Milan Shah sent a message to William Henry Gates that said:
Alt-Nuclear
Dear Bill
I have deeply enjoyed learning about you and the work you do via the Netflix series delving into the workings of your mind. Thank you and Melinda for the inspiring window into your lives; and for dedicating so much of yourselves to the betterment of humankind.
I felt compelled to write to you to be so bold as to plant the seed of an idea with you. Forgive me for taking up an ounce of your time if this has already been considered.
My suggestion is that your power plant project be no longer associated with the word 'nuclear' or anything related to it.
By virtue of the fact that you have taken an archaic technology that was first used for chaos and destruction, brought it into the 21st century and re-tasked it for ours and our planet's survival isn't just a mere incremental improvement on nuclear.
I think more value needs to be placed on just how revolutionary an advancement you and your team have made. It seems like what the discovery of splitting the atom would have been like if we had not been so focused on war.
The project and it's underlying breakthroughs felt so worthy of being given a new descriptor; and it seemed unjust for there to be the lingering dark cloud of being associated with nuclear and all of the prejudice and resistance that comes with it.
You and the team seem to be aimed at using technology responsibly - for the environment and health and well-being of people and our planet - the opposite of what nuclear technology was founded upon.
It is ironic in fact that by cleaning up the nuclear waste created by that era of nuclear plants and so being the antithesis of what nuclear represents in people's minds - wasteful, uncaring, ignorant, dangerously arrogant use of technology, it is still likely to be perceived as 'nuclear' because it harnesses energy on an atomic level.
I know you don't need convincing, but it just strikes me that this irrational, nuclear-phobic, false-logic applied to our daily lives would mean we should be terrified of the fact that we drive around with internal-explosion-engines, celebrate new year lighting mini-dynamite sticks and cook our food with radiation.
It's clearly not the process by which is the energy is extracted, but the way it is wielded and directed; and the supporting technology around that which makes it safe, usable and ultimately essential to modern existence.
Should you elect to find a new scientific terminology to be implemented to describe your work, I believe that this would allow the general public to perceive it without prejudice and see it for what it really is - a real, viable, safe, multi-faceted solution. And perhaps political will may follow.
I would like to suggest that perhaps the ecological, re-cyclical benefits of using existing radioactive waste and the 'slow-burning candle' analogy play a key role in the brainstorming for a new term.
And that words like 'nuclear', 'reactor', 'core' and anything else related to the older, unsafe nuclear technology be avoided altogether.
And that perhaps the name of the technology should not revolve around the splitting of the nucleus of an atom, but around the boundless renewable energy that is created in the process.
I'm sure your phenomenal team can brainstorm their way into a more palatable terminology.
Thank you for all you do and for being such an inspiration...words are not enough. And thank you for taking the time to read!
Wishing you continued success in all you do,
Milan Shah
London, UK
