TCSE: Ted Corpus Search Engine

Recorded at	April 10, 2022
Event	TED2022
Duration (min:sec)	11:39
Video Type	TED Stage Talk
Words per minute	147.48 very slow
Readability (FK)	66.96 very easy
Speaker	Isabelle Boemeke


1	00:04	My life completely changed with one tweet.
2	00:09	This was back in 2015 when Twitter was mostly a place we went to see what Kanye was mad about.
3	00:16	But then I saw it.
4	00:19	A tweet by a scientist I deeply admire, Dr. Carolyn Porco.
5	00:26	Wait, I thought nuclear energy was bad.
6	00:30	Yet here is a scientist and a TED speaker making it sound good.
7	00:37	It sent me on a journey, I spent years reading papers, talking to scientists, and I always asked them the same question: What do you think about nuclear power?
8	00:50	Their responses were shockingly similar.
9	00:53	It's good.
10	00:55	We need it.
11	00:57	People hate it.
12	01:00	In the last seven years, I've seen climate change go from being a scary thing of the future to being a scary thing of the present.
13	01:10	My wake-up call came after seeing the fires ravage the world in California, in Australia and in my home country of Brazil.
14	01:21	I decided I wanted to turn my growing sense of anger and despair into something helpful and productive.
15	01:31	So I had an unusual idea: I should be a nuclear energy influencer.
16	01:41	I wanted to make nuclear energy cool.
17	01:45	Inspired by internet culture, I created a digital version of me and called her Isodope.
18	01:53	(Laughter)
19	01:54	She's sassy, a little weird, but she always tells the truth.
20	02:00	And here, you can see her in action.
21	02:03	(Video) Hey, guys, a lot of you asked about my make-up routine.
22	02:06	The most important thing is to wash your face really well, because we want those pores as clean as we want our electricity.
23	02:12	And the best way to get that is to use this cleanser called -- stop shutting down nuclear plants, for Christ's sake.
24	02:17	It's carbon-free, emission-free, pollution-free electricity.
25	02:20	Then I use this plant-based serum called -- when a nuclear plant is shut down, it is replaced by fossil fuels.
26	02:25	That's bad.
27	02:27	(Applause and cheers) Isodope is like a dealer of good memes.
28	02:36	When I say meme, you probably think of something like this.
29	02:41	(Laughter)
30	02:47	What I mean by it is a fixed belief or idea, good or bad, that spreads from person to person and defines how we see the world.
31	02:58	For example, people should have equal rights.
32	03:03	Birds aren't real.
33	03:06	It's a thing.
34	03:07	(Laughter) Nuclear energy is bad.
35	03:13	When it comes to nuclear power, the world has been sold a bad meme.
36	03:18	An outdated one.
37	03:20	Let's go back in time.
38	03:22	It all started with the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s.
39	03:28	The movement was driven in large part by an understandable fear of nuclear weapons.
40	03:34	And I get it.
41	03:35	It must have been terrifying to grow up in the '50s and '60s fearing a nuclear attack.
42	03:43	But here's the problem.
43	03:45	Their logic was: nuclear bombs are bad, therefore nuclear energy is bad.
44	03:53	Which, if you think about it, is like saying: the electric chair is bad, therefore electricity is bad.
45	04:02	The case against nuclear power was never based on science, but the anti-nuclear meme was very catchy.
46	04:12	In the decades that followed, aspiring engineers didn't choose nuclear engineering.
47	04:18	Politicians got points for closing nuclear plants, even though it always led to higher carbon emissions.
48	04:27	The meme even snuck into people's homes, every Sunday night at eight, without them knowing.
49	04:35	(Laughter)
50	04:37	I wish Homer had worked at a coal plant.
51	04:40	(Laughter)
52	04:42	In the last 10 years, we have spent trillions of dollars on renewables, yet we only get eight percent of our electricity from wind and solar.
53	04:52	Now, don't get me wrong, I love renewables, but to me, it's clear that we need more.
54	04:58	We need a source of energy that's clean and works 24/7 to complement them.
55	05:04	And it's been sitting right in front of us this whole time, but we have ignored it because we're too blinded by the meme.
56	05:13	Now most people today aren't exactly anti-nuclear as much as they’re “meh.”
57	05:20	Not passionately against it, but they've heard of Chernobyl.
58	05:25	They've seen images of leaking green barrels.
59	05:28	They have a vague feeling it's bad.
60	05:32	And remember, that's where I used to be.
61	05:35	Until I saw this chart.
62	05:39	The only thing you need to take away from this chart is that nuclear power has the lowest life cycle emissions of all energy sources, producing only three tons of CO2 per gigawatt hour of electricity.
63	05:52	And I could keep talking like this all day long, but let's be real, this is not changing minds on social media.
64	05:59	So I do things a little bit differently.
65	06:04	(Video) The reality is that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy.
66	06:08	The problem is that nuclear accidents are dramatic.
67	06:10	While fossil fuel damage is boring.
68	06:12	I'm literally falling asleep talking about it.
69	06:14	Recent studies say that 8.7 million people die from burning them every year.
70	06:18	This would be like having 5.8 Chernobyls a day.
71	06:21	I'm just a humble influencer, but I think this means fossil fuels are worse.
72	06:26	(Laughter) (Applause)
73	06:32	Most people have a feeling airplanes are more dangerous than cars because when a plane crashes, it makes the headlines.
74	06:39	It's memorable.
75	06:41	Of course, we know the opposite is true.
76	06:45	Planes are significantly safer than cars, just like nuclear power is significantly safer than fossil fuels.
77	06:54	In this next video, Isodope will address the idea that we don't know what to do with nuclear waste.
78	07:02	(Video) I'm sure you don't know what to do with it, but there are people who spent decades studying this issue.
79	07:07	They're called scientists.
80	07:09	Finland is almost done building the world's first nuclear waste repository.
81	07:13	They're storing it deep underground in geologically stable locations.
82	07:16	Sweden is about to do the same.
83	07:18	I know you're worried about what may happen 19,000 years from now, but ...
84	07:21	(Loud buzzing) Again, just a humble influencer, but we might not make it that far if we keep burning fossil fuels.
85	07:30	(Applause)
86	07:35	By the way, most think nuclear energy waste looks like this.
87	07:40	It actually looks like this.
88	07:43	Fully contained in concrete casks that are so good at blocking radiation I might do a photo shoot there.
89	07:52	Now, a more modern objection to nuclear power is that it's too slow.
90	07:58	It takes too long to build.
91	08:01	Well, I'm sure Isodope has something to say about that.
92	08:07	(Video) (Isodope claps) Finally, an argument that isn't older than me.
93	08:12	Unfortunately, it still sucks.
94	08:14	In the '70s, France built 45 reactors in 15 years.
95	08:17	More recently, Japan, China and Korea have built reactors in six years or less.
96	08:21	So this means BTS is blow-drying their hair with clean energy.
97	08:25	Even if it takes 10 years to build one, nuclear power plants can make clean and reliable electricity for at least 80 years.
98	08:31	This -- (Applause)
99	08:36	This idea that it takes too long to build plants is confusing, considering we're going to need energy forever.
100	08:45	You know, the best time to build nuclear plants was 10 years ago.
101	08:51	The next best time is today.
102	08:55	Now we’ve finally arrived at the most fashionable objection at the moment: nuclear power is too expensive.
103	09:07	I'm going to take that one.
104	09:09	A little weird to say something is too expensive to save the future of our species, but I get it, cost matters.
105	09:19	Here's the thing.
106	09:21	We know how to make clean energy cheaper.
107	09:24	It's not rocket science.
108	09:26	You build the same thing over and over and over.
109	09:31	Solar, 10 years ago, was also considered "too expensive," but we decided it was cool and invested in it.
110	09:40	Like magic, the costs have dropped by 90 percent.
111	09:45	One way to make nuclear cheaper is with small modular reactors like these.
112	09:52	China just finished building their own version.
113	09:56	Poland will use a similar technology to convert their aging coal plants into nuclear plants.
114	10:04	They'll use the same building, the same transmission lines, even retrain the same workers.
115	10:09	But now making clean energy instead of buying dirty fuels from dictators.
116	10:18	Which leads me to a crazy idea.
117	10:21	What if instead of viewing nuclear power as destructive, we view it as a force for energy independence and even peace.
118	10:33	What if this technology offers our best hope for the future?
119	10:39	A future where wars aren't funded by our addiction to fossil fuels.
120	10:46	A future where energy is clean.
121	10:50	A future where electricity finally makes its way to the 700 million people on Earth who still don't have access to it.
122	11:01	The idea that nuclear power is bad is costing us that future.
123	11:07	And it's time to let go of it.
124	11:10	I'm not asking you to build a reactor.
125	11:15	I'm not asking you to rewrite "The Simpsons."
126	11:18	(Laughter)
127	11:20	I'm not even asking you to sign a petition on Change.org.
128	11:26	All I'm asking you is to please, join me in spreading the meme.
129	11:31	Nuclear energy is cool.
130	11:35	Thank you.
131	11:36	(Cheers and applause)

Isabelle Boemeke: Nuclear power is our best hope to ditch fossil fuels