Decouple

Dreams of advanced nuclear and the SMR revolution around the corner which will solve all of Nuclear's problems such as economics, safety and load following are very popular within the Nuclear Energy community. These technologies are exciting and an inevitable addition to the nuclear energy mix but are they the quickest nuclear route to deep decarbonization? Are they a substitute for our existing cutting edge large scale nuclear technology like the recently unveiled Barakah station in the UAE or our "old" reactor designs like CANDU which can burn used nuclear fuel and thorium?  I am joined by Mark Nelson, the managing director of Radiant Energy Fund and a leading researcher and speaker on the status and prospects of Nuclear Energy to wade into this controversy. Mark is a former generation fellow at the Breakthrough Institute and was a senior analyst at Environmental Progress. He holds degrees in mechanical, aerospace and nuclear engineering.  This is gauranteed to be a controversial show and I look forward to the debate it will spark. Please follow us and join the debate on Twitter @decouplepodcast and on our Decouple Podcast Facebook page. 

On the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing Dr James Conca returns to Decouple to talk about Nuclear Weapons, disarmament and the Megatonnes to Megawatts program in which 20,000 Nuclear warheads worth of Russian highly enriched uranium was turned into fuel for America's nuclear reactor fleet and provided 10% of US electricity for two decades. We also touch on the Beirut explosion, Supernovas and the origin of planet earth, Tritium and so much more!

There is a popular misconception based upon charicatures of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons that Nuclear Energy is an evil, capitalistic and undemocratic form of Energy. In fact almost every major deployment of Nuclear Energy has been a publicly funded social democratic project. This week we talk about Sweden, the homeland of Greta Thunberg and one of the world's foremost social democracies which boasts one of the fastest ever decarbonisations of its electricity thanks to a strategic investment in Nuclear in the 1970's. We explore the past, present and future of Sweden's Karnkraft with John Ahlberg the co-founder of Kärnfull Energi, Sweden's first 100% nuclear electricity provider which is celebrating its 1 year anniversary this month. 

In his most recent book, Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger has stirred some major waves particularly in his promotional efforts where he recently penned an article professing an “Apology on behalf of environmentalists for the Climate Scare.” and where the key messaging seems to be “Everything you thought you knew about Climate Change and the environment is wrong.” In this Episode Leigh Phillips, a science writer and author of "Eco-Austerity and the Collapse Porn Addicts" and I discuss Michael's book. Themes include: Climate Alarmism vs Catastrophism, Eco-Imperialism, Big Green's problem with fossil fuel funding and the need for economic planning vs. the free market to meet the challenges of climate mitigation and adaptation. 

A lively and entertaining conversation with polymath Dr. James Conca about the ultimate environmental bogeyman. Jim is a science communicator and renaissance man with an amazing bredth and depth of knowledge on a diversity of subjects like Nuclear physics, Geochemistry, Radiobiology. He has worked at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Join us on this episode as Jim helps us make sense of the sensible way to manage the very small amount of Used Nuclear Fuel generated by civilian nuclear energy.  Show Notes: All about WIPP geological formation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/01/01/dna-evidence-sentences-nuclear-waste-to-billion-year-prison-term/amp/ Why are we so afraid of nuclear: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/03/24/imagine-theres-no-fear/#21f61c913d9c Used Nuclear Fuel Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JfJEK3R1k0 Low dose radiation for COVID induced cytokine storm:  http://whchronicle.com/nuclear-medicine-an-old-therapy-can-save-covid-19-patients-lives/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/06/12/1st-human-trial-successfully-treated-covid-19-using-low-doses-of-radiation/#566764eedc69

Mark Lynas is a science writer and author of numerous books on the environment including High Tide, Six Degrees, The God Species, Nuclear 2.0 and Seeds of Science. His most recent book is ‘Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency" In this book Mark summarizes thousands of IPCC source material studies and lays out degree by degree the human and environmental implications of our warming world. Mark has demonstrated a principled committment to following where the science leads him. He was a prominent anti-GMO activist who changed his mind after after studying the scientific consensus supporting the safety of GMO's. Mark was a co-authot of the Eco-Modernist Manifesto and is currently a visiting fellow with the Cornell Alliance for Science at Cornell University, which engages in pro-science advocacy and research around the world. “Science adjusts its views based on what is observed. Faith avoids observation so that belief can be preserved.”  Tim Minchin

Zion Lights is a British author and environmental activist. She was a prominent spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion and the founder and editor of  XR's Hourglass newspaper. Zion holds a masters in science communication and is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting. Most recently Zion has made waves by resigning from her role as one of Extinction Rebellion’s most well known media spokespersons and joining Environmental Progress, an environmental group focused on promoting Nuclear Energy. Listen in to find out why.

Dr. Geraldine Thomas is the director of the Chernobyl tissue bank and a Chair in Molecular Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of Imperial College London. Surprisingly her research on the health impacts of the Chernbyl accident led her towards a pro-nuclear position due to the technologies clear benefits of slowing climate change and saving lives by producing no air pollution. Dr. Thomas shares that contrary to popular belief there is a scientific consensus that the Chernobyl accident has resulted in the deaths of less than 55 people as a result of radiation. This is based on the work of the UN scientific committee on the effects of atomic radiation (UNSCEAR) and the Chernobyl Forum that involved 8 major UN agencies and the participation of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Alternative reports quoting death tolls orders of magnitude higher are methodologically flawed and were sponsored by the European Green party and NGO's like Greenpeace who had an ideological objective and cherry picked evidence to match their hypotheses. For more information from Dr. Thomas see below https://www.chernobyltissuebank.com/useful-podcasts-and-videos.htm

Politics, confidence in science and attitudes towards surveillance technology have led to very different outcomes between the East and the West when it comes to COVID-19. Many Asian countries have achieved containment of the virus while the West largely remains caught in a quagmire with no end in sight. What explains these differences? Cultural attitudes? Neo-liberalism vs. State capitalism? Bankrupt social welfare systems? Distrust of elites and institutions? I am joined by Nils Gilman of the Berggruen institute who helps us unpack the complexities and learn the lessons of our COVID successes and failures.

Ecomodernism holds out the promise of decoupling human flourishing from environmental impacts through investment in mission-oriented research, development and deployment of an array of breakthrough low emissions technologies that can transform industry, transportion, agriculture and energy systems. It is a movement founded and largely based in the USA which tries to create a big tent and appeals to an all of the above politics. It embraces the roles of private sector entrepreneurs, free markets, civil society and the state in pursuing their goals. I am joined by Jonathan Symons who argues that a real crisis like climate change requires collective agency in the form of state funded democratically controlled intervention. It's how we got a man on the moon, how we developed nuclear energy and how competent nations like Taiwan and Australia are containing the COVID pandemic. The market isn't up to the challenge. To fulfill its promises ecomodernism requires a social democratic politics.