Bright Wanderer we can’t use uranium though need to use thorium because there is much more thorium on the planet, it isn’t nearly as dangerous as uranium, and it is a lower chance of a miner dying when the are mining for thorium. All we need to do is to get all the coal miners to start mining for thorium, so nobody loses their job.
Illinois energyProf channel has some really good videos on nuclear and conventional energy and goes though them thoroughly but simply, so most folk should understand what he says. His videos are excellent if you have worries about Nuclear powers safety.
@Andro mache you're talking about milankovitch cycles aren't, gosh it would be silly if climatologists forgot about those!! ...but they didn't. Also you don't realise that those cycles should me the earth is heading to colder global temperature, right, or did you not read that far into them yet?
As someone that works with nuclear, let me tell you about its negative effect on the environment: A lot of trees are violently murdered for the paperwork involved.
Sooo - uranium mines poisoning the groundwater of whole regions, fuel refining plants that octuple cancer rates in their neighbourhood, and waste that will stay highly dangerous for tens of thousands of years are no enviromental problem? Nuclear is rather light on greenhouse gasses, I´ll give you that. . But its simply far too expensive. Even given the fact that all long-term costs are not calculated at all and thus simply socialized, nuclerar energy is still more expensive than solar, wind and water energy production by now. Which is why about ten times as many nuclear plants have been shut down than built anew for 30 years - the managers know that fact too.
Niles bro ... na its not even coparable to mining resourses for salar and such but still we dont need to mine uranium cus 1. we have a shit tone of nuke being decomisioned and 2. thorium (and this is kinda not related) is another material we can use and its great its WAY more common on eath (than uranium) like a shit tone of it, it is way safer to mine and also doesnt seep into the ground when mined AND can be used in MELTDOWN PROOF REACTORS all because it needs a helper materiel to produce lots of radiation (plutonium for example), where it can be drained away if a problem arises, another thing is that the unriching/refining proses is way less for thorium than uranium cus its far more "potent" strait from the ground ass well as in the end throium is like 100 times more powerfull per ounce (or gram for ye redcoat bastareds) than uranium. though we dont know everything about is so it might need more resuerch before mass use for reactors. (BTW my hands were dead after typing all this...sorry)
Another one of the things they lie to you about; coal is also slightly radioactive. I say slightly but coal miners and their families are typically exposed to radioactive coal dust for years at a time. That's what black lung is and several other cancers that affect mining communities, your lungs are irradiated from the inside and through constant exposure they get debilitating cancers. But uranium is thousands of times more energy dense as coal so a single nuclear plant has the potential to decommission hundreds of cancer causing coal mines.
Currently new nuclear is 2 to 8 times as expensive as wind/solar. France is currently planning on reducing their reliance on nuclear and switch more to wind and solar to prevent price increases. So even though nuclear sounds promising, it isn't really if you look into it. Just to put an other bummer out there. All known uranium would last 7 month if we try to power humanity with it. (Sure you can improve this, but seriously you just kick the can down the road for a couple decades.)
@@TBFSJjunior could you provide links to your sources? I have never heard the 7 month thing and I have difficulty believing it. As to the other, I agree that nuclear is not the end all or be all. No solution is, but for the broad purposes of power generation there simply isn't a superior system, at least until we develop fusion, but then you are still talking about nuclear power.
@@Socrates3141 "7 month" I calculated that myself a year ago or so. (I've studied physics at a German university, so I very often do stuff like that myself.) And it fits what's I've seen from other experts since. I could redo it for you if you want. Btw I did the same for fusion at the same time and that would run out of fuel in a couple centuries (which doesn't sound like a real solution tbh). Issue with fusion is, that people always think about water, but in reality we use a "rare" lithium isotope as a fuel, cause filtering the needed isotopes out of water needs almost as much energy as fusion provides. I will attach a few links in my next comment.
@@TBFSJjunior I have never heard the 7 month and would love to see your methodology for determining it. As for the rarity of fusionable material, a couple centuries is more than enough time to get into the asteroid belts where there is an abundance of resources ripe for the taking. Wind and solar are useful but they simply don't cover all the bases nor do they have the applicability, as this video points out. Not to mention solar panals are made of toxic materials and there is no protocol for how to dispose of them once they wear out, which they do.
Jakob Schulze You mean the wind & solar produced using material made in China using coal-based energy, that have a load factor of 0.3 and that only produce when they feel like it so that you would have to build storage capabilities et bigger networks to replace other electricity sources if you wanted to have a 100% wind/solar-based syTem? Sure, they ard much cheaper then nuclear, but isn't that making an apples to oranges comparison ? To be honest, when I leanrned that the German plan to phase out nuclear and invest in solar/wind has had so little effect on the only metric that counts (i.e. amount of CO2 per unit energy, instead of indirect metric such as share of RES or amount electricity from RES etc), I was shocked. It's a disgrace that other EU countries are imitating it.
This was abrasive and unapologetically disrespectful toward climate deniers, ecofascists, and fence-sitters, and frankly, that's the kind of content I like to see. Good video.
I find it hilarious that the guy that said you could just drink a shot of pesticide, was then immediately offered a shot of it by the interviewer, you should have let that clip play out more. Lol
Respite the court case saying otherwise, seems pretty clear its fairly safe. unless you're getting it on you all the time - especially the undiluted chemical, and well of course if you drink it.
@@mbburry4759 Glyphosate (at least pure glyphosate) can't hurt humans, as it affects the production of a very specific enzyme that only appear in plants, but the other ingredients in Roundup are probably pretty nasty.
Fabby Marmol So true. I love that show, but they demonize nuclear energy A LOT. The three-eyed fish is a classic image and as a result there is a lot of negative stigma
Adam Shumate They dont demonize Nuclear Energy in earlier seasons, they make fun of it. It is called humor. If anything, the Simpsons made me drink the ‘nuclear solves everything’ Kool Aid. Even in humor lmao. But it is the enemy of both environmentalists and change deniers. I hope to change that, but to do so the economics of nuclear supply chains need to change. Thankfully, I am an economics major lmao. Just give me a few years and a lot of weed to smoke so I can meditate upon the problem.
I don't think he was serious. Like all of our modern problems, we know that the true culpability lies with the boomers... In this case, the hippie boomers.
Adam Sanders I assumed so, but it seems quite misleading. It is all for jokes. If anything, Greenpeace and other ‘Environmentalists’ are probably the reason why Nuclear is so hated in the public. Not because of the Simpsons.
This seems like a branding issue; when people hear "nuclear", they think of nuclear weapons, meltdowns, and waste. Why don't we just rebrand modern nuclear power as something new with a new name? There's been huge advancements in technology that make it unrecognizable to the unrefined 60's tech that most people associate with "nuclear energy". It seemed to work for "natural gas", and they're certainly trying it for "clean coal"!
Call them Thorium Reactors, it sounds boring because it is, they are long lasting and safe to give to countries that might use other reactors to make nukes, or at least aid that process.
what do I get wrong when I say I dislike nuclear power because of the waste? I mean it is the waste that poses the longest lasting risk to life on earth far beyond anything humans ever produced. How is that "little" amount of waste, that barely fills a football field, curently disposed of? Is the dump site/are the dump sites made for the mandatory storage time or just a provisional solution? How much potential waste can we store until we run out of adequate storage space and how long/to what degree would that allow us to power our lifes with nuclear power? For some reason the more I look into it the more I'm against it... enlighten me please
I've been waiting years for you to finally make a Moderate's Guide To Climate Change, and the fact that promoted nuclear energy as the clear answer; thank you so much.
"the united states can and should be leading the way on slowing and reversing climate change" "even if you don't believe in climate change we should do it anyway" FACTS
Taken from "the right" playbook. The left are such pussies, always trying to play nice, always compromising. Just take a stand and defend it as ferociously as possible ffs, it's the only way stuff gets done.
@@Rob81k I was trying to say that becoming politically “brave” or to stand up for one’s ideology is a bad idea. Political loyalty generally leads to suffering especially when it doesn’t work yet its followers take more and more extreme actions to make them work. I think you misinterpreted what I said. I was referring to the massacre of Chines citizens during the cultural revolution due to a blind loyalty of an oppressive ideology.
As an Energy Engineer who works in the Nuclear industry I really appreciate this video; I felt the same about being lied to by political groups about Nuclear when I learned about it. However, I don't think you should discount Carbon Capture and Storage; and more rigorous cap and trade. If you put that cap low, the developed country needs to reduce its emissions somehow, CCS works quite well in conjunction with that and overall allows approaching closer to net zero. C&T I think works better when restricted to necessary industries that can't avoid a lot of their emissions, particularly heavy industry: concrete and steel production for example... Even a 10% (a low estimate) capture of their emissions would significantly affect countries totals. Renewables also obviously play a very important role, especially alternative storage technologies; solar heat storage (using a salt based steam cycle) and pumped water storage paired with wind; both already exist and are fairly effective at reducing the huge power variations. Older technologies factor into that as well, like tidal barrages and hydroelectric which was touched on briefly, if it goes towards reducing dependence on fossil fuel emissions go for it; same goes for hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells. Overall the goal is in the future to have the vast majority of power come from renewable sources; wind farms, solar plants and hydroelectric dams, (hydrogen and tidal/wave power too maybe); but as you mention a strong base will be needed to support that and Nuclear can fill that niche and provide that... The net emissions from nuclear are astonishingly low (including the whole mining to disposing fuel cycle) and Fusion and GenIV reactors show a lot of promise for deployment in 10-20 years... It also has one of the best work-in:work-out ratios of any energy source.
I appreciate when someone actually has something informative to add, i dont see why so many people think we need only one solution to this issue when many can work in concert. Politics and tribalism i guess. But ultimately nuclear is and should be the future, fusion especially if we ever (collectively) pull our heads out of our asses and stop squabbling long enough to figure it out...🤷🏾♂️
But the French use nuclear and we can't be like the French because reasons!!! In all seriousness, yes nuclear fuel is enriched before use, but the waste can't possibly be more toxic (in a meaningful way) than the raw materials. That's always the argument. "Where will we put the waste?" Why not back into a hole, like where we found it? "What if someone stumbles into it in 1000 years after civilization collapses?" What if we don't dig it up at all and someone stumbles into a uranium deposit in 1000 years? It's still radioactive, whether we use it or not, and it's still FAR better than the alternatives we're digging out of the ground.
@@Lawrence330 Depleted uranium is not nuclear waste. It is a (somewhat) valuable byproduct. The radioactive waste comes from the products of uranium fission, and it is genuinely dangerous and hard to deal with. There is no known physical mechanism to make radioactive nuclei safe except to wait for them to decay, which can take tens or hundreds of thousands of years. That's why finding permanent storage locations for nuclear waste has been a difficult problem. Except, we had a solution for the U.S. in Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, that closed, because unsurprisingly, nobody wants to live near a nuclear waste repository, and there was no way to maintain political support for long enough to complete the project, or, more importantly, ensure it could continue operating in the long term. If we could reassure people of its safety and be believed, we wouldn't have to store nuclear waste in dry casks near cities. We had the choice between burying nuclear waste deep in a mountain in a desert where nobody lives and leaving it in shielded containers on the surface all over the country, and because environmentalists got their way, we're going with the latter.
@@EebstertheGreat Ah very sad indeed but still I'm skeptical about the whole solar and wind energy, hydroponic I can see working out but solar and wind is straight up tooo damn unreliable man beside they don't even last that long nor do their energy production justify the resources use to make them
Thank you for your very informative comment! What do you think about the limited reserves of Uranium-235 and how this may reflect on the longevity of nuclear energy?
4:02 Minor correction, but a molecule of oxygen IS O2 gas. What you're referring to is an oxygen atom. A molecule is a group of atoms bonded together. Edit : Of course we all know what he meant though. No problem with it
@@yggdrasil3 the IUPAC Gold Book (which is authoritative on this matter defines a molecule as strictly "an electrically neutral entity consisting of more than one atom", so no, helium is not a molecule.
It has always astounded me how little we talk about the role of nuclear power in mitigating climate change, and what astounds new more is the extent to which organizations that are supposed to care about the environment end up shooting that cause in the foot with their determined opposition to nuclear power.
Nuclear power is an afterthought of nuclear weapons. Making nuclear the main base of electricity is just causing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Which is bad.
louis43233 there are far easier, cheaper, and faster methods of obtaining enriched uranium than nuclear power plants. And it would be highly inefficient anyway in regards to isotopic vectors. The same would be said about plutonium except on an even worse scale.
@@Praisethesunson That comment shows how uninformed you are about the different type of nuclear reactor Most new type try to create as little plutonium as possible
I was nuclear-pilled some time last year (two years ago I guess, in 2019), and honestly it was one of the biggest and yet most important ideology shifts I've ever had. Climate change was one of the very first political things I began caring about as a kid/teen and yet all throughout high school I was passionately against nuclear. Finding out how wrong I was was honestly important for me. One of those first instances where you realize everything that you've been told about politics, activism, etc. isn't necessarily correct. I'm now a strong proponent for nuclear energy and a better critical analyzer of information. Great vid.
I'm glad you analyzed the facts and came to a solid conclusion. Nuclear becomes a great option/component for energy the more you look into it and the more you deconstruct the messaging that occurs. I often think that if science had as good marketing as anything else, we would not be in so many of the messes we are in today.
I should say his point about nuclear related deaths could be questioned, as we use gas and coal MUCH more and for much longer (more use= more probability of deaths)
@@efulmer8675 Unfortunately science is very good at marketing, just not the "science" we want to be good at it. Coal, oil and gas companies very vehemently push corrupt studies and bad messages about nuclear because they know it is the one energy source that could entirely wipe them out.
My only real issue with nuclear is the idea of letting civilian corporations operate them, because energy security is a matter of national security and should be treated as such.
Maybe because of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Cellafield and Fukushima. Not to mention the mountains of waste. Swapping one cataclysmic problem for another. I know the science is improving, but we're no where near "safe" nuclear yet. Also, with a more unpredictable climate nuclear power becomes more dangerous through flooding etc. ....................just sayin'............maybe this explains the funny looks.
Cuz fuel is limited and waste disposal is not solved, so unless pro nuclear people have a barrel of radioactive material in their places no one is listening to them.
I can relate had that reaction from my ex-fiance and her mother. And that was in coal mining region, where once every few days the ground shakes because of mining. Not to mention the radiation coming out of coal plants. Yeah - did you know how much radiation coal plants produce? Which I might add is getting straight to the atmosphere. But NOOO some guy wanted to went home earlier and accelerated the reaction to quickly and now we're burning that black crap.
I like nuclear energy as much as the next but we all know it does have it's share of problems. Need to look no further than Fukushima or chernobyl to see it. I'm not saying we should give up on nuclear energy... but even japan who seems to lead in that department has their issues still. I guess the question is, how can we combat these issues, if say... a serious earthquake hits, or another tsunami. And if an accident does occur what can we do to stop it from progressing, like Fukushima which *still* has problems with leaking
The industry itself is already giving up on it. For 30 years now more of the plants have been shut down than newly built - the managers know its far too expensive, even given the general socializatian and ignoring of the long-term costs (waste disposal, decomissioning). By now it makes up no more than 4.6% of global power generation and the electricity costs more than water, wind and even solar.
@@nilesbutler8638 one reason nuke plants in the USA are closing early is due to their overpaying for their decommissioning--which they are legally required to do. Once there is enough money to decommission, it turns into a nest egg they can't touch until the plant shuts down. Sometimes the choice of getting [1) a sweet 0.7 billion dollars now], or [2) letting some guy 40yrs down the line get 5 billion, meanwhile providing ultra low carbon power to millions for decades] is just too great a temptation for your average CEO board.
And now we have thorium and mini nuclear generation. There is no need to think that nuclear is even a threat to the enviroment or to people anymore. But propaganda is way more difficult to die out than actual problems
I really appreciate the recent trend of people recognizing that nuclear energy is low-key awesome, especially considering more modern advancements in safety, energy output, efficiency, and sustainability. Plus, the atomic age is just cool.
I've dealt with a lot of climate change and when you said "if you're a climate change skeptic drop a dislike on your way out because the adults are talking" it was so satisfying.
@@TBFSJjunior Bruh, nuclear is much safer than stuff we use now. In all nuclear disasters that have ever happened, only ~100 people have died, whereas ~6,600 people die every year from mining coal. I’d recommend watching Thunderfoot’s nuclear videos, as he scientifically explains why it’s safer.
Im in an Environmental Engineering class and I really want to send this to my teacher because everything that you went over in a 25 minute video took up about 60% of our 13 week course.
@@burstofsanity Yeah I said 60% in my original comment obviously my professor went more in depth into all of his points and we are doing a whole bunch of useless math lmfao
@@jgreenbelt I had my Bachelors in Civil & Environmental Engineering and by the time I rolled out, I had pretty much forgotten all but the very basics I learned about Environmental Engineering. The first year of my 'pro bono' works taught me more about the field than the entirety of my college years. Turns out, you hardly ever need those unless you are hell bent on getting into the academics and if you are considering that, might as well brace for some bending moment 👍.
@@kseriousr Im getting a bachelors in Civil Engineering and Im going into a structural engineering field so I could care less about the class Im taking its really just a requirement for my major.
TK UA just because a party overwhelmingly supports something doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Party loyalty is dangerous. Historically, things like gay rights, women’s rights, religion over science, abolition, modern psychology, etc were considered radical. Don’t destroy the planet for your children and grandchild because of the literal group that votes for a deal SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND regarding haunting climate change. Big businesses tend to not care about climate change because their business depends on destroying the climate and they obviously are choosing their fiscal empire over the future of our world. So if you are honestly okay with possibly destroying the world while you’re still alive, and 100% destroying it for the future generation, then you can fuss over who is voting for it. But realize how insane and extremist YOU sound by even going there lol. The green deal IS one of the better strategies to make earth remain habitable and safe for us to live in. If you can’t deal with the idea that you might be agreeing with a different political party for the sake of the planet, your family, loved ones, and the children of the future... you’re an idiot and on par with religious extremists, and probably the “far leftists” in terms of other extreme views you despise. Think for yourself. Do not judge things on the basis of their political group. Or ANY ingroup. That is SO dangerous
The reality of the situation is that climate change is not nearly as bad as some people paint it to be but it’s certainly something to be aware of and try to address. Al Gore’s predictions of there being no ice in the Arctic in 10 years and all the polar bears dying have been totally wrong. Many of the UN’s climate models in the 1990s have greatly over predicted the extent of climate change. Now there are people who claim climate change will be an existential threat in 12 years unless we support their policies. Ultimately neither the deniers or alarmists are right. The proper way to address this issue is through pragmatic and reasonable steps like promoting nuclear energy, and applying renewables where it makes sense (instead of madly subsidizing it where it is unprofitable and where there isn’t the proper storage infrastructure in place... looking at you Germany)
@@eyeborg3148 The arctic ice is still melting, and it's still possible it could all be gone in a few years. And polar bears are extremely endangered right now, so Al Gore wasn't "totally wrong" as you said, though his timescales might have been inaccurate.
@@JM-us3fr Politicians need to stop scaring people with doomsday predictions of climate change. Those people telling you that the world is going to end in 12 years are just as bad as the ones saying climate change does not exist at all. Also, polar bear populations have actually increased significantly after Al Gore's statements, so yes, he was wrong on that prediction.
@@eyeborg3148 bruh, the world isn’t gonna end, but you know what happens when ice that’s on top of land (Greenland & Antarctica) melts into the ocean? That’s right, the sea levels increase (try yourself melting an ice cubes outside a cup & watch the water level increase...), which will (over a long time) flood places & force people to relocate. And since most big cities are next to the ocean, this is a big deal.
"It's the reason we are the only country that has this debate" Me, an Aussie, with a PM that doesn't believe in climate change: UHHHHHHH YEAHHHH UM, HMMMMM
I'm always appalled at the reactions people give to nuclear energy as an option. I had this class in high school called "contemporary global issues," where at the end of the class we were given options for a final project. Some of us made art things depicting major issues of the year... I made a ten plus page essay on nuclear energy. I might be a bit of a nerd for doing that, but it showed some solid support for nuclear. Oh, let me rephrase that: the cons of nuclear energy are grossly exacerbated by those in competition in the energy market, including by supporters of other green options. Nuclear plants are literally made mostly out of concrete. The fuel is pretty much only hazardous if you try to swim in it, which in itself would require breaking open a protective casing (I'm being facetious, btw, don't do anything remotely close to swimming in spent nuclear fuel). P.S. I like your vids, even though you probably won't see this comment as I'm incredibly late to the party. But keep it up! I know I just found the only political channel I can watch without having an aneurism.
@@Talonidas7403 and coal plants account for over 30%. Regardless, concrete is going to be in use for as long as populations expand, unless some equally economical solution can be found. A better way to get around those emissions is to simply build greener architecture, and have less urban sprawl.
@@Talonidas7403 There are ways to make concrete without using co2. Infact, most of the co2 made from concrete is from the energy required to make it. This is a really shitty point.
@@DaDARKPass Don't forget that when the limestone used in cement is broken down it literally creates it's own C02. That creates more emissions than the heating of the limestone.
There are other downsides that right now are not resolvable, like the extreme environmental destruction to mine the shit, that is at least on a level of coal, and often worse as you get less output per ton of moved ground. Also the ressources are finite and at momentary use will not last beyond 100 years in the future. If we double western nuclear plants you can cut that down to 60-70 years, if China and India fully jump onto the train... Oh-oh. Ideally we should use it as a stopgap to turn fully to fusion IF that ever gets feasable, but that is a big if... And for the Waste.. Well there's always Florida, Georgia or Kentucky that can be used as Dump. Not as if anybody would notice
"Redefine the label" of 'Liquid Fluoride Thorium Molten Salt Reactors' to: *Liquid Molten Fluoride Asodium Omnipower* - or better, the acronym: *LMFAO* ..as in, "Our power is generated from LMFAO!" Who wouldn't want to say that?
@@luka1194 Id be less surprised if they, unlike him, got the data right. It shows at multiple points that he is no expert on the field and should have asked one before making the vid.
1955 Air Pollution Control Act: 0:40 1969: Cuyahoga River Fire: 2:10 1970: Environmental Protection Agency: 2:40 1972: Clean Water Act: 2:59 4:38 1985 Antarctic Ozone Hole 4:54 1987 Montreal Protocol (one of 4 universally agreed to treaties) 5:52 1990 Clean Air Amendments (regulation worked) 6:14 1992 Office of Environmental Justice 6:51 1992 UNFCCC 7:21 1997 Kyoto Protocol 11:04 2016 Paris Climate Agreement (no binding target) 12:44 2019 Green New Deal 15:30 2030 Net Zero Emissions 16:39 Cap and Trade 18:08 Renewables 18:52 Planet of the Humans 20:13 Nuclear
God damn, just when you started going nuclear the episode ended. Please consider doing a whole episode on it! Everey bit of information to counter the lies help
What lies? That its too expensive to use compared to renewables? That the tech isnt 100% secure and chernobyl and fukushima could very well happen again? That we don't have a long term storage? As long a SINGLE of these points remains true nuclear is not an option. And hey, im just an environmental technologies and power engineering student who specializes in this nuisance of a topic.
@@maxmustermann2523 "As long a SINGLE of these points remains true nuclear is not an option" - That's just like your opinion, man. And it's pretty stupid one.
@@maxmustermann2523 How the hell do you think will chernobyl happen again? Are you talking from your sophomore level knowledge on reactor safety? I don't think your personal preferences are valid even if you think your education is even remotely related to the subject of nuclear engineering.
@@maxmustermann2523 Also I do agree on long term storage of nuclear waste issue so don't take me for an enemy. It just amuses me that you think reactors are built so poorly that they could go kaboom any minute. That is pretty dumb on your part. You would have to justify that for it to be a valid concern.
@8:47 the term 'climate change' has been around since at least the 1950s. And of course the IPCC (guess what the CC stands for) was founded in 1988. "Global warming' is a related term used to describe one particular aspect of climate change. In context, the terms are not interchangeable.
CO2 is not a poison. Carbon is the basis of life on earth. During every major life explosion on earth (Cambrian etc) CO2 levels were ASTRONOMICALLY higher. During the Roman empire CO2 levels were higher than now....NO CO2 will not cause "ocean acidification"....the ocean floor/crust is composed of basalt, and other alkaline rocks/metals, which BEING ALKALINE automatically keep the PH balanced, no matter how much *physical acid* you even dumped into the ocean, let alone carbonic acid via CO2....(though obv I agree that would be a horrible thing to do, dumping acid in the ocean) no matter how hard we tried *us humans* could NEVER stop/alter the forces of nature. The climate is always changing, whether via pole shift/flips, solar flares, micronova, changes in the globo electric circuit/heliospheric current, etc.
@@Dimitri-Jordania You are incorrect, CO and CO2 are poisonous to animals. CO2 is a metabolic waste product, and our circulatory system and respiratory system have both evolved to remove CO2 from our body. Inhaling significant concentrations of CO or CO2 are immediately life-threatening, both molecules displace oxygen in the hemoglobin within red blood cells. CO2 levels have been higher in the past. That is not an argument denying the danger of modern climate change. Humans did not exist the last time CO2 levels were this high, and given that Solar irradiance ON AVERAGE increases linearly with time, far more solar radiation is entering the atmosphere now than the last time CO2 concentration was this high. I'm going to need your source for CO2 concentration being higher during the time of the Roman Empire. Was this really a global phenomenon like modern CO2 concentration, or was this a local phenomenon like the Medieval Warming Period? "automatically keep the PH balanced, no matter how much physical acid you even dumped into the ocean" citation needed given that you've confused buffers with bases. A buffer is an acid-base pair that resists pH change, a base can balance a low pH, but does not AUTOMATICALLY balance pH like buffers do. Why should people trust what you say given your very limited grasp of basic chemistry and biology?
@@josephpayne113 Why don't we debate whether the Earth is flat or not? The fact of the matter is that all necessary evidence is available at this point, whether or not people accept reality is contingent on whether or not they accept the evidence itself. If you're a "skeptic" at this point, you're either ignorant of the facts, or WILLFULLY ignorant and denying facts and evidence you disagree with "politically". What Knowing Better is getting at is that debating whether a problem exists or not doesn't solve said problem. You can't put out a fire if you spend the time needed to extinguish it debating whether or not the fire exists. A sane adult wouldn't try to save themselves from a freight train by putting on a blindfold.
As an european, I'm constantly shocked that in the US this discussion about the truth about global warming is even happening, instead of trying to solve the problem.
Same here in Mexico. While every political party is a mess, at least they're sane enough to recognize the effect of global warming. And, in fact, the latest supposed leftist administration has done very little in terms of environmentalism.
If the dumbass behavior of our right wing is still shocking you at this point, that's kinda on you, now. Any time you're baffled at our actions, stop thinking about the issue like a rational and/or ethical person, and start looking at it from the Great American Ideology: "How can I make more money off of this?" It explains so much about why we are the way that we are.
Only issue is that it is to expensive. The UK government wants to build 7 new nuclear power plants and can't find anyone building them even when the guarantee to subsidize it with 300% the market value for electricity.
Maybe where you live, though here (in Scotland) I don’t remember hearing anything like that. It’s probably because the SNP has an anti-Trident agenda so they’re afraid any positive mention of nuclear inventions might work against that.
@@atm1947 1st pls look up irony 2nd "retard" oh my god what strong arguments you got there. How could anyone survive that burn. 3rd I'm not "anti-nuclear". It is just one of the worst options and I'm honestly amazed how any honest and informed person could think otherwise. (For example if we ever colognize an other planet and want to explore space travel, we might need nuclear energy. It would be a pity if we used it all up without need because ppl like you believed some propaganda.)
@@TBFSJjunior Solar and wind are more expensive. The issue is disposal and natural disasters, don't want to build a nuclear power plant in cyclone alley for example, or anywhere near the ocean.
On the whole debate on Nuclear, I say that, yes, we need to make Nuclear more widely used, but we need to build whatever there is room for. We're going to need everything that we can to try to reverse climate change. Solar, Hydro, Wind, Nuclear, Biohydrogen, Geothermal, and many more. This is going to take a huge effort, and we can't go around attacking each other on this, because whatever someone does to help is good for the world.
Yeah, but shouldn't we use them proportionally to their efficacy? The fact that nuclear is one of the best options but also the one that gets the least attention is inadmissible
I agree somewhat, despite being a big proponent of nuclear, I still believe large hydro is both cheaper and better where it can be used, due to greater flexibility and storage potential. Although you can’t just dam up anything unless creating lakes, wastelands, and destruction of ecosystems is your thing.
There’s a lot of potential and I think that since there is a great variety in kinds of energy we won’t have the energy producing inequality like we do now. For example countries that now don’t have oil reserves might have renewable/ nuclear potential. In the US states in the northern Midwest like North Dakota have lots of space that could be used for nuclear while states like Arizona have ample sunshine that could be used for solar. We have the options we just need to get the ball rolling.
Nuclear energy is the most efficient option and the cleanest by orders of magnitude. If we actually adopt nuclear, we won't need to mine silicon and metal for solar panels and turbines.
@@michelemorselli7047 The misinformation hurts my eyes (and brain). You know that nuclear is the least efficient non-niche version, yes? You pay 14+ cents for nuclear, while solar is hovering around 4.5 to 3 depending on location. Wind is around 3-4. And you know why? Because nuclear is not efficient compared to renewables. You also can't regulate them in the short term (minutes) since it takes weeks to boot them up. In the end we would need just as much storage and the fitting energy grid. At that point nuclear becomes a full blown meme. There is a reason why it is generally dismissed, and this is the biggest one. On top of that security and waste issues just add insult to injury.
I gotta disagree with your opinion on the ending of the south park apology episode. I don't think the message was "Climate change is real but there's nothing we can do about it," I think the message was "Climate change is real but we're not going to do anything about it, because the things we can do are hard, and why do hard things when we could be like.. Playing red dead redemption 2?" I think the end was more a jab at the laziness of people in general, and a possibly prophetic statement that we aren't going to do anything about it, despite the fact that we could if we'd all just sacrifice a little bit.
@@MaelPlaguecrow6942 I can't answer that, I was just giving my interpretation of the end of that particular South Park episode. However I will say why does that matter? When you have the information that if you continue down the road you're on it is sure destruction, do you continue down the comfortable path that requires no change or do you do what is necessary to avoid destruction? Or do you say the sacrifice is difficult, maybe I'll only give up half the required amount- delaying the still assured destruction? Once you start asking things like "Yeah but what will I have to give up to save the planet that all foreseeable future generations will be trapped on?" (We're not going to be living on mars any time soon) you have to realize that you're part of the problem. It just doesn't matter when the stakes are that high. I think the real problem is mistrust for authority, "How do I know I'm not being asked to give up more than necessary?" Or something along those lines, idk, but if we have to all start living like the amish in order to save our planet, are you not willing? You would condemn the entire human race to destruction because of your comfort and unwillingness to change? That honestly is the question and the stakes.
@@MaelPlaguecrow6942 Very little. Our biggest issues are inefficiency and too much meat consumption. The price for doing nothing would be 10 times more, even in our lifetimes. Eating meat once a week, and then mostly chicken. Flying less, preferably not at all (which means stay on your continent or fly for double the price). Living closer to where you work, not where you want to live. And thats about it. The rest is win-win.
I've been pro-nuclear for decades (I am kid of the early 80s so lived through cold war, and chernobyl) and aware of climate issues for about as long, and have always got so really annoyed that so many who want to see a solution to climate change have ignored it, or blindly believed the flat out lies surrounding it. So glad to see it touched on briefly here.
“BuT nUcLeAr BoMbS!” Many people don’t know that N(nuclear I’m using to make this shorter) power plants aren’t equipped to make or deal with supercritical materials which is needed for N-bombs, and things go awry with regular critical masses and usually cause a meltdown of a N power plant
But the economics of the nuclear industry worsened after Fukushima, according to a January report by the International Energy Agency and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency. The report estimates that equipment costs have risen 20 percent since 2010, in part because of heightened safety requirements-even as low-carbon wind and solar power got cheaper.
The problem with nuclear is that it releases energy that was safely trapped for eons in nuclear bonds, and converts all of that directly into heat, and heats up the water used for cooling. Nuclear doesn't produce greenhouse gas, because it doesn't need to. It just heats the planet directly.
@@supershluffy this is the stupidest comment I think I have ever seen. The sun is a giant nuclear reactor that creates an immense amount of heat just as you have mentioned. It would take centuries to produce the amount of heat energy by fission reaction as the sun radiates onto Earth in a day. Nuclear reactors are insignificant on the scale of a massive planet
@@nathanjohnson9464 For now, you are correct. But you should think more long term. The future needs of society will be many times higher than they are now. If we all push toward nuclear now, then this will lead to a path where the whole world builds more and more nuclear plants because of how cheap it will become. And when fusion technology comes, people will flock to that even faster, and there will be no stopping it. By being so cheap, nuclear energy will end up producing a significant percentage of the sun's rays. Also, the hot water added into the oceans are already killing huge swaths of marine biology, and this imbalance to the marine habitat will have an even more devastating impact on the environment. I'm just saying we should push toward a solution that has no chance of backfiring down the road. To be clear, I'm not saying we should avoid nuclear (if we can prevent marine habitats from being destroyed). I'm saying that we should treat it as a transition technology, rather than the endpoint, so that when other technologies become available, they won't be ignored the way nuclear is now.
My dad is a nuclear scientist and talked to me all the time growing up about how people discount nuclear power. He always said that whenever you ask a scientist they say it’s a political issue and when you ask a politician they say it’s an issue with the science and that’s why nothing gets done. When he eventually started working for the Nuclear Regulatory commission he would have to go to mandatory public hearings where environmentalists would scream at him for somehow destroying the environment and he told me that he thinks nuclear power will die off within my generation. Glad that people like you are out there to help people to now know better.
NO, it is NOT at all. A coal burning plant catches on fire, nothing happens. A nuclear plant catches on fire, it blows up and then the entire sector of a state is uninhabitable for CENTURIES, a gigantic differential.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 Nuclear plants won't blow up when they catch on fire, coal plants would continue to burn for days due to the flammability of coal. Also, radiation after a nuclear blast disperses in days. Look how many people live in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki now, Chernobyl, Fukashima, and Three Mile Island are all safe to be around. Nuclear plants can't explode because the way the energy is produced is the opposite of an explosion. When a nuclear weapon is detonated, the atoms are split apart. Nuclear energy is created by fusing two uranium atoms together. If anything, it would implode, and the waste would be shrunk and not sent out. Also, though he says this in the video, more people die in coal accidents then in nuclear accidents. 100 people (according to the No Nuclear Project) died in Chernobyl, Fukashima, and Three Mile Island combined (those are the only nuclear accidents to have ever happened). More people die each month mining coal than that (6600 people according to the Department of Health & HS). Also, the range of radiation from a Hydrogen (Tsar Bomba) bomb is only the size of half of LA county.
@@equalopportunityoffender1816 Delusional! We have seen one nuke plant burn and burn and it continues to pollute, we saw another hit by a tsunami and blow up and then burn out of control, too, very dangerous and for years. This is very, very, very bad.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 The Chernobyl plant does not pollute anymore, they have completely contained its emissions, though some radioactive particles are still there, no more are being created by the plant. Fukashima did not blow up, it started releasing waste into the ocean because of a Tsunami. Fukashima's waste dispersed and people live literally across the street from the plant. Also, there have been 3 nuclear incidents in 70 years, there have been dozens of more deadly coal and oil incidents in the last 20 years. More people died at Deepwater Horizon (120 people) alone, than in the 3 nuclear incidents.
Fun facts about Nuclear accidents: 1) The Three Mile Island accident had more to do with vague light and button settings, leading to confusion from the engineers as to wether indicator lights signified a meltdown or not. If you look at a picture of Pres Carter walking through the control room, every vertical surface and computer hub is crammed with buttons and switches that do God Knows What. TMI is now used as a classic example of how NOT to design buttons in Human-Computer Interaction courses. 2) Chernobyl was originally designed to be a nuclear weapons production facility and was meant to deal with Nuclear Fusion rather than Fission, which are the main function of Reactors. We now have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t when implementing Nuclear engineering, not to mention that our technology has come a LONG way in harnessing Nuclear Fission since the 1960s.
It's also worth mentioning that the RBMK reactors (used at Chernobyl) were designed with graphite moderators and an insanely high void coefficiant. These and other factors allowed them to run on unenriched uranium, but also made a disaster like Chernobyl possible
@@seankauder9721 This is all true but when you are trying to make inherently safe processes you can't just say "lol design reactors properly". I don't think the regulatory capacity of less developed nations is capable of safely building and operating nuclear reactors. The mistakes in Fukushima weren't even close to severe, and Japanese heavy industry is typically very high quality.
Yes, nuclear energy isn't the problem. Human incompetence is. Yet somehow that's exactly the point, isn't it? You will never be able to eliminate human incompetence. Just because the technology is different and safer, doesn't mean that nuclear accidents won't happen. There will always be accidents due to incompetence, so the question is whether or not risking the consequences is worth it. And it absolutely isn't.
Well the thing that matters isn’t really the risk of accidents. Solar wind and hydro energy sources are cheaper and can be built quicker than nuclear power plants (look at the plant that is being built in finland for example). Extraction of nuclear fuel is also very bad for the environmet compared to the building of solar, wind and hydro energy sources. The movie used in the video strongly misrepresents the facts as any person edjucated in climate science will say, solar, wind and hydro are already good alternatives and are evolving quickly. So if solar, wind and hydro are cheaper, cleaner, faster and in addition also safer why do you advocate for nuclear my dude?
@@jeroenbouhuis9536 Well, because Nuclear is probably the best option there is. Solar and wind are limited to whether-or-not the weather is in your favor. Hydro facilities are massive and require a river and flowing water. With nuclear you get a lot more energy that is more efficient. I'm also not an expert in nuclear anything and am just the average Joe waltzing into this conversation
THANK YOU for bringing up nuclear, Ive had so many people look at me like I’m crazy for thinking it’s our best shot for clean energy in the near future. Plus, there is still so much potential in nuclear power that we still haven’t put into practice yet!!
It would be a great idea if nuclear weapons didn't use the same processing methods for their fuel. That stuff makes the world powers very "unwilling" to let any other nation that want to go full nuclear.
@@Praisethesunson This is fair. I believe newer nuclear technologies (if we can get them working) use fuel that can't be nearly as easily converted into weapons.
you know, though I was never global warming denalist, there's really no need to be mean. it just makes you look like an ass and makes people less likely to listen
@@swiggedyswoner7315 what's wrong with the english in my first comment? also, you yourself made a mistake, using "where" instead of "were" and what did I do to you anyways that you would feel the need to insult me?
Isn't the point of cap and trade to make the externality of carbon emissions internalized, ie part of the cost? So in the example with one guy producing 9 tons and the other 1 for the same net 10, the thing that's changed is that the 9 creds guy now has to pay a bunch of money where before it was just free to pollute.
J M but then that just gives large corporations who basically have infinite money the power to pollute as much as they want. It just gives more powers to the rich
Thats how its "argued" to work, but doesnt. And is far more unreliable and complicated to establish and enforce globally than simply regulating reduction. Markets are a fine tool for consumer goods (if solid trust laws and anticorruption regulations are established, otherwise, not so much), but by far not an efficient solution for every problem. There is a reason privatized education or healthcare are more ecpensive and have worse outcomes than public, socialized ones.
I do think that cap and trade would be easier to get in place and keep working than something like a carbon tax, at least in the US. A cap and trade system could be established and set up to reduce the cap overtime in one round of legislation. With something like a carbon tax, if there are not immediate results, it is too easy for politicians to say “clearly this isn’t working” and to get the carbon tax removed when it comes time to increase the tax. There is nothing voter like more than paying less taxes.
Nuclear energy is by far the safest the cleanest and we could get so many jobs from it that can transfer coal miner into learning and understanding more technology and chemistry which can benefit the future, but politicians like Trump, Bernie, and Biden all laugh it off.
@@scrungycat407 But newer nuclear reactors create relatively renewable waste. There are also currently reactors made with the sole purpose of recycling the old waste from the old reactors into energy. Even if it is a "short term" solution, it is better than the current alternative which is no solution.
@@akselevensen2763 Really the only problem with nuclear energy problem that we need to fix right now is the fact that we don't have an official central dumping site for nuclear waste. We have a site prepared but lobbyist stopped the finalization of the site and the movement of the waste there. Right now most of it is just sitting in temporary disposal sites where it could easily leak out and spread out across the country. A couple places in New England could contaminate entire sections of New York and Philadelphia and force us to evacuate millions of people from their homes in the event of a major leak.
Hahahaha!!! The safest!? Are you ill? The waste is more dangerous than any otger ambient substance and more expensive to store than it is worth. Not to mention NOT renewable.
Taylor Lee Many scientist have said that nuclear waste is more of a political issue than a scientific issue. We can easily put the waste away but people are suspicious of it still and I don’t blame the. Also did you watch the video?
A slightly less known and frankly slightly less helpful renewable is micro hydro. There have been some pretty important technology improvements that make it a lot more efficient and viable for those with access to rural areas and running water.
I've always loved those Hydro plants that lesser impact (for lack of a better word). Instead of building a dam, they dig a side channel out of the river with the plant built on it, that way the river flow isn't *completely* stopped, just *some* get's diverted.
"Solar and wind farms only last a few years before they need to be replaced" The expected lifespan of a wind farm is around 20-25 years. For a solar farm it is 25-30 years. It would be nicer if it were 40 or 50 years, but "a few years" makes it sound like they'll break down in less than 10. The biggest problems with nuclear are the cost (skyrocketing while the cost of renewables has been plummeting) and the time taken to build it - 10+ years. We need low carbon energy to come online ASAP. Wind and solar farms can be constructed in a matter of months.
Well, I believe a major cost of nuclear plants is the uranium. We could use thorium as a replacement which is all around superior to uranium, and plus, said tests with thorium work as the Netherlands succeeded with its first thorium using molten salt reactor.
Life span in the real world is 10 to 15 years for wind turbine and 8 to 10 years for solar. The more years they run the less productive they become. After 10 years of solar the output is 20% compared to a new pannel with 100% output. Wind is the same. There are graphs on the internet you can see.
The Planet Of the Humans film flat out lied about solar and wind. They used solar panels from 2008 as their examples. It is like saying the iPhone sucks and using the iPhone 3G as the reason why.
Yea and multiple integrated lifecycle assesment studies have shown that even photovoltaic panels and wind turbines recoup the energy needed to build them in the first years of operation under the worst conditions. Additionally solarthermal panels for heating in areas that dont need AC during the summer are much better in terms of resource and energy required to build. For areas that need heating and cooling, heat pumps are a good option already, with a ton of improvements coming to the market in the next few years. I'm from Europe and I feel like we have quite the headstart, we can probably transition to photovoltaic, wind, solarthermal, geothermal and hydro energy using fossil gas and keeping nuclear power running until we have enough to turn the nuclear plants off without building new nuclear plants. The US may have to resort to nuclear, since the upfront investment is quite high for most renewable energy sources and you have to stay commited to get the returns from such huge Investments. Spain, France, Germany, Denmark and Norway have been really commited and twenty years later it shows in the energy mix.
Although I can find your biases to be a little disagreeable, I'm glad you came to the conclusion of using nuclear power. If were being honest theres definitely people on both sides of the political arguement that fear monger the shit out of nuclear.
Yeah it was kinda jarring at first but I don't blame him for being so aggressive. It's pretty annoying and I've been in the same boat with other topics.
@@flyingturret208thecannon5 I'm with you, and I think that's the problem, Knowing Better had a lot of good things to say in this video, but throwing that much shade right up front makes him look very condescending, almost like calling people deplorable.
@@Tuuminshz because if 2020 you still doubt the threat of climate change you've got a problem. The time spent debating its legitimacy is time that we could be using to solve it
It's actually insane that we went through all the dangers and growing pains of discovering and utilising nuclear energy and now that we know how to use it safely and have better technology to manage it we just kinda decided to stop...
As a person who considers himself to be on the right I was expecting to see lots of socialist left wing propaganda. But this video was very informative and laid out some facts I didn’t know. Thanks
Robert Smith Just don’t let characterizations sway your political views. People are often divided based on straw men of the other side. Left wingers are rational people.
@@clayton7757 The far left is just as irrational as the far right. The difference (in the US at least) is that the whole country is so far to the right that they don't really remember what true "far left" actually is, and they use the term to describe people and ideas that are very firmly in the center by any non-American (or even historical American) measure. And of course that's somewhat by design. People on average tend to shy away from both "extremes." But as they redefine "extreme left" more and more toward center, the new "center" also moves right. At some point (if trends continue) we'll start defining moderate right as "extreme left" and over time the difference between the redefined extremes approaches zero and everyone ends up very near the extreme right. I'm sure that sounds like paradise to those who are already on the extreme right but everyone else is sitting there shaking their heads at that statement as if I was insane. Yet its been happening. And continues to happen. Reagan's policies for example were far more similar to Obama's than they were to Trump or even Bush2. And its not because Reagan was a dirty communist leftie. Its because Obama is actually center or even slightly center-right by any normal definition, but the media has simply changed the definition to portray Obama as "far left" and in doing so shifts the whole (perceived) spectrum to the right. The likes of Trump would have been seen as drooling craziness even by the right under America's own standards a mere 50 or so years ago.
If only more people could be like you and listen to other viewpoints, even if at first it seems like it'll just be "propaganda," we'd have far more educated people and people who have far more reasonable opinions.
A fun fact about the lane merging analogy in the end is that the most effective way to merge would actually be if EVERYONE waited until the last moment to merge because then you're actually using the full capacity of the road, which reduces traffic jams in the areas behind you. I was even taught that this is how you're supposed to merge in driving school.
That’s only true if there isn’t a bottleneck at the merge site, when there usually is. If there IS a bottleneck, going all the way before merging makes it worse, since the aggressive, sharper last minute merges require even lower speeds (to the point of stopping sometimes).
THIS SHOW IS AMAZING!!!! Finally someone notable on YouTUBE acknowledged that nuclear is the way to go!!! Because it is the most safe energy source we have. I'm very sad about how most people view nuclear energy and I'm sure the media's portrayal of it had a massive effect on the public. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER WORLD!!!! GO #nuclear
If you mean you finally found someone as misinformed and dumb as you... maybe. Many of his assumptions are incorrect due to a false premise. If you ask students studying, or profs teaching in the field, you will quickly realize why nuclear is dismissed. By the time we have fixed all of nuclear powers downsides we would be running on renewables for a decade already. And much cheaper too.
Molecule of oxygen is correct as the vast majority of oxygen found in the atmosphere is in its diatomic state which is two oxygen atoms bound together in one oxygen molecule.
California is in a unique situation here, In which it has neighbors like Nevada, Oregon, and Washington that have massive export-only hydropower projects, and about 2GW of unused and built geothermal capacity, allowing the state to reach 60% Renewable without too much work. The state also has 1.4GW of Geothermal projects under construction or in final planning stages. It also has 2.6GW of hydro under construction, or entering new 50 year transmission contracts with the state. This will allow the state to reach 75-80% Renewables in the next 5-10 years. The state is then only short about 4GW in capacity, about 3GW can be met with new hydro-storage projects. The other 1GW can be met through the state's untapped geothermal resources in the imperial basin. Unlike some places **Germany cough cough** CA has a plan to phase out nuclear. Whether you think Geo and Hydro are worse than nuclear is a diffrent question, but they do have a plan.
@@danielnarevich7579 So, it's okay that nuclear is being phased out in California? There's no "perfect renewable", but I do believe hydro and geothermal have major drawbacks. Hydroelectric usually requires damming a river...not great for the local immediate environment. Geothermal is unreliable like solar and wind and works in even fewer places. I'm not trying to argue with you, but I believe expanding all our renewable energy sources is useful. I want more solar panels on top of schools, malls, factories, and homes. I think wind turbines should be strategically placed through mountain passes (especially the coachella valley). I want newer, advanced forms of nuclear energy (especially thorium reactors) and I'm open to less developed sources like geothermal and even anaerobic digestion (especially as large organizations are pursuing "zero waste").\ Again, not trying to argue, I'd love more information on this.
@@danielnarevich7579 Don't forget Arizona, with the LARGEST nuclear power plant in the US which sells most of it's power to CA. (Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station) CA *is* going to become much like Germany- needing to buy more and more power from it's neighbors, with a decent amount coming from nuclear. Moreover, take a look at Real Engineering's video on the topic of CA's Energy plan, which has massive issues as far as sustainability, reliability and cost. Moreover, that nuclear power plant that they're shutting down in CA (Diablo Canyon) generates roughly 10% of the state's power... So there's that problem as well.
Terrible? Nah. Rather - high residual risk, with completely unsolved longterm costs, with a finite fuel reserve completely inadequate for feeding humanities energy needs - and by now 3-5 times more expensive than wind or water. Even given the full socialization of risks and longterm costs. . Its a dying industry, and rightly so - plants have been shutting down on a higher rate than built for three decades now because the management knows that very well.
@@nilesbutler8638 1. What risk? Nuclear Energy is by far one of the safest ways to produce energy, especially considering today’s technology. Add that to the fact that new tech such as small modular reactors are available (just not licensed) which effectively reduce any operational hazards to extremely minimal risk. In practice, nuclear power holds almost no risk at all. 2. The only cost that can’t be resolved is proper government support. If the government were to provide the type of support (and hopefully much more at that in the near future) that wind and solar are getting you’d see money rolling into the industry as investors realize its promise. With proper RnD not only will we see tech improvements but also dramatic cost reductions from efficiency and economies of scale. 3. First of all, nuclear is only part of the solution, suitable for complementing a complex system of sustainable energy sources. Maybe only 50% energy will be nuclear, while water solar and wind make up the other 50%. Fuel is not a question, uranium is abundant, and you don’t need that much in volume for it to work. New tech have even allowed for parts of the nuclear waste to be reused as fuel. A long term (as in several tens of years) could even center around extracting uranium from oceans. The opportunities are truly endless, but only if ur willing to think bigger. 4. Ur arguement of “it’s a dying industry” is based off of surface level observation and not underlying realities. The reality is, plants are closing bc the government refuses to extend contracts on perfectly safe plants. The government refuses to provide the right support or even the right regulation for companies to even think about upgrading or updating their existing plants. Often the owners would rather leave now with profits than to pursue more investment without proper gov support, not because the application of nuclear itself isn’t promising and beneficial to society environmentally and economically. Nuclear already makes up 20% of the US’ power production. Would phasing it out be productive in our efforts to achieve sustainable energy? (No it wouldn’t it would be irresponsible and entirely counter productive). Frankly nuclear energy is indefinitely a piece of the puzzle when it comes to solving the climate crisis and ignoring would be a disservice to society and future generations
I've actually just come from watching planet of the humans, and i'm so glad I watched this. I really respect Michael Moore and when they suddenly mentioned overpopulation, i was shocked. I'm actually beginning to really worry about ecofascism because I'm hearing people outside the internet talk about overpopulation in fear without really understanding it. I did population dynamics at uni as part of an ecology degree so i'm lucky enough to have a decent understanding but not many people do, and without careful explanation, population control policies seem like the obvious option to most people.
Why should we not be worried about overpopulation? We have finite resources on our planet and our current economic system requires infinite growth through a steadily increasing supply of people to buy and consume things. Do you think that the planet can sustain 10+ billion people now, let alone in 30 years when we have millions of climate refugees? All of these people need food, most people like meat so that's an increase in agricultural emissions. I made a longer comment elsewhere in the thread, but if the concept of overpopulation is so contentious we are in serious trouble. Medicine has let us live far longer than we would have previously; humans in their natural state did not live this long and had more children due to survival and infant mortality. I think that the shock about overpopulation has to come from an economic viewpoint because limiting ourselves to replacement level birthrates would do our future generations a lot of good.
@@CheeerriOH most developed countries are at or under replacement rates. Most developing countries are at or just above replacement rate. As the world continues to develop our problem wont be overpopulation. It will be aging populations due to shrinking birth rates and smaller subsequent generations, our population will drop once the world develops.
@TheBrodsterBoy I did watch the video. You've ignored my point. Agricultural practices contributing to feeding those billions are the problem. Cattle emissions are a massive part of global emissions. Now unless you are advocating everyone in the world go vegan which would be incredibly unlikely but very helpful, just feeding the people alone contributes to this climate change. And just because we produce enough food doesn't mean it is spread equally with access for everyone. We need distribution networks, supply chains that all rely on power and supply and demand principles to continue. You can see this right now with the excess potatos in Idaho now, where thousands of tons of potatos are being left to rot due to supply line issues (restaurant industry is declining due to the closures while retail industry is experiencing shortages in some places). I'm trying to engage with the topic a little more than one line responses.
@@Ratchet4647 I agree that in most developed countries its around that 1.8 or so rate per family level. I'm not sure that we will be able to develop the poorer countries fast enough to slow the growth. Africa and West Asian countries stand to cop some of the worst effects of climate change that could lead to massive climate refugee numbers when the resources in their countries are depleted. Shrinking birth rates in developed countries will be an interesting phenomena as we will see how governments balance their capitalistic infinite growth mantras with the reality of consistent recessions.
nuclear is great. It is economically the winner over most other forms of energy today. France is investing heavily in it despite the stigma. We need to do too.
Actually while this sounds true, it really is not. France has slowly been deactivating old reactors and not replacing them. It is unclear if France has the political will. Yes, their energy share is largely nuclear and compared to other industrialized countries this most definitely is a strength, but the share itself has largely stagnanted. A shame really, we could use more reactors. We have some new ones down the pipeline but I can only be cautiously optimistic. Edit: Otherwise your comment is spot on! It is a shame, people are afraid of nuclear for dumb reasons generally.
@@twenty-fifth420 The best reason why nuclear sucks: The costs. Renewables are just cheaper and that by a landslide, without any of the major risks and issues associated with nuclear. Nuclear: 14+ euro cent/kwh Solar: 4,5 cent Wind: 3-4 cent Yeah... nuclear is a great option if you happen to have no clue about the economic side.
Don't forget geothermal energy and tide energy and all the other options we have to get energy out of nature. And how difficult it actually is to combine nuclear with renewable energy. Because you can't just turn off a nuclear reactor that easily or turn it on for that matter.
@Tamara K Because it was another electoral college "win", when the popular vote went to Gore. On top of that, it all came down to who won Florida, which was basically a tie. The votes needed to be recounted, but the Florida governor Jeb *Bush* (yes, George's brother) rigged it up so Bush would end up winning it. Bush might have won it legitimately, but honestly we'll never know because of the sleazy efforts of Jeb and co.
@Luís Filipe Andrade Sure, but it does somewhat adulterate democracy in the US. Intentionally, I've been told; the founding fathers allegedly weren't too keen on the unwashed masses electing an incompetent, so they added a layer of indirection supposed to prevent that. Which, in hindsight, seems a bit ironic. Anyway, it's fair to say Bush was elected, it's a bit of a stretch to say he was elected by the people. Which kind of makes his election an "election" in a supposed democracy.
17:30 simple, don't give out 5tons per person. Price of credits go up, those who can cut cheaply do and sell their credits. Next year, reduce credits again. You're really not giving this idea a fair shake.
I wish I could get more information on this type of fission reaction. From what I have seen we are closer to this becoming commercially viable then fusion.
I'm with you on everything except the South Park part! The point of the end of the 2nd ManBearPig episode wasn't that there's nothing we can do to stop it. The point was that we'd have to give up very minor conveniences (soy sauce and red dead redemption 2), but people are so selfish that we choose not to.
Totally with you on this! I even just commented pretty much the same thing you did, only to scroll down and find your comment. To me that was a pretty obvious takeaway from the ending of the episode.
Right exactly, the point was that there's everything Americans CAN do to stop it, but nothing we WILL do to stop it. I'm kinda baffled what his issue is, like does anyone expect an episode of South Park to end with everyone doing the right thing?
I agree with absolutely everything in this video EXCEPT your ending traffic analogy. THE ZIPPER METHOD IS THE SUPERIOR MERGING METHOD! No need to complicate the process prematurely by merging before its necessary and causing stops and starts that have ripple effects down the highway. Point taken, though.
You can't even spell "climate" correctly, you left out your article, used "ain't" incorrectly and forgot your apostrophe, so the roast is deserved, don't you think?
I feel like the rationale behind Cap and Trade has been presented a little "unfairly": First of all, it is a system designed to set incentives to reduce your emissions. Some firms have cheaper options than others for reducing their carbon footprint. By being able to trade the "carbon credits", a market price forms and "determines" which firms will sell their credits and which will buy some, namely those will sell who can reduce, say, 1 unit of emissions for cheaper than that market price of credit. Therefore, those firms with cheap reduction opportunities reduce first. The trick here is to set the amount of "carbon credit" just so that reduction HAS to happen: if you just hand out as much credit as your economy happens to blow out, nothing will happen obviously. Second, if nothing changed after that, the situation would not become better, of course. However, the amount of carbon credit is reduced every period by the government. This could happen through simple collection of some of that credit, or (what would be more popular with most industries and therefore politically more viable) via the government buying credit back at market prices (or lower, if that could be enforced...): Point is, without the government regularly and rapidly reducing the amount of available carbon credit, this system would just be like you presented it: not doing anything! However, if a government would follow through with the system, this could contribute to the reduction of emissions. Of course, there are flaws with this approach: The actual production of emissions would have to be measured and non-compliance would have to be punished, which would add costs for enforcement. But honestly, so does every regulation. Also, the fact that by buying back carbon credit, you give those firms financial aid which have the hardest time reducing their carbon footprint, might in practice lead to financial support for the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, which might not sit right with activists. Also, when looking at actual real world attempts at introducing such a system like in the EU's case, the system failed because the amount of certificates ("credit") were not reduced over time. After every cheap measurement had been implemented, the amount of certified pollution and actual emissions about matched, which let their market price plummet. ALSO, the system contained legal loopholes, allowing firms to buy certificates and then write them off as lost profit and receive a tax cut WHICH OBVIOUSLY SHOULDN'T HAPPEN. Take-away here is, that it might be quite tricky to actually implement such a system. This is also why I put "unfairly" in the first sentence: In theory, Cap and Trade can contribute a lot, in practice though it has not proved itself useful yet as far as I know. So, yeah, long story short, I know that you cannot attribute a huge part of your video to such a minor detail, but I think, as I was here anyway, I could contribute my two cents to it. Cheers whoever actually read through this! Feel free to correct me on anything, I wrote mostly from memory and what I've learned in several courses over the years. P.S.: What I didn't mention: Such a system of course requires also harsh financial punishments for firms which do not comply with their carbon limits. These fines would have to be costly enough to make reductions worth it (in the long run). Otherwise, why reduce your emissions when the penalty is cheaper?
Trouble is it rewards large companies (and countries) to the detriment of the smaller ones (and taken to an extreme, could even be used to stifle competition. Say for example Tesla buys up all of the carbon credits they can find. Perhaps that pushes people to shift toward electric vehicles and battery-backed renewable farms. Conveniently exactly the products Tesla sells. (Not that Tesla is really large enough to do that on a significant scale, but just as an example. And there are companies that _are_ large enough to do so.) I'm more in favor of the carbon tax idea myself. It certainly has problems as well, but its a much more balanced system (in the sense that companies know exactly how much they will pay per ton of CO2 whereas the C&T system makes it an open and therefore unpredictable market.) The biggest problem though is that it doesn't actually cap carbon emissions -- companies can continue polluting as much as they want as long as they're willing to pay for it (which in turn just means passing the cost onto consumers.) In the short term, the extra cost will drive companies to try and minimize carbon usage (so that they can keep prices lower than their competitors) but once that hits a new equilibrium point, a carbon tax just becomes another consumption tax and no longer has much environmental benefit. Still, as the problem continues to creep up on us and we continue to ignore it, eventually short-term solutions are going to be the only remaining solutions because there will no longer be a long-term to worry about.
The biggest problem by far with nuclear is the one that almost no one talks about, and that is the huge cost of constructing the plants in the first place - nine times the cost of wind and solar for the same amount of gigawatt hours per year. Even when you add in the cost of storage, it is still something like 3-4 times as much.
You’re forgetting the fact that those energy types are subsidized by the federal government, whereas nuclear is not which is why it’s so much more expensive. It’s quite cost competitive (although it is more expensive to a degree due to maintenance) without such subsidies and if the government spent more on it it would be leagues better than them. In addition, cost doesn’t matter much when the cost of doing nothing is way greater, we can save trillions and millions of lives by switching to nuclear.
@@tahaymvids1631 it's not even necessarily government subsidies, so much of the cost comes from the fact that each plant and reactor is custom to that specific plant. Large part of the reason why you see many pro-nuclear advocates support SMR's, (Small Modular Reactors) which allow many of the same exact reactor design to be produced at some sort of scale.
Thank you so much for everything you do. You don’t know how important it is for me and I’m sure people like me to hear such knowledgeable caring voices right now.
I don't know. I haven't seen the movie, but i trust that you put the pertinent clips in your video. First off: nobody said overpopulation. I also didn't hear anyone going Malthus or even worse. But I also didn't hear that the two big pillars of the problem are population and per capita consumption. That should have been mentioned, granted. i don't think that it is possible to argue that population growth will raise the strain. Population is one of the factors in the problem, saying that it isn't seems wrong.
its obvious that having less population would stem the bleeding but who gets to say who should control population as he mentioned it isnt fair when first wolrd countries gete to dictate the growth of developing ones
Overall, a very good video. You made a lot of salient points on nuclear energy, and various emission-limiting policies (such as cap-and-trade). I also appreciated your criticism of the "overpopulation" argument. However, there is one point where you made a mistake, and that's on the viability of wind & solar. For one, those farms do not "only last a few years before they need to be replaced." The average lifespan of solar panels - and solar farms - that are in current production is around 20 to 30 years. Wind turbines do require more regular maintenance, but they, too, last quite a bit longer than "a few years." Similarly, they amount of toxic byproducts produced by them is negligible, and solar panels in particular are between 90 to 97% recyclable at end-of-life. And finally, about energy storage. We've already negated the "unreliability" of wind & solar with broad distributed energy storage methods. I'm surprised you've never touched on liquid air/cryogenic energy storage: it's scales extremely well, is cheap, and environmentally friendly, while relying on very well-founded technology, and no special materials. This more than makes up for on-demand energy needs. The problem here isn't a technological one, or even economic: it's a matter of political will.
Small footnote at 15:45 Growing forests is NOT a sustainable solution in any way. Its kinda like continuously adding dry sponges to soak up water while the tap is still running. We cant infinitely cover the world in forests and we would have to do so if we wanted to solve our CO2 production by planting more forests. As for nuclear: yeah its a good placeholder thats way superior to fossil fuels and way more achievable than the current renewable energies. However, it should be a placeholder to bridge the gap towards something far greater: fusion. Yes, i know its also nuclear but people generally mean fission when they say nuclear.
When you see a lot of South Park clips and think, "is he going to promote nebula by talking about the South Park intro?" Also, why was the US Government so effective then and not now?
Because the parties in the US were occupied by reasonable people who had honest disagreements. They were not out to gaslight and deny truths and vilify everyone on the other side. This all started with Reagan and Trump is the epitome of that. Social media amplifies their loud voices and they provide a scapegoat for people's problems placing blame where it doesn't belong, such as immigrants and refugees. The leaders of the Republican party of today have no principles except winning and are ready to do whatever it takes to achieve that. And their allegiance is to no one except their donors.
To add to what Sampat said, the US government is designed to work via Committee and Consensus. Parliamentary Systems accept partisanship as a reality of politics and are thus structured to give a majority party as much power as possible (without being too dangerous) to enact their vision of policy for the next four or five years. Presidential Systems, though, are structured so that parties must come to agreements or compromises on issues. Committees are created when people have ideas, consisting of members from both parties, who explore an issue and policy, then present their findings to both of their party leaders, stating they have the support of members of the other party who are on this committee, and so the bill proceeds to more formal debate in the floor of congress. Bills formed this way succeed far more often than not, and the Clean Water Act was one such bill-by-committee. When these agreements can't be attained, dealmaking is another option. Trading agricultural subsidies for tariffs. So when that polarization hits, these committees aren't created or aren't as successful, and the Presidential System breaks down. France avoids this by having constitutional measures designed to prevent party polarization, so they can still have a Presidential System that's effective. Perhaps the saddest example of the death of Committe and Consensus Government was the 1990s immigration reform. This was several years in the making, and was led by one of the greatest statecrafters of the modern age, Representative Barbara Jordan. It intended to completely overhaul visa distribution, streamline asylum application, tighten security, and support the immigration courts, all to make legal immigration easier and more permissive, while at the same time resting fears of illegal immigration without resorting to police state tactics. It fell through, though. Expanding legal immigration was smeared as a plot to depress wages or import mexico wholesale. The immigration reform collapsed and the committee disbanded in 1996. Those fears went uncalmed. The issue went unresolved. The immigration courts remained strained and unfair. Exactly 20 years later, Donald Trump would be elected on a mandate to curb illegal immigration.
I disagree on Cap and Trade being net zero. Since you are allowed to sell your credits for profit, you are incentivized to emit less. The high emitters, since they now have to pay for emissions, are incentivized to emit less too.
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Bright Wanderer we can’t use uranium though need to use thorium because there is much more thorium on the planet, it isn’t nearly as dangerous as uranium, and it is a lower chance of a miner dying when the are mining for thorium. All we need to do is to get all the coal miners to start mining for thorium, so nobody loses their job.
Saying that prager U is not a university is like saying that youTube is not a TUBE made out of YOU
Illinois energyProf channel has some really good videos on nuclear and conventional energy and goes though them thoroughly but simply, so most folk should understand what he says.
His videos are excellent if you have worries about Nuclear powers safety.
Read with Randy voice
"Stan ok"
@Andro mache you're talking about milankovitch cycles aren't, gosh it would be silly if climatologists forgot about those!!
...but they didn't.
Also you don't realise that those cycles should me the earth is heading to colder global temperature, right, or did you not read that far into them yet?
As someone that works with nuclear, let me tell you about its negative effect on the environment:
A lot of trees are violently murdered for the paperwork involved.
not a direction i was expecting that to take. you get a like, internet person
I respect that hella
Sooo - uranium mines poisoning the groundwater of whole regions, fuel refining plants that octuple cancer rates in their neighbourhood, and waste that will stay highly dangerous for tens of thousands of years are no enviromental problem?
Nuclear is rather light on greenhouse gasses, I´ll give you that.
.
But its simply far too expensive. Even given the fact that all long-term costs are not calculated at all and thus simply socialized, nuclerar energy is still more expensive than solar, wind and water energy production by now.
Which is why about ten times as many nuclear plants have been shut down than built anew for 30 years - the managers know that fact too.
Niles bro ... na its not even coparable to mining resourses for salar and such but still we dont need to mine uranium cus 1. we have a shit tone of nuke being decomisioned and 2. thorium (and this is kinda not related) is another material we can use and its great its WAY more common on eath (than uranium) like a shit tone of it, it is way safer to mine and also doesnt seep into the ground when mined AND can be used in MELTDOWN PROOF REACTORS all because it needs a helper materiel to produce lots of radiation (plutonium for example), where it can be drained away if a problem arises, another thing is that the unriching/refining proses is way less for thorium than uranium cus its far more "potent" strait from the ground ass well as in the end throium is like 100 times more powerfull per ounce (or gram for ye redcoat bastareds) than uranium. though we dont know everything about is so it might need more resuerch before mass use for reactors. (BTW my hands were dead after typing all this...sorry)
Another one of the things they lie to you about; coal is also slightly radioactive. I say slightly but coal miners and their families are typically exposed to radioactive coal dust for years at a time. That's what black lung is and several other cancers that affect mining communities, your lungs are irradiated from the inside and through constant exposure they get debilitating cancers. But uranium is thousands of times more energy dense as coal so a single nuclear plant has the potential to decommission hundreds of cancer causing coal mines.
Knowing Better: the adults are talking now
also Knowing Better: 1969, *nice*
That's what the adults said, when they were talking.
Knowing better: the adults are talking now.
Me: aren’t there more adults who don’t understand climate change?
Metamodern
Apperantly adults enjoy jokes, I know I was pretty shocked when my dad told me too
Nice
Not gonna lie, I was practically shouting "For gods sake talk about Nuclear!" aaand then ya did. Good on you!
Currently new nuclear is 2 to 8 times as expensive as wind/solar.
France is currently planning on reducing their reliance on nuclear and switch more to wind and solar to prevent price increases.
So even though nuclear sounds promising, it isn't really if you look into it.
Just to put an other bummer out there.
All known uranium would last 7 month if we try to power humanity with it. (Sure you can improve this, but seriously you just kick the can down the road for a couple decades.)
@@TBFSJjunior could you provide links to your sources? I have never heard the 7 month thing and I have difficulty believing it. As to the other, I agree that nuclear is not the end all or be all. No solution is, but for the broad purposes of power generation there simply isn't a superior system, at least until we develop fusion, but then you are still talking about nuclear power.
@@Socrates3141
"7 month"
I calculated that myself a year ago or so. (I've studied physics at a German university, so I very often do stuff like that myself.) And it fits what's I've seen from other experts since. I could redo it for you if you want.
Btw I did the same for fusion at the same time and that would run out of fuel in a couple centuries (which doesn't sound like a real solution tbh).
Issue with fusion is, that people always think about water, but in reality we use a "rare" lithium isotope as a fuel, cause filtering the needed isotopes out of water needs almost as much energy as fusion provides.
I will attach a few links in my next comment.
@@TBFSJjunior I have never heard the 7 month and would love to see your methodology for determining it.
As for the rarity of fusionable material, a couple centuries is more than enough time to get into the asteroid belts where there is an abundance of resources ripe for the taking.
Wind and solar are useful but they simply don't cover all the bases nor do they have the applicability, as this video points out. Not to mention solar panals are made of toxic materials and there is no protocol for how to dispose of them once they wear out, which they do.
Jakob Schulze You mean the wind & solar produced using material made in China using coal-based energy, that have a load factor of 0.3 and that only produce when they feel like it so that you would have to build storage capabilities et bigger networks to replace other electricity sources if you wanted to have a 100% wind/solar-based syTem? Sure, they ard much cheaper then nuclear, but isn't that making an apples to oranges comparison ?
To be honest, when I leanrned that the German plan to phase out nuclear and invest in solar/wind has had so little effect on the only metric that counts (i.e. amount of CO2 per unit energy, instead of indirect metric such as share of RES or amount electricity from RES etc), I was shocked. It's a disgrace that other EU countries are imitating it.
“Feel free to leave a dislike on your way out, because the adults are talking” damn dude you killed em!
Love it!!!
This was abrasive and unapologetically disrespectful toward climate deniers, ecofascists, and fence-sitters, and frankly, that's the kind of content I like to see. Good video.
You got me in the first half!
@@ForzaJersey how
How is this Anti Eco-Fascist?
They had us in the first part, not gonna lie.
@@aturchomicz821 Eco-fascists are the ones who complain about overpopulation and call for humans to be culled.
I find it hilarious that the guy that said you could just drink a shot of pesticide, was then immediately offered a shot of it by the interviewer, you should have let that clip play out more. Lol
It's funny but the guy is actually right. This particular pesticide (glyphosate) is harmless for humans.
Respite the court case saying otherwise, seems pretty clear its fairly safe.
unless you're getting it on you all the time - especially the undiluted chemical, and well of course if you drink it.
@@artuselias isn't glyphosate a herbicide rather than a pesticide?
@@mbburry4759 Glyphosate (at least pure glyphosate) can't hurt humans, as it affects the production of a very specific enzyme that only appear in plants, but the other ingredients in Roundup are probably pretty nasty.
@@Chris47368 herbicide is a subset of pesticides.
Ah, nuclear. The enemy of both environmentalists and climate change deniers. I personally blame The Simpsons.
Fabby Marmol So true. I love that show, but they demonize nuclear energy A LOT. The three-eyed fish is a classic image and as a result there is a lot of negative stigma
D'oh!
Adam Shumate They dont demonize Nuclear Energy in earlier seasons, they make fun of it.
It is called humor. If anything, the Simpsons made me drink the ‘nuclear solves everything’ Kool Aid.
Even in humor lmao.
But it is the enemy of both environmentalists and change deniers. I hope to change that, but to do so the economics of nuclear supply chains need to change.
Thankfully, I am an economics major lmao. Just give me a few years and a lot of weed to smoke so I can meditate upon the problem.
I don't think he was serious. Like all of our modern problems, we know that the true culpability lies with the boomers... In this case, the hippie boomers.
Adam Sanders I assumed so, but it seems quite misleading. It is all for jokes.
If anything, Greenpeace and other ‘Environmentalists’ are probably the reason why Nuclear is so hated in the public. Not because of the Simpsons.
I'm sorry but "Kyoto Protocol" sounds like the title for some obscure but surprising fun PS1 game.
Overpopulation rings of Overcooked!
I preferred the original on PC Engine.
it sounds like the title of a Robert Ludlum story. All of those things with names like that come from his books.
I don't know if they made a PS1 game, but they made a board game about it called Kyogami. Don't play it, it's Monopoly in even more boring XD
This seems like a branding issue; when people hear "nuclear", they think of nuclear weapons, meltdowns, and waste.
Why don't we just rebrand modern nuclear power as something new with a new name?
There's been huge advancements in technology that make it unrecognizable to the unrefined 60's tech that most people associate with "nuclear energy".
It seemed to work for "natural gas", and they're certainly trying it for "clean coal"!
Call them Thorium Reactors, it sounds boring because it is, they are long lasting and safe to give to countries that might use other reactors to make nukes, or at least aid that process.
@@thefreakDWN that or even salt cooled reactors
Good idea. Most people think magnetic field is good for their health, but radiation is bad. It’ll definitely work.
Or Radio-Energy, maybe chemical energy? Maybe elemental energy cause of the elements, something like that
what do I get wrong when I say I dislike nuclear power because of the waste?
I mean it is the waste that poses the longest lasting risk to life on earth far beyond anything humans ever produced.
How is that "little" amount of waste, that barely fills a football field, curently disposed of? Is the dump site/are the dump sites made for the mandatory storage time or just a provisional solution? How much potential waste can we store until we run out of adequate storage space and how long/to what degree would that allow us to power our lifes with nuclear power?
For some reason the more I look into it the more I'm against it... enlighten me please
I've been waiting years for you to finally make a Moderate's Guide To Climate Change, and the fact that promoted nuclear energy as the clear answer; thank you so much.
Kyotosomo anime is gay
@@swazilandandbotswana8856 wtf does that have to do with the comment. Homophobe
"the united states can and should be leading the way on slowing and reversing climate change" "even if you don't believe in climate change we should do it anyway"
FACTS
Our efforts are stunted by the lack of participation from so many other countries. I mean China basically fucks the world over lol
I mean, if you don't believe in climate change you can't reverse or slow it down, since it supposedly dosen't exist
“The adults are talking now”
I felt that, I really felt that
Taken from "the right" playbook. The left are such pussies, always trying to play nice, always compromising. Just take a stand and defend it as ferociously as possible ffs, it's the only way stuff gets done.
@@Rob81k the last time they did that 60 million Chinese people died.
@@ssik9460 What are you, twelve?
@@Rob81k I was trying to say that becoming politically “brave” or to stand up for one’s ideology is a bad idea. Political loyalty generally leads to suffering especially when it doesn’t work yet its followers take more and more extreme actions to make them work. I think you misinterpreted what I said. I was referring to the massacre of Chines citizens during the cultural revolution due to a blind loyalty of an oppressive ideology.
Like the discussion at the US House Committee of Science Space and Technology
As an Energy Engineer who works in the Nuclear industry I really appreciate this video; I felt the same about being lied to by political groups about Nuclear when I learned about it.
However, I don't think you should discount Carbon Capture and Storage; and more rigorous cap and trade. If you put that cap low, the developed country needs to reduce its emissions somehow, CCS works quite well in conjunction with that and overall allows approaching closer to net zero.
C&T I think works better when restricted to necessary industries that can't avoid a lot of their emissions, particularly heavy industry: concrete and steel production for example... Even a 10% (a low estimate) capture of their emissions would significantly affect countries totals.
Renewables also obviously play a very important role, especially alternative storage technologies; solar heat storage (using a salt based steam cycle) and pumped water storage paired with wind; both already exist and are fairly effective at reducing the huge power variations.
Older technologies factor into that as well, like tidal barrages and hydroelectric which was touched on briefly, if it goes towards reducing dependence on fossil fuel emissions go for it; same goes for hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cells.
Overall the goal is in the future to have the vast majority of power come from renewable sources; wind farms, solar plants and hydroelectric dams, (hydrogen and tidal/wave power too maybe); but as you mention a strong base will be needed to support that and Nuclear can fill that niche and provide that...
The net emissions from nuclear are astonishingly low (including the whole mining to disposing fuel cycle) and Fusion and GenIV reactors show a lot of promise for deployment in 10-20 years... It also has one of the best work-in:work-out ratios of any energy source.
I appreciate when someone actually has something informative to add, i dont see why so many people think we need only one solution to this issue when many can work in concert. Politics and tribalism i guess. But ultimately nuclear is and should be the future, fusion especially if we ever (collectively) pull our heads out of our asses and stop squabbling long enough to figure it out...🤷🏾♂️
But the French use nuclear and we can't be like the French because reasons!!!
In all seriousness, yes nuclear fuel is enriched before use, but the waste can't possibly be more toxic (in a meaningful way) than the raw materials. That's always the argument.
"Where will we put the waste?"
Why not back into a hole, like where we found it?
"What if someone stumbles into it in 1000 years after civilization collapses?"
What if we don't dig it up at all and someone stumbles into a uranium deposit in 1000 years?
It's still radioactive, whether we use it or not, and it's still FAR better than the alternatives we're digging out of the ground.
@@Lawrence330 Depleted uranium is not nuclear waste. It is a (somewhat) valuable byproduct. The radioactive waste comes from the products of uranium fission, and it is genuinely dangerous and hard to deal with. There is no known physical mechanism to make radioactive nuclei safe except to wait for them to decay, which can take tens or hundreds of thousands of years. That's why finding permanent storage locations for nuclear waste has been a difficult problem.
Except, we had a solution for the U.S. in Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, that closed, because unsurprisingly, nobody wants to live near a nuclear waste repository, and there was no way to maintain political support for long enough to complete the project, or, more importantly, ensure it could continue operating in the long term. If we could reassure people of its safety and be believed, we wouldn't have to store nuclear waste in dry casks near cities. We had the choice between burying nuclear waste deep in a mountain in a desert where nobody lives and leaving it in shielded containers on the surface all over the country, and because environmentalists got their way, we're going with the latter.
@@EebstertheGreat Ah very sad indeed but still I'm skeptical about the whole solar and wind energy, hydroponic I can see working out but solar and wind is straight up tooo damn unreliable man beside they don't even last that long nor do their energy production justify the resources use to make them
Thank you for your very informative comment! What do you think about the limited reserves of Uranium-235 and how this may reflect on the longevity of nuclear energy?
4:02 Minor correction, but a molecule of oxygen IS O2 gas. What you're referring to is an oxygen atom. A molecule is a group of atoms bonded together.
Edit : Of course we all know what he meant though. No problem with it
I spotted that as well, but I knew what he meant.
Well, I'll give a pass though. I mean, his main points are on the policy part.
A molecule can also be a single atom, helium for an instance just consists of single atoms. But yeah, I got kind of confused listening to this.
@@yggdrasil3 the IUPAC Gold Book (which is authoritative on this matter defines a molecule as strictly "an electrically neutral entity consisting of more than one atom", so no, helium is not a molecule.
@@Quintinohthree Huh, I guess my high school chemistry book was wrong then.
EDIT: There is appearantly a different theory for noble gasses, sorry!
It has always astounded me how little we talk about the role of nuclear power in mitigating climate change, and what astounds new more is the extent to which organizations that are supposed to care about the environment end up shooting that cause in the foot with their determined opposition to nuclear power.
The problem with nuclear is the long term issue of waste. Until we can find a way to solve that problem, nuclear is simply delaying pollution.
Even relatively benign isotopes like Strontium-90 remain dangerously radioactive for around 300 years.
Nuclear power is an afterthought of nuclear weapons.
Making nuclear the main base of electricity is just causing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Which is bad.
louis43233 there are far easier, cheaper, and faster methods of obtaining enriched uranium than nuclear power plants. And it would be highly inefficient anyway in regards to isotopic vectors. The same would be said about plutonium except on an even worse scale.
@@Praisethesunson
That comment shows how uninformed you are about the different type of nuclear reactor
Most new type try to create as little plutonium as possible
I was nuclear-pilled some time last year (two years ago I guess, in 2019), and honestly it was one of the biggest and yet most important ideology shifts I've ever had. Climate change was one of the very first political things I began caring about as a kid/teen and yet all throughout high school I was passionately against nuclear. Finding out how wrong I was was honestly important for me. One of those first instances where you realize everything that you've been told about politics, activism, etc. isn't necessarily correct. I'm now a strong proponent for nuclear energy and a better critical analyzer of information. Great vid.
I'm glad you analyzed the facts and came to a solid conclusion. Nuclear becomes a great option/component for energy the more you look into it and the more you deconstruct the messaging that occurs. I often think that if science had as good marketing as anything else, we would not be in so many of the messes we are in today.
I’ve had that, not for environmental topics but for more directly social issues, but I totally get that feeling.
I should say his point about nuclear related deaths could be questioned, as we use gas and coal MUCH more and for much longer (more use= more probability of deaths)
@@efulmer8675 Unfortunately science is very good at marketing, just not the "science" we want to be good at it. Coal, oil and gas companies very vehemently push corrupt studies and bad messages about nuclear because they know it is the one energy source that could entirely wipe them out.
My only real issue with nuclear is the idea of letting civilian corporations operate them, because energy security is a matter of national security and should be treated as such.
People look at me like I'm nuts when I bring up nuclear as an option. And not just because I am wearing a purple Batman outfit.
I WANT MY NUCLEAR REVOLUTION
Purple!? Did Lilac Louie get you, Master Wayne?
Maybe because of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Cellafield and Fukushima. Not to mention the mountains of waste. Swapping one cataclysmic problem for another. I know the science is improving, but we're no where near "safe" nuclear yet. Also, with a more unpredictable climate nuclear power becomes more dangerous through flooding etc. ....................just sayin'............maybe this explains the funny looks.
Cuz fuel is limited and waste disposal is not solved, so unless pro nuclear people have a barrel of radioactive material in their places no one is listening to them.
I can relate had that reaction from my ex-fiance and her mother. And that was in coal mining region, where once every few days the ground shakes because of mining.
Not to mention the radiation coming out of coal plants. Yeah - did you know how much radiation coal plants produce? Which I might add is getting straight to the atmosphere. But NOOO some guy wanted to went home earlier and accelerated the reaction to quickly and now we're burning that black crap.
This 25 minute video can be summed up in one sentence: 'moderates' should support nuclear energy.
I like nuclear energy as much as the next but we all know it does have it's share of problems. Need to look no further than Fukushima or chernobyl to see it. I'm not saying we should give up on nuclear energy... but even japan who seems to lead in that department has their issues still. I guess the question is, how can we combat these issues, if say... a serious earthquake hits, or another tsunami. And if an accident does occur what can we do to stop it from progressing, like Fukushima which *still* has problems with leaking
The industry itself is already giving up on it.
For 30 years now more of the plants have been shut down than newly built - the managers know its far too expensive, even given the general socializatian and ignoring of the long-term costs (waste disposal, decomissioning).
By now it makes up no more than 4.6% of global power generation and the electricity costs more than water, wind and even solar.
@@nilesbutler8638 one reason nuke plants in the USA are closing early is due to their overpaying for their decommissioning--which they are legally required to do. Once there is enough money to decommission, it turns into a nest egg they can't touch until the plant shuts down. Sometimes the choice of getting [1) a sweet 0.7 billion dollars now], or [2) letting some guy 40yrs down the line get 5 billion, meanwhile providing ultra low carbon power to millions for decades] is just too great a temptation for your average CEO board.
@@shizmanbeat The Chernobyl accident is hilarious because of how many screwups they made combined with one little flaw in the control rods.
And now we have thorium and mini nuclear generation. There is no need to think that nuclear is even a threat to the enviroment or to people anymore.
But propaganda is way more difficult to die out than actual problems
I really appreciate the recent trend of people recognizing that nuclear energy is low-key awesome, especially considering more modern advancements in safety, energy output, efficiency, and sustainability.
Plus, the atomic age is just cool.
Man I love those vintage cartoons
I've dealt with a lot of climate change and when you said "if you're a climate change skeptic drop a dislike on your way out because the adults are talking" it was so satisfying.
I was a fan of this channel until KB mentioned nuclear energy...
That's when i became a BIGGER fan!
For me it was the other way around because he started to say obviously absurdly incorrect things.
@@TBFSJjunior bro, why do you need to comment this much. Come on. Please. Just do something else. I'm begging you
@@atm1947
BS just makes me do it.
If people spread less BS then I will comment less.
Deal "bro"?
@@TBFSJjunior Bruh, nuclear is much safer than stuff we use now. In all nuclear disasters that have ever happened, only ~100 people have died, whereas ~6,600 people die every year from mining coal. I’d recommend watching Thunderfoot’s nuclear videos, as he scientifically explains why it’s safer.
@@TBFSJjunior it's not BS, you're actively just commenting shit everywhere. Just stick to anti-nuclear pits and spread your propaganda somewhere else
Im in an Environmental Engineering class and I really want to send this to my teacher because everything that you went over in a 25 minute video took up about 60% of our 13 week course.
I hope your teacher did more than just talk about the state of things and explained how to do cost analysis and model these systems as well.
@@burstofsanity Yeah I said 60% in my original comment obviously my professor went more in depth into all of his points and we are doing a whole bunch of useless math lmfao
@@jgreenbelt I had my Bachelors in Civil & Environmental Engineering and by the time I rolled out, I had pretty much forgotten all but the very basics I learned about Environmental Engineering. The first year of my 'pro bono' works taught me more about the field than the entirety of my college years. Turns out, you hardly ever need those unless you are hell bent on getting into the academics and if you are considering that, might as well brace for some bending moment 👍.
@@kseriousr Im getting a bachelors in Civil Engineering and Im going into a structural engineering field so I could care less about the class Im taking its really just a requirement for my major.
TK UA just because a party overwhelmingly supports something doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Party loyalty is dangerous. Historically, things like gay rights, women’s rights, religion over science, abolition, modern psychology, etc were considered radical.
Don’t destroy the planet for your children and grandchild because of the literal group that votes for a deal SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND regarding haunting climate change. Big businesses tend to not care about climate change because their business depends on destroying the climate and they obviously are choosing their fiscal empire over the future of our world.
So if you are honestly okay with possibly destroying the world while you’re still alive, and 100% destroying it for the future generation, then you can fuss over who is voting for it. But realize how insane and extremist YOU sound by even going there lol. The green deal IS one of the better strategies to make earth remain habitable and safe for us to live in. If you can’t deal with the idea that you might be agreeing with a different political party for the sake of the planet, your family, loved ones, and the children of the future... you’re an idiot and on par with religious extremists, and probably the “far leftists” in terms of other extreme views you despise.
Think for yourself. Do not judge things on the basis of their political group. Or ANY ingroup. That is SO dangerous
Hmm, I used to be a skeptic, this has genuinely helped me not be a skeptic any longer. Thanks man.
Watch some potholer54 and Hbomberguy's video on the subject, they're great too.
The reality of the situation is that climate change is not nearly as bad as some people paint it to be but it’s certainly something to be aware of and try to address.
Al Gore’s predictions of there being no ice in the Arctic in 10 years and all the polar bears dying have been totally wrong. Many of the UN’s climate models in the 1990s have greatly over predicted the extent of climate change. Now there are people who claim climate change will be an existential threat in 12 years unless we support their policies.
Ultimately neither the deniers or alarmists are right. The proper way to address this issue is through pragmatic and reasonable steps like promoting nuclear energy, and applying renewables where it makes sense (instead of madly subsidizing it where it is unprofitable and where there isn’t the proper storage infrastructure in place... looking at you Germany)
@@eyeborg3148 The arctic ice is still melting, and it's still possible it could all be gone in a few years. And polar bears are extremely endangered right now, so Al Gore wasn't "totally wrong" as you said, though his timescales might have been inaccurate.
@@JM-us3fr Politicians need to stop scaring people with doomsday predictions of climate change. Those people telling you that the world is going to end in 12 years are just as bad as the ones saying climate change does not exist at all.
Also, polar bear populations have actually increased significantly after Al Gore's statements, so yes, he was wrong on that prediction.
@@eyeborg3148 bruh, the world isn’t gonna end, but you know what happens when ice that’s on top of land (Greenland & Antarctica) melts into the ocean? That’s right, the sea levels increase (try yourself melting an ice cubes outside a cup & watch the water level increase...), which will (over a long time) flood places & force people to relocate. And since most big cities are next to the ocean, this is a big deal.
"The adults are talking now" -KB, 2020
Instant like lmao
"It's the reason we are the only country that has this debate"
Me, an Aussie, with a PM that doesn't believe in climate change: UHHHHHHH YEAHHHH UM, HMMMMM
I don't know if he doesn't he just thinks jesus is going to fix it.
This proves that Australia is figuratively upsidedown, in addition to literally.
As Aussies, we tend to follow America so much that we inadvertently vote in nutters just as bad as those voted in the US
@@CassidyCope there is no literally.
@@mikhailv67tv Nah he's trying to speed up the end of the world so he gets taken up to heaven in the rapture.
Straight fire from the start. This video is a return to form.
I feel like you could've spent more time on nuclear energy, however great video anyway.
Salted Earth Hopefully he makes a full video on that topic!
Salted Earth maybe he will devote a video to it.
I bet he's still trying Todo enough research Todo it justice in its own video
True. He didnt talk about the con in the expensive cost of building a nuclear facility that's more expensive than other clean energy alternatives
Traplover That doesnt have to be a negative. Constructing a site puts alot of money in the area around it.
I'm always appalled at the reactions people give to nuclear energy as an option. I had this class in high school called "contemporary global issues," where at the end of the class we were given options for a final project. Some of us made art things depicting major issues of the year... I made a ten plus page essay on nuclear energy. I might be a bit of a nerd for doing that, but it showed some solid support for nuclear. Oh, let me rephrase that: the cons of nuclear energy are grossly exacerbated by those in competition in the energy market, including by supporters of other green options.
Nuclear plants are literally made mostly out of concrete. The fuel is pretty much only hazardous if you try to swim in it, which in itself would require breaking open a protective casing (I'm being facetious, btw, don't do anything remotely close to swimming in spent nuclear fuel).
P.S. I like your vids, even though you probably won't see this comment as I'm incredibly late to the party. But keep it up! I know I just found the only political channel I can watch without having an aneurism.
Concrete production is responsible for 8% of fossil fueld
@@Talonidas7403 and coal plants account for over 30%. Regardless, concrete is going to be in use for as long as populations expand, unless some equally economical solution can be found. A better way to get around those emissions is to simply build greener architecture, and have less urban sprawl.
@@Talonidas7403 There are ways to make concrete without using co2. Infact, most of the co2 made from concrete is from the energy required to make it. This is a really shitty point.
@@DaDARKPass Don't forget that when the limestone used in cement is broken down it literally creates it's own C02. That creates more emissions than the heating of the limestone.
There are other downsides that right now are not resolvable, like the extreme environmental destruction to mine the shit, that is at least on a level of coal, and often worse as you get less output per ton of moved ground.
Also the ressources are finite and at momentary use will not last beyond 100 years in the future. If we double western nuclear plants you can cut that down to 60-70 years, if China and India fully jump onto the train... Oh-oh.
Ideally we should use it as a stopgap to turn fully to fusion IF that ever gets feasable, but that is a big if...
And for the Waste.. Well there's always Florida, Georgia or Kentucky that can be used as Dump. Not as if anybody would notice
"Redefine the label" of 'Liquid Fluoride Thorium Molten Salt Reactors' to: *Liquid Molten Fluoride Asodium Omnipower* - or better, the acronym: *LMFAO* ..as in, "Our power is generated from LMFAO!" Who wouldn't want to say that?
Tmw when every day your your shiffling
Shuggg Party rock!
Go back to reddit. Right now.
That's the plot from monsters Inc 😂
We need to harness the energy of ROTFLs, to really make energy gains!
I am loving the content of this channel more and more. It is nuanced while taking a stance.
These videos are the most unbiased videos that still have a stance that I've seen.
Calling people who say global warming is a hoax wrong and saying they're causing all of us significant harm isnt a stance it's a fact
@Luís Filipe Andrade he takes a stance but shows arguments in without bias, even if he ultimately disagrees with them.
@Luís Filipe Andrade I took it to mean "unbiased in presenting the facts, and then taking a stance based on them"
You just covered more than all of my teachers have during quarantine
What are you studying? Energy tech?
@@luka1194 Id be less surprised if they, unlike him, got the data right. It shows at multiple points that he is no expert on the field and should have asked one before making the vid.
1955 Air Pollution Control Act: 0:40
1969: Cuyahoga River Fire: 2:10
1970: Environmental Protection Agency: 2:40
1972: Clean Water Act: 2:59
4:38 1985 Antarctic Ozone Hole
4:54 1987 Montreal Protocol (one of 4 universally agreed to treaties)
5:52 1990 Clean Air Amendments (regulation worked)
6:14 1992 Office of Environmental Justice
6:51 1992 UNFCCC
7:21 1997 Kyoto Protocol
11:04 2016 Paris Climate Agreement (no binding target)
12:44 2019 Green New Deal
15:30 2030 Net Zero Emissions
16:39 Cap and Trade
18:08 Renewables
18:52 Planet of the Humans
20:13 Nuclear
You are...OUR MVP!!!
"Much of that smog is from leaded gasoline, which is a crazy story for another time.."
Yes, please.
Raithea if you have time google Thomas Midgley Jr. he is accidentally responsible for a lot of our environmental problems
God damn, just when you started going nuclear the episode ended. Please consider doing a whole episode on it! Everey bit of information to counter the lies help
What lies? That its too expensive to use compared to renewables? That the tech isnt 100% secure and chernobyl and fukushima could very well happen again? That we don't have a long term storage? As long a SINGLE of these points remains true nuclear is not an option. And hey, im just an environmental technologies and power engineering student who specializes in this nuisance of a topic.
@@maxmustermann2523 "As long a SINGLE of these points remains true nuclear is not an option" - That's just like your opinion, man. And it's pretty stupid one.
@@maxmustermann2523 How the hell do you think will chernobyl happen again? Are you talking from your sophomore level knowledge on reactor safety? I don't think your personal preferences are valid even if you think your education is even remotely related to the subject of nuclear engineering.
@@maxmustermann2523 Also I do agree on long term storage of nuclear waste issue so don't take me for an enemy. It just amuses me that you think reactors are built so poorly that they could go kaboom any minute. That is pretty dumb on your part. You would have to justify that for it to be a valid concern.
@@maxmustermann2523 but there was literally zero nuisance in your rant.
Literally the last guy I expected to make a 69 joke
Really? He quotes popular memes very often
The last guy I expect to make a 69 joke is xi jinping
Nice
I'd love to like your comment, but it just now has exactly 69 likes :D
He has before, IIRC, there was one in the Heaven and Hell episode (the one on Paradise Lost not Dante's Inferno)
It's one of those things that everyone pretends to be too mature for, but nobody actually is.
@8:47 the term 'climate change' has been around since at least the 1950s. And of course the IPCC (guess what the CC stands for) was founded in 1988. "Global warming' is a related term used to describe one particular aspect of climate change. In context, the terms are not interchangeable.
"The adults are talking now" savage! My man is not playing around today!
Well it does just try to discredit anyone with doubts about the scale of climate change as children, but yeah man, "savage!"...
Ok have fun creating even more climate change deniers
CO2 is not a poison. Carbon is the basis of life on earth. During every major life explosion on earth (Cambrian etc) CO2 levels were ASTRONOMICALLY higher. During the Roman empire CO2 levels were higher than now....NO CO2 will not cause "ocean acidification"....the ocean floor/crust is composed of basalt, and other alkaline rocks/metals, which BEING ALKALINE automatically keep the PH balanced, no matter how much *physical acid* you even dumped into the ocean, let alone carbonic acid via CO2....(though obv I agree that would be a horrible thing to do, dumping acid in the ocean) no matter how hard we tried *us humans* could NEVER stop/alter the forces of nature. The climate is always changing, whether via pole shift/flips, solar flares, micronova, changes in the globo electric circuit/heliospheric current, etc.
@@Dimitri-Jordania You are incorrect, CO and CO2 are poisonous to animals. CO2 is a metabolic waste product, and our circulatory system and respiratory system have both evolved to remove CO2 from our body. Inhaling significant concentrations of CO or CO2 are immediately life-threatening, both molecules displace oxygen in the hemoglobin within red blood cells.
CO2 levels have been higher in the past. That is not an argument denying the danger of modern climate change. Humans did not exist the last time CO2 levels were this high, and given that Solar irradiance ON AVERAGE increases linearly with time, far more solar radiation is entering the atmosphere now than the last time CO2 concentration was this high. I'm going to need your source for CO2 concentration being higher during the time of the Roman Empire. Was this really a global phenomenon like modern CO2 concentration, or was this a local phenomenon like the Medieval Warming Period?
"automatically keep the PH balanced, no matter how much physical acid you even dumped into the ocean" citation needed given that you've confused buffers with bases. A buffer is an acid-base pair that resists pH change, a base can balance a low pH, but does not AUTOMATICALLY balance pH like buffers do.
Why should people trust what you say given your very limited grasp of basic chemistry and biology?
@@josephpayne113 Why don't we debate whether the Earth is flat or not? The fact of the matter is that all necessary evidence is available at this point, whether or not people accept reality is contingent on whether or not they accept the evidence itself. If you're a "skeptic" at this point, you're either ignorant of the facts, or WILLFULLY ignorant and denying facts and evidence you disagree with "politically".
What Knowing Better is getting at is that debating whether a problem exists or not doesn't solve said problem. You can't put out a fire if you spend the time needed to extinguish it debating whether or not the fire exists. A sane adult wouldn't try to save themselves from a freight train by putting on a blindfold.
As an european, I'm constantly shocked that in the US this discussion about the truth about global warming is even happening, instead of trying to solve the problem.
@
Bruno Ribeiro *Laughs in Austrian*
President Trump disliked your comment.
Same here in Mexico. While every political party is a mess, at least they're sane enough to recognize the effect of global warming. And, in fact, the latest supposed leftist administration has done very little in terms of environmentalism.
If the dumbass behavior of our right wing is still shocking you at this point, that's kinda on you, now. Any time you're baffled at our actions, stop thinking about the issue like a rational and/or ethical person, and start looking at it from the Great American Ideology: "How can I make more money off of this?" It explains so much about why we are the way that we are.
you can blame the fossil fuel lobbyists for this dumb debate
"The adults are talking" hits the like button like I'm making a beat
Same here.
Continuous to say nice when the number 69 comes up
4:04 _"It's pretty rare to find a single molecule of oxygen floating around."_ - I'm sure you meant to say _atom_
I think he meant a molecule with only a single atom of oxygen. Good catch, though
@@JamieJRJames A molecule can’t have just one atom.
Oxygen molecules are far more common than atoms since oxygen is natural unstable
Nah molecule is right. Oxygen usually goes around in pairs because of their polarity.
@@jaz1756 Yes, we call that a molecule
In school in the UK at least, we’re kind of taught that nuclear energy is the way forward so I guess that’s a plus
Only issue is that it is to expensive.
The UK government wants to build 7 new nuclear power plants and can't find anyone building them even when the guarantee to subsidize it with 300% the market value for electricity.
Maybe where you live, though here (in Scotland) I don’t remember hearing anything like that. It’s probably because the SNP has an anti-Trident agenda so they’re afraid any positive mention of nuclear inventions might work against that.
@@TBFSJjunior bro why are you commenting everywhere. Are anti-nuclear retards this committed??
@@atm1947
1st pls look up irony
2nd "retard" oh my god what strong arguments you got there. How could anyone survive that burn.
3rd I'm not "anti-nuclear". It is just one of the worst options and I'm honestly amazed how any honest and informed person could think otherwise.
(For example if we ever colognize an other planet and want to explore space travel, we might need nuclear energy. It would be a pity if we used it all up without need because ppl like you believed some propaganda.)
@@TBFSJjunior Solar and wind are more expensive.
The issue is disposal and natural disasters, don't want to build a nuclear power plant in cyclone alley for example, or anywhere near the ocean.
Holy shit, someone actually advocating for Nuclear power when talking about climate policy.
Good stuff!
On the whole debate on Nuclear, I say that, yes, we need to make Nuclear more widely used, but we need to build whatever there is room for. We're going to need everything that we can to try to reverse climate change. Solar, Hydro, Wind, Nuclear, Biohydrogen, Geothermal, and many more. This is going to take a huge effort, and we can't go around attacking each other on this, because whatever someone does to help is good for the world.
Yeah, but shouldn't we use them proportionally to their efficacy? The fact that nuclear is one of the best options but also the one that gets the least attention is inadmissible
I agree somewhat, despite being a big proponent of nuclear, I still believe large hydro is both cheaper and better where it can be used, due to greater flexibility and storage potential. Although you can’t just dam up anything unless creating lakes, wastelands, and destruction of ecosystems is your thing.
There’s a lot of potential and I think that since there is a great variety in kinds of energy we won’t have the energy producing inequality like we do now. For example countries that now don’t have oil reserves might have renewable/ nuclear potential. In the US states in the northern Midwest like North Dakota have lots of space that could be used for nuclear while states like Arizona have ample sunshine that could be used for solar. We have the options we just need to get the ball rolling.
Nuclear energy is the most efficient option and the cleanest by orders of magnitude. If we actually adopt nuclear, we won't need to mine silicon and metal for solar panels and turbines.
@@michelemorselli7047 The misinformation hurts my eyes (and brain). You know that nuclear is the least efficient non-niche version, yes? You pay 14+ cents for nuclear, while solar is hovering around 4.5 to 3 depending on location. Wind is around 3-4. And you know why? Because nuclear is not efficient compared to renewables. You also can't regulate them in the short term (minutes) since it takes weeks to boot them up. In the end we would need just as much storage and the fitting energy grid. At that point nuclear becomes a full blown meme. There is a reason why it is generally dismissed, and this is the biggest one. On top of that security and waste issues just add insult to injury.
The glacier about one mile from my house has retreated over a half mile back, that's how much it has melted in the last 100 years
So you are saying there is new real estate near your place?
-Capitalism
I gotta disagree with your opinion on the ending of the south park apology episode. I don't think the message was "Climate change is real but there's nothing we can do about it," I think the message was "Climate change is real but we're not going to do anything about it, because the things we can do are hard, and why do hard things when we could be like.. Playing red dead redemption 2?" I think the end was more a jab at the laziness of people in general, and a possibly prophetic statement that we aren't going to do anything about it, despite the fact that we could if we'd all just sacrifice a little bit.
Yeah, but how much is a little bit, and what are we sacrificing exactly.
@@MaelPlaguecrow6942 I can't answer that, I was just giving my interpretation of the end of that particular South Park episode. However I will say why does that matter? When you have the information that if you continue down the road you're on it is sure destruction, do you continue down the comfortable path that requires no change or do you do what is necessary to avoid destruction? Or do you say the sacrifice is difficult, maybe I'll only give up half the required amount- delaying the still assured destruction? Once you start asking things like "Yeah but what will I have to give up to save the planet that all foreseeable future generations will be trapped on?" (We're not going to be living on mars any time soon) you have to realize that you're part of the problem. It just doesn't matter when the stakes are that high. I think the real problem is mistrust for authority, "How do I know I'm not being asked to give up more than necessary?" Or something along those lines, idk, but if we have to all start living like the amish in order to save our planet, are you not willing? You would condemn the entire human race to destruction because of your comfort and unwillingness to change? That honestly is the question and the stakes.
@@fisharepeopletoo9653 hey - theres always mars ! It needs some global warming, we seem to do a good job at that.
Said with some Sarcasm for sure
@@MaelPlaguecrow6942 Very little. Our biggest issues are inefficiency and too much meat consumption. The price for doing nothing would be 10 times more, even in our lifetimes.
Eating meat once a week, and then mostly chicken.
Flying less, preferably not at all (which means stay on your continent or fly for double the price).
Living closer to where you work, not where you want to live.
And thats about it. The rest is win-win.
We either become a leader in Green energy or we spend a lot of time and money playing catch up with the country that is.
Or we slander the leading country while still pretending to be better then everyone else.
Lesh4537 that’s much more likely
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." Winston Churchill.
LarsBlitzer Abba Eban was the one who actually has that quote attributed to them.
I mean we are technically better in some fields.
I've been pro-nuclear for decades (I am kid of the early 80s so lived through cold war, and chernobyl) and aware of climate issues for about as long, and have always got so really annoyed that so many who want to see a solution to climate change have ignored it, or blindly believed the flat out lies surrounding it. So glad to see it touched on briefly here.
“BuT nUcLeAr BoMbS!” Many people don’t know that N(nuclear I’m using to make this shorter) power plants aren’t equipped to make or deal with supercritical materials which is needed for N-bombs, and things go awry with regular critical masses and usually cause a meltdown of a N power plant
But the economics of the nuclear industry worsened after Fukushima, according to a January report by the International Energy Agency and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency. The report estimates that equipment costs have risen 20 percent since 2010, in part because of heightened safety requirements-even as low-carbon wind and solar power got cheaper.
The problem with nuclear is that it releases energy that was safely trapped for eons in nuclear bonds, and converts all of that directly into heat, and heats up the water used for cooling. Nuclear doesn't produce greenhouse gas, because it doesn't need to. It just heats the planet directly.
@@supershluffy this is the stupidest comment I think I have ever seen. The sun is a giant nuclear reactor that creates an immense amount of heat just as you have mentioned. It would take centuries to produce the amount of heat energy by fission reaction as the sun radiates onto Earth in a day. Nuclear reactors are insignificant on the scale of a massive planet
@@nathanjohnson9464 For now, you are correct. But you should think more long term. The future needs of society will be many times higher than they are now. If we all push toward nuclear now, then this will lead to a path where the whole world builds more and more nuclear plants because of how cheap it will become. And when fusion technology comes, people will flock to that even faster, and there will be no stopping it. By being so cheap, nuclear energy will end up producing a significant percentage of the sun's rays.
Also, the hot water added into the oceans are already killing huge swaths of marine biology, and this imbalance to the marine habitat will have an even more devastating impact on the environment. I'm just saying we should push toward a solution that has no chance of backfiring down the road.
To be clear, I'm not saying we should avoid nuclear (if we can prevent marine habitats from being destroyed). I'm saying that we should treat it as a transition technology, rather than the endpoint, so that when other technologies become available, they won't be ignored the way nuclear is now.
My dad is a nuclear scientist and talked to me all the time growing up about how people discount nuclear power. He always said that whenever you ask a scientist they say it’s a political issue and when you ask a politician they say it’s an issue with the science and that’s why nothing gets done. When he eventually started working for the Nuclear Regulatory commission he would have to go to mandatory public hearings where environmentalists would scream at him for somehow destroying the environment and he told me that he thinks nuclear power will die off within my generation. Glad that people like you are out there to help people to now know better.
Thank you for bringing up Nuclear. It's safer than coal, even including the accidents.
NO, it is NOT at all. A coal burning plant catches on fire, nothing happens. A nuclear plant catches on fire, it blows up and then the entire sector of a state is uninhabitable for CENTURIES, a gigantic differential.
That’s a lot more rare though.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 Nuclear plants won't blow up when they catch on fire, coal plants would continue to burn for days due to the flammability of coal. Also, radiation after a nuclear blast disperses in days. Look how many people live in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki now, Chernobyl, Fukashima, and Three Mile Island are all safe to be around. Nuclear plants can't explode because the way the energy is produced is the opposite of an explosion. When a nuclear weapon is detonated, the atoms are split apart. Nuclear energy is created by fusing two uranium atoms together. If anything, it would implode, and the waste would be shrunk and not sent out. Also, though he says this in the video, more people die in coal accidents then in nuclear accidents. 100 people (according to the No Nuclear Project) died in Chernobyl, Fukashima, and Three Mile Island combined (those are the only nuclear accidents to have ever happened). More people die each month mining coal than that (6600 people according to the Department of Health & HS). Also, the range of radiation from a Hydrogen (Tsar Bomba) bomb is only the size of half of LA county.
@@equalopportunityoffender1816 Delusional! We have seen one nuke plant burn and burn and it continues to pollute, we saw another hit by a tsunami and blow up and then burn out of control, too, very dangerous and for years. This is very, very, very bad.
@@emsnewssupkis6453 The Chernobyl plant does not pollute anymore, they have completely contained its emissions, though some radioactive particles are still there, no more are being created by the plant. Fukashima did not blow up, it started releasing waste into the ocean because of a Tsunami. Fukashima's waste dispersed and people live literally across the street from the plant. Also, there have been 3 nuclear incidents in 70 years, there have been dozens of more deadly coal and oil incidents in the last 20 years. More people died at Deepwater Horizon (120 people) alone, than in the 3 nuclear incidents.
I can’t recall a single lesson in school about nuclear power... I can remember when we spent a week on Chernobyl tho :/
Fun facts about Nuclear accidents:
1) The Three Mile Island accident had more to do with vague light and button settings, leading to confusion from the engineers as to wether indicator lights signified a meltdown or not. If you look at a picture of Pres Carter walking through the control room, every vertical surface and computer hub is crammed with buttons and switches that do God Knows What. TMI is now used as a classic example of how NOT to design buttons in Human-Computer Interaction courses.
2) Chernobyl was originally designed to be a nuclear weapons production facility and was meant to deal with Nuclear Fusion rather than Fission, which are the main function of Reactors.
We now have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t when implementing Nuclear engineering, not to mention that our technology has come a LONG way in harnessing Nuclear Fission since the 1960s.
It's also worth mentioning that the RBMK reactors (used at Chernobyl) were designed with graphite moderators and an insanely high void coefficiant. These and other factors allowed them to run on unenriched uranium, but also made a disaster like Chernobyl possible
@@seankauder9721 This is all true but when you are trying to make inherently safe processes you can't just say "lol design reactors properly". I don't think the regulatory capacity of less developed nations is capable of safely building and operating nuclear reactors. The mistakes in Fukushima weren't even close to severe, and Japanese heavy industry is typically very high quality.
Yes, nuclear energy isn't the problem. Human incompetence is. Yet somehow that's exactly the point, isn't it? You will never be able to eliminate human incompetence. Just because the technology is different and safer, doesn't mean that nuclear accidents won't happen. There will always be accidents due to incompetence, so the question is whether or not risking the consequences is worth it. And it absolutely isn't.
Well the thing that matters isn’t really the risk of accidents. Solar wind and hydro energy sources are cheaper and can be built quicker than nuclear power plants (look at the plant that is being built in finland for example).
Extraction of nuclear fuel is also very bad for the environmet compared to the building of solar, wind and hydro energy sources.
The movie used in the video strongly misrepresents the facts as any person edjucated in climate science will say, solar, wind and hydro are already good alternatives and are evolving quickly.
So if solar, wind and hydro are cheaper, cleaner, faster and in addition also safer why do you advocate for nuclear my dude?
@@jeroenbouhuis9536 Well, because Nuclear is probably the best option there is. Solar and wind are limited to whether-or-not the weather is in your favor. Hydro facilities are massive and require a river and flowing water. With nuclear you get a lot more energy that is more efficient. I'm also not an expert in nuclear anything and am just the average Joe waltzing into this conversation
THANK YOU for bringing up nuclear, Ive had so many people look at me like I’m crazy for thinking it’s our best shot for clean energy in the near future. Plus, there is still so much potential in nuclear power that we still haven’t put into practice yet!!
Not to mention the fact that nuclear plants won't die for *ever* (about), and you can take it to secluded areas, space, the middle of the ocean...
It would be a great idea if nuclear weapons didn't use the same processing methods for their fuel.
That stuff makes the world powers very "unwilling" to let any other nation that want to go full nuclear.
@@Praisethesunson This is fair. I believe newer nuclear technologies (if we can get them working) use fuel that can't be nearly as easily converted into weapons.
@@Praisethesunsonlet nuclear weapons proliferate the world
“Feel free to drop a dislike on the way out, because the adults are talking, now...”
«drops a hard like»
you know, though I was never global warming denalist, there's really no need to be mean. it just makes you look like an ass and makes people less likely to listen
@@slkjvlkfsvnlsdfhgdght5447 We were kind and polite for decades, and it got us nowhere.
@@andrewxc1335 and being rude *will* get you somewhere?
slkjvlkfsvnls dfhgdght were you drunk with that 1st comment or do you not speak English
@@swiggedyswoner7315 what's wrong with the english in my first comment?
also, you yourself made a mistake, using "where" instead of "were"
and what did I do to you anyways that you would feel the need to insult me?
Isn't the point of cap and trade to make the externality of carbon emissions internalized, ie part of the cost? So in the example with one guy producing 9 tons and the other 1 for the same net 10, the thing that's changed is that the 9 creds guy now has to pay a bunch of money where before it was just free to pollute.
Correct, so it disincentivizes the worst polluters and incentivizes the more behaved ones by giving them more capital.
J M but then that just gives large corporations who basically have infinite money the power to pollute as much as they want. It just gives more powers to the rich
Shae Smith the second part of cap and trade is to then reduce the overall cap over several years.
Thats how its "argued" to work, but doesnt.
And is far more unreliable and complicated to establish and enforce globally than simply regulating reduction.
Markets are a fine tool for consumer goods (if solid trust laws and anticorruption regulations are established, otherwise, not so much),
but by far not an efficient solution for every problem. There is a reason privatized education or healthcare are more ecpensive and have worse outcomes than public, socialized ones.
I do think that cap and trade would be easier to get in place and keep working than something like a carbon tax, at least in the US. A cap and trade system could be established and set up to reduce the cap overtime in one round of legislation. With something like a carbon tax, if there are not immediate results, it is too easy for politicians to say “clearly this isn’t working” and to get the carbon tax removed when it comes time to increase the tax. There is nothing voter like more than paying less taxes.
They did talk about nuclear, but only to laugh it off.
Nuclear energy is by far the safest the cleanest and we could get so many jobs from it that can transfer coal miner into learning and understanding more technology and chemistry which can benefit the future, but politicians like Trump, Bernie, and Biden all laugh it off.
@@scrungycat407 But newer nuclear reactors create relatively renewable waste. There are also currently reactors made with the sole purpose of recycling the old waste from the old reactors into energy.
Even if it is a "short term" solution, it is better than the current alternative which is no solution.
@@akselevensen2763 Really the only problem with nuclear energy problem that we need to fix right now is the fact that we don't have an official central dumping site for nuclear waste. We have a site prepared but lobbyist stopped the finalization of the site and the movement of the waste there. Right now most of it is just sitting in temporary disposal sites where it could easily leak out and spread out across the country. A couple places in New England could contaminate entire sections of New York and Philadelphia and force us to evacuate millions of people from their homes in the event of a major leak.
Hahahaha!!! The safest!? Are you ill? The waste is more dangerous than any otger ambient substance and more expensive to store than it is worth. Not to mention NOT renewable.
Taylor Lee Many scientist have said that nuclear waste is more of a political issue than a scientific issue. We can easily put the waste away but people are suspicious of it still and I don’t blame the. Also did you watch the video?
A slightly less known and frankly slightly less helpful renewable is micro hydro. There have been some pretty important technology improvements that make it a lot more efficient and viable for those with access to rural areas and running water.
I've always loved those Hydro plants that lesser impact (for lack of a better word). Instead of building a dam, they dig a side channel out of the river with the plant built on it, that way the river flow isn't *completely* stopped, just *some* get's diverted.
"Solar and wind farms only last a few years before they need to be replaced"
The expected lifespan of a wind farm is around 20-25 years. For a solar farm it is 25-30 years. It would be nicer if it were 40 or 50 years, but "a few years" makes it sound like they'll break down in less than 10. The biggest problems with nuclear are the cost (skyrocketing while the cost of renewables has been plummeting) and the time taken to build it - 10+ years. We need low carbon energy to come online ASAP. Wind and solar farms can be constructed in a matter of months.
Well, I believe a major cost of nuclear plants is the uranium. We could use thorium as a replacement which is all around superior to uranium, and plus, said tests with thorium work as the Netherlands succeeded with its first thorium using molten salt reactor.
Life span in the real world is 10 to 15 years for wind turbine and 8 to 10 years for solar. The more years they run the less productive they become. After 10 years of solar the output is 20% compared to a new pannel with 100% output. Wind is the same. There are graphs on the internet you can see.
The Planet Of the Humans film flat out lied about solar and wind. They used solar panels from 2008 as their examples. It is like saying the iPhone sucks and using the iPhone 3G as the reason why.
Yea and multiple integrated lifecycle assesment studies have shown that even photovoltaic panels and wind turbines recoup the energy needed to build them in the first years of operation under the worst conditions. Additionally solarthermal panels for heating in areas that dont need AC during the summer are much better in terms of resource and energy required to build. For areas that need heating and cooling, heat pumps are a good option already, with a ton of improvements coming to the market in the next few years. I'm from Europe and I feel like we have quite the headstart, we can probably transition to photovoltaic, wind, solarthermal, geothermal and hydro energy using fossil gas and keeping nuclear power running until we have enough to turn the nuclear plants off without building new nuclear plants. The US may have to resort to nuclear, since the upfront investment is quite high for most renewable energy sources and you have to stay commited to get the returns from such huge Investments. Spain, France, Germany, Denmark and Norway have been really commited and twenty years later it shows in the energy mix.
Yo dis guy should read about molten salt thorium reactors. But for real, read about it it’s interesting
Although I can find your biases to be a little disagreeable, I'm glad you came to the conclusion of using nuclear power. If were being honest theres definitely people on both sides of the political arguement that fear monger the shit out of nuclear.
"We need Nuclear"
Germany: "Gotcha fam. Shut down Nuclear plants and up the coal plants!"
and then run around europe giving everyone shit for their polution
Yup, same here in Sweden, though mainly we import your German coal energy while shutting down our nuclear plants.
That was the most DISRESPECTFUL I've seen him towards anyone
And I am fully on board with it climate change deniers adult time
Lol same
Yeah it was kinda jarring at first but I don't blame him for being so aggressive. It's pretty annoying and I've been in the same boat with other topics.
I guess raising questions is bad
ariesegamesofwar I don’t deny it exists, I deny it being an extreme threat that will kill all of us. Am I a denier?
@@flyingturret208thecannon5 I'm with you, and I think that's the problem, Knowing Better had a lot of good things to say in this video, but throwing that much shade right up front makes him look very condescending, almost like calling people deplorable.
I love the new character of "random dude in the doorway" I think he's got a very distinct personality
He's not taking it from anybody in this video. *The adults are talking today*
Nice, savage af at the same time
Discredit anyone with doubts about the scale of climate change as children, but yeah man, "savage!
Boo
@@Tuuminshz because if 2020 you still doubt the threat of climate change you've got a problem.
The time spent debating its legitimacy is time that we could be using to solve it
@@Tuuminshz if you deny it's happening you are less intelligent than a child and have been duped worse than someone with the intelligence of a child
All his talking about is Big Government Policies!!
It's actually insane that we went through all the dangers and growing pains of discovering and utilising nuclear energy and now that we know how to use it safely and have better technology to manage it we just kinda decided to stop...
As a person who considers himself to be on the right I was expecting to see lots of socialist left wing propaganda. But this video was very informative and laid out some facts I didn’t know. Thanks
Robert Smith Just don’t let characterizations sway your political views. People are often divided based on straw men of the other side. Left wingers are rational people.
@@clayton7757 The far left is just as irrational as the far right. The difference (in the US at least) is that the whole country is so far to the right that they don't really remember what true "far left" actually is, and they use the term to describe people and ideas that are very firmly in the center by any non-American (or even historical American) measure.
And of course that's somewhat by design. People on average tend to shy away from both "extremes." But as they redefine "extreme left" more and more toward center, the new "center" also moves right. At some point (if trends continue) we'll start defining moderate right as "extreme left" and over time the difference between the redefined extremes approaches zero and everyone ends up very near the extreme right. I'm sure that sounds like paradise to those who are already on the extreme right but everyone else is sitting there shaking their heads at that statement as if I was insane.
Yet its been happening. And continues to happen. Reagan's policies for example were far more similar to Obama's than they were to Trump or even Bush2. And its not because Reagan was a dirty communist leftie. Its because Obama is actually center or even slightly center-right by any normal definition, but the media has simply changed the definition to portray Obama as "far left" and in doing so shifts the whole (perceived) spectrum to the right. The likes of Trump would have been seen as drooling craziness even by the right under America's own standards a mere 50 or so years ago.
That’s why it’s called A Moderates View.
If only more people could be like you and listen to other viewpoints, even if at first it seems like it'll just be "propaganda," we'd have far more educated people and people who have far more reasonable opinions.
@@altragWhen someone characterizes Obama or The Clintons as "far left" I just roll my eyes.
*crosses fingers* _Mention nuclear power... Mention nuclear power..._
YES!!! FINALLY!!!
Very minor correction. A “single molecule of oxygen” is O2. You mean an atom.
O2 is oxygen oxide :D, but seriously it should be dioxygen
O2 is a molecule. O is an atom. Both are commonly referred to as oxygen.
A fun fact about the lane merging analogy in the end is that the most effective way to merge would actually be if EVERYONE waited until the last moment to merge because then you're actually using the full capacity of the road, which reduces traffic jams in the areas behind you. I was even taught that this is how you're supposed to merge in driving school.
That’s only true if there isn’t a bottleneck at the merge site, when there usually is.
If there IS a bottleneck, going all the way before merging makes it worse, since the aggressive, sharper last minute merges require even lower speeds (to the point of stopping sometimes).
@@MrSpleenfaceit's also a dick move.
THIS SHOW IS AMAZING!!!! Finally someone notable on YouTUBE acknowledged that nuclear is the way to go!!! Because it is the most safe energy source we have. I'm very sad about how most people view nuclear energy and I'm sure the media's portrayal of it had a massive effect on the public. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER WORLD!!!! GO #nuclear
ody_krrr Yes I thought very same thing! It’s about time nuclear power got a mention!
If you mean you finally found someone as misinformed and dumb as you... maybe. Many of his assumptions are incorrect due to a false premise. If you ask students studying, or profs teaching in the field, you will quickly realize why nuclear is dismissed. By the time we have fixed all of nuclear powers downsides we would be running on renewables for a decade already. And much cheaper too.
4:02 - “It’s pretty rare to find a single ATOM of oxygen floating around.” - not “molecule”.
free radicals in the atmosphere are usually still paired with hydrogen, so molecule is correct
Ben how ‘usually’ though
Technically speaking he could be right with molecule, but I do suspect he misspoke.
Molecule of oxygen is correct as the vast majority of oxygen found in the atmosphere is in its diatomic state which is two oxygen atoms bound together in one oxygen molecule.
George Clancy No. They are talking about the fact that he said “it’s pretty rare to find a single molecule of oxygen floating around”.
I must add that California plans on phasing out nuclear power while also being the "leader" in US green energy production.
The Leaking Shed lol
California is in a unique situation here, In which it has neighbors like Nevada, Oregon, and Washington that have massive export-only hydropower projects, and about 2GW of unused and built geothermal capacity, allowing the state to reach 60% Renewable without too much work. The state also has 1.4GW of Geothermal projects under construction or in final planning stages. It also has 2.6GW of hydro under construction, or entering new 50 year transmission contracts with the state. This will allow the state to reach 75-80% Renewables in the next 5-10 years. The state is then only short about 4GW in capacity, about 3GW can be met with new hydro-storage projects. The other 1GW can be met through the state's untapped geothermal resources in the imperial basin. Unlike some places **Germany cough cough** CA has a plan to phase out nuclear. Whether you think Geo and Hydro are worse than nuclear is a diffrent question, but they do have a plan.
@@danielnarevich7579 So, it's okay that nuclear is being phased out in California? There's no "perfect renewable", but I do believe hydro and geothermal have major drawbacks.
Hydroelectric usually requires damming a river...not great for the local immediate environment.
Geothermal is unreliable like solar and wind and works in even fewer places.
I'm not trying to argue with you, but I believe expanding all our renewable energy sources is useful. I want more solar panels on top of schools, malls, factories, and homes. I think wind turbines should be strategically placed through mountain passes (especially the coachella valley). I want newer, advanced forms of nuclear energy (especially thorium reactors) and I'm open to less developed sources like geothermal and even anaerobic digestion (especially as large organizations are pursuing "zero waste").\
Again, not trying to argue, I'd love more information on this.
@@danielnarevich7579 Don't forget Arizona, with the LARGEST nuclear power plant in the US which sells most of it's power to CA. (Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station) CA *is* going to become much like Germany- needing to buy more and more power from it's neighbors, with a decent amount coming from nuclear. Moreover, take a look at Real Engineering's video on the topic of CA's Energy plan, which has massive issues as far as sustainability, reliability and cost.
Moreover, that nuclear power plant that they're shutting down in CA (Diablo Canyon) generates roughly 10% of the state's power... So there's that problem as well.
I'm an environmentalist and an environmental professional. I've been in coal and gas plants. Nuclear is the future.
Thank you for talking about nuclear! No one ever believes me when I talk about how not terrible it is!
Terrible? Nah.
Rather - high residual risk, with completely unsolved longterm costs, with a finite fuel reserve completely inadequate for feeding humanities energy needs - and by now 3-5 times more expensive than wind or water. Even given the full socialization of risks and longterm costs.
.
Its a dying industry, and rightly so - plants have been shutting down on a higher rate than built for three decades now because the management knows that very well.
@@nilesbutler8638 To what high residual risk do you refer?
@@nilesbutler8638 1. What risk? Nuclear Energy is by far one of the safest ways to produce energy, especially considering today’s technology. Add that to the fact that new tech such as small modular reactors are available (just not licensed) which effectively reduce any operational hazards to extremely minimal risk. In practice, nuclear power holds almost no risk at all.
2. The only cost that can’t be resolved is proper government support. If the government were to provide the type of support (and hopefully much more at that in the near future) that wind and solar are getting you’d see money rolling into the industry as investors realize its promise. With proper RnD not only will we see tech improvements but also dramatic cost reductions from efficiency and economies of scale.
3. First of all, nuclear is only part of the solution, suitable for complementing a complex system of sustainable energy sources. Maybe only 50% energy will be nuclear, while water solar and wind make up the other 50%. Fuel is not a question, uranium is abundant, and you don’t need that much in volume for it to work. New tech have even allowed for parts of the nuclear waste to be reused as fuel. A long term (as in several tens of years) could even center around extracting uranium from oceans. The opportunities are truly endless, but only if ur willing to think bigger.
4. Ur arguement of “it’s a dying industry” is based off of surface level observation and not underlying realities. The reality is, plants are closing bc the government refuses to extend contracts on perfectly safe plants. The government refuses to provide the right support or even the right regulation for companies to even think about upgrading or updating their existing plants. Often the owners would rather leave now with profits than to pursue more investment without proper gov support, not because the application of nuclear itself isn’t promising and beneficial to society environmentally and economically. Nuclear already makes up 20% of the US’ power production. Would phasing it out be productive in our efforts to achieve sustainable energy? (No it wouldn’t it would be irresponsible and entirely counter productive). Frankly nuclear energy is indefinitely a piece of the puzzle when it comes to solving the climate crisis and ignoring would be a disservice to society and future generations
I've actually just come from watching planet of the humans, and i'm so glad I watched this. I really respect Michael Moore and when they suddenly mentioned overpopulation, i was shocked. I'm actually beginning to really worry about ecofascism because I'm hearing people outside the internet talk about overpopulation in fear without really understanding it. I did population dynamics at uni as part of an ecology degree so i'm lucky enough to have a decent understanding but not many people do, and without careful explanation, population control policies seem like the obvious option to most people.
Why should we not be worried about overpopulation? We have finite resources on our planet and our current economic system requires infinite growth through a steadily increasing supply of people to buy and consume things. Do you think that the planet can sustain 10+ billion people now, let alone in 30 years when we have millions of climate refugees? All of these people need food, most people like meat so that's an increase in agricultural emissions. I made a longer comment elsewhere in the thread, but if the concept of overpopulation is so contentious we are in serious trouble. Medicine has let us live far longer than we would have previously; humans in their natural state did not live this long and had more children due to survival and infant mortality. I think that the shock about overpopulation has to come from an economic viewpoint because limiting ourselves to replacement level birthrates would do our future generations a lot of good.
Saying we can't feed 10 billion people in a reply to a video that just said we already grow enough food is a little weird.
@@CheeerriOH most developed countries are at or under replacement rates.
Most developing countries are at or just above replacement rate.
As the world continues to develop our problem wont be overpopulation. It will be aging populations due to shrinking birth rates and smaller subsequent generations, our population will drop once the world develops.
@TheBrodsterBoy I did watch the video. You've ignored my point. Agricultural practices contributing to feeding those billions are the problem. Cattle emissions are a massive part of global emissions. Now unless you are advocating everyone in the world go vegan which would be incredibly unlikely but very helpful, just feeding the people alone contributes to this climate change. And just because we produce enough food doesn't mean it is spread equally with access for everyone. We need distribution networks, supply chains that all rely on power and supply and demand principles to continue. You can see this right now with the excess potatos in Idaho now, where thousands of tons of potatos are being left to rot due to supply line issues (restaurant industry is declining due to the closures while retail industry is experiencing shortages in some places).
I'm trying to engage with the topic a little more than one line responses.
@@Ratchet4647 I agree that in most developed countries its around that 1.8 or so rate per family level. I'm not sure that we will be able to develop the poorer countries fast enough to slow the growth. Africa and West Asian countries stand to cop some of the worst effects of climate change that could lead to massive climate refugee numbers when the resources in their countries are depleted.
Shrinking birth rates in developed countries will be an interesting phenomena as we will see how governments balance their capitalistic infinite growth mantras with the reality of consistent recessions.
nuclear is great. It is economically the winner over most other forms of energy today. France is investing heavily in it despite the stigma. We need to do too.
And Phil Plait did a TED Talk that included a nod to the Spent Fuel Reactors that are being researched.
*cries in german
Actually while this sounds true, it really is not.
France has slowly been deactivating old reactors and not replacing them. It is unclear if France has the political will.
Yes, their energy share is largely nuclear and compared to other industrialized countries this most definitely is a strength, but the share itself has largely stagnanted.
A shame really, we could use more reactors.
We have some new ones down the pipeline but I can only be cautiously optimistic.
Edit: Otherwise your comment is spot on! It is a shame, people are afraid of nuclear for dumb reasons generally.
@@twenty-fifth420 The best reason why nuclear sucks: The costs. Renewables are just cheaper and that by a landslide, without any of the major risks and issues associated with nuclear.
Nuclear: 14+ euro cent/kwh
Solar: 4,5 cent
Wind: 3-4 cent
Yeah... nuclear is a great option if you happen to have no clue about the economic side.
Don't forget geothermal energy and tide energy and all the other options we have to get energy out of nature. And how difficult it actually is to combine nuclear with renewable energy. Because you can't just turn off a nuclear reactor that easily or turn it on for that matter.
17:18 "Collectively you're still at ten" Ah, the same as a girl rating me and my friend on the club once
You didn't just roast deniers, you dumped gasoline on them and lit them on fire.
Much respect to you man lol
God forbid people have different opinions
@@jeffslote9671 Having a different opinion and having a wrong opinion aren't mutually exclusive.
@@CosmicalAstro Doesn't mean he's correct either
@@TKUA11 Weather changes everyday, not climate
As a GenX-er, we went hard on climate change.
We even had shows like Captain Planets to drill the idea in.
Then Bush got "elected".
@Tamara K Because it was another electoral college "win", when the popular vote went to Gore. On top of that, it all came down to who won Florida, which was basically a tie. The votes needed to be recounted, but the Florida governor Jeb *Bush* (yes, George's brother) rigged it up so Bush would end up winning it. Bush might have won it legitimately, but honestly we'll never know because of the sleazy efforts of Jeb and co.
@Luís Filipe Andrade And in no other country, for good reason.
"Chosen by the prince/count electors", like in Holy Roman Empire of german nationality, sound more better in my oppinion but OK
@Luís Filipe Andrade There's no nation besides the US with an Electoral College.
@Luís Filipe Andrade Sure, but it does somewhat adulterate democracy in the US. Intentionally, I've been told; the founding fathers allegedly weren't too keen on the unwashed masses electing an incompetent, so they added a layer of indirection supposed to prevent that. Which, in hindsight, seems a bit ironic.
Anyway, it's fair to say Bush was elected, it's a bit of a stretch to say he was elected by the people. Which kind of makes his election an "election" in a supposed democracy.
17:30 simple, don't give out 5tons per person. Price of credits go up, those who can cut cheaply do and sell their credits. Next year, reduce credits again.
You're really not giving this idea a fair shake.
"It went from looking like this, to looking like...look outside"
Me: where is everybody?
Thorium reactors look very promising. Any thoughts on doing an episode on that one.
That would be awesome. I remember Sam O' Nella making a video about how great Thorium is, and I'd love to see a more in depth discussion about it.
Apparently they have their own share of engineering problems but it looks hopeful
I wish I could get more information on this type of fission reaction. From what I have seen we are closer to this becoming commercially viable then fusion.
9:28 no, you're not the only such country of course. Denialism is rampant in Russia for example.
Ilia Ershov Not as rampant as in America
Difference is that Russia actually stands to massively *gain* from climate change.
Like someone said, Russia will benefits from the climate change due to its geographical disadvantage of lack of access to warm water ports.
Thank you for talking about nuclear power. No one ever does.
I'm with you on everything except the South Park part! The point of the end of the 2nd ManBearPig episode wasn't that there's nothing we can do to stop it. The point was that we'd have to give up very minor conveniences (soy sauce and red dead redemption 2), but people are so selfish that we choose not to.
I think it’s also the same people denying it exists before, now saying “it exists but whatayagonnado?” And shrugging.
@@thepebblesexplore83 thats true.
Totally with you on this! I even just commented pretty much the same thing you did, only to scroll down and find your comment. To me that was a pretty obvious takeaway from the ending of the episode.
Right exactly, the point was that there's everything Americans CAN do to stop it, but nothing we WILL do to stop it. I'm kinda baffled what his issue is, like does anyone expect an episode of South Park to end with everyone doing the right thing?
That finale with nuclear power was among the most based things I have ever heard in my life
Bet he does a whole video about nuclear power and nuclear weapons
@@abhipatel2162 No. Based. I agree with it (and you should too)
@@Praisethesunson T H O R I U M R E A C T O R S
I agree with absolutely everything in this video EXCEPT your ending traffic analogy. THE ZIPPER METHOD IS THE SUPERIOR MERGING METHOD! No need to complicate the process prematurely by merging before its necessary and causing stops and starts that have ripple effects down the highway.
Point taken, though.
Every time man. I'm always screaming "ZIPPER! ZIPPER!" in a tense merge situation.
This has become one of my favorite episodes.
This channel is one of my favorites. Tons of investigation and profound understanding. Otherwise couldn't make it sound so simple.
He ain't post a vid for like a month then he roasts tf out of people who dont believe climent change
It isn't that hard to roast people who deny facts.
@@spoople_doople right, even if there's facts that challenge manmade climate change amirite?
Alinea Euros Those aren’t facts
You can't even spell "climate" correctly, you left out your article, used "ain't" incorrectly and forgot your apostrophe, so the roast is deserved, don't you think?
Knowing Better's style
We need more Knowing Better in those dark times!
I feel like the rationale behind Cap and Trade has been presented a little "unfairly":
First of all, it is a system designed to set incentives to reduce your emissions. Some firms have cheaper options than others for reducing their carbon footprint. By being able to trade the "carbon credits", a market price forms and "determines" which firms will sell their credits and which will buy some, namely those will sell who can reduce, say, 1 unit of emissions for cheaper than that market price of credit. Therefore, those firms with cheap reduction opportunities reduce first. The trick here is to set the amount of "carbon credit" just so that reduction HAS to happen: if you just hand out as much credit as your economy happens to blow out, nothing will happen obviously.
Second, if nothing changed after that, the situation would not become better, of course. However, the amount of carbon credit is reduced every period by the government. This could happen through simple collection of some of that credit, or (what would be more popular with most industries and therefore politically more viable) via the government buying credit back at market prices (or lower, if that could be enforced...): Point is, without the government regularly and rapidly reducing the amount of available carbon credit, this system would just be like you presented it: not doing anything! However, if a government would follow through with the system, this could contribute to the reduction of emissions.
Of course, there are flaws with this approach: The actual production of emissions would have to be measured and non-compliance would have to be punished, which would add costs for enforcement. But honestly, so does every regulation. Also, the fact that by buying back carbon credit, you give those firms financial aid which have the hardest time reducing their carbon footprint, might in practice lead to financial support for the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, which might not sit right with activists. Also, when looking at actual real world attempts at introducing such a system like in the EU's case, the system failed because the amount of certificates ("credit") were not reduced over time. After every cheap measurement had been implemented, the amount of certified pollution and actual emissions about matched, which let their market price plummet. ALSO, the system contained legal loopholes, allowing firms to buy certificates and then write them off as lost profit and receive a tax cut WHICH OBVIOUSLY SHOULDN'T HAPPEN. Take-away here is, that it might be quite tricky to actually implement such a system.
This is also why I put "unfairly" in the first sentence: In theory, Cap and Trade can contribute a lot, in practice though it has not proved itself useful yet as far as I know.
So, yeah, long story short, I know that you cannot attribute a huge part of your video to such a minor detail, but I think, as I was here anyway, I could contribute my two cents to it. Cheers whoever actually read through this! Feel free to correct me on anything, I wrote mostly from memory and what I've learned in several courses over the years.
P.S.: What I didn't mention: Such a system of course requires also harsh financial punishments for firms which do not comply with their carbon limits. These fines would have to be costly enough to make reductions worth it (in the long run). Otherwise, why reduce your emissions when the penalty is cheaper?
Trouble is it rewards large companies (and countries) to the detriment of the smaller ones (and taken to an extreme, could even be used to stifle competition. Say for example Tesla buys up all of the carbon credits they can find. Perhaps that pushes people to shift toward electric vehicles and battery-backed renewable farms. Conveniently exactly the products Tesla sells. (Not that Tesla is really large enough to do that on a significant scale, but just as an example. And there are companies that _are_ large enough to do so.)
I'm more in favor of the carbon tax idea myself. It certainly has problems as well, but its a much more balanced system (in the sense that companies know exactly how much they will pay per ton of CO2 whereas the C&T system makes it an open and therefore unpredictable market.) The biggest problem though is that it doesn't actually cap carbon emissions -- companies can continue polluting as much as they want as long as they're willing to pay for it (which in turn just means passing the cost onto consumers.) In the short term, the extra cost will drive companies to try and minimize carbon usage (so that they can keep prices lower than their competitors) but once that hits a new equilibrium point, a carbon tax just becomes another consumption tax and no longer has much environmental benefit. Still, as the problem continues to creep up on us and we continue to ignore it, eventually short-term solutions are going to be the only remaining solutions because there will no longer be a long-term to worry about.
The biggest problem by far with nuclear is the one that almost no one talks about, and that is the huge cost of constructing the plants in the first place - nine times the cost of wind and solar for the same amount of gigawatt hours per year. Even when you add in the cost of storage, it is still something like 3-4 times as much.
You need to factor in maintenance costs. Solar is like being an herbivore. Nuclear is being a carnivore.
You’re forgetting the fact that those energy types are subsidized by the federal government, whereas nuclear is not which is why it’s so much more expensive. It’s quite cost competitive (although it is more expensive to a degree due to maintenance) without such subsidies and if the government spent more on it it would be leagues better than them. In addition, cost doesn’t matter much when the cost of doing nothing is way greater, we can save trillions and millions of lives by switching to nuclear.
also dirty mining of nuclear fuel, and its transport
Is uranium fuel that dirty to mine? Lithium seems to be much more, but both can be found in seawater.
@@tahaymvids1631 it's not even necessarily government subsidies, so much of the cost comes from the fact that each plant and reactor is custom to that specific plant. Large part of the reason why you see many pro-nuclear advocates support SMR's, (Small Modular Reactors) which allow many of the same exact reactor design to be produced at some sort of scale.
Thank you so much for everything you do. You don’t know how important it is for me and I’m sure people like me to hear such knowledgeable caring voices right now.
I don't know. I haven't seen the movie, but i trust that you put the pertinent clips in your video. First off: nobody said overpopulation. I also didn't hear anyone going Malthus or even worse. But I also didn't hear that the two big pillars of the problem are population and per capita consumption. That should have been mentioned, granted.
i don't think that it is possible to argue that population growth will raise the strain. Population is one of the factors in the problem, saying that it isn't seems wrong.
its obvious that having less population would stem the bleeding but who gets to say who should control population as he mentioned it isnt fair when first wolrd countries gete to dictate the growth of developing ones
Overall, a very good video. You made a lot of salient points on nuclear energy, and various emission-limiting policies (such as cap-and-trade). I also appreciated your criticism of the "overpopulation" argument.
However, there is one point where you made a mistake, and that's on the viability of wind & solar. For one, those farms do not "only last a few years before they need to be replaced." The average lifespan of solar panels - and solar farms - that are in current production is around 20 to 30 years. Wind turbines do require more regular maintenance, but they, too, last quite a bit longer than "a few years." Similarly, they amount of toxic byproducts produced by them is negligible, and solar panels in particular are between 90 to 97% recyclable at end-of-life.
And finally, about energy storage. We've already negated the "unreliability" of wind & solar with broad distributed energy storage methods. I'm surprised you've never touched on liquid air/cryogenic energy storage: it's scales extremely well, is cheap, and environmentally friendly, while relying on very well-founded technology, and no special materials. This more than makes up for on-demand energy needs. The problem here isn't a technological one, or even economic: it's a matter of political will.
Small footnote at 15:45
Growing forests is NOT a sustainable solution in any way. Its kinda like continuously adding dry sponges to soak up water while the tap is still running. We cant infinitely cover the world in forests and we would have to do so if we wanted to solve our CO2 production by planting more forests.
As for nuclear: yeah its a good placeholder thats way superior to fossil fuels and way more achievable than the current renewable energies. However, it should be a placeholder to bridge the gap towards something far greater: fusion. Yes, i know its also nuclear but people generally mean fission when they say nuclear.
[holds up rubber dog poop] FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!
When you see a lot of South Park clips and think, "is he going to promote nebula by talking about the South Park intro?"
Also, why was the US Government so effective then and not now?
Because the parties in the US were occupied by reasonable people who had honest disagreements. They were not out to gaslight and deny truths and vilify everyone on the other side. This all started with Reagan and Trump is the epitome of that. Social media amplifies their loud voices and they provide a scapegoat for people's problems placing blame where it doesn't belong, such as immigrants and refugees.
The leaders of the Republican party of today have no principles except winning and are ready to do whatever it takes to achieve that. And their allegiance is to no one except their donors.
GOP
Government is not the same as legislature
To add to what Sampat said, the US government is designed to work via Committee and Consensus. Parliamentary Systems accept partisanship as a reality of politics and are thus structured to give a majority party as much power as possible (without being too dangerous) to enact their vision of policy for the next four or five years. Presidential Systems, though, are structured so that parties must come to agreements or compromises on issues. Committees are created when people have ideas, consisting of members from both parties, who explore an issue and policy, then present their findings to both of their party leaders, stating they have the support of members of the other party who are on this committee, and so the bill proceeds to more formal debate in the floor of congress. Bills formed this way succeed far more often than not, and the Clean Water Act was one such bill-by-committee. When these agreements can't be attained, dealmaking is another option. Trading agricultural subsidies for tariffs.
So when that polarization hits, these committees aren't created or aren't as successful, and the Presidential System breaks down. France avoids this by having constitutional measures designed to prevent party polarization, so they can still have a Presidential System that's effective. Perhaps the saddest example of the death of Committe and Consensus Government was the 1990s immigration reform. This was several years in the making, and was led by one of the greatest statecrafters of the modern age, Representative Barbara Jordan. It intended to completely overhaul visa distribution, streamline asylum application, tighten security, and support the immigration courts, all to make legal immigration easier and more permissive, while at the same time resting fears of illegal immigration without resorting to police state tactics. It fell through, though. Expanding legal immigration was smeared as a plot to depress wages or import mexico wholesale. The immigration reform collapsed and the committee disbanded in 1996. Those fears went uncalmed. The issue went unresolved. The immigration courts remained strained and unfair. Exactly 20 years later, Donald Trump would be elected on a mandate to curb illegal immigration.
@@SampatK164 believe all women, unless they're accusing Joe Biden.
When he mentions nuclear, all I think is Sam O’Nella’s video
I disagree on Cap and Trade being net zero. Since you are allowed to sell your credits for profit, you are incentivized to emit less. The high emitters, since they now have to pay for emissions, are incentivized to emit less too.