in the 1950s nuclear power promised endless  amounts of energy too cheap to meter  

but after over half a century as groundbreaking as  nuclear power has been it hasn't been without its  

fair share of calamities and unanswered questions  but as the threat of global warming grows  

a question remains will sources like wind and  solar be enough on their own what if there was  

another nuclear option one that was cleaner and  safer and more efficient researchers in china  

may finally unveil a nuclear reactor that checks  all those boxes how do they do it by using thorium  

but what is thorium and how do thorium reactors  work and can they really make nuclear energy clean  

and safe we thought those questions and more  deserve a deeper dive today on two bit davinci

special thanks to extra for sponsoring this video  build your credit score even without a credit  

card today using extra as much as we love wind  and solar some question whether they can truly  

provide enough clean sustainable energy that we  so desperately need while nuclear energy has a  

questionable track record it could potentially  be an excellent source of abundant emission-free  

power before we go further let's take a quick look  at how traditional nuclear reactors work as always  

this is a significantly reduced overview the full  breadth of nuclear physics is just a little bit  

too much for a 10-minute video on youtube every  nuclear reactor on the grid today is a fission  

reactor which we've covered in our videos on  modular nuclear reactors which you can check  

out here this is separate from nuclear fusion  which we've also covered in a video here fission  

starts by finding an element with the right  kind of nucleus certain elements like uranium  

and plutonium contain very large nuclei that can  split into smaller nuclei when struck by neutrons  

once they split they release energy as well as a  bunch of fast-moving neutrons these stray carini  

neutrons smash into more nuclei breaking them  apart and creating a chain reaction that energy  

produces a steady amount of heat which boils water  producing steam which turns generators to produce  

electricity which then power your computers or  phones so you can watch more tuba davinci videos  

it's a beautiful cycle what makes nuclear power  so attractive is that it can produce ample energy  

in a consistent manner without carbon emissions  a major win for the planet well sort of for all  

the benefits of nuclear energy there are some  major risk the looming threat of meltdowns the  

proliferation of nuclear weapons nuclear waste  with shelf lives of tens of thousands of years  

all of these aspects have led some to give nuclear  energy a big no thanks but the truth is many of  

these risks have less to do with nuclear energy as  a whole and more to do with the specific elements  

used to produce those nuclear reactions in  particular uranium but what if there was a  

different element one that was more common and  could potentially produce even more energy than  

uranium but without the risk of meltdown nightmare  weapons and whose waste lasts hundreds not tens of  

thousands of years this then just might be the  answer ladies and gentlemen may i present to  

you thorium so what is thorium it's one of the  15 heavy metallic radioactive elements found at  

the bottom of the periodic table just two spaces  lighter than uranium thorium was first isolated  

by swedish chemist john's jacob brazilis back in  1828 but it wasn't until about 70 years later that  

two chemists gerhard schmidt and marie curie both  separately discovered thorium's radioactive nature  

what makes thorium so attractive to researchers  right now most nuclear reactors use uranium one  

specific isotope uranium-235 is particularly  attractive because of its highly fissile nature  

the problem uranium-235 makes up less than  one percent of naturally occurring uranium  

so nuclear power facilities make do  with the more common isotope uranium-238  

however this isotope can't undergo fission on  its own you first need to enrich the uranium  

to boost its proportions of uranium-235 this is  where the problems begin during the conversion  

process uranium-238 transmutes into other fissile  elements u-239 which decays into neptunium-239  

then finally plutonium-239 an active ingredient in  nuclear bombs but the fun doesn't stop there once  

the uranium-235 burns down to about 0.3 percent  the fuel is depleted however it leaves some lovely  

parting gifts like americium tectidium and iodine  elements that can remain harmful for over 10 000  

years meaning there is no guaranteed safe way of  storing it here on earth if you've been watching  

our show for a while you've probably noticed that  our backdrop has changed and well that's because  

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huge thanks to extra and all of you for  supporting the show so how does this stack  

up to thorium to begin with thorium is a much  more abundant material three times more abundant  

than uranium plus all but a trace of the  world's thorium already exists as the ideal  

isotope thorium-232 meaning no enrichment another  major win for thorium is that overall it is a much  

safer element to use than uranium for one thing  it is not fissile on its own but when thorium-232  

absorbs another neutron it becomes thorium-233  which quickly decays into protactinium-233  

from there it can be chemically separated into  uranium-233 which is fissile but the true benefit  

here is that because thorium itself is not fissile  it will never start to break down on its own  

to start the reaction you'd need to start throwing  neutrons at it to make the process stop simply  

turn off the neutron source and voila the whole  process shuts down no rogue reactions better yet  

researchers estimate that thorium could be even  more energy efficient with one ton of thorium  

producing as much energy as 35 tons of uranium and  nuclear waste while thorium is not entirely waste  

free it produces anywhere from 1 000 to 10 000  times less waste than uranium and the waste it  

does produce is significantly less radioactive and  only stays radioactive for about 500 years which  

is way better than 10 000 years thorium could also  significantly help curtail the proliferation of  

nuclear weapons first it doesn't produce plutonium  which again is a key component in nuclear weapons  

also in creating uranium-232 the process can lead  to a strong field of gamma radiation which can  

enhance its traceability this could present an  ideal solution for countries like iran and north  

korea to have nuclear power without the fear of  developing nuclear weapons thorium is versatile  

able to work in just about every type of  nuclear reactor when it comes to nuclear  

reactors the two main categories are water-based  or thermal reactors and molten salt reactors with  

the latter gaining the most traction with thorium  the vast majority of reactors are thermal meaning  

they require a moderator to slow down the fast  neutrons to the right thermal level so the  

fission can continue the most common moderator is  just good old-fashioned h2o water because of this  

most reactors need to be built near a water source  molten salt reactors use a liquid salt base which  

gets heated to super hot temperatures over 450  degrees celsius and they have several benefits  

over their counterparts first because they  don't require being near water they can be built  

anywhere even in remote locations china's thorium  reactor which uses a fluoride based salt is being  

built in the gobi desert not only do these types  of reactors open the doors for inland nations to  

develop their energy independence but building  the facilities in more remote locations also  

reduces their impact if something should go wrong  the best benefit of molten salt reactors over  

thermal reactors is that they're way safer the  thermal process involved in water-based reactors  

requires constant monitoring and can lead to major  problems every major nuclear disaster three-mile  

island chernobyl fukushima all had issues with  cooling failures in the thermal reactor molten  

salt reactors on the other hand use molten salts  as both the coolant and the fuel which allows  

the system to self-regulate the liquid fuel runs  through a reaction chamber filled with graphite  

rods which slow down the speed of the neutrons  to stop the chain reaction all you need to do is  

remove the rods should a more catastrophic event  take place in a liquid fluoride thorium reactor it  

would automatically drain the liquid fuel into the  storage tank away from the graphite and just like  

that the reaction would come to a halt so we have  a safer more efficient nuclear reactor that can be  

built anywhere can't be weaponized and can't melt  down while molten salt reactors are very promising  

they still have some hurdles to overcome for one  thing melting salts requires an immense amount  

of heat at such high temperatures that salt  can corrode the reactor's structure requiring  

more protection which means higher cost so far  molten salt reactors have not proven themselves  

cost effective then there's the thorium itself the  jury is still out whether the cost of extracting  

and converting thorium into fissile materials is  less expensive than uranium the main roadblock  

is simply a lack of research due to you guessed  it a lack of funding in the u.s nuclear programs  

grew during the cold war but the goal was not  simply a warm light for the whole world to share  

it was to build bombs once it was determined that  uranium held potential as both a weapon and a fuel  

source the us basically stopped looking for other  elements and since thorium can't be produced into  

plutonium it was pushed to the wayside outside the  u.s countries like china and india have continued  

pursuing thorium even though the u.s has not as  of now china plans to test its thorium reactors  

which could prove itself a game changer in the  world of clean energy for now we'll have to wait  

and see while renewables like wind and solar  have seen a major growth in the past decade  

is there a chance they might not be enough what  if we need a reliable base load energy source  

that works rain or shine thorium then might just  be what the doctor ordered and with the benefits  

so vast it's no wonder so many are excited about  thorium's future in energy but what do you think  

is thorium worth exploring as a nuclear power  source with all the risk nuclear power poses  

should we just abandon it all together let us know  what you think in the comments below so that is a  

look at the thorium reactor it's interesting a  lot of you guys have requested this video and  

i do think the technology is pretty great if we  are going to pursue further nuclear power plants  

i think thorium really is where we should be  investing even though it will require some  

retooling and some reimagining i think it's pretty  promising stuff again not going to be easy molten  

salt you could imagine the engineering challenges  involved with with all of that but something we  

should pursue nonetheless i apologize if you heard  background noises in this video i'm in my backyard  

we just moved this is the new headquarters for  tuba davinci but our office and our studio is  

not ready so we will be shooting wherever we can  for a little while so bear with us like that all  

right so that is a look at thorium salt reactors  thank you so much for watching and if you want to  

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and chat all for a small monthly subscription you  can cancel any time all right that does it for us  

take a look around we have a ton of videos that we  think you're going to love especially around this  

topic and until next time remember i'm ricky with  tipa davinci and the future is going to be awesome