💎 ISODOPE (@isodope)

reintroducing some of the classics to all my new followers. this is where it all began. thanks for being here. 💙 #isodope #nuclearenergy #cleanenergy #fyp #foryou

To solve climate change we have to decarbonize 👾🍩 #climatechange #learnontiktok #decarbonize #fyp

believe it or not, one of the quiet battles behind Rad Future was about my writing style. writing about climate, energy, and nuclear electricity doesn’t have to sound clinical or joyless, and this book was never meant to. i wanted it to feel human, funny, a little unhinged at times. something you’d actually want to read, not just feel like you should read. i mean after all, who wants another boring ole book about nuclear? those exist already.

Replying to @lukesradscreenname the short answer is yes. but it’s not in the way most people think. the water isn’t used up. it’s returned to the source just a little bit warmer.

anyone else have “read more books” on their new year’s resolutions? 🙋‍♀️ well don’t worry because i’ve got you covered! these are some of my personal favorite books that fueled my obsession with science and expanded my perspective on nuclear electricity when i was first trying to learn and make sense of it all. each one challenged something i thought i knew, pushed me to think bigger, and helped me see our world (and our future) a little more clearly. i hope you enjoy them as much as i do!

still hunting for the perfect gift for the nuclear nerd in your life? it’s not too late. you can still snag a copy of Rad Future, scour thrift shops for vintage fiestaware, or even plan your next trip to EBR-1.  consider this your last-minute guide to giving something thoughtful, nerdy, and super rad this holiday season. ✨

when i started writing Rad Future two and a half years ago, i thought the story of nuclear electricity would be tough to untangle. but what i didn’t expect was just how fast the world would spin… and how many drafts my manuscript would have to go through. in the past year alone, the U.S. government dropped four executive orders aimed at accelerating reactor licensing, cutting regulatory red tape and quadrupling domestic nuclear capacity by 2050.  at the same time, data centers started popping up, demanding massive amounts of reliable electricity. the deal between constellation to restart unit 1 of three mile island (now crane clean energy center) in pennsylvania is just one example. so the “hardest part” of writing the book wasn’t all the complicated math or the boring technical stuff. it was keeping up with a story that kept getting rewritten all around me. every time i thought i had a chapter locked, another announcement dropped that changed everything. at some point, my publishers had to call it quits, but i worked right up to the very last second (now i understand why books sometimes have typos, etc. because authors are literally working right up until the last chance they get). ultimately, i’m proud of how it turned out and i think the way the story unfolds applies to the everchanging current events that unfold. i hope you check it out. 💙 xx isabelle

7 things to research when you’re bored: 1. Ramsar in iran has naturally high levels of radiation on earth but don’t have higher incidences of cancer. In some cases the radiation is as high as on the surface of mars. 2. plastic-lined soda cans most people think cans are aluminum, but they’re actually lined with plastic so your soda doesn’t taste metallic. you’re basically drinking out of a thin plastic condom. the liner can leach chemicals and microplastics into your bloodstream. 🙃 3. natural nuclear reactors in gabon, africa two billion years ago, uranium deposits in gabon, africa created a naturally occurring nuclear reactor that ran for hundreds of thousands of years. 4. marie curie’s radioactive notebooks marie curie's lab notebooks are still radioactive over a century later. because she worked with radium and polonium before safety protocols existed, her notebooks are now stored in lead-lined boxes, and anyone who wants to handle them has to follow special precautions. 5. cherenkov radiation cherenkov radiation is the electric-blue glow in a spent fuel pool. it happens because particles are moving faster than light in water. it’s the closest thing to real-life sci-fi. 6. the cassini nuclear battery panic before NASA launched the Cassini mission, protestors claimed its nuclear battery could “kill everyone on earth.” Carolyn Porco and other scientists had to go to battle with misinformation and won. 7. chernobyl’s wildlife comeback instead of becoming a wasteland, the chernobyl exclusion zone became one of europe’s largest wildlife reserves. wolves, bison, lynx, and more, all thriving without humans.

radiation has one of the biggest perception gaps of any scientific topic. we hear radiation and imagine catastrophe. not the quiet, constant background dose we all live in every day. but when you look at the numbers side by side, something becomes clear: radiation risk isn’t just about its presence. dose matters more than anything. a CT scan, a cross-country flight, sleeping next to someone, living in a brick house… the range is massive, and most of it is extremely safe. my hope with the radiation scale isn’t to minimize real radiation threat, it’s about restoring perspective. when we understand what “a lot” actually means, we can finally talk about nuclear electricity, medical imaging, and everyday exposures with clarity instead of fear.

guarapari in brazil looks like any other gorgeous beach town… until you bring a geiger counter. the black sand here is packed with monazite, a mineral loaded with thorium and rare earth elements that washed down from inland mountains over millions of years. that geology made guarapari one of the most naturally radioactive places, where people casually sunbathe, and locals have treated it as a wellness hotspot for over a century. what most people don’t know is that this “radioactive beach” actually started as a spa destination. in the early 1900s, doctors in brazil began sending patients with arthritis and joint pain to guarapari for sand therapy. tourists would bury themselves up to the neck in warm monazite sand, believing it eased inflammation. and despite the high natural background radiation, decades of epidemiological studies have found no spikes in cancer, no mysterious illnesses, and no health abnormalities among the residents who grew up here. it’s one of those mind-bending reminders that radiation isn’t just nuclear accidents and scary headlines. it’s woven into the earth itself. some of the highest natural doses on the planet come from totally ordinary places: beaches, hot springs, spa towns, and mountain regions. the danger isn’t “radiation” itself. it’s our fear and misunderstanding of it. guarapari shows that context, dose, and biology matter far more than fear and that mother nature herself is often way more radioactive than anything humans build.

on my last post about radiation level comparisons, i got a few questions about what these levels actually mean. mostly if what they’re seeing with their eyes is actually true. yes, it’s true that a person gets the same amount of radiation from one head CT scan that they would get from 2,000 arm x-rays. that’s why i love randall munroe’s famous radiation dose chart. it compares everything from sleeping next to someone (yes, that gives you radiation), eating a banana, flying from New York to LA, getting a mammogram, to standing near the Chernobyl reactor in 1986. and when you see it all together, it becomes obvious how warped our collective fear and misunderstanding is. what’s the most insane thing you observed from this chart?

let’s cut the bs and stop with the radiation slander. yes, radiation can be dangerous in super high doses, but radiation is all around us all the time and we don’t even know it. somewhere along the way, we were taught to be deathly afraid of this invisible thing when the reality is, life on earth evolved in the presence of radiation, and it’s not going away...ever. get used to it, because you are exposed to radiation every day. if you eat potato chips, fly in planes, smoke cigarettes, collect rocks, eat brazil nuts, go outside, or sleep next to your partner. The world is a radioactive place. 🌎

in the 1950s, Walt wasn’t just in his drawing room, dreaming up fairy tales and Mickey Mouse. he was fascinated by atoms! ✨  he saw nuclear electricity as the key to a bright, abundant future, one where clean energy could power homes, cities, even theme parks. that’s why he made “Our Friend the Atom” in 1957, a film that introduced millions of kids to the promise of atomic energy. when Disney World was being built, they even applied for a nuclear reactor license, which is still active to this day. unfortunately, a lot of sh*t happened since then, and people lost trust in nuclear technologies. but we’ve come a long way since then. nuclear technology has improved, safety and regulation keeps us safer than any other energy-generating industry, and it’s necessary in a clean energy future. Disney was really onto something back in the ‘50s, and it’s up to us to keep his nuclear legacy alive. 🏰

1. Nuclear waste (spent fuel) is my favorite type of waste Nuclear waste is the only waste in the world where we know where every single gram of it is. The fuel used in nuclear power plants is extremely energy dense, so we get lots of energy with very little land or material use. That means the waste produced is very small compared to every other energy sources. 2. I would swim in a spent fuel pool if someone would let me (any takers?) Spent fuel pools are actually completely safe as long as you’re a few feet above the fuel rods resting at the bottom of a ~40-foot-deep pool. Water is one of the best radiation shields there is, so yeah, I’d go for a dip. I bet the water’s nice and warm, too. 3. No energy source is absolutely perfect and that’s ok Every energy source has flaws, even nuclear. Its history isn’t spotless, but the lessons learned gave us the strictest safety regulations in any industry. And nuclear regulations are a GOOD THING. They keep us safe and help build public trust. 4. You won’t really hear me rooting for fusion Fusion is cool, you should definitely keep rooting for it. But my focus is on what can scale now. We already have fission, it already works, and it’s the cleanest, most reliable source we’ve got. Climate change isn’t waiting for us to figure out fusion. 5. 100% renewable is a stupid goal Renewables are awesome when they’re backed by nuclear. But wind and solar alone can’t carry the grid. Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. A better goal would be 100% clean so that nuclear can be a part of the solution.

you might be surprised, but plenty of folks are seriously worried about what will happen to nuclear waste if society collapses or language disappears. welcome to the world of “nuclear semiotics,” where scientists literally brainstorm ways to warn humans about nuclear waste 10,000 years from now. in the 1980s, U.S. researchers designing long-term waste sites brainstormed everything from massive spikes jutting from the desert floor, ominous symbols and objects, to engraved granite monuments with messages like: “this place is not a place of honor… nothing valued is here.” (isodope booty shorts coming soon) the goal was to make the land look so cursed, so uninviting, that no future explorer would ever want to dig there. (btw terrible idea if you ask me. what’s the first thing people do when they see a “do not touch” sign? THEY TOUCH IT) but then someone drummed up the Ray Cat Solution. it was literally proposed to genetically engineer cats to glow whenever radiation was present. the thinking was that if our descendants see glowing cats hanging around a certain spot, they’ll know “something is wrong here.” the plan even included passing down songs or myths that connected the glow with danger, so the message would survive through culture rather than language… you know, in case people don’t speak the same language 10,000 years from now. thankfully, no one’s actually making glow-in-the-dark cats. instead, scientists have found far safer, saner solutions like burying waste deep underground in geologically stable rock that hasn’t shifted for millions of years (like Finland is doing at Onkalo). ironically, if we don’t solve climate change first, there won’t be anyone left in 10,000 years to decode our radioactive cat stories. the point is, we have bigger fish to fry. save a sardine for Ray (the cat). 🐟 happy halloween! 🎃

why uranium? because it’s insanely energy dense. just one tiny enriched uranium pellet (about the size of a gummy bear) packs as much power as a ton of coal or 150 gallons of oil. and it does it without choking the planet and killing millions of people every year. #RadFuture #nuclearelectricity #uraniumfever

when i first started learning about nuclear electricity 10 years ago, i was shocked by how hard it was to find anything accessible. everything i came across was either too technical, too academic, or written in a way that felt gatekept. that’s why i wrote Rad Future. i wanted to create the book i wish i had back then. something approachable, clear, and inspiring for anyone who’s curious about nuclear and how it can help us solve the climate crisis. if you’ve ever wanted an easy way in, this is it! comment below for a free excerpt of Rad Future.

everyone’s always worried about earthquakes shaking things up. but finland’s Onkalo repository is built into some of the oldest, most stable bedrock on earth. it’s designed to stay safe for hundreds of thousands of years. the real risk is humans letting myths and fear stop progress on managing nuclear waste responsibly. 🙃

when most people think of the worst energy accident in history, they go straight to chernobyl. but the deadliest wasn’t nuclear at all. it was hydropower. in august 1975, typhoon nina unleashed torrential rains over the henan province in china. the banqiao dam eventually couldn’t withstand the pressure, and it collapsed, unleashing a catastrophic wall of water that wiped out entire villages. the collapse triggered failures at 61 more dams, leading to tens of thousands of deaths. some estimates place the death toll at 220,000 from flooding, famine, and disease from contaminated water. nearly 7 million homes were destroyed. now let’s get back to chernobyl. there were less than 100 confirmed deaths, with long-term studies showing a localized spike in thyroid cancers but not the sweeping devastation people assume. even if we compare that to fukushima, all 2,300 fatalities from that incident were caused by a poorly handled evacuation, not radiation. the point isn’t to demonize hydropower. hydropower is still one of the safest forms of energy, but so is nuclear. both cause a tiny fraction of the deaths fossil fuels do every single year from air pollution. but it does raise the question: why does everyone know chernobyl’s story, but almost no one knows about banqiao? fear, especially fear of radiation, has distorted our perception of risk. radiation is invisible, unfamiliar, and easy to dramatize. floods, on the other hand, feel like “natural disasters,” even when they’re worsened by poor design and human error. the reality is, all energy sources come with risk. what matters is learning from mistakes, enforcing safety, and putting human lives first. nuclear electricity has had a few accidents, yes, but its overall safety record is extraordinary! 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour is on par with solar and wind, and far safer than coal, oil, or even hydropower. that’s the story we rarely hear. if we want to solve climate change, we can’t let fear dictate the narrative. just as banqiao didn’t stop the world from using hydropower, chernobyl shouldn’t stop us from embracing nuclear.

what would it take to bring indian point back online? a lot. but it’s not impossible. holtec, the company that owns indian point, hasn’t completely ruled out a restart. but it would take a large investment, major upgrades to meet modern safety standards, and buy-in from policymakers. nuclear plants are already being restarted to meet rising electricity demand. could indian point be next?

if you fell for the natural gas scam, don’t worry. so have generations since the late 1800s. back then, cities lit their homes with “manufactured gas,” which was made from coal and had a bad rep for being dirty and toxic. when companies started pulling methane straight from the ground, they needed a rebrand to set it apart from the nasty stuff. et voilà, “natural gas” was born. utilities branded it as “clean, modern, and reliable,” running ad campaigns showing happy families cooking with “natural gas.” once pipelines and appliances were built around methane, it locked consumers (and whole economies) into decades of dependence. fast-forward to today, and methane aka “natural gas” is responsible for about 25% of global warming. but thanks to clever branding, it’s still sold as a “bridge fuel” or a “cleaner alternative,” when in reality, it’s just another fossil fuel keeping us locked into the same cycle of pollution and climate risk. #methane #naturalgas #RadFuture

Rad Future is an “optimistic” book. but not in a naive way. in a pragmatic way. writing this book forced me to zoom out and look at the full arc of how we got here. the mistakes, the missed chances, the fear that held us back, and to see that it’s still not too late. we already have the tools we need to solve climate change, we just have to choose to use them. that’s what makes this book hopeful to me. not blind optimism. just the belief that we can make things better for the people who come after us, and that we still have time. ⚡ Rad Future is out now. you should give it a read if you’re also sick and tired of hearing that we’re doomed. #RadFuture #nuclearelectricity #climatesolutions

7 reasons we’re ready for a nuclear renaissance: 1. PUBLIC OPINION HAS SHIFTED after decades of fear-driven stigma, polls show a majority of americans now support nuclear electricity. public sentiment is the foundation of any big energy transition, and it’s finally moving in the right direction. 2. POLICY IS CATCHING UP the U.S. government is backing nuclear in a way we haven’t seen in decades. the inflation reduction act includes production tax credits for existing reactors, new funding for advanced reactor projects, and even possible incentives for converting retiring coal plants into nuclear sites. regulatory reform efforts are making licensing faster and less expensive. 3. OLD PLANTS ARE GETTING NEW LIFE instead of shutting down reactors early, we’re extending their lifespans. plants like diablo canyon and palisades have been given a second chance thanks to federal support and public pressure, keeping gigawatts of clean power on the grid. it’s a signal that the tide has turned. 4. SMALL COMPANIES ARE CHANGING THE GAME a wave of startups and private ventures are designing SMRs, microreactors, and advanced fuel types. these designs promise faster build times and lower costs, and they’re attracting serious investment from both the public and private sectors. 5. THE ENERGY DEMAND BOOM IS HERE between AI data centers, EVs, and electrification, global electricity demand is surging. solar and wind alone won’t cut it, but nuclear can provide steady, round-the-clock, carbon-free electricity. 6. GLOBAL MOMENTUM IS BUILDING around the world, countries are reversing course on nuclear. japan has restarted reactors, south korea is building again, france is planning new units, and even countries like poland and the UK are launching their first nuclear projects. the U.S. risks falling behind if we don’t step it up. 7. THE STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN CLEARER climate change isn’t abstract anymore. it’s more in our faces than ever. extreme heat, floods, wildfires, and blackouts are forcing people to rethink what “clean electricity” really means. we don’t have time for fragile, intermittent systems. we need resilient, scalable, 24/7 clean electricity, and nuclear is the only source that fits that description.

and that’s why the U.S. navy will always be elite 🩵 most people don’t know that we already use nuclear all the time to power our lives and even submarines. the uses for nuclear are endless, and we’re coming up with new uses of the technology all the time! imagine what could happen if we fully embraced this tech that we already know is safe, regulated, and has been around for decades. #navy #submarines #nuclearpower

abcdefg i have to go #chernobyl #coal #airpollution #nuclear

you only know the vibes if you read Rad Future. raise your hand if you’re one of them. 🙋🏻‍♀️ and don’t forget to leave an amazon review! #RadFuture #summertimesadness

the craze of pub week might be over, but I’m still reeling from everything Rad Future accomplished in just a few days: ⚡️ landed on the usa today best seller list ⚡️ shared by icons like gwyneth paltrow, katy perry, orlando bloom, jack dorsey, grimes, and paris hilton ⚡️ Featured in outlets like the new york times, wall street journal, and the free press so many wins for the book help us reach our goal and get this message in as many hands and minds as possible so that we can make rad future come to life. if you’ve already preordered, read, or shared the book, thank you. the best way you can keep supporting now is by leaving an honest review on amazon. reviews help the book reach even more people, and that means more conversations, more minds changed, and more momentum for clean electricity. let’s keep this wave going. 🩵 xx isabelle

idea + passion + action = your dreams coming true. just trust me. you need to nerd out 🩵

ever heard of a hot cell? i got the rare chance to step inside the newest hot cell at Idaho National Laboratory before it’s sealed up for operation. a hot cell is a heavily shielded room where scientists can safely handle some of the most radioactive materials on earth. imagine giant robotic arms behind 4-foot-thick glass, letting researchers move fuel rods and materials that would otherwise be way too dangerous to touch. this is where scientists test, study, and push forward the technologies that will shape the future of clean energy. why is this one special? because it hasn’t gone “hot” yet. once it’s sealed, the cell will become too radioactive for people to enter for decades without serious protective clothing. so me walking in with my blazer on is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. some rad fun facts about hot cells at INL: ✨ INL hot cells have been key to everything from nuclear medicine to space exploration (yes, NASA spacecraft run on nuclear batteries assembled and tested here). ✨ they’re essential for developing the next generation of advanced reactors. ✨ this new hot cell will help accelerate that future. now you can see why walking through those doors was a pinch-me moment. #hotcell #idahonationallaboratory #inl

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