On 2022-08-14 we hosted a pro-nuclear table in my home community's street festival "Marda Gras" as I had done in 2021.
WARNING: This is boring. Don't keep reading unless you are interested in nuclear communications and outreach.
The big differences between 2021 and 2022 are:
- 2 people at the table instead of just myself.
- More fliers and more gummy bears.
- Not a mid-covid smaller-scale street festival.
- Didn't use laptops and monitors, just paper based info.
2021: (computers + monitors + fliers + sellable shirts) 
2022: (more fliers + more gummy bears + non-sellable shirts + Jessica) 
This video isn't intended to be entertaining or informative, unless you're curious how nuclear was received by a Calgary Alberta audience. I'm hoping folks interested in nuclear communications might get some value out of it, and this is still mostly an un-used form of direct pro-nuclear communication... the "street festival table".
Fliers:
I contacted all the nuclear vendors pursing (or having) licenses in Canada, to see what kind of explainer-fliers I could get.
This is a thing. People were very curious. No one hands out vendor-fliers for nuclear reactors!
In 2021 my thoughts (after distributing a smaller collection of self-printed fliers) was this is important. This works.
Gummy bear bags weigh down fliers... works great until they run out!
What were the fliers?
Shipped Fliers from Vendors (!) :
- Moltex - Sent me hundreds of 10-page booklets.
- GE/Hitachi - Sent me hundreds of thick-stock 8.5x11 (single-sided).
These were the only 2 companies that shipped me fliers.
Kudos for other vendors that interacted with me, and sent me PDF. But gooolllliieee it was extra nice to just receive fliers in the mail and not print them myself.
Also, they shipped LOTS. So while my own 100x prints ran out before the end of the day, the "here take a zillion" vendors kept getting their info distributed.
Vendors that helped me with PDFs:
- Clean Core PDF (Thorium enriched fuel for HWR)
- Terrestrial Energy PDF (IMSR)
- SNC-Lavalin PDF (CANDU)
These are vendors advancing through the licensing process in Canada. Was my same criteria as 2021, but I made an earlier effort to coordinate with vendors and so had more fliers to share.
So many fliers, that my 2021 approach of (also) having laptops and showing ElectricityMap.org and collecting emails was abandoned for lack of table space.
So I verbally directed folks to Google CANADIANS FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY (and I had a QR code for C4NE.ca) but that was it.
Gummy Bears
In both 2021 and 2022 the gummy bear product was Yupik Candy Gummy Bears 12 Flavors, 1 Kilogram. Is about $12 CAD /kg.
2021: 3 kg of gummy bears.
2022: 12 kg of gummy bears. (~ $144 CAD.)
Each gummy bear was 3 grams. We put 10 bears in each give-to-kids bag. 10 bears/bag == 30g /bag.
12,000g / 30g = 400 bags. So 400 gummy bear info-packets were distributed. (I'm just learning this now as I do the math, never counted the packets.)
The 10-bears-per-bag all contained a double-sided paper insert...
These images were supplied by Stand Up For Nuclear.
Isabelle Boemeke inspired Gummy Bears as nuclear communication.
Other Informative Printouts:
Below are from UN ECE lifecycle study: 
Our World In Data:
...so you might think this sort of thing is too-much-detail for a community street festival table, but these things were picked up by many people (we ran out of most) and taken home.
I think some people were taking papers and fliers from out table and none others... people with nothing in their hands and no bags were asking for copies. How were they going to carry them?!? Did they fold them up and put them in their back pocket?
Shirts:
Physical gummy bears with info-sheets were popular.
8.5x11 printouts were all popular. (And of course useful for conversation.)
What did not sell was shirts. And I'm 100% sure this is because every time someone complemented the shirts and asked how much, I could only tell them to scan the QR Code and buy online with their phone...
https://nuclear.myspreadshop.ca
...booooo! No one wants to do that. They want their shirt NOW.
Note: These shirts are at cost. Zero profit. I just think it is good communications to wear them. They started at $26 CAD + shipping, much cheaper than 2021, yet we sold more too-expensive ones in 2021.
The shirts certainly helped pull people towards the nuclear table. They look pretty hanging from the tent...
...but I guess to sell shirts (in person) one must own shirts. Maybe I'll stock some next year... I dunno, that's a lot of "stuff". (The hanging shirts included my own personal wardrobe and I didn't want to sell a used shirt, nor explain that detail.)
I was hoping to sell enough virtually to get a sense of what I should stock and not be stuck with inventory for 2023. That remains unknown.
Jessica:
Paris of Stand Up For Nuclear helped bring in a Calgary volunteer (found via Twitter) to help work the table.
Was great to not be the only one behind the table, and Jessica provided some info sheets we handed out.
Jessica was great because I also got to see how someone else responded to the same questions. In retrospect I'm thinking I was a bit too much spout-of-info and should have tried to ask questions more frequently.
Cost of such an event? :
Marda Gras table for non-profit (C4NE): $250 CAD.
Tent (purchased so amortizable): $190 CAD.
Gummy Bears (12 kg): $144 CAD.
Printing of fliers: ~$100 CAD.
= $684 CAD.
I think that probably informed ~700 people... the 400 Gummy bear info-packets were probably looked at by everyone in the family. Some people didn't want gummy bears and only wanted fliers. Most people who took fliers took multiples.
Is that the best bang-for-the-buck? Hmmm. Probably not.
I'd feel much better about it if more shirts moved, as I think that has an (unknown) multiplier effect. I expect fliers and info-packets get tossed after being read, and can't reach any more eyeballs.
Pro-nukes can reach far more people /$ with an online campaign, or (as we all know) a YouTube video that goes viral.
But this interests me, and I care about moving the needle in my own community. And it was very fun.
In-depth conversations:
David McRaney is a fellow who's podcasts I've been listening to, and his work-to-date has sort of collimated in "How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion".
And of course Generation Atomic has run their own door-to-door efforts with "Deep Canvasing".
The up-to-date take on Deep Canvasing is that it does work. The original study was (badly) flawed, but follow-up research shows that... yes it works.
So, having read How Minds Change since the 2021 tabling I was all psyched-up to try it, and...
...it doesn't apply directly to our pro-nuclear table experience.
There's no one's mind that needs changing.
Everyone approaching the table was either strongly pro-nuclear, or curious.
Only a single person expressed outright distain, and she just muttered "Chernobyl" while walking past and never engaged. (And I could't respond because I was alone at that moment speaking with a supporter.) (And I couldn't spot the moment when reviewing the footage just not clear enough audio to hear it.)
From the book, in retrospect, I think I was ready to handle any anti-nuke brew-ha-ha more effectively. Just never happened.
So what's the optimal use of a pro-nuclear table?
Well I guess collecting emails. Which I did to greater effect in 2021 with the laptops.
Or directing people to take some form of political action. But, again, at a street table, that's probably either collecting signatures or collecting emails.
So, aside from yet another whack at shirts in 2023, that would be our course-correction: Collect emails.
Moltex Missed Opportunity:
I didn't realize Moltex SSR-W is fuelled only by recycled CANDU fuel.
So my talking about CANDU as the only natural-uranium fuelled reactor was not quite accurate, since Moltex SSR-W is (indirectly) fuelled by natural uranium.
I thought SSR-W required a mix of HALEU. It does not.
Never told anyone SSR-W required HALEU specifically. But I did express that only CANDU (among the licensing-in-Canada reactors) bypassed the current enriched-uranium Russian pinch-point.
Hey Watch This: Inside the World’s BIGGEST Nuclear Plant (Bruce Power)
Decouple Studios's Jesse Freeston created this awesome video.
It includes a union worker who transitioned from working at a coal plant producing dirty (but important!) energy, to working at a nuclear plant producing clean (and important!) energy.
Pretty important example for an energy transition.