38:45 -- The 'against' speaker claims that the peacetime history of nuclear power is "littered" with accidents and then names three, one of which is the outlier Chernobyl and another, Three Miles Island, which had no casualties. Three Mile Island gained notoriety largely because of the coincidental screening of the movie "China Syndrome," causing more irrational fear. Nuclear power does not have severe health costs. Look at the ACTUAL data and not the what-if scenarios. Coal, oil, air pollution, and even hydro-electric when a dam breaks all have far worse records. Solar panels contain toxic metals and don't last beyond thirty years, begging the question: on what developing countries do we dump our exhausted panels. Wind is inefficient and takes up tremendous swathes of land.

The 2nd speaker's point about taking a long time to build nuclear reactor still overlooks two important points. 1. The speed of which nuclear reactors can be constructed is faster than those speeds he listed. For example the joint Sino-Russian nuclear project at Tianwan, Construction commenced on 20 October 1999 for the first unit, and on 20 October 2000 for the second reactor unit. The first reactor went critical on 20 December 2005. Construction of the second reactor finished in May 2007 and commercial operation began in August. In other words, the rate of production is faster especially without red tape. 2. One can construct nuclear reactors simultaneously. Look at the China example. From 2007 to 2011 they have 11 reactors being constructed.

a few people missing from the panel. James Lovelock James Hanson. Mike Shellenberger. Stewart Brand.

The greens are liars

37:45: The fuel would "explode"? TF!?! Spent nuclear fuel will not explode, it might melt into a pulp which is a problem because this pulp is hard to work with, but it will not explode.

Tony said that in order to supply 20% of power it only need 8 square Km = to 2 km x 4 km ?????? Wonder where he got that figure. That figure should be 800 square Km, and to have all over the country, it will be 4 times over. Just think that one wind tower needs 1/2 square km on everidge. The figure of 20% would be 4.000 to 6.000 + wind towers. Just keep on getting some of your power from France.

young green guy's such a toff

One must not forget that the extraction of uranium and other heavy metals for use in nuclear power plants also needs a lot of energy and will need even more as these materials get rarer. The biggest problem with nuclear energy is that the radioactive waste must be stored safely for more than 1000 years (often even 30.000+). The storage buildings will need a lot of maintanence because it is necessary to ensure there is no leakage of material. In order for renewables to produce all the energy we consume now (not only electricity) an extraordinary ammount of investment needs to be made. I don't think that that can work out. In my opinion we should focus on the energy ineffectiveness in transport. This is a problem that needs to be solved quickly, as this is the largest share on emissions. The only way i see to solve this problem is to expand public transport. I have to admit there is a problem of habit: We don't want to give up our cars, but it is important we do! As oil becomes more expensive it will eventually not be worthwile to use. It is important that the right people get a proper funding. There are great projects on nuclear fusion and it might even be possible in the next 30 years. If that works out, we definetely have a great alternative to our current technologies.

I don't really buy the health based scare stories, but it seems to me that if money is going to be spent with the purpose of lowering carbon emissions, it would be much more effective if spent on renewables. security is also an argument that holds some water

Almost every single concern or argument against nuclear is solved by newer LFTR reactors. There's no potential for explosion (no hydrogen gas), the fail-safe is simply allowing the liquid salt to drop down into a cooling tank where it rests until cooled. It uses spent fuel to begin the process (burning toxic waste) and the little waste it does produce is only radioactive for about 300 years (but would still dramatically reduce waste storage solutions). They don't take that long to build, which is a silly point. Red-tape and unfounded public fear has created more problems in creating nuclear reactors and developing the technology, so it's not fair to put that blame on the industry itself. Renewables just aren't efficient enough to keep up. We're using more electricity than ever before, and it will continue to go up. PV solar panels are the most efficient, but expensive to produce and only last between 15-30 years. Wind turbines are nice, but still don't produce enough for the investment, and have their own ecological impacts. LFTR is the future, and any person who is genuinely interested in reducing our unnecessary detrimental impact on the planet cannot honestly look elsewhere. I'm not saying to give up on solar or wind or hydro or geothermal, but those are insufficient to handle the baseload energy generation that we need.

Almost ten years to the day and the requirement of urgency was ignored. Lets hope we don't regret this sometime in the next ten years!

The representative of Friends of the Earth is intellectually dishonest with his exposition.

Am i the only person who though the guy in the begining of the video was lost? Nuclear is more difficult to safely dispose of it's waste.

Nevada has dug out mountains and full of nuclear waste.

to be fair, I do have the advantage of 8 years of hindsight :-)

Ironical cause he died a month after this debate

First Comment!!!!

hang on a sec, lets do the math here.. how much fossil fuel is involved in getting the ore out, processing it, transporting it... and of course, storing the waste for 10, 15 or 20,000 years? It doesn't add up, does it.

this Bishop most likely favors nulear power cause he wanted to see nuclear Armageddon during his lifetime.