Well, I have a big announcement to make today, and I'm really excited about this. And this may be a little bit of a surprise to many of you who know my research and what I've done well. I've really tried to solve some big problems: counterterrorism, nuclear terrorism, and health care and diagnosing and treating cancer, but I started thinking about all these problems, and I realized that the really biggest problem we face, what all these other problems come down to, is energy, is electricity, the flow of electrons. And I decided that I was going to set out to try to solve this problem.
Danas želim objaviti nešto zaista veliko i zaista sam uzbuđen zbog toga. Ovo može biti malo iznenađujuće za mnoge od vas koji dobro poznajete moja istraživanja i što sam napravio. Stvarno sam pokušao riješiti neke velike probleme: protuterorizam, nuklearni terorizam, zdravstvenu skrb, dijagnosticiranje i liječenje raka, no počeo sam razmišljati o svim tim problemima, i shvatio sam da je stvarno najveći problem s kojim smo suočeni, na što spadaju svi ostali problemi, energija, struja, tok elektrona. Odlučio sam pokušati riješiti taj problem.
And this probably is not what you're expecting. You're probably expecting me to come up here and talk about fusion, because that's what I've done most of my life. But this is actually a talk about, okay -- (Laughter) — but this is actually a talk about fission. It's about perfecting something old, and bringing something old into the 21st century.
Ovo vjerojatno nije što očekujete. Vjerojatno očekujete da ovdje govorim o fuziji, jer sam to radio većinu svog života. No ovo je zapravo govor o - u redu -- (Smijeh) -- no ovo je zapravo govor o fisiji. O usavršavanju nečega starog, i donošenju nečega starog u 21. stoljeće.
Let's talk a little bit about how nuclear fission works. In a nuclear power plant, you have a big pot of water that's under high pressure, and you have some fuel rods, and these fuel rods are encased in zirconium, and they're little pellets of uranium dioxide fuel, and a fission reaction is controlled and maintained at a proper level, and that reaction heats up water, the water turns to steam, steam turns the turbine, and you produce electricity from it. This is the same way we've been producing electricity, the steam turbine idea, for 100 years, and nuclear was a really big advancement in a way to heat the water, but you still boil water and that turns to steam and turns the turbine.
Recimo ukratko kako fisija funkcionira. U nuklearnoj elektrani imate veliku posudu s vodom pod pritiskom, i nekoliko cijevi za gorivo, koje su obložene cirkonijem; postoje male palete goriva uranijevog dioksida, i fisijska reakcija je kontrolirana i održavana na propisnoj razini, kako bi reakcija zagrijavala vodu, voda se pretvorila u paru, para okretala turbinu i kako bi proizvodili struju. To je isti način na koji proizvodimo struju, ideja parne turbine, zadnjih 100 godina, a nuklearno je bio veliki napredak u načinu zagrijavanja vode, no još uvijek zagrijavate vodu koja se pretvara u paru i okreće turbinu.
And I thought, you know, is this the best way to do it? Is fission kind of played out, or is there something left to innovate here? And I realized that I had hit upon something that I think has this huge potential to change the world. And this is what it is.
I mislio sam, znate, je li to najbolji način? Je li fisija iscrpljena ili postoji ovdje još nešto za inovirati? Shvatio sam da sam došao do nečega za što mislim da ima ogroman potencijal da promijeni svijet. Ovo je to.
This is a small modular reactor. So it's not as big as the reactor you see in the diagram here. This is between 50 and 100 megawatts. But that's a ton of power. That's between, say at an average use, that's maybe 25,000 to 100,000 homes could run off that. Now the really interesting thing about these reactors is they're built in a factory. So they're modular reactors that are built essentially on an assembly line, and they're trucked anywhere in the world, you plop them down, and they produce electricity. This region right here is the reactor.
Ovo je mali modularni reaktor. Nije velik kao reaktor koji vidite na dijagramu ovdje. Proizvodi između 50 i 100 megavata. No, to je jako puno energije. Recimo da bi, u prosjeku, između 25.000 do 100.000 kućanstava moglo biti opskrbljeno strujom. Vrlo zanimljiva stvar oko ovih reaktora je da su proizvedeni u tvornici. Dakle, to su modularni reaktori koji su izgrađeni, u principu, na pokretnoj traci, i mogu biti dostavljeni bilo gdje u svijetu, postavite ih i proizvode struju. Ovaj dio ovdje je reaktor.
And this is buried below ground, which is really important. For someone who's done a lot of counterterrorism work, I can't extol to you how great having something buried below the ground is for proliferation and security concerns.
Zakopan je ispod zemlje, što je stvarno važno. Za nekoga tko je radio puno na protuterorizmu, ne mogu vam dovoljno uveličati koliko je izvrsno imati nešto zakopano pod zemljom zbog širenja nuklearnog oružja i brige u vezi zaštite.
And inside this reactor is a molten salt, so anybody who's a fan of thorium, they're going to be really excited about this, because these reactors happen to be really good at breeding and burning the thorium fuel cycle, uranium-233.
Unutar reaktora je otopljena sol, dakle bilo tko, tko voli torij, će biti vrlo uzbuđen zbog ovoga, jer ovi reaktori su stvarno dobri u uzgajanju i spaljivanju ciklusa torijevog goriva, uranija 233.
But I'm not really concerned about the fuel. You can run these off -- they're really hungry, they really like down-blended weapons pits, so that's highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that's been down-blended. It's made into a grade where it's not usable for a nuclear weapon, but they love this stuff. And we have a lot of it sitting around, because this is a big problem. You know, in the Cold War, we built up this huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, and that was great, and we don't need them anymore, and what are we doing with all the waste, essentially? What are we doing with all the pits of those nuclear weapons? Well, we're securing them, and it would be great if we could burn them, eat them up, and this reactor loves this stuff.
No nisam toliko zabrinut za gorivo. Možete ih pokretati -- stvarno su gladni, zapravo su poput spremišta oslabljenog oružja, dakle vrlo obogaćenog uranija i plutonija vojne razine koji su oslabljeni. Dovedeni su do stadija gdje nisu iskoristivi za nuklearno oružje, no vole ovo. Imamo ga mnogo koje leži okolo, jer je ovo velik problem. U hladnom ratu, izradili smo ogroman arsenal nuklearnog oružja, što je bilo super, no sada ih više ne trebamo, i što ćemo, suštinski, sa svim tim otpadom? Što radimo sa svim spremištima nuklearnog oružja? Osiguravamo ih i bilo bi odlično kada bi ih mogli spaliti, pojesti, a ovaj reaktor voli te stvari.
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.
Dakle to je reaktor otopljene soli. Ima jezgru i izmjenjivač topline iz vruće soli, radioaktivne soli, u hladnu sol koja nije radioaktivna. Toplinski je još uvijek vruća, no nije radioaktivna. Ovo je toplinski izmjenjivač koji čini ovaj dizajn vrlo zanimljivim, i to tako da stvara plin. Vraćajući se na ono što sam rekao prije o svoj energiji koja se proizvodi -- osim fotonaponske -- koja se proizvodi parom koja okreće turbinu, koja nije toliko učinkovita, i ustvari, u nuklearnim elektranama poput ove, u grubo je učinkovita oko 30-35%. To je omjer toplinske energija koju reaktor stvara i koliko struje proizvodi. Razlog niske učinkovitosti ovih reaktora je zbog niske temperature na kojoj rade. Rade negdje između možda 200 do 300 stupnjeva Celzijusa. A ovi reaktori rade na 600 do 700 stupnjeva Celzijusa, što znači da što više raste temperatura, termodinamika vam govori da ćete imati veću učinkovitost. Ovaj reaktor ne koristi vodu. Koristi plin kao što su superkritični CO2 ili helij, i to ide u turbinu, i ovo se zove Braytonov ciklus. To je termodinamički ciklus koji proizvodi struju, i učinkovitost se penje na 50%, između 45 i 50%. Vrlo sam uzbuđen zbog ovoga, jer je jezgra vrlo zbijena. Reaktori otopljene soli su po prirodi vrlo kompaktni, no također je sjajno da se dobije puno više struje za onoliko uranija koliko sudjeluje u fisiji, da ne spominjemo činjenicu da izgaraju. Njihovo izgaranje je puno više. Dakle za danu količinu goriva koje stavite u reaktor, puno više se iskoristi.
And the problem with a traditional nuclear power plant like this is, you've got these rods that are clad in zirconium, and inside them are uranium dioxide fuel pellets. Well, uranium dioxide's a ceramic, and ceramic doesn't like releasing what's inside of it. So you have what's called the xenon pit, and so some of these fission products love neutrons. They love the neutrons that are going on and helping this reaction take place. And they eat them up, which means that, combined with the fact that the cladding doesn't last very long, you can only run one of these reactors for roughly, say, 18 months without refueling it. So these reactors run for 30 years without refueling, which is, in my opinion, very, very amazing, because it means it's a sealed system. No refueling means you can seal them up and they're not going to be a proliferation risk, and they're not going to have either nuclear material or radiological material proliferated from their cores.
Problem s tradicionalnim nuklearnim elektranama poput ove je da imate cijevi obložene cirkonijem, a unutar njih su palete goriva uranijevog dioksida. Uranijev dioksid je keramika, a keramika ne voli ispuštati ono što je u njoj. Dakle imate ono što se zove spremište ksenona, i neki od ovih produkata fisije vole neutrone. Vole neutrone koji potpomažu ovoj reakciji. Pojedu ih, što znači da, u kombinaciji s činjenicom da oblaganje ne traje dugo, možete pokretati samo jedan reaktor u grubo, recimo, 18 mjeseci bez ponovnog punjenja. Ovi reaktori mogu trajati 30 godina bez ponovnog punjenja, što je, po mom mišljenju, vrlo, vrlo čudesno, jer to znači da je sustav zatvoren. Bez ponovnog punjenja znači da ih možete zapečatiti i izbjegavamo rizik širenja nuklearnog oružja, niti će nuklearni ili radiološki materijal biti odvlačen iz njihovih jezgri.
But let's go back to safety, because everybody after Fukushima had to reassess the safety of nuclear, and one of the things when I set out to design a power reactor was it had to be passively and intrinsically safe, and I'm really excited about this reactor for essentially two reasons. One, it doesn't operate at high pressure. So traditional reactors like a pressurized water reactor or boiling water reactor, they're very, very hot water at very high pressures, and this means, essentially, in the event of an accident, if you had any kind of breach of this stainless steel pressure vessel, the coolant would leave the core. These reactors operate at essentially atmospheric pressure, so there's no inclination for the fission products to leave the reactor in the event of an accident. Also, they operate at high temperatures, and the fuel is molten, so they can't melt down, but in the event that the reactor ever went out of tolerances, or you lost off-site power in the case of something like Fukushima, there's a dump tank. Because your fuel is liquid, and it's combined with your coolant, you could actually just drain the core into what's called a sub-critical setting, basically a tank underneath the reactor that has some neutrons absorbers. And this is really important, because the reaction stops. In this kind of reactor, you can't do that. The fuel, like I said, is ceramic inside zirconium fuel rods, and in the event of an accident in one of these type of reactors, Fukushima and Three Mile Island -- looking back at Three Mile Island, we didn't really see this for a while — but these zirconium claddings on these fuel rods, what happens is, when they see high pressure water, steam, in an oxidizing environment, they'll actually produce hydrogen, and that hydrogen has this explosive capability to release fission products. So the core of this reactor, since it's not under pressure and it doesn't have this chemical reactivity, means that there's no inclination for the fission products to leave this reactor. So even in the event of an accident, yeah, the reactor may be toast, which is, you know, sorry for the power company, but we're not going to contaminate large quantities of land. So I really think that in the, say, 20 years it's going to take us to get fusion and make fusion a reality, this could be the source of energy that provides carbon-free electricity. Carbon-free electricity.
No, vratimo se na sigurnost, jer su svi nakon Fukushime morali preispitati sigurnost nuklearnog, i jedna od stvari, kada sam odlučio dizajnirati reaktor energije je da mora biti pasivno i intrinzično sigurno, i jako sam uzbuđen oko ovog reaktora iz dva razloga, suštinski. Jedan, ne operira na visokom tlaku. Tradicionalni reaktori kao vodeni reaktor po pritiskom ili reaktor kipuće vode, su vrlo, vrlo vruća voda pod vrlo velikim pritiskom, a to znači, u suštini, u slučaju nezgode, ako postoji bilo kakav proboj ovog spremnika od nehrđajućeg čelika pod pritiskom, rashladna tekućina bi napustila jezgru. Ovi reaktori operiraju pri, u principu, atmosferskom tlaku, dakle nema sklonosti produkata fisije da napuste jezgru u slučaju nesreće. Također, rade na visokim temperaturama, a gorivo je otopljeno, tako da se ne mogu otopiti, no u slučaju da reaktor ikad prekorači sigurnosni raspon ili ste izgubili energiju u slučaju nečega poput Fukushime, postoji kontejner za otpad. Jer je svo gorivo tekuće i pomiješano s rashladnom tekućinom, možete iscrpiti jezgru u ono što se zove sub-kritično stanje, u osnovi, spremnik ispod reaktora ima absorbere neutrona. Ovo je vrlo važno jer reakcija prestaje. U ovakvom reaktoru ne možete to napraviti. Gorivo, kao što sam rekao, je keramika unutar cijevi obloženim cirkonijem, i u slučaju nesreće u ovakvom reaktoru, Fukushima i Three Mile Island -- retrospektivno na Three Mile Island, nismo to vidjeli neko vrijeme -- no oblog cirkonija na cijevima goriva, kada vidi vodu pod visokim pritiskom, paru, u oksidirajućem okolišu, proizvodi vodik, a taj vodik ima eksplozivnu sposobnost da ispusti produkte fisije. Dakle jezgra ovog reaktora, s obzirom da nije pod pritiskom i da nema kemijsku reaktivnost, znači da nema sklonosti produkata fisije da napuste reaktor. Dakle, čak i u slučaju nesreće, da je reaktor spaljen, što je, šteta za poduzeće, on neće kontaminirati velike količine zemlje. Stvarno mislim da u, recimo, 20 godina koje će nam trebati da dođemo do fuzije i napraviti fuziju stvarnošću, ovo bi mogao biti izvor energije koji pruža struju bez ugljika. Struja bez ugljika.
And it's an amazing technology because not only does it combat climate change, but it's an innovation. It's a way to bring power to the developing world, because it's produced in a factory and it's cheap. You can put them anywhere in the world you want to.
To je čudesna tehnologija, jer ne samo da se bori protiv klimatskih promjena, nego je inovacija. Način da se donese struja u svijet u razvoju, jer je proizvedeno u tvornici i jeftino je. Možete ih staviti bilo gdje na svijetu gdje želite.
And maybe something else. As a kid, I was obsessed with space. Well, I was obsessed with nuclear science too, to a point, but before that I was obsessed with space, and I was really excited about, you know, being an astronaut and designing rockets, which was something that was always exciting to me. But I think I get to come back to this, because imagine having a compact reactor in a rocket that produces 50 to 100 megawatts. That is the rocket designer's dream. That's someone who is designing a habitat on another planet's dream. Not only do you have 50 to 100 megawatts to power whatever you want to provide propulsion to get you there, but you have power once you get there. You know, rocket designers who use solar panels or fuel cells, I mean a few watts or kilowatts -- wow, that's a lot of power. I mean, now we're talking about 100 megawatts. That's a ton of power. That could power a Martian community. That could power a rocket there. And so I hope that maybe I'll have an opportunity to kind of explore my rocketry passion at the same time that I explore my nuclear passion.
I možda još nešto. Kada sam bio klinac, bio sam opsjednut svemirom. Bio sam opsednut i nuklearnom znanosti, do neke mjere, no prije toga sam bio opsjednut svemirom, i bio sam vrlo uzbuđen zbog mogućnosti, da budem astronaut i dizajniram rakete, što je uvijek bilo uzbuđujuće za mene. No mislim da se mogu vratiti ovome, jer, zamislite imati kompaktni reaktor u raketi koji proizvodi 50 do 100 megavata. To je san dizajnera raketa. To je san nekoga tko zamišlja stanište na drugom planetu. Ne samo da imate 50 do 100 megavata da napajate što god želite, da pruža pogon da dođete do tamo, već imate energiju i kada stignete. Znate, dizajneri raketa koji koriste solarne panele ili ćelije s gorivom, dakle nekoliko vata ili kilovata -- vau, to je puno energije. Trenutno govorimo o 100 megavata. To je hrpetina energije. To bi moglo napajati zajednicu na Marsu. Moglo bi napajati raketu tamo. I nadam se da ću možda imati priliku istražiti svoju strast za raketama u isto vrijeme u koje istražujem svoju strast za nuklearnim
And people say, "Oh, well, you've launched this thing, and it's radioactive, into space, and what about accidents?" But we launch plutonium batteries all the time. Everybody was really excited about Curiosity, and that had this big plutonium battery on board that has plutonium-238, which actually has a higher specific activity than the low-enriched uranium fuel of these molten salt reactors, which means that the effects would be negligible, because you launch it cold, and when it gets into space is where you actually activate this reactor.
Ljudi kažu: "Oh, lansirao si ovu stvar, a radioaktivno je, u svemir, a što je s nezgodama?" No lansiramo baterije plutonija cijelo vrijeme. Svi su bili vrlo uzbuđeni oko Curiosity, a ono je imali veliku bateriju plutonija na sebi koja sadrži plutonij 238, koji zapravo ima veću specifičnu aktivnost nego nisko obogaćen uranij ovih reaktora otopljene soli, što znači da bi efekti bili neznatni, jer ih lansirate hladnima, i kada dođu u svemir, tamo aktivirate reaktor.
So I'm really excited. I think that I've designed this reactor here that can be an innovative source of energy, provide power for all kinds of neat scientific applications, and I'm really prepared to do this. I graduated high school in May, and -- (Laughter) (Applause) — I graduated high school in May, and I decided that I was going to start up a company to commercialize these technologies that I've developed, these revolutionary detectors for scanning cargo containers and these systems to produce medical isotopes, but I want to do this, and I've slowly been building up a team of some of the most incredible people I've ever had the chance to work with, and I'm really prepared to make this a reality. And I think, I think, that looking at the technology, this will be cheaper than or the same price as natural gas, and you don't have to refuel it for 30 years, which is an advantage for the developing world.
Dakle vrlo sam uzbuđen. Mislim da sam dizajnirao ovaj reaktor kako bi bio inovativan izvor energije, pružio energiju za sve vrste znanstvenih aplikacija, i stvarno sam spreman napraviti ovo. Maturirao sam u svibnju, i -- (Smijeh) (Pljesak) -- Maturirao sam u svibnju, i odlučio sam da ću otvoriti poduzeće za komercijalizaciju ovih tehnologija koje sam razvio, ove revolucionarne detektore ispitivanja teretnih kontejnera i ove sustave proizvodnje medicinskih izotopa, no želim napraviti ovo i polako sam počeo sakupljati tim nekih od najdivnijih ljudi s kojima sam ikad imao priliku raditi, i stvarno sam spreman napraviti ovo u stvarnosti. I mislim, gledajući tehnologiju, da će ovo biti jeftinije ili iste cijene kao prirodan plin, i ne morate ga puniti 30 godina, što je prednost za svijet u razvoju.
And I'll just say one more maybe philosophical thing to end with, which is weird for a scientist. But I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky. The energy that I'm able to talk to you today, while it was converted to chemical energy in my food, originally came from a nuclear reaction, and so there's something poetic about, in my opinion, perfecting nuclear fission and using it as a future source of innovative energy.
Reći ću još jednu možda filozofsku stvar za kraj, što je čudno za znanstvenika. No, mislim da ima nešto poetično u korištenju nuklearne energije da nas pokrene do zvijezda, jer su zvijezde ogromni fuzijski reaktori. One su ogromni nuklearni kotlovi na nebu. Energija o kojoj vam mogu danas pričati, dok se pretvarala u kemijsku energiju u mojoj hrani, originalno dolazi iz nuklearne reakcije, stoga postoji nešto poetsko, po mom mišljenju, u usavršavanju nuklearne fisije i korištenju kao budućeg izvora inovativne energije.
So thank you guys.
Hvala vam, ljudi.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)