The Origin Story of the Manic Nuclear Scheme Girl

As unlikely tale of how I fell in love with the power of the atom

Like many people, I made my mind up about nuclear energy at a very young age. I had a child’s picture book on science and technology which told me nuclear power plants are in operation for forty years, after which the site can never be used for anything else again. That the radioactive waste generated must then be kept safe forever. Never again…forever…those words made a heavily sinister impression that was only deepened in subsequent years when I read about Chernobyl as a teen, and eventually Fukushima Daiichi in the headlines.

It wasn’t until I started working as an energy reporter that I slowly started to realize that everything I assumed about nuclear energy was wrong, or at least greatly distorted. But not everybody has the luxury of a mid-life career change to figure this out. And as combatting climate change while maintaining human prosperity is the most pressing issue of our times, I find that utterly unacceptable.

What would I say to my younger self if I could go back in time that could convince her to think otherwise? If I had a minute, it might go something like…

Hi Angelica yes it is future you, I only have a minute so let’s not waste any time. Everything you think you know about nuclear power is wrong. It’s not dangerous, it’s safe. It’s not polluting, it’s clean. In fact, it’s how we’re going to solve climate change while increasing human prosperity. Fukushima? Radiation didn’t kill anyone at Fukushima, that was all the tsunami and the evacuation. The only nuclear accident that was super, super bad was Chernobyl and I would never want to play that down but the track record of nuclear power overall is fantastic! Less than 100 reactors in the United States provides 10 percent of our total energy use. France manages to supply most of their energy needs with around 50 reactors and they’ve never had a major accident. What about the waste? There’s hardly any in terms of volume. The amount of the really nasty high-level stuff you’ll produce in a lifetime of using nothing but electricity from nuclear fits in a coke can. What? We only have ten second left? Uh…buy Google and Apple stocks and don’t for get to flosssssssssssss……..

Would my elevator pitch on nuclear energy have change the mind of past me? We’ll never know. What we do know is, it doesn’t seem to work very well on my current friends. Coming out as pro-nuclear on Facebook created an astonishing flood of disapproval. Friends I thought knew me well asked me if I was a paid shill, or even questioned my intelligence or intentions. (Although I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that there’s a quiet minority of friends who are already pro-nuclear.)

Funnily enough, I was making more of an impact with people I don’t know at all. Over on twitter, I started gaining a following for sharing little nuggets of news and other nuclear-related info as I learned them. Getting this tweet was a special treat and an affirmation that I was going in the right direction.

I realized that you can’t change people’s mind about nuclear power — or anything else for that matter — by telling them they’re wrong. What you can do, however, is to talk about what you think is right, and see who will listen.

This is why I started this Substack. I hope that this will be an expanded version of my twitter, with more space so I can get into more detail and do original reporting. I chose the name Elemental because I have a vision of stripping down the nuclear debate to the joists and starting a new conversation. I can’t guarantee I won’t get into any more mud fights on twitter, or even that I can completely sidestep the need to address the tired old tropes. But I’ll always try to keep my writing granular and focused on the future.

There’s a lot to be excited about.