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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

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