Is Nuclear Power REALLY That Slow/Expensive? - Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Sabine Hossenfelder Part 1

[Rob]

She is from Germany.
You know, the country where the politicians decided they do not want nuclear energy anymore when on the other side of the world a nuclear powerplant was flooded by a tsunami.
And that while the country itself is mostly land logged.

[WillTellU]

lol Sabine videos, they're always such a hit and miss. At times she nails it, giving a perfect explanation and sometimes the whole thing is a nonsensical mess. This one seems pretty good so far. Also renewable energy has only recently gotten so cheap, with huge subsidies and investments into research, which nuclear has lacked for a while. But the upcoming modular reactors should make nuclear extra cheap again.

[javaman]

How much of the cost of building a nuclear power plant is due to construction delays caused by frivolous lawsuits and protesters? I remember there was *a lot* of that back in the day. I also remember stupidity like the forced decommissioning of the Seabrook plant in New Hampshire before it generated a single watt of power because of ridiculous protests. When it comes to these things, Americans can be really dumb. There's a power plant about 4 miles from me with two cooling towers, and their website is full of comments about meltdowns. It runs on natural gas.

[thorminate]

I really want to see your bloopers! Theres no way you could film all of these videos without any bloopers!

[shotpastas]

What sucks about here in Oregon is that our only real attempt at a nuclear plant was a failure and was surrounded by social and political issues, let alone physical issues. On the bright side we do have a lot of damns, but it does suck that besically no one is even trying to set up nuclear plants here.

[danadurnfordkevinblanchdebunk]

Yes, Sabine has many other videos on nuclear power. Her particularly informative ones IMO are the "Is Nuclear Energy Green?" and "Nuclear Waste is Not the Problem You've Been Made To Believe It Is" videos.

[anthonyshiels]

The nuclear radiation from a coal-fired power plant is greater than that from a nuclear power plant due to the Potassium 40 content of the coal.

[barkng]

Great job raising awareness of the awesomeness of safe nuclear energy. Can't wait till you reach 100k subs!

[mattparker]

19:29 YES! I can't wait till I can install my own personal reactor underground in my backyard. 50+ years of independent electrical power BABY!

[isakrynell]

Anti-nuclear activists I was arguing with ten years ago claimed that nuclear power plants were not a solution to climate change because they took ten years to build.

[katpocalypsemeow]

With the renaming of Twitter to X tweets are now Xcrements.

[youtux]

24:12 I'm sorry but we're comparing apples to pears here. Wind/Solar do _not_ provide the same service as a nuclear plan (or coal or gas, for that matter). W&S provide _intermittent_ power. Nuclear (and gas and coal) provide _continuous_ power.

It's a _massive_ difference, and renders any superficial cost comparison irrelevant.

[maliber]

I think we're missing the opportunity for cheap ultra energy efficient waterheaters

[imdiyu]

Too simple, therefore unbelievable. Too good to be true. That's what she is trying to say.

[thorminate]

At 4:27 i love how your expression went from happy to super serious.

[swokatsamsiyu]

You have to remember that the anti-nuclear lobby in Europe is much bigger, louder, and more important, powerful, than in the US. And they will come up with the most outrageous claims just to be able to throw some big spanners in the works. The same goes for the nuclear waste issue. Here in Europe, some rather outlandish claims are made when it comes to that particular issue. And yes, the image of the yellow barrel leaking glowing green goo is very much ingrained in this part of the world. No amount of evidence to the contrary will make them see reason, unfortunately.

But thanks for another well-done video. One small question; what does the "dreaming" part in your "we're steaming and dreaming" phrase refer to? I get the steaming part, the reactor is working hard making steam that is then used by the turbine-generator to make power. But but where does the dreaming part come from?🤔

[KoRntech]

12:50 right there's only a stripe of the planet solar is truly effective year round, and carbon capture is basically green washing since the amount of energy needed to pull the gigatons we put in every year is astronomical.

[squidwardfromua]

One youtuber I watch reacting to another youtuber I watch. Beautiful

[Herr_U]

If one were to include planning stages in the construction time things get weird.

For instance some of the stretches of railway currently being built started to be planned for in the age of steam (just never actualised).
Even in terms of nuclear power, take for instance Okiluotu-4 and Forsmark-4, both of which are planned (in the case of Forsmark-4 to the point of even past technology selection) but neither has any ongoing projects for it. (sites in Finland and Sweden respective)
(For those that might be confused by Forsmark-4, this unit actually got built in Oskarshamn (unit 3), but was originally planned as the sister-reactor to Forsmark-4 (while at it, the site Käftudden/Trosa (just south of stockholm) also got very far in the plans of being a nuclear power plant (and from a grid-view it makes sense) but that got politically overriden and replaced with Forsmark (north of stockholm)).

So, doing from "start of planning" can get weird fast...

(Edit: yes, land is acquired for Forsmark-4 as well as Käftudden, has been since the early 1970s)

[swampsy]

watch more of sabines videos! this was great