Decouple

Sec Ernie Moniz and I chat about best practices for “embarking” and “re-embarking” nations as 24 countries pledge to triple nuclear energy by 2050.

Humanity went from inducing the first fissions of heavy elements in 1938 to a nuclear powered submarine in just 16 years. Why has that tremendous pace of nuclear innovation seemingly slowed down to a crawl? Nuclear historian Nick Touran joins me for an in depth analysis of the historic preconditions of nuclear innovation and its opportunities and limits going into the future.

A discussion on the COP conferences and the contradiction of countries increasing coal-fired capacity. Exploring the challenges of meeting global energy demand and the issue of green colonialism. Discussing the global use of coal and the construction of coal plants. Examining the scale of energy consumption and the challenges of transitioning to renewable sources. Exploring the significance of firemaking and the concern over the replacement of traditional environmentalism. Exploring labor shortages and the complexity of the US electricity system.

Titans of the nuclear fuel cycle discuss scaling up Uranium mining and fuel manufacturing in the context of tripling nuclear energy. They highlight the dependency on Russia for enrichment services and the urgency of achieving fuel independence. The advantages of Triso fuel are explored, as well as the challenges faced by Halo in the nuclear energy industry. The development of Triso X facility and geopolitical implications of the gas cut off in Europe are also discussed.

The cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project was a massive blow to US SMR front runner NuScale. James Krellenstein joins me for a deep dive.

Chris Adlam joins me to discuss Ontario’s attempt to imitate Germany’s Energiewende. It began as an attempt to kickstart a green energy industry by retooling struggling automotive plants in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The lucrative 20 year feed in tariff contracts for wind and solar will end up costing Ontario more than 62 billion dollars.

One in 20 American homes are powered by Russian enriched uranium because the USA lacks sufficient enrichment capacity to meet its own needs. Energy and fuel security are supposed to be a strong point of the technology but the US nuclear industry faces further reputational risk because no-one is taking responsibility and adequately planning adequate solutions despite NRC licenses being in place. James Krellenstein returns to take our proverbial hands and walk us through the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. Enjoy!

The recent cancellation of two large wind projects in New Jersey are the latest in a series of setbacks for the nascent US offshore wind industry. Mark Nelson joins me to analyze whether the nuclear industry is vulnerable to the same cost drivers plaguing this sector.

James Krellenstein joins me to discuss the rationale underlying small modular reactors and in particular the challenges of getting novel reactor concepts from the experimental stage to reliable commercial operation.

Jacopo Buongiorno joins me to discuss the cost drivers of nuclear and how we can drive them down. For a deeper dive check out this MIT study that Jacopo led. studyhttps://energy.mit.edu/research/future-nuclear-energy-carbon-constrained-world/