Human mechanical energy is so amazing.
Why can't we use that to create energy?
You will never run out of electricity.
You never generate any pollution.
So half the world is not going to generate pollution.
We call it- Free Electric.
Solar Freakin' Roadways-
-replaces all roadways, parking lots, sidewalks, driveways, tarmacs, bike paths and outdoor
recreation surfaces with smart, microprocessing, interlocking, hexagonal solar units!
Maintaining a nation of solar highways.
Manufacturing bicycle-battery-generators for every home.
An extremely ambitious idea to replace our nation's roads with solar panels.
The Department of Transportation has kicked in $850,000.
People are actually taking this seriously.
Despite the media attention they've received, I think these ideas are flat-out crazy.
But they're par for the course in today's energy landscape.
They Keystone XL Pipeline extension-
For a while, the entire national energy discussion revolved around a single pipeline.
Sometimes it seems the more difficult an energy source is to harness,
the more attention it receives.
If you'll give me a chance to serve, I'll bring the EPA and the Agriculture Department
and all the people together and we'll use ethanol
as a part of our nation's energy security future!
For example, corn ethanol receives $7 billion in subsidy, each year.
Corn ethanol's Return On Energy Investment is 1.3 times.
Only 30% more energy is recovered from corn ethanol, then went into producing it.
Ethanol is a lousy molecule.
I'm sorry, but the farm lobby did a really good job- because they had a lot of money-
to be able to peddle a really grossly inferior molecule like ethanol.
Its got 25% less energy density- per mole- than regular old gasoline.
And it costs a hell of a lot more money to make.
Even Al Gore, who was a key proponent of Corn Ethanol, acknowledges the subsidy was a mistake-
The energy conversion ratios are, at best, very small.
How does Corn's 1.3 times compare against other energy sources?
Solar cells return 7 times.
Natural Gas is 10 times.
Wind is 18 times.
Today's water cooled nuclear is 80 times.
Coal is 80 times.
Hydropower is 100 times.
A thorium powered molten salt reactor can return 2000 times the energy invested in it.
As another point of reference, 7 billion dollars is not just our yearly corn ethanol subsidy-
It would triple NASA's entire Technology Development budget.
Uh- personally if I was going to try to be living on the Moon or Mars
I would definitely want a nuclear power source.
I would consider anything less to be tantamount to suicide.
There's lots of thorium on the surface of the Moon.
There's lots of thorium on the surface of Mars.
There are fluorides on Mars.
For certain.
So you can actually get your fluorine source, your thorium source, your uranium source,
and most likely the other metals that you would need.
Extract the water from the soils of Mars.
Separate the hydrogen and oxygen.
We now have a supply of rocket fuel on Mars.
A filling station.
So you don't have to carry all your fuel with you.
There are many advantages to not having energy being your scarcest resource in space.
Set up some other nuclear reactor somewhere else in space.
Space becomes that frontier.
These innovations make headlines.
And those headlines work their way down the educational pipeline.
Everybody in school knows about it.
You don't have to set up a program to convince people that being an engineer is cool.
This is a video about thorium, molten salt reactors, nuclear power, and energy itself.
We look at technical challenges.
We look at statements made which mischaracterize the potential of thorium.
And we'll examine some claims that nuclear power is entirely unnecessary
in the first place.
This video exists because NASA spent $10,000 to digitize
reactor research documents in 2004.
The documents are public domain, and be accessed through ORNL's online library or Kirk's website.
This is not mystery technology.
Anyone can learn about molten salt reactors in great detail.
In fact, half a dozen privately funded startups are working right now to bring modern, factory
assembled molten salt reactors to market.
The bug was put in my ear, to think about a new company.
I worked 10 years on technology development at NASA.
Technology doesn't develop on its own.
It develops when we push it.
And the converse is true.
When we don't push technology it doesn't go anywhere.
These reactors are designed to operate under 1 Earth gravity.
They won't be small enough to launch into space.
But unlike a space reactor, these Molten Salt Reactors don't depend on NASA to fund development.
In fact, the first molten salt reactor to ever operate,
was called the Aircraft Reactor Experiment.
It was incredibly compact, and it was designed to operate without gravity.
Unless you were physically with me, and I could bring down Fluid Fuel Reactors showing
the Molten Salt Reactor in it and the Aircraft Reactor Experiment.
It was half the size of your refrigerator, and it put out 2 million watts of heat!
They consciously and deliberately ignored the contribution of convection
to heat flow in liquids.
They ignored it.
They ignored it for a very good reason.
They were designing a nuclear reactor powered bomber.
It was going in an airplane.
Airplanes do interesting things like go into dives.
The force of gravity disappears.
Convection then stops.
Convection is a gravity driven phenomena.
So they couldn't rely on convection.
NASA will be able to crib from the Aircraft Reactor Experiment- and an abundance of modern
reactor designs- to begin work on low gravity- or zero gravity- molten salt reactors.
When Molten Salt Reactors begin powering our cities and providing fresh water, it will
be quickly recognized that the best bang-for-the-buck ever attained
by a government agency was the scanning of molten salt research-
performed by NASA for $10,000.