ah ah ah ah ah, nuclear power is the 2nd largest global source of clean energy after hydro power and around the world. $444.00 nuclear reactors provide over 10 percent of global

electricity. but after the fukushima meltdown, a number of countries began to phase out their nuclear programs. while nuclear energy is not a perfect solution considering safety concerns issue with nuclear waste and construction costs, it's still a powerful alternative to fossil fuel. i'm christy i and you're watching the cost of everything. where today we're going to be taking a look at the current state, a global nuclear power industry and whether or not it is a viable alternative to fossil fuels. ah. the international energy agency, or i e, a has called on governments around the world to facilitate private sector investment in nuclear power in order to reach carbon goals and enhance energy security. the i estimated that investment globally need to increase from $30000000.00 in 2010 to over a $100000000.00 by 2030 nuclear project choir government involvement to finance. as

these projects are deemed by private investors, as capital intensive assets are exposed to significant policy risks. but as nuclear products gain interest, many questions whether or not this is a giant distraction. and if it's not better to stick with other less dangerous renewable energy sources. nuclear power is cost is higher than other green sources with the levelized cost of electricity, or l. c. o. e, between $65.00 to a $120.00 per megawatt hour solar wind projects have an l. c. o. e, a less than $50.00 per megawatt hour in most markets. so at 1st glance, it looks like nuclear is that a huge cost advantage? but that's not the whole story. l c o. lee was actually developed as a tool to describe the cost of energy for power plants of a given nature. however, this tool fails when it attempts to compare different energy sources needed to

provide a reliable 247 electricity supply. for example, while nuclear requires a $103.00 acres per 1000000 megawatt hours solar required $3200.00 acres. and when will use 17800 acres. and while nuclear may be more expensive than renewables in the short run, it is important to factor in the lifespan of these projects. nuclear plants can operate for 40 to 60 years while solar panels last for a maximum of 30 years. wind turbines only last 25 years. now this cost savings is evident in france, which gets 70 percent of its energy from nuclear versus germany, which effectively remove nuclear from its energy mix. so now let's brand, joshua goldstein, professor of international relations at american university for more on this. so josh, a lot of activists still don't want nuclear,

even though is much cleaner than traditional fossil fuels. why is that? isn't it just fear about nuclear? yes, it's driven by fear it started with the fear of the atomic bomb after world war 2. and i'm old enough to remember the terror of children who had to hide under their desks and wait for the end of the world, which could come at any moment. that's pretty scary. and then that became a collective trauma. and the fossil fuel companies, which didn't like nuclear power kind of hyped up those fears and made people feel that radiation, any dose of radiation, was harmful, the human health, which doesn't make sense of sense. and obviously we live on a planet full of radiation. we're in a super that right now, but people to like any radiation well, harm. so it, it, they use that to support environmental groups that oh,

wanted to stop nuclear power because they're afraid of it. and then the fossil fuel companies were putting in money and support because they saw it as a competition. so it's a kind of combination of factors all coming out of this terror radiation anatomical weapons. i mean, i lived through it and i was an environmentalist, back in the 19 seventy's, i hated nuclear power. it was big, it was corporate capitalism. and it was a, you know, technology. and we had this idea of going back to the land and simplifying things. and which really doesn't work when most of the world is trying to get out of poverty. but that's what we thought back then. and some of us changed our views more are changing their views now, because of the urgency of climate change, but a lot of the groups dilute the and traditional environmental groups have not changed their positions because it's pretty hard to do a u turn on a big issue like that. the green party in germany for instance,

seems like everybody else there has agreed they need to keep some nuclear power plants running as long as possible because of the crisis. but the green party is like no need to shut those down right now. even if it means burning coal and going cold in the winter, but that, you know, number one thing, it's shut down nuclear power. so it's become a kind of ideology for those groups. now. well, the energy crisis in europe time, public opinion, toys, nuclear energy. i mean, previously yet glean movement was in opposition to nuclear energy and push to close down existing nuclear plants. yes, public opinion and shifting now, as is a lead opinion and political positions all over the world. i mean, places like china and a lot of the poor countries never had this ideology against nuclear power, but the places like europe and north america that didn't have r, reconsidering and changing their, my,

and in europe. and in germany was the big case, because after fukushima, they decided to shut down all their nuclear power plants. and then it turned out that they, they could kind of replace some more renewables, wind and solar. but actually they had to keep her and, and call to do that because they needed some firm resources on their grid. so if they had kept a nuclear and shut down, nicole, they couldn't really reduce their emissions. like that's what france and sweden did decades ago. but germany decided to keep the coal and instead shut down the nuclear . so and then rely a lot on russian gas to fill the gap. kept their emissions high. and then when the war and ukraine came in, the russian gas turned out to be unreliable. now they're, they're actually facing a cold winter without enough energy. so that focuses mind when the lights go up.

people really focus that there's a problem. and it's making them see that that was not the wisest course to shut down the reactors. other places that were planning or sat down reactors have changed their minds. belgium is going to keep their running longer. britain is building new reactors suite and just change their policy whether the change of government, the conservative government ran on the policy of supporting nuclear power. the previous government depended on the green party for to stay in power, which is also the case in germany when the green parties part of the coalition. that's one issue is like shut down nuclear power and then we'll look for everything else and government wants. so sweden had a change of government just very recently, and they've changed their policy and now they're going to keep their nuclear actors running. they're going to build new ones, and they're going to build small rafters for export. also, it's all which is great. so it's a lot of change going on very quickly. it started a year ago at

a glasgow summit where people began to realize the climate problem is kind of out of control. we're really not on track. the things we're trying to do are not working. maybe we should look at nuclear power and then they cut off profession gas, you know, just amplified that and now the energy so expensive. it's hard to come by. and, gosh, we had that reliable, affordable nuclear power gone. we be in much better condition now. and what is the environmental impact of nuclear power versus other renewables like hydro, wind, or solar? nuclear power is by far the most environmentally friendly source of energy. and that's why i flipped my position on it, along with the whole climate change issue. but a lot because i'm an environmentalist and i really care about forests and fields, and birds and bees and all of that, nuclear power is the thing about if it's so distinctive and it's why we're afraid

of it. and it's why it's wonderful to is it so concentrated the amount of energy in a iranian pellet, the size of a gummy bear. the tiny little thing has the same energy as a ton of coal. and, and it also has a lot cheaper than a ton of coal. if we didn't do things the way we do to make it, make it expensive. but it means that instead of a sprawling operation of a coal plant with mines and trains in the coal plant itself and then the pollution in the air, the health effects of coal smoke which are just terrible around the world. all that's wiped away and you have a tiny little nuclear plant producing that energy. now when solar and hydro are all much more intensive on the landscape, hypo is great from a climate change point of view, because if it's reliable, you can,

you can turn the dam on and off when you need electricity. so it's good that way and it's cheap, but it does flood valleys and destroy ecosystems. the whole may con, river watershed, in se, asia being just wiped out now by all hydro being built. so that's, that's and then wind and solar are also very sprawling and take a lot of land to produce as well as being unreliable or intermittent. so you never know on a given day whether it will be there or not. that means you need, well, natural gas for backup is the way it works now. where i live in western massachusetts city college town out in the country. we have a lot of forest around and forest is really good for the climate and the environment. but histories take carbon dioxide out of out of the air. and it's bio diversity and all that that comes with

a forest. but here they're cutting down clear cutting forest to put in solar arrays, you know, a 100 acres of solar array here and there. and there's going to be a lot more of that if we go have the interest. so which is the plan now? so that breaks my heart because i honestly it of course, cut down a nuclear plant. mean, even if you're flying an airplane and you pass over one, you can immediately tell what it is because it doesn't have the piles of coal in the railroad tracks and the clear cuts for us in any of this ship flooded and valleys. it's just very small, very contained. ready so yeah, we could talk about radioactive waste, the spent fuel that comes out of the plant, also a very small volume and well contained not a hazard taken human health. and that's been terribly over hyped by the opponents of nuclear power. but the whole thing know there's mining, there's transport,

there's running, the reactor there is disposing of the spent fuel. but it's all on such a tiny scale because it's a 1000000 times more concentrated than fossil fuel. so dramatically less mining, less transport last waste than other ways of producing electricity, including by the way, wind and solar would produce a lot of toxic waste that last forever arsenic mercury lead or in those things and batteries similarly. so it's just the cleanest of sources and i've come to see it as a crime, environmental source of energy for people who care about nature. thank you so much, joshua goldstein, professor joshua will be joining us after the break for more on nuclear energy. nuclear power plants are among the most costly infrastructure projects in the world with current estimated costs for a large to react,

or plant being approximately $26000000000.00. these capital costs include site preparation, engineering, manufacturing, construction, commissioning, and financing. nuclear plants are technically complex and must satisfy strict licensing and design requirements. the design requires many highly qualified specialists and often takes many years which compounds of financing and causes delays. and once he finally had the plans up, you then have operational costs, which includes fuel costs that run the gamut from uranium mining to fuel fabrication, then have maintenance and waste disposable costs. fuel costs accounts for 28 percent of the operating expenses as uranium as procured at around a $130.00 per kilogram. disposal of the radioactive waste includes the cost of storing, transporting, and disposing of the waste in a permanent location. this costs around $2000.00 per meters cubed for

a low level waste and up to $200000.00 for meters cubed for high level waste. one reactor produces roughly 48 meters cubed of low level waste and 12 meters cubed of high level waste annually. but while the cost of nuclear is high, it doesn't have to be russia and china have increased their nuclear output in recent years, and the trend is now moving towards more standardized designs. standardization reduces design and construction uncertainties, as well as a time to build reactors. thus reducing capital costs, the u. s. on the other hand, has plants out very significantly in design. and when we come back, how far behind is u. s. technology compared to other countries? seems like it's quite far behind. don't go away.

ah. what happens when the digital did with actual physical sport filtering, like digital filters? yes. because on is preparing to host the 1st ever gains of the future, the cyber context, with a physical dimension. one of the innovators you go to study at all is on the verge of redefining sports and game. it tells us what's behind this synergy. and if it's the future, oh, in 2022. the leon government approved a package of military aid to ukraine. coordination with nature to help ukrainians defend themselves and fight back about 150000000 euros. well, i make a week, almost, even i told me, bombs are hearing all the same nato and the you are the ones that people

will die just for make money. the one that has been yes because otherwise you must, you got for if you're gone through or not, you are complete. i mean there's water damage with me. you need to be done to get i want for them in 3rd world are more saw me my show it bizarre tool or a for opa exec leila. lesser opinion polls show that over 70 percent of italians are against military support for ukraine. i landed in confront with the day for last or you flat a level yet, levi and more on a skid out and go home and do not she then da da da da da. wonderful. i lucille my last lot. a lot you dantas, albania is and we're not even in fun. theda the oh, welcome back. we are discussing the cost of nuclear energy today. and the u. s. has

about 95 nuclear reactors in operation, but only one new reactor has started up in the last 20 years. in contrast, over 100 new nuclear reactors are being planned in other countries. and 300 war being proposed with china, india and russia, leading the shift. japan has also announced its intention to develop and build next generation nuclear power plants with plans to start commercial operation by 2030. it aims to secure electric power by restarting up to 17 nuclear power plants beginning in the summer of 2023. in order to help japan reach net carbon 0 by 2050 . it has set a target for nuclear power generations to account for 20 to 20 percent of its electricity by 2030 and a growing number of countries now see nuclear power playing and a central role in clean energy around $440.00 do clear power reactors operating in

$32.00 countries provide $390.00 gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity and produce over a quarter. 2 of the world's low carbon electricity and additional 50 countries have expressed interest in participating and developing their own nuclear power plants. as such, the international atomic energy agency hosted it's 5th international conference in washington dc to discuss the development and deployment of nuclear energy while fighting climate change and transitioning to clean energy is supposed to be a global initiative. russia, one of the leaders and nuclear power was notably uninvited. and for more let's bring in again, joshua goldstein, professor of international relations at american university for more. so josh, there is an argument that says, nuclear power is too cumbersome to play a meaningful role in tackling climate change. is that true? is it too late in the game? not at all. we have to de carbonized the whole world in 30 years. and it's true

that we've made nuclear power slow used to take 3 or 4 years to build a reactor. the 1st ones in china can still build commercial reactors, big, you know, gigawatt rafters, recall in less than 5 years. they're cranking out a new nuclear power plant. every 3 or 4 months under grid. and so it's possible to go very fast. but in the west, in europe and north america, we have a process that takes a decade and a $1000000000.00 before you can even start building a new reactor design. and that's where the problem is, that's what we need to fix. but inherently, it's very fast to build of it again because it's so concentrated like the reactor that just came on line in finland. it was way over budget in a way delay it took forever. but then when it finally came on, it's like faster energy on the grid,

even though it took so long to build down. denmark is done with wind, for instance. so yes, it's slow because we were afraid of it and we've made the regulations, very cumbersome in the west and europe in north america. we have the example of france, which a couple of decades ago, took fossil fuels off the grid and replace them with nuclear power in just 15 years . they built 56 reactors, standardized design, one after the other. gotten very good at it. and they've been running a clean grid ever since their overall carbon emissions across all economy are about a 3rd. what we have here in the united states and their electricity grid is oh, you know, it's, if the whole world were that clean, we would be well on our way to solving climate change. it's a fraction of what germany's emissions are. and so they did it very fast and sweet, and also in 20 years they put nuclear power on the grid,

took off all the fossil fuel. they also have hydro electric to which helps and they cut their carbon emissions in half in 20 years. and the economy doubled in that time, and electricity use doubled in that time. so it's possible to do this very fast. and we just need to get back to doing that. following that example, worldwide, and efforts to advance smaller and cheaper nuclear technologies like the small modular reactors that's been accelerating. how are these smaller reactors different than the ones used previously? western world has gotten really bad at building big infrastructure projects. be the big deal here in boston where i live or the amsterdam metro any airport you can name in europe bridges, these big concrete laying projects like china still does some pretty well. that's

where they can produce these big nuclear reactors in less than 5 years. but the west isn't good at it and then we've overlayed on that big regulations and the need for evacuation zones. and these emergency plans for the area around the nuclear plant because it's so big and everybody's afraid of it because it's big. so the idea of the smaller ones is to number one, make it faster to build, make it cheaper to build and make it less scary and say for, you know, even safer because what we have is extremely safe. but to make people more comfortable with the technology and to give you an example, the general electric hitachi has a new reactor design. they've done a lot of big reactors over the years. and now they have a new design that's about

a 3rd the size a little less than that of their big reactor. and they can build it centrally in the factory. this is crucial and bring it out to the site. dig a hole on the ground, drop the reactor in the hall, put a building over it and put up a nuclear power plant. it's cheaper and it's faster. it's under ground, it doesn't scare people same way. so that's, i think that kind of reactor will be probably the main thing that we build in europe in the united states, in the coming decades. the smaller ones, faster, cheaper. think the key paradigm shift here, if you will, is to go from a construction project. that's what we're not good at and goes over schedule and over budget all the time to a manufacturing project where you build something in a factory. you get very good at a factory or a shipyard because you could build these and shipyards perhaps even better,

and then flipped them to where they're gone. but the point is, you build the same thing over and over again. the people who are building and get really good at doing it, you make incremental improvements in your manufacturing technique and you drive the costs down that way. so that's what we need. so far, we're building a lot of one of a kind stuff and nobody's bill. you know, hundreds of the same design of nuclear power plant when they do the price is going to come down a lot in the way we've seen was solar and wind. when a lot is built, prices come down. thank you so much, professor joshua goldstein for joining us today. reliance on nuclear energy is a hotly debated topic. while it does provide carbon free electricity and has a small land footprint compared to wind or solar. the downside is that uranium is

technically non renewable and there is no real way to dispose of nuclear waste. although nuclear is a clean source of power, it still relies on your radium or for fuel which exists in limited amounts. there's also the cost of extracting it, including the negative environmental impacts from mining and processing uranium as well. so while it does provide high power, reliable output, nuclear energy is not a cure all for a world's energy demands. but it will be an invaluable part of the existing energy mix. the losers here are going to be the countries that are unwilling to accept nuclear as a power source. countries like germany, which is phasing out the remaining 3 plants and italy, which is the only country that has permanently closed all of its formerly functioning nuclear plants. these countries are instead focusing on hydro, wind, and solar energy. but with the current technologies available, that may not be enough. germany is already struggling to ration its energy supplies,

so time will tell if they decide to reconsider adding nuclear back into the energy mix. i'm christy, i thanks for watching and we'll see you back here next time on the cost of everything with ah, why the appraisal from cisco with a a what? both river with somebody love with this machine. yeah. yeah. yeah. i think

a yeah. yeah. why did i put up with this cars because with the, with mad that up way anything that i beat a lot to shift left in things you could see it wasn't much our up with not that you liked the article but a

a i really thought that we were going to die. i crawled all the way, right. and then i hid behind on 2 years before i was even born. and this has happened again and again and again and again and again. because people continue to stick with the system. i only one of them came home.

basically we want to make sure that certain things that are just too dangerous or regular civilian should be in the hands of those people who are unsafe. that's going to take no, with this, our syrian official say at the slide. people were killed and 50 other wound. it is really mr. back but in a public building in central, the monster also head in the slaves of shape the week. they again, you weapons, now you can be 100 percent. sure, we will destroy these letters that of the russian private management company. wagner says this site on the plain concrete and it's the key city held by.