Nuclear Minds

Luke Byrne, a graduate student at Stanford University, is interested in exploring the cost and benefits of converting the cargo fleet to nuclear energy. He is intrigued by the statistics that suggest cargo ships generate more emissions than all the cars on the road combined. He wants to verify this claim and understand the potential benefits of using nuclear power for cargo ships. With 90% of global goods transported by around 90,000 ships, Luke believes this is a significant issue that needs to be addressed. He is excited to delve into the topic and hopes to uncover valuable insights for himself and the listeners. I'm Chris Noble and I'm here with an upstanding citizen and a good friend of mine, Luke Byrne. Luke's a graduate student at Stanford University. He belongs to the Environmental Management Program, has his undergrad in history. And he is here with an exciting topic to introduce to the audience. Good afternoon, listeners. I just want to thank you all for joining in. I just wanted to stop in real quick and introduce the exciting new topic that I'm about to dive into for the next upcoming week. That topic that's extremely interesting to me is the cost and benefits of converting the cargo fleet of the world to nuclear energy. One thing that's extremely interesting to me is just the statistics that you see online or in social media talking about how 16 cargo ships generate more emissions than the entire amount of cars on the road in the world. I want to know if that's true. But one thing that I do know is true is that cargo ships release an annual average of 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. And I just want to kind of really quantify how much that is and if these cargo ships were to be pushed into the nuclear air like we see on a lot of U.S. naval ships, one, is it possible? Two, what benefits could be quantified from this? I think it's a big issue that's going to have to be tackled here soon because over 90 percent of world goods is carried across the world's ocean by around 90,000 ships. So I think it's a huge issue. I'm really excited to tackle it and get into it. And I'm really excited to see what I learn. I think it's going to be very beneficial not only for me but for the public, the listeners. So extremely thankful for you all checking in. I'm super excited to see what we find out these next coming weeks.