full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So it's a meoltn salt reactor. It has a core, and it has a heat exchanger from the hot salt, the radioactive salt, to a cold salt which isn't radioactive. It's still thermally hot but it's not radioactive. And then that's a heat encaehxgr to what makes this design really, really interesting, and that's a heat exchanger to a gas. So going back to what I was saying before about all power being pcedourd — well, other than photovoltaic — being produced by this boiling of steam and tninurg a turbine, that's actually not that efficient, and in fact, in a nuclear peowr pnalt like this, it's only roughly 30 to 35 percent efficient. That's how much thermal energy the reactor's putting out to how much eiltccrteiy it's producing. And the reason the efficiencies are so low is these reactors operate at pretty low temperature. They operate anywhere from, you know, maybe 200 to 300 degrees clesuis. And these reactors run at 600 to 700 dgreees Celsius, which means the higher the temperature you go to, thermodynamics tells you that you will have higher efficiencies. And this reactor doesn't use water. It uses gas, so supercritical CO2 or huliem, and that goes into a turbine, and this is called the Brayton cycle. This is the thermodynamic cycle that produces electricity, and this makes this almost 50 percent efficient, between 45 and 50 percent efficiency. And I'm really excited about this, because it's a very compact core. Molten salt reactors are very caomcpt by nature, but what's also great is you get a lot more electricity out for how much uranium you're fisonisnig, not to mention the fact that these burn up. Their burn-up is much higher. So for a given amount of fuel you put in the roceatr, a lot more of it's being used.

Open Cloze


So it's a ______ salt reactor. It has a core, and it has a heat exchanger from the hot salt, the radioactive salt, to a cold salt which isn't radioactive. It's still thermally hot but it's not radioactive. And then that's a heat _________ to what makes this design really, really interesting, and that's a heat exchanger to a gas. So going back to what I was saying before about all power being ________ — well, other than photovoltaic — being produced by this boiling of steam and _______ a turbine, that's actually not that efficient, and in fact, in a nuclear _____ _____ like this, it's only roughly 30 to 35 percent efficient. That's how much thermal energy the reactor's putting out to how much ___________ it's producing. And the reason the efficiencies are so low is these reactors operate at pretty low temperature. They operate anywhere from, you know, maybe 200 to 300 degrees _______. And these reactors run at 600 to 700 _______ Celsius, which means the higher the temperature you go to, thermodynamics tells you that you will have higher efficiencies. And this reactor doesn't use water. It uses gas, so supercritical CO2 or ______, and that goes into a turbine, and this is called the Brayton cycle. This is the thermodynamic cycle that produces electricity, and this makes this almost 50 percent efficient, between 45 and 50 percent efficiency. And I'm really excited about this, because it's a very compact core. Molten salt reactors are very _______ by nature, but what's also great is you get a lot more electricity out for how much uranium you're __________, not to mention the fact that these burn up. Their burn-up is much higher. So for a given amount of fuel you put in the _______, a lot more of it's being used.

Solution


  1. exchanger
  2. molten
  3. produced
  4. power
  5. fissioning
  6. helium
  7. degrees
  8. turning
  9. electricity
  10. reactor
  11. celsius
  12. compact
  13. plant

Original Text


So it's a molten salt reactor. It has a core, and it has a heat exchanger from the hot salt, the radioactive salt, to a cold salt which isn't radioactive. It's still thermally hot but it's not radioactive. And then that's a heat exchanger to what makes this design really, really interesting, and that's a heat exchanger to a gas. So going back to what I was saying before about all power being produced — well, other than photovoltaic — being produced by this boiling of steam and turning a turbine, that's actually not that efficient, and in fact, in a nuclear power plant like this, it's only roughly 30 to 35 percent efficient. That's how much thermal energy the reactor's putting out to how much electricity it's producing. And the reason the efficiencies are so low is these reactors operate at pretty low temperature. They operate anywhere from, you know, maybe 200 to 300 degrees Celsius. And these reactors run at 600 to 700 degrees Celsius, which means the higher the temperature you go to, thermodynamics tells you that you will have higher efficiencies. And this reactor doesn't use water. It uses gas, so supercritical CO2 or helium, and that goes into a turbine, and this is called the Brayton cycle. This is the thermodynamic cycle that produces electricity, and this makes this almost 50 percent efficient, between 45 and 50 percent efficiency. And I'm really excited about this, because it's a very compact core. Molten salt reactors are very compact by nature, but what's also great is you get a lot more electricity out for how much uranium you're fissioning, not to mention the fact that these burn up. Their burn-up is much higher. So for a given amount of fuel you put in the reactor, a lot more of it's being used.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
nuclear power 4
fission products 4
molten salt 3
heat exchanger 3
nuclear fission 2
uranium dioxide 2
produce electricity 2
power plant 2
reactors operate 2
reactors run 2
high pressure 2
graduated high 2
high school 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
nuclear power plant 2
graduated high school 2

Important Words


  1. amount
  2. boiling
  3. brayton
  4. burn
  5. called
  6. celsius
  7. cold
  8. compact
  9. core
  10. cycle
  11. degrees
  12. design
  13. efficiencies
  14. efficiency
  15. efficient
  16. electricity
  17. energy
  18. exchanger
  19. excited
  20. fact
  21. fissioning
  22. fuel
  23. gas
  24. great
  25. heat
  26. helium
  27. higher
  28. hot
  29. interesting
  30. lot
  31. means
  32. mention
  33. molten
  34. nature
  35. nuclear
  36. operate
  37. percent
  38. photovoltaic
  39. plant
  40. power
  41. pretty
  42. produced
  43. produces
  44. producing
  45. put
  46. putting
  47. radioactive
  48. reactor
  49. reactors
  50. reason
  51. roughly
  52. run
  53. salt
  54. steam
  55. supercritical
  56. tells
  57. temperature
  58. thermal
  59. thermally
  60. thermodynamic
  61. thermodynamics
  62. turbine
  63. turning
  64. uranium
  65. water