Naked Nuclear

Ed McGinnis said something in our last episode that's hard to shake: 96% of the energy in spent nuclear fuel has never been touched. The physics checks out. But what happens when countries actually try to get that energy back? This After Pop digs into the history of nuclear fuel recycling, not the theory, but the track record. France, the UK, Japan. Staggering sums of money. Complicated result...

Imagine filling up your car at a gas station in Washington, DC, and heading toward Richmond. Twenty miles down the road, you pull over, call a tow truck, and scrap the car, with 96% of the fuel still in the tank. That's what we do with nuclear fuel in the United States right now. Ed McGinnis is the CEO of Curio and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy. He's spent decad...

Dr. John Zino stood in front of a room of engineers, technicians, and career-changers and told them a nuclear reactor is "just boiling water." Jaws dropped. Really? That's it? Well, yes. And also, that little word "just" is hiding one of the most elegant chains in all of engineering. In this After Pop explainer, we follow a single uranium atom from the moment it splits to t...

What does it actually look like to spend nearly 40 years inside the nuclear industry, from submarine shielding to the Department of Energy to the cutting edge of small modular reactor design? Dr. John Zino is a Chief Consulting Engineer at GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy and an Associate Teaching Professor at NC State University. In this episode, he breaks down the BWRX-300 — a 10th-generation b...

What does it take to explain one of the most misunderstood technologies on Earth? This Final Friday on  Naked Nuclear , Danielle sits down with  Nick Touran  for a new  Follow Them Friday  episode. Nick is the founder of  What Is Nuclear , one of the internet’s most respected resources for understanding nuclear energy, reactor technology, fuel cycles, history, and policy in plain English. In a wor...

At 2:13 AM in Waynesboro, Georgia, crews were already deep into a process they couldn’t stop. For 41 continuous hours, concrete flowed into the basemat of Vogtle Unit 4, the foundation that would anchor one of the newest nuclear reactors in the United States. This episode breaks down: What a nuclear basemat actually is Why concrete is part of the safety system The physics of heat, cracking, and ra...

I Asked If Solar Could Power California… and It Got Complicated What started as a simple question turned into a full-blown debate:  If solar panels and batteries are getting so good… why does California still need nuclear energy? In this episode, we break down what actually keeps the lights on — beyond headlines, hot takes, and LinkedIn comment wars. What You’ll Learn Why “more solar” doesn’t auto...

What happens when an environmentalist changes their mind about nuclear energy? In this episode of Naked Nuclear , Danielle sits down with Zion Lights, environmental advocate, award-winning science communicator, and author of Energy Is Life to unpack one of the most important (and uncomfortable) shifts happening in climate conversations today. Zion shares her journey from anti-nuclear activism to b...

When people talk about building nuclear power plants, the conversation usually centers on policy, engineering, and billion-dollar infrastructure. But reactors aren’t built in conference rooms. They’re built by craft workers. In this episode of  Naked Nuclear , Danielle sits down with nuclear welder  Tyree McCall , who started his career at  Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4  at just nineteen years old....

What an EPC Actually Does: Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Explained What does it actually take to  build a nuclear power plant ? In this After-Pop! episode of  Naked Nuclear , Danielle breaks down one of the most important, and least explained, parts of major infrastructure projects: the  EPC contractor . EPC stands for  Engineering, Procurement, and Construction , and companies operat...

Nuclear power is often described as essential for climate goals, grid reliability, and energy security. But here’s the real question: Can we actually build it safely, on time, and on budget? In this episode of Naked Nuclear, Danielle Allen sits down with Ahmet Tokpinar, Principal Vice President and General Manager of Nuclear Power at Bechtel, to unpack the boots-on-the-ground reality of building n...

What happens when a nuclear engineering PhD student realizes that the book she needed as a child… doesn’t exist? She writes it. In this episode of Naked Nuclear , Danielle sits down with Zola Hind , Jamaican-born computer scientist turned nuclear engineering researcher at Bangor University — and author of Island Energy Superhero: A Kids’ Guide to Energies in the Caribbean. From visualizing nuclear...

In this episode, Danielle talks with Uchenna Ezibe about how the American Nuclear Society is shaping the future of nuclear education—starting as early as kindergarten. They dive into ANS’s hands-on programs like cloud chambers, educator training, and the new Accelerators initiative for high schoolers. Learn how early exposure to nuclear concepts can spark student curiosity, close the literacy gap,...

In this crossover episode between  Naked Nuclear  and  Nuclearn’s  The Future of Nuclear , we bring together two teams with different backgrounds but a shared philosophy: curiosity, collaboration, and the courage to try. Danielle comes from the world of storytelling and education; Phil comes from the world of digital nuclear operations and AI. One explores the industry through conversations and co...

What exactly is plasma, and why are some of the world’s brightest minds betting on fusion energy to power our future? In this episode of Naked Nuclear, host Danielle sits down with Dr. Arturo Dominguez — Head of Science Education at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) — to break it all down in plain language. From his own journey into plasma physics to PPPL’s groundbreaking research, Dr...

What happens when you unleash more power than every power plant on Earth — for just a few billionths of a second? Welcome to  After-Pop!  — today, we’re diving into the  Z Machine , the crown jewel of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s the most powerful pulsed-power facility on the planet, capable of creating the same temperatures and pressures found inside stars, nuclea...

In this Student Spotlight, we trace how childhood curiosity—sparked by Nikola Tesla and MythBusters—led  Ryan Zerpa from building a Tesla coil in grade school to pursuing fusion research. Ryan shares how he reframed a mostly-fission undergrad at  Purdue Nuclear Engineering  into a launchpad for fusion, what he learned working around pulsed-power experiments like Sandia’s  Z Machine , and how Divis...

What does it mean to be the #1 nuclear engineering program in the country? In this episode, we sit down with  Dr. Todd Allen , department chair of the University of Michigan’s  Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences (NERS)  program, to explore the history, mission, and future of a department that blends technical excellence with human-centered education. From submarines to art tunnels, th...

Ever wonder how tiny particles can power whole cities? In this After-Pop! we follow our previous episode with Ikhwan Khaleb and dive into the world of  reactor physics  — the science behind nuclear chain reactions, neutrons, and keeping everything safe and steady. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: What reactor physics actually means (and why it matters). The “life cycle” of a neutron, from birth...

Ikhwan Khaleb tells the story of moving from Malaysia to study in the University of Michigan’s NERS program, learning reactor physics in a second language, and turning TikTok into a platform for clear, visual nuclear education. We cover UMich coursework and labs, cultural adaptation, the grind of an international job search, and how engineering work at Holtec fuels his social media explainers. Lin...

Breaking into the nuclear industry can feel overwhelming, from specialized certifications and security clearances to jobs that never even make it to job boards. In this episode of  Naked Nuclear , Danielle shares an exciting new partnership with  Nuclear Talent Scout , the premier recruiting firm focused exclusively on nuclear energy. Together, Naked Nuclear and Nuclear Talent Scout are planting t...

What makes someone stay at the same company for decades — or even generations? In this episode of  Naked Nuclear , we sit down with  Bob Duffy , Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of  BWX Technologies (BWXT) , to explore what’s behind the company’s incredibly low attrition rate, its investment in early talent, and how it’s preparing for the next generation of nuclear profession...

On this episode, we dive into the power of curiosity—how simple questions can spark revolutions in science, technology, and society. Inspired by a roadside observation, we explore why cultivating curiosity is critical at every level of society, from national parks to apprenticeships, and why funding the “discovery phase” of science pays off in ways we can’t always predict. While it’s often said th...

You don’t have to be a math genius to change the world — just ask Veronica Annala. In this inspiring Student Spotlight, Danielle sits down with Veronica, a recent Texas A&M nuclear engineering graduate and founder of the Nuclear Advocacy Resource Organization (NARO). Diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia, Veronica shares how she built her own study systems, cried through calculus — and still...

Thanks for tuning in. In this episode, Danielle highlights four in-demand skilled trades in the nuclear energy industry that require  months  to years of training instead of a doctorate. For each trade, we cover: Commercial Diving Specialized HAZMAT diving in irradiated environments Historical roots, real-world challenges, and a “day in the life” Training pathways, costs, salary ranges, and union...