Nuclear Physicist Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder Is Nuclear Power Green?
Nuclear Physicist Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder is nuclear power green?
Check out Sabine Hossenfelder's Channel - / sabinehossenfelder
Full Original Video - • Is Nuclear Energy Green?
For Full uncut reactions, as well as supporting the channel, join my
Support page - ko-fi.com/elinacharatsidou
Join the friendly Nuclear subReddit to discuss nuclear energy, ask questions and share memes - r/friendlynuclearfamily
Instagram - @elinacharatsidou
TikTok - @elinacharatsidou
In this video, I react to Sabine Hossenfelder is nuclear power green? video from the perspective of a nuclear physicist. I go through the is nuclear power green? video of Sabine Hossenfelder and look through what is accurate information on Sabine Hossenfelder is nuclear power green? video as a nuclear physicist and react to it.
Hope you like the video about Nuclear Physicist Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder is nuclear power green?
Don't forget to like and subscribe!
Thanks, Elina!
Thank you Sabine for making such great content and for watching my video, much appreciated ☢️👩🏽🔬
@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist Except you speak too fast and make nonsensical assertions!
@@BasementEngineer I think a statement like your latter one needs some more description.
@@alsmith20000 I stopped watching when the lady began talking about too much dependence on foreign suppliers for required energy and material. WHY??? Because the entire German economy is dependent on large quantities of imports and exports. Sabine should be able to elaborate on this. A recent statistic I recall had it that 85% of what Germany exports is also imported. Thus the large imports of natural gas from Russia was not a problem because Russia was a very reliable supplier. Having noted that, I am also in favour of nuclear power, having worked in that business. I live in Ontario Canada, and we get 65% of our electric power from nuclear power plants. 30% is from hydro-electric power plants (think Niagara Falls), the remaining 5% is generated by natural gas fired generators (peak shaving), and wind & photovoltaics. To depend on the latter two with a climate like Canada's is the height of insanity.
@@BasementEngineer Good observation, thanks.
I was in the US Navy for six years as part of the submarine force. I spent months at a time no more than a few hundred feet away from a nuclear reactor and experienced less radiation than if I had been spending my days outdoors. Probably some of the safest reactors in the world on those subs.
That may be true. It is also a fact that the radiation exposure in a well maintained modern Power pant is lower than outside. But I would argue that subs or carriers are the best maintained and serviced reactors on the planet no costs spared. Regular measurements, no limits of cooling waters, very encapsulated builds, well instructed personnel sleeping in a bunk right next to them. I am not sure you can compare these to the privately run businesses around the word.
I would argue that Navy Nuclear reactors relatively small size makes it much easier to make them safe in comparison to civilian side reactors that produce power orders of magnitude higher than navy reactors.
How is a nuclear sub decommissioned? Of course if you put enough led around it you don't get radiation. But the led casing and the rest will be highly contaminated. My google research shows it takes $100 million to decommission one nuclear sub, it takes $1 billion to decommission one nuclear carrier. Safest reactor, true, but not many people believe that nuclear is unsafe. It's just ridiculously expensive.
How much does it cost to decommission the battery of an electric car? Not radioactive, but still unsafe. Don’t last as long as a nuclear sub, smaller but there are many thousands more of them.
@@doctorlolchicken7478 What? You better give me some numbers here. A battery you can probably recycle the whole thing. The only thing you can do with the core and most of the equipment of a nuclear plant is to encase it into concrete and put it in a mine. With a nuclear power plant it's not just the core but all the pipes for water, and the water that are also highly radioactive.
Retired Rad Tech here. In Canada we use dirt burners CANDU reactors. Our longest running after 35 years still had not had to find a place for waste off of the property. Our outage time is much less then other styles meaning we have less down town and loss of production.
But Canada has high quality ore. What is the power cost from the Candu?
CANDU is the best, no doubt, especially for Canada which has the ore. Ship some CANDU to Australia please!
I have to say not only hydro is reliable, but it also is a form of storage, one of the most efficient ones we have in fact. It cannot be bunched with wind and solar on that front.
the whole "rebewables cant work due to storeage" comes STRAIGHT from carbon fuel lobbyists. Wind doesnt just stop producing at 6pm etc. Wind farms are in places strong wind is the norm..like the rural midwest. Solar production only stops in the us for a short time..which hapoens to be the time energy demand is lowest. You can compliment them with 0 carbon or varbon negative power production.
I learned about radioactivity from coal plants back in 1982. I was serving onboard a nuclear aircraft carrier and one of the instruments that I had to check hourly was called the APD, or Airborne Particulate Detector. This was almost a gag since it always read zero, even though it was positioned between two nuclear power plants. This was true until we approached Naples, Italy -- at which point the APD readout started to climb. It didn't get very high, but it was noticeably elevated compared to normal operation. It turned out that it always did this when approaching Naples because they burned coal and there was a fairly stable inversion layer in that area which kept the pollutants in place. This would be similar to Los Angeles and smog. Anyhow, I found it amusing that naval nuclear power produced far less radiation that coal.
Until the sub needs decommissioning, then you have a problem. There’s currently four nuclear subs sitting in a river in Portsmouth, England, rotting away, with no long term plans about what to do with them.
@@GuinessOriginal most likely that is a planned action to wait for the most radioactive stage to end. That takes a decade.
@@kristofferjohansson3768 nope. They’ve been there for over 30 years, despite countless attempts from local population and their political representatives to get them moved. The plans to decommission them were scrapped years ago because they were deemed too expensive.
@@GuinessOriginal So, how much 'radiation' (or other pollution) is being given off by these decommissioned subs? Is anyone measuring it and informing the public? Or doing anything about it besides the usual "not in my backyard" knee-jerk reaction?
@@GuinessOriginal So it's not because of radioactivity but because some corrupted politicians.
Interesting fact; when I worked at a refuse to fuel power plant AKA municipal waste processed to burn. we had incoming radiation detectors run on all the material that came into the site. With the two most common alarms being from either adult diapers from retirement communities or hospitals contaminated with medical isotopes or large shipments of expired bananas.😅
That’s doubly impressive, given you apparently had sensors good enough to detect the radiation of bananas.
@@trevordillon1921 it required thousands of pounds of bananas in one loaded truck to elicit a significant response from the monitoring system. Ex. A shipment of expired bananas from dole. The average box of bananas wouldn't go high enough to make that particular system alert.
@Trevor Dillon we were a heavily regulated facility and due to the nature of burning the waste it had the potential for release in the environment and we did everything to avoid knowingly releasing it.
The Banana Dose!
@@TevelDrinkwater quite literally
Your reviews of other review videos like this are brilliant. Catching up on yr channel now that I have come across it. Man we need so many more out there like you and this channel.
The biggest problem I see with both the original video and this response is that the expense of each power source per MWhr seems to have been calculated without worrying about whether it supplies base-load or not. Renewable energy only looks cheap when it's intermittency is ignored. Once you need to rely on it for a perpetual source it's true cost must include storage and release mechanisms. And they are horribly expensive even at smaller scale. In other words, I think a fair economic comparison would put nuclear well ahead of solar and wind. Especially since the production costs of renewables are more likely to sky-rocket than continue down as demand for the relevant construction materials increases by more than an order of magnitude under a renewables-focussed transition. Massive demand increase for materials, some rare and hard to extract, virtually guarantees massive cost increases.
Well said
Absolutely agree. Also comparing old nuclear plant designs to the latest and greatest in solar and wind isn't apples to apples. New nuclear plants (Gen 4), though unproven, hope to use passive safety designs instead of costly active safety systems layered on top a pressurized water reactor which also needs a reactor housing and a containment dome a thousand times bigger than the reactor volume. This is a huge driver in costs.
Investment bank Lazard (Apr 2023) finds that solar and wind plus storage is now competitive with natural gas for electrical utilities. Lazard calculates the following unsubsidized levelized cost of energy (LCOE) per MWh for new power plants constructed in the US: utility-scale PV solar: $24 - $96 utility-scale PV solar + storage: $46 - $102 geothermal: $61 - $102 onshore wind: $24 - $75 onshore wind + storage: $42 - $114 offshore wind: $72 - $140 combined cycle gas: $39 - $101 combined cycle gas with 20% green hydrogen: $156 gas peaking: $115 - $221 coal: $68 - $116 nuclear: $141 - $221 The price of LFP grid batteries is dropping like a stone. CATL is currently selling its LFP at US$70 per kWh in China, so companies like Tesla should now be selling their grid batteries in Western countries for around $150/kWh, whereas it was $300/kWh in early 2022. I just read the prediction that CATL will be selling its LFP for $56/kWh by mid-2024. Sodium ion batteries should be 30% cheaper than LFP and Salgenx says that it will be able to produce its salt water flow batteries for $5/kWh when it gets to scale, so grid storage is going to become dirt cheap.
It's not an either/or calculation. In locations where solar is most justified, it is also most needed when it's at maximum productivity. Ie. Storage isn't a need unless you're over-producing which for solar fields will never happen if done right. It would be foolish to size a nuke plant to cover those conditions entirely on its own, to then over produce the other 70% of the time. Also, your cost of materials argument applies equally to nuclear as it does to solar. In fact the most common type of solar is just silicon and tiny bits of boron and phosphorus, all extremely abundant without any mining, You seem to be cherry picking the solar technology to justify that argument.
They are expensive because it hadnt yet propely be invested in yet.... gibe 3 or 4years and it will be a no brainer
I'm a big fan of Sabine. She presents clearly, respects her viewers and always offers valuable information. Her sense of humor just makes her that much better. Not to be a flatterer, but I see those traits in you.
Thank you I appreciate your comment ! I am glad you enjoyed the video ☢️👩🏽🔬
@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist It appears that your argument may have overlooked a crucial point in regards to CO2 emissions. With the implementation of fast reactors, mining needs would be reduced by a factor of 100, making CO2 levels less relevant. Furthermore, as electricity usage continues to grow, power production costs must be reduced, making fast reactors the future of power production. Therefore, discussions surrounding current thermal reactors and their CO2 emissions may be considered irrelevant. Unfortunately, I found this oversight quite frustrating, which led me to only be able to listen for 11 minutes before my patience ran out. I do realize Hossenfelder is as much to blame as you.
@@AJ5 yeah, I've got my problems with her, too. Same with Alexander Unzicker. I have the feeling they are just grumpy that physics doesn't work their way, but both don't really do what a physicist should do in that case - provide a better model thats stands up to experimental data.
@@KZhead_Stole_My_Handle_Too once we have them. The track record of fast reactors is yet nothing to brag about, and most designs are paper-only or low power. We'll see where we get once we have production-level (>1GWe) fast reactors. But I don't see that coming any time soon.
@@wernerviehhauser94 The Russian (yeah, I know) BN-800 (Быстрых Нейтронах = Fast Neutrons) produces commercial power. It's a fast breeder reactor making some 800 MWe. It can, and does, run on MOX-fuel. They're also working on a Thorium cycle. And they're currently building a 1200 MWe, the BN-1200, at that same site. So, there's that.
Nuclear industry: Oh no, we accidentaly killed a couple hundred to a couple thousand people in our entire history! Fossil fuels: Hold my beer for the next 30 minutes or so
It's far less than that. EU researched the Chernobil disaster for 20 years ( long-term effects of radiation on mothers and newborn babies) but couldn't find anything. There was no difference between general population and groups exposed to the radiation from the accident. The only people who suffered were soldiers and workers there,less than 50 died and in Fukushima one person died. 5 elderly died from stress after ordered evacuation. Hydroelectric dams breaking have caused much higher mortality specially 1950 - 1980 China where at least ten dams collapsed killing tens of thousands of people. Dams collapsed in Europe,South America,North America and central Asia too,always with high death toll (higher then Chernobil). Hydroelectric dams also cause big ecological and environmental issues by blocking animal life from moving,causing huge changes in local plant and animal life,they cause changes in local weather,changes in local geology and water resources,new roads need to be built and they can be potential terrorist's target.
Lmao fossil fuels increased the world's population by billions...
@@ms-jl6dl Don't newer hydroelectric dams have some mechanisms to allow movement of wildlife?
Add in the species the wind and solar energy have brought to or near to extinction
@@fungo6631 They hate hydro (and nuclear) because they actually work and don't need artificial scarcity the way wind and solar do.
Two brilliant videos combined into one, thanks for making this!
This was extremely educational. Thank you very much for taking the time to produce this
Sabine mixed her units she did say 20 feet tall ... but the captions did say 20 meters ... I live near Australia's only nuclear reactor ... it saves thousands of people's lives every year through nuclear medicine.
Yes it's something people who are completely anti nuclear forget. I'm not for nuclear power in Australia for reasons of cost and water consumption (have issues with coal for same reason) but we need to maintain the industry for this alone. I actually think Australia could do a great service and make money offering waste disposal. We exist on a massive tectonic plate so suffer few earthquakes. We profit from selling uranium are great at mining and geology. We should only sell our mined uranium with the proviso it is returned to us for storage in deep underground geologically stable rock. Instead our nuclear waste is stored in a warehouse in industrial Sydney. Imagine the public panic if even low grade facility if say an airplane crashed into it. Storing properly we'd also be decreasing opportunity for nuclear proliferation. The niby's will never agree though.
@@cameronlapworth2284 It may be that you could overcome the water issues, the largest complex of reactors in the U.S. is in Arizona.
@missano3856 possibly but currently one big issue of our coal use is the water. In any case Australia's role would be best suited to importing back our uranium after use and supplying the world's current reactors. We exist on a massive tectonic plate so very little earthquake issues and tonnes of unused land even many old mines we could potentially use for storage. We can certainly power the whole country easily with RE so we should help support those that otherwise must use nuclear.
Dr Sabine mixed power with energy? Hmm….
Storing waste in a geologically stable area isn't exactly the "Best" solution. Well, it is the best pragmatic and economically viable solution. That said, the "Best" solution is storing it in the crust being consumed near a tectonic plate edge would be a proper means of recycling the waste. The heat, compression and forced combination with surrounding matter theoretically would cause some degree of Fusion of the waste. Depending on how far below the surface it is pushed of course. Even partial fusion would likely occur along with a distributed diffusion throughout the surrounding matter, minimising the consentration of dagerous levels with in the contaminated matter. It, however, would be prohibitively expensive to do and has a litany of risks and numerous potential issues that would lead it to go horribly wrong. It is theoretically the proper/natural way to return the material to the Earth to reuse like it does with all other matter. Heck, if Carbon Capture worked then the same method would be the right way to dispose of it. Retuning it deep uner ground to be compressed, heated and fused to form all forms of Cabides and Oxgides. But yes. Storage in deep and remote locations that are geologically stable is the the best Practical and cost-effective option. It's sadly just not a very practical extreme long-term solution, its kicking the can down the road for someone else to fix. Which, realistically, is the best we can do right now.
Sabine got a friendly nuclear physicist seal of approval. Well deserved. I’ve been subbed to Sabine’s channel and yourselves for a while now. Good reaction video.
Sabine is a stuck up "greenhouse gas" supporter when in fact there's no experiment proving the application of greenhouse gas theory for the planet's atmosphere. If you didn't know it, the whole shebang, is a SIMULATION and it's done by computing models. P.S. Her voice and tone is also believably irritating to me but that's just the cherry on top.
Sabine is a disgusting human.
Sincere appreciation for your analysis and additional information on the findings.
Videos really do help me understand what's going on especially in the uranium markets, so just wanted to say thanks for your time and the videos 😎👍
Ah! Elina Charatsidou and Sabine Hossenfelder…united to inform the world about nuclear power! Excellent! I’ve been subscribed to you both since a long time and enjoy watching all of your videos!
This is very nice of your thank you ☢️👩🏽🔬
@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist I'm not so sure that technology is the solution when greed is the problem. Anyway kudos to all those mad scientists out there.... And remember : "science sans conscience n'est que perte de l'âme ~ Rabelais (and our ecosystem ~ me).
And the thousands of people Dying from nuclear waste? Should they be happy?
@@GarrettMoffitt Tell me you're a bot without saying me you're a bot.
@@GarrettMoffitt RE: "And the thousands of people Dying from nuclear waste? Should they be happy?" Exactly who is "dying from nuclear waste?"
Sabine is a great communicator. All the videos I have watched are very well researched, are balanced/objective, and she is very good at communicating them. I find myself wanting to hear what she says, especially on subjects where she is challenging my (or the popular) view. She does a such a great job teaching me without pissing me off - an art that so few people seem to value any more.
Sabine is great communicator indeed. She can bring complex topic much closer to understanding. In the few videos relating to Nuclear Power the "German" bias is visible though, few choices of references were rather controversial and coming from anti-nuclear authors. And in this world anti-nuclear is in practice pro-coal, and pro natural gas, because renewable energy is just expensive icing on the cake, doing fairly little to reduce emissions. If the number of 520GigaEuro spend by Germany on energy transition is correct then there is very little good to show for that spending in terms of CO2/kWh real output(that money could decarbonize big part of EU with smartly deployed Nuclear power).
Compared to stinky Unzicker, Sabine is way more reasonable and practical in her assessment and skepticism.
Sabine seems to me like she's going down the usual physicists path of slowly talking with authority about everything under the sun. First, about physics. Then, about philosophy and sociology of science. Ehh, well, she has first-hand experience. Now, about nuclear energy, politics+engineering related to that... Neil Degrasse Tyson started out similar for example.
@@gJonii Sabine mentioned on one of her videos that she reads A LOT of academic papers
@@gJonii I find her much less grating than NdT. I swear NdT could simply be telling me the Sun shines in the sky and he magically sounds like he is being condescending. I don't know how he does it or has managed to get this far in his career; the dude has absolutely no tact whatsoever.
Just found this channel, I'm loving it! Thanks, Elina.
I'm a big fan of Sabine. But I'm always a little concerned that she does so many topics outside her expertise. I'm glad to hear your enthusiastic endorsement of her video on Nuclear Power. Thank you. You verified for me that Sabine does a comprehensive and balanced job on a wide range of topics.
@@JohnSmith-hn1qj But garysnewjob can't?
There is a team behind her videos so she is not the only one doing the research.
@@ajollyoldben No. Because he believes you can only talk about what you know and apparently he doesn't know much.
if you pick the right methodology you will almost always arrive at correct conclusions even if you're not a subject matter expert. that's why there was so much emphasis on dialectical logic among researchers in the 20th century.
thats unfortunately true. i had a discussion with her via email on the climate crisis and she did not even know about basic statistical challenges in agricultural models
when chimneys first became popular, they caused all sorts of fires because people didn't understand how to take care of them. we didn't stop starting fires; we learned how to construct and maintain chimneys that worked so as not to cause (uncontrolled) fires. instead of running away from nuclear, we should be moving forward with improved designs.
Hey there, Elina. During my uni days, we used to work summers in our Swedish nuclear plants. Mostly maintenance inside the plants, but not inside active areas. I remember the environment inside the building always had lower background radiation than outdoors.
Probably because some sort of double barrier to prevent radiation leakage and you were between those barriers?
@@Shreendg what... Hold on... If I say... The sun. What do you think it emits?
Did you bring your own readers or trust the ones "they" had there?
@@miker953 Like a proper conspiracy theorist, you mean?
@@martinmchugh001 well yeah. I thought the dramatic music sold the point.
11:10 Hydro is energy storage by itself, even if it is not pumped, because you have valves you can control the flow with and a dam and a basin that can take the water in excess
Great vid! Sabine does good objective work, and you seem straightforward and objective also. Thanks.
Nuclear power is safer than _residential solar!_ Apparently, climbing roofs is dangerous.
They're both extremely safe. It's arguments like this that single out those who are scraping the barrel looking to trash what they perceive to be the competition.
The chemicals they're made of are extremely toxic
@CodyBunker there are no modern energy technologies that don't involve toxic chemicals. The problem are those that end up polluting the environment. Done right, nuclear and solar pv, simply don't.
Elina making the same reaction with Ms Sabine was hilarious hahahaahaj
Ahahaha yes I was surprised too ☢️👩🏽🔬 it seems many ppl share the same opinion about Germany’s decision 😅
As usual, nice reaction. Normal you would say as Sabine’s videos are always very well documented, but you rocks it even more! Thanks for your commitment in this cause, it’s nice to see and hear friendly thoughts about a soooooooo controverses topic 😊 Best regards Elina!
The reason why Fokushima made Germany rethink its stance on Nuclear again is not it voulnerability to Tsunami's, but the fact that an obvious error was made in the safety system on a Western Reactor. One major excuse given for Chenopbyl was that it was a soviet reactor operated by the soviet union, the presence of the accident in Japan demonstrated that a Western nation that Germany thinks very highly of. Was capable of making these kinds of mistakes, and thus Germany concluded that it isn't impossible to have made a similar mistake that we simply don't know of.
I love how you explain things clearly and easy to understand. You don't make me feel dumb about the subject like I sometimes do in other subjects I have learned a lot from watching your videos. Take care. 🙂
Thank you so much ! That’s why I do this. To make nuclear physics accessible to everyone and show that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand it.☢️👩🏽🔬
@@YourFriendlyNuclearPhysicist you don’t need to be a nuclear physicist to understand it, you just need to know one 😊
Two of the most eye-opening science programs that I've ever watched - by two absolute masters of their discipline.
Check out PBS Spacetime.
Brilliant reaction video. Keep up the good work!
I've been following Sabine's channel for a couple years. It's cool to see a nuclear physicist's opinion on her video.
Awesome video Elina both you and Sabine have my utmost respect for your videos and love both of your humor!
I've been following Sabine for some time as I really appreciate her insights, but I equally appreciate your discussion of it.
@11:08 I've never heard that hydro power would require storage. There's water in a reservoir at higer elevation, this is itself energy stored as potential energy.
all energy production requires storage when that energy isn't used or its wasted. not sure why you're asking about storing whatever produces the energy. the energy isn't turned back into water... we know how to store water. if we all powered everything with water mills we wouldnt need to talk about storing the energy water produces...
@@rruysch - with hydro power you don't have to generate any that you can't use right now. You just open the tap for the amount you need.
@@rruysch What he refers to is not hydro in general but hydro dams. And in case of dams it is a fair point to make because if there is an excess often some of the water is pumped back up to try an balance it out. I do however agree it would be better to store it in batteries and the likes but well CO2 and al.
@@rruysch is the loses in the system, the big push for electric at the moment? use a simple electric car as model, petrel/dev/gas, (coal,cock,wood,- makes stream) there media stored energy, and only used as and when needed, where as electric, got to be made some how first, and mechanism to even make electric needs to be made? and this back office that not really talked about, and one of the biggest problem this system still relies on the old oil, gas, to keep it going? but where all told it a replacement for that system, but will not work the older system, being hidden behind curtain somewhere out of site
I have been watching Sabine for some time now and have learned a lot. When KZhead recommended your video review, I'll admit that I was nervous about having what I remembered as being a very well researched video called out. Still, by being uncomfortable and willing to listen, I opened myself up to finding a new content creator and also learning a bit more about nuclear energy.
At 6:45 you perfectly describe for this a process called "bootstrapping". In this case, it's the secondary definition "carried out with minimum resources or advantages," but within the context of building a system that eventually produces the things it needs to keep running. I think I was first introduced to its use from watching videos of content creators playing Factorio.
I know the pain of needing inserters to make inserters, and needing more chips to make chip production faster. You need bullets to kill biters to get resources to make bullets to kill biters...
Watch Sabine's stuff with caution. She's branched out from physics into fields like medicine and economics, and these videos have been panned by actual professionals in those fields.
Mmm about what exactly?
I hope I can give some insight,because I had the same question. I stumpled upon a presentation/talk on youtube where Sabine Hossenfelder stated that scientists in the field of physics are biased. She claims scientists disregard results from their own experiments and studies when they don't suit their theoretical basis. I.E.: you run an experiment and expect result A but get B then you disregard the result and run it again until it results in A. She claims this is the reason why scientists have not made any groundbreaking progress in the last 100 yrs or so. I asked a friend of mine who did his phD in physics for some time but stopped it and instead now does a master degree in Machine Learning. He despises the scientists in physics, as he sees it as an industry of egomaniacs where everybody just wants to get his papers published. Still he thinks of Sabine Hossenfelder as somebody you have to listen to with a grain of salt. He thinks she is driven by a lot of spite, because she feels being treated wrong by her colleagues and thus wants to proof them wrong. This got her into a viscious cycle. She *needs* to be right, she urges to proof a point, not for science sake but to satisfy her own ego. I forgot the exact example he gave, but some of the things she states seem to be way out there. That's my friend's take on her. And he is not somebody who looks to kindly on physicists and careerwise turned his back on it.
Thanks Elina,Sabine the analysis is somewhat positive for nuclear power, I guess. Anyway have either of you heard of Kirk Sorenson? He has done considerable work with thorium liftr breeder nuclear reactors. Anyway he has done most of theoretical work for molten salts since operation of other reactors being used for nuclear power. Oak Ridge 1960s I believe?
Very nice video! As a German I'm still very frustrated about our decision to leave nuclear energy (Sadly our last power plants closed a few weeks ago :( ) Also sadly the public sentiment here is still very very much anti nuclear, even all the new climate activists groups are anti nuclear, which frustrates me even more. I'm extremley pro Co2 neutrality, but how on earth should we manage to do that without nuclear energy? Why are there so few reasonable activists, who are not delsuioned by anti nuclear idealogy.... Now it's impossible for Germany to reach their CO2 neutarality goals in the furture, instead we actually have to expand our brown coal open mining pits , which are destroying vast parts of our landscape and emit tons of CO2.... Therfore thank you for the video, it may help at least a bit to educate some people, who aren't completley closed off by ideology
Replacing all worldwide existing nuclear power plants with new gas power plants (including increasing output of existing gas power plants if possible) will increase CO2 emissions by only 2.7% (based on 2022)
@@klaushoegerl1187 You cannot trust studies blindly especially those after this largely manufactured green revolution which in essence is no longer very green. Every organization responsible in the area of study is pushing green agendas. The days of seeing a study and quoting its numbers as facts are long gone. You have to work very hard to determine whether green agenda is behind the study or not, how the study is credible or not for your frame of mind with its assumptions and conditions. Most studies are limited and shaped in ways normal people can't even begin to understand. There is another predicament of Journals caught in selling out science in controversial topics like this.
Maybe it has something to do with the ugly "R" word that this video is so fanaticly trying to avoid using. This is a promotion video. Do you realize that?
the earth was a much healthier place for every lifeform when co2 levels werent near starvation levels of today, but 10 to 20x current levels... yet globalist types wants us to spend 265 TRILLION to get us to neutral, and evn at the cost when that would be achieved we would be way behind economically than where we would have been otherwise. and EVEN after all of this, how do you propose to make the rest of the nonwestern world listen to you and go net zero? especially as youve decided to make russia out to be the next third R because they had a reaction after the west broke every deal we set up with them, installed a western dictator puppet in ukraine and started installing top secret biolabs and missile sites near their border? conquer the countries? we have spent tens of trillions for a couple decades and managed to reduce power coming from nonrenewables from 83% to 82%. what part of all this is making sense to you people?
"Why are there so few reasonable activists, who are not delsuioned by anti nuclear idealogy...." because they are some of the most clueless types of people youve ever seen in your life?
Nice video! Sabine's channel is really great for explaining science clearly.
Elina keep up the hard work .. Your explanation of complex topic in very easily understandable language is just awesome .... Keep it up .. 👍👍❤❤
Thank you I appreciate it! 💪🏼☢️👩🏽🔬
great Sabine Hossenfelder's video. Your work too Elina , thanks
Hi Elina. Love your t-shirt. Great vid.
This was definitely a good reaction video. I found Sabine's channel less than half a year ago and I've watched many videos already and even though I personally might put different weights for some details, I haven't found a single factual error in any of her videos. I definitely recommend her channel to anybody interested in science in general. And yes, I'd like to see more reactions to her videos by you on the field of your expertice. The more "fact checking" or validation we can have from experts, the better.
This is the first time that I have viewed one of Elina Charatsidou's videos and I immediately subscribed to her channel. I did so not only because she agreed with Sabine Hossenfelder's presentation on nuclear power, but that she has an impressive set of credentials in her own right.
I've seen a handful of Elina's videos and have enjoyed them but had not yet subscribed. This is my second one of her videos I've watched today. I'm following now. Like you I love Sabina's style and content. I just have to respect them both. I do hope Elina does more. I've suggested she look at Sabina's video on fusion.
This is not the first time I have watched one of her videos, but I am subscribing today. I like sites that give you info and let you decide.
I follow Sabina and it is nice to get a second take to her breakdown of a subject, please continue to do reactions of her videos. I will definitely watch them and like them.😊
Glad, that I have discovered another healthy channel. Thank you very much for your immense input into creating a fine society.
Sabine is probably my favourite science communicator. And I very much enjoyed your reaction and the input you gave. It's always gives a lot of confidence when I hear two competent people agree on the topic like this.
Big respect to both you and Sabine, we've been avoiding Nuclear due to the big incidents so its good to see the discussion is still going on. I'm hopeful for this tech in the future. Haven't watched either of you two before but I'm glad this appeared in my recommended.
Solar and raptor masters are far more dangerous.
@@rayw3294 Not if you include property damage.
@@takanara7 roof solar can cause property damage if improperply installed on rpooofft top and if insteall ed on groiun they have damage tree and other plabnmts in high qanity to place them Solar has to have unonbstructucted veiw of the sun as much of the time as poassible And, trees obstruct the / Same with wind power trees reue wind power. A radiated t ee that is still alive still catpures carbon. There have been 2s uch accidents in 70 years. Every other form of power has had larger number of disasters than nuclear. Alot of people died in guild granhydrodans in colorado and people and animals were displaced on a grand scale. Nuclear power has lowest land foot print per kilowatt hour. Relating nuclear power to another example for saftety. Airtravel is the safest form of travel. But from news reports you would think is the most dangerous. But, the reason we hear of is because its so rare. One plane crash every year maybe but some car has fatal crash every day so whie plane crash may kill 50 people a year 1 daily car chash will kill at least 365 people maybe more as cars aren't always one person. Same with nuclear power. While a nuke may kill maue kill large number once fossile Fuel is killing people continously. Also, hydro as hproven tonot be as renewble as some beleive as look how the colorado river level has dropped to dangerous level in part due to the dams. No naigra is be4tter as it uses the falls instead of creating a falls. BUt even that river is lowering in prt tdue the hydro plants. The biggest fear is people wronlgly think nuclear power equates to weapons. But teh more of the material used for plants the less aaible for weapons.
it's not just the big indicents. it's the transport, the waste, the cost, the environmental destruction of areas around uranium mine sites and of course mr burns
Almost all of the damage from Fukushima was from the tsunami and from the evacuation - not from the nuclear accident. Statistically the deaths from nuclear power is so low as to be almost zero.
Honestly glad I stumbled on this video seems like it'll be an interesting watch
When I was a teen in the late 1970s, I had a science teacher that absolutely condemned nuclear power and ridiculed anyone who even questioned the thought that nuclear energy wasn't evil. It took me a few years to get past this dogma.
Nuclear is not evil. Nuclear weapons protect us in the short term, and I have had nuclear medical treatment. Nuclear power, however is a bit different. What is evil, is to license out volatile weapons technology to power companies, and to allow anyone to use it to compete in the cut-throat energy market when there are cheaper, cleaner and safer alternatives. Your teacher's mistake was to think that all nuclear is the same. You are making the same fundamental mistake, and the people of Three Mile Island, Pripyat (Chernobyl) and Futaba (Fukushima) might disagree with you.
For both nuclear and renewables, really the best way of storing energy right now is hydro (pumping water up into dams) which can also go into water supply storage too.
I've been watching Sabine's video's for years now and are a important source forming my opinions on things science related. I love how she balances different viewpoints in a scientific way that are pretty well understandable for people without a scientific background like myself. Great to see you reacting and confirming her views on Nuclear.
All the political parties viewing for the anti nuke vote or virtue signaling take your pick
18:41 Loved your music moment! I hope you do that all the time.
One small inaccuracy at 11:10: hydropower doesn't need energy storage - the whole idea behind it is having water reservoir as an energy storage (in fact, this idea is sometimes used as energy storage supporting other power sources). Although, I would argue that hydropower's impact on local environment is considerably bigger than any other kind of energy production. IDK, maybe I'm getting old, because I starts to ask myself the question "is this world going crazy or it's just me?" more often recently. The numbers are there and you hear something totally different in mass media... That's why I would like to thank you and Sabine for pursuing the truth.
Elina I'd love to see you evaluate various reactor designs. One I'm quite interested in is Westinghouse's 450MWe Lead Fast Reactor. It will be able to be used as a waste burner & includes supercritical CO2 thermal storage.
Hi Elina, your video's are a perfect combination of knowledge and humour they always put a smile on my face while I learn something. Thank you for doing what you do best!
I'm so glad! Thank you for your comment 👩🏽🔬☢️
Elina I agree Sabine using a mix of SI units and US Customary for 2 separate dimensions is unusual. Just a quick estimate that 20 feet is around 6 meters. So SMR of 3 meters by 6 meters.
@@mikeet69 the subtitles actually said 20 metres, I think she probably just misspoke. If you look at the diagram it's definitely closer to 7x as tall as it is wide than 2x!
@@cactustactics Okay. I did not have subtitles turned on so I did not know. I was just surprised to hear the mixed units.
@@mikeet69 oh I mean the subs that were visible on Sabine's vid - I'm guessing she changed the units instead of matching what she said as a way to correct it. In the UK it's pretty typical to mix metric and imperial units in general conversation, maybe she picked up a bit of that!
Very interesting to get your perspective. Where I live (New Brunswick, Canada), the power company just did a big publicity release for their small (modular?) reactor initiative. I believe we already use wind (there are relatively reliable winds at the head of the Bay of Fundy), but not as much solar that I know of. I agree that each area and situation is unique and that, in general, a mix of sources (and storage) is the best strategy.
The greatest problem for this sort of subject, and indeed most other subjects, is that people simply do not THINK! They follow and do not open their eyes to the principle of unintended consequences. Great video, and it is a must to watch Sabine's and your video. Each is exceptional in their content. ... now I must go try to find the opposite argument for the balance and so that I can THINK!
"thinking" is a lie. There is no such thing as "thinking". _Then what is my brain doing when I am trying to solve a problem?_ I hear you ask. Simple: same thing it always does, repeat what it knows and see what sticks. That is all. You are either learning or repeating what you already know. That is why you need to do multiplication on paper for hundreds of times: your brain learns, you learn, how to do it. After that, you repeat the steps. Same thing with your multiplication tables. Same with writing letters. You either _learn_ or _repeat_ That is why you can not consciously walk. You've learned it once, now it is completely out of your control. You do not even know _why_ 7x7 is 49, you just remembered it. There's more, but I'm bored and it's youtube...
@@GeorgeTsiros um... I guess you must once have been Plato in another life, but then I suppose he was a thinker! I honestly haven't got a scoobie doo what you are on about or what your point is. You are correct... I got bored too reading your thoughts... I think!
@@selianboy8508 okay, how about this: people repeat what they've learned, been taught or gotten used to. There is no "thinking" involved.
@@GeorgeTsiros ?que? I have no idea as to your argument...
@@selianboy8508 Would you prefer if I made one last attempt, or if I just stopped? (honest question. I wish to explain but I also would like to avoid annoying you)
4:45 This bit reminded me of a (possibly apocryphal) story about the time that Denver, Colorado had a tsunami warning. Apparently, when they installed their new Emergency Alert System, some technician accidentally connected one wire in the wrong spot, but it wasn't caught until after every television in a city famous for being an entire mile above sea level interrupted peoples' shows to tell them they were about to get hit with a giant wave of seawater.
Normally, hydro comes with its own storage. That is its primary advantage, but this source is also almost 100% maximized.
Yep, at today's prices, all of the resources that can be utilized to pay back their costs are already pretty much in use. If something costs more to make and run than it returns there is no sense investing in it. In theory there is more available, but not practically.
@17:15 What I think is the biggest omission in regards to the economics of nuclear power is that the rising price of construction is a direct consequence of the shutdown of the nuclear industry. If/once the renaissance of nuclear power occurs, the economics of scale will almost inevitably reverse the trend. Also heightened regulatory burden has steered the industry towards larger facilities with greater economic risks, something that the SMR technology is specifically addressing.
liked a few of your videos. so i hit that subscribe button! your video's are very interesting
It’s green,....and natural! Do an episode on the naturally occurring fission reactor found in the Oklo mine in West Africa
Naturally occurring yes but it's not fissioning rn so yeah but I get what you meant
Nuclear power is not green. It's fuel is relatively compact, but you have to transport it hundreds of times, for thousands of km each time, back and forth. What am I talking about? Reprocessing. Iran wanted to reprocess, and Trump lost his mind. The solution? Fly it to Russia, have them reprocess it, and fly it back. Except that now, Russia is under sanctions. Don't reprocess is not a solution. That means using 1% of the fuel, then bury the other 99% as high intensity radioactive waste, for tens of thousands of years.
@@danielch6662 it's called a breeder reactor and also nuclear power is green
@@danielch6662 I burn ultra low sulfur high quality anthracite coal mined almost literally outside my back door. I pick it up in a rented truck at the mine. No drilling, pumping, transporting, refining, distributing, then delivering of oil. I figure that fact makes burning anthracite coal relatively green,.....in my specific situation. No natural gas available in my area. Saving up for a geothermal heat pump. Unfortunately, installing one is prohibitively expensive. One ton of coal is less than $300 ( that’s high for coal at the mine) and has the same amount of “heat” as a standard 275 gallon tank of fuel oil.....which costs almost $1000 to fill these days. 😳
@@jasonrichardson1999 Nuclear power isn't exactly "green". It's definetly better than most fossil fuels. But green? It's not a renewable energy source.
Fukushima changed the risk analysis of Nuclear Power plants even in Finland. The the risk evaluation used to be that e.g. flooding must be designed for natural events that happen randomly once in 10000 years. Since the Fukushima that number is now 100000 years for most parts of the design. As a result, they built yet another backup power station for emergency cooling for very very rare events. (If I remember correctly, they previously had 4 backup power stations with full flood protection and they built 5th backup station on a nearby hill make sure it can never flood.) And as a Finn, I have to add that in my opinion, burying the spent fuel from light water reactors into the ground is simply stupid. I agree that some spent fuel is good to bury but the stuff that could be still used in everything else but light water reactors seems silly for me. It's like drilling oil, manufacturing jet fuel and burying diesel and gasoline into the ground because those are waste side-products.
Loving this video
Excellent presentation. Well done.
We were advised in Zagreb, Croatia to stay indoors, close windows etc. I was (not very) young physicist then, and the chance had it that we just completed a study of radon concentrations in basements and buildings made of locally sourced concrete or brick in Zagreb area. To make long story short, increased radiation exposure from radon accumulating in poorly ventilated rooms, especially in basements or ground floors of buildings without basement was _much_ higher (but still tiny) compared to radiation from Chernobyl, at least if you refrained from rolling in the grass after rain.
We ware not even aloud in the Netherlands to drink milk for 2 months...or eat fresh vegetables only frozen or out a glass jar..
@@peterang6912 Another overreaction. Has anyone even bothered to even measure supposed added activity in milk? I guess they were primarily concerned about strontium-90 which, to be fair, _is_ chemically somewhat similar to calcium (so it can, conceivably, be extracted into milk and then incorporated into bones), has long-ish half-life of about 29 years (compared to 8 days for iodine-131), and releases 546 keV beta particles (electrons) which are strongly ionizing. I read somewhere that there is still a measurable (but not dangerous - physicists are good at measuring tiny amounts of anything) amount of Sr-90 in fish in the Baltic Sea.
@@bazoo513 i understand that some government guys in white suits walking around the cows with those geiger counters, they calculated true the wind direction where the nuclear fallout fall on the ground in the Netherlands... And those farms were visited by government employees...They had to destroy all the crops on the land and all the milk that was milked in the last 48 hours..
@@peterang6912 Hmmm.... then probably not ever-reaction, after all.
Elina, this was a very good video. I watch a lot of Sabine, I typically agree with most of what she says. She offers well researched, reasoned, and logical arguments in her videos. The information is usually presented in a very organized and straightforward way and Sabine's opinions are not "knee jerk" but are well thought out and scientifically informed. I think your videos are, in this way, similar to Sabine's. Well reasoned and thought out and always informed by science. I'm a physicist and an electrical engineer so this of course appeals to me. Sabine covers a broader range of topics from the realm of physics than you do but then Sabine doesn't bill herself as our "friendly physicist" either. 😁 I very much enjoy your videos as well and I believe you fill a very valuable niche. As Sabine pointed out, people are in many ways irrationally afraid of anything nuclear and your videos do a lot to combat that irrational fear by replacing it with knowledge. In a friendly nuclear physicist way. 😊
Huge fan of Sabine. Recently found your channel loving the content so far! Absolutely agree that we should be using all technologies available together to continue to improve and iterate upon energy technologies.
Sabine is supporting mainstream nonsense!
@@C_R_O_M________ That doesn't invalidate the proper information she puts out though. Never go looking for unicorns, and always keep a pinch of salt around even when you seem to agree with someone on most points they have.
Except the ones that contaminate hundreds of square miles with radioactive reactor fuel when they are attacked with a cruise missile, or someone does not run them properly. Except nuclear, in short.
I've just discovered your channel. Love the videos.
I give the video two thumbs up, if I had the option. Thorough breakdown, and great additional commentary.
Much appreciated! Thank you so much 👩🏽🔬☢️
Make multiple accounts and give it five thumbs up. Sorry just kidding. 😋
Sabine's weekly Science News is the best overview there is, about what's currently going on in science, and it is also extremely entertaining, without being superficial. She's one of the best science communicators of our time.
She fills a bit of the void left by the end of Discovery's Daily Planet. I remember how they would interview all of these scientists that were blown away by the idea that television wanted to long form interviews with them. Sabine could easily evolve into a longer format.
It's decently fine, only...
@@Jivifair she really likes to straw man Avi Loeb, and others who disagree with her. It's kinda annoying. It's also expecially funny when she doesn't think free will exists, so according to her own viewpoint Avi doesn't have a choice about his views and neither does she.
@@99EKjohn debate is part of the process. No one is right about everything. It’s easy to claim your right about sensational ideas that can’t be proven.
@@GuinessOriginal Debate is part of the process, but you have to understand the argument to debate it. Free will axiomatically exists, you have to use it to argue against it. Avi just says we should check better for the possibility of finding life outside earth, and has come up with some good experiments for doing that.
I respect both of you so much, love that you endorse Sabine.
Subbed to your channel immediately on this video -also you are very kind on an old man's eyes 😁
I just came across Sabine yesterday, and am delighted with her sensible way of thinking things through, not to mention her presentation. Elina came up in the sidebar, so I clicked, and was similarly impressed with well-organized and well-researched work (and equally good presentation). I look forward to more of both of them. While today's video indeed put a new perspective on waste for me (which was always my biggest issue), my fears have now shifted to the number of steps in the supply chain that will be distorted and abused in the arenas of business and politics. Democracy provides for the spread of ignorance and abuse, especially when the matters at hand are beyond the grasp of the voting public. Those things are outside of the scope of discussion in both channels, but they do play a part in the biggest picture. Enlightened autocracy is really the best form of governance -- until power is assumed by the heir or next apparatchik in line, at which point tragedy ensues -- so I remain cautiously democratic, with the understanding that it must always yield results reflecting a low common denominator. (I'm in the US, so that might color my point of view. Some other countries might be different, but I've never lived anywhere else.)
Please tell Mr. Biden not to send any more weapons to Ukraine where they are used to shell the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia. Maybe tell him stop regime change, medding in other countries's affairs and wars altogether? Thank you!
@@klauskarpfen9039 I doubt Biden knows what day of the week it is, so it needs to be told to his puppet masters.
Energy storage is a fascinating topic, probably worth revisiting again in 5y. Right now there are lots of claims and products just entering the stage, and it's impossible to tell whether they will hold their promises.
iron batteries. Exide has been making them for many years. idiots all over the US are using lithium! What a bunch of putzes! For fixed battery installations!
If you’re talking about large capacity battery storage, then they’ve been mainstream for over 10 years now, and still going strong. Google Renault Z0E and Nissan Leaf for evidence of their battery longevity (early Leafs excluded, as they didn’t have effective heating/cooling which has since been addressed).
thanks, Sabine and Elina
Great video :) thanks :)
I have already seen Sabine's video, and it's great to see you approve 🙂 This is one of the most interesting videos I have seen in a while, and both you and Sabine have turned me towards a more positive view of nuclear power. I imagine the smaller units would be less dangerous in the case of an earth quake? I'm thinking like boats. Little boats get tossed about in big or freak waves but are far less likely to break in half and sink than the very much larger tankers and cargo ships.
Sabine's videos are fantastic. They are smart, funny, and she has super-villan levels of sarcasm when pointing out stupid things.
She is irritating, with a Western European elitist tone in her voice and she just supports mainstream narratives. Show me ONE instance where she disagrees with mainstream narratives. She's a parrot in that respect. Greenhouse effect parrot without acknowledging the fact that the greenhouse theory was NEVER proven experimentally, it is ASSUMED and incorporated in models. NEVER proven!
"They measured death rates in.. deaths per kilowatt-hour" killed me 😂
She’s also somewhat terfy
@Shawn Morris she isnt, and it shouldnt be a big deal if she was. Women deserve to have women-only spaces
@@nestorv7627 sup terf
it is important video to verify information from other people. Much better than usual react videos
Sabine is great. I watch her weekly news stuff, with her dry sense of humor and sass. Her longer science videos are great too, even if many of them are over my head.
In fact is 3 m diameter and 20 m tall (20 feet was just a misspoke from Sabine)
Great video as always! Could we get you and Sabine in a video reacting to....well, just about anything?
Hehe that’s an awesome idea! I’m down if Sabine is☢️👩🏽🔬
Very nice, balanced view. My father was an electrical estimator who worked a lot on costing power plants. I remember once asking him what the best energy source was. He laughed and said there is no best - only the best for the conditions. Another interesting thing was his view on the safety of electricity generation. He mentioned he would not like to be in the path of one of the turbines if the bearing it spun on failed.
Keep up the good work, I love your channel. I've always been fascinated by nuclear energy. I even snuck into the Chernobyl zone alone once.
One of the hardest lessons I have ever learned was "The biggest problem with Statistics is "Knowing what question is worth asking", and/or "Deciding on what you actually need to ask". Less hard, but almost more enlightening, was "There are lies, damned lies, and Statistics."
Top comment! I fear most people don't recognize the profound knowledge, the beauty of your comment. Comparable to me, as I ignored for decades the meaning of the question of Einstein, what differs an astronaut and a man, who is falling from a roof (the answer is nothing, they are floating without force). As you already wrote, the second phrase is more easily understandable, but not more correct.
The biggest problem is actually people not understanding the difference between correlation and causation. It isn't that statistics lie, rather people are too stupid to use them, too stupid to understand them, and too stupid to use enough variables in relation to the subject. Especially when it comes to likely hood of events.
Sabine is probably the best scientific communicator I follow. She's the most objective, rational (even when irrational subjects are involved), and has a laser focus when explaining a subject (so far everything I've seen of hers). This laser-focus is actually extremely important, because for regular people like me - we don't have high capacity of understanding complex scientific subjects anyway (yes some people might have some more knowledge in a subject or two, but another will have in different subjects - the average isn't as high as an expert in the field would be). So far even difficult subjects have been clearly explained, and what I really appreciate - there's no speculation or unfound assumptions (like for example many Standard QM videos are). It's nice to see to have such overlap of views with Elina. This is the first video of your I'm watching but I'm interested to see more. However in the beginning, when you said that currently there's no technology to store the energy from renewables (Solar, Wind ...) and to smoothen the Duck curve (ie to cover the periods when energy demand exceeds the energy supply). Besides batteries actually there are several technologies. Li-ion batteries are actually one of the more polluting energy storage techs. That and the current cost of Li-ion is what limits it to become the main solution. One that's older than li-ion batteries is pumped-hydro. But since pumped-hydro requires specific terrain and it affects wider areas there are solutions on the same principle but more adaptable. One is to drill deep vertical shafts and use materials much heavier than water as ballast. The advantage is it's still low tech (or operation; perhaps a little more mid-tech level of drilling), easier to scale as long as you don't have many restrictions in drilling in the area. There's the solution of storing energy in rotating disks/cylinders (aka flywheel energy storage). Historically flywheel-storage had many energy losses and high risk of malfunction on high rpms, but with modern techs controlling friction and precision of the axis of rotation the potential has been increased greatly. Flywheels while currently aren't the most long-term storage they're the biggest "batteries" that can release their energy the soonest. But what's one of the most universal techs is heat (& also cryo) storage. Nowadays they can be very well insulated in order to minimize thermal losses, and a temp. difference (in case of hybrid Cryo+Hot storages) of about 600°C can deliver theoretical max. efficiency of ~88% (in case us using liquid air/nitrogen @-196°C & Hot tank @ ~400°C), or real world efficiency of at least 55%. Yes most alternative energy storage solutions have considerably lower efficiency than Li-ion batteries. But unlike Li-ion batteries some are really low-tech and have almost zero amortization (while batteries have rather limited lifecycle and their production is both relatively expensive & polluting). Heat can be stored easily in sand or rocks, and insulation is also cheap and low-tech (like Starlite clones made from household ingredients. Nasa uses very similar solution as heat shield on the Parker Solar Probe - carbon foam, which happens to be the product of burning Starlite-like materials). Of course the best solutions as temp. insulators are air-gels but they're still tricky to produce and not very strong for long term use. Also using concentrated solar power (CSP) is much cheaper than PV panels and even after collection, storage, regeneration can still reach at least double the efficiency of (single-junction) PV panels. And the lower efficiency (compared to Li-ion batteries) can be easily compensated by harvesting more sunlight. Of course that would take much more surface than a nuclear power plant, but the only losses of these surfaces are that the area below them would have very little light left. Real-world efficiency of that cycle CSP-HeatStorage-ReGeneration could even increase with tech improvements as they're currently not mass produced and only designed case by case. Low-tech solutions that have little restriction to place is also more competitive than highly safe modern nuclear power plant.
CSP with molten salt allows for 24 hours of power generation by a plant. And already doing so since 2011 I believe.
She's also the only source I've found with an actual explanation for the quantum eraser double slit experiment
@@blackstream2572 , I don't think she's the only one - I've seen the same explanation (which finally make sense) from others too, but she definitely is one of the most rational ones.
i was on board with this video until she said this, this is a very bad take on her part, renewable storage is highly competitive and there are many options that are good at the moment, the jury is merely out on which one is best and people are stalling on investing into them because they're all expecting a big breakthrough soon so wanna save their investment for that, but renewable storage is a solved problem in many and/or most cases (it of course varies by many factors such as regional resources and type of renewable, while hydro and air compression storage work great in some regions, they work terribly in others as an example). Batteries help to fill the gap of the hardest regions/circumstances to store energy in, but energy storage is one of those fields where there is no single answer. The answer is 400 types of energy storage each being used in different regions and conditions.
I like how the background music started when discussing nuclear safety, then stopped after the safety class was over. Great job Elina. I'm impressed and my concerns are comforted.
Two of my favourite physicists in a single video.
Excellent video (both Sabine and you). Maybe one day you could crack the numbers on the cost? Why did they go up so much? Did the cost of steel and concrete go up, are the safety requirements higher now than in the past or is there a corrupt monopoly driving up the cost?
I think some factors for price going up would be inflation, all the carbon taxes type of policies, and globalization. Inflation is an obvious one. Things got a lot more expensive in the last few years. Like a lot. The carbon taxes didn't help, as they make fuel more expensive. Which drives the cost of transportation, which also makes the prices of everything go up. So you get that all the base material cost more. Skilled workers cost more. Etc. Nuclear isn't as well established or "simple" like coal or gas. So you already had to pay a premium, it's just that this premium has been inflated even more by everything happening in the last decade. And then you get globalism. Nuclear tends to be a more "local" or "strategic" thing. Politically speaking. Nuclear proliferation and all. Like, the US and the EU definitely don't want to have to depend on, say, Russia or China for their nuclear needs. The reverse is also true. So you have to deal in your market, with all the regulations and higher costs. Compare that to solar or wind or coal. With globalization, the factories/mines can be set up in countries with little to no regulations to absorb the costs. It's not as big an issue if international relations break down in those cases. It just boils down to finding a new supplier. Nuclear needs _expertise_ to run properly and not just resources. Plus, I think a _lot_ of solar panels are manufactured in China. With ressources mined in Africa. And let's be real, those areas don't have the best workers rights, or ecological policies. So costs can stay low, if you are willing to close your eyes to whatever happens over there. TL;DR: Inflation and policies definitely played a role (indirectly, at least) in making nuclear more expensive. And those cost increase can't be sidestepped by moving manufacturing to less regulated countries outside of North America or the EU.
32:30 I think Sabine misspoke here. The nuscale reactors are 3 meters in diameter and 20 meters tall (9x60 feet), not twenty feet tall.
You get it !!! It’s so encouraging to see young people with a broad rational view of an emotionally charged subject. I did the calculations for a wind farm to replace a 1GW nuclear reactor. The wind farm would need 8 GW of panels, at least 50GWh of storage. 8 GW of panels would cover 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares). Cost would be close to $20 billion US for panels, land, infrastructure, and storage. There would also be very substantial annual maintenance costs because of the scale of infrastructure. In comparison a 1GW natural gas generating plant is about $1.2B with annual operating cost of about $200M including gas. The interest cost alone of the equivalent solar plant would be $1.5B, and likely another $0.5B in operation and maintenance. We also need to consider that all this infrastructure is built with fossil fuels. The largest producer of nuclear reactors is the US Navy. They’ve never had an accident and their reactors don’t need refueling for up to 30 years. Cost for their reactors is about $2 billion per GW. (Their reactors are 675MW thermal, so 0.4 GW electricity) People FAR underestimate what it takes to truly eliminate fossil fuels. 83% of all energy used comes from fossil fuels. Replacing with green sources is eye wateringly expensive. As you said, every source is needed. Not everyone is going to like it, the choice they have is how much do you want to pay? Nuclear is far cheaper than any renewable.
I have just found your channel and love to hear from the people who know the subject. I have watched Sabine before as she also seems to have a balanced view. I have done what I can with my home to move to electric and have supported the idea of smaller modular Reactors for power. As much as I want wind and solar, I know we must replace coal and oil. So great to hear that my eunderstanding is sound. Thank you and now subscribed!
Well, expensive... as she said just before that, you need to include storage. And storage is at least 150$/MWh (I can find my source study later if asked). Unfortunately short memory here but that's why LCOE is not enough to compare the costs. You need a full system cost, and a cost for CO2 which could around 5000$/t according to an old estimate I've read (same, I can look for it again on sincere request). Also, sodium is reactive with water yes, but it's basically the only thing you have to worry about and in particular it's not corrosive. Besides, it does have nice properties whenim it comes to fluidity, heat transfer, etc. So it's not as trivially bad as I though first hand. I'm also not convinced by taking the cost a "first build" as the reference price of something, in particular when the goal is to mass produce afterwards.
I think you meant 150$/KWh not per MWh, right? One data point I have is the powerpack Tesla built in Australia a few years ago. It cost about $66 million and has a capacity of 129MWh, so about $500 per KWh, but Lithium Ion batteries are not the cheapest form of storage.
@@listerdave1240 per MWh consumed, not of capacity, sorry for the confusion. It was for pumped water, which is around 70% efficiency, something to take in account, as to get back 1MWh you also have to produce 1/0.7=1.48MWh
@@nwrked Thanks for the clarification.
Small modular reactors: Great idea if you want to worsen the surface to volume ratio (more irradiated reactor hull material per kWh, yay!) and want to require more personnel, probably meaning less qualified personnel...
The personnel issue is going to be a factor anyway, if there is any expansion of nuclear power.
then if thats your concern instead of factories you build them in shipyards...and make bigger ones, like a 500MW barge type reactor that ThorCon is planning heh, this still has the benefit of reducing the cost to build and build time.
True that. But I see it as a trade off of efficiency for flexibility, which seems to be a real issue for the big traditional plants. It drive's me nuts when perfectly good nuke plants are decommissioned, like the one in Kewanee Wi recently (Dominion Energy). Could have setup a water splitting plant right there on the shore of the lake and had bulk shipping by water available. However, all those infrastructure projects are expensive, and since the real cost of "cheap" fraked gas isn't included in the up-front price (yet), no one want's to pay to keep the plant in service. Hopefully the small modular designs could lower the thresholds to deploy, decom or maybe even relocate power?
@@user-pd5ot4zd4b SMRs also offer the CHANCE of starting a cycle of improvement through constant iteration of designs, which has been a big driver in the technical improvement of solar panels over the past 2 decades. You just can't do that with traditional nuclear plants - they are all big, one-off projects.
you completely missed one of the benefits of modular reactors: they will be moved to and from service centers where robots will do the bulk of the work
Thanks Elina!
The big problem is the one that Elina brought up with the Lia Radiological Accident video: the handling and tracking of radiological materials when the governments of the world are not exerting sufficient monitoring, regulation, control and punishment of violators who allow radiological materials to be "lost".
Thanks for doing this! Sabine has done well in the past but I feel like her quality is slipping as she tries to produce more frequent content; good to have people to check her work.
She spans across a lot of industries and technical disciplines, not every video can be a deep dive like this one. I know what you mean though.