Nuclear power is similar to the aircraft industry. The general public fears its most catastrophic failures so much that we forgot both coal and cars have a significantly higher death toll compared to these two.
Of course, Microsoft is using the plant to power their AI where it was originally brining power 800,000 people. Now the surrounding area faces the same risk, but not the reward.
They aren't at all similar. Because at the end of the day all it takes is one major failure at a single nuclear power plants to make vast swaths of the area around it permanently uninhabitable.
Utility engineer here. At 0:24 the units are wrong. The narrator says "90,000 GW an hour" (units GW/h) but probably meant to say "90,000 GW-hours" (units GWh). It's a subtle difference to someone not familiar w the units, but the first makes no sense in this context.
I was arguing with someone who insisted on asking “how many watts per hour”. He couldn’t understand why that made no sense. But he owned a boat. I asked him how fast his boat could go, how many “knots per hour”. He finally got it.
Three Mile Island is like the anti-Chernobyl; At Chernobyl, the poorly made reactor exploded and caused a huge catastrophe, while the government denied the severity of the problem, whereas at Three Mile Island, the incident was relatively minor, the reactor didn’t explode, but everyone around totally freaked out about it.
Military stuff does not have to be economically viable (nuclear is bad at that) Also because they move, spacious limitations are much more relevant (nuclear is good at that)
@@harrie205 That first point, exactly. "We need to get costs down, so that stockholders get a good return for their investment..." is not something that was ever uttered by a nuclear powered aircraft carrier captain.
@@Mike__Bpeople already have and its called micro reactors. They are smaller, safer and basically costs pennies compared to a big one. The problem is just that companies wants to make giant ugly extremely expensive towers
At 0:38 I can't believe you drew boxes around cooling towers, and called them reactors. You got the distance right, but cooling towers aren't reactors. The reactors are actually the buildings in the middle of the two sets of cooling towers, each being identifiable by its dome-shaped roof.
Obviously nobody considering they start out the very first 20 seconds by demonstrating they have no idea what the concept of power or watts mean at all, lol. "Microsoft could need over 90,000 gigawatts an hour to fuel AI" 🤣 brb, I'm gonna go fill up my car with 250 miles per hour of gasoline, lol.
This "Report" lost all credibility within the first 45 seconds of the video. First off, the Three Mile Island incident was not a full nuclear meltdown, but a meltdown of communication and the media (which this video is now an example of) Secondly, it is not the worst nuclear incident in American history BY FAR. No one died, and in fact no one has ever been reported to have had any negative symptoms from the incident. The only fatal nuclear incident in America was in 1961 where 3 men tragically died at a test reactor in Idaho. Lastly, 90,000,000,000 w/hr? That's more than Doc and Marty needed to get back to the year 1985! There's definitely a story here. Hopefully someone with some knowledge of nuclear history picks it up.
Not a meltdown? Wow. Do you call rods melting a not meltdown? That's a serious underestimation to say the least. It made corium there's no debating that. It was one very expensive mistake that was later fixed
Retired Nuclear Plant Engineer here: It was a partial meltdown. There have been a number of other partial meltdowns with test reactors. While we won't know until they get into the reactors at Fukushima; those are also likely partial meltdowns.
Absolutely. Russia is building 6 new plants locally, and they have 10 nuclear power plant projects going on abroad. That technology should come from USA and Europe.
@@jfitz7777 The US never gave u on it. The market did, as nuclear power plants are practically THE MOST EXPENSIVE power source there is. They are just not economically viable with MASSIVE subsidies.
It became so expensive that the companies went bankrupt. South Carolina, we spent billions of dollars and had to cancel the plant after the company went under. The cost just went out of control
What is with the Wall Street Journal and the eerie music, leading to the connotation that nuclear energy is dangerous, which is far from the truth? If you look at the number of people who have died as a result of nuclear energy, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, and then adjust that for the amount of energy generated, nuclear is by far the safest form of energy production, with maybe the exception of solar. I would have expected better from the Wall Street Journal.
@1:14 The towers are not the reactors. The reactor buildings are the smaller cylinder shaped buildings near the rectangular building in the middle. @1:54 Those rods at the top are the control rods - they drop into the reactor to moderate the reaction (or pretty much stop it if all the way in)
Moderation refers to the slowing down of neutrons, not the absorbing of them. Water is the moderator, but the control rods do stop the reaction. I'm guessing you already know that, but I want to clarify for others reading this comment.
They keep saying nuclear isn't economically viable, but does provide a dependable energy source that's isolated from market fluctuations and wars that mess with fuel supplies.
Dude, the US has bought BILLIONS of dollars of nuclear fuel from Russia - $800 million just in 2023. Last time I checked, they were still getting whooped by Ukraine, and we were supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Not entirely true but the concept is correct nuclear would still be impacted by war just not as much as lets say Natural Gas, the U.S at war would switch to what is available and can be managed easily nuclear power plants are large targets they would be targeted first in an attack so whatever is available is what they would use
It isn't viable because regulations make it more expensive than it really is. Like everything else, it has to be produced at scale to be cheaper. We can't just build one or two plants. We have to build 20.
After the Russian full invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The following nations have used or bought nuclear fuel from Russia. Finland, Sweden (defective fuel rods found feb 2022),France, Slovakia, Hungary, USA and more. So where is the independence?
I would probably point to the state of "confusing" energy terms, if I had to guess what was stated was a need for "90,000 giga-watt-hours in 2026" which for a year translates to about 10 GW continuously, however she read "90,000 gigawatts an hour"
I love how the Wall Street Journal tried to make this sound very ominous and scary. Meanwhile, I’m watching this in the chair. Super excited about the future of clean energy.
I’m just interested in if they’ll ever replace the controls and other electronic systems? I don’t know how reliable those are and worry about their failure. However, I would think those are built like tanks?
@@dasbuilder Nuclear engineer here. The controls themselves will be retested, documented, and accepted into the program. The controls and systems themselves are not a safety issue. The reinspections are incredibly thorough and involve external personnel and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure there are no deviations that can introduce issues. Areas that are found to be deficient will be repaired or replaced. A lot of the issues TMI will face will be 'catch up maintenance' from a reduced/retired maintenance plan during non-operation. There's an entire industry of specialized tools to check material fatigue, weld integrity, and more across a nuclear reactor!
The explanation of the accident has multiple inaccuracies starting at about 2:10. consulting with an expert before publishing misinformation would have been nice from WSJ.
First you call Scifi channel then you call wsj then A Watch maker.. Finally get back to the Lab gloweing in radiation to say GID SOLUTION WITH rust and Concreates
They tested the controls but you need to make the reactor critical first in order to test dynamically all the rest: cooling systems,pipes and turbines. You can always scram the reactor (emergency shutdown) on the spot in case things get ugly. Three Miles Island reactor is a better design(PWR) than Chernobyl (RBMK). This doesn't mean that accidents can't happen: TMI 2 had a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 but it was contained and lessons were learned. TMI 1was running until 2019 without problems. TMI 1 will be operational by 2028 (that is connected to the grid) and working for the next 20 years according to Constellation. Other option is to build a new reactor :it will take 7-14 years . 17 years and 13 billions USD according to France EDF,
While this may be the first decommissioned plant to be restarted, the TVA has restarted plants both at Watts Bar and Browns Ferry after declaring them closed. In the case of Watts bar unit 2, construction was stopped in 1985 (60% complete), restarted in 2007, and was completed in 2015.
If nuclear power is going to be turned back on, let it power American homes. Microsoft buying this solely for AI servers is beyond dystopian, pure madness. These tech businessmen have so grossly oversold AI to investors. I give this project 10 years
The best part, if/when MS decides they overestimated AI; it's not owned by MS, one can assume that constellation would offload said power to the grid for general use.
The bigger concerns should be that the entire system design is so outdated it doesnt take into account changes in the geology of the area, the sea level and advances in both reactor design and safety systems. These won't be present when it goes live.
Literally an entire agency called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that dictates the entire process independently. They have their own court system, live monitoring systems, and approval processes.
Because we don't matter. They only bothered with this because Nvidia's top of the line GPU requires as much energy as a hundred average homes per hour. Goes to show who's really represented as far as our elected officials go.
Ai will be a nightmare for humanity. I'm not talking terminator/matrix style, I'm talking reason to get out of bed in the morning style. It will radically destabilize the job market in so many fields & rob people of motivation & ambition to pursue difficult fields of study & art & music...all the while scraping enormous wealth off the top & hoarding it amongst a small handful of people.
@@TheChiefonator The restarting of Three Mile Island will be just for powering Ai. & They are going to be pushing for more nuclear purely to feed Ai as its constant baseload power. (*not to mention humans in the real world will have to deal with the nuclear waste long term)
@@metalboxman99AI stands for All Indians. It's a lot of empty promises and hype to make the line go up. Self driving cars still don't exist despite the feature being promised for close to a decade.
Nearly half a century old and abandoned nuclear control systems and pipework being quickly checked and used. This seems insane. I wouldn’t pull an abandoned 50 year old washing machine out and use it let alone a nuclear reactor.
Retired nuclear plant engineer here. It was only shut down in 2019, and there was a small active staff monitoring the plant and maintaining and operating key safety systems required to cool the water in the Spent fuel pool and radiation safety. All procedures and documents exist due to storage requirements. I'm quite sure that there was no significant degradation of any key components due to the materials and deign of nuclear power plants (virtually all nuclear safety systems are built from SS or more exotic alloys). Main steam piping and turbine casings are very thick even if they are carbon steel. Most of what is likely to have degraded in 5 years is relatively minor to replace or rebuild.
A lot of power requirements for data systems come from the HVAC/server cooling system. Machine Learning is very useful, but it does require a lot of computing power, which requires more computers to do it faster. This generates a ton of heat.
@ Except that is patently not true. Patently means without doubt. Your response is an indoctrinated isolationsists view. The world nuclear association disagrees with you. Russia is the only country with next gen reactors operational. EDF is the company most countries go to when they need facilities built. america is not a leader.
Retro analog tech in the service of a digital tech giant. Cute, but not reassuring, as it indicates budget shortcuts. They could at least invest in a few LED's.
@@viandengalacticspaceyards5135 You'd be amazed how many mission critical systems still rely on COBOL, floppy disks and other obsolete technology. We are talking power grids, banking, nukes...
Not that bad really. Some of what is in that control room is state of the art, even now. Much of the rest is better, because it cannot be hacked. The problem is that the old farts that know how to maintain it are all retired now, like me. But for the right money . . . . 😁
I'm planning to retire at 59 in another country outside the US that is free, safe and very cheap with a high quality of life and good healthcare. I could fully just rely on only my SS if I wanted to when that times arrives but l'll also have at least one pension, a 403 (b) and a very prolific Investment account with my Stephanie Stiefel my FA. Retiring comfortably in the US these days is almost impossible
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I’m planning on moving to Thailand in the next 5 years if trump’s government doesn’t do anything with the high prices of groceries and taxes What about you??
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What cracks me up about all of this is that we are restarting all these nukes for clean energy, but what are we actually using them for? Data centers. People want me to drive a glorified golf cart, but no one blinks an eye at using an ENTIRE nuclear plant to back a data center.
Because a nuclear power plant is *relatively* safer than a coal/natural gas power plant. That, and taking out a large swath of forest land for a wind or solar farm would be prohibitive compared to their appearance of being "green." Until an AI bust, data centers are going to be more prevalent power consumers.
@@TheRealCharlieSuper I think the contention was what value is the AI datacenter providing society vs the sacrifice ttc5000 made driving a golf cart. Restart the nuclear reactors for clean energy, but don't expand the datacenter and you have an actually greener society. If we presuppose the creation of these AI datacenters it removes the point of the personal sacrifice.
As an electrical engineer, I wouldn't trust *ANY* 60 year old electronic equipment. My first inclination would be to replace it all with new stuff, but that would be terribly expensive. I don't plan on letting the circuit breakers in my home go past 50 years, and I don't have any nuclear material here! In product lifetimes there is something called the "bathtub curve" which plots failure rate for a device over time. Early in life, devices have a relatively high failure rate because of improper production, assembly, or installation. Then for a relatively long period of time, the failures occur at a low but steady, flat rate. At the end of life, failures start going up again and gets worse as the device ages. At 60 years, just about any modern device is in or near its end of life. There are certainly a few exceptions, but this application is not something we want to learn lessons the hard way from.
They are replacing backend equipment I had the same concern right now they are running into the issue of what does what. I wish this video provided more info though.
The 3 Mile Island meltdown in 1979 was caused by frozen T&P Valve just like how my last hot water heater exploded. Lucky theirs was stuck in the open position.
Are they going to spend the money to modernize the control systems? Everything looks archaic in that plant. No way it can be easy to repair or replace any systems when they fail (no matter how big or small they are).
Diablo Canyon is saved from shutdown and is still under load. San Onofre is very disassembled, but I think the reactor pressure vessel is still in place.
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Restarting these reactors is simply crazy. New reactor technology that has developed over the last fifty years is way better way to go if you want to go nuclear.
True, but the cost and timeline are the major considerations here. It's like repaving an existing road, you don't have to replace all the infrastructure and it's already in a convenient grid-supported location. Gen 2 reactors are safe and have plenty of features. The most modern reactor in America is still only a single Gen 3 even while we're constructing test bed systems for MSR/SMR approaches. Vogtle took 15 years of overtures to reach operational state. We haven't finished a single Gen 4/4+.
It's totally on vibes, but I don't like this guy from Constellation. He strikes me as exactly the kind of "suit in a hard hat" that touts a watertight plan when I'm sure there's nuance and risk behind the scenes. I want to hear from the scientists and engineers about why we should have confidence, not the executive with money on the line.
@@filipporiva1864 haha thanks for the comment. I more want insights from the people literally working on the TMI reactor - the folks who have poured over the design documentation, assessed the current condition of the hardware, etc. I'm an engineer too and I think we all have seen the difference between what the folks behind the scenes say versus what the executives say.
@@skier222 probably if you search somewhere on the DOE site there are safety assessments of the exact kind you’re searching for. Maybe all the documents are still being produced, but usually there’s a section for this kind of stuff
0:23 "...who could need over 90,000 gigawatts an hour" 🤦🤦🤦 Come on, couldn't you get a least one person to proofread this for accuracy? Literally just running the script through GPT-4o before the narrator read it would have picked up on this.
those fear mongers are just people of low income areas where the plants and their waste will be located, they will suffer effects from living so close to them
Heh, what a nightmare to hope corrosion and wear isn’t a problem on every switch and contact and wiring and sensor… And you have to check all of them. Every inch.
erm......in my opinion this is like fuelling up the Saturn 5 Rocket at the Kennedy Space Centre to fly back to the moon. The Three Mile Island accident was in March 1979......46 years ago....a year after Grease.......Nuclear plants usually decommission at 50 years.
If it has worked for 60 years, it sounds pretty reliable to me. It's the new-fangled stuff that tends to fail more often. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
@@markotrieste Not really. There are elevators that have operated for 100+ years. The older stuff is very robust. It's when we started making everything cheap and electronic that it started to fail. I've operated old controls and I've operated digital controls. I'd trust well-wired analog controls over digital ones any day.
The explanation in the video was extremely condensed because a full technical explanation would lose most people. The issue was far more complex than what they portrayed and not caused by a single pump failure. Multiple errors plus a design flaw all came together to cause this accident. It's honestly one of those "go buy a lottery ticket" situations because so many things just happed to align that it seems implausible. The industry learned a huge amount from this accident. They retrofitted their plants to reduce the risk, and operators are still HEAVILY trained on the lessons learned at TMI-2.
Unit 1 was upgraded from the lessons learned by the unit 2 accident before it restarted in 1985. Unit 1 then operated safely till 2019. It will be upgraded again based on industry experience from 2019 till it come back online.
Retired nuclear plant engineer here. All nuclear power plants in the USA have always been built with redundant pumps. The initial plants had to have 2 100% capable pumps. Later designs have to have 3 100% capable redundant pumps. Also, key is that the pump did not fail. An operator intentionally turned it off because they did not understand the condition of the reactor and other factors (key is that there was now a steam bubble in the reactor which created a water level). Had they left the pump, which had properly auto-started due to the shutdown, there would have been no partial meltdown. There was no instrumentation for water levels in reactors in those days as the reactor is expected to be 100% flooded except during refueling outages. After TMI the US NRC, and most countries in the world, required multiple redundant reactor water level systems be retrofitted on existing power plants, and be designed into all new reactors.
Nuclear energy is not a joke, accidents can hinder large areas uninhabitable for decades. Greedy CEO's who cut corners and outsource every process to save money like Boeing should never be allowed near such types of operations.
You are speaking of a full scale multiple reactor meltdown with the core being exposed this plant had a meltdown and the surrounding vegetation and life is fine I hunt within 20 miles nothing
I don’t understand why they don’t use Hydro. The same question that I ask Canada with all of those Hydro power plants in and around Niagara Falls and yet they don’t do nothing with them, but turned them into a hotels or museums is mind-boggling to me. The one that they turned into a museum now has 11 generators. You probably can change the generators bring them up-to-date and have at least 6 to 7 of them there generating power.
Hydro isn't used more for a very simple reason. Almost all of the usable sites are already taken. Plus, the environmental effects of hydro are enormous. Trying to get a construction permit for a large scale dam/reservoir today is next to impossible.
Im 5 miles/ eye shot 2 large cooling towers from my window from my home and I have to say I do get worried,either case there is a 10 mile exclusion zone IF a accident should arise and that doesn't give me reassurance, last issue was in 66 and it was relatively light,but it can be safe if people are trained correctly.
The US mentality when it comes to managing economic priorities is mind-boggling. - Use nuclear to reduce fosil fuel consumption of households? - No no no! That's too dangerous, creates waste, not as green as solar or wind! - Use nuclear to power data centers of tech moguls - Yeas please! Where do I sign in? 🤦♂
It's just capitalism. Natural gas beat out coal for the past 15 years. Now that Trump wants to export all our gas and drive up gas and electricity prices, nuclear will be the cheapest source of domestic electricity generation. We have no coherent government energy policy except to allow the capital class to strip the country of strategically vital coal, oil, and gas.
Well, there was no new reactor commisioned after 1978 all the way till 2013. And nothing new since then. I find it hard to believe the nuclear energy stopped being rentable in 1978.
Yep, the public will pay. And the public will also be the ones suffering from the waste, since I bet you, it will not be dumped anywhere near any rich or influential person.
@@tarron8785They don't "dump" nuclear waste anywhere. There's no lake where they throw rusty bins into like it's a cartoon. Most of it is kept literally on site under extreme security because the safer storage at Yucca mountain was cancelled.
I'm an engineer who does support the use of nuclear energy *BUT IT HAS TO BE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS.* And for the rest of us (as in everyone on the planet) to pay for these power stations JUST SO BILL GATES and the rest of the AI brigade CAN MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY is NOT the right reason. I'm Australian and we are also having nuclear shoved at us right now and every so often the proponents slip up and in among all the things they claim that will benefit are *"data centres."* This is one of the things that people don't yet realise. Not only do these people need our data (in staggering amounts) to make the AIs work *BUT THEY WANT US TO PAY THEM TO POWER IT.* We are being sold one of the biggest lies in human history.
@@louf7178 YEP - Billy Gates and his AI brigade think that their spending a few billion on data centres means the rest of humanity needs to spend a few HUNDRED BILLION to power them and that we *ARE GETTING A GOOD DEAL.*
Three Miles Island was shut down due to commercial reasons. Translation: nuclear energy is to expensive. Now demand has spiked due to the AI boom and Microsoft needs a "fast" solution. It seems to be relative cheap to get the old reactor back, but building a new reactor is a nightmare that the US gave up on a long time ago.
Nuclear Energy isn't expensive, but the main problem is that it produces too much power overnight. Most places just don't need that much power overnight. However, AI datacenters do, making nuclear energy a good solution to power them.
Yep, we tried to build a new nuclear player plant in South Carolina and had to stop halfway through. Georgia built the same plant and it costs 10x the starting cost.
As the old saying goes, "demand creates supply." Move the demand curve and the supply curve suddenly finds itself aligned with things that weren't previously viable.
Constellation is selling to energy to Microsoft at 13 cents a kWh. It’s not that nuclear is all that expensive - it’s that natural gas out of the Marcellus is cheap. Couple that with the deregulated market where they sell - PJM, and yeah, it was got difficult to justify keeping online. Believe it or not 25 years ago when all this deregulated in power markets happened nuclear power plant operators were chief proponents of that - they thought they’re cheap nuclear power would whip the floor at the auctions -annnnd then the shale revolution happened. And suddenly you at natural gas bidding at cents a kWh.
@@tarron8785Wrong. High-level nuclear waste is usually stored onsite or sent to underground repositories in the US. There really isn’t much of it as well.
It sits onsite in casks until we can get politicians that have enough leadership to come up with a more permanent solution. Also, fun fact, all nuclear fuel in the US is government owned.
Nowhere to be found because good luck building new reactor. It’s a lot easier to convince the AEC that recommissioning an old reactor is safer than trying something new. It’s a Catch-22 they want proof that the new reactor design is safer with actual operation, but they won’t issue a license for any of the new reactors to actually operate so you can’t gather the data needed to meet the licensing expectation.
It never melted down in the first place… it was a controlled shutdown and there have been no known health effects. The issue is they didn’t manage public communication well and people went off and wildly speculated. I would recommend watching the video by Kyle Hill on the subject (I would link it but I’ve noticed comments with links disappear)
I get that it sounds scary, but Three Mile Island didn't cause any deaths. Chernobyl was bad, but that's the only really seriously bad nuclear power plant accident. Even Fukushima there was 1 possibly linked death. Just don't build a power plant in a densely populated area where it would require massive evacuations.
@@David-k3r3x not especially, but it's also over 10 miles away from Harrisburg. I wouldn't think you'd have to evacuate all of Harrisburg if there was a catastrophe of some kind like Fukushima
From Japan here. People are dying from radiation caused illnesses in Fukushima but hidden from the mainstream media. Out of 160,000 residents who had to evacuate immediately and couldn’t get back for years, 26,000 are still displaced. That’s just from one meltdown 14 years ago. They cannot even touch (or see! as even cameras don’t survive the radiation level) the 880 tonnes of radioactive debris there, which is contaminating the ground and the Pacific Ocean as we speak.
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I wish there was a way to modernize the power plant. I get that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Human error caused problems as 3 mile island, and making the interfaces more may help to manage it.
Ai uses too much energy to begin with and we can live with out it. All for using nuclear energy but there are much better places we could put that electricity like for replacing currently in use fossil fuel plants
Activists: "We need carbon-free energy sources to save the climate!" Also activists: "NO NUKES!" I don't think activists actually care about the climate. They care about drawing attention to themselves so they don't have to get a real job.
The U.S finally is starting to look and research into then a bill passed that would allow for spending on thorium reactors and other projects for sustainable energy
Why? It's way more expensive than clean energy and makes you dependent on other countries since Uran is not located everywhere. Look at Germany, they dumped Nuclear Energy and nothing happened, the clean energy compensated it since its cheaper and gives people in houses the freedom to produce their own energy so they are even independent from energy companies
In Europe, industries have promoted wind and solar as a green alternative. So many asked what the will power their factory with if it's dark, cold and no wind. They say there's water as a spare. The thing is, we who like base power and not random-power, we booked that output already. That's for us, not for the solar-wind lovers. Microsoft can do whatever they like but they better get some really big diesel generators if their reactor needs service and refuelling. Still so much better than if they said wind and solar is what they want.
I don't see it happening without much more significant plant rebuilds than what they are talking about. Old nucreal plants are barely feasable to run as is. There are reasons we're shutting them down in this country. At a certain age, they just cost too much to maintain.
Anybody getting weird OceanGate submersible implosion like vibes from this? That engineer using black electrical tape to remember which controls he did or didnt test and running around with a binder which looks like it has instructions from 1979 in it? Also the other guy checking for cracks using a flashlight lol
The things that techs do to keep our grid running would make your skin crawl then this is an effective way to know what works and what doesn't and to check for large cracks yes you would use a flashlight but he could have been inspecting something unrelated to cracks and that's just what the voice over said
Ya I would agree that seems like a pretty odd way to verify operational conditions at a nuclear power plant. Seems more like part of a future documentary about failure and what went wrong.
They cannot bring back all the shutdown plants. Shutdown plants have been used as a source of parts and components that are no longer manufactured to keep operating plants running. In many cases it would be extremely expensive to design and certify newly manufactured parts.
Wait till you learn that Chernobyl was still operating till the 2000s and they are still staffing the plant with workers in hopes rebuild the plant to generate power once more after the war is over
Greed? lol how much money do you think there is in this industry? There's a reason the fossil-fuel industry has lobbied against this high-output clean energy producer. It's a sensible investment but it's not exactly lucrative.
@ If you have time look into the lobbying that the Coal industry has done in the U.S government coal kills more than nuclear each year than nuclear has in it's entire existence not to mention killing the planet
Yucca Mountain is the most studied and well understood geological formation in the World. Currently, spent fuel is safely stored on site. It’s a political problem - not a scientific problem. Again, look at France.
Nuclear power is similar to the aircraft industry. The general public fears its most catastrophic failures so much that we forgot both coal and cars have a significantly higher death toll compared to these two.
Very good comparison
Yep. Coal has a significantly higher death toll, even when it's functioning as intended.
Of course, Microsoft is using the plant to power their AI where it was originally brining power 800,000 people. Now the surrounding area faces the same risk, but not the reward.
They aren't at all similar. Because at the end of the day all it takes is one major failure at a single nuclear power plants to make vast swaths of the area around it permanently uninhabitable.
@setharp except that happens from the normal operation of coal power plants.
Utility engineer here. At 0:24 the units are wrong. The narrator says "90,000 GW an hour" (units GW/h) but probably meant to say "90,000 GW-hours" (units GWh). It's a subtle difference to someone not familiar w the units, but the first makes no sense in this context.
That's approx 10,000MW. Basically 5,000MW each year
As a random consumer, I saw 90 Giga-somethings. Sounds like a lot; all I needed to know.
i just wanted to write this
Yeah, 90 000 GWh, or 90 TWh. That's quite a lot if it's for AI alone. That's 10 GW continuous power, or about 12 Three Mile Island reactors worth.
I was arguing with someone who insisted on asking “how many watts per hour”. He couldn’t understand why that made no sense. But he owned a boat. I asked him how fast his boat could go, how many “knots per hour”. He finally got it.
Three Mile Island is like the anti-Chernobyl; At Chernobyl, the poorly made reactor exploded and caused a huge catastrophe, while the government denied the severity of the problem, whereas at Three Mile Island, the incident was relatively minor, the reactor didn’t explode, but everyone around totally freaked out about it.
Calling a reactor meltdown „relatively minor“ is something. 😂
That’s literally the worst case scenario, even though it could be contained.
There is no such thing as a "minor" Nuclear accident. While Nuclear energy has great potential you need the smartest people around. Not DEI hires.
A meltdown is a meltdown
@@schalitz1 what on earth does DEI - which has nothing to do with hiring practices btw, it's a corporate training word - have to do with 3MI?
The heat couldn’t be transported away from the reactor. Thats extremely bad.
90,000 GW per hour? Please for the love of god, you're a major news company, please talk to an engineer before publishing things.
They probably ran it through AI and decided it's a good enough substitute.
We on WALL STREET we know
this power plant was able to power the eastern half of the United States. lolz
Typical AI slop, how embarrassing.
You just rewrote the other comment as an inslut.
We have nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines and we can’t handle power plants that are stationary ????
We can but they're just too expensive.
Military stuff does not have to be economically viable (nuclear is bad at that)
Also because they move, spacious limitations are much more relevant (nuclear is good at that)
@@harrie205 That first point, exactly. "We need to get costs down, so that stockholders get a good return for their investment..." is not something that was ever uttered by a nuclear powered aircraft carrier captain.
TMI-1 produces 15x more power than an Ohio-class submarine. And TMI-1 is near my house.... submarines aren't.
@@Mike__Bpeople already have and its called micro reactors. They are smaller, safer and basically costs pennies compared to a big one. The problem is just that companies wants to make giant ugly extremely expensive towers
At 0:38 I can't believe you drew boxes around cooling towers, and called them reactors. You got the distance right, but cooling towers aren't reactors. The reactors are actually the buildings in the middle of the two sets of cooling towers, each being identifiable by its dome-shaped roof.
For whatever reason, many people see the cooling towers as the 'big bad' reactor...
Misinformation from the Wall Street Journall
1:51 I'm pretty sure what you're showing is a control rod and not a fuel rod, who did you consult for the animation?
That's ai slop
It's a Rod 4 Sure!
Correct.
Obviously nobody considering they start out the very first 20 seconds by demonstrating they have no idea what the concept of power or watts mean at all, lol.
"Microsoft could need over 90,000 gigawatts an hour to fuel AI"
🤣
brb, I'm gonna go fill up my car with 250 miles per hour of gasoline, lol.
This "Report" lost all credibility within the first 45 seconds of the video. First off, the Three Mile Island incident was not a full nuclear meltdown, but a meltdown of communication and the media (which this video is now an example of) Secondly, it is not the worst nuclear incident in American history BY FAR. No one died, and in fact no one has ever been reported to have had any negative symptoms from the incident. The only fatal nuclear incident in America was in 1961 where 3 men tragically died at a test reactor in Idaho. Lastly, 90,000,000,000 w/hr? That's more than Doc and Marty needed to get back to the year 1985! There's definitely a story here. Hopefully someone with some knowledge of nuclear history picks it up.
The rods melted nevertheless...
Block 2 will never work again.
Not a meltdown? Wow. Do you call rods melting a not meltdown? That's a serious underestimation to say the least. It made corium there's no debating that. It was one very expensive mistake that was later fixed
Retired Nuclear Plant Engineer here: It was a partial meltdown. There have been a number of other partial meltdowns with test reactors. While we won't know until they get into the reactors at Fukushima; those are also likely partial meltdowns.
That is not the only fatal nuclear accident in the U.S. lol so how are you credible either?
What do you/they mean by W/hr anyway?
The US should never have gave up on Nuclear !
Absolutely. Russia is building 6 new plants locally, and they have 10 nuclear power plant projects going on abroad. That technology should come from USA and Europe.
The US haven’t given up on Nuclear Weapons?
@@dennisallen8333 Weapons =/= power
@@jfitz7777 The US never gave u on it. The market did, as nuclear power plants are practically THE MOST EXPENSIVE power source there is. They are just not economically viable with MASSIVE subsidies.
It became so expensive that the companies went bankrupt. South Carolina, we spent billions of dollars and had to cancel the plant after the company went under. The cost just went out of control
Imagine if cavemen stopped using fire the first time a village burned.
you probably think that's a clever analogy. LOL
What is with the Wall Street Journal and the eerie music, leading to the connotation that nuclear energy is dangerous, which is far from the truth? If you look at the number of people who have died as a result of nuclear energy, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, and then adjust that for the amount of energy generated, nuclear is by far the safest form of energy production, with maybe the exception of solar. I would have expected better from the Wall Street Journal.
WSJ just had a video called "How to Buy Greenland" so I don't know where your trust comes from
Deaths/Energy does not seem like a SI unit to me
Further reading ua-cam.com/video/Jzfpyo-q-RM/v-deo.htmlsi=R9nlWnca5u0bTo-e
There's an error at 1:50 in the reactor diagram. The highlighted part is a control rod not a fuel rod. The core with the fuel is below
@1:14 The towers are not the reactors. The reactor buildings are the smaller cylinder shaped buildings near the rectangular building in the middle.
@1:54 Those rods at the top are the control rods - they drop into the reactor to moderate the reaction (or pretty much stop it if all the way in)
Moderation refers to the slowing down of neutrons, not the absorbing of them. Water is the moderator, but the control rods do stop the reaction. I'm guessing you already know that, but I want to clarify for others reading this comment.
Omg the video has tons of ai slop
They keep saying nuclear isn't economically viable, but does provide a dependable energy source that's isolated from market fluctuations and wars that mess with fuel supplies.
Dude, the US has bought BILLIONS of dollars of nuclear fuel from Russia - $800 million just in 2023. Last time I checked, they were still getting whooped by Ukraine, and we were supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Not entirely true but the concept is correct nuclear would still be impacted by war just not as much as lets say Natural Gas, the U.S at war would switch to what is available and can be managed easily nuclear power plants are large targets they would be targeted first in an attack so whatever is available is what they would use
It isn't viable because regulations make it more expensive than it really is. Like everything else, it has to be produced at scale to be cheaper. We can't just build one or two plants. We have to build 20.
Sooo one corporation to rule them all
After the Russian full invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The following nations have used or bought nuclear fuel from Russia.
Finland, Sweden (defective fuel rods found feb 2022),France, Slovakia, Hungary, USA and more. So where is the independence?
@0:27 90,000 GW (90 terawatts) is about 75 times the U.S.'s current hourly power usage. The state of education in the U.S. is depressing.
I would probably point to the state of "confusing" energy terms, if I had to guess what was stated was a need for "90,000 giga-watt-hours in 2026" which for a year translates to about 10 GW continuously, however she read "90,000 gigawatts an hour"
Those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump those numbers up.
90 TW is accurate. AI GPUs and POW currencies need energy. Kardashev t1 here we come.
What do you expect from a journalist who probably has a degree in social "science"...
@@Mike__B Energy terms are only confusing if you failed grade 10 physics.
I love how the Wall Street Journal tried to make this sound very ominous and scary. Meanwhile, I’m watching this in the chair. Super excited about the future of clean energy.
its because they're pushing the democratic party's agenda. Literally no one died or even got injured in the three mile island incident
Same here
I’m just interested in if they’ll ever replace the controls and other electronic systems? I don’t know how reliable those are and worry about their failure. However, I would think those are built like tanks?
@@dasbuilder Nuclear engineer here. The controls themselves will be retested, documented, and accepted into the program. The controls and systems themselves are not a safety issue. The reinspections are incredibly thorough and involve external personnel and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure there are no deviations that can introduce issues. Areas that are found to be deficient will be repaired or replaced. A lot of the issues TMI will face will be 'catch up maintenance' from a reduced/retired maintenance plan during non-operation. There's an entire industry of specialized tools to check material fatigue, weld integrity, and more across a nuclear reactor!
The explanation of the accident has multiple inaccuracies starting at about 2:10. consulting with an expert before publishing misinformation would have been nice from WSJ.
Why is step 1 putting uranium into the reactor? Wouldn’t you want to first make sure the controls work?
Literally should be the last😂
First you call Scifi channel then you call wsj then A Watch maker.. Finally get back to the Lab gloweing in radiation to say GID SOLUTION WITH rust and Concreates
They tested the controls but you need to make the reactor critical first in order to test dynamically all the rest: cooling systems,pipes and turbines.
You can always scram the reactor (emergency shutdown) on the spot in case things get ugly.
Three Miles Island reactor is a better design(PWR) than Chernobyl (RBMK).
This doesn't mean that accidents can't happen: TMI 2 had a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 but it was contained and lessons were learned.
TMI 1was running until 2019 without problems.
TMI 1 will be operational by 2028 (that is connected to the grid) and working for the next 20 years according to Constellation.
Other option is to build a new reactor :it will take 7-14 years .
17 years and 13 billions USD according to France EDF,
Step one might better be replacing the control lamp bulbs with LED's.
Controls look like an early 70's sci-fi series.
Ya no technical knowledge in this video
While this may be the first decommissioned plant to be restarted, the TVA has restarted plants both at Watts Bar and Browns Ferry after declaring them closed. In the case of Watts bar unit 2, construction was stopped in 1985 (60% complete), restarted in 2007, and was completed in 2015.
Remember folks, nothing is too expensive, it just may not be profitable enough to invest in.
That almost makes sense.
If nuclear power is going to be turned back on, let it power American homes. Microsoft buying this solely for AI servers is beyond dystopian, pure madness. These tech businessmen have so grossly oversold AI to investors. I give this project 10 years
The best part, if/when MS decides they overestimated AI; it's not owned by MS, one can assume that constellation would offload said power to the grid for general use.
The bigger concerns should be that the entire system design is so outdated it doesnt take into account changes in the geology of the area, the sea level and advances in both reactor design and safety systems. These won't be present when it goes live.
90,000GW/h?! That unit makes no sense unless you're talking about the rate of change of power demand
Yes. And, no, they weren't.
No government regulation, just profit motive ? What could possibly go wrong.
Literally an entire agency called the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that dictates the entire process independently. They have their own court system, live monitoring systems, and approval processes.
That control room looks like something from my youth, without screens or even LED's.
I'm 64.
Why are they reopening these power plants for mega corporations and AI, instead of to strengthen our energy grid and lower energy costs for Americans.
Because we don't matter. They only bothered with this because Nvidia's top of the line GPU requires as much energy as a hundred average homes per hour.
Goes to show who's really represented as far as our elected officials go.
Ai will be a nightmare for humanity. I'm not talking terminator/matrix style, I'm talking reason to get out of bed in the morning style. It will radically destabilize the job market in so many fields & rob people of motivation & ambition to pursue difficult fields of study & art & music...all the while scraping enormous wealth off the top & hoarding it amongst a small handful of people.
How is that different from what politicians do anyways?
@TheChiefonator politicians are temporary, Ai wont be
@@metalboxman99 What if it's just a Chinese room and isn't actually sentient? Also what does this have to do with nuclear energy?
@@TheChiefonator The restarting of Three Mile Island will be just for powering Ai. & They are going to be pushing for more nuclear purely to feed Ai as its constant baseload power. (*not to mention humans in the real world will have to deal with the nuclear waste long term)
@@metalboxman99AI stands for All Indians.
It's a lot of empty promises and hype to make the line go up. Self driving cars still don't exist despite the feature being promised for close to a decade.
Nearly half a century old and abandoned nuclear control systems and pipework being quickly checked and used. This seems insane. I wouldn’t pull an abandoned 50 year old washing machine out and use it let alone a nuclear reactor.
Retired nuclear plant engineer here. It was only shut down in 2019, and there was a small active staff monitoring the plant and maintaining and operating key safety systems required to cool the water in the Spent fuel pool and radiation safety.
All procedures and documents exist due to storage requirements.
I'm quite sure that there was no significant degradation of any key components due to the materials and deign of nuclear power plants (virtually all nuclear safety systems are built from SS or more exotic alloys). Main steam piping and turbine casings are very thick even if they are carbon steel.
Most of what is likely to have degraded in 5 years is relatively minor to replace or rebuild.
@ this video was so badly put together it appeared it was a derelict site that was mothballed! 🙈
The idea that an entire nuclear reactor’s power is going towards a single company’s servers seems, wild.. How inefficient are these AIs?
Extremely inefficient
Oh Summer child.... Its not only for A.I., its Datacenters in general... Think CBDC, Crptos, and other defense contractor uses.
A lot of power requirements for data systems come from the HVAC/server cooling system. Machine Learning is very useful, but it does require a lot of computing power, which requires more computers to do it faster. This generates a ton of heat.
Dude what? AI power consumption is extremely efficient. You just need lots and lots of data.
america is a leader on nuclear safety in america, not the world. I understand that is hard for americans to grasp.
Americans have the best technology relating anything Nuclear in the world.
America is also the best country in the world. Cry about it.
@ Except that is patently not true. Patently means without doubt. Your response is an indoctrinated isolationsists view. The world nuclear association disagrees with you. Russia is the only country with next gen reactors operational. EDF is the company most countries go to when they need facilities built. america is not a leader.
@ Oh lord, you've been indoctrinated as well.
@@TheTacoKing13 If by 'world' you mean America, then yes. You are the best country in the USA.
"ninety thousand gigawatts per hour"
... what? ... uhhhm... are you sure about that one? are you sure that's a real unit of measurement?
If we fixed things that needed to be fixed in America, things would be a lot better
That control center is not leading the world lol
EASY FIX Raspberry pi controller
Retro analog tech in the service of a digital tech giant.
Cute, but not reassuring, as it indicates budget shortcuts.
They could at least invest in a few LED's.
@@viandengalacticspaceyards5135 You'd be amazed how many mission critical systems still rely on COBOL, floppy disks and other obsolete technology. We are talking power grids, banking, nukes...
Replace the control room with a logitech hand controller, apparently they found one near the Titanic wreck.
Not that bad really. Some of what is in that control room is state of the art, even now. Much of the rest is better, because it cannot be hacked. The problem is that the old farts that know how to maintain it are all retired now, like me. But for the right money . . . . 😁
I'm planning to retire at 59 in another country outside the US that is free, safe and very cheap with a high quality of life and good healthcare. I could fully just rely on only my SS if I wanted to when that times arrives but l'll also have at least one pension, a 403 (b) and a very prolific Investment account with my Stephanie Stiefel my FA. Retiring comfortably in the US these days is almost impossible
I know this lady you just mentioned. Stephanie Janis Stiefel is a portfolio manager and investment advisor. She gained recognition as an employee of neuberger berman; a renowned investor she is. Stephanie Janis Stiefel has demonstrated expertise in investment strategies and has been involved in managing portfolios and providing guidance to clients.
I’m planning on moving to Thailand in the next 5 years if trump’s government doesn’t do anything with the high prices of groceries and taxes
What about you??
I went from no money to Invest with to busting my A** off on Uber eats for four months to raise about $20k to start trading with Stephanie Janis Stiefel. I am at $128k right now and LOVING that you have to bring this up here
My sister lives in Aussie. They have good healthcare better than America. I am also moving there after I retire.
Please let’s stop gentrifying countries
What cracks me up about all of this is that we are restarting all these nukes for clean energy, but what are we actually using them for? Data centers. People want me to drive a glorified golf cart, but no one blinks an eye at using an ENTIRE nuclear plant to back a data center.
Because a nuclear power plant is *relatively* safer than a coal/natural gas power plant. That, and taking out a large swath of forest land for a wind or solar farm would be prohibitive compared to their appearance of being "green." Until an AI bust, data centers are going to be more prevalent power consumers.
@@TheRealCharlieSuper I think the contention was what value is the AI datacenter providing society vs the sacrifice ttc5000 made driving a golf cart. Restart the nuclear reactors for clean energy, but don't expand the datacenter and you have an actually greener society. If we presuppose the creation of these AI datacenters it removes the point of the personal sacrifice.
As an electrical engineer, I wouldn't trust *ANY* 60 year old electronic equipment. My first inclination would be to replace it all with new stuff, but that would be terribly expensive.
I don't plan on letting the circuit breakers in my home go past 50 years, and I don't have any nuclear material here!
In product lifetimes there is something called the "bathtub curve" which plots failure rate for a device over time. Early in life, devices have a relatively high failure rate because of improper production, assembly, or installation. Then for a relatively long period of time, the failures occur at a low but steady, flat rate. At the end of life, failures start going up again and gets worse as the device ages.
At 60 years, just about any modern device is in or near its end of life. There are certainly a few exceptions, but this application is not something we want to learn lessons the hard way from.
They are replacing backend equipment I had the same concern right now they are running into the issue of what does what. I wish this video provided more info though.
I'm pretty sure they will at least test all the vacuum tubes. 😂
As a brain scientist, this has to be the most smooth-brained comment I've ever read. Congratulations 🎉
@hectorbermudez8785 he gots a bad case of the lissencephaly!!
@@intheshell35ify The dunning-kruger is strong with this one isn't it?
You do not use "gigawatts an hour". You use gigawatts or gigawatt-hours every hour. GW/hr is a rate of accelerating power use
The 3 Mile Island meltdown in 1979 was caused by frozen T&P Valve just like how my last hot water heater exploded. Lucky theirs was stuck in the open position.
Are they going to spend the money to modernize the control systems? Everything looks archaic in that plant. No way it can be easy to repair or replace any systems when they fail (no matter how big or small they are).
Yes, I agree. Working with an old abandoned system is a nightmare. They should bring down the plant and build it from scratch.
San Onofre next. And extend Diablo Canyon even further than 2030.
They put radio in my electricity and that sounds right right
Diablo Canyon is saved from shutdown and is still under load. San Onofre is very disassembled, but I think the reactor pressure vessel is still in place.
Thank you for recommending Sarah Jennine Davis on one of your videos. I reached out to her and :nvesting with her has been amazing.
Wow, congratulations on your impressive investment success! Your discipline and focus on delayed gratification is truly inspiring. I'm curious, what are some of the key factors that you consider when making investment decisions? Do you have any tips for those of us who are just starting to dip our toes into the world of investing? Thanks for sharing your story!
Do you mind sharing info on the adviser who
assisted you? I'm 39 now and would love to
grow my portfolio and plan my retirement
Restarting these reactors is simply crazy.
New reactor technology that has developed over the last fifty years is way better way to go if you want to go nuclear.
True, but the cost and timeline are the major considerations here. It's like repaving an existing road, you don't have to replace all the infrastructure and it's already in a convenient grid-supported location. Gen 2 reactors are safe and have plenty of features. The most modern reactor in America is still only a single Gen 3 even while we're constructing test bed systems for MSR/SMR approaches. Vogtle took 15 years of overtures to reach operational state. We haven't finished a single Gen 4/4+.
It's totally on vibes, but I don't like this guy from Constellation. He strikes me as exactly the kind of "suit in a hard hat" that touts a watertight plan when I'm sure there's nuance and risk behind the scenes. I want to hear from the scientists and engineers about why we should have confidence, not the executive with money on the line.
nuclear engineering student here, what do you want to know?
@@filipporiva1864 haha thanks for the comment. I more want insights from the people literally working on the TMI reactor - the folks who have poured over the design documentation, assessed the current condition of the hardware, etc.
I'm an engineer too and I think we all have seen the difference between what the folks behind the scenes say versus what the executives say.
@@skier222 probably if you search somewhere on the DOE site there are safety assessments of the exact kind you’re searching for. Maybe all the documents are still being produced, but usually there’s a section for this kind of stuff
You must know that that role isn't the same as EE, structural engineer, nuclear engineer. High levels "should" be fielding general direction aspects.
0:23 "...who could need over 90,000 gigawatts an hour" 🤦🤦🤦
Come on, couldn't you get a least one person to proofread this for accuracy? Literally just running the script through GPT-4o before the narrator read it would have picked up on this.
0:29 Gigawatts per hour isn't an actual unit of measurement. It's either just Gigawatts or Gigawatt-hours per hour (both are equal)
Sounds like ai slop
They didn't even meant power, but rather energy (GWh)
Now that Silicon Valley wants nuclear, it’s ok.
Wait are they not updating the systems??
Defeats the plan of using used equipment.
Ah yes, let's use the system that has been abandoned for years and that nobody truly understands anymore.
I love old fear mongers saying its never be done cant be done.
those fear mongers are just people of low income areas where the plants and their waste will be located, they will suffer effects from living so close to them
And the driving force of how much safety? Same as always. Profits.
Free health care too expensive
Heh, what a nightmare to hope corrosion and wear isn’t a problem on every switch and contact and wiring and sensor…
And you have to check all of them. Every inch.
Removing the black tape fixes all of that.
@@majcrash haha
Just jiggle it.
Great idea for this video, very timely and relevant. And fantastic touch work getting in touch with Victor.
erm......in my opinion this is like fuelling up the Saturn 5 Rocket at the Kennedy Space Centre to fly back to the moon. The Three Mile Island accident was in March 1979......46 years ago....a year after Grease.......Nuclear plants usually decommission at 50 years.
Wait, do they plan to keep the same 60 y.o. automation in place? Are you nuts?
If it has worked for 60 years, it sounds pretty reliable to me. It's the new-fangled stuff that tends to fail more often. If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
@jerm8146 electromechanical stuff is extremely sensitive to wear and aging.
@@markotrieste Not really. There are elevators that have operated for 100+ years. The older stuff is very robust. It's when we started making everything cheap and electronic that it started to fail. I've operated old controls and I've operated digital controls. I'd trust well-wired analog controls over digital ones any day.
It was operating safely in 2019. It has been updated over the past 60 years with experience from all the other nuclear plants.
I presume that they will add redundant cooling systems so that the breakdown of one pump won't result in another overheating incident.
The explanation in the video was extremely condensed because a full technical explanation would lose most people. The issue was far more complex than what they portrayed and not caused by a single pump failure. Multiple errors plus a design flaw all came together to cause this accident. It's honestly one of those "go buy a lottery ticket" situations because so many things just happed to align that it seems implausible. The industry learned a huge amount from this accident. They retrofitted their plants to reduce the risk, and operators are still HEAVILY trained on the lessons learned at TMI-2.
Naaaah, what's the chances it happens TWICE?
Unit 1 was upgraded from the lessons learned by the unit 2 accident before it restarted in 1985. Unit 1 then operated safely till 2019. It will be upgraded again based on industry experience from 2019 till it come back online.
Value engineered that out.
Retired nuclear plant engineer here. All nuclear power plants in the USA have always been built with redundant pumps. The initial plants had to have 2 100% capable pumps. Later designs have to have 3 100% capable redundant pumps.
Also, key is that the pump did not fail. An operator intentionally turned it off because they did not understand the condition of the reactor and other factors (key is that there was now a steam bubble in the reactor which created a water level). Had they left the pump, which had properly auto-started due to the shutdown, there would have been no partial meltdown. There was no instrumentation for water levels in reactors in those days as the reactor is expected to be 100% flooded except during refueling outages.
After TMI the US NRC, and most countries in the world, required multiple redundant reactor water level systems be retrofitted on existing power plants, and be designed into all new reactors.
Whoever had this idea at Microsoft is a genius.
You sir are so old
Pretty simple: We need power, lots of it -> Power plant -> Get a nuclear plant -> How about getting a used one?
Nuclear energy is not a joke, accidents can hinder large areas uninhabitable for decades. Greedy CEO's who cut corners and outsource every process to save money like Boeing should never be allowed near such types of operations.
You are speaking of a full scale multiple reactor meltdown with the core being exposed this plant had a meltdown and the surrounding vegetation and life is fine I hunt within 20 miles nothing
These are going to be the reliable electricity generators.
I don’t understand why they don’t use Hydro. The same question that I ask Canada with all of those Hydro power plants in and around Niagara Falls and yet they don’t do nothing with them, but turned them into a hotels or museums is mind-boggling to me. The one that they turned into a museum now has 11 generators. You probably can change the generators bring them up-to-date and have at least 6 to 7 of them there generating power.
Hydro isn't used more for a very simple reason. Almost all of the usable sites are already taken. Plus, the environmental effects of hydro are enormous. Trying to get a construction permit for a large scale dam/reservoir today is next to impossible.
Lots of Not in my backyard going on from the keyboard warriors here.
From people who probably don't even live within 5 hours of this plant let alone on this side of the globe.
This is officially 15mins from my house .. should never of been shut down. Speed it up let’s gooo.
Im 5 miles/ eye shot 2 large cooling towers from my window from my home and I have to say I do get worried,either case there is a 10 mile exclusion zone IF a accident should arise and that doesn't give me reassurance, last issue was in 66 and it was relatively light,but it can be safe if people are trained correctly.
Cool, Keep them running.
The US mentality when it comes to managing economic priorities is mind-boggling.
- Use nuclear to reduce fosil fuel consumption of households? - No no no! That's too dangerous, creates waste, not as green as solar or wind!
- Use nuclear to power data centers of tech moguls - Yeas please! Where do I sign in?
🤦♂
It's just capitalism. Natural gas beat out coal for the past 15 years. Now that Trump wants to export all our gas and drive up gas and electricity prices, nuclear will be the cheapest source of domestic electricity generation. We have no coherent government energy policy except to allow the capital class to strip the country of strategically vital coal, oil, and gas.
Well, there was no new reactor commisioned after 1978 all the way till 2013. And nothing new since then. I find it hard to believe the nuclear energy stopped being rentable in 1978.
Solid video , quite informative Thank you
Energy exclusive to a corporation. No doubt at a cheap rate the public will be screwed into paying for.
Lol, it makes no sense 😂, no energy is being drained from the powergrid, the energy cost to consumers will keep the same
Yep, the public will pay. And the public will also be the ones suffering from the waste, since I bet you, it will not be dumped anywhere near any rich or influential person.
@@tarron8785They don't "dump" nuclear waste anywhere. There's no lake where they throw rusty bins into like it's a cartoon. Most of it is kept literally on site under extreme security because the safer storage at Yucca mountain was cancelled.
Fantastic news! Bring them all on!
Go hire hommer j simpsson 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I see they have the internet on computers, now.
@3:33 Did this lady really say they invented the system of putting black tape over levers that don’t work and removing the tape when fixed?
Just for yall's info this power plant is being opened to power AI only. No communities, no cities, just AI.
I'm an engineer who does support the use of nuclear energy *BUT IT HAS TO BE FOR THE RIGHT REASONS.*
And for the rest of us (as in everyone on the planet) to pay for these power stations JUST SO BILL GATES and the rest of the AI brigade CAN MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY is NOT the right reason.
I'm Australian and we are also having nuclear shoved at us right now and every so often the proponents slip up and in among all the things they claim that will benefit are *"data centres."* This is one of the things that people don't yet realise. Not only do these people need our data (in staggering amounts) to make the AIs work *BUT THEY WANT US TO PAY THEM TO POWER IT.*
We are being sold one of the biggest lies in human history.
The data centres will have power whether you like it or not, all this changes is the price.
@@pliat That's sadly true.
So AI can answer all the dumb questions over and over.
@@louf7178 YEP - Billy Gates and his AI brigade think that their spending a few billion on data centres means the rest of humanity needs to spend a few HUNDRED BILLION to power them and that we *ARE GETTING A GOOD DEAL.*
Adaxum’s focus on real utility is impressive.
Three Miles Island was shut down due to commercial reasons. Translation: nuclear energy is to expensive.
Now demand has spiked due to the AI boom and Microsoft needs a "fast" solution. It seems to be relative cheap to get the old reactor back, but building a new reactor is a nightmare that the US gave up on a long time ago.
Nuclear Energy isn't expensive, but the main problem is that it produces too much power overnight. Most places just don't need that much power overnight. However, AI datacenters do, making nuclear energy a good solution to power them.
Yep, we tried to build a new nuclear player plant in South Carolina and had to stop halfway through. Georgia built the same plant and it costs 10x the starting cost.
As the old saying goes, "demand creates supply." Move the demand curve and the supply curve suddenly finds itself aligned with things that weren't previously viable.
They need power AND they probably get carbon credits from it too.
Constellation is selling to energy to Microsoft at 13 cents a kWh. It’s not that nuclear is all that expensive - it’s that natural gas out of the Marcellus is cheap. Couple that with the deregulated market where they sell - PJM, and yeah, it was got difficult to justify keeping online.
Believe it or not 25 years ago when all this deregulated in power markets happened nuclear power plant operators were chief proponents of that - they thought they’re cheap nuclear power would whip the floor at the auctions -annnnd then the shale revolution happened. And suddenly you at natural gas bidding at cents a kWh.
And where does all the waste go?
Magic!!!
🥸
Nah, more seriously, probably some third world country that gets bribed into taking it. Very fair. Very ethical.
@@tarron8785Wrong. High-level nuclear waste is usually stored onsite or sent to underground repositories in the US. There really isn’t much of it as well.
@@tarron8785 gets sent to underground storage to decay slowly
Mr. Burns keeps it in his shed.
It sits onsite in casks until we can get politicians that have enough leadership to come up with a more permanent solution. Also, fun fact, all nuclear fuel in the US is government owned.
Building yet another bad design. Where is the Thorium?
Nowhere to be found because good luck building new reactor. It’s a lot easier to convince the AEC that recommissioning an old reactor is safer than trying something new. It’s a Catch-22 they want proof that the new reactor design is safer with actual operation, but they won’t issue a license for any of the new reactors to actually operate so you can’t gather the data needed to meet the licensing expectation.
This is like getting a used car. You surely know the tangents. It's not always bad, as a new frame can be perfectly usable.
While I’m generally pro-business, I have to ask myself, “why do I not believe the executive wearing a hard hat telling us how safe everything is?”
because you've been brainwashed to believe nuclear power is unsafe.
Billions of terra watts of energy hits the Earth each day. Utilise it
Guess what? It's not that simple.
all that energy being wasted on microsoft ai IS CRAZY
Not wasted. If they are paying for it.
@@Novagunner Such as stupid reply.
Three Mile Island is gonna meltdown again for sure. PA will be the new Pripyat,
It never melted down in the first place… it was a controlled shutdown and there have been no known health effects. The issue is they didn’t manage public communication well and people went off and wildly speculated. I would recommend watching the video by Kyle Hill on the subject (I would link it but I’ve noticed comments with links disappear)
I get that it sounds scary, but Three Mile Island didn't cause any deaths. Chernobyl was bad, but that's the only really seriously bad nuclear power plant accident. Even Fukushima there was 1 possibly linked death. Just don't build a power plant in a densely populated area where it would require massive evacuations.
Would you consider Harrisburg, York, or Lancaster densely populated?
@ No not even close compared to any real city in the U.S let alone the rest of the world.
@@David-k3r3x not especially, but it's also over 10 miles away from Harrisburg. I wouldn't think you'd have to evacuate all of Harrisburg if there was a catastrophe of some kind like Fukushima
From Japan here. People are dying from radiation caused illnesses in Fukushima but hidden from the mainstream media. Out of 160,000 residents who had to evacuate immediately and couldn’t get back for years, 26,000 are still displaced. That’s just from one meltdown 14 years ago.
They cannot even touch (or see! as even cameras don’t survive the radiation level) the 880 tonnes of radioactive debris there, which is contaminating the ground and the Pacific Ocean as we speak.
There were 1,368 deaths in connection to Fukushima.
Chernobyl 2 is coming.
More like three mile island 2
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It really concerns me that the chief generation operator got his explanation of how the generator works wrong…
Yikes! Entire population at the mercy of corporate America. Scary times.
I wish you all the best of luck. That the mile island facility is very complex.
The only way to ensure the safest nuclear power industry is to remove the profit motive.
ok Wall-E
If you want 'return customers', profit is the best way to make sure your product is safe.
When is was in grade 7 or 8 in eastern Ontario, we had an exchange teacher who was from 3 Mile Island. Everyone joked about him glowing in the dark.
We need 1000 new plants asap.
I wish there was a way to modernize the power plant. I get that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Human error caused problems as 3 mile island, and making the interfaces more may help to manage it.
Ai uses too much energy to begin with and we can live with out it. All for using nuclear energy but there are much better places we could put that electricity like for replacing currently in use fossil fuel plants
Amen. We dont need Ai, nor Nuc plants.
But what about the poor corporations that would rather outsource all our jobs than help the national economy?
When the AI bubble bursts at least we'll still have an operating nuclear reactor left over.
That makes too much sense. But you know those computer and investor types. AI will be necessary in military, though.
Nuclear needs AI more than AI probably needs nuclear. You really can't leave the operations of this much of an important reactor to just humans.
They should let the AI drive it. What could go wrong?!
Dead end point.
Activists: "We need carbon-free energy sources to save the climate!"
Also activists: "NO NUKES!"
I don't think activists actually care about the climate. They care about drawing attention to themselves so they don't have to get a real job.
Germany is the perfect case example of that! Produces 5x more CO2 per MWh than France!!!
Absoluely. Ignore them.
Ok that's nice.
What about public energy?
What about healthcare ?
Pushing AI development faster is NOT a priority.
If Microsoft will pay for it, why not? It was just sitting there unused.
Back to uranium? Transition to Thorium first 😢
The U.S finally is starting to look and research into then a bill passed that would allow for spending on thorium reactors and other projects for sustainable energy
if radiation have a half life of a thousand years, how low is it after just 50 years?
Dumping nuclear energy has to be the most dumbest thing any country could do rather they should invest in developing safety mechanisms and tech
Why? It's way more expensive than clean energy and makes you dependent on other countries since Uran is not located everywhere. Look at Germany, they dumped Nuclear Energy and nothing happened, the clean energy compensated it since its cheaper and gives people in houses the freedom to produce their own energy so they are even independent from energy companies
Do you want to pay $150+/MWh instead of
Tell that to fukushima.
In Europe, industries have promoted wind and solar as a green alternative. So many asked what the will power their factory with if it's dark, cold and no wind. They say there's water as a spare. The thing is, we who like base power and not random-power, we booked that output already. That's for us, not for the solar-wind lovers.
Microsoft can do whatever they like but they better get some really big diesel generators if their reactor needs service and refuelling. Still so much better than if they said wind and solar is what they want.
I hope this greed does not create a nuclear winter for the rest of us
I don't see it happening without much more significant plant rebuilds than what they are talking about. Old nucreal plants are barely feasable to run as is. There are reasons we're shutting them down in this country. At a certain age, they just cost too much to maintain.
Anybody getting weird OceanGate submersible implosion like vibes from this?
That engineer using black electrical tape to remember which controls he did or didnt test and running around with a binder which looks like it has instructions from 1979 in it?
Also the other guy checking for cracks using a flashlight lol
The things that techs do to keep our grid running would make your skin crawl then this is an effective way to know what works and what doesn't and to check for large cracks yes you would use a flashlight but he could have been inspecting something unrelated to cracks and that's just what the voice over said
Ya I would agree that seems like a pretty odd way to verify operational conditions at a nuclear power plant. Seems more like part of a future documentary about failure and what went wrong.
They need to begin with the original operating instructions for the facility. You can't just throw those away.
@jessebaker9430 ya it's not like buying a product and tossing the owners manual away 😂
They cannot bring back all the shutdown plants. Shutdown plants have been used as a source of parts and components that are no longer manufactured to keep operating plants running. In many cases it would be extremely expensive to design and certify newly manufactured parts.
Might as well reopen Chernobyl while they’re at it…
Wait till you learn that Chernobyl was still operating till the 2000s and they are still staffing the plant with workers in hopes rebuild the plant to generate power once more after the war is over
@ Wow, December 15,2000…The greed is what bothers me
Greed? lol how much money do you think there is in this industry? There's a reason the fossil-fuel industry has lobbied against this high-output clean energy producer. It's a sensible investment but it's not exactly lucrative.
@ If you have time look into the lobbying that the Coal industry has done in the U.S government coal kills more than nuclear each year than nuclear has in it's entire existence not to mention killing the planet
@@thedominion6643 we are talking about Soviet Russia, do you think they weren’t Greedy?
Building new reactors and investing in research for newer tech needs to be supported.
No long term plan for nuclear waste is a very good reason not to restart idle plants.
America has a ton of land, France stores their waste locally and they have had 0 issues.
There are many long term plans, but unfortunately NIMBYs have power.
Yucca Mountain is the most studied and well understood geological formation in the World. Currently, spent fuel is safely stored on site. It’s a political problem - not a scientific problem. Again, look at France.
there are new reactors coming up which can use spent fuel
@@petersouthernboy6327 its a safety problem not political. Alot can go wrong, and has gone wrong when a nuclear anything is being transported.