Earlier this week I hosted our first ever Odds and Ends of History event in front of a live audience – a chat with the incredible Zion Lights.
Zion is an award-winning Science Communicator who is known for her environmental advocacy work and her vision of a high-energy, low-carbon future. She is the founder of Emergency Reactor, advocating nuclear energy. Author of Everything Is Light - her excellent Substack.
In the discussion, we talked about why nuclear energy is crucial for the UK, the challenges of getting it built, and Zion’s journey from being anti-nuclear to fully backing it. We also dove into why wind and solar alone aren’t enough to meet our energy needs and how frustrating planning delays and regulations are making nuclear projects way harder than they should be.
It’s a really great listen as Zion really knows her stuff. And I at least made a couple of pretty decent jokes. And if you were there, thanks again for coming along! I’ll hopefully be organising more in the future – so make sure you’re subscribed to me to hear about them first.
ALSO! If you enjoy hearing my voice and not just reading my words, then make sure you go and subscribe to What’s Happening Now, the podcast I make with my comedian friend Sam Hampson.
PLUS! After the event, Zion very kindly put together this list of further reading, picking up on some of the main arguments and points raised in the discussion – so if you really want to dig in, here’s your evening sorted:
Safest forms of energy - note where hydropower is on the graph and that despite having killed over 200k people and decimated an entire population, it doesn't get the bad rap that nuclear gets: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Views from top climate scientists on this: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
This paper by climate scientists: https://www.nature.com/articles/497539e
This is the story I was referring to re Germany clearing the village for coal: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/24/eviction-lutzerath-village-destroyed-coalmine-a-photo-essay
My piece on overregulation and other barriers to building nuclear in the UK:
My post on waste:
On meltdowns:
On why nuclear is the better option environmentally:
This is essential reading, but a renowned physicist who basically crunches the numbers and explains why storage can only go so far:
https://www.withouthotair.com/
On batteries: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/
On the solar supply chain being owned by China: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/china-owns-the-solar-supply-chain-jeopardizing-the-energy-transition
What the UAE has achieved:How South Korea is doing it:
My visit to Wylfa and interviews with the community there which has been hit hard by the lack of nuclear investment following decommissioning in Wales:
And finally, a couple of follow-up links from me:
Why I changed my mind on nuclear power:
Why I changed my mind on nuclear power
Why I think Britain’s data centre energy usage projections are dangerously broken:
LISTEN: Why Britain needs nuclear (and how we can actually build it)