Bringing the Party to Nuclear

Mary Carpenter: This is Fissionary, a show exploring how nuclear powers your world. I'm Mary Carpenter.  

Jordan Houghton: And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in.  

Mary Carpenter: Hi everyone, welcome back to Fissionary. Hey, Jordan.  

Jordan Houghton: Hey Mary, welcome back everyone. We have a really exciting episode for you today. We are checking back in with Ryan Pickering, who is a previous Fissionary, and is always up to something new and interesting in his exploits as a nuclear advocate, and wow, he's really done a lot since the last time we talked to him. He's been to Africa, he has planned a rave, he always takes me by surprise with the things he's doing.  

Mary Carpenter: I know when we saw the rave, we had to get him on Fissionary! I mean, we have to talk about it. If you guys haven't seen this, check out Ryan Pickering's Instagram. So, they threw a rave in support of increasing new nuclear in California. Ryan's just doing so many cool things to get people who aren't typically interested or involved in nuclear interested and involved in nuclear. Outside of engineers and policymakers, he's really looking ahead when it comes to nuclear advocacy and helping bring in all these different voices into the conversation.  

Jordan Houghton: Mary, I also have to say, when we were talking about the rave, he mentioned this idea of, like, celebrating being on-grid and all of the things that that brings versus, like, an off-grid lifestyle. And I just—I mean, I feel like I've solidly on record, but I am—I am an on-grid person.  

Mary Carpenter: Oh, I am definitely on-grid! It's one of the reasons I do this for a living, I highly support the energy grid and all the luxuries it brings us!  

Jordan Houghton: I'm here recording this from my plugged-in computer in the comfort of my air-conditioned room. Very, very big proponent of being on-grid.  

Mary Carpenter: I mean, that's one of the reasons we do this podcast, to get our listeners to hopefully understand how important energy is in our everyday lives.  

Jordan Houghton: Speaking of which, shout out to Fissionary, this is gonna come up in the interview, and I just have to highlight it before we get into the interview. Ryan linked up with Ralph from last season because of the podcast, which was so exciting to hear! And Ralph helped do the artwork for the rave, which I just think is so cool.  

Mary Carpenter: I know. They're both so cool! I'm so glad they connected. I'm sure they're doing big things together.  

Jordan Houghton: So, other former Fissionaries, if you're listening and you've connected, let us know. We want to tell these stories too.  

Mary Carpenter: Yeah. Well, it's always fun talking to Ryan, good friend of the podcast. Let's jump in. Today we're joined by someone you might recognize from season two, Ryan Pickering! Ryan is a vice president of Native Nuclear and a policy advisor at the US Department of Energy. He co-founded the NiCE—Nuclear is Clean Energy Club—to bring students from all disciplines into conversations about clean energy. His work spans grassroots organizing, international diplomacy, and indigenous advocacy, all aimed at making nuclear more inclusive, just, and practical. Ryan, thanks for joining us! It's great to see you again.  

Ryan Pickering: Good to see you, Mary. Thanks for the opportunity.  

Mary Carpenter: So I know you've been on the podcast before, but it's been a little while, so tell our listeners a little bit more about you beyond your bio I just read.  

Ryan Pickering: Thank you. Yeah, Ryan Pickering, longtime anti-nuclear advocate turned pro.  

Jordan Houghton: I thought you were going to say long time listener, first time caller.  

Mary Carpenter: Second time caller! 

Jordan Houghton: Second time caller, yes! 

Ryan Pickering: I was very proud to make the all-stars podcast before my first appearance and grateful to be working backwards and being able to tell my story. When I changed my mind on nuclear in 2021, I just wanted to get involved in every facet. I was fascinated, and that's led me to this complex bio that you read off and, you know, everything's going really well. I'm so grateful for my work with the Department of Energy and I continue to learn and have some amazing mentors through that program. And I'm looking forward to passing all this incredible knowledge that I'm gaining on to this new generation of the new nuclear professionals who are coming into the space, who are, you know, actually going to be the recipients of this ubiquitous clean energy that we're building in this country and around the world.  

Jordan Houghton: Ryan, you've said before that you don't have a technical background, that you're kind of a regular person who found your way into this space. What helped you realize that your voice matters in a field that's often dominated by scientists and engineers?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, I come from grassroots organizing, and what I've learned is for any movement to succeed, you need a lot of voices. And I felt that in nuclear, everyone was trying to throw the dart right at the center of the target, and just say this magic spell that would make everyone believe in nuclear. And I think, what really is incredible is seeing real people talk about this in a variety of different voices and perspectives. And so, I thought I would just contribute to that. And I also thought that I could help host more conversations so that we could create, you know, this broad societal movement that would be required for this new industrial economy that's in front of us.  

Mary Carpenter: So Ryan, you co-founded NiCE, which I mentioned stands for Nuclear Is Clean Energy—great acronym—to help students think about what a nuclear-enabled economy could look like. Can you tell us a little bit more about NiCE and what the vision is?  

Ryan Pickering: Yeah, NiCE was, in many ways, a bud of a new flower from the Save Diablo movement, which I was involved in, and so many now-legends, we all just were babies back then saying, hey, let's save a nuclear plant in California, the largest source of clean energy for our state. And, you know, Isabelle Boemeke came up with that t-shirt, “Nuclear Energy Is Clean Energy.” and so we were kind of riffing on that, and we recognized that the acronym NiCE was fun, so we just said, Nuclear Is Clean Energy. And it came out of UC Berkeley and Grant Mills, who was an undergrad at the time, now a grad student in the nuclear engineering department, and myself, and about three other people said, ‘we need to make a club to get visible,’ you know, we were inspired by this movement. And I think Berkeley is the perfect place to do it because we famously are a nuclear-free zone since 1986. The people of Berkeley voted to, you know, ban nuclear weapons research specifically, but also nuclear energy broadly. And that ban still exists today and it's something that NiCE Club is trying to overturn with a petition campaign next school year. And so, it's kind of this crucible, right? Like, we're—we have a nuclear engineering department, it's the only nuclear engineering Department in the state of California, and we wanted to make a stand and say, like, nuclear is clean energy, because a lot of—especially back in 2021, the 100%25 renewable narrative was so, so dominant. And we wanted to provide a counterpoint to that. So, we met weekly, provided the students an opportunity to present on different ideas, which I think is powerful. And now a few other universities around the world have created their own NiCE clubs, so it's nice to see.  

Jordan Houghton: NiCE is nice. Before—I want to talk a little bit more about NiCE. But I want to go back to your intro. You talked about being anti-nuclear. For people who are not familiar with your story, can you do a quick primer into that turnaround for you? Why you were anti-nuclear and what changed your mind?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, growing up in California, in Northern California, we have a vision— this ‘small is beautiful,’ return-to-the-land movement, and there's a lot I still really like about that, you know, craftsmanship, and it's funny that it's also this tech hub and we're experimenting with AI and everything, but like, real Northern California culture is like woodworking, and reading, and being a human, and having dinner parties, and growing food in your backyard and cooking it and—you know, the farm to table movement. And so all of that I found to be very alluring. And so, in my 20s, I built a yurt down in in California and I was living off the land on solar and batteries, growing food and really experimenting with that lifestyle and seeing if it's something that is really feasible. And what I recognized is that while it was feasible for me because I had a good job and I was a single guy and I could drive up into the mountains every night, it wasn't feasible for working class people. It started to fray my vision of this 100 percent renewable energy society. And I started feeling like we needed something more in order to transcend the hydrocarbon fossil fuel paradigm that we're in. And little did I know that that was setting the foundation for me to change my mind about nuclear energy. And that happened with Diablo Canyon. I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle about closing Diablo, even though they said it had a 40-year useful life continuing from now. And so, they were celebrating that it was closing 40 years early. And I just—that was the moment, and I started networking to find other people who also wanted to question this, and what an adventure that has been!  

Mary Carpenter: I love your background as someone who was anti-nuclear and has changed their mind because it makes you such an interesting person to talk to others who are anti-nuclear. Is that something—you know, NiCE, it sounds like you're working with students on college campuses. Is that something you run into often, meeting these younger folks? Do you see that anti-nuclear sentiment in that—and what are you doing to change that?  

Ryan Pickering: Yeah, certainly young people have a different take on nuclear. It is less informed by the Cold War era of nuclear fear and radiophobia and it's more informed by the nihilism of our current moment and how we're going to try to navigate forward. So, I generally find young people are very interested in nuclear and they don't have that initial fear. I do see them having a skepticism of corporate culture and centralized energy, and I think we have to reckon with that. But I think the whole world is rethinking nuclear right now. We're seeing, I mean, it's like, we just get headline after headline. And I think that the root of that is that we need something to be optimistic about. I think young people, we've really put a lot of nihilism on them and, you know, I’m not a young person anymore, but in my 20s, I felt that, you know, I was the generation that saw An Inconvenient Truth in college, and it made a huge impression on me. And I really felt like we were going in a bad direction and I think a lot of young people feel that way, and nuclear just has this incredible hope involved and this this broad constituency that is interested in this and can kind of imagine a world, not just where we have clean electricity, but we have this new industrial economy where we can have nice things and they don't destroy the planet. And we don't have to all go back to farms and caves and whatever, we can have these like incredible kind of solar punk cities that are just powered by a few inconspicuous nuclear plants around the world, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, and that seems to be the theme of NiCE Club is optimism. Like, how do we survive? You know, like, and how cool can we make it?  

Jordan Houghton: Okay, Mary and I are dying to talk about the rave. So, this is an event you recently organized in San Francisco. A rave to raise awareness around California Assembly Bill 305. Tell us about this. Why did you choose the format and how did it land with people? Who was there? Give us all the details.  

Ryan Pickering: It was one of our—you know, we've been meeting at NiCE Club for three years now and we've always talked about like, how do we break the mold? How do we do something different? And this year we had climate week in San Francisco, SF Climate Week, and these are kind of popping up around the world. And, and we noticed there was only one nuclear event at Climate Week, and it was awesome. I attended it. But we were like, what if we had a second nuclear event, and what if it was a party? Because all of these events are all lectures, and we noticed there was kind of this night slot early in Climate Week. And were like what if just threw a rave, and didn't even explain it. We were just, like, a rave for nuclear energy. You can either get that or not, and we just wanted to do it to be punks, you know? We just wanted to, like, show Climate Week that we're here and we're going to throw a party, and you're welcome to come. And then that idea was germinating and then Assembly Bill 305 came out in California, and it was to overturn California's nuclear moratorium that's been in place since 1976, and now we're like, oh, so with this now there's a current event to tack on to it, and then we realized that this Assembly Bill 305 only legalizes nuclear up to 300 megawatts. And we're all big fans of Diablo, which is over 1,000 megawatts, and we're fans of all kinds of nuclear and we were like, why are we implementing this kind of random arbitrary megawatt number? And that was confusing to us, which I think plays well into a rave because raves are inherently confusing, they are loud, and you're just kind of like raging and freeing your mind despite all the challenges of the world, and so, the way that we wanted to impress the attendees is that we created a small zine, which is just a single page printed paper with some text upside down and you can fold it into a four page booklet. And we kind of say, like, what is nuclear energy on the front page, and it's like fission and you know, just some basics to respect the audience. And then we provided a context for the rave, there's a moratorium in place, we're considering overturning it, and we need all the nuclear energy we can get, and we also shouted out, like, hey, contact your assembly person and say that we want all kinds of nuclear energy, including Diablo Canyon, which is a proven source, it's been amazing for our state, and why wouldn't we build more of reactors like that as well, and we should allow for that. And then we also took the opportunity to do a little artwork from local San Francisco artist, Ralph. And so, Ralph kind of did this cool, like atomic impression on it. And we also called for land back for Tilhini Tribe, a Native American tribe whose homeland is around Diablo Canyon. We just wanted to stitch it together and we thought it was a wild thing. And so like, what do you do when everything's so complicated in life? You just put on some music and dance. And that's really what we ended up doing, and 350 people came out, and we got written up in some local newspapers, and we had a blast.  

Mary Carpenter: That's so cool. Ralph was on the podcast last season.  

Jordan Houghton: We love Ralph.  

Mary Carpenter: So interesting, yeah, that you guys connected. I love it.  

Ryan Pickering: Yeah, we connected because of the podcast, and we've become friends since then and he's created all this legendary artwork, and I love the way that he brings it. Just like a real physical art form, not just like AI nuclear art, you know? I'm a little allergic to that at this point. It's real paint on canvas. And so, he also designed the poster for the rave, and it was beautiful. It was like a really painted poster, you know? And then he superimposed some text on it from like some of the classic raves that he went to in Puerto Rico growing up. So, he's like, old school raver, and he was there, and it was just, like, totally legendary.  

Jordan Houghton: This is so cool! Next time you're going to do something like this, you have to give Mary and I more heads up so that we can come out and be there. 

Mary Carpenter:  I'll hold one of the ‘legalize nuclear’ signs, I love those, those looked awesome. I just love that you're doing things that are fun! I mean, it's not a panel, you know, it's not—and you're reaching people who wouldn't go sit at a panel, and those are the people we need to be talking to. So, how can we do more things like that?  

Ryan Pickering: I think there's something to be said for living in the moment and we organized this whole thing in three weeks because it just kind of happened and that's life, and I think a lot of good art and culture and writing comes from inspiration. And so, I'm always encouraging all my colleagues to keep writing, keep creating some kind of content somehow, because the world's hungry for it. And I think, to a certain extent, we can do it by recognizing that we already live in a nuclear-powered world. And Diablo, whether you like nuclear or not, is powering nine percent of every light bulb in the state of California. And so, like, the nuclear rave was on-grid, you know, like we're kind of trying to take back on-grid. Almost everything we like in life is on-grid, and sure it's great to get off-grid and, you know, go camping and everything, but I think we've over-indexed on off-grid, I don't think it's, you know, even if you have a battery on your house, as soon as you go to your local pizza spot, you're back on-grid, so no one lives off-grid. Every—all factory-made materials are on grid. And so, I like this movement towards energy realism. And just recognizing that we live in a high-energy world and that we can continue to party. And I think that's what nuclear energy brings is instead of this climate catastrophe world where we have to go backwards and it's all gonna fall apart and we have two change every way we live in this new nuclear industrial era, the party will continue, the materials will get better, and pollution will go down at every metric, and we can continue to be human and we continue to party. So, my recommendation, Mary, is just every day is a celebration, you know? And that's, I think, how we build a broader coalition is not saying no to people, it’s saying yes.  

Mary Carpenter: That's awesome. That's for every aspect of life, right? Every day is a celebration.  

Ryan Pickering: Yeah, I think so. Some days are harder than others and everything, but we have an—it’s an incredible time to be alive. And I'm just so grateful for nuclear, because it gives us something big to work on. And that's, like, with NiCE Club, and with politics and everything, everyone's coming together around this big idea, and we can work on this for the next 25 years. We can keep our heads down and just build nuclear plants in the United States for 25 years and mind our own business and save the world. And I kind of like that idea and, you know, the young people do want to build. We want to have meaning and purpose. And when people say that nuclear takes too long or, you know, it's too expensive, we're like, all the money stays here. What else are we going to do? Like, let's get to work! And I think that's going to happen as we start seeing nuclear announcements and the pledge to triple or quadruple nuclear energy in the United States. This is the biggest tent idea ever, and I'm so excited and I can't wait to bring more and more young people into this movement because it pays well and it's—we're going to be doing it for life.  

Jordan Houghton: So speaking of that COP pledge to triple nuclear, you have, since the last time you were on Fissionary with us, gone, like, really international. You've been traveling all over the place and I know you were recently in Kenya for a conference that brought together a lot of African nations thinking about nuclear. Tell us, what was that experience like and what did you take away from it?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, I've been so lucky to gain Charles Oppenheimer as a mentor and his wife, Karen, and they are over in San Francisco and they're talking about, how do we move away from nuclear weapons as a society, as a species, and how can we use nuclear energy to move away from nuclear weapons, to disarm nuclear weapons? And I think this is, like, a very, very important idea, and pulling those things apart is essential for Americans to embrace nuclear. Because there are a lot of Americans in my perspective feel that if they're endorsing nuclear or supporting nuclear, then they're implicitly supporting nuclear weapons. And I'm hoping that we can create like really like opposing movements there or maybe opposing is a strong word, but a lot of distinction and space between those ideas. And so, the Oppenheimer Project, which represents J. Robert Oppenheimer and his family as a nonprofit, was invited to Kenya for this nuclear summit that the Department of Energy was involved with and some of the UK nuclear regulators, so I got a ticket to go out to Nairobi and meet with many countries' nuclear regulatory advisory boards. And, you know, from North Africa, Morocco, Algeria, down to South Africa, East Africa, West Africa. And it was incredible. It was so wonderful to just sit back and hear these nuclear professionals from Africa who have worked for generations on this idea. Ghana, Nigeria, they've been working on this for decades, and made me feel very lucky that we have so much nuclear energy in the United States, and these countries have been seeking it. And, you know, there is only one nuclear reactor in the whole continent. It's down in South Africa. And they also have a medical reactor too, shoutout South African nuclear leaders. And to see these other countries really seeking it was inspiring and it really made me feel like we got to get our act together in the United States. Because they were like, you guys are our friends, but you guys don't really like show up to the party with any beer. You know, you just kind of come and it's like, yeah, we'll talk about all of our rules and like, how much we've thought through this. And they're like, cool, you got any cheap nuclear reactors? And we're like not really, you know? And so, they're really rooting for us, and meanwhile, like Russia and China get most of the nuclear business in Africa, and I'm like, that's what we get for stepping back from nuclear for a few generations here in the United States, or decades, I should say. And it really inspired me to do better at home. And I think that's so much of my life, is sometimes I worry about other people and what other people are doing, and I'm like, just worry about yourself, you know?  

Jordan Houghton: Any other exciting trips you've been on lately?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, I recently returned from Oklahoma City, and what an incredible place. My first time I traveled there with the Department of Energy and my mentor, Scott Lathrop from Tilhini tribe and the founder of Native Nuclear, a new nonprofit that's creating scholarships for Native American students to get involved in nuclear energy and this broader STEM field and this, like, new industrialism that's happening, and it was incredible. We went to the First Americans Museum, which is a brand new museum. It represents 39 tribes in Oklahoma. Incredible. Really, one of the top Native museums in the world. And we invited tribes to come meet with us and I got to witness, you know, Scott and these tribes talking about all kinds of industrial activity, including nuclear and storing nuclear fuel and, you know, remediating land and moving beyond some of the tribal narratives around uranium mining and nuclear energy. And so, that was incredible to watch. And it's been really exciting to see the United States continue to grow our respect for our Native neighbors who are sovereign countries in our own nation. I just didn't—growing up, I didn't have that much experience with that, so to see that on full display made me really proud to be an American, and see all the strides that we're making there to achieve something incredible in this country. 

Jordan Houghton: What inspired you to get involved in the work of Native Nuclear and work with the Indigenous communities?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, it actually all goes back to Diablo Canyon, because during our advocacy campaign, I remember having this thought, we should look up who the local tribe is here, see, see what they're about. And lo and behold, I found this tribal elder named Scott Lathrop, who, you know, is a powerful figure in his tribe. And he said—he invited myself and Isabelle Boemeke and Heather Hoff to coffee in San Luis Obispo and told us a story that we couldn't even believe, you know, that this was that Diablo Canyon was built on his native homeland, built literally on top of one of their ancestral village sites, and that they're in a deep campaign with the governor and the federal government and the local utility to regain stewardship of their land. And so, it went from like, okay, let's save Diablo to, like, broaden the aperture to this incredible ancient story, they'd been there for 12,000 years. And I just got interested by that. I thought it was fabulously interesting. And they have their own language called Tilhini language, it's beautiful. And, you know, it's one of the most diverse areas from an ecological standpoint. And so, all these native plants named after them, and I'm like, and there's the most important nuclear plant in the West Coast is right in the middle of their land? It just was fascinating to me. And so, time goes by, I start working with the Department of Energy through their collaborative siting for consolidated interim storage. And Scott Lathrop, who is an expert in nuclear fuel, and he helped inspect Diablo during construction and everything. He's on the program, I get paired with him and we're both in California, so I've been traveling with Scott Lathrop for two years now, and he has an incredible amount of knowledge, and it's been wonderful to learn his perspective.  

Jordan Houghton: What's next for you, Ryan?  

Ryan Pickering: I'm packing up for Rwanda and looking forward to going to their first nuclear conference in Kigali, June 30th through July 1st. What an incredible country. A small, a little bit misunderstood, but really, really incredible. I think that we have a lot to learn from them, and they're real allies to the United States, and they are seeking nuclear energy in a wonderful way, and they have no interest in nuclear weapons. And they're flinging the door open, and they are inviting everyone from around the world to come to their beautiful convention center, and, you know, work with their atomic energy board to build nuclear because they cannot grow anymore. Their hydro is maxed out, they have no fossil fuels, they're kind of like France back in the day. And they're saying, the only way that we become the country of our dreams is by harnessing the atom and the clarity. Oh, I love it. I'm also traveling all summer with Scott Lathrop and the Department of Energy's collaborative siting for consolidated interim storage, so we're going to Utah, we're going to Nevada, and we're reaching out to a lot of Native groups and talking about this big idea. And, you know, finally, I'm here to support the communities who are seeking nuclear infrastructure. There are these factories with, like, nuclear reactors attached to them, not even for electricity, but for industrial heat. And I am really, really interested in that. And so, I'm working on a couple of different white papers with students and academics to kind of like, get excited, not just about nuclear, but this whole this whole big idea that's happening, and maybe that's the nuclear rebrand that we need. Because everyone's like, let's call nuclear a different thing. Like, maybe we should be humble and recognize that nuclear is just a piece of the future. Sure, it's a central piece and very—it's gonna be incredible and it's going to enable all these things, but also, let's build a more inclusive version of the picture that like doesn't put so much pressure on the nuclear reactor, right?  

Jordan Houghton: Okay Ryan, last question. What book are you reading, or have you just finished reading, that you would recommend to our listeners?  

Ryan Pickering: Well, I just finished reading Atomic Dreams by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, and it's about the effort to save Diablo Canyon. It was pretty cool. I was at a public event, someone came up to me and gave me a copy of the book and he was like, you're in it. And I'd never had that experience before. And so, I got to read through it and it is an amazing tale. I mean, I'm so grateful for the author because she really took an investigative journalist take. On the whole thing, you know, and really like pieced together all the pieces. And even though I'm a character in the book, I didn't even realize, like—my part is so small and, you, know, so many people are involved. And it was pretty cool. The first word of the book is Scott Lathrop, my boss, you know, and, and it talks a lot about the tribe and the tribe's claims. And so, I think she did a really good job. And so that was amazing. I finished that last week. And what's next? I was referred to this book, The New Map by Daniel Yergin. And I love working for the Oppenheimer family because they're not, like, super anti-China and Russia. They're very like, hey, let's all get together and disarm nuclear weapons together. And we can all get along with a cooperative framework of science and technology. But this national security thing is interesting and this book dives into like, China's industrial economy, and how Russia has weaponized energy, and I'm like, we do have to be serious about this. Like, energy is not just, like, a component of the economy. It is the—it is the core of the economy. And I think as the United States reckons with energy realism and how it relates to these other giant countries around the world, I want to understand that, and then hopefully moderate it for peace.  

Mary Carpenter: Two great additions to the Fissionary book club. Thanks so much for joining us! So good to see you.  

Ryan Pickering: Thanks again.  

Mary Carpenter: Always a fun conversation with Ryan, so glad to have him back on the podcast.  

Jordan Houghton: Yeah, and I have to say I appreciate the rave, but I do feel like even in my own home every night is a nuclear party. When the lights come on, when the AC is on, when I'm streaming some good TV, that's my kind of party.  

Mary Carpenter: Yeah. We celebrate nuclear every night. As long as you live in an area that's powered by nuclear.  

Jordan Houghton: And I do, in the great state of Maryland.  

Mary Carpenter: There you go! That's awesome.  

Jordan Houghton: Well, thank you all so much for tuning in and hanging out with Mary and I again, and thanks to Ryan for coming back on the podcast to chat with us. Always great to catch up.  

Mary Carpenter: And if you're interested in learning about NiCE or Native Nuclear, check out NiCE-future.org or NativeNuclear.org. Thanks again for listening. We have more episodes coming soon, so make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to stay updated on all things Fissionary. See you next time!