They're Lying to You About Nuclear Energy
Aug 12, 2025 · 18:25
Host Phil Andrews argues that fear and regulation, not accidents like Three Mile Island, killed America's nuclear industry, which flipped the switch on three reactors a year in 1969 but collapsed after the NRC's Linear No-Threshold rule took hold in 1975. Radiation is unavoidable—dentist X-rays, Everest climbs—yet Chernobyl caused only 50 sure deaths and Fukushima no measurable cancer rise. Rules ballooned from 400 standards in 1970 to 1,800 by 1978, delaying plants like Seabrook 14 years and driving the first utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression, at $44 million per month of delay. Four reactors can power Manhattan, versus 25x the land for solar and 300x for wind. GE's small modular reactors, based on 70 years of safe Navy submarine reactors, could join the grid by 2030.
