Decouple26 Jan 2021

Means, Motive, Opportunity: Fossil Fueled Radiophobia feat. Rod Adams

There is money to be made in Nuclear Fear. Consider this. In Japan over the last 10 years since the Fukushima accident, approximately 50 billion USD a year in additional fossil fuels have been traded to supply energy demands that would have been provided by Japan's shuttered nuclear plants. The ability to terrify people with the prospect of serious health harms from low dose radiation has kept most of the Japanese nuclear fleet idle and created an enormous market for LNG and Coal as well as a significant burden of disease secondary to particulate air pollution.

On June 12th 1956 the National Academy of Sciences released its report on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR.) It became part of the basis for a paradigm shift in radiation protection towards the Linear No Threshold model which proposes that radiation is a uniquely dangerous toxin with no safe lower dose limit.

The BIER report was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation whose endowment came directly from the Standard Oil Company. Did the Rockefeller Foundation and its fossil fuel baron patrons have a vested interest in exagerating the dangers of radiation to disparage a potentially disruptive, air pollution free technology that threatened the market share of the fossil fuel industry? Was their support coincidence, conspiracy or just good business acumen?

I am joined by Rod Adams, a former US nuclear submarine engineer officer, who runs the Atomic Insights blog and hosts the Atomic Show podcast to discuss this tantalizing question.

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Episoder(321)

Shorting the Grid feat. Meredith Angwin

The Grid has been described as one of the preeminent engineering accomplishments of the 20th century and the world's largest machine. However, when people debate the best strategies to manage a succes...

18 Sep 20201h 5min

Sunset on Greenpeace's Solar Village feat. Gayatri Vaidyanathan

Dharnai Live was Greenpeace's showcase rural electrification project that aimed to prove that solar microgrids were the way to meet rural India's power needs in a sustainable manner. The solar electri...

12 Sep 202047min

Stand Up for Nuclear feat. Paris Ortiz Wines

Paris is the Director of Outreach and a former analyst at Environmental Progress who oversees the organization’s outreach and engagement efforts. In 2019, she organized the first global pro-nuclear mo...

4 Sep 202035min

Isodope: Isabelle Boemeke the Nuclear Influencer

In this episode Isabelle Boemeke and I talk about the ins and outs of Nuclear Advocacy with a special look at "Influencers" and the use of novel platforms like instagram and tik-tok. Isabelle is the f...

29 Aug 202056min

Existing Nuclear and Imaginary Nuclear feat. Mark Nelson

Dreams of advanced nuclear and the SMR revolution around the corner which will solve all of Nuclear's problems such as economics, safety and load following are very popular within the Nuclear Energy c...

19 Aug 20201h 8min

Swords Into Plowshares: How to Get Rid of Nuclear Weapons feat. James Conca

On the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing Dr James Conca returns to Decouple to talk about Nuclear Weapons, disarmament and the Megatonnes to Megawatts program in which 20,000 Nuclear warheads worth ...

10 Aug 202043min

Karnkraft: Sweden's Social Democratic Nuclear Climate Fix feat. John Ahlberg

There is a popular misconception based upon charicatures of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons that Nuclear Energy is an evil, capitalistic and undemocratic form of Energy. In fact almost every major deploym...

3 Aug 202045min

Apocalypse Never Review feat. Leigh Phillips

In his most recent book, Apocalypse Never, Michael Shellenberger has stirred some major waves particularly in his promotional efforts where he recently penned an article professing an “Apology on beha...

27 Jul 202048min