Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

July 23, 2026 6:00am 43 min

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joins Decouple to examine the history of Iran’s nuclear program and the negotiations that produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. As the agreement’s lead America...

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

July 16, 2026 6:00am 1:29

Why are nuclear power plants so difficult to finance, and who ultimately pays when megaprojects run late or over budget? Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Michael Seely, The Atomic Blender, for a deep dive into t...

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

June 24, 2026 6:00am 1:09

In this reactor deep dive, Chris Keefer is joined by Navid Badie, Chief Nuclear Engineer at Candu Energy Inc, to explain the inner workings of the distinctive CANDU reactor. They trace how Canada’s decision to use natura...

The Birth of America’s Nuclear Power Industry

June 17, 2026 6:00am 1:02

James Krellenstein returns to take apart one of the most persistent myths in energy discourse: the idea that there was a golden age when nuclear power was cheaper than coal. The plants people point to, Oyster Creek, Dres...

Limits to Growth of LLMs w/ David Helmer

June 04, 2026 6:00am 1:32

AI hype has bled deep into the nuclear sector, and in this episode, Chris Keefer sits down with returning guest David Helmer, an engineer and AI advisory consultant with a decade advising the US government on machine lea...

The Gas Turbine: The Final Revelation in Humanity’s Pantheon of Prime Movers (w/ David Helmer)

May 12, 2026 6:00am 1:05

David Helmer spent years working on cooling systems for GE jet turbines before moving to Boston Consulting Group, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and West Point. He joins Decouple to explain why the gas turbine, despite ...

Understanding the World's Most Unusual Commodity Cycle

April 30, 2026 6:00am 1:18

Grant Isaac, President and COO of Cameco, joins Decouple to explain why uranium behaves unlike any other commodity. With essentially zero fundamental in-year demand, a spot market that reports prices rather than discover...

The Absolute Best Water Reactor: What Happened to the World’s Fastest Constructed Reactor?

April 23, 2026 6:00am 1:09

Nuclear construction once hit timelines that today sound implausible. First of a kind reactors completed in under four years, delivered at lower cost than mature designs, and executed with a level of coordination that th...

Nuclear Reprocessing: Promise vs Reality

April 09, 2026 8:09am 1:41

In this episode of Decouple, Chris Keefer is joined once again by Michael Seely of the Atomic Blender to explore nuclear fuel reprocessing and the promise of unlocking vastly more energy from existing nuclear waste. We d...

Greenwashing with Chinese Characteristics

April 02, 2026 6:00am 1:06

In this episode we are joined by Seaver Wang to discuss the physical foundations of China’s industrial dominance in solar, batteries, electric vehicles, semiconductors, rare earth magnets, and aluminum. We examine how th...

The Luxury Beliefs That Broke Europe’s Energy System | Doomberg

March 24, 2026 6:00am 1:17

Europe once treated energy as the foundation of civilization. After the oil shocks of the 1970s, it built nuclear at scale, opened the North Sea, and secured long term pipeline supply. That system produced resilience, su...

What's happening with CANDU?

March 19, 2026 8:59am 1:16

This episode features Joe St. Julian, President of Nuclear at AtkinsRéalis, outlining why Canada may be closer to a new nuclear fleet build than most observers realize. Drawing on his background delivering complex U.S. n...

The Week LNG Became a Target

March 13, 2026 11:00am 1:15

The Iranian drone strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex has sent shockwaves through global energy markets, triggering force majeure on 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply and closing the Strait of Hormuz to co...

The Fuels Powering Nuclear's Biggest Promises

March 05, 2026 6:00am 1:25

Nuclear Fuel: The Most Sophisticated Industrial Product You've Never Learned About

February 26, 2026 7:15am 1:20

Nuclear fuel is nothing like the coal or gas it replaces. Where fossil fuels are destroyed in combustion, nuclear fuel must survive years of continuous fission inside a reactor and come out the other end looking almost e...

The Most Boring Path to 10 Gigawatts: Why Nuclear Uprates Matter Right Now

February 17, 2026 6:00am 1:05

For two decades the nuclear conversation has revolved around new builds, advanced reactors, and megaproject risk. Meanwhile, forty Westinghouse pressurized water reactors continue operating at roughly the same thermal ou...

AI with Chinese Characteristics

February 12, 2026 6:00am 1:06

In this episode of Decouple, Chris sits down with Kyle Chan of the High Capacity Substack to unpack what “AI with Chinese characteristics” actually means. Rather than framing artificial intelligence as a simple US–China ...

A Case Study of Excellence from Canada’s Nuclear Golden Age

January 29, 2026 6:00am 1:03

In this special episode of Decouple, Chris Keefer speaks with Ken Petrunik, one of the few leaders in the Western nuclear industry who has taken large reactors from first concrete to operation under budget and ahead of s...

EPR: The Reactor That Tried to Please Everyone and Satisfied No One

January 15, 2026 6:43am 1:17

In this episode of Decouple we deep dive the European Pressurised Reactor and what its troubled construction history reveals about the real constraints on nuclear build out in the modern West. The conversation traces how...

Why Nuclear Shipping Is Inherently Niche

January 08, 2026 7:30am 1:26

Why have we built nuclear ships before, proven they can operate, and still not made them commonplace? Nick Touran breaks down the history of maritime nuclear power, from the Nuclear Ship Savannah and Otto Hahn to Japan’s...