Decouple9 Okt 2021

Europe's Winter of Discontent

I am joined again by Mark Nelson to speak on the energy shocks tearing through Europe and Asia. What are its causes, and what will its consequences be?

The crisis comes on the heels of what academics and policymakers thought was an energy transition away from fossil fuels. But as countries pay record prices to scrap together enough coal, gas, and oil to avoid shortfalls, we are seeing just how unprepared they were for the fossil-free world they have been trying to create. The procurement of low-carbon energy sources was dominated by short-term thinking, favoring solar and wind over nuclear power, and pre-emptively drawing the line in the sand for fossil fuel investment.

Mark reflects on European energy decisions over the past decades, the constant shaving down of reserve energy supplies for the sake of avoiding “wastefulness”, and how during the energy crises of the 1970s, some countries drew winning hands and others drew losing hands in their responses. Namely, those who drew winning hands built nuclear, and a lot of it.

Mark worries that “it’s not clear that Europe knows how to expand energy production now, only reduce it.” Will this energy shock be a tipping point? Will it have sobering effects on the debate over the EU Green Taxonomy and the decision of whether to include nuclear power?

As in the children’s story of the industrious ant and the worry-free grasshopper, will this winter reveal the stark differences between those who prepared and those who didn’t—those who shored up their own low-carbon energy supply with nuclear, and those who optimistically trotted down the path of solar, wind, interconnections, nuclear phase-outs, and gas imports?

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(321)

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 Maj 1h 5min

Understanding the World's Most Unusual Commodity Cycle

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 ...

30 Apr 1h 18min

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

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 ...

23 Apr 1h 9min

Nuclear Reprocessing: Promise vs Reality

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...

9 Apr 1h 41min

Greenwashing with Chinese Characteristics

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 aluminu...

2 Apr 1h 6min

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

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 pro...

24 Mars 1h 17min

What's happening with CANDU?

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 deliv...

19 Mars 1h 16min

The Week LNG Became a Target

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 St...

13 Mars 1h 15min