Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #19 "greens are anti-science" with Tea Törmänen

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Bad Idea #19 "greens are anti-science" with Tea Törmänen · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

• 0:00
  So at least in Finland, the party which has been always most
• 0:03
  pro nuclear has been kind of like a right wing party.
• 0:07
  So there was just tribalism going on that you're if you're
• 0:11
  in the left or in the Greens, you're supposed to be against
• 0:13
  and and if you're in on the right, then you're supposed to
• 0:16
  be for nuclear. People didn't really analyze why
• 0:20
  they are against and why they are for.
• 0:23
  So there's a lot of tribalism in in play as well.
• 0:25
  And The thing is that there's people think that there's risks
• 0:29
  to using nuclear clear, but there's, they forget that
• 0:31
  there's risks for not using nuclear.
• 0:33
  So you always have to take that into account.
• 0:35
  So what if we don't use nuclear? How many people will die, die
• 0:38
  then? And we know this because if you
• 0:40
  prematurely close down a nuclear plant, that has led to more coal
• 0:44
  and gas and, and we know that's going to have real life health
• 0:47
  consequences to people. So when you compare this risk,
• 0:51
  then it's really obvious that using nuclear is a lot less
• 0:55
  risky than not using nuclear energy.
• 0:57
  There's a lot of this idea going around that you should be
• 1:00
  suffering, you should make some kind of sacrifice.
• 1:03
  And if you're not making a sacrifice for nature, then
• 1:06
  you're not a proper environmentalist.
• 1:08
  So there's this element of sacrificing that needs to be
• 1:11
  there. And if we just go on with our
• 1:14
  lives, not really changing anything, but we just replace
• 1:17
  everything with cleaner options, then that's not a sacrifice.
• 1:21
  So for example, regarding nuclear energy, I've heard
• 1:24
  someone say that it's like giving a lollipop to a child.
• 1:28
  It's too easy. So then again, there's this need
• 1:32
  for sacrificing. So if you're just having loads
• 1:35
  of clean energy and you don't have to save energy, you don't
• 1:38
  have to turn your lights off and and that's then it's not a
• 1:41
  sacrifice, it's too easy. Welcome to saving the world from
• 1:46
  bad ideas. I'm Mark Linus and I've had a
• 1:49
  few bad ideas in my time. I used to go out in the night
• 1:52
  time to destroy GMO crops, and I also posed nuclear power.
• 1:55
  But then when I looked at the science, I found I got it wrong.
• 1:58
  Oops. I've learned the hard way that
• 2:00
  none of us are right all the time.
• 2:01
  So now I'm here to challenge the assumptions that we all too
• 2:04
  often take for granted because the future depends on us getting
• 2:07
  it right. Todeman and very pleased to have
• 2:11
  you on our Saving the World from Bad Ideas podcast.
• 2:15
  Today we're going to talk about the bad idea that you're saving
• 2:18
  the world from, which is that greens, green parties, green
• 2:22
  politicians, green environmentalists cannot support
• 2:26
  nuclear power. And this is kind of kind of your
• 2:29
  life story. So we've got a lot to get
• 2:30
  through. And given that I already know
• 2:32
  you and I've known you a few years, I can say this fairly
• 2:34
  confidently. You have an incredible life
• 2:36
  story and you've done some some pretty amazing things and you're
• 2:39
  one of the most interesting people I've ever had the
• 2:40
  pleasure to meet. So we are going to really enjoy
• 2:44
  hearing a bit more about you, but just to get like just to get
• 2:47
  right into your the bad idea. What is it about nuclear power
• 2:52
  which somehow Greens have a problem with?
• 2:55
  And I could give you my answer, but I want to hear yours first.
• 2:57
  Well, there's a lot of history to it.
• 3:00
  I mean, nuclear war, I mean, the threat of nuclear war is
• 3:03
  definitely one part of it. I think radiation also just
• 3:07
  scares people in in general and people, people don't understand
• 3:10
  it. They cannot put it into
• 3:12
  perspective. It's really difficult to compare
• 3:14
  radiation levels. So people think that even
• 3:18
  tiniest amount of radiation is really, really dangerous.
• 3:21
  So I think there's a lot of reasons to it also because it's
• 3:25
  a very polarized topic. So at least in Finland, the
• 3:29
  party which has been always most pro nuclear has been kind of
• 3:32
  like a right wing party. So there was just tribalism
• 3:37
  going on that you're if you're in the left or in the Greens,
• 3:39
  you're supposed to be against and and if you're in on the
• 3:42
  right, then you're supposed to be for nuclear.
• 3:45
  People didn't really analyze why they are against and why they
• 3:49
  are for. So there's a lot of tribalism in
• 3:52
  play as well. I was never against nuclear.
• 3:56
  So I was kind of him in between, but I was always an
• 3:59
  environmentalist. So it was very difficult for me
• 4:03
  at one point because I felt like I didn't belong in any of these
• 4:07
  groups. I've always been an
• 4:09
  environmentalist as well and I guess I was anti nuclear up
• 4:13
  until about 2005 or thereabouts, maybe a bit later, but not
• 4:18
  because I thought about it or done, I don't know, scientific
• 4:23
  research or something. It was just that it was in the,
• 4:25
  the DNA of the environmental movement.
• 4:27
  And you can see that with the origin story of many of the
• 4:30
  groups. I mean, Friends of the Earth,
• 4:32
  for example, was founded, I believe, as a breakaway from the
• 4:35
  Sierra Club, which was a another big American NGO, because the
• 4:39
  Sierra Club wasn't anti nuclear enough.
• 4:41
  And by anti nuclear, I mean anti nuclear power, not anti nuclear
• 4:45
  weapons. And you can see this even in the
• 4:46
  history of of Greenpeace, which was founded originally to
• 4:50
  campaign against nuclear weapons tests.
• 4:53
  I'm thinking of Alaska, actually.
• 4:55
  But then, you know, then they got on to saving the whales and
• 4:57
  then they pivoted onto onto opposing nuclear power and
• 5:00
  stopped talking about nuclear weapons.
• 5:02
  Which in any kind of logical scenario you think is bizarre
• 5:05
  because which is really more of a threat to survival of species
• 5:09
  or of, of human civilization? Like the thousands of nuclear
• 5:13
  missiles which are ready to to get explode and give us nuclear
• 5:17
  war and a nuclear winter or a few reactors, which can, you
• 5:20
  know, the absolute worst case scenario, release a bit of
• 5:22
  radiation into a local area. So it doesn't make any sense.
• 5:24
  But it's something which has been there for so long that it's
• 5:27
  become part of the DNA of the environmental movement.
• 5:30
  It's almost an it's an identity. Right.
• 5:32
  To me, a lot of the environmentalists aren't even
• 5:35
  that aggressive against fossil fuels.
• 5:37
  So I know many environmentalists who are happy to drive a
• 5:41
  gasoline car. They're really, they don't, they
• 5:43
  don't like electric cars. They're really happy to drive a
• 5:46
  diesel car or, you know, gasoline car.
• 5:49
  And, and they don't mind and they don't think that's
• 5:52
  horrible. But if you're a nuclear energy
• 5:55
  supporter, then that's absolutely terrible.
• 5:58
  So it's very weird because we know that fossil fuels are
• 6:00
  definitely bad for the climate and the environment, but a lot
• 6:04
  of the environmentalists are not putting that much effort into
• 6:08
  being against fossil fuels. They're not as aggressive about
• 6:11
  it. They're not as black and white
• 6:13
  about it as they are about nuclear energy.
• 6:15
  And I find that really, really interesting.
• 6:17
  And it to me never made sense, but for them obviously does.
• 6:21
  Yeah, I think there's something, there's some psychology here and
• 6:24
  there's, I can't remember who originally did this work, but
• 6:27
  it's kind of a matrix of different technologies which
• 6:30
  have a sort of dread factor attached to them.
• 6:32
  Yeah. And I think nuclear pretty much
• 6:35
  goes at the top right and. Yeah, I think possible fuels
• 6:38
  feel more natural. Right, exactly for.
• 6:40
  Some reason? Yeah, it's just like just like
• 6:43
  the old, you know, the old anti nuclear, you know, the singers
• 6:46
  used to sing, you know, give me a log fire.
• 6:47
  Don't give me a horrible reactor.
• 6:49
  You know. So it's something to do with the
• 6:50
  homeliness and the kind of the approachability and the sense of
• 6:54
  control and this idea that, you know, you'd have these nuclear
• 6:58
  engineers who are either idiots like Homer Simpson or they're
• 7:01
  somehow this kind of priesthood who are totally out of any kind
• 7:05
  of control of society, who are just doing this, this strange
• 7:08
  thing up on the hill in this, in this weird looking Dome.
• 7:12
  And you know what? It's, it's just, I can see why
• 7:15
  it's inherently scary, but these are also really outdated tropes
• 7:19
  now. And, and what's what's weird
• 7:20
  perhaps is that they, they just continue to resonate.
• 7:23
  I mean, and you can see this when, when the technology goes
• 7:26
  wrong, like in Fukushima or Chernobyl, I mean, it makes, you
• 7:29
  know, Chernobyl had that great long documentary on one of the
• 7:33
  streaming platforms and you know, the drama of it, you know,
• 7:37
  all these people dying and stuff like that.
• 7:38
  But actually, what? The true history of Chernobyl is
• 7:41
  very different, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, we had a professor
• 7:45
  in one of our events who's been studying the animal population
• 7:50
  in that area, and it's one of the most thriving natural
• 7:53
  conservation areas right now because of the absence of
• 7:55
  humans. So yeah, it's it's very
• 7:57
  interesting. And so I'm into wolves, as you
• 8:00
  know, as you know, and there's a very thriving wolf population in
• 8:03
  the terminal area right now. So it's interesting that that
• 8:06
  humans are more detrimental to animal populations than the
• 8:11
  worst nuclear energy disaster we've had.
• 8:13
  That's exactly right. I mean, I've been to Chernobyl.
• 8:15
  I was there before the war filming with Channel 4.
• 8:18
  And what struck me most was, as you say, just it just felt like
• 8:22
  a, it was a nature nature park, nature reserve.
• 8:24
  It was just thriving. It was humming with life and
• 8:27
  just, it was amazing how all these trees and how nature was
• 8:30
  reclaiming all these trees were growing up through the
• 8:32
  buildings. And to some people this is like
• 8:34
  a kind of horrific wasteland. But actually for me, it was
• 8:37
  just, it was a magnificent view of, of rewilding.
• 8:41
  And, you know, we had dosimeter so we could tell that there were
• 8:44
  some areas which had relatively high radiation, residual
• 8:47
  radiation still. But it just goes to show that
• 8:50
  even high levels of radiation are much better for nature than
• 8:53
  just normal human occupation. So that that's of course why in,
• 8:57
  you know, in, in, in macro scale, why biodiversity is in,
• 9:00
  in crisis all around the world. Let's talk a bit about Finland.
• 9:03
  There was a minister who will remain nameless who someone was
• 9:08
  telling us about this was in the UK actually about how in Sweden
• 9:13
  they do this, this and this. And he just banged the table
• 9:15
  said Sweden is not a real country.
• 9:17
  And I feel in some ways to say people feel the same way.
• 9:20
  That's about Finland as in all all of these sort of
• 9:23
  Scandinavian countries that they do these crazy things.
• 9:26
  They've got sort of systems which support people and which
• 9:29
  are a bit socialist and have reasonably high tax rates.
• 9:32
  And everyone's really happy. And I'm sure it's not really
• 9:34
  like that. But you seem to have arrived in
• 9:36
  a fairly smart place with with nuclear at least, and, you know,
• 9:40
  with your approach to energy. So tell me how this whole story
• 9:45
  played out in in in Finland from from the beginning?
• 9:48
  Yeah. So historically the situation is
• 9:51
  very similar to other countries. So like I said, we have the the
• 9:54
  right wing party being pro nuclear and the lefts and the
• 9:57
  center party as well. So in the 90s it was actually
• 10:00
  the center party that blocked a lot of the the new nuclear
• 10:03
  projects. And we stopped building new
• 10:05
  nuclear in Finland. Yeah, it was very divided.
• 10:08
  It was very political. But then there's a lot of things
• 10:11
  going on at the same time. So the national organization, we
• 10:15
  planted Finland, we call it now, we used to be the Ecuador
• 10:17
  Society of Finland was founded in 2015.
• 10:22
  And even before this, there was this kind of a club within the
• 10:26
  Greens that was formed called the Greens for Science and
• 10:30
  Technology. And among these people, a few
• 10:33
  started to question the stands of the Greens against Nuclear.
• 10:38
  And so together with all these people who started to question
• 10:42
  this approach, we started to push nuclear as an environmental
• 10:45
  organization. I was the chair for four years
• 10:48
  in Finland, so we have the the first environmental movement in
• 10:51
  Finland to be pro nuclear and we started to challenge.
• 10:54
  Sorry to sorry to interrupt, but I want to know, I want to get to
• 10:57
  the very beginning of this. Like who first said in a
• 10:59
  meeting, wait a minute, we might have got nuclear wrong or what
• 11:02
  was the process? Do you do you know or do you
• 11:03
  remember like who it was or what the first part came from?
• 11:06
  Yeah, so in the Greens there was a ex leader of the Greens,
• 11:11
  Osmosoinimara. So there are a few prominent
• 11:14
  figures in the Greens who said that, you know, you know, the
• 11:18
  climate crisis is getting really serious.
• 11:20
  I think we should reconsider. And at the same time, there's
• 11:24
  these science Greens within the Green Party who started question
• 11:28
  this. And also the Greens in Finland
• 11:32
  are very Democratic Party. So it's really, really easy to
• 11:35
  change the positions of the party.
• 11:38
  And also they decided I wasn't in the Greens at the time.
• 11:41
  They decided that they should have a civilized discussion
• 11:44
  about this topic. So we know from other countries
• 11:47
  that if you're in a Green Party and you say that you support
• 11:50
  nuclear, you get a big pushback, you get people calling you
• 11:54
  names, you get just horrible feedback.
• 11:56
  And some people don't want to do it.
• 11:58
  So the leadership of the Green Party said that, you know, we
• 12:02
  need to have a civilized discussion about this.
• 12:04
  You know, everyone's going to be appreciated no matter what they
• 12:06
  think about this topic. So we're going to have a proper
• 12:09
  debate about this topic. So the discussion culture within
• 12:12
  the party was very important. And then as a the the Ecomorning
• 12:17
  Society of Finland, we started talking to other environmental
• 12:20
  groups. We started going to climate
• 12:22
  marches with some nuclear signs. And at the first climate March
• 12:27
  we went to, this was I think in 2015, we got some negative
• 12:30
  feedback. But then the following ones were
• 12:34
  a lot easier. So we met with the youth, for
• 12:36
  example. What kind of negative feedback?
• 12:38
  Because I, you know, when I, when I first, I think the first
• 12:41
  thing I did was write a piece for the New Statesman in the UK,
• 12:44
  which is this left wing magazine.
• 12:45
  Straightaway I got e-mail from people who were environmentalist
• 12:49
  friends of mine who had known from protests saying, I can't
• 12:52
  believe you've done this. You know, something must be
• 12:53
  wrong with you. And literally, because I was
• 12:56
  living in Oxford and a lot of my friends were like in the Green
• 12:59
  councillors, I'd even been invited to be a Green Party, do
• 13:02
  it myself. And literally at parties, people
• 13:05
  were walking away, they were crossing the road.
• 13:07
  It felt like a real, real ostracism.
• 13:09
  So like, you must have had some of that when you were starting
• 13:12
  to question the sort of ideology, you know, which is
• 13:15
  really deep seated for the first time, right?
• 13:17
  It kind of been that easy. Fins in general luckily are very
• 13:21
  calm people. So I think there was this one
• 13:24
  aggressive man who was very anti nuclear who was really saying
• 13:28
  that you shouldn't be here, you don't belong here, you're not
• 13:30
  really against climate crisis, you're not, you're not
• 13:34
  supporting the real solutions. And of course he thought that
• 13:38
  that's renewables and only renewables.
• 13:40
  But then we had very good discussions with the the Green
• 13:43
  youth, for example, and in addition to the science Greens,
• 13:47
  the Green youth were actually a movement within the Greens who
• 13:50
  started to push a more positive stance to nuclear.
• 13:54
  So it was these first discussions we started having
• 13:57
  and they they started to have an effect.
• 13:59
  Also we were very close, in very close contact with people in
• 14:04
  Fridays for future Extinction Rebellion talking to them about
• 14:08
  the benefits of nuclear energy. And so neither of these
• 14:11
  movements in Finland never became anti nuclear.
• 14:14
  So from the start, I mean they didn't really have a stance on
• 14:16
  nuclear, but we continued to have discussions with them and
• 14:21
  then just a few years later they came out being pro nuclear.
• 14:24
  So for example, when Greater said that nuclear shouldn't be
• 14:28
  in the taxonomy, then the finish Fridays for Future said the
• 14:31
  nuclear absolutely should be in the taxonomy.
• 14:35
  Tell us what do you mean? What's the taxonomy that you're
• 14:37
  referring to? So the the taxonomy for
• 14:40
  sustainable investments in the EU.
• 14:43
  So there was a huge debate about whether nuclear energy should be
• 14:47
  eligible for this kind of funding.
• 14:50
  You go to Tunberg in Sweden, who's the founder of Fridays the
• 14:52
  Future and obviously very well known, said it should not
• 14:55
  nuclear should not be included in the sustainable financing
• 14:57
  taxonomy in the EU, and the Fridays for Future chapter in
• 15:01
  Finland pushed back on that. Yes, yes.
• 15:03
  So they, they'd made a public statement and they published
• 15:06
  that on their website. And that was very brave of them
• 15:09
  because I know that they got a lot of negative feedback within
• 15:12
  the Fridays for Future community, very aggressive
• 15:16
  feedback. Wow.
• 15:17
  And the same same for Extinction Rebellion.
• 15:19
  I mean, again, that's I've known them in the UK context, which
• 15:23
  which is where it started and I've not Yeah.
• 15:27
  I mean the nuclear thing was, you see, you would logically
• 15:31
  expect that the people who are most alarmed by the gravity of
• 15:35
  the climate crisis and think that we are the last generation,
• 15:39
  as it's called in Germany or you know, that that's there's
• 15:42
  there's no future for our kids or anything like that.
• 15:44
  They would be the ones who would be saying yes to every single
• 15:48
  low carbon option, including. Nuclear and even a.
• 15:50
  Climate, What happened in the past?
• 15:54
  Yeah, well, yeah, even geoengineering potentially, you
• 15:56
  know, anything to call the planet down would, you know,
• 15:58
  might be their motto. But it doesn't seem to be that
• 16:00
  way. They seem to have a certain
• 16:02
  group of of solutions which are the ones that that they consider
• 16:07
  to be permissible. And everything else is, is is a
• 16:10
  false, false solution and has to be opposed with, you know, very
• 16:14
  strongly. And you know, how did those
• 16:17
  boundaries, how did those lines originally get drawn?
• 16:20
  That that's very interesting because I've seen similar thing
• 16:23
  when it comes to the things we eat.
• 16:27
  So there's a lot of vegans who think that we shouldn't eat meat
• 16:31
  replacement that that that that that's the wrong solution that's
• 16:35
  that's a false solution. So we should all all just be
• 16:38
  eating beans and tofu and and and whatnot.
• 16:40
  So they recheck these technological solutions even
• 16:44
  though they might help us to reach a goal earlier.
• 16:47
  I think it's kind of like a Puritan thing that you it's part
• 16:52
  of your identity to be an environmentalist, and then you
• 16:55
  start putting things into it that belong to that identity.
• 16:59
  And these are the technologies that are good and pure and then
• 17:03
  some others are not. So then it becomes more about
• 17:08
  that identity than what actually works.
• 17:11
  Yeah, it's the. Somehow the pragmatic options
• 17:14
  are rejected, aren't they? Because of the.
• 17:17
  You know that there's something where there's something some
• 17:19
  it's not virtuous signaling, but there's something about needing
• 17:21
  to feel virtuous and needing to feel that you're.
• 17:23
  Yeah. And I also think there's there's
• 17:25
  a lot of this idea going around that you should be suffering,
• 17:28
  you should make some kind of sacrifice.
• 17:30
  And if you're not making a sacrifice for nature, then
• 17:34
  you're not a proper environmentalist.
• 17:35
  So there's an this element of sacrificing that need needs to
• 17:39
  be there. And if we just go on with our
• 17:41
  lives not really changing anything, but we'll just replace
• 17:45
  everything with cleaner options, then that's not a sacrifice.
• 17:49
  And so then you're doing it wrong.
• 17:51
  I think I should have a try and find someone to have a proper
• 17:54
  conversation with this about this.
• 17:56
  But I think it's like because I don't know much about it, but
• 17:59
  this, I think it's such a judeo-christian type notion,
• 18:02
  isn't it this this idea of sacrificing for a better world
• 18:05
  or something. You know, you've got to somehow
• 18:08
  expunge your sinfulness to attain the Kingdom of heaven.
• 18:10
  It would be, but I think these notions are very still still
• 18:14
  very prevalent culturally, aren't they?
• 18:15
  And I think they really do form the origin of a lot of
• 18:18
  environmentalist thinking as well.
• 18:19
  Even if it's not, even if it's, you know, notionally not to be
• 18:22
  with God, right? So for example, regarding
• 18:25
  nuclear energy, I've heard someone say that it's like
• 18:28
  giving a lollipop to a child, it's too easy.
• 18:31
  So then again, there's this need for sacrificing.
• 18:35
  So if it's just having loads of clean energy and you don't have
• 18:38
  to save energy, you don't have to turn your lights off and and
• 18:42
  that's then it's not a sacrifice, it's too easy.
• 18:45
  So it's wrong. Yeah, and I think this comes up
• 18:48
  with the degrowth movement as well.
• 18:50
  And I get I get emails from people who read my book saying,
• 18:53
  you know, you, you talk about these options and, you know,
• 18:56
  pragmatic ways. But if we don't stop economic
• 18:58
  growth and we don't stop using too much of the earth, and you
• 19:01
  know, then we'll never solve these problems or just create
• 19:04
  more problems. And I know what I know what they
• 19:07
  mean. But at the same time, it's a
• 19:09
  fundamentally very hopeless type perspective because, you know,
• 19:12
  just to try to insist on impossible measures to deal with
• 19:16
  something which actually is a relatively soluble problem is a
• 19:20
  way of not solving it. Yeah.
• 19:21
  And I'm always curious. I always want to know what their
• 19:24
  solution is to make it happen. In this happen in a democratic
• 19:28
  society, how do you actually enforce, for example, like
• 19:33
  having so so you'd have like quotas and you can have just
• 19:38
  this much, you know, of clothes or you can fly only like once in
• 19:43
  10 years and you can have apartment.
• 19:46
  There's like a square meter size like how big that can be.
• 19:50
  How how do you make that happen in a democratic society?
• 19:53
  How do you how did the politicians making these
• 19:55
  decisions get re elected? How do you solve that?
• 19:59
  And I've never heard a solution so far.
• 20:02
  They just, they just say that you we need to do this.
• 20:04
  But I'm like, OK, but how, how are we going to do this in a
• 20:09
  democratic society? It's going to be impossible.
• 20:11
  And I'll be even read a paper, like a scientific paper that
• 20:15
  calculated like how much space would like each individual get
• 20:19
  if we would just distribute it evenly across the globe.
• 20:22
  And even if those scientists said that we have no idea how
• 20:26
  you, how we do actually implement this, like we can
• 20:28
  calculate this. So we have no idea how, how, how
• 20:31
  to actually do this, like how, how, how to make it happen.
• 20:34
  So even the scientists are saying like, we don't know.
• 20:37
  And of course, you, you can do that by taxation.
• 20:41
  You can, you can, you know, have demands for recycling.
• 20:44
  Those are the things you can do. But just having those type of
• 20:48
  coal das, that's going to be very, very difficult.
• 20:51
  Right. So anyway, let's get back to the
• 20:53
  to the nuclear topic and and investigate a bit more with a in
• 20:56
  a bit more deeply about why it's a bad idea for for greens to say
• 21:01
  no to nuclear. Obviously the conventional
• 21:03
  environmentalist thinking on this has been that I suppose
• 21:07
  there's two main objections, right?
• 21:09
  What, and maybe you can correct me if I'm getting the wrong
• 21:12
  ones, but I would say waste. So this idea that we're leaving
• 21:16
  this long lived radioactive waste for future generations to
• 21:20
  deal with and there's no solution to it and and so on.
• 21:23
  And also maybe maybe the radiation thing, that's the
• 21:26
  danger of accidents. I remember seeing some anti
• 21:29
  nuclear groups saying we could sterilize half the country if
• 21:32
  one of these things blows up and it would be uninhabitable
• 21:34
  forever. So this notion that the nuclear
• 21:37
  accident from a reactor really is a sort of mini, mini
• 21:40
  apocalypse and therefore it's completely it's just unthinkable
• 21:43
  to use this as an energy source. Do you think those are the 2
• 21:45
  main ones or are there other big objections as well which which
• 21:49
  you frequently hear? Yeah, I think those two.
• 21:52
  And also I think what I hear in Finland is that then you would
• 21:57
  have too much energy and too much of consumption.
• 22:01
  So that would lead to extra consumption if we'd had this
• 22:05
  24/7 unlimited energy. The solution is just.
• 22:09
  Just too good. It shouldn't be allowed, right?
• 22:12
  Yeah, that's too much carbon free power.
• 22:14
  We must ban it. Because, yeah.
• 22:15
  And then there's still the fact that they think that investing
• 22:18
  in nuclear would mean that we wouldn't be investing in
• 22:22
  renewables. But what does that matter?
• 22:24
  I mean, if they're both doing the job, why does that matter?
• 22:27
  Yeah, exactly. And it's it's not even true as
• 22:30
  we know. I mean, Finland is a great
• 22:32
  example that you can invest in both.
• 22:34
  OK, well let's let's look at these.
• 22:37
  I mean, we might call them bad ideas, but let's look at look at
• 22:41
  them in a bit more detail. So the waste thing, have you
• 22:44
  dealt with that both as kind of a discourse, so a conversation
• 22:47
  topic and in, in in a sort of real policy engineering
• 22:51
  technical sense? Yeah, so, so nuclear waste is
• 22:53
  not a technical problem, It's not a scientific problem.
• 22:56
  It's a political problem. And in Finland we've been able
• 22:59
  to solve this. So we are just about to finish
• 23:03
  the world's first final repository because even when the
• 23:08
  Greens were against nuclear, they thought that, well, we're
• 23:11
  producing this way, so we must take care of it.
• 23:13
  We just can't postpone this solution to next generations.
• 23:18
  So we got into agreement across the political parties, locals in
• 23:24
  the area where they decided to build this.
• 23:26
  They, they also wanted to, so they'd had an option to opt out.
• 23:30
  So I think that's very important.
• 23:32
  So they, they could genuinely choose whether they want the
• 23:36
  final repository or not. They wanted it because it does
• 23:39
  bring jobs and the finished bedrock is excellent for final
• 23:43
  repositories. Personally, I don't think we
• 23:45
  need final repositories. We should just recycle and reuse
• 23:50
  the waste. So hopefully we'll get there
• 23:51
  before we actually seal the final repository and we can just
• 23:54
  use all this waste. But I think it stopped the
• 23:57
  conversation about waste in Finland.
• 24:00
  So in that way, it was a really good thing that we reach the
• 24:04
  solution. So in Finland, we've never had
• 24:06
  any issues with nuclear waste. This is true for most, like all
• 24:10
  the countries basically in the world.
• 24:13
  So nuclear waste hasn't killed anyone.
• 24:15
  It hasn't caused the nuclear waste from nuclear reactors
• 24:18
  hasn't caused any huge environmental problems.
• 24:21
  In Finland or anywhere in the world?
• 24:22
  What you What do you mean? Anywhere in the world, I, I, I
• 24:25
  don't know any huge natural disaster.
• 24:28
  So I mean the, compared to other types waste that we have, it's
• 24:32
  very well taken care of. So for me it was as an
• 24:36
  environmentalist, it was never a problem.
• 24:38
  It's so well managed and it's regulated and, and the nuclear,
• 24:42
  I mean it's required that you save like one of your, the
• 24:46
  nuclear companies, they have to save for handling the waste,
• 24:49
  save money for handling that waste.
• 24:51
  So there's just lots of money in Europe for this purpose.
• 24:55
  So it's, it's very well maintained.
• 24:57
  And like I said, it can be even reused.
• 25:00
  So we could, if the the like the price of uranium was much higher
• 25:04
  than it's now like we could it, we could be financially feasible
• 25:08
  to reuse it in breeding reactors.
• 25:11
  So it's also fuel for the future.
• 25:13
  Yeah, let's look at that a bit more technically, How does
• 25:17
  recycling nuclear waste work? Does this make it go away?
• 25:20
  I mean, can all of it be recycled and reused?
• 25:22
  And if not, do you still have waste leftover at the end?
• 25:26
  I mean, what's the plan to do this?
• 25:28
  I don't remember the exact percentage, but it's, it's, you
• 25:32
  can't like completely hunt, but there's nothing you can recycle
• 25:35
  100%. I think that's true for
• 25:37
  anything, but most of it, there's huge amount of energy
• 25:42
  still left in that way. So you could use it.
• 25:44
  So the tiny bit that, you know, it's left, then maybe we can put
• 25:48
  that in the final repository and that will mean that we, we will
• 25:51
  need much or less of those. But you would have to have
• 25:55
  reactors that can use the, the waste.
• 25:57
  So the current reactors we have in Finland, for example, are not
• 26:00
  suitable for that. But there's a The technology
• 26:03
  exists so you could build reactors that can reuse waste.
• 26:07
  I mean, you might remember, but I did a report on this actually
• 26:10
  looking at the, I think it was looking at various countries in
• 26:13
  Europe. But I remember for the UK, if
• 26:15
  you take all of the spent fuel that we've got sitting around
• 26:19
  and cooling ponds and in these big casks, because most of it's,
• 26:23
  most of the uranium is still there, like over 90%.
• 26:26
  I think if you were to feed that into a new generation.
• 26:29
  So not the same kind of light water reactors we've got now,
• 26:32
  but a new generation of fast reactors which breed their own
• 26:35
  fuel plus kick in the, there's 100 tons of plutonium that the
• 26:39
  UK is about to throw away, which is insane because this is, this
• 26:43
  is probably the best fuel there is.
• 26:45
  But if you were to put all that together, you could run the
• 26:49
  whole of the UK at current energy electricity consumption
• 26:52
  levels for a couple, I think it was a couple of 1000 years.
• 26:55
  It was a really long time anyway, certainly enough time to
• 26:57
  deal with global warming. So in some ways the fact that
• 27:01
  there's never been this understanding of, of, of just
• 27:05
  how much fuel there is out there is one of the things which has
• 27:08
  fueled, I think anti nuclear thinking that that somehow, you
• 27:12
  know, uranium will run out next. It'll be just like oil and gas
• 27:16
  and coal that it's, it's such a limited resource.
• 27:18
  I mean, of course it is limited in a physical sense, but there's
• 27:20
  a lot solve it out there. And if we were to reuse the
• 27:24
  existing spent nuclear fuel, that's literally thousands and
• 27:27
  thousands of years worth that we already know about, not not to
• 27:30
  mention thorium and other kinds of opportunities as well.
• 27:33
  So has that, like, why has that not happened?
• 27:36
  I mean, there's been fast reactors around the world, but
• 27:38
  they seem to have all been shut down.
• 27:40
  And is it just because uranium is too cheap?
• 27:42
  Yeah. I think it's just for financial
• 27:44
  reasons that there's no incentive to build those
• 27:47
  reactors right now. I think that like, that's the
• 27:51
  most common explanation I hear from experts.
• 27:55
  So your deep repository you're building in Finland, hopefully
• 27:57
  you will be able to get down there and reuse the stuff if you
• 28:00
  want to. It's not like permanently sealed
• 28:02
  off, is it? Well, the plan is to permanently
• 28:04
  seal it, but it's, it's, I mean, because we're going to gather a
• 28:07
  lot of waste there. So it's, it's going to be a very
• 28:09
  long time until it's sealed. So hopefully before that
• 28:13
  happens, then then we would have a breeding reactor that can
• 28:17
  reuse that. Because I just, I think just
• 28:19
  burying it, it's, it's, it's waste, it's wasteful because we
• 28:23
  could be reusing it. It's a waste of waste, isn't it?
• 28:25
  So, yeah, yeah. What could be more wrong than
• 28:27
  that? Yeah, I mean, there wasn't there
• 28:30
  a proposal even to take in waste, nuclear waste or spent
• 28:35
  nuclear fuel from other countries as well and help solve
• 28:37
  their problem with your repository?
• 28:40
  Yeah, so we've started this discussion in Finland.
• 28:42
  It's a good example of how things can change in a very
• 28:46
  short period of time because just five years ago people told
• 28:49
  us that you can't even, you know, say that out loud, that
• 28:52
  that's going to be terrible. But now we've said it out loud
• 28:54
  and it, you know, it hasn't been terrible.
• 28:57
  There was a law put in place when Finland joined the EU that
• 29:00
  we cannot import nuclear waste. I think there was a deal like a
• 29:04
  political deal that so that we can join we because people were
• 29:08
  afraid that we're sorry importing nuclear waste from
• 29:11
  other countries when joining the EU.
• 29:12
  So this was put there. Think we need to re evaluate our
• 29:16
  stance on that because we do have the first repository and
• 29:20
  like the EU taxonomy rules say that nuclear is not eligible for
• 29:26
  funding under the taxonomy unless it has a solution for the
• 29:30
  waste, a final repository being built or something like that.
• 29:34
  So Finland could help countries with no solution yet to get
• 29:38
  funding for the nuclear project. If we they did agreement between
• 29:42
  governments that OK, we're going to take care of your base.
• 29:45
  And it's it'd be huge business for Finland, of course.
• 29:48
  But if it would also help the EU as a whole to meet its climate
• 29:52
  targets. So I think that would be a very
• 29:54
  good idea. That wouldn't be a bad idea.
• 29:56
  And I think, no, I have the the anti nuclear legacy greens.
• 30:02
  Have they said anything about this?
• 30:04
  I mean, even in Finland, do they do they accept?
• 30:06
  Well, right, well done, well done you guys.
• 30:08
  You've actually solved the problem.
• 30:09
  Now we're going to have to talk about something else Or do they
• 30:11
  say no, no, no, it's still still unsolved For these reasons.
• 30:14
  What's What's the view? Yeah, but the waste discussion,
• 30:17
  it's, it's, it's mostly disappeared.
• 30:21
  So there's still a few people, but it's not, it's not the main
• 30:25
  reason anyone is opposing nuclear right now.
• 30:28
  The main reasons right now are that it's slow, it's expensive
• 30:33
  and, and reasons like that. But nuclear waste is not really
• 30:37
  mentioned as a, as a reason to oppose nuclear waste.
• 30:41
  Of course, there's always like there are some people who they
• 30:44
  never have enough guarantees. So they always think that, you
• 30:48
  know, maybe if something happens and then, you know, something
• 30:51
  still can happen with the waste. And I always point out the
• 30:54
  research that also about the companies building the
• 30:57
  repository and they have risk assessment and it's just
• 31:01
  ridiculous amount of things should be going wrong that I
• 31:05
  mean, and then we you would have to eat it or something.
• 31:07
  It's very like you would have to dig in there and eat the waste
• 31:12
  and it's just, it's not going to happen and.
• 31:15
  Yeah, the the risk, the risk matrix on the whole nuclear
• 31:17
  waste thing has always really irritated me.
• 31:19
  And I think the industry has always got it wrong in terms of
• 31:22
  just just for comms reasons. I mean, this idea that you have
• 31:26
  to somehow safeguard it for, I don't know, hundreds of
• 31:29
  thousands or even like a million years.
• 31:30
  I think it is in the UK just so that some human million years
• 31:36
  hence, if they were drinking like 1000 liters a day from a a
• 31:42
  well which happened to have been accidentally sunk down to the
• 31:45
  nuclear waste depository, they would have more than like a half
• 31:48
  a percent chance of getting cancer if there was 1000.
• 31:51
  And, you know, it's just, it's just insane compared to the
• 31:54
  threat to the biosphere posed by global climate change.
• 31:57
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. You shouldn't be using so much
• 32:00
  money to save guard for that scenario, but that's what
• 32:03
  they're doing. So it's.
• 32:05
  Right. And, and also, I mean, the, the,
• 32:07
  the stuff that's in there would be down in terms of
• 32:10
  radioactivity would be down below the level of, of uranium
• 32:13
  ore. So down below the level of stuff
• 32:16
  that's already been naturally in rocks all over the world.
• 32:18
  We'd have to somehow plan a repository which is less
• 32:21
  radioactive than all of the natural stuff that's under God
• 32:25
  knows how many mountains already.
• 32:26
  I mean, it seems insane that the industry has accepted this, that
• 32:29
  this impossible challenge, which not only is makes the the
• 32:33
  technical feasibility of repositories very, very
• 32:35
  difficult to do, but it also re emphasizes this, the public
• 32:39
  fears of just how dangerous this stuff is.
• 32:40
  If you have to somehow safeguard it with hieroglyphics against
• 32:44
  future civilizations, we probably shouldn't be leaving
• 32:46
  that legacy. I mean, they're, they're,
• 32:47
  they're kept on side right now and you know, there's, there has
• 32:51
  never been any issues with that. It's very easy to store safely.
• 32:54
  I mean, just putting it in water.
• 32:57
  Water is a Great Barrier or radiation, and we know that we
• 33:01
  can do this very easily. So it's just, yeah, it's
• 33:04
  shooting an apple with a cannon, basically.
• 33:06
  Yeah, I think Tom Blease, who wrote a book called Prescription
• 33:09
  for the Planet back in the day, which was one of the books that
• 33:12
  that convinced me, said, you know, with a slight tongue in
• 33:15
  cheek, the best thing to do nuclear waste would be to drop
• 33:17
  it in the ocean in big yellow cans with the radio manufacture
• 33:20
  symbols on the side, which looks bad.
• 33:21
  And Greenpeace of course had had a field day when this was
• 33:24
  actually done, but I think it's like 2 or 3 meters of water
• 33:28
  blocks or gamma radiation. So none of it actually gets out
• 33:31
  and you know, it gets covered in sediment and disappears into a
• 33:34
  trench or something like that. So it actually the optics of
• 33:37
  this and the technical desirability or feasibility are
• 33:40
  very, very different things. And the industry's always got
• 33:42
  the optics wrong. But, and it's focused 100% I
• 33:46
  think on the, on the technical and the engineering.
• 33:48
  And maybe that's because you know what the kinds of people
• 33:51
  who are involved. Yeah, Well, I mean, if you think
• 33:54
  of the like the Fukushima wastewater case, that was
• 33:57
  ridiculous as well. I mean, you can't, there's
• 33:59
  radiation naturally in seawater and you can't detect.
• 34:03
  I mean, it's going to lead so much.
• 34:04
  It's going to have no effect on any biological creatures.
• 34:09
  But it was still like, that's terrible, this.
• 34:11
  Was about tritium, wasn't it, in the water that that that's been
• 34:14
  stored in huge, huge quantities in Fukushima.
• 34:16
  And I think if I remember rightly, the amount of tritium
• 34:18
  that was going to be in the water was less than in normal
• 34:21
  discharges from nuclear power stations all around the world.
• 34:24
  And yet somehow it was still this enormous, this political
• 34:27
  fury about it. I mean that that comes back, of
• 34:30
  course, to the to the safety issue, which I mentioned
• 34:33
  earlier. And that's like the second big
• 34:34
  objection. Now, obviously there there is a
• 34:37
  safety case, right? I mean, the where nuclear power
• 34:40
  has gone wrong, you've had hundreds of people, hundreds of
• 34:42
  thousands of people had to be evacuated.
• 34:45
  You've definitely had health impacts of of some sort.
• 34:47
  Just give us a sense of how you deal with this as a pro nuclear
• 34:51
  environmentalist. So I I try to put it into
• 34:54
  perspective because we know how many people fossil fuels kill
• 34:58
  per day. There have been huge hydro dam
• 35:01
  accidents as well. So I mean, nuclear is still one
• 35:05
  of the safest options out there for energy production.
• 35:08
  And The thing is that there's people think that there's risks
• 35:12
  to using nuclear, but there's they forget that there's risks
• 35:15
  for not using nuclear. So you always have to take that
• 35:17
  into account. So what if we don't use nuclear?
• 35:19
  How many people will die, die then?
• 35:21
  And we know this because if you prematurely close down a nuclear
• 35:25
  plant, that has led to more coal and gas and, and we're know
• 35:28
  that's going to have consequences like real life
• 35:30
  health consequences to people. So you have to compare these
• 35:35
  risks. And when you compare these
• 35:37
  risks, then it's really obvious that using nuclear is a lot less
• 35:42
  risky than not using nuclear energy.
• 35:46
  And usually I explain the things like this way and then people
• 35:49
  get it like, oh, yeah, I didn't realize that there are risks to
• 35:53
  not using nuclear as well. And those are much bigger.
• 35:56
  I mean, if you look at, I mean, we know what's going to happen.
• 35:59
  We go above like 2 Celsius of warming or we know what's going
• 36:03
  to happen. We know that the risks are huge
• 36:05
  compared to the risks of of using nuclear.
• 36:09
  Yes. I mean, if you look at the
• 36:10
  stats, I think, I can't remember offhand, but you know, the, the
• 36:14
  mortality, global burden of mortality from particulates
• 36:17
  released by coal-fired power stations and probably fossil
• 36:20
  fuels generally is, you know, it'd be like a Chernobyl every
• 36:23
  hour or something. But you don't see these people.
• 36:26
  You don't see a reactor blow up. You don't see the helicopters,
• 36:29
  you don't see the, the, the, you don't get the sense of emergency
• 36:33
  because these are all these are deaths which are statistically
• 36:37
  identified and, and extrapolated amongst a very, very large
• 36:41
  population. So it's it has a different feel
• 36:43
  some. People are, some people are
• 36:45
  terrified of airplanes, even though that's the safest, safest
• 36:48
  form of transportation, but they're not scared to drive a
• 36:52
  car. So it's a similar thing like if
• 36:54
  you if the air pollution is there constantly, you kind of
• 36:58
  get used to it and and then nuclear disaster seems it's it's
• 37:03
  worse when it's actually not. So the you know, but the has the
• 37:08
  safety case, has it been mitigated?
• 37:10
  I mean, are there are the newer generation of reactors safer
• 37:12
  than the old in a way which is actually meaningful?
• 37:16
  And if so, do people, do people need to know this?
• 37:18
  I don't think they're safer in a way that's very meaningful.
• 37:21
  I mean, they say fur, but I think there's a point when like
• 37:25
  you have to say that making this even more safe, it's not going
• 37:28
  to really do anything. It's going to improve the safety
• 37:31
  like 0.001 something, but the costs are are very high to do
• 37:37
  that. So I think that's some, I think
• 37:39
  the older reactors are very safe already.
• 37:42
  And so I think that that was never the issue.
• 37:44
  I'm I'm sure there. I mean, there was things that
• 37:47
  weren't done for the the Fukushima reactors and they were
• 37:50
  told that they, they should do this to prevent the disaster
• 37:53
  happening and they didn't. So there's definitely some good
• 37:56
  steps that have been taking. But I don't like to talk about
• 38:00
  the new reactors that's like super safe compared to the old
• 38:03
  ones, because that would say, I would be saying that the old
• 38:06
  ones were really unsafe and that's not true.
• 38:09
  So I mean, we still have the old reactors in Finland, like the
• 38:13
  Lobisa ones that we built decades ago and they're, they
• 38:16
  have been operating very safely and reliably.
• 38:18
  So I don't want to and not say anything bad about them either.
• 38:22
  OK. What about the cost thing?
• 38:23
  I mean you had a new reactor called Oculo Auto was it that
• 38:28
  was built? Recently, yeah.
• 38:30
  Wasn't cheap, was it? No, but but it was more
• 38:35
  expensive to the French taxpayers than it was for us.
• 38:38
  That's all right then, no problem.
• 38:39
  There, Yeah, because the court decided that it was, you know,
• 38:43
  it was We as a buyer shouldn't be paying for those extra costs.
• 38:46
  So for the Fins, it wasn't actually very expensive.
• 38:50
  But like I said, we stopped building in the 90s thanks to
• 38:53
  some of the really bad ideas and decisions we had back then.
• 38:57
  Back then, we thought, for example, that it would be
• 38:59
  terrible if we would export electricity.
• 39:02
  And right now this idea seems ridiculous.
• 39:05
  Like wouldn't that be a good thing if we could help or help
• 39:08
  our neighboring countries like Estonia, like we're doing now
• 39:11
  when after October 3 has been finished, we can actually export
• 39:15
  clean energy and help Estonia out.
• 39:17
  But back then that was, you know, people thought that was a
• 39:20
  bad, bad idea. We shouldn't have too much
• 39:22
  electricity. So we stopped building these
• 39:24
  reactors. And then the first one we
• 39:26
  started building after a long break was the first of a kind, a
• 39:29
  huge reactor never been built before.
• 39:31
  So there's going to be delays. And it's not just nuclear
• 39:34
  reactors that are suffering from this problem.
• 39:36
  We had a huge metro train system built in the capital city area
• 39:41
  in Finland that that was delayed as well.
• 39:44
  And the, the costs were much higher than anticipated because
• 39:48
  again, we hadn't been building that the original metro system,
• 39:52
  I don't Remember Remember when that was built a very long time
• 39:54
  ago. I mean, so you lose expertise,
• 39:57
  you lose routine. So when we built several of
• 40:00
  reactors of the same kind, we did this in Finland, we did this
• 40:03
  in Sweden, we did this in France.
• 40:06
  No issues. But when you know you're taking
• 40:08
  a break for decades and then you start building a huge one,
• 40:11
  there's there's going to be problems.
• 40:12
  And this is what we're seeing in Europe.
• 40:14
  So I think it's very solvable. We can see like an Arab Emirates
• 40:17
  with Baraka nuclear plants. They didn't have nuclear before,
• 40:21
  but they were really good at building 4 reactors, you know,
• 40:25
  same model and every single one was cheaper than the one before
• 40:29
  because you learn. They built, they built a whole
• 40:32
  lot in 12 years to to budget and to time, which surprised me.
• 40:36
  I thought it just wasn't possible.
• 40:37
  But it's clearly it's just that it's not possible in the West.
• 40:41
  Because they ordered reactor that had been built before, so
• 40:44
  they didn't try to do this gigantic project with a new
• 40:48
  reactor. So we know how to do it, but we
• 40:52
  haven't done it in Europe and in the Western countries.
• 40:55
  I think it's a bit like putting up a tent.
• 40:56
  And you know, if you buy a tent and you have to put it up for
• 40:59
  the first time, it takes about an hour.
• 41:01
  You're looking at the instructions, you're trying to
• 41:03
  figure out where all the poles go and you know what goes where
• 41:06
  and where the pegs are and all of this.
• 41:08
  And of course, if you're then putting the same tent up five
• 41:11
  times in a row, you'll be able to do it in in 10 minutes and
• 41:14
  then 5 minutes, and you'll have it super quick.
• 41:17
  And so there's a kind of learning by doing, right?
• 41:19
  And there seems to be all these different reactors and there's
• 41:22
  lots of time in between them. And it seems a very poorly
• 41:25
  organized sector at the moment. Yeah.
• 41:27
  But I mean, we know how to fix that.
• 41:29
  So that that's the good news. We know we've done wrong and we
• 41:32
  know how to fix that. Do we fix it with SMRS small
• 41:35
  modular reactors? Is that the way forward in your
• 41:37
  view? I think that's one of the ways
• 41:39
  forward. I think we shouldn't stop
• 41:41
  building big reactors either. So I think we can do big
• 41:45
  reactors and small ones. In Finland, we're considering
• 41:48
  small ones from the district heating system because we have a
• 41:51
  district heating system and we're still relying on a lot of
• 41:53
  burning, burning waste, burning biomass.
• 41:56
  It's not sustainable. So the utilities have been very
• 41:59
  frank. They have been saying that if we
• 42:01
  don't get nuclear for district heating, we're not going to meet
• 42:03
  our climate goals. There's just not enough clean
• 42:06
  heat sources to do that without nuclear energy.
• 42:10
  So SMRS for that I think are very good because you don't need
• 42:13
  very big reactors for the district heating system and
• 42:16
  they're they're going to cost less because they're not
• 42:18
  producing any electricity, they're just going to produce
• 42:21
  heat. So it makes it simple simpler.
• 42:25
  Right. So to get to get back to our
• 42:27
  main subject, the bad idea that Greens can't be in favor of
• 42:31
  nuclear power. Where are we at exactly in
• 42:34
  Finland now with this, like you've said that the Greens in a
• 42:38
  sort of general, general way are pro.
• 42:40
  I still don't believe you. I mean give me, give me,
• 42:43
  convince me that the Green Party of Finland right now is pro
• 42:46
  nuclear. Yeah.
• 42:47
  So a few years ago we put some positive statements about
• 42:51
  nuclear energy into a party platform.
• 42:54
  I mean, this was in the yearly assembly of the Greens.
• 42:57
  I was there. So when I noticed that the Green
• 42:59
  Party started to change, they started removing anti nuclear
• 43:02
  stuff from their position. Position pray papers.
• 43:05
  I thought, you know, now it's a good time to join and just
• 43:08
  accelerate this change within the Greens.
• 43:11
  Yeah. A few years ago there was a new
• 43:13
  party platform that was voted for in the yearly General
• 43:17
  Assembly, and it has several positive statements about
• 43:20
  nuclear. It said that nuclear is a part
• 43:23
  of a sustainable energy system. That legislation needs to be
• 43:27
  changed so that SMRS become plausible.
• 43:30
  So, for example, there have been this limits to how close a
• 43:34
  nuclear reactor can be to a city.
• 43:36
  And for a district heating plant, this would be a disaster
• 43:39
  if it has to be very far away from the city where you actually
• 43:42
  need the heat. So that was put in the party
• 43:45
  platform and all the anti nuclear stuff is out of the the
• 43:47
  party platform and the position papers of the Green.
• 43:50
  So there's really nothing anti nuclear stuff left in official
• 43:54
  stances of the Green Party of Finland.
• 43:56
  And what do other green parties say?
• 43:58
  I mean, I can't imagine this has influenced the Green Party in
• 44:00
  Germany or Austria. I've heard that it's challenging
• 44:04
  in the, in the EU because we're still part of the, the green
• 44:07
  group in the, the European Parliament and there are a lot
• 44:10
  of green parties still against nuclear.
• 44:13
  So I think the agreement now is to agree to disagree on this.
• 44:18
  But I know that in several other green parties across Europe,
• 44:21
  there are people, especially young people, who are
• 44:23
  reconsidering and think that the their Green Party shouldn't be
• 44:27
  against nuclear anymore. So I've been trying to be very
• 44:30
  supportive because I know how difficult it is in the beginning
• 44:33
  to be the one saying that maybe we should change this because
• 44:35
  you get attacked and you, like you said, you might lose your
• 44:38
  friends. They stopped talking to you.
• 44:39
  It's, it's a terrible thing being a pioneer in, in many
• 44:44
  occasions. And so I've been trying to offer
• 44:46
  support from the Science Green. So I was in the board of the
• 44:49
  science Greens last year and I did some of this international
• 44:53
  outreach reach. So I know they are pro nuclear
• 44:56
  greens across Europe but they just need support.
• 45:00
  Yeah, And I'm trying to get to whether if there's something
• 45:03
  unique about Finland, but also if there's something unique
• 45:05
  about you. Like, personally, you seem quite
• 45:08
  brave. I mean, I know this from working
• 45:09
  with you for many years. You're not very easy to scare.
• 45:12
  You've played American football. You've worked with Wolves.
• 45:14
  Tell tell us a bit about your a, a bit about your life and how
• 45:18
  you got to where you are. Yeah, so like I said, I was an
• 45:20
  environmentalist since since I was a child.
• 45:23
  So I like Jacques Cousteau, I like Diane Fossey, like the
• 45:26
  gorillas and the Mist, like all those movies really inspired me.
• 45:30
  I was always very into animals and nature, and I was especially
• 45:35
  curious about how animals think. So that led me to having a
• 45:39
  master's degree in in animal behavior and studying killer
• 45:43
  whales, for example, and their behavior, because I was always
• 45:47
  fascinated how other animals think.
• 45:49
  And there's just so many similarities to humans.
• 45:51
  And then we think that we're very unique, but actually we're
• 45:54
  not. So a lot of the things we do,
• 45:56
  other animals are also doing. So we're not that unique.
• 45:59
  We have some unique characteristics, but I mean,
• 46:02
  animals have feelings and idea and personalities.
• 46:06
  And that was just very fascinating to me.
• 46:09
  And I was in the traditional environmental organizations
• 46:13
  since I was a kid, but I was, I, I didn't understand why, why
• 46:17
  they were so against technologies like not just
• 46:21
  nuclear energy, but also gene technologies, because I was also
• 46:25
  a science nerd and, and all these technologies just made
• 46:27
  sense to me. And I saw them as opportunities
• 46:31
  rather than threats. And I just, I couldn't
• 46:34
  understand why these people seem to be so against them.
• 46:39
  And, and so that was that, that was why I was very happy to find
• 46:44
  like minded people in 2015 when the, the Finnish economy society
• 46:49
  was started. And I was asked to be part of
• 46:53
  that organization and, and I became the chair.
• 46:55
  And I think the reason why I'm not afraid was that I was
• 47:00
  bullied for I think 7 years at least in a row and in school.
• 47:04
  And I already learned at that age that, you know, I shouldn't
• 47:08
  care about what people think about me.
• 47:10
  So I kind of, I was just outcast.
• 47:13
  So I didn't feel like I fitted anywhere because I had these
• 47:17
  qualities that usually you don't find in one person.
• 47:20
  So I was, for example, very athletic, but I was also very
• 47:23
  good at school. I was pro nuclear, but I was an
• 47:26
  environmentalist. So I had qualities from
• 47:30
  different tribes, so I didn't belong to any of them really.
• 47:34
  And so that that's been kind of my life story, just trying to
• 47:38
  find my, my tribe. And I I finally did and we plan
• 47:41
  it, but it it took me several decades.
• 47:44
  But before that, didn't you represent your country in a
• 47:46
  sporting thing? Yeah, any American football.
• 47:49
  Yeah, tell us about that. Yeah.
• 47:51
  So I I played for the national team of Finland.
• 47:53
  I played in the United States in the professional semi
• 47:56
  professional league. I had two the world championship
• 48:00
  bronze medals as well. So I was in the All Star team of
• 48:03
  the World Championships. So and then was the captain of
• 48:06
  the national team of Finland. And I think sports has taught me
• 48:10
  a lot about about setting goals, being a good teammate, working
• 48:14
  in a group. It also builds your character.
• 48:17
  So when you're playing against someone who weighs like 7
• 48:23
  kilograms more than you, then after that you're not afraid of
• 48:25
  anything. So not even.
• 48:28
  Not even afraid to go to the greens and say I'm pro nuclear.
• 48:31
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 48:33
  And wolves. You work with wolves as well or
• 48:35
  studied wolf behavior? Yeah, so I was actually, I
• 48:39
  started doing my PhD at the University of Helsinki and I did
• 48:43
  all my my courses and I published one piece of research.
• 48:47
  But then I have to quit because we plan it was taking too much
• 48:50
  of my time. But I was studying the cognition
• 48:52
  of cats and dogs and we had some universities collaborating with
• 48:57
  us who were doing the same tests, cognitive tests with
• 49:00
  wolves. So I really got interested in
• 49:03
  wolf behavior as well. And wolves are a very hot topic
• 49:06
  in Finland, and I've been trying to build bridges.
• 49:08
  So I've been in podcasts with hunters, for example, because
• 49:12
  hunters are one of the biggest groups in Finland who are
• 49:15
  opposing protection of bulls because the wolves eat hunting
• 49:19
  dogs. So I've been trying to have
• 49:22
  meaningful discussions about that.
• 49:23
  And actually there's a podcast episode tomorrow that's going to
• 49:27
  be published when one of these wolves podcasts.
• 49:32
  I'm also discussing nuclear in that podcast, but it's it's with
• 49:35
  a Finnish hunter that I know and we've been collaborating with.
• 49:39
  This is in Finnish, right? Yes, OK.
• 49:42
  Unfortunately you have. You have to learn Finnish if you
• 49:44
  want. I'll be skipping that one, OK?
• 49:47
  You know, just to go back to the nuclear thing.
• 49:48
  I think you're one of the kind of original instigators of what
• 49:52
  has now become a some, you know, global pro nuclear movement.
• 49:57
  Tell us where things have got to and what you know you think the
• 50:00
  next steps might be in terms of really turning around the tide
• 50:04
  of environmentalists and also wider opposition to to this
• 50:08
  technology. Yeah, so I started to be a pro
• 50:10
  nuclear activist when I was 16. So I've been doing this for oh,
• 50:16
  what, 2526 years now? Hard to remember your age when
• 50:20
  you're over 40. You, you know.
• 50:23
  Yeah. Anyway, so we've gone all come a
• 50:28
  long ways sense. So it's it's been a very
• 50:31
  difficult journey. I think nothing really happened
• 50:33
  in the first few decades. I think when people started to
• 50:36
  realize how urgent the climate crisis is right now and that
• 50:41
  we're going to need everything that we have, it started to
• 50:44
  change. And it started to change at the
• 50:47
  same time in many, many countries.
• 50:48
  So that's why we we were the first ones to start in Finland.
• 50:51
  But just within a few years, similar organizations stopped
• 50:54
  started popping up across Europe.
• 50:56
  And I think the time is right for this kind of pro nuclear
• 51:00
  movement. And also outside of we planet,
• 51:03
  we've been collaborating with loads of different groups across
• 51:06
  the globe. So I think there are a lot of
• 51:08
  people having the same idea at the same time.
• 51:12
  And we understood the urgency and there was a new generation
• 51:15
  coming who started questioning this very old anti nuclear
• 51:18
  stance. And we've seen change happening
• 51:21
  in the US. So the Democrats are now also
• 51:24
  supporting nuclear on the federal level.
• 51:26
  We've seen a lot of change in Europe.
• 51:28
  Sweden has, you know, cancelled their plans to shut down all the
• 51:33
  nuclear reactors. They're planning to build new
• 51:35
  ones. Denmark is to showing recent
• 51:38
  polling that the majority is supporting nuclear.
• 51:41
  So a lot of European countries are changing their minds about
• 51:44
  nuclear. Japan, after Fukushima, is now
• 51:48
  backing the nuclear game. So huge things are happening
• 51:51
  across the globe. So I'm really hopeful about the
• 51:54
  future of nuclear energy right now.
• 51:56
  Yeah, because This is why I want to sort of end really is whether
• 52:00
  with a sense of whether or not you think we're winning or we're
• 52:01
  losing because there's nuclear shutdowns obviously now
• 52:05
  completed in Germany, the this reactors being shut down in
• 52:09
  Belgium. There's the Spanish reactors are
• 52:11
  still due to be shut down I think by 2027.
• 52:14
  So I don't know whether this is a legacy of old bad ideas which
• 52:19
  are still playing out today, or whether the anti nuclear
• 52:22
  movement or, you know, ideology is still sufficiently strong
• 52:26
  that it's going to stop any kind of nuclear renaissance.
• 52:30
  I mean, I guess it's your job to be optimistic because you're a
• 52:32
  movement builder. But try and be realistic about
• 52:36
  where you think we're going, what we are now and where we
• 52:39
  might be going over the next 5 to 10 years.
• 52:41
  I think there are a few countries where the anti nuclear
• 52:43
  ISM still has a very stronghold, Germany being one of them.
• 52:46
  But even in Germany we can see in the polls that the majority
• 52:49
  is starting to reconsider. I think the same is going to
• 52:52
  happen in Spain. There was just a recent March
• 52:55
  for nuclear pro nuclear March save the the plants, there was
• 52:59
  12,000 people. That's quite a lot of.
• 53:01
  People. Wow, that's huge, Yeah.
• 53:03
  Yeah. So I think we're winning, but we
• 53:05
  need to keep pushing. And now it's not only up to the
• 53:09
  organization of the NGOs campaign for nuclear.
• 53:12
  Now it's really up for the industry to actually start
• 53:15
  delivering projects. So it's not enough for the
• 53:19
  general public to be pro nuclear.
• 53:21
  If we don't start building nuclear, we don't see successful
• 53:24
  projects, then the sort of support is START is going to
• 53:27
  start fade away. So now it's the time to really
• 53:30
  deliver on nuclear projects. I think that's the biggest
• 53:33
  threat, that if we don't start getting reactors up then that
• 53:38
  we're going to lose the support very quickly.
• 53:40
  And just a final shout out for We Planet, who's obviously
• 53:44
  supporting us in doing this podcast.
• 53:47
  What's the the plan for sort of movement movement building on a
• 53:50
  pro nuclear level with them? Yeah.
• 53:52
  So we, we have a lot of European countries.
• 53:55
  Most of our countries are from Europe, but we have four African
• 53:58
  countries, one country in Asia, we have Australia.
• 54:01
  We still started in the US, So I think we're going to continue
• 54:05
  expanding globally and we're going to do grassroots
• 54:09
  mobilization and movement building in a countries that we
• 54:12
  already have. So I invite, I invite everyone
• 54:15
  who's interested in pro science, pro technology, pro human
• 54:20
  environmental movement to get in touch and and find your local
• 54:23
  organization. If you don't have one, then you
• 54:26
  can contact me and I will help you to start one.
• 54:29
  But I think that like I said, the time is right and there's a
• 54:32
  huge demand for a very positive solution based environmental
• 54:36
  movement and we are the one. So I think we're going to keep
• 54:41
  growing. And people find us at
• 54:42
  weplanet.org. Is that right?
• 54:44
  Yes. OK.
• 54:46
  And just finally, just because we're about out of time, what's
• 54:50
  next for you having helped turn around the Finnish Greens, Are
• 54:54
  you standing again? Are you standing as a candidate?
• 54:57
  Yes, I'm running for the City Council elections this spring.
• 55:02
  So let's let's see what happens with that.
• 55:05
  And I I really support having a small module nuclear reactor in
• 55:09
  my hometown to provide district heating for your answer where
• 55:13
  I'm from. So yes, yes, in my backyard.
• 55:17
  Yes, yes. So that's going to be one of my
• 55:20
  election campaign points for sure.
• 55:24
  I think you're the only Green Party candidate I would vote
• 55:26
  for. I hope there'll be more in years
• 55:29
  to come because I don't know. For me, I think the Greens are
• 55:32
  probably closest to my political sympathies and you know, in
• 55:35
  terms of the broad base of what the platform is.
• 55:38
  But the nuclear issue and the fact that I guess the GMOs as
• 55:41
  well, they're just, they're a real roadblock.
• 55:43
  I just can't vote for a party which is so profoundly and
• 55:49
  unscientific and just flat wrong about about such an important
• 55:53
  issue for the future of the climate.
• 55:55
  Yeah. And I had that exact problem.
• 55:57
  But luckily now in Finland you have like most of the green
• 56:00
  candidates are pro nuclear and protein gene technologies
• 56:03
  because we changed that stance just the was a year or two ago
• 56:08
  as well. So the greens in Finland are now
• 56:11
  pro GMOs and pro nuclear and so I'm very proud and happy to be
• 56:15
  in the greens in Finland. Well.
• 56:16
  I'm proud and happy that you're part of the movement and that
• 56:19
  you've given inspiration to so many people.
• 56:22
  Thank you so much for being on the the podcast.
• 56:26
  And I hope that a lot of people are going to learn from you and
• 56:29
  take something of your your kind of bravery and your refusal to
• 56:33
  accept, you know, an established dogma in this and take it
• 56:36
  forward in their own countries in whatever way.
• 56:38
  But so now, Todd, and if I got that right, thanks so much for
• 56:41
  joining us. Thank you, Mark.
• 56:47
  Thanks so much for listening to Saving the World from Bad Ideas,
• 56:49
  a We Planet podcast we plan. It's a movement of citizens and
• 56:53
  scientists dedicated to defending the science and
• 56:55
  solutions we need to save the world.
• 56:57
  Please do subscribe and share a nice review.
• 56:59
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• 57:01
  feedback and suggestions at our e-mail podcast at weplanet.org.
• 57:06
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• 57:08
  know when a new episode drops. Just go to Saving the World from
• 57:11
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• 57:15
  See you next time.