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 re...
Dec 31, 2021•35 min•Season 11Ep. 8
With the closure of three of Germany’s remaining six nuclear reactors coming offline within the week, I am joined by Noah Jakob Rettberg, a young physics lab technician in training from Germany. He shares his perspective growing up embroiled in the anti-nuclear culture of Germany, as well as his impressive knowledge of the technical and political history of nuclear energy in the country.
Dec 28, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 11Ep. 7
Many years ago, before Dr. Keefer was a nuclear power-loving, techno-optimist physician, he was a self-described neo-luddite. He made his beliefs a reality by going back to the land in a big way. Finding the agricultural revolution too modern for his tastes, he took on the hunter gatherer life as a horse-wrangling hunter and dog mushing trapper in Canada’s far northern Yukon Territory. Just in time for the holidays, Dylan Moon guides Dr. Keefer on a trip down memory lane to tell some entertainin...
Dec 24, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 11Ep. 6
Mark Nelson, managing director of Radiant Energy Group, and I dig into his claims about the functional "immortality" of nuclear power plants. We explore the physics of the limitations of reactor life and whether keeping existing nuclear online as long as possible is an intelligent investment. We take a look at the peculiarities of different reactor designs and their impacts on longevity including the unfortunate decision of the UK to go it alone with its gas reactor fleet whose internals cannot ...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 11Ep. 5
Dr. Kenneth Cassman joins to explore the state of innovation in agriculture. Where are the knowledge gaps? And what changes must take place if we hope to feed a growing and increasingly wealthy world population? Dr. Cassman stresses the need for open-access, high-quality climate data to accelerate not only farming technologies, but the knowledge base behind their design and implementation. Dr. Cassman is the Emeritus Robert B. Daugherty Professor of Agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln...
Dec 19, 2021•59 min•Season 11Ep. 4
Rauli Partanen, an award-winning science communicator and energy analyst from Finland, comes on to discuss his new report, “One Billion Tons" on the wide-ranging consequences of Germany’s nuclear phaseout, and the benefits that would result from keeping the country’s last 6 reactors online. The title references the huge amount of added carbon dioxide emissions that will result from Germany’s nuclear phaseout between now and 2045. Rauli also provides a backgrounder on the German Energiewende and ...
Dec 14, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 11Ep. 3
Dr. Hannah Bloomfield, a Climate Risk Analytics research associate at the University of Bristol, describes an extreme weather event that affected European energy output significantly this year: a wind drought. We discuss how unequal warming between the poles and the equator is potentially leading to a pattern of decreasing mid latitude wind speeds, a phenomenon known as global stilling and the consequences this will have for electric systems that are becoming increasingly reliant on the weather....
Dec 11, 2021•36 min•Season 11Ep. 2
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 ...
Dec 06, 2021•1 hr 47 min•Season 11Ep. 1
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,...
Dec 03, 2021•47 min•Season 10Ep. 10
In this episode, Dr. Keefer and economist Edgardo Sepulveda cover a lot of ground: • Edgardo’s new website that includes the electricity profiles of 24 OECD countries and whether, using which tech and at what price they have lowered emissions over the last 60 years is at ( https://edecarb.org/ ) • Edgardo noted the increasing recognition by many expert economists that "restructured" energy-only generation markets probably cannot facilitate the massive, long-term investment necessary for electrif...
Nov 28, 2021•52 min•Season 10Ep. 9
The Dark Lord takes a break from singing 80s parodies outside the gates of COP26 to talk to us about his love for geoengineering. For an argument against Marine Cloud Brightening, here's a briefing from Geoengineering Monitor: www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2021/04/marine_cloud_brightening/ Watch the video on Decouple's YouTube channel.
Nov 25, 2021•17 min•Season 10Ep. 8
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 regularl...
Nov 22, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Season 10Ep. 7
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger is a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action. Eriel critiques pointing out that wealthy countries engaging in "climate action" tend to do so from a co-optive or colonial framework rather than one of "decolonizing." She argues this tendency has pervaded environmentalism from the outset, as a philosophy originating from the upper and middle classes that views nature as something external that must be protected f...
Nov 18, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 10Ep. 6
Special Decouple Studios mini-doc from inside the walls of COP26. Decouple's Jesse Freeston follows two young nuclear energy advocates, Shirly Rodriguez and Princess Mbthobeni, as they roam the conference searching for evidence of a meaningful plan to reduce emissions AND raise living standards in Africa and beyond. Shirly Rodriguez is a nuclear engineer, and Princess Mbthoneni is the Nuclear Stakeholder Management Advisor for South Africa's Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, as well as...
Nov 15, 2021•11 min•Season 10Ep. 5
What has the Energiewende achieved, what hasn't it? An interview with the spokesperson for the German delegation to COP26, Stephan Gabriel Haufe. We discuss the expedited nuclear phaseout, ongoing reliance on coal until 2038, advances in solar + wind energy and the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline.
Nov 11, 2021•31 min•Season 10Ep. 4
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 rea...
Nov 10, 2021•34 min•Season 10Ep. 3
Decouple mobile studios reports from Glasgow, Scotland, where Dr. Keefer and other pro-nuclear advocates are attending COP26, the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference. Dr. Keefer is joined in-person by Eric Meyer, founder and executive director of the nuclear advocacy hub Generation Atomic, to discuss the goings on of COP26, the growing pro-nuclear movement, and the taboo subject of funding.
Nov 08, 2021•59 min•Season 10Ep. 2
In this episode, I am joined by returning guest Michael Shellenberger. We briefly discuss his new book San Fransicko, which, like his best-seller Apocalypse Never, takes a heterodox stance on an issue that progressives feel they champion -- in this case, the drug and homelessness epidemic. We then transition to his past (and future) work in nuclear advocacy. Shellenberger has paid a toll for challenging orthodoxies within the environmental and nuclear communities, including the loss of many dono...
Nov 04, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 10Ep. 1
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 ...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Season 9Ep. 10
I am joined by Yuriy Humber, founder of Japan NRG, to discuss Japan’s complex relationship with nuclear technology and its energy issues past and present. The first and only wartime victim of atomic weapons, it went on to embrace nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, becoming a world leader in the manufacture of nuclear technology and relying on it for 30% of its electricity before turning against nuclear after the Fukushima accident in 2011. Public opinions against nuclear energy ran as high as...
Oct 26, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 9Ep. 9
I am joined by returning guest and co-founder of The Breakthrough Institute, Ted Nordhaus, to discuss degrowth as a proposed solution to climate change and other environmental issues. Nordhaus has written forcefully against the idea of degrowth, which posits that growth in human populations and consumption levels will inevitably bring us to the brink of what this planet can sustain. The only way to avert catastrophe is to therefore reduce human populations and minimize consumption. Nordhaus’s ob...
Oct 21, 2021•49 min•Season 9Ep. 8
I am joined by returning guest Emmet Penney to discuss his new project, Nuclear Barbarians. The project is Emmet’s own brand of nuclear advocacy, differing starkly from most of the pro-nuclear movement, which he believes has been “captured by an environmental movement that hates it.” Emmet has set out on his own terms to convince a wide audience that nuclear power rules. Emmet offers a harsh critique of the environmental movement, tracing it from what he argues are its elite Victorian origins to...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 9Ep. 7
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 environme...
Oct 12, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 9Ep. 6
I am joined again by Mark Nelson to speak on the energy shocks tearing through Europe and Asia. What are its causes, and what will its consequences be? The crisis comes on the heels of what academics and policymakers thought was an energy transition away from fossil fuels. But as countries pay record prices to scrap together enough coal, gas, and oil to avoid shortfalls, we are seeing just how unprepared they were for the fossil-free world they have been trying to create. The procurement of low-...
Oct 09, 2021•47 min•Season 9Ep. 5
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 en...
Oct 04, 2021•44 min•Season 9Ep. 4
The EU Green Taxonomy has been a source of acrimony in the EU since it launched. It was meant as a tool to guide investment towards a "low carbon, resilient and resource-efficient economy" by classiflying technologies into three tiers: "Sustainable," "Transitory," or "Brown." The initial categorization committee did not include scientists or engineers but rather limited itself to green finance and environmental NGO's who constrained the sustainable definition to wind, solar and tidal, exluding n...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 9Ep. 3
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...
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 9Ep. 2
We are often told that we need a World War 2 level mobilization to address the looming threats of climate change. What if there is a better historical precendent for climate action based on science, peace and cooperation rather than total war, competition and destruction? We often speak of France as a shining example of a nuclear buildout done right. In the last quarter of the 20th century, under the Messmer Plan, France completed 43 Light Water Reactors in 15 years out of a total fleet of 56 — ...
Sep 13, 2021•55 min•Season 9Ep. 1
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 ...
Sep 10, 2021•40 min•Season 8Ep. 10
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-...
Sep 06, 2021•51 min•Season 8Ep. 9
