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Speaker 1: Hey Kelly, do you guys have solar panels out on

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Speaker 1: the Science Farm yet?

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Speaker 4: Yes, we do, but they don't always help when you

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Speaker 4: need them the most.

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Speaker 1: H what do you mean what happened?

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Speaker 4: Well, there was that snowstorm that slams the East coast

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Speaker 4: a few weeks back, and that knocked out the whole

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Speaker 4: electrical grid. It would have been nice to have solar,

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Speaker 4: but solar panels don't work super great when it's snowing, and.

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Speaker 1: I guess they also don't work that well when they're

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Speaker 1: covered in snow. Right. I never thought about that. Do

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Speaker 1: people who live in snowy places need to get like

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Speaker 1: solar panel wipers like windshield wipers for your car?

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Speaker 4: Not quite? And ours are up on a roof, so

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Speaker 4: we can't just sort of, like, you know, wipe it

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Speaker 4: off with our hands or something. And I think most

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Speaker 4: people just wait for the snow to milk.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Didn't you create like some mini humans

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Speaker 1: out there you could send up on your roof to

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Speaker 1: wipe them off?

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Speaker 4: I assume you're talking about my children. We're not so

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Speaker 4: desperate for power that we're willing to risk their lives for.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. When my kids iPads run out of charge,

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Speaker 1: I am very desperate for power. I can't parent without

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Speaker 1: them anymore, so I might even climb up there myself.

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Speaker 4: I see where you're coming from. We fortunately were able

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Speaker 4: to charge our iPads in the car, so we were Okay.

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Speaker 5: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and a professor at

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Speaker 1: UC Irvine, and I find myself needing more and more

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Speaker 1: energy every day.

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Speaker 4: And I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I'm a parasitologist who's adjunct with

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Speaker 4: Race University, and I also like power.

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Speaker 1: Do you ever wish that you could just plug yourself

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Speaker 1: into solar power? Like, why do we still need to sleep?

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Speaker 1: Why can't we just recharge the way all of our

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Speaker 1: devices do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, right, that would be like an upgrade of coffee.

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Speaker 1: I like it electrified coffee exactly. It just seems so

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Speaker 1: much more reliable. You know, those days you have, like

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Speaker 1: insomnia or whatever. You're like, I wish I could just

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Speaker 1: plug in and charge up.

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Speaker 4: Today, I over did the coffee and I'm feeling kind

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Speaker 4: of jittery. So if I could just plug into a

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Speaker 4: solar panel and get nice, steady power without overdoing it,

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Speaker 4: that would be pretty solid.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe someday in the future. Well, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge explain the universe in which we try

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Speaker 1: to plug your brain into all the crazy ideas of

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Speaker 1: the universe. We like to explore the deepest, darkest questions

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Speaker 1: about black holes, the biggest, hottest questions about neutron stars

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Speaker 1: and what's going on inside the sun, all the way

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Speaker 1: down to the tiniest little particles that make up me

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Speaker 1: and you and your coffee. We explore all of it.

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Speaker 1: We don't shy away from any of it, and we

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Speaker 1: break it all down for you. My friend and co

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Speaker 1: host Jorge can't be with us today, so we're very

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Speaker 1: happy to be joined by one of our regular co

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Speaker 1: hosts Kelly. Thanks again for joining us today.

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Speaker 4: Hey, thanks for having me here. I love being on

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Speaker 4: the show and I am particularly excited about this topic.

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Speaker 4: It's a super fascinating interface between human behavior and technology,

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Speaker 4: which I just love.

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Speaker 1: You wish the humans sometimes were easier to predict and

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Speaker 1: control like technology.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that would be but yes, it would be nice.

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Speaker 1: But one thing that we can rely on humans for

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Speaker 1: is that we seem to always need more and more energy.

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Speaker 1: Our lives have more and more devices in them. We

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Speaker 1: rely on expensive devices to do things for us. It

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Speaker 1: seems like the future of our civilization is one that

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Speaker 1: consumes more and more power.

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Speaker 4: Yes, and people in other countries would like to approach

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Speaker 4: Western levels of energy usage, and if that happens, we're

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Speaker 4: we're going to be in a bit of trouble.

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Speaker 1: We're already in a good bit of trouble. As we

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Speaker 1: look around on this planet, we notice that it can't

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Speaker 1: really sustain our lifestyle at this level for much longer.

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Speaker 1: I was reading the UN Climate Change Report, and it's

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Speaker 1: pretty alarming stuff.

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Speaker 4: That's not light reading.

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Speaker 1: It's not light reading exactly. According to that report, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the changes we've already seen in the climate

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Speaker 1: are unprecedented in the last thousands or few hundreds of

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Speaker 1: thousands of years. So the Earth is heating up, the

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Speaker 1: sea levels are rising, things are going bonkers. We just

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Speaker 1: can't continue in this direction.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: The more you watch the news or pay attention to

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Speaker 4: the weather channel, the more depressing this stuff gets as

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Speaker 4: time goes on. And if we're going to slow it down,

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Speaker 4: we're going to have to make some pretty big changes

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Speaker 4: to our behavior.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think one goal is to keep the Earth from overheating.

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Speaker 1: You know, as we pump more CO two into the atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: it acts as this global blanket, keeping the Sun's energy

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Speaker 1: inside rather than letting the Earth radiate it out into space.

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Speaker 1: So the more CO two that we pump into our atmosphere,

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Speaker 1: the warmer the Earth gets. It's already risen by almost

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Speaker 1: a degree relative to historical levels as of twenty twelve,

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Speaker 1: and there was this prediction that if we wanted to

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Speaker 1: keep it from rising another degree up to two degrees

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Speaker 1: above typical levels, and there was a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: CO two that we could afford to pump into the atmosphere. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: we've already pumped more than half of that into the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: So we have this like shrinking window to avoid basically

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Speaker 1: total disaster. And I wonder sometimes if we're going to

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Speaker 1: be able to pull it off, if we sort of

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Speaker 1: as a species are going to be able to stand

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Speaker 1: together and say like, hey, let's solve this problem. Let's

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Speaker 1: do something about it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we're going to have to do something drastic.

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Speaker 4: And the longer we wait, the more drastic that thing

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Speaker 4: is going to have to be. And so we got

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Speaker 4: to get moving on that.

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Speaker 1: We definitely do have to get moving on that. And

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Speaker 1: of course science and technology seems like an excellent direction,

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Speaker 1: like we're developing new technologies, we're pushing this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that humans only seem to

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Speaker 1: respond to when it's like really in crisis. You know.

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Speaker 1: I wish that we could like look at these things

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Speaker 1: further in advance and prioritize these things before we're in

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Speaker 1: crisis mode. But it's sort of like the professor with

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Speaker 1: a thousand things going off at once. We only seem

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Speaker 1: to have the attention span for the most urgent crisis.

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Speaker 4: Foresight seems to be a pretty massive weak point for

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Speaker 4: humanity as a.

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Speaker 1: Whole, exactly. And one crucial area, of course, is production

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Speaker 1: of that energy. If we want to keep consuming this

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Speaker 1: much energy to power our iPads and our phones and

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Speaker 1: to watch our screens, and we need to figure out

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Speaker 1: a way to generate that energy that doesn't further heat

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Speaker 1: up our planet, that doesn't cause like wildfires and sea

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Speaker 1: ocean rises and all this sort of stuff.

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Speaker 4: And one of the great things about the possible solutions

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Speaker 4: to this problem is that there's technologies we already have

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Speaker 4: that we could use, so it doesn't even necessarily require

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Speaker 4: some like world changing, fundamental new technology. We have some

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Speaker 4: of the tools now, we just need to commit to

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Speaker 4: implementing them.

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Speaker 1: Does that make you more optimistic that we're going to

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Speaker 1: solve this problem, like because you can see the solutions

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Speaker 1: ahead of us, or less optimistic because now it's like

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Speaker 1: a political question. It's just a question of whether humans

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Speaker 1: will stand together and do this.

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Speaker 4: I always find it hard to be optimistic in the

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Speaker 4: face of politics, but I think if you give up hope,

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Speaker 4: then you really don't get anywhere. So yes, I'm optimistic.

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Speaker 4: We need to make better use of these technologies.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of the technologies you're talking about have

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Speaker 1: been ramping up quickly, things like wind and solar, which

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Speaker 1: are clean and renewable and excellent sources of power. But

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Speaker 1: there's another technology which has been around for decades, which

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Speaker 1: produces reliable electricity and doesn't emit any carbon, and for

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Speaker 1: which there's huge amounts of fuel readily available. But it's

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Speaker 1: not one that people typically think of when they think

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Speaker 1: of like clean energy or green energy. And of course

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about nuclear power, and so today on the

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Speaker 1: podcast we'll be tackling the question is nuclear power worth

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Speaker 1: the risks?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's a particularly complicated form of energy. There

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Speaker 4: are definitely environmental groups who, despite the fact that it

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Speaker 4: produces zero carbon, are still completely against it because of

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Speaker 4: some of the other side effects, like what do you

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Speaker 4: do with the waste and how is that going to

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Speaker 4: contaminate the environment. So it's a particularly complicated but promising technology.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's really fascinating how it sort of splits

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Speaker 1: the politics, like if you are a pro environment, are

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Speaker 1: you against nuclear because of the potential waste and risks,

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Speaker 1: or are you pro nuclear because it is zero carbon.

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Speaker 1: It's really fascinatingly skewers all of these questions.

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Speaker 4: And what's interesting is most people, when you ask them,

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Speaker 4: don't sort of kind of feel one way or another.

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Speaker 4: They feel very strongly pro or very strongly against. It's

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Speaker 4: a technology that doesn't have a lot of people in

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Speaker 4: the middle.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that the general sense out there

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Speaker 1: is that nuclear power is risky, that it's dangerous. People

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Speaker 1: have seen Homer Simpson operating that nuclear power plant on

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Speaker 1: the Simpsons, I've seen Blinky the Three Eyed Fish. They

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Speaker 1: just get the sense that nuclear power is like out

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Speaker 1: of our control, it's something maybe humans shouldn't dabble with.

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Speaker 1: And of course it's connected with nuclear weapons, which you know,

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Speaker 1: might end humanity and ruin the planet. So in general,

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Speaker 1: I guess that people are uneasy with the idea of

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Speaker 1: nuclear power, and.

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Speaker 4: I've also concluded that The Simpsons are partly to blame

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Speaker 4: for our current climate.

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Speaker 1: Change issues because so many people are watching it on

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Speaker 1: their screens.

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Speaker 4: Well I did when I was a kid. I guess

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Speaker 4: I haven't recently, but anyway, maybe we should talk to

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Speaker 4: Matt Groening about a PR overhaul, although maybe he's not

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Speaker 4: charge anymore.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's true that Monty Burns is not the

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Speaker 1: most sympathetic figure when it comes to running a power plant.

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Speaker 1: But I was wondering what our listeners thought about this

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Speaker 1: question about whether nuclear power is an excellent source of

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Speaker 1: fuel for the future because of its zero carbon output,

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Speaker 1: or whether it's something risky and dangerous that humans should

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Speaker 1: shy away from to avoid polluting our planet with radioactive

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Speaker 1: waste that would last for tens of thousands of years. So,

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Speaker 1: as usual, I asked people to volunteer to answer difficult

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Speaker 1: questions without any preparation. So thanks to everybody who volunteered,

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Speaker 1: and if you would like to participate for a future

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Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, please don't be shy. All you

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Speaker 1: have to do is write to us to questions at

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Speaker 1: Danielandjorge dot com. So think about it for a moment

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Speaker 1: before you hear these answers. Do you think nuclear power

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Speaker 1: is worth the risks? Here's what people had to say, Well.

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Speaker 8: We certainly are aware of several high profile incidents that

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Speaker 8: have happened with nuclear power stations, including Chernopil, which cause

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Speaker 8: the public to give pauses supporting nuclear power.

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Speaker 1: But I believe we can't rule.

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Speaker 9: It out as a source of energy given the rising

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Speaker 9: demand for energy of humans and the increasing need for

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Speaker 9: us to stop using fossil fuels to avert a climate

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Speaker 9: change disaster.

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Speaker 1: Nuclear power is definitely worth the risk, especially fusion reactors,

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Speaker 1: as they produce only neutrons in some gamma radiation.

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Speaker 6: Nuclear power has benefits of producing a large amount of electricity,

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Speaker 6: and the risks are the safety hazards, which I think

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Speaker 6: can be taken care of as long as the parties

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Speaker 6: involved take the precautions, and the waste. The radioactive waste

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Speaker 6: is the reason why we need to be moving towards

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Speaker 6: more sustainable powers, but at the current limitations of resources

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Speaker 6: we cannot. So I think it's worth the risk for now.

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Speaker 6: But if you're talking about nukes, no, I.

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Speaker 1: Think power is for sure worth the risk.

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Speaker 10: I haven't looked at a much, but from what I've seen,

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Speaker 10: I think nuclear power is definitely worth the risk. It's

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Speaker 10: clean as far as I know, you really just have

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Speaker 10: to worry about waste.

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Speaker 11: Definitely. Yes, I am a big believer in nuclear power

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Speaker 11: because it's a clean source of energy, and history shows

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Speaker 11: that we haven't figured out yet how to don't have

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Speaker 11: accidents with that. But we did that in aviation, for example.

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Speaker 11: We have a very safe commercial aviation and market. So

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Speaker 11: I'm very confident that we'll get there on the nuclear

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Speaker 11: as well.

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Speaker 5: I think so because it's better than keetting the planet

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Speaker 5: with fossil fuels. And I don't say there's a lot

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Speaker 5: of option to generate constant power without nuclear until fusion

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Speaker 5: takes hole.

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Speaker 10: Anyway, I'd imagine that it certainly is worth the risks.

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Speaker 10: I mean if by risks you mean like natural disaster

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Speaker 10: like earthquakes and tsunamis, then I don't see those happening

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Speaker 10: too frequently. I think they could be, you know, have

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Speaker 10: some preventative measures put in place for those, and I

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Speaker 10: think it's definitely worth the risks.

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Speaker 4: So I actually found these responses to be pretty uplifting.

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Speaker 4: A lot of people seemed like they were generally in

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Speaker 4: support of nuclear power, although maybe your audience is a

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Speaker 4: particular subset of the world, so maybe it's not the

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Speaker 4: representative of the general public. There was one neh in there.

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Speaker 4: There were a fair number of optimistic responses. There was

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Speaker 4: one person who said, especially fusion reactors, and so we

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Speaker 4: had meant fission, but let's go ahead and talk about

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Speaker 4: what is the difference between the two of those. What

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Speaker 4: kind of nuclear power is running a lot of the

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Speaker 4: power plants that are going today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was also a little surprised that our listeners

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Speaker 1: are so pro nuclear, but maybe that comes from their

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Speaker 1: faith in science and they're fascination with technology. But you're right,

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Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between fusion and fission. Specifically, fission

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Speaker 1: is something we can do today. It powers the world

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Speaker 1: partly we are able to harness this nuclear process and

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Speaker 1: use it to pull electricity out of the hearts of atoms.

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Speaker 1: But fusion is something in the future. Fusion is something

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Speaker 1: we have not yet tackled. And speaking of the core

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Speaker 1: physics of it, remember that fission is when you take

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Speaker 1: a big, heavy, unstable nucleus like a uranium atom or plutonium,

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Speaker 1: and you split it apart into two smaller nuclei, and

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Speaker 1: when you do that, you release energy. Conversely, fusion is

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Speaker 1: the opposite. You take light nuclei like hydrogen or helium

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Speaker 1: and you push them together, and when they fuse together

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Speaker 1: to make something heavier, they also release energy. And that

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Speaker 1: seems kind of confusing because you might think, well, what

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Speaker 1: releases energy? Is it breaking things up or is it

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Speaker 1: pushing things together. The answer for complicated nuclear physics reasons

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Speaker 1: is that it depends on what you're pushing or what

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Speaker 1: you're splitting. If you're taking really light elements like hydrogen

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Speaker 1: or helium, then pushing them together fusing them releases energy.

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Speaker 1: If you're taking really heavy elements, anything heavier than iron,

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Speaker 1: than splitting them up releases energy.

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Speaker 4: Funny story, I memorized those definitions in reverse once and

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Speaker 4: it took a lot of work to get them straight

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Speaker 4: in my head afterwards, which was really important because Soonish

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Speaker 4: included chapters originally on both of these topics, so I

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Speaker 4: had to get it right before the interview started. So

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Speaker 4: I'd walk around the house and Zach would be like,

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Speaker 4: fusion go, and I would define it, and then later

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Speaker 4: in the day he'd be like fission go and eventually

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Speaker 4: we got it right. But actually, to this day, I

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Speaker 4: try to avoid using those terms because I'm worried I'm

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Speaker 4: gonna blow it again. But we all have our things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, I actually worked on fusion research myself back in

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Speaker 1: the nineties when I was a young future scientist and

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Speaker 1: I was trying to figure out what kind of physics

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Speaker 1: I wanted to do with my life. I thought, fusion

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Speaker 1: seems promising. It's around the corner. It's gonna save the

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Speaker 1: world by providing abundant energy so cheap you wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: have to charge for it. That was back in the nineties,

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Speaker 1: and you know, thirty years later, so fusion is sort

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Speaker 1: of still around the corner. It's something that's been promising

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Speaker 1: and maybe been thirty years away for fifty years now.

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Speaker 1: So it's a little bit frustrating that we don't yet

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Speaker 1: have an ability to harness this incredible source of power,

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Speaker 1: the thing that fuels our sun and all the stars

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Speaker 1: out there. It would provide cheap energy. The fuel for

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Speaker 1: it is just water, produces in almost no dangerous radioactive elements.

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Speaker 1: It would be wonderful, but unfortunately it's not something we

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Speaker 1: know yet how to get to work, and if you

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Speaker 1: want to hear more about it, we have a couple

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Speaker 1: of episodes about that, including ones about the huge reactor

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Speaker 1: in France. Each iter that they are currently building and

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Speaker 1: they are hoping will provide energy that the thing costs

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Speaker 1: about ten bajillion dollars.

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Speaker 4: I think there are some private companies that have recently

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Speaker 4: made some pretty exciting strides, also in far more compact

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Speaker 4: and therefore more affordable models. But yeah, as you suggested,

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Speaker 4: it's the technology of the future and may always.

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Speaker 1: Be thus exactly, And there's some companies here in southern California,

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Speaker 1: some of them who have spin offs from UCI faculty

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Speaker 1: who has some really clever ideas that might make fusion work.

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Speaker 1: The problem we're facing with the environment, though, is that

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Speaker 1: we don't need a solution that's twenty years from now.

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Speaker 1: The crisis is so imminent that we really need something

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Speaker 1: very very soon to help us draw down our use

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Speaker 1: of energy sources which produce more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: So really we need to focus on things that we

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Speaker 1: can turn on almost immediately, and fission, of course, is

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Speaker 1: something we know how to do. We've been doing it

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Speaker 1: for something like fifty years. The typical process in most

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Speaker 1: of the reactors in the United States comes from fission

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Speaker 1: of uranium. Uranium is something which just like exists all

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Speaker 1: over the world. We had an episode recently about uranium

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Speaker 1: Is it on Urinus? And we talked about how uranium

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Speaker 1: is actually all over the Solar System. It's one of

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Speaker 1: the more prevalent elements in our Solar System. It's in

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Speaker 1: the ground, it's in the water, it's in the moon,

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Speaker 1: it's in asteroids, and it's also on Urinus.

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Speaker 4: And giggled a little during that episode.

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Speaker 1: We were so.

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Speaker 4: Good, We were very much like adults.

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Speaker 1: But of course there are challenges with fission. The uranium

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Speaker 1: that we find in our planet, the stuff that we

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Speaker 1: dig up and purify, is mostly uranium two thirty eight.

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Speaker 1: The two thirty eight there tells you how many protons

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Speaker 1: and neutrons together are in the nucleus, and you twue

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Speaker 1: thirty eight is fine, but it's not really great for fission.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't really like to split apart and release energy

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Speaker 1: the way other versions of uranium do, specifically uranium two

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Speaker 1: thirty five, which has three fewer neutrons, but of course

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Speaker 1: the same number of protons, so it's still uranium. You

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Speaker 1: tube thirty five is great for fission. It splits apart nicely,

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Speaker 1: it produces more neutrons. It's excellent, but it's like less

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Speaker 1: than one percent of the uranium you find naturally is

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Speaker 1: you two thirty five.

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Speaker 4: And herein lies in my mind, the biggest concern with

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Speaker 4: this technology is that enriching the uranium to get more

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Speaker 4: of that two thirty five. A little bit of that

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Speaker 4: pre gives you great fuel for reactions. A lot of

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Speaker 4: that process gives you the stuff that you need for

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Speaker 4: nuclear bomb and it's hard to know if a country

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Speaker 4: is doing just a little bit of enrichment or a

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Speaker 4: whole lot of the enrichment. And that's one of the

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Speaker 4: big problems with nuclear power.

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Speaker 1: In my opinion, because you're not in favor of every

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Speaker 1: country out there getting nuclear bombs and tossing them at

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Speaker 1: each other.

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Speaker 4: You know, it makes me a little uncomfortable.

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Speaker 1: Me as well. And you bring up a really interesting

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Speaker 1: point which I think we should dig into, which is

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Speaker 1: the difference between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb,

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Speaker 1: or a nuclear reactor or a nuclear chain reaction is

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Speaker 1: when you have a uranium atom which splits sends off

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Speaker 1: more neutrons, which then triggers other uranium atoms nearby to

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Speaker 1: split and produce more neutrons. And the crucial thing there

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Speaker 1: is nearby you need enough uranium is sort of a

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Speaker 1: dense enough package, and when these neutrons fly out, they

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Speaker 1: hit more uranium and they can trigger more reactions. So

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Speaker 1: if you have enriched your fuel to like five percent

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Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five, then you could have this sort

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Speaker 1: of self sustaining nuclear reaction that produces energy and keeps going.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of like ignition, you know, like when you

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Speaker 1: start a fire and then it's hot enough that it

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Speaker 1: burns the wood next to it, which is then hot

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Speaker 1: enough to burn the wood next to it. You don't

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Speaker 1: have to keep starting the fire. So that's the nice

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Speaker 1: thing about a self sustaining nuclear reaction. A nuclear bomb, however,

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Speaker 1: is something much more dramatic.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think with the way I understand it,

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Speaker 4: if everything goes wrong in your nuclear reaction at a

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Speaker 4: power plant, it might blow apart and you'd get an explosion,

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Speaker 4: but very quickly that would end the reaction. But in

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Speaker 4: a nuclear bomb, you've got so much of the right

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Speaker 4: kind of fuel in such a compact area that it

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Speaker 4: has time to undergo a lot more reactions before it

441
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:42,800
Speaker 4: blows far enough apart that it can't react anymore. And

442
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,479
Speaker 4: so you can get like an explosion at a nuclear

443
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 4: power plant, but never anything like a nuclear bomb explosion.

444
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 4: Is that would that be fair to say.

445
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, you can't really make a nuclear power plant

446
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:56,560
Speaker 1: blow up with like a mushroom cloud. You can do

447
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:58,199
Speaker 1: a lot of damage, and you can kill a lot

448
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 1: of people, and you can spread radiation everywhere, but you're

449
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 1: not going to get an actual nuclear explosion the way

450
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 1: we get them in nuclear weapons. And you're right. In

451
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:06,919
Speaker 1: order to do that, you have to enrich your fuel

452
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 1: much much further, so you get much more fission going

453
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: on much more rapidly, because that's really what an explosion is.

454
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: It's a very rapid release of energy, so rapid that

455
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:18,920
Speaker 1: the energy release sort of takes over and you get

456
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: these like supersonic shock waves through the material. So that's

457
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 1: how fission works. We're harnessing the power of the atom.

458
00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 1: We're breaking it apart and releasing some of the energy

459
00:22:27,119 --> 00:22:28,919
Speaker 1: that's stored inside of it. If you like, you can

460
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: think of the atom as sort of like held together

461
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: by springs, and what you're doing is like unhooking those springs,

462
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: so then the bits like fly off and have a

463
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: lot of energy when they come out. One of the

464
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 1: problems with uranium two thirty five, though, is that when

465
00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: the neutrons fly out, they're going a little bit too fast.

466
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: Like you, ranium two thirty five likes to get splitted

467
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: half by a neutron, but it likes to get split

468
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 1: in half by neutrons that are not going too fast.

469
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: So you need something to sort of slow down those

470
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: neutrons so they're going just the right speed that they

471
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 1: trigger more U two thirty five in order to split.

472
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 1: And it's called a moderator, something to slow down those neutrons.

473
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: And most of the reactors we have here in the

474
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: United States and most of the ones produced around the

475
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: world are things called light water thermal reactors because they

476
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: use water as a way to moderate these neutrons, because

477
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 1: water is great just taking a little bit of energy

478
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: out of those neutrons and letting them continue on to

479
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 1: trigger another U two thirty five.

480
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 4: Fun fact, my understanding is that the light water thermal

481
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 4: reactors are common because we got a lot of experience

482
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:33,200
Speaker 4: with them with naval submarines. Because it was just sort

483
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 4: of a convenient design to put on submarines when we

484
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 4: were starting to try to use nuclear power to run

485
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 4: those And there were other designs that were being tested

486
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 4: at the time, but because we got the most experience

487
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 4: with that one while making it compact for submarines, that

488
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,639
Speaker 4: historically is sort of why we've explored this design more

489
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:50,919
Speaker 4: than some of the other designs. Well, there's other designs

490
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 4: that might work well too.

491
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:54,440
Speaker 1: It turns out there's a really large variety of ways

492
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 1: that you could build a nuclear reactor, and the ones

493
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: that we have come from sort of weird policy decisions

494
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: that date back to like the early ages of the

495
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 1: atomic era. As you say, one reason is that people

496
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 1: wanted to put them on submarine, so you wanted to

497
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: have a plentiful source of water and you could use

498
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: water as your moderator. Another reason we have these reactors

499
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: is something I would actually put in the sort of

500
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: negative column for these reactors, which is that the U

501
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,719
Speaker 1: two thirty eight, which is most of the fuel, right,

502
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: even if you enrich your fuel so it's five percent

503
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: U two thirty five, you got a lot of YOU

504
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: two thirty eight in your fuel rods. What happens to that. Well,

505
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 1: it doesn't fission. What happens is that it gets transmuted

506
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: into really dangerous radioactive elements that last for like tens

507
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: of thousands of years. So they don't produce anything useful,

508
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: but that you two thirty eight does get turned into

509
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: other really nasty stuff. And some of that nasty stuff,

510
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,679
Speaker 1: like plutonium, is grade four weapons. And so early on,

511
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 1: the Department of Energy really liked this particular technology using

512
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: this very inefficient source of fuel because the other part

513
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: of the fuel could be turned into weapons grade fuel.

514
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: And so now we're sort of like stuck with this technology.

515
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 1: As you say, we do it because it's the one

516
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: we're most familiar with, even though the reason we chose

517
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: it is not really the reason we would choose today.

518
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 4: Stuff gets complicated, exactly.

519
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: So while nuclear power has great benefits because they can

520
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: produce this electricity from the heart of the atom and

521
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 1: uranium is everywhere, we're unlikely to run out of it

522
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: very soon. There are, of course, serious risks of nuclear power, and.

523
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 4: We've talked about weapons as a potential risk, but of

524
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 4: course another risk is if something goes wrong with the

525
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 4: power plant, you get radioactive waste in that area. And

526
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 4: this water design that we've talked about has some benefits,

527
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 4: it's got some negatives. But a lot of the problems

528
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 4: that we've had with nuclear reactors have been about the water.

529
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 4: Is that right? Can you explain why water causes problem? Sometimes?

530
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, water seems great, but the problem is that to

531
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: keep water a liquid, which is what you need to

532
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,399
Speaker 1: do in ord afford to moderate your reactions, you have

533
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: to have it at very very high pressures because the

534
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: stuff gets really hot and you don't want it to

535
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: turn into steam while it's still inside your reactor. Now

536
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: you have this very dangerous fuel and it's being moderated

537
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: by this very high pressure water. You have to build

538
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,959
Speaker 1: your reactor with like very thick steel pipes to avoid

539
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: this thing exploding, and you have to actively pump the

540
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: water through. Like if your water pumps fail or the

541
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: water jams or the water leaks out or something, then

542
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: you're not moderating the reactor anymore. So it's a real

543
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: critical safety flaw if your reactor requires active pumping, because

544
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: then if you lose power or something goes wrong, then

545
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: things just get worse rapidly. And that's the source of

546
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: most of the sort of more famous disasters in the

547
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: nuclear power sector. Three Mile Island was caused by jams

548
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 1: in one of the hatches that let the water flow.

549
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: In Fukushima, of course, there was a tsunami and it

550
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: knocked out the water pumps and so it couldn't cool

551
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: down the reactor core. In Chernobyl, of course, a water

552
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,920
Speaker 1: boiled and exploded. And so all of these problems really

553
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: are traced to having water at very high pressures, which

554
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: is very difficult to maintain long term.

555
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 4: But some of these problems have technological fixes in some

556
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 4: of them don't, Like you could avoid a Fukushima type

557
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 4: accident by having a way to cool the reaction down

558
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 4: even if the power goes out, because those water pumps

559
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 4: that got knocked out depended on the electricity, And now

560
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 4: there's designs to cool the reaction down that don't require

561
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 4: electricity and would work passively. But something like Chernobyl, like

562
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 4: you had a technical problem, but the real problem was

563
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,959
Speaker 4: the you know, autocratic government, which didn't tell the people

564
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 4: that there was a major problem until Sweden detected nuclear

565
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 4: material in the air, at which point the USSR had

566
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 4: to say, oh, my bad. And so some of these

567
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 4: things technology can solve and some of them are just

568
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 4: problems with humans, and those those problems are harder to solve.

569
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: I'd say they are harder to solve. And if you

570
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: imagine a future where we have like a lot more

571
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: nuclear power, then those risks are multiplied because humans make mistakes,

572
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: they inevitably will.

573
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so we've got these complicated cost benefit analyzes

574
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 4: that we need to do. And so let's take a break,

575
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 4: and afterwards, let's talk about whether or not we really

576
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 4: need nuclear power. Do we need to take these risks?

577
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,239
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Speaker 4: Okay, so nuclear power has this great ability to help

646
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 4: us deal with the climate change issue. But it has

647
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 4: all of these problems that we talked about, like risks

648
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 4: of the creation of nuclear weapons. Help us understand this

649
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 4: cost benefit analysis better. Do we really need this technology?

650
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: We definitely need something, right. We are currently burning a

651
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: lot of coal and a lot of natural gas to

652
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: produce the energy that we use, and that just can't

653
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: go on much longer unless we want to totally fry

654
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: the planet. So there's a pretty broad consensus that we

655
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: need to move to a carbon neutral production of energy

656
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: and also our transportation sector. If those are two things

657
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: that are really driving climate change right now, and so

658
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: decarbonizing the world energy grid and the transportation system is

659
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 1: a huge priority. And the first question to ask is like, well,

660
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: do we need nuclear at all? Can we just do

661
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 1: it without nuclear? Can't we just do it with like

662
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: solar panels and with water power and with wind power,

663
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: And that's really attractive, It would be awesome if we could. Right,

664
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: solar panels are getting cheap and wind power is getting

665
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: very efficient, and so it's nice to imagine that you

666
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: might just be able to like put nuclear power on

667
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: the shelf and say we don't really need it. We

668
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: can just rely one hundred percent on renewables on these

669
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 1: things which are green, which don't produce any carbon, which

670
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: don't require any sort of external fuel source. That would

671
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: be a fantasy, And.

672
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 4: They're definitely picking up a lot of the slack. You know,

673
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 4: my husband and I have wanted to get solar panels

674
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 4: for a long time, and for almost a decade, I

675
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 4: guess we've been together for thirteen years, so for about

676
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 4: thirteen years, every year we checked the cost of solar panels,

677
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 4: and of course our you know, income increased over those

678
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 4: thirteen years as we got out of grad school. But

679
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 4: like recently we decided, oh my gosh, it's dropped enough

680
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 4: that we can afford it. And solar in about the

681
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 4: last decade has dropped by like ninety percent, so it's

682
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 4: becoming much more feasible, and wind has dropped by like

683
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 4: seventy percent. But you know, is that going to be

684
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 4: enough to pick up all of the slack and to

685
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 4: make up for all of these nuclear power plants that

686
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 4: are going offline and are being replaced by coal. What

687
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 4: do you think?

688
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: So people are doing a lot of studies about exactly

689
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: that question. How cheap can this get and can it

690
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: really provide all of the energy that we need, and

691
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: what's clear is that renewables will be the major chunk

692
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: of it, like eighty percent of our energy should come

693
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: from wind and solar and water power in the future.

694
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: The problem, of course, with these technologies is that they're

695
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: pretty variable. I mean, they depend a little bit on

696
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: the weather. You've got a cloudy day, you're not getting

697
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: solar power. The wind just doesn't blow, you're not getting

698
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 1: your wind power. So they're not as steady as things

699
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: like burning coal, where you got a pile of it,

700
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: you need some energy, you just burn some coal. And

701
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: that variability is important, right because if you've got a snowstorm,

702
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: that's exactly when you need the energy, right when your

703
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: solar panels aren't producing it.

704
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 4: Absolutely. But now I'm hearing the space advocates in my

705
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 4: ear yelling, well, what about if you put the solar

706
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,720
Speaker 4: panels in space where they're safe from weather.

707
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had a really fun episode about space based

708
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: solar power, which on one hand sounds ridiculous, like putting

709
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: solar panels in space and then beaming them down to

710
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 1: the Earth, And it's actually a lot less ridiculous than

711
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: you might imagine. Though people still disagree about whether it'll

712
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: ever be economically feasible to have these satellites out in space.

713
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: But we heard from somebody who claims that within ten

714
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: years they would have a facility up in space providing

715
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 1: all the power that Australia needs. We say'll see, but

716
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: there's a lot of skepticism for those very elaborate strategies.

717
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: And the issue is of course economics. Like if you

718
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: had infinite money, then none of this would be a question.

719
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 1: I mean, you could provide all of the energy you

720
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: need using wind and solar if you just like massively overbuilt,

721
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: if you said, we're just gonna build ten times as

722
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: many solar panels as we need and ten times as

723
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: many wind farms as we need, so that even if

724
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 1: there's just a little bit of a gust of electricity

725
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: or just a few photons are creeping through, then we're

726
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: gonna be able to provide the energy. The issue, of

727
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: course is the economics. If you really overbuild, then you're

728
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: paying a lot of money to produce electricity and you're

729
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: also generating a lot more than you need. So this

730
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: problem of variability is a serious one, and we'll probably

731
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,720
Speaker 1: limit these renewables from ever providing more than maybe eighty

732
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 1: percent of our needs.

733
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 4: That's still pretty good though, but yeah, that's not getting

734
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 4: us all the way.

735
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: It is not getting us all the way, and so

736
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: the question really is what do we do for that

737
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: extra twenty percent? Actually, this is an interesting story here.

738
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: There's a lot of arguments about this kind of thing

739
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 1: in literature. And I would reading a paper from a

740
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: professor at Stanford who was claiming that you could get

741
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: to one hundred percent renewable power even with just like

742
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: pretty simple battery technology that we have today. And then

743
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: I found another paper that like totally demolished that paper.

744
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 1: I was reading the paper and I was cringing. I

745
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: was like, ouch, I would never want to read a

746
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: paper like this taking apart one of my own scientific results.

747
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: It was painful. Then I discovered that this whole thing

748
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: ended up in court. You know, often people in science

749
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: just like disagree with each other. But the Stanford guy

750
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: who had his paper like totally dismantled in public by

751
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: another paper, he sued the authors of that paper, claiming

752
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 1: that they had defamed him and ruined his reputation.

753
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 4: WHOA, I feel like, if you're gonna sue someone, you

754
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 4: better be one hundred percent sure that you were right.

755
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 4: Did he win or did he lose?

756
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 1: No, he lost it terms that he was just suing

757
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,479
Speaker 1: them as I would, to like intimidate them, to try

758
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: to shove them up, and he ended up suing them

759
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: and also the National Academy of Science. It was totally crazy,

760
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: and he ended up having to pay like more than

761
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: half a million dollars of their legal fees. So this

762
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: stuff gets heated. You know, people are talking about this

763
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: stuff and they get up in arms. But the question

764
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,279
Speaker 1: that he raises is an interesting one, which is like,

765
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,680
Speaker 1: why can't we just use batteries. Why can't we build

766
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: enough wind and solar so that we on average get

767
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: the right amount of energy, and then we just have

768
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: a bunch of batteries so that we bank it when

769
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: we produce a little bit too much because it's an

770
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: extra sunny day, we store it for those days when

771
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: it's cold and dark.

772
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And you know, if we could make this

773
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 4: technology really dependable and get batteries to have incredibly long lives,

774
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 4: then we could also move to the moon, and you

775
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 4: find during those two week long nights where it would

776
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 4: be really nice to be able to store up the

777
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 4: solar power that you got near the equator.

778
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: Anyway, you know, I'm not one who's currently waiting for

779
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: the technology let me move to the Moon. It's not

780
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: the way I listen to technology news, but that's good

781
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: to here that that's an aspiration of yours.

782
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 4: Going Well, you know, the Moon doesn't have any interesting parasites,

783
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 4: so I'm not going to be moving there either, But

784
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 4: you know, I know there are people who are excited

785
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 4: about it, so I'm rooting for good battery powers.

786
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: That there are tartar grades on the Moon, though, did

787
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: that kind of a parasite one?

788
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 4: No, and two they're probably dead.

789
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: I would guess I'm rooting for the Tartar grade empire

790
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: living on the mood. But back to the question of batteries.

791
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: You know, it would be great if we had batteries

792
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 1: that could do that, and currently we have the kind

793
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: of battery technology that would let you store energy for

794
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: like one day or two days, but you know, sometimes

795
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 1: it goes dark or still for weeks, and so what

796
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: you really need if you're going to like reliably produce

797
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:33,240
Speaker 1: energy using just renewables, is battery technology that can hold

798
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: weeks worth of energies. And that's just not something that

799
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:37,280
Speaker 1: we currently have.

800
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 4: No When we got our solar panels, we asked if

801
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 4: we could get batteries to hold us over through the storm,

802
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 4: rather than buying the generators, which were estimated at fifteen

803
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, and the solar panel guy who would have

804
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 4: been selling us the batteries was like, no, it's way

805
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 4: too expensive and you guys lose power for six days

806
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 4: at a time. There's no way your batteries are going

807
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 4: to cover that. And I was surprised that the battery

808
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 4: power wasn't even that good, which seems like a pretty

809
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 4: low bar. But anyway, hopefully we make some progress there.

810
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again it's a question of economics, like you

811
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: could if you poured a huge amount of money into it,

812
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 1: but we just don't have the technology to make this

813
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: feasible at that scale. And I think that's really fascinating

814
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: because batteries are so important not just for cars but

815
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: also for phones, so there's a huge economic pressure to

816
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: being able to produce longer lasting batteries and more efficient batteries.

817
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: But batteries are a difficult technology. We record an episode

818
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 1: last year about why we don't have electric powered airplanes yet,

819
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,719
Speaker 1: and the answer is because it's difficult to store all

820
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: that energy in a lightweight form, and battery technology is

821
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 1: moving kind of slowly, but there are promising directions people

822
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 1: are exploring, you know, avoiding using things like rare earth metals,

823
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: using just iron and air and water. A bunch of

824
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 1: people trying to innovate in this space. But again, you know,

825
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: what we need is something soon. It's possible that battery

826
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: technology will be totally transformed in six months when somebody

827
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: comes up with a great idea. But we can't really

828
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: rely on and somebody being a genius six months from now.

829
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 1: We need something like tomorrow that we can use to

830
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: reduce our CO two emissions.

831
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 4: So what are some other right now options that we

832
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 4: could use.

833
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: There are a few other carbon neutral, non nuclear options

834
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: that we could explore. You know. One of them is

835
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: producing hydrogen gas. Hydrogen doesn't have carbon in it, right.

836
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: You can think of producing hydrogen as sort of like

837
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: a chemical battery. You take the extra energy that you

838
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,720
Speaker 1: have and you use it to split water, so electrolysis,

839
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: you split the hydrogen and the oxygen apart from each other,

840
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,400
Speaker 1: and then you store this hydrogen. Hydrogen, of course, is

841
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: a great fuel you can burn it, you can put

842
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: it into a fuel cell to generate electricity, sort of

843
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 1: like a longer lasting way to store your energy.

844
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 4: So why why aren't we doing that?

845
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: We are doing that, We have some of that technology,

846
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: but it's not ready to scale up to like twenty

847
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: percent of our energy grid. You know, fuel cell technology

848
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: is not really there, Like you don't see a whole

849
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: lot of fuel cell cars out there on the road.

850
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 1: And for a reason. Also, hydrogen very very dangerous, right,

851
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: Like we all remember the Hindenburg. You know, Hydrogen is

852
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: extremely volatile, and ramping up our energy grid to use

853
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: a huge amount of it would of course come with

854
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: its own dangers.

855
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so what about things.

856
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: Like bio biofuels are a really fascinating idea because while

857
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: they do emit CO two, this this cool cycle like

858
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: when you grow corn in order to turn it eventually

859
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,919
Speaker 1: into ethanol, you're pulling CO two out of the atmosphere,

860
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: which is then released again when you burn the ethanol.

861
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: So while it's not reducing the CO two in the atmosphere,

862
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: it isn't adding to it either, right, So it's a hydrocarbon,

863
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 1: but it's not a fossil fuel, right, you're not digging

864
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 1: up carbon from underground which has been sequestered for millions

865
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: of years and releasing it anew into the atmosphere, which

866
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: is what happens when you burn coal. So biofuels are

867
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 1: cool because you're pulling CO two out of the atmosphere

868
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: before releasing it again.

869
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 4: That's an improvement. Sometimes I feel like we've gone so

870
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 4: far that nothing short of removing some of the carbon

871
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 4: dioxide that we put up there already is going to

872
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 4: do the trick. But it's funny. As an ecologist, I

873
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 4: feel like when you suggest this, this is one of

874
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 4: the suggestions that actually makes people the most angry, so

875
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 4: that the suggestion is that we could capture that carbon

876
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 4: that's already been put in the atmosphere and store it.

877
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 4: And the reason it makes people angry is that it

878
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 4: seems to remove the responsibility of changing your behavior to

879
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 4: things that are more responsible, and so it makes people mad.

880
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 4: But I sort of feel like, maybe we need to

881
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 4: do this in concert with more responsible things like biofuels

882
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 4: and maybe nuclear power. But I'm actually not super up

883
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 4: to date on the different methods people are proposing for

884
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 4: carbon capture and storage. Are you up to date on

885
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 4: the methods.

886
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a lot of different technology in both

887
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: of those areas, biofuels and in carbon capture for biofuels.

888
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: You know, one thing is just like, produce ethanol from corn,

889
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: and that's all right, but it's not great because you're

890
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: still feeding it into a gas power transportation system, right,

891
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: and you can't run cars on one hundred percent biofuels,

892
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:03,919
Speaker 1: you know, it just doesn't work. You need like ten

893
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: to fifteen percent, which means the rest of it is

894
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: still gasoline, so it sort of prevents the electrification of

895
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 1: the transportation grid. And people also argue about weather. Biofuels

896
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: really are carbon neutral. You know, for example, if you're

897
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: going to turn corn into biofuels, then you need to

898
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 1: make more farmland to produce that corn, which means you're

899
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: chopping down forests to make more farmland, which releases CO two.

900
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,879
Speaker 1: So there's a really complicated calculation there about weather. These

901
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: biofuels really are carbon neutral. And about ten years ago

902
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 1: there was a huge push to do microalgae based biofuels,

903
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: like to take algae, these tiny little plants and genetically

904
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: engineer them so they produced ethanol like insert into them

905
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: the proteins they needed, so on a biochemical level they

906
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,440
Speaker 1: could like fabricate fuel, which seemed really awesome, and so

907
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: many people got involved in startups. People I knew in

908
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: grad school like jumped onto this. They thought it was

909
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: the energy of the future. But it hasn't really worked

910
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: out because it's really difficult to scale that up and

911
00:43:59,000 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: to make it efficient.

912
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 4: Algier such a pain when you get them at high densities,

913
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 4: they release toxins to fight with each other, and they

914
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 4: just don't cooperate the way you'd like them to.

915
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:09,880
Speaker 1: Carbon captures the same. It's exciting the idea that you

916
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: could like pull carbon out of the atmosphere, but it

917
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: also is really expensive.

918
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 7: You know.

919
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: One strategy is to try to scrub emissions. Like you're

920
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: at a coal plant and you have something on the

921
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: smokestack which like pulls the CO two out of those emissions.

922
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: The way it does is by running it through this

923
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 1: vessel that has a liquid solvent that can absorb the

924
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: CO two, and then you take that solvent and you

925
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,879
Speaker 1: release the CO two somewhere else in a safe way

926
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: that you can capture, and then you can like just

927
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 1: store it underground. But again that's like removing or reducing

928
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: the CO two from emissions. What you'd really like to

929
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: do is just like suck the CO two out of

930
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: the atmosphere itself, right, the sort of make up for

931
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: the mistakes that we've made so far. That technology exists,

932
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: but it's really expensive, and so until somebody improves that

933
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: or we have no other cheap option, it's not going

934
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: to be the option that we go to. You might

935
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: almost rather just like overbuild your solar or wind farms

936
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: then do a lot of carbon capture.

937
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, when carbon capture also seems a little scary because like,

938
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 4: do we understand what's happening well enough to be able

939
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 4: to like know what rate we should be sucking it

940
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 4: out of the atmosphere? Could things we didn't predict happen?

941
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,280
Speaker 4: And I don't know. Whenever you're doing large scale tinkering,

942
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 4: things get a little dicey.

943
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: Maybe exactly do you trust engineers with the fate of

944
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: our planet? I'm not sure I really believe in their models.

945
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: And then another non nuclear carbon neutral option is hydropower.

946
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: And there are some countries like New Zealand and Norway

947
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 1: that have like beautiful fjords and lots of waterfalls that

948
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,320
Speaker 1: have a significant fraction of their energy coming from hydropower.

949
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: And that's great, but you know, Iowa doesn't have a

950
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: whole lot of hydropower, and Kansas doesn't have a whole

951
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: lot of hydropower, so it's not like a general solution

952
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: for the whole grid.

953
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,879
Speaker 4: Well, and as an aquatic ecologist, there are environmental implications

954
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,720
Speaker 4: to damning things up as well, so it's not quite

955
00:45:57,719 --> 00:45:59,080
Speaker 4: straightforward exactly.

956
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,399
Speaker 1: And then in another actually like a sort of harsh

957
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: strategy is just to say, hey, look, people, you just

958
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: don't always get energy when you want it, Like we're

959
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: going to go one hundred percent renewable and it's going

960
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: to be not always reliable, and maybe that's just the

961
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: way we need to live. Maybe the issue is like

962
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: us demanding that we always have power whenever we need it.

963
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: Maybe that's just too much to ask.

964
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 4: Well, you know, if you lived in a place like Siberia,

965
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 4: you'd probably be pretty happy about having reliable energy. But

966
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 4: I suppose people can plan. You know, we know our

967
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 4: power goes out here pretty often, so we have a

968
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 4: wood burning stove for heat during those periods. So I

969
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 4: suppose people could plan for their power to get cut

970
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 4: when renewables can't keep up. But that's an inconvenience that

971
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 4: I think many countries would not be willing to absorb.

972
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you need power not just so your kids

973
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: can play fruit ninja, but also to do things like

974
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: emergency surgeries. Right, It's important, and so it's not something

975
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: that modern societies are sort of willing to stomach. We

976
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: need like stable power when we need it.

977
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 4: Okay, so we've just talked about other than nuclear that

978
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:05,439
Speaker 4: might be helpful at some point in the future. Let's

979
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 4: return to nuclear after this break.

980
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth

981
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: or enjoy a rich spoonful of Greek yogurt, you're probably

982
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: not thinking about the environmental impact of each and every bite.

983
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: But the people in the dairy industry are US. Dairy

984
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: has set themselves some ambitious sustainability goals, including being greenhouse

985
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: gas neutral by twenty to fifty. That's why they're working

986
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: hard every day to find new ways to reduce waste,

987
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:37,959
Speaker 1: conserve natural resources, and drive down greenhouse gas emissions. Take water,

988
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: for example, most dairy farms reuse water up to four

989
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 1: times the same water cools the milk, cleans equipment, washes

990
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: the barn and irrigates the crops. How is US dairy

991
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: tackling greenhouse gases? Many farms use anaerobic digestors that turn

992
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: the methane from maneuver into renewable energy that can power farms, towns,

993
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: and electric cars. So the next time you grab a

994
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: slice of pizza or lick an ice cream cone, know

995
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: that dairy farm and processors around the country are using

996
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: the latest practices and innovations to provide the nutrient deents

997
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 1: dairy products we love with less of an impact. Visit

998
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 1: usdairy dot com slash sustainability to learn more.

999
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 12: There are children, friends, and families walking, riding on paths

1000
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:18,279
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1001
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,520
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1002
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 12: cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too, Go safely. California

1003
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 12: From the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans.

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1020
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1022
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Speaker 4: Lean Lanovo. Okay, So, one of the nice things about

1023
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 4: nuclear is it's a no carbon emissions option that is reliable.

1024
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 4: Tell me a bit about how many reactors we've got

1025
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 4: running and how much power they're providing right now.

1026
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, nuclear is something that exists right now, you know,

1027
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:53,840
Speaker 1: and it's a significant fraction of our energy budget already

1028
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: around the world is something between five and ten percent

1029
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: of worldwide energy, and it varies a lot of country

1030
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: to country. In France, Fort Sample and Sweden, it's a

1031
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,959
Speaker 1: huge fraction of their energy output. Here in the US,

1032
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: it's about twenty percent of the energy grid is provided

1033
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:09,080
Speaker 1: by nuclear reactors, and that's from you know, somebody like

1034
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: fifty six reactors in the US are producing a huge

1035
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: amount of power and it's very constant. You know, it

1036
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:19,520
Speaker 1: runs rain or shine, wind or not. It's a very

1037
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: stable source of energy.

1038
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 4: So twenty percent in the US, to be honest, that's

1039
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:26,760
Speaker 4: more than I would have guessed. And I saw recently

1040
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 4: France just announced that they're going to be doing a

1041
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 4: lot more nuclear reactors, are going to be building more

1042
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 4: as part of their climate change mitigation strategy. What sort

1043
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 4: of like predictions or projections are people working with, like

1044
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 4: how much do we need to increase nuclear power to

1045
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 4: be able to make a dent in this problem?

1046
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: Well, when the UN makes its predictions for like how

1047
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 1: we can avoid overheating the planet by more than one

1048
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 1: point five degrees, that's the current target. They have a

1049
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: variety of different strategies here, but every single strategy they

1050
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: describe includes increasing nuclear power. The most conservative one increases

1051
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: nuclear power by one hundred and fifty percent, and there

1052
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:03,439
Speaker 1: are other scenarios where it goes up to like four

1053
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 1: hundred percent increase. So the UN is basically counting on

1054
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: us increasing our nuclear production as a critical element to

1055
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 1: going to carbon neutral energy.

1056
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 4: So in my mind, if we're going to hit that goal,

1057
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 4: it's going to be critical to get people to think

1058
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 4: differently about nuclear power, and maybe part of getting them

1059
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 4: to think differently is by convincing them we've figured out

1060
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 4: some of the safety problems. I know there are some

1061
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:30,879
Speaker 4: advances in nuclear reactor safety. Can you tell us about

1062
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 4: some of those.

1063
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, A lot of the issues people are familiar with

1064
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 1: about nuclear power, these explosions, having high pressure water and

1065
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: producing these very dangerous elements which will take tens of

1066
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: thousands of years to decay, those are not features of

1067
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: more modern designs of nuclear power plants. So Jorge and

1068
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: I had an episode a few weeks ago about molten

1069
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: salt reactors that can operate at much lower pressure, like

1070
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressures, so that they don't have this danger possibly exploding,

1071
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:00,720
Speaker 1: and also they have a passive safety system. You actually

1072
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: mix the fuel in with the molten salt and then

1073
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: if the thing overheats, it melts a frozen salt plug

1074
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: and the whole thing just sort of drains out and

1075
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:12,799
Speaker 1: the reaction stops. So instead of needing active power to

1076
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,760
Speaker 1: cool your thing, you need power to keep the thing going.

1077
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: And so if something fails, it's much safer because the

1078
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: whole reaction just sort of screeches to a halt. And

1079
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 1: you can also use different fuels than uranium. If you

1080
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:27,240
Speaker 1: start with thorium instead of uranium two thirty eight, thorium

1081
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: decays into uranium two thirty three, which is excellent for

1082
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: fission and much more efficient because you can like use

1083
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:35,440
Speaker 1: all of the fuel rather than having part of it

1084
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: hang out and turn into these really terrible, long lasting isotopes.

1085
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 1: It will poison the earth for tens of thousands of years.

1086
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: It's still not pretty. I mean, you're producing things like

1087
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 1: caesium one thirty seven, which is super deadly, but its

1088
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: half life is like decades instead of tens of thousands

1089
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: of years, so you don't have to build facilities which

1090
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: will you survive any earthquake in the next fifty thousand years.

1091
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're reading about some of these new technologies

1092
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 4: for making the reactors safer. Like to be honest, it's

1093
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 4: all pretty dry reading, but I think it's some of

1094
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:11,839
Speaker 4: the most clever engineering solutions I think I've ever heard

1095
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 4: about are being employed in some of the are at

1096
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 4: least planned being employed in some of these reactors, like

1097
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 4: the plug that just melts away and drains even if

1098
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 4: there isn't power to stop the reaction. Like, there's some

1099
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:26,439
Speaker 4: really clever designs. Hopefully we get a chance to try

1100
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 4: some of these out.

1101
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an incredible variety. In your book with

1102
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: Zach Soonish, I know you guys had to cut this

1103
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,440
Speaker 1: chapter about nuclear power, but I encourage all of our

1104
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 1: listeners to go and follow the link will include in

1105
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: the show notes that has really fun and detailed dive

1106
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:43,279
Speaker 1: into the future of nuclear technologies and all these different varieties.

1107
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: So the short version is that the kind of technology

1108
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,959
Speaker 1: we're using today, these light water reactors, has particular disadvantages,

1109
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 1: but those advantages don't exist in every form of nuclear power.

1110
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: So there are safer, more stable varieties of nuclear power.

1111
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,839
Speaker 1: And among nuclear engineers, they're pretty confident that we could

1112
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 1: build nuclear reactors which are safe.

1113
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, some of the designs that you

1114
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 4: just mentioned have their own safety risks that have to

1115
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 4: be mitigated, which are a little bit different, But in general,

1116
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,240
Speaker 4: we are moving towards designs that are safer and it's

1117
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 4: an exciting time.

1118
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: But as we talked about, an issue is that we

1119
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 1: need this stuff today. We can't just wait fifteen twenty

1120
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:22,799
Speaker 1: years for these new reactors to get figured out and

1121
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 1: for the government to figure out how to make them

1122
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: safe and to regulate them, et cetera. We need this

1123
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: stuff very soon. And one problem with nuclear power is

1124
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: that it's not quick. You can't be like I'm going

1125
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: to build a nuclear power plant and then have one

1126
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 1: running a year later. It takes ten years, sometimes fifteen

1127
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: years because of all the regulations.

1128
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't think anybody wants to say we

1129
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 4: shouldn't be regulating nuclear power, but it does seem like

1130
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:48,800
Speaker 4: getting nuclear power plants online requires a lot more licensing

1131
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 4: that's a lot more expensive than you know, what comparable

1132
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 4: people would have to do, or you know, like what

1133
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 4: you'd have to go through to set up a new

1134
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 4: coal powered power plant, And that really does seem to

1135
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:01,919
Speaker 4: be stopping the implementation of a lot of these new technologies,

1136
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 4: which could make a big difference for climate change.

1137
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: They really could. And something I didn't appreciate it until

1138
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: recently is that there's a big variation from country to country.

1139
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,400
Speaker 1: Like this kind of regulatory overload is a feature of

1140
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,000
Speaker 1: the United States where basically every power plant is a

1141
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: one off design specific to that location, and there hasn't

1142
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: been a lot of like streamlining and modularization of these

1143
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: nuclear plants. And other countries, like in France, they basically

1144
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 1: build the same power plant over and over again, and

1145
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:32,360
Speaker 1: so they get really good at it and it becomes cheaper.

1146
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 1: I read this hilarious description where somebody said France has

1147
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: two types of reactors and hundreds of types of cheese.

1148
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 1: In the United States, it's the other way around. We

1149
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: sort of lost out on the deal there, didn't we.

1150
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I'm definitely wishing I was French right now.

1151
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,240
Speaker 4: But the United States is trying to address that. There's companies,

1152
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:53,359
Speaker 4: I think it's called New Scale is working on these

1153
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:57,120
Speaker 4: tiny modular reactors that need to be less sort of

1154
00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 4: made specifically to the location that they're going going to,

1155
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 4: and they can just be sort of like plugged in

1156
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 4: and they're small and cheaper, and as your town grows,

1157
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 4: you can plug more of them in sort of like

1158
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:10,800
Speaker 4: plugging in new batteries, and so recognize that this is

1159
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 4: a problem and people are trying to deal with it.

1160
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:14,439
Speaker 4: It's just sort of slow getting there.

1161
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's going to take a while. It's not

1162
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,479
Speaker 1: like something we can overhaul overnight, and unfortunately we don't

1163
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 1: have a lot of time left. Meanwhile, other countries like

1164
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 1: China and India and Korea are building new plants, and

1165
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:29,719
Speaker 1: they're also developing new styles of plants, like thorium is

1166
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 1: going to be a big deal in China and in India.

1167
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: India has a huge fraction of the world's thorium reserves

1168
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 1: and so it's investing in that. And a question is

1169
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:40,440
Speaker 1: like can the US do that? Also, can we pivot

1170
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:43,759
Speaker 1: and build new plants, because in the last ten years

1171
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 1: or so, we've just been retiring reactors and when that happens,

1172
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:50,040
Speaker 1: we end up replacing that with fossil fuels.

1173
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 4: And I think part of why we do that is

1174
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,520
Speaker 4: because nuclear power has a horrible pr problem. And that's

1175
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 4: because when something goes wrong, it goes wrong in like

1176
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 4: a big way that all of us are scared about.

1177
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 4: Because we watched Captain Planet as a kid and like

1178
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 4: the accidents have names that we remember, like Three Mile

1179
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,400
Speaker 4: Island and Fukushima and Chernobyl, but actually, you know, no

1180
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 4: deaths is ever the appropriate number of deaths for any

1181
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 4: technology is zero ideally, but like the number for nuclear

1182
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 4: reactor accidents, the number of deaths is actually way lower

1183
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 4: than the global picture for coal. So like three Mile Island,

1184
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:30,480
Speaker 4: I think that was like zero deaths. Fukushima had a

1185
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:33,800
Speaker 4: serious impact on the community, but I don't think it

1186
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 4: had a lot of deaths. Chernobyl had a few thousand, again,

1187
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 4: way too many. But if you had warned people, they

1188
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 4: could have gotten out of there, and you could have

1189
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 4: saved a lot of lives, just with advanced warning which

1190
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,560
Speaker 4: was available but was just withheld by the government. But

1191
00:57:49,040 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 4: coal deaths, you know, you get all of these chemicals

1192
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 4: into the environment. You get arsenic, mercury, lead, and whereas

1193
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:59,320
Speaker 4: nuclear waste can easily get contained in buckets and then

1194
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 4: stored far away from people with coal power plants, we

1195
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:04,959
Speaker 4: just spew this stuff into the atmosphere where we can't

1196
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 4: really capture it easily. And oh man, I can't remember

1197
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 4: the figures for how many people have died or estimated

1198
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:13,560
Speaker 4: to have died from coal depths. Do you happen to

1199
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 4: know those numbers?

1200
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: It's something like the number of people who have been

1201
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 1: killed in sixty years of nuclear power are killed every

1202
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 1: month by the coal industry and by natural gas. And

1203
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: you're right, like every time there's a nuclear disaster, it's

1204
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:28,439
Speaker 1: like an airplane crash, it's on the news, people talk

1205
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 1: about it, whereas you know, they're like natural gas explosions

1206
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 1: all the time. They kill dozens of people. It just

1207
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 1: happens so often that we don't even talk about it.

1208
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 1: It's like car crashes versus airplane travel. Cars are much

1209
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:42,320
Speaker 1: more dangerous than airplanes, but people are more scared of

1210
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 1: traveling on the airplanes. And so it's something of an

1211
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: emotional question. And I think we were joking about the

1212
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:49,919
Speaker 1: Simpsons earlier, but that's really part of it, is how

1213
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 1: it's been portrayed in the media. And I think partly

1214
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: it's just been unlucky, like the three Mile Island accident

1215
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: that happened in the US. It actually happened twelve days

1216
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 1: after the relief use of a movie The China Syndrome

1217
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 1: that portrays the meltdown at a fictional plant, and I

1218
00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:09,640
Speaker 1: think because that movie introduced the idea in people's minds

1219
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 1: and then made them scared, and then there was an

1220
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 1: actual accident like two weeks later. It gave people the

1221
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: impression like, wow, this dangerous thing I just heard about

1222
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: can actually happen and poison the planet. And it sort

1223
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 1: of sparked the anti nuclear movement.

1224
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 4: And that makes sense, you know, and the depths that

1225
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 4: happen in response to a problem with the nuclear power

1226
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:29,920
Speaker 4: plant like happen at that plant at that moment, whereas

1227
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 4: coal deaths are like way more disperse and harder to like,

1228
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 4: you know, get wrap your mind around. But you know,

1229
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 4: if you think about coal powered power plants as contributing

1230
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:41,760
Speaker 4: to global climate change and you know, increasing the frequency

1231
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 4: of things like tornadoes and wildfires and you know all

1232
00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 4: these other things that also kill people, the number is

1233
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 4: hard to estimate, but but it's a pretty big number.

1234
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 4: And so I feel like we need to have a

1235
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:54,760
Speaker 4: big pr push for nuclear power plants to sort of

1236
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 4: explain these numbers and still let people make decisions, because

1237
00:59:57,720 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 4: there's still complicated decisions that need to be made regard

1238
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 4: you know, weapons and stuff like that. But I do

1239
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 4: feel like people don't recognize that that nuclear power has

1240
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 4: a much better record in terms of, you know, death

1241
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,360
Speaker 4: toll than things like cold power power plans.

1242
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the risks of nuclear versus other sources,

1243
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 1: but really it's a question of like nuclear power versus

1244
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: climate change. Like climate change is definitely going to kill

1245
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 1: thousands or millions of people, and so in comparison, you know,

1246
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:27,720
Speaker 1: how do we balance the certain deaths of nuclear power

1247
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: versus certain deaths from climate change. It's a difficult topic.

1248
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 4: It's really difficult because, you know, especially if you factor

1249
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:35,920
Speaker 4: in governments that you don't trust getting accent or access

1250
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 4: to nuclear weapons, that could up the death toll quite

1251
01:00:38,880 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 4: a bit. You're going up against climate change. These are

1252
01:00:41,400 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 4: difficult decisions that need to be made.

1253
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:46,040
Speaker 1: So I reached out to an expert in nuclear engineering

1254
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 1: and also in science communication to ask her her opinion

1255
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: about how she thought we should talk to people and

1256
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 1: communities about nuclear power. Here's what she had to say.

1257
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 1: All right, well, then it's my pleasure to introduce to

1258
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:00,960
Speaker 1: the podcast Katie Numa, who is a graduate student in

1259
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: nuclear engineering. Katie, thanks very much for talking to us.

1260
01:01:03,920 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 15: Yeah, thanks for having me.

1261
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:07,880
Speaker 1: So my first question for you is about the future

1262
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:10,960
Speaker 1: of nuclear technology. In your opinion, what is the most

1263
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 1: promising technology for safe, clean nuclear power.

1264
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,240
Speaker 15: I get asked this question a lot, and I think

1265
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 15: people aren't expecting me to say that I don't have

1266
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 15: a favorite or most likely to succeed. I think that

1267
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:30,880
Speaker 15: there's a lot of possibility for the future of nuclear energy,

1268
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 15: and really it comes down to finding a good team

1269
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 15: of people who can build a company or an organization,

1270
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:42,120
Speaker 15: and how well they can fit into the landscape of

1271
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 15: existing energy production, and in the US, how well they

1272
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 15: can fit into the regulatory hurdles of getting a nuclear

1273
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:54,480
Speaker 15: reactor licensed. And honestly, I think a lot of different

1274
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 15: technologies could succeed, and it's not going to be the

1275
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 15: technology loan that determines whether or not they succeed.

1276
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 1: So then, what are the biggest hurdles to getting more

1277
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,520
Speaker 1: nuclear plants up? Is it the regulatory landscape.

1278
01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 15: There's definitely challenges there. At least in the United States,

1279
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:18,520
Speaker 15: our regulatory system is not really built for advanced nuclear technologies.

1280
01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 15: It's really been spun up to meet the existing reactors,

1281
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 15: which are one kind of reactor that use light water

1282
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 15: what we think of as regular water as a cooling technology.

1283
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:34,840
Speaker 15: But that's not the only thing. There's lots of other challenges.

1284
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 15: Cost is a big one too. It does take a

1285
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 15: lot of money to design a nuclear reactor, to construct

1286
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:45,920
Speaker 15: a nuclear reactor, and the cost of capital can be

1287
01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 15: something that really holds reactors back. If you need to

1288
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 15: spend billions of dollars up front and only start generating

1289
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 15: money or return on your investment ten or fifteen years later.

1290
01:02:58,760 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 15: You know, that's the kind of thing that a small

1291
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:04,520
Speaker 15: startup company can't necessarily do. So that's been a big challenge,

1292
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 15: and also just whether or not these technologies are valued

1293
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 15: by the countries or the states or the localities that

1294
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 15: they're being proposed in. Nuclear energy is a low carbon technology,

1295
01:03:15,920 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 15: but sometimes it's not recognized as having low carbon values.

1296
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 15: Sometimes it's not recognized for being a baseload or a

1297
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 15: high reliability source of electricity, and so countries can sort

1298
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:35,480
Speaker 15: of support it by giving you know, financial incentives, tax breaks.

1299
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 15: There are multiple ways of going about it if they

1300
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 15: support those values those attributes, or they can choose not

1301
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 15: to do that. And in today's world, we see that

1302
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:47,840
Speaker 15: it can be tough for our existing reactors to compete,

1303
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:52,160
Speaker 15: especially with low cost natural gas. But that's a fossil fuel.

1304
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 15: So there's a couple different challenges, but cost regulation those

1305
01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 15: are the big ones, as well as community support.

1306
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: So given the pressing issues of climate change, can we

1307
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: bring nuclear power online fast enough to provide the complement

1308
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:09,680
Speaker 1: we need to renewables? Is there still time to build

1309
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: new nuclear plants to fill in that gap.

1310
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 15: Yeah, so I think there are some disagreement. Some people

1311
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 15: believe if we just dropped everything and went full speed

1312
01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:23,320
Speaker 15: ahead on nuclear technology today, then nuclear could be the

1313
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:28,120
Speaker 15: bulk of our electricity going forward. I'm a little bit

1314
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 15: more of a pragmatist, and I like to say that

1315
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 15: nuclear energy is not going to be spun up realistically

1316
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 15: in a significant amount in the next five ten years,

1317
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:47,480
Speaker 15: but it can have a crucial role in that last

1318
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:53,919
Speaker 15: third of decarbonization with electricity, but also with energy. There's

1319
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 15: so much industrial need for energy, transportation need for energy,

1320
01:05:00,160 --> 01:05:03,280
Speaker 15: you know, cargo shipping, where those are going to be

1321
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 15: some of the biggest challenges to decarbonizing. Getting all the

1322
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:11,720
Speaker 15: way from fifty percent low carbon to seventy five to

1323
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 15: one hundred is a lot easier than going from zero

1324
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:18,040
Speaker 15: to twenty five to fifty even, and I think that's

1325
01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:22,720
Speaker 15: where nuclear technology can really play a valuable role, but

1326
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 15: only if we continue to support it and work on

1327
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 15: it now, because this is a long runway, and if

1328
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:33,480
Speaker 15: we don't support it now, then it won't be ready

1329
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:37,120
Speaker 15: in time to help us with these long term challenges.

1330
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:40,920
Speaker 1: I see other countries China and India bringing nuclear plants

1331
01:05:41,040 --> 01:05:43,320
Speaker 1: up to speed much more quickly than it seems like

1332
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 1: we can do in the US. Is that a good

1333
01:05:45,280 --> 01:05:47,680
Speaker 1: role model for the US. Should we be streamlining our

1334
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:51,400
Speaker 1: regulations to follow China? Or is that like a potential hazard,

1335
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:54,440
Speaker 1: something that might lead to like another Chernobyl if things

1336
01:05:54,480 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 1: aren't managed accurately. What's the better model?

1337
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 15: Well, I do think there are just some differences that

1338
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,040
Speaker 15: we're never going to square. We don't have a state

1339
01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:07,080
Speaker 15: owned electricity system in the US, and I don't think

1340
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:10,520
Speaker 15: we're moving towards that, so I don't think we could

1341
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:15,440
Speaker 15: ever even be a reflection, a one to one reflection

1342
01:06:15,640 --> 01:06:19,240
Speaker 15: of those kind of systems. But certainly there are a

1343
01:06:19,280 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 15: lot of criticisms in the way that the existing regulatory

1344
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 15: structure in the US really sort of hampers innovation and

1345
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 15: makes it tough for these future technologies to even see

1346
01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:37,960
Speaker 15: a pathway to getting licensed. Obviously, regulations are super important,

1347
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:42,320
Speaker 15: very pro regulation. You know, these are technologies that have

1348
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:46,400
Speaker 15: the potential to be dangerous, but there needs to be

1349
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:49,440
Speaker 15: a pathway for them to succeed, and this is something

1350
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:53,080
Speaker 15: that the US is working on. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission

1351
01:06:53,120 --> 01:06:56,080
Speaker 15: is in the process of developing a new set of

1352
01:06:56,120 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 15: regulations for these advanced reactors, but that will be ready

1353
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 15: until twenty twenty four at the absolute earliest. So certainly

1354
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:08,640
Speaker 15: a lot of US wish that there was a way

1355
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:11,400
Speaker 15: to speed this process up to give these technologies a

1356
01:07:11,400 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 15: fair chance to succeed, because, like you said, there is

1357
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:19,440
Speaker 15: a chance that the US is too slow in doing this,

1358
01:07:19,640 --> 01:07:21,920
Speaker 15: and maybe we'll build some of these in the US,

1359
01:07:22,040 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 15: but maybe Russian and China is going to run ahead

1360
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:27,520
Speaker 15: of US. And I don't think that's a safety concern,

1361
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:29,760
Speaker 15: you know, I don't want people to be afraid. Oh no,

1362
01:07:29,880 --> 01:07:32,840
Speaker 15: a Russian reactor is going to be built in X country,

1363
01:07:32,960 --> 01:07:34,640
Speaker 15: or a Chinese reactor is going to be built in

1364
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:38,600
Speaker 15: why country. I'm not considering that a safety risk. But

1365
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 15: the US does like to see itself as a leader

1366
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:46,160
Speaker 15: in nuclear technology and a leader in the diplomatic benefits

1367
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:50,680
Speaker 15: that come with sharing our domestically produced technology. So certainly

1368
01:07:50,680 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 15: I would like to see the US continue to be

1369
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:56,400
Speaker 15: a global player, but I'm also excited to see that

1370
01:07:56,480 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 15: other countries are running full steam ahead and exporting their

1371
01:07:59,600 --> 01:08:00,400
Speaker 15: own tech anology.

1372
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the risk. Then, you're an expert in

1373
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:05,440
Speaker 1: nuclear engineering, but you also have a lot of experience

1374
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:08,120
Speaker 1: in science communication. How do we talk about the risk

1375
01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:11,000
Speaker 1: with the general public and policymakers who are not experts

1376
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: in a way that's fair and balanced and lets people

1377
01:08:14,120 --> 01:08:17,799
Speaker 1: address it without necessarily making them overreact to the scary

1378
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:18,320
Speaker 1: side of it.

1379
01:08:18,520 --> 01:08:22,000
Speaker 15: So one thing that I'm a huge advocate of is

1380
01:08:22,080 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 15: the process of consent and even true participation from a community.

1381
01:08:27,760 --> 01:08:34,200
Speaker 15: So historically in the US, there's been a lot of decide, announced,

1382
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 15: defend type of building nuclear reactors. A companies said we're

1383
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:40,400
Speaker 15: going to build it here, and we're just going to

1384
01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:43,639
Speaker 15: fight anyone who disagrees with us. We're going to fight

1385
01:08:43,720 --> 01:08:47,559
Speaker 15: any activists and sometimes the nuclear company one and sometimes

1386
01:08:47,640 --> 01:08:52,160
Speaker 15: the activists one. But pitting against each other like that

1387
01:08:52,840 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 15: is not how you make people feel like they're heard,

1388
01:08:56,960 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 15: like their concerns are valued. And it's a lot tougher,

1389
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:05,439
Speaker 15: it's a lot slower to actually try to work with

1390
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:09,920
Speaker 15: a community from the start. But we know from studying

1391
01:09:10,040 --> 01:09:14,240
Speaker 15: how humans perceive risk that when people feel like there's

1392
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:16,760
Speaker 15: an outlet for their voice to be heard, when they

1393
01:09:16,760 --> 01:09:21,640
Speaker 15: feel like they have the ability to ask their questions

1394
01:09:21,760 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 15: and even provide feedback that may be taken into account

1395
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:30,040
Speaker 15: that they have some control over the process, that they

1396
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:34,599
Speaker 15: then turn around and feel more trust They feel more secure,

1397
01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:40,000
Speaker 15: and so I think it's super important that anyone deciding

1398
01:09:40,040 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 15: to build a nuclear technology really rethink their strategy of

1399
01:09:44,600 --> 01:09:49,679
Speaker 15: working with the community and even incorporating their feedback as

1400
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:54,000
Speaker 15: a way to change the risk perception, which can be

1401
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 15: so hard for scientists because I'm not making any you know,

1402
01:09:57,479 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 15: the reactors are already safe. Nuclear engineers often say, well,

1403
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,120
Speaker 15: we just need to convince people it's safe. But really

1404
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:08,320
Speaker 15: working with the community and keeping them as partners is

1405
01:10:08,360 --> 01:10:12,280
Speaker 15: going to be more effective in changing people's minds about

1406
01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:17,880
Speaker 15: the risk than trying to teach them principles of risk

1407
01:10:17,920 --> 01:10:21,479
Speaker 15: analysis or throwing a bunch of numbers at them and saying,

1408
01:10:21,520 --> 01:10:22,680
Speaker 15: why won't you believe me?

1409
01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:25,479
Speaker 1: So you're saying it's more of including them in the

1410
01:10:25,520 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 1: process and making them feel comfortable than like an educational

1411
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:31,000
Speaker 1: process where you want them to come to the same

1412
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:31,920
Speaker 1: decision on their own.

1413
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:35,400
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean there is some education there, but one

1414
01:10:35,479 --> 01:10:38,960
Speaker 15: of the real challenges is that oftentimes we view education

1415
01:10:39,080 --> 01:10:41,880
Speaker 15: as a one way street. We have the answers. We

1416
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 15: understand the science and you don't. We're going to tell

1417
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:49,160
Speaker 15: you what you need to know, and that is not

1418
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:52,000
Speaker 15: a way that people's minds are changed. I think many

1419
01:10:52,040 --> 01:10:54,240
Speaker 15: of us can think of a time where we felt

1420
01:10:54,240 --> 01:10:57,479
Speaker 15: that we understood something better than our friend or family member,

1421
01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:01,160
Speaker 15: and if we just told them, well, we knew that

1422
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:06,120
Speaker 15: they would change their minds. And it doesn't work like

1423
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 15: that very often. And so if we rethink how we

1424
01:11:10,160 --> 01:11:13,280
Speaker 15: can go from a one way flow of information to

1425
01:11:13,360 --> 01:11:16,800
Speaker 15: a dialogue and actually recognize that people who've been living

1426
01:11:16,840 --> 01:11:19,759
Speaker 15: in a community for years and perhaps their whole life

1427
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:24,599
Speaker 15: may actually have something to teach the nuclear company. They

1428
01:11:24,600 --> 01:11:28,599
Speaker 15: may actually be able to provide useful input if we

1429
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 15: open that flow back up and don't just collect public

1430
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:35,400
Speaker 15: comments and then throw them in a box, but actually

1431
01:11:35,439 --> 01:11:38,720
Speaker 15: respond to them. That's what I'm saying. So there is

1432
01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:41,559
Speaker 15: still education, but it's two way. I think it's a

1433
01:11:41,600 --> 01:11:42,720
Speaker 15: real dialogue.

1434
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:44,280
Speaker 1: That's a very cool way to think about it. So

1435
01:11:44,320 --> 01:11:46,400
Speaker 1: then last question, let me ask you to peer into

1436
01:11:46,400 --> 01:11:49,920
Speaker 1: your nuclear crystal ball. If you had to predict what

1437
01:11:50,000 --> 01:11:53,559
Speaker 1: the energy mix would be in the US in twenty

1438
01:11:53,680 --> 01:11:56,759
Speaker 1: forty or twenty fifty, what do you think is the future.

1439
01:11:56,880 --> 01:11:58,439
Speaker 1: We're going to have more nuclear, we're going to have

1440
01:11:58,520 --> 01:11:59,120
Speaker 1: less nuclear.

1441
01:11:59,240 --> 01:12:01,679
Speaker 15: The range of possi they is so large. I would

1442
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:07,800
Speaker 15: really like to see thirty to forty percent of our

1443
01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 15: electricity mix being nuclear. I think it's harder to predict

1444
01:12:12,040 --> 01:12:16,320
Speaker 15: with energy, and honestly, I think the bounds are very large.

1445
01:12:16,439 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 15: I think that the reality is we may stumble flat

1446
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:23,639
Speaker 15: on our face and that number could be close to zero.

1447
01:12:23,960 --> 01:12:27,240
Speaker 15: I also think that if we hit the magic spark

1448
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:30,439
Speaker 15: with some of these technologies working right now, that we

1449
01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:34,400
Speaker 15: could see that number closer to France and see fifty

1450
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:37,639
Speaker 15: sixty seventy. But I think both of those are less likely,

1451
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:39,840
Speaker 15: and I'm going to put myself in the middle of

1452
01:12:39,880 --> 01:12:42,719
Speaker 15: this sort of thirty to forty percent with the bulk

1453
01:12:42,840 --> 01:12:46,080
Speaker 15: made up by renewable sources. I don't think we're on

1454
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:50,560
Speaker 15: the pathway right now to fully decarbonize even in that timeline.

1455
01:12:50,720 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 1: All right, great, thanks very much for sharing your ideas

1456
01:12:53,040 --> 01:12:54,200
Speaker 1: and your thoughts. Really appreciate it.

1457
01:12:54,280 --> 01:12:55,240
Speaker 15: Yeah, thanks for having me.

1458
01:12:55,520 --> 01:12:57,519
Speaker 1: All right, what did you think about her comments, Kelly?

1459
01:12:57,920 --> 01:12:59,639
Speaker 4: I think she made a lot of really great points.

1460
01:12:59,680 --> 01:13:02,000
Speaker 4: I think nuclear power is something that you can't just

1461
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:05,120
Speaker 4: sort of push on people, or you can, but getting

1462
01:13:05,160 --> 01:13:08,919
Speaker 4: community buy in is an important part of getting nuclear

1463
01:13:08,920 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 4: power in a lot more cities. Maybe you can push

1464
01:13:11,120 --> 01:13:13,240
Speaker 4: it on one city, but the pushback is probably going

1465
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:15,240
Speaker 4: to make you less likely to be able to put

1466
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:18,080
Speaker 4: a nuclear power plant in some other town. So I

1467
01:13:18,080 --> 01:13:19,960
Speaker 4: think she had some really good points about the way

1468
01:13:19,960 --> 01:13:21,639
Speaker 4: we need to move forward. And I think her prediction

1469
01:13:21,680 --> 01:13:23,519
Speaker 4: for how many nuclear power plants we might end up

1470
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:26,360
Speaker 4: with were super reasonable, which is a pretty rare thing

1471
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:29,760
Speaker 4: for a prediction these days. And so yeah, I think

1472
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:30,759
Speaker 4: she made some great points.

1473
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:33,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree, it's something that seems like it has

1474
01:13:33,240 --> 01:13:36,120
Speaker 1: to be part of the mix. It definitely has its disadvantages,

1475
01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:39,600
Speaker 1: but there are improvements in technology, and a question is

1476
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:42,839
Speaker 1: whether we can bring on a new generation of nuclear

1477
01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:46,280
Speaker 1: power plants fast enough to solve these problems which are

1478
01:13:46,320 --> 01:13:49,760
Speaker 1: happening already today. It's already sort of too late to

1479
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,360
Speaker 1: be attacking these questions, and so we need today's solutions

1480
01:13:53,360 --> 01:13:56,639
Speaker 1: to yesterday's problems rather than tomorrow's ideas. So I think

1481
01:13:56,640 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: to wrap up what we know is that the future

1482
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:02,080
Speaker 1: of energy production will be mostly renewables. We're going to

1483
01:14:02,160 --> 01:14:05,320
Speaker 1: need like twenty percent to come from something else, and

1484
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:08,840
Speaker 1: so rather than burning coal, it seems like nuclear power

1485
01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:11,719
Speaker 1: would be a better option, unless, of course, there's dramatic

1486
01:14:11,760 --> 01:14:15,200
Speaker 1: innovation in battery technology, or in carbon capture, or in

1487
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:17,679
Speaker 1: one of these industries. So probably be a big mix

1488
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:19,680
Speaker 1: of all of these things. But I think without some

1489
01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:22,640
Speaker 1: dramatic change in the landscape, nuclear power is going to

1490
01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 1: be part of it.

1491
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:25,439
Speaker 4: I agree, it's at least something we should be talking

1492
01:14:25,479 --> 01:14:27,920
Speaker 4: about a lot more than we're talking about right now.

1493
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:30,479
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody for joining us in that deep dive into

1494
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,719
Speaker 1: the risks and potential benefits of nuclear power, and thanks

1495
01:14:33,760 --> 01:14:35,040
Speaker 1: Kelly for joining us today.

1496
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:36,400
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I had a lot of fun,

1497
01:14:36,600 --> 01:14:38,120
Speaker 4: or as much fun as you can have when you're

1498
01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:40,160
Speaker 4: talking about global catastrophes.

1499
01:14:40,600 --> 01:14:44,679
Speaker 1: Hey, we got some Simpsons references in there, all right.

1500
01:14:44,720 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone, tune in next time. Thanks for listening, and

1501
01:14:55,200 --> 01:14:57,920
Speaker 1: remember that Daniel and Jorge explain the universe is a

1502
01:14:57,960 --> 01:15:03,800
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1503
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:07,599
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: When you pop a piece of cheese into your mouth,

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Speaker 1: people in the dairy industry are. That's why they're working

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1513
01:15:48,600 --> 01:15:51,200
Speaker 3: As a United Explorer Card member, you can earn fifty

1514
01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:55,160
Speaker 3: thousand bonus miles plus look forward to extraordinary travel rewards,

1515
01:15:55,240 --> 01:15:57,720
Speaker 3: including a free checked bag, two times the miles on

1516
01:15:57,840 --> 01:16:00,479
Speaker 3: United purchases and two times the miles on dining and

1517
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:03,880
Speaker 3: at hotels. Become and explore and seek out unforgettable places

1518
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:07,280
Speaker 3: while enjoying rewards everywhere you travel. Cards issued by JP

1519
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:11,080
Speaker 3: Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC subject to credit approval.

1520
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:13,280
Speaker 3: Offer subject to change terms apply.

1521
01:16:14,560 --> 01:16:18,000
Speaker 12: There are children, friends, and families walking, riding on paths

1522
01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:20,519
Speaker 12: and roads every day. Remember they're real people with loved

1523
01:16:20,520 --> 01:16:22,720
Speaker 12: ones who need them to get home safely. Protect our

1524
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:26,280
Speaker 12: cyclists and pedestrians because they're people too. Go Safely, California

1525
01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:28,600
Speaker 12: From the California Office of Traffic Safety and Caltrans