Nuclear Power Debate @ COP27
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2024
- Nuclear Power: Friend of Foe? was the question posted at COP27's IAEA Pavilion in the Nuclear Power Debate between Mark Nelson and Tobias Holle.
IAEA's original video can be found here: www.iaea.org/t...
This 36 minute version is a de-stammered and no-introductions version of IAEA's video. All arguments are retained, they're just delivered faster. Audio is louder.
Low resolution moments are when the speaker's footage was presented as picture-in-picture.
Follow IAEA on social media:
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This video was not created at the request of IAEA. I expect they won't care, but this is how I think such an event can reach more viewers.
I really get the picture in my mind of an adult talking to a stubborn child when I see Mark Nelson in this video.
I admire his patience.
Niklas....from Elina Charatsidou to Gordon? What did you learn about Organically Bound Tritium?
Sorry debaters. Both stinking up the place IMO.
Great debate from Mark, combining well hard facts (much better than Tobias) and emotional facts, which are incredibly underrated as decision-pushing in the nuclear debate. Mark also showed respect, empathy and a much more mature and aware approach. To be fair, as Mark said, Tobias went into the Lions Den and was capable of admitting that the continued operation of some nuclear power plants (not in Germany) might make sense. On the other hand, how Tobias approached the debate of the plants reflects very well the approach of the german green party (not the german society) on the issue:
-we hate nuclear because we hate it and we don't want to even talk about it
-we have said for so long that nuclear its bad that we cannot say anything else now, specially concerning german nuclear plants
- we just want to get the issue finished also for the sake of pure task-fulfilling satisfaction
-we are convinced that renewables can do in germany what they absolutely cannot do in germany because of geographical reasons: very high population density, very little coast, very little sun(specially when it counts) and very little hydro.
-as we are greens, it cannot be held against us that our policies lead / will lead to an increase of use of fossil fuels and emissions because we support renewables and that is all that counts
Those are anyway my impressions as a non-german western european who spends a lot of time in Germany (and can speak German enough to understand the german news without problems).
At any rate, great job Mark for the debate and also great work Gordon for brinfing this online for everyone to be able to see it.
Shall we just start calling the german "Green" party the eco-Nazi party to their faces, and photo capture the reaction? 😈 I reckon the response would look like 😱 🤣
Greens are actually funded by the fossil fuel industry.
Tobias need to study the subject for about 10 years. He repeats sound bites and thinks he is knowledgeable. In truth he is pathetic in his argument.
Mark is an engineer. Tobias's background is as a bioeconomist and environmental studies. He's a student. He hasn't taken the time to objectively study the options. He has been taught a viewpoint. Now. He may challenge that, but it comes out abundantly clear about his bias.
exactly
Absolutely fascinating debating, it is literally "feelings" vs. "facts and data".
Good luck fixing your grid with feelings Germany.
One of the worlds riches nations cannot even clean up their own grid with renevables, yet they want to enforce the solution upon the african continent.
Scary stuff.
1 MILLION YEARS! Of bad stuff! Bad!
Well said
“I don’t really want to be here right now.” Lmaoooooooo
I think he was trying to say that the debate was a waste of time bc of course nuclear is scary and dangerous. I think he is a classic green energy magical thinker.
Yes Tobias said that. Wow😮
...and to start with the fear-mongering "million year" debate point. I don't understand how any person who *honestly* believes immediate action must be taken on climate change (and is advocating for solutions) can reconcile that looming concern with the dismissal of baseload nuclear based on the moot, long-beyond-human-comprehension timeline for a manageable and solvable issue like used fuel/"waste". A - eff, even 1000 years - you're not helping ANY future generations if you're ignoring the obvious solutions that will get us through the next 100 years.
What a child. Just look at him and listen . He is a representative of the twisted Leftist in Germany and EU. They are going to fail and become a weaker poor country.Tobias is a waste of time to debate.
If this is the best the anti-nuclear has to offer, I cannot understand how there is still any resistance.
Thank you Gordon. Recently bought a couple of your awesome shirts.
There's a quote "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The 2nd best time to plant a tree is today."
The best time to build a nuclear power plant was 20 years ago...
@@billd3956 Actually, the media has been guilty of holding back nuclear power for more than 50 years.
The antinuclear crowd couldn't debate anyone effectively without actual facts. Not a single one of them could hold up in a debate with anyone that knows nuclear facts, that's why you never see an anti-nuker trying to have a real debate.
Thank you. Please let me know once they arrive if you have any feedback... and how long they take to arrive.
@@billd3956 well i would argue the best time to build nuclear is when you have factory that can just produce them like solar, then its doesn't take 20 years... maybe 1-2 year from order to producing power ;0
The most illuminating thing to come out of this debate is the discovery that the anti-nuclear argument is primarily based around the idea that energy should be communal. Just watch a couple of minutes starting at 31:32 and it's undeniable that this is the core of their world-view. If we want to win hearts and minds as pro-nuclear advocates, we don't need be arguing about what is the cheapest or least deadly or lowest carbon-emitting form of energy. We need argue why nuclear can create the kind of renewables-based communal society that these people idealize. They base it on the idea that renewables are communal *because* things like solar panels are widely dispersed among the masses. Put simply, they believe in the concept of subsidiarity. This is the idea that governance should happen at the lowest possible level (hyper-localism). If you're in favor of this framework , then it makes sense that you would be in favor of energy production at the lowest possible level (i.e. at the individual) because this implies that ownership of productive capital would be as widely dispersed as possible (to prevent its monopolization). I know this concept well -- it was written about at length by an early-20th-century Englishman named Hillaire Belloc. The flaw in this thinking, however, is that we *can* build great things *and* also remain faithful to one another. This was the conviction that built the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages and before. If we want to win the nuclear debate, we need to start explaining how nuclear energy *can* be the modern day cathedral. The cathedral was a centralized effort built for the benefit of all, and it truly *was* considered a form of common property -- a societal homage to the Creator. This should not be controversial, as all true pro-nuclear advocates realize (deep down) that nuclear energy is quite literally a gift. *That* is the missing link that is holding nuclear back. It is, fundamentally, spiritual. Not all will agree, I know, but I'm certain that there are a number of brilliant nuclear advocates who will read these words and who will benefit from them.
you write well!
Yes, the debate is not really about climate change but rather about localized government. I see the appeal, but it's also irrelevant to climate change. Actually, it's a bit detrimental, because a centralized system is always going to be more efficient than a decentralized one. So, I think we don't have to please them by pretending that nuclear is going to solve our loneliness epidemic by creating a communal society, we instead have to call them out for polluting the subject of global warming with a real, but completely unrelated societal issue.
This is about climate, so, just call them out for trying to hijack the debate for their communialism propaganda.
Another issue is, putting your own solar panel on your roof is no more decentralized than having a light bulb that you bought in IKEA be considered decentralized lighting solution. Unless you shovel sand in your back yard and refine it all the way into solar panel, you'll always have globalized solar panel manufacturers, equipment providers, distribution centers, etc. The idea that you can have insulated, self sufficient communes dancing around a solar panel is quite frankly ridiculous.
Another thing is, many of those advocates are promoting smart meters, which are about as centralized as can be - a device that spies on your energy usages and sends the live data to a centralized server.
They're just trying to hijack the debate to advance their political views.
they don't have an issue with nuclear because it does not scale down to a communal level (because it can actually do that). they have an issue that nuclear can scale up, unlike solar and wind.
@@Hamstray I find it hard to imagine that a commune of typical size - 20 people - will find enough nuclear engineers among them to run a tiny reactor.
20 people sounds a bit radically small for a town, though alfa class subs ran with about 15 people with moderate success for about 20 years with no onboard maintenance.
I think that antinuclearism makes A LOT more dead than nuclear ... (i'm sad and italian)
Original can be seen here: th-cam.com/video/GdAV0kVJFWk/w-d-xo.html ...this is an 36m edit of a 50m posted by IAEA. I'm trying to make it as watchable as possible. Audio boosted. Introductions and segues eliminated. Arguments are intact, just delivered faster by patented de-stammering technology.
Nicely done. Thank you!
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you have the opportunity to talk to Mark again or you'll once find yourself debating a German acitivist you should know their anti nuclear arguments (high cost, slow build time etc.) are based on the the EPR and not on any other type of reactor. All the EPRs are economic desasters, so their arguments would make sence if these were the only kinds of reactors we could build today or will be able to build in the future. And their waste arguments are based on the fact that Germany is not able to find a final solution for the waste. Because of political not technical reasons there were a lot of really bad mistakes with nuclear waste in Germany. The storage facility he mentions was never a good deposit site for any kinds of nuclear waste because they can't keep the water out. But the location was selected to take revenge on the German Democratic Repulic (some years before the reunion), which also built a storage facility next to the border.
Great job. Thanks
Thanks so much for all your work over the years, Gordon, the above comment of yours being a great example. Sometimes it seems like you're single-handedly providing the best mouthpiece (without bias) for the pro-nuclear community I'm 'loud and proud' to be part of.
Left guy strikes me as very feelings based. His take on waste is just really really weak
Better than the World Nuclear Association's take "There is other toxic waste too"
Most bad faith energy debate I’ve seen.. Kudos to Mark for holding his cool and presenting good information
Poor Thobias got send back to the school. Came crushing like their whole Germany energy policy
Perhaps I missed it but the question I want answering from the anti-nuclear people is this: Let's assume that renewables are less damaging than any other source of energy... where are the materials coming from? Neodymium, silver, cobalt, lithium, copper... the list goes on and on, we'd need 100s of years of current mine output to even make a dent in energy demand... on top of the fact that western nations don't want to allow mining, but are happy to let developing nations have the pollution. Then there is the disposal cost and lifetime of some of the renewables like battery technology. Or the fact that manufacturing renewables requires non-renewable or energy sources with a much higher ROIE to make it happen. Why does everything in this day and age have to become a religious argument instead of a practical one? I haven't met anyone who wants us to pollute... let's just accept that we have to transition in a realistic way. Governments legislate with seemingly no understanding of any of this... as if they declare by fiat "we shall have clean energy by forcing you to change" and it magically springs into existence with no shortfall. It's about time we let adults run our nations again.
That what happens when you try to use warm fuzzy feelings as a substitute for thinking.
Kudos to the rational question at 31:00.
Energy density and despatchability the elephant danced around.
"It just can't be so" ... Fact free emotion argument from an adult is sad.
I'm concerned that using CO2 levels to argue for the expansion of nuclear energy may come to bite the owners when it is determined (and accepted) that CO2 is not a problem. Let's emphasize the real advantages of nuclear energy.
This was at COP. I'm happy and many of my pro-nuclear friends are happy to debate without mentioning CO2. Many other reasons to deploy nuclear power. But at COP is probably a wise choice to mention nuclear's low carbon lifecycle. (Plus, you have to say it just to see if the anti-nuke is going to argue that nuclear is high-carbon once you include mining the uranium ore or some such "externality".)
If you're interested in creating alternate pro-nuclear communications please feel free to rip and repurpose anything off my channels. If you search for TR2016a or TR2016c you'll find many assets. NoMusic is part of the title for versions without background music.
Tobias used a study made by antinuclear when talks about grams of CO2, Mark used instead IEA and IPCC numbers. Tobias go to study please.
And the funny part was Tobias' numbers worse for renewables than Mark's.
I used to Vote Green but as long as they share these anti nuclear sentiments, I'm out.
I think the only way to persuade Tobias would be strand him and his community on a island for with only wind power and see how much he and his chums really enjoy intermittent renewables.
The only way intermittent renewables work at scale is when backed up by natural gas peaker and combined cycle power plants. So shutting down nuclear and moving to renewables & gas... just means you burn more gas (and make yourself dependent on Russia)
And couldn't Germany and the EU countries frack their own NG?
Intermittency is a myth. A well planned renewable system with battery back-up and a load shifting grid provide dependable power.
@@chrisconklin2981 Sure, but have you priced it up? The Royal Society have - it's prohibitively expensive. We need a different idea for reliable dispatchable power.
@@MrPalmadores I did try to fine a comparison on the Royal Societies' website, to no avail. U of Ill. has some interesting comparisons but I am not impressed by long-term returns on investments. That said, one of my favorite channels is "Engineering with Rosie" and a good video to watch is: "Four Reasons Why Nuclear Power is a Dumb Idea for Australia".
This wasn’t a debate.
It was a massacre
I dunno what they teach at German universities. Seriously. About 15 years ago on a flight to Düsseldorf I sat next to a young German guy, recently graduated with a BSc in some field related to nuclear physics, and he was chock-full of the standard German anti-nuclear propaganda points but absolutely *clueless* about most of the hard science and facts relating to different reactor types & fertile / fissile fuel cycles, or relative risk statistics, or anything relevant in real world scenarios.
I'm not qualified in anything, so this guy's sincere disagreement and/or confusion about everything I brought up made me seriously doubt myself, to the extent that I spent the following few days reading up again on everything that we talked about, digging deep into multiple information sources to make sure.
Everything I had said to the guy was accurate, and I could find no solid basis for any of his disagreements. I lost some respect for German higher education that week.
German speaking education teaches kids, from a young age, to write at length about topics they don't know anything about. Quantity of opinion instead of quality.
German guy is captain of the fail boat.
Wonderful talk, Mark. I met you during the 2. Day TEAC in Albuquerque. We could mass produce small modular reactors in just a few years as we build larger ones in the mix to utilize Nuclear at a competitive pace with so called RENEWABLES.
No one mentioned the resource intensive and short life cycle and waste streams of renewables either but it’s a big topic and needs more time for discussion I understand. I look forward to our next meeting. 👌
Nice one Gordon, thanks for putting this up
Fear still drives the anti nuclear base, this is crazy
If the media hadn't lied to him all his life, he wouldn't be fearful of nuclear energy.
@@ForbiddTV Hollywood controls the minds of the uneducated.
We need heat and not electricity?
Imagine an argument so totally filled with cognitive dissonance.
Yes, you need the heat to boil the water to create the steam to turn the turbines that spin the generators. Duh.
@@obsoleteoptics You completely missed the point. Nuclear can supply heat AND electricity, renewables can't. Duh.
@@ForbiddTV one word: geothermal. Duh.
@@obsoleteoptics For those of us that can actually count, that was four words. Funny how you had to completely change the topic to obfuscate away from your lack of abilities.
@@ForbiddTV funny how all you know how to do is troll, and not add anything of value to the discussion. Plus, I never said anything about renewables until you mentioned it. How did I change the topic? You're the one who brought up renewables! Your tactics are so obvious: you accuse your opponent of what you yourself are doing.
It's sad that Royal Royce, Terrapower, Westinghouse etc don't have spokesman in this debate. The assembly line development of SMRs and the cost, safety and expedited time frames need to be told. This is coming, it's already started and the Government funding (IRA) will supercharger the sector. Another issue is why solar and wind is affordable. It's because of tax credits. The IRA leveled the tax incentives between wind/solar and Nuclear. Nuclear Waste debate is also interesting. It's a negligible amount of waste. Especially after recycling and repurposing. Yes putting it in the crust of the earth where no geological activity has happen in the last 150 million plus years is dependable idea. What if SpaceX was a waste management company that flew small secured loads (explosion proof) that were trackable out to space and jettisoned it towards a safe direction (the sun)?
From my personnal opinion, Mark did win that debate very convincingly. There was no number or hard fact about nuclear that are hard limits. Build time? Regulation, inexperienced workforce and supply chain that can be changed with political will. High level nuclear waste? Fuel that have yet to be reprocessed.
I would also like to add that green energy proponent think that renewable can be scalled automatically just like that. It take over ten years to start a mine and i do believe it would be harder to do better than with nuclear since those new deposits are less rich and harder to obtain the mineral than the one currently in operation. Some of them can even be argued that they are simply non viable if we would try to extract with renewable energy since the return of energy from energy invested might not even be positive.
Nuclear is the most efficient use of material for each mw/h produced. It's more likely that we can crash build nuclear power plants than renewables.
From a watt:carbon & watt:sq^m perspective, it's difficult to argue that the land disruption from wind & solar can even begin to compete vs nuclear.
From an injury/death:watt ratio, solar & wind don't even come close to the decades-long track record of nuclear.
From a resources perspective, it's difficult to imagine building any of these facilities without importing rare earths and other materials from around the world, but the quantity of imported materials.. especially over the lifetime of the facilities.. is drastically lower for nuclear than for the solar & wind side.
The intermittency of solar & wind require an alternative solution to meet power demand. This increasingly comes from an increased demand on natural gas, itself increasingly imported from countries with long track records of being exploited by European powers.
If not natural gas, battery facilities are required. The increased footprint, impact, and resources oftentimes not included in a cost comparison.
At best, all of these technologies are carbon neutral. To have the impact needed within a time frame required, a carbon negative energy infrastructure will be needed. #BiocharOrBust
Kudos too to you Gordon as always! You are the glue to the movement. 🥳
Tough to keep your composure in a debate so full of anger, no matter which side you are in. Good job to the guy that kept the bar high.
Well done Mark putting up debating with such a uninformed child!
Ahh well, I made it past half way, but when you're debating with a zealot whos opening statement is that he wanted to cancel because he didn't see the value in even discussing the topic, what's the point in even listening to him, you know he's not going to be rational.
Kind of hard to defend a position that is indefensible.
Zealot? Wouldn't 'Magical Thinker' be more accurate? Oh wait, zealous Magical Thinkers... the immediate synonym that springs to mind is.. Numpty🤣
Tobias says Germany needs LNG for heat. Nuclear power produces nothing but heat without the CO2.
I'm sad to say this is the state of many debates these days.
I dont think either side presented their strongest arguments and this could have gone much better.
Not to mention the way that Tobias started the debate by saying: "I don't want to be here actually".
A fair point, a lot of the time we are concerned defending against the negative nuclear opinions we forget to promote the positive nuclear opinions so people only know the debate issues and not the possibilities
@@jacksonreasoner1408 yea there was no mention of building reactors in factories/shipyards, waste can be gotten down to much more manageable 300 years and 90%+ burn up as well, solar doesn't work well in countries(like Germany lol) near the poles unlike nuclear that works just about everywhere >_>
Regarding safety issues relating to the issues in france that was brought up or earthquake issues does not take into consideration that we are seeing research going into liquid fuel powerplants with features that totally render these issues moot.
I just can't watch the video. It's like talking to a child, talking to someone that spews nonsense out all the time. "This meetings do nothing, I have 1000 things to do more important. I should not be here. 1 milion years something, fake numbers something". What is this? And this is in COP. Tobias Holle can't finish a meaningful sentence and give any solid information.
Dunkelflaute! Winter dunkelflaute, the dark lull comes every winter. Wind and solar die down every winter.
Suppliers calls for a change in 10 years at the end of the debate. This is exactly the amount of time that France built out their nuclear fleet.
Watermelon.
Green outside.
Red inside.
and looking at companies like ThorCon who are saying that by building nuclear on barges in shipyardsthey can cut the build time down to 1/2/3 years and after the first ones are built then they think that as many as 10 per year can be built and shipped to the areas of the world that want this kind of power..
Also notice the one guy says solar is less carbon than nuclear, the other guy reversed the argument. Different sources.
The interesting thing is Mark had such lower numbers for solar than Tobias. So even the pro nuclear guy has more optimistic numbers for solar.
The argument is pretty moot though. Both technologies are dramatically lower than fossil fuels, and the real argument for alternative energy is really about energy scarcity.
Making solar cells and panels requires a lot of electricity and carbon to process and refine the silicon, glass and aluminium used in this product.
The remark about CO2 emissions in the IPCC report got me digging.
IPCC WG3 AR5 Chapter 7 figure 7.7 (page 541) puts nuclear emissions at a *maximum* of 150g/kWh with the 25-75%ile range between perhaps 20 and 50 (although this is hard to tell as the chart is not accompanied by a tabular form). The Annex II A.II.9.3.2 on page 1308 states "The data on nuclear power was taken from Lenzen (2008) and Warner and Heath (2012)."
Heath 2012 gets the extreme CO2 emissions values (220g/kWh and 120g/kWh) from Lenzen (2008); excluding the entire Lenzen (2008) data from Heath (2012) the maximum CO2 emission becomes 58g/kWh.
So Tobias Holle quoted the extreme CO2 value for nuclear, but did not mention to extreme for solar PV - utility (about 180g/kWh) or hydro power at 2200g/kWh.
Epic debate! Mark Nelson has some very valid points.
Pretty sad. The guy opposing nuclear seems not to know almost anything about nuclear.
If people really knew anything about nuclear, no one would oppose it.
No wonder this video only has 9000 views. If the debate coordinators, see this, the next time that guy doesn’t want to show up or says he’d rather cancel it, just find someone else to do the debate. He’s not even having the debate, he’s just complaining about having to do the debate. What a jerk
If we build molten salt burner reactors it isn't 1 million years, it's 300 years and that is easily doable.
Tobias talks about managing waste for a million years. What about the toxic waste heavy metals from solar panels. There is tremendous waste from solar that is not managed. Millions of solar panels at end of life. What is being done about that?
This wasn't much of a debate. The man on stage left never attempted to debate. He stated his position, then restated his position, then stated it a few more times. I hope he isn't representative of most nuclear detractors.
He seemingly does not understand nuclear or the electrical grid. Nuclear in his mind begins and ends at radioactive material. While I'm unfamiliar with electrical grids outside of USA, its impossible to serve a whole nation's power needs with solar and wind. To him solar and wind create electricity without burning fuel and are fast to build therefor they are optimal. This totally disregards the reality of power usage. All power used is generated microseconds before use. No wind, no sun, no power. Only nations with considerable amounts of hydropower can feasibly go full renewables. There must be fuel based power plants to enable our comfortable lifestyle. Its impossible to take serious anyone opposing nuclear who doesn't acknowledge that.
" I hope he isn't representative of most nuclear detractors."
Unfortunately he is representative of nearly all nuclear detractors
😒
It totally depends on how the nuclear is done as to whether or not it’s safe. Do it badly and you end up with million year half lifes, and potential runaway meltdowns. There are methods that avoid those negatives. The con-nuclear argument is working off old designs and their flaws. The new designs are much smaller and self contained and can retrofit existing carbon based electrical power plants, and produce nuclear waste with half-lifes of hundreds of years and fractions of the amount that older nuclear plants produce. It’s like judging the risk of air flight on the Wright Brothers’ first model.
yea its like comparing solar from 50 years ago and saying its bad and not mentioning todays tech same with nuclear>_>
wow, I didn't know that chernobyl kept operating afterwords
26:44 "...there is so many great people...[cut]....working on renewable solutions...": What is being edited out of this monologue?
I think I could out debate this guy in german.
I don't speak german.
This guy did an amazing job making nuclear energy look like the most intelligent path forward. Good job, Tobias.
6:14 I’m done. The guy debating against nuclear sounds like he read one Wikipedia article and that’s it.
Which nuclear and which is better? There are two nuclear fuel elements:
Uranium and thorium.
There are three nuclear fuel cycles:
Fissionable uranium-235 isotope representing 0.7% of all uranium.
Fertile uranium-238 isotope representing 99.3% of all uranium which when it absorbs a neutron will eventually breed into fissionable plutonium-239.
Fertile thorium-232 which when it absorbs a neutron will eventually breed into fissionable uranium-233.
There are two physical states to hold the nuclear fuel in:
Solid which means that the fission products will remain trapped and the waste from uranium 235 has components that will last 300,000 years.
Liquid which allows for the fission products to be subjected to chemical separation processes while the reactor is in operation and the waste from thorium 232 is much less than uranium and has components that will last only 300 years.
Maybe - we should build some small pilot plants and let reality tell us which option is best. "Cut and try" seems to work for most things.
There's also gaseous core.
Was the rebuttal to nuclear we should not have this discussion?
Tobias wants a decentralized electrical generation and distribution system which boils down to you’re on your own when trouble comes like a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake.
SMRs will give that ability to be decentralized.
I wonder how those windmills hold up throughout a tornado/hurricane. Also, good luck maintaining that independency relying on solarpanels and batteries after 10 years of usage.
@@TheGreatIndoors1979 They don't. You can find videos of wind turbines decapitating themselves in high winds.
@@jacobnebel7282 It was a rhetorical pondering on my end. I'm quite aware of those videos.
Generation 4 reactors use waste to produce power. Surely that is part of the management strategy for nuclear waste. It also means that we don’t need to mine more uranium. As we progress in our abilities, we are working toward utilising our waste to provide what we need. General waste is probably more toxic to the environment than nuclear
The Chernobyl and Fukushima power plants were Gen 2. plants built in the 70's. And Chernobyl did not have a containment structure around it either. Modern plants would be Gen 4. which work fundamentaly differently in a way that makes a meltdown virtually impossible. And even if it somehow would happen a containment structure would be built around it to contain it.
Chernobyl was not an ordinary gen-2 reactor. It was an RBMK. That's the most-important thing to know about it.
The very first statement out of Tobias' mouth was disingenuous and irrational. That is not a debate, but it sure is par for the course on discussing nuclear power with people who don't have facts on their side.
Whats disappointing is that the renewable elephant in the room wasn't addressed..... Storage.
They touched on carbon cost of energy generation but not energy storage.
Similarly if you review the combined total lifecycle costs of storage & energy generation (LCOE + LCOS ) Per kWh , nuclear on average is about half that of solar + storage. Yes solar alone is cheaper, but not if you want the lights on at night, you will need the batteries.
IPCC
Nuclear LCOE is around 9c/kWh
Batteries are around 18c/kWh
utility scale solar around 5c/kWh
23c vs 9c in favour of nuclear
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Nuclear LCOE is around 7-8c/kWh
Batteries are around 20c/kWh
utility scale solar around 3c/kWh
23c vs 8c in favour of nuclear
Lazard
Nuclear - 12-16c
Solar - 4.6-10c
Batteries - 13-23c
32c vs 8c in favour of nuclear
The grid battery standard used is for 4hrs standby power for 25 full drain uses a year. This is a standard norm for backup for Lazard and NREL. It’s not designed for continuous nighttime use. LCOE is heavily impacted if you want (a)batteries drained every night as they will require more regular replacement and if you (b) want the batteries to last beyond 8.30pm, you need to basically triple the capacity (triple the cost), and hope the next day is sunny.
Marginal gains can be had for pumped hydro, however they are only marginal. Furthermore its not suitable for intermittency of renewables, so you have to deploy batteries along side with pumped hydro if you don’t have gas peaking plants.
Mark Nelson claimed that Chernobyl reactors were keep in used after #4 meltdown but failed to note that they were upgraded to 3rd generation.
The Chernobyl RBMK type reactors were all upgraded to 3rd generation. So for example the 2nd gen RBMK reactors had a positive void coefficient of reactivity of 4.7 and this was lowered to 0.7 in the 3rd generation upgrades that the RBMK reactors got. The AZ-5 scram system was speed up from 16-18 seconds to 12 seconds for injecting all the rods and also a 20 control rod system was added that injected the 20 control rods in 4 seconds.
What point do you think Mark is making? Because you're stating a bunch of true facts, but I don't read them as having any bearing on the point (I think) Mark is making.
@@gordonmcdowell Mark Nelson claimed that Chernobyl reactors were keep in used after #4 meltdown but failed to note that they were upgraded to 3rd generation. This was one of his fake points for why we should keep on using nuclear reactors and everyone has learned their lesson and there will be no more problems.
Don't know how to manage nuclear waste at all? Don't we have nuclear waste? Not managing the waste at all looks great from my perspective.
We deal with the waste by burning it in new nuclear plants.
Nuclear power safe, safe, safe. Drill baby drill. Put more plant food into the atmosphere.
He’s so worried about long term waste storage, he doesn’t know about new technologies that will burn up that unused material, and he’s neglecting the cost of _not_ mobilizing clean energy to offset & replace fossil fuels - the ONLY way to stop climate change 🛑
Nuclear radioactive waste shouldn't be stored, it should be reprocessed.
It should be dry-cask stored for 100 years, first, to make it easier to reprocess. See: Richard Garwin.
it is interesting that Tobias keeps with the 15-20 yrs. to construct nuclear as his opposition. What about the Gen 3 and 4 units. GE alone has PW units that go up in 5 yrs.
There is no issue with nuclear waste. It can simply use as fuel for fast neutron reactors. Even so nuclear waste is not dangerous because the stuff is easily safely stored. There is a diminishing hazard as the radioactive elements decay. The dangerous stuff decays the fastest so after 50 years 1/1000 of the radioactivity is left with almost benign after 300. Like what's left after three hundred years is stuff that is almost pure nuclear fuel. The stuff simply will not be left in the ground.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2018 Report, Chapter 7, Page 538-539 quotes total lifecycle emissions of energy sources as:
Solar PV 18-180 grams CO2eq per kWh
Solar CSP 9-63 CO2eq per kWh
Nuclear 4-110 CO2eq per kWh
Wind 7-56 CO2eq per kWh
Wave power, tidal barrages, marine current turbines 10-30 CO2eq per kWh
Does the report also account for TIME? Wind and solar would have to be completely changed out 3-4 times in the lifespan of a nuclear power plant.
Also since wind and solar are not usable sources of grid electricity without either storage or another source to back them up, any conclusions as to their carbon emissions is a moot point.
No one is saying nuclear's can't be high... if everything is built with coal power as inefficiently as possible. But they're citing the high-end, where even just using the median value puts nuclear as lower-carbon than solar and on-par with on-shore wind. Tobias's numbers likely came from WISE ("CO2 emissions of nuclear power: the whole picture") which did everyone the dis-service of (likely) using the highest value for those numbers.
Isaac, you are citing IPCC. IPCC's meta-study compiles all lifecycle emissions studies. That include's Sovacool's study, which Mark Nelson ridiculed in his presentation for amortizing nuclear war emissions to apply to nuclear. That's where the high-end of the nuclear range comes from, a Sovacool outlier study. So just showing the range is not informative. If you'd like a tighter range, check out UN ECE Lifecycle Emissions report, it is fantastic and studies more than just GHG emissions.
I think Mr. Nelson missed an opportunity at the end by not emphasising more that this is not an either/or question. It certainly makes sense for Africa to go hard on solar and wind (although wind does not work so well nearer the equator) to fuel development in the short term, but the diminishing returns over time mean that nuclear plants should be started now to be ready when the renewables can no longer cope.
Except it doesn't make sense. No matter where you are in the world, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. That means you need contingencies for when there's a deficit in harvestable energy. Almost all of the world's population lives within 500 miles of the coast or a navigable waterway. Park reactor barges on the coast or tow them up the river to population centers. Done.
They can build modular thoriom nuclear plants that can not have melt down which was biggest two disasters Should be building these near existing dams or power plants to hook into existing power lines
This really demonstrates the huge differences in humans. (Though we are still much more alike than different.) I couldn't imagine thinking like this anti-nuclear guy. Both just the way his brain is structured and his developement through life has led him to make decisions based almost exclusively on emotion with very little logic involved. Not statistics or science, but feelings about things. So interesting.
That camera zoom in the first few seconds of the video is comedy gold. Really sets the tone for the rest of the video.
I don’t get it. (And the zoom was in post production, wanted to show who was who.)
@@gordonmcdowell Nvm. I've been watching too many meme vids I keep hearing sound effects to this stuff.
@@gordonmcdowell you should have added this sound effect th-cam.com/video/U_iIFa74TWQ/w-d-xo.html to those zooms :D
Since the 50s, till 2020, there have been 32 scares of cataclysm,
and yet nothing happened so far.
So, what are the average people supposed to think, or to believe?
Explain the 32 number?
Maybe re framing the argument as transmission and distribution would allow some more insight into the problems and challenges
Most of the cost of the electricity in your home is the cost of transmission and distribution
With nuclear you can site plants around the country in such a way to 1: Use existing infrastructure and 2: If the existing infrastructure doesn't exist you just site the nuke not too far from the demad
If you want to power Munich using offshore wind power its 1,000 km of power lines and a lot of upset locals
32:04 So Tobias' argument that nuclear is centralised while renewables are decentralised forgets the utility scale solar and wind power plants. Those are "big companies" too! No one installs a wind turbine in their backyard, and only few can power their entire house off grid with just solar and batteries.
Theres somebody out there that knows what you are going through
Tobias has really bad arguments, he's very condescending, and he's not open to learning anything
It would take 51.4 billion 350W solar panels to power the world!
Put another way, this is the equivalent of a solar power plant that covers 115,625 square miles.
For wind It would take 1.49 million wind turbines to supply the world's energy needs, if we only used extremely efficient turbines (i.e. ones that create 4 MW of power at 40% capacity). This would require 5.85 million square kilometers. All this is not including how much power it would require to power the worlds transport needs...
So you see, New nuclear is the clear answer!
The only argument against [nuclear energy] is a political one, that people won’t accept it, or people won’t want it. I don’t think there are any engineering or physics challenges that can’t be fairly easily addressed, and that includes the cost, if the will is there to do so. With time running out fast we must have a pragmatic way of thinking regarding nuclear, not an ideological one.
One of the reasons people give for not wanting new nuclear power is so called "nuclear waste"
So called "nuclear weaste" is actually spent nuclear fuel that has valuable materials that can be utilize to generate energy and provide benefits to society. By using a molten chloride fast reactors (MCFR) you can destroy everything you don't want like transuranics actinides, spent nuclear fuel and plutonium. But at the same time make new u233 by having it wrapped in a thorium blanket as we do this. We can then use the u233 to start new (LFTR) that will run on only thorium forever.
There are already 400,000 wind turbines.. getting to 1.49 million isn't even an issue.
I think you are missing the entire point. Reducing carbon emissions. Nuclear power isn't some magic bullet. If you think so you are fooling yourself.
@@darrenwithers3628 I'm not sure you understand the point and problem with that.
I bet Germany has no idea how to manage their nuclear waste. They're too busy arguing about how to do it.
Nuclear waste is reactor food for breeder reactors - the waste can be changed to much less radioactivity.
22:56 Oh, so now suddenly 10 years is an acceptable timeframe?
Lol 1 million years?
Completely ignoring the fact that:
A: If it were not for that guys eco-ancestors protesting in ignorance about nuclear, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Its THEIR FAULT and they wont admit it.
B: That the hindrance of nuclear over decades made it much more expensive to build, thus nuclear recycling was never built either as we can recycle the waste but it costs money, so to slash the artificially increased cost we dont recycle. Keep in mid that we have NO WAY to recycle solar panels, they will need to be buried and managed and monitored as they will leach incredibly toxic materials as they break down. Also what do we do with spent wind turbines? Oh, we bury them. And this guy talks about arrogance?
C: The small amount of waste we have is stored on pools of water or sealed canisters in the plant car park and besides a safety check every now and then, it just sits there, perfectly happy.
D: Much of the "waste" is actually essential material for scientific research and medicine. Guess where x-rays come from, guess where certain cancer treatments come from?
E: Yes, nuclear has cost lives, but solar and wind have cost way more. Does he know that fact? Yes, its actually the case, in their short existence solar panels have killed a variety of people, from the children mining the toxic materials to make them, to the installers falling off roofs when installing or removing them, the numbers TOWER above those killed or affected by nuclear. Also, how many lives has nuclear saved, with its cancer killing and x-ray producing waste??
F: The waste is only the stuff the reactor cant make use off because it is not efficient enough. The reactors coming WILL WANT THAT WASTE AS FUEL! Nicely convenient fuel, sitting there waiting for a buyer, already dug up, ready to be slotted into the new reactors. So no, not 1 million years, more like a few decades mate.
The truth that guys like this wish to ignore while they send poor children to toxic deaths to mine solar panel materials, while arrogantly convicting his children and their children to managing the new eco-disater to come of spent unrecyclable solar panels is this: THEY cause it. His eco-parents hindered nuclear so much our of scientific illiteracy that they have cause the globe to be DECADES behind in nuclear development and having had to rely on DECADES of coal burning. They need to accept their position and actually start fixing the problem they managed to cause.
Kids to come will look back at us asking why they have to deal with the solar panel pollution crisis that we will see on TV in documentaries, plastic is todays crisis, solar is tomorrows. Just you watch the TV guide...
Richard Feynman once said - "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." You have some good facts. The guy with the rolled up pony tail ain't fooling me. I've seen too many Gordon Mcdowell videos with Kirk Sorensen, I guess. Perhaps, the age of the LFTR has begun.
Whats halarious and incredibly frustrating is that we could have switched to nuclear for electricity 50 years ago and we would still be able to enjoy nice things like gas stoves and gas cars without having to worry about climate change. Carbon is a budget and we used it up so quickly. Honestly its an indictment of democracy if anything.
Excellent debate. The data was clear, the points were well made, and the nuclear side was fair and respectful. The renewable only side was arrogant and relied on already negative zeitgeist to make it's points which says nothing about the deficits of nuclear
25:00 Tobias says it's ok for other countries to continue to operate existing nuclear plants... but not in Germany?
So first he argued against nuclear because it isn't actually carbon neutral (citing BS numbers), then because the waste hangs around for a ling time, then because nuclear power is so unsafe/deadly, then because it takes a long time, then because.....
This guy has predetermined biases - he's not there to solve climate problems or reduce emissions, he's there to be antinuclear.
Anyone who comes across as so biased they believe there is only one recognizing there may be a pie chart of solutions. No (or at least very few) pro-nuclear folks are saying "nuclear is the only solution", yet this type of crowd is saying "only renewables, and even considering nuclear is killing the planet". Such BS. Renewables have a place in the solution. Nuclear has a place in the solution, and in my opinion, nuclear has a significant place
sorry can't watch the greenies
mientras que no se consiga el uso comercial de la FUSION FRIA, el uso de la fision, mejor si es la de Torio, será necesaria.
Fusion will never get here in any of our lifetimes. Too hard to harness 1,000,000+C heat efficiently.
If you import windmills and solar panels from China, HOW MUCH CO2 ARE YOU IMPORTING?? And is this INCLUDED in the emissions data?
22:00 the hippie doesn’t think a nuclear reactor can produce _heat?!_ If there’s no heat, how did the Chernobyl core melt down 🤣
28:30 he keeps thinking it always takes 10-20 years to construct a nuclear plant - that’s only the worst case scenario, with one-off plants that are over-regulated. Standardized, modular reactor cores can be built on an assembly line & installed much more quickly than the 1980’s designs. And they produce scaleable, reliable energy that runs 24/7 on demand (compare that to capacity factor of wind which is around 30%)
What's the bit about powering the next conference with a reactor outside?
Greenpeace once again proves of being the worst of the worst 😠
I call them GreedPiece for Good Reason🤮
So Thorium's CO2 footprint would be less than 1% of Uranium?
No one is projecting that. There'd be less mining of natural resources with any sort of breeder reactor (including Th-MSR designed to breed "4x the fuel" as Boyd projects) but it is site construction that is responsible for much of the CO2 footprint. Concrete. Nuclear is already very-low carbon, Thorium reactor could be lower, but this isn't really the appeal. It is less mining and hardly any non-monetizeable waste stream.
Either everyone gains an understanding of basic nuclear physics or feelings really matter in the debate. I wrongly assumed the first option was a realistic one.
Are you trying to act smart? This has nothing to do with understanding nuclear physics?
They should have put solar panels on the pyramids, that would have given this COP27 some true visibility. Btw 17min in and this whole conversation is practically nonsense. If this is the level of discussion you are having in this meet and greet, we are fucked as an entity. The people in the crowd seem to be the ones truly talking with a cause.
Your house probably has a 10 kW electric infrastructure and a 30kW gas boiler for hot water and heating.
Turning your boiler to electric would make you consume at least twice as much electricity.
Check your country's electric production vs hidrocarbon imports.
The challenge is simply too big and too urgent to arbitrarily decide to forgo nuclear.
As for nuclear waste: check transmutex or any of the installed gen IV plants. They use waste as fuel. Its not a million year problem.
At about 1:50ish, does that 10 grams or so per kWh of CO2 to make solar PV include the necessary batteries (like the 3 sets thereof per PV lifetime)...
What is the total EROI for all these different sources including hydroelectric?
Thanks
No, this assumes that you have other energy source active while the sun isn't out and the wind isn't blowing. Which is true at this moment, we take up the slack with nuclear and fossil when that occurs. The ammount of batteries required grows exponentially as you increase your renewables share in the grid so you can't really answer that question universally.
If you knew exactly what percentage of your production is solar THEN you can start figuring out how much storage you might need and then decide which KIND of storage you can and will use and ONLY THEN will you know the additional CO2 impact (as well as cost impact)
n.u.w* clear air vs nuclear airless.
how to clear 1 in logos is clear if it in alogos aclear?
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*n.u.w 1 in logos is number union's words