For decades, electricity consumption was flat. Now, the massive energy demands of AI data centers are making clean, reliable, baseload power like nuclear an essential component of the energy grid, not just an option.
While it may be technically possible to power the world with solar and wind, the speaker argues it's practically infeasible. The required global "super grid" to manage intermittency and geography involves political and financial capital that makes it a fantasy.
In Gabon, ancient uranium deposits naturally initiated and sustained nuclear fission for millions of years, activated by rainwater. This discovery proves that fission is a natural phenomenon, not just a human invention, challenging perceptions of it as "unnatural."
The push for massive overbuilding of solar/wind and gigantic battery farms is not an optimal grid strategy. It's a workaround that became popular only because of a pre-existing belief that building new, reliable baseload nuclear power was not an option.
Contrary to popular imagery, spent nuclear fuel is a solid that is initially stored in deep pools of water. Water is such an effective radiation shield that trained divers can safely swim in the pools for maintenance. This highlights the managed safety of nuclear waste.
While Chernobyl is often cited as the worst energy disaster, a 1979 hydropower dam collapse in China killed an estimated 200,000 people. This event, hidden by the Chinese government for 20 years, dwarfs the estimated 4,000 premature deaths from Chernobyl.
Across all countries surveyed, women are consistently more opposed to nuclear energy than men. This gap is attributed to women's generally higher risk aversion and the perception of nuclear technology as "unnatural," a more significant factor than the progressive/conservative political divide.
The high costs of Georgia's recent Vogtle nuclear plant are often blamed on regulation. However, the primary drivers were project management and supply chain failures, like ordering the wrong rebar, which caused year-long delays due to a loss of institutional knowledge.
The 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear incident occurred just 12 days after the premiere of "The China Syndrome," a Hollywood movie about a near-identical plant accident. This eerie timing massively amplified public fear and distrust of nuclear technology.
In the 1970s, France built 57 reactors in 15 years through its government-led utility, which repeatedly built the same design. In contrast, the US's fragmented private utility system, with each company building different designs, failed to achieve similar cost reductions and scale.