A nuclear power renaissance for us all

Music

Mainstream media has betrayed our trust.

Rather than tell us the whole story about the important issues of the day, they tell us

only what they want us to hear.

Your hosts, Tom Harris and Todd Royal will bring you the other side of the story.

Music

More and more these days, we're hearing that a nuclear renaissance is underway.

That means an expansion of nuclear power to perhaps achieve the kind of goals that we had decades ago

when the nuclear power industry started.

So, is this really happening?

And what does it mean for America that will have more and more nuclear reactors?

What are the main obstacles to be overcome?

Is this really safe? Is it too expensive?

All of these questions and more will be answered by my co-host, Todd Royal.

Todd, of course, is a nuclear expert.

And so, although he's not staying on the show for more than a few more episodes,

he's actually the one to interview on this topic.

So, Todd, it's great to have you back again.

You're going to be staying with us for, what, a couple more weeks, right?

Yeah, I think we're going to build a go until about mid, like mid-April.

So, yeah, I've just, I've loved my over a year and a half with you.

But unfortunately, a new professional job and children and family is going to take me away from you,

which makes me happy for all these new opportunities,

but it makes me sad as well, you know, to not be with you every week.

Yeah, well, it's been a good team for the last year, that's for sure.

It has, absolutely.

Yeah, so, you know, this actually leads right into my first question.

And that is that, what sort of work do you do related to nuclear power?

Well, so I am with a firm called VP Capital.

It is an investment management, investment management, investment advisory,

capital placement, capital raise firm in Dallas, Texas.

It was founded by the now deceased oil and gas billionaire, T.B. E. Boone Pickens.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a partner in our firm in charge of our, in charge of our nuclear power.

I am also really on the guy who also runs our strategic consulting division.

And so when things like Iran happen, they come to me and say, okay, Todd,

how does that affect our firm, our firm and our practice?

And how do you see nuclear power moving forward in kind of this new geopolitical world?

Yeah, no, so that's great.

So the kind of questions I'm asking you are ones that you've probably thought about for a long time.

Yeah, so can you tell us the difference between different types of nuclear reactors?

Like in Canada, for example, I understand they don't have to enrich the uranium at all

to run a can-do reactor.

But how much do you enrich in the United States?

Typically, we're at 5%.

Then whenever you can go to, it's like 5% to 10%.

Then you can do what I like to call the super unleaded of nuclear fuels,

which is called halo, high assalo and rich uranium, goes up to 20%.

Kind of your nirvana of reactors is what would be called a fast breeder reactor

where you can actually use some people refer to it as nuclear waste.

I refer to it as spent nuclear fuel.

Because when you're done with the current batch of nuclear fuel,

only about 5% to 10% of the uranium even been used.

And so you have tens of billions of dollars of, frankly,

nuclear fuels sitting around all sorts of reactors in Canada,

the United States, Russia, China, and other places that use nuclear power.

And so kind of your apex of nuclear fuel is going to be when you can do what's called a fast breeder reactor

that can actually use a spent nuclear fuel.

Oh, wow.

We'd have fuel for thousands of years then.

Thousands of years.

I mean, you truly would close the energy loop.

So you, my gosh, you got hundreds if not thousands of years of fuel just sitting there.

Now, there's not a fast breeder reactor that can go exclusively on spent nuclear fuel.

But what you're really talking about is no longer eventually no longer having waste.

So not only would you have an energy source that doesn't have any emissions

while it's giving you the power to make electricity or process heat or steam or decalmization or hydrogen

or cogeneration or district heat, whatever the use case for the reactor.

But now any of the, quote, unquote, nuclear waste that's sitting,

whether in a geological repository, a government facility or in the United States,

it's case on the actual nuclear power plants themselves.

They could be used in a reactor.

And then your reactor types are, there's a micro reactor.

Those typically can go from 500 kilowatts, something in literally the back of a pickup truck,

to about 1.5 megawatts, to even 10 megawatts or our viewers or listeners.

Megawatt typically means I can a thousand people will get electricity.

It's a little less these days, but for the purposes of our discussion,

just say if one megawatt means 1,000 people or 1,000 homes are going to get electricity.

Then you go up to what's called the SMRs or small module reactors.

Modular means the way you construct something.

You as an engineer to appreciate this, where you can struct all the components in a factory.

And then you build it on site.

Oh.

So the goal is to lessen the time of construction.

And then, you know, how hard it is to build something from scratch,

in particular, a nuclear power plant on site.

Those typically go from, let's call it 10 megawatts, almost say 100,

all the way up to 300 megawatts.

The Rolls Royce SMR is 474, though they're still calling it a Rolls Royce SMR.

They're technically, it doesn't really fit in the international,

part of the international atomic energy agencies definition of an SMR.

So SMR, let's just say 10 megawatts, up to 300.

Some people go to 175, some people go to 250,

but the sweet spot's kind of 300.

And then you've got Rolls Royce at 474.

And then you have what's called your gigawatt scale reactors.

That's what most reactors are in the world.

They can be a pressurized water reactor, a light water reactor,

a boiling water reactor.

Typically, what most people say is probably the best reactor in the world

is the can-do reactor in Canada.

Oh, thank you.

If I were King Todd, I would be building can-do reactors all over the world.

And gigawatt, for our listeners, means about a million people

are going to get electricity or a million homes.

It's what you see in large power plants in Canada,

the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Bulgaria,

the power plant in Iran is a gigawatt scale.

The one that's been hit, the one in Ukraine,

which is the largest one in Europe.

I think that one's over eight gigawatts of power come

from the Zapabarita plant.

So that's what, that's kind of where you are.

All of those large ones are based on water cooled technology,

meaning the reactor is cooled by water.

And then, finally, to throw the ball back to you here,

the advanced reactors are what's called a generation four reactor.

Those are non-water cooled reactors.

They can be cooled by high-temperature gas, helium, molten salts,

lead bismuth, and those typically,

the reason you use one of those is they're smaller.

They typically can be SMRs.

They can be put in remote locations,

manufacturing, steam, process heat,

and they can get hotter than a gigawatt scale reactor,

which gets to about 250 to 400 degrees Celsius.

The goal is eventually that these advanced reactors

will get all the way up to 950 degrees Celsius,

1200 degrees, 1600 degrees.

And if they reach, if they ever reach 1600 degrees,

and that means you really can begin to, quote unquote,

decarbonize and not use fossil fuels.

And instead, I can use nuclear, you know,

nuclear fission technology for, like I said,

process heat, steam, desalization, hydrogen,

steel manufacturing, petrochemicals,

all of those heavy industry that needs fossil fuels

because they can reach those high heat levels

that are needed for those products to be made.

Yeah.

So across the world, how many reactors would you see typically?

I mean, what is about 1000 or something?

Yeah, there's a little bit, there's a little over,

I think there's a little over 1000.

The United States still leads the world.

We've got 92 in existence,

and we have other ones coming online right now.

The leading technology in the world is still

the Westinghouse technology, the AP 1000,

the South Koreans, their reactors based off Westinghouse,

the Chinese, the AP, I think it's an APR 1400,

meaning it's 1.4 gigawatts,

that's based off Westinghouse technology.

Now, I will tell you, you can make the argument

that the actual best builders,

meaning from the moment I think about a nuclear power plant

to the moment I decommission

or really dealing with the spent fuel are the Russians.

It falls under one company called Rosatom,

Rosatom, Rose Adams, it's R-O-S-A-T-O-M,

it's owned by the Russian state.

Some people will tell you it was founded by Vladimir Putin,

but they are the absolute best in the world.

Financing them, building them,

the fuel for something like a Kandu reactor,

20, I think it's over 25% of all American nuclear reactors

get their fuel from Russia still.

Really? Wow.

They are the global leaders in HALU.

So any advanced reactor right now will not work

unless you want to use Russian HALU fuel.

What is HALU fuel?

HALU is what I said,

the super-unlettered fuel of reactors,

meaning these advanced reactors,

because they're running at hotter temperatures,

it is a different type of reactor.

It needs to get, it's hotter,

it needs a different kind of fuel,

and that's referred as a HALU fuel,

high assay low in rich uranium.

The uranium is rich in rich to about 20%.

It can come in trisoform,

it can come in HALU form,

but the fuel is essentially,

the way you really kind of look at it,

is I've always thought like a Kandu,

is like regular fuel,

then you've got your premium fuel,

which is, you know, it's going to be enriched

like that 5% to 10% range,

and then you have your super-unlettered fuel,

which is HALU,

or these advanced reactors,

companies like tarot power,

I'm thinking of US companies,

tarot power, carus power, X energy,

valoritomics, terrestrial energy,

and the tour resources.

These are companies that need this,

this HALU fuel for their advanced reactors.

These are all non-water cooled reactor technology companies.

Yeah, so I'm sure a lot of people are wondering,

okay, so why were the Iranians

enriching fuel to 60%.

They say it wasn't weapons.

Do you think that has any credibility at all?

Not a bit.

I mean, we certainly see they were not telling the truth.

They were lying.

Whatever you may think about this,

they didn't need to enrich it to that level.

They're the same people that said,

we do not have long-range ballistic missiles

in yet last week.

They fired two missiles,

almost 4,000 miles at Diego Garcia.

So I would not believe the Iranians,

if I was looking up at a sunny sky,

and they said,

the sun was brightly shining.

I would still look at them cross on and go,

I don't believe you.

Yeah, it's funny.

They're American commentators on left wing media

who say, no, no, no.

The Iranians were not trying to develop nuclear weapons.

I mean, surely that's just wishful thinking.

Well, it's wishful thinking.

It's also, unfortunately, with American media

and Western media,

there are a bunch of liars.

You can't believe them anymore.

Because it's become such propaganda,

you really got to really value

a person like Senator John Fetterman,

who's going against his party

and going against his own political future

by saying he supports the attacks,

and he doesn't believe the Iranians

when the rest of his entire party

has become, you know,

they really become a bunch of radical Jacobins.

You know, Jacobins, they're radical socialists.

These are radical, non-assimilated people now.

And so I wouldn't believe a word,

whether it's MSNOW or CNN or

I've heard some things from even CNBC

where you go, that's not even true.

Yeah.

There's no truth to that.

You just take Donald Trump and Republicans

and you don't give a damn what happens to anybody.

Just so as long as the US Democratic Party

or the Mark Carney parties of the world stay in power.

Yeah.

I think one of the problems is that

people in Congress are allowed to have

in their portfolio weapons investment.

So, I mean, you get people like Nancy Pelosi,

I assume, I don't know her portfolio,

but these people make money when there's wars, you know,

when the billions of dollars of weapons

get shipped to the Ukraine.

I mean, do you think that we should allow them

to hold armament stock

when they're actually making decisions to do with armament?

Well, I think what I would do is I would allow them

that you're not going to make any,

you can make no investments as long as you're in Congress.

Good point.

You would fall under the same insider trading laws

as you and I would.

If you and I made some of the investments

that Nancy Pelosi, but even in herd events,

both parties do it.

You and I would end up in prison.

Our securities and exchange commission.

We would be in prison for insider trading.

Oh, absolutely.

We would.

And so, if I had my way,

not only would you not hold that,

as long as you were a member of the U.S. Congress,

you are not allowed to make one investment,

or everything you come to Congress with,

that's what you have,

and it all needs to stay into a blind trust.

I know our topic is nuclear power,

but I just want to say a little more about

the Iran circumstance.

I have arguments with family members who think that

it was totally wrong to attack Iran.

But if you waited another few months,

and then you started to attack Iran,

or then they had nuclear weapons,

we'd be in a far worse circumstance, wouldn't we?

Well, I'll even,

I'll go a step further.

Do you know the kind of the creed of the state of Israel?

Like, what do they say in Israel?

Not sure.

I don't know.

They say never again,

meaning we will never again have a Holocaust happen to us.

So, any go look at any official doctrine

of the entire Israeli state,

or the state of Israel,

you will see constantly throughout a theme that says never again.

We allow ourselves to be slaughtered by the Nazis.

We stood by like a bunch of naive sheep.

We will never allow that to happen to us again.

If you think about Iran, Tom,

and you think about the threat it poses to Israel,

I have said to other people,

I know I go,

do you think the Israelis are going to just sit around?

And if you think they're going to just sit around,

then you think they're just going to allow Iran to get a bomb

and shoot a bomb at them.

Which the Iranians,

the mullahs have all said,

we want to obliterate Israel, you know,

from the rivers to the sea.

We want to push them into the sea.

Well, there's nobody think,

let's just, let's, let's, let's you and I play this out.

Let's say it's two years from now.

I would say this to your family members.

It's two years from now.

And it's a Tuesday afternoon at 348,

the Iranians fire off a nuclear weapon at Israel.

Israel, let's say, has two minutes to respond.

I'm willing to bet that they've got early warning systems

and that immediately it's the world's worst-kept secret

that Israel has nuclear weapons.

What if Israel then decided under that scenario,

we're going to fire off 20 nuclear weapons that I ran.

I'll throw it to you.

What do you think happens at that point?

Well, you can end up with both countries of wasteland.

I mean, you're going to have nuclear holocaust in that region

and you're going to end up with millions of people dying

and, you know, totally ruined farmland for as far as you can see.

You know, probably having nuclear fallout across

much of the Middle East.

You know, and I think that what you'd end up having

is the possibility of a nuclear winter

where it would even affect our crops.

You know, if you had a major nuclear exchange

between the two powers.

So, I mean, I don't think Israel really had any choice

whatsoever because the alternative is just to sit there

and do nothing while they develop missiles

and nuclear weapons that can literally destroy Israel.

And they say, right in their parliament in Iran,

death to Israel, we're going to...

So, I mean, what are you going to do?

You know, in Canadian law, if I understand correctly,

if somebody is about to shoot you with a gun,

you have a right to shoot them first.

Okay?

Now, that is just a common sense.

I mean, if somebody is going to kill you,

then you have to defend yourself.

So, I don't think, no matter what you think of the causes

of the war or who did what to who and who was right

and who was justified,

I think the bottom line is that the government

of Israel had no choice.

They had to destroy the capability of making nuclear weapons

or they were facing complete annihilation.

You have...

You know, you've talked to me like, you know,

your family members tend to...

You've talked about on the show previously.

You know, your family members tend to be more liberal.

Oh, yeah.

And so, my...

Like, I would always want to say to them,

okay, and I'm curious,

because I'm going to say this now,

what they would say,

what you think they would say.

Okay?

So, if Iran fires a nuclear weapon at Israel

because in the Islamic,

the way they believe the Quran,

if the world ends,

the 12th Eman shows up,

or their version of, you know,

Christianity would be when Jesus Christ shows up.

In their version,

it's the 12th Eman shows up.

We've destroyed all enemies of Islam

and, you know, our version of Paradise or Utopia,

we're going to, you know,

we get to see Allah or and or the 12th Eman.

So, under that framework,

so now you have that religious ideology going on.

In Israel fires, let's say,

10 nuclear weapons to truly obliterate Iran forever.

And I would wonder what they would say when I go,

okay, one-fifth of the world's oil

goes through the Strait of Hormuz,

along with natural gas.

The fertilizer institute says,

over 20 percent of all nutrients needed

for fertilizer and to make food stocks

also pass through the Red Sea

and the Strait of Hormuz.

So, we know right there

that over half the world is affected.

Mm-hmm.

Especially places like Japan

that get over 90 percent of their oil

through the Gulf of the Gulf.

What would your family say to that?

Would they say, hey,

or let's say a liberal person,

hey, Israel should just take one for the team.

Let them self-literate it.

Well, you know, it's interesting

because my discussion is with them.

I admit to them, yes,

it's good to look at the causes of this

and both sides have some fault.

There's no question about it.

But the first responsibility

of any government,

and in this case,

the government of Israel,

is to do what they can

to prevent the destruction and death of their people.

So, the first level of decision-making

is we must stop our opponents

from destroying us.

That's the first level, okay?

I mean, if a truck is about to hit you

because the driver hates you,

you've got to get out of the way.

You don't stand there and say,

hmm, why do they hate me?

You know, I wonder if they had a bad night.

No, you have to do immediate action

just to survive.

So, you know,

I see on so many left-wing shows,

radio shows,

and I hear this discussion in my family.

People are talking about what Israel did wrong

and the philosophy,

you know,

is to whether or not Iran has a good point about,

you know, being hating Israel.

I say, yeah, but

from the first order of business,

so to speak,

is defend the people of Israel

against total destruction.

In which case, they have absolutely no choice.

Now, after the war is over,

yeah, it makes sense to step back and say,

now, why did this happen?

How can we improve relations?

So, it doesn't happen again.

But to me, the government of Israel

had no choice at all

because their first order of business

was to survive.

And if you have a country that says,

we're going to destroy you

and we're developing the weapons to do it.

And even the UN says they are,

then you just simply have to destroy it.

There's no question about it.

And you know, people say,

oh, but the stock market's affected

and you know, oil prices,

that's nothing in comparison

with a nuclear war.

And that's exactly where we would go.

Now, I think the big problem is

that the left don't like to look at it that way.

They like to look at what's morally correct

and they hate Trump,

so everything that Trump does,

of course, they're against it.

But I don't think they like to really face

the absolute truth.

And that is that Israel had no choice.

No choice at all.

Yeah.

And I think what I look at, too,

is you made the point,

which is what I come back to

is what is going to happen

when a nuclear exchange takes place.

So the ballgame is over.

Like, just go back and look at

what happened with bombs

that aren't even close to the amount of power

that were dropped on here,

Shima and Nagasaki.

Yeah.

And really, at that point,

those are isolated cases.

That was not affecting the entire global economy.

You have a 21-mile choke point,

the Strait of Hormuz,

where Aman Mirza ran,

where one fifth of all fossil fuel supplies go through,

where how you feed the world goes through there.

Plastics.

The majority of plastics go through there.

And all the different things it makes for a modern economy.

So when I hear a liberal person talk about that now,

to me that you are such an unserious person

that I don't even listen to you anymore.

It's almost as if we both have children.

And I was, remember, we used to laugh my wife and I.

I never said the terrible twos.

It was always the four-year-old that was the toughest.

Oh, okay.

But I actually called them,

you know, you have the terrible twos.

I called them the FU force.

Yeah, exactly.

They can walk, they can talk,

but they have essentially no brain power

and they'll run right out into the middle of the street

or they'll grab a sharp knife

or they'll fall down the steps.

They're so hard to care for at that age.

And it's exhausting.

I look at people with those kind of arguments now

and go, you can debate the merits of United States doing this.

But I would even tell somebody,

if you think Israel is going to sit back

and allow this to happen,

if they fire off a weapon at Israel,

what do you think is going to happen

if they decided to fire off a weapon

at Germany to hit Americans, you know,

at one of the largest bases in the world.

I think it's near Frankfurt.

Yeah, it's near Frankfurt.

So in other words, I would say to anybody,

what do you think is going to happen?

Like, do you think then,

oh, so then the United States is going to take it?

Europe is going to take it.

In other words,

you either deal with the shock right now

of $120, $150 barrel loyal.

I would tell everybody,

you should band together and go in and obliterate Iran

and stop this because now as a global economy,

we are all connected.

I don't care if you don't like the Chinese or not,

you're dependent on them and they're dependent on us

and you're dependent on what comes from Vietnam

or the Philippines or Malaysia

or Saudi Arabia or Bulgaria

in ways that we have never in the history of mankind

ever been connected.

So I look at it and go,

eventually Israel would have fired off their weapons

in defense once Iran fired their weapon at them.

Oh, yeah, I think it'd be pretty quick.

We have to go for a break now Todd,

but when we get back,

I'd like to talk about some of the new technologies

that are being developed in the nuclear power sector.

You spoke about a few of them,

but you were saying that this is a nuclear renaissance

and this is really great.

So stay tuned.

We'll be right back after the break.

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So I'm back with my co-host Todd Royal,

a nuclear power expert,

and that's exactly what we're talking about today.

And in particular, Todd,

you were saying this is a nuclear power renaissance.

So what are the main technologies?

You mentioned some of them,

but what's coming down the pipe?

Because nuclear power has incredible potential

if we truly seize the opportunity.

Well, I would say the Trump administration

and the former Biden administration

have done and are doing as much vernacular

since the Eisenhower Adams for Peace plan.

What you're seeing in the United States

which, what you are seeing globally,

I mean, the Chinese are building, I believe,

it's 29 reactors as we speak.

The Russians are building reactors.

The Americans, we are finally getting our act together.

The Canadians have the,

the OPG refurbishment,

which just took place.

You're also building the BWRX 300.

Small module reactor.

Currently, the water-cooled reactors being built in Canada.

There's talks to revitalize the Can Do program again.

I love that, yeah.

Yeah, there's the brand new VC summer

that's getting rebuilt that's supposed to begin here

in the next couple of years in South Carolina.

And then the US Department of Energy

is doing the reactor pilot program

for these advanced companies

to use government facilities,

fast tracking regulatory processes,

government monies,

to get their reactors up and running.

And I would say credit to the NRC,

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

I've been extremely critical of them.

They seemingly are doing everything they can to modernize

and to begin to give lower costs

for regulatory approval,

more solidified timelines,

and to really say,

can we look at new technologies

in a year and a half to two years

and go yes or no?

The regulatory approval has been really one of the,

one of the biggest things that's kept nuclear.

This has all been political choices.

And it happened because of people like Jane Fonda

and environmental movements

that you had accidents.

The biggest most well known one was three mile island,

also Chernobyl,

HBO made a series about it,

which was a complete fabrication

and not one bit of that thing was truthful.

What people don't realize about Chernobyl,

it was just about the worst design imaginable.

It was done under the old Soviet regime

so nobody from the west could get in there.

But the reactors actually kept running after the meltdown.

Oh, apparently it was human error as well.

They actually didn't know what they were doing.

Human error took place in three mile island.

I think when you think about a Renaissance,

and that can be an overused word,

but besides even a Renaissance,

I would call this a reality check

because of the demands for power,

because of the, I've seen,

I've actually have figures that have shown

that over 500 gigawatts of power

is going to be needed in the next 30 years.

Yeah, largely for data standards, right?

Data centers, electrification,

manufacturing,

unshoring,

and also electric vehicles as well.

People will buy electric vehicles.

So you are seeing whether it's the gigawatts scale reactor

or companies like Terrapower,

Kairos Power, X Energy,

Natura, new scale.

These generation four companies

are also coming to the forefront with projects.

You're also seeing capital markets.

People are putting billions of dollars

into these companies.

They're going public.

So to not kind of overplay the Iran segment,

but you do have to realize that

if everyone around the world currently

was using nuclear power versus the fossil fuel,

and I'm pro fossil fuel,

Alex Epstein's work is revolutionary.

But the one counter to that,

I would always tell anybody,

would be,

you relied on a volatile part of the world

for the stability of the global economy.

Not only is that dumb, stupid, unwise,

goes against all ways to look at knowledge

and decision making,

you have an alternative,

and that's nuclear power.

And nothing is safer,

nothing runs more,

nothing gives greater economic impact

and activity,

nothing creates more jobs

than a nuclear power plant.

Within an energy,

within an energy framework,

the brand new power plant

in Georgia,

Vogel 3 and 4,

yes, grossly over budget,

grossly over the timeline.

So people can counter

and tell me,

well look how horrible it was,

you are correct,

but I would look at somebody

and say,

even though it was over $20 billion

over cost,

within 10 years,

certainly 15 years,

it will be net,

it will be net cash flow positive,

and that power plant

will run for 100 years.

Yeah, that's all right.

So how many are being built in the US?

That was two new ones, you said.

Oh, unfortunately,

none are being built currently.

Hmm.

None.

And is it,

is it the regulatory barriers?

It is.

It is.

It's the regulatory barrier.

It is the environmental movement.

It has been the democratic party,

and the environmental movement

have literally scared the hell out of people now

since the mid-70s.

And that's exact,

and that's exact.

It's all a fear factor.

The best work on it has been Michael Schellenberg.

Uh-huh.

Michael is chronicled.

He has given the history of the entire fear movement.

And then I would also say the Breakthrough Institute

does some of the best work currently

on why you should use nuclear power.

You know,

if you believe in climate change,

then you have to be pro-nuclear.

Robert Bryce, who's talked about

if you want an energy transition,

it's gas to nuclear.

You know, like.

Right.

It strikes me that using gas for electricity

when you could use nuclear,

or could use coal for that matter.

To me, that's almost like a reverse minus touch.

You're turning gold into lead

because I mean,

natural gas is a special fuel

for all sorts of purposes.

You know,

and I don't think we should be using it up

just to create electricity, should we?

Of course, it depends where you live.

It depends where you live.

If you're living on top of a natural gas,

you know, fracking well,

then yeah, sure use it.

But,

but I mean, surely the better source for electricity

is the two ones we've spoken about earlier

that store their power on site,

which is nuclear and coal.

Yeah.

I, I,

it befuddles me.

It makes me so angry, Tom,

that we even,

we have allowed the Jane Fonda's,

the Tom Steyers,

the Michael Bloomberg's.

Al Gore.

The Al Gore's,

that fool who's the brand new mayor of New York.

We've allowed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With a radical Muslim

or a radical environmentalist

or a radical leftist

to,

to go against physics,

engineering,

and just quite out common sense.

Imagine if the United States,

or imagine if

Indonesia,

Malaysia,

Philippines,

Japan.

Imagine if,

imagine if Japan,

the entire country was being powered

by nuclear power

and also by coal.

Would they be freaking out right now

by the Iran?

Of course not.

No.

Would the Europeans

who have been captured

by the likes of Ed Milibrand

and radical Greens,

you know, these,

these people who were

communists and radicals

and people who

should have no say in anything

if they were doing their own mining

for their own oil and natural gas,

whether the North Sheet,

the North Sea,

or on the,

or on the European continent,

would,

would you,

would you need

Katari natural gas

and American natural gas

that is anywhere between four

to nine acts

even ten acts more expensive

than if you did it yourself.

There's no logic in it.

It's that, like we said,

you've said

the climate scare

and the climate cult

has completely

enveloped our world.

Yeah, yeah.

And it is good though

that we are seeing

the fight back

and certainly in the United States

with Trump.

I think Trump,

you know, a lot of people

may not like him,

but I think the bottom line,

he's done a huge service

to the whole Western world

because he said things

that are absolutely true,

making it easier

for other politicians

to say things

that are not quite as severe,

but nevertheless correct.

And, you know,

this whole issue of safety.

I mean,

I always thought it ironic

that after Chernobyl,

it was American reactors

that were hamstrung

that weren't built.

The Russians, as you say,

continued to operate

the other three reactors

at Chernobyl.

And yet,

the American reactors

could not melt down

in the way that Chernobyl did

because they didn't have

the same kind of moderators

and other things.

But,

so yeah,

it's the safety fear.

But how safe is nuclear?

I mean, how many people have died

from radiation

from nuclear reactors

in North America?

I've seen figures

that have said

more people have died

from wind turbines

than they have

from a nuclear reactor fallout.

Yeah.

Well, one of my profs

and one of my profs

and university said

that the number is zero.

He said,

yeah, you get some people fall

off a scaffolding

or during construction

or killed.

But he said the number of people

have died

because of radiation poisoning

or whatever

at nuclear reactors

is zero.

He said none.

Absolutely none.

And you were referencing

in a previous show

that when you went

on tours of reactors,

you felt amazingly safe.

It is the safest,

cleanest thing

I've ever seen.

I mean, I think

I was so stunning to me

when somebody said,

you get radiation

just in the natural world

in particular in their mountains.

You get it

from eating a banana.

You get more radiation

on an airplane

than you do it

in a nuclear power plant.

Yeah.

And when I think about safety

and look,

I do want to be very sensitive

to people who go,

okay, then you get

a nuclear reactor built

in your backyard.

And I go,

okay, I would

because the world

is about trade-offs,

but here's what you think

about safety.

I work for a gentleman

named Ken Canavan.

And Brilliant Man

has been in the

nuclear industry

40-plus years.

I had been

with Westinghouse.

I had been

with Electric Power

Research Institute.

And he told us,

he told me a story

one time,

and I'm,

if Ken never hears this,

Ken, I'm going to

butcher the story

so pardon me.

If you think about

three mile island,

okay,

one of the reactors

had a meltdown.

If I recall correctly,

Ken said that, like,

once a year,

you essentially,

open the door,

you go into the reactor

where it melted down,

you look at where

it's contained,

and you literally

check a box,

and you walk out.

And I think Ken has

done that before.

You also know how

safe nuclear is.

Microsoft is buying

the other reactor

that hasn't melted down.

It is very, very,

very violent.

Yeah.

It's very, very violent.

Yeah.

It is very,

very violent.

Yeah.

It's now going to be

called brain,

clean energy center,

and they're literally

bringing the reactor back.

So I would always tell anybody,

okay,

an accident occurred.

There's been a response.

The INPO

was created to specifically,

you know,

get rid of human errors.

But do we continue to fly

on airplanes

though they crash?

Of course we do.

Do we continue to use

hydroelectric dams

though one in particular

in China,

killed upwards of

anywhere between

25,250,000 people?

Of course we do.

Wow.

But what you see

is how safe it actually is

that the reactor,

yes, it began to melt down.

But the brilliance

of engineers

like yourself put forth

a containment building.

It's still being contained.

And Microsoft came in and said,

you know,

we need some power

for this data center.

So we're going to buy

that power out of that reactor.

And we're going to,

we're going to pay

double for what actually

it would be normally

charged for it.

In other words,

Microsoft,

which has been a leader,

you know,

a leading DEI,

ESG,

global warming,

greenwashing,

climate virtue.

I mean,

the ultimate

of virtue signaling

big tech companies

and Bill Gates

and all of his

climate nonsense.

But Microsoft, Tom,

came in and said,

yeah, we think it's fine.

We want that reactor.

That shows you.

If the ultimate

left-wing

MSNBC,

now MSNOW,

loving company,

goes,

yeah, we're fine.

We think it's perfectly safe.

That makes me go,

these things are perfectly safe

and everything

is safe.

I don't believe a word

you say.

I know.

Well, I'll give you a funny

example of how,

I don't think the

environmentalists in many

cases even believe

it themselves.

The Galileo spacecraft

is run by radioisotope

thermoelectric generators

that's the RTGs.

And as a decay,

they produce heat.

And that's used

with thermocouples

to make energy

for the spacecraft.

Anyway,

the environmentalists

didn't want it to launch

because they were afraid

that it would,

you know, spacecraft

would blow up

with radioactives

waste all over.

Well, the funny thing is,

of course,

as a ridiculous,

because it's actually

in these modules.

And they said,

even a space shuttle

Challenger-type disaster

where the whole thing

exploded and it was

like in just pieces

everywhere,

it would not break

the small containers

that contained

the plutonian,

in this case.

Anyway,

the funny thing is to show

that the environmentalists

didn't really even believe

what they were saying.

They went to court

and a judge judged.

He said,

yeah, it's safe.

Absolutely safe.

Even if the rocket

blows up, it's not

going to spread

radioactive waste

anywhere.

Well, when they went

to the protests,

they put their children

right in the front,

closest to the lives,

so they get good

media coverage.

So people were saying to

them, look,

if you're so

convinced that this is

dangerous,

why are your children

in the front row

of the protest?

So I think, in many cases,

they simply don't believe

it themselves.

It almost makes me wonder

if they're luddites

and simply don't want

us to have,

you know,

inexhaustible power.

I mean, is that one

of their goals?

Oh, I think it is.

I think every

environmentalist now,

every single one

of these groups,

every single one of these,

I think you have two

things.

I think all these

billionaires who

fund this stuff, you know,

the Walton family

now is in on it.

You know, the people

who've founded Walmart.

The daughters in

particular have become

these left-wing radicals,

Steve Jobs'

widows,

a left-wing radical,

then you've got

the Michael Bloomberg

and the George sources.

I think what these

people think is they

want to be gods.

They want to be

worship.

So if I destroy the

world, you know, chaos

leads to control.

I'm the billionaire.

So you have to worship

me.

You know, like the

the old feudal systems

and the dark ages

and middle ages, you know,

my Lord, my Lord,

you're being worshiped.

So they have a

god.

Yeah.

So they don't want

limitless, almost

free, almost free

energy, you know?

And then I think

when you look at environmental

organizations,

well, they are

their radicals.

They think they think, you

know, mother earth

and blah, blah, blah, they

do all that mother earth

nonsense.

Yeah.

And so they're

degrowth people.

They're degrowth.

They're anti-human.

They want people dead.

They want the world to

return back to its

natural state.

They're just, I mean,

Tom, they're, they're,

they're, they're, they're

simple, they're

simple tins.

But they're evil,

simple tins, who are

no nothings.

They're not

simple tins.

But they're

evil, simple tins, who

are no nothings.

Yeah.

Everything.

And you know, Michael

Crichton, who did

Jurassic Park, of course, he

wrote a book called

State of Fear.

And in that book, he

shows what would

happen if, in fact, you

went back to nature.

And it's pretty

damn bad.

So, so Todd, I mean, I

think that they're

completely impractical.

And, you know, I think

we should be very glad

that we live in an age

that we do right now.

There's a book called

The Other

Side of History.

Okay.

And that book is

unaudible.

It's a very good book.

And it talks about what

it was like to be a

common person in different

eras in history.

Okay.

In medieval times or

in ancient Roman times

or whatever.

And by the end of the

book, and I can't

remember the author's name,

but it's unaudible.

I'll put a link to it

under the podcast.

It's a very good book

to listen to.

He concludes that if

you're older sick, the best

time to be alive is

right now.

Because we have the

ability to save people.

I mean, I had a heart

standpoint in 10 years ago.

I guess I'd be dead

otherwise.

You know?

So I mean, yeah.

Now it's a great time to be

alive.

But people constantly beat

the drum of negativity.

And nuclear power is a great

example of them doing that,

where this is a wonderful

energy source.

Zero people have died

from radioactive poisoning,

much as I like coal.

You can't claim the same

thing for coal.

You know, I mean, you have

to mind the coal.

You have to get it out of

the ground.

I just had a couple more

questions concerning

energy before we end the

show.

And that is how secure is

our supply of uranium when

it comes to it.

Because, of course, right

now, the United States is

very fortunate.

It only 2% of their oil

comes from the Persian

Gulf.

But a lot of countries

like Japan, yeah, they're

getting 90% of their natural

gas and oil from the Persian

Gulf.

What about if they had

uranium like are the sources

of uranium secure?

No.

Because of environmental

risk.

No.

Because of environmentalist.

Ah.

Because we have allowed

environmentalist to not do

any mining, permitting,

regulatory reform in the

United States, Europe, Canada.

Most of your uranium is in

places.

Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia.

But radical environmental

leftists are running those

countries, running your

country.

In other words, it is

there.

It's deep, but the

this is all political

choices.

Uh-huh.

So, is the United States

have much uranium?

Oh, sure they do.

But go try to, it's getting

the minds up and running.

Can you take on the left

wing judges, the ACLU?

You know, remember that

these environmental

organizations like the

Sierra Club will be backed

by billionaire left-wing

law firms and judges.

So they can,

high things up in litigation.

There's plenty of uranium.

You can go to the Department

of Energy if you were at a

Google, you know, compare

uranium to oil, natural gas,

or coal.

Uranium is about 1600 times

more energy dense than natural

gas.

It takes like a swimming pool

full of natural gas, or like

a, you know, a handful of

uranium when it comes to

the energy density.

And so, I would tell anybody,

uranium is God's gift to mankind.

But again, these are all

political choices.

These aren't, this is the

U.S. Democratic Party,

the European Greens,

the Mark Carney Canadians,

the folks in Australia, New

Zealand, there's plenty of

uranium.

It's getting over the

politics to go get it.

Yeah.

And one thing Trump is

doing very well is he's

trying to get rid of a lot

of the unnecessary

regulations, isn't he?

Yeah.

Oh, he absolutely is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Because right now,

Russia has plenty of uranium.

And we, we should be

mining everything.

But, but I would also say we

should be mining every

rare earth metal and mineral

we can find.

Yeah.

I'll give you an example

of how politics

interferes with reality

based on engineering

and science.

In Canada, there was

something called the Seabor

and Commission, and they

were looking at whether it

was safe to store radioactive

waste from reactors, power

reactors, deep in the Canadian

shield.

And they concluded it was

very safe.

And I'll give you an example

of how safe the

can-do reactor bundle

when it's used.

You only have to contain

it for four centuries

before you could hold it

in your hands.

Okay.

Four centuries.

Now, they were going to

bury the reactor course,

you know, the actual used

bundles.

They were going to bury them

deep in the Canadian

shield.

The Canadian shield has not

moved in hundreds of

millions of years.

Okay.

So holding a reactor bundle,

it's four hundred years

later, it's safe in a rock

formation, a mile underground

that's stable for hundreds

of, it's like nothing.

It's zero.

You know, like the chances

of escaping is absolutely

nothing.

And they concluded that.

The Seaborn Commission

concluded.

Yes, this would be a very

safe way to permanently

dispose of nuclear waste.

But they concluded it wasn't

politically safe.

Because the public thought

it was dangerous, even

though it was clearly not.

And so none of the towns

that were nearby where they

were going to put the radioactive

waste were supporting it.

So the government never

went ahead with deep

disposal in the Canadian

shield because of politics.

So instead, instead,

well, it's not terribly

dangerous on the surface.

It's certainly more dangerous

on the surface than a mile

underground in the Canadian

shield.

So they have a solution that

has somewhat more danger

than if they just got ahead

with building the deep

disposal.

It's.

I kid you not.

I'm coming to the point

where I truly think that all

the world's problems.

Truly stowing outside of

sicknesses and accidents.

But most of our problems

now stem from the left

wing, whether the US

Democratic Party, the

Mark Carney's of the world,

that are aligned with these

radical environmentalists

in the media and

academia and lawyers who

want to stop everything,

have no progress,

because it's all about fear

and some ridiculous

Nirvana utopia version of

the earth that just doesn't

exist.

No, he certainly doesn't.

This isn't true.

My last question goes back

to what you're saying

originally about these two

reactors coming online in

Georgia.

The fact that they cost a

lot more than expected.

This is what some people

who understand the safety

of nuclear power understand.

You know, that it's a

wonderful energy source that

could power humanity

essentially forever in our

terms.

But they're concerned about

cost.

So will the cost come down?

Because right now building

reactors is a very expensive

endeavor.

Is it mainly because of the

regulations?

Like, what about the cost?

Right now they do need to come

down.

And that's a real concern.

My counter to that, though, is

if you're that concerned about

emissions, then you'll get

better at it.

We did find out that while

Vogel III was horribly over

budget and over time line,

number four came in at a

much better efficiency.

So you're also dealing with

a first of a kind versus now

an inf of a kind.

Yes, the more you build them,

the lower the cost,

absolutely, but like any,

there's also an interesting

study.

I think it was done by McKinsey

or maybe like MIT or

somebody that talks about

there's a book as well.

And I'm sorry Tom, I can't

remember either that once you

hit infrastructure projects

over $1 billion that it's

almost universal.

There's going to be cost

overruns and costs and budget

and the only way to lower that

is to continue to do it.

So that's the answer then.

The reactors become, well,

be like building one car on

the assembly line.

Exactly.

It would cost you $5 million.

But you build lots of them.

So part of the answer to making

them more reasonably priced

is to build lots of them.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a real concern.

But when you look at Vogel

3 and 4, I think the cost of

4 and the efficiency was upwards

of 40%.

Like it, meaning it was

40% faster to build it with

40% less, less cost.

Yeah.

Sure.

It is.

It's like, you don't just

build one car.

You continue to build them.

Yeah, for sure.

So, so it sounds like the

future is nuclear.

If you look far enough into the

future, we'll eventually be

in the future.

That's your conclusion.

And I would say if you truly

want energy security, or let's

just say if you really want

energy and electricity security,

if you're someone that actually

believes in climate change,

and you think we're

uncontrollably warming,

you're scaring your children,

you think we're all going to

die, boil the death, more

hurricanes, more extreme heat,

droughts, wars, famines, etc.

Then you only have two answers.

It's either a coal-fired plant,

or a nuclear power plant,

because I can have a

endless supply of uranium

and during the time that it's

creating its electricity,

there's no emissions.

So, yeah.

I think for energy security

and environmental healthiness,

there's only one answer

and that's nuclear power.

Right, right.

And more people got to say it,

not be afraid of the

environmental left of, you know,

they're just nuts.

And we have to say they're

nuts, too, because this is

the safest form of energy

because this is,

this is the safest form of power

and the most reliable,

as for sure.

Absolutely.

So Todd, thanks so much

for being my interviewee today.

And I look forward to our next show.

So this is Tom Harris

and Todd Royl signing out

from the other side of the story.