The Atomic Exchange Podcast

In Episode 84 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-host Jennifer Ward sits down with Karine Glenn, Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, to explain what nuclear waste actually looks like and how Canada plans to manage it for the next million years. Karine breaks down the four classes of radioactive waste, why facilities store fuel in massive welded steel and copper containers, and the layered "defense in depth" approach behind Canada's deep geological repository. They discuss how the site in Ignace, Ontario was selected through a voluntary community process, what the decades-long timeline looks like, and why every single fuel bundle in Canada is tracked and accounted for.

In Episode 83 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward examine how media coverage of nuclear accidents compares to coal and hydroelectric disasters, from Fukushima's muted domestic reporting to the largely forgotten Banqiao Dam failure that killed hundreds of thousands. They dig into surprising material and safety statistics, including why solar requires more concrete than nuclear and how "dragon king" events skew our understanding of energy risk. Drawing on Paul Slovic's landmark research on risk perception, they explore why nuclear sits in the most feared category of any hazard, with public perception diverging from expert assessment by a factor of 10,000.

In Episode 82 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward examine how AI affects each generation differently, from Gen Alpha toddlers using AI tutors to seniors relying on assistive technology for independent living. They debate whether AI-powered education helps or hinders critical thinking, why teenagers confiding in endlessly agreeable chatbots raises real concerns, and how AI is upending university teaching and research. They also discuss AI voice cloning scams, including personal stories of falling victim to fake e-commerce sites, before closing on AI's genuine promise for helping older adults age independently at home.

In Episode 81 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward go head to head in a red team, blue team debate over whether SpaceX deserves its two trillion dollar valuation. Goran argues the pro side: launch dominance, technical breakthroughs like rocket reusability and Starship's catch system, Starlink's redundant network, and the public benefit of cheaper access to space. Jenn makes the case against: property damage lawsuits from sonic booms in Boca Chica, a workplace injury rate six times the industry average, worker deaths, and unpaid contractors. They close with an open discussion on whether SpaceX's pace of innovation is worth the trade-offs, and what regulation, if any, should look like.

In this Good Science, Bad Science episode of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward examine "The Role of Nuclear Energy Base Load Demand in Capacity Expansion Planning for Low-Carbon Power Systems," a paper exploring how AI data centers' constant, always-on energy demand could reshape future nuclear buildout. They break down the paper's modeling of how nuclear penetration in Europe depends heavily on construction costs, comparing it against real-world reactor projects from France to China. The conversation dives into the hidden cost of renewable variability, including price cannibalization and the expensive complements needed to keep grids stable, and why these factors rarely show up in standard levelized cost of energy models.

In this Good Science, Bad Science episode of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward examine "The Carbon Emissions of Writing and Illustrating Are Lower for AI Than for Humans," a Nature Scientific Reports paper claiming AI produces text and images with far lower carbon emissions than humans, sometimes by a factor of hundreds or thousands. Before diving in, they debate whether AI can ever replicate human creativity in music and art, and what separates a genuine artistic performance from something AI-generated. They break down the paper's methodology, its transparent data sharing, and where its assumptions, like GPU lifespan and model retraining frequency, might miss the mark.

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In Episode 78 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jen Ward sit down with orbital data center experts Jason Aspiotis and Gert Willemse to separate hype from reality. Beyond the Elon Musk headlines, they explore the real use cases already driving this technology, from military intelligence to disaster response, and why time-sensitive space data matters more than offloading terrestrial AI compute. They dig into whether space real estate will become winner-take-all, what a cloud tech stack in orbit might look like, and the true unit economics competing against ever-cheaper terrestrial chips. They also raise overlooked questions around space debris and environmental impact.

In this Good Science, Bad Science episode of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jen Ward examine a paper on the geoeconomics of renewable hydrogen-based industrial production. They break down three scenarios for bridging the gap between where renewable energy is abundant and where industry operates, from shipping hydrogen to relocating entire factories. The verdict turns critical as they scrutinize the paper's reliance on manager surveys, its lack of hard numbers or case studies, and its use of loaded language around "justice" and "equity" in what should be objective science.

In Episode 76 of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Dr. Goran Calic and Jennifer Ward welcome Dr. Mario Trapp, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems, to discuss AI safety and the risks of autonomous systems. Dr. Trapp explains why conventional software quality assurance doesn't work for AI, how his team borrows from Kahneman's dual-process theory to build safer systems, and why proving self-driving cars are safe is nearly impossible given the infinite variability of real-world driving. The conversation turns personal as Goran, a heavy Tesla Full Self-Driving user, questions his own trust in the technology, and Dr. Trapp raises a striking point about accountability when there's no one to blame but a machine.

In the milestone 75th episode of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, Michael Tadrous returns as guest host to interview a very special guest: Andreea Calic, Dr. Goran Calic's wife. In this special episode, Andreea shares how she and Dr. Calic met in Vienna, their early travels together including a Nile cruise in Egypt, and what it was like growing up in communist Romania before the 1989 revolution. She opens up about their wedding in Transylvania, life in Germany, and parenthood with their son Octavian. Michael and Andreea also swap travel stories, comparing Eastern Europe's hidden gems to overhyped tourist destinations, and she gives an honest, personal look at who Dr. Calic really is at home versus at work.