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tv   Close up  Deutsche Welle  November 7, 2023 10:15am-10:46am CET

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that's right, you're up to date, atomic energy climate and russia are the talking points in flow. so after a short break, and don't forget there's plenty more and you find information on our website, the ww dot com, and you can follow us on our social media. cancer handle is people use like a apple will be here from the top of the next hour. for me, the team take care, the advisors got any issues or thoughts say what? the the,
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the, we need to restart the great adventure of nuclear power in france. france is building 6 new nuclear reactors, maybe even 14 and the united states, the world's biggest producer of atomic energy, wants to save the climate with new nuclear power plants. we have some really ambitious that 0 goals for the climate and use their powers. the clean option for that no other country is currently building more nuclear reactors than china. are really looking for energy, whatever. and 12 years after that because she mate disaster, even japan wants to build new reactors. 12 germany is facing out nuclear power. other countries are ramping up their capacity. why is saving the planet without
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atomic energy possible? maybe one country or another can do it. but as a plan and we can't live without it and pretty significantly, but who can still build nuclear power plants today? and at what price? the, we take a trip to find out the. our 1st stop is washington dc, where the us is facing a huge political challenge as one of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases. it wants to, it has to clean up its act. the aim is to switch to clean electricity production within about 10 years. the us department of energy is response vote for this
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herculean task in the context of the size and scale and variability of the grids around the united states, making sure that the grid is reliable across all of those places does in many places require real significant amount of firm, like ready to roll, 247, base load energy. and right now a lot of that is provided by unabated fossil catherine huff, pets, the office of nuclear energy. in the search for alternatives to gas and coal. the us department of energy has been looking back for successful experiments in idaho over 70 years ago, could prove to be a solution for the future to come to a place today. we're, we're born on this very spot. united states produced the 1st electricity from nuclear energy on december 20th, 1951,
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a reactor 1st generated enough electricity to light up for light bulbs. nuclear has been a stalwart part of about 20 percent of our electric grid and creating a backbone of clean firm power and would probably have to grow it pretty significantly, probably double or possibly triple the amount. a new reactor has just been added to the grid in georgia, and the 2nd is planned soon. the united states is still counting on nuclear power. the fact that they have more and more atomic waste piling up leads them undeterred, spent nuclear feel is important to manage responsibly. it does need to be disposed of eventually. but there are technological solutions. we see finland making progress almost ready to begin operating or how's the tory and those activities give us real confidence that this is a solved challenge in the us. nuclear power is booming again, great hope being placed in large or small modular reactors. the idea is to
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use known technology and essentially shrink it the, the new reactors will be pre fabricated in factories. similar to ready made homes. and the real, i cannot promise. and the readiness to commercialize that new generation is hitting right now, right alongside the sort of challenges around climate and the acknowledgement and the importance of energy security. all of these things are converging in a moment where, you know, i hope that the industry can meet it. the u. s. isn't the only country putting its faith in these compact nuclear power plants, the back to europe. poland has so far left behind when it comes to generating clean carbon neutral electricity for on this in
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a very difficult situation because we have a high dependency on the call of course. so we invest in a new way, but, but this is not the image source, and that's can be stable energy up any time. and we believe the best way to, to, to change this an edge and makes this to deploy. and it's out and that you can see the model usually on the etzky is the press spokesman for orleans. since those green energy there aren't get any nuclear power plants in poland. the company is planning to install the whole fleet as m. r, as in nancy, wants to show us where one of the small reactors will be installed. we drive to most sort of income. 2 hours, northeast of warsaw. that was the best of my as the ones have to click on file
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because so for example, in case of a d, w expect 100. and the construction face is going to have for $24.00 and the 30 to 366 months. so it's much, it can be the flow to much faster than l option to buy power plants. and so on the other hand, this case of a, this investment allows the to, to be in false, buy a new type of invest source. for example, the private company like this. and those are getting older and energy generation is at the heart of the local economy. and most of the bank so far it's been produced by burning coal. the existing co fire front subaru shutting down successfully to coming to incoming. the costs indicates that they need to be replaced with a new source of energy. according to orland sent those green energy,
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atomic energy can supply the necessary power. the 1st s m, r could be built in the nearby area. the advantage of these small nuclear power plants is that they can generate a comfortable amount of electricity as coal fired plants. so the local grid can still be used. poland is working together on this nuclear power plant with the energy company, p g in toronto. the canadians will be the 1st worldwide to deploy this type of s, m, r o, p g, which is already started to preparation work and the licensing process plans to have for it's similar already in 2028. we believe that the 1st this amount in full on it can be, can be read the a year or 2 later. the 1st s, m, r is set to be built here before 2030 with others to follow suit. and poland is not the only newcomer to nuclear power.
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we're on the turkish mediterranean coast. here, a remarkable project is underway. the a cool you nuclear power plant is expected to provide 10 percent of turkey's electricity in the future. you solar, you. we hope that the 1st reactive will be in operation by the end of 2023, and produce electricity from then on the. what's unusual here is that for reactors are being built simultaneously, all with the same technology, the, it's outpacing projects in europe and the us, the older folk home today. there are 422 reactors in operation worldwide. and $57.00 under construction was like you to do it. 25 percent of the european union's electricity comes from nuclear power where
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they didn't purchase negative turkeys. president red chip tie up here to one speech at a ceremony in spring 2023 celebrated a huge milestone in mark the 1st time nuclear fuel was deliberate to turkey was told that a special guest joined online visit the russian president. my dear friend mister, put in less than i would move them. congratulations on this momentous achievement and the way the closure musician was personally and in the name of my country. i would like to thank you mister pool and all the authorities of the russian federation who have supported our project from the start. religion was in the city . the nuclear power plant is being built in turkey, but belongs to russia. the russian state owned nuclear power company. russ at thom, has invested $20000000000.00 it planned and is currently building the nuclear power plant and will later operated even the atomic waste will be transported to rush at
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the end. turkey will simply buy the electricity at a fixed price. it's going to be russian, that kind of took this territory and let's remember the 13th of november. so having this piece of critical infrastructure on the territory of financial member is something that a lot of western experts think might be a troublesome cost. but she would ask you is a professor of international climate governance. and he sought after expert on russian energy policy. so far, nobody was so outspoken enough to, to the question this product and to stop this. so most likely this product is simply going to move forward as if the geopolitical situation doesn't change. isn't it? turkey has tried to build nuclear power plants in the past, but without success. this time it seems to be working. man, thanks to hell from russia,
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it's going to play in every country is going to have to make that choice for themselves, right? some partnerships are strong enough that you know, you can trust your neighbors and partners to be, you know, help or in the management of your energy technologies. but, you know, we certainly see we have a recognition of how all, for example, russia and it's invasion of ukraine has weaponized energy dependency. and i think that's something that every country is thinking about today in terms of how they plan the control that they have over there on energy supply. but what kind of consequences could it have for turkey? and how much russia misuse the power plant? i mean, what kind of power rush i can exercise over a plan like like the one in turkey. that's still been debated. so you can have experts who are more well optimistic. however, if you, especially the light of what has been happening last year. so in 2022,
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with the energy sector in the context of the war and ukraine. you know, the things that's a do not seem plausible, right? so what x might actually be co reality, right? so if there was some, i don't know saved here in the reactor that might actually look out the entire power system in turkey. the so called him back out. and that's a very, very big well weapon, patricia might be able to know which really spill privilege them, that a gates that them are brushing state own company. rosa tom is active worldwide and is huge. and the nuclear power business pro, set them i would say that almost a half of the market is controlled by russia. and so that's really, i mean, is the largest player out there. and that's combining is all the different elements
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to react to design destruction, but also fuel which is a very profitable business. so taken together roughly 3, the largest player and international chemical russia is building new reactors all around the world in china, bangladesh, india, iran, egypt, and turkey. as well as in hungry and slovakia. and there have been talks with other nations griffith, who has been quite immune to external sharks. so we didn't see any influence of the focusing of disaster when it's a global portfolio. we also didn't see a decline of investments after into 2014 conflicts ukraine and the only 6 was getting you. and right now, we are also not seeing that much of a role back in terms of investments outside europe. after the war and
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ukraine started. how can this be possible? sanctions have been widely post on the russian energy sector. how did rosa to him to remain on affected? that's a question will return to later. the, our journey continues. what we want to understand is why in the age of renewable energy, or some countries building new nuclear power plants, the one hour north of cologne, is humans energy plant. siemens has been producing technology for electricity generation for decades. you understand that there is a senior vice president. he sees several challenges for a future where energy is produced and mostly by renewables. for the 1st one. how
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can we ensure that we have a constant energy supply? includes that thing is not to do so. what else in principle, on good days, meaning on days with enough, the wind or sun, you can guarantee a large part of your energy supply from renewables, phone line in germany, for example. in 2022 in thoughts we could cover on average around 50 percent of our electricity from renewables, and it just pulls all the energy up in front. on the other hand, there are days and longer phases where renewables contribute, less than 10 percent and the bottom was being the got sample tense as it was. it was down. siemens energy has a system to simulate the energy transition. what happens on the grid? give all the coal nuclear and gas fired plants are switched off, leaving only renewables to generate power. the one challenge is that there are entire days or weeks with hardly any wind or sun.
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the 2nd challenge is that in the short term, even within seconds, renewables can cause huge fluctuations in the power grid. and i just took also the box from there are certainly some surprises if you could have an entire wind park that suddenly stops supplying power. and you have a shortfall of 500 megawatts. when testers have to be that puts the grid under enormous pressure, little and grid stability is crucial units. somebody take this on the phone and pull some of those on besides nuclear power. there are a couple of ways to stabilize the grid and offset these fluctuations in a carbon neutral way. one is hydrogen power plants. another is energy storage and stuff, some video, hydrogen. we're still just the beginning. the normal fortunate we've made a norm is progress. but when i see it from the infrastructure side, we need to scale up massively for the production of green hydrogen over the next 2
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years. it's kind of a little bit in this. now if i may talk about storage capacity, the challenge is how do we create competitive storage capable of storing large quantities of energy over long periods of august, and also making an interview by the side. plumb suffice doc, i think it will take a few more years until we're able to offer a competitive solution to rosel. i'm not gonna get both ideas are very promising, but there is no guarantee they'll pan out as hoped. which is why many countries are still relying on nuclear energy or are starting a new with it. just the fuel, not. the fact is there are over $400.00 nuclear power plants in operational and around 50 under construction. they have to live on so, so nuclear energy is still very relevant for many countries and it'd be advantages that it's very efficient and it has high capacity with a very high supply security. other honestly, i've always had the challenge,
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of course, is the high cost and the issue of the disposal of radioactive waste efforts around the globe. more and more countries are striving for a higher percentage of nuclear power generation around 20 percent. one a is grid stability. so what should the energy mix of the future look like? look like it's like the i'm on board. i don't think there's one clear answer and i can go know every country has different requirements and once you've done well, every country has to manage its own energy triangle and find the best balance between security of energy supply. i cannot make efficiency and of course environmental sustainability, but i don't think there is one single solution in the room. in the future, sun and wind energy will generate most of our electricity. how can we balance out the fluctuations? the different countries will rely on different solutions. we're back in the
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united states, where revolutionizing entire sectors of the economy is all in a day's work. we meet with jacob dewitt to be frank like the typical model for nuclear just because it won't work and it hasn't worked. so it has, you know, we have to change, you know, and that when we're starting the company, i think we had enough confidence having seen how startups could be successful, pioneering and being able to deliver nuclear was just there. it was to, i mean there's a too good of an opportunity to which goal is clear. with his started o'clock, he aims to conquer the energy market with a new kind of reactor known as the 4th generation. so we're working on basically 3 projects right now for our 1st 3 reactors. one of those is in idaho, and the other 2 are in ohio. the 1st could be connected to the grid as early as
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2026. the company's vision of nuclear energy is also a rebranding. and for us that was an important thing about how we also have purchased the design of the actual building and the plans not just to have it looked like sort of what people are used to saying. but something different, something that's sort of more appealing, it's something that's built more naturally or almost organically around with our sources. generation for reactors, like the ones okla, we'll build our a departure from traditional reactors. the developer say the vision process brings a decisive advantage of great. we chose this technology is because you can actually take to use your waste from today's reactors and recycle it in america alone. the energy content in the, in the, in the waste inventory is the used fuel inventories in the us. with our system. there's enough energy there to power the entire country for over a 150 years. pretty mean they're reactors with supply power to data centers in the
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future. so it's no surprise that sam, ultimate, among others, has invested in the startup. the old men, the co creator of chat, t b t is even helping to take a go public. the aims to raise $500000000.00 to bring the many power plants to market as quickly as possible. cause a number of advantages that i please make the best position to succeed. in addition, i believe that we're close doing is one of our best tots to get out of the energy crisis and get into this world of energy at buttons as promising as it all sounds. startups working on generation for reactors are facing a significant obstacle right now. they need a special kind of enriched uranium for their nuclear power plants. that is a massive bottleneck right now. um, frankly, the, the west sort of the european and american supplies just don't exist right now. the world has, as of recently been significantly reliant upon, you know,
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russia's and richmond capacities. the truth is, this new generation of reactors is not the only type dependent on russia. many other nuclear power plants are to the back to europe. we want to see why there's such a bottleneck in uranium enrichment in the nuclear industry. uranium or is mine in different countries and has to be processed in several stages to be used for atomic energy. the one of these processes takes place here at your income. we are in an enrichment class and that means we enrich natural uranium in order to make it a fuel for nuclear reactors around the ad. louder is the managing director
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of your ranko netherlands at the enrichment facility solid. uranium is deliberate in these large cylinders. it's then he, it, until it turns into a gas and the sped into centrifuges for the uranium $235.00 needed for nuclear power can be extracted. this in rich material has been in very high demand recently . to put things in perspective. in the year 2022, we have seen that or the book increased by 24 percent, which is which is enormous. yeah. but where is all the demand coming from? well, we have seen a major disruption. the last 22022. due to the russian invasion in ukraine, many customers don't want to do business anymore with the russians. but that's not so easy. you ranko is the 2nd biggest player for enriched uranium on the
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international market. russia is number one before the war and ukraine. moscow delivered almost half of the world wide supply. many nuclear power plants in europe in the us source there enriched uranium from russia. prussian us, uh, isolated themselves. i would even say, i've disqualified themselves to be part of that. that market? yes. we have taken show to emetrius in order to ramp up the production because of the month of production has increased, but on the longer term we need to invest in additional capacity to day we, we cannot simply cut all, all the all relations overnight. it takes a little bit of time the year a tom supply agency estimates that it could take 7 to 10 years for europe to be independent of russian enrichment capacity. the u. s. is
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also still dependent on supplies from russia. if russia decided suddenly to stop providing in looking at fuel or, or giving them products to your overnights, that will create a problem. so despite the fact the door is some going into the sections and over energy sectors, the nuclear fuel sector is not being sentient. and there's trucks go think about the defendant and fuel being a little bit complains sloan to book every hour slip i can and, and simply load it into a reactors. there are some western countries, so dependent on russia for nuclear energy that they can't impose sanctions, whether sanction problem for europe in the us really depends on how it would be designed. what would be the target? although section of how would you imagine this happening? i expect that there will be sections, i guess in your sector,
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probably this year because i think that it's becoming politically or sustainable to keep the sector completely deployed as highest and pretend nothing is going on. how is going to be designed, how far reaching is going to be? this is still an open question. the world wide demand for energy is storing. but if we want to keep climate change and check our electricity, production has to be carbon neutral within about 10 years time. any talk pulse, waiting for some additional breakthrough silver bullet technology is going to come in the future. and it's very distracting us from a 1st session demand right now. and if anything is an excuse for not doing things now, but instead of waiting for the $4050.00, then it's going to be comes, will be cool clement obstruction. maybe we've been waiting too long for that silver
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bullet. we kind of tried to pick a couple of favorite things that sounded good, maybe sound good, and as a result, we've really compromised our ability to meet our broad energy objectives. let me take the name of the nutrition that's i really one part of that by sort of someone most pretending it wasn't going to be, which is what i would call it was for the last, maybe 1020 plus years. we finish on not being ready to take advantage of the atomic energy, could be part of the solution. but with less than should the west to learn from russia's war and ukraine. we need to be independent is about self up to actually clear sector could be a source of fire going and gas sector if something happens, if you look at the sector, it's quite interesting. you call me in the entire country and the society was seconds when it comes to nuclear power. russia is at the forefront if the western nations hope to rely on this technology in the future, they need to step up their efforts. so now we sketch up, which we can do,
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but it's gonna, it's going to take the question is, how much time is left the the actually we don't have a choice. i think that we have little time list to save the product. so we have to do what we can as fast as possible. we only have one generation left just 25 years to implement the greatest revolution since the doing of the industrial age. replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy around the world without exception is
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a global energy to information really cost of the food as well. or is it for our 2 pa, documented sri renewables, whether this starts november 25th, dw, the model facing this over the waiting in the way people say to you don't make you feel welcomed. i was, you were in from cuba is one of many migrants who feel this way. german bureaucracy doesn't make it easy to build a new life here. there are a long wait times for appointments, challenging language courses, and constant setbacks, even so many like catalina from columbia are taking the leap and moving here. i want to try living outside my country away from my family to see if i can handle it .

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