Is Solar Energy Really Better Than Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear energy is a cheap and relatively clean source of energy for the planet, but lately it has been mired in controversy. Solar energy is often brought up as alternative resource, but is it really better than nuclear energy? Which is better for the planet? Let’s find out in this battle of Nuclear Energy vs Solar Energy!

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[TheInfographicsShow]

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[ethand]

As a nuclear engineer I am glad you made this. Because of the few major (but contained) nuclear accidents most people discredit all the potentials for the future. If anyone has any question, please ask!

[JakeSnake]

2:18 WHOA WHOA WHOA, you're going to tell how ALL of the world's Solar Facilities produce 4810MW of power, but not how Belgium's 7 nuclear reactors ALONE produce 5913MW of power?

That's one thing that pisses me off about this channel. While most of the time you *seem* to make accurate comparisons, you have a tendency to do stuff like this when you want to make an argument seem closer than it actually is.

[vocalshogun]

1 ton of thorium is as powerful as 3.5 million tons of coal
NUCLEAR FTW

[pasw]

As someone who works as a nuclear engineer at a power plant... we have 12 different fallback methods in case something goes wrong. The probability of any US reactor causing direct harm to ANY people in modern day is almost non-existent!

[ShnoogleMan]

Nuclear energy is the way to go. But we should be building more Thorium reactors, not Uranium.

[jightning]

You missed the obvious.
Nuclear - 24/7 Solar - when the sun shines

[janjankovicjahoda]

And in France we are building the fusion reactor. If that goes well, every other energy source becomes obsolete. Go Humans :-)

[mqbitsko]

The question isn't "which is better." The question is "which can provide the energy we need.

I'm a fan of solar power. I work in the industry. My home is powered by solar. But I'm also a realist. Solar panels require rare materials to manufacture. They're ugly as sin. They're expensive. They're inefficient. To generate even a substantial percentage of our society's energy needs we'd have to cover enormous land areas with panels or collectors of some sort. The amount of energy that hits a given square foot of land in a year is not a mystery. And it's not nearly as much as people think. If you could magically covert solar to electricity at 100% efficiency you'd still have to turn the sunny bits of the Earth into a sea of solar panels. That is not possible by a long shot. What's more, you can't realistically STORE the energy. Unless you want the lights to go out at night, and every time a cloud floats by, you have to store excess energy. There will be no amazing breakthroughs in batter technology. Just some incremental improvements. Storing energy is not easy to do, and will never be cheap.

The ONLY long term solution is nuclear. Period. Accept it.

[carlelg]

Thought it was a kurzgesagt video. Was dissapointed.

[OptimalBlueberry]

Not only are your videos informational, but they present it in a very understandable way, and I really enjoy the animation style you chose. Keep up the great work!

[stefanz]

One stat that is quoted in this video that is very wrong is a solar powerplant's rated power. The power rating of a solar plant is meaningless. Given that a plant's rated power is theoretical, a solar plant almost never meets it's lofty expectation. German solar plants only have a capacity factor of just 11 percent for 2015. A capacity factor is calculated by dividing a plant's yearly power output by its rated value. Solar power plants score very poorly using capacity factor as a yardstick. The average American nuclear power plant has a capacity factor averaging about 93%.

[sould]

I feel that we need to at a minimum continue research into nuclear energy because stagnating research out of fear is never the right choice.

[MigA]

I like how everyone thinks that Nuclear Power Plants explode if they have a meltdown. They do not as for a nuclear explosion you need force from all directions in almost perfect sync to be able to split the atom. In a reactor meltdown, the material used starts a chain reaction that cannot be stopped. This will produce a massive amount of heat energy but the shell of the reactor chamber is made for this and would keep the most of the radiation in. This does not mean that everyone around it will be killed by radiation, but that they might have increased background radiation. In the end, the fissionable material will likely melt through the reactor if the coolant systems don't keep it within reasonable temperatures. It would then hit the main floor of the vessel protecting it and there it will be flooding with water (or some other coolant or method to keep it from getting too hot as designs vary) to cool it and keep it from melting through the concrete floor.

So, in the end, it means no BOOM and just melting shit. If the water overheat and the pressure builds up too much it can make a steam explosion but not a nuclear bomb going off.

[jcfiction]

Nuclear: The energy source that could abate the 2020s energy crisis, if only an entire generation of voters didn’t grow up watching Homer Simpson

[Dert]

To be honest, I'd prefer nuclear energy if our government would actually use Thorium rather than Uranium, since Thorium is much safer and more plentiful than Uranium. But the only reason the government is not using Thorium is because they can't use it to make nuclear bombs...

[JosefFurg]

Last time I was this early China's air had oxygen and not only coal.

[dealingwithkatherine]

Nuclear is better, but different reactors like Molten salt reactors would be even better. Unfortunately this may take a long time to become a reality because people think it's so dangerous. We must educate people on nuclear power so that the events in Chernobyl and Fukushima are no longer seen as representative of the energy source

[iSevenSimmer]

Ah just LOVE the animation it's so modern looking and very clean!!

[ernestsacco]

nuclear energy is the inevitable and photoelectric reactions simply won't be enough for man's growing power needs....I am studying to be a nuclear engineer