“Nuclear fission is a miracle technology, and we've had it for 80 years. But we don't live in an energy abundant world. Because progress takes more than miracles.” Almost exactly 50 years ago, nuclear fission and large scale reactors were on track to deliver abundant, cheap energy to the globe. But instead, nuclear power declined even faster than it had scaled, becoming a pariah of the energy industry and relegated to a footnote. What actually happened? And how do we prevent it from happening again? 

From nuclear’s origins in small reactors for submarines and planes after WWII to its rapid scaling into gigawatt-scale reactors in the 60s and 70s; from President Eisenhower’s calls for “atoms for peace” to the pressures of the original “decels”, the degrowth anti-nuclear environmental movement; from regulatory boosterism to regulatory overreach, the story of nuclear is one of extremes. And there’s much to learn about pushing nuclear forward in the 21st century. 

Thank you to this episode’s guests: Emmet Penney, Rod Adams, Nick Touran, James Krellenstein, Bret Kugelmass, Alex Epstein, and Mark Nelson. 

-

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. Control spend, set custom approval chains, and close your books 3x faster. 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. GiveWell has now spent over 17 years researching charitable organizations and only directs funding to a few of the HIGHEST-IMPACT opportunities they’ve found. Visit https://www.givewell.org and 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. Anrok tracks your exposure, calculates tax, and handles filings—all in one platform. 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/

Timestamps:

(00:00) Two narratives of nuclear energy

(05:50) Nuclear’s early history and rise

(11:34) The start of the fall

(19:44) Five key factors that led to nuclear's decline

(20:09) Factor #1: the AEC

(25:32) Factor #2: good old-fashioned economics

(29:35) Factor #3: regulation

(41:33) Factor #4: the environmentalists

(49:13) Factor #5: the nuclear disasters

(53:00) Recap of the historical lessons

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.