Claim OwnershipDecouple
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© Dr. Chris Keefer
Description
There are technologies that decouple human well-being from its ecological impacts. There are politics that enable these technologies. Join me as I interview world experts to uncover hope in this time of planetary crisis.
236 Episodes
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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.
The Grand Finale is here. We wrestle with the question of whether nuclear can find its groove and the positive learning rates that have eluded it so frequently. Vogtle unit 4 came in 40% cheaper than unit 3. Can those gains continue downwards? Is Vogtle 5 more likely to follow this cost reduction curve compared to a new AP1000 elsewhere?
Emmet Penney joins me to shoot the breeze and catch up on the whirlwind developments of the last few months.
Fan favourite, Mark Nelson, joins me for an update on California’s soaring electricity prices and worsening grid dysfunction.
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.
James Krellenstein joins me to explore the extraordinary power requirements of the AI revolution and how this demand for vast amounts of baseload generation will impact the nuclear sector.
David March CEO of Exergy/Energy joins me to discuss the sharp decline in power quality from increasing penetration of intermittent generation and the impact its having on mission critical industries and manufacturing.
Art Berman joins me to discuss the likelihood and implications of cheap peak oil.
Stephen Stapczynski, Bloomberg Business senior reporter, joins me to discuss everything you always wanted to know about LNG but were afraid to ask.
Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith joins me to discuss the phenomenon of Ontario’s centrality to the West’s nuclear energy aspirations.
James Krellenstein returns to deeper dive the lessons of Vogtle and VC Summer
Chris Popoff returns to talk unconventional oil with a focus on oil sands. What is it? What are its energy economics? How is it like a battery? What does it have to do with peak cheap oil and how does nuclear fit into the picture?
James Krellenstein and I continue our deep dive analysis of what went wrong at Vogtle.
As Canada embarks on a new nuclear build out of SMRs and large Reactors, Professor Duane Bratt joins me to provide a political scientists perspective on the history and future of the Canadian nuclear sector.
1Ed 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.
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.
Sec Ernie Moniz and I chat about best practices for “embarking” and “re-embarking” nations as 24 countries pledge to triple nuclear energy by 2050.
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.
Robert Bryce joins me for a COP28 “reactions” episode and drops some hard truths on the world’s ever increasing appetite for coal.
Muckraking physicist and data scientist Aidan Morrison has thrown doubt on the oft repeated mantra in Australia that wind and solar are the lowest cost option for a clean energy transition. He discovered that the modelling used to justify these claims leaves out the massive investments in storage and transmission required to balance the system treating them as sunk costs. See Aidan’s own excellent video deep diving the topic here. https://youtu.be/W-GwnPWTwmU?si=VmM98aSuYGC2Z32o
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United States
Very good cast even if combative I think there's a ton of good and bad signals to draw from this. A ton of the commentary from Jigar seems like a defense of previous policy and US primacy instead of well thought out policy or an honest assessment of things but the fact that he seems to want to at least seem pro-nuclear suggests a substantial shift in attitudes in the US. I do look forward to seeing it posted on YouTube though as that's a better place for discussion.
Another fantastic episode.
You are both inspiring. Thank you! And greetings from Slovenia.
Good podcast, would be so much better if the host learned not to say "Umm" all the time
Investor in Nebraska ? Warren Buffett 😂
Bwahaha Mr. Hausfather talks about others cherry picking information all the while speaking only of Trump burning coal and not that fact that China is building more coal fire plants as well as Germany having to put their coal fire plants back into service because they're shutting down their nuclear power and wind and solar is a pipe dream. He constantly blames Trump as if Trump is the sole reason for global warming and is NEVER challenged by the host. Kinda disappointing really...