Could nuclear energy save the planet?
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- Nuclear energy is the proven climate change solution staring us in the face. Yet, concerns about its safety have prevented widespread adoption. Are these fears irrational? And how can nuclear power compete with oil and natural gas on price?
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
IPCC Report
www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
Fourth National Climate Assessment
nca2018.globalchange.gov/down...
Union of Concerned Scientists on The Nuclear Dilemma
www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/...
Goldstein on using the Nuclear Option
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...
Abdulla on the Demise of Nuclear Power
theconversation.com/the-demis...
US Energy generation by power source
www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.ph...
Nuclear Power Reactors in the World
www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publica...
Our World in Data on what is the safest form of energy
ourworldindata.org/what-is-th...
CREDITS
Writer: Louis Foglia
Editor: m.cho
Researcher: Dushyant Naresh
Supervising Producer: Allison Brown
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Fear is the mind killer. It is impossible to have a rational discussion about the pros and cons of Nuclear power with a fearful overly emotional person.
And same is true with an overenthusiastic ideologue, either one who is con or pro nuclear.
I'm sure that failure can happen to any energy source, so why not nuclear power plant?, is it because your preach so powerful that make it impossible?
@@TBFSJjunior just look at the figures. 60 fatalities in 70 years of nuclear power. Solar panels kill double that each year from rooftop falls alone.
@@neuralwarp
That isn't comparing like with like.
Those 60 fatalities are all the people that died in Chernobyl, while the people falling from roof tops don't die due to running solar, but construction of solar.
So your figures ignore fatalities from mining, cancer from radiation (causality is hard to prove here so it is very difficult to get accurate numbers), etc.
I don't argue that nuclear has more fatalities as I don't know, but I point out that your figures are dishonest.
@@neuralwarp
Just to put some more data to add to your figures.
"60 deaths" in Chernobyl in 70 years is what you counted.
The WTO estimates that near Chernobyl around 4000 people died due to cancer from the accident, a study from Greenpeace put the world wide death toll at 200000 and there is a report from Russia estimating it to be 985000 deaths.
That would be 57 to 14000 death per year that you ignored. (And that is just from one incident.)
Over 140 ships are powered by more than 180 small nuclear reactors and more than 12,000 reactor years of marine operation has been accumulated. Most are submarines, but they range from icebreakers to aircraft carriers. Zero accidents since the program was developed in the 1950's...
Fantastic track record. Meanwhile fossil fuels kills people every year.
if it's zero it means impossible right?
300,000 deaths from German coal power a year. If theyreplaced all German coal power stations with nuclear reactors, they could have 67 Chernobyls a year and still be safer.
@@electronresonator8882
No, but very, very rare.
LoL!
*The U.S. Navy Is Having a Hell of a Time Dismantling the USS Enterprise*
Nobody has ever disposed of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier before. Turns out it's not easy...
www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a22690208/us-navy-dismantling-uss-enterprise-nuclear-disposal/
140 ships, you say?
Beme. Lou. The French are upset about a whole lot more than just a fuel tax. I'd really like you to do a deep dive on it all. Fuel tax was the straw that broke the camel's back. Please, report in more detail on that topic. It's important for us all!
Ok - I was worried I was too late. I'm on vacation now, so it wont come out till second half of January, but I'll put something together
@@LouisFoglia Replying to a comment like that is above and beyond, Lou. Take all the time you need. It'll be worth it, I'm sure! Enjoy what's left of December :)
@@LouisFoglia Hey Lou, speaking about climate change, can you do one about geoengineering via sratospheric aerosol release?
Cheers & happy holidays!
About the gilets jaunes protests you mentioned at ~ 6:00, wasn't the protest more about the fact that the new fuel tax would mostly affect middle- and lower class citizens, while corporations (i.e., the largest polluters) remained unaffected.
In other words, the protests are about the unequal treatment of the less well-off members of French society by their government, as opposed to a protest over a carbon/fuel tax.
Of course, there are other factors related to those protests, but the fuel tax is the only one that's related to the subject of the video.
Hmm - good point. I was wondering if I should do an episode on gilets jaunes but I feel like it might be too late and I'm on vacation next two weeks so it wouldn't come out until second half of January. What do you think?
@@LouisFoglia I would certainly be interested even if it came out later.
@@LouisFoglia Although the movement is slowing down a lot, I wouldn't be surprised if it started picking up steam again after the holidays, though I doubt it'll reach the initial numbers again.
Either way, even if it's over by the time you're done with your vacations, a video explaining what it was about, what the root causes were and what was going on during the protests themselves would be very interesting, in my opinion. I believe there's a lot of misinformation/downplaying of this movement going around on the internet, I think it deserves the kind of well-researched videos you guys produce.
Either way, thanks for the video and have fun on your vacations!
Louis Foglia give it some time, more context would probably make a better video anyway
Sergio Fenoll I think it stemmed from more of a regional divide between the rural citizens and the urban ones as those who required more fuel in rural areas would be disproportionately affected
real stories.. thank you so so much. Ive been craving actual news.
It's the whole "Sharks" and "Airplane" phobia allover again, both are one of the least deadly in their respective category but tend to have the nightmares closest to our reach within the realms of our subconscious mind. Not sure if we can deal with this if the majority of governmental policies tend to be a response to, often uneducated and overblown, public concerns.
it's not a phobia, oceans are already polluted with radioactive materials. the fact that carbon based fuels are detrimental to our ecosystems and to us as part of these ecosystems does not make nuclear power any better, thats a fallacy, that A is bad does not imply that B is right. Let's keep it real, there are already ways of producing energy (rather transforming) which leave close to zero emissions yet they don't prove to be beneficial to the economic powers.
@@noelgarland3068 you do realize all of the human radioactive waste dumped into the ocean is at least two orders of magnitude less radioactivity than the naturally occurring potassium 40. And did you not listen to the whole video? Nuclear is five time more scalable than solar and wind today. The tech is not going to get five times better in 50 years. and per kilowatt energy it requires much less, at least a fifth of the raw materials.
I can literally cite all of this for you so you can do you more research.
You always really do well with these videos. You're very well spoken
Don't forget about tidal, geothermal, and hydropower.
Don't forget that 230,000 people were killed by a 1975 hydro dam failure in China.
I've been waiting for you to talk about this 😁
Another great vid!
Yes, time to build some new safer 4th generation molten salt reactors, time is running out
While I'd like that, my understanding is that we haven't solved the corrosion problem.
@@MatthewStinar my understanding is that only funding problem is left to solve. It's ready for at least a decade
There's no such thing as 4th generation molten salt reactors, conventional 4th generation reactors are the tech we had in the 1950's & 1960's and are well outdated today and considered unsafe. I assume you're referring to the "thorium" nuclear reactors that are hyped up everywhere over UA-cam, the reality is we don't have the materials science advanced enough yet to build them on a commercial scale. As Louis is saying in this video, we DO HAVE the technology ready to go right now to build 5th and 6th generation conventional nuclear reactors which can even recycle their own waste (known as breeder reactors) and are immune to meltdowns even if all over failsafes fail and a meteorite hit it.
@@thomascrabtree 4th generation is a thing. Father still working in the field. It's way safer and can use old generation's waste as fuel.
I'm not an expert myself but I know that the green political groups have banned new investments even though the technology was better, because I believe they are funded by the oil industries because all their actions indirectly increase our dependence and consumption of oil.
I'll ask him about the 5 and 6, but we are on the same page except for the nomenclature apparently
Russia and India already comercially built it
Lou your intro is undervalued.
Just put this comment on an article by the 'Director, Natural Power, and Director, Scottish Renewables' in a top Scottish Newspaper. He was very kind towards 'natural power'
---------------------------//--------------------
"...To meet the challenge of the next decade, large parts of the transport and heating sectors will also need to decarbonise..."
Decarbonising electricity, heating and transport goes way beyond the next decade; it needs policy decisions to cover the next 50 or 100 years.
Professor Paul Howarth says the UK, and for that matter any nation with a functional grid, will need to upgrade their grids X4. From 80 GW in the UK to 320 GW. In this video, he helped some of the Government's Departmental Scientific Advisors to 'close the model' of the 'DECC 2050 Calculator' to achieve this. Search for:
"the uk emissions model didn't add up until nuclear was added"
Right now, ignoring burgeoning developments in advanced nuclear reactor power plants, would be a massive policy mistake for both regional and national governments. By 2030, GE-Hitachi's BWRX-300 Small Modular Reactor [SMR] will have an overnight cost of less than 40% of Hinkley's. And a few years after that it will be down to 25% of Hinkley's overnight cost.
Investors in renewable technologies need to take this on board when comparisons are made.
An Nth Of A Kind [NOAK] BWRX-300 will have an overnight cost of £468 million in the UK compared to the £600 million for Whitelee [onshore] Windfarm. But - the BWRX-300 will generate 4.4X more dividend-paying MWh of 24/7 electricity.
Investment on offshore wind looks even more vulnerable. Moray East Offshore Windfarm, costing £1,800 million will only generate 54% of the dividend-paying MWh of a BWRX-300.
But the writing is already on the wall for what might be the killer blow for investment in renewables; the announcement by the USA's NRC that the Emergency Planning Zone [EPZ] for SMRs can be at the boundary fence of their tiny sites. Super-safe SMRs can be sited close to population centres.
Search for: "how far do you have to run after a small modular nuclear meltdown"
This means a single BWRX-300 can not only supply all of the electricity a city the size of Leicester uses - domestic; commercial; industrial - but much of the heat also. Double the bang for our bucks.
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www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/17339151.agenda-sustainable-ways-to-meet-the-needs-of-rural-areas/?c=dc2xmm#comments-feedback-anchor
We need to build thorium molten salt reactors!
My Man!
Have they solved the corrosion problem?
Matthew Stinar There have been studies that have found combining silicon carbide with Hastelloy N would largely solve the corrosion issue for Fluoride based coolant salts.
Governments needs to make the approval process less risky to an entire project. The approval processes also inflate the cost of nuclear.
New design nuclear reactors are safe and a way towards ecological future.
A lot of people especially in the Philippines that has a lot of biased aversion to nuclear energy without giving a an alternative solution, in fact 30 years ago the philippines had already built a nuclear power plant as a solution for the rising demand in electricity that was in the 70s and 80s and now blackouts are a common thing
Thanks for the video dude. I study Nuclear technology and its been quiet depressing as most of my teachers were from an era where nuclear was the big thing but the downscaling of the industry killed it for them, This makes me hopeful for my future. Thanks lou.
Take a look at the Integral Fast Reactor concept/EBR-II. Fascinating reading and what I personally think we should opt for in terms of reactor type.
What is important is that cost needs to be competitive with fossil fuels. Terrestrial Energy's IMSR does this, I'm not sure a Fast Reactor can. Like the Fast Reactor, the IMSR can use existing waste inventories as fuel and the IMSR waste can be recycled to use up almost all of the uranium and transuranics. The resulting waste stream is very small.
Lou's back! :D
THANK YOU for pointing out what should be so obvious!!! This solution needs so much more awareness and exposure than it gets it's insane.... I really hope that people can finally see the light and rally behind nuclear so that we may not all die in an apocalyptic broken climate
Really, really, well written. Seemed fair and balanced. Of course, it helps that I've always agreed with your conclusion, but I'd like to think that I would appreciate your efforts even if I didn't agree. Thanks so much for your hard work.
How about we just create liquid salt thorium/nuclear waste reactors.
No one is willing to invest in Nuclear energy. Thorium is way better than uranium but is more expensive than the typical reactor. Tedtalks has a good thorium reactor talk.
Have they solved the corrosion problem?
Ishaan Bansal There are several companies in the US and Canada that seem to disagree
@@MatthewStinar they solved the corrosion problem before 1970. But saying we can't have nuclear because they corrode is like saying we can't have cars because the tyres wear down.
Haha its not that easy to get the US to invest into something that isn't short term gain with short + long term negatives
Thank you for making a video on this, people need to see this. There's too much misinformation and histeria today.
More and more people needs to see this
Good video
one of you best videos man
He always says "I'm going to go live my life" at the end . Makes me feel like we're inconveniencing him, he doesn't have to make the videos were not forcing.
Hey Lou,
i wish you guys could have mentioned the advancements in fission energy since thats a nuclear source of power that has a lot of potential but is still not receiving enough funding from the states. It's a really advanced method of collection energy without the problems of fussion energy (the one currently used in power plants). It does not produce radioactive waste and is not as likely to become unstable. Maybe in your next piece on power and renewables you could mention it to at-least create some awareness of the differentiation that has to be made in regards to nuclear power and the potential that still can be developed in nuclear power.
You mixed fission with fusion.
Nice video
Love ya Lou!
Beme's content is enlightening. These topics really need to be addressed. The dangers of climate change concern everyone, so everyone ought to be concerned. I was previously opposed to Nuclear power, but now I realise that it is one of our greatest tools for combating climate change.
Exactly. After watching Pandora’s Promise in 2014, I quit my opposition to nuclear. Fission power is our best hope to tackling GHG emissions. Go Nuclear!
I'm in favor of nuclear (particularly important for providing a baseline during seasons when solar or wind don't generate much), but I legitimately don't understand the claim that renewables can't scale fast enough but that nuclear can.
In late 2016 I got a quote for a rooftop solar array. It took a day to install, and will generate as much power as my house uses over the course of a year. It costs the same or less per month than buying power and the system will pay for itself within its warrantied lifetime My house's energy usage has basically been zeroed out for the next 20 or 30 years, and all it took was the drive to make that change.
I'm not an anomaly in my neighborhood. Perhaps 20% of the houses have had solar installed over the last ~2 years. If this continued, the neighborhood would be 100% solar within a decade. I feel like the permitting and construction of a nuclear plant generally takes longer than that.
I get it, it's more complicated than that. Businesses, agriculture, etc. also need power. But businesses can install rooftop solar too, and utilities can make coordinated efforts to deploy solar as well. And yeah, there will be times throughout the day when solar makes less power. That's why I'm getting a battery installation to smooth out generation and use. I'll make less power during some months too (e.g. in winter I make perhaps 60% what I do during peak months, though lower AC use means I need less power, too) and batteries won't help much with that, so there is still some need for the grid to provide extra capacity during some parts of the year. Again, a lot of that can be provided with utility-scale solar. Existing nuclear can provide much of the remainder. Any additional demand can be satisfied in the short term with natural gas, and in the longer-term, with nuclear.
Again, I'm pro-nuclear, but until these new reactors are ready to turn on, we need other steps to cut down on carbon. You're talking change on the scale of decades. That's not good enough. Other countries can and will lag behind on cutting carbon emissions. Vehicles can last decades, so the transportation sector will take decades just to cycle out existing vehicles and replace them with EVs. We need to make up for that by cleaning up the grid now, not 20 years from now. If you actually care about climate change, do everything you can to zero out your carbon emissions TODAY. Get rooftop solar or shared solar, get an EV, fly less often, etc. THEN help other people understand and those changes in their lives. THEN you can inform people about and push for nuclear.
To be clear: I think there's a real risk that people can get swept up in something like nuclear and say "Yeah, that's the solution, that's what we need!" and then just parrot that, feeling like that helps. And it does, to the extent that it can help slowly change people's opinions on nuclear. It's easier than taking personal initiative to make the changes that we need NOW. But we need to start cutting carbon emissions immediately, not in many years after popular opinion has shifted enough that public policy is adjusted to make it worthwhile for power company to undergo a decade-long process of permitting and construction.
The biggest problem for nuclear power is over regulation. The way nuclear reactors are regulated right now seems intended to get rid of reactors rather than make sure they’re safe.
About wind energy use of terrain you missed that soil underneath can still be used for agriculture and farming.
Good video, this shows just how big problems we`ve with media and people`s attitude to climate change and everything related to it, maybe when next generation comes to power there will be some changes if it`s not too late.
The next gen is even dumber than the current one, Alexandra Cortez is a perfect example of our future under the moronic millennials
I'm getting the feeling that he said "I'm going to live my life" is an attempt at tricking us into believing he actually have a life.
this needs to be translated into all languages! everyone must watch this
I think you greatly understated the problem of long term storage of nuclear waste. The idea of a clean, relatively safe energy source is of course compelling but it as with everything theres a tradeoff. Nuclear wast stays radioactive for millions of years and nowhere in the world exists a long terms storage facility. Here in Germany there have been a lot of problems regarding appropriate storage of nuclear waste, and I think risks associated with the storage are much greater than the production which, as you pointed out, is relatively safe.
also you used the term cognitive dissonance wrong at 9:05
Please make a video about Yucca Mountain and how the government has refused the perfect solution to the nuclear waste problem
It's so infuriating.
Money is always the driving force. Pollution, risks, time factors all pale in comparison.
Finally someone talking about this.
I'd encourage everyone in the comments section to watch "The Impact of Nuclear Fusion" by Isaac Arthur. Fusion is an absolute game-changer for any civilization that gets it
I firmly disagree
1. Nuclear waste cant be stored anywhere
2. You are downplaying the disasters in Fukushima and Chernobyl
3. Reactors can for most only care for the base load because its extremely unflexible unlike solar with batteries
4. A reactor takes ages to build
5. Centralised power systems are more vunlerable
6. Radiation poisoning (look at the thule reactor on the german belgian border theyre distributing iodium pills)
7. nobody wants a nuclear reactor in their hood
SOLAR or any other source without these problems is the best method and easier scalable
For once this is a video of you that i find poorly researched
Christian K
1. Nuclear waste can be contained by various means in long term storage by storing spent fuel or vitrifying the material and then depositing it into containers with very dense materials.
Unlike other waste such as industrial chemicals, the risk of radioactive material is based on radioactive decay, which is time based. Meaning that over time the risk of radioactive material declines. Only radioactive waste behaves in this manner, which is why it is rather bizarre that media outlets are concerned about radioactive material last for thousands of years when chemical waste remains toxic for infinity.
That being said radioactive waste is dangerous primarily because of its radioactivity in which a sample will emit high energy material during its decay. If a material has high radioactivity this means that in a given sample more material is emitted per second. However this also means that highly radioactive materials that present higher risk also decay much faster and thus over long time frames reduce risk much faster.
With this in mind it begs the question why society is so much more concerned about materials that last thousands to millions of years instead of materials that last hundreds of years. Fission products or the materials that are the resultant of a fission reaction represent approximately 97% of all radioactivity in spent fuel waste, yet the total decay of these materials is less than 500 years. Instead during most nuclear waste discussions the media is more concerned about actinide wastes that last thousands to billions of years and represent only 3% of the net radioactivity. While actinides still present risks and there are specific isotopes that present greater risk both radioactive and toxic these materials present less risk than fission product waste.
Still for those that are concerned about actinide production and specifically are concerned about such materials as Plutonium 239 there are existing technologies to reduce the quantity of materials. This can be achieved either by nuclear burning or reprocessing and fast spectrum fission.
- Nuclear Burning: The process by which isotopes are forced to absorb excess neutrons and transmute into other isotopes, preferably by reducing the decay rate of a material. For example Americium 243 has a 7,340 year half life that can be considered to be an issue for long term waste storage. However if Am-243 absorbs a neutron in nuclear burning it will become Am-244, which has a 10.5 hour half life. In less than a week the “entire” sample of what used to be Am-243 could decay if transmuted into Am-244. (In radioactive decay you don’t technically remove the entire sample but after 10 decays you reduce the radioactivity of the sample to below .001% this making it statistically irrelevant, depending on the size of the sample).
- FBR/FNR Fast Spectrum Fission
Specifically for a Plutonium 239 waste concentrations, this material is a fissile fuel, which means that it can undergo fission and produce over 2.5 neutrons. Fast spectrum is preferable to use for Plutonium 239 because there is a lower rate of absorption and nearly a 99% probability that the isotope will undergo fission in this spectrum. When Plutonium 239 undergoes fission it will typically become Xenon-134 and Zirconium-103. Xe-134 is a stable isotope and Zr-103 has a 1.3 second half life. Zr-103’s entire decay chain lasts approximately 390 days as it reaches stable Rh-103, however the reduction in total radioactivity would make the risk statistically irrelevant much sooner depending on the size of the sample.
The US has developed advanced Burner reactors since the 1970s and Fast Spectrum reactors have been used both federally and commercially since the 1950s. In Russia three FNRs are used to actively reduce Plutonium waste stocks as per their Non-proliferation agreement.
2. While the story does not discuss the finer details of radiation studies for Chernobyl and Fukushima the video does describe accurate current mortality rates for both of the incidents. The totality of health risks for radiation is extremely difficult to measure and project in medicine because how radiation affects the body and at what rate greatly depends on various factors:
- What radioactive material the person was exposed to/ the radioactivity of the material
- How the person was exposed to the material
- How long the person was exposed to the material/ what was the radiation dose received
- How the radioactive material bioaccumualtes in a person
- The biological and chemical composition of the person
- The genetics of the effected person
- The probability of cancer formation in the person
Just to name a few...
While there should be a more thorough analysis of radiation risk and how the incidents have effected both human and other ecosystem populations we should make sure not to generalize these incidents and claim that all nuclear reactors share similar risk to these incidents. In reality both of these incidents were caused by extremely different conditions and each of these reactors have very different components and operate every differently from one another and other various reactors.
- Chernobyl:
Chernobyl was the result of poor reactor design combined with mismanagement of the situation by both the facility team and the government of the Ukraine.
The nuclear plant contained RMBK reactors with graphite moderators and operated using Uranium and MOX fuel. These reactors were redesigned to function using extremely high positive void coefficients as a way to cut costs and allow the reactor to produce Plutonium stockpiles for the USSR.
A void coefficient is a ratio of the relationship between a reactor core’s reactivity and temperature. With a positive void coefficient core power tends to rapidly increase with increased temperature, which presents significant risk of a meltdown if not properly managed because the power output can create a positive feedback loop in which reactivity spikes leading to increased temperature build up, coolant destabilization and potential core damage. In the case of Chernobyl these reactors operated at a positive void coefficient that was in excess of a factor of 6 (today positive void coefficients operate no greater than 1).
- Fukushima:
The incident at Fukushima occurred as a result of the Tohoku Earthquake- a 9.1 magnitude earthquake that smashed Japan killing over 15,000 people. The earthquake itself caused internal plumbing damage to the reactor, and the reactor ran an immediate SCRAM response.
However in less than 1 hour after the first shocks of the earthquake the coast of Japan was hit by an earthquake. The plant itself was hit by a wave that measured nearly 45 ft in height, but was partially blocked due to the sea wall protecting the plant. Still the combination of the earthquake and tsunami disabled initial power and flooded both the backup diesel generators and heat exchangers in the reactors. As a result the reactors were unable to maintain proper core temperature and the coolant began to boil resulting in the beginning stages of a meltdown.
Over a few days the reactors began to suffer a meltdown but did not have a severe radioactive release until the reactors suffered pressurization overload caused by the increased temperature in the reactor cores. In order to mitigate the problem the engineers decided to release some radioactive material through venting lines into the chimney of the reactor (correct decision). However, within the radioactive material released there was excess hydrogen, which originated in the reactor core as the result of a chemical reaction with water coolant and the zirconium fuel rods. While in the reactor core this excess hydrogen did not bear a major problem as the reactor core is contained with inert nitrogen gas. However when the gases were released through the venting lines, some hydrogen escaped and leaked into the upper containment compartments of the nuclear reactors. Hydrogen by itself is extremely volatile in air as it will explode, which is exactly what happened following the leak. These explosions not only caused significant damage to the reactors containment, but also released large amounts of radioactive material into the environment.
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Now some people like to generalize these incidents and claim that all nuclear reactors share these same risks, which is entirely inaccurate.
1. No existing reactor today operates with extreme positive void coefficients similar to Chernobyl and all nuclear reactors today contain multiple layers of containment. Therefore all existing nuclear reactors do not share similar risk to that of the Chernobyl incident.
2. The incident at Fukushima was caused primarily by a major natural disaster. There are few places in the world where a 9.0 magnitude earthquake is likely to occur due to the existing geological conditions of areas in which many nuclear reactors are present. There is still seismological risk, but very few locations have similar risk to the Japanese coastline along the ring of fire.
3. There are even fewer places that present comparable risk to the scale of a tsunami experienced at Fukushima. The severity of the tsunami is directly linked to the scale of the earthquake, and as discussed in point 2 there are limited number of locations that present similar seismological risk. Even in areas that present large seismological risk the likelihood of a damaging tsunami is low.
For example Diablo Canyon in California USA is found in an area where a possible 7.5 magnitude earthquake does have the possibility of happening. However, this reactor does not share similar risk of damage from a tsunami because the facility is located on a 50 ft bluff.
4. Additionally the issues of pressurization, hydrogen formation, coolant boiling and meltdown are major concerns for water reactors. However nuclear is not dependent on water coolant. Since the late 1940s countries have developed a wide range of nuclear technologies that do not use water as a coolant.
Molten Salt Reactors in particular present a significant decrease for risk in these areas as their coolant’s boiling point is in excess of 500-700 degrees C higher than the operational temperature of the reactor. This means that in these reactors if all power was cut to the facility and no preventative measures were taken it would still likely take weeks for the fuel to heat up in order to boil the coolant, by which time power would likely be restored or other measures would be taken. Also in a MSR there are no fuel rods as the fuel is dissolved in the coolant as a liquid. There is no water nor zirconium so you don’t have the risk of excess hydrogen build up in the reactor core.
I have a nuke in my town and not only are we glad its here but its the life blood of our economy. We should be building nukes as fast as we can. New tech like the wave reactor (which is designed to eat up our existing nuclear waste) is developing daily and we need to consider recycling our waste like France does. Win..win!
This was a well researched video and I'm glad someone is coming out and preaching the truth.
@@brian2440 Holy shit Brian, I am literally going to save your comments. Did you just write this down or have you done your research and have kept it around. I sincerely admire your patience and it feels good to read constructive comments that smash simplistic views.
Yo, Quick thought... How about reducing out energy consumption so renewables have a chance to scale to reduced demand...
A massive issue on the horizon respective to electricity production is the adoption of electric cars & other vehicles, a single electric car can easily consume the same amount of electricity & more than it's own owners home power consumption!
Great summary Lou. Wish Australia would build some 4th gen Nuclear Reactors.
Thorium Reactors. Please talk about those. Like you said, one of the biggest turns off about nuclear energy is the radioactive waste it produced. Thorium reactors eliminate that altogether.
Yes.
Just did some math. For 300 million people, at a coke can's size of nuclear waste, we would need 6134 Olympic swimming pools worth of area to fit all the waste. I think the UN should just set up a base in the Sahara, and ship it there as the waste is created.
"We need to solve our energy right NOW!"
So let's build nuclear power that will come online in 12 years!? Really?
Let's do it in 4 years like the South Koreans do consistently.
I like the Thorium talks.
Senator Vinick would be so proud of you Lou.
YES THANK YOU BEME!!!
Word!
People have a 1950s monster movie understanding of radiation. Even when a nuclear plant blows its good for the environment.
Molten salt reactors!
Their time will come soon.
Hey Loe, when you stare down (paper on) is little awkward. Everyone know you read text behind the camera is better to not look down anymore, all UA-camr do that. (Suggest)
A modern solar panel is 5 feet x 3 feet and produces 400W at 40 to 60volts. The modern optimizer links multiple panels together and regulate the voltage to 400v and adjusts current. Next year the voltage off each panel will increase and the efficiency increase will be to make the panel about the same size but put out 500w. So my 7kw array which only used 327w panels took up 7x3=21 feet x 15 area. It cuts my power useage to less than half. I paid $5400 to buy and install the equipment myself. Racking was 1200, panels 2400, optimizers 1400 and inverter $1000. This is Dec 2018. It just stops meter when output exceeds useage inhouse. This system would cost $21000 after tax credit and local rebate. HUMMMJJ
10:32 there are exactly 2 Us regulator for Nuclear power the NRC and the DOE. the state regulators are in agreement with the NRC for the regulation of nuclear material for nonpower related industrial, medical and research purposes. Beyond that, the absolute minimum regulatory standard can be found in the code of Federal because all Agreement states are held to some level of regulatory compatibility.
- a qualified agremment state radiation inspector
Nuclear is good in many ways, but that renewable don't scale up as quick is inaccurate, partly for the reason you mentioned regarding initial costs on big powerplants.
Renewables on the other hand are factory based, cranking out generators to then be utilized where suitable domestically, or abroad. This is partly the reason why renewable is expanding exponentially, rather than linearly, despite having often less subsidies than fossile fuels.
A 'hidden' initial however, is storage, though it's only restrained to batteries when it comes to transportation. Grid-power can for most nations be dealt with much better by numerous means, though they're still quite costly even in the best circumstance. Once in place though, most types are very durable.
Still, nuclear is a good tool for dislodging the fossil fuel industry
Amen!
Omg such a balanced and well thought out video. Well done you guys. And Lou, take a breath man, it's not a race !!
One point that was not covered was the possibility of rocket technology becoming more efficient and economical and a possibility to jettison nuclear waste into space.
How's that thorium coming along? That gets a mention here and there.
My understanding is they still haven't figured out how to deal with the corrosion problem caused by the liquid salt, but I'm hoping we'll solve it in due time.
A fun fact
More people died in making of wind turbine (200,000-50000 according to google),than from all the nuclear meltdown combined
I don't hate nuclear power. But it seams that the initial price is the main problem.
Pretty good video. Lou your annunciation and speaking rhythm is strange though.
It is necessary to also reduce our energy consumption. The "greenest" energy is the one you do not use.
You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Electric vehicles use as much as a house. Demand is only going to keep growing
If it weren't for relativity, nothing could be blown out of proportion🤙🏼
Not sure if I agree that nuclear scales quickly afterall building those powerplants takes ages
It's mostly politics, money, and outdated designs/manufacturing techniques that cause the slow down. If you're going to make each reactor custom order of course they'd be expensive and take a while to build. If they came off a manufacturing line instead, things would be way different. That's how solar/wind has gotten so cheap. Those solar/wind farms are full of mass produced hardware.
The problem with nuclear is there is no where safe to store the nuclear waste long term.
The more energy is derived from water/dams/gravity, the more the Earth rotation slows down. I'm not sure it's significant though.
Really wanted to watch the video but was distracted by the jellyfish in the background
Interesting, Im still dont know about the waste, not convinced yet
Thank you for making this video. In Germany the majority indeed has a very negative attitude towards this topic, from my experience even way more so than in the US. It's an issue that nobody wants to discuss but everybody is quick to talk down, so I hope whoever can takes the time to listen to this, and maybe some more sources! Unless fusion becomes available, this is our best bet right now.
1:40 what about having every single roof in the us be solar? No extra land required
72 % used for wind energy?
Hey Lou. Please do your homework.
kinda sad you didn't mention thorium here...
I wish money was not the focus of sustainable energy. We probably could've switched by now if it wasn't.
Lou, but what about the mining uranium industry? Areva is destroying South Africa searching for this "eco friendly" energy. The fission nuclear systems requires a enormous amount of engineering work that have an equal carbon consumption during construction. The only way that we have is to develop fusion generators, that is the real solution right now.
I'm a nuclear fan boy (LFTR!), and I appreciate you willing to go Nuclear .... but I don't think nuclear will replace fossil fuels for your houses.
The second we get a economic and reliable nuclear power plant, it will start converting Coal to Methane (called Coal Gasification), or make Ammonia from seawater (currently it's made from Natural Gas). Best place for nuclear is round-the-clock industrial applications. 😎
Basically their first application is to make to displace naturally available Fossil Fuels (weather by scarcity or regulation)
Hey it’s me and here’s the thing,
Beme channel gonna die slowly without Lou
I think I could listen to Lou for hours straight...
Has anyone else seen the “clear energy alliance” ad? They’re trying to fight a carbon tax.
Because a carbon tax is bullshit. It's just another scam tax to make politicians and their cronies rich
We need to focus more on solar panels in space. It's a lot more efficient and then we can microwave the energy back down to Earth.
I don’t appreciate the misrepresentation of Christmas being in winter - please share some love to the Southern Hemisphere
What about geothermal or tidal , or how about thermo-electric generators
Thermoelectric generators are quite inefficient. Use a stirling engine instead.
Havent watched the vid yet, but really can't wait, nuclear needs more publicity and people need to stop associating every attempt at nuclear with some catastrophic event, hopefully we can move towards a world of Thorium (before fusion, at least)
In Nuclear We Trust!
Thank you so much for making a rational video about nuclear we need people to understand that solar and wind simply cant hold a candle to this superior technology and i would argue nuclear is far more sustainable than solar when you consider the available fuel cycles such as thorium/u233 in a LFTR...
Anyone notice one of the jellyfish at 2:53 do a backflip? :D
Luckily, there are a few saver designs for nuclear power plants in development & discussion. In my opinion, the one solution called "Transatomic" sounds very promising.
But until the industry and politicians finally find the time, money and motivation to establish better energy-solutions (regardless of what this solution will be), you, as an individual, could stop eating meat and other animal products and save ca. 60% of greenhouse gases with every vegan meal if you want to, since the animal-industry is the leading cause of greenhouse gases :)
I'm curious why Japan would lower their nuclear use. I thought they used nuclear and solar because they didn't have much in terms of other natural resources to begin with.
Fukushima. Which was a relatively small industrial accident compared to some of the other disasters (Bhopal for example, and several hydro dam collapses).
0:06, watch when I get home. Want to learn about how much power nuclear waste has. Why does it ever get buried if it continues to radiate, possibly radiate more than ever.
Nuclear waste is really not waste. Spent fuel is about 95% uranium, 1% transuranics and 4 % fission products. Fission products are either short lived (Less than 800 years of storage needed) or so weakly radioactive that they arent a real problem. Uranium can be reused as fuel.
About nuclear waste, the original nuclear fuels were already buried on the ground to begin with, while they had more power on them. Not saying it's 100% free of difficulties, but they're not that big as they're sometimes made to be.
Great that this channel has a pro-nuclear stance.
Let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good!
you talk fast but clear
There are many kinds of nuclear energy. Thorium fission reactors so far are the best. Fusion still too hard.
Atomic power cars are the future, because I need 10,000 horse power in my 2041 Mustang GT.
But with all seriousness, nuclear is a good idea
Lou, fracking is unprofitable too, and most fracking plants run at a loss.
Nuclear Power Plants take a very long time to build. 10 years is normal, for construction.