Do we Need Nuclear Energy to Stop Climate Change?

do we need nuclear energy to stop climate change more and more voices from science environmental activists and the press have been saying so in recent years but this comes as a shock to those who are fighting against nuclear energy and the problems that come with it so who's right well it's complicated to slow rapid climate change the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in 2018 three quarters of global emissions were released through energy production namely by burning fossil fuels energy is a broad term that describes all sorts of stuff from moving things and people around to putting things big and small together or heating our homes currently 84 percent of the world's primary energy comes from fossil fuels 33 from oil 27 from coal and 24 from gas around 10 of the global oil supply is just used to burn in boilers to make our homes cozy and warm only about 16 of global energy is from low emission sources almost 7 from hydroelectric 5 from solar wind bio energy wave tidal and geothermal combined and about four percent from nuclear so we pretty much rely on coal oil and gas to keep our civilization going which means it's actually very hard to transition away from them to have a chance of escaping fossil fuels without throwing humanity back into the stone age one of the most impactful things we can do is to electrify as many sectors as possible electricity is the stuff that appears like magic when you plug something into a socket so you can watch youtube every industry that can switch from burning fossil fuels to electricity needs to do so from electric cars to electric heaters why do we need to bet so hard on electricity because we can produce electricity with low emission technologies like solar wind or nuclear so electricity is a real lever for a radical transition but there are a few problems making this transition really hard first of all in most places in the world electricity is still generated mostly by burning fossil fuels and not only that in the last 20 years the world's electricity usage increased 73 in absolute terms while we are installing renewables at record speeds at the same time the amount of fossil fuel we're burning for electricity still keeps rising year by year renewables have so far not been able to catch up with the demand for new electricity and so despite our progress emissions from electricity are still rising worldwide the other alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear and even though it's not renewable its greenhouse gas emissions are tiny compared to burning stuff but in the last 20 years nuclear has basically stagnated countries like china india and south korea built new reactors while germany and japan have been actively taking their nuclear plants offline which seems a bit weird if we look at the countries with the most low carbon electricity in the world that get most of their juice mainly from two sources nuclear or hydropower take france and sweden in france only around 10 percent comes from fossil fuels while 67 comes from nuclear and 23 from renewables primarily hydro in sweden almost 30 comes from nuclear power and about 45 from hydro so we know that nuclear energy can work at scale on the technical side because of the lack of investment and innovation in the last few decades the majority of the world's nuclear reactors are pretty old technology that's very costly to replace in most western countries building nuclear reactors has become very expensive for a variety of reasons like a loss of know-how in constructing them policy changes and increased regulatory constraints so it can take a decade or longer just to finish a power plant in contrast countries like south korea china india and russia are able to build new nuclear reactors comparatively quickly and at a competitive cost still generally in the west the current generation of nuclear power plants are more expensive to build and maintain the most fossil fuel alternatives there are also the concerns about nuclear waste and the fear of accidents but we cover those in other videos in more detail we have designs for nuclear reactors that solve many of their problems namely small reactors that take less time and money to get started there are also next generation technologies that can already turn radioactive waste into new fuel but so far these have not been deployed at a scale where they can have a significant impact on the nuclear sector considering these uncertainties some argue that nuclear power is a dangerous relic of the past and that we should just let it go and focus on renewables but while renewables undoubtedly are the future of electricity they still have their own huge challenges to overcome before they can take over the vast majority of the electricity grid the main problem is reliability and consistency it's not always windy and the sun doesn't always shine especially in the mornings and evenings when humans need the most electricity the variations between seasons don't make this issue easier to make renewables reliable and not risk blackouts we need massive storage capacities where we can save energy collected when the sun or wind are at their peak and release it later when we actually need it until this is possible other sources of electricity need to provide a controllable load that creates the reliability of supply that our civilization needs to run properly eventually we will be able to do this with renewables but we need a lot of batteries or storage power plants right now we simply don't have the tech and the capacities to make this transition fast enough to replace fossil fuels but even if we could there's another aspect we have to take into account we're not just trying to kick fossil fuels out of electricity we're trying to replace energy with electricity if we're going to electrify sectors that currently use fossil fuels like cars or heating we will need significantly more electricity than we're currently using everywhere around the world and if the electricity needs of the world population continue to grow as they have over the last 20 years we'll need even more it all comes down to one thing no energy source is perfect all have their own unique problems both renewables and nuclear energy require time investment and technological innovation on their own neither is ready to remove fossil fuels from our electricity grid although activists on both sides claim that they are in the end the question is how we want to deal with all these challenges should we give up nuclear immediately and at least temporarily accept higher emissions will we try to extend the life of current nuclear reactors and shut them down afterwards while solving the shortcomings of renewables or will we invest in new nuclear technology to get new nuclear reactor types that are cheaper and safer or will we maybe do both opinion part starts here considering the risks that climate change poses for the biosphere and humanity any technology that has a chance of contributing to a solution should be pursued that's just good risk management and strategy if preventing rapid climate change as quickly as possible is our goal it might be a good idea to see nuclear and renewables not as opponents but as partners we know there's no time to waste so we should keep all of our lower mission players on the field as things are both nuclear and renewables need innovation and investment but if we don't know yet which technology will be ready how quickly why not just invest in both and see what happens and on the topic of current capacities if we take nuclear energy offline right now then that missing capacity will be replaced at least partially by fossil fuels even if new nuclear power plants in the west are expensive in the long run it may be cheaper to build them as long as they prevent more fossil fuel capacity being added and paying for the consequences of rapid climate change so do we need nuclear energy well it really depends how hard we choose to make things for ourselves and in a world that's already having a really hard time quitting fossil fuels why should we make things harder than necessary starting the change process and trying something new is always difficult luckily you don't have to do it all on your own if you want to get out of a rut we've got something for you we are big fans of skillshare an online learning community that offers thousands of classes for all skill levels and tons of creative disciplines like illustration animation or film and video or you could try a class on home decoration growing houseplants or playing the guitar there's something for everyone really unlimited access to all the classes is less than ten dollars a month with an annual premium membership and the first one thousand cutscout viewers to click the link in the description will get a free trial since we started working with skillshare you our viewers have taken over 100 000 hours of classes including our own three skillshare classes on how we make our animations if you want to learn more about motion graphics give them a try and if you need an extra little push to get you going maybe get started with some advice on motivation and inspiration we liked the scientific method for artists find inspiration get motivated and grow your creative skills by kendall hillegas in this class kendall explains her four-phase process for exploring and figuring out your direction as an artist for us it was a great way to get into the flow of creating something but anything that makes you feel excited and sparks new ideas is a great first step if you want to get creative with new skills and support kotskazak give it a come go [Music]

Channel: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Views: 3,186,489

Rating: 4.9488735 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: EhAemz1v7dQ

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/crappyroads]

It's absolutely insane to me that nuclear is not experiencing bipartisan support in the US.

On the left, you sell it like this:

• It has extremely low carbon emissions
• It has an extremely good safety record in the US (and abroad)

On the right, you can say:

• It is a massive job creator, especially blue collar construction
• It reduces dependence of foreign oil
• It's a manly kind of power that was pioneered by the greatest generation before the dang liberals shut it down

On both sides you can say:

• WE ARE LITERALLY STARING DOWN THE BARREL OF A CIVILIZATION ENDING EVENT AND WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING WE POSSIBLY CAN TO SAVE OURSELVES AS A TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIES, DEAR GOD IS ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION!!!!

EDIT: Some very well reasoned people have brought to my attention that there is a growing and likely ignored issue with nuclear related to the economics of their deployment (https://www.rethinkx.com/energy-lcoe). I want to make it clear that Solar, Wind, and Battery technologies are likely going to be the future of large scale energy generation in the world and that's a good thing! I think most people here realize the fear of nuclear is overblown, but at the end of the day that might not matter and it will end up being economics that finally kills it. I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us.

[u/SonofRodney]

Even though I'm a renewable energy engineer, I have always supported nuclear in principle as I think a pragmatic view is way more important than idealogical feeling based decisions

However there a few arguments that make nuclear difficult for me to support. These being:

• The cost at this point is higher than almost any renewable source, and will propably not go down at a comparable speed
• they take a lot longer to build than renewable capacity, something like 3x as long
• most importantly the real issue, net co2 emission reduction, takes literal decades with nuclear. Until a nuclear plant saves more co2 than its construction and running produce, it takes between 20 and 30 years. Wind and solar in Comparison take less than a year. If we want to quickly and efficiently slash emissions building these two as fast as possible is way more effective. Even with building out the storage capacity renewables have an edge.

Imho what needs to be done with nuclear is primarily keeping old plants on the grid, quickly developing less centralised and cleaner/cheaper/more efficient variants, and long term planning to let them take up base load needs to support renewables.

All in all this is a very good video though, and it highlights the most important problem right now, which is that this shit is complicated. There's a lot to do, a lot to research, and the old times of just replacing an old power source with an easy new one are over.

[u/ByleBuzma]

I don’t understand why people treat renewables and nuclear like sports teams. I believe we need both in tandem.

[u/ricky616]

We're going to need a miracle

[u/Diffie-Hellman]

They’re describing in the opinion part what has already happened in Germany. With the shuttering of nuclear power plants, more coal plants have had to be brought online along with energy imported from mostly nuclear France. Citizens have seen increasing energy costs along with greater carbon emissions. Their idea is that this is temporary pain while renewables are built out. I don’t tend to agree with this reasoning myself.

[u/Infernalism]

The problem is that nuclear is carrying around too much baggage.

They have a well-documented history of cost and time overruns to a ridiculous degree. The last nuclear reactor built in the US took twice as long as promised at twice the price.

They have a problem with waste. The stuff is radioactive for what's effectively forever in regards to humanity and the current solution is to pack it into a single mountain and hope nothing goes wrong with the mountain.

But, their biggest problem is PR. There's an inherent fear associated with nuclear power. Hell, it's a goddamned tradition in American entertainment that nuclear power is dangerous and destructive. Blame the Simpsons or those cheesy Atomic Monster movies, or those nuclear waste zombie movies of the 80s. The nuclear industry made no effort to counteract that narrative and now, here we are. People won't live near one.

So, you have people who freak out over nuclear power, you have a real waste problem that'll never go away and an obscene amount of time and money is required before any investors see any return on their investments.

I don't see how you get around these issues. More to the point, investors don't see it, either. As I mentioned earlier, no one in the US is building nuclear reactors and most of those running are being phased out rather than being rebuilt and refit.

[u/TheDevilisabottom]

Nuclear has been deemed as not profitable in Sweden. One solution would be to nationalize the nuclear energy production and kick out profiteers. Must.open for fuel mining here too, can't depend on other countries to get our supply.

[u/radicallyhip]

I like how he was somehow bewildered about the fact that Japan is just so inexplicably shutting down nuclear reactors for some reason.

On a second note, what can be done with the waste? My understanding is it just ends up sealed away in abandoned mines and so forth, but maybe things are done differently now? The idea of toxic shit leeching out of scary, glowing barrels makes me worried about nuclear power, not that fossil fuels are any better in any way whatsoever. I feel like geothermal energy is going to end up a wildly more important provider of electricity within the span of this century. The sun gets hidden by clouds and ends up on the other side of the Earth at night, but the core of the world is always going to be toasty, at lesst for as long as humans are around.

[u/russellzerotohero]

I feel like everyone that actually knows about this stuff loves nuclear.