Nuclear Power Is Our Best Hope to Ditch Fossil Fuels | Isabelle Boemeke | TED

My life completely changed with one tweet.

This was back in 2015

when Twitter was mostly a place we went to see what Kanye was mad about.

But then I saw it.

A tweet by a scientist I deeply admire,

Dr. Carolyn Porco.

Wait, I thought nuclear energy was bad.

Yet here is a scientist and a TED speaker

making it sound good.

It sent me on a journey,

I spent years reading papers, talking to scientists,

and I always asked them the same question:

What do you think about nuclear power?

Their responses were shockingly similar.

It's good.

We need it.

People hate it.

In the last seven years,

I've seen climate change go from being a scary thing of the future

to being a scary thing of the present.

My wake-up call came after seeing the fires ravage the world in California,

in Australia

and in my home country of Brazil.

I decided I wanted to turn my growing sense of anger and despair

into something helpful and productive.

So I had an unusual idea:

I should be a nuclear energy influencer.

I wanted to make nuclear energy cool.

Inspired by internet culture,

I created a digital version of me and called her Isodope.

(Laughter)

She's sassy,

a little weird,

but she always tells the truth.

And here, you can see her in action.

(Video) Hey, guys, a lot of you asked about my make-up routine.

The most important thing is to wash your face really well,

because we want those pores as clean as we want our electricity.

And the best way to get that is to use this cleanser called --

stop shutting down nuclear plants, for Christ's sake.

It's carbon-free, emission-free, pollution-free electricity.

Then I use this plant-based serum called --

when a nuclear plant is shut down, it is replaced by fossil fuels.

That's bad.

(Applause and cheers)

Isodope is like a dealer of good memes.

When I say meme, you probably think of something like this.

(Laughter)

What I mean by it is a fixed belief or idea, good or bad,

that spreads from person to person and defines how we see the world.

For example,

people should have equal rights.

Birds aren't real.

It's a thing.

(Laughter)

Nuclear energy is bad.

When it comes to nuclear power,

the world has been sold a bad meme.

An outdated one.

Let's go back in time.

It all started with the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s.

The movement was driven in large part

by an understandable fear of nuclear weapons.

And I get it.

It must have been terrifying to grow up in the '50s and '60s

fearing a nuclear attack.

But here's the problem.

Their logic was: nuclear bombs are bad,

therefore nuclear energy is bad.

Which, if you think about it, is like saying: the electric chair is bad,

therefore electricity is bad.

The case against nuclear power was never based on science,

but the anti-nuclear meme was very catchy.

In the decades that followed,

aspiring engineers didn't choose nuclear engineering.

Politicians got points for closing nuclear plants,

even though it always led to higher carbon emissions.

The meme even snuck into people's homes,

every Sunday night at eight, without them knowing.

(Laughter)

I wish Homer had worked at a coal plant.

(Laughter)

In the last 10 years,

we have spent trillions of dollars on renewables,

yet we only get eight percent of our electricity from wind and solar.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love renewables,

but to me, it's clear that we need more.

We need a source of energy that's clean

and works 24/7 to complement them.

And it's been sitting right in front of us this whole time,

but we have ignored it

because we're too blinded by the meme.

Now most people today aren't exactly anti-nuclear

as much as they’re “meh.”

Not passionately against it, but they've heard of Chernobyl.

They've seen images of leaking green barrels.

They have a vague feeling it's bad.

And remember, that's where I used to be.

Until I saw this chart.

The only thing you need to take away from this chart

is that nuclear power has the lowest life cycle emissions

of all energy sources,

producing only three tons of CO2 per gigawatt hour of electricity.

And I could keep talking like this all day long, but let's be real,

this is not changing minds on social media.

So I do things a little bit differently.

(Video) The reality is that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy.

The problem is that nuclear accidents are dramatic.

While fossil fuel damage is boring.

I'm literally falling asleep talking about it.

Recent studies say that 8.7 million people die from burning them every year.

This would be like having 5.8 Chernobyls a day.

I'm just a humble influencer,

but I think this means fossil fuels are worse.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Most people have a feeling airplanes are more dangerous than cars

because when a plane crashes, it makes the headlines.

It's memorable.

Of course, we know the opposite is true.

Planes are significantly safer than cars,

just like nuclear power is significantly safer than fossil fuels.

In this next video, Isodope will address the idea

that we don't know what to do with nuclear waste.

(Video) I'm sure you don't know what to do with it,

but there are people who spent decades studying this issue.

They're called scientists.

Finland is almost done building

the world's first nuclear waste repository.

They're storing it deep underground in geologically stable locations.

Sweden is about to do the same.

I know you're worried about what may happen 19,000 years from now, but ...

(Loud buzzing)

Again, just a humble influencer,

but we might not make it that far if we keep burning fossil fuels.

(Applause)

By the way, most think nuclear energy waste looks like this.

It actually looks like this.

Fully contained in concrete casks that are so good at blocking radiation

I might do a photo shoot there.

Now, a more modern objection to nuclear power

is that it's too slow.

It takes too long to build.

Well, I'm sure Isodope has something to say about that.

(Video) (Isodope claps)

Finally, an argument that isn't older than me.

Unfortunately, it still sucks.

In the '70s, France built 45 reactors in 15 years.

More recently, Japan, China and Korea have built reactors in six years or less.

So this means BTS is blow-drying their hair with clean energy.

Even if it takes 10 years to build one,

nuclear power plants can make clean and reliable electricity

for at least 80 years.

This --

(Applause)

This idea that it takes too long to build plants is confusing,

considering we're going to need energy forever.

You know, the best time to build nuclear plants

was 10 years ago.

The next best time is today.

Now we’ve finally arrived at the most fashionable objection at the moment:

nuclear power is too expensive.

I'm going to take that one.

A little weird to say something is too expensive

to save the future of our species,

but I get it, cost matters.

Here's the thing.

We know how to make clean energy cheaper.

It's not rocket science.

You build the same thing over and over and over.

Solar, 10 years ago, was also considered "too expensive,"

but we decided it was cool and invested in it.

Like magic, the costs have dropped by 90 percent.

One way to make nuclear cheaper is with small modular reactors like these.

China just finished building their own version.

Poland will use a similar technology

to convert their aging coal plants into nuclear plants.

They'll use the same building, the same transmission lines,

even retrain the same workers.

But now making clean energy

instead of buying dirty fuels from dictators.

Which leads me to a crazy idea.

What if instead of viewing nuclear power as destructive,

we view it as a force for energy independence

and even peace.

What if this technology offers our best hope for the future?

A future where wars aren't funded by our addiction to fossil fuels.

A future where energy is clean.

A future where electricity finally makes its way

to the 700 million people on Earth

who still don't have access to it.

The idea that nuclear power is bad is costing us that future.

And it's time to let go of it.

I'm not asking you to build a reactor.

I'm not asking you to rewrite "The Simpsons."

(Laughter)

I'm not even asking you to sign a petition on Change.org.

All I'm asking you is to please, join me in spreading the meme.

Nuclear energy is cool.

Thank you.

(Cheers and applause)