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)

No Risk, All Reward

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 geograp...

20 Mai 20251h 9min

Hellbrise

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...

13 Mai 20251h 5min

The Iberian Blackout

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 ...

6 Mai 202551min

Cycles of Life

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 ...

29 Apr 202556min

Hard Lessons with Hot Helium

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 H...

22 Apr 20251h 16min

The Machines Behind The Machines

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...

8 Apr 20251h 15min

Respect the Rads

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...

1 Apr 20251h 21min

Pass the Salt

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,...

25 Mar 20251h 8min