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Science

Decouple

by Dr. Chris Keefer
Science

Not on the United States charts we track today.

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Latest episodes

  • How America Gave Away Its Industrial Superpower w/ Stefan Link

    October 23, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min

    By 1927, the United States had more than 22 million motor vehicles on its roads, compared with just 18,000 in the Soviet Union. This staggering disparity reflected one of the greatest productivity revolutions in human history: the mass…

  • The Story of the Israeli Bomb w/ Avner Cohen

    October 15, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min

    How did a tiny, impoverished country whose principal exports included Jaffa oranges become the world's sixth nuclear power? Nuclear historian Avner Cohen, author of Israel and the Bomb and The Worst-Kept Secret, joins Decouple to tell the…

  • The Canada-US Trade War: A Bridge Too Far? w/ Jesse Huebsch

    September 25, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

    The Canada-US trade war is escalating, threatening to unravel decades of economic integration between two of the world's closest allies. Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Jesse Hoops to examine how we got here, what Washington…

  • Megaprojects: Some Assembly Required w/ Ian MacGregor

    September 3, 2026 · 54 min

    Canada is once again attempting to build nuclear megaprojects after a long pause, making the experience of people who have actually delivered recent large industrial projects increasingly valuable. Ian McGregor is a veteran Alberta…

  • The State of Fusion Energy w/ Gerrit Bruhaug

    August 13, 2026 · 1 hr 24 min

    Fusion has spent nearly a century as the energy source of the future. In this episode, I’m joined by fusion scientist Gerrit Bruhaug to ask what has actually been achieved, what remains unsolved, and why progress has taken so much longer…

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

    August 6, 2026 · 1 hr 26 min

    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 nuclear latency. Iran historian Farzan Sabet…

  • Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

    July 31, 2026 · 1 hr 11 min

    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 at scale over long distances. In this…

  • Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

    July 23, 2026 · 44 min

    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 agreement’s lead American technical…

  • Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

    July 16, 2026 · 1 hr 30 min

    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, for a deep dive into the capital costs…

  • CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

    June 24, 2026 · 1 hr 9 min

    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 decision to use natural uranium led to…

  • The Birth of America’s Nuclear Power Industry

    June 17, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min

    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, Oyster Creek, Dresden, Point Beach…

  • Limits to Growth of LLMs w/ David Helmer

    June 4, 2026 · 1 hr 32 min

    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 government on machine learning and…

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About the show

There are technologies that decouple human well-being from its ecological impacts. There are politics that enable these technologies. Join me as I interview world experts to uncover hope in this time of planetary crisis.