Nuclear Energy: Abundant, Clean, and Safe | 5 Minute Video

If you truly want to save the planet from global warming, there’s one energy source that can do it. It’s not wind or solar. It’s not coal, oil or natural gas, either. So what is it? Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress, has the answer in this important video.

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Script:

France gets 70% of its power from one carbon-free source. Sweden 40%. Switzerland 36%. The United States 20%.

For those who wish to create a world free of carbon emissions, France is clearly the role model. 

That source of energy, by the way, is not solar or wind. It’s not coal, oil or natural gas, either.

It’s nuclear. 

Nuclear energy is not only cleaner than all other forms of energy. It’s also cheaper to create, abundant and safe. 

Yes, safe.

So, if the world is going to end in a few years because of global warming due to rising CO2 levels, why aren’t we going all out to produce this abundant, clean and safe form of energy? Why aren’t there dozens of nuclear power plants in development all over the world? 

Well, we all know the answer, right? Nuclear energy is just too risky… too dangerous.

So, even though we’re told we’re facing an “existential crisis”—which means humans may cease to exist; even though we might all wither away in unbearable heat; or starve because of world-wide droughts; or drown in rising seas; or be killed in Mad Max-style riots—nuclear energy is off the table… because… it’s too darn risky. 

Hmmm.

I want to be sure I have this right. The goal is to save humanity…There’s a way to save humanity…And we won’t take it. Because we’re afraid, there might be a bad accident… or something. 

Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn’t to me.  

But maybe I’m not giving enough weight to the safety argument, so let’s take a closer look at that since no one, not even the most radical environmentalist, disputes that nuclear power produces massive amounts of energy cleanly and efficiently. 

Safety, like everything else, is a matter of context. So, here’s some context. 1.4 million people die worldwide every year in traffic accidents, 2.3 million in work-related accidents, 4.2 million from air pollution. Deaths directly related to nuclear power? Under 200—not annually but in the entire history of the nuclear power industry. 

But what about those famous nuclear disasters we’ve all heard so much about? Didn’t they poison untold thousands? Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011. 

Okay, let’s deal with each one.  

Three Mile Island:

There was an accident at the plant, yes, but the amount of radiation that leaked was no more than one might receive taking a chest x-ray. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged as much four weeks after the initial media hysteria died down. “We goofed,” the commission told Congress.  “There was no danger of any hydrogen explosion.'' But that didn’t grab the headlines. 

Chernobyl: 

The accident developed into a catastrophe only because of pitiful safety procedures unique to the Soviet Union. It would never have occured in the West. Even so, initial reports of radiation leakage turned out to be grossly exaggerated. According to the World Health Organization, “As of mid-2005”—that’s 19 years after the explosion—“fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster.” 

Fukushima:

In 2011, as a result of an earthquake and tsunami, the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was destroyed, and nuclear radiation was released. Yet, despite the media hysteria, not one person at the power plant died because of radiation leaks. The deaths that occurred in the area were the result of the tsunami. 

Well, what about nuclear waste? Surely that’s terribly harmful. 

Actually, no. All the nuclear waste ever generated in the US can fit on a single football field stacked less than seventy feet high. It’s easily and safely buried in steel canisters encased in concrete. 

[EmperorHelix]

I was a US Navy submariner who lived next to a nuclear reactor while serving. Several days when I woke up freezing, I went to the engine room and hugged the reactor wall to warm up; I was protected by the shielding and the NFO tank. My rad dosage exposure was .004 milliREM throughout my entire career onboard, which is less exposure than 20 minutes in the sun.

Nuclear power, when maintained correctly, is extremely safe.

[thearisen]

Nuclear is the future, especially when people actually understand it. For starters, people need to understand that nuclear power is not the same as it was 50 - 40 years ago. Current tech reactors, Gen 3, are passively safe. That means they literally cannot meltdown due to the way they're designed. It's impossible by the laws of physics. No one is talking about building 50 year old reactor designs in 2020. Talking about Chernobyl as some kind of reason to not build modern reactors is like using WW1 era biplanes to argue against modern jets.

"Waste" is a complete mislabel. For starters it still has over 90% of it's energy potential left. Aside from the fact it can be recycled, there are generation 4 reactors that can use it which would drastically reduce the half llife(Time it would be stored) and the amount of material. Contrast that with non-recyclable wind mill blades that will wear out.

One of the big problems with "renewables" is how much land they need to even begin to handle our power needs. To produce 225MWe Wind would need 60, 000 acres, Solar needs 2400 acres and Nuclear just 15 acres.

As some point out, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. That translates into Capacity Factor. According to the Dept. of Energy, Wind has a C.F. of 34.8% with Solar at 24.5%. Nuclear on the other hand blows them away with a C.F. of 93.5%! And that's set to get even higher with the newest reactor designs. This is one of the reasons that Solar/Wind never operate without fossil fuel backup. California for example gets almost 50% of it's power from Natural Gas which is better than coal but does emit CO2. NatGas btw has a C.F. of just 56.8% so it too is inferior to Nuclear.

In short, the only type of power that can both eliminate CO2 and reliably power our growing nation is Nuclear. For now we have fission, but some day we'll get fusion and when we do it will be the height of stupidity to use anything other than fusion.

[TeraQuad]

Especially with Gen 3+ and Gen 4 Reactors coming online. The energy output is extremely efficient.

[matejmarkic]

The first PragerU video concerning the environment that I 100% agree with

[rinrinsparkles]

And Andrew yang was the only Democrat who supported Nuclear energy 😞

[Vidhur]

Not-so-fun fact about the Fukushima tsunami: it was caused by an earthquake over 9 on the scale of Richter. Just for a comparison, the Haiti tsunami of 2010 was a 7 on the scale of Richter. Just let that sink in, what it takes to cause a meltdown in a reactor: a failed communist government or one of the largest tsunami's of our time.

[maxyi]

They will collect nuclear tax after this becomes popular.

[ddubya]

If this is about the benefits of nuclear energy, I am all in.
Small footprint, minimal waste, clean steam energy.
These are steam stations, quite simply.
No coal ash, no drilling, and safer.
We have had unregulated nuclear energy in our country since WWII, until the Seventies.
We have had no real disasters.
Brown’s Ferry and Three Mile Island were nothing burgers.
Our country’s dislike for nuclear energy is embarrassing.
The Chinese have fully embraced it.
Fossil fuels, derived from buried organic material, is clearly limited.
If fossil fuel were readily available, why are we having to frack for it?
Why has nuclear power generation disappeared from development?
Why is it we trust our military naval fleet to run on nuclear powered vessels yet we eschew them domestically?
If you love electric powered motor vehicles, you should storm the streets demanding nuclear energy!

[jordanhendrix]

I live 40 miles from a nuclear power plant. My pastor works there. I feel completely safe. There is no danger.

[georgelabe-assimo]

Holy crap! A PragerU video that I can agree with unironically!

[jeremyrossi]

Legit the only other viable option of “clean energy” is geothermal and that relies on geography that the US doesn’t have except for some of the western states like Hawaii

[lordbooben]

PragerU: "Hey this resource is abundant and safe"
Greta Thunberg: "How dare you!?!?!!"

[anonymousshitposter]

I’ve always support nuclear power, and I’m glad that Prager U does too. It clearly is the energy of the future, having no impact on the environment, and being extremely efficient.

[MolecularArts]

The main reason I left the green movement: their blatant lying about atomic energy.

[MrPinkDino]

I have never in my life heard a single argument against nuclear plants that didn't turn out to be completely false and always other energy sources did much worse in the subject

[fourfore]

Left: Follow the science.
Right: Okay
Left: Just not atomic science.

[GreyWolfLeaderTW]

Every leftist remembers Chernobyl and thinks every nuclear reactor can blow the way Chernobyl did.
Problem is, Chernobyl was not a Western nuclear design power-plant, it was a uniquely cheap Soviet design which, unlike inherent failsafes in the West that use water to fuel the nuclear reaction (and thus if the water gets too hot and boils away, the reactor shuts down as the nuclear reactions activated by the water stop), used graphite as the basis for its heat-regulating control rods. When the reactor overheated during the botched safety test, the graphite fuel rods were reinserted, began to burn since graphite is pure carbon, and this caused the explosion at the plant. Western nuclear power plants do not use graphite control rods.

[theaxolotlgod]

Finally they came out with a video on the best option, nuclear.

[justanothercommentor]

Prager U, I may strongly disagree with you most of the time but I think regardless of political affiliations we can all agree the nuclear energy is amazing!

[kaede]

Saw him at TED Talk years back, glad he made it to Prager U exposing the truth about nuclear power.