The Mound - #14 - Nuclear Energy

Welcome to The Mound, a weekly newsletter in which we at Good One Creative pitch— for free — our solutions to the world’s problems

According to the AFR this morning, the new, smaller breed of nuclear generators being rolled out in Canada are perhaps less intimidating to the public. In support of this, the AFR has included - for reference - the outline of a six-foot tall man next to the diagram of the small modular reactor (SMR). It’s still a building of sorts - perhaps the size of a grain silo - but the SMR pales in comparison to the stereotypical and dominating cooling towers of our imagination.

Of course, size shouldn’t matter; I couldn’t tell you how large a coal-powered station is; I also know that today a nuclear warhead could fit in my jeans. But - of course - news of nuclear’s apparent miniaturisation is incredibly comforting. Reading the above article, when he came to the diagram, Charlie looked up at me and said, ‘Oh, that’s chill as!’

Our being so easily misled by size is an indication of nuclear’s unmanaged brand playing too large a part in these policy and infrastructure discussions. We’re freaking out! But fear not - for we at Good One are no strangers to a meltdown and we will see to it that cooler heads prevail.

Here’s how we fix it: 

‘Nuclear’ is actually a pretty broad term. ‘Nuclear power’ then belongs to the weird substrata of products that are described rather than named. This is a clear sign of its still being an immature market - as the relatively few products / players in the game means we’ve yet to have reason to move beyond umbrella terms. The unfortunate side-effect of this language is that it encourages us to mentally group all things nuclear. Whilst we only have a handful of shared, nuclear memories - all of them are of the god-awful variety. 

So we must get closer to the products themselves - to the great many of them. We have…

Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)

Boiling Water Reactor (BWR)

Heavy Water Reactor (HWR)

Gas-Cooled Reactor (GCR)

Liquid-Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR)

And now the Small Modular Reactor (SMR)

With these product SKUs in mind, let’s forget the isotopes and the neutrons for a second, the chain reactions, and any associations they might have with bombs and DEFCONs. Doing so, you come to realise that a nuclear power plant is an incredibly complex process, just a small element of which involves nuclear material - and the much larger part of which involves spinning a few turbines. And what turns those turbines? Steam. 

Our world’s reaction to the energy crisis - the fate of the human race as we know it - may very well rest upon our ability to squint, tilt our heads to the side, and pretend we’re talking about kettles. If nuclear’s to have its day, if we’re to hit our targets of zero by 2050 - we might have to lull ourselves into remembering there’s nothing inherently scary about heat. Come to think of it, ‘lull’ provides with us with something of an idea…

What do we sing about when we sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’? By requesting a little star to twinkle, we are in fact lusting for the continuation of an inconceivably violent explosion. We coddle these nuclear reactors in the sky - and then wet the bed come sunrise when a newspaper suggests building a teensy-tiny little star down here on Earth. What’s the give?

Thinking about kettles, about stars, and acronyms - we propose the SMR re-brand and better connect with consumers by highlighting some of its more pertinent, prettier features. We propose we just call it what it is - which is a Thermal Wellspring Integrating Nuclear (TWINclr). We call it the Twinkler. 

Then us travellers in the dark

Thank you for your tiny spark

We couldn’t see which way to go

If you did not twinkle so. 

Twinkle, twinkle, little star. 

You’re welcome, Australia.