Sabine Hossenfelder: Is nuclear power green?

Check out the math & physics courses that I mentioned (many of which are free!) and support this channel by going to https://brilliant.org/Sabine/ where you can create your Brilliant account. The first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. Correction to what I say at 17 mins 29 seconds: It's 3 meters in diameter and 20 meters tall (not 3 meters in diameter and 20 feet tall). Sorry about that! Subscribe to my newsletter: https://sabinehossenfelder.com/ You can support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sabine Is nuclear power good or bad? In this much-asked-for episode I will summarize the most up-to-date numbers on the status of nuclear power and break down it's pros and cons. We will also look at what the new technological developments have to offer: molten salt reactors, thorium reactors, and small modular reactors. I learned a low while working on this video and I hope you find this summary useful. The table which I show at 3 minutes 16 seconds is from this IPCC report https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_full.pdf The paper from Muellner et al which I discuss at 6 minutes 43 seconds is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521002330 The figure which I show at 7 mins 22 seconds is from the World Nuclear Energy Status Report that you can read here: https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2021-lr.pdf The 2013 paper I mention at 8 minutes 51 seconds is this: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197 The 2016 paper about the death toll of nuclear versus renewables that I mention at 9 minutes 22 seconds is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652615009877 The WHO/Chernobyl Forum estimate for the death toll from the Chernobyl accident is from this report: https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/36/093/36093263.pdf The quote I show at 14 minutes 36 is from this report: https://www.iaea.org/publications/13550/world-thorium-occurrences-deposits-and-resources (sorry for the weird audio quality there) The Nature article about the thorium reactor in China which I show at 15 minutes 28 seconds is this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02459-w And finally, the Science news piece I mention at 17 mins 46 seconds is this:https://www.science.org/content/article/several-us-utilities-back-out-deal-build-novel-nuclear-power-plant Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video http://jordibusque.com/ 0:00 Intro 2:30 Climate Friendly 6:04 Not Renewable 7:05 Expensive 8:22 Dangerous 12:13 Fast Breeders 13:42 Molten Salt Reactors 14:22 Thorium Reactors 15:43 Small Modular Reactors 18:00 Summary 21:12 Sponsor Message #science #technology #nuclear #climate