From Miss America to Nuclear Engineer: Grace Vanderhei on the Future of Energy

Speaker A: So much is going on in the ways of energy. We continue to get more and more energy independent and we are actually getting greener by the day. And nuclear is on its way back up. Um, how exciting is that? And if you know me, I've said it once, I can figure out how to make money in nuclear, I'm investing. I bring back a true gorgeous nuclear expert to this episode of the crude truth.

Speaker B: In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon, Detroit would be cranking out Model Ts by the millions, and America was on the move, thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now, more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly changed. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric, but let's be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs. Uh, and if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to

Speaker A: know the crude Truth.

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Speaker A: Well, thank you as always for tuning in to another episode of the Crude Truth. Uh, we are rocking and rolling. We are now halfway through the year. Uh, we are done celebrating the 2,250th anniversary of this wonderful nation that we are in and what true progress we have made and what leaps and bounds in science we have done. As might Caesar said. I am so excited. I'm bringing back a guest because, yes, I love oil and gas. Yes, it is affordable, reliable, and abundant. But you know what? So is nuclear. It is reliable. It is a. It's not abundant yet, but it is so close. Uh, so I bring back today a guest that is Miss Wisconsin 2022, Miss America 2023. University of Wisconsin graduate of 2023. Uh, a nuclear fuels engineer at Constellation and almost a graduate at Arizona State. In a master's degree of 2026. I bring back Grace Vanderheide, our AKA Grace Stankey. Grace, how are you?

Speaker C: Awesome. I'm so good, Ray. It's awesome to be back on. Uh, I remember actually doing this podcast with you when I was Miss America. I was like, all right. It's titled the Crude Truth. I don't really know what to expect right now. And it was, like, one of the most lovely podcasts I did that year. So I'm stoked to be back. Excited to be back here.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, well, thank you, as always. And I always have to double check. Did I say Stanky? Right? And did I say your married name? Vanderheide? Right.

Speaker C: You got them both correct. You're all good.

Speaker A: You have been. And again, uh, I always say these words, uh, to a lot of guests, but you have been rocking and rolling. You graduated, uh, you finished your years, uh, and you've been on. But you finished your years as Miss America at the end of 2023. You were in Dubai during, uh, that term, I believe, of being under. And now, unfortunately, that's the last time you were on, but you've now jumped into the real world. Uh, you're now a nuclear fuels engineer with Constellation, which is one of the biggest nuclear companies there is, and you are still continuing to be a great promoter of nuclear energy. How are you?

Speaker C: I'm fantastic. It's Friday on this day of filming, so that alone is awesome. But, um, it's been really just an incredible time since Dubai, since we last talked. Throughout that year as Miss America, I did about 270,000 miles of travel to eight different countries. I think it was, like, 28 different states. I would have to double check. I wrote it down somewhere. Um, it's amazing what time does. Where, like, some of these things that were at the forefront of my mind all of a sudden are no longer there, but it's okay. So it's been awesome, though, because since. Since I finished my year as Miss America, I got my undergraduate degree in nuclear engineering right on the tail end of it as well. Uh, and I started my job, uh, as a nuclear fuels engineer. So I helped design a nuclear fuel for our operating fleet and for some of these plants that are restarting. So the one project I'm working on right now is the Three Mile island restart, which I think has a lot of, like, a lot of people when they hear Three Mile island, they're like, right. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Um, there's two different units there, two different reactors. So unit two is the one that had the partial meltdown in 1979. Unit one kept operating until 2019, creating clean energy for that central Pennsylvania community area. So that was shut down in 2019. That's the one that's coming back online. So that's like one of my fun projects right now. But otherwise I still love water skiing. I still love uh, traveling and getting out to national parks. We're actually planning a Texas trip uh, in December. It's going to be part of the graduation trip from asu so I'm stoked.

Speaker A: Are you headed to Big Bend in for the national park there or are you going to the Padre Island National Park?

Speaker C: Uh, the goal is Big Bend. Big Bend and like the Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns and like taking the full route then over to Phoenix, um, because we're still insane and we drive everywhere because we're Midwestern. So we'll drive down, do some off roading and stuff like that.

Speaker A: It'll be good. Oh, the Guadalupe Mountains for Texas are gorgeous. Uh, Big Bend of course is also gorgeous and you're uh, gonna have a good time and you got the caverns there. I know being in West Texas, we'll get over to Carlsbad whenever we can to check out those caverns on a day on those few and far in between days off of being out there on the rigs. Um, Constellation. I want to kind of talk about that because um, that's usually how I always do my shows is to talk about promoting the person. Uh, so today obviously we're promoting Grace Thanke, the normal citizen in some ways. Um, uh, but again you've got just such a great platform and you've really brought such positive back to nuclear and so many people are now getting behind it because of you educating people. You're not shoving it down people's throat. So what exactly is a nuclear fuels engineer and uh, what are you doing over at Constellation? And then let's dive into three mile.

Speaker C: Yeah. So constellation, um, has 21 operating reactors right now, so the largest reactor fleet in the United States for commercial energy generation. Uh, and as a nuclear fuels engineer, I work on one specific type of reactors called pressurized water reactors. So there's pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. Um, and PWRS is my specialty I guess. Uh, and it's a ton of fun because what I actually do is I get to work on multiple different sites at a time. Uh, which I think is a ton of fun from like a learning perspective. I'm a person that I can sit here and I always want to try new things. I always want to uh, understand the little nuances of all these different mechanisms and systems. And having the ability to work on multiple sites allows me to do that. So that's really cool. Uh, but what I do is I work with our fuel vendors who actually make the nuclear fuel. Um, and we have a strong collaboration with them to actually design the nuclear fuel then. So we run all sorts of simulations, all this predictive work to decide, hey, you know, we need to shut down the reactor soon to refuel to put more, more uranium in more of this uranium oxide pellets. Um, so when those reactors shut down about a third of it is replaced in terms of the fuel that's in that core. Uh, so I helped design that third every 18 to 24 months depending on the site. Uh, it's been super awesome because like I right now I know that fuel that I helped oversee that project and design that fuel. It's actively operating in a site just south of Chicago, creating energy for a ton of people from Illinois, hundreds of thousands of people actually just from that one reactor. So that's like really cool to see the final result. Um, because I am still like a new engineer right at the end of the day I think a lot of people are like, oh, she's an expert. But I'm like, I'm still like only two years into my job. But um, it's really cool to see that, that finished process, uh, knowing that something that I was a part of is helping create electricity reliably for like I said, hundreds of thousands of Americans just from one reload, let alone now we've got 21 reactors, soon to be 22 with the crane, uh, Crane Clean Energy center restart, which is the Three Mile island unit.

Speaker A: Well I'm glad they're changing the name. Um, but uh, yeah, now when you talk about the fuel and you recharging the uranium, so you have to put more uranium into the nuclear reactor that, that then the uranium is technically the fuel source. Is that correct?

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So uranium is fancy hot rocks. Like honestly a nuclear power plant is very similar process wise to a coal plant. Its goal is to boil water, right? Like that's we're just using instead of coal. Like it's uranium and fancy hot rocks, um, that the neutrons then expel energy into the water around it and that's what's causing the, the water to heat up. Um, so eventually you run out of fissile material. So I like to talk about nuclear fuel. There's spicy uranium and then there's not so spicy uranium. Uh, U235 and U238 if you want to get into the technical isotope names. Um, and U235 is the, is the spicy stuff, right? That's the stuff that's creating a lot of those neutrons and creating a lot of heat to go into the water. Um, so we only have about 5% of fuel is the spicy uranium. We can only go up to 5%, actually. Um, most fuel assemblies don't go that high, um, both from, like, a tolerance perspective and a bunch of other stuff. But, uh, yeah, ultimately it runs out of that, like, 5% of the spicy uranium. Uh, and we got to get some more spicy uranium in there. So that's essentially what it is. When I say, I say that in, like, a way that is very frank. Uh, I'm happy to go into more, like, detail if you want to, but that's essentially what I do is like, all right, get these little ceramic fuel pellets that are about the size of the top knuckle of my pinky, right, and stack them up into fuel rods that are about, you know, 10 to 12ft of, of pellets. And then you've got about a foot on each end of other springs and mechanisms, and it's put into a tube. Uh, you put a bunch of those fuel rods together, you get a bundle, and you put a bunch of bundles together, and you get a core. I like to kind of think of myself as like an author, but of nuclear fuel. Instead of writing words on a page, you know, I'm making the pellets in a rod, and you put a bunch of pages together, you get a book, a bunch of rods, you get, ah, a bundle, and so on and so forth until you've got a full library, which is a reactor core.

Speaker A: Now, um, speaking of reactor cores, um, if people follow you on Instagram, what's your Instagram for people out there?

Speaker C: Uh, my Instagram is at Grace Stanky still my maiden name. It may change. I'm working with Instagram to get that figured out because they're being really weird about the username change. I don't get it. Don't ask me questions. It's weird.

Speaker A: We can go down rabbit holes if you want on. On Instagram. I still believe it. Yeah. Uh, but no, the reason why I asked for it is because you're always educating people on there about nuclear. And if I'm correct, I saw you were literally in the bottom of a nuclear reactor at one point. Is that correct? Like, you got the big old silo and you were in the stylo, right,

Speaker C: in the cooling tower, maybe.

Speaker A: I don't know.

Speaker C: I was like, I, I would never have been under a. Like, there was. So there was a training facility that I Was at. That had, like, a mock vessel to stand underneath. So you can see. So when you talk about being under a vessel, um, the reason why I'm like, I've never been in an operator where you ask. Those are highly, highly irradiated.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Yeah. No, no. Yes, ma'.

Speaker C: Am. Yeah, so that one's a no. But there was a training facility that I was under at one point that they had, like, the vessel bottom, and you could see all the control rod mechanisms and stuff like that for a bwr. That one was, um. But I've been inside, not abandoned, but decommissioned cooling towers in Australia and spent a lot of time around all of the other structures. But containment is a special, um, area of the plant because that's where the actual core resides. So usually I'm not posting pictures from containment.

Speaker A: Right. No, no, I understand. No. And then, um, not only is. Is the waist the size of, like, you know, the knuckle, the pinky. But then also, like, a month's weight is like, in a Coke can, right?

Speaker C: Actually, no. If your entire life was powered by nuclear energy, it would fit. The uranium would fit inside of a Coke can.

Speaker A: Your entire life. Not a month. Your entire life.

Speaker C: Your entire life. Your entire life. Um, so that's like. That's the energy density of nuclear nuclear fuel, which I just, like, I can geek out about that all day because, like, you can get so much out of so little at a nuclear power plant. And to me, that's like one of the big messages of. Of nuclear energy. It's like you get a lot for just a little, and it's worth it. Like, that's. That's one of the things that I think is an incredible promise.

Speaker A: Well, you know, um, I want to. I want to definitely talk about this. This, um, three Mile. And what's the new name of it again?

Speaker C: Uh, the Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center. We just all call it Crane. Yeah. It's named after a former CEO.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. The Christopher M. Crane. So, um, that was about the time, the 1970s, when that happened, that we really stopped. Uh, right. Because it's been 50 years. And you were part of that Georgia, right. Where they just opened up. I say just. But two years ago, did the first. Opened up. The very first one in 50 years. Correct. Nuclear reactor, um, facility. So I think, you know, can you just talk about the positives of why you're going back into that and, um, why that's actually very safe for the environment, if you don't mind.

Speaker C: Yeah. So Vogel 3 and 4, um, are the Two units in Georgia that you brought up, and those were the first two new nuclear reactors completely built, like, from scratch in the United States to come online in about 30 years. Uh, so right now, with this, like, huge demand for power, everybody's looking for energy to come online and generation and making all these contracts or whatever. Um, one of the things that came up was looking at recently decommissioned nuclear reactors. Now, the decommissioning process for a nuclear reactor is equivalent to shutting down a nuclear reactor for good. Right. It's not just an outage. It's like shutting down a reactor with the intention of it never coming back online. So looking at these decommissioned reactors for restart was a very, um, unusual process for the nuclear industry. If you had asked anybody in the nuclear industry four years ago, um, even like now, I'll say, four years ago, if we would be bringing back decommissioned reactors, everybody would be like, no, not happening. Like, it's not happening. Uh, yet. Today we have not only Three mile Island Unit 1 restarting, but we also have Palisades in Michigan, and Dwayne Arnold in Iowa is restarting. So there's multiple sites there that are, that are on that list to restart, and work is actively being done. Um, so Three Mile Island. I kind of touched on this earlier, but 1979 is. Yes. What most people think of. Um, they think of Jane Fonda and all of that stuff. Um, which, like, I had to write an op ed against her after, uh, or like, a letter to the editor after she did an op ed about Three Mile island restarting. And I was like, girl, you were in a Hollywood show. Like, what is happening right now?

Speaker A: Like, where's that op ed at? Hold on, Wait, wait, wait. Where's that op ed at? Where'd you write it?

Speaker C: I would have to find it. It's somewhere. Like, she wrote it. And then I did a letter to the editor. I don't know if they ever published my response, but it's fine.

Speaker A: I will publish it on my subset. Can I publish it on my substack?

Speaker C: Go for it. Yeah.

Speaker A: I will put it on my sub stack. Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Okay. I'll shoot you an email about that afterwards. Um, yeah. Oh, that'd be so cool. Um, okay, back to it.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So back to this. So 1979 is what most people think of. That's unit two. Uh, and when I talk about units, there's multiple reactors on some sites. There's sometimes only one reactor on it. Site. It just depends on the site. Um, here in the US The Largest site that we have is Vogel. Now that they have four reactors, they have four units. So I said like Vogel 3 and 4. It's because they already had two sites, two units there. Um, so 3 and 4 are the add ons. Um, so unit, unit 2 is the one that had the partial meltdown in 1979 at Three Mile Island. Unit 1 kept operating until 2019, which like, I don't think people fully like recognize that Three Mile island was still like an active site because there was another reactor, a whole, whole separate system. It's just like another reactor there. And um, it's got its own turbine building, it's got its own facilities. Like it was all kind of its own separate system. So unit one kept operating and was shut down in 2019 ultimately because of economic challenges because the plant was forced to do load follow due to grid restrictions. Uh, and with nuclear, like you kind of said earlier that you know the best way to make money in nuclear. Well, nuclear does great when it's running at 100% power all the time.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker C: Like that's, that's how it does its best here in the United States. So um, so that's one thing that like led to the shutdown in 2019 and the decommissioning of Three Mile Island. Unit one. Now it has since been announced that it's been, it's being restarted which has been really exciting. So I been honored to be a part of that team that's designing the nuclear fuel for that reactor. Uh, it's been honestly really exciting and like cool because it's just unique challenges that you never thought you would do as a nuclear engineer or something. Working on an all fresh fuel core. Right. So I talked about how usually I'm only replacing a third of the core. Well, this reactor was shut down. There's no fuel for us to like have as a, as a. Hey, we only need to replace a part of it. So we have to get all new fuel for it. And it just leads to some like really awesome engineering, um, aspirations and like challenges that we are conquering. And it's been really cool, uh, in addition to reversing some of the like the decommissioning work that's done. So every time I go to the site it's looking more and more incredible each and every day. The uh, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania community is honestly really stoked about uh, the plant coming back online. I, I from like an advocacy standpoint, right after I had spent the past four to five years advocating for nuclear, I was like, oh my God. There's no way that like the local community is going to be super excited about this. There's going to be somebody like some people who are really upset about it. And honestly it's been like really overwhelmingly positive from the local community which has been super cool. So like, not only is the engineering work really awesome, the comms and advocacy work side of it too has been really incredible to see just the genuine excitement because people see the need for clean, reliable electricity. They miss the jobs that Three Mile Island Unit 1 provided and they're excited to have those back. Um, the Pennsylvania governor, all of the politicians are excited about it. Secretary Wright's been there a couple of times. Uh, we've had Secretary, um, Burjam there. Like, it's been really just awesome to see the energy that not only will this plant literally bring back online, but just the energy that it's rebirthing into the community. Community too.

Speaker A: Well, literally. Right. That just that that energy is bringing back in both ways the physical and mental energy back into the community. Um, I want to talk a little bit about this administration you mentioned, Chris Wright, um, uh, uh, uh, and uh, Doug Bergam. Is North Dakota considered part of the Midwest or no?

Speaker C: I guess, yeah. Because it's still flat, like there's no mountains in it. I wouldn't consider it still the Midwest. Yeah.

Speaker A: Because I could definitely see Doug Burgum fitting in with Wisconsin very well. I don't know. Um, but this administration, and you mentioned it, I want to dive into this just for a minute. You said even four years ago this wouldn't have happened. Uh, we have a pro energy administration, um, today as we talk, obviously. Um, President Trump said something about looking into all the oil and gas companies for price gouging because prices aren't coming down fast enough. That's a whole issue that we could get into. But he's pro energy and this is happening quickly. Um, why is it happening quickly? And also there was just an announcement of billions of dollars going into even more projects. Is that correct?

Speaker C: Yeah. So nuclear specific. There was an announcement, uh, that I don't recall the exact amount. I thought, I thought it was like multiple digits. Billions of federal loans that were ready to go towards new build reactors. And the biggest thing that I want to address with that is it's not intended to cover the cost of just building one reactor. Right. Um, it's intended to go towards multiple different new build projects. So one of the big goals of this administration, um, the President Trump made it clear he issued a bunch of executive orders last year in his first couple of months as president that, uh, he wanted to see nuclear energy tripled, actually here in the United States. Uh, so this is one of the things that's like the federal government stepping up and saying we really want to actually see that happen and we're ready to support that. So this, these loans, from my understanding, I'm not the expert on it. Again, I work in reloads, not a new build. Okay. But from my understanding of it, um, it'll get split amongst anywhere from five to 10 different reactors that are getting built. Some of them might be on the same site for a completely new site. Maybe some of them will be add ons to existing sites. Right, right. Um, so it could look like a lot of different things. Um, I think that it's an awesome green flag though, for helping the people who are looking to build new to get the green flag that they need. Not just from, you know, one level, but from now up at the federal level too, and even beyond.

Speaker A: Golly, you know, I want to ask you a question that I've asked you before and you've explained, um, how much energy, what's the difference in the energy density in nuclear versus like liquid natural gas? And like, explain why even with oil, as much as I love oil, um, why, uh, nuclear is such a great and truly green energy source.

Speaker C: Yeah, so it's about one of those fuel pellets. So this is like, this is the size of a nuclear like a one fuel pellet. Right. And I said it was about the size of the top knuckle of my pinky. So you can see the comparison there pretty close. Yeah, this is just a 3D. 3D printed cylinder. Right, that's it. Um, so about one of those makes as much energy as about 1 ton of coal. Uh, and it's about 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think it's like approximately 150 gallons of oil. Uh, so it's like just one of these. That's like, the incredible thing is just one of these is 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Like, that's, that's incredible in terms of the energy density. Um, and that's only going to get better actually too. I talked a little bit about that 5% number of spicy uranium. Right. One, uh, of the other things that's happening on the politics side of things is actually starting to look at what's called low enriched plus uranium or LEU plus. So low enriched uranium plus, um, and that basically would look at going allowing from not just 5%, but maybe upping that limit to 6, 6, 7, maybe 8%, which more of that fissile material, more of that spicy uranium means more energy.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Uh, so it's just going to be like really cool because nuclear I think so many people see as this like old antiquated technology. And it's just literally every single day like getting better from an engineering standpoint, from a policy standpoint and from so much more. Um, even in our existing fleets as it is. So things like being able to up that amount of uranium, we're going to be able, the amount of that spicy uranium is going to allow this existing fleet without building new reactors, allow them to make more energy. So now we're just, we're not even looking at new builds like we're looking at power up rates with existing power plants that the infrastructure already exists. Um, so like that sort of stuff I can geek out about all day. I think that covered what you were looking for. And an extra tangent.

Speaker A: Well, you know what I think is so neat is to compare it to what I know more about is oil and gas is, you know, we do have opportunities to go back into old wells and recomplete them, you know, and whether that's going to a new zone or stay in the existing oil zone where the reservoir, first reservoir was and um, produce energy. And the key there is the goal and the hope is that it doesn't cost as much as building something new. And so by going into the crane, ah project um, and all these others, um, how exciting is that? And uh, for everyone out there that doesn't know when it comes to um, the new power plant, nuclear power plant in Georgia, how much does that power?

Speaker C: Uh, vogel is about 1,000 megawatts. So you're looking at 1 gigawatt electric

Speaker A: coming out of that, which, how many homes does that power?

Speaker C: Uh, it's usually about a million homes per reactor at that point. Wow.

Speaker A: And there's two reactors there, right?

Speaker C: Yep. And they got two reactors, two new reactors there on top of the two that were already there. So that is one of the largest power generation facilities in the country. It is the largest nuclear one, but it's one of the largest in the,

Speaker A: in the country that powers 5, 4 million people a day or 4 million homes. Homes. That's not even people, that's just the homes.

Speaker C: Yeah, 4 million homes and small businesses, if you want to say that.

Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's awesome.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh my gosh. Well, okay, I want to shift gears for a minute. You are working on your master's degree right now. At Arizona State. Um, what made you want to go back? Um, and what are you getting your master's in?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm just getting an mba. Uh, so just like a generic mba, I'm getting an emphasis on international business because one of the next steps, steps I want to do in my career is the front end of the fuel supply chain for the nuclear industry. So one of the kind of advantages of nuclear is it is a super international business. Right. Like we in the US Um, finding enough uranium here to supply our existing fleet just isn't. It's not likely. It's not, I'm not going to say impossible, because I don't think anything's impossible, but it's just not likely. So trading with other countries and nations and things like that is essential. So for me, I got, I'm working towards an MBA in international business and hoping to make that move into the fuel supply sector, um, within the next couple of years here. So as much as I love core design and it has my heart, um, I think really fun to apply the skills learned there into the other things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But from like a human being standpoint though, too, I also, like, I had a ton of leftover scholarships from Miss America and I'm like, I'm not going to let these go to waste. Like, if you had $52,000 in scholarships, you're not just going to let them go to the wayside. So, um, I was like, I should go, I should go back to school. And like, so I stayed working and I've been doing it, uh, fully online and, uh, asynchronous as well. Uh, and it's been fun. I've enjoyed it. But it's also something that I'm also excited for it to be done. So I think that's okay to say.

Speaker A: Well, it's going by so fast. And for all the naysayers out there, how can cool is it that your pageant days are still providing for you today in the sense of these scholarships to only better yourself? So I think that's a great thing to motivate young ladies to want to do this. Uh, obviously they all should aspire to be Miss America and as smart as you, Grace. But I think that is so cool because you always got so many people that are anti beauty pageants. Like, look, it is still helping you out today three years after you did this awesome tour. And international is definitely in your blood. Again, you mentioned Australia. The last time I interviewed you, you were in Dubai. Um, and in fact you went on a tour in Australia with a Pretty famous influencer, if I'm correct, out there. Right.

Speaker C: Um, not necessarily a famous influencer. Um, there's a group called Nuclear for Australia. So in Australia, nuclear energy is banned, uh, and they're the only G7 nation to have nuclear energy banned. So there's been a lot of movement, like, politically, to get that lifted out there. But it's. It's. It's really like one. I'll say I came, like, going there and doing that tour made me really thankful for our political state, uh, here in the US Which I feel like. Like, that statement, I feel like is a very strong statement. Okay. Like, in today's day and age. Um, but it's because, like, nuclear is so bipartisan here. Right? There's so. There genuinely is so much cooperation across the aisles because we have had so many wins in the nuclear industry with the Trump administration. There were wins with the Biden administration, Too, and Trump 1.0. And like, to me, that's astonishing to have that bipartisan support on anything, let alone nuclear energy.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: In Australia, it's a much more like, heated political subject and very split on the party lines. So it was a ton of fun. I did 10 days, and every day we had an event in the evening. So lots of time on planes and in cars and lots of times in event venues, but not really so much in Australia yet. Uh, it was. It was wonderful being there. Um, I had a senator yell at me, which I kind of took that as a rite of passage because last time she yelled at someone, it was like the King of England. So I was like, oh, wow, I'm honored. Like, okay, so it's fine. It's fine.

Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Well, um, you know, here in Texas, um, small modular reactors, um, how are those coming along? And they are different, obviously, than the real reactors. Um, you kind of are, like, at an impasse with those. Like, um. Like, you're not against them. How about that? Like, what's going on there with. With small modular reactors and. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: I was going to say. I wouldn't. I don't think I'm against them. I think right now we have one. So one of my biggest priorities in this time of so much momentum for the nuclear industry is I want us building on time and on budget. Right. And, like, the biggest thing that we need to be doing with that is continuing to utilize what we Learned from Volvo 3 and 4 and get back to building on time and on budget. And I bring that up because smarts are really are really, like, all the rage, right? Now okay, I uh, anytime I'm in D.C. talking with legislators or anytime I, even at the time, same state levels like when I'm working with legislators, everybody's always asking about SMRs, which is fantastic because I do think that they are a part of our energy future. I don't necessarily think that they solve today's energy problems though. Um, there's a lot of promises about like faster build times and cheaper build costs and everything which I strongly believe will happen for SMRs. Um, right now we actually just, there are two uh, advanced reactors that just hit criticality at Idaho National Lab and at one of the other test facilities. So like we're seeing these reactors, they work from a physics standpoint but from a commercial standpoint and like looking at it from business side. No, there's only been one design that's gotten a fully licensed NRC um, license to like build and they actually ended up changing their design so they have to go get another one. So like we still don't have an smart, uh, design that's fully licensed by the NRC yet. And in my mind like I bring. I'm going to tie this back to that first statement I made about building on time and on budget local three and four. Um, are those two reactors that just came online in Georgia, first time in 30 years, they went twice the time, twice the budget. Okay. Like it was, it was not a super successful thing. Yes, it was exciting to have the reactors come online and it still is. And it reignited the workforce, it reignited the supply chain needed to build new reactors in the United States. Which somebody was going to have to do that inevitably. Right. Uh, but they started with a half finished design. So like the estimates that they made at the start were kind of doomed from the beginning and I don't want us to make the same mistake with smarts. Um, I want to make sure that we have a fully licensed reactor ready to go and hit the ground. Because like I said my biggest priority right now is I want to see the nuclear industry building on time and building on budget because I know we can. It's not like impossible and it's not this foreign concept. Uh, but I think if we over promise and under deliver that's just going to continue to have more harmful, like harmful effects then it will positive effects by still getting it across the finish line, whatever it is, if you're still under delivering uh, on your promises. So SMRs I think are yes, exciting and I want to see them online and I want to be proved wrong on all of this, by the way, I would love to be proved wrong. But, uh, I think the biggest thing is like, I want to make sure we exercise a certain amount of caution with moving forward with them to make sure that, um, the impacts to the broader industry as a whole are not negative coming out of ExoMars because there's a lot of new players, a lot of new people coming into the field that are interested in smarts. Um, and one of the most incredible things I think about the nuclear industry is how close and tight knit we are and how much we really take from our lessons learned from before. So as Mars, I want to see them using those lessons Learned from Vogel 3 and 4, including making sure we've got fully finished designs before we start coming construction, um, in addition to just anything else that might come out of nuclear industry operation and building overall, uh, with restarts, we're learning a lot about, okay, redesigning, you know, new cores and everything like that. So there's a lot of things going on that I don't want SMRs to be treated as their own separate island. I want them to be held to the same accountability, um, as the nuclear industry. And I'm excited for them. I think we will definitely have one commercially online in the next ten years. Um, but I think we need power today. And unfortunately, 10 years is not today.

Speaker A: No, it's not. It's not. And you are speaking like a true entrepreneur and somebody with an MBA on time and on budget. Um, and again, like I said too, it's like once I can figure out how to make money in it, it's going to be something for the future. Um, um, um, I just can't thank you enough for your time. Um, I got a question for you. And you know me, I geek out all the time. Can you help Texas win Miss America? It's been, we were talking about this, it's been like 50 years. Do we need to like hire you as a coach? I don't know who Miss Texas is right now, but do we need to like get you as a coach consultant and do they need to actually play the violin like you did to win this thing or what's up the violin?

Speaker C: But I would love. And we. I kind of like was talking about this with a friend earlier too, where I'm like, Texas, man, they've gotten so close and it's been like three years in a row that they've gotten first runner up. Uh, my year, my Miss Texas was second runner up. Avery Bishop. I love her to death. Um, and there's so Many, like, incredible women that come out of Texas that I'm like, you know what? Give Texas the flowers they deserve. Like, they need. I. They're incredible women. Um, so I don't think that necessarily I can coach that into a winner. Like, I don't think that that's something I can do. But I'm more than happy to help. Um, I do a lot. I've actually interviewed a couple girls that are competing for Missing Texas, which Miss Texas is tomorrow. I don't know if you knew that, but they did brown the girl this year tomorrow.

Speaker A: Well, then I literally don't know who it is.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's okay. So it's gonna be. I'm more than happy to help, but ultimately, I think that comes from. Comes from the girl.

Speaker A: Well, well, Grace, um, again, I cannot thank you enough for the time. Um, any parting words that you have for nuclear? Uh, for. For a naysayer out there, What's a one sentence for anti nuclear? Jane Fonda, what's one sentence you can say?

Speaker C: Nuclear is clean, effective, and reliable. And I certainly hope that you, as a human being, stay curious and never stop learning.

Speaker A: Whoa. That's a real Brenna. That's real right there.

Speaker C: That's okay.

Speaker A: I cannot thank you enough. And for those out there that, um, want to help promote nuclear and get in contact with you and your team, where's the best place to do that?

Speaker C: So you can follow me on all of the social platforms? Um, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, uh, and Twitter, and it's Grace Vanderhei on everything except for Instagram. Um, Instagram is still Grace Stankey working on getting that changed, but otherwise you can go to my website, gracevanderhei.com I'm writing a book right now, too, which is like a fun little tidbit. So if you're interested in that. It's about optimism and the skills you can learn for that. It's not about nuclear. Sorry, guys. Um, but that's something that's also exciting that you.

Speaker A: Then you will be coming back on the show to promote the book then, right?

Speaker C: Sure. I mean, it's literally, like I said, it's about optimism, not energy.

Speaker A: But, hey, I have on wonderful life coaches. You know, this show is, uh. Yes, you're coming back. Uh, please get that done right now. Please get that scheduled.

Speaker C: Sounds good. All right, so early 2027.

Speaker A: I'm excited. I'm so excited. Excited for you. Um, keep it up. Grace, thank you so much for the time today. Um, um, and again, thank you for being, being, being a third time guest on this show. It's, it's always an honor and I'm always learning so much about nuclear whenever we're on. Um, so excited for you and all the things that you're doing and if there's ever time that Pecos or the Crude Truth can help the platform for nuclear, please let me know.

Speaker C: Awesome. Thanks so much, Ray. I really appreciate it. And as always, it's good to be on the crew trip.

Speaker A: Thank you. And to everybody out there, if you have any nuclear questions, please let me know. We can get in contact with Grace Stanke, uh, or Grace Vanderheide, uh, more. And, um, we can definitely go from there. And for always, I always want to thank you all for tuning in to another episode of the Crude Truth.

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