Every once in a while I bike to and from the gym instead of driving there, a whopping 2-mile round trip. I used to think that was a big accomplishment, then I heard about Matt Randall and his 1,800-mile bike ride from Massachusetts to Florida.
This isn’t a biking blog though, don’t worry. Matt did this ride to shine a light on the role that nuclear plays in sustainable energy. In this episode, Matt shares stories from his epic ride, including tours at seven nuclear plants, stealth camping through the night, and the inspiration behind his advocacy for nuclear in the outdoor community. His trip to being a nuclear advocate wasn’t traditional, but it was podcast-worthy.
I did four years of active duty back in 2015 and ‘19, and then I took a four-year break just until last September and then I rejoined in the National Guard. During that break, I kind of had a lack of sense of purpose, and so I was looking for something to fill that gap. And I started to look into climate change and through that, I kind of learned about nuclear energy...I started to realize, okay, if we're serious about these issues that we say are serious, this kind of fits the bill very well.
Since he started learning about nuclear energy, he’s been all about it, talking about it with his friends and members of his outdoor community. Provided a lot of outdoorsy folks are very passionate about the environment, he found it was important to share the good word of nuclear with them.
I've done a previous backpacking trip in 2021, so I kind of mapped out all the nuclear plants on the East Coast. And I have family that are in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and down in Pensacola, Florida, so those were kind of the logical start and stop points...And it wasn't until later that I was linked up with NEI—Nuclear Energy Institute, you folks—and you guys were able to actually get me access to these plants to get tours.
Matt was able to check out seven plants on his travels. Two highlights were Three Mile Island, which is poised to be restarted by Constellation, and the Vogtle reactors, which are the newest reactors in the United States. Matt was able to see the past, present, and future of nuclear reactors in America.
I was relatively knowledgeable about the safety of the nuclear industry but seeing all of the safety systems up close and personal—at Catawba, the engineer who gave me the tour there, he told me about the five redundant safety systems for a loss of power accident... Just seeing the layers of safety that are at the actual plants is pretty incredible and it just shows how dedicated the nuclear industry is to safety.
Listen to this week’s episode to learn all about Matt, his trip, and all the fascinating things you can see by going from nuclear plant to nuclear plant!
The season finale airs on Thursday, January 23—make sure you tune in, Fissionaries!
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