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I am always annoyed by video makers who still refuse to include the mainland China, or, the current correct sovereignty of People's Republic Of China. Though a big fan of your video, I am much annoyed by your choice of not including China's flag at 2:15. As a correction of your statement at that time lapse, China have commissioned it's Changjiang nuclear plant in 25th December 2015. Please correct your current video.
Both Chernobyl and Fukushima happened because corners were cut and safety precautions were ignored. They were both completely avoidable. It annoys me so much that one of the most efficient forms of fuel isn't completely viable because of human carelessness
Fukushima is understandable to a point. But earthquakes of that magnitude had occurred there in the past, to assume they wouldn't happen again is careless. If you're going to build something so dangerous in the path of what could be a huge tsunami, you should properly defend your power plant against those tsunamis
tilerh17 atually no. there have only been 3 9.0 earhquakes in recorded history. niether of the other 2 were in japan. and fukashima was very well protected against earth quakes. but alot of things that were thought to be earthquake proof shook on that day
Not carelessness so much as profiteering. And with corporations being given the powers to sue government (in terrible trade pacts like TPP, TTIP, CETA etc), you can only expect to see more of the same. Regarding Fukushima, the waterproofing on the diesel backup generators, as well as the concrete containment units' reinforcement was cut. No-one from TEPCO has gone to jail for this, and the Japanese government continues to cover their tracks (because if they didn't, TEPCO would sue them in an Investor DIspute Resolution tribunal made out of non-elected attorneys, for 'destroying their profits'). As you say, tidal waves were well known for the area. Ancient stones warned of 'suddenly rising seas' and to 'not build below this line' (that the stones marked out). Fukushima was built below that line, lo and behold...
"another fukushima or chernobyl every 10 years" would be an amazing improvement. Coal power kills more people *every year* than all nuclear power disasters combined.
So we have been working on this project for more than a year on and off. now The only way we found to be really neutral was not to be neutral. We did a pro and contra video - the pro video is *really* pro, the contra video is *really* contra. Together they should even out and become a neutral statement. So before you write angry comments about how we totally did misrepresent nuclear energy, please watch both of them. And share them if you like them!
***** If you tried to do one "fair" video, the message would probably get distilled by the end. Although by doing 2 "extreme" views you are feeding a lot of extremists who will only watch one (and I'm guessing it's the title they already agree with). You really can't win *shrugs* Although I like this format, if anything because most educational videos try to be neutral and these 2 were refreshing. Cheers.
Really liked both videos - it shows that you aren't trying to patronize your viewers and let them make their own informed decision. Great solution to this topic.
Dear Kurz Gesagt, I'm only 15 and I'm not living in the US, so I don't have a credit card and therefore no patreon, and often times I get frustrated for being unable to support youtube channels that I like, channels like you. So Kurz Gesagt, can I just mail you cast so I could finally do my part and help the channel that I love so much. a loyal viewer
***** It is expected to be working after 2050 according to optimist specialist. I hope one day they'll produce cheap and clean energy but I think the debate is more about the first half of the century as almost everyone agree that nuclear fission is soon (~50 years, I'd say) to be obsolete. Furthermore, I would argue that nuclear fusion is a bit out of topic. The names are confusing but nuclear refers only to the atomic nucleus. Beside that, the two kinds of energy have almost nothing in common.
Simple, use thorium instead of uranium Thorium... * Doesn't produce plutonium * No bombs * Less waste * Is much more controllable * Is more widespread * Cheaper * Much more to use
Too bad we're still not ready for them yet, and more R&D is required before we can start using them. The only reason why we use uranium is because we already have the technology to make use of them, which stems from nuclear warheads.
@@URMOMJOWUAKAOASG look at Renault production figure, only 1.5% of their cars and vans are electric. And their vans have a range of 120 km on average, when new. In 10 years, half of cars will be the ones produced today so the electrical car market will be 5%. UK is dellusional when it say oil engines will be banned
ew even if you think it’s the best location, the sad truth is, people do live there, and as a person, I wouldn’t want the entire world to export their nuclear waste to my backyard if I lived there. I am probably not alone with this opinion. Nuclear waste disposal is much more complicated than simply putting it somewhere safe. Everyone wants safe long-term disposal of nuclear waste, but no one wants that to happend anywhere near them.
***** :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) I EXPECTED A BETTER RESPONSE THAT "OOPS"! :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) I WAS READY TO GOOGLE EXACTLY HOW MUCH PROGRESS DID EINSTEIN DO REGARDING NUCLEAR ENERGY, PRECISELY BECAUSE YOU WROTE THE "1925" IN YOUR VIDEO! :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
As someone who is extremely pro-nuclear, I do enjoy watching videos like this. Many people paint this sort of thing as black and white, when it is far from that. To forward ourselves, we must look at the failures and risks that come with moving forward. We aren't always going to win and things aren't always going to turn out perfect. It's a fact of life we must accept. We prepare for the worst, fix what we can, then move on to the next thing. It's what we've always done. That being said, I do think the pros in the nuclear energy industry vastly outweigh the cons, though it is frustrating to see how weapons have benefited from it.
@Collin Lutz fossil fuels and thermal power kill so many more people and do so much worse stuff the earth, Chernobyl was an extremely complex event and if you don’t understand it you shouldn’t be acting like it’s something that’ll happen again, Fukushima was due to cut corners and bad preperationd
Little detail about all the horrible "waste". I does virtually zero harm to anyone. So we see a very common and sad pattern with multitudes being extremely fearful of things that do little or no harm while a lot of people still don't even bother to fasten their seat belts and things like that. And all the radiation that has been released hardly compares with natural sources which do at least 50X as much harm while getting pretty much zero amount of blame.
Its pretty black and white. All energy sources have risk. Nuclear is the only source where most of that risk is avoidable. Coal accidents happen all the time, at every stage of use. Mines collapse, explosions become uncontrolled, and processing accidents (which have involved people being literally melted alive) are inevitable.
I'm still pro nuclear. Long term, it has the benefit of being overall better for the environment and sustainability of human life, while also being magnitudes more efficient than fossil fuels. The few major disasters were either the fault of poorly maintained reactors and a natural disaster. Really, people and governments need to get serious and invest in the technology. Politicians and leaders today are much more timid; strict ruling and safety regulations, competent and regularly trained staff and technicians and added safety mechanisms would cut out all but the absolute worst case scenarios from ever playing out.
I wouldn't say it's a long term solution since we will be stuck with radioactive waste for thousands of years and with current mining and reactor technology, there is only enough uranium for the next 230 years. Nuclear power is more of a short term solution to limit our fossil fuel use while we develop better ways of producing energy, like nuclear fusion or improved methods for harvesting renewable energy.
666DarkBehemoth666 we won't be limited by current mining or reactor technology by the time that comes around, plus, as the pros video hinted, we're not limited to uranium alone and have potential materials that could provide way more energy per unit of fuel compared to uranium. not to mention that spent uranium can itself be recycled into reactor fuel, should it come to it. its still finite, but you're underselling its viability.
666DarkBehemoth666 That is not true. "Uranium is not a rare element and occurs in potentially recoverable concentrations in many types of geological settings. As with other minerals, investment in geological exploration generally results in increased known resources. There is therefore no reason to anticipate any shortage of uranium that will prevent conventional nuclear power from playing an expanding role in providing the world’s energy needs for decades or even centuries to come. This does not even take into account improvements in nuclear power technology which could effectively increase the available resource dramatically. On the basis of December 2012 data Australia has 29% of the world's uranium resources - 1.7 million tonnes of uranium." - world.nuclear.org Nuclear power is very very young still and got lots of time to develop. Also does the treatment of nuclear waste. We can easily bury it for quite some time and maybe lets say, a hundred years, we perhaps figured a way to generate more energy (except pu239 extraction to mox fuel) from uranium, or even destroy radioactivity completley. This is the least bad option we have at the moment, truth to be told. I can go on for hours :)
Nuclear energy is neither clean or efficient "overall" when compared with renewable technologies. The plants are extremely costly, and have a very significant carbon footprint because of the extensive process of building of the plant which takes an average of 4 to 6 years depending on the type of reactor, not to mention, refining uranium, which is very energy-intensive and polluting. AND, after it's built it takes on average 10 to 19 years for the plant to completely go on line. So, even without discussing their safety, or the environmental impact of radioactive waste, it is very easy to see that only the nuclear power industry would continue to push it as "clean energy" in comparison much cheaper and much more efficient renewable technologies.
Ignoring computer shut down advice, no knowledge no xenon poisoning, inappropriate material for nuclear reactor construction and control rods. Where should I begin?
@@chrisenvelope8985 I think he was joking and referencing the HBO miniseries. However, you're right. Chernobyl's accident was set in motion when the RBMK was first designed, if you ask me.
:/ Really TH-cam? Kurzgesagt is like the most friendly thing there is that still contains a strong message and now you take their money? Ffs might as well call you Activision from now on. #MakeTH-camGreatAgian
nobody cares , only because you've got the "best" educational system" doesn't necessarily mean it's population it's the smartest or even the best educated.
BTW, more countries should support Finland. I think thats a great idea to have a special island or something that is controlled and contains all the toxic waste.
no trust sharp rock. true, sharp rock make axe for firewood; but also make spear for man-hurting. impossible to distinguish sharp rock technology for tools from covert weapon rock. if cold wait for renewable option of covering family with leaf pile (not enough yet, but 5 winters from now will be thicker leaves).
@@-gemberkoekje-5547 yeah we're too busy focusing on making more weapons too kill and take oil (that isnt even good for us) than develop renewable energy technology further ,we have bombs that could blow up entire countries but still cant harness the sun's energy efficiently , priorities messed up
Michael Govard It will come eventually and its the best alternative,until the day fusion reactors will become a reallity we should use thoruim reactors,also there are other variables you didn't consider like ITER.
Okay, these are very valid points, but let's just set one thing straight Chernobyl wasn't an accident, it was completely avoidable and only happened because the people who were in charge not only ignored every warning given to them, but willfully disabled every single safety feature so they could perform a test that they didn't even need to perform I'm not saying that Nuclear disasters don't happen, but usually they are the result not seeing something coming that people should have seen coming, and I can't really use the argument that they should have seen it coming, because it happens in literally every single industry, hindsight is 20/20 But Chernobyl is not one of those cases, it should not be counted as a reason why we should avoid nuclear power If we think of all the other Nuclear disasters as an accidental electrical fire, then Chernobyl is arson
They were warned that there was a safely flaws in the Reactors, the test was to find a fix for some of the flaws but the test parameters failed to be meet due to improper oversight leading to the explosion. Just because the disaster was preventable does not mean that it was not a accident, over half of aviation accidents are caused by pilots making avoidable mistakes, using your logic there are a lot of pilots guilty of mass murder.
Alexander Technically all accidents are avoidable, but Chernobyl was the result of willful incompetence Every other nuclear incident was an accident, and tell a grim picture of what can happen even with safety in mind, Chernobyl wasn't They ran the test without proper supervising, during high power demand, and they had to manually disable almost all the built in safety features just to run the test to begin with It's not a "mistake" when you blatantly ignore established safety protocols
Yes Chernobyl was cause by safety protocols being ignored but that does not make it not a accident. No one in the plant intended for the incident to happen, the intent of the people involve in the incident is what makes it a accident or not, not the level of competence of the people involve.
If they did not intent for the plane to crash and there was no valid reason (etc engine fire) for turning off the plane's engine, it is a accident cause by negligence.
When it comes to the waste. It's one of the reasons why we need to continue developing nuclear energy technologies. In hopes to use spent rods much longer.
We've done that for quite a few decades now and still haven't arrived at a point where nuclear waste stops to be a serious problem. At some point you simply have to accept that it has looked much more promising at the start but turned out to be very complex and problematic in the process. For example, transmuting only 5% of one of the 4 most dangerous (i.e. most radioactive) actinides during a multi-year fuel cycle means that you need lots of reactors and almost a century to reduce the majority of the highly radioactive nuclear waste to somewhat humanly-manageable storage times (i.e. not millions of years, but "only" thousands). But handling highly radioactive material, especially processing the spent fuel rods, creates more radioactive waste and is also very dangerous (e.g. avoiding leaks and accidental nuclear chain reactions). Apart from the technological problems there are also the extremely high costs, making a profitable operation doubtful. There might be a discovery of more elegant solutions in the future, but taking that for granted and producing more waste in the meantime is simply irresponsible.
@@danielh.9010 what? There are entire research lines on breeder reactors and they're not more numerous solely due to the fact we chose to keep using more inefficient technology after finding new uranium reserves to cut the costs on developing new reactors. The possibility of burning all transuranics as fuel without needing new fuel rods and only having to dispose of non-fissile fission products that decay relatively quickly (as in less than a hundred years, not "thousands" or "millions") is pretty much the end-all of the nuclear waste debate. Not to mention the possibility of using fuel other than uranium or fissile isotopes of plutonium, like thorium, a whole new direction nuclear energy can take.
@@ricksaburai oh wow only 100 years! That's not so bad, if an area was contaminated just before you were born, you still wouldn't be able to go there just before you die! So I guess that you won't mind if we all send out radioactive materials to where you are! Don't worry though, it's clean because that's what they keep telling us! Just think of the bonus of being able to see everyone in your are at night from the free glow! Nice 👍
@@PeterMilanovski your sarcasm is uneducated and unwarranted. I'm not talking about contaminating an area. I'm talking about reactors whose nuclear waste is either essentially inert or isn't produced at all in the first place, not about irradiating an area for 100 years. Or do you think we can live among waste, nuclear or not? Think about the amount of time it takes for glass or plastic to decompose - even if we had to bury a lot of fission products that were still radioactive, even 100 years is a damn good deal to get rid of it entirely instead of polluting the ground or the atmosphere for thousands of years. Yet you dismiss breeder and thorium reactors, which are the cleanest, most efficient energy sources ever conceived in favor of what, coal plants? Hydro plants? If you're worried about cancer, you'll much sooner get lung cancer due to breathing a combustion waste saturated air than from any sort of radioactivity.
@@ricksaburai yeah I'm sorry but I know very well how people can drop like flies from radioactivity, way faster than what pollution can do from other sources. While the reactor appears to be clean during it's operation, which I really don't have a problem with, it's the fact that there are people involved! That's only the first problem, the waste is the other problem and finally it's the fact that it's producing heat! I understand that this is how a reactor works and so does a coal fired power plant! I used to think that the best solution was to burn hydrogen and oxygen because it's far cleaner than anything else, it's only water and heat is it's only byproduct, but it's the heat that's the problem! The planet doesn't need anymore heat! I don't know if you can grasp that! I don't like nuclear reactors not just because of their inherent radioactive waste! They still pump to much heat into the atmosphere as did the burning of coal... The planet has it's own way of dealing with Co2, had that not being the case, we should all have choked to death by now due to having burnt all the available oxygen but we are both testimony to the very fact that we are still alive today! People just on their own generate heat! How much people do we have on this planet, the same people have car's that also generate heat along with pollution, those same people have a house with a stove to cook on and a boiler for hot water which both generate heat and let's not forget about gas and electric heating! Both generate a lot of heat! It's no wonder why the planet is heating! It just can't get a break. So then, what do we do about it? We we need to find a solution to produce electricity without the heat, hydroelectric, solar, wind and rain really looks good for this purpose, next we need electric transport and we are slowly getting there! So that's good, the house! Gas and electric space heaters should be against the law, the reverse cycle air conditioning systems don't generate heat but instead simply just move it out or in as needed, it really is a brilliant device, cooking food is going to be a difficult topic to touch on at the moment because the only thing that we have that doesn't produce excess heat is the humble microwave and I don't know if I can live of food prepared in one of those for ever, that's something that is going to need more research into. The boiler can be fitted with the same reverse cycle technology as the air conditioner.. housing architecture has to be re thought to be as efficient as possible and when this begins to take traction, you will begin to see a huge change in the climate and we will finally understand what's really needed to protect the planet that allows us to exist, because it can easily get rid of us if we don't do whatever we have to do to keep the planet happy and us alive. Close enough isn't good enough any more! Either we make drastic changes or we start culling off people! We don't have war's like we used to so there's no control over human population. Not even something as periodical as a virus is having trouble culling off people like it was able to in the past, we are both the problem and the solution! It starts with us and it will end with us. We can sit here all day arguing whether nuclear power is the best or not or we can decide that there are better ways to do things but those things have to also agree with our planet otherwise we have achieved nothing! So it's not that I don't like it because you like it, I'm not trying just to be difficult or different! I'm actually thinking about what is the best for both the planet and humanity without making to much inconvenience for both. Who knows what's hiding in the ice caps, do you know that they found the influenza virus that caused a pandemic in 1918 still frozen in Antarctica during the 90's, it's how they have a vaccine for it today! For all that we know, it could have been a virus that killed off the dinosaurs and it could still be there frozen in the Antarctic ice caps just waiting to come back out again. No one knows how or why the dinosaurs died or what happened to previous civilisations that no longer exist but their megalithic structures still remain, what happened to them? Did they overheat the planet too? Is that why there was an ice age after them, is that what is coming for us? Lots of questions but which is the correct answer? What's the correct path to take today? What are we debating about here? I think that I know the answer but going nuclear isn't it. And you thought that I wasn't educated... You that read wrong to!
I like the way that these 'terrible reasons' are pretty much countered in the other video, seems like the reasons for are much better then the ones against
ryant331 Yeah, the first two problems in this video can be solved with the thorium reactors mentioned at the end in the other, and the death toll is much less than other forms of energy.
illdiewithoutpi true, but still what they said here is not false, since they describe the non-thorium existing technologies and state that we might want to drop these. There are also theoretical reactor types that might burn our current nuclear waste -> a solution. (Bill Gates funds research on those) If you ask me: old tech nay, new tech yay
illdiewithoutpi The problem is thorium reactors is not yet real, might be in the future. It's still needs to be research alot more to be useable. The Videos are talking about the current nuclear technology.
Shangori Well there is still the radioactive waste isn't there? And even if it's in 100s and not 1000s of years it's still quite a time compared to non nuclear power generation. And doesn't get the equipment also radioactive?
Fabian Neundorf "compared to non nuclear power generation" Don't agree.. Do keep in mind that currently we are changing the climate, pushing fine dust into the air we breath, etc.. We can better quantify it in the case of nuclear power, sure. But I dont think that current use of fossil fuel is in any way less problematic. In fact, I believe it's more problematic, because the problem cannot be contained currently
Fabian Neundorf There is still waste, but up to two orders of magnitude less than in standard reactors. And it's not as though the rest of our primary power generation isn't producing waste.
Shangori ...as a solution for the next 100 years or so. At some point we have to switch to 100% renewable because... well if it's not renewable it's not going to last by definition.
yeah, but can you force everyone to use thorium reactors, and deny them other nuclear tech? I think these countrys would argue with the sovereignty of their country (in the sense, you can't interfere with their "innerpolitical" stuff), "but the others have non-thorium reactors too", and so on. To get that through, you probably would need to make an agreement that replaces all existing normal nuclear reactors with thorium (or whatever is currently the best developed) ones, which would be costly. It would be an enormous effort to make everyone go to thorium.
Nice Channel. It is unfortunate there are so many untruthful claims in this episode. For instance, of the eight nuclear weapons states, only India had an electricity producing reactor before they made a bomb. That is 1/8 not "always". Any nation can replicate 70 year-old technology, so proliferation is a political not a technical issue. Fear of nuclear waste is childish. It is contained. Not more toxic than other heavy metals we don't worry about at all. Most importantly, failure to fully embrace nuclear energy condemns 1 million species to extinction. Childish fears exterminates these ancient lineages of our fellow earthlings. That is a high price for childish fears.
Not to mention that it is utterly stupid to consider nuclear enregy on its own, and not in comparison to alternatives, since there's no way humanity would stop using electricity. And the alternatives here are fossil fuels, because power dams are not enough, and you can't store unreliable solar and wind power. So then you can start talking about the efffects of fossil fuel exrtaction and transportation including: oil tanker disaster, environmental damage of coal mines, burning oil wells. And of course the air pollution you get when you burn them.
1) As for weapons, you'll never be able to stop that. That's like saying that the industrial revolution was bad, because modern guns, or the Bronze age was bad, because blades. 2) The waste is a genuine negative right now, but, as you mentioned, it's something that can be alleviated by researching into better recycling methods. It's not like solar or wind, where we hope we can make it more efficient by researching it. In the case of nuclear waste, we already know there is a solution - we just need to perfect the methods - and, if we stock up too much waste it the meantime, we could just launch a rocket full of it into deep space. 3) Finally, the disasters. They are far and few between, and are easily fixable. They were cause by two things: - poor handling - fixed with better protocol, which comes naturally with wider adoption - natural disasters - easily fixed with better planing and more advanced structuring (again, the adoption). I realize you wanted to approach this topic neutrally, but the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. This shouldn't even be a discussion. The only reason nuclear energy is not as successful as it could be, is because of paranoia. If we ever want to advance, people will have to get over it. EDIT: Since writing this, I have discovered that we have reactors that make use of waste already, so waste isn't even an issue. They are used heavily in France.
In a discussion, you have to acknowledge the downsides. Not saying anything about the disadvantages is simply stupid and he is going to publish a video discussing the benefits anyway. It's not like he is saying nuclear energy is bad.
1: Nuclear power isn't remotely comparable to "the industrial revolution" or "the Bronze age". Also, yes, as a matter of fact, we can stop that- or at least slow it. If nuclear power is restricted or even banned once alternatives are available, it becomes a hell of a lot harder to refine fuel without being put in a spotlight (if alternative forms of power were available, nuclear power's main allure would become weapons). 2: We have to operate on the now and not blindly charge into uncertainty. We have no viable way of disposing of waste. A rocket is a horrifically bad idea as all it would take would be the rocket to fail to shower a massive area with radioactive material. Furthermore, the highest weight capacity on a rocket yet was the Saturn V which could carry only 40 metric tonnes. Some napkin math would put the world's waste production at around 66,666 metric tons annually. That would be over 1,500 rocket launches of a Saturn V sized rocket costing $300 billion where if even one fails it would be catastrophic. We could bury it as it wouldn't take up the most space but long term that will accumulate and become more and more dangerous with the possibility of terrorism or natural disasters. 3: Once again this is hopeful thinking. More napkin math: with a total of 667 reactors ever having been built and so far 2 having failed catastrophically, that puts us around a 0.2% failure rate per 39 years of operation (taking average current age of a reactor). With so far an average of 20,000 deaths per catastrophic failure (n=2 so wild guesswork) and a necessary 4,400 reactors needed to power the world, we would be facing one massive accident every 4 years (assuming the level of education, safety, and safe construction practices can smoothly transfer to lower income and more impoverished countries such as Sudan). Paranoia exists because it's a threat to people who don't consent to be involved. A lot of people can and will die from idiots who bumble into jobs they shouldn't have- how do you think Chernobyl happened? All of this makes it more worthwhile to just focus our efforts on either the extra mile on something extremely experimental such as fusion, or something guaranteed to work like cleaning dirty fuel sources or building existing green ones.
@@tanmang42 1) You're right. Nuclear energy holds far more potential than those ages 2) This is all a moot point now, because we already have reactors that reuse waste. We don't even need to get rid of it anymore. 3) You "napkin"math fails to account for the fact that failures are more likely to occur early in development and before mass adoption. The fact that there have only been 2 failures is incredibly positive.
@@Phatnaru0002 I'm too lazy to address your 1 and 2, but I wanna say: 3: And your naive thinking fails to account that a shit-ton of the world is beyond stupid. If the experts at the time managed to fuck up the reactor and kill thousands, how the is it going to play out when Chad or Sudan gets a nuclear reactor? What about deep in the ass-crack of China where there are only farmers and weak education infrastructure? The perfect world on paper is never going to happen, you have to assume the worst and grit your teeth because it will always find a way to be worse.
Finland is like grandfather of the earth.They are behaving like have experienced all sort of trouble in the past,and doing nothing aggressive because they are like too old for that gibberish.I love them.Might live there.Loving winter.
About Fukushima, the tsunami itself caused multiple times more deaths and destruction by itself in an instant, than the worse predictions about the nuclear plant consequences could ever do.
+mightyTMP A lot more and more dangerous waste are dumped in the oceans, and while I am not saying that this justifies dumping contaminated cooling liquid (or letting it leak) is acceptable, it is insignificant to focus all this attention to this rather than everything else. It is like a hysterical anti-smoker complaining to himself about smokers harming his health, while stuck in traffic with his car's engine on.
+Yevrah Hipstar you have to realize that radioactive substance is not diluted into water, it remain radioactive particles that travel and may get absorb by others, like animals and vegetation, once that happen it still remain as radioactive as it was in the beginning, some for years some for thousand of year. it is not like other substance it does not dissolve and disappear. Also there was many victim (human) cause by fukushima and it will continue for 100 of years. It sometime can take many generations to come up. There was many studies about this, specially done on the Marchallyse people, Dr Robert Conard was one of them, first claiming it was for their health but soon people realize they were simply guiney pig. Nuclear is very sad nothing to be proud of....
Ieuan Hunt You do know that the same thing as for fossil fuels applies to nuclear energy? Uranium is a ressource that will get expended as much as oil, coal or gas.
@@skygrampp7679 eh, they make mistakes. As is, they're being pragmatic and showing the "as-now" rather than what we may have in future such as the Rolls Royce SMR designs. (For reference, I'm strongly Pro-Nuclear: totally anti-proliferation, and I totally accept that nuclear as it stands today carries risks)
The spent fuel actually can be used in different reactor designs with little reprocessing. Meltdowns are non-issues (physically impossible) with many advanced reactor designs, and proliferation isn't an issue because many advanced reactors don't make transuranics--the stuff of bombs. In fact, there are designs that don't even use uranium. If we only made airplanes that were unsafe to fly, nobody would fly, and airplanes would be seen as not essential. But the problem of global travel is well understood, and so investing in safer aircraft design made sense. Here, the energy crisis is poorly understood, and the possible energy generation systems are also poorly understood by the general public. Therefore, while the need is as or more pressing than safe flight, the powers that be are unwilling to invest in better, safer, and more practical reactor designs. None of these reasons are due to the inherent nature of the technology. We took a design made for ocean use (in ships and subs) and put it on land, where we spend most of our time convincing it that it's still at sea. Just as you wouldn't use a cargo plane for commercial flight, it it equally silly to insist that we have to use light water reactors on land--a place that they are inherently not designed for. If you study the energy situation, it quickly becomes obvious that nuclear is one of the most powerful and valuable technologies with very low risks--for comparison, while thousands might have been killed by radiation released, millions are definitely killed by the by-products of the fossil fuels used, and the radiation release from those, especially coal, is orders of magnitude higher than from nuclear power. Other forms of clean energy produce variable and relatively small amounts of power, making them impractical for large-scale generation. Really, only nuclear, fossil fuel, geothermal, and hydroelectric generation produces significant amounts of power for baseline use without significant land use (which is even arguable for hydro). Kurzgesagt, would you do a video on power generation and the current energy situation (how much is used, how its produced, etc) to put the different technologies in perspective to each other? That would also make a great video: pros and cons of various sources: wind (cons include massive pollution to refine the neodymium, frequent gear-box services, variable output, etc), solar (cons: not viable without subsidies, panels break down, pollution in manufacturing, variable output, etc), fossil fuels (cons: high radiation, toxin release plus greenhouse gasses, etc), dams (cons: changing ecosystems and environments), etc? You did a good job presenting both sides of nuclear--I'd like to see alternative systems receive the same treatment.
@@JihadiJesus Oh, it wasn't just that. They knew the control systems for crisis management were iffy back in the 70s, and in 2003 the potential for a tsunami of the type in 2011 was raised at a TEPCO contingency planning conference, highlighting Daichi may be at risk in such a scenario due to insufficient tsunami barriers and poorly laid-out backup power units and switchgear, all liable to flooding in such an event. They basically laughed at they guy who suggested it as nobody thought such a tsunami was possible.
Recovered uranium fuel from reprocessed light water reactor fuel can be used in a CANDU reactor. Besides, GE Hitachi PRISM is designed to turn nuclear waste into energy
Same. I am okay with nuclear energy, but I am just worried about the waste. I am hoping thorium reactors will be big soon. Thorium has so much potential and it can make a better future for all of us.
***** problem is: fossil fuel only harms us on the relative short term (the CO2 rise will be compensated within a couple centuries), while we have no clue what we are going to do with the waste to store them for more then 200.000 years
Nuclear Fusion reactors should get more funding, if the math works out they are thousands if not millions of times more efficient then today's nuclear reactors
+BryanFDNY I agree and disagree... Yes Fusion would be the "Holy Grail" of Nuclear energy but is many many years away from being perfected. Thorium Molten Salt Reactors was developed back in the 50s and can be implemented Right Now. That is where the funding should go toward.
Eric Martin yeah I read about that 2, and thorium is actually really abundant, I still have no idea why they aren't already in full use everywhere around the world
People, do some research - haven't any of you heard of Gen IV reactors? For example, the Integral Molten Salt Reactor or IMSR (made in Canada) is a completely different kind of reactor which: 1. Cannot melt down, as the fuel/salt mix is already in a molten state 2. Creates extremely small amounts of waste, which are only radioactive for a couple hundred years (instead of 20,000!) 3. Can use spent Uranium as a fuel - or Thorium, which is as plentiful as lead, and safe enough to hold in your hand 4. Does not create usable bomb-making material (Plutonium) - so no proliferation problems 5. Is much smaller and less expensive than the huge outdated reactors in use all over the place 6. Is completely walk-away safe - so worst case scenario is that the plant shuts down and cools off by itself ... and many many more benefits
2:52 here u guys are wrong. Under 100 people died in Russia and no one died cus of the reactor in Japan. and in Japan, the level of radiation was still lower than other places on earth but now more of the radiation was caused by the nuclear disaster.
If you think about it for a bit you'll you are the one who is wrong. Look at them cancer rates after disasters. Just because these ppl didnt die immidiately that doesnt mean its not due to nuclear disasters. I guess u saw hbos chernobyl. Thousands of ppl died infact the numbers are 9000-98000. Ofc the government said that only a couple ppl died there, in the end of the show they explain it as well as explain the cancer rate spike up after years and years. You can be sure that we can still feel the effect of chernobyl. Only hundreds.. get on with you.
+Armchair Pundit But that point kind of sucks when you realise that every single nuclear reactor that has ever melted down was made before man even got to the moon.
but that doesn't mean that the modern ones won't melt down as well. I understand the risk is relatively small, but the potential damage is so great that in many cases it's just not worth it.
On 3:03 Ukraine and Russia are represented as distinct countries in the context of nuclear reactor failures but they were both part of the Soviet Union during the years in question (1957 and 1987). Also, the Mayak explosion, in 1957, was not related to a reactor failure but more to a plutonium production and post processing mishandling. The Fukushima reactor failure was caused mainly by an external catastrophe rather than a faulty handling of nuclear reactors.
Thank you for providing this series of videos, it has been quite interesting. In hopes of helping you improve in the future, there are two possible errors in this video you may wish to consider. The first point of contention is with the statement at about 1:38 - that we lack reactors that use plutonium. We have been using Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) for decades. A key part of many treaties between Russia and the USA involves removing the pits from nuclear weapons, down-blending them with uranium, and then using up the material in civilian reactors. Pure plutonium fast-breeder reactors have been a possibility for a while, but few went into operation due to the changing view of nuclear power in the 70s. A second concern is the diagram of nuclear accidents. I should also point out that Kyshtym was a weapons and materials processing center, not a power plant. This does not change the fact that it was a notable radioactive release - but it is disingenuous to include in a list of power-pant mishaps. Once again, thank you for your time and high production values.
Two of the three accidents that are cited as radiating surrounding areas happened in the Soviet Union. Outside of the Soviet Union, there has not be a single death attributed to radiation poisoning in the commercial sector of nuclear power. Not one. (Yes, I'm including Fukushima in that total.)
TheCometDog Given that not a single person has died from radiation poisoning in the commercial sector of nuclear power, I would suggest that this is an extremely safe source of energy for humanity. Therefore, nuclear energy is not terrible.
SIMcityplayer2002 I would say that those (supposedly) evil, greedy capitalists managed to produce nuclear technology that was much safer than their benevolent socialist counterparts.
***** The Soviets cranked out engineers at almost twice the rate as the US. The US benefited from people like Admiral Rickover who was a relentless advocate of safety procedures in the nuclear industry. Rickover was also obnoxious and publically outspoken to all sorts of powerful people. The Soviet empire made people like Rickover disappear while he stands as a champion in Americana. That is the principle difference.
This aged well, now we have reactor designs that can use the “waste”. We also have reactors that can’t melt down and can withstand a direct plane crash. Hell, disasters wont and can’t happen. This side has lost its meaning. We have reached a new level of safety
That's what people thought with modern cars. There is *always* a risk. There will *always* be something that can go wrong. To think anything less is a fool's task.
@@justaspookydude47 nobody is denying that it isn't 100% safe but it is safe *enough* that it doesn't matter anymore. Planes are also not 100% safe yet millions use it without a hiccup.
This video was part two of a three part lesson and the third part was talking the side of the pro nuclear option. As well as this is 5 years old and they just uploaded another video about nuclear energy and it is basically all positive. I hope this video hasn't turned you off of this channel as it is quite good but obviously no channel can be right all of the time. I am aware of how modern isotopes can't melt down anymore but I am unaware about how reactors use the waste now. I was under the impression that the waste could not be broken down into less harmful materials. Where can I find such information good sir as I do not know how to properly format my question to have google give me relevant articles. It seems rather doubtful that we can repurpose 100% of the harmful waste. It sounds too good to be true to be honest.
Much of the safety has been pretty settled, yes, but non-nuclear groups *regularly* infiltrate nuclear reactors and demonstrate how laughable their security really is. I completely agree, I much prefer nuclear power, but security of the plants needs some improvement.
Waste is a problem? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Nuclear accidents worry you? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Want a sleek reactor so cool you could fit it on a couple of trucks? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Like your fuel so safe you can carry it in your pocket, so energy dense a handful will do you for a life time, so abundant most folk currently toss it away? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Research Thorium and picture a world where abundant, clean cheap energy is solving almost every major problem we have.
***** Kid, how presumptuous of you. "They" didn't say that about Uranium, what "they" said (assuming you're talking about the scientists tasked with advising the US on domestic power generation) was we should use Thorium. My turn to be presumptuous. You don't actually know much about nuclear reactors of any type. You haven't checked out how well our current (lousy) nuclear reactors compare in deaths per GW or environmental impact to every other means of power generation. Lastly, you know absolutely nothing about Thorium salt reactors. Go do some research and come back and try being cute again when you have the slightest idea what you're talking about.
zach kelly Uranium reactors currently use about 5% of the fuel in their rods (the French recycle their rods and do better). Thorium salt reactors use over 95% of their fuel, making them at least 25 times more efficient, not 2.5. LFTRs don't get hot enough to melt down. As far as I can tell, Th power Canada is working on Thorium reactors for Chile and Indonesia but has none currently functioning. The Norwegians are trialing Th in solid form but I know of no other functioning Th reactors. Please let me know (link) to any you find. www.thoriumpowercanada.com/technology/the-projects/ www.thoriumenergyalliance.ca/molten-salt-reactors.php www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy
+Chris K Why does density at ALL matter. Cool, you have a dense material, it doesnt really matter if you have the same mass now does it. if you say it has a high density and abundance of it, but there isn't an abundance of it. If you think about it, it's a non-renewable resource and just because it doesn't have any bad effects, so what. Nuclear Fusion is close and so much more effective than fission. This technology will be useless in comparison.
+Markos De Caprios If they get the Tokamak reactor ($17 billion just to build) to work, I'm all for it. Of course it won't get rid of our current waste (Thorium MSBR will), there hasn't been 20 000 hours worth of functional testing (MSBR has) ,we've yet to yield positive energy outcome out of a fusion reactor (the baby MSBR ran at 7.5 MW) and whilst you can build modular MSBR reactors (which are much much simpler than Tokamak) you are forced to build a massive plant with our current Fusion technology. Yeah Thorium is a limited resource but 10 000 years is a pretty good limit and it will give us time to get fusion worked out. Energy density only really matters if you're building something that needs to move around, like ships, trains and boats. Ask a cargo ship builder if they'd like to do away with their fuel tanks and diesel bills and watch their eyes light up. I'm all for fusion but I see Thorium MSBR as a tested, very practical replacement for our current coal and fission reactors while fusion comes of age.
Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity
That your country still relies on fossil fuels is terrible, and I feel sorry for you, that your environment is devastated, but please don't make the rejection of Nuclear power completely responsible for it. Nuclear power is not the only possible source of renewable energie. Personally, I think Austria (and no, Austria is not the same as Australia, googel it if you have to) is a good example. Theres not a single nuclear power plant in the country, except one which was built but was never put into operation, and still the environment isn't destroyed. Instead of focusing on fossil fuels, other methods to generate energy like solar panels or water power are used. Of course not every country does have the same natural resources like water, but still, it shows that nuclear power isn't the only option.
@@marvellover4143 But Austria still relies massively on gas so your argument is invalid. You have lots of wind and solar installed but in case of absence of sun or wind, it's gas turbines which are used, which is absolute garbage for the environment.
1. You need a plutonium reprocessing plant and specific modifications to a reactor to produce weapons grade plutonium. Obviously you do need a reactor to make it, but you still need a lot more than that. 2. The amount of nuclear waste we produce would be greatly reduced if we developed a fast breeder reactor that could use it as fuel. As we stand now, nuclear power still generates 300 times less toxic waste per kWh than solar, so it already produces a relatively small amount if waste. 3. A meltdown would be almost completely impossible if we used liquid metal cooled reactors.
1. Not to mention if you make an encriched uranium bomb instead of plutonium one, you don't necessarily need a reactor to make the bomb in the first place.
Hello, I know I'm replying to a 3 year old comment, but how would solar energy produce toxic waste? If it's the panels breaking down in landfill and contaminating the environment, we can just recycle them instead of sending them to landfill (that is if governments actually start recycling and not just pretend to)
@Kurzgesagt at 2:42, you mention that there was a nuclear accident of severe harm in 1987. If you are referring to the explosion-meltdown of the No.4 reactor at Chernobyl Atomic Power Plant, then it was in 1986.
Was so confused for a second like "What? Why is Kurzgesagt anti-nuclear? Just use thorium-" and then I saw april 1st. Gosh diggely daggely dorndely darn it!
As I expected from the viewers of kurzgesagt, there aren't as many empty minded nuclear opponents than other videos. Science really makes people more positive about nuclear energy.
@@howardbaxter2514 The banana is actually slightly greater. 0.001 for the banana (I forgot the unit) compared to 0.0009 for living within 50 miles of the nuclear reactor for 10 years. Not to mention that living next to a coal-fired power plant is 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more radiation every 10 years in the same 50 mile radius.
@@efulmer8675 good point, but it’s easier to put things into perspective when you say it equals about 1 banana and then you throw a banana onto the table.
Can you have another go on this one? Many of point 3 issues have now been rectified by things like liquid fluoride thorium reactors among others. Currently I think these videos need a rework as they are not delivering an accurate portrayal of what we know in 2019. Thanks!
The three most well known nuclear accidents were at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The Three Mile Island incident didn't kill anyone. The Fukushima incident happened entirely due to an earthquake (if you're not building a nuclear plant near a fault zone, you can entirely discount this incident) and no more than two deaths can be attributed to it. As for Chernobyl, up to 64 deaths can be attributed to it, making it the deadliest nuclear disaster to date (the next deadliest disaster only killed 4 people). Each of these three disasters happened with generation II reactors, the first generation to be commercially viable (generation I was experimental). Generation III and generation IV reactors have the potential to produce the same amount of power with less uranium. Generation IV reactors may be able to use uranium with 100-300 times more efficiency, making nuclear incidents all the less likely. And that's just with uranium. Thorium power has many advantages over uranium power. In fact, according to its supporters, there is enough thorium in the US to sustain current electricity levels for over a millennia.
Thanks for providing well constructed arguments from both sides. Now I can form my own opinion based on much more objective and reasonable point of view than before. This is exactly why I love you guys in Kurz Gesagt so much.
Not to mention that argument #3 is overstated. The consensus among experts is that very few people have died from a nuclear accident. There are less than 100 confirmed cases, and although said experts acknowledge that there may be more, they don't believe that it's all that many still. Almost all the deaths from Fukushima, for instance, were caused either by the evacuation, or the earthquake/tsunami. I say almost, because there is one death that might be connected to the accident. The other two deaths at the plant were due to the tsunami. The radiation that escaped from Fukushima wasn't enough to be harmful, either. That is not to say that the Japanese authorities shouldn't have taken the precautions that they have, but they have been and still are far more thorough than they have to be.
you showed a South Africa flag amongst countries which have developed their own nuclear weapons which is incorrect, the country does not have nuclear weapons 0:41 South Africa ended its nuclear weapons programme in 1989. All the bombs (six constructed and one under construction) were dismantled.
The average cost of putting a kilogram of material into space is US$10,000/kg; plus nuclear waste is dense as shit, so economically it's pretty redundant.
It costs 60-100 million U.S. Dollars to put 10 tonnes in low earth orbit. This would decay in decade or so, meaning that you would need to boost the orbit, or put it in a higher one to start with. Around 1 in 10-20 launches fail. You could give the nuke pod an escape system so it wouldn't be breached, but the problem doesn't end there. Your nuclear waste (unshielded to save mass) now lands safely in the sea and sinks. This actually puts it in a safer place than it was on land, as it would sink below the surface of the sand (seabed conditions optimal) and burry itself for all time). Oh, and radiation damages electronics, so you might lose control of the craft. To put it simply, when disposing of something really dangerous, sticking it on top of a massive firework is not the best solution.
The hazards of radioactive waste are always overstated. The more hazardous the waste, the shorter the time it could possibly be so hazardous before decaying into a stable state. Lower activity over longer periods of time is how Uranium was able to be recognized as a potential fuel source in the first place before the radiation emitted by spontaneous fission or other forms of decay could actually harm those interacting with it.
This is exactly like the arguments for the self-driving cars go. For those who support it, they point out how it just needs to make LESS mistakes, and that decreases the car accident deaths and injuries significantly. For those who oppose it, they mostly boil down to gut rejection that goes along the line of: "So you think machines can replace human? You think they are perfect, and makes no mistakes?" People want perfect solutions, but the history proves that when the new technology is introduced, it has shortcomings that only hindsight shows, but the technology was advanced nonetheless because it was tested. Without actually putting on the field, nothing can be learned for 100% accuracy. Even then, there is always some sort of hindsight left to be discovered. This is a ugly truth no one wants to talk about, and neither myself, honestly. But even after knowing all these, you can still vote if you live under democracy, to bring about temporary or permanent changes that suits your decision. Innovations, and more importantly science, has been historically "advanced" when the previous generation died and could no longer appeal to their own authorities. New ideas only became accepted and verified by others when the new generation was willing to accept new ideas, when proven true. Democracy has a lot of shortcomings, but one undeniable fact is that it's a effective tool to overcome authorities who believe otherwise. Of course, for better or worse. If you don't vote, you might as well as consider your voting right void.
at 0:41 it shows the 1994 (and present) South African flag, but South Africa's nuclear weapons program was developed and eventually dismantled in 1989 before that flag was adopted.
@@xxxxxxcx156 Do you know that the volume of nuclear waste necessary to generate thousands of years of electricity for the entire world takes less space than a single coal mine or a medium sized hydroelectric dam. Do you know that the radioactive elements are already there and a nuclear power plant only harvest that energy ? The nuclear energy harvesting takes all those radioactive elements and isolate them, taking only the excess of energy from it and putting it inn a safer place than it was before.
But at least when you die, you won't be placed in a lead lined coffin to be buried in concrete and your family and friends won't have to wear radioactive shielding to protect themselves from you!
@@captainmorgan2307 or sitting on the beach at Seascale in the UK and a gust of wind blows some sand into your mouth along with the radioactive particles that have washed up onto the shore from the leaking barrels that the British were dumping in the ocean all around them until they were exposed by Greenpeace activists and had to stop! They no longer dump barrels off a ship, with a pipeline direct from the plant to the ocean LoL they don't need to. Skin cancer is the least of your worries over there, at least you can see the skin cancer and have something done about it but when you have cancer inside the body, you usually find out when it's to late... While it's true that there's a lot of things that are bad for you, radioactive materials have the ability to kill faster than anything else, assuming that you come in contact with it at it's hottest state. But the worst thing about it for me is that every time a disaster has occurred involving radioactive materials, those involved and in charge lie about how bad the problem is and how much people have died from it and how many people have been affected who will be suffering for how ever long they have to live with no recognition from anyone about their suffering! In Australia, the British government was testing nuclear bombs, there are people who were in the Australian defence force who were exposed and affected by the radiation and even though they were constantly being checked and measured by the doctors, no medical reports exist from that time! Yes it's clean energy until you get radioactive exposure because of cost cutting or human error, don't count on finding help because you won't get any, everything will be brushed under the carpet and no one will listen to you... If you live close to a nuclear power plant and something goes wrong, you have no one else to blame but yourself. If a reactor moves in, I'm cutting my losses and moving out, and definitely not down wind of it either, no matter how far away I am from it. Many people have played with fire and they always get burnt. Australia is a nuclear free country and I'm going to keep it that way.
only chernobyl produced lasting effects on its environment, and chernobyl was REALLY REALLY bad. fukushima release very little long-term contaminants, in fact the japanese government is already getting people to move back to fukushima since pretty much all the nasty stuff has decayed away by now (and there was a big effort to remove lots of topsoil from the area)
@@ilmu011 Safer than most industries actually, unless you work in decommissioning the 1950s era stuff. Even then, still safer than the average industrial plant because of the amount of safety and regulator presence.
Pokemarky If the power pkant has a problem and radiation is some how released whoever is on that reactor would probably die. Plus who would get the job to clean it up.
So, I actually watched an interview with a professor on this topic, and he says that the most harmful waste can be handled in an ordinary lab after just 300 years. The rest that last 100.000 is so benign you can wrap paper around it to protect yourself from the radiation, or just stay 5 centimeters away from it.
Every single "fact" presented in this video is either due to fearmongering or obsolete reactor designs. - The number of people killed by Fukushima is zero. - The number of people killed by Three Mile Island is zero. - The number of people experiencing radiation sickness from both Three Mile Island and Fukushima is zero. - The number of people injured by radiation in TMI and Fukushima who were not directly involved in cleanup or repair operations is zero. - The number of people killed by Chernobyl is less than one thousand, and it is nearly impossible to determine if those who died from cancer died due the accident. In addition, the main cancers that would be expected due to fallout exposure are highly treatable. - The Chernobyl exclusion zone has become a nearly pristine nature preserve now that humans aren't there polluting it anymore. - The Fukushima exclusion zone is due purely to fear-mongering, as the statistical increase in expected cancers living right up to the gates of the plant is negligible. - The Fukushima accident was only upgraded to INES-7 due to political pressure from ignorant environmentalists. It meets none of the criteria or guidelines specified by the IEA for being classified as a level 7 event. - There are multiple places in the world with natural radiation levels above those of Fukushima and Chernobyl, whose cancer rates are shown in some cases to be *LESS* than those of areas with lower background radiation. - Currently operating civilian reactors are nothing more than scaled up military designs, which is why there is any weapons proliferation concern at all. - Currently operating civilian reactor designs are well over half a century old, which is why they have any kind of accident danger at all. How much do you think technology has progressed since the 1950s? - Currently operating civilian reactor designs are the reason there is any long-lived nuclear waste at all. Bowever, that waste can be reburned in newer *and* older designs and essentially rendered harmless. It is due to an executive order by President Carter that the United States does not reprocess waste and reburn it in reactors. This executive order came from ignorant environmentalist pressure as well as those advocating nuclear disarmament. - Ignorant environmentalists spewing "radiation as a boogey-man" propaganda is the reason we're stuck with these old designs, as it is impossible for any replacement designs to get traction due to all of the government red tape and public fear. - Plutonium's toxicity is greatly exaggerated. Chemically it is roughly as toxic as lead. Radiologically plutonium must be ingested to present a significant hazard for most isotopes. - Modern, safer reactor designs can be built that do not produce or require plutonium or uranium and result in waste products that only last roughly 200 years. However, once again pressure from environmentalists is preventing this progress. - Both wind and solar require far nastier chemicals used in their construction than the construction of a modern nuclear power plant design, are far more expensive, and in the case of wind, far more environmentally destructive. Solar is highly inefficient and would require vast areas of land to produce enough energy to satisfy a medium sized city.
"It LosEs iTs HaRmFuLnEs oNLy SloWLy" Harmfulness is not only about the decay time or the radioactivity but about for example how easily the harm would spread into surroundings. Spent nuclear fuel is solid and practically insoluble to water. This means that one could bury the SNF into the ground, drill a well hole through the storage silo and drink the water without physical harm (
Every time I watch a video I watch it twice . The first time is for the topic it self the second is for the soundtracks . Great job .... wonderful animation and design, wonderful info , the narration is so cool and the soundtrack is more than great 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
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It is always nice to see you include little old finland in your videos! Thanks!
I am always annoyed by video makers who still refuse to include the mainland China, or, the current correct sovereignty of People's Republic Of China. Though a big fan of your video, I am much annoyed by your choice of not including China's flag at 2:15. As a correction of your statement at that time lapse, China have commissioned it's Changjiang nuclear plant in 25th December 2015. Please correct your current video.
Nuclear energy is cleaner than coal energy. So I don’t want to hear to end nuclear energy
Do you have a video on 4th generation nuclear energy? Or thorium energy?
Who is A Indonesia ?
Both Chernobyl and Fukushima happened because corners were cut and safety precautions were ignored. They were both completely avoidable. It annoys me so much that one of the most efficient forms of fuel isn't completely viable because of human carelessness
Greed is more deadly than Tsar Bomba.
chernobyl yes fukushima no. fukushima was because of a 9.0 earthquake an INCREDIBLY RARE event
Fukushima is understandable to a point. But earthquakes of that magnitude had occurred there in the past, to assume they wouldn't happen again is careless. If you're going to build something so dangerous in the path of what could be a huge tsunami, you should properly defend your power plant against those tsunamis
tilerh17 atually no. there have only been 3 9.0 earhquakes in recorded history. niether of the other 2 were in japan. and fukashima was very well protected against earth quakes. but alot of things that were thought to be earthquake proof shook on that day
Not carelessness so much as profiteering. And with corporations being given the powers to sue government (in terrible trade pacts like TPP, TTIP, CETA etc), you can only expect to see more of the same.
Regarding Fukushima, the waterproofing on the diesel backup generators, as well as the concrete containment units' reinforcement was cut. No-one from TEPCO has gone to jail for this, and the Japanese government continues to cover their tracks (because if they didn't, TEPCO would sue them in an Investor DIspute Resolution tribunal made out of non-elected attorneys, for 'destroying their profits').
As you say, tidal waves were well known for the area. Ancient stones warned of 'suddenly rising seas' and to 'not build below this line' (that the stones marked out). Fukushima was built below that line, lo and behold...
"another fukushima or chernobyl every 10 years" would be an amazing improvement. Coal power kills more people *every year* than all nuclear power disasters combined.
The funniest part is that people think that a nuclear plant will explode like an atom bomb when it fails
You are an idiot or completely misled. Fuku has killed and is killing and will kill for centuries...
Name the people it's killed, then. Should be pretty easy to find their names.
Have you found any names of people killed by Fukushima yet? Even one would help your cause.
@@karakas9905 Thousands? Do your own research.
So we have been working on this project for more than a year on and off. now The only way we found to be really neutral was not to be neutral. We did a pro and contra video - the pro video is *really* pro, the contra video is *really* contra. Together they should even out and become a neutral statement. So before you write angry comments about how we totally did misrepresent nuclear energy, please watch both of them. And share them if you like them!
***** If you tried to do one "fair" video, the message would probably get distilled by the end.
Although by doing 2 "extreme" views you are feeding a lot of extremists who will only watch one (and I'm guessing it's the title they already agree with).
You really can't win *shrugs*
Although I like this format, if anything because most educational videos try to be neutral and these 2 were refreshing. Cheers.
Really liked both videos - it shows that you aren't trying to patronize your viewers and let them make their own informed decision. Great solution to this topic.
Dear Kurz Gesagt,
I'm only 15 and I'm not living in the US, so I don't have a credit card and therefore no patreon, and often times I get frustrated for being unable to support youtube channels that I like, channels like you. So Kurz Gesagt, can I just mail you cast so I could finally do my part and help the channel that I love so much.
a loyal viewer
***** It is expected to be working after 2050 according to optimist specialist. I hope one day they'll produce cheap and clean energy but I think the debate is more about the first half of the century as almost everyone agree that nuclear fission is soon (~50 years, I'd say) to be obsolete.
Furthermore, I would argue that nuclear fusion is a bit out of topic. The names are confusing but nuclear refers only to the atomic nucleus. Beside that, the two kinds of energy have almost nothing in common.
But should i listen to this? it was uploaded _on april 1st_
HMMMMMMMMMMM
:0
No xD
@@toastour or how about "yes"?
R/hmmm
Simple, use thorium instead of uranium
Thorium...
* Doesn't produce plutonium
* No bombs
* Less waste
* Is much more controllable
* Is more widespread
* Cheaper
* Much more to use
Too bad we're still not ready for them yet, and more R&D is required before we can start using them. The only reason why we use uranium is because we already have the technology to make use of them, which stems from nuclear warheads.
China&India will do that, they have NO other ways...except the excessive pollution.
As a Pole I hope we get nuclear weapons. Germany and Russia keep invading us and Poland will never be safe until we develop a deterrent.
Are you a Pole?
Jesteś Polakiem?
@@WadcaWymiaru конечно
tiny Finland
:(
*Feelsbadman*
torille
tuon ydinjätteen
By land area Finland is larger than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
What about all the disasters regarding oil? Or all the wars fought for the sole purpose of gaining it, and all the lives lost through those.
you can't put a nuclear reactor in a car yet, despise some projects in the 50s
@@ddoumeche but you can put an electric motor in a car, and you can get that electricity from a nuclear power plant
@@roccobrooks7521 hardly, look at electric cars production figures
@@ddoumeche it’s because electrical cars are patented by greedy billionaires who care about money lmao
@@URMOMJOWUAKAOASG look at Renault production figure, only 1.5% of their cars and vans are electric. And their vans have a range of 120 km on average, when new.
In 10 years, half of cars will be the ones produced today so the electrical car market will be 5%. UK is dellusional when it say oil engines will be banned
I'm happy that our little Finland has been talked about in a big video, and in a good way!
Sweden should do the same as Finland is doing. Both are located in the perfect location for safe storage of nuclear waste for *many* years.
Angry Finn Hah!
ew even if you think it’s the best location, the sad truth is, people do live there, and as a person, I wouldn’t want the entire world to export their nuclear waste to my backyard if I lived there. I am probably not alone with this opinion. Nuclear waste disposal is much more complicated than simply putting it somewhere safe. Everyone wants safe long-term disposal of nuclear waste, but no one wants that to happend anywhere near them.
Very true
Ya ei siin mittää. Suomi perkele.
You put "1925" when you meant "2025" in your future reactor disaster timeline dates.
Oops.
***** Nuclear Energy confirmed in 1925.
*****
:))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) I EXPECTED A BETTER RESPONSE THAT "OOPS"! :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) I WAS READY TO GOOGLE EXACTLY HOW MUCH PROGRESS DID EINSTEIN DO REGARDING NUCLEAR ENERGY, PRECISELY BECAUSE YOU WROTE THE "1925" IN YOUR VIDEO! :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Guys, calm down, the illuminati already had nuclear power and they failed to mantain a reactor that was located on the moon.
Illuminati confirmed
As someone who is extremely pro-nuclear, I do enjoy watching videos like this. Many people paint this sort of thing as black and white, when it is far from that. To forward ourselves, we must look at the failures and risks that come with moving forward. We aren't always going to win and things aren't always going to turn out perfect. It's a fact of life we must accept. We prepare for the worst, fix what we can, then move on to the next thing. It's what we've always done. That being said, I do think the pros in the nuclear energy industry vastly outweigh the cons, though it is frustrating to see how weapons have benefited from it.
The same can go for fossil fuels and coal it’s not a black and white issue.
@Collin Lutz fossil fuels and thermal power kill so many more people and do so much worse stuff the earth, Chernobyl was an extremely complex event and if you don’t understand it you shouldn’t be acting like it’s something that’ll happen again, Fukushima was due to cut corners and bad preperationd
Little detail about all the horrible "waste". I does virtually zero harm to anyone. So we see a very common and sad pattern with multitudes being extremely fearful of things that do little or no harm while a lot of people still don't even bother to fasten their seat belts and things like that. And all the radiation that has been released hardly compares with natural sources which do at least 50X as much harm while getting pretty much zero amount of blame.
@@bhatkat If we had as many nuclear plants as we do gas plants we would see more meltdowns and spills that end up way worst then any oil spill.
Its pretty black and white. All energy sources have risk. Nuclear is the only source where most of that risk is avoidable.
Coal accidents happen all the time, at every stage of use. Mines collapse, explosions become uncontrolled, and processing accidents (which have involved people being literally melted alive) are inevitable.
I'm still pro nuclear. Long term, it has the benefit of being overall better for the environment and sustainability of human life, while also being magnitudes more efficient than fossil fuels. The few major disasters were either the fault of poorly maintained reactors and a natural disaster.
Really, people and governments need to get serious and invest in the technology. Politicians and leaders today are much more timid; strict ruling and safety regulations, competent and regularly trained staff and technicians and added safety mechanisms would cut out all but the absolute worst case scenarios from ever playing out.
I wouldn't say it's a long term solution since we will be stuck with radioactive waste for thousands of years and with current mining and reactor technology, there is only enough uranium for the next 230 years. Nuclear power is more of a short term solution to limit our fossil fuel use while we develop better ways of producing energy, like nuclear fusion or improved methods for harvesting renewable energy.
you are a roach arent you?
666DarkBehemoth666 we won't be limited by current mining or reactor technology by the time that comes around, plus, as the pros video hinted, we're not limited to uranium alone and have potential materials that could provide way more energy per unit of fuel compared to uranium. not to mention that spent uranium can itself be recycled into reactor fuel, should it come to it. its still finite, but you're underselling its viability.
666DarkBehemoth666 That is not true. "Uranium is not a rare element and occurs in potentially recoverable concentrations in many types of geological settings. As with other minerals, investment in geological exploration generally results in increased known resources. There is therefore no reason to anticipate any shortage of uranium that will prevent conventional nuclear power from playing an expanding role in providing the world’s energy needs for decades or even centuries to come. This does not even take into account improvements in nuclear power technology which could effectively increase the available resource dramatically. On the basis of December 2012 data Australia has 29% of the world's uranium resources - 1.7 million tonnes of uranium." - world.nuclear.org
Nuclear power is very very young still and got lots of time to develop. Also does the treatment of nuclear waste. We can easily bury it for quite some time and maybe lets say, a hundred years, we perhaps figured a way to generate more energy (except pu239 extraction to mox fuel) from uranium, or even destroy radioactivity completley. This is the least bad option we have at the moment, truth to be told. I can go on for hours :)
Nuclear energy is neither clean or efficient "overall" when compared with renewable technologies. The plants are extremely costly, and have a very significant carbon footprint because of the extensive process of building of the plant which takes an average of 4 to 6 years depending on the type of reactor, not to mention, refining uranium, which is very energy-intensive and polluting. AND, after it's built it takes on average 10 to 19 years for the plant to completely go on line. So, even without discussing their safety, or the environmental impact of radioactive waste, it is very easy to see that only the nuclear power industry would continue to push it as "clean energy" in comparison much cheaper and much more efficient renewable technologies.
“Please tell me how an RBMK reactor core explodes”
carelessness
LIES!
”Do you taste metal?”
Ignoring computer shut down advice, no knowledge no xenon poisoning, inappropriate material for nuclear reactor construction and control rods. Where should I begin?
@@chrisenvelope8985 I think he was joking and referencing the HBO miniseries.
However, you're right. Chernobyl's accident was set in motion when the RBMK was first designed, if you ask me.
Also sugesstions:
Cancer
HIV/AIDS
Malaria
CHICA THE CHICKEN We'll do all those topics!
Thanks kurzgesagt good quality videos good job kurzgesagt! :)
You commenting on this post has made me excited becuase I big fan of your videos! :)
NOTICE ME SENPAI
CHICA THE CHICKEN E
:/ Really TH-cam? Kurzgesagt is like the most friendly thing there is that still contains a strong message and now you take their money? Ffs might as well call you Activision from now on. #MakeTH-camGreatAgian
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
#FuckDonaldTrump
There is a Rap Song about that
Can someone explain me what happened?
What do you mean by saying YT stole their money?
Tom Mot
They made it so they got no adds because this topic is to *CONTROVERSIAL*
GO FINLAND GO!
Iivari Oikarinen i wish i was born and lived in finland
Yea, we have the best schoolsystem in the world.
nobody cares , only because you've got the "best" educational system" doesn't necessarily mean it's population it's the smartest or even the best educated.
Kurt Gidley It's a damm joke.
BTW, more countries should support Finland. I think thats a great idea to have a special island or something that is controlled and contains all the toxic waste.
no trust sharp rock. true, sharp rock make axe for firewood; but also make spear for man-hurting. impossible to distinguish sharp rock technology for tools from covert weapon rock.
if cold wait for renewable option of covering family with leaf pile (not enough yet, but 5 winters from now will be thicker leaves).
We don't have the luxory of waiting, that was over decade ago.
Eoin Doyle
I love this, thank you lol
@Andrew567 way to miss the point of the comment
Savage 😂 literally.
@@-gemberkoekje-5547 yeah we're too busy focusing on making more weapons too kill and take oil (that isnt even good for us) than develop renewable energy technology further ,we have bombs that could blow up entire countries but still cant harness the sun's energy efficiently , priorities messed up
So, we just need to switch to the thorium reactors mentioned in the other video? Cool!
too bad thorium reactors don't exist yet...
666DarkBehemoth666 yet
Or fusion reactors.
Name
Ye,in 20 years,as always
Michael Govard It will come eventually and its the best alternative,until the day fusion reactors will become a reallity we should use thoruim reactors,also there are other variables you didn't consider like ITER.
Okay, these are very valid points, but let's just set one thing straight
Chernobyl wasn't an accident, it was completely avoidable and only happened because the people who were in charge not only ignored every warning given to them, but willfully disabled every single safety feature so they could perform a test that they didn't even need to perform
I'm not saying that Nuclear disasters don't happen, but usually they are the result not seeing something coming that people should have seen coming, and I can't really use the argument that they should have seen it coming, because it happens in literally every single industry, hindsight is 20/20
But Chernobyl is not one of those cases, it should not be counted as a reason why we should avoid nuclear power
If we think of all the other Nuclear disasters as an accidental electrical fire, then Chernobyl is arson
They were warned that there was a safely flaws in the Reactors, the test was to find a fix for some of the flaws but the test parameters failed to be meet due to improper oversight leading to the explosion. Just because the disaster was preventable does not mean that it was not a accident, over half of aviation accidents are caused by pilots making avoidable mistakes, using your logic there are a lot of pilots guilty of mass murder.
Alexander
Technically all accidents are avoidable, but Chernobyl was the result of willful incompetence
Every other nuclear incident was an accident, and tell a grim picture of what can happen even with safety in mind, Chernobyl wasn't
They ran the test without proper supervising, during high power demand, and they had to manually disable almost all the built in safety features just to run the test to begin with
It's not a "mistake" when you blatantly ignore established safety protocols
Yes Chernobyl was cause by safety protocols being ignored but that does not make it not a accident. No one in the plant intended for the incident to happen, the intent of the people involve in the incident is what makes it a accident or not, not the level of competence of the people involve.
Alexander
So by your logic, if a pilot turns off the plane's engine mid flight, but didn't _intend_ to crash it, it's an accident?
If they did not intent for the plane to crash and there was no valid reason (etc engine fire) for turning off the plane's engine, it is a accident cause by negligence.
i only just noticed that you released the video on april the first. well played.
It isn’t a joke this video is a part of a 3 part series about nuclear energy this video is about the arguments people make against it
@@Zuiker1 Still, it's a funny detail
When it comes to the waste. It's one of the reasons why we need to continue developing nuclear energy technologies. In hopes to use spent rods much longer.
We've done that for quite a few decades now and still haven't arrived at a point where nuclear waste stops to be a serious problem. At some point you simply have to accept that it has looked much more promising at the start but turned out to be very complex and problematic in the process. For example, transmuting only 5% of one of the 4 most dangerous (i.e. most radioactive) actinides during a multi-year fuel cycle means that you need lots of reactors and almost a century to reduce the majority of the highly radioactive nuclear waste to somewhat humanly-manageable storage times (i.e. not millions of years, but "only" thousands). But handling highly radioactive material, especially processing the spent fuel rods, creates more radioactive waste and is also very dangerous (e.g. avoiding leaks and accidental nuclear chain reactions). Apart from the technological problems there are also the extremely high costs, making a profitable operation doubtful. There might be a discovery of more elegant solutions in the future, but taking that for granted and producing more waste in the meantime is simply irresponsible.
@@danielh.9010 what? There are entire research lines on breeder reactors and they're not more numerous solely due to the fact we chose to keep using more inefficient technology after finding new uranium reserves to cut the costs on developing new reactors. The possibility of burning all transuranics as fuel without needing new fuel rods and only having to dispose of non-fissile fission products that decay relatively quickly (as in less than a hundred years, not "thousands" or "millions") is pretty much the end-all of the nuclear waste debate. Not to mention the possibility of using fuel other than uranium or fissile isotopes of plutonium, like thorium, a whole new direction nuclear energy can take.
@@ricksaburai oh wow only 100 years! That's not so bad, if an area was contaminated just before you were born, you still wouldn't be able to go there just before you die! So I guess that you won't mind if we all send out radioactive materials to where you are! Don't worry though, it's clean because that's what they keep telling us! Just think of the bonus of being able to see everyone in your are at night from the free glow! Nice 👍
@@PeterMilanovski your sarcasm is uneducated and unwarranted. I'm not talking about contaminating an area. I'm talking about reactors whose nuclear waste is either essentially inert or isn't produced at all in the first place, not about irradiating an area for 100 years. Or do you think we can live among waste, nuclear or not? Think about the amount of time it takes for glass or plastic to decompose - even if we had to bury a lot of fission products that were still radioactive, even 100 years is a damn good deal to get rid of it entirely instead of polluting the ground or the atmosphere for thousands of years. Yet you dismiss breeder and thorium reactors, which are the cleanest, most efficient energy sources ever conceived in favor of what, coal plants? Hydro plants? If you're worried about cancer, you'll much sooner get lung cancer due to breathing a combustion waste saturated air than from any sort of radioactivity.
@@ricksaburai yeah I'm sorry but I know very well how people can drop like flies from radioactivity, way faster than what pollution can do from other sources. While the reactor appears to be clean during it's operation, which I really don't have a problem with, it's the fact that there are people involved! That's only the first problem, the waste is the other problem and finally it's the fact that it's producing heat! I understand that this is how a reactor works and so does a coal fired power plant! I used to think that the best solution was to burn hydrogen and oxygen because it's far cleaner than anything else, it's only water and heat is it's only byproduct, but it's the heat that's the problem! The planet doesn't need anymore heat! I don't know if you can grasp that! I don't like nuclear reactors not just because of their inherent radioactive waste! They still pump to much heat into the atmosphere as did the burning of coal... The planet has it's own way of dealing with Co2, had that not being the case, we should all have choked to death by now due to having burnt all the available oxygen but we are both testimony to the very fact that we are still alive today! People just on their own generate heat! How much people do we have on this planet, the same people have car's that also generate heat along with pollution, those same people have a house with a stove to cook on and a boiler for hot water which both generate heat and let's not forget about gas and electric heating! Both generate a lot of heat! It's no wonder why the planet is heating! It just can't get a break. So then, what do we do about it? We we need to find a solution to produce electricity without the heat, hydroelectric, solar, wind and rain really looks good for this purpose, next we need electric transport and we are slowly getting there! So that's good, the house! Gas and electric space heaters should be against the law, the reverse cycle air conditioning systems don't generate heat but instead simply just move it out or in as needed, it really is a brilliant device, cooking food is going to be a difficult topic to touch on at the moment because the only thing that we have that doesn't produce excess heat is the humble microwave and I don't know if I can live of food prepared in one of those for ever, that's something that is going to need more research into. The boiler can be fitted with the same reverse cycle technology as the air conditioner.. housing architecture has to be re thought to be as efficient as possible and when this begins to take traction, you will begin to see a huge change in the climate and we will finally understand what's really needed to protect the planet that allows us to exist, because it can easily get rid of us if we don't do whatever we have to do to keep the planet happy and us alive. Close enough isn't good enough any more! Either we make drastic changes or we start culling off people! We don't have war's like we used to so there's no control over human population. Not even something as periodical as a virus is having trouble culling off people like it was able to in the past, we are both the problem and the solution! It starts with us and it will end with us. We can sit here all day arguing whether nuclear power is the best or not or we can decide that there are better ways to do things but those things have to also agree with our planet otherwise we have achieved nothing! So it's not that I don't like it because you like it, I'm not trying just to be difficult or different! I'm actually thinking about what is the best for both the planet and humanity without making to much inconvenience for both. Who knows what's hiding in the ice caps, do you know that they found the influenza virus that caused a pandemic in 1918 still frozen in Antarctica during the 90's, it's how they have a vaccine for it today! For all that we know, it could have been a virus that killed off the dinosaurs and it could still be there frozen in the Antarctic ice caps just waiting to come back out again. No one knows how or why the dinosaurs died or what happened to previous civilisations that no longer exist but their megalithic structures still remain, what happened to them? Did they overheat the planet too? Is that why there was an ice age after them, is that what is coming for us? Lots of questions but which is the correct answer? What's the correct path to take today? What are we debating about here? I think that I know the answer but going nuclear isn't it. And you thought that I wasn't educated... You that read wrong to!
I like the way that these 'terrible reasons' are pretty much countered in the other video, seems like the reasons for are much better then the ones against
ryant331 Yeah, the first two problems in this video can be solved with the thorium reactors mentioned at the end in the other, and the death toll is much less than other forms of energy.
illdiewithoutpi true, but still what they said here is not false, since they describe the non-thorium existing technologies and state that we might want to drop these.
There are also theoretical reactor types that might burn our current nuclear waste -> a solution. (Bill Gates funds research on those)
If you ask me: old tech nay, new tech yay
illdiewithoutpi The problem is thorium reactors is not yet real, might be in the future. It's still needs to be research alot more to be useable. The Videos are talking about the current nuclear technology.
Karnematch
If thorium reactors weren't real, how are France and China building them today?
karnematch small scale proof of concept is complete, and next-gen reactors are due to open in a year, being built now. This is exciting times.
...But, going by the pro-reasons, none of these reasons hold up, if you count in thorium...
Shangori Well there is still the radioactive waste isn't there? And even if it's in 100s and not 1000s of years it's still quite a time compared to non nuclear power generation. And doesn't get the equipment also radioactive?
Fabian Neundorf "compared to non nuclear power generation"
Don't agree.. Do keep in mind that currently we are changing the climate, pushing fine dust into the air we breath, etc.. We can better quantify it in the case of nuclear power, sure. But I dont think that current use of fossil fuel is in any way less problematic. In fact, I believe it's more problematic, because the problem cannot be contained currently
Fabian Neundorf There is still waste, but up to two orders of magnitude less than in standard reactors. And it's not as though the rest of our primary power generation isn't producing waste.
Shangori ...as a solution for the next 100 years or so. At some point we have to switch to 100% renewable because... well if it's not renewable it's not going to last by definition.
yeah, but can you force everyone to use thorium reactors, and deny them other nuclear tech?
I think these countrys would argue with the sovereignty of their country (in the sense, you can't interfere with their "innerpolitical" stuff), "but the others have non-thorium reactors too", and so on.
To get that through, you probably would need to make an agreement that replaces all existing normal nuclear reactors with thorium (or whatever is currently the best developed) ones, which would be costly.
It would be an enormous effort to make everyone go to thorium.
Educational material is demonetized.
Unhelpful material such as Roblox gameplay is rolling cash.
Madness.
Yep it's a shame
I will have you know that roblox gameplay is the most educational item in existence!
Yep
Source?
Roblox sucks kurzgesagt is best
Nice Channel.
It is unfortunate there are so many untruthful claims in this episode. For instance, of the eight nuclear weapons states, only India had an electricity producing reactor before they made a bomb. That is 1/8 not "always". Any nation can replicate 70 year-old technology, so proliferation is a political not a technical issue.
Fear of nuclear waste is childish. It is contained. Not more toxic than other heavy metals we don't worry about at all.
Most importantly, failure to fully embrace nuclear energy condemns 1 million species to extinction. Childish fears exterminates these ancient lineages of our fellow earthlings. That is a high price for childish fears.
Amen to that. Tired of these dumbasses who get scared when they hear the word nuclear power.
r/iamverysmart (not in a bad way)
Not to mention that it is utterly stupid to consider nuclear enregy on its own, and not in comparison to alternatives, since there's no way humanity would stop using electricity.
And the alternatives here are fossil fuels, because power dams are not enough, and you can't store unreliable solar and wind power.
So then you can start talking about the efffects of fossil fuel exrtaction and transportation including: oil tanker disaster, environmental damage of coal mines, burning oil wells. And of course the air pollution you get when you burn them.
@@Marqan You hit the point perfectly. How do we get the service we want with adequate safety and reasonable cost.
*or we can all go with geothermal power*
1) As for weapons, you'll never be able to stop that. That's like saying that the industrial revolution was bad, because modern guns, or the Bronze age was bad, because blades.
2) The waste is a genuine negative right now, but, as you mentioned, it's something that can be alleviated by researching into better recycling methods. It's not like solar or wind, where we hope we can make it more efficient by researching it. In the case of nuclear waste, we already know there is a solution - we just need to perfect the methods - and, if we stock up too much waste it the meantime, we could just launch a rocket full of it into deep space.
3) Finally, the disasters. They are far and few between, and are easily fixable. They were cause by two things:
- poor handling - fixed with better protocol, which comes naturally with wider adoption
- natural disasters - easily fixed with better planing and more advanced structuring (again, the adoption).
I realize you wanted to approach this topic neutrally, but the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. This shouldn't even be a discussion. The only reason nuclear energy is not as successful as it could be, is because of paranoia. If we ever want to advance, people will have to get over it.
EDIT: Since writing this, I have discovered that we have reactors that make use of waste already, so waste isn't even an issue. They are used heavily in France.
In a discussion, you have to acknowledge the downsides.
Not saying anything about the disadvantages is simply stupid and he is going to publish a video discussing the benefits anyway. It's not like he is saying nuclear energy is bad.
Yeah im happy why a person think about that and know how a nuclear energy works.
1: Nuclear power isn't remotely comparable to "the industrial revolution" or "the Bronze age". Also, yes, as a matter of fact, we can stop that- or at least slow it. If nuclear power is restricted or even banned once alternatives are available, it becomes a hell of a lot harder to refine fuel without being put in a spotlight (if alternative forms of power were available, nuclear power's main allure would become weapons).
2: We have to operate on the now and not blindly charge into uncertainty. We have no viable way of disposing of waste. A rocket is a horrifically bad idea as all it would take would be the rocket to fail to shower a massive area with radioactive material. Furthermore, the highest weight capacity on a rocket yet was the Saturn V which could carry only 40 metric tonnes. Some napkin math would put the world's waste production at around 66,666 metric tons annually. That would be over 1,500 rocket launches of a Saturn V sized rocket costing $300 billion where if even one fails it would be catastrophic.
We could bury it as it wouldn't take up the most space but long term that will accumulate and become more and more dangerous with the possibility of terrorism or natural disasters.
3: Once again this is hopeful thinking. More napkin math: with a total of 667 reactors ever having been built and so far 2 having failed catastrophically, that puts us around a 0.2% failure rate per 39 years of operation (taking average current age of a reactor).
With so far an average of 20,000 deaths per catastrophic failure (n=2 so wild guesswork) and a necessary 4,400 reactors needed to power the world, we would be facing one massive accident every 4 years (assuming the level of education, safety, and safe construction practices can smoothly transfer to lower income and more impoverished countries such as Sudan).
Paranoia exists because it's a threat to people who don't consent to be involved. A lot of people can and will die from idiots who bumble into jobs they shouldn't have- how do you think Chernobyl happened?
All of this makes it more worthwhile to just focus our efforts on either the extra mile on something extremely experimental such as fusion, or something guaranteed to work like cleaning dirty fuel sources or building existing green ones.
@@tanmang42
1) You're right. Nuclear energy holds far more potential than those ages
2) This is all a moot point now, because we already have reactors that reuse waste. We don't even need to get rid of it anymore.
3) You "napkin"math fails to account for the fact that failures are more likely to occur early in development and before mass adoption. The fact that there have only been 2 failures is incredibly positive.
@@Phatnaru0002 I'm too lazy to address your 1 and 2, but I wanna say:
3: And your naive thinking fails to account that a shit-ton of the world is beyond stupid. If the experts at the time managed to fuck up the reactor and kill thousands, how the is it going to play out when Chad or Sudan gets a nuclear reactor? What about deep in the ass-crack of China where there are only farmers and weak education infrastructure?
The perfect world on paper is never going to happen, you have to assume the worst and grit your teeth because it will always find a way to be worse.
Hope you get your money back guys.
Same
same as me
DUMB NEW TH-cam SURVEY
why .. what happened !!
Finland is like grandfather of the earth.They are behaving like have experienced all sort of trouble in the past,and doing nothing aggressive because they are like too old for that gibberish.I love them.Might live there.Loving winter.
Calling Germany inconspicuous.
Hilarious.
Thought the same, and I am german!
IKR. I mean, cmon dudes
Oof
About Fukushima, the tsunami itself caused multiple times more deaths and destruction by itself in an instant, than the worse predictions about the nuclear plant consequences could ever do.
+Ares Galamatis But tons of radioactive substances leaked into the ocean.
+mightyTMP A lot more and more dangerous waste are dumped in the oceans, and while I am not saying that this justifies dumping contaminated cooling liquid (or letting it leak) is acceptable, it is insignificant to focus all this attention to this rather than everything else. It is like a hysterical anti-smoker complaining to himself about smokers harming his health, while stuck in traffic with his car's engine on.
Ares Galamatis
Absolutely right. But we have to start somewhere.
+Ares Galamatis But at least the water went away....
+Yevrah Hipstar you have to realize that radioactive substance is not diluted into water, it remain radioactive particles that travel and may get absorb by others, like animals and vegetation, once that happen it still remain as radioactive as it was in the beginning, some for years some for thousand of year. it is not like other substance it does not dissolve and disappear. Also there was many victim (human) cause by fukushima and it will continue for 100 of years. It sometime can take many generations to come up. There was many studies about this, specially done on the Marchallyse people, Dr Robert Conard was one of them, first claiming it was for their health but soon people realize they were simply guiney pig. Nuclear is very sad nothing to be proud of....
I honestly don't think we have any choice not to use nuclear energy. It is only form of energy that can replace fossil fuels completely.
What about water and wind turbines?
TheGaming Bakers
Water and wind turbines are more expensive to run and do not produce energy all the time
Don't dams just run when you open them? I mean you put them in a river and then the river runs always...
GamingGrub15
That's not exactly how it works. the reservoirs are filled with rainwater. and is periodically drained, which runs turbines.
Ieuan Hunt You do know that the same thing as for fossil fuels applies to nuclear energy? Uranium is a ressource that will get expended as much as oil, coal or gas.
3:12 they threw in 1925 as a predicted nuclear accident instead of 2025 lol
Sky Grampp Watch part 3 of this series. They presented an argument for both sides.
@@skygrampp7679 eh, they make mistakes. As is, they're being pragmatic and showing the "as-now" rather than what we may have in future such as the Rolls Royce SMR designs.
(For reference, I'm strongly Pro-Nuclear: totally anti-proliferation, and I totally accept that nuclear as it stands today carries risks)
I feel like they did that on purpose. The whole video sounds sarcastic.
Feels weird that didn’t predicted one for 2020, you know why
@@edgarb.6187 yeah this vid is indirectly telling us that nuclear is still safer
TH-cam!!!!!! THIS IS EDUCATIONAL. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TH-cam!!!! DEMONETIZED???
Nuclear lobbyists flagging it up as they don't want the dark side of their technology exposed.
You're a fucking tool
Gooloogongia this isn't education in the slightest.
Beisht Kione
another tool
TheUnderdog you made me laugh
The spent fuel actually can be used in different reactor designs with little reprocessing. Meltdowns are non-issues (physically impossible) with many advanced reactor designs, and proliferation isn't an issue because many advanced reactors don't make transuranics--the stuff of bombs. In fact, there are designs that don't even use uranium.
If we only made airplanes that were unsafe to fly, nobody would fly, and airplanes would be seen as not essential. But the problem of global travel is well understood, and so investing in safer aircraft design made sense. Here, the energy crisis is poorly understood, and the possible energy generation systems are also poorly understood by the general public. Therefore, while the need is as or more pressing than safe flight, the powers that be are unwilling to invest in better, safer, and more practical reactor designs.
None of these reasons are due to the inherent nature of the technology. We took a design made for ocean use (in ships and subs) and put it on land, where we spend most of our time convincing it that it's still at sea. Just as you wouldn't use a cargo plane for commercial flight, it it equally silly to insist that we have to use light water reactors on land--a place that they are inherently not designed for.
If you study the energy situation, it quickly becomes obvious that nuclear is one of the most powerful and valuable technologies with very low risks--for comparison, while thousands might have been killed by radiation released, millions are definitely killed by the by-products of the fossil fuels used, and the radiation release from those, especially coal, is orders of magnitude higher than from nuclear power. Other forms of clean energy produce variable and relatively small amounts of power, making them impractical for large-scale generation. Really, only nuclear, fossil fuel, geothermal, and hydroelectric generation produces significant amounts of power for baseline use without significant land use (which is even arguable for hydro).
Kurzgesagt, would you do a video on power generation and the current energy situation (how much is used, how its produced, etc) to put the different technologies in perspective to each other? That would also make a great video: pros and cons of various sources: wind (cons include massive pollution to refine the neodymium, frequent gear-box services, variable output, etc), solar (cons: not viable without subsidies, panels break down, pollution in manufacturing, variable output, etc), fossil fuels (cons: high radiation, toxin release plus greenhouse gasses, etc), dams (cons: changing ecosystems and environments), etc? You did a good job presenting both sides of nuclear--I'd like to see alternative systems receive the same treatment.
jordana309 Fukushima was a full meltdown with a modern reactor design. Don’t kid yourself
@@Umberto2 No it wasnt. The Fukushima reactors were over 40 years old, built to a design that was over 70 years old.
@@Umberto2 not to mention that they had a major oversight with the design of the power plant by not accounting for the possibility of an earthquake
@@Umberto2Lmao, kid first check your facts then check if you have enough iq to understand them.
@@JihadiJesus Oh, it wasn't just that. They knew the control systems for crisis management were iffy back in the 70s, and in 2003 the potential for a tsunami of the type in 2011 was raised at a TEPCO contingency planning conference, highlighting Daichi may be at risk in such a scenario due to insufficient tsunami barriers and poorly laid-out backup power units and switchgear, all liable to flooding in such an event. They basically laughed at they guy who suggested it as nobody thought such a tsunami was possible.
i think this is a good time to look into alternatives to youtube.
IdiotDino
Whar happened?
+David Bulko
youtube flagged this video for demonetization. :(
Vimeo?
etoipiPlusOne eqZero Vidme.com
Recovered uranium fuel from reprocessed light water reactor fuel can be used in a CANDU reactor. Besides, GE Hitachi PRISM is designed to turn nuclear waste into energy
Still pro-nuclear though current reactors aren't that great
DiamondKnightHD Yeah, I agree that more research into more advanced reactors is needed.
Daniel Fleites-Cruz haven't they said that for over a decade? It doesn't seem to improve enough...
Same. I am okay with nuclear energy, but I am just worried about the waste. I am hoping thorium reactors will be big soon. Thorium has so much potential and it can make a better future for all of us.
***** oh yes... I also hope Fusion is going to be available soon as well.
***** problem is: fossil fuel only harms us on the relative short term (the CO2 rise will be compensated within a couple centuries), while we have no clue what we are going to do with the waste to store them for more then 200.000 years
SUOMI MAINITTU TORILLA TAVATAAN!
+Jupezzi TUON ATOMI POMMIN
***** TUO VAA
torilla tavataan. suomi perkele.
+Jupezzi ni borde vara en del av oss...
TehCreeperhunter jag pratar bara svenska. Precis som du borde!
Nuclear Fusion reactors should get more funding, if the math works out they are thousands if not millions of times more efficient then today's nuclear reactors
+BryanFDNY I agree and disagree... Yes Fusion would be the "Holy Grail" of Nuclear energy but is many many years away from being perfected. Thorium Molten Salt Reactors was developed back in the 50s and can be implemented Right Now. That is where the funding should go toward.
Eric Martin yeah I read about that 2, and thorium is actually really abundant, I still have no idea why they aren't already in full use everywhere around the world
The reason why is simple, you can't make Nuclear bombs from Thorium.
Eric Martin yup, sad really...
+Oliver Mayo Thorium Liquid Salt Reactor.
2:00 I see a tardis to the left of the island.
People, do some research - haven't any of you heard of Gen IV reactors? For example, the Integral Molten Salt Reactor or IMSR (made in Canada) is a completely different kind of reactor which:
1. Cannot melt down, as the fuel/salt mix is already in a molten state
2. Creates extremely small amounts of waste, which are only radioactive for a couple hundred years (instead of 20,000!)
3. Can use spent Uranium as a fuel - or Thorium, which is as plentiful as lead, and safe enough to hold in your hand
4. Does not create usable bomb-making material (Plutonium) - so no proliferation problems
5. Is much smaller and less expensive than the huge outdated reactors in use all over the place
6. Is completely walk-away safe - so worst case scenario is that the plant shuts down and cools off by itself
... and many many more benefits
Was April fools the best day to post this video Kurzgesagt?
xD
Yes because nuclear energy is the best
well thair more of a teaching channal so try to ingore that
Kurzgesagt: "Yes. Yes it was."
Thorium reactors should be mandatory for Iran. You can't weaponize thorium and it is much safer and better than uranium.
***** Everyone.
+Arkaplandaki Adam why do you think
+monty python Why Iran? just Iran? or the whole middle east? India? who says what who gets?
AreFallout i was just asking why he thought the other guy said that
AreFallout and lots of people say what other people get
2:52 here u guys are wrong. Under 100 people died in Russia and no one died cus of the reactor in Japan. and in Japan, the level of radiation was still lower than other places on earth but now more of the radiation was caused by the nuclear disaster.
If you think about it for a bit you'll you are the one who is wrong. Look at them cancer rates after disasters. Just because these ppl didnt die immidiately that doesnt mean its not due to nuclear disasters. I guess u saw hbos chernobyl. Thousands of ppl died infact the numbers are 9000-98000. Ofc the government said that only a couple ppl died there, in the end of the show they explain it as well as explain the cancer rate spike up after years and years. You can be sure that we can still feel the effect of chernobyl.
Only hundreds.. get on with you.
This was published on April 1st
2:16 Yah know, "Tiny Finland" is #1 in education
Daniel Je For real, if I have kids, they’re growing up there. You guys are cool.
- Halymun - lmao you fkin killed him😂😂😂😂😂
@Sunbro Cry more.
I like the way you put it: is 10% of our energy worth frequent accidents that void an area from being livable for decades. Pretty compelling argument.
+Armchair Pundit There's two problems with that: 1) accidents are infrequent, 2) the areas aren't uninhabitable.
1. Tell that to the people evacuated from Fukushima & Chernobly.
2. Though infrequent, the consequences are devastating and last for a very long time.
+Suprise Anschluss Yes, and we already are doing so.
+Armchair Pundit But that point kind of sucks when you realise that every single nuclear reactor that has ever melted down was made before man even got to the moon.
but that doesn't mean that the modern ones won't melt down as well. I understand the risk is relatively small, but the potential damage is so great that in many cases it's just not worth it.
On 3:03 Ukraine and Russia are represented as distinct countries in the context of nuclear reactor failures but they were both part of the Soviet Union during the years in question (1957 and 1987). Also, the Mayak explosion, in 1957, was not related to a reactor failure but more to a plutonium production and post processing mishandling. The Fukushima reactor failure was caused mainly by an external catastrophe rather than a faulty handling of nuclear reactors.
Thank you for providing this series of videos, it has been quite interesting.
In hopes of helping you improve in the future, there are two possible errors in this video you may wish to consider.
The first point of contention is with the statement at about 1:38 - that we lack reactors that use plutonium.
We have been using Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) for decades. A key part of many treaties between Russia and the USA involves removing the pits from nuclear weapons, down-blending them with uranium, and then using up the material in civilian reactors.
Pure plutonium fast-breeder reactors have been a possibility for a while, but few went into operation due to the changing view of nuclear power in the 70s.
A second concern is the diagram of nuclear accidents. I should also point out that Kyshtym was a weapons and materials processing center, not a power plant. This does not change the fact that it was a notable radioactive release - but it is disingenuous to include in a list of power-pant mishaps.
Once again, thank you for your time and high production values.
Hey something about finland
Eepu "tiny Finland"
M1niPlayer
xD
@@The_RoboDoc äksdee
Two of the three accidents that are cited as radiating surrounding areas happened in the Soviet Union.
Outside of the Soviet Union, there has not be a single death attributed to radiation poisoning in the commercial sector of nuclear power. Not one. (Yes, I'm including Fukushima in that total.)
So what's your point?
TheCometDog Given that not a single person has died from radiation poisoning in the commercial sector of nuclear power, I would suggest that this is an extremely safe source of energy for humanity.
Therefore, nuclear energy is not terrible.
So you're saying that the USA is a true hero.
SIMcityplayer2002 I would say that those (supposedly) evil, greedy capitalists managed to produce nuclear technology that was much safer than their benevolent socialist counterparts.
***** The Soviets cranked out engineers at almost twice the rate as the US.
The US benefited from people like Admiral Rickover who was a relentless advocate of safety procedures in the nuclear industry. Rickover was also obnoxious and publically outspoken to all sorts of powerful people. The Soviet empire made people like Rickover disappear while he stands as a champion in Americana. That is the principle difference.
This aged well, now we have reactor designs that can use the “waste”. We also have reactors that can’t melt down and can withstand a direct plane crash. Hell, disasters wont and can’t happen. This side has lost its meaning. We have reached a new level of safety
That's what people thought with modern cars. There is *always* a risk. There will *always* be something that can go wrong. To think anything less is a fool's task.
Nuclear is undoubtedly the future.
@@justaspookydude47 nobody is denying that it isn't 100% safe but it is safe *enough* that it doesn't matter anymore. Planes are also not 100% safe yet millions use it without a hiccup.
This video was part two of a three part lesson and the third part was talking the side of the pro nuclear option. As well as this is 5 years old and they just uploaded another video about nuclear energy and it is basically all positive. I hope this video hasn't turned you off of this channel as it is quite good but obviously no channel can be right all of the time.
I am aware of how modern isotopes can't melt down anymore but I am unaware about how reactors use the waste now. I was under the impression that the waste could not be broken down into less harmful materials. Where can I find such information good sir as I do not know how to properly format my question to have google give me relevant articles. It seems rather doubtful that we can repurpose 100% of the harmful waste. It sounds too good to be true to be honest.
Much of the safety has been pretty settled, yes, but non-nuclear groups *regularly* infiltrate nuclear reactors and demonstrate how laughable their security really is. I completely agree, I much prefer nuclear power, but security of the plants needs some improvement.
One of the best voice overs I’ve heard in a while. Does anyone know his name?
Steve Taylor (it's in the description)
Waste is a problem? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Nuclear accidents worry you? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Want a sleek reactor so cool you could fit it on a couple of trucks? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Like your fuel so safe you can carry it in your pocket, so energy dense a handful will do you for a life time, so abundant most folk currently toss it away? Get a Thorium salt reactor. Research Thorium and picture a world where abundant, clean cheap energy is solving almost every major problem we have.
+Da Keks weve have 65 years of studying them now. they were invented in the 50s
*****
Kid, how presumptuous of you. "They" didn't say that about Uranium, what "they" said (assuming you're talking about the scientists tasked with advising the US on domestic power generation) was we should use Thorium. My turn to be presumptuous. You don't actually know much about nuclear reactors of any type. You haven't checked out how well our current (lousy) nuclear reactors compare in deaths per GW or environmental impact to every other means of power generation. Lastly, you know absolutely nothing about Thorium salt reactors. Go do some research and come back and try being cute again when you have the slightest idea what you're talking about.
zach kelly
Uranium reactors currently use about 5% of the fuel in their rods (the French recycle their rods and do better). Thorium salt reactors use over 95% of their fuel, making them at least 25 times more efficient, not 2.5.
LFTRs don't get hot enough to melt down.
As far as I can tell, Th power Canada is working on Thorium reactors for Chile and Indonesia but has none currently functioning.
The Norwegians are trialing Th in solid form but I know of no other functioning Th reactors. Please let me know (link) to any you find.
www.thoriumpowercanada.com/technology/the-projects/
www.thoriumenergyalliance.ca/molten-salt-reactors.php
www.extremetech.com/extreme/160131-thorium-nuclear-reactor-trial-begins-could-provide-cleaner-safer-almost-waste-free-energy
+Chris K Why does density at ALL matter. Cool, you have a dense material, it doesnt really matter if you have the same mass now does it. if you say it has a high density and abundance of it, but there isn't an abundance of it. If you think about it, it's a non-renewable resource and just because it doesn't have any bad effects, so what. Nuclear Fusion is close and so much more effective than fission. This technology will be useless in comparison.
+Markos De Caprios
If they get the Tokamak reactor ($17 billion just to build) to work, I'm all for it. Of course it won't get rid of our current waste (Thorium MSBR will), there hasn't been 20 000 hours worth of functional testing (MSBR has) ,we've yet to yield positive energy outcome out of a fusion reactor (the baby MSBR ran at 7.5 MW) and whilst you can build modular MSBR reactors (which are much much simpler than Tokamak) you are forced to build a massive plant with our current Fusion technology.
Yeah Thorium is a limited resource but 10 000 years is a pretty good limit and it will give us time to get fusion worked out. Energy density only really matters if you're building something that needs to move around, like ships, trains and boats. Ask a cargo ship builder if they'd like to do away with their fuel tanks and diesel bills and watch their eyes light up.
I'm all for fusion but I see Thorium MSBR as a tested, very practical replacement for our current coal and fission reactors while fusion comes of age.
Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity
That your country still relies on fossil fuels is terrible, and I feel sorry for you, that your environment is devastated, but please don't make the rejection of Nuclear power completely responsible for it. Nuclear power is not the only possible source of renewable energie. Personally, I think Austria (and no, Austria is not the same as Australia, googel it if you have to) is a good example. Theres not a single nuclear power plant in the country, except one which was built but was never put into operation, and still the environment isn't destroyed. Instead of focusing on fossil fuels, other methods to generate energy like solar panels or water power are used. Of course not every country does have the same natural resources like water, but still, it shows that nuclear power isn't the only option.
@@marvellover4143 But Austria still relies massively on gas so your argument is invalid. You have lots of wind and solar installed but in case of absence of sun or wind, it's gas turbines which are used, which is absolute garbage for the environment.
@@marvellover4143 austria gets like 50% of their energy from gas LOL
1. You need a plutonium reprocessing plant and specific modifications to a reactor to produce weapons grade plutonium. Obviously you do need a reactor to make it, but you still need a lot more than that.
2. The amount of nuclear waste we produce would be greatly reduced if we developed a fast breeder reactor that could use it as fuel. As we stand now, nuclear power still generates 300 times less toxic waste per kWh than solar, so it already produces a relatively small amount if waste.
3. A meltdown would be almost completely impossible if we used liquid metal cooled reactors.
1. Not to mention if you make an encriched uranium bomb instead of plutonium one, you don't necessarily need a reactor to make the bomb in the first place.
Hello, I know I'm replying to a 3 year old comment, but how would solar energy produce toxic waste? If it's the panels breaking down in landfill and contaminating the environment, we can just recycle them instead of sending them to landfill (that is if governments actually start recycling and not just pretend to)
Wtf? Solar produce waste?
@@ottobass9193 that’s what I was thinking
Awesome channel, awesome videos. Nice to educate myself a tiny bit with every upload
so I heard this video was flagged for demonetization
Yes minecraft man. Yes it's true.
+Nine Tailed Box 😂
so did I TH-cam is starting to die off now because of freaking TH-cam #makeyoutubegreatagain
#makeyoutubegreatagain
Mark TheSPGguy TH-cam Isn't starting to die off. There's more advertisement than ever. IT'S GROWING.
In 2:38, it's mentioned that the Chernobyl accident was in 1987, that's not correct. It was in 1986.
@Kurzgesagt at 2:42, you mention that there was a nuclear accident of severe harm in 1987. If you are referring to the explosion-meltdown of the No.4 reactor at Chernobyl Atomic Power Plant, then it was in 1986.
Their way safer now
Was so confused for a second like "What? Why is Kurzgesagt anti-nuclear? Just use thorium-" and then I saw april 1st. Gosh diggely daggely dorndely darn it!
April fools day right? *worried face*
Please be April fools day joke
Sadly, no.
guys.... this topic is way to serious to make jokes about
There is also the counter-argument video, so no this isn't an april fools joke.
CG_youtube Did you watch the end of the video..?
#3 is negated in the 3 reasons why nuclear energy is awesome video.
all of them are well countered.
As I expected from the viewers of kurzgesagt, there aren't as many empty minded nuclear opponents than other videos. Science really makes people more positive about nuclear energy.
It’s also even better when you find out that the annual exposure from a nuclear power plant is the equivalent to the consumption of a banana.
@@howardbaxter2514 The banana is actually slightly greater. 0.001 for the banana (I forgot the unit) compared to 0.0009 for living within 50 miles of the nuclear reactor for 10 years. Not to mention that living next to a coal-fired power plant is 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more radiation every 10 years in the same 50 mile radius.
@@efulmer8675 good point, but it’s easier to put things into perspective when you say it equals about 1 banana and then you throw a banana onto the table.
@@efulmer8675 also slight correction on your number, a banana is 0.1 uSv or 0.01 mrem. So by your numbers, the unit you are using is mSv.
@@howardbaxter2514 Ah, thank you. I appreciate the correction. Bananas are also my favorite fruit, so I guess that makes me a radiation junkie.
Suomi mainittu perkele, torilla tavataan!
***** Ja britti viä! Varaa sanoo
The upload date is this channels discreet way of telling us their opinion :)
Things happen on April 1st. Things happen on Friday the 13th. Things happen EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!
Don't be a d*ck
This video isn’t a April fools video this is a part of a 3 part series about nuclear energy this video is about the arguments people make against it
Can you have another go on this one? Many of point 3 issues have now been rectified by things like liquid fluoride thorium reactors among others. Currently I think these videos need a rework as they are not delivering an accurate portrayal of what we know in 2019.
Thanks!
The three most well known nuclear accidents were at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. The Three Mile Island incident didn't kill anyone. The Fukushima incident happened entirely due to an earthquake (if you're not building a nuclear plant near a fault zone, you can entirely discount this incident) and no more than two deaths can be attributed to it. As for Chernobyl, up to 64 deaths can be attributed to it, making it the deadliest nuclear disaster to date (the next deadliest disaster only killed 4 people).
Each of these three disasters happened with generation II reactors, the first generation to be commercially viable (generation I was experimental). Generation III and generation IV reactors have the potential to produce the same amount of power with less uranium. Generation IV reactors may be able to use uranium with 100-300 times more efficiency, making nuclear incidents all the less likely. And that's just with uranium. Thorium power has many advantages over uranium power. In fact, according to its supporters, there is enough thorium in the US to sustain
current electricity levels for over a millennia.
2:01
Is that the Tardis?
AGAIN!?
Is this a conspiracy
Thanks for providing well constructed arguments from both sides. Now I can form my own opinion based on much more objective and reasonable point of view than before. This is exactly why I love you guys in Kurz Gesagt so much.
Thumbs up if you saw the tardis.
WHERE IS IT?!?
Jacob Hunter *when. Minute 2:02 islands bottom left corner
👍👍👍
Nuclear Power: More Efficient and Zero Pollution.
Power Bill: Yeah nah, I ain't going down.
all of those three arguments can be solved by humans being careful and responsible
ha that's funny, that's a completely unviable solution to any problem
Why don't you flip a coin while you're at it?
1 thorium
2 thorium
3 thorium
Coincidence? I think not!
Not to mention that argument #3 is overstated. The consensus among experts is that very few people have died from a nuclear accident. There are less than 100 confirmed cases, and although said experts acknowledge that there may be more, they don't believe that it's all that many still. Almost all the deaths from Fukushima, for instance, were caused either by the evacuation, or the earthquake/tsunami. I say almost, because there is one death that might be connected to the accident. The other two deaths at the plant were due to the tsunami.
The radiation that escaped from Fukushima wasn't enough to be harmful, either. That is not to say that the Japanese authorities shouldn't have taken the precautions that they have, but they have been and still are far more thorough than they have to be.
Four-Eyes
Stop copy pasting mate
@@Official_TH-cam_Support Didn't copypaste a single word. I'm just a pro-nuclear activist.
@@AvengerofGallifrey if so, watch number 3 :D, you should agree there. They just like exploring both sides to better inform Viewers.
Use the stockpile of waste uranium to start the Thorium units!
great recommendation of Into Thin Air one of my favorites I've listened to in probably about 15 times
you showed a South Africa flag amongst countries which have developed their own nuclear weapons which is incorrect, the country does not have nuclear weapons 0:41 South Africa ended its nuclear weapons programme in 1989. All the bombs (six constructed and one under construction) were dismantled.
Woooooo!! Finland was mentioned in a kurzgesagt video. SUOMI PERKELE!!!!🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮
later, 6 years after a video is uploaded as to why nuclear energy is better than coal
Look at the date this vid was created and check the desc.
@@oceanthing9901 it still is mostly agaisnt nuclear energy
@@Tower_Swagman wacht the other 2 parts of this series
Nuclear power is amazing all of those problems have been solved
Not even by a long shot. What's supposed to happen with the waste?
@@Pierrot110194 thorium rectors can use the waste and turn it into less harmful waste thats only radio active for 300 years
@@Pierrot110194 It can get recycled into biofuels and medical equipment.
@@Pierrot110194 I can just feed it to my cat
@@PapaFujiwara Yeah, I'm gonna need a source on that, bud.
I always leave your videos smarter then when I came, even when I re- watch
Oops, I released radioactive gases everywhere making everything around it uninhabitable. Sorry, I was eating a milkyway.
Oh anyways I survived so it's all great and all good. No need t
how about place pressure plate in side walks to generate kinetic energy?
That just sounds like slavery with extra steps
Baran Hekimoglu holala someone is going to get laid in college
Regulinecolt009 Wether my date agree or not ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Baran Hekimoglu I see what you did there
Wait a minute... DID YOU CREATE MY UNIVERSE?! MY UNIVERSE IS A MINIVERSE?!
Dump it into space??
And what will happen if the rocket explodes?
or if the rockect was actually sent to go to your country
HuesingProductions BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOm
The average cost of putting a kilogram of material into space is US$10,000/kg; plus nuclear waste is dense as shit, so economically it's pretty redundant.
It costs 60-100 million U.S. Dollars to put 10 tonnes in low earth orbit. This would decay in decade or so, meaning that you would need to boost the orbit, or put it in a higher one to start with. Around 1 in 10-20 launches fail. You could give the nuke pod an escape system so it wouldn't be breached, but the problem doesn't end there. Your nuclear waste (unshielded to save mass) now lands safely in the sea and sinks. This actually puts it in a safer place than it was on land, as it would sink below the surface of the sand (seabed conditions optimal) and burry itself for all time).
Oh, and radiation damages electronics, so you might lose control of the craft.
To put it simply, when disposing of something really dangerous, sticking it on top of a massive firework is not the best solution.
The hazards of radioactive waste are always overstated. The more hazardous the waste, the shorter the time it could possibly be so hazardous before decaying into a stable state. Lower activity over longer periods of time is how Uranium was able to be recognized as a potential fuel source in the first place before the radiation emitted by spontaneous fission or other forms of decay could actually harm those interacting with it.
1957, 1986, 2011, 1925, 2040, 2054, 2069, 2078? When did we go back in time?
I blame the Tardis that's in every video.
Bit hahaha
Why Germany next?
This is exactly like the arguments for the self-driving cars go. For those who support it, they point out how it just needs to make LESS mistakes, and that decreases the car accident deaths and injuries significantly. For those who oppose it, they mostly boil down to gut rejection that goes along the line of: "So you think machines can replace human? You think they are perfect, and makes no mistakes?"
People want perfect solutions, but the history proves that when the new technology is introduced, it has shortcomings that only hindsight shows, but the technology was advanced nonetheless because it was tested. Without actually putting on the field, nothing can be learned for 100% accuracy. Even then, there is always some sort of hindsight left to be discovered.
This is a ugly truth no one wants to talk about, and neither myself, honestly. But even after knowing all these, you can still vote if you live under democracy, to bring about temporary or permanent changes that suits your decision. Innovations, and more importantly science, has been historically "advanced" when the previous generation died and could no longer appeal to their own authorities. New ideas only became accepted and verified by others when the new generation was willing to accept new ideas, when proven true. Democracy has a lot of shortcomings, but one undeniable fact is that it's a effective tool to overcome authorities who believe otherwise. Of course, for better or worse. If you don't vote, you might as well as consider your voting right void.
at 0:41 it shows the 1994 (and present) South African flag, but South Africa's nuclear weapons program was developed and eventually dismantled in 1989 before that flag was adopted.
Trinity Test (First ever nuclear device test) was in 1945 not 1944
This video argues like "the sun causes cancer so don't use solar energy"
Look at the date that it was published
You ignored the part of nuclear waste? Or you think its not important?
What about all deaths???
@@xxxxxxcx156 Do you know that the volume of nuclear waste necessary to generate thousands of years of electricity for the entire world takes less space than a single coal mine or a medium sized hydroelectric dam. Do you know that the radioactive elements are already there and a nuclear power plant only harvest that energy ? The nuclear energy harvesting takes all those radioactive elements and isolate them, taking only the excess of energy from it and putting it inn a safer place than it was before.
All energy can be deadly. If I drink 100 Red Bulls that's deadly.
But at least when you die, you won't be placed in a lead lined coffin to be buried in concrete and your family and friends won't have to wear radioactive shielding to protect themselves from you!
@@PeterMilanovski Neutron radiation won't spread person to person. Unless of course, you've ingested a nuclear reactor.
@@captainmorgan2307 or sitting on the beach at Seascale in the UK and a gust of wind blows some sand into your mouth along with the radioactive particles that have washed up onto the shore from the leaking barrels that the British were dumping in the ocean all around them until they were exposed by Greenpeace activists and had to stop! They no longer dump barrels off a ship, with a pipeline direct from the plant to the ocean LoL they don't need to. Skin cancer is the least of your worries over there, at least you can see the skin cancer and have something done about it but when you have cancer inside the body, you usually find out when it's to late...
While it's true that there's a lot of things that are bad for you, radioactive materials have the ability to kill faster than anything else, assuming that you come in contact with it at it's hottest state. But the worst thing about it for me is that every time a disaster has occurred involving radioactive materials, those involved and in charge lie about how bad the problem is and how much people have died from it and how many people have been affected who will be suffering for how ever long they have to live with no recognition from anyone about their suffering!
In Australia, the British government was testing nuclear bombs, there are people who were in the Australian defence force who were exposed and affected by the radiation and even though they were constantly being checked and measured by the doctors, no medical reports exist from that time!
Yes it's clean energy until you get radioactive exposure because of cost cutting or human error, don't count on finding help because you won't get any, everything will be brushed under the carpet and no one will listen to you...
If you live close to a nuclear power plant and something goes wrong, you have no one else to blame but yourself. If a reactor moves in, I'm cutting my losses and moving out, and definitely not down wind of it either, no matter how far away I am from it.
Many people have played with fire and they always get burnt. Australia is a nuclear free country and I'm going to keep it that way.
only chernobyl produced lasting effects on its environment, and chernobyl was REALLY REALLY bad.
fukushima release very little long-term contaminants, in fact the japanese government is already getting people to move back to fukushima since pretty much all the nasty stuff has decayed away by now (and there was a big effort to remove lots of topsoil from the area)
Nuclear weapons werent tested in 1944. That didn’t happen until July 1945 and then they were used on Japan in August of 1945.
I want to be a nuclear technician when I am older so this made me shed a tear :(
Spencer Howard Not the safest job to choose.
@@ilmu011 Safer than most industries actually, unless you work in decommissioning the 1950s era stuff. Even then, still safer than the average industrial plant because of the amount of safety and regulator presence.
Check out the 3rd part, "3 Reasons why Nuclear Energy is Awesome" from Kurzgesagt. It might make you shed another (better) tear!
Don't watch this video it's based on pseudoscience and hysterics.. They're just promoting fear.
@@Sugarsail1 it's funny because I made this comment 3 years ago. I'm now a nuclear technician in the USN.
We should build nuclear reactors in space.
〉Phez〈 And how exactly are they gonna be mainained? Or how exactly will the energy produced by these reactors be transferred to earth?
Rudy_Eila Presumably by the extensive infrastructure of space elevators that would be required for such an endeavor.
Haha yeah
Rudy_Eila
*Spaceplanes*
Fully reusable spacecraft would make going to space accessible to the world.
Pokemarky If the power pkant has a problem and radiation is some how released whoever is on that reactor would probably die. Plus who would get the job to clean it up.
So, I actually watched an interview with a professor on this topic, and he says that the most harmful waste can be handled in an ordinary lab after just 300 years. The rest that last 100.000 is so benign you can wrap paper around it to protect yourself from the radiation, or just stay 5 centimeters away from it.
Where can you find it please
@@RAPTOR-dm2oo It's in Swedish.
I'm very surprised how even the view, like and dislike counts are on both the pro and con videos. Great job!
Every single "fact" presented in this video is either due to fearmongering or obsolete reactor designs.
- The number of people killed by Fukushima is zero.
- The number of people killed by Three Mile Island is zero.
- The number of people experiencing radiation sickness from both Three Mile Island and Fukushima is zero.
- The number of people injured by radiation in TMI and Fukushima who were not directly involved in cleanup or repair operations is zero.
- The number of people killed by Chernobyl is less than one thousand, and it is nearly impossible to determine if those who died from cancer died due the accident. In addition, the main cancers that would be expected due to fallout exposure are highly treatable.
- The Chernobyl exclusion zone has become a nearly pristine nature preserve now that humans aren't there polluting it anymore.
- The Fukushima exclusion zone is due purely to fear-mongering, as the statistical increase in expected cancers living right up to the gates of the plant is negligible.
- The Fukushima accident was only upgraded to INES-7 due to political pressure from ignorant environmentalists. It meets none of the criteria or guidelines specified by the IEA for being classified as a level 7 event.
- There are multiple places in the world with natural radiation levels above those of Fukushima and Chernobyl, whose cancer rates are shown in some cases to be *LESS* than those of areas with lower background radiation.
- Currently operating civilian reactors are nothing more than scaled up military designs, which is why there is any weapons proliferation concern at all.
- Currently operating civilian reactor designs are well over half a century old, which is why they have any kind of accident danger at all. How much do you think technology has progressed since the 1950s?
- Currently operating civilian reactor designs are the reason there is any long-lived nuclear waste at all. Bowever, that waste can be reburned in newer *and* older designs and essentially rendered harmless. It is due to an executive order by President Carter that the United States does not reprocess waste and reburn it in reactors. This executive order came from ignorant environmentalist pressure as well as those advocating nuclear disarmament.
- Ignorant environmentalists spewing "radiation as a boogey-man" propaganda is the reason we're stuck with these old designs, as it is impossible for any replacement designs to get traction due to all of the government red tape and public fear.
- Plutonium's toxicity is greatly exaggerated. Chemically it is roughly as toxic as lead. Radiologically plutonium must be ingested to present a significant hazard for most isotopes.
- Modern, safer reactor designs can be built that do not produce or require plutonium or uranium and result in waste products that only last roughly 200 years. However, once again pressure from environmentalists is preventing this progress.
- Both wind and solar require far nastier chemicals used in their construction than the construction of a modern nuclear power plant design, are far more expensive, and in the case of wind, far more environmentally destructive. Solar is highly inefficient and would require vast areas of land to produce enough energy to satisfy a medium sized city.
magicstix0r This is because the only reason not to like nuclear power is fear-mongering. =D
*Why Nuclear Energy Is Terrible*
Me: *HELL NO!*
*Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome*
Me: *HELL YEAH!*
you two ure rude!!!!!!!!!!!!
me:newcleyar energy stupid and iditik
"It LosEs iTs HaRmFuLnEs oNLy SloWLy"
Harmfulness is not only about the decay time or the radioactivity but about for example how easily the harm would spread into surroundings. Spent nuclear fuel is solid and practically insoluble to water. This means that one could bury the SNF into the ground, drill a well hole through the storage silo and drink the water without physical harm (
You dont have to mock them their just trying state their opinion
>believing anything bill gates says
......dude...............no
Every time I watch a video I watch it twice .
The first time is for the topic it self the second is for the soundtracks .
Great job .... wonderful animation and design, wonderful info , the narration is so cool and the soundtrack is more than great 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻