WEBVTT - This Is The Case For Investing In Nuclear Power 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.799 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.280 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, we 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:18.439 recently did an episode with Matt Klein and we talked 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:24.239 about essentially what a disaster German energy policy has been 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.520 over the last several decades, winding up in this position 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:31.240 where it's energy usage is not only heavily reliant on 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.280 Russian gas, it's also really not clean and so even 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.680 if your vision is a low carbon they haven't achieved 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.040 that either. Yeah, the worst of all worlds, I would say, 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.599 years of under investment in energy capacity, moving away from 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:52.440 nuclear um after Fukushima, increased reliance on Russian gas, which 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.560 clearly is problematic now, and not actually reducing any of 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.880 their carbon emissions all at the same time. Yeah, kind 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.840 of an extraordinarily bad combination. But you mentioned nuclear, and 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.120 of course Germany has been moving away from it for 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.120 some time. But it does feel that even prior to 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:15.280 the recent energy price spike, or even prior to this 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.319 sort of heightened awareness on the German energy situation specifically, 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.280 there does seem to be a sort of i don't know, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.600 rethinking or some sort of turn in people sort of 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.960 reconsidering how much nuclear has been shut down over the 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.959 last several years, how little new nuclear has been built, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.800 and whether that's been wise. Yeah, it's definitely been an 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.560 ongoing debate. But I have to admit this is something 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.119 I mean, I was aware that nuclear had fallen out 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.720 of favor, but I cannot remember when that moment actually 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.800 happened and what exactly the process was. So obviously Fukushima 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.520 happened in Japan, and there's a lot of concerns around that, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.160 but I'm very, very interested in how nuclear sort of 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.520 lost the public debate. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, me too. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.280 And I think obviously, look, you have a handful of 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.760 well known either disasters or near near disasters. But it 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.720 is interesting that at a time when there's so much 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.120 interest in reducing carbon emissions, you know, so much has 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.640 been focused on wind, solar, maybe hydropower, very little about 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.120 how nuclear could be part of the solution, right, And 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.679 at the same time, we have in recent years really 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:29.600 seen some of the weaknesses or the downsides in certain renewables. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.839 So you know, days when there isn't enough wind, we 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.040 just don't have energy in some parts of the world, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.960 Days when there isn't enough sun. We've seen that in 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.640 places like the UK and also in Texas. Yeah, that's 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.760 exactly right. And so obviously wind and solar could at 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.480 times produce incredibly cheap electricity, but it's intermittent and we 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.320 don't have the battery technology to store it when it's 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.120 really sunny. As you mentioned, I think it was in 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.000 November December. They're all these days in Europe and it 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.840 was like the wind just was and blowing, and so 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.800 the energy prices sore because what can you do. And so, 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.760 whether it's in the US where we've had a number 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.359 of energy grid blackouts, we saw that in Texas last year, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.200 whether it's Europe, or the price of electricity is soaring, 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.480 a rethink of nuclear. So I'm very excited about our guests. 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.240 We're going to get the case for nuclear investment today. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.760 I'm super excited about our guests. We're gonna be speaking 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.080 with Meredith Anglin. She is the author of the book 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.280 Shorting the Grid, The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:38.560 Absolutely fascinating book basically talking about grid policy. Uh and 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.720 somehow it's incredibly readable. It's actually a page turner, even 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.800 though the topic is very dense in our cane. Meredith 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.400 has a gift for taking what is highly technical and 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.560 making it extremely compelling. And she is also a pro 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.880 nuclear activist in some way and thinks it is the 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.560 solution to many of our energy questions. Prior to writing 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.000 the book, she has been for several years a researcher 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.480 worker in the utility industry on our power problem. So, Meredith, 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.240 thank you so much for coming out on odd lots, 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.440 thank you so much for inviting me, and I'm so 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.720 happy to be talking to you. Into Tracy Meredith, I 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:18.599 loved your book. And like I said, and other people 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:20.800 on Twitter said the same thing. That's like, how is 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:25.919 a book that is on such a technical topic regulatory policies? 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:27.800 Are the grades so readable? And I mean it is 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.240 a page turner somehow. But why don't you just give 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.440 us a little bit of your background prior to writing 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.800 the book. What is your experience within the utility and 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.600 energy industry. Well, I was always very interested in chemistry. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.040 I became a chemist and it was also interested in geology, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.680 and uh, I was working towards my PhD at University Chicago. 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.800 I do not complete that. I have a master's and 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.680 I was you know, and so forth. But it was 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.839 in a in mineral chemistry, and when I began thinking 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.719 about what you do with mineral chemistry. When I got 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.840 out of school, I was also interested in geo thermal energy, 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:12.080 and so I began researching how could I work in 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.919 geothermal I learned enough to be actually getting some little 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.719 contracts in geo thermal and UH. Then I got a 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.239 job at a company that wanted to get into geo 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.359 thermal but was working on nitrogen oxide pollution, which is 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.320 a really big problem. And so I was working on 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:36.599 nitrogen oxide pollution, including UH some patents. UH. Nitrogen oxides 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.880 are one of the prime ingredients in smog, and so 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.840 I was working on that. And then I moved over 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.760 to the Electric Power Research Institute, where I was in 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.440 geothermal energy. So I felt I had finally achieved what 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.920 I had wanted to achieve by being in UH geo 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.320 thermal energy. But then when I was in the search 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.560 group that was in renewables, I began to see sort of, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.520 I don't know, the dark side of renewables, not so much. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.360 The dark side is the fact that they really weren't 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.880 up to the the level of a lift that people 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.719 were claiming they would have, and that when you wanted 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.480 to put in a renewable people objected, And that astonished 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.400 me that the people were trying to stop renewable development. 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.320 How could they do this? But at any rate, um 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.560 I began working with on some similar corrosion issues with 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.760 a group that was working in nuclear, and I began 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:36.799 to get to know them. Now I didn't have anything. 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.320 I wasn't against nuclear, but I wasn't. I wasn't like 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:44.039 drawn to it particularly, But then I began working with them, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.200 I began to realize its advantages, and I switched over 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:50.440 to the nuclear group. Later on, I ran a consulting 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:56.800 company about basically about a corrosion control and water chemistry 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.240 and nuclear plants. And then when I sort of them, 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.200 I retired. I began supporting our local nuclear plan, ver 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.920 monty Yankee, which led me into trying to understand how 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.720 Vermont Yankee interacted with the people who ruled the grid, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.400 and that eventually led to the book shorting the Grid 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.360 to note it's funny. I actually used to live in Brattleboro, Vermont, 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.120 a couple of miles away from the Vermont Yankee nuclear Plan, 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.480 which I remember tons of debate about it at the time, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.000 and lots of local activists wanting to shut it down, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:29.800 and now it did get shut down. But it's fun, 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.200 you know, I remember this debate very well. Well, can 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.480 we talk a little bit more about that? So you know, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:37.920 I mentioned this in the intro, the idea of nuclear 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.920 sort of losing public opinion. How did that happen exactly? 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.160 And how do the alleged downside stack up against the 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.400 opportunities or the upsides of nuclear power as you as 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:54.080 you learned about them. Well, that is a really difficult 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.080 question that there are many books about, Like there's a 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.360 book called the Rise of Nuclear fear Um. One of 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.960 the things is that people had it mixed in their 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.240 minds with nuclear weapons. What I'm trying to say is 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.080 that there are plenty of states like uh, North Korea 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.440 with nuclear weapons but no nuclear power plants. And there 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.960 are plenty of states like United Arab Emirates with nuclear 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:22.840 power plants and no nuclear weapons. I mean, they don't 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:26.240 go together, as like, if you've got one, then you've 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.840 got the other. And the whole idea that someone would 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.079 steal stuff from a nuclear power plant to make a 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.319 weapon is so absurd it just I mean, the things 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:40.079 that are in nuclear power plants are very big, very radioactive, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.199 and the plants are well guarded, so I mean you 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.240 would have to drive some kind of a special vehicle. 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.480 I mean, it's just it's not it's not like an 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.600 easy thing to imagine. So I don't like to even 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:57.160 go into that very much because it's it's it's all 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:02.600 so theoretical. It's just not reasonable. But my mother was 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.280 very active in in in banned the bomb groups and 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.080 and but you a sent against nuclear but one power. 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.680 But when the bomb actually got banned, I think some 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.440 of those groups just my morphs gone over like, oh well, well, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.679 let's go after the nuclear plants. Now. It wasn't reason. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.320 It was just sort of like, let's do the next step. 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.640 We were worried about fallout, and now we have these plants, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.199 so we'll go after them. And and and the fact 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.760 that they're not releasing anything into the environment, we're not 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.800 gonna worry about that part. They could there's this whole 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.760 word could. They could. They could if you have a 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.160 laborate enough scenario, they could. What do you talk about 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.200 that a little bit further? And actually, of course you 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.760 know we're talking about Europe the other night, I think 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.480 it was. I think it was last Thursday, were recording 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.720 this March tent, so I think a week ago. One 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.480 of the scarier headlines that has come out of the 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:00.480 Russia invasion of Ukraine. All the headlines are are awful, 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.960 but there was the concern about this particular nuclear plant. 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.800 There was a report about a fire, and then everyone 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.760 was debating how terrible could this be? Could this be 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.320 a Fukushima or Chernobyl or something like that, And then 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.680 the people who actually knew what they were talking about said, no, 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.080 that's a completely unrealistic scenario. There's not like that at all. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.840 But can you give us like the basic reasons, like Okay, 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.920 why isn't a nuclear power plant as sort of major 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.320 security risk if it could catch fire or something like that? 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.360 Like why did the people who seem to understand nuclear 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.160 the most they did not seem particularly worried about that 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.200 risk in that situation. Well, it's a standard kind of 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.559 uh plant. It's a light water reactor. It's not like 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:47.160 the Chernobyl plants. The Chernobyl plants, every every nuclear plant 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:49.959 has to have a way to slow down the neutrons, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.640 and that's called the moderator, and in American plants that's 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:59.600 that's water, and in the Russian plant it was graphied. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.240 So when the Russian plant began overheating, the graphite began burning. 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.120 Uh it was just an incredible mess. That's your noble one. 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:12.200 But the ones that are operating now in Russia, they're 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:17.880 practically like the American plants there, they're like pressurized water reactors. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:24.160 There's uh three levels of water safety between them and 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.040 uh any released to the environment. What I'm trying to 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.400 say is you have the pressurized water that surrounds the 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:36.480 reactor core. Then that water goes into loops within a 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.840 steam generator. That steam generator makes steam which turns the turbine. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.040 But it and then it doesn't it is it isn't 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.480 the same water that went through the reactor core. It's, 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.000 as a matter of fact, incredibly pure water. Very no 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.480 expense is spare to make that water incredibly pure, and 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.920 the reason is that you don't want it to pass 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.360 sitting things on these high speed turbans. And then as 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.080 it comes out of the turbans, it's cooled by a 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.840 tertiary loop, which actually is a water that goes through 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.199 a cooling tower or something which is out in the environment, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.680 but at that point it's like three three steps away 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:23.280 from from the reactor. So uh, people kept imagining all 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:30.000 these scenarios which which are unreasonable of the reactor uh 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.440 having some huge problem that causes this vast release, which 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.640 actually did happen at Chernobyl, but that was because it 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:41.280 was a completely different plant. Another thing I have to 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:45.640 say is Chernobyl did not have a containment structure around it, 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.080 so anything that was released was immediately released. These plants 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:56.280 have containment structures around the reactor steam generator, uh area 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.280 that can be hit by like missiles. I mean really 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.200 they run. Uh they they're so strong that can be 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:10.640 hit by trains, uh, missiles. I don't know how big 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.800 a missile I suppose if it was, but but you 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.640 know that they're they're testing in the Midwestern ones are 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.960 tested with U utility poles flung against them as if 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.720 there was a tornado. I mean, so the whole idea 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.839 that these things are just on the verge or something 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:33.680 horrible happening is really not reasonable. And it is. But 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.679 as I say, I think that the people were like, oh, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.640 we banned the bomb, let's ban the other nuclear stuff. 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:55.680 It's all horrible aside from safety, Were there any other 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.040 constraints or are there any other constraints on building out 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.520 nuclear capacity, because I mean, if there's one thing I 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.520 learned from some city, it's that nuclear power plants are 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.800 extremely expensive compared to all other forms of power. But 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.640 obviously that's that might be out of date. But you know, 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.640 are there financial constraints or policy constraints that impact investment 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.160 in nuclear power? Well, there are finding at this point 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.600 nuclear plants are more expensive and slower to build than 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:33.280 other types of plants, and they're usually compared with um 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:38.200 combined psycho plants of natural gas plants because very few 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.120 people are building coal plants anymore, except, of course, in 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.440 many places in the world, but not in America. Uh, 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.480 people are building coal plants in China and in India, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.400 but they're not building them in America. So we compare 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.960 our nuclear plants to natural gas plants, and they're much 0:14:54.960 --> 0:15:00.160 more expensive. However, nuclear fuel tends to be a lot 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.760 less expensive and a lot more reliable than the fuel 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:07.520 for the natural gas plants. And people do a comparison 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:12.040 with a wind turbine. Whatever wind turbines aren't even supposed 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.320 to last more than twenty five years, and nuclear plants 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:20.160 can last sixty years, uh, eighty years, whatever, how often 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.480 do you have to build? It becomes a question with 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.880 with with many of the types of plants. So can 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.240 you actually do the math a little bit more for us, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.520 like what are the you know a region is thinking 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.360 about investing a like how much how long did would 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.720 it take to build a nuclear plant versus a uh 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.840 something that's powered more by natural gas? And another important 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:42.360 thing you talk about in your book is that a 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.920 nuclear plant holds the fuel on site, whereas natural gas 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.240 is real time. It doesn't store the gas on site, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.320 It needs it just in time, and so if there's 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.800 any sort of pipeline disruption, the natural gas plant is useless. 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.040 But talk about the upfront costs of the two, and 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.200 then like how it plays is out over time in 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.520 your views such that the nuclear is the better investment. Well, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.720 you know this isn't my major area of expertise about 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.960 investing in nuclear I'm sorry to say that. I will 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.440 say that nuclear plants have had a tendency to be 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.600 um estimated at five billion and come in at ten billion. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:28.120 But and meanwhile, natural gas plants are estimated at five 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.200 hundred thousand and come in and a million and a 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.640 half or something. No, not a million and a half. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.960 Excuse me, five d a billion and a half. Really 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:43.360 I would so. Um. But the thing is that with 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:47.760 the natural gas plant, you have to have a fuel 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.200 supplied all the time. It just keeps coming in over 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:56.560 the pipeline and sometimes, uh, that's okay, and sometimes it's 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.760 not okay. Like right in the winter in the Northeast, 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.480 we actually are dependent on l G deliveries just like 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.200 we were Singapore or something to get enough natural gas 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.800 into all pipelines for winter use, and nuclear stores about 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:17.359 eighteen months of fuel on site. So uh, some disruption 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.600 in the price of fuel or anything like that, you've 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:24.320 got a lot of time to try and figure out 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.600 what to do about it. Well, with natural gas, they 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.320 say it's now X price. You're paying it. That's it. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.360 You're either paying it and refusing to accept it, whichever 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.680 is that. The main difference that you see between nuclear 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:44.520 power and renewables, it's the I guess, the reliability of 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.720 power generation and the idea that you can build up 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.080 you know, eighteen months of capacity as you put it, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.760 and not really have to worry about it, versus if 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.200 you have something like wind or solar, it's much more unpredictable. 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.520 Oh yeah, that's very important. Now. One of the things is, uh, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.720 grid reliability is dismissed by people who are in favor 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:07.840 of you know, like, oh, we'll get to a hundred 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.600 percent renewables, we'll figure out how to make them reliable. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.720 It won't take that much. Uh. But when you get 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.920 right down to it, what most people wanted and grid 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.800 is reliability. They want the lights to go on when 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.800 they turn on the lights. They want the water treatment 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.480 plan to keep operating. They want, uh, you know, all 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:35.359 the things that the grid gives us uh to keep happening. 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.640 And if they're interrupted a lot, this is very very bad. 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:46.520 And and so what happens is that nuclear plants, um 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.080 let me give you an example. The thing is, it's 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:53.560 very hard to talk about natural gas in terms of 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.919 size because it's a gas. Nobody thinks of it in 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.479 terms of size. So what I'm gonna do is I'm 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:04.520 going to pair Vermont Yankee nuclear plant with Merrimac Station, 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.480 which is not far away. It's down in New Hampshire. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.200 Meyri Max stations, a coal plant is four hundred megawatts, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.320 and Vermont Yankee was a nuclear plant at six hundred megawats. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:20.119 So Vermont Yankee would have a semi pull up every 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.719 eighteen months with a new load of fuel. Okay, one semi, 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.720 maybe they took two sometimes I don't know, with a 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.199 new load of fuel. I've often thought that since there 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.360 were several hundred people working at the plant, they probably 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:40.000 had more deliveries of paper products of various kinds, from 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:47.280 from from than than fuel. Meanwhile, over at Merrimac station, 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.840 you have four hundred megawatts. I did the calculation several 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.520 times over to try and figure it out. Uh. They 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.000 told me at the station that it was forty one 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.720 ton ray Hopper cars of cold per day. I went 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.520 through a whole calculation on the probable heat rate and 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.280 came up with thirty nine Hopper cars per day. So 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.800 you see, the thing is they they are taking delivery 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.640 of a lot of coal every day to run that station. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.399 And of course, when you're delivering a lot of things 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.320 that it's uh, it's can be interrupted. Now, the thing 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.720 that I wanted to say is that if you look 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:31.440 at a four hundred megawatt UH natural gas plant, it 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:36.719 is burning not forty cars of coal, because the H 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.440 two and the natural gas also burns. Say it's burning 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:46.119 twenty cars of coal a day. It isn't coal, it's carbon, 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.280 you see. But at least you can have a visual. 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.520 Then you can have a visual that the natural gas 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:57.480 plant is getting twenty cold cars full of carbon delivered 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.880 to it every day. You see. We can't have that division. 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.480 Somebody will say, oh, it's got MMC so many million 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.119 cubic feet. I don't. I can't imagine a million cubic 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.760 feet of a gas and what happens, and that's beyond me. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.480 It's it's much easier to just think if it were coal, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.639 then how much would this be? How much would you 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.320 see showing up at the plant? And let's look at 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.480 the carbon for a moment. You get these forty coal 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.600 plants going to Merrimack station and then they combine with 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.959 oxygen in the air to make carbon dioxide, which is 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.879 because it's combined, it's heavier than than the coal was. 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.919 So if you had to carry the carbon dioxide away 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:45.480 in coal cars, you would be using um more than 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.400 twice as many coal cars to carry it away. So 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.639 that's something to think about. I keep trying to figure 0:21:53.680 --> 0:22:01.800 out how to express because otherwise it's so theoretical. People like, oh, yeah, uh, 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.320 it comes, We've got a million cubic feet. Nobody goes like, 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.000 how much does that way? How much space would it 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.679 take up? It's a gas, right, So I try to 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:14.560 put it in terms of if it were coal, if 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.240 it were visible, if it had to be delivered and 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.760 taken away in railroad cars, this is what would be like. 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.440 That's a really interesting way to think about it. Let's 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:30.040 go back to conventional renewables, and the two renewables uh 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:33.200 that people have in their mind when they hear renewables 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:37.040 are obviously wind and solar, and they inspire a lot 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.960 of very good feelings. They do not emit carbon when 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:44.639 the sun is shining or when the wind is blowing. 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.640 Electricity is extremely cheap, and I get perhaps the marginal 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.760 cost of that electricity is essentially free. What is uh? 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.840 And you talk about the but what is like the 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.440 basic flaw? Like, what is the argument against just let's 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:04.240 keep ramping up wind, Let's keep you know, there's gonna 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:06.960 be this big new wind firm off of New York, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.440 there's gonna be some win. Why not just continue to 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:14.840 place uh turbines and panels on every roof and every 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.399 UH on every mountain ridge we can find. Okay, let 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.240 me let me talk about why that isn't a reasonable 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.040 way of looking at the First thing is it's just 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:30.600 a very simple example. Um. People go to a fancy restaurant, say, 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.919 and the restaurant says, we run a hundred percent on 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.040 renewable electricity here. And the people say, oh, this is great. 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:40.840 We're not only having a great meal at ten at night, 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:45.600 but we are also on renewable electricity. Well, actually, they 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:48.320 what the restaurant has done is just hadn't put up 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:50.600 a bunch of It may have some some solar panels, 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:53.720 but it's not running off the solar panels at ten 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:56.600 at night. What it is doing is this fine renewable 0:23:56.720 --> 0:24:00.399 energy certificates or it is net metering. That is, it 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.000 produces more solar two and it sells it to the 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:06.640 grid and then it bused fossil from the grid at 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.480 ten at night. And so people get they get misled 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.919 there at this restaurant and it's a hundred renewables and 0:24:14.920 --> 0:24:17.800 they're thinking, well, everybody can do this. If they can 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:19.840 do it, we should be able to do it. Okay, 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:26.440 So that's the simple misleading thing. The more formal statement 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:31.640 would have to be that renewables add to the overall 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:35.600 system costs of the grid. For one thing, Uh, you 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:38.920 have to back have something to back them up, now 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:41.959 you know. I, I really I don't think batteries are 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:46.000 ever going to do it. But that's a whole another talk. Uh, 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.800 and and and so forth. But whether you decide it's 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.040 batteries or its or it's gas fire plants, or it's 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:58.680 a pump storage device, okay, something has to be available 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:05.160 when the um when the renewables are not available, and 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:10.280 so that means that you have to have redundancy on 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.879 the grid. And that redundancy doesn't go into the cost 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:18.520 of when the wind turbine is actually making wind, it 0:25:19.080 --> 0:25:22.080