Nuclear power: why is it so unpopular?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มี.ค. 2021
- The meltdown at a nuclear power station in Fukushima, Japan, ten years ago stoked anxieties about nuclear energy. But nuclear is one of the safest, most reliable and sustainable forms of energy, and decarbonising will be much more difficult without it.
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The lessons about nuclear power, ten years on from Fukushima: econ.st/3c2fcYC
What is the future of Britain’s nuclear reactors? econ.st/3bg8ejt
Why smaller nuclear reactors might be better: econ.st/38dMQcz
How the world relies on Russia for nuclear power plants: econ.st/3kMqy6V
Listen to an episode of The Intelligence podcast about nuclear arms control: econ.st/3kO6i4N
Will nuclear energy power war zones? econ.st/3qsdipr
Could floating reactors be a better option? econ.st/3uTIvVM
The most promising zero-carbon resources: econ.st/3kLlYG9
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It’s like comparing airplanes to cars. More people die in car accidents than plane accidents per usage, but every plane accident is larger so it seems much scarier
Funny fact: none died from thorium, no one is using thorium power...
BTW - in last 10 years only ONE man died from Nuclear Power: worker crushed by pillar in uranium mine.
Great Example
It’s solely because when a car crashes, it’s so common it’s not worth mentioning. When an airplane crashes, it’s a rare tragedy. Nuclear power is the same, Chernobyl was a once in a century disaster, while coal smog is everywhere.
Yh but I'd rather crash my car and be injured than ram my plane into a building a destroy a nation lol
@@-caesarian-6078
*Fossil Fuels* together are killing ~200 mln people a year...mostly from air pollution and INDOOR pollution!!!
Nuclear power is *WIPING* this problem!!!
I mean I hope these people know they are more likely to die of cancer living near a coal plant than a nuclear plant
That would require them understanding scientific fact, rather than eating drinking and breathing the anti-nuclear hysteria.
You are more likely to get cancer from living in a brick house than living near a nuclear plant (this is based on how much microsievert can be meassured)
@@eue4127 that’s not true at all
Okay dinosaur no one is advocating for the world wide usuage of coal power plants.
@@grime2.085 And yet that's what Germany did when it decided to go "green" and get rid of its nuclear plants.
Very unfortunate.
I am from Maharashtra, India. Government had planned world's largest nuclear power plant in my state in Jaitapur. However, due to anti nuclear sentiments, that plan is on hold. India's per head carbon emissions had increased by 4% per annum in last 20 years. It's very unfortunate.
Problem is people don't want them in there backward.
@@vaibhavgupta20
Yes but there is one well functioning near Mumbai since 1969. It has not affected people's life. Technology has evolved further. Such fears are just manufactured propaganda.
@@vaibhavgupta20 In the US, the favorability ratings of nuclear power increases in areas next to the plants. I think this is due to the massive economic impact the plants have on towns and regions, and if operators are actively involved in the community they build trust with regards to safety.
As a positive side, India is leading the way in thorium reactors worldwide! So, while some fail, others prosper!
and when the people have to breath in the air of pollution , without being able to escape it, to fuel other rich interests pockets the people will suffer. until they stand up and speak out
I hope when future historians talk about why we didn't reduce our use of fossil fuels earlier, they have a whole chapter about the irrational fears of nuclear energy.
No shortage of oil-and-gas people rubbing their hands in glee as they let Cold War and post-Cold War fears control the public.
I'm literally working on that history right now.
@@robertfranklin8522 are you publishing?
The irrational bunch are the knucklehead mafia typing on this very page.
YUP! All those losers who once lived near Fukushima and Chernobyl but had to move and cannot move home. Don't tell them, they're still living the lie. Our biggest mistake in the US was Energy Production for Profit.
Now, stench pies buy their way onto "News" segments and insist that Taxpayers continue to Subsidize a for-profit industry that cannot get financial backing without the government guaranteeing to A. Supply the fuel for free. B. Dispose of the fuel for them. C. Cover the costs when something goes wrong. Yes, "when".
I am French and I fear that my country makes a mistake closing the nuclear plants because of the pressure of a part of the population which didn't seen your video
You know this guy is serious when he has eyebrows above and bellow his eyes
Discount wolverine
He's not exactly a "chick magnet" is he?
Lol
What was missed in video is that despite high capital expenditure, nuclear plants have very low operational expenditure that will offset the investment in long term and make it more profitable compared to many types of power plants due to its exceptionally long life time
You've convinced me. Now all we need is to find $10 billion for the capital costs.
Exactly
@@giovannip8600 there are no underground storage units in the desert . They are a myth . No state wants this nuclear waste nor do any countries . The waste is 1 million times more dangerous than the original fuel rods . Where does the waste or spent rods go? They are left the reactor site in metal casks that are reported to have poor welds any many are well past their expiration dates. The us army used some of the spent rods in tanks known as sabo rounds
. Using spent or radioactive waste is a violation or a war crime and caused gulf war syndrome among many war veterans and soldiers . When the rods are put into the questionable casks they are very hot for many years .when I say hot I mean in degrees farenheit or celcius . There is a gas inside the cask so that the heat does not transfer to the metal and melt it. But as I said earlier many have been poorly made with questionable welds and construction . If that gas leaks out and the heat melts a cask the danger to the environment is very great . Remember the waste is 1 million times more deadly than the fuel rod was when created . We are not being told this by our government. They have been bribed to keep this quiet. So unfortunately we have ticking time bombs all over our country in these casks .
@@BurningMad reactors which produce 10 at the power of 9 watts electric, but cost 10 at the power of 10, cost 10 per watt, is like paying 5000 for a 500watt engine knowing it will last several decades and will run for nearly free cost.
@@geniousgeorge4973 "are reported" by who? The same """environmentalists""" that have been spoonfeeding you propaganda for the last 50 years while taking fossil money?
Nuclear may be the biggest way out of reliance on fossil fuels, it’s just a matter of understanding what we have to endorse it. Accidents get less and less likely as the years go on, and with the miniature reactors popping up now, we have an even better chance at affording cheap and safe power to everyone.
We need more nuclear plants! New plants have minimal waste, great for the environment too
thats not the case at all... nuclear waste is that kind of waste we cant get rid of . all the pollution they cause is total disaster to the environment and to human health
I've never heard an argument against nuclear power that included an understanding of nuclear power.
The usual argument is "But it went bad a few decades ago" which ignores the fact technology has moved on a huge amount since then. Modern reactors are completely different machines, lessons were learnt from failure of the past and regulations put in place to prevent the same happening again
Non gestion of nuclear waste is an argument against nuclear power that include undrstanding of nuclear power
I have never heard a truer comment
I was pro-nuclear power for a long time, "clean cheap energy for all". A visit to the science museum at Sellafield changed that for me. Dealing with waste is still an issue. Sealing it into ceramics, encased in concrete, inside a steel drum and bury it deep, was the best idea they had. Now we can't see what is happening to it! The UK cannot build it's own nuclear power stations and the people we pay to build them, do not pay decommissioning costs. A field full of solar panels is ok, hundreds of fields over the country, on rooftops of Malls and factories, connected to energy storage provide Solid Supply. Decommissioning a solar farm means the materials can be recycled into more modern efficient panels to make more clean energy. Sellafield taught me that Nuclear Power was an expensive mistake completed in 1956 that we still pay for. We (UK) are a small quite windy group of islands with decent summers in the south. Nuclear cannot compete with renewables and energy storage today. When renewables go wrong, it usually means an electrical fire, components will need replacing. A small mishap at a nuclear plant is a costly generational issue. Nuclear Power is never going to be "clean cheap energy for all" because of Waste Management Costs.
Waste is the most legitimate argument against. There is no mention of the issues posed by nuclear waste in this video at all, because that is the one aspect of nuclear power that is undeniably its single biggest pitfall. Nuclear power is far, far from "clean." It might be the lesser of some evils, but this video is very one-sided and totally ignores the potential generational impacts of nuclear waste. Currently there is only one location on the entire planet that is capable of long-term storage of cementised nuclear waste.
The main obstacle to nuclear power is public sentiment.
conventional energy companies 🤝 climate "activists"
dunking on nuclear
And some help from OPEC
oh the irony
There no better use of the term "useful idiot" that climate activists
Um. No. Renewable energy is replacing fossil fuels now much cheaper than nuclear.
@@williammeek4078 Intermittent renewables need backup generation. Most of the time, gas turbines or coal plants fill those shoes.
Power production mixes that include a healthy dose of nuclear typically rely less on fossil generation capacity, since they can run as baseload generation.
According to James Hanson and Columbia University 1.8million people lives have been saved by nuclear energy. And that number is increasing year after year.
It says in the video.
@@josephbrennan370 trust 😂😂
That's probably not counting the millions saved from fighting wars. Nuclear weapons make it impossible to invade and run over large wealthy countries. Before, the only option was to defend with millions of draftees, and they would have to fight to prove it a la world War 2. If you look at the numbers, war has been relegated to an extreme sport played in 3rd world countries.
As a nuclear engineering student, i really like this video and i hope the nuclear industry gets more mainstream support. It's literally a huge advantage against climate change and medical industries.
''climate change'' that old chestnut... what next taxing oxygen ?? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
TH-cam scientists ^^
When Armageddon
@@codeofconduct_ If oxygen becomes a scarce ressource, then yes, taxing or pricing oxigen is a market based solution which is preferred in many non-communist states to other solutions of ressource management. Have you ever read about the "tragedy of the commons"?
@@gunnarkaestle There is a few problem with this. I support carbon tax but I dont think it is the ultimate solution as then it means that the harm that caused to the enviroment and must be payed off can be handled simply as a cost of doing business, which would mean that many huge and financially stable corporation can remain in business even longer and consolidate power on the market as their competitors might go under. Matter in fact unlike you (who seems to have your devotion toward the godly "invisible hand") I do not belive that the market can solve climate change in time.(or anything for that matter) The main reason why we are in trouble is because so far I seem to be right about that. So no no market solution emerged so far and to be honest a carbon tax would not be a market solution either but more like the solution of states in context of the current socio-economic system, aka the best a state can do in capitalism.
And one more thing, tragedy of the common is a frequent talking point of libertarians and otherwise free market capitalism enthusiasts, but as it already shown there is a lot more to the story than most of us would think. As it turned out it mostly happens where the "rational actors" does not communicate with each other and more importantly in case where these actors are in a direct competition to each other, and their situation is viewed as a competition by them too. The thing is that such competitive situation is the hallmark of capitalism as it is encouraged to grow your share of any pie and extract as much value as you can for yourself even if it is for the worsening of all. Unfortunatelly, that is excatly what we see happening in the world right now, as megacorps want to grow bigger and extract everything for their further growth completelly ignoring a possibility of cooperation for he preservation of the more sustainable common goods (like breathable air, or livable land). Capitalism is a strong machine, which right now pulling us off the cliff instead of woking for us.
When you hit randomize on the Oblivion character generator.
I laughed way too hard at this.
I support nuclear power
Nuclear energy is the way forward
True that
So would you like having nuclear wastes disposed near your home?
@@andreaaimar246 That's why you should be a tech enthusiastic to learn about the bleeding edge.
There are few Nuclear Reactors in development which can Use Nuclear Waste Mainly U-238 as Nuclear Fission.
One example is Called Traveling Wave Reactor which is a breeding Reactor takes in U-238. And collision with a neutron converts them to Plutonium which then will undergo fission.
This Reactor runs atleast for 20 years in Theory and it's fail safe. Plus there are many new technology coming come.
@@andreaaimar246 So would you like coal being disposed near you? Or gas plant being near? Or solar panel waste dump near you?
The fact is that nuclear power requires hundreds of times less area than renewables or dozens that fossil fuel and leaves enough area to store waste away from any human habitats.
@@VFPn96kQT actually I would be kind of okay with solar panel “waste” being dumped near me, it is inert as far as I am aware. Coal ash is carcinogenic (if breathed) so I wouldn’t want coal ash at all, anywhere (and that ignores what coal releases into the air when burnt)
In my opinion the one main reason we have a climate emergency is because we did not embrace nuclear power like we should have done. I've always said that.
And you did nothing about it? Wow, dude.
@@ACTHdan yeah shocking isn't it?
Climate emergency? Climate hysteria more like
@@DrJams climate apocolypse more like.
@@DrJams it is a climate emergency and fossil fuel companies gaslighting the problem are making it worse
Of course it's irrational fear, here's hoping small modular reactors(SMR) will change the general perception of it
Pay for it WITHOUT Taxpayer Subsidies.
@@arcanondrum6543 How about we end fossil fuel subsidies as well then?
@@xdrive2minecraft Agreed.
Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity
The main reason for the cost and time overruns are the constantly updating safety requirements, which only keep getting more stringent - precisely because everyone is so afraid of the technology. Whereas reactors built in the 60's-70's were designed and commisioned within 5-6 years, these days the time to design and build a reactor is longer than the typical working career. This results in a massive overhead on constantly retraining the workforce. In the West, most people working in nuclear reactor design, licensing, or regulation, have never in their career seen and likely will never see an example of a new reactor going critical. The currently operational reactors might as well be relics handed down from an ancient civilization; everyone involved in the design process is dead or long retired. It's like that COBOL codebase that no one wants to touch or replace. A nuclear renaissance would require orders of magnitude more funding for R&D and man power, because we effectively need to re-invent the wheel. In reality there's only enough going around to keep the current fleet operational. There is no way economics of scale can ever thrive in this environment, leading to a negative feedback loop of "nuclear is expensive, therefore we don't fund it".
Another point of frustration: the cost of solar and wind are very misleading as they are calculated based on current grids, which are only enabled by back-up on-demand coal, gas, and nuclear power. In general, electricity is cheap. It is the grid and the infrastructure that are expensive. Current grids are not made for intermittent sources like wind or solar. An honest evaluation of renewables without fossil fuel back-up would include the costs of updating the grid and adding reliable energy storage to it. I can guarantee you that nuclear will come out quite favorably as a green alternative in this comparison. Politicians just know they can score easy points with windmills and solar panels wile ignoring the consequences; not so much with promoting nuclear.
Source: I did my Ph.D. on a project in the nuclear industry whereby the goal was to develop a next generation liquid metal cooled reactor. While I totally support the project goals, the red tape, the uncertainty of funding, the ever shifting government priorities, and the lack of long term perspectives or sense of progress made me leave the industry.
Another free pro-tip: if you are a sensible citizen who is pro-science and pro-environment, please don't vote for green parties. Scientists will thank you. Green parties generally have their roots in organisations like Greenpeace, which from their founding where an anti-nuclear movement and gradually adopted other environmental causes. The anti-nuclear dogmatic stance is still at the foundation of most Green parties in Europe today. If we are going to do anything about global warming, let us at least try to keep the lights on with the existing nuclear power plants, instead of prematurely closing them down for no valid reason.
US wholesale electricity prices (2019):
Photovoltaic: $83/MWh
Wind: $36/MWh
Fossil fuels: $34/MWh
Nuclear: $25/MWh
-
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona sells the electricity that it produces for $15/MWh.
-
Why does nuclear need to get cheaper?
~17 years in development and construction, not to mention costs that can run up to over 10 billion.
Solar and wind projects have half (usually less) that development & construction time and can build like 5-10 (500MW) ones for the cost of 1 nuclear.
The advocates are not gonna listen to nuclear is needed as perception is wind and solar can do it all for less.
@@serviusm9523 Solar and wind are incapable of supplying baseload energy, they're unreliable and dealing with their variability costs enormous amounts of money. Because the EROEI is so low for solar and wind energy, their actual benefit to the environment is dubious. We can't fight global warming without nuclear energy, period.
@@PistonAvatarGuy yes.
But they say baseload is something drawn up to stop them or that solar and wind are able to do, usually using batteries.
There is a giant perception with people writing every day everything can be achieved with solar & wind. That is what has to be overcome
@@serviusm9523 Agreed, but it wont be, especially in developing countries. It will be humankind's greatest failure.
Do keep in mind the costs of a nuclear power station compared to clean engeries.
Small modular reactors & thorium salt reactors are the way to be 100% renewable.
100% renewable doesn't exist.
Well, nuclear is not renewable. You have to mine the resources and it still produces waste, however inert or non-dangerous. Definitely the best way to go though, because it’s gonna take a while to have batteries capable of storing necessary amounts of energy.
we live in a world exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science or technology. Instead of making scientists lead the implementation of technology in society, we have political figures make the decisions for us.
Even WORSE, voters!
That mindless heard of the COWS is dictating everything.
In France, people were only INFORMED that NPP will rise, "peoples will" was IGNORED. No France has the cleanest air from entire Europa major countries!
you mean corporations
If it weren’t for the well-documented apprehension of scientists themselves to paradigm change I’d be more likely to believe you. Ever read Thomas Kuhn’s work?
Ever read Dr. Helen Caldicott? Her work was not subsidized by the Nuclear Energy industry.
I'm also puzzled why "Industrial Man" is the only thing that matters to anyone.
Nuclear production requires that society deal with spectacularly dangerous emissions and waste and inevitable leaks that will incrementally increase for 250,000 years (radiocene) even if we stop production today and with unimaginable future costs. No successful containment system has yet been invented to package this stuff beyond a few short years, much less 250,000 years. Why would a government of highly-developed, well educated country like ours let such technology operate? Because it is not interested in sustaining life, but in providing "make work" projects for nuclear scientists and weapons manufacturers. Four demands: 1) End government subsidies for nuclear power and research. 2) Require utilities to accept full responsibility and liability for all their damages, deaths and diseases. 3) Rescind the extended operating license for any reactor at the end of its 40 year design lifetime. 4) Shut down all reactors pending the establishment of permanent, safe waste storage solutions.
Because "Nuclear" has been turned into a scary word. That's pretty much it.
Everyone in elementary school just calls it “Nukiller”
Glad i subscribed, all clips thus far have been outstanding
Nuclear Power is awesome and we should use it more
Film makers should bring the reality of the poisons of coal and gas to light. I am sure there is an Erin Brokovich like case out there tackling the deregulation of carbon foot print in the US. It is surely going to have a higher death toll than nuclear.
Nuclear Power Plants (also) release Beta Radiation. The poorly informed town Hosting the Vermont Yankee plant thought that they were "lucky" for the revenue, sited their Elementary School a few hundred yards from the Reactor...
Ash storage ponds leaking mercury etc into rivers poisoning everyone downstream for hundreds of miles... I'll happily live next to a nuclear power plant but I would never live close to a coal fired power plant.
@@zapfanzapfan "Close" but not too close, eh? Green Energy. It is unattractive to the greed class because scumbags like Reagan helped turn Electric Utilities over to private ownership AFTER Taxpayers funded the infrastructure.
"Thanks" to that tough talking coward and his skamk, greedy wife, decisions about our energy future are influenced by those who still want not just to profit but to GROW their profits. Green Energy just keeps making power once you purchase it, instead of requiring constant refueling, where the profit growth is hidden.
No one likes you @zapfanzapfan
There is no competition between nuclear and coal. People know coal is bad, no one cares if you keep emphasing that point. Its a competition between renewables and nuclear who can replace coal the quickest, and nuclear is losing on cost and speed.
The lack of any interest for nuclear power is why I don't take environmentalists like Greta Thumberg seriously.
Environmentalism is an immoral and anti-human ideology. None of should be taken seriously.
Leftviromentalists
But more importantly what’s with that guy’s sideburns??
More imporantly - why is he always looking up? Does he have a teleprompter on the ceiling or getting his words from the Almighty?
I think he's looking at the monitor above his webcam
@@SnoopyDoofie He is looking at a large pressure guage.
@@SnoopyDoofie He’s watching a Jack Lemmon movie
More importantly, hw he able to grow like that?
Nuclear power is being held to an impossibly high standard. New reactor buildings are required to withstand an impact by a passenger jet. Plus, the requirements keep changing and so the price tag keeps rising.
China has shown reactors can be cheap, and built within reasonable time.
As for "environmentalists" opposing nuclear power - they either have an ulterior motive, or are technological luddites. For as long as there is a single coal power plant operating we need nuclear, and we need to expand instead of contract it.
If they should not be required to hold against a passenger jet. Would it not be a perfect terrorist target? A lot of damage with only one plane.
Speaking of Passenger Jets, look what happened with Boeing's MCAS disaster after years of clowns like the cowardly Ronald Reagan preaching "cut government" to the delight of corporations seeking profit growth.
It is incredibly expensive, (current forms) produce toxic waste, take a decade or more to design and build, and new nuclear generators would embed higher electricity prices for many years after they came online. If you want large volumes of cheap and reasonably power a better method would be an overbuild of renewables + storage + inter connectors + demand management. (With enough of the first three the demand management would only be needed very infrequently.) Note - we used demand management even before we starting using renewables to generate, it has always been part of the mix as far as I can tell. if anyone says we cannot use anything that might require occasional demand management they are actually condemning every sort of generation that has ever existed.
But disposal issues are well documented and yet to be adequately dealt with. Quite aside from how cheap solar, wind and battery tech is becoming. It will be quicker to deploy renewables than build nuclear for the coming climate disaster.
The disposal issue is moot. There are already reactor designs that use nuclear waste. Also, solar and wind are nowhere near reliable enough to supply the grid was a sufficient base load. Nuclear power can and always will.
(8:00) Chernobyl didn't had containment building. Just a shady Soviet cost-cutting BS. Compare the results with Fukashima!!! Why the this reportage didn't pressed that fact?? A missed opportunity.
You do realize the soviets were broke
@@perlasandoval7883 They were broke because of a terrible economic system, but that doesn't change the fact that the disaster occurred because they cut costs, not because nuclear is inherently dangerous.
@@Auriflamme they have to cut cost in order to save the economy and the state from total economic collapse
@@perlasandoval7883 Like I've said, that is completely beside the point. The point is that nuclear isn't inherently dangerous.
@@Auriflamme its actually part of it
Nuclear power: why is it so unpopular?
Because most people are bad at risk assessment 😑
This is a bit of a myth. Yes people are bad at risk assessment. And yes those people have been a hindrance to the development of the technology. But the real issue cost and in particular the all or nothing front loaded nature of the cost. Today renewables are cheaper. And back when there were not enough people who cared about renewables coals was cheaper. This video is clickbait to the pro nuclear crowd while avoiding the real issues.
@@peterisawesomeplease Renewebles cheaper? Maybe in you country but here in the Netherlands not so much..
@@peterisawesomeplease solar and wind aren't cheaper, LCOE is an idiotic way to look at costs, it does not take into account the overall cost imposed on the other participants on the grid due to the unreliable sources.
@@FullFledged2010 Location does influence the cost of renewables. As does the percentage of the grid that is already renewable, and the types of regulations. But in most of the world renewables are cheaper than nuclear. Note that this is only on a new vs new comparison. Obviously if you don't include construction costs nuclear will have big advantages.
@@businessproyects2615 No even considering the need for additional storage and transmission infrastructure it still comes out cheaper in most of the world. Obviously it varies by location. And obviously as the percentage of renewables goes up the equation changes as the needed amount of storage and transmission infra increases non linearly. Going from 90 to 100 percent renewables is much harder than going from 20 to 30 percent. But for most places the amount of renewables is still well below the level that causes storage to boost the costs above nuclear.
Why no mention of nuclear waste?
Becouse they are storage in Underground
@@blank4844 That doesn't mean it's not a legitimate concern that should be addressed in a piece about nuclear power. What happens when the waste isn't sealed properly and contaminates ground water? Or we run out of space in designated areas? Or an oil company messes up and fracks in the wrong place? Even if it's unlikely these are things people are worried about so they should have been addressed in the above article.
"Nuclear reactors built between 2016 and 2019 average time of construction was 17 years"
That is really not correct. The issue is that in 1990 a number of nuclear power plant project was aboundand. Some of then when only the foundation was finished. Between 2012 and 2014 a lot of those projects was restarted and most of them finished in this window.
In my country all nuclear projects were started in the late 1970s and all were stopped, after decades that 2 of the projects were restarted and completed, and only now the third has been restarted and is about to be completed in 2026 if it is not stopped again.
What about the nuclear waste it produces? All of it won't break down for thousands of years..
There are only about 370,000 tons of waste from the last 65 years of nuclear power production, around 10% of global electricity for the last several decades. It is captured, stored, monitored.
First, it 370,000 tons trivial - in comparison:
A single coal plant in Moorburg, Germany creates 370,000 tons of waste in 16 days, around 2.5% of German electricity for the last several years. It is vented to the biosphere - not captured, not stored, not monitored.
A single natural gas plant in Pastoria, California creates 370,000 tons of waste in 83 days, around 2.5% of California electricity for the last several years. It is vented to the biosphere - not captured, not stored, not monitored.
Second, if the fuel were separated into the highly radioactive fission products and the less radioactive actinides, the actinides can be placed back inside a reactor to generate more power. The fission products are very radioactive, but decay to background levels after about 300 years. This is proven technology done commercially by the French already.
It is the lack of separation that keeps the radioactivity high for thousands of years.
you put it back in the same hole you got it from... and if you want renewability you can use nuclear reprocessing to recycle the waste and create new fuel
Show me a save way to deal with nuclear waste and I´m for it, but as long as we have not a single final storage space for high nuclear waste nor a plan how to keep that space secure for ages. I hate the way people show how save nuclear power is by showing death/power production figures, how can you say that without knowing how many people will die or get ill in 100 or 1000 years from that waste? not even mentioning the costs of that storages which is paid by the puplic and not the companys who run and profit from the power plant.
Simple. Reused as fuel for thorium molten salt reactors.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk when its so simple, why doesnt everyone do it? molten salt reactors are a nice concept but they need years or decades to get that to a commercial plant. the world "needed" atomic weapons so all the planing went into the plutonium reactor and even here in germany, who never had plans to get nukes, we only had a single fast breader type reactor. or take a look at indias PFBR, its delayed and delayed and the costs are exploding. solve that and we can start to talk again, but untill its done solar, wind and battery technology will already run the world
Well, this time video is missing one important aspect - the unpopularity (and problems) of nuclear waste. Without including that topic, I don't think you get the full picture about nuclear energy.
So 50+ years of anti-nuke propaganda is grounds to ignore nuclear energy?
Ionenweaper...Yes!He doesn't mention tons of nuclear waste piling up at plants that we still don't know what to do with.Chernobyl caused an entire city to be abandoned and Fukushima will take 40 years plus to clean up.
@@superaa6779 Those spent fuel rods will will be valuable fuel in thorium molten salt reactors, let them pile up! This stored "nuclear waste" has never harmed anyone.
There's such a tiny amount of waste produced, it's not really a problem. And you can use that waste as fuel in different types of reactors anyway, so that waste is quite precious.
there is far more danger from the ecological impacts of the mining and waste surrounding solar energy than the minuscule, well contained, re-usable spent fuel of nuclear reactors.
Almost all domestic heating in Japan uses electricity. Power from Fukushima and other nuclear power stations in Japan has prevented countless deaths from hypothermia among old people during Japan's cold winter months. And people forget that the Fukushima event was triggered by an entirely natural event - a tsunami. The tsunami killed around 18,000 people directly.
Ian Graham
Without nuclear energy Japan will struggle with such energy needs. It can't be done with renewables, so they resorted to fossil fuels. Sad state of affairs to appease the whining from the ignorant anti-nuke lobby.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Incorrect. You can power everything off of renewables and energy storage. They returned to gas because they already had some plants built (peakers) and because you can build them faster than anything else with large power amounts. They won't build a new nuclear plant right now simply because it will cost billions and take well over a decade to build.
Renewables are likely the only real future, unless those massive promises for nuclear actually happen. But batteries, solar, and wind are all improving greatly and dropping in costs every year. Unless someone makes an amazing breakthrough with nuclear options soon, it will mostly be dead in the public power production space. It will still be used by militaries and maybe space, but not much else.
@@anthonypelchat Tell that to Texas, which ironically had a grid failure at about the same time you made that comment. A major reason for the failure was that renewables weren't able to keep up and many of them failed in the harsh conditions that it suddenly found itself in.
@@IIBloodXLustII Look again at the Actual cause of the failures. It wasn't renewables. It was the gas power plants shutting down due to no winter protection. A handful of wind turbines also shut down for the same reason. Both were due to cost cutting and nothing to do with the power type. Most issues could have been prevented if they had enough battery storage, but they didn't. Nothing unusual there as it will take time to build enough battery storage in the first place.
Renewables work in far, far harder conditions than what Texas experienced. Wind Generators are placed in the ocean off of Europe and hit massively worse cold and snow than Texas got. Solar is used in Canada as well. People who had personal storage and solar in Texas had few issues as well, with all issues experienced due to relying too much on the grid.
Nuclear power may be better than coal in almost every way but a video on why nuclear power is unpopular that doesn't say anything about nuclear waste? 🤔
Simon,
nuclear power is base load,. coal is dispatchable, both types of generation are needed.
@@iareid8255 maybe so. My point was that a video on the unpopularity of nuclear power that doesn't mention nuclear waste is hard to take seriously
Has someone been taking notes on style while watching Adam Curtis documentaries?
Came here to say this
Nuclear plants are cheap compared to their energy output
Great segment, thank you team and particularly Mr. Morton!
Thorium would make nuclear energy much safer and accepted through the general opinion if a serious news provider like the Economist support it.
First commercial reactor used Thorium, Shippingport, it also was a LWR.
@@andrewjmcd919 too bad they only made one . Uranium is as rare then silver, thorium is every where.
Yes, Thorium is about as prevalent as Pb. But if the reactor was a molten salt where the fuel could be fully burnt then you would need less. LWRs are once through type and only use about 2% of the fuel.
Thorium power>all!
Thorium has too much, Hype, it is not a miracle, is just another nuclear fuel.
Maybe next time don’t put people at prayer faded over footage a nuclear missile. If you’re talking about Iran, maybe show a map of Iran.
"We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology." - Carl Sagan
I mean, practically speaking this is why an AI takeover of the world of the sort you see in science ficiton wouldn't be a catastrophe, quite the contrary if it were possible it may well be the only viable path forward for humanity. The complexity of our society has long since exceeded the scope of what individual humans are capable of conceiving of, let alone understanding and making rational long term judgements about. If it were possible to construct an intelligence that is capable of this why on earth wouldn't we be handing the reins to it? That'd be highly irrational.
You're so right!
Man never existed until technology existed. I mean, how is it possible for man to survive without technology?
@@arcanondrum6543 Man is defined by technology. It is what makes us human, the desire to use tools and have an impact on the world. It has been the foundation of civilization itself through agriculture. So yes, man could not really exist without technology, because he would not truly be human as we know it -- of course, a rabid anti-nuker like yourself might not like that idea. If that's the case, feel free to go into the jungle and survive using your bare hands.
@@gianni50725 It would be better for YOU to go live in the moon where pesky government regulations won't interfere with you fleecing every taxpayer who moves there with you. At least; no animals will die when your industry fails again.
@@hannessteffenhagen61
I think a robot would still fall victim to the central planning fallacy.
Oh look at that, anyone who thought about growing hair on just they’re cheeks can be rest assured that, it does look ridicules.
Plot twist: His sideburns are sitting high, it's his face that's sitting low
It looks ridiculous and distracting
I don't care about the composition of eyebrows and sideburns, but the camera position is awkward, filming from the chin upwads. And he uses to look beside the lens as if the screen is far away from a (separate) camera.
That's your takeaway?
@@giovannip8600 Was there something else to the video?
@@giovannip8600 Thus the distracting part.
"Perhaps if the environmentalist"
ignore the lobbying of the gas and fuel industry.
lol
What? Environmentalist groups and, for some reason, leftist groups have been the biggest enemies of nuclear power. Unless you're implying that they're funded by big oil and stuff. But I see it changing soon. It used to be a libertarian thing to advocate for nuclear energy expansion/deregulation but videos like these will help make it more popular
It wouldn't surprise me if the fossil fuel industry quietly funds environmentalist groups they see as useful...
@@Boristien405 They're called useful idiots: the environmentalists who are brianwashed by the fossil fuel industry in that way.
why is it so unpopular? Because Mr Burns operates the nuclear plant
and the guy he hired is Homer..
How can you make a video about nuclear energy and don’t mention their radioactive waste, which still has no longterm deposit?
Actually valuable fuel for thorium molten salt reactors. If you bury them we will soon have to dig them back up.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk could you explain a bit Or suggest me some resources? I'm purely interested and I don't know much about it
@@anitamusayo9865 you can look up stable salt reactors
Great piece. I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t delve into the “new” technologies a bit more such as the thorium salt reactor which is supposedly meltdown proof. You only mentioned mass production steps which doesn’t address the safety concerns of current reactor technology.
Current technology, Gen 3, is safe. Even the old Gen 2 stuff is safe outside of very rare circumstances like Fukushima. The problem is that Gen 3 is incredibly expensive to build outside of China. What's great about the new stuff like Molten Salt Reactors is that it's even safer, more efficient, produces less waste, and should be much cheaper than Gen 3 water reactors.
@@manatoa1 Gen 3/3.5 isn't expensive in default. It is expensive in Europe, due to constantly changing govenments that prolong both planning and constuction. Prolonging making the final prizetag so high. It is not problem of technology. It is a problem of ideologically unstable government.
@@jakubcidlik you're not wrong about politics being a problem, but Gen 3 is fundamentally expensive. You need vast amounts of concrete including nuclear rated concrete. You need huge forgings for the containment vessel. You need extensive site preparation because the structures themselves are so heavy. All of this is made more difficult by the deindustrialization of the past few decades.
IIRC Gen 3 reactors are being built in the States, UK, Finland, and France. All are way over budget and behind schedule. China has the political, regulatory, and industrial preconditions to make them effectively. The West doesn't, sadly.
Fortunately, MSRs have smaller cores, don't need huge pressure vessels, don't need huge containment structures for steam/hydrogen explosions, and can have smaller and more efficient turbines since they run a lot hotter.
@SharkTH Air travel is safe because of massive regulations. All I hear from the nuclear industry is that regulations are bad because it costs money.
False equivalencies get us nowhere.
I can choose whether I get into a car or a plane. Radioactive isotopes in the jet stream will affect all life on the surface, regardless of choice. Because you know there’s this other science realm called biology.
@SharkTH fukushima and chernobyl released isotopes into the atmosphere and biology to this day is still dealing with the accumulation ascending up the trophic levels. Wild boars in eastern Europe can’t be consumed to this day. I watched the hydrogen explosion at Fukushima live on the WebCam. And I laughed when they told us initially it wasn’t a meltdown..
Any radiation release in any form is the problem. Keep releasing radiation and the problems grow worse. Decommissioning and waste storage included. All contingencies must be accounted for.
Even throwing it down a deep hole is lazy engineering. There’s no guarantee that the local geology stays stable or future civilizations will be curious about the huge magnetic anomaly.
you forgot to mention most new nuclear reactors use thorium and plutonium reactors which is near impossible to have a meltdown, cleaner than uranium, produces more energy, harder to make nuclear bombs, safer to mine and more abundant
Modern Uranium reactors are near impossible to meltdown.
The Economist thinks it’s all about how many people die. Maybe it’s about how people live, for example in the exclusion zones in Fukushima or the people living with radioactive waste for the next 100000 years
Spent fissile material is perfectly usably in newer generation reactor designs that are around today. Besides that, spent fissile material stays in a solid state in the form of fuel rods to be stored in casks. The crazy high energy density of the materials also means you're producing a very low volume of spent material relative to the amount of energy you've produced.
I don't see anyone successfully capturing and controlling the storage of waste from the use of coal, or rare earth metals in "renewables" like solar panels. Chernobyl, the worst case ever, is overgrown with flora and overrun with flora. Meanwhile, the locations in Outer Mongolia where lithium is extracted, will be barren forever basically.
In addition to this, you better start avoiding people who smoke tobacco. The radioactive polonium and lead isotopes in the tobacco means that you get more annual ionizing radiation exposure via smokers than staying in exclusion zones.
@@Waldemarvonanhalt If you like Chernobyl because it’s so green, why doesn’t anybody want to move there?
they live with negigible levels of radiation, they only were emotionally manipulated into thinking its a big deal because they are ignorant
Does anyone here think Japan should adopt nuclear power program again? Even with its geographical limitation and risks?
Yes. It's better than alternatives.
They are restarting nuclear reactor again and they develop new reactor plant now
They focus so much on the death aspect, but pretty much ignore that areas where accidents happen have to be abandoned for tens or hundreds of years. Thats the real issue at hand.
When it goes bad it can go very, very bad in other words.
Take a trip to chernobyl and see how life thrived there since the human left. The forests around the power plant are filled with animals.
@@sarwnrg1862 we really don’t want to have to poison parts of our natural environment though to do that. I realise it has essentially been re-wilded as a result, but how many of the animals are actually healthy as opposed to suffering or shorter lives as a result of radiation exposure. It may be quite a different result to re-wilding without radioactive poisons. (I literally don’t know, but without actually investigating and estimating long term impacts Chernobyl could still be a bad result even in terms of re-wilding, And that assumes nothing more leaks out at any point in the future, the “tomb” that was build early on was only meant to be a temporary containment.)
In comparison though, it's a relatively small part of land. I don't see how that's an issue, especially when disasters like chernobyl are preventable
@@Marsdend1 Norway measured an increase in radiation from Chernobyl. Some of it was airborne and it likely still circulating. Wildfires in the area kick up dust and contamination and help spread it again when wind kicks in. Your assumption that only the land around Chernobyl was impacted is... an understatement.
It is interesting, that not a word was lost on the issue of the signifcant challenge to safely dispose the radioactive waste or the price to be paid both in monetary and environmental terms, when plants reach the end of their usefull life span.
Yes I also missed that part. Sadly wasn't mentioned.
Yes, and neither was the length of time the core has to be cooled once decommissioned (and the cost of that), and how long the waste and core are dangerously radioactive, and the impact of those things to future generations.
Yes, agree! I'm in general in favour of nuclear energy, but I think it's disingenuous to leave out such a big part of the debate and process of nuclear energy.
The video is about why its unpopular not what things should make it unpopular. People think that a nuclear power plant working day to day is like a chernobyl waiting to happen and that simply by working it pollutes the area around, both are not true. The positives outweigh the negatives by a collossal margin and the only thing that stopped the transition from coal to nuclear power is fear born of ignorance.
nah,,nothing to see,,move along,,
Nice video.
This video was an eye opener to me
i think you have forgot to mention the cost of storing the spent fuel. currently in the uk the government is studying geological waste facilities which will have to be monitored for atleast 1000 years, this will only increase the running cost of fission nuclear reactors.
Yeah true, nuclear is expensive because they have to take care of their waste, while fossil fuel electricity generation can stay cheap by releasing their waste into the atmosphere, causing far more deaths and adverse effects (air pollution alone causes more than 4 million death/year), if you made the fossil fuel industry pay for even some of the damage their waste causes (i.e. a carbon tax) the prices would be much more similar
U mean u rather have CO2 across the entire globe than monitoring some facility for a 1000 years?
What about the cost of storing and recycling turbines and solar panels.
Yes but nuclear reactors produce very little waste. One long term site could house hundreds of years of high level waste.
@@capras12 Exactly, compared to the end life cycle of PV and Turbines.
📹 this video is very helpful, interesting and insightful. 💡
Muito obrigado for sharing 🤝
One factor which had been missed by The Economist is that during the Heights of cold war, there was a prevailing threat of devastating nuclear war between the USSR and the US.
This is a great video and very informative.
they completely ignored nuclear waste...
Exactly! And that's the number one problem of nuclear energy...
Safety depends on the means you put into it. In France, the country that is the most powered by nuclear reactors, you got 0 serious accidents in their whole History. BUT their reactors average age is getting old and some should already have been retired, they weren't because of $$$$. I always found it funny that the government in France became more & more reluctant to back nuclear projects YET claims more & more to want a green economy: with our current tech the 2 actually go together. But then again ecologist movements everywhere don't see nuclear as the only actual solution we have - only solution because people get used fast to their way of life and don't wanna go back - but as an additional problem, so politically at least it makes sense.
Blame oil companies for constantly fueling the fears behind it
And environmentalist. They are responsible for the increase in coal plants in Germany as they pushed for removal of nuclear for renewables.
I believe it was started by Marxists. They didn't want us to have reliable abundant energy.
thats only half of the blame, the other is on the so called enviromentalists who actually care more about implementing communism than the enviroment
What the video doesn't address is nuclear waste. I realise there's waste coming from production of solar and wind farms but this was waste can be recycled. What can you do with nuclear waste?
Use it in thorium molten salt reactors. Spent fuel rods still have about 90% of their energy potential therein.
wind turbines cannot be recycled
Why have you not talked anything at all regarding nuclear waste?
Because it's really a non-issue. Thorium molten salt reactors.
Because nuclear waste goes into a pool to cool down. Coal waste goes into the air.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk thorium molten salt reactors are still far away in the future and probably will never even get to real world.
@@teemumiettinen7250 Developed over 50 years ago, they are presently being built in Russia, China and India. They would have already replaced present nuclear plants by now if it wasn't for ignorant anti-nuke activism spreading misinformation and fear in the general population.
This is one of the main reasons I can never vote for the Greens. Their unscientific opposition to nuclear energy is baffling, as is their opposition to HS2.
Their opposition to nuclear indicates that they really don't care about decarbonization.
Their goal is to destroy our energy supply. They want energy rationed like it is in CA. Watch the beginning parts of Soylent Green to get an idea of how they want us to live.
"The greecommies"
Too expensive. Show us that nuclear power can fall by 16% per annul on a per kwh basis, and has a 0% chance of a cost AND time overrun, and it may be a viable source of power. the problem is, nuclear companies are incompetent. They guarantee cost overrun, and guarantee that the project is not completed on time. Look at solar and batteries. You want it in 4Q this year, it completes in 3Q.
You can not produce batteries large enough. Not to mention that mining for that many battery materials is a disaster for the environment and done under dubious labor conditions in China
There are dubious labor conditions everywhere in the world. And if they dont work, they die in hunger. this is reality. Americans dont pay enough for their exports to give them an american dream-like life.
7:00, not a lot of people died in the Fukushima accident, that is true. However, the Fukushima nuclear disasater caused massive economic damage to agriculture business around Fukushima plant. Displaced thousands of people. Dented Japan's tourism industry for numerous months. If you don't look at the indirect effects, you are missing the whole picture.
This is definitely worth it when it comes to saving the planet.
Why is nuclear so unpopular?
It is expensive.
Thats why it needs funding
Why, when we have better options?
@@williammeek4078 Solar needs a lot of space and only works half the time, Wind needs a lot of space and needs specific places
@@decorumpantroglodytes5962 those times is does work are exactly when we need it to. Further, wind blows at night and once we get to to scale of a country like the US, the wind is always blowing somewhere.
@@williammeek4078 Nuclear can be put anywhere, it will be safe and give a lot of power, if you want power that helps the environment then support solar, wind, and nuclear
Molten salt reactors can reuse nuclear waste
It seems to me to be an incomplete episode. What about the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? What about fission brought about with thorium (with decay time of hundreds of years instead thousands) and, more importantly, the new technologies that would allow to cut the traditional decay time? Finally, what about the investments on nuclear fusion (laser, molten salts,..)?
and no mention of nuclear waste, how to deal with it and who is going to pay for the thousands and thousands of years the already stockpiled nuclear waste of the last 70 years is going to be stored, safe guarded and monitored.
@@andreasklindt7144 One long term site could house hundreds of years of high level waste. The waste is really a minor issue as there is very little of it. Especially compared to climate change.
They mention NuScale which is the world leader in smr development for public use...
@@ignaciohavok1 I missed it. Thank you
"decay time of hundreds of years" ...you may find it perfectly acceptable that ppl, let's say 3-4-500 yrs from now, will have to pay for our energy bill, literally managing our waste, but they won't, I can assure you. In the US they won't pay for universal healthcare for people living NOW.
Also, nuclear waste produced today will have to be managed for thousands of years. We have a history of 5000 yrs and we're binding every generation after ours to this task for up to 100 000 years. We'll become the most hated generation of all time... Quite literally!
I thought that the risks of nuclear power were manageable until Fukushima. In December 2004 a massive tsunami wiped out coastal cites surrounding the Indian Ocean. Given that Japan is prone to earthquakes it would have been reasonable to expect that the Japanese would have treated this as a warning and taken steps to mitigate the risks to nuclear plants from this happening. In spite of Japan being one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, they did nothing and Fukushima happened. If that is the best risk management to be expected then the risk cannot be adequately managed. Given the consequences of mismanagement nuclear cannot be justified.
just realized The Economist and Etsy have same logo lol
Funny that they don't discuss the clean up costs when its finally done its time and how the power companies usually make the government pay the costs.
So far, i have never heard of any nuclear dismantlement project that had to be paid by a government. The nuclear industry is perhaps the only industry that takes deconstruction into account, and has an actual plan for its waste
actually in the US and in almost every other country decommissioning (something solar has no plan for) is the responsibility of the company that owns the plant
@@afgor1088 not so much in the UK oure government have always had to assist in clean up cost.
@@andyr2203 well yeah but that's because the UK is a neoliberal 💩hole run by "not the aristocracy™".
it's extremely rare that the state picks up the tab for clean-up unless it's nationalized nuclear in which case the state makes a profit.
"the UK chooses to privatize profits and socialize costs" isn't an argument against nuclear it's an argument against the UK which ... i'm with you brother
@@afgor1088 yeah my country needs guy fawkes back to rid the system of corruption (sorry lobbying) the whole system is archaic in nature and needs dissolved fast or my country will split from the rest.
Why no mention of molten salt as a moderator instead of deuterium, or more fuel efficient processes using readily available nuclear waste, or newer research and patents using different nuclear fuels? Light water reactors were promoted as a easy way to make a weapons grade nuclear byproducts. This fluff piece feels like it's a deliberate edited to ignore the competition faced by outmoded light water reactors.
It did mention that *most* reactors use the heat to boil water. There are two sizeable (but still non-commercial) molten salt reactors in operation, in Russia, and 7 CO2-cooled reactors in the UK. The 400+ other nuclear reactors are using water.
Thorium fuel reactors are less of a proliferation risk, and offer other advantages, but they are still in the research stage.
In any case, this piece was about why nuclear power has a reputational problem, not about possible future designs. Few reactors - of any kind - will get built in a democracy, unless we get rid of this reputation.
@@lacdirk Sounds like obfuscation and omission to me. Not to mention that several new nuclear technologies have reached the regulatory approval stages.
@@dustinbird2090
The video is not about reactor design, but the perception of nuclear energy. That's not omission, that's not obfuscation. That's just what it is about.
Some SMR have recently been approved, but these are upscaled military reactors, not exactly new designs.
MSR are getting closer but to get them built at commercial scale, we will need to fix public perception of *any* nuclear reactor first. Then we'll need to get the public to accept a new, relatively unproven type of reactor.
According to the IAEA there are 50 reactors under construction. Of those 50 projects only two are not water-cooled, and both of those are non-commercial.
Correct. Better options were passed over on purpose. The USA intentionally chose inefficient LWR's because they could be used to generate weapons grade material.
Newer reactors consume nuclear waste as fuel and bypass the weapons grade step for non-proliferation.
We ought to use some of that stimulus money to perfect the 4th-Gen nuclear reactors. This would be well worth the investment.
@@protorhinocerator142
1/ A large majority (21/30) of countries with nuclear plants do not even have nuclear weapons.
2/ You don't actually need a reactor to make weapons-grade uranium.
3/ The US military has more than enough reactors to make nuclear material. It doesn't need the commercial sector.
What you are repeating is a conspiracy theory.
im japanese
some realist in japan says that we should build as many nuclear plants as possible cause the area is already doomed
but it means some people lose their homes
which is right?
What is so expensive in Jp ? I never expected from Jp Fukushima such Accident with their accuracy. Jp is way more lvls before other civilizations they should be more interested in green energy and live style, the problem are ppl who stuck in their own bubble. Jp lost Fukushima for many decades that’s the failure of Chernobyl learned nothing for ppl. Less is more that’s the key.
Why paying more for a (still) much riskier energy source? You have lower total costs for renewables and get rid of the risk.
It's also not as reliable especially if electric consumption goes up
no, right now you don't. The cost of producting electricity is not the same thing as the cost of selling you electricity, you don't buy when the plant wants, the plant has to deliver you what you want. Normal plants serve you, 'renewables' work the other way around, they decide when to sell you the energy. What happens is someone else has to pay for that problem, then they put the bill on to everyone.
NUCLEAR ENERGY IS AMAZING
I miss comments about storage / disposal of the radiation material after its use. There is no answers yet. Which for me is the biggest reason to take hands off nuclear power...
There are answers, you are just ignorant of them. Thorium molten salt reactors.
Waste is definitely an issue, but like every other aspect of nuclear power, the danger is exaggerated. Waste is dangerous if you let it into the environment, but people don’t realize how little waste nuclear plants actually produce. You often see pictures of huge caves full of the yellow barrels, but that waste is low-level and is usually just contaminated things like clothing and other non-fuel things, it’s not the waste coming from the reactor. The reactor waste is stored and guarded on site at a nuclear power plant, and since reactors only need refueling once every couple of years, the actual amount made is tiny compared to every other source of energy we have. For instance, (as much as digging solar is cliche for pro-nuclear people) solar energy produces over 100 times more toxic waste in its lifetime than nuclear does, it’s just that people aren’t scared of that waste.
And of course that isn’t to mention reprocessing, since over 80% of high level waste can actually be recycled and out back in a reactor.
You are wrong. Search Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository, Finland. it was opened in 2020. No big chear by propagadist mass media, but it is one of the greatest deeds in last 20 years.
@@jakubcidlik This repository will only commence work in 2021 and also only be able to store the amount of waste that would be generated in roughly 100 years by only 5 nuclear plants.
@@lesand5484 And by then it will not be needed as all that was to be deposited will be very valuable fuel in thorium molten salt reactors.
Nice report. May I suggest you add some total cost per Kwh comparison between the clean energy sources including proposed new Small Modular Reactors (SMR)?
Great video
Nice piece. Particularly interesting all the minutes you spent talking about radioactive waste and how that is one of the last hurdles the industry is yet to overcome... Oh, sorry what, this wasn't even covered? Oh, I must have mistaken the video then...
Isn't a hurdle at all. Never killed anyone and is valuable fuel in thorium molten salt reactors.
Well, you could say like comparison between car travel and airplane travel. Nuclear power plant is more safe than people imagined, but once it blew out, well it would be like plane crash. You know it happened already twice in Russia and Jappan.
With less radiation deaths than many single airplane crashes.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk We don't know how many people were dead because of the two accidents. Plus they are still coping with where the accidents happened. Maybe they can't. Nuclear stuffs are burried and melting down at the moment.
@@user-kl4qe6ru4y No one died from Fukushima radiation, and they never should have even evacuated.
There is another aspect, unfortunately not mentioned in the video, and that is the radioactive waste and its long-term disposal. The more nuclear power we use, the more underground repositories we will need, but then what happens when we run out of land to store it? That may take years and generations, but eventually we will reach capacity. Not fair to pass this to future generations to deal with, imho.
You don’t need underground repositories. They are stored in weatherproof dry cask storage and can be stored at the site of the plant indefinitely
@@piouswhale from what I have read, waste is stored at the plant for 5 years and then transferred to underground repositories. I think most hazardous materials are disposed this way, but I might be wrong.
Oh look SMR (Small Modular Reactors) thanks to Rolls Royce we will have near commercial use of SMRs by the end of the decade, they've been reformatting they're military hardware into industrial hardware. These things will be able to go to space, power towns and cities in scalable stations. It's not a LFTR and fusion is still a ways off but it's yet another stepping stone we really need.
Although there are a number of positives to nuclear power, I’m disappointed that this video makes no mention of the uranium mining process and its attendant environmental and community health issues. Nuclear sounds like a near perfect solution to our climate and energy future, until you stop to consider where all that uranium needs to come from & how. Mind you, I’m not anti-nuclear. I just think we need a nuanced and more complete picture.
That's also true about renewable sources of energy isn't it? Solar and wind require huge batteries, and the mining process required is nothing but pretty.
This is what I was thinking! and the Nuclear waste also need to be stored afterwards for a long long time. And who wants that nuclear waste?
Also there will be a day that all uranium is mined.
@@BeauB1991 We have enough U-235 for hundreds of years, and enough U-238 and Th for several 10,000s of years. We are a long, long way from 'peak uranium'.
As for the mining, although uranium miners have an increased risk of cancer, ALL miners have an increased risk of cancer, and uranium miners risk is not significantly more than a regular miner's, and if using leaching, much, much, much lower.
Ditto their communities - I would much rather live downwind of a uranium leach mine (very little tailings) than downwind of a coal, iron, or rare earth (y'know, for all the solar panels) mine with their massive, massive tailing piles.
About 3000 coal miners die from accident/cancer annually globally, for about 50% of global electricity. I can't even find the number of uranium miners who die (because it is so small) globally, for about 10% of global electricity - however, let's assume 10. If we went 100% nuclear in the electricity generation sector, that saves at least 2,900 lives a year!
Nuclear waste (with reprocessing) needs only be stored for 300 years.
Separate spent nuclear fuel into fission products (300 years to background radiation) and actinides (1000s of years to background).
Glassify and bury the fission products. Dig up 300y later for awesome minerals.
Put actinides back into reactor for more power. Repeat until it becomes a fission product.
This is proven technology that has been practiced by the French for decades. Waste is not a problem.
This is the same problem with any other electrical power stations. The problem associated with mining operations is far worse in the case of renewable energies, because they are very extensive inmzterial ans place. It is not an argument against nuclear energy, in the contrary, the fewer needs for material père unit of energy produced is one of its biggest strenghts.
@@factnotfiction5915 Thanks for this. This is the kind of complete picture I was hoping for. You're right that we certainly won't have a problem of running out of uranium resources, since the energy we can extract is so concentrated. And the issue of waste re-use and storage can be dealt with if safely if done right.
The only issue I still raise, though, is what about impact on water resources from uranium mining? Specifically, around the Grand Canyon, where some of these richest uranium resources are. Do we want to risk uranium leaching into the Colorado River, impacting that one-of-a-kind and threatened ecosystem? Do we want to risk poisoning the water supply and desecrating the sacred sites of the indigenous communities who live there?
And speaking of the indigenous communities. To whom will the profits go when that uranium is exploited? Sure, a few hundred locals will benefit from decent paying jobs for a finite amount of time. But by and large, the lion's share of the profits will be going to multi-national mining corporation CEOs and shareholders. Not to the people who have lived there for generations. Not to the people who put the labor and sacrifice into getting the stuff out of the ground. Not to the people who will have to deal with the aftermath.
And if uranium can be mined safely, who's keeping watch and holding the mining companies to account? Environmental protection agencies are already anemic at best. And indigenous communities have historically been exploited and neglected by the US government, so who's to say anyone will be making sure their water is protected? This is as much a social justice issue as an environmental one.
We need Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors
Is it possible to avoid a climate catastrophy without nuclear power? Should we treat nuclear power like a vaccine for Covid-19? Cost is not important: having enough is ALL that matters
it is possible without it, but far more expensive for the moment, which means it won't get done.
Decades of fearmongering has caused public opinion to think nuclear is unsafe. But on the contrary, much safer than other sources, and we obviously improve technology as we go.
Accidents will happen in the future with nuclear reactors , the question is how well can we manage and contain it. If we are not well prepared in case of an accident , then dont even think of building reactors in the first place. If you think of making reactors for profit and then say its for climate change , then you wont bother too much about the risks , only seeing the profits and not the risks
Most countries have independent agencies that oversee nuclear power plants. You can't run a nuclear power plant and do whatever with it.
Mini ninja torpedo But nuclear is the safest, so repeat your meme about all the others.
People just rely on death toll to judge energy sources , but what about the long impact on the environment , like radiation making land unusable for decades, i know coal is bad but nuclear is as bad to me as coal if not worse , the general population agrees with me , that why coal sees more application than nuclear energy , what i dont like is how they try to make nuclear energy appear as clean as green energy when it is not.
@@minininjatorpedo4538 Coal is extremely carbon intensive. Nuclear energy emits about 50 times less than coal.
Moreover, coal pollution is very hazardous to the people who are breathing it. It is linked with a lot of diseases like athma, strokes, cancer...etc
About nuclear energy now. Appart from Chernobyl (which was due to very poor management, old plant...), nuclear energy hasn't made a significant amount of land unusable.
@@abcdefghiabcdefghi6127 then lets go green 😂
There's talk of disinvestment in fossil fuel, and that's fine, but to make government honest about nuclear power, we must *disinterest* them in fossil fuels. That means they have to stop making several percent of their incomes by taxing these fuels. Nuclear power may be getting a relatively easy ride in China because it already has a government that is disinterested in fossil fuels.
The hopes of civilization rest on their success increasing and being copied.
China is building thousands of coal plants. I don't know where you're getting your information but it's not great.
And you don't get rid of a technology by "disinvesting", you get rid of it only when the demand goes away. The only way to do this is to invent something better. Fossil fuels is currently the most affordable and practical energy source for 80% of the world's energy.
All taxes on energy are evil. They hurt poor people most of all.
Cheap energy drives the economy and benefits everyone.
You can't create nuclear weapons from spent nuclear fuel. Spent fuel contains the wrong isotope of plutonium (Pu-240 as opposed to Pu-239). This is why we refer to 'weapons-grade' plutonium. Please edit this.
Thanks!
10:20 is the only time they say the actual reason, money, but they obfuscate the point almost immediately.
it's called an investment and always generates much more than the base cost of a power plant. People are easily swayed by initial numbers and don't realize the benefits. Pickering nuclear was built for less than 5 billion and has generated over 97 billion in revenue for the province since 1971. Pretty sure it's worth the money. Trust me, you'll be paying much more per KWh from any other source.
Nobody talked about nuclear waste
What about it? The “waste” is solid metal rods that are stored inside weatherproof dry-cask storage cannisters and stored on-site in a secure location. It is neither a security nor environmental risk. It can be stored on site indefinitely
@@piouswhale That may be true but still, the video was supposed to be about why nuclear is unpopular and I think the waste is one of the biggest concerns now, so why wasn't it mentioned?
@@themnat475 Waste is not really as big reason why its unpopular because waste is not really a concern. The body politic is mostly ignorant of nuclear power and have been fed lies for YEARS propped up by oil, gas and coal companies in addition to faux-environmental groups like the Sierra Club
It’s a valid problem but climate change is a far bigger one. Nuclear waste may be extremely dangerous but it can be contained, unlike the toxic fumes released by burning fossil fuels. If you live in a city, you’re already significantly more likely to suffer from respiratory illnesses or develop lung cancer.
@@jan_Masewin I mean certainly the process of burning fossil fuels emits byproducts, however power plants are required to capture and scrub emissions, and cars have gotten cleaner which means less CO exhausting, just CO2 and water. CO2 contributes to the greening of the earth, which means more plant life where none grew before
What really happened was that there was a massive FUD campaign in the 70-tys financed by our enemies and/or competitors.
One thing that happened after the oil crisis (1973-1974) was that west that at that point had a lot of oil powered power plants leading more on nuclear power and well all of the oil powered power plants was pretty much replaced with any alternative there was over night. Prior to that date oil powered powerpants was fairly common, now they hardly exist at all. Old coal plants was stated up leading to the smog of the 70-tys and 80-tys prior to catalytic converters in cars.
This was the start of the alternative ca of the late 70-tys and early 80-tys, and also the zero emission rules in California that was abounded pretty much before it went into effect.
While the oil powered powerplants only consumed about 20% of the US oil consumption, the sudden drop combined with the increased production of oil over the mid 70-tys for US was quite obvious to OPEC. The demand for oil was much lower than it use to be, at the same time prices dropped. This was a unsustainable situation for OPEC and the oil industry in general.
More over the push for biofuel, electric cars or hydrogen cars was just started, and was planed to be in full swing by the end of the century. This would pretty much result in the death of the oil producers.
This resulted in a campaigned in the mid 70-tys payed by oil producers against nuclear power. We know this, because at this point they was quite public about it. In 1977 or 1978 this suddenly stopped at the same time several environment organisation suddenly sing from pro nuclear to anti nuclear. Why they did this is not quite public, but according the defectors outside money was the reason. This turned GP from a pro environment organisation to what it pretty much is to day, a anti nuclear organisation. Pretty much every single one of the followed, at the same time they finances expanded drastically.
At the same time the push for solar and wind started to happen. Why? Probably to make it seam like there was a other alternative.
Some people might think that solar and wind would eat into the profit of the oil companies. That is not the case. Solar and wind need fast acting power-plants to back them up. There is only two types, hydro, that there is a limited supply of, and gas. Gas is a biproduct of oil. This did not only put nuclear out, but also coal, what really at this time was the main competitor to gas and oil.
This also had the effect of making it harder to get away from oil for cars.
In the late 90-tys and early 00-tys the price of gas skyrocketed and the oil producers become super rich. Than something happened that broke the system. Fracking.
It's because most people don't understand Nuclear power, and especially modern nuclear reactors.