Decouple

Jan 14 2025 266 ep. 60 mins 908
Decouple Podcast artwork

There are technologies that decouple human well-being from its ecological impacts. There are politics that enable these technologies. Join me as I interview world experts to uncover hope in this time of planetary crisis.

  Science
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Oil: A Masterclass

Jan 14 2025 95 mins  
Mark Nelson, managing director of Radiant Energy Group, joins us for a Masterclass on the slippery subject of oil. We zoom from ancient plankton to modern empires to see how a mysterious black liquid birthed from prehistoric seas now powers our civilization, touching on the complex chemistry, geology and history of oil.

A Civil Nuclear Debate

Dec 24 2024 79 mins  
Two thought leaders in the nuclear energy conversation, James Krellenstein and Ted Nordhaus, join Decouple for a “debate” over the question of reactor size: should advanced, small nuclear technologies lead the way for nuclear energy, or should conventional large reactors? What could have been a heated debate over nuclear energy's future ended up a nuanced discussion about the i

Reactors on Wheels

Dec 17 2024 71 mins  
Jeff Waksman, program manager for Project Pele, joins Dr. Chris Keefer to discuss the impetus for the military microreactor project, the logistics and energy challenges at the heart of modern warfare, and the technical considerations of microreactor development. Few voices are more qualified to speak on the state-of-the-art in tiny nuclear reactors. Tune in. Support Decouple: https

A Heterodox Economics Lesson

Dec 10 2024 103 mins  
Steve Keen, economist and author, joins me to explain how modern economics has catastrophically misunderstood the role of energy in our world and underestimated the risks of climate change through oversimple models. In this in-person conversation, we discuss the evolution of economic thinking since feudalism, the shortcomings of prevailing economic models, modern monetary theory, t

The End of an IRA?

Dec 03 2024 50 mins  
Phil Chaffee, Editor of Nuclear Intelligence Weekly and Bureau Chief of Energy Intelligence’s New York offices, joins me to discuss the implications of a second Trump administration on U.S. nuclear energy. Will the tantalizing nuclear power purchase agreements signed by hyperscalers evaporate as carbon pricing becomes less likely? Will free-market ideology manage to sustain the g

The Forgotten Climate Debate

Nov 26 2024 85 mins  
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a French historian of science & technology, shares how European societies grappled with climate change centuries before modern science proved the scale and breadth of its impact, revealing a forgotten saga where colonial ambitions and volcanic winters shaped our earliest understanding of Earth's shifting climate. Grounding our discussion is his Fressoz’

Defense in Depths

Nov 19 2024 87 mins  
Aidan Morrison, director of energy research at Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies, takes us to the depths of Australia’s security predicament as a country near Maritime Southeast Asia dependent on liquid hydrocarbon imports. We discuss military strategy, the use of nuclear and diesel-electric submarines, and the continent’s precarious dependence on maritime trade and

Microreactors, Macro Problems

Nov 12 2024 82 mins  
Nick Touran, a nuclear engineer and manager at TerraPower, unearths the sobering realities of micro nuclear reactors. Through a detailed discussion of physics, engineering, economics, and history, Touran explains why microreactors face fundamental challenges that factory production alone cannot solve.

Paper Reactors to Power Reactors

Nov 05 2024 75 mins  
Nick Touran tells the story of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” and author of the legendary "Paper Reactor" memo. We discover how Rickover’s hard-driving management and obsession with practical engineering shaped not just the US nuclear navy, but the entire landscape of modern nuclear power. Touran is manager of digital engineering at TerraPower and cr

TMI: Too Much Intervention?

Oct 29 2024 66 mins  
James Krellenstein, co-founder of Alva Energy, explains precisely what happened at the Three Mile Island accident, in which an ordinary reactor trip cascaded into a partial meltdown due primarily to errors in the human-machine interface. Krellenstein discusses how the 1979 incident, despite its severity, actually showed the effectiveness of the “defense in depth” principle and