NEW: OPPENHEIMER AND THE END OF THE WORLD

Oppenheimer is a profound exploration of nuclear fear, offering clarifying insights into the nature of our anxieties and revealing why this fear seems to be unique to nuclear

Some highlights from my latest:

(WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD) NEAR ZERO:

The movie implies the existence of a very small chance that the world might've ended as a result of the Trinity Test.

In actuality “near zero” simply means non-disprovable – the inability to say something cannot happen through theory or observed evidence.

Yesterday, the same lawmakers in New York who frequently demand we Believe the Science instead went with Feels Over Reals, passing a bill to ban the release of wastewater from the shuttered Indian Point nuclear plant into the Hudson.

Here's what you need to know: The wastewater in question is tritiated water — water containing trace amounts of a radioactive isotope of hydrogen called tritium.

Tritiated water is regularly released by nuclear plants as part of normal operations because the concentration of tritium is so incredibly low.

@RobertKennedyJr ran through the anti-nuclear playbook during his interview on Breaking Points.

While there were too many errors and confusions to cover in one thread, I’ll touch on the main points I took issue with. Let’s clear the record:

https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1658835021111721988

@RobertKennedyJr asserts that energy policy is written “to benefit the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most toxic, most war-mongering fuels from hell”

“[Polluters] raise standards of living for themselves by lowering quality of life for the rest of us”

@jackdarin – director of @SierraClubIL – claimed that the Sierra Club doesn’t support lifting the state’s ban on new carbon-free nuclear because “we believe that nuclear is not clean energy”

Frustrating to have to debunk this anti-nuclear talking point in 2023, but let’s do it: @jackdarin says nuclear’s “full life cycle has very serious impacts”

@OurWorldInData studied the lifecycle emissions of our energy sources, including from mining, transportation & maintenance over a power plant’s life.

The data shows nuclear has the LOWEST lifecycle emissions.

Illinois is *SO CLOSE* to lifting its ban on new nuclear

To get these bills over the finish line, representatives and senators need to hear from all Illinoisans that this is the right thing to do for our state

Alan explains exactly how to make your voice heard👇

https://twitter.com/amedsker/status/1634181910527180801

RECAP: Illinois’s nuclear moratorium was passed in 1987 back when carbon was irrelevant to environmentalists.

Nearly 40 years later, we understand the need for reliable, carbon-free nuclear powering our state regardless of time of day or season.

I've been disappointed in content coming from @sciam for a while now, so I guess I'm not surprised to see this.

Let’s examine these claims:

1. Is nuclear waste “piling up”
2. Is nuclear waste becoming unsafe?
3. Do we need a repository now? The title of the article claims that “Nuclear Waste Is Piling Up”

It goes on to say that “Before we face that onrush” of waste coming from new reactors that may get built, “we first need to deal with the large volume of waste we’ve already produced”

We know that low doses of radiation pose incredibly low risk to our health, especially in comparison to other health risks we are faced with everyday.

But what if it's not just low-risk — what if low-level ionizing radiation is actually good for us? @ChrisThome7 is a radiation biologist and assistant professor at NOSM University.

Dr. Thome's research at the SNOLAB, the world's deepest clean lab, explores how radiation may be critical for normal cell function and genomic stability.

A lot to unpack here, but worth going through

1. "It's too expensive..."

A nuclear plant requires a lot of money up front to build. But given the lifetime of these plants and how much electricity they reliably produce, they generate cheap electricity over long periods of time.

https://twitter.com/GreenpeaceUK/status/1620759748005040128

France famously built lots of nuclear to reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Now it generates ~70% of its electricity from nuclear and enjoys some of the lowest electricity prices in Western Europe.

Also, French electricity was 8x cleaner than Germany's in 2021.

MYTH: radiation is uniquely dangerous, and there’s no safe exposure – no matter how small.

REALITY: the idea of “no safe exposure” has caused far more harm to public health than actual radiation from all nuclear accidents.

Here's what you need to know: Most radiation regulations & risk analyses are based on the “Linear No-Threshold” (LNT) model.

LINEAR: Risk from low doses can be extrapolated by extending a “dose versus risk” line from harm observed at high doses.

NO-THRESHOLD: there is no dose that doesn’t pose health risk.

France’s nuclear fleet is failing at a time when Europe most desperately needs reliable power.

Some point to this as evidence that nuclear in France is old and unreliable.

The truth is, France worked very hard to achieve this collapse 🧵

madihilly.substack.com/p/why-is-frenc… Police clashes with activists have put a light on Germany’s coal addiction. In 2022:

- More fossil fuels were used for electricity than any year since 2018
- Hard coal consumption for electricity was up 16% from 2021
- €500 billion was set aside to secure coal, oil, & gas

It’s disappointing to see @PeterZeihan pull the same old ‘I’m pro-nuclear BUT’ schtick on Joe Rogan.

Let’s put these anti-nuclear myths to bed and clear the record:

Myth #1: Nuclear is too slow

“We don’t have that kind of time, honestly”

On the contrary: nuclear power is proven to be one of the fastest ways to scale up clean energy for deep decarbonization.

"plus batteries" is doing a lot of work here

Here's a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation of storage for the EU's energy needs met by "solar plus batteries"👇

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607966994640392192

In 2021, EU electricity consumption was 2,865 TWh.

Solar generation in Europe varies greatly throughout the year.

If solar provided all EU electricity, the winter deficit (worst 6 months of solar generation) would have been about 590 TWh, or just above 20% of yearly demand.

WHAT ABOUT CHERNOBYL?

Chernobyl the accident shows that, even in a worst-case scenario, the health and environmental risks of nuclear are small.

Chernobyl the cultural phenomenon shows how dangerous nuclear can be.

Here’s what you need to know: Late at night on April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl 4 disabled the system’s automatic safety mechanisms and simulated an emergency to see what would happen to the plant’s safety in an emergency.

An hour after midnight, about 1 AM on April 26, things went wrong.

My thread on nuclear waste seems to have touched a nerve!

Interestingly, most pushback has come from INSIDE the nuclear industry, not outside.

A follow-up on the physics & culture of nuclear waste, & why the industry has gotten it wrong for so long:

https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148385931513856

When people want to talk about the waste, they want answers to two questions:

1. Is the waste safe today?
2. Is the waste safe after the apocalypse?

Let’s start with the first.

Which way, western man? It’s not too late to learn from past mistakes.

There’s a growing movement of labor unions, climate scientists, and pro-nuclear environmentalists championing a new path towards a reliable, carbon-free future for New York 👇🏼

https://twitter.com/nuclearny/status/1543744480624291841

Hi new followers!

Figured I’d give a bit of background on who I am, what I'm working on, and why: In 2017 I was finishing up degrees in EnviSci and PoliSci at Wisconsin (go badgers!) when I stumbled across @envprogress and reached out. @ShellenbergerMD took a chance on me, and I moved out to Berkeley a week after graduation to start full-time.

MYTH: We don't have a solution to nuclear's "waste problem"

REALITY: Nuclear waste isn't a problem. In fact, it’s the best solution we have to meeting our energy needs while protecting the natural environment!

Here's what you need to know: Nuclear waste concerns are overwhelmingly focused on “high-level waste”, which is almost entirely spent nuclear fuel.

Nuclear fuel is made up of metal tubes containing small pellets of uranium. These tubes are gathered into bundles for loading and unloading into the reactor.

In today's installment of "Nuclear Regulation is Beyond Parody": THE TALE OF TOOMER'S CREEK

Years ago at Idaho National Lab, a small cask of spent fuel was being moved from the storage pool to the hot cell (a chamber for inspecting spent fuel) The cask hadn't been fully drained prior to
its removal from the pool area. So the cask left a trail of dribbled water along the pavement.

Despite being theoretically safe enough to swim in, pool water is technically a hazardous contaminant. So it had to be dealt with.

I'm so grateful to @esaagar and @krystalball for having me on Breaking Points this morning to talk about Germany and nuclear power!

There’s a lot of info we didn’t have the chance to go over, but it’s really important for understanding these issues 🧵
On Germany:

Krystal pointed out that you can’t move away from fossil fuels with nothing else in place.

The thing is, Germany invested $580 billion in solar, wind, and storage in an attempt to replace their fossil fuels. Their failure wasn’t for lack of effort or investment!

In one week, Netflix will release “Meltdown: Three Mile Island”, a four-part documentary about the accident.

I've created an issue brief anyone can use, print, share, etc: static1.squarespace.com/static/5fc6767…

Communication around the show will be extremely important 🧵 Nuclear comms have been famously bad: slow, confused, and defensive. This appears to the public as dishonesty, evasion, and dirtiness.

TMI was no exception. The communication failure caused the extreme majority of harm from the accident.

The environmental NGOs on the other side of the negotiating table have only a single goal they can agree on: Nuclear Must Die.

It's more important to them than climate and much more important than workers and families in Illinois 🧵

nprillinois.org/statehouse/202… It turns out that @ILCleanJobs has been leading on the union negotiators. They were just running out the clock to kill the nuclear plants.

Not to help the environment. Not to clean the air. Not to protect communities.