Do we need nuclear power to stop climate change?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2021
- A nuclear apocalypse is low risk but a climate catastrophe is already underway. Environmentalists are increasingly arguing to keep nuclear power plants open - but should we?
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
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International Energy Agency roadmap for net-zero emissions by 2050:
www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-...
Safest sources of energy:
ourworldindata.org/safest-sou...
The costs of Germany's nuclear phase-out:
www.nber.org/system/files/wor...
static.agora-energiewende.de/...
Public opinion:
www.researchgate.net/profile/...
Nuclear waste:
worldnuclearwastereport.org/w...
Reporter: Ajit Niranjan
Video editor: Madmo Cem, Adam Springer
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer
Dear community, thanks for the comments! We really appreciate the discussion.
In this video, we looked at how nuclear power makes decarbonization easier - keeping old plants online is cheap, and building new ones can stabilize a clean power grid with baseload electricity. We debunked some common myths, like the idea that nuclear power has been dangerous. We also explored societal trade-offs, like the cost of building new plants (compared to renewables) and how securely the waste should be stored. The IPCC and IEA show nuclear power growing in their decarbonization pathways but not becoming a big part of the overall energy mix.
Could a new generation of reactors change that faster than they think? China plans to bring the world's first commercial, waterless molten salt reactor online in 2030. What would you like to know about the new generation of reactors designed and prototyped today? What do you think the public should know about them? Can they be scaled up fast enough to decarbonize economies by 2050? Let us know your thoughts below!
Thank you for the documentary - not perfect, many undebunked myths left, but it's a start. Consider the following: which would you rather be? A wild animal, say a hare, fox, deer living in the Chernobyl area or one living in the areas being flooded, burnt, or undergoing heatwaves? This alone tells that the cost of not using nuclear energy is thousands of times worse than the worst disaster caused by nuclear energy, with that many times more deaths and suffering that are only beginning...The radiation from Chernobyl is many times more survivable than the floods, wildfires and heatwaves. Starting new reactors is expensive, but a lot cheaper than more of these disasters (which are only beginning and will get much worse if we don't reduce carbon emissions now). I wish the wild animals had a voice, because I know what they would choose, unlike misinformed humans.
I think you should do a video on various types of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
Where I live (Ontario, Canada) I get reliable nuclear power (24/365) for US$0.067/kWh with global warming impact of 12grams CO2(e)/kWh versus PV solar with 45grams CO2/kWh. (according to the IPCC) In fact, wind, with a 26% capacity factor and solar with a 17% capacity factor drive up our grid CO2 because they need Natural Gas back-up at 490grams CO2/kWh. We have eliminated coal from our grid (2014) and cancelled all renewable subsidies (2018). First SMRs to be on-line 2028. Maybe we can eliminate gas back-up then. We are planning a number of SMRs for different applications, micro reactors for remote locations, high temperature reactors for process heat and waste burners to re-use the old reactors spent fuel.
Electricity for you home is only part of the problem. De-Carbonizing the rest of the economy is where high temperature reactors can really help.
@@falsch4761
This is 100% false, we are still the biggest exporter in Europe by a lot. We also have still an increase in renewables and a constant decrease in coal, oil and fossil gas.
Also our CO² per KWh has also been going down every year, even though the conservatives did everything they could to keep coal and nuclear power going.
Oh and your assumption that we closed those plants early is also false, they all have been way over there planned age and only kept running by the government and all safety organizations turning a blind eye on them. Which is how nearly all nuclear plants are running even the newest ones.
@@falsch4761
The did not plan conservative. They planned 40 years and we now know that even 20 to 25 years would be long as everything corrodes a lot faster under radiation and the pressure chambers are cracked like glass under hot water.
@@hewdelfewijfe
Yes they have huge CO² costs. Building them and then deconstruction produces so much CO² that a coal plant can run a few years only to break even.
Then there is the need for oil, coal and fossil gas plants that produce the demand.
You can never have more than 60% nuclear in a grid the rest needs to be taken by other fossil plants.
Also you need energy to actively store the waste for billions of years that is also more energy and so in a nuclear grid more fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is stuck in the 70s when no more plants were built. Technology has improved, and we can build better, safer plants.
Yeah China's in the middle of building a thoriun plant, with 30+ planed after tested
Solar and Wind power despite being 21st century still won't give 24x7 electricity
@@ShashankRockerYo That's assuming you're trying to produce as much as you need but if cost keep going down yeah it'll get so low that you can make 3 times what you need For cheaper
Nuclear power is stuck in the 1960s Cold War when the big lie of western exceptionalism was first formed. Everything is a greedy Lie.
@@mtn1793 if western exceptionalism is a big lie, why the hell are the east's people arriving in the West on every tub, rowboat and barrel they can scrounge? Examine a little history like The Holodomor and Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and you'll discover Hitler was a rank amateur when it came to genocide. It takes a socialist to really murder in the millions.
Why is there a huge double standard about how nuclear waste is treated versus how coal/oil/natural gas is treated? So we're worried about what might happen to the limited and contained amount of nuclear waste we have in the next hundred or thousand years but we don't care about the toxins pumped into our air daily by the latter that kill thousands each year?
Because they can actually see the effects faster unlike the others which effects are slower and unnoticeable hence not a threat like you can die from nuclear waste pretty quickly and horribly
Like if climate change happened faster we’ll you would definitely see people with a different tune
The video itself shows this isn't true, towards the end you can see the mountains of nuclear waste (not just the cores but also all of the now radioactive building material) that piles up in mountains from just one reactor being demolished.
@@Patrick-jj5nh Did you notice there were PLANTS sprouting out of that "terrible" waste? Yes, most of that is "low-level" "waste", more radioactive than the background, but not really enough to kill you in one hour. Only the "spent" fuel is high-level and this is due to the short lived fission products that will be GONE in 300 years. At that point, the radiation emitted by the waste will be about the same as the dirt in your yard. The transuranids left in the waste are not a problem if you touch them, only if you inhale fine powders of them or eat them in a soluble form, but they aren't. they are hard ceramic pellets, which will be melted in borosilicate glass.
Because the coal/oil/natural gas industry makes lots of money and runs tons of fear mongering campaigns about alternatives, and lobbies the hell out of everything that makes them look bad
Actually nuclear waste can be converted into batteries for smaller electronic equipments one such is diamond batteries which can run smartphone without need of charge for decades nuclear waste can help us to make batteries for EV that can run thousands of KM
In France we had a promising 4th generation nuclear power plant (named Astrid) but the project was cancelled because of anti-nuclear pressure and lack of politics willings.
We need to revive the research.
Insanity. How can they scream to the heavens about climate change killing us all & at the same cancel nuclear.
Is that the one where we can re-use the spent Uranium and lower the end storage to 1000 years?
These activists are always killing innovation in Europe. They need to be ignored as the irrelevant minority they are
@@kevinodom2918 The problem is that many environmentalists are activists/idealists and that isn't usually compatible with realism. They don't seem to grasp that there are multiple negative things to choose between and no solution is perfect.
Quand j'ai lu ca j'avais la haine, mais la haine....
I have an idea:
How about we gonna do what scientists say, and not what protestors and activists say.
often the same thing though... what measures are you referring to, specifically?
@@Dennzer1 the ones mentioned in the video protesting against nuclear power plants.
@@SeriousApache No, not what I meant. Which are the measures that scientists espouse, are the ones we should we be doing, and which of those are not generally espoused by activists?
@@Dennzer1 In this case switch from fossil fuel to nuclear, solar and wind power.
But what i said should be applied to everything where activist opinion contridict with science (like about GMO, vaccines and cellphone networks)
The real "protesters and activists" in questions about energy production are the big oil and coal producers like EXXON, KochBros, and Peabody ... and they just use cash to get almost EVERYTHING they demand.
France has been using it safely for years.
Not only that Germany buys that electricity also .
Yeah France also carried out many nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 in the pacific which has directly affected the health of many people living in the French Polynesia Colony.
@@rihablahsini5412 like usa,china,russia didn't only france did it
Would France be prepared to take over ALL the Nuclear Waste and store it in mainland France (not Tahiti or some remote island from their colonial past)... preferably in the center of Paris.... if France is so confident of its abilities to manage its nuclear waste. If not... then why... therein lies the REAL TRUTH OF NUCLEAR WASTE...
Now regarding Safety... why are these "safe" nuclear located far far away from the urban load centers... their logical location... near the loads.... the answer to this will also provide the truth of their Safety and associated Risks....
Lastly why is Electricity from Nuclear Plants even metered... the Nuclear "Proponents" in the 1950's promised abundant, cheap electricity from nuclear energy.... "too cheap to meter" .... thd answer to this will also provide the truth that nuclear energy is NOT CHEAP.... and slightest "hiccup" will shut them and neighboring Units down... permanently..... TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima
Proponents of Terresetial Nuclear Energy TODAY fail to look at the "mother-of-all" fusion reactors... the SUN ... that has "delivered" abundant (500,000TW) of Energy for Millions of Years... on the surface of ghe Earth. The present TOTAL GLOBAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION REQUIRES BARELY 100TW of Solar Panels.... you get the idea...
Nuclear had its potential in the 1950-2010's... when rhe only other option was Fossil Fuels and Pollution was "raising its head"... resulting in the formation of The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970... but over the last decade... all of the above polluting options are obsolete as Colonization (except for China), Ploughs, Greek Numerals, Hydrogen filled (but NOT Helium) LIghter than Air (LTA) Craft ... etc....
Do "open the windows of your mind" and let the sun shine in .... and put an end to the producing nuclear waste ... asap... and not burden the next 1000+ generations for OUR follies...
It is upto each one of us.... to do our bit and hope others will join in... yes... IT IS EASY... IF YOU TRY...!!!!
@@rihablahsini5412 That has nothing to do with nuclear energy as energy source today. Gasoline and oil powered whole WW2, yet we still use it.
greenpeace: Don't leave this stuff to our grandchildren...
global warming: Will they live to deal with it?
Will probably be a handy fuel resource in the future
Yet Dr Moore, an ecologist & Co founder of Greenpeace before they went commercial, supports it. Renewables can't supply sufficient energy, so only other realistic option. Unless want to give up all you electronic devices, deal with brown outs like Germany. Chernoble was an experiment that went wrong & the high ups running it insisted in turning off the safety protocols. Most recent in Japan curtesy of a natural, if rare event, a tsunami.
^^^ THIS!
No, nuclear is not perfect. But it's a DAMN sight better than continuing to burn fossil fuels and spewing the resultant mess willy-nilly into the atmosphere, covering the entire planet with the emissions.
Fission is an awesome stop-gap until we get better stuff on board to serve national grids (renewables, fusion). We can build fission reactors today. A lot of the proposed solutions from activists are tomorrow. We can't wait that long.
greenpeace= natural gas
@@pionieresvizzero2224 Lol Russian gas
asking greenpeace about nuclear is like asking a anti-vaxxer about vaccines.
More like asking a pro nuclear fanatic about nuclear energy is like asking an anti-vaxxer about vaccines.
@@Ismalith I'd follow facts and science rather than personal opinions, thats why I support nuclear.
@@dylanhoward7668
science says : "nuclear is shit".
You follow your feelings and nonsense.
@@Ismalith there is no evidence to support your claim.
@@hewdelfewijfe
No being pro nuclear is just lazy and gullible.
Pro nuclear is the anti-vax creationism of the middle class.
A blind believe in a pipe dream of the 50s and 60s that everyone working in that field gave up decades ago.
You don't have answers for the waste, for the cost, for the dangers or how a grid without fossil fuels can compensate nuclear power plants.
You and your pro nuclear buddies just say we magically have a nuclear plant that is just save, then there is electrical energy and the waste is the problem of the generations after us.
The funny thing is, even the nuclear companies know that their technology is shit. In countries like Germany where they can't sell the public on throwing a few hundred billions in a new plant they do not even ask to build new ones. Only to continue to run the old ones where the government already gave a guarantee, that insurance, taking care of waste and getting rid of the plant afterwards will be taken care of by the government the same way they took care of most of the construction cost.
If your nuclear dream works, why is there no companies that says, "we build one completely ourselves, we take no money to build it, pay our full insurance, fully take care of the waste and deconstruct it after the 20 to 30 years of runtime are over".
And why is there no nuclear companies that just throws the full bill of a plant and what they produced open on the table and shows us the real cost?
I mean, after you and your buddies here that should take at least the cost argument of the table once and for all, shouldn't it?
Japan is repowering more and more of its powerplants and extended the reactor's lifetime to over 60 years. Germany is like the only country so ignorant, that it is quitting nuclear energy despite being unable to reach its climate goals.
The ONLY IGNORANCE I SEE IS..... HERE....
Perhaps you can "OFFER THE WORLD" to take All its nuclear waste and stuff it up.... you know where.... right... ???
As the song says .. .. when will they ever learn... when will they EVER LEARN...
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz Chill dude chill. If you want to talk we can talk but not like this.
@@mrkokolore6187 Go ahead and TALK ANY WAY YOU WANT.... but remember... dude... I spent 40 years in designing Nuclear Plants ...
Go ahead and show me WHY THE WORLD NEEDS ANY NUCLEAR PLANT TODAY.... NOT IN THE 1950-2000 ERA.... when Solar Power was NOT AN OPTION.... but today it (Solar Power) is very much there.... whether one likes it or not...
Place your Arguments, Data, Rationale in the Public Domain.... PREFERABLY AFTER YOU SEE THE TH-cam Videos zeropollution2050 (one word)... already out in the Public Domain.... EVEN AFTER 3 MONTHS... NOT A SINGLE VIEWER HAS FOUND A FLAW THEREIN... (over 40,000 Viewers... and Counting...)..
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz Wow. I must say I'm honored to speak to such an experienced nuclear plant designer. 40 years you say? Are you still active? What plants have you worked on? I'm interested to hear more about it.
I haven't heard of zeropollution2050 before but the covers of the videos look good. However, the only thing they mention about nuclear energy is risk and costs. This must feel bad for people like you trying their best at designing safe nuclear plants when the only things people mention are trash designed or bad build nuclear plants like Chernobyl and Fukushima which I assume is not your work. There is so much potential for nuclear and I admire people like you spending so much time and effort trying to tap that potential when designing better nuclear plants.
@@mrkokolore6187
As I am not asking for a job... all that I would like to say is I have worked at different Nuclear Plants/Stations (PWR, BWR, CANDU, HTGR..) with a Capacity of AT LEAST 20,000MW in different capacities... I can firmly sat that Safety Equipment and Issues Double/Triple the Cost and Complexity of a Nuclear Plant... and then there is the Nuclear Waste for 100,000+ years... of course (@ $1Million/yr (???) ... that is ANOTHER $100Billion...)...
Now I await YOUR REAL MEANINGFULL RESPONSES to my earlier POSTS...
Nuclear is safer than oil, gas or coal, and its the only viable option for base load electricity generation. Combined with renewable with have all we need to transition energy generation and transportation.
There is no such thing as safe nuclear energy production.
@@public.public We here at the US navy have been doing it for 60 years now. Safe, clean, and efficient.
If we have nuclear, why spend money in renewables? Nuclear is more power dense, less foot print, more reliable and... much less waste.
@@public.public There's no such thing as safe anything. Careful getting out of bed in the morning, people have been known to fall out and break their necks. (Yes, true.)
The point is that, measured by deaths per TWh, nuclear is safer than most other ways of generating a shed-ton of reliable electricity.
@@nathancochran4694 what happens to habitats for the amount of space needed for renewable energy? Or wind mills killing birds and bats. What happens to the waste of solar panels that are not reusable? I suggest you do some research of the impact of renewable energy.
Of course we need nuclear, if we are serious abour phasing out fossil fuel
Wenn.cant .Phase out oil. Its virtually in every product
@@martinschulze5399 Plastics can be sythethized from methanol used electricity or process heat from NPP. Methanol can be synthetized from air with energy and water.
@@mikloscsuvar6097 yes with the added bonus that the C in CH4 would come from the C in atmospheric CO2, so the methanol would be carbon neutral.
Basically, nuclear power is a fossil fuel as well. Resources for nuclear power can dry up, just like oil, gas and coal. Better go with renewable energy, always.
@@krism6260 Your kind of anti-nuclear stupidity is why we have global warming. Read books on physics and chemistry before posting such idiotic comments! 😡
This half baked video only discussed 50 year old nuclear technology and did not even mention advanced nuclear that was proven in the 1960s and is under development worldwide as it has no waste, meltdown or other issues mentioned in this video. Further what about all of the issues of solar and wind, intermittency, short lifespan, toxic solar panel components with no recycling options etc...
So how long are these concrete reactors supposed to last?
Which type of concrete lasts for tens of thousands of years?
There is nothing new in the nuclear industry, every idea is decades old with new wrappers.
@@public.public most likely longer than solar panels or windmills much longer
@@StephenJohnson-ru8xw I have not seen those breakthrough materials, you would think they would be mentioned somewhere.
All we have are press releases and corporations buying politicians.
@@benthere8051 it was shelved because it could not be made commercially viable. Besides the destructive properties of nuclear fuels on the containment materials the little discussed emission and waste challenges are worth tabling.
The vidoes are new, the controls schemes much more sophisticated but there are no new boiling water nuke ideas.
Boiling water, we could do better.
9:55 That nuclear waste clip from Greenpeace, that's not the real waste. It's a top soil layer removed from Fukushima to reduce ground contamination. I heard the real fuel waste waste is kept using sophisticated casket not using plastic bag or even barrels. (CMIIW)
Greenpeace loves to mislead and spread lies about nuclear by potraying it with yellow drum with radioactive logo. As you said, in reality all nuclear waste are stored inside a concrete cask, and you can stand right next to it without any PPE
The thing is, molten salt reactors are just few years away from being operational. MSR can use nuclear waste, until it was smaller in size and have less half time
Exactly. The moment they showed Greenpeace video clips and interviewed Greenpeace "experts" I knew this video was not serious. Indeed, just another very very mainstream misleading speech about how nuclear remains dangerous (what an understatement to say that the risk of a nuclear accident is "low"), produces massive amounts of nuclear waste and that storage solution have still not been developed (... maybe it's because of uninformed activists sabotaging each long term storage project?)
Did you switch off the audio and came here just to hate on Greenpeace?
The clip was about the fact that the fuel rods stay radioactive for long time but it is not just about them - all of the material, like concrete, has to be stored away to protect the environment. And (potentially) radioactive top soil falls nicely into that category. So showing that clip with that commentary was very appropriate, not misleading.
This video very nicely depicts both sides of the argument and shows how complicated the matter is. Unlike most of the commenters here, who see it in a very black and white manner and turns of reason just to argue their side...
No mention in this video of new safer less waste designs now going into production LFTR reactors. This Doco is half baked.
There is not a single LFTR reactor nor will there be. The idea has been chewed over for longer than a half century and has too many disadvantages for anyone who matters to champion it.
But hey, build a small one in your backyard and get back to us on how your neighbors accept it.
@@politickery9412 Actually there are several designs currently in production around the world. Concept was proven in the late 60s.
"safer"
always makes me chuckle. Nuclear is already the safest, and the 0.0001% safer plants wont turn the anti-nuclear folks anyway. It's not a way to advertise for the already greatest energy source humanity has and will ever need.
@@politickery9412 Really brilliant.
@@captainsloth5895MSR reactors are a magnitude of 50X safer than HPW reactors.
Until Fusion energy, we will need nuclear as the backup energy source. Nuclear reactors that have been designed today is tested to be extremely safe and extremely environmentally friendly, some even knows what to do with the nuclear waste. The fear of nuclear power in the public is like the fear of planes in the public. Disasters and accidents have happened, but do you have any idea how many times it has not? The pros weight out the cons
Not to be a dick, but fission and fusion reactors are nuclear reactors. They both use nuclear processes to provide energy, with one splitting atoms and the sticking them together. I guess a fusion plant could be called a Thermonuclear power plant but there might be some negative connotations attached to that word
I was hoping this video would mention something about the potential for modern thorium reactors which are safer and produce much less waste than cold war uranium reactors.
unfortunatelly there is only few people who knows the reall reason why are uranium reactors so popullar.
they was made to use waste product from making atomic bombs and there is not enough uranium to sustainly produce electricity for humanity in next hundred years
thorium reactors are just the better alternative till we find the solution to sustainable sources
My country India is working on it day and night, it will be Completed very soon.
@@nikdonic This is not the real reason. It's a nice political line but it's far from the major reason. The main reason is the need to support some projects out in California because some governor was friends with some Senator, and since they already had a working PWR they transferred the funds off the LFTR project out to the coast.
Breeder reactors generally
Because they are decades away and what we have right now is actually less efficient tha using uranium.
Chernobyl (which was worsened by the lack of answers by the givernment): kills 30 people in the year it hapoened.
German lignite burning: kills 1100 people per year, every year.
it's really like planes & cars.
“Death of one is tragedy, but the death of millions? Just statistic.” By that I mean it’s really hard to convey how dramatic these events are though numbers, we can’t really “feel” them in a sense and they do surprisingly very little to sway our opinions and beliefs
A lot of liquidators died from radiation sickness after the explosion. No one knows exactly how many died.
@@cappuccino-1721 was this before or after the USSR waited weeks to actually respond to something governments worldwide respond in hours?
@@cappuccino-1721 the Chernobyl plant was terribly built, it worked like a cheap plane that had never had maintenance.
@@cappuccino-1721 how many people die today because of electronic waste, which solar panels& batteries produce a lot of?
The only clean form of energy where you can control the output and arent dependent on weather, the ones opposing this are the people that should stop talking and go live in the woods.
That has happened before, in the middle ages where land was basically denuded of burnable vegetation.
Well and geothermal if we can learn to mine better as well
@ShaunDoesMusic Funny thing I heard, in California, Devil's Canyon power station, they determined that the coastal rock pools 100ft from the power station were the cleanest for miles, because they didn't have armies of school children tramping over them with dirty/sticky shoes and handfuls of trash being dumped around.
@ShaunDoesMusic yeah , solar need x75 a much land compared to nuclear and wind needs x300 , having a nuclear reactor allows to alot more green spaces and general biodiversity
We need to tap the energy of the vaccum.
-Hippie TH-cam Scientist
Yes, we need nuclear power.
WHY.... PLEASE EXPLAIN...
@@VFPn96kQT And leaves behind deadly.. lethal radioactive waste... that emits radiation 24/7.. in all weather... under all conditions and for a real.. real... long time too... yes ... 100,000 + years for the next 1000+ Generations to "manage"... thanks to their great..great..great...... grand parents who lived and wallowed in energy.... at the expense of their descendents...
The Sun... by the way has been rising and setting as we know for millions of years... unlike Nuclear Reactors... which have to be shutdown annually fir maintenance, refuelling etc... (FYI... The CANDU is the only On-Line (Re)Fuelling Reactor System in the World... but unforunately... has to be shutdown similarly due to Turbine and other Equipment Maintenance etc... so your Statement that nuclear keeps running on.. and on.. and on... is incorrect... in the REAL WORLD...
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz bud that problem is already in the process of being solved. They're currently developing new generation nuclear plants that are capable of converting the radioactive waste into power. Unfortunately tho nuclear activists don't want to hear that.
@@VFPn96kQT Lifetime Capacity Factor of TMI I&II... 2%... ???
The issue is NOT CAPACITY FACTOR... but MOST IMPORTANTLY POLLUTION... NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS...
[There are other issues like Safety, Costs, Lifetime of Pollution (nuclear "takes the cake" here... 100,000+ years) etc. etc]... LET US STICK WITH POLLUTION..
Yes even a monkey eats a banana... so should I become a monkey... and eat bananas... I can assure you ALL are aware that Sun's Rays spread Radiation... so what does one do... disappear underground...???..
Life on Earth has "learnt" and evolved with these Radiation Levels over the last 500,000 years or so... NOTHING NEW HERE... but what is new are the Radiation Levels INSIDE NUCLEAR PLANTS, SPENT FUEL BAYS, HIGH/LOW LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES GENERATED BY NUCLEAR PLANTS...
All this was considered OK and acceptable in the past.. as there were no other options... except Polluting Fossil Fuels to meet mankinds "need/greed" for Energy....
However.... since 2010 or so Solar Panels provide the missing link to the Abundant Energy/Zero Pollution puzzle...
.... but old habits die hard as one questions the new and hangs and continues with the old killing and polluting ways of the past... like.... Nuclear Energy...
what happened to the contaminated radioactive water at fukushima? do you like fish? i hope you like cancer
**Drake meme**
Drake avoiding: Learning from past mistakes, Solving problems, and making sure to not cut corners in making a nuclear plant; using new-modern design for nuclear plants, and designing multiple fail-safe systems
Drake approving: Being ignorant, wrongfully adamant and rejecting the idea of nuclear energy altogether
good one :D
Short answer: yes
Long answer: yes since nuclear power has caused far Far FAR fewer deaths in its entire history than coal,gas,oil ect in a year( counting Fukushima and tchernobyl)
We need nuclear. The Solution is small modular molten salt reactors.
Yes. But molten salt technology is far from mature.
@Mayank Trivedi I have studied it a bit in my nuclear-engineering studies and since then there were no big projects, only small technological progresses, but nowhere near to reactor in continuous operation.
@@mikloscsuvar6097 there was one molten salt reactor built in the US. th-cam.com/video/tyDbq5HRs0o/w-d-xo.html
Operational, functional, very safe. And it's decades old tech, we can do orders of magnitude better. Just imagine.
In Kenya we say yes, just follow what China and Asia are doing. this is not rocket science. We have the youngest and poorest population and need huge amounts of power soon. Wind and Solar will simply not be enough.
Well you need to learn how to live with less because nuclear has a finite supply of uranium. Power plants have gotten safer but the risk isn't zero. It's useful but if you can't live with less then you have an addiction problem.
@@itsjacob7239 That supply can be extended for over a billion years if you reprocess the waste. Telling an African native that they need to live with less when you live in a superpower is not a nice thing to do.
@@itsjacob7239 Learn to live with less? What kind of "let them eat cake" elitist evil statement is that? Only someone living in a first world country could tell a nation of poor people to live with less! There is no such thing as zero risks but one must take risks to better one's people. Nuclear power can last for centuries. By the time we run out we would have invented better solutions by then. The technology has improved so much that nuclear is safer and more efficent than ever. your mindset of living with less gives environmentalism a bad name.
@@zacmarulo8721 All the "environmentalists" here repeating the same tired old myths and lies against nuclear energy as if they were hot scientific news give environmentalism a bad, BAD name
I might add that developed countries promoting just wind and solar in less-developed countries is essentially racist.
Renewables still face the challenges of intermittency, location dependence, and low power density. if you can assume those challenges can be fixed with advanced technology, then you can assume nuclear's challenges can be fixed also.
Most of nuclear challenges are already fixed by molten salt reactors. Because of Fukushima these reactors aren't getting much support from the government.
Uh...you do know that nuclear has the opposite problem to renewables in that demand is intermittent and so both require peaker plants or better: batteries. The problem with nuclear is primarily cost.
@@stevemickler452 again if you want to compare future nuclear with renewables with energy storage, you have to compare it to future nuclear, Very High Temp Reactors that heat a tank of molten salt (VHTRs) constantly and the heat is removed when necessary. Apples to apples. Only expensive energy has peaker plants. cheap energy has dump loads.
@@kaymish6178 almost all reactors have a negative temperature coefficient. The winner of the nuclear race will build small reactors on an assembly line and mass produce them. The race isn't over until the feedback loop starts (more energy to produce more rectors to produce more energy etc).
@@billyjoeallen Fair point. MSR is able to store heat, but MSR just does not exist in the States and is unlikely to be developed here and even if it does it is likely to have artificially inflated costs..
Modern reactor designs have used the lessons from Chernobyl to create plants that are essentially meltdown-proof. Nuclear plants emit minuscule amounts of radiation (you could live next door for years and not have any increase in cancer risk) and zero CO2.
Its more likely to get cancer living in a city breathing emission from cars.
In fact, you receive a much greater radiation dosage from coal plants due to the trace radioactive elements being spewed out.
Some places and countries simply don't have a viable option to switch to instead of nuclear. Take my country for example. We're right next to germany. We don't have many fast flowing rivers or the geography for a large amount of hydro power plants, nor sea access to build a lot of off-shore wind farms, meaning that the only renewable option is solar and that simply takes too much space which is already needed for things like farming. We simply don't have a lot of other choices other than building nuclear plants. Sure we can make, and are making our buildings and everything more energy efficient, as well as support more renewables, such as putting panels on buildings and houses, but they simply won't be enough on their own in a country like ours.
Even if you'd have more place for generating capacity, there's simply no suitable storage technologies.
In usa, farmers put pv panels on stilts such that tractor can drive underneath n harvest the crops grown
The panels soak up the wasted solar the plants dont/wont use n automated to ensure plants get their prefered lvls o sunlight
Plus theres new pv tech making panels suitable for walls n windows, not just roofs o buildings
@@ImaskarDono there are
You just havent heard of them
Typically theyve been suppressed for being 'disruptive' tech such as plasma kinetics which stores energy in solid state hydrogen n can b used both for fuel and storage
The technologies exist, but still at R&D stage cos lack o xy n z stopping it from out competing status quo tech in the real world
This video doesn't even make mention of the newer Gen IV Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) that can burn their own waste and the waste of their older counterparts. It says nothing about the 300-year radioactive lifetime of the MSRs waste as opposed to the 10,000 year lifetime of the old light-water reactor's waste. It makes no mention of the 95% burn rate of the MSR's fuel as opposed to the 0.5% burn rate of the light-water reactors. And it makes no mention of the fact that MSRs operate at temperatures high enough to sequester CO2 by converting it back to fuel for vehicles. And it says zero about the fact that MSRs cannot melt down.
I am not an expert but I believe some of the 4th generation designs use existing spent nuclear fuel as their energy source.
I think if we reuse some of the radioactive waste we already generated and reduce its lifetime in the process, everybody will benefit
Yes 🙌
Didn't even mention Molten Salt Reactors and other types of nuclear plants that are far safer and the nuclear waste will be dangerous for decades instead of millennia.
"Nuclear, especially next-generation nuclear, has tremendous potential to be part of the solution to climate change. The dangers of fossil fuels are staring us in the face. So for us to say we won't use all the tools [such as nuclear energy] to solve the problem is crazy." --James Hansen
Next-gen will (hopefully) come in the future, it is not the present. That's the problem.
The dangers of fossil fuels are "slapping" us in the face.
Honestly it boils down to one thing. We have a short amount of time to deal with climate change, and a REALLY long amount of time to deal with nuclear waste. We need to develop reactors that can use spent fuel rods as fuel. Fast reactor technology has the potential to turn the transuranics into fission products which take much less time to decay; around 300 years.
We have a short amount of time to combat climate change, and nuclear plants usually take 15 years to build, even when they’re proven technology.
We don’t have time to go nuclear, especially when we have good alternatives right now.
@@tomm5663 but, we don't? Renewable energy is woefully inefficient, and still produces large amounts of harmful emissions when creating the solar panels, wind turbines, ect. Plus, it's completely unreliable, and destroys vast swaths of land to put up, not to mention wind turbines killing more endangered birds than poachers. Nuclear IS the inbetween, the thing we are going to have to rely on in our slow, gradual switch to renewable. Eventually, we will probably have advanced far enough that we can rely solely on renewable, but untill then, if we really want to switch from fossil fuels, nuclear is going to have to carry renewable.
@@plumcave9942 this is all wrong so I’m just gonna address it point by point.
I’m baffled by your efficiency comment, given that efficiency measures output per unit of input. Given that renewables have essentially infinite input after their production, that makes them dozens of times more efficient than any conceivable alternative.
The emissions created in production are equivalent in CO2 per gigawatt-hour as nuclear, so that point again, makes no sense.
Nuclear and Fossil fuels are actually more unreliable than wind and solar. These power sources rely on international supply chains which can be disrupted by wars or natural disasters, while renewables are able to function fine under any global supply conditions.
Renewable unreliability is also a myth. Storage technology like lithium-ion and pumped hydro are only getting more widespread, and the larger an energy grid is, the more likely it will be that the grid will still be able to function.
Renewables don’t destroy land either. You can use them in conjunction with other uses. Just the other week I visited a solar plant which also functioned as a sheep ranch. Plenty of solar can go on building roofs, car parks, or otherwise unused space.
I know you don’t actually care about the bird thing so I’ll just skip it.
What you’re saying just isn’t true. We have the technology now, and renewables can be rolled out fast. And it needs to be. We don’t have 20 years for untested nuclear plants to get bogged down in construction. If we want a green power grid, nuclear will be too little, too late. We need renewables now.
@@tomm5663Excellent contribution. We use solar and produce almost double what we need over year, since 2 years already. CQFD.
Nuclear power for people who love nature only has advantages. In the best case you get emission free energy, in the worst case you get a large zone where nature is allowed to thrive without human intervention. There are no downsides
I see what you did there, referencing the exclusion zones.
Environmentalist says nuclear waste stays for millions of years
Me with an understanding of physics: problem solved, you've manufactured a stable by-product
Those clowns are a shame to environmental movement.
Total, Shell, BP, all of them have parallel Solar or Wind devellopers, but none of them have internal departments that work with nuclear.
guess which energy source needs to burn fossil fuels to produce enought energy in high-usage hours.
Nuclear because a Nuclear Grid can not exist without coal plants. Nuclear can't take the variation in need that the grid hast so you need about 300 to 500% coal power for every nuclear plant.
There are already 9 countries that are 100% green energy, so no you don't need nuclear and you don't need coal or gas.
You just need the other 210 countries to follow and the problem is politics not technology.
Because all of them know that renewables are great for business , Natural gas will never shut down , and they get to make extra profits collecting tax payer money in renewables subsidies , what's not to love about this !
@@matthewbaynham6286 and all of them have Hydro electric .
Please stop insulting the intelligence of people here , there is exactly 0 country that have 100 % wind and solar energy , and none even close .
There is plenty of countries achieved Low carbon emission electricity with 60ies era nuclear reactors .
Hopefully Renewables will managed to catch up in Maybe 2040 , with 80years old reactors by then in decarbonization capability
@@hewdelfewijfe
No it can't the Grid of France is stabilized by our German grid. Otherwise it would collapse instantly.
I’ll accept renewables as viable once a renewable powered grid equivalent to Ontario, France or Sweden has carbon emissions equal to them per kWh.. hell, I’ll accept it if you can even give me a date, backed by an approved and funded construction plan. But I’m not hopeful so if you wanna join reality, unless you have hydro or nuclear, there is no other viable way of keeping carbon emissions consistently under 100g of co2 per kWh.
We need nuclear energy to truly enter into a sustainable age
Let me tell you what one of my motherlands (Poland) does - they were always scared of nuclear (it’s relatively close to Chernobyl, so no wonder), but they keep falling short on renewables… The result is this: Poland still relies on coal.
Absolutely yes and refusal to use it shows you none of the current climate debate is about actually fixing shit.
Stop line 3. Landback. Thatd fix shit
Doesn't make sense not to mention the possibility to use the old uranium again, in a reactor that can handle it. Although it hasn't been the priority so far, it ought to be just to handle the waste better. If there is a will there is a way for sure, so why not.
Without Risk we cannot create a future
Yes you can... its EASY... IF YOU TRY....
Landback
The solution for both waste and fuel availability is fast reactors and dry recycling. Both technologies are quite mature now.
I'll take the ZPM...
The main issue is that it’s extremely expensive, everything else is just an excuse to the environmentalists.
@@joshbentley2307 dry recycling is being used in Korea to reuse spent fuel from PWR into heavy water reactors.
@@hewdelfewijfe no it’s not.
@@joshbentley2307 Renewables are pretty much just as expensive when you factor in energy storage & the shorter life expectancy of the infrastructure. However most renewables use coal atm to supplement their down time, so they look cheaper on paper.
Deaths from radiation related nuclear power plant accidents :
Three mile Island - 0
Chernobyl - approx 94
Fukushima - 0
Keep in mind the chernobyl reactor, like any other nuclear power plant built in the west, didn't have a containment building. So when we point to chernobyl as a reason not to built powerplants in the west it's really pointless...
Deaths: 1 confirmed from radiation, 2,202 from evacuation.
Non-fatal injuries: 6 with cancer or leukemia, 37 with physical injuries, 2 workers taken to hospital with radiation burns.¹
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: 13. 31 January 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
and Hydropower ?
@Minwon Jang
Do you actually have a citation to back your claim?
One of the options for disposing of nuclear waste is to transition to molten salt reactors. MSRs are inherently much safer than pressurized water reactors and they can use nuclear waste for fuel. The expended fuel from a MSR is still radioactive but the time to safety is reduced to hundreds of years rather than tens of thousands of years.
Absolutely correct! This is an informational vid on the use ot Nuc power and they haven't even researched the latest innovations?
It's not economically feasible. Same as solar/wind. Technology isn't there. Not close actually.
You left out the fact that 1 kg of uranium is a million times more energy dense than 1 kg of coal, that's a very powerful argument for people who understand the importance of providing reliable energy.
Actually if you realize that nuclear fission only uses a microscopic amout of the energy in the total 233/235 protons in the nucleii... you will realize how stupid we really are as far as harnessing nuclear energy...
As Energy Density goes up... the effects of accidents grow exponentially... this "craze" for high energy density started because it best suited the needs of submarines... compactness.
The Civil program just followed this "craze"... the rssult is a 1000MWe Nuclear Plant produces 3000MWth (or 3,000,000 KWth) of Thermal Heat in a room almost the size of one's living room.
One has seen the effect a 1-3KW heater can have in such a room.... now imagine 1-3Million such heaters in there ... when something goes wrong at full capacity ... or 50-150,000 heaters after the unit is tripped/shutdown as Decay Heat.... that will just not go away.... THIS IS THE REAL PROBLEM.... HOW TO REMOVE RATED CAPACITY AND DECAY HEAT SAFELY, RELIABLY....
[ Just FYI .... these 1000MWe Nuclear Plants have (typically) 4Nos, >10,000HP Pump/Motors... a Locomotive Engine is about 2500-4000HP... EACH PUMP CAN EMPTY AN OLYMPIC SIZE POOL IN SECONDS.... Guess what happens when power from the grid is lost (Fukushima and others) and the relatively tiny pumps powered by Diesel Generators only are available.... and if DG's fail too (as at Fukushima... that got flooded together with the Switchyard... when the tsunami overwhelmed them all) ... "all hell will break loose".... very very fast as soon as the natural circulation is overwhelmed in
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz you should at least give me the courtesy of writing the words correctly so i can understand what you say… were you angry while typing? i agree that huge reactors are difficult to control… that’s why the new generation should be smaller, volume is not the same as density 😉
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz and the efficiency is related to the thermodynamic cycle, (a coal plant is very similar) not to nuclear physics
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz did you mean that the fission process only gets 2% of e=mc^2? that’s still a lot! much more than any other process we know of…
@@cacorami95 Unfirtunately I am NOT in full control of what I type and what is displayed... but I must apologize (I had to type this word five times before I could get it right) .. unlike others... I am not... perfect.. nor do I have a staff of many... reviewing, checking, editing... so do bear the erroneous ways of this simple human being ... no anger here.... just utter sadness... that is all...
I want to start calling anti-nukes Nero's because rather than supporting nuclear power, which is the only PROVEN method of quickly reducing the use fossil fuels and their associated CO2 emissions (thank you France & Ontario, Canada), anti-nukes seem content to "fiddle" and sing about renewables and how great they are, all while the world literally burns around both them and us.
The problem with this is that the story is probably not true, as Nero was actually a smart and capable person, and only an ABSOLUTE moron would just screw around during a true emergency, wasting time on something that won't do anything to address the major problem at hand! (Subtext) Additionally, even if the story were true and Nero did "fiddle" while Rome burned, that would STILL be better than what anti-nukes do. Anti-nukes don't just do nothing, i.e. they don't just "not support" nuclear power. Instead, they actively oppose it and try to sabotage all nuclear development efforts, dragging them down with legal suits (like patent trolls) and spreading misinformation, exaggerated mischaracterizations, and hysteria wherever they can.
Anti-nukes don't just watch "Rome burn", they actively help it burn, filling wells and fountains with dirt, drilling holes in buckets, and knee-capping people who are actually trying to stop the fire. Here's the new motto for the Sierra Club: "Burn Baby Burn". What do you think?
There should be more talk about the future of nuclear energy production. We have largely stopped innovating on a large scale since the 80s. I would have loved if you showed some of the companies and researchers looking into creating Thorium reactors and these innovations around using modular parts and molten salt to dramatically lower costs and increase safety.
The way I see it, the world wants to hype up renewables as the only way, but the reality is we will need to create a great deal of energy from Fission reactions.
Ask power engineers the same question and they will tell you nuclear power plants are necessary to stabilise power grid frequency. The big issue with renewables like wind and sun is no stable grid frequency. Only powerplants that produce huge amounts of energy can do that and those are only coal, gas, oil, hydro and nuclear powerplants.
Finally someone that does know what he is talking about. The fact that you stated is never discussed in this videos and it is the most important
@@hewdelfewijfe They won't tell you also that here in Europe we come every winter to near total power grid failure cause of renewables and safety mechanisms have to automatically sever the power grid to keep it stable and sever connections between north and south Europe.
The explosions were hydride explosions. We're dealing with a situation in which the supposed coolants in our nuclear reactors operate the same way as steam generators did in the Victorian era, except this time the temperatures are getting so hot that water has a tendency to split apart and chemically explode. Swap the coolant with Molten Fluoride Salts and the only thing that will happen during a catastrophic failure would be that the molten salt will ooze out and cool off, not violently explode nuclear material into the atmosphere.
I wish the video had touched on new types of reactors like LFTR thorium designs.
9:50 Why show the Fukushima dirt bags when you talk about nuclear waste? Trying to imply this is all nuclear waste created during normal operation? This is typical when talking about nuclear power.
Irradiated topsoil that had to be removed. The radiation levels are still too high to move back. Not as bad as Chernobyl (20,000 years before they can move back), but still.
@@user-nf9xc7ww7m Yes but it is not nuclear waste from normal operation so why is it shown when he talks about nuclear waste?
There is no only solution we have to adopt many types of energy sources to fulfill our need but it's time to stop fossil fuels as much as possible....
I am not sure whether to like or dislike this video lol. Although I am a bit surprised to see a short documentary film from DW that is not entirely against nuclear energy.
8:20 it would be more honest to call this person an anti-nuclear campaigner. That's the function that Energiewende has.
You just don't understand the German public's mindset about nuclear power. And thinking that Germany has ended nuclear power to increase it's fossil fuel burning is wrong. In 2020 48% of Germany's electricity production was renewable, and about 10% nuclear. Only about 40% were fossil fuels. Compared to the US, where they shut down nuclear plants and open up new fossil fuel plants, that's a completely different story. Many people think that living without nuclear means 100% fossil fuels but that's just wrong.
@@hewdelfewijfe it is not, there are multiple studies if Germany could have 100% renewables, and it is possible. We just need much more of renewable energy, and much more storage capacity. Of course it is not possible with just solar and wind, because there are days where the sun is not shining wind is not blowing, but with enough storage capacity it is possible. There is also hydropower, and Germany has a lot of rivers, we could just use them
@@hewdelfewijfe And by the way, the laws of physics don't proof that the Energiwende is an anti nuclear campaign. It exists because of an anti nuclear campaign in the German public, but it is not a campaign. It means transition and this is what it is. And the laws of physics and engineering won't tell you that 100% renewables is impossible, since some countries like Norway already have nearly 100% renewable energy, and no nuclear power plant.
@@haisheauspforte1632 9.4% of that 48% you quote is biomass. If you are burning wood at a rate several orders of magnitude faster than it replaces itself; you are causing deforestation, habitat loss, and species extinction. Calling biomass renewable is like calling Hydrochloric Acid ingestible, not technically 100% wrong, but you can burn a hole in your unmentionables by following that logic to it's ridiculous conclusion.
@@gilian2587 most of the biomass isn't wood, but other biomass, like waste products from farming. And in Germany there are actually more forests than some years ago. And by the way, I have never said that nuclear is bad. But if someone says Germany's way is impossible, he should prove it, not the other way around. There are several studies, like the ones from energy watch or Fraunhofer proving the opposite. And yes, Germany could also use nuclear energy, but it is not the best idea to keep old plants just a bit longer. The older a plant gets, the more dangerous it gets. And saying "nah nuclear is safe we can keep the old plants" is stupid, especially when they have already found fundamental flaws at the reactor (like the Belgian reactors of Tihange 2 and Doel 3). Yes, nuclear is pretty safe, but when a reactor has reached the end of its lifetime, it should be shut down. That's what Germany is doing. Germany is not actively shortening the life of the reactors, it just shuts them down after their lifetime, unlike many other nations
Got a great spot out in the desert at an old mine to store 10-20million tonnes of waste some 500-1000m underground, 500km's from the nearest town
yes, we need it, and we need more of it and we need new technologies to make the reactors modern and use fuels like thorium
You didn't cover one of the glaring issues, renewables need storage and all projections are that we won't have the necessary storage for decades. We will continue to need an alternative to renewables for at least 20 years and the environment can't cope with that being fossil fuels.
Agree with some, but disagree we won't have storage for decades.
@@sandal_thong8631 Tesla's factories produce 3GWh of battery per year. The UK would need in the order of 40*24*10GWh of storage (winter power requirements for 10days, a common period to go with no or low wind). That's more than the global production of batteries for over a decade just for one small island's grid, with nothing leftover for cars, laptops or any other country.
We won't have storage for decades.
@@LudvigIndestrucable 10 days? Why not a hundred days? My understanding is that we need baseline power then power during the day, then peak demand power which is now in the evening. So in the short term, getting through the evening peak is what storage should help with. Someone said the utility on a couple occasions charged their solar battery to full during the day then drew it down during peak as an example of distributed battery power. I heard offshore wind generates during peak and is more consistent than onshore wind.
@@sandal_thong8631 I stated why 10 days, because that is an average period of doldrums (low wind), a period of 100 days would be highly unusual.
Battery storage can help with the so called 'duck curve', but this rather illustrates my point, we don't even have the storage capacity for a single night yet. Individual users can purchase a setup to manage their power usage, but the quantities available are not yet sufficient to scale to the whole grid.
What you heard about onshore vs offshore wind is somewhat true, but misleading. While offshore is more consistent, it's a bit like saying an iguana is more cuddly than a komodo dragon.
I am hugely in favour of renewables, but we have to be realistic, renewables plus storage cannot provide consistent power at scale in most countries and will not be able to for the foreseeable future. We do not have time to wait, we need nuclear now for the scale and reliability of power.
@@LudvigIndestrucable A permit today for new nuclear won't result in new power for 20 years, maybe longer since America's bad management can't bring them online on-time and on-budget. The new GA reactors doubled in cost and supposed to come online November 2021, but now they are scheduled for 2022 and 2023. Reactors for 2040 would then be shut down or cancelled even with carbon taxes, as gas and renewables outperform nuclear today. Better to have spent $27B or more on wind, solar, geothermal, energy efficiency, smart grid, energy storage and so forth. Might not include $1-2B of delay costs and the costs of decommissioning.
What worries me is that no one seems to talk about the mining of radio active material. Judging by the environmental disaster that is nevada's Navaho reservation, you'd think it be at least worth while discussing, but it's always left out.
This video is in desperate need of updated information. Gen IV plants are drastically cheaper and safer than previous designs. And some Gen IV designs (such as the traveling wave reactor) burn nuclear waste as fuel. No need to bury it deep in the earth.
Traveling wave reactors could power the entire US for 400 years on current nuclear waste.
Geological storage cave is much safer for nuclear waste disposal.
More dangerous is the radiation shorter is the life span , major part of highly radiative waste decay in 100 years
We need to fly even though planes fall out of the sky once every few years
There's no good reason for a modern society (or even India) to have train wrecks every couple of years. It's not like the villain of Unbreakable is causing them.
Saying you want to fight climate change and maintain our standard of living while opposing nuclear power is like saying you want to lose a lot of weight while insisting on eating a full menu at McDonalds three times a day. Youre not actually serious about fixing the issue.
this video fails to mention, next generation reactors. the next gen nuclear reactors are so much safer and produces far less waste. nuclear is worth the risk i think.
Iam from India🇮🇳. And I love how my country is working hard day and night to switch from Nuclear fuel to safer nuclear fuel. Ys,
India is working and is on final phase of Creating a new Thorium based nuclear powerplant that is very very less polluting then Uranium based nuclear plants. It's safe clean and we have lots of Thorium. Let's see.
Yes we do. In Russia, we have 20% of electricity from nuclear power plants and 20% from hydropower. And our specific emissions in the energy sector are lower than the world average. Of course, the share of renewable energy sources is still small and needs to be increased. And it is necessary to reduce the share of coal, and then gas. But the future lies with a balance of low-carbon sources: nuclear, hydro, wind and sun.
Yes, the common green options of wind, solar, tidal etc. cannot efficiently or reliably produce enough power at scale to replace the coal and oil plants we currently rely on. Nuclear could, and is the most powerful option we currently have the technology to construct. It should be noted that all the last nuclear meltdowns occurred at Chernobyl era power plants and reactors. Modern designs are more stable and have more advanced safeguards in place. It is unfortunate that it will require the "bad guys", eastern authoritarian governments, to get the ball rolling as they have more control over their money and resource allocation. China is rolling out tests on LFTRs and plans to get a larger one working over the next decade. Once it proves viable, the rest of the world has a moderate-to-high chance of following suit depending on each countries' climate outlook, resource availability, and lobby power.
Disappointed to see the “waste” shown from Japan was not at all representative of what a plant makes. For a plant that has been operating for decades, the volume of waste is about the same size as a two story detached house.
If you're talking about high-level waste, it's actually a lot less than that.
@@matslovgren832 fair enough; point being it's quite small compared to the amount of coal ash from the same number of megawatts
You haven't covered the new modular nuclear reactors that technically can't melt down. Also what about thorium which people talked about as being able to be used in a fuel cycle that virtually eliminated long lived waste, leaving waste with a few hundred yeats of half life.
China is starting to invest massively in thorium \o/
Fun fact: rotor Blades of Wind turbines are dumped in Land Fills. Solar cells loose efficiancy over time and Recycling them is complicated and consumes alot of energy which is not taken into the calculation . Soooo renewable :p
Solar farms are also destroying hectares of forest, jungle, desert, and farmland to lay miles of panels. This is going to translate into unprecedented plant and animal habitat destruction, and will of course deplete agriculture. They call this "green" energy. Go figure.
If we keep using fossil fuels in our electricity, then the purpose of going green through electric vehicles doesn't makes sense.
There used to be talk of putting solar panels on the roof of cars. They actually had electric vehicle races in Australia with solar powered cars. With the reduction of photovoltaic costs, maybe that can come back. It's still worth vehicles going electric- or hydrogen-powered for areas that are getting off coal and natural gas.
Nuclear is superior to renewables, especially with stuff like breeder reactors, and salt based safeties.
Also, the side effect of renewables is a huge demand things that later become toxic, especially the batteries.
And we have a long-term storage for nuclear waste, it’s in Sweden I think.
Actually, the waste as we know it today is caused by the way we designed old reactors. They need high pressures, so lots of heat and it needs to be efficient.
The solution is already there but needs more research, you can for example run the fission process for longer and you will end up with either lead or heavier radioactive isotopes that have much shorter halflives (
Great reporting. There are technical differences in generations of nuclear power plant and the types of the fuel details need to be considered in this discussion but missing in this reporting. Perhaps, we also need to understand why we are so energy hungry?
The trouble here is very few environmentalists understand about nuclear power and very few nuclear advocates understand about ecology. ! Being a fairly extreme environmentalist myself, I see a massive role for Generation 4 modular molten salt nuclear, which avoids most of the problems of the old, Goliath technology. What I see in the temperate zones, is a cluster of modulars, just next to the data centres. Then next to them using the vast amounts of waste heat, the 24/7/365 hydroponic grow houses, herbicide and pesticide free. Then the Soldier Fly farms and then the fish and fowl farms eating the larvae. The offshore fish farms and how they are fed, are the biggest environmental scandal of the past forty years.
Its all so clear to see now. The big fossil fuel corporations are rushing into wind and solar, pretending to be green, but in reality they see a massive role for themselves in filling in the big gaps, at an ever bigger price. The stupid Greens are getting more exploration and exploitation banned, so soon we will have oil prices way up to $150 and beyond, with the consumer being screwed on all fronts.
The Gen 4 was actually invented back in the fifties at Oakridge, but had two mega problems. No good for bomb making and would have put the coal mining industry out of business. Is that not what we want.!!!!???
5:12 The Tihange Nuclear power station is an old nuclear power station. It has 3 reactors.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk Yes, they closed Fessenheim in 2020. The oldest power plant is in Switzerland: Beznau was build in 1969-1971. Indian Point near New York City was also very old. It opened in 1962.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk France is building a new reactor in Flamanville. 1600Mw. It is an improved PWR and has a double containment. The European pressurized reactor has been developed by Areva. In Flamanville, they have some delays. A similar power plant is operating in Thaishan CHina.....
@@raphaeldexel4356 The delay in Flamanville is at the moment 14 years and still under construction. The cost did increase from estimated 3,3 billion Euros to 19 billion Euros. The problem with the EPR is that all projects have been delayed and none have been built within the cost budget. The same problems could be observed in Taishan (on a lower scale) and are still eminent in Olkiluoto and Hinkley Point. The industry does not want to invest in nuclear, because it is not economical viable and the project risks are extremly high. Without extensive gurantees by the state and subsidies, there will be no new nuclear reactors.
@@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk So, which EPR's are under construction? The figures mentioned above regarding time and cost budget for the EPR's Flamanville, Olkiluoto and Hinkley Point are public available, check it if you do not believe me.
No word about reactor technologies like fast breeders, which can burn the nuclear waste
We, we may just use the 'spent fuel' in a (not very common) type of reactor which is able to extract the 99% of the energy that is still in there, leaving only fission product behind. They are radioactive, but their halftime is in years or at most lower tens of years, so in ~ 200 - 300 years (10 times halftime) they become almost non-radioactive (more precisely, their radioactivity would be at the level of natural radioactive background). How about that? Shutting down nuclear only for it to be replaced by coal (and destorying landmarks such as Hambach forest as a consequence) is abomination.
I would like to hear more about LFTR molten salt reactors.
ALL NUCLEAR REACTORS (including LFTR... concept been around since 1960's) ... LEAVE BEHIND DEADLY, LETHAL NYCLWAR WASTE THAT WILL "HANG AROUND" FOR 100,000 YEARS TOO.... WHAT ELSE IS THERE TOO KNOW....???
@@AjayAjay-gz3oz Just phase them out once renewables are good enough to power the grid on their own
@@nathanhernandez7173 Very mature and well thought out solution... but the earluer we carry out this conversion the less nuclear waste we leave behind fir the next 1000+ generations... and the quicker we elimibate pollution the less people die and suffer.... it is this latter issue that is being hidden from all.... POLLUTION KILLS AND MAKES PEOPLE SUFFER... SHOULD IT CONTINUE OR BROUGHT TO AN END... THE NEXT VICTIM COULD BY YOU AND/OR YPUR LOVED ONES.... TOO..
Yes we need this nextgen nuclear power.
No mention of alternate types of reactor.
We need more nuclear energy. I made a presentation in favor of nuclear energy
There is little to no risk with nuclear energy im not even sure why this is a question worth asking
Nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gas emissions during operation, and over the course of its life-cycle, nuclear produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per unit of electricity as wind, and one-third of the emissions per unit of electricity when compared with solar. 1:32 [World Nuclear Association]
Nuclear power is among the safest and cleanest sources of electricity, making it a critical part of the clean energy transition.
A major environmental concern related to nuclear power is the creation of radioactive wastes such as uranium mill tailings, spent (used) reactor fuel, and other radioactive wastes. These materials can remain radioactive and dangerous to human health for thousands of years. [EIA]
Experts have concluded that in order to achieve the deep decarbonisation required to keep the average rise in global temperatures to below 1.5°C, combating climate change would be much harder, without an increased role for nuclear. [World Nuclear Association]
The use of nuclear energy for electricity generation can be considered extremely safe.
Well I'm in USA and we need some more of this but we need a different kind.
We need to start building new nuclear that uses old spent wast.
Why you ask well we only use 5% of the energy in the rock.
So if we can use nuclear waste to make more power not only will it be cheaper but we can basically get it for free as different plants run out of there fuel they can send the waste to us to use aging.
Well that and to many citys here run on natural gas or some form of high co2 making power plants like coal and trash dumps that are open pits that burn trash and doesn't collect the gases
For humanity, the threat of nuclear power accident is neglectable comparing to a nuclear war and global warming. Why don't we focus on the real issues?
Fun fact: hydroelectric dam accidents have killed over 170,000 people and made 11 million homeless. Even the most pessimistic estimates for the number of people who died due to nuclear accidents are around 2,500
When we look at fatalities, it is true that nuclear power has so far caused far fewer deaths than, for example, hydro or coal. When we talk about hydroelectric power, it is also sometimes quite problematic from an environmental point of view. Please check out our piece "How to solve our Big Dam Problem" here 👉 th-cam.com/video/GTFDVZU-Nv0/w-d-xo.html.
Yes, we need it desperately.
The comparison so far made between nuclear and renewables in terms of costs is misleading. That's because when we assess the cost of introducing renewables to the grid we often leave out some externalities, such as the ones needed to stabilise and protect the grid from fluctuations of a source of energy that isn't under our control. How costly it is no one knows. But there's a certainty. The grid need to be revolutionised in order to deal with intermittent and not controlled sources of energy. Because it has been managed so far without the need of storing electricity (what we need now when the sun is not shining, the wind is not blowing and the energy demand doesn't match the production from renewable sources).
I think the utilities oppose a smart grid. At least one in Hawaii is poised to shut down their coal plant, going green. Unfortunately they were telling people they couldn't connect their rooftop solar that they bought because they didn't know how much was going onto the grid moment-by-moment because they didn't want to know.
Nuclear> coal, oil, gas. We can process the waste safety. The damage from coil gas and oil.....not so much. One solid example oil spills.
Love how well explained was this video
If anyone makes a design & supervision codes comparison between a nuclear power plant and a mega integrated refinery plant, he or she will easily conclude that a nuclear power plant furnishes much more redundancies or stringent requirements in design or construction supervision. However, It is the latter which possesses much more complex in process and involve highly toxic substance at great amount.
In my opinion, the pervasive phobia against nuclear power had driven up cost of nuclear power (through so much unnecessary design threshold or redundancies), and the skyrocket cost in return exacerbates its bleak impression. Public stereotype does not always correct, but politician obviously has no interest to challenge prevalent mindset.
Case in point; Bhopal.
Media and politics are holding them
All those smile emojis at 3:14 suddenly took all the seriousness out of me. :D
Been seeing some videos about small modular nuclear reactors the look pretty good and don't produce the waste. The present way we do nuclear energy is great until it comes to the waste and how to deal with it.
India's population is around 17 times that of Germany (and growing!). Asking countries with a population this big to run only on renewables is absurd. Forget implementation, it's hard to even imagine.
Nuclear power is the only way to effectively get off of fossil fuels
Short answer: yes.
Can somebody explain me why cannot we store nuclear waste in old uranium mines - that place is radioactive already so what is the problem? Thank you!
Yes, I think nuclear is needed to maintain base load power, especially in large metropolitan areas and areas where there is little sunlight and/or wind but the nuke plants should ALL be SMR's, placed in various parts of the city and region to provide power, to cycle up and down, as needed, with the wind and solar generation. Store the waste at Mar-a-lago, FL. :)
Silly to fret about the waste. You bury it and manage it. Our children’s children will have jobs managing and monitoring the waste. So what?
Nah, you burn it as fuel in a modern molten salt reactor.
@@harleyb.birdwhisperer I have watched those videos of Kirk Sorensen describing that process. It seems very elegant in the modeling but unfortunately that technology might be a couple decades away. Meanwhile the NuScale reactor has received NRC approval and is going to a commercial pilot phase. This is a light water reactor that works largely like the ones we already have but it is super safe. It will produce waste like the type we have piling up at sites around the country. I figure either Yucca Mountain should open up or maybe start a repository in New Mexico.
Wall-E?
I watched a video that said it's possible to crush nuclear waste into diamonds and use them as batteries. That sounds great. It takes a while to figure out a use for some things. Even if you have proof of theory, it can take 50 years or more to convert that into a practical application or product.
1:24 the flex in that bridge tho...