 Hello and welcome to COP26, where we are coming to you live from Glasgow. The IAEA is here this week to talk about the many ways that nuclear can help tackle climate change. And we're here with one of the many young environmentalists that are here at COP this week, Eric Meyer from Generation Atomic. Man, happy to be here. Happy to have you, Eric. So firstly, why are you a supporter of nuclear power and how did you get into this space? There's so many reasons, but I think the first thing that really turned me out of the technology is just how much energy you can get from such a small amount of material. You know, somebody explained to me that like a golf ball size chunk of uranium could power your entire life of energy and everything from electricity to transport, heat, everything. And that's kind of mind blowing. It's the closest thing we have to magic, I think. And could you say a little bit about Generation Atomic? Yeah, Generation Atomic started about five years ago now in the U.S., but we're internationally active. We organized volunteers to fight for nuclear energy in their communities. This past year we've had some big wins, probably the biggest of which was we saved 30% of the clean electricity in Illinois with two nuclear plants by our end dressing stations. So talk to a lot of the state-level legislators, you know, made a lot of memes, and eventually they got a lot passed that saved a third of the clean energy in the state. So feel pretty good about that. I can see there's lots of other young activists like yourself. So what is happening with this movement? Yeah, what you're seeing behind us, I guess, is the Nuclear for Climate Coalition, or as I sometimes refer to them as Team Nuclear. They are from all over the world. I was just trying to count the countries. I think at least 15, maybe over 20 people. There are people like, you know, Danara, who grew up in Kazakhstan, decided to become a nuclear engineer, lives in Berkeley now. People like Rowley, who is a Finnish author who first started writing about peak oil and now has written an award-winning book in Finland about how nuclear energy is essential for climate change. And then tons of people who are nuclear engineers, and you know, maybe they got into it because they thought the science was kind of cool, and they realized that this technology is so important for a prosperous future for humanity, and they realized there's kind of a higher purpose to advocating for it. It's been so fun working with all of them. And how are you making a difference? How can young activists really change things? Oh man, I think, you know, a lot of it is changing people's perception of nuclear. Because of over 60 years of cultural, almost indoctrination, people's kind of gut instinct on the technology is that it's uniquely dangerous, uniquely dirty. The waste is just, you know, impossible to deal with. And so what we're doing is we're trying to kind of cut through that noise that people have in their head about it with some really interesting mnemonic devices and comparisons and analogies, like this one we have behind us. Yeah, should I say a little bit about this? Yeah, absolutely, please. All right, we see a giant gummy bear here, and we use this to remind people that, you know, the small gummy bear, which is about the size of a uranium pellet, that's as much energy if it was made out of uranium as a ton of coal from that small little bit. So that of course means us as humans will have a lot less impact on the environment if we use nuclear energy because you just need to dig up a lot less stuff out of the ground than you do with other technologies. This bear obviously is a lot bigger than that, but we crunched the numbers and we found out that if this bear was made out of uranium, it would be enough to power Glasgow for 16 months. That's a city of 1.6 million people. Wow, and do you think people are listening? Are you feeling like the debate is shifting? Incredibly so, yeah. You know, it does feel like there are some tailwinds here. It looks like the European Union is going to include nuclear as a sustainable technology, which has been another fight we've been a part of for a couple of years now, sending in letters, sent in over 5,000 letters to the European Commission a few months ago with all of our allies here and their organizations. You know, saving reactors in the U.S. There's been a lot of legislation that's included advanced reactors and even saving some of the existing reactors. So we see it changing in the policy. And this is my fifth cop and the difference between this and then before you couldn't even say the word nuclear. It's completely taboo. And now we get people that are walking up. They're so curious about it. They want to know how it can help their country, whether they're from Sub-Saharan Africa or Armenia. And these guys have a lot of good answers how it can. And what are you going to do to keep the momentum going? Keep the momentum going. I think, you know, keep being creative about our advocacy approaches. We're coming up with new stuff all the time. You know, there might be a video next week based on the Monty Python skit, but the nights you say nuclear, bring us a reactor. So yeah, just doing really creative approaches that are memorable for people. Get them to take a second look and then aligning with people's values. Because I think, you know, one thing is common about everybody who's here is that they care about the environment. They care about the future of humanity. You know, they want to do the right thing for future generations. And we might have some different opinions about how to get there right now. But we think that once they know about nuclear, they'll join the team. So lastly, I hear you like to sing for nuclear. Would you like to give us some examples? Sure, yeah. Yeah, this is like my first foray into advocacy was rewriting classical opera, a song from Carmen Vitoridor to be about nuclear energy. And then I've done a few since then. So it's kind of fun. We'll sing a few bars for you. Thank you. Here we go. Nuclear power holds the key to universal prosperity. It is nuclear energy we must embrace for the human race. And if we build it, history will show it was the right way to go. That was fantastic. So thank you so much for talking to us today. I really, really appreciate it. It was really great to hear your viewpoint and to hear your music. Hopefully we can speak more this week. Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Please tune in later today and for the rest of the week to see many other interesting interviews about nuclear. Thank you. Goodbye.