Decouple

Dr. Keefer’s speech at Minerals Week in Australia sharing the story of Ontario’s coal phaseout & the decarbonization of its electricity grid.

Systems engineer, James Fleay, joins me to discuss the unique relationship between liquid hydrocarbons and our six continent supply chains. Oil is the enabler of low cost transportation of people and goods. What does an inevitable decline in oil production, whenever it comes, mean for globalization and our future economies. What forms of economical and industrial complexity should be prioritized? All this and more in this thought provoking episode.

Madi Hilly, author of nuclear advocacy’s most viral tweet, joins me to discuss the ultimate bogeyman and best practices when it comes to talking about nuclear waste.

https://twitter.com/madihilly/status/1550148385931513856?s=46&t=N4_61zANEvl1W3Q_ehy1nw

Emmet Penney returns to offer a review of the film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” which is based on the work of radical Swedish geographer Andreas Malm. Read About the Movie here: https://compactmag.com/article/a-hollywood-ode-to-eco-terrorism

Decouple host Dr. Keefer faces off against Canada’s most prolific antinuclear activist Dr. Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, in a cordial but passionate debate on the question “Do We Need to Scale Up Nuclear Power to Combat Climate Change?”

This public debate took place at the University of Ottawa on April 25th and was hosted by Canada’s former ambassador of Climate Change and former ambassador to Chile Patricia Fuller.

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?

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.

Dr. Simon Michaux, Associate Professor at Geometallurgy at Geological Survey of Finland, discusses the minimum requirements for a net zero future, as well as the restraints on our renewables going forward.

Read academic works by Dr. Michaux: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon-Michaux-2

Just as the political spectrum is divided between left and right, thinking on environmental problem solving is similarly split into two rival camps exemplified by the archetypes of the Wizard and the Prophet. Award winning science writer Charles Mann explores these archetypes as personified by the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug and the intellectual godfather of the environmental movement, William Vogt.

Crudely put wizards are foremost humanists who eschew limits believing that our growing population and appetites can be accommodated by the wise application of decoupling technology. Prophets are foremost environmentalists who believe that carrying capacity is limited and that humans must remain within natural energy flows or risk ecosystem and civilizational collapse.

Understanding the origins of one's opponents ideological beliefs and values goes a long way to depersonalizing a sometimes ugly debate and perhaps finding a small patch of common ground.

Prophets who have contributed some impressive advances in natural resource stewardship such as water conservation must wrestle with an ugly history of Malthusian ideas which at their worst have justified horrific campaigns of coercive population control. Despite the success of technofixes that fed billions and averted famines wizards must temper their scientific rationalism with a sociologic understanding of the dark sides of modernization such as enclosures of the commons.

Noah Rettberg, physics lab technician in training and popular Decouple guest, sheds some light on the protests regarding the expansion of the Garzweiler mine into Lützerath and unearths the deeps roots that Germany and lignite share.

Germany, with limited bituminous coal and no petroleum to speak of, has always been able to lean on its sizable lignite coal reserves. It has been transformed into anything from synthetic fuels to margarine to autobody.

Gerrit Bruhaug, based out of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at Rochester University, joins Decouple to talk about the significance of the recent ignition event at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories.

An IAEA panel discussion at COP27 on how nuclear energy intersects with the lives of individuals and a diverse array of nations including Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, the USA and Sweden. 

Moderated by: Mark Nelson, Managing Director, Radiant Energy Group  Panelists:

• Seth Grae - American Nuclear Society - CEO, Lightbridge Corporation
  Heba Elkomey - International Youth Nuclear Congress - PhD Candidate at Claremit, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority
• Amanda Mbhele - Women in Nuclear Young Generation - Nuclear Waste Projects Lead, Nuclear Energy Company of South Africa
• Alfred Mbayoh - International Youth Nuclear Congress - CEO and Founder LEOTech Sierra Leone
• Ia Aanstoot - Generation Atomic - Berzelius School, Linkoping, Sweden
• Abubakar Sadiq Aliyu -International Youth Nuclear Congress - PhD Candidate in Nuclear Physics, Ahmadu Bello University

Dr. Simon Michaux, Associate Professor at Geometallurgy at Geological Survey of Finland, uncovers the truth about the vast mining requirements behind any proposed transition to a "clean" energy future.

Watch the Decouple Studios episode on Dr. Michaux's work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19-gqgugKOc

Read academic works by Dr. Michaux: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon-Michaux-2

Seth Grae, CEO of Lightbridge Corporation, reflects on the 2022 UN Climate Chance Conference, or COP27, held this year in Egypt. We discuss perceived attitudes between the global wealthy and underdeveloped nations, how nuclear was nearly left out of the language in the final negotiated statement, and how the UAE can make the most of hosting COP28 next year in Dubai.

Mark Nelson, managing director of the Radiant Energy Group, debates Tobias Holle, an activist with Fridays for Future Germany, at the pavilion of the International Atomic Energy Agency at COP27 in Egypt. The question at hand: is nuclear power a climate friend or foe?

This event was streamlined live on IAEA social media channels on November 15, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdAV0kVJFWk

James Fleay, an Australian engineer and project manager in the energy sector, joins Dr. Keefer to discuss the "Hydrogen Alliance" proposed between Canada and Germany.  

This Hydrogen Alliance is coming under increasing scrutiny due to allegations of a conflict of interest arising out of the Premier of Newfoundland, Andrew Furey's luxury trip to a lodge owned by Canadian billionaire John Risley this summer. 

Risley happens to be one of the principal investors in a project called Nujio’qonik, one of three projects competing to be part of the Canada German Hydrogen Alliance alongside EverWind Fuels in Nova Scotia and the Port of Belledune project in New Brunswick.

Beyond a potential political scandal lies a very real energy scandal. 

Fleay describes the chemistry, thermodynamics, and economics required to turn electrons generated by wind turbines in Canada into ammonia to be shipped across the Atlantic to be burned in German Power plants, a process which he describes as being "The least efficient way to get electrons on the German grid imaginable." Decouple takes a look at who will foot the bill and who will profit. 

The total output of the Canada German Hydrogen Alliance which requires a near doubling of Canada's total national wind fleet, expensive electrolysis equipment, ammonia production through the energy intensive Haber Bosch process, large scale shipping and potential energy hungry reconversion to hydrogen for burning as fuel in German thermal plants is almost equal to the output of a single German nuclear station, ISAR 2, one of the three remaining nuclear plants still under threat of closure in Germany. 

With the myth of cheap Canadian exportable hydrogen as a tool to replace Russian natural gas busted we examine Canada's only truly green and ultra low carbon energy export: its nuclear technology and uranium which is already used in near carbon free power plants domestically and around the world offsetting a full 1/3 of Canada's total all sector emissions. 

Hang onto your hats. This is an interesting one.