Marco Visscher
Appearances
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Thank you for having me.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This is the fun thing about nuclear power, I think. It is a very nerdy thing, but it's not at all what is exciting to me. What is a much more inspiring answer is saying that nuclear power is zero carbon electricity that's produced 24-7,
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
People will say that nuclear power is our best bet if we want to avoid further climate change because no greenhouse gases are emitted so they can replace coal and natural gas plants. Now, others will say, no, nuclear power is the worst technology ever. It's the most dangerous thing we have. It's leading to environmental collapse, they say, or an all-out war. It's destroying civilization.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And I guess for me, I prefer a more historic approach. I think throughout human history, we always faced scarcity. So we were always deprived of enough energy to break away from the toil, from hard labor. And we cut down forests to keep warm. We depleted coal mines once we found out that burning coal is more efficient than burning wood.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And then suddenly came along nuclear power, this bizarre hocus pocus kind of power, right? And it's abundant and it's clean. And I think it's just magical. Just one gram of uranium produces as much energy as three tons of coal. So the invention, the discovery of nuclear power is nothing short of a revolution.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And sadly, for all sorts of reasons, we're 80 years later now, and we still haven't used its full potential.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
In the Second World War. So the world was introduced to nuclear power with the atomic bomb. Dropped on Hiroshima. A couple days later, one dropped on Nagasaki, ending the World War, basically. That's probably not the best way to tell people that we have found a fantastic... energy source, right? It's probably the worst PR stunt ever, if you think of it. But this is the reality.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This is how we came to learn about nuclear power. Nuclear bombs and nuclear plants have the same basic physics. They both split atoms and they use that energy. What's relevant here is If you think of a nuclear weapon as an outsized stick of dynamite with the energy bursting out all at once, a nuclear plant is a mere stick of incense with the energy being calmly released.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This was the early 1950s. So after the Second World War, when we knew how to get the energy from splitting the atom, soon all these ideas came up to establish a fleet of electricity plants, if you will, power plants, and produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes, providing electricity for households and businesses.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This was done in the US, but also in Russia, later on in France as well, and Canada, and all sorts of countries. They may have had different reasons for building this fleet of nuclear power plants. For some, it had everything to do with the nuclear bomb and this very secret nuclear technology. If you had a nuclear bomb, you were on top of the world, right? This was such a powerful weapon.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Nothing had ever been seen before in warfare. And for others, for other countries, nuclear power was perfect because they had depleted coal mines. France, for instance, doesn't have that much resources at all. So for France, it made a lot of sense to have nuclear power plants providing energy.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So you mentioned Three Mile Island. We're talking about an accident at a nuclear plant near Harrisburg, where a partial meltdown took place in 1979. This is in the history books, probably in the US, as the worst nuclear accident in the US. And this was, I mean, this was a serious accident, right? It was due to a stuck valve and a bad judgment call in the control room. Now, nobody was injured.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Nobody fell ill. Nobody died. That's because the radiation released to nearby residents amounted to, say, the equivalent of having a few x-rays at your dentist. Now, Chernobyl was a completely different story. It was a unique story, if you will, a reactor with a unique design that's not in use anymore. And the accident happened under unique circumstances.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This was not a meltdown, but a blow up, if you will. A reactor exploded with the reactor open and exposed. Now, to estimate the effects on public health, we should go by the reports from the Chernobyl Forum, which is a collection of several UN organizations, including the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. The World Health Organization is also part of it.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So these reports show that immediate after the event, a few dozen deaths because of the explosion and acute radiation sickness among workers and firefighters. And that's where the death toll still stands today, a few dozen. Now, by 2065, 80 years after the accident, there is a chance of an increase in deaths due to cancer.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So in a population of several million people, we can expect a few thousand additional deaths, but we will never be able to tell whether these cancer cells actually came about because of exposure to the radiation released after the Chernobyl disaster. Radiation is something that messes with our minds. And I think even before these accidents,
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
it was already in people's mind that there was something eerie about radiation. Even before nuclear power existed, we were afraid of radiation. So when radioactivity was discovered around 1900 by Marie Curie in France, you had all these comic books, for instance, especially in the 1920s, talking about these superheroes who had...
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
brilliant powers because of radiation, or they were super villains who could destroy the planet using radiation. When x-rays became more popular in hospitals, doctors, mainly doctors, developed diseases, terrible diseases, because they would test their x-ray machines by holding their hand in front of the machine. There were horrible stories there.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And because radiation, probably because radiation is invisible and you cannot smell it, it has become a monster, basically an invisible monster. And we think that any exposure to radiation would make us very, very sick.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
It seems to me that the suspicion of nuclear power is so deep in our unconscious, I guess even, we are always looking for justifications to not use nuclear power.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So if I explain, this happened to me so many times, if I talk to people who don't like nuclear power, I can comfort them and say, well, it's really not as dangerous as you think if you compare this with other ways of energy production, like coal mines collapse and the gas pipelines burst and a dam could break.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
I can comfort people and say, it's really the safest energy source we have, along with solar and wind. Then they move on and say, what about the waste? And I say, no, no, no, the waste is not a problem. We know exactly what we do. Waste has never made anyone sick or nobody ever died from nuclear waste from a nuclear reactor. It's perfectly fine. And then they say, oh, but...
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
will not be enough uranium right no no there is enough uranium on every continent it's even in the ocean it's it's everywhere and it seems people come up with arguments to not use nuclear power some people it seems don't want to be comforted and and i think that their suspicion of nuclear power is just having a prejudice looking for a justification
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
A nuclear reactor is actually built to withstand a bomb, probably not the heaviest bomb. But the reasons to use your heaviest bombs on a nuclear reactor, that would be crazy. It's very unlikely that anything like that would ever happen. This is another thing, Mike. This is another... It's such an unlikely scenario if you come to think of it.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Once you start thinking in those kind of unlikely scenarios, you will never be comforted, right?
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Actually, there is quite a large group, a growing group of pro-nuclear activists. Most of them are environmentalists, very much concerned about climate change. They recognize that
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Tackling climate change with beefing up renewables like wind and solar will always fall short just because wind and solar do not produce energy around the clock, whereas a nuclear plant is a true competitor to fossil fuels because a nuclear power plant produces electricity whenever you want it. And these pro-nuclear groups are actually gaining ground. We also see world leaders
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
who make promises to expand the nuclear fleet there are business leaders from now data centers and and twitter and amazon who would like to see small modular reactors providing zero carbon electricity for their data centers etc so there is actually There has been a change over time favoring nuclear much more than has been the case in the past 20 years.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So around the world, there are around 450 nuclear reactors spread amongst 30 countries or so. But the US has the most nuclear reactors. France is the country with the highest percentage of nuclear power in the electricity grid, up to 70 or 75 percent, something like that. Worldwide, these nuclear power plants provide around 10% of all electricity around the world.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This is down from 17% at the height around the mid-90s or so. So there is in share very much a decline, despite all the industry talk about a nuclear renaissance. That is not what I'm seeing, at least, since the year 2000. about 120 reactors or so came online. That sounds impressive, right? But in the same years, that 20 year span, the same number went down, got taken off the grid.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
So we're really not in a position that we can say that nuclear power is gaining ground. In Europe, nuclear power is the most important source of electricity. So one in four light bulbs here provide light thanks to a nuclear reactor.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Overall, people are much more willing to accept nuclear power than many people think. If you open a newspaper or look at the TV news, you would almost think that everybody is against nuclear power, but this is not at all what is shown in opinion polls by established polling agencies. I remember in Poland, around 80% or so favors nuclear power.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
This is because Poland has all these dirty coal power plants, and many people in Poland want to get rid of these coal power plants. But also in the Netherlands, the number of people who are in favor of nuclear power outnumber people who are against it by far. And this is the case in many countries.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And what's more interesting even is that this is the case in a very diverse group, even when you think of politics. So Democrats also, in a majority, support nuclear power. Even in the Green Party, I know in the Netherlands, more people actually support nuclear power than are against it. It's different when you look at the people running the party. But that's, I guess, politics.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And I guess it says something about politics, which attracts people who may not have this technical expertise, but are trained in communications and will have you.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
the humanities but not so much in natural science um but this this is surprising to many people that there is wide public support for nuclear power and it's rising partly in europe especially because of the russian invasion in ukraine because that's when it was shown so clearly that in europe we have become very much dependent on fossil fuels coming from russia and
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
And if you want to get rid of that dependence, then nuclear power is a very good bet because uranium is available all around the world. And you don't need Russian uranium or so. You can get it from many places.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
I guess the main thing now is people say we don't really need nuclear power because we have solar and wind. Well, of course we have solar and wind, but we need something to fill the time slots when the clouds are in the air blocking the sun and when there is no wind. You could have batteries, but batteries don't grow on trees or so. You need to produce them, right?
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Or you need to produce hydrogen if that's your option as a backup fuel. Currently, it's always natural gas that's used to backup solar and wind. But that means carbon emissions, right? a nuclear power plant will replace a natural gas plant or a coal power plant. So that's one argument. They say we don't need it. And the other argument, I guess, is costs.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Now, a nuclear reactor is indeed very, very expensive, and it takes a very long time before that reactor is finally ready and open to provide electricity to the grid.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
Thanks, Mike. It was a pleasure being here with you.
Something You Should Know
Alone Together: The Decline of Social Interaction & Is the Future in Nuclear?
There is quite a growing group of pro-nuclear activists. Most of them are environmentalists, very much concerned about climate change. They recognize that leaving up renewables like wind and solar will always fall short.