Decouple (Dr. Chris Keefer)

Stephen Stapczynski, Bloomberg Business senior reporter, joins me to discuss everything you always wanted to know about LNG but were afraid to ask.

Nuclear energy is only possible thanks to a highly-skilled, largely unionized workforce. In popular culture, nuclear workers have been portrayed as incompetent (e.g. the Simpson) or as evil incarnate by anti-nuclear activists like Dr. Helen Caldicott. In Canada, nuclear generation is publicly owned and run by a highly unionized workforce. It provides cheap, clean, and reliable energy to the commons AKA our grid. Due to the energy density of fission, each nuclear worker has an outsized role in preventing the burning of fossil fuels and producing large amounts of air pollution-free and low emissions electricity. I am joined by Bob Walker, the national director of the Canadian Nuclear Worker's Council, to demystify what nuclear workers do, how nuclear energy is a uniquely potent job creator, and why political parties and many unions have not engaged or even turned their backs on nuclear workers and their unions.

This interview was originally recorded for the January 3, 2021 episode of We CANDU It.

This week, we talk Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) with James Krellenstein, the CEO of Alva Energy. We dive into the engineering, history, and physics of these reactors, how they differ from other designs, and why the United States may have erred in not choosing the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) instead of the Westinghouse AP-1000 for the Vogtle nuclear power plant.For this episode, we’ve included a glossary below to help with unfamiliar terms:

• ABWR: Advanced Boiling Water Reactor

• ATWS: Anticipated Transient Without Scram

• BORAX experiments: Historical experiments testing reactor limits through deliberate failures

• BWR: Boiling Water Reactor

• COPS: Containment Overpressure Protection System

• CRDM: Control Rod Drive Mechanism

• ESBWR: Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

• FLEX: Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (post-Fukushima enhancements)

• FOAK: First of a kind

• IGSCC: Intergranular Stress Corrosion Cracking

• NOAK: N-nth of a kind

• NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission

• NSSS: Nuclear Steam Supply System (N Triple-S)

• PRA: Probabilistic Risk Assessment

• PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor

• RCIC: Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System

• RPV: Reactor Pressure Vessel

• SLC: Standby Liquid Control System

Read more on Substack!

Jacopo Buongiorno joins me to discuss the cost drivers of nuclear and how we can drive them down. For a deeper dive check out this MIT study that Jacopo led. studyhttps://energy.mit.edu/research/future-nuclear-energy-carbon-constrained-world/

In this “Decouple Short” Madi Hilly shares the experience of her maternity photo shoot at Idaho National Laboratories and the responses so far.

Emmet Penney joins me to shoot the breeze and catch up on the whirlwind developments of the last few months.

We live in a world transformed by big tech and exponential advances in computing. It is no surprise we hope this pattern can be repeated with an energy transition as anxieties mount over the implications of climate change. Unfortunately, magical thinking leaves us far from deep decarbonization and brings with it some staggering implications when it comes to resource extraction and the waste stream of dilute and intermittent energy sources.   Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he co-directs an Institute on Manufacturing Science and Innovation.

Mark P. Mills returns to Decouple to challenge our understanding of energy scarcity and efficiency. In this episode, he unravels the paradox of how pursuing energy efficiency often leads to increased consumption, and explains why he believes our energy resources are functionally limitless.

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Mark P. Mills on X: https://x.com/MarkPMills

Decouple: https://www.decouple.media

Adam Blazowski, an engineer and co-founder of FOTA4Climate, joins us to provide context to the breaking news of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and what it means for Europe and Germany. Adam walks us through the history and geopolitical implications of the project, especially for Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and explains the role of Gazprom-funded environmental NGOs in blocking German LNG infrastructure. We also explore Poland’s coming nuclear buildout and Adam’s perspectives on the cold, dark winter coming in Ukraine as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station is put in cold shutdown and Russia pursues a scorched earth policy on Ukraine's power infrastructure. Read the Adam’s twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/adamblazowski/status/1559559997180334080?s=21&t=YZyFi5z0GSNBZy2xcFO6UQ

Tracy Primeau is a retired Shift Manager at Bruce Power who is now on the Board of Directors at Ontario Power Generation (OPG). She is a member of the Nipissing First Nation, and was the first woman to make her way to Shift Manager from the shop floor. She discusses her first hand perspective as an energy worker while Ontario transitioned from coal to nuclear, and the life quality benefits it brought to both workers and the province broadly. Primeau shares her experience of what it is like working at a nuclear plant and leading company engagement with surrounding communities, especially as an indigenous woman. We discuss the importance of nuclear energy companies engaging towns as collaborators rather than groups merely to be convinced, especially given the deep-rootedness of the “nuclear waste story” in indigenous communities. Finally, we discuss paths forward for nuclear in indigenous communities, developments underway, and the likelihood of meeting stated goals to get indigenous communities in Canada off of diesel by 2030.

With Europe held hostage due to its dependence on Russian oil and gas, France had the potential with its gargantuan nuclear fleet to defend Europe’s energy independence. Instead, in its moment to shine, the French nuclear fleet is performing shamefully. Why? Mark Nelson, managing director of Radiant Energy Group, breaks down how France, a world leader in CO2 emissions reductions and energy independence, has become an example of how NOT to manage a nuclear fleet, as mismanagement and unplanned outages threaten its future.

Ontario can't seem to make up its mind about energy. Partway through a historic nuclear-powered coal phaseout, the province adopted the Green Energy Act (GEA), which established costly feed-in-tariffs for renewables in the footsteps of Germany's Energiewende. Now, three years after rising energy costs prompted the GEA's repeal, the planned 2025 closure of the 3.1 GW Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is leaving Ontario with no option to meet coming capacity shortfalls without winding back climate progress by burning much, much more gas.

Chris Benedetti, Managing Partner at Ontario-based Sussex Strategy Group and Head of its Energy and Environment Practice, extracts lessons from the fascinating energy case study that is this Canadian province.

Note: This episode was recorded on June 1, 2022 and contains outdated information pertaining to provincial elections.

Edgardo Sepulveda, a telecoms regulatory economist, returns to the Decouple podcast to discuss energy equity and how it relates to discussions of energy poverty and energy democracy with a deep dive of the June 2 Public Power Resolution tabled by Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.  Electricity is considered a “necessity good” in economics. For a variety of reasons in the industrialized world people will use about the same amount regardless of income. Given, however, that income is not evenly distributed this means that lower-income households will spend between 5% to 10% of their income on electricity, compared to just 1% by high-income households. This results in energy poverty. Edgardo describes the types of programs established to mitigate its depth and incidence. There is broad consensus that such programs have not been sufficient, and together with the climate crisis this has resulted in calls for “energy democracy”, a term first introduced by US activists in the 2000s that has gained traction in Canada and Europe.

Edgardo reviewed a sample of the literature and noted that while there is no accepted definition, it tends to mean greater “energy citizenship” – broader participation in decision-making processes – and also greater individual and community control of energy infrastructure, with a strong preference for localism and renewables. A good conceptual review article is: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629620303431

Nevertheless, the empirical evidence is that energy democracy’s gains have been modest, and many of the policies to promote greater individual and community control of energy have been regressive – that is, have resulted in greater income inequality. Figure 7 of this ex-post review shows that 29 of 37 studies looking at feed-in tariffs or NEM were regressive and 7 neutral; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc11f Chris and Edgardo close off the episode discussing the June 2 “Public Power” Resolution tabled in the US House of Representatives (HR) by Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) & Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), two members of the “Squad.”  The Resolution calls for the Federal government to acquire all private electricity assets and transfer them to lower jurisdictional levels and communities, while requiring 100% renewable generation.   In @Dr_Keefer's words the @CoriBush & @JamaalBowmanNY resolution advocates for an "occupy Wall Street grid."

Its ideological commitment to small is beautiful localism, 100% renewables & magical thinking about the grid makes a public power bill a danger to the public.  As such, the resolution appears to be a good example of how energy democracy is seen by progressives in the US and provided Chris and Edgardo with a concrete proposal to discuss. https://bush.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/bush.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Bush%20Public%20Power%20Resolution%20FINAL.pdf Edgardo’s Twitter handle is @E_R_Sepulveda

Tea Törmänen discusses the exception to the rule that is Finland's pro-nuclear and biotech-curious Green Party.  Tea is a member of Viite, an umbrella association of the Finnish Greens, founded in 2008. The most important goal of the association is to advance political decision making that is based on scientific knowledge. Viite combines a green value system with the methods of scientific research. Tea is also the Executive Director of RePlanet, a humanist citizens movement focused on evidence based solutions to climate change, biodiversity loss and rewilding.  Check out RePlanet: https://www.replanet.ngo

In this very special episode, I am joined live in Berlin by the "Godfather of Climate Science," Dr. James Hansen.

Dr. James Hansen is the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and is now the Director of the "Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions Program" at Columbia University's Earth Institute. He was one of the first to bring climate change to the public eye with his famous testimony before the U.S. congress in the 1980s. Since then, he has continued to be at the forefront of the climate debate. 

We discuss a wide range of topics: 

• The emergence of the science on global warming from rising CO2 levels
• Dr. Hansen's experience as a high-caliber climate advocate
• The shift from climate deniers to climate lukewarmists
• The two most important climate actions for Dr. Hansen, a carbon tax and support for nuclear power
• Why Dr. Hansen didn't go to COP26
• The anti-nuclear lobby
• The virtually unlimited government support for renewables
• Differential responsibility for climate change
• The contrast between German and Chinese approaches to climate action
• Fukushima, alarmism, and anti-nuclear NRC picks
• Reflections on geoengineering

This interview was recorded live from Berlin. Watch the video!

Watch Dr. James Hansen's TED Talk.

Is the sky falling on the west? I am joined by the green chicken avatar representing the anonymous Substack: Doomberg. Doomberg is home to entertaining and insightful essays on all things energy, industry, finance, politics, and more. We touch on each of these topics in our wide-ranging discussion of the consequences of bad energy and industrial policy, the West's hopefully reversible decline, and how we understand and feel about the future. Subscribe to the Doomberg Substack: https://doomberg.substack.com Follow Doomberg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoombergT

Is overzealous regulation the root cause of the contemporary crisis in deployment of nuclear reactors in the USA? James Krellenstein argues that Nuclear Regulatory Commission critics are trapped in the 1980’s and that the spectre haunting today’s deployments are not primarily regulatory. Due to simplified systems and lower material costs modern NRC approved passive reactors should be cheaper than complex Gen 2 reactors. In addition there are 17GWe worth of combined construction and operating licenses in the USA ready to go. All that and more on this week’s episode.

Heather Hoff is the co-founder of Mothers for Nuclear, and the mother of Zoe. She is a materials scientist, nuclear reactor operator and lifelong environmentalist.   

In the words of their website Mothers for Nuclear is an organization of environmentalists, humanitarians, and caring human beings.    

"We were initially skeptical of nuclear, but learned through asking a lot of questions. We started Mothers for Nuclear as a way to share our stories and begin a dialogue with others who want to protect nature for future generations."   

Heather describes her trajectory as the daughter of an eccentric tinkerer growing up without a flush toilet in the desert in Arizona, to the co-leader of her campus recycling program, to her unexpected employment at Diablo Canyon as a reactor operator and her role as a co-founder of Mothers for Nuclear.

Just as the political spectrum is divided between left and right, thinking on environmental problem solving is similarly split into two rival camps exemplified by the archetypes of the Wizard and the Prophet. Award winning science writer Charles Mann explores these archetypes as personified by the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug and the intellectual godfather of the environmental movement, William Vogt.

Crudely put wizards are foremost humanists who eschew limits believing that our growing population and appetites can be accommodated by the wise application of decoupling technology. Prophets are foremost environmentalists who believe that carrying capacity is limited and that humans must remain within natural energy flows or risk ecosystem and civilizational collapse.

Understanding the origins of one's opponents ideological beliefs and values goes a long way to depersonalizing a sometimes ugly debate and perhaps finding a small patch of common ground.

Prophets who have contributed some impressive advances in natural resource stewardship such as water conservation must wrestle with an ugly history of Malthusian ideas which at their worst have justified horrific campaigns of coercive population control. Despite the success of technofixes that fed billions and averted famines wizards must temper their scientific rationalism with a sociologic understanding of the dark sides of modernization such as enclosures of the commons.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with Westinghouse over IP rights and export control obligations. Will this conflict stymie Western nuclear ambitions? Does this legal battle risk ceding the longterm geopolitical alliances intrinsic to nuclear exports in non-aligned countries to Russia and China? What are the motivations and likely outcomes? Phil Chaffee of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly joins me to provide context and inferences.

Seth Klein, a writer and public policy researcher, joins Dr. Keefer to discuss his book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency.

Klein draws on the history of Canada during World War II, when the country massively industrialized to help Britain with the war effort in what he describes as a "true society-wide mobilization." He uses this history to argue for a similar society-wide, wartime-like mobilization to fight climate change.

Klein makes a bold argument: We have tried and fail for 30 years to "incentivize our way to victory," and we will lose the climate battle if we think strategic subsidies, incentives, and taxes alone will lead to decarbonization. Rather, we need the state to take charge and institute rapid, mandatory measures.

During crises, Klein argues, populations actually respond positively to mandatory measures. For example, in World War II the backlash feared from rationing and other mandatory measures rarely manifested. We have seen a similar phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite some dissent, there has been wide support for social distancing and mask requirements. On climate change, Klein argues that people "in the main" are ahead of the political curve and demanding strong climate action.

In this episode, Dr. Keefer and Seth Klein discuss the nuances of this argument, including the important question of the technological choices made during a hypothetical wartime-like mobilization, and how we can avoid making progress in the wrong direction.

Seth Klein recently launched the Climate Emergency Unit following over two decades of experience at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and in various other policy roles focused on poverty reduction, social, and environmental justice.

Learn more about the Climate Emergency Unit: https://www.climateemergencyunit.ca/

Dr. Keefer’s speech at Minerals Week in Australia sharing the story of Ontario’s coal phaseout & the decarbonization of its electricity grid.

Dr. Vijaya Ramachandran is tracking the lastest in eco-colonialism. Numerous countries and investment banks have blocked the financing of fossil fuels and even hydroelectric projects in Africa, the continent most afflicted by serious energy poverty and the related problem of vulnerability to climate change. From an environmental perspective, it is counter-intuitive that an increased use of fossil fuels should be allowed anywhere. But with Africa accounting for just 1% of global carbon emissions, Dr. Ramachandran argues that policies forcing Africa to develop only with weather-based energy systems does more harm than good.

Dr. Vijaya Ramachandran is the Director for Energy and Development at The Breakthrough Institute. 

Read Dr. Ramachandran's article in Foreign Policy.

Watch Princess Mthombeni and Shirly Rodriguez at COP26.

In this episode, I am joined by Angelica Oung, an energy reporter from Taiwan, to discuss Taiwan's plan to power the island with up to 50% natural gas, 30% goal, 20% renewables, and 0% nuclear. This would mean shutting down its three operable nuclear plants, and flushing the money spent on a fourth fully constructed but never used reactor down the drain. 

The plan appears to be a whole-hearted embrace of what Meredith Angwin calls the "fatal trifecta" of energy: over-reliance on renewables, just-in-time natural gas, and energy imports. Taiwan produces no fossil fuels of its own, so must import 100% of its fossil fuel needs. And without any real goals of decarbonization, imported LNG is, as Oung says, "a bridge fuel to nowhere."

Oung also reflects on her experience in the offshore wind industry; her shift from opposing to supporting nuclear; her realization that intermittency poses a special problem for Taiwan's isolated electric grid; the politicization of nuclear power from a journalistic perspective; and the past energy decision of Taiwanese governments.

Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO at Microsoft and vice chairman of TerraPower joins me to discuss his experience bridging the world of software and nuclear power.

Aidan Morrison, Director of Energy Research at the Centre for Independent Studies joins me for an update on the Australian nuclear debate which is shaping up to be a core issue in the approaching federal election.

Mark Nelson, managing director of the Radiant Energy Group, joins us for his second masterclass, this time all about coal. Much maligned by environmentalists, and a significant source of air pollution and carbon emissions, coal still constitutes a whopping 25% of our primary energy consumption, and over 30% of global electricity production. What is it, where does it come from, how did it change the world, and why is it so difficult for even the most affluent and environmentally conscious countries to stop using it? Intro music: "Exodus Song (This Land Is Mine)" by Ernest Gold, performed by Mark Nelson live after our interview. Listen to Mark Nelson's Natural Gas Masterclass: https://www.decouplemedia.org/podcast/episode/1ebfcc84/a-natural-gas-masterclass-feat-mark-nelson

Mark Nelson returns for an “Insanium Uranium Explanium!”

Dan Campbell, a licensed nuclear operator, reflects on losing his job at the coal-fired Nanticoke Generating Station during Ontario's coal phaseout and his subsequent move to the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station. As we discuss the elusive "just transition," Dan shares a unique inside perspective on the possibilities for transitioning fossil fuel workers to new, high-quality jobs; the importance of considering working people when deciding on energy policy; and how it felt taking pride in his work at Nanticoke while learning of the harms that coal causes through air pollution and carbon emissions.

Hang on to the very end of the episode for an extra treat. In yet another first for Decouple we have the honour of premiering Dan's band latest single called "Town Line." Enjoy and keep an eye out on the charts for the "Charlie Eddie and the Dan" band.

Due to the global geopolitics of the 1940's Canada became the unlikely centre for the world's second largest nuclear research infrastructure at the end of World War II. Devoting itself to the peaceful use of the atom It went on to develop a unique power reactor design, the CANDU, based on the use of heavy water to avoid the need for uranium enrichment and pressure tubes to get around the need for a heavy forging industry for reactor vessels. These features make the CANDU ideal for export and technology transfer to less developed countries with industrial capacity resembling that of Canada back in the 1960's.

CANDU reactors provide 61% of the power for the Ontario grid, the largest province in Canada, making it one of the cleanest electricity grids on earth and allowing for the complete phaseout of coal. CANDU has been exported internationally and delivered on budget and on time in China, South Korea and Romania. Alongside it's high grade uranium deposits which are the richest in the world, Canada has a unique ability to foster a made in Canada reponse to climate change. It can export its ultra low carbon technology to address its climate debt by helping developing countries to leapfrog fossil fuels on their way to ultra low carbon energy. 

CANDU meets many of the criteria for an advanced reactor design with passive safety elements, modular design, and the ability to use nuclear waste as fuel. Why then is CANDU languishing especially in a country where the supply chain is 95% in country? 

Dr. Jeremy Whitlock former president of the Canadian Nuclear Society and Section Head of the Dept of Safegaurds at the IAEA walks us through this incredible history. He is the brains behind nuclearfaq a treasure trove on the history of nuclear energy in Canada. http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/

Nick Touran is a Ph.D. nuclear engineer and advanced reactor designer who runs the science education website whatisnuclear.com. Advanced and Small Modular Reactors have become the only politically safe nuclear power that western politicians are willing to touch with a 10 foot pole. Meanwhile existing plants doing much of the heavy lifting of decarbonisation are facing politically motivated premature closures and new builds of existing designs are seen as politically and financially unfeasible. There is a lot of hype around thorium, molten salt reactors, breeders and burners. There are also a lot of unanswered questions these designs will face if and when they are exposed to the challenges of existing in real life. Banking the West’s nuclear future and our climate response on potential paper tigers is a high risk move given the stakes and timeline of climate change.

James Krellenstein, co-founder of Alva Energy, explains precisely what happened at the Three Mile Island accident, in which an ordinary reactor trip cascaded into a partial meltdown due primarily to errors in the human-machine interface. Krellenstein discusses how the 1979 incident, despite its severity, actually showed the effectiveness of the “defense in depth” principle and led to significant improvements in plant operations and nuclear safety culture.

Watch the episode on YouTube to follow along with visuals.

Mark Nelson, managing director of Radiant Energy Group, explains one of the most cited yet misunderstood metrics in the energy debate: LCOE, the Levelized Cost of Electricity. What is it, what is it good and bad for, and what other metrics exist to understand the cost of electricity? Mark brings insight on energy investments, discount rates, and the conceptual differences between cost, price, and value. The most popular LCOE figures come from financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ Learn more about Radiant Energy Group: https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/ If you enjoy listening to Mark, check out his numerous other interviews on Decouple!  

The Taishan nuclear plant in the Guangdong province of China houses two French-built EPR reactors, the first of their kind in the country. For the past couple of weeks, equipment has registered slightly elevated radiation readings inside and directly outside the plant. The cause so far appears to be leaks from one or more fuel rods. Mark Nelson joins me in this brief episode to reflect on this breaking story; its coverage in the media; the phenomenon of fuel rod leaks; issues with first-of-a-kind reactors; the knowns, unknowns, and clues of this particular incident; and the issues of policy on background radiation limits. Despite media coverage claiming the leak is a disaster in the making, the minor fuel-rod leak is unlikely to cause any direct harm to people or the environment. At the current leak rate, if left unattended for two years the elevated radiation at the detection point near the plant would hardly amount to a quarter of someone's yearly background radiation dose here in Ontario.

In this episode, Mark lays out possible paths along which this story could develop. We still do not know exactly how extensive the fuel rod leaks at the reactor are—whether it is a one-off or a systematic issue with the EPR design. However, Mark argues that the lack of a reactor shutdown to prevent expensive potential damage is a clue that the leak is just that, and not a cover for more concerning reactor damage. In Mark's words, the incident constitutes "bad industrial hygiene," but certainly not a "nuclear accident." Still, the leak could lead to political pressure on China, perhaps to implement a "zero leaker" policy similar to the United States.

Mark's Twitter thread on Taishan can be read here: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1404476721076781060?s=20

A special crosspost from the WeCANDUIt podcast. Jay Harris, an indigenous energy consultant and proponent of small modular reactor (SMR) for remote locations talks about the energy, nutrition and water challenges facing remote northern communities. 

We explore the fascinating history of SMRs in remote environments which goes back to the 1950's and we look at the possibilities and challenges of SMRs in the far north. 

Jay is a member of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and has worked as an aircraft maintainer in the Air Reserves and in the RCMP in the far north. He was the first aboriginal person to attend the World Nuclear University program in Oxfordshire UK. 

Nuclear North of 60 Slideset https://www.slideshare.net/harrisja/north-of-60-2013-cns-toronto

Mark Nelson delivers his annual “State of the Atom” address, taking a global look at the rapidly unfolding changes to the prospects of nuclear energy.

Seaver Wang, oceanographer and co-director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute joins me to unravel controversies surrounding deep sea mining for the polymetallic nodules of the abyssal plains.

Dr. Rudolf Virchow, one of the founders of scientific medicine, said that "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing more than medicine on a large scale." Beyond caring for the sick, doctors have played an important role in calling attention to the social determinants of health. International physicians for the prevention of nuclear war (IPPNW) played a pivotal role in the cessation of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at the height of the cold war. This anti-weapons activism later came to be directed towards civilian nuclear energy by the likes of anti-nuclear crusader Dr. Helen Caldicott who is well known for her unwillingness to back up her outlandish claims with scientific evidence. Doctors for Nuclear Energy is a new international group of physicians who argue that nuclear energy is a keystone technology for the elimination of air pollution and CO2 emissions. Co-founders Dr. Van Der Merwe and Dr. Keefer share their perspectives on relative risk assessment, radiophobia and its public health consequences and our clean energy future. 

https://www.patreon.com/decouple?fan_landing=true

https://www.doctorsfornuclearenergy.org/

Decouple Podcast Host Dr. Chris Keefer is called as a witness to  Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada to answer questions from members of  Parliament on how best to "create a fair and equitable Canadian energy  transformation". This is Chris' testimony (edited to take out the boring  parliamentary parts).

The cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project was a massive blow to US SMR front runner NuScale. James Krellenstein joins me for a deep dive.

"What man desires is not knowledge but certainty." Winston Churchill In this episode Iida Ruishalme, the brains behind "thoughtscapism" discusses science and risk communication. We explore the inner workings of human thought and the cognitive biases that make us vulnerable to junk science and its prophets. We identify some of the red flags that should cue us to move from intuitive thinking to analytical thinking and we look at the real harm of fearmongering around vaccines, biotech and nuclear energy.   

In the developed world we have been liberated from the major hazards and risks that have plagued humanity and shortened lifespans through public health measures like vaccination, the regulation of pollution and abundant energy which has enabled a high quality of life.   

However notions of purity and anxieties around contamination have led to dramatically inflating the sense of danger from trivial or imagined hazards and the concurrent rise of anti-vaccination, anti-biotech and anti-nuclear activism that threatens some of the fundamental advances of the 20th century.   

Iida Ruishalme is a biologist specialised in biomedical research, an environmentalist, a writer and a science communicator. She is also a mother who takes the future of her children very seriously. She has become well known and respected for her blog Thoughtscapism.com

Humanity went from inducing the first fissions of heavy elements in 1938 to a nuclear powered submarine in just 16 years. Why has that tremendous pace of nuclear innovation seemingly slowed down to a crawl? Nuclear historian Nick Touran joins me for an in depth analysis of the historic preconditions of nuclear innovation and its opportunities and limits going into the future.

Isabelle Boemeke, the nuclear influencer behind Isodope, joins me again to talk about Diablo Canyon, her experience as an unconventional advocate, staying positive, being honest about nuclear power, meeting people where they are in their understanding of nuclear power, dealing with false accusations, and how her communication styles vary between platforms. We also reflect on the women in nuclear advocacy who are leading the efforts to keep Diablo Canyon from an early demise.

While hydrogen fuel cells were once hyped for use in personal transportation, hydrogen is now being marketed as an energy panacea and a vital part of a 100% renewables grid. Most of the world's hydrogen is currently produced through steam methane reformation and is used as a very carbon-intensive feedstock for ammonia for fertilizer and other chemical industry applications. Decarbonizing this sector is already a monumental task.  Green hydrogen produced by wind and solar-powered electrolysis is now being proposed as a solution to the problem of renewable intermittency. Is this viable? What are the challenges?  I am joined by James Fleay, an Australian engineer and project manager who has worked in the power and oil and gas sectors. He has also been a solar industry investor and is the founder of DUNE, Down Under Nuclear Energy

In this special episode, I am joined live by filmmaker Jesse Freeston on the sunny beach in front of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, which provides Ontario with 3.2 GW of carbon-free electricity. I hand over the interviewer badge to Jesse for a second hour-long reflection on advocacy, antinuclearism, environmentalism, the Decouple journey, and anything else that crossed our minds on the scenic waterfront. Watch the interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/IhkGTcULU54 Listen to the first reflections episode with Jesse Freeston: https://www.decouplepodcast.org/podcast/episode/1b36a823/reflections-on-the-decouple-journey-feat-jesse-freeston Stay tuned for Jesse's first episode of Decouple Studios later this week!

Robbie Stewart and Enrique Velez-Lopez, the founders of nuclear start up Boston Atomics, join me to discuss the true costs of advanced nuclear design engineering.

Dr. Chris Keefer teamed up with Dr. Douglas Boreham, Professor and Division Head of Medical Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, to speak before residents in South Bruce, Ontario, the potential site of Canada's Deep Geological Repository for used nuclear fuel. The event, organized by the local grassroots group Willing to Listen, features presentations from each speaker followed by an open Q&A session. Recorded Sept. 17, 2022.

**DECOUPLE READS**

We are excited to launch Decouple Reads with Brahm Neufeld!! Join us on Patreon for virtual book club meetings on selected books from the Decouple library: https://www.patreon.com/decouple

Listen to Brahm's first appearance and book review on Decouple: https://www.decouplemedia.org/podcast/episode/36d91df3/decouple-reads-fossil-futureclimate-change-as-class-war

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Learn more about Willing to Listen: https://www.willingtolisten.ca/

Learn more about the Deep Geological Repository project from nuclear operator Sheila Whytock, an organizer for Willing to Listen, on the We CANDU It podcast: https://anchor.fm/wecanduit/episodes/Deep-Geologic-Repository--Willing-to-Listen-feat-Sheila-Whytock-eqo293/a-a4n6q4k

Listen to Douglas Boreham's appearances on Decouple:

• https://www.decouplemedia.org/podcast/episode/4916a9ed/how-radiation-affects-us-feat-dr-douglas-boreham
• https://www.decouplemedia.org/podcast/episode/3cc88d07/testing-the-credibility-of-linear-no-threshold

Inspired by the recent Breakthrough Dialogues theme of the “Metabolic Rift,”Leigh Phillips joins me for a far ranging discussion about the challenges and consequences of humanity’s decoupling from natural ecological flows. We navigate perspectives from deep geologic time on mass extinction or so called “biological revolutions,” the likelihood of modern humanity’s disentanglement from fossil fuels and the optimal mix of markets and planning required to best navigate emerging ecological threats.

Phil Chaffee, Editor of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly and Bureau Chief of Energy Intelligence’s New York offices, joins me to discuss the implications of a second Trump administration on U.S. nuclear energy. Will the tantalizing nuclear power purchase agreements signed by hyperscalers evaporate as carbon pricing becomes less likely? Will free-market ideology manage to sustain the government support needed to deploy nuclear power at scale? We speculate about these questions and more.

Note: This interview was recorded on 20 November 2024.

A very special guest, Dr. Robert Gale, a physician and medical researcher who pioneered knowledge on bone marrow transplantation and the molecular biology and immunology of leukemia, shares his first-hand perspective on the radiation impacts of nuclear accidents, LNT, and other radiation-related topics. As a world expert in his field, Dr. Gale was asked in 1986 by Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev to coordinate medical relief efforts for victims immediately after the Chernobyl accident. He has since coordinated medical responses to nuclear accidents in Brazil and Japan. Dr. Gale has published over 1000 scientific articles and more than 20 books, mostly on leukemia (biology and treatment), transplantation (biology, immunology and treatment), cancer immunology and radiation (biological effects and accident response). He has written on medical topics, nuclear energy and weapons and politics of US-Soviet relations in articles for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today and Wall Street Journal. He has received many awards for his scientific achievements and contributions including the Presidential Award, New York Academy of Science, Scientist of Distinction Award Weizmann Institute of Science, Distinguished Alumni Award from Hobart College and Intra-Science Research Foundation Award. He holds honorary degrees including D.Sc. from Albany Medical College, L.H.D. from Hobart College and D.P.S from MacMurray College.

Brahm Neufeld, senior engineer of process controls at CAMECO and a lifelong avid reader, joins Dr. Keefer on a new Decouple series: Decouple Reads. We discuss the value of reading, lay out a hopeful format for this new series, and discuss two recent books on climate and energy by Alex Epstein on the political right and Matt Huber on the political left. Read Brahm's Goodreads review of Fossil Future: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4875800094 Brahm's review of Climate Change as Class War: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4721644165 Comment with book suggestions on Twitter (tag @DecoupleMedia and #DecoupleReads), on YouTube (https://youtu.be/9f3H4LbWQp8), or by sending us a message at https://www.decouplemedia.org/about Support Decouple on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/decouple Learn more about Decouple Media: https://www.decouplemedia.org

Kilometers below the Canadian shield, in a laboratory painstakingly designed to eliminate nearly all sources of background radiation, radiobiologists Douglas Boreham and Chris Thome study the impacts of ultra low dose radiation environments on living cells. In a conversation sure to delight our most nerdy of listeners, we explore the science surrounding the claims of the linear no-threshold model and Doug's plan to send yeast into deep space.

Mark Nelson, managing director of Radiant Energy Group, joins us for a Masterclass on the slippery subject of oil. We zoom from ancient plankton to modern empires to see how a mysterious black liquid birthed from prehistoric seas now powers our civilization, touching on the complex chemistry, geology and history of oil.

Today, we talk uranium nuclear fuel. MIT Professor Koroush Shirvan, joins me to dive into the hidden complexities of nuclear fuels. From early fuel experiments that saw uranium rods turn into spaghetti-like structures under neutron bombardment to the intricate economics shaping the future of fuels like TRISO, Shirvan offers insights into the realities behind nuclear power’s remarkable yet challenging fuel technologies.

Listen to discover how history shaped today's dominant fuel choices, why accident-tolerant innovations are critical, and about the economic realities that could either launch or limit the nuclear renaissance.

A lively and entertaining conversation with polymath Dr. James Conca about the ultimate environmental bogeyman. Jim is a science communicator and renaissance man with an amazing bredth and depth of knowledge on a diversity of subjects like Nuclear physics, Geochemistry, Radiobiology. He has worked at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Join us on this episode as Jim helps us make sense of the sensible way to manage the very small amount of Used Nuclear Fuel generated by civilian nuclear energy.  Show Notes: All about WIPP geological formation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/01/01/dna-evidence-sentences-nuclear-waste-to-billion-year-prison-term/amp/ Why are we so afraid of nuclear: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/03/24/imagine-theres-no-fear/#21f61c913d9c Used Nuclear Fuel Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JfJEK3R1k0 Low dose radiation for COVID induced cytokine storm:  http://whchronicle.com/nuclear-medicine-an-old-therapy-can-save-covid-19-patients-lives/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/06/12/1st-human-trial-successfully-treated-covid-19-using-low-doses-of-radiation/#566764eedc69

In 2025, Belgium will close its last two nuclear plants, which make around half of the countries power. The plan? Replace it with gas. The day after this episode was published, advocates rallied against this climate hypocrisy in the capital, Brussels, at one of the largest Stand Up for Nuclear events yet. I am joined by Rob De Schutter, founder of the Belgian Ecomodernists, to discuss what political decisions have led Belgium to this point, how the closure of the majority of its clean energy is being rationalized in the face of states emission reduction goals, and what is being done about it.

In a change of pace for Decouple, I am joined by Dr. Channa Prakash for a wide-ranging discussion on crop science and agriculture. We discuss biotechnology, its history, and the great positive changes it has brought to global food production. We also assess the strongest criticisms. Among those are concerns that we have become dependent on chemical inputs for farming, namely pesticides and fertilizers, and that this has often lead to the over-application of these chemicals resulting in environmental hazards. Additionally, many are concerned that a reliance on these chemical inputs, or on genetically modified crop varieties, has led to the “corporatization” of farming. Dr. Prakash brings numerous real-world examples policy blunders regarding food, often with destructive consequences. In particular, we focus in on Sri Lanka, where the recent banning of fertilizer and pesticide imports in a move to become an all-organic food exporter has set off a farming and economic crisis. The soft face of these harsh policies is the organic food movement, which has gained popularity in recent years. While some consumers may decide to purchase organic foods for a higher price, believing them to be more sustainably grown, organic certification opposes some of the very principles that have allowed us to feed growing populations. And it opposes the crop science that may enable us to use fewer pesticides and fertilizers, meet the nutritional of the hungry, and adapt to the challenges to food security posed by a changing climate. Finally, we take a step back to reflect on our relationship with food, why we have such strong opinions about how it’s grown and where it comes from, and patterns in the social acceptance of different technologies. Dr. Channa S. Prakash is a Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tuskegee University (USA) where he has served as faculty since 1989 and is a professor of crop genetics, biotechnology, and genomics. Everybody should follow his fantastic Twitter profile: @AgBioWorld

A wide ranging conversation with Michael Shellenberger exploring the Malthusian origins of environmentalism and what happened to the left as it morphed from a promethean movement concerned with material improvement of the living conditions of the masses towards a romantic longing to return to a pre-industrial Eden. Michael explains that modern infrastructure such as flood control systems, weather prediction and modern healthcare have played a decisive role in the 100 fold drop in mortality from extreme weather events in the 20th century and demonstrate the need for ongoing industrialization within countries most at risk of climate impacts. We also explore recent developments in the UK with the pending approval of Sizewell C and the end-game for renewables as the marketing claims begin to wear thin and the taboo on criticism falls away. 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/decouple-on-41428860

James Krellenstein joins me to discuss the rationale underlying small modular reactors and in particular the challenges of getting novel reactor concepts from the experimental stage to reliable commercial operation.

Mark Nelson joins me to discuss Amory Lovins, the man behind the “soft energy path” and the intellectual godfather of Germany’s Energiewende. Amory Lovins shot to relevance in the 1970s for advising against the prevailing model for electric utilities, which was to build as much generation capacity as possible. Lovins charted an alternate path, which focused on efficiency and distributed energy sources. Mark offers his critique of Lovins, based on what he identifies as the two main faults that have persisted in Lovins’ argument for decades: 1) the idea that the “soft” and “hard” energy paths are mutually exclusive, and 2) the supremacy of nuclear “problem.” Mark Nelson is the managing director of Radiant Energy Group. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering, as well as Russian language and literature.

Robert Bryce, author, film producer, and host of the Power Hungry Podcast, discusses headlines and current events in energy, notably the recently-passed landmark U.S. bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. He offers an alternate perspective to the hyperbolic praise this bill has receive from some clean energy advocates, and contextualizes it amid broader trends in energy geopolitics. Listen to the Power Hungry Podcast: https://robertbryce.com/power-hungry-podcast/ Subscribe to Emmet Penney's Grid Brief: https://www.gridbrief.com/

Ruy Texeira, an American political scientist and commentator, joins me to discuss the “5 deadly sins” of the modern left and its growing self imposed exile from the working class and production itself. These “sins” coupled with an increasing intolerance for open debate and a reflex towards de-platforming and cancel culture are crippling the Left’s ability to self analyze and correct course. What is to be done?

Ed Conway author of “Material World” joins me to explore the material world underpinning the ethereal world of our perceived reality. He explains how sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium are transformed with technology and energy into the building blocks of our built world and how fragile, vulnerable and complex these processes have become.

Nate Hagens, host of the podcast “The Great Simplification,” discusses the implications of fossil fuel/material depletion and the ways that our financial system is accelerating consumption under the shadow of a looming economic correction. Nate argues that classical economics neglects the central role of energy, and he offers a critique of the idea of resource substitution, especially when it comes to liquid hydrocarbons.  Will peak oil rear its head again as we slurp up dwindling oil reserves from source rock via fracing? With energy tightly coupled to GDP what will be the implications of decreasing energy for a society and economy based on exponential growth? Listen to The Great Simplification: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/

Saloni Shah, a food and agriculture analyst at The Breakthrough Institute, dives into the policy disaster that was Sri Lanka's sudden ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for farming. How did the policy come to be, and how did it go so wrong?

Read Saloni Shah's and Ted Nordhaus' article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/05/sri-lanka-organic-farming-crisis/

In the past two decades, Ontario has become a world leader in clean electricity by phasing out coal generation, which it did 90% by restarting units at the Bruce and Pickering Nuclear Generating Stations. Ineffective clean energy policies now threaten that leadership. With the decision of Ontario Power Generation not to refurbish Pickering, fossil gas is set to ramp up to fill the lost capacity. The closure of 3.1 GW of nuclear power at Pickering and its replacement with fossil gas will constitute at least a 1% increase in Canada's total emissions. And on the carbon pricing front, while Ontario has adopted a carbon tax, a closer look shows it is too lax in its current form to make a real difference, exempting upwards of 90% of emissions from gas plants. And this comes at a time of massive increase in electricity demand planned due to electrification. In this Ontario-focused episode, returning guests and regulatory economist Edgardo Sepulveda takes us through what Ontario got wrong with its carbon tax and how the province is headed towards higher emissions. Read Edgardo's in-depth analysis on his blog: https://www.progressive-economics.ca/2021/07/ontario-electricity-viii-backwards-on-climate/ Learn more about the Tax the Gas & Save Pickering campaign: www.taxthegas.org

Fusion is supposed to be even more powerful than fission but without the baggage. It resonates with the appeal to nature fallacy with notions of bringing the power of the sun down to earth. 39 years ago Dr. L. Lidsky wrote that "The scientific goal of fusion energy turns out to be an engineer's nightmare." 

Building a reliable, affordable power plant that requires achieving temperatures hotter than the sun and as cold as physically possible within several meters of each other all under the materially challenging conditions of high energy neutron bombardment is only the beginning. Low power densities and parasitic load further chip away at the potential performance of "the ultimate solution" to our clean energy challenges. 

Gerrit Bruehogg is a nuclear engineer with a background in fission reactors and particle accelerators who is currently doing his thesis at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics on inertial confinement fusion. Join us for a lively discussion that leaves no subatomic particle unturned. 

A deep dive into Bill Gates most recent book "How to prevent a Climate Disaster" with Leigh Phillips. Bill Gates has burst onto the climate scene and is generating a lot of press. Will he grow to monopolize the debate as he has with Global health where it has been said that “you can’t cough, scratch your head or sneeze in public health without coming to the Gates Foundation.”

In this entertaining read Gate's provides an accessible birds eye view of the problems and scale of climate change. He draws attention to hard to decarbonize sectors like Agriculture, Cement and Steel and introduces the concept of the "Green Premium" as a metric to identify decarbonization innovation priorities. 

Gates pours cold water on the common use of Moore's law as a model for rosey energy sector modelling. He points to the importance of marrying mitigation to adaptation in order for those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change to have the best chances to endure it. 

Leigh and I talk agriculture, energy, innovation and most importantly the politics including taxation that can enable the state investment in R&D and deployment that Gates calls for and yet has resisted many times as a member of the billionaire class. 

Leigh Phillips is a science writer and political journalist whose work has appeared in Nature, Science, the Guardian, and Jacobin. His areas of specialization include climate change, energy systems, the earth system, and microbiology. Leigh is the author of 2 books, The People's Republic of Walmart and Austerity Ecology.

Mark Nelson provides early insight on the news that Russian forces have captured the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Mark is the managing director of Radiant Energy Group. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering, as well as Russian language and literature.

Noah Rettberg returns to update us on how Germany is faring amid its ongoing energy crisis. How and why is the crisis unfolding, how have key industries been affected, will Germany capitulate to Russian pressure and how can Germany serve as a warning for other countries pursuing energy transition? Follow Noah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoahRettberg

Mining underpins nearly everything in our modern lives. Essentially, if we didn't grow it, we mined it. Dr. Richard Herrington, an academic geologist and Head of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum in London, digs deep on the topic of mining. Yet in terms of public visibility, mining is perhaps even more hidden from view than agriculture in rich nations. Dr. Herrington offers a brief history of materials use, from a time when we used only a few minerals to the present, where we regularly use many dozens of different elements in a single product due to their varied and unique properties. We discuss the environmental and human impacts of mining as well as important processing stages, which often have hard-to-avoid impacts, such as the inherent formation of carbon dioxide in concrete making and iron smelting. Among Dr. Herrington's research interests are more environmentally-benign industrial processes, such as using lower temperatures or microbes. We move onto geological topics relevant to the energy transition, touching briefly on Deep Geological Repository for used nuclear fuel before discussing Cobalt, Lithium, and the utter certainty that renewable technologies will lead to increases in mining and mineral requirements. Other topics include why much of the mining and processing for rare earth metals and electric motors takes place in China and, finally, prospects for deep sea mining.

There is a popular misconception based upon charicatures of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons that Nuclear Energy is an evil, capitalistic and undemocratic form of Energy. In fact almost every major deployment of Nuclear Energy has been a publicly funded social democratic project. This week we talk about Sweden, the homeland of Greta Thunberg and one of the world's foremost social democracies which boasts one of the fastest ever decarbonisations of its electricity thanks to a strategic investment in Nuclear in the 1970's. We explore the past, present and future of Sweden's Karnkraft with John Ahlberg the co-founder of Kärnfull Energi, Sweden's first 100% nuclear electricity provider which is celebrating its 1 year anniversary this month. 

Robert Bryce joins me for a COP28 “reactions” episode and drops some hard truths on the world’s ever increasing appetite for coal.

Dr. Keefer sits down in Glasgow with Carine de Boissezon, who is the Chief Sustainability Officer at the French electric utility Électricité de France. Carine brings a valuable inside perspective on nuclear power in France, a country that Decouple has frequently regarded as an exemplar of rapid decarbonization. Reversing intentions to reduce France's share of electricity from nuclear from 75% to 50%, President Macron recently announced that France would "relaunch" its construction of nuclear reactors to meet growing electricity and decarbonization needs.  In this special in-person interview at COP26, we discuss how France has benefitted from nuclear power, what the nuclear "relaunch" means for the country, French public opinion, how renewables and nuclear interact, and more. Stay tuned for more COP26 content!

Gerrit Bruhaug, based out of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at Rochester University, joins Decouple to talk about the significance of the recent ignition event at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories.

Aidan Morrison, director of energy research at Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies, takes us to the depths of Australia’s security predicament as a country near Maritime Southeast Asia dependent on liquid hydrocarbon imports. We discuss military strategy, the use of nuclear and diesel-electric submarines, and the continent’s precarious dependence on maritime trade and military alliances.

Ted Nordhaus, executive director of The Breakthrough Institute, discusses his recent article in Foreign Policy: "Russia's War Is the End of Climate Policy as We Know It." The current energy crisis and Russian invasion are quickly causing us to prioritize energy security over climate targets. Could this, paradoxically, be a good thing for the climate?

Nordhaus argues that the carbon intensity of the global energy system fell faster in the 30 years before the first major U.N. climate conference than after it—a result of rising energy efficiency, the spread of nuclear power, and the changing composition of the global economy. With new pressure to fortify ourselves against dependence on gas and energy imports, he argues that climate and energy policies, especially in the West, may shift from subsidizing demand (for things like solar panels and electric vehicles) to deregulating supply (of things like nuclear power plants and high-voltage transmission lines). This could put clean energy policies on a much firmer economic footing and better align climate objectives with energy security imperatives.

Read the Foreign Policy article here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/05/climate-policy-ukraine-russia-energy-security-emissions-cold-war-fossil-fuels/

Alberta, sitting on massive reserves of oil and gas, found itself teetering on the edge of blackout this week as temperatures in the negative 40 degree ranges led to multiple grid alerts. As a new record for peak demand was set at 12,384 MW, Alberta's 4481MW wind fleet went AWOL. This raises major concerns regarding electricity planning with a country wide federal mandate for Net Zero electricity by 2035 having already generated significant political controversy in Alberta which has imposed a moratorium on new wind and solar over affordability and reliability concerns. Its is therefore a timely occurrence that this same week Alberta's Capital Power and Ontario Power Generation announced a feasibility study looking at near-term deployment of a fleet of nuclear reactors in the province . Chris Popoff joins me to explain.

Art Berman joins me to discuss the likelihood and implications of cheap peak oil.

Madeleine Redfern is an Inuit businesswoman and former two-term mayor of Iqaluit in the far northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. Redfern describes the harsh energy situation in Canada’s remote, indigenous communities, which face extreme darkness and cold, a reliance on diesel generators, limited ability to fundraise for new projects, and high costs. She assesses the merits of different energy technologies for these communities, making clear the challenge of choosing an energy path in a situation with so many constraints. Madeleine Redfern has been a prominent advisor and consultant on telecommunications, transportation, and energy in Canada, including for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. She has also been a central member and volunteer of several Aboriginal and Inuit organizations addressing issues of housing, education, and health.

As the politics of energy factor heavily in the Russia-Ukraine war, Dr. John Constable, Director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, shines a light on the faltering illusion that the transition towards an energy paradigm of intermittency can progress without serious upheaval.

The UK has made a legally binding commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. Boris Johnson recently released a 10-point green plan, which included the claim that all UK households will be powered by wind energy by 2030. The UK Committee on Climate Change has recommended a big expansion of wind and solar but says that up to 40% of electricity in 2050 will need to be firm, low carbon...which means either gas or biomass with carbon capture, or else nuclear. They've also suggested electricity demand will double from now to 2050. While today 18% of UK electricity is supplied by nuclear, almost all of this will disappear by 2030 as the advanced gas reactor fleet is retired this decade. Indeed, of today's electricity generation, none will be on the grid in 2050 except possibly Sizewell B. Gas and wind are growing to dominate the grid with an unhealthy serving of biomass (fuelled by wood pellets imported from the US). 120 GW each of wind and solar are being contemplated to meet climate goals but will result in 500 sq miles of solar farms needing to be built in the densely populated "sunny" south of England and 24,000 5MW offshore wind turbines. The UK enjoys bipartisan support for nuclear power but has committed to private financing with its only new nuclear build financed with a 9% interest rate. Cost remains a serious concern. As Tim Stone, chairman of the UK NIA, has said: "Only two numbers matter in nuclear construction: capital cost and the cost of capital.' Some institutional investors are resportedly shunning the proposed Sizewell C nuclear project, citing uncertainty over environmental, social and corporate governance concerns. However, the UK government is now in negotiations with EDF to find a financing model that reduces the cost of finance and leads to a better deal for consumers. This is likely to involve more government support than previous projects. I am joined by David Watson, a nuclear safety engineer from the UK, to discuss this and more. David has over 10 years' experience in consulting supporting the operation, construction and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Generation Atomic blog recently started an instagram channel called atomic trends, which he refers to as the "nuclear dream factory".

This week, I am joined by Alex Trembath, Deputy Director of The Breakthrough Institute, to deconstruct the “modernism” in Ecomodernism. Modernism is a philosophical movement born of industrialization that has influenced art, architecture, politics and so much more. It is forward looking and firmly entrenched in a notion of progress. Who have been its beneficiaries and victims? Do the problems generated by modernity like climate change require “modern” solutions? How do we make sense of this term? Decouple draws its name from perhaps the core tenet of Ecomodernism and has become a meeting place for many ecomodernist thinkers but for many the term remains elusive. What does Ecomodernism mean? Where does the “modernism” come in? What are its tenets and its caveats? Where does it stand in relation to other environmental philosophies? And what does traditional environmentalism get wrong? Join us as we discuss these topics and others, including “modernization theory” and questions of indigenous rights and environmental justice.

I am joined by returning guest of Madi Czerwinski, founder of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal, to reflect on the recent win for Illinois low-carbon power. This win was the last-minute reversal of fate for Byron and Dresden nuclear power stations, which had been scheduled for an early retirement. Madi Czerwinski walks us through the strange timeline of events and the various forces at play through this year-long battle, describing the arguments and the tension between Labor and so-called environmentalists, and the role pro-nuclear advocates had in tipping the balance on this histotic win.

Dreams of advanced nuclear and the SMR revolution around the corner which will solve all of Nuclear's problems such as economics, safety and load following are very popular within the Nuclear Energy community. These technologies are exciting and an inevitable addition to the nuclear energy mix but are they the quickest nuclear route to deep decarbonization? Are they a substitute for our existing cutting edge large scale nuclear technology like the recently unveiled Barakah station in the UAE or our "old" reactor designs like CANDU which can burn used nuclear fuel and thorium? 

I am joined by Mark Nelson, the managing director of Radiant Energy Fund and a leading researcher and speaker on the status and prospects of Nuclear Energy to wade into this controversy. Mark is a former generation fellow at the Breakthrough Institute and was a senior analyst at Environmental Progress. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering. 

This is gauranteed to be a controversial show and I look forward to the debate it will spark. Please follow us and join the debate on Twitter @decouplepodcast and on our Decouple Podcast Facebook page. 

Mark Nelson breaks the news that the German Ministry of Finance is discussing rolling back the country's nuclear phaseout. Why? How foreseeable was this? And what would it mean for Germany?

Mark Nelson is the Managing Director of Radiant Energy Group. https://www.radiantenergygroup.com/

Commodities investor Leigh Goehring breaks down the supply AND demand origins of our current energy crisis and its dire consequences, especially for our food system. We also explore the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) frame for understanding how an energy transition based on wind, solar and batteries will constrain human potential, societal complexity and ultimately our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change. This interview is based on this Goehring and Rozencwajg report. https://f.hubspotusercontent40.net/hubfs/4043042/Content%20Offers/2021.Q4%20Commentary/2021.Q4%20GR%20Market%20Commentary.pdf

Germany has pursued a bold 550 billion euro transition plan away from Nuclear Energy towards a 100% renewables energy system.  The Energiewende as it is known also aims to phase out fossil fuels but remains heavily reliant on coal, natural gas and biomass to firm up its fleet of intermittent renewables. Thies Beckers, a dutch energy analyst, joins me for a discussion about how the Energiewende is going and discusses his upcoming documentary, Atom-Exit. For more information about the film and to make a donation please visit www.easynuclear.com and follow Thies on twitter @thiesbeckers. 

Dr. Simon Michaux, Associate Professor at Geometallurgy at Geological Survey of Finland, discusses the minimum requirements for a net zero future, as well as the restraints on our renewables going forward.

Read academic works by Dr. Michaux: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon-Michaux-2

Carbon capture and storage. Loved by some, hated by others, essential to many an energy transition modeller for achieving net zero emissions. On today's show we explore some of the science and engineering challenges underlying Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS.) We look at CO2 capture at the stack, from the air and oceans examining the technical possibilities, the energy and material costs and the scaling difficulties.   

The history of human influence on the climate system is thought to predate the industrial revolution. For example the Little Ice Age is correlated to massive human population die offs and accompanying reforestation secondary to the Black Death and old world diseases running rampant in the Americas.  

Since the industrial revolution the burning of fossil fuels has taken us from an atmospheric concentration of 280ppm to 417ppm of CO2 with an accompanying 1C increase in global average temperatures. The laws of thermodynamics make reversing our centuries long liberation of hundreds of millions of years of stored carbon unimaginably difficult.

Enslaving carbon by emitting a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere to power an army of machines and chemical processes has brought humanity unimaginable wealth, freed slaves and extended lifespans but threatens future prosperity. Truly reverse engineering that process to put that CO2 back underground comes with a near impossible price tag, new infrastructure and energy requirements.  

Keeping carbon in the ground and abating emissions as much as possible is an urgent matter however many environmentalists and climate activists chearlead the closure of zero emissions nuclear plants like Indian Point last week. An ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure but in a global society utterly dependent on fossil fuels for energy, transportation, cement, steel, fertilizer and many other vital processes is CCS part of the solution?  

I am joined by Sean Wagner a materials engineer with a masters of science in engineering focused on nanotechnology from the University of Alberta. Sean is a master science communicator and lead writer and editor at the Alberta Nuclear Nucleus, a co-founder of Canadians for Nuclear Energy and the lead science advisor for the Decouple Podcast.

Nick Touran, a nuclear engineer and manager at TerraPower, unearths the sobering realities of micro nuclear reactors. Through a detailed discussion of physics, engineering, economics, and history, Touran explains why microreactors face fundamental challenges that factory production alone cannot solve.

James Krellenstein and I continue our deep dive analysis of what went wrong at Vogtle.

The Grid has been described as one of the preeminent engineering accomplishments of the 20th century and the world's largest machine. However, when people debate the best strategies to manage a successful energy transition they often limit their analysis to electricity generation. What is neglected is the elephant in the room: the grid. There is an obvious reason. To non-specialists it is complicated. My guest Meredith Angwin is going to help us get a grip on the grid so that we can make informed decisions about the best way to move forward to clean, reliable electricity that can get us to deep decarbonisation while meeting the demands of the world's poor to fight their way out of energy poverty.

Meredith is a physical chemist and one of the first women to be a project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute. Over her career she has headed projects to help power plants become more reliable and less polluting. In the past decade, she has studied the grid as a system, and taken part in grid oversight and governance.

We live in a radioactive world. Every minute, 7,000 potentially cell-damaging radioactive releases occur in our bodies. How are we still alive? And what are the real risks associated with radiation?

In this episode, Dr. Keefer is joined by Dr. Douglas Boreham, a world expert in the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation, to tackle the biological effects of radiation.

They discuss various types of radiation; the linear no-threshold hypothesis; fears of airborne "hot particles" of uranium; our bodies' sophisticated cellular repair mechanisms; the surprising mechanics behind cell damage from radiation; the elusive idea of hormesis; and the "choreography of fear" that comes from an abundance of caution at nuclear plants.

Dr. Douglas Boreham is a Professor and the Division Head of Medical Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, as well as a Professor in the Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences at McMaster University. He has 35 years of experience researching the biological effects of environmental and medical exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation.

"China will cut carbon emissions by over 65% by 2030" according to Chinese President Xi Jinping. In addition two new studies published by the leading and highly influential Chinese Climate research institutes at Tsinghua university model net-zero emissions by 2050 and carbon neutrality by 2060. These models suggest a 10x increase in solar and wind and a 7x increase in nuclear by 2050. By 2050 China is forecasted to have more nuclear capacity then the rest of the world combined.  What explains the policy shift away from a logic of differential responsibilities whereby climate change was seen as a problem created by the west and the west's responsibility to mitigate?  China is vulnerable to climate change. Energy security is a another major issue with the memory of a US imposed oil blockade during the Korean war and 70% of its oil being imported via the strategic and vulnerable straights of Malacca. Finally in the context of Trump's abandonment of the Paris Accords Chinese leadership on climate change comes with some soft power benefits.  I am joined by Dr. Seaver Wang a climate and energy analyst at the Breakthrough institute to break it all down for us.

In the early days of nuclear power uranium was thought to be a critically rare mineral. Nuclear engineers sought to solve this problem with a special type of reactor that produced more fissile material than they consume. Nick Touran joins me to discuss and explore the long term sustainability of nuclear power.

In New England it has been calculated by Reiner Khur that the carbon abatement cost of rooftop solar is 800$/ton, utility wind and solar ~300$/ton and keeping existing nuclear on line ~25$/ton. In the context of a social cost of carbon and proposed carbon tax of 50$/ton the premature closure of Indian Point is a shocking indictment of the environmental NGO's that fought so hard to kill the plant. We need to add new generation to the grid not because of a growing demand for electricity but rather the need to replace our fossil fleet and “electrify everything” to get as close as possible to zero emissions. In this light the key metric by which we should judge the various decarbonisation tools from energy efficiency retrofits at our disposal is the carbon abatement cost. I am joined by Edgardo Sepulveda, a telecoms regulatory economist based in Toronto with an interest in energy economics, for another deep-dive into the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) and carbon abatement costs. The SCC is an economic construct that estimates the long-term global monetary effect of emitting a ton of carbon today, relative to a baseline. It is calculated using Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) that estimate future population and economic growth, corresponding climate changes, a “damages” function that monetizes climate changes, and a discount rate to bring all those future monetary losses from climate change due to an extra ton of carbon emitted today to current dollars. Chris and Edgardo discuss how the SCC has been around for 20-30 years and is one of the bases for setting the level of carbon taxes. They discuss how the SCC deals with uncertainty, and how new reserchers are dealing more seriously with intra and inter-generational equity considerations. The Biden administration just re-established the SCC at US$51/Ton CO2 The abatement costs is a related concept that estimates the monetary cost now of not having emitting carbon. It can be calculated for any program or technology (the numerator) against a baseline (the denominator). Conceptually, think how one kWh of nuclear with a price of USD$0.07/kWh (in Ontario) if it displaces kWh gas (the baseline with carbon intensity ≈600g/kWh), you get an abatement cost of $116/ton; if it displaced kWh coal (≈950g/kWh) the cost is $74/ton. Here is a review article looking at abatement costs, including the difference between statics and dynamic concepts https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/jep.32.4.53 It is critical to be clear-eyed about how the numerator and denominator are being calculated, and especially whether actual “full” prices, with subsidies and all, are used, rather than some theoretical levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). For example, the 2021 peer-reviewed study shows that based on average wind price in Ontario of USD$0.12/kWh, the associated abatement cost is USD$290/ton. https://www.econ.queensu.ca/sites/econ.queensu.ca/files/wpaper/qed_wp_1440.pdf Solar costs in Ontario are even higher, at USD$0.38/kWh; given past policies to install wind and solar at inflated costs, electricity prices in Ontario become a political liability and successive Governments enacted extreme measures. Edgardo’s Twitter handle is @E_R_Sepulveda Edgardo’s take on the Ontario electricity sector is here https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/power-people

In this short episode, I am joined by Alex Trembath, Deputy Director of The Breakthrough Institute, to discuss Adam McKay's film "Don't Look Up," an overt commentary on climate change. We comment on the importance of climate communication through media and art, though critique the film's use of the common "asteroid metaphor" for climate change. To Trembath, McKay portrayed climate change as a "simple problem" as opposed to the "wicked problem" that it is. Beyond the movie, we take a moment to reflect on how climate change is often thought about and framed. Who is the most affected? The most passionate? And whose fault is it?

Read Alex Trembath's review of "Don't Look Up" in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/18/dont-look-up-review-mckay-comet-climate-change/

Isabelle Boemeke, the founder of Isodope and a key influencer in the recent victory to keep Diablo Canyon Power Plant online, reflects on the organizing efforts by the pro-nuclear community; the numerous, dedicated advocates involved; a pivotal Stanford/MIT study supporting the plant's continued operation; the largest pro-nuclear rally in the United States; what resistance pro-nuclear organizers faced; and what the future of the Diablo Canyon fight looks like. Learn more about Isodope: https://i-sodope.com/

The host becomes the guest as I hand over the microphone to film maker and long time friend Jesse Freeston. Jesse got the Decouple podcast rolling by interviewing me about my vision for the project for our very first episode. He's back for a check in to explore what I have learned on the Decouple journey so far.  Twenty three episodes in we have a lot of ground to cover.  We welcome you behind the scenes. https://www.patreon.com/posts/decouple-on-41428860