0:00

The tech industry and many of these

0:02

obscenely rich people who are sort of

0:04

pushing it are deeply concerned that

0:07

things like climate change will lead

0:09

to people asking them for larger

0:12

social and economic changes. And

0:14

that is going to affect them adversely. So

0:17

I think for them, trying to pretend that

0:19

there has to be a technological solution is

0:21

part of trying to preserve their wealth and

0:23

their position in society. Hello

0:41

and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, made in partnership with

0:44

The Nation magazine. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and

0:46

this week my guest is M.V. Romana. Romana

0:48

is a professor and Simon's chair in

0:50

disarmament, global and human security at the

0:52

School of Public Policy and Global Affairs

0:54

at the University of British Columbia. He's

0:56

also the author of Nuclear is Not

0:58

the Solution. The Folly of Atomic Power

1:00

in the Age of Climate Change. It

1:02

won't be news to many listeners of

1:04

this show that there has been a

1:06

lot of talk about nuclear power recently

1:08

in the tech industry by companies like

1:10

Amazon, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and others that

1:12

are looking for new energy sources to

1:15

power their data centers and all of the

1:17

energy that they're demanding for the generative AI

1:19

boom that we've been seeing over the past

1:21

couple of years. As

1:23

the energy demands of these companies have been

1:25

increasing, there have been questions as to whether

1:27

this goes against the pledges that they have

1:29

been making for many years to make us

1:32

believe that they care about climate change and

1:34

that they're reducing their emissions. Meanwhile, what we've

1:36

seen in the past few years is their

1:38

emissions steadily increasing, not to mention their energy

1:40

demand and their water use as well. One

1:43

of their solutions to that has been

1:45

to say that they are investing in

1:47

other forms of energy that will be

1:49

less emitting in order to mitigate the

1:51

impact of this massive energy demand that

1:53

their data centers and other operations are

1:55

creating. And that leads me to wonder

1:57

whether they're really serious with this? about

1:59

this or whether this is another distraction

2:01

that we need to be paying attention

2:03

to, to understand the real impact

2:05

of what's happening here. When I hear these

2:08

tech companies talking about nuclear energy, on the

2:10

one hand, I think, okay, this almost makes

2:12

sense, right? These are very large corporations. They

2:14

have a particular view of the world and

2:17

what our future is going to look like,

2:19

one where we use massive amounts of additional

2:21

energy to power all of these technologies that

2:23

they want us to adopt, not to mention

2:25

this vision that they have of merging our

2:28

brains with machines and kind of living in

2:30

simulations and all these sorts of things, right?

2:33

So you can see why they want us to be

2:35

consuming all this power and why they might see massive

2:38

centralized facilities as the means to achieve that. But

2:40

then there's also a piece of me that's very

2:42

skeptical as to why they're doing this, because

2:45

yes, we see the massive energy demands, we

2:47

see their emissions going up, we see that

2:49

they're not meeting the climate targets that they

2:52

told us they were going to meet. And

2:54

meanwhile, as we see stories about the amount

2:56

of fossil fuels that they're using increasing and

2:58

the amount of fossil fuel investment happening in

3:00

the United States hitting levels that we haven't

3:03

seen in many years, they're talking about nuclear

3:05

energy, as if that is something

3:07

that is going to come online in a

3:09

very short amount of time to meet the

3:11

energy demand that they have right now and

3:13

to mitigate and reduce the emissions that they're

3:15

creating in this moment. Yet, what

3:17

we know is that that nuclear energy is

3:20

not going to come online anytime soon, if

3:22

it's really going to come online at all.

3:24

And so this feels to me like a

3:26

distraction. And so I wanted to talk to

3:29

Ramana because he is an expert on these

3:31

things. He's been looking into nuclear energy for

3:33

a very long time and brings the kind

3:35

of skeptical perspective on this that I think

3:38

is really welcome on a show like this

3:40

one. So I hope that you enjoy my

3:42

conversation with Ramana. We dig into not only

3:44

the tech angle of this, but talk about

3:47

nuclear energy more broadly and the bigger concerns

3:49

that it presents as we think about the

3:51

path forward and the energies that we should

3:53

be using in the future, as

3:55

we know that we need to bring our emissions down in

3:58

order to meet the challenge of the climate crisis. So

4:00

if you enjoy this conversation, make sure to leave

4:02

a five star review on your podcast platform of

4:05

choice You can also share the show on social

4:07

media or with any friends or colleagues who you

4:09

think would learn from it And if you do

4:11

want to support the work that goes into making

4:13

tech won't save us every single week So we

4:15

can keep having these critical conversations that dig into

4:17

the impacts of the tech industry You can join

4:20

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4:22

from Toronto Andrew in New York and Greg in

4:24

Philadelphia by going to patreon.com/tech won't save us where

4:26

you can become a supporter as well Thanks so

4:28

much and enjoy this week's conversation Romana

4:31

welcome to tech won't save us. Thank you Paris. It's

4:33

a pleasure to be on the show I've been listening

4:35

to us for some time now and it's a great

4:37

honor to be among the people you're interviewing Thank

4:40

you so much I really appreciate that you're listening to

4:42

the show and you know, hopefully that you enjoyed if

4:44

you keep listening I'm sure that that's the case Podcasts

4:48

out there to listen to something which you don't

4:50

like, you know Obviously you will know that there's

4:52

been a lot of talk in Silicon Valley recently

4:54

about Nuclear power and nuclear energy and the need

4:56

for something like that So that is part of

4:58

the reason why I wanted to have you on

5:00

the show today and we'll dig into you know

5:03

a number of aspects of nuclear power based

5:05

on the research and Observation of this industry

5:07

that you've been doing for quite a long

5:09

time now But I wanted to start by

5:11

asking you a more general question, which is

5:13

when did you start looking into nuclear energy

5:15

itself? You know, how did this become an

5:17

interest of yours and what caused you to

5:19

see it in the way that you do

5:21

today? So my training

5:23

is in physics and While

5:26

I was doing my PhD. I

5:28

became politicized. I became much more

5:30

active in various political and

5:32

social issues So that was looking

5:35

for things I could do where I could apply my

5:38

physics training to problems that are

5:40

more relevant to society and To

5:43

cut a long story short a serendipitous

5:45

meeting Led me to start working

5:47

on nuclear weapons in South Asia. And so

5:49

I was for some years as looking at

5:52

missiles and nuclear weapons in

5:54

India and Pakistan and That

5:56

led me to start thinking about

5:58

the nuclear energy institutions in India

6:01

because it's the same institution that

6:03

promotes nuclear energy in India that's

6:06

also responsible for making the weapons

6:08

materials. And so one

6:10

thing led to the other and my first

6:12

book was on nuclear energy in India. It's

6:14

called The Power of Promise. And

6:16

at some point I thought

6:19

I had done enough as a researcher

6:21

on India and I started thinking more

6:23

broadly about nuclear energy globally and this

6:25

was during the period in the first

6:27

decade of the century when there was

6:29

much talk about something called a nuclear

6:31

in essence. The Bush administration

6:33

had passed the Energy Policy Act in

6:35

2005 that put in place

6:39

a lot of incentives for utility

6:41

companies to build nuclear reactors and

6:44

other countries like the UK was

6:46

also doing something similar. And

6:49

so it seemed interesting for me to think

6:51

about what the experience in

6:53

India which has also been a very

6:55

early entrant into the

6:57

atomic age would tell

6:59

us about nuclear power elsewhere. So I

7:01

started looking at that and that was

7:04

shortly after that was when the accident

7:06

at Fukushima happened, the three reactors that

7:08

melted down in 2011

7:11

and soon after that a colleague of mine was we

7:13

were chatting on the stairwell and he was like oh

7:15

this is going to be the end of nuclear power.

7:18

And some part of my brain immediately said no

7:20

that's not going to happen. And

7:23

the reason it's not going to happen

7:25

is because the nuclear industry is a

7:27

very powerful industry politically powerful has lots

7:29

of money and they will find a

7:31

way to survive. And one way that

7:33

they have survived is by promoting these

7:35

new nuclear reactor designs they're

7:37

called small modular reactors, advanced reactors things

7:39

of that sort. And so

7:41

for the last 10 odd years I've

7:44

been arguing why these reactor designs are

7:46

not the answer to nuclear power. Anyway

7:48

all this was sort of my academic

7:50

and non-academic work has been revolving around

7:53

that and at some point it made

7:55

sense to think about writing a book

7:57

about it. My initial idea was So

8:00

all of the problems with nuclear power are well

8:02

known, the high cost, the

8:04

challenge of radioactive waste, et cetera, et

8:07

cetera. And so I'm

8:09

just going to focus my book on

8:11

explaining why it is that companies and

8:13

governments are still investing in

8:15

nuclear power, even though they know all these problems.

8:18

But my editor at Verso, my

8:21

first editor at Verso, Nicole persuaded me that

8:23

I have to rehearse all of the arguments

8:25

against nuclear power because there's a new generation

8:27

of people who just don't seem to be

8:29

aware of it. And I think she was

8:31

right. Of course, she's an editor and I'm

8:33

just a writer. So

8:36

that's how the book sort of transpired.

8:38

So it seems to me based on

8:40

what you were saying with this kind

8:42

of renewal around the Fukushima period and

8:44

a lot of talk about new kinds

8:46

of nuclear reactors, small modular and things

8:48

like that emerging after, you know, that

8:50

potential crisis that the nuclear industry faced

8:52

then, it feels to me like

8:54

a lot of the tech industry is interested in

8:56

that. And a lot of their kind of embrace

8:58

of this also comes after that

9:00

period as well, when there's the positioning of

9:02

nuclear not as being, you know, these old

9:05

kind of big reactors that we know about.

9:07

But there's these new nuclear technologies that are

9:09

coming on stream and Silicon Valley is ready

9:11

to pick that up. Would that be like

9:13

a proper understanding of that? I

9:15

do agree. Yes. I think

9:18

there was a kind of overlap between

9:20

a period that had to do with

9:22

Fukushima and these new reactor designs being

9:24

promoted. But also I think

9:27

with the crash of 2007, 2008 and

9:29

the capital that is sitting in the

9:31

Silicon Valley

9:35

area looking for things

9:38

to invest in. And as you

9:40

might know, they picked on sort of the

9:42

climate problem as the one they were going

9:44

to fix with their technologies.

9:46

It was in all different fronts. It

9:48

was about renewable energy technologies, but also

9:51

energy efficiency and all of these monitors

9:53

that were supposed to look at how

9:55

you use your energy and try to

9:57

optimize it, stuff of that sort. And

10:00

much of that, I'll just mention it

10:02

in passing, was that some of these

10:04

energy efficiency stuff, for example, got

10:06

quickly switched into data collection and

10:09

surveillance capitalism. So it fit very

10:11

well into that. But nuclear energy

10:13

was among those things. And

10:15

so for the last 10 years

10:17

or 15 years, there has been

10:19

interest among some tech

10:23

people in nuclear energy. And that's

10:25

kind of speeded up a little bit in the

10:27

last few years. As I was saying,

10:29

that's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you,

10:31

right? We'll get into these bigger issues with nuclear, but I

10:33

just wanted to ask you briefly before

10:35

we do that, what you make of what

10:38

has been going on lately. Because over the

10:40

past year in particular, we've been hearing a

10:42

lot about nuclear energy from the tech industry,

10:44

as they've been building these massive data centers

10:47

to power their AI ambitions. And many of

10:49

them are saying that nuclear is essential to

10:51

that, right? It is essential to powering these

10:53

major infrastructures that they're building. And now companies

10:55

like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are making investments

10:58

in nuclear projects and saying that this is

11:00

going to be key to powering these facilities.

11:03

What do you make of how rapidly that's

11:05

developed and how vocal the

11:07

industry has been in this embrace of

11:09

nuclear energy over the past year or

11:12

two? Yeah, I think none of these

11:14

companies were in any way critical of

11:16

nuclear energy earlier either. And

11:19

the fact that Amazon and Google

11:21

and Microsoft would announce these, I

11:24

think the timing is important. If you

11:26

think about it, yes, there's more and

11:28

more press and media

11:31

coverage about the enormous amount

11:33

of energy and water

11:35

and other resources that they use. There

11:37

is a growth in movements that are

11:39

opposing these, which you have covered in

11:42

your show. And I'm

11:44

pretty sure we don't of course know what is

11:46

going on inside their boardrooms. None of us are

11:48

going to be there when they make these decisions.

11:51

But I'm pretty sure they are very aware of this

11:53

and they are sort of concerned about it. And

11:56

they have a model to think about,

11:58

which is the cryptocurrency industry. A

12:01

few years ago, there was a lot

12:03

of headlines about crypto industries and how

12:05

their data mining is using up lots

12:08

of energy, stories about how

12:10

their emissions from these data mining

12:12

operations exceeded the emissions

12:14

from different countries and stuff of

12:16

that sort. And we saw in some

12:19

countries, at least, regulations being

12:21

passed. Even the Biden administration had an

12:23

executive order about it, which talked about

12:25

the climate impacts. And China

12:28

actually stopped data mining partly for

12:30

environmental reasons. And so that was what

12:32

I think the big tech companies are

12:34

concerned about, that they will get regulated

12:36

in ways that they don't want to.

12:39

And so they're trying to get ahead of this. And

12:42

I think nuclear offers a good option

12:44

for them because they can

12:46

take advantage of the enormous amount

12:48

of lobbying and PR effort that

12:50

the nuclear industry has put in

12:53

to try and redefine their technology

12:55

as somehow clean and green and

12:57

the way to go forward. And

12:59

so why not take advantage of all that lobbying

13:01

effort? So I think that's how the tech industry

13:04

probably ended up at. Now, is it

13:06

going to actually help them? Even

13:08

if you look at their announcements, they

13:10

talk about this in the 2030s. And

13:13

at the same time, they say, demand is

13:16

going really fast. We want to set up all of

13:18

these things very fast. And they better

13:20

set these up very fast because this is a bubble,

13:22

which is probably going to burst anytime soon. And

13:25

so there's a clear mismatch between

13:27

the timeline in which they want

13:29

the energy and when nuclear

13:32

energy can deliver. The fastest probably

13:34

will be in the case of

13:36

Microsoft restarting the Three Mile Island

13:38

nuclear reactor, whether that happens

13:40

or not, because there is no precedent for

13:43

that kind of restarting and

13:45

the cost estimates for

13:47

restarting and changing the equipment, making sure

13:49

everything works, finding new workers and so

13:52

on. It's going to be pretty high.

13:54

And it's not clear that Microsoft or

13:56

Constellation is actually willing to pay that

13:58

kind of money. And of course,

14:00

constellation the moment initially they said it's all

14:02

going to be private money, Microsoft is going

14:04

to fund, but then constellation went and has

14:06

asked for a loan from Department of Energy.

14:09

And so there's a lot of moving

14:11

paths here. But I think the most

14:13

important thing also is that the timeline

14:15

is really far for nuclear energy to

14:17

contribute anything. And the last

14:19

thing I'd say is that the amount

14:21

of money people are talking about in

14:24

particular, Amazon is the only one who

14:26

just put some amount on the table,

14:28

it said it's funding some fraction of

14:30

a $500 million investment route for X

14:32

energy. Now, even if it's $500

14:35

million, that's a drop in the

14:37

bucket. When you think about what it takes to set

14:39

up a new nuclear reactor, or even

14:41

to license one of these things, it probably will

14:43

cost them about $2 billion of R&D money before

14:45

they can actually get

14:47

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve construction

14:49

of one of these reactors. So

14:52

for Amazon and Google, the kind of money

14:54

they're talking about is pocket change for them.

14:56

I think it's really well said. One

14:58

of the things that I've been saying whenever people bring up these

15:01

commitments to nuclear energy by Amazon,

15:03

Microsoft and Google is like, okay,

15:06

but they need all of this

15:08

energy now. And there are all

15:10

these stories about how actually like

15:12

the amount of fossil fuel investment

15:14

that's happening in the United States

15:16

right now is at like record

15:18

levels for recent years for power

15:20

infrastructure and stuff. And that it's

15:22

not just that existing fossil fuel

15:25

plants or whatnot are not going offline, but

15:27

they're actually investing in building new ones. And

15:29

it feels to me that every time we

15:32

hear the tech industry talk about nuclear, it's

15:34

a PR move to make us think that

15:36

they're relying on, as you're saying, what has

15:38

been branded clean green power, when actually there's

15:41

a lot of fossil fuels that are going

15:43

into powering these things now because nuclear is

15:45

not going to be available if they even

15:47

follow through on these things for quite a

15:50

long time. Absolutely. And some of the cloud

15:52

business that these companies have is actually with

15:54

fossil fuel companies and trying to figure out

15:56

how to reach at more difficult to reach,

15:59

you know, gap. costs,

18:00

and also the times when those

18:02

costs are incurred, and you calculate

18:05

some kind of a discounted cost, and

18:07

you divide that over all the electricity

18:09

flows, and you find what the average

18:12

cost is. And there's a

18:14

Wall Street company called Lazar that has

18:16

been doing this for all

18:18

kinds of power sources in the US.

18:21

And they have consistently demonstrated that

18:23

nuclear is the most expensive among

18:25

all the standard sources, even

18:28

after doing this, assuming 60 years of

18:30

operation, et cetera, et cetera. And

18:32

this is true not just in the case of the United States, it's true

18:34

in other countries as well. And so there

18:37

is no question that the cost is high. The

18:39

other thing which I think one should remember is

18:42

that because the argument is about

18:44

nuclear energy being used as a

18:47

solution to climate change, there

18:49

is another factor which is extremely important, which

18:51

is time. All the climate

18:53

scientists tell us that we need to reduce our

18:55

emissions right now, just as the tech industry needs

18:58

its energy right now. And

19:00

a nuclear reactor takes a very long

19:02

time to build. So the average nuclear

19:04

plant takes about 10 years to build. Going

19:08

between the time you start pouring concrete into the

19:10

ground to the point where you start supplying electricity

19:12

to the grid. But of

19:14

course, you can't start constructing a nuclear reactor the

19:16

next day. You have to go

19:19

through some environmental clearance processes. There

19:21

must be some kind of a safety evaluation of

19:23

the reactor design. You have to find

19:25

a community that is willing to live near one of

19:27

these nuclear plants because they are the ones who are

19:30

going to be most at risk in the event of

19:32

an accident. And so many of them

19:34

have a history of opposing these kinds of facilities.

19:36

And last but not least, raise the tens

19:38

of billions of dollars you need to build

19:41

one of these plants. And so that whole

19:43

process can take five to 10 years. And

19:45

if you look at the empirical record, that's

19:47

typically the timeframe between when a country

19:49

or a utility decides to build

19:51

a nuclear plant to the point

19:53

where it starts generating electricity. This

19:56

is not to mention the fact

19:58

that many plants are abandoned. halfway

20:00

through construction. So anyway, the

20:02

timeline is very long, and therefore it's not

20:04

a very feasible way to try and deal

20:06

with the climate crisis because of

20:08

the high costs and the long time periods.

20:10

Now, the other set of arguments are about

20:12

whether, if you were to take the point

20:14

of view that, you know, I'm willing to

20:16

pay the high costs and so on, whether

20:19

we should use this. And those are

20:21

questions about desirability and that

20:23

question of accidents, the fact that nuclear

20:25

reactors will produce radioactive waste that we

20:27

don't have a demonstrated way to deal

20:29

with, and the fact that the

20:32

technology to make nuclear energy is very close

20:34

to us, closely associated with the technology to

20:36

make nuclear weapons as well. And so if

20:38

you're thinking about using nuclear

20:40

power to solve climate change, you have

20:43

to talk about expanding the source of

20:45

energy into lots and lots of countries,

20:47

many of which don't have any nuclear

20:49

power experience at this point. And

20:52

some of them will probably use this ability,

20:54

this capacity that they gain to make nuclear

20:56

weapons. And we have to ask ourselves, is

20:58

that a desirable goal? Those are the

21:01

kinds of questions we have to deal with. I'll

21:03

just say one thing because we brought up

21:05

this question of new reactors and so on

21:07

and so forth, and the argument about what

21:09

you mentioned about accidents being rare and

21:12

the impacts being overblown, the

21:14

fact is that we cannot

21:17

actually evaluate in a

21:19

very rigorous fashion what the probability

21:21

of an accident is. There are always going

21:23

to be uncertainties. We know it's low, the

21:25

probability, it doesn't happen every day, but

21:28

when it happens, it can be pretty catastrophic. And

21:31

the way that the nuclear industry and

21:33

its supporters try to deal with that

21:35

second aspect of it is

21:38

by underplaying the consequences,

21:40

usually by actually borrowing a sort of

21:43

a standard technique used by

21:45

the tobacco industry way back, which

21:47

is to introduce doubt. And

21:49

the tobacco industry used to say, there's

21:51

a lot of doubt, uncertainty about whether

21:53

smoking causes cancer. In fact, they also

21:55

would say that there are some benefits

21:57

to smoking that are not- included when

21:59

you try to evaluate it. The nuclear

22:01

industry says exactly the same thing. They

22:04

say radiation is overblown, it's not really so

22:06

harmful at low levels, it's perfectly okay, some

22:08

you would even go as far as saying

22:10

a little bit of radiation is actually good

22:12

for you. But the science is pretty clear

22:15

on this, just as in the case of

22:17

tobacco smoking, exposure to radiation

22:19

is going to increase your risk of

22:21

not just cancer, but a whole bunch

22:23

of other diseases as well, cardiovascular disease,

22:26

etc. And from a public

22:28

policy point of view, you

22:31

should be taking a precautionary perspective, you

22:33

should say, even if there is

22:35

some uncertainty about the impact of radiation, because

22:38

of the doubt about it, we should

22:40

actually avoid low levels of radiation exposure

22:42

to the extent possible. And if you

22:44

take that perspective, there is no doubt

22:46

that these accidents are hugely harmful. Yeah,

22:49

that gives us a really good overview, I think, of a lot

22:52

of the issues that exist with the arguments

22:54

that are made for nuclear power. But I

22:56

want to drill down into them a little

22:58

bit further, right? And I wanted to start

23:00

with the question of cost and time, because,

23:03

again, like, I feel like the general explanation

23:06

that I've received about nuclear power in the

23:08

past, you know, if I've just been interacting

23:10

with the way it's generally reported on and

23:12

things like that, and I think many people

23:14

will be familiar with this, is that, okay,

23:16

yeah, they're very expensive to build, right? But

23:18

then once they're built, it's

23:20

this clean and cheap, source of

23:23

power, why wouldn't we want something

23:25

like that? But I think you outline very

23:27

well and very clearly in the book how

23:29

that is not really how this works. There's

23:31

the initial upfront cost, but then the operating

23:34

cost of these things is not like zero,

23:36

right? It actually does have quite a significant

23:38

operating cost. And then when you look at

23:40

what it takes to build one, the projected

23:42

costs often get completely blown out. They often

23:45

end up being way more expensive than

23:47

predicted, which makes this difficulty of, like,

23:49

you know, actually producing the energy at a

23:51

cost that's like reasonable when compared to other forms

23:54

of energy, even more difficult. But you said it

23:56

often takes a decade to get one of these

23:58

things, but I think our experience is that

24:00

it often takes much longer than that because of delays and

24:02

over runs and all that kind of stuff. So I wonder

24:04

if you could just pick up on that a little bit

24:06

more. Sure. So the basic

24:09

point I should say, why is a

24:11

nuclear reactor expensive? The

24:13

nuclear reactor is inexpensive because it

24:15

is trying to use a hazardous

24:17

technology to just boil water.

24:20

That's ultimately what it is doing.

24:22

And the purpose of designing a

24:24

nuclear reactor or the main driver

24:26

of all the priorities that the

24:28

nuclear reactor designers has is

24:30

to make sure that these radioactive materials that are

24:32

going to be produced during the fission process don't

24:35

escape into the biosphere. That involves all

24:37

the steel and the concrete that is

24:39

used, as well as a whole bunch

24:41

of training that operators have to go

24:44

through. And all of

24:46

that translates into high construction costs

24:49

and also very necessarily rigorous

24:51

methods of wetting the manufacturing

24:54

and the operating process. Now,

24:56

the operating costs are also

24:59

a function of this challenge.

25:01

The average nuclear reactor operator

25:04

is a pretty well-paid position. And if

25:06

you look at just the cost of

25:09

operating nuclear reactors, even if all

25:11

of the debt has been paid off

25:14

after many, many years of operation, you

25:16

will find that the cost per unit

25:18

of power is of the order of

25:20

about $30 per megawatt hour in the

25:22

United States. And this

25:24

used to be not a

25:26

problem for the nuclear industry

25:29

because the main competitor to

25:31

nuclear power were fossil fuels,

25:33

primarily coal or gas. In

25:36

those cases, the cost of

25:38

fueling them was what was going to

25:40

dominate the cost, the cost of the

25:42

coal or the cost of the natural gas. Now,

25:45

in the last decade or decade and

25:47

a half, that has completely changed for

25:49

two reasons. One is the cost of

25:51

natural gas came down because of hydraulic

25:53

fracturing or fracking. But the

25:55

other was the fact that we had

25:58

these new technologies, solar. and wind energy.

26:00

They were actually old technologies, but they

26:02

had become much more affordable in the

26:05

last decade. And their costs were declining

26:07

very rapidly, the manufacturing costs. Now,

26:09

what's interesting about solar and wind energy is

26:12

that once you set up your wind turbine

26:14

or put up your solar panel, there's

26:16

zero fueling cost. The

26:19

wind comes for free and the sun comes for

26:21

free. You probably have to spend a little bit

26:23

of money on the maintenance, on the solar panels,

26:25

for example, somebody probably has to go with the

26:28

squeezy and sort of clean it up and stuff

26:30

of that sort. But it's essentially the marginal cost

26:32

of running those plants is very low, close

26:34

to zero, whereas a nuclear plant can never be

26:36

that cheap. And so

26:38

there was in the United

26:40

States a bunch of reactors that were

26:43

shut down precisely because they could

26:45

not afford to compete

26:47

in electricity markets. The reactor

26:50

that Microsoft wants to restart,

26:52

TMI, the Trimal Island Unit

26:54

1, was precisely that

26:56

kind of a reactor. In 2019, the

26:59

utility that was owning it decided that

27:01

it was not making enough money and

27:03

they shut it down. And so nuclear

27:05

power in that sense has failed in

27:07

not just the high cost of construction,

27:10

but also in competing on electricity marketplaces

27:12

where you have to bid on the

27:14

basis of marginal costs. The last thing

27:16

I'd say is that you mentioned the

27:18

high cost overruns and the time delays.

27:21

And they are kind of baked into the

27:24

system. And the reason is

27:26

if a nuclear company were to

27:29

actually give a realistic estimate of

27:31

the cost of building a reactor, how long it is

27:33

going to take, and so on, most

27:36

people would probably say, no, thank you very much.

27:39

And so they have to underbid, they

27:41

have to pretend that somehow all of

27:44

these problems that have been seen

27:46

with earlier construction projects will

27:49

be magically solved because they have some

27:51

new way of doing stuff. So in

27:53

the case of the nuclear reactors that

27:55

were built in the United States, the

27:57

AP 1000 reactors, that magical

27:59

thing. weapons

38:00

and nuclear weapons technologies. Can you

38:02

expand on that piece and why

38:04

these two technologies are so intimately

38:07

linked? Yeah. So at the

38:09

technical level, the reason these two are

38:11

closely linked is because all

38:13

nuclear power plants will necessarily

38:15

produce plutonium. Plutonium is one of the

38:17

materials that can be used to either

38:19

fuel a nuclear reactor or to make

38:22

a nuclear weapon. And

38:24

historically, many countries have followed that

38:26

route to making nuclear weapons. Most

38:28

importantly, the case of India, which

38:31

I mentioned. The other material that

38:33

connects nuclear energy and nuclear weapons

38:36

is uranium. Now, in

38:38

Canada, we don't use reactors that

38:40

use industry in uranium. Uranium in

38:43

nature consists primarily of two

38:45

kinds of uranium. One called Uranium

38:47

235 and 238. They're just different in the

38:49

number of neutrons. And for

38:52

the purpose of this, it's sufficient. It's

38:54

the lighter element that Uranium 235 that

38:57

is important. In most

38:59

reactors operating around the world,

39:01

so-called light water reactors, the

39:04

uranium that has to be used has to be enriched

39:06

in Uranium 235 from what is found in nature. In

39:09

nature, it's about 0.7% of all

39:11

the uranium that is Uranium 235 for a

39:13

nuclear reactor to operate that has to go

39:15

up to about 3 to 5%. And

39:18

this is done today using a

39:20

technology called centrifuges, sort of like

39:23

washing machines, where they try to

39:25

exploit the mass difference between these

39:27

two kinds of uranium to separate

39:29

out these two. But the

39:31

same technology can be used to concentrate

39:33

the Uranium 235 to much higher

39:36

levels, which are needed to make

39:38

nuclear weapons. So for a nuclear weapon,

39:40

ideally, you would like the Uranium 235 level to

39:42

be in the 80 to 90% range. But

39:45

the same technology that moves from 0.7% to 3 to

39:47

5% can also push it up to the 80 to

39:49

90% range. And that is precisely why we've seen

39:55

a lot of coverage and a

39:57

lot of concern about Iran's nuclear

39:59

program. Iran has this uranium centrifuge

40:02

technology. It is enriching uranium. They

40:05

claim that they are not interested in

40:07

nuclear weapons, that they're interested only in

40:09

enriching uranium in order to build research

40:11

reactors and other kinds of reactors with

40:14

this industry uranium. But a

40:16

lot of people don't believe that. I

40:18

don't think that we actually know what's

40:20

happening in there. There's not enough transparency.

40:22

The only source of information

40:24

often end up being the CIA

40:26

or some entity which I'm

40:29

not particularly willing to trust. But on the

40:31

other hand, we cannot also be sure that

40:33

nothing is happening there. So anyway, that tells

40:35

you why the technologies are so closely related.

40:38

The other way in which historically

40:40

this connection has played out has been through

40:42

the training of people. So coming back to

40:44

Iran itself, the way that it set up

40:47

its nuclear energy program goes back to the

40:49

1970s when the Shah of Iran decided he

40:51

was going to build a bunch of nuclear

40:54

plants. The United States was overjoyed with that

40:56

because they were hoping to sell lots and

40:58

lots of reactors. And

41:01

a bunch of Iranian students came to MIT.

41:04

And they gave a bunch of money to

41:06

MIT, which then set up extra

41:08

faculty members and so on to teach these people.

41:11

And those people are the ones who went

41:14

back and started Iran's nuclear program. Now

41:16

at that time, the Americans

41:18

thought it was a great idea for Iran to

41:20

do it. After the Iranian revolution,

41:22

of course, Iran fell on the other side.

41:24

And so now they became very concerned about

41:26

it. But these are the people

41:28

who have gone on to populate Iran's nuclear

41:31

program. And this kind

41:33

of connection of personnel is something which

41:35

you see in other places as well,

41:37

including Pakistan and other countries. So

41:40

that's another connection. I mentioned already about

41:42

the institutions, about the geographical overlap. I'll

41:45

also mention that in the public

41:47

discourse, one thing that we

41:50

see among promoters of nuclear energy is

41:52

a claim that these are very different. They

41:55

will say, oh, you know, you should not confuse

41:57

a nuclear reactor from a bomb. explode,

42:00

it's not the same thing. Now, of

42:02

course, nobody is saying it's the same thing, but there

42:04

are all these connections. And what's

42:06

important is that during the

42:09

periods when the nuclear industry is

42:11

in trouble, especially financial trouble, this

42:13

connection will actually be rolled out

42:15

as the reason why the government should subsidize

42:17

it. So we saw this in the United

42:19

States as soon as Trump came to power

42:21

the first time in 2017. And

42:24

immediately, the nuclear industry's answer was,

42:26

OK, let's appeal to Trump for

42:28

money by saying this is a

42:31

national security imperative. Right. The

42:33

other argument is just use those jobs because Trump

42:35

won't supposed to do that. And we can expect

42:37

the same thing happening again now. And the UK

42:39

as well, they were making the same kind of

42:41

arguments when they were trying to refurbish

42:44

the Trident submarine. So it's

42:46

a very odd thing that the nuclear industry will

42:48

try to hide away from. But

42:50

when they wanted, they will actually trot out that

42:52

argument. Yeah, that was really striking to

42:54

me as well when I was reading the book,

42:56

right, how they try to downplay this connection between

42:59

nuclear power and nuclear weapons until it comes to

43:01

the moments when they need that kind of political

43:03

support. And all of a sudden it gets played

43:05

up. And the fact that

43:07

these two technologies are very intimately linked

43:09

and you want the capabilities and the

43:11

capacities that come with having nuclear power

43:13

so that you can also support the

43:15

nuclear weapons industry or the nuclear weapons

43:17

that you have is very important. And

43:19

I feel like the point that you

43:21

made about Iran is so telling, right,

43:23

how it's OK for some countries to

43:25

have nuclear weapons and others not depending

43:27

on the geopolitical alliances that they have.

43:30

And, you know, we've had all this

43:32

discussion over the past decade about restricting

43:34

Iran's nuclear capacities, not wanting them to

43:36

get a weapon. But meanwhile, the Saudis

43:38

also have nuclear power and have pretty

43:40

explicitly said that if Iran gets a

43:42

nuclear weapon, then they're going to develop

43:44

one quickly as well because they have

43:46

this technology. But, you know, because they're

43:48

within the U.S. Western umbrella, that's completely

43:50

OK, right? And that we're freaking out

43:52

about and trying to make a big deal about it and

43:54

all this kind of stuff. The even

43:56

bigger elephant in the room is Israel, which

43:58

has nuclear weapons. But, you know, the. The

44:00

United States will never acknowledge it publicly because

44:02

that means that a whole bunch of laws

44:05

will get triggered to not export military equipment

44:07

to Israel, which they of course don't want

44:09

to do that, as we are seeing to

44:11

sort of tragic consequences in Gaza and Lebanon

44:13

and elsewhere. Absolutely. Such

44:15

a good point. And it struck me, I think,

44:18

that there was a document or some reports that

44:20

were leaked recently that I believe showed or had

44:22

kind of the Israelis or the Americans admitting that

44:24

Israel has a nuclear weapon and that

44:27

just had to kind of be swept away. Let's

44:29

not talk about it. Yeah. I mean, that's a

44:31

long and solid history. We can talk about it

44:33

at another time, maybe. Yeah, absolutely. There's another aspect

44:35

of this that kind of comes to

44:38

mind, right? We've been talking about the broader impact

44:40

of nuclear energy and who is supporting it. And

44:42

it struck me as interesting and it has for

44:44

quite some time, like not just reading your

44:46

book, that a lot of the biggest supporters

44:48

of nuclear energy and a lot of the

44:50

people who advocate for it also seem to

44:52

have connections to fossil fuels. When I think

44:54

of governments that are advocating for nuclear energy,

44:57

they're often governments that are kind of like

44:59

petrostates and have some connection to that whenever

45:01

the issue of climate change is brought up

45:03

or the need to reduce emissions from fossil

45:05

fuels. All of a sudden, you start hearing

45:07

a lot of talk about nuclear energy and

45:09

the need for nuclear energy and why this

45:11

is the way that we're going to solve

45:13

the climate crisis. What is in

45:15

that connection? Why is it that these supporters

45:17

of fossil fuels are so big on nuclear

45:20

energy? What's the connection there? Yeah, that's a

45:22

great question. I think there are sort of

45:25

two aspects of this. One, I think,

45:27

is it's like what

45:30

we talked about, the big tech companies. There

45:32

is an element of greenwashing going

45:34

on there. And we see that

45:36

here in Canada with Alberta and

45:39

Saskatchewan sort of talking much about

45:41

nuclear power when they are the

45:43

most fossil fuel dependent provinces here.

45:46

And we I mean, in other places as

45:48

well, there's sort of, you know, in Australia,

45:50

for example, there's a debate going on right

45:53

now about the conservatives want to build

45:55

nuclear plants, but they also are the ones

45:58

who are most reluctant to phase out. coal

46:00

there. So, there's an overlap

46:02

which I think has to do

46:04

partly with how they want to

46:06

greenwash. There may also be an

46:08

underlying ideological element there. So, there

46:10

have been studies about what leads

46:13

people to support nuclear energy and

46:15

oppose nuclear energy. And one

46:17

of the insights, at least in North

46:19

America, has been that people's disposition towards

46:22

whether they think society should

46:24

be hierarchically organized or more

46:27

communitarianly or egalitarianly organized influences.

46:30

And of course, as you can imagine, the people

46:32

who are more hierarchical think better of nuclear power.

46:34

They're also less concerned about climate change, maybe because

46:37

they think they can escape the worst of it,

46:39

sort of like the Peter Thiel types. And

46:41

anyway, so there's, I think, that connection. But

46:44

there's also a material connection in many

46:46

cases. In the United States, for example, the

46:49

utilities that own nuclear plants, they are

46:51

all some of the utilities with the

46:53

highest market capitalizations, simply because a nuclear

46:55

plant is such an expensive enterprise. So,

46:57

they all have market capitalizations in the

47:00

tens of billions of dollars. And

47:02

if you look at their portfolios, they

47:05

will invariably have large amounts of fossil

47:07

fuels as well, coal or natural gas

47:09

or both. So, they are not in

47:11

any rush to actually completely phase out

47:14

all of these fossil fuels because it

47:16

is going to have a material bearing

47:18

on their financial interests. And they

47:20

are not really interested in that. And so, nuclear

47:23

in a sense offers them this opportunity to say,

47:25

oh, we are concerned about climate

47:27

change. That's why we are planning to build

47:29

nuclear reactors and small modular reactors and so

47:31

on and so forth, sometime in the 2030s.

47:34

It's always 10 or 15 years ahead at this

47:36

point. Yeah, always, every single time. As you were

47:38

talking about the first point of that, right, about

47:40

the politics of it and the hierarchy, it brought

47:42

to mind Langdon Winner, who is a scholar on

47:45

technology who I really respect. And he has this

47:47

book, The Whale and the Reactor, and of course

47:49

has talked about this in other work that he's

47:51

done as well. And it's essentially, you know, part

47:53

of what he talks about is how having

47:56

a technology like a nuclear reactor

47:59

basically requires a political system of a certain

48:01

type, right? Because in order to manage this

48:03

technology, in order to run this technology, you

48:05

need this kind of very centralized political system

48:08

in order to make it work. And I

48:10

feel like that is something that is often

48:12

left out of these discussions as well, right?

48:14

When we're thinking about the types of energy

48:17

that we're setting up, the types of technologies

48:19

that we're relying on, it's not just this

48:21

question of like, how green is

48:23

it or what else is going on there, but

48:25

also like how is it actually constructed and what

48:28

type of society are we creating by choosing

48:30

to invest in this particular type

48:32

of energy technology or what have you? Absolutely.

48:35

I mean, Langley Moon is that particular essay that

48:37

you're talking about is right on

48:39

the dot. The essay is called, Do

48:42

Artifacts Have Politics? And he

48:44

argues that they do. And I think the

48:46

other scholar I would like to bring into the same

48:48

conversation is Timothy Mitchell, who

48:50

has talked about the role

48:52

of coal and historically how

48:54

it has actually led to the sort

48:58

of growth of democracy. Because for the first

49:00

time, workers found that they

49:02

could organize and stop production,

49:04

stop various things from operating. And

49:06

that gave them a kind of political

49:09

power to stop society, which then meant

49:11

that they could make demands and be

49:13

heard. And he contrasts

49:15

that with the case of

49:18

oil, where you don't need miners

49:20

to go underground. Actually, the oil

49:22

just kind of comes out. And

49:24

in fact, the challenge for the oil

49:26

industry is to make sure

49:28

that there's not too much of it,

49:30

because then the prices will tank. But

49:33

oil, because it flows through pipes and

49:35

so on, the role of workers is

49:37

far more limited. Their power is much

49:39

more limited. Nuclear fits exactly into that

49:41

same picture. It requires far fewer workers,

49:43

it's very concentrated. And also historically,

49:46

I'll mention that Maggie Thatcher,

49:48

the UK prime minister, used

49:51

nuclear power and made sure

49:53

that all the nuclear power plants in the country

49:55

were fully fueled, and they could

49:58

operate for many, many months. before

50:00

she went into the last stages of

50:02

the fight with the coal miners, Arthur

50:04

Skargill, and so on and so forth.

50:06

It is a very political technology, even

50:09

when you think about just pure labor politics.

50:12

That's so fascinating. I'll make sure that we put a link to

50:14

that in the show notes so people can check it out. We

50:18

started by talking about the tech industry,

50:20

right? And the tech industry's interest in

50:22

nuclear technologies. And of course, part

50:24

of that comes with this idea or promoting

50:27

this notion that they are

50:29

going to create these new nuclear technologies that

50:31

are going to solve all the problems that

50:33

we've had with nuclear technologies of the past.

50:36

And that this is going to allow

50:38

basically this renaissance of nuclear that will

50:40

be able to power their data centers,

50:42

but also, you know, this very energy

50:44

intensive vision of society that they have,

50:47

right? And some examples of that are

50:49

like small nuclear reactors or reactors that

50:51

have different formulations than the ones that

50:53

we use today and are supposedly going

50:55

to be so much better, right? That

50:58

I feel like we've been hearing these

51:00

promises decade after decade and they're not

51:02

really realized. So what should we make

51:04

of these promises from the tech industry

51:06

that they are going to revolutionize nuclear

51:08

technology? And is it something that we

51:11

should really be banking on given the pressures that

51:13

we face from the climate crisis and so much

51:15

else? To your audience, I

51:17

think I can just say it in one word. No.

51:21

I just said. So these small modular

51:23

reactors and all these other reactor designs

51:25

that they talk about, most

51:28

of them are really old designs. And

51:31

this is because in the 1950s and

51:33

60s, as we talked about, there was

51:35

this complete flowering of sort of interest

51:38

in nuclear technology that

51:40

every scientist and engineer

51:42

and their brother were inventing some new reactor

51:44

design all the time, right? And so there

51:47

were lots and lots of designs out there.

51:50

Some of them were constructed. Many of them were

51:52

not constructed. And those that

51:54

were constructed often, many of these designs

51:56

were shut down over a fairly short

51:58

period of time. And eventually,

52:00

for multiple reasons, one

52:02

or two reactor designs have come to dominate

52:05

the reactor fleet around the world. Now, what

52:07

the tech industry is doing and what many

52:09

other nuclear engineers are doing is to take

52:11

one of these old designs and they kind

52:13

of modify it a little bit. There's a

52:16

new alloy that they have found. There's a

52:18

new kind of steam generator, blah, blah, blah.

52:20

And they say, OK, now we have this new design, right? If

52:23

I had a few hundreds of thousands of dollars and

52:25

a bunch of graduate students, I can design a new

52:28

nuclear reactor. It's not a big problem. You just take

52:30

one of these and you do some modeling and stuff

52:32

of that sort. That kind

52:34

of stage of design is a

52:36

very preliminary stage. When

52:38

this design has to actually be constructed,

52:41

you would have to go through a

52:43

regulatory process. Hopefully, the regulator is sincere

52:45

in trying to make sure that there

52:47

are no undue risks to the public

52:49

because of this. A good regulator would

52:51

ask them a lot of hard questions.

52:54

How would this reactor do if there's an

52:56

earthquake? What happens if there is a fire?

52:58

What happens if the worker makes a mistake

53:00

and presses this button instead of that? What

53:02

happens if there's a manufacturing

53:05

defect? And trying to

53:07

answer these questions and doing so

53:09

in a believable fashion would require

53:11

these companies to actually spend immense

53:14

amounts of money to do

53:16

the R&D, to do the testing in of the

53:18

different materials, do all the modeling that is required.

53:20

The tech industry does not want to spend that

53:22

kind of money. They have the money to do

53:25

that, but they don't do that. And so just

53:27

to give you a ballpark number, the

53:29

small modular reactor design that's furthest

53:31

along in the regulatory process in

53:33

the United States is something called

53:36

NuScale. And they have spent over $1.8

53:39

billion, roughly a third of which has come

53:41

from the government. So that's a kind of

53:43

order of mind here. We should be thinking about $2 billion or

53:45

something of that sort. This is before

53:47

the construction starts. So the

53:49

tech industry, what you're typically seeing is venture

53:52

capitalists putting a few tens of millions of

53:54

dollars at most and then

53:56

saying, OK, you know, then they go and

53:58

try to get public money. This is what

54:00

Bill Gates has done with this. Natrium Reactor

54:03

Design, X-Energy, the company that Amazon is investing

54:05

in, is doing exactly that. They've all got

54:07

tens of millions of dollars from the Department

54:09

of Energy. We are seeing similar sorts of

54:12

things happening in Canada as well, but on

54:14

a much smaller scale because Canada and everything

54:16

is smaller here. These are really designs

54:18

that are quite far away. But what

54:20

is interesting, of course, is that for

54:23

the tech industry, they think this

54:25

buzzword of innovation will solve all

54:27

these problems. But these are problems,

54:29

actually, of physics and chemistry. It

54:32

doesn't matter whether it's Bill Gates investing in

54:34

it or some other company.

54:36

The physics and chemistry doesn't change. So

54:38

the reactor design that Bill Gates is

54:40

pushing is something called a sodium-cooled fast

54:42

reactor design. The many reactors that have

54:44

been built around the world, they've all

54:46

suffered problems with sodium leaks and fires

54:48

and all kinds of things. They also

54:50

tend to be much more expensive because

54:52

of the nature of the fuel that

54:54

is required for it. So it's not

54:56

going to happen anytime soon, but allows

54:58

them to portray this narrative of

55:01

all this innovative capacity sitting within

55:03

Silicon Valley and other places and

55:05

being stymied by regulators. Right, and

55:08

as well as me, that

55:10

these people love to rail about regulation and

55:12

how it's bad, how it's stifling all kinds

55:15

of capacities. And that's exactly what they're saying

55:17

in the nuclear case as well. I'll just

55:19

say one last thing, which is not quite

55:21

related to this, but I think it's also

55:23

a deep concern, which is that the tech

55:25

industry and many of these obscenely rich people

55:28

who are sort of pushing it, are

55:30

deeply concerned that things

55:33

like climate change will lead

55:35

to people asking them for

55:37

larger social and economic changes.

55:40

And that is going to affect them adversely.

55:42

So I think for them trying to pretend

55:44

that there has to be a technological solution

55:46

is part of trying to preserve their wealth

55:48

and their position in society, right? And we

55:50

don't normally see this, but occasionally you will

55:52

see somebody mentioned this. In my book, I

55:54

sort of quote Sam Altman during an interview

55:56

saying, oh, we have to have a- have

55:59

all this energy. If we don't, then it

56:01

leads to all this crazy, degrowth stuff. Now,

56:03

why would he bring that up in a

56:05

media interview when the interviewer is not even

56:07

asking that and it goes on to saying

56:09

this is immoral, et cetera, et cetera? Because

56:11

I think that's actually a concern for these

56:13

people, which they don't usually articulate in the

56:16

public, but one can be sure that when

56:18

they go off on their yacht parties, they

56:20

must be talking about, oh, these crazy people,

56:22

they're talking about all this and what's going

56:24

to happen. Yeah, that's,

56:26

that's such a good point, right? And I think

56:28

you can see that in the type

56:30

of vision that they try to promote, right?

56:33

Where yes, we need all these tech solutions

56:35

to the climate crisis and anything else. And

56:37

that means that nothing is going to have

56:39

to change about our current social structure, but

56:42

also we can continue to invest

56:44

in our data centers and our multiplanetary species

56:46

and all these kinds of tech visions that

56:48

we have for what the future is going

56:50

to be. And also not think about what

56:53

that means socially for everybody who's going to

56:55

be subject to these technologies. To close off

56:57

our interview, you know, you were talking about

56:59

Sam Altman there in January of this year,

57:02

Sam Altman gave an interview with Bloomberg where

57:04

he was asked about the climate aspects of

57:06

what he's doing. And he basically said that

57:08

we're going to need a lot more energy

57:11

than we thought we needed in the past.

57:13

And that was either going to mean we

57:15

need a breakthrough in nuclear technology or we're

57:18

going to geo engineer the planet because there

57:20

was no vision in his mind where we

57:22

didn't pursue, you know, all of this AI

57:25

and stuff that he wants to pursue. So

57:27

my final question to you is if nuclear

57:29

is not the solution, what should we be

57:31

doing to tackle the climate crisis and to

57:33

decarbonize our grids and to think about the

57:36

way that we live to address these serious

57:38

problems that we face? That's such a hard

57:40

question because there's no easy answer, as you

57:42

know, I'll start by saying also just there's

57:44

one other way in which the nuclear industry

57:46

really helps, you know, the old adage about,

57:49

uh, for a man with a hammer, everything

57:51

looks like a nail. The nuclear industry is very

57:53

good at coming up with these kinds of quote

57:56

unquote solutions to anything. So if you

57:58

talk about extra planet. deal

1:00:00

with that is by having multiple sources of

1:00:02

power and making sure that if one is

1:00:04

not working then something else is trying to

1:00:06

fit in its place. And we can do

1:00:08

the same thing with renewables. There are lots

1:00:11

of people who have modeled these things and

1:00:13

show that in principle, a 100% renewable energy

1:00:15

grid is possible. There are going

1:00:17

to be costs associated with it. It's

1:00:19

not going to be foolproof in that there

1:00:21

may be always a small risk, as

1:00:23

is present today as well. There are going

1:00:26

to be momentary lapses. The other thing I

1:00:28

should say is that renewables also have their

1:00:30

environmental impacts. We've heard about stories about the

1:00:32

challenges of mining for lithium or all kinds

1:00:34

of minerals and how those run roughshod over

1:00:37

the local concerns. And so we shouldn't be

1:00:39

sort of thinking about this as a panacea.

1:00:42

But you have to ask the harder questions

1:00:44

about what do we want energy for?

1:00:46

What are the uses we prioritize? What we

1:00:48

don't prioritize? Without those conversations, we cannot be

1:00:50

advancing solutions. It should not be the role

1:00:53

of, you know, an individual researcher or an

1:00:55

individual government official to say how we should

1:00:57

be ordering the world. This has to be

1:01:00

a democratic conversation. And I

1:01:02

don't think any one technology is going to save

1:01:04

us. I completely agree about the renewable point as

1:01:06

well, right? We need to understand what the tradeoffs

1:01:08

are for that, too, so that we can have

1:01:10

the proper conversations about how to do it properly

1:01:12

rather than just say renewables are the solution to

1:01:14

everything and ignore the downsides and the drawbacks of

1:01:16

that as well. Ramana, I really enjoyed the book

1:01:18

and I really enjoyed being able to speak to

1:01:20

you about it. Thanks so much for taking the

1:01:22

time to come on the show. Thank

1:01:25

you so much, Paris. It was a real pleasure talking

1:01:27

to you and also being in a way in conversation

1:01:29

with all of the many others that you actually been

1:01:31

interviewing on your show. Thank you. M.V.

1:01:35

Ramana is a professor at the University of British

1:01:37

Columbia and the author of Nuclear is Not the

1:01:39

Solution. Tech Won't Save Us is made in partnership

1:01:41

with The Nation magazine and is hosted by me,

1:01:44

Paris Marx. Production is by Eric Wickham and transcripts

1:01:46

are by Bridgette Palau-Fry. Tech Won't Save Us relies

1:01:48

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1:01:50

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1:01:52

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1:01:54

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1:01:57

Thanks for listening and make sure to come back

1:01:59

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