This is Fissionary, a show exploring how nuclear power is your world. I'm Mary Carpenter. And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in.
Hey, Jordan. Hey, Mary. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Fissionaries. Hope you had a great holiday. Hopefully you had a little time to relax, hang out with your friends or family, and you're ready to dive back into a good new year.
This is an apt episode for the beginning of January because we are talking with Matt Randall, who biked from Massachusetts to Florida. And after all of the holiday food indulgences, I feel like there's a bit of an inspirational message here as far as getting back on track. It is quite the inspiration. It does make me want to get back on my peloton and start. I do have to say, though, listeners, you will hear as we go through he camped, he carried everything on this bike with him. Completely amazing to me because I myself am like an indoor cat and I don't camp.
And I don't know that I could pack for a bike trip where I had to carry everything on my person, like in a backpack. I mean, there's absolutely no way I could do that. I mean, as you mentioned in the episode, we have to have our outfits planned and my outfits are not going to fit in a backpack that I can carry on a bike for. How many days was he gone? It was from like a month, basically.
Yeah. No chance. A month in a backpack of outfits? Nope. Not going to happen. So also I could forgo makeup. No problem. But I fear that my skin care would be heavier than I could carry. Yeah. And shoes.
You know, I'm going to need some shoe options. But seriously, though, super impressive what Matt did. He's trying to bring the awareness to the benefits of nuclear energy to the outdoor community, which he is a big member of. So, I mean, seriously, what better way to do that than by riding your bike from Massachusetts to Florida? Stop at several plants and really just give an inside look? It was so it's so interesting to hear him talk about how he saw plants that are right by the lake and all these community events that nuclear power plants have within their communities. So he's really kind of giving an inside look that a lot of people don't get.
And he's doing it in such an environmentally friendly way. It's really, really impressive and really cool to watch. Yeah, just to be able to get up that close at so many different plants. And to your point, a lot of
them are very integrated with the community and the nature around them. And just what a cool concept. Very excited that he was able to do this and documented on social media for people to follow along. So, yeah, let's get into it.
Welcome, Matt. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mary
and Jordan. It's a pleasure to be on here. Okay. So tell us about you. You have a military background. How did you transition from your role as a logistics officer to becoming an advocate for nuclear energy? So still kind of in that transition.
I did four years of active duty back in 2015 and 19, and then I took a four year break just until last September, and then I rejoined, but this time in the National Guard. During that break, I kind of had a a lack of sense of purpose. And so I was kind of looking for something to fill that gap. And I started to look into climate change. And through that,
I kind of learned about nuclear energy, and I had some preconceived notions about it. But as I started to learn more about it, I started to realize, okay, if we're serious about these issues that we say are serious, this kind of fits the bill very well. So it kind of just started me down a path of researching more and more into it. And since then, I've been a pretty pro-nuclear minded individual, and I try to spread information about nuclear energy with my friends and my community, which is the outdoor community. And that's kind of led me into trying to play an advocacy role in the outdoor community for nuclear energy. A lot of the people in the outdoor community are very environmentally focused, but nuclear energy isn't part of the rhetoric. So that's kind of one of
my main pushes. So tell us about the trip itself. Like, what was the journey? How did you decide where to start and what were your goals? What were you hoping to achieve along the way? Yeah, so probably about two years ago, once I was getting my feet under me with learning about nuclear energy, I thought it would be really cool to mix my passion, which is adventuring with kind of my new found purpose, which was talking about nuclear energy. And so I kind of thought about doing a bike trip. I've done a previous backpacking trip in 2021, so I kind of mapped out all the nuclear plants on the East Coast. And I have family that are in Marshfield, Massachusetts, and down in Pensacola, Florida.
So those were kind of the logical start and stop points. And then I just made a general itinerary going from those two points. And it wasn't until later that I was linked up with NEI a Nuclear Energy Institute. You folks and you guys were able to actually get me access to these plants to get tours and made the trip kind of a thousand times more than it was before. So that was a really great opportunity. So how many plants did you stop at? I was able to get tours at seven power plants.
Two of those are currently closed down. One is sadly the Indian Point plant in New Jersey, and that one was shut down in 2019 and will not be restarted. But then another one that was shut down is the Three Mile Island Unit 1, which is set to be restarted by Constellation Energy. So that was really cool to
see. And I also got to see my final stop was the Vogtle reactors, which Vogtle units 3 and 4 are the, you know, the newest nuclear reactors in the United States. So that was really awesome to see.
How did you prep for this trip? Like you mentioned, you're into the outdoors. All right. Were you conditioned to bike this distance already or did you have to, like train up for it? And I really want to know, like, how did you decide what to pack? Because you had to carry what you could carry? Yeah. So at least from conditioning, I do a lot of, like, Aerobic activities in the mountains. I live here in Salt Lake City, and I can literally drive 10 or 15 minutes and be at a trailhead and go up a mountain. So that's that's a big part of my passion.
And I don't really bike all that much. So two months before the trip, I started biking a bit more just to try to get my butt ready to sit on a seat for an hour. Yeah. And I know even like my
peloton, like 30 minutes I'm like, okay, that's enough sitting. Yeah. And even with that preparation, the first week of my bike trip, my butt was incredibly sore, so I could have done a little bit more preparation, but it was kind of fun to just sort of wing it. But yeah, I have like a really good base of aerobic fitness, so fitness wise I was able to kind of jump on the bike and be fine, but my butt wasn't too happy. And then as far as what I brought with me, I have like lightweight camping gear. I had a tent, an inflatable sleeping pad, a 20 degree sleeping bag.
It was cold a few of the nights and I tried to just be really light on what I brought. So, yeah, not not a whole lot with me. And then I had all the bike gear from my previous bike trip in 2021. So I was able to just kind of I have racks on my bike frame.
Near the front and rear tires. And then you can just hang these bags off of the bike. So it's kind of an interesting contraption that you see if somebody is biking down the road with that. But it works really well. So you camped. You are not like checking into hotels along the way? I will say that I checked into a motel for three nights along the trip.
One of them was because I was camped out behind a church, maybe illegally. And the police kind of they caught wind that I was behind there and they came around and they basically evicted me. And I biked 20 miles to the nearest town and got a motel room. But it rained the next day and I got it for two nights. So I was inside while it was raining. So was kind of a
blessing in disguise. And my joke is that God really wanted me to sleep under a roof. So that worked out. And we have most of the nights I was camping out, I would try to find kind of a park with a secluded area or something. I call it stealth camping. So maybe it wasn't totally legal, but I was just kind of camping just around where it made sense.
And I stayed with hosts some nights too, and I had family along the way, so it was probably 50/50 of camping and staying inside. So I started on October 23rd, and then I believe I ended on November 22nd or something like that. So it was a prime time leaf peeping time in the north. It was beautiful for the first week, all the colors were popping off, so that was nice. And what did you eat? Did you, like, go to restaurants? Did you pack food? How did that work? So for breakfast and dinner, I would always bike to a place that had a grocery store nearby, and then I would go to the grocery store. I would load up on dinner and breakfast foods, which I was being very simple.
I brought a stove and a pan with me. And so I would just make eggs with cheese and avocado. Very simple, but lots of calories. And then during the days, because I don't want to carry a whole lot of water and food with me. So I would basically just eat kind of junk food from gas stations. And since I was biking so much, you know, I don't really I didn't have to watch what I was eating.
I think on my final day of biking, I think I ate 15 or so packs of Pop-Tarts. And it was amazing because I didn't have to think about it at all. I can't do that now. Yeah. How many hours a day where you biking? A normal bike day would probably be about seven to eight hour days.
So pretty long. But the way I ended up kind of doing it was I would do a long bike day and I would wake up early for that and get started early. And I could usually do I did seven days over a hundred miles, but then the next day I would sleep in, take a lazy morning, and then only do like 30 or 40 miles, but on average, probably about seven hour days. Wow, that that's intense. Definitely the 15 packs of Pop-Tarts fully justified.
Yeah, and lots of chocolate milk, too. Like half gallons of chocolate milk. Good. It's amazing. Good protein.
Yeah, exactly. It has everything. Okay, I'm picturing this like, were you biking on the interstate, or are there bike trails? Like, how did you go all the way from Massachusetts to Florida without, like, getting on a highway? So I was definitely mostly on roads.
The bike I have is a gravel bike, so it has wider tires, but there's still no suspension. A few times. Like I would basically just use Google Maps and use the walk function on it and that would do a pretty good job of keeping me off trails just because my bike, with all the weight, it would have broken the rack system. But there were a few times that I ended up on trails and that was pretty annoying. There was a few times I was on the interstates, but as long as there was a shoulder, I wasn't too concerned. And that's just kind of the most efficient way to move about.
Actually, Washington, D.C. had the best bike trails by far. I thought it was going to be very stressful biking out of town, but it was honestly some of the nicest biking because it was very efficient and paved, but it also just wasn't around cars and all the chaos of traffic. Yeah, we do have good bike trails. It's still a little nerve wracking biking through the city, but we do have some good trail options. So you visited a number of nuclear plants and I'm curious if anything stands out as being the most surprising things you saw or learned? Yeah, I think the most surprising things I saw, I was pretty well aware of the energy efficiency and like the energy density of nuclear energy. But like, at Limerick,
it's operating. It provides roughly like the power to power Philadelphia, and it's been operating for 40 years. And all of the nuclear waste from that facility is sitting on site and it's in a relatively small area.
So seeing that very small amount of waste that is powered roughly Philadelphia for 40 years was pretty incredible. And it's a testament to how energy dense nuclear really is. So that really stood out. Also learning that during a fuel outage, you know, I know that nuclear plants run 24/7 basically for like a year and a half or with Constellation, they run theirs for two years before they do some refueling.
And during those fueling outages, they only replace a third of the fuel. So for any fuel assembly that's in a nuclear plant. It will last in a reactor for four and a half to six years. And that just like blew me away because they create so much energy 24/7 and the fuel stays in there for four and a half to six years. And that's pretty incredible. So how about safety? Did this trip change your perspective about safety at nuclear plants? It definitely did.
Again, I was relatively knowledgeable about the safety of the nuclear industry, but seeing all of the safety systems up close and personal at Catawba, the engineer who gave me the tour there, he told me about the five redundant safety systems for a loss of power accident. So you have the electric grid itself. Then you have two redundant systems of backup diesel generators.
Then you have equipment with the flex dome, which is like a post-Fukushima implementation. And then if all of that fails, you have these regional depots of pre-positioned equipment that can be moved to those locations within. I think it's like a couple of days at the most. So just seeing the layers of safety that are at the actual plants is pretty incredible.
And it just shows how dedicated the nuclear industry is to safety. And then something that also comes to mind, at least for me, is all of these layers of safety have a cost. And if fossil fuels are responsible for 5.13 million deaths from air pollution a year, how are we weighing the costs of adding more safety to a source that's already a second safest source versus replacing fossil fuels, which are by far the most deadly? So I don't have the answer, but it kind of makes you wonder, like, do we really need to add more safety systems to something that's already safe or do we need to replace fossil fuels instead? So safety obviously ties into the communities that surround the plants. That's something that's important to them. And I'm wondering
what you saw or learned about how these plants integrate into their surrounding communities. Yeah. The McGuire Power station, basically right outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, it's less than a quarter mile from a major highway.
And there's also communities that are right around the shore of Lake Norman from it. So it is literally nestled right into the community. And I found that very interesting just because most people would probably think that nuclear plants have to be out in a barren wasteland, totally away from the environment and people. But the reality is, is they can fit right in with the community and with nature very well. And they host community events at these nuclear plants that they do a lot of informative meetings to educate the community about nuclear energy. At McGuire, they host an orchestra every single summer on the grass right next to the nuclear plant.
Like it's less than it's like a couple hundred yards away and it's in clear view. So that's a really cool way that they kind of tie the community in. I've already kind of talked to them.
I'm planning, tentatively planning to go out for their next orchestra next June. So that's a really cool one. And they also do like eco projects. I know Duke Energy has one that's about preserving bat habitats in and around nuclear plants, so they integrate very well. And then the companies that own and operate, they're actively making efforts to further preserve the communities and the environment. That's great. Are you going to bike
back for the orchestra? Absolutely not. No chance. So I want to hear about your stop at Vogtle. How is that? Is our newest plant in the U.S. So, I mean, that's something there stick out that you didn't see other places? Yeah. I mean, it was really cool to see Vogtle.
The pride that the employees have there is immense. And I mean, it's the largest clean electricity generator in the United States. So, I mean, it's this impressive site where it's creating, you know, four plus gigawatts of electricity at all times, which is really incredible. And to see the new reactors, you know, they kind of have like the white sided, the white paint on the side, just very beautiful.
It was really incredible to see them, especially because I think they're the first start to end nuclear reactors to be made in the last 35 years. So that's a pretty incredible thing. It shows that we have a lot of work cut out for ourselves, but it gives hope that, hey, we we can do this and we should. After seeing these plants up close, touring them, being inside of them, getting to see the on site waste, seeing the safety systems for people who are still skeptical of nuclear safety. What would you say to help dispel that after being up close and personal with them? So first, I would just ask them if presented information that kind of contradicts that belief. Would you change your mind or would you be willing to change your mind? And if they answer yes, then then we can have a conversation about the actual numbers around nuclear.
And if you look at the numbers, you know, it's the second safest form, just barely behind solar energy. It's actually safer than wind by the numbers. And I think that contradicts a lot of the common beliefs about nuclear.
But, you know, like a lot of things, the more you learn about it, the more you realize that some of the mainstream ideas don't exactly mesh with reality. And so as long as somebody is open to changing their mind with new information, I think that conversation can go very well. So you mentioned earlier you're part of an outdoor community, I guess I should say, the outdoor community. You know, this is very helpful. Your bike ride, what else are you doing to ensure that community knows the benefits of nuclear and kind of dispel any myths that they may have? Yeah. So I've been kind of talking about nuclear energy for the past two and a half to three years, just over my accounts on Instagram and Facebook mostly.
And so I've had a lot of positive feedback from just the people I know in this community. So I plan to continue doing that. And then alongside that, I actually met with the American Conservation Coalition, Salt Lake City branch lead this morning, and we're looking at kind of doing an education and action initiative with nuclear energy in Utah. So I'm hoping that I can kind of tap into my outdoor community and pull some people into that.
And then if you're familiar with the outdoor space you might be familiar with Protect Our Winters, they're kind of one of the bigger climate change advocacy groups in the outdoor space and nuclear energy hasn't really been part of their rhetoric. And so I'm having a meeting with them is supposed to be this afternoon, actually, but we had to reschedule. But my hope is to see what their stance is on it, because I don't know if they have a stance or not and then see if they're open to starting a dialog around nuclear energy and maybe they'll include it in their rhetoric in the future. Because, you know, in the outdoor community, everybody wants to do good for the environment and maybe they just don't know about nuclear energy.
So if we can get it talked more, that would be kind of the goal for me. Initially, this started as a personal mission for you and you didn't really see yourself as an influencer. How did your perception of the role change or evolve throughout your trip? So that's you're you're here now taking meetings and advocating on behalf of nuclear? Yeah, it's been an interesting kind of change. I've always wanted to do more in the space and wanted to advocate more. And once I started working with you all at Nuclear Energy Institute, it really kind of opened up some opportunities to talk about it more. So while I was on this trip, I was realizing that there's more and more opportunities to reach out to a bigger audience.
And so, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily consider myself an influencer before this trip, but I definitely want to continue to try to influence folks in my community to take a look at nuclear energy. So that has been a really interesting shift in how I'm approaching it, and it's been really awesome to work with folks like you to kind of, you know, bounce ideas off of and get to work with to collaborate on actually advocating for nuclear energy. So besides us and our wonderful colleagues and yeah, I'm sure you met some really cool people on your trip. Did anyone really stand out? Were there any connections you made that really left a big impression? And why were they so memorable? Yeah. So if you've ever heard of the app called WarmShowers, it's basically, you know, folks that do these bike tours like I did when they're not on a bike tour, they have an account on this app and they open up their homes to other people doing bike tours.
And so as you're doing these bike tours, you can ask to be hosted by folks. And one of these couples was in Davidson, North Carolina, very close to the McGuire Power station, and they are in their 70s. And when they were around 60, they retired and they bike to the entire perimeter of the United States, which is absolutely insane.
I think it's like 6000 miles or something. And, you know, my trip is like crumbs compared to that. But they've done all these crazy bike trips. They were very excited for what I was doing and we got to talk about nuclear energy as well. They were just really fantastic people. And if I do go
back out to McGuire for that orchestra in June, they've already told me that I'm welcome to stay with them and I will definitely take them up on that offer. That's so cool. I love that.
Yeah. So a lot of a lot of very nice people. I think I was hosted by maybe seven or eight people on that WarmShowers app, and all of them were just really sweet, nice people. Yeah, it's and it's nice to have a bed and like a warm meal every once in a while, so. Yeah.
I bet. Are there any other highlight stories from the trip. Like we heard about you getting evicted from the church parking lot? Any other crazy things that happened along the way? Encounters with wildlife? Yeah. So at least with wildlife, especially once I got past North Carolina and a little more into the South, I have probably about ten. I call them high speed dog chases. Ten? Yeah, I think ten like ten individual dog chases.
A couple of them were with two dogs. One of them was a pair of Chihuahuas and that one was actually pretty entertaining. Was definitely not enjoyable in the moment, but I didn't get bit by any of them, so it ended up not being too bad. But yeah, please control your dogs people. I was not expecting. I was expecting like bears.
Not. Yeah. Chihuahuas. Yeah. Yeah. The Chihuahuas were very fierce.
Yeah, I bet. I mean, whenever I see a dog out, somebody's growling at me. It's usually like a small dog, like a Chihuahua. The larger dogs usually just want pets.
So, yeah. I could see that. So I'm curious. What what's your ideal outcome from this? What do you want to happen from your trip? My ideal outcome from this really is to get my community talking more about nuclear energy, just like I've mentioned before. I think the outdoor community has a lot of they care deeply about the environment and they want to do well for it.
But I don't think a lot of them truly know about nuclear energy. So that's become my goal, is to just get my community to talk more about nuclear energy, get it on the table. And then outside of that, I would like to kind of get my state, the state of Utah. We don't have a nuclear energy presence out here. And our governor just proposed a budget with 20.4
million dollars towards nuclear energy. And so we're starting to move in that direction. And so I would definitely like to get involved with that process. And that's why I'm working
with the American Conservation Coalition out here trying to get protect our winters on board. So just trying to kind of use all of these opportunities to help propel nuclear energy in Utah, the outdoor community in the United States. So that's kind of the overarching goal, is to get my community on board so that we can help make nuclear happen.
That's amazing. And love your work to bring nuclear to a new state. Is there anything else that you know is next for you? So I'll be working with the American Conservation Coalition to try to get some local support for nuclear energy and then start talking with legislators here in Utah. Hopefully I can work with Protect Our Winters and some other outdoor focused climate advocacy groups to be more pro-nuclear. And outside of that, I'll be working with the National Guard again for a year and a half coming up here soon. And I do plan to hopefully make the transition into actually working in the energy sector with nuclear in 2026.
But until then, I'm slowly chipping away at my master's in energy policy at Johns Hopkins through an online program. So those are kind of the big next things for me and at least for the outdoors. I'd love to go back to Pakistan at some point, do some more climbing and skiing there. But yeah.
Very cool. So how can people follow along on your journey? How can they see your bike trip and see what's next? So my main platforms, I use Instagram, my handle is at mattrandall9 and then on Facebook. I think it's just Matthew Randall and those are the main platforms I use just because the outdoor community, that's kind of the ones we use. So that probably be the easiest way for anybody to follow what I do. Okay. Last question for you. What's the most recent show you've binge watched.
If you've had time? If you've had time to watch TV. I've actually taken a lot of relaxation time after the trip. I did absolutely nothing for four days.
Right after the trip, I literally sat on my cousin's couch and drank beer until thanksgiving so I've had a lot of time. Have either of you read the book series, The Three Body Problem? I have not read the book, but I did watch the show. Okay. So I'm guessing you watch the Netflix show, right? Yes. Okay.
So I watch the Netflix show and I will be honest, I wasn't that impressed because I have read the book, but I recently found there's a Chinese version on Amazon Prime and it's just called Three Body. And it does the books very like it sticks to the books very well. And if you can get past listening to Mandarin and reading subtitles through all of the episodes, it was very good. So that I literally binge that in the last week. It's 30 episodes. Each one is 40 minutes long.
So I don't know if I'm proud of that, but that was the last show I binged and it was very good. I highly recommend it. And if you haven't read the books, I highly recommend the books. They're very good sci fi. I have binge like 30 episodes in a week and did not prior to that do a 1200 mile biking trip. So I think you should be very proud.
Okay. Well, I'm okay that I'm very proud of it. It was a good show.
You should definitely read the books, though. The show you might be a little confused by for a while, but the book is very good. Well, thank you to Matt for joining us today.
What a great conversation and really enjoyed this inside look into the nuclear industry that Matt got. And I'm so glad he's sharing it with the rest of us. And also very happy he's survived to all of the dog chasers. Oh my gosh. I know.
I had no idea that was a thing. That was a top learning moment for me from this episode. Getting chased down by Chihuahuas. No kidding. I'm impressed.
But hopefully everyone will. After you listen to this episode, go check out Matt's social media because he has some really great videos and you guys can get a deeper look into his trip. Yeah, and he's got some great projects upcoming, so definitely follow him and we'll all be following closely to see what's next. Thanks again, Matt. Happy New Year everybody, and support the podcasts by subscribing on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Thanks for tuning in. Bye Fissionaries.
2025-01-13 11:18