E6: Nuclear Mailbag
This week, Packy and Julia take a break from our regularly scheduled narrative programming to look back on the past five episodes we've published focused on nuclear fission—and address news stories, feedback, and listener questions collected through this season so far. We cover: Illinois pushing back on the nuclear moratorium, Nuscale's cancelled contracts, COP 28 Why QA makes building new nuclear so difficult, solar cost curves, and more listener feedback on episodes 1-5 Investing in nuclear, nuclear waste recycling, how to create more political support for the AP1000, and more listener questions Thank you to this episode’s guests: Jim Hopf, Robert Bryce, Brett Rampal, Heather Hoff, and Paris Ortiz-Wines. SPONSORS: RIPPLING SPEND | WEIGHTS AND BIASES | GIVEWELL | ANROK Imagine total control over your company's spending with Rippling Spend, the all-in-one platform for expense reports, corporate cards, and bill pay. Visit https://www.rippling.com/turpentine for a free demo and one month free trial. Advanced training for building production-ready RAG applications. Learn from experts to overcome LLM challenges, evaluate systematically, and integrate advanced features. Includes free Cohere credits. Visit https://wandb.me/cr to start the RAG++ course today. GiveWell spends 50,000 hours every year doing deep-dives into different charitable programs to try to find the ways to do the most good for your dollar. Visit https://www.givewell.org to find out more or make a donation. Select PODCAST and enter Econ 102 at checkout to make sure they know you heard about them from us. Anrok is the enterprise-grade solution that automates sales tax compliance worldwide. Visit https://www.anrok.com/turpentine to claim your free nexus study and take control of your SaaS tax strategy. – A huge thank you to our presenting sponsors for Season 1: Range Fund Holdings: Visit https://www.rangeetfs.com or contact your financial advisor to learn more about the Range Nuclear Renaissance ETF and start investing in the future of energy. Secureframe: Get 10% off your first year of Secureframe: https://secureframe.com/packy Pilot.com: Get 20% off your accounting bill for the first 6 months, go to https://pilot.com/packy Clean Air Task Force https://www.catf.us/ For the full list of resources referenced in this show: https://ageofmiraclesss.addpotion.com/ Subscribe to Not Boring to get weekly doses of tech and business strategy, straight to your inbox: https://www.notboring.co/ Follow our hosts: Packy McCormick on Twitter and LinkedIn Julia DeWahl on Twitter and LinkedIn -- Timestamps: (00:00) Nuclear news: Illinois, Nuscale, COP 28 (8:27) Nuclear-specific QA standards (15:52) Comparing and contrasting other countries' nuclear programs (20:55) The truth about solar (23:50) What sectors win with nuclear? (24:55) Investing in nuclear (29:18) Does being "eco friendly" matter if we get energy right? (33:24) Nuclear waste recycling (36:03) Leading investors in nuclear (38:19) Policy playbook to shift investments to nuclear (41:07) Arguments for nuclear waste at dinner tables (42:20) How to get more political support for the AP1000 (45:25) Deeper dive into developing nuclear projects (48:46) How to get involved in nuclear This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co. Credits: Nancy Xu produced this season of Age of Miracles. Audio editor: Justin Golden. Video editor: Nancy Xu. Executive producers: Amelia Salyers, Packy McCormick, and Erik Torenberg.