- Yeah, and I think fundamentally it's that in a lot of ways, fusion is hard and fission is easy. Nuclear fission happens at room temperature, that this uranium and plutonium is so likely to break apart already that simply the adding of one of these neutrons, one extraparticle will then break it apart and release energy.
it also can't be used to make weapons. And I think that's a little bit of a distinction from traditional nuclear fission reactors, is that while I totally believe as a nuclear engineer, we can build power plants now that are safe, that aren't going to have reactions. They use a fuel, uraniumand plutonium, that can be used to make nuclear weapons. We know that if you take enough fissile material together, enough uranium and plutonium, put it in a small volume,
up. By way of advice, what questions should I ask world leaders to figure out the geopolitics of nuclear , nuclear proliferation. ...nuclear weapons, nuclear fission power plants, and nuclear fusion power plants? What's the interesting, intricate complexity there that you could maybe speak to? - The question I would want to ask is, "What would you do if we could deliver for you low-cost, clean, industrial scale, tens or hundreds of megawatts of fusion power
in the Middle East, in Russia. I mean, all across the world. And that's interesting too. So do you think actually if everybody has nuclear fusion power plants, that alleviates some of the geopolitical tension that have to do with energy, other energy sources?- I certainly do, that the fuel is in seawater all over Earth.
That was his second book was called The Doomsday Machine, Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. And he had liberated a bunch of documents about nuclear war as well. But he had decided with his quote unquote co-conspirator that they should just focus on Vietnamfirst. That's the thing that it matters the most right now. And that was the Pentagon Papers. And then all the papers
So again, it's interesting to say that he doesn't have the intention to build nuclear weapons when he actually had an active nuclear weapons program. And we can talk about what happened to that program after 2003, and there's a lot of interesting details.So when you combine the fact that he has an active nuclear weapons program, he has sites that are buried deep underground,
The current director of National Intelligence who issued her threat assessment, Trump's Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who issued her threat assessment in February, nuclear facility in Iran.
warmer. So what we should be doing is investing in infrastructure that allows us to cope with that reality in exactly the way the Dutch have done. So they nuclear power stations because of the short-sightedness of our political leaders on these issues." So, should we
have so many ways to capture high-quality video, if there was something out there, we would have seen nuclear process, like uranium mines or refineries. Is it you know It might just be we've gotten to the point where all of a
Nothing. And then last June, Iranians are developing their ballistic missiles. They're developing their nuclear enrichment in radian enrichment.They're like stockpiling at higher levels 60% and the Israelis want to go in. Trump's providing intelligence. He
everybody, continues to have the ability to engage in strikes against Israel. nuclear , Saudi Arabia is not, but Pakistan would provide them nuclear weapons if they really wanted it. That's absolutely something to think about.
the situation. Like, we don't know where that nuclear material is. But, they have the material for 16 nuclear bombs and we've given them every incentive to develop them.Professor Robert Pape might be the single most important credible person we all need to listen to right now.
Uh I think that messaging does not always go over well. I mean, you know, a topic wants to compare themselves to nuclear weapons. And if I were them, I don't know if I would constantly compare myself to a nuclear weapon unless I'mtrying to be regulated and controlled like a nuclear weapon. So, you know, there comes people I I don't envy their position.
period is now ended when it came to what the Americans had hoped would be uh the moment they would clinch a an overall nuclear deal with the Iranians. Of course, absolutely nowhere near that.They've gone backwards. The straight of Hormuz is still a critical problem for the president. His hope here is that
to be very humiliating for Mr. Trump because it shows that not only has he failed to get anywhere on the nuclear nuclear issue after launching uh his and the Israeli attack on Iran but he's alsoin a worse position when it comes to um transit of the straight of Hormuz than he was before the war began. And so he's
we're in there for one reason. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. You understand that? Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and they won't have a nuclear weapon.When Donald Trump uh says about talks about deal, tell us what exactly is
complexities of the straight of Hormuz, Iran's position in the broader region, and of course, the prospects for Iran's nuclear program potentially growing over the coming months and over the coming years.Megan Satliff, principal analyst at SA line. Thank you so much.
And it has many manifestations, which I want to run through quickly. Nuclear reactions, whatever kind they are-- fission, nuclear fusion, radioactive decay-- produce millions of times more energy than chemical reactions,like burning fuels or metabolizing food.
Here's a photo of Hiroshima after the bombing. Nuclear radiation damages living cells because the high energy associated with nuclear reactions spews out particles at very high speeds,and they can damage living cells.
Fossil fuels are contributing about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year into Earth's atmosphere. Nuclear waste, we produce about 10,000 tons every year, 10,000 tons versus 40 billion tons of HLW.HLW stands for High Level Nuclear Waste.
Natural gas is about two to three. Nuclear is next, at 0.07.I can't even see the bar on this graph; wind at 0.04, from accidents associated with people servicing wind turbines; hydroelectricity
And up on the upper-right, we see some of the centrifuges that are used to enrich uranium. Nuclear reactors also produce plutonium.And it can, with considerable difficulty-- it's a technological challenge.
A coal-burning power plant produces 400,000 tons of air pollutants per year. Nuclear , it's only about 6,000 tons, and they're quite benign compared to what a coal plant produces.A coal plant produces 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide an hour, the climate-changing greenhouse gas.
A coal plant produces 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide an hour, the climate-changing greenhouse gas. Nuclear produces none. That doesn't mean nuclear has no climate impact, but it doesn't produce carbon dioxide.Solid waste, about 30 tons an hour from a coal-burning power plant-- roughly 30 tons, a little bit less, of high-level radioactive waste per year from a nuclear plant.
And I want to spend the rest of my talk discussing that, particularly in the context of climate change. Nuclear energy's role today is to provide about 10%.There's the 10% level on this graph.
The big takeaway is fossil fuels dominate. Nuclear is about 10%.But it doesn't have to be that way.
It gets some from-- and that isn't counted here. Nuclear just can't compete economically these days.
It gets some from-- and that isn't counted here. Nuclear fission, which we've already talked about, is what we use now to produce energy in our nuclear power plants.
And we have to address-- this is a picture from Katrina-- the way in which federal resilience and adaptation dollars are not going, right now, to the communities that Nuclear power is a bit of a third rail with a lot of people.
They're going to go through the same transition we did. Nuclear power activates an ick reflex among almost everybody that I talk to.
They're going to go through the same transition we did. Nuclear power is absolutely part of the solution for dealing with global warming.
Super volcanoes, big volcanoes, super-- OK, great. Nuclear war. You guys are smarter than those crowds.Most people will do that.
I met men like Daniel Ellsberg, the peace activist who leaked the Pentagon Papers and also tried to leak the US government's just appalling Cold War nuclear plants, and women like Beatrice Finn, the nuclear abolitionist who shared the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.I met climate activists, and epidemiologists, and scientists all trying to control powerful emerging technologies, like gene editing, people trying to develop
so Caroline earned her BA in economics and her BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Oklahoma and her MS and nuclear engineering from MIT.She has a background working on solar vehicles natural gas oil refining and of course nuclear engineering and her company Oklo
what about technology what's next in a pipeline and if you think about it in that respect the development pipeline the low-hanging fruit in energy is nuclear so I think it's really interesting and I hope that environmentalists will see that this is that we're environmentalist too andthat's I mean Caroline could even talk about she was at the screening at the world's largest environmental film festival environmental film festival in
call anybody in the world from and it fits in your pocket and it happens to have a computer and all sorts of other good stuff in it. Nuclear technology sadly has not seen the same rate of advance however there are a number of advances that have occurred and Mengyao I wonder if you might talk a little bit about what you think of fromtraditional nuclear energy which is basically 1950s technology and how that fits into the energy system and compare that perhaps with the possibilities of
what we can to take maximum risk out early and then use that to justify the subsequent round of financing yes that definitely is one of the challenges in nuclear space because energy is about 10% of the world economy so the potential revenue stream is huge but you know scaling your company andtechnologies to deliver that you need money to make that happen.
bit of nuclear spent fuel nuclear waste that is produced by the nuclear energy industry is collected by the nuclear energy industry is controlled by the nuclear industry there's never been a fatality from that for many you know civilians certainly and it's a it's a big lie out there about nuclear waste issomething dangerous I mean imagine if the fossil industry collected and controlled its waste imagine if that happened we wouldn't need to have this
radiation people afraid of nuclear safety people afraid of all that but if you look at the facts what's the most dangerous form of energy they ain't nuclear , it's coal. Nuclear 's at the bottom it's the safest form of energy along with renewables and you know hydro is actually much more dangerous becausepeople have you know had there's been bad accidents but there's it's not dangerous and radiation it turns out that we're way over afraid of radiation
advice to people who are interested in in learning more about this wanting to make a positive impact on the world or simply get involved somehow in the nuclear conversation Well, the first place to start is check out the movie’s website, newfiremovie.com Commercial plug.The thing that we’ve done on the film on this website that we just relaunched or expanded out is that it explains a bit about the technology and it has links to all sorts
You know Congress defined it, they have politically motivated definitions that are like any reactor after a certain year I think usually when people say nuclear which is great and then you mentioned before the high barrier to entry sometimes with the cost of capital needed to start a nuclear reactor and so
You know Congress defined it, they have politically motivated definitions that are like any reactor after a certain year I think usually when people say nuclear we have a question says nuclear power is distinguished from most other technologies in that its cost increases with time and so do you do you agree
Nuclear weapons don't go in onesies and twosies anymore.
Nuclear fusion, I think, is within some single digit number of years of working.
Nuclear power probably has the most potential to, except for the green movement is restricting it.
nuclear weapons point pointed at each other and
Nuclear power has successful self-regulation.
nuclear for a lot of reasons.
nuclear arsenal. If we're not successful in that, though, then I'm willing to support a program, but a much less expensive and much less dangerous
'Nuclear power that can solve the world's energy concerns with just an occasional Chernobyl?