In the 23rd installment of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous begin by wading into the unexpected torrent of criticism on their recent Conversation article, examining everything from disclosure-doubts to misread safety statistics, and reflecting on when and how to engage with online pushback. They then turn to Ontario’s summer heat wave, where demand has surged to within two gigawatts of the province’s all-time peak, wind is running below 20 percent of capacity and solar covers barely one percent, forcing gas plants into four-times-their-forecast output. What would it really take to replace those peakers with storage or faster nuclear builds? Finally, they probe a SemiAnalysis warning that AI training data centres are drawing full-reactor-scale power and flipping from full load to near zero in milliseconds, threatening grid synchronization unless hardware and software fixes arrive. Tune in for a candid conversation on criticism, capacity and the next frontier of power-grid risk.

In the 22nd installment of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with a surprising PSA: radon gas, not reactors, is the deadliest radiation risk most people face—linked to roughly 21 000 lung-cancer deaths a year in North America—yet few homeowners even test for it. From cheap basement monitors to Canada’s uranium-rich soils, they lay out what listeners can do today. The conversation then shifts underground—literally—to deep-geological repositories. Finland’s Onkalo vault may soon become the world’s first “forever” dump, but Goran argues its tidy economics hinge on having just two nearby plants, nothing like the sprawl of ninety U.S. reactors. Michael counters that America’s stalled Yucca Mountain project shows one national site is politically impossible, while hauling fuel across state lines or Indigenous lands would likely push costs from today’s US $0.1–2 per MWh (on-site dry casks) to four-plus cents. Together they ask: if decades of safe, cheap on-site storage already exist, are DGRs solving a real safety gap or simply buying expensive peace of mind? Tune in for a brisk, number-driven debate that challenges nuclear orthodoxy and reminds us sometimes the safest place for waste is right where it sits.

In the 21st installment of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous debrief day one of MIT & CATF’s “Nuclear Energy: Key Facts & Figures” summit. They break down why levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) misses the true system price tag, compare the wildly different financing models behind Olkiluoto-3, Hinkley Point C, Barakah, and Turkey’s Akkuyu plant, and marvel at uranium’s 50-million-to-1 energy-density edge over coal. The conversation then turns to small-modular reactors: how venture capital might finally enter the game, whether water-cooled LEU designs will crowd out exotic sodium- or lead-cooled concepts, and why a handful of winners could dominate an “SMR buffet” of 900 possible variants. Along the way they swap first impressions of D.C. and wrestle with industry pessimism on whether this moment really is the last nuclear renaissance. Tune in for a conference-floor download packed with numbers, nuance, and a dash of travelogue.