Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / New Voices - Is Nuclear Energy The Key To Powering The Age Of AI?

Transcript

New Voices - Is Nuclear Energy The Key To Powering The Age Of AI? · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from
0:04
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
0:07
Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in
0:09
Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow, myself
0:14
Speaker 1: sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to
0:15
Speaker 1: pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had
0:19
Speaker 1: one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
0:22
Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's why
0:25
Speaker 1: I was able to go to college. Little did he
0:28
Speaker 1: know how important that would be in that moment. Well,
0:32
Speaker 1: guess what. That's why I am here to tell you
0:34
Speaker 1: about Etho's life. They can provide you with peace of
0:37
Speaker 1: mind knowing your family is protected even if the worst
0:41
Speaker 1: comes to pass. Ethos is an online platform that makes
0:44
Speaker 1: getting life insurance fast and easy, all designed to protect
0:47
Speaker 1: your family's future in minutes, not months. There's no complicated
0:51
Speaker 1: process and it's one hundred percent online. There's no medical
0:55
Speaker 1: exam require you just answer a few health questions online.
0:58
Speaker 1: You can get a quote and it's a little ten minutes,
1:00
Speaker 1: and you can get same day coverage without ever leaving
1:03
Speaker 1: your home. You can get up to three million dollars
1:06
Speaker 1: in coverage and some policies start as low as two
1:08
Speaker 1: dollars a day that would be billed monthly. As of
1:12
Speaker 1: March twenty twenty five, Business Insider named Ethos the number
1:15
Speaker 1: one no medical exam instant life insurance provider. So protect
1:19
Speaker 1: your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free
1:23
Speaker 1: quoted Ethos dot com slash chuck. So again, that's Ethos
1:27
Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary and the
1:32
Speaker 1: rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, life
1:35
Speaker 1: insurance is something you should really think about, especially if
1:38
Speaker 1: you've got a growing family. Hello thereon Happy twenty twenty six.
1:46
Speaker 1: This is my first episode of Calendar Year twenty twenty six.
1:51
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a there's a I've been you know.
1:53
Speaker 1: One of the beauties of being a media entrepreneur these
1:59
Speaker 1: days is you can and do these little derivatives of
2:04
Speaker 1: your media company. You can just do it on your own. Well.
2:07
Speaker 1: One of the efforts I've made for my YouTube channel,
2:10
Speaker 1: and please, if you didn't know I had a YouTube channel,
2:13
Speaker 1: please go over there, like and subscribe. We'd love to
2:15
Speaker 1: have you. For those of you that want to have
2:17
Speaker 1: a watch, see this ugly mug on your screens. You
2:22
Speaker 1: get to do that via the YouTube channel. The whole
2:24
Speaker 1: podcast is always done also as a video podcast, but
2:27
Speaker 1: I have a separate YouTube series called New Voices, and
2:31
Speaker 1: we run to every month and it's always one from
2:36
Speaker 1: sort of stage left, one from stage right, or something
2:41
Speaker 1: from sort of stage X, meaning it's not easily a
2:44
Speaker 1: partisan issue, but it's an expert and that's sort of
2:46
Speaker 1: where this one fits. And we've dropped a few of
2:49
Speaker 1: these interviews on this audio feed on the audio side
2:52
Speaker 1: of things, but this has mostly been on the YouTube
2:55
Speaker 1: side of things, and I've just a great series of guests.
2:57
Speaker 1: I really encourage you to go check it out because
3:01
Speaker 1: it is really more of an exercise of getting to
3:06
Speaker 1: know who these folks are. We know that the influencer
3:08
Speaker 1: world is where more this is going, so you should
3:15
Speaker 1: get to know who these people are, what makes them tick,
3:17
Speaker 1: how do they become interested, And that's kind of where
3:20
Speaker 1: I want to go. Well, this interview, the one we're
3:24
Speaker 1: featuring today, is an interview with a woman named Grace
3:28
Speaker 1: vander High. She is a Miss America back in twenty
3:31
Speaker 1: twenty three, but she's also a nuclear engineer and works
3:34
Speaker 1: in the as a nuclear engineer and we spend a
3:39
Speaker 1: lion's share of our time. I mean, yes, she's out
3:42
Speaker 1: there trying to promote that, Hey, nuclear energy is clean energy,
3:48
Speaker 1: it is the future. I am somebody who accepts that premise.
3:51
Speaker 1: I think that you know, if you're looking for cleaner
3:55
Speaker 1: energy that and I know there's a lot of fear
4:00
Speaker 1: with nuclear I know, and we've it is funny how
4:04
Speaker 1: nuclear energy is just it is. It is super safe.
4:09
Speaker 1: But when it's not safe, it's catastrophic. Right, And if
4:13
Speaker 1: you're of a certain age, I can just say the
4:15
Speaker 1: words three Mile Island and you will know something. Or
4:19
Speaker 1: I say Chernobyle or I say Fukushima. Right, And these
4:23
Speaker 1: are three sort of big nuclear reactor catastrophes that happened
4:29
Speaker 1: in my lifetime, and they all sort of set back
4:33
Speaker 1: the progress of embracing more nuclear energy. Now, of course,
4:37
Speaker 1: there's a lot more nuclear energy powering our grid then
4:40
Speaker 1: you may realize even today, and it is it is
4:45
Speaker 1: still likely the quickest way we can get to a
4:52
Speaker 1: cleaner climate, and for all of those goals. It's been
4:58
Speaker 1: fascinating to me to watch the environmental community on this issue.
5:01
Speaker 1: In particular, there's a divide in the environmental community on this, right,
5:05
Speaker 1: there are some that are very much sort of more
5:09
Speaker 1: focused on clean energy in the climate space that embraces nuclear.
5:13
Speaker 1: There are those in the environmental space who sort of
5:16
Speaker 1: maybe grew up in the no Nukes era of the
5:19
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties that views all nuclear as bad, whether
5:23
Speaker 1: for weapons or energy, or that it's just too uncertain
5:27
Speaker 1: to unsafe. What are you going to do with peclear waste?
5:29
Speaker 1: And obviously nuclear waste is the big challenge, right, that's
5:32
Speaker 1: still the challenge because of NIMBI. Nobody wants nuclear waste
5:35
Speaker 1: buried in their backyard. Perhaps we'll figure out how to
5:39
Speaker 1: put nuclear waste on the moon, So I don't know, right,
5:42
Speaker 1: but that certainly, or we will minimize the waste and
5:45
Speaker 1: we can create even more clean fusion. Well, I found
5:50
Speaker 1: this interview to be very informative on sort of the
5:52
Speaker 1: future of nuclear energy, the idea of these small nuclear
5:55
Speaker 1: reactors powering some of these data set which has been
6:00
Speaker 1: floated out there. I know Bill Gates is an investor
6:03
Speaker 1: in some of these things, but I do believe that
6:07
Speaker 1: energy in general, and this is why I felt like
6:09
Speaker 1: this was an important interview to share with you guys here.
6:12
Speaker 1: I think we all got to get smarter about the
6:14
Speaker 1: energy issue. I think the demands for power are going
6:18
Speaker 1: to continue to be an issue in real life and
6:23
Speaker 1: in our political and in the political world. There's no
6:26
Speaker 1: doubt that demand for power is up. And you know,
6:32
Speaker 1: there's just so much power we have out there, and
6:35
Speaker 1: we're going to see electric bills go up. This is
6:38
Speaker 1: going to be a huge issue. It is going to
6:40
Speaker 1: get weaponized against AI companies, against big tech and these
6:43
Speaker 1: data centers. Some of it is legitimate criticism and some
6:46
Speaker 1: of it is over hyph criticism, and you've got to
6:48
Speaker 1: separate the fact from the fiction on this. But there's
6:53
Speaker 1: certainly we know, Look, I live in the state of
6:55
Speaker 1: Virginia and we're already seeing the real impact of the
6:58
Speaker 1: increased demand and that the data centers are grabbing from
7:02
Speaker 1: energy and there's no new jobs that could exchange in that.
7:05
Speaker 1: So is nuclear Are these many nuclear reactors going to
7:09
Speaker 1: be the answer to minimizing the impact financially on everyday
7:15
Speaker 1: Americans when it comes to our increased demand for power. So,
7:18
Speaker 1: just in general, I think it's a you know, if
7:23
Speaker 1: you're like me and you're curious, but you don't feel
7:25
Speaker 1: like you know enough about the nuclear industry. I think
7:27
Speaker 1: you'll enjoy this conversation. This is not paid for by
7:30
Speaker 1: the nuclear industry. This is not you know, I think
7:33
Speaker 1: this is one of those where I just simply if
7:36
Speaker 1: you're skeptical of nukes, I understand why you are. I
7:42
Speaker 1: think it's I simply would say, just take a listen
7:45
Speaker 1: to this conversation, and you know, keep learning about the
7:49
Speaker 1: industry in general, keep learning about, you know, the the
7:54
Speaker 1: pros and cons of this. But I am somebody who
7:58
Speaker 1: believes that if we want to get if we want
8:01
Speaker 1: to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, the only realistic
8:05
Speaker 1: way to do it is to embrace nuclear all right.
8:08
Speaker 2: So with that.
8:10
Speaker 1: My conversation with a former Miss America and nuclear engineer
8:15
Speaker 1: Grace vander High, and joining me now for our new
8:21
Speaker 1: Voices series. I want to introduce you to Grace vander High.
8:25
Speaker 1: She twenty three Miss America title holder. She is also
8:30
Speaker 1: a nuclear engineer. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
8:35
Speaker 1: With that, she is spent time trying to promote nuclear
8:39
Speaker 1: energy both to the left and the right, and in
8:42
Speaker 1: many ways this is look. I have a strong opinion
8:46
Speaker 1: on nuclear energy. I am also one of those who
8:49
Speaker 1: thinks it is the answer to clean energy going forward.
8:53
Speaker 1: It is the logical place we are going to head.
8:56
Speaker 1: The question is how quickly can we get there, how
8:58
Speaker 1: safely can we get there? And how hard is it
9:02
Speaker 1: going to be to get folks to buy in? But
9:05
Speaker 1: that's where we begin, Grace, it's nice to meet you.
9:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to our new Voices series.
9:10
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Chuck, and all really great questions. I'm
9:14
Speaker 2: super stoked to be chatting about all things nuclear and
9:17
Speaker 2: everything else. You know, I'm an open book.
9:20
Speaker 1: Well, let's start with what got you into nuclear engineering?
9:24
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, you're a freshman in college,
9:26
Speaker 1: you're a senior in high school, and did you know
9:29
Speaker 1: then I'm going to major I'm going to be a
9:31
Speaker 1: nuclear engineer? Or is was it sooner than that? Later
9:36
Speaker 1: than that walk me through? Walk me through? Or interest
9:38
Speaker 1: in it?
9:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fun story. So when I was sixteen
9:42
Speaker 2: years old, I was in like my junior year, senior
9:44
Speaker 2: year of high school. I had no idea what I
9:46
Speaker 2: wanted to do with my life, as most sixteen year
9:48
Speaker 2: olds don't. And I'll never forget I got into engineering
9:51
Speaker 2: because I liked math and science. But if you know engineering,
9:55
Speaker 2: there are dozens of different types of engineering to major.
9:58
Speaker 2: And I ended up going going through and I learned
10:01
Speaker 2: about nuclear engineering through touring Texas A and M. And
10:06
Speaker 2: the only reason I thought it was cool is just
10:08
Speaker 2: because it sounds cool. I didn't know anything about nuclear science.
10:11
Speaker 2: I didn't even know nuclear energy was really like a
10:14
Speaker 2: I knew it was a thing, but I'm like, this
10:16
Speaker 2: isn't like a thing in the United States, right, And
10:21
Speaker 2: I remember reading it and just thinking, man, this is
10:22
Speaker 2: going to be really like that's such a cool sounding career.
10:25
Speaker 2: And the other option was aerospace engineering. And I ended
10:28
Speaker 2: up going back home and talking with my dad, who
10:31
Speaker 2: was a civil engineer throughout his entire career, and it's like, okay, Dad,
10:34
Speaker 2: I'm thinking either nuclear or aerospace engineering. You know, what
10:38
Speaker 2: are your thoughts? And he looks at me. This is
10:40
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, and he goes, Grace, don't go into
10:43
Speaker 2: nuclear there's no future there. And that's to a sixteen
10:48
Speaker 2: year old teenage girl, means you're going to go and
10:50
Speaker 2: do the opposite, right, Oh so you were oh yeah,
10:54
Speaker 2: watch me exactly. So I initially got into nuclear engineering
10:58
Speaker 2: out of spite against my father unfortunate. I wish I
11:01
Speaker 2: had a cool poetic backstory, but I really don't. But
11:05
Speaker 2: I always say what kept me in the field is
11:07
Speaker 2: when I actually had the opportunity to learn about it
11:10
Speaker 2: from experts and people who truly understand it. That first
11:13
Speaker 2: semester in school, and honestly, that whole first year in school,
11:17
Speaker 2: when I was pursuing a nuclear engineering major, I learned
11:21
Speaker 2: that there are, indeed, you know, more than two nuclear
11:23
Speaker 2: reactors in the United States. There's about ninety four right
11:26
Speaker 2: now that are operating, creating about twenty percent of America's electricity.
11:31
Speaker 2: I started working at a fusion lab, so I started
11:33
Speaker 2: seeing some of the technology that could be a part
11:36
Speaker 2: of our future energy grid. There on the other side
11:40
Speaker 2: of nuclear science, you know, I learned nuclear medicine is huge.
11:43
Speaker 2: We don't talk about nuclear medicine that frequently. The same
11:47
Speaker 2: person who told me not to go into it. My
11:49
Speaker 2: dad is a two time cancer survivor. He is alive
11:52
Speaker 2: because of nuclear medicine helping him with his treatments. So
11:57
Speaker 2: that's kind of what made me such a passionate advocate.
11:59
Speaker 2: So I started in it out of spite, but stayed
12:02
Speaker 2: in it out of passion.
12:04
Speaker 1: So it's funny you talk about that you had a
12:07
Speaker 1: father who's an engineer, and that sort of at least
12:11
Speaker 1: clearly is what sparked your interest in engineering, right, which
12:13
Speaker 1: is in different phases I had. My grandfather was an emmy.
12:17
Speaker 1: He was a mechanical engineer, Okay, yeah, and he was
12:23
Speaker 1: part of building sugarcane plants and then rice plants and
12:27
Speaker 1: then popcorn plants and things like that, which were and
12:32
Speaker 1: he always wanted he was trying early on, I was
12:35
Speaker 1: always pretty interested in math. I went down more of
12:37
Speaker 1: a music road than a math than that, using the
12:40
Speaker 1: same sort of math thing. But I remember early on
12:42
Speaker 1: he introduced me to a slide role, and he was
12:44
Speaker 1: really intent on making me understand how to use a
12:47
Speaker 1: slide role. So I'm very curious, A, do you have
12:50
Speaker 1: a slide role? And B how early in life did
12:53
Speaker 1: your dad teach you how to use a slide role?
12:55
Speaker 2: Honestly, no, I don't. It really isn't a big part
12:58
Speaker 2: of it. I don't know. I definitely like I do
13:02
Speaker 2: use them every once in a while, but I don't
13:03
Speaker 2: have my own.
13:04
Speaker 1: We don't really have to do anymore. Right, like slide roles,
13:07
Speaker 1: it's old school, you know, there's all these great like tools.
13:10
Speaker 1: You know, my grandfather was so disappointed as computers. He
13:13
Speaker 1: died in the early nineties, but it was just starting
13:15
Speaker 1: he realized that sort of all of his skill set
13:17
Speaker 1: was obsolete. Right, It's probably how coders feel today, right, Yeah, Yeah,
13:22
Speaker 1: AI's got a code. You don't have to learn it anymore,
13:24
Speaker 1: you know.
13:24
Speaker 2: Now, it's crazy. Well, I think we still have a
13:26
Speaker 2: good amount of ways to go before that really could
13:29
Speaker 2: become like a major worry, But it is definitely something
13:33
Speaker 2: that is like very valid where we're seeing this transfer
13:36
Speaker 2: of skills right now. And I actually have a lot
13:37
Speaker 2: of friends that like just graduated with degrees and they're
13:40
Speaker 2: now like, Okay, I don't even know if I'm ever
13:42
Speaker 2: going to have a job anymore because a I is
13:44
Speaker 2: going to do it. So this evolution of tools and
13:47
Speaker 2: resources that we have is really interesting. But I'm also
13:50
Speaker 2: really glad that you came to the conclusion that a
13:51
Speaker 2: slide rule is antiquated. Will go with that, because I
13:55
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want to say it.
13:57
Speaker 1: No, no, no, you don't have to.
13:59
Speaker 2: Let's start.
14:00
Speaker 1: Let's go back to what was your I understand the
14:03
Speaker 1: mindset you know, it's interesting with nuclear in this country,
14:09
Speaker 1: you know. I want to say it was about six
14:13
Speaker 1: months before the Fukushima disaster that Barack Obama became the
14:18
Speaker 1: first president to green light a brand new nuclear reactor.
14:23
Speaker 1: Then that we'd had I think not it had been
14:26
Speaker 1: probably thirty years since we were going to build a
14:28
Speaker 1: brand new one, and it looked like the public, the
14:33
Speaker 1: public had sort of turned more positive on nuclear energy,
14:36
Speaker 1: right we'd you know, Chernobyl was in the past, through
14:40
Speaker 1: My Island was in the past, and then Fukujima happens,
14:43
Speaker 1: and it just whatever momentum the nuclear industry had in
14:47
Speaker 1: sort of winning the argument that this is the answer
14:52
Speaker 1: to clean energy, more so than solar, more so than
14:54
Speaker 1: when in renewables that nuclear was the answer. How much
14:59
Speaker 1: does the shadow of Fukushima sort of still haunt the
15:03
Speaker 1: nuclear industry in your opinion?
15:05
Speaker 2: Well, we definitely implemented a lot of lessons learned, so
15:08
Speaker 2: like I could tell you just this morning, I was
15:10
Speaker 2: working on my ERO training, right, so, our emergency response
15:13
Speaker 2: organization training that all nuclear employees or engineers, everybody's assigned
15:19
Speaker 2: some type of role for emergency response organization capacities, and
15:25
Speaker 2: literally in the training this morning, we go through and
15:27
Speaker 2: re establish, Okay, what are the lessons learned from our
15:30
Speaker 2: Fukushima experience ultimately and how is that implemented. And one
15:34
Speaker 2: of the things that we don't necessarily, like not everybody
15:37
Speaker 2: necessarily knows about the nuclear industry is within a twenty
15:42
Speaker 2: four hour drive from every single nuclear power plant, there
15:45
Speaker 2: is a facility that has every single backup pump, every
15:48
Speaker 2: single backup like mechanism that's available, and that is designed
15:53
Speaker 2: for these beyond design basis scenarios. Because that's sort of
15:56
Speaker 2: what Fukushima was, was this beyond design basis scenario. Now
16:00
Speaker 2: keep in mind you did there were too.
16:02
Speaker 1: Can you say, beyond design sort of a catastrophic a
16:05
Speaker 1: one percent chance that happened essentially, is okay?
16:07
Speaker 2: Correct? Yeah, because that's what like, that's what I was
16:09
Speaker 2: just about to touch on because I had the opportunity
16:12
Speaker 2: to go to Fukushima di Echi, and you know, we
16:15
Speaker 2: talk a lot about the four reactors that I think
16:18
Speaker 2: we're all familiar with, but there's not enough acknowledgment that
16:21
Speaker 2: there were two reactors that were just fine despite everything,
16:24
Speaker 2: you know, So it's interesting in that scenario. But so
16:28
Speaker 2: we have those lessons learned applied in our emergency response
16:31
Speaker 2: organization in these facilities that are set up across the country,
16:34
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff like that. Now, the one thing
16:36
Speaker 2: that we're seeing right now and this is like you
16:38
Speaker 2: talked about how nuclear was really at this like exciting
16:41
Speaker 2: cusp right before Fukushima. I'm just gonna say we called
16:45
Speaker 2: it a nuclear renaissance back then. I don't want to
16:48
Speaker 2: call this one a nuclear renaissance again. I feel like
16:50
Speaker 2: it's just got bad bad joo doo forwards. But I'm
16:55
Speaker 2: very very excited because I feel like right now when
16:58
Speaker 2: I do public advocacy and out to people, I'll never
17:01
Speaker 2: forget I had this one visit to a middle school,
17:04
Speaker 2: and I'm so used to talking about Schruernobyl and through
17:07
Speaker 2: my island and Fukushima and those specifically those true things
17:11
Speaker 2: right that I almost like automatically watch into talking about
17:15
Speaker 2: them in some capacity. And I was at this middle
17:18
Speaker 2: school and I started talking about Fukushima, and I'll never
17:20
Speaker 2: forget it because these twelve year olds are.
17:22
Speaker 1: Like, what are you talking about?
17:23
Speaker 2: Like what is she saying? So honestly, Like, from a
17:27
Speaker 2: public perception standpoint, I think there is such a unique
17:31
Speaker 2: opportunity right now with young people just because like we
17:33
Speaker 2: have access to information and we're not afraid to look
17:36
Speaker 2: things up on the internet. Yet we also have this
17:38
Speaker 2: natural apprehension of what we read on the internet, just
17:41
Speaker 2: because you don't trust everything, right, So people are always
17:46
Speaker 2: checking their sources and doing their research to make sure
17:48
Speaker 2: that they're getting at least somewhat valuable information, right. And
17:52
Speaker 2: I think that's what's like really causing the young generation
17:55
Speaker 2: to be so much more positive and accepting of nuclear
17:57
Speaker 2: energy in comparison to previous generations. It's because the fear
18:00
Speaker 2: monitoring doesn't work because as soon as they ask one question,
18:04
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they're seeing online and through all
18:06
Speaker 2: these other different resources of learning that oh, this isn't
18:09
Speaker 2: something that should have this high level of fear that's
18:12
Speaker 2: been depicted for so long. Yeah, I feel like it
18:15
Speaker 2: went on a tangent there, No, you didn't.
18:17
Speaker 1: And I think you know, the part of the problem
18:19
Speaker 1: with I think nuclear is in this space where if
18:25
Speaker 1: you can't prove that it's one hundred percent safe, then
18:27
Speaker 1: don't do it. Right, there's this fear of the one
18:30
Speaker 1: percent with nuclear that is different than any other energy source,
18:34
Speaker 1: and perhaps being connected to weapons doesn't help, right, doesn't
18:39
Speaker 1: help your Like, just look at it from a PR standpoint,
18:42
Speaker 1: nuclear energy, you know, being associated with weapons bad, being
18:45
Speaker 1: associated with clean environment good with most people. The first
18:49
Speaker 1: thing when you hear nuclear, I think, my guess is
18:53
Speaker 1: they're more likely to say weapons than energy. And until
18:56
Speaker 1: you flip, until that script gets flipped completely where it's
18:59
Speaker 1: energy weapons, you know, it's still constantly I think going
19:03
Speaker 1: to be a PR struggle to make the case for
19:06
Speaker 1: it right because of the strong nimbism that's out there.
19:10
Speaker 1: I mean, to this day, it's not safe to be
19:12
Speaker 1: near Turnobyl, right.
19:15
Speaker 2: Oh you can. Actually it was a tourist attraction. The
19:18
Speaker 2: only reason you can't go, well, the only reason you
19:20
Speaker 2: can't go to it right now is because Russia invaded
19:22
Speaker 2: Ukraine and it's an active war area. So but otherwise,
19:27
Speaker 2: like Chernobyl, obviously there are certain zones you can't go in,
19:31
Speaker 2: but it is actually becoming like relatively re established.
19:34
Speaker 1: You drink a glass of water that you knew came
19:36
Speaker 1: through Chernobyl.
19:38
Speaker 2: Through Chernobyl a very different scenario. I guess it depends
19:43
Speaker 2: on what what the water is. I actually at Fukushima,
19:46
Speaker 2: I did ask if I could. The only reason they
19:49
Speaker 2: they said no, not from a radiation standpoint, but because
19:52
Speaker 2: it's like drinking just straight up lake water or river
19:54
Speaker 2: water and you just want to have some filtration normally,
19:58
Speaker 2: so there usually is a real good amount of diligence done.
20:02
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on the current status of Chernobyl,
20:05
Speaker 2: but like I said, I think that it is something that,
20:07
Speaker 2: like I said, it was it was a tourist attraction
20:09
Speaker 2: for quite a while that people would literally go on
20:11
Speaker 2: tours and people work those tour guides.
20:14
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's sponsorship time. But you know what, it's
20:19
Speaker 1: really great when you get a sponsor that you already use.
20:23
Speaker 1: And guess what. Quint's is something that in the tod
20:26
Speaker 1: household we already go to. Why do we go to
20:28
Speaker 1: Quint's Because it's a it's a place to go where
20:30
Speaker 1: you can get some really nice clothes without the really
20:33
Speaker 1: expensive prices. And one of the things I've been going
20:35
Speaker 1: through is I've transitioned from being mister cot and ty
20:38
Speaker 1: guy to wanting a little more casual but to look
20:41
Speaker 1: nice doing it is I've become mister quarterzip guy. Well
20:45
Speaker 1: guess what, guess he's got amazing amounts of quarter zips.
20:48
Speaker 1: It is Quints. I have gotten quite a few already
20:52
Speaker 1: from there. The stuff's really nice. They have Mongolian Kashmere
20:56
Speaker 1: sweaters for fifty dollars. I just know, hey, Kashmir, that's
21:00
Speaker 1: pretty good. You don't normally get that for fifty bucks
21:02
Speaker 1: or less. Italian wool coats that look and feel like
21:05
Speaker 1: designer the stuff. I'll be honest, right, you look at
21:07
Speaker 1: it online, you think, okay, is this really as nice
21:09
Speaker 1: as it looks? Well, when I got it, I was like, oh,
21:11
Speaker 1: this is real quality. So yeah, I'm going to end
21:13
Speaker 1: up making sure I take it to my dry cleaner
21:15
Speaker 1: so I don't screw it up when I clean it.
21:18
Speaker 1: But I've been quite impressed. In Hey, it's holiday season.
21:20
Speaker 1: It is impossible to shop for us middle aged men.
21:25
Speaker 1: I know this well. Tell your kids, tell your spouses,
21:28
Speaker 1: tell your partners. Try Quints. Or if you're trying to
21:31
Speaker 1: figure out what to get your adult child, what to
21:33
Speaker 1: get your mom or dad, I'm telling you you're going
21:36
Speaker 1: to find something that is going to be comfortable for
21:39
Speaker 1: them on Quints. So get your wardrobe sorted and your
21:42
Speaker 1: gift list handled with Quints. Don't wait. Go to quints
21:45
Speaker 1: dot com slash chuck for free shipping on your order
21:48
Speaker 1: and three hundred and sixty five day returns now available
21:51
Speaker 1: in Canada as well. That's qui nce dot com slash
21:56
Speaker 1: chuck free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day
21:59
Speaker 1: return earns. Quins dot com slash chuck. Use that code.
22:08
Speaker 1: What is the bigger you know, I've always thought that
22:10
Speaker 1: the bigger concern I have about nuclear is just how
22:13
Speaker 1: old our nuclear facilities are. And you know, I've got
22:16
Speaker 1: a friend of mine from high school as a nuclear engineer,
22:19
Speaker 1: and he works in a works works in a space
22:23
Speaker 1: that he can't tell me everything, So I'll just leave
22:25
Speaker 1: it at that. But it's like he is a nuclear
22:27
Speaker 1: engineer in that space and the thing that keeps him
22:30
Speaker 1: up at night is the aging infrastructure. Whether it's nuclear
22:34
Speaker 1: weapons or nuclear or nuclear reactors. How big a concern
22:38
Speaker 1: is that for the industry.
22:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, So just to differentiate like reactors versus weaponry, one
22:45
Speaker 2: thing I like to talk a lot about is the
22:46
Speaker 2: uranium enrichment. Right, So what we're using uranium for in
22:50
Speaker 2: a commercial reactor and uranium and a weapon is very different.
22:55
Speaker 2: So there's a very important isotope of uranium. It's you
22:58
Speaker 2: two thirty five I like to think of as the
23:00
Speaker 2: spicy urdium, right, And in a commercial reactor, we can
23:05
Speaker 2: only use up to five percent of the uranium can
23:08
Speaker 2: be that spicyer radium. To get a really really bad weapon,
23:13
Speaker 2: you have to have at least twenty percent. And to actually,
23:16
Speaker 2: like from the technical standpoint of being able to enrich
23:19
Speaker 2: to that high level, to have the facilities to have
23:22
Speaker 2: everything there, it's it's incredibly difficult, right, and that's why
23:25
Speaker 2: there's so few facilities out there in the world that
23:27
Speaker 2: can enrich up to weapons grade. So the commercial commercial
23:31
Speaker 2: reactors from a physics standpoint, cannot do the same thing
23:35
Speaker 2: that a weapon can, so two totally different physics reactions. Now,
23:40
Speaker 2: when it comes to the aging infrastructure of existing reactors,
23:43
Speaker 2: that's I'm really happy you brought this up because a
23:45
Speaker 2: lot of these reactors we're seeing that are you know
23:47
Speaker 2: and kind of getting to this old point, are doing
23:51
Speaker 2: this awesome thing where they're continuing to refurbish and continuing
23:55
Speaker 2: to upgrade their facilities. So throughout a nuclear power plant's lifetime,
23:59
Speaker 2: we've seeing power plants increase the amount of electricity they
24:02
Speaker 2: can generate through power uprates, and most of them when
24:05
Speaker 2: they were first built, we're only intended to last for
24:08
Speaker 2: about forty years. Now, we have plants that have been
24:12
Speaker 2: operating sixty years. We're seeing plants apply for license extensions
24:16
Speaker 2: out to eighty years. And I'm going to bring up
24:18
Speaker 2: like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission here because this is where
24:21
Speaker 2: they play a pretty influential role in ensuring. Hey, if
24:24
Speaker 2: we're granting you a license extension, it's because this plant
24:28
Speaker 2: has the appropriate equipment in everything to go along with it, right,
24:34
Speaker 2: And we've seen stuff that has that initial forty year
24:36
Speaker 2: lifespan get replaced. That is incredibly challenging.
24:40
Speaker 1: Hard, is it too? I grew up in Miami, so
24:42
Speaker 1: Turkey Point was the biggest reactor in South Florida. And
24:46
Speaker 1: it's still going. It's still important. It's still, frankly, always
24:52
Speaker 1: something that everybody gets nervous about when a hurricane shows up,
24:55
Speaker 1: right for obvious reasons down there. But I believe Eve
25:00
Speaker 1: it got an extension. I'm not. I think what you're
25:04
Speaker 1: just just talking about, what are the difficulties in a
25:08
Speaker 1: forty year old let's say a nuclear power plant built
25:11
Speaker 1: in the seventies, right when operational, say late seventies, early eighties.
25:15
Speaker 1: You know what's more feasible retrofitting an older reactor or
25:22
Speaker 1: starting or building a brand new one.
25:25
Speaker 2: It's hard to compare the two, just because like your
25:28
Speaker 2: designs from the sixties and the seventies and the eighties
25:30
Speaker 2: is totally different than the designs we would be building now. Right.
25:34
Speaker 2: It builds upon the same physics, but like some of
25:37
Speaker 2: the mechanisms are just totally different. So we're seeing sort
25:41
Speaker 2: of this discussion happening right now where a lot of
25:44
Speaker 2: these reactors are being restarted. Right, So, I'm working on
25:47
Speaker 2: three Mile Island Unit one, which is not the unit
25:50
Speaker 2: that had the partial meltdown in nineteen seventy nine that
25:52
Speaker 2: I think everybody kind of like automatically goes when they
25:55
Speaker 2: hear through Mile Island, Right, this is the unit.
25:57
Speaker 1: That is that where you're working now is three Mile out.
26:00
Speaker 2: That's one of the sites I work on. So I'm
26:01
Speaker 2: technically corporate, so I work on two different units, and
26:06
Speaker 2: three Mindlineland Unit one is one of them. So I'm
26:09
Speaker 2: there at the site frequently, but I'm not based out
26:12
Speaker 2: of there. But okay, that unit kept operating until twenty
26:15
Speaker 2: nineteen and then it was shut down, and five years
26:18
Speaker 2: later it was announced that it was going to be restarting,
26:20
Speaker 2: and we're seeing that happen in a couple of different states.
26:23
Speaker 2: Michigan is restarting a nuclear reactor and so is Iowa.
26:27
Speaker 1: Actually, and is this all due to demand? I mean,
26:29
Speaker 1: is this all due to we have demand issues? We've
26:31
Speaker 1: got that. You know, we can talk about the data
26:33
Speaker 1: centers and this idea of floating portable nuclear power plants.
26:36
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a minute, but I don't
26:38
Speaker 1: want to get ahead of ourselves. But it really is
26:41
Speaker 1: just sort of we have grid demand and we needed
26:44
Speaker 1: these extra resources. Okay.
26:45
Speaker 2: Ultimately, ultimately it is demand is the highest thing, and
26:48
Speaker 2: AI and data centers is really one of the driving
26:51
Speaker 2: factors because two of those three restarts is being driven
26:54
Speaker 2: by power purchase agreements with people who plan to build
26:56
Speaker 2: data centers nearby, right, So that is a really big
27:00
Speaker 2: driving factor there. And I think ultimately people are also
27:04
Speaker 2: expressly interested in nuclear because it's clean and because it's reliable.
27:08
Speaker 2: They don't have to worry about the outside weather, you know,
27:11
Speaker 2: they know that that power is going to be always on,
27:13
Speaker 2: always there, and always ready. That's that's like one of
27:16
Speaker 2: the best parts of having a nuclear power plant. So yeah,
27:21
Speaker 2: so in that capacity, we're seeing these nuclear reactors get restarted. Right,
27:25
Speaker 2: So this I think brings up going back to your
27:27
Speaker 2: original question of like, okay, upgrading and refurbishing versus building
27:31
Speaker 2: completely new, right, upgrading and refurbishing in scenarios like t
27:37
Speaker 2: m I Unit one, which is now the Crane Clean
27:39
Speaker 2: Energy Center there remain right.
27:41
Speaker 1: Sorry, you're good, Okay, I appreciate it.
27:47
Speaker 2: And that's why I just said, like I was like, okay,
27:49
Speaker 2: that's Unit one. It's being renamed to Crane, so if
27:52
Speaker 2: you hear me call it Crane now, no, it's all
27:54
Speaker 2: the same thing. But you know, with a site like
27:58
Speaker 2: that that is only slightly into the decommissioning process, there
28:02
Speaker 2: isn't a ton of work that needs to be done
28:04
Speaker 2: to bring it back online versus building a completely new plant.
28:08
Speaker 2: So that's the interesting thing that right now we're kind
28:12
Speaker 2: of like running out of reactors that are in restartable condition.
28:16
Speaker 2: Others that shut down in like that twenty twelve and
28:18
Speaker 2: earlier timeframe likely would be the prime places to look at,
28:23
Speaker 2: Hey can we just build a whole new one here?
28:25
Speaker 1: So it's what's that line, like, is it where it's
28:32
Speaker 1: no longer feasible to do a restart. And what do
28:35
Speaker 1: you do with with a reactor that you can't restart
28:38
Speaker 1: but you really can't do anything else with it, can you?
28:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can decommission them. So that's and
28:44
Speaker 2: I mean that's exactly what's happening with them.
28:46
Speaker 1: And then what happens when you decommission What does that mean?
28:50
Speaker 1: Walk me?
28:51
Speaker 2: Okay, So decommissioning is essentially breaking down the plant. You're
28:55
Speaker 2: selling maybe some parts that are able to be sold
28:58
Speaker 2: to other facilities to be reused if they're in that
29:01
Speaker 2: type of condition. It's getting rid of any type of
29:05
Speaker 2: waste material that could exist, all types of spent nuclear fuel,
29:09
Speaker 2: which is what most people think of when I say
29:11
Speaker 2: like waste. Right, spent nuclear fuel is stored in dry
29:15
Speaker 2: casks and throughout that time, typically they're left on site,
29:20
Speaker 2: but by the end of the decommissioning process, these sites
29:23
Speaker 2: are literally just brought back to green grasslands like it's
29:27
Speaker 2: brought back to just a field. The only thing that
29:30
Speaker 2: may remain is these spent nuclear fuel casks, these dry casks,
29:34
Speaker 2: which are just giant concrete cylinders, right, But they can
29:38
Speaker 2: also get transported to a different site for security's sake,
29:41
Speaker 2: because you have to have security, like a security.
29:43
Speaker 1: Force with that, and it will create these super sized animals.
29:47
Speaker 1: Don't kidding, right right? This is the fuel for every
29:50
Speaker 1: comic book, the fuel for every comic book. You know,
29:53
Speaker 1: I was raised by wolves near a decommission nuclear power
29:56
Speaker 1: plant and I got these amazing powers, right See.
29:59
Speaker 2: But you also have Iron Man that makes a minuturized
30:02
Speaker 2: reactor that powers his super cool suit. So you got
30:05
Speaker 2: it on both ways. It's awesome.
30:08
Speaker 1: So when you know how many reactors are we in
30:13
Speaker 1: the middle of decommissioning.
30:15
Speaker 2: At the moment, decommissioning exactly in the United States, I
30:18
Speaker 2: wouldn't know that exact number. Yeah, that would that that
30:22
Speaker 2: would vary. There's three that are getting restarted right now
30:26
Speaker 2: in ninety four that are currently operating, gotcha.
30:29
Speaker 1: And the three that have been restarting I know through
30:33
Speaker 1: Mile Alan is one you mentioned one in Michigan. How
30:36
Speaker 1: long were they in the decommissioned process, Like, is there
30:39
Speaker 1: a certain past where you get to the process where
30:42
Speaker 1: you're sort of that's a point of no return.
30:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't very far into the decommissioning process. So
30:47
Speaker 2: I mentioned crane was only in it for about five years.
30:52
Speaker 2: Plisades actually shut down and they had a very unusual
30:55
Speaker 2: scenarioge the Michigan Michigan. Yeah, okay, thank you for I
31:01
Speaker 2: gotta make sure I get those. So Palisades had a
31:04
Speaker 2: little bit of a different scenario where they shut down
31:06
Speaker 2: and they kind of knew they wanted to restart like
31:09
Speaker 2: pretty quickly, so they really didn't get super far into
31:12
Speaker 2: decommissioning at all, and I mean maybe six months if that,
31:17
Speaker 2: Dwayne Arnold I would say is comparable to the Crane
31:20
Speaker 2: Clean Energy Center where it was like four or five
31:22
Speaker 2: years into decommissioning.
31:23
Speaker 1: Which one's Dwayne Arnold, Where's that?
31:25
Speaker 2: That's the Iowa one?
31:26
Speaker 1: Iowa Okay, yep.
31:28
Speaker 2: So that one's outside of is it cedar rapids? Cedar rapids? Yeah? Yeah.
31:33
Speaker 1: And that one they're trying to restart as well.
31:35
Speaker 2: That one is being restarted.
31:36
Speaker 1: That is that is driven by AI data center need
31:40
Speaker 1: is that one not.
31:41
Speaker 2: All three of those? Uh? The dwayn Arnold one is
31:44
Speaker 2: a power purchase agreement with a hyperscaler of some kind
31:48
Speaker 2: and saying with the Crane Clean Energy Center. But it's
31:51
Speaker 2: it's really unique because what I think is kind of cool.
31:54
Speaker 2: So the Crane Clean Energy Center at least, you know,
31:56
Speaker 2: I don't know the details, so like just putting that
31:58
Speaker 2: out there very explicitly, but I think that there is
32:02
Speaker 2: a really good recognition going on that this power is
32:06
Speaker 2: not like directly connected to a data center. It still
32:09
Speaker 2: goes out to the grid. It still is getting accessed
32:13
Speaker 2: by by residents in the area and everything, which is
32:16
Speaker 2: going to be really I think influential in deciding what
32:20
Speaker 2: happens when we have not enough energy to meet energy demands,
32:24
Speaker 2: because then grid operators can do their job and get
32:27
Speaker 2: electricity to people's homes and residences, prioritizing over over other facilities.
32:33
Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting, I think, like to see how
32:35
Speaker 2: that all plays out in the world around us.
32:37
Speaker 1: So there's these I think it's Wyoming is going to
32:41
Speaker 1: try a portable reactor, right, it's just the one funded
32:43
Speaker 1: by Bill Gates? Am I getting this correctly?
32:46
Speaker 2: So Wyoming is building a advanced reactor, is what I
32:49
Speaker 2: would say. I wouldn't call it a portable reactor though, Okay.
32:52
Speaker 1: Tell me, yeah, it's supposedly smaller, nimble, what currect? I
32:57
Speaker 1: said portable? Why why am I using the phrase portable.
33:00
Speaker 1: What is it? You know, why does it get that name,
33:03
Speaker 1: or at least why why is that description?
33:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so small modular reactors is like a really big
33:09
Speaker 2: thing right now, right, I feel like everybody's talking about them,
33:13
Speaker 2: and basically they're just miniaturized nuclear reactors. Now, like to
33:17
Speaker 2: put miniaturized into concept is you're still probably going to
33:21
Speaker 2: be using up about the size of a football field
33:23
Speaker 2: for like the full facility, maybe a little more, maybe
33:26
Speaker 2: a little less, depending on the design, because there's like
33:28
Speaker 2: eighty different SMR designs out there right. Small modular reactors
33:31
Speaker 2: as SMR, so it's a smaller design and it's meant
33:37
Speaker 2: to have an easily manufacturable benefit. So I like to
33:42
Speaker 2: kind of describe, you know, your large light water reactors
33:44
Speaker 2: that we have operating today and that are getting restarted,
33:48
Speaker 2: and all of these things are kind of like you're
33:50
Speaker 2: walking into a house and you're building custom cabinets for
33:54
Speaker 2: your kitchen, right, Like you are planning out every detail
33:57
Speaker 2: to make sure everything is perfectly matched. And all of
34:00
Speaker 2: this versus an SMR is and this is like an
34:03
Speaker 2: over exaggeration, right, but SMR is kind of like going
34:06
Speaker 2: to Ikea and you're buying a box of reassembled parts
34:10
Speaker 2: and you go ahead and you assemble it on the site.
34:12
Speaker 2: So it's a little bit more of like a standardized
34:14
Speaker 2: modularized production for small modular reactors, which is going to help.
34:17
Speaker 1: Bring as successful has these been, like where has this been? Is? Yeah,
34:21
Speaker 1: I mean where are these popping up?
34:23
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, first of all, they're already in our nuclear navy,
34:26
Speaker 2: which I think is good to mention it's a little
34:29
Speaker 2: bit different, but small modular reactors are in our navy
34:32
Speaker 2: with our nuclear submarines and our aircraft carriers. Right commercially, though,
34:37
Speaker 2: they are still brand new in the United States, like
34:40
Speaker 2: there is no there's no operating small modular reactor here
34:43
Speaker 2: in the United States, and they're still relatively new worldwide.
34:46
Speaker 2: They're under construction in Canada, they're they've gotten the green
34:50
Speaker 2: light in Poland and in a couple of other countries
34:52
Speaker 2: as well. But it is exciting because like there's versions
34:57
Speaker 2: of research reactors that produce small amounts of power. Having
35:02
Speaker 2: like a small nuclear reactor isn't a foreign concept in
35:05
Speaker 2: any capacity, it's just on the commercial side of things.
35:08
Speaker 2: It's just the first time it's getting enough movement that
35:10
Speaker 2: nuclear in the United States is seeing a public acceptance
35:14
Speaker 2: of advanced reactors for the first time in thirty years.
35:17
Speaker 1: Well, it feels like a baby step, which probably it
35:20
Speaker 1: kind of do makes people feel a little bit better
35:23
Speaker 1: that it feels like, well, it's you know, sort of
35:25
Speaker 1: the joke small dogs, small accidents, big dogs, big accidents. Right,
35:29
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the same thing with nuclear reactors. But
35:32
Speaker 1: let me ask you this, what's the So what's the
35:35
Speaker 1: time frame from approval to build one to getting it online?
35:40
Speaker 1: For Yeah, for n Essma.
35:43
Speaker 2: I I personally my opinion, I don't think we should
35:47
Speaker 2: be building SMRs like tomorrow because I do still think
35:50
Speaker 2: they're a good amount of time off from being fully ready.
35:55
Speaker 1: And that's my person I think this is a technology
35:57
Speaker 1: that's quite ready for prime time.
35:59
Speaker 2: It's not it's not licensed by there's no licensed in
36:01
Speaker 2: RC design yet. And if you want to build a
36:03
Speaker 2: reactor tomorrow, your first step is looking at ones that
36:06
Speaker 2: are licensed by the NRC, right by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
36:10
Speaker 2: So and right now we've got advanced reactors that are
36:14
Speaker 2: not small modular reactors that are licensed by the NRC
36:17
Speaker 2: that have been built. So I talk a lot. I
36:20
Speaker 2: think it's good to bring up like Vocal three and four,
36:22
Speaker 2: which is the two most recently constructed units in the
36:26
Speaker 2: United States. They were first. They pretty much it took
36:30
Speaker 2: thirty years to get a new unit to come online,
36:32
Speaker 2: like from the last time a new unit came online
36:35
Speaker 2: to when these came online. And they're just outside of Augusta, Georgia.
36:39
Speaker 2: So if you like golf, you know the Master's golf
36:41
Speaker 2: tournament is right nearby.
36:43
Speaker 1: Uh, that's the one that Obama approved, Right, that's the
36:45
Speaker 1: one he green lit, right.
36:47
Speaker 2: That one that I think that was Okay, Yeah, then
36:51
Speaker 2: it could have been that one. I think that was
36:52
Speaker 2: before his time, but I could.
36:54
Speaker 1: Be it was one near Savannah. Why do I think
36:55
Speaker 1: there's one?
36:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one in South Carolina as well. But
36:59
Speaker 2: so so this is a AP one thousand design is
37:02
Speaker 2: what it's called. And it still is creating, you know,
37:05
Speaker 2: a thousand megawatts of electricity. It's creating large amounts of energy.
37:09
Speaker 2: It's a large light water reactor. But here's the thing.
37:13
Speaker 2: We have the supply chain, we have the workforce, we
37:16
Speaker 2: have so many lessons learned from those two units being
37:19
Speaker 2: built that, in my opinion, what we should be doing
37:22
Speaker 2: here is looking at building any like one type of
37:26
Speaker 2: nuclear reactor, get it a little bit more standardized, get
37:29
Speaker 2: better at building them in the United States, because we
37:31
Speaker 2: haven't done it in so long, and we're kind of
37:34
Speaker 2: fit like it's it's not in our skill set right now.
37:37
Speaker 2: Other countries are doing a heck of a lot better
37:39
Speaker 2: than us, So we've got to kind of rebuild that
37:42
Speaker 2: skill set using existing technology that doesn't have some slight
37:47
Speaker 2: question marks around it. And then I'm all ears for
37:50
Speaker 2: looking at like small modular reactor technology and things like that.
37:56
Speaker 1: Do you hate hangovers, We'll say goodbye to hangovers. Out
37:58
Speaker 1: of Office gives you the social buzz without the next
38:01
Speaker 1: day regret. Their best selling out of Office gummies were
38:03
Speaker 1: designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood,
38:06
Speaker 1: and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you
38:10
Speaker 1: can tailor the dose to fit your vibe, from a
38:12
Speaker 1: gentle one point five milligram micro doose to their newest
38:16
Speaker 1: fifteen milligram gummy for a more elevated experience. Their THHC
38:20
Speaker 1: beverages and gummies are a modern, mindful alternative to a
38:24
Speaker 1: glass of wine or a cocktail. And I'll tell you this,
38:27
Speaker 1: I've given up booze. I don't like the hangovers. I
38:30
Speaker 1: prefer the gummy experience. Soul is a wellness brand that
38:33
Speaker 1: believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes
38:37
Speaker 1: in delicious HEMP derived THHC, and CBD products, all designed
38:40
Speaker 1: to boost your mood and simply help you unwine. So
38:43
Speaker 1: if you struggle to switch off at night, Sol also
38:46
Speaker 1: has a variety of products specifically designed to just simply
38:49
Speaker 1: help you get a better night's sleep, including their top
38:51
Speaker 1: selling sleepy gummies. It's a fan favorite for deep restorative sleep.
38:56
Speaker 1: So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
38:58
Speaker 1: Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty
39:02
Speaker 1: percent off your entire order, So go to get sold
39:05
Speaker 1: dot com use the promo code toodcast. Don't forget that code.
39:09
Speaker 1: That's get sold dot Com promo code toodcast for thirty
39:13
Speaker 1: percent off. Well, look, one of the reasons we're talking
39:20
Speaker 1: is you want to try to be an advocate or
39:21
Speaker 1: a voice for or positive voice for nuclear energy. Besides
39:29
Speaker 1: what we've talked about, what are the hurdle Let me
39:31
Speaker 1: do it this way. What are the misconceptions that you
39:35
Speaker 1: think the average person has about nuclear that you feel
39:39
Speaker 1: are the easiest to debunk.
39:42
Speaker 2: Nuclear is dangerous. That's like the number one that is
39:45
Speaker 2: easiest to debunk. In my opinion, when you look at
39:49
Speaker 2: all nuclear disasters or negative things that are associated with nuclear,
39:54
Speaker 2: with commercial nuclear energy generation worldwide, you can only think
39:58
Speaker 2: of three, I'm guessing, and we've kind of touched on
40:01
Speaker 2: those a little bit of them. Yeah, when I look
40:05
Speaker 2: at any other type of energy source, you can find
40:09
Speaker 2: a lot more deaths. You can find a lot more
40:11
Speaker 2: of a scarier sort of scenario of death per kill,
40:14
Speaker 2: a lot that's generated. So in my personal look at nuclear,
40:20
Speaker 2: I had this similar question. I had this similar sort
40:22
Speaker 2: of existential crisis when I was a junior in college
40:25
Speaker 2: and starting to look at jobs and like trying to
40:27
Speaker 2: figure out, Okay, how good of healthcare do I really need? Right? Like,
40:29
Speaker 2: am I doomed to get cancer? Like what's this actually
40:32
Speaker 2: going to look like? And I pulled up like the
40:35
Speaker 2: OSHA's debts for twenty twenty three, And I'll never forget
40:38
Speaker 2: because working at a nuclear power plant, in comparison to
40:41
Speaker 2: every other industry in the United States, there were only
40:45
Speaker 2: six industries that were safer than working at a nuclear
40:48
Speaker 2: power plant, and it was things like data analytics and accounting,
40:52
Speaker 2: so like desk jobs, meaning it's more dangerous to send
40:56
Speaker 2: your kid to work at the grocery store when they're
40:58
Speaker 2: sixteen years old than it is to go work at
41:00
Speaker 2: a nuclear power plant. And I love like now working
41:07
Speaker 2: in the industry. It's really incredible seeing the level of
41:10
Speaker 2: safety and integrity that's always encouraged. A questioning attitude is
41:14
Speaker 2: one thing we talk a lot about where I feel
41:17
Speaker 2: like in other industries you might have like this culture
41:22
Speaker 2: of like, well, you know, he's the expert, so like
41:24
Speaker 2: trust him, right, But it's so strongly encouraged in the
41:28
Speaker 2: nuclear industry that, like if you are the INTERN and
41:30
Speaker 2: you think the CEO said something that could maybe lead
41:34
Speaker 2: to a two percent chance of something happening that we
41:37
Speaker 2: don't want to see, ask a question like point it out,
41:41
Speaker 2: bring it up. That is highly highly encouraged amongst the
41:45
Speaker 2: many other defense in depth that we have in terms
41:48
Speaker 2: of like our actual designs for the physical status of
41:52
Speaker 2: the plants. It's a ton of fun. So I think
41:56
Speaker 2: I personally have seen looked at it. Nuclear to me
41:59
Speaker 2: is the safest form of energy generation, and I think
42:02
Speaker 2: it's incredible.
42:03
Speaker 1: And it's incredibly clean. I mean you know that, you know,
42:07
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. The environmental community has always been divided
42:09
Speaker 1: on this. I got a one of my oldest friends
42:11
Speaker 1: has been at Sierra Club for a long time, and
42:14
Speaker 1: it's a it's a debate inside of the air club right
42:17
Speaker 1: in the clean clean energy advocates basically divide it almost
42:22
Speaker 1: right down the middle. Uh K on nuclear. I'm sure
42:25
Speaker 1: you've you've discovered this yourself, and it's a you know,
42:28
Speaker 1: it feels like it's a it's the divide between those
42:31
Speaker 1: that believe technology is we'll figure it out and those
42:36
Speaker 1: that are very skeptical of industry.
42:39
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah, Okay, I have to I I could
42:43
Speaker 2: be wrong on this, so verify me or if you've
42:45
Speaker 2: heard about this too, because the Sierra Club, I thought
42:48
Speaker 2: I remember seeing something a while back about like one
42:50
Speaker 2: of the Sierra Club leaders like apologizing for being so
42:53
Speaker 2: harsh against nuclear and they kind of walk.
42:55
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it was a club or LCV,
42:57
Speaker 1: but yes, I believe it's a lot of them. No,
43:00
Speaker 1: there's always been this and it's a real debate, and
43:02
Speaker 1: I think now you do you know it used to
43:05
Speaker 1: be if you were an advocate of nuclear, you weren't
43:07
Speaker 1: allowed into the environmental community, right, like type of thing.
43:09
Speaker 1: Now I don't think there, you know, it is not
43:12
Speaker 1: that you know, you can be considered pro clean energy
43:15
Speaker 1: and pro nuclear at the same time. Not everybody loves it,
43:17
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's a little less of a
43:20
Speaker 1: I mean, look, the other issue that surrounds nuclear is
43:25
Speaker 1: the where what to do with the waste? Right, And
43:27
Speaker 1: we've had you know, before you were born, we've had
43:30
Speaker 1: debates about Yukam out right, and you know, I could
43:34
Speaker 1: make a large case and that you know, the middle
43:37
Speaker 1: of the Nevada desert isn't as bad place to have
43:40
Speaker 1: this and it won't impact people that live in Las
43:43
Speaker 1: Vegas or Reno. But good luck convincing people of Nevada
43:46
Speaker 1: of that.
43:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I completely agree like that, that's a
43:51
Speaker 2: politics at the end of the day. But when it
43:53
Speaker 2: comes to storing spent nuclear fuel, which is that question
43:56
Speaker 2: of what about the waste one, like I come back
44:00
Speaker 2: to the statement of it's not a science problem, it's
44:02
Speaker 2: a policy problem. So deep geological repositories are what people
44:06
Speaker 2: have talked about and is what was proposed for Yucca Mountain. Essentially,
44:11
Speaker 2: I also think it's good to talk about the Waste
44:13
Speaker 2: Isolation Power Plant in New Mexico, which is where the
44:16
Speaker 2: military stores all of their spent they're all of their
44:19
Speaker 2: nuclear waste. Right. That is a deep geological repository that
44:22
Speaker 2: is in existence, operating with the United States. It's just
44:25
Speaker 2: not usable by the commercial world. It's only for military use. Right.
44:30
Speaker 2: So this is not like something that is not being done.
44:33
Speaker 2: It's scientifically possible. It is actively happening. We just don't
44:37
Speaker 2: have a place for commercial or industry spent nuclear fuel. Now,
44:42
Speaker 2: then we can look at other things that can actually
44:45
Speaker 2: be done with the spent nuclear fuel before putting into
44:48
Speaker 2: a deep geological repository. Reprocessing is a big thing. You
44:53
Speaker 2: can actually recycle spent nuclear fuel. You can reuse ninety
44:56
Speaker 2: to ninety five percent a bit. That is actively happening
45:00
Speaker 2: in France, in China, in Russia like it's it's happening.
45:05
Speaker 2: So there's plenty, plenty of solutions.
45:07
Speaker 1: We just have you hoping that The twenty twenty eight
45:10
Speaker 1: presidential campaign features multiple candidates who are advocates of expansion
45:14
Speaker 1: of nuclear power.
45:16
Speaker 2: I think we've already actually seen that across the plast
45:18
Speaker 2: two administrations. I think it's really kind of an exciting
45:22
Speaker 2: time because we have relatively bipartisan support for nuclear energy
45:27
Speaker 2: at the federal level, and.
45:29
Speaker 1: We also and there's also a need. I mean, you know,
45:31
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a nice to have anymore,
45:33
Speaker 1: it's a it's a need to have.
45:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, ultimately, ultimately, and I mean, I think right now
45:38
Speaker 2: one of the things that is really going to start
45:41
Speaker 2: being prevalent in the United States is we're seeing these
45:43
Speaker 2: other countries that are so much more aggressively pursuing nuclear
45:48
Speaker 2: and we're just not, you know, we're we're lagging behind
45:51
Speaker 2: on this. And I think that's going to really start
45:54
Speaker 2: being competitive. And you know, because Americans we like to
45:57
Speaker 2: try to be the best at ever win, right That's
45:59
Speaker 2: just kind of how role. But I think that, uh,
46:02
Speaker 2: it's going to be really interesting in the next presidential
46:05
Speaker 2: election because I know that energy is going to be
46:07
Speaker 2: a huge point of conversation. You know, it already kind
46:11
Speaker 2: of is at this point, but I think that that's
46:12
Speaker 2: going to be one of the primary items at this point.
46:15
Speaker 1: Well, and I'll be curious to see I think, you know,
46:17
Speaker 1: it becomes you know, it's always sort of when you
46:19
Speaker 1: when you go against type, if you're a D or
46:21
Speaker 1: an R and you go against type, whatever that is, right.
46:24
Speaker 1: Donald Trump went against type when he came out being
46:26
Speaker 1: a big advocate of social security and Medicare and he
46:28
Speaker 1: wasn't going to touch it and that that quote unquote
46:30
Speaker 1: went against type and it and it helped win over
46:32
Speaker 1: some swing voters that maybe weren't thinking about him. If
46:36
Speaker 1: a demo major Democratic candidate becomes the pro nuclear energy candidate,
46:40
Speaker 1: you know, in a primary, right, that becomes goes against type,
46:43
Speaker 1: and I think it gives there's an opportunity for said
46:47
Speaker 1: candidate to distinguish themselves if they become become that real advocate.
46:51
Speaker 1: We'll see, as you say, there's certainly more acceptance that
46:54
Speaker 1: it's part of the solution. The question is who's going
46:57
Speaker 1: to embrace it and say no, no, no, no, we're going to
46:59
Speaker 1: lean into this in a way that we haven't leaned
47:02
Speaker 1: into it in a long time.
47:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I don't go ahead.
47:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get you out of here on this. Yeah,
47:08
Speaker 1: Homer Simpson, good or bad for nuclear for the for
47:11
Speaker 1: the for nuclear for the for the perception of nuclear energy.
47:15
Speaker 2: Okay, bad for the perception, but good for the reason
47:18
Speaker 2: that it gets conversations going, because you know what, if
47:21
Speaker 2: you ask me about Homer Simpsons, great, let's talk about it,
47:24
Speaker 2: and let's talk about all the other awesome things that
47:26
Speaker 2: nuclear has. So you know, it's so funny.
47:29
Speaker 1: We're a product, right, We're all We're all a product
47:32
Speaker 1: of our own perception. And Matt Grinney, right, he's a
47:34
Speaker 1: little bit older than I am, but you know that
47:36
Speaker 1: means you know, his coming of age moment as an
47:38
Speaker 1: adult was three mile or three mile Island, right, you know,
47:41
Speaker 1: so it is one of those where your personal experiences
47:46
Speaker 1: can have a huge impact. And as you said with Fukajima,
47:49
Speaker 1: if you don't know it, then it doesn't bother. It
47:52
Speaker 1: isn't going to be the immediate You might not view
47:54
Speaker 1: something negatively before positively, and that that's probably how the
47:59
Speaker 1: Simpsons became such a Yeah, is it? Are the Simpsons that?
48:03
Speaker 1: Do Folks in the nuclear industry hate Matt Greenig for this?
48:07
Speaker 2: No? Now, I mean, like I think some people are
48:10
Speaker 2: like really angsty about it, but I mean I'm kind
48:12
Speaker 2: of at the point where I'm like, it really does
48:14
Speaker 2: start conversations, and you know what, his reactor is still running.
48:17
Speaker 2: So like, if anything that means something, you know, there
48:21
Speaker 2: you go. So it's something that I think is fine.
48:25
Speaker 1: Well, it was great to get to know you. Are
48:26
Speaker 1: you are. Look, you're working in the industry. Are you
48:32
Speaker 1: doing your own social media, doing your own advocacy outside?
48:36
Speaker 1: If so, tell me where people can find more information.
48:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. I'm on most social media platforms. Instagram
48:43
Speaker 2: and LinkedIn are probably my two biggest ones. My Instagram
48:46
Speaker 2: handle is at Grace dot stanky. It's still my maiden
48:50
Speaker 2: name and I'm trying to get it switched over, but
48:52
Speaker 2: if you look up Grace vander High it should still
48:54
Speaker 2: show up. And then on LinkedIn, I am Grace vander
48:57
Speaker 2: High there, so feel free to follow, and I post
49:00
Speaker 2: sorts of fun nuclear content and pictures of my dog
49:02
Speaker 2: as well, so be warned.
49:04
Speaker 1: And you're I assume you're contractually obligated to be a
49:07
Speaker 1: Packer fan if you grew up in Wisconsin.
49:08
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, I gladly, yes, always.
49:12
Speaker 1: Well, we're taping on a day that has been a
49:15
Speaker 1: troubling twenty four hours for our beloved Packers. Yes, too
49:18
Speaker 1: many injuries, but hey, hope springs eternal, so hopefully by
49:22
Speaker 1: the time people start to see this, the packers of
49:25
Speaker 1: our division champs. They've put the Bears in their proper place.
49:28
Speaker 2: And uh oh yeah we can go from there.
49:30
Speaker 1: Hey, Grace, it was great to get to know you.
49:32
Speaker 2: Awesome, Thanks so much, Jock appreciated.