That was painful, but credit to Mark for having the professionalism and self control to stay cool and on message. There is a lesson here for anyone wanting to effectively advocate.
The saddest thing about "nuclear is too expensive" is that LCOE just got a "firming" function, that assumes you actually want renewables to last more than just while they're on. They added a 4 hour battery buffer. For perspective sake, this is less than a third of what you would need just to cover the missing daylight hours in THE SUNBELT of America. That 4 hour buffer? Brings renewables up to over the price of VOGTLE. The literal "poster child" of fudging the numbers to make nuclear look too expensive actually beats out solar 'n wind in price when they need to include a 4 hour battery buffer.
They are much closer even without battery issue. Nuclear duty is close to 98%, Wind 30-50% and solar 20-25%. That means we need 2.5 times more capacity for wind and 4 times for solar. Nuclear costs around 5bn/GW, wind (onshore) 1.3bn/GW and solar close to 1bn/GW, meaning for same production, we are looking 3.3bn/GW wind, 4bn/GW solar. Given the off-shore wind is almost double the price (though duty is closer to 50%) we still get 4-5bn/GW for the off-shore wind. Edit: Forgot quite a benefit of nuclear, good portion of our electricity needs are going just to heating, while in some countries Nuclear powerplants use the waste heat to heat towns and cities.
Every anti nuclear person is always referring to lazard calculation of LCOE. And its total rubbish. Some numbers are close to a order of magnitude wrong. When doing actual calculation, like the owner of the newly built, but delayed and over budget reactor in Finland done int here yearly report, the price turned out to be €46/MWh. Yea, no renewable can even come close.
4h is basically enough to turn on a CCGT... When you look at actual firming and addressing "Dunkelflaute", just the battery storage is 2x the cost of Vogtle.
@@matsv201 Indeed. Actually, turning on a CCGT is more like 2h, albeit some do take 4 to get to full power from cold start. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer this over the use of OCGT/recip peaker plants and/or keeping CCGTs in spinning reserve, wasting a fuckton of gas. But even this system could work alongside nuclear. You would just need less CCGTs and would use them much less. Some napkin math to address a 4-day Dunkelflaute came up with a cost of well over 60B in batteries, assuming the renewables would provide 15% of Vogtle's output. Even so, assuming a 3x overbuild for onshore wind (1B/GW being nice, 6B to match Vogtle) and a 4x overbuild of solar (10B give or take), just absurd cost
No, the burning coal in Germany is not going down, Mr Dorfman. Germany reactivated 19 coal-fired power units with a capacity of 7.3 GW since early 2022.
Germany has long aspired to become a third world hell hole by destroying its own culture and productive potential as atonement for WWII. Its just as short sighted as the belives of the people they want to distance themselves from had.
"Renewables will do the heavy lifting" Ok. Yet you still lack base line power from renewables. Your statement is biased, for a an academic. I have not seen anyone mentioned good baseline power alternatives coming form renewables. Even bio energy is mostly C02 heavy. Closing down your nuclear plants in Germany to be replaced by coal sounds really idiotic imo.
It just doesn't sound idiotic, it is idiotic. Germany will find out the hard way that closing their prizewinning, ultra safe and reliable NPPs was a colossal, not to mention criminal mistake.
About France nuclear electric grid : - we had many plants stopped due to a wielding problem, plus maintenance was late because of COVID. Now the situation is corrected and our grid is at 60g CO2 per kWh, vs 540g for Germany ! Cf. the site electricitymap. - the German is wrong about the 20y delay for building a nuclear plant : in France we built ours in 6 years each. The EPR has been slow because it's a head of series (and has too much securities perhaps).
EPR has been hopelessly over-engineered considering safety systems. Who pushed for this during the original design fase? Germany. As admitted by Mr. Trittin, former German minister of Energy and currently MP for the German green party, the push for ever higher safety standards was not made for safety as such, but to drastically rise the price tag for nuclear.
@@matthouben4242 And it's a very devious tactic because who would ever argue against more safety ? The general public has little to no education on the topic so they have no clue about reactor safety, and they refer to the safest bet which is more safety always better. Again you can't argue that because who would in his right mind ever advocate for less safety ?
Mark absolutely demolished Dr Dorfman in this interview! Although I'm firmly in the dissolved fuel camp as it pertains to 4th and 5th gen reactors the claims that were made by Mark are simply outstanding. In contrast the claims made by Dr Dorfman are simply out of touch with the subject matter. Amusingly he inverts the obvious and claims that nuclear is somehow a on or off technology something that is simply not true in current light water reactors. He then asserts that renewable power systems are somehow better at load following? The assertion only has legs when we consider that we can turn OFF windmills! The problem however is not in the turning off or on. The issue is that the motivating force may not exist when you would want power from a power station! (wind not blowing, sun occluded etc ) With nuclear power as with fossil fuels this power is inherent in the matter and can be extracted via a controlled process. Anyway again hats off to Mark! Hopefully he can come and see the light on dissolved fuels as we will need him and people like him to convince the public that next gen nuclear is not a "20 year old technology". Someone might want to educate Dr. Dorfman on the history of the waterwheel if he is to make the assertion that his technology is "newer".
Electricity is only about 20% of total energy demand and Germany only gets a little over 5% of its total energy demand from wind and solar combined. They never talked about the other 95%.
Electricity may be only 20% of total energy demand, but that will change dramatically over the next 10 to 20 years as Germany requires all vehicles being EVs.
@@tspidey007 You can demand anything you want, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. EVs are second or third vehicles for rich people to virtue signal with. I love the idea of EVs, no noise, no gears, no exhaust, so few moving parts, and very low maintenance. However, that is greatly offset by cost, range, charging time/infrastructure, and mining inputs. The mining inputs won't change even as most of the other problems get addressed over time.
Private company Terrestrial Energy has amazed me over the years in its dogged pursuit and attainment of IMSR nuclear regulatory approval(s). In a few more years actual and current IMSR performance data should be available to counter the aged arguments of the Dr. Dorfmans of the world.
I'm German, and I have to admit that phasing out nuclear energy during an energy crisis is downright stupid! It feels like a joke! Sometimes I shake with laughter thinking about it, although it's actually quite sad.
Oh it's not a free ride, Germany will pay them through the nose for the excess, just like they pay them to take the excess wind the few days per month they actually work.
@@AximandTheCursed High marginal energy costs in a connected grid will hurt everyone, not just the Germans. The deliberate destruction of economically productive infrastructure is akin to terrorism or at the very least vandalism.
@@Prometheus4096 ...when they don't need it, paying for the privilege as they do so, costing Germany even more. Wind power is an economic disaster for any country that adopts it en masse.
I think that the lack of words of the pro-renewables participant at 8:09 is more teeling than a thousand argumebts...when faced with concrete facts, the whole antinuclear pitch collapses loke a house of cards
This bizarre assertion that solar and wind energy are given preferential treatment to supply electricity when the conditions are right really bugs me. As if the 24/7 baseload nuclear is just expected to get out of the way and throttle down to accommodate them. Why not just allow generating technologies to supply to the grid on a first come first served basis. If the wind starts blowing and it turns out that their output isn't required you might just consider dismantling the turbines and returning the land they're on to it's natural state.
Revisit this conversation in a year when Germany experiences brown out, increased pollution and eye watering electricity bills. Good luck powering all the electric cars we see everywhere
@@mrrolandlawrence The cost of gas is effected by the availability of nuclear. So it will always be cheaper. If there is more nuclear, gas will just be cheaper and cheaper. Granted, eventually nobody will afford to produce it
@Roland Lawrence I don't think having less than a ⅓ of the steel production is such a good thing. To get steel you need iron, to get iron you need coking coal... at least to get numbers that won't significantly hinder the planets ability to manufacture anything
I'd like to see the load-follow capacity of wind when it doesn't blow, or solar when the sun won't shine. Renewables are fine, but availability is unpredctable if there are no batteries and other energy storages. And that's what is increasing energy prices, and with resource consumption, also environmental cost.
You missed the point completely. YOu need a load following energy as a backup for solar and wind. How can solar back up solar? WTF. Nuclear cannot do this because it is an expensive reactor with a cheap fuel that is already too expensive when you run it 100%. You need a cheap reactor with expensive fuel to act as a backup to solar and wind. Spending 20 to 40 billion to build a nuclear reactor and then keep it turned off because solar and wind are producing so much energy is completely wasteful.
@@Prometheus4096 lol... Nuclear is still one of the cheapest and safest power sources we have. But dogmatic ideologists ignore anything that doesn't match their fairy tale fantasy. Right now we have to back-up wind and solar by coal and gas, as there is not nearly enough batteries and other power buffer capacity. And gas is the most expensive way to generate power, besides both of them being "dirty" ways to do it. Shutting down working NPPs when they have to be replaced with coal and gas is just insane, even more when those NPPs were among the most modern there are.
I would like to know the REAL cost of renewables adding up all the subsides to promote them and all of the special conditions in the contracted supply. In Australia the wind farms I am told, attract a $500,000 a year subsidy for each turbine. The government is going out of its way to attract renewable development but I fear that when all these incentives are tallied and the consumer is billed there will be a big big voter backlash.
Even 4 gen uranium reactors would be better then the catastrophically unreliable energy system that is being implemented at the moment, future generations will look back with horror at the mass-psychosis that has gripped the west.
Whilst nuclear claims it can ‘load-follow’ in a limited and constrained way - as UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology reports: ‘Nuclear stakeholders claim existing reactor types can, to a limited extent, moderate generation to match demand depending on the reactor type. However, this has not substantially been observed in practice.'
> Whilst nuclear claims it can ‘load-follow’ in a limited and constrained way - However, in the video, you Paul Dorfman, claimed the issue was that NPP could not backfill intermittent RE, not load-follow demand. What you have pointed out, is that intermittent RE requires backup. You cited storage, and yet, storage makes nuclear easier to load-follow - especially as the generation output is predictable!
@@factnotfiction5915 In practice, technologically it cannot load follow in the way that will be required. But the main issue is economical. You cannot have a nuclear reactor that is off not producing energy most of the time. That's like burning money.
Is that from the lobbying report for which you got funding from Greenpeace ? Nuclear does not need to load follow as it it mainly used as base load due to its unique ability to drive the massive generators which are the backbone for any electricity grid.
@@kennethskjttstagistoft7203 No, because wind and solar are so much cheaper than nuclear, and easier and faster to build, so those will form the backbone. We can't do fossil fuel for 20 more years and then pay 30% to 50% more for electricity from nuclear. So the backbone has to be wind and solar. The question then is if you can use nuclear as a backup for when the sun isn't shining, wind isn't blowing. And the answer is 'no' because nuclear cannot load follow as required, and it is extremely expensive to have a nuclear reactor, but not use it because you already have a ton of cheaper energy on the grid because the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Right now we already have a problem with too much electricity when consumers with solar panels are all trying to give electricity back to the grid.
This debate was frustrating. Not only did they contradict each other's, *points* they contradicted each other's *facts.* Assuming that both are real experts, then one *must* be lying. It's impossible for this to be an honest disagreement. (Considering that Dr. Dorfman claimed the nuclear lobby is *strong* - I suspect he was the one who was wrong, since that's the only fact I can independently verify. The anti-nuclear lobby is strong, the pro-nuclear lobby is practically non-existent). EDIT: There is one other fact that I am knowledgeable enough to be confident in my conclusion (even though I can't inspect the evidence with my own eyes). This would be his claim that "nuclear power plants are a target in war." In other words, he's claiming that nuclear plants are more likely to be targeted, damaged and destroyed by an adversary in a shooting war. To people who've heard the media hysteria surrounding the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early days of the Russian war in Ukraine, this might sound reasonable at first. To me - who has been following the conflict closely since day 1, it's utterly ridiculous. The main problem is just how hard it is to cause a catastrophe from the outside. These things have reinforced concrete structures some four feet (~1.3m) in thickness - too thick for a Tomahawk cruise missile to get through. Some time after the invasion started, I actually came across a video here on TH-cam by a professional nuclear physicist who pointed out that containment structures are designed to survive "weeks of artillery bombardment." I suspect this is exactly why the Russians started shelling it *after* they already occupied it - because they *knew* it was impossible for them to do serious damage. If you look at fascist false flag attacks in and around World War II, you'll notice a pattern: they often do little damage with no casualties, but the fascists trump it up as a big crisis demanding an overwhelming, disproportionate response. That's what happened here; they knew that they could safely take some potshots at the thing and everything would be alright. Now let's look at what happened to the *rest* of Ukraine's power plants. Non-nuclear power plants were deliberately targeted during the winter of 2022 (another flaw in Dr. Dorfman's argument - there's no reason why an aggressor nation *wouldn't* destroy the defender's non-nuclear plants). This did considerable (temporary) damage to Ukraine's power grid. The strikes involved hundreds of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones (Russia never has more than about a thousand cruise missiles in inventory at a time). Now let's imagine what would've happened if *all* of Ukraine's power plants were nuclear. In that case, they'd all have containment structures, meaning it would take far more cruise missiles to put one out of commission. Considering that the Ukrainians were able to intercept many cruise missiles with their own surface-to-air missiles, then it's easy to see that such an attack wouldn't have any teeth in this scenario. The few that would be able to get through defenses wouldn't be able to do enough damage to any one plant to do significant harm to the grid (the drones wouldn't have been able to anything at all, since they're too slow have any penetrating power).
Jeff they're both on Twitter and I think a look at their feeds will quickly give you a sense of who is honest. Mark Nelson = EnergyBants. Dr. Paul Dorfman = dorfman_p.
Common sense says Dofrman is a dork, an academic in klaus Shwab army of lobbyist and alarmist. All are invested and investing in green, they have to sell this somehow.
Sadly, in terms of convincing those on the fence, i don't think there was a clear winner here. While Mark seems far more sensible and correct to me, i don't think his rhetoric is able to hypnotize and convince quite as well as the already primed audience here (which includes myself) thinks.
If there is the slightest bit of hope for a renewable energy supply, real or imagined, they will reject nuclear. The fall of Germany is not good for any of us.
Your thoughts are very true - the audience doesn't want facts, but feelings. Dorfman lost at the end because he gave into his, but Mark lost at the beginning because he didn't express any. A sad commentary on our species.
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most. Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system. No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores. No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future".
More than half of French nuclear fleet offline in 2022. EDF are in deep trouble - essentially bankrupt. €64 billion in debt, reporting a record €19 billion loss this year, with exponential radioactive waste and decommissioning costs on the horizon. With an estimated €50-100-billion bill for reactor safety upgrades.
Go check ElectricityMaps. It shows Germany importing electricity from France. That's what's happening now. As Mark Nelson points out, odd you need to raise France's neglect of their nuclear, when the topic being discussed on AlJazeera was the closure of Germany's already-operating well-maintained remaining 3 reactors... they saved the best maintained for last, and STILL you wanted them shut down. But ok, France: The fleet is now being properly maintained. The increased availability of the French nuclear fleet means the country is able to resume its position as a NET EXPORTER during the first quarter this year, after having been a net importer of power during most of 2022.
> More than half of French nuclear fleet offline in 2022 Of course, with a capacity factor of 25% for solar RE and 35% for wind, solar is offline 75% of the time, and wind a mere 65% of the time - yes, it is remarkable that a NPP is offline; it is sadly, unremarkable that intermittent RE is offline most of the time.
"The performance of knowledge in the low level radiation risk debate" (University of the West of England, Bristol) was his PhD. A download of the full document shows... A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England, Bristol, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2005. "Doctor of Philosophy" PhD His LinkedIn profile says: "UWE UWE PhD, Nuclear RiskPhD, Nuclear Risk 2000 - 2004" "Nuclear Risk" PhD It sounds like soft science to me. And I don't think he's got 2 PhDs, rather the Philosophy was partial (so no PhD) but the "Nuclear Risk" PhD is presumably completed. If his LinkedIn profile is accurate. But I swear I've never heard of a Nuclear Risk PhD before.
All we need is to create a smart grid where all the opponents of nuclear can be the first to get their power cut of when load shedding is required, in a year there won't be many opponents left...
I love Germany. I love German people. Sadly Germany has a history of making bad decisions. Please Dr Dorfman desist from leading Germany again in a bad direction. You have a choice. You can make a good choice and be part of the solution, providing prosperity for billions of humans all over the earth. Make the right choice!
Love your work Gordon. Have you ever heard of CERLIQMESH reactors? Saw only one video about it on here and would like a further explanation on it. It uses nanomaterials but could be made with modern manufacturing techniques. If it is even remotely possible it could mean nuclear batteries and reactors the size of trash cans!
All solid fuel, water moderated nuclear plants need to go the way the way of the steam engine. SMR's and advanced plants should be the natural evolution. The need to adapt and grow has been there all along just hindered by the regulatory industry and lack of funding through national labs.
Mark Belson 10, Dorkman zero Dorkman sounds like a 90's hippie, He has his faith, and he arranges and twists the facts around it to bolster his faith based beliefs. Its disgusting
We should make giant metal bowls and fill them with salts containing dissolved uranium. Put the graphite moderator in the middle, then lease access to the high-quality heat at several heat-exchanger bays around the circumference. Lease access to the bays to industry (just as airports lease gate access) to drive chemical processing (such as manufacture of liquid fuels for transport), and to utilities for electricity production. Between the reactor core and the heat exchangers, you can place tanks containing thorium, to breed more fuel. We could be building several of these each week using just one factory. More factories would mean more production. This would be an obvious high-profit opportunity if we were to impose a global (or multi-nation) carbon extraction fee designed to draw down the rate of extraction by 8% or 10% per year.
it's too good, might ruin many coal, gas and petrol businesses. At this point LFTR is pretty much threat to current world order simply because of it's efficiency also they still can't quite solve the corrosion problems so it won't be a reality anytime soon
the friggin plants don't really work as stable as we want them yet, it's not for everyday use, you need constant technical supervision yes, they are safe and cheap, but we don't have enough experts.
We need what works now, today. That's Uranium reactors. Thorium has a lot of promise but it doesn't have 60 years of experience behind it. It needs a lot more fleshing out.
The downside of Thorium is that it doesn't have an upside. ;) All Thorium amounts to is an alternative to Uranium which is better in every way. Now that's not trivial there are a few advantages to having two fuel options. But there's no urgency and it's just not pressing.
A several months major heat period has just ended in southeast Asia, another is starting in Spain, Europe expects a drought this summer. Southwest USA has a drought for 20 years. Of course there is a BIG climates problem !
@@gaelgregoire5413 Sure, if you have zero knowledge of history then you could think that a few years of drought is exceptional. The truth is that we have been living in one of the most stabel climatic periods in history and now we are slowly moving back to the norm. CO2 only has a very tiny influence on this and only over many decades. If you actually read the technical reports on climate change that is what they say but the condensed politicized versions are always maximally alarmist. Please read Alex Epsteins or Bjorn Lomborgs books on the subject and notice that their detractors never refute their arguments but simply refuse to even acknowledge their existence.
That was painful, but credit to Mark for having the professionalism and self control to stay cool and on message. There is a lesson here for anyone wanting to effectively advocate.
Mark Nelson's patience with this crank is astounding.
Another academic that will lie through their teeth to keep themselves and others in jobs. I find the selfishness of these people appalling.
The saddest thing about "nuclear is too expensive" is that LCOE just got a "firming" function, that assumes you actually want renewables to last more than just while they're on.
They added a 4 hour battery buffer. For perspective sake, this is less than a third of what you would need just to cover the missing daylight hours in THE SUNBELT of America.
That 4 hour buffer? Brings renewables up to over the price of VOGTLE. The literal "poster child" of fudging the numbers to make nuclear look too expensive actually beats out solar 'n wind in price when they need to include a 4 hour battery buffer.
They are much closer even without battery issue. Nuclear duty is close to 98%, Wind 30-50% and solar 20-25%. That means we need 2.5 times more capacity for wind and 4 times for solar. Nuclear costs around 5bn/GW, wind (onshore) 1.3bn/GW and solar close to 1bn/GW, meaning for same production, we are looking 3.3bn/GW wind, 4bn/GW solar. Given the off-shore wind is almost double the price (though duty is closer to 50%) we still get 4-5bn/GW for the off-shore wind. Edit: Forgot quite a benefit of nuclear, good portion of our electricity needs are going just to heating, while in some countries Nuclear powerplants use the waste heat to heat towns and cities.
Every anti nuclear person is always referring to lazard calculation of LCOE. And its total rubbish. Some numbers are close to a order of magnitude wrong. When doing actual calculation, like the owner of the newly built, but delayed and over budget reactor in Finland done int here yearly report, the price turned out to be €46/MWh. Yea, no renewable can even come close.
4h is basically enough to turn on a CCGT...
When you look at actual firming and addressing "Dunkelflaute", just the battery storage is 2x the cost of Vogtle.
@@AlldaylongRock A yes.. and just of hapanstance it was the gas delivery company that sponsored the anti nuclear crowd.
@@matsv201 Indeed. Actually, turning on a CCGT is more like 2h, albeit some do take 4 to get to full power from cold start. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer this over the use of OCGT/recip peaker plants and/or keeping CCGTs in spinning reserve, wasting a fuckton of gas. But even this system could work alongside nuclear. You would just need less CCGTs and would use them much less. Some napkin math to address a 4-day Dunkelflaute came up with a cost of well over 60B in batteries, assuming the renewables would provide 15% of Vogtle's output.
Even so, assuming a 3x overbuild for onshore wind (1B/GW being nice, 6B to match Vogtle) and a 4x overbuild of solar (10B give or take), just absurd cost
Dorfman just stuttering and not even answering to mark's argument is wild.
Because Dr. Dorman doesn’t know as much as he claims.
He’s a charlatan and a shill for the unworkable wind and solar industry.
No, the burning coal in Germany is not going down, Mr Dorfman. Germany reactivated 19 coal-fired power units with a capacity of 7.3 GW since early 2022.
Big Picture, Germany is an occupied state which is being throttled back into third world status.
Then, we blew up their methane supply from Eurasia ...
Germany has long aspired to become a third world hell hole by destroying its own culture and productive potential as atonement for WWII. Its just as short sighted as the belives of the people they want to distance themselves from had.
100% vassal state, my australia is the same, it's shameful
"Renewables will do the heavy lifting" Ok. Yet you still lack base line power from renewables. Your statement is biased, for a an academic. I have not seen anyone mentioned good baseline power alternatives coming form renewables. Even bio energy is mostly C02 heavy. Closing down your nuclear plants in Germany to be replaced by coal sounds really idiotic imo.
Only blanket statements.. No real arguments.
ya burn more lignite & black coal. the german greens love coal more than trump.
It just doesn't sound idiotic, it is idiotic. Germany will find out the hard way that closing their prizewinning, ultra safe and reliable NPPs was a colossal, not to mention criminal mistake.
About France nuclear electric grid :
- we had many plants stopped due to a wielding problem, plus maintenance was late because of COVID. Now the situation is corrected and our grid is at 60g CO2 per kWh, vs 540g for Germany ! Cf. the site electricitymap.
- the German is wrong about the 20y delay for building a nuclear plant : in France we built ours in 6 years each. The EPR has been slow because it's a head of series (and has too much securities perhaps).
EPR has been hopelessly over-engineered considering safety systems. Who pushed for this during the original design fase? Germany.
As admitted by Mr. Trittin, former German minister of Energy and currently MP for the German green party, the push for ever higher safety standards was not made for safety as such, but to drastically rise the price tag for nuclear.
@@matthouben4242 And it's a very devious tactic because who would ever argue against more safety ? The general public has little to no education on the topic so they have no clue about reactor safety, and they refer to the safest bet which is more safety always better. Again you can't argue that because who would in his right mind ever advocate for less safety ?
Mark absolutely demolished Dr Dorfman in this interview! Although I'm firmly in the dissolved fuel camp as it pertains to 4th and 5th gen reactors the claims that were made by Mark are simply outstanding. In contrast the claims made by Dr Dorfman are simply out of touch with the subject matter. Amusingly he inverts the obvious and claims that nuclear is somehow a on or off technology something that is simply not true in current light water reactors. He then asserts that renewable power systems are somehow better at load following? The assertion only has legs when we consider that we can turn OFF windmills! The problem however is not in the turning off or on. The issue is that the motivating force may not exist when you would want power from a power station! (wind not blowing, sun occluded etc ) With nuclear power as with fossil fuels this power is inherent in the matter and can be extracted via a controlled process. Anyway again hats off to Mark! Hopefully he can come and see the light on dissolved fuels as we will need him and people like him to convince the public that next gen nuclear is not a "20 year old technology". Someone might want to educate Dr. Dorfman on the history of the waterwheel if he is to make the assertion that his technology is "newer".
solar power is also second hand nuclear power
Spot On. Excellent points.
@@jlebrech Geothermal is 2nd-hand nuclear (fission) power too
Well as long as our neighbours have enough nuclear power plants we're fine😅
That was shameful. Giving Dorfman the last word (and an argument he hadn't brought forth before), without allowing Nelson a rebuttal.
Electricity is only about 20% of total energy demand and Germany only gets a little over 5% of its total energy demand from wind and solar combined. They never talked about the other 95%.
Electricity may be only 20% of total energy demand, but that will change dramatically over the next 10 to 20 years as Germany requires all vehicles being EVs.
@@tspidey007 Which makes the all renewables problem an order of magnitude worse.
@@tspidey007 You can demand anything you want, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. EVs are second or third vehicles for rich people to virtue signal with. I love the idea of EVs, no noise, no gears, no exhaust, so few moving parts, and very low maintenance. However, that is greatly offset by cost, range, charging time/infrastructure, and mining inputs. The mining inputs won't change even as most of the other problems get addressed over time.
Private company Terrestrial Energy has amazed me over the years in its dogged pursuit and attainment of IMSR nuclear regulatory approval(s). In a few more years actual and current IMSR performance data should be available to counter the aged arguments of the Dr. Dorfmans of the world.
I'm German, and I have to admit that phasing out nuclear energy during an energy crisis is downright stupid!
It feels like a joke! Sometimes I shake with laughter thinking about it, although it's actually quite sad.
He used the terms "renewables" and "heavy lifting" in the same sentence. Bwhahahaha
Indeed they can only do light weight training but have cost half a trillion 😂
And they're NOT 'renewables' either. They're "ReDOables", because you have to discard and REDO them ALL OVER AGAIN, EVERY 20 YEARS
No problems Germany will simply free ride on other nations nuclear for baseload, France, Sweden Belgium and even Ukraine.
Yeah. Poor old Norwegians are seeing a massive spike in their energy prices already because of Germany sucking them dry.
Oh it's not a free ride, Germany will pay them through the nose for the excess, just like they pay them to take the excess wind the few days per month they actually work.
@@AximandTheCursed High marginal energy costs in a connected grid will hurt everyone, not just the Germans. The deliberate destruction of economically productive infrastructure is akin to terrorism or at the very least vandalism.
Germany is exporting energy to France.
@@Prometheus4096 ...when they don't need it, paying for the privilege as they do so, costing Germany even more. Wind power is an economic disaster for any country that adopts it en masse.
I think that the lack of words of the pro-renewables participant at 8:09 is more teeling than a thousand argumebts...when faced with concrete facts, the whole antinuclear pitch collapses loke a house of cards
nuclear is so last century
This bizarre assertion that solar and wind energy are given preferential treatment to supply electricity when the conditions are right really bugs me. As if the 24/7 baseload nuclear is just expected to get out of the way and throttle down to accommodate them. Why not just allow generating technologies to supply to the grid on a first come first served basis. If the wind starts blowing and it turns out that their output isn't required you might just consider dismantling the turbines and returning the land they're on to it's natural state.
Revisit this conversation in a year when Germany experiences brown out, increased pollution and eye watering electricity bills. Good luck powering all the electric cars we see everywhere
Curtail renewables instead of nuclear, obviously it would be cheaper that way.
Nuclear is still cheaper.
how about curtail coal? & gas...
@@mrrolandlawrence The cost of gas is effected by the availability of nuclear. So it will always be cheaper. If there is more nuclear, gas will just be cheaper and cheaper.
Granted, eventually nobody will afford to produce it
@@mrrolandlawrence We're assuming that guy's argument is nuclear has to pay for a problem renewables cause.
@Roland Lawrence I don't think having less than a ⅓ of the steel production is such a good thing. To get steel you need iron, to get iron you need coking coal... at least to get numbers that won't significantly hinder the planets ability to manufacture anything
Both Solar and nuclear benefit from batteries for instant load following.
Talking about the German phase out Dorfman says that nuclear is too late. Really clever.
Well done Mr. Nelson.
I'd like to see the load-follow capacity of wind when it doesn't blow, or solar when the sun won't shine. Renewables are fine, but availability is unpredctable if there are no batteries and other energy storages. And that's what is increasing energy prices, and with resource consumption, also environmental cost.
You missed the point completely. YOu need a load following energy as a backup for solar and wind. How can solar back up solar? WTF. Nuclear cannot do this because it is an expensive reactor with a cheap fuel that is already too expensive when you run it 100%. You need a cheap reactor with expensive fuel to act as a backup to solar and wind. Spending 20 to 40 billion to build a nuclear reactor and then keep it turned off because solar and wind are producing so much energy is completely wasteful.
@@Prometheus4096 lol... Nuclear is still one of the cheapest and safest power sources we have. But dogmatic ideologists ignore anything that doesn't match their fairy tale fantasy.
Right now we have to back-up wind and solar by coal and gas, as there is not nearly enough batteries and other power buffer capacity. And gas is the most expensive way to generate power, besides both of them being "dirty" ways to do it.
Shutting down working NPPs when they have to be replaced with coal and gas is just insane, even more when those NPPs were among the most modern there are.
I would like to know the REAL cost of renewables adding up all the subsides to promote them and all of the special conditions in the contracted supply. In Australia the wind farms I am told, attract a $500,000 a year subsidy for each turbine. The government is going out of its way to attract renewable development but I fear that when all these incentives are tallied and the consumer is billed there will be a big big voter backlash.
Definitely painful. Thorium, MSRs and or SMRs are the only sensible way forward. Building endless wind-turbines and solar farms is just stupid!
Even 4 gen uranium reactors would be better then the catastrophically unreliable energy system that is being implemented at the moment, future generations will look back with horror at the mass-psychosis that has gripped the west.
Thorium and SMRs don't exist.
Poul Dorfman you are totaly crasy. No thanks to PFAS pollution from windturbins and dangerus coal.
Look at that mustache!!!!!!!!! You are going to steal my wife!
Whilst nuclear claims it can ‘load-follow’ in a limited and constrained way - as UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology reports: ‘Nuclear stakeholders claim existing reactor types can, to a limited extent, moderate generation to match demand depending on the reactor type. However, this has not substantially been observed in practice.'
You just cited your own writing. Are you ok?
> Whilst nuclear claims it can ‘load-follow’ in a limited and constrained way -
However, in the video, you Paul Dorfman, claimed the issue was that NPP could not backfill intermittent RE, not load-follow demand.
What you have pointed out, is that intermittent RE requires backup.
You cited storage, and yet, storage makes nuclear easier to load-follow - especially as the generation output is predictable!
@@factnotfiction5915 In practice, technologically it cannot load follow in the way that will be required. But the main issue is economical. You cannot have a nuclear reactor that is off not producing energy most of the time. That's like burning money.
Is that from the lobbying report for which you got funding from Greenpeace ? Nuclear does not need to load follow as it it mainly used as base load due to its unique ability to drive the massive generators which are the backbone for any electricity grid.
@@kennethskjttstagistoft7203 No, because wind and solar are so much cheaper than nuclear, and easier and faster to build, so those will form the backbone. We can't do fossil fuel for 20 more years and then pay 30% to 50% more for electricity from nuclear. So the backbone has to be wind and solar. The question then is if you can use nuclear as a backup for when the sun isn't shining, wind isn't blowing. And the answer is 'no' because nuclear cannot load follow as required, and it is extremely expensive to have a nuclear reactor, but not use it because you already have a ton of cheaper energy on the grid because the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Right now we already have a problem with too much electricity when consumers with solar panels are all trying to give electricity back to the grid.
This debate was frustrating. Not only did they contradict each other's, *points* they contradicted each other's *facts.* Assuming that both are real experts, then one *must* be lying. It's impossible for this to be an honest disagreement. (Considering that Dr. Dorfman claimed the nuclear lobby is *strong* - I suspect he was the one who was wrong, since that's the only fact I can independently verify. The anti-nuclear lobby is strong, the pro-nuclear lobby is practically non-existent).
EDIT: There is one other fact that I am knowledgeable enough to be confident in my conclusion (even though I can't inspect the evidence with my own eyes). This would be his claim that "nuclear power plants are a target in war." In other words, he's claiming that nuclear plants are more likely to be targeted, damaged and destroyed by an adversary in a shooting war. To people who've heard the media hysteria surrounding the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early days of the Russian war in Ukraine, this might sound reasonable at first. To me - who has been following the conflict closely since day 1, it's utterly ridiculous. The main problem is just how hard it is to cause a catastrophe from the outside. These things have reinforced concrete structures some four feet (~1.3m) in thickness - too thick for a Tomahawk cruise missile to get through. Some time after the invasion started, I actually came across a video here on TH-cam by a professional nuclear physicist who pointed out that containment structures are designed to survive "weeks of artillery bombardment." I suspect this is exactly why the Russians started shelling it *after* they already occupied it - because they *knew* it was impossible for them to do serious damage. If you look at fascist false flag attacks in and around World War II, you'll notice a pattern: they often do little damage with no casualties, but the fascists trump it up as a big crisis demanding an overwhelming, disproportionate response. That's what happened here; they knew that they could safely take some potshots at the thing and everything would be alright. Now let's look at what happened to the *rest* of Ukraine's power plants. Non-nuclear power plants were deliberately targeted during the winter of 2022 (another flaw in Dr. Dorfman's argument - there's no reason why an aggressor nation *wouldn't* destroy the defender's non-nuclear plants). This did considerable (temporary) damage to Ukraine's power grid. The strikes involved hundreds of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones (Russia never has more than about a thousand cruise missiles in inventory at a time). Now let's imagine what would've happened if *all* of Ukraine's power plants were nuclear. In that case, they'd all have containment structures, meaning it would take far more cruise missiles to put one out of commission. Considering that the Ukrainians were able to intercept many cruise missiles with their own surface-to-air missiles, then it's easy to see that such an attack wouldn't have any teeth in this scenario. The few that would be able to get through defenses wouldn't be able to do enough damage to any one plant to do significant harm to the grid (the drones wouldn't have been able to anything at all, since they're too slow have any penetrating power).
Jeff they're both on Twitter and I think a look at their feeds will quickly give you a sense of who is honest. Mark Nelson = EnergyBants. Dr. Paul Dorfman = dorfman_p.
Common sense says Dofrman is a dork, an academic in klaus Shwab army of lobbyist and alarmist. All are invested and investing in green, they have to sell this somehow.
No one should ever do the right thing if trading partners wont do it. MONEY MONEY MONEY is all that matters.
He just destroyed Dr. Dorfman.
Sadly, in terms of convincing those on the fence, i don't think there was a clear winner here. While Mark seems far more sensible and correct to me, i don't think his rhetoric is able to hypnotize and convince quite as well as the already primed audience here (which includes myself) thinks.
If there is the slightest bit of hope for a renewable energy supply, real or imagined, they will reject nuclear. The fall of Germany is not good for any of us.
Your thoughts are very true - the audience doesn't want facts, but feelings. Dorfman lost at the end because he gave into his, but Mark lost at the beginning because he didn't express any.
A sad commentary on our species.
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future".
More than half of French nuclear fleet offline in 2022. EDF are in deep trouble - essentially bankrupt. €64 billion in debt, reporting a record €19 billion loss this year, with exponential radioactive waste and decommissioning costs on the horizon. With an estimated €50-100-billion bill for reactor safety upgrades.
Go check ElectricityMaps. It shows Germany importing electricity from France. That's what's happening now.
As Mark Nelson points out, odd you need to raise France's neglect of their nuclear, when the topic being discussed on AlJazeera was the closure of Germany's already-operating well-maintained remaining 3 reactors... they saved the best maintained for last, and STILL you wanted them shut down. But ok, France: The fleet is now being properly maintained. The increased availability of the French nuclear fleet means the country is able to resume its position as a NET EXPORTER during the first quarter this year, after having been a net importer of power during most of 2022.
> More than half of French nuclear fleet offline in 2022
Of course, with a capacity factor of 25% for solar RE and 35% for wind,
solar is offline 75% of the time, and wind a mere 65% of the time - yes, it is remarkable that a NPP is offline; it is sadly, unremarkable that intermittent RE is offline most of the time.
Mark Nelson you are right!!
About renewable, or, rather "renewable"... For me, it seems to be that some of folks really, really need to reimagine their own brains! Just saying.
Dr Dorfmanns Fukishima comment gets today's "My BS meter exploded" award.
Update: Ten months later, Germany is spending billions on gas while winking about hydrogen somewhere in the future…
Doctor Dorfman is a doctor of what? Frightening!😱
"The performance of knowledge in the low level radiation risk debate" (University of the West of England, Bristol) was his PhD. A download of the full document shows...
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England, Bristol, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2005.
"Doctor of Philosophy" PhD
His LinkedIn profile says: "UWE UWE PhD, Nuclear RiskPhD, Nuclear Risk 2000 - 2004"
"Nuclear Risk" PhD
It sounds like soft science to me. And I don't think he's got 2 PhDs, rather the Philosophy was partial (so no PhD) but the "Nuclear Risk" PhD is presumably completed. If his LinkedIn profile is accurate. But I swear I've never heard of a Nuclear Risk PhD before.
This debate was paid for by the coal miners of Germany. Choose coal, it is cool!
The coal industry loves renewables!
When the lunar programm goes well can't we just send all anti nuclear people to the moon till the come to their senses?
All we need is to create a smart grid where all the opponents of nuclear can be the first to get their power cut of when load shedding is required, in a year there won't be many opponents left...
@@---...---...---...---... Very good idea. That would be an option too.
I love Germany. I love German people. Sadly Germany has a history of making bad decisions. Please Dr Dorfman desist from leading Germany again in a bad direction. You have a choice. You can make a good choice and be part of the solution, providing prosperity for billions of humans all over the earth. Make the right choice!
Paul Dorfman's closing remark says it all: he's not interested in the facts, he's just "married" RENs as any follower of a religious cult would.
Love your work Gordon. Have you ever heard of CERLIQMESH reactors? Saw only one video about it on here and would like a further explanation on it. It uses nanomaterials but could be made with modern manufacturing techniques. If it is even remotely possible it could mean nuclear batteries and reactors the size of trash cans!
Is Germany building third gen now?
Yes, gen. III lignite coal plants.
Hope France is making Germany pay dearly for every KWhr they are buying.
Fact??? He doesn't know the meaning of the word and that's a fact.
All solid fuel, water moderated nuclear plants need to go the way the way of the steam engine. SMR's and advanced plants should be the natural evolution. The need to adapt and grow has been there all along just hindered by the regulatory industry and lack of funding through national labs.
Steam engine is the most common typ of engine in regards of MWh per year produced in the world today
SMRs are a hoax.
Mark Belson 10, Dorkman zero
Dorkman sounds like a 90's hippie, He has his faith, and he arranges and twists the facts around it to bolster his faith based beliefs.
Its disgusting
Folks, carbon is plant food.
We should make giant metal bowls and fill them with salts containing dissolved uranium. Put the graphite moderator in the middle, then lease access to the high-quality heat at several heat-exchanger bays around the circumference. Lease access to the bays to industry (just as airports lease gate access) to drive chemical processing (such as manufacture of liquid fuels for transport), and to utilities for electricity production.
Between the reactor core and the heat exchangers, you can place tanks containing thorium, to breed more fuel.
We could be building several of these each week using just one factory. More factories would mean more production.
This would be an obvious high-profit opportunity if we were to impose a global (or multi-nation) carbon extraction fee designed to draw down the rate of extraction by 8% or 10% per year.
Why don't we ever hear about Thorium? What's Thorium's downside?
it's too good, might ruin many coal, gas and petrol businesses. At this point LFTR is pretty much threat to current world order simply because of it's efficiency also they still can't quite solve the corrosion problems so it won't be a reality anytime soon
the friggin plants don't really work as stable as we want them yet, it's not for everyday use, you need constant technical supervision
yes, they are safe and cheap, but we don't have enough experts.
@@ashnur Because Thorium, (while cool) is a developing technology. Uranium is well understood and there is no shortage of this material.
We need what works now, today. That's Uranium reactors. Thorium has a lot of promise but it doesn't have 60 years of experience behind it. It needs a lot more fleshing out.
The downside of Thorium is that it doesn't have an upside. ;) All Thorium amounts to is an alternative to Uranium which is better in every way. Now that's not trivial there are a few advantages to having two fuel options. But there's no urgency and it's just not pressing.
Mark Nelson appears to be an obvious merchant of doubt for the carbon fuel industry.
Google before you speculate. Mark Nelson's road to supporting nuclear is documented in 6 different places.
Germany should shut down all nuclear and coal plants and become an example for the rest of the world
I think they are already an example for the world, of what not to do with energy policy.
There is no climate problem!
There is a climate problem, just not anything even close to a crisis.
The only problem is the energy solutions proposed by Dorfman.
A several months major heat period has just ended in southeast Asia, another is starting in Spain, Europe expects a drought this summer. Southwest USA has a drought for 20 years. Of course there is a BIG climates problem !
@@gaelgregoire5413 Sure, if you have zero knowledge of history then you could think that a few years of drought is exceptional.
The truth is that we have been living in one of the most stabel climatic periods in history and now we are slowly moving back to the norm.
CO2 only has a very tiny influence on this and only over many decades. If you actually read the technical reports on climate change that is what they say but the condensed politicized versions are always maximally alarmist.
Please read Alex Epsteins or Bjorn Lomborgs books on the subject and notice that their detractors never refute their arguments but simply refuse to even acknowledge their existence.
@@---...---...---...---... your post is just a heap of lies.