James Fleay: "What's the Deal with Nuclear Energy?" | The Great Simplification #74 

The so-called smart people are dangerous maniacs. They should be prevented from doing anything. Send them to Disneyland

A devil's advocate to your comment is that (after construction) nuclear power has a much smaller supply chain compare to fossil fuel generation. So though a general reduction of consumption is best, in this case nuclear creates its own localized reduction of consumption, while providing for our inevitable consumption of other things. Though the accidents have big potential for damage, the 3 environmental accidents of hundreds of nuclear power plants do not outweigh the tens of thousands of environmental accidents among millions of fossil fuel facilities. The environmental damage from nuclear is a fraction of the environmental damage of fossil fuels. Then factor in new concepts in Nuclear generation now that we do not need weapons grade byproducts any more like Molten Salt, Thorium, and in particular Small Modular Reactors and it becomes a substantially more practical solution. So combining more regional nuclear generation with green generation like wind/solar/etc we are from a certain point of view reducing complexity by reducing scale and following natural regional realities. Mostly it is that nuclear and green generation massively reduce the materials extraction and supply chain for energy. Sure some new materials and more variety of materials, but massively less materials and used with higher efficiency. So making things more complex in terms of technology and regional variety - but at the same time less complex with a huge reduction in global supply chain volume. So I believe that new nuclear tech combined with a regionally defined energy generation mix will bring a massive reduction in global supply chain requirements in the long run supporting the simplification. Add in the special effect of specific efficiency in energy generation and transportation, that they create a beneficial feedback loop due to their nature being central to all things. The more we improve efficiency of energy generation and transportation the less energy and transportation we need. Of course this should definitely be paired with other simplifications to reduce energy demand as well.

@@5353Jumper the devil talks a lot but still kills everyone 😁

@@5353Jumper Many well reasoned arguments. But the room filling elephant is an extremely long lasting toxic legacy that can't be just categorically shunted aside by saying it is fractionally damaging compared to fossil fuels. The thoughts of responsibility for many thousands of years of caretaking boggles the mind. This is a form of evil that goes way beyond the purposeful ignorance of those advocating the continued burning of carbon. Would you have a plant near you if things went south?

@@madameblatvatsky ahh...but this is not the Devil talking, it is an advocate who can overview the common best interest of all parties not just individual desires.

I agree, if we don't discuss this well then we won't solve the problems either. Appreciate the discussion.

Nuclear appears to be the only way forward in the long-term.

@@justgivemethetruth And geothermal.

@@jghifiversveiws8729 Geothermal is great, as is solar and wind, but they are scaling and operational limitations that nuclear does not.

Bullshit alert here with these experts.. if you analyse the projected cost of just building the plant in almost every case in the past cost overruns average more than 100%. Now let's look at security, safety and maintenance costs. I can tell you they are often extreme. Once you begin looking at the disposal problems of spent radioactive waste this fairytale is over. See permaculture for a serious discussion of simplification or I'd say enhancement of natural systems through less wasteful consumption in all areas.

nuclear fuels are so dense in energy compared to inputs required for solar, wind, etc installations [ie structural metals (steel, copper), electronics metals(lithium, ...), concrete etc] that those nuclear fuel costs are 'quite modest'. The common term is 'EROEI' or 'Energy Returned On Energy Invested'.

@@davidbrown7313 The conversation was nuclear not wind or solar. Nuclear is not by any means a solution to the situation we are in.

"the cost is quite modest" means the amount of fossil fuels per GWh of electricity is tiny compared to just burning the fuels for generation. It is the same obstructionist argument to solar and wind "uh...solar panels take fossil fuels to manufacture and transport". The point is that they take LESS fossil fuels. Better is better even if it is not perfect. Just because something has SOME environmental cost, does not mean it is terrible as long as it is LESS environmental cost than the alternative. If the cost of the Nuclear fuel is less than 1% of the cost of the generation as stated in the video, that means that the cost of the fossil fuels to make the nuclear fuel is a fraction of 1%. So that to me says the amount of fossil fuels used in nuclear fuel production is nearly insignificant considering the amount of electricity generated. My guess is it takes way more fossil fuels to just build the power plant that it does to make/transport the nuclear fuel for the lifetime of the power plant, it is that insignificant. What really matters is if it takes LESS fossil fuels (emissions) to build and fuel a Nuclear power plant than it does to build and fuel an equivalent Gas power plant. Logic basically says yes, because the amount of fossil fuels required to build and fuel Gas power plants is massive and the amount of fossil fuels to build and fuel a Nuclear power plant is only large not massive.

Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo, eminent geologist, has written extensively on the costs of nuclear fuel production. When proponents of nuclear power answer him, i will take notice. Until then it is more of the same, nuclear power too cheap to measure, to clean to be believed.

I share your concern

My father when he was young collected bills for his father ,who was a blacksmith, on a donkey and cart. Not ideal but its probably not a future that is even possible anymore. There wont be a climate..

This is why scientists are often described as having an abundance of intelligence but a dearth of wisdom.

@@dbadagna so they're no different from the public?

Yeah Jonathan that's the point. I used to live in Cape Town South Africa. I moved to a city 1100 kilometres away from it because the nuclear power station is aging, the government have already mismanaged everything here. I'm not ready to live through what's going to happen there perhaps. We seeing the power reactors in Ukraine under risk over and over again. Now with the destruction of another hydro plant that plays a vital role in the grid there being able to cool various reactors. What of sea level rise and so many of these plants are on the coastlines, enough to be damaged?

Most of the fear is from the media hyping up the risk. And the industry having a closed and cagy attitude towards the public. The actual risk of meltdown is not what you would think from the evacuation maps etc. watch roger stone’s new documentary about it.

What was the official death toll of Fukishima? Once you’ve googled it, ask yourself what exactly there is to solve (other than the human problem of cognitive dissonance)

Not just humans that share the planet. Environmental impacts are ongoing. Not to mention the huge financial costs involved

@@howardmoon1234 officialdom is incapable of cognitive dissonance I'm pretty sure.

One person tweeted from Fukumshima that they were in Hell on Earth and had no hope of ever getting out. But then it's illegal to discuss Fukushima in Public in Japan. So we will never know the truth.

@@urallwyz3498 what unfettered nonsense. 200 died in the totally unnecessary evacuation. The official death toll from radioactive injury is 1.

If you want more high speed rail, more nuclear is necessary

If you want more anything more nuclear is necessary. Those 287 million gas guzzling vehicles aren’t going to magically become electric and the 90 percent of the planet that lives on less than 38kus a year aren’t all of a sudden going to be able to afford one, let alone have access to infrastructure to charge. Hence nuclear will be necessary to use high energy methods to make carbon free fuel to long tail down.

@@AlldaylongRock rubbish! China has 40,000 km of HSR and 2 billion passenger kilometres per year. They did this largely without nuclear power.

@@bashful228 Yeah. With coal instead. Very good for ACC for who believes it.

@@AlldaylongRock so how does that provide evidence for your false claim that HSR requires more nuclear?

Engineering/project management for decommissioning, so I am invested in long term safety. I carry a systems perspective with a master's degree in industrial engineering from Polytechnique Montreal.

"The assumption of continuity of complex society." This is *everything.* We are unleashing dangerous technologies that require things to go right 100% of the time, which is statistically improbable, if not impossible. I really respect Nate, but I don't understand how he can get behind technologies like nuclear or why he platforms pro-nuclear guests. I'm very curious to know your views on the safety of nuclear and why you work in what I see as such a dangerous industry. The risks are just so enormous. Do you the risks (and waste) as acceptable, and why? I genuinely want to know (no judgment).

I just noticed your reply saying you work on decommissioning. Bravo! Decommission away!

If you’re in the US, I’d be more concerned with stolen elections than the supposed attempted coup. The stolen elections through corrupt means have almost destroyed America… but not quite, and not yet.

I don't think Nate is behind it, he asked the tricky questions here and there and James did kinda dance around them a bit, being more technically inclined James was discussing the possible futures of nuclear. He said we need to get more savvy with the complexities of multiple power sources. I think that was my go away about it from this show. The reality is these power plants are littered over the earth, more are being built and they not going away in the energy mix. So we can't stop discussing it. Very brave of Nate to Approach this topic from any angle.

Nate did focus on this worry. Did you listen to the conversation?

PS the point is to use ‘the power of the atom’ to prevent a collapse. Even Joseph Tainter agrees that energy is the core of the solution. Full fuel cycle nuclear can replace hundreds of years of 100% of our hydrocarbon energy use. Cheers.

@@bentray1908 I did listen to the whole episode. Sorry if I missed it. The issue was certainly not front and center as it needs to be. It's unclear if modern civilization is possible without liquid oil.

Yesssss, your comment.

And how many years worth of uranium do we have in reserves?

Well actually, it's because of all the out-of-control ellipses that you have this problem.

To "understand all the complexity and nuance under the surface" is what the humans of the "industrial revolution" have failed to do completely in every regard while operating under the delusional grandiose self image of enlightend operators in a mechanistic world

I don't believe we can understand. Look at vast differences in people who are experts in their fields. I for one know I'm not smart enough to grok economics, energy, ecology, or human behavior, let alone all of them combined.

Do we count the fossil fuel costs of making wind turbines and solar panels and the diesel used to mine the earth for said materials?

not to mention real wars. real world example Ukraine. Sounds like this podcast was a lost opportunity to be FRANKLY

I'm sorry about your boars but nuclear waste is very amenable to safe, effective management.

@@segasys1339 As long as the budget is no problem and societal stability is guaranteed for the critical time i agree. The boars are contaminated from the Chernobyl disaster. I have zero interest in using this technology to perepetuate any of the current cosumer capitalist so called "civilization" anyway. RIP Theodore John Kaczynski 1942 - 2023

@@alexanderleuchte5132 yes i agree, consumerism is a dead end.

It's a less versatile, lower quality energy source than fossil fuels. It has no chance of making our current civilization sustainable.

Well said.

Hear, hear.

And, no matter which energy source is used, civilization itself is a heat engine.

In the developing world, it is likely that more nuclear plants will be built. I think it's a mistake to go that route, but the pressure is building to increase energy output. Poor people want better lifestyles like they have seen in the west.

You're doing exactly what this podcast warned against. Turning a scientific discussion about how best to stop our civilisation destroying itself into a tribal purity test where you're disappointed with Nate for even listening to someone with a different point of view.

I'd like to think that episodes/convos like these serve to explore issues and elements (pardon the pun 😁) related to various sources of energy, etc. The comments section then provides extra exploration, critique and evaluation, and this is what gives you finer points to judge, and the temperature of the comments overall for this ep seems to be a fairly obvious no to nuclear. So, thanks for the episode Nate, and now we wait patiently and gratefully for the next one.

@@savethetowels The decision to use nuclear as a power source is based on short term, political considerations. Such decisions are never made in the interest of 'saving civilization'. Are you aware that research into fusion is a substitute for the atomic test ban treaty? Engineers are paid to solve problems. They're not decision makers. Scientific evaluation of nuclear: it is inferior to fossil fuels and geothermal as a power source. If any of the "green" alternatives could be scaled to meet the demands of 8 billion people, nuclear would be off the table. More energy producing technology won't resolve our predicament. How to voluntarily reduce the population from 8 billion to 1 billion in a controlled fashion is a social, behavioral and political challenge. One we aren't equipped to tackle. The never-ending conversation to 'buy us more time' is evidence of that.

@@savethetowels As for Nate, I wholeheartedly support his intellectual pursuits. This is his journey.

Yes we only touched on this subject and where the industry is actually going....

Improving electricity generation and transportation is a direct path to degrowth. The supply chain for fossil fuels is massive, and globally around 30% of fuel is spent just transporting fuel around the planet. Fuel is incredibly inefficient. By improving our electricity generation with a regionally defined mix of nuclear, hydro and green generation (wind/solar/others) we are massively reducing extraction. Sure an increase in variety of materials, and some necessity to build new supply chains, but a massively smaller supply chain compared to fossil fuel generation. As well improving transportation through electrification requires some new materials extraction but again massively less total extraction than fossil fuel transportation. Plus the efficiency of grid energy vs shipped fuels, reducing the overall need for transportation. So of course, we should reduce consumption of all things, which also reduces the need for generation and transportation. But also improving generation and transportation massively reduces extraction of fossil petroleum and all its support industry. So improving our generation and transportation is a degrowth project.

There is a difference between so-called "degrowth" and contraction. The degrowth advocates would have you believe we can reduce GDP without pain. The contraction advocates accept the process will be painful. Degrowth is a fantasy; contraction is a reality.

You first. Get off RU-vid. Throw away your cell phone and computer. No plane rides anywhere for any reason. Oh you mean less for others.

Those are called "energy sacrifice zones" and they're essential to the maintenance of an energy-intensive industrial society.

Silly! Sequestration is the answer! Just mix the nuke waste with all the "carbon" that we plan to sequester for the next 50,000 years.

Solar and wind are cheaper, but they don't run all the time like a nuclear plant. 20% capacity factor compared to over 80-90% for nuclear . You would need at least 4X as much solar and wind plus storage.

Glad to hear this being discussed ru-vid.com/group/PLhH8w0wcKSeDpkunKyRWBkPCcjiEk6AL7

Hey, You need to elaborate a bit more in order to make sense.:) Thx

Oh, one more question… You asked him about the assumption of civilizational continuity, but perhaps a more unavoidable danger would be the dramatic increase in natural disasters as a result of climate change. When he mentioned new nuclear being built in Japan, I involuntarily winced thinking about Fukushima. I would assume these plants are build like bomb shelters, but can they withstand Cat 5 hurricanes, wildfires, and massive tidal waves? And I guess that would lead to one more question… If I remember correctly, Russia threatened to use a Ukrainian nuclear plant as a weapon at one point during the war. Do these plants not pose some level of risk to the national security of countries engaged in ballistic warfare? And has the Russian/Ukrainian war not proven that the western world is no longer exempt from the potential of all out kinetic war?

I do a podcast to learn and share insights on global biophysical situation. My own views are expressed on my Frankly videos on Fridays - I assure you I will have MANY people on the show that I do not fully agree with - but I still learn from and think are valid. why is that different than any other podcast? In any case there is not ONE future pathway - lots of people/governments are investing in eg fusion and fission- having James on to share his expertise does not imply that I am pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear -just that I want to understand it better. Fwiw my own view is it’s largely too late to play a central role, but we’ll see

@@thegreatsimplification it would have been great to have pushed a counter argument more in this interview, compared to many of your more gritty past interviews it felt a bit like platforming his view point not interrogating the usefulness of his approach. Hope you also have guests in the future who can speck to the perspectives on nuclear of the many of us who have commented here.

​@@thegreatsimplification Thanks, Nate. fwiw my position on nuclear isnt' much different to yours. i think nations will attempt it for various reasons, not all nations are so blessed as Australia and USA with such vast wind and solar resources (but many are provided with adequate wind and solar resources). also nuclear suits certain political and ideological frameworks better, more centralised, perceived as more having more guaranties (I'd argue that but whatever). Nuclear has been winning the majority of non-FF subsidies over the last 70 years and for all that state superpower sponsorship failed to bend the cost curve down. Nuclear boosters blame regulators. Off course they do. They don't seem to realise that regulators who write the standards are nuclear scientists themselves, as my father was and he was very much pro-nuclear power, and he was a active environmental conservationist for the local area. If they couldn't bend the cost curve south after 70 years, they have no hope of getting into the markets in a big way before cheap and clean RE without the social licence issues floods the markets and storage firms it to the point of no reurn for NPPs. SMRs have the problem that they still are not going to be stamping them out like billions of PV panels or millions of wind turbines, tens thousands at best and still to complex to really get good learning curve through doublings in deployment. Also they sacrifice scale, which is really important for thermal generation as I'm sure you are aware. that's why Prof Doyne Farmer says SMR will never appear in markets and he'll take a 1:100 bet on that with anybody. You should invite him on to explain further. www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/energy_transition_paper-INET-working-paper.pdf

They'll need one regulation: immunity from liability

Many of the greens are religious gaia worship zealots, akin to the 16th century Vatican. The other side cannot be heard, all dissenting voices must be stamped out.