Thanks for watching! If you’re interested in nuclear power, there’s a lot more we weren’t able to include in this video (but might in future videos). One area is possible nuclear innovations, including both ways to make nuclear safer and less expensive to build. Another is nuclear waste, which hasn’t been the driving reason for these shutdowns but is a big topic of discussion in this space. “Nuclear waste” usually refers to fuel that’s been used in a reactor. Disposing of that waste is one reason Indian Point will take at least 12 years to fully decommission. But, at the same time, finding ways to reuse that fuel is another area of potential innovation. - Cleo

These people who want to shut down always say that the nuclear power will get replaced by renewables, but what they fail to understand is that what they should be replacing is the fossil fuels, not the nuclear.

When all the coal plants have shut down, then we can start to discuss shutting down nuclear. If you are an environmentalist and want to shut down nuclear before coal, then you are not an environmentalist...

The fish being killed in the water pumps are comparable to birds being killed annually by wind turbines. Both are negligible enough to continue striving for clean energy however. Just an interesting point I leaned from studying environmental biology.

You're literally exposed to far more radiation from the isotopes in coal ash particulates than you are from living next door to an NPP (which is zero above background levels).

While Vox did a great job being even-handed in their coverage, I find it odd that they didn't note the fact that just weeks after Indian Point closed, NYC began to experience a series of rolling power blackouts. In summary, they lobbied to shut down the largest source of low-carbon energy in the name of climate change, replaced it with fracked gas, hiked energy bills across the board, and made your regional power supply more reliant on intermittent and fossil-based generation. Make it make sense.

"You can't have a nuclear meltdown on a solar farm" yeah, but we aren't replacing them with solar panels.

I always hate people being like, we can't afford putting nuclear waste into abandoned mines, but not considering burning fossil fuels puts the garabage into the air they breathe

I'm from Kenya, blackouts are almost natural. Watching advanced countries that at least have options just shutting a source of power because of fear of a possibility just shows how different our lives are.

As with every other large-scale problem in the world, the majority of people want the problem solved but have no solution or do not want to pay for the solution.

Nuclear energy is by far one of the cleanest and most reliable sources of energy available to us and protesting against it seems contradictory to the net zero goal. It seems like people protested for the sake of protest and not for a viable reason. Nuclear energy has more merits than demerits like it can provide energy at any time we want. If there's a surge in demand it can fulfill the demand and it doesn't need to be stored. I mean I can go on talking about its advantages for hours.

"al-qaeda actually considered targeting a nuclear power plant." Well they actually did target commercial planes. why haven't we shut down air travel yet?

Humanity’s rejection of Nuclear power was a massive mistake, and the environment has payed dearly for it as we continue to rely on fossil fuels for our electricity

I do understand Mark Ruffalo's issue with gamma radiation

My problem with the “nuclear plants are killing fish in the river” is that Fossil Fuel plants *also* have that problem. Where do people think the steam in the turbines comes from?

Just like planes, they're the most safe travel transport, yet people loose their minds when one of them suffers an accident.

those two environmentalists they interviewed make me so angry. The notion that we have to chase a perfect source of power, that it's "no pollution or nothing" is absolutely holding us all back. Nuclear is better than fossil fuels. That's a fact. Change in steps is much more attentable than a giant leap into perfection

Sweden only achieved relatively environmentally friendly because big portions of their energy is nuclear, 40-60%. If fact, the way western world found out about Chernobyl was, one of Sweden’s power plant found radiation outside of facility and looked for leaks.

Basically "I'm ok with nuclear power, but not in my backyard"

"Lets destroy the planet with oil and coal beacuse glowy rock scary"

Before engineering for a nuclear plant, sure I thought it was scary stuff. Once you've spent a year in it, you'd be far more afraid of coal plants. Nuclear is one of our best options for clean bulk generation. Depending on the reactor style used, it isn't as expensive or risky to run either.

I worked at another nuclear plant that closed. The town has been dying ever since the closure. I was in the industry in 2011 when Fukushima Daiichi happened. The folks that marched on our plant expressed fears that had nothing to do with our energy generation. Thank you for posting this video - it's so refreshing to see the correct information expressed in such a calm and concise manner.

Surely there is a solution to avoid catching the fish.

it's really disheartening to see someone like the man in the boat. Clearly passionate, clearly devoting a lot of time and energy and emotional investment into being aggressively wrong and actively damaging a good thing.

“The River has rights” okay sure, but what about fossil fuels damaging the environment?

"The ecosystem cant afford this kind of enviromental impact." He talks about nuclear power, not coal and oil. Thats the same as saying "I dont want that street noise" and moving from the suburbs to philadelphia city.

It's also the oil industry that's lobbying for these plants to shut down and increase our dependence on fossil fuels

People: NUCLEAR IS DANGEROUS SHUT IT DOWN NYC: Ok. NYC: *gets rolling blackouts* People: \*surprised pikachu face*

Why does everyone instantly relate nuclear power plants with nuclear bombs?!

We can't afford an accident when flying on a jet either. Nuclear power has a PR problem, and it's fixable.

Anyone who worries about the condenser loop dsirupting the fish should think about what happens at a hydro dam. Unfortunatelly we yet to find a completely safe and enviromentally neutral way to mass produce the energy a modern society requires.... but probably nuclear is the nearest to this goal.

I just love how the people complaining about the dangers of nuclear and dismissing the much greater dangers of fossil fuel power have no skin in the fossil fuel game. Let them work in a coal mine or an oil rig and then we'll talk.

Simple answer: The public doesn't know what they are talking about

The "cost" of fossil fuels fails to account for externalities, pollution, health, climate, subsidies.

Did they protest against COAL PLANTS?

Chernobyl had a meltdown because it was poorly maintained by an overworked and understaffed team, and it didn’t have the best construction either. Fukushima had a meltdown because a plant already crippled by earthquakes was utterly decimated by a tsunami many times taller than what it was built to withstand. Im not as well read on three mile island, but I can’t imagine the story is very different. Nuclear energy itself isn’t inherently dangerous, it’s mostly the waste you need to worry about. The water used to cool the reactor, any used control rods, any steam made from contact with the reactor. And even then, modern containment of the reactor and its waste are built to last many years after the plant itself may be defunct. The reactor will be surrounded by many feet of solid concrete, there are some waste containers that are able to withstand being hit by a train and still function perfectly. We’ve spent more than enough time, money and manpower to make nuclear energy as safe as it can be. The big three just have such an awful reputation that it puts anyone without the finer details off the idea of nuclear energy entirely.

I was shocked to hear that guy describes the numbers of deaths from each energy type as a 'valid study' then say how the risk of a melt down causing deaths isn't worth it. When those numbers SHOW how low that risk is, and how HIGH the risk is from the currently only immediate viable alternative (fossil fuels). Ignoring the fact that renewables sadly can't yet reliably meet the demand that nuclear covers. He clearly also doesn't know what a molten salt/ thorium reactor is since that can't go into a meltdown.. If I were to move to live next to a power plant, I'd choose a nuclear one over a fossil fuel one every time.

Oh I thought Indian Nuclear power plant gonna shut but it's US 😅

4:22 - This is why I have no faith in humanity. "Here are the numbers." "Numbers are beside the point." How can we move forward as a society when facts aren't disputed, yet simply ignored as inconvenient.

NYC was probably the greenest city b4 Indian Point closed. Most ppl used public transportation and the electricity that both people and subways use came from clean nuclear

Thanks for doing the work you do - please keep up the fantastic investigative, deeply informative, and easy to digest journalism. 👏

4:49 "The numbers don't matter to me. A meltdown is rarer and more dramatic!" How much are they paying this guy?

With how advanced nuclear reactors have come in the last 50 years (new reaction methods such as Gas cooling, Pebble beds, Pressurized Water, etc), it's really a whole different ball game we have on our hands. The safety and redundancy efforts are practically built in to the reactions itself. Nuclear also gives a great option for smaller regions who don't want to depend on neighbors a great way to sustain themselves. It's super exciting technology!

It's incredible how vox is able to present both points of views, both sides of opinion and all arguments and counter arguments. In summary, nuclear is still the best what we have for now.

A very well structured video. Thanks for creating this type of content ❤️

Mark Ruffalo takes his roles seriously, he is really against gamma emissions

Excellent video. One important distinction I want to make: the Lazard graph at 7:20 shows the cost of energy by source for *new builds*, not for existing plants. The cost of electricity from decades-old nuclear plants like Indian Point is cheap because they were built a long time ago when capital costs were lower, and it only gets cheaper the longer the reactors operate, because they have a longer period of time to offset the up-front costs with sales of electricity. Thus, while costs for *new* nuclear may be going up, costs for *existing* nuclear are low and getting lower.

Ugh, the shear misconception of Nuclear Energy is astounding with people. It is one of the cleanest source of energy if done right.

I used to live in Haverstraw, NY. I could see Indian Point from my home on the Hudson River. There were frequent nuclear alarm testing all across Rockland County. I agree that it is not the best Nuclear Reactor but I do believe Nuclear power is the way of the future and should not be shunned upon because of past mistakes and negligence. Since then I have moved away but that area was one of the most interesting places I have lived in.

As a CBRNe specialist I'd rather have a NPP near my city rather than a fossil fuel/natural gas power plant. I cannot afford wearing a gasmask for my entire life just because i do not want to breath the waste from fossil fuels which are released in the air.

Fun fact: nuclear power plants dont explode, the core could melt but there is nothing that could explode like atomic bomb

Very well put. You've managed to summarize the bigger questions briefly, with clarity and in an engaging way. My only question: Do the safety statistics for wind and solar include the carbon produced during their manufacturing processes?

So lets not ignore the elephant in the room here, was the dog able to go up the ramp with its stick?

I love it when people are looking at a solution for clean energy, but when you bring up part of the solution, Nuclear Energy, they turn their heads and say no.

This was one of the most neutrally framed thing about a hot-button issue I've seen in a while. I actually felt kind of unsettled waiting for the rhetorical framing and picking a side. Instead it summarized what the substantial arguments are that seem to be moving this issue the hardest, from whatever direction, and focused on explaining who had that view, rather than assigning "good" vs "bad" labels to things. I wasn't told how to feel about it and I'm left not knowing how to feel about it. I think mostly this wasn't new to me, since I follow energy news a lot, but it was almost out-of-body-experience feeling to see something so neutral about an American issue of public debate.

I'm curious where Vox got the data showing that Nuclear has a higher death rate than water/hydro. All the data I've seen has shown far more fatalities due to hydro accidents, but perhaps that was just raw numbers and didn't account for just how much more hydro is in use?

A plant is being closed by taking advices from the local people who necessarily doesn't have any idea of Science especially behind clean energy..!! What a great Nation... The opinions of that Scientist is less valuable to that boatman.. xD

Even as a kid in high-school, I recognized the power of nuclear energy to not only make our world greener in the long term but make our grid more efficient too. Whenever we had a self-research project, I always did nuclear energy.

whats funny is nuclear accidents are so rare the last one in 2011 that was a earth quake and a tsunami I have no clue how it lasted so long and their could be different nuclear reactors like thorium being way safer

Finally they address the mortality of cooling water entrainment. Its not the larger fish its the gametes, zygotes, larvae and micro-invertebrates (copepods etc.) that have the aggregate negative impact. On a side note there are many industries that use ambient water as coolant with the same trophic compromising impact.

Anti-nuclear movement was particularly strong in Germany. Today, Germany is one of largest coal power plant operators in Europe.

The Reputation of Nuclear Power plants was ruined by Chernobyl

"Rivers have their own rights"? It is a kind of statement i would expect to be said when someone wants to assert their opinion but have ran out of ideas to base it on. The massacre of water organisms due to it was the most trivial reason of all for it could've been reduced, if not solved completely, in a no. of ways and just required to put pressure on Holtec Int.. Lastly, the safety concern was legit. Any thing with such potential must not be anywhere near a human settlement of any sorts. I am supportive of the replacement of Fossil fuel energy by Nuclear energy, at any cost but lives. They should start establishing Nuclear plants at every single far-off place possible because we don't have much time left, if left at all. As regards renewable ones, they are impractical. I can say with some confidence- they won't turn out anywhere near as good as people expect them to be.

I think a video about those other clean and firm energy sources would be really interesting too, I would like to know how geothermal because so economically viable in such a short amount of time.

Being concerned that a nuclear power plant is gonna melt down is like being concerned that the plane your flying is gonna crash. Nuclear power plants are handled by professionals and rarely meltdown only to carelessness.

God I hate listening to anti-nuclear power people argue. They never seem to get the facts right and/or just respond to pathos.

@6:34 what is the 3rd choice? How quickly can we implement it? And how much of the fossil fuel generation capacity will it replace?

that concrete dome is several feet thick and continually poured... it's designed to stand up to an attack.

If only people would stop protesting against nuclear energy and allow researchers to make it safer.

Riverkeeper got paid half of a $15 million dollar “environmental fund” for their work on this. Gosh, I wonder why they fought so hard to shut it down.

Hello, where did you get the bass guitar beat at 1:12? I really like that sound!

MRI scan, which is used all the time in hospitals and labs, used to be called NMRI - Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. They had to drop that "N" because people would associate that with all the bad things with nuclear power. It's just like how the video talked about it. You can give these people the stats that nuclear power is actually safer than fossil fuel, yet just the word "nuclear" will strike fear in all of them, despite it's probably one of the safest thing to use due to how heavily regulated it is.

"Terrorist attacks" Reactors are both designed in mind with that, and theres like 3 meters of concrete in the containment building, and the whole core is housed in a multi tonne steel vessel. You just can't "attack" one of these things

I understand Chernobyl and Fukushima happened, but that was bad design and incompetence. Nuclear power plants can be built safely and is clean energy.

8:30 hydropower is also pretty stable, and can be used as you want to, when u want to just has a max use per day/week/month/year... bcs its jusst important to not overuse the source

I’ve been looking at the thorium option. Would love to know about the possibility to turn these traditional nuclear plants into much safer options. How difficult would it be technologically.

The lack of the ability to transport power is the U.S.’s biggest issue with power, there’s plenty of safe places to put nuclear and increase solar, we just don’t have good ways of transporting it from those locations yet.

essentially for most nuclear energy is a great option, until the plant is within 30km of where they live

well, in case anyone wants to hear an update, New York state just did a massive deal ($20 billion) with the province of Quebec to buy 10.4 terawatt-hours of electricity over 25 years. Quebec's energy is 95% hydroelectric (there's a LOT of water in the north of the province). they'll have to build a line to supply the power the NY, which should be completed by 2023. also, it's worth noting that all of Quebec's power is produced and distributed by Hydro Quebec, which is a public company whose prices are extremely cheap so this will benefit the population of the province rather than a private company - as well as the residents of the state of NY. looks to me like they found a replacement for the Indian Point plant.

Can someone explain how hydro energy isn't firm? It's one of Ontario's main source of power and I don't understand how it's not considered firm

Nuclear is the airplane of energy production. Safer per unit of energy, least expensive (see France energy costs compared to Germany), and a natural evolution towards energy dense means of production

“You can’t have a nuclear meltdown on a solar farm” I think he completely forgot what he just said. The study is based on all accidents/pollution leading to premature death. Meaning, meltdowns included. Nuclear is still a much safer method of producing energy. Some activists fight for a good cause, but this guy makes em look bad.

Very interesting overview, thank you!

Interesting, it will be great to see a video done on Project Salus 2021

I really appreciate how you interviewed people with various perspectives. People nowadays often choose to listen to only viewpoints that support their perspective which further creates the societal divides that are so prominent, especially in the US.

We need MORE nuclear power, NOT less to have a greener power grid

Short story: people have irrational fears and are extremely uninformed

Quality reporting - balanced, fair, and with clear information that shows both sides of the debate and allows to draw our own personal conclusions. Thank you Cleo and team

I used to be entirely against nuclear power but after listening to some scientists explain more about it, I’m in favour. While I love the idea of renewable energy, I think it’s too inconsistent right now to rely on it. Especially since people want to shut down the nuclear plants without a better solution right now.

The two blocks that kept running from the Indian Point power plant are from the 1970s. So they are close to 50 year old in terms of technology, security and material. And as old reactors age, they get more expensive to sustain and modernize to make them meet the standards. That's why many power companies running old reactors aren't complaining, because they really can't afford to keep the reactors en par with current standards. So they get an easy way out and usually a bit of slack for the last years so they don't have to invest as much anymore.

During 911, i lived in peeskill, the city near indian point and they the autority didnt shut down the plants when they said it was...

This is an amazingly well done video

Deadly Nuclear Bombs 📈 *stonks* Clean Nuclear Energy📉 “no thanks!”

I live in Toronto Canada and it's essentially powered by nuclear energy.

The cost of nuclear power is cheaper than wind and solar. Lazard's study doesn't take lifetime, capacity factor, backup sources, etc., into account. So no. Wind and solar is not cheaper and nuclear is not more expensive.

Great video. True journalism. There is both sides of the party for and against nuclear. Not opinionated. We need more of this! These videos are why I subscribed to yall

I've talked to nuclear engineers, new nuclear power plants cannot undergo a nuclear meltdown. Accidents in the past and sharing of knowledge between nuclear energy companies have ensured that any 21st-century power plant is completely safe.

4:22 that's a very polite way of saying "they just choose to disregard the numbers because they completely break their arguments apart"

great colouring on this video!

surprisingly objective look from Vox!