Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Is nuclear power good for the environment? (ft. Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow)

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Is nuclear power good for the environment? (ft. Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow) · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Today, we're going to be talking about a pretty divisive technology,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: one that produces stable power without emitting greenhouse gases, but
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: also produces waste that's toxic for thousands of years, it
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: contributes to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: over fifty years it may have actually saved millions of lives.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It's dangerous and poses a threat to nearby communities, but
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: it also generates electricity for decades from a few small rocks.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: These are all true statements about nuclear energy. It has incredible,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: unique benefits to offer and terrifying toxic dangers. Where does
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that all shake out? Should nuclear power be a part
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of our energy portfolio? Or should be shut it all down?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Today we'll be asking that question, is nuclear power good
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: for the environment? And talking to Becca to Housta Brow,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: author of a fantastic new book, Atomic Dream, on the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: rise of the pro nuclear environmental movement. Welcome to Daniel
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and Kelly's Extraordinary Complicated Universe.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Kelly Wiersmith. I study parasites and space, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I grew up pretty close to a nuclear power plant
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and I still only have two ice.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I grew
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: up at the home of atomic power, Los Alamos, New Mexico,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and I won't comment about whether I glow in the dark.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Oh interesting. So what is the closest you've ever lived
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to a nuclear power plant? Does Los Alamos have one?
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Los Almos doesn't have an operating nuclear power plant, but
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: we have an operating nuclear power plant in the basement
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of the chemistry building next door. It's about two hundred
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: feet f for me right now as we speak. Really, yeah,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: it's super cool. You can get a tour of it.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: You can see the blue glowing water from the trunkof radiation.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It's super awesome.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Oh that is super cool. I didn't know that I
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: would totally want that tour. When am I coming to visit, Daniel.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, come visit. I will hook you up
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: with a tour. I've actually used it for science because
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it's a nice source of certain kinds of radiation if
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you need to calibrate things. So it's pretty awesome. It's
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: sort of like a teaching reactor for nuclear engineers, for
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: chemical engineers to learn how it works and this kind
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Pretty cool, right.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. I grew up in Ohio, sort of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: near the Davis Bessie Power plant. And I thought I
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: was gonna win, but no, no, you win, and congratulations.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: May it never melt down.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Wow, now I'm worried about it. I wasn't until you
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: said that. Thanks Kelly.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It's fun spending time with a catastrophizer.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: But nuclear power is amazing, both scientifically and socially. You know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: devokes such strong feelings among people about how dangerous it is,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: but how it reflects the hue u Brisk of science,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: or how it's going to usher in a new era
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of humanity.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And there is a fantastic new book that talks about
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: the social and political issues around nuclear power, called Atomic Dreams,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and we had the pleasure of interviewing the author.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: You certainly did. It's a fascinating tale about how environmentalists
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: were for nuclear power and then they were against it,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and how some of them are back to being for it,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: including a wonderful group called Mother's for Nuclear mm.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Hm, boy, the stunts they pull are interesting.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: And so we're gonna have a chat with Becca in
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a moment all about the history of the environmental movement's
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: complicated relationship with nuclear power. But first I was wondering
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: what listeners thought, whether they saw nuclear power as something
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: that was good or bad for the environment. As usual,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: it's not possible to boil down a super complex topic
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: into five second sound bites, but that's what I asked
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: our listeners to do and they stepped up.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So yes, nuclear power is environmentally responsible, at least until
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: we get cold fusion.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: Well, some people might think it is better for the
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: environment than fossil fuels, it is still not really good
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: for the environment do.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Things like coal. Nuclear power is better for the environment.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say good on the whole, Avoiding the CO
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: two release is worth it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Nuclear power is amazing for the environment until three Mile
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Island Chernobyl Fukushima. Nuclear power on average is going to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: be a lot better for the environment than fossil fuels.
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: The mining and extraction of nuclear fissile materials are actually
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: what concerned me the most, especially given how much processing.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: But compared to the immediate damage from petroleum based fuels,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: I would always lean towards nuclear. I think it's one
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: of the better alternatives.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I think that's worth it in order to cut down
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: on the amount of carbon roopremium to our environment.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: Nuclear power plants are not good for the environment. They
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: have contaminated or grand water. They have contaminated our land.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: It will continue that way for thousands and thousands of years.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: Would you put your farm on a piece of land
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: before the nuclear actor was there or after the nuclear
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: reactor was there.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: There is no better way to produce enormous amounts of
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: electricity without carbon emissions or other toxic pollutants than nuclear power.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I say no because of the radiactive waste product that
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: has to be stored somewhere, and it's usually in the ground,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and a thought of nuclear meltdowns that would affect our air,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: water and everything else.
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: As long as they're well designed and the waste materials
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: are properly handled.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: But I think we need to push for fusion on net.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: I think it's good because current reductions and emissions will
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: pay dividends in the future, whereas problems like nuclear waste
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: can probably.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Be solved until we can find a way to convert
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: or reuse spent nuclear fuel. I would say that the
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: overall answer is null. I think if something goes wrong,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: then it can be really bad for a long long time.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: We should all be choosing nuclear power and believing in science.
• 5:53
  Speaker 6: If it can be properly managed, the benefits are greater
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: than the loss. There's no such thing as clean oil,
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: So yeah, I'd say let's go in nuclear power.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: One of these days. I think we should have a
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: discussion about cold fusion, because I see it mentioned a lot,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and I'm under the impression that it is a bit silly,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: but I would love to hear you give me all
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the science behind it. But this was a really nice
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: set of answers that covered, you know, the risks and
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: the promises of nuclear way to go dKu folks.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you hear a lot of folks saying
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that obviously it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternatives,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and some people still being scared of it. So I
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: think that really nicely sets the stage for our conversation
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: with Becca about whether we should be excited or scared
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of nuclear power or both.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Let's jump right in, all right.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So it's my pleasure to welcome to the podcast. Becca
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: too Hoo's de brow. She's a journalist based in southern California,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and her articles have appeared in the llus Chase, places
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: like The New Yorker, The New York Review, of books,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: The Nation, and The Washington Post. She's also my neighbor
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: here in Ervine and a friend, so I'm very glad
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to have her on the podcast. Beca Welcome to the podcast.
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: We're so excited to have you on the show. I
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: absolutely loved Atomic Dreams. It was really well written, really informative.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: I laughed out loud a couple of times. It was fantastic.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: I think we should start by discussing a bit the
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: history of the anti nuclear movement. Is that sort of
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: just how the general public felt about nuclear power from
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the beginning, or was it in response to some particular event?
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: Great question.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: I think we might tend to assume that the public
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: was always primed to lean anti nuclear because it was
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: always associated with the atomic bomb, but that's actually not
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: the case. It was more complicated. So of course, the
• 7:50
  Speaker 6: first time the public learned about atomic science in general
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: was after the atomic bomb were dropped on Hairishima and
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: Nagasaki and forty five, and that led to a lot
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: of fear and horror and disorientation. But the prospect of
• 8:09
  Speaker 6: civilian nuclear plants that was actually presented as almost redeeming
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: the destruction of the bomb. It was like, this is
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: clearly an incredibly promising new area of science, and what
• 8:22
  Speaker 6: can we do to use it for beneficial purposes rather
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: than destructive purposes? And among conservationists that's what environmentalists were
• 8:32
  Speaker 6: called at the time, in the fifties and early sixties,
• 8:36
  Speaker 6: they actually were particularly receptive to nuclear power, at least
• 8:41
  Speaker 6: a lot of them were, largely because it promised an
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: alternative to dams, which may be surprising because now, I
• 8:50
  Speaker 6: think dam's hydro, you know, seems relatively innocuous to us.
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: It seems like one of the more preferable forms of
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: energy generation. But at the time, when conservationists were really
• 9:02
  Speaker 6: focused on preserving natural landscapes, wilderness scenery, dams were anathema,
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: and so nuclear power seemed to present the opportunity to
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: generate electricity in a different way. So, yeah, at the beginning,
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: attitudes were actually generally more favorable.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: When did we start worrying about carbon and climate change?
• 9:27
  Speaker 6: So there were a few isolated scientists who sort of
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: realized what the effects of carbon dioxide might be pretty early,
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: going back to I think even the eighteen hundreds and
• 9:38
  Speaker 6: in the sixties, it started to be known among some
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: scientists and government, but in general it wasn't an issue
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: back then. The public wasn't generally aware of the risk
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: of climate change until the late eighties.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So nuclear power was good before it as bad. It's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: good again, Yeah, going things wich side.
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: To simplify it. Yes, so it was considered good by
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: a lot of people, but there were concerns that started
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: to emerge. There was the fallout controversy in the early
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: fifties when Americans learned that because of nuclear atmospheric weapons testing,
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: radioactive debris was basically getting spewed through the air and
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: getting into the food system and getting into our teeth
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: and bones, which obviously is a really disturbing idea, and
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: I think that did raise concerns about radiation and nuclear
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: power plants also commit radiation low levels. Workers and the
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: public can be exposed to quite low levels during routine operations.
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: And then there's the creation of highly radioactive waste, which
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: is something else I'm sure we'll talk about. And then
• 10:55
  Speaker 6: there's also the risk of accidents which can be catastrophic
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: and expose people to higher levels of radiation. So I
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: think during the sixties there were a few sort of
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: dissident scientists who started to raise the alarm about some
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: of this. And there were two scientists in particular, John
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: Goffman and Arthur Tamplin, who in nineteen sixty three were
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: asked by the Atomic Energy Commission. That was the agency,
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: the entity that was responsible for kind of overseeing both
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: weapons and civilian uses of nuclear power. And that agency
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: doesn't exist anymore, but at the time they asked these
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: two very well respected scientists to basically look into the
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: risks of power plants, nuclear power plants, and they did,
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: and they basically said, actually, this is super dangerous, this
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: is much more dangerous than you've been telling the public.
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: And they wrote a book that AEC tried to suppress
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: or findings, but they went public and they were basically
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: these courageous scientists who didn't really seem to have any
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: interest other than texting public health. And they wrote a
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: book published in nineteen seventy one called Poisoned Power, The
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: Case against Nuclear Power Plants, and that was very influential.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, so it only took like fifteen twenty years for
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the shine to come off of nuclear energy. I mean,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not young enough to remember this obviously, but I
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: have a sense that nuclear energy and of course nuclear weapons,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: are connected to this feeling of like a modern era,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the atomic age. Yeah, and we're entering a time when
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: science and technology are going to transform the way we
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: live and like yay frozen meals and microwave ovens and
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: you know, all this cool stuff, and we're excited about
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the future. And so that must be something like a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: big letdown socially or culturally to feel like, oh, actually,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: maybe we're poisoning ourselves and science has overstepped you know,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: how long does it take to go from that book
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: you mentioned to like the nineties where The Simpsons, for example,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: portray nuclear powers is like insanely dangerous, staffed by idiots,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you know, three eyed fish in the river. You know.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: To me, the Simpsons is like a measure of the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: average Joe's sense of what nuclear power can do. What
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: happened between the publication of that book and then like
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the late nineties to give nuclear power this like pretty
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: terrible pr status.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I.
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: Think you mentioned the sort of excitement about modern life.
• 13:27
  Speaker 6: I think that started to sour for a lot of reasons,
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: and the counter culture in the sixties a big part
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: of that was, of course, you know, questioning authority and
• 13:37
  Speaker 6: just basically being against the system and the man and
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: going back to the lands and small was beautiful, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: starting to question nuclear power, which was sort of the
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: quintessential sort of establishment technology, and it was complex and
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: it was hard to understand, and it wasn't something that
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: you could sort of be individually empowered to do, you know,
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: to make your own like on your commune, like you
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: could with a solar panel.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, the professor made a nuclear reactor, which is
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of coconuts on the island. And isn't that true? Right?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Was that Gilligans?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: That's Gigan's Island reference. Yes, man, I found something really
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: fascinating in your book which is sort of echoes of
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing today with like skepticism about science and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: the scientific establishment. Is this quote from your book that
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: really struck me. It said the nuclear industry had been
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: aggressively promoted and massively subsidized by the government, and in
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: its early years, those working in nuclear science had acquired
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a reputation for secrecy and condescension. So basically, those smug
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: nuclear scientists thought they knew how to organize our world,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: but they hadn't really thought it through. Is that the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: sense we had already like back in the seventies.
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And what's super interesting I think is that a
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: lot of that skepticism was on the political left back then,
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: and now we see it more on the right. So
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: that has a lot of implications. But you know, the
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: politics of nuclear power in general tend to be quite
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: complex and not as straightforward as you might think. But yeah,
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: I think one thing that happened was that nuclear power
• 15:17
  Speaker 6: it sort of became a symbol of everything that was
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: wrong with modern society. So there were all of these
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: different segments of the anti nuclear movement that agreed that
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: nuclear power was terrible, but they had sort of different
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: angles on it. There was like a feminist aspect. There
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: were some feminist groups that sort of saw it as
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: this very masculine, dominating impulse, you know, and there were
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: anti war groups that basically saw nuclear power and nuclear
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: weapons as part of the same monster. And Ralph Nader
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: was a big anti nuclear advocate. He was, you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: a consumer, a health advocate, and at the time, it
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: just seemed like this symbol of a society gone wrong.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: So let me know, if this question is too far Afield,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: because I don't think you dealt with it in the book.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: But I have this vague memory of Project Plowshares, where
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: scientists were using nuclear weapons to bomb harbors into existence,
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: and I wonder if part of the condescension, as I
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: remember there being like local communities saying no, we don't
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: want this, and a scientist being like, it's cool. Yoh.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And so I'm wondering to what extent did things like
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Project Plowshares play into this sense that scientists are secretive
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and condescending about nuclear power and its promises.
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I note that there were plans and that some
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: scientists thought this was a great idea to use basically
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: bombs for peaceful purposes. I don't know to what extent
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: that actually happened, but yeah, I mean, I think it's
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: very easy to relate to this sense of indignation and
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: anger that people felt. I mean, even just from fallout
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: for example, just you know, the idea that this radioactive
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: material that had never existed in nature before was now
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: drifting through the air and getting into our bodies and
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: that's like a real invasion and it's not as salient
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: for us now. But we think more about microplastics, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: there are a lot of other sort of contaminants now
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: that we're aware of, but I think at the time
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: it was pretty shocking to people and kind of filled
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: them with this sense of dread and that like, what
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: are we doing to our world?
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I've heard sort of a pop history accounting that Hollywood
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: is also to blame. You know, this movie that China
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Syndrome came out like just before the Three Mile Island
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: disaster and sort of preparing the public, priming them to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: think that nuclear power is out of control and probably
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: going to kill you and make your children have twelve
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: fingers and stuff like this. Is that over sold or
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: is that really a big part of the story.
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a good question, because when I finally did
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: watch that movie, I was like, this actually is pretty tame.
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: Like there isn't even a major disaster that happens. It's
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: just set largely at this fictional nuclear plant in California,
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: and there's sort of an incident where there's some shaking,
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: but it's not anything that dramatic, and the message is like, yes,
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: nuclear power is a little sketchy. There were some people
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: at the plants who were trying to cover up safety
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: issues and you can't really trust them. It wasn't nearly
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: as just dramatic as I was expecting. That said, it
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: was this major Hollywood movie that came out just two
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: weeks before the accident at Three Mile Island, so I'm
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: sure it did have some effect.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Do you tell us a bit more about the Three
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Mile Island incident and how big of a deal that
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: was and when it happened.
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: That was in March of nineteen seventy nine, and there
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: was a partial meltdown at one of the two reactors
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: at this plant in Pennsylvania, and it was really scary
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: because it wasn't even clear to the authorities quite what
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: was going on, and so there were these sort of
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: inconsistent messages to the public, and eventually well over one
• 19:18
  Speaker 6: hundred thousand people ended up evacuating, and in the end,
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: a very small amount of radiation escaped. There are definitely
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: people who say that it was more than the authorities claimed,
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: but basically, from what I can tell, it seems like
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: disaster was averted. And there have been epzemiological studies that
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: have mostly not found any public health effects other than
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: the public health effects of nuclear accidents actually tend to
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: be largely psychological effects. It's extremely stressful, and it's tricky
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: to talk about because that makes it sound like it's
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: all in your head. Don't worry about it. That is
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: what a lot of pro nuclear advocates believe that the
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: dangers of radiation have been really exaggerated, And we do
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: a disservice to people when we exaggerate the dangers and
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: cause people to live in fear about exposure they might
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: have experienced, even if that exposure is unlikely to lead
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: to physical health effects. So radiation science is very contentious still,
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: and I didn't come out of all my research with
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: a strong opinion one way or the other. But I
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: did come to understand the way that advocates on both
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: sides see it.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I thought it was really fascinating how you track sort
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of the progression of the discussion inside the Sierra Club,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: you know, like one of the nation's pre eminent conservations
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: or environmentalist movements. Can you give us a snapshot of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: what those arguments were. Why was this air club against
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: nuclear power? What were they arguing about?
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, initially a lot of them were for it
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: for the reasons I mentioned earlier that it could be
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: an alternative to Damns essentially, And David Brower was the
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: leader of the Sierra Club starting in late nineteen fifty two.
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: He was the first paid executive director and the Sierra Club,
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: he was the pre eminent conservation group in the country,
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: and it was at the time still a relatively small
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: California based organization, and they were mainly focused on outings
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: and rock climbing and these ten day camping trips in
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: the Sierra Nevada.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Sounds awesome, yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: But they were sort of forced to become more political,
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: I guess in the fifties because of all of these
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: changes in the country population growth, economic growth, which led
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: to lots of plans for logging and development that would
• 21:46
  Speaker 6: encroach on the wilderness they loved so much. And dam
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: was of course, and David Brower was just this incredibly passionate,
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: eloquent defender of wilderness and he really was kind of
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: monomoniacal about it when he was fighting specific dams, like
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: one that was proposed for the Grand Canyon. They defeated
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: that plan, but he said, well, instead of this dam,
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: why don't we build a nuclear power plant instead? Yeah,
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: which is really interesting. But over time some members of
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: the club really turned against nuclear and some remained relatively favorable.
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: One of the latter was a guy named William Siri,
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: who was actually a nuclear physicist himself, I believe, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: he had worked on Manhattan Project. And he has a
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: really striking quote that I came across in the archives,
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: a little bit related to what we were just saying
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: about nuclear accidents. He said, you know, I think eventually
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: we will have nuclear accidents, but we'll kind of get
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: used to it, and eventually we'll just see on the news, Oh,
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: there was a nuclear accident, and then we'll just go
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: back to watching baseball or whatever.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: So that gives you a sense of, yeah, the range
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: of use. But David Brower eventually became very anti nuclear,
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: and that was partly because he learned more about the
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: risks at every stage of the fuel cycle, from mining
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: to waste disposal. Also, he had a very classic environmentalist worldview.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: He wanted to limit our use of resources. He wanted
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: to limit growth, limit population growth. You know, it's a
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: very sixties and seventies era view. But he saw nuclear
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: power as kind of wrapped up in this ethos of
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: endless growth. So he didn't think it was a good
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: thing to have virtually unlimited energy, because it would just
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: kind of feed into all our other sort of desires
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: for expansion and end up wreaking habit on the planet.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: All right, So we've heard about the origins of nuclear power,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: how it was very exciting initially for the public to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: think about limitless nuclear power in our modern age, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: how very quickly the shine came off of it, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: environmentalists went from being in favor of nuclear power to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: being again nuclear power because of all of its dangers.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And we're going to take a break, and when we
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: come back, we're going to hear about how some environmentalists
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: are now pro nuclear again.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: All right, and we're back. We were talking about the
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: rise of the anti nuclear movement, but then at some
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: point the pro nuclear movement sort of came back with
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: a vengeance. What drove the growth of the more recent
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: pro nuclear environmental movement.
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: In a word or two words, climate change. I think
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: that was the biggest factor because as that came to
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: really take precedence on the environmentalist agenda, one feature of
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: nuclear that had been kind of overlooked before was that
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: it doesn't generate greenhouse g aids directly, a caveat is
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: that all energy sources, there's some greenhouse gas emission in
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: the whole life cycle, but if you look at you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: mining and waste disposal, but nuclear power is a low
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: carbon energy like solar, like wind, like hydro, so that
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: became much more salient when we started to be really
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: worried about greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: We've talked about how the anti nuclear movement is concerned about,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: you know, human health effects, what to do with the
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: waste the creation of nuclear weapons. Yeah, what are the
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: counter arguments that the pro nuclear community uses. Maybe let's
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: just pick one of them to start with. So the waste,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: what are the counter arguments to the problems associated with waste?
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: The pro nuclear view of waste is really counterintuitive. They
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: will actually say nuclear waste is the best kind of waste,
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: and they and the reasons are one. It's really small
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: volume that's generated, and that's because nuclear is very dense,
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: like the uranium is extremely energy dense, which is a
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: really important thing to keep in mind. That relates to
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: a bunch of different arguments for nuclear But that also
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: means that the volume of waste is very small, even
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: though it's also highly radioactive.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Do you know what kind of volumes we're talking about?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Should people be imagining like, you know, I can fit
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: all of it in my pocket, or it's like a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: swimming pool, or it's like the Grand Canyon, small in
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the scale.
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: So one image that you hear a lot is basically
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: that if we consolidated all of the nuclear waste that
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: has ever been generated from civilian plants in this country,
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: it would all fit in a football field.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: You would have to stack it to some degree. But yeah,
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: and I feel like I should say I don't know
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: if I can completely vouch for that, but that is
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: something that you will hear a lot if you talk
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: to pro nuclear advocates. I think it's basically accurate. And
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: another comparison I've heard something like if all of the
• 27:11
  Speaker 6: waste that generated from the electricity that like you, as
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: an individual would use throughout your lifetime would fit in
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: a coke cam is another image that I've heard.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Wow, so individuals really could carry around with them all
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of the nuclear waste that they personally generated. Yeah, why
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: don't we just do that?
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Don't drink that coke cam, though.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I think that is important for people to realize because
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: they imagine this problem of nuclear waste and long term
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: storage specifically. I know is still an open question, but
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it's important to think about, like how much we're actually
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: talking about you do not need to store like the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Grand Canyon filled with waste, or the amount of waste
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: produced by other sources of fuel, for example. So it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: really is quite small, which changes the kind of technologies
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we need to think about in the places we need
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: to think about for storing.
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: It, right, Yeah, and in terms of storing it, so
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: we do not have a permanent underground repository for storing it.
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: We did have a plan to store it at Yucca Mountain,
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: but that plan fell apart. The Obama administration basically killed
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: that plan.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Why what happened to yucka Mountain? I was talking to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: my kids about this book, and they were like, what
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: happened to that plan? Why don't we just store it underground?
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: So I would say the biggest reason is that the
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: plan was imposed on Nevada and they didn't have any
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: say in the matter, and they were very resistant. It
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: became known as the screw Nevada Bill, and that's why
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: I had a great name.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not laughing at that. That's not funny. Nobody wants
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to screen na No, but I guess the idea is
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: find the place with like a lot of land and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: fewer votes in Congress. Yeah, that was the plan basically, right.
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: And what's his name, Harry read Harry Reid. Yeah, it
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: was this very powerful, long serving center and he was
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: an ally of Obama's and it was basically seen as
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: a favor to him to kill this project. And there
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: were I think debates about how suitable the site actually was,
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: but I would say the fundamental reason was they hadn't
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: really consulted Nevada. And now the buzzword is consent based sighting,
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: So getting the buy in of whatever community and state
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: you want to place the repository in. But that of
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: course is challenging.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeh, who's going to say yes to that?
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: Would you'd be surprised? There have been communities that do
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: say yes or that actually are interested if the deal
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: is right, but often states step in and block it
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: because it's sort of seen as stigmatized.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: So the Yunga Mountain plan fell through, But that doesn't
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: make the waste disappear. So where is the waste? Right now?
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: It is being stored securely at sites around the country
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: about eighty different sites, mostly retired and operational nuclear plant sites.
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: So when it comes out of the reactor, it's first
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: stored in cooling pools for several years, and then it's
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: moved to what's called dry cask storage, so it's in
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: these steel casks and then within these concrete enclosures that
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: blocks radiation from escaping. So basically it hasn't even though
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: we fear it so much, and it is really dangerous,
• 30:34
  Speaker 6: Like if you were in the same room as nuclear
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: waste straight out of the reactor, you would get a
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: lethal dose of radiation very quickly, so it's not like
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: our fear that is irrational, but precisely because it's so hazardous,
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: we've developed these systems to store it very securely, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: it really, as far as I can tell, like there
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: are no documented cases of you know, deaths or harm
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: associated with it, which is really astonishing actually when you
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: think about it in contrast to other forms of waste
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: and all the harms they cause because we don't treat
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: them in the same way, but especially obviously fossil fuel
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: waste emissions pollution, which causes millions of depths from air
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: pollution every year and climate change, So that I think
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: is one very interesting way of looking at the comparison
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: of different kinds of waste.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're storing the waste on site basically where
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we're making it, which also limits the transport. Right, you're
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: not putting in the truck driving across the country. Just
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: has to go like across the plant. And it's not
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: high volume, so you have space. It's not like you're
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: creating a fast new facility. Why don't we just keep
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: it there forever? Why ever drive it around? What's unsuitable
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: about storing it on site?
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think there is an argument that it's actually
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: okay as it is. But another argument is, you know,
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: these communities where it's stored didn't sign up for that.
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: The federal government does legally have the responsibility to deal
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: with it and to bury it in the repository, and
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: over time, the casks therein don't last forever. And there's
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: also the question of reprocessing or recycling waste, which is
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: rather complicated and I don't know if we want to
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: get into that now, but that is another possibility, but
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: it's very controversial.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Another argument I've heard for why nuclear waste is the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: best kind of waste is that it does decay a
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: way over time. Yeah, we're used to thinking that as
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a negative, like, oh my god, it takes a thousand
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: years before this becomes not dangerous. But the toxins produced
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: by coal and whatever are literally forever right, like infinitely deadly,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: and so it's actually a benefit that after five thousand
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: years or something, this is no longer dangerous. It's amazing
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to me how much of this is political or how
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: much of this is like how you sell it, you know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: how much of this depends on your perspective. I was
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: struck by this quote in your book by Lovelock, who
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: said that opposition and nuclear energy is based on irrational fear,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: fed by Hollywood style fiction, the green lobbies, and the media.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's fair? Do you feel like
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: we have a balanced view of these dangers or that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: we've been sold a bill by the environmental movement against
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: nuclear waste and we don't see it clearly.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: I don't think the fear is irrational exactly. I think
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: it's understandable. I do think it tends to be more
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: visceral than I think of this a lot, because we see, unfortunately,
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: so many disasters these days, and the Los Angeles fires
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: that happened just a couple months ago, there were not
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: only the absolutely devastating effects people lost their homes and
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: people died, but the toxins in the air from all
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: of the plastic and all of this other material that burned.
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: I don't know, and I'm not sure anyone knows right
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: now what the long term public health effects will be.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: I know there's at least one study ongoing it's going
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: to look at that. But I do think even though
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: we know there are these toxins that have gotten into
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: the air and into the soil, nobody would ever suggest
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: evacuating la because of that. And you know, there are
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: arguments about whether evacuations are warranted in the aftermath of
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: nuclear accidents. I just think that we do have a
• 34:26
  Speaker 6: more visceral reaction to you know, a nuclear accident like
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: radiation than to other toxins, even though it's not always
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: clear that the other toxins are less of a threat
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: to public health.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: So there's Three Mile Island, there's Chernobyl Fukushima. Is there
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: an estimate for how many lives have been lost due
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: to all the nuclear accidents that have happened so far
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: that could be like compared to estimates for coal powered
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: power plants, for example.
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the official estimates are very low. So for a
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: three mile islands zero for Chernobyl, there's a range, but
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: the high end of the range from the sort of
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: official sources like the WHO, is in the thousands that
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: people might eventually die of cancers that could have been
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: related to the accident.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Do do like the cloud of radioactivity that drifted over Europe.
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: So the WHO estimated that four thousand people at least
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: in the most affected areas could eventually die of cancers
• 35:29
  Speaker 6: that were related to exposure. Some people think that estimate
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: is actually much too high, and some think it's much
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: too low, But the estimate of people who actually have
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: died so far as a result of Chernobyl is several
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: hundred and Fukushima there was one worker who died of
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: lung cancer in twenty eighteen, and that may or may
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: not have been a direct result of the accident, but
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: according to the official count that there were no other
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: desks that were related to radiation exposure. There were a
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: couple of thousand deaths related to the evacuation, and there
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: are debates over whether the evacuation should have happened and
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: should have happened in the way it did. A lot
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: of the people who died were elderly people living in hospitals,
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: who are hospitalized or living in nursing homes, so sort
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: of a hasty evacuation to unsuitable sites. It was just
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: a terrible situation. Again, I'm not as confident as some
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: people that we can know exactly how many people died
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: or had adverse health effects as a result of this
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: dispersal of radiation. And you know, something you hear from
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: anti nuclear advocates or scientists is like, just because we
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: can't measure it for sure, doesn't mean there weren't effects.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: Like a lot of things can increase the risk of cancer,
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: and cancer is very common, so it can be really
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: hard to tell for sure. But the official numbers are
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: actually shockingly low. A lot of people hear those numbers,
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: they're very surprised in your heart to believe.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a break and when we get back,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: we'll talk a little bit more about the groups that
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: are advocating for nuclear power. All right, and we're back.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: So one of the interesting groups that you talked about
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: in the book is Mom's for Nuclear And actually can't
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: remember if this example was a person from Mom's for Nuclear,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: but you talked about a woman who was pregnant and
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: it pressed her belly up against one of the waste casks,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: which I can't say I would do myself, but it
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: was an interesting way to prove how committed she was.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: But can you tell us a little bit about the
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Mom's for Nuclear group?
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, technically Mother's for Nuclear is the name, and yeah,
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: that young woman who pressed her baby bump against a
• 38:00
  Speaker 6: waste caasp was not part of that group. But the
• 38:03
  Speaker 6: pro nuclear community scene is very small and kind of incestuous,
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: and everyone knows each other, so she definitely knows them.
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: But yeah, Mothers for Nuclear was founded on Earth Day
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: twenty sixteen by two women who both worked and still
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: work at Diablo Canyon Power Plants, which is the last
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: nuclear plant that's operating in California. It's on the Central
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: coast and it's kind of the through line. The narrative
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: arc of my book follows the story of that particular plant,
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: and Heather Hoff and Kristen Zates they were the founders.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: They both were sort of very classic environmentalist, tree hugger types.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: Heather grew up in a trailer in Arizona and would
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: i'm clamberon rocks near the trailer, and her dad would
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: sprinkle her and her sister with a watering can instead
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: of showering, and she was always just very acutely aware
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: of resource use. And she kind of ended up working
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: at Diablo Canyon by accident because she was looking for
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: a good job and it was basically the main option
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: that she was aware of in San Luisibispo, where she
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: was living at the time after college, and she thought,
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: if nothing else, she'd be a spy. He kind of
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: like the Aaron Brokovich of nuclear energy, and Kristen Zeits
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: had a pretty similar background. She grew up in California
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: and she would go camping and sleep under the stars,
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: and she was really into breastfeeding and very kind of
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: crunchy type, and basically would expect them to be anti nuclear.
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: Everything else in their biography would have led them to
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: be anti nuclear, and they were, I mean, they weren't
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: anti nuclear activists, but they were definitely very skeptical of
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: nuclear power. But both ended up working at Diablo Canyon
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: in Kristen's case, she was a civil engineer and got
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: an internship there, even though like whether she's kind of
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: dubious about it, but she was like, well, I'll just
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: do this internship to learn about civil engineering and then
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: I'll leave and do something else. But they both ended
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: up staying and learning more about it and basically becoming
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: really true believers, really passionate supporters of nuclear because they
• 40:33
  Speaker 6: decided that it was actually consistent with their environmentalist values.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And is that because they understood the greenhouse gas situation
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: or because they changed their views on the dangers and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the waste, you know, from like the simpsons three Mile
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Island view to more sort of balanced, nuanced understanding of
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: the risks.
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'd say both. They were both very concerned about
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: climate and learns that this was a low carbon energy
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: source and that it had because of its density, it
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: had a very small footprint. So we haven't really talked about,
• 41:04
  Speaker 6: you know, what its advantages might be over renewables. But
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: whereas renewables like wind and solar, they're just not as
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: energy dens so you just need more of them and
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: you need more space to generate the same amount of energy,
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: and so for them because they really loved like hiking
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: and camping, and so they thought that, you know, the
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: energy density was a big virtue for them, and they
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: also started to think that the risks had been overstated.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: If we can dig into that for a minute. I
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: know that there's a debate in the environmental community about
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: whether we need something beyond renewables like our wind and
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: solar enough. And some people, as you say in the book,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: like Friends of the Earth, the vision for the California's
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: future is both nuclear free and fossil free, just like
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: wind and solar. But then I talked to folks like
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Steve Davis, who a friend of both of ours, is
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: a professor of Earth system science, and he says that
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: it's totally impractical to have just wind and solar because
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: they don't run all the time. Right. If you don't
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: have wind, and if you don't have sun, and batteries
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: are just not practical. He told me once. It's possible
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to do it, but it's ridiculously expensive. And the best
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: case scenario is like eighty ninety percent renewables with some
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: baseline from something you can turn off and on quickly
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: to provide power when you don't otherwise have it is
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: that the crux of the debate within the environmental community.
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there are people who think that we can do
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: it all with renewables. There are people who think we can't.
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: Then there are also people who think maybe we technically can,
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: but because of some of these issues I've mentioned about
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: land use, and in terms of batteries, batteries are a
• 42:43
  Speaker 6: really interesting part of the debate because yes, there's actually
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: been incredible progress with battery technology recently, and batteries have
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: been really spreading just in the past year or two
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: and doing a lot more work of backing up renewables.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: There's still lenges I think with longer term storage more
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: than a few hours, and so that is a real challenge.
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: There's also, though, environmental issues with all of these technologies
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: mining lithium for batteries. And there was actually a fire
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: recently that you may have heard about, I think in
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: central California, actually not far from Diablo Canyon. There was
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: this kind of devastating fire and apparently when all these
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: batteries pop fire and you don't put it out, I
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: guess there's no way to put it out. You just
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: have to let it run its course. And so all
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: these toxins were released and similar to the fires in
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: il it, you know, all these toxins in the air
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: and in the soil. So I guess I just learned
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: more that these technologies that environmentalists like me, you know,
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: tend to like and just think sound more sort of
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: natural and gentle. And it's not just sun, and it's
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: not just wind. It's material infrastructure, and they all have
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: their issues and their environmental issues. So yeah, there's a
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: range of views, of course on the ideal portfolio. And
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: also I should add that technology is advancing all the time,
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: although of course we haven't talked about how dramatically this
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: whole landscape has changed just recently because of the Trump administration.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: It's been actually really shocking, and you know, all this
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: progress that was occurring has now really stalled. At least
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: some renewables. There's actually bipartisan agreement to some extent on nuclear,
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: which is something else we can talk about. But anyway,
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: I would just say there's always progress that can happen,
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: and there may be more progress with batteries and renewables.
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: But I guess I came to think that nuclear because
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: of its energy density and because it is what they
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: call clean firm power. It's not variable or intermittent like
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: wind and solar. It doesn't depend on weather conditions. That
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: it kind of makes sense to have that as part
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: of the mix and have these different energy forms that
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: have different pluses and minuses.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: It'd be very interesting digging into the more recent political climate.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: So you know, the book does an amazing job of
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: sort of tracking how opinions have changed over time and
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: how political interest in this topic has changed over time.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: What has changed since the beginning of this year when
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration took over.
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: Well, Trump is trying to reverse and succeeding, I guess
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: at least to some extent. He's blocking billions of dollars
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: in grants that were already you know, contracts were already
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: signed as part of Biden's landmark climate law, the Inflation
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: Reduction Act. The purpose of that law was to encourage
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: basically building all this clean energy infrastructure, and a lot
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: of that has been blocked, at least for now. And
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: Trump basically wants us to burn fossil fuels, and he's
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: making it harder to deploy wind and solar. He and
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: his administration are relative supportive of nuclear, which I guess
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: could be sort of area of potential progress for building
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: more low carbon energy, because in the past ten years
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: or so, i'd say Democrats have also become very pro
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: nuclear at the level of elected officials, you know, Democrats
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: in Congress have been very supportive, and there have actually
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: been a series of biparisan laws to kind of nurture
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: nuclear and revive the industry.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Talk about how progress is sort of being made in
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: terms of keeping nuclear power plants going and discussing starting
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: up some new ones. You feel like that momentum could
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: continue over the next four years, even if it's not
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: so good for wind or solar.
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: It could, but there are also some warning signs. Basically,
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: certainty is really good for you know, business in general
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: and for investments, and especially in a major infrastructure project
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: like a nuclear plants. So the chaos and uncertainty that
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: have been introduced to the past couple of months are
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: probably not good for seeing a nuclear revival. But I
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: do think there is interest, and even just today there
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: was an announcement from some of the major tech companies
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: you know, committing to try to i think triple nuclear
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: power by twenty fifty, which is a goal that the
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: Biden administration sort of established that goal. So these tech
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: giants are voicing their support for that, and they're of
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: course very influential. So yeah, I think the momentum for
• 47:40
  Speaker 6: nuclear could definitely continue, whereas the momentum for renewables there's
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: a lot of questions about that now.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I saw a discussion that like Microsoft was going to
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: turn three Mile Island back on in order to power
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: their data centers. You know, as our society gets more
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: technological and we have more data, intel and so of computing,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it uses a lot of energy, and so our thirst
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: for energy it just grows and grows and grows, and
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: nuclear power seems well suited to that. At the same time,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I see a huge revival in the nuclear industry itself,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: their development of like small modular reactors, which could be
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: easier to produce, easier to license, easier to transport. What
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: do you see as the future of nuclear technology itself?
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Is it going to change these discussions?
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's still an open question. There's definitely a whole
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: bunch of startups working on different technologies, and there's particular
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: enthusiasm for the idea of small modular reactors, as you mentioned,
• 48:37
  Speaker 6: So I think it's just too soon to know what's
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: going to pan out. Because there's one startup called Oaklow
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: that was founded by this young charismatic couple they met
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: as MIT graduate students, and that you founded this company
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: largely out of climate concerns, and I visited their offices
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: in Silicon Valley a few years ago, and their approach
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: is very different in a bunch of ways. I don't
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: know how much into the weeds we should get, but
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: basically they are doing small, modular reactors, and the timelines
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: are just really long. And that's one criticism of nuclear
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: from some climate activists is that you know, we won't
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: even have them in time to meet the deadlines that
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: we need to meet to make a difference. And I
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: think obviously the hope is that once we get some
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: of the first of a kind built, then the timeline
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: will accelerate for getting more built. But I think we're
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: at a period now where we'll probably learn pretty soon
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: whether that's going to happen or whether what the critics
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: say is right, and it's just not going to be
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: feasible to build these projects, you know, on time and
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: on budget, and then maybe it will kind of fizzle.
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: But I think that's something we'll probably find out more
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: answers to in the next few years.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And my question is about how we make these decisions
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: politically and socially. Obviously, the technology is changing, and are
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: standing of the situation scientifically is changing, But fundamentally it's
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: a political decision, and politics should be informed by science,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: at least we hope so, but so much of it
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: seems to be informed by scare tactics and misinformation. What
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: do you think about the sort of state of scientific
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: discourse in our country? Do you think our leaders have
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: the information they need to make sort of unbiased, balanced
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: decisions about these very important, very dangerous technologies that could
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: potentially kill millions or save millions. Is your book a
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: part of trying to get people on board to understanding
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: how these things have changed? What do you think we
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: should do to make sure people like understand the facts
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: on the ground.
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: I hope my book will contribute to just kind of
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: laying out the questions and the issues and why people
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: feel so strongly on both sides. And yeah, the state
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: of scientific discourse, that's a big question, and I'm sure
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: you guys know more about it than I do. I
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: have a lot of concerns about it, especially again because
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: of these days of the Trump administration, and I think
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: in general just the state of the sort of information
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: ecosystem is not very healthy. But another way of thinking
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: about it is, Yeah, just trust in sort of authority
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: and expertise, I would say, is the big theme of
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: my book, and how that's changed over the decades, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: how in recent years the right has become very distrustful
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: of institutions and authority, and the left of these sort
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: of mainstream liberals have become much more trusting. And we
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: saw this, of course during COVID. It probably helps to
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: explain why Democrats have come to be more open to
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: nuclear because I would say that among experts and among
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: sort of institutions like the International Energy Agency and the
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, these sort of major authoritative institutions,
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: they are all saying, you know, nuclear should be on
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: the table at least, And so I think, as someone myself,
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: I guess I'm more inclined to trust expertise, which grows
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: out of, you know, being really worried about climate change
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: and feeling like the scientists were the ones who were
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: speaking out and telling the truth, and so I trusted
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: them on that, And then was when I learned that
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: a lot of scientists were saying that nuclear has to
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: be part of the solution. That kind of caught my
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: attention and I thought, well, maybe I should at least
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: hear them out on this as well. So I don't
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: know if that answers your question, but those are some
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: of my thoughts on the subject.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Sort of an unanswerable question, but thanks for your thoughts.
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: So, one of the things I really appreciated about your
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: book is how nuanced it was and how you tried
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: to dig into everybody's claims and see how valid they were.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: And so you've sort of hinted at the answer a
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: little bit in the answer to your last question. But
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: after doing all of this research, where do you stand
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: on nuclear power and where nuclear power fits into solving
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: our current issues with global climate change?
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so I would just reiterate that the main contribution
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: I hope I'm making is to kind of explain the
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: range of perspectives and you know, write a story that
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: I hope is fun to read. You know, there are
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: a lot of people with very strong opinions on this,
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: and I am not really one of them. Just temperamentally.
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: I tend to be more of a person who sees
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: both sides, and I guess I came to think that
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: largely because this is what a lot of the experts
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: I trusted were saying, that it does need to be considered.
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: It's not a panacea, but it can play an important
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: role in our energy system because of certain distinctive characteristics
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: that it has, and that could change as we have
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: technological progress in other areas, even geothermal. You know, there
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: may be a major breakthrough in geothermal that could make
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: that a much bigger part of our portfolio than it
• 54:07
  Speaker 6: has been until now. So I'm definitely not someone who
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: thinks we need all nuclear, and you know, it's by
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: far the most viable low carbon energy source. I think
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: we have a range of options. I never thought like
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: that it was something we should completely abandon. I thought
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: that it had some really important strengths. I mean, I
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: tend to be ambivalent because I'm sort of a classic
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: environmentalist at heart myself, and part of me just thinks like,
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: why can't we just live in cabins and use much
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: less energy and just live humbly, and you know, not
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: have all these data centers and not have AI, So
• 54:48
  Speaker 6: that is kind of how I feel at heart. But
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: first of all, I realized that that's not realistic, that
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: that's not going to happen. So how can we meet
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: our energy demand in a way that's not going to
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: introeust the climate? So yeah, I ended up feeling like
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: nuclear was one viable option among others.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Well, we should all live in cabins, but we should
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: still have enough energy to produce and distribute podcasts about science.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Of course. Of course, that's priority number one in any society, and.
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: Published books, that's right.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Priority number two is for everyone to order their version
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: of Atomic Dreams.
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: It's a fantastic book. It's a story well told. I laughed,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't cry, but I had a good time.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: I learned a lot.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Congratulations on the book, and thank you very much for
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: coming on the podcast to answer all of our tough
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: questions about it.
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much. It's a lot of fun.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeart Reading.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you, We really would.
• 55:53
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• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.
• 55:58
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• 56:01
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• 56:04
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• 56:05
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• 56:08
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• 56:11
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