Shows
DecoupleA Physician's Perspective on Nuclear WasteDr. Chris Keefer teamed up with Dr. Douglas Boreham, Professor and Division Head of Medical Sciences at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, to speak before residents in South Bruce, Ontario, the potential site of Canada's Deep Geological Repository for used nuclear fuel. The event, organized by the local grassroots group Willing to Listen, features presentations from each speaker followed by an open Q&A session. Recorded Sept. 17, 2022.
**DECOUPLE READS**
We are excited to launch Decouple Reads with Brahm Neufeld!! Join us on Patreon for virtual book club meetings on selected books...
2022-10-101h 20
DecoupleGold Standard or Standstill? Reflections on the Nuclear Waste Management OrganizationDr. Keefer and Decouple producer Dylan Moon reflect on their visit to Ontario's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). The NWMO is tasked with designing, siting, and building a Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for the long-term storage of used nuclear fuel. Although decades of engineering and a current annual budget of over $100 million have led to a robust and safe storage solution, the organization's "gold standard" consent-based siting process leaves no clear path for the project to ever break ground.
Learn more about the Deep Geological Repository project from nuclear operator Sheila Whytock's appearance on the We CANDU It podcast: https...
2022-08-0228 min
CanadiEM Podcasts: CRACKCast, ClerkCast, CarmsCast, First Year DiariesSocial Justice EM E01: What's Nuclear Energy Got To Do With It? Emergency Medicine and Climate ChangeIn this episode, Amie Archibald-Varley talks to Dr. Chris Keefer, an Emergency Medicine physician is who is a pro-nuclear climate and clean air activist and the host of the Decouple Podcast and WeCANDUIt! podcast. We discuss Dr. Keefer's trip to The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, on how the summit's outcomes will impact climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the impact of waste in hospitals as well as tackle the conversation in relation to sustainable energy sources for healthcare.
2022-02-1528 minCRACKCast & Physicians as Humans on CanadiEMSocial Justice EM E01: What's Nuclear Energy Got To Do With It? Emergency Medicine and Climate ChangeIn this episode, Amie Archibald-Varley talks to Dr. Chris Keefer, an Emergency Medicine physician is who is a pro-nuclear climate and clean air activist and the host of the Decouple Podcast and WeCANDUIt! podcast. We discuss Dr. Keefer’s trip to The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, on how the summit's outcomes will impact climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the impact of waste in hospitals as well as tackle the conversation in relation to sustainable energy sources for healthcare.
2022-02-1528 min
DecoupleSmall, Modular and North of 60 Feat: Jay HarrisA special crosspost from the WeCANDUIt podcast. Jay Harris, an indigenous energy consultant and proponent of small modular reactor (SMR) for remote locations talks about the energy, nutrition and water challenges facing remote northern communities.
We explore the fascinating history of SMRs in remote environments which goes back to the 1950's and we look at the possibilities and challenges of SMRs in the far north.
Jay is a member of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and has worked as an aircraft maintainer in the Air Reserves and in the RCMP in the far north. He...
2021-06-121h 35
We CANDU ItNuclear Energy on Earth Day feat. Mike RencheckOn Earth Day we take a moment to think about how we can reduce our environmental impacts. Nuclear energy in many ways is the most environmentally friendly way to generate electricity. It's incredible energy density means it has the least amount of mining, land use and waste of any other energy source.
According to the IPCC nulcear is tied with wind as having the lowest lifecycle carbon emissions of any power source. However, unlike other clean technologies like wind and solar nuclear does not require any "bridging fuel" like natural gas for back up.
Mike Ren...
2021-04-2244 minWe CANDU ItWhy is Ontario's electricity so expensive. feat Scot LuftI affectionately refer to Ontario as the "France of North America" with 62% of its electricity produced by Nuclear. However in the early 2000's Ontario embarked on an effort to become the "Germany of North America" by engaging in a renewable energy build out called the "Green Energy Act" which was modelled on Germany's Energiewende.
Ontario granted lucrative 20 year feed in tariff contracts to wind and solar investors to incentivize green energy which drove up prices and did very little to drop Ontario's emissions due to energy production out of phase with demand. There is now talk on t...
2021-03-311h 05We CANDU ItMedical Isotopes? We CANDU that!: Feat James ScongackMedical isotopes make modern medicine possible. We depend on a steady supply to sterilize medical equipment, as radiation sources for oncology treatments and for diagnostic imaging. Canada is a world leader in the production of medical isotopes and punches far above our weight. Our national research reactor, which closed in 2016, provided a number of isotopes including Molybdenum 99 which treated 76,000 patients a day in over 80 countries. Now CANDU power reactors have been put to the job and crank out enough Cobalt 60 to sterlize 25 billion pieces of medical equipment and 40% of the world's single use surgical instruments. I am joined by...
2021-03-0335 minWe CANDU ItDeep Geologic Repository? Willing to Listen feat: Sheila WhytockNuclear waste. The bogeyman of industrial wastes and yet it has been fully contained for the 60 years of commercial power plant operation without a single fatality worldwide over that time period. Compare that to fossil fuels which kill over 3 million per year from waste that is simply dumped into the atmosphere and is rapidly heating our planet such that it might not be conducive to human civilization in a few hundred years.
How bad is nuclear waste and what are we going to do with it? Relative risk assessment is not a strong point for the minds o...
2021-02-2250 minWe CANDU ItWe Did It! The past, present and future of CANDU Feat. Dr. Jeremy WhitlockDue to the global geopolitics of the 1940's Canada became the unlikely centre for the world's second largest nuclear research infrastructure at the end of World War II. Devoting itself to the peaceful use of the atom It went on to develop a unique power reactor design, the CANDU, based on the use of heavy water to avoid the need for uranium enrichment and pressure tubes to get around the need for a heavy forging industry for reactor vessels. These features make the CANDU ideal for export and technology transfer to less developed countries with industrial capacity resembling that...
2021-02-1858 minWe CANDU ItNuclear Energy is Union Energy Feat: Bob WalkerNuclear energy is only possible thanks to a highly skilled, largely unionized workforce. In popular culture nuclear workers have been portrayed as incompetent by the Simpson or as evil incarnate by anti-nuclear activists like Dr Helen Caldicott. In Canada nuclear generation is publicly owned and run by a highly unionized workforce. It provides cheap, clean and reliable energy to the commons AKA our grid. Due to the incredibly energy density of nuclear energy each worker has an outsized role in preventing the burning of fossil fuels and producing large amounts of air pollution free and ultra low emissions electricity. I...
2021-01-0343 minWe CANDU ItSmall, Modular and North of 60 Feat: Jay HarrisJay Harris is an energy consultant and proponent of small modular reactor (SMR) development for remote locations. Jay is a member of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and has worked as an aircraft maintainer in the Air Reserves and in the RCMP in the far north. He was the first aboriginal person to attend the World Nuclear University program in Oxfordshire UK. We talk about the existing energy, nutrition and water challenges facing remote Canadian reserves. We explore the fascinating history of SMRs in remote environments which goes back to the 1950's and we look at the possibilities...
2020-12-181h 35We CANDU ItOntario's Ultra Low Carbon Grid Feat: Paul AcchioneOn today's show we explore Ontario's clean grid, how it got there, where its going and how unique it is. Ontario "overproduces" clean energy due to our large nuclear (65%) and hydro (25%) infrastructure. We explore how adding wind and solar to the Ontario grid actually drives up emissions, how wind produces out of sync with demand and how we end up curtailing a lot of our renewables or selling it at rock bottom prices to the USA. We dive into the Green Energy Act and the 20 year contracts that have locked Ontario's rate payers into overpaying dramatically for renewables. As...
2020-12-1346 min