Isabelle Boemeke

Summary

the goop podcast with Gwyneth Paltrow

Guest: Isabelle Boemeke
Date: December 23, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Gwyneth Paltrow sits down with Isabelle Boemeke, also known as Isodope, to discuss the myths and realities of nuclear energy, the cultural narrative around clean energy, and Boemeke’s unconventional journey from small-town Brazil and modeling to becoming one of the most influential nuclear energy advocates. The conversation explores the intersections of science, storytelling, technology (including AI), policy, and hope for a sustainable climate future.

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Key Discussion Points

Isabelle's Background: From Brazil to Global Activism

• Isabelle’s Rural Upbringing
  • Born and raised in a remote area of Brazil, likened to Texas with “farms and cows and crops” but lacking infrastructure. (04:45)
  • Struggled with expensive electricity, no air conditioning or heating, few amenities.

    “The city where my family is from... is like 20,000 people... there would be people riding horses on the streets... we had maybe two restaurants in the whole city. Very different from what people imagine.” — Isabelle (06:16)

• Desire to Leave and Perceptions of America
  • From a young age, she aspired to greater opportunities in the US, shaped by American media and the stark contrast in quality of life. (07:44–10:23)
  • Felt limited by Brazil’s bureaucracy and lack of social mobility, citing her mother’s struggles as an example. (11:51)
  • The sense of “knowing” she would move to America—a discussion about faith, manifestation, and spirituality. (12:10–13:38)

Modeling, Entrepreneurship, and the Awakening

• Entry into Modeling World
  • Discovered at 16 via a chance encounter; quickly placed in Brazil's biggest modeling competition.
  • Used modeling as a means to leave Brazil and step into the US, modeling first in Miami. (14:41–16:45)
• University and Business Ventures
  • Briefly attended university, then started a cosmetics line, and later a product incubator—highlighting her drive for intellectual engagement and entrepreneurship. (17:44–19:46)
• Catalyst for Change: The Climate Crisis
  • The Amazon and Australia wildfires in 2019 prompted reevaluation of purpose—shifted focus to climate activism rather than consumer products. (19:46–20:48)

Deep Dive into Nuclear Advocacy

• Initial Curiosity

  • Sparked by reading Dawkins on evolution and exposure to science via Twitter, encountered the idea of molten salt thorium reactors. (21:01)
  • Noted persistent bad PR around nuclear—“never heard anybody say anything positive about nuclear.” (22:11–22:38)

• Becoming ‘Isodope’: A Digital Persona

  • During pandemic downtime, Boemeke created Isodope—a hybrid of cyber-aesthetic, humor, and viral education targeting the “PR problem” of nuclear energy. (29:00–30:49)

    “I wanted to create something that seemed like it was from the future. It's almost like this alien or this human from the future coming back to give us a message that we fumbled the bag on this technology.” — Isabelle (29:33)

• Impact and Validation

  • Her engagement and advocacy contributed to preventing premature closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California. (31:16–31:22)
  • Emphasizes the importance of accessible science communication and curiosity over traditional credentials. (27:52–28:32)

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Nuclear Power: Myths, Realities, and Historical Context

The France vs. U.S. Case Study (32:30–36:42)

• France built 57 reactors in 15 years after the 1973 oil crisis, achieving energy independence and clean, cheap electricity.
• U.S. attempted similar ambitions but failed due to fragmented utilities, lack of centralized planning, and diversifying designs, leading to inefficiency and stalling momentum.
• The 1979 Three Mile Island accident, coinciding with the release of the thriller movie “The China Syndrome,” fed into public fears and halted expansion (49:05–50:43).

Cultural Stigma and Industry Resistance (36:42–44:35)

• Nuclear technology’s “original sin”: Association with atomic bombs colored all subsequent civilian uses with suspicion and fear (37:56–39:22).
• The anti-nuclear movement initially arose from concerns over military power and environmental risks but was also covertly supported by fossil fuel interests to protect their market.

  “Friends of the Earth... Their first check was $200,000 from an oil magnet.” — Isabelle (42:56) “They've definitely funded all these, like, astroturf grassroots movements that stopped... nuclear. For sure.” — Isabelle (44:27)

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Nuclear vs. Solar and Wind, and Addressing Fears

• Why Nuclear?

  • Highest energy density: a uranium pellet (“size of a gummy bear”) equals £2,000 of coal or 150 gallons of gas. Less mining, fewer materials, smaller land footprint. (64:56–65:37)
  • Produces no greenhouse gases or particulates, offering a low-impact, long-lived (60–100 years) infrastructure, and quality jobs for communities. (65:33–66:47)
  • Despite higher upfront costs, fossil fuels’ health/environmental harms are massively under-accounted (“at least 4 million people die every year from diseases caused by air pollution”). (46:08)
  • Nuclear, wind, and solar are equally safe according to deaths-per-energy-produced comparisons; hydro is riskier (China’s 1979 dam collapse killed 200,000). (62:56–63:55)

• Safety & Accidents: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima

  • Three Mile Island: Partial meltdown; containment worked, minimal radiation, no deaths. (48:04–51:15)
  • Chernobyl (1987): Design flaws, poor communication, and no containment dome; fewer than 100 confirmed deaths, ~4,000 potential cancer cases—a fraction compared to the millions from fossil fuels. (56:25–62:15)

    “You would need like 200 Chernobyls happening every single year for nuclear to be as dangerous as fossil fuels are.” — Isabelle (61:34)

  • Fukushima (2011): Modern dome worked; minimal direct fatalities.
  • Overall: 440 plants in 31 countries, hundreds of reactor-years, only a handful of major incidents (63:33–64:13).

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The Role of AI, Political Polarization, and Future of Power

• Nuclear & AI: Twin Transformative Challenges

  • Both technologies are “godlike” in their potential and risk; rapid adoption of AI outpaces the development of safety guardrails (51:15–56:21).
  • Industry’s surging power needs (e.g., for data centers) could ironically make AI a driver for nuclear’s resurgence (54:32–54:43).

    “They're the ones that are pushing the nuclear electricity— the technology companies—because they have the money to pay more for the electricity.” — Isabelle (54:43)

• Bipartisan Appeal in the U.S.

  • Unique cross-aisle support: both Trump and Biden administrations have prioritized nuclear in the energy portfolio, with bipartisan policies to facilitate further development. (68:22–69:03)
  • More than 70 startups are working on new (often smaller, safer) reactor designs. (69:42–69:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Everything could be addictive if there’s an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled. I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life.”
— Isabelle (02:16)

“I wanted to create something that seemed like it was from the future. It's almost like this alien... coming back to give us a message that we fumbled the bag on this technology.”
— Isabelle (29:32)

“If you get a little pellet of uranium... it’s like the size of a gummy bear, has the same amount of energy as £2,000 of coal.”
— Isabelle (65:33)

“You would need like 200 Chernobyls happening every single year for nuclear to be as dangerous as fossil fuels are.”
— Isabelle (61:34)

“How do we keep the future human?”
— Gwyneth (53:00)

“Nuclear should serve as an example of how we think about technology and the impact on both the environment and people as well.”
— Isabelle (78:09)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 04:45: Isabelle’s childhood in rural Brazil
• 10:08: First attraction to America; cultural perceptions
• 14:41: Modeling discovery and life-changing “knowing”
• 19:46: Climate crisis as catalyst for switching careers
• 21:01: Early exposure to nuclear, curiosity, and challenges in science communication
• 29:00: Creation of Isodope and the aim to solve nuclear’s PR problem
• 32:55: France vs. US nuclear programs—what went right and wrong
• 38:26: Anti-nuclear movement, bombs, culture of fear, oil industry influence
• 44:56: Why nuclear over solar/wind; energy density explanation
• 47:43–62:15: Nuclear accidents (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima)—causes, myths, realities
• 65:33: Gummy-bear-sized uranium pellet = £2,000 coal
• 68:22–69:51: Bipartisan political support, nuclear startups
• 74:39: Five-year shift in US nuclear public opinion
• 78:09: The need for holistic, farsighted regulation and ‘thinking like nuclear’

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Closing Reflection

This episode breaks down the complexity and emotion-loaded history of nuclear power, making a compelling case for its role in combating climate change. Isabelle Boemeke’s story embodies the power of curiosity, communication, and unwavering advocacy, as she reframes nuclear energy from a symbol of fear to a beacon of abundant, clean, and humane progress. The conversation closes with an urgent call to apply nuclear’s rigorous long-view thinking to all emerging technologies and environmental challenges.

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Highly recommended for listeners who want a fresh, science-savvy, and culturally nuanced take on the future of energy, activism, and the human side of technology.

Transcript

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[Isabel Bamecki]

When you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture, you get criticized. You do?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, did you hear about that?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I didn't find the one.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I found someone I respected and we.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Made it the one. In the sort of longing kind of view of love, people understand each other as if by magic. Nothing in itself is addictive on the one hand. On the other hand, everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled, I now know that nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. This is the GOOP Podcast, bringing together thought leaders, culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers here to start conversations. Because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world. Here we go. Welcome to the GOOP Podcast. Today I'm joined by Isabel Bamecki, author of Rad Future, the Untold Story of Nuclear Electricity and How It Will Save the World. Known online as isodope, Isabel is a Brazilian born model turned nuclear energy activist who's redefining how we talk about science, climate and policy through fashion, memes and futuristic storytelling. Her voice bridges aesthetics and activism, fact and feeling, offering a fresh, fiercely human take on one of the most misunderstood energy solutions. Nuclear. Today, we unpack the myths we've inherited around nuclear energy, the role of AI and what comes next. And my hope isn't naive, it's a strategy. Thank you for coming on the GOOP podcast.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Thank you.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I'm so, I'm so happy to interview you. And this, this doesn't happen very frequently that like, a good friend of mine ends up. I guess it happens sometimes, but like, you've produced this incredible work called Rad Future. You have this book out about nuclear power, and I was just saying, like, I know you in such a different capacity and it's been so illuminating and fascinating to read about your work and how you became what you call a self proclaimed nuclear power influencer. So I'd really love to start at the beginning. Can you. Before we get into how you became a nuclear power influencer, tell me a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, and how you came to the United States.

[Isabel Bamecki]

I grew up in Brazil. Now, when I say Brazil, you probably think of Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo. You know, most, most people have that vision in their minds like a beach or the Amazon forest. But Brazil is a huge country, much like the United States. And the place where I'm from, it's very much like Texas. So imagine like farms and cows and crops and also really, really cold in the winter time.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh, wow, okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah, so it gets very, very cold in the winter. Like high 30s, low 40s, but there's no infrastructure.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

That's not that cold, by the way.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's not that cold.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Go to Boston, go to Chicago in the winter. I know, I'LL show you.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally. But that's like. But that's also my point. I've been to those places. I've been to Milwaukee when it was. Long story as well. When it was negative 25 degrees. Yeah. And yet I didn't feel as cold as I felt growing up in the south of Brazil because there is no infrastructure.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like, there's no central heating. Electricity was very expensive back then in the 90s in Brazil, and so we couldn't really use that. We don't have air conditioning and you can't open windows because mosquitoes can come in. But, you know, it was like a rural, nice area of Brazil, but remote, very remote, low population. So the city where my family is from and where I lived for like six years of my life is like 20,000 people.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Which again, maybe in the United States is not that small, but in Brazil, it's a very, very small city. Like, there would be people riding horses on the streets. It's cool. There is no mall, obviously. Like no movie theater. You have. We had maybe two restaurants in the whole city. Things like that. Yes. Very different from what people imagine.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And did you always want to get out? Did you have a longing to leave?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Always. It's really interesting. And I think a lot of people who end up immigrating from their countries have this feeling from a very early age. I used to watch American movies on tv and I didn't even understand why, but I would think I would love to live in America someday. And there was something about how I. The way I perceived. At least everybody had a much better quality of life. You know, you would look at the poor people in America in the movies and it would be comparable to middle class in Brazil. And so I just remember thinking, wow, this looks like a place where people just have a better quality of life. And I've always wanted to leave.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Do you think that people were happier in Brazil? Like, meaning was there less of an orientation around materialism when you grew up? I always find that there's like this inherent connection between unhappiness and materialism or capitalism.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's so funny you say that, because I have been thinking so much about this lately because so much about my work is around abundance in a material sense of. Especially access to electricity, because I have those experiences. Right. Of, man, it really sucks to have to wash your clothes by hand and be so hot in the summer and so cold in the winter. So. Right.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And was electricity something that you was treated like a very precious resource in your life?

[Isabel Bamecki]

It was expensive. Yes, definitely. For every, by the way, everybody, I was middle class. My family wasn't super poor. But still, it was just a. An expensive thing. But to your point, it does get to a point where you start asking yourself, is adding more materials? Is it. Is adding more luxuries or, you know, reducing the friction in your life actually better for you? Yeah, but that's also something that you can only ask after you've gone through the arc. Right. So, yes, they were happier, but I also remember people saving money and being so excited about buying a laundry machine.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Or an air conditioning.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Or small, things like that. But Brazil in general, I don't know if you've spent much time.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I've never been to Brazil.

[Isabel Bamecki]

We have to fix that.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's so fun.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I'll go with you.

[Isabel Bamecki]

The culture is so beautiful. People are generally happy.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Everybody's just late, more laid back and fun. So maybe that also, you know, warps my perspective.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. Okay, so tell me about that feeling that you had, because I think that's rare. Or maybe it's because I grew up in America where, especially in a generation where we felt, I think, very safe, you know, that anything was possible. You know, I sort of came of age when Clinton was president and America had these incredibly profitable, prosperous years. You know, whether you like him or don't, we had a surplus. We weren't at war. So during those years, it was like, I never. I also. I was also traveling. You know, I started traveling for work, although I guess more in the Bush years, but to other countries. But I always, you know, felt I never even contemplated leaving my country. So, like, how did that. How. How young were you when you remember watching a movie, you know, about America and. And wanting to move?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Six.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh, wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Seven. And I agree. I think America is the best country on earth. I live here. It was totally a choice. Yes, of course it has issues. Da da, da, da.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Compare it to any other country and you will be so glad that you live in America. And I love that you said this thing about, like, possibility and that you can do everything.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Because growing up in a country that is developing and also very corrupt, you feel the exact opposite. Interesting.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You feel limited.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You feel limited, and you feel that you can't really, you know, move in society.

[Goop Advertisement Voice]

You.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You can't create something for yourself if you weren't born wealthy in the 90s when I was growing up. And I can use my mom as an example, you know, when I was six, my parents got a divorce and I lived with my mom in a Different city. And she would work all day and study at night at university. And she graduated, she got a master's degree. And still life wasn't easy. And she worked her whole life in very mediocre jobs, even though she was a well studied, hard working woman. And so I, you know, I never forget feeling that sense of it doesn't matter how hard you work. Right. And how much of yourself you give, there is not really a way to move upwards.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

That's. Yeah. I mean, if you, if you think about it like from an ROI perspective, I mean we, our motivation is powered by the idea that what we put it out, we will get out to get back.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So it must have been very demoralizing.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Well, it's. Yes. And then. Plus you also know that it's like a bureaucratic nightmare. So being an entrepreneur is hell in Brazil. And I think that my personality changed when I moved to the United States.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So tell me how you got to the United States.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So this is also what's so weird. I had this certainty in my mind that I was going to live in the United States. For some reason, it was just something I knew about myself.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, I understand.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. Which is funny, right?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's not even a desire, it's just a.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

It's just a knowing.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's a knowing I always, because I.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Had, had and have certain knowings and they always come to fruition. And I've always wondered, does the knowing exist because it's predetermined or do you manifest it because of the knowing?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I have no idea. And, and I, this is something I think a lot about as well, because there was a period in my life where I was extremely anti religion or anti spirituality in general. And I can say that those years correlate with the worst years in my life where nothing, where everything I tried didn't work and where none of my, like all of my efforts were wasted. My relationships weren't good. Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And as soon as I started being open to spirituality and the idea of a destiny or faith.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. Faith in something. Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Things started working out and. But is it because, you know that it was determined or is it because I now have this belief that I'm doing something that's bigger than myself and that makes me act differently in the world and it's just, it's an interesting.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Chicken or the egg.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But it's also interesting that there are these knowings from a very, very, very young age.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay, so you're 17, right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So I was seven. I was 16.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

My last year of high school. And I was leaving earlier my school because I was gonna meet with my boyfriend at the time. So it was just me leaving the school. Whereas usually, you know, if everybody's living at the same time, it's a little bit harder to spot people. And as I'm leaving my school, this man run towards me and he had like thick glasses and he had a ponytail and a microphone in his hand. There's a man with a camera behind him and he comes and puts the microphone in my face. And he goes, are you a model? And I'm thinking, no, I'm literally a high school student. What are you doing? It was very creepy in hindsight. But then he told me there was this modeling competition happening in my city and that I should go. And this is another one of those weird knowings where for a couple of years before this incident happened, I dreamt every single night basically that I was walking on the Runway with Gisele Bundchen.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh my God.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Really random. But it was almost like, okay, I guess I'm going to be a model. But I never pursued it. I never looked into how do I become a model or anything like that. And this guy just showed up and invited me to participate in this contest and ended up going. Placed third in, in the country was for the biggest modeling agency in Brazil. And they're, they, they gave out these prizes which was in reality a contract saying we're gonna give you work up to like $20,000 or something like that. But they made it sound like they were giving me $20,000.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So the guy's interviewing me and he's like, so you got $20,000? And I said, well, technically it's not. But I just knew that that was my opportunity to get out of Brazil in a way that didn't cost money. So I just recognized that as my ticket.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So you get this modeling contract.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So I got this modeling contract begin modeling in Sao Paulo. And I was just thinking about that. I was talking to my dad the other day and we were just talking about that period in my life. They put me in a modeling apartment and it was just like, the kitchen was just like black, covered in mold. Nobody cleans. There was like cockroaches everywhere. And it was like six girls living in a two bedroom apartment.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh my God.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And they would, the agency would send a van every morning to pick up all the models at 7am and drive us to the agency where we would sit and wait for castings. So that's usually the case. You start Modeling. They'll send you to all these different countries to build your book. You know, get photos, editorials, and things like that. So then my agency in Brazil said, this agency in Miami wants to have you there. And I said, miami, because Miami didn't feel like a fashion market, you know, in the same way that New York was or something. She said, well, it's a better city to start off. They have lots of great clients there, and so on. So I went to Miami.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay, tell me a little bit about the journey to your life now, especially as it pertains to your work. Do you. Do you still ever model, by the way?

[Isabel Bamecki]

No.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You quit?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes. Okay.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You quit when you became a mother or before.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It was kind of a natural progression after Covid, you know, I. I did work as a model for a long time, and I. I actually enjoyed it. I liked working with creative people, and everyone in the fashion industry is pretty creative. I loved traveling around. It was also something that paid really well and gave you lots of free time. Yeah, it was nice, but I've always wanted more, and I always thought it was going to be some sort of, like, company. I also started going to university when I was in Miami, modeling as well, just because I. I've always been more intellectual, always enjoyed reading, wanted to study something. As I was going to university, I realized that it a huge waste of.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Time because don't tell that to my kids.

[Isabel Bamecki]

I know.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

On your way out.

[Isabel Bamecki]

No, I know. And I think that. Listen, depending on what you want to study, in my case, I wanted to study business. And I kept thinking, I'm just going to start something.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And it was the right decision at the time. So I decided to start a company. And I started with a friend of mine and we started a beauty. Cosmetics. Cosmetics company. It was a spray. It was a face mist that was made of coconut water instead of water because it was more hydrating. And we're both models, so we wanted to create something that would allow us to moisture our. Our faces on the go.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like when you're on the airplane, you don't want to get a little jar and put your fingers in it and then put it on your face.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But my skin was so dry from just constantly being on the airplane and, you know, in the studio and with lots of makeup on. So I started that and I really got into it. So I learned how to make cosmetics. And then as soon as I started selling the products, I realized, oh, I hate selling products. And then along the way, I had a better idea, which was what If I start a company that creates products for people, because there must be thousands of people like me who have an idea for a product, but they don't know the first thing about starting a company. And what if I create that company? And so I shut down the first, the first one and started this, this incubator of cosmetics. And this was 2018. And then I remember waking up one day and opening Twitter, which is the, the most unhealthy thing you can do. Just one eye open Twitter and I saw this photos of the Amazon on fire. And I don't know if you remember this, but 2019 was the year where Australia was on fire.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, I remember. Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

The Amazon was on fire, which is basically every year. And then there were the orange skies in California as well.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And so we just, it just felt extremely heavy for some reason. And like, I grew up with climate change. I, I heard about climate change my entire life. It was always some sort of preoccupation, but it, because I grew up with it, it always seemed like, oh, it's a future problem. You know, we've been talking about this forever. I'm sure people like the grown ups have figured this out. And I remember seeing those images, I realized it's here and we have not figured this out. And then all of a sudden making cosmetics just didn't feel like the right thing for me. I felt like I had to do something about climate.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

That I had to use whatever skills I had gained through modeling and through building these companies to do something about climate change.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So, so how did you choose? So how did you start to narrow down? Because there are obviously a lot of ways to address climate change. How did you start honing in on, on nuclear power as a solution for climate change?

[Isabel Bamecki]

There is, there's this parallel story to the whole story I just gave you of my modeling and cosmetics, you know, life. Also, when I was 19 years old, I came across a book by Richard Dawkins on evolution. And I grew up and obviously in Brazil, went to Catholic school most of my life. And I didn't really know about evolution, which is so embarrassing to admit. Not at all. But reading that book was one of those moments where I was like, oh my God, where have I been my entire life? I can't believe I didn't hear about evolution. And so I became very interested in science and popular science books. And so I started educating myself on lots of different topics, but a lot on evolution. And because of that, I started following scientists on Twitter and one of them was this incredible planetary Scientist Carolyn Porco, who tweeted about this type of nuclear reactor called a molten salt thorium reactor, which is. I know at the time I was like, what the hell is this? I went online, couldn't find a website that would explain it in a way that I could understand.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Pre chat GPT.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Honestly, people don't know how easy they have it now that they can ask. Even being an entrepreneur, right?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like you don't know the first thing about starting a company and you have to figure it out. But now you can literally just not.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Make your board decks if you wanted to. I know, crazy.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's so crazy. But that kind of stuck with me. What is a molten saltarium reactor? Why is this woman talking about nuclear? I've never heard anybody say anything positive about nuclear.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And, and so I've always had that curiosity in the back of my mind. And when I would ask people who are in the climate or energy space about nuclear, they would say, oh, it's, you know, it's actually good. We needed to solve climate change, but people hate it. Yeah, People are terrified of it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Bad PR, horrible PR. So kind of for generations.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Since the 70s. Yes, since the like 60s and 70s. So fast forward from having that curiosity about nuclear to I want to do something about climate change. What is it? I started reading about the solutions and came across nuclear again. And I was like, oh, let me do a deep dive on this so I can at least understand what nuclear is. And I started reading just about it in general, how safe it is, how it works. And anybody who does that with nuclear comes out the other side, being completely blown away because everything they thought about it is probably wrong. And this is a funny story, but later in that same year I went, in 2019, I went to a clinic in Spain to do a fast. This was the time where everybody was talking about fasting as a way to have better metabolic function, to clean up the damaged parts of your cells and salatophagy and all of that good stuff. So I found this place in, in Spain that did supervised fasts. I went in fully with the intention of just better health. What I didn't know was that people obviously use fasting for spiritual reasons.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And they have great ideas and great spiritual insights. And so I. We've finished a fast. Ten days later, I went into a cabin in the Faroe Islands actually for New Year's. A very remote cabin.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow. Are you by yourself doing this?

[Isabel Bamecki]

No, I was with my husband.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes. And. And so we were kind of just both wanting to think about our lives and what was next and so on.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So it was, it sounds incredible. It's unusual. Very unusual and incredible.

[Isabel Bamecki]

I would recommend if you're searching for the next thing.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And so we're in this cabin and I'm brushing my teeth at night and I look in the mirror and this idea just randomly pops in my head. What if I become a nuclear energy influencer? And it made me laugh. I was like, okay, that's so stupid. But it, I don't know, it just, it was like teasing me, you know, that idea was in my brain just constantly. And I actually told my husband at the time, I was like, what if I, like, become a nuclear energy influencer? And what if I start making content about nuclear in a way that's very interesting and unusual so people can understand. And he said that's a great idea. Which, bless his heart, most people, honestly at the time, most of my friends were like, you're insane. This makes no sense.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But he's a visionary, so I can imagine him seeing past, you know, like, yes, he is really a visionary, so he can see past what other people.

[Isabel Bamecki]

True.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Can't see.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. So it was, I mean, yes, it was extremely supportive from the beginning, which is amazing. Yeah. But back to your point, like, why nuclear and not solar or wind? It's because nuclear was the only one that had this communication problem, Right.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

There was some. There was a problem to fix.

[Isabel Bamecki]

There was a problem that not only was there a problem to fix that I could fix because I could use my social media platforms or, you know, a better way of communicating and explaining to people this very complicated science in a way that was easy to understand and fun and interesting. And then I started pitch, like I would take a flight and people would say, what do you do? And I would say, I'm a nuclear energy influencer. And everybody was like, what? What are you talking about? What about your noble. And they had all these questions. And so as I started testing that into the world, I realized it had potential because nobody knew anything about it. And it was always an interesting conversation. It was never a moment where they're like, oh, okay, cool. You know, very strong reaction, either positive or negative, and always led to a good conversation.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

That's so cool. So the interesting thing about you, in my view, one of the many interesting things about you is that so you weren't just like, oh, I'm. I'm going to be a model who becomes a nuclear energy influencer. Like, you're mastery of nuclear energy and how it works and how nuclear Power plants are built, and the chain reactions of what happens. Like. Like you're brilliant enough to translate the PhD stuff, and you have a facility with the language, and you retain all the information you have, like, to the point where you've had a TED Talk. And, you know, you can debate people on this subject, like, very thoroughly.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes. Well, I honestly, I would say I'm just extremely curious and I need to understand how things work. I just have this itch where if I don't understand how something works, it drives me mad. And so I'll have conversations, just getting into the, you know, the actual physics of it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And then I ask the stupidest questions, and then I ask, ask, ask, until I can finally translate it for myself, which means I can translate it for other people as well, because I don't have a background.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. So I know, but nobody has a background until they start to study the thing.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But I think that not having a formal background is even more important because you can still relate to the people.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Who don't know anything about it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. You can be the conduit.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. So you see this big opportunity not only in how we as countries garner. Make energy, but you see this PR problem. And so, like, what. What are your. You're.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

How do you even begin the process? Tell me about Isido.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Okay. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do this thing.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Great.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It was also Covid. So I had lots of time. I was like, I can think about this all day long.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And you weren't a mom yet, right?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I wasn't a mom yet. I. There were no modeling jobs. So I was just thinking about this, you know, how do I do it? And I just remember thinking, okay, I want to do something really unexpected and weird. I almost wanted to create something that seemed like it was from the future. It's almost like this alien or this human from the future coming back to give us a message that we fumbled the bag on this technology.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And I also wanted to do something that would obviously stand out on social media because everybody's just so bored of. And flooded with content at all times. And, you know, Rosalia, I don't know if you know this Spanish musician Rosalia, she was a very important inspiration aesthetically for me at the time. She was creating this, like, really colorful and kind of Latin, Japanese aesthetic. It was very, very cool. So she was. I was very inspired by her. I was also inspired by AI influencers, like little Miquella back then. So I wanted to create. Yeah. This character Persona that was like an alien coming from the future, but it also needed to be funny because it's kind of a boring topic. So how do I make it funny and interesting and short and dynamic? And I was talking to this energy expert actually, and telling him about my idea and he goes, you should call yourself Isodope, the Nuclear Influencer. It's like a play on isotope, which is, you know, something related to nuclear science. And obviously ISO dope. And I was like, huh, okay. And I just ran with it and. But honestly, it's one of those things also, I had no idea what I was doing, you know.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

I just felt like I needed to do something.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And looking back, I just came across this email that I sent out on March of 2020, which is before I even started posting about Nucle. And I was telling this person, you know, my goal is to get young people talking about nuclear to stop the early closures of nuclear power plant in the United States. States. Which you.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You actually influenced. Yes, one in California not closing prematurely.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Exactly. And then, and then also like get the United States to build more nuclear.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Build more. Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But I had no idea at the time. Well.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

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[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844botox to learn more. So in the book you talk about how quickly France was able to convert to not a fully, but kind of get largely off fossil fuels and kind of commit to building. I Don't remember how many Nuclear power plants? 15 or something like that?

[Isabel Bamecki]

No, like 58. Oh, wow.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow. In a, in a generation, like in a. In a relative 15 years, short period of time, which then of course, like environmentally it doesn't, you know, you don't have fossil fuel pollution, you're not subordinate to oil nations. Right. There are a whole host of political ramifications, I imagine, to being energy independent. Energy independent. Thank you. And presumably the United States saw that model. Right. Presumably the United States is thinking, we don't want to be energy dependent. It causes all kinds of geopolitical issues. So why do you think the United States has been so reticent to invest in a nuclear program if it's the cleanest? And if we're talking all the time about clean energy and how important it is, what are the reasons that the US doesn't. Hasn't really invested?

[Isabel Bamecki]

So this is actually the perfect comparison to make. It's France in the United States at the same time. So the reason why France went nuclear was because of the oil shock in the 70s. This was the first oil crisis in 1973. So all these countries that were rich in petroleum put an embargo on oil to nations like the United States, France and other ones. And so overnight the cost of oil goes up and all of these countries realize the importance of energy independence. And France doesn't have coal, they don't have oil or methane gas.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

They don't really have natural resources.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Natural resources. So they said, okay, we're gonna go nuclear. And so they set out this massive plan, it was called the Mesmer Plan, to build, I can't remember exactly a number, but they wanted to basically go fully nuclear on their electricity because nuclear is used to make electricity. And in 15 years they built 57 reactors, which is astounding. And they went from producing 70% of their electricity with fossil fuels to producing 70% of the electricity from nuclear, which is to this day the highest percentage of electricity out of any country. France today has one of the cleanest and cheapest electricities in Europe. They export it to every single country.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So the United States during that same time also wanted to become energy independent. And they did want to build a thousand nuclear reactors, which had we built that today, our electricity would have been 100% clean. So why didn't we? It's different. The United States, France has like a government owned utility. The utility is a company that sells electricity to people.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, I was going to say it was the privatized, where they're Big lobbies against it from gas and oil industry.

[Isabel Bamecki]

No, it's more that they. They could be. They could be very centrally organized. And so they set out this plan, and because the government owned on the utility, they were like, okay, we're going to build all of this. This reactors. They also chose one reactor design and built it over and over and over and over again, which is what brings costs down.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

In the United States, you have like hundreds of utilities, and then each one of them built a different reactor design. So there was no caring of learning forward. Right.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And no economies of scale.

[Isabel Bamecki]

No economies of scale. And so we never got to be very good at building nuclear. We were better than we are today. And there are some examples that stick out. But. But nuclear was already getting expensive to build in the late 70s. And then you have the whole cultural aspect of it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, right. And was that. Was that because of Three Mile Island?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like, what started Three Mile island was the nail in the coffin.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay. I don't remember what year that was.

[Isabel Bamecki]

1979.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So I like to say that the first sin of nuclear technology was that nuclear fission, which is the process, you know, of. Of unlocking the energy inside of atoms, which is used in nuclear power plants, but also in bombs, was discovered in 1938 in Germany. Worst time ever for that discovery to take place.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And so immediately governments went, especially the American government, went into making a bomb, because the fear was that Hitler was going to build a nuclear bomb and the world would look very.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Or he started. He did.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It wasn't going very well. And it was also like this, like.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

He killed all the Jews.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Is that so many of the scientists were Jewish. And he was kind of like, no, but imagine what the world would look like if Hitler had. Had developed nuclear bombs. Very different. And so the United States obviously rushed into making bombs. So the world was introduced to nuclear technologies, ah, because of bombs through the bombings, you know. And so that leaves a mark, of course. So there is already that fear. Lots of the environmental organizations started as anti nuclear weapons organizations. Greenpeace's first action was trying to stop a nuclear weapons test. Later on, they developed into being, you know, more broadly pro environment.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But a lot of the environmental movement itself had its beginnings as an anti nuclear weapons movement. And it was because for the first 15 years of nuclear technologies, only the military could build and operate nuclear reactors everywhere in the world. And so it was very tied up. The electricity side of it and the bomb side of it were very inextricable. It was. And people couldn't get over that.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And so I imagine, you know, especially World War II was so psychologically impactful to the whole planet. I think every culture, you know, seen images of, you know, these far, far ranging horrific images, whether out of Germany, whether out of Japan. And I probably the culture was in a tender place. And so the idea of exploiting nuclear probably was not that palatable.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It was like this is, this technology is tied to big government, it's tied to the military, it's. It's tied to all the things that later in the 60s and in the 70s, people became against that, that anti establishment feeling, you know.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like anti Vietnamese. All of these movements were brewing together. Anti Vietnam War, anti nuclear, women's liberation. I mean all of this was kind of happening at the same time and it was very much the sentiment of f the government and nuclear was seen as big government. And I talk about this in the book. I would have probably been anti nuclear back then too. We didn't know that much about the technology. Like we didn't know if these plants were going to explode every few months.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But just to be cynical, because I think about things in this way as well. Like, for in my view, like I have noticed throughout my life that when there is like an incredible, like a vehement pushback against something without a lot of like as you're saying, Three Mile island, which is the one that everybody knows about first. Right. Was 1979 and already you're saying there was. They were developing this very anti nuclear sentiment.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So in my view, when I see that, and there's not a lot of data to base it on. Right. It's more like a psychological. Right. In my experience, many times there are systems that are being threatened, like existing, like monetary streams, like existing paradigms of capital that are being threatened. Because why else? So that's what I'm just wondering, was there some kind of push, not that we would even know from the gas and oil industry to sort of create this priority storm against nuclear?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I mean they, I'm just gonna say this. They definitely liked it, you know.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Exactly.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And they took advantage of it. Now, did they start the anti nuclear movement? I don't think so.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You don't know though?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I don't know. But I can tell you two pieces of information. So first one is, and this story ties back to Diablo Canyon in California.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But that's the power plant that you help save.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Pointed out.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So when Diablo Canyon was first being proposed in California, they wanted to build it in like a set of dunes called Nipomo. Dunes, I always mispronounce. It was this, like, beautiful landscape. The Sierra Club was against it because it was such a pristine stretch of, you know, dune. They wanted to protect that. That landscape. But the president of the Sierra Club was actually pro nuclear because he was a nuclear scientist himself.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh, wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. And he saw it as a great replacement for fossil fuels. However, because the environmental movement was already becoming pretty anti nuclear, his support for Diablo Canyon being built at this other location, which is where it stands today, which is close to San Luis Obispo in California, led to a huge fracture within the club. And one of the guys who worked there, this man named David Brower, he left to start his own organization called Friends of the Earth and Friends of the Earth, main difference from the Sierra Club at the time was that it was anti nuclear. It was founded as an anti nuclear organization. Their first check was $200,000 from an oil magnet.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

There you go. So case in point.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Case in point. Do I think David Brower was a big shill for oil? No, I don't think so. I don't know. But it is like, why wouldn't a fossil fuel tycoon be interested in funding this tiny new organization?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, because you start. You start this ground roots PR campaign against something. And like that now, you know, it's. I find that so interesting. I really do.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So there's that. And then the second piece is there was this power plant called Shoreham Power, nuclear power plant in Long island that was. It was actually fully built. It was actually fully built, ready to go. And the movement against it was so strong that they prevented the power plant from ever opening.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So it's still sitting there.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes, it was fully built and never operated because of efforts.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But pre Three Mile Island.

[Isabel Bamecki]

This was pre Three Mile Island. Yes, it was around the same time. It was late 70s. Wow. And there is this. I have this in the book. But there is this little ad from a newspaper back then, and it says solar, not nuclear. And it says the Long island, you know, utility companies trying to build a nuclear plant in your backyard, call to say you don't support it, blah, blah, blah. And it was funded by the Oil Institute.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, of course.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So they've definitely funded all these, like, astroturf grassroots movements that stopped. Slow down. Nuclear. For sure. That happened.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Of course.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So can we talk a little bit about why? Why is nuclear power better? Like people say solar, there's solar, there's wind. In the book, you explain this really well around how much energy can actually be generated per investment.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like, explain One thing that's been in my mind for the last few days, it's how do we know that the technology is better? How do we know that progress is better? In my opinion, the best way to frame it is it makes people's lives easier, but it also has less of an impact on both people and also the environment. And nuclear checks, all those boxes. That's because if you replace say a fossil fuel plant with a nuclear plant, you're creating clean electricity. Doesn't have, doesn't have release greenhouse gases which create climate change.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Is, I don't know the scientific language, but is the unit of energy from a fossil fuel plant more expensive than nuclear? I guess you have to amortize the cost of the plant and all of that.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's definitely not. No, fossil fuels are very cheap.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You know, it's, it's still the cheapest if you account for their reliability and so on. So no, nuclear is more expensive. But I would argue like that we don't, we don't account for the externalities of fossil fuels.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like we're not accounting for the damage that they cause on, on human health.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, exactly.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Four million people die at least. I use very conservative numbers. At least 4 million people die every single year from diseases and conditions caused by the air pollution that comes from. That's not even from greenhouse gases which cause climate change. This is just the, the particulate matter that, you know, gets into our lungs and causes heart disease and pulmonary disease.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. Or gets into the ocean and food. Food chain.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally. The whole impact on the ecosystem we can't even calculate.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right, right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So nuclear is definitely more expensive but you know, it doesn't have this, this doesn't release particulate matter.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Doesn't really, doesn't have a long tail environmental impact. But it, so it's really just, you know, in the event that there's a nuclear, if there's a meltdown, if a reactor melts down.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Which I want to talk to you about as well because you know, and I've told you this before, but when I was a kid, I was, you know, in the 80s and or the late 70s in LA, that was, yeah, it was like the height of anti nuclear sentiment. My mom used to have like Carl Sagan over and you know, all these people and it was like everybody was really up in arms about the fact that it seemed like we were moving towards nuclear power and it was really so, so now we know why. But as you said, Three Mile island was the nail in the coffin in terms of like the Roadmap for future plants.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So what happened at. What happened there? And. And what happens at. At something like a Chernobyl? I mean, a Three Mile island was contained, to my understanding. Right?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And Chernobyl was. Was not. So can you explain why those two things happened and what the difference is and what the future threat of something like that is?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah, and I think those are great questions. So Three Mile island was the biggest nuclear accident in the United States, right? It was. It was the only one really we had. And the quote, unquote, worst one.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And how many. Sorry to interrupt. Nuclear plants currently are operating in the United states?

[Isabel Bamecki]

We have 93 reactors.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Some plants have two reactors, some have one, but we have 93 reactors. In terms of sheer numbers, that's the highest any country has. So we have 93, and then China has like 58, France has 57. So the US is still the country that has the largest number.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

In the 60s, we will. We were building tons of them. By 1979, there were 120 reactor orders. So we would.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

We would incremental.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes, we were adding 120 reactors. Then Three Mile island happens. And this is how crazy it is. The accident happened 12 days after this movie, the China Syndrome, came out in movie theaters.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh, my God.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And this was a thriller featuring iconic Jane Fonda. But, you know, she was a journalist who was visiting a nuclear power plant, and the nuclear power plant almost had an accident when she was there. So she goes around trying to tell everybody, you guys, this power plant is dangerous. And they try to kill the journalists that are trying to tell this. I mean, it's obviously fictional. Would you believe that 12 days later, a very similar accident to what they showed in the film?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So it wasn't a meltdown. It was a partial meltdown.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay, but. And how does that happen?

[Isabel Bamecki]

What went wrong in the case of Three Mile island? It was like some safety systems. It's always like safety systems and human errors. But basically the fuel got too hot to. To continue functioning. And in the case of Turmoil island, specifically, they had a containment dome, which is something that most modern nuclear power plants have, which is a concrete and steel casing around the nuclear reactor that in case there is an accident, it prevents the radiation from going to the environment. There was a little bit of radiation that came out, but minimal. I mean, you get that from air flying, literally. Yes. So. But because of the timing, people were freaked the hell out. You know, they evacuated. I mean, how could you not. You have this huge Hollywood movie coming out. Of course, and then 12 days later, something very similar. It's almost like it's a sign from God.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. That's very strange.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Very strange. And we can get into the spiritual, my spiritual interpretation of that, which is, I think that God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, wanted us to take our time with nuclear technologies. And I think it sent this little warning signs together.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Because we were under learned, we were under prepared. The engineering wasn't there.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Well, you know, as with any powerful technology. And I only realized that as I started drawing the parallels between nuclear and AI and thinking, oh my God, this is such a world changing technology and the ramifications are huge. And we need to become wiser in how we organize our societies and how we behave towards each other.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Good luck.

[Isabel Bamecki]

In order to be able to handle such powerful technology.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah. I wish I had, I don't know, for some reason like I have, I have more faith in sort of the scientists and engineers minds in the 60s developing this than I do now with sort of how culture seems to be devolving. And you know, I really, when I think about AI and exactly what you're saying, like it's incredibly powerful tool that I rely on all the time. And we don't know what's in store. We don't know how it's gonna compound and evolve. And you know, it's, we've got, we're playing with fire. And I don't know that I have the faith in humanity at the moment.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

To believe that we can be there for each other or protect, you know, humanity. Like the, not, not even so much the physical like staying alive part, but the internal aspect of, of who we are and, and how the point of us being on earth, like I don't.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Know, I mean that this is a question in my mind right now.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's how do we keep the future human? Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

How do we.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Right. Because we're entering this, we're just rushing into this technology that is so like nuclear in the sense of being godlike.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But also so unlike it in the sense that we're all using it already and it's new.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You know when you go into a room and you ask how many of you use AI, Everybody's gonna raise their hand.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

It's true. And, and by the way, like six months ago, maybe half.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Like the rate of adoption is so incredible. And obviously the train has left the station. This is here to stay. And to this point we are developing these technologies, whether mining for crypto or AI that are requiring an inordinate amount of incremental energy. I heard Sam Altman speak at a conference, and he was saying, like, we don't have the power. We don't have the. No, we don't have the electricity. Like, what is holding back the advancements of AI is compute, like limitations on compute because of. Of power.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Right. And so you have. You obviously have two conflicting goals, right? Which is we're trying to replace our fossil fuels with clean energy like nuclear, solar, all of the clean energy sources. And. And yet we're also exponentially increasing our energy consumption, our electricity consumption, with data centers.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And here's the thing. They have the money to pay for expensive electricity. So, you know, ironically, they're the ones that are pushing the nuclear electricity.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

The technology companies.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes, Right. Because they have the money to pay more for the electricity. Because right now, the main argument against nuclear is it's too expensive. It's too expensive for a utility that's selling, trying to sell the cheapest source of energy to consumers. Right. But to a data center company that, to your point, the only limiting factor to their entire company's existence is energy. They're going to pay whatever price for reliable electricity. But, you know, one interesting thing about nuclear and AI is that with nuclear, I started writing the book thinking, oh, man, if only we hadn't discovered nuclear fission during a year before World War II, and we had developed electricity first. And at the end of it, I was like, I'm thankful that we discovered it back then because it showed us what the worst possible use of that technology could be. And with AI, it's exactly the opposite. We haven't seen the Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

No, not yet.

[Isabel Bamecki]

We don't know what it looks like. And so we're all just like, wow, helpful chatbots, you know, my therapist or my, My, like, companion. And we're just rushing into this thing without knowing what the horrible side, you know, the horrible side of it is.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And so we haven't developed the guardrails, the international cooperation to try to prevent just crazy people from building, you know, civilization, destroying technologies with AI.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Before we close the loop on this, I want to understand Chernobyl.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And what happened there, because I think that is more than Three Mile island was contained. It showed that the safety systems worked, right?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Totally. Nobody died from it. There's tons of studies on cancer, but it doesn't, like, it doesn't show an obvious connection. Obviously correlated, Right. I mean, like, cancer has been increasing since a long time, but it could.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Be a thousand different things could Be, you know, glyphosate. It could be totally. Whatever. It could be. We could go on a whole separate rabbit hole.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

But you have Fukushima, which is recent 2011, and you have Chernobyl.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So what happened did. Was this a similar meltdown? Like, meaning is the chain reaction the same? Similar. The same in both disasters.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So they're very different in that there are different technologies.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Well, there are different types of reactor designs and different designs in general. So Chernobyl was a power plant in the Soviet union. It had four reactors. And back in 87, they were conducting this experiment of what would happen to the reactor in case all outside electricity went down. So, like, the grid goes down, what happens to the reactor? Right. However, Chernobyl had this, like, weird design flaw where the hotter it got, the more unstable it got versus other reactors, the hotter they get. Basically, it stops, slows down the chain reaction so it becomes more stable.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So it had a design flaw that made it just more unstable as it got hotter. It also used some. Okay, so when you want to stop down a chain reaction in a nuclear reactor, you have to put down this, like, rods into the reactor that stop down the chain reaction. They chose a material that initially increased the chain reaction instead of slowing it down. So it was, like, stupid design to begin with. And then the people who are running the reactor day to day also weren't warned about this design flaw. So they just didn't know what they were doing.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And also, their power plants didn't have the containment dome, which is what I told you about, which is this big concrete and steel casing around the reactor. Long story short, let's skip like, a thousand complicated nuclear physics details. But it caused an explosion, and this explosion sent radioactivity into the air. It caught on fire because of the materials that they were using in the reactor. So you have this fire that's like just shooting radiation into the atmosphere because they didn't have a concrete dome around it as well. Right. And then you also add in the factor that this was the Soviet Union, so they didn't tell anybody about it. And so for days, people are eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated milk. The way that the world found out about Chernobyl was because days later, this Swedish nuclear power plant detects higher radiation levels around them. And they're like, what the hell? They inspect all of the reactors. Everything is okay. So this is how much I love nuclear science. They figure out the type of radiation that they're detecting, because you can figure out very precisely how much and what type of radiation. Wow. Is in the air. And they trace the wind patterns for the past few days and they pinpointed it back to the Soviet Union. And so they called and they got a confirm and that's how the world found out.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Amazing.

[Isabel Bamecki]

About Chernobyl, but obviously too late. They, you know, took forever to evacuate people.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, I saw that series, which was amazing. But did you see it?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, it's.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's entertaining.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

It's not accurate.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Okay, so you remember this part in the series, it's like the, the. It's like the most tense part, right. Where the guys go to the basement.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right? Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

To like drain the. The water and they go on a suicide mission.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

All of them survived, really? Yeah. One of them died like in 2024.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Oh, wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

The other one in 2015. From a heart, like nothing related to radiation or anything like that. So there's a lot of just.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah. Dramatization.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Dramatization. That doesn't really help the cause, you know, but it's. It is an amazing series.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Do all nuclear power plants now have this safety dome?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Well, there is still. There are still a couple of Chernobyl type reactors in the. Mostly in Russia.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And Ukraine as well, actually. But yes, all of the modern nuclear power plants, all of them have this dome, which is what Fukushima had, which prevented radiation from really getting into the environment. And we can talk about that Tsukushima later. But, you know, when I started telling people I'm a nuclear energy influencer, they would say, what about Chernobyl? And I would ask, how many people do you think died from Chernobyl? And I would say 3,500,000. And the number of confirmed fatalities from Chernobyl is less than 100, period. Less than 100. Then of course you have like potential cancers, right? Like deaths from cancers down the road.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Which is like a correlation, but not.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You can't prove causation, you can't pinpoint. But the most credible estimates would say 4,000, something like that, which, you know, any death is a tragedy, wouldn't have happened, but shouldn't happen. But how does it compare to fossil fuels? And again, right in their normal operation, this is like when things go right with fossil fuels, 4 million people die every single year. You would need like 200 Chernobyls happening every single year for nuclear to be as dangerous as fossil fuels are. So just, you know, to put that into perspective. And it's also amazing that, you know, we're talking about an accident that happened in 87.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it is, it's like. But it's kind of the definitive nuclear power plant story, you know, and because.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It'S big, it makes it into the news. It's, you know, like you just.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

There's a series about it.

[Isabel Bamecki]

There's a series about it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So how many nuclear power plants are there globally?

[Isabel Bamecki]

400. About 440 right now in 31 countries.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And how many accidents? So what's the ratio of accident to power plant? Like how many?

[Isabel Bamecki]

So there is this website called Our World in Data, which is very hard for me to say as a foreigner.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Our World in Data. I'll say it for you.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. So they have this graph where they compare the safety of different sources of energy. And when you account for all the deaths and the number of, or the, the amount of electricity they produce, nuclear is as safe as solar and wind.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

In terms of deaths per unit of electricity created.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Okay.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Hydropower is a lot more dangerous. So the biggest energy accident in history was a hydropower dam collapse in China and also in 79.

[Botox Advertisement Voice]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You know, but nobody heard about it.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

The beauty of communism.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Exactly. And like 200,000 people died from it because it was this huge hydropower dam that as it collapsed, it caused the collapse of other dams down downstream from it. So it like sweeped entire, entire villages and then people died from. I mean, it was horrific. Yeah. So that is the most dangerous. And in the United States, we've had hydropower dam accidents that actually killed people.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And we've had one incident only on nuclear.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah, well, there, there wasn't. There was an incident with like ex, like prototype reactors back when they were just testing a bunch of different reactors.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

No, but I don't count that. I mean, like operating.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Like when you're talking commercial. Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

It's only Three Mile Island.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. And. And you're talking about 93 nuclear power.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Plants producing nuclear reactors. Sorry, nuclear reactors producing 18 of our electricity.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

18.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Over the course of how many years?

[Isabel Bamecki]

At this point it means. Yeah. In the 50s. So we've had like 70 years of. We've had seven years of this technology. We have 93 reactors making 18% of our electricity and we've only had one accident that didn't kill anybody.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow. It seems like a pretty. Yeah. So to that end, tell me like the sort of five bullet points, like rapid fire bullet points about why nuclear is better.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So makes clean electricity, doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions or particulate matter emissions. But my favorite part is that it does all of that with less because the Energy in the atom is so dense, we need a lot less fuel to make the same amount of electricity. It's 1 million times more dense than fossil fuels. So I talk about this in the book. If you get a little pellet of uranium that's the size of my fingertip, it's like the size of a gummy bear, has the same amount of energy as £2,000 of coal.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

You're kidding me.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes. Wow.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

I had no idea.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yes. Or, you know, I know that's wild. Yes. Or like 150 gallons of gas. It's something insane like, you know, like one tiny little gummy bear size of uranium has that much energy potential. And so you need to mine less. So less impact on the environment. Also nuclear power plants, they're built and they can last like 60, 80 years. Some, some engineers think that if you obviously keep good maintenance, they can last for 100 years. And so again, you need to mine less stuff, build less stuff. So nuclear has the least amount of impact on the environment because of that. So, and I, I'm, I'm really into this idea of how can we maintain human civilization while decreasing our impact on the environment. And nuclear checks all those boxes. It also creates lots of jobs. So like Diablo Canyon in California has over a thousand employees. They all have good salaries. These are multi generational jobs. Right. You have like three generations sometimes working at the same plant. Great benefit to the communities that host them.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So there is, based on what you just said. So these, these reactors are kind of getting to their. Well, they're past their half lives now. Right. So if they last 70, 80, 100 years, they're all kind of going to be being sunsetted around the same time unless we start building more reactors.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. So I mean, I'm sure we can maybe find ways to change some parts. But yes, they're probably all going to start retiring around the same time. And even in the last 20 years, there were 106 reactors added to the world, but 102 were retired. So we've kind of stayed in the same place when it comes to nuclear additions. I see. So yeah, we definitely need to start building more. Not just to replace them, but to replace fossil fuels as well.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Absolutely. So your husband has some adjacencies to the administration. It's an administration that's very behind AI and crypto and kind of American supremacy. Right. Which power is directly related to that? Directly. And also there's a, there's kind of also at the same time an anti clean energy sentiment. Right. Like EVs and all these alternatives. So how do these two things dovetail together?

[Isabel Bamecki]

What's interesting about nuclear is that it has bipartisan support.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

That's so cool.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So the historically conservatives have always been pro nuclear because it's tied to government. Right. It's like military.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And also just because they hate liberals and they're like, they have a point. They say, they'll say, you're so concerned about climate change, how come you don't support nuclear? And there is no good answer to that.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And so they've always been supportive of nuclear, but in the last few years, like Biden administration was extremely pro nuclear. They passed lots of subsidies and credits, tax credits for nuclear power plants in the ira, the Inflation Reduction Act. They also supported the extension of existing power plants like Diablo Canyon.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And the Trump administration is extremely pro nuclear as well. So Trump, Trump himself passed four executive orders basically trying to get the United States to become the world's leader in nuclear. And has several things in there, but like making the regulatory commission more efficient and faster and basically also getting all these new nuclear companies to go in some federal land like the Idaho National Laboratories and build their prototype there to test it out, just expediting the process.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And so is there a plan to build power plants?

[Isabel Bamecki]

So, yes. So right now There are over 70 nuclear startups that are trying to build.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like smaller reactors.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

What about like, I was listening to the all in podcast, of course, as usual. This is, this is a while ago and David Freeberg was talking about like there were some, I can't remember what the, what the, like what it's called, but he was talking, there was like a big breakthrough infusion.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. So fusion is like the holy grail basically of energy in general. It's the opposite process of fission. So fission is you're splitting a bigger atom, which is nuclear, which is nuclear fission.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

But then nuclear fusion is you're smashing two smaller atoms together and they're merging, they're fusing. Both processes create energy in the process. And so fusion is like the holy grail because you don't need uranium and some other radioactive elements like that. It has obviously its own problems and who knows if it's going to pan out. In our generation there are some breakthroughs. We're finally getting more energy out of it than we're putting in because you need such high temperatures to be able to fuse the atoms together. And so you need obviously a lot of energy to put create those high temperatures and so people are like putting all this energy in and getting a tiny little bit of energy.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So finally we have that breakthrough.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So the, so the shorter term, kind of the shorter term. So in the longer term when the technology develops, like fusion could be, but in the nearer term, nuclear is by far.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Yeah. So fusion in the future, who knows, Whenever it's commercially available, I think going from we got a tiny little bit of energy out.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right. Well, there was certainly a big like, you know, people got very excited about.

[Isabel Bamecki]

This because people love innovation.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Right.

[Isabel Bamecki]

And I hate innovation. For the sake of innovation. Like what is the goal here, guys? Right. You know, if the goal is to like replace fossil fuels and, and have clean air electricity, then, then let's just build what we have already.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So do you think that Republicans are like, there are Republicans who are worried about climate change as well or.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Definitely. Okay, yes, I know some of them. There is this like conservative environmental organization that is concerned about climate change. Not everybody, obviously. I think the conservatives biggest gripe with climate change is that it's sometimes used as a way to try to get people to use less. You know, it's just like it comes bundled with this whole other set of beliefs about how humans should live and whatnot. And they tied it when they don't social interference. They don't like being told what to do. They don't like being, you know, and I think there's a lot of like that as well.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Interesting.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So it was.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Because it does seem like it's kind of undeniable that climate change is happening. I mean.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Right. And then you have like a, Every time I talk about climate change, I have somebody like, well, you know, who likes CO2 plants. And I'm like, I'm not a plant. I don't. Are you a plant? I don't know. I care about humans.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

And you know, also we, we, we off gas, enough CO2 for the current ecosystem.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like the plants are fine. They don't need more CO2. No, but like, like we as a species, we evolved at a time when CO2 levels in the atmosphere weren't that high. Yeah, with like there were periods throughout the history of the Earth where CO2 levels were extremely high. We just never happened to live through those. And like all of the issues that come from that, from, you know, higher temperatures from flooding in certain areas. Listen, I think that humans would survive, you know, if we keep increasing our CO2 emissions and climate change, I mean the species might survive, but what is that going to look like and at what cost? But, but it's like, so it's like, is the human species going to survive? Probably. But what does survive even mean? Like, we have a couple hundred thousand people who, I don't know. And what, at what cost? You're damaging all these ecosystems and people are having to flee their homes and causing huge displacement issues.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Yeah, I mean, talk about cost.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Right?

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

It's like billions and billions of dollars. And I mean, disaster relief. And so, so when you look ahead and you think like, what, what do you, what are your KPIs like in terms of moving the culture towards accepting nuclear energy? Like, do you, do you set goals for yourself? Like, how do you, what does success look like for you?

[Isabel Bamecki]

I did it in the beginning because it was also abstract and people would say, how do you know it's working? I would say, well, people tell me that they changed their mind, but, you know, I now have the data. So when I started posting on social media, there was a Gallup poll asking how people felt about their support for nuclear. And only 49% of Americans supported adding more nuclear. Now 61% of Americans supported, and that's in five years.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So it's a huge shift. Just to give you an idea, the highest support for nuclear ever was in 2010, and it was 62%. So we're one point away from the highest ever level and support.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So Fukushima kind of set.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Fukushima set, set it back. Set it back, obviously, like by a couple, like a decade plus.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow. Wow. So I think there has to also then be like a, a risk tolerance, you know, which we, we, we apply to all other things. Right. It's like we apply it to air travel. We apply it to anything.

[Isabel Bamecki]

You know, we, and, and air travel is a perfect example here. It, it is one of the safest forms of transportation. That doesn't mean that once in a while you're not going to have an accident. Right. So with nuclear, we just don't have that tolerance and the industry feels that way. And this is where I disagree with most pro nuclear people. I think that's a good thing. I like that the nuclear industry is extremely well regulated. I like that they're thinking, what would happen to nuclear waste a thousand years from now if civilization collapses and we don't know how to warn aliens who are visiting Earth that this is literally. They think about this, okay? And people say, oh, this is what's slowing it down. And I said, no, no, no, this is the example. This is how we should think about technology. We should be thinking, what's going to happen to human civilization regarding AI, if a thousand years down the road something happens. So yes, maybe we need to have more risk tolerance. But also because of these few accidents and because of the public backlash, nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy because it's extremely regulated and because they think about every single little thing.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Every eventuality, every eventuality.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Like you have to think about the most absurd scenario. I'm telling you, when you go to a nuclear waste facility, they are projecting what's going to happen a hundred thousand years from now. What happens if there's an earthquake? What happens if this safety thing fails? Because they have to. And they're actively mitigating, they're actively mitigating against all of that. And I'm like. And in the beginning I was like, oh, why are they doing all of this? And then realized, wait, this is what we should be doing with plastic, definitely. Right? We're like, we have this country sized plastic patches in the ocean that are affecting marine life and human life as well. I mean, 100% of the testicles tested last year had microplastics in them. Newborn babies. Why are we not thinking about this? With plastic renewables solar panels, after 20, 30 years, they have to be replaced. There is no national effort to collect all solar panels. So they end up going to the landfill or being sold to poor countries in Africa and they're like dismantled by hand by poor kids that are trying to sell parts.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Wow.

[Isabel Bamecki]

So, like, I think that nuclear should serve as an example of how we think about technology and the impact on both the environment and people as well.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

So good. I mean, that's perfect to end on. Perfect. That's like a mic drop.

[Isabel Bamecki]

Thanks for all your time. This is amazing.

[Gwyneth Paltrow]

Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow rate and review all of our episodes which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts.