>> ^dag:

Yeah the scare tactics on the nukes is cheap and probably very misguided. If anything, a global push for nuclear power would lead to a better system of control and monitoring of fissile materials.


Yeah, putting bombs into the debate was stupid.

But seriously: Controlling the distribution of nuclear material by putting more of it out there?

>> ^lampishthing:

Does anyone else disagree with the characterisation of nuclear (fission) power as renewable?
I'm still for it but that annoys me.
Also, I'd like to see costs. I was always under the impression that nuclear power was cheaper.


Seeing as how much there is, it is quite renewable:

How long can Uranium last for nuclear power ? 5 billion years at double current world electricity usage.

Breeder reactors can transmute non-fissile Uranium to fissile Uranium. So that means you can burn up almost all the Uranium. This includes all the so called nuclear waste. This can also be burnt in a similar process, leaving you with virtually no waste.

>> ^chilaxe:

Chernobyl was caused by Soviet incompetence. It has little relevance to modern nuclear plants.


As opposed to ... hmm, let's say, BPs incompetence? Sure, they don't run nuclear plants, but modern technology _can_ fail, especially when run by greedy bastards.

And the beauty of that is that the bigger the fission industry becomes, the more brains will be drawn towards it - brains that could maybe solve the fusion problem. I'm hoping to start a phd in nuclear physics next year and it's painfully obvious the industry wants all the students they can get. Apparently nuclear research stopped being sexy to students years ago.>> ^kingmob:

I take both.
Nuclear is more of a solution for now.
But not forever.
I keep holding out for fusion.

LOL! Classic.

In reply to this comment by Crake:
I would also like to submit that Jacobson sounds like Ray Romano.

Your video, Does the world need nuclear energy? - TED Debate, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^gwiz665:

Nuclear power is the best fast and effecient substitute for coal and oil. Ideally we'd all just use solar, wind and geothermal, but this is not an ideal world and we need to end our dependence (or lessen it) asap.


Why are those ideal? They are an eye sore and take up vast amounts of space, and at times, in what used to be nice habitats. Daming up rivers and strip clearing land for wind and solar seem to be a step backwards for the goal. In my mind, the ideal is a little power plant that powers the whole world. It seems thermodynamically speaking you have 3 options: To burn stuff that is energetic, to harness small pools of energy over large amounts of space, or to have a high level energy reaction that is potentially volatile. Fusion does seem like the answer once we get it, its volatility is unlike nuclear. The volatility of fusion, from my understanding, is trying to maintain the reaction. Catastrophic failure means a reactor restart, not a meltdown. So you get high energy density, stability (of power output levels), low risk, low pollution. The same is true of fission reactors, except they aren't "as" safe, or "as" clean as some of the alternatives. But the type of clean they ARE (low co2) is exactly what we want.

>> ^blankfist:

Fear is a great motivator. People always cite Chernobyl, which was terrible but not a disaster. Only 31 people died and it left 20 miles of land inhabitable (also health care issues arose afterward). More people die daily from auto accidents. Also, Chernobyl's plant designs were old.
Three Mile Island is another one cited. But there's never been any evidence to prove any member of the public was harmed by the incident.
From what little I've read about nuke power is that it's extremely safe and gives a realistically reliable output of energy.


There is still areas in Sweden where you can't pick blueberries because of the high radiation from the Chernobyl fallout. I'm not taking a stance on the nuclear power debate, just saying that Chernobyl was a much bigger disaster than the people who died in the actual power plant.

As for the debate in this video, it seemed like the one part was arguing for the situation we have, with nuclear power being the most viable option for large scale needs, while the other side argued for a situation that we may have in the future while propagating fear and suspicion against the other side. But people have such deeply rooted bias and preconceptions about this issue that the vast majority will only listen to the side that argues and reassures their standing opinion, and reject the opposition outright.

@Mashiki
The US is the worlds largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of the worldwide use of nuclear energy.
As far as climate science goes, it's impossible to have a conversation with someone who dismisses every bit of scientific evidence because scientists got paid to do their work.

To be fair, nuclear's supports are at -least- an order of magnitude higher than those given to the "green" energies. Ever notice that no insurance company would insure a reactor, unless their liability was capped? The Feds capped the insurance company's liability at $500M back in the '70s...I wonder if that's ever been updated for today's markets. The core problem with nuclear power is that the cost in both dollars and lives of mistakes/catastrophes/disasters, no matter -what- causes them, is incredibly high. And since humans both design and run them, and they exist in the real world, such disasters -will- happen eventually. When they do, hundreds of billions will be spent cleaning up, and tens or hundreds of thousands will suffer and/or die...most of whom will be never be attributed to the accident (the cause of cancer is hard to pinpoint, but aggregate totals make the story clear).

Even assuming that we manage a level of superiority in engineering that we've never managed before, the rest of the universe is still out there. Do you really think any nuke we build will be unbreached in a massive earthquake? No Joe Stack will ever fly a plane into one? No Homer Simpson will ever be employed in one?

The cost is simply too high for the risks.

>> ^RedSky:
Double standards galore.
You can't talk about nuclear energy incurring taxpayer liabilities, giving preferential treatment and distorting capital markets without conceding the fact that when you're funding other green energy jobs like wind power, geothermal and tide you're doing the exact same thing.

Double standards galore.

You can't talk about nuclear energy incurring taxpayer liabilities, giving preferential treatment and distorting capital markets without conceding the fact that when you're funding other green energy jobs like wind power, geothermal and tide you're doing the exact same thing.

If what's needed are tighter emission standards among other regulations, then say that, rather than blanketly dismissing it as a possible alternative.

Part of the reason that nuclear energy has had patchy financing in the past is that governmental positions have constantly changed at the whims of those in power. The threat of tighter regulations and a general lack of consistency has created uncertainty.

To me, this stance on energy, and the left's positions on free trade stand out as the two most hypocritical positions of the left.

That was not really a debate, there was only 1 side given in the report.

Also he says that nuclear power is a failed technology from the 20th century, he's wrong in that nuclear energy has huge untapped potential (as long as it's done right), the fact it's from the 20th century means nothing, should we give up food cause that was like, you know, so last century.

Having said that, leaking tritium sounds incredibly bad, substances with a half life of over 12 years shouldn't really be leaking into water supplies.

As far as putting money into this tech and not solar etc, did Obama not sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act a while ago which gives $90'ish billion to those kind of techs? Or did solar/wind power tech's get completely overlooked even with that huge investment, maybe someone has more information on that.

Lastly, the liquid flouride thorium reactor talked about at the google tech talk looked promising, i wonder if this kind of tech was even considered
http://www.videosift.com/video/Liquid-Fluoride-Thorium-Reactor-Google-Tech-Talk-Remix

Tags for this video have been changed from 'russia, north pole, victory, icebreaker, ship, ice, arctic' to 'russia, north pole, victory, icebreaker, ship, ice, arctic, ocean, nuclear energy' - edited by calvados

Ahw this video makes ecotards cry.

It's quite simple and I believe it was stated by a Saudi sheik "The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones, The Oil Age won't end because we run out of oil"

This means that long before oil runs out we will have a better way to power the world. And it will take long for all the oil to run out, much longer than the ecos predict. There a vast amounts of oil in tar sands and shales. Huge new oil fields have been discovered off the coasts of South American countries. Beyond oil there are still higher reserves of natural gas and coal.

If we don't want to have to resort to geo-engineering to restore a warming climate we must find an alternative to fossil fuels long before they run out. So what do we have, wind, water and sun. Only the sun could reasonably provide all the energy we need after a huge industrial effort to build these things in place like the Sahara.
However we also have nuclear energy. There are vast amounts of Uranium that are waiting to be discovered once the demand for Uranium increases. Using a Thorium reactor you could breed and burn fissile material out of Thorium. This process yields much less long lived waste because you basically burn up most of the radioactive materials. Also Thorium is three times as plentiful as Uranium.
This gives Fusion a lot of time to get its act together and finally deliver on the promise of nearly boundless energy.

Creating fertilizer doesn't need fossil fuels. All it needs is nitrogen, hydrogen and high pressures and temperatures (energy).
Al machines can still run on clean fuel cells which were charged with power delivered by the above processes of energy generation.

I'm quite optimistic, I think we are heading for a bright future if we invest in alternative energy and don't fuck up the World too much in the time it takes to get to that goal.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Detonation of a dirty bomb worries me slightly less than wide-spread potato gun attacks.
A dirty bomb is a theoretical weapon and one that poses no threat because it's completely implausible to make one.


The 'dirty bomb' 'nuke in a suit-case' is a myth. One that is forwarded as plausable by the people you see in this very video. Propaganda my friend. Just like the 'Iran will have nukes within a year'. Fox News has been reporting that for about 6 years now. Iran isn't even to the point where they can produce nuclear energy.. and making a nuke is something else entirely.