Energy Expert Answers Gas, Solar and Nuclear Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED 

This is brilliant

There are a couple podcasts that get close to that dream: 'Ologies', and 'StarTalk'. Both have subject experts talking with a host who is very science-literate. Happy learning!

🤯

that would be great. wired is a master at curating experts. can't get enough of these videos.

Great idea

I'm seriously starting to think they just hire actors to perform these roles at this point.

On the other hand, you WOULD expect a spokesperson for an institution to be charismatic and a good talker.

expert is a government spokesperson. of course he isn't going to talk about him and his bosses making poor decisions. talent acquisition team shouldn't promote such a propagandist move as this.

@@prickiland You've given a perfect explanation for why "establishment bad" makes your brain atrophy and die. You've stopped judging on merit and started judging on popularity. It's an anti-intellectual death spiral.

@@meepk633 "The anti-intellectual death spiral" is the propaganda piece guised as infotainment being taken as anything but that. It has nothing to do with "anti-establishment," quite the opposite. It has to do with presenting a one sided argument by asking softball questions to a person who makes policy, who has a stake in defending the policy which has real, valid criticisms.

Bro the first question isn't the full truth, it's because biden shut down our in-country oil productions, making us dependent on other countries

Oh, it's the employee of Now this news

I highly recommend watching Climate Town’s videos on this topic!! He has two, they’re both incredible and very eye opening.

Russia is happening since the war started everything I mean everything has priced up

@@hopemikaelson5622 no, the gas prices raising isn't Russia's fault. It's bidens for shutting down various in-country pipelines that would make us a self-sufficient country. And because he shut down out main source of oil as well that was fueling the US, gas prices started shooting up

You can have it both ways. We can all care about multiple things, you can watch a video and learn a lot of important information, but you can also just watch Tom Holland talk about, I dunno grapes or whatever for 10 minutes before going to bed to wind down.

Wired can have experts explain things and celebrities can burn their mouths on Hot Ones

Thank God 😊 🙏 I'm not watching Kim K or Ryan Reynolds explaining this.

@@rockingbeat This

@@rockingbeat That is a solution I can get behind.

Would it be possible to set up some kind of "corridor/canal" to keep the biomes somewhat connected?

_"the entire downstream river system with many species are affected by dams"_ -- it's worse than that. The _upstream_ system is affected too, because the salmon are effectively nutrient conveyor belts. Without them, the ecosystems at the top of the streams are starved of the biomass that the salmon represent. A few animals eat the salmon as they try to reach their spawning ground, but lots more are eating the carcasses after they spawn and die. Existing dams need to be updated to allow for sufficient bypass water flow and for animals, including salmon, to be able to easily go around the dam in both directions. New dams should be built only if these same issues are solved. In the end, hydro can be very useful, but the other four renewables are likely to wind up making up the bulk of energy production. They are not without their impacts either, but they are much less significant, and more easily mitigated.

@@kebrongurara4417 no because that would defeat the purpose of a dam, and over time it would reroute the river which could cause even more harm

with oil and gas though we are disrupting infinitely more animals.

Added to that, the reservoir formed upstream also floods a lot of land, destroying habitats and submerging any organic matter (mainly plants) that wasn't removed during reservoir filling; those organic matter dies and rot underwater, releasing greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Depending on the geography around the dam, increased water level could also increase soil erosion, landslide and occasionally earthquakes if the reservoir locates above fault lines. There is a huge environmental cost behind hydroelectric dam, especially mega-dams like Three Gorges Dam.

All government officials should be required to do this.

​@@HighStakesDanny same here in the uk

Point of oil and gas companies is to make money at the end of the day

Yeah it's always been like that OPEC is a cartel

@@russphillips3732 the point of *companies* is to make money at the end of the day; FTFY

@@russphillips3732 they could still make a profit without being greedy, but hey, don’t let me get between your tongue and their boots.

Guarantee if you ran the company you’d be no different

I was hoping he would actually stop the propaganda against it

Honestly, they were terrible examples. Chernobyl could never happen in the US because how our reactors are made and the Fukushima Daiichi reactor was so poorly run, its amazing it was still running when the tsunami hit it. There were reactors much closer to the epicenter of the earthquake that went virtually unharmed.

I think he mentioned those two simply because EVERYONE has heard of chernobyl and fukashima

@@iluvtacos1231 I agree with you but he still denotes towards the incidents as if it’s common place. INES’s rating system for nuclear reactor accidents/incidents states there’s only been two level 7 accidents being Fukushima & Chernobyl.

If you don't solve the problem of nuclear waste, you haven't created a clean energy source. Efforts to create a national repository for nuclear waste have been going on for decades. No one wants it in their backyard because contamination risk to the environment. Concrete and metal containment breakdown before the radioactive material. So while the plants may be much safer than they have ever been, the waste is still an issue.

They really do! Not only are the experts knowledgable, but they are so great at explaining their specialties in understandable terms

He has no clue what he’s talking about, especially the gas prices, it’s because Biden shut down the keystone pipeline, not because of COVID

I'm waiting on the "Spanish clogs of the darker variety with red and green pattern across the width, size 45" expert lol

this guy is not an expert. just look at his linkedin. he just does politics.

@@russelltennis15 he is just a puppet that the Biden administration appointed, that will spew their nonsense

Oil execs say that gas prices are all due to international oil prices, yes last time oil was this price per barrel gas was half the price. So...wassup with that? They say it is higher taxes and fees, but in most areas the taxes and fees have only gone up a few cents per gallon. So...why is gas dollars per gallon higher? Wages haven't gone up. They aren't paying their vendors more for anything. The only thing that seems to have gone up parallel to the price of gas going up is shareholder returns and executive bonuses. Weird.

Just look at some of the questions he's being asked, of course he has to dumb it down a bit.

Cringe comment.

@@lotaryguy12 cringe reply

Here I’ll give you some key words. Japan, nuclear waste, ocean, bioaccumulation, food chain.

@@kingsoncheng7285 0 Dead LOL

I think the definition of massive should be calibrated here. Ultimately Fukushima, and Three Mile Island have had, and continue to have nearly zero effect on the world. Chernobyl was a massive disaster in comparison. However, I would argue that the WHO has found no evidence that there is any direct health effects for the people that moved back into the exclusion zone only months after being displaced. Also, to add context. Chernobyl was an RMBK reactor which was known to be flawed (it gets hotter when the coolant runs out, not colder, for instance), but it was cheap. The reactors weren't contained in reinforced concrete domes, because it was cheaper to run them in a regular building. The control rods were tipped in graphite (which was what finally kicked off the meltdown), again for cost savings. The plant was staffed with under qualified technicians, and the leadership forced them to do many unsafe things in the time leading up to the explosion. All of those things had to come together in order for that disaster to occur. Fukushima was the result of an earthquake and tsunami that were more devastating than was ever planned for. There is only one confirmed death directly connected to the Fukushima disaster, and no expected cancer rate increase. The evacuation killed 2000+ people, and the tsunami killed over 15,000. This didn't even touch on the fact that had the Fukushima reactor been of a more modern design, there would have been no issue past the natural disasters. There was a test reactor in the Idaho test facility in 1985 that failed safe during repeated tests, undergoing the same conditions that triggered the Fukushima meltdown. That was thirty seven years ago.

I think you need to go see a doctor... It's not normal to have that many thumbs...

@@ghuito8202 who has 7 thumbs and does not care? OP! (presumably)

But, the thing is, this isn't really accurate. It's EM fields, not the electrons themselves. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oI_X2cMHNe0.html

After that James Webb fiasco, they need it

@@MattsInTheBelfry What fiasco??

Its not science

Grammar, too. Clearly.

Yes! Same perspective here, I learned a lot of new things about the US

He absolutely lied about the first question though. Oil companies have bragged to their shareholders about how much profit their making, which means the margins are very high on gas. Oil prices are high because oil companies can simply charge that much, and political people like Joe Biden and his administration (of which this guy is a member) won't stand up to them, and will even act as shields for them like they did in this video, instead of doing what's right for consumers and passing laws to keep prices down.

Well yeah he is an expert after all

His explanation of gas prices is bs.

@@xmorte what is the right one then?

@@xmorte you should tell all of us your correct answer

@@xmorte No it isn't, but I guess instead of paying attention during the pandemic, you were rabbiting down conspiracy holes like half of America's most stupidest people

It’s giving Bias. Especially bringing up Chernobyl and stuff. It just seems like he is pushing a certain narrative here 🤷🏽‍♂️ leaving out that methane is 84 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Oh no not him pushing carbon capture so fossil fuels can stay a part of the mix

Or how Biden shut down wells n pipeline!

wait till you get to the part where he explains current xD

He is spending a few seconds in each question. Do you really expect detailed answer when the average viewer doesn’t have a college education and probably last took a physics class in high school.

He just used "power level" instead of "voltage", it's clear for everyone that way

@@feru1071 not the same thing. Any expert wouldnt use those two like he does. And that the grid is "one closed loop"? No! Not nearly true.

And step up transformers to "give back power"? Lmao no its not how it works!

For better or worse, I doubt you will see them stop that. Only some of the point here is to convey information. A big part of these kinds of pieces is to drive social media traffic and engagement, and letting people see their usernames in the piece is a significant element of that.

_"most gasoline-powered cars don't have something like this"_ -- but hybrids do. Not that hybrids are the long-term solution. Battery-electric clearly is. But for those complaining about EV mandates, it would not be at all unreasonable to use hybrid mandates as an interim solution. Simply banning new vehicle sales of any non-hybrid gas- or diesel-engine vehicle would be a big immediate improvement, and would give some breathing room to the need to upgrade the electric production and grid.

Because it's a simple answer, Profits. No surprise most are ran by republicans and just plain greed. Texas is one of the biggest producers and yet being right in their backyard still paying high prices... because republicans are greedy.

The administration isn’t encouraging drilling though. They actually discourage it and then blame the oil companies

@PojoFire yeah you're a ways off on this. Profit margins for oil companies haven't changed. What has changed is the oil supply. When supply decreases prices rise. If things like they Keystone pipeline and new drilling sites were allowed it would largely solve the price increase we've seen in recent months. Also fun fact. Gas stations don't make most of their money off gas. They make it off other things

Bro the first question isn't the full truth, it's because biden shut down our in-country oil productions, making us dependent on other countries

its also helpfull because if the prices are so high. less people can afford it. so less fumes get thrown into the air. so its better for all of us

@@bigjake6foot5 oil prices are high globally. A pipeline won't solve the problem. Especially with America's policy of neglecting infrastructure maintenance.

Nuclear power (SMR) Is about 5-8x more expensive then solar or wind (per kW of capacity), it is well understood nuclear is the most expensive option for new energy projects.

You cannot plan continous energy supply with solar or wind energy. You have to have nuclear or water energy for that. What longevity does wind have in comparison to nuclear? Especially when it comes to ger IV powerplants that reuse the waste material already available.

@@Quimper111 I mean kind of, the point with wind is to use a mix of orientations and offshore/terrestrial setups to ensure that you're distributing the chance of power generation. This is somewhat nullified by the fact it only takes 1-2 years to setup a wind farm, when compared with 10-15 years for a nuclear reactor. Nuclear power and wind power have roughly equivalent lifespans of 20-30 years.

@@Quimper111 keep in mind too, the whole concept of wind and solar is that they are ridiculously cheap and available to run for most of the day (in the case of solar) and most of the time in the case of wind. Firming is then only needed overnight or a few days a year when either the sun or wind is inadequate. It's very different to suggest an energy source is needed for typical power generation vs just for firmimg of the much cheaper and cleaner renewables.

It's renewable, but not great. It's energy and resource intensive in its own right, and its energy return on investment is poor.

@@JimBob1937 thank you

Unfortunately we haven't solved the biggest problem with nuclear power in the US: how do we build nuclear power plants on time and under budget

Totally agree. I feel like nuclear energy is the best way to go and was also kinda sad he seemed so negative about it. If you feel that way though, you should watch Kyle Hill's channel on here, he does a lot of nerdy stuff but also is a huge supporter of nuclear energy

It's not solved but rather greatly minimize

the problem is nuclear power plants are very expensive to build and unfortunately it didn't recieve a lot of invesments in the past as other clean energy sources , so the technology is still old and underdeveloped compared to solar or wind .

@@yoda112358 put restrictions on the profits of the mega corporations who are building them.

True, the plant had almost no security measures at all

Why need containment structure? Waste of money! The blessings of motherland will ensure our safety, comrade!

I was floored when he mentioned Chernobyl. This is the person who should promote a nuanced view, rather than fear mongering.

Glad someone else noticed that! I think I saw one in a sauce video and got one for my desk

supply and demand. Ask Biden and his democrat cronies why they shut down production.

@@xmorte what? Production was shut down while trump was in office because no one was buying gas. This event costed oil producers huge amounts of money. I don’t think big oil is trying to make oil futures go negative.

Still a net reduction in energy usage and CO2 output. These factors aren't neglected when analyzing new tech. EVs (which I assume this is in reference to) are simply insanely higher in efficiency compared to heat engines like the internal combustion engine.

EVs are a temporary bandaide not a permanent solution.

@@xmorte , why?

@@xmorte , curious what you suggest will be the next solution then. Oil isn't going to last the world much more than 100 years or so based on the known reserves and accelerating global consumption.

@@JimBob1937 the next solution is public transportation, there's no reason for urbanites to use a multi ton piece of metal and chemicals just to transport one person and then feel moral that they reduced emissions when they could've supported public transportation and reduced emissions to negligible numbers

Even old nuclear is better than what we have today. I don't think you can call nuclear renewable, but it (and geothermal) are the only things that anyone should be calling green.

If only the rest of the US understood that. But no, let’s waste money slapping stickers of Biden on gas pumps. 🤦🏼‍♂️

the lowest I've seen in Texas recently was like 3:74 :0 I hope it doesn't shoot back up again

Those conservative fucks really think it is all Bidens fault. I have even heard conservatives here in Germany blame our current government for being the cause of Russias invasion of Ukraine. 🤦

That is not even 50% of what we pay in my country. That makes it 1,09$ for one liter. I would guess it probably was 2005 something when we paid so little

oh sure, nothing Joe Biden does to attack the industry has any impact on it... riggghhht.

It's a fairly short RU-vid video... That's kind of a given. ;-) ;-)

Nuclear waste can be recycled, China, Russia and maybe the US are developing tech to use it in the fuel cycle again. I know there's a recycling plant in Russian near Tomsk that is being built and one of their reactors has successfully completed a 5 year trial of running on recycled fuel. Pretty sure they are planning on buying waste too.

@@xxtradamxx The only reason fossil fuels aren't expensive is because of subsidies and that they aren't forced to take care of their waste the way nuclear plants have to. Basically we the people are footing the bill for what should be handled by the oil companies.

absolutely

You are 101% correct. Those wind turbines' waste is disgusting!! And they are so dangerous!!

@@Alien426 Wind turbines create a lot of noise and are only 40% efficient

@@KaitouKaiju You have never been close to a wind turbine, that much is evident. High-level radioactive waste storage is still not solved. Not in the USA, not _anywhere_ else on this planet. Reading comments like yours makes me almost want to see the US continue with NPPs. Chernobyl and Fukushima are so far away to USians. Seeing that the USA fails hard these days, it's only a matter of time until a disaster happens and Nine Mile Point creates an exclusion zone on 2% of New York's land area ...

@@Alien426 you are wrong. About almost everything, wind turbines take hundreds of gallons of oil. They are destructive to the environment, and create loads of waste, same with solar.

@@Alien426 Either you're Chinese and using Google translate or you need to go back to elementary school

do you think wind turbines create wind?

You can literally decide to not be bothered when someone overuses the word "literally".