Neon Green Energy (E363)

Damn had to tap out from this one. Kept waiting for some push back on the scaremongering around nuclear power. It was claiming that tech bros using the "slight of hand" about nuclear being much more safe than coal (factually true) when he then does the same thing by claiming that solar/wind doesn't require "violent" mineral extraction (factually wrong) unlike nuclear.

Carney's whole argument is just "American capitalists do this tech in the worst possible way, therefore the tech is bad". But no, it's the American capitalists that are to blame for all of these evils. And most of his actual arguments for why nuclear is unsafe/unsustainable are based on errors and fallacies. I agree with the sociological critique of the tech oligarchs pushing for nuclear power to sate the AI boom. The US ruling class is retreating into nostaligia for optimistic 1950s Abundance Capitalism, that includes shameless embrace of the military-nuclear-industrial complex. That is indeed what is motivating the "nuclear renaissance" talk which this episode exists to push back against. That agenda should be opposed, but many of these arguments against it are just wrong on the facts. The anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s was motivated by the 100% laudable goal of opposing the truly evil world-destroying machine of the Big Nuclear military-industrial establishment. But they fallaciously conflated all forms of nuclear technology into a monolithic entity that must be opposed under all circumstances, and they anti-intellecually refused to understand the basics of nuclear chemistry and engineering because Big Academia is part of The Complex. Carney in this episode is doing the same thing with his moralistic refusal to be called stupid by people he knows to be in the wrong, even as he admits to not understanding what he's talking about.

Yeah lads dropped the ball on this and a guest who is nice but clearly uninformed

I'm sympathetic to the argument of renewable energy, but I don't see how we can get enough of it online in a timeframe that doesn't lead to fairly devastating degrowth. Nuclear seems like the "least bad" option right now. I think we are letting perfection be the enemy of good here - we will keep burning fossil fuel because nuclear is not risk-free.

Part of the issue with this episode is that it’s a bait and switch. After the ‘UFOs messing with nukes’ segment it’s straight anti nuke talk.

I've never felt the need to comment but dang this was disappointing to listen to. "3 mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima; would you guys want a nuclear power plant like a mile from your house?" *Multiple hosts then state they grew up near plants including the guest* and nothing happened to them. By the initial logic, then, nuclear power is safe. Lots of just ill-informed (almost propagandistic) statements from the guest here not to mention straw men and/or false premises every other sentence. As a reminder, anecdotes and vibes do not equal data. There are legitimate arguments against nuclear energy, but it is by far our best way of ditching carbon until renewables catch up, and is so much safer these days. I was really hoping for more skepticism from Travis, but maybe they can do a more fair deep dive at some point once they see the poor reaction to this. Love the show otherwise!

This episode feels a little lopsided, not expecting the Algonquin Roundtable but also a lot of the arguments are poorly informed or just based on vibes, but with the current state of institutional collapse in America it'd be hard to say they're not wholly wrong for the moment we live in even if they would be wrong elsewhere and in other conditions.

Wow this is a rare episode that is both controversial and DOESN’T involve the libs and the lefties in the peanut gallery snipping at each other. Public discussion around nuclear really has shifted in the past few years. This makes me happy.

This episode was brought to you by Exxon

This is the first time ive felt a need to comment. You missed the mark here. This was hard to listen too. Factually incorrect. Do yourselves a favor and go find Kyle Hill on youtube.

If you have seen the German show Dark, you might also mention the risk for creating a möbius time loop 33 years apart through which everyone is married to and/or parents to and/or the murderer of their own aunts, mothers, brothers, daughters until they all kill each other Infinitum until another a Time Machine is invented to find the time before the loop was created to stop the event that led to the loop being created in the first place.

I’m really happy you released this episode. But it also made me lastingly sad. I think I will be upset for the next month.

Unusually lacking episode for me. Won't rehash what other commenters have said but I think ya'll dropped the ball on this one.

Love all the nuke-stans and their “akshually…”

Wow, the level of factual inaccuracy in this episode is disheartening. I would have hoped that someone on your team would have at least a basic understanding of nuclear power. This was just one misunderstanding after another and I really don’t know where to start. Nuclear power is only as unsafe as it is because of people like this who say shit like “meltdowns are inevitable” and “all meltdowns are catastrophic” it’s like, meltdowns are a sign of poor operating procedures that could be regulated meaningfully, and almost all meltdowns, like 3 mile island, don’t release any radioactive material. They’re just a pain in the ass for everyone at the plant. This was just so infuriating and full of bullshit as most anti nuclear stuff is.

I deeply appreciate you putting out this episode, as I too have heard otherwise reliable leftist or progressive voices advocating for nuclear power and have found myself having to play chicken little in arguments. The fact of the matter is that no matter how low the potential for an accident may be, what sets nuclear power plants apart is that an accident only has to happen once for the damage to be irrevocable. There are no second chances and forced displacement of residents is the only possible outcome. The experience of Fukushima fully backs up Sean's analysis. First off, geologists had discovered, well prior to 3/11/2011, that there was evidence of a tsunami having reached much farther inland than the official safe zone estimated by the Japanese government (not only that, but only a century or so prior). When they reported these findings, they were not only called luddites but wanna-be sooth sayers and TEPCO successfully lobbied against any new disaster studies on the basis that it was too expensive. The second thing is that it wasn't the reactors that were ultimately damaged by the tsunami. What caused the meltdown was was a loss of power to the cooling units and subsequent damage to the pools that were cooling spent nuclear fuel (a problem Sean mentioned in the episode). It was that spent nuclear fuel that eventually leaked and created radiation exposure. Even a perfectly designed system can't fully account for human error. IMO, anyone who advocates for nuclear power must do so with the acknowledgment that an "occasional" Chernobyl, 3 mile island, or Fukushima is inevitable. If you're comfortable with that, then have it. I'm not.

Great episode! Nuclear energy history and saucers, two of my faves. 😀 Bring Sean back!

Oh I like this guy. And Brad is always a treat.

The waste argument is pretty tired. All the nuclear waste that the US has created in the last 70 years can fit in the area of a football field. They bad outcomes like Hanford(my home state) were not modern and were primarily weapons plants. And there was a plan for the waste in Nevada, its half built and got canceled so that Obama could cash a favor to get support from Harry Reid.

as someone who works in environmental science and has a long standing interest in nuclear energy, there is a lot of context missing here. Of course, the privatization of energy is highly concerning and should be discussed. Also, using nuclear energy for AI data centers is not good for society. But conflating that with nuclear=bad, is frustratingly shallow. Yes, presently nuclear energy contributes about 20% of US electricity, more than coal, and comparable to all other renewables combined (this is after years of decommissioning nuclear power and heavily subsidizing wind/solar). It does so quietly, effectively, and safely, it’s been working for decades, and the only nuclear energy incident in the US they point to is Three Mile Island which in fact was not a disaster and safety protocols were effective. Compared the the size and scope of industrial disaster tolerated in other sectors, it is monumentally safe.

Well that’s a disappointing episode. A lot of Sean’s points are either not relevant to modern nuclear power, factually inaccurate or based purely on vibes. Frustrating to listen to as somebody who both supports renewables like solar and wind, but also knows the science, data and history of nuclear.

Everyone saying “talk to a nuclear scientist” in the comments are completely missing the point. The fact is that we live in the real world where idiots and assholes run everything and that makes nuclear insanely dangerous. You can fantasize about your green gay space communist future (I make fun of that, as a communist myself) with nuclear power leading the way but there is no perfect world. We’ve been on the verge of the worlds most terrifying nuclear disaster in Ukraine for years now, it is insanely lucky that one of the worlds biggest nuclear power plants hasn’t been blown up yet.

I'll be one to say I wasn't disappointed and instead refreshed that nuclear criticism was expressed for once.

Hey I love this podcast very deeply, however I think that it would be better balanced if you had an actual nuclear scientist to better explain. All high power energy is dangerous, nuclear is dangerous when mismanaged and plants are built will little oversight. We can’t have an honest conversation about nuclear energy that relies entirely on vibes and bomb talk. It is shifty that tech bros all of a sudden want nuclear energy and that they want it for their own benefit not for actual long term carefully examined use. You need to do a follow up with someone who is an expert in this field who does not have any corporate interest, not a podcaster whom I’m sure is doing research but it feels that this research is being guided by fear and confirmation bias. Again love this podcast, but I fear this is a little out of your guys’ wheelhouse

Is this like the time you brought Seth Harp on and pumped his book without mentioning/knowing to mention the unfounded vatnik-adjacent Russia-Ukraine War takes and Covid-19 conspiracy theories? It would be super cool if you guys could editorialize better on science episodes, particularly those related to energy production, climate change, and environmental studies. There are so many disinformation pitfalls in these fields.

I have to agree with a lot of commenters. I kept waiting for some sort of comparative analysis with other less carbon intensive fuels and it just wasnt there. How does uranium mining compare to lithium and cobalt mining? As far as I know, that id amongst the most exploitative labor on the planet right now. Also, no perspective from an actual scientist or figure in the field of nuclear physics even seems odd to me. Isn't the whole point of this show to not take random people on the internet and hold their opinion as equal to qualified academics and researchers? Strange decision imo

Great episode!

sorry but these points are bad first uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years? uranium 238 does yes however its pretty much unimportant its radiation cant even penetrate the skin. youd have to consume or inhale it. the bigger danger it has is toxicity. secondly three mile island was yes indeed benign no one died and not even one person was given cancer from it so yes that level of fear and news about it was fairly unwarented for what happened. every reactor has multiple levels of fail safes they were turned on and then turned off because of operators manual failures

Honestly listened to this episode with an open mind. Huge fan of Brad episodes. But this shit is stupid lol

It's insane how 90% of these arguments are "we can't trust this administration or corporations with nuclear power." When we can't trust them with ANYTHING!! The rest is just fearmongering because ooo nuclear energy is scary "you wouldn't want a reactor in YOUR backyard would you?" Like yes mining on indigenous land is bad, and mining efforts are focused on profits, not mining cleanly; but they completely ignore the mining and refinement needs that other forms of clean energy will also have. Nuclear should not be the end-all-be-all but there are plenty of places where solar, wind, or geothermal energy is not viable, and getting scared of cold-war era propaganda is not a helpful mindset. So much energy is spent worrying about the imaginary "big nuclear" lobby when the much larger and more threatening oil lobbies have been pushing this anti-nuclear talk for decades now.. really disappointing episode imo

Yeah, its cool you smirkingly listed all those boosters that will apparently have a go at you for being concerned about nuclear power, but no mention of the scientists who work in the field who would be more than happy to discuss those concerns of yours and walk you through the reasons they are confident that nuclear energy is safer than ever AND is only part of the solution to climate change.

Great episode. When I was a kid I lived half an hour away from three mile island. Crazy times

I rarely complain about episodes, but his is just bad arguing. I’m surprised Travis was so quiet. Three major problems here: First, the use of historic technology to draw conclusions about current yet different technology. Yes we still have some old school nuclear plants running but here are new technologies that produce less waste. This is like arguing about the safely of cars by using a 1950s hot rod without seatbelts as your proof. Second main argument is…because a limited list of bad people like this therefore it must be wrong. This is just bad arguing. There are many good things that bad people like… breathing is one. Also Very few are arguing that nuclear is perfect and has no risks. Yet if you believe that carbon emissions are bringing increasingly closer effects disastrous climate change, then nuclear, which produces less carbon emissions, is a current “better” stepping stone to move humanity away from carbon. The other contradictory thing here is the critique of the argument “being anti-nuclear means you must be pro-coal” can also be applied to the argument that the host is insinuating… “being pro-nuclear means you must be anti-solar and/or anti-wind” which just isn’t the case. Our current biggest problem is climate change. It is in fact possible to be both pro-regulation of AI and data centers while also being for the nuclear option as a means to remedy the immediate and real effects of climate change.

Great episode. It’s been depressing to see how hard nuclear has been pushed over the last few years, even by self styled leftists.

Hey to all my fellow listeners with anxiety issues. Skip this one.

Ahh I genuinely don't know how to feel about this one. The points of view are interesting, but —as somebody really ignorant about nuclear energy— a lot of the opinions shared feel really off.

Jake is a national treasure.

Big oof on this one, disappointing.

This was a pretty disappointing episode. There are tons of pro-human leftist scientists who support nuclear. It'd be nice if you invited one of them on. I expected more from Travis!

Hey Jake there are a couple White Castles in Arizona

Some of these commenters are radioactive

I’ll be giving this one a miss.

One bonus item that doesn't get covered is spacecraft that use nuclear fuel. (A lot of space probes and vehicles use nuclear fuel because it's a lot more dependable than solar panels.) If the rocket explodes while sending a nuclear-powered thing into space, the radioactive payload gets distributed across the Earth's atmosphere. Happy weekend :)

Really? Transitioning to the "reactors aren't safe" segment with a gut emotional appeal? How many people died from three mile island?

The recent film Psycho Killer involves 3 Mile Island. It's fun!

This is a very frustrating and disappointing episode. I don't even know where to start. It's very poorly informed and parroting oil-backed arguments from the 70s and 80s. Ending with the point "if nuclear worked at scale oil companies would invest in it" is so baffling that it makes me wonder if all your guests are this poorly informed and this is just the first one that I've known was wrong.

Brad!!

Guys, I agree that wind and solar are the way to go but holy hell can we please stop handwringing about “oooh nuclear reactors make plutonium therefore it makes more bombs”. The plutonium created is immediately burned, and in fact accounts for 1/3 ish of thermal output. Bomb juice comes from special bomb-juice-making breeder reactors. AND STOP CITING ANNIE JACOBSEN HOLY GOD ALMIGHTY

So yeah, this is the level of reporting that refers to 3 mile island as a meltdown, and says without checking that there isn't bureaucratic hurdles to building a nuclear power plant.

This is such a limited discussion about nuclear energy. First of all, most scientists agree that there is no way for us to get to net zero emissions within a meaningful timeframe without nuclear power. So the options are coal or nuclear. Secondly, you are just talking about uranium reactors. Due to fear about nuclear power, there has been very little construction of newer nuclear reactors. Most of them were built decades ago. We now have designs for thorium reactors that are safer and cheaper to run. They produce less waste and that waste is safe after 100 yrs instead of 24000 yrs for uranium. You do still need uranium but not nearly as much. We don’t have any of these outside of laboratories though because Americans are generally anti-nuclear power. This idea that we have been brainwashed to love nuclear is just not supported by reality.

Nuclear boosterism is such a bizarre phenomenon in the era of solar and wind power

I was interested in the discussion of the mining of minerals for reactors which I think is an irreducible problem with this technology. We all need to have more awareness of the hazards put on people mainly in the Global South for these and other minerals like Li and Co for most modern technology. I do think the dangers of reactor explosions and nuclear waste may be overstated here. Modern coal power plants consistently operate at higher pressures (more than double) than the boilers in any currently operating nuclear plant and you don't hear about them bursting either. The engineered safety parameters of these machines are VERY conservative. Also when it comes to waste, the Thorium fuel cycle has intermediates with a maximum halflife of 68.9 years (nice). No U235 or Pu (the stuff they use for fission bombs) so there's minimal "proliferation risk." Medium term, nuclear power is the most efficient, lowest cost way to get power to everybody who needs it without cooking the planet with CO2.

idk i guess we're just flat out fucked?

No Liv Agar 😔

Every time someone brings up nuclear energy in either the pro or against column, I'm just like: https://phys.org/news/2026-03-centuries-net-negative-emissions-required.html It doesn't really matter at this point. Those indigenous tribes around Yucca we're gonna get fried by heatwaves or rads, one way or another, because they live under in and under an empire. It was the same for Pripyat. Denuclearization of energy just trolley-problemed the entire planet. Functionally useless to talk about anymore.

When you guys go from reciting the canonical criticisms of chatbots to talking about how they must understand nuclear war at some higher level, it really makes me doubt that this podcast contains any actual understanding of the material you cover. The reason chatbots always go for nukes in a crisis simulation is because they are trained on data talking about people doing that, because while it isn't the norm, it's more interesting to write about. They can never be smarter than us, they're literally the lowest common denominator. They also definitely don't "look at us and judge us". There isn't actually even any "they", beyond a mirage we project onto.

thank you Jake for singing

My dad worked at a hydroelectric company in Canada that had some dealings with nuclear facilities in the US. I asked his opinion of nuclear energy as a whole and was surprised at the strength of his opposition: the people in charge were, apparently, incompetent. And this was a long before the Trump era. Maybe nuclear could work in a functioning country with strong regulatory frameworks. The US is not that country. The simultaneous push towards deregulation and nuclear power is nothing short of horrifying.

... but why did they have to 'test' nuclear bombs so regularly for so long? Were they just like every week or so 'I wonder if they still work'.

Nuclear power is pretty good, I just don't want it to be controlled by idiots who keep letting their own AI delete their codebases

Liv Agar energy

First strictly hetero

Gay and first