Episode 440 Scott Adams: Weirdo, UBI, Omar, GND, Climate Change Confusion

Date: 2019-03-06 | Duration: 56:39

Topics

Weird Tom Steyer’s new nickname, A+ sticky persuasion quality The sticky, persuasive elements and why 4 Outlet Rule: If story is covered on 4 main networks, probably true (Breitbart, FOX, CNN, MSNBC) Q is real: None of the 4 report that Q is real…fake news “Fine People” hoax: Not on all 4…fake news Globalist plot to change politics: Not on all 4…fake news Law allowing lefties to abort live, born babies…fake news Abducted in Plain Sight - Recommended, but disturbing topic The psychology, persuasion, confirmation bias Clearly demonstrates the weakness of human perception Leaving Neverland - Recommended, another disturbing topic The details are disturbing and convincing Then watch the counter-arguments on YouTube Counter-arguments are ALSO persuasive UBI - Universal Basic Income Soon, a big part of population won’t be capable of working Robots will take over jobs not requiring a lot of thinking UBI is like abortion for lazy adults who don’t want to work Half of published scientific papers end up being debunked Climate change might be real AND 1/2 claims are garbage Climate change might be a hoax, in spite of being sorta true 200 reasons against a theory is a tell that no good reasons exist Guest: Mark Schneider, nuclear engineering expert Operating reactors in America are all Gen II, meltdown danger Europe has Gen III, better, much more resistant to meltdown Gen IV nuclear power has 3 attractive options molten salt, molten lead, gas cooled, NO MELTDOWNS Loss of power to the facility, no problem, no danger Containment systems make them safe from bombs Gen II explosion danger is due to water for cooling Gen IV doesn’t use water, eliminates explosion danger 5 to 10 years to bring Gen IV online We need to develop the design portion of the concepts NOT currently happening here…but Russia is progressing Some Gen IV options, like molten lead, EAT nuclear waste Gen IV, only 1/3 of heat generated is used for power creation Other 2/3 can be used to desalinate ocean water

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:05]

bum-bum-bum bum-bum-bum bum-bum-bum yep it's that time again you know what time I'm talking about this time it's time to gather around grab your container you're a thermos your cup your mug your Stein your chalice your tankard fill it with your favorite liquid you know what I like I like the coffee and join me please for the best time of the day I call it the simultaneous sip mmm oh that's good somebody out here is calling me papa which reminds me that I was talking about how Bernie Sanders reminds me of an old dandelion you know and they turn all white and they they blow away apparently there's a name for that a poopa pu PPA or a Papa doesn't sound as

[1:06]

poopa pu PPA or a Papa doesn't sound as catchy as it could be for a nickname speaking of nicknames so president Trump the nickname ER in chief has given a new nickname and the new nickname is weird Tom Steyer weird Tom Styer and I give that one an A+ so the president has an uncanny ability to pick perfect words you know people made fun of him when he when he said I have the best words oh it's Papa's PAP P u.s. somebody's correcting me that sounds right the debt the an old dandelion is a Pappas all right so Tom Steyer here's why weird Tom Steyer works and it's why other people who who try try to come up with

[2:06]

people who who try try to come up with nicknames don't do so well here's what works about it weird or weirdo is those words you never see in politics so that's the first rule so Trump likes to pick words that are not already overused so you don't want to call some of the you know liberal Tom Styer or or lefty Tom Styer these are all just old used up boring words so he first thing he does is he finds it finds a word that you all know but it's not often or never used in the political context so that's what makes it a place that's what makes it sticky and interesting and and provocative it's it's a word you're not supposed to use in this context secondly the president likes to use words that will be reinforcing and I don't know if it's just me but when I watch Tom Steyer on television the whole time I'm looking

[3:08]

on television the whole time I'm looking at him I'm sort of half listening to what he's saying but here's my internal thought what's wrong with that guy now I don't think I'm the only one yeah and let's look at the comments here when when I listened to him talk independent of the fact that he's a critic of the president you know I don't think every critic of the president has something wrong with them right there's just something that's it's like the uncanny valley or he's like a person but not quite he has opinions but they don't quite make sense everything was just a bit off now let me make a comparison if you were to say you know Adam Schiff obviously a big critic of the President when I look at him I have lots of thoughts but he's a real person in a

[4:11]

thoughts but he's a real person in a political realm saying political things and you know maybe he's a weasel because he's saying things that maybe he doesn't even believe but I don't look at him chef's and say what's wrong with him cuz I I know what's going on he's a political Adam political context saying political stuff there's no mystery there alright Joe Biden Joe Biden there's no mystery when he criticizes the president he looks like an ordinary guy he's a little touchy that's that's a separate topic but I don't automatically listen to Joe Biden and then have a running recording in my head saying I trying to figure out what's wrong with this guy right the same with Bernie you know Bernie looks a little crazy but he doesn't look like a weirdo does he the weirdo wouldn't really fit Bernie crazy fits them so the president's ability to pick literally the perfect word as far as I can tell of weirdo it just so captures

[5:15]

can tell of weirdo it just so captures your sort of irrational you know feeling about him that it's brilliant all right here's a little update on predictions remember I've told you many times that everybody could have an opinion that's easy but predicting is hard and there's somebody predicts well you should give them more credibility than someone who can't one of my predictions if some of you can confirm this I know you've been most of you have been watching me for a while I predicted the Hillary Clinton would not run for president and now she's said that she's not running so I'm gonna count that as yet another accurate prediction on my part so if you predicted if you predicted that she would run just keep a keep a tally of your own predictions and then compare it to mine whenever you can and see what you think

[6:16]

whenever you can and see what you think so many of you watched I think yesterday Joe Rogan having a second chance to talk to Jack Dorsey about Twitter's policies about you know their algorithm and who gets who gets de-emphasized and who doesn't and under what under what situations do you get deep deep platformed and all that and apparently Tim Poole who was there as a bit of a moderator people tell me he did a good job I didn't see the whole thing I'm waiting to see the highlights because it the parts I watched I watched it for a while and it didn't seem like it was creating a lot of news all all the parts I saw were Twitter explaining what they always explain which is that they're not they're not beating people up for content so much as behavior so

[7:17]

up for content so much as behavior so that's all I saw and that's the same thing we already knew so if there was any news that came out of that I saw that I saw one little interaction about a particular person that whose name they didn't recognize and that felt like a little bit of a gotcha moment but probably wasn't I mean it was kind of a pretty minor thing but there must have been more news that came out of that
I'm just looking at okay mark mark is on here I'm going to talk to to Mark Snyder in a little bit and I'll give you an introduction before I do that let's talk about the fine people hoax so I've changed it from the Charlottesville hoax because that's misleading the Charlottesville happened you know that there was an event there

[8:18]

you know that there was an event there somebody really died etc there really were races there but the hoax part is the fine people the hoax is that Trump said that the racists were fine people when obviously he was referring to other people at the event now we're still waiting for that to be addressed by CNN and I wanted to revisit my four news outlet rule now I present this rule as something to watch not as some kind of scientifically validated you know physical law but and it goes like this that something is probably true news if it's reported the same on all four of these major news outlets CNN MSNBC covering sort of the left and then Fox News and Breitbart as my proxies for you

[9:19]

News and Breitbart as my proxies for you know news that's there is more right oriented if it's not on all four it's probably not true now I'm not going to tell you that that works every time but it's a provocative little rule and it's a good first filter it's probably not the only filter you should put on things but let's run a few things through the filter and say number one which of those four outlets reports that Q is true none zero there is not one of those four news outlets nobody in the left and nobody in the right of those four who report the Q is real so therefore Q is PHA news it's news that there's something called Q but it's fake that Q has some insider access let's run another one through the filter how about the the the thought that

[10:20]

how about the the the thought that President Trump called racists fine people well I don't think that's not all for networks because it's fake news how about here's one the idea that the the whole secret plot behind the green new deal and the plot behind climate change is really a giant socialist globalist plot and they don't really believe it they're just pushing it to cause political change have you seen that reported on CNN or MSNBC you haven't now if I'm about that just fact jack me and we can you know we oh you know I'll circle back to it but that's fake news it's fake news there is no globalist plot to change politics through climate change according to this filter again now

[11:24]

according to this filter again now saying the filter works every time but we're running some stuff through to see how confident we are of it here's another one you're not gonna like this one um I've been seeing in the headlines but not everywhere the idea that there was some kind of a law proposed about not allowing abortion for babies that are already born and they're healthy I guess or at least they're survivable so on the right you'll see the news that says my god the lefties want to have the right to abort a live baby nobody's reporting that and CNN I don't think anybody's reporting better than MSNBC nor have I ever seen the language which describes the way it's being reported so I declare it's fake news it's real

[12:28]

so I declare it's fake news it's real news that there was a law presented it's fake news how it's being interpreted now I'm willing to change my mind and all it would take is somebody to send me the text of that actual law and and maybe a link to somebody who's familiar with it to explain what it was now some of you were saying wrong wrong it was definitely there I know it was there for the moment we don't have to argue whether it's true or false I'm running it through the filter and I'm telling you that it's this is BS so governor Nadler admitted it send me a link so I've been waiting for weeks to see if I would see watching social media as watching the news I've been waiting to see
see I would see anything that clearly describes what the law meant to do with somebody who supports the law confirming that that's what the law says that's all I haven't seen it so I would

[13:31]

that's all I haven't seen it so I would suggest that my four outlet news suggests that that law has been maybe exaggerated and what it's meant to do so that's and that would be a good test all right if if you haven't seen there's there's a documentary it's on Netflix that I highly highly highly recommend it's called abducted in plain sight and you might want to watch that in conjunction with watching the leaving Neverland which is another documentary about Michael Jackson and allegations of of child sex abuse I guess the abducted in plain sight is a story that is so mind-blowing that I don't want to ruin it for you so I'll just tell you this

[14:33]

it for you so I'll just tell you this the content is very disturbing because it's about a pedophile and there's some images that you know you just you don't want any kids in the room you know don't watch this if it's a topic that bothers you don't watch it but if you do watch it watch it for the the psychology about it watch it for the persuasion the understanding about confirmation but confirmation bias and watch other people involved believe things that were amazing as and they weren't real things but the things they believed were just shocking now when I watched it my my background is a hypnotist and studying persuasion for four decades I watched it and I said there's nothing in this that is surprising every part of that show while it was mind-boggling and jaw-dropping it was

[15:34]

mind-boggling and jaw-dropping it was not surprising if you have my background which is persuasion and hypnosis and the things that it shows as happening in real life are very predictable so watch those two shows and you'll learn something about the the weakness of human perceptions now I should say I'm leaving Neverland what you should do is you should watch not only the special but you should go to YouTube and I somebody sent me some links and probably somebody who's watching right now send me a couple of links to a skeptic of the leaving Neverland story and the skeptic was giving the other the the opposing argument which would say that Michael Jackson was unfairly accused of being a pedophile and when you listen to the the documentary I'm pretty sure you can walk away saying oh he's definitely guilty

[16:35]

away saying oh he's definitely guilty that Michael Jackson there's no there's no way that these two people made all that up the details are too convincing etc and then as soon as you're done with that go watch the YouTube YouTube bits you could probably just find them in a simple search find those YouTube bits and then look at the counter-argument and you'll be surprised how good it is to the point where I'm not sure what to believe right now could go either way
let's talk about you bi and everybody's asking me to talk about universal basic income yet the idea is giving people some amount of money every month that they can spend anyway they want as a universal basic income whether they work or not now most of you find capitalists say quite reasonably my god that's the worst idea in the world because it will be an incentive to not work what could

[17:38]

be an incentive to not work what could be worse in a capitalist world than creating an incentive for people to not work well I have not reached a final opinion on ubi but I'll tell you there are some things I think you're overlooking and I'll just mention the other variables and let us sink in for a while the first variable I'd like to suggest is that the the economy and technology and civilization are trending toward a place where a big portion of the population simply won't be smart enough to do the work in other words we are guaranteed to have people who would like to work but are not capable they're simply not smart enough to do the kind of work that their jobs still exist because robots will be chewing up all the jobs that don't require a lot of thinking and when those when that when those are gone what are all those people

[18:42]

those are gone what are all those people going to do now you're probably saying to yourself alright this is capitalism if you tell those people and let aside from that point let's assume that there are jobs and you've got a universal basic income and some people will say I would prefer to get this universal basic income then I prefer to work is that bad your first instinct is hell yeah that's bad why are you taking my money with our work for and giving it to somebody who chose not to work is literally the worst thing you could possibly do in the capitalist system well that point is well-taken but it's not the only point so let's let's throw in some more variables one of my observations is that for every person who can't work or doesn't work there's at least one other person who is crippled by it in other

[19:44]

person who is crippled by it in other words there's somebody else who's taking care of that person's non-working ass for example how many adult children are living with their parents and their parents would like to get rid of them but they can't get rid of them because their kid would starve probably quite a few so if you are to help the kid by giving them a universal basic income you might really be helping the parents because now the parents can boot him out and say look maybe you can't live in this neighborhood on that Universal basic income and maybe you got to get a job at McDonald's to supplement but you can go live someplace cheaper with your ubi and now I don't feel guilty I'm kicking your ass out so I've come to think that ubi is wait for my provocative framing provocative framing

[20:44]

provocative framing provocative framing alert here it comes ubi could be thought of as abortion for lazy adults in other words it's a way for the parents to abort a grown child who won't leave the house in this case aborting the man at the house not an at the fetus ubi is like abortion for adult lazy people who don't want to work or uncapable of working I suppose so so my big point here is that the ubi doesn't just help the person who guess it it's helping the people who would have had to pay for that lazy person's ass but now they have a legitimate way to say look you're not gonna starve to death when I kick you out of the house and you could work if you want to now it's just your choice so you have to you have to figure out the you know secondary and tertiary effects the next thing is if you've ever

[21:46]

effects the next thing is if you've ever worked in a large organization or even if you've worked in any small group of people was the worst person you worked with worth keeping was the laziest person in your department worthy of having a job not really the people who are not good at working they're unwilling or unable to do a well can cause more trouble than they than they fix so I would argue that for that lowest let's say 10% of workers you're not really losing much in the economy and if we were not willing to let them literally die on the streets somebody who has a productive job is gonna have to work harder sacrifice more and do somewhat unproductive things to take care of that person because we don't let them die somebody's always taken care of them and so those are the factors I

[22:48]

them and so those are the factors I think you should put in there I don't know if the numbers will ever work but once we have a robot economy ubi is guaranteed so I'll say that again ubi will happen I would say that's a hundred percent chance what it looks like and when it kicks in our big questions but there isn't the slightest chance it won't happen as long as as long as the robotic industry continues to grow and I don't see anything that's going to change that so if you're arguing about whether ubi is good or bad you're on the wrong topic ubi is coming there's nothing that would stop it but it's when and what's it look like that's the question all right I was thinking about persuasion in the context of climate change and I'm going to talk about climate change in a little more detail in a minute but one of the things I realize is that when we're talking about

[23:48]

realize is that when we're talking about aggressively going after climate change it really means aggressively getting off of fossil fuels now if you do not in the same sense and say and we're going to replace it with you know clean nuclear different if we're not going to place it replace that with generation four nuclear we we have a very risky situation and here's how I would frame the green New Deal I would frame it as risky because what is the what is the reason that people want to address climate change the risk right it's a risk and I think you could convince most people who especially anybody over a 50 if you're over 50 you're planning to be dead before the before the climate is a problem anyway even if if it is and so you could convince those people to not take a risk so if you're over a certain

[24:48]

take a risk so if you're over a certain age and I am it's risky to change the whole system so I think one of the best arguments against climate change is that one word risk it's risky to get off of fossil fuels unless you have a back-up plan such as generation for nuclear
here's here's my current thinking on climate change and I'm gonna bring in March tighter to talk about generation for nuclear in a moment if he's still on there I think yes my my conclusion at this point and this is important for you to keep in mind the studies have shown there's something like half of all published scientific papers on science in general turn out to be bad papers so about half of science in general turns

[25:49]

about half of science in general turns out not to be right well let me say that about half of the published papers turned out to be not reproducible and you know they don't last my let's put this another way the minimum truth about climate change looks like this if climate change is real and it's it's the dire emergency that many of the scientists are saying if that's real it would also be true that half of the things said about it are probably not true so you could have a situation where half of all the science and all the claims and all the studies about climate change just wrong and it would still be true you could still have climate change being a hundred percent a risk a hundred percent driven by co2 and a hundred percent really a big emergency that could all be true at the same time that

[26:49]

could all be true at the same time that 50 percent of all the studies are just clearly garbage and and fifty percent of all the arguments are irrational those could all be true at the same time and I think that's the minimum case so that or the best case the best case for climate science is that half of the studies are garbage so if you're a critic and you're a skeptic and you're looking for things to attack you could attack hundreds and hundreds of things about climate science you could attack hundreds and hundreds of studies and you could be right you could accurately debunk hundreds of climate change studies and climate change could still be true those things would be completely compatible in fact they would be expected the most expected situation is that the skeptics could have a field day just destroying climate

[27:49]

have a field day just destroying climate change arguments without having any impact on the fact that the 50% that's true still still makes the case right now I don't know if this is I'm describing reality I just want you to know that there is no reality no reality there's no chance that all of the climate change studies are true there's none there's no chance that because it would be the only science ever in which that was the case so how settled is climate change well I had dr. Siobhan here yesterday talking about the iris effect the iris effect is the idea that when the the earth warms there are certain types of clouds that essentially open up like the iris of a camera in in very generic sense to release some of energy into the universe and cool the planet so the idea is that extra warming opens up a little lens

[28:50]

extra warming opens up a little lens that that allows the the heat to go out and therefore the the world stays in homeostasis the number one thing I I don't like about that idea is that it feels like almost religious now there's no religious claim involved and and dr. she had never made any claim like that but the way as strikes me is is why do we why would the earth be self-regulating unless were a simulation the simulation theory would imagine that you would program your environment so it's self-regulating because there's no point in putting your little humans in your simulation if the whole if the environment is going to blow up in a day so the LEM the iris idea is compatible with simulation theory which doesn't mean either one of them are true it's just compatible now how how settled

[29:55]

it's just compatible now how how settled is climate change well you saw that climate change had an idea that the climates getting warm and it's a problem and then we saw that dr. linson I believe is the one who came up with the iris idea and he published a paper that seemed to suggest that the the earth is somewhat self-regulating now that's what dr. Shiva talked about predictably and this is what I tell you happens every time so so what I'm going to describe happens on every conversation with climate change I've never seen the exception it goes like this here's a paper that claims something immediately people send me links to three papers that debunked the iris hypothesis so right away it's like is is is it a settled here's this iris idea you know a real scientist smart person showed his work got his public his paper was published but soon after that within a

[30:56]

published but soon after that within a year there are four more papers poking holes in it so I of course tweeted that within an hour I think dr. Shiva had tweeted another another link there was an even newer paper that criticized the criticisms in other words it was back to the original where the Syrus thing looks pretty good after all now are we done no we're not done check with me in a week and there will almost certainly be another paper that debunks that latest paper and then come back in two weeks and sure enough there'll be another paper that debunks that paper until you can't understand what's going on and then you say well I'll just default to whatever I believe before all right here are some of the tells for a bad argument a good argument tends to have one or two good reasons and they're easy to explain for example if I cut taxes I might have

[32:00]

for example if I cut taxes I might have a larger deficit one good clean reason not to do it if I Institute ubi I will hurt incentives one good clean reason it's probably real if I get off of fossil fuels it will be disruptive to the economy in a bunch of different ways that's really one reason that's a reason here's what is not persuasive 200 reasons for the same point now if you look at the skeptical science site which is a good one in terms of its organized well for the arguments and the counter arguments and it shows something like
somewhere close to 200 skeptical arguments and then it shows the you know the science argument that debunks the skeptical arguments now if you have 200 reasons that a theory is not good that's

[33:04]

reasons that a theory is not good that's telling you something is it telling you that the theory is no good because there are 200 reasons against it now it's the opposite it's the opposite if there are two hundred reasons against the theory it's telling you that the people who came up with those two hundred reasons started with the conclusion and work backwards meaning they didn't believe the theory and they looked and looked until confirmation bias kicked in and they found something that would be their argument and they were all finding different things because there wasn't any real thing to find now this is not like a you know a rule of physics where if you've got 200 reasons against something that's just proof it's not real it's not that clean but as a tell as a big red flag if there were one good reason against the climate change argument I would be you know I could be persuaded we're depending on what that reason was if there are two hundred

[34:07]

reason was if there are two hundred reasons and they're all different and by the way they're all debunked that is a very very strong indicator that the arguments are invalid doesn't mean they're all invalid you can't guarantee it but you can't ignore that all right I've asked here's another towel if you ask a direct question of either a skeptic or somebody who's an alarmist the warmest if you will can you get a direct answer to a direct question and it's hard here's my direct question there seems to be a difference between the the skeptics and the alarmists on this very very simple point and and I want to suggest this I asked dr. Shiva yesterday I said what would be the one indicator the one thing you could measure in the in the present that if

[35:10]

measure in the in the present that if it's if it's going up every year that is gonna definitely tell you there's climate change you know that's that's a problem what is the one thing there's most dependable is it the melting of the ice sheets is it sea-level let's say at one place where you know the land isn't changing is it temperature of the oceans is it temperature over land is a temperature in the troposphere these are all the things that they measure measure what is the what is the very best gold standard and here's the problem if you talk to a skeptic they will say the theory said that the temperature would be X and that we would get these various things and they didn't happen therefore the theory is disproven do you know what the scientists say we made some specific predictions and they all came true therefore it's proven those two things can't be the same it can't be true simultaneously that all of your

[36:12]

simultaneously that all of your predictions all of them I mean a hundred percent all of your predictions did not come true that can't be true at the same time as a hundred percent of our predictions came true they can't both be true but those are the claims now how in the world can we not at least find that out and I would suggest that the first thing we should do is talk about the same topic because I know the skeptics will say well we've had fewer super storms and hurricanes and I think that's probably true and then the scientists will say look at those ice sheets just like I said but our ice sheets the gold standard and can we measure that to a level that both skeptics and believers would agree is a good measurement I don't know so here's my challenge to both the skeptics and the believers give me the one gold standard the one thing which if it's not changed five years

[37:14]

which if it's not changed five years from now you'll say I guess we were on and likewise to the critics yeah to the critics of climate warmest yeah what is the one thing that if it did change you would change your mind and say oh wow I didn't see that coming I guess there's something here if you can't both give me one of those let's just agree that nobody knows what they're talking about all right let's talk to you let's see if mark is still here huh I'm gonna add mark and mark are you there
mark mark mark Schneider I can't hear you
you you have been added but I do not hear you you may have you may have wandered away I'll keep you active until you either

[38:15]

I'll keep you active until you either fix your microphone or come back to us I think I hear you mark yeah I'm on the hearing aid for some reason it disables my microphone ah is that all fixed now
all right ARC can you give us the the brief version of your background so we know where you're coming from all right yes so I've been in the nuclear industry since I was 18 sir for 20 years as a nuclear power operator I made it up to chief by the way that qualifies me to drink coffee that's as thick as motor oil and then I became an officer and then I retired currently work at a commercial power plant I have my bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering technology and then my wife engineering I like to say that I have the nerdiest

[39:15]

I like to say that I have the nerdiest pillow talk of all time all right all right so you have a perspective that's from the the inside of the industry and I've been watching your periscopes which are fascinating but sometimes more technical than I can follow so I want to ask some questions and I want you to answer them as best you can without any jargon just just give us the the big points number one the current nuclear power plants in this country our generation - is that correct yeah all the operating reactors in the country are Gentoo and how many of them are there roughly about 95 so we've got 95 second generation design of nuclear in in Europe they have generation 3 yes I'd yes they do have some generation 3 there and what would be without a technical explanation what what would be

[40:16]

technical explanation what what would be the main advantage of generation 3 over the ones that we have in this country they have a a longer failsafe margin so the generation - you can have meltdown within 24 hours the generation 3 it's 2 to 3 days before you get into that kind of problem has there ever been a generation 3 they had a meltdown no never and how many generation threes do you think there are worldwide what are your 30 probably and they've been around for a few decades so 10 years the generation 3 has had zero meltdowns that's true that's true now there's something called generation 4 and none of those are in operation are they or are they okay so generation 4 is a catchphrase correct that incorporates a number of different designs does it include thorium and salt

[41:19]

designs does it include thorium and salt and whatever the other things are yes so it generates a wide array of power plants of cooling mechanisms which is the molten the molten salt and then it's types of fuel which could be thorium plutonium or uranium okay and then within those designs is there a favorite that you have that is unambiguously the one we should be going for or is it ready is there any question about which is the good one so I have three that I like it's the the molten salt is one another one is molten lead and then the last one is gas cool all right so without without any and nearing description tell us from the user standpoint what is the functional difference to us as just consumers in terms of safety costs difficulty in engineering and anything like that just

[42:20]

engineering and anything like that just the highest level up stop stop okay you're already too technical right yeah so I don't I don't need to know the advantage of materials okay just tell me at the highest level are they safer yeah they're safer and safer in the sense that you could have a complete loss of electricity for example know that in the traditional sites if the electricity is lost you can go into meltdown is that correct that's correct yeah these one what would prevent that in at a loss of electricity situation okay so is there any other situation other than a loss of electricity that could cause a disaster let's say let's say a terrorist you know drops a bomb on one how big of a problem is that if it's a generation for a reactor that's actually the same as a gen tear they're designed against that they're designed against that yes

[43:21]

that they're designed against that yes meaning that there's no sort of bomb that could make one leak radiation that is correct they designed they designed the containments for that I mean hold on hold on are you saying that the bombs would not be strong enough or that even if it blew up there would be no radiation the bombs would not be strong enough to penetrate the containment uh you know I suppose we would all have a question in our heads you know couldn't they make a stronger bomb but how about something like an earthquake or or a category five storm or they would a Gen 4 site be hardened against those against that yes okay now designed against them to bring the wrist down to effectively zero or just lower than it would have been well it's the it goes back to that meltdown they designed meltdown out of it so the the loss of our would be taken away right so you

[44:23]

our would be taken away right so you would melt down with without a loss of power and that's the biggest concern is loss of power okay but it the old gentoos can actually blow up can't they or is that is that a thing they can but things generation four can't really blow up right it so so let me put it this way if something we didn't see coming caused one of them to have a leak whether it was aliens come to earth and hit it with a laser you know just something we hadn't thought about where does the radiation just from a Gen 4 just you know wipe out the county or does it stay localized because nothing exploded it would stay localized how local is localized stay it stays within a square mile or square 20 miles it would stay most likely within the site maybe a small area outside the site depending on wind direction okay but

[45:26]

depending on wind direction okay but even the wind wouldn't necessarily take it more than a few miles that's correct and that's true right now okay so Jen for you said there are there three types that you like is there one of those three that stands out for me it's the molten lead now the mold led to how close are we to being able to build one for commercial use maybe five to ten years and what would need to be developed in order it's so so they're apparently there's some more invention that needs to be done or is it engineering that needs to be done we're at the engineering stage they I know Russia has used molten lead before okay so it would this be a case where if we could iterate it more quickly we could we could shorten that five to ten years to you know closer survive yes and what stops us from iterating it's the lack of

[46:28]

stops us from iterating it's the lack of having a test site and approval to iterate right yeah that's that's the basic right now now is that being solved by what Rick Perry is doing at the Department of Energy he created a site for testing nuclear fuels but I don't know if that's the same as testing nuclear designs does it does it get us everything we need to iterate or do we need more we need more that you've got the fuel and then you've got the design so we've got the fuel part now but we need the design portion is there any reason that we couldn't do the design portion in some remote place and feel completely safe about it absolutely so so it would just take some government leadership to say alright we're going to designate this this remote place and you guys all can put your your reactors here and if one blows up it's only gonna it's only gonna you know take out a one mile so we're all safe yeah so we have

[47:35]

so we're all safe yeah so we have existing sites that were once designated and we could just go locate them you're saying or we're actually where there's a closed-down reactor we could we could locate them and you'd also mentioned do all of the generation 4 do they eat nuclear waste or is that just some of the designs within new generation 4 and does that include the molten molten lead I think you said yeah ultimate consumer so the molten lead option I think I heard you talk on your periscope that the cost of building a site might be maybe 10% of what it would cost to build a gem - that would create the same amount of power do I have that right now
but is that really 1/10 or are we comparing you know if we look at the

[48:37]

comparing you know if we look at the original estimate for a gem - they would have said well this will cost us only a billion dollars but then you come back later and it's tender is it is it possible that the gen4 costs are greatly underestimated just the way we always underestimate nuclear but in all likelihood it would be substantially cheaper than what is already a pretty cheaper form of energy which is nuclear
all right so in terms of how many of these we could build do you think we could even if we did sort of a Manhattan Project and started iterating these gen4 designs do you think we could get to a point where climate change is is riskless all right what people people

[49:41]

riskless all right what people people get anxious with me I'm watching the comments here because often I don't let my guests talk but I do that I do that just to make sure I've got a framework then that makes sense what would you like to tell us that I haven't asked you something something we need to know about generation for that that I didn't ask well maybe when you asked about exploding with the generation 2 and this is why I went into the water aspect is that it's the water that causes the explosions and so that's why generation 4 won't explode is when you're eliminating waters or coolant it makes them not be able to explode in the same manner so and the issue with the water is there has to be compressed that you know many atmospheres so there's there's something under pressure which you don't have with the molten is that right that's that's true so

[50:43]

is that right that's that's true so that's one aspect the other aspect actually is that at high temperatures the water will split out and create hydrogen and that's what caused the explosions at Fukushima okay alright somebody was asking about cost to it so the Gen 4 just we already talked about it but somebody asked here would be about 10% of regular cost of a regular site both but it's also possible that that estimate could you know multiply when you start building it all right what else should we know about generation 4 what's it what's the what's the biggest downside if you if a critic we're talking to you they'd say well this won't work because why I would say the biggest downside comes in to some of

[51:43]

the biggest downside comes in to some of the difficulties with using these new cooling sources whether it's the lead or the gas or molten salt because we don't understand it as well because we haven't we don't have the engineering down like we do with water medium so so the risk is primarily that we could not engineer it in five to ten years when it looks like it's doable but we need we would need to iterate some designs and do a lot of testing to get there I heard you talking about some of the related benefits of having nuclear because what what happens is you've got suddenly lots of inexpensive power and when you have that it makes other things possible that weren't possible before because they weren't economical for example mark question you you only use

[52:48]

example mark question you you only use about 1/3 of the heat from the plant to make electricity you could use and design into it the other 2/3 could be used to say disseminate will card to still water and make water out of that and you have fresh water from say saltwater so just like think about that to the audience think about the fact that a generation for reactor could be built to create electricity at a much lower cost and lower risk at the same time it could be using its extra heat to desalinate ocean water and you could do everything from you know populate a desert to I was I I imagine this would be not possible but I was imagining using the nuclear reactor to pump your fresh water up to the top of the hill so it can run down somewhere you know many miles away and create hydro but that probably doubles the

[53:49]

hydro but that probably doubles the expense so if we the the other use for power that I see is there a number of startups that are creating technologies for sucking co2 out of the air let's say let's say that we decided we want to do that someday and I know I know there'll be 25 comments saying well what if you take too much co2 out of the air and then all our plants will die and I'm gonna trust the science would know when to pull back I don't think they'd pull enough co2 out of the air that the plants would die but you know I will note that that's a risk but it seems to me that these big devices for pulling co2 and of the air are mostly an energy cost I don't know if I'm right about that do you suspect mark that that's true that if you brought the cost of the the energy for operating these machines way down the suddenly it would be economical absolutely the other thing

[54:52]

economical absolutely the other thing you could do with that is that during your non peak periods so your peak power period you know what everyone's using electricity you got all your reactants all your power plants making it for you know the population but then when you cut off those peak periods you could use that power to say suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and convert it into something that's useful operating a hundred percent at all times right I see people are anxious about that idea but and should be all right um anything else you'd like to add um you know actually I kinda want to go back to your discussion about the the Ralph Northam thing um you know about the aborting babies after they're born kind of thing okay I so a little background on me is I had a daughter that was born with some complications and was at the hospital at Roth North through who was educated and I will tell

[55:52]

through who was educated and I will tell you that the words that Ralph Northridge said was the exact I the exact process that I went through with my own daughter so he was just describing what is normal so just to kind of back that up in discussions with that so I didn't vote for Northland don't care for him but he was about a percent right on that he was just describing the existing process yes yeah yeah that was my that was my speculation and thank you for that that's that's good context all right so thanks mark I'm going to wind up here and hope this was good and interesting for everybody and I will talk to you all tomorrow