Isabelle Boemeke: Time for the Nuclear Option?
Isodope founder Isabelle Boemeke discusses the ongoing potential renaissance of nuclear energy.
Is it time for the nuclear option? Just asking questions.
A nuclear renaissance may be afoot. The partial reactor meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant in 1979 invigorated an anti-nuclear movement that forced the industry to a grinding halt for decades. But in 2023, the first reactor built from scratch since 1974 began operating. Big investments are being made in so-called "advanced nuclear," which promises to deliver smaller, less costly, and less risky reactors. And the AI boom has caused such an energy hunger that tech companies are talking about funding their own nuclear reactors. In fact, Microsoft wants to reopen Three Mile Island!
We are so back, at least that's what today's guest tells us.
Isabelle Boemeke is a nuclear influencer. What is that? Well, she'll tell us more in a minute, but what I can tell you for now is that she kissed a cask and she liked it. Boemeke is a Brazilian fashion model who developed an interest in nuclear power's potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
"Boemeke is a Brazilian fashion model who developed an interest in nuclear power's potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions."
Is that better than a Brazilian tribal chief who developed an interest in carbon dioxide emissions to increase his lobbying income?
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2023/12/chief-climate-refugee-representative.html
It is better because nuclear power actually fucking works.
VVhy don't you stop pushing your scam blog here.
Stop posting your fake website you retarded fag
wrong place
Yes, it is, lying pile of shit.
Watermelon shits should fuck off and die, lying watermelon shit.
"Boemeke is a Brazilian fashion model..
Did she go full Brazilian?
Fun fact: bikinis result from A-bomb testing.
I’m researching the subject now.
Update: yes
Small reactors worked well for the US Navy for decades.
The only problem was they didn’t necessarily upscale well.
Sort of like bitcoin?
Insert joke about cooling towers and reactions.
What? No love for pressure vessels or their containment shields?
Are social media influencers how we are going to make nuclear power popular?
^THIS +10000000.
Screw acknowledging reality. Popularity contests will void reality. right? /s
But MORE DEMOCRACY!!!
Isabelle Boemeke is a nuclear influencer.
?!!
I don't particularly care who promotes nuclear energy. It's a fine solution.
Solution to what? The weather changing?
I peg it as a 'solution' without a 'problem' that has a good possibility of being a *real* 'problem'.
it reduces oil dependency, it reduces pollution, is safer than coal, and has a smaller footprint in terms of power generation/square feet than other energy sources, even if you're ignorant or stupid enough to think that chucking large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere isn't a bad idea.
AFAIC the reason some on the right object to nuclear power (excluding those who are wedded to the coal industry) is they're afraid that it's a concession that climate change is occurring, unlike those on the left whose scepticism stems from their not trusting corporations and a visceral and ignorant distrust of nuclear power full stop.
It also requires govt subsidies - both direct (like most energy) and indirect (permanent foreign intervention to control sources/uses). It is no surprise imo that the only comparator is oil because that too is an energy that has created a trillion dollar annual foreign intervention. It also requires pretty heavy authoritarian government and results in oligopoly not free markets.
You.
Are.
Full.
Of.
Shit.
"safer than coal"
Coal doesn't create waste that has to be kept from humanity for thousands of years.
We really don’t have a storage problem. We have a Dem politician problem. Yucca Mountain is still sitting there, in mothballs, ready to be completed. It was certified safe for environmental problems for 100,000 years. Somehow, environmentalists convinced a judge to up it to 500,000 years. Insanity. The reality is that Harry Reid’s constituents in Las Vegas didn’t want nuclear waste running through downtown Las Vegas (maybe 1/4 from where I am sitting right now). And he was Senate Majority Leader with a Dem President. The realistic solution would have been to just run the trains around the city. Most of the state is federal land, and in this case BLM and DOD/DOE. It may require shutting down some of the Chinese owned solar farms that Reid took BLM ranching land for (to benefit his oldest son). No one will miss the Chinese solar farms.
Most of our problems are democrat created problems.
That's because the government won't let it be recycled. Also newer types of reactors burn the fuel more fully making the waste less hazardous.
Maybe a little skepticism to the narrative huh?
AI is using too much energy? I call BS.
I'd say 'green energy' lobbyists are destroying too much energy.
A 300hp vehicle = 220,000 Watts. A Computer uses 400W.
ONE-Vehicles energy is the equivalent of running 550 computers.
In very specific limitation-cased areas the *severely toxic hazard* method might be worth risking but I'd sure hate for ideological idiot-lobbyists to convince the people that somehow CO2 (what plants need) is worse than Nuclear Radiation and there's a lot of premise for that amount of stupid being mass-indoctrinated.
CO2 (what plants need)
They were doing fine at 300ppm. It's a really stupid point you're trying to make.
This could honestly be one of the dumbest comments in the history of this site.
https://notrickszone.com/2013/05/17/atmospheric-co2-concentrations-at-400-ppm-are-still-dangerously-low-for-life-on-earth/
You are a fucking idiot shrike.
No surprise that our resident talking plant is pressing the panic button about low CO2.
It's no surprise our resident village idiot is posting idiotic comments.
Oh the irony.
JewFree, have you ever had actual science on your side? From covid to i guess global warming.
Do you want me to start linking actual papers? We know you don't read them.
Do you know plants require less water with a rise in c02? Do you know how greenhouses work?
It is amazing watching the most ignorant here defend each other lol.
The panic button in all cases is your side retard. The lysenkos. You're incapable of objective science or knowledge lol.
Do you want me to start linking actual papers?
Yes, actual papers from serious journals edited by real scientists, as opposed to pay for play press releases from professional publicists like Gosselin .
And show us your bibliography too.
"Do you want me to start linking actual papers?"
No, shitstain, we'd prefer you grow up.
Or fuck off and die.
Sure, start citing articles. But please no articles that:
1) utilize models - GIGO
2) utilize US or UK official temperature data. Both countries have been caught heavily faking such.
3) are by or utilize paleoclimatologists (tree ring counters). It’s mostly junk science. They are the ones at the center of ClimateGate.
Lets see, at around 170PPM plants start to die off resulting in no more oxygen production. We also know CO2 PPM has been at several thousand (~3000-4000) in the past few million years while life was thriving so it is actually a fact we're closer to too little CO2 in the atmosphere versus any theoretical too much.
In fact, ice on the surface of Earth is a fluke in geological history, at least outside of the regular ice ages which will certainly happen again.
Homo sapiens - and for that matter all mammalian life larger than a rodent living underground - has only existed on an Earth with less than 700 or so CO2 ppm.
Are you a lizard or some other animal/plant/bacteria with ectothermal metabolism? Or are you just one of them objective neutral nihilist libertarians who doesn't include 'human' in 'thriving life'?
More bluntly, current atmospheric CO2 levels are higher than have EVER existed since hominids (great apes) became a family of primates. So yes we are now in uncharted territory for our species and for all other species within the hominid family.
You're choosing a retarded talking point based on correlation of recency in historical records instead of science.
You're a fucking idiot JewFree.
Nothing you posted is actually based on science.
It is amusing you use recent historical mammals to defend your retardation on how c02 effects plants.
It is admitting you're in fact ignorant on the subject in every way.
You're an idiot. You don't even understand the difference between a C3 plant v a C4 plant which is why you don't understand the studies you misinterpret and mangle in order to push your agenda.
C3 plants are limited by atmospheric CO2. Not 'plants'. Life evolves to create different plants with different success rates under different environmental situations. In EXACTLY the same way that endothermic animals (like humans) evolve to meet different temperature environments than ectothermic animals. Indeed, C4 plants also evolved over this same timeframe (and temperature and low CO2 concentrations) that has given endothermic animals (like humans) an advantage - the last 30 or so million years. C4 plants account for 5% of Earth's biomass - and 23% of terrestrial carbon fixation.
You don't give a rat's shit about humans. Your ilk never does. Which is why you don't give a shit that these changes WE are creating are also undermining the advantages that made us succeed as a species. Of course, you don't give a rat's shit about plants either. Everything is just a convenient way for you to propagate a nihilist bullshit ideology. It is why your ilk is completely useless in the world and why you should never be accepted as credible - on anything - ever.
You.
Are.
Full.
Of.
Shit.
Fuck off and die, imbecilic asshole.
Mute YeehaAZ. He's dishonest and not worth the bother.
As you should your own comments and JFucked.
Not sure of your point there. Is it that C3 plants do better with higher CO2? That would be good - rice is a C3 plant. The reality is that the Earth is greening, with the increase in CO2. You have to torture reality quite a bit to get to the point where more plant life on this planet is a bad thing.
Make the case that 'mammalian life' couldn't have lived millions of years ago, with data not opinion. We both know you can't, but it would be amusing.
Also, just for amusement, you'd have to account for the mammals that lived then.
Define 'millions of years ago'. I've already put the 700ppm out there and that was roughly 30 million years ago. Here's a graph showing temperature, atmospheric CO2 over the last 66 million years. Note the cold, low CO2 environment of our entire existence.
Humans are the main endothermic mammal I concern myself about. A very easy way to describe our evolution - over the last 5 or so million years - the really cold/low CO2 environment in blue on that image - is that we evolved to walk upright to take advantage of a savanna environment. We spread around the world precisely because we can take advantage of a cold environment where other animals/plants can't compete. Trees are all C3. Grasslands and flowering plants are more likely to be C4. 90% of our calories are 'grassland' species. A large endotherm requires massive (excess) caloric intake - which means apex predation of something. Which ain't gonna happen if the ectotherm herbivores are big enough to eat trees and the ectotherm carnivores are eating humans as mere snacks for their real meal of ectotherm herbivores.
Everything about our evolution signals that we took advantage of changing environment - and the opportunities/threats that that environment posed to our competitors/threats. I know you don't believe in anything ecosystem - but that is exactly what happens. And we are currently destroying the conditions that provided us our advantage. It ain't gonna end well. Species don't evolve that second time - to deal with the threats they themselves create for themselves. They simply - cease to be. And something else fills the vacuum.
You have suggested that mankind could not survive even 150 million years when CO2 was ~3000 ago despite no one in academia making such a case (probably because it's a dumb argument to make).
In fact, you make the case mammals couldn't exist during the time period they specifically first appear in the fossil record. Obviously not modern man, so you've got me there even though it's an idiotic point given that we simply hadn't evolved yet.
If you want to make the case modern man couldn't have survived then, you haven't done a very good job of it. There are no indications modern humans couldn't have lived then, you know, if we had a time machine.
Curiously, you've made a case that mankind can't survive when there is no ice on the ground despite the fact that as far as we can tell ice is abnormal in Earth's history so you are in essence making the claim that normal variation in the planets environment will make us extinct regardless of what we do, probably as soon as a few hundred thousand years if not tens of thousands.
Oh, and one last thing, it's hilarious that you'd pull out a graph of temperature for the past 66 million years given that for the vast, vast majority of that time we have at best proxy measures spaced a few million years apart compared to a time period with by-the-second measurement. I shouldn't need to explain why that's a retarded way to compare things.
3000 ppm was also associated with a 10c higher temperature than present. That is transparently 'unhabitable' for humans for most if not all the world. Yes that means species extinction. There were no endothermic mammals then - and only very sparse evidence of some endothermy in some aquatic reptile species which may have only been seasonal).
Yes it would be pointless for me to create a counterfactual to project that humans could exist in those CO2 (and ambient temperature) conditions in order to support your dishonest modern political agenda.
If you are interested in whether your endothermic aquatic lizard kin can succeed in that environment, then I would suggest you do your own homework.
And if you are looking for an experiment to prove the exact ambient temperature which humans find uninhabitable, then it will only happen with your nihilistic libertarian friends at the Dr Mengele Institute
No, they don’t ’do fine’ at 300 ppm. Fucking neo marxist climate cultist.
Sending plant physiologists to the Siberia for talking about the C3 /C4 distinction was one of that fucking Marxist anti-science cultist Lysenko's favorite pastimes.
Reading assholes offering fake web-sites is wasting time, shitbag.
As opposed to listening to fake apes shrieking in retromingent unison as Reason contributors invade their tree house.
Get back to us when your first Reason byline appears in the print edition.
Cue Moe, Larry Curley & Shemp.
Get back to us if you ever manage to form a non-imbecilic thought, asshole.
I have some background in botany, and if you think 300 ppm is ‘just fine’ for plant horticulture, then you’re an even bigger moron than you’ve previously demonstrated. Which is saying something.
As opposed to listening to fake apes shrieking in retromingent unison as Reason contributors invade their tree house.
Get back to us when your first Reason byline appears in the print edition.
Cue Moe, Larry Curley & Shemp.
My father always pointed to the humanitarian side of nuclear, the elimination of the dangers and inhumanity of coal mining.
But considering what a lazy fool Biden was in his college career, I hazard that he knows shtall about science.
But Joe got a minor in graft. Much more practical than science.
And he majored in grift. He’s the inventor of the ‘African Telegram’.
Read "Apocalypse Never", Shellenberger, for a heaping helping of nuke reality.
A kraken dragged Schellenberger into the deep end of the MAGA pool last year. Try Nordhaus for a change.
An asshole claiming the name of Public Entelectual :
Is.
Full.
Of.
Shit.
And can offer nothing factual in response.
Fuck you with a barb-wire-wrapped broom stick, shit pile.
Shellenberger is the one who just got nuked, and by his own coauthor
https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-spring-2024/michael-and-me
Lefty shit whines when another former lefty shit gets mugged and stops being a lefty shit. Linked by a steaming pile of lefty shit.
BTW, asshole, when is the "rapture"?
Hey look, yet another 'influencer' that figured out the science crowd love to hear their opinions repeated back to them by someone attractive or witty.
Actually, scratch that, that's the entire entertainment industry. I guess this is just human.
I don't know why I should know or care about what a former Brazilian model thinks about nuclear power though. Is she a nuclear scientist on the side or something, or just some hot chica that science guys crave?
Boemeke is a Brazilian fashion model who developed an interest in nuclear power's potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
...Oh...well I guess you answered that after all.
You should learn to read something, or admit you are an ignoramus. Got any cites for your bullshit?
I don't think you understood the comment, or posted your standard boxed response on the wrong post.
Sorry, your points regarding celeb endorsements are valid, but just finished Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never", and am tired of the 'Public Ignoramuses' and other watermelon religionists claims.
My apologies.
Rational and informed people have been saying this for thirty years.
Ants could adopt nuclear energy to generate power. Instead of making bridges with their bodies to cross water flows, they could vaporize rivers with their scientific latex rubber gloves.
Nuclear fission derived energy may be beneficial in small amounts, but it is not the final nor only solution to the world's "energy crisis." Dissimilarly, genetically-modified foods comprise the only solution to the world's hunger crisis, since evolution theory explains food development in terms of genetic modification instances over time in combination with natural selection by food consumers and other food perpetuators.
Radioactive atom glo-barf *crank*cranK* surely has useful applications other than cooling in barrels out in the driest of national deserts. We have heard next to nothing about its potential use as an energy sink, for example, or its energy density. Perhaps it can hope to replace animal urine as the preferred apex predator marker among neocons *wince*.