I'm editing this video so I'll have more assets as I (and others) try to reverse Green Party of Canada's anti-nuclear stance. If you're a member of GPC, or know anyone who is please alert them to this video, and to the pro-nuclear policy proposals which will be voted on 2023 November. wedecide.green.ca/processes/create-proposals/f/457/proposals?order=most_commented ...if you're Canadian and NOT a member of GPC you might just want to join for the sake of helping push these proposals through.
Great work Gordon! This is my third time watching Chris’s video here and thought that he had inserted all the graphics when I saw it was you that posted it. I’m sure he appreciates it. I kept freeze reading Throughout observing all the falsehoods expressed by Dr. Edwards. 🤗😆
@@ayush_dwr12Never attribute to stupidity that which can be attributed to malice. Some of these people legitimately hate our civilization and want to destroy it.
As soon as the anti nuclear activist said nuclear could create an execces energy problem and that we need to live within our means. I considered the debate over that is simply standing in the way of progress , a retrograde mentality. Efficiency is great but having too much energy is not and never will be a problem. I swear these people want to drag us back to the mud huts
They want a stratified society, ala India's caste system. They want to benefit from *ALL* the high tech and fine living, while everyone else has nothing. They're convinced it's going to run out, so only *they* can have it.
@@chapter4travels 24:17 "One of the problems with nuclear is that it sort of opens the door to unlimited excesses. This is what's happened in the past, and it's likely to happen again in the future. We have to learn how to live more efficiently."
This is why those who want only renewables have to float using the power of the state and of the gun to force people to use less energy and lower their standards of living. By their own words, it is required to make their pipe dream work. Americans and Canadians should wholeheartedly reject their plan on that premise alone. Thanks for sharing Gordon.
It's because they're not pro-green or efficiency, rather Anti - Human. And they recognize that. If you want some dive into the philisophy if the greens I recommend a talk of Alex epstein, I don't remember wich thou
@@chucknorrisface Yeah, that was pretty mask off. These people don't want a solution, they want to regress the gains in technology since the industrial revolution and bring us into a new dark age.
You can only use electricity when it's produced. And you'll be forcefully happy 🙄. Energy storage is difficult. Would be nice to see that getting developed. But I would love to just go mainly nuclear. With renewables as backup during the day. Because at night the sun don't shine
All activists need to understand what Kirk Sorensen's molten salt reactors are all about. They also need to quit bashing Elon Musk, since batteries WILL become cheap and ubiquitous!
If Germany would have invested in nuclear instead of wind and solar starting in 2010 their grid would have been decarbonized by now. Last winter (2022) Germany put forth $500b program to build natural gas terminals and purchased low grade coal. That got them through the mild winter. But they also priced Pakistan and other Indonesian countries out of being able to buy natural gas. Germany has the most expensive electricity in the western world.
That's what should baffle every single idiot who loves to quote this "costs of renewable" numbers 400 billion spend take current price of Hinkley C - even leaving out the fact if they would start building the exact same plants, one after another, their price per unit would drop significantly leaving out another fact, the huge chunk of the cost of any nuclear project is the cost of lending money - the costs that could be significantly mitigated if it would be the state financing these projects, or at least providing cheap loans. Even without it - that's still like 13 Hinkleys that could have been build for that money. 13 hinkleys would power like 60% of German grid... 24/7/365, doesn't matter rain, shine or snow. Instead, they got 30% renewable - if they get lucky with the weather... That's the only thing you need, to realize those renewable costs numbers they keep quoting just cant be right - they just don't make any sense.
Regarding all the talk about reactors going over budget and being cancelled, you only have to ask one question: We built highly profitable and safe reactors in the 70's with no problems, no delays, and no prior experience. Did we forget how to build them? What exactly is the contention there? They can *never* answer this question because there is no answer. They have to either say we've lost technology and slid backwards in the last 50 years (remember in the 70's no one had experience building reactors either) or they have to begin to examine the regulatory and political environment that causes these delays and cost overruns -- and they do NOT want to examine regulatory and political causes for nuclear cost issues. If the 70's reactors were safe and profitable, they can still be built safely and profitably today. If the contention is that that's no longer possible, the anti-nuclear side must be forced to answer *why*. It's the pro-nuclear side's job to force them to answer this and not let them weasel out of it.
You can't just say regulation and politics are "just" anti-nuclear. We built bridges on time and on budget in the 70s that are still perfectly safe today. And now they're running into extreme cost overruns and time delays EXACTLY the same as nuclear. Every civil engineering problem seems to be absolutely overflowing with corruption (at least in my part of the world). And that's the primary reason why SMRs are needed. We would have been fine with the old PWRs if it wasn't for the fact they are civil engineering projects which seem impossible to do properly in the modern day.
The NRC was put in place on behalf of the fossil fuel industry by politicians who were paid by the fossil fuel industry. Today it's only gotten worse because those same politicians are now also being paid by the Climate Industrial Complex who don't want a solution to their cash cow.
Who watches the watchers? If the watchers feel that they have achieved success by stopping an extremely viable and highly realistically safe product, then the watcher needs to be looked at, the watcher may have a vision problem.
when you build a first reactor of its kind - than effectively you're building a prototype so yes, changes to its projects are likely to be needed - which leads to delays and cost overruns. does it mean every next one you built is going to be the same? well, obviously no, you only build the prototype once
Electricity imports and exports are much worse for Germany than the graph shows. Exports are at lower prices than imports because exports occur when solar production exceeds demand. At these times, however, neighboring countries do not need electricity either.
@@Shindo13371 Supply and demand. When supply outstrips demand, then what is being supplied is essentially garbage. Parties holding garbage have to pay to dispose of it.
@@aliendroneservices6621 I get that as an economic concept but was more confused by the technical conditions that would create that situation to begin with. Information I get from searching is vague but broadly suggests that selling during negative energy price is more of an economic decision than a product of technical limitations. For impeller-based generators you can slow them or turn them off as demand fluctuates BUT that comes at a cost of efficiency. Takes more fuel to spin down and then spin back up, I guess. So it becomes a question for the utility company of fuel cost vs. export cost. Will it cost us more money to spin down and then spin back up again or will it cost us more just to keep the generators running and pay the cost to export. And apparently the German coal and gas generators are actually quite old and so aren't particularly efficient at switching rates? So the German utilities when selling to France even during negative prices do so become they determined it would more profitable for them. Not because they were particularly forced to by any sort of technical or mechanical limitations. They could spin down to match demand any time they wanted. Anyone feel free to let me know if I got anything wrong.
It's always the same discussion: Nuclear proliferation and waste are seen as the top risk by the older generation, and some of them don't seem to be up to date on the latest developments. There has been (and still is) a lot of dogmatism and propaganda spread by the terrified activists that do not understand what renewables are not sufficient to cover the energy demand without backup. Many of them would prefer the death toll of a coal plant over any nuclear power plant, just because they are scared of the work "radioactive". That's instinct, not rational thinking.
indeed like russia funding the german green parties who are anti nuclear but seem to be pro coal oil & gas - all items they were buying from russia. how handy.
You have to understand that many if not most of the activists are simply using the climate "Crisis" as a tool for degrowth and anti-capitalism. They don't want a solution.
The last lady who was addressing Dr. Keefer was justifying the costs of coal/backup generators as okay compared to the comparitively higher costs of nuclear and tried asking him why he had such a big problem with renewables when the costs seemed higher for nuclear, i don't think he properly addressed her question, and I don't think the questioner has a proper grasp on the actual "costs" -All these people thinking radiation is bad and hearing the 10000 years and nuclear weapons part of the argument like the final questioner NEVER EVER hear the actual facts and figures and it shows. People love to feel, and they FEEL like nuclear sounds bad despite the reality which is this: NUCLEAR IS SAFER. ACTUAL "COSTS" ARE LESS. Less air pollution alone should beat any other argument. CLEAN AIR PEOPLE GO TAKE A WALK. The problem is I don't know if she would ever be able to be convinced nuclear was good because she seems pretty set, but if she wanted to be convinced and was reading this, nuclear is a more stable power source, it takes up less land area, the waste despite the fear mongering is manageable and not nearly as deadly as described, some of the waste is sellable as medical/research isotopes (the reactor would have to be setup for that), as well as many other reasons, and I would say Dr. Keefer doesn't even want "0" renewables just the ability for those who want to invest in and do nucelar to be able to without being stopped (safely of course as has been proven is possible)
the big questions for nuclear really are. 1) how can we scale fast now. 2) what kind of government investments are needed for molten salt to be certified technology for either thorium or uranium. 3) how many reactors do we need to make direct replacement carbon neutral fuels for ICE? (in france the estimate is 200)
1. Define fast. The very, very best case for transitioning away from fossil fuels globally is 100+ years. (it's impossible with wind and solar) 2. Government investment is not the problem, it's government regulatory agencies that are the biggest roadblock. They answer to the fossil fuel industry and the climate industrial complex. 3. Count up all the current coal and natural plants for electricity (20% of total energy needs) Then add up all the process heat generators, another 40%. (That's the easy part) then the number of reactors needed to make synthetic liquid fuels, the last 40%.
@@chapter4travels Based on the experience of France, we could easily convert the world's electricity to entirely clean energy, mostly nuclear, in less than 30 years.
@@hewdelfewijfe China and the rest of Asia are building coal plants as fast as they can right now. Each plant has a 60-year life span, who will pay them to replace those plants before then? Next electricity is only about 20% of the world's total energy demand, where does the other 80% come from?
@@chapter4travels Roughly 80% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity, transport, and other sectors that are easily electrified.
@@hewdelfewijfe Even just electricity at 20% will be more than 60 years until all the coal plants are replaced. They will continue to build those for at least another 20 years so no it's 80 years just for electricity. My estimate of 100 years is very optimistic. And the longer we fumble with wind and solar the longer the transition will take. You have to remember the Climat Industrial Complex is not looking for real solutions just ones they can scam money and power from.
As soon as you introduce the reality of the energy transition timeline, his argument falls completely apart. The transition away from fossil fuels will take a hundred years, minimum.
@@Orandu Well he's out of luck, the use of fossil fuels will continue to increase till at least 2050. It will be 2075 if we continue to fumble about with so-called "renewables".
@@AX2SEG it takes 20 years because of a bad regulatory and legal environment, like changing the aircraft strike rule halfway through construction, forcing a massive redesign. In reality, we could build them in like 4 years, just like we used to do historically before people like you took over the government to put in place laws that make nuclear too expensive so that you can come here and argue that nuclear is too expensive.
@ashnur This is the dirty little secret of the Green energy movement. Most of them are a bunch of Luddites who want the world to de-industrialize because have romantic regressive views of the past that never existed, and because they misunderstand the causes and solutions to overpopulation. This can all be traced back to Amory Lovins and others in California circa 1960. PS: Climate change is a serious problem. So too are the millions of people that die every year worldwide from preventable disease from airborne particulate pollution
@gordonmcdowell You made "Helen Caldicott - "Th" Thorium Documentary" Can you please make a Gordon Edwards version? "Dr. Gordon Edwards - "Th" Thorium Documentary" thanks!
That's a good idea. Edwards does have a LOT of video coverage, though he's never as bombastic as Caldicott. Not as entertaining. But you are correct that's probably something I should do. I'd like one of these videos to appear as his top-search-result. Forever.
@@JohnSmith-gu9gl If you know anyone in Green Party i do need all GPC members I can find to support some pro-nuclear policy revisions. gordonmcdowell at gmail I'll send anyone an email detailing the situation.
Very informative. Chris believes in global warming yet defends nuclear and doesn't think renewables are the solution. Gordon thinks that global warming might not be a big deal yet defends renewable energy and storage. First time I’ve heard opinions like this and I enjoyed it very much, we need more of this.
I didn't hear Gordon downplay global warming. He just seemed to think it could all be tackled by renewables. Just keep putting more money into it, and, you know, "manage" your energy use if it comes up short.
The Dr Gordon Edwards needs to be re-educated - he is 30 years out of date and needs to abandon the Sierra Club's negative propaganda BS and learn about Walk-away safe TMSR like Indonesia's 65m×180m 500MWe TMSR producing 43kW/m² compared with destroying thousands of the scarce tropical rain forests at only 2Watt/m² for short life unrecyclible solar farms.
Renewable energy and electric cars are totally unsustainable. Vast amounts of scarce minerals NICKEL COBALT,CADMIUM NEODYNIUM ,COPPER LITHIUM will require vast mining oprrstions using fossil fuels.
Dr. Keefer is not only an eloquent advocate, but a perfect gentleman. I am so tired of advocates, even the ones I agree with screaming liar at their opponent. I love the way Keefer just says "you may need to update your fact sheet" when Edwards is just plain wrong.
He said the quiet part out loud. These anti nuclear people are not stupid. It is a tautological fact that nuclear energy is better than renewables. Not only because you can get more energy out in a way we are used to. But also because wholesale adoption of nuclear jeopardizes this rediculous ideology of degrowth. With nuclear energy, all those offshored industrial industries can be brought back with authomation; WITHOUT their polution. because we would actually have the deep energy reserves needed to process the waste streams where neccessary or just simply utilize different processes that do not create problematic waste streams. Nuclear Fission gets the west another MASSIVE economic boom from reshoring quite a bit of manufacturing and industrial industries. This is why Jimmy Carter should be called out for the traitor he is. HE stopped progress on Spent Fuel recycling. We wasted years because of that idiot. As for the fear mongering on proliferation. Clearly this is bullshit, show me how our current regime stopped iran or north korea or any of the nations who are outside the treaty. IT DIDNT. Nuclear reactors are not the cause of proliferation. Its having the need to have them to protect your nations soverienty.
I was surprised Dr. Keefer didn't point out that India didn't use its CANDU to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. It used a dedicated weapons-grade-plutonium production reactor, like all other countries have done. Also, all countries already have access to weapons-grade plutonium (by way of these specialized reactors for its production; they are cheap and small and easy to hide).
Everyone agrees that how we need more energy so we can live on electric devices. but the disagreement looks like they're about how we're gonna get there. Gordon, did you ever think about how much maintenance scales per unit? I can see maintenance costs spiral out of control if you build 1 million wind farms. imo nuclear should be the basis for heavy energy usage, using renewables like wind and solar in places to enhance the grid, not to build the foundation. because wind and solar as a foundation is so much of a headache with availability and batteries and all those other things
That's the typical anti nuclear activist. Has opportunity to ask a question and instead wastes everyones time making a lecture whose entire premise is completely destroyed by BOTH speakers by answering the very previous question. And then when asked to stop giving a pointless lecture and ask her questions ignores that and just keeps going because the world has to revolve around her.
The idea is that renewable energy is good for providing energy on demand, but those people are smoking something that reality can't provide. One thing though, that NOT many people know what's involved in building these green energy-provided, that aren't reliable due to the sun shining or the wind blowing. No one knows about the cost and how much land is required, and then, you have, heavy equipment to build the roads, to deliver, steel, concrete, fiberglass wings, cooling OIL, periodically washing the blades with a helicopter, and after 6 years the gearbox, and 10 to 12 years the wings must be replaced. But guess what, the 3 wings are cut in 3 pieces, taken to a burial sight, and no one knows where??? But there's more, something NO ENVIRONMENTALISTS wants to talk about it. I've seen it with my own eyes, DEAD BIRDS on the ground below a windmill, just recently killed, avians, and others, I counted 6, and weren't old kills, why? Because someone comes to pick them up every afternoon!! What do you call that? Hypocrisy? Okay, an estimate of the number of windmills worldwide is at 4+/- million, well, let's make a round number at 4 birds a day. So, 4x4.000.000 = 16.000.000 million birds......... A DAY?????? Well, as long it's green energy, well, it is NOT OK!!! NUCLEAR Molten Salt Thorium Reactor is the alternative, long-lasting, clean, and power-on-demand. Wake up people.
According to Nasa scientist Jame Hanson and Columbia university the lives saved by nuclear power displacing coal is 1.8 million people. The question is how many more lives could have been saved if all coal plants have been closed. That 1.8 million Lives saved only increases in time.
it's really laughable when these people quote prices of Vogtle of Hinkle point C but somehow they fail to acknowledge both Vogtle and Hinkley are effectively prototypes - and that's exactly why they overshoot the budget, and why there are delays. You're building a prototype - at some point you realize the project has flaws. So you have to redesign - which means months of delay at best, and extra billions to spend. But well.. you only build a prototype once. Once you decide to build another one - the flaws you previously identified are already known, the project is already amended. No need for redesigns. No cause for delays or extra costs. What difference does it make? People who build Hinkley point C claim that now, knowing all the things that they've learned while building Hinkley, should they end up building another one, they would do it 30% faster and cheaper. But somehow this info never gets acknowledged by any greenie...
Sure, we need energy efficiency and a broader roll-out of wind and solar, but the world needs a *massive surplus* of energy if we wanna survive in a world anything like it is today. We need enough power to not just completely end CO2 emissions but to produce enough energy to do global climate remediation. We can pull co2 out of the ocean while doing desalination (there’s a US Navy project doing this right now, producing fuel from the carbon removed from seawater), which can be done using process heat, which is essentially free energy as a byproduct of electricity production. I wanna see enough clean power to get every human up to ‘internet and air conditioning’ levels of development. The idea this guy promotes, that we need to essentially have less power, is stupid and immoral. Lastly, I think we are being foolishly naive about the environmental impact of the production and decommission of solar panels specifically. Nuclear plants last for nearly a century, while solar panels only last a few decades, and we don’t have a good way to recycle them, not to mention the damage done by their production.
Literally no one in his right mind would try to make a device with that much Pu-240/241/242 contamination. Some of those higher isotopes are so heavy, they often spontaneously fission; and for a device, that's bad news. Unlike uranium, these cannot be separated through any gaseous method. Only if Canada makes a national decision to produce Pu-239, then a CANDU can be reconfigured to shuffle bundles at shorter intervals to avoid producing too much of the higher actinides. Hasn't happened.
I have lived near Vermont Yankee nuclear for years. Its been subsidized by tax dollars and was still not cheap. After all these years, I cannot explain the fear when the nuclear alarm goes off and we are frozen because no information comes out. After several close calls, I don't want, and my part of the country voted to have the place shut down. Fortunately, the company running it realized it wasnt making money and shut it down. We dont want one of these nuclear plants in our back yard after this plant. It was designed in the 1950's, built in the 60's and at one point they had approved it to run for 60 years. They even knew that tritium, strontium and cesium were leaking into the river than goes from canana to the Atlantic through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New york. These nuclear plants can have 1 bad day and ruin the land around it for centuries. If you want one in your backyard, fine... but up here in. New england, we dont want any part of it.
"These nuclear plants can have 1 bad day and ruin the land around it for centuries." -- False. Contrary to what the liars in the OP video says, nearly all of the land around Fukushima and Chernobyl is safe to live in now, and safe to grow food in now.
Palo verde is in the Arizona desert . Who would do that. Wait for it ….. it uses sewage water from the greater phoenix area . Has been powering Arizona since 1988. Largest facility in the Us . Three PWR reactors. Incredible feat
The usual narrative here: proposed solution is RE100 when supporting the notion with statistics comparing to nuclear power. After said statistics, somehow storage, ~forced energy preserving solutions and in some cases district heating networks, are smuggled into the proposed solution. Never mentioning the effects on timeline, economics or environmental cost or technical viability. The cost comparison is also very iffy. Like Chris said, electricity is a service. Cost per unit of energy per sometimes is perhaps cheap with renewables, but the _functional unit_ should be cost per unit of electricity per on demand.
This was very good. I have heard over the last few days that the auto workers are afraid of losing their jobs, because electric vehicle manufacture would need from 30-40% fewer workers. But there is also the electrical infrastructure and new electrical power sources which will be required. While difficult to work the deals and timing out, the mass production of modular nuclear reactors by these workers at former gasoline production plants and then sent off in schnabel rail cars might work. Perhaps the auto companies could pair with small modular reactor engineering companies to solve each other's, as well as society's problems. The possibility of solving these needs might push along the regulation hurdles. Maybe we should make this suggestion to those involved. Of course the anti-nuclear crowds will suggest the workers be used to instead produce wind and solar energy harvesting equipment. I think our side will have the better arguments.
The lost jobs due to electrical car manufacturing is a dog whistle to try and scare them away from the current strike going on, its designed to make them scared they'll lose their jobs when there is no evidence that will happen.
Dr. Edwards reminds me of the opposing arguments to the Apollo moonshot in the 1960s, specifically one prominent expert who argued that it was the equivalent of "hitting a bullet with a bullet." Every large-scale nuclear reactor project has become its own unique moonshot and is surrounded by a triple belt and double suspenders regulatory obstacle course. Small Modular Reactors are the future of energy.
It's unfortunate the debate is framed around the Global Warming scare. The transition to nuclear should be so that we can conserve precious fossil fuels for those things which they do best.
Global warming is a pressing issue. But if you have energy abundance you can just MAKE carbohydrate fuels (or ammonia based) that are just like fossils only cleaner and are carbon neutral since they'd consume as much carbon when being made as they'd release on burning.
there is loads of fossil fuels around. A single mine in Australia has enough reserve to supply the world for 300 years as a single source. The biggest offshore oil field was found just before the regime change in Egypt. Iran has 25% of the world gas supply & its barely used because they are prevented from partnering up to exploit. There are literally 1000s of drilling rights unused in the USA. Fossil fuels are not something we are going to run out of any time soon. Not saying though that process heat from nuclear thermal could not be used in refining petrochemicals.
Agreed, the climate "CRISIS" is a hoax and the climate change agenda is much worse. Burning hydrocarbons for heat is just dumb when we have billions of years worth of uranium.
@@mrrolandlawrence But fossil fuels aren't something that's very wise to use. Certainly very selfish. If we introduce a carbon tax to fund the releif from natural disasters that are made worse by climate change such as droughts and flooding it will also become very VERY non-competitive. Even just subsidizing the medical costs to treat people who are directly suffering from air polution would bring the whole industry out of affordability.
Germany is spending an estimated 20 billion this year for renewable subsidies alone. How is nuclear more expensive? How many reactors could they have built on the money they spent on subsidies alone in the last 15 years?
For my money the biggest challenge for the pro-nuclear lobby to recognise and overcome is that nuclear power is the child of the nuclear weapon program. We need to be as fervent in our opposition to nuclear weapons as we are in our support of nuclear power; with supporting statements around the fact that CANDU reactors don't use enriched uranium so safe-guard against nuclear proliferation risks.
I'd care to disagree. India and Pakistan, two repeating war parties have become eerily silent after both armed themselves at nuclear level. Ukraine would have never been invaded by Russia, if they hadn't given up their own arsenal. The "Peoples' Republic" of the Kim family is largely left alone, because they seem to have a small, but sufficiently deterrent nuclear arsenal. Nukes have prevented many wars and been used in just one (to end it).
My impression is that first nations are in favour of nuclear projects. This video tells me otherwise. Perhaps there is much more opposition than I thought.
As usual, you have one expert on one side, with facts and rationality, and one not-so-expert on the other, which clings to his beliefs and ideology without bothering looking up reality to check his assumptions.
I do not usually try to discourage young people, but people who lack experience should probably avoid speaking as though they are experts. I have been in places in Australia where ordinary citizens cannot go because of the risk. I have had 40 years experience as a scientist, and I do not sell myself as an expert on anything. All engineering is based upon science, however engineers are not scientists and are often unable to deal effectively with uncertainty. In Australia, engineering is the lead profession.
Could the type of 'Modular reactors' that are used in submarines, alleviate concerns about them not being suitable if built small? How many houses could one of them run? Thank you for uploading and sharing.
The submarine SMRs use enrichment levels that exceed HALEU. So the SMR concept has certainly been proven out, but these designs are different at least because the fuel isn't as enriched as much. (SNC even claims to have an SMR which can run on natural uranium by way of heavy-water moderator. But it hasn't moved thru the licensing process to not clear how serious they are about that effort.) How many houses depends on any SMR. USNC's MMR and Global First Power are some of the smallest designs I've seen.
@@gordonmcdowell "The submarine SMRs use enrichment levels that exceed HALEU. So the SMR concept has certainly been proven " That is not correct. No submarine today use HALEU, some use 19% enrichment, that is still considered low, bit to the higher side. Some uses 7% enrichment that is totally reasonable for a civilian reactor
@@matsv201 You mis-quoted me by leaving out "but these designs are different at least because the fuel isn't as enriched as much" ... read what I wrote again, I'm saying submarines use HIGHER enrichment. The SMR -concept- has been proven out but the designs are different because the fuel isn't as enriched as much (as submarine fuel).
Unfortunate to frame this as a debate. I see renewables and nuclear as complimentary to each other. We need both in order to have abundant sustainable energy.
Hey there! Massive fan of your videos. I noticed in this one though, the part with the lady identifying as "First Nations" was fast-forwarded. Possibly she went off-topic or wasn't asking a direct question, but I'm really interested in hearing her out. It would mean a lot if you could share a link to the uncut version of her segment. I'd appreciate hearing her whole perspective, even if it's more of a rant than a question. Thanks heaps and keep up the awesome work!
This is a deep link to the original source when she starts to speak: th-cam.com/video/XfL40rSFT00/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xTkniusTYQRXN39X&t=5125 (I did link to the original video in my TH-cam Description.) It runs from 1h25m to 1h30m in original video.
53:40 "We're all here because we know it's dangerous". Yeah, that can be applied to so many industrial activities... I dunno, weapons production? The double standard is clear if you take a premis and find it could be applied to topics other than nuclear power plants verbatim.
Gordon says that Germany experts to France but fails to mention that it was generated mostly by coal. Germany needs to build Kirk Sorensen's molten salt reactors or they need to buy a whole lot of Elon's batteries (actually, CATL's LFP batteries). And, of course a lot of PV! They're is NO excuse for ANY activist to be against nuclear!
There's a website called intermittent (dot) energy which is quite useful for exploring Germany and France energy imports. The fellow who's built it is working on incorporating the VALUE of electricity into the graph options. What is interesting is how the electricity France imports from Germany has little value, and the electricity Germain imports from France is much more expensive.
1:00:00 Ewards: "if you're lucky you get [power out of the radioactive matieral] for 30 - 40 years and then you get radioactive waste forever". Nuclear plants are being authorised for 80 years. 30/40 ys vs 80 seems to be a pretty blatant lie on his part (or he simply doesn't know enough about the industry)
No one has ever been hurt by tritium. You could drink nothing but that tritium contaminated water directly from the tanks for years and not be harmed because the dose is that low. You can look up how radioactive the water in the tanks at Fukushima before release was in terms of Bq / kg, then look up the dose coefficient for tritium water to convert that into Sv, and look up how much water you drink per day. Dumping it into the ocean is not a problem and cannot hurt anyone or anything. Math: Water radioactivity in tanks at Fukushima: 620 kBq/L. Tritium-water ingestion coefficient: 1.8e-11 Sv / Bq. Water intake per day: 3.7 L/day. Therefore, (3.7 L/day) (620 kBq/L) (1.8e-11 Sv / Bq) = approx 15 mSv / year. That's harmless. I have no doubt that this is harmless. And that's without any dilution. They will dilute it even further before releasing it, which means we can be guaranteed that it's actually completely harmless without any doubt. Please stop spreading in homeopathic misinformation.
We haven’t found a way of shielding the Earth from all cosmic rays and stopping water from becoming Tritiated, but we’re working on it. But if you stay away from coal plants and stay away from potato chips and bananas you MIGHT avoid some radiation. (Staying away from a nuclear plant won’t matter though.)
Doing fission electric power generation the correct way is the obvious solution for a clean, green energy future that eliminates greenhouse gas emissions. Switch to Thorium thermal breeder molten salt reactors. Th232 is far more abundant than the very rare U235 isotope. Lower cost, safer, much more fuel efficient than PWR U235/U238. Th reactor produces much less radioactive waste that is much shorter-lived. High-pressure containment not required. Doesn't produce Pu due to fission of the Thorium bred U233 (starts with less neutrons than U238 so harder to decay to other elements up the periodic table). No need to enrich U235, no need to make expensive solid fuel rods. Th reactor fuel is already a liquid, cannot have meltdown. Zirconium cladding not required so no risk of hydrogen gas explosions. No need to shutdown reactor every 2 years to replace some fuel rods, Th reactor fuel is liquid, so can be continuously reprocessed without the need for reactor shutdowns. Lower cost because high grade steel reactor vessel and outer concrete containment not required. Since not pressurized, no need for outer containment due to PWR reactor water flashing to steam following loss of pressure. Obviously CANDU design does not suffer from some of these PWR reactor defects. Th reactor operates at high temperature so more efficient electricity generation; can use a gas turbine not the expensive, large physical sized steam turbine. Why has Th electric power generation not been developed? Because all the nuclear powers wanted Pu to make more and more nuclear weapons. They had no interest in making electricity the safest and most efficient way via nuclear fission. Th is of no use for making Pu.
Banal idiocy is a disincentive. Many people need to be directed when they work. Self-starters are much more valuable, Management theory and industrial safety are taught by university professors ? I think that is hilarious.
Its interesting that Dr Edwards statememt have been cut and the other Dr has full statememts. This is obvious when talking about chernobyl deaths. Chernobyl is still an issue.
Both speakers have been cut. I've cited the 1h45m version in my description field. If you think I robbed Dr. Gordon Edwards of some critical point he was making please share. But nobody wants to watch a 1h45m video that could easily be consumed in 1h05m. There's a fantastic run-the-clock Q&A moment that has also been cut. No thanks.
@jodysin7; Go read what the actual scientists say instead of listening to the anti-nuclear liar. That opinion piece that he cited for Chernobyl deaths - he lied. He said that it was peer reviewed by a prestigious American university press, and that is a lie. It was not peer reviewed by that prestigious American university press. AFAIK, it wasn't peer reviewed by anyone. That speaker knows that what he said was a lie, yet he said it anyway. The truth of the matter is that the real death count is Chernobyl is a few hundred, and possibly as low as about 50. The broader truth is that the anti-nuclear movement are filled with liars just as bad as this guy. Google and read "The Guardian George Monbiot The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all". It includes dozens and dozens of direct hyperlink citations to the best scientific knowledge that we have today.
The old guy didn't want "an excess" of electricity. He says we don't have enough lithium for batteries, either (what an idiot). He mentioned sodium ion batteries, but you know his type of humanity haters will find something wrong with that, too! 24:15
I'm not sure there is a scientific definition of 'smog', but the standard definition has: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog "This kind of visible air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxide, ozone, smoke and other particulates. "
Indonesia's first PPA of seven Walk-away Safe 500MWe high temperature, but near ambient pressure, Liquid Thorium metal ion Molten Sodium Berilium Flouride salts burner reactors from ThorCon, is a black starter; with a levelised pre-profit cost of less than $30 per MegaWatt.hour (
Edwards easily won this debate. The high cost of nuclear and the completely unwillingness of the big investors to even put a dime into make it harder and harder for pro nuclear activists to even still make the argument. At least 10 years ago, you'd have something to argue for. But now, time has caught up and you'd look like clown now.
They touched on costs repeatedly. What do you make of Lazard's LCOE+ which now includes firming costs? That's where the upper bound of renewables (when storage is included) exceeds Vogtle is shown at 21:45 in the video. That is the absolute pinnacle of nuclear cost, FOAK in USA by an untrained workforce. (Not a problem we have in Canada, where refurbs have been coming in ahead of schedule and on-budget.) Ontario Energy Board reports nuclear being the second CHEAPEST source of electricity, behind hydro. That's a utility perspective... you know the people responsible for matching demand with supply? Not some MZJ modeller but real-world deployment. I don't see how anyone can argue that TODAY nuclear has a weaker case than 10 years ago. Germany is de-industrializing RIGHT NOW, and their grid is STILL filthy. Battery manufacturers and EV manufacturers want a clean grid to power their factories. Even Microsoft is looking specifically to nuclear power for their data centres. Big investors are already on-board with nuclear. Maybe you are unaware. (Glad you appreciated Dr. Gordon Edward's performance though. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it.)
@@gordonmcdowell Because both tax payers and investors are unwilling to play for expensive nuclear when there's cheap solar and wind. What is your argument? I honestly don't get it. Germany is 'de-industrializing'.? OMG That's an argument a total unhinged clown would make.I guess that means that Canada never 'industrialized' in the first place, right? Whaha wut? I can't believe you said that.
@@Prometheus4096Actually most people support nuclear power (now up to 76% via Bisconti Research) and investors ARE funding nuclear projects. Did you not catch any SMR projects being announced? You missed that? GERMANY IS DEINDUSTRIALIZING. Only nation in Europe with projected negative GDP. They can't power industry. Look at their electricity consumption. It is no longer efficiency gains, now it is simply shutting factories down because companies can't afford electricity. With STILL a CO2eq /kWh of 473... Germany's biggest source of electricity is still filthy COAL and they're still shutting factories down. "Electrolux decides to close factory in Nuremberg" "Energy woes force plants to close in Germany" "German Fertilizer Factory Halts Production Over Energy" "Veolia to shutter PET recycling plant in Germany" "Steel Giant Shuts Down Plants in Germany" "Adidas is shutting down its Speedfactories in Germany" THE ECONOMIST: "What if Germany stopped making cars?" You can monitor German electricity, right? You know of sites like Electricity Maps and Intermittent-dot-Energy ? You can Google GERMAN GDP 2023 ? "Germany predicted to be the only major European economy to contract this year" You know what helps to destroy an economy? Destroy its access to energy. They've gone from a net-exporter of electricity to a net-importer. Germany has the highest electricity rates in Europe. AND their grid is STILL FILTHY. Ontario has a clean grid. 88% of the power needed to kick coal was supplied by nuclear power. And to power the factories (like VW) moving to Ontario they're building more nuclear. You claim no one is interested in nuclear, while Ontario is building BWRX-300 pilot RIGHT NOW, and CANDU are being refurbished RIGHT NOW. (And Germany is burning coal, RIGHT NOW.)
Time is not an issue, the transition away from fossil fuels globally will take 100+ years minimum. Much longer if we continue to fumble about with so-called "renewables".
Difficult to be pro nuclear when we know about nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, Czarnobyl, Three Mile Island and many others. Human obtained abilities to split the atom but is not enough responsible to do so. Nuclear waste sites including dumping barrels to the sea is just example of inability to be responsible enough. I will not mention nuclear bombs test which polluted the world also. I am not trying to say that nuclear only bad, but rather that we created interesting technologies which often failed because of human greed and stupidity. By the way I am not big fan of wind turbines on the ground it pollutes our environment and scares the landscape, but offshore wind power might be not bad if we have technology to recycle wind turbines in 100%. Nothing is bad about PV on houses roofs but even new houses in the UK lack of such panels on the roofs it and probably recycling of worn out panels is not exist. Are thermal panels better solution depends on if we can recycle all its components including liquids. Heat pumps seems to be dumb idea as they are big noisy and inefficient devices and because most of them contain gasses which eventually will flow to the atmosphere polluting and increasing global warming.
The "dumping barrels to the sea" might be something you heard about from John Oliver's HBO show? I'm sorry if you are in-the-weeds on this and that sounds condescending, but Oliver really propagated that meme, and he was talking about military waste. No civilian waste was ever disposed of like that. In fact, while people have been harmed by military waste repeatedly, no one has ever (worldwide) been harmed by civilian nuclear waste. It can be very dangerous, but it is also handled carefully. I hope you can appreciate the statistical significance of this, after 60 years of civilian nuclear power. Please take the time to check out OUR WORLD IN DATA page on SAFEST ENERGY SOURCES you'll find nuclear is NOT the safest but it is AMONG the safest. And absolutely one of the least polluting. Also United Nations ECE report on lifecycle impact. Nuclear is THE LOWEST CARBON and also one of the least polluting and one of the safest. The 3 big disasters were bad. But they aren't as bad as the world's biggest hydro disaster in China. But we don't (and shouldn't) dismiss hydro because we know how to do it safely. We also know how to do nuclear safely. Canadian civilian nuclear has an impeccable safety record, in that it has killed ZERO people. Please challenge me on this. If you're Canadian, and you're concerned about energy safety, you can literally find people killed in any given year by wind or solar maintenance. You will not find that with our CANDU fleet. And the CANDU design can't fail as Fukushima or Chernobyl or TMI did. It is just a better design. Not the best design we can conceive of today, but good enough to kill zero people over 50 years.
@@gordonmcdowell Hi Gordon. I appreciate your work and I agree that some reactors are safer than others but there is plenty of hazard from obsolete reactors which will be not shut down soon because the greed. You need to agree that radiation in nature is not concentrated and is not accumulating in human body but radiation from reactors can be accumulated in human body, this is often not mentioned when people saying about nuclear technology (I mean strontium and iodine) and it is worth to mention about toxicity of plutonium and uranium even depleted one. Not many people which advocating nuclear technology is talking about it honestly. I know Canadian reactors using heavy water can obtain slightly more power from uranium than other types and have some interesting safety features but still nobody have idea what to do with nuclear waste. So I see three major problems how to shut down inherently unsafe obsolete reactors, how to recycle nuclear waste and how to remove nuclear pollution from our environment. This should be main challenge. I know SMRs might be solution to some of the problems but are all of them inherently safe I don't think so. Most of them are using PWR or BWR technology which have its obvious flaws. And again why, because the greed.
@@radoslawjocz2976 What are your thoughts on Moltex SSR-W or CleanCore ANEEL fuel. Those are 2 opposite ends of the spectrum, but both use operating CANDU as their starting point. I don't think CANDU is an obsolete tech... it is quite amazing that we fuel CANDU with un-enriched uranium. That eliminates the depleted-uranium waste stream, and also makes our used CANDU fuel a perfect candidate for recycling. I'd love to see advanced reactors deployed too, but it is really hard to beat CANDU for how much energy can be extracted from mined ore. To get to LFTR, with its amazing efficiency, we'd need U-233 seed. We'd need online chemical segregation of molten salts to pull out fission products. We'd need to grapple with MSRE downtimes while we figure it all out with an operating reactor. That is surely something Canada SHOULD be striving for and invest in, but we simply can't. We can't. You need someone do actually DO the work, and right now there's 2 people capable of that path in North America, and both live in USA. And they can't just come to Canada if we asked them to because DOE would regard creation of the U-233 seed as a proliferation concern. That isn't something that concerns me... I don't see U-233 as a path to Canadians making nuclear weapons. (We'd make them if we wanted them, we don't want them.) But for people in USA who'd pursue this in Canada if they could, they just can't. So we just can't. Not like I don't want us to. I'd love to have Alberta pursing LFTR tech. There's no way it can happen.
@@gordonmcdowell Yes I do agree that Moltex reactors are interesting and promising. Is that went to certification already or not.I will have to find out.
I think Canada peaked in the 80s, we will never build another CN Tower, look how long it takes to build a simple subway line in Toronto. The decadence of the bureaucratic class and total corruption of the construction industry are the two largest hurdles to any major project and in that way renewables can succeed where the large coordination and oversight of a nuclear generator will fail. Nuclear technologies are for optimists, I don't think there's very much to be optimistic about here.
CANDU refurbs are on-budget and ahead of schedule. Ontario has an incredibly low-carbon grid. LPC (with pressure from C4NE and CPC) looks like they'll include nuclear in Green Bonds program unlocking much low-interest financing. We have gotten this far, I'm not sure pessimism is warranted.
I'm editing this video so I'll have more assets as I (and others) try to reverse Green Party of Canada's anti-nuclear stance. If you're a member of GPC, or know anyone who is please alert them to this video, and to the pro-nuclear policy proposals which will be voted on 2023 November. wedecide.green.ca/processes/create-proposals/f/457/proposals?order=most_commented ...if you're Canadian and NOT a member of GPC you might just want to join for the sake of helping push these proposals through.
Do you have the source for the Ontario power video that talks about medical isotopes?
@@NuclearMex th-cam.com/video/YU1QHLpXFq4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=aRB5ntInoCuwnNwq
Great work Gordon! This is my third time watching Chris’s video here and thought that he had inserted all the graphics when I saw it was you that posted it. I’m sure he appreciates it. I kept freeze reading Throughout observing all the falsehoods expressed by Dr. Edwards. 🤗😆
@@gordonmcdowell thanks for your diligence and perseverance for the last 12 years. 💕
Nice, even though anthropomorphic CO2 is a blessing for the biosphere.
Old guy basically wants to ration electricity and make people suffer. What a genius.
It is painful to hear the usual BS from the greenidiot side.
i've found ignorance and stupidity to be the only reasons for which people oppose nuclear. the old guy seems to be the latter.
@@ayush_dwr12Never attribute to stupidity that which can be attributed to malice. Some of these people legitimately hate our civilization and want to destroy it.
As soon as the anti nuclear activist said nuclear could create an execces energy problem and that we need to live within our means. I considered the debate over that is simply standing in the way of progress , a retrograde mentality. Efficiency is great but having too much energy is not and never will be a problem. I swear these people want to drag us back to the mud huts
They want a stratified society, ala India's caste system. They want to benefit from *ALL* the high tech and fine living, while everyone else has nothing. They're convinced it's going to run out, so only *they* can have it.
When in the video did he talk about an excess energy problem, I don't recall that?
@@chapter4travels 24:17
"One of the problems with nuclear is that it sort of opens the door to unlimited excesses. This is what's happened in the past, and it's likely to happen again in the future. We have to learn how to live more efficiently."
@@factnotfiction5915 Thank you, I couldn't stand listening to this thing again to find the quote.
@@chapter4travels The time 24:19
This is why those who want only renewables have to float using the power of the state and of the gun to force people to use less energy and lower their standards of living. By their own words, it is required to make their pipe dream work. Americans and Canadians should wholeheartedly reject their plan on that premise alone. Thanks for sharing Gordon.
It's because they're not pro-green or efficiency, rather Anti - Human. And they recognize that. If you want some dive into the philisophy if the greens I recommend a talk of Alex epstein, I don't remember wich thou
@@Swaaaat1 Edwards's true colors 24:16
@@chucknorrisface Yeah, that was pretty mask off. These people don't want a solution, they want to regress the gains in technology since the industrial revolution and bring us into a new dark age.
You can only use electricity when it's produced. And you'll be forcefully happy 🙄.
Energy storage is difficult. Would be nice to see that getting developed. But I would love to just go mainly nuclear. With renewables as backup during the day. Because at night the sun don't shine
All activists need to understand what Kirk Sorensen's molten salt reactors are all about. They also need to quit bashing Elon Musk, since batteries WILL become cheap and ubiquitous!
"The SLOWPOKE reactor project failed, and I was there to make sure it would" - Dr. Gordon Edwards
Isn´t it strange that the only argument they have, is a argument of there own making
The guy is absolutely down with the agenda. Blaming Russia at every opportunity. Put old Hunka in front of him and watch him salute...
"Small modular reactors are unproven!" United States Navy, "Hold my beer." Edit. Russian icebreaker captain, "I'm with you Captain."
If Germany would have invested in nuclear instead of wind and solar starting in 2010 their grid would have been decarbonized by now. Last winter (2022) Germany put forth $500b program to build natural gas terminals and purchased low grade coal. That got them through the mild winter. But they also priced Pakistan and other Indonesian countries out of being able to buy natural gas. Germany has the most expensive electricity in the western world.
That's what should baffle every single idiot who loves to quote this "costs of renewable" numbers
400 billion spend
take current price of Hinkley C - even leaving out the fact if they would start building the exact same plants, one after another, their price per unit would drop significantly
leaving out another fact, the huge chunk of the cost of any nuclear project is the cost of lending money - the costs that could be significantly mitigated if it would be the state financing these projects, or at least providing cheap loans.
Even without it - that's still like 13 Hinkleys that could have been build for that money.
13 hinkleys would power like 60% of German grid... 24/7/365, doesn't matter rain, shine or snow.
Instead, they got 30% renewable - if they get lucky with the weather...
That's the only thing you need, to realize those renewable costs numbers they keep quoting just cant be right - they just don't make any sense.
Regarding all the talk about reactors going over budget and being cancelled, you only have to ask one question: We built highly profitable and safe reactors in the 70's with no problems, no delays, and no prior experience. Did we forget how to build them? What exactly is the contention there? They can *never* answer this question because there is no answer. They have to either say we've lost technology and slid backwards in the last 50 years (remember in the 70's no one had experience building reactors either) or they have to begin to examine the regulatory and political environment that causes these delays and cost overruns -- and they do NOT want to examine regulatory and political causes for nuclear cost issues. If the 70's reactors were safe and profitable, they can still be built safely and profitably today. If the contention is that that's no longer possible, the anti-nuclear side must be forced to answer *why*. It's the pro-nuclear side's job to force them to answer this and not let them weasel out of it.
You can't just say regulation and politics are "just" anti-nuclear.
We built bridges on time and on budget in the 70s that are still perfectly safe today. And now they're running into extreme cost overruns and time delays EXACTLY the same as nuclear. Every civil engineering problem seems to be absolutely overflowing with corruption (at least in my part of the world).
And that's the primary reason why SMRs are needed. We would have been fine with the old PWRs if it wasn't for the fact they are civil engineering projects which seem impossible to do properly in the modern day.
its called cherry picking stats & then burying other promising projects under endless red tape & delays.
The NRC was put in place on behalf of the fossil fuel industry by politicians who were paid by the fossil fuel industry. Today it's only gotten worse because those same politicians are now also being paid by the Climate Industrial Complex who don't want a solution to their cash cow.
Who watches the watchers? If the watchers feel that they have achieved success by stopping an extremely viable and highly realistically safe product, then the watcher needs to be looked at, the watcher may have a vision problem.
when you build a first reactor of its kind - than effectively you're building a prototype
so yes, changes to its projects are likely to be needed - which leads to delays and cost overruns.
does it mean every next one you built is going to be the same?
well, obviously no, you only build the prototype once
Electricity imports and exports are much worse for Germany than the graph shows. Exports are at lower prices than imports because exports occur when solar production exceeds demand. At these times, however, neighboring countries do not need electricity either.
Indeed. Denmark sometimes *_pays_* Norway to take its unwanted wind electricity.
@@aliendroneservices6621 Can you expand on why they would do that? Does it have something to do with the way the electricity grid functions?
@@Shindo13371 Supply and demand. When supply outstrips demand, then what is being supplied is essentially garbage. Parties holding garbage have to pay to dispose of it.
@@aliendroneservices6621 I get that as an economic concept but was more confused by the technical conditions that would create that situation to begin with.
Information I get from searching is vague but broadly suggests that selling during negative energy price is more of an economic decision than a product of technical limitations. For impeller-based generators you can slow them or turn them off as demand fluctuates BUT that comes at a cost of efficiency. Takes more fuel to spin down and then spin back up, I guess.
So it becomes a question for the utility company of fuel cost vs. export cost. Will it cost us more money to spin down and then spin back up again or will it cost us more just to keep the generators running and pay the cost to export. And apparently the German coal and gas generators are actually quite old and so aren't particularly efficient at switching rates?
So the German utilities when selling to France even during negative prices do so become they determined it would more profitable for them. Not because they were particularly forced to by any sort of technical or mechanical limitations. They could spin down to match demand any time they wanted.
Anyone feel free to let me know if I got anything wrong.
It's always the same discussion: Nuclear proliferation and waste are seen as the top risk by the older generation, and some of them don't seem to be up to date on the latest developments. There has been (and still is) a lot of dogmatism and propaganda spread by the terrified activists that do not understand what renewables are not sufficient to cover the energy demand without backup. Many of them would prefer the death toll of a coal plant over any nuclear power plant, just because they are scared of the work "radioactive". That's instinct, not rational thinking.
indeed like russia funding the german green parties who are anti nuclear but seem to be pro coal oil & gas - all items they were buying from russia. how handy.
You have to understand that many if not most of the activists are simply using the climate "Crisis" as a tool for degrowth and anti-capitalism. They don't want a solution.
Dr. Chris Keefer has the patience of a saint.
Dr. Chris Keefer looks at the future, Dr. Gordon Edwards - to the past!
The last lady who was addressing Dr. Keefer was justifying the costs of coal/backup generators as okay compared to the comparitively higher costs of nuclear and tried asking him why he had such a big problem with renewables when the costs seemed higher for nuclear, i don't think he properly addressed her question, and I don't think the questioner has a proper grasp on the actual "costs"
-All these people thinking radiation is bad and hearing the 10000 years and nuclear weapons part of the argument like the final questioner NEVER EVER hear the actual facts and figures and it shows. People love to feel, and they FEEL like nuclear sounds bad despite the reality which is this: NUCLEAR IS SAFER. ACTUAL "COSTS" ARE LESS. Less air pollution alone should beat any other argument. CLEAN AIR PEOPLE GO TAKE A WALK. The problem is I don't know if she would ever be able to be convinced nuclear was good because she seems pretty set, but if she wanted to be convinced and was reading this, nuclear is a more stable power source, it takes up less land area, the waste despite the fear mongering is manageable and not nearly as deadly as described, some of the waste is sellable as medical/research isotopes (the reactor would have to be setup for that), as well as many other reasons, and I would say Dr. Keefer doesn't even want "0" renewables just the ability for those who want to invest in and do nucelar to be able to without being stopped (safely of course as has been proven is possible)
the big questions for nuclear really are. 1) how can we scale fast now. 2) what kind of government investments are needed for molten salt to be certified technology for either thorium or uranium. 3) how many reactors do we need to make direct replacement carbon neutral fuels for ICE? (in france the estimate is 200)
1. Define fast. The very, very best case for transitioning away from fossil fuels globally is 100+ years. (it's impossible with wind and solar)
2. Government investment is not the problem, it's government regulatory agencies that are the biggest roadblock. They answer to the fossil fuel industry and the climate industrial complex.
3. Count up all the current coal and natural plants for electricity (20% of total energy needs) Then add up all the process heat generators, another 40%. (That's the easy part) then the number of reactors needed to make synthetic liquid fuels, the last 40%.
@@chapter4travels Based on the experience of France, we could easily convert the world's electricity to entirely clean energy, mostly nuclear, in less than 30 years.
@@hewdelfewijfe China and the rest of Asia are building coal plants as fast as they can right now. Each plant has a 60-year life span, who will pay them to replace those plants before then? Next electricity is only about 20% of the world's total energy demand, where does the other 80% come from?
@@chapter4travels Roughly 80% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity, transport, and other sectors that are easily electrified.
@@hewdelfewijfe Even just electricity at 20% will be more than 60 years until all the coal plants are replaced. They will continue to build those for at least another 20 years so no it's 80 years just for electricity. My estimate of 100 years is very optimistic. And the longer we fumble with wind and solar the longer the transition will take. You have to remember the Climat Industrial Complex is not looking for real solutions just ones they can scam money and power from.
As soon as you introduce the reality of the energy transition timeline, his argument falls completely apart. The transition away from fossil fuels will take a hundred years, minimum.
He’s old, he only needs to reduce global warming for a few years until he dies.
@@Orandu Well he's out of luck, the use of fossil fuels will continue to increase till at least 2050. It will be 2075 if we continue to fumble about with so-called "renewables".
The transition away from coal could take 20 years if we replaced it with nuclear.
@@hewdelfewijfe especially if made in factories or shipyards
@@AX2SEG it takes 20 years because of a bad regulatory and legal environment, like changing the aircraft strike rule halfway through construction, forcing a massive redesign. In reality, we could build them in like 4 years, just like we used to do historically before people like you took over the government to put in place laws that make nuclear too expensive so that you can come here and argue that nuclear is too expensive.
24:17 Gordon Edwards is an anti-electricity activist.
NUCLEAR OR BUST!!!
The waist from these ridiculous wind and solar farms will be one of the biggest jokes about us in the future.
this guy. in 24 minutes he got to "the problem with nuclear is that it's too good of a solution" what the actual f...
Because the actual goal of the movement he represents is permanent blackout.
Aah.. yes, so he is really a degrowter, not a pro environment.
24:17
@ashnur This is the dirty little secret of the Green energy movement. Most of them are a bunch of Luddites who want the world to de-industrialize because have romantic regressive views of the past that never existed, and because they misunderstand the causes and solutions to overpopulation. This can all be traced back to Amory Lovins and others in California circa 1960. PS: Climate change is a serious problem. So too are the millions of people that die every year worldwide from preventable disease from airborne particulate pollution
@gordonmcdowell
You made "Helen Caldicott - "Th" Thorium Documentary"
Can you please make a Gordon Edwards version?
"Dr. Gordon Edwards - "Th" Thorium Documentary"
thanks!
That's a good idea. Edwards does have a LOT of video coverage, though he's never as bombastic as Caldicott. Not as entertaining. But you are correct that's probably something I should do. I'd like one of these videos to appear as his top-search-result. Forever.
@@gordonmcdowell if there is anything what I can do to help or support you doing this, please let me know!
@@JohnSmith-gu9gl If you know anyone in Green Party i do need all GPC members I can find to support some pro-nuclear policy revisions. gordonmcdowell at gmail I'll send anyone an email detailing the situation.
@@gordonmcdowell unfortunately I do not know any member of the GPC that is pro nuclear
Very informative. Chris believes in global warming yet defends nuclear and doesn't think renewables are the solution. Gordon thinks that global warming might not be a big deal yet defends renewable energy and storage. First time I’ve heard opinions like this and I enjoyed it very much, we need more of this.
I didn't hear Gordon downplay global warming. He just seemed to think it could all be tackled by renewables. Just keep putting more money into it, and, you know, "manage" your energy use if it comes up short.
The Dr Gordon Edwards needs to be re-educated - he is 30 years out of date and needs to abandon the Sierra Club's negative propaganda BS and learn about Walk-away safe TMSR like Indonesia's 65m×180m 500MWe TMSR producing 43kW/m² compared with destroying thousands of the scarce tropical rain forests at only 2Watt/m² for short life unrecyclible solar farms.
Renewable energy and electric cars are totally unsustainable. Vast amounts of scarce minerals NICKEL COBALT,CADMIUM NEODYNIUM ,COPPER LITHIUM will require vast mining oprrstions using fossil fuels.
As will uranium
Dr. Keefer is not only an eloquent advocate, but a perfect gentleman. I am so tired of advocates, even the ones I agree with screaming liar at their opponent. I love the way Keefer just says "you may need to update your fact sheet" when Edwards is just plain wrong.
100% agree. The power of such a calmly stated fact is also so much more than replying in a heated manner (as understandable as that would be)
He said the quiet part out loud. These anti nuclear people are not stupid. It is a tautological fact that nuclear energy is better than renewables. Not only because you can get more energy out in a way we are used to. But also because wholesale adoption of nuclear jeopardizes this rediculous ideology of degrowth. With nuclear energy, all those offshored industrial industries can be brought back with authomation; WITHOUT their polution. because we would actually have the deep energy reserves needed to process the waste streams where neccessary or just simply utilize different processes that do not create problematic waste streams. Nuclear Fission gets the west another MASSIVE economic boom from reshoring quite a bit of manufacturing and industrial industries.
This is why Jimmy Carter should be called out for the traitor he is. HE stopped progress on Spent Fuel recycling. We wasted years because of that idiot. As for the fear mongering on proliferation. Clearly this is bullshit, show me how our current regime stopped iran or north korea or any of the nations who are outside the treaty. IT DIDNT. Nuclear reactors are not the cause of proliferation. Its having the need to have them to protect your nations soverienty.
I was surprised Dr. Keefer didn't point out that India didn't use its CANDU to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. It used a dedicated weapons-grade-plutonium production reactor, like all other countries have done. Also, all countries already have access to weapons-grade plutonium (by way of these specialized reactors for its production; they are cheap and small and easy to hide).
Everyone agrees that how we need more energy so we can live on electric devices.
but the disagreement looks like they're about how we're gonna get there.
Gordon, did you ever think about how much maintenance scales per unit? I can see maintenance costs spiral out of control if you build 1 million wind farms.
imo nuclear should be the basis for heavy energy usage, using renewables like wind and solar in places to enhance the grid, not to build the foundation. because wind and solar as a foundation is so much of a headache with availability and batteries and all those other things
That's the typical anti nuclear activist. Has opportunity to ask a question and instead wastes everyones time making a lecture whose entire premise is completely destroyed by BOTH speakers by answering the very previous question. And then when asked to stop giving a pointless lecture and ask her questions ignores that and just keeps going because the world has to revolve around her.
It is painful to hear the usual BS from the greenidiot side.
The idea is that renewable energy is good for providing energy on demand, but those people are smoking something that reality can't provide.
One thing though, that NOT many people know what's involved in building these green energy-provided, that aren't reliable due to the sun shining or the wind blowing.
No one knows about the cost and how much land is required, and then, you have, heavy equipment to build the roads, to deliver, steel, concrete, fiberglass wings, cooling OIL, periodically washing the blades with a helicopter, and after 6 years the gearbox, and 10 to 12 years the wings must be replaced.
But guess what, the 3 wings are cut in 3 pieces, taken to a burial sight,
and no one knows where???
But there's more, something NO ENVIRONMENTALISTS wants to talk about it.
I've seen it with my own eyes, DEAD BIRDS on the ground below a windmill, just recently killed, avians, and others, I counted 6, and weren't old kills, why? Because someone comes to pick them up every afternoon!!
What do you call that? Hypocrisy?
Okay, an estimate of the number of windmills worldwide is at 4+/- million,
well, let's make a round number at 4 birds a day.
So, 4x4.000.000 = 16.000.000 million birds......... A DAY??????
Well, as long it's green energy, well, it is NOT OK!!!
NUCLEAR Molten Salt Thorium Reactor is the alternative, long-lasting, clean, and power-on-demand.
Wake up people.
According to Nasa scientist Jame Hanson and Columbia university the lives saved by nuclear power displacing coal is 1.8 million people. The question is how many more lives could have been saved if all coal plants have been closed. That 1.8 million Lives saved only increases in time.
it's really laughable when these people quote prices of Vogtle of Hinkle point C
but somehow they fail to acknowledge both Vogtle and Hinkley are effectively prototypes - and that's exactly why they overshoot the budget, and why there are delays.
You're building a prototype - at some point you realize the project has flaws. So you have to redesign - which means months of delay at best, and extra billions to spend.
But well.. you only build a prototype once.
Once you decide to build another one - the flaws you previously identified are already known, the project is already amended. No need for redesigns. No cause for delays or extra costs.
What difference does it make?
People who build Hinkley point C claim that now, knowing all the things that they've learned while building Hinkley, should they end up building another one, they would do it 30% faster and cheaper.
But somehow this info never gets acknowledged by any greenie...
Because the Greens are responsible for much of the delays and cost overruns in the first place, which they also deny. They're all liars.
Sure, we need energy efficiency and a broader roll-out of wind and solar, but the world needs a *massive surplus* of energy if we wanna survive in a world anything like it is today. We need enough power to not just completely end CO2 emissions but to produce enough energy to do global climate remediation. We can pull co2 out of the ocean while doing desalination (there’s a US Navy project doing this right now, producing fuel from the carbon removed from seawater), which can be done using process heat, which is essentially free energy as a byproduct of electricity production. I wanna see enough clean power to get every human up to ‘internet and air conditioning’ levels of development. The idea this guy promotes, that we need to essentially have less power, is stupid and immoral. Lastly, I think we are being foolishly naive about the environmental impact of the production and decommission of solar panels specifically. Nuclear plants last for nearly a century, while solar panels only last a few decades, and we don’t have a good way to recycle them, not to mention the damage done by their production.
Literally no one in his right mind would try to make a device with that much Pu-240/241/242 contamination.
Some of those higher isotopes are so heavy, they often spontaneously fission; and for a device, that's bad news.
Unlike uranium, these cannot be separated through any gaseous method.
Only if Canada makes a national decision to produce Pu-239, then a CANDU can be reconfigured to shuffle bundles at shorter intervals to avoid producing too much of the higher actinides. Hasn't happened.
That's where molten salt reactors come in. Utilize the fuel as a fluid then you just fission everything into non fissile material.
@@nuanilAND chemically extract the stuff you want/need!
I have lived near Vermont Yankee nuclear for years. Its been subsidized by tax dollars and was still not cheap.
After all these years, I cannot explain the fear when the nuclear alarm goes off and we are frozen because no information comes out.
After several close calls, I don't want, and my part of the country voted to have the place shut down.
Fortunately, the company running it realized it wasnt making money and shut it down.
We dont want one of these nuclear plants in our back yard after this plant.
It was designed in the 1950's, built in the 60's and at one point they had approved it to run for 60 years.
They even knew that tritium, strontium and cesium were leaking into the river than goes from canana to the Atlantic through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New york.
These nuclear plants can have 1 bad day and ruin the land around it for centuries.
If you want one in your backyard, fine... but up here in. New england, we dont want any part of it.
Ontario has had none of the problems you describe so maybe you have a regulatory or operating problem.
"These nuclear plants can have 1 bad day and ruin the land around it for centuries." -- False. Contrary to what the liars in the OP video says, nearly all of the land around Fukushima and Chernobyl is safe to live in now, and safe to grow food in now.
Palo verde is in the Arizona desert . Who would do that. Wait for it ….. it uses sewage water from the greater phoenix area . Has been powering Arizona since 1988. Largest facility in the Us . Three PWR reactors. Incredible feat
Good job Chris.
Where’s Kirk Sorenson to represent molten salt reactors?
The usual narrative here: proposed solution is RE100 when supporting the notion with statistics comparing to nuclear power. After said statistics, somehow storage, ~forced energy preserving solutions and in some cases district heating networks, are smuggled into the proposed solution. Never mentioning the effects on timeline, economics or environmental cost or technical viability.
The cost comparison is also very iffy. Like Chris said, electricity is a service. Cost per unit of energy per sometimes is perhaps cheap with renewables, but the _functional unit_ should be cost per unit of electricity per on demand.
This was very good. I have heard over the last few days that the auto workers are afraid of losing their jobs, because electric vehicle manufacture would need from 30-40% fewer workers. But there is also the electrical infrastructure and new electrical power sources which will be required. While difficult to work the deals and timing out, the mass production of modular nuclear reactors by these workers at former gasoline production plants and then sent off in schnabel rail cars might work. Perhaps the auto companies could pair with small modular reactor engineering companies to solve each other's, as well as society's problems. The possibility of solving these needs might push along the regulation hurdles. Maybe we should make this suggestion to those involved. Of course the anti-nuclear crowds will suggest the workers be used to instead produce wind and solar energy harvesting equipment. I think our side will have the better arguments.
The lost jobs due to electrical car manufacturing is a dog whistle to try and scare them away from the current strike going on, its designed to make them scared they'll lose their jobs when there is no evidence that will happen.
In Australia beautiful koala country is set to be destroyed for wind farms.
I say Koalas for Nuclear.
Dr. Edwards reminds me of the opposing arguments to the Apollo moonshot in the 1960s, specifically one prominent expert who argued that it was the equivalent of "hitting a bullet with a bullet."
Every large-scale nuclear reactor project has become its own unique moonshot and is surrounded by a triple belt and double suspenders regulatory obstacle course.
Small Modular Reactors are the future of energy.
It's unfortunate the debate is framed around the Global Warming scare. The transition to nuclear should be so that we can conserve precious fossil fuels for those things which they do best.
Global warming is a pressing issue. But if you have energy abundance you can just MAKE carbohydrate fuels (or ammonia based) that are just like fossils only cleaner and are carbon neutral since they'd consume as much carbon when being made as they'd release on burning.
there is loads of fossil fuels around. A single mine in Australia has enough reserve to supply the world for 300 years as a single source. The biggest offshore oil field was found just before the regime change in Egypt. Iran has 25% of the world gas supply & its barely used because they are prevented from partnering up to exploit. There are literally 1000s of drilling rights unused in the USA. Fossil fuels are not something we are going to run out of any time soon.
Not saying though that process heat from nuclear thermal could not be used in refining petrochemicals.
Agreed, the climate "CRISIS" is a hoax and the climate change agenda is much worse.
Burning hydrocarbons for heat is just dumb when we have billions of years worth of uranium.
@@mrrolandlawrence But fossil fuels aren't something that's very wise to use. Certainly very selfish. If we introduce a carbon tax to fund the releif from natural disasters that are made worse by climate change such as droughts and flooding it will also become very VERY non-competitive. Even just subsidizing the medical costs to treat people who are directly suffering from air polution would bring the whole industry out of affordability.
@@mrrolandlawrence Well if that is so, that's good to hear. I'll have to read more into it.
How do you get an uncontrolled spread of nuclear materials when we've already had nuclear for "like centuries"?
Germany is spending an estimated 20 billion this year for renewable subsidies alone. How is nuclear more expensive? How many reactors could they have built on the money they spent on subsidies alone in the last 15 years?
They didn't have to build new reactors. They just had to decide not to close existing working reactors.
For my money the biggest challenge for the pro-nuclear lobby to recognise and overcome is that nuclear power is the child of the nuclear weapon program. We need to be as fervent in our opposition to nuclear weapons as we are in our support of nuclear power; with supporting statements around the fact that CANDU reactors don't use enriched uranium so safe-guard against nuclear proliferation risks.
I'd care to disagree.
India and Pakistan, two repeating war parties have become eerily silent after both armed themselves at nuclear level.
Ukraine would have never been invaded by Russia, if they hadn't given up their own arsenal.
The "Peoples' Republic" of the Kim family is largely left alone, because they seem to have a small, but sufficiently deterrent nuclear arsenal.
Nukes have prevented many wars and been used in just one (to end it).
My impression is that first nations are in favour of nuclear projects. This video tells me otherwise. Perhaps there is much more opposition than I thought.
I don’t know how to quantify it.
Can't comment on that too much. I know Bruce Power wanted to build a nuclear plant in Peace River Alberta like 20 years ago, but the NIMBY's won.
As usual, you have one expert on one side, with facts and rationality, and one not-so-expert on the other, which clings to his beliefs and ideology without bothering looking up reality to check his assumptions.
I do not usually try to discourage young people, but people who lack experience should probably avoid speaking as though they are experts. I have been in places in Australia where ordinary citizens cannot go because of the risk. I have had 40 years experience as a scientist, and I do not sell myself as an expert on anything. All engineering is based upon science, however engineers are not scientists and are often unable to deal effectively with uncertainty. In Australia, engineering is the lead profession.
Could the type of
'Modular reactors' that are used in submarines, alleviate concerns about them not being suitable if built small?
How many houses could one of them run?
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
The submarine SMRs use enrichment levels that exceed HALEU. So the SMR concept has certainly been proven out, but these designs are different at least because the fuel isn't as enriched as much. (SNC even claims to have an SMR which can run on natural uranium by way of heavy-water moderator. But it hasn't moved thru the licensing process to not clear how serious they are about that effort.) How many houses depends on any SMR. USNC's MMR and Global First Power are some of the smallest designs I've seen.
@@gordonmcdowell Thank you for the reply.
@@gordonmcdowell
"The submarine SMRs use enrichment levels that exceed HALEU. So the SMR concept has certainly been proven "
That is not correct. No submarine today use HALEU, some use 19% enrichment, that is still considered low, bit to the higher side. Some uses 7% enrichment that is totally reasonable for a civilian reactor
@@matsv201 You mis-quoted me by leaving out "but these designs are different at least because the fuel isn't as enriched as much" ... read what I wrote again, I'm saying submarines use HIGHER enrichment. The SMR -concept- has been proven out but the designs are different because the fuel isn't as enriched as much (as submarine fuel).
Unfortunate to frame this as a debate. I see renewables and nuclear as complimentary to each other. We need both in order to have abundant sustainable energy.
My roof top solar in Australia is now not worth it,
Feed in rates have plummeted already.
Nuclear needed
Hey there! Massive fan of your videos. I noticed in this one though, the part with the lady identifying as "First Nations" was fast-forwarded. Possibly she went off-topic or wasn't asking a direct question, but I'm really interested in hearing her out.
It would mean a lot if you could share a link to the uncut version of her segment. I'd appreciate hearing her whole perspective, even if it's more of a rant than a question. Thanks heaps and keep up the awesome work!
This is a deep link to the original source when she starts to speak: th-cam.com/video/XfL40rSFT00/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xTkniusTYQRXN39X&t=5125 (I did link to the original video in my TH-cam Description.) It runs from 1h25m to 1h30m in original video.
53:40 "We're all here because we know it's dangerous". Yeah, that can be applied to so many industrial activities... I dunno, weapons production? The double standard is clear if you take a premis and find it could be applied to topics other than nuclear power plants verbatim.
Since when Nuclear ENGINEERS need to mention Greta Thunberg's quotes to prove some argument? She has no credit in any scientific debates whatsoever.
Gordon says that Germany experts to France but fails to mention that it was generated mostly by coal. Germany needs to build Kirk Sorensen's molten salt reactors or they need to buy a whole lot of Elon's batteries (actually, CATL's LFP batteries). And, of course a lot of PV!
They're is NO excuse for ANY activist to be against nuclear!
There's a website called intermittent (dot) energy which is quite useful for exploring Germany and France energy imports. The fellow who's built it is working on incorporating the VALUE of electricity into the graph options. What is interesting is how the electricity France imports from Germany has little value, and the electricity Germain imports from France is much more expensive.
1:00:00 Ewards: "if you're lucky you get [power out of the radioactive matieral] for 30 - 40 years and then you get radioactive waste forever".
Nuclear plants are being authorised for 80 years. 30/40 ys vs 80 seems to be a pretty blatant lie on his part (or he simply doesn't know enough about the industry)
Hey Gordon! Great job, as always. Keep up the good work!
If you haven’t solved the Tritium problem there is no room for nuclear power in Canada.
No one has ever been hurt by tritium. You could drink nothing but that tritium contaminated water directly from the tanks for years and not be harmed because the dose is that low. You can look up how radioactive the water in the tanks at Fukushima before release was in terms of Bq / kg, then look up the dose coefficient for tritium water to convert that into Sv, and look up how much water you drink per day. Dumping it into the ocean is not a problem and cannot hurt anyone or anything. Math: Water radioactivity in tanks at Fukushima: 620 kBq/L. Tritium-water ingestion coefficient: 1.8e-11 Sv / Bq. Water intake per day: 3.7 L/day. Therefore, (3.7 L/day) (620 kBq/L) (1.8e-11 Sv / Bq) = approx 15 mSv / year. That's harmless. I have no doubt that this is harmless. And that's without any dilution. They will dilute it even further before releasing it, which means we can be guaranteed that it's actually completely harmless without any doubt. Please stop spreading in homeopathic misinformation.
We haven’t found a way of shielding the Earth from all cosmic rays and stopping water from becoming Tritiated, but we’re working on it.
But if you stay away from coal plants and stay away from potato chips and bananas you MIGHT avoid some radiation.
(Staying away from a nuclear plant won’t matter though.)
Why I feel everything these academic green warriors say, every single thing they say, is in percise alignment of a certain forum and it's CEO.
Speaking about subsidization compared to nuclear when the solar and wind power are mandatory accepted for the grid operator is pretty funny,
Agree with Ben's comment...small nuclear in the u.s. navy.
I propose to collect all uranium 235 and send it into space, so that in 1000 years someone will not create a nuclear bomb
It's a good thing Dr. Gordon Edwards is older so he won't be around to see how wrong he is.
Doing fission electric power generation the correct way is the obvious solution for a clean, green energy future that eliminates greenhouse gas emissions.
Switch to Thorium thermal breeder molten salt reactors. Th232 is far more abundant than the very rare U235 isotope. Lower cost, safer, much more fuel efficient than PWR U235/U238. Th reactor produces much less radioactive waste that is much shorter-lived. High-pressure containment not required. Doesn't produce Pu due to fission of the Thorium bred U233 (starts with less neutrons than U238 so harder to decay to other elements up the periodic table). No need to enrich U235, no need to make expensive solid fuel rods. Th reactor fuel is already a liquid, cannot have meltdown. Zirconium cladding not required so no risk of hydrogen gas explosions. No need to shutdown reactor every 2 years to replace some fuel rods, Th reactor fuel is liquid, so can be continuously reprocessed without the need for reactor shutdowns. Lower cost because high grade steel reactor vessel and outer concrete containment not required. Since not pressurized, no need for outer containment due to PWR reactor water flashing to steam following loss of pressure. Obviously CANDU design does not suffer from some of these PWR reactor defects. Th reactor operates at high temperature so more efficient electricity generation; can use a gas turbine not the expensive, large physical sized steam turbine.
Why has Th electric power generation not been developed? Because all the nuclear powers wanted Pu to make more and more nuclear weapons. They had no interest in making electricity the safest and most efficient way via nuclear fission. Th is of no use for making Pu.
Banal idiocy is a disincentive. Many people need to be directed when they work. Self-starters are much more valuable, Management theory and industrial safety are taught by university professors ? I think that is hilarious.
My brain hurts from listening to anti-nuclear speakers.
I guess the anti nuclear guy was correct... Ukraine gave up their nukes (and that's the ONLY thing he knows)!
Its interesting that Dr Edwards statememt have been cut and the other Dr has full statememts.
This is obvious when talking about chernobyl deaths.
Chernobyl is still an issue.
Both speakers have been cut. I've cited the 1h45m version in my description field. If you think I robbed Dr. Gordon Edwards of some critical point he was making please share. But nobody wants to watch a 1h45m video that could easily be consumed in 1h05m. There's a fantastic run-the-clock Q&A moment that has also been cut. No thanks.
@jodysin7; Go read what the actual scientists say instead of listening to the anti-nuclear liar. That opinion piece that he cited for Chernobyl deaths - he lied. He said that it was peer reviewed by a prestigious American university press, and that is a lie. It was not peer reviewed by that prestigious American university press. AFAIK, it wasn't peer reviewed by anyone. That speaker knows that what he said was a lie, yet he said it anyway.
The truth of the matter is that the real death count is Chernobyl is a few hundred, and possibly as low as about 50.
The broader truth is that the anti-nuclear movement are filled with liars just as bad as this guy. Google and read "The Guardian George Monbiot The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all". It includes dozens and dozens of direct hyperlink citations to the best scientific knowledge that we have today.
The old guy didn't want "an excess" of electricity. He says we don't have enough lithium for batteries, either (what an idiot). He mentioned sodium ion batteries, but you know his type of humanity haters will find something wrong with that, too!
24:15
Germsny now removinglarge wind turbines to get at dirty lignite COAL seams underneath.
So frustrating to listen to.
0:41 CO2, SO nor NO has nothing to do with smog. They are gases, not particles.
I'm not sure there is a scientific definition of 'smog', but the standard definition has:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog
"This kind of visible air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxide, ozone, smoke and other particulates. "
Indonesia's first PPA of seven Walk-away Safe 500MWe high temperature, but near ambient pressure, Liquid Thorium metal ion Molten Sodium Berilium Flouride salts burner reactors from ThorCon, is a black starter; with a levelised pre-profit cost of less than $30 per MegaWatt.hour (
Edwards easily won this debate. The high cost of nuclear and the completely unwillingness of the big investors to even put a dime into make it harder and harder for pro nuclear activists to even still make the argument. At least 10 years ago, you'd have something to argue for. But now, time has caught up and you'd look like clown now.
They touched on costs repeatedly. What do you make of Lazard's LCOE+ which now includes firming costs? That's where the upper bound of renewables (when storage is included) exceeds Vogtle is shown at 21:45 in the video. That is the absolute pinnacle of nuclear cost, FOAK in USA by an untrained workforce. (Not a problem we have in Canada, where refurbs have been coming in ahead of schedule and on-budget.) Ontario Energy Board reports nuclear being the second CHEAPEST source of electricity, behind hydro. That's a utility perspective... you know the people responsible for matching demand with supply? Not some MZJ modeller but real-world deployment.
I don't see how anyone can argue that TODAY nuclear has a weaker case than 10 years ago. Germany is de-industrializing RIGHT NOW, and their grid is STILL filthy. Battery manufacturers and EV manufacturers want a clean grid to power their factories. Even Microsoft is looking specifically to nuclear power for their data centres.
Big investors are already on-board with nuclear. Maybe you are unaware. (Glad you appreciated Dr. Gordon Edward's performance though. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it.)
@@gordonmcdowell Because both tax payers and investors are unwilling to play for expensive nuclear when there's cheap solar and wind. What is your argument? I honestly don't get it. Germany is 'de-industrializing'.? OMG That's an argument a total unhinged clown would make.I guess that means that Canada never 'industrialized' in the first place, right? Whaha wut? I can't believe you said that.
@@Prometheus4096Actually most people support nuclear power (now up to 76% via Bisconti Research) and investors ARE funding nuclear projects. Did you not catch any SMR projects being announced? You missed that?
GERMANY IS DEINDUSTRIALIZING. Only nation in Europe with projected negative GDP. They can't power industry. Look at their electricity consumption. It is no longer efficiency gains, now it is simply shutting factories down because companies can't afford electricity. With STILL a CO2eq /kWh of 473... Germany's biggest source of electricity is still filthy COAL and they're still shutting factories down.
"Electrolux decides to close factory in Nuremberg"
"Energy woes force plants to close in Germany"
"German Fertilizer Factory Halts Production Over Energy"
"Veolia to shutter PET recycling plant in Germany"
"Steel Giant Shuts Down Plants in Germany"
"Adidas is shutting down its Speedfactories in Germany"
THE ECONOMIST: "What if Germany stopped making cars?"
You can monitor German electricity, right? You know of sites like Electricity Maps and Intermittent-dot-Energy ? You can Google GERMAN GDP 2023 ?
"Germany predicted to be the only major European economy to contract this year"
You know what helps to destroy an economy? Destroy its access to energy. They've gone from a net-exporter of electricity to a net-importer. Germany has the highest electricity rates in Europe. AND their grid is STILL FILTHY.
Ontario has a clean grid. 88% of the power needed to kick coal was supplied by nuclear power. And to power the factories (like VW) moving to Ontario they're building more nuclear. You claim no one is interested in nuclear, while Ontario is building BWRX-300 pilot RIGHT NOW, and CANDU are being refurbished RIGHT NOW.
(And Germany is burning coal, RIGHT NOW.)
Time is not an issue, the transition away from fossil fuels globally will take 100+ years minimum. Much longer if we continue to fumble about with so-called "renewables".
@@Prometheus4096 You are not the Prometheus, rather Herostratus! ;)
Difficult to be pro nuclear when we know about nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, Czarnobyl, Three Mile Island and many others. Human obtained abilities to split the atom but is not enough responsible to do so. Nuclear waste sites including dumping barrels to the sea is just example of inability to be responsible enough. I will not mention nuclear bombs test which polluted the world also.
I am not trying to say that nuclear only bad, but rather that we created interesting technologies which often failed because of human greed and stupidity. By the way I am not big fan of wind turbines on the ground it pollutes our environment and scares the landscape, but offshore wind power might be not bad if we have technology to recycle wind turbines in 100%. Nothing is bad about PV on houses roofs but even new houses in the UK lack of such panels on the roofs it and probably recycling of worn out panels is not exist. Are thermal panels better solution depends on if we can recycle all its components including liquids. Heat pumps seems to be dumb idea as they are big noisy and inefficient devices and because most of them contain gasses which eventually will flow to the atmosphere polluting and increasing global warming.
The "dumping barrels to the sea" might be something you heard about from John Oliver's HBO show? I'm sorry if you are in-the-weeds on this and that sounds condescending, but Oliver really propagated that meme, and he was talking about military waste. No civilian waste was ever disposed of like that. In fact, while people have been harmed by military waste repeatedly, no one has ever (worldwide) been harmed by civilian nuclear waste. It can be very dangerous, but it is also handled carefully. I hope you can appreciate the statistical significance of this, after 60 years of civilian nuclear power.
Please take the time to check out OUR WORLD IN DATA page on SAFEST ENERGY SOURCES you'll find nuclear is NOT the safest but it is AMONG the safest. And absolutely one of the least polluting. Also United Nations ECE report on lifecycle impact. Nuclear is THE LOWEST CARBON and also one of the least polluting and one of the safest.
The 3 big disasters were bad. But they aren't as bad as the world's biggest hydro disaster in China. But we don't (and shouldn't) dismiss hydro because we know how to do it safely. We also know how to do nuclear safely. Canadian civilian nuclear has an impeccable safety record, in that it has killed ZERO people. Please challenge me on this. If you're Canadian, and you're concerned about energy safety, you can literally find people killed in any given year by wind or solar maintenance. You will not find that with our CANDU fleet. And the CANDU design can't fail as Fukushima or Chernobyl or TMI did. It is just a better design. Not the best design we can conceive of today, but good enough to kill zero people over 50 years.
@@gordonmcdowell Hi Gordon. I appreciate your work and I agree that some reactors are safer than others but there is plenty of hazard from obsolete reactors which will be not shut down soon because the greed.
You need to agree that radiation in nature is not concentrated and is not accumulating in human body but radiation from reactors can be accumulated in human body, this is often not mentioned when people saying about nuclear technology (I mean strontium and iodine) and it is worth to mention about toxicity of plutonium and uranium even depleted one. Not many people which advocating nuclear technology is talking about it honestly.
I know Canadian reactors using heavy water can obtain slightly more power from uranium than other types and have some interesting safety features but still nobody have idea what to do with nuclear waste. So I see three major problems how to shut down inherently unsafe obsolete reactors, how to recycle nuclear waste and how to remove nuclear pollution from our environment. This should be main challenge.
I know SMRs might be solution to some of the problems but are all of them inherently safe I don't think so. Most of them are using PWR or BWR technology which have its obvious flaws. And again why, because the greed.
@@radoslawjocz2976 What are your thoughts on Moltex SSR-W or CleanCore ANEEL fuel. Those are 2 opposite ends of the spectrum, but both use operating CANDU as their starting point. I don't think CANDU is an obsolete tech... it is quite amazing that we fuel CANDU with un-enriched uranium. That eliminates the depleted-uranium waste stream, and also makes our used CANDU fuel a perfect candidate for recycling.
I'd love to see advanced reactors deployed too, but it is really hard to beat CANDU for how much energy can be extracted from mined ore. To get to LFTR, with its amazing efficiency, we'd need U-233 seed. We'd need online chemical segregation of molten salts to pull out fission products. We'd need to grapple with MSRE downtimes while we figure it all out with an operating reactor. That is surely something Canada SHOULD be striving for and invest in, but we simply can't. We can't. You need someone do actually DO the work, and right now there's 2 people capable of that path in North America, and both live in USA. And they can't just come to Canada if we asked them to because DOE would regard creation of the U-233 seed as a proliferation concern. That isn't something that concerns me... I don't see U-233 as a path to Canadians making nuclear weapons. (We'd make them if we wanted them, we don't want them.) But for people in USA who'd pursue this in Canada if they could, they just can't. So we just can't. Not like I don't want us to. I'd love to have Alberta pursing LFTR tech. There's no way it can happen.
@@gordonmcdowell Yes I do agree that Moltex reactors are interesting and promising. Is that went to certification already or not.I will have to find out.
@@radoslawjocz2976 nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing-vendor-design-review/#R2 ...to monitor status of licensing.
Lol commies
I think Canada peaked in the 80s, we will never build another CN Tower, look how long it takes to build a simple subway line in Toronto. The decadence of the bureaucratic class and total corruption of the construction industry are the two largest hurdles to any major project and in that way renewables can succeed where the large coordination and oversight of a nuclear generator will fail. Nuclear technologies are for optimists, I don't think there's very much to be optimistic about here.
CANDU refurbs are on-budget and ahead of schedule. Ontario has an incredibly low-carbon grid. LPC (with pressure from C4NE and CPC) looks like they'll include nuclear in Green Bonds program unlocking much low-interest financing. We have gotten this far, I'm not sure pessimism is warranted.
One must be a bs liar , for that i pick the older man is 😂