Speaker 1: Have you seen the gas prices in California? Have you
Speaker 1: seen the gas prices down the street?
Speaker 2: Girl? They high.
Speaker 1: If it's up, then it's up.
Speaker 2: If it's up, then it's stuck. It's been pretty wild.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm gonna have to start biking everywhere.
Speaker 1: Come on over to the biking community.
Speaker 2: I know that's your favorite thing to do. I don't
Speaker 2: want to get on that bike.
Speaker 1: You know, when gas prices start to go up, politicians
Speaker 1: and policymakers start talking about alternative forms of energy, which
Speaker 1: low key they should have been talking about anyway.
Speaker 2: Right, huh huh. Because fossil fuels are a limited supply.
Speaker 2: We will eventually run out of fossil fuels, so we
Speaker 2: need some alternatives asap.
Speaker 1: And one of those alternatives that often comes up is
Speaker 1: nuclear energy.
Speaker 2: H I love it.
Speaker 1: I know that's right in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is.
Speaker 1: But I'm always like I think, I know, I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure.
Speaker 2: You know a lot more than you think.
Speaker 1: Well, prove it to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's my mission for today. I'm TT and I'm
Speaker 2: Zachiah and from Spotify. This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that makes us,
Speaker 1: hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dosa friendship.
Speaker 2: This week, we're talking about nuclear energy, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of things about nuclear energy that I think people
Speaker 2: don't know. We generally know that it's very powerful, but
Speaker 2: we wanted to know specifically why it's so important, how
Speaker 2: it's regulated, and more of the applications.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the recitation, all right, Listen, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ahead and tell you most of the things I know
Speaker 1: about nuclear energy. I know a little bit from history,
Speaker 1: but mostly for call of duty. Okay.
Speaker 2: My friend is a gamer okay.
Speaker 1: And then second is from Marvel and we've already talked
Speaker 1: about this on Wakanda forever. Some of that stuff is
Speaker 1: not real, so I'm gonna really need you to separate
Speaker 1: back from fiction. For me, Tony Stark taught me a lot,
Speaker 1: but how much of it is really true?
Speaker 2: Yes? So because of that episode, we know a little
Speaker 2: bit of the basics about nuclear energy. Where it comes from.
Speaker 2: You know it comes from the nucleus of an atom,
Speaker 2: but we really want to know a lot more, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that is a great segue into what
Speaker 2: do we want to know.
Speaker 1: I know you're saying, yes, it comes from the nucleus
Speaker 1: of an atom, But how do we get to it
Speaker 1: a who's holding it? One atom? Multiple atoms at the
Speaker 1: same time sequentially? I have a questions. And then what
Speaker 1: about those halves if you're splitting them?
Speaker 2: I think that's a very good question. I think I
Speaker 2: want to know more about the history of nuclear energy.
Speaker 2: I think I know a little bit of why we
Speaker 2: first started looking into it, but I really want to
Speaker 2: know why and what problem we were trying to solve
Speaker 2: and how we got to where we are today.
Speaker 1: And like so many things, what's the potential, what's next?
Speaker 1: How is this being regulated? How do we ensure that
Speaker 1: it's equitable access to something if it has all the
Speaker 1: potential folks are saying it has. Okay, let's jump into
Speaker 1: the dissection. Our guest for today's lab is doctor Marina
Speaker 1: Robinson Snowden.
Speaker 3: My name is doctor Marina Robinson Snowden.
Speaker 4: I'm a senior engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applyve Physics Laboratory.
Speaker 2: Like we said, we talked about the basics of nuclear
Speaker 2: energy in our episode Wakonda Forever, but we act doctor
Speaker 2: Snowden to take us back to high school physics class
Speaker 2: and explain to us the anatomy of an atom.
Speaker 4: So you have protons and neutrons that are in the nucleus, right,
Speaker 4: and then outside of that nucleus you have electrons and
Speaker 4: inside of that atom, it takes a lot of energy
Speaker 4: to keep all of those different pieces together.
Speaker 2: That's right. Atoms are the building blocks of all things.
Speaker 2: And just like doctor Snowden said, you have your nucleus
Speaker 2: of your atom, and that has neutrons and protons and
Speaker 2: they're all packed together really tightly, and then spinning around
Speaker 2: that nucleus is all of these electrons.
Speaker 1: If you think about how all of that energy is
Speaker 1: holding those things together, the vibes are definitely right. We
Speaker 1: want to start thinking about how to capture and use
Speaker 1: that energy. Doctor Snowden says, there are a couple different ways.
Speaker 4: So the first is something that I think we're all
Speaker 4: familiar with, which is kind of chemical reactions. So a
Speaker 4: chemical reaction is something where you are trying to remove
Speaker 4: an electron from an electron shell, right, So you're trying
Speaker 4: to kick off an electron from that atom package.
Speaker 3: Right, that's chemical.
Speaker 2: So think of fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels is a
Speaker 2: chemical reaction, and so you take that fuel and igniting
Speaker 2: it kicks off the chemical reaction. That's what's happening in
Speaker 2: our cars that aren't electric, you know, they're using gas
Speaker 2: from the pump. Those are fossil fuels, and when you
Speaker 2: turn your key, there's an ignition and that sets that
Speaker 2: fuel on fire. And what it does is produce a
Speaker 2: lot of heat, and that heat is the energy that
Speaker 2: is released from this reaction.
Speaker 1: The byproduct of these reactions where we're burning that fuel
Speaker 1: are carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrocarbons, nitric oxide, microparticles,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other environmentally unsafe compounds just you
Speaker 1: name it. Okay, the list goes on, and this is
Speaker 1: where we kind of get into greenhouse gas emissions and
Speaker 1: climate change.
Speaker 2: So in some scenarios you can access chemical energy through
Speaker 2: combustion or burning things. And another way is by leveraging
Speaker 2: all that energy that's holding the nucleus together, aka nuclear energy.
Speaker 4: So some really smart people decades and decades ago, thought
Speaker 4: how can we leverage the energy that's inside of the
Speaker 4: nucleus and also inside of the atom itself. When you're
Speaker 4: thinking about nuclear we're not talking about electrons now, we're
Speaker 4: down in the nucleus, right, nuclear nucleus, that's what it means.
Speaker 4: So you're dealing with reactions that are happening inside of
Speaker 4: that central package in the atom. And the thing that's
Speaker 4: important to know is the energy levels when you compare
Speaker 4: chemical reactions to nuclear reactions, are like a million times stronger.
Speaker 4: The amount of energy that it takes to keep those
Speaker 4: protons together is a million times stronger than it takes
Speaker 4: to keep the electron in the atom.
Speaker 1: And because chemical reactions are not as strong, we need
Speaker 1: a lot more fuel to burn.
Speaker 4: So that's why nuclear energy is so promising because if
Speaker 4: you can find a way to break those nuclei apart
Speaker 4: and harness that energy, you can do things like create electricity,
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 2: Can do it by using way less fuel. So that
Speaker 2: sounds really promising, right, But how is nuclear energy access?
Speaker 2: Doctor Snowden talked to us about the two ways this happens,
Speaker 2: fission and fusion.
Speaker 3: And fission is exactly as it sounds.
Speaker 4: You are trying to take a nucleus and break it apart,
Speaker 4: and when you rip it apart or break it apart,
Speaker 4: there's an energy release that's associated with that. That's what
Speaker 4: happens inside of nuclear reactors. So we're taking uranium or
Speaker 4: plutonium fuel, which are radioactive materials. We're doing a nuclear
Speaker 4: process on them to force those nuclei to break apart
Speaker 4: and give us that energy because we need that energy
Speaker 4: to create the heat to create the electricity downstream.
Speaker 2: So what's happening in a nuclear reactor this fission process
Speaker 2: is it's a pretty simple process, but it's complex because
Speaker 2: it takes a lot of energy. So a neutron hits
Speaker 2: a uranium atom and that neutron causes the nucleus of
Speaker 2: the uranium atom to split. So when that fission happens,
Speaker 2: that split that nucleus, it releases a large amount of
Speaker 2: energy as heat. And as it's splitting, you remember we
Speaker 2: said that there are neutrons in the nucleus. As it splits,
Speaker 2: more neutrons are also coming off and then going and
Speaker 2: hitting another uranium atom and causing fission with that atom.
Speaker 2: So it's a chain reaction. All of these reactions produce energy,
Speaker 2: and that energy it produces is heat. Once the heat
Speaker 2: is generated, it turns the water that is in the
Speaker 2: nuclear reactor system into steam, and then that steam starts
Speaker 2: spinning turbines, and those turbines generate electricity all carbon free.
Speaker 4: The United States gets something like twenty percent of our
Speaker 4: electricity from reactors. Globally it is something like eleven percent.
Speaker 1: That's a really big percentage, and it feels really important.
Speaker 1: And those are a lot of moving parts you just
Speaker 1: describe TT. Yeah, and doctor Snowden is driving home just
Speaker 1: how important those reactors are. H and all is making
Speaker 1: me think is that Osha or somebody should have come
Speaker 1: and stepped in in the town of Springfield because Homer
Speaker 1: symptom was reckless at his reactions. This is all such
Speaker 1: an intricate process. And that's just fission. Right when the
Speaker 1: nucleus is being pulled apart. What about fusion? What's happening there?
Speaker 4: The second approach, though, is fusion where instead of trying
Speaker 4: to break the nuclei apart, you're actually trying to smash
Speaker 4: them together. And in that same way, to take lighter
Speaker 4: nuclei and smash them together, there's an associated energy release.
Speaker 3: In order to get them to actually bind, they have
Speaker 3: to give up energy.
Speaker 4: So that energy that's given up is the same thing
Speaker 4: that we're after. We're always after the energy release, whether
Speaker 4: we're talking about burning fuel, fissioning fuel, or fusing fuel.
Speaker 1: And I'd love to do a detailed example of how
Speaker 1: fusion works, but we haven't quite messed with that yet.
Speaker 1: Fusion is still an experimental technology. Scientists and researchers are
Speaker 1: still trying to figure it out. But it seems like
Speaker 1: fission and fusion are both viable from a climate change
Speaker 1: perspective because they eliminate a lot of those greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions we see with kimo cool energy and combustion and burning.
Speaker 2: Yes, in the US we have ninety three nuclear reactors
Speaker 2: up and running right now, which is the most in
Speaker 2: the world. France is in second place with fifty six.
Speaker 1: They can't compete where they don't compas or whatever that's
Speaker 1: saying is.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: Doctor Snowden said that the United States gets about twenty
Speaker 1: percent of our energy from reactors. But what does that mean?
Speaker 1: How much energy is that twenty percent of?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: How is it measured? Right?
Speaker 2: So that twenty percent of electricity generated that she told
Speaker 2: us about is about seven hundred and ninety thousand gigawatt hours?
Speaker 2: That doesn't really mean much.
Speaker 1: Okay, when I'm typically looking at a light build that's
Speaker 1: in like killowatt hours, and I think we can start
Speaker 1: with the prefixes, right, Yeah, killo just means a thousand,
Speaker 1: So a kilowatt is one thousand watts, and that's a
Speaker 1: measure of power. But a kilowatt hour is a measurement
Speaker 1: of energy. So that's how much energy something that takes
Speaker 1: one thousand watts needs in order to rent for an hour.
Speaker 1: So it's like a rate almost.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's the difference between power and energy. Energy is
Speaker 2: power and then a unit of time.
Speaker 1: So that's like miles versus miles per hour.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you go from a distance to a distance
Speaker 2: per time, and that gives you a speed.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now I understand the unit and the measure,
Speaker 1: give me something to anchor it to.
Speaker 2: So for example, a typical electric dishwasher uses about two
Speaker 2: kilowat hours per load.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I got that a Nissan.
Speaker 2: Leaf electric car uses forty kilo why hours when fully charged.
Speaker 1: But you told us that doctor Snowden was telling us
Speaker 1: about seven hundred and ninety thousand gigaway hours. So a
Speaker 1: kilo why hour is one thousand watts of power over
Speaker 1: an hour. A gigawatt hour is one million killowat hours.
Speaker 2: So we go from kilowatts. So that's one thousand, there's megawats,
Speaker 2: so we're gonna skip over that. That's in the millions.
Speaker 2: Now we're at gigawatts. That's in the billions of watts
Speaker 2: per hour.
Speaker 1: And so for those billion watts per hour, so that's
Speaker 1: gigawatt per hour, there are seven hundred and ninety thousand
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred and ninety thousand of those billions.
Speaker 1: Turn everything off.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm turning off my computer right now, goodbye. But
Speaker 2: that still only makes up a fraction of US consumption.
Speaker 2: Remember that's only twenty percent, So I'm not gonna do
Speaker 2: the multiplication. I'm gonna let y'all do the multiplication because
Speaker 2: now we're getting into numbers that I cannot say. A
Speaker 2: gigawatt hour is a unit of energy that is one
Speaker 2: billion kilowatts of power sustained for one hour. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: the US consumed trillions. That's t r trillions of gigawatt hours.
Speaker 2: We produce nuclear energy in the billions of kilowatt hours,
Speaker 2: but we consume electricity in the trillions of kilowatt hours.
Speaker 1: All of this sounds great, right. It's a way to
Speaker 1: generate electricity that doesn't give us the negative effects of
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases, but I just noticed it not so fast.
Speaker 1: There are some other things that we need to be worried.
Speaker 4: About, but that doesn't mean that this is free lunch,
Speaker 4: right There are risks associated with nuclear technology, and one
Speaker 4: of the big risks is the waste that's produced at
Speaker 4: the end of the day. So when you split a
Speaker 4: nucleus apart, you create these things called fission products, daughter products,
Speaker 4: those are some of the names that they're use. So
Speaker 4: that's like the waste, and these things are highly radioactive.
Speaker 3: For a long time.
Speaker 4: So there's questions about what is the long term disposal
Speaker 4: strategy for this waste, because there's a couple of different options.
Speaker 4: You can bury it deep inside of a hole right
Speaker 4: right now. We store it kind of in these spent
Speaker 4: fuel storage pools outside of reactors, but that's not a
Speaker 4: long term solution. But the politics of nuclear waste and
Speaker 4: spent fuel are non trivial. We've been battling them for
Speaker 4: decades and that's one of the key obstacles. And the
Speaker 4: second risk with nuclear fuel that people really think about
Speaker 4: kind of kitchen table issue is you know the risk
Speaker 4: of a catastrophic accident.
Speaker 2: And we've seen catastrophic accidents occur a few times, one
Speaker 2: in Fukushima in twenty eleven, after an earthquake three Mile
Speaker 2: Island in nineteen seventy nine, which happened right here in
Speaker 2: the United States, an Chernobyl in nineteen eighty six because
Speaker 2: of a flawed reactor and errors in the actions of
Speaker 2: the technicians, and the event in Chernobyl was so long
Speaker 2: it was releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere for ten days,
Speaker 2: and it made it so that to this day, about
Speaker 2: one thy six hundred square miles surrounding that that nuclear
Speaker 2: reactor where the accident happened is still not allowed to
Speaker 2: be inhabited. Sixteen hundred square miles is about three times
Speaker 2: the size of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And that's what I remember from Call of Duty. They
Speaker 1: drop you into that zone, they put you in Chernobyl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's all these abandoned buildings and things in the grass
Speaker 1: has overgrown on this stuff because it hasn't been inhabited
Speaker 1: for so long.
Speaker 2: Y'all gotta chill.
Speaker 1: Children should not be playing. That should not only the guns,
Speaker 1: but also the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Cheeze. OK, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So, even though there are a lot of these potential
Speaker 1: upsides with nuclear energy, Like TT mentioned, there are some
Speaker 1: risks involved too.
Speaker 4: Risks, they say, is the probability of the event, the
Speaker 4: consequences of the event, and the vulnerability of the asset.
Speaker 4: So even though the probability is very low, the consequences
Speaker 4: are so high. Radioactive fallout contaminating large swaths of areas,
Speaker 4: you have families displaced. There can be like generational impacts
Speaker 4: if there is a catas graphic accident. So those are
Speaker 4: some of the things that policymakers communities that are thinking about.
Speaker 3: Hosting these facilities.
Speaker 4: Right, whether we're talking about the reactor itself or the
Speaker 4: repository for the spent fuel, these are the things that
Speaker 4: they have to think about in terms of kind of
Speaker 4: the near term and long term benefits of the technology
Speaker 4: balance that with the risk.
Speaker 1: When we talk about nuclear energy and splitting an atom
Speaker 1: and uranium plutonium. I think about radiation in the way
Speaker 1: I learned about it in the lab, and I remember
Speaker 1: when I first was going through training to work with radiation,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so worried and so you know,
Speaker 1: but I think it's important for people to understand that
Speaker 1: not all radiation is the same. There's a spectrum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're surrounded by radiation every day. You know, microwaves,
Speaker 2: radio waves, everything, But there are big differences between a
Speaker 2: microwave from your microwave and radiation that is potentially harmful
Speaker 2: to you. And I think once you have a grasp
Speaker 2: of that, then you can understand, Okay, what does this
Speaker 2: mean for nuclear energy? What does this mean for the
Speaker 2: byproducts and offshoots of these processes, and what's harmful and
Speaker 2: what's not. Could you tell us a little bit more
Speaker 2: about the harmful factors to consider. So, the difference between
Speaker 2: a microwave and radiation, which is called ionizing radiation, so
Speaker 2: that's the type of radiation that is potentially dangerous, is
Speaker 2: the wavelength. So when you're talking about microwaves, radio waves
Speaker 2: and things like that, these are literal waves that are
Speaker 2: so long, So that means that they're really tall and
Speaker 2: really deep, and the distance from one peak wave to
Speaker 2: the next peak wave is really long. So when you
Speaker 2: think about it, it's too big to be able to
Speaker 2: really interact with atoms or your cells.
Speaker 4: Because the energy the wavelength is so large relative to
Speaker 4: the size of your cells.
Speaker 3: You good, you, goujie.
Speaker 2: But when we start talking about ionizing radiation, those waves
Speaker 2: are really tight and tiny. So they're so small, so
Speaker 2: tight and so tiny that they have the ability to
Speaker 2: really get up close and personal with the cells in
Speaker 2: your body. They just touching all over them, and they
Speaker 2: can do a lot of damage.
Speaker 1: And so exposure to that harmful ionizing radiation is what
Speaker 1: happened when we saw these accidents at nuclear reactors, so
Speaker 1: at three mile, at Chernobyl, at Fukushima. This is not
Speaker 1: the same as microwave waves. This is not the same.
Speaker 2: Okay, so heat up to your hot pocket, You'll be
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: But I think it's so important for people to understand
Speaker 1: like where we are on this scale, both in size
Speaker 1: of wave and in potential harm yep. And so I
Speaker 1: think that's a great way to think about risk, right,
Speaker 1: not just oh, a thing could happen, but how likely
Speaker 1: is it to happen, and if it happens, how devastating
Speaker 1: are the events? But also if we remove this from
Speaker 1: the equation overall, what does this mean for our electricity grid?
Speaker 1: What does that mean for day to day life in America?
Speaker 2: That's a really good point because in twenty twenty, forty
Speaker 2: percent of the US's electricity came from natural gas twenty
Speaker 2: one percent came from renewables, so that's when hydrosolar, biomass, geothermal,
Speaker 2: and twenty percent came from nuclear and nineteen percent came
Speaker 2: from call.
Speaker 4: You need kind of a constant energy source, something that
Speaker 4: can always run. There's these kind of classic lines about
Speaker 4: the wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine.
Speaker 4: So those renewable sources there is a temporal component to them,
Speaker 4: whereas with a reactor, once you've built it and you've
Speaker 4: gotten the core up and running, it can go for
Speaker 4: you know, a long time, and that.
Speaker 3: Can be kind of your assured energy.
Speaker 1: Source and tc. This is on something that we say
Speaker 1: all the time, yep, Right, A lot of problems are
Speaker 1: not solved by one single solution, but there are multiple
Speaker 1: things working in lockstep to give you a reinforced solution.
Speaker 1: So even if one fails, you have some backups.
Speaker 4: So I think the idea is to have a diverse
Speaker 4: fire portfolio with the lowest carbon footprint possible and being
Speaker 4: able to balance these near term and long term risk
Speaker 4: and benefits with the you know, global society in a
Speaker 4: way that mirrors our values today. Right, So you think
Speaker 4: about nuclear energy now versus then we have very vibrant
Speaker 4: conversations around equity and justice.
Speaker 3: So if we're talking.
Speaker 4: About where is this fuel being mined, where is this
Speaker 4: spent fuel being deposited, we have to think about whose
Speaker 4: communities are these, what seat do they have at the table.
Speaker 4: So you're seeing administration starting to adopt a lot of
Speaker 4: this language and this perspective on the way that we
Speaker 4: need to make energy policy. And it's different than kind
Speaker 4: of the nature of the conversations in the sixties and
Speaker 4: the seventies and the eighties. So it's about a balanced approach,
Speaker 4: but you can see there's changes to the conversation.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've talked about nuclear energy and how it
Speaker 2: can be used to possibly replace some more harmful forms
Speaker 2: of fuel, but that's not why this form of energy
Speaker 2: harvesting was originally looked into.
Speaker 4: The origin of our nuclear story really starts in World
Speaker 4: War Two, when the international community was trying to grapple
Speaker 4: with a rising Nazi power.
Speaker 3: You had Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 4: You saw the expansion and the genocide that he was
Speaker 4: inflicting on Europe, and at that time, you know, the
Speaker 4: nineteen thirties was a really active time from a nuclear perspective.
Speaker 3: We were discovering stuff, y'all. We discovered fission. We discovered
Speaker 3: the chain reaction, which.
Speaker 4: Means like you could sustain fission, you could have sustained
Speaker 4: energy output.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just the one and done right. At the same.
Speaker 4: Time, there was a significant worry that the Nazis were
Speaker 4: trying to develop a weapon that leveraged the nuclear reactions
Speaker 4: that we talked about. We were really worried about the
Speaker 4: Nazis pursuing that technology. And it was actually Albert Einstein
Speaker 4: that wrote a letter to FDR at the time alerting
Speaker 4: him of this. Right, let me put you up on game.
Speaker 4: From a scientific perspective, these things are happening. They could
Speaker 4: potentially use it for this I think we need to
Speaker 4: figure out.
Speaker 3: What we want to do.
Speaker 4: And the response of the US government was to establish
Speaker 4: what was called the Manhattan Project. So we decided we
Speaker 4: got to beat them to this technology. If this bomb
Speaker 4: is a real thing, we got to be the first
Speaker 4: to have it.
Speaker 1: The Manhattan Project was started in nineteen forty two by
Speaker 1: the US government and it was also supported by the
Speaker 1: UK and Canadian governments as well to develop nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: You know, this started as a really small project, but
Speaker 1: it grew to cost two billion dollars and employ over
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty thousand people. There were project sites
Speaker 1: all over the three countries, and these project sites had
Speaker 1: not only research but testing as well.
Speaker 4: And we can debate if that was the right policy decision,
Speaker 4: because I think as an engineer that's been participating more
Speaker 4: and more in the policy discussions, it's really important to
Speaker 4: acknowledge where choice lies.
Speaker 3: None of these things are inevitable.
Speaker 4: We have choices in the policy that we make, right,
Speaker 4: So we made a choice to invest in beating.
Speaker 3: The Nazis to a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 4: We established the Manhattan Project and really the first reactors
Speaker 4: that we saw on the scene were built in order
Speaker 4: to produce the plutonium fuel that was needed for the bombs.
Speaker 4: So it was only after the war ended, and again
Speaker 4: there was a policy decision. We tested the first nuclear
Speaker 4: weapon on the Trinity Site in Nevada in July of
Speaker 4: nineteen forty five. Not a month later did we drop it,
Speaker 4: drop two bombs on the people of Japan. And there's
Speaker 4: an active historical debate about why we did that, why
Speaker 4: we did it in that way, Did it actually stop
Speaker 4: the war?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: There's a lot of narratives, but once we decided to
Speaker 3: do that and the war was over.
Speaker 4: You saw the international community shift from Okay, we have
Speaker 4: this technology now, right, we've discovered fission. We have these reactors.
Speaker 4: What if there's a role for them beyond nuclear weapons.
Speaker 4: It's just an energy sources, the way to make heat.
Speaker 4: But it makes heat a lot more efficiently than fossil fuels, right,
Speaker 4: or the other energy sources we had at the time.
Speaker 4: And remember we're talking like nineteen forty five fifty, so
Speaker 4: you saw the international community shift to this conversation of
Speaker 4: using these atoms for peace. And there's a key speech
Speaker 4: that President Eisenhower gave in nineteen fifty three called the
Speaker 4: Atoms for Peace Speech, where he said, how do we
Speaker 4: take these atoms from atoms of war to atoms for
Speaker 4: peace and use this energy source as a way to
Speaker 4: empower and enable society.
Speaker 5: The atomic age has moved forward at such a pace
Speaker 5: that every citizen of the world should have some comprehension
Speaker 5: of the extent of this development. If the peoples of
Speaker 5: the world are to conduct an intelligence search for peace,
Speaker 5: they must be armed with a significant facts of today's.
Speaker 2: So, because they didn't want to create a world where
Speaker 2: nuclear bombs were all over the place and ready for use.
Speaker 2: Governments decided to use this power for good, not evil.
Speaker 2: But let's take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 2: we'll talk more about nuclear energy policy and what we're
Speaker 2: going to do moving forward. We're back, and although we're
Speaker 2: talking about energy and nuclear energy specifically this week, next
Speaker 2: week we're digging deeper into the core of the earth
Speaker 2: and talking about metals, precious metals, abundant metals, you name it.
Speaker 2: Our guest expert is chemist doctor Kate Buner, and we
Speaker 2: can't wait for you to hear this one. So we've
Speaker 2: talked about the bad and the ugly parts of the
Speaker 2: history of nuclear energy, but let's get into the good.
Speaker 2: Eisenhower gave his speech, but then what So.
Speaker 4: From the very beginning, the conversation was about how do
Speaker 4: we promote the use of nuclear energy while also controlling
Speaker 4: the use, because what we did not want to do
Speaker 4: was to give a country reactor technology, to consult with
Speaker 4: them on expertise, only to see that country use that
Speaker 4: technology to fuel their own military nuclear program. That was
Speaker 4: not in the US interests nor the global interest, at
Speaker 4: least at the time of the discussion. So you saw
Speaker 4: the establishment of some key organizations. Chief among them was
Speaker 4: the International Atomic Energy Agency what's known as the IAEA,
Speaker 4: and the IAEA was established in nineteen fifty seven to
Speaker 4: do exactly what Eisenhower said, how do we promote and
Speaker 4: control There was a key treaty that we have to
Speaker 4: know about. It's called the Nuclear non Proliferation Treaty. The
Speaker 4: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. For everyone who signs it, they agree
Speaker 4: not to proliferate nuclear technology, meaning I'm not going to
Speaker 4: use my peaceful reactor to start my military nuclear weapons program.
Speaker 1: So when this treaty was signed, there were five countries
Speaker 1: that already had nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia, France,
Speaker 1: the UK, and China, and they all agreed to eventually
Speaker 1: disarm in good faith.
Speaker 4: So at the time, we all agreed we did not
Speaker 4: want a world with nuclear weapons and we should work
Speaker 4: towards a world without it. So once you sign on
Speaker 4: to this agreement, there's a very heavy on site inspection
Speaker 4: regime where the IEA comes in and they do comprehensive
Speaker 4: inspections of all your different reactor facilities, all your nuclear facilities, reactors, enrichment,
Speaker 4: spent fuel pools, everything to make sure that you are
Speaker 4: not moving material from one place to another. Their main
Speaker 4: objective is to catch the diversion of nuclear material in
Speaker 4: time enough to respond.
Speaker 2: So now that the treaty is signed and countries are
Speaker 2: no longer developing nuclear weapons with their reactors, there became
Speaker 2: lots of different ways countries could start working together to
Speaker 2: share resources to produce use nuclear energy. Because spoiler alert
Speaker 2: nuclear reactors are expensive to build, and not everyone has
Speaker 2: the coins allocated for something like.
Speaker 4: That, So when you're talking about these developing nations, it
Speaker 4: may not be in their ability at the time to
Speaker 4: finance a capital project like that, so you can have,
Speaker 4: you know, a more privileged nation come in and build
Speaker 4: that system. The idea though, is that they would allow inspection.
Speaker 4: They would allow those ie inspectors to come in and
Speaker 4: make sure it's being used for its intended purpose.
Speaker 1: And beyond just building. Another piece of the puzzle is
Speaker 1: having the fuel the uranium, plutonium, et cetera that you
Speaker 1: outlined earlier TT Not everyone has that, so they may
Speaker 1: need to run over to a neighbor's for a cup
Speaker 1: of uranium.
Speaker 4: It's not automatic that everybody needs to have every stage
Speaker 4: of that fuel cycle in their country.
Speaker 3: So you can have a country.
Speaker 4: That has a reactor, but maybe they don't have the
Speaker 4: enrichment capability. Maybe they don't have the ability to take
Speaker 4: uranium or out of the ground.
Speaker 3: Every country doesn't need to have that.
Speaker 4: Maybe we go into a trade agreement where I will
Speaker 4: provide that fuel to you and you just run it
Speaker 4: in a reactor, and then maybe I take the spent
Speaker 4: fuel from you in the back end. So there's been
Speaker 4: different configurations within these trade agreements or within these kind
Speaker 4: of energy export agreements that will allow certain parts of
Speaker 4: the fuel cycle and others. Ionizing radiation means it is
Speaker 4: energetic enough to remove an electron from your atoms. That's
Speaker 4: what it means to be ionizing. You can kick off
Speaker 4: an electron. If a gamma ray comes in or a
Speaker 4: high energy neutron comes in, it has enough energy in
Speaker 4: it to actually start removing electrons from your cells.
Speaker 2: You know, we come in contact with ionizing radiation in
Speaker 2: very specific ways that is under the supervision of a
Speaker 2: medical professional, like X rays. A lot of people have
Speaker 2: gone in for X rays, but if you have, you
Speaker 2: know that parts of your body is covered with lead
Speaker 2: to try and block the parts of your body that
Speaker 2: you don't want. X ray to keep them from being exposed,
Speaker 2: and you're not exposed for very long. So even though
Speaker 2: we have been exposed to ionizing radiation, when we go
Speaker 2: in for an X ray, the dose is so low
Speaker 2: that we don't feel any effects and our cells are
Speaker 2: able to live and thrive.
Speaker 1: And what you're covering when you do that are those
Speaker 1: tissues that have cells that are constantly regenerating themselves or
Speaker 1: that are replicating, which is your breast tissue, your stomach,
Speaker 1: which is your gut lining and GI tract, and your
Speaker 1: ovaries if you have them. Because those things are constantly
Speaker 1: regenerating themselves, you're not making new arm you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You're not making new arm meat, and so
Speaker 1: those things don't have to be protected in the same way.
Speaker 4: An important piece that I wanted to highlight is the
Speaker 4: gendered component to the biological impact of radiation for women,
Speaker 4: because we have more high turnover organs relative to our
Speaker 4: male counterparts. Right, like I said, we have breasts, we
Speaker 4: have ovaries. What are the type of cancers that generate
Speaker 4: their right breast cancer or variant cancer, So we have
Speaker 4: a disproportionate impact when we talk about the effects of radiation.
Speaker 4: If any of us were to be in a nuclear
Speaker 4: blast or working as a reactor operator and there was
Speaker 4: an accident and we got a full body dose, those
Speaker 4: high turnover cellular systems would be exposed, and it's a
Speaker 4: vulnerability that we have that's unique to our male counterparty.
Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that I found
Speaker 2: surprising in making this lab was how many nuclear reactors
Speaker 2: there are. And doctor Snowden was talking about weighing the
Speaker 2: risks with the benefits and things like that, and so
Speaker 2: then we have to start thinking if nuclear energy is
Speaker 2: something that we want to use moving forward as one
Speaker 2: of our possibly main sources for electricity, that might possibly
Speaker 2: mean more nuclear reactors, and so that risk will always
Speaker 2: be there. But I think as scientists are working in
Speaker 2: these reactors with the safety precautions that are in place,
Speaker 2: I think are really great and the likelihood of an
Speaker 2: accident is super super low. But I think it's exciting
Speaker 2: also because when we think about climate change and the
Speaker 2: train that's barreling down towards us, we have to start
Speaker 2: really locking into these alternative forms of energy to help
Speaker 2: save us. All.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, it's time for the one thing. What's
Speaker 1: your one thing? This week.
Speaker 2: Tt My one thing this week actually came from a
Speaker 2: Doe Blabs listener. Their name is Kristin Thomas and they
Speaker 2: are actually a part of the US rugby team. Okay,
Speaker 2: what yes, the US women's rugby team, And are they
Speaker 2: trying to recruit you possitively? You know, I'm a little strong, Simes.
Speaker 2: But on their Instagram they had made a post about
Speaker 2: having some shoes that they weren't using anymore, and so
Speaker 2: they cleaned them up and instead of throwing them in
Speaker 2: the trash, they packaged them up and sent them to
Speaker 2: this really cool company called Soul's for Soul and they
Speaker 2: take your un want to clothes and shoes and they
Speaker 2: give them to folks and needs. So I mean, you
Speaker 2: shouldn't send it in shoes that you know, I have
Speaker 2: holes in or anything like that, but really shoes that
Speaker 2: you know might be a little bit worn but are
Speaker 2: still usable. So I think that's a great way to
Speaker 2: reuse a pair of shoes rather than putting them in
Speaker 2: the trash and then they end up in the landfill.
Speaker 2: And you know, shoes have all of these plastic and
Speaker 2: rubber that then further contaminates our world. Give them somebody
Speaker 2: who can use them. So that is my plan, is
Speaker 2: that I'm going to be packaging up a few pairs
Speaker 2: of shoes that I don't wear anymore and sending them
Speaker 2: to Soles for sol so you can follow them on Instagram.
Speaker 2: It's s O L E S the number four s
Speaker 2: O U l S Soles for Soal.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. I have plenty of shoes that I
Speaker 1: could get right on out the door and give another home.
Speaker 2: What's your one thing?
Speaker 1: My one thing this week is really touching into your domain.
Speaker 1: Tt uh okay, let's hear it. Okay, so you know
Speaker 1: how I like to chep it up in the kit.
Speaker 1: I was reading this article about this group of scientists
Speaker 1: in Maryland who have produced basically a knife. But it's
Speaker 1: not a knife like a steel knife or a ceramic knife.
Speaker 1: It's made out of hardened wood. What. Yes, And they're
Speaker 1: saying that it's sharper than a steel knife.
Speaker 2: Is it gonna put splinters in my food?
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know about that. But they're saying that
Speaker 1: this hardened wood. I don't know what they did to it.
Speaker 1: They're saying it is twenty three times harder than like
Speaker 1: the natural wood. I don't know how they're developing it.
Speaker 1: I haven't read all into it. It was like a
Speaker 1: little skim bullet. But you know, are we about to
Speaker 1: go back to the wooden tool? You know what?
Speaker 2: I kind of love that, I do. I do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'd like to see it, you know,
Speaker 1: like that that meme, like I'd like to see it.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd like to see it.
Speaker 2: I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what type of material science? And that's from
Speaker 1: the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland.
Speaker 2: That's very cool. I know it to get you for
Speaker 2: your birthday.
Speaker 1: All right, that's it for Lab sixty. Call us at
Speaker 1: two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight
Speaker 1: and tell us what you thought. Also, you can call
Speaker 1: and give us an idea for a different lab you
Speaker 1: think we should do. Remember we like hearing from you.
Speaker 1: You can call or text us at two zero two
Speaker 1: five six seven seven zero two.
Speaker 2: Eight and don't forget that. There is so much more
Speaker 2: to dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat
Speaker 2: cheat for today's lab, additional links and resources in the
Speaker 2: show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 2: Check it out at Dope labspodcast dot com special thanks
Speaker 2: to today's guest expert, doctor Marina Robinson Snowden.
Speaker 1: You can find her on Twitter at m R O
Speaker 1: b I N s n O w SO M Robin
Speaker 1: snow or check out her website at www dot Marina
Speaker 1: Robinson Snowden dot com.
Speaker 2: And you can find us on Twitter and install at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs podcast.
Speaker 1: TT's on Twitter and Instagram at d R Underscore t SHO.
Speaker 2: And you can find Zakia at z said So. Dope
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