The government let me kiss nuclear waste.

Thanks for watching, and thank you to Dresden, the DOE, the Office of Nuclear Energy, and Constellation!

Honestly, by kissing a Cask, you'd be astronomically more likely to die from bacteria on its exterior than by any radiation sickness.

That whole "Where is nuclear waste? points at massive concrete container Where is fossil fuel waste? breathes " was like the single best argument I've seen for like anything.

For more information, I recommend the book What if? by Randall Monroe of XKCD; specifically the chapter on "What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool?" As he says, "Assuming you're a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel at the bottom."

Former Nuclear Plant Operator here: we toured the dry casks daily, recording the temperatures and inspecting for damage. Even after the plant was shut down, they kept operators around to continue to monitor the spent fuel. Every single closed down plant out there has people at it, keeping an eye on the spent fuel 24 hours a day, every day of the year. It really is incredibly safe and well monitored.

Back in 1984 the Central Electricity Generating Board in the UK did a public demo, when they crashed a train at 100mph into a flask of the type used to transport waste to the Sellafield reprocessing plant. Nothing leaked from the flask. The train (remote controlled obviously) was totally wrecked. And that was with 1984 technology!

Never let Kyle into a nuclear power plant on his own

I think that a big reason for the fearmongering around nuclear power is residual fear from the cold-war era parents and teachers that hammered our parents with these misconceptions.

When I was a kid, my dad told me about the dangers of Nuclear waste, and when I was in seventh grade science, I learned about it as well. It's been so weird to hear that it's not actually dangerous because it goes against things I was told over half my life ago to the point where they were really baked into how I saw the world.

I’m actually working at the Dresden nuclear site right now! My jaw hit the floor as I saw you walk through the hallways I walk through everyday. Currently in my hotel room about to go in for todays shift. How cool! This past Monday we opened up the top of the reactor and just yesterday I was down inside the cavity performing maintenance. Was there for about 3 hours and only picked up about 5mR. Awesome video!

I agree with Kyle about 100% on nuclear energy, but the second he gets any type of illness, I can already feel the thousands of comments saying "see, we told you nuclear wasn't safe!!!!"

Now go to a "clean" coal plant and see what really nasty waste looks like.

I have friends that work security at another generation station no more than 2 hours’ drive from where this video was filmed. If I may…I know them because I deployed to the Middle East with them in the military. The people guarding that station are among the highest quality human beings this world has to offer. There’s good people watching over this stuff.

If there's anyone who can kiss nuclear waste, it's our beloved scientific Thor.

Upon seeing the cooling pool, my mind immediately went, "ah yes, the forbidden swimming pool." Thanks for letting us know that we're not allowed near the water in fear of us contaminating it rather than it contaminating us.

Well as someone who works on windmill wings, I can confidently say they are huge producers of waste, since a small fracture will mean a decommission of a wing, sometimes all 3 wings are replaced just as a precaution because if a stress fracture has occurred in 1 most likely the other 2 also has. And while there have been a development breaking down the epoxy layers, so we can reclaim the balsa, the now epoxy waste cannot be reused or recycled and will either be buried or burned, and wings are replaced a lot all over the world.

Thank you for producing this. My brother used to work in nuclear site cleanup including Santa Susana and the sodium burn fields of Rocketdyne, so you can believe I did a lot of research about his safety, and that research convinced me that even when cleaning up after the early days of nuclear experiments is safer than many other occupations. I am also a chemist by trade and I worried about his safety. He's in his 50s now and in excellent health. Anecdotal? Of course. Reckless people create sensational catastrophes, but careful professionals do not. And the professionals involved follow strict safety rules to protect themselves and the community, which, I might add, includes one of the priciest zip codes in California. Nuclear energy is a safe, clean energy source and we should follow the science, not sensationalism.

"The world looks different when you understand it" - understanding things is so important and so understimated by so many people. I love that you are giving everything to spread this message.

Former US Navy nuclear reactor operator here. I really appreciate the lengths you (Kyle) go to in order to communicate reactor and spent fuel safety! I'll be a proponent of nuclear power until the day I die. How else can you pack so much energy into so small a volume?

I visited an active hydroelectric power station here in Quebec. I was very impressed by the security back then, no phone, no camera, ... You are very lucky to have been allowed to visit an active power station and to record your experience, especially a nuclear station. Our local government pulled the plug on our only nuclear power station in 2012, it was a CANDU reactor. I'm so sad they shut it down, it's a green energy and more reliable than a dam which depends on the rain level in a specific location. Fun fact about the province of Quebec, 94% of our energy comes from hydroelectricity. Thanks again for sharing your experience with us! ❤