Decouple - Dr. Chris Keefer

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No Risk, All Reward May 20, 2025

Show notes

This week, we look beyond the physical infrastructure supporting our lives to the owners taking over that infrastructure: asset managers. Brett Christophers, an author, professor, and economic geographer at Uppsala University in Sweden, joins me to explore the troubling transformation of infrastructure ownership in today's economy. From housing to energy to water, massive asset management firms like Blackstone and Brookfield have positioned themselves more and more between citizens and essential services, extracting wealth while taking minimal risk. Christophers explains how this shift from public to private control has reshaped our relationship with everyday infrastructure, particularly as we attempt to transform our energy supplies. He argues that the profit-driven approach of these financial giants is at odds with the public good, creating a system where even as things like renewable technology get cheaper, their deployment slows due to insufficient returns for investors.

Hellbrise May 13, 2025

Show notes

In the wake of Europe's largest blackout in decades, commodities investor Alexander Stahel helps us to understand the physics of power grids, and how Spain's celebrated renewable transition became its Achilles' heel. He introduces the “hellbrise” phenomenon—excessive, rather than too little, renewable generation—as he considers the role of grid inertia in preventing minor disruptions from cascading into failures in mere seconds. Spanish energy policy isn’t the first time that green idealism has brushed over the fundamental requirements of reliable electricity, and it is unlikely to be the last. But it has certainly provided a stark example of the dangers that await such an oversight.

The Iberian Blackout May 06, 2025

Show notes

This week, we cover the recent blackout on the Iberian peninsula. Guillem Sanchis Ramirez, a Spanish nuclear engineer and advocate, walks us through the event that plunged over 50 million people into powerlessness and the power grid on which it happened. We cover Spain’s precarious dance with renewable energy, its political resistance to nuclear power, possible paths forward for the country’s energy supply, and our essential human reliance on stable electrical systems.

Note: This interview was recorded on April 30, 2025, still in the midst of the story’s rapid development.

Cycles of Life Apr 29, 2025

Show notes

This week, we take a break from nuclear power to talk about larger systems: those of Planet Earth. Professor Andy Knoll, renowned Harvard geologist and author of A Brief History of Earth, reveals how life itself has shaped Earth's chemistry, climate, and geology. From the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere to the potential colonization of Mars, we explore the constant and delicate dance between life and the planet.

Read extended shownotes on Substack.

Hard Lessons with Hot Helium Apr 22, 2025

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This week, we talk High Temperature Gas Reactors, or HTGRs, with a Decouple favorite: reactor designer and nuclear historian Nick Touran (What Is Nuclear | X). From the first conceptual sketch of an HTGR in wartime labs to today’s revival by players like X-energy and China’s fast-moving reactor fleet, we dissect what makes HTGRs unique—both in engineering promise and the difficulties that have long haunted their success. With helium cooling, TRISO fuel, and ambitions beyond electricity into process heat and industrial decarbonization, HTGRs may be poised for a comeback. But will history repeat itself, or finally break the cycle?

Read longer show notes and support Decouple on Substack.

The Machines Behind The Machines Apr 08, 2025

Show notes

This week, we talk tools. With precision machinist Noah Rettberg, we explore a facet of modernity as important as energy, for it is the technology that energy powers and the technology that makes that technology: machine tools. Noah draws from his professional knowledge and passion for history to takes from Roman metallurgy through the guild-protected craftsmanship of medieval Europe to the steam-powered revolution in machining to the cutting-edge of metalworking tools. Riveting!

Respect the Rads Apr 01, 2025

Show notes

This week, we talk radiation—the elephant in the room during many conversations about nuclear power. Nick Touran, a reactor designer and nuclear historian, helps us along. While nuclear advocates have made remarkable strides in dispelling public fears about radiation, Touran warns against the pendulum swinging too far toward complacency. We explore why maintaining a healthy respect for radiation remains crucial even as we champion nuclear power's expansion.

Read the extended shownotes on Substack.

Pass the Salt Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

Molten Salt Reactors are often portrayed as nuclear’s great missed opportunity, promising unparalleled safety, efficiency, and fuel sustainability. But are these promises reality or hype? Nick Touran, reactor designer and nuclear historian, joins me to tell the complex story behind molten salt reactors—from their ambitious beginnings during Cold War nuclear airplane experiments to the realities of managing radioactive liquid fuels. This conversation clears the mist around one of nuclear's most intriguing yet misunderstood technologies.Read more in-depth show notes on Substack.

"Better Water Reactors" Mar 18, 2025

Show notes

This week, we talk Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) with James Krellenstein, the CEO of Alva Energy. We dive into the engineering, history, and physics of these reactors, how they differ from other designs, and why the United States may have erred in not choosing the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) instead of the Westinghouse AP-1000 for the Vogtle nuclear power plant.For this episode, we’ve included a glossary below to help with unfamiliar terms:

ABWR: Advanced Boiling Water Reactor

ATWS: Anticipated Transient Without Scram

BORAX experiments: Historical experiments testing reactor limits through deliberate failures

BWR: Boiling Water Reactor

COPS: Containment Overpressure Protection System

CRDM: Control Rod Drive Mechanism

ESBWR: Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor

FLEX: Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (post-Fukushima enhancements)

FOAK: First of a kind

IGSCC: Intergranular Stress Corrosion Cracking

NOAK: N-nth of a kind

NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission

NSSS: Nuclear Steam Supply System (N Triple-S)

PRA: Probabilistic Risk Assessment

PWR: Pressurized Water Reactor

RCIC: Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System

RPV: Reactor Pressure Vessel

SLC: Standby Liquid Control System

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