I really wanted to thank everyone for tuning in today. My name is Andres Martinez. I'm the editorial director of Future Tense. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate and New America and Arizona State University. It's a project where we really like to explore the impact of technology on society, which is why I'm especially excited for today's conversation that looks at, that asks the question of how nuclear is our future? We like to think in Future Tense about questions. We don't pretend to have all the answers. And I think when we're trying to inform citizens in a democracy about the direction in which we're going to take and how we're going to deploy these exciting technologies, it's really important to have conversations like this where experts like the amazing panel that we've assembled here today can help us, the rest of us, understand again the impact of technology on society. And nuclear energy is one of those subjects that I think is really important to come to with an open mind, leading with questions rather than pretending we have all the answers. And I also think it's really important for the public to kind of understand how technologies evolve over time. Nuclear energy is one of those thorny subjects when we're looking at technology where we're all kind of aware of this amazing promise. And yet also I think people have great apprehension. It's one of those subjects where balancing out the peril and the promise is difficult for those of us who are not experts. And sometimes the peril, and I'm sure we're going to get into this today, might be connected to associations with nuclear and other contexts and costs and safety issues, which as technology has evolved, we kind of have to revisit, right? And we're all aware of the sort of urgency of climate change and the environmental moment. So it's one of those, I just wanted to stipulate the obvious, which is it's an incredibly complex subject that I'm excited to learn about from all of you. You can follow Future Tents at Twitter, at Future Tents Now. We publish content that's on slate every day and we like having conversations and creating community around questions like this as we're having today.  Jason, thank you so much for agreeing to be our moderator today. Jason Bordoff is the co-founding dean of the Columbia Climate School Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy and a professor of professional practice in international and public relations at Columbia University SIPA School. Prior to that, Jason served in the White House as assistant to President Barack Obama, senior director for energy and climate change on the staff of the National Security Council. So Jason really appreciate that you're taking the time today to help us conduct this conversation. And then Maria Korsnik is president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Nuclear Industries Policy Organization here in Washington. Prior to that, she was senior VP of Northeast Operations for Excellent Corporation and chief nuclear officer at Constellation Energy. So obviously someone who brings a wealth of experience in the industry and now is charged with thinking about the sort of macro policy issues in the industry. Adam Stein is a good friend of Future Tense and we've done other things together. Adam is the associate director for Nuclear Innovation on the Climate and Energy Team at the Breakthrough Institute and where he focuses on technology policy risk and the economics of nuclear energy. It's good to see you again, Adam. And NAMSA Nangwe is a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. NAMSA comes highly recommended by our colleagues at the Center for Science and Imagination at ASU and has good friends there that she's done some work with and I'm excited that NAMSA can also inject into the conversation the perspective of someone who's done a lot of work on proliferation, nonproliferation of nuclear in again in a very different context. But so I think we have a great team assembled here and I'm gonna pass off the baton to you, Jason and I look forward to learning from you all. Thank you so much. Thanks, Andres And thanks for the invitation to join this tremendous group on this really important topic. It's a pleasure to be with you all. It's a really timely topic. Nuclear is even more than in the past, I think very much back on the radar is roughly almost exactly a decade ago since the Fukushima nuclear accident which sat back nuclear powers prospects worldwide. But I think renewed focus on the role nuclear energy can slash should slash will play in a lower carbon future to come. A lot of new investment going into both early stage nuclear technology, advanced nuclear technology, fusion, large policy commitments like Emmanuel Macron recently announcing that in France they're gonna put a major push behind nuclear power. The European Commission and its green taxonomy including nuclear power, not without some controversy. And of course controversy here in the US with some high profile folks taking to Twitter and op-ed pages and elsewhere on decisions like shutting down the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California. So really excited to hear the views of these three experts with backgrounds in the technology, the policy and the security and nonproliferation aspects having spent time in government at the National Security Council how to think about the international security and geopolitical dynamics of nuclear is a particular interest to me. So I really am looking forward to this conversation. I think the outlook for nuclear power in the United States may be brightening. Well, I'm curious to hear what folks think about that driven as I wrote recently in a column in foreign policy both by the urgency of decarbonization and getting to net zero by improvements in nuclear technology and also by some of the security concerns about the fact that at present Russia and China are building most of the world's nuclear power plants and how we should think about that from a US foreign policy perspective. So this is a great opportunity to talk about all of these with a really fantastic group of experts. They've already been introduced. So I won't repeat those introductions. I will just jump right in. And I guess the question, I'll just ask each of you to respond to it, but maybe Maria start with you is why we're talking about this. So Alaska, slightly provocative question. And for folks who read things I've written recently or in the past, you may know, I won't even believe necessarily everything I'm saying, but we have to move really fast to decarbonize. We are way behind schedule and we got to be deploying what we have on hand and solar is cheap and wind is cheap and batteries are cheap. Nuclear is expensive, at least in many parts of this country and some other parts of the world. And it takes time and the advanced nuclear technologies people are talking about take time. So why are we taking an hour out of our day today to talk about the outlook for nuclear energy? Well, thank you. And I'll jump right in to begin the conversation, I guess.  And I think we need renewables, we need and nuclear, sort of and any carbon-free options that we have because I think it's that important. And you already mentioned the fact that, you know, people are really paying a lot more attention to the climate and not only paying attention to it, but just sort of realizing how hard it's going to be and how much that we need to go and how quickly we need to get there. Thank you. Combine all of those together. I think there's really no more debate about nuclear. I think nuclear has to be a part of the solution. Adam, your thoughts about that question. Well, I agree that nuclear needs to be part of the solution and it definitely is a combined effort between renewables and nuclear and other clean energy sources such as geothermal. It's not one or the other, but from a system planning point of view, you need sources such as nuclear or geothermal that provide the firm resources that renewables do not provide. So it's a different resource. It's not just we need all of the above to build out enough generation, even though we do. It's also that it provides unique characteristics that are valuable. I follow up questions, but no, so let me turn to you. Sure. Thank you for having me. I think it's, as Maria said, the discussion on nuclear energy is an atom as well. It's a discussion that a lot of people think it's like an either or situation. So it's like either you fully commit to being interested in nuclear energy and whatever concerns you have are ridiculous and let's move forward or you're completely against it. I would definitely say I'm in the camp as we're, I think most of us are speaking on this panel benefiting from nuclear power generation as we speak. I am definitely in the camp of saying, yes, I understand why people have concerns. I do believe those concerns need to be addressed at the same time as we explore non-carbon options that are going to help us globally deal with this crisis. So that will be my answer. Adam, let me just follow up. You said something I think is pretty important and wanna ask you to elaborate a little bit on it. You talked about firm dispatchable resources. Talk a little bit more about what you mean by that and why they're important and how big a role they need to play. Are we talking about the last 10% of the grid for a few days a year when demand is super high because it's very hot or how big a role do you see them needing to play particularly with improvements in energy storage that might allow us to think differently about the role intermittent sources of energy could play. Sure. So most studies find that you need about 30% firm generation of some sort. And currently we have much, much more than that because gas and coal can provide firm generation as well. And that's power that can be dispatched. That's power that can be dispatched when you need it to provide energy to meet demand instead of when it is available such as intermittent weather dependent sources such as wind provide energy when the wind's available but they can't provide energy exactly when you ask it to. So most studies find that you need about 30% firm generation of some kind even with about 70% renewable grids which is a very high penetration of renewable resources. And to do that, you need in a decarbonized grid you need a clean source of energy and you have potentially hydro, geothermal and nuclear that provide these clean firm generation sources. Geothermal is limited currently because advanced geothermal is still being developed that can provide sources where needed. Right now it's limited to where those resources are which are where heat's located close to the surface. Hydro is very limited where you can site new hydro in the US it's very close to being maxed out but in other parts of the world there are still a lot of hydro resources that could be tapped but nuclear is the one option that you can put pretty much anywhere you need it to provide the energy when you need it such as at night or when the wind isn't blowing because variable renewable resources don't meet demand exactly when you want it. And the, I assume Maria you agree with that can you talk about but expand on it if you want to also kind of when we talk about the outlook for nuclear in the United States maybe we'll come back and talk about the rest of the world in a moment too. The conversation seems very much focused on how to prevent early retirement of existing nuclear as opposed to are we gonna be building lots of new nuclear in the future? Can you talk about each of those and what you see as the outlook for them? Sure, happy to and I agree very much with what Adam said a healthy grid and a reliable grid is that mix of I'll just say the sort of always there resources and then of course the intermittent resources and I think we also need to maybe step back take some of the emotion out of this and just say, hey listen we all want reliable electricity the world that we have depends on it as we look forward for decarbonization we're gonna be even more dependent on electricity because there's a lot of things today that use other sources that we're gonna put on electricity cars and transportation as an example so that grid of the future becomes even more important and it's important that you decarbonize that again as we're going to lean on it even more and when we look at some resources they're gonna require quite a bit of transmission so whether that's wind or solar and so you have to look at it's not just building the generation source it's building that generation source and connecting it to the grid and we have to look at how can we do that sort of the most effective and reliable way and that's where things like nuclear and other carbon free sources come and I go back to it's a teamwork event we wanna do this in the best way for communities best way for a reliable grid best way for affordability best way for a just transition all kinds of different lenses if you will that we can look on it and I'll kind of leave it there because there might be different directions that you wanna go I'm happy to go in any of those directions with you but the bottom line is we gotta take a look at sort of making that happen in the smartest way and here in the United States and then of course outside of the United States by leading with some American technologies you started by saying well maybe at first principle we need to sort of stop shutting down the things that we already have and I couldn't agree with you more nuclear is carbon free it's dispatchable I mean it's there around the clock and it's a very reliable source very high what we call capacity factor meaning it's there when you need it as a US fleet we have just under 100 reactors and for our US fleet we had a greater than 92% capacity as an example for last year we should be very proud of our nuclear fleet we run nuclear plants extremely well here in the United States and so all of that sort of carbon free power honestly we've been getting it for years and years and years but we just really didn't value it as much for the carbon free nature that it provides and I think now what's bringing sort of nuclear more into the conversation is that realization that it is carbon free and it's reliable and it's always there and so in some cases you are seeing based on economics some of these nuclear plants being shut down and in some cases in effort for people to do good things they wanted to encourage this or encourage that they put sort of different incentives in place also the low cost of natural gas all of these pressures have really put pressure on the current nuclear fleet and many of the markets and that's really what's pushing pushing nuclear out of the market the real challenge is it's hard to see and it's actually it's hard to watch to close down these highly reliable very well performing plants providing all that carbon free energy because when you shut that down sure you get a little bit of wind and solar but the majority of replacements for nuclear plants are gas plants, right? And so not only did you lose that reliable source you just add it to your carbon footprint. Yeah, I was gonna say for folks watching listen to what you just said and said well if they're having trouble competing economically and there are things that are cheaper let's use those I assume that ties back to your earlier comment that we may not be fully accounting for the carbon free value of the generation. That's right the market doesn't recognize that today when we work that through and sort of rationalize carbon in the market all of these things I think will easily work themselves out I think the challenge we have is we need to get through that and right now the market does not recognize the carbon free attribute. No, I'm curious to your view on kind of the outlook for nuclear in the United States or you bullish or bearish and if we were properly accounting for climate costs and carbon CO2 costs how much would that change that? And then I'd love to hear your thoughts next about sort of elsewhere in the world but maybe start with the US. Okay, thank you. I think the main issue that arises when we talk about nuclear energy because as I was listening to both Adam and Maria I don't disagree with the more technical aspects of it but I think to divorce all of the horrible nuclear incidents that have happened and you mentioned Fukushima earlier as to how that affects public perception and public opinion and how there's a lack of trust, right? So Maria, you're talking about how safe it is and it's a non-carbon option but then folks are thinking, okay so Fukushima, I read that they're about to pump billions of barrels of contaminated water waste water into the ocean because nobody could have predicted a Fukushima incident. So I feel that when it comes to nuclear energy especially in the United States when we look at Nevada when we look at the whole Yucca mountain debate I think it is always important as much as it's not fun to bring those things up but I think acknowledging that those concerns exist and they exist for good reason so that it's to say even if we talk about risk mitigate the management of risk mitigation or analysis yes, the risks are probably going to be from a scientific perspective minimal but when it does happen, right? It has such a broad impact on people and our psyches and we're in year three of a global pandemic and we're just thinking about all the things that nobody warned us could be bad for us. So I think when we're having the debate about nuclear energy especially in the United States it is important to also incorporate that element of the debate to acknowledge the fact that yes there have been mishaps, this is new technology it's only been around for less than 100 years it's done a lot and it can do more and it will continue to be a player in the energy sector I do not believe that we're ever going to be at a point where people are going to be like oh no, we can just never have it I think as we are seeing in countries like Germany that are moving away from nuclear energy and that gap is starting to show itself to say oh wow, they need something else to fill this in so I don't think the part about nuclear energy in general like is it going to go the way of the dodo I don't think there is any concerns with that regard but I do believe that when having the conversation on nuclear energy that acknowledgement of all of those things that have gone wrong and rebuilding public trust in the technology is going to be key. And I think as you said before when you talk about the US it has the most amount of nuclear power plants. So people look to see what happened in the US how well has this worked? Okay, is this something that we want to bring into our particular countries or our situation? So it's a, in order to have a win-win situation I think that needs to be addressed more directly. For sure and we were going to get there and you took us there so that's great. We absolutely need to talk about the concerns over the risks of nuclear energy over safety issues and also waste disposal. But I just want to make sure I understood your view based on what you just said is what you were saying. Given those concerns and those risks is your view that those can be addressed and can be managed and nuclear will and should play a larger role in a low carbon energy mix or do you think that those concerns are such that actually we should be much more cautious about moving forward with nuclear energy? Well, the information I have regarding the next generation of nuclear power plants, et cetera is talking about a few years out like it's not happening tomorrow. So I think, as companies and as entities try to move towards promoting that next generation of power that is the perfect time to start confidence building measures in terms of public trust and awareness. So I am not going to say that I'm completely against nuclear energy. I do think it's going to play a role and it might even play a bigger role if the public trust element can be addressed. Yeah, well, Maria, I'm sure you have thoughts about that and Noms is right, of course, about the public perception with events like Fukushima or Chernobyl or others but talk a little bit about where the safety issues are today, how significant and addressable you believe them to be and how will that change moving forward with some of the advanced nuclear technologies that I want to come to in a moment and talk about whether they're going to be realized or not but that people are talking about. Sure, thank you. Well, I spent 35 years of my career operating nuclear power plants here in the United States. So I can say with high confidence that the plants that we operate here in the United States are operated extremely well and I appreciate and I agree with her statements that where people have concerns, it's happy to bring up those concerns and to have those conversations. We don't shy from those discussions at all. And I think just to appreciate the many layers of defense in depth, if you will, that we put in place at our nuclear plants today are really a strong benefit and demonstrate the high reliability and high capacity factor that I mentioned to you, very resilient resources that we have today. So anyway, happy to go in any direction that you want for those conversations. Simply to say, as we look to the next generation of nuclear that's coming and it is coming quickly, she mentioned, it'll be a few years. It'll be a few short years, quite frankly. There are new designs that are talking about having pilot plants built in the 2026, 2027 timeframe, others by the end of the 2020s. And so it's in nuclear is very much positioning itself to demonstrate and show what some of these new technology offerings are, not only here for the United States, but outside of the United States, there's a lot of interest on building US technology. And the reason there's so much interest in building that US technology is because of the trust with the United States. Russia and China are very bullish on nuclear. I think China is building 20 different reactors right now. And I think they maybe have 30 more on the drawing board. And so both Russia and China are being very bullish and very aggressive. And I think that's something from a national security perspective. Honestly, we really do need to take on, we need to understand. And it really does create a dynamic where there is a lot of interest in US technologies for these other countries to wanna do business with us. And at the same time, we are benefiting from the fantastic national labs that we have here in the United States that have been very innovative, very creative, bringing forth some interesting ideas, partnering with the private sector. And we're gonna have the benefit of that beautiful innovation playing out here over the next few years. And it's gonna give all of us a chance to really see and understand the benefits of these different makes and models, if you will. One really exciting thing about these new makes and models that are coming out is I'm gonna use the word approachable. I think it's gonna make nuclear more approachable than perhaps the nuclear you see today. The nuclear today are these very large plants. Again, and there's nothing wrong with large, but that's sort of the only view that we have of nuclear today. Well, the tomorrow's nuclear is gonna have some smaller and some really small called micro reactors. And as these reactors get smaller, they're gonna be able to be more approachable, more connected, if you will, connected to businesses perhaps, connected near cities perhaps. Today in some remote locations, honestly, you don't even have a grid that would be able to support a large reactor. Think about, I don't know, in the middle of Alaska, for example, and when nuclear gets smaller and more approachable, all of a sudden nuclear is an option there. Nuclear could be an option on an island such as Puerto Rico, for example. So that nuclear of tomorrow has so much more flexibility to team with wind and solar and to be that backbone, if you will, of the grid, even if it's a very remote grid. And I think that's a very exciting option for the nuclear that we're gonna know tomorrow. Quick follow-up, and then I don't wanna come to you. So the idea, what you said to Noamso, that are coming faster than people think, for those who might look at experience in South Carolina or Georgia, where things took twice as long and cost twice as much as we thought they would, why will that not happen again? Yeah, and honestly, I would say, as a nuclear industry, we have to own that, right? We have to own that reputation, that things take too long. And in some of the examples that you just provided, and we need to take that reputation and we need to say, okay, and that's why we need to show, we need to demonstrate. And that's why these pilot plants that I'm talking about coming online over the next few years, I think very much will demonstrate, all right, you said it would be on this schedule. Well, what kind of schedule was it? You said it was gonna be roughly this cost profile. Well, what cost profile is it? Because I think these different makes and models, what we know today, we have water-cooled reactors. Well, those reactors of tomorrow, some could be water-cooled, some could be molten salt, some could be metal. There's all kinds of different opportunities there. And so I think we're to the point where it's sort of show me. Let's demonstrate. And even that first one, won't be your most cost-effective one. That first one with anything that you build is gonna be a little bit more, but you'll be able to get that line of sight. What's also really exciting is it's not just, this isn't just sort of a US conversation. So we have some examples where we have one that's interested here to be built in the United States. Interestingly enough, Canada also just selected that design. They wanna build it in the 2028 timeframe. Interestingly enough, Poland is interested in that design and they're interested in a handful of the same design. So when we talk about getting to nth of a kind and getting to sort of a regular rhythm of build, we have to open our aperture. It's not just getting to nth of a kind here in the United States. It's in a relatively short order. You're gonna have that same design built in three different countries. You're gonna get smarter, quicker, faster in terms of how to build and how to get that supply chain moving. And that's what you see for this next phase of nuclear that there's a hunger and to satisfy that hunger, there's going to be all these different makes and models. And I think in pretty short order, we're gonna get to a regular build routine. Adam, a lot's been said. So I'll let you respond to any of it that you want, but in particular, and I'm gonna bring audience questions in for the next half hour, work them into the conversation. Several about the safety concerns that people have. So you can speak to that in particular, but anything else you wanna touch on? I'll quickly go back to the build time and cost. It's been pretty clear that the plans in Georgia and South Carolina are behind and over budget, but I would say that that's basically the case for most major projects in the U.S. right now. It's not necessarily that we can't build large nuclear plants, it's that we can't build large projects right now on time or on budget. You can look at the high-speed rail in California or the big dig in Boston. Any major project has been way, way behind and over budget. Now, to speak to the risk, this is an area that I've done a lot of research in actually. Nuclear is the safest form of major energy by terawatt hour. It's also regulated to a much safer profile than actually we can detect in the population. The safety goal for the NRC for regulation is more stringent by an order of magnitude than you would actually be able to see in epidemiological studies. So the question is, is it safe? Yes, it's the safest currently and it's been the safest for decades, even more so than renewable energy sources. So it's not a question of is it safe? It is the question of making sure that's communicated to the population because they need to be comfortable with it, to be comfortable with building it, not to necessarily just say, yes, it's safe, listen to me, they need to actually want to build new nuclear in their communities and to do so they need to understand its risk profile and its benefits and the energy industry, I'm not saying NEI specifically, energy as a whole has not communicated the safety of nuclear the same way that they communicated that about renewables and therefore there's a little bit of a skewed mentality about it that needs to be addressed. Now, in terms of innovation and new designs for safety, there's new fuels that have already been qualified that are essentially meltdown proof for new reactors called Triso. It would take a heat rate of much higher than the reactor could actually achieve for it to melt down. There are other coolant methods that essentially shut down the reactor automatically if it gets too hot. So the reactor would shut down before it would be able to achieve melting of the fuel. A lot of passive safety systems that just through physics prevent situations like happen at Fukushima. Ken, I wanna ask quick follow up and I'll apologize for the noise in the background if you hear any. I agree with you, it's very hard to do large construction projects in the US but it seems easy outside my window right now in the streets of New York. That just for, you made a comment, nuclear is the safest form of energy. And I'm just wondering whether people listening might be saying, well, wait, I remember Fukushima and I remember from island and I remember Chernobyl. I suspect for coal, you're talking about things like air pollution that people who are saying I don't remember big solar and wind accidents. Just explain a little bit more why you believe that to be true and what you think the evidence shows. Sure, so the majority of fatalities from fossil fuels are from pollution, yes. But there's the fatalities caused by Three Mile Island was zero. In fact, nobody received a appreciable dose. The fatalities from Fukushima were not caused by radiation just a poorly orchestrated evacuation, quite frankly, a very large tsunami in earthquake. There were some fatalities from radiation at Chernobyl but as the cancer studies have progressed over the years it's much less than they originally thought it would be. The tritium release of water from Fukushima that was brought up earlier is actually eight times less tritium content than what is considered safe for drinking water. So it's not a polluting source of radiation, it's higher than most water sources have in their background and just naturally occurring. So these are things that concern people and it's understandable that they concern people but they're not actual sources of mortality to the population. If you look at direct deaths from coal, there have been more coal miners killed in the US this year or last year I should say in 2021 than there have been in the nuclear industry in the US since it started. And that's not from pollution, that's actual direct deaths. And if you look at solar and wind, there are direct deaths, unfortunately, in construction of solar projects, workers that have been injured on the job, things like that. So the risk profile in those industries, while I'm sure it will come down with learning, currently is higher than the nuclear. I wanna bring more questions from the audience unless you have any ones that have come in on that. If not, I'll turn to- Yeah, I guess I just wanted to say, I personally think there is a disconnect between proponents of nuclear energy and how they talk about these legitimate concerns that people have about safety. Because like I said before, nobody ever thought Fukushima could happen. It did not factor in the modeling who would have thought that an earthquake tsunami would do what it did. From the report that I read from the IAEA and the reports that I read from other sources, it was like, this was an event that nobody really thought could happen. And it was very educational and instructional and it's helped with the safety of nuclear power plants going forward. But I don't think it's helpful to say, it's only 2% because once again, that connection, that human connection that we have when we see something like Fukushima happen or we see something like Three Mile Island happen. No matter what the science says, you have to address that part, that human part where people feel that fear or that uncertainty. And I feel like, as we talk about science and the war on information and disinformation and expertise as a scientific community, we have to do more to sort of like bridge that gap with people to say, yes, these are the stats, these are the facts. I understand your concerns and how can we like address them in a way that would make you comfortable? I just wanted to add that because I feel like it is very helpful. That's very helpful. We do the perception, the large incidents, daily auto fatalities versus an airplane crash. I mean, there's a question of perception and then there's also a question of real risk and I'm just trying to make sure we're talking about both just so people understand them. And one of the other questions that has come in and is on another concern is not just safety but the disposal of radioactive waste. And I was wondering if maybe no, so you could start but I'd love to hear each of you talk a little bit about how we should think about that and what the solutions are. And to the extent we may not have all the solutions we need, whether the current approach of storage either on site or in potentially large central sites like we've debated in the US for a while and Nevada, do those make sense near term, long term? How should we think about disposal of radioactive waste or other ways to deal with radioactive waste besides disposal? I think on the radioactive waste topic as well, there's a lot of not so great things out there about the disposal of radioactive waste. So I think, I know Finland has progressed very far in devising something underground. That is what scientists at the moment think would be like the safest and we're talking not just like nuclear physicists but geologists, et cetera. And I'm sure that is going to continue, like in terms of nuclear safety, I'm sure we're going to continue to get better at it in general, but we cannot ignore the fact that there are 100,000 tons of radioactive waste right now sitting around above ground waiting to be disposed of. There has been a lot of talk in the US, for example, with regard to like the politics of disposing of that waste, clashing with the science of it. But the conclusion is we talked about it for 30, 40 years and it hasn't happened yet. So I feel like once again, radioactive waste is bad. We all agree, we want it to be as safely disposed of as possible, but it's very terrifying when you hear that the half-life of radioactive waste is 100,000 years beyond our even imagination. So yeah, I would stop there and let the others jump in. Okay, Maria, let me come to you. Yeah, I'll just jump in there, be intentionally a bit provocative. I love nuclear waste and so I would share that sort of one man's trash is another man's treasure. And so the thing we call waste from commercial nuclear power plants today has 95% good energy in that thing we call waste. So the reality is today, we don't have a process to use that, but our grandchildren and their grandchildren and others I can promise you are gonna want to unleash this energy in a way that's helpful and useful. So I think the responsible thing to do is to safely store it while we're sort of figuring out what next steps are. And again, I would look to the nuclear industry and I would say we've been very responsible relative to the storing of this waste. We know exactly where it is, we know exactly what it is and it's being very safely stored. I would say it's not efficiently stored which is what you have both mentioned, right? We have it sort of scattered about at different sites and why are we doing that? Well, because the government has not made good on its responsibility to ultimately collect this waste. It's not that it's a difficult solution. It's difficult politically, but it's not difficult scientifically. And as she just mentioned, Finland recently made progress on their deep geologic repository. Sweden is also making progress. Canada has made some significant progress on a consent-based siting process. I think France is making some progress.  We have a lot of real estate in the United States. I'm confident that we can figure it out as well. We just literally need to compel the government to appreciate that ultimately a long-term waste storage solution is their responsibility and we're happy to help to make all that come true. But quite frankly, we do need to get on with it. I'll stop by just a minute to say, there's other forms of generation that create waste, many of which you're breathing. And so you might say, oh, well, they don't have waste. Well, it's because we are all breathing that waste because it's just literally emitted into the air. And so the fact that this waste again is understood, it's contained, it's stored, it's overseen, I think, and the value is that it has good energy in it that we can use again. And these new reactors that we're talking about that we mentioned that are coming, they can use that kind of sort of transformed energy. So I see a wonderful sort of coming together of new technologies that can use what we're calling waste today, which will create opportunities to transition what we have in our waste stream today to more useful sources. So I just, I see a wonderful opportunity playing out in over the next decade plus. And I'm just confident that we're gonna put our heads together and take some smart steps forward. I think you answered one of the other questions from Steven Curtis, isn't it possible to recycle? You spent nuclear fuel in fast reactors. That's what you were just talking about a moment ago. Absolutely. Adam, anything you wanna add to that? I'll also add that we're already recycling or plan to recycle some spent fuel from the one of the first Idaho National Lab reactors as new fuel for one of the new demonstration reactors. So we're already in the process of trying to do that. Some of the new designs not only are designed to use spent fuel as new fuel as you just mentioned, but fast reactors in general will burn most of the long, longer lived vision products in the normal process. And therefore the fuel or the spent fuel will have much shorter lifetimes, not hundreds of thousands of years, but hundreds of years that it'll actually be radioactive. And thus much easier to deal with. So it's innovation is already pushing us towards how can we address this problem for new reactor designs in addition to using new reactor designs to address the existing spent fuel? There's a question here. I'd love to know the answer to it says, I'd love to know what Adam and Maria believe are the strongest arguments on the other side. And so it was an interesting thought exercise. You clearly believe nuclear has an important role to play in the future. When you hear arguments for those who are more skeptical or don't support nuclear, some of you might say that's just totally wrong and some you might say, well, no, they have a really good point. I think the pros outweigh the cons, but I get that that's a legitimate issue. What do you think one or two of those might be? I would say that the strongest argument is the concern over further proliferation of nuclear weapons because having more nuclear reactors out there means more nuclear fuel out there. Although I would then say that many of the new designs are expected to be long life cores that you would not refuel in the field. So if they went to a country that doesn't have reprocessing already that they would need to make weapons that they wouldn't have that technology, the whole reactor core would come back to the initiating country. But it's definitely a concern that people should address through proactive safeguards. Do I want to come? I'd love to hear on the nonproliferation question, so what you have to say about that, but maybe I'll let Maria answer that audience question and then I'll come to you. It's a toughie for me because I would agree with the statement that he made, but I would also say, and maybe I'll go more to her comments earlier, which is I think it's less about the science and maybe just more about the perception and that perhaps we just need to do a better job sort of appreciating what the perceptions are and sort of communicating in a way that we do value those perceptions and value the facts and sort of enter in a constructive dialogue around it because honestly, and again, I've been in the nuclear field for many, many, many years. And I've, I just, I can't fathom a reason, appreciating the situation that the world finds itself in. I cannot fathom a reason why we would not want to use this wonderful energy source to help reach the solutions that ultimately that we need. And I'll just kind of add a thought there. We talk a lot about electricity. I mean, the reality is it's much more than electricity. When you decarbonize, it's not just go decarbonize your electric sector, right? It needs to be the whole economy. So think about things you do today. How do you make steel? How do you make some of these sort of large manufacturing things? How do you do all of that and not use fossil fuels? Again, I come back to nuclear. Nuclear can give you electricity, that's what you want. It can give you hydrogen, if that's what you want. It can give you high temperature steam, if that's what you want. And so all of a sudden, you have this very versatile energy source that's able to give you a variety of outputs. You can have electricity during the day and hydrogen at night. You can have hydrogens during the day and give the high temperature steam. So it is just such a fantastic opportunity for us to integrate in order to decarbonize the entire economy. Noam, can you take broadening aperture beyond the U.S., talk a little bit about the Don proliferation concerns that Adam talked about, and then also where do you see nuclear making, where are you more optimistic that we're gonna see advances in nuclear? And then how should we think about that? Maybe they're in countries that it's a good thing. Maybe there's some that raise concerns for you. Thank you to Adam for bringing up the Divergent of Nuclear Energy for Nefarious Purposes, because that is what I mainly focus a lot of my time and energy on. And I would definitely say that, Vipin Narang just recently published a book and it's about how some countries, how some countries go nuclear and why some do not. And the findings in the book show that 29 countries made efforts to become nuclear. 19 have specifically tried to develop nuclear bombs and 10 have succeeded. And in his conclusion, he was basically arguing that while nuclear technology exists, nuclear weapons are unlikely to go away and it's not a problem to be solved, but it's a problem to be managed. I personally am somebody who fervently hopes and works towards abolition of nuclear weapons altogether, but I think it is definitely a point worth elaborating on to say, yes, as long as the tech is there, people can much like the internet use it for good or use it for bad. So when we talk about the non-proliferation risks of nuclear energy, I personally feel like it is a concern, but my main concern is more on environmental impacts and all of those other things because I think from a global citizen perspective, I think we're a lot better at being able to see when someone is doing something nefarious or trying to as opposed to we have IAEA safeguards, we have a very robust non-proliferation regime out there, but my concern will always probably lean more towards than the safety aspect of it. And your second question, I would love it if you reviewed it. Well, I was asking, it doesn't have to be you, anyone who wants to come in on this, I'm just curious how you see the outlook for nuclear outside the United States where, see, you know. I think it's gonna have to be a lot more affordable to be honest with you because affordability for developing countries is a major factor. We know that currently a lot of the institutes like that help with aid or developmental aid do not fund nuclear energy projects. So I think if it's going to become something that is a lot more widespread outside of countries that already have in preexisting infrastructure, it'll have to become cheaper and maybe it will in this nuclear future, nuclear energy future we're imagining. Yeah, I'm actually very bullish on nuclear outside of the United States. So I just in this past year, have done quite a bit of traveling and interest in Poland, interest in Ukraine, interest in Bulgaria. You saw French President Macron recently make an announcement about how they are, you know, going to build out more nuclear. And that's kind of a bit of a turnaround. It was only just a few years ago. I think they were talking about, you know, reducing their, reducing their fleet. And so to kind of come around now and they're talking about building not only large but also small reactors. I know Canada is building, I've been to Brazil and Brazil is very interested as well. And so I agree with her statement. I think that at the end of the day, there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of potential. But I think some of these new makes and models that we're bringing to the fore, we have a lot of people looking to say, okay, I really want that, you know, sort of how much is it going to cost? How quickly can, you know, can you build something? And so again, I think we're really in the cat bird seat over these next few years, you know, three to five years to really see some of these pilot plants get a little bit further along so that people can get an idea relative to their cost as well as their build schedule. But there's a lot of interest, a lot of discussion. I'd say has United Kingdom, I probably forgot to mention them, but I think the conversation just in the last two to three years has really shifted. And just on that point, as I think I mentioned just at the outset, if you look at the reactors planned around the world, more than most of them are being built by Russia and China. So is the optimism you see for nuclear around the world, does it, should it raise concerns for European and US foreign policy and energy security officials as well? Well, I think it does and it has. And I think it's also one of the reasons, quite frankly, it's what the United States does best. We innovate, we bring things to the market. And yes, I think Russia and China have varied deliberately from a geopolitical perspective, I think they've divided up and said, here's all the places I'm gonna build my reactor and why are they doing that, right? They're doing that because they really do wanna control your energy supply. I think you don't have to look much farther than the gas pipeline over in Europe today and look at some of the challenges that can arise when somebody can control your source of energy. And so we really need to pay attention to that and we need to demonstrate and show that American technology and partnering with America is a good thing. Quite frankly, when you build a nuclear power plant together, you form a 100 year relationship with a country, right? You're gonna design it, you're gonna operate it for 80 to 100 years, you're gonna decommission it. It's a very long-term, very strong relationship. And so we should use the connection of sort of that sort of nuclear understanding and nuclear partnership, if you will, for building commercial nuclear plants to our geopolitical advantage. We're out of time, but in 20 seconds, have you seen the current energy crunch in Europe change the conversation about nuclear there and the outlook for nuclear in Europe? Absolutely. We are out of time. And I wish we had more time because there's so much, many other audience questions, many other questions that I had, but Adam Nomsa, Maria, thanks for making time to be with us and for so candidly and clearly sharing your insights about the role nuclear energy is playing today and will should play in the future. I learned a lot. So really, really appreciate it. Thanks to everyone for joining us today. And I invite you to keep an eye out for more future tense events going forward. Thanks again, everyone. Have a good day.


This is by far the worst time in modern human history. But wait a minute, Wagner, and you say what about the Black Death in the 14th century? What about the Second World War and the First World War? Last century. Weren't these periods much worse than today? No, they were not. And the reason they were not is because institutions were intact. The individual had suffered, families broke apart, people died. But there was always someone and somewhere to turn to. There was a family, there was a community, there was a village, there was the church, there was the monarchy, there was the feudal lord, there was always an address, the buck stopped somewhere. Today, there are no institutions. Everything fell apart. Societies are anomic. They have no norms. Everything malfunctions. But in addition to that, this day and age we live in has a few attributes, the likes of which had never been seen in human history. This is not only the worst period in modern history. This is an unprecedented time and era throughout human history. We are so lost and disoriented and dislocated and confused and paranoid because these are, this is an uncharted territory. This is Terra incognita. We've never been here before. We've never been here before with regards to each and every one of these trends and we definitely have never been here before. With the confluence of these cataclysmic, tectonic trends. So individuals can be forgiven for falling apart. Mental illness is on the rise, skyrocketing only this year alone, 2021. The rate of depression, clinical major depression, had increased by 25 percent single year. Pandemics, wars, aggression, murder, mayhem, crime, corruption, they've always been with us. They are part of human nature. They're an integral, integral, determinant and dimension of our identity. They're not going away. They're not going to go away. They're gonna be, they're here forever. They're here to stay. But never before, never before, had we reacted to these facts of life, the way we are doing today. And it is actually the sum of our reactions that had created this dystopia, this nightmarish surrealistic world that we live in. And I want to use this opportunity, your patience in my time, to touch upon a few of the unprecedented attributes, hitherto unheard of, of today's day and age. It's a shocking period, and it keeps shocking every single day for decades now, last hundred years at least. First of all, this is the age of splitting. This is the age of black versus white thinking. Everyone is a hundred percent right or a thousand percent wrong. There's nothing in between. There are no subtleties. There are no nuances. There's no gray. No one is judged as the complex compounded beings that we are. The world is perceived as a morality play of angels versus demons. Evil fighting good. And we of course are always on the side of angels. Public intellectuals, experts, real and fake, gurus, coaches, that thrive on this splitting.  Splitting is an industry.  It is a hallmark of immaturity, and it is the antidote to empathy. If you split, you can't be empathic, and if you're empathic, you can never split. Splitting precludes cooperation, shuns compromise, fosters conflict. If you see the other party is all bad, there's no possibility for bipartisanship. There's no possibility for collaboration. There's no possibility of building anything together. Teamwork. There's no possibility of forgiving. And so this is the age of splitting where we carry and bear grudges forever and ever because they are part of our confirmation bias. Our grievances had become our identity. This is the age of victimhood. As the famous sociologist Campbell had said, we have transitioned from the age of reputation and dignity to the age of victimhood.  Victimhood confers a flawless, blemishless, angelic status on the victim. And of course the abuser, the wrongdoer, the offender, they are demonic without a single redeeming feature. Splitting does not let you put yourself in someone else's shoes, does not allow you to understand the other or to at least try to. Splitting is a major problem, and it is at the core of everything that's happening nowadays. It is also the age of death. It is the age starting with the industrial revolution where material goods inanimate objects, dead objects, are considered far more valuable than human life. Protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding, we value human life today much less than we had done, for example, in the Middle Ages. Human life is a dispensable commodity convertible into a bottom line. Human life is used to produce consumer goods in slavery conditions. Human life is sacrificed in a variety of ways, armed conflicts, other ways. It is the age of death because we elevate and venerate and worship the dead over the living, the inanimate over the animate, the material over the good. The age of death has two subversive, unexpected effects. One, we all become consumer goods. We all become consumables. We are commoditized and commodified. We, in order to acquire value, in order to be considered valuable, we brand ourselves. We become brands, commercial brands, brand me. And others perceive us as consumer goods, something to be purchased, used and then discarded. That's the first effect of the death cult that we call Western civilization, or post-modern civilization. The second effect of the age of death is that we develop a death wish. If death becomes the predominant value, if to be dead is considered better than to be alive, then we all wish to be dead. We perceive death as the ultimate state of being. It's a form of enlightenment. Death brings us happiness. We buy a smartphone. We feel elated and euphoric.  So, when we acquire death, when we interact with death, we are contaminated, we're infected by death itself, and we develop a death wish. Indeed, suicidality, straightforward suicidality, and numerous other forms of slow motion, indirect suicide, for example, substance abuse, are under rise. They're exploding exponentially, because if we are nothing but consumer goods, if we perceive ourselves and others as commodities, then death is the natural state, and life is the aberration, the unusual exception. People don't know what to do with life. Their lives are meaningless, because only death confers meaning. Only material dead goods equate significance.  It is the age of spectacle, Gidebo said it. Anomic societies, as Emil Durkheim had observed, tend to foster suicide in individuals, but also they tend to bring about an agenda, mental suicide. Now, one way to commit mental suicide is to not be you, to vanish, to disappear as an authentic voice, and an authentic self, and reappear as a theater production, as an apparition, as an appearance, as a facade, as a camouflage, as a disguise. And so, people place much more emphasis, almost exclusive emphasis, on appearances. How do they appear to others? How do others react to their appearance? The need to be seen is overwhelming. And in order to be noticed and seen, and in order to appear the right way, to position yourself relatively to others, in an advantageous place, in order to accomplish all this, people escalate their behaviors. They lose their boundaries. They go nuts. It's a period of crazy making where everyone tries to outdo others in order to gain not 15 minutes of attention, but 15 seconds of likes. Social media are the reification of this age of the spectacle. It is the age of self-sufficiency. Everyone seeks autonomy, agency, independence, and self-efficacy. While in the past, until the very recent past, interdependence was hallowed and praised, and relationships implied relatedness, implied interconnectivity, implied interdependence. These were the values of humanity throughout history until more or less 40 years ago. But now the overriding value is aloneness, atomization, separateness, self-sufficiency as a form of individuation. People seek to separate from other people, and by separating from them, become individuals. Individuality therefore, one's sense of self and personality now depend crucially on antagonism. You are who you are in opposition to someone, in contrast to someone, as distinct from someone, separate from someone, and so we drift apart. We drift apart. Yes, we are self-sufficient. Technology affords us this self-containment. We can all become schizoid hermits, and shortly with the metaverse, we'll be able to have everything right at our doorstep and inside our apartments. Sex included, virtual sex, the workplace. We don't need to go to work anymore. We can work from home. Entertainment. We don't need to go to a cinema. We have everything at home. And sex, you know, there will be artificial intelligence apps. There will be holographic pornography. There will be homebound. People will stop seeing each other. They will stop meeting each other. It's already happening. 2016 was the first year where a majority of men and women had no encounter with the opposite sex of any kind. And so whatever contact there is between human beings had become transactional, cursory, peremptory, perfectory, meaningless, emotionless, passing, fleeting, forgettable. When we start to forget each other, that's the end. And we're in the age of forgetting. Our biggest emotional investment is in forgetting, not in remembering. We try to forget traumas. We try to erase bad relationships. We try to put behind us all kinds of things. Self-help, the self-help industry is all about becoming someone else. Discontinuity, breaking up with the past, deleting and reframing it. This is no memory, individual, institutional, or societal. Culture is about instant gratification, the here and now. And even in psychotherapy, we have mindfulness therapies, which tell you, forget the past, forget the future, focus on the here and now. It is the age of the present, because you're self-sufficient only in the present. It is also the age of risk aversion. People are terrified of risks of all kinds, big and small. They go into an ordinate lens in time, resources and investment in order to avoid risks. Ironically, this only serves to increase risk. The only way to avoid risk is by working with other people, collaborating and cooperating towards a common goal, striving towards a common aim and purpose with a clear, unified and shared agenda. In the age of splitting, risk rises exponentially in the age of self-sufficiency. Any small break in the supply chain, any downtime in the technology renders you vulnerable. So this extreme risk aversion actually has led to a society, to a civilization which is much more brittle and fragile than anything we had ever seen before, witness what's happening around us. Have a look at how we responded to COVID-19. Ukraine, we are surrounded by ever-increasing risks, even as we try our best to avoid them. We believe that by avoiding risks, we're going to live longer, we're going to have better lives and so on. It's narcissism. Each one of us is a God, each one of us is of cosmic significance, and so we need to preserve our bodies and minds and our environment, neutralize and sterilize our environment so that it's risk free. This risk aversion is an aversion to life itself. It's a rejection of life because life is risk, growth is loss, development is pain, suffering is the engine of evolution and progress. It should be minimized to the best of our ability but it should never be avoided altogether because to avoid it altogether is to inhabit cemeteries known as cities. Only in a cemetery there are no risks anymore. It is the age of magical thinking, confronted with a harsh reality which we cannot control outside of our grasp with zero influence, significance or meaning, where we are nothing but ants or atoms or statistics. Confronted with this, we develop a belief in magic, magical thinking. If I only put my mind to it, good things will happen. The sheer force of my will will rearrange the universe to cater to my needs. I'm an angel, there's no flaw in me. I'm blameless and blemishless. All these are forms of magical thinking. The belief that one's thoughts and motions and moods can and do affect reality. It's a form of impaired reality testing and we all live in an age of magical thinking because as Clark, the famous sci-fi author had said, modern science is indistinguishable from magic, modern technology is indistinguishable from magic. It's magical. So with this magic in our hands, the smartphone for example, we feel as wizards do. We are wizardly, we are all harry potters and this magical thinking draws us further and further away from reality.  We withdraw into fantasy. It's a psychological, pernicious psychological defense mechanism and in this fantasy we are grandiose, all-knowing, all-powerful, at least in potential. We have infinite ability to change and transform and transmute everything that's bad and threatening and risky and bring about everything that's desirable and hopeful. But this is nonsense. It's a fairy tale for the feeble-minded and the weak, exactly like religion. The belief in entities such as God and angels and demons is a form of magical thinking, immature, infantile, not very clever to use an understatement. It is not an accident. It's not by coincidence that this is the age where belief in the occult, in conspiracy theories, in incredible nonsense, in religion is growing again. After an interlude of 250 years of enlightenment, we are drawn back to the darkest recesses of the Middle Ages, long before the Arab Enlightenment in the 9th and 10th centuries. A period where people were primitive and superstitious, all the way back there. Anything from astrology, through homeopathy, through conspiracy theories, through and through counterfactual nationalism. These are all forms of magical thinking. It is the age of entitlement. People believe that they deserve things and they deserve things, not by virtue of any investment or commitment, not as an outcome of some effort or studies or hard work, not because of perspiration. Edison said that its invention is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. No, this is the age of inspiration only. Magical thinking, entitlement is a derivative of magical thinking. Because I'm magical, I'm entitled. And I'm entitled by virtue of existing my very existence and being entitled me. Entitled me to what? To special treatment, to goodies, to freebies, to access, to power, to fame and celebrity. Those who are famous for being famous. It's an age of vacuity, an age of emptiness and void, an age where people compete with each other, not in order to elevate each other or themselves, not in order to accomplish things and move further, not in order to have an impact and make a difference, that they compete with each other in order to establish themselves as superior in some way. And this superiority can be among the ruins. So people destroy and by destroying they feel superior. Even destruction had become an art form because if you reduce other people, you elevate yourself. If you destroy, you build yourself. If you diminish through pathological envy and acts of aggression, if you diminish and humiliate and degrade other people, then you are godlike, aren't you? This is the age of entitlement, aggressive, nefarious, dangerous entitlement. And it is above all the age of distrust. It's the age of pervasive mistrust, mistrust of experts, mistrust of science, mistrust of the authorities, mistrust of the future, and above all mistrust of each other. Everyone is wary of being played. Everyone has a pet conspiracy theory. Everyone is a potential victim. Everyone seeks to compensate for a sense of helplessness and inferiority by pretending to be grandiose and superior. Nowhere is the mistrust more profound than between men and women in all age groups from all backgrounds, everywhere in the world. The mistrust between men and women had brought on something that can only be described as a war among the genders. It's an outright war, tooth and claw and bleeding nail, unto death between men and women. Now we are civilized beings, so it's all disguised in the form of academic articles, amazing studies, and newspaper opinion pieces. These are the new modern weapons in cultural wars, but there is a war between men and women. And no, it's not limited to the monosphere, deranged males like migtails and incels. It's in the dating scene, it's within marriages, it's in divorce proceedings, in court. Everywhere men are fighting women and women are fighting men to the last beat. Women wary of men are now trying to become utterly self-sufficient and single mothers if possible. Self-sufficient financially, self-sufficient biologically. Men terrified of women's ascendance and newfound independence are trying to re-establish a patriarchy, to suppress women and to punish them in the only arena where they still have an advantage. The bedroom, sex and relationships. Abuse is more rife than ever. Around 70% of men and women say that they deeply or somewhat distrust the opposite sex. That's 70, 70. They remainder totally or somewhat distrust their counterparts. Women complain that men are feminine, not committed or invested, weak, ineffectual and craven. The vagaries of online dating serve to augment this in auspicious view of men. All they want is sex. Men describe women as sexually unboundary, prone to cheating and drunkenness and cunning. A whopping 16%, that's 16% of people under age 25, cheat in their relationships every single year. Now that's 16% every year cumulative. Within six years, all of them cheat. And that's compared to 2% per annum in the 1980s. Eight times an eightfold increase in infidelity.  This supernova of infidelity is driven by empowered and financially independent women who no longer tolerate male abuse and bed or no sex in their primary diets. And this abysmal, mutual resentment and hypervigilance, these have dire outcomes and consequences. About one third of the surveyed people surveyed in the Pew Center studies. One third are lifelong singles. Another 15%, 15% are between rapid fire, pseudo-relationship. Can you digest these numbers? Half the population, half the adult population in the United States are single for life. The marriage rate is an all-time law having declined by 50% since 1990. Birth rates in industrial countries have plummeted. The populations in many nations are aging and declining at dizzying speeds. Since 2016, aloneness is the new normal for the majority of men and women worldwide. So this is a case study of mistrust and distrust between two groups, men and women. But there is similar distrust between political parties. There is similar distrust between the academic world and the population. There is similar distrust between medical doctors and their patients. There is similar distrust between people and science. There is a total distrust of experts and intellectuals. Everyone is suspect. Everyone has ulterior motives. Everyone is on the pay and is a shill. No one trusts anyone about anything anymore. Everyone conducts research, deep research before going out for coffee with someone. It's a world where everyone has clinically paranoid ideation and persecutory delusions. It's never been this bad. Never ever been this bad. In each and every one of the dimensions that I describe, the mistrust, the entitlement, the magical thinking, the risk aversions of sufficiency, spectacle and appearance, the adoration of death. In each and every one of these aspects, splitting, we are in uncharted territory. We have never been here before. And I am terrified that the confluence of these unprecedented trends is too much for us to bear as a species. We are a young species. We're 300,000 years old. The dinosaurs had survived for well over 140 million years and they had occupied every ecosystem, same like us. But it seems that we humans are badly designed and badly programmed. They're critical flaws in our code. And these flaws are now manifesting like never before amplified by the technologies that we had created. We are lemmings. We are marching off. The edge of a cliff is near. But we close our eyes and we drift into fantasy land. Where everything is fine, everything is dandy, everything is passing, things are going to be okay. Polyan-ish Disneyland. But remember, the time comes when the gates of Disneyland close and everyone is evicted. Evicted exactly as we had been expelled from the Garden of Eden. And we have been expelled from the Garden of Eden to be cursed with suffering. There is a big suffering coming on. We need to get our act together. We need to get rid of our narcissistic psychopathic frame of mind which had now become dominant. Or else. Or else.


Happy Vlogmas Day 9, my name is Snolly, if you guys are new here, and if you are definitely subscribed and if you are already subscribed, make sure you have your post notifications on so you can get notified for every video I post, because I'm posting daily content around here and it's exciting, like it is the 9th day and I'm still doing it. I'm so proud of myself and I'm going to keep going. I have a good feeling about this year. So today I finally got all of my packages, honestly not even all of them. But majority of the packages from Black Friday and I thought I would just do a Black Friday haul. I know the sales aren't going on still, but if you see something you like, it's still probably there, just not on sale. And I obviously just wanted to share my picks with you guys. So also this morning was hair washing day and I tried to play around with the Dyson with the roller brush thing and I like it. I think I just like the curling thing better, like the bigger barrel, so we'll probably stick to that. So what I wanted to show you guys is something I did get from Black Friday. My mom actually got this for me on Amazon and it's kind of like that Lululemon workout top dupe and it has like this twisty thing in the front. I think it's so cute. It is kind of like a lot lighter than I thought the material is, but I guess it's like perfect for working out. So that will be very cute. Obviously I got the tan color, but there were like a billion other colors to choose from. I'll definitely link this down below and I'll link everything in the description box if you're interested in any of these styles or anything. So the first official Black Friday store I want to cover is Urban Outfitters. I actually did get a couple things and I'm randomly obsessed with the color green right now. Like I don't know why, but I feel like it's a theme on my Instagram and I'm like obsessed with matcha and obviously matcha is green if you didn't know. I literally put the specific filters of like beige and green whenever I was shopping this Black Friday. So I found this little fanny pack thing and I thought it was so cool. It's more like a sling bag like to wear like here, not like on your stomach, but I thought it was so cool and like a cute little thing for like a hike or if I want to go walking will pop up color with my like beige aesthetic, you know? So that was cute. Speaking of beige, I splurged a little and ended up finally getting the champion hoodie that I've been like literally wanting for forever. And I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this because I just bought one from Set Active. I think it's this color. It's the oak color and I think it's a hoodie or it's a crew neck. I can't remember. But if it is a hoodie and like I like that one better, I might return this one. So we will see. I like the more like beige, you know, this is more like like almost a green. So I don't know. I think inside it's really freaking soft. So I like it. Okay. I think I'm going to keep it. I got two more things from Urban. Finally another graphic tee and I have a nirvana one. That one's like a one size. This one actually had sizes. So it was like really confusing what to buy because I know it's already oversized. So I just got a large and it's pretty oversized, but honestly I don't really care. Like I like wearing these as like dresses and I'm so excited to just have another Urban Outfitters graphic tee because these are like everything. And then I got this cheek stain thing, cheek smudge from this brand called Ohai. It's like a new brand on Urban and I'm really excited to try this color. It's in the color Sahara and it looked a lot more like red and orange online. You can probably guess the next store I shopped at, Abraha Mi & Bitch, I've recently become so obsessed with their clothes because it's just not the logo shit anymore, which is amazing. And they have such good bodysuits, so I got a couple of those, but we'll start off with this one. It's like a low cut, just long sleeve shirt. I thought it was going to be a bodysuit, but I guess not. But this will work too because I feel like I have too many bodysuits and sometimes you just like don't want to have to deal with like that situation down there. So this will actually be perfect, but love my neutrals. Oh my gosh. These are so soft. Abraha Mi has like the best jogger slash sweat pants ever. And I actually need to do laundry because all of my sweats and leggings are dirty. This is the pair I picked up. It's like cozy jogger pant and it's really freaking soft. So this will be perfect. I wonder if this has like a matching top because that would be like a really cute like holiday neutral set. I got this really cute beanie from Abraha Mi.  Like have to like figure it out every time. And I got this mock neck bodysuit. I'm so excited to wear this because I also got it in black and actually just wanted the black one. But then I was like, I feel like I could definitely use the nude one. So this is just like such good quality. I wish you guys could like feel how thick this quality is. But seriously, just trust me on this. Like their bodysuits are everything. They're not like crazy expensive, especially for the basic bodysuits. Like you're going to wear them so often that they literally just like pay themselves off because you get so much use out of them. I'm not sure if I talked about my new obsession with you guys yet this long list, but I have been loving this. Let's 59 Rock Hell high waisted flared leggings. And I actually wanted to get just like regular leggings. Like I think this is like a seven eighths length. But since I was short. Okay. Sorry. My hair's like everywhere. It doesn't know what part it's going in. But anyways, the seven eighths probably hit me like perfect because I'm shorty. I'm like five, three, but their material on their freaking pants is everything. Honestly, compared to all the leggings on the market right now, I feel like they're normal priced. I think they are like 98 or something. I already had the Rock Hell high waisted leggings, but I wanted to pick up another pair because they're just so good. And this time I got the short length because the other one just like drags on the floor and like honestly at home, like I think it's like a cute vibe or whatever, but like when you're going out and it's raining outside, like that's an issue. So I'm really excited to add more of these leggings into my collection. I got one thing from Express and I really hope it turns out to be really good and like what exactly what I want. I've been just looking for the perfect camel coat, P coat situation because I feel like it's going to be really cold this year and I want something just like to actually warm me up and to be super stylish. And I mean, obviously this could be a little thicker, but this is what it looks like. Sorry, the bed's in the way. There's like little tie, but honestly, when it is thicker, it just makes me look like really, really chunky and I don't like that. Like I don't like looking like a marshmallow in the winter. So I will like update you guys whenever I have to go outside and like actually wear this coat that keeps me warm because it is like the material that I feel like it can keep me warm. So we will see, but I am so freaking happy that I found a coat finally. The only package that didn't make it into this haul is set active and I went crazy on their site on Black Friday. So if you guys want like a whole separate set active haul, let me know because I got so many new colors and I'm just really, really freaking excited to get them. If I didn't mention already this workout top and these leggings are from set active and they're just like so good.  Also the bras really do a good job of holding up my boobs and even this one shoulder one, like I could probably workout, do like light workout, you know, nothing like crazy. I'm not sure if I would like actually run in this or like wear it to orange theory, but like if I was wearing it on my own, then I would. So yeah, but an update on orange theory. I still have my account phrased because I didn't want to cancel just yet because I don't know if I'm going to want to get back into it in the new year. You still have to like wear masks in the studio. I know how out of breath I usually am during orange theory class. So I really couldn't imagine like wearing it during a workout. So that's like why I kind of like froze it and I just like wasn't feeling it anymore and especially like now that I have a job, I usually like going in the mornings, but then like I can't do like a five am because then I would just like crash at like 2pm, you know. So I'm just trying to figure all that out and see if like that's still good for me or should I just like do homework outs or what is going on. So yeah, that's the update with that. I am going to go get to work and I think the cleaners are coming today. So I have to clean up my room because it's a little bit messy. Obviously, I just like unpacked everything. I honestly have no idea what time it is, but Ryan's on his way over because we're going to hang out, maybe get dinner. I've been like searching for restaurants to go to because my dad lives in the Alfreda area. I was actually raised in Roswell, which is literally like the city over. So it's not even that far. But I feel like there's so many new restaurants in Alfreda because they have like this whole like historic Alfreda. I don't think that's what they call it. But basically there's a historic Roswell, which is Canton Street, which is literally like straight out of a homework move. But honestly, I feel like everyone's copying that kind of a style. So not Alfreda has something similar, which is like so much bigger, obviously, because it's newer. And so they have a lot of new restaurants and I really want to like try some of them out. I tried Ginya, which was over there. And so I think we're going to go over there. But also it is the day that we're getting my damn mirror and we're going to go to home goods. What was that? We're going to go to home goods, pick it up. I already paid for it. I just didn't fit in the car I was in that night. So I'm going to get it today. And I also kind of feel like I should dress up for dinner because I just got new clothes and I should wear my jacket. Maybe I should wear my jacket. My hair is done. My makeup is done. You know, let me just pick out milk for really quick. I surprisingly got ready a little bit early. So I filmed a TikTok and this is my outfit. I'm wearing a Princess Polly like turtleneck dress. I'm wearing my sheer text tights and my Doc Martens. And then I have my new express coat. It's happening, y'all. We're getting the goods. We just got home from dinner and this is the mirror. It's super big. I'll show you guys tomorrow, like in the light and everything so you can see it a little bit better. But it has like a wood finish on the edge. So I just have to find a good place for it because I want like good light. So I want to maybe have it like on one of these corners, but then it's going to have to be like angled so I can actually show my alpha, you know, because if it's this way, then I can't stand like right in front of it and take my picture because that's like too close. You get what I'm saying. So I don't know. I'm going to have to figure it out. But I'm going to end the vlog here. I hope you guys enjoyed like my whole Black Friday haul and all the links will be down below. So go check them out if you're interested. And I'll see y'all in my next video. Bye.


Do you want to make studying easier, more fun or do you simply want to get better grades? If yes, the tropics for studying can definitely help you out. Let's check them out. Hey, what's up, Greg here, the founder of your inception. Welcome to my channel where you can learn top secrets about the tropics. Subscribe below to start your journey. If you want to be great at studying or if you want to get good grades, you need to be focused, you need to create attention, you need a good working memory, you need to be productive, you need to be in a good mood for most of the time. That can definitely help. And for some students it would definitely help if they are creative as well. And no matter your IQ, your motivation, your interest, studying can be very easy or very hard. If you study at Harvard or at a very average public university, you need to get focused and you need to stay focused for long periods of time. That's just how it is. Now before I share with you the most effective and important tropics for studying, let me quickly tell you a short story you should definitely remember. So when I was in high school I was struggling a lot. Then I went to a very average public university. I was studying at a faculty of economics and I was struggling there as well, had really bad grades and you know, I was, it was really hard time for me. And then I applied for one of the top 60 universities in the world that was in Sweden where I wanted to do master's in business. And guess what happened? I applied there, I was accepted for whatever reason that happened and then after one year of studying I was chosen as the best student of the year. And you know, you can check this out online to confirm that it's true. So what happened in this one year? How could I go from someone who was failing at a very average faculty to someone who was chosen as the best student of the year at a top university? So what was the main difference? So one thing that I did is I started optimizing my cognitive performance and I started optimizing productivity. And of course I started taking the tropics as well. Now keep in mind, I'm not saying that the tropics were solely responsible for such a major improvement in the grades, in my performance, my focus, my memory and so on. But I believe they had a very significant impact. So if I was able to go from someone who was underperforming at a very average university to someone who was basically the best at one of the top universities, you can do it as well. So let me share with you some of the most important tropics for studying. And at the end of the video, I'm going to share with you some of the most important tropics supplements or the tropics that you can easily right now buy on the market and they're perfect for studying. Oh, and one more question for you guys. What is more important for you when studying? Focus or memory? Let me know in the comment section below. So the first of the tropics I want to talk about is Bacopa Moneri. Bacopa Moneri is an adaptogen herb that has been used for centuries before in the Ayurveda medicine and actually I think it was around 6th, I think it was in the 6th century, yes, when scholars use it for improving their memory. So as you can see, this is a great herb that can be used for improving memory, that can reduce your anxiety, your stress and it can as a consequence make you better at learning. Now there has been a lot of studies done, you can find online, a lot of studies that confirm the benefits, not just on elderly people but also on healthy individuals and that's very important. Now I've been studying the tropics for quite some time and I think Bacopa Moneri is one of the top three the tropics you need to take for studying. It's very good, it's very effective and based on the studies it delivers amazing results. Another important tropic for you is Cyticolin. Now Cyticolin sounds like a chemical compound but it is actually a very natural compound found in your brains naturally so there's nothing to worry about. Now you can get Cyticolin from food but if you're studying right now I'm pretty sure you don't get it enough because as far as I remember when I was studying I was reading a lot of junk food and stuff I didn't want to spend too much money on food so if you eat healthy that's great, if you don't eat healthy and you don't get enough Cyticolin which is probably what's happening then you need to supplement it and anyway I mean I personally eat very very healthy a lot of great high quality foods I get especially green stuff and all the vegetables and stuff and I'm still supplementing it because studies show that if you get a certain amount of Cyticolin in your brain your focus improves, your attention improves, your memory short and long-term memory can improve and it can provide some other amazing benefits so Cyticolin is definitely something to consider. Now if you can buy Cyticolin as an individual compound you can get it in a tropics stack as well, I'm gonna talk about this a bit later in the video but don't get confused sometimes you will see a brand name called Cognizin which is producing Cyticolin so it is the same thing eventually so just that you know about this one. Another important tropic for you is Ltn. Ltn is an amino acid that is found in green tea, if you drink green tea you probably get a bit more relaxed, your attention increases, your focus increases and you're not you know under such a severe stress anymore if you were before so this amino acid is very effective because it makes you more relaxed while increasing your focus and this is very important because if you want to study sometimes you just need to be relaxed and you need this attention, this focus you need to be able to that you know your visual spans should somehow narrow and you need this additional focus. Now a great thing about Ltn is you can of course get it from drinking tea but if you combine it with caffeine which is there's a small hack here you combine it you combine 100 milligrams of caffeine with 200 milligrams of Ltn now don't worry about the numbers by the way I'm gonna share with you a few supplements that have those ingredients in already if you combine these two then what's gonna happen you're gonna get the positive benefits of caffeine you're gonna get more focus you get your energy will lift up you will be more motivated you know your heart rate will increase while you won't get the negative side effects that caffeine bring so the jittery and all that stuff so you're gonna get best of the both worlds and this is I think one of the best combos for studying not just for studying for businessmen for CEOs managers and other high achievers but you know it also helps a lot it's really really great for studying as well. Another notropic I want to talk about is Rudiola Rusea this is another adaption herb that has been used since for centuries basically it works similar as Bacopa Munieri that I've talked about before but there's one difference Rudiola Rusea was proven to provide benefits for athletic performance so it can also increase your athletic performance so why is this important well because when you're under severe stress and this usually happens during or before the exams and you need this additional stamina well Rudiola Rusea can potentially help you with that as well and most importantly it goes very well with Bacopa Munieri a lot of high quality and tropics texts or supplements contain both of them combined so you get the best out of both adaption herbs and this is really really powerful. By the way guys if you have any questions do let me know in the comment section below use a hashtag ask your inception and I will weekly answer some of the most interesting questions that I will receive. Okay let's but not least let's talk about Lion's Main Mushroom. Lion's Main Mushroom is the only in a tropic on this list that I would personally mainly take for the long-term benefits not so much for the short-term benefits why well because it has been shown to decrease or slow down your cognitive decline it can help with neurodegeneration but it can also decrease your anxiety and has antidepressant properties and this can be helpful of course during years of studies that are ahead of you if you're in this position right now. Now as a student I wouldn't buy Lion's Main Mushroom as an individual compound but if I would get as a part of a more complex and tropic stack then yes of course I would definitely look for it and I would definitely take it there's no doubt about that. Cool so we just covered top five tropics that I would personally take for studying if you take them what's gonna happen or what you can expect is better focus more attention more energy better mood you're gonna feel more motivated and your learning should be better should be improved because of the better memory and overall productivity should increase. Now what you can do is you can buy all those compounds individually there's one way to do it or you can find a very good high-quality in the tropics stack or basically in the tropics supplement that contains all those and some other ingredients as well that can be of course helpful for you. So I've tried over 100 plus nautropic supplements and I have developed a very advanced test and and procedure for evaluating those nautropic supplements and here's what I've done for you I found the best nautropic supplements for studying so they need to provide all the benefits we talked about and they need to be affordable because I can imagine most if you don't want to spend like 200 bucks a month for those supplements and additional compounds. So here's what I've done below you're gonna find some links with the best nautropic supplements currently available on the market for studying I don't want to promote any brands right now right here because those lists are constantly improving if there's a better tropic supplement I added to the list and you can always check it out below their links click on it and you're gonna find the best nautropic supplement right now available so click on the list below you're gonna find the best supplement there hopefully I'll be able to provide some additional discount codes which you might find below and by buying a nautropic supplement you just basically save yourself from additional hassle of buying all those individual compounds then you know measuring them at home taking them every day and experimenting with them if you want to do that that's great if not if you want to save some time then just buy a nautropic supplement and you're good to go all right guys so we just covered the best nautropics and nautropic stacks for studying if you have any questions do let me know don't forget subscribing to my channel don't forget to follow me your inception on facebook and instagram and I hope to see you soon guys