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Speaker 1: Today, we're going to be talking about a pretty divisive technology,

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Speaker 1: one that produces stable power without emitting greenhouse gases, but

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Speaker 1: also produces waste that's toxic for thousands of years, it

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Speaker 1: contributes to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but

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Speaker 1: over fifty years it may have actually saved millions of lives.

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Speaker 1: It's dangerous and poses a threat to nearby communities, but

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Speaker 1: it also generates electricity for decades from a few small rocks.

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Speaker 1: These are all true statements about nuclear energy. It has incredible,

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Speaker 1: unique benefits to offer and terrifying toxic dangers. Where does

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Speaker 1: that all shake out? Should nuclear power be a part

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Speaker 1: of our energy portfolio? Or should be shut it all down?

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Speaker 1: Today we'll be asking that question, is nuclear power good

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Speaker 1: for the environment? And talking to Becca to Housta Brow,

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Speaker 1: author of a fantastic new book, Atomic Dream, on the

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Speaker 1: rise of the pro nuclear environmental movement. Welcome to Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Kelly's Extraordinary Complicated Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Kelly Wiersmith. I study parasites and space, and

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Speaker 2: I grew up pretty close to a nuclear power plant

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Speaker 2: and I still only have two ice.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I grew

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Speaker 1: up at the home of atomic power, Los Alamos, New Mexico,

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Speaker 1: and I won't comment about whether I glow in the dark.

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Speaker 2: Oh interesting. So what is the closest you've ever lived

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Speaker 2: to a nuclear power plant? Does Los Alamos have one?

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Speaker 1: Los Almos doesn't have an operating nuclear power plant, but

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Speaker 1: we have an operating nuclear power plant in the basement

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Speaker 1: of the chemistry building next door. It's about two hundred

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Speaker 1: feet f for me right now as we speak. Really, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's super cool. You can get a tour of it.

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Speaker 1: You can see the blue glowing water from the trunkof radiation.

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Speaker 1: It's super awesome.

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Speaker 2: Oh that is super cool. I didn't know that I

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Speaker 2: would totally want that tour. When am I coming to visit, Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, come visit. I will hook you up

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Speaker 1: with a tour. I've actually used it for science because

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Speaker 1: it's a nice source of certain kinds of radiation if

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Speaker 1: you need to calibrate things. So it's pretty awesome. It's

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Speaker 1: sort of like a teaching reactor for nuclear engineers, for

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Speaker 1: chemical engineers to learn how it works and this kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. Pretty cool, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. I grew up in Ohio, sort of

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Speaker 2: near the Davis Bessie Power plant. And I thought I

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Speaker 2: was gonna win, but no, no, you win, and congratulations.

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Speaker 2: May it never melt down.

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Speaker 1: Wow, now I'm worried about it. I wasn't until you

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Speaker 1: said that. Thanks Kelly.

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Speaker 2: It's fun spending time with a catastrophizer.

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Speaker 1: But nuclear power is amazing, both scientifically and socially. You know,

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Speaker 1: devokes such strong feelings among people about how dangerous it is,

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Speaker 1: but how it reflects the hue u Brisk of science,

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Speaker 1: or how it's going to usher in a new era

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Speaker 1: of humanity.

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Speaker 2: And there is a fantastic new book that talks about

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Speaker 2: the social and political issues around nuclear power, called Atomic Dreams,

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Speaker 2: and we had the pleasure of interviewing the author.

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Speaker 1: You certainly did. It's a fascinating tale about how environmentalists

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Speaker 1: were for nuclear power and then they were against it,

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Speaker 1: and how some of them are back to being for it,

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Speaker 1: including a wonderful group called Mother's for Nuclear mm.

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Speaker 2: Hm, boy, the stunts they pull are interesting.

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Speaker 1: And so we're gonna have a chat with Becca in

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Speaker 1: a moment all about the history of the environmental movement's

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Speaker 1: complicated relationship with nuclear power. But first I was wondering

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Speaker 1: what listeners thought, whether they saw nuclear power as something

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Speaker 1: that was good or bad for the environment. As usual,

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Speaker 1: it's not possible to boil down a super complex topic

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Speaker 1: into five second sound bites, but that's what I asked

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Speaker 1: our listeners to do and they stepped up.

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Speaker 3: So yes, nuclear power is environmentally responsible, at least until

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Speaker 3: we get cold fusion.

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Speaker 4: Well, some people might think it is better for the

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Speaker 4: environment than fossil fuels, it is still not really good

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Speaker 4: for the environment do.

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Speaker 2: Things like coal. Nuclear power is better for the environment.

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't say good on the whole, Avoiding the CO

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Speaker 3: two release is worth it.

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Speaker 1: Nuclear power is amazing for the environment until three Mile

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Speaker 1: Island Chernobyl Fukushima. Nuclear power on average is going to

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Speaker 1: be a lot better for the environment than fossil fuels.

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Speaker 5: The mining and extraction of nuclear fissile materials are actually

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Speaker 5: what concerned me the most, especially given how much processing.

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Speaker 5: But compared to the immediate damage from petroleum based fuels,

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Speaker 5: I would always lean towards nuclear. I think it's one

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Speaker 5: of the better alternatives.

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Speaker 3: I think that's worth it in order to cut down

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Speaker 3: on the amount of carbon roopremium to our environment.

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Speaker 4: Nuclear power plants are not good for the environment. They

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Speaker 4: have contaminated or grand water. They have contaminated our land.

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Speaker 4: It will continue that way for thousands and thousands of years.

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Speaker 4: Would you put your farm on a piece of land

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Speaker 4: before the nuclear actor was there or after the nuclear

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Speaker 4: reactor was there.

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Speaker 3: There is no better way to produce enormous amounts of

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Speaker 3: electricity without carbon emissions or other toxic pollutants than nuclear power.

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Speaker 1: I say no because of the radiactive waste product that

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Speaker 1: has to be stored somewhere, and it's usually in the ground,

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Speaker 1: and a thought of nuclear meltdowns that would affect our air,

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Speaker 1: water and everything else.

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Speaker 6: As long as they're well designed and the waste materials

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Speaker 6: are properly handled.

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Speaker 1: But I think we need to push for fusion on net.

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Speaker 5: I think it's good because current reductions and emissions will

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Speaker 5: pay dividends in the future, whereas problems like nuclear waste

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Speaker 5: can probably.

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Speaker 2: Be solved until we can find a way to convert

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Speaker 2: or reuse spent nuclear fuel. I would say that the

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Speaker 2: overall answer is null. I think if something goes wrong,

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Speaker 2: then it can be really bad for a long long time.

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Speaker 2: We should all be choosing nuclear power and believing in science.

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Speaker 6: If it can be properly managed, the benefits are greater

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Speaker 6: than the loss. There's no such thing as clean oil,

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Speaker 6: So yeah, I'd say let's go in nuclear power.

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Speaker 2: One of these days. I think we should have a

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Speaker 2: discussion about cold fusion, because I see it mentioned a lot,

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Speaker 2: and I'm under the impression that it is a bit silly,

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Speaker 2: but I would love to hear you give me all

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Speaker 2: the science behind it. But this was a really nice

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Speaker 2: set of answers that covered, you know, the risks and

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Speaker 2: the promises of nuclear way to go dKu folks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you hear a lot of folks saying

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Speaker 1: that obviously it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternatives,

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Speaker 1: and some people still being scared of it. So I

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Speaker 1: think that really nicely sets the stage for our conversation

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Speaker 1: with Becca about whether we should be excited or scared

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Speaker 1: of nuclear power or both.

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Speaker 2: Let's jump right in, all right.

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Speaker 1: So it's my pleasure to welcome to the podcast. Becca

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Speaker 1: too Hoo's de brow. She's a journalist based in southern California,

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Speaker 1: and her articles have appeared in the llus Chase, places

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Speaker 1: like The New Yorker, The New York Review, of books,

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Speaker 1: The Nation, and The Washington Post. She's also my neighbor

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Speaker 1: here in Ervine and a friend, so I'm very glad

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Speaker 1: to have her on the podcast. Beca Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 2: We're so excited to have you on the show. I

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Speaker 2: absolutely loved Atomic Dreams. It was really well written, really informative.

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Speaker 2: I laughed out loud a couple of times. It was fantastic.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: I think we should start by discussing a bit the

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Speaker 2: history of the anti nuclear movement. Is that sort of

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Speaker 2: just how the general public felt about nuclear power from

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Speaker 2: the beginning, or was it in response to some particular event?

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Speaker 6: Great question.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: I think we might tend to assume that the public

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Speaker 6: was always primed to lean anti nuclear because it was

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Speaker 6: always associated with the atomic bomb, but that's actually not

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Speaker 6: the case. It was more complicated. So of course, the

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Speaker 6: first time the public learned about atomic science in general

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Speaker 6: was after the atomic bomb were dropped on Hairishima and

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Speaker 6: Nagasaki and forty five, and that led to a lot

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Speaker 6: of fear and horror and disorientation. But the prospect of

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Speaker 6: civilian nuclear plants that was actually presented as almost redeeming

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Speaker 6: the destruction of the bomb. It was like, this is

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Speaker 6: clearly an incredibly promising new area of science, and what

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Speaker 6: can we do to use it for beneficial purposes rather

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Speaker 6: than destructive purposes? And among conservationists that's what environmentalists were

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Speaker 6: called at the time, in the fifties and early sixties,

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Speaker 6: they actually were particularly receptive to nuclear power, at least

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Speaker 6: a lot of them were, largely because it promised an

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Speaker 6: alternative to dams, which may be surprising because now, I

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Speaker 6: think dam's hydro, you know, seems relatively innocuous to us.

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Speaker 6: It seems like one of the more preferable forms of

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Speaker 6: energy generation. But at the time, when conservationists were really

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Speaker 6: focused on preserving natural landscapes, wilderness scenery, dams were anathema,

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Speaker 6: and so nuclear power seemed to present the opportunity to

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Speaker 6: generate electricity in a different way. So, yeah, at the beginning,

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Speaker 6: attitudes were actually generally more favorable.

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Speaker 2: When did we start worrying about carbon and climate change?

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Speaker 6: So there were a few isolated scientists who sort of

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Speaker 6: realized what the effects of carbon dioxide might be pretty early,

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Speaker 6: going back to I think even the eighteen hundreds and

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Speaker 6: in the sixties, it started to be known among some

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Speaker 6: scientists and government, but in general it wasn't an issue

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Speaker 6: back then. The public wasn't generally aware of the risk

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Speaker 6: of climate change until the late eighties.

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Speaker 1: So nuclear power was good before it as bad. It's

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Speaker 1: good again, Yeah, going things wich side.

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Speaker 6: To simplify it. Yes, so it was considered good by

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Speaker 6: a lot of people, but there were concerns that started

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Speaker 6: to emerge. There was the fallout controversy in the early

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Speaker 6: fifties when Americans learned that because of nuclear atmospheric weapons testing,

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Speaker 6: radioactive debris was basically getting spewed through the air and

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Speaker 6: getting into the food system and getting into our teeth

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Speaker 6: and bones, which obviously is a really disturbing idea, and

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Speaker 6: I think that did raise concerns about radiation and nuclear

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Speaker 6: power plants also commit radiation low levels. Workers and the

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Speaker 6: public can be exposed to quite low levels during routine operations.

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Speaker 6: And then there's the creation of highly radioactive waste, which

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Speaker 6: is something else I'm sure we'll talk about. And then

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Speaker 6: there's also the risk of accidents which can be catastrophic

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Speaker 6: and expose people to higher levels of radiation. So I

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Speaker 6: think during the sixties there were a few sort of

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Speaker 6: dissident scientists who started to raise the alarm about some

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Speaker 6: of this. And there were two scientists in particular, John

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Speaker 6: Goffman and Arthur Tamplin, who in nineteen sixty three were

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Speaker 6: asked by the Atomic Energy Commission. That was the agency,

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Speaker 6: the entity that was responsible for kind of overseeing both

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Speaker 6: weapons and civilian uses of nuclear power. And that agency

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Speaker 6: doesn't exist anymore, but at the time they asked these

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Speaker 6: two very well respected scientists to basically look into the

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Speaker 6: risks of power plants, nuclear power plants, and they did,

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Speaker 6: and they basically said, actually, this is super dangerous, this

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Speaker 6: is much more dangerous than you've been telling the public.

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Speaker 6: And they wrote a book that AEC tried to suppress

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Speaker 6: or findings, but they went public and they were basically

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Speaker 6: these courageous scientists who didn't really seem to have any

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Speaker 6: interest other than texting public health. And they wrote a

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Speaker 6: book published in nineteen seventy one called Poisoned Power, The

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Speaker 6: Case against Nuclear Power Plants, and that was very influential.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so it only took like fifteen twenty years for

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Speaker 1: the shine to come off of nuclear energy. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm not young enough to remember this obviously, but I

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Speaker 1: have a sense that nuclear energy and of course nuclear weapons,

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Speaker 1: are connected to this feeling of like a modern era,

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Speaker 1: the atomic age. Yeah, and we're entering a time when

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Speaker 1: science and technology are going to transform the way we

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Speaker 1: live and like yay frozen meals and microwave ovens and

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Speaker 1: you know, all this cool stuff, and we're excited about

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Speaker 1: the future. And so that must be something like a

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Speaker 1: big letdown socially or culturally to feel like, oh, actually,

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Speaker 1: maybe we're poisoning ourselves and science has overstepped you know,

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Speaker 1: how long does it take to go from that book

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Speaker 1: you mentioned to like the nineties where The Simpsons, for example,

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Speaker 1: portray nuclear powers is like insanely dangerous, staffed by idiots,

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Speaker 1: you know, three eyed fish in the river. You know.

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Speaker 1: To me, the Simpsons is like a measure of the

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Speaker 1: average Joe's sense of what nuclear power can do. What

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Speaker 1: happened between the publication of that book and then like

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Speaker 1: the late nineties to give nuclear power this like pretty

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Speaker 1: terrible pr status.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I.

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Speaker 6: Think you mentioned the sort of excitement about modern life.

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Speaker 6: I think that started to sour for a lot of reasons,

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Speaker 6: and the counter culture in the sixties a big part

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Speaker 6: of that was, of course, you know, questioning authority and

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Speaker 6: just basically being against the system and the man and

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Speaker 6: going back to the lands and small was beautiful, and

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Speaker 6: starting to question nuclear power, which was sort of the

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Speaker 6: quintessential sort of establishment technology, and it was complex and

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Speaker 6: it was hard to understand, and it wasn't something that

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Speaker 6: you could sort of be individually empowered to do, you know,

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Speaker 6: to make your own like on your commune, like you

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Speaker 6: could with a solar panel.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the professor made a nuclear reactor, which is

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Speaker 1: a couple of coconuts on the island. And isn't that true? Right?

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Speaker 2: Was that Gilligans?

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Speaker 1: That's Gigan's Island reference. Yes, man, I found something really

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Speaker 1: fascinating in your book which is sort of echoes of

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Speaker 1: what we're seeing today with like skepticism about science and

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Speaker 1: the scientific establishment. Is this quote from your book that

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Speaker 1: really struck me. It said the nuclear industry had been

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Speaker 1: aggressively promoted and massively subsidized by the government, and in

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Speaker 1: its early years, those working in nuclear science had acquired

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Speaker 1: a reputation for secrecy and condescension. So basically, those smug

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Speaker 1: nuclear scientists thought they knew how to organize our world,

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Speaker 1: but they hadn't really thought it through. Is that the

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Speaker 1: sense we had already like back in the seventies.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, And what's super interesting I think is that a

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Speaker 6: lot of that skepticism was on the political left back then,

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Speaker 6: and now we see it more on the right. So

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Speaker 6: that has a lot of implications. But you know, the

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Speaker 6: politics of nuclear power in general tend to be quite

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Speaker 6: complex and not as straightforward as you might think. But yeah,

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Speaker 6: I think one thing that happened was that nuclear power

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Speaker 6: it sort of became a symbol of everything that was

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Speaker 6: wrong with modern society. So there were all of these

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Speaker 6: different segments of the anti nuclear movement that agreed that

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Speaker 6: nuclear power was terrible, but they had sort of different

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Speaker 6: angles on it. There was like a feminist aspect. There

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Speaker 6: were some feminist groups that sort of saw it as

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Speaker 6: this very masculine, dominating impulse, you know, and there were

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Speaker 6: anti war groups that basically saw nuclear power and nuclear

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Speaker 6: weapons as part of the same monster. And Ralph Nader

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Speaker 6: was a big anti nuclear advocate. He was, you know,

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Speaker 6: a consumer, a health advocate, and at the time, it

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Speaker 6: just seemed like this symbol of a society gone wrong.

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Speaker 2: So let me know, if this question is too far Afield,

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Speaker 2: because I don't think you dealt with it in the book.

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Speaker 2: But I have this vague memory of Project Plowshares, where

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Speaker 2: scientists were using nuclear weapons to bomb harbors into existence,

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Speaker 2: and I wonder if part of the condescension, as I

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Speaker 2: remember there being like local communities saying no, we don't

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Speaker 2: want this, and a scientist being like, it's cool. Yoh.

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Speaker 2: And so I'm wondering to what extent did things like

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Speaker 2: Project Plowshares play into this sense that scientists are secretive

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Speaker 2: and condescending about nuclear power and its promises.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I note that there were plans and that some

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Speaker 6: scientists thought this was a great idea to use basically

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Speaker 6: bombs for peaceful purposes. I don't know to what extent

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Speaker 6: that actually happened, but yeah, I mean, I think it's

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Speaker 6: very easy to relate to this sense of indignation and

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Speaker 6: anger that people felt. I mean, even just from fallout

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Speaker 6: for example, just you know, the idea that this radioactive

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Speaker 6: material that had never existed in nature before was now

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Speaker 6: drifting through the air and getting into our bodies and

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Speaker 6: that's like a real invasion and it's not as salient

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Speaker 6: for us now. But we think more about microplastics, and

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Speaker 6: there are a lot of other sort of contaminants now

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Speaker 6: that we're aware of, but I think at the time

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Speaker 6: it was pretty shocking to people and kind of filled

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Speaker 6: them with this sense of dread and that like, what

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Speaker 6: are we doing to our world?

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Speaker 1: I've heard sort of a pop history accounting that Hollywood

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Speaker 1: is also to blame. You know, this movie that China

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Speaker 1: Syndrome came out like just before the Three Mile Island

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Speaker 1: disaster and sort of preparing the public, priming them to

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Speaker 1: think that nuclear power is out of control and probably

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Speaker 1: going to kill you and make your children have twelve

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Speaker 1: fingers and stuff like this. Is that over sold or

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Speaker 1: is that really a big part of the story.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a good question, because when I finally did

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Speaker 6: watch that movie, I was like, this actually is pretty tame.

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Speaker 6: Like there isn't even a major disaster that happens. It's

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Speaker 6: just set largely at this fictional nuclear plant in California,

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Speaker 6: and there's sort of an incident where there's some shaking,

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Speaker 6: but it's not anything that dramatic, and the message is like, yes,

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Speaker 6: nuclear power is a little sketchy. There were some people

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Speaker 6: at the plants who were trying to cover up safety

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Speaker 6: issues and you can't really trust them. It wasn't nearly

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Speaker 6: as just dramatic as I was expecting. That said, it

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Speaker 6: was this major Hollywood movie that came out just two

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Speaker 6: weeks before the accident at Three Mile Island, so I'm

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Speaker 6: sure it did have some effect.

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Speaker 2: Do you tell us a bit more about the Three

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Speaker 2: Mile Island incident and how big of a deal that

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Speaker 2: was and when it happened.

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Speaker 6: That was in March of nineteen seventy nine, and there

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Speaker 6: was a partial meltdown at one of the two reactors

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Speaker 6: at this plant in Pennsylvania, and it was really scary

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Speaker 6: because it wasn't even clear to the authorities quite what

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Speaker 6: was going on, and so there were these sort of

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Speaker 6: inconsistent messages to the public, and eventually well over one

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Speaker 6: hundred thousand people ended up evacuating, and in the end,

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Speaker 6: a very small amount of radiation escaped. There are definitely

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Speaker 6: people who say that it was more than the authorities claimed,

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Speaker 6: but basically, from what I can tell, it seems like

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Speaker 6: disaster was averted. And there have been epzemiological studies that

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Speaker 6: have mostly not found any public health effects other than

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Speaker 6: the public health effects of nuclear accidents actually tend to

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Speaker 6: be largely psychological effects. It's extremely stressful, and it's tricky

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Speaker 6: to talk about because that makes it sound like it's

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Speaker 6: all in your head. Don't worry about it. That is

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Speaker 6: what a lot of pro nuclear advocates believe that the

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Speaker 6: dangers of radiation have been really exaggerated, And we do

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Speaker 6: a disservice to people when we exaggerate the dangers and

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Speaker 6: cause people to live in fear about exposure they might

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Speaker 6: have experienced, even if that exposure is unlikely to lead

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Speaker 6: to physical health effects. So radiation science is very contentious still,

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Speaker 6: and I didn't come out of all my research with

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Speaker 6: a strong opinion one way or the other. But I

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Speaker 6: did come to understand the way that advocates on both

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Speaker 6: sides see it.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was really fascinating how you track sort

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Speaker 1: of the progression of the discussion inside the Sierra Club,

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Speaker 1: you know, like one of the nation's pre eminent conservations

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Speaker 1: or environmentalist movements. Can you give us a snapshot of

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Speaker 1: what those arguments were. Why was this air club against

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Speaker 1: nuclear power? What were they arguing about?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, initially a lot of them were for it

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Speaker 6: for the reasons I mentioned earlier that it could be

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Speaker 6: an alternative to Damns essentially, And David Brower was the

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Speaker 6: leader of the Sierra Club starting in late nineteen fifty two.

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Speaker 6: He was the first paid executive director and the Sierra Club,

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Speaker 6: he was the pre eminent conservation group in the country,

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Speaker 6: and it was at the time still a relatively small

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Speaker 6: California based organization, and they were mainly focused on outings

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Speaker 6: and rock climbing and these ten day camping trips in

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Speaker 6: the Sierra Nevada.

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Speaker 1: Sounds awesome, yeah.

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Speaker 6: But they were sort of forced to become more political,

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Speaker 6: I guess in the fifties because of all of these

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Speaker 6: changes in the country population growth, economic growth, which led

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Speaker 6: to lots of plans for logging and development that would

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Speaker 6: encroach on the wilderness they loved so much. And dam

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Speaker 6: was of course, and David Brower was just this incredibly passionate,

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Speaker 6: eloquent defender of wilderness and he really was kind of

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Speaker 6: monomoniacal about it when he was fighting specific dams, like

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Speaker 6: one that was proposed for the Grand Canyon. They defeated

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Speaker 6: that plan, but he said, well, instead of this dam,

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Speaker 6: why don't we build a nuclear power plant instead? Yeah,

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Speaker 6: which is really interesting. But over time some members of

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Speaker 6: the club really turned against nuclear and some remained relatively favorable.

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Speaker 6: One of the latter was a guy named William Siri,

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Speaker 6: who was actually a nuclear physicist himself, I believe, and

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Speaker 6: he had worked on Manhattan Project. And he has a

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Speaker 6: really striking quote that I came across in the archives,

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Speaker 6: a little bit related to what we were just saying

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Speaker 6: about nuclear accidents. He said, you know, I think eventually

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Speaker 6: we will have nuclear accidents, but we'll kind of get

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Speaker 6: used to it, and eventually we'll just see on the news, Oh,

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Speaker 6: there was a nuclear accident, and then we'll just go

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Speaker 6: back to watching baseball or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 6: So that gives you a sense of, yeah, the range

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Speaker 6: of use. But David Brower eventually became very anti nuclear,

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Speaker 6: and that was partly because he learned more about the

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Speaker 6: risks at every stage of the fuel cycle, from mining

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Speaker 6: to waste disposal. Also, he had a very classic environmentalist worldview.

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Speaker 6: He wanted to limit our use of resources. He wanted

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Speaker 6: to limit growth, limit population growth. You know, it's a

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Speaker 6: very sixties and seventies era view. But he saw nuclear

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Speaker 6: power as kind of wrapped up in this ethos of

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Speaker 6: endless growth. So he didn't think it was a good

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Speaker 6: thing to have virtually unlimited energy, because it would just

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Speaker 6: kind of feed into all our other sort of desires

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Speaker 6: for expansion and end up wreaking habit on the planet.

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Speaker 1: All right, So we've heard about the origins of nuclear power,

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Speaker 1: how it was very exciting initially for the public to

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Speaker 1: think about limitless nuclear power in our modern age, and

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Speaker 1: how very quickly the shine came off of it, and

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Speaker 1: environmentalists went from being in favor of nuclear power to

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Speaker 1: being again nuclear power because of all of its dangers.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to take a break, and when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we're going to hear about how some environmentalists

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Speaker 1: are now pro nuclear again.

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Speaker 2: All right, and we're back. We were talking about the

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Speaker 2: rise of the anti nuclear movement, but then at some

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Speaker 2: point the pro nuclear movement sort of came back with

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Speaker 2: a vengeance. What drove the growth of the more recent

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Speaker 2: pro nuclear environmental movement.

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Speaker 6: In a word or two words, climate change. I think

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Speaker 6: that was the biggest factor because as that came to

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Speaker 6: really take precedence on the environmentalist agenda, one feature of

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Speaker 6: nuclear that had been kind of overlooked before was that

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Speaker 6: it doesn't generate greenhouse g aids directly, a caveat is

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Speaker 6: that all energy sources, there's some greenhouse gas emission in

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Speaker 6: the whole life cycle, but if you look at you know,

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Speaker 6: mining and waste disposal, but nuclear power is a low

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Speaker 6: carbon energy like solar, like wind, like hydro, so that

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Speaker 6: became much more salient when we started to be really

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Speaker 6: worried about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

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Speaker 2: We've talked about how the anti nuclear movement is concerned about,

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Speaker 2: you know, human health effects, what to do with the

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Speaker 2: waste the creation of nuclear weapons. Yeah, what are the

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Speaker 2: counter arguments that the pro nuclear community uses. Maybe let's

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Speaker 2: just pick one of them to start with. So the waste,

438
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 2: what are the counter arguments to the problems associated with waste?

439
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 6: The pro nuclear view of waste is really counterintuitive. They

440
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 6: will actually say nuclear waste is the best kind of waste,

441
00:25:54,359 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 6: and they and the reasons are one. It's really small

442
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 6: volume that's generated, and that's because nuclear is very dense,

443
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 6: like the uranium is extremely energy dense, which is a

444
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,239
Speaker 6: really important thing to keep in mind. That relates to

445
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 6: a bunch of different arguments for nuclear But that also

446
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 6: means that the volume of waste is very small, even

447
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 6: though it's also highly radioactive.

448
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: Do you know what kind of volumes we're talking about?

449
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: Should people be imagining like, you know, I can fit

450
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: all of it in my pocket, or it's like a

451
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:33,479
Speaker 1: swimming pool, or it's like the Grand Canyon, small in

452
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: the scale.

453
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 6: So one image that you hear a lot is basically

454
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 6: that if we consolidated all of the nuclear waste that

455
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 6: has ever been generated from civilian plants in this country,

456
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 6: it would all fit in a football field.

457
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: Wow.

458
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 6: You would have to stack it to some degree. But yeah,

459
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 6: and I feel like I should say I don't know

460
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 6: if I can completely vouch for that, but that is

461
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 6: something that you will hear a lot if you talk

462
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 6: to pro nuclear advocates. I think it's basically accurate. And

463
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,959
Speaker 6: another comparison I've heard something like if all of the

464
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 6: waste that generated from the electricity that like you, as

465
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 6: an individual would use throughout your lifetime would fit in

466
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 6: a coke cam is another image that I've heard.

467
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: Wow, so individuals really could carry around with them all

468
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 1: of the nuclear waste that they personally generated. Yeah, why

469
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: don't we just do that?

470
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: Yeah?

471
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: Exactly.

472
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 2: Don't drink that coke cam, though.

473
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: I think that is important for people to realize because

474
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: they imagine this problem of nuclear waste and long term

475
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,199
Speaker 1: storage specifically. I know is still an open question, but

476
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 1: it's important to think about, like how much we're actually

477
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: talking about you do not need to store like the

478
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon filled with waste, or the amount of waste

479
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: produced by other sources of fuel, for example. So it

480
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: really is quite small, which changes the kind of technologies

481
00:27:58,119 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: we need to think about in the places we need

482
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:01,360
Speaker 1: to think about for storing.

483
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 6: It, right, Yeah, and in terms of storing it, so

484
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:11,479
Speaker 6: we do not have a permanent underground repository for storing it.

485
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 6: We did have a plan to store it at Yucca Mountain,

486
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 6: but that plan fell apart. The Obama administration basically killed

487
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 6: that plan.

488
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: Why what happened to yucka Mountain? I was talking to

489
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: my kids about this book, and they were like, what

490
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 1: happened to that plan? Why don't we just store it underground?

491
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 6: So I would say the biggest reason is that the

492
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 6: plan was imposed on Nevada and they didn't have any

493
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 6: say in the matter, and they were very resistant. It

494
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 6: became known as the screw Nevada Bill, and that's why

495
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 6: I had a great name.

496
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: I'm not laughing at that. That's not funny. Nobody wants

497
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: to screen na No, but I guess the idea is

498
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: find the place with like a lot of land and

499
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: fewer votes in Congress. Yeah, that was the plan basically, right.

500
00:28:56,080 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 6: And what's his name, Harry read Harry Reid. Yeah, it

501
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 6: was this very powerful, long serving center and he was

502
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 6: an ally of Obama's and it was basically seen as

503
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 6: a favor to him to kill this project. And there

504
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 6: were I think debates about how suitable the site actually was,

505
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 6: but I would say the fundamental reason was they hadn't

506
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 6: really consulted Nevada. And now the buzzword is consent based sighting,

507
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 6: So getting the buy in of whatever community and state

508
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 6: you want to place the repository in. But that of

509
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 6: course is challenging.

510
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: Yeh, who's going to say yes to that?

511
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 4: Right?

512
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 5: Yeah?

513
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 6: Would you'd be surprised? There have been communities that do

514
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 6: say yes or that actually are interested if the deal

515
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 6: is right, but often states step in and block it

516
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 6: because it's sort of seen as stigmatized.

517
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 2: So the Yunga Mountain plan fell through, But that doesn't

518
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: make the waste disappear. So where is the waste? Right now?

519
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 6: It is being stored securely at sites around the country

520
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 6: about eighty different sites, mostly retired and operational nuclear plant sites.

521
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 6: So when it comes out of the reactor, it's first

522
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 6: stored in cooling pools for several years, and then it's

523
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,719
Speaker 6: moved to what's called dry cask storage, so it's in

524
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 6: these steel casks and then within these concrete enclosures that

525
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 6: blocks radiation from escaping. So basically it hasn't even though

526
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 6: we fear it so much, and it is really dangerous,

527
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 6: Like if you were in the same room as nuclear

528
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 6: waste straight out of the reactor, you would get a

529
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 6: lethal dose of radiation very quickly, so it's not like

530
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 6: our fear that is irrational, but precisely because it's so hazardous,

531
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 6: we've developed these systems to store it very securely, and

532
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 6: it really, as far as I can tell, like there

533
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 6: are no documented cases of you know, deaths or harm

534
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 6: associated with it, which is really astonishing actually when you

535
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 6: think about it in contrast to other forms of waste

536
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 6: and all the harms they cause because we don't treat

537
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 6: them in the same way, but especially obviously fossil fuel

538
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 6: waste emissions pollution, which causes millions of depths from air

539
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 6: pollution every year and climate change, So that I think

540
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 6: is one very interesting way of looking at the comparison

541
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 6: of different kinds of waste.

542
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're storing the waste on site basically where

543
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: we're making it, which also limits the transport. Right, you're

544
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: not putting in the truck driving across the country. Just

545
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: has to go like across the plant. And it's not

546
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: high volume, so you have space. It's not like you're

547
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: creating a fast new facility. Why don't we just keep

548
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: it there forever? Why ever drive it around? What's unsuitable

549
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 1: about storing it on site?

550
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think there is an argument that it's actually

551
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 6: okay as it is. But another argument is, you know,

552
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 6: these communities where it's stored didn't sign up for that.

553
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 6: The federal government does legally have the responsibility to deal

554
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 6: with it and to bury it in the repository, and

555
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 6: over time, the casks therein don't last forever. And there's

556
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 6: also the question of reprocessing or recycling waste, which is

557
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 6: rather complicated and I don't know if we want to

558
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 6: get into that now, but that is another possibility, but

559
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 6: it's very controversial.

560
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: Another argument I've heard for why nuclear waste is the

561
00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 1: best kind of waste is that it does decay a

562
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: way over time. Yeah, we're used to thinking that as

563
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: a negative, like, oh my god, it takes a thousand

564
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: years before this becomes not dangerous. But the toxins produced

565
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: by coal and whatever are literally forever right, like infinitely deadly,

566
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: and so it's actually a benefit that after five thousand

567
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: years or something, this is no longer dangerous. It's amazing

568
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: to me how much of this is political or how

569
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: much of this is like how you sell it, you know,

570
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: how much of this depends on your perspective. I was

571
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: struck by this quote in your book by Lovelock, who

572
00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: said that opposition and nuclear energy is based on irrational fear,

573
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: fed by Hollywood style fiction, the green lobbies, and the media.

574
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's fair? Do you feel like

575
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: we have a balanced view of these dangers or that

576
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: we've been sold a bill by the environmental movement against

577
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: nuclear waste and we don't see it clearly.

578
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 6: I don't think the fear is irrational exactly. I think

579
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 6: it's understandable. I do think it tends to be more

580
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 6: visceral than I think of this a lot, because we see, unfortunately,

581
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 6: so many disasters these days, and the Los Angeles fires

582
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 6: that happened just a couple months ago, there were not

583
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 6: only the absolutely devastating effects people lost their homes and

584
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 6: people died, but the toxins in the air from all

585
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 6: of the plastic and all of this other material that burned.

586
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 6: I don't know, and I'm not sure anyone knows right

587
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 6: now what the long term public health effects will be.

588
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 6: I know there's at least one study ongoing it's going

589
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 6: to look at that. But I do think even though

590
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 6: we know there are these toxins that have gotten into

591
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 6: the air and into the soil, nobody would ever suggest

592
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 6: evacuating la because of that. And you know, there are

593
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 6: arguments about whether evacuations are warranted in the aftermath of

594
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 6: nuclear accidents. I just think that we do have a

595
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 6: more visceral reaction to you know, a nuclear accident like

596
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 6: radiation than to other toxins, even though it's not always

597
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 6: clear that the other toxins are less of a threat

598
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 6: to public health.

599
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 2: So there's Three Mile Island, there's Chernobyl Fukushima. Is there

600
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: an estimate for how many lives have been lost due

601
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 2: to all the nuclear accidents that have happened so far

602
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 2: that could be like compared to estimates for coal powered

603
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 2: power plants, for example.

604
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 6: Yeah, the official estimates are very low. So for a

605
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 6: three mile islands zero for Chernobyl, there's a range, but

606
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 6: the high end of the range from the sort of

607
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 6: official sources like the WHO, is in the thousands that

608
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 6: people might eventually die of cancers that could have been

609
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 6: related to the accident.

610
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: Do do like the cloud of radioactivity that drifted over Europe.

611
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 6: So the WHO estimated that four thousand people at least

612
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 6: in the most affected areas could eventually die of cancers

613
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 6: that were related to exposure. Some people think that estimate

614
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 6: is actually much too high, and some think it's much

615
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 6: too low, But the estimate of people who actually have

616
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 6: died so far as a result of Chernobyl is several

617
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:48,880
Speaker 6: hundred and Fukushima there was one worker who died of

618
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 6: lung cancer in twenty eighteen, and that may or may

619
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 6: not have been a direct result of the accident, but

620
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 6: according to the official count that there were no other

621
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 6: desks that were related to radiation exposure. There were a

622
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 6: couple of thousand deaths related to the evacuation, and there

623
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 6: are debates over whether the evacuation should have happened and

624
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,879
Speaker 6: should have happened in the way it did. A lot

625
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 6: of the people who died were elderly people living in hospitals,

626
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 6: who are hospitalized or living in nursing homes, so sort

627
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 6: of a hasty evacuation to unsuitable sites. It was just

628
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 6: a terrible situation. Again, I'm not as confident as some

629
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 6: people that we can know exactly how many people died

630
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 6: or had adverse health effects as a result of this

631
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 6: dispersal of radiation. And you know, something you hear from

632
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 6: anti nuclear advocates or scientists is like, just because we

633
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 6: can't measure it for sure, doesn't mean there weren't effects.

634
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 6: Like a lot of things can increase the risk of cancer,

635
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 6: and cancer is very common, so it can be really

636
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 6: hard to tell for sure. But the official numbers are

637
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 6: actually shockingly low. A lot of people hear those numbers,

638
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 6: they're very surprised in your heart to believe.

639
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a break and when we get back,

640
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 2: we'll talk a little bit more about the groups that

641
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 2: are advocating for nuclear power. All right, and we're back.

642
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 2: So one of the interesting groups that you talked about

643
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,919
Speaker 2: in the book is Mom's for Nuclear And actually can't

644
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 2: remember if this example was a person from Mom's for Nuclear,

645
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 2: but you talked about a woman who was pregnant and

646
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 2: it pressed her belly up against one of the waste casks,

647
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 2: which I can't say I would do myself, but it

648
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 2: was an interesting way to prove how committed she was.

649
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 2: But can you tell us a little bit about the

650
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: Mom's for Nuclear group?

651
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 6: Yeah, technically Mother's for Nuclear is the name, and yeah,

652
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 6: that young woman who pressed her baby bump against a

653
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 6: waste caasp was not part of that group. But the

654
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 6: pro nuclear community scene is very small and kind of incestuous,

655
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 6: and everyone knows each other, so she definitely knows them.

656
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 6: But yeah, Mothers for Nuclear was founded on Earth Day

657
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:22,280
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen by two women who both worked and still

658
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 6: work at Diablo Canyon Power Plants, which is the last

659
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 6: nuclear plant that's operating in California. It's on the Central

660
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 6: coast and it's kind of the through line. The narrative

661
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,240
Speaker 6: arc of my book follows the story of that particular plant,

662
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 6: and Heather Hoff and Kristen Zates they were the founders.

663
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 6: They both were sort of very classic environmentalist, tree hugger types.

664
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:54,320
Speaker 6: Heather grew up in a trailer in Arizona and would

665
00:38:55,080 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 6: i'm clamberon rocks near the trailer, and her dad would

666
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 6: sprinkle her and her sister with a watering can instead

667
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 6: of showering, and she was always just very acutely aware

668
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 6: of resource use. And she kind of ended up working

669
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 6: at Diablo Canyon by accident because she was looking for

670
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 6: a good job and it was basically the main option

671
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 6: that she was aware of in San Luisibispo, where she

672
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 6: was living at the time after college, and she thought,

673
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 6: if nothing else, she'd be a spy. He kind of

674
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 6: like the Aaron Brokovich of nuclear energy, and Kristen Zeits

675
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 6: had a pretty similar background. She grew up in California

676
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 6: and she would go camping and sleep under the stars,

677
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 6: and she was really into breastfeeding and very kind of

678
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 6: crunchy type, and basically would expect them to be anti nuclear.

679
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 6: Everything else in their biography would have led them to

680
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 6: be anti nuclear, and they were, I mean, they weren't

681
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 6: anti nuclear activists, but they were definitely very skeptical of

682
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 6: nuclear power. But both ended up working at Diablo Canyon

683
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 6: in Kristen's case, she was a civil engineer and got

684
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 6: an internship there, even though like whether she's kind of

685
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 6: dubious about it, but she was like, well, I'll just

686
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 6: do this internship to learn about civil engineering and then

687
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 6: I'll leave and do something else. But they both ended

688
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 6: up staying and learning more about it and basically becoming

689
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 6: really true believers, really passionate supporters of nuclear because they

690
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 6: decided that it was actually consistent with their environmentalist values.

691
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 1: And is that because they understood the greenhouse gas situation

692
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: or because they changed their views on the dangers and

693
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: the waste, you know, from like the simpsons three Mile

694
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 1: Island view to more sort of balanced, nuanced understanding of

695
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: the risks.

696
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'd say both. They were both very concerned about

697
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 6: climate and learns that this was a low carbon energy

698
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 6: source and that it had because of its density, it

699
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 6: had a very small footprint. So we haven't really talked about,

700
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 6: you know, what its advantages might be over renewables. But

701
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 6: whereas renewables like wind and solar, they're just not as

702
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 6: energy dens so you just need more of them and

703
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 6: you need more space to generate the same amount of energy,

704
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 6: and so for them because they really loved like hiking

705
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 6: and camping, and so they thought that, you know, the

706
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 6: energy density was a big virtue for them, and they

707
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 6: also started to think that the risks had been overstated.

708
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: If we can dig into that for a minute. I

709
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: know that there's a debate in the environmental community about

710
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 1: whether we need something beyond renewables like our wind and

711
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: solar enough. And some people, as you say in the book,

712
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: like Friends of the Earth, the vision for the California's

713
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: future is both nuclear free and fossil free, just like

714
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: wind and solar. But then I talked to folks like

715
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,320
Speaker 1: Steve Davis, who a friend of both of ours, is

716
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: a professor of Earth system science, and he says that

717
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: it's totally impractical to have just wind and solar because

718
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 1: they don't run all the time. Right. If you don't

719
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: have wind, and if you don't have sun, and batteries

720
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,720
Speaker 1: are just not practical. He told me once. It's possible

721
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: to do it, but it's ridiculously expensive. And the best

722
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: case scenario is like eighty ninety percent renewables with some

723
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,280
Speaker 1: baseline from something you can turn off and on quickly

724
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: to provide power when you don't otherwise have it is

725
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: that the crux of the debate within the environmental community.

726
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 6: Yeah, there are people who think that we can do

727
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:32,000
Speaker 6: it all with renewables. There are people who think we can't.

728
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 6: Then there are also people who think maybe we technically can,

729
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 6: but because of some of these issues I've mentioned about

730
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 6: land use, and in terms of batteries, batteries are a

731
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 6: really interesting part of the debate because yes, there's actually

732
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 6: been incredible progress with battery technology recently, and batteries have

733
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 6: been really spreading just in the past year or two

734
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 6: and doing a lot more work of backing up renewables.

735
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 6: There's still lenges I think with longer term storage more

736
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 6: than a few hours, and so that is a real challenge.

737
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:09,759
Speaker 6: There's also, though, environmental issues with all of these technologies

738
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 6: mining lithium for batteries. And there was actually a fire

739
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 6: recently that you may have heard about, I think in

740
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 6: central California, actually not far from Diablo Canyon. There was

741
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 6: this kind of devastating fire and apparently when all these

742
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 6: batteries pop fire and you don't put it out, I

743
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 6: guess there's no way to put it out. You just

744
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 6: have to let it run its course. And so all

745
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:34,040
Speaker 6: these toxins were released and similar to the fires in

746
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:35,839
Speaker 6: il it, you know, all these toxins in the air

747
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 6: and in the soil. So I guess I just learned

748
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 6: more that these technologies that environmentalists like me, you know,

749
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 6: tend to like and just think sound more sort of

750
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 6: natural and gentle. And it's not just sun, and it's

751
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 6: not just wind. It's material infrastructure, and they all have

752
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 6: their issues and their environmental issues. So yeah, there's a

753
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 6: range of views, of course on the ideal portfolio. And

754
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,399
Speaker 6: also I should add that technology is advancing all the time,

755
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 6: although of course we haven't talked about how dramatically this

756
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 6: whole landscape has changed just recently because of the Trump administration.

757
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 6: It's been actually really shocking, and you know, all this

758
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,319
Speaker 6: progress that was occurring has now really stalled. At least

759
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 6: some renewables. There's actually bipartisan agreement to some extent on nuclear,

760
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,240
Speaker 6: which is something else we can talk about. But anyway,

761
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 6: I would just say there's always progress that can happen,

762
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 6: and there may be more progress with batteries and renewables.

763
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 6: But I guess I came to think that nuclear because

764
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 6: of its energy density and because it is what they

765
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 6: call clean firm power. It's not variable or intermittent like

766
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 6: wind and solar. It doesn't depend on weather conditions. That

767
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 6: it kind of makes sense to have that as part

768
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 6: of the mix and have these different energy forms that

769
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 6: have different pluses and minuses.

770
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 2: It'd be very interesting digging into the more recent political climate.

771
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 2: So you know, the book does an amazing job of

772
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: sort of tracking how opinions have changed over time and

773
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 2: how political interest in this topic has changed over time.

774
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 2: What has changed since the beginning of this year when

775
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:14,919
Speaker 2: the Trump administration took over.

776
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:22,720
Speaker 6: Well, Trump is trying to reverse and succeeding, I guess

777
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 6: at least to some extent. He's blocking billions of dollars

778
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,320
Speaker 6: in grants that were already you know, contracts were already

779
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 6: signed as part of Biden's landmark climate law, the Inflation

780
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 6: Reduction Act. The purpose of that law was to encourage

781
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 6: basically building all this clean energy infrastructure, and a lot

782
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 6: of that has been blocked, at least for now. And

783
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 6: Trump basically wants us to burn fossil fuels, and he's

784
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,000
Speaker 6: making it harder to deploy wind and solar. He and

785
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 6: his administration are relative supportive of nuclear, which I guess

786
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 6: could be sort of area of potential progress for building

787
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 6: more low carbon energy, because in the past ten years

788
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 6: or so, i'd say Democrats have also become very pro

789
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 6: nuclear at the level of elected officials, you know, Democrats

790
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 6: in Congress have been very supportive, and there have actually

791
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 6: been a series of biparisan laws to kind of nurture

792
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 6: nuclear and revive the industry.

793
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:33,440
Speaker 2: Talk about how progress is sort of being made in

794
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 2: terms of keeping nuclear power plants going and discussing starting

795
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 2: up some new ones. You feel like that momentum could

796
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 2: continue over the next four years, even if it's not

797
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 2: so good for wind or solar.

798
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 6: It could, but there are also some warning signs. Basically,

799
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 6: certainty is really good for you know, business in general

800
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 6: and for investments, and especially in a major infrastructure project

801
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:04,359
Speaker 6: like a nuclear plants. So the chaos and uncertainty that

802
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 6: have been introduced to the past couple of months are

803
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 6: probably not good for seeing a nuclear revival. But I

804
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:17,439
Speaker 6: do think there is interest, and even just today there

805
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 6: was an announcement from some of the major tech companies

806
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 6: you know, committing to try to i think triple nuclear

807
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 6: power by twenty fifty, which is a goal that the

808
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:30,439
Speaker 6: Biden administration sort of established that goal. So these tech

809
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 6: giants are voicing their support for that, and they're of

810
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 6: course very influential. So yeah, I think the momentum for

811
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 6: nuclear could definitely continue, whereas the momentum for renewables there's

812
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 6: a lot of questions about that now.

813
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,239
Speaker 1: I saw a discussion that like Microsoft was going to

814
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: turn three Mile Island back on in order to power

815
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: their data centers. You know, as our society gets more

816
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: technological and we have more data, intel and so of computing,

817
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: it uses a lot of energy, and so our thirst

818
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 1: for energy it just grows and grows and grows, and

819
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:08,399
Speaker 1: nuclear power seems well suited to that. At the same time,

820
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 1: I see a huge revival in the nuclear industry itself,

821
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: their development of like small modular reactors, which could be

822
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: easier to produce, easier to license, easier to transport. What

823
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: do you see as the future of nuclear technology itself?

824
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: Is it going to change these discussions?

825
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,919
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's still an open question. There's definitely a whole

826
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 6: bunch of startups working on different technologies, and there's particular

827
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 6: enthusiasm for the idea of small modular reactors, as you mentioned,

828
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 6: So I think it's just too soon to know what's

829
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 6: going to pan out. Because there's one startup called Oaklow

830
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 6: that was founded by this young charismatic couple they met

831
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 6: as MIT graduate students, and that you founded this company

832
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 6: largely out of climate concerns, and I visited their offices

833
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 6: in Silicon Valley a few years ago, and their approach

834
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,879
Speaker 6: is very different in a bunch of ways. I don't

835
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 6: know how much into the weeds we should get, but

836
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 6: basically they are doing small, modular reactors, and the timelines

837
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 6: are just really long. And that's one criticism of nuclear

838
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 6: from some climate activists is that you know, we won't

839
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 6: even have them in time to meet the deadlines that

840
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 6: we need to meet to make a difference. And I

841
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 6: think obviously the hope is that once we get some

842
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 6: of the first of a kind built, then the timeline

843
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 6: will accelerate for getting more built. But I think we're

844
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 6: at a period now where we'll probably learn pretty soon

845
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 6: whether that's going to happen or whether what the critics

846
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 6: say is right, and it's just not going to be

847
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 6: feasible to build these projects, you know, on time and

848
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:47,880
Speaker 6: on budget, and then maybe it will kind of fizzle.

849
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 6: But I think that's something we'll probably find out more

850
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 6: answers to in the next few years.

851
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: And my question is about how we make these decisions

852
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: politically and socially. Obviously, the technology is changing, and are

853
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 1: standing of the situation scientifically is changing, But fundamentally it's

854
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: a political decision, and politics should be informed by science,

855
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 1: at least we hope so, but so much of it

856
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: seems to be informed by scare tactics and misinformation. What

857
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: do you think about the sort of state of scientific

858
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 1: discourse in our country? Do you think our leaders have

859
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:22,320
Speaker 1: the information they need to make sort of unbiased, balanced

860
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: decisions about these very important, very dangerous technologies that could

861
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: potentially kill millions or save millions. Is your book a

862
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,840
Speaker 1: part of trying to get people on board to understanding

863
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 1: how these things have changed? What do you think we

864
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: should do to make sure people like understand the facts

865
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: on the ground.

866
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 6: I hope my book will contribute to just kind of

867
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 6: laying out the questions and the issues and why people

868
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 6: feel so strongly on both sides. And yeah, the state

869
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:54,799
Speaker 6: of scientific discourse, that's a big question, and I'm sure

870
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 6: you guys know more about it than I do. I

871
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:59,280
Speaker 6: have a lot of concerns about it, especially again because

872
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:04,720
Speaker 6: of these days of the Trump administration, and I think

873
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 6: in general just the state of the sort of information

874
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 6: ecosystem is not very healthy. But another way of thinking

875
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 6: about it is, Yeah, just trust in sort of authority

876
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 6: and expertise, I would say, is the big theme of

877
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 6: my book, and how that's changed over the decades, and

878
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 6: how in recent years the right has become very distrustful

879
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 6: of institutions and authority, and the left of these sort

880
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 6: of mainstream liberals have become much more trusting. And we

881
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 6: saw this, of course during COVID. It probably helps to

882
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 6: explain why Democrats have come to be more open to

883
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:50,280
Speaker 6: nuclear because I would say that among experts and among

884
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 6: sort of institutions like the International Energy Agency and the

885
00:51:55,080 --> 00:52:00,839
Speaker 6: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, these sort of major authoritative institutions,

886
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 6: they are all saying, you know, nuclear should be on

887
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 6: the table at least, And so I think, as someone myself,

888
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 6: I guess I'm more inclined to trust expertise, which grows

889
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:18,399
Speaker 6: out of, you know, being really worried about climate change

890
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 6: and feeling like the scientists were the ones who were

891
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:24,280
Speaker 6: speaking out and telling the truth, and so I trusted

892
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 6: them on that, And then was when I learned that

893
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 6: a lot of scientists were saying that nuclear has to

894
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 6: be part of the solution. That kind of caught my

895
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 6: attention and I thought, well, maybe I should at least

896
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 6: hear them out on this as well. So I don't

897
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 6: know if that answers your question, but those are some

898
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 6: of my thoughts on the subject.

899
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: Sort of an unanswerable question, but thanks for your thoughts.

900
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 6: Yeah.

901
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 2: So, one of the things I really appreciated about your

902
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 2: book is how nuanced it was and how you tried

903
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 2: to dig into everybody's claims and see how valid they were.

904
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 2: And so you've sort of hinted at the answer a

905
00:52:58,239 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 2: little bit in the answer to your last question. But

906
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:03,720
Speaker 2: after doing all of this research, where do you stand

907
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 2: on nuclear power and where nuclear power fits into solving

908
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 2: our current issues with global climate change?

909
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I would just reiterate that the main contribution

910
00:53:14,360 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 6: I hope I'm making is to kind of explain the

911
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 6: range of perspectives and you know, write a story that

912
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 6: I hope is fun to read. You know, there are

913
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 6: a lot of people with very strong opinions on this,

914
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 6: and I am not really one of them. Just temperamentally.

915
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 6: I tend to be more of a person who sees

916
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 6: both sides, and I guess I came to think that

917
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 6: largely because this is what a lot of the experts

918
00:53:43,239 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 6: I trusted were saying, that it does need to be considered.

919
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 6: It's not a panacea, but it can play an important

920
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 6: role in our energy system because of certain distinctive characteristics

921
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 6: that it has, and that could change as we have

922
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 6: technological progress in other areas, even geothermal. You know, there

923
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 6: may be a major breakthrough in geothermal that could make

924
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 6: that a much bigger part of our portfolio than it

925
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 6: has been until now. So I'm definitely not someone who

926
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,919
Speaker 6: thinks we need all nuclear, and you know, it's by

927
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 6: far the most viable low carbon energy source. I think

928
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:19,840
Speaker 6: we have a range of options. I never thought like

929
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 6: that it was something we should completely abandon. I thought

930
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 6: that it had some really important strengths. I mean, I

931
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 6: tend to be ambivalent because I'm sort of a classic

932
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 6: environmentalist at heart myself, and part of me just thinks like,

933
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 6: why can't we just live in cabins and use much

934
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 6: less energy and just live humbly, and you know, not

935
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 6: have all these data centers and not have AI, So

936
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 6: that is kind of how I feel at heart. But

937
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 6: first of all, I realized that that's not realistic, that

938
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 6: that's not going to happen. So how can we meet

939
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 6: our energy demand in a way that's not going to

940
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 6: introeust the climate? So yeah, I ended up feeling like

941
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 6: nuclear was one viable option among others.

942
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 1: Well, we should all live in cabins, but we should

943
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: still have enough energy to produce and distribute podcasts about science.

944
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:18,839
Speaker 1: Of course. Of course, that's priority number one in any society, and.

945
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:20,319
Speaker 6: Published books, that's right.

946
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 2: Priority number two is for everyone to order their version

947
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 2: of Atomic Dreams.

948
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 6: Thank you.

949
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic book. It's a story well told. I laughed,

950
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: I didn't cry, but I had a good time.

951
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 2: I learned a lot.

952
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:35,400
Speaker 1: Congratulations on the book, and thank you very much for

953
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:37,439
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast to answer all of our tough

954
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:38,239
Speaker 1: questions about it.

955
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. It's a lot of fun.

956
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:50,879
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeart Reading.

957
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:53,720
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you, We really would.

958
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

959
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

960
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 2: I want to know your thoughts on recent shows suggestions

961
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

962
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 2: back to you.

963
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

964
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:11,840
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly dot org.

965
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 2: Or you can find us on social media. We have

966
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 2: accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on all of

967
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: those platforms. You can find us at D and K Universe.

968
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: Don't be shy right to us