Nuclear Physicist Explains - Nuclear VS Renewable Energy

Nuclear Physicist Explains - Nuclear VS Renewable Energy
In this video, I explain Nuclear VS Renewable Energy from the perspective of a nuclear physicist. I go through Nuclear VS Renewable Energy.
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[@Ulyssestnt]

Wind and solar at the scale proposed would mean a 7000% increase in mining globally..hardly carbon neutral I'd say. Great channel,I'm a nuclear power evangelist too. We need to build our movement and channels such as yours are super important. It's also great you are not the stereotype "Mr Burns" charicature that many people think of at first.😊

[@icowrich]

No, it would mean a net reduction in mininge globally, since it would displace coal mining.

[@Ulyssestnt]

@@icowrich Lets be very conservative and call it a 1000% increase of global mining output of rare earth minerals. Most these minerals are concentrated in the global south. Heavy mining machinery doesnt run off electricity it runs off diesel and they run 24/7 for the duration of the mines lifetime(I.e. until the amount of resources are extracted that its economical to extract). In a very real sense we are merely outsourcing the burning of hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) by going the route of EVs/Wind/Solar etc..and therefore outsourcing emissions. Out of sight out of mind huh? Also assuming that we ever are going to cease extracting coal oil or gas on a global level is very wishful thinking at best and delusion at worst. We have a tried and time tested means of generating renewable energy...today,right now! Why are we not already planning out thousands of nuclear power plants of the latest generation,that have redundancies upon redundancies in safety features? Because we are going to build them in 30-40 years anyway when its clear all else have failed. Why not skip this morbid charade?

[@BerishStarr]

In a my country, Sweden, we are lucky to have so much hydro. I wish we would make it more environmental friendly though. But about 43% of our power come from hydro. 31% from our nuclear reactors, 17% from wind, 9% from thermal and only 1% from solar. As you say, a mix is probably best. Side note: We also burn trash to heat our homes 😁(Which also give us power, 0.5% of our total power production)

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Hej och tack for your comment :D it's great to hear that some countries are doing things the right way ☢️👩🏽‍🔬 there's tho always room for improvement

[@svensvensson8102]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist Sweden has had some of, if not THE, lowest electricity prices in Europe for decades and virtually CO2-free electricity production. Production costs for Swedish Nuclear is about 2.5 euro cents per kWh. This is now mearly a memory. Fully functioning reactors have been replaced by intermittent renewables. The result is higher CO2 emissions (from imports), dramatically higher prices, reduced transmission capacity from Hydro-areas and an unstable grid without margins. I don't think that this is a successful example. In fact, I see no benefits from renewables in our mix, only problems, until large scale storage solutions are available, which is unlikely for many years.

[@Paltse]

Hydro plants have negative effect on wildlife though. Mainly fish and species that happen to eat fish and those species eating fish eaters.

[@svensvensson8102]

@@Paltse True. Hydro has its own problems but if CO2 is our main concern then hydro is great. It's also great as a regulator for Nuclear, which you want to (but don't have to) run at full capacity. There's always going to be tradeoffs but I think a Nuclear/Hydro mix is the best combo all things considered.

[@Paltse]

@@svensvensson8102 At the moment, yes. I agree. In the future, who knows. However, what constitutes environment? Just flora? Just our own habitat? That would be quite narrow unenlightened self-interest.

[@michaeltymm6289]

These videos are so great! Thank you Elina!

[@user-cx6rg6mr7d]

love this comparison and intro video!!

[@kjaubrey4816]

Loving your videos. I would love to hear your take on thorium reactors. There have been many videos and articles about them but I would like to hear from you as a scientist.

[@ryhol5417]

Another great video.

[@misbarahman9469]

Great Video. Thank you very much. Got a good Comparative idea of nuclear vs renewable energy.

[@dodiewallace41]

NP is the gold standard of clean energy. It’s as clean and safe as any alternative, requires a fraction of the resources and produces clean, reliable energy 24/7/365. NP really is the premier example of dematerialization in which we actually use less to produce more. we certainly don't add intermittent power sources in order to harden our increasingly fragile grids, in engineering intermittent is a synonym for broken.

[@finlanderxx]

"24/7/365" *maintanance and extreme weather reasons, not included

[@dodiewallace41]

@@finlanderxx Isn't that true of everything? NP is the way to go to provide clean, reliable power with the least harm and greatest reliability. the evidence all demonstrates that historically, nuclear has been the fastest way to decarbonize, requires the least raw materials and land, and results in fewer deaths per unit of energy produced. I don't expect you or anyone else to take my word for it, I do expect you to use data and evidence to fact check your opinions and be willing to adjust your opinions when it conflicts with the evidence. You would find the GLEX energy page useful. Here you will find tools that shed light on aspects related to energy consumption and energy sources. The aim is to better understand the totality, which requires focus on climate, health, economy, nature and the environment. The goal is to provide the user with relevant information that provides just such a comprehensive overview. It is not a goal that those who use the tools agree with everything, but that the debate changes focus from opinion-based to fact-based. this is fundamental in order to be able to mitigate the climate challenges while meeting the sustainability goals.

[@ooooneeee]

both have advantages and disadvantages. we need both and for renewable we need large scale power storage. but just batteries for electricity but gravity and, most underdeveloped right now, heat storage.

[@dodiewallace41]

@@ooooneeee RE or not is meaningless. What's important is reliability, affordability, and environmental impact. Unfortunately we have made instead the goal RE. The inconvenient fact is that low-carbon energy generation depends on metals and minerals, just like high-carbon energy generation depends on oil and gas. You can’t call these metals and minerals with a prayer or make them in a lab. They have to be mined. What kinds, how much, and at what financial and environmental costs vary tremendously, and its not related to being called renewable or not. As dilute intermittents like wind and solar are so problematic both in the enormous amount of resources they require and in loss of efficiency when incorporated into infrastructure they have a far larger environmental impact than the other low-carbon options. Over dependence on W&S involves digging, blasting & leaching more minerals from the skin of this planet than ever before. What's important is reliability, affordable, and low environmental impact. Focusing on renewable instead is counterproductive. All energy sources have trade offs, for instance hydrocarbons are dense, reliable, affordable, stable and can be stored where needed until use to power any kind of machine. They also are dirty. Hydro and geothermal are dense, reliable, affordable, and clean. They are also limited by geography and are not suffently scalable, hydro also has significant local environmental impact. I'm hopeful that deep bore geothermal will someday be practical. When and if that happens this will make this clean reliable power far more available than it is now. Wind and solar are far too resource intensive and chaotic to ever be capable of doing the heavy lifting of meeting our energy needs. Some can be integrated into energy infrastructure lowering emissions somewhat. Too much raises system costs and weakens infrastructure functionality. W&S are often the best option for off grid applications. Biomass and biofuel have poor energy return for energy invested and very large land use. There are niche applications where they make sense. Nuclear power rises to the top when compared to the alternatives. It requires a fraction of the resources to deliver clean reliable power 24/7/365. NP really is the premier example of ‘dematerialization’ in which we actually use less to produce more. NP is the way to go to provide clean, reliable power with the least harm. the evidence all demonstrates that historically, nuclear has been the fastest way to decarbonize, requires the least raw materials and land, and results in fewer deaths per unit of energy produced.

[@finlanderxx]

@@dodiewallace41 That is true. I think my point was to show that nuclear power is not always available as we can see for example how France has many plants offline and how that leads to disaster that you are relying on it too much. Other concern I have is the electricity cost. How can nuclear power compete with solar and wind it's getting cheaper to produce electricity. With Elina's graph in the video, the cost per MWh was almost 3x with nuclear power and that was in 2019, the gap must be much higher now. How is that economilly feasable, if most of the year the nuclear plant has to sell electricity at the lose. And people still are suprised that plants were discontinued and new plants were canceled

[@BM1982.V2]

Geothermal should be considered more especially on the Pacific rim countries. In Canada up until recently we were the only country on the Pacific rim not using geothermal. Now we have a few small plants but definitely have a lot of potential for more

[@clemmct9154]

I recently learned that geothermal is not as clean as it seems, it consumes a lot of water and in some case can liberate CO2 buried in the grouns

[@anastassiosperakis2869]

@@clemmct9154 consuming lots of water does not at all mean it is not clean.

[@JohnSchley]

The waste section got me curious, when you take into consideration the materials needed to manufacture and the mining of said materials for solar panels, turbine blades, batteries, fuel rods and all that stuffs, what is the environmental cost once all that is taken into account as well? Food for thought.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Hey thanks for your comment! You’re rights it’s an important and interesting topic to address! I’ll do so in a future video. Please subscribe to not miss out on future content☢️👩🏽‍🔬

[@gacekbd]

Sheer amount of devices needed to be manufactured makes it more wasteful than nuclear. And speaking of solar efficiency over those 15 years of lifetime it should be mentioned it declines during that time.

[@rogerstarkey5390]

You build a wind turbine pylon. Install the generator and blades. Run for decades, remove the worn generator and blades *for recycling*. Then fit NEW units and ....run for decades. (Already being done)

[@rogerstarkey5390]

@@gacekbd There are 30+ year old solar panels still producing useful amounts of energy, either in their original projects, or resold to others. At end of life, they are *fully* recycled.

[@factnotfiction5915]

@@rogerstarkey5390 Yeah, in test units. In real life, the decision maker in the wind farm is told the old pylon has been in service for 30 years, may or may not have cracks etc - and then is asked "Should we stick our brand spanking-new $20 million turbine on top of the old, potentially crumbling pylon? Or should we replace the pylon also?"

[@ralc4883]

Great video, let's use them all.

[@roblarssen249]

Great video! I felt the efficiency comparison wasn't quite fair though--especially for renewables it maybe isn't that important what % of incident sunlight actually gets converted to energy, since sunlight is free. A better comparison might have been amortized cost per MWh generated, or else amount and toxicity of waste produced per MWh

[@whiskeytango9769]

Sunlight isn't free because you need to build infrastructure to capture it. That infrastructure has costs and the more efficiently you can convert sunlight to electricity, the less infrastructure you need to build. Also, if that infrastructure has to sit idle for significant periods of time [night time, cloudy days] then you have infrastructure that cost you money, that is doing nothing. When you take into account the idle time, the efficiency of solar is closer to 3%. Renewables are a complete loser, we should use our scarce resources to build nuclear and abandon renewables completely.

[@slugface322]

@Whiskey Tango cha-ching WT for the win! Solar only works in space, then radiation tears apart the cells faster than they would degrade on earth's surface. My favorite way of framing the issue is, we have currently only three

[@davidabulafia7145]

Renewable in the lifespan from creation to disposing generates more waste than nuclear.

[@LSuschena]

There are LCOE calculations that include many factors, but just because solar has a lower LCOE, doesn’t mean what the renewable warriors thing it means. The bottom line numbers are energy to the grid that the consumers can use. Any fossil or nuclear plant can put 100% of their rated capacity to the grid, so on any given day, their capacity factor is 100%. The equivalent generating capacity of solar can only put 25% of its capacity to the grid, on a perfect solar day. Wiki LCOE numbers are for KW, so let’s use those. Solar $839/kw Advanced Nuclear $6000/kw Fossil Combined Cycle $1000/kw Coal w/SO2 & NOx $3500-3800/kw On shore wind $1,600/kw Off shore wind $6500/kw So let use equivalent generating capacity of nuclear vs solar. 1 kw nuclear plant will put 24 kw to the grid on any given day. 1 kw of solar can put 6 kw to the grid on a perfect solar day, Therefore 4 times the solar generation needs to be installed to get 24 kw to the grid, during the day. $830/kw x 4 = $3,320/24 kw Of course that generation during the day, if you want that power for night, 1/4 of solar goes to the grid and 3/4 goes to storage, or 18 kw. Battery storage is $1,380/kw x 18 kw = $24,160/18 kw. Solar generation $3,320 Battery storage $24,840 Total solar & battery $28,160. Solar is 4.5 times as expensive as nuclear.

[@whiskeytango9769]

@@LSuschena Yes, and I have read studies that show that solar, on average, will only deliver 3% of its rated capacity to the grid over the life of those panels.

[@magicworldbyjorg]

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thanks a ton for the support 👩🏽‍🔬☢️

[@magicworldbyjorg]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist Thank you very mutch... have a nice day.... see you….

[@zeon5323]

I like this video. Entertaining and informative.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thanks a lot i appreciate the support ☢️👩🏽‍🔬

[@ValMartinIreland]

But wrong.

[@S-396-Shark]

This honestly just showed now we need both and not just pick one over the other

[@undertaker666dead]

I think nuclear power plant cooling towers are a thing of beauty.

[@Apollorion]

Those cooling towers are not unique to nuclear power plants; most power plants running on heat use them too.

[@Ulyssestnt]

How did that simpson strike episode song go again:"So we'll march day and night By the big cooling tower. They have the plant But we have the power."

[@yanibarca]

Chapeau 👏👏👏👏

[@thiagosestini29]

Congrats on the video, it's great to have someone talking about these topics in a way that is accessible to most people and yet covers what is actually relevant for energy generation. I'm no expert, but I've worked a couple years at an interconnected systems operator (grid manager in my country) and it baffles me how people arrive at unrealistic conclusions based on simplistic views of energy generation. Things like thinking the entire matrix should be wind and solar, or that we should not have nuclear energy. Here in Brazil we have a mostly hydro matrix, yet we also have a nuclear plant that holds the highest capacity factor in the grid (98%+). It's important to discuss things like this to prevent energy matrix planning from becoming a political arm wrestle where misinformed arguments fuel bad decisions.

[@niu9432]

It has highest capacity factor, because it works at nominal power for most of the time. You need hydro to compensate for it. I know its a baseload. But with intermittent renewables its the same thing - they need to be compensated from time to time. So if You choose nuclear its unrealistic to have significant share of renewables in Your mix. However, I'm glad that some of the countries choose renewables. There is a very limited number of suppliers of state of the art nuclear technology (also limited number of countries mining Uranium) and its unrealistic to expect that the whole word switching to nuclear is a feasible solution. That'd just cause terribly long queues in the project pipelines of nuclear technology suppliers. To all that add waiting time before a nuclear power plant is commissioned. So Hinkley point C has not become operational yet and "long-stop date" has been extended all the way to 2036, as negotiated by EDF. That's the build that has been announced in 2008 and construction started in 2017!!! In Finland (Olkiluoto) the decision has been approved by Finish parliament in 2002. Electricity production started in 2022. On the other hand, with regulation not providing difficulties, PV project is 2 years (I know I funded such thing through a crowdfunding platform). I don't have any direct info on wind, but it doesn't seem plausible to suspect that it takes significantly longer time.

[@olavgausaker1]

Thank you for a great video, very informative! I would add a couple of extra rounds: chances of a catastrophic accident and danger of a catastrophic accident.

[@uiteoi]

Which would make renewables the winner. That's the problem with these criteria studies. The results depend on criteria picking and the lack of weights on reach criteria.

[@olavgausaker1]

@@uiteoi Exactly.

[@lkj0822g]

Very informative video. A couple of points that I think were not fully discussed. For the sake of brevity, I will only include nuclear vs solar. 1. Capacity Factor (CF), i.e., the amount of time the unit is actually producing power. The CF of many modern nuclear units ranges 90 - 96%. The CF for solar in the US ranges from 11% - 29%, with the highest numbers in the Southwestern desert region. Many nuclear units come on line and run continuously for 400 -500 days until they come off line for refueling. I think the world record for continuous run is over 900 days. Solar, as you pointed out, goes off line each and every day. The bottom line is that 1000mw of nuclear is not the same as 1000mw of solar. IF (big IF) storage was feasible, and using CF as the only variable, one would have to build 4000 - 6000mw of solar (extra power needed to charge the batteries) to equate to that 1000mw nuclear. 2. Dispatch of power. Simply put, dispatchability means you can ramp up or ramp down the output to meet demand. Without storage, solar simply cannot be dispatched. One would also argue that we do not run our nuclear units in dispatch, but rather, as base load units. Due to low fuel costs, we bring nuclear units on line and they run at full load until they are brought off line. Therefore, we need units to regulate load and that is where your gas turbines and smaller coal units come into play. Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-renewables. I do think each type of generation has its place in the overall mix and the problem that I see is the "green energy" advocates are trying to use renewables in a manner in which they are not suited. Their push for renewables is placing the health of the national electrical grid in peril.

[@azak6834]

Thankyou for explaning this energy problems,I like to say this; you are very beautiful And very good .My respect for you.

[@Ken00001010]

Thank you for this very nice presentation. What I would like you to do next is to analyze the importance of each category, because they are not equal in terms of determining what the energy industry is going to do next. I would argue that levelised cost of energy (LCOE) dominates the others. This is because investors will not put their funds into building a new nuclear power plant when the same funds will build out added renewables that return more profit. Also, you should look at deep geothermal that has the potential to redirect fossil fuel drilling technology to replace the heat source in existing coal fired power plants. It is hard to justify building a nuclear power plant against the cost of drilling a hole in the ground.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thanks a lot for the suggestion ☢️👩🏽‍🔬 please subscribe to not miss out on future content

[@factnotfiction5915]

> I would argue that levelised cost of energy (LCOE) dominates the others. Sure, but should it? The LCOE is a great metric for an investor building a power plant. However, the rest of society has a different goal - low electricity prices. And the empirical answer is in - there are 5 types of electricity grids (cheap/expensive refers to electricity rates): * cheap fossil-fuel grids with high carbon output (Poland, for example) * cheap hydropower/geothermal grids with low carbon output (Norway for example) * cheap nuclear grids with low carbon output (France, Sweden, Ontario) * expensive wind/solar grids with high carbon output (Denmark, Germany) * cheap or expensive wind/solar grids with low carbon output (none of these exist yet) Nuclear France has half the price is at the bottom of the European emissions tables, while RE Germany has double the price and is at the top of the European emissions tables (both in absolute and per capita - even beating coal-heavy Poland!) Nuclear Illinois has half the price of RE California. I suggest a better metric is low-cost and low-carbon electricity.

[@Ken00001010]

@@factnotfiction5915 I think you should re-check your facts. Renewables have crossed over to become the cheapest way to generate power, and are continuing down their curve. This was published just a couple of weeks ago, and you can look it up: "A new Credit Suisse report suggests that from 2025 through 2032, the United States could see solar and wind power purchase agreements regularly signed for under $0.01/kWh, due to a combination of manufacturing and project tax credits." As to the "should" part, if you are a portfolio manager at Credit Suisse, or any other financial institution, are you going to put your clients' investments in something that analysis shows will not compete in the marketplace? Should you?

[@factnotfiction5915]

@@Ken00001010 > Renewables have crossed over to become the cheapest way to generate power, and are continuing down their curve. Yes, we see this in RE Germany. Germany has now, at this point in time, more RE and less nuclear than in the last few decades - and yet their electricity rates are the highest they have been in decades! Has nuclear France seen an increase? Yes - being part of the commone EU market, they are not immune to Germany's demand for more electricity than they can supply themselves - and yet, the impact to France is far lower. Is this what you meant by renewables 'continuing down their curve'? >: "A new Credit Suisse report suggests that from 2025 through 2032, the United States could see solar and wind power purchase agreements regularly signed for under $0.01/kWh, due to a combination of manufacturing and project tax credits." Thank you for proving my point. Even Credit Suisse does not _credit_ (ha ha) RE with being the better technology - but credits this drop in price due to "a combination of manufacturing and project tax credits." Why, exactly, should I be thrilled that my tax dollars are going to support an industry which has been shown to increase my electricity rates?

[@Ken00001010]

@@factnotfiction5915 Are you confusing "price" for "cost"? Price is what the power company charges for power and cost is what the power company has to pay to generate that power. LCOE is the driver because it determines the choices for the power company. Those choices include picking nuclear over other available sources. The price they charge you is based on their mark up and other factors. If they pay more for nuclear, they would have to reduce their profit (or even lose money) to sell to you at the same price. Do you think they are going to do that?

[@YannisGr75]

Great choice of topic for a video. You made it so easy for us to follow the comparisons down the list of attributes. No clear winner although I would (naively ?) assume that near future technology would make Nuclear Energy the clear favorite. What shocked me the most in your video was the land used comparison. I believe that near future breakthroughs and advances regarding Solar Power and renewables in general will lead us to a new tie so I agree with you that we should keep having a mix of both. A quick search tells me that only about 1 in every 6 countries (32 out of 196) uses Nuclear Power so it s very good that renewables are getting funded and advances are accelerating. As a sidenote , is the Sodium Cooled Reactor become the next generation of Nuclear Reactors , 20-30 years down the road replacing existing ones and becoming the new standard ? Would that tilt the scale at all or would the difference be negligible on that aspect ?

[@factnotfiction5915]

Yannis, I admire your enthusiasm, but there are fundamental reasons wind and solar land use will not go down. Wind - you can put wind turbines closer together if they are smaller, but large ones are more efficient. So, as the hub height goes up, so does turbulence, so you spread out the turbines more, so the net effect is basically a wash. Solar panels have similar issues, but more related to the connections. The most unreliable part of the grid are the transmission and distribution wires; but solar requires much more of this, so unreliability and/or transmission costs go up. Nuclear - here there is real optimism; for the same size, you can go hotter and hotter (gas-cooled, metal-cooled, salt-cooled), and efficiency/output can effectively double! (Carnot's law; double the output temp from 300 to 600 - easily doable with metal/salt; even above that for gas-cooled - doubles the efficiency).

[@paulthing]

I am an 'All of the above' person for energy. we need to use all forms, weeding out the highest polluting 1st, when we have enough of the less / non polluting energy. I see a lot of rich / famous people talking down to the rest of us about waste, when they use more energy than us and they have the $$$ to use mostly renewable. If they cared as much as the sound off about it. they should be supporting renewable with there $$$ not just there speeches. Sorry I digress. great video Thank you for sharing!

[@Novosax]

This is a great video, just like the rest of your videos I’ve watched. I appreciate your impartiality and lack of agenda in the face of you being a nuclear engineer. To preface my comment, I’m not against renewables by any stretch, but there are some things not mentioned in detail in this video to consider regarding the cost, carbon foot print, and danger with renewables: The lithium used in the batteries for solar, wind, and electric vehicles has to be mined. Mining has its own environmental impacts, especially if strip mining, pit mining, or mountaintop removal is chosen method. Valley filling with debris left over from blasting and digging destroys streams, plants, and habitats for animals. Shaft mining has its own environmental consequences, which come from the carbon footprint from the manufacturing and use of mining equipment, the cleansing and purification of what’s mined, and the fact that some countries (like the USA) allow for slurry and other purification waste to be put back into the mine where it can seep into the groundwater, streams, and soil. These substances are typically carcinogenic, and water contaminated with these chemicals can cause other major health problems. Shaft mining is also dangerous to workers due to potential collapses as well as chronic back and joint issues. I realize these problems are also associated with uranium mining, but the scale is an order of magnitude or two higher with coal. While I don’t know the exact numbers, I can make a supposition that cancer rates in coal and lithium mining regions and communities around land fills full of spent solar panels are substantially higher than those in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, uranium mines, and nuclear waste facilities. I’m curious about the process and byproducts associated with uranium enrichment and how it affects human health and the environment. I know nothing about it. As you mentioned, lithium is also highly toxic, and its risk to human health does not diminish over time in contrast with radioisotopes. Additionally, I need to provide disclosure that I am from West Virginia, which has been a hub for coal mining and export for well over a hundred years. That being said, I’ve witnessed firsthand how mining creates an economic impact on a region. There is a large economic boom during the start and peak of mining; however, once mining declines because of the limited nature of mined resources and the increased cost of extraction due to the easily accessible portions of the mined resource is gone, there is an economic collapse. My home state is a prime example of this. Despite the tremendous amount of coal that has left its borders, West Virginia remains one of the poorest parts of the United States. Entire towns that were centered around mining have faced near total economic collapse. I’m curious about whether this economic scenario is also associated with uranium and lithium mining. I read that 43% of the uranium extracted worldwide comes from Kazakhstan, which has a developing upper-middle income economy based on GDP, but I wonder how long their economy will remain as such. The largest lithium mine is in Australia, but that country has a diverse array of exports and a large tourism industry, which makes its economy significantly stable. Canada has the largest uranium mine despite having a significantly lower extraction rate than Kazakhstan, but like Australia, it’s economy is very diverse. You mentioned in another video that there have been a few hundred thousand deaths associated with hydroelectric, particularly from the 1975 dam collapse in China, and that the death toll per kilowatt hour for nuclear is a tiny percentage of that of renewables. I consider myself an environmentalist, but I am also in support of nuclear power. I can say that your videos have further cemented my position in favor of nuclear energy. Thank you for all the great information!

[@soldier4242]

It is so refreshing to hear a scientist talk about this. Politicians try to make is sound like an either or situation when it is far more nuanced. In reality we do need to use all the different types of energy available to us and it won't be the same answer for every area nor should we want to it be. If we tried to use just Nuclear everywhere then we would burn though our uranium faster which doesn't help anyone. If we use wind solar and hydro power in the places where they work best it leaves us more uranium for other areas. This is a fantastic video and I hope we see more nuclear plants and fewer coal plants moving forward.

[@moletrap2640]

Great analysis. I think one big mistake you made,that everybody seems to make, is not including the cost of energy storage in wind and solar calculations. Wind and solar without energy storage are not feasible solutions at scale. Comparisons of wind and solar to other options should include energy storage in all parts of the analysis. Otherwise, once again a great analysis by a highly credible source.

[@GiulioVonKerman]

Gravity batteries can also cost a ton

[@herik63]

not only, also more costs for connectin, balancing... here is a interesting paper: www.mcc-berlin.net/uploads/media/Ueckerdt_Hirth_Luderer_Edenhofer_System_LCOE_2013.pdf

[@moletrap2640]

@@GiulioVonKerman 😂😂

[@moletrap2640]

@@herik63 good reference paper, thank you.

[@hwi5561]

When considering the total cost of ownership plus Co2 and ecological equivalent cost across the supply chain (including end of life disposal and full recovery cost), I suspect Nuclear will win the race hands down

[@radiobiologist]

I hate the unreliability of solar and wind. And hydropower destroys entire natural habitats. I'm an Atoms not Dams kind of person.

[@egyeneskifli7808]

Emissions is a really interesting topic. Todays industy has a few huge emitters, one of the biggest is the cement manufacturing. So if you take a closer look, the most significant emission is comes from the construction of these powerplants, especially nuclear, and even more so of the hydro. A hydroelectric plant's basic structure is made from millions of tons of concrete. To make tat much concrete, you need a really big amount of cement. And that huge pile of cement must be transported to the mixing site, from there the mixed concrete to the construction site. Again, with really high emission. The Hoover Dam built with 2.5 million cubic meter of concrete, plus 850 000 m3 used for the auxilliary structures. And that concrete is still drying out, hasn't cured fully yet. And curing concrete emits CO2. Steel production is another big emitter. Containment vessels of a nuclear block the turbines of a hydro PP or wind PP is mainly made from steel. Iron ore needs mining too. Just like copper an aluminium for the wires. What makes electric energy has emissions thanks to this. A lot. Even if that is a renewable. People tend to forget about this side of the coin.

[@ForbiddTV]

Cost: Renewables cannot work without storage or fossil fuel/nuclear backup. You didn't consider this in your cost consideration. Waste: Since you have to replace solar/wind every 20 years, you have much more waste with renewables than you said. You also didn't mention utilizing nuclear waste in fast breeder reactors or reprocessing. Lastly, Oklo Gabon proves even direct burial is not at all a problem even without containment.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

You're absolutely right and thanks for the great comment! In future videos I'll go into more depth on these topics 👩🏽‍🔬☢️

[@bencoad8492]

also liquid fueled reactors like molten salt reactors use less fuel due to burn up, its like 90%+ compared to ~1% of solid fueled current reactors and a reduction in radioactivity from 10000 years to 300 years, so yea until MSR come online nuclear is crap once they do its a no brainier to go ham on building them lol

[@EfficientEnergyTransformations]

A friendly advice, when discussing efficiency one always needs to start with the END form of energy used. For example most of the world energy is used for, in one form or another, heating (almost 75%). In that respect a nuclear power plant can be 95% efficient, which beats all of the renewables, hands downs, aside from directly using the heat of solar thermal. The biggest "disadvantage" of nuclear (or as I joke: unclear) energy is exactly its high energy density, leading to a monstrous amount of government and international body regulations. The more government regulations the more cost goes up. The biggest issue, sort of the elephant in the room though, is that these same government regulations suppress the inventions and the entrepreneurial ship in that industry, as a company needs to be big in order to comply with, and pay for, all of them. This is why in the past almost 80 years, since the first nuclear reactor was build, as proof of concept, very few advances were made. The big exception, historically, is LFTR but event it, with insane nuclear fuel efficiency, bump in the bureaucratic wall of government politics and regulations.

[@realityflyer3155]

Hi Elina, Great vid, and we need the discussion to be impassionate and impartial. So well done. But (and there’s always a but), a few points you may want to consider: - Cost: Yep I agree, renewables have been the beneficiary of subsidies, but that would be the ignore the history of nuclear. Nuclear (at least in the US and UK) was heavily government subsidised in its infancy - in fact, in the UK, most of the nuclear plants were government owned prior to privatisation. Renewables are in their fledgling phase (albeit maturing), and the subsidies have been wound back as a result. I feel a better comparison would have been absolute costs of development, build, maintenance, waste handling, and decommissioning. Also, while not obtaining subsidises, Hinkley Point C has a minimum price guarantee, which is almost the same (in the current market, not - but if prices drop again, it will be the same). While the winner wouldn’t have changed, the amount the winner wins by would be much different. - On emissions, there are a couple of things that go against nuclear plants not mentioned. In fairness, you do mention the construction phase as part of the whole lifecycle of the plant, but it understated the CO2 contribution. Nuclear plants use massive amounts of concrete. Hinkley Point C has over 3 million tonnes of concrete in its construction, and I should not have to state how emissions prone concrete production is. Also, maintenance requirements are so much higher.. And yes, while mining was mentioned, transport from Russia, Australia, and I think Africa is not without its CO2 issues. Yes, the winner in that category wouldn’t change but the margin would. - On a gross basis, I agree land use is a real problem with solar and wind - hydro and wave would be interesting to bring into the mix. But, forgetting the latter two, the gross area used by solar and wind does not tell the whole story. The land for both of these is still useable for other uses. The solar farm down the road from me still grazes sheep under the panels - and the grass still grows. The bulk of the area with windmills/turbines is in the air, and with less filtering of solar radiation, cattle, sheep and other pursuits can still be pursued. By contrast, every nuclear plant I have worked on has had no other purpose available to it. In other words, one has to compare the land footprint of the poles and other supporting structures - not the area they solar panels or windmills occupy - or in other other words, the net area used. I haven’t done the math, but I am guessing the net land area consumed is far less than that stated on the video, and while it may not change the winner (or it may), the difference isn’t anywhere near what is claimed. - I would argues that despite the radioactivity of nuclear waste (not forgetting that plants create other waste..) that nuclear waste is not as bad as renewables. As you mention, renewables waste is usually buried. Carbon fibres, the various corrosive acids, acetates, etc are not good to allow to just go into land fill. Nuclear waste is far more regulated and controlled, so, while dangerous, it is managed far better. I would almost give the winning gong to nuclear on that one. - On reliable output, I think with today’s technology, it isn’t as clear cut between renewables and nuclear. Yes, nuclear is (almost) always guaranteed. Yes, the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, and some areas can’t do constant hydro.. But when the wind is blowing, and the sun is shining, and the hydro is flowing, there is mostly excess energy produced, which can be stored in mega-batteries. The Aussie state of South Australia, I believe is totally powered renewably, and uses Tesla LiIon mega batteries to store and release electricity. There were some teething problems, mainly with infrastructure, but “saving the energy for later” - i.e. storing electricity in batteries, is part of the equation. Interestingly, the emissions involved (as well as the human cost) involved in manufacturing the batteries may well move the scale on the emissions argument. But, as South Australia has proved, the battery technology (at least for that state) is there, now. - Sustainability: If the sun stops shining or the wind stops blowing, we have a whole lot more problems than where are we getting our energy from. - One thing you didn’t mention was ongoing maintenance. I would like to understand the difference in the maintenance requirements during a plants life and after it for nuclear and renewables.. and the impact of costs, emissions, etc. I understand windmills require oil changes and bearing changes, and possibly, carbon fibre blade changes. Solar probably requires weeding, some rust dusting, and wire replacement. An 2-year refuel of a PWR requires what level of maintenance? Ongoing preventative, predictive, and unplanned maintenance for operating nuclear facilities, and ongoing maintenance for decommissioned facilities? - Efficiency - wow! Solar’s lower efficiency was a surprise to me. But for renewables, where the power source is never ending (well, at least until we need to worry more about the ending of it than power generation), does it matter? Is it a factor, because, unlike finite sources of generation, if we are not efficient with it, we have an un-ending supply, so we can afford the “waste”. Of course, the infrastructure to convert costs in terms of size, cost, and even CO2, but the ratio compared to non-renewables has to be looked at. I would say, that while efficiency is a compelling factor for finite sources of generation, it is not really important for renewables and should be discounted. As an ex-nuke worker (not physicist), I miss those days. But I try and take a wider view these days. Still subscribed, and enjoy the education I get immensely…

[@unconventionalideas5683]

0:05 Very appropriate effect!

[@JGZimmerle]

Proponents of renewables often mention the large numbers of jobs needed for installation and maintenance of these very low density energy sources as a positive aspect. But many western countries are now facing the retirement of the baby boomer generation, and with it a severe shortage of workers (of all skill levels). So what we really need are energy sources that are more productive (needing less workers), so that people can work in other areas where we have severe shortages (like teachers, care givers, etc) instead.

[@hannahtavana]

One point I think was missing is that all current types of nuclear fission reactors most be near reliable clean water sources for cooling and steam, it is in danger because of global warming and rise of sea level which results in pollution of clean water sources But I like the video and the impartially of it, thank you for putting your time into it May I ask for a video about Helium fission modular reactors? It recently came to my attention but I couldn’t really understand how it works, it would be great to have an expert explain it.

[@moletrap2640]

At minute 1107, it would be interesting to know how many hours of wind and how many hours of solar are in that pellet?

[@rogerstarkey5390]

Consider this. "That pellet" starts producing energy at "switch on" . How about Fossil generation not removed from the grid during construction? . Let's say it's a 10 year nuclear project (being generous) It's "binary" During that 10 years, the fossil output the pellet will offset is still on the grid. Let's call it 1GW times 10 years = "10GW years" of build footprint fossil generation. . A "green project" (I have one in mind.... Offshore wind) Construction, 5 years. BUT It's 1.2GW. AND it "ramps'. Each turbine is "switched on" as it is completed. The average output over the 5 years is 50% of the final capacity. But it's Wind! (In "the windiest place in Europe") Assume 80% capacity when complete, 0.96 GW. . Halve that for the average, that's 0.48GW fossil left on the grid for 5 years = a "build footprint" of 2.4 GW years fossil generation. . The nuclear project has a deficit of 10-2.4 = "7.6 GW years" fossil generation that it can never catch up. . (These figures were generous to the nuclear option)

[@Stiffsen]

Hi Elina, here is a little suggestion: If you added all your sources to the video descriptions, this would make you and your videos a lot more credible and informative. :-)

[@marcwinkler]

Efficiency of a nuclear reactor is 33%.

[@Apollorion]

@@marcwinkler Most probably that also depends on the reactor type & mode.

[@Morlock1943]

The lifespan of danish windmiles are longer then they orginal thought. It is common that the last around 30 years. The gear on the windmill which is very expensive is the main issue. When it dies, the windmill normally are scraped.

[@willm5814]

Nice work Elina - I think nuclear needs to be part of the mix - maybe 15 to 20% my biggest concern is catastrophic failures - although low in probability- could be devastating in impact - There have been very significant advances is the last 10 years in the area of closed loop geothermal. - this technology looks very promising and could be the greenest of them all (for example see the EAVOR company in Alberta Canada)

[@viperswhip]

Newer reactors are very unlikely to suffer any catastrophic failure. As far as geothermal, ya, did you see that heat drill that can drill 8000 feet? Awesome.

[@willm5814]

@@viperswhip Yea and being able to have a closed loop system would be amazing, so not extracting water or introducing chemicals into the ground and according to the companies that are getting started with it, it can can be done virtually anywhere for heat or electricity generation.

[@douglaspierce8480]

The US navy has been safely operating 12-13 large nuclear reactors for over twenty years without a single catastrophe. Wind and solar will not be able to supply this nation with the lever of electric power that we are used to, without nuclear in the mix.

[@svensvensson8102]

What would make up the other 80-85%?

[@user-iz7pi4vd7g]

Hey, Just a small side information: The development of better computers, batteries, sensors, LED, ... all heavily benefits solar cells (and vice versa), as the technologies are really close together. Hence, the price drop for solar cells is due to the money in the computer industry and not due to special funding. The toxicity of solar cells depends on the architecture. There are toxic ones, but others can be recycled. For the lifetime of solar cells: after 20 years, the solar cells still produce energy. The problem is that the next generation of solar cells is much more efficient, thus it is feasible to get a new plant instead of keeping the old one. In short: the life span of solar cells is in practice limited to the time needed to produce a better device. (It's similar to mobiles. Even if a mobilephone still works perfectly after 10 years, it often makes sense to get a new one) For the efficiency: You noticed that you compared solar cells to an nearly unlimited recourse (sun shine) and nuclear to a material recources (uranium). I would really have loved to category: Time needed to build a certain amount of power. And it's there a video about the flexibility of nuclear plants? I have heard, that many nuclear can react really flexible to changes and the opposite, therefore I would love some details!

[@HADDEN67]

Wind turbines are almost fully recyclable. Metal and glass fibre.

[@uiteoi]

The same goes for solar panels

[@jrnc]

Please, do a video about the solutions from the disadvantages of nuclear plant!!

[@rodrigocantomartensen910]

Elina, how about the LFTR technology? Do you have an opinion about the aspects of using it against the traditional nuclear fission technology?

[@SonnyKnutson]

I want to know about it too! :D

[@manny2themaxxx333]

Thank you for making this video. I am still anti nuclear power plants. I do appreciate this video.

[@HADDEN67]

With wind power the land can still be used for growing crops.

[@uiteoi]

And solar panels can help protect for increasingly excessive heat above crops and cars in parking lots. So the land surface argument actually goes in favor of solar energy. This also make renewable energy the winner.

[@christopherleubner6633]

I feel glowing after this presentaion ⛤❤⛤

[@TedApelt]

Land use of wind and solar is no problem since the land can still have another use, for example large, flat, sprawling buildings like shopping malls and their parking lots could be covered with solar panels, with cars parking in their shade. Recycling of wind and solar will happen once there is enough of it. The "Engineering with Rosie" channel has a video that explains how this will happen.

[@HADDEN67]

Both require pica plants or grid scale storage for peak demand. Except Hydro which can be used for peak demand and grid scale storage.

[@wertigon]

Regarding Solar and Wind taking space, yes they do. However, a lot of that space is unused. For instance, Agrivoltaics allows you to put up a lot of solar on farm land, without interfering with crop growth (and in many cases actually helping it). Solar on the roof can easily help power low-energy uses, especially with a 10kWh battery. These include things like LED strips and LED bulbs, cell phone chargers, laptop computers, televisions, maybe even dishwashers and water boilers. Basically, anything that draws less than 50W of power overall can reliably be powered by the sun, and 400-500W can be sustained for short bursts too. I don't think Solar will be good enough to run industry machinery in most places - however, they can greatly offload Offices, Stores and Homes so the base load can be redirected to Industry.

[@uiteoi]

Solar can also protects cars from excessive heat on parking lots, reducing the need for cooling.

[@SqueaksUofA]

I’m not putting any batteries on my farmland. Asking for trouble.

[@wertigon]

@@SqueaksUofA How about a pond with a pump and a generator?

[@SqueaksUofA]

@@wertigon sounds a lot better, but wouldn’t want the generator near crops or farmland. Hydroelectric is better than wind and solar on a few different aspects, one of those being efficiency. Im not a fan of Hydro on natural waterways though.

[@tlightim2483]

First reaction to video is that they shouldn't be competing....anything that isnt fossil fuel is best....I know renewables won the emmissons round but the fact that as nuclear is steam based it produces a GHG in the form of water vapour. Also fresh water demand itself will be more and more important going forward.

[@benjaminlamey3591]

Hello, I believe we will need both nuclear and renewable to get rid of the fossil. On the cost, you adress mainly the building cost. But I lack teh comparison here. if we count the production over lifetime and spread the cost, the final cost per kWh produced is probably in favor of nuclear. Regarding the CO2 emissions, it is the same, if you levelise over the production, the LCA puts the nuclear on par with offshore wind. However, this highly depends of the emissions of the electricity used to refine the nuclear fuel.

[@Ormathon]

Heard from i think it was kyle hill that said the amount of long term(super radioactive thats radioactive for 10000+ years) that is currently stored is super small in volume, like it can fit in a football field(without all the containment around them im guessing).

[@torbjornsw8174]

nice video but one thing i think you missed in the emissions part is that hydro power witch is the biggest of the renewable and the easiest to regulate output and store energy from is not emission free. It's no ware near the emissions of coal or gas but depending on where and how the reservoir i built they can have significant greenhouse emissions.

[@richardbaird1452]

Primarily methane from decaying material in the reservoir area as I understand it. They can also increase leaching of other toxic materials such as mercury and lead depending on what the site is built on. Not saying Hydro is bad, but need to understand all the impacts to truly compare.

[@sokolmihajlovic1391]

Ty Elina. Based on facts, presented in a pleasant way, good job. Agreed, reliability is the biggest issue here with renewables. The unsolved problem of proper waste treatment is the close second of the issues with renewables. Upfront costs are with renewables also quite high, even nuclear is even more expensive, at least regarding upfront costs. But you are right. We need both. In fact we need both as much and as fast as possible to get rid of fossil fuels. Some 40-50% of total lifetime costs of nuclear (renewables about half of it) are costs of interest payments. Well my proposal is to finance (government backed) both energy forms with upto 90% of total costs through a 1‰ interest per month government loan and with a mandatory monthly principal payment of at least 1‰. Limited to maximum time frame upon mandatory redemption of the remaining debt of 30 years.

[@electron7373]

Good basic basic energy pros and cons video - I gave a thumbs up. As always the devil is in the detail though.

[@pirahnalasagne]

Would have liked to see the categories ranked to determine a greater probability of a winner.

[@jkinkamo]

Is it really nuclear waste? In astrophysics they taught fission is possible until Fe, so perhaps in the future we could use this binding energy too. Regarding renewables, due to unplanned nature of low inertia solar and wind compared to higher inertia hydro & nuclear one cannot load transmisson lines to feasible enough capacity w/o enough high inertia production. For those who know Swedish Prof Blomgren has discussed this issue (of how to keep frequency stability) in his lecture video "Så här uppstod elkrisen i Sverige". Btw in Nordpool FI zone they are now commissioning 1.6 GW OL3 NPP. Unfortunately they have some issues w/ the feed water pumps, probably delaying the commissioning. In order to avoid the whole FI zone collapse they've already warned rolling 120 min blackouts for this winter.

[@flforofrancisco]

Great explanation! We should leave decisions on energy use to environmental planners and economists who understand the different factors in power and electricity production. Often we end up having facilities that appear to be planning diasters due to the bloody mindedness of politicians and lawyers who think they know better even as their resumes says otherwise!

[@grantcivyt]

Environmental planners and economists aren't elected. There's no way to avoid the reality that tradeoffs require compromises among our differing, competing values. Values aren't found in economics textbooks or physics journals.

[@scottbanks4906]

Based on your own explanation of the waste issue especially the fact that the toxic materials from renewables have no half life and their disposal is less regulated meaning that toxins can enter the food chain I was very surprised by you decision to give this category to renewables.

[@rogerstarkey5390]

What are you taking about? Take a look at decommissioning of nuclear. Three mile island had just started the *60 year* process.

[@ronblack7870]

i would say if both are disposed properly it's equal . nuclear has to be sealed in casks and buried deep. if you bury the solar panels deep encased in casks it would be the same. but the volume would be greater but could be packed more densely since there is no radioactive heating

[@davestagner]

@@ronblack7870 So what is “properly”? Are solar panels any more dangerous or toxic than, say, the materials used in cars? How do we dispose of cars? Do we NEED to treat them as the functional equivalent of nuclear waste? Or is simply burying them just fine - especially since they can be dug up as recycling advances.

[@richardbaird1452]

@@davestagner The potential problem with "simply burying" non radioactive toxic materials is leaching (regardless of original use, power production, cars, aircraft, electronics, buildings, etc...). The more degraded the original material, the more it tends to leach and once it does, it can enter water tables and is virtually impossible to clean up (and has no half-life). Containment until recycling is the answer to this, as it is for used nuclear fuel. The difference is, that actually happens for used nuclear fuel, but it doesn't always for non nuclear wastes.

[@davestagner]

@@richardbaird1452 Well yeah, I get that. BUT. The idea that we shouldn’t do renewables because someday they’ll have to be disposed of and they’re “chemicals” or whatever, while ignoring the INCREDIBLE amounts of other problematic waste we are also generating… hmm. I mean, who thinks twice about throwing out a PFAS-coated french fry box? That’s totally normal, and happens at epic scale, everywhere. Better yet, before throwing out that box of “forever chemicals”, you ate off of it, putting that stuff directly in your body. Which is why all of us - all of us (not to mention wild animals) - have measurable amounts of this stuff in our bodies. With this mind - and it’s just an example - the whole concern about “dangerous chemicals” in a solar panel just reeks of hypocrisy and propaganda.

[@mariagavriilidou7525]

That was a really informative video. I also do believe that we need to use whatever suits every country and take with us the pros and cons of each side. Maybe the "right" answer doesn't exist (at least for now) but we can use the better one.

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thank you for your comment i appreciate it ☢️👩🏽‍🔬 and i agree!

[@marcwinkler]

She explains ... let's say She gives her opinion. Guys on this forum are not beginners.

[@solar0wind]

In the video from Simon Clark "Why nuclear power will (won't) solve climate change", he compares nuclear and renewables as well, and also interviews a grid expert who says that renewables are only cheap in the lower percentages of use. Idk how to say. So if you go from using 0% to 10% renewables in your grid, that's significantly cheaper than going from 90 to 100% use because for that you need to rebuild the entire grid, and that's en par with building nuclear power plants. I hope I remembered that correctly.

[@CasabaHowitzer]

We can recycle nuclear waste and use the fissile material in it to produce more electricity. This is an old concept and would essentially eliminate the problem of nuclear waste, but it hasn't been developed to a point where it is viable. This is a trend with nuclear power in general; in my opinion, it is too stigmatized. If we started going all-in on nuclear in the 50s and never stopped, we would probably be at fusion right now.

[@babyatemydingo574]

In comparison to mining for uranium and other nuclear material, how much environmental impact does mining and refinement of material is associated with the manufacture and construction of renewable sources?

[@javiercastro8466]

The waste is actually starting to be addressed for wind and solar, as they start to be recycled; the sustainability is a work in progress, but a number of battery solutions are being developed, including gravity and flywheel batteries.

[@redspock]

Nice video. I'm not a fan of nuclear power but I do support massive funding for research for both nuclear and renewables. One category you should mention, or at least applies here in the U.S. is the amount of time it takes to build a nuclear plant. I believe it's in the range of 40 to 50 years based on the last few plants. The other main issue is financing, these plants can only be built with government support, the private sector will not touch them. Last category, what happens when a windmill or a solar panel blows up versus say a nuclear powerplant having a meltdown? The nuclear powerplant can operate perfectly for 30+ years, maybe more but it only needs to have 1 bad day... In the U.S. the nuclear powerplant operators have been less than honest with it's customers when it comes to problems with releasing radioactive steam ( forget the exact term ). In my state, when this happened the news wasn't released until several years later and nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a small fine. When you have management like that, it's nuclear power's own worst enemy.... Plus take a look at MIT and their Geothermal project, using new tech to bore holes down 12 miles, could be promising, it's both nuclear and green... keep up the videos.

[@kayakMike1000]

My vote is on nuclear, and lots of it. I would love to help write the software control systems to manage the reactor. So much to learn. So many sensors. It would be so much to learn.

[@gingernutpreacher]

Arrr that's cute you know we only have a limited amount of uranium left it's 80 years at present but if you quadruple 20 years and it's gone and yes I know about thurioum but we don't have and and we will runout before any government does anything about development

[@GuyFromJupiter]

Same here. It sounds daunting but also intriguing.

[@mohd.saifullahmajid6029]

NP becomes very expensive because of the extremely high safety standards and multiple redundant critical components for every active safety feature

[@TheyCalledMeT]

continuous base load is one of the biggest points something a world mainly relying on renewable energy will desperately need .. else energy storage will be by far more damaging to the environment and electricity much more expensive than it should be (we're talking about requiremnts for rare ressources to build the storages .. outside of what is actually possible and would be by FAR worse than our current energy usage and cost wise .. it would be several times more expensive than it is right now)

[@Boodieman72]

Elina, we need both. Nuclear power is consistent while renewables are not. Solar power has the issue not working when it's dark, wind doesn't work when it's not running. Hydro is not a renewable energy source as the people in the south western part of the US will tell you. Lake Meade which is fed be the Colorado river is close to going dry. The Hoover Dam is why there is a Lake Meade

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

I absolutely agree thanks for the great insight 👩🏽‍🔬☢️

[@Boodieman72]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist I wish there were smaller reactors that could be used for smaller areas and more of them than the current large ones. Submarines are nuclear powered so it must be possible.

[@hmmmmssz870]

@@Boodieman72 there are hopes for that! There was a recent article about an Estonian company buying Small Modular Reactors - they've been commissioned, at least. Hopefully they can be online in the next few years!

[@sustainablerenewableintegr8311]

Nuclear energy is more suitable to replace coal as consistent base load energy source. Renewable energy (plus storage) is more suitable to replace natural gas as wildly varying peak load energy source. Nowadays, there are several small modular reactor designs with passive cooling. That cuts the CAPEX for nuclear by a significant margin.

[@altrerive721]

As a person or a little village/community I cannot buy a nuclear generator, but I can buy photovoltaic panels, hydroelectric generator, wind turbines and I can use biomass for heat and electricity generation, it is also a matter of freedom. Where I live I can buy used photovoltaic panels for 10 or 20 euros and new from 60 euros.

[@kestutisstugys1189]

We used to have a nuclear power plant in Lithuania, however, it was the same type of reactor as Chornobyl and it was shot down due to safety concerns. Now the energy is expensive as hell there. I wish we build another one.

[@marcwinkler]

New nuclear is not cheap and takes time to build.

[@kestutisstugys1189]

@@marcwinkler, I agree that the initial building of the power plant isn't cheap, but the power is cheap in a long run.

[@davidabulafia7145]

​@@marcwinkler anything good take time to build

[@skodovkar]

Thanks for your video. Unfortunately, nuclear can not be built everywhere as it needs a lot of water for cooling and also somewhat safe location. Both are issues here in Czech Republic, especially availability of water during hot and dry summers. Temelín and Dukovany nuclear power plants show for this reason not much potential for building of new blocks ☢❤

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Has Czech Republic considered Small modular reactors ?

[@skodovkar]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist I do not think so. There is currently no actual need for more electricity production as we are a net exporter of electricity. Only gas cogeneration units were quite popular so far, but they would not be profitable if they were not subsidized. Also photovoltaic is on rise, but here it is truly intermittent energy source due to weather. Could you please make some videos about future of nuclear energy? I specifically mean how it looks like with reactors for already (partially) burnt fuel. Thanks and I am looking forward to your next videos 🙂

[@killcat1971]

Depends of the design, high temperature gas cooled reactors, or molten salt reactors, are designed to be run at very high temperatures, so cooling is not as much of an issue.

[@VojtaJavora]

@@skodovkar there actually is need for more electricity (I hope we will pursue modular reactors) if we want to phase out coal. Edit: I just looked it up and small modular reactors are indeed planned.

[@douglasbell3344]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist My understanding is that SMRs are only operational as pilot programs and it is not yet possible to get a license for one?

[@davestagner]

Cost is EVERYTHING, really. The free market is your best friend or your worst enemy. And it’s a lot more complex than just the up-front bill for building a power plant. And it’s why I think there’s no hope for nuclear, despite its many advantages. Time to market is a cost, too. If it takes two years to build a wind farm or ten years to build a nuclear power plant, that’s a HUGE cost difference that isn’t directly in dollars. (This is also why advanced Gen4 reactors are probably DOA… what are the odds that any will be in serious production in the next twenty years, while renewables wipe out fossil generated electricity? Worse, most Gen4 work is focused on safety, not cost, so they won’t be cheaper to build than the reactors we already have.) There’s also the cost of complexity. Nuclear reactors require a rich, sophisticated community to support them, the skills to build and operate. It’s MUCH easier to slap a solar panel or wind turbine up, making it more accessible to poorer nations. There’s the cost of scale as well. Nuclear reactors cannot be built at a small scale. They’re grid devices only. But solar panels can be (and are!) so small and cheap they’re simply inserted into even handheld devices. And these small scale devices contribute greatly to the economies of scale and manufacturing efficiency refinements that dropped the cost of solar nearly 90% in a decade. Another thing, which is often missed by nuclear advocates, is that variability is demand-side as well as supply-side. Nuclear reactors are hard to ramp up or slow down, and their cost model depends on operating at maximum efficiency at all times. So they can’t respond to changing demand much better than renewables can. Both energy sources need a buffer to handle the variability. Currently, that is mostly gas peaker plants, but we need to get away from them too. Highly demand-responsive energy means either peaker plants or batteries (or stored hydro, etc). What I personally expect to see is a shift to hydrogen-fueled peakers, with hydrogen made either locally or at higher-efficiency wind/solar farms in remote places and then shipped. By my calculations, it’d be more expensive than natural gas (sigh), but still cheaper than coal. And, since traditional nuclear is priced like coal rather than modern solar/wind, it’s screwed by this too. (And of course, cheaper storage tech could come along and is being aggressively developed worldwide.) And finally, nuclear has an age problem. Yes, a properly maintained nuclear plant could last as long as 60 years. But the average American plant is 40 years old already. Same in France and Russia. The majority of the world’s nuclear plants will hit end-of-life within three decades, even at the optimistic 60 year lifespan. Given the time lag for construction, we’d have to build a lot of new nuclear just to replace the old ones. So yeah, cost. Cost is EVERYTHING. Not efficiency. Not safety. Not byproducts (except, of course, for carbon).

[@ArtoPekkanen]

I'd like to know the specifics of solar panel recycling. Can't get definitive answers from Google. It seems there are small scale operations to recycle solar panels, but as it is now, most of the end up in landfills. I really hope the solar panel industry steps up their game and start co-funding efforts to get a proper, certified and stamped recycling process going! Just like there are certified and approved methods for storing nuclear waste.

[@uiteoi]

There are no toxic materials in most solar panels and they can be fully recycled, as they are in Europe by law. Solar panels are made of mostly glass which is economically recyclable, then silicon which is a non toxic metal coming from sand, aluminum frames which are highly economically recycled, some amount of silver for connections being replaced by copper, carbon, or aluminum in the future, usually a plastic sheet for waterproof sealing, trace amounts of boron and phosphorus for doping silicon solar cells and are non toxic. None of these materials are toxic and most can be economically recycled. In the long term we need to improve the economics of recycling, and require it by law as it is already the case in Europe.

[@pacificatoris9307]

Thank you for the video. I was wondering.... Is it feasible to build a nuclear power plant in areas distressed by flood, storms, or earthquake?

[@ChucksSEADnDEAD]

Fukushima survived the earthquake and the tsunami... but the backup generators were disabled by flooding. So nuclear power plants can easily survive the disasters, the backups are what we need to worry about.

[@mikestiglic1880]

If the world were to start making reactors that fission thorium, how long would that supply last? I have heard we have many times the amount of Thorium as we have uranium

[@matthewk87]

I feel like she deferred to renewables a bit on several things, possibly because she didn't know for sure or maybe because she didn't want to seem to lean too much towards nuclear. Nuclear is not perfect, and it does have pitfalls. Uranium is a mineral which we could run out of, that is true. But it is so energy dense that this will be a long time off. On the other hand, solar panels and wind turbines also do require materials to make, and she mentioned about the inability to recycle them, making it one time use and new materials will be required for new panels. I support a hybrid generation approach for energy, because there ARE good benefits for renewables as well, but I think nuclear needs to be a significant portion of the answer in the future.

[@poiuytrezamlkjhqsdfg]

Regarding round 3, would it be interesting to compare the ratios between the total material extracted and total power produced with each ? Not unrelated, regarding round 8, does sustainability not account for the replacement and the material needed for said replacement? You mentioned earlier that renewables need to be replaced much more often than their nuclear counterparts. In which case I'd like to know more about my first question. About the environmental impact of nuclear power plants, I would be interested to know more about the water cycle within the power plant. I understand they are most often built near rivers or large bodies of water? Do the nuclear power plants pour out any water in those? How closely is the output temperature monitored? Does it have any impact on the local marine life? Do we know anything about the nuclear power plants' vapor output's impact on the global water cycle? If water is a greenhouse gas, do nuclear power plants have an impact of emissions related climate change? Thank you, kindest regards.

[@richardbaird1452]

All interesting questions. Depending on the design, some plants do reject waste heat into rivers/lakes/oceans. Others release into the atmosphere via evaporative cooling (e.g. the big cooling towers you see associated with some plants). The same is true for all thermal plants though, not just nuclear (coal, gas, etc....). According to NASA, on average a molecule of water released to the atmosphere stays there for 9 days and is then returned as rain/snow, so probably not much "global" impact from that as natural cycles overwhelm the tiny amount of additional vapor released. As far as materials required, I have seen opinions saying more concrete and steel are required to produce a GW yearly via onshore wind than for nuclear, although it would be nice to have an authoritative answer on that. It does make sense when one realizes the underground foundations for a wind turbine we typically ignore and the number of them required for equivalent yearly output, at least at low-medium capacity factors.

[@BaronBytes]

in the province of Quebec we are blessed with a lot of hydro power. It has a huge ecological cost to set up and requires a lot of space to build those reservoirs. Very reliable though over here as we use it for 90% of our needs even through winter. We don't have nuclear anymore as our lone plant was decommissioned in the last 20 years.

[@ronblack7870]

in the meantime in ontario it's 70% nuclear. in quebec the hydroelectric projects pretty much invaded all the lands of the natives and disregarded their protests. so yes huge ecological cost.

[@mavrospanayiotis]

Tobacco industry worker explains why smoking improves health.

[@albertopajuelomontes2066]

you left out the most important of all SAFETY!

[@chapter4travels]

Exactly! Nuclear is the safest for of electricity generation we have.

[@miguelmolano6611]

I'd like to point out a big difference between Lifetime and Sustainability. Being sustainable means that it can sustain itself over a period of time, and it doesn't require any intake of fuel or material for it to run. On the other hand, lifetime is how long it lasts against weather conditions without affecting performance.

[@fjdhaan]

As for 'cost', I really hate this metric, partly because of subsidies partly because of how markets work, and say a hydrocarbon glut can be used to destroy the financial viability of nuclear plants with. Only metrics we should be using should be how much material work has to be done to produce them, in terms of mining, refining/smelting, building, maintaining, and so on.

[@ElladaEllada]

the bomb clap IS BACK HAHAH

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Yeeeeees☢️👩🏽‍🔬

[@williambunting803]

Good way to look at this, but there are some issues. 1 Cost Nuclear Power is a centralized, institutionalized energy source, hence its cost is Commercially funded. Solar PV is largely a distributed energy investment born in large part by the end users, and while they pay more for the equipment, this cost is covered by the savings of their direct use ie no distribution cost (wheeling) no distributor mark up, no production cost. Wind is different. 2 Efficiency. Not in common use yet are PVT’s or photo voltaic thermal Panels which produce both electricity and heat for heating water. Such systems are well over 60% efficient where the need user is the equipment owner. 3: any sustainable system has to have a non solar period backup. This is usually gas, but gas can be balanced by the use of cellulosic community waste producing Syngas to paper local gas generators. Nuclear in principle has the edge. 4: Land use: Where sustainable are distributed, ie rooftop solar PVT’s or mixed with farming land for wind as well Sustainables use far less purpose specific land. 5 Life time The life of Solar Panels is not limited to 20 years. They are guaranteed for 20 years routinely but the expected life is 40 years with a soft life tail. 6: waste I will not cover as it is highly subjective. Reliability: Nuclear has a highly stable energy delivery over very long periods of time so wins hands down for industrial and core dense community needs. Sustainable reliability is achieved with a broad production base and load management. 8: Sustainablity: As I have said, a fully decarbonised world needs Nuclear for shipping, and with that comes remote location energy delivery support from ships in port. A nuclear industry that fails to see this need is an industry heading for failure.

[@MarkLLawrence]

Land use: we can put solar panels over parking lots and on rooftops already in use, so that would be even better than NP. Also, can NP go right next to a residential area? So the footprint of NP is much larger than what the plant actually is. Then there is the space used by the nuclear waste since there is no solution for making it inert other than just letting it sit for a few thousand years.

[@matteoricci9129]

Actually for pv system there are Pvt adding thermal management (and recuperation) this could extend life, obviously hidro last longer than solar and wind. Speaking of 90 years

[@jumboegg5845]

My understanding is that solar panels just become less efficient over time. So after 20- 30 years or so, a panel will be putting out about 70% of its original power (amps). After 50 years maybe only 50% power. Therefore if still functioning and not damaged, old panels are perfectly good for people and functions that require less power - they do not need to go to landfill.

[@Orvulum]

Energy Return on Energy Invested and Embodied Energy must be taken into account for any comparison to be considered valid or useful. Both 'renewable energy' and light water fission reactors are both heavily reliant on fossil carbon inputs, that is, 'embodied energy'.

[@jamesjohnston9225]

Very good comparison of the different energy sources available. I'm not sure that the renewables can adequately meet immediately increasing demand like you mentioned in a previous video. The recent/current demand in California may kind of bear this view out. I remember when SONGS { ☢☢☢) was up and running when I was stationed in So CA, but I believe it has since been shut down. Please keep the info coming!

[@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist]

Thanks for the comment and i appreciate the support ☢️👩🏽‍🔬

[@gabriel38g]

The only good comparison of Nuclear to other energy is to say that Nukes are the MOST expensive and dangerous and should be phased out. This video is evil and wrong.

[@gabriel38g]

@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist You don't deserve any support. I suggest you find another profession.

[@donwarner6925]

@@gabriel38g Can you expand on your reasoning?

[@gabriel38g]

@@donwarner6925 Nuclear Power is the most expensive and unreliable energy tech ever. It basically starts a nuclear reaction to heat up water to power a steam engine which turns a turbine. If the nuke reaction goes out of control it causes a meltdown, (Fukushima, Chernobyl, 3Mile Island) 3mile Island in the late 1970s was the first major meltdown and is the reason why no insurance co will cover nukes (so YOUR tax dollars are the major insurer/buyer/investor now. And without YOUR taxes, nukes would never exist) Efforts to make nukes safer raise costs leading to $tens of billions in overruns and longer building schedules (15yrs +). Nuke reactors stop routinely for maintenance for 60+ days at a time. Regions that reliy on Nuke power suffer a major power outage routinely every 3 months or so. And btw: the uranium is neither cheap nor clean to mine from the ground. I can go on if you like. 😄

[@protonman8947]

When discussing efficiency, should we not include the energy spent in plant construction / maintenance, plus mining and preparation and disposal of nuclear fuel? Or are these energy costs negligible?

[@andrewdemarco3512]

actually if we discuss this, you will find the energy costs of mining the materials for and building the wind turbines and solar panels and transporting them to location will be much more than nuclear. Yes there is energy used in building the plant, but because of how energy dense and relatively small the plant is compared to how much it produces, it has renewables beat there too.

[@Annou7la]

Cadmium telluride which is I presume the toxic material referenced for solar panels isn’t all that dangerous.

[@uiteoi]

And most solar panels are not made with these materials. They are made with silicon instead, a non-toxic metal.

[@peteduncan921]

Because wind and solar are so intermittent, I don't think that we can realistically ignore the costs and emissions data (mining, processing, etc.) that are associated with the manufacturing of batteries. Without significant amounts of battery storage capacity, wind and solar are just not practical replacements for the current fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. As batteries are an integral part of the solar/wind power approach, it only makes sense to include this data as part of a comprehensive analysis.

[@johne808]

Thank you for the nice presentation. I would suggest another category to be consider as risk. The risk of a meltdown, intentional attack or a failure of storage systems (perhaps many years from now) are quite alarming to many, including myself.

[@dodiewallace41]

Most of my life I had thought that NP was unacceptably dangerous until challenged to examine my assumptions about what I thought I knew about it with evidence. To my surprise what I found was that my beliefs had been formed by popular culture instead of evidence and data. I hadn't even bothered to fact check what I thought I knew about it because we all "knew" we were right.😳 I found out that instead of being unacceptably dangerous NP is actually remarkably safe compared to the alternatives. The most catastrophic incidents of nuclear are dwarfed by most catastrophic incidents of other energy forms. When we only look at the risk of NP in a vacuum, ignoring the risks of the alternatives, we are failing at risk assessment.

[@cockatoo010]

There's also the category of overall impact. Hydro is fantyastic, but it requires the flodding of a lot of area. And renewables are not risk free either! there's the risk of a dam failure, which can (and has) kill a lot of people downstream a hydroelectric plant and eoplic turbine failures even though I don't think have caused any fatalities so far, can be quite dramatic. there's something we all can agree on: The risks of any renewable or nuclear are far outweighed by their benefits and their lower risks when compared to Coal, gas and oil.

[@dodiewallace41]

@@cockatoo010 Reliable electricity supply is crucial for social and economic stability and growth which in turn leads to eradication of poverty. Energy policy should not favor wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, gas, or coal but should support all energy systems in a manner which avoids energy shortage and energy poverty. All energy always requires taking resources from our planet and processing them, thus negatively impacting the environment. It must be humanity’s goal to minimize these negative impacts in a meaningful way, to refocus on the three objectives, energy security, energy affordability, and environmental protection.

[@exsandgrounder]

On sustainability- the wind might blow and sun will shine forever, but the things used to make the solar panels and turbines, the rare earth elements, aren’t infinite in supply.

[@MrRezillo]

I have very strong beliefs: get real and support nuclear energy, not feel-good wind towers and solar panels, which can't do the job.

[@AcvaristulLenes]

Please raise your audio level. I'm playing your videos at 150 % of usual volume. Thanks in advance!

[@Pastamistic]

Great break down and no doubt our future needs diverse sources of energy! I thought solar farms have life spans of closer to 25 or 30 years though? Personally I'd prefer solar to be roof top on every home and business so they aren't taking up so much land dedicated to a solar farm. It's one of the great things about solar is it can be integrated into our current infrastructure.

[@davidabulafia7145]

One good hail storm will destroy a solar farm.

[@Pastamistic]

@@davidabulafia7145 that is completely false. Theres solar farms all over the world and they handle hail storms just fine with minimal damage. What rock are you living under?