Hello and welcome to today's episode of the AFRI NUC podcast.
Have you wondered where the decoupled podcast got its name from?
How about the advent of modern healthcare?
Where do you pitch your tent when juxtaposed with the traditional environmentalist thoughts
or the eco-modernist futuristic premise?
In this episode of the AFRI NUC podcast, we are joined with a Canadian medical doctor,
Chris Kiefer, who will be on his way to COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
We discuss his passion amongst other compelling and thought-provoking actionable concepts
on electricity and how it relates to healthcare.
He unequivocally bears his mind and you will sure admire his drive.
If you listen to the end, you will even hear how nuclear contributed to saving a son's
life and how we all can do it.
Relax and relish the city-lating soundbites through the cradle of humanity while with
the couple the African nuclear landscape or AFRI NUC in the decoupled podcast.
Dr. Chris, I usually ask my guest to introduce themselves and tell us a bit about themselves.
So please, can you tell us about yourself?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So I am an emergency physician working in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Ontario is the most populated province in Canada and it's nuclear-powered.
We rely on nuclear for 61% of our electricity and actually use nuclear power to phase out
coal, which used to be 25% of our electricity.
So I joke that Ontario is the France of North America.
I'm very proud to be here and I'm pretty new to nuclear.
I do not work in the industry.
I have no ties.
And what drew me to nuclear was a concern about climate change as I became a new father
and I just got hooked.
It's an area that I think is probably one of the most misunderstood and the more you learn,
you know, it's just such an illuminating field with so much potential in the context,
again, of climate change, energy, security and air pollution and other issues which are
very important to human health.
That's great.
Wonderful.
Like when I looked through your podcast, the heading alone gave me a very interesting,
like made me recall something I read about the decoupling of the energy system and I
read it in the Eco Modernist manifesto written by Michael Schellenberger and his team and
other people.
So it was at the end, they like said that we need to decouple.
So I mean, like, and when I stumbled on your podcast, it rang a very strong bell.
So I was wondering how you got the title for that podcast, if it's very much in tandem
with that write up or it's just a coincidence.
No, absolutely.
I mean, I think when people initially heard about this podcast, they thought, you know,
is this a relationship podcast?
Is this relationship advice?
You know, there's a lot of talk about economic decoupling, you know, between China and the
USA during the Trump presidency.
So people get confused about that.
But you're absolutely right.
It's a reference to a concept that I took from the Eco Modernist manifesto.
And again, it's this idea that we can maintain the journey of human progress, of human flourishing,
that we can all live better lives, that the developing world can continue to develop.
But there's a way to do that by the use of the right technologies, which allow us to
continue that journey of human progress while not impacting our environment, while not making
climate change worse, while actually improving a lot of environmental markers.
So it's very inspiring to me.
And it's very much in contrast to what I'll call, you know, mainstream environmentalism,
boomer environmentalism, eco romanticism, whose whole premise is one of nostalgia that
we need to return back to simpler ways.
And it's very much an expression of, you know, a environmentalism that emerges from
the wealthy world, from the rich world, where we can sort of romanticize a low energy lifestyle.
So it's been a really fascinating journey.
As you're mentioning, I've got to speak to people around the world.
I did get to speak with, I'm going to butcher his name, but Gal Palve, a wonderful individual,
a nuclear engineer from South Africa.
So we have dipped our toes into Africa.
But you know, it's, it's, I'm very, very happy to be interviewed by you and to learn from
you as well.
Very cool.
Yeah, you know, when I was listening to some episodes of your podcast, I saw some very
interesting interviews you've made, which I would not want to delve into, to dilute
what I, the natural flow of our conversation today.
But I kind of, since you started making inroads into Africa, I would like us to talk a bit
more about the climate or the climate or the situation we find ourselves.
So your podcast, I would like to say if I hope it sounds in consonance with its meaning,
I think it's more about sustainability because you are talking about how you can, since you
are now a recent dad, congratulations about that.
And yeah, yeah, you need to create a future or hope to have a future that your children
will live in without any harm or such sorts.
But in Africa, you know, most developing countries have exploited this means of sustaining themselves.
We consider that today.
And in Africa, you know, we are still a bit more trying to catch up, if I would say.
And I kind of am tempted to think that we should not worry about what the people in
the first world is like where you are worrying about.
But when I think of sustainability and why we should always think of the future, then
I would like to like, okay, say, okay, we need to also consider what these people are
saying.
So when I was reading through the Eco Modernist Manifesto, since I think, and you have also
confirmed, this is where your podcast took its title from, I kind of in, I think, somewhere
in the middle of the chapter of that book, it was talking about the climate condition
in Africa and how Africa should not be worrying about mitigation, but rather to adapt instead.
And that brings me to the concept of nuclear energy, which a major part of your podcast,
though not just focused on, has dealt with it in a very amazing way.
It has seen you go through different countries holding standoff for nuclear campaigns in
different parts of the world and also having you to feature in Glasgow coming up in November.
So I kind of think, what do you think I want to ask in a kind of question way?
What do you feel is the point that should make the strongest case for nuclear, not just
in the developing world, but in the underdeveloped or developing world like Africa where I find
myself?
Dr. Chris?
I mean, you've said some really important things there.
It is not Africa's responsibility to solve the climate crisis.
I think Africa is responsible for something like 3% of the world's historic emissions.
It is countries in the developed world, in the industrialized world that have this climate
debt to repay, and we can talk about climate reparations.
There's also within the discourse, particularly North America, the idea of reparations that
need to be paid due to the colonial history, the slave trade, et cetera.
So I'm very much of that opinion.
And I think Africans have every right to develop the traditional environmental discourse, states
things like, if everyone is to live like Europeans or North Americans, we'd need eight planets.
And this concept of limits is something that has some degree of merit.
But what the promise of decoupling offers is an ability to expand, again, human flourishing,
expand what the limits are, what we can all achieve, what kind of lifestyles we can live,
what kind of healthcare we can have.
And I think nuclear is the reason I focused on it so much in my podcast is because it's
truly the ultimate decoupling technology.
This is an energy source that's a million, two million times more energy dense than fossil
fuels.
And let's be clear, fossil fuels lie at so much of what we've achieved in terms of human
progress, in terms of increased lifespans, in terms of decreased child mortality.
My own three-year-old son would be dead if it weren't for the high-energy society I live
in.
He was in an incubator for a month.
There's a lot that fossil fuels have done.
However, it's time to do what we can to move beyond them because of some of those side
effects like climate and air pollution.
However, Africa has every right to use and exploit its fossil fuel resources to improve
its level of development.
And I think, you know, I was talking about climate debt and this idea of climate reparations.
I think it's on the developed world, those countries that have nuclear programs to really
encourage the development of nuclear in Africa so that Africa can, to some degree, leapfrog
fossil fuels and move into this highly sustainable energy form, which, again, because of that
energy density, is able to offer the most minimal of mining footprints, the most minimal
of land footprints in terms of siting of power stations, and a decoupling from carbon emissions,
almost an absolute decoupling from carbon emissions, and an absolute decoupling from
air pollution.
So you can have the benefits of fossil fuels, certainly in things like electricity production
and hopefully soon in process heat, but without those side effects.
So that's why I'm so passionate about nuclear energy and why I think it's such an important
thing for Africa and why I think the developed world has a duty and a debt to repay and
I think a really compelling way, you know, hope I would have from my own country, Canada,
who has developed the Can-Do Reactor Technologies that we would be sharing that, you know, quote,
unquote, intellectual property and assisting African countries in developing their nuclear
programs.
It's cool.
It's quite inspiring, wonderful contributions on how nuclear can help us upscale our development.
And it's also very interesting to know how the first world used, like when I was talking
with Robert Bryce, the host of the Power Hungry podcast, you know, he was like, okay, so when
you need something, first you need to be healthy, first you need to be on your food first before
you talk about sustainability.
You need to actually get food on your table, if I may say, if I'm describing in terms of
being hungry before thinking of the nutrition it offers.
So maybe he gave an illustration of maybe just like you said, your baby being an incubator,
he gave an illustration of maybe you were in an accident.
You were not thinking of a car that emits carbon.
You want to get to the hospital through any possible means, right?
So yeah, that's quite very much in agreement with what is needed and what is maybe more
adaptable to sustainability.
So I would like to ask you, if you may say, what really brought you to this level of,
I know your podcast is not totally about nuclear energy.
You are also more concerned about other aspects of life or science that improves human life
and the future.
So why did you think nuclear?
I know you've talked about the energy density, but given the most recent event in Fukushima,
you know, it's enough to actually discount and also discard the nuclear option as one
of those that will help our society or the future.
So I mean, like being a medical doctor, I don't know, does that have any relation?
And yeah, is there any kind of maybe parallelism in your profession with your support for nuclear?
Maybe that's maybe some people in the similar profession might want to learn from.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So, you know, within medicine, you know, we're at the bedside.
We're assisting patients in the here and now, but we're also taught to consider what's
called upstream causes of disease.
And these would be things like social determinants of health, poverty, air pollution, etc.
And so I'm always thinking about world problems from the perspective of something in emergency
medicine that we call triage, which is this idea of how do you match limited resources
to achieve the greatest outcome?
It's a little bit utilitarian, but I think it has a lot of merit.
And so, you know, as I've come to see climate change is really one of the most important
aspects that's, you know, and challenges that we face moving forward, both in terms of mitigation
and adaptation that really has brought nuclear to the fore.
Now you mentioned Fukushima, you know, we hear about this accident, we hear about Chernobyl,
we hear about Three Mile Island.
It's very interesting the way in which the scare around nuclear weapons really raised
fears of the toxicity of radiation and it created a bit of a boogeyman in this sense.
You know, as a physician, I administer radiation every single shift in the form of x-rays,
CT scans, diagnostic imaging, etc.
And as a result, more familiar with doses and able to make comparisons with nuclear accidents.
So what people don't know is that for the surrounding communities around nuclear plants
that experience an accident, we're still talking about low doses of radiation.
And there's been this conflation, for instance, in Fukushima, even in the national broadcasting
agency in my country, they said that the Fukushima accident caused 20,000 deaths.
And this is a conflation with the tsunami.
You know, you had, I think the third most powerful earthquake ever recorded, it shifted
the axis of the earth by several centimeters, created an enormous tsunami, flooded a nuclear
station which led to the meltdown of three reactors and no one has died as a consequence
of radiation, zero.
You know, the doses received by some of the workers were in the order of, you know, 150
millisieverts.
But those of the surrounding countryside were quite low.
And we know from what I will reference as the scientific consensus, which are the studies
conducted by UN agencies, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation, etc.
That the real harm from nuclear accidents is not radiation.
It's actually panicked responses to radiation.
So there were deaths as a result of the panicked evacuation around Fukushima.
I have a great friend, Ida Ruisham, who runs the Thoughtscapism blog, and she did an analysis
of mortality from air pollution versus returning to the prefecture of Fukushima, to the towns
that were most affected by some of the radioactivity.
On the basis of its impact on shortening life spans, we should be evacuating most of Tokyo,
all of Shanghai, most polluted cities in the world, because we have good data on air pollution
and its effects on limiting lifespan, knocking off five, six years of lifespan living in
some of these areas.
And the impact of radiation, it's knocking off days to weeks potentially.
You know, in terms of artificial radiation, right, we're all exposed, we live in a radioactive
world, we're constantly exposed to radioactivity.
Depending on where you live, if you live at higher altitudes, you're getting more cosmic
rays, you have less insulation from the atmosphere.
If you live in areas like say Denver, Colorado, in the United States, soils that are rich
in uranium and higher elevations, you're getting doses of radiation similar to what you'd
get living in most of the Fukushima prefecture.
So should we evacuate Denver, Colorado?
Should we evacuate that whole state?
Should we evacuate Kerala, India?
No, and that's what people don't understand is that the effect of radiation is no different
if it's an artificial source or a natural source.
And what's interesting in terms of the artificial sources of radiation in the world, that's
about 15% of the average person's yearly dose.
93% of that artificial dose is from me, from medical practitioners in the form again of
diagnostic imaging and radiation therapeutics.
So there's a gross misunderstanding amongst the public and fear mongering by anti-nuclear
activists that have hugely distorted the dangers of nuclear energy.
And this has led to regulations that go so far and above and beyond the relative risk
of nuclear compared to any other technology that it's really slowed its development.
And that's a tragedy because energy poverty kills, air pollution kills, climate change
kills, and we have a way around this problem with nuclear energy.
So that's why I've become so passionate about it.
We need to address these upstream effects of health.
And I say this as someone who's a passionate clinician who loves being at the bedside with
patients, but I would love those patients to not have to end up in hospital in the first
place.
I would love to make myself unemployed and redundant because the social term is of health
had been taken care of.
Well, that's all I'll tristic of you.
I really hope that more people like you populate our heads.
So yeah, quite understand because even the illustration you made about the air pollution
was more evident during the COVID lockdown, you know, when they took the imaging of the
effects, like they made a comparison of how China was before the lockdown and how it was
and the cold consumption and like the carbon footprint was less.
And it was so evident that air pollution was hot in us more than what radiation will
do.
And yeah, it's quite interesting how people kind of focus on what should not be focused
and also depriving themselves of the benefits of nuclear.
So you have said that this is what actually motivated you to do the couple podcast amongst
other interests.
I've also listened to your interview or your conversation about other aspects of science
or the eco modernist creed where you talked about the GMOs and stuff like that and how
it relates to the modern health.
So I kind of think are you kind of a futuristic person that looks into the future and tells
us, okay, hey, this is the path to follow or like you're like trying to show us the right
direction to go as things emerge.
I don't know.
Sometimes I listen to and I read the book of Yovale Noir Harari.
So he's like a kind of futuristic person that sees the future and tells him, look, this
is what you should be doing to meet the future that is coming in front of you.
So is this similar to that?
Like, I know, like you've really given a good capture of it.
I would never be so bold.
Yeah.
Okay.
So.
Yeah.
I would never be so hubristic as to attempt to predict the future.
Although that's a temptation, but I am future oriented.
And what I really want to emphasize is that traditional environmentalists are past oriented.
They're nostalgic for an imaginary past for a garden of Eden that they think we can return
to.
And again, this is very much an expression of a movement which has its origins in the
elite and the wealthiest of the developed world.
In terms of being future oriented, you know, the history of humanity is tied up in technology.
Homo sapiens as a species would not exist without fire, right?
Cooking our food.
This is what enabled us to shrink our guts and grow our brains and eat more nutritious
food and evolve as a species.
We throughout our history have used technology to solve problems, right?
Technologies also created problems, but we're in this continuous cycle of innovating, developing
new technologies to solve both the problems of previous technologies and other issues
that we face.
So you know, I'm really in a, in a thought process these days, you know, as the threat
of climate change becomes more serious.
And the phrase comes to mind, innovate or die.
And I know that sounds a little bit hyperbolic perhaps, but you know, the catastrophist
environmentalists talk a lot about, you know, billions of people dying as a result of climate
change, you know, simultaneous crop failures, you know, tropical diseases getting worse,
et cetera.
They may very well create self-fulfilling prophecies if their, their ideology steers
decision making, because for instance, you know, we talked briefly about genetic engineering.
If we're going to have more drought, more saline soils, more crop diseases, we need
to use the best available technologies, the most potent technologies to deal with that.
And that is things like gene editing and genetic engineering.
Africa needs a green revolution in order to feed itself and become truly independent just
as India did in the seventies.
That green revolution can be more ecological because of genetic engineering.
But ironically, this environmental movement that pretends to care about the environment
and I think pretends to care about human beings and their wellbeing is involved in trying
to deny Africa the very tools that it needs to solve these problems.
I refer to this as a kind of eco imperialism.
So the pressure that has been put on African countries not to use genetic engineering through
threats of the EU banning imports, for instance, of whole countries, if they experiment with
genetic engineering is a moral and it's shocking.
And it's a neocolonialism and a neo imperialism.
And it's something that I absolutely reject and think that needs to be fought off.
So yes, I am very future oriented.
I'm very pro technology.
We can't be afraid of technology.
And I'm very interested in understanding youth culture around the world.
I was speaking with someone on my podcast, Dr. Tinker, blanking on his first name.
I think it's Dr. Stephen Tinker.
And he's done a lot of traveling around the world looking at energy, its impacts on people.
And one of the things that he mentioned to me was that youth in the developing world
in Africa and South Asia seem to have a sense of optimism about them.
That's very much missing in youth in the developed world.
And that's, I think, because you guys are some degree seeing progress, you're seeing
electrification, you're seeing the benefits of technology.
Whereas in the Western world, youth are full of climate anxiety, full of a kind of nihilism,
full of a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness.
And that's something that I'm very much committed to fighting because at this time, what we
really need is to invest so heavily in education, in the future engineers, the future mathematicians,
the future scientists who will help guide us through the challenges that we face by,
again, developing the technologies and deploying them that can, again, decouple human flourishing
from environmental stressors like climate change.
Maybe we should have an exchange of environments, maybe that will help you achieve your aim
better.
I mean, you talk about the youth in Africa and those in the developed world, yeah, the
interests are different.
But because of the popular media, people seem to, I mean, generally people don't, like
the young people, the least of their concern in this part of the world is climate.
You don't see people gathering and talking about climate.
No.
What we need to talk more about is how to make money, like how to meet the basic needs
that is plaguing the society.
So yeah.
And I kind of think since you are much in front for nuclear and the environment seems
not too favorable, although they developed what is like showing leadership in their legislation,
like trying to adopt new measures or maybe create new avenues to welcome in nuclear, maybe
making them to have new builds.
Like the environment, like from what I had recently in the COP26, there is the green
and the blue zone.
So but I really don't understand what the position of nuclear is going to be like your
presence there.
I don't know, like, if there's any hope for the nuclear community, I don't know what
needs to be done.
But I don't know, like, it's really looking bleak in my opinion, but I hope that things
change in the near future.
Like do you have any submission observation or what needs to be done in this regard?
Absolutely.
And, you know, I'm actually quite optimistic.
There was a nuclear renaissance or beginning of a nuclear renaissance in the very early
2000s as we faced what seemed to be peak oil, and it just made energy and economic sense
to pursue nuclear energy, just as it did during the OPEC crisis in the 70s.
Nuclear flourishes when fossil fuel prices are high, when fossil fuels are unavailable.
It's interesting renewables flourish when gas is cheap, when the backup is there, when
you can afford a whole parallel generation system to operate when the wind and the sun
do not cooperate.
I think that's a very interesting observation.
And so, yes, there's a real importance for advocates.
Because it depends on it.
Yeah.
You know, there's very big importance for advocates like you and me to raise consciousness
around nuclear energy.
But in the end, it's pragmatic things that lead to our energy choices.
And so right now we're facing a global energy crunch.
Europe is facing natural gas prices that went up a thousand percent, and they've made themselves
highly dependent on natural gas.
Again, because of this bizarre pursuit of what I call a Rube Goldberg grid, you know,
this eco-romanticism, this idea that we need to return to nature, that all things natural
are good, has led to this bizarre policy, and sorry, end the sphere of nuclear, has led
to this bizarre policy of trying to base the very heart of civilization, the electric grid,
on the weather.
And the weather has not been cooperating in Europe.
Wind production is way down, 10, 20 percent down.
And so what's been needed to fill in the gap?
Fossil fuels.
Gas coal is the number one generator in Germany right now, Germany, which poses as, you know,
an environmental and climate hero, the number one source of electricity, 27 percent of their
grid has been coal this year.
So in that context, we're seeing what I think is the beginning of a nuclear renaissance.
You know, France just came out saying that we're highly supportive of nuclear.
We need to reinvent nuclear announcing a major investment, the UK as well.
You know, there's going to be a real rush for the world's available fossil fuels.
And I'm very worried for Africa, for countries of less means.
Germany can get through this.
They're a very rich country.
They'll burn whatever they need to.
They'll buy the limited reserves of energy.
But I'm very concerned.
You know, Lebanon is in a total blackout.
I'm not sure if the grid is still down, but their entire grid went down for a number of
days and that means hospitals were without power.
People died as a result.
This is catastrophic.
So I'm very concerned about that.
But this energy crunch, I think, does pretend a possibility of a nuclear renaissance.
And you have to remember in the early 2000s, South Africa was talking about installing
something like 12 gigawatts of nuclear.
You know, they were signing a deal with Rosatom to start on that process.
So I think that just the pragmatics, the reality of the global energy crunch is going
to lead to a nuclear renaissance.
And I think, you know, probably China is going to become the source of a lot of that
nuclear technology for Africa because, you know, they're very interested in soft power.
They have enormous foreign reserves.
They can create, you know, business agreements within Africa where they take on a lot of
the financing.
And I think pragmatically that's how nuclear is going to get built in Africa.
And I think in the next 10, 15 years, we will see nuclear renaissance in Africa.
It only makes sense with high fossil fuel prices.
Nuclear is the solution.
Renewables are not.
And we can talk more about that if you like, but it's a little bit of a...
It appears more real because, yeah, giving credence to China being the front, although
Russia is also like trying to up its hand with China.
But given the depth most African countries have towards China, it might be very reasonable
for them to just use their financing to get whatever they want.
But nuclear reactors, the experimental ones, like the one in Nigeria and Ghana, I think
they were supplied by China.
So it's quite natural if they come into obscurity to the plant size.
So quite agree with you in what you've been saying about nuclear renaissance.
And I think there is a palpable fear because in Africa, most things like boils down to politics.
People don't always talk about rational thinking or imagination or how to deploy technology
based on its perceived benefits and stuff like that.
Politics is a very major issue.
And I think that's what made the initial plan of the South African government to bring 12
gigawatts of nuclear not to actually materialize at this point in time.
But hopefully in the process of time, it comes back up, but politics is a major issue.
So I think we should also try to see how we can infuse politics in the advocacy for nuclear
and how we can maybe make the policy makers and the politicians to buy into the idea of
nuclear.
And I wonder like how is the atmosphere in Canada?
Like is there more in front for nuclear?
Is there any effect in it and their policy?
And how is the future like over there?
Well, it's very interesting.
In terms of this idea of a nuclear renaissance, the West has proven in the last 20 years that
we suck at building new nuclear.
The failure of the nuclear renaissance, I think, owes itself to three issues.
One is the fracking revolution, which led for historically low natural gas prices, which
have put a major stress on nuclear.
High natural gas prices, what we're pushing the renaissance, right?
Fukushima was a major issue and led to the decision to phase out nuclear in Germany,
for instance, in a real freeze on, say, nuclear builds in China.
And lastly, the incompetence of the nuclear industry in the West to actually get reactors
built.
We know that it's possible to build nuclear reactors cheaper than coal.
Certainly South Korea was able to do that.
And in the early days of nuclear in the 60s and 70s, nuclear was the cheapest form of
energy.
We know that's possible.
Now, the West keeps thinking that the answer to its inability to build new nuclear is to
come up with different designs, to experiment with different scales, advanced nuclear, small
modular reactors, AP 1000s, EPRs.
And if you look at the countries that have had success now and are successful now, particularly
South Korea that I think is really an example to hold up, they looked around the world at
that time and said, who is building nuclear?
Who's getting it done on budget and on time?
What designs are working?
And they had the humility to buy those designs, to pay those experts to come and teach them.
And they learned how to be an absolute world leader in building nuclear.
And they've just done it again in the Emirates, which I think is, you know, it's a wealthy
country, but that's an example of what's possible.
Now in the West, again, what we need is humility.
We've deindustrialized.
The West is starting to decay as we see countries like China rising, even India, etc.
And so in the West, I think what's really needed is for us to be humble, to learn from
the Koreans, to learn from the Chinese, who's doing this on budget and on time?
What designs are you doing?
But instead, we're putting all our eggs in the basket of SMRs and advanced nuclear.
Is there a need for SMRs?
Yes.
And particularly in Africa, where we have, you know, smaller grids, you don't want to
install a power plant that's more than 10% of your grid capacity, because it's going
to have to come offline for fueling and etc.
I don't want to say that there's no role for SMRs.
But my real concern here is that we're not learning the lessons of the past.
And so my fear in Canada is that we are abandoning our Kandu technology, which is an amazing
technology.
You know, it was designed to get around some of the challenges that Africa faces.
We do not enrich uranium.
We're able to use natural uranium.
And we don't have heavy forging.
So we created a design using these pressure tubes and non-enriched uranium, which I think
is very applicable to Africa.
And indeed, you know, we are helping some countries like Romania build Kandus, but we're
not doing it here at home.
And I think that's a real shame.
You know, we are much more concerned about climate change because we're a decadent country.
We can afford to do that, unlike many developing countries.
And as a result of, we're talking about electrification of sectors like transportation.
You know, Canada is one of the highest greenhouse gas emitting countries in the world per capita
because a big part of that is because we have long distances between cities, lots of commutes,
big cars.
So if we need to electrify everything, we need to two to three times the size of our
grid.
And doing that with small modular reactors just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
So you know, that's my little kind of rant on that topic and on how things are going here
in here in Canada.
And I think hopefully that's applicable more broadly.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, like, you need Africa to prove that you can do it once more.
Like bring that calendar here.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the future of, yeah, the future of the youth and the youth in Africa is changed upon
both leadership decisions and what innovations they imbibe and also what they do in terms
of their daily lives and the kind of energy that powers the activities.
I kind of wonder, so many young people that are listening to us right now are wondering
like what is the future in nuclear technology?
Recently we had a kind of show in Nigeria kind of telling people about the different
aspects of nuclear technology, the applications to medical aspect inclusive.
And so many people expressed so a large level of oblivion in terms of what nuclear technology
is and how it can benefit them.
So many people, one, I had somebody talk to me saying that so many students in the institution
she attends do not know a lot about nuclear.
And when they mentioned nuclear technology, they are kind of wondering what are they talking
about?
So there is a lot of room for education and training in this part of the world.
And I think that's largely applies in many parts of Africa.
So I think a lot needs to be done to educating people on how this technology can improve their
lives and make them live a better life.
But the question I want to ask is how can the young people be more connected to this
technology?
You live in a different climate where people are more concerned with higher ideals.
But here, given our peculiar conditions, but I would not want to exclude us or exclude
the African society from the level of thinking of the Western world because technology has
really exposed us to different ways of doing things and make things happen in synchronization.
You might begin to wonder if people do things the way you do it over there, you'll be surprised
to see that people are even living their advanced life here in Nigeria or in other parts of
Africa because of what the information technology exposes us to.
So I wonder, like, is there any way you think we can be in synchronization with the Western
world here in Africa in terms of what the knowledge and the benefits and the kind of
things, the way of thinking, the way we should do things or go about promoting nuclear technology
in our world here.
Doctor.
In addition to perhaps what has been done before.
I think one of the themes that you've been mentioning here is that in Africa, the concerns
are very pragmatic.
The concerns are poverty eradication, which requires reliable energy.
Now Nigeria, from what I understand, spends 12 to 17 billion dollars a year on generators
because the grid is unreliable.
There is eight times the grid capacity in terms of generators, diesel generators, because
people can't trust the grid.
It's constantly going down.
And a stable grid, as Robert Brice says, is it is the network of all networks.
You cannot develop without stable electricity.
And just think about that, 12 to 17 billion dollars a year.
I mean, that could build you a gigawatt nuclear reactor every year.
Ten billion dollars is approximately what it might cost, maybe lower if the Chinese
do it or Rosatom doesn't.
And what would that give you?
That would give you reliable electricity with which you could develop and build this much
higher quality of life and also rid yourself of some of those higher order issues of air
pollution.
So that's just one thing.
But access to electricity is an issue, I think, throughout the developing world, rural electrification,
et cetera.
But if your electricity is not reliable, people don't trust it.
And they defect from the grid.
And that's a major development issue.
Let me talk about a few other issues that people don't think about.
Food irradiation, right?
This is a key technology.
We know that about 40% of the world's food is wasted post harvest because it spoils or
goes bad or people, you know, and food irradiation can drastically extend the lifespan of fresh
fruits and vegetables, grains, et cetera, by selectively killing off bacteria, fungus,
et cetera, make food safe.
It's estimated that in the US, a developed country, if we did more food irradiation,
we could save 5,000 lives a year.
This is in a developed country.
So imagine what can happen in the developing world with that.
And again, people are terrified of radiation.
Food irradiation does not make your food radioactive.
It does not affect the nutrition of the food.
It saves lives.
Lastly, medical isotopes.
Canada is a huge producer of medical isotopes.
We do it in our power reactors and our can do.
So that's yet another argument for can do.
We produce enough cobalt 60 to sterilize 20 billion pieces of single use medical equipment.
This is equipment that you can't sterilize an autoclave because you'll melt it, you know,
endotracheal tubes, IVs, gloves, masks.
Everything with cobalt 60.
So you know, the way I put this is you can't have modern health care without medical isotopes.
And that's just not, that's not just for diagnostics and cancer treatment.
That is for the very foundation of sterility, which enables surgery, which enables the safe
provision of health care.
So these are some of the things which are offered by nuclear technology that I think
people don't think of very, very often.
And you know, I think some people think that, you know, nuclear is a very expensive way
to boil water, you know, and should Africa not be doing it in the most cheap and affordable
way?
Do they not have every right to do that with fossil fuels?
They do.
But fossil fuel prices are going up.
And I think that these other benefits of nuclear should be weighed into the occasion.
And I think having a diverse set of generating sources on your grid is absolutely essential.
And we know that, again, nuclear can be done in an inexpensive manner.
It's not easy.
But there are countries that are figuring it out around the world and we need to learn
from them.
We need to be humble and benefit from this amazing technology.
Wow.
Thank you so, so much for this amazing output.
And your narration has been quite inspiring.
I mean, like I never expected to have such an informative and enlightening session with
you.
But I have noticed now the Nigerianization of our grid has happened.
You know, there is no light, you see?
So evident, you know, so I quite appreciate your computer has a battery.
Yeah.
And it's almost complaining to go off now.
But before it does that, I would like to really appreciate your time.
You are a convergence of practical knowledge.
You are you've engaged in altruistic advocacy and you are a positive of elegant modern world
with a view on sustainability.
You really giving us a lot of content and ideas on how to develop in our parts of the
world and also being tandem with the eco-modernist manifesto.
So Dr. Chris, I wonder, like what is the thing that actually keeps you going?
What are the measures you are dubbed to keep you?
You jostle a lot of activities.
I see you advocating for the other health professionals and you also advocating for
nuclear and you are hosting the decoupled podcast and you do several other things in
addition to your emergency physician practice.
So like, how are you able to manage this different task?
I wonder like, yeah, maybe it's going personal now.
Yeah, I have a lot on my plate.
I don't sleep very much, but I think it's just this passion that drives me.
Wow.
If I'm interested in something, if I care about something deeply, I can make the time
for it.
And I mean, COVID has been interesting.
I can't say I have the best social life in the world as a result of COVID and lockdowns,
etc.
I've had sacrifices and everyone does things for different motivations and maybe I have
strange motivations and grandiose motivations.
But I find a way.
I don't have a great sort of prescription or answer there, but I guess other than passion.
And again, living in a high energy society, I have so many benefits, which mean that I
don't have to consume lots of my time with the basics of survival.
Right.
When you think about extreme energy poverty, I have a washing machine.
I don't have to fetch firewood for fuel.
This isn't a, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to mischaracterize Africa.
I know there's high levels of development, pockets of that.
I don't imagine Africa in that light, but I know in areas of deep energy poverty and
rural areas that that is something that really limits people.
So that's why I bring that up as a little factor there.
Okay, sure.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's been quite interesting to hear from you and I would like to call this one the
the coupling of the African nuclear landscape, if I may say.
I don't know if that's really falls in place.
So I wonder if you have any last words to tell our audience, people listening to us,
the young people, the old leaders and the lead.
I don't know anything like that.
Absolutely.
I mean, at first off, it's an honor to be on this podcast.
I have enormous admiration for the work that you're doing.
I have enormous admiration for Africa more broadly and particularly the youth.
You're the future of the world.
You know, this is an area of underdevelopment that I think is emerging and is going to see
very important moments in the coming decades.
And just as I was saying before in the West, unfortunately, our youth culture is one of
nihilism is one of hopelessness is one of dropping out.
And from the little I know and have seen in the developing world, they're huge struggles.
But I think there's an energy amongst the youth to embedder themselves, to learn to
study, to gain a profession and ultimately to contribute.
And I think there's so much potential there.
So thank you so much for having me on the podcast.
It's a real honor to be able to communicate and share some of my thoughts with a predominantly
African audience.
Thank you so, so much.
And I sincerely appreciate hoping to talk to you some other time in the near future.
Dr. Pierce.
Absolutely.
Thank you.