This amount of coal can power this light bulb for three hours.
The same amount of uranium pellets,
in a traditional nuclear reactor,
can power 70 houses for a year. The same amount of uranium pellets in an advanced
reactor
can power 800 houses for a year.
There's a technology available today
that can meet the world's energy demands
while producing
zero CO2 emissions and that technology
is nuclear power.
Mark Massie: The state that I'm from,
West Virginia, is a beautiful state,
but it's also one of the largest coal
producers in the U.S.
What it takes to extract coal demolishes
the beauty of the natural environment. There's a trade-off,
you can't have both. It's either the environment or coal
and I thought there has to be a better
way and that's why I became a
nuclear engineer.
Leslie Dewan: In middle school and high school, I had an amazing physics teacher.
It was because of her, ultimately, that I
got so excited about nuclear power and
its potential as a source for
carbon free electricity.
Mark Massie: Not many people think nuclear power
as an answer to climate change. Chernobyl,
Three Mile Island, Fukushima, this is what
people think about when you talk about
nuclear.
The cooling requirments in our reactor means that it's not possible to
have another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Fukushima.
Our reactors are walk away safe.
A traditional reactor is like a car with
the accelerator
permanently stuck at full throttle, you
can't stop it,
you can only slow it down or steer it
clear of an accident,
but if something happens to the driver
there's no one there to press the brake
because it's still going with the pedal
to the metal. Our reactors
are like typical cars, where, if you let
up the accelerator
it'll slow down and eventually come to a
stop, all on its own.
Leslie Dewan: We've designed a new version of a nuclear reactor
that can extract enormous amounts of energy from nuclear waste without making any
additional carbon dioxide.
This is the 20 metric tons of high level nuclear waste that a
conventional reactor produces in a year (example as a barrel of waste).
Worldwide, there's nine thousand metric
tons
of high-level nuclear waste produced
each year. Right now there's 270,000 metric tons of
high level nuclear waste that exists
worldwide. This is the amount of
nuclear waste that
our reactor produces in a year (example of a baseball). Using
existing nuclear waste
our reactor can power the entire world
for 72 years,
even taking into account increasing
electricity demand.
Mark Massie: This is a sandwich, you take a bite,
with one bite, you've eaten about four
percent the sandwich,
but you're still hungry. Instead of eating the remaining 96 percent of the sandwich,
you toss it in the trash and make
another, not very efficient.
That is the fuel efficiency of a
traditional nuclear reactor.
Our reactor is the opposite. Leaving just four percent waste,
instead of 96. Nuclear power can be one
of the best tools
for combating climate change, but it also
makes economic sense.
Nuclear power is scaleable and it can be
deployed quickly
to meet the world's increasing energy
demands. Leslie Dewan: And advanced reactor designs can
power the world
safely while generated minimal waste. Our reactors have
one of the best chances at providing a source of energy
that's cheaper than coal
and cheaper than natural gas. Leslie Dewan: But, there's are significant hurdles to getting these
designs off the ground.
The regulatory roadblocks aren't just
slowing down developing
new technology, they're slowing down
investment in the technology
overall.
The world right now has rapidly
increasing energy demands
and so if the U.S. doesn't invest in
advanced nuclear then
someone else well.
