The State of the Atom (2025)
Decouple28 Jul 2025

The State of the Atom (2025)

This week, Mark Nelson joins us to deliver his second annual “State of the Atom” address. The nuclear power landscape has transformed in the last two years. Russia continues its nuclear export dominance while the West at last awakens from its stupor, driven by an unexpected force: artificial intelligence's insatiable appetite for baseload power. From Amazon's billion-dollar Susquehanna deal to Three Mile Island's resurrection, Big Tech is discovering what nuclear advocates have long known: that when you need reliable electricity around the clock, few other generation sources compare. Nelson maps the new nuclear battlefield where Chinese reactors scale up to 1,700 megawatts, European phase-outs crumble, and Western teams scramble to assemble the talent and capital needed to compete.

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    Episoder(328)

    Sunk Costs & Diminishing Returns of Iran's Nuclear Program w/ Farzan Sabet

    Sunk Costs & Diminishing Returns of Iran's Nuclear Program w/ Farzan Sabet

    Iran’s nuclear program is now more than seven decades old, stretching from the Shah’s ambitious Atoms for Peace-era plans to the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of enrichment, missile capability and nuclea...

    6 Aug 1h 25min

    Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

    Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

    For almost the whole of human history, wood was the main act. It was the fuel that cooked food and smelted iron, the material that framed every house and hull, and the first bulk commodity ever moved ...

    31 Jul 1h 10min

    Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

    Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

    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 agre...

    23 Jul 43min

    Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

    Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

    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, fo...

    16 Jul 1h 29min

    CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

    CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

    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 de...

    24 Jun 1h 9min

    The Birth of America’s Nuclear Power Industry

    The Birth of America’s Nuclear Power Industry

    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...

    17 Jun 1h 2min

    Limits to Growth of LLMs w/ David Helmer

    Limits to Growth of LLMs w/ David Helmer

    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 gover...

    4 Jun 1h 32min

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

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

    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 g...

    12 Mai 1h 5min

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