In the 1970s, my mum was a massive antti-nuclear power campaigner... she was on the telley and everything... and I gotta say, your description is spot on.

The energy storage problem seems very difficult to solve. One estimate of current yearly energy production is 30,000 TWh. Assuming we need storage for 30% of that, that would be 9,000 TWh. Can we make that much storage soon enough? Telsa, at their most recent shareholder's meeting, said that they have to date produced 1 TWh. They hope to increase production to 1 TWh per year. That means it would take them 9,000 years to make enough storage. Let's assume they represent 10% of worldwide energy storage production. That would mean 900 years. Let's assume that world wide production rate can be quickly ramped up by a factor of 10. That would be 90 years. When I look at it that way, storage just won't work. Also, that means we would need to mine roughly 9,000 times the minerals we currently do for energy storage production. What would that do to the earth? And in the meantime energy production will go up quite a lot. I would appreciate any helpful feedback, for or against, on this.

I like your balanced approach to this topic.

@jeffbotkin1405

6 ай бұрын

The scales are a good analogy. Kind of like a courthouse. Let everyone talk. Not just one side or the other

I've been an engineer my whole life and this is one of the most balanced discussion of all the issues as I've seen. Nicely done.

Excellent clip, well thought out, thorough and based in fact. Thanki you.

Well said.

16:48 Nuclear energy to date still is the safest energy source with the fewest fatalities. and new reactors are safer still.

🥳

I have a counterfactual hypothesis that the anti-nuclear power movement is to some degree responsible for global climate change. It is an ironic point. If we had used more nuclear power, presumably we would have used less fossil fuels. If we would have embraced nuclear power at a large scale we would have reduced fossil fuels by that amount. Even back in the '50s and certainly the '60s we were aware of the problem of burning fossil fuels. Given that they have and continue to oppose nuclear power for reasons that don't hold up, they share some responsibility. Perhaps being the most effective enablers of the fossil fuel industry. It would be interesting to hear your opinion about this. Second, on the often made statement that nuclear waste lasts for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years used to be compelling to me. However, I realized that that also implies during all those years we never develop a good way to handle those waste or recycle those wastes. And that seems ridiculous. At any point when we as a society decided to solve the nuclear waste problem, eventually we would come up with some working solution. Of course, again I and speculating about things that have not happened. I do know there are ways of processing nuclear waste, but they are not economical and that is why the current solution is storage. Nevertheless, I now consider any statement about how long you hear waste Will be harmful as a silly statement that supposes we cannot solve this problem even after a hundred thousand years. Again, I would be interested in your opinion. In case it is not obvious, I am for nuclear power based on all The reading and video viewing that I have done from many kinds of sources. I know that's not a convincing argument but it is upon which my opinion is formed. I really enjoyed your video.

I agree with most of your video, but climate change was not a main cause of the Syrian civil war-which is still going on by the way-and the Turkish shootdown of a Russian fighter at the Syrian border was never going to cause a anything like a conventional armed conflict, as you seemed to imply. It is best to stick to one's own areas of expertise to avoid drawing such tenuous connections. There are more than enough reasons to fight climate change.

@LuKing2

6 ай бұрын

"Climate disruption was an amplifier and multiplier of the political crisis that was building up in Syria," as Staffan de Mistura, former UN Special Envoy for Syria between 2014 and 2018, told DW. The crisis was aggravated by Bashar Assad's decisions to reduce fuel, water and food subsidies over the years. In addition to water scarcity in rural areas, tensions rose between Kurds, Arabs, Alawites and Sunnis. A toxic cocktail started to turn into an explosive mixture with the ingredients of the Arab Spring, the anger of losing jobs, migration to cities, as well as the purchasing power decline and the anger against the very tough and very cruel reactions by the government," de Mistura said. Geopolitically, the situation didn't become any easier with ongoing competition over Syria between archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. "We started seeing horrible medieval sieges around many cities or villages when people were cut off from food and water, like in Homs or Aleppo," de Mistura remembered."

That you live within kilometres of a nuclear power plant which is sited on a fault line is irrelevant. You don't live within kilometres of the plant's waste. Can you state without a doubt that all nuclear waste has been, and will be stored safely?

@_PatrickO

8 ай бұрын

"Can you state without a doubt that all nuclear waste has been, and will be stored safely?" Did you miss the part about it being buried deep enough that the quickest it could possibly reach the surface is millions of years?

@jbruck6874

7 ай бұрын

What about the alternative ? More precisely, compare the amount of problems generated by various alternatives producing a given amount of Energy (say, one TJ) a) nuclear fuel b)choal, fossile fueld c) water power plants d) wind turbines ... a) is not the worst. So it may stay part of the energy mix for now.

@_PatrickO

7 ай бұрын

@@jbruck6874 Clean coal is a horrible environmental disaster. They store the coal ash in shallow pools and just let it sit there until the pool fails and the pollutants wipe out the local water supply. Nuclear waste has never caused a problem like that. Nuclear energy suffered from poor reactor designs that were not properly fail safe, if we build new reactors, we can shutdown the unsafe ones that already exist.

@alohahoward1

6 ай бұрын

Nuclear waste is store on site so he does live within kilometers of nuclear waste. You should read about how nuclear waste is actually stored and how dangerous it actually is. If you break open a nuclear waste container, which is pretty much impossible to do, you would have to stand pretty close to it to get enough radiation to kill you. If you live a kilometer away, there would be no danger at all.

I LOVE NUKES!

@triple_gem_shining

8 ай бұрын

Tryna ionize my Nuke baby?

"we've had 2 major diseasters" liar.

@kfawell

7 ай бұрын

You claim is vague. Do you mean he believes something different from what he said? Or do you mean his claim is false? If the latter, what do you define as "major"? According to this, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents, his claim seems reasonable. However, I can understand someone claiming "major" should include more incidents. BTW, I did not know there we so many Soviet submarine incidents

@sudoboat

7 ай бұрын

@@kfawell my claim is that he's limiting the list of accidents to "two major disasters" that are known to average person to make it sound better when there actually was more. The link that you provided lists four of them (calling them "serious", but potato-tomato), and even that is not exactly correct as we don't really know how many accidents happened in the Soviet Union. So, saying "two major disasters" is a lie and I'm sure the guy is smart enough to know that.

I am not convinced. Really trying hard to keep an open mind, but I cannot see humanity handling waste for hundreds of thousands of years. We are dealing with timescales beyond comprehension. "Bury your problems away the waste never leak" is unrealistic. Until I hear a better way of waste management (or better yet, waste recycling) I will not conscribe to nuclear energy. Even then, will I trust humans to do the right thing and do not cut corners? Probably not.

@factnotfiction5915

Ай бұрын

Let me address a few of your concerns. First, what is the waste (spent fuel)? Spent fuel consists of 2 basic components: fission products (5%) + actinides (95%). 5% - The fission products are the bits leftover from fission - the splitting creates a few neutrons + 2 fission products. 95% - The actinides are U238, Plutonium, Neptunium & etc - elements in the actinide row of the periodic table. The actinides are mildly radioactive, but are radioactive for a LONG time. However, you can also put them back into a (fast) reactor and convert them to fission products AND get more power out. The fission products (f.p.) are HIGHLY radioactive, but are radioactive for a short time. Basically, if you have ONLY f.p., your f.p. will decay away to the same level as the 'background' in about 300 years. So, Step 1 - separate spent fuel into f.p. + actinides. Step 2 - put actinides back into a reactor. Step 3 - store f.p. for 300 years. Second, how hard is it to store f.p. for 300 years? Well, the f.p. would be prepared by: * melting into a glass and cooling to form a solid glass, like a rock * now cover it in copper (to prevent corrosion) * now cover it in steel (to provide strength) * now cover it in clay (to absorb water) * now bury it 100m+ underground Basically, that stuff is going to be pretty much impenetrable over 10,000s of years - but, y'know, public perception is fickle. Alternatively, humanity has been able to keep, protect, and enjoy extremely delicate items like paintings, ceramic figurines and vases, violins, etc for well over 500 years. Compare that to a hard lump of glass. It's a lump of glass! Is this science fiction? No. France, UK, and the RF have been separating spent fuel into f.p. and actinides for _decades_, and have enough extra capacity left-over that we can double/triple/quadruple our nuclear fleet before we would have to build more separation. (The US has a plant also, but it is in mothballs). Why don't we do this now? Well, y'know, public perception is fickle, and politicians are worse. Technically, this is a slam dunk - well known, well proven, already at industrial scale. Politically, people gotta stop worrying about a non-issue. Lastly, we know from Oklo, that if we were just to bury spent fuel in dry rock, it might migrate a few meters over millions of years. www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/meet-oklo-the-earths-two-billion-year-old-only-known-natural-nuclear-reactor

@MrNoneofthem

Ай бұрын

@@factnotfiction5915 That is a very strong argument that I am not disputing, but it also does not elevate my concerns. Let me clarify my original comment, which was by no means technological, but sociological. Firstly, humanity is not homogeneous in the level of prosperity across the world. Being stewards of all the wonderful clockwork of recycling and waste management might only work in the developed countries (but let's be honest, it will not, greed will eventually cause cutting corners in spite of any regulations we throw at the industry). Third world countries will eventually acquire the technology and make a mess out of it due to lack of regulations and discipline. And those reactors will be smaller, and will be everywhere. Those countries are unable to responsibly recycle trace amounts of nuclear waste from their medical or borehole test equipment, how will they take it seriously and handle thousands of metric tons of waste per year? Secondly, nefarious actors will be able to exploit both the infrastructure and the waste in so many ways that I do not even want to imagine or speculate. Thirdly, humanity is 'stateless'. We forget history and become arrogant, then get our lesson via misery, recover, only to repeat the cycle (hence history repeats itself). As soon as economical powers shift and those first world countries collapse (anything and everything is temporary), it will be a luxury to manage waste compared to basics like food security, shelter, etc. Not to mention when (not if) a third world war is upon us (and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on), all those safety measures will be the first thing thrown out of the window. In summary, I want neither the infrastructure, nor the waste in this world in the hands of humanity. The implications are unfathomable in geological time scales.

@factnotfiction5915

Ай бұрын

@@MrNoneofthem > Firstly, humanity is not homogeneous in the level of prosperity across the world. Exactly. We need to bring the 3rd world to the 2nd world, and the 2nd world to the 1st. Energy (as electricity) is highly correlated with a high standard of living (example: electricity makes building, maintaining, and running modern sewage systems a lot cheaper and easier - raising health, thus improving the economy via healthier workers being more productive, and requiring less to be spent on healthcare). Nuclear can be installed nearly anywhere (doesn't require particular weather and mostly not even a particular geography) to address energy needs of the poor. > Being stewards of all the wonderful clockwork of recycling and waste management might only work in the developed countries (but let's be honest, it will not, greed will eventually cause cutting corners in spite of any regulations we throw at the industry). Third world countries will eventually acquire the technology and make a mess out of it due to lack of regulations and discipline. ... Those countries are unable to responsibly recycle trace amounts of nuclear waste from their medical or borehole test equipment I'm trying to take you as being a reasonable person merely stating your concerns, but frankly your statement reads as "I'm a bigoted racist and I don't believe those little brown people in poor countries can create or appreciate a modern society". I believe you didn't mean it that way, but I do suggest you really examine what you've written and why you feel that way. If you look around a bit (both geographically today and the history of the last 50 years), you will realize that as countries move out of poverty, their citizens _quickly_ begin to want, not just stuff, but a higher quality of life - lower pollution, a better natural environment, etc - the sort of stuff brought about by proper recycling and waste management. 3rd world countries "won't make a mess out of it" if they are brought up to the 1st and 2nd world - they'll have moved past subsistence and survival to higher orders in (the societal) Maslow's hierarchy. ALSO - successful nuclear vendors will contract the waste handling as part of the initial deal, so I believe plans to handle spent fuel will be in place. > Secondly, nefarious actors will be able to exploit both the infrastructure and the waste in so many ways that I do not even want to imagine or speculate. Um, no. No they will not. Nefarious state actors (dictators & oligarchies) have the primary concern of milking the cow, not upsetting the IAEA and the existing nuclear states (each additional nuclear state dilutes the power of those who currently are nuclear states). As such, if they really desire nuclear weapons, they will go about that pursuit clandestinely, as did Israel, Pakistan, India - which means they won't use IAEA-monitored civilian assets. (note: completely rogue states like North Korea have gone ahead - DESPITE THE LACK OF 'INFRASTRUCTURE' - i.e. they didn't need such 'infrastructure' to pursue nuclear weapons; denying the rest of the world a great low-carbon power source because a poorly-dressed fat man in North Korea ALREADY has nuclear weapons seems --- pointless). Nefarious non-state actors (terrorists) will quickly realize the technical challenges of creating a nuclear weapon is way beyond their budgets. Ok, so maybe they can get a head start by stealing fuel - it still would take years (during which they are being actively hunted) to convert that to bomb-grade. Really, a nuclear weapon is only possible for state actors. Creating a dirty-bomb (i.e. a non-nuclear bomb which spreads radioactivity) MIGHT be easier, but you would have to steal a 40-ton dry cask (not exactly easy in itself) - then open it (requiring specialist equipment); THEN extract the nuclear material; THEN grind it to dust; FINALLY you might have something that could be spread - all of which requires effort (good tools and competent workers) and time (perhaps weeks). Ok, maybe you raid a spent fuel pool - now you have to deal with a super-radioactive, physically HOT, awkwardly packaged - but you still have to extract and grind; but with the headache of a compressed timeframe because your workers are dying so quickly. Lastly, your dirty bomb will be limited by your explosives, so you might contaminate a few hectares - but because trace radioactivity is SUPER-EASY to detect, authorities can clean up/isolate that contamination fairly easily. So much cheaper, simpler, lower-tech, and lower-profile (pre-attack) to make a biological/chemical weapon (sarin, anthrax, mustard gas, etc) or use a standard explosive. ALSO - note the biological/chemical weapon's impact is NOT super-easy to detect, and therefore much harder to clean up/isolate. > As soon as economical powers shift and those first world countries collapse (anything and everything is temporary), it will be a luxury to manage waste compared to basics like food security, shelter, etc. If things get so bad in an OECD country that we're on the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, then nuclear waste really isn't a priority. But I want to point out that even in a current OECD hierarchy, dealing with nuclear waste isn't a priority - _because it isn't that big of a problem_. Not physically a big problem, not risk-wise a big problem. First, by mass - spent fuel is super-small: about 400,000 tons. Basically, 2 large container ships (Ever Given, the one stuck in the Suez Canal a few years ago, can carry 200,000 tons) could fit that as cargo. Second, by volume - spent fuel is super-duper-small: about 24,000 cubic meters. You need only ONE large container ship, and would have space left over. !!!! remember, that 400,000 tons is the output of 65 YEARS of 10% of GLOBAL electricity !!!! Third, the waste is inert. Once in dry casks, it just sits there in the back parking lot. Should we move it to a deep geological repository - sure! absolutely! - when we get around to it. Not exactly a pressing issue, except contractually, and even then quite a small issue economically. There is a bit in cooling pools which requires actual work, but the pools a big and would require weeks of complete inattention before the water evaporated away - and then .... you might get corium slag at the bottom of the pool which would destroy the pool, but it wouldn't "blow up" or really do much of anything to anyone, unless you tried to visit it too closely. If you're really worried about terrorism or on-site spent fuel - just read this - nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11263/chapter/23 (online version is free). "the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Homeland Security sponsored a National Academies study to assess the safety and security risks of spent nuclear fuel stored in cooling pools and dry casks at commercial nuclear power plants. The information provided in this book examines the risks of terrorist attacks using these materials for a radiological dispersal device. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2006. Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi.org/10.17226/11263."

Professor. Around (18:15) you claim (green) hydrogen technology is "decades away" Really? Actually, green hydrogen power systems are available (commercially) now. Most Material Handling Vehicles (MHV), we call forklifts, in Order-Fulfillment centers are not Battery powered, they're Hydrogen fuel cell powered. You're a terrific lecturer in science, however, for energy questions you're incomplete. Do a show about Jules Verne, who in 1874 said "Water, is the coal of the future." You should talk about why he would say that. Accusing those who oppose N power as ideological is a misdirection and untrue. We're opposed to N power because it's just a steam engine. At around 12 Million gallons per hour/GW to cool down these thermal plants you totally ignore these facts. When you accuse people who disagree with N power based on reality, and actual consumptions and dangers (toxicity), you should not label as ideological. Nuclear power is bad because it's just a high tech toxic way to boil water - with all of those problems. You've got to get beyond the steam engine in your world view. In the 21st century Green Hydrogen is our only hope mathematically. Does that matter?

@ThreeTwentysix

11 ай бұрын

Have you seen my video on the hydrogen economy?

@davidgipson7140

9 ай бұрын

Sabine Hossenfelder is a well respected physicist. She has made at least 2 videos on how green nuclear power is and on its waste. I am not sure where you find an issue with boiling water. Coal plants do it, some solar systems do it. They use turbines however nothing like the old steam engines. The hydrogen economy will most likely heat water... either as cooling systems or to expedited electrochemical processes. Water can be very energy dense. It seems part of your argument is its old and antiquated. I would say its old not antiquated.

@ChakatStormCloud

9 ай бұрын

Hydrogen is a dead technology. It only had 2 points to ever exist: power density and rapid refilling. Both of which have been rapidly outpaced by progressing battery tech. And I don't know about you, but when I was working in a warehouse, everything was powered by interchangeable batteries that doubled as ballast, with the exception of a couple gasoline fork's for very heavy things. Since it's way cheaper to just set up a rack charger for batteries than get hydrogen either trucked in, or have a complicated electrolysis system installed. As the storage part of renewables install, hydrogen is even worse compared to current battery offerings, since it's fluid nature is actually a hazard as opposed to a benefit there. Lastly, you understand that coal, natural gas, and nuclear all use essentially the same steam turbine technology right? Water goes into a boiler, Hot high pressure steam goes from there to the turbine, low pressure warm steam comes out and goes to a cooling tower to condense back into water, which is then filtered slightly to prevent contaminant build up, and back to the boiler again. They don't "use up" water at least not in any large scale sense beyond periodic top ups from the relatively small amount that escapes in the cooling tower. And the pressurised water used in the coolant loop of most reactors (some use molten metals or salts) is just constantly circulated within the reactor for most of it's working life, moving heat out of the reactor and into the boiler. Also a slight nitpick, nuclear power isn't "toxic", coal smog is toxic, nuclear power is radioactive, and the nice thing about radioactive things is as long as they don't catch on fire, melt, react chemically to form gaseous products, or get aerosolized by a hydrogen explosion (all of which is just a problem of proper reactor design and management), can just be shoved into a concrete barrel and dealt with whenever people get around to actually setting up permanent storage, or better yet, reprocessing. UNLIKE the aforementioned smog, which is just blindly dumped into the atmosphere with little to no monitoring.

@thedeadmoneyallstars

9 ай бұрын

​​@@ChakatStormCloudyou could also improve the "old" steam turbine design by using high pressure water to increase boiling temperature, and run your turbine at a much higher efficiency in next generation reactors. What's that you say? That's very much part of the design in the current generation of reactors being tested which are also using that high pressure coolant water as a moderator so that any spike in temperature causes boiling and the removal of the moderator (liquid water) which then slows the reaction without any input from a safety system apart from physics? You're a smart human!

He said, "Renewables ... don't generate enough energy most of the time." That statement is nonsensensical - it has been proved false by increasing the renewables up to 3 or 6 times the amount, and storing the excess energy for use when the renewables are not generating enough. The rooftop solar owners are installing battery storage systems that give them enough power when it's dark. The huge solar and wind farms owned by utilities are installing large battery storage systems. There is plenty of renewable energy to power the whole Earth. His argument that installing 3 or more times as much renewables causes excessive power is not true. The excess energy is stored in pumped hydro systems, battery energy storage systems, and used to generate green hydrogen to replace the dirty hydrogen now used in making fertilizer. He goes on to say that the electric vehicles are "using electricity from coal and it's poisoning people." The fact is that even if the electricity is 100% from coal (which is is not), the electric vehicles are *still* cleaner than petrol/gasoline cars. So these statements are hypocritical and false. Besides making statements that are false, he's trying to sell nuclear power. The problem with new nuclear power is utilities are not ordering new construction because there have been multi-billion dollar cost overruns and decade long construction delays. The amount that new nuclear power plants can sell power is greater than renewables and is continuing to increase. Renewables plus storage continues to decrease in price so there is no chance that nuclear power plants can compete. I forgot one important fact: thermal power plants including nuclear need a massive amount of water to cool the plant. This is a significant amount of the total water used by humans. So new nuclear power will not be allowed to be built unless there is a large supply of cooling water.

@jbruck6874

7 ай бұрын

I am afraid, you are wrong if you believe a country has enough energy buffer systems to run its economy from it for a day or two. LARGE SCALE storage infrastructure of energy for whole countries or more is not here, and will not be for a decade or two - there may be exceptions like Switzerland as it is full of mountains and has only 8M ppl. That is the main problem w renewables. Oh, and transporting electric energy.

@acmefixer1

7 ай бұрын

@@jbruck6874 Said, "I am afraid, you are wrong if you believe a country has enough energy but for systems to run its economy from it for a day or two." That is exactly what will happen when every residence and business has rooftop solar and a battery storage system. They could be independent from the grid if their system is sized properly, and if it's not adequate then the electricity consumer will have to reduce consumption. This takes away the ability of the utility to keep the consumer dependent on the utility for power. And we all know that the utilities will fight like hell to prevent their customers from going completely off grid. So you seem to be a shill for the utilities, who, like vampires, want to keep sucking money from their customers. There is one absolute fact: the world *must* stop burning fossil fuels if they want to stop the world from becoming unliveable.

@jbruck6874

7 ай бұрын

@@acmefixer1 I agree with your last point. However I heard from multiple reliable sources that your first point is void. Battery power is not a realistic option to run an economy from. The price, the amount of materials needed, the production and installation capacity... All factories of Germany running off of electric batteries seems not realistic within years. As I hear, even solutions via more established buffer technologies is a strerch for a decade or even more. As a physicist, the estimation involving electric batteries seems an easy calculation to me. Calculate the needed amount of materials and compare the amount produced annually on the planet, or sg like this. If the two numbers are too similar - trouble. But I am not an expert either. One must learn to accept uncomfortable facts. There are limits of many different kinds, and, frustratingly, society needs decades for infrastructural changes. Not everybody is financed by lobbying groups. Scientist and engineers have the skills to obtain facts related to their fields. Find a few sources you deem reliable - but do not start calling somebody unreliable because you dont like their facts. Then we will get nowhere. Here is a report of the Royal Society, the Academy of Sciences of the UK.(PDFs at bottom of Page) royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/low-carbon-energy-programme/large-scale-electricity-storage/#:~:text=Electricity%20can%20be%20stored%20in,unit%20of%20energy%20storage%20capacity.

@acmefixer1

7 ай бұрын

@@jbruck6874 I suggest you watch the videos on RethinkX Tony Seba's KZread channel. Also En.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

great video, you nailed it

nuclear plants are awesome, just don't build them on a fault line or with soviet era technology. I completely agree, the reason people are scared is because they don't see the source of their power, its easy to propagandize them about it.

ahahahahahahaha "there is no safe dose of radiation" that's a good one. Human life wouldn't exist if it weren't for radioactive compounds in our bodies like you said lmfao