Decouple

Mark Hinaman, Director of Engineering and Innovation at Franklin Mountain Energy, joins me to give us a pad side view on Fracking and a response to claims of “Peak Shale” Mark is also the Principal and Founder of the nuclear energy think-tank, Fire2Fission and although he believes that there’s oil everywhere and natural gas is even more abundant, he explains why he thinks that nuclear is the ultimate energy source.

In an era in which the nuclear industry has struggled to deliver new nuclear power plants on time and on budget, the example of Barakah, a four APR-1400 reactor nuclear station located in the United Arab Emirates is an important success story and case study. His Excellency Mohammed Al Hammadi, the CEO of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, has been front and center throughout the planning, construction and operation of Barakah. In this podcast he shares the vital lessons, careful planning and culture of excellence that has led to the swift and successful deployment of the Arab world's largest clean energy project. Al Hammadi also discusses COP 28 which the UAE will host in Dubai later this year and where nuclear energy is likely to have a prominent role.

With concerns mounting about the biodiversity crisis, precision fermentation and cultured meats offer an enticing solution. Proponents argue that culturing mammalian cells and fermenting macronutrients with gene edited yeast can decrease the land footprint of agriculture by 1000 times all while eliminating animal cruelty. Skeptics like Dr. Paul Wood question whether the Moore’s law style expectations of cost reductions apply to biological systems and the scalability of these technologies. Will precision fermentation feed billions of new hungry mouths in Africa and Asia or remain a niche product for eco-conscious wealthy elites?

Gary Rose, VP of New Nuclear Growth at Ontario Power Generation, builds our understand of the CANDU refurbishment program, whose successes have laid the foundation for deployment of the West’s 1st grid scale SMR, the GE Hitachi BWRX-300. Gary and I explore the thesis that Ontario is the best equipped jurisdiction in the west to deploy new nuclear, which now extends beyond SMRs to a serious consideration of “Large Modular Reactors.” Stay tuned for a masterclass on project management from a master of project management. Apologies to our non-Canadian listeners for some inside baseball in terms of acronyms and Canadianism.

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.

Today we deep dive fracking and shale, the energy source that put Peak Oil concerns on the back burner for a decade and a half. According to recent analysis by Goehring and Rozencwajg Shale field production is showing signs of sliding down the backside of Hubbert’s curve. What are the geopolitical and economic ramifications? Are there more shale booms on the horizon overseas? What are the implications for nuclear which has been sidelined in deregulated markets by cheap abundant gas? Leigh Goehring joins me for a detailed discussion. For a deeper dive check out Goehring and Rozencwajg latest quarterly analysis. http://info.gorozen.com/2022-q4-commentary-peak-oil

The topic of tritium continues to be a focal point for nuclear opponents, who use anti-science claims to stoke fear among a public they know does not, by and large, understand complex topics of radiation biology. Thus, to the victims of anti-nuclear ideology, the "science" behind tritium offers little comfort. Still, we try to do our best this week with radiation expert Dr. Geraldine Thomas. Dr. Geraldine Thomas is a senior academic and Chair in Molecular Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of Imperial College London. She is an active researcher in fields of tissue banking and molecular pathology of thyroid and breast cancer, and the Director of the Chernobyl Tissue bank. Note: This episode is a rerun from April 2021. Original shownotes: The decision by the Japanese government to begin releasing 1.25 million tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant site over a 10 year period has caused a major stir not only amongst environmental NGO's but also regional countries with historic emnity to Japan. Greenpeace alleges that radionuclides released into the sea "may damage DNA of humans and other organisms." China states that "the release is extremely irresponsible and will pose serious harm to the health and sagety of people in neighbouring countries and the international community." So what are the politics and science behind the controversy? The Fukushima water has been treated and the almost all radio-isotopes have been removed except for tritium. Just how dangerous is it? Tritium is a weak beta emitter with 70x less energy then the the naturally occuring and ubiquitous intracellular radioisotope Potassium 40 which undergoes 4600 radioactive decays per second in our bodies. The health impacts of a radioisotope are multifactorial. The type of radiation emitted, the energy of that decay, the physical and biologic halflife of the isotope. The amount of tritium that one would need to drink to match a dose from something like a CT scan is simply impossible to ingest. In response to the Fukushima accident in an effort to gain the trust of the population Japan has already reset its regulatory limits for radiation in drinking water at 1/100th that of the EU. Are these efforts actually counter productive?

Decouple correspondent, Angelica Oung, joins me for a review of Bent Flyvbjerg’s new book which examines the lessons that can be learned from the failures and successes of mega projects. https://twitter.com/dr_keefer/status/1627709184123740161?s=46&t=Q7nak44UxDdAvVJ7V61RsQ

Mark Nelson, managing director of the Radiant Energy Group, joins me for a deep dive of the uses and abuses of energy modelling.  Intro and outro music: Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona performed by Mark Nelson immediately prior to the interview.

Robert Bryce, author, film producer, and host of the Power Hungry Podcast, discusses his recent article "The Billionaires Behind the Gas Bans", and gives insight into the funding of massive NGOs such as Climate Imperative.  "The Billionaires Behind the Gas Bans" article:  https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-billionaires-behind-the-gas-bans More work from Robert: https://robertbryce.substack.com/ Listen to the Power Hungry Podcast: https://robertbryce.com/power-hungry-podcast/