When talking about the numbers dead due to nuclear disaster or radiation, you should really compare that to the number of deaths due to coal inhalation and the health risks associated with that as well. When you do that you will see that the combined deaths/health issues from both nuclear disasters doesn't even come close to that of coal for example.
@galactorsus_i.n.c
3 жыл бұрын
Nuclear is safer then all power sources except fission. if you try to include as many people as possible in the deaths caused by nuclear energy it's still not close to solar, wind and hydro as well. well fossil fuels are obviously way more deadly. there are ways to make safe nuclear reactors which don't blow up, are easier to maintain, are smaller. cheaper to use, it's trash is only a few hundred years dangerous and u can't make nuclear weapons from its by product. Nuclear is safer, cleaner and more reliable than any other source. if we use safe fission and fusion then we can have free power for everyone with practically no security risk. but try convincing the power industry of that. not gonna happen unless people force them.
@charlietsai1177
3 жыл бұрын
Yes, the public really need to be educated with this fact. People died from air pollution caused by coal or gas fire power generation is much much greater than that of nuclear. It's really sad that ignorant politicians and public fear is blocking all these new nuclear tech which should've been implemented to stop greenhouse gases right now. (I'm looking at you Germany, your new natural gas line is a huge step backward, it's just sad.)
@markus.schiefer
4 жыл бұрын
Never thought I'd say this, but yes. The new generation of reactors with walk-away safety are pretty good and the environmental impact is even less than solar and wind. Investment in getting Thorium reactors up and running would even solve the problem with nuclear waste - even the existing one - reducing the half-life to only 30 years.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
Solar and wind actually have a surprisingly large environmental impact. The only way to make them look go is comparing them to fossil fuels.
@Immudzen
4 жыл бұрын
@@kokofan50 The big problem is power storage. Renewable + Power storage right now normally ends up with an environmental impact as bad or worse than a coal power plant because our power storage technology is so bad. In places like Germany they mostly just build more natural gas power plants and throttle them up and down to cover for changes in renewables. This also means building more than double the required capacity.
@nntflow7058
4 жыл бұрын
@@kokofan50 Of course they gonna compared the solar and wind to the fossil fuels. We used it almost exclusively for everything. It would be stupid to compared them to nuclear. Majority of countries in the world didn't use nuclear power.
@666Tomato666
4 жыл бұрын
@@Immudzen not the only problem, both solar and wind tie up large amounts of resources that are then underutilized, especially in case of solar that uses rare-earths which are especially nasty to mine and not by half as in case of gas, but but by two-thirds, at best
@Immudzen
4 жыл бұрын
@@666Tomato666 I definitely agree with this also. Solar and wind do have large environmental problems and it seems very few are willing to actually look at it.
@sclair2854
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear was the issue that caused me to leave the Greens. Given how geologically stable the UK is, how safe modern designs are, and how small the area needed to contain the waste is... I think the benefit outways the high cost of building them. I think if we use them as a crutch to wean ourselves from gas we can feasibly switch to full renewables by the 2040s with better battery technology (and fingers crossed fusion if ITER is succesful) But I definitely believe EVERY non-fossil fuel energy source needs massively more investment than its getting.
@nntflow7058
4 жыл бұрын
It's not that I hate nuclear energy. What I hate is how stupid the government around the world has done with its waste. Like releasing it into the sea and thinking it's ok.
@GonzoTehGreat
4 жыл бұрын
The UK will continue to need Nat Gas for the foreseeable future, so the question is what proportion of the energy requirements it will provide. Currently, it's about 40% Natural Gas, 40% Renewables, 10% Nuclear Power and 10% Other. Renewables can be increased to 50%, allowing the UK to completely phase out coal, but they can't provide baseload power, so the only way to reduce the usage of gas is to switch to nuclear instead. Something like 50% Renewables, 30% Nat Gas and 20% Nuclear Power should be achievable by say 2050.
@tomshackell
4 жыл бұрын
@@nntflow7058 Well so this is a really interesting one. Putting nuclear waste into the sea ends up diluting a very small amount of waste into a very very large volume of water. Sea water is already slightly radioactive and contains uranium so it wouldn't really make any difference. Personally I'm against putting nuclear waste into the sea, but mostly because I think in a few years nuclear waste will be seen as a very valuable fuel source. However, from a safety point of view, as bizarre as it might seem, dumping it into the sea is probably one of the safest things you could do with it.
@AtParmentier
4 жыл бұрын
@@tomshackell But I doesn't work that way, concentrations will be higher near the source. Just drop some kind of waterpain (just one drop) into a bucket of water. See how long it takes to spread. As long as the concentration is high enough to have an adverse affect dumping waste into the sea is stupid.
@tomshackell
4 жыл бұрын
@@AtParmentier Well you'd need to dump it far away from the land, obviously. But if you put a drop of ink into the middle of a swimming pool you're never going to notice it at the pool edges.
@rikstan15
4 жыл бұрын
I really like that you guys actually do your notes and references in the video, nobody else I watch does that and they really should
@antontalbot9148
4 жыл бұрын
Well not really. He never talked about thorium
@dragonflyK110
4 жыл бұрын
@@antontalbot9148 I don't see what that has to do with TL;DR doing a good job of referencing their sources, which is what Stan was commending them for.
@antontalbot9148
4 жыл бұрын
@@dragonflyK110 It has everything to do with it. It's like making a video about trains but only talking about steam trains. Thorium reactors are efficient, produce much less waste, much MORE electricity and thorium is in much greater supply. Aswell as being nearly impossible to have a large scale disaster, they don't meltdown or explode 😂
@FinicalFox
4 жыл бұрын
It has everything to do with it. Why list the ingredients for a cake, when half of them are missing from the table. When they mention the promise of renewables, but not the promise of Nuclear? Then when the issues raised are in plants designed 60 years ago. No mention of 4th Generation reactors or modular reactors. No mention of the construction costs/co2 of renewables or the rare earth minerals required for renewables/batteries. No mention of the huge land /sea area that would be required by renewables. No mention of the environmental/biological impact of renewables or their waste streams with far less regulation. No mention of radiation from living around coal/ gas plants or comparisons of the radiation to day to day objects, nor the levels in the tritiated water at Fukushima compared to the beaches in Brazil or other countries naturally. No mention of the many solutions to the waste (non) issue (despite spent fuel never harming a single person). Does not mention deaths in other power sources other than coal/nuclear, but does mention the 2008 report on Chernobyl and not the 2009, becuase in 2009 the WHO revised their 4000 future predictable deaths to “undetectable”! I think if this was a PROPER comparison and not incredibly selective, the answer would be obvious, citation or not.
@WanderTheNomad
4 жыл бұрын
You guys missed the point of OP's comment. It was that tldr cited anything they _did_ talk about. If you want to complain about him not talking about a certain aspect of nuclear then that's a completely separate topic.
@iwiffitthitotonacc4673
4 жыл бұрын
Nobody ever mentions the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant when mentioning Fukushima. It was closer to the earthquake and tsunami and the reactor was completely fine, whereas the Fukushima management cut corners. Failure to mention Onagawa is a surefire way to spot anti-nuclear bias or just shoddy reporting.
@Lordblow1
4 жыл бұрын
In part it is just that humans only remember the times and places where something outside of the norm happened. In a way it is a complement to nuclear power that there are only 2 instances that something went wrong. News only ever covers things that are an exception to the norm. I mean when was the last time you heard of someone dying from lung cancer as a result of smoking or air pollution in the news, probably never because it is just so common XD.
@philguer4802
4 жыл бұрын
Oh,never heard about it.
@andresmartinezramos7513
4 жыл бұрын
First time I hear about this despite being pro nuclear
@st0ox
4 жыл бұрын
The greatest security risk in Nuclear Power Plants are people cutting corners and I don't honestly see a way to prevent that from happening.
@Lapantouflemagic0
4 жыл бұрын
same as @andrès, i am clearly pro-nuclear and genuinley didn't know that. but no one talks about trains arriving on time eh ?
@nutyyyy
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear and Renewables are the way to go, you dont need to pick just one.
@edsr164
4 жыл бұрын
Lewis Carlin Precisely
@neuralwarp
4 жыл бұрын
You don't need renewables if you have nuclear
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
@@neuralwarp nuclear can't be the one solution though, everyone who says that denies or doesn't know that there are still risks ans problems with it
@leerman22
4 жыл бұрын
@@neuralwarp Nuclear today can't be throttled to demand very well, that's why it has/needs such a high capacity factor. In the future molten salt reactors of any type could use thermal storage.
@michazajac5881
4 жыл бұрын
@@wannabeaworldcitizen6938 you can use some form of energy storage and smart grids to flatten the demand curve. so we would have electric vehicles (once we replace all the IC ones) charged at night when demand is low otherwise nuclear providing constant 75-80% of peak demand and storage covering the remaining 25% during peak, and being charged midday. the main difference between this and renewables and storage systems and nuclear and storage system is nuclear would be entirely predictable, and it would require much less energy storage capacity. Or you can have nuclear making 100% peak demand, and your smart grid would decide at which time of a day excess energy can be used to run non urgent things - like water desalination, recycling, water purification, carbon capture or production of synthetic fuels. Also, remember that nuclear reactors don't make electricity - they make heat. And there is a long list of industries that can use that heat in their manufacturing process. High-temperature molten salt reactors can make heat to produce concrete in a very ecological way. It might very well turn out there would be an economical sense to have nuclear covering more than 100% of energy demand - you would have those plants making electricity if needed, and if not they will be making heat for industrial purposes.
@hobog
4 жыл бұрын
More nuclear power with up to date, standardized tech, yes please
@liamhalliday8437
4 жыл бұрын
So this is mostly fine, but a couple of points: 1) When talking about energy transfer, your arrows point to N. Ireland. I confess I'm a bit behind on your Brexit videos, but they seemed a little high for Ireland. 2) When talking about nuclear disasters, Three Mile Island is usually considered. Admittedly the outcome was significantly less than the other 2, but it was a disaster all the same. 3) You talk about the deaths and victims from nuclear disasters, but offer no comparison against fossil fuels. For example, 500K - 1m die from coal alone, every year, as well as the many millions who are victims to unclear air. If you look at deaths per TWh between power generation methods (full cycle, disasters and pollutants), nuclear is tiny, with gas the next safest method at x40, and coal more than x450(!). We should really be comparing these if we're going to critique safety / risk of nuclear power. 4) You talk about the life cycle cost which is good, and highlight the geopolitical risk for relying on uranium production, but fail to discuss the damage and risk from solar, which relies on rare Earth metals that often have near monopolies controlled by China. At least with uranium, a 1/3 is in Australia and Canada a further 10%, countries which lessen any geopolitical risk. There is way more spread across multiple ideologies axis, making a uranium version of OPEC less likely.
@yrosan
4 жыл бұрын
On point.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
well said brother WHO reckons air pollution kills 7 million a year. So Chernobyl would have to happen 1750 times a year to kill as many people as air pollution. Obviously nuclear goes a hell of a long way to solving air pollution and chernobyl was a one off so really nuclear saves lives and A FUCKING LOT of them
@dalorasinum386
4 жыл бұрын
I’m glad someone knew the stats on deaths from other power sources. I knew they were higher than nuclear but not by how much, just shows the amount of paranoia and misinformation around the dangers of it.
@jimgraham6722
4 жыл бұрын
Absolutely correct, thorium is an abundant mineral as is uranium, given a bit of processing uranium can also be extracted from seawater. By the time these fission fuels are depleted there is little doubt fusion energy will be common place
@mapmuncher5587
4 жыл бұрын
The whole of Ireland is one unified grid, I know there's at least one connector it'd make sense if it were between Britain and Northern Ireland.
@acadoe
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear is like that annoying childhood friend that you tried to leave behind as you got older, but you keep noticing that they have always been there for you and are actually becoming less annoying. In fact, they are the best friend you`ve ever had.
@gadgetpotato1975
4 жыл бұрын
Just use Thorium, it’s easy to stop a meltdown reducing security risk. it’s also more energy rich, abundant and is extremely difficult to be weaponised. Did I mention it also has an abysmal nuclear waste output?
@andrewfoot4610
4 жыл бұрын
requires plutonium which is extremely expensive and hard to get but yes, if the first nuclear power plants used Thorium instead of uranium the world would be fulled with nuclear power plants because it's better in almost every way.
@cageybee7221
4 жыл бұрын
@@andrewfoot4610 doesn't require plutonium specifically, just the specific type of radiation emitted by plutonium. if that can be sourced from another material then that would also work. plutonium can also be produced in conventional nuclear plants.
@SamJamesCrawford
4 жыл бұрын
Most times I hear Thorium mentioned people are suggesting LFTR type designs. If I recall the key flaw of these is that the molten fluoride salts over time would corrode any metal they came into contact with, so pipes etc would need constant replacement to be safe. I accept though that the real issue is that a lack of positive public opinion or state financial support is likely the real issue, as it prevents any attempts at innovation
@billyfox6368
4 жыл бұрын
I'm glad that someone's mentioned that because everyone seems to forget about it.
@cageybee7221
4 жыл бұрын
@@SamJamesCrawford hence the solution is to use a non metal lining.
@MyCrafcik
4 жыл бұрын
9:50 And yet it still way lower than the amount of people who will die because of us burning coal and gas ;p
@PennyAfNorberg
4 жыл бұрын
And up to , "victims" doesn't equal the actual number of deaths, around 200....
@Jake12220
4 жыл бұрын
Total number of deaths is actually lower than the amount that die installing and maintaining solar panels and wind turbines as well. Its even worse when you work it out in terms of deaths per megawatt produced.
@DaDunge
4 жыл бұрын
@@PennyAfNorberg The proven number of deaths from nuclear meltdowns is actually somewhere around 40. When you weigh in how much energy a nuclear plant churns out it's actually relatively speaking much much safer than wind or hydropower.
@coreymicallef365
4 жыл бұрын
@@DaDunge 47, all exclusively from a single event, Chernobyl and there all sorts of reasons why something like that won't be repeated.
@somethinglikethat2176
4 жыл бұрын
About 2 million people die each year from air pollution. It kills more than a Chernobyl's worth of people every day.
@kokos742
4 жыл бұрын
in near future we might use traveling wave breeding reactors that actually run on so-called burned nuclear fuel so the residual waste would be dramatically lower in volume and severity
@Raussl
4 жыл бұрын
I'm sorry this new generation of nuclear wasn't even mentioned in the video.
@MrPoliticTosh
4 жыл бұрын
As proposed by The Gates Foundation, I assume.
@goldfishbowl42
4 жыл бұрын
Theoretical new types of nuclear aren't available to build at grid scale now. We need instant solutions, not distant ones. Event an EPR like the one at Hinkly C takes 15-25 years to build and that's current tech!
@cageybee7221
4 жыл бұрын
@@MrPoliticTosh the gates foundation is not involved in nuclear energy, go away alex jones.
@tomshackell
4 жыл бұрын
@@goldfishbowl42 Up to a point this is true .. but there are next generation nuclear projects targeting the late 2020s for first construction. They are aiming that new plants after that will only take 2 or 3 years to build owing to much simpler construction that makes heavy use of factory based fabrication. So if things go well these new designs might well be able to be rolled out at scale within 10 years.
@MattJones-ki6wh
4 жыл бұрын
With leaving the EU, we lose the free energy trade that was highlighted in this video. The UK therefore needs a quick, efficient way of generating power as come January, we will not be producing sough electricity to meet demand. Nuclear is cheap and has a stable production rate, if Thorium power stations are used, it is safe and without waste also. In addition to this, more reliable renewable sources should be built, I'm thinking the severn barrage as the UK has one of the largest tidal flows in the world and this could reliably power about a third of the country from one plant.
@dandun30
4 жыл бұрын
thorium is decades away
@0xCAFEF00D
4 жыл бұрын
With how long it takes to put nuclear in place it seems fairly late to put that in place half way through what's going to be the last year of trade. You should have started expanding your energy independence and general independence the day after the referendum.
@ArawnOfAnnwn
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear actually takes longer to get up and running. Cos those are massive power plants, and unlike wind and solar that generate from each turbine or panel, you kinda need to finish the whole nuclear plant (or at least most of it) before it can be switched on. Cos it's ultimately just a small handful of powerful reactors, unlike wind and solar farms which are made of large numbers of small generators and so ramp up production steadily as you get each up. As for Thorium, it enjoys a lot of support for it in theory, but still barely exists in reality. It just ain't ready yet.
@Njemanja
4 жыл бұрын
@@ArawnOfAnnwn There are new, small, modular reactor designs. Thorium reactors for instance. VHTR design is not only modular but can in addition produce hydrogen and other synthetic fuels requiring high temperatures.
@ArawnOfAnnwn
4 жыл бұрын
@@Njemanja I already mentioned my views on Thorium - the amount of support it has seems inversely proportional to how much it actually exists as part of the power system. It's basically the nuclear industry's version of the Tesla Cybertruck at this point. Anyway yeah, smaller reactors are nice, but I'll wait and see if any of them actually take off.
@Accessless
4 жыл бұрын
Are we on the verge or an energy shortage crisis? - Yes Can we build more fossil fueled power plants? - No Can it be resolved with renewable energies? - No Should we build nuclear power plants? - What do you think Sherlock?
@billyfox6368
4 жыл бұрын
But, it's also important to try to employ renewables to some degree too; unfortunately, nuclear isn't entirely perfect due to the necessity to import uranium and the inability to fluctuate supply quickly and although it's highly unlikely and retains the lowest deaths per kilowatt hour, the more nuclear plants we have, the more room there is for disastrous mistakes. Therefore, we should preferably utilize it alongside renewables, but definitely, we need to less reluctant to view it as an alternative.
@327legoman
4 жыл бұрын
@@billyfox6368 you don't have to use uranium. The only reason uranium was used was for nuclear weapons during the arms race. Thorium is much safer and produces far less nucealr waste and is being used widely in India.
@billyfox6368
4 жыл бұрын
@@327legoman Yeah, I'm also on the other comment spread about thorium (supporting it) and although that's true, don't you think that it would still be difficult to implement nuclear power sufficiently to solely rely on it? If every country did it, we'd eventually run out, so isn't it better to use a combination of nuclear and renewable energy now so that it's less of a problem in the future?
@IncubiAkster
4 жыл бұрын
@@billyfox6368 'solely rely on it' No one with any sense is advocating for this, not sure where you are going with this. We should not solely rely on anything.
@tomshackell
4 жыл бұрын
@@billyfox6368 It's certainly true that current nuclear plants are limited in their ability to fluctuate supply .. but I don't see how renewables would help with this. Renewables definitely have their place, and I'm not "anti-renewables" .. but one disadvantage of renewables is that they have no ability to ramp up power at all. If the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing you're out of luck ..
@InderjeetSingh-im3eh
4 жыл бұрын
There are designs available that address many of the issues that people have with nuclear. Designs that prevent a Chernobyl or Fukishima type event. Some of those designs also can be used to draw CO2 from the atmosphere or from the sea. You can also use the designs for desalination AND Hydrogen production or for creating carbon neutral fuels for the aviation industry. They also cannot be used for being a material souce for terrorism due to how the nuclear fuel is diluted in the core. Additionally these designs can also address the waste issue by consuming the existing waste and reducing the amount AND time needed to bring it down to natural uranium sources. Some of the Thorium based designs can also allow countries to gain some resouce independance for rare-earth elements as some of those are found with Thorium, so you can reduce the cost of mining these elements. Liquid designs can also allow you to extract medical grade isotopes for cancer treatments and for RTGs, RTGs are needed for space missions that are too distant from the sun for solar panels to be effective.
@jimgraham6722
4 жыл бұрын
Absolutely spot on, if we want to avoid climate catastrophe we must do it.
@Suscida
4 жыл бұрын
Love your videos. One minor suggestion, your mics sound quite muffled. You could try upping the eq treble a tad, or if you have foam on the mic really this is only necessary when recording outside to deal with wind. Thanks again for the varied content!
@eddualmeida5790
4 жыл бұрын
The world should use ALL OF IT! Since power generation accounts for 70% of all CO2 emissions. And preferably with MSR reactors that are safer and produce only 10% of the waste of old reactors.
@DaDunge
4 жыл бұрын
We should use it if is viable to do so and the way to do it is to not go around subsidizing it or outlawing it but rather to keep strict controls in place and let it compete with the other. If it is worse it will fail, it is better it will succeed. It is not the job of the government to decide these things. The job of the government is to mitigate risks of any power generation, be it nuclear meltdowns or people falling of hydro power dams (which actually is a higher death rate per terrawatthour than nuclear meltdowns is).
@gastarbeiter1
4 жыл бұрын
@@DaDunge i would disagree that the government shouldn't have a word in how to produce power in a country. Fracking for example is not allowed in germany and i am glad that it is not allowed here. Also some forms of energygeneration need some help to start and the benefits show later like it is with renewable energy of which germany now uses for almost half of its energy production. But yes after that phase you shouldn't subsidize it. Nuclear energy is highly subsidized which makes it affordable. But imagine if private companies had to pay for transport, secure waste disposal, secure storage and a fund for probable hazards if something went wrong....nobody would touch nuclear power.
@DaDunge
4 жыл бұрын
@@gastarbeiter1 That's different, that's setting guidelines. What I am talking about is outlawing things in absolute terms. Heck I am even willing to allow them to burn coal if they can ensure that it has 0 carbon emissions, and no not net 0 carbon emissions but actually zero. Of course since that technology doesn't exist today and might never exist it amounts to a ban but I don't think it is in the best interest of the people that the usually scientifically illiterate state to take a heavy handed approach to these things.
@DaDunge
4 жыл бұрын
@@gastarbeiter1 Nuclear also is hemmed by in by either not being allowed to build new plants or if they are allowed not knowing if the new plats will be allowed to stay open long enough to run a profit. Like I said I don't know, and I don't think anyone can know, what would be the most effective energy source if we allowed them to compete evenly while just making sure they adhere to regulation, I really don't think it's the business of the government to make that assessment.
@IainMcGirr
4 жыл бұрын
@@gastarbeiter1 Yeah right .. .Germany totally covered in wind turbines and solar panels virtually all the bees and butterflys extinct due to being in the flight path aside from the insecticides ..and nothing grown pretty much across the country except corn which is used for the fuel for the gas stations.. so ...lets review... lots of hedgerows destroyed killing natural habits .. check... lots of insects killed due to being in the flight path.. check .... total carnage of the nitrogen cycle in the soil due to growing of a mono crop year over year over year... check to fuel the gas stations... hmm... sorry give me nuclear any day... BUT not these big stupid Gen 2 which they still build.. you use the Gen 4 and the small modular reactor versions... which has no building cost run on spent nuclear waste stuck in the ground can even but put into older coal plants... ..Please dont put Germany as some kinda beacon lived there for 6 years... you are closing your remaining nuclear plants and building 25 more Coal plants ... hmmm right ... and everyone forgets BECAUSE you dont hear of any issues with France which completely has been running on nuclear ..and forgive me not hearing of any accidents there are we ? If you are serious about the "environment" you need to consider all the "environment" the impact on wildlife etc.. it is known that the current mega projects for nuclear are massively outdated ..dangerous compared to newer Gen 4 reactors and the passive safe are not considered.. as they dont make much revenue for nuclear companies.. ie its built shipped to site.. .stuck in the ground etc... fission stated ..and well come back in 80 years or a 100 ...
@badboy06660
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear, plus renewables, with Hydro storage to help cope with surges in demand. Could also manage demand to some extent. Remember that a 'cost' to the buyer is 'wages' to the builders, which ploughs back into the economy. It's a question of how we as a country wish to allocate our resources and how we are going to look after our environment. I think we should build and maintain a national pool of excellence and expertise in order to reduce the risks. The risk of a disaster is always there so we need good technical and political competence over the very long term. Funny though, people like me won't be around when all this comes on stream, and the people making the key decisions don't have the experience and wisdom to make them. And are the 'general public' voters sufficiently educated and informed to make the political choices? Are they/we simply being manipulated? We need proper adult non-tribal conversations. The human condition ........ Still I think TLDR are doing their bit quite well ......
@0xCAFEF00D
4 жыл бұрын
The cost case is especially strong for most western nations that have a lot of high-tech industry.
@neuralwarp
4 жыл бұрын
You don't need renewables drooling heavy metals all over the place if we have nuclear. And anyway, there's not enough copper to give renewables tk more than 25% of the world. There is no sufficiently large form of battery or hydro storage. Modern nuclear reactors can easily load-follow, and produce medical isotopes instead of nuclear waste.
@baronvonlimbourgh1716
4 жыл бұрын
Any plant started now will never deliver a single kwh of electricity. Maybe if they give it away for free they can still find someone willing to take it from them. But who is going to be dumb enough to invest billions in order to give it's production away for free for 50 years? Never going to happen.
@alfaeco15
4 жыл бұрын
Just nuclear. High energy density, better use of land and resources.
@andyhughes1979
4 жыл бұрын
All TLDR reports are very useful - but with the awful background "music" drowning out the voice, I'll stopp listening I'm afraid
@mattsavage6365
4 жыл бұрын
The only reason nuclear power plants seem cheap and competitive is the fact that we don't sufficiently include risk, liability/insurance and disposal and long-term storage of nuclear waste. You tell me whether in the US you think $13B is enough to cover any accident where many experts believe Fukushima's disaster will easily break three digits in Billion of cost and Chernobyl is already estimated at $450B with recurring costs in the future. In Europe the liability varies from country to country but I don't believe €700M to €2.4B will suffice by any stretch of imagination. Even with German laws that requires unlimited operator liability would hardly generate more than €8.5B i.e. if you take all the stock value from EnBW. That doesn't mean mean that we should just shut down every nuclear power plant prematurely like Germany's approach which triggered a spike in fossil fuel usage and was counter-productive at best but nuclear energy in its current form is not the future, it was a necessity from past times due to lack of alternatives. Keep running them as long as you need to, increase supervision and make sure those private businesses are not cutting costs.
@ElliePetrova24
4 жыл бұрын
I’d prefer different music/no music
@Mitjitsu
4 жыл бұрын
12:10 - Damn, and I remember when a nuclear power plant only cost $5000 to build In Sim City
@Bitrey
4 жыл бұрын
The background music is so awful, it's like a 6 second loop
@imouse3246
4 жыл бұрын
A little softer would make a great difference.
@perp1exed
4 жыл бұрын
I happen to love it
@georgobergfell
4 жыл бұрын
Technically I am pro nuclear, but I don't support the construction of new plants until a good solution for disposal of nuclear waste is found. No other country than Finland has made significant progress in this regard in the last 50 years.
@SuperYacub
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear energy is the CLEANEST energy
@ilikedota5
4 жыл бұрын
Net cleanest that we have available right now. The energy future, the point that nobody is getting, is that if we want to start a long-term, carefully planned, ideal solution, that requires us to start now, and accept the fact that the right solution is going to have a broad mix of energy sources, and for the foreseeable future, we will need oil for airplanes, and cleanish natural gas for now.
@ilikedota5
4 жыл бұрын
@@davids.654 long term storage solutions like yucca mountain. In the meanwhile, temporary storage status quo.
@acadoe
4 жыл бұрын
I think anyone that uses their head instead of their hearts to answer this question will give a resounding yes to more.
@matteofabbri6633
4 жыл бұрын
YES, ANYONE SHOULD USE MORE NUCLEAR
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
Matteo Fabbri I think the UK should have a hybrid system where 50% from nuclear and 50% from renewables like winds and solar.
@mattsavage6365
4 жыл бұрын
@@frymate1261 Once we really figure out large-scale affordable and reliable power2heat, power2gas and energy storage technology in general, we'll be good to go. I believe those technologies are easier to accomplish than figuring out any longterm reliable and secure storage for massive amount of nuclear waste. Until then keep the current nuclear reactors running but keep an eye on them.
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
@@frymate1261 YES a balanced answer - I agree
@scorpixel1866
4 жыл бұрын
@@frymate1261 The sun may be renewable but the components necessary to build solar panel are not, along being way more destructive to the environment and killing more people than nuclear ever had. Furthermore most of the rare metals in question are owned by Winnie.
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
Scorpixel I know there is some damage to the environment when making solar panels but it’s a lot better than other fossil fuels like oil and coal. I think solar should be put on peoples homes with some battery storage so it takes stress off the grid. I am pro nuclear, people who say we should just run off 100% renewables it can’t be done today (except Hydro). Every single way of making power has some bad effects to the environment, and most people do think we should get of coal and natural gas as fast as possible. But the bad thing about nuclear energy is the cost of building the plants and the waste afterwards. And you need to put that somewhere. Hopefully there are some good solutions in the future where we can re-process it into more energy or something but there is no way of doing it right now because a lot of countries have change their mind about nuclear and the counties that do you care they have an innovated for the last 30 years! Also the processes to get the license to build a new nuclear plants takes for EVER! Like Hinkley point C it was proposed in 2007 got the license in 2012 and only started building in 2017 and it won’t be done until 2035 and only will produce some power in 2030. And it cost £20+ BILLION!! That’s why people like renewables like wind and solar because they are quick and cheap!
@SnakeRush
4 жыл бұрын
Just going by the tenor of your video you are making/coming across as assuming that there is only one type of 'Nuclear Reactor'. I would recommend doing a bit of research into Thorium Reactors. The reactors you were talking about were mostly if not all Uranium Enriched Reactors which have to operate under extreme pressures and result in waste that can't be disposed of. However with Thorium most if not all of the risks/problems that arise from those 2 factors go away completely. Not to say that Thorium is the perfect solution to energy or anything but going by what i've read up about them they certainly seem like a very good step in the right direction.
@MDP1702
4 жыл бұрын
At this moment there is no running thorium reactor (I thought India had one, but can't find it). In theory, yes thorium is great. But untill we actually have new plants which proves this, it is speculation and most governments will not accept that and will not bet on thorium. The aerospike for example is on paper great for space rockets, however due to practicality/engineering issues there isn't a single rocket using it even after decades of research and development. Thorium reactors could potential go the same route, great promise on paper, not so great in reality. I definitely hope this isn't the case, but as of now, thorium is just great promise, but not really showing it yet.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
Thorium is promising but there's nothing wrong with current nuclear or even nuclear from the 70s. Excellent safety record, extremely efficient, tiny amount of waste which isnt externalised to the environment but rather is managed responsibly and just bloody CLEAN! 12gCO2/kwh
@MDP1702
4 жыл бұрын
@@doritoification Expensive though.
@richardspence5093
4 жыл бұрын
Thorium Molten Salt Reactors. Nuff Said.
@TheLastAngryMan01
4 жыл бұрын
I'm always a bit torn when it comes to nuclear power. Pros- cheap and renewable fuel; medical treatments; pest-control etc. Cons- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. If highly technologically advanced countries such as Germany and Japan have decided to downscale/decommission their nuclear power programmes dramatically in view of the risks, I am inclined to believe that few countries would be better placed to regulate such a power supply. There's also a small but real risk of some of the more antediluvian extremists out there targeting nuclear facilities in Western countries.
@IonorReasSpamGenerator
4 жыл бұрын
Both Japan and Germany depended on old era nuclear reactors that were cheap but not that much safe, new ones are far safer but also expensive. We also do not throw nuclear waste in barrels into the sea anymore as we did in 70ties which means that not only nuclear reactors but also waste disposal is much more expensive, though not necessarily safer as many shallow ground nuclear waste storage sites that replaced throwing barrels into sea tends to leak nowadays, only a few countries have proper long term deep underground stage because of cost, so it all depends on how much you are willing to pay for public health while at the same time trying to stay with your nation competetive which also depends on the cost of el. juice...
@karinmagnificent1308
4 жыл бұрын
Please lower the volume of the background music in the last minutes or use a less intrusive track. Thank you.
@existentialselkath1264
4 жыл бұрын
Just 2 points, I dont know too much about this but large scale solar might be cheaper but it takes up tons and tons of space that could be used for farmland, housing, roads etc And the previous nuclear plant disasters happened long ago and plants should now be a lot safer
@Apollorion
4 жыл бұрын
How about building those solar power plants in deserts & a.o. use part of their power to pump water out of the ocean or sea & desalinize it, after which you can drink or irrigate with it?
@danchang9976
4 жыл бұрын
I would like to point out, out of the 3 deals that have fallen through, 2 controlled by new horizon have expressed interest in restarting the project. They have completed all the design, but they have disputes with the government over the funding model.
@neuralwarp
4 жыл бұрын
Problems with capitalism, not with nuclear engineering.
@jaroslavstava3704
4 жыл бұрын
@@neuralwarp we do live in capitalistic economies. If there are cheaper and safer alternatives, they will be preferred. Non-capitalistic systems have their own share of problems (Chernobyl)
@killcat1971
4 жыл бұрын
@@jaroslavstava3704 Depends how you define cheaper and safer, you also neglected reliability.
@jaroslavstava3704
4 жыл бұрын
@@killcat1971 yes, I actually meant safer investment. With reliability it also depends what you mean :-)
@bigabau
4 жыл бұрын
Each big city should have a nuclear power plant to feed her and it should be built inside the city area. People who are the biggest consumers and have the need for big amounts of energy (cities) should be the ones more exposed to the risks.The isolated rural and natural areas should not take the risks of it, since they are not the ones needing huge amounts of power. The latter areas should be fed with renewable energies, produced at the point of consumption, for example in the roofs of the buildings for solar. In this scenario, units needing energy would be energetic sustainable and responsible for their energy and specific demands. Everyone has different needs, so let's start to be responsible for them.
@thedave8097
4 жыл бұрын
Germany: let's go for renewables, forget nuclear Also Germany: largest importer of fossil fuels in the EU
@valentintapata2268
4 жыл бұрын
they import also a lot of electricity (mostly produced with fossil fuels).
@Croz89
4 жыл бұрын
@@valentintapata2268 It's nuclear/hydro a lot of the time from France. But also some wind and hydro from Denmark and Norway.
@MetallicReg
4 жыл бұрын
Don't look at Germany as a good example for success. We have the highest energy prices of ALL developed world only because of our completely brocken energy system. And yes - because of the unreasonable shutdown of our reactors before their actual working period, we got the highest coal consumption ever recorded - which is by far the worst of them all.
@valentintapata2268
4 жыл бұрын
@@Croz89 From Poland it's fossil.
@mrjonnylowes
4 жыл бұрын
Also much more polluting than neighbouring France who has 80% of their energy from nuclear and the French electricity bill payer who pays less than their German counterpart.
@elliotwatson3754
4 жыл бұрын
It's a real shame that these videos aren't your most popular. You get the TLDR community involved and put loads of hard work and research into this, but don't seem to get the amount of views you merit. Keep up the good work
@treemansser
4 жыл бұрын
i love how the narrator can't decide between nucular and nuclear
@jadefalcon001
4 жыл бұрын
I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. Was giving me terrible flashbacks to the George W days of white house press conferences. Nook-yoo-ler. GAAAHHH
@robinbeckford
4 жыл бұрын
@@jadefalcon001 God, yes; not just me then
@peka2478
4 жыл бұрын
Thanks for this comment, it leads me to instantly stop the clip before he said it even once. No one pronouncing it "nucular" is worth listening to..
@LeShaiyan
4 жыл бұрын
Why is this comment at the top xD holyshit, if this is all you get out of this video then i dont even know why you are subscribed 😂
@rare_kumiko
4 жыл бұрын
No, we shouldn't use more nuclear. Main argument being it's not economically feasible. - It's expensive. VERY. Nowadays, new plants cost billions to make, take many years to build (some taking literally decades). They also require to be constatly staffed by skilled labour which increases the costs even more. Nuclear power plants also generate a lot of energy that has to be distributed over a large area, which incurs extra cost in distribution. Meaning that current production of electricity with nuclear energy is affordable and relatively cheap, but expanding nuclear power is impractical and is just getting more expensive. - No one wants to pay for nuclear plants. Lot of nuclear plant projects are being delayed and cancelled in developed countries, and for a good reason. Private companies don't want to invest billions upfront for a payout that can take several decades. The risk involved is huge for the company. In 20 years, renewables may get so cheap that your nuclear plant isn't even profitable anymore. The government may decide that they don't want nuclear plants anymore and it'll be closed. No private company wants to incur this risk. - Using public money is as bad of an idea. The risks are still there, of course, but added to that, no politician wants to spend billions on a project that will only see benefits in two or three decades, because said politician will not be there to gain anything from it politically. Compared to that... Renewables are cheap and getting cheaper. They're much easier to invest into. Of course there's the problem of availability and adjusting production to demand, but those Now, that doesn't mean we should close all nuclear plants. They are cheap-ish, they don't produce that much waste (they still do, but not that much as they're only a percentage of the total energy production), the risk of accident is low. But we definitely shouldn't make more, unless there's some breakthrough in technology that makes them more affordable and safe.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear’s life times costs are lower than renewables. Also, a few skilled people working a nuclear power plant is a lot cheaper than the small army of people needed to operate a large solar farm. All forms of power generation require power lines to get the electricity to where it’s needed. Solar and wind are actually the worst in that area because they have to be built where there’s sun and or wind. A nuclear power plant can be built relatively to where the electricity is needed.
@rare_kumiko
4 жыл бұрын
@@kokofan50 You only half addressed one of my points, and that's incorrect. Cost of new nuclear power plants, with new harsher regulations (for instance, those introduced due to the Fukushima incident) is astronomical because the costs are rising, and most new power plant projects end up requiring up to two or three times the initial estimated budget. Energy from newly built nuclear plants is expected to cost over 20 ct/kWh, which is double the cost of wind and three times the cost of solar. And the tendency is for solar and wind to go down, and nuclear to go up even more, which brings me to the other two poinst I mentioned. Who will invest in that? And why would anyone even invest in that? If we had built a bunch of nuclear plants in the 90s or early 2000s, we'd probably have a lot more cheap nuclear energy. But right now, it's impractical, and becoming even more impractical with time. For your second point, the issue is nuclear produces A LOT of energy, which means that unless the plant is next to a very large city, some of the energy will have to be moved to some other place. Solar and wind are more distributed and require less transport of said energy. This is not really a huge issue so you can ignore it, anyway, but my point stands that nuclear is more expensive and harder to invest into.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
@@rare_kumiko a argument isn’t that nuclear is more expensive, just that is has needless burdens put on it. Being spread out is exactly what makes it cost more. Rather than building a few lines between cities, you have thousands of lines from the turbines or what ever then link them together. I’ll also repeat myself, wind farms and the like aren’t normal located near where their electricity is used.
@thisin.
4 жыл бұрын
Fusion and high efficiency renewables are likely the best options in this century. Wind turbines are pretty bad in every way, but if solar panels keep improving they should become a good option. Until then, fission is probably the best, and greenest option.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
Improvements in solar panels doesn’t change their fundamental flaw: they’re dependent on weather and don’t work at night.
@thejfactor1
4 жыл бұрын
Fission will outlast renewables
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
I think the UK should have a hybrid system where 50% from nuclear and 50% from renewables like wind and solar.
@Aoskar95
4 жыл бұрын
Solar isn’t as renewable as people think. The panels don’t really have emissions but the manufacturing process is pretty bad and the end of life cycle is even worse. Most solar panel recycling companies actually just sells the panels to the Arabs since the Arabs rather buy lots of cheap panels than efficient ones and then just scrap them somewhere like Vietnam or Pakistan
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
oskado95 I know the process in making solar panels but when you made it, it will be making power for 30 years +
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
tom black ?
@Aoskar95
4 жыл бұрын
@@frymate1261 No solar panel lasts for 30+ years. About 10, tops
@Lordblow1
4 жыл бұрын
@@Aoskar95 That depends, 30+ years is a massive stretch and certainly not the lifespan of any current solar panel but the high quality ones can last for 15 years at relatively high capacity. 10 is usually the guarantee for most companies but most can work for longer so long as you buy good quality ones, their production capacity just shrinks over time. This is mostly just due to the panels expanding every time they are heated by the sun and shrinking when they cool, over time this causes the decrease in energy production.
@Steven-og8jj
4 жыл бұрын
Everybody research Thorium Energy. You will not be disappointed.
@altrag
4 жыл бұрын
Unfortunately, there is little information about thorium reactors. Most of what you can find is overwhelmingly positive which should be a warning sign right off the bat - _nothing_ on the internet gets away without criticism. The problem is that while the theory behind thorium (and LFTR in particular) is reasonably sound, its still just a theory. As far as I know, there was only one test reactor built in the 60s and whether you want to claim it was ignored due to its inability to produce weapons-grade material during the cold war, or its results just weren't up to snuff, the point still stands that there's been basically no research done on thorium reactors since then. Well, until apparently the last few years. A quick Googling suggests a few groups are attempting to start up some thorium test reactors again. I saw one from 2017 and one that looked like it was from a few years earlier but didn't get a clear date (and a few others I didn't bother really looking at.) I don't know what sort of results those tests have produced but I'm guessing they haven't found anything world-changing yet or we would have heard more about it. But how to fund more research? Between ever-louder calls for governments to somehow operate without any sort of funding (ie: constantly lowering taxes) and general political malaise toward nuclear as a whole, public funding is spotty at best. So they're pretty much out. What about private industry? That's become my go-to gauge for the future of energy simply because unlike governments who are more free to pursue whatever seems interesting (and politically expedient,) private industry has a vested interest in pursuing things that are likely to not only work, but work well enough to be profitable. To that end, its somewhat telling that there's vastly more private investment in green energy and even fusion power than there is in thorium. That doesn't say thorium couldn't work in principle, but it does somewhat indicate that the cost of bringing it from theory to reality outweighs the expected return on investment. So how to move forward? Well assuming you really believe the tech is workable, the best thing to do is try to educate people I guess. Private industry isn't likely to change their minds (people looking to invest on the scale of billions do their homework!) but public investment is not off the table. You just have to convince enough people that spending their tax dollars on thorium research is worthwhile. If enough people want it, some government somewhere will do it.
@benjamintomassennordahl7911
4 жыл бұрын
Current nuclear technology is fail-safe. A nuclear plant does not need to be pressurized anymore eliminating the possibility for a large explosion such as Chernobyl. Furthermore, the use of other nuclear options such as Thorium could provide shorter nuclear storage, hence eliminating the need for long-term underground storage.
@Mitjitsu
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear energy technology has greatly improved in recent years and the safety fears are greatly overblown. Fukashima for instance had reactors that were built back in the 70's. Also, coal and gas stations aren't exactly safe either. Due to them worsening the air quality.
@johnmorsley
4 жыл бұрын
I can't hear you over the stupid backing track! :(
@mick7909
4 жыл бұрын
I really wish you guys would sort out your audio equipment it's very very frustrating. Seriously how hard is it to go to audio to consistent decibel level.
@Jake12220
4 жыл бұрын
It seems wrong to talk about nuclear without talking about the current options available, the currently available technology is nothing like the old plants built 50+ years ago.
@Jake12220
4 жыл бұрын
@JZ's Best Friend what track record? All the nuclear waste ever produced (most being very low grade like contaminated clothing) can fit inside a football stadium. We could easily store it in deep abandoned mines in geologically stable areas, but politics and Greenies are always trying to block those developments. More importantly, what's waste today will have value as fuel in years to come. Thorium reactors, whenever they arrive can use uranium reactor waste as a fuel additive, and their end output is almost nothing (any leftover fuel not used in the reaction is added to the next cycle so to be used of burnt off). If your talking about Fukushima and the disposal of the water or something then you need to look into it a bit more as the situation is nothing like the situation some sources would suggest.
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
I'm a german and I am completely surprised that so many people are still pro nuclear. How come?
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
Because it’s clearly the best power source we have.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
@@davids.654 If the nuclear industry was paying people off, it would be the politicians, so they wouldn’t have to deal with absurd over regulation.
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
@@kokofan50 is that really so? I mean it has obvious problems, 1) the waste and 2) the risk. It's not like there are no accidents. There was one in New York and one in Britain and one in France and of course the huge ones in Fukushima and the ukraine, and IF they happen, radiation is gonna stay longer than humanity remembers (I mean the first civilizations were 7000 years ago, and radiation can stay for 100000 years so...) and it's the same with waste. For global warming it's definitely better than coal, but we have to built up renewables so at some point we can stop relying on this radiation thing.
@Paerigos
4 жыл бұрын
Btw: Nuclear CAN be ramped up fast or slow... assuming the reactor is built to do so. Most are not. and well uranium import- you buy a batch once per 20 years? :D
@cageybee7221
4 жыл бұрын
canada has alot of uranium and does alot of trade with the UK, so that is a bit of a silly concern. and yeah some plants can be scaled. if not worst case scenario you send the power to one of the hydro power storage facilities.
@andresmartinezramos7513
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear can indeed be ramped-up fast, but that is 1 to 2 minutes fast When talking about grid power, reaction time has to be within a few seconds But still, nuclear is far better than renewables in that regard
@xthor86
4 жыл бұрын
@@andresmartinezramos7513 you Will have some gas turbines with the nuclear regardless.
@Kip_Novak
4 жыл бұрын
Breeder reactors produce 1% of the radioactive waste that PWRs do, and that waste will last centuries rather than millennia. Plus the waste we have from current reactors can be used as fuel in Breeder reactors
@brian2440
4 жыл бұрын
That’s not even remotely accurate nor does it make any sense what you’re saying You’re effectively stating that by fission Breeder reactors produce stable isotopes.... That is not correct
@peterschlichter1712
4 жыл бұрын
There isn’t enough focus here on the clean alternative to nuclear which are renewables and are littered with problems. Renewables is the answer that saves the climate and destroys the environment in the process. The reason we don’t do more in nuclear is cause of misconceptions based in emotions and not scientific fact.
@acegarcia3719
4 жыл бұрын
What I like about nuclear power is it's one of the few renewable energy that provides permanent jobs. A windmill or solar panels are left alone after construction but a nuclear plant constantly needs employees to operate it which creates jobs.
@Nasherrrzzz
4 жыл бұрын
Probably we should although there is the question of decommissioning these plants. We still have not commissioned any of our nuclear submarines which stretches back to the 80s. If we sort these issues out I will be much more confident for nuclear power as a good short to mid term stop gap
@RaffySonata
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear is essential for transitioning to green and clean energy. Solar and wind wouldn't just cut it yet
@MatthewJBD
4 жыл бұрын
Every single Nando's in England, Scotland and Wales is powered by 100% renewable electricity.
@mina-xt1mj
4 жыл бұрын
@@MatthewJBD households are not equal to commercial restaurants and so they need don't to advertise with what type of energy they use
@4vesta255
4 жыл бұрын
Matthew JBD So? That’s only 300 stores.
@jaylarkin2000
4 жыл бұрын
wind and solar are too unreliable to replace coal and nuclear, nuclear out of all the energy productions is proved both the safest, and very reliable. the only times nuclear reactors has failed was due to 2 of the 4 using 40s era nuclear design, the Fukushima was due to not only it being built near a fault line but a little known fact that when it was designed they made the fatal flaw of not scaling up the generators for anti flooding equipment, Chernobyl was also using 50s era nuclear design and the explosion that resulted was due to high pressure steam with the second being from the Zirconium heating up to 1200 Celsius and it didn't help that there were a number of problems going back to its earlier construction. the whole scare about nuclear power is quite frankly moronic at best, a sheep mentality. plus it doesn't help that many of the tv programs GREATLY over exaggerates the potential disasters to the point of absolute lunacy. the whole fad of wind and solar being the future is utter garbage, all you need is a cloudy day with no winds and they both will not able to produce electric
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
I think the UK should have a hybrid system where 50% from nuclear and 50% from renewables like winds and solar.
@scottstone9718
4 жыл бұрын
I think you need to bring some experts onto these to give some insight. Currently they are just bombardments of numbers.
@MDP1702
4 жыл бұрын
As for the costs at 5:29, I find them a bit weird. The LCOE of these sources tend to more along the lines of: Wind onshore: 40-50 $/MWh Wind offshore: 70-90 $/MWh Solar can be as low as 20-30 $/MWh (though only in very sunny area's of the world, so not UK) to as high as 120-180 $/MWh (individual solar panels, like for houses). Coal-powered: 60-70 $/MWh Gas: 80-90 $/MWh Nuclear: 120-180$/MWh Considering this, the nuclear numbers in your video's seem very low, while the gas numbers are extremely high. Could you have accidentally switched them?
@alessandromestri9004
4 жыл бұрын
Maybe he added cost of land? Or maybe it has to do with the fact that lot of renewables camp are subsidized by government do decrease final price
@MDP1702
4 жыл бұрын
@@alessandromestri9004 Usually all cost are taken into consideration in the LCOE (investment: building and decommisioning, operation, fuel). So land should be included in the price. LCOE never takes into considation subsidies. In the contrary, subsidies usually are/were determined somewhat by the calculated LCOE. Eitherway I can't understand how gas is so expensive in this video and nuclear so cheap. So I can only assume it got mixed up. Especially seeing how close they are to eachothers expected values.
@Croz89
4 жыл бұрын
@@MDP1702 The gas cost is for OCGT, which practically nobody uses regularly because it's so expensive and inefficient (the upside is they are cheaper and simpler to build). CCGT is much cheaper and the vast majority of UK electricity generation using gas uses CCGT. It is rather misleading I agree. The £95/MWh figure is the agreed upon price by EDF, so it's got evidence behind it. It is linked to inflation so it will increase over time. Onshore is cheaper but a bit like nuclear, it has a fair amount of resistance to construction because of the visual pollution in often scenic rural areas, plus offshore is less intermittent and produces more energy per turbine so it's attractive from a grid management perspective.
@acegarcia3719
4 жыл бұрын
What I like about nuclear power is it's one of the few renewable energy that provides permanent jobs. A windmill or solar panels are left alone after construction but a nuclear plant constantly needs employees to operate it which creates jobs.
@ytpanda398
4 жыл бұрын
Pleaaaaase change up the music, the videos are fine but the music makes me want to walk around in Tesco's and let people cough on me
@EMBer3000
4 жыл бұрын
Just a quick question. What about a Solar-Wind-Battery-Biomass mix? You use solar and wind for most of your energy and batteries for short term supply shortages/fluctuations. For covering the gaps that the batteries doesn't have the capacity to handle you use biomass gasification plants that you spin up if you forecast a supply shortage. Thus you would run them during a day with no wind or sun or to make up the solar portion during night time. Biomass gasification is much greener than coal but has similar or lower construction and operating costs.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
Well done for being overall very balanced and impartial on the topic.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
@tom black Air pollution kills 7,000,000 people every year. THAT is hell. Chernobyl would have to happen 1,750 times a year or nearly 5 times a day to kill as many people as that. But, of course, Chernobyl was a one off and could never happen again. It's all about perspective my dude.
@Jake12220
4 жыл бұрын
@tom black far more people die installing and maintaining solar and wind than ever have from nuclear power production, and that's at the worst estimated deaths from nuclear. In terms of confirmed deaths nuclear is safer by far than all other forms of power production, including hydro and all renewables. Add to that, all the previous nuclear disasters happened in plants designed in the 1960s and 70s when they had far less understanding and far less developed safety systems (just look at how safe cars were back then compared to now). Many of the proposed new nuclear plants, including one in the UK are SMRs or small modular reactors, these are far far cheaper to build and can't meltdown, they have also been used on nuclear powered ships for decades and we're what the original nuclear plant designers suggested be built from the start as they are both safer and cheaper. The reason they build the big ones in many cases was because they were needed to create the weapons grade material for nuclear weapons, but these days around 1/3rd of nuclear power is being generated from decommissioned nuclear weapons. As in they are using the weapons we were worried would destroy us all to provide the cleanest power we currently have available (yes nuclear is cleaner than all renewables in terms of lifecycle pollution, waste and CO2 per MW generated).
@X3h0n
4 жыл бұрын
@@doritoification That would be assuming that the 4000 figure is accurate. What ticked me off is that they cited the 4000 figure yet did not give any of the evidence against it any mention. There have been multiple studies of people from the clean up and at the site of the Chernobyl disaster that show that radiation exposure has not resulted in any significant increase in mortality long term. The greatest killer has been suggested to be the emotional and mental strain from the incident mostly fueled by irrational fear of the radiation. It does not help that the Soviet Union turned it into a freaking nationalist melodrama. Something that Ukraine has inherited, thus the 1.8 million 'victims' figure. Even though if you count all the people who were evacuated as victims, it would be a few hundred thousand people. That figure is just utter fantasy.
@Morgoth1889
4 жыл бұрын
Nuclear power should Provide all our energy
@shehrozmushtaq6877
4 жыл бұрын
I really don’t like the extra sounds or background music
@Lapantouflemagic0
4 жыл бұрын
7:47 : nuclear power CAN be ramped up and down fast enough, except "fast" is a wrong concept here. the energy consumption at the scale of a whole country is very predictible, so yes a nuclear power plant may need let's say ten minutes to adjust its power output while a gaz power plant can shift it in a few seconds, but overall following the charge is perfectly feasible because you know what your consumption will be in ten minutes with 99% certainty. however, that does require a specific design and control elements. most of our reactors are made like that in france i believe.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
well said. Also the renewables crowd love to tout how batteries can solve their intermittency problem whereas batteries would actually be far better suited to helping nuclear provide a more dynamic output.
@Croz89
4 жыл бұрын
France uses pumped storage as a buffer to enable nuclear to be more dispatchable. Though compared to the storage needed for wind or solar it's not that much, one facility is enough for the whole country.
@bisaVCI
4 жыл бұрын
@Lapantouflemagic0: Do you have a source about the scalability of nuclear power? Last time I read about scaling nuclear power everything ran into Xeon poisoning, the process that stops nuclear fission from scaling their energy-production. How did engineers solve that problem? Is it a concept like the Thorium reactors that never have seen commercial application, or is it a working and commercially viable thing somewhere on the planet? While this sounds unfair - and it is at least partially - instead of Thorium we could just try to use nuclear fusion. Both of them have been shown in theory, nuclear fusion has already proven it can be controlled in the recent decades aswell as Thorium in the 1980s, and now we just need to make a economically viable power plant. If we could have fusion instead of fission, I'm pretty sure we should focus on fusion.
@Lapantouflemagic0
4 жыл бұрын
@@bisaVCI Damn, i consider myself pretty knowledgeable on the subject, and yet i had never heard of that stuff 😅 but there's good reason for that. and after spending like one hour and a half reading both the English and french Wikipedia articles, i think i understand what it is. So first i think that the issue of scalability is not the right question to ask. even if indeed the xenon poisoning makes large reactors wobbly, there is no particular reason to make gigantic reactors since it is just as good to make many smaller ones, the cost of the "fuel" in nuclear energy being minimal. Also, reactors and power plants is not to be confused, a nuclear power plant has typically between 2 and 6 reactors, this is actually necessary to ensure cooling of the power plant : even if completely disconnected from the grid, the the plant can use a reactor to cool the others. But anyway, from what i can understand the xenon is not much of an issue, it makes reactors very counter-intuitive to control, but otherwise it just eats up 6,4% of your neutrons, which you have in excess anyway (the control rods are here to block them). It is "dangerous" for a human operator because when you try in increase the power output, you increase the levels of iodine-135 which doesn't do anything for 6h or so, but then decays to xenon which will try to choke your chain reaction. you can compensate by increasing power again, but if you're not careful you will "burn" all of the xenon too fast and then power will spike with the risk of a meltdown. note that while doing so you don't generate extra iodine because the xenon burning replaces fission reactions, otherwise it would be impossible to control. The thing is, though, we're talking about feedback loops that occurs on the course of hours here, even human operators would have enough time to calculate how much they should raise the control rods and for how long to compensate the xenon choking. now if you toss automation into the mix you can have all of those answers instantaneously even with 60's tech. Actually even if you're operating a baseline generator you'll have to deal with that crap on startup, but you'll eventually manage to reach a point where the intensity of the reaction burns precisely as much xenon as the amount of iodine you generated six hours before, while still generating the exact same amount again, which means you're burning all of the xenon as it is formed, in a "tense flow" manner. hence neither wobbling or instability So that's why it's not really a problem : no need for huge reactors, the xenon poisoning occurs hours after any power change, and can be compensated by careful calculation. Now why didn't i know about it ? well i presume nuclear safety agencies deliberately avoid communicating on that subject because it is weird and counter-intuitive, let's not give free bullets to fear-mongers. Anyway, i learned something neat, thanks for bringing that up ! 😀 Edit : oh and yes, as i said controllable reactors are used in France. maybe not all of them but we definitely use that. of course i'd be all in favor of nuclear fusion if it was available, but the scientists working on that are saying it will be ready in 50 years or so. sadly enough they were saying the same thing 50 years ago so who knows. that said 50-60 years is basically the life expectancy of your average reactor, so even if we really want fusion, we're pretty much guaranteed to have to build a new generation of conventional reactors.
@uniwersal7061
4 жыл бұрын
The sound effects are really unnecessary. They are just kinda distracting, making it harder to focus on what's being said.
@YourEnvironmentSeattle
4 жыл бұрын
8:35 from a nonproliferation perspective foreign imported uranium should be the standard because of treaty obligations which prevent the products of that fission from being used in weapons. Nuclear fuel costs are tiny compared to construction, finance, and other O&M costs. Finally it is also possible to extract uranium from seawater. With so much coastline England has enough territory to harvest uranium from the seas with no geographic restriction.
@preciousinfinity
4 жыл бұрын
So, then this is a highly complicated issue and we could really do with trustworthy experts to figure it out?
@dennispremoli7950
4 жыл бұрын
Not really. Get a scientist and they'll look at the facts (the real risks) and still tell you to use nuclear cause of course, especially if research into Thorium reactors is successful. The only thing keeping nuclear back is politics.
@jaroslavstava3704
4 жыл бұрын
Depends what questions you ask. Anyone with sound knowledge of current nuclear industry will tell you that nuclear has - crazy large initial investment - high risk of delays and cost overruns due to the complexity of construction - very long amortization (outside normal investment schedules) - no guarantee of ever archieving profitability - the renewables just keep getting cheaper and cheaper. Simply put nuclear is not commercially viable. What can "save" nuclear are probably only - mass produced modular reactors (2030+) - massive public "price guarantee" subsidy - a large (subsidized) supernational strategic construction program (eg China now, France around 1980)
@DTK-X-GAMING
4 жыл бұрын
One of the major regular natural disasters in the UK is flooding, a strong network of Hyrdo-electric dams would solve that problem and create power for millions, add in a few nuclear reactors up to a base load capacity and then put the rest into distributed renewables for peak coverage.
@bourpierre198
4 жыл бұрын
8:01 France uses nuclear power to adjust supply and demand therefore it's possible to do it. If I remember correctly, up to 50% power variation can be achieved over an hour or so.
@abelzatyko1513
4 жыл бұрын
Yeah, they can just use special rods - graphite, maybe, I dunno - to slow down or speed up the fission thus changing the temperature and power generation. Quite a bit of precision engineering, but a relatively simple theory. An elegant way to do it, I think.
@tomkite1933
4 жыл бұрын
I think some of the references are missing. In the video you go up to 59, but the description only has up to 39
@antontalbot9148
4 жыл бұрын
More
@Daful85
4 жыл бұрын
I would like to point out that waste from a light water reactor really isn't waste. It still has 95% of it's available power left meaning long term storage isn't the same as " dumping it in a landfill". Is more on the lines of holding on to a just opened bag of charcoal briquettes through the winter until you can use it in the summer.
@noone-qg1od
4 жыл бұрын
I don't want to get bitten by a tiger, so I'll get a pet bear instead.
@YourEnvironmentSeattle
4 жыл бұрын
You're making a pretty bad analogy. Nuclear is very low risk for the energy output that it creates. Renewables are still dangerous to workers and wildlife and their energy output is so small that the injuries and deaths per kWh end up higher than nuclear. A better analogy is an elephant vs a flock of ducks.
@galactorsus_i.n.c
4 жыл бұрын
We should build plans that can't destroy themselves when things go wrong and use fuel that doesn't take thousands of years to decay.
@mrgizmo7190
3 жыл бұрын
We have fixed it though that is why it’s been 9 years since the last accident
@galactorsus_i.n.c
3 жыл бұрын
@@mrgizmo7190 yeah I forgot about thorium reactors my bad
@joshuabotham9103
3 жыл бұрын
The UK is an island nation, meaning we have the ability to rely on tidal power systems, like the proposed tidal lagoon in Swansea, South Wales. I think this is what we should rely on, with only limited nuclear plants where necessary.
@H3LLB0Y2403
4 жыл бұрын
Opinion: Nuclear does not work anymore together with renewables. Renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper and are already at a level nuclear will never reach. Therefore nuclear energy will always be pushed to the right (out of the market) on the merit order.
@mina-xt1mj
4 жыл бұрын
but they're not reliable
@tomshackell
4 жыл бұрын
Just a note on the idea of using car batteries to balance the grid. It's important here to do some simple maths. The UK has about 40 million cars. The average electric car has a roughly 30kWh battery, meaning if every car in the UK was electric that would provide 1.2 TWh of storage. The UK currently produces roughly 330 TWh a year of electricity and uses roughly 900 TWh a year of oil mostly for transport. If we replaced petrol cars with electric cars it's reasonable to think we would therefore need roughly 1200 TWh a year of electricity. The 1.2 TWh of storage provided by car batteries would thus be able to store about 9 hours of UK energy production. This is not even close to being enough to smooth out the intermittency of renewables, which can sometimes go for as long as a week without producing significant power. This does not account for the conversion losses, the fact that cars will not always always be available to act as storage when excess power is being produced. Whatever people think of nuclear I would argue that it's necessary because there is no realistic way to make 100% renewables a reliable source of energy.
@Paerigos
4 жыл бұрын
BTW - milion tons - thats milion metres cubic... its like 100x100x100 metres. compared to ocean - the ocean will not see any difference in radiation in like... 5 minutes of dilution.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
it should never have been stored in the first place
@MichaelWarman
4 жыл бұрын
The French produce a lot of nuclear power, which is one of the key reasons they sell energy to us; you can't really turn nuclear plants down, and storage is difficult, so in periods of low demand they balance their system by selling power to us super cheap.
@scepticskeptic1663
4 жыл бұрын
yes use an island off coast and run a giant cable inland.
@Raussl
4 жыл бұрын
literally inviting an environmental dissaster and contaminating fishing grounds for a century?
@Paerigos
4 жыл бұрын
thats not really cheaper, and its problematic in when it works too.
@frymate1261
4 жыл бұрын
I think the UK should have a hybrid system where 50% from nuclear and 50% from renewables like winds and solar.
@edders2009
4 жыл бұрын
The further away power plants are from cities, the more energy you waste getting it to homes
@Nikikanor
4 жыл бұрын
Good video, but I miss the immediate safety aspect. Google "death by mWh". From that perspective nuclear is quite safe, even when counting the accidents.
@tomd5678
4 жыл бұрын
Solar, wind, tidal, wave and hydro could fill the gap. With gas as an emergency fill in and batteries to provide instant boost. This is even more practical when you consider how many electric cars will be attached to the grid semi permanently, being charged and, occasionally, giving current back into the grid
@ryangrange938
4 жыл бұрын
More nuclear is the way forward, including the deaths caused by pollution of coal plants even with the nuclear disasters its many times safer. We need to get it done now.
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
it's better than fossil energy, yes, but why is it better than renewables, aside from being more reliable (tidal power plants and other water working sources are very reliable)
@CarlosKTCosta
4 жыл бұрын
There is another form of energy that is rarely talked about. The current Standard of Uranium based Nuclear Energy is a product of the nuclear race during the cold war more than it is the best solution. Thorium based Nuclear is technically safer and less prone to be used for weapon production (the exact reason it was not chosen in the first place) but still very valid in terms of energy production.
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
The IPCC says nuclear is 12 grams of CO2/kwh which is on par with offshore wind at the same 12gCO2/kwh The land requirements for nuclear are 450x less than for solar and 400x less than for wind. Nuclear has the lowest material throughput per KWh out of all the energy sources period. The fact that Tesla cars could become a decentralised virtual power plant doing frequency control for the grid is a really really really good thing but i don't know why it has to be specifically good for renewables??? Nuclear base load still requires peaking power to back it up during high demand.
@Paerigos
4 жыл бұрын
to effectively backup up equivalent of 1GW of nuclear power comming from any renewable you need 500 000 tesla 3s hooked to the grid 100 percent of time.
@Lordblow1
4 жыл бұрын
@@Paerigos that doesn't really answer his question. He asks why using Tesla's for batteries would depend in using renewable energy which it most definitely doesn't. 1GW of nuclear power isn't any different from 1GW of wind, solar or coal. It is just 1GW of energy. The point of storing it specifically for renewables is that energy production of renewable energy depends on the weather. To make this form of energy production more reliable you need to store excess energy when you have a period of high production. In the case of other energy sources you can decide the energy production of a power plant based on need. If you need less power just burn less coal. You could still use tesla cars as batteries for these production methods but it is just less needed as you can regulate the energy production to suit demand at any time.
@Lapantouflemagic0
4 жыл бұрын
nuclear being only good for base load is a common misconception. they can follow the demand, but this requires a specific design. we use that in france, we're one of the few countries to have gone that way but it works just fine.
@Paerigos
4 жыл бұрын
@@Lordblow1 Well actually the difference is that if you build 1GW of nuclear powerplanet you can be sure it will work 80-90 percent of year when you push the button. when you build 1GW of wind it will work only 20-30 percent of time inland and 40 percent off shore. thus - for 1GW of nuclear you actually 3-4 times the wind + storage. solar power - you definitel 4 times plus storage. having a 4GW of solar power during noon is pretty much a 0GW of power druing midnight. Given how Sun operates you need at noon to catch 3GW of power and store it trough midnight... to put it bluntly - so it works just plain capacity wise - its 500 000 tesla 3s - which keep charging during the day and stabilize the grid during night... meaning - you cant charge them during night... (that premise alone is false)
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
One idea I’ve heard is to build to peak demand and during low demand use the power for things like desalinating water.
@mrow7598
4 жыл бұрын
Other things that are missed in the video. The daily output of wind and solar are so erratic that you need large banks of inductors and capacitors along with gas turbine plants to stabilize the power grid. Solar panels produce DC, you then need an inverter to covert the power to AC. Inverters also cause large impedance in the power lines which then cause the lines to need even more inductors and capacitors. Larger inverters for grid purposes do have an efficiency of 95% you still lose 5% of all power produced which is then put out as heat and they put out a TON of heat. Gas turbine plants unlike many other power plants can be turned on and off quickly as demand is needed. Part of the video was talking about needing outside resources uranium/plutonium those in a nuclear plant last at least 15 years, so unless a war happens for years on end needing outside help with those shouldn't be a problem. Lastly nuclear power plants also produce bi-products that are used every day, Caesium, Strontium, technetium, Iodine, Samarium and Americium are all made by nuclear power plants of one type and another and are used in many things like x-ray detectors, nuclear medicine and smoke detectors. Stopping all nuclear power plants would hurt many different things.
@12kenbutsuri
4 жыл бұрын
We should use more. Also for all ships.
@AshLewis500
4 жыл бұрын
I live near Hinckley pointed. It is being funded by the French and Chinese. Also, the demand for housing locally has increased for the thousands of construction workers. The main town closest to Hinckley has seen millions of pounds in regeneration and expansion, and is one of the quickest expanded towns in the country, with alot of international companies being attracted to it (including recent rumours of a Tesla factory)
@michaelsoland3293
4 жыл бұрын
I'd argue to build a base out of Nuclear Power and then fill in the gaps with renewables. Of course, this will change as new technology appears in both nuclear and renewable energy fields.
@SandroWalach
4 жыл бұрын
There is a youtuber called " Illinois EnergyProf" which I enjoy a lot. They have videos like "How Much is Too Much?" where they explain how dangerous radiation is. If you want more details on these things I really recommend you to check them out.
@CompoundInterest-SG
4 жыл бұрын
Not a fan of all the swoosh sounds. With high-end headphones they are quite distracting.
@givememorebliss
4 жыл бұрын
you just wanted to brag, admit it
@m252m
4 жыл бұрын
Considering offshore wind is costing around £41 per mega watt hour and hinkley will be charging £92 it is clear wind is better value for money. As an island we are well placed to take advantage of tidal power. Even setting up a geothermal plant in Iceland and using an underwater cable to transmit power. The company only wants the government to agree current power prices in order to raise funds which is much lower than hinkley point b. Of course the government refused.
@antontalbot9148
4 жыл бұрын
Thorium reactors yeah, loads more
@327legoman
4 жыл бұрын
Dissapointed he never mentioned thorium.
@SamanthaCoolBeans
4 жыл бұрын
If you want thorium reactors then you firstly need ‘standard’ fission reactors. Can’t have Thorium reactors with Uranium fission.
@ArawnOfAnnwn
4 жыл бұрын
Thorium enjoys a lot of support for it in theory, but still barely exists in reality. It just ain't ready yet.
@PkFrBrad97
4 жыл бұрын
Yes we should. The more we invest into them the more we will discover about how to make them safer, more cost-effective, and efficient, and it could open up more possibilities to energy production, storage, and consumption which are essential for improving everything else. Other renewable energies such as solar and wind were slated originally but look at them now, we are building solar panels into cars and creating smaller yet more effective turbines, previously all thought impossible.
@garyt1119
4 жыл бұрын
Love your channel. followed it from the very early days, BUT please don't go the way of TV shows, which I can't watch as they drive me nuts. Please, Please, drop the inane and annoying background 'music' like a dripping tap. Keep everything else though, and thanks
@shad0wyenigma
4 жыл бұрын
When you look at the fact that massive offshore wind has a capacity factor reaching 63% and as you said is much cheaper, that seems like the rational choice. I worked in that industry, if you want an example look at GE's Haliade-X 12 MW turbine or the Siemens Gamesa's SG 14-222 DD.
@kokofan50
4 жыл бұрын
We need something that has less than a 1 in 3 chance of not working.
@screes620
4 жыл бұрын
I mean it's either Nuclear or Coal. Would you rather DEFINATELY make global warming worse, or MAYBE irradiate a part of the world forever?
@doritoification
4 жыл бұрын
Spent nuclear fuel is less radioactive than the ore it was mined from after about 300 years
@averageperson1000
4 жыл бұрын
One big thing for nuclear power is the lack of is innovation. Nuclear power was invented for the war (WW2). There are groundbreaking innovation happening, such as BillGates backed company, which uses nuclear waste to generate an equal amount of power. Also, the UK needs to push innovation in thorium, where it has less risk then Uranium. We need both Green power, and nuclear power to reach the goal. One thing people don't talk about the sheer amount of land that solar and wind turbine uses. They market as Green energy, but it still has a huge environmental impact in different ways.
@user-ks9bf9rd7n
4 жыл бұрын
omg the elevator music in the background is so annoying. I couldn't finish the video 😂🤦♂️
@igorscot4971
4 жыл бұрын
There are other options including the Severn Barrage, which could be build so that the power could be available for a long time. Methane could be produce from sewage, and other sources, and hydrogen generation could be used to fill in when other power production is unavailable. If the UK has to go down the nuclear route, the small molten salt thorium reactors, appear to be the best solution, if they can be made viable!
@SuperCookieGaming_
4 жыл бұрын
if we can get thorium reactors to work then we should defiantly do it. Nuclear power will reduce co2 emissions so we have more time to make better fully renewable sources.
@wannabeaworldcitizen6938
4 жыл бұрын
Why is everybody talking about Thorium? Even if Thorium is easy to mine and assuming there's plenty enough, thorium reactors can't be the perfect solution, because there is still a risk of blow up, and there would still be waste that we don't know what to do with. Planes are safer than cars too, idk
@tremarley9648
4 жыл бұрын
@@wannabeaworldcitizen6938 Thorium waste is hardly dangerous
@raphaelnikolaus0486
4 жыл бұрын
So, if you add up the days of Hydroelectric, Wind, and Solar, you get 358 days or a factor of 98.08% compared to Nuclear's 341 days or 93.5%.
@meneither3834
4 жыл бұрын
The looping music is stuck in my head please make it stop
@perp1exed
4 жыл бұрын
It's called an "earworm". There are videos on what they are and how to combat them.
@abubakrqaasim8565
4 жыл бұрын
Im quite surprised smaller modular nuclear power plants were not included in the video even though the video covered mostly everything. Apparently the smaller modular reactors use less fuel so are a lot less expensive and are more agile. But I think it is quite late to be thinking about building nuclear power plants as coal and gas power is being replaced by renewables and they are getting incredibly cheaper by the year as more R&D and mass production kicks in. The amount of energy storage solutions being trialled is increasing too and in my opinion all these little pieces would very likely push nuclear powerplants off the table for the next few years (and hopefully bring in fusion power plants in the next 20 years!)
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