I'm shocked France was not mentioned once in this video. 76% of our energy comes from nuclear plants, and we have had a large nuclear energy program since the early 1970s, without a single incident.

I read a quote once that sums this presentation, and ppls fear of nuclear perfectly. " we live in a world exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science or technology.

"By contrast the waste that we don't control, from energy production, we call it pollution and it kills 7 million people a year" This.

Germany: we need to end global warming Also Germany: We need to ban all nuclear power

3:30 Californians care more about being seen as environmentalists than actually improving the environment.

I feel that a lot of our nuclear problems would be solved if Mr. Burns just fired Homer.

Last time I checked, massively more people have been killed by airplane crashes than by nuclear power. There was a time when people commonly feared air travel but people began to look at the facts v. misplaced fears. If we can just begin to replace misplaced fears with facts regarding nuclear power, we can begin to move back in the right direction.

Also the difference between nuclear waste and waste from coal, is that nuclear energy is a solid that can be stored, but fossil fuel power is just being pumped into the sky

“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.” -George Carlin

Fun fact: For the same amount of energy, the radiation hazard of fly ash from burning coal is more than radiation hazard from a nuclear power plant. In fact if you separate the uranium in the coal, and use it in a nuclear power plant, you obtain more energy than burning that coal.

Anyone here because of the "green new deal" wanting to reduce nuclear power?

The illiterate are the most vocal, ignorance seems very attractive in today's world.

Nuclear is splitting apart those poor atom families How dare they take their children electrons as Nucleus and Protons are being murdered! Atom families matter!!!

Retired Physics teacher. Huge frustration; I've been explaining to young pre-adults about nuclear and the huge advantage for decades. Just no one seems to get it.

Decent presentation I'd say. Not great, not terrible. I'd give it a 3.6 out of 15,000 roentgen.

Just don't put comrade Dyatlov in charge next time

the problem with TED talks is that the audience, direct or through recordings, is already relatively educated on these subjects.. this doesn't reach the general population to give any intended result/change

I actually work at a nuclear generation facility, and although it might come off as an obvious bias, I can't say that Ive ever seen anything occur here that makes me question the validity of the technology. As the speaker said, draconian politics and public superstition regarding the technology are the spears that bring these giants down and its a shame. Perhaps another great irony is that the surrounding area on the company property is a veritable nature preserve. Foxes, mink, turkey, whitetail, you name it and its well represented and cant be hunted.

Finally someone who actually cares about the environment

I work for a company that operates several hydro dams, a solar farm, a wind farm, and a nuclear power plant. All of this energy is safe and as close to carbon free as you can get when generating electricity. Throughout the day I check our power generation numbers. Every single day our nuclear plant is operating at 100% power, but our solar and wind output vary greatly. Four days this week our wind farm sat at zero output...zero. Out of 92 MWe possible. Our solar farm obviously only works during the day. The dams were what surprised me. Our dams, with a combined capacity of 1300 MWe only operates at 100% during the spring. In the summer they have to cut back to maintain water level. In the summer... when power demand is at it's highest. The company had to issue a "No Touch" order to the nuclear plant, cancelling all none essential scheduled maintenance because if we shut down unexpectedly we will take down the entire grid. Nuclear is safe and reliable, something solar and wind will never be. Go do some research and tour a nuclear power plant. These plants, built decades ago, are incredibly safe. The only replacement I can imagine being better than these old plants would be new, more advanced, nuclear plants.

I heard a Ted Talk from Taylor Wilson, the young nuclear genius, and he was championing Thorium reactors because they produce much less waste then the traditional uranium powered plants. I don't know too much about this, but power is one of the biggest resources that is needed to propel our civilization forward.

His shirt spelled Harambe incorrectly

100% agreed! I cannot wrap my head around that we want to get rid of a technology that has close to no impact on climate change.

I live in CA. We are a state of buffoons. As long as you are signaling you're pro-environment that's all that matters. "......More slowly than the national average". Awesome.

but he didn't say how nuclear is sexist, racist and transphobic.

Harambe wants nuclear.

In Sweden about 40% of the electricity comes from nuclear energy 40% comes from hydro energy 10% comes from windmills 10% comes from fossil fuels so 90% is from clean energy sources

This single most important TED Talk I’ve seen.

12:57 first row is full of nuclear power sceptics hippies =)

I am glad this topic has been raised by TED, studying in an university as an architecture and planning student, the agenda that seems to be on most fellow architecture acquaintances is that renewable energy is the ONLY solution to providing the main supply of clean energy, I have always pointed out that is a utopia, a dream. If it could be possible I would choose that same path, but I have always raised the same problem, reliability, space efficiency and the lack of knowledge of Nuclear Power (to the everyday person). This view about the decline of nuclear energy is a very interesting perspective to argue from. Will be sharing this, be fascinating to see what the replies would be like back home XD

I will do more research and hear other voices, but I'm willing to change my stance on nuclear after hearing this.

its amazing how difficult to explain the infinitesimal risk from nuclear vs other methods even to engineers who should be able to understand the vast difference between a nuclear bomb and a nuclear reactor. Or that Fukashima has yielded only 1 death and 37 total injuries from the incident itself and that ALL other deaths were dew to fear and panic. WHO estimates that those who were under the age of 1 who where within 2 miles of the site could experience a 1% increased chance of developing some form of cancer in their life times and all other age group no increased risk.....far less than the risk of living in the vicinity of a smoker, which is extremely common in japan with over a quarter of the adult population being smokers. All of this paies in comparison to the dangers from carbon emissions and even more immediately tangible issues of particulate matter in the air from oil and coal. He is correct. people are scared of the wrong things....probably because we watch the sensationalist news and watch too many movies that have us scared of all the wrong things.

fukushima, chernobyl, and 3 mile island. those accidents were all caused by human error. There is nothing inherently dangerous about nuclear energy production. it's the humans operating the power plant that's the dangerous part.

It would be interesting to see the reaction of all the Democratic Party candidates to this guy's talk. They've all stated their desire to fight climate change if elected. Would they really be ready to change the party's longtime opposition to nuclear power? Or what about AOC and her Green New Deal? She specifically wants to pursue a clean energy policy minus nuclear power.

You can thank THE CHINA SYNDROME movie and the people that love to protest.

You summed it up well, could you imagine the amount of materials required to power the world on wind and solar? its mind-boggling

I think the simpsons really harmed the way we look at nuclear energy. People think Homer will sit at the control panel working under Mr Burns.

Excellent talk..i think he does make a very valid point.

I've always been a huge advocate for Nuclear power, and I can understand the criticism nuclear power gets and why. At the end of the day all you have to do is look at Chernobyl, but the thing that people don't understand is that as much as Chernobyl was bad, it was nearly 40 years ago, in a country somewhere between third world and first world and that the vast majority of the issues came from improper reactions to the disaster. Also for those complaining about the price of nuclear energy, the fuels are incredibly cheap, I think Uranium is about 3x more common than silver? (Citation needed on that, can't remember where I heard it) and at the end of the day, the best way to make the plants cheaper, is to build more of them. The more plants we build, the better we'll know nuclear technology, and the cheaper/safer it'll become. I guess in the grand scheme of things, part of the reason nuclear power hasn't killed anywhere near any other energy source is likely because one reactor does the work of thirty oil/gas plants, but it's still alot safer for us and the environment at the end of the day.

And can you imagine, a country as Big as Brazil, having only 2 reactors online right now? Only one is being built, right now, and the president who people call fascist is trying to commission 5 others, I didn't want that guy ruling us, but after he announced he wanted at least 6 new reactors, I started to respect him, because even if he didn't know, he was doing more for the environment that any environmentalist of the country.

"just fire all the waste into the sun" is something i've heard people say those people make me feel like Albert Einstein by comparison

Coal puts more radiation into the environment than nuclear power. Coal has significant amounts of uranium and thorium in it. Nuclear power is contained. The technology for liquid fuel thorium reactors is the answer. I don't expect you (commentors) to believe me. Do your own research, or embrace your ignorance.

I've been preaching this for a long time. Wish this message will resurface more and more often on the big publications.

WHAT AN AMAZING TALK!!! Completely changed my mind

There's a really good documentary on this that everyone should watch on nuclear energy and nuclear fears called Pandoras Promise.

Great presentation, I hope more people start to realize that nuclear is not as bad as the media is showing. In the end, a slow but very big killer such as air pollution or mining of coal/oil is not as exciting as a nuclear accident, even if there are no immediate deaths (e.g. Fukushima).

Thanks for the content! Didn't thought about it, the numbers and trends are alarming

I wish I had enough money to show clips of this on prime time television and internet ads to get the word out

I've heard lots of arguments against nuclear energy. ....not one from a person who actually understood nuclear energy.

Berkeley had a working thorium reactor, before Nixon shut it down. It worked with no hitches for ten years.

It's hard to believe that people are still anti-nuclear to this day.

Well Rosatom already created a working industrial tier reactor that is using some "Fast neutron" technology. It runs on waste (could run on Thorium as well) also uses molten salt (but already came out, doesn't have to wait until 2040), cannot get into a meltdown, works under very low pressure, thus cannot explode and requires a very small amount of fuel to run for a very very very long time. On top of all of this the radiation output is negligible compared to current types of Nuclear reactors. Of course there is a bad side and it's that so far it's so expensive that it requires unreasonable amount of years to cover it's cost. It needs to be popularized maybe.

Nuclear is crucial for moving forward and I see how it is not inherently dangerous; but surely human error is always a possibility and therefore people have a right to fear such potential human errors?

Great presentation thank you

One of the few ted talks that is worth seeing

He may have had a point, but I was instantly turned off by the awful statistical presentation. Using sources with a huge stake in energy markets as a primary source in several places, choosing an arbitrary far-away graph starting point (1985) at 1:14 (rather than for example 1994 when solar and wind started showing up in the graph at 2:47), not rooting at zero at 1:26, unnecessary decimal digits at 2:08, dodgy curve fitting at 3:37, and using a confusing negative bar chart with unclear sources at 10:28.

A question to anyone bashing modern nuclear power, do you work or study in a STEM field?

At 4:30 - One gas leak wiped out clean air efforts for the entire year, assuming that being just of the state of California, not the entire nation.

love the Tshirt, fact of matter i am from RWANDA. great presentation indeed

India is not going to meet its nuclear deadline.... first they have to acquire lands from farmers and fishermen which means it will take about 5 years on its own

Just reading the commemts, and apparently, everyone has a Doctorate in Applied Nuclear Physics......

Good message, a bit confused at the end though.

This problem wouldn't be an issue if the world was a technocracy. Imagine nerds having social power.

That fear of the narrow-minded comment-section :/

good bye electricity

The point about waste is a great one. The good and bad thing about nuclear waste is how concentrated it is. That level of concentration makes it more dangerous on an ounce vs ounce basis but a lot easier to control and sequester as well.

More relevant than ever!

To think, if we'd had a nuclear future the way they thought we would back in the 60's, we wouldn't have nearly as bad of a crisis on our hands.

The simple truth is that the issues are too complex for the public to understand fully especially in view of the miscoceptions often spouted by so-called environmentalists.

The first problem with this talk is the premise that we have a global warming crisis. There are good U-tube videos that do a good job of clarifying that there is no reason to panic.

I'd argue that San Onofre wasn't prematurely shut down. San Onofre had some serious issues regarding plant construction and reactor and turbine design that made it less economic and raised safety concerns. I would argue that San Onofre should have been shut down, but replaced with a more modern nuclear plant on the same site. Either a Gen3+ reactor design like the AP1000, APR1400, a CANDU design. Or, more preferably, by Generation 4 reactors like the GE/Hitachi PRISM or the LFTR from Flibe Energy. But the point stands, we're shutting down clean nuclear and replacing them with fossil fuels.

fully agrea nuclear power is the best we got til fusion power wan its on

I think people not understanding what it actually is also hurts nuclear's case. People think it's some super unstable chemistry that's within a hair of blowing at all times when in reality it's like... Boil some water and collect the steam. That's it.

Thank you for teaching me ;)

Unfortunately, if I have understood correctly, the Finnish law forbids the import and export of nuclear fuels, which makes reprocessing nuclear waste very difficult. Not surprizing people are afraid of it. I'm a second-year electrical engineering student (will graduate as an electrician next spring) and shall continue my studies at UAS to be an engineer and I'm striving mainly for the generation industry. Too bad my older brother once said he accepts my career choice as long as I stay away from nuclear power :d

I love Nuclear!

He is talking about thorium, I totally agree 😀

Thats quite nice and more points

Molten Salt reactors need to be built asap. They have safe guards that won’t allow for any run away reactions inside the core of the reactor.

I'm one of those people who formed the popular opinion that nuclear is dangerous due to the opinion just being there and it 'seeping' into me. Seeing the data, I'm 100% down if people wanna bring nuclear back. I'd think building them off in the sticks would be a good idea, though, because you can't have a major city becoming uninhabitable due to a meltdown.

People not "liking" nuclear is one of the most immature coward attitudes, being concerned about its potential hazards is crucial and anyone in their right mind is concerned about those hazards. That's why we have thousands of brilliant people devoted to Nuclear Energy Physics. But not "liking" an intriguing and technologically far superior power source, that's just shameful.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson.

I tried finding the sources for data he used in this video but I couldn't find them...does anyone have a link to the statistics he used?

Our rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

I'd be interested to hear anybody who can refute what this man is saying.

Very good!

Excellent vid.

don't hate on something you don't understand. yes solar power is coming but it could still take 40 -60 years to get all are power from solar and solar panels are difficult to built. nuclear power is here already and is better that any other current power source in terms of lives per kw hour.

We had a Thorium plant that produced tons of energy in the 60's for 3 to 4 years guy that you failed to mention. We opted for Uranium because it produced reactor grade U-235 and Plutonium that we needed at the time for weapons.

If you shutdown a plant early you still have the waste but not the value and the waste emitts more radiation because it's not fully spent.

Great video, it just need more attention!

look! he's wearing a T-shirt in memory of harambe

Its all smoke and mirrors. Its popular to appear environmentally aware. Its not so popular to have the real answers that were there, just we over-reacted and thought getting rid of nuclear would remove the threat of nuclear war.

Oyster Creek in NJ was shut down, but it was 10 years beyond its life expectancy, and ran from 1967

In Belgium most of our power is generated by nuclear plants. In recent years that has diminished due to the fact the half of the plants are in maintenance half of the year, every year.

Ok, I've been wrong for a long time. I was under the impression that nuclear was just straight up bad, turns out it isn't

The fact is, nuclear energy is completely different than nuclear weapons. The technology is nowhere near the same. It's like being afraid of internal combustion engines because Napalm was used in the Vietnam War. It makes no sense. The fear is completely unwarranted.

6:30 Which is weird since burnign rock coal has actually added more radioactive material to the atmosphere than nuclear have over the last century, a lot more. There are radioactive impurities in rock goal which you essentially aerosolise when you burn the coal, if you burn alot of coal you get a lot of radioactive material in the atmosphere. Meanwhile nuclear tries really hard to not let any radiation out.

I agree pretty much every words. We at the cross road of a climate crisis and we cannot waste a moment on irrational fears.

Always love graphs that don't really have a good scope of overall change. Gotta love making statistics look important by limiting the range of information.