Japan's Plan to DESTROY the Price of OIL and GAS! 

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The Helium cooled pebble bed reactor is just one of the reactor designs capable of producing very high temperature process heat for Hydrogen, ammonia, etc, along with molten salt and Sodium cooled designs. Its disadvantage is that the waste ceramic pebbles are more difficult to reprocess than conventional fuel rods and thus less amenable to reuse of waste stream U238 and Pu in breeder reactors. MSR and sodium designs can be breeders, fueled by waste and produce dramatically less and shorter-lived waste streams than the current Japanese design. They are likely better future designs, but the Japanese deserve credit for pioneering a better replacement for the expensive water-cooled reactors we've been stuck with for decades.

Japan is surrounded by water, salt water that can easily be broken into 2 parts Hydrogen, 1 part Oxygen. Both elements can be used chemically to produce energy, under the right applications. Even in high school in 1964, for a science project, I demonstrated an apparatice to break apart a salt water solution into H2 and O2, collect the gases, compressing under low pressure both gasses separately and powering a simple steam engine, built by a class mate. We won science fair ribbons. A novel thing to consider back when gasoline was maybe 15 cents a gallon. Maybe when gasoline is 15 dollars a gallon, people will have more of a use for Hydrogen technology.

Based on this, I'm kind of surprised Japan didn't try developing thorium reactors when they shut the traditional nuclear plants down.

This is heartening. As someone that maintained Navy Nuc sub reactors, I am glad to hear this. I never have liked the Navy Nuke to civilian transfer of nuke power. There are better ways.

I had some involvement in the liquified gas industry and I remember how a very well known customer got extremely excited by finding a new source of a very finite gas i.e. helium. If I remember, there was some suggestion that on current consumption rates the world had only circa 500 years worth. Not sure how that would be impacted by the proposed gas cooled reactors but it would seem as ever there is a price to pay for energy of any sort no matter how it is produced.

Japan has always been able to leverage public-private partnerships like high speed rail, with their massive domestic consumer market to get developing technologies to become the standard, like CDs, not to mention at times the battle of the standards itself consisting of mainly Japanese competitors like VHS/beta or BR/HDDVD, or at worst up and running like the costly to develop hybrid tech in the Prius. Japan is down but not out, and I wouldn’t bet against the kid

They tested it out for real, that's the spirit ! And my respect for investing in an inherent safety feature, independent from the complex subsystems.

What about THORIUM reactors. To my knowledge this would be the best way forward for a variety of reasons. Mainly no risk of meltdown and no radioactive waste byproduct.

They have been talking about ceramic coated nuclear fuel for well over two decades. Good to see someone has finally done it.

At Fukushima Daiichi, the reactor did not explode, that happened only in Tschernobyl. At the desaster in Fukushima the containment did not break open, the radiation that was released came from used fuelrods in the cooldownpools above the reactor, and most was from the released steam from b2 and 3.

Conventional fission nuclear reactors are not prone to thermal runaway unless there is a cooling failure (3 Mile Island) or back up power failure (Fukishima). The explosions at Fukishima were due to Hydrogen gas build up due to lack of cooling water pumps operation. The explosions were not nuclear explosions, in fact there has never been a nuclear explosion at any nuclear power plant since the uranium is not enriched enough to cause a nuclear explosion.

The previous Australian government was always talking and prepping up an Australian hydrogen economy and I am sure they had the red H HTTR in mind. I would love to see the technology here. As for nuclear waste, breeder reactors can use the waste and produce more fissile material for nuclear reactions.

Well I think this is one of the most interesting video's you ever produced. Thanks man.

The U.K. have been using ‘Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors’ (AGR) since the 1980s but the primary coolant gas used is Carbon Dioxide. This design was chosen in the U.K. in the mid 1960s after evaluating a variety of designs including high temperature helium cooled reactors.

_The TRIGA was developed to be a reactor that, in the words of Edward Teller, "could be given to a bunch of high school children to play with without any fear that they would get hurt."_ _Teller headed a group of young nuclear physicists in San Diego in the summer of 1956 to design an inherently safe reactor which could not, by its design, suffer from a meltdown. The design was largely the suggestion of Freeman Dyson._ TRIGA has been used in 24 different countries, often by undergraduates, and there's never been a serious accident that I've heard about. It spikes, very briefly, to 64 MWe. I'd hardly call it a toy, but not even undergraduates can screw it up. I mention this because Dyson was a proponent of high temperature gas reactors as far back as the 1950s, when he was employed by General Atomic. Dyson considered gas-cooled to be intrinsically safe, and water-cooled reactors to be intrinsically unsafe (though ideally suited for submarines, where small matters, and where your cooling reservoir is the entire ocean).

The same HTGR Loss of Coolant accident was performed at Hanford, WA & produced the same outcome, no Fuel Element damage. But this was near 3 Mile Island & interest in nuclear power wained. This is exciting and a boom for both nuclear and hydrogen production!!! Thanks!

After the power usage restrictions for California's EV owners due to a lack of forethought on the power limitations of the grid...the Japanese H2 plans seem very sensible.

Japan work in partnership with New Zealand and New Zealand is now using geothermal energy to power its electrolyzer plant to make hydrogen on a industrial scale.

New to the channel, and I was very impressed! Nice to watch, great editing, easy to listen to, and a TON of awesome information! Consider myself subscribed! Keep up the great work

Thank you for sharing this content, really informative

Really interesting and informative. I've heard convincing (to me) arguments in favour of molten salt reactors and I wonder how these stack up against the HTGRs talked about in this video.

Truly brilliant ! I am a nuclear power worker and I am totally impressed by their genius ! Great narration also !

Thank you for such an informative presentation.

Very informative. You broke down the issues so well, even i think i understand it.

I guess france will be the second to get in on this. Will help their industry become more competetive than germany's, if they remain irrational over nuclear power.

You should review the Carnot cycle fundamentals. Given the operating temperature of the HTGR is around 1000 degC, you get a much more efficient thermodynamic cycle for the nuclear reactor. (Older reactors are only about 30% efficient with a temperature of 300 degC)

I'd be interested in the case of ships to see a comparison btw the use of hydrogen in fuel cells and burning it through a gas turbine with a heat recovery steam generator. The latter would obviously be more mechanically complex, but I'm curious if it wouldn't have some sort of advantage perhaps?

This is AWESOME! Waste disposal is also way over blown plus there are now newer ways to dispose and contain by drilling so far underground there would never be a problem. Many different modern nuclear systems in development right now too. I know you've covered some of them. Personally I think nuclear would be our quickest and best way to get to net zero for the interim. Gotta kick some regulators in the ass, though.

I've retired for at least 12 years. In my lifetime I've seen Japan copy technologies, but to my amazement, not only did they IMPROVE on all that they copied, But they began to LEAD in manufacturing, such as great consumer goods to broadcast equipment, a great name ("Made In Japan") for themselves in the 70s to 90s. On the other hand, China, at the same time began to COPY and imitate a lot, beginning with consumer goods, to inexpensive Cars, but to a much, much lesser extent only depending on cost-cut methods and cheap, inconsistent labour, cheating on quality rather than to establish a name and respect for their country. It is no wonder that once again Japan is LEADING in newer technologies responsibly, compared to South Korea and China. Happy that you feature Japan in this. They deserve the sole Honor for truly good and reliable manufacturing.broadcast equipment,

Reminds me of part of the story in the anime Ghost In The Shell where Japan developed the "Japanese Miracle". The process neutralized the most harmful forms of nuclear radiation and was used world wide in the story.

Very informative video. Great narration. 👍

I was familiar with Pink hydrogen (nuclear electric). I hadn't realised there was a red (nuclear thermal) variant too. Interesting. PWRs are only about 25% efficient so you get 3 times as much heat out as you do electricity. Not sure what the HTTR numbers are but I presume it's similar. What is the efficiency of the IS plant? i.e is Red hydrogen going to be any cheaper than Pink? edit: answering my own question, it seems that the process is about 50% efficient. So overall this is more than twice as efficient as doing electrolysis with thermal plant electrity (nuclear or fossil). But it's less efficient than hydrolysis itself (70%), so it's not clear that it's better than using hydro/solar/wind (all of which are usually cheaper than nuclear).

Wow. This is amazing. I didn't know Japan was working on something like this. Of course, it's no miraculous magic wand because of the need for uranium, helium and all that, but nothing is, so it's still very promising! Also : It's rare to see videos about "new miraculous energy solutions" that actually have enough data and "down to earth realities" in order to convince us engineers. So I want to commend you for staying casual-friendly while also providing enough technical data to be convincing to annoying nerds like me. Good job.

A very engaging, well researched and well put-together video. Thank you!

really informative thank you

A great video! Fresh, punchy and highly educational. Thanks!

Thank you very much for your insightful breakdown of Japan’s apparent successful implementation of Red helium. Looking forward to gleaning more information about this stunning pursuit of clean energy production. Time will tell. Thank you again for kindly taking your time to share a forthright discipline and explanation of this technology. Have a fantastic week, my friend. 👍🏻

Passive shutdown is the most critical requirement for any reactor. Nice that they have one.

its not just the greenhouses gasses that are released into our atmosphere, its all the heat that we produce, and this is producing way more, its not going to stop the planning heating up

Riding two wheeled transportation is far more effective. Saves fuel, less surface on streets, less parking space.. most people weigh under 200pounds but are communing in 3k+ pound vehicles. Most of the fuel is being burned lugging around weight of car.

This was very informational, i really enjoyed the way you presented the subject material. I'm looking forward to see how Japan handles this new breakthrough and in all honesty i hope they win this "arms race" as you call it

Your delivery is so professional, thanks two bit. Great video as always.

The world is already experiencing a helium shortage. That could prove a significant barrier to widespread adoption of this particular technology.

This is great! Really exciting to see developments in nuclear because it would need to be the backbone of any current move to less fossil fuels while maintaining our modern life styles.

Thanks for putting this technology's advantages into laymen's terms, simplifying it to the point where I understood it. I'll leave it to people smarter than myself, but this almost seems too good to be true. That being said, even though I'm from Texas, it would give me a higher level of piece of mind to ease the transition from fossil fuels to something more efficient as well as a cleaner source of future fuel. May the best process win!

Great presentation and information. You're like an ambassador from the future.

I've been thinking about this, If you preformed the breaking at depth would not the gasses be compressed to the pressure of the depth? Floating solar panels, you could aqua farm on the same floating system.

awesome to hear stuff like this! thank you for sharing some great advances!

This was a very informative and exciting video. I'm so glad you got into the subject so deeply. Looking forward to updates in this arena.

I would have loved watching high quality videos like this when I was a kid in school

The benefits of using Helium as a heat transfer material are well known, well, at least to some of us, for example it is used brilliantly in the single stage to orbit engine of Allan bond's SKYLON design, that thing is awesome.

Solidified hydrogen will be a game Changer, and you can use renewable energy to produce hydrogen as well, so the carbon footprint will be close to zero for the production. The use of solidified hydrogen is already tested in the US military, which actually is the reason it took so long to get into the general market. But to my knowledge this technology is starting as well now and will resolve the issue of transport and refilling.

Found this hopefully surprising information. Expected that after the excruciatingly slow progress for Thorium based reactors (offering passive shutdown, best efficiency - fuel in vs energy out, plus options to recycle actinides) that nuclear wouldn't ever recover. Maybe the first step.

Great information Sir. I've always wondered how, or if we would begin to clean things up. Hydrogen or electric? I've just always known we could do better. Clean Hydrogen huh? I thought these breakthroughs came out of Fukishima. But, they had already developed it since 1998?...Wow. Go Japan!!! I may diversify a little in that direction. Thank you!!!

Pebble Bed reactors have been around for years. Inherently stable and con’t melt down. Good for Japan using this system.

This video earned my sub. Great video. My experiences with EV tech is EVs are great for light weight things like commuter cars and bikes. The problem is when you do heavy work. There is a great video comparing the Ford F250 (combustion engine) VS the F250 Lightning (EV). They both towed a trailer with a car on it on the same road at the same time with the same exact trailer and two classic cars that were identical. The Lightning only made it HALF WAY through the challenge before needing to be recharged while the regular F250 had plenty of fuel left to finish the trip and drive back. The take away was "EV trucks are great as long as you don't do Truck things". I believe Hydrogen will be for heavy duty applications while batteries will be for light duty. Which is perfectly fine. I rather have competition in tech making things perform better, reducing costa, and pushing each tech to innovate.

I saw this technology being tested in Germany back during the mid 1980’s, it also proved safe.

Hydrogen storage has always been the scapegoat. Years back I saw a vid testing tanks. They fired an armored piercing explosive round at it. Because of the high pressure in the tank any flames are blown out by the high pressure escaping gas. It was also planned to have sensors for leaks that automatically opened vents to eliminate any gas buildup.

Thank you for this video because my major concern about going forward with nuclear energy (besides the waste) in the face of climate change is how water scarcity comes into play.

You failed to mention entirely the increasing scarcity of helium. We don't have a lot of it so sourcing helium for these gas-cooled reactors is going to become increasingly expensive as demand spikes and helium supplies further dwindle.

Clean steel making isn't just about heat. The main problem with the old process is the reducing agent forthe iron ore, formerly coke. Hydrogen is, I believe, the reducing agent adopted for the Swedish clean steel. Note also that, whilst it is small effect compared to green house effect, those cooling ponds you see in the videos, the cooling towers on most steam generating stations all dump heat into the ocean or atmoshere. It may be a cheap lunch, but it is not a free one. That said, hooray for the japanese. They are doing now what many of us have been advocating for years, using the continuous nature of nuclear to make hydrogen off demand. Well done chaps.

For the price of that bike you can convert any bike you want with a more powerful mid motor and a 52v battery and do over 25mph and get between 60-100kms and have 9 assist levels. I have 2 and im using my old mountain bike for one and its done over 8,000kms and the other is a gravel/road bike thats got the same set up ams has done around 4000kms. Both have been reliable ans i would reccommend Bafang ebike motors if you want to build your own ebike for a lower cost

It's Japan, they will achieve it.

At the end you covered the safety of the pebble bed reactors... but you didn't explain the coolest part! The pebbles automatically shut down when they get hot! So, the output scales with how aggressively you cool it, and if you cut out the cooling the output drops back to a very low level that won't melt the pebbles.

There's also the power paste developed in Germany that uses Magnesium and Hydrogen to make batteries that are more energy dense than Lithium ion batteries for far less weight.

Good job. I'm not a fan of nuclear power but the advantages of this approach is intriguing if not appealing. One thing was overlooked though - Helium is a non renewable resource that is currently under stress. We are running out of Helium. It actually comes as a byproduct of drilling for gas. Something to ponder when thinking of scalability.

I LOVE Hydrogen; however, its combustion yields the NUMBER 1 Greenhouse Gas (aka Water Vapor)! Water vapor is responsible for 65-70% of the total 'Greenhouse Effect'. Personally, I think we could use more Greenhouse Effect!

I thought it was pink hydrogen! But yes there are important use cases for hydrogen and so having a stable domestic supply from nuclear power plants is a good plan. Since nuclear is baseload power, hydrogen production could ramp up and down there depending on the availability of hydro, wind and solar on the grid. So when there is lots of sun, make hydrogen, when there isn't much sun, sell electricity. Nuclear seems to be too expensive to me though, it has its place in Japan and many other urban places but it is too expensive for the most part

Very interesting , the key element in todays geo political situation being the uranium... hopefully it does not replace oil as the catalyst for never ending conflicts. Great presentation!

The Homer Simpson nuclear⚛ analogy explains why their whole town is permanently a radiant ☢yellow!

What about the energy used for creating Trisyl fuel pellets ? An insight into total energy produced Vs total input energy would be very useful?

The one thing I’d be concerned about is that helium is produced predominantly from the natural gas extraction process. It is a non renewable gas and would be most predominantly produced in U.S., Russia, and any other large natural gas producers. A few years ago there was a serious helium shortage, so how would this be scaled?

H2 from nuclear power will still be more expensive than H2 from renewables. Depending a little bit on location, but most of the habitable zones will have super cheap wind and PV.

If this system can work with Small Modular Reactors the question of whether it will scale up basicaly goes away. Great video!

Great and informative video!

Great introduction to Red Hydrogen. I’d put my money on that instead of batteries.

02:06 Burning Hydrogen doesn't just release water vapour, when mixed with air it will also release a small amount of Nox

Great video. Thanks.

Ja, att väte är en gas som inte väger så mycket är en sak, men hur går det med säkerheten när du måste ha ett enormt tryck på gasen för att lagra den och att den rymmer ur behållaren fortare än du hinner blinka pga molekylens ynkliga storlek... Allt detta är övervunnet visserligen på forskningsnivå, men det är mycket kostsamma lösningar.

12:04 That's not a scheme of the S-I cycle, but of a pool-type sodium cooled reactor. Regarding hydrogen, even if it looses to batteries for cars and trucks, it can be used as a source material for other fuels like ammonia, methane or higher chain hydrocarbons, the trick is in sourcing the Hydrogen cheap enough and having a high quality heat source because most of those reactions need high temperature. With nuclear you have both, on site. With just water and air, a nuclear powerplant can produce tons of chemicals that are crucial for our civilization, on high and constant demand and that today we source from methane-sourced hydrogen; like ammonia, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate. The issue of the demand curve that require grid storage (large banks of batteries or pump hydro) dissapears if you switch the output of the powerplant to those secundary processes when the demand of electricity falls. That problem solves itself the larger the proportion of nuclear you use. Nuclear is really a no brainer. And unfortunetely, once again we have to hear the old waste non-argument. There are many ways to reprocess spent fuel, but most countries don't reprocess waste because there's no need to. New uranium from the mine is not crazy expensive in the very limited amounts needed and storing another decade of spent fuel is really, really cheap, so obviously nobody bothers to...and keep kicking the can down the road is politically acceptable. Yes Triso fuel is more difficult to reprocess, precisely because is designed to be indestructuble. Storing it is still an option, we are talking VERY small amounts of the stuff. The 90.000 tons of spent fuel the USA have accumulated after 60 years producing 20% of it's electricity with nuclear, sounds like a lot, but is just a cube 18 meters on the side, and 96% of it is just Uranium. Storing all the nuclear waste of a 100% nuclear powered human civilization, without reprocessing anything and without improving the fuel cycle or the reactors (because LWRs burn 0.5% of the available energy, it's not a high bar to jump) for the next 1000 years would be less than ideal, and pretty lazy, BUT IT IS STILL AN OPTION. The more you dive into nuclear energy the more you realize it just solves the problem, period

There was a helium cooled plant at Peach Bottom Pennsylvania when I was young. It produced power on the grid for a while

I've thought for a long time that hydrogen fuel cell cars are a better option than batteries. It just comes down to the actual production costs of the hydrogen. Since the price of replacing the lithium batteries in an EV can be around $20k, a lot of EV's are throw away cars when enough cells go out. If this process can cheaply produce hydrogen and refilling stations start being built, I think a lot of EV holdouts will be more accepting of hydrogen cars.

Really interesting, thanks!

The biggest problem with Hydrogen is storage. It is next to imposable to store. You must continually allow it to vent, or the pressures will destroy whatever it is contained in. So, if you fill up your car with Hydrogen and then not use it right away, when you do want to drive it, it may be empty.

Russia's Rosatom has been doing this for years now, they even had a joint venture with Gazprom to pump hydrogen to the EU via the Nordstream pipelines (before said pipelines got blown up). They are also building a hydrogen hub on Sakhalin, a stone's throw away from Japan and S. Korea. I spoke to one of their officials roughly a year ago asking how they plan to dominate an ever more competitive hydrogen market, with stiff competition from major players on the global energy market like Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabia. His response was quite simple; Rosatom has a technological edge over the competition since it has the entire supply chain at it's disposal, from synthesis to liquefication, transport, and regasification, while Japan relies on Australian and Saudi-owned technologies for its hydrogen projects, essentially relying on a supply chain that spans across half the planet, thereby making Rosatom the cheaper and more efficient option. Thought you guys would find this interesting, and thank you for a great video.

The production of hydrogen is one non-trivial challenge. Transporting hydrogen is another non-trivial challenge. So, *if* this method actually does produce "red hydrogen" - transporting it to where it needs to be used, remains as a huge challenge. Plus - *constructing* a "red hydrogen" nuclear plant is *far* from being carbon free.

just stumbled on your channel via this video, instant subscribe. You went in-depth enough to cover everything without getting too much into the details. You linked between relevant ideas, put them in context and explained why they matter together. You also cleared up the bad impression made by Period Videos's disappointing "colours of hydrogen" video. That was so bad it made me think there's a big hydrogen lobby promoting these nonsense colours. While there might be some truth to that, i now see the importance of these "colours" : it would otherwise be difficult to talk about S-I catalysed hydrogen, without this shortcut ! Lastly , i'm glad to see other people optimistic about our inevitable nuclear-powered future. *But i wish you would be a bit more careful when discussing the safety concerns :* - Words like "explode" have been tainted by decades of fearmongering, people nowadays gets PTSD just from hearing a reactor could "explode" , when in reality it's just a steam pressure buildup. Reactors are not bombs ! and even the old design is now very very safe, thanks to strict protocols, containment, shielding, redundancy, and preventive measures... - And the problem of "nuclear waste" is a very minor issue : most of the waste does not even come from the reactor itself. Only 3% does and it gets stored in the form of very stable glass and ceramics sealed and fused into their concrete containers. Basically big barrels or slightly hot rock. No leaks or contamination is ever possible short of grinding those containers to dust. The problem of nuclear waste should always, always be put in context of other energies' waste, which is far bigger and nobody talks about it. TLDR : even though you're not spreading anti-nuclear ideas, the mere mention of explode/meltdown/waste , out of context , is enough to reinforce the preconceived ideas in most people. These words have too much negative baggage now, and we can't undo the decades and billions of dollars of propaganda if we don't set the facts straight.

The nuclear waste can be reused: there are special reactors that do this since radioactive material is unstable it wants to be stable with the same amount of protons and neutrons

For nuke waste I have always liked those use methods that allow for safety and recyclability. This type of reactor, or liquid salt fast reactor or what have you, which can use their fuel more fully and efficiently. I think that "spent" fuel can still do work. It's much less efficient, obviously, but it has longevity and abundance. Why not use the lessened thermal output of the waste to run a good old fashioned Stirling Engine with a closed loop system? Will it produce massive energy density? no, definitely not, but it could produce consistent, safe, zero emission energy for, potentially, thousands of years. All you need is a quality, closed-loop Stirling engine design and a relatively consistent thermal differential between your sealed thermal chamber and the air or ground in the vicinity and bang: you have a spinning fly wheel that can make a bit of power... not a lot, but for many lifetimes. now imagine an otherwise barren field someplace inhospitable and sub-optimal for solar or wind (like the arctic/Antarctic circles) with thousands of these devices chugging away non-stop for hundreds of lifetimes, day and night, non-stop. additionally, they could be implimented smaller scales, closer to urban centers, sealed underground or in secure containment on the surface near industrial sites to provide supplementary power or emergency power or just keeping batteries of whatever sort topped off? Hell, we could just bury radiation-sealed waste pellets in sand tanks as "thermal sand batteries" or even try to improve Nuclear Crystal Containment batteries ("diamond batteries") so that they're actually useful... ugh, I'm just venting at this point, I think... Don't Mind me and my TL:DR post!

curious if (control rods) or such are still used in this design.

Did I miss something or was there no mention of the use of Helium as a coolant is like an Achilles heel for this reactor? Helium is a very rare natural resource and incredibly difficult to manufacture, it requires a ton of energy.

Very interesting. The commercial reactors we have in the USA are light water reactors and the water used for cooling is turned into steam that runs a conventional electric turbine. The HTG reactors run at much higher temps and it is these temps that allow its direct use for things other than generating electricity. Hydrogen will only ever be a niche fuel.

They need to improve refueling stations, so that the hose when refueling your vehicle doesn't freeze up causing every one to wait for it to thaw off.

I NEVER knew you could cool a Nuclear Reactor with GAS! AWESOME!

Mr. Two Bit, a basic question for you: At given CO2 PPM numbers, what problems are solved? Carbon neutrality is a nice catch phrase, but for the average guy like me, I'd like to know what gets fixed at various CO2 PPM numbers. Think of it as a scientific experiment where we can then measure the results. It might be a nice video for you, where you could state "At 300 PPM, this is fixed", or "The oceans stop rising at X PPM".

What about the Thorium Reactors that we passed by? Much better in the waste category!

Please take a look at the known deposits of Helium (which seems to be the inert gas required for this process) ?

How do you cool the Helium in order to use it again , I guess , how expensive is Helium , since you will need great quantities to cool down the reactor . How readily available is helium since it is a scarce gas among gases. The Iodine , SO2 reaction is a smart one for producing H2 There is another method also by using concetrated solar power using mirrors to direct the energy at a point in a tower where a catalyst is heated and water vapor is passed and is split into H2 and O2.

13 years ago I met an interesting American in my local bar in London. He was visiting on business. After a number of drinks he relaxed a lot. He was into shale oil. The levels of shale in northern USA and Canada is amazing. I pointed out it is not economically viable to extract the oil from the shale, as it needs a lot of heat to do so. And also that it depends on the percentage of oil in the shale. He said one or two nuclear power stations dedicated providing the heat can make the USA & Canada 100% self sufficient in energy, with continuing on proven existing transport technology - petro fuels. He said that the USA/Canadian shale needs little heat to extract the oil. In that time renewable energy has advanced brilliantly - and also the technology on its application at the user end. Thankfully, so far has not materialised. But, it is a backup if world energy takes a nose dive.