America's $35BN New Nuclear Power Plant
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- The US is about to open the biggest nuclear power plant in the country: Plant Vogtle in Georgia. Today we’ll be looking at America’s plan to transform a forty-year-old nuclear plant into the largest source of power in the entire country!
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0:00 America's $35BN New Nuclear Power Plant
0:27 Nuclear Power
3:28 Nuclear Power Plants in the US
7:12 Vogtle 2.0
12:01 Which Approach is Right?
#megaprojects #construction #usa
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Do you think we need more nuclear power plants? ☢️
Which topics should we cover next? 🤔👇
safest form of power in existence, just had very bad press from particular groups. You seem to have lifted all your information on Nuclear accidents from those sources unfortunately. Can't believe you don't mention France, which has more nuclear plants than most countries and the lowest Carbon Capita and has had no major incidents, ever.
@@JamesTyrrellOnline So if it's info contrary to your echo chamber it's all some vast conspiracy
yes. dunno.
Yes, the world does.
The T is silent: Plant "Vogel." This area is very familiar with nuclear energy. It's near the Savannah River Site which produced tritium for nuclear warheads. It's now focused on environmental clean up.
In terms of deaths per kilowatt-hour, nuclear power is the safest power source.
That's not a valid statistic. With the money wasted , tens of thousands of lives could have been saved.
@@crhu319What?
@@crhu319
If we built 12 new nuclear power plants every year then the cost would fall by 95%
By so far that you cannot even measure it! But it has been hog-tied in the US by the decision to put the anti-nuclear activists in charge of regulating the industry, which triples the cost.
good you live next to a nuke . go to japan and ask them how they like it.
A significant omission from your video is the French success with nuclear.
Canada is mostly powered by nuclear power as well. It’s all about how the plant is operated.
We've had nuclear air craft carriers and submarines for decades.
Without ever any problems.
Imagine when they get destroyed in battle!
“Imagine”?… okay
@@bigtime4794 I'd imagine It'll be exactly like every other incident. The world imagines apocalyptic radiation killing them from afar, while in reality one fish gets prostate cancer and is eaten by a crab. Or maybe you'd like to imagine a nuclear explosion, in which case you'd better be prepared to wait a while. Protons might start to decay first.
@@amarissimus29 stop wasting your time
I was the Reactor Operator on duty for " Black Tuesday" . That's the day a contractor backed into a a disconnect switch in the switchyard, this disabled the power to Unit 1, which was in the middle of a refueling outage. It was quite a hectec day and eventually had to testify in front of a Senate Subcommittee. I'd love to run one of the new reactors, the AP 1000. They're cutting edge engineering.
Wow, I learned about that when I started at Farley and why we have "Comp Measures" now.
@@kc2nrb we had run that scenario several times in the simulator. I wouldn't authorize the work in the switchyard but I was over ruled by the outage manager. Work was ongoing to the "A train" diesel generator and one off-site power source was undergoing maintenance. A contractor in a truck backed into a disconnect that took out the available off-site source and the autotransformer from Unit 2, which was at 100% power. The "B train" DG started up but tripped out due to high vibration. My BOP Operator reset the DG and tried to restart. It restarted and tripped out due to high vibration again. Containment is open to atmosphere because of outage work. We're in a total loss of off-site and on-site power and the core, being refueled, is beginning to heat up and we have no fuel pool cooling. The sequencer has locked out the DG from starting but I knew that I could go to the sequencer panel and reset it, then we would have 2 more chances for a restart. The outage manager was freaking out and saying we didn't have a procedure to do that. I told him do you want to irradiate the southeast or do want to try another start, because it was warm now and starting vibrations would be reduced. Me and a SS went to the sequencer and reset it. The DG started and closed in the output breaker and gave us "B" train power and cooling began. The Senate Subcommittee was formed and Georgia Power was treating us as if we were renegade operators working without a procedure. The Subcommittee found that although we had no procedure to act, with our knowledge of the systems, we did the right thing and thanked us for stopping the crisis. After the ruling Georgia Power was acting as if that hadn't hung us out to dry initially.
7 minutes of anti nuclear power propaganda before the video starts talking about the new plant.
I agree. Showing rusted drums in place of the super secure, bulletproof canisters actually used, showed me all I needed to know about the author's bias.
Storing canisters on the site of generation, like has been done quite safely for the past 40-50 years, and not "burying them in a hole." seems to be pragmatic and for the time being, an acceptable short term storage method.
@@jimmurphy6095 nuclear waste is also pellets that look like Coin Batteries. Not Simpson green goo.
Modern plants re-enrichment happens in the facility so zero hazardous waste ever leaves.
Yep. This guy is somewhat of a jerk.
This guy didn’t even read the wiki page. No scientists agree with his statements.
100w light bulb
1 kg wood= 1.2 days
1 kg ethanol= 3.1 days
1 kg coal= 3.8 days
1 kg crude oil= 4.8 days
1 kg natural uranium= 128 years
1 kg natural uranium in a breeder reactor= 25,700 years
nice! Thank you. What is "natural uranium?" Is there any other version of uranium?
Enriched...
What's the cost per kg for both?
@@skyfinancellc9538 isotopes - There are different isotopes of Uranium.
renewables = no need for fuel
Nuclear power is actually really safe. Coal power generation in India killed a million people in 2019. How many people did nuclear power kill in 2019? I honestly don't know; but I do know that its way less than a million. Most people wouldn't bat an eye at the dangers of building a coal power plant. People aren't good at rationally considering the dangers of a bunch of low impact events vs one high impact event.
Same with oil.
Source: Trust me bro😂
A coal power plant releases way more radio active material in a year through their emissions than a nuclear power plant in its entire livecycle.
@Tonad_Drump Source: The economist an article called stellar solar.
What a joke!!
nuclear energy is cleanest and safest energy
No it's not. Let's talk about waste.
Safest ? Worst case scenario and the Planet becomes Mars. What other energy source as the ability?
No. But its the most expensive for sure!
The amount of money and time spent building new nuclear power plants is unreasonable. There are better and faster alternatives, such as solar and wind energy with batteries, compared to nuclear power.
@@ericchapman5975 fossil fuels?
So basically what your are saying is that nuke power plant accidents are extremely rare, not particularly deadly, storage of nuclear waste takes up very little space, and massive power generation can also take up little space and runs 24 - 7 and is thus more efficient and economical than "renwables." OH and almost forgot equally or more green than renwables. Did I get that right?
@maxvanorden2850 Are those serious questions or are you trying to be funny about the subject?
--- nuke power plant accidents are extremely rare: Yes
--- not particularly deadly: It depends; some can be contained in the control room of the plant and some can be terrible. France, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Spain, the UK, etc, never had any serious accident with fatalities.
--- storage of nuclear waste takes up very little space: No, but space is not the problem. The possibility of radioactive leaks is the important issue.
--- massive power generation can also take up little space: Not much more space than a thermal power plant but definitely MUCH LESS than a wind farm. And a hydro plant, if you consider the surface of the dam and spillways takes quite some space also.
--- runs 24 - 7: Nothing new, a hydro plant or a thermal power plant can run 24/7. I am not sure that solar runs at night. Don't you think so, at least in our galaxy?
--- is thus more efficient and economical than "renewables." Yes and no, thermal power plants have (by thermodynamic principles) a limit to their efficiency and that includes nuclear. But solar panels and wind turbines cannot be compared to other plants because they do not work 24/7 and the comparison over a year for example would put the renewables very low compared with all the other power generating plants
--- more green than renewables. Yes and no. That is tricky because when you dismantle a wind turbine (at the end of its useful life) you are left with a concrete foundation forever because it is so massive that even dynamite controlled explosions will not get rid of it while solar need of rare earth and other metals causes huge pollution problems (much more than making steel and cement).
--- Did I get that right? NO and it was not even humorous or intelligent.
There have been 0 nuclear power related deaths in the US as well. Fukushima had 1. Chernobyl, the worst disaster in history, had about 50. Thats it.
@@Birdofgreen Of course. Train derailments or busses going downslope can have worse consequences. Mr @maxvanorden2850 wrote a collection of hypothetical disasters that have been answered a long time ago but people like to keep harping on the same subject on and on.
Correct but the big oil lobbyists are vehemently against them. I wonder why…
@@Birdofgreen No. Most of the deaths at Chernobyl were not related to the accident which only killed the operator. Everything else was government stupidity. As usual.
I am pro Nuclear for power generation!
I am pro nuclear but until we get a standardized design that we can replicate and field the technicians to run all those plants its fantasy. Era of high tech is to expensive. Low tech and low cost of electricity are more determining for successful development.
First, it's pronounced Vogle. The "t"is silent. I was part of construction there and still live less than 20 miles from the site. I've also worked at several other nuclear plants as well as other power plants. Nuclear is the cleanest and safest form of power production. I would much rather live near a nuclear plant than any other type.
Every time he utters the word "Vogtle" it makes me cringe
This was hard to listen to
I was there with Georgia Power Company doing the start up testing and maintenance on units 1 & 2. Hard to believe it was 40 years ago.
thank you.
This is coming across as so much silly nonsense. Showing the cooling towers with radioactive symbols is just nuts. They are the least radioactive part of the plant.
Not to mention the coal power plant shown has identical cooling towers.
@@willythemailboy2 -- The only "validity" of the towers is that nuke plants aren't as thermodynamic efficient as coal fired plants. This translates into needing more cooling per kWh produced.
@@GilmerJohnIs low thermal to electrical efficiency because of safety concerns being incorporated into the design?
@@richardbartley5906 -- Indirectly. The max thermal efficiency is determined by the maximum temperature of the "working fluid" (steam/water) and the minimum temperature.
In a nuke plant the steam that passes through the turbines isn't heated by the nuke reaction directly but indirectly through a heat transfer loop. That loop is routinely high pressure water but it could be hot gas or even a liquid metal or salt.
Every so many years a "new design" is claimed but I don't follow these.
But the lower efficiency practically translates into more cooling water needed for a giving amount of power. With nukes, the efficiency of the nuke heat source is a minor cost compared to the cost of the plant.
@@GilmerJohn Does this apply to boiling water reactors too?
Didnt need the history lesson on nuclear energy and controversies surrounding it. Was hoping for a lot more focus on Vogtle itself.
13 years ago and you start with Fukushima... you are here to educate people and you just use fear for clickbait. I liked your content but please avoid propaganda for any further content.
Do better than that man
Your right, Fukushima was deep state fake news /s
You did not mention the importance of low interest rates when building nuclear. Nuclear power plants take many years to build and there is a lot of money going into them before they produce any electricity. That was one of the reasons for all the nuclear power plant cancelations in late 1970's, early 1980's, the high inflation rate and then high interest rates/tight money supply to lower the inflation rate.
You forgot the lobbying of oil and gas companies in the states
He didn't mention a whole lot of stuff.
This is so important for example I permit and build out a solar field in 2 years. I start paying back the debt once I start collecting fees. Nuc plant I'm looking at 8 years permiting and building (we know this can vary} so getting a good rate is more difficult since the lender needs to make back the capital it invested and it takes years before you can start collecting those fees. This is one of the key hurdles of actual development till this gets fixed with an acceptable solution. Nothing will change.
I just retired from a company that repaired bearings from hydroelectric and coal burning power plants. The repair was on bearings that were 60, 70 or 80 years old. New and more efficient power plants are a must .
We always had a life time for nuclear power plants it was sixty year life based on all workers at the plant would be retired by then when the life span could easily be 120 years and we need to build hundreds more of them my son and I had a discussion on need when he was eight he’s now 30 years old and a nuclear engineer
@rayisland23 Repairing bearings is just a small part of the biggest problem we are facing in this country We do not have anymore the industrial capability to produce the major components of power plants be it nuclear thermal or hydro. We have also lost our engineering abilities and our craftsmanship. Revival of nuclear plants is a very good plan but reviving manufacturing, engineering and construction will take a huge amount of time and preparation in addition to a market that needs to support all the new projects.
And by the way, do you know of any US company that is today able to build some large hydro turbines or large electrical generators or high voltage substation equipment?
@@pindapoy1596 GE continues to be a world leader in turbines. Not 'the' but a
Spent fuel is stored in casks not barrels
Plants are different nowadays. 3 mile was caused by a valve that was stuck Open and they had no feedback showing it was open. It’s different now, everything has feedback, that’s why we never hear about any issues, because there hasn’t been any. We need more nuclear.
Spending money to build the most reliable and cleanest form of energy supply, expensive. Sending billions around the world to other countries. Good investment. Can't make this stuff up.
😂😂
Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy production. That is the reason. Also nuclear also requires buying from other nations. Most of which hate the US.
@@AL-lh2htyou missed the point of the original comment. The point was we don’t have money to invest in building a robust nuclear energy infrastructure, but we do have hundreds of billions to send to other countries for war. Interesting.
Also, the idea that we would rely on other countries to supply us with equipment to build these nuclear plants is laughable. If that is not what you mean by buying from other countries, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.
Nuclear is by far the most efficient and cleanest way to produce energy for humanity.
Does it run on fentanyl?
@@garebaregoof4226we’d have money for both if we weren’t so wasteful with these overblown budgets. We honestly don’t need to have a military budget that big.
Having lived close to Shearon Harris nuke plant in NC, all of its life, we’ve had no problems ( that any of us are aware of). As a pipe welder, I know a lot of guys that built it, and a good many that do work in there. I don’t really worry too much about it. There’s no greenhouse emissions and if they can figure out how to store the waste, it’s still way cleaner. We need to build more. Harris plant was supposed to be a 3 unit setup, but only one was built, basically due to the 3MI accident.
IDC what people say. Nuclear power is the absolute best opinion for energy generation. Yes it can be dangerous. The 2 disasters mentioned are the exception. 1 being a natural disaster, & 1 being... Well, communism. 😂 I live here in Savannah & Vogtle is never a thought on majority of people's minds.
Sorry for being that guy, but Ackchyually, both incidents are human made. Fukushima was not maintained good enough, there was couple violation of safety regulations, like not working water pump in the basement where backup power generation was located. So yea, it just dumb design + human ignorance.
@@delancre5858 Main culprit was found to be a diesel generator to power that water pump, but was left outside and unprotected when the tsunami hit. Once identified, several men chose suicide.
And then you remember how many people die each year due to oil and coal and the their long term health effects.
Yea, it’s like saying surgeries should be banned because sometimes they die while in operation.
@@delancre5858 I think ultimately It was cost cutting at the design phases and corruption with operation in both cases.
Coal emissions kill more people per year than every nuclear energy related death in history including both atomic bombs COMBINED.
3:07 Why the nuke symbol on the cooling towers and not on the actual reactors? I get that it's a money-shot based on 3 Mile Island, but at least have some honesty and integrity here. All that those towers produce is steam. It's the smaller constructs between the cooling towers which have the most harm potential.
Because he doesn't know any better. Just because someone makes YT videos doesn't mean they're experts on anything... or actually know anything.
Regis: In ideal world, they (countries) turn to a renewable sources (of energy)
Germany: Hold my cheap coal that we mine by destroying large part of our beautiful landscape
Spent nuclear fuel (“waste”) is stored securely in extremely durable, shielded and sealed containers, not the oil drums shown in this video.
Exactly! I wrote a comment about this. They should be ashamed of themselves for creating disinformation like that.
And "waste" from existing light water reactors can be used in breeder or burner reactors and actually used up, leaving just a tiny amount of unusable waste that only needs to be stored for like 100-200 years...which is very easily doable.
They started a nuclear factory in Finland this last year and I dropped wholesale electricity rates by 75%. Kind of weird that they can do nuclear in Europe no problem but here it's an issue.
I think that nuclear power plants are definitely worth it: they are 100% green and they produce A LOT of power.
They're green except for the fact they're made from concrete and steel...both made from highly intensive CO2 manufacturing. When determining whether or not something is 100% green you have to consider the supply chain involved...therefore nothing is 100% green at the moment.
@@zaklex3165 true,absolutey nothing.
@@zaklex3165 Like all those "green" electric cars that world Governments are pushing so hard.
@@zaklex3165 LOL.....pretty gullible that you are thinking CO2 is some form of "greenhouse gas"......I'll bet you will buy about anything from an "expert"......oh well that is what you get with a public that does not do their own research and STILL believes the government liars
We CAN do nuclear safely. AND we can do solar. Together , we’d be more than energy independent. And THAT is a powerful thing to have to be successful as a country
Nuclear elements usually come from other nations.
@@AL-lh2ht Yeah, like Australia and France. The mortal enemies of the US. The enrichment in Russia also still made sense before the Biden administration.
YES - it doesn't have to be one OR the other it can be BOTH - why different in America? Well there are reasons
Solar safely - yes, and if used across the country can provide power at the right time for many areas - evening for east cost morning for west, but not so good the other way.
Uses a lot of land - but can coexist with many farming types these days (vertical panels).
Costs are low - and while they are made in China there is no ongoing risk. Greenhouse payback less than 1 year
The USA could make them but it will only be to address importation - not cost. Unless a new style of panel is developed with better characteristics and put into production earlier than what China does.
Nuclear safely? The operating plants are WAY safer than coal powered - particularly for the surrounding communities.
The issue still is the waste, there still isn't a reliable way of ensuring the waste can be kept safe (out of the environment) for the time needed. Also the cost of this is NOT priced into the current use - rather it is a cost pushed down the road to consumers that don't get the electricity.
I presume nuclear are more able to cope with variable loads than coal - if so they are better at load matching with solar for time of day variation.
The cost is eyewatering (so would solar at that scale of power delivery, it would be interesting to see real comparison including ability to supply across 24hrs for solar (storage of some type)
The impact of the amount of concrete and steel used in greenhouse emissions would be HUGE but at least is basically a one off emission
Nuclear Fuel may well come from other countries - like Australia. But that isn't a real risk, unless USA wants to make it so, so its up the the USA really.
USA is already energy independent for oil and awash with natural gas
Wind doesn't make a lot of sense for USA - unlike many countries. I think the same applies to tidal and wave.
So until something else shows up as being scalable in the USA context Solar and Nuclear are the biggest plays in town.
Solar is a complete waste of time. Wind on the other hand.
We can do solar, but why? It's short lived, intermittent, expensive and environmentally dirty. Oh, I forgot the Uyghurs work for nothing - that's a plus!
Bruce Power in Ontario is the largest nuclear power station on Earth.
Collectively, with 8 units. But these are all very small units putting out less than 900 MWe each. The entire site puts out 6,550 MWe. By comparison, Palo Verde produces 4,000 MWe with just 3 units.
@@stevealexander7772 I work at Palo Verde and there is talk about adding another reactor in the near future.
We need at least two dozen additional such plants in the USA.
You get 10 of these plants by redirecting 50% of the military budget
into the construction.
Why didn't you show the 4 nucs in Washington State (WUPS 1-4) and the one in oregon? Only one got built in Washington out of 4 and the single one in Oregon got shut down early. How about mentioning the reprosessing of nuclear fuel that cuts down on waste volume by about 87%. All other developed nuclear states reprocess their spent fuel. Jimmy Carter outlawed it in the US by executive order. This provides almost free fuel. I don't know why that stupid order hasn't been cancelled? Also, mention the executive order by Obama that cancelled the high level waste repository because of Harry Reid's special interest request. This cancelled multi billion $ research studies that identified the Nevada location as the safest in the country. Coincidently, they waited until it was 90%+ construction was completed before shutting it down. I have worked as an engineer on two nucs: Hanford's plutonium processing facility and Watts Bar II and finally the Hanford waste processing facility agian for high level wastes, that thanks to Obama has no place to put the vitrified high level wastes they are processing. Politics need to take a back seat to facts and economics. It will take another several decades to perfect commercial fusion plants and in the meantime, nucs make more sense than ever if the two fundamental political problems are fixed. Otherwise the useless dream of an all electric culture will never be attainable. Cheers, those are the facts you won't see mentioned very often.
exactly this. we need to reevaluate the restrictions on building plants so the small modular reactors take off, but to do it right they should pick ONE design and just go with it. None of them are perfect, but go with *one* so they're all pretty much the same and easy to get parts(share 95% parts) for the foreseeable future. mass production to get costs down, minor adaptations to fit location. that way a worker can move one plant to another and be qualified/ready/safe quickly.
I'm hoping to get a job on Hanford or at Columbia soon.
Carter's order was cancelled early in the Reagan administration, but at that point, the industry had learned that it could have the rug pulled out from under them at any point and wasn't about to invest in the infrastructure needed.
I live in Georgia, and would just like to advise you that the “t” is silent. So, it is pronounced vow-gull. You should also mention that it did have a lot of cost overruns. I should mention that as a Georgia Power customer, I do not regret it;s construction, even with the rate increases
We have 2 in Texas. They're clean but folks talk ignorant about them. In Germany when "America" blew up the pipelines to Germany through Ukraine, we tossed up 3 with quickness. No problems here nor other countries giving up frozen money as oil is currency. Y'all are wrong about Germany. The 2 in Texas, one by gulf and 1 by Dallas. Inexpensive and still working.
Our submarine and aircraft carrier fleet are nuclear powered and are exposed to far more threatening criteria than a land based plant, and yet we build more of them. Nuc power satisfies all the snow flakes criteria for a clean environment (its not really their goal anyway) that is clean and efficient, not to mention the fact we need anti tank rounds also. I'm all for it in your back yard. .-)
France has showed the world how practical Nuclear power is.
We have an abandoned power plant in Washington state near Elma. I don’t believe they ever used it but it still stands today
Satsop! I visited there when I traveled through Washington and Oregon in 2020, I wish that plant and the others in Washington would’ve been completed instead of abandoned 😢
Financing killed them. Interest rates went high quickly. WPPS 2 was finished and has produced a great deal of power over the years. (Columbia Station.)
WPPS- say it "whoops!" decided to build five power plants. all with different designs.
three north of Richland, WA one by Elma, WA & one more I don;t recall where...
they got one finished then went bankrupt. instead of going with one design, getting one running and then doing a "copy/paste" four more times they decided to go bankrupt trying to go different directions. it was idiotic.
The one in Richland is now owned by Energy Northwest and is doing great. the others are empty hulks slowly being torn down after having never operated.
lesson: when building multiple of something like this, hit "copy/paste" and don't go bankrupt.
We have the technology to build self-regulating small scale nuclear reactors that would require no operators at all and would be fail-safe. Natural circulation, so no coolant pumps to fail, no valves to close. Decay heat after a scram easily contained within the pool.
Good video, but your assertion that the 1,000 sq kilometers is almost 20% the area of Georgia is very far off. Georgia is roughly 150,000 sq kilometers, so 1,000 sq km is less than 1% of Georgia’s area (actually about 1/2 of 1%).
Wind power is pure ignorance: anti enviroment, extremely expensive, an eyesore, kills birds, makes noise, is ugly, non recyclable blades, expensive to maintain, and the kicker, the wind does not blow 24/7 so all other sources of power have to be 'hot', ready to assume the load.
Now days we can build nuscale power plants developed in Oregon USA and use very little space and are stackable at affordable prices
Over the life of a reactor nuclear power is the cleanest and cheapest out there. France is also putting a lot a of money in re building their nuclear reactors and plan upgrades. While Germany closed closed all of there plants and are now building Bio Fuel (wood) fired power plants.
Well you see France gets nuclear materials almost for free because of neocolonialism (yea France never really stopped doing colonialism, seriously look it up, it’s messed up)
Just read that they plan to build 10GW of natural gas power plants to provide backup when wind & solar cannot produce. And maybe more...
Humans finding different ways to turn steam into electricity
3/4 energy of nuclear power plant is wasted by not utilizing the generated heat. In comparison to build cost having district heating would be very feasible operation.
No mention of "clean burning" natural gas plants ???
Exactly I was thinking same thing.
Building a nuclear plant on the southern US coastline reminds me of a Fukushima 2.0.
Yeah all those tsunamis that hit all the time 🙄
Eh? Vogtle is ~75 miles from the coast and ~200 feet above sea level.
Good video. I particularly liked the bit around the 7 minute mark.
Dude made a video that was full of lies that no scientific agrees with. Like, this is not even reading the wiki level of bad info.
@@AL-lh2htwhat video are you talking about about?
Noticed natural gas was excluded from the list of "sources" of energy at the very start of your video....odd that the most prominent source was not mentioned.
X-Energy is developing a new U235 fuel (Tri-so). U235 is sealed in tennis ball-sized Silicon Carbide for use in upcoming small nuclear reactors. This would be an excellent topic for your series.
@MegaBuildsYT Sorry mate, I think you cute some significant part from your video:
First of all, why you didn't said that waste can be utilized and burnt in "slow reactors", while you was explaining waste part? It's very important, cause not a lot of people knows that for some reason and "eco activists" usually brought that as an example of waste and pollution. Also, worth mention, that there already a better solution of storing waste, then just "burrow it deep inside in some third world country", not everyone willing to use it tho. Second one - you didn't mentioned in "disasters" part, that both Fukushima and Chernobyl, was purely caused by violation in safety regulations and flaws in design. Even if we don't gonna speak about USSR disaster, cause it pretty much well known one by now, Fukushima one was similarly "man made" what don't mentioned at least once, flood and other stuff won't do anything if pumps and other stuff was working as intended. Third one - I don't think you mentioned "carbon free" part well enough. Not only other "green" solutions also requires to be build, maintained and becomes waste after short life cycle (The typical life span of a wind turbine is 20 years, with routine maintenance required every six months. The industry standard for most solar panels' lifespans is 25 to 30 years, but worth mention, that power output will decrease significant after time). While nuclear power plant can be operational from 20 to 40 years, and even after it pasts expiration date, it can be used at lower capacity to burn the rest of the fuel, like currently Chernobyl power plants operates.
I'm not a nuclear physicist of some sort, (I'm actually pretty dumb and only finished college in russia, lol), but I heavily insist, that everything above is basic information (cause if even I know that, it sure is basic), that I didn't noticed in your video.
It feels like they have a bias against nuclear power. Based on the bad info and downright disinformation, they are against nuclear power.
Build baby build
I don't think Georgia has to worry about earthquakes and tsunamis. If nuclear power plants didn't take so long to build, IMO they are the best source for electricity generation.
And as a Georgia Power customer, they are trying to justify my flat rate going up to build Plant Vogtel. Let's hope it's a success.
eia.gov data (US cents/kWh) average retail prices, average residential prices
12.72 - US retail 2023
15.98 - US residential 2023
11.36 - GA retail 2023 (with the super-expensive NPP)
13.73 - GA residential 2023
24.73 - CA retail 2023 (with the super-cheap solar/wind)
28.92 - CA residential 2023
So, not only is the nuclear GA rate lower than the solar/wind CA rate, it is lower than the US overall!
10.07 - US retail 2013
12.13 - US residential 2013
9.69 - GA retail 2013 (with the super-expensive Vogtle NPP)
11.46 - GA residential 2013
14.30 - CA retail 2013 (with the super-cheap solar/wind)
16.23 - CA residential 2013
What we can see, over the last 10 years of CA installation of wind/solar, prices have doubled. Not a great track record. What we can see, pre-Vogtle and post-Vogtle is that yes, prices rose - to about the same as the average US price 10 years previous. They certainly did not crush the GA ratepayer due to an expensive NPP!
and for March 2024
12.73 - US retail
16.68 - US residential
(super expensive nuclear; with extra cost overruns)
10.65 - GA retail
13.57 - GA residential
(super cheap wind/solar; can really feel that low, low, low LCOE)
25.81 - CA retail
32.47 - CA residential
Vogtle isn't entirely carbon free.. remember all that concrete and steel? That produced a heck of a lot of carbon.
It *is* carbon free if you just look at the fuel & it's by products, but if you look at the entire lifecycle of the plant, it does have *some* carbon costs.
Having humans and animals on the planet has some carbon cost. Good grief. The earth isn't dying.
@@TrendyStone no, but for big infrastructure projects, especially in energy production, you need to look at the total carbon footprint, not just the footprint at a specific point in the project's life.
So initially, the carbon footprint would increase during construction, then it'd stay constant during operations (or increase slightly), then potentially increase again at demolition & decommissioning.
E.g., wind is fantastic, but has an ecological cost at the end of the life of the turbine because the blades are hard to recycle.
The main point is that nothing is truly zero carbon, some things just produce a lot more carbon than others. (e.g., the carbon footprint of coal is massive, especially if you factor in the mining operations)
@@thisismissem building a coal plant use a lot concrete too. You have to look at the complete live cycle to compare them
@@thisismissemthe concept is simple. High cost in the beginning to have a very efficient and clean system in the long run. While you may produce lots of carbon in the beginning, you’ll pay that back over time with the difference between the energy produced and the total carbon emissions.
For example, it’s like solar, where you pay a lot more to install this new source of power than you would if you kept paying the electric company. However, over time, your savings from the solar system will eventually pay back that investment, and then continue on afterwards saving you money.
To bring that back to nuclear, you have a high investment of carbon to build the reactor and then over time, having a carbon free system will eventually bring the footprint to a net zero and then continue to be negative.
If you were to invest the same initial carbon into a coal plant or some other type of non-clean energy, you’ll just continue to pollute the planet. The factories produced will likely never achieve net zero emissions because the power is unclean.
Nuclear power is something that addresses the root of the problem and not just a bandage that covers it up for a spell.
So what?
MSR and thorium plants should be next for you to cover. The amazing thing is they can burn as fuel the waste from the old nuke plants.
There is nothing that is cleaner then nuclear and it really is the safest option too.
Like most infrastructure projects in the usa, the initial projected cost is usually only 1/3 or 1/4 the actual cost. This it is usually due to inefficiency, mismanagement, and possibly corruption. I wouldn't be surprised if the final cost will be $100+ billion.
Edit: had to edit my comment because YouTurd keeps hiding my comment because of certain keywords that they are trying to censor.
Legal interference from "environmental" groups is the biggest cause of delays. And the fact they turned the regulation of the industry over to nuclear hating activists. US reactors typically cost three times the world average.
Build more nuclear power plants! Having a robust electric grid of nuclear power, solar power, wind power, hydro power, and ocean power will help us end our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity and help us up our grid to handle more electric cars in the future.
You need to do some research on salt rather than liquid coolant reactors. They can’t melt down and are much cheaper to build thus eliminating both of your concerns with nuclear power.
a worthwhile modern Manhattan size program would be to create the basis for modular and automatically safe nuclear power plants that could literally be mass manufactured off site.
The US should actively be building 100 new nuclear plants.
Its good
there's absolutely nothing controversial about nuclear fission power. it is by far the most efficient, cheapest form of energy with with modern designs completely fail-safe.
Nuclear energy is the only energy source where we actually store the waste rather than dumping it into the air
Germany closed 3 of their 4 powerplant but do your research they are now using the so called closed plants...
so much wrong in the first few minutes. lets see here...
1) In nuclear reactors you do NOT fire particle beams at unstable material to create the reaction, you reflect the emmissions from the material back onto itself. You use the energy it emmits to increase its own energy output, no intervention required.
2) When the atoms split they do not "leave behind" radioactive waste. They are already radioactive and what they split into is also radioactive. We can use that byproduct for even more energy generation, it just isn't as efficient. The waste part is from radioactive contamination. While running, the reaction spits out neutrons which can sometimes stick to non-radioactive elements causing them to become radioactive as well. While not ideal the type of radiation is typically not something worth worrying about. You get higher doses from an hour flight than you would sitting on a bench made from these materials for a year.
3) Sort of answered in 2, but the waste is not really that dangerous. In massive quantities it can be or if you eat it but really it is mostly low level. We are just REALLY good at detecting it.
4) "In the last few decades there have been a number of high profile accidents." 3, there have been 3 in the last 60 years.
5) Japan was hit by a magnitude 9+ earthquake. The nuclear plant survived this but the cooling pumps got flooded by the tsunami and failed. Importantly, this was a KNOWN issue that the plant operators were supposed to fix but did not. It should have survived a tsunami and a magnitude 9 earthquake, that is how safe nuclear plants are.
6) The last of the towns that were evacuated, Futaba, was opened again in 2022. There are no longer any areas outside the reactor itself that is closed to the public. So yeah, not another 40 years, people are living there NOW.
7) Nuclear waste is not packaged in barrels and put underground. The worst of it is encased in concrete then stored on site. They WANT to put it underground but that has not been happening for the most part.
8) "This waste will be releasing dangerous radiation for well over 1,000 years." No, it won't. It will be radioactive for that long but that is how radiation works. As an example, your bones will be releasing radiation for millions of years. Also, dangerous is a stretch as the dangerous radiation is the stuff that burns out in years not centuries.
9) A note on danger. Think of radiation as a bucket of sand. The half life is how long it takes to throw half that bucked of sand, one grain at a time, at you. You are only going to get dirty (effected by the radiation) if the bucket is particularly massive or if the half life is very short. If it is fairly small or has an massive half life, you are probably fine. So, any time you hear "it will be around for thousands/millions of years" know that it is probably safer than your average sunbathing session.
Having worked in the Nuclear industry as well as the solid waste industry I can honestly say there are more dangerous options. Nuclear is more heavily regulated for safety than any other industry. Waste to energy plants are far more dangerous. The chemical industry is responsible for millions of deaths and some truly horrible accidents. Municipal and chemical waste have contaminated thousands of acres of land and water supplies. You don't here of the supper fund sites since the 80's but most of them were never cleaned up. Solar and wind generation are not totally green either nomatter what the government wants us to believe. Manufacturing the components for these systems requires the use of toxic chemicals and components. The reason batteries are not produced in the us is that companies can not comply with EPA and other manufacturing regulations and still be competitively priced. Disposal of hazardous waste is also a problem. Then, there is the reliance on rare earth elements, of which the US does not have a supply.The carbon footprint of the industries supplying these components from mining to manufacturing is also ridiculously large. When you look at the facts, the green energy that developed nations push is not any greener than fossil fuels Nuclear is.
Nuclear power is a good deal... We have two nearby and they have run safely for many years.
Thorium reactors and what the Chinese have done with graphite is a massive game changer. Chain reactions are neutralized that's the game changer and reactive fuel that doesn't degrade as much or become radioactive with graphite .
I believe the Gen 5 reactors can recycle spent rods to boil water for the turbines. We have a LOT of nuclear waste which could generate heat sufficient for power generation.
The problem with the Chinese reactors was cost cutting during the builds then kicking out the foreign operators. The original designs were pretty great though.
several Chinese plants on the South China Sea put as much contamination ever year as Fukushima asked politely to let go in the Pacific over ten years. they are not an example to look to on the world stage when it comes to nuclear. they just cover it up to save face & point fingers....
Hooray, It's MegaBuilds video time
First off the t is silent, it’s pronounced “Vogel”
Nuclear power is Clean safe, reliable and efficient. It’s the best source of energy for any country. It’s always on,not whether dependent, no greenhouse gases. We need 100 more Westinghouse a P 1000 nuclear plants built ASAP.
Nice video. Can you make a video on most expensive mega projects in the world
that is the point of the channel😅
@@figjam88au lol
Great to see that they realize nuclear power is the most efficient source of energy. We need more people to realize it.
Thank you for properly covering Three Mile Island, so many people make it into this horrible accident when in reality it was poor handling of information and bad communication between department's and the press. The safety measures put in place worked properly by venting high pressure gas to prevent any explosion/meltdown and the reactor shut down. What gas was vented quickly dispersed into the sky leaving nearly a blip on the background radiation readings nearby and no measurable upticks in local health complications.
Nuclear is definitely a preferred option in the mix of energy generation going forward.... Canada, Ontario specifically is pursuing more nuclear... and the CANDU reactor is possibly the safest design on the planet.
Great video! I work here and have seen your channel talk about Vogtle a few times. BTW its pronounced Vogle...the T is silent.
The usual rules of pronuciation would make the g silent, but local convention certainly overules!
Nuclear all day!!!
I think it’s insane that nuclear advances have almost come to a halt, when back in the 60s, it was the new hope for the future. Hopefully it makes a permanent come back :)
The background plant is starting to look better!
Three mile Island unit 2 not unit 1 had the partial meltdown
After shutting down their nuclear power plants, Germany had to turn to cutting down and burning forests in order to have enough power to see them through winter.
The “t” is silent. In Georgia we do not use it and pronounce it “Vogel”.
Like Huger in SC is actually called Hugh gee.
Locals may say it as they wish, they are the authorities and the rest of us will follow along.
Why does MegaBuilds (formerly Top Luxury) get so many things wrong in some of their videos?
Yeah, this was way wrong on so many points.
Many European countries have done their nuclear safety due diligence along with a comprehensive cost vs effective value analysis. i.e., Finland has five of the new safe design nukes going, some completed and other near completion. As a result some are saying they may evolve into a substantial manufacturing center. What's also nice is the severing of Finlands depencey on Russia for electrical power accompanied by Putin blackmail. Everyone knows the wind and solar are unreliable and their no recycle disposal cost, soil damage (can't repair the desert once it's been bulldozed) cost of repair and significant cost of finding people who are willing to engage maintaining all those wind mill/turban moving parts and replacing blowing sand damage to solar panels and turbine blades-plus no one knows how to dispose of thousand of them them stacked up and abandoned out of sight in some desert. Ultimately everyone understands that safe nuclear is the only viable alternative.
I was in the Nautilus Reactor Compartment. Tight tight tight.
nuclear power plants arent bad, but most people just dont want it close to you (NIMBY) the big problem is where to put it so that it is save even if it goes wrong
Surprised you didn't mention that after Germany switched away from nuclear and moved to gas and oil imports, they were in a real bind when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off the supplies.
I worked at VC Summer 2 and 3
Pretty sure that was a 9B $ fail.
The amount of documentation and QC and manpower that is invested in a nuclear plant is absurdly astounding- incomprehensible, that is why they are so expensive to build. There are compounding fail safes for everything that is dangerous. Not only for construction but for operation.
Maybe we should combine the standards and building knowledge of the 70ies with modern control
and design technology to make these reactors safer than ever before.
@@frankfahrenheit9537 That is exactly what has been happening. Most reactors that have been around for forty years have had their control and safety systems upgraded numerous times. Tepco was lazy and did not follow the recommended upgrades, also removed a sea wall that would have prevented all the standby coolant pump generators from flooding because thay thought it gave the wrong impression to the public. An almost identical plant 20 km up the coast lost 3 out of four standby generators for the cooling pumps but because the workers trusted the manager and worked hard for three days to run new cables and get generators back online they had no damage.
*There were only 3 major nuclear accidents : Three Mile Island, Tchernobyl and Fukushima, out of which 2 have caused no deaths.*
At the time point 12:30: the size of Georgia is ~150,000 km^2, 20% of that is 30,000, not 1000. The wind farm estimate is off by more than 3000%
I wonder how long it will take to ROI on that 35 billion?
The two new units will have a minimum life span of 80 years. Each unit running at 100% power will generate between $1.5 to 2 million dollars in gross revenue each day. They're expensive to maintain, but very profitable. It should pay for itself in 15-20 years.
There's really a simple primary tradeoff analysis if land use is a part of the equation - emissions from coal vs the extreme cost of nuclear ala Vogtle. Maybe NG as a secondary since that's where most is coming from the US presently, and NG has better combustion by also leaky transmission infrastructure as well. You can't just stick wind everywhere, you need really well confirmed patterns to make it work - but where you can, it's a pretty good contributor. I think for pure baseline power, nuclear makes sense then do the demand following with the various renewables, dispatchable or not. Solar can do a lot too but eventually you get Rube Goldberg configs to handle all the battery/storage requirements... Another option too infrequently mentioned is to target the least efficient end uses aggressively to up their game and use less electricity - could be a HUGE return in areas with a lot of A/C demand... and not need as much generation as thought doing only demand side growth...
This guy is part of the problem. He doesn’t tell you nuclear power plants are the cleanest safest energy in the world. He only talks about the bad things that happened, which happens one out of 1000 or even million times
Really good and logical presentation. My only opinion contrary to your report would be, the accidents were mismanagement not accidental. The French have used nuclear power for years and they do it well. One of their smart ploys is to build the same reactor each time they build a power plant it can be run well because the safety measures are exactly like the others. the safety measures are thoroughly understood: and there is no: "how do we fix this new problem?" Consequently less risk.
Good to hear that someone has some ideas about where we will get the electricity to charge the cars they want everyone to drive. Coal generating plants are being shut down so an alternative has to be found.
$35 billions sounds like a bargain when you compare it to how it cost California over $3 billions to build a suspension bridge half way across the bay from Oakland, Ca. towards San Francisco, Ca.
Stop saying the T, it's not Vog Tel, and stop scaring people about the the most efficient and cleanest power source for base load generation.
Far too many of these pieces focus on the "dangers" of nuclear power but don't give enough attention to the "compared to what" issue. The number of deaths each year caused by air pollution is staggering and the burning of fossil fuels to generate power is a big contributor.
New tech, new safety, many hard lessons learned. Nuclear is the way to go! ❤
EVERYTHING comes at a risk. The only way to avoid risk is to live in a bubble or not live at all.
6:14 Hiring of unqualified staff. We now have a country implementing DEI to hiring. What could possible go wrong?
@burntjohn You are saying the right thing but you are not politically correct. And today, being politically correct and woke matters most.
Nothing significant with sufficient training and mentorship. Things like answering a trainee's questions to help them learn more. Then some problems will inevitably occur and will be solved.
Reality is that given equal qualifications whites are interviewed, hired and promoted at higher rates.
You could also stop being a racist and stop having such a problem with people who aren't white getting better jobs than things like washing dishes and landscaping.
IT'S ABOUT A DAMN TIME!...it's the SAFEST form of power generation too...
Thank for your sharing about Nuclear Power Plant.
You touched on the cost, but you should have touched on its profit generation. Hydrocarbon (HC) electric generation can be built very quickly. And because it is relatively cheap, electric companies can start generating profits immediately. Nuclear on the other hand is much more expensive and take much longer to build. As a result, profits aren't generated for a long time but, once profitable, the long-term financial implications are much better than HC's because of the plant's life expectancy as well as the profit margin (nuclear has a much higher profit margin per unit energy).
Why wasn't Diablo Nucler power plant in Central Coast California not shown on the map?
They killed it to keep the greenies happy.