Nuclear Physicist REACTS to Cleo Abram The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste
Nuclear Physicist REACTS to Cleo Abram The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste
Nuclear Physicist REACTS to Cleo Abram The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste
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Full Original Video - • The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste
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In this video, I react to Cleo Abram The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste video from the perspective of a nuclear physicist. I go through the is nuclear power green? video of Cleo Abram and look through what is accurate information on Cleo Abram The Big Lie About Nuclear Waste video as a nuclear physicist and react to it.
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Reference - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science…
Content
0.18 -> you guys have been asking me to review
a video by Cleo Abram called the big
5.16 -> lie about nuclear waste so evidently
I got curious about this big line I
10.92 -> will leave a link in the description down
below for you to check out the full video
14.46 -> of Cleo and without further ado let's go
find out what this big lie is all about
26.3 -> [Music]
27.3 -> something this is a nuclear reactor built in
1962. the atomic power plant of the future being
33.18 -> developed by Argonne National Laboratory but it's
not just any old nuclear reactor this reactor is
38.34 -> different in many ways than the nuclear power
plant that Supply some of our homes today with
43.08 -> electricity the biggest difference was the fuel
they used to make electricity this nuclear reactor
48.42 -> made electricity out of nuclear waste nuclear
waste nuclear waste some kind of nuclear waste
54.9 -> dumped this batch when I think of nuclear waste
I think of that classic glowing green goo and
60.96 -> yellow barrels you know no we don't know please
don't say that you make a video about debunking
68.88 -> things regarding nuclear energy and you say when I
think about nuclear waste I think of green glowing
73.92 -> goo leaking out of yellow barrels really no it's
uh interesting that she mentions the reactor that
82.68 -> I'm assuming she's going to go into more detail
in but actually in the close by area in Illinois
88.08 -> as well where was the first ever nuclear reactor
was made by humans and it was made by Fermi it was
95.22 -> called Chicago pal one and it was a uranium fueled
graphite moderated reactor and it looked pretty
103.74 -> much like a bricks of graphite with uranium inside
very DIY situation they had a human lowering down
111.6 -> the the graphite the uranium roads however what's
interesting is that I got actually the chance to
119.4 -> visit the second ever build reactor in the world
and and that was in Tennessee in the USA and that
127.68 -> was actually the second reactor to be built but
the first reactor to ever produce continuous
133.56 -> power because the Chicago power was pretty much a
test the second one the x10 was actually used to
140.22 -> produce uh Power but it was not really built for
civilian purposes it was built during the World
147.12 -> War II era and mostly the idea there was to use
uranium to produce plutonium to have enough to
154.2 -> make a nuclear weapon however from then until now
the laboratory that started that war that was part
161.04 -> of the Manhattan Project actually spread quite a
lot in terms of nuclear research and now they do
166.86 -> pretty fascinating things they have the biggest
supercomputer in the world for example and other
173.04 -> experimental and modeling applications when it
comes to civilian use of nuclear energy so it's
178.44 -> pretty cool to check out some of their content as
well but if this technology works that means that
183.6 -> our nuclear waste isn't radioactive trash it's
an incredible clean energy resource and it's just
190.2 -> sitting there sucking up money to keep it safe
but this is a story about how we left behind a
196.26 -> technology that could change our Energy Future
I mean there was a reason that we left behind
202.38 -> the technology that would change the future
and definitely the future of nuclear energy
208.38 -> and I get her surprise and perhaps a little bit of
frustration in the fact that she just now realized
214.98 -> that you could actually utilize nuclear waste to
make power out of it and not just deposited for
221.76 -> until it becomes basically non-toxic to the
environment and non-radioactive but of course
227.82 -> there is a reason and if you took a wild guess
maybe you would figure out the reason why we don't
236.04 -> recycle nuclear fuel nowadays at least most of
the countries don't and that reason is drum rolls
243.96 -> cost it's expensive and that's why the technology
is there the technology was in place decades ago
252.72 -> but it's not interesting it's not attractive
financially economically attractive to recycle
260.22 -> nuclear waste when you have availability when
you have uranium as a resource to use however
268.02 -> this will change So eventually we will reach a
time that uranium will be scarce or there will
274.32 -> be other things at play that will make recycling
more attractive and then we will certainly turn
280.86 -> into it and use it again hence a lot of the
permanent repositories that are being built
287.82 -> to store the nuclear waste are actually being
built with the thought that perhaps eventually
292.44 -> we will need to open them up and extract the waste
recycle it and put down the rest that we're not
298.98 -> going to use so they are not really permanent
all that much in terms of that we're not able
303.9 -> to recover the waste as much as it is basically
a safe storage to to put them down there it is
310.44 -> important to say that there are countries who do
recycle their nuclear waste and a big player in
317.4 -> that game is France they recycled plenty of their
waste they make a fuel called MOX fuel mixed oxide
325.2 -> fuel that is uranium and plutonium fuel that
they reuse back in their reactors they end up
331.14 -> of course in waste that it's much less in volume
and also much less in radioactivity so usually
338.88 -> when we say that we will need to deposit waste
that comes out of a typical light Water Reactor
345.18 -> underground for at least a few hundreds of
thousands of years we're talking about 300
351.36 -> 000 years for it to reach levels of natural
radioactivity of natural uranium so that means if
359.52 -> you see the dotted line here that says spend fuel
direct disposal and the horizontal line that goes
369.18 -> into the uranium ore natural radioactivity below
this horizontal line basically it will take around
377.7 -> 300 000 years to do that however if you take away
the plutonium from the spend nuclear Fuel and such
386.88 -> elements called minor actinides that are produced
during fissioning and you reuse them basically
393.48 -> burn them inside the reactor that is built for
these purposes such as the ones that exist for
400.44 -> example in France that uses plutonium to do such
things then you end up in the middle line and
405.36 -> there you see that this Middle Line crosses the
horizontal line at around 10 000 years so this is
412.74 -> two orders of magnitude at least lower and this
goes to show that it will take much less time for
420.48 -> the fuel to reach levels of natural radioactivity
of uranium and therefore the storage that we need
427.44 -> to have doesn't even need to last for that much
long or can be used again for more fuel since this
434.58 -> one could be recovered in a much shorter time
frame plus of course the advantage of having
440.4 -> more electricity or more power being produced
from fuel that otherwise would be sitting and
445.32 -> being unused but as I said again it all boils
down to cost is it cost effective to do that at
453.12 -> the moment unfortunately not and I'm thinking oh
my God I'm going to be so over prepared to talk
457.26 -> to Johnny about nuclear power and on this tour
with me are these two people from Okla which is
461.52 -> a company that's working on new kinds of nuclear
interestingly enough all Club as some people might
466.5 -> know is a natural reactor naturally occurring
nuclear reactor in the world it's located
472.56 -> in central Africa and it actually means that
there isn't a uranium mind that has such high
480 -> concentration of natural uranium that together
with the presence of underground water actually
485.16 -> sustains fission fissioning inside the Rocks
without even being made in a construction that
493.38 -> would basically help it to sustain this kind of
fission reactions it's quite impressive that this
500.58 -> has happened and yeah it's interesting that she
actually got to meet people from there reactors
506.76 -> and at the end of the tour I'm sitting with them
under this big tree and one of them says something
510.84 -> that just short circuits my brain so we're
actually working with Arbonne closely on how to
516.24 -> recycle existing in the U.S there's enough use of
fuel to power the country for the next 150 years
525.24 -> wait I'm sorry what there is enough use fuel in
the country in the U.S alone to generate power for
532.86 -> the country for the next 150 years there's enough
so this is of course a huge number right we are
541.14 -> talking about a century and a half of uh energy
being produced by Fuel that's basically sitting
547.08 -> and there is no use for it as of now and it's just
being stored and nothing is being done with it and
554.82 -> it would be excellent if we could find a way to
use it and find a way to recycle it that would be
561.24 -> cost efficient for the process itself to be viable
to happen and I'm glad to hear that these people
568.62 -> are cooperating with uh Laboratories like argon
and hopefully with power plants as well that will
576.06 -> come up with a solution to actually utilize this
fuel such as France is doing so it's not really
581.22 -> impossible to do I guess it's just something
that's been abundant and hasn't been done for a
586.98 -> long time a great way to do that would actually
be to start implementing Generation 4 reactors
593.94 -> and hopefully build some in the near future and
Generation 4 reactors in general are reactors that
600.96 -> would be basically the Next Generation from the
ones that we are currently using they're called
604.74 -> generation three and those are typically six types
of different kinds of actors that have all kinds
612.78 -> of coolants or different temperature ranges from
the reactors that we currently have and if you're
617.76 -> interested about Generation 4 reactors you can let
me know in the comments down below and I'll make
621.72 -> a separate video explaining all the different
types and what are the differences of Gen 4
626.1 -> and gen 3 and how would one use them to basically
make nuclear uh better than it is right now safer
632.76 -> more viable and environmentally friendly even and
yeah in these cases it would be excellent to have
640.02 -> a generation 4 reactor that would basically be
designed to burn the span nuclear fuel to use
646.26 -> plutonium and minor actinides as we said
before in order to produce power however
654.36 -> we do need substantial r d for that to happen and
for these reactors to be financially competitive
662.76 -> with the Generation 3 reactors will take a while
will take probably decade at least if I had to
669.48 -> estimate therefore it's great that they are
starting to building it now it's great that
674.94 -> she is opening up like a lot of people's eyes
about the fact that such thing exists and I'm
682.32 -> quite surprised she hasn't heard about it before
but it's great that she's learning about it now
687.18 -> and all of her audience get to learn about it as
well and then comes the nuclear reaction so if
692.04 -> you fire a bunch of free atoms at your uranium-235
which cracks it into smaller very unstable atoms
697.8 -> and throws off a couple other neutrons in
the process which so you don't fire atoms
703.8 -> at uranium to split them up fission is initiated
by neutrons neutrons are particles so you fire
710.64 -> particles are the uranium atoms which splits the
uranium atom into two smaller atoms and releases
717.84 -> two to three typically extra neutrons which will
now be used to heat more uranium atoms to split
725.16 -> them apart generate smaller atoms and then two
three more neutrons and then that's how you have
729.9 -> the sustained reaction the smaller atoms that
we say that the uranium is split into are called
735.54 -> fission products and some of those materials
are radioactive and decaying inside the core
742.56 -> already while the fuel is inside the reactor other
elements are radioactive for much longer and will
748.56 -> stay inside the fuel pellets being radioactive
for a long time even after you take it out
753.96 -> and you store it and some of those materials and
elements that are produced are what we call minor
759.06 -> actinides and these are elements such as americium
and curium and are the ones that contribute to the
766.62 -> longest radioactivity of the span nuclear fuel and
they are the ones that I mentioned before that if
772.62 -> we utilize and the technology and the knowledge
is there but not so much the commercialization
780.78 -> and the Financial attractiveness of the of the
technology itself if we manage to utilize and
787.74 -> burn those then we will be left with radioactive
elements that are much shorter-lived so only in
796.68 -> the time span of a few thousand years instead
of a couple of hundreds of thousands years
803.04 -> so they're a correction we don't use atoms to
split uranium we use particles right now most
808.02 -> nuclear waste in the United States is stored in
dry casks that look like this to protect people
812.4 -> from the radioactive material inside those dry
casts are meant to last decades but not hundreds
817.32 -> of thousands of years which is what we're talking
about here so there it goes to show again that U.S
823.44 -> should move a little bit more aggressively forward
with geological repositories or reprocessing of
831.12 -> their fuel instead of letting it in the dry cask
and hoping for the best to find the solution
837.6 -> magically without actually working on it so we've
been having this ongoing fight for decades about
843.24 -> what to do with nuclear waste there are options
for long-term storage and some countries are
847.02 -> already doing that Johnny and I got into the
details in his video but so one of the slides
850.98 -> that they just showed is actually what Sweden does
and it's pretty much developed in Sweden and the
857.4 -> technology matured in Sweden and that's where they
build the underground facility to study all of the
865.68 -> properties of the geological repository that will
have in Sweden to deposit the nuclear waste that
872.82 -> is produced in the country and from there after
some political interference so they stopped for
881.76 -> a few years however Finland basically with the
similar geological formation uh nicely asked
888.42 -> Sweden to use their idea on storing the nuclear
waste and they were of course welcome to share
897.24 -> the expertise and the knowledge and the technology
and Finland is actually if I'm not mistaken the
903 -> country that is the most advanced when it comes to
actually finalizing the build and the construction
910.02 -> of the underground permanent geological repository
for the span nuclear fuel waste that should be up
917.76 -> and running in a few years I could have a chance
to visit these facilities if you would like me to
925.14 -> and it's interesting for you guys you can
let me know and uh I can make some magic
930.24 -> and perhaps make things happen for you would you
say that using the 235 and not the risk is sort of
936.72 -> like using the cream and throwing away the milk
exactly the key is to figure out how to filter
941.46 -> out the stuff that's still useful from the real
waste that's not so the one of the things that we
947.58 -> discussed here mostly in the video is the economic
acts aspect of filtering out the stuff right which
953.22 -> is the case and it's factually true however
another big problem that one has to consider
958.56 -> when it comes to filtering stuff or separating
different elements from each other is basically
964.26 -> that you get the opportunity to separate plutonium
and plutonium made inside the nuclear reactor
971.22 -> is a primarily weapons grade material so it's
material that can be used to make nuclear weapons
978.36 -> therefore a country that has the technology
and the capability to separate nuclear fuel
984.96 -> into elements and use the ones that are that can
be used and recycle this a nuclear reactor also
992.34 -> technically has a capability to separate weapons
grade materials like plutonium so in that case
999.54 -> it's not only the financial aspect that makes it
unattractive for countries and the whole world to
1005.84 -> use such Technologies it's also the proliferation
issue which Rises quite significantly when
1014 -> separation of Spain nuclear fuel waste comes into
the table as a discussion so this is another thing
1020.72 -> that needs to be figured out that needs to
be somehow controlled for the countries that
1026.18 -> have this technology or will have it in the
future and it's an important thing that the
1030.92 -> Hope Troy will also discuss about besides the
cost for proceeding with this kind of Technology
1036.98 -> turns out argon is one of the few places that is
still testing nuclear waste recycling in the US
1041.48 -> and I got to go see it I'm just gonna go right on
up and they're gonna tell me to stop filming right
1047.48 -> now it was a whole thing I had to send them and of
course the fact that you're not allowed to film in
1053.78 -> any nuclear facility is of course understandable
but also part of the problem in a sense that
1061.22 -> people are sort of afraid of the nuclear power
or nuclear energy or research regarding nuclear
1068.42 -> energy because they don't understand it
because they can't really see it and uh
1073.58 -> it's also understandable therefore I think it's
important to find a meal solution that would
1080.3 -> also work of course for the safety of the facility
primarily but would allow the public to understand
1086.66 -> a little bit more and go and get a little bit
closer to all of this work that's been done and
1091.46 -> and in a sense demystify this crazy green looking
glow like Chloe thinks that uh the Spanish nuclear
1099.62 -> fuel looks like in 1977 President Jimmy Carter
announced new policies meant to stop the growing
1105.2 -> risk of nuclear war and that meant stopping
all nuclear recycling why well you remember
1110.42 -> the materials that we separated out during the
recycling process one of those materials was
1114.56 -> plutonium which is a highly radioactive element
that was seen as the highest concern for nuclear
1119.42 -> proliferation so President Jimmy Carter stopped
all nuclear recycling saying it's not just seen
1124.82 -> as the highest concern it is the highest concern
a viable and economic nuclear power program can
1131.48 -> be sustained without such reprocessing and cycling
the U.S moved away from the kinds of reactors that
1136.52 -> could handle nuclear waste called Fast reactors
and toward the kinds of reactors that exist today
1141.02 -> called light water reactors which is evidently
a bad decision the nuclear industry knew that
1147.74 -> this is not the most efficient way to produce
nuclear power of course fast reactors have much
1152.72 -> more advantages can utilize first of uranium-238
which is the 99.3 percent of the natural uranium
1160.4 -> out there so you don't need to enrich it which
already reduces the cost of the fuel Manufacturing
1165.62 -> besides much more advantages that they have
compared to the light water reactors that we
1170.78 -> use they can be smaller in size they have plenty
of features that the generation of the reactors
1177.56 -> that we're using right now lacks however again
we go back to two main things cost plutonium
1184.76 -> extraction there is a lot to figure out and a long
way to go but if we can recycle nuclear waste I
1191.36 -> think it says something profound about what we
as humans are capable of splitting atoms sure
1196.82 -> but I mean something much more simple changing
our minds and overcoming our fears to use our
1202.58 -> resources and our technology and our Ingenuity
to make other people's lives a little bit better
1206.9 -> tomorrow than they are today and this of course is
just the beginning not only will Atomic power be
1212.96 -> released someday we will harness the rise and fall
of the tides and imprison the Rays of the sun we
1219.74 -> have indeed Just Begun I enjoyed quite thoroughly
analyzing this video I like the info information
1225.86 -> that she provides the fact that she got to visit
the facilities is actually excellent and awesome
1231.26 -> and I hope she would be given the chance to film
something from inside because I would assume that
1236.24 -> everything is classified information inside the
facilities I really really like how she found
1243.38 -> out about the information that you could recycle
nuclear waste in order to produce uh energy and
1249.14 -> she does spread it with her audience which is
quite big looking at her subscribers so I do
1256.28 -> hope people learn more about it and understand a
little bit more about nuclear power and don't fear
1262.64 -> it as much especially since the biggest concern
of people is the nuclear waste when it comes
1267.62 -> to discussions about nuclear power in its use I
really enjoyed watching this video I'm interested
1272 -> in listening as to what you guys have to say about
it and please let me know in the comment section
1276.56 -> down below as well as let me know of more videos
you would like me to review since this was your
1282.2 -> idea and it was excellent don't forget to like
And subscribe and turn on the Bell notification
1287.36 -> icon it's been Elina your friendly nuclear
physicist and until next time see you soon
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwr0aOOYtvo