Chris Keefer: "Empowering the Future: from Nuclear to Podcasting"
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Navigating the Complexities of Energy Transition
The chapter explores the challenges and limitations of nuclear power as a replacement for liquid hydrocarbons in essential services like transportation, emphasizing the need for a more realistic approach to energy transition. It also discusses the skepticism surrounding nuclear fusion, highlighting engineering challenges, doubts about practicality, and historical context from fission to fusion technology. Additionally, the differences in political attitudes towards nuclear energy in Canada and the US are examined, along with the influence of anti-nuclear activism on the evolving landscape of nuclear energy.
On this episode, Nate is joined by ER doctor, nuclear power advocate, and podcast host Chris Keefer for a broad ranging conversation including the basics of nuclear energy, how he engages with opposing opinions, and hypotheticals for a future medical system. Coming from a broad background, Chris understands what it means to have a human to human conversation and put together the pieces of our systemic puzzle in a clear and compelling way. What role could nuclear play for our future energy needs - and how are different countries making use of it today? How can we prioritize the health and safety of people under energetic and resource constraints? Most of all, how do we listen to others that we don’t agree with - regardless of the issue - to foster the diverse perspectives necessary to navigate the coming challenges of the human predicament?
About Chris Keefer:
Chris Keefer MD, CCFP-EM is a Staff Emergency Physician at St Joseph's Health Centre and a Lecturer for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also an avid advocate for expanding nuclear power as the President of Canadians for Nuclear Energy and Director of Doctors for Nuclear Energy. Additionally, he is the host of the Decouple Podcast exploring the most pressing questions in energy, climate, environment, politics, and philosophy.
00:00 - Chris Keefer works + info, Decouple Podcast, Canadians for Nuclear Energy
04:45 - Egalitarian hunter gatherer society, infant mortality
05:12 - Bow drill fire
07:10 - Yukon
07:30 - Humans and livestock outweigh wild mammals 50:1, not in the Yukon
08:10 - Dr. Paul Farmer
08:45 - Most humans use to work in agriculture, ~15% now involved in healthcare
10:56 - Ontario nuclear power, one of lowest electric grid in the world
12:01 - Justin Trudeau
12:24 - Simcoe Clinic, Canadian Center for Victims of Torture
14:01 - World population over time
14:36 - Paleodemography
14:59 - Degrowth
15:19 - Infant mortality in developed countries
15:55 - Tight link between energy, materials and GDP
20:54 - Duck and Cover Drills
21:05 - Environmental Movement and Nuclear
21:21 - Nagasaki bomb radiation injuries
21:49 - High dose radiation is deadly, low dose radiation less so
21:05 - Strontium-90 found in the teeth of babies
21:10 - Atmospheric weapons testing ban
22:33 - Fukushima meltdown, health impacts are negligible
23:09 - 20,000 people died from the Fukushima earthquake and following tsunami
23:47 - Fukushima contaminated water has been filtered out and is safe
24:24 - How radiation is measured
26:02 - Health effects from alcohol
26:16 - Drinking culture in the U.S.
27:22 - Nuclear energy density, land footprint
28:23 - Best nuclear applications and limitations
30:01 - Those who live in nuclear powered areas fare better
30:33 - Price of nuclear energy over the lifetime
30:45 - Nuclear power in France
31:18 - Canada energy history, center for nuclear research outside of the Manhattan Project
32:23 - 1000 people die prematurely every year due to coal
33:25 - Ontario population
33:38 - Candu Reactors
34:15 - Levelized cost of electricity, skewed with renewables
37:01 - Lazard Graphs
38:09 - Mark Jacobson
41:07 - Carbon emissions by power source
41:23 - Lifespan of nuclear plants
43:11 - Land use change impacts
43:31 - Nuclear and job creation
46:05 - US spending on military vs healthcare
48:49 - Meiji Restoration
49:33 - Vaclav Smil
50:42 - AI electricity demands
50:55 - AI risks
51:29 - Meredith Angwin
52:42 - Nuclear fuel
53:10 - 46% of uranium enrichment happens in Russia
54:15 - Known Uranium Reserves
54:25 - Haber Bosch
54:55 - Breeder Reactors
55:42 - Uranium in seawater
56:14 - Slow vs Fast Neutrons, fertile elements
57:04 - Sodium Fast Reactor
58:45 - China built a nuclear reactor in less than 4 years
1:00:05 - Defense in depth
1:01:11 - EMP, solar flare
1:01:30 - HBO’s Chernobyl, wildlife thriving in chernobyl area
1:03:13 - Death toll from radiation in Chernobyl
1:05:13 - Scientific literature and confirmation bias
1:08:12 - Chernobyl Children’s International
1:08:44 - Genome sequencing of highest exposures to radiation from chernobyl
1:09:09 - Germline mutations if the father smokes
1:10:02 - The Great Simplification animated video
1:10:32 - Peak Oil
1:12:10 - Complex 6-continent supply chains
1:12:30 - I, Pencil
1:15:19 - Nuclear Fusion
1:16:24 - Lawrence Livermore
1:17:45 - Tomas Murphy, Galactic Scale Energy
1:18:11 - Small Modular Reactor
1:19:26 - Cost saving in nuclear comes from scaling
1:19:34 - Wright’s Law, economies of multiples
1:23:33 - Biden administration policies and advances on nuclear
1:24:00 - Non-profit industrial complex
1:24:24 - The size of the US non-profit economy
1:24:44 - Sierra Club, anti-nuclear history
1:25:14 - Rocky Mountain Club
1:27:15 - Hans Rosling
1:27:32 - Somalia infant mortality rate
1:27:42 - Cuba 1990s economic shock and response
1:27:42 - Vandana Shiva + TGS Episode
1:30:27 - Cognitive Dissonance
1:31:45 - Jonathan Haidt + TGS Podcast, Righteous Mind
1:32:48 - Fatality and hospitalization statistics for COVID for first responders
1:33:22 - Truckers protest in Ottawa
1:34:15 - The problem with superchickens
1:36:54 - How social media tries to keep you online
1:37:12 - Paleopsychology
1:37:55 - Tristan Harris and Daniel Schmachtenberger on Joe Rogan
1:39:45 - John Kitzhaber + TGS Episode, Robert Lustig + TGS Episode
1:39:55 - US healthcare 20% of GDP, 50% of the world’s medical prescriptions are in the US
1:41:55 - Superutilizers
1:42:37 - Cuban medical system, spending, life expectancy, infant mortality
1:43:06 - Cuban export of pharmaceuticals
1:44:08 - Preventative medicine, chronic disease management
1:44:25 - Cuban doctor to person ratio, rest of the world
1:48:47 - Social determinants of health
1:49:20 - Cement floor reducing illness in Mexico
1:50:03 - Hygiene hypothesis
1:50:28 - Zoonotic disease and human/animal cohabitation
1:50:50 - Roundworm life cycle
1:52:38 - Acceptable miss rates
1:53:16 - Cancer screening effectiveness
1:53:58 - Drugs produced from nuclear plant byproducts
1:58:18 - Timothy O’Leary
2:02:28 - Superabundance
2:02:40 - Julian Simons and Paul Ehrlich bet
2:02:15 - Malthusian
2:06:08 - Pickering Plant
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