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: For pricing? 00:03:45.470 --> 00:03:48.250 align:middle line:84% So you can do the same calculation for natural gas. 00:03:48.250 --> 00:03:51.390 align:middle line:84% And it is cheaper than nuclear by a lot, 00:03:51.390 --> 00:03:53.110 align:middle line:90% but it's not carbon-free. 00:03:53.110 --> 00:03:57.380 align:middle line:84% So the whole idea is all of these options are carbon-free 00:03:57.380 --> 00:03:58.940 align:middle line:90% or nearly carbon-free. 00:03:58.940 --> 00:04:02.460 align:middle line:84% So we're talking about how do we decarbonize that part 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:04.700 align:middle line:90% of the Industrial sector. 00:04:04.700 --> 00:04:07.760 align:middle line:84% Of course, geothermal also produces heat. 00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:11.060 align:middle line:84% It produces a very low-grade heat that is converted at very 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:15.180 align:middle line:84% low efficiency-- by low-grade, I mean low temperature-- 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:16.560 align:middle line:90% to electricity. 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.440 align:middle line:84% And so if you back out, given its low efficiency, 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:22.460 align:middle line:84% you wind up with a super cheap price for heat. 00:04:22.460 --> 00:04:27.260 align:middle line:84% But the heat is a cool, a very cold of heat. 00:04:27.260 --> 00:04:29.620 align:middle line:84% And that's not necessarily useful in all kinds 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:30.197 align:middle line:90% of resources. 00:04:30.197 --> 00:04:31.280 align:middle line:90% You can use super heating. 00:04:31.280 --> 00:04:32.940 align:middle line:84% We'll talk about that in a moment. 00:04:32.940 --> 00:04:36.760 align:middle line:84% But most specifically, it's geographically limited. 00:04:36.760 --> 00:04:40.640 align:middle line:84% And so this is not, nuclear is not. 00:04:40.640 --> 00:04:44.900 align:middle line:84% And so that's where we are interested in exploring. 00:04:44.900 --> 00:04:47.740 align:middle line:84% So let's look a little bit more about this heat market, which 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:50.620 align:middle line:84% on the face of it looks very promising. 00:04:50.620 --> 00:04:55.240 align:middle line:90% So it has a number of features. 00:04:55.240 --> 00:04:59.340 align:middle line:84% So the first one is that generally plants 00:04:59.340 --> 00:05:02.400 align:middle line:84% that use heat in industrial processes 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:05.860 align:middle line:90% have a high capital cost. 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:09.400 align:middle line:84% You have to build this big refinery or this big-- 00:05:09.400 --> 00:05:11.440 align:middle line:84% there's a lot of infrastructure in place. 00:05:11.440 --> 00:05:14.720 align:middle line:84% And the way those plants make money 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:18.240 align:middle line:84% is to operate essentially all of the time. 00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:21.120 align:middle line:84% And so they need the heat to be always on, 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:25.160 align:middle line:84% which makes for a baseload-like load, which 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:27.880 align:middle line:84% is a perfect match to nuclear, which is also a high capital 00:05:27.880 --> 00:05:30.080 align:middle line:84% cost technology you want to run all the time. 00:05:30.080 --> 00:05:33.640 align:middle line:90% So this is a win-win. 00:05:33.640 --> 00:05:37.400 align:middle line:84% Another thing is that demand in heat markets 00:05:37.400 --> 00:05:41.520 align:middle line:84% tends to be intensive in small points 00:05:41.520 --> 00:05:48.240 align:middle line:84% but distributed geographically around legacy heat sources. 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:52.202 align:middle line:84% So you'll have a natural gas pipeline, 00:05:52.202 --> 00:05:53.910 align:middle line:84% and then you'll find that a lot of plants 00:05:53.910 --> 00:05:56.430 align:middle line:90% get built by that pipeline. 00:05:56.430 --> 00:05:59.410 align:middle line:84% But then you'll also have something else, 00:05:59.410 --> 00:06:03.670 align:middle line:84% like a paper mill in the Pacific Northwest. 00:06:03.670 --> 00:06:07.490 align:middle line:84% And it burns a lot of biomass, for example, 00:06:07.490 --> 00:06:09.730 align:middle line:90% to produce heat, make the paper. 00:06:09.730 --> 00:06:14.670 align:middle line:84% So there will be this particular kind of geographic setting, 00:06:14.670 --> 00:06:18.730 align:middle line:84% which may not be compatible with, say, 00:06:18.730 --> 00:06:20.608 align:middle line:84% a grid-based distribution system, where 00:06:20.608 --> 00:06:23.150 align:middle line:84% you'd have to bring in and build a lot of grid infrastructure 00:06:23.150 --> 00:06:26.950 align:middle line:84% to bring electricity in to do this grid renewables. 00:06:26.950 --> 00:06:31.610 align:middle line:84% And the other important thing is that temperature really matters. 00:06:31.610 --> 00:06:34.550 align:middle line:84% And so we have to make sure we differentiate the heat 00:06:34.550 --> 00:06:38.490 align:middle line:84% market by temperature to see what we can do. 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:41.830 align:middle line:90% So what can nuclear do? 00:06:41.830 --> 00:06:44.710 align:middle line:84% So traditionally, for PWRs, we're 00:06:44.710 --> 00:06:46.590 align:middle line:84% looking at something like 300 degrees 00:06:46.590 --> 00:06:48.370 align:middle line:90% C as an outlet temperature. 00:06:48.370 --> 00:06:52.570 align:middle line:84% And that temperature is limited in most reactors 00:06:52.570 --> 00:06:54.530 align:middle line:84% by the departure from nucleate boiling. 00:06:54.530 --> 00:06:58.410 align:middle line:84% But there are higher temperature reactors. 00:06:58.410 --> 00:07:00.930 align:middle line:84% So the high temperature graphite reactors-- 00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:06.330 align:middle line:84% these are things like the x-energy reactors, and the FHR. 00:07:06.330 --> 00:07:09.290 align:middle line:84% These are things like the Kairos reactor and the one with the FHR 00:07:09.290 --> 00:07:12.490 align:middle line:84% that is under development for [INAUDIBLE] here. 00:07:12.490 --> 00:07:16.210 align:middle line:84% These things, in principle, can go to higher temperatures. 00:07:16.210 --> 00:07:18.530 align:middle line:84% There's a number of things that limit the temperatures 00:07:18.530 --> 00:07:19.750 align:middle line:90% of these reactors. 00:07:19.750 --> 00:07:22.070 align:middle line:84% So fundamentally, the TRISO particles, 00:07:22.070 --> 00:07:28.850 align:middle line:84% which are the little grains of sand in the fuel, 00:07:28.850 --> 00:07:33.810 align:middle line:84% those things are theoretically capable of 1,600 degrees C 00:07:33.810 --> 00:07:35.770 align:middle line:90% before they begin to decompose. 00:07:35.770 --> 00:07:38.670 align:middle line:84% And then because the particles are not perfectly made, 00:07:38.670 --> 00:07:41.570 align:middle line:84% you have some safety margin that brings it down to 1,200 degrees 00:07:41.570 --> 00:07:42.650 align:middle line:90% C. 00:07:42.650 --> 00:07:46.570 align:middle line:84% But then your max temperature-- so that's your maximum fuel 00:07:46.570 --> 00:07:49.470 align:middle line:84% temperature for safety-- but your maximum temperature is not 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:52.910 align:middle line:84% going to be the same thing as your maximum outlet temperature. 00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:57.070 align:middle line:84% So you have some kind of temperature gradient 00:07:57.070 --> 00:07:59.550 align:middle line:90% across the core. 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:02.790 align:middle line:84% And so typically, an in-core fuel temperature 00:08:02.790 --> 00:08:05.070 align:middle line:84% at the edge of the fuel will typically be around 00:08:05.070 --> 00:08:08.710 align:middle line:84% like 950 degrees C. And that will give you 00:08:08.710 --> 00:08:12.110 align:middle line:84% an outlet temperature of around, say, 750 degrees C. 00:08:12.110 --> 00:08:16.370 align:middle line:84% And this all just because of method of resistors and so on. 00:08:16.370 --> 00:08:18.813 align:middle line:90% 00:08:18.813 --> 00:08:20.230 align:middle line:84% The outlet temperature tends to be 00:08:20.230 --> 00:08:25.470 align:middle line:84% limited by things like the bypass gas 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:28.870 align:middle line:84% that you use to cool the core structurals 00:08:28.870 --> 00:08:30.670 align:middle line:90% and things like this. 00:08:30.670 --> 00:08:33.590 align:middle line:84% And if you raise that temperature too much, 00:08:33.590 --> 00:08:38.150 align:middle line:84% what you find is that you begin to get creep in the structurals. 00:08:38.150 --> 00:08:41.390 align:middle line:84% So this is one of the reasons why the Kairos reactor, which 00:08:41.390 --> 00:08:46.790 align:middle line:84% is a salt-cooled FHR type reactor, 00:08:46.790 --> 00:08:49.620 align:middle line:84% is currently expected to have a lifetime of really 00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:52.640 align:middle line:84% only about four years unless they change the material. 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:54.780 align:middle line:90% Currently, the material is 316h. 00:08:54.780 --> 00:08:58.083 align:middle line:84% And creep from that material at these temperatures 00:08:58.083 --> 00:09:00.500 align:middle line:84% basically limits the lifetime, which, of course, drives up 00:09:00.500 --> 00:09:03.040 align:middle line:84% the capital cost for the reactor. 00:09:03.040 --> 00:09:07.940 align:middle line:84% So pushing the temperature margins too high 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:12.380 align:middle line:84% is a problematic for a variety of these reasons. 00:09:12.380 --> 00:09:16.580 align:middle line:84% Then there are some other things in HTGRs. 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:21.500 align:middle line:84% These are the gas-cooled, helium-cooled reactors. 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:25.080 align:middle line:84% You have some-- I mentioned this, in helium-cooled ones, 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:27.660 align:middle line:84% you can get these hot spots on pebble bed reactors 00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:32.400 align:middle line:84% because as neutronics is ultimately a stochastic process. 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:34.020 align:middle line:84% So you have some excess reactivity 00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:37.180 align:middle line:84% in one spot, which disproportionately heats up 00:09:37.180 --> 00:09:39.180 align:middle line:84% the gas, which reduces its density, which 00:09:39.180 --> 00:09:40.640 align:middle line:90% reduces its cooling power. 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:44.580 align:middle line:84% And also, helium has this effect where so, suddenly, it forms 00:09:44.580 --> 00:09:46.440 align:middle line:90% this hotspot in the reactor. 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:49.140 align:middle line:84% And so when you deal with that kind of stuff, 00:09:49.140 --> 00:09:52.160 align:middle line:84% you have to put more margin into the reactor 00:09:52.160 --> 00:09:54.720 align:middle line:90% and limit the total temperature. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:59.400 align:middle line:84% And so there's additional constraints there. 00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:03.740 align:middle line:84% You could, in principle, for the structural parts, the reactor, 00:10:03.740 --> 00:10:05.240 align:middle line:84% which undergo creep, you could start 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:09.260 align:middle line:84% thinking about alloys that are capable of higher temperatures. 00:10:09.260 --> 00:10:10.800 align:middle line:90% There are such alloys. 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:13.840 align:middle line:84% But typically, these alloys involve nickel. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:16.840 align:middle line:84% And the problem with nickel is that it transmutes 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:20.840 align:middle line:84% in the reactor, and it makes the structures very radioactive. 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.120 align:middle line:84% So typically, we try to avoid nickel. 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:26.260 align:middle line:84% Not only does it make it just radioactive, 00:10:26.260 --> 00:10:29.560 align:middle line:84% but that radiation also causes the in-growth 00:10:29.560 --> 00:10:33.740 align:middle line:84% of helium embrittlement and things like this. 00:10:33.740 --> 00:10:35.640 align:middle line:84% So there are all sorts of structural issues. 00:10:35.640 --> 00:10:37.960 align:middle line:84% You could do isotopic separation on the nickel 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.760 align:middle line:84% to try to fix that problem, but then the cost of those alloys 00:10:41.760 --> 00:10:43.700 align:middle line:90% get extremely expensive. 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:46.730 align:middle line:84% We're talking $25 per gram or something. 00:10:46.730 --> 00:10:50.150 align:middle line:84% So right now, the materials issues 00:10:50.150 --> 00:10:54.570 align:middle line:84% are really what are limiting these high temperature reactors. 00:10:54.570 --> 00:10:57.470 align:middle line:84% So that's just a bit of insight to say 00:10:57.470 --> 00:11:00.150 align:middle line:84% that if you really want to look at pushing these numbers so 00:11:00.150 --> 00:11:02.630 align:middle line:84% that nuclear has really high temperatures, which makes 00:11:02.630 --> 00:11:04.790 align:middle line:84% it really interesting for heat markets, 00:11:04.790 --> 00:11:06.090 align:middle line:90% it's a materials problem. 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:10.070 align:middle line:84% And you could go do research in materials group. 00:11:10.070 --> 00:11:11.910 align:middle line:84% Finally, there are some other things 00:11:11.910 --> 00:11:15.550 align:middle line:84% beyond materials that could potentially be issues. 00:11:15.550 --> 00:11:18.030 align:middle line:84% I mentioned that the TRISO particles are in principle good 00:11:18.030 --> 00:11:23.150 align:middle line:84% to 1,600 degrees C, but there's some data to suggest that 00:11:23.150 --> 00:11:27.430 align:middle line:84% certain fission products, particularly strontium 00:11:27.430 --> 00:11:32.830 align:middle line:84% and europium, somehow diffuse through the TRISO layers 00:11:32.830 --> 00:11:34.850 align:middle line:84% a little bit more rapidly than we would like. 00:11:34.850 --> 00:11:37.210 align:middle line:84% It's not exactly clear if that problem is solved or not. 00:11:37.210 --> 00:11:39.790 align:middle line:84% I think that it's still some open science 00:11:39.790 --> 00:11:42.250 align:middle line:90% questions on that front. 00:11:42.250 --> 00:11:46.330 align:middle line:84% So we could also run into fuel-related issues 00:11:46.330 --> 00:11:47.490 align:middle line:90% if we go too high. 00:11:47.490 --> 00:11:49.930 align:middle line:84% But for now, this issue is really 00:11:49.930 --> 00:11:55.130 align:middle line:84% an issue of finding metal alloys that are compatible 00:11:55.130 --> 00:11:57.250 align:middle line:84% with nuclear, meaning low nickel, 00:11:57.250 --> 00:12:00.310 align:middle line:84% but which also don't creep at high temperatures. 00:12:00.310 --> 00:12:03.490 align:middle line:84% And that's really what limits our ability to go higher. 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:06.370 align:middle line:84% People have talked about these very high-temperature graphite 00:12:06.370 --> 00:12:08.770 align:middle line:90% reactors and so on. 00:12:08.770 --> 00:12:10.770 align:middle line:84% But again, the long-term viability 00:12:10.770 --> 00:12:13.950 align:middle line:84% of these reactor concepts is very much in question. 00:12:13.950 --> 00:12:18.290 align:middle line:84% So I consider this stuff to be not-- 00:12:18.290 --> 00:12:20.750 align:middle line:84% sure, you could build a prototype demonstration, 00:12:20.750 --> 00:12:23.010 align:middle line:84% but it's not going to be economically viable because 00:12:23.010 --> 00:12:24.390 align:middle line:90% of materials lifetime. 00:12:24.390 --> 00:12:28.770 align:middle line:84% So this is kind of where I'm putting my limit for nuclear 00:12:28.770 --> 00:12:31.850 align:middle line:90% with current technologies. 00:12:31.850 --> 00:12:36.090 align:middle line:84% So some processes, that's plenty good-- we'll 00:12:36.090 --> 00:12:40.130 align:middle line:84% talk about that in a second, how hot do we need to go. 00:12:40.130 --> 00:12:42.980 align:middle line:84% But this doesn't actually limit us all that much. 00:12:42.980 --> 00:12:44.840 align:middle line:84% And the reason is because we can still 00:12:44.840 --> 00:12:46.895 align:middle line:90% do what's called superheat. 00:12:46.895 --> 00:12:48.520 align:middle line:84% And so what you can do is here's your-- 00:12:48.520 --> 00:12:50.620 align:middle line:90% you can do it in multiple ways. 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:53.080 align:middle line:84% You get some baseline heat, somewhere between 300 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:57.240 align:middle line:84% if you're PWR and 700 if you're, say, an HTGR, 00:12:57.240 --> 00:12:59.300 align:middle line:90% all coming from nuclear. 00:12:59.300 --> 00:13:03.480 align:middle line:84% And then either you burn some additional fossil fuel 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.800 align:middle line:84% and make it hotter, or you use some extra resistive heating 00:13:07.800 --> 00:13:10.200 align:middle line:90% and make it hotter. 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:12.500 align:middle line:84% And what is the bottom one I forget? 00:13:12.500 --> 00:13:14.560 align:middle line:84% Oh, you can use heat pumps, which 00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:19.920 align:middle line:84% is a little bit fancy high capital cost. 00:13:19.920 --> 00:13:24.160 align:middle line:84% So there are these ways of making your working fluid hotter 00:13:24.160 --> 00:13:25.920 align:middle line:90% than the outlet temperature. 00:13:25.920 --> 00:13:33.280 align:middle line:84% Of course, this changes your cost and/or carbon footprint. 00:13:33.280 --> 00:13:36.260 align:middle line:84% So obviously, if you burn fossil fuel to get hotter, 00:13:36.260 --> 00:13:38.620 align:middle line:90% you're going to have some CO2. 00:13:38.620 --> 00:13:40.300 align:middle line:84% Or if you use electricity, now you 00:13:40.300 --> 00:13:42.460 align:middle line:84% need to find cheap electricity, and that 00:13:42.460 --> 00:13:48.180 align:middle line:90% can cause the cost to go up. 00:13:48.180 --> 00:13:52.340 align:middle line:84% I said reduces cost a little, nuclear up to 2/3. 00:13:52.340 --> 00:13:56.900 align:middle line:84% Oh I see, this is to say that during versus the nuclear 00:13:56.900 --> 00:14:02.020 align:middle line:84% reduces the costs of having a pure resistive is what that 00:14:02.020 --> 00:14:05.500 align:middle line:84% means-- having a pure resistive heat of 1,000 because you 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:09.740 align:middle line:84% provided roughly, say, 1/3 to 2/3 of that from nuclear heat, 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:12.280 align:middle line:84% which has a lower per-heat unit heat cost. 00:14:12.280 --> 00:14:12.780 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:14:12.780 --> 00:14:15.363 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: These concepts that use heat from nuclear reactors-- 00:14:15.363 --> 00:14:18.007 align:middle line:84% how is heat typically transferred over long distances? 00:14:18.007 --> 00:14:20.340 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: This is a good question that I haven't really 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:21.640 align:middle line:90% investigated too much. 00:14:21.640 --> 00:14:25.160 align:middle line:84% Often, it's steam in many systems, 00:14:25.160 --> 00:14:27.920 align:middle line:84% but one of the challenges that we will face, 00:14:27.920 --> 00:14:30.200 align:middle line:84% and I will mention this in a few minutes, 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.740 align:middle line:84% is that we might have to do more distribution than we 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:34.860 align:middle line:90% conventionally do. 00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:38.720 align:middle line:84% So with gas, you can pump the gas right into something 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:43.040 align:middle line:84% and then burn it underneath some vat of stuff 00:14:43.040 --> 00:14:45.040 align:middle line:90% that you're trying to heat up. 00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:47.720 align:middle line:84% Whereas if your nuclear is somewhere else on the site, 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:51.280 align:middle line:84% and you have to pump that heat hundreds of meters, 00:14:51.280 --> 00:14:55.080 align:middle line:84% I don't know how much the losses come into play. 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:57.080 align:middle line:84% So I'll mention that again in a moment-- 00:14:57.080 --> 00:14:58.660 align:middle line:90% I've got a slide about that. 00:14:58.660 --> 00:15:01.320 align:middle line:90% 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:02.320 align:middle line:90% So these are all-- 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:04.060 align:middle line:90% we call these topping cycles. 00:15:04.060 --> 00:15:06.240 align:middle line:84% And they can be added at various costs 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:11.440 align:middle line:84% to get us in to make use of nuclear in advantageous heat. 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:15.420 align:middle line:84% So let's look at how much you need at each temperature. 00:15:15.420 --> 00:15:18.920 align:middle line:84% That's kind of where we start to get to realities. 00:15:18.920 --> 00:15:22.400 align:middle line:90% So this is a plot from NREL. 00:15:22.400 --> 00:15:25.120 align:middle line:84% They have, as a function of temperature, 00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:27.300 align:middle line:84% the cumulative energy consumption. 00:15:27.300 --> 00:15:30.120 align:middle line:84% And we see that enormous amount actually does 00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:32.780 align:middle line:90% get used at low temperatures. 00:15:32.780 --> 00:15:37.850 align:middle line:84% You can see there's not really a lot of contrast on this spot, 00:15:37.850 --> 00:15:42.870 align:middle line:84% but there is a line here that you can barely see. 00:15:42.870 --> 00:15:46.230 align:middle line:84% And this is to say that temperatures below here, which 00:15:46.230 --> 00:15:50.390 align:middle line:84% is this blue dot, this region up to about 00:15:50.390 --> 00:15:54.610 align:middle line:84% the bottom of this pink box, this is basically so cool. 00:15:54.610 --> 00:15:56.730 align:middle line:84% You can do this stuff with just waste heat. 00:15:56.730 --> 00:16:01.910 align:middle line:84% There's all kinds of industrial processes that produce heat that 00:16:01.910 --> 00:16:05.310 align:middle line:84% we just try to dump into the air that you couldn't-- you could 00:16:05.310 --> 00:16:06.690 align:middle line:90% get in a particular setup. 00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:09.270 align:middle line:84% You could reuse, for example, to drive paper 00:16:09.270 --> 00:16:10.570 align:middle line:90% coming out of your paper mill. 00:16:10.570 --> 00:16:13.830 align:middle line:84% You don't need high quality heat to do that. 00:16:13.830 --> 00:16:18.010 align:middle line:84% So that's roughly a third of consumption, 00:16:18.010 --> 00:16:19.235 align:middle line:90% something like that. 00:16:19.235 --> 00:16:21.110 align:middle line:84% After that, you get into heat that you really 00:16:21.110 --> 00:16:22.930 align:middle line:90% need to generate. 00:16:22.930 --> 00:16:28.430 align:middle line:84% And between here and here, we get-- let's see. 00:16:28.430 --> 00:16:32.848 align:middle line:90% This pink area is-- 00:16:32.848 --> 00:16:37.850 align:middle line:84% notice, this yellow area, which, again you can't see, 00:16:37.850 --> 00:16:43.530 align:middle line:84% which goes up to roughly here, is 00:16:43.530 --> 00:16:46.270 align:middle line:84% what is good for PWR or hot geothermal, 00:16:46.270 --> 00:16:50.970 align:middle line:84% something like up to 300 degrees C. So that would be 300, 00:16:50.970 --> 00:16:52.370 align:middle line:90% something like that. 00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:56.050 align:middle line:84% And that gets you up to 800 terra BTU, 00:16:56.050 --> 00:17:00.990 align:middle line:84% which is something like 2/3 of the energy. 00:17:00.990 --> 00:17:03.570 align:middle line:84% So actually, conventional nuclear 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:06.390 align:middle line:90% does a big chunk of that. 00:17:06.390 --> 00:17:09.490 align:middle line:84% And then, if you can get to high temperature nuclear 00:17:09.490 --> 00:17:13.170 align:middle line:84% with these specialties, you can pick up a little bit of extra. 00:17:13.170 --> 00:17:15.730 align:middle line:84% But you see the high temperature stuff isn't-- 00:17:15.730 --> 00:17:19.210 align:middle line:84% it does buy you more, but it doesn't buy you 00:17:19.210 --> 00:17:21.849 align:middle line:84% enormous amount more of the market 00:17:21.849 --> 00:17:25.430 align:middle line:84% unless temperature losses become really important. 00:17:25.430 --> 00:17:29.495 align:middle line:84% So even without solving these material problems 00:17:29.495 --> 00:17:30.870 align:middle line:84% in dealing with high temperature, 00:17:30.870 --> 00:17:33.010 align:middle line:84% it's still a pretty decent market. 00:17:33.010 --> 00:17:35.240 align:middle line:84% And then, to go above that, you'll 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:38.840 align:middle line:84% need a nuclear plus some kind of topping cycle. 00:17:38.840 --> 00:17:40.880 align:middle line:84% And there are some of those things. 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:47.360 align:middle line:84% So this is what the market looks like in total. 00:17:47.360 --> 00:17:53.200 align:middle line:84% So the consumption-- there are some caveats on this graph. 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:56.600 align:middle line:84% The first caveat is not all of these 00:17:56.600 --> 00:18:01.960 align:middle line:84% are currently using sources of heat which produce CO2. 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:06.960 align:middle line:84% So some of this demand will not be obtainable 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:09.920 align:middle line:84% using nuclear, things like biomass. 00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:12.760 align:middle line:84% It makes no sense to displace biomass sources of heat 00:18:12.760 --> 00:18:15.720 align:middle line:84% because you're not getting anything from a climate change 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.360 align:middle line:90% perspective. 00:18:18.360 --> 00:18:22.040 align:middle line:84% I guess the other thing is that the market size between 700 00:18:22.040 --> 00:18:30.480 align:middle line:84% and 1,000 is pretty small, and that suggests that people-- 00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.780 align:middle line:84% I've suggested using a topping cycle, 00:18:32.780 --> 00:18:35.580 align:middle line:84% but some people will say, well, why don't we just design 00:18:35.580 --> 00:18:38.300 align:middle line:84% a very high-temperature graphite reactor or something like that 00:18:38.300 --> 00:18:39.540 align:middle line:90% to do this? 00:18:39.540 --> 00:18:42.660 align:middle line:84% And if you just calculate how much extra you're getting, 00:18:42.660 --> 00:18:47.300 align:middle line:84% that's something like 13 thermal gigawatts, which would be, 00:18:47.300 --> 00:18:49.500 align:middle line:84% if we think in conventional reactor senses, 00:18:49.500 --> 00:18:53.780 align:middle line:90% as five full-size reactors. 00:18:53.780 --> 00:18:56.140 align:middle line:84% That's not sufficiently large market 00:18:56.140 --> 00:19:00.900 align:middle line:84% to justify the development and licensing of a totally 00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:03.140 align:middle line:84% new ultra-high-temperature reactor. 00:19:03.140 --> 00:19:05.420 align:middle line:84% It's just not a big enough market. 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:07.940 align:middle line:84% So the topping cycle is almost certainly 00:19:07.940 --> 00:19:11.400 align:middle line:90% going to be the way to go. 00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:16.300 align:middle line:84% So, as it turns out, 50% of the heat market 00:19:16.300 --> 00:19:22.980 align:middle line:84% actually uses what I would call nondebatable sources of heat. 00:19:22.980 --> 00:19:26.460 align:middle line:84% That is to say biomass waste generation and so on. 00:19:26.460 --> 00:19:29.660 align:middle line:84% But that still leaves a relatively large market size 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:33.960 align:middle line:84% about 92 thermal gigawatts, which is roughly a third 00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:36.680 align:middle line:84% of the current electrical fleet of four 00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:40.560 align:middle line:84% nuclear reactors in the United States to be built. 00:19:40.560 --> 00:19:43.460 align:middle line:84% Now, if we built them at full size, 00:19:43.460 --> 00:19:45.120 align:middle line:84% that means we're building something 00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:48.520 align:middle line:84% like 30 reactors, which is not that interesting, 00:19:48.520 --> 00:19:51.340 align:middle line:84% but we will not be building these things at full size. 00:19:51.340 --> 00:19:53.420 align:middle line:84% We'd be building much smaller reactors. 00:19:53.420 --> 00:19:55.300 align:middle line:84% And so there will be many more reactors. 00:19:55.300 --> 00:19:59.280 align:middle line:84% And when the numbers go up, things look more promising. 00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:02.760 align:middle line:84% Also, this heat market that uses mostly 00:20:02.760 --> 00:20:06.760 align:middle line:90% waste heat, that is typically-- 00:20:06.760 --> 00:20:09.520 align:middle line:84% a lot of that is in here, stuff that we wouldn't we 00:20:09.520 --> 00:20:11.260 align:middle line:84% weren't really talking about anyway. 00:20:11.260 --> 00:20:17.040 align:middle line:90% 00:20:17.040 --> 00:20:18.440 align:middle line:90% I'm going too fast. 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:22.280 align:middle line:84% I'm going to run out of lecture content. 00:20:22.280 --> 00:20:28.820 align:middle line:84% So here is my estimate for what can be done. 00:20:28.820 --> 00:20:32.090 align:middle line:84% What I've done is I've gone through all of the-- 00:20:32.090 --> 00:20:35.910 align:middle line:90% 00:20:35.910 --> 00:20:42.350 align:middle line:84% the Energy Department, it tabulates by category 00:20:42.350 --> 00:20:44.690 align:middle line:84% all sorts of different heat users. 00:20:44.690 --> 00:20:46.510 align:middle line:84% And I've gone through all of them. 00:20:46.510 --> 00:20:48.910 align:middle line:84% And what I've done is I've calculated 00:20:48.910 --> 00:20:50.590 align:middle line:90% the total amount of heat. 00:20:50.590 --> 00:20:53.430 align:middle line:84% I've estimated the nonwaste fraction 00:20:53.430 --> 00:20:55.210 align:middle line:90% of heat used in that process. 00:20:55.210 --> 00:20:57.850 align:middle line:84% So some of these processes will have, 00:20:57.850 --> 00:20:59.710 align:middle line:90% for example, petroleum refining. 00:20:59.710 --> 00:21:03.110 align:middle line:90% They have gases that they vent. 00:21:03.110 --> 00:21:05.190 align:middle line:84% And then that can be a source of heat 00:21:05.190 --> 00:21:09.670 align:middle line:84% that they can recycle into their process. 00:21:09.670 --> 00:21:13.710 align:middle line:84% And then I have a characteristic temperature. 00:21:13.710 --> 00:21:17.687 align:middle line:84% A little bit more is hidden behind this number. 00:21:17.687 --> 00:21:19.270 align:middle line:84% Often, there are multiple temperatures 00:21:19.270 --> 00:21:20.730 align:middle line:84% that have to be taken into account, 00:21:20.730 --> 00:21:23.790 align:middle line:84% and you average them together, and then 00:21:23.790 --> 00:21:26.070 align:middle line:84% you can back out a characteristic temperature that 00:21:26.070 --> 00:21:32.610 align:middle line:84% describes, essentially, how much of that can come from nuclear. 00:21:32.610 --> 00:21:35.770 align:middle line:84% The temp fraction is a variable that 00:21:35.770 --> 00:21:41.370 align:middle line:84% is 1 if the temperature required is 00:21:41.370 --> 00:21:44.490 align:middle line:84% under 600 degrees C, which is to say all of it 00:21:44.490 --> 00:21:46.730 align:middle line:90% can be serviced by nuclear. 00:21:46.730 --> 00:21:49.330 align:middle line:84% And as you go above 600 degrees C, 00:21:49.330 --> 00:21:53.170 align:middle line:84% it goes down depending on the amount of superheat that needs 00:21:53.170 --> 00:21:54.970 align:middle line:90% to come from other sources. 00:21:54.970 --> 00:21:57.850 align:middle line:84% So this gives you the amount of heat-- 00:21:57.850 --> 00:21:59.750 align:middle line:84% when you multiply it by the fraction, 00:21:59.750 --> 00:22:01.650 align:middle line:84% it gives you the amount of heat that you 00:22:01.650 --> 00:22:04.730 align:middle line:90% can service with nuclear. 00:22:04.730 --> 00:22:06.590 align:middle line:84% So that's how you get to nuclear gigawatts 00:22:06.590 --> 00:22:09.210 align:middle line:84% possible, and then here's the number of sites. 00:22:09.210 --> 00:22:13.170 align:middle line:84% And then I divide the heat from nuclear gigawatt thermal 00:22:13.170 --> 00:22:14.190 align:middle line:90% by the sites. 00:22:14.190 --> 00:22:21.090 align:middle line:84% And I get the average heat per site in megawatts. 00:22:21.090 --> 00:22:26.480 align:middle line:84% So I've also removed a couple of big source users of heat 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:28.240 align:middle line:90% in this chart. 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:32.920 align:middle line:84% This adds up to 104 gigawatt thermal. 00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:36.143 align:middle line:84% But if you google around and you ask, what is the industrial heat 00:22:36.143 --> 00:22:37.560 align:middle line:84% usage in the United States, you'll 00:22:37.560 --> 00:22:40.560 align:middle line:84% find it's closer to 180 gigawatts [INAUDIBLE]. 00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:42.040 align:middle line:90% What have I removed? 00:22:42.040 --> 00:22:46.680 align:middle line:84% I removed refining of petroleum solely for purposes 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:50.880 align:middle line:84% of producing liquid transportation fuels because, 00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:55.880 align:middle line:84% in a decarbonizing world, arguably, that all goes away. 00:22:55.880 --> 00:22:59.740 align:middle line:84% So you'll still have petroleum refining for plastics, 00:22:59.740 --> 00:23:02.280 align:middle line:84% but that's in here under petrochemicals. 00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:04.860 align:middle line:84% So I've taken the transportation fuels out. 00:23:04.860 --> 00:23:07.620 align:middle line:84% Now we are interested in replacing that with biofuels, 00:23:07.620 --> 00:23:11.000 align:middle line:84% but we're going to talk about that separately. 00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:17.360 align:middle line:84% And I removed the production of corn ethanol as a 10% additive 00:23:17.360 --> 00:23:23.380 align:middle line:84% to gasoline, which also uses a lot of heat, 00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:29.260 align:middle line:84% and almost all of that ethanol, like 98%-99% of it, 00:23:29.260 --> 00:23:32.260 align:middle line:84% is used for transportation fuels. 00:23:32.260 --> 00:23:33.920 align:middle line:90% So that has also been taken out. 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:38.660 align:middle line:84% When you take that out, this drops from 180 to 104. 00:23:38.660 --> 00:23:40.580 align:middle line:84% There's also a few tiny categories 00:23:40.580 --> 00:23:42.980 align:middle line:84% that are just not in here because it's 00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:44.820 align:middle line:90% too small to matter. 00:23:44.820 --> 00:23:46.620 align:middle line:90% So what do we see? 00:23:46.620 --> 00:23:50.400 align:middle line:84% Well, iron and steel is the most interesting. 00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:53.620 align:middle line:84% It particularly is a high temperature process. 00:23:53.620 --> 00:23:56.900 align:middle line:84% But we could have some kind of super heat, electric super heat 00:23:56.900 --> 00:23:57.740 align:middle line:90% maybe. 00:23:57.740 --> 00:24:02.860 align:middle line:84% And it's also an industry that is fairly well-consolidated. 00:24:02.860 --> 00:24:07.060 align:middle line:84% So these are ordered by which ones have the highest 00:24:07.060 --> 00:24:09.260 align:middle line:84% per-site usage and, therefore, are 00:24:09.260 --> 00:24:13.100 align:middle line:84% most compatible with a nuclear reactor being on site. 00:24:13.100 --> 00:24:16.500 align:middle line:84% And you go down from there-- ammonia, paper, nonethanol corn 00:24:16.500 --> 00:24:19.060 align:middle line:84% milling, glass products, chlor-alkali, 00:24:19.060 --> 00:24:22.050 align:middle line:84% cement/lime production, and so on and so forth. 00:24:22.050 --> 00:24:29.210 align:middle line:84% And many of these things are in the tens of megawatts. 00:24:29.210 --> 00:24:33.330 align:middle line:84% So you might imagine designing a reactor that 00:24:33.330 --> 00:24:35.250 align:middle line:90% is, say, 10 megawatts thermal. 00:24:35.250 --> 00:24:37.750 align:middle line:84% Equivalent would be about three megawatt electric, 00:24:37.750 --> 00:24:41.170 align:middle line:84% which would be basically a nuclear battery size thing. 00:24:41.170 --> 00:24:43.810 align:middle line:90% And you would probably have-- 00:24:43.810 --> 00:24:46.910 align:middle line:84% if you had this plant that needed 12 megawatts, 00:24:46.910 --> 00:24:48.930 align:middle line:84% you probably have two of them there. 00:24:48.930 --> 00:24:50.810 align:middle line:84% And you would take the excess energy, 00:24:50.810 --> 00:24:52.590 align:middle line:84% and you would produce electricity with it, 00:24:52.590 --> 00:24:53.930 align:middle line:90% sell it back to the grid. 00:24:53.930 --> 00:24:56.510 align:middle line:84% But you would have two so that if one of them went down, 00:24:56.510 --> 00:24:59.290 align:middle line:84% you would always be able to keep that plant running, something 00:24:59.290 --> 00:25:03.010 align:middle line:84% like that-- two or three, something like this. 00:25:03.010 --> 00:25:07.210 align:middle line:84% Now one of the problems with doing this division 00:25:07.210 --> 00:25:14.090 align:middle line:84% is that it's not the case that plants have the average size. 00:25:14.090 --> 00:25:15.990 align:middle line:84% There's some power law distribution. 00:25:15.990 --> 00:25:18.410 align:middle line:84% There's some plants that will use [INAUDIBLE], 00:25:18.410 --> 00:25:23.590 align:middle line:84% some glass plants that will use way more than 25 megawatts, 00:25:23.590 --> 00:25:26.770 align:middle line:84% hundreds of megawatts because they're the largest producer. 00:25:26.770 --> 00:25:29.830 align:middle line:84% And there will be tons of tiny little glass plants that 00:25:29.830 --> 00:25:30.930 align:middle line:90% use just a little bit. 00:25:30.930 --> 00:25:34.390 align:middle line:84% And those are not really available using nuclear. 00:25:34.390 --> 00:25:38.470 align:middle line:84% So the size of the optimal reactor size 00:25:38.470 --> 00:25:40.450 align:middle line:84% will probably be a couple of reactors, 00:25:40.450 --> 00:25:43.670 align:middle line:84% maybe one in 100 megawatt range and one in the 10 megawatt 00:25:43.670 --> 00:25:45.630 align:middle line:90% range, something like that. 00:25:45.630 --> 00:25:47.290 align:middle line:84% But you can have too many reactors, 00:25:47.290 --> 00:25:51.190 align:middle line:84% otherwise you don't have enough reactors being made. 00:25:51.190 --> 00:25:56.150 align:middle line:84% So at the end of the day, we're still 00:25:56.150 --> 00:26:00.110 align:middle line:84% talking about about 60 gigawatts of power 00:26:00.110 --> 00:26:03.430 align:middle line:84% that can be potentially abated with nuclear. 00:26:03.430 --> 00:26:08.810 align:middle line:84% And if I divide, say, 60 gigawatts of nuclear, 00:26:08.810 --> 00:26:19.630 align:middle line:84% but I was going to propose that we ignore these 60, 50-- 00:26:19.630 --> 00:26:25.150 align:middle line:90% 00:26:25.150 --> 00:26:28.890 align:middle line:84% So in a prior calculation, I'm not actually 00:26:28.890 --> 00:26:31.028 align:middle line:84% sure if this is recently updated-- 00:26:31.028 --> 00:26:31.570 align:middle line:90% I'm not sure. 00:26:31.570 --> 00:26:33.870 align:middle line:84% In part calculation, what i did is I said, 00:26:33.870 --> 00:26:36.770 align:middle line:84% well, let's put a cutoff here and say that these industries 00:26:36.770 --> 00:26:40.370 align:middle line:84% are maybe too small in terms of per 00:26:40.370 --> 00:26:43.610 align:middle line:90% site usage to justify nuclear. 00:26:43.610 --> 00:26:46.650 align:middle line:84% And then when I did that previously, 00:26:46.650 --> 00:26:52.050 align:middle line:84% I got 24 gigawatts of heat that was actually 00:26:52.050 --> 00:26:55.290 align:middle line:84% used in sufficient intensities that you could probably 00:26:55.290 --> 00:26:57.450 align:middle line:90% put a reactor at the site. 00:26:57.450 --> 00:26:59.250 align:middle line:90% That's just a rough estimate. 00:26:59.250 --> 00:27:02.770 align:middle line:84% Let's say it's somewhere between 20 and 60, something like that. 00:27:02.770 --> 00:27:08.410 align:middle line:84% But we're still talking like 2,000 to 6,000 10-megawatt 00:27:08.410 --> 00:27:12.330 align:middle line:84% reactors, which is a lot of reactors. 00:27:12.330 --> 00:27:16.450 align:middle line:84% And now we're talking really about factory fabrication. 00:27:16.450 --> 00:27:19.360 align:middle line:84% I have large numbers at reasonable rates. 00:27:19.360 --> 00:27:23.800 align:middle line:84% And that's where things start to really look promising. 00:27:23.800 --> 00:27:27.800 align:middle line:84% So I think this is a real market for nuclear, 00:27:27.800 --> 00:27:30.960 align:middle line:84% for small kind of battery-style nuclear, 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:32.720 align:middle line:84% especially if they can get a little bit 00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:35.240 align:middle line:90% higher temperature and so on. 00:27:35.240 --> 00:27:36.360 align:middle line:90% Yep? 00:27:36.360 --> 00:27:38.020 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Whenever you adjust for nomenclature purposes, 00:27:38.020 --> 00:27:39.260 align:middle line:84% whenever you refer to nuclear battery, 00:27:39.260 --> 00:27:40.468 align:middle line:90% you talk about microreactors? 00:27:40.468 --> 00:27:43.150 align:middle line:84% Are you talking about just pure decay? 00:27:43.150 --> 00:27:44.900 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: No, I'm not talking decay heat. 00:27:44.900 --> 00:27:46.360 align:middle line:90% I'm talking microreactors. 00:27:46.360 --> 00:27:47.057 align:middle line:90% Yeah, sorry. 00:27:47.057 --> 00:27:48.140 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: Oh, you're good. 00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:50.390 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, I'm talking little microreactors that 00:27:50.390 --> 00:27:53.760 align:middle line:84% are basically remotely-operated or automatically 00:27:53.760 --> 00:27:57.440 align:middle line:84% computer-operated that you can drop into a site 00:27:57.440 --> 00:27:59.920 align:middle line:84% and you don't need to have a whole infrastructure 00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:03.280 align:middle line:90% to run the reactor. 00:28:03.280 --> 00:28:03.792 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:28:03.792 --> 00:28:05.500 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: --sites tend to be distributed, 00:28:05.500 --> 00:28:08.840 align:middle line:84% or do they tend to congregate in an industrial park 00:28:08.840 --> 00:28:12.180 align:middle line:84% where you could have higher usage per site? 00:28:12.180 --> 00:28:16.460 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Yeah, so industrial parks 00:28:16.460 --> 00:28:20.260 align:middle line:84% are an idea that have been proposed. 00:28:20.260 --> 00:28:23.460 align:middle line:84% The idea, the reason for this is because if you 00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:25.660 align:middle line:84% have a large industrial park, then 00:28:25.660 --> 00:28:28.340 align:middle line:84% you could actually use larger reactors. 00:28:28.340 --> 00:28:31.020 align:middle line:84% And so now your economies of scale that we talked 00:28:31.020 --> 00:28:33.180 align:middle line:90% about earlier are solved. 00:28:33.180 --> 00:28:36.220 align:middle line:84% The problem with the industrial park idea 00:28:36.220 --> 00:28:38.820 align:middle line:84% is you have to ask questions like, 00:28:38.820 --> 00:28:42.660 align:middle line:84% could you really colocate a paper mill 00:28:42.660 --> 00:28:45.160 align:middle line:84% that is taking wood pulp coming out of, say, 00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:47.300 align:middle line:84% the Pacific Northwest, United States, 00:28:47.300 --> 00:28:49.680 align:middle line:84% and colocated with an oil refinery? 00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:54.020 align:middle line:84% So that takes crude coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. 00:28:54.020 --> 00:28:57.380 align:middle line:84% Maybe you could, but now you have to move those plants, 00:28:57.380 --> 00:28:59.600 align:middle line:84% and there's a lot of transportation involved, 00:28:59.600 --> 00:29:01.560 align:middle line:90% and we'd have to look into it. 00:29:01.560 --> 00:29:07.800 align:middle line:84% Or could you take concrete production 00:29:07.800 --> 00:29:10.380 align:middle line:84% of limestone, which comes out of the Northeast, 00:29:10.380 --> 00:29:15.610 align:middle line:84% and combine it with corn milling that makes corn syrup, which 00:29:15.610 --> 00:29:17.970 align:middle line:90% comes out of Iowa? 00:29:17.970 --> 00:29:22.090 align:middle line:84% These are the types of questions you would have to be looking at. 00:29:22.090 --> 00:29:24.970 align:middle line:84% There are two problems with the industrial park idea. 00:29:24.970 --> 00:29:28.410 align:middle line:84% One is, in principle, it could be done, 00:29:28.410 --> 00:29:32.490 align:middle line:84% but you'd have to get all these plants to move 00:29:32.490 --> 00:29:33.870 align:middle line:90% their base of operations. 00:29:33.870 --> 00:29:36.330 align:middle line:84% Even if the transportation costs weren't problematic, 00:29:36.330 --> 00:29:39.650 align:middle line:84% you'd have to get them to move their base of operations 00:29:39.650 --> 00:29:41.530 align:middle line:90% kind of simultaneously. 00:29:41.530 --> 00:29:43.770 align:middle line:84% And that's going to be tough because there's 00:29:43.770 --> 00:29:45.980 align:middle line:84% large capital investments there and infrastructure 00:29:45.980 --> 00:29:47.730 align:middle line:84% and people and everything, and they're not 00:29:47.730 --> 00:29:49.490 align:middle line:90% going to easily move. 00:29:49.490 --> 00:29:51.770 align:middle line:84% So this might be something that works on something 00:29:51.770 --> 00:29:55.330 align:middle line:84% like a centrally-planned economy, where China, which 00:29:55.330 --> 00:29:57.710 align:middle line:84% has so much capacity and so much growth, 00:29:57.710 --> 00:29:59.545 align:middle line:84% or India, which has so much growth, 00:29:59.545 --> 00:30:02.170 align:middle line:84% can say we're going to build an industrial park for the reactor 00:30:02.170 --> 00:30:07.410 align:middle line:84% and paper milling and all these things, limestone calcination, 00:30:07.410 --> 00:30:09.550 align:middle line:84% and so on, and do it from scratch. 00:30:09.550 --> 00:30:14.230 align:middle line:84% But in the US, I think it's probably not a good starter. 00:30:14.230 --> 00:30:16.430 align:middle line:84% The other problem with the industrial park argument 00:30:16.430 --> 00:30:23.470 align:middle line:84% is that if you really can move all of these things to one site, 00:30:23.470 --> 00:30:24.870 align:middle line:84% then why don't you just move them 00:30:24.870 --> 00:30:27.070 align:middle line:90% to where there's geothermal? 00:30:27.070 --> 00:30:31.270 align:middle line:84% And so now you have geothermal becomes more of a competitor. 00:30:31.270 --> 00:30:34.030 align:middle line:84% And so these are the two considerations 00:30:34.030 --> 00:30:35.510 align:middle line:90% that you're up against. 00:30:35.510 --> 00:30:36.590 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:30:36.590 --> 00:30:38.950 align:middle line:90% AUDIENCE: But you were saying-- 00:30:38.950 --> 00:30:41.910 align:middle line:84% but then you were saying geothermal has low grade. 00:30:41.910 --> 00:30:43.670 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: It has low grade, but it also 00:30:43.670 --> 00:30:45.410 align:middle line:84% can produce a lot of electricity. 00:30:45.410 --> 00:30:47.590 align:middle line:84% So if you use a big super heat line, 00:30:47.590 --> 00:30:50.650 align:middle line:84% and you have to work out the ergonomics, but yeah. 00:30:50.650 --> 00:30:53.270 align:middle line:90% 00:30:53.270 --> 00:30:56.630 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so that becomes the challenge. 00:30:56.630 --> 00:31:00.120 align:middle line:84% So I don't think this is a US approach. 00:31:00.120 --> 00:31:02.370 align:middle line:84% Let me show you what is happening in the US right now. 00:31:02.370 --> 00:31:07.310 align:middle line:84% So this is the first nuclear process heat 00:31:07.310 --> 00:31:10.450 align:middle line:84% operation that is being looked at here in the United States. 00:31:10.450 --> 00:31:12.220 align:middle line:90% This is Dow Chemical. 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:14.940 align:middle line:84% This is their seadrift plant, where they make plastic 00:31:14.940 --> 00:31:24.000 align:middle line:84% precursors, and their plan is to buy four 200-megawatt thermal 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:26.760 align:middle line:90% HTTR reactors from x-energy. 00:31:26.760 --> 00:31:31.100 align:middle line:84% So that's a total of 800 thermal megawatts, of which they 00:31:31.100 --> 00:31:33.460 align:middle line:84% plan to use 300 thermal megawatts 00:31:33.460 --> 00:31:36.380 align:middle line:84% for their plastic production process 00:31:36.380 --> 00:31:40.180 align:middle line:84% and then convert the rest to electricity to sell back 00:31:40.180 --> 00:31:41.660 align:middle line:90% to the grid. 00:31:41.660 --> 00:31:44.540 align:middle line:84% Now, part of the reason why they are doing this 00:31:44.540 --> 00:31:48.740 align:middle line:84% is because they are getting those reactors for almost free. 00:31:48.740 --> 00:31:52.140 align:middle line:84% They're so heavily subsidized by the government 00:31:52.140 --> 00:31:57.460 align:middle line:84% and by X-energy and others that for them, it's 00:31:57.460 --> 00:32:01.300 align:middle line:84% kind of just the retooling of their processes 00:32:01.300 --> 00:32:04.440 align:middle line:84% and what the electricity sales on top of that, 00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:05.560 align:middle line:90% they get some income. 00:32:05.560 --> 00:32:06.700 align:middle line:90% So it was interesting. 00:32:06.700 --> 00:32:08.940 align:middle line:84% Whether this becomes a sustainable model 00:32:08.940 --> 00:32:12.080 align:middle line:84% is something that we have to see. 00:32:12.080 --> 00:32:16.680 align:middle line:84% Now of note is that they've purchased 2.5 times 00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:19.660 align:middle line:84% their heat demand in nuclear capacity. 00:32:19.660 --> 00:32:24.920 align:middle line:84% And they've done that because this is a very expensive plant 00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:27.440 align:middle line:84% to operate and takes days to get this plant up 00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:29.680 align:middle line:90% and running if it shuts down. 00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:31.960 align:middle line:90% They cannot afford an outage. 00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:35.160 align:middle line:84% They have to have absolutely reliable electricity. 00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:38.160 align:middle line:84% So the consequence of that is that you wind up 00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:42.480 align:middle line:84% having to build a lot of excess generation. 00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:44.880 align:middle line:84% The same is true for data centers. 00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:47.220 align:middle line:84% If you want to have nuclear power and data centers, 00:32:47.220 --> 00:32:48.980 align:middle line:84% but you need it to be on all the time, 00:32:48.980 --> 00:32:52.360 align:middle line:84% you wind up needing extranuclear reactors. 00:32:52.360 --> 00:32:56.520 align:middle line:84% And that would seem fine if nuclear reactors 00:32:56.520 --> 00:32:59.800 align:middle line:84% could sell electricity on the grid at competitive prices. 00:32:59.800 --> 00:33:03.800 align:middle line:84% But when they sell electricity at noncompetitive prices, what 00:33:03.800 --> 00:33:09.260 align:middle line:84% it does is it effectively raises the effective price of the heat. 00:33:09.260 --> 00:33:11.900 align:middle line:84% So one of the things that you have to work out 00:33:11.900 --> 00:33:15.380 align:middle line:84% is what are the reliability demands 00:33:15.380 --> 00:33:19.020 align:middle line:84% for each particular application, and what 00:33:19.020 --> 00:33:20.800 align:middle line:84% is the backup generation going to be? 00:33:20.800 --> 00:33:22.500 align:middle line:90% Is it going to be nuclear? 00:33:22.500 --> 00:33:25.000 align:middle line:84% Or could it be, say, natural gas or something else 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:27.260 align:middle line:84% that would be a cheaper emergency backup 00:33:27.260 --> 00:33:30.160 align:middle line:84% option so you don't have to buy all this extra capacity, 00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:33.020 align:middle line:84% which would make the nuclear option less attractive? 00:33:33.020 --> 00:33:35.740 align:middle line:84% But there are ways of engineering your way out 00:33:35.740 --> 00:33:37.795 align:middle line:84% of all of these sorts of problems, 00:33:37.795 --> 00:33:39.420 align:middle line:84% but it's just something to think about, 00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:43.820 align:middle line:84% that reliability is a big cost factor in doing this. 00:33:43.820 --> 00:33:46.700 align:middle line:84% And then the point that was raised earlier-- 00:33:46.700 --> 00:33:48.700 align:middle line:90% look how big this plant is. 00:33:48.700 --> 00:33:52.040 align:middle line:84% If I'm putting my nuclear reactors over here, 00:33:52.040 --> 00:33:54.780 align:middle line:84% and now I need to use the heat over here, 00:33:54.780 --> 00:33:56.820 align:middle line:84% how much temperature loss am I going 00:33:56.820 --> 00:33:59.560 align:middle line:90% to sustain in this transmission? 00:33:59.560 --> 00:34:03.500 align:middle line:84% What does that mean for temperature loss and heat loss? 00:34:03.500 --> 00:34:06.140 align:middle line:84% What does that mean for the viability 00:34:06.140 --> 00:34:08.570 align:middle line:90% of centralized heating. 00:34:08.570 --> 00:34:11.850 align:middle line:84% So all these details are obviously very 00:34:11.850 --> 00:34:14.770 align:middle line:84% process-dependent, site-specific, 00:34:14.770 --> 00:34:16.732 align:middle line:84% and temperature-specific because the heat loss 00:34:16.732 --> 00:34:18.190 align:middle line:84% is proportional to the temperature. 00:34:18.190 --> 00:34:22.810 align:middle line:84% So my little previous calculation 00:34:22.810 --> 00:34:25.010 align:middle line:90% kind of ignores all that. 00:34:25.010 --> 00:34:28.750 align:middle line:84% But even if we cut out 50% of these things, 00:34:28.750 --> 00:34:31.969 align:middle line:84% we're still talking order 1,000 reactors or more. 00:34:31.969 --> 00:34:35.730 align:middle line:84% And so I think there is still a market here for heat, even 00:34:35.730 --> 00:34:38.449 align:middle line:84% with all these things that I'm glossing over. 00:34:38.449 --> 00:34:41.690 align:middle line:84% But also, this is where there's huge opportunity 00:34:41.690 --> 00:34:44.810 align:middle line:84% to really start doing studies to understand where 00:34:44.810 --> 00:34:48.770 align:middle line:84% the nuclear heat is best deployed, which types of sites, 00:34:48.770 --> 00:34:52.130 align:middle line:84% what are the size distributions of these types of sites 00:34:52.130 --> 00:34:53.710 align:middle line:90% in each of these categories. 00:34:53.710 --> 00:34:55.773 align:middle line:84% If I'm going to look at corn milling, 00:34:55.773 --> 00:34:57.690 align:middle line:84% what is the size distribution of corn milling? 00:34:57.690 --> 00:35:01.370 align:middle line:84% Is it tons of little small operators all throughout Iowa? 00:35:01.370 --> 00:35:04.690 align:middle line:84% Or there are a couple of big, giant mills 00:35:04.690 --> 00:35:06.690 align:middle line:84% that could be easily nuclearized? 00:35:06.690 --> 00:35:10.670 align:middle line:84% And what fraction of the total heat 00:35:10.670 --> 00:35:14.310 align:middle line:84% is available for dealing with this kind 00:35:14.310 --> 00:35:17.150 align:middle line:90% of nuclear decarbonization? 00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:20.110 align:middle line:84% So that kind of market analysis hasn't really 00:35:20.110 --> 00:35:21.870 align:middle line:84% been done in the level of granularity 00:35:21.870 --> 00:35:24.190 align:middle line:90% that we need it to be done at. 00:35:24.190 --> 00:35:28.510 align:middle line:84% But it is something that the data that we have thus far 00:35:28.510 --> 00:35:30.930 align:middle line:90% look good, I'll just say that. 00:35:30.930 --> 00:35:35.330 align:middle line:84% I think there's a real opportunity here. 00:35:35.330 --> 00:35:38.130 align:middle line:84% So let's just look briefly at the costs. 00:35:38.130 --> 00:35:40.870 align:middle line:90% 00:35:40.870 --> 00:35:43.950 align:middle line:90% This is your bottom line cost. 00:35:43.950 --> 00:35:46.110 align:middle line:84% This is what your brain should be thinking. 00:35:46.110 --> 00:35:50.110 align:middle line:84% The renewables option is something-- order 130. 00:35:50.110 --> 00:35:51.790 align:middle line:84% I have to build this microreactor that 00:35:51.790 --> 00:35:53.450 align:middle line:90% produces 10 megawatts thermal. 00:35:53.450 --> 00:35:57.690 align:middle line:84% And it needs to produce it at some cost less than 130, 00:35:57.690 --> 00:35:59.630 align:middle line:84% which is what the renewable cost. 00:35:59.630 --> 00:36:02.830 align:middle line:84% And I'll just put these numbers back on. 00:36:02.830 --> 00:36:06.440 align:middle line:84% Here are the same cost estimates for microreactors, 00:36:06.440 --> 00:36:11.180 align:middle line:84% except I changed the number from dollars per electric megawatt 00:36:11.180 --> 00:36:16.580 align:middle line:84% to dollars per megawatt, assuming a 33% efficiency 00:36:16.580 --> 00:36:21.620 align:middle line:84% conversion, which is roughly probably roughly right. 00:36:21.620 --> 00:36:25.340 align:middle line:84% And what you see is that, remember, the CAREM reactors, 00:36:25.340 --> 00:36:30.940 align:middle line:84% that small PWR, 25-megawatt PWR are being built in Brazil. 00:36:30.940 --> 00:36:34.400 align:middle line:84% This is based on a real reactor under construction. 00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:37.805 align:middle line:84% It looks like it just barely but does indeed make it. 00:36:37.805 --> 00:36:39.180 align:middle line:84% And certainly, this reactor could 00:36:39.180 --> 00:36:42.780 align:middle line:84% be cheaper if we built it on a better schedule 00:36:42.780 --> 00:36:45.500 align:middle line:90% and built more of them. 00:36:45.500 --> 00:36:48.660 align:middle line:90% So little PWRs look promising. 00:36:48.660 --> 00:36:54.318 align:middle line:84% Then we go to microreactor concept, batteries. 00:36:54.318 --> 00:36:55.860 align:middle line:84% We talked about Bongiorno's estimate. 00:36:55.860 --> 00:36:59.240 align:middle line:84% This was $85 per megawatt, which he said is too low, 00:36:59.240 --> 00:37:01.160 align:middle line:90% but this would be $28. 00:37:01.160 --> 00:37:02.680 align:middle line:90% Here's the NEI estimates. 00:37:02.680 --> 00:37:04.320 align:middle line:90% These all look favorable. 00:37:04.320 --> 00:37:06.780 align:middle line:84% These, again, were based on nothing. 00:37:06.780 --> 00:37:08.200 align:middle line:84% Now, this is the one that is based 00:37:08.200 --> 00:37:11.700 align:middle line:84% on the MARVEL reactor, which is an actual microreactor design. 00:37:11.700 --> 00:37:15.120 align:middle line:84% It is not good enough for a first of a kind. 00:37:15.120 --> 00:37:17.905 align:middle line:84% We don't know what it will cost for an n-th of a kind. 00:37:17.905 --> 00:37:20.280 align:middle line:84% Remember that they got their n-th of a kind cost estimate 00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:23.400 align:middle line:84% just by asking people, what do you think it should cost? 00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:25.060 align:middle line:90% So let's not trust this number. 00:37:25.060 --> 00:37:27.520 align:middle line:84% But this number is definitely too high. 00:37:27.520 --> 00:37:31.640 align:middle line:84% So what will mass production do to this number? 00:37:31.640 --> 00:37:33.440 align:middle line:90% That's the question. 00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:35.260 align:middle line:84% And here's the Project Pele thing, 00:37:35.260 --> 00:37:39.320 align:middle line:84% which is not a relevant reactor for this case. 00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:43.360 align:middle line:84% So if these numbers are even close to being real, 00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:45.400 align:middle line:90% it looks promising. 00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:50.320 align:middle line:84% Many of these numbers are under the $130 limit. 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:52.880 align:middle line:84% Now, on one side, there's also the caveat 00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:57.440 align:middle line:84% that when we tend to price things at this early stage, 00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:00.552 align:middle line:84% we are typically low by factors of, say, 2 to 5. 00:38:00.552 --> 00:38:02.510 align:middle line:84% Remember, I showed you how the price escalation 00:38:02.510 --> 00:38:04.177 align:middle line:84% for all those different reactor concepts 00:38:04.177 --> 00:38:06.370 align:middle line:84% went up as the reactor became more mature. 00:38:06.370 --> 00:38:08.430 align:middle line:90% So that's working against us. 00:38:08.430 --> 00:38:12.430 align:middle line:84% But on the other side, these reactors are really capable 00:38:12.430 --> 00:38:15.510 align:middle line:84% of being factory fabricated if they're at the 10-megawatt 00:38:15.510 --> 00:38:16.790 align:middle line:90% thermal size. 00:38:16.790 --> 00:38:18.550 align:middle line:90% And so that's working in favor. 00:38:18.550 --> 00:38:20.610 align:middle line:84% So all of this has to be worked out. 00:38:20.610 --> 00:38:22.250 align:middle line:90% And designs are needed. 00:38:22.250 --> 00:38:24.270 align:middle line:84% And realistic economic modeling is 00:38:24.270 --> 00:38:27.510 align:middle line:84% needed both for demand and the manufacturing. 00:38:27.510 --> 00:38:32.910 align:middle line:84% So we don't really know, but it looks promising so far. 00:38:32.910 --> 00:38:34.395 align:middle line:90% Any question-- yeah? 00:38:34.395 --> 00:38:36.270 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: For a design, like eventually where 00:38:36.270 --> 00:38:39.530 align:middle line:84% it's particularly low outlet temperature, at that point, 00:38:39.530 --> 00:38:42.072 align:middle line:84% is it pretty much out of the game because then you'd have to, 00:38:42.072 --> 00:38:44.447 align:middle line:84% I guess, do a lot of [INAUDIBLE] electricity [INAUDIBLE]? 00:38:44.447 --> 00:38:45.550 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: Yeah, probably. 00:38:45.550 --> 00:38:48.110 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Because it's only like a couple hundred Celsius 00:38:48.110 --> 00:38:48.670 align:middle line:90% I think. 00:38:48.670 --> 00:38:50.250 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: As below PWR temperature? 00:38:50.250 --> 00:38:51.730 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: Yeah, I think it's like 150 Celsius. 00:38:51.730 --> 00:38:54.070 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: Is that because of heat pipe limitations? 00:38:54.070 --> 00:38:54.950 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:38:54.950 --> 00:38:57.850 align:middle line:84% Yeah, so the cool heat pipe concepts, I guess, 00:38:57.850 --> 00:39:00.190 align:middle line:84% might not work unless you have fancier heat pipes. 00:39:00.190 --> 00:39:05.510 align:middle line:90% 00:39:05.510 --> 00:39:08.050 align:middle line:90% So I think this is-- 00:39:08.050 --> 00:39:10.330 align:middle line:90% I think this is a market. 00:39:10.330 --> 00:39:12.810 align:middle line:84% In fact, this is what I think the future of nuclear 00:39:12.810 --> 00:39:15.330 align:middle line:84% is about, personally, because I don't 00:39:15.330 --> 00:39:19.070 align:middle line:84% think it can compete with wind and solar for electricity. 00:39:19.070 --> 00:39:21.010 align:middle line:84% We talked about electricity markets. 00:39:21.010 --> 00:39:22.730 align:middle line:90% I just want to show you-- 00:39:22.730 --> 00:39:23.950 align:middle line:90% I mean, industrial parks. 00:39:23.950 --> 00:39:26.530 align:middle line:84% I just want to show you where that heat is currently being 00:39:26.530 --> 00:39:27.750 align:middle line:90% used in the United States. 00:39:27.750 --> 00:39:30.730 align:middle line:84% And this kind of shows you here enormous heat users 00:39:30.730 --> 00:39:33.110 align:middle line:84% in the Gulf of Mexico, where, of course, 00:39:33.110 --> 00:39:34.990 align:middle line:90% you have a lot of oil coming in. 00:39:34.990 --> 00:39:38.810 align:middle line:84% And so a lot of this is going to be actually petroleum refining. 00:39:38.810 --> 00:39:41.790 align:middle line:84% But there's other-- there are some heat users over here. 00:39:41.790 --> 00:39:45.410 align:middle line:90% 00:39:45.410 --> 00:39:51.350 align:middle line:84% I think this is mineral stuff, like calculation of limestone 00:39:51.350 --> 00:39:53.490 align:middle line:90% maybe, things like this. 00:39:53.490 --> 00:39:56.170 align:middle line:84% This is in the region where there's 00:39:56.170 --> 00:40:00.630 align:middle line:84% good geothermal-- may or may not be addressable by nuclear. 00:40:00.630 --> 00:40:03.150 align:middle line:84% And then you have some in the Pacific Northwest, which 00:40:03.150 --> 00:40:05.710 align:middle line:84% is mostly paper production, and then bits and bobs 00:40:05.710 --> 00:40:06.830 align:middle line:90% scattered around. 00:40:06.830 --> 00:40:10.250 align:middle line:84% But really, the story is that there's some concentration, 00:40:10.250 --> 00:40:14.350 align:middle line:84% but there's also opportunities elsewhere in the country. 00:40:14.350 --> 00:40:15.300 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:40:15.300 --> 00:40:17.550 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: So I guess since a lot of that concentration 00:40:17.550 --> 00:40:20.490 align:middle line:84% is in the regulated parts of the market, 00:40:20.490 --> 00:40:23.550 align:middle line:84% would that make it easier for someone like Dow to sell 00:40:23.550 --> 00:40:25.850 align:middle line:84% that electricity at a more reasonable price 00:40:25.850 --> 00:40:27.950 align:middle line:84% since, at least in those areas, it's 00:40:27.950 --> 00:40:31.590 align:middle line:84% quote unquote easier for nuclear to compete? 00:40:31.590 --> 00:40:33.950 align:middle line:84% I just think that-- that's Louisiana? 00:40:33.950 --> 00:40:36.087 align:middle line:90% Or no, that's part of Texas. 00:40:36.087 --> 00:40:37.670 align:middle line:84% But I was just wondering if that was-- 00:40:37.670 --> 00:40:40.285 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: --an interesting question. 00:40:40.285 --> 00:40:42.410 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: And a lot of those states are red states, 00:40:42.410 --> 00:40:47.710 align:middle line:84% so they wouldn't be as excited about putting in solar. 00:40:47.710 --> 00:40:49.230 align:middle line:84% PROFESSOR: So in both cases, they're 00:40:49.230 --> 00:40:53.230 align:middle line:84% going to be able to sell their electricity without issue. 00:40:53.230 --> 00:40:56.180 align:middle line:84% The only question is whether they 00:40:56.180 --> 00:41:01.700 align:middle line:84% can get better rents off the price of the electricity 00:41:01.700 --> 00:41:03.720 align:middle line:90% in regulated markets. 00:41:03.720 --> 00:41:06.660 align:middle line:84% So I guess they become utilities, 00:41:06.660 --> 00:41:09.580 align:middle line:84% and then they probably negotiate their price 00:41:09.580 --> 00:41:14.640 align:middle line:90% with the regulatory board. 00:41:14.640 --> 00:41:18.780 align:middle line:84% So probably, they could get more money in those markets. 00:41:18.780 --> 00:41:22.900 align:middle line:84% But I'm not 100% sure how it works when you're 00:41:22.900 --> 00:41:24.240 align:middle line:90% doing two things at once. 00:41:24.240 --> 00:41:27.740 align:middle line:90% But it would make sense. 00:41:27.740 --> 00:41:30.060 align:middle line:84% Was there another question over there? 00:41:30.060 --> 00:41:32.440 align:middle line:90% No? 00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:36.420 align:middle line:84% So all of this is heat sans petroleum products 00:41:36.420 --> 00:41:37.900 align:middle line:90% for transportation fuels. 00:41:37.900 --> 00:41:41.700 align:middle line:84% Let's talk about making transportation fuels. 00:41:41.700 --> 00:41:46.380 align:middle line:84% So this is what we call the hydrogen economy. 00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:49.420 align:middle line:84% So right now, 10% of our gasoline in the United States, 00:41:49.420 --> 00:41:53.420 align:middle line:84% roughly, is biofuels-- comes from corn ethanol. 00:41:53.420 --> 00:41:57.480 align:middle line:84% And to produce that 10% of gasoline substitution, 00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:01.800 align:middle line:84% we use 45% of our corn cropland area. 00:42:01.800 --> 00:42:03.980 align:middle line:84% Obviously, this is not a scalable process. 00:42:03.980 --> 00:42:09.920 align:middle line:84% It's also dubious levels of carbon neutrality because 00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:13.540 align:middle line:84% of all the energy that goes into doing this conversion. 00:42:13.540 --> 00:42:15.440 align:middle line:84% In fact, much of that is actually not 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:17.200 align:middle line:90% that carbon neutral. 00:42:17.200 --> 00:42:18.860 align:middle line:90% It's not a scalable process. 00:42:18.860 --> 00:42:23.060 align:middle line:84% If you want to produce all the transportation fuels, gasoline 00:42:23.060 --> 00:42:29.200 align:middle line:84% but also diesel and also jet fuel, from bio sources, 00:42:29.200 --> 00:42:32.600 align:middle line:84% you need something like cellulosic feedstock 00:42:32.600 --> 00:42:34.660 align:middle line:90% instead of starchy feedstocks. 00:42:34.660 --> 00:42:38.440 align:middle line:84% And you're going to need a lot more hydrogen 00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:40.520 align:middle line:84% to protonate all of those carbons 00:42:40.520 --> 00:42:43.120 align:middle line:84% to make the liquid fuels that you want. 00:42:43.120 --> 00:42:50.160 align:middle line:84% So we need to find a way of making that hydrogen, 00:42:50.160 --> 00:42:52.640 align:middle line:90% and heat is involved. 00:42:52.640 --> 00:42:56.990 align:middle line:84% So just to give you a sense of the scale of this industry, 00:42:56.990 --> 00:43:02.790 align:middle line:84% this is roughly one third of all CO2 emissions. 00:43:02.790 --> 00:43:08.950 align:middle line:84% There are some sectors which can be easily decarbonized 00:43:08.950 --> 00:43:11.350 align:middle line:84% just through electric vehicles and so on. 00:43:11.350 --> 00:43:16.950 align:middle line:84% But the NREL folks figure we need 70 billion gallons 00:43:16.950 --> 00:43:19.070 align:middle line:90% of gasoline equivalent-- 00:43:19.070 --> 00:43:22.590 align:middle line:84% this is GGE, Gallons of Gasoline Equivalent-- 00:43:22.590 --> 00:43:24.530 align:middle line:84% for the hard-to-electrify sector. 00:43:24.530 --> 00:43:28.390 align:middle line:84% So this is like interstate trucking, people 00:43:28.390 --> 00:43:30.830 align:middle line:84% who use vehicles for long distance driving 00:43:30.830 --> 00:43:34.230 align:middle line:84% or in areas where there's not easily access to charging 00:43:34.230 --> 00:43:37.690 align:middle line:84% stations and, of course, jet fuel 00:43:37.690 --> 00:43:40.310 align:middle line:84% and possibly train transportation and things 00:43:40.310 --> 00:43:42.070 align:middle line:90% like this. 00:43:42.070 --> 00:43:45.730 align:middle line:84% There are many, many different ways of making this stuff. 00:43:45.730 --> 00:43:48.070 align:middle line:84% All of them, basically almost all of them, 00:43:48.070 --> 00:43:51.890 align:middle line:84% require some source of hydrogen. So here 00:43:51.890 --> 00:43:55.890 align:middle line:84% are some of the biofuel production processes. 00:43:55.890 --> 00:43:59.570 align:middle line:84% Different feedstocks-- oilseeds, starches, woody crops 00:43:59.570 --> 00:44:01.210 align:middle line:90% and [INAUDIBLE] residues. 00:44:01.210 --> 00:44:04.650 align:middle line:84% This is where you're getting into cellulosic materials, which 00:44:04.650 --> 00:44:05.810 align:middle line:90% are interesting. 00:44:05.810 --> 00:44:09.650 align:middle line:84% Municipal solid waste, which is the stuff that 00:44:09.650 --> 00:44:11.810 align:middle line:90% is happening over at that-- 00:44:11.810 --> 00:44:16.370 align:middle line:84% is basically poop-- sewage and algae. 00:44:16.370 --> 00:44:19.330 align:middle line:90% Oh, I guess this is trash. 00:44:19.330 --> 00:44:24.330 align:middle line:84% There are various ways of converting these things. 00:44:24.330 --> 00:44:28.390 align:middle line:84% But the ones that are interesting are the woody ones. 00:44:28.390 --> 00:44:34.970 align:middle line:84% And you need 62 grams of hydrogen per gallon of gasoline 00:44:34.970 --> 00:44:36.710 align:middle line:90% equivalent, essentially. 00:44:36.710 --> 00:44:41.810 align:middle line:84% So that gives us our baseline hydrogen feedstock requirements. 00:44:41.810 --> 00:44:44.390 align:middle line:90% So we can do that calculation. 00:44:44.390 --> 00:44:47.010 align:middle line:90% They said 70 billion gallons. 00:44:47.010 --> 00:44:52.230 align:middle line:84% At 62 grams per gallon, we would need 5 million tons 00:44:52.230 --> 00:44:54.030 align:middle line:90% of hydrogen per year. 00:44:54.030 --> 00:44:56.610 align:middle line:90% So where do we get the hydrogen? 00:44:56.610 --> 00:44:58.802 align:middle line:84% Well, there are these named sources of hydrogen, 00:44:58.802 --> 00:45:01.510 align:middle line:84% which you probably heard about-- pink hydrogen and green hydrogen 00:45:01.510 --> 00:45:05.110 align:middle line:84% and blue hydrogen, gray hydrogen. So right now, 00:45:05.110 --> 00:45:07.730 align:middle line:84% most of the hydrogen is produced by gray hydrogen. 00:45:07.730 --> 00:45:09.590 align:middle line:84% We basically do it on steam methane 00:45:09.590 --> 00:45:11.150 align:middle line:90% reforming of natural gas. 00:45:11.150 --> 00:45:12.287 align:middle line:90% So you have natural gas. 00:45:12.287 --> 00:45:13.870 align:middle line:84% You combine it with hot steam, and you 00:45:13.870 --> 00:45:17.190 align:middle line:84% get CO2 out, which is what we're trying to avoid, 00:45:17.190 --> 00:45:19.630 align:middle line:90% and hydrogen molecules. 00:45:19.630 --> 00:45:27.350 align:middle line:84% And so one proposal is to turn this into blue hydrogen 00:45:27.350 --> 00:45:31.750 align:middle line:84% by taking that CO2 and doing carbon capture and storage. 00:45:31.750 --> 00:45:33.510 align:middle line:84% Now there's an important difference 00:45:33.510 --> 00:45:35.870 align:middle line:84% between carbon capture and storage 00:45:35.870 --> 00:45:39.270 align:middle line:84% on steam methane reforming and carbon capture and storage 00:45:39.270 --> 00:45:41.070 align:middle line:90% on, say, a natural gas plant. 00:45:41.070 --> 00:45:43.230 align:middle line:84% In a natural gas plant, what you're doing is 00:45:43.230 --> 00:45:45.150 align:middle line:84% you're taking the flue gas, which 00:45:45.150 --> 00:45:50.980 align:middle line:84% is water vapor and CO2 and some other residues. 00:45:50.980 --> 00:45:54.420 align:middle line:84% And you're trying to extract the CO2 using 00:45:54.420 --> 00:45:56.620 align:middle line:84% amines in various chemical processes 00:45:56.620 --> 00:45:58.740 align:middle line:90% and store the CO2 underground. 00:45:58.740 --> 00:46:02.660 align:middle line:84% This is just giving you pure CO2. 00:46:02.660 --> 00:46:06.820 align:middle line:84% So it's much cheaper to capture that CO2-- 00:46:06.820 --> 00:46:09.842 align:middle line:84% is not an entropy process that you're trying to undo. 00:46:09.842 --> 00:46:12.300 align:middle line:84% You still have the problem of whether you believe that once 00:46:12.300 --> 00:46:15.180 align:middle line:84% you pump it underground, that CO2 will actually stay there. 00:46:15.180 --> 00:46:19.900 align:middle line:84% So that's the issue is whether carbon capture and storage can 00:46:19.900 --> 00:46:21.780 align:middle line:90% decarbonize. 00:46:21.780 --> 00:46:25.380 align:middle line:84% This hydrogen production is-- so I still think an open question, 00:46:25.380 --> 00:46:29.460 align:middle line:84% but it is cheaper to do it than with natural gas 00:46:29.460 --> 00:46:31.260 align:middle line:90% for electricity. 00:46:31.260 --> 00:46:34.880 align:middle line:84% Then you get to water hydrolysis, 00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:37.955 align:middle line:84% which is powered by electricity, which 00:46:37.955 --> 00:46:39.080 align:middle line:90% could come from renewables. 00:46:39.080 --> 00:46:42.420 align:middle line:84% This makes green hydrogen. So there's your hydrolysis process. 00:46:42.420 --> 00:46:47.520 align:middle line:84% And we could also do it with nuclear. 00:46:47.520 --> 00:46:50.480 align:middle line:84% So let's just look at what these things cost. 00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:53.980 align:middle line:84% So it depends a little bit on the cost of the feedstocks. 00:46:53.980 --> 00:46:57.340 align:middle line:84% If you're doing steam methane reforming, 00:46:57.340 --> 00:46:59.840 align:middle line:84% then you need to know what methane costs, natural gas 00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:00.340 align:middle line:90% costs. 00:47:00.340 --> 00:47:02.040 align:middle line:90% And so the price fluctuates. 00:47:02.040 --> 00:47:06.600 align:middle line:84% But it's roughly currently we're paying basically 00:47:06.600 --> 00:47:10.000 align:middle line:84% under $1 in the United States per kilogram 00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:13.640 align:middle line:90% of hydrogen at current prices. 00:47:13.640 --> 00:47:17.680 align:middle line:84% You can see, if you try to do this carbon capture and storage, 00:47:17.680 --> 00:47:22.880 align:middle line:84% it increases it by 50% to double to triple hydrogen. 00:47:22.880 --> 00:47:26.840 align:middle line:84% The green hydrogen more than 3 and 1/2 times more expensive. 00:47:26.840 --> 00:47:31.160 align:middle line:84% And so green hydrogen must be pretty expensive. 00:47:31.160 --> 00:47:34.920 align:middle line:84% And this pricing assumes the 1.7 times 00:47:34.920 --> 00:47:38.380 align:middle line:84% overbuild required to have this process running all the time. 00:47:38.380 --> 00:47:43.980 align:middle line:90% 00:47:43.980 --> 00:47:45.430 align:middle line:90% It does not assume-- 00:47:45.430 --> 00:47:47.510 align:middle line:84% one of the things that you could do 00:47:47.510 --> 00:47:50.430 align:middle line:84% is that the fact that you have a 1.7 times 00:47:50.430 --> 00:47:53.630 align:middle line:84% overbuild to keep your renewable grid running all the time 00:47:53.630 --> 00:47:57.750 align:middle line:84% is take some of that excess capacity 00:47:57.750 --> 00:48:01.430 align:middle line:84% and use it to make green hydrogen. Does that make sense? 00:48:01.430 --> 00:48:03.590 align:middle line:84% Have you built extra rain and solar 00:48:03.590 --> 00:48:05.370 align:middle line:84% to keep the grid on all the time? 00:48:05.370 --> 00:48:07.910 align:middle line:84% That means sometimes you have too much. 00:48:07.910 --> 00:48:11.070 align:middle line:84% The problem with that idea is that that 00:48:11.070 --> 00:48:14.210 align:middle line:84% means your capital utilization of your electrolyzers, 00:48:14.210 --> 00:48:16.470 align:middle line:84% which are the things which are converting 00:48:16.470 --> 00:48:22.030 align:middle line:84% the electricity into doing electrolysis for you, 00:48:22.030 --> 00:48:24.910 align:middle line:84% will go down if you're not using them all the time. 00:48:24.910 --> 00:48:26.930 align:middle line:84% And so there's a trade-off to be made there. 00:48:26.930 --> 00:48:30.990 align:middle line:90% So it's not so simple. 00:48:30.990 --> 00:48:34.630 align:middle line:84% Let's look a little bit at what is happening in that space. 00:48:34.630 --> 00:48:39.750 align:middle line:84% So right now, you can see electricity cost 00:48:39.750 --> 00:48:44.450 align:middle line:84% is the dominant factor in the production of green hydrogen. 00:48:44.450 --> 00:48:47.410 align:middle line:84% But NREL believes that there are ways 00:48:47.410 --> 00:48:51.470 align:middle line:84% of bringing various costs down-- improving efficiency, 00:48:51.470 --> 00:48:54.710 align:middle line:84% improving the lifetime, reducing the capital costs. 00:48:54.710 --> 00:48:56.890 align:middle line:84% And so they have these mid-term targets 00:48:56.890 --> 00:49:00.070 align:middle line:84% where they would bring the hardware costs way down. 00:49:00.070 --> 00:49:04.450 align:middle line:84% But some of these things, like increasing lifetime, 00:49:04.450 --> 00:49:08.010 align:middle line:84% are essentially capacity factor issues. 00:49:08.010 --> 00:49:13.450 align:middle line:84% And so if you undo that by using only excess generation 00:49:13.450 --> 00:49:17.970 align:middle line:84% on the grid, then you wind up looking more like this. 00:49:17.970 --> 00:49:21.930 align:middle line:84% So even though they say they can bring the cost down, 00:49:21.930 --> 00:49:23.890 align:middle line:84% it's not clear how much of that will actually 00:49:23.890 --> 00:49:28.370 align:middle line:84% come from cheaper versus better utilization of that capital. 00:49:28.370 --> 00:49:32.010 align:middle line:84% And only cheaper to capital gets you 00:49:32.010 --> 00:49:34.730 align:middle line:84% into a place where you actually can use the extra generation. 00:49:34.730 --> 00:49:36.210 align:middle line:84% But then, nonetheless, they believe 00:49:36.210 --> 00:49:39.890 align:middle line:84% that there's an ultimate target for green energy 00:49:39.890 --> 00:49:44.640 align:middle line:84% that is competitive with current gray hydrogen, 00:49:44.640 --> 00:49:47.760 align:middle line:84% or making green hydrogen can be made the same price 00:49:47.760 --> 00:49:50.800 align:middle line:84% as gray hydrogen in the long run. 00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:54.520 align:middle line:84% I think TBD because a lot of optimistic assumptions 00:49:54.520 --> 00:49:56.420 align:middle line:90% baked into this calculation. 00:49:56.420 --> 00:49:59.040 align:middle line:90% And we'll see what happens. 00:49:59.040 --> 00:50:02.600 align:middle line:84% What's the situation for nuclear hydrogen, or it's pink hydrogen? 00:50:02.600 --> 00:50:05.800 align:middle line:84% At the moment, it's more expensive. 00:50:05.800 --> 00:50:08.800 align:middle line:90% It can technically be done. 00:50:08.800 --> 00:50:11.720 align:middle line:84% And there are actually three ways of doing it. 00:50:11.720 --> 00:50:16.040 align:middle line:84% So one method, which is you have very hot nuclear, 00:50:16.040 --> 00:50:18.120 align:middle line:84% and just because it is so hot, it 00:50:18.120 --> 00:50:21.520 align:middle line:84% breaks up the water at these high temperatures. 00:50:21.520 --> 00:50:23.900 align:middle line:84% But this requires these very high temperature reactors, 00:50:23.900 --> 00:50:25.420 align:middle line:90% which have low lifetimes. 00:50:25.420 --> 00:50:29.120 align:middle line:84% And it doesn't look really promising. 00:50:29.120 --> 00:50:32.460 align:middle line:84% The second thing you can do is you could make electricity, 00:50:32.460 --> 00:50:35.400 align:middle line:84% you make green electricity from nuclear 00:50:35.400 --> 00:50:38.780 align:middle line:84% and do the traditional just green hydrogen, 00:50:38.780 --> 00:50:40.360 align:middle line:90% just do water electrolysis. 00:50:40.360 --> 00:50:42.740 align:middle line:84% But we already know that electricity from nuclear 00:50:42.740 --> 00:50:46.160 align:middle line:84% is probably not going to be cost competitive with renewables, 00:50:46.160 --> 00:50:49.460 align:middle line:84% and therefore, this is probably not the strategy. 00:50:49.460 --> 00:50:51.700 align:middle line:84% So the real way you would use nuclear 00:50:51.700 --> 00:50:56.500 align:middle line:84% is that you would preheat water using nuclear heat, 00:50:56.500 --> 00:51:00.580 align:middle line:84% and then you would use electric, probably 00:51:00.580 --> 00:51:04.280 align:middle line:84% actually from renewables, to do the electrolysis. 00:51:04.280 --> 00:51:06.340 align:middle line:90% It would be a two-step process. 00:51:06.340 --> 00:51:09.860 align:middle line:84% So why do I say preheat the water? 00:51:09.860 --> 00:51:13.900 align:middle line:84% Well, it turns out that the efficiency of electrolysis 00:51:13.900 --> 00:51:15.560 align:middle line:90% is a function of temperature. 00:51:15.560 --> 00:51:18.680 align:middle line:84% And you can see here this maximum theoretical efficiency. 00:51:18.680 --> 00:51:21.060 align:middle line:84% And this is more like where things actually operate. 00:51:21.060 --> 00:51:23.860 align:middle line:84% And the blue line, you see the efficiency goes 00:51:23.860 --> 00:51:25.860 align:middle line:90% way up as you heat the water. 00:51:25.860 --> 00:51:29.380 align:middle line:84% And so, actually, in these electrolysis plants 00:51:29.380 --> 00:51:31.280 align:middle line:84% being run off of renewable energy, 00:51:31.280 --> 00:51:33.180 align:middle line:84% they're heating the water anyway. 00:51:33.180 --> 00:51:36.340 align:middle line:84% And instead of heating it using resistive heating, 00:51:36.340 --> 00:51:38.460 align:middle line:84% we would heat it using nuclear heat. 00:51:38.460 --> 00:51:40.720 align:middle line:84% And that's where you would actually 00:51:40.720 --> 00:51:43.960 align:middle line:84% get the gains from nuclear because, remember, 00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:47.600 align:middle line:84% nuclear heat is cheaper than renewables heat. 00:51:47.600 --> 00:51:49.540 align:middle line:90% So that's the idea. 00:51:49.540 --> 00:51:53.100 align:middle line:84% So here's the kind of calculation to be done. 00:51:53.100 --> 00:51:55.620 align:middle line:90% 00:51:55.620 --> 00:51:57.120 align:middle line:84% Your target temperature is something 00:51:57.120 --> 00:51:59.780 align:middle line:90% like 700 to 800 degrees. 00:51:59.780 --> 00:52:03.520 align:middle line:84% 777 is kind of like our target temperature 00:52:03.520 --> 00:52:04.700 align:middle line:90% to operate our process. 00:52:04.700 --> 00:52:06.800 align:middle line:90% So let's just look at this plot. 00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:12.600 align:middle line:84% 777, and you're here where the curve is turning over. 00:52:12.600 --> 00:52:15.960 align:middle line:84% So this is just a way of calculating 00:52:15.960 --> 00:52:17.500 align:middle line:90% how much nuclear we need. 00:52:17.500 --> 00:52:21.263 align:middle line:90% 00:52:21.263 --> 00:52:23.680 align:middle line:84% So we're going to start with room temperature water, which 00:52:23.680 --> 00:52:24.660 align:middle line:90% is 20 degrees. 00:52:24.660 --> 00:52:27.360 align:middle line:84% And we're getting heated up an additional 800 degrees 00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:31.200 align:middle line:90% to get to boiling. 00:52:31.200 --> 00:52:32.920 align:middle line:84% Now it turns out you can obviously 00:52:32.920 --> 00:52:36.320 align:middle line:84% change-- you could change the amount of heat 00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:39.930 align:middle line:84% you have to put in to get it up to boiling by, 00:52:39.930 --> 00:52:41.790 align:middle line:90% say, putting it under vacuum. 00:52:41.790 --> 00:52:43.470 align:middle line:84% But it turns out, then, what happens 00:52:43.470 --> 00:52:45.972 align:middle line:84% is that this number goes up when you're 00:52:45.972 --> 00:52:47.430 align:middle line:84% at lower than atmospheric pressure, 00:52:47.430 --> 00:52:49.430 align:middle line:84% and you don't really gain anything. 00:52:49.430 --> 00:52:53.510 align:middle line:84% So basically, this is your number to get it up to boiling, 00:52:53.510 --> 00:52:59.630 align:middle line:84% plus the heat of vaporization, plus to take the steam from 100 00:52:59.630 --> 00:53:05.710 align:middle line:84% degrees up to 777, use another 677 degrees C of heat 00:53:05.710 --> 00:53:08.650 align:middle line:84% in the steam, and if you add that all up, 00:53:08.650 --> 00:53:13.790 align:middle line:84% it gives you 4,000 kilojoules of heat per kilogram of water 00:53:13.790 --> 00:53:16.590 align:middle line:90% to get it up to 777. 00:53:16.590 --> 00:53:22.270 align:middle line:84% No, that is your water feedstock. 00:53:22.270 --> 00:53:26.310 align:middle line:84% And for 5 million tons, which we previously 00:53:26.310 --> 00:53:29.810 align:middle line:84% calculated for 70 billion gallons, at 26 grams per gallon, 00:53:29.810 --> 00:53:31.670 align:middle line:84% you have five million tons of H2. 00:53:31.670 --> 00:53:35.350 align:middle line:84% That gives you 45 million tons of water. 00:53:35.350 --> 00:53:38.450 align:middle line:84% And then you multiply that number times that number, 00:53:38.450 --> 00:53:44.050 align:middle line:84% and you get 6 gigawatts of thermal heat needed 00:53:44.050 --> 00:53:48.610 align:middle line:84% to produce all of the hydrogen for all the transportation fuel 00:53:48.610 --> 00:53:53.450 align:middle line:84% production that is difficult to decarbonize with batteries. 00:53:53.450 --> 00:54:00.290 align:middle line:84% So the bottom line here is that, yes, nuclear could contribute, 00:54:00.290 --> 00:54:08.410 align:middle line:84% but 6 gigawatts is not that much in terms of a market size. 00:54:08.410 --> 00:54:11.450 align:middle line:84% So I don't think the transportation fuel story is 00:54:11.450 --> 00:54:14.470 align:middle line:90% actually the thing for nuclear. 00:54:14.470 --> 00:54:17.330 align:middle line:84% It's actually all the rest of those industrial processes. 00:54:17.330 --> 00:54:20.050 align:middle line:84% Sure, you could use your nuclear batteries to help with this, 00:54:20.050 --> 00:54:25.090 align:middle line:84% but it's 10% perturbation on the existing market, something 00:54:25.090 --> 00:54:27.050 align:middle line:84% like this, despite the fact that this 00:54:27.050 --> 00:54:29.290 align:middle line:90% is one third of transportation. 00:54:29.290 --> 00:54:32.730 align:middle line:84% And that's because, really, the principal energy consumer here 00:54:32.730 --> 00:54:35.240 align:middle line:84% is just electricity, which is just cheaper 00:54:35.240 --> 00:54:38.320 align:middle line:90% coming from renewables. 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:42.400 align:middle line:84% So that's the kind of bottom line for the transportation 00:54:42.400 --> 00:54:44.000 align:middle line:90% story. 00:54:44.000 --> 00:54:46.640 align:middle line:84% Everything that I've shown you so far, 00:54:46.640 --> 00:54:50.200 align:middle line:84% the industrial processes and the transportation, 00:54:50.200 --> 00:54:53.640 align:middle line:90% are both for the United States. 00:54:53.640 --> 00:54:56.520 align:middle line:84% The industrial processes are the ones that are interesting. 00:54:56.520 --> 00:55:00.120 align:middle line:84% So what happens if we're looking at a global market? 00:55:00.120 --> 00:55:01.020 align:middle line:90% So here it is. 00:55:01.020 --> 00:55:07.080 align:middle line:84% Here's the distribution of emissions, 00:55:07.080 --> 00:55:16.320 align:middle line:84% which is in my proxy for CO2 abatable sources of heat. 00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:20.200 align:middle line:84% And you see around 2014, which is essentially when all the data 00:55:20.200 --> 00:55:21.960 align:middle line:90% I showed you were-- 00:55:21.960 --> 00:55:24.020 align:middle line:84% it takes them a long time, satellite data. 00:55:24.020 --> 00:55:26.080 align:middle line:90% So that data was all-- 00:55:26.080 --> 00:55:31.800 align:middle line:84% basically, in this region, the US is about 10% 00:55:31.800 --> 00:55:35.580 align:middle line:84% of the total industrial heat emissions. 00:55:35.580 --> 00:55:43.860 align:middle line:84% So my kind of global estimate is that potentially up to 10 times 00:55:43.860 --> 00:55:45.440 align:middle line:90% what we estimated for the US. 00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:49.060 align:middle line:84% So we were talking a couple thousand mini microreactors 00:55:49.060 --> 00:55:53.300 align:middle line:84% in the US-- we might be talking something like 20,000 00:55:53.300 --> 00:55:55.340 align:middle line:90% microreactors globally. 00:55:55.340 --> 00:55:57.580 align:middle line:84% And so that really just underscores 00:55:57.580 --> 00:56:02.820 align:middle line:84% that there is really a potential there in the heat market. 00:56:02.820 --> 00:56:08.780 align:middle line:84% So bottom line, globally, around 600 gigawatts 00:56:08.780 --> 00:56:11.700 align:middle line:90% of thermal heat potential-- 00:56:11.700 --> 00:56:14.880 align:middle line:84% majority will be at these tiny sizes. 00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:18.000 align:middle line:84% There is a strong preference to get to higher temperatures. 00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:21.580 align:middle line:84% If we can do it with keeping the capital, we're keeping-- 00:56:21.580 --> 00:56:26.360 align:middle line:84% microphone going out-- keeping the lifetime of the reactor 00:56:26.360 --> 00:56:27.300 align:middle line:90% good. 00:56:27.300 --> 00:56:31.100 align:middle line:84% We don't want to harm the reactor lifetime. 00:56:31.100 --> 00:56:36.410 align:middle line:84% That affects the capital cost by pushing [INAUDIBLE]. 00:56:36.410 --> 00:56:37.710 align:middle line:90% It still depends on economics. 00:56:37.710 --> 00:56:39.690 align:middle line:84% We still need to build these things cheap, 00:56:39.690 --> 00:56:42.650 align:middle line:84% and we don't really know how is it going to be. 00:56:42.650 --> 00:56:44.930 align:middle line:84% And so we have this rule of thumb, 00:56:44.930 --> 00:56:49.010 align:middle line:84% under $130 per megawatt, which we should bear in mind. 00:56:49.010 --> 00:56:51.130 align:middle line:84% This is a problem worth working on. 00:56:51.130 --> 00:56:53.430 align:middle line:84% So that's it for the heat markets. 00:56:53.430 --> 00:56:56.210 align:middle line:84% If there are any other questions? 00:56:56.210 --> 00:56:56.750 align:middle line:90% Take care. 00:56:56.750 --> 00:56:57.290 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:56:57.290 --> 00:56:58.873 align:middle line:84% AUDIENCE: With transportation of heat, 00:56:58.873 --> 00:57:00.630 align:middle line:84% I know it depends on a lot of the factors. 00:57:00.630 --> 00:57:03.730 align:middle line:84% But just first order estimate, how far can you translate it? 00:57:03.730 --> 00:57:05.250 align:middle line:90% PROFESSOR: I have no idea. 00:57:05.250 --> 00:57:06.390 align:middle line:90% Good paper topic. 00:57:06.390 --> 00:57:08.930 align:middle line:90% 00:57:08.930 --> 00:57:12.450 align:middle line:90% So any other questions? 00:57:12.450 --> 00:57:15.200 align:middle line:90% All right, get out early. 00:57:15.200 --> 00:57:31.000 align:middle line:90%