Decouple

Emmet Penney, creator of Nuclear Barbarians, Grid Brief, and the ex.haust podcast, walks us through the rise, fall and future prospects of nuclear power in the United States. Emmet dives deep on the historical, regulatory, political, and environmentalist forces behind nuclear energy's decline, with his signature, unapologetic critique of all sides involved. Read the article in American Affairs, Who Killed Nuclear Energy and How to Revive It: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/05/who-killed-nuclear-energy-and-how-to-revive-it/ Grid Brief: https://www.gridbrief.com/ Nuclear Barbarians: https://nuclearbarians.substack.com/ Ex.haust: https://exhaust.fireside.fm/

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/

Michael Edesess, a mathematician, economist, and former chairman of the board of the Rocky Mountain Institute, discusses his recent article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, "We need to get serious about the renewable energy revolution—by including nuclear power." We discuss changes in energy spurred in the 1970s, Michael's personal acquaintance with the mastermind of the soft energy path, Amory Lovins, and the shortcomings of the all-renewables vision of our energy future. Read the article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/we-need-to-get-serious-about-the-renewable-energy-revolution-by-including-nuclear-power/

Bret Kugelmass, host of the Titans of Nuclear podcast and Managing Director of the Energy Impact Center, joins with Dr. Keefer to share their experiences advocating for nuclear energy. They reflect on nuclear messaging, how the nuclear sector can rebrand, communications pitfalls, finding the right audience for nuclear advocacy, and the intersection of nuclear, politics, and public opinion. Dr. Keefer dives into his energy advocacy journey and recent work before the highest levels of Canadian government, which represents one of the best-positioned supply chains in the world to meet the nuclear energy needs of emerging economies. This episode was cross-published on Bret's podcast, Titans of Nuclear. Check out Titans of Nuclear: https://www.titansofnuclear.com/ Learn about the Energy Impact Center: https://www.energyimpactcenter.org/ Support Decouple on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/decouple

Matt Huber, a professor of geography at Syracuse University, discusses his recent piece for Jacobin Magazine, "In Defense of the Tennessee Valley Authority," co-authored by Fred Stafford. He discusses the politics underlying our energy choices, from large public power projects to distributed energy resources like solar and batteries. Do distributed energy resources align with the idea of an "energy democracy," or is this an illusion? Is it time for the political left to once again embrace large, centralized public power? Read Matt Huber and Fred Stafford's article: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/new-deal-tennessee-valley-authority-electricity-public-utilities-renewables-green-power

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).

Marco Visscher, a Dutch writer and editor, discusses some of the actors, including Tinne Van Der Straeten, who are behind the now partially postponed Belgian nuclear phaseout and their links to the natural gas industry.

Edgardo Sepulveda, energy economist and seven-time Decouple guest, returns to delivers a synthesis episode. We draw together our previous analysis of the financial and regulatory conditions that enabled the initial build out of our grid, explore the Amory Lovins lost decades that saw electrification atrophy and examine the tools at our disposal to achieve an electrfication 2.0 to deliver a doubling of our current grid to help us meet net zero goals.  This conversation builds off of Edgardo's recent research piece on the critical role that nuclear energy has played in the decarbonization of the electricity sector and what should be done to make sure this legacy is continued. Over the last six months Edgardo has compiled an extensive electricity and emissions dataset for 30 countries over the last 50 years at https://edecarb.org/. Based on this project, Edgardo was invited by Myrto Tripathi, head of the France-based nuclear advocacy group the Voices of Nuclear, to prepare this think piece, which went out as the March Newsletter in English. Sepulveda calculates that, over the last 50 years, countries that adopted nuclear power consistently reduced emissions intensity by more than three times as much as those that went without nuclear. Looking forward, the massive “Electrification 2.0” that will require a doubling or tripling of electricity generation by 2050 would provide the financial rationale for the needed massive capacity investments, particularly in nuclear. Lastly, we discuss market reforms that would be needed to correctly value the low-emissions, firm electricity provided by nuclear energy.

Doomberg, the anonymous author of the popular Substack publication on energy, finance, and the economy at-large, walks us through their recent piece titled "Farmers on the Brink." "Never have we been more certain in our beliefs while fervently wishing that we are wrong," is how Doomberg describes their prediction of widespread foot shortages following the "perfect storm" of record gas prices, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and skyrocketing costs for virtually every important farming input, such as fertilizers, herbicides, propane, diesel fuel, machinery, and even labor. Who will get hurt, who will be fine, and at what cost? Read Farmers on the Brink: https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink Support Decouple on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/decouple

Dr. Anil Kakodkar—the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre from 1996–2000 and recipient of the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour —walks us through the evolution of India's nuclear program. We discuss the early days of the program, technical choices in reactor design, the task and potential advantages of developing economies in obtaining high technology like nuclear, the importance of education, and India's ultimate goal of developing thorium technology to make use of the country's natural abundance of the element.