Shadowing Practice: The Comprehensive Guide to Nuclear: What You Need to Know - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Nuclear energy is one of the most complex and mysterious topics out there.
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In this video, I'll tell you everything you need to know about nuclear power and some of the controversy around it.
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Coming up!
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Nuclear energy is one of those topics that everyone seems to have an opinion on.
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What it is, if it's a solution to climate change, and whether it's even safe or not.
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But how well do we actually understand it?
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There's a lot of conflicting and confusing information surrounding nuclear power, So let's get to the bottom of it by covering what exactly do we mean when we say nuclear power,
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how is it used, the main advantages and disadvantages, and finally what is its place in the world today.
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First, to say anything about nuclear power we need to understand how we got here, because if we don't know where we've been it's going to be really hard to know where we're going.
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So let's start with that.
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Nuclear power today is a result of work by scientists during World War II.
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The main effort was on developing an atomic bomb, which makes sense at the time.
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In the US, this was the Manhattan Project
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that led to the first controlled nuclear reactor being built under a football field in Chicago in 1942, and then followed by the first atomic explosion,
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the Trinity Test, in New Mexico in 1945.
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It was also used in military applications like submarines, with the first one going out to sea in 1954,
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whereas a compact power source that did not require oxygen really made sense.
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Now, the submarine will be important for later so we'll come back.
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After the end of World War II, use of nuclear energy to produce electricity was first demonstrated in Idaho in 1951, connected to the electrical grid in the Soviet Union in 1954,
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and the first commercial nuclear station started in the UK in 1956.
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But all of these reactors were relatively small, barely enough to power a small town, and most were unique designs,
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which reflected the world's attitudes towards experimenting and trying new things with atomic energy.
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Commercial nuclear power, however, took off in the US, the Soviet Union, in the UK, and elsewhere in the late 1950s and 60s, with the plants becoming larger and more powerful.
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At this time, essentially all the designs were related to or derived from each country's weapons program in some way.
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In fact, the United States government, under President Dwight Eisenhower, encouraged private development of nuclear energy through the Atomic Energy Act of 1954
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and his Atoms for Peace initiative, which was intended to to emphasize the civil uses of nuclear energy
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and allowed for declassification of nuclear technology that had been researched by the military during the war.
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Scientists and politicians were optimistic that nuclear power would be easy to introduce on a large scale, with one official stating atomic power will provide electrical energy too cheap to meter.
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I know, sounds crazy.
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So as you might have noticed, you still have an electric utility bill, so it didn't work out.
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It turned out the technology was complex and risky for private companies.
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Add to that a growing number of minor concerns like safety and proliferation of nuclear weapons, and nuclear power was not exactly looking to be as golden as it once did.
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Later in the 1970s, the oil crisis had a significant effect on countries that had no oil, like France and Japan, which led them to invest heavily in nuclear power.
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France went all in, converting the vast majority of their electrical grid to nuclear power, accounting to 70-80% of their electrical generation, which is still true today.
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In the US, also facing these shortages led to the construction of dozens of additional reactors, with the busiest time for new plants being built in the late 1970s.
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However, this enthusiasm was short-lived.
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Several accidents, including a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979,
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and a completely uncontrolled explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986,
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really turned public opinion away from nuclear power and many plants under construction were cancelled.
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And as it turns out, by sheer coincidence, the movie China Syndrome, about a fictitious plant melting down in California,
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was released just 12 days before the accident at Three Mile Island.
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12 days.
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People were understandably scared of something outside of their control.
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Radiation couldn't be seen, could penetrate the walls of their home.
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And so it wasn't just nuclear bombs.
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People living near nuclear plants had genuine concerns, and understandably so.
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After those two accidents, construction of new plants largely stopped, but the majority of the plants that were already built continued to operate in the background.
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After all, it doesn't make sense to shut down a few billion dollar asset
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if it's still working and people need the electricity.
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Today, there are over 400 of these reactors operating worldwide, although the majority of them have been operating longer than their originally intended lifespans.
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The reason for this is somewhat complex, so we'll go through that at another time.
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But the important thing today is that nuclear power provides around 10% of the world's electricity.
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So how does it work?
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Well, nuclear physics is obviously going to be a complicated subject, and that's why there are thousands of brilliant scientists all over
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the world who work every day on improving our understanding through research and experiments.
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So this is going to have to be an extremely simplified explanation of how nuclear physics works.
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This might sound basic, but this is just so we can all have a common understanding.
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Atoms, which are the smallest particles which make up any element like hydrogen, oxygen, aluminum, lead, gold, or uranium,
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have three components, protons, neutrons, and electrons.
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The protons and neutrons are in the center of the atom, or nucleus, and the electrons orbit around outside the center.
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Remember, atoms are super small and can only be seen with specialized scientific equipment.
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Some elements, like hydrogen, are relatively small and lightweight compared to other atoms, containing only one proton and zero to two neutrons.
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Uranium, on the other hand, has over 200 protons and neutrons combined, making an not only very heavy, but less stable.
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If you think of it like building a tower, the higher you go, the more complex the structure becomes and the easier it is to knock over.
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Uranium atoms, it turns out, are just like a tall, unstable tower.
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If we throw something at it, it'll collapse.
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And since these are atoms, we obviously need to throw very small things at them, like a single neutron.
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When it hits the uranium nucleus, it becomes unstable and breaks apart into two smaller atoms, a whole bunch of energy and heat, and a few more neutrons.
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It's these neutrons that can then hit other uranium atoms and the cycle will continue, starting the nuclear chain reaction, or fission.
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In a nuclear bomb, the goal is to try and make this reaction happen as quickly as possible, within less than a second, so that as much energy can be released as possible and make a big explosion.
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In a nuclear power plant, the reaction is done much, much more slowly, over months or years, to produce a sustainable level of heat that can be used to make electricity.
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And since we can pack a lot of atoms into a single nuclear reactor, this allows them to make so much energy over such a long period of time.
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There are other types of reactions that can use different elements, but worldwide uranium is by far the most popular and used in over 99% of power plants, so that's what we'll focus on here.
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Okay, now that we've got the basics of nuclear physics out of the way, we can do something with that heat.
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Designers and engineers can take that heat and use it to make electricity.
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And this is where a nuclear power plant actually isn't that different from most other power plants.
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If I were to show you this picture, what kind of power plant would you guess it is?
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If you said nuclear, that's okay, but it's actually a coal plant.
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The large cooling towers most people associate with nuclear power can be found on many plants, and it has absolutely nothing to do with it being nuclear or not.
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It has to do with whether or not it is using air or water and what method of cooling it uses.
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Fundamentally, most power plants are basically the same, regardless of the type.
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They use some sort of heat to boil some water and turn an electrical generator.
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The heat source could be anything.
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Coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and sometimes solar.
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Nuclear energy is just another way to boil water and make electricity.
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Since the only real difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal plant is the source of heat, let's talk about the different types.
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In a coal or gas plant, they burn fossil fuel directly to heat up the water and make electricity.
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In the nuclear plant, they use the chain reaction with uranium to make the heat.
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And like anything else, there are many different designs on how to produce that heat.
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So you remember our nuclear submarine from earlier?
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Well, after the reactor was designed for the sub, they were looking for a way to use that on land to make electricity.
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And since they already had a working concept and design from the submarine, all they had to do was scale it up.
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And you know what?
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That's exactly what they did.
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This is what's known as a pressurized water reactor.
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It's not particularly complex or efficient, but it is available, it works, and they're not too expensive.
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And so that basic idea has become the most popular design by far, accounting for almost 70% of the operating reactors worldwide.
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There are, of course, more efficient and improved designs.
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After all, there have been a lot of technological advances since the 1950s designs that are smaller, more efficient, use better fuel and materials.
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So why don't we see these new designs being built?
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The main problem is risk.
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Let me give an example.
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If you think about it, a decade ago, electric cars were available and arguably better in many ways compared to what was already on the market.
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Yet outside a few places, not many people were buying them.
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Why not?
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Well, people just aren't willing to take the risk
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and invest what could be a large portion of their savings on a new, immature technology with only modestly improved benefits.
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Even today, electric cars are more widely accepted, but are still being outsold 10 to 1 compared to regular fossil fuel vehicles.
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But the idea is similar.
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The same is true for a company or even a government looking to buy a nuclear plant.
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There are new, fantastic designs that are great on paper, but no one has built them.
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And if you're going to spend 10 billion dollars on an infrastructure project, you really need to be sure that it's going to work and not end up being a giant waste of money.
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And so, you do the sensible thing and build what you know will work, even if it's not the best.
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So why would a company or government choose or not choose nuclear power?
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Let's take a quick look at some of the pros and cons.
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The biggest single advantage of nuclear energy is its density.
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It is literally thousands of times more compact than fossil fuels.
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Only 10 grams of uranium in a reactor can produce as much energy as a whole metric ton of coal.
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Compared to fossil plants, which need a nearly constant supply of gas or coal, nuclear plants can operate with the same uranium for months or even years at a time
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and can actually store additional years worth of uranium on site, which really improves the reliability of their fuel supply if there was to be some sort of, say, oh I don't know, interruption.
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The second main advantage is that, despite what many people think, nuclear power is actually among the safest forms of electricity generation,
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similar to renewables, and even after considering accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima.
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This is because a relatively large amount of energy comes from a small number of plants.
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Once constructed, nuclear plants tend to last a very long time, 40 to 60 years or more.
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And, like wind, solar, and hydropower, nuclear does not emit any substantial air pollution.
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In fact, a 2013 study by NASA showed
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that using nuclear instead of fossil fuel plants had prevented 1.84 million deaths due to avoiding air pollution.
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The third advantage is that nuclear substantially reduces CO2 emissions.
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Even after considering construction, mining the uranium, decommissioning old plants, it is still similar to wind and solar, and certainly significantly less than fossil fuel plants.
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Since one of the world's goals is to reduce CO2 emissions, nuclear power provides an energy dense, reliable, and relatively safe way to do that.
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Worldwide, electricity is already one of the largest contributors to CO2, so increasing nuclear can certainly play a big part in reducing that.
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Now obviously nothing is free, and there certainly are some downsides when it comes to using nuclear power.
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The first one are accidents.
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We'll cover these more in another video, but there have been many, although most don't rise to the level of notoriety of Chernobyl or Fukushima.
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However, limiting the list to those with multiple fatalities or significant financial costs still produces around 30 accidents worldwide since the 1950s.
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And these are large-scale incidents that have caused real damage and caused people's lives.
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And despite the industry's best efforts, they still seem to occur every few decades.
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But didn't we just say that nuclear was super safe, Like wind and solar?
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Well, yes, technically, because statistically it is.
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However, it is still susceptible to these large incidents like Fukushima that grab a lot of attention.
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You know, statistically, flying is much safer than driving, yet people believe they are at risk on a plane because a single air crash can kill hundreds of people.
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And of course, when people are driving, they think that they are in control, even if they cannot control all the other drivers or hazards on the road.
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Nuclear power has the same sort of perception, It is outside people's individual control and is highlighted by a big accident every couple of decades.
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Okay, so even if the safety argument is maybe a little bit uneven, the second big disadvantage is very, very real, and that's the cost.
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There is no way around it.
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Even after decades of experience, nuclear power is an enormously expensive way to generate electricity.
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All things considered, nuclear power is getting more expensive, while wind and solar have declined dramatically, especially over the last decade.
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Nuclear plants are big and require a lot of money up front to build.
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Add to that construction times that are uncertain, taking as many as 10 years or more to build a single unit.
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Nuclear power has become so difficult and so expensive that very few western countries are willing to pursue any large-scale construction.
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The same, however, is not true in Asia, where countries like Russia, South Korea, and China are able to successfully build reactors at much more competitive prices.
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In fact, around half of all new reactor startups in the past few years have occurred in China, while other countries are shutting them down.
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The third disadvantage is nuclear waste.
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With the current design of nuclear plants, a significant amount of nuclear waste has built up after 70 years of operations.
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The most dangerous of which is the spent uranium fuel, which is leftover uranium that had the majority of its usable energy extracted, and it'll be dangerous for thousands of years.
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Almost 400,000 tons of waste has been produced, and the majority of it sits around at the power plants that actually made it.
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One positive aspect of nuclear waste, though, is that it is solid and dense and easy to keep track of.
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It doesn't blow into the wind like coal plants for people to breathe, but it still will be with us for a very long time.
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And if these disadvantages weren't enough, we haven't even included the risks of governments or terrorists diverting nuclear material to build weapons,
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or the overall complexity of operating and maintaining nuclear plants with the sometimes hundreds of different regulators and regulations that are required.
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It is a complicated business to be in.
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So with all of that in mind, is nuclear energy renewable?
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The short answer is, in its current form, no. There's only so much uranium to dig out of the ground and eventually it's going to run out.
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But probably not anytime soon, at least not in our lifetimes.
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At the current rate of consumption, the world has enough uranium to last over 200 years.
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Although, like mining anything else, not all of it will be easily accessible or cheap to get out.
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And if we build more nuclear plants similar to the ones we already have, that number is going to reduce further or just make it more expensive.
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Still, even if there are 100 years of easily accessible and relatively cheap uranium in our future, it's going to run out.
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More advanced reactor designs can significantly extend this number into thousands of years, but as I mentioned before, they are largely untested and nobody is willing to build them on a commercial scale.
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So what is nuclear energy's place in the world?
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It provides a large, reliable source of low-carbon electricity.
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It works regardless of the weather or time of day or season and can be defended against supply interruptions.
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It is statistically very safe, but does seem to suffer from large public accidents every few decades.
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It produces highly toxic waste, but the amount is very small and easy to track.
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A large number of the existing plants have operated longer than originally designed, and new ones are almost prohibitively expensive, at least in the West.
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New designs are more efficient and easier to construct, but haven't been done so on a large scale.
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There is no clear answer, and it will often depend on each country's access to resources and priorities.
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Some countries have decided to phase out nuclear power, while others have embraced it as a means to diversify their energy and fight climate change.
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Nuclear power will likely be with us for at least another 100 years.
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And unless there are changes in the technology being used, government policies, or public opinion, It will likely continue to be providing about the same amount as it does now,
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working alongside other low-carbon sources like wind, solar, and hydro.
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So, does nuclear energy have what it takes to power our world, or is it just an outdated technology better left in the past?
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Click on these videos to hear both sides of the argument.
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If you found this useful, please consider liking or subscribing, all that good stuff.
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It really helps me know what to do to improve the content of this channel.
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And thanks for watching.
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Nuclear Energy: A Complex Topic in Real-World Context
The video dives into nuclear power, a subject sparking global debate—from its role in climate change to safety concerns. It traces its history, from WWII's Manhattan Project to modern reactors, showing how scientific breakthroughs, political initiatives, and public fear have shaped its journey. This real-world context makes it a rich resource for practicing English: you’ll hear terms like "nuclear proliferation," "partial meltdown," and "electrical grid," all used in natural, conversational flow.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Master
- "Get to the bottom of it" (understand thoroughly): "Let's get to the bottom of nuclear power's pros and cons."
- "Took off" (became popular): "Commercial nuclear power took off in the 1950s."
- "Turn public opinion away from" (make people oppose): "Accidents turned public opinion away from nuclear energy."
- "Account for" (make up a portion): "Nuclear power accounts for 70-80% of France's electricity."
- "In the background" (operating quietly): "Existing plants continued to run in the background."
Your Shadowing Challenge: Practice "Shadow Speak" Now
Improve English pronunciation and fluency with the shadowing technique. Pick a 30-second clip from the video—try the part about the 1970s oil crisis. Play the clip, pause, and repeat it immediately, mimicking the speaker’s tone, speed, and stress. Focus on phrases like "invest heavily in" and "converting the vast majority." Do this 5 times. Then, record yourself and compare. This "shadowspeak" practice trains your mouth to move like a native and builds listening comprehension. Keep it short, but do it daily—you’ll notice progress fast!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've been · has become · have been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being built · was intended · had been researched |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | bomb, which makes · initiative, which was · generation, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.