Why nuclear power will (and won't) stop climate change

[@mivapusa]

"Wind turbines: Stealing power from the stooorm!" *"Yes. Enslave the wind"*

[@davidlovesyeshua]

Ah yes, enslaved wind. *sips tea*

[@nickbudd5857]

@@davidlovesyeshua sun mak nrg with pew pew rays, us: takes energy with black panel. Ah yes, enslave the sun

[@iamtheangiechrist1090]

Wind turbines. Brought to you by Drum roll The Koch brothers Woohoo! Love those libertarians!

[@Shaman42069]

Is this a Xavier: Renegade Angel reference?

[@Sammy_82]

@@nickbudd5857 haha, build dyson sphere and enslave the sun. Ver.2 Dyson Sphere: Stealing power from the sun. *Yes. Enslave the Sun.*

[@Xambonii]

As someone currently working in the nuclear industry, I have never heard anyone say that we should only use nuclear power and not renewables. We pretty much all say it should be a mix somewhere between 20% to 60% nuclear.

[@iwiffitthitotonacc4673]

I feel pretty misrepresented in the video as well.

[@michaelwallace9291]

Opinion of liquid salt reactors? 400 years of waste instead of 10,000? Non pressurized for no giant steam explosion? Is it true such a small and cheap amount of thorium can actually do all that. I feel like it's too good to be true

[@Xambonii]

@Michael Wallace Molten salt and thorium reactors both could have been as popular as pressurized water uranium reactors, but the path of tech improvement didn't increase as fast. One big reason why molten salt never worked out is that the US Navy evaluated it wasn't good for submarines..... Sodium tends to explode in water. And thorium could be as researched as uranium by now but we just didn't research it because you it's hard to make bombs out of thorium. With more research in either it could definately be viable. This is all very simplified though.

[@michaelwallace9291]

@@Xambonii I appreciate your opinion. Thank you

[@knarfweasel]

@@michaelwallace9291 although the waste from thorium will be around for a shorter amount of time, the waste products are very strong gamma emitters, which makes it quite problematic to store for thier own reasons. Also molten salt reactors dont use the thorium as fuel directly (they are breeder reactors), it is first converted into uranium-233. Which basically just puts us back to step 1, but with extra steps

[@bechetfelix8612]

My personal conclusion. We all hate coal, the worst energy source you can possibly imagine. Let's get rid of that no matter how.

[@tylermccandless925]

Did you no that if there was no carbon in are atsmophere we would all die just a fact but I see a lot of people saying we don't need carbon in it those people piss me off

[@deusexstupit7969]

The best way to get rid of it wuld be to burn it 🔥 🔥 🔥 (Joust kidding)

[@lupinthethird5784]

Bring Thatcher back from the grave, problem solved.

[@smartdinos2521]

@@tylermccandless925 when people say get rid of carbon, they mean decarbonize . So not generating more CO2, not getting rid of it altogether. It’s not even possible to get rid of all the carbon in the Atmosphere.

[@tylermccandless925]

@@smartdinos2521 if we can manipulate the weather with carbon we could create a natural disasters free world that's all I'm saying

[@benisser]

I think there's a serious problem in framing renewables as "decentralized people's energy", physically the points at which the power is generated might be dispersed and decentralized, but producing the panels and generators still requires huge factories and a globalized supply of materials, and have to be paid through the finance system, with the same old culprits benefiting. Especially in the developed world where much of the countries are unlikely to get their own production going, with people too poor to straight up buy western tech for themselves it's extremely likely it will instantly get financialized, with people being made to pay a monthly electricity bill for solar panels on their own roof. Big moneybags might resist it because there's less profit to be had than fossil and nuclear at this moment, but the profit is still there. There's no tech you can pick to escape that dynamic, people have to consciously make political changes if they actually don't want to be ruled by capital.

[@mobiuscoreindustries]

Well we are already seeing moves by politicians to block such things as affordability of the panels get them closer to becoming a mainstream high tech product. Mainly politicians targeting individuals right to actually give back to the grid by imposing that ONLY registered utilities may provide to the grid in an effort to reduce the consumer's to lower the need for fossil fuels.These utilities know that adding solar and wind alone to the grid destabilize it and increase their margins while still requiring just as much fossil fuels as before. Peaker plants gives them far better margins than base-load, hence while they are OK with solar and wind overall but as soon as batteries start getting mixed in that they absolutely lose their shit. Why do you think providers of such dual package (like lets say Tesla energy) get absolutely mauled every step of the way? Same for nuclear reactors either made small enough to be reactive or using MSRs that would make reactive at any scale, every company making these things was pushed out of the west and most of the east and they have to make do signing contracts with smaller developing nations that do not have the already present infrastructure and corruption of the grid, but in turn progress is slow and public awareness is low.

[@lawrencejorgensen2914]

I mean it's still kinda similar to buying power tools produced by Bosch or smth, and then being able to generate/build your own house. Not a perfect analogy but you get my point :)

[@NickTrouble]

As an engineer at a nuclear power plant, and knowing many people that have worked at three mile island before the meltdown. There is so many changes that happen even yearly to every plant to increase the safety of the plant. For example after both TMI and Fukushima, our plant went under massive changes do that the risk is minimized. Another saying that that is in nuclear, "minimal risk is not no risk". So if something can go wrong, we take percussions and in some cases assume the incident will happen, allowing for minimization of risk to the public and its workers. Update 9/25/2020: Going to add another interesting comment to this, back before TMI some nuclear plants had the ability to load follow (mostly B&W plants). For example, the plant I work at had the ability to go from 927 MWh to 476 MWh in less than 2.4 seconds. With any number between their taking about the same time. The inverse is also true on load up. In the US, the NRC restricted this practice for 99% of nuclear plants, as they saw this practice as, "Non-Conservitive".

[@Roerdompjesuf]

I am still wondering what the effects are from Fukushima. They said radioactive waste was dumped into the ocean? No disrespect, the Japenese really handled it well and condolence to all the people that died from the horrible earthquake. In this way I can see that nuclear power is still a much more safer alternative to fossile fuels. Burning of brown coal is more radioactive then actually using radioactive materials and a lot more deaths are contributed to it. So I think nuclear power was already quite safe, only it is the perception of the human brain that treats it as a bad thing because it is hard to grasp. Burning stuff is simple for the mind. So I am curious how things will unfold. Also the rearing of animals contributes 16% of global greenhouse emissions (I think it was, too lazy to look it up), so that's also a big yikes and no no.

[@josephbrennan370]

Fascinating comment!

[@sebucwerd]

THORIUM FIXES THIS

[@LordOfNihil]

i do think the public was a bit to quick to give up on nuclear. chernobyl, 3 mile island, and even fukashima were to me simply the typical growing pains that usually comes with embracing a new technology. so many of the problems with fission have solutions. i do think it seems to be to be a bit short sighted when they build a nuclear power plant in a known tsunami region like where fukashima was placed and there are quite a few other plants in places i find questionable. i know there is a need to place these power plants near water so that coolant is always available for operations and especially in emergencies. but i always questioned whether it would be possible to locate these plants on solid geography with low incident of natural disasters, even in locations where water is not readily available. so im kind of curious if alternate cooling methods are possible. like running a liquid metal secondary or tertiary loop directly to something like a thermal updraft tower. or perhaps use a molten salt heat sink to dump surplus thermal energy (and which can be used later or even for local emergency power generation for plant emergencies).

[@Craigerry]

I'm a grid operator. No one in my area complains about nuke safety, most complaints were load following (in my case, lack thereof)

[@LeahandLevi]

This video was super well balanced so thanks for that nuanced view. I feel like we get so bogged down in "which one is better" when we just need to get everything and anything going NOW.

[@Gorwo]

he did not talk about the biggest problem for nuklear, waste disposal... not realy well balanced. thats why we DONT want nuklear. sure, it has many positive aspects, but this one, big, negativ point disqualifies nukelear for full-scale use. as long as we have no solution for this problem there is no point in comparing it to anything but fosil, it leaves deadly waste for the generations to come, same as fosil, we just burry it underground...

[@hucklo]

Gorwo how is burying the material in the ground a problem when it comes from the ground to begin with?

[@kickmonlee3390]

@@Gorwo nuclear waste was not mentioned in the video because... we can simply create a waste storage facility under a mountain. Oh wait... but politics to the rescue XD

[@Gorwo]

@@hucklo the problem is the stuff we burry is transmuted and concentrated, its nothing like the stuff we pull out of the ground. we mine uranium, enrich the u235-part and burn it into a molten pile of different radioaktiv materials, some hazardrous for 1 year, some for 50, some for thousends of years. we need to separate those (which ist an easy task at all) and somehow "get rid" of it. best we came up since like 70 years is to burry it all underground. now multiply the problem like 8x if you want to cover most of the energy need with nuklear

[@hucklo]

Gorwo you didn’t answer my question? I didn’t ask about the PUREX method or about half life. I wanna know what the problem is with e.g. KBS-3 method?

[@benjaminfisher1565]

Overview - Renewable where we can, nuclear where we need. A hybrid system is the best. This video is awesome, it needs more views.

[@jwatson181]

Renewables contribute more co2 to the planet than natural gas. The answer is nuclear everywhere and natural gas where not available.

[@man75739]

@@jwatson181 may I ask where you got the fact that you use to rationalize your opinion.

[@jwatson181]

@@man75739 Apocalypse never. You can look at the data yourself as well. Germany for instance with more renewables releases ten times the CO2 of nuclear France at twice the cost. Not to mention, the devastating environmental impacts of industrial wind and solar from a land use perspective.

[@corneliusmcmuffin3256]

@@jwatson181 yea sure it has more renewables, but Germany USES COAL…

[@corneliusmcmuffin3256]

@@jwatson181 I agree that solar farms and wind farms generally mean deforesting large areas, but you can get around this if you incentivize in rural areas having decentralized solar power, and for urban areas using more centralized nuclear. What Germany is doing is absolutely brain dead by removing old but still working nuclear plants and replacing them with coal… the deadliest form of power their is. more people die per year to coal linked cancer than people have died from radiation linked cancer in all of human history.

[@bcharms10000]

Worth noting too that some of that list of "all renewable" includes biomass, which is literally burning wood

[@antilivvy7373]

And darts sometimes. But yer mulch stuff and all that is producing methane effectively

[@maxresdefault_]

The wording is kinda vague... "Biomass and even natural gas plants with carbon capture and storage, even though that one's almost certainly best avoided" To me, that's saying that both technically work but should be avoided

[@julianskinner3697]

Burning wood is renewable. The carbon produced was captured from the atmospheric as the tree grew. It is not carbon from over 60 million years ago. Itcis carbon from now. If the tree does and rots it releases its carbon anyway.

[@coreyfro]

No nuclear advocate I know says anything like "we only need nuclear". Every nuclear advocate I know says, "nuclear will add stability to a carbon free grid." I think this is an unfair criticism. Also, all nuclear advocates I know are also pro rooftop solar. We are also pro electric car, and our power grid isn't ready for that increased demand. Putting roof top solar and electric cars in homes Democratizes power,, but it also increases grid dependencies. We need to add capacity to our grid to meet this challenge. This includes supply from homes. It also includes supply from grid. This is the lifestyle change we are trying to make.

[@Bah-an]

Well, some of us do, like me, i'm for a 100% nuclear electricity (but only in low corrupt developed country)

[@saddemgargouri]

I am for the sources of electricity that proved they can displace fossil fuels , currently this happens to be Hydropower ( even better than nuclear in my opinion ) and nuclear energy .

[@Cspacecat]

" We are also pro electric cars, and our power grid isn't ready for that increased demand." Actually, once there are sufficient numbers, the car batteries can be used to replace the peeker plants while recharging the batteries when electric demand is low like the wee hours of the morning. No lifestyle change necessary. "We need to add capacity to our grid to meet this challenge." No, we don't. We need an intelligent grid to flatline demand using batteries from cars and homes.

[@Croz89]

We might only need nuclear, it depends on how the tech goes. If SMR or fusion reactors are cheaper than wind and solar in the future, to a point where load following becomes economic, I see no point having those more expensive energy sources for the sake of it. Same for nuclear if we invent some amazing ultra-cheap super dense storage battery that solves all renewables intermittency issues (though we'd still have the issue of greater land use).

[@Cspacecat]

@@Croz89 EVs are better than hydrogen cars, so solar is a stop-gap for nuclear. Solar and wind are especially important in unindustrialized nations.

[@Aetohatir]

I'm not in favor of any technology, I'm just against fossil fuels. By extension I am extreme against the German government (my government) shutting down nuclear power plants instead of coal and gas, before we are carbon neutral.

[@linkly9272]

>be german government >shut down nuclear facilites to stop climate change >can't plug the energy gap so switches to gas and dirty low-grade coal fossil fuels >ukraine war hits. gas supplies may be cut at any moment >"this is fine"

[@kuzw]

How are you now? I heard germany also reactivate the coal power plant instead shutting them off

[@some_doofus]

I'll share this sentiment on the insane German energy policies. They're certainly getting their comeuppance now with Russia limiting exports of the natural gas they've had to rely on to fill the hole left by nuclear. It's horrible to see the German citizens have to deal with record high electricity prices and gas shortages coming into winter, but hopefully it'll be an eye opener for the rest of the world how poorly their 100% renewable approach has worked.

[@Fusselwurmify]

​ @Rafi Kusuma Daniswara well the genius "lets use natgas as intermediary while going all green" plan backfired. while scrambling for more natgas & extending build-out of renewables, coal gets a few more years of more intense use than intended.

[@some_doofus]

@@Fusselwurmify really shows how irrational their fear of nuclear is that they’d rather go back to brown coal as a backup, which is actually directly damaging their climate efforts, the main reason for the energy transfer in the first place.

[@PotatoMcWhiskey]

I appreciate you using the civ graphic lmao

[@torbengruning6449]

POTATO!

[@georgeriley7103]

I'm preparing for an interview to be a nuclear physicist tomorrow morning and have watched this video about three times now, and I have ALSO just discovered you PotatoMcWhiskey last week and have watched more than 10 hours of you in the past two days haha. Thank you for providing the perfect mix of nuclear physics and Civilisation VI

[@georgeriley7103]

P.S. Simon Clark you really should make an AI episode for Civ 6 like you did for 40K, god it is needed

[@georgeriley7103]

@owl777 I actually managed to get it somehow haha, thanks for asking. Three weeks into the job and loving it, definitely grateful for these vids lool

[@georgeriley7103]

@owl777 haha thank you, it feels a bit self obsessed saying that I don't know why so I usually say engineer or something. I'd been on government benefits for so many months I was just so happy to have something u know. Anyway thanks for brightening my day! Hope you have a lovely evening :))

[@connorwright7040]

On your point about capacity, I think it's worth mentioning that solar pannels can be installed on rooftops, effectively taking up zero space (or at least significantly less space). I think solar could be a good way to supplement energy demands alongside nuclear power.

[@blugreen99]

Industrial demand not mentioned.

[@Skylancer727]

I really think that's the main benefit of it. Honestly the standard idea of clearing forests to make a field of solar is a great example of the unsustainable lifestyle people tend to accept as normal. Solar's main benefit is when it doesn't take up extra land whether it be on building's roof's or over parking lots which are already wasted land. But the issue is that while solar or wind on their own are cleaner than nuclear, the issue is that these added projects, the storage, etc end up making it not much better. Just look up how big a solar array is that's one megawatt and realize how absurd it is. For us to be fully renewable without any nuclear would require every home and more than that having solar on it, but that's up to the land owners and the vast majority of the population can't afford that. The only things that could be done otherwise are allowing power companies to "rent your roof", the government to mandatory install solar on your home but still charge you for it, or just the basic rebates and incentives that already exist but don't nearly cover it. The end result is that the problem just can't be solved with a one answer solution.

[@IonorReasSpamGenerator]

The trouble with rooftop solar is that it is less efficient than solar power stations with rotating or at least optimal average solar panel angles, not to mention that currently used panels become toxic waste after the end of useful service life, and the well-known fact that most intensive power demand is the near evening when office people and students return home to use power less efficiently while others in energy-demanding industries are still working. This can be only partially solved if electric vehicle-to-grid technology becomes the standard for which participation will users be paid. So, solar is likely not a solution for many nations outside creating less strain on the grid from wealthy people looking for energy independence that may within a decade pay off depending on your location and power demand, though with a better interstate power-sharing network where you can be supplied from parts of the world that still have sunlight, it maybe will be viable one day even without that but the wind is generally better at providing power regardless of the clear visibility of sky especially with interstate power-sharing infrastructure that may be cheaper than investment into a large energy storage network needed for solar to cover for rainy days across multiple states, so you don't need 100% coverage from non-renewable energy sources as backup...

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

@@IonorReasSpamGenerator Last year we had solar panels installed on the roof of our house. They chose which side of the roof to put them on to get the best angle for sunlight. Obviously it's not as good as a dedicated solar plant could be, but they don't ignore sun angle. As part of getting the solar panels, we also got a battery setup. After sunset, the house continues to be powered by the battery. How many hours that is depends on how sunny the day was, but there isn't a sudden switch to grid demand as soon as the sun sets.

[@personpeoplepeoplepersons5722]

​@@blugreen99Yeahhh 🤔

[@ardabaser1349]

Imagine supporting the green party and forcing your government to remove the nuclear reactors to install fossil-fuel generators.

[@redactado266]

We did it, Patrick. We save the world

[@Havermeyer7908]

don't the green party all eat moss and live in houses made out of twigs.

[@jayayerson8819]

I'm not a supporter of the Greens, but I didn't hear them say such a thing. Sounds a bit out of character. Unless it's the German Greens, those guys got super corporate a loooong time ago.

[@ardabaser1349]

@@jayayerson8819 I meant the German Greens yeah.

[@jwatson181]

We now produce more co2 at ten times the cost! We saved the planet!

[@jackiechan3620]

This completely changed my mind about renewables. I was a total nuclear purist, believing nuclear fusion should take hold until fusion, but now I believe fusion is still the future, but won't come in time to solve our problems, and we need to change to integrated renewable-nuclear networks. Also, my parents are currently using solar panels and a battery in my house, as Australia is doing very well in allowing people to sell their excess back into the grid.

[@gregorybeckett4657]

I like nuclear energy as well but man in Australia renewables are so efficient wind turbines run 90% time and you could probably have a stable power grid on wind alone.

[@a.rudesill]

I came from the opposite side. I love renewables, especially solar. I understand it's many many issues, but photovoltaics just fascinate me. Coming back to this video has made realise I need to learn more about nuclear than the very basics of how it works.

[@michakrzyzanowski8554]

@@gregorybeckett4657 And that's the problem with renewables. It's not like that everywhere. And also, solar panels destroy the environment by taking up so much space (and they have to be replaced every 20 years creating TONS of e-waste

[@michakrzyzanowski8554]

@@a.rudesill yeah, I'd love to have solar on my roof. But powering the entire grid from them is just not realistic.

[@PJ-oe6eu]

@@michakrzyzanowski8554 They don't have to be replaced every 20 years. Where do you get that from? Their efficiency drops around 20% after 20 years but they can still very much be used. Besides solar does not damage the environment with space use when they are placed space efficiently, such as on roofs of homes, industrial buildings, warehouses and parking lots. You're right in solar isn't something the entire grid will be powered by.

[@AndyBlair]

Start of the video: Oh cool nuclear and renewable End of the video: SEIZE THE MEANS OF ENERGY PRODUCTION This was a very good balanced video, IMHO I'd say nuclear or renewables, just give me SOMETHING

[@etherealsalad2698]

collectivize the nuclear power plants!

[@CyberiusT]

"SEIZE THE MEANS OF ENERGY PRODUCTION" Oh, great - now Kermit Peterson is going to start wobbling about cultural Marxism again.

[@kokofan50]

So nuclear it is since renewables are nothing.

[@alanblanes9572]

@@etherealsalad2698 Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose has been able to get other California mayors to agree to turn PG&E into a consumer owned co-operative. This needs massive follow up. I suggest using #SDG7 #SDG8 #SDG9 on Twitter as ways of grouping posts that can advance this idea.

[@Luis-vx1tx]

Honestly that's not a bad idea. The research from nuclear was funded by tax payers and the sun and wind don't send us checks. Energy should be discusses as if it were a public commodity.

[@dylanhaugh-ewald9330]

It's a small thing, but I gotta say I appreciate the mention about the "esoteric" storage scheme by way of electric vehicle fleet. I'm an environmental engineer and knew most of this stuff already, but I enjoy the video anyway! A lot of creators might leave that mention out, but those little things really make the videos valuable and entertaining for a wider demographic! Looked into the idea and it was a great read, and I'm glad I saw this video now!

[@aaroncosier735]

Hi, is distributed storage in EV batteries "esoteric" at all? If EVs get to 25% of the current fleet, that's a Hell of a lot of storage. A nice reserve in a substantial blackout...

[@subtlewolf]

@@aaroncosier735 Even just the ability to adjust charging to consume surplus production would go a long way towards dealing with both increased consumption from EVs as well as variable production.

[@aaroncosier735]

@@subtlewolf It certainly would. I see no reason that EVs, and almost any "controllable demand" devices (the replacement of controlled supply) will have auto-negotiation protocols to keep their combined demand and/or output consistent with some grid-directed target. If my router can manage a thousand conflicting packets and prioritise them, then surely something similar can happen for local power.

[@RaglansElectricBaboon]

@@aaroncosier735 Vermont University agrees with you. Check out packetized energy! Here's Just Have a Think's explanation of it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIaWqKJ5lquGkNU

[@Zeuskabob1]

@@aaroncosier735 The concept might not be esoteric, but the scheme certainly is. It's no small feat to orchestrate the entire EV fleet's charging times so they can act as grid storage.

[@DarkPortall]

40 minutes? im in for a treat.

[@jameshoulihan84]

Signed up! This video should be part of the geography curriculum in school take it to Downing Street and business . Jamie Oliver and Rashford did it with food.

[@TheDoomWizard]

I keep it short on my channel.

[@paulheays1]

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[@nathangibson2114]

Holy shit Just realized it was 40 minutes by reading your comment...

[@KHamurdik]

The idea that nuclear is giving POWER to the few elites (which are corporations) is so americano-capitalistic. In many countries nuclear energy production is owned by the state/government. France for example owns 85% of EDF. In Ukraine we have "Energoatom" which is controlled by government. So this company depends on democratic elections that take place every fer years and operates with crazy small margins to provide cheapest electricity possible, which in turn provides more socially stable society. Also in my country solar plants are mostly built by existing monopolist coal-based electricity producer or by foreign investors, so no power to local people. Pumped hydro already operates on industrial scale while Li-ion are nowhere to be seen. So event in these arguments not everything is so black and white.

[@saddemgargouri]

exactly for people outside of the USA , the ''big nuclear'' is your state run utility company . The best illustration of what you're saying is Macron attempting to privatize the Renewable part of EDF www.reuters.com/article/us-edf-restructuring-strike-idUSKBN1W21BP

[@Croz89]

I think that plays into political affiliation too, but on a two axes of the political compass. More statist people, both left and right, will probably support nuclear energy (it was very popular in the Soviet Union after all). Those of a more libertarian bent might differ, those on the right might favour privately owned nuclear if it is economically feasible, but left libertarians are probably more likely to oppose it altogether in favour of distributed renewable energy (not surprising since that's where most green parties mostly sit).

[@saddemgargouri]

@@Croz89 it's not ''economically'' feasible , they are things about Nuclear industry that means it's only functioning as a state monopoly , Example Reprocessing , Long term storage ect , in the extreme case of nuclear accident , Guess who pays , all of us , and the company in question gets nationalized ( TEPCO ) If that's the case why the hell would we give the benefits of such money intensive industry to private individuals , when we are that needs to manage social costs

[@Croz89]

@@saddemgargouri In a completely fair market without the political machinations and excessive red tape, it could be, in theory. No country has a truly level playing field when it comes to energy generation, even within clean energy.

[@saddemgargouri]

@@Croz89 there is so many issues with Nuclear from a ''capitalist'' stand point make them a terrible Market product , State support is needed whatever it's private or public , since any nuclear company by definition will be a massive corporation intertwined with local state . I argue this is one of the reasons why all the well functioning nuclear systems i can think off are state run

[@tedcoombs7762]

I NEED A CLIP OF JUST THE CO2 GRAPH WITH THE GAMECUBE MUSIC LMAO

[@Sbreddragon]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/onK0c4V_nqt1aq8&ab_channel=peerlexe

[@juliancoenen4917]

You asked we delivered

[@BuilderB08]

3:47 Probably going to touch on this: Nuclear storage is not an issue. They are stored in massive, extremely low-concentration “dry casks,” which are literally impossible to break unless you have a much larger issue on your hands (Indiscriminate attacks by a foreign power/terrorist group, or literally a nuclear weapon being used) It’s not a glowing green liquid it’s solid material which literally cannot leak, and is stored in a way that it cannot start a reaction. And when they are transported; to put it simply, if you hit the transportation cask with a runaway train, a missile, etc. the cask will be undamaged.

[@ben9089]

“..I implore you, consider this technology on its merits. Not how it fits into your world view or your politics but what it can and can’t do..” The effort that you put in to give as honest of a discussion about nuclear as you could is evident and I appreciate that. I think, and certainly hope, that this video will help more people evaluate nuclear power based on facts over feelings.

[@Robert-er5wq]

How can it be 'honest' if it does not account for the nuclear waste. No, a nuclear power plant does not emit CO2, but it emits nuclear waste.

[@ephre]

@@Robert-er5wq and your comment is why this "balanced" video was not what we needed.

[@Cappy_Cat]

@@Robert-er5wq You do understand that we have gotten a lot better when it comes to dealing with nuclear waste right?

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

All dictators get their own nuclear industry??????? Because it is the only way to stop the world from carbon build up??????? Brilliant, brilliant.

[@Cappy_Cat]

@@stephenbrickwood1602 You're a funny guy

[@timbozza1678]

8:45 Renewables need decommissioning as well. There's a carbon cost to this. Not to mention the environmental impact if done irresponsibly.

[@tedarcher9120]

Also kadmium in solar cells is extremely poisonous and doesn't lose it's effect like nuclear waste

[@timbozza1678]

@@tedarcher9120 there are numerous toxic substances created in producing and disposing of solar pv cells. sciencing.com/toxic-chemicals-solar-panels-18393.html It's a catastrophe that's being left up to future generations to clean-up. Ignorance is no excuse for making these bad decisions to "go green".

[@MDP1702]

@@tedarcher9120 The amount of toxic materials is so low it is barely worth discussing. And solar panels can be rather easily recycled and the toxic materials can be dealt during this procedures. Comparing it to nuclear waste is ridiculous.

[@tedarcher9120]

@@MDP1702 the amount of toxic material is low, but they make all cell waste a hazardous waste, and it can't be recycled in a usual way. There is currently no economical way to pull toxic materials like lead and cadmium out of solar cell waste

[@MDP1702]

@@tedarcher9120 Yes, there are ways to separate toxic material from the rest during recycling. It is more expensive, but that is something you need to consider when choosing which panel technology to use. And even if panels end up in a landfill (which is forbidden in the EU), these toxic materials still can't leak into the environment unless they are chipped in very tiny pieces or if they are burned. Furthermore, toxic material free pv panels exist, they are just more expensive to produce and lack certain specifications (like being very thin), though if needed we could just use those. It probably would put the cost around the same as nuclear at that point. Again toxic waste is not really any concern regarding solar panels and not anywhere in the same ballpark as nuclear waste (though we can deal with that too if we want, the cost however that is a ?).

[@a-a-ron9027]

One thing this video changed for me was the concept of needing a singular source for all energy generation, and diversification is actually a solid idea. Don't put all your eggs in one basket as it were.

[@hedgehog3180]

I would point out that storage technology has actually made some pretty big strides recently, it's just not the lithium-ion batteries that everyone is thinking about but rather much simpler technologies like thermal storage.

[@robfer5370]

What about the lithium problem ?

[@dexter4440]

@@robfer5370 thermal storage doesn't use lithium as far as I am aware

[@KarlSnarks]

Yeah I'd love a future with thermal storage and such!

[@PowerStudios1000]

I find the 'technology hero' argument interesting as it can just as equally be used for either case. In the video it is used in favour of renewables/power-to-the-people/etc, however I think it is even more applicable to the reverse argument: Nuclear power has existed for decades and (if you didn't have renewables destabilizing the grid) could be rolled out (and could have been rolled out 10 years ago) and the grid would be overwhelmingly low carbon - see France. Renewable on the other hand, to get around the grid stabilization issue, relies on technological leaps with energy storage and "technology superheroes" (Eg. Musk) to provide this capability. That said it's a great video and I strongly agree with the conclusions that both is the best path forward. Unfortunately the real problem is money/economics and to counter that you need strong political pressure to increase nuclear usage or it'll continue to be cut out of grids and cause increases in carbon emissions from other sources to make up for the loss of energy generation (See germany where despite investing heavily in renewables over the last decade and transforming their energy generation, their CO2 emissions have been largely constant thanks to the shutting down of a large proportion of their nuclear power generation). The fundamental problem is that nuclear power plants, as stated in the video, are very expensive and take a long time to payback their investment. Because of this it's incredibly important that existing nuclear power plants are not shutdown, and government subsidies are very likely to be required to see significant construction of new facilities because no profit seeking private company will otherwise make such a large investment for a technology that in 20 years time may not be relevant (Eg. if renewable storage issues with battery technology are overcome and the price of renewable generated electricity plummets). The sad truth is that most politicians are pushing for nuclear plants to be closed, and are not even considering subsidising the opening of new ones - which is more than undoing gains that would be made from renewables adoption in some places (Again, see Germany with rising carbon emissions despite being one of the countries investing the most in renewables, all because of decomissioning nuclear and needing to use more coal/gas/etc to replace it's capacity). What really NEEDS to happen so that we have some hope of having a low carbon grid within the 5-10year scale required to not go extinct is huge political pressure to keep all existing nuclear plants open, make government subsidies to expand nuclear energy as required and guaranteeing profits to any private ventures even if renewables make the plant unprofitable before it pays for itself AND continuing to invest heavily in grid scale battery storage technology and renewables. Overall a very good video but it would have been nice to see a section at the end about how the goal of a hybrid grid can be achieved, because left alone current trends are pushing us closer and closer to being dependent on a miracle technological solution to grid-scale energy storage that just does not currently exist. (Though don't get me wrong, if we can find a good enough solution to it and ASAP then heck yeah)

[@PowerStudios1000]

It's worth pointing out that though nuclear plants "are very expensive" the electricity they generate once constructed / running cost is actually very cheap (See france). It's just the big investment to start that is the huge issue since the plant then needs to run for of the order of 10 years to pay for itself

[@AltruisticHedonism]

Beat me to a similar response by a couple of hours... ;)

[@KevinUchihaOG]

thank you! I was quite confused when he made that argument. Solar is a newer technology, the batteries needed and the infra structure change is also newer. He later in the video say nuclear advocates want things to run as it always has and just continue as normal, isn't that going against the "technology hero" argument? He basically says nuclear advocates are both futurists and conservatists/back-to-the-past-ists.

[@hellgorama]

Actually there are new advancements in nuclear. I live in Canada and the gov't recently announced plans to create SMRs or small modular reactors. Basically it is a miniaturized version of a traditional nuclear plant, but with the reactors being designed to be more like batteries - reactors that are built, and prefueled (with physical limitations placed on the rate of reaction) and shipped to the location that needs it. Once the fuel has run out (which usually takes years and years), the reactor is shipped back to the manufacturer and a new one is ordered. Its way safer than the current nuclear plants (which are already safe) because there is no on-site fueling.

[@Regic]

Why does this myth persist about germany?! Their co2 emission has decreased steadily, along with fossil energy sources. Nuclear has been replaced by renewables. www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&period=monthly&year=all

[@AltruisticHedonism]

Agree with 90% of this video, quite a good breakdown; however, I disagree with your categorization of the two camps. I've probably discussed this with internet randoms far more than I should've but in all that time, I've never once come across someone arguing for either based on wealth redistribution explicitly. At best, it's framed as you have for the cases in the developing world. I don't doubt they exist, nor that there may be a correlation more between 'very left' and anti-nuclear, but that's not due to social equity explicitly IMO but more that there has historically been more of an overlap between environmental concerns and social concerns - i.e. despite the exaggeration of safety concerns with nuclear, it's still viewed as being too dangerous environmentally (as well as to humanity). Also, I think the framing that you did between the two experts wasn't fair... the 'nuclear advocate' (Webborn) doesn't say that we don't need renewables, just that she doesn't think it's feasible to have it without nuclear. Compare that to the *president of the renewable energy group* (Zervos), who says we don't need nuclear at all - clearly with a bias for renewables. Which brings me a bit to my point. Most (not all, obviously), nuclear proponents have nothing against renewables - we love what they bring to the table. The fights are not based on 'technocratic ideology', it's based on the economics of your inertia argument, with the very graph you show, even if you argue against base-load (which in your other graph... you still don't get rid of). The advocacy we champion is because we know that if you ignore it, you don't have a complete solution to tackle climate change, not because we believe *only* nuclear solves this. Of course, there are technocrats too but that's not the majority of those I've come across advocating for nuclear; whereas, the renewable champions typically do not see any energy profile with nuclear. (As a side note, if the technocratic argument is really true, why wouldn't photovoltaics be the better argument as is? It's *solid state* electricity production. It's **far** more advanced than nuclear steampunk turbines . It's our only (scalable, except to some extent hydro) energy source where we don't have to do a ridiculous thermodynamic conversion in which to harness electricity - yes that's simplified, you don't escape thermodynamics. Further, it fits more of our energy demands too since it outputs to DC - why isn't the technocrat argument just to convert the whole grid to DC?) And, so I'm not making the same stereotyping fallacy, not all are also on 100% anti-nuclear either, as I've still have had good conversations on net pros and cons. In fact, because of these discussions, I've far more 'bought in' to your final message: do both... but we've basically run out of time for nuclear. So, I'm still pro-nuclear, but in a zero-sum discussion, the focus *has* to be getting as much non-carbon sources as fast as possible, which inevitable has to be more renewables at present. However, less zero-sum, we should still be designing and constructing the nuclear plants now, concurrently. My experience on the ideological camps mostly rests with the safety and waste concerns with nuclear, and capital and time costs. That's basically it (amongst those who do believe we need to decarbonize - the folks in denial are a whole other can of worms). Great video otherwise though and I'm still liking it FWIW.

[@sportyeight7769]

Yes !

[@Cspacecat]

"Compare that to the president of the renewable energy group (Zervos), who says we don't need nuclear at all - clearly with a bias for renewables. " He must be heavily invested in fossil fuel stock. " It's our only (scalable, except to some extent hydro) energy source where we don't have to do a ridiculous thermodynamic conversion in which to harness electricity." I see you weren't watching carefully. You can, but costs go through the roof. Not a good idea. "but we've basically run out of time for nuclear." Not true. Mass-produced molten salt reactors could be going online in 5 years.

[@0topon]

@@Cspacecat 5 years is still a fucking long time

[@Cspacecat]

@@0topon That idea all depends on how old you are.

[@0topon]

@@Cspacecat I meant it as for a timescale on climate change

[@mac2105]

The key phrase is "(renewables) technology just isn't ready yet". Contrast this to nuclear power, which has provided reliable, safe electricity for decades. Betting the planet on electricity storage miracles is insane, and so is the dogmatic refusal of nuclear power.

[@Botkilla2K12]

Thank you for this video. I saw it a bit late, but it was a good watch both technically and philosophically. TL;DR - I agree with you that nuclear in and of itself isn't a silver bullet and needs to be combined with renewables in most places to actually generate the energy we need reliably enough to maintain a decent standard of living. You also helped shed light on my own recent change in pro-nuclear enthusiasm. I used to be extremely enthusiastic about nuclear fission, but have found over the past year or so that enthusiasm has waned a bit. Especially with my time on Twitter, I see so much universal consensus about nuclear fission as a magic solution that has few downsides. Revisiting the technical arguments for/against fission and renewables, the merits that originally sold me on it are still there, which is why I've never been anti-nuclear. That just led me to questioning what caused the recent waning of enthusiasm and other sorts of independent research. Then I saw the segment on this being a proxy for a clash of worldviews, which in many political spaces I've found to be accurate. The difference between seeing humanity as supreme heroes who will innovate our way out of problems vs humanity being a part of interconnected systems that needs to work within that and change behavior as needed was pretty compelling for me. That's how I realized what changed. Even though I work in a STEM field, I have become less optimistic especially since 2020 that scientific advancement and technological innovations alone will help guide humanity into the future. To rely on technology like that is to enslave ourselves to technology. Our systems are fucked. Our incentives are fucked. We need to change and restructure those to produce better outcomes. That's how in conjunction with technology we'll actually unfuck ourselves. It will be painful, but in the end we'll be better off. Hopefully this finds you, and sorry for the essay.

[@solar0wind]

The thing is that we're already slaves to our technology. Without technology, most people would simply... not be alive. For example when it comes to agriculture.

[@Botkilla2K12]

@@solar0wind in a broad sense I can see where you're coming from, but when I say "enslaved to technology" I mean less in the sense that we as a society are largely dependent on it and more in the Frank Herbert sense of "letting technology control humanity's destiny without question." Modern agriculture doesn't inherently stop humanity from thinking outside its own limitations or us changing how we approach problems. I hope that makes sense. When you use poetic language that leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

[@solar0wind]

@@Botkilla2K12 Okay, I see. So basically you're referring to the people who always think new tech will save the day, so they don't have to change their ways.

[@Botkilla2K12]

@@solar0wind exactly!

[@aaroncosier735]

I guess my problem with nuclear is how clunky it is. It is a big commitment with a big lead time. If we need more power *next year*, nuclear can't help for ten years (ish). In ten years, that new nuclear faces ten years worth of renewables installation, and improvements. If a nation has a structural plan to use it, fine. But it keeps getting touted as a quick fix, as if a desperate salesman smells his last-ever customer, when it is anything but.

[@victorvergote3932]

The video in shot: Why not both. I am happy that there is finaly a nuanced view here.

[@ahhmm5381]

Cost. Nuclear power is hideously expensive. No one is building them and there are alternatives.

[@KingBobXVI]

@@ahhmm5381 - As the video pointed out, relative to power generated, nuclear is actually really cheap. The problem is that the cost is all upfront, so it's not a politically sexy option since it involves a high bill and won't be done before your reelection. As for the time to build: "but it takes like, 9 years" has been the argument for the past 20 years. If we'd just started building them instead of making that argument, we'd have them up and running by now.

[@ahhmm5381]

@@KingBobXVI Many other estimates of the cost show nuclear power is more expensive. The French were happy to build Nuclear reactors for decades but even they are moving to renewables. www.carbonbrief.org/wind-and-solar-are-30-50-cheaper-than-thought-admits-uk-government

[@ShinGetsu857]

@@ahhmm5381 And France really shouldn't move to renewables from nuclear. Because that doesn't work. Germany shows that abandoning nuclear plant is a terrible solution. Renewables are a "support" solution. They can't replace actual, working 24/7 plants.

[@ahhmm5381]

​@@ShinGetsu857 Just to maintain and operate the existing fleet of reactors in France will cost 100 billion euros by 2030, without including decommissioning costs. France is also building a new European Pressurized Reactor at Flamanville, but it is hilariously far behind schedule and massively over budget. Nuclear reactors are not economical anymore. Nuclear power is dead. www.ft.com/content/c7421fbe-f326-11e8-9623-d7f9881e729f Renewables are cheaper and can now be integrated into most grids feasibly to around 50% penetration. As for Germany, they screwed up by decommissioning Nuclear plants and replacing them with coal, an incredibly stupid move both for carbon emission and safety reasons.

[@pulkitmohata5283]

While i agree with most of the points said in the video i must say that simply stating that nuclear is capitalistic and renewables are socialist is extremely flawed. For example in India a majority of plants (renewable, nuclear or fossil fuel) are owned either a) by the government or b) by public owned companies in which the government has a majority stake. The corporation-nuclear idea is very very first world centric. In almost all countries that are not first world have power plants that are owned by the government and hence the people. Again this is not to say that the video was false or dishonest in anyway. The points you have made are very true for countries like the US (and i assume the UK as well), however they are not universal.

[@samuelsilver8077]

Totally agree. I live in Nordics and here nuclear and pretty much all major power plants(hydro,coal etc.) are state owned. The whole last part of the video(political leaning stuff) and USA centric.

[@rasmushenriksen8076]

@@samuelsilver8077 but the argument wasn't really that, it was that your ideology at least to a large extent how you think we need to change our personal habits, instead of "just letting scientists" figure it out. At least here in Denmark that is pretty evident

[@MrNicoJac]

Whether something is state owned is really far less relevant than you'd think. It just means the elites have to go through the politicians and the courts. But that's not hard, at all. Just look up what "electoral democracies" are if you want to know more. Hint: Norway does way better than that, but not every "democracy" does! A state basically needs only one button to override the will of the people when it comes to nuclear power plants. But it would be FAR more difficult for them to go to all sorts of rural places and have to physically tear the solar panels off people's rooftops. So yeah, it's indeed not true that nuclear plants are necessary always "pro-capitalism," but it still *is* true that nuclear power is much less egalitarian than solar power...

[@tedarcher9120]

@Sandcastle • what's the problem with energy hunger if it's 100% clean? Why make your life harder if you don't need to? That is kind of perverse martyr logic

[@MatteV2]

There was no mention of capitalist or socialist, rather left leaning or right leaning tendencies, which is very much true, in terms of conservative/progressive leaning politics. And for those saying that he's wrong because most energy in nordic countries and France are state owned, a capitalist state owning the means of energy production doesn't magically make it socialist. They are still a capitalist state, and the energy is still produced by a capitalist entity.

[@KingBobXVI]

14:30 - The time argument is true, but it's an argument that I personally hate because it's been used well over twice as long than it's complaining about. "But it takes like 9 years to build! We need to upgrade _now!"_ they said... in 2002. "We don't have 9 years to wait to stop the effects of warming!" they said again in 2011. "We'll be past the tipping point if we wait another decade!" they're saying in 2020. Like, yes, they take a long time. But if we'd started building them on a large scale 18 years ago when 9 years was "too long", we'd be in a SIGNIFICANTLY better position right now. The best time was then, the second best time is now. And building nuclear doesn't mean we can't also build up other sources at the same time. We have the resources (and money) to do both if we deem it necessary. edit after getting to the last part: good video, but I feel like it's kind of insulting to say the pro-nuclear crowd (myself included) are arguing that we need nuclear _and no_ renewable sources. That's simply not true for myself (I mean, read my comment above this edit), and I don't believe it's even a significant minority opinion among nuclear advocates. I feel like the assumption is being made here that because renewable advocates _do_ argue explicitly in favor of nothing other than renewables, that the "other side" must also be doing so as well (aka, some level of projection). Germany committed to renewables and part of that was ending all nuclear power production in the country, which resulted in a net carbon increase as they had to increase coal production because the renewables they had already couldn't come close to filling the gap left by shutting down nuclear plants. California is soon shutting down their last nuclear plant instead of upgrading it, in part due to the cost, but also as part of a commitment to renewables. That plant provides some 15% of the power for the state on its own, and again renewables aren't enough to fill that gap yet, so they'll instead ramp up natural gas. Nuclear has never meant "no renewables", but renewables has always meant "no nuclear" to its own detriment.

[@barbaragribbon]

Can't believe it took me this long to watch this video! was easily the best 41 minutes of KZbin I have committed to in a Long time! Also threw some unexpected light on my personal prejudices (Solar Punk FTW) but made me more open the the Nuclear option (which I wasn't against but..) in context. Awesome stuff! Well done, Simon

[@bobturing]

Do we really need New Mexico?

[@SimonClark]

Asking the real questions

[@sualtam9509]

Also the Sahara is as big as the US.

[@koloblicin]

@@sualtam9509 yeah, but there is the problem of getting the energy to the place you need. you cant simply build powerlines from the sahara to the EU for example. we could produce hydrogen from the solar energy we produce in the sahara, and then ship the hyrogen in tankers over the mediteranean sea, where you then power gas turbines with the hyrdogen. but that would be so much more expensive than simply building nuclear power plants.

[@sualtam9509]

@@koloblicin 1. You don't build all solar in one place this was just to show that the area neded is not that big on a global scale. 2. Nobody proposes a mono-source approach. 3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

[@koloblicin]

@@sualtam9509 sounded like you did.

[@reecebarnes938]

this is the sort of stuff that needs to be shown in schools. before the world changes people need to be on the same level of understanding

[@Deltexterity]

but this stuff IS showed in schools, alllll the time, in mandatory science classes before and after sec 3, where you're legally allowed to drop out, so even if you do drop out you are still taught it. young people cant do anything about this problem anyways, the old people have all the money and power, you need to convince them to stop being greedy, and convince the old voters to stop being so stupid and falling for the same political tricks they've fallen for for decades.

[@iironhide6209]

@@Deltexterity idk which schools you go to because electric grids were not talked about this in detail in my school at all

[@Deltexterity]

@@iironhide6209 yeah no obviously not this in detail, but the general concepts are covered a ton. i went to a public, *outdated* canadian school, and even they had like an entire year focusing on absolutely everything climate related, including power potions to replace fossil fuels. this was covered during that time.

[@some_doofus]

Thankfully young people do seem to be taking this knowledge on at a greater rate than most older age groups who are still emotionally scarred by Chernobyl and TMI. Young people are able to look at the situation with fresh eyes without being affected by the sensationalising media. But of course, these young people won't be in positions of power to do anything about it for a few decades at least.

[@iironhide6209]

@@some_doofus at the same time most young people don’t care enough to protect the environment

[@LudvigIndestrucable]

You grossly misreported and misrepresented construction times for nuclear vs wind and solar. Wind and solar can be constructed in months from a physical standpoint, but the multi-year time scale for nuclear includes planning, reviews, consultation etc etc etc, these also affect wind and solar installation (not so much domestic, but that's a separate conversation). One of the reasons that nuclear plants take so long to build is public opposition and protest against them, the same is also true of renewable since a lot of NIMBYs campaign against wind installation. The design and planning stage is multi-year for nuclear and renewables and while more should be done to speed up the process, this process is necessary.

[@Cspacecat]

"The design and planning stage is multi-year for nuclear and renewables and while more should be done to speed up the process, this process is necessary." Once France decided to pick the nuclear design, they built the same type of power plant over and over again.

[@LudvigIndestrucable]

@@Cspacecat Indeed they did and were able to produce them very rapidly and at low cost. There are now significantly more planning and regulatory hurdles and greater public opposition. I don't disagree with the video's conclusion, a blend of power sources has always been the best way, but his reasoning was based on poor data.

[@ahhmm5381]

​@@Cspacecat Yeah, and now they have a massive decommissioning problem. Interestingly enough, they are also abandoning any new reactors and going with renewable energy. Cost does not lie. Nuclear energy was cheap to build at one point, but that time is long gone.

[@Cspacecat]

@@ahhmm5381 You can expect nuclear to drop between $0.02 to $0.03 per kilowatt-hour using MSRs.

[@ahhmm5381]

​@@Cspacecat When?

[@locra5580]

I think it’s super important to reiterate how limited our supply of uranium really is. While it would technically be possible to run the entire Earth on nuclear power, we would run out of fission material in a few decades; not to speak of the exponentially increasing cost of mining the stuff as it gets less abundant!

[@classonbread5757]

Molten salt Thorium reactors. Then fusion. Gg ez

[@noer0205]

As an electrical engineer, I was so relieved to see you talk about base load. A critical problematic which I find it so hard to find new information on, when it comes to the future of our energy grid. Thank You! Excellent video also :) The time to build for Nuclear could be emphasized more though. If we can't even build new Nuclear power plants in time to avoid climate change crucial tipping points. Then it becomes a muite point to even discuss Nuclear as an option.

[@DJRonnieG]

This 10 year figure... why not 8 years, or 14 years? I'm sure nature will be flexible if we're a half a decade behind schedule.

[@noer0205]

@@DJRonnieG What 10 year figure? I mention that we need change before the tipping points. By tipping points I refer to event such as the gulf stream stopping, the release of methane beneath the ice caps and such. We don't know if these will occur within 8 or 14 or 10 years. But the risk of those thing happening are tied to the level of increased temperature. So with current pollution levels we probably have nearer to 10 years than 50 I'd guess. But it's hard to put a number on, as you point out. But it's important to prioritise because eg a release of buried methane will worsen global warming without us getting anything useful out of it.

[@specialopsdave]

The switch to 100% renewable would take far longer (~100 years, as a guess) than it takes to build some nuclear power plants (10 years)

[@DJRonnieG]

@@noer0205 I'm just quoting the figure (presumably a rough estimate?) mentioned in the excellent video.

[@DJRonnieG]

​@@specialopsdave with expanded nuclear capacity we can run a lot for making solar panels and it certainly reduces carbon output per KWh.

[@philipwong9557]

Honestly, never heard of any reputable source argue that 100% nuclear is a preferred or desirable solution.

[@Chestyfriend]

Why would anyone argue for 100% nuclear when nuclear+renewable with more renewable as the grid is gradually upgraded is clearly the best solution.

[@kavky]

@@Chestyfriend Renewable is a joke.

[@wernerbeinhart2320]

@@kavky good argument, buddy

[@xgamer]

Classic strawman technique, present your opponents as holding a position he doesn't really hold.

[@aceman0000099]

I would argue for 400% nuclear. We should be able to irrigate the Sahara desert using water from the ocean. Fusion would help this

[@WielkiKaleson]

The problem with "listening to nature" is that it may wish to say: I am not going to support billions of people on this tiny planet! And then what? We are where we are because of technological advances (easier food production, better health care) and the solutions presented here are of technological nature. Reliance on electric current is no way "natural" to humans (but try not to use it at all). Mass covering land with solar panels is not natural and planting concrete forests of wind turbines is not natural too as huge dams playing a role of energy accumulators. We can try fool ourselves that we can come back to green days. But we just cannot. Instead, we must seek ways to minimise our impact on the environment.

[@gitcat6671]

handful of rich people disproportionately use more energy(=emit more carbon) than the bottom half of the entire global population. You don't need 3 earths to support the population, which if everybody lived like average US citizens it would, right now.

[@WielkiKaleson]

@@gitcat6671 So? Are you going to persuade them to stop? If the people supported climate protection, no serious politicians would vote to abolish Kyoto protocol. Still, that is what happened.

[@etienne8110]

@@gitcat6671 if everyone lived like an american it would be more like 8-10 planets needed. The around 1 ratio planetwide is for the living level of cuba, not everyone can accept that, thus there will be war. War is a goo way to bring plague and famine which are good ways to reduce populations. I fear that instea of changing our way of life in "develloped" countries, we will choose to wage war to reduce global population.

[@LiEnby]

I don't think anyone said it's natural it'd just more natural and that's such a stupid argument . And we can so go back to "green days" I keep myself in touch with nature .

[@WielkiKaleson]

@@LiEnby Almost anything is sustainable on a local scale. We desparately need global solutions.

[@SomeoneBeginingWithI]

I think people's strong feelings about nuclear reflect attitudes to risk more than left/right politics. How do you feel about a low probability catastrophic event? How scared does that make you? How willing are you to trust that things will probably be okay? People feel strongly about that. I think perceptions of risk influence general political views, not the other way around.

[@alexpotts6520]

I'm somewhat sceptical of your "nuclear guys relying on technology rather than changing society" thesis. I mean, aren't renewables - which there has been way more progress in over the last decade - also a technological solution? I mean, even if you're desperate for a worldwide reevaluation of the human condition - why wouldn't you want to also be using the cleanest tech available?

[@eragon78]

One step further, Nuclear is actually the OPPOSITE of that claim he made. Nuclear technology ALREADY exists and works, we dont need to rely on future technology at all, we figured this stuff out decades ago. Nuclear is the current solution we have (when paired with renewables), and full on renewables are going to be the LONG term solution in a hundred years or so as we slowly phase out nuclear due to better renewables technology. But the main priority right now is to phase out fossil fuels, and we already know nuclear energy can do that RIGHT NOW. no new technology or infrastructure needed. Just build new plants, turn em on, and thats it, you can easily hit 70%+ of global power production on nuclear if countries really wanted to.

[@adec.881]

Because it isn't a base energy source. For example look at our energy crisis rn. There's not much wind and not much sun, therefore solar panels and windmills aren't producing enough energy. So using nuclear energy as our base load energy would be the best thing,

[@randommodnar7141]

@@eragon78 we can with the technology available right now transition entirely to renewable. Its also able to do that with nuclear. That's stated in the video. But I mean, just look at the comment section, "thorium reactor!" "Molten salt reactor!" "Fusion power!" Meanwhile all of those are either not available in any comercial capacity or have none built at all.

[@eragon78]

@@randommodnar7141 We cannot switch to full renewables right now. The main issue is energy storage. Renewables are not reliable enough to consistently produce enough power for power needs 24/7. You have to have large energy storage to make up the difference when production is low and that technology isnt mature enough yet. SOME countries can have 100% renewable, but thats usually because they have some special condition such as a lot of power from hydroelectric or something. But most countries cannot have 100% renewables right now as energy storage technology is not yet ready for that. That said, we could get a pretty large percentage to renewables, well over 50% in most places. So its still smart to build renewables. But for 100% production from renewables, we are going to need better energy storage technology and infrastructure. Also, all the people talking about future nuclear reactors, yea, we dont need those. They are nice because they are better than current reactors, but they definitely arent required to use safe and effective nuclear power. Nuclear power in its current state is sufficient to eliminate fossil fuels in our power production. While new technology can make it better, its not required for Nuclear to fix the problem. Of course as always though, a hybrid solution is best. The best solution is to fit as much renewables as we can into the grid, and then fill the rest with Nuclear. And over time slowly replace nuclear with renewables as renewables technology improves. But for the short term, the hybrid solution is best, but that will require nuclear power generation.

[@lachieechoecho]

Thank you for a fair and well documented look at this. I do however have one nitpick. At 26’09” you say there are nuclear advocates who think we need nothing but nuclear, and rentable advocates the opposite. In my personal experience I have read and heard renewables advocates say nuclear is not needed, but I’ve never heard a nuclear advocate say renewables are not needed.

[@CrabExposedToDeltaP]

Oh maaaan do I envy you I hear them all the time and it's super annoying

[@kkon5ti]

@@CrabExposedToDeltaP same :(

[@tristanridley1601]

Literally every single video and article and political conference about renewables. "Excuse me why are we debating this. Nuclear is a far better option."

[@lachieechoecho]

@@tristanridley1601 well, that’s because it is. However, I’ve not heard any nuclear advocates say nuclear is the only way, and that there’s no point in any renewables. Having a range of power production is obviously a good option. Especially if they are not harmful to people. So coal is out at the start.

[@tristanridley1601]

@@lachieechoecho I think you failed to read my comment at all.

[@DLBreidenthal]

I’m a leftist and definitely support nuclear as part of the solution to the carbon emissions problem

[@farisabuain6832]

Same. I think we need renewables and new technologies and I do believe that we need to fundamentally change the way we live. I’m a leftist for a reason; I don’t like the way our world is structured, both politically and economically. The only reason I’ve always advocated nuclear is because, as a young person, I’ve grown up seeing the effects of climate change, and I’m afraid that if we don’t act now with something we know will work, we risk doing irreversible and irreparable damage to our species.

[@grizerbear4898]

There is no Co2 emission problem , global warming /climate change is a lie .

[@manofrice1058]

@@grizerbear4898 why do you think that?

[@grizerbear4898]

@@manofrice1058 That is a good question ! My answer is : There is no evidence to the contrary . 0 . Prove me wrong .

[@manofrice1058]

@@grizerbear4898 well theres really no evidence for either with that but you can see the average global temperatures shooting up in a graph.

[@dr.iceberg6293]

Nuclear Power Plants don't take long to build because they are inherently difficult to build but because of anti Nuclear Power laws and regulations that make construction of these plants artificially difficult and take much longer. Changes in legislation could eliminate that.

[@samuelberry4186]

more than that, in the USA almost no new nuclear plants had gone into service in 4 decades due to political aproval/permision being pulled before the plant can start adding to the grid. In some cases the plant was ready alost ready start producing before getting permently shutdown. This adds to the adverage cost of nuclear in most stastics given.

[@danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

When a country builds a nuclear powered ship it usually takes around two years. Hmm, maybe they don't follow the same regulatory process?

[@stefanmarxmeier3179]

All Nuclear plants are flexible! The reason they are operated at full power all day is that it makes almost no difference to the cost of the plant if choose to not produce power. So as long as the price of electricity is above the 0.5 cents per kWh that the uranium costs you will produce it. But if required you can load follow even with old nuclear plants see France.

[@elsekling2552]

basically yes. Practically no. Most nuclear plants a minimum load of around 40% of their max. Which is still a lot! The point that you said is important, construction costs are huge, operation costs are low. Thus, they really really really have to run 24/7 to be profitable. Adjusting the load often also means stress for the materials.... materials which cant be maintained in nuclear plants. Its a bit problem, most plants are not designed to adjust their load regularly .... designing them this way is possible, but makes them even less profitable. So the short answer is: YES they can be flexible... BUT if they do its an economic nightmare.

[@stefanmarxmeier3179]

Else Kling Fair enough. Yes load following does make the economics worse, which is why it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to integrate a lot of renewables. So if a country is serious about cutting emissions they should do what France has done and take a reactor design and build it over and over again with the same people all over the country. That way you can build them cheap and quick, which is why France holds the record for most clean capacity added within a Decade and enjoys some of the lowest electricity prices in Europe.

[@DarkHarlequin]

Amazing! 90% of all people would have called it after section 1 and it would have been a GOOD video! Really balanced, well explained but not oversimplifying. Yet you kept going on the actual loistics etc. extremly iportant factors and that elevated this video. Great stuff!

[@peterunge5811]

Mostly agree, but the "built faster" argument was not well thought through. If you compare constructing of one nuclear plant with thousands of wind turbines, which are needed to reach the same capacity, the picture is different. And building the power grids needed for renewables also takes a lot of time (as it is, at least in Germany, often met with local resistance because it requires cutting paths through forest and such) There was a study comparing the time to build electric capacity over the last decades and nuclear was actually better than renewables. Countries like France managed to build many plants at once, reasonably quickly.

[@NickB2412]

Additionally, how much of that "average" nine year process was regulatory hurdles placed by redundant safety and environmental checks and surveys (urged on repeatedly by those "anti-nuclear" groups we barely touched on) on pre-approved and previously utilized reactor plant designs that slowed construction to a crawl. Again, look at some of the countries that embraced nuclear, like France: how long was their construction process? Turns out those countries did it in 80 months on average, not 108 months, and Japan (yeah, yeah, Fukishima, because anyone can predict a natural disaster occurring miles underground under the ocean) did it in an average of 60 months by working on improving collaboration between utilities companies, local and regional governance, and constructors (inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/42/105/42105221.pdf). And it took two seconds on google to find that paper, btw. Try harder, Simon.

[@MDP1702]

The difference is that you can build these wind turbines at the same time. Even with regulatory hurdles etc. it takes around 2-3 years to place a wind turbine. And well, actually using "a" is kind of wrong, since most often these projects include multiple wind turbines. And overall 1 person can handle at least 5 of these projects at the same time. With an average of 3 wind turbines per project, 5 projects per person, you can get 15 wind turbines up in 2-3 years by 1 person. You can scale this up by using more personnel, it is more difficult to speed up a nuclear powerplant build in a similar way. You need around 330 wind turbines per nuclear powerplant. That means you'd need to have around 23 people working on building new wind turbines to place the equivalent of a nuclear powerplant in around 3 years. So yes, overall roll out of renewables can be done faster. And ofcourse solar panels can also quickly be placed, though you'd need a lot more of them. You need around 50 people placing 35 panels a day for 5 years to get the equivalent amount of power to a nuclear reactor. Ofcourse there are different factors, like the size of the plant, etc. But on average you'd get something like this. And I am using numbers from the US government department of energy if you want to know. In the end the faster roll out of renewables is a fact. You can only build a new power plant that fast. And well, if you take into consideration regulatory hurdles for wind turbines (which usually is around 2-2,5 years, with 0,5 years construction), you should also do so for nuclear. 9 years seems about correct in that case in the west, if not more.

[@infini_ryu9461]

Greens pointing gun at Pro-Nuclear adv.: "Nuclear will never clean entire electrical grids of GHGs" France: *shoots him in the back* They will keep ignoring France because it completely debunks their entire argument. You can get nuclear power plants up in a short amount of time, France got their construction down to 4 years each. Even with all of the regulations placed on nuclear to strangle it out of the economy, there has never been an example of Solar and Wind replacing majority of the electrical grid with clean energy, not a one. America increased their solar and wind by 10-15x in the last couple of decades(Which hasn't done jack), yet it is still peanuts to what would happen if they only triple their nuclear power.

[@NickB2412]

@@ska042 Glad my response got your attention lol. While it was tragic, everything I have read about the designs at Fukushima said they built to more than government disaster requirements. Hindsight is usually 20/20, right? And I agree, everyone does seem to stick to their side, but if we can't have open discourse how will we ever find a solution, or God forbid, reach compromise and common ground?!?! I personally believe that wind and solar have their place in the industry, especially when used on an individual basis (and selling excess back to the grid), but I don't think that the large scale projects truly provide reliable long term solutions, especially taking the blade disposal or solar cell construction and waste problems into account. Nuclear is clean, reliable, and long term, which drives costs down. I would encourage you to please explain your ideas! Most of us on the "nuclear side" are open to exploring all options and weighing their impacts, not just blindly following what sounds "environmentally responsible" but in reality ends up being worse for the planet.

[@Kkj657]

Could you share that study? seems pretty interesting!

[@pawwilon]

Interesting how decommissioning is always mentioned with nuclear, but rarely in case of the millions of panels and turbines we'll have to replace as wave 1 of EOL now approaches, which are not made with recycling in mind at all...

[@hudsonstraight8628]

Well said. This young man obsessed with Simpson's and that WEF European ignore many factors. With 100's of submarines with nuclear generators we should mass produce them for rural areas. Photovoltaic should be only allowed for houses, also mini wind turbines. Wave and geothermal good.

[@XMarkxyz]

Well actually they are now made with recycling in mind, quite less in the past but they will be soon gone anyway

[@pawwilon]

@@XMarkxyz a lot of consumer products are made with recycling 'in mind', and yet they don't get recycled. If the process of recycling those panels costs much more than building new ones using virgin material they'll end up in landfill anyway. We'll see in 20-30 years how well we actually do.

[@ruenvedder5921]

wave has the highest maintenance costs of anything i’ve yet encountered in power systems. saltwater bad.

[@zaurenstoates7306]

Let's not forget one key fact, renewables are just nuclear power at a distance

[@husnizuhdi7357]

True

[@alexpotts6520]

I mean, so are fossil fuels, right?

[@jonathanjeffrymulyana4390]

Fossil fuel is nuclear power from the past

[@zaurenstoates7306]

Ok, I thought of an exception......tidal energy

[@davidcampbell1420]

Do you mean, solar is passive collection of fusion power? sure. Geothermal is decay heat from Uranium and Thorium in the core, so yes there too.

[@jbvalentin854]

Amazing video, I would just like to add some points to back this video, in the past 10 years Germany has increased the number of wind and solar massively but r still producing more CO2 than in 2009. Due to in 2019 poor wind and sunlight and due to closing of nuclear. In France in March 98% of our energy was non carbon thanks to the symbiotic nature of our energy production. I can understand why u don’t want to build new plants, but there r no valid reasons to tear down working power plant.

[@fivade6534]

There are some plants that had legitimate reasons to be taken down, but overall I agree. Some of those plants should have never closed

[@jbvalentin854]

Fiva De yes ofc there r but that’s not what green peace advocates for. They see nuclear as neutral negative just above gaz. It’s a shame people r so misinformed about nuclear

[@marzipancutter8144]

The german political debate is really weird. In the video it's said that usually the debate is renewables on the left vs. nuclear on the right with all unanimously agreeing that coal is bad. Instead, what I see is renewables on the left and "let's just do what the coal lobby says" on the right and center, with everyone staying away from nuclear like it's the plague because of fear. The large scale decommission was a kneejerk reaction to the events of Fukushima, specifically. Since then only a few parties have put it back on their program.

[@Gilberto90]

France has probably the most rational energy policy in the world. I've recently returned from a trip there and everywhere I went there were small arrays of 3 or 4 wind turbines; even saw a couple of convoys transporting new ones. However, this is partly due to necessity due to France's lack of fossil fuel resources and the aging of existing Nuclear plants and ongoing issues with building next generation reactors in Flamanville. The downsides are that it has to use foreign policy hard power options in order to secure its supplies of Uranium in countries like Niger and Chad.

[@jbvalentin854]

Lunam yes that’s true however u need a tiny quantity of uranium comparetevly to other fossil fuels. And even solar panel are made with rare earth material from other countries.

[@RedmilesShark]

"Live lifestyles that require less energy." Goodbye internet.

[@etienne8110]

you can keep the internet, wikipedia and mails are very energy efficient, but bye bye cat videos in 4k, streaming and porn. We can make the choice of a cleaner internet, we must just assume no/less porn, no netflix and no dumb youtube/twitch.

[@brentywenty]

@@etienne8110 You know, I have got this gut feeling you hate youtube.

[@jayayerson8819]

@@etienne8110 KZbin uses a hell of a lot less energy than plane travel or shipping. Maybe start with the big polluters, and use renewables for what it's good at.

[@davidlovesyeshua]

@@etienne8110 Actually, just go vegan, it's by far the biggest reduction to personal carbon emissions the average person can realize. ... I mean, not literally *just* go vegan, but you don't have to give up watching KZbin or whatever. Buy solar if it makes sense in your area, maybe go for an EV, don't fly too much, etc.

[@infini_ryu9461]

This is what all greenies resort to in order to excuse their renewable future delusions. There is never going to be a time when energy consumption isn't going up. You can tell us to burn candles all you want(which actually produce CO2) but it's not going to happen. energy consumption is going to quadruple by the end of this century and no amount of finger wagging is going to change that. Their predictions actually rely on energy consumption going down, that's why they keep repeating it, even though it's impossible. The only reason America has decreased their carbon emissions is because natural gas produces half as much CO2 as coal. Renewables have nowhere near even scratched the surface of their carbon emissions. So they've increased wind and solar by about 10-20x what they had a decade or two ago, but 10x not a lot is still not a lot. If they only tripled the energy from their nuclear grid they would have phased out nearly all coal emissions. There is not a single example of Solar and Wind replacing an entire electrical grid of fossil fuels. But we have examples of nuclear doing so. France. Ontario VS The rest of Canada. Sweden. I don't know about you guys, but I'm staking my life on shit I know works.

[@hananas2]

My personal opinion is that we should absolutely change our lifestyle to consume far less power (E.G. I don't own a car out of choice, but rather ride bikes everywhere) but yet I don't want us to completely give up on nuclear. As much as I would love it if everyone consumed less power which lets us generate all power with just renewables, I also know it's not realistic to expect every single person to completely change their lifestyle for it. Maybe one day, but probably not in our lifetime, and that's just too long. Also I live in Belgium, which is an extremely densely populated tiny country, so we don't have much room for wind and solar AND agriculture and nature.

[@PhilipTa10]

Good and pretty balanced video. More or less the same answer, I’d give. I’m an energy meteorologist, I find the argument against existence of base load a bit off. You still consume power with negative consumption, you just consume less than your solar panels produce. If you added up all solar power production, both private rooftop and large solar “parks” you end up with similar consumption profiles as we have classically seen. It’s just that Transmission System Operators, National Grid in the UK, don’t know how much solar power people produces privately, so they just calculate on the net power they can see consumers need. Which is smart enough from their point of view, but not totally correct to talk about negative consumption. As always, love your videos, the high scientific value and loads of research you out into this. I’d probably be doing something like this myself, if I had the time. I really think atmospheric scientists should be heard more in then public debate about climate issues.

[@davidcampbell1420]

I agree. Baseload may go down, and be kind of hybridized by huge battery arrays, but I can't imagine it to go away. A windless night doesn't need a lot of power, but also produces none, without at least something that can work at all hours.

[@beenviolent]

Just out of curiosity, have you read "The Wizard and the Prophet"? It's a Charles Mann book about the dichotomous world views you discussed near the end.

[@SimonClark]

I haven't no - though funnily enough you're the second person today to mention it to me! That's once on the internet and once via a book.

[@Irrazzo]

Agreed. Charles Mann's two books "1493", "The Wizard and the Prophet", and his article "State of the Species" opened my eyes to how ecology has been, and is a bigger driving force behind human agency and history than one would think. (If that's sounds to much like prophets talk: And of course, how wizards saved us many times over without us knowing it.)

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

The conclusion is balanced and well put. Nuclear, solar, wind and hydro will all need to be used in the future grids. One thing you missed though is that while nuclear power plants' upfront cost and time investment is large, the changes required to modify the current grid infrastructure to accomodate large amounts of renewable power generation (solar and wind) are about as costly and time intensive as the investments required on nuclear power plants, meaning it's not really an either/or situation. Changing the worlds' power grids is going to be intensive no matter what we do. The idea of decentralized power grids making electricity generation less of a monopolistic and capitalistic endeavour is also quite misguided. Solar panels and wind turbines require heavy industrial machinery to produce. As such, the new monopolies that will arise will not be through the direct power generation, but through the production of power generation assets if people start just buying them and generating their own power. All of that is also not considering the requirements of centralized power control over a grid. Given the current alternative current infrastructure we use, we need to precisely control frequency and phase for our grid, meaning you can't just change the power and load on the system without affecting the grid stability, making it impossible to have a true decentralized power grid with our current technology without a centralized control interface, otherwise the grid explodes. People who think of renewables as some political tool to make a utopian society where everything is decentralized are not engineers, they are ideologues.

[@aaroncosier735]

I do not think it is as fraught as you think. Grid upgrades need not be a matter of major modification, but of finer control of the distributed inputs. Every household inverter and obviously all of greater capacity can trivially have access to GPS and internet time references, allowing microsecond control of generated waveforms to generate smoother collective waveforms at the transformer and substation level. They need not get their frequency standard from the grid, but from a planned picture of the grid some micro or milliseconds into the future. Nuclear has *huge* unprovisioned costs, including decommissioning, final waste disposal and insurances. These are all underwritten by host nations that have made no genuine provision beyond crossed fingers and litigation. Panel and turbine production *are* bottlenecks and it behooves any responsible nation to incubate it's own industries in this regard, as once we did for motor vehicles. Some nations may prefer lower-tech solutions like dish-mounted Brayton, rather than high-tech PV, depending on their manufacturing and repair capabilities, but none can ignore this and be considered competent. Frequency control is less of a bottleneck than you think. Large interconnects are increasingly HVDC, due to the superior efficiency and reduced losses. A network of HVDC links stabilised by grid-scale batteries at each end eliminates the need for grid-wide frequency control. This is not "gold-plating" as new interconnects are routinely adopting this technology regardless of generation. Longer interconnects will be exclusively HVDC, as with the three new long-distance ones in China linking western afternoon sun to eastern evening demand. Engineering facts, not ideology. Frequency control in some regions has *already* been taken over by grid-scale batteries, at a huge saving over fossil-burning price gougers. Again, just simple facts on record.

[@KlausJLinke]

_"The conclusion is balanced and well put."_ Only by completely ignoring the problem of long-term-storage of the nuclear waste.

[@Not.a.bird.Person]

@@KlausJLinke I don't think you understand the real issues if you seriously think nuclear waste is a large scale issue...

[@The_Bird_Bird_Harder]

@@Not.a.bird.Person Genuinely. Not only could it be used by breeder reactors, but it's a miniscule problem compared to the pollution we face.

[@SgtCarter69]

@@KlausJLinke you don't long-term store an electricity grid... you do for your peak demands...did you forget that electric cars need huge batteries just like billions of machines and micro grid in isolated places. For nuclear wastes, Simon has hinted that people like simple binary options to get passionate about...but, that life is usually more complicated. Many powerplants are quite old tech while slowly but surely modern ones get built, remember the big upfront $. Billions for the big ones but, Simon hasn't made much effort to look at SMR and (like others said) breather reactor...the first one can & is made in format smaller than a house and in shipping containers for ultra remote places. You really should have said, Simon has forgot to say that unless the radioactive materials come from a state with civil rights like Canada, it may come from shame of the world Africa where you know it's easier to get people to work for less with less protection (I love efficient energy production but, the Africa problematic is nuclear's 99 Problems). Oh and solar, is made from not so environmental responsible material for efficiency sake(at the moment) and wind turbines kills millions of birds each year and*apparently make too much noise for some... I'd research that more though. Oh and wind turbines poles are made of steel... I'll let you search the astronomical amount of.water and energy it takes to make some...that in turns refers to the awesome comment made above about the other problematic of monopolies in the equipment production...just like batteries are made by 3-4 companies.

[@artembidnichenko8371]

I am yet to find a nuclear proponent who thinks we should go 100% nuclear. Yet there is an abundance of renewable proponents who genuinely believe nuclear is unnecessary. There is an embedded bias in the question "do we even need nuclear". Why would we want to avoid a space efficient and reliable energy source?

[@johnfoelster507]

Cynical sociological counterpoint. (I don't think that we actually disagree on a policy plan, except I'd be in favor of using nuclear for carbon capture to synthesize gasoline/jet fuel when renewables are running at or greater than demand.) Isn't it equally true that "renewables only" are being "ideologically fetishized" by people who want to disrupt existing power structures and decentralize the system, regardless of whether that's a good idea? Or that there's ideological bias for "natural purity" in the "renewables only" camp? I think it's been such a long time since left-wing extremists posed any sort danger to the common man in the developed world that you've forgotten that the anarchist egalitarian impulse can do a whole lot of damage if given free rein. I'm not going to pretend that the authoritarian hierarchical impulse isn't an even greater threat, or that the balance in the English speaking world isn't dangerously far to the right, I just think it's unfair to attribute a sociologically motivated, irrational bias to one side of oversimplifiers and not the other.

[@allhumansarejusthuman.5776]

I think there is an important distinction that has been identified and made as far as left and right wing dangers go And that distinction is that the overall threats do not come from left or right wing; they come from Authoritarianism itself. This distinction is of course downplayed by the authoritarian elite, since to some amount authoritarianism is required for pure capitalism and they all rather like getting paid to do nothing, but.... well..... We have the tech we need to work only a 4 hour work week.... and two of those hours are mulligans because it takes a couple hours to get our human brains in the game after spending so long away from it. And that's on track to 15 year retirement plans... and this is the labor efficiency to do more then producing more then just food and housing. I included the labor for new computer manufacturing and design every 5 years, 5 cars total manufacturing and design, two new homes, and enough resources for feeding an second generation till they die of old age(projected) Or in short. We already exceed the "far off future" production capabilities of post-scarcity. I don't think capitalism can truly survive that anyway. 😐.

[@johnfoelster507]

Leaving aside the question of the reliability of the macroeconomic calculations of random KZbin commenters, you're changing the subject. I never used the word "capitalism" and I don't think Simon Clark did either when discussing the bias of the powerful towards nuclear. As others note below, France's nuclear industry is largely state owned. I (and he) talked about ideological preferences for centralized vs. decentralized industrial solutions that leave power in the hands of a few vs. decentralized ones that don't. The manager of a state-owned energy monopoly is in many ways just as powerful as the CEO of a private energy monopoly, even if they have less disposable income. The choice of what technology to use ought to be based on engineering realities plus ecological and economic considerations, not whether it will produce an "authoritarian" social structure. If you think society can function with no social hierarchy, you're every bit as deluded as someone who thinks there should be no freedom. I see no point in debating whether any given nation's economy conforms to some platonic ideal of "pure capitalism" or "pure socialism", since both words are just marketing terms.

[@pasoundman]

I'm curious to see how feasible synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 works out. It's seductive but I suspect problematic. For sure there all manner of poitical shenanigans going on wrt 'renewables', from many sides and many agendas.

[@tedarcher9120]

Far right bias, right, aha. Especially in Silicon valley, all media, most big corporation, they are all far right, sure

[@tedarcher9120]

@@pasoundman you need a lot of power for that and it's extremely inefficient. You can make plastic that way though

[@farisabuain6832]

I think I’m so into nuclear power (despite my leftist views, I’d consider myself far-left) is because I have always had an affinity for science. Technology, progress, advancement, etc. And while this has also caused me to gravitate to things like hydro, geothermal or (if we’re lucky) fusion, its nuclear that gripped me. Because when I learned that nuclear wasn’t really dangerous and it had this much potential, it triggered that part of me that feels the need to fight off anti-science. Suddenly I had this feeling that these environmentalists who reject nuclear aren’t true environmentalists, just people who vilify nuclear out of fear and misunderstanding (I know this is not the case at all, but still). This made me particularly like nuclear, having a mindset of “its a powerful energy source based on some of our best science, and its being squashed due to misunderstanding and ill-placed optimism”.

[@bikquerel2982]

Same.

[@pihlajafox]

I kinda feared nuclear energy when I was kid, but now when I have learned about it more and saw how it isn't actually dangerous, I'm suddenly started to be pro-nuclearn energy guy

[@wolfdragonhorse]

These are some of the larger issues I have with the Left and Far-Left, even though I'm also on Left end of the political spectrum. The amount of greenwashing and sciency sounding policies and ideas that are devoid of actual change or progress. And this isn't just an issue with the energy sector either, the housing market, agricultural, economics in general, etc.

[@wolfdragonhorse]

@@lucadipaolo1997 unfortunately, politics is one of those human things that hits every level of society. Any time you get a group of people together there will be some kind of political structure formed.

[@disposabull]

@@wolfdragonhorse I punch NERFs! (Nuclear Exclusionary Radical F's)

[@ClimateAdam]

Really glad you made this video since it's an issue that comes up *all* the time. And it's so good, now I don't have to make a nuclear power video! Think you made a great case, while providing enough info for peeps to make up their own minds (as I'm sure they will). I'm sure the comments will all be... completely... chill.

[@hunterdouglas9765]

This is possibly your best video to date in my opinion. Nuanced and detailed, really gets into the weeds on explaining why people have the positions they do on the topic. Nice work!

[@kolerick]

to summarize with the words of a sage: don't put all your eggs in the same basket...

[@jackee-is-silent2938]

Wind and solar plants have significant decommissioning costs too. They just can't be abandoned, as has been done so far.

[@Dundoril]

"Wind and solar plants have significant decommissioning costs too" Nothing compared to nuclear power plants

[@jackee-is-silent2938]

@@Dundoril But they're not being decommisioned. They're being abandonned.

[@Dundoril]

@@jackee-is-silent2938 "ut they're not being decommisioned. They're being abandonned." Not here in germany

[@pasoundman]

@@Dundoril Hardly so. Remove the fuel from a NPP and you can virtually walk away from it. In fact, the first part of decommisioning requires just that. OK, some site security is needed but no more. Drain the coolant too of course ! The fuel's usually happy in dry or wet storage btw.

[@pasoundman]

@@Dundoril Big mistake.

[@kikivoorburg]

I am firmly on the “work with nature” / “left-wing” side of this debate, but frankly I don’t think that matters at all. No matter what you believe, this is a catastrophe in the making (for humans and the environment), and nuclear *is* a good tool to use to mitigate (and hopefully halt) the damage. The fact that it’s centralised, corporatist, etc. sucks but if it helps us stop the shipwreck then we should use it. Naturally it shouldn’t be the *only* tool we use, but ignoring it is foolish. My political opinions are shaped by the fact that I want the lives of as many people as possible to be as nice as possible. I believe a more socialist economy that works in harmony with nature will be nicer for the average person. But while preventing the use of nuclear energy may be a good way to help build that “green economy”, if it leads to climate change being *even harder* to solve, it will cause more suffering than good. We must not let utopian ideals cloud the reality of the situation at hand.

[@stephenbrickwood1602]

All dictators get their own nuclear industry??????? Because it is the only way to stop the world from carbon build up??????? Brilliant, brilliant. The countries with nuclear can now use them as 'back up' only as they run through their life cycle. The dictators steal what ever solution you build now. Add military defence costs to the $/kwhr graphs.

[@texasforever7887]

If we don't transition using a mixed hybrid system and just do a drastic cut before we're ready then millions if not billions will die. The key pieces missing are proper battery storage, which we do not have the technology for currently and a way to provide power to areas of the world where solar and wind are not an efficient option. Which the batteries could help you eliminate. There is not enough lithium in the world to provide the batteries needed with current technology.

[@jet8424]

@@texasforever7887 There's also the possibility of varying demand from factories and Supergrids, but yes storage being too expensive is the main problem.

[@terre5d]

You can see that power-mechanism at work in Germany. The south, which has historically been economically stronger than the north, resisted and continues to resist many renewable initiatives (not only in favor of nuclear, but also fossil fuels) because most windparks etc. would need to be built in the north.

[@TheJMBon]

The Construction problem for nuclear plants has recently been solved with the invention and design of small, modular reactors that are entirely self contained, are passively cooled and can be stacked like legos to form larger power plants when needed.

[@ethericshadows1303]

Why isn't this comment pinned jo nne is right

[@MrProjektuge]

Great video Simon! Greatly balanced, though i still think it was a bit biased at some points. I didn't really like the way you talked about how nuclear reactors have improved vs. the way renewables have improved. I felt like you did it in a way, which made it sound like the only thing which has improved in nuclear reactors is safety, and that a nuclear reactor is still extremely expensive to build both in terms of money and time due to theese safety precautions. But when you talked about renewables you told us that they have gotten more efficient and cheaper over time, and that this just keeps getting better and better. Of course it is important to talk about the increased safety in nuclear reactors, but you should have talked more about the technological improvements in both efficiency and cost. There are lots of new types of nuclear reactors which fits in to theese ways of measuring improvements. One example of this is the CMSR (Compact Molten Salt Reactor) currently being developed by Seaborg Technologies in Denmark. They have developed a new kind of reactor that is both extremely safe, due to the fact that a radioactive leak or meltdown is, due to the laws of physics, impossible. It is a really cheap solution, and it is so small that it can fit into a 20ft. shipping container. The collected electricity and heating consumption in Denmark could be provided by, of course, renewables in collaboration with 18 of these kind of reactors. Beacause as you said, and I totally agree, nuclear isn't the only option, it is a combination of both renewables (in my opinion wind) and a stable energy source, which could be nuclear (and I think it should be nuclear).

[@pasoundman]

Copenhagen Nuclear ?

[@MrProjektuge]

@@pasoundman Copenhagen Atomics as well, yes. Seaborg was just an example :)

[@MynameisZangetsu]

Longest video I ever watched on KZbin. Enjoyed 100% of it. GREAT job, great discussion, great logic and great exposition of your content. I think this is what 7 billion people should be watching instead of Trump vs Biden debates

[@flying_brick9756]

Very good video! nice to see someone seeing things from both sides, you've gained a fan! This is great stuff, i am a nuclear fanboy (in engineering...), but this does put some things into perspective.

[@ecoideazventures6417]

Thanks for your sensible comment despite being a nuclear fanboy! We should move beyond these extremisms of "nuclear power will save the world" on the one side and "nuclear is totally evil" on the other

[@onarandomnote25]

@@ecoideazventures6417 exactly, because (as stated in the video) the truth is a "well run nuclear plant" is the key to longevity. Not saying 100% one way or the other, but proper regulation in terms of technical skills, experience, waste management, construction standards, operating standards and the like are what defines good nuclear from evil nuclear. Chernobyl being the prime example of poor regulation, bad design and going for the cheaper option leading to a horrible disaster. Whereas the more expensive reactors that are in operation in places like France, UK, USA, Japan and the other few hundred are built properly without causing major catastrophe.

[@jamesharvey3993]

Oh my lord that shirt is fantastic! Where can I get one, Simon?!?!

[@jamesgouveia5267]

This is fantastic! I love how it takes a middle ground approach and presents arguments for both. This is journalism unlike what is seen on tv.

[@jonathanlange5769]

I am from Germany and this form of choosing only one option makes me dislike our green party. While I am all for saving the enviorment, I have to disagree with their ideas a lot. They want to completly remove petrol cars and nuclear power (also defunding research for nuclear fusion). Great video.

[@davidcampbell1420]

Fusion is way too late. Thorium is likely too late. Uranium plants are here. Stop decomissioning them. You'll be stuck putting in natural gas or (gasp) coal, if projections aren't correct. Germany went the wrong way. More energy density is preferred to less energy density. I'm all for solar and wind, but if you've already sunk billions into pressurized water reactors and they're properly operated, then for the love of reason, maintain them!!

[@geraldmaxwell3277]

The fact that they want to defund Nuclear Fusion a form of energy that produces helium as a waste product and literally cannot blow up tells me the German Greens have never picked a Physics book

[@davidcampbell1420]

@@geraldmaxwell3277 Green party and Greenpeace need to have a divorse. It's not at all helpful to decomission the most energy dense non emitting power source, and then failing to do renewables. The end result will be russian natural gas. Backwards and ignorant.

[@Skylancer727]

I say the main flaw with a pure renewable grid is the resources and land use. While nuclear takes a lot of emissions to make a plant, solar and wind use a lot of land that has to be cleared out unless placed on buildings or over parking lots. But then again parking lots are also horrible for the environment. Off shore wind solves the land issue but at the cost of being far more expensive to work on and more likely to fail. Storage has no flaws with working, but while solar and wind on their own are seen to be good enough to power the grid, that relies on storage and that storage will always make it worse than nuclear on materials and land use. Pumped hydro involves absolutely massive digging and terraforming projects and battery backups use rare resources that are bad for the environment and are a fire risk. Either of these bring wind and solar to just as bad as nuclear in the end as if we want a fully renewable grid it needs to rely on these. That's also not to mention the life expectancy of the plants and recyclability. Nuclear plants always start with a 40 year contract and rarely don't get approved for a 60-80 year extension. Solar on the other hand requires nearly entire panel replacement every 10-15 years as the panels lose efficiency drastically with age and wind having moving parts needs constant maintenance while also not being centralized.

[@losernob8618]

It's great to see a cool-headed, scientific take on this. Though I think renewable energy will take a more supplemental role once fusion is commercially feasible (in like 30 years lol).

[@mh1593]

Simon entirely avoided mentioning the significant issues with nuclear power waste disposal. Otherwise this was a good video but avoided this very burdensome aspect of the nuclear side. The USA ALONE has around 80,000 tons of radioactive civilian nuclear waste which needs to be very carefully secured, stored and controlled.

[@noizepusher7594]

That’s because it’s storage, on paper, (this video covers hypothetical situations where politics are in the way) just use the tried and true method of “put it in a box, and bury it in the ground” it’s just that building an infrastructure to store and transfer waste is often ignored due to the bias the world has toward nuclear energy

[@davidlepage1183]

A really excellent video on the whole, and Simon's section on how this debate is in fact a proxy for a cultural divide is deeply insightful, but yes; he's not paid sufficient attention to the problem of long-term storage of nuclear waste and the accompanying issue of intergenerational equity: that it's simply unfair for current generations to impose our waste problems on literally hundreds of following generations.

[@tomcat4195]

All of the nuclear waste produced in 60 years of American commercial nuclear reactor operation can fit onto a football field, and only a small percentage of that is the highly radioactive type. It's a much less significant issue than you're making it out to be. Nuclear waste can also be "burned" in fast reactors to produce more electricity.

[@KlausJLinke]

@@tomcat4195 Do you have a source for the football field, or is that just your personal estimate? I've seen train transports of long-term nuclear waste. And for burning nuclear waste, that seems nothing more than a pipe dream.

[@tomcat4195]

@@KlausJLinke www . energy . gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel (Tried to make the link KZbin friendly since it often hides direct links) Trains are used because it's the easiest way to transport it. The storage casks are overbuilt so they're massive (they're designed to be smashed into with a train, multiple times, and not crack), but don't have a ton of spent fuel inside. We have about 83,000 tons in the U.S. right now. That's barely anything compared to basically any other energy source. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is already a thing. The French do it on a large scale. We could do it in the U.S. but it's currently outlawed here. That's something that could be easily remedied. Spent nuclear fuel can also be "burned" in a breeder reactor, which we've had the ability to build since the 1950's.

[@serra_edoardo]

Great video, however, you missed the important debate about the waste production and disposal of both nuclear and renewables.

[@artembidnichenko8371]

Did you notice how often new technology and progress, etc was mentioned when talking about renewables? One point that lacks attention is that renewables were given the chance to be bad and become better over time. But nuclear is expected to be perfect from the get go. Imagine how much better nuclear power can be given enough time and investment. Molten salt, thorium, small reactors, etc...

[@TN000NT]

The Attenborough voice of quality energy documentaries. Nice production Simon!

[@iantemple7434]

Fantastic video, essentially followed what my own opinion already was, that a combination of efforts, hybrid grids, lower demand etc is the way forward. Either way though, we need more widespread action ASAP.

[@laMoria]

Not as soon as possible, but NOW

[@fl0cu]

34:53 "while nuclear has plenty of positive points, it has been kind of fetishized by its proponents and equally demonized by its opponents" You can say the very same thing about renewables. Even the "technology will save us" trope is similar on both sides. And why do both sides propose a technological solution? Because it is a technological problem! The only alternative to a technological solution is a massive loss of prosperity... The main difference between both sides is, that the technology to run a grid on nuclear exists today. Meanwhile you have to wait until much better storage is invented hopefully soon to run a grid on wind and solar.

[@shadja8691]

I'd rather bet on prosperity as it would consequently translate to better resource management.

[@deejnutz2068]

Anyone who has said we can go 100% solar or wind I challenge to create a grid-less power system that can supply power uninterrupted for their home year round and then report back to me. I know for me I'd need a 21kwh system and at least 150 kwh's of storage to be able to make it through winter and the peak of summer without the power cutting off. And that's even using natural gas or wood burning to heat the home in the winter. To operate a heat pump and not be constantly energy conserving I'd need at leasts 25 kwh system. Mind you my peak energy usage is 7kwh during peak summer heat for a well insulated 3 bedroom home. Also where I like we rate in the top 30% of area's for solar, so it's not like it's not feasible where I live. The idea that solar tech is cheaper than grid purchased energy from fuel based energy is absurd. Solar and wind has it's place as a supplemental energy source, but the costs to make it your primary source of energy is far more than what you'd spend on energy over a 30 year period. Even with tax incentives. The idea of a 100% renewable grid just isn't feasible with today's tech. You need something like nuclear or gas to back it up.

[@Quntes]

@@deejnutz2068 saltx, hydrogen, biogas, alcohol synthesis,P2G systems,Molten Salt Reactor and so on. There are plenty of alternatives to any power storage (and generator) system we use right now. The question is which will be the most effective and the suitable one. Especially the US should think about its military budget and maybe consider splitting a few percent to counter such problems (China is working on a MSR right now) instead of fighting new wars to ensure its energy supply. I wish geo politics wouldnt be involved in such importaant decisions of our species but unfortunately it is, so you better get politically involved (no matter which "side" or solution you propose is better than fossil fuels).

[@davidcampbell1420]

Most analyses of this problem assume that power demand remains stable, but that's not the case. Power demand continues to increase. Thus, we've only been able to provide enough solar and wind for what, a few percentage of world demand? We keep outpacing our ability to replace fossil fuels. Hence, Nuclear should be the large institutionalized source, and all the other ideas sort out the decentralized "organic" production by the population.

[@Quntes]

@@davidcampbell1420 I agree. It is clear that our energy demands will be rising with global wealth shift and productivity (just India and China alone will have high stakes in that matter). If current calculations/predictions are right we might top out at 10 billion people on this planet if developing countries do get a chance for prosperity. To assure that the population wont grow even further wealth is a big factor (See reproduction rates of Japan,Germany and other states with high median income),the other way would be that we trade of biodiversity with a high gradient of wealth distribution. Either way we need to get a plan to sort our energy demands (not locally but globally).

[@wofi784]

I have found my new favourite channel. Someone who is very qualified and well-researched tackling very important issues such as climate change is very needed right now.

[@charlottebassett1216]

This couldn’t have come at a better time. Start work in the renewables sector on Monday. A feast for my brain. Thank you :)

[@davidcampbell1420]

As a pro nuke, I salute you, and wish you the best. Give the world more photovoltaics. When you get a moment, look up "betavoltaics"

[@pasoundman]

@@davidcampbell1420 Your opinion on Perovskite Solar ?

[@davidcampbell1420]

@@pasoundman I don't have a strong (educated) opinion. I had heard of it. Looking at it now it looks like its going to be useful for smaller devices? If you know more, please share. Whatever the case may be, good. I'm glad to see any of this technology advance!

[@pasoundman]

@@davidcampbell1420 It's new to me too. Since you mentioned betavoltaics I though you might know more. AIUI it offers 30% conversion efficiency but I don't know much else.

[@erikb6703]

My biggest takeaway from this video is that brittish people really don't rinse their dishes. 38:10

[@nytheris2848]

I'm British and I'm absolutely disgusted by that. How can you leave everything dripping with the dirty water you just washed it in?

[@codebus]

@@nytheris2848 Maybe he is out of tea to clean his dishes.

[@davidcampbell1420]

Didn't he call for someone else to do it? Maybe he gave up waiting, and he's incompetent. Glad he knows the nerd stuff though ;)

[@maxheadrom3088]

There are solar thermals being tested in Africa with interesting results. I'm from Brazil and most of our energy is hydro and that will give us an advantage since we already have the batteries for the intermittent sources. One advantage of nuclear is the ability to build it close to consumer centers - and powerlines do loose energy and not little energy.

[@faragar1791]

What about the maintenance and replacement of renewables? Last I checked, solar panels (at best) need to be replaced at least every 30 years. Whereas a nuclear power plant can last up to 80 years before needing to be replaced.

[@julien363]

FYI the majority of nuclear carbon emissions is not the construction of the plant (very small compared to the same amount of solar or wind) but how you manage nuclear : - charge factor : is it always used at 100% as a stable output or more as backup as wind and solar follow duck curve - how uranium is transformed : there is different techniques to enrich it, and some recent improvements halved the energy cost. also the origin of the energy used to do that plays a huge role. All this factors has major impacts, and that's why you have a big gap. In France for example, you have the lowest carbon emissions per KW of nuclear at about 4-5g/kw so under even wind. Another point is that wind and solar are possible in a world where you have super tankers all around the world (oil intensive, rare earth elements intensive, material intensive) whereas nuclear needs very little, all because it is fundamentally better : more energy intensive. For nuclear flexibility, there is not issue, nuclear use damns as giants batteries in France for example (they have only nuclear and hydro for electicity). Finally i'll say that i find kinda awkward trying to put ideological labels to energies. Wind or Solar is as bad or worse at "taming nature" (since the energy is less concentrated, you need more material to extract it, and you rely on globalism to produce it at low cost). On the idea of nuclear is for the rich and solar for the little guy remember you are just leasing money and space for power. And even worse, you bear the risk of the investment. The people that gain for this are mainly chineses big corporations not you. You've actually weaken you country by negative inflence on economic balance. And lets not talk about all the waste in maintaining x100000 of the same equipement. Don't get me wrong renewables are great, but don't fantasise on it, as every energy, when it is small everyone likes it, when it is big, everyone talk about drawbacks. And renewables has big drawbacks, but they are hidden (before, after, and not stable). Try to recycle solar panels or wind wings, they are buried. In my opinion solar and wind are great in regions sparsely populated with no strong grid and near eaquator. For developped country, i don't thing they are the way to go as they are very wastefull.

[@Quntes]

How do you come to those conclusions? Its not like uranium 235 is a common element and it takes a fair amount of energy to refine of uranium ore. Same for Solar btw. Its mostly glass which needs to be recycled (the wafer recycling is not as energy intensive). I am, as you are, pro nuclear but also pro renewable. But I think there is such a high potential of innovation in nuclear power (different kind of architectures) which should be looked into with modern materials and simulation techniques we didnt have in the past (most architectures are from the cold war era). Molten salt seems promising. Loops are being tested in Germany as well. saltxtechnology.com/

[@julien363]

​@@Quntes It is because solar and wind are very diluted energy and uranium is not. Think about it. Light is the byproduct of nuclear. Solar energy is the byproduct of light going through the atmosphere. Wind is the byproduct of solar enery. There is all kinds of energy, but concentrated energy are the best for obvious reasons. A pellet of uranium the size of a penny = 1 ton of coal = 3 barrels of oils = 17 000 cubic feet of gas. = 1 big wind turbine (charge factor included, batteries and energy loss not included) = 3 000 solar panels of 14m2 (charge factor included, batteries and energy loss not included) For other energies we don't have time (though i agree it is good to research about it, but we need to build now), it's like new batteries or nanotech, we hear about it since 30 years but nothing is out. Besides only fusion matters long term everything else is shit.

[@kwohlmut]

Wow this is hands-down the best video I've seen about nuclear power. Calm, fair, even-handed. This instantly earned my subscription...

[@Eristtx]

Unfortunately, in my eyes, it was spoiled by the last quarter of the video, when he referred to supporters of nuclear energy as those who hold a radical position and use the whole topic as an attempt to find an excuse for "doing nothing". And he threw in that "nuclear power is supported by the rich in an effort not to share the wealth" (paraphrase, not an exact quote). However, otherwise - the video as a whole - was fine, unfortunately the ending ruined it.

[@antorseax9492]

​@@Eristtx Yeah, apparently I'm right wing and want the few to consolidate more power because I like nuclear power?

[@Eristtx]

@@antorseax9492 Could you please elaborate? I don't remember exactly what I was objecting to. In general, trying to frame it through pointing to "the rich" is a problem - if you look, it's always the rich who can make the best use of opportunities. For example, in our country, most of the solar panels that are subsidized by taxes on the "poor" are owned by the rich. Another reason why I don't like dividing the population by different groups like rich vs poor, white vs coloured, men vs women, young vs old... is that we are creating barriers. It's a mindset inherent in Marxism and its division by social class. And so, instead of addressing the root of the problem, we must first determine what our class affiliation is and take a stance accordingly. Am I rich or poor? Within my own country I am upper middle class, but from the position of third world countries I could own an entire village. I would simply resign myself to it. We are trying to find an enemy to blame and take responsibility for the solution, and we are missing the point that this is not how it works. In other words, climate change is neither left-wing nor right-wing. And it is a mistake to try to force our ideology into the solution, as is happening in the EU, for example. We have a problem here and we need to find the optimal energy mix to get us out of this problem. This energy mix will undoubtedly include renewables and some stable electricity sources - the question now is which source offers the best price/performance/national security ratio with the least pollution. Note - National security plays an important role in the case of electricity (as well as food) - for example, in the EU we had the idea that Russia would supply us with gas and we would close down all the f***ing power stations as a result. Russia smiled, encouraged us to do so, and when they closed almost all the nuclear plants in Germany, they started blackmailing us with gas. So we must learn for the future and not repeat this mistake. Now they have to burn coal in Germany... which is a big step forward ("not now"... in winter they had to). Erm. It's possible I've just written A4 of text completely off topic. If so, then I apologize.

[@VivaLaAntifa3]

@@EristtxI get that climate protection is not really a left- vs. right-wing issue. But unfortunately it gets lumped together with other problems. For example some parties want to conserve the way we organise our economy and therefore our carbon emissions. These conservatives (in the sense of keeping the economy and social structure the same) are generally considered right-wing. So it kind of is an left vs. right issue. Also the more right wing parties like the AfD tend to ignore climate change as best as they can.

[@classonbread5757]

Fair? 😂

[@DdesideriaS]

It takes intellectual capacity to enjoy a nuanced discussion! I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

[@thorvaldspear]

TL;DR: Nuclear power has so much potential that it's just maddening. That's why people are so fanatical about it (including me!). It's not good right now, but it could produce power too cheap to meter with comparatively few innovations. If all research and funding from fusion was redirected into fission we'd already have all the benefits of fusion. That's the thing with nuclear though: you CAN engineer solutions to every problem. The fuel costs are simply too cheap to ignore when you take into account breeder reactors and nuclear waste recycling. With those technologies implemented, fuel will be so cheap that you can just dump the excess power though some massive resistors and call it a day. There's your load following right there. Additionally, nuclear waste is a non issue. Think of it like this: of a carbon capture technology existed that can compress millions of tones of CO2 into one (low pressure!) barrel basically for free right at the powerplant, climate change would have been solved already. Localized waste is a con that is completely outweighed by the possible benefits. And finally, those possible benefits. I mentioned some technologies at the beginning, namely breeder reactors and waste recycling. The reason we don't have those is regulations. It's illegal to recycle. Illegal! Imagine if the government made it illegal to recycle steel because you could make guns with it. Obviously it's a lot easier to weaponize nuclear waste recycling, but that's the basis on which waste recycling was made illegal. Oh and they still do it in Japan. Breeder reactors aren't popular for similar reasons, i.e. nuclear weapons proliferation. def Rant() { And all of this because of regulations put in place because of one really bad disaster in the USSR of all places, from a reactor we don't even use anymore. Fukushima and three mile island were not the main cause of nuclear panic, though they perpetuated it. I'd understand if a Chernobyl-scale disaster happened in the middle of a developed democratic country, where the reactor that failed was promised to be very safe, and it blew up spectacularly anyways. But the soviets were more concerned about looking better than the US, and not about safety. Disasters that happened in an environment where safety was the last priority should not be considered. }; This is why it takes 9 years to build a nuclear power plant; they have to satisfy safety conditions that are not even applicable to the reactor design! Bureaucrat: "We need to inspect the thickness of your water coolant pipes and the quality of their welds" Engineer: "...we don't use water as coolant" Bureaucrat: "What about your pressure relive valves?" Engineer: *paints the celling* Even in the worst case scenario, I'd rather have a Chernobyl every decade than an impossible to stop planet wide ecological disaster. I'll be the fist to volunteer to shovel the radioactive graphite if it means my children get to fucking eat food and not live on Venus.

[@HobbesNJoe]

Wow!! Fantastic video!! The conversation IS layered, thank you for separating a few. Excellent work dissolving a debate that shouldn't be a debate, because we need everything that isn't carbon-based fuels. I'm especially grateful for how you disassembled the messaging we've received via TV, news and ads. Having said that, the conversation about renewables is missing a discussion of one particular grid-level battery storage solution. Flow batteries are not viable for vehicles, but they're great for structures. There's a company in Australia which sells a home-size flow battery. The tech is basic, and don't necessarily use rare earth metals. GREAT video! I don't know if you have education training, but it's clear you're a knack for it. Cheers from AZ, USA Take care, Joe

[@vulnerablegrowth3774]

Great video. A few things missing though. Specifically: 1. Comparing human/animal deaths from nuclear vs renewables. Many more deaths come from renewables (per energy output) than nuclear. Wind power leads to the genocide of some bat species. 2. Renewables have not had the massive safety roadblocks that nuclear power has had to deal with. This has led to much less brainpower to be put towards making nuclear power even more efficient. Once people accept nuclear power, we'll be able to put so much more brainpower towards making nuclear power even better.

[@andromededp5316]

Québec, a region in Canada, is already entirely powered by renewables. We have mountain ranges that cover the vast majority of the land, with lots of high debit rivers that allows our power plants to produce large amounts of electricity. We even produce a lot of surplus, that is sold to the US and other regions in Canada

[@tomcat4195]

Quebec benefits from a relatively low population and a high hydroelectric capacity. That is great, but isn't applicable to countries that don't have that many rivers to dam.

[@andromededp5316]

@@tomcat4195 at least it proves that entirely relying on renewables is possible

[@tomcat4195]

@@andromededp5316 Hydroelectric has much higher capacity factors than solar and wind. Yes, if you have a country with abundant hydroelectric capacity, it certainly is possible. Hydroelectric dams don't face the same intermittency issues that solar and wind do. And look at neighboring Ontario, which draws the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear power. Much like France does.

[@xgamer]

@@andromededp5316 it's possible in quebec .

[@zme2712]

Thank you for mentioning the need for behaviour change in relation to how we use energy I feel it's often skipped in these types of discussions, the mindframe of someone/something will swoop in and save us so just keep on doing what your doing is what got us in the mess we're in today

[@Skylancer727]

I think his stance on it is utterly destructive. I follow many who believe in the by far most extreme stance on reforming society and most of them do believe in nuclear. I think he actually has it backwards, those who basically worship technology are the ones who more believe that renewables should replace everything. These are also the same people who believe we should just move to things like self driving cars vs change our cities for easy walking and biking as well as public rail. I think it's very clear which side of the stance he takes on this with how he openly gives the "there's no need for nuclear" people in the video. His stance at the end claiming it's the divide between the left and right is patently absurd. You will rarely see anyone on the right supporting nuclear as most believe in sticking to fossil fuels. They're stable, work, and cutting back cut into the work force; at least that's what they claim. In reality this is an argument just on the left between the futurists and the realists. Just see how many times in the video he talks about the future with "at the moment" or "in the future". He says this about energy storage, the carbon emissions of building renewables, the future grid, etc. I don't think it's a hard stance to say we should build things on what we have today, not what we can dream of. If we were doing that we would have been wasting billions on hyperloops and self driving cars over the solutions of today like public rail and nuclear. Just look at people like MKBHD or Out Of Spec Reviews. These are the more technophile types who praise the green future and don't see a purpose in nuclear. Why have nuclear when "in the future we'll have better batteries", "we'll have super conducting powerlines", etc.

[@Landaar1]

A good video but I think it would have been interesting to also look at other environmental issues with both power sources. With nuclear you have for instance the waste problem and with renewables you have different problems depending on what kind of renewables.

[@Kip_Novak]

Breeder reactors ameliorate both waste and meltdown, although proliferation is still a concern.

[@Kip_Novak]

I wish Simon had gone into the lifecycle of these technologies. Nuclear reactors that were built 40 years ago are predicted to be operable for another 40 years and new 4th gen reactors are designed to last even longer. A modern solar panel, which contains heavy metals, lasts 25 to 30 years at which point it needs to be discarded and replaced. Lithium ion batteries used in a Tesla powerwall last around a decade-ish. That's a lot of hazardous waste by volume compared to nuclear, especially when compared to a breeder reactor (which produces 1% the waste by volume that a PWR does).

[@jockmoron]

@@Kip_Novak Actually all the materials in batteries are perfectly recoverable, and will not be wasted, they'll be far too valuable. When you get divorced and remove your wedding and engagement ring you would not throw them in the rubbish bin either. Wind power, all but the blades can be recycled, the blades are not toxic, but it would be nice to find some presumably low value use for them and this is being done. Concentrating solar power, which is actually low-tech, pretty much all the materials are re-usable, refurbish-able or recyclable. Solar panels, the glass, wiring etc, recyclable, the silicon panels can be recycled, by being melted down and the various metals etc recovered. This site explains a "Solar Panel Resurrection Process". Like battery recycling, which has already been commercially viably demonstrated, solar panel recycling needs greater investment, but ultimately will become just as normal as car crushing, glass recycling or lead-acid battery recycling. What we do know is you can't recycle fossil fuels nor can you recycle uranium, and the waste from the latter has never anywhere yet been dealt with in a permanently secure way. France is going to face some massive problems as its huge nuclear network comes to the end of its safe and serviceable life. energypost.eu/how-much-will-it-really-cost-to-decommission-the-aging-french-nuclear-fleet/ .

[@Kip_Novak]

@@jockmoron You can recycle nuclear waste from PWRs for use in breeder reactors. It just needs reprocessed. And the waste from breeder reactors only lasts a few centuries, making it manageable on a human timescale

[@paolomath]

Yes, nuclear waste has to be checked closely. But it is extremely small and in a very few locations, ALL there. Renewables waste, especially solar, is a disaster that pollutes mainly developing countries with toxic elements, and it's a problem that will grow orders of magnitude in the coming decades, as very little renewable material has been decommissioned yet.

[@Chrisstle]

Fantastic video! Will probably bring this up if I ever end up in a discussion about nuclear power again as I believe you describe the complexity of it in a very easy to understand way. Now time to binge watch your entire channel! :D

[@Celibatnik]

I agree with the author of this video whole heartedly. The renewable/nuclear mix sonds best to me. We should generate power locally wherever it works and use nuclear power whenever it helps us to do that but we also need what each of us can do to reduce energy demand and what each of us can do to produce energy. It's up to us. Power to the people!

[@AvangionQ]

The problem with solar power is that most of the supply generation happens during the morning to afternoon, yet most of the demand usage happens in the evening. In order to solve for this problem, solar power invariably needs to be paired with battery backups or the grid in order to store the excess power for use later in the day.

[@wiesorix]

Excellent video, very mature in a very heated debate, especially the sppicy secret section was really interesting. My biggest remark is that the discussion on safety is so short, because it becomes very easy to argue against nuclear if you just say: it's too dangerous and goes wrong in ways renewables don't... Also, it always intrigued me that nuclear is seen as a very "technological" solution, while solar and geothermal aren't

[@Robert-er5wq]

'My biggest remark ..." Exactly! If you think about the possibilities then it becomes too costly and the whole nuclear idea is dead in the water. Simply think of the statistical effect: the probability of a significant accident may be x/year. Multiply that with the number of expected nuclear plants and your expected lifetime and you may be surprised how likely an accident may be in your lifetime.

[@some_doofus]

@@Robert-er5wq I wish he would have looked at the safety a little longer too, because perhaps he would have convinced the naysayers that nuclear is, in fact, perfectly safe, even considering the accidents of the past that, beyond any reasonable doubt, won't ever happen again. Do you think he would have continued to discuss nuclear power as not just a viable option but a necessity to the global energy mix if he knew it wasn't safe? I've looked into the safety of nuclear quite extensively, finding all the facts about deaths per TWh, death tolls of the "major" accidents, radiation levels around said accidents and the effects of that radiation on populations and environments, and all the data unanimously shows nuclear power as one of the safest methods, on par or safer than most renewables. The reputation of nuclear power is not backed by science or observed statistics. It originated from and is propagated by sensationalised, ill informed news stories, fear mongering "documentaries", and pop culture depictions like the Simpsons. All of which benefit from increased views, and nothing gets the views up like an end of the world headline.

[@Robert-er5wq]

@@some_doofus Accidents can happen. The expected probability is not zero. We can multiply that by the number of built nuclear plants to obtain the new expected probability that one of all those built has an accident. All of these points I'm making are not debatable, they are true. So 1000 plants make it a thousand times more likely that one big accident occurs. 10000 plants make it 10000 more likely. Take for example DOI: 10.1080/00963402.02.2016.1145910 published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, no less, that calculates the possibility of a meltdown in the next decade to be 70% at 443 currently running reactors. And a serious incident in Zaporizhzhia may not be far off. We can now argue about acceptable risks, the lesser evil in the face of climate change and environmental destruction caused by mining. But it does not reduce the fact that the incident probability rises proportionally with the number of nuclear power plants.

[@some_doofus]

@@Robert-er5wq sure the probability of an accident isn’t zero, and the probability will likely increase with more nuclear plants, but the problem people have with this understanding is that “accident” is not synonymous with “disaster”. Accidents happen in every industry every day, some so mild they’re hardly reported, some much more serious. But the three most serious nuclear accidents in history have caused a grand total of only ~50 fatalities so far. 2 of them caused none at all. Despite popular belief, the severity of nuclear accidents is relatively quite small, especially when compared to accidents in fossil fuels or hydro. The collapse of the Banqiao Dam killed almost a quarter of a million people alone. Even Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear accident in US history, was mostly contained and caused no deaths or injuries and no significant or long term environmental damage. And I’ll remind you that all of these accidents were with incredibly outdated designs and technology, and with none of the safety requirements we have today. I’d confidently bet an accident on par with Chernobyl will never happen again. Small accidents may still occur, even including full meltdowns, but due to strict containment and safety regulations today those accidents are unlikely to have any lasting impacts. In any case, nuclear on its worst day is still orders of magnitude safer than fossil fuels on a good day. I’d say nuclear is absolutely the “lesser evil”.

[@matthewcurmi8016]

Needless to say, I am a nuclear power purist. I have my opinions which I subject to discussion. Nonetheless, a very well-produced video which brings about important arguments. What matters is our common goal of a carbon-free future. EDIT: Some more arguments I would like to put forward. - On the issue of waste, it is easy to forget about a potential disaster we may see in the coming 20 years when all the present PV panels have to be replaced. We need to understand that the raw materials that produce PV panels are some of the most abundant on earth and therefore - if we aren't even capable of recycling plastic, I have some doubts if we can properly recycle decommissioned renewables. -The prospect of having a hybrid grid is an attractive one. Then again it is not a solution that works everywhere in the world. I come from Malta; a country so small that producing energy through PV panels would require a huge land footprint to be taken over - wind is virtually impossible without disturbing flora and fauna and there are no rivers and lakes for hydro. - It is fair to think that nuclear power is not a flexible and expensive power source, unlike renewables. However, when looking at promising progress in the field of SMRs and microreactors which bring both flexibilities and lowered cost by virtue of economies of scale- the prospect of having renewables no longer makes sense. -As Simon points out, the repercussions of climate change can become dangerously worsened in the coming 10 years and in my (unpopular) opinion - the most immediate action is to stick to what we have in terms of the grid and simply change the source of power to SMRs. Comments below rightly point out that perhaps we don't have time to waste on developing new technologies. However, I'd argue that despite the unpopularity and the lack of subsidies to nuclear power - the progress made is worth taking a look at. No hard feelings - We are all in this for the good of our planet. :)

[@rogerstarkey5390]

It's not just "if" it's "when". The 10 year (with planning, more like 15?) time lag if *new* nuclear is a big issue. During that time, the "status quo" fuels are adding to the problem, requiring even more time to offset.

[@Craigerry]

@@rogerstarkey5390 heavy regulation from the NRC doesn't help, but ANY incident involving safety will trash public confidence in nuclear. Utilities also don't want to invest in something that is extremely expensive that barely saves them money or loses money half of the year.

[@AltruisticHedonism]

@@Craigerry That's part of the irony though, is it not? We need less regulation (safety) to build them faster... but the argument is that we won't have issues because we'll be better at safety? To be clear, I'm 100% supportive of nuclear... but I lean more to the time sensitive issue in that we've run out of it. We should still build nuclear but we need to decarbonize as much as we can as early as we can, and that's renewables to replace as much as we can while waiting for the nuclear plants to come online.

[@AntiNeoFascist]

@@AltruisticHedonism Problem is that it's not going to happen if we don't push nuclear. You have countries around the world that are industrializing. They will not, nor should they, keep people burning wood and dung - which has health impacts NOW - because we tell them they should use expensive solar instead of cheaper sources. Countries like Indonesia have planned like 100+ new coal plants to be built in the next decade if we don't provide them some alternative (kzbin.info/www/bejne/pXOUeqWweal8b8k).

[@AltruisticHedonism]

@@AntiNeoFascist Solar is amongst the cheapest and lowest risk. The only things against it are suitability on climate/weather, space requirements and resiliency (inertia as the vid calls it). It's fallen low enough in cost to compete with coal: www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/30/lcoe-from-large-scale-pv-fell-4-to-50-per-megawatt-hour-in-six-months/ I'm for nuclear but by them time any plant is online, you could've had at least half a decade (assuming much more concentration of resources and will rather than a full decade) of solar power offsetting carbon emissions. Again, we should still build nuclear but we need to do both ASAP. As you've said, "people burning wood and dung - which has health impacts NOW" - nuclear takes 9 years, which isn't *now*.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

I was on the fence, and finally decided to upvote this because of the description, near the end, of two different world views. Even though there are important points still left out, there is real value in doing this. I think, adamantly, that adhering tightly to either of those world views is very, very dangerous, given the importance of what we're facing WRT this issue. We need a practical, nuanced approach, not just to energy, but to all environmental issues.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

@@nenmaster5218 I have no idea what in effoe's name this has to do with my comment. Geez.

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

@@nenmaster5218 Not sure what you're looking for. First, KZbin is now refusing to even show your last comment, so I can't review all the previous dialog, except my original comment. So maybe we should start from the beginning. Just to prime things a bit, I was saying something about the video referring to two radically different world views. However, TTTT I'd have to play the video again to see what the context was. But I'll do if it seems as though it might lead somewhere.

[@xairvian]

It really is about reimagining the way we do energy. With some storage like either a battery or supercap in your basement and some solar panels on your roof you basically don't need any outside power anymore (just speaking from my experience) Also: people really need to start doing the math on how many resources we do have left for nuclear power and for how long it could satisfy our energy needs. That number is around the 100 year mark, not several hundreds or thousands of years at the current technological level.