“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
— Steve Jobs
Dear Reader,
At Stanford’s 2005 commencement address, Steve Jobs gave a shout-out to author Stewart Brand.
Jobs was imploring the best and brightest in Silicon Valley to “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”, quoting the title of the final issue of Brand’s famous Whole Earth Catalog.
Brand sure was a busy man while jamming to the Grateful Dead. I could have been jamming with him, but probably wouldn’t have remembered.
He was certainly hungry, and some might say he was foolish. A world renowned environmentalist, he lobbied NASA to photograph planet earth so that humans could see the planet’s warts and all. He even pushed the creation of Earth Day in 1970.
Fast forward half a century and Brand remains relevant to the current climate change conversation. Long an opponent of nuclear power, Brand converted and became one of the biggest proponents.
“Nuclear was a switch,” stated Brand in an interview with The Guardian. “I had been somewhat against it. I’m so strongly for it now that even if climate change wasn’t an issue, I’d still be pushing it.”
When asked about his convergence, Brand responded,
Primarily climate. Nuclear produces almost zero greenhouse gas. Coal is the principal villain right now. We’d looked at it mainly in terms of what it did to the landscape, in the States especially, where we’ve turned the Appalachian mountain ranges upside down and dumped the tops in the creeks. That’s been a strong green issue for a long time, and needs to be even stronger. But we hadn’t really looked at the waste stream coming out of coal, especially compared with the waste stream coming out of nuclear. And that contrast is what started to drive me to look more closely at nuclear and realize that I had been misled on many of the specifics.
With all the talk about climate change, renewables seem to get a lot of attention.
Wind, solar and water.
But do these forces meld enough energy to power our consumption of electricity without carbon fuels?
By all appearances, Bill Gates doesn’t think so. He’s betting on nuclear power to fill the gaps. In fact, he’s betting so much that he co-founded TerraPower, a nuclear power plant in the remote outskirts of Wyoming.
My guest on this week’s Wiggin Sessions, Justin Huhn, sees exciting potential in new reactor technology that Gates is deploying.
See our discussion about Gates going Nuke in Wyoming above.
“TerraPower is going to replace a coal-powered plant in Wyoming,” says Justin. “They can shut down the coal plant, leave the grid intact and install one of these small modulating rectors (SMR) in place of the coal plant. This I think is a huge use case for SMRs. And there’s hundreds of use cases. They’re talking about using them to power sea freight instead of diesel. The options are endless with how to utilize this technology. And it’s very exciting and it’s gaining a lot of steam right now.”
If all goes as planned, TerraPower could be lighting up Wyoming in the late 2020s.
Will this be the transition to renewable power for a cleaner planet.
What do you think?
Follow your bliss,
Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Wiggin Sessions
P.S. Big movements are happening in uranium and nuclear power as the climate change agenda pushes forward to a net zero carbon future. You can stay on top of investment opportunities, technologies and science with Uranium Insider Pro. Justin Huhn covers all the “macro factors” that impact uranium prices. He also maintains a list of 10 uranium equities that he believes offer the best risk/reward. In fact, since he started the list two years ago, the stocks he’s tracking have generated a +335.9% return – versus a 27.4% increase in the price of uranium in the same time.
Learn more about Justin’s monthly updates and “time-sensitive” intra-month bulletins here.
