The year is 1945 and the first and only nuclear
attack ever done.
This destructive move in an attempt to develop
nuclear arms first created the platform of
our modern day movement against going nuclear.
Is the movement right?
Not completely.
Most of the message is placed upon the fears of a nuclear winter and the destruction of the human race.
This is mostly false and I will spend this
video telling you why.
Before we begin we need to know what is and
how nuclear energy is harnessed.
There are two types of atomic reactions, nuclear
fusion and nuclear fission.
Nuclear fusion occurs when atoms crash into
each other at high speeds, combine and release
light energy, the same way our sun produces
energy.
Nuclear fusion occurs when atoms split, crash
into other atoms and repeats over and over again.
With each collision they release heat energy.
We just seen what happens when it is weaponized.
So nuclear fusion has been shown to work but
our technology just isn't ready to make it
happen, so instead we rely on nuclear fission
to get energy.
In fact, nearly 11% of total energy production
is from nuclear fission with about 80% of
it having installed capacity in OECD countries.
Lets now talk about how we use nuclear fission
to produce energy.
There are currently three types of materials
that can be used to do this. Uranium, plutonium
and thorium.
For the purposes of this video I'll be talking
about uranium since its the most commonly
used, why is it the most commonly used?
That's coming up soon.
Lets go into reactor now.
Before uranium can be used it must first be
refined, then turned into pellets and finally
stacked vertically into fuel rods.
They are then stacked near one another to
make sure that a stable chain reaction can
occur between the fuel rods.
Now as for how we harness the energy.
Around the reactor is pressurized water.
As the Uranium releases its heat energy the
water around the reactor gets hotter and it's
circulated through pipes in steam generators which produce water vapour, spinning the attached turbine.
After leaving the turbine the steam is condensed,
which means it becomes water again and the
cycle repeats itself.
So how much energy do we get from nuclear
fission?
Well quite a lot more than what we get from
fossil fuels.
A typical load gets us 1 million times more
energy than we would get from fossil fuels.
So why the big fuss over going nuclear when
we get a million times more energy which would
rapidly wipe out our energy demands?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
These events showed the world what happens
when nuclear, goes nuclear.
When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in 1945 the world saw first
hand what happens when nuclear energy is weaponized.
In 1986, there was a nuclear accident at Chernobyl which left massive amounts of radiation to this day.
In 2011, Fukushima was yet another nuclear
accident.
So how many deaths were a direct result of
these?
In Hiroshima 80,000 and Nagasaki 40,000.
In Chernobyl, 31.
In Fukushima, 0.
Wait?
Thats odd.
When you ask people how many died in each
of these events the numbers are vastly different.
Some believe millions died in the tomic bomb
attacks and hundreds of thousands died in
Chernobyl and thousands in Fukushima.
This is what happens when a single catastrophic
accident happens, reality mixes with fear.
Some activist groups play upon this fear and
continue this misinformation convincing the
fearful that humanity will cease to exist
if nuclear energy is not abandoned.
From 1976 to now there are actually 450 nuclear
plants in operation throughout the world which
have contributed to no deaths
and in fact have assisted in preserving human life.
A NASA study found that nuclear energy is
ideal for preventing human death and have
found that from 1979-2009 it has prevented
around 1.8 million deaths.
Also, in terms of the causes of death by energy
production, its found that nuclear energy
ranks at the bottom of the pack, thats even
including Chernobyl.
So here we go, lets list off some benefits.
Nuclear reactors have a much higher capacities
than our traditional reactors which means
that more energy can be utilized resulting
in higher base load generation.
Alongside this, since the energy is converted
to electricity it can easily be integrated
into our existing power grid with little cost.
The environment also takes no hit as nuclear
energy produces no greenhouse gas which mitigates
climate change, in fact since 1976, 64 gigatonnes
of CO2 were never released because of these
reactors and if used with renewable energy
can drastically reduce CO2 emmisions.
Finally, if we switch to thorium which most
plants are attempting to do, the energy output
is estimated to be greater than oil, coal
and uranium combined and it eliminates the
risk of nuclear production because
it's extremely difficult to weaponize.
Remember when I said "why is uranium commonly
used?"
It's because uranium is much more easier to weaponize,
as concluded by the 1997 international scientific symposium.
So that's it, nuclear won't end the human race,
rather it is the beginning of eradicting our
energy needs and saving our planet from man
made death.
Like or dislike, leave a comment telling me
how you feel on this, even I am on the fence
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