Nuclear has too much baggage in the public's mind, very few folks want new plants built close to them also nuclear plants are very expensive to make, they take to many years to get approved, constructed and online, also they are not flexible enough, you can't quickly increase production in peak demand or decrease it

​@@thomasjust2663 Your response assumes that Nuclear power is not evolving like everything else. The BWR and PWR reactors of the 1960=1990 era are build to be baseload power. New reactor designs will allow load following. Expensive is not uneconomic. Nuclear power just has a different investment risk profile. Nuclear reactors make prodigious amounts of energy in their lifetimes. They can last from 60 to 100 years. In that time they become very good investments. The approval / regulation hairball is something that needs to be untangled. It is not resulting in greater safety, just red tape. We should demand the former without the latter. There are powerful lobbies that have used regulation to gum up the works to disadvantage nuclear power. It serves no one. The underlying mistake that everyone seems to be making right now is that there exists an equivalency between all energy inputs to a grid. That's evident in the crazy spot pricing strategies. Of course solar looks cheap at noon on a sunny day.. Where is it at midnight? Wind at midnight? Maybe. Storage? At scale over a reasonable safety margin (like 4 days... Texas) only pumped hydro is economic and (more important) possible. Gigafactory can't make enough Li-Ion this century to properly back up the US. It barely keeps up with cars. We may even have a material supply scaling challenge if every nation got on board to build 1000 Gigafactories. So, between now and 2050, shutting down existing nuclear plants is insanity. Insisting that we build no more because they are out of fashion is innumeracy.

@@thomasjust2663 your points about sentiment are valid, but reworking the grid is like performing heart surgery on yourself. The grid IS the beating heart of civilization. First and foremost, we must halt EARLY shutdowns of nuclear plants. They produce 20% of grid power in the US and account for most of the carbon free power. Every time a plant shuts down, even in the name of making way for "renewables", natural gas (methane) fired plants replace the majority of that power. We are marching backwards with early closure. Safety, reliability, emissions of all kinds advocate for nuclear power, if viewed objectively and quantitatively.

@@ovpupfish - I’m skeptical. If a utility is going to invest in a nuclear plant, they are going to want to run it as much as possible, 24/7. And equally, no utility is going to build a nuclear plant with the intention of running it at some mid load waiting for the wind to stop blowing. That’s what simple cycle CTs are for. I would bet Georgia power intends to run the new Vogtle at as high a capacity factor as possible. No load following there. I wish this country was investing in nuclear plants and staffing them with high value employees - but it’s not going to happen.

Portland GE had a nuclear plant, Trojan, but shut it down after 16 years rather than replacing the steam generators. At least for the Pacific Northwest, the ship has sailed.

Its hilarious! Were now at the tipping point. People are starting to be negatively impacted by green energy policy. We need large democrat citys to experience a grid collapse. If that were to happen, the national grid would have no other option but to isolate those areas. If the eastern and western coasts were to collapse they would beg to bring thermal plants back online.

$2.5 Trillion on the Afghan war. If it costs $600M a plant to outfit all of America's coal plants with technology to control all the pollution, then we could have saved our power grid and the environment 4x over with one spending bill, instead of killing more impoverished villagers in far off countries.

@@jmsgrdner2379 But where's the personal profit in that? Nation building is far more lucrative for a politician.

vs more super fires, desertification, storms, extreme temperatures and all the fall-out from those future climate events. Right.

@@rockthevote398 More storms and more droughts? That's a tad self-contradictory.

Nope renewable power is cheaper. In the Province of Quebec it cost 5.77 cents per KWH. The US average is closer to 17 cents per KWH (both are in USD). Cut through the BS, look up at countries that have mostly renewables and what they pay for electricity.

Same here 🤗

Where will you store the electricity? Problem with wind and solar is they do not necessarily make electricity when loads need it. Thus you need constantly cycling gas turbines and hydro to make up the difference. Pumped storage only works where topography allows for reservoirs, and batteries are VERY expensive.

@@randacnam7321 Good questions. Where do we store water and food as food isn't harvested all of the time and it doesn't rain and snow every day, but we need food and water, every day. We've had millennia to perfect storing food and water, we'll become masters at storing energy over the coming decades. I'm in favor of SMR's (small modular [nuclear] reactors) for metropolitan areas when we go long periods of low sun and no wind but in the future, all energy will come from solar, wind and hydro.

@@MrArtist7777 Food is physical. Electricity is not. There is a reason that the latter is much harder to store. Solar and wind have their place in systems small enough where the batteries can be economical and where the system can handle kW/sec generation fluctuations, but grid scale systems cannot handle proportional generation fluctuations of MW/sec or tens of MW/sec that can last for minutes anywhere near as well. On a grid scale, coal, gas, oil, nuclear and hydro win out. Then there is the lie of CO2 being bad, which it is not. If you want to do something about global pollution, go after China, India and Africa. The West is not the problem.

@@randacnam7321 True, food is physical and food spoils quickly, making it much harder to store than electrons. Unfortunately, it sounds like you're a novice to this topic. I've worked in grid-scale solar and wind power generation for the past 15 years and have worked closely with grid managers and know that although coal and gas have been relatively good to us, over the past ~200 years, their resources are rapidly depleting and costing more and more to mine, frack and transport, allowing solar and wind to win out on pricing and rapid pace of new capacity generation. Nuclear is so incredibly expensive, it's not really in the conversation any more. Virtually every grid in the U.S., and many around the world, already use mW-pack battery storage on a daily basis and more is being installed every day. Tesla is currently installing a multi-mW battery pack in Texas and much more will be installed over the coming years, just watch.

The United States coal industry and coal-fired plants are among the cleanest in the world. China, Russia, India parts of Mexico produce far more pollutants and we do

Solar is a joke let’s be honest

That does sound mature

@@NicholasLittlejohn -yes it's mature gas, enough to power a house.

People have known for years. Anyone can do a quick financial analysis on this crap and understand it will not wo

But Oregon and Washington want four of those breached and removed.

@@PaulRentz That is pretty stupid.

renewable power is the future, that's why dam economics are failing, need to be investing in renewable storage facilities, ie... CAES or tesla battery farms

@@peterdorn5799 Economical grid-level battery storage is a pipe dream. Nuclear, hydro, geothermal, and natural gas for the win. Dams can generate electricity for less than 1¢/kwh and nuclear can generate for about 1¢/kwh, but a Tesla powerpack costs about $455/kwh. Battery packs are therefore 45,500x as expensive per kwh. Wind and solar are outdated, dead ends.

I’m reminded of the old joke - a dozen Indians ambush the Lone Ranger and Tonto. The Lone Ranger says - Tonto tell them we are the good guys. Tonto says - what do you mean “we”, white man. In other words - they aren’t your dams & the power company is going to do whatever reaps their execs the most money.

Where will you get the hydrogen? And what are you going to do about things like hydrogen embrittlement? And Texas had a similar cold snap 10 years ago where there were no blackouts on this scale. The difference? Wind was 6% of ERCOT capacity in 2011 and is now 25% in 2021. This means that when a big cold system drops wind speeds below the 7mi/hr for the turbines to do anything, wind generation craters. As it did, going from 8GW 24hr before the storm to 600MW during it. Then there is the failure of the natural gas pipeline system, which was due to *drumroll* electric compressor stations. These compressor stations used to run on natural gas engines running off the pipelines, but that wasn't green enough.

@@randacnam7321 wind turbines should have been winterized

@@JT-zl8yp Cost. Everything with utilities is a cost benefit analysis.

@JT-zl8yp you people are not in reality. You think people can snap their fingers and everything is done. The first commenter talking about more wind and solar has no idea the trillions of dollars he is talking about. Even then you have to have traditional power on standby fir every watt of wind and solar. The worst thing is wind and solar do not produce a return. This is going to cause massage economic destruction and many people will actually lose their lives because of this madness. Europe will probably have blackouts this winter. They got lucky last winter. This is madness

Norway was blessed with hydropower. That is where they get their electricity and the country is wealthy from oil and gas exports. Iceland is the same with geothermal but they still use oil for transportation. The world economy will soon crash from all the bad investments in Wind and solar. The silly spit will end then

By 2025, Norway won't sell cars running on gasoline.

@enriquemelendez4547 they will still be selling the oil and gas they getting from the north sea

Maybe just for those people who want to go green. Remind them no doing laundry at Mom's house ;) !!

You can't just shut off a coal plant for 12 hours a day. Startup times for a coal plant are anywhere from 5 hours to more than a day depending on the temperatures of the turbines and boiler.

It would actually work, wind makes most of nighttime energy

If you were to take all coal plants offline at once, the entire grid would collapse. Once that happens it would be a monumental task to get it all going again. I would assume months to bring it all back.

@@NicholasLittlejohn No it doesn't. Wind doesn't make shit anytime.

Why? Renewables don't make enough power for the grid AND charging batteries. You STILL need BASELINE, and we're taking it all offline. Part of the reason we have no more aluminum production here, is because we closed down Trojan and started with the Columbia Gorge pinwheels. You think we'd have learned our lesson. But I guess KATE gets a pass because SHE/IT says so.

@@billcichoke2534 it’s called nuclear power coal is obsolete

@@Deterrent-xz5zz Look up what the Trojan plant was...

3 Reasons. Cost. Cost and Cost. Nuclear is 4x more per MWh and 15x more per MW compared to solar or wind.

We had a Nuclear Plant in St Helens, OR and we know why it shut down and got decommissioned.

@@nobodyimportant8695 .... I'm guessing cost? ;)

adam hauskins watch the Chernobyl series on Hulu

@@jamiesoncollie6867 a drama based on rushed and unsound Soviet tech American nuclear power has a outstanding record including 3 mile island

It is, but there are many more problems for coal than CO2.

That's misleading and you know it

Coal is part of the answer along with nuclear

@Eugene Stoner , sorry, Thomas Edison didn't ever actually *DO* anything... he just owned a bunch of people that did the work for him. As for the design... it's already done. Just a matter of connecting it all now. For reference, please see: Global Project - Internet. Lots of PhD's involved in that as well...

@Eugene Stoner, this isn't 1908 and I'm not talking about trying to find a "gas station" (whatever that is) to fuel your "horseless carriage" (whatever that is). I'm talking about simply adding to the already existing network of the worldwide electrical grid. Between hydroelectric (essentially gravity) power, wind power, and solar power - all 100% free so long as the damn earth keeps spinning and revolving in the same path at proper speeds - we have enough energy to supply every human on the planet with heat, cooling, fuel to travel, etc. Provided, of course, they have electric heating, electric cooling, electric cars, and anything else powered by the electricity we capture, convert, and store. This is not science fiction... and we're not starting from scratch like they did back at the turn of the 20th century when gas stations didn't even exist yet! Hell, I have a ChargePoint 240v outlet in my damn garage right the hell now... I wonder how many middle class Americans had an oil refinery in their back yard in 1910? I'm guessing none? How did the fantasy of a horseless carriage EVER survive, I wonder?

Randy, You cannot run a grid that is mostly solar and wind. For a few reasons. There is insufficient hydro or sites for hydro to make it work, and as for batteries, they are a joke on this scale. It's fine to com eup with an idea but it's better to have basic technical knowledge of the thing you want to build. Fossil fuel generation will be with us for decades more.

Agreed, Tesla was working on this

@@iareid8255 What cave have you been hiding in? You're a decade behind today's reality. The grid in California has at times more than 50% renewables and that's continuing to grow. You can go to caiso.com any time and click on the green and see how much of the grid load is renewables. Pull your head out of the sand and get up to date on your out-of-date 'facts'. The US just needs to follow California's lead and convert to renewables plus storage as fast as possible.

Coal kills more. What does coal do that gas turbines can't do cleaner and cheaper?

Chris is right about the birds.

Housecats harm more birds.

@@palmshoot *wrong about the birds

@@NicholasLittlejohn We have the US Federal Wildlife Service to back our claim (Source: www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds.php.). What's the source for your claim? We'll wait.

@Eugene Stoner ??? I've been generating >2x as much as I use from fusion. It's called Solar PV :)

eye sores on the horizon not to mention effects on bird migrations

@@420allday25 that's a myth, cats eat more birds

Source please? You're spreading myths

Windmills are also dangerous if there’s to much wind they literally have to use breaks to slow it down and every years 100s of wind mills fall catch on fire and constantly need work

wrong

Rock theVote Ridiculous uneducated or overly propagandize do perspective here. You’re 100% wrong but certain of your rightness. I love it

@@ThoughtsOnNews ..... how is he wrong? Do you reject physics or math? The thing about science is it's true whether you accept it or not.

@@Chris-ie9os With all due respect, if the powers that be can not get a five day weather forecast correct, what chance do they have with a fifty to one hundred year forecast correct? Then that big bright orb in our sky, plays a much bigger role then the powers that be have let on. Watch for articles in publications on natural climate change, leading up to UNIPCC 2022 report. Finally, what was the temperature of earth 2,000 years ago? What about 1,500 or 1,000 or 500 or even 100 years ago?

@@fridayjoefriday Because climate isn't weather. A recent study determined that climate models accurately predicted warming to within 0.05C. Because climate change is simply an energy balance problem. It's mostly basic math. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2019GL085378?referrer_access_token=1ubHvT5_TzgM0lNQrzhcyMOuACxIJX3yJRZRu4P4erveSGydNoNbpSTNSZ5Z1aDAU1Xs2rIU3Le9v9UWpLY537Rl4_4NUuN3NIo1jJM3ut_fnDt270Q0hYXiXODmoFSccoy_7YUcuhYgRKaAbOXozA%3D%3D

@@Chris-ie9os Democrats can't even cure imaginary problems they made up.

I've heard that a windmill can actually cost more in energy to make then what it will ever produce. If it's true, then it's a sobering thought.

@@MrTBoneMalone It takes 35 years to produce what it took to create, but I think it takes longer if you take maintenance into account, also the inconsistency of the wind may radically affect that estimate.

@@timm-ru9ii Life span of of these bird killers is 25 years. Even with maintenance, few make it to 20 years, before they fail. Also lubricants for these bird killers comes from petroleum.

Windmills, solar panels, electric cars including all batteries will be an enviro travesty. These things don't last forever, and can't be recycled. They're currently burying turbine parts in landfills in Wyo. They're banning straws but aren't concerned about this future nightmare! It's time to give them what they're demanding and watch SHTF. I look forward to it!

@@jodyyoohoo Better than burning fools fuel. You just gonna sit quietly in the dark?

Nuclear is most costly to taxpayers and most toxic

@@NicholasLittlejohn Over the long term nuclear is the cheapest of any energy source. The EU just completed a study on the dangers posed by nuclear for their taxonomy and they failed to find *any* scientific evidence of harm. Nuclear is the cleanest, safest and most reliable energy source there is.

Nuclear is the most costly to taxpayers

@@NicholasLittlejohn No it isn't. You're the troll here. And unreliable horseshit renewables are the costliest to ratepayers.

@@Jemalacane0 Renewables plus storage will take the place of thermal power plants because it's cheaper and takes only a year or two to bring online. New nuclear power plants are too expensive due to cost overruns and they take more than a decade to bring online. Utilities are the ones who make the decisions, not you, not me. And they're deciding against thermal power and installing renewables.

@@acmefixer1 Not even close to being true at all. You can't store your way of unreliability or dilute energy sources. That's why solar power plants with storage can't break 24% capacity factor. Not to mention you need 4,000-5,000 megawatts of solar to equal 1,000 megawatts of thermal power and 3,000-4,000 megawatts of wind to equal 1,000 megawatts of thermal power. Also, thermal power plants last longer. Wind and solar's lifespans are about 30 years. There is a nuclear power plant which has gone 50 years (that's as long as nuclear power has been around).

@@acmefixer1 Utilities are going with renewables because of tax incentives and to satisfy greentards.