Isabelle Boemeke, Author Rad Future

There's a way, a way such a better way today, today. The nation flies till the world, there's a better way, today, there's a better way. This is Rod Adams and it's time for another Atomic Hill. I am so pleased. My guest today is Isabelle Bemicky, who is the fascinating person who decided that nuclear was so important that she was going to dedicate a fair portion of her time, talent and treasure to help me people understand it. Isabelle grew up in a rural area of Brazil in a place where electricity was not so common as it is in the U.S. and Europe. moved to the U.S. worked as a model and is now a probably still a model, but also a very strong nuclear advocate. And by the way, she's also becoming an author. Isabelle, how are you today? I'm good. Thank you. That was a great introduction, Rod. I have to say. And you got my last name, right, which is rare. It is rare, but I cheated. I'm sure that I at least knew right before the show I just browned it and I practiced. Great job. All right, good. Isabelle, you and I have crossed paths a little bit, although at one point we were both on the same film, but I don't think I ever saw you on the set. The tell us a little bit about your experience with becoming a documentary film star with Oliver Stone and nuclear now. So that's one of those really wild stories to be honest. Before I knew anything about nuclear now, I was thinking about making a documentary because I, in my mind, it was time to have a new documentary about nuclear. I think the last one was Pandora's Promise, which had been a decade or so before. And I, so I filmed some footage put together a little teaser for documentaries, started the process of fundraising. And somewhere in between, I received an email that looked very suspicious. It was all in lower caps and it was asking me if I wanted to be in a documentary that Oliver Stone was directing about nuclear energy. And I thought it was a, it was a scam or so some weird person trying to get in touch with me. So I just put it aside and I thought to myself, well, if Oliver Stone was making a documentary about nuclear, I would know. And nobody had brought it up to me so I thought, you know, this email was a, was a total scam. I forgot about it. Weeks went on and it was continuing the horrifying process of trying to fundraise for a documentary. And I had a conversation with I believe it was Carolyn Cochran from Oklo. And she said, wow, did you hear that Oliver Stone is making a documentary about nuclear? And I remembered the email that I had completely ignored. And I thought to myself, oh my God, I can't believe I missed this amazing opportunity. And so I immediately went on my email, tried to find a track it down and I found it and responded and I got a response very soon after, scheduling a call with Oliver Stone. And it was one of those moments where I thought, thank God that this man is doing this documentary because I have to say that I started the process of making one and it seems like an uphill battle every step of the way. And of course, having someone like Oliver who is such an icon in the movie industry. And somebody who doesn't really, somebody who doesn't really have a background in nuclear obviously, but also someone who has a history of saying, the controversial thing that maybe is true. So I thought it was incredible that he was doing this film and I got to record probably like he did with him at his house. And it was a very, it was an incredible experience to just become a part of his world. And he's a fascinating man. I think that older he gets the less he cares what other people think about him. As you can probably attest as well. I can attest and I had very similar experience once I got to the point of saying yes, I did get to go to his house, fascinating to walk into a house in that model booth. Somewhere in LA. Yeah, somewhere in the LA area. And very nice place, but very homey, very comfortable, very lived in with beautiful art hanging around and gosh, more books than I have, which is saying. Right. And I think he said he'd read almost all of them, which was which is amazing. Yeah. I mean, he's all idea to make the documentary was based on on. I'm blanking on the name of the book. Oliver. Yeah, so it was Joshua. A brighter future. A brighter future. Yes. So his whole idea. Joshua Goldstein. Joshua Goldstein and Stefan. So he read that book obviously and had the idea. It was it was a great experience. And to your point, he's very welcoming. His home is very homey and lived in and beautiful art from all over the world. And I think it's it's it's one of those little moments that does mark the shift in the conversation around nuclear, especially because Oliver was very much a part of that not necessarily anti nuclear, but all the other movements that came along with being anti nuclear in the 70s. Which is the anti Vietnam war. And all of the anti establishment movements. So it's it's incredible to see someone who has this background, the in. You know, being against the system, the government, whatever you want to call it. Come around to the idea of nuclear. Well, you're part of a demographic. It is often considered to be. I guess more anti nuclear than most. But you decided to do something different. You did some of your own reading. Yes. Well, I don't know necessarily that my demographic is very anti nuclear. When you look at the data, the ones are the most anti nuclear are actually gen acts if i'm not mistaken. Maybe I'll say it differently. You're a gender this often that's I do. Okay. Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah. When you when you so when you look at. Pulling data from all over the world. You see a very consistent and interesting fact in support for nuclear, which is there's a huge gender. gap. Is every single country more men support nuclear electricity than then then women. And, you know, I don't want to pretend that I'm a social psychologist and try to understand all the nuances of that. I think there are a couple of explanations that at least make sense. One of them being the idea that in general, we meant to be more risk averse and nuclear is still perceived as a high risk technology. Unfortunately, though that image is changing. I think there is also the fact that and this is a this is something that Jessica Lovering from good energy collective has worked on and talked extensively about. And goes back to the point I made earlier about the anti nuclear movement being very tied up with anti-seplishment movement. Is that nuclear was for a very long time seen as inseparable from military and government. Nuclear electricity specifically. And women in general also tend to be less favorable of power structures. And so there are so many other reasons, right? Why that could be the case. But it is still the case that in every country women tend to dislike nuclear electricity more than men. So that is a fact that did not go unnoticed by me. And it is one of the reasons why I do my work. It's because I am a female and I believe that the way I can communicate, especially the benefits of nuclear, can be valuable to other women. And I think that we can understand perhaps better what women can identify with and the things they value more. And I think sometimes those in the nuclear industry can focus too much on the technical aspects and in the very science-y details. And at the end of the day we have to highlight why this matters to people, why it makes their lives better, why it makes the case of women. A lot of women, why it would make their children's lives better. One of the challenges that we have in our Western world is most of us have come up with the assumption that if you've got a hole in the wall and you put a plug in it, things light up. Because electricity is always there and people have not even been, don't feel any need to figure out how it gets there. Now you grew up in a place where electricity wasn't so automatic. Tell us a little bit about your upbringing and why you came to the understanding that electricity is a vital part of a modern society. I believe my life story has given me the ability to understand how life changes every step of the way as you gain more access to electricity. As you said, I grew up in a rural part in Brazil in the south of Brazil, like the very, very tip of the country. It's border with Uruguay and Argentina. So when you think of Brazil, most people imagine Rio de Janeiro, hot beaches and or the lush Amazon rainforest. But my state is more similar to Texas, I would say, except that it gets really hot in the summertime and extremely cold in the winter. I mean, extremely cold like low 40s, high 30s. But I have to say, even though the temperature itself is not as cold as it gets in certain parts of the United States or Europe or other places on earth, I've never felt more cold than I felt growing up back home. And that's because there is no infrastructure. So the homes are not built for that weather. Everything is cold materials, it gets very humid as well in the winter. And so I remember it being this very cold and damp weather. Nobody, I mean, central heating wasn't even a thing, a technology that existed. So nobody had that. The most people would have would be a fireplace or in some cases a very, very tiny electric heater that basically only heats the thing that's right in front of it. So it would put that by your feet sometimes. But quite frankly, electricity was very expensive. So you couldn't just have that turned on all day. The other thing people did have was electric blankets, which again, you could only turn on by for about five to ten minutes before going to bed just so the bed wouldn't be freezing cold when you got in. And then in the summer it was a different, it was a different time. type of misery which was so hot, nowhere conditioning obviously. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't know a single person in my hometown growing up who had our conditioning. I mean, the only thing we did have was a standing fan. In my home, we actually had one. So we would have moved it around different rooms. And if you spent a lot of time in very hot climates with a standing fan, you know that the standing fan is just blowing hot air on your face. You know, you couldn't open the windows because the mosquitoes would come inside. For some reason, we also didn't have screens, which sounds insane. You know, I don't say any of this to be to say, oh, poor me. And by the way, I wasn't even really poor. My family was middle class. It's just that this technologies were not available at the time and at the place I was growing up in. Now it's slightly more available, but still the vast majority of people don't have these things. We also didn't have a dishwasher or laundry machine. Until much laundry machine until later on dishwasher, I'm not even sure my mom has one to this day. So living life that way makes you really appreciate when you do have access to these technologies. So when I moved to the United States at the age of 18, 17, 18, I moved to a very normal apartment in Miami Beach, but I felt like I was living in a mansion. Had air conditioning, had heating, dishwashers, laundry machines. I mean, you name it. And it's not just about luxury. It's really about the amount of time that you spend doing those chores. And obviously that time could be dedicated to doing anything else, like studying or God forbid having fun or having a hobby. So I think what my perspective is very valuable, especially to people in countries like the United States where I'll have a conversation with somebody from the environmental movement and they're very much on the de-growth camp and they'll say, oh, we just need to use less. And I asked them about their experience growing up and it's always a case that they grew up with all of these technologies. And so to your point, it doesn't even occur to them a different life. And I think beyond that, even if you don't necessarily have those technologies in your home, just growing up in an energy-rich society that has all the benefits of an energy-rich society, like good hospitals, good roads, good infrastructure, people can't even comprehend that. And so I think it's valuable to have that experience like I have and be able to tell them that story. And I have to say, it usually changes minds. Well, that's good because that's part of what you and I both like to do is to change people's minds through empathy and information, but helping them to really realize what's in it for them to be able to accept something like nuclear energy, which they've been taught for so long to be rejecting and afraid, although there really isn't much to be afraid of. It is by history, by data, by taking the numbers, the safest form of energy we have available. Well, at least as safe as renewables, right? Which people have to say it's the safest form of energy. And so, yeah, it's absolutely, I think it's extremely counterintuitive for obvious reasons. When you look at headlines talking about the few accidents that have happened in the past, it sounds way scarier than it is. And then obviously, people are also inundated with decades of anti-nuclear propaganda, including the Simpsons. But there's so many other Hollywood pieces that really did not help. And I've been thinking a lot recently as well about this idea of how technology, the right way to think about progress when it comes to technology, is developing technologies that can do the same as the ones that we already have. But with less impact on the environment, with less materials, with less impact on human health, and negative impact on human health. And nuclear just checks all of those boxes. If you look at the quantities of materials required for nuclear reactors, they're the lowest of all energy sources. Same goes with land. Also, I love the fact that nuclear power plants can last for 80 years. We live in such a transient society right now where things, including clothes and computers and phones, they're not made to last more than a couple of years, and we're supposed to just change them out and throw away our old ones. And I love the idea of nuclear being this, this thing, this technology that represents the opposite. It's made, it's built to last. It also, I think it's a mistake when people say that highlighting the jobs that nuclear provides is bad, because it's more expensive. I think it's amazing that nuclear power plants can employ thousands of people and pay high paying stable jobs, jobs that, by the way, are multi-generational. It's almost like this technology that can bridge the good things of the past and the future in a perfect way. And this is the first time I ever talk about the sentiment out loud, but it's something I've been reflecting upon the last few days. Now, it is very important. And I do know, I think I've met so far a couple who are now fourth generation nuclear people. I've met quite a few who have third and third in the same plant, where grandpa worked there, mom and dad worked there, kids worked there. But now, we've been around long enough, we're almost at this fourth generation period, because typically, in generations, 20 years. So it's been almost 80 years since we started operating the first nuclear plants. How amazing is that? It is incredible. I don't think you can say that about any other, I mean, maybe some really old school, manufacturing facilities. There's some hydroelectric facilities that are that old. Right, that's true. There may be one or two coal plants here, though. But it is something different. How did you learn so much about nuclear energy? Just curiosity. Shout out to Nick Turan from whatisnuclear.com. That was my first resource whenever I started learning. Because it is a pretty steep learning curve. I'm not going to lie, especially if you don't have a background at all. And whatisnuclear.com is my first resource. For those who don't know, it's this incredible web page. Started and maintained by Nick Turan. And there's everything you could possibly want to learn about nuclear in that website. And he updates it constantly. It's a great resource. Including a growing number of some really cool videos from the first atomic age. Oh, yeah. So Nick is just really a gem of the nuclear industry. He has this incredible hobbies. And I think one of them is digitizing all this content that has been lost basically, because nobody had been able to digitize from the first atomic age. It's fantastic. So yeah, so I started reading his website. I actually reached out to him very soon after I decided that I wanted to start posting content online. And Nick was very gracious. And we grabbed dinner in Seattle. I was randomly there for a photo shoot. He was living there at the time. And we've been in touch ever since. So we've been friends for over five years at this point. And he's the most helpful person. I mean, every time I have an annoying question, I send it to Nick. And he has never said go away. So I'm very, very thankful to him. And then in general, just, I want to say the thing that has really worked for me is because I don't have a background, I have to force myself to read things over and over and over just so I can, I myself can understand them. And by the points that I can understand them, I can also explain it to other people. And now with AI, that would be a lot easier. I wish I had chat, chp, t back then, to help me learn some of it. But yeah, it's just being curiosity, Nick Torin, and trying to explain it to people. I found it trying to explain something to people is one of the best ways to learn the topic. It is really challenging to become a teacher of something that don't quite understand. And if you're, you want to make sure you do a good job that you really force yourself to learn way more than just talking points. Totally. And one of the things that's fascinating about teaching, or just in general about how hard it is to teach to people, I wasn't a podcast recently, I'm not going to name names. It's a topic where they talk to guests who always and who are on the same length, who know what they're talking about. So they were advocating for some technology. And nobody had asked them, give me the elevator pitch for the technology that you're advocating. But I did because I actually didn't know about this thing. And they were all shocked at how hard it was to do an elevator pitch for something. Because when you are in a certain environment and you talk about that thing all day long, you're just assume everybody else knows or you're talking about. And it's very, very hard to make an argument for someone who doesn't have all that background to understand. So for me, definitely, the fact that I wanted to teach people about nuclear is the only thing that made me focus on it and made me work on understanding it better. All right, you're going to open it up to me. What is the elevator pitch for nuclear? It has changed throughout the year, it's quite frankly. But right now, the elevator pitch that I give is basically what I just told you, which is nuclear is the clean energy. Nuclear is the sea. I can even give you the elevator pitch right now. No, that nuclear is spot. I don't. The nuclear is the cleanest energy source and that it has the least amount of impact on the environment and your human health. That's it. It's just that's the one minute elevator pitch. And then people will start asking questions, obviously, because they don't believe that it has the least amount of impact on the environment. I think this factoid has not being used by the nuclear advocacy community, because it really does matter. If we're talking about, forget about just climate change, but just in general, impact on the environment, this is something that the left, which is historically and traditionally against the nuclear, appreciates a lot. So I think it's something we should lean more into and start talking more about it. I was just listening to a podcast last week from a guy who's very concerned about land use and implications of land use on our ability to survive the species and those kinds of things. And he was adamant. We needed to start moving away from, or move faster away from red meat that we needed to stop using biofuels. We needed to do this because all of the land use implications. And I was kind of on board with them until he then said, and that means we need to use more solar and wind. And I started shaking and spinning and anyway. So yeah, I think with solar and wind, there's, I mean, yes, I guess you could use the land between the wind turbines. Don't technically, nobody does. And same with solar panels right, you can you can have them raised. But and so you can use the land underneath it. No, again, I don't think people do it. If you're talking about utility scale solar, I mean, I don't think there is nobody's using that land for anything else. Yep. I'm a big fan of rooftop solar just because I think when I fly into LA and I look at all those huge warehouses, it's just sitting there when you could have solar panels collecting. I know you from the sun and taking care of things like air conditioning. Some air conditioning needs or something during the day as those warehouses are working. I'm a believer that we should use energy where it makes sense. And it's very easy for us to see that with hydropower, right? You look at the countries that have the highest share of hydropower. Well, they're the countries that have the best hydropotential. Mm hmm. Of course. They have they have both rivers and elevation. Exactly. Of course, by the way, that should be the case with solar as well. Texas has tons of cheap land and solar potential. Lots of solar. Lots of sun. Solar makes sense for Texas. Solar doesn't make a lot of sense for the UK or Germany. In the fact that somehow we've been trying to push that narrative for the last few decades, it's very confusing. But I do think we're moving more and more towards that direction where energy is becoming more of a locally grown type of thing. Mm hmm. And it makes sense. Just like it happened with hydrum. Yeah, it makes sense to use the resources that are readily available. The things that bother me is when, like you said, when we try to force solar into Germany, Sweden, and Canada. Exactly. It's not a good place for solar. And don't try to put, well, you're not going to put any hydropower in my home state, our highest elevation in the whole darn state is 400 feet. I know. Exactly. I live in Florida so that we're pretty flat here. Yeah. I mean, it's something I want you for the everglades. Yeah, exactly. I certainly don't want to cover the everglades with anything. There's some beautiful ecosystem in there. Well, it's a productive ecosystem. Yeah. And it's beautiful to look at from afar. Yeah, I don't want to be there with all the huge snakes and alligators. Yeah, mosquitoes and all the stuff. But exactly. Thankfully the conversation is going that direction, I think. Good. I think God, we're beyond the point of just being blindly, you know, 100% renewables or any other version of that. Oh, finally, some people that have always considered themselves progressive have decided to start learning what the word really means and that being de-growth or it is not really a quite to being progressive just by definition, they're different. So I want to ask you about another project you're working on. You have a book in the works. Tell us a little bit about your book. Yeah, so my book, Rad Future is coming out. It's done already, which was very long journey. I recently checked and the first email I have with my editor is from April of 2022. Oh, so it's been three years in the making. And I have to say it was a really crazy time to be writing a book about nuclear, especially the last year because so much changed so incredibly quickly. And I had to keep coming back to the manuscripts to make changes because I couldn't possibly not talk about the things that happened, including all the data centers, making this, you know, deals with nuclear startups to buy their electricity, some hyperscalers investing in this company's. I mean, just so much has changed in the last year. But writing the book was also a very important stepping stone in my journey of learning about nuclear because I learned so much about the history, especially as it came to how our culture dealt with nuclear, which was incredibly interesting. Then also really straightening my arguments when it comes to waste, to mining, to the accidents and making some predictions about the future, what's really incredible and interesting is that when I started writing the book, I wrote about a theory which was that AI energy needs would would would would would help nuclear. But this was just a working theory at the time. And as the writing process continued, my theory actually became reality right in front of my eyes. So that was very cool. And you know, maybe feel very proud of myself for seeing that one. We have needed a new demand signal for quite some time because as utility executives have told me many times over the last two decades, why would I try to build anything new? There's no new demand for electricity. Not only that, but they also are extremely risk-averse. You've also probably heard from utilities saying, okay, let's just say I theoretically accept and agree that we need more nuclear. I'm not going to build another Volo and I can't buy small modular reactors yet. And so I think they were also in this hard place quite frankly, where maybe some of them intellectually and philosophically wanted more nuclear, but just couldn't justify trying to build a large water reactor. And what's great about the data centers and the AI companies is that they can take more risks. And so they can make big investments in the nuclear startups to try to move the small modular reactors forward. And then in terms of the large reactors, I still think we need to build them. But right now it's obviously the utilities are excited because of Trump's executive orders and LPO and all the subsidies and tax credits that were maintained. So I think we're living in a very different era. And also we don't know what energy demand is going to look. We know it's increasing. We don't even know what it's going to look like in 10 years. Yes, true. I have cautioned people a number of times and we'll continue to do so. There's a lot of reasons why electricity demand is going to keep growing in the US. And data centers are just one part of the story. Now, they're an important part because they are more than any other demand. They're an early adopter that really, really needs or wants the power. And price is not as much of an object for them as it is for some other demand centers. So they are able to pay a higher price just like the cool kids that really wanted a tessell roadster could afford to pay a higher price for an electric car than most consumers could. They were the early adopters that could establish a little demand signal and get some manufactured up and running before they could get to a car that was affordable for a more typical consumer. Right. So look at some of this power purchase agreements. This AI companies are paying very premium prices for electricity because I understand that it's going to be incredibly hard to come by in the next three to five years. There's a huge issue with turbines for natural gas or methane gas plants. So it's a problem if you try to bring that online in the next couple of years. And so to your point, they are willing to pay a much, much higher price. And yes, electricity demand is going to keep increasing. I said energy earlier though. I really mean electricity. I don't think the move towards electric vehicles or electrification of heating and cooking and some of those other things. I don't think that's going to go away. And yeah, to your point, AI is just one of these technologies. I think we're going to keep seeing more and more of it. I'm trying to find the right one. I don't have to just yet, but my next car is going to be an electric car. I just haven't figured out yet which one is going to be. I really kind of like the buzz. I don't know if you've seen those. No, I haven't seen those. I'm an old school VW guy. When I was a kid, we had a Volkswagen Microbus. And the Volkswagen buzz looks like a microbus. I took you with ledger to one and an electric car now. Well, a long time ago, I will first of been watching them for a while. I think the cost and performance benefits are there. I don't have any range anxiety. I have charging anxiety. And there's an awful lot more gas stations around them. There are charging points. I love the fact that they're quiet, that there are a lot fewer parts moving around. Right now, almost there in terms of plugging my car into my house and providing power to my house at the power of those out. A car battery could run my house for about three days. A typical car battery. That'd be just a kind of cool thing. I have neighbors who have $15 or $20,000 worth of generators to power their whole house. And I just don't want to do that. So all those things are good. And then I will quote a guy named David Crane. He was the CEO of NRG Energy. And I was at a conference on these folk and he says to the audience, I have five electric cars in my family. He said it's not because I'm a car guy. It's because I'm an electric guy. I want to build demand for my product. Totally. So I think it's all kinds of reasons. That's a car should cool, I think. I know they're a little more expensive, but I also know that the potential variance in gas prices over my lifetime is proven that you really can't predict how much gas is going to cost for very long. I learned to drive just after the first real gas crisis in the US. 1973. I started driving in 1975. Bad time. Well, I was really mad because I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Gas prices went up by a factor of four. Was it quarter for a gallon of gas when I first started paying attention and it got to be a dollar for a gallon? That was crazy. That is crazy. So go back to Rad's future. What kind of things did you learn something that you never knew when you were doing the research? I wouldn't say that I learned something that I never knew. Because by that point I had done already so much research and knew a lot about all the different topics. I think one little fact that I didn't know, for example, was that when the Chernobyl accident happened, one of the reasons why it was because as they were preparing to run the experiment on the reactor, which they needed to bring the power to low. As they were about to do that, they got a call from basically the utility company, saying that a coal power plant nearby had gone unexpectedly offline. And this was a big holiday season where it was a getting approaching a big holiday season. And they needed all the power from Chernobyl, so the workers could finish working in their factories. At least until the workers went home. And so they brought the power online again. And those are some of the little facts, just of history that are slightly interesting that I learned about. Also, the fact that the world didn't know about the accident for many days after and only found out because this power plant in Europe detected higher radiation levels in the air. And they checked their reactors, I believe it wasn't Sweden. And they checked the reactors. There was nothing wrong with their reactors. And then they saw the wind patterns. They followed the wind patterns and detected the type of isotope and figured out it was coming from the Soviet Union. So that was amazing as well, right? That in the 80s, we could have already, I mean, I guess we always could, but it's amazing that we can detect radiation that well. That they were able to identify exactly where this accident happened. Another thing that was fascinating was just going through the history of how humans felt about nuclear at different times. In the beginning of the early 1900s, it's so crazy to say early 1900s because I was born in the late 1900s, I guess. Which feels so ancient and Victorian. But in the early 1900s, nuclear was really seen as this almost magic-like technology. Right? You had people speculating about how amazing the world would look like if we were able to get that sort of energy and so on. And by the time nuclear fission, we discovered nuclear fission. It was already, the speculations were already going wild in both directions. It's really unfortunate that the world was introduced to nuclear technologies through the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it's almost like it confirmed all the pessimists view that the stock on. It was going to destroy the planet and so on. And then just seeing how it changed throughout history. So, you know, in the 50s, there was this renewed passion for nuclear where you could even see Walt Disney, who created this whole movie called Our Friend the Atom, himself explaining how nuclear works and why it has all this incredible potential. You had, you know, Ford designing a nuclear powered car, which thank God never happened. The nuclear on. The nuclear on. Yes, it was a cool design. Bad idea. Very long hood. Yes, very long hood. How are they planning on cooling it? Oh, you got to go fast. If you're moving fast. You have to drive it 500 miles per hour. It's dry cooling, don't worry about it. So, yes, you have the nucleon and even the designer, the designer couple, the eames. I don't know if you're familiar with them. But some of their most iconic patterns were inspired by this atomic age. And then of course, unfortunately, getting us to the anti nuclear movement in the 70s and how one thing that I didn't understand or appreciate before doing research was how much of it was almost more out of this hatred of the government than it was about the dangers of nuclear electricity per se. So much of it was because of the bomb, the connection to the to military and the idea that, you know, the nuclear was centralized and the big man versus renewables, which were this centralized and nice and people get to own their own thing. I was quite surprised by that actually. I thought it was much, much more to do with fear of accidents. And it was to some extent. And then obviously, you know, leading up to the act to the few accidents and the horrible timing of three of my island happening 12 days after the China syndrome premiered. I mean, talk about horrible timing. Well, people can read my blog and realize what I feel about coincidence. What do you feel about coincidence as I'm curious? Well, the, I went back and watched three of my island, I mean, the China syndrome for the first time, because I always heard about how terrible it was about being anti nuclear and nuclear acts and so on. And so I never watched it until I went to work for the company that manufactured the reactor for through my own bad, cognitive, woke up. So I said, I'll go watch this movie and see what it really is. And there is actually people and realize it's there was no nuclear accident in that movie. Right. There was a near miss. Right. There were two near misses. And the first near miss in the movie, there was a sequence of events, which if you know the details of what happened through my island, you realize that the sequence of events is almost the same. Right. So crazy. There was a rising level in the pressurizer and people didn't know what to do. So they turned the pumps off, filling the pressure because you want to go solid. You know, all kinds of things that were essentially the same. And I thought to myself, how could somebody or some writers write this script, build the sets, do the acting, go through the process of producing and then releasing the movie. You know, you know what I'm saying? I want that takes. It's somebody was writing that stuff three years before the accident ever happened. Or so three, two to three years. And then had it be in the theaters still in the theaters because it really wasn't that well received when it first came out. The sales for the China syndrome quadrupled after the accident happened. The ticket sales. So, you know, they almost didn't make it. They almost rather the theaters by the time the accident happened. But anyway, so I don't I don't necessarily believe it was a coincidence. I think. And because again, you know the details. You realize there were some valves that were out of position. They never should have been a business they were in except they were left there after a maintenance of a loosen and never returned. That doesn't that's not the way nuclear people do things. Oh wait. Okay. I'm not going to press you for more. Tell me. I got three articles on a ton of insights and say three mile island sabotage. Wow. Three part series. And Fonda was a Jane Fonda tell me truth. No kidding. No. That was all. I mean, it was it just doesn't make sense to me that it could be that close to reality. And I mean, the movie even has a line. If that happens, it could. It could radiate an area of the size of Pennsylvania. Wow. That's crazy. I didn't know about that line. Are you size of Texas or size of Maine or the size of? No. It's a size of Pennsylvania. Wow. I have to go back and listen to that. I had never paid attention to it. You know, Rod, there is another explanation. And this is something that I kind of came away with with after writing the book as well. And you're probably not going to like what I'm about to say. That's okay. Go ahead. Try me. I am glad that we took our time with nuclear. And by that, I mean, I'm glad that we slowed down the role and that we had time to push for safety and to be able to develop it now in a way that's even better than it was in the 50s. And I think that if it wasn't for the anti nuclear movement, that might not have happened. And we could have lived in a world where there were more accidents, more frequent accidents. And not maybe not that big, but I feel like the anti nuclear movement could have been much, much stronger to the point where it kills the industry itself. And I think that nuclear technology is a very special technology to our species. It's probably the first god-like technology that we've developed. Not obviously not just talking about electricity at this point. And I think it was a moment that was probably very confusing to humans to be able to create this technology that was way more powerful than we were. And I think that now we can still develop nuclear. And it is one of the safest forms of energy we made it so. If we had built a bunch of Chernobyl reactors, maybe that wouldn't have been the case. And we still get the chance to develop it now. So I'm glad that this is how it unfolded. Though I have to say I started writing the book, hating environmentalists for trying to kill nuclear. I understand why they were anti-nuclear back then. There was way less information. They still had the strong connection with the bomb. It was scary. It sounded scary. Now, if you're still anti-nuclear in the year 2025, you're insane. So has to say that. You don't do much reading. You don't look at data. Or you're one of those who have created your own little internet bubble. And you think everybody thinks the way you do. Because everything you read is anti-nuclear. That's what all your filters in your algorithms have shown you. But there's many things about nuclear. They're just so amazing. And I like to remind people that humans did not invent nuclear energy. We worked the ones that packed all that power into the nucleus, all that energy into the nucleus. We weren't the ones who made it so that we had this atomic particle that had no charge. So it could enter into another nucleus very easily. And it's kind of stimulated breaking up all the sudden it breaks apart. And there's vision. Vision worked. Almost the very first time we tried to do it. You know, once Enrico Fermi announced that there was an order for me. Once Hans Brits, Hans... Chris, President and, yeah, as an auto-honds. Auto-honds, that's it. Once they announced vision, experiments were done around the world in various labs within the first year. Enrico Fermi. Enrico Fermi had already done vision. It's just that he didn't know. Yeah, but I didn't know that knew. You know, familiar with the story of I didn't know that. No. I had a German chemist who looked at Enrico Fermi's 1934 results and said, have you tried testing them for barium? I think that you made smaller isotopes, not just bigger ones. Because Fermi thought he was building all these brand new trans-heeranic elements. And I didn't know that. Brodie pay for very, very much dismissed. And why do you think that was? Because she couldn't have known this stuff. She's just a woman. Oh, really? Yeah. She was very disrepair. Was she a physicist? A chemist. A chemist. She was, she again suggested that they should have done a chemical test on the, rather than simply counting the decays of what was the product of hitting uranium with neutrons. He said he could have done a chemical analysis and check to see if there were ice adored elements like barium and half neum and some area and those kind of mid periodic table elements in there. And that's what Autohannen Frisz-Rasmen did. Because they were also chemists. Yes, they did that in 1938. She said in 1934. Well, that's incredible. Do you have those, is that in a paper somewhere? Yeah, yeah. I'll send you a link. Yes, please. And I'll post a link to the show notes just for those who have never heard of Iden Notak. Like she's very good. And oh, by the way, Autohannen Frisz-Rasmen only did some of the experiment. He's Mikener was very key in understanding what those experiments were producing. Right. She definitely, she definitely interpreted the results and in her and her nephew. Yeah, his name was Autohannen. Autohannen Frisz-Rasmen. It's very confusing because all the names on the same sound, the sound the same. But Lee's Maitner and Autofrisz interpreted the results and they coined nuclear fission. basically. Yeah, that would be biological biology, concept of fission. Right. And wrote the few papers, the first few papers on nuclear fission, which is amazing. It's such an incredible story. So I actually begin the book, I begin the book with that story, which is in itself just fascinating. And the timing of it, I mean, are you kidding me? One year away from World War II? Yeah, that was definitely unfortunate timing. Nobody, I mean, I've never tried to pause this without some sort of... Definitely not. That was some sort of arrangement there. That was just a terrible timing. Because right after we started learning about this stuff, we were just scratching the surface. Totally. It went submerged. I mean, nobody wrote about it anymore. It was not a topic for discussion. Everything was secret. And even the study of the health effects of radiation, there was lots of it going on. There were a lot of people that were going on, but we couldn't talk about that because why people would ask, why are you studying the effects of radiation? You must be doing something over here. Right. The health stuff was all very secret. It's crazy because that really wasn't something we should have been secret. Oh, well. So when are people going to be able to get your book at how? Where would they go to get copy of rad future? You can already pre-order rad future and for all of the listeners who want to support, who have, you know, maybe seen my work before and want to find a way to spread the message, pre-orders are very important to ensure that a book has a high chance of making it to a New York Times bestseller list, for example. And so if you are interested, you want to learn more. You want to support. You want to spread the message of nuclear. You can pre-order. You can do it on Amazon, but you can also go on my website, which is isadope.com slash rad future RAD FUTURE RADU-R-E. And you can pre-order it now, but it comes out on August 12th. Terrific. You know, there are probably a thousand more things we could talk about. Yes, that would have been an hour and I think it's probably about time to give you the opportunity to bring this home, summarize or just say whatever you want to say in the next few minutes and then we'll finish the show. I feel like it's such a special time for nuclear electricity. Have only been at it for the past five years and you're out have been at it for much, much longer. And I'm sure you can see the excitement as well of this moment. And I want to remind people that this is the time we have bipartisan political support. We have public support. In the United States, specifically, we have some of the highest public support for nuclear ever. We have capital from private investment. We have all the pieces have lined up and this is the time to make it happen. So my message to advocates is just keep spreading the message, keep trying to get people on board. But my message to the industry is make this happen. This is your chance. I want to end in a somber note, but I do think and I am afraid that if this renaissance doesn't succeed, it might be the last opportunity. I think we can all make this happen. Well, I think we should all act as if it's our last chance. If nothing else. Yes, exactly. So let's move forward and do what we need to do to keep them momentum. And I appreciate all the things that you've done. I think that you are reaching an important audience that some of us can't reach no matter how hard we try. But thank you for all you've done. Thank you for continuing to study and learn. And I can't wait to read rad future. Thank you so much, Rod. And thank you for all your amazing work throughout the years. You're very welcome. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Atomic Show. This is Rod Adams. I've been your host for the Atomic Show for more than 15 years. As the publisher of Atomic Insights, I've been speaking with experts in analyzing nuclear energy for more than three decades. 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