Chris Keefer: "Empowering the Future: from Nuclear to Podcasting"

The Great Simplification
[00:00:00] Chris Keefer: I love hearingwell articulatedarguments that are, that Iabsolutely disagree with. I don't know, it hasn't always beenthat way again, comingfromeventhe hardleft, the romantic left, the Marxist Leninist left, I wouldn't say Iwas ever a, again, I'mamember of the disgustedparty, I've never really felt athome inany ideology, but onthe extreme or hardleft, as onthe extreme or hardright, I think there's anideathat like, people that don't agree withus are just kindof stupid.
If they only knew, if we couldjust explainto them, they'dbe converts. Andthenthose that don't agree, I mean, in, sort of Stalinist Russia, they shouldgo to theGulagor, get linedupagainst the wall. There's atotal intolerance onbothsides ofthe political spectrumfor free speech, for diversity of opinions.
Andit cripples societies.
[00:00:46] Nate Hagens: I'dlike to welcome my friend, Chris Keefer to theprogram. Chris is aCanadianERdoc, somewhere near Toronto, I believe. He's alsothe president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, as well as the host of the verypopular Decouple podcast, whichexamines howscience, technology, andpoliticscanhopefully allowus to decouple the benefits that humans receive frommodernindustrial societies fromour ecological impacts.
This was ano holds barred, wide rangingdiscussion, startingwithChris'sexperience as awilderness trapper, talkingabout nuclear energy to podcasting, tohealthcare, andmany other things. Chris has apodcast of his ownandhe andIshare kindof asimilar philosophy of educatingandinspiringpeople to understandhowour global systemis interconnected.
AndI'malso goingto be onhis showinthe near future. Please welcome Dr. ChrisKeefer.
[00:01:58] Chris Keefer: Dr. Chris Keefer. Welcome. Nate. It's goodto finally be here.It's beenwonderful correspondingwithyou over the, it feels like years now, but...
[00:02:09] Nate Hagens: It feels like it. I think it's probably one year, but,sometimes weeks happenand, or what's the word?
Decades happenwithinweeks.
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[00:02:19] Chris Keefer: You're quotingour friend, Vladimir IlyichLeninthere.Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:02:24] Nate Hagens: Ohshit. I didn't knowthat. Inadvertent, but you are. Let'srestart, restart. No, I'msorry that we've hadto reschedule so many times, but herewe are, I respect your work. you host the Decouple podcast.
You are president, correct me if I'mwrong, you're the president of anorganizationcalledCanadians for Nuclear Energy. You are anemergency roomphysician. Andoine you've kindof toldme about some of your things that you've done inthepast. You were atrapper. You hadanintentional community. Tie this all togetherandbringme to the current moment.
What is your pathandhowdidyou arrive here? Andcontrary to most of myguests, you also are apodcast host, so I think there's afraternal handshake here ofsorts because we bothdeal withsimilar challenges incommunicatingto the public.So, you have the mic, my friend. Bringus upto date onthe life andhistory of ChrisKeefer.
[00:03:36] Chris Keefer: I will aimfor brevity, but as you mentioned, there's alot ofstoppingpoints alongthe way. And, it's interesting, whenyou apply to somethinglike medical school, you have to kindof create this narrative arc andmake sense ofit all inacompellingway to clawyour way into medical school.
So I've done this before, but I'll try for The Great Simplificationhere. I'll try tosimplify it. Yeah, I mean, without beingself indulgent, like goingway back into myyouth, awkwardkidspent alot of time inthe woods sort of just to deal withnotbeingterribly socially gifted. I think we probably share some commonalities there,just adeeplove of nature.
[00:04:11] Nate Hagens: The woods or the not socially gifted?
[00:04:13] Chris Keefer: Wow, probably the woods more thananything. I won't makeany deepcommentaries there. Nate, don't knowyou well enough.
[00:04:18] Nate Hagens: I spent alot of time inthe woods as ayoungperson.
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[00:04:21] Chris Keefer: And, I was really aneo luddite. I sawtechnology as kindofthe root of all evil, of social stratification, really romanticizedour hunter gathererpast atime of greater equality, atime inwhichwe couldbasically all manufacturethat toolkit that we needed.
AndI took that so far.
[00:04:40] Nate Hagens: Atime, atime of greater equality, except for the animals,maybe.
[00:04:44] Chris Keefer: Yeah, andatime of maternal mortality andearly childmortality of at least onthe childside, agood50percent upuntil, kindof thehockey stick of the industrial revolution. But we'll get into that later.
At the time, really romanticize that. I was actually not asurvivalist interms of aprepper, but I learnedhowto make abowdrill fire, makingfire withfriction. I wasasurvival instructor for asummer camp. But that wasn't enough, Nate. That wasn'tenough.
Those canoe trips andthings like that. I wantedto take it further. I was quite aromantic andabit of aprivilegedkidso I couldaffordto start university late, oreventhink I wasn't goingto go to university. Endedupinthe YukonTerritory. I'dspent some time, my highschool Englishteacher's uncle was atrapper innorthernOntario andI foundhis knowledge of the landto be just extraordinary.
There's conservationbiologists that go out for afieldtrip, maybe amonthayearandthey cordonoffasmall piece of prairie grass andthey knowevery species inthere andthat's very admirable. But seeingthe way this guy understoodsort ofsustainably harvestinghis trapline, the behavior of animals, andalmost aspiritualconnectionto the land, that really touchedsomethingdeepinme interms of, andagain, these are partially kindof romantic aspirations, but apretty credible historywe have as aspecies, scrapinganexistence andout of pretty meager resources.
Anyway, so that took me to the Yukonterritory, where I decidedI was goingto goandmeet atrapper, I'dlearnedhowto make fire withsticks, I'dlearnedhowtogather wildedibles, but I didn't come fromahuntingfamily, andI figuredthat waspart of learninghowto kindof survive inthe wilderness.
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So, yeah, managedto pull that off. Ranatrapline for awinter, andthenendedupgettingajobnever havingriddenahorse before as ahorse wrangler andhuntingguide, inaremote concessioninthe YukonTerritory. And, basically we dideverythingoffof horseback. Not the huntingpart, but you know, pack animals,things like that.
It was apretty primitive life, but you know, still complimentedby airplanes thatwouldbringinsupplies. And, this was anoutpost of afossil fuel civilizationwhereyou got abit of ataste for pre modernlife.
[00:07:06] Nate Hagens: So I'll just addaninterjectionthere. I've beentoWhitehorse and
I talk on, as you know, about the disparity betweenhumans andour farmanimalsrelative to wildmammals. That we outweighthem50to 1 inthe world. Not intheYukon. The Yukonis the opposite. Yukonis one of the fewplaces that megafaunafar outweighs humans.
[00:07:32] Chris Keefer: Right, right. No, I've seenandwell I've killedandeatenmyfair share of that megafauna, as our ancestors did.
Not to the point of extinctionthough, Nate, it was pretty sustainable. Yeah. Moose,caribou, mountainsheep. Anyway, I promisedI wouldtry andbe brief inthis, but Ithink that questionof sort of howdo you go frombeingaromantic neo luddite toanadvocate for one of the most complex technologies that we have is probably aninterestingone.
Yeah, I endedupdecidingI wantedto get myself aneducationafter awhile or anonkindof mountainmaneducation. And, yeah, I was very inspiredby anamazingdoctor namedPaul Farmer. I've always hadasort of humanist trend, ahumanitariantrendandfiguredI'dlike to get some tangible skills to be able toserve my fellowhumans as you wont to call them.
Andso, yeah, I got inspiredandgot into medical school. That definitely was aneducationinI guess the beauty of complexity. This healthcare system, we'llprobably talk about this later, but there was atime whenalmost every humanbeingwas involvedinenergy, as you know, I meaninterms of agriculture, interms
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of growingfood, harnessingphotosynthesis, somethinglike 90percent of us werefarmers, remotely.
Andnow, 15, 16 percent of us are healthworkers. it's incredible what our wealthysocieties are able to devote to humanwell being, oftenthere's abit of ineciencythere andwe couldtalk about the USandCanadianhealthcare systems. But, yeah,it was interestingandI think I startedto shift my perceptionof technology, andreally appreciate the benefits andthat's obviously beenstrengthenedby my ownsonsurvivingvery premature birthandanincubator savinghis life.
We talkedearlier about childhoodmortality sittingat 50%. I've learnednot toromanticize that andhave some appreciationof the modernworld. After finishingmy emergency medicine fellowship, I took out abigloan, bought afarmontheborder of Canada's largest indigenous reservation, withthe attempt of kindofsettingupabit of aembassy betweenprogressive Canadians andindigenouspeople andasort of permaculture community tryingto solve some local problemswithwater supply, foodsovereignty, healthy food, that kindof stuff.
So, most intentional communities disintegrate withinabout two years andwedefinitely fit the moldthere. It was avery interesting, romantic project. Learnedalot fromit. So you're, seeingme sort of go throughthe hunter gatherer period, theagricultural revolution, andwhenmy sonwas bornfive years ago, I startedto thinkalot about climate change andget pretty worriedabout it.
Got very doomy, wasn't any funat parties. My ex-wife at the time said, "Canyoujust stoptalkingabout this, shut upanddo something?" Andshe probably meantsort the recyclingbetter, take out the compost. AndI think thank GodI'dgoneback to evenhighschool to get my core sciences inorder to get into medschool.
AndI hadthat sort of empiric trainingto start lookingaroundandsay, hey, whatare the solutions to climate change? AnddiscoveredI livedinnuclear poweredOntario. We're about 50, 60percent nuclear powered. We have one of the lowestemittingelectricity grids inthe world, despite not beingblessedwithtons ofhydroelectricity.
Andso that really intriguedme. AndI discoveredthis technology that's muchmaligned. I've sort of always fought for the underdogandmy 16 year oldneoLuddite self, again, might've put out acontract onthe life of my 37 year oldself as
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I got into this. But for whatever weirddopamine rewardsystemI have, I've beenpretty obsessively interestedinthis space, definitely maturedinit fromseeingnuclear energy as akindof absolute sort of panacea.
Beingeducatedby 232 guests nowandbeinginvolvedinadvocacy withinOntariofor more nuclear has taught me alot of lessons about the kindof pace andscalability possible. But I'll wrapit upthere, Nate. Hopefully that wasn't too selfindulgent.
[00:11:48] Nate Hagens: No, no. We're gonnadrill downinto eachof those things.
You have apicture, I recall, onyour Twitter feed, you andJustinTrudeau. So you'veactually brought upthis to the political level inCanada, yes?
[00:12:03] Chris Keefer: Yeah, I've hadthe opportunity to speak. Andthis is trulybizarre. Again, I've, my previous sort of advocacy andactivismwas inthe healthspace.
I foundedone of Canada's first seasonal agricultural worker clinics servingMexicanandJamaicanworkers. I workedat the CanadianCenter for Victims of Torture. Inthat advocacy you developasocial network. It's interesting. But yeah, the nuclearthinghas beenabsolutely mindblowing, as yoU.S.Aid, meetingthe prime minister,leaders of the opposition, the premier of Ontario, the heads of all the biglaborunions here, the CEOs andthe executive suite of the bignuclear companies andsupply chaincompanies, so it's been, andas the social capital of apodcast, it'sbeenabsolutely awildride.
[00:12:47] Nate Hagens: So I have coveredthe basics onnuclear just once or twiceonthis channel. Andagain, you're anERdoctor, that is your profession, but youhave apodcast that's calledDecouple. By the way, what's the originof that word?Andbecause I canthink of about 20ways of decouplinginour world.
What, was the originof your choice of that word?
[00:13:15] Chris Keefer: Well, I startedthe podcast very shortly after my divorce,andso alot of people assumedit was arelationshipadvice podcast. I aminnopositionto offer relationshipadvice, althoughI have awonderful fiancée now, somaybe that rests inthe future.
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Alot of people think about
[00:13:30] Nate Hagens: Well, we'll see if you rename it ReCouple.
[00:13:33] Chris Keefer: There we go. There we go. Well, I'minthat process, again,wonderful fiance. But, yeah, no, it definitely, I was inspiredby the eco modernisttendency, whichagain, wrestlingwiththat questionof, okay, it's fine to kindofromanticize the past, but there's areasonthat the humanpopulationwas stablereally upuntil the industrial revolution.
Andthat's because the average womanhadfive to six children. Andyeah. 2.2 ofthemhadreachedreproductive age. Alot of kids died, right? Andso appreciating,startingto appreciate.
[00:14:08] Nate Hagens: Was this just inthe last athousandcommonerato 200years ago, or does this go way
back?
[00:14:16] Chris Keefer: This goes way back.
I mean, at least accordingto paleo demographers, who look at Peru 400BCE, forinstance, or I think Mallorca, Spain, evenfurther back. I'mnot inapositiontoassess these paleo demographers' methodology, but I'dassume this is pretty solid.Andagain, I think it's borne out.
You canlook at skeletal remains, but you canalso just look at, if you have astablepopulationandyour birthrate is pretty 5 or 6 kids, that infers that, again, only 2of themare reachingreproductive age. Maybe 3 andthensome die offintheir 30sor something, but, that's dark, andso kindof comingfromaromantic, lefty,progressive, maybe kindof degrowther mindset, certainly came to appreciate thenuance, andespecially beinginhealthcare, of the wonderful worldwe live inwhichvery fewparents have to mournthe deathof their children.
It's 0.3 percent nowinmodernindustrializedcountries. So howdo we keepthegains, the goodthings that have come fromdevelopment, fromindustrialization,while minimizingthe ecological impact? So essentially that was the question, sort ofdecouplinghumanwell being, alot of it's, maybe alot of the environmentalists out
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there don't want to admit maybe the basis for this, but I think the trends are quiteclear, has to do withincreasingenergy consumption, increasingwealth.
Andagain, yeah, so howdo you navigate that contradiction? AndI think some ofyour work, quite frankly has put me inalittle bit of crisis about the actualpotentials for decoupling, that tight linkage betweenenergy use andGDPormaterial use andGDP. There's not asort of dematerializationof our economy asmuchas we'dlike to imagine it.
But, afewtechnologies really standout. Nuclear, obviously capable of decouplingat least electricity productionfromcarbonemissions. Andthe environmental casebeingthat because it is suchanenergy dense formof energy, that means we canuse less mining.
It's less landintensive, et cetera. So the podcast has beenpretty nuclear focused,but we've also lookedat biotechnology, ways of producingmore foodonless landso you canrewild. These are some of the sort of tenets of eco modernism, whichisanideology, whichI'mnot completely onboardwith.
I think there's some interestingideas fromit. But anyway, this was the perhaps kindof romantic origins of the podcast.
[00:16:41] Nate Hagens: What ideology are you completely onboardwith?
[00:16:45] Chris Keefer: None. I have afriendwho talks about sort of his politicalallegiances andhe says I'mnot aDemocrat, I'mnot aRepublican, I'macardcarryingmember of the disgustedparty.
I don't really, I don't really findahome anywhere I think because I'mjust reallyrestless, but I do really genuinely appreciate goodarguments that I disagree with.Andso, nuclear has beenabigpart of that because again, we have aset of sort ofunexaminedbeliefs, the kindof package deal of the politics perhaps that we grewupwith, right?
So beingonthe progressive left, I was anti nuclear. I hadn't done my research. Butthat's part of the package deal. I usedto kindof holdmy breathwhenI drove pastone of our nuclear plants, whichis really hilarious because it was built insteadof afour gigawatt coal stationwhere I really neededto holdmy breath.
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But realizingthat my tribe hadreally gottenit wrongandneedingto listentoother voices, oftenonthe political right, whichtends to have alittle bit moreengineeringdiscipline, alittle bit more literacy inmathandthe understandingofthe built world. It didn't meanthat I acceptedall the kindof positions that comealong, maybe the unexaminedbeliefs of the political right, but I didappreciatecertainanalyses that were there.
Andso it's really helpedme to have amuchbroader appreciationfor the needforrobust debate andawhole number of opinions. Andthat's obviously, we're reallysufferinginthis social mediadominated, hyperpolarizedlandscape to navigate thehumanpredicament, as you call it, andpartially it's because of that.
So I kindof owe that to nuclear, strangely enough.
[00:18:22] Nate Hagens: I want to take adeepdive inyour insights onnuclear, butbefore we get to that, maybe you couldjust start by layingout, since you don'tclaimto be anuclear expert but you've had200guests onyour podcast, many ofwhichare nuclear experts.
So you're avery qualifiedlayperson, ERdoctor, onnuclear issues. Please lay out forus the breadthof opiniononthe nuclear issue, frombothextremes andkindofwhat's inthe middle andwe'll go fromthere.
[00:19:01] Chris Keefer: Well, Nate, as you probably noticed, most of it is theextremes, whichis alittle bit frustrating.
People either love nuclear or hate nuclear, or I guess they're indifferent. Andperhaps we'll just acknowledge that they're not sure, they don't know.
[00:19:17] Nate Hagens: So why onthe extremes, let's steel manthe two extremes.Why people love nuclear andwhy people hate nuclear.
[00:19:25] Chris Keefer: Sure.
Well, let's start withthe hate. I think this is fundamentally adual use technology.This is swords andplowshares. Andthis goes back to the beginningof time. Everytechnology has asort of beneficial application, aproductive applicationanda
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destructive application. And, the famous metaphor wouldbe swords andplowshares.
And, the problemis that the swordof nuclear is apocalyptic. I don't knowabout lifeonearth, but certainly interms of any kindof life that humanbeings wouldwantto live. There are several meninthe worldthat canput insome codes andessentially initiate the destructionof humancivilization.
That's apotent reasonto be scaredshitless, frankly, about all uses of nuclearenergy andsort of lumpthemall into one basket. Andso alot of those apocalypticfears are inmy opinionmisplacedonto the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Andthat's not just energy production, that's the productionof medical isotopes, whichabsolutely enable modernhealthcare.
Our candor reactors here inCanadahave aquirk of beingincredible massproductionmachines for medical isotopes. 40percent of the world's surgical, sorry,single use medical devices are sterilizedwithmedical isotopes we produce here. Sothere's alot of positive applications, but the sort of edge case fears that peoplehave about nuclear are really atransference of those fears about nuclearannihilation.
So that's, I think, what drives it. My daddidduck andcover drills duringthe CubanMissile Crisis. I'mdeeply empathetic to people that are, again, scaredshitlessabout nuclear energy. The environmental movement really kindof latchedonto it.Andagain, maybe just goingback to the weapons thing, the fear of radiationwasavital tool instoppingsay atmospheric weapons testing.
For instance, the insanity of sort of where we were headingwithnuclear weapons.Like if you look at the actual datainterms of the atomic blast at HiroshimaandNagasaki, the vast majority of the deaths andinjuries were blast injuries andburnsandgoodoldfashionedexplosive traumainjuries. But the radiationinducedinjuries were apotent motivator of kindof shock andhorror aroundthe use ofthese weapons.
Andso there's akindof longhistory of howour fear of radiationhas beenexaggerated. Certainly, highdose radiationis absolutely deadly, but our kindoffear about lowdoses I think is greatly exaggerated. Andagain, these physicians,primarily actually, who are really involvedingettingatmospheric weapons testing
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prohibitedpartially by lookingfor afewatoms of decay products that you only getfromweapons testinginthe milk teethof babies, right?
Findingsome strontium99, for instance. That was apotent motivator to havepoliticians say, okay, we're goingto just do the test undergroundnow, basically. Butthere's atemptationto try andput the nuclear genie back inthe bottle andstuffitin. AndI think I understandthe motivations there.
That's the anti side. Onthe pro side.
[00:22:27] Nate Hagens: Holdonjust asecond.
What about Fukushimaandthe fact that they're storingall this stuffandsome ofit leaches into the oceanandis that too diffusedto worry about? Is that overblownor do you have any comments onthat?
[00:22:42] Chris Keefer: Fukushimais really interestingbecause it's kindof prettyclose to the worst case scenario.
Three gigawatt scale nuclear reactors meltingdownessentially simultaneously. Andthe healthimpacts fromthat are really, I don't want to soundblasé, but they'renegligible. People will hear that 20,000people diedas aresult of the Fukushimaaccident. Those 20,000people that diedas aresult of the Tohoku earthquake andthe tsunami that followedit.
Interms of deaths fromradiationfromFukushima, there have beennone. Therewas asingle worker who got astill fairly lowdose who was compensated, a50yearoldguy who was also asmoker who got lungcancer several years after theaccident. Most serious epidemiologists don't think it was causedby it, but hey, it'sgoodthat he got compensationandmaybe hadamore dignifiedendof his lifebecause he hadsome extramoney andhis family hadsome money. But really, wehave not seenany radiologic injury fromthis worst case scenario. AndI think whatyou're probably discussingthere is the Fukushimawater. So alot of water got ontothe site, got contaminatedwithradionuclides, has beenfiltered.
The only significant radioisotope left is somethingcalledtritium. It's avery weaklyradioactive element that ends upbindingto water andcreates essentially awatermolecule withaheavy formof hydrogen.
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[00:24:02] Nate Hagens: That's the only one left? The half life of all the others hasalready dissipated?
[00:24:06] Chris Keefer: No, they've beenfilteredout withresins andthings likethat. So interms of the water they're talkingabout releasinginto the Pacific,they're dilutingit downto, andagain, this is the issue withradiation, you have togo downahuge rabbit hole to understanddose andeventhe way it's measured.The units involvedare hugely confusing, but I like to sort of put it money values likedollars andcents, but essentially the safe drinkingwater limits, say, inCanadaare7,000, we'll say becquerels per liter, atomic decays per liter for tritium, they'regettingit downto 1,500.
So you coulddrink the stuff, interms of the way that it's beingdilutedto andbewell, well underneaththe safe drinkingwater limits that we have establishedaroundthe world.
[00:24:51] Nate Hagens: So 16 year oldChris Keefer wouldnot have drank thatwater, but 37 year oldDr. Chris wouldhave?
[00:24:58] Chris Keefer: Well, some of the nuclear advocates have jokinglysuggestedwe have aFukushimadrinkingteam.
There was aJapanese politicianwho diddrink some of the water. He didlook likehe was abit hesitant inthe moment. So there was some reports onthat. Andagain,I don't meanto be blasé about this, the Fukushimaaccident causedanevacuation.People diedbecause of the evacuation.
It's not to be takenlightly, but I think interms of people's apocalyptic fears, wehave there the example of, as I said, atriple meltdownwithabsolutely negligiblehealthimpacts, particularly from
radiation.
[00:25:33] Nate Hagens: So you're at least confident insayingthat drinkingthatfilteredwater fromFukushimais healthier thandrinkingRoundup.
[00:25:41] Chris Keefer: Yes sir. Andalcohol. Andwe couldcome upwithawholenumber of sugary drinks, glucose, fructose.
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[00:25:47] Nate Hagens: You're anERdoctor. Do you drink alcohol?
[00:25:49] Chris Keefer: Occasionally. Occasionally. Yeah. Occasionally.
[00:25:53] Nate Hagens: I usedto drink quite often. I, well, I was at aBioneersconference last week andI hadwine for four nights inarow.
But other thanthat, I haven't hadasingle thingto drink inmany, many months.AndI actually feel quite better. It's just, it's aculture, especially UnitedStates,especially Wisconsin, where I live. I digress. Andby the way, my dadis also adoctorandhe was the chief of surgery for awhile andhas hadlots of ERstories.
I'msure you've seenquite alot of things beinginabigcity emergency room.
[00:26:30] Chris Keefer: I have. I won't bore you withall of the objects I've takenout of people's bums throughout my career, but.
[00:26:36] Nate Hagens: Ohman, I wasn't goingto bringthat up, but seriously,you've done that?
[00:26:40] Chris Keefer: It's apart of the jobinthe emergency medicine world.
People do weirdthings, Nate.
[00:26:45] Nate Hagens: Ohmy god, yeah, I heardthose stories frommy dadtoo.So it's Canadians, too. So, okay, onto the pro nuclear.
[00:26:58] Chris Keefer: Right, right. So, I think people get pretty religious, they findreligion. People that, again, have the unique set of cognitive biases that leadthemto this advocacy camp. There's areally compellingnarrative withnuclear energy.
Again, interms of that incredible energy density, the promise of avery minusculelandfootprint, environmental impact, andfrankly, this wasn't as present before, theextreme situationthat we findourselves lookingdownthe barrel of climate change.Andso, we have, inthe best case or inthe hopes of this class of advocates, asolutionto climate change, asolutionto anexistential problem.
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It's afascinatingtechnology, andthere's certainly some sort of techno fetishismthat goes on. But I'dsay really it stands frompeople probably who are alittle bitcontrarian, andwho look at the available options onthe table interms of replacingfossil fuels andare probably alittle overly generous interms of the potential ofnuclear energy to shift things or replace fossil fuels.
There's certainly some fossil fuel services nuclear energy is great at replacing,stationary power generation, lowgrade process heat for some district heating,desalination, there's some applications that are important, but yeah, it's not apanacea, but I wouldsay that folks onthe extreme pro nuclear side are probablyguilty of thinkingthat this is essentially energy too cheapto meter if done right.
But of course it's never really happenedandthat was just one statement by aguythat's beenquotedfar too often.
So we have the two extremes, the people who love nuclear power anddon't miss achance to advocate it as the answer to society's problems, andthe people who hatenuclear power andthink it's the devil indisguise because of its longtermpotentialto destabilize andpollute the environment. Andthose people account for themajority of commentary that we see insocial mediaandalot of people includingthe people who are energy blind, who just look at the cost of energy at the pumpor ontheir utility bill andthat's the extent of energy's influence onour economy,rather thanlookinghoweverythingthe entire scaffoldingis built onthe complexitypoweredby machines that are fueledby fossil andrenewable energy. So the vastmajority of people are kindof, as yoU.S.Aidearlier, indifferent to nuclear becausethey don't knowthat it's neededor that it's relevant andthey just haven't beeneducated, wouldyoU.S.Ay?
Well, I mean, let me give you like acase study of Ontario, right? If you live inajurisdictionwithalot of nuclear plants, it tends to poll very well, particularly inthecommunities aroundthe plants. They have the best equippedsports teams around,they got the best swimmingpools, they usually kick the ass of the surroundingcommunities because they got better coaches, et cetera. I'mbeingabit facetiousbut the benefits are there. Andyou don't have the smoke comingout of the stack,frankly poisoningpeople, that you do withcoal plants or to alesser degree naturalgas plants. Over the lifetime of anuclear plant the power is very cheapandreallyunderpins alot of economic well being.
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Inthe case of Ontario, so, andthis is alittle bit similar to France, whichis anotherfamous case study of ajurisdictionwithalot of nuclear. That the sayinginFrancewas, "We do not have gas, we do not have oil, but we have ideas." Andvery similarsituationinOntario.
No gas, no coal. We hadwater, whichmy great, great, great grandfather referredto as "white coal," whichmight tell yoU.S.Omething, but we were dependent onimportingalot of coal fromPennsylvaniaandelsewhere inthe U. S. across GreatLakes that sometimes froze, minedby miners that oftenwent onstrike.
It was anenergy insecure situationandit was costly energy. We accidentally sort offoundourselves as areal center, probably the secondgreatest center of nuclearresearchoutside of the ManhattanProject, inCanadabecause alot of Europeanscientists andthe heavy water that they kindof snuck out of Europe as the Nazischasedthemandtriedto get it, came to Canadaandwe endedupdevelopingourownindigenous power reactor design.
But basically, we tappedout our hydroelectric. We built alot of coal stations,includingthe largest inNorthAmericainAnticoke. Andin1973, whenthe OPECcrisis hit, the price of coal doubledandwe hadapower reactor that was ready togo inthe formof the CANDUandwe just startedstampingthose things out.
We never built another large coal plant after that. We just built bignuclear plants.We have the largest operatingnuclear plant inthe world. Andultimately, intheearly 2000s, we were able to completely phase out coal, whichhadbeen25%ofour electricity grid. It wouldhave beenprobably 75%hadwe not gone nuclear, andthinkingthe implications of that interms of energy security, economic well being,humanwell beinginterms of the enormous amount of pollutionthat's estimatedaroundathousandpeople diedprematurely per year because of our coal fleets,there's areally compellingstory there.
So that might be awindowinto sort of, not my fanaticism, hopefully my nuanced,appreciationfor this power source.
[00:32:31] Nate Hagens: Other thanpersonally likingyou andus havingsimilarhobbies or vocations withour podcast, I do really value your balancedviewandyou're not afanatic. Andnuclear is not atopic I knowwell, whichis why I'mreally
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gladthat you're here because I'mgoingto ask you abunchof questions that willbe easy for you, but that I don't knowthe answers to.
[00:33:00] Chris Keefer: Sure.
[00:33:01] Nate Hagens: So, let's go. Inno particular order, here's some questions.So to my knowledge, Ontario is 15 millionpeople, whichis the populationofMichiganandWisconsincombined. Most of the people live inandaroundToronto,I wouldimagine. Howmany nuclear plants are there inthe province of Ontario,give or take, do you know?
[00:33:23] Chris Keefer: Yeah.
So there's three nuclear stations. They're all multi unit stations. So two of these, twoof these sites have eight large candor reactors andone has four large candorreactors.
[00:33:34] Nate Hagens: Andso what about the transmissionof nuclear power?Canthose reactors you just mentionedget electric power all the way to the west ofOntario?
[00:33:48] Chris Keefer: Yeah. Yep. So we have anecient grid, andthat's anotherthingabout nuclear is we call it aexpensive way to make cheapelectricity. Andrenewables, incontrast, acheapway to make expensive electricity interms of all ofthe supportinginfrastructure, nuclear is very ecient interms of transmission.
[00:34:05] Nate Hagens: Okay. So spendafewmoments unpackingthat statementthat you just made.
[00:34:11] Chris Keefer: Yeah, I mean, so your listeners have probably heardof thelevelizedcost of electricity. It's away to compare, really, it shouldbe usedtocompare like withlike interms of this coal stationversus that coal stationor thisnatural gas stationversus that.
It gets really skewedby renewables, whichhave sort of azero marginal cost interms of their operations. But the problemwithrenewables is that they'reintermittent, andthey require backupandoftenthey're locatedfar from
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populationcenters, andtransmissionis amajor cost. I don't want to get too sort ofsidetrackedoffthese kindof nuclear fast questions.
[00:34:49] Nate Hagens: I have 14 of them.
[00:34:50] Chris Keefer: So to try andanswer succinctly, andthenI'mquite atangential speaker. We, our nuclear plants, I'dsay interms of the far northof theprovince, we do have abiomass generatingstationupthere. But, suce it to say,yes, these three nuclear stations, are near populationcenters anddo agoodjob.
[00:35:11] Nate Hagens: But gettingback to the levelizedcosts of electricity, howwouldnuclear compare withsolar andwind? Andwhat was your critique of thelevelizedcosts of electricity? That it's anarrowboundary metric that it doesn'tinclude the actual full cost of gettingthe energy services to the household.
[00:35:31] Chris Keefer: So, there's nothingcheaper thanjiggly electrons comingoutof asolar farm, for instance, whenit's producing, whenconditions are perfect. Butelectricity is aservice, not acommodity.
You don't go to asolar farmandbringyour little bagandsay I needto get 300jiggly electrons andI'mgoingto put some like coins into my toaster sort of whenIneedthem. It's alot like healthcare, whichis, again, I wouldargue aservice, not acommodity. It's somethingthat needs to be reliable, somethingthat needs to bethere for you 24/7, somethingthat needs to be able to adapt to surges indemand.
The kindof narrative that I'duse or the comparisonI'duse is if we were to havewindandsolar doctors andnurses, kindof fair weather friends, they're alittle bitprone to packingit inwhenthe weather changes andthey cando so sort of onvery short notice, I wouldsay, asolar doctor, some clouds wouldgo over, he mightjust dropthe scalpel andgo offfor aprolongedbreak or call it quits for the day.
[00:36:26] Nate Hagens: Whichwouldbe areal problemif you're operatingonsomeone's bum.
[00:36:30] Chris Keefer: Right, right. So suce it to say that requires areally costlybackupnetwork of reliable doctors andnurses. You might have to pay apremiumto that have to come into the hospital to keepyour reliable services goingnonstop,right?
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Andso LCOE, levelizedcost of electricity, ignores those systemcosts andthereforeis not agoodtool to compare unlike withunlike interms of anintermittentrenewable source to adispatchable source of energy.
[00:36:55] Nate Hagens: I ask you because there is the Lazardgraphs that alwaysget toutedaroundthat so many people truly believe that solar is the cheapestenergy source onthe planet.
Andit's only amatter of time before it scales andcompletely replaces fossil fuels,whichis so completely misleading, for many reasons. But amainone is what youjust said. It's only the marginal cost of generationthat they're talkingabout it, notthe 24/7 access to the service.
[00:37:29] Chris Keefer: I will say inorder not to soundlike afanatic here, I thinkthere is arole for solar, probably at pretty modest penetrations interms of carvingoffload, say, interms of the, air conditioningpeak inthe middle of the day. Toomuchsolar, you get into this duck curve where it cannibalizes its ownvalue andyouneedacrazy rampinthe eveningto keepyour gridstable.
But amoderate amount canshave that andthe other applicationafriendof minerecently convincedme of is solar as apower source for desalinationbecause you'reproducingsomethingthat is very storable, whichis freshwater.
[00:38:02] Nate Hagens: What wouldyoU.S.Ay, inreply, people like Mark Jacobsonfrequently tweet, he tweetedthe other day that, inCaliforniaearlier this month,wind, water, andsolar together combinedfor 106 percent of the electricity demandover some of the days, earlier this month.
[00:38:24] Chris Keefer: I believe that the quote was 0.25 to 6 hours per day. Sowhat that means is witha100percent wind, water, andsolar systeminCalifornia,they wouldhave hadAbsolute, black start style blackouts every day for the last 38days.
[00:38:40] Nate Hagens: Are people pro nuclear inOntario? I wouldimagine theyknowalittle bit more about it thanthe average American.
[00:38:46] Chris Keefer: Yeah, recent polling, andwe're onthe verge of amajornuclear expansion. We're goingto increase our nuclear fleet by about 50%. And
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whenpolledonthat, as muchas you cantrust polling, 70%of people are infavorof not just keepingour existingassets but expandingthe nuclear fleet.
About 18%are against and12%undecided. So it's pretty favorable.
[00:39:08] Nate Hagens: So you've had200episodes onyour podcast, andI feellike I'mgettinglonginthe toothhere andI'mat like 120. So, goodonyou. Howmany of those have beendirectly or indirectly relatedto nuclear power?
[00:39:24] Chris Keefer: I'mprobably embarrassedto say, but I wouldsay probablyabout 180, 190of those.
[00:39:29] Nate Hagens: Okay. So I have questions, andunfortunately one of myskills andthat of my network of systems ecologists people is I'mgoodat sayingwhat won't work andless goodat sayingwhat might work or what will.
So I have some ideas that I want to ask you of things onnuclear that I amskeptical about, but let me preface that, andI don't want to spendthis entire timetalkingabout nuclear because you're kindof arenaissance man. AndI do want totalk to you about the podcast andmedicine, andother things.
AndI think we shouldjust agree that this is afirst conversation, andthat you couldcome back andtake adeepdive onsomethingelse. But, what wouldyoU.S.Ay inyour consideredexpertise andindiscussingandfocusingonthe issue of nuclear,what are the best three attributes of nuclear power that people shouldbe aware ofandwhat are the three constraints or limitations that people shouldbe aware of?
[00:40:44] Chris Keefer: Okay, so topof mind, interms of beingaclimate hawk, isthe lowlife cycle emissions. Actually the lowest of any power generationsource, asconfirmedby recent work by the UNEconomic Committee of Europe. So 4.8 gramsof CO2 per kilowatt hour. For reference, I mean, that's pretty close to windandsolar,
[00:41:07] Nate Hagens: Andalmost all of that 4.8 grams is inthe constructionofthe plant?
[00:41:12] Chris Keefer: Andso the longer you runthe plant, the better that numbergets. Andwe're really seeingeconomists andengineers sort of put anarbitrary
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lifespanof 40years onreally for economic planningreasons. But alot of plantsare gettinglicensedout nowto 50, 60years andour CANDUplants we candokindof engine swapout.
So they're goingto 60, 70andmaybe 100years. So nuclear is alot like ahydroelectric dam, but I'll try not to get tangential here. So, the life cycle emissions,andagain, this includes the mining, the millingof the uranium, the constructionofthe plant, the maintenance of the plant, the storage of the waste, incredibly lowemissions.
[00:41:51] Nate Hagens: And, by the way, Chris, I'mnot inyour podcast, you're onmine. So you are allowedto go tangential if you'dlike.
[00:41:58] Chris Keefer: Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So number two, I'dsay it'sreally aquestionof minimizingthat ecological impact. Andagain, why it's suchatheme inthe Decouple podcast.
Certainly because of that incredible energy density of harnessingthe strongnuclear force of the atom, whichagainis so destructive inthe swordapplicationofnuclear, but I wouldargue so constructive inthe the productive side of nuclearpower, is again, that we have anuclear sector, whichthe mines, the factories, thepower plants occupies about 30square kilometers of landinCanada.
To give you asense of that's alittle larger thanthe Toronto PearsonAirport. So avery small impact onnature andwhenyou compare that to more dilute forms ofenergy, particularly windandsolar, they consume vast amounts of lands andreallyindustrializedlandscapes andwe may be sort of conditionedby compellingnarratives andaesthetics to sort of see windturbines as almost like trees naturallygrowinginto the landscape.
They do have ecological impacts andone of the biggest problems withthebiodiversity crisis is tryingdesperately not to transformlandfromwilderness intoagricultural landor otherwise industrialized. So, I guess that'dbe sort of numbertwo compellingreason. Number three, andthis kindof, I guess, goes back to mylefty politics.
I'mwearingmy unionproudt shirt here, unionstrongt shirt. Nuclear, it's veryecient interms of the number of jobs createdbecause it's so energy dense. You
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don't have sort of sprawlingnumbers of workers needed. But the workers that areemployedare highskilled, craft labor, really highlevels of education. To me, one ofmy sort of Myers Briggs personality type features is I love seeingpeople kindofleaninto andachieve their full potential andbe unleashedto do that. Andnuclearis somethingwhere you canstart workingwithahighschool degree. I was goingtocall it adiplomaandsort of onthe jobtrainingthat's available canget people upto incredibly highlevels of education, not to mentionthe sort of the Ph.Dreactorphysicist. The, again, the skill trades people, there's alot of really amazingemployment opportunities andtravelingto anuclear community, I was kindofjokingabout that earlier, but you really see avibrant, healthy community. So andagain, sort of contrastingthat withwindandsolar, inparticular, the other sort ofmainsort of climate solutioninterms of electricity generation,
we see really questionable labor practices, particularly withinthe solar supply chainwithforcedUighur labor andpretty credible allegations comingout of China. Youhave workerless facilities withvery lowwage, lowskilledconstructionjobs availablebasically just inthe installation, inCanadaanyway.
[00:44:54] Nate Hagens: But we needalot more people insolar andwindperkilowatt hour generatedthanin
nuclear, right?
[00:45:02] Chris Keefer: I mean, there's no parkinglots outside of windfarmorsolar farm. So there's no longtermemployment. You needalot of people intheconstructionphase. AndI'll give it to solar. I mean, we've gottenreally goodatbuildingsolar farms very fast, very cheaply.
But, no, there's not alot of longtermjobs init.
[00:45:20] Nate Hagens: But at the endof the day, this is kindof what we talkabout, whichis net energy andenergy surplus. The fact that we have fossil, gas,andcoal, andoil, andnuclear plants means that there's less of us that needtowork inthe energy field.
The rest of us canbe librarians or doctors or inventors or whatever.
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[00:45:44] Chris Keefer: 15 percent of us canbe basically inalliedhealthcare,whether it's doctors, nurses, personal support workers, occupational therapists. Imeanthat, you canhave lots of critiques of modernindustrial societies andthekindof wasteful spendingthat occurs.
But I think that's areally powerful statement. I was just, inpreparationfor thispodcast, lookingat U. S. government spending. Military spendingby the U. S. is800billiondollars. MedicaidandMedicare, 1.6 billion. Andagain, there's alot ofineciencies andI'dargue particularly withinthe U.S. system, that's not talkingabout the insurance money spent as well, but just that commentary of, again, 15percent of people inamodernsociety have jobs lookingafter other people. That'sincredible to me.
[00:46:27] Nate Hagens: Inour ancestral time it was 100percent of people hadjobs lookingafter other people.
[00:46:34] Chris Keefer: I don't knowthat I wouldput it that way. I think you'dprobably have some fewshamans andhealers, but I think most people were prettyoccupiedandtryingto scrape together the calories necessary to kindof maintain.
[00:46:46] Nate Hagens: For their clan. But that's what I meant. That's what Imeant.
Yeah. Okay. So those are the three positives. What about the three negatives orthe three constraints or the things that wouldgive you pause wheninadebatewiththe people who love nuclear as afix all solution?
[00:47:04] Chris Keefer: So I wouldsay nuclear is probably the most challenging,the most dicult formof power generation.
Alot of category errors occur. There's this great quote, recently it was attributedtome by Euripides. I don't think it was him. I've beentryingto Google the source of it.But, "manis blinduntil he finds ametaphor that allows himto see." Andwithnuclear, I wouldmake the comparison,
the best kindof category error you couldcommit wouldbe to say it's alot likehydroelectricity, this massively capital intensive, highrisk constructionproject. It'sanexpensive way to make cheapelectricity. It's anasset that lasts for decades,
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maybe evenupto acentury. Once it's amortized, it produces very cheap, lowcarbonpower, provides goodjobs, underpins alot of economic wellbeing.
But it's expensive upfront. There's no gettingaroundthat. I think there's alot offolks, particularly inthe sort of venture capitalist arena, that commit acategoryerror of thinkingthat nuclear is alot like tech, that there's alot of opportunities forincredible disruption, that these dumbnuclear engineers just haven't thought aboutusingmoltensalts or sodiumfast reactors or burningwaste.
Nuclear is dicult. It's hard. You don't do it unless you have to, andOntario is aplace that hadto. We didn't have coal, we didn't have gas. France is aplace thathadto. They were burningoil fromAlgeriainthe Middle East, andthenthe OPECcrisis came along, andthey neededto do move fast inorder to not bottomouttheir economy.
Japan, right? Burnedthroughits fossil fuels for the Meiji restorationandincrediblebreakneck industrializationthere, but it was goingto come to ascreaminghalt ifthey didn't findaways to import fossil fuels andaway to sort of become moreenergy secure was abignuclear fleet. SouthKorea, I knowthe list goes on.
It's generally anenergy security play. I'dsay the one exceptionwouldbe maybeRussiawhere you don't get highonyour ownsupply. You free upnatural gas forexport by usingnuclear. There's some sort of soft power diplomatic reasons. Butbasically the underlyingdriver is energy andsecurity.
So you don't do it unless you have to because it's technologically complex, requiresthe best of the best people. Andthat's alimit. That's complexity. GreatSimplification. I don't know. We were buildinggoodnuclear plants inthe 70s. Whenpeople talk about aGreat Simplification, or whenyou do, I'mnot sure what youimagine if it's kindof Václav Smil saying, hey, things weren't so badinthe 50s and60s.
Maybe we cansort of shrink back to that level of GDPandthings wouldbe moresustainable. We coulddo nuclear, sort of sixties andseventies. That was one of thekindof great buildouts were. But yeah, openquestion.
[00:49:43] Nate Hagens: No, I mean, simplificationis somethingbetweenacollapseandaMordor economy of continuedgrowth.
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Andit's after we runout of the ability to paper over our financial claims andthedecouplingbetweenhowmuchpeople think they ownandwhat our materialsubstrate is to do that. It doesn't meanthat we go back to the dark agesnecessarily but there's goingto be atransitionandwe're still goingto needalot ofenergy, not as muchas we needtoday, probably, because there's this financialdisconnect. So it's, you knowthis, most of our technology has createdacomplexity,whichhas requiredmore energy. Artificial intelligence is nowahuge demandandabout to get huger. Alot of people that followthis showthink that AI is overhyped.
I'mtalkingto alot of people very close to it that give me the impressionthat it'sactually underhyped. Andalot of the really pro nuclear people I talkedto inthe U.S. investors are really highonnuclear right nowbecause of AI that we're goingtoneedso muchmore power demandthat they're lookingto nuclear as ananswer.
[00:51:11] Chris Keefer: Certainly, if they want to meet their 24/7 cleanenergytargets, baseload's back, baby. I mean, AI datacenters require that baseload24/7power, andthe U.S. gridis becomingincreasingly unstable, for avariety of reasons,what my friendMeredithAnglincalls the fatal trifectaof reliance onintermittentrenewables, just intime natural gas, andjust tryingto import electricity fromelsewhere.
Withthe glut innatural gas prices andthat surplus for the foreseeable future, theycouldpower those datacenters andthey may enduppoweringthose datacenterswithcombinedcycle gas turbines. But certainly, if you're tryingto be lowcarbonnuclear wouldbe the way to do it. I amnot anuclear for nuclear sake kindof guy.
It's ameans, not anend. So yes, there's alot of pre nuclear advocates that are sortof celebratingthis newsurge indemand. Andmaybe it's away to kickstart thenuclear industry so it canmeet other needs anddecarbonize. But right nowAI is acarbonproblem.
It's not asolution. Yeah.
[00:52:09] Nate Hagens: Yeah. AndI'mgonnahave more onthat inthe very nearfuture. Okay. I interruptedyou andyou were gonnatell me your thirdconstraint.
[00:52:21] Chris Keefer: That's agoodquestion. Andthis part of sort of betrays,probably my--
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[00:52:25] Nate Hagens: If you runout, I have 10.
[00:52:27] Chris Keefer: Why don't yoU.S.Tart, just cause I'mdrawingablank andthat reflects poorly onme actually, but go ahead.
[00:52:33] Nate Hagens: So there's only two constraints to nuclear.
Okay. Fuel is aconcernright now. I mean, nuclear, it's real sellingpoint shouldbe,fuel security because, interms of storage, you have two years of fuel inside thereactor. It's suchadense formof energy. You canstockpile nuclear fuel onsite, oronthe national level. But due to anunderinvestment inuraniumenrichment andmost of that uraniumenrichment actually happeninginRussia, 46%of the world'suraniumenrichment occurs there.
There's questions right nowof fuel insecurity. Alot of the advanced, so calledadvancedreactor designs, actually require ahigher level of enrichedfuel, andalotof the aspirations of that sector are goingto be limitedby that not beingpresentuntil we potentially have the sort of policy solutions to upscale enrichment, say inthe U. S. for instance. So that's, another constraint.
That's one of my constraints, is peak uranium. I mean, the fact that the mineable,concentratedores, if the worldwere to dramatically scale nuclear power, andthere's issues withthat without whichI'll offer inafewminutes, that we maybe have50or 60years left.
I think probably because we've not tried, andif we triedwe couldextendthat quiteabit, but what are your thoughts onthe amount of uraniumneededandavailablefor triplingto 10x ishnuclear inthe world?
[00:54:12] Chris Keefer: I mean, first offI'dsay it does soundalot like yoU.S.Aid,peak uranium. I mean, there was concerns about peak oil goingback, I believe, tothe 1920s. Haber Bosch, who inventedthe Haber Boschprocess to fix ammoniaalsowere involvedinthe Fischer Tropschprocess.
AndI remember before I think the Texas oil fieldstartedgushing, there wasconcernamongst the automotive industry inthe U.S. there wasn't enoughoil. Andso these guys were actually tryingto start abusiness model of, I think, coal
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conversion. So I think, part one is there's alot more uraniumthanwe knowabout interms of reserves versus resources, but fundamentally you're right.
Andthe early history of nuclear was we really didn't think there was alot ofuraniumaround. Andso there's alot of interest inareactor technology calledabreeder reactor, whichactually produces more fuel. You put afuel loadandyoucreate more fuel inthe process throughthe alchemy of nuclear power. Breederreactors have not really gone far partially because there hasn't beenthe needbecause uraniumis dirt cheapright nowinterms of if you're aninvestor inuraniumyou're pretty happy because the price has gone upalot, but I mean, relative to theenergy it puts out, I'dsay it's the most undervalued, commodity inthe world.
So withbreeder reactors, you canextend, I have afriend, Nick Turan, who is not afanatic. I'dsay he's very reasonable, middle of the roader type guy, but he's donecalculations where yoU.S.Tart gettingout to millions of years. There's uraniumpresent inseawater. I haven't lookedat the eciencies of extractingit, but
for all intents andpurposes, withbreeder technology, I wouldn't say that's alimitation, except that breeder technology is abit harder.
[00:55:49] Nate Hagens: Give me aone to two minute overviewof the mechanicsof what anuclear breeder reactor, howthat wouldwork andwhat it wouldaccomplish. And, are there any? I don't think there are, there?
[00:56:03] Chris Keefer: There are, so it's, I'msteppingout of my wheelhousedefinitely, right? But we're gettinginto slowneutrons versus fast neutrons. So thecurrent kindof thermal reactors that we have, inorder to split more uraniumatomswe moderate the neutrons that are beingreleasedas part of the chainreaction,slowthemdown, andthat is abit of alimitationinterms of usingwhat are calledfertile elements, where if you maybe addaneutronto them, they become fissileandyou cansplit themagain.
So abreeder reactor, inmy understanding, again, as amedical doctor, but withlots of expert advice, is able to use that fast neutronspectrumblah, blah, blah,blah, blah, andmake these fertile elements that are present into fissile elements,thus generatingmore fuel. Are there breeders active right now?
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Certainly alot of countries have pokedaroundinit withthis interest of closingthefuel cycle. I'dsay the Russians are probably the furthest along. They have asodiumfast reactor programthat's 50or 60years old. They've scaledthat upto, I believe,800megawatts recently. Have they felt aneedto expandthat?
It's not as economic as their light water fleet? Frankly, it's more of asort of, I think,researchanddevelopment armwiththe goal of maybe closingthe fuel cycle atsome point, usingwaste withinthose reactors, but also extendingthe uraniumreserves that they have. So I'll cut it there because I'mgoingto acknowledge thelimits of my expertise.
[00:57:28] Nate Hagens: Well, also, I have so many questions andthere's alot ofother topics too that I want to cover. What about the cost andcomplexity? One ofmy beliefs is we're kindof out of time. We have adecade before this geopolitical,financial systemkindof unravels. Andso I think there's so many times that anuclear plant is over budget andover deadline.
Andevenif you agree withall the positive attributes, yoU.S.Aidto do acrashcourse, nuclear, thingonly wouldmake sense if AI andproductivity or some genie,for our culture is able to extendour timeline. So what do you think about
that constraint?
[00:58:16] Chris Keefer: I'dsay the timeline constraint is pretty muchuniversal interms of lookingat really any technological solutionto our predicament. I agreethings are movingquite quickly. That's not adodge, by the way. Interms of theways that nuclear canimprove, really it has to do, again, it's like ahydroelectricdam, we got to get better at project management andconstruction.
The fastest built nuclear plant was done injust over three years inJapanby ahighly competent supply chainworkforce andexcellent project managers.
[00:58:46] Nate Hagens: They built anuclear plant fromscratchinthree years?
[00:58:49] Chris Keefer: Yeah. Fromwhat they call the kindof concrete base matsof the of the reactor itself to gridconnection.
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We've got Canadareactors that inChinawent fromshovel to abreaker injust overfour years. So it's possible to buildthese things quite quickly. The innovation, again,the venture capitalists are going, again, probably comingwiththat SiliconValleytechbias of listen, I've made billions creatingasocial mediaplatformwhere youhadto click less andtheneveryone went to it.
Andlike I'mnot tryingto minimize some of the disruptions that have happenedintech. That's abit pejorative, but there's beensome pretty bigthings. Nuclear is farmore slowmoving. Andthe innovations, if you look at the cost of buildinganuclearplant, only about 20%of it is inthe actual reactor.
80%of it is inthe civil works andthe balance of plants. Andso the place forinnovationis really inproject management beingmore like those Japanese projectmanagers. Nuclear plants are the most robust structures that humanbeings havecreated. Maybe you couldsay the pyramids are alittle more robust.
But, because of A, the dangers, whichI think are alittle bit overhyped, again, thekindof culture of excellence innuclear engineeringthat was calledthe defensivedepthis wild, right? Every potential thingthat couldgo wrongis consideredandobviously earthquakes are part of that story.
So interms of preparinganuclear power plant, you're diggingahundredfeetdown, you're puttingincertaintypes of fill that canabsorbseismic shocks. You'vegot the kindof abase mat of concrete. Again, I'mnot acivil or structural engineer,but those civil works are alot. The water intake channels, it's alot of concrete andsteel.
That contributes, as we were sayingearlier, to the life cycle carbon. Andthat'sreally the mainsource of life cycle carbonemissions for nuclear. But that's what Irefer to there.
[01:00:41] Nate Hagens: All right.
So one of the biggest concerns that I personally have hadwithregards to nuclearpower is the assumptionthat civilizationwill always continue andthat there won'tbe ahiatus due to anEMPpulse, or asolar flare, or awar, or some massivereductionincomplexity that causes the 500oddnuclear plants to thenhave theirenvironmental costs all be backloadedandChernobyl onsteroids.
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I watchedthe TVshowChernobyl. It was like afour part series. I thought it wasexcellent. Of course yoU.S.Ee the other TVshows that showthe wolves andthewildlife are thrivingnowwhere Chernobyl usedto be, but you also hear stories ofcows withfive legs andother things like that. So, giventhe followers of this podcastare at least emotionally andcognitively aware of the systemic possibility of dieselfuel that is usedinthe backupgenerators at anuclear plant suddenly beingunavailable evenafter two weeks of backupdiesel supplies andthat people thendon't go to the nuclear plant because they can't get there or their ATMcards don'twork because of some loss incomplexity.
Andso what are those risks, that insuchascenario andwe coulddebate whetherthat's 1%or 20%possible inthe next century. But under that scenario, what are thenuclear waste, radiation, et cetera, risks to the areas aroundnuclear plants. WhatcanyoU.S.Ay about that?
[01:02:44] Chris Keefer: Right, right.
So first offthat electromagnetic pulse scenario has beenfactoredinsince theeighties into this defense at depthmentality that nuclear engineers have. Andsonuclear plants are designedandhardenedwiththat inmind.
[01:02:58] Nate Hagens: Narrowboundary though. They're lookingat the EMPtothe plant. I'mtalkingabout the EMPto society.
[01:03:03] Chris Keefer: No, no, they're lookingto the whole system.
[01:03:05] Nate Hagens: Oh, really?
[01:03:06] Chris Keefer: Yeah, the way that's magnifiedthroughelectric lines. Well,trust me, these are some of the smartest people onthe planet andthey're thinkingthroughevery eventuality andone way to generate anEMPis astratosphericnuclear detonationinterms of anuclear weapon.
So that has beenvery carefully lookedat. The experts I've talkedto is that it wouldleadto ascraminterms of just areactor shutdown, all the control rods goingin.Andthenthe emergency coolant systems running. So not to say it's anothingburger, but you know, andthis is afamiliar territory interms of because of people'sapocalyptic fear of nuclear weapons andthat transference to nuclear energy, these
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kindof edge case scenarios are oftenbrought upto imagine, well, howcanthisturninto anuclear apocalypse, as we wouldsee withweapons. As we sawwithFukushima, again, the simultaneous meltdownof three large boilingwater reactors,andyou canlook at this because you're goingto hear, but I heardastudy that thismany people diedfromradiationfromFukushima. That's more of the case withChernobyl studies that you'll hear, say Greenpeace, amillionpeople are goingtodie fromChernobyl or the GreenParty of Europe commissionedastudy that said50,000people will endupdeadbecause of Chernobyl, prematurely dead. Thequality of that literature, you get to the UNSCEARreports, this is eight UNagencies, three countries participating, consensus decisionmaking, hundreds ofscientists, andthey're goingdownto 50confirmeddeaths andapossible 3 to4,000fromthyroidcancer.
So you get these huge kindof disparities, but Chernobyl is evenlike far worse thanFukushima. I mean, this is areactor without containment that blewits lid, thatcaught onfire andburnedfor 12 or 13 days witharadioactive plume that wentacross EasternEurope, andinto Europe.
Andagain, if you use, this is somethingthat's abigpart of medical educationrightnow, critical appraisal skills, right? As we sawwithCOVID, you findall kinds ofstudies, preprints, andwe, interms of the way that social mediaamplifies things, ifyou findsomethingthat fits your cognitive bias, you don't readthe paper, you don'tlook if the methodology's any good, yoU.S.Hare it.
Andthat is abig, I wouldleave it to people to critically appraise the studies interms of the healthimpacts of nuclear accidents. EvenChernobyl, whichis farworse thanFukushima, andwe don't buildnuclear plants like that anymore. Thesafety culture is totally different.
The healthimpacts, very minimal andless thanrunningacoal fleet, certainly,where you're just constantly puttingout, PM2.5 particles that eveninwhat weconsider to be goodair quality conditions, have afour to eight percent increasedmortality rate fromthings like lungcancer andcardiovascular disease.
So, interms of imaginingthese kindof worst case scenarios, it'dbe really badifthe world's 430nuclear plants all simultaneously lost the ability to cool themselves.As you mentionedinawar zone, this is not great, right, but the Zaporizhianuclearplants, I believe it's four large gigawatt scale reactors, they've been, they're incold
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shutdownnow, but they manage those despite awar zone type event. Not aChernobyl style plant. Andso, the ability to keepthe reactor core cool for as longas possible, like the reactivity comes downexponentially, but I'mnot sayingit's anothingburger.
It's not aproblem. But interms of these apocalyptic fears, bothfor humanity andfor the biosphere, I can't think of anythingthat's more grossly exaggerated.
[01:06:34] Nate Hagens: So let me ask afollowupto that, Chris. So let's say thatthere's two different scenarios. There's one scenario where somethinghappens thatnone of us cananticipate.
Andthese 430plants don't have any warningandthenthey react. The secondwouldbe that we have amonthnotice of somethinghappening. There's abigwarand, or whatever it is, andthe operators of these plants have time to shut themdownproperly. Is there abigdifference theninthe radioactive externality pollutionrisk betweenthose two scenarios?
[01:07:19] Chris Keefer: I mean, definitely the longer you cankeepthe core, andFukushima, to be clear, they were able to keepthe cores cooler. I think it was, onthe scale of hours, but evenhours, you're droppingthe level of reactivity massivelyinthe amount of heat andenergy that core is producing. But again, interms ofthat, Chernobyl esque, far worst case scenario, the healthimpacts we see are verysmall.
So I don't want to minimize andsay there's no difference. Obviously, you cangetthe plant, I think, pretty close to coldshutdownafter amonthinwhichit's reallynot muchactive energy requiredto kindof maintainthat core as it finally coolsdowninto astate of coldshutdown.
But, inthat worst case scenario, I don't want to minimize that, but interms of,again, our apocalyptic fears of what didyoU.S.Ay, five footedmoose or something?There, there was really, because this is abig, this is abigstory, right? I mean,there's awhole Chernobyl's childrencharity, whichbrings childrenfromChernobyl,oftenwithcongenital heart defects andother problems, to Ireland, to Canada, andgives themsort of aradiationretreat andrespite.
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Andit's abeautiful organizationinterms of these disabledchildrengettingto liveinawealthy country for afewweeks, andbe caredfor, andmaybe get specialistcare they couldn't back home. There is absolutely zero evidence that Chernobylcausedthese congenital heart defects andother things.
Indeed, there was awhole genome sequencingstudy that came out acouple yearsago, whichlookedat folks that got some of the highest doses at Chernobyl andlookingfor germline mutations betweenparents andkids inalarge sample ofpeople withhighradiationexposures inthe general public. No increasedgermlinemutations were foundwhatsoever inthis study.
They didfindgermline mutations inif the father smoked, for instance, right? Sothis gives you asense of, sort of, I don't want to say that radiationis anothingburger, like for instance, nuclear waste, that irradiatedfuel freshout of the reactor,if it's not shielded, you'dget alethal dose inseconds anddie, ahorrible death.
Andyet, inthe history of civiliannuclear energy interms of storingandhandlingspent fuel, not reprocessingit, but storingit, there's not beenasingle incident interms of someone dyingas aresult of exposure to radiation. Andthat's becauseradiationis very easy to measure andit's very easy to shield.
So, there is adanger there. But we're able to manage those risks very well, as that70year track recordof, for instance, handlingspent nuclear fuel is demonstrativeof.
[01:09:44] Nate Hagens: So, here's my last questiononthis, andyou coulduse thisas asegue to afollowupquestion, or my last kindof constraint, is, I got alot ofcriticismwhenI hadmy Great Simplificationvideo, the animatedvideo that we putout last year, people are like, ah, he didn't mentionnuclear.
That means he doesn't knowwhat's goingon. So there's energy properties anddifferent energy qualities. And, if we are worriedabout oil peakinganddeclining,whichis inevitable, I think AI may prove to extendthe peak. We don't knowyet. Butwe're at or close to the peak. Many countries have peakedalready andmost ofwhat we planonconsuminginthe future is incountries like IranandIraq, whichwemay be at war withinthe near future, who knows?
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But, one of the things that I'mcurious about is nuclear is generator of electricitylike solar andwindare whenonly around19%of global energy use right nowiselectricity. So there's amismatchwiththe endservices of what humans currentlyare using. Andthere's alot of decentralizedtransportationandcars andtrucksandthings like that.
So that's somethingthat I call attentionto, but I'll let you comment onthat, butthenyou canfollowby answeringthis. Assumingthat there are different energyfacilities inthe future that use nuclear power, what wouldbe the three or four orfive best use cases for if we're able to scale nuclear plants?
What shouldthat baseloadpower inthose plants be best usedfor inour currentsociety? I'll let you answer any way you wouldlike there.
[01:11:49] Chris Keefer: Yeah. I mean, I'mvery aware, partially throughyour workandothers, this questionof like energy fungibility or energy quality. Just becausewe have units like kilowatt hours, that disguises the kindof utility of eachformofenergy that we use.
And, for instance, liquidhydrocarbons, I think you're very right to be concernedabout peak cheapoil. You've mappedout supply chains inyour book whichI havehere onmy table. It's incredibly complex andwe have complexifiedthe hell out ofour... we have six continents supply chains. I mean, I was just reviewing, there's afamous essay onhowto make apencil, right?
Andit's like graphite minedinlike Brazil, India, China, right? Needlike aluminumandcopper alloys for the little eraser stub. You needpetroleumproducts for theeraser. This is amajor concern. Andnuclear does not solve that issue, that servicethat liquidhydrocarbons provide, whether it's agriculture, runningtractors, whetherit's the vast majority of marine propulsion, that's not aircraft carriers andnuclearsubmarines, whether it's diesel trucks, whichwe're so dependent ondiesel power,diesel electric trains.
So that is amajor limitation. I think the problemwithalot of the energy transitiondebate is that we have this existential problem, andwe're tryingdesperately tomake, I always forget if it's roundpegs fit insquare holes or square pegs inroundholes. I imagine they don't go well into either.
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But there's this forcingof we've got to make it work. AndyoU.S.Ee that, I think, insome of the really, frankly, bullshit models fromthe IPCCinterms of bendingthatemissioncurve down. Andoftenit relies oninsane amounts of bioenergy carboncapture andstorage, for instance, to kindof force the model to work.
But similarly, amongst the nuclear is apanaceafolks, they'll say, listen, this isessentially limitless, abundant, cleanenergy, we canuse it to runanumber ofprocesses to make synthetic hydrocarbons, so don't worry about it. I'mnot of thatmindset. I think that similarly to yourself, we are runningaredline. Energy is theeconomy. I'mnot goingto repeat all your talkingpoints here, but you know, if theprice of oil goes to 150or 200abarrel, that risks really tankingour economy. Andour, I'mnot goingto... people who are listeners of this podcast are familiar.
So no, I don't think nuclear cando that. But what it's useful for, I mean, sostationary electricity generation. Andyou couldargue, you'dmentionedabout 19percent of the world's energy use is electricity. You couldargue that we have aglobal electricity shortage if we were serious about decarbonization.
For instance, hightemperature process heat, that's providedvery well by electricarc furnaces. But we don't have enoughelectricity to dedicate to that, for instance,right? that's kindof hardpath, bighydro dams andnuclear plants that kindofwouldallowthat use of energy to get aroundsome of those fossil fuel services.
[01:14:38] Nate Hagens: We either have anelectricity shortage or acomplexitylongage.
[01:14:42] Chris Keefer: Or, like asurplus use of fossil fuels. AndI knowyou'dprobably say, listen, every time we discover anewformof energy, it's just additive.Right. Andyeah, that's probably true. Right.
[01:14:51] Nate Hagens: So far it has been.
[01:14:53] Chris Keefer: There's no biological organismthat will go, wow, there's asweet concentration, I'mgonnabypass that.
[01:15:00] Nate Hagens: Whichis why I'mnot so sanguine onAI's possible optimismondevelopingnuclear fusionas ananswer to all our problems. Do you have anythoughts onthat?
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[01:15:11] Chris Keefer: I'mincredibly bearishonfusion. I mean, fromthe firstsplittingof heavy elements, nuclear fission, 1932, to commercial nuclear power, 1956.
That's areally short timeline. Our first sort of inductionof fusion, basically inbombs until now, we are still nowhere close to gettingapositive Qvalue intermsof the energy out versus energy in. Andthe engineering, these machines I've talkedto, ITERphysicists runningthe Topamax inEurope.
Andthey say this machine is eatingitself. The kindof neutronbombardment of thematerials, the complexity there. If we're strugglingto buildavery complex nuclearplant, like the AP1000s we just built inVogel. Multiply that complexity by tenfoldandtell me that you're goingto deliver that project more easily.
Andalot of the hype aroundfusionis it solves the so calledproblems of nuclear,these intractable problems of, say, waste andproliferationandaccidents. Anditreally doesn't. I mean, do you think that fusionresearchis not critical tothermonuclear weapondevelopment? I've got friends who work inbiglaserlaboratories, like Lawrence Livermore, andmost of that researchis for makingsurethe bombs will go off, right?
There's atotal link there. There's kindof more intermediate level waste that'screated, not so muchhighlevel withfusion, but the biggest issue is, these areengineeringsolutions to communications problems. Nuclear waste is not that bigofadeal. We don't needto developatechnology, I mean, that I just frankly don'tthink we're goingto harness anytime soon. If we are able to get that positive Qvalue out, are we goingto be able to buildthe goddamnthing? The projectmanagement, the constructionskills that are evasive to us inamuchsimpler, easierto force, harnessingof atomic energy?
I don't think so, but there's my position.
[01:16:58] Nate Hagens: Andthat doesn't evenget to my point, whichis, let'sassume we have too cheapto meter or evenfree electricity, givenour currentcultural value systemaspirations andscoringmetrics of GDP, we wouldfry theplanet by bringinginlots of other noncarbonor carbonresources withthat energyunderpinningit.
[01:17:23] Chris Keefer: Yeah. I don't disagree withyou, Nate.
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[01:17:25] Nate Hagens: So nuclear fusion, if it ever arrives, wouldhave to alsoarrive withabetter formof coordination, governance, andcultural values, inmyopinion.
[01:17:35] Chris Keefer: Andto take it to extremes as your guest, Thomas Murphy,has shown, I guess eventually withthis limitless cleanenergy, we'dhave to findaway to get all the waste heat offthe planet before we boil the oceans.
[01:17:46] Nate Hagens: That's right. Withafewmore doublings, we, I forget howmany, we wouldboil the oceans, just fromthe waste heat.
[01:17:52] Chris Keefer: 400years of 2-3 percent growth.
[01:17:54] Nate Hagens: So, I have alot more to ask you. One more thingonnuclear. What about the small modular reactors, andSMRs, andmoltensalt, andsome of the things like that versus the triedandtrue conventional, largeconventional plants, that we knowwork today.
What is your sense onthat landscape?
[01:18:20] Chris Keefer: So the nuclear industry is, as ananthropologist of it, havingmet lots of people that work withinit, it's absolutely fascinating. It's mostly thesereally nerdy, smart engineer types andthey're brilliant engineers andthe way theythink is engineering.
Andso they come upwithengineeringsolutions to social license problems andcommunications problems, as is mentioningwithwaste, but also--
[01:18:39] Nate Hagens: What's asocial license problem?
[01:18:41] Chris Keefer: Well, if nuclear is unpopular, right? Thenyou rebrandit as asmall modular reactor. You don't evenuse the Nwordinthere. Andmaybe you canconvince people this is friendlier, it's different, it's better, it's shinier, right?
Or, another issue, another reasonthat SMRs were invogue, andI'll really arguethey're fallingout of vogue, was this ideathat government will never financenuclear anymore. So you needto get aplant downinterms of the financingtoabout abilliondollars if you want the private sector to finance it.
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So there was awhole sort of paradigmthat's alittle more thanadecade oldthatwent against everythingandthe entire track recordof nuclear. The bigcostreductions that we see inthe first 10, 20years of nuclear are absolutely fromscaling. Fromthese 20to 100megawatt reactors uptowards the gigawatt scale.
Where, you know, the gridsize permits it, we have always scaledto agigawattbecause economies of scale are real. The SMRadvocates are bigfans of Wright'slaw, whichis basically aneconomies of multiples. If you double the amount of unitsthenyoU.S.Houldget asort of positive learningrate andit shouldreduce bywhatever percentage it is.
We oftendon't see that anuclear that's really evadedus interms of those positivelearningrates that are remarkable withthings like windandsolar. Andagain, eventhe use of the termSMR, it is, like renewables, anincredibly imprecise term. It's thismassive grabbag. Probably what your listeners, interms of those who kindofimagine the best case for SMRis they're like, ohyeah, these are, plants you candeliver onthe back of atruck andthere's minimal civil works andthey just snaptogether like Lego, connect themto the grid.
Andthat's certainly, I think the industry andthe trade associations are guilty ofsellingthat story andthey've really over promisedandthey're about to underdeliver. So scale, scale is, very real withinnuclear. And, the imprecisionof SMR. Soagain, we're lumpingtogether, so calledadvancedtechnologies, things like moltensalt reactors, sodiumfast reactors, anythingthat's not sort of water moderatedandwater cooledis nowkindof consideredanadvancedreactor, despite the fact thatthese reactor concepts were attemptedinthe 50s, 60s, and70s, andfor economicreasons they didn't make it. It's not to say that we shouldn't researchthemmoreandmaybe developthem, but they really needto be aside project of provennuclear, whichis already struggling, right?
But, again, there's this narrative that's really exciting, because hey, you canbreedmore fuel thanyou use, maybe these things canconsume nuclear waste. I mean,these aren't real priorities to us inthe here andnow, at the moment. Andso youknow, I've consistently inmy podcast, andI've beenabit of acontrarianinthis,beenanadvocate for, again, focusingonthe project management, focusingontheconstructionskills, the boringstuffof nuclear, right?
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Andembracingthe highvalue, longtermasset that is anuclear plant, just like abighydrodamis alongtermkindof lowcarbonasset. It's abit more of aboringnarrative, it's less inspiring, but it's certainly what's provenandwhat we knowworks.Andinplaces that have sort of followedthose rules of abuildingastandardizedgigawatt scale reactor over andover again, at least we don't see atonof negativelearningcurves.
We see, inFrance, for instance, 56 reactors commissionedinabout 20years. Andnow, essentially decarbonizingtheir electricity accidentally inthe 70s and80s. Asimilar story inOntario. I mean, there's really kindof cool andinspiringstories herewithdoingwhat we know.
And, interms of what has risento the top, what has actually advancedinterms ofnuclear technologies, it's done it for areason. These things are easier to operate,easier to maintain. We've beenhandlinghighpressure steamas aworkingfluidandpressure vessels since the dawnof the industrial revolution.
Addingfissioninto that wasn't ahuge leap. Moltensalt reactors, havingafuelthat's melted, all the alchemy of anuclear reactionhappeningas akindof liquidthat's all throughout the reactor versus containedinafuel pellet andafuelelement, I'mgettinginto specifics here.
But I'mnot particularly bullishonadvancedor small modular reactors as you canhear fromthis brief diatribe. There's not aneasy fix, Nate. There's not aneasy fixto this.
[01:22:47] Nate Hagens: There's alot more I want to ask you onnuclear, but wemight have to save that for aroundtwo because I want to give awhole viewofChris Keefer, renaissance man, podcaster, inthis first interview.
One final nuclear questionthough. Howdoes the political attitude towards nucleardiffer betweenyour country, Canada, andmine, the UnitedStates? Andis there aheavy political divide, left versus right, onthis issue?
[01:23:16] Chris Keefer: So I will say lookingfromCanadasouthof the border, I canidentify one andonly one issue that seems to have bipartisansupport right now.
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Andthat is nuclear energy. So the Bidenadministrationis all inonnuclear. Theloanprograms oce, Jigar Shah, the Department of Energy, they're all in. They'refrustratedwiththe nuclear industry. They're tryingto pushit along. There's massiveincentives inthe InflationReductionAct for nuclear. I think, productiontax creditsthat approach50%
if you buildonabrownfieldsite, use unionlabor, whichbasically is asort of goeswithout saying, anduse alocal supply chain, whichnuclear tends to localize itssupply chain. So, the social license is big. What's different betweenCanadaandU.S. is the nonprofit industrial complex. So there's abeautiful tax avoidancemechanisminthe U.S., whichis if you're avery wealthy individual, lots ofgenerational wealth, you start afoundationandyou candecide howyou want toessentially spendthat tax burden.
You canmove it into your pet causes. Andso, if you look at the value of thenonprofit sector inthe U.S., it's alarger economy thansome pretty respectableeconomies aroundthe world, andparticularly, the combinedrevenues of SierraClub, of Greenpeace, of Friends of the Earth, is approaching, not into the doubledigit billions, but I think at last I checked, five or six billiondollars.
They've beenresolutely anti nuclear. They've beenvery influential. Alot of staffersthat are sort of cultivatedwiththe environmental movement become politicalstaffers, andhave beenvery influential. Andso, inCanada, we don't have thatsame strengthof anonprofit sector, the anti nuclear activists have beenlessinfluential andhave really wanedinterms of influence, partially as they've justgreyedout, because there's not alot of youngpeople that are enticedby anantinuclear narrative anymore, but again, partially just because not the same kindofmoney as that at play, interms of influencingpolitics.
AndI will say the anti nuclear, or the NGOs that have beenpouringalot of moneyinto anti nuclear, eventhe Rocky MountainInstitute has really softenedits views onnuclear, andI think the SierraClubrecently defundedtheir mainsort of legalbranchthat was fightingfor the closure of nuclear plants, for instance.
It's aremarkable transformationinthe last five years.
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[01:25:25] Nate Hagens: Thank you. That was apretty goodwhirlwindoverview. SoChris, please nowshift hats. Put onyour podcast hat. Is your podcast audio only orare you on
video onYouTube as well?
[01:25:40] Chris Keefer: First 40episodes audio only, biggest mistake of mypodcastingcareer. Yeah, I knowYouTube is agreat place for alot of theconversations happeninthe comment sections onYouTube for whatever reason.That's where alot of interactionhappens. Andyeah, it's both.
[01:25:52] Nate Hagens: So knowingwhat you knowabout our spectrumof societalnarratives, what do you anticipate will be the comment sectiononthis podcast sofar onwhat you've saidonmy channel?
[01:26:11] Chris Keefer: I think it's gonnabe interestingbecause I think you have apretty variedaudience. Certainly, I think you attract, for better or worse, kindofcertaindegrowthaudience, probably sort of progressive environmental audiences isasort of core listenership, andI knowit's muchmore diverse thanthat.
AndI think they'll probably take issue withthe blasé way that I've probably talkedabout nuclear risks as they wouldperceive them. So I imagine there'll be some ofthat. I think as well, interms of, again, you've, I think, elucidatedvery well, anuancedperspective onwhat you imagine aGreat Simplificationto look like.
That this isn't us goingback to the Stone Age perhaps. But, I'mnot sure about yourlisteners interms of, andthere's alot of romanticization, andI even, I won't accuseyou of it, but interms of your questionabout childmortality, was that just the lastkindof, was that just since the agricultural revolutionthat it got bad?
Or, was there some kindof illustrious hunter gatherer past whenwe livedinharmony withnature? One of my favorite physicians, Hans Roslinghas agreatquote. He says, humanity never livedinharmony withnature. We diedinharmonywithnature. Andit was mostly womenandchildbirthandchildrenunder five.
So I think that's afundamental tensionto wrestle withandthese gains interms of,early childhoodsurvival are recent. This is the last 50, 100years. I mean, Somalia,
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it's still 14 percent of kids. Usedto be 50percent andthat's kindof throughouthumanhistory.
I think that's the thingto wrestle withbecause I think some people, I mean, wemight get into this later, but Cubaprovides areally interestingexample of aneconomic shock whenthey were cut offfromtheir Soviet sponsors andtheir GDPshrunk by 35%over acouple of months. AndI usedto be asort of Cubasolidarityactivist, it's avery, you have to be very careful of discourse aroundCubabecauseideologues are drawnto it oneither side of the political spectrumlike moths to aflame, but I imagine the comments sectionof this podcast might wrestle alittle bitwiththese questions of like, howbadis it goingto be?
The doomers will probably be all over that. But I think romanticization, this idea,eveninterms, I knowthat you touchonagricultural topics fromtime to time.VandanaShivahas beenaguest several times. I think there's anideabaseduponif we imagine this simplificationfuture, we may think of like acampingtripandwe're like campingtrips are great,
I love cookingover afire, andyou forget that you drove there andyou hadagreattent made inPakistanwithreally waterproof fibers. Or you think about like atransitionvillage you visitedor apermaculture farmyou went to. Andthese againare islands inaseaof afossil fueledcivilizationandoftenhave enormous fossilfuel inputs into them.
So I think we have areally hardtime imagining, andthere's alot of sort ofidealismof sort of, oh, this industrial society is really terrible. Why don't we simplifyit to somethingthat's nicer? AndI don't think you share that delusion, but I thinkthat might be atheme.
[01:28:57] Nate Hagens: So I do want to ask you about healthcare andmedicine,approachingduringandafter The Great Simplification.
But let's stay onthe podcast theme. Since 180of your 200oddepisodes have beenonthe topic of nuclear, presumably you have attractedanaudience that is veryinterestedinthe nuclear question. Whereas I'mcoveringanthropology,neuroscience, climate, biodiversity, debt, energy, properties, geopolitics, everything,andinvariably, andit's gettingworse, whatever episode I cover, the ideologues willshowupandcriticize.
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I mean, it's not everyone. There's more positive comments thannegative. But myquestionto you as apodcast host is, inthis polarizedsocial media, ideological,tribal, identity-ladenworld, howdo we have aconversationandintegrate thebroader societal narratives, andsuppress our identities, at least temporarily, inorder to have adiscourse onthe things that matter?
What have you learnedandwhat are your core insights onthis?
[01:30:11] Chris Keefer: I mean, I've really learnedto sort of depersonalize andnottake anythingpersonally andalso delight inideas that, well expressedideas that,trigger all of my cognitive dissonance, andthat's, maybe it's like atrainingprocess,but I love hearingwell articulatedarguments that are, that I absolutely disagreewith. And, I think, as asociety--
[01:30:36] Nate Hagens: Explainthat
[01:30:37] Chris Keefer: I don't know. It hasn't always beenthat way. Like, again,comingfromlike eventhe hardleft, the romantic left, the Marxist Leninist left, Iwouldn't say I was ever like a, I'mamember of the disgustedparty. I've never reallyfelt at home inany ideology, but onthe extreme or hardleft, as onthe extreme orhardright, I think there's anideathat like, people that don't agree withus are justkindof stupid.
If they only knew, if we couldjust explainto them, they'dbe converts. Andthenthose that don't agree. I mean, insort of Stalinist Russia, they shouldgo to theGulagor get linedupagainst the wall. There's atotal intolerance onbothsides ofthe political spectrumfor free speech, for adiversity of opinions.
Andit cripples societies. One of the reasons that I think, there's many reasons thatthe liberal capitalist systemwonout inthe ColdWar. I don't want to simplify thistoo much, but the free exchange of ideas is just so vital. We're inawhole numberof different predicaments, andif we don't have abreadthof opinion, andmaybe Ihate to kindof weighinto COVIDbecause it's so politicized, right?
But, this is potentially anillustration, andI'msort of drawingfromJonathanHaidt'swork, inThe Righteous Mind. We are aspecies that's evolvedas asocial species. Interms of asort of selectionpressure, we always see within, basically every human
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society, people onthe left, people onthe right, conservatives, liberals,authoritarians, communitarians, libertarians, right?
Andthat might frustrate us inour various political polls, but whenwe recognizethat all those voices are really necessary, that's agoodthing. So let's take COVIDfor instance. WhenI'mworkinginthe emergency department inToronto andwe'reseeingthese tsunamis right. inIran, for instance, inItaly, inNewYork, right?Doctors, freezer trucks outside interms of for deadCOVIDpatients, doctorsintubatinginscarves. We were terrifiedinToronto. I was ahuge advocate. I wasmessagingmy MPandsayingthe military shouldbe out inthe streets enforcinglockdowns.
Right? Andthat kindof authoritarianimpulse inthe face of athreat that, wethought there was acase fatality rate of 5 percent withCOVID, that 10percent ofpeople wouldendupinthe ICU, that 20percent of people wouldbe hospitalized.AndI ranthe numbers inmy emergency department andI was like, we're goingtolose 15, 20people inthis department, right?
There's goingto be 40of us that will enduponventilators. Andinthat context,withthe limitedinformationwe had, anauthoritarianimpulse, I think absolutelyappropriate. As bothnatural immunity, vaccine inducedimmunity, andanattenuationof the virus occurred, there was akindof hangover of thatauthoritarianismthat went ontoo long, andso libertarianvoices came in.
They didn't necessarily, they weren't sort of savory voices per se, maybe have adifferent opinion, or there's adiversity of opinions onsay the truckers protests inOttawa, but I wouldargue that authoritarianimpulse was stale, it hadgone ontoolong, it was no longer appropriate, it was causingdamage. You only have so muchsort of public healthsocial capital until you burnthroughit. There was ahangoverthere.
It neededacourse correction. Andso the libertarians came inandthat was, this isjust one example where it's, I think, important we're facedwithnovel challenges andasort of diversity of opinionis super important interms of bothunderstandingthenewpredicaments andhowto engage anddeal withit.
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[01:33:50] Nate Hagens: So, more important thanbeingable to suppress youridentity andbe agoodlistener, what I'mhearingfromyou is the ability to changeyour mind.
[01:34:01] Chris Keefer: Absolutely. Andagain, just to reference JonathanHaidt forasecond, he hadthis great example, right? If afarmer is tryingto get the mosteggs out of achicken, if you select anindividual, you findthat henthat just layslike crazy andyou try andbreedher, you endupwithless eggs because alongsidethat trait for layingmore eggs is aggressiveness andthey peck eachother to deathandthe overall productiongoes down.
So what you do is you grabgroups, you segregate chickens into groups of 12.Whichever grouplays the most eggs, that's your breedingstock. Andit's I think alot like humans, whichhave all, andI'mjust quotingHaidt here. This isn't myoriginal thoughts, but we evolvedcollectively insmall groups of hunter gatherers,25, 50, ahundred,
andthere's areasongenetically, I think, why there's this political spectrum. Like inevery society aroundthe world, there's liberals andconservatives. Like why isn'tthere some country or some village where everybody is super liberal? I think there'sareasonfor that. AndI think there's aevolutionary advantage to adiversity ofopinions.
Andagain, this contradicts my sort of hardleft past, but I'mreally gladfor thatnuance. Andagain, abigjourney of myself, not into the political right, but forappreciationof certainarguments andelements andviewpoints fromthe politicalright is that understandingthat we do needadiversity of viewpoints to identifyandunderstandthe problems that we have andto generate solutions. Andfor oursolutions to change over time as the facts onthe groundchange, as inthe sort ofCOVIDexample I gave.
[01:35:26] Nate Hagens: So, givenyour experience as apodcast host, inadditiontoyour emergency roomrole andas the president of the CanadianNuclear Society,howdo you think we canchange that? Howdo you think we canchange thediscourse inthe directionthat you wouldaspire to? Is there anythingyou've learnedthat gives you some hints or clues or avenues that give you hope?
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[01:35:58] Chris Keefer: Well, you have this magic wandquestion, that I knowyouask your guests.
[01:36:01] Nate Hagens: Right, well, I'mgoingto ask you that.
[01:36:04] Chris Keefer: Maybe if you had, well, maybe I'll intercept it early on, butif you hadamagic wandmaybe you couldmake Twitter disappear or make TikTokdisappear.
[01:36:11] Nate Hagens: So you think social mediais the cause of our polarization?
[01:36:14] Chris Keefer: It's not the cause, right? But Nate, I think, like we all have awindowinto reality. We all have cognitive biases. I think you've elucidatedvery wellinyour work. We all have blinkers. Again, we can't see the worlduntil we have ametaphor that explains it andthe metaphors that we have are all constrainedbyour individual experiences of the world.
So everythingis very narrow. Andnow, the way inwhichwe perceive the worldislargely, andthe informationwe gather is largely throughour smartphones andthescreens we have, andthenthe platforms that present us the information. Andtheplatforms that are tryingto keepus onthemas longas possible by presentinguswithinformationthat suits our cognitive biases andmakes our little dopaminereceptors fire, right?
So that's incredibly damagingto, again, adiverse, robust, tolerant environmentthat's prioritizes free speech. So. I think that's amajor barrier. It's not that the rootcause, right? The root cause is just our basic kindof, paleo psychology that persiststoday.
But your questionof howto overcome that, I think the podcastingmediumis reallyinteresting. Like everythinghas become short attentionspan, right? TikTok is downto aminute or whatever, right? Andpeople probably, if you look at the metrics,people probably only watchthe first 20seconds before they're distractedandmoveon.
The emergence of longformpodcasts that are popular. It speaks to something. Itsatiates something, I think, inpeople that crave nuance andwant to go deeper. SoI think it's agreat medium.
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[01:37:40] Nate Hagens: I'mactually shockedby that myself. Like I don't listentopodcasts unless I have to for prepreasons or they're really exceptional.
Like I watchedTristanandDaniel Schmachtenberger onJoe Rogan, for instance.
[01:37:55] Chris Keefer: Yeah.
[01:37:55] Nate Hagens: But I'mshockedthat so many people have the appetite tolistento a90minute conversationbetweentwo people. I really, it actually ishearteningto me because I think most people, like you say, have atwo minute orless time span.
So maybe that is anemergent phenomenonof nuance andcomplexity andcontextthat our society needs.
[01:38:20] Chris Keefer: Well, you don't have the patience maybe to listento manypodcasts, but you engage inhour, hour andahalf, two hour longconversations onaregular basis. Andthat's also, andagain, interms of the social capital ofpodcasting, I mean, I love goingto parties where there's really cool people,
andI generally pick one or two of themandwe just go deepfor anhour. These areweirdparties, right? This is not your average party goer, right? So maybe we dothat inour natural life, but it's very rare to. We're kindof lookingeachother intheeyes across this platformandhavingadeepconversation, exploringeachother'swork andthoughts.
So eventhoughyou're not alistener, like you're engaginginthis, the same thing,you have athirst for it as well. Andthat's why we, do this insane thingof puttinganepisode out every week, or I think you do more thanthat, but.
[01:39:04] Nate Hagens: Well, maybe if I was far less busy I wouldlistento alotmore podcasts.
I just don't have the time. So that was agoodanswer. I like that. AndI needtothink about that more. Okay. Switchinghats again, because I don't want this to gothree hours. I mean, to be honest, Chris, I have so many questions I'dlike to askyou. Let's just do what we canonthis andhave you back for that one to two hourparty deepdive onsomething.
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So, wearingyour emergency roomphysicianhat, I've beenvery concernedaboutthis. I've hadaformer governor of Oregon, JohnKitzhaber on, I've hadRobertLustigontalkingabout the healthcare system. The UnitedStates healthcaresystemis 20percent of our GDP. Americans have 50percent of the world's, theentire world's medical prescriptions, whichimplies we're either sicker, our doctorsare prescribingthemmore for some kickback back thing, or we're babies or somecombinationof the three. But I do not believe that our current growthbasedsystemand, by implication, our medical, complicated, just intime, throwthis plastictube that you usedonce out systemis sustainable. So it's my belief that inthe nottoo distant future, andI can't put adate onit, we're goingto have to gradually orsuddenly go to getting80percent of our healthcare andmedical needs with20percent of the resources that we do today.
AndI'msure you've thought about it, especially fromyour trapper, intentionalcommunity, Cubansolidarity past. What insights canyou merge withyour Decouplehat andyour medical knowledge, knowingabout apotential Great Simplificationinthe future? What are your thoughts?
[01:41:10] Chris Keefer: Well, I mean, first off, I think, we'dbe unlikely to see sort ofthis 80/20rule playingout. I think 10percent of the populationwouldcontinue toget outstandinghealthcare and... That's what we see, right? Andif we want to talkabout like more sort of simplifiedsocieties, I mean, there's anupper crust elite,usually withthe private healthcare systemthat gets U.S. style or similar sort oflevels of care andthere's MRI machines andeverythingelse.
[01:41:36] Nate Hagens: Okay. So if society has 20or 30percent less resources,your viewis the accordion
just stretches. So, got it.
[01:41:45] Chris Keefer: Absolutely. But, you know, I do think it's areally interestingquestion. I was lookingat some Medicaiddatarecently andI don't have aphotographic memory for numbers, but there's this ideaof super utilizers, right?
So, somethinglike 3 or 4 percent of people onMedicaiduse 25 percent of theresources, right? Andthese are people withalot of comorbidities, diabetes, heartdisease, et cetera, that predispose themto be sicker andwho needahigher level
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of care. So howdo we manage that? While still, I hope, maintaininganideaof sortof universality, universal respect for humanrights andhumanhealth.
Andthis is where I do not want to romanticize Cubaor the Cubansystem. I've donethat inthe past as akindof 20year oldCubansolidarity activist. I think there'sreally interestingthings about the system. Alot of nuance there, right? But, inCuba, for instance, whichthe healthspendingwouldbe afractionof what theyhave inthe U.S., they have pretty similar life expectancy stats, childmortality statsas the U.S. onamuchsmaller dime. Howdo they accomplishthat? There is ahugeelement interms of preventative care. Things are stretchednowbecause they sendalot of doctors onhumanitarianmissions to earnforeignexchange to propuptheeconomy.
It's actually most of Cubanforeignexchange is earnedthroughexport ofpharmaceuticals that they've got abiotechsector, but also humanresources,doctors, right? They're kindof like the Philippines inthat way, I guess, interms of,not remittances, this comes back throughthe government, but they have averyinterestinghealthcare systemthat was constructedafter the 1959 revolution.
Andwhat it consists of is about 12,000family doctor oces. It's afamily doctorandanurse. They live embeddedinthe community andthey make healthhousevisits. Every Cubanis labeledwithanumber one to five. Andone means you'rehealthy, you got no issues, andyou might get adoctor's visit acouple times ayear.
Five onthe other extreme is, again, you're diabetic that's hadone of their legs cutoff, their glycemic control's terrible, they've hadaheart attack. You're gettingavisit acouple times aweek or every week. Are you takingyour medications? Theseare the super utilizers, right? Andso there is avery aggressive preventativemedicine side of things andchronic disease management side of things, whichoccurs because of ahighly structuredandcentralizedandorganizedhealthcaresystemwhichdoes value universality. AndI'mnot romanticizingit, again, becauseCubanresources have beenstretchedthin. It has the highest doctor to patient ratiointhe world, somethinglike one doctor for every 200people, but about 50,000ofthose doctors are offonmedical missions earningthe government foreignexchange.
Talk to the average Cuban, just like any personinthe world, they're goingto bitchabout their healthcare, but--
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[01:44:33] Nate Hagens: One doctor for every 200people andthat's the highestamount of doctors inthe world?
[01:44:38] Chris Keefer: Yes, sir. Per capita.
[01:44:39] Nate Hagens: Howmuchis it inCanadaor the US?
[01:44:42] Chris Keefer: We're talkingone per, I don't have the datainfront of me,but highhundreds, one per 700?
There's countries where it's inthe thousands, obviously, right? So anyway, so youhave this primary care network, doctors andnurses embeddedinthe community.Again, howdo you achieve really lowneonatal mortality? Well, you're ontopofyour prenatal care, right? Andtheir schedule for prenatal care puts us to shame,maybe it's evenexcessive, but you're gettingbloodpressure checks frequently todetect somethingcalledpreeclampsia, pregnancy inducedhypertension. You'regettingalot of healthsurveillance throughout your pregnancy. People don't fallthroughthe cracks partially because, hey, this is kindof apolice state that hasinformationoneverybody. But there is akindof nanny state element where peopleare lookedafter andpreventative medicine is really essential.
So, the healthsystemis organized, again, withthese primary care clinics dispersedright throughout the country, right? There's not areas where there's, rural areas inparticular really prioritized. Andthenyou have this next sectionof they're calledpolyclinicals, probably about 500throughout the country, andthey have basicspecialties, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology, andthey're kindofreferral centers for those primary care doctors. Andthose are also really dispersedthroughout the country. Andthenyou have 13 specialist hospitals, so, neurologyhospitals, traumahospitals, transplant hospitals. So they have very specializedcareavailable interms of doingcomplex, congenital, cardiac malformationsurgeries,but the focus is really interms of gettingthe bangfor the buck onthatpreventative care, that chronic disease management. AndI will also say if you goto Cubaeverybody plays aninstrument or plays sports.
It is insane, the sports culture. The number of Olympians that Cubaproduces isabsolutely nuts, andagain, I'mstartingto soundlike ablatheringCubasolidarityactivist, andI really want to acknowledge complex society, alot of nuance, alot of
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stressors, internally imposedandexternally imposed, but the healthsystemisfascinating.
I've beento Cubaseventimes. I didaresearchproject withAmericanscholarshipstudents studyingmedicine inCuba. Fidel gave, as abit of a"f you" to GeorgeBush, he gave 500scholarships to mostly black, Chicano, andindigenousAmericans who couldn't affordto study medicine inthe U.S. andthey went towhat's, I think, the world's largest medical school, whichis ascholarshipschool forthe global South, apparently, to come study medicine inCubafor free. Andtheywere really interestingwindows throughwhichto see Cubansociety. Because they'reAmericans, they shared, my cultural formationandbackgroundandquestions andcuriosities, andthey were embeddedvery deepinto Cubansociety,
providinghealthcare. Nothingputs you intouchwithhumanbeings like providinghealthcare to them. As anEmerge doc, I see kids, I see elderly, I see women, I seemen, I see the whole spectrumandit's anamazingwindowinto life. So anyway, sothey've beenreally useful at givingme sort of anuancedsense of the Cubanreality.
Some of themhadkids downthere andcouldcomment onthat obstetric care. Soanyway, just to sort of, I guess, give you context for these opinions.
[01:47:49] Nate Hagens: So, as anERdoc, althoughyou just saidsomethingdifferent thanERor emergency, you saidyou're anemerge doc, whichis kindof aninteresting--
[01:47:59] Chris Keefer: That's aCanadianism. Yeah.
[01:48:00] Nate Hagens: Is it? Okay. Well, I wouldthink that there are emergentthings that happeninthose facilities. So, like howmuchof our medical systemisjust treatingthe symptoms andnot the disease? Andhowmuchof our effort as asociety, as aculture, as individual responsibility shouldbe towards preventionandsports andmusic andall those other things?
Because once you get to the hospital it's almost too late. You're inthe systemandall that. Do you have any words of wisdomonthat front?
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[01:48:36] Chris Keefer: I mean, we're really, like one thingyou didn't mentionisinfrastructure, right? We talk about social determinants of health, things that makepeople sick. Andthere's biologic determinants, like maybe just have really badgenes, right?
Philadelphiachromosome andyou're goingto get leukemiaas achildor somethinglike that. But there's social determinants. Andsome of those againare sports ordiet nutrition. Mental healthis aproduct of livinginanalienatingenvironment, butsome of themare just infrastructural, andmaybe that's to the environmental crowd,less sexy.
There was areally interestingstudy done inMexico, as ahealthintervention, anditwas givingfamilies afewbags of cement. Andthis hadahuge impact onlocalhealth. So, if you have adirt floor, you have worms andparasites onthat, you havekids crawlingaroundonit, you have kids infestedwithworms, they're anemic,they're havingdiarrheaall the time, they can't go to school, the moms are lookingafter them, the moms are depressed. Beingable to pour acement floor, I don'thave the stats right infront of me, but dramatically reduceddiarrheal illnesses, likeby 70%.
[01:49:43] Nate Hagens: But I also readthat those people that spendalot of timeinthe soil andthe dirt whenthey're kids don't have allergies whenthey're adultsandthat we shouldtake our shoes offandwalk inthe bare soil andsuch.
[01:49:56] Chris Keefer: Andget hookworms. Yeah. No, I mean, there is somethingcalledthe hygiene hypothesis.
The IgEimmunoglobulinbranchof our immune systemis targetedat parasites, atthings like worms. Andso if it's got nothingto do cause we live insuchahygienicenvironment, thenyes. I mean, allergies are the price to pay for kids not havinganemia. Andlike almost all kids, right?
Andagain, this is where the hunter gatherer lifestyle, you know, there wouldbedifferent sort of healthchallenges, right? But humans livingclose together withanimals presents all kinds of zoonotic diseases. Like where does the flu come from?Where does smallpox come from?
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All of these infectious challenges, not all of them, but alot of themare fromconcentratedhumans livingwithanimals. Andso no, crawlingaroundonadirtfloor where there's animals andeverythingelse, like roundworms are, let me tell youabout the roundwormlife cycle. It's horrific, right? So they come inusually throughyour foot, they bury themselves, embedthemselves inyour skin, andyou'll see thislonglittle, it looks like alittle bit of rope or somethingunder the skinsurface, theyget into avein, they ride the veinupinto your lungs, right?
It causes abadcough, et cetera. Thenthey crawl upyour tracheaandthentheyget swalloweddownyour esophagus. Right? Andthenthey lay their eggs inyourintestine, they hatchsome worms, etc, whichleachoffyour bloodsupply, you poopout eggs, they get back inthe soil, andthe beautiful cycle continues.
I mean, it's like a, it's adisgustingsort of tour de France throughyour body. Andso, yeahagain, there's romantic ideas that it's nice to play inthe dirt. Andto adegree, yes. Andparticularly for kids innice industrializedcountries where the dirt'snot, where we keepour animals infactory farms, I don't want to, I'mnot goingtogo that far, but you know, where we're not livingpiledontopof our animals andthe soil is not full of parasites.
Yeah, it's great. Let your kids crawl aroundinthe dirt.
[01:51:40] Nate Hagens: So, clearly you have alot of wisdomonthis topic andwecan't do justice inthis conversation, but do you have any advice or at leastdirectional thinkingonmedicine andThe Great Simplificationor healthcare ingeneral?
[01:51:58] Chris Keefer: Yeah, I think the Cubanexample is insightful.
Is it replicable? Not really, right? That's the product of aunique moment intime ofaseries of political ideologies andsort of social values that became encodedinasystemthat I think didreally well ineducationandhealthcare andscrewedupalotof other things. We're not about to have asort of centralizedgovernment intheU.S. that rationally distributes healthcare accordingto the needs of the populationonthe values of sort of universal equality, et cetera. But I do think, again, thatquestionof if we want to reduce healthcare costs, abigthingis we havesomethingcalledanacceptable miss rate, right?
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So inemerge, we order aninsane amount of diagnostic tests because our toleranceto miss aheart attack is somethinglike 1%. If you have akindof, it's, this isn't howlawsuits happen, right? But like we want to get people downusingsome Bayesianreasoningto arisk level of around1 or 2 percent withsomethingas serious as aheart attack.
Andso, basically every single personwithchest paingets atroponindrawn, whichis abloodtest that looks for anenzyme that shouldonly be inside heart muscle, ifwe see it inblood, thensome heart muscles of, cells have brokenopenandspilledtroponin, so that is anenormous burden.
Andwe also have medical interventions that, frankly, don't have abigpayback. Alot of actually cancer screeninghas very poor evidentiary base interms of, onapopulationlevel, actually savinglives. That's not apopular thingto say, but it'sobjectively true. There's alot of therapies.
I mean, there's cancer drugs that extendlife by amonthor two, right? That comeat great cost. I mean, I just lost my dadto cancer. He wasn't onone of those reallyexpensive drugs, but I get it. I absolutely get it. Very interestingly, just as asort ofside note back to nuclear, my dadgot amedical isotope that's producedinaCANDUreactor, It's taggedto amolecule that specifically finds areceptor onprostate cells, binds to them, andit's kindof like aradio pharmaceutical thatradiates just the cancer cells inthat way.
Anyway, I don't knowif your lovedone hadareally complex medical conditionandneededanexpensive treatment, I think it's hardto say no to that. So I'mnot surewhat it looks like, but certainly there's alot of excessive testingthat goes onandborderline treatments like, again, like things like, andI'mnot about to give medicaladvice onyour podcast here, but like alot of people have this concept that oneintervention, one cure, right?
It's calledthe number neededto treat. So if you have appendicitis andeither wecanmanage it sometimes just withantibiotics, but if I do surgery onyou andI takeout your appendix, I've done one intervention, I've savedyou I've savedone life,right? There's things like tryingto manage cholesterol to prevent heart attacks,right?
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Andthenthe number neededtreat goes frommaybe one for appendicitis uptosort of three, four hundredto prevent asingle heart attack, you might needto beonthat anti cholesterol medicationor you might needhundreds of people to be onananti cholesterol medicationfor five years, diligently, to prevent one heart attack.
Onapopulationlevel, is that worthwhile? Maybe. Andwithantihypertensives, wecertainly think so, right? So, there's alot of nuance here, but if you were goingtoruthlessly developacheaper healthcare system, you'dprobably look at thenumbers neededto treat, the numbers neededto investigate to prevent badoutcomes.
There's away that the mathwhizzes coulddo that. I'mjust not sure that we'd, justas we won't willingly signupto degrowth, I don't think we're goingto willingly signupto sort of degrowtherapeutic options.
[01:55:32] Nate Hagens: No, we're not. But I think as muchas our society isunsustainable, our current Westernhealthcare model is unsustainable.
So, maybe we come back anddo adeeper dive onthat sometime. So, inlieu ofaskingyou medical recommendations for my viewers, what about just generallifestyle behavior? Polycrisis, humanpredicament, preparatory recommendationsfor my viewers. Do you have any?
[01:56:02] Chris Keefer: Oh, man, it's goingto be very generic, right?
I mean, eat well, get goodexercise, stay fit. I mean, I think, stay positive andI'mkindof, because I listenedto your podcast so much, Nate, I do knowsome of thequestions that are comingandabigpart, I think abiggest part of if you'rewrestlingwiththis questionof aGreat SimplificationandI wrestle withit,
sometimes I discount it altogether, I look at it as akooky idea, I come back to it, Ireadyour book, I readyour work, et cetera. But, it's certainly, it's doomy. It canprovoke adoomreaction, right? AndI knowthat's not your intention, but certainly Ithink alot of people come across it andthey go, "We're fucked. We're inbigtrouble." Andwhat's the psychological reactionto that andthe sort of mentalhealthreaction? I think very important that this message is coupledwithanideaofagency. The kindof climate concernamongst westernyouth, for instance, iscrippling. People commit suicide over this stuff.
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People fall into it. They see therapists about it for years. The antidote to anxiety isempowerment, right? And, I would, me andacouple friends have thought aboutthis but never takenit on, so I'll spill the ideaout here andif someone wants to runwithit I'dbe very happy if they did, but this kindof 50careers for climate book wewere thinkingabout. For myself, whenI was thinkingabout gettinginto medicine,or as ayouth, if you're lookinginto, I don't knowwhat I want to be whenI growup,teacher.
Okay, but there's so many uninspiringteachers. Whenyou findthat one teacher,that one role model that just blows your socks off, that makes you want to be ateacher. You want to be like them. You want to identify someone who's donesomethingheroic inanotherwise, medicine couldbe areally boringprofession.
There's alot of mediocre doctors or uninspiringdoctors or unfriendly doctors. Youneedto findsomeone who inspires you. But I think like really havingaculture oftry, of excellence, like yes, we have abrutal crisis aheadof us. Equipyourself,empower yourself so you canhelpyour fellowhumans, right? Like I think that's avital part, interms of tryingto answer your questionthere about howto stayhealthy inthis kindof comingmetacrisis, if your predictions are true, Nate.
[01:58:09] Nate Hagens: I totally agree withyou.
[01:58:10] Chris Keefer: What I don't want to see is the sort of, andwhat I do see allthe time is the tune inanddropout.
Right? I guess, is that like Timothy O'Leary? I can't remember my drugculture, this1960s drugculture lore well enough, but interms of the kids out at the climateprotests. It's yeah, okay, we get to quit school for aday. Awesome. Andwe don'tmake upfor it by studyingmore onSaturdays so that we canbecome whatever itmight be, like one of these careers for climate.
Maybe you become abiotechnologist andyou're able to genetically engineer acropthat's heat tolerant or saline tolerant for instance, right? I mean, you candoeverything. Maybe you become anartist or musicianandyou raise people's spiritsinadicult time, but don't tune in, dropout.
Try, andlet's organize our society. I mean, like inresponse to the ColdWar andthespace race, there was amassive effort inthe states to have rocketry clubs anda
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biginvestment ineducationbecause we didn't want to fall behindonthe missilegap. I mean, the motivations might have beenterrible, but like whenyou face acrisis, empower your youth, right?
Invest inthem, provide themwithcompellingnarratives, because I'mjust worriedthat withsome of the reactions people might have to your message, they getdepressed, they get deactivated, they get disempowered, andso I think that's thatchallenge of howto communicate realistically as you see it, abit of a, well, frankly,pretty pessimistic future, howto couple that with, humanity's beenthroughbrutaldark times, fuck, we've beenthroughthe Holocaust, we've beenthroughWorldWarII, we've beenthrough... the last 40years have beenpretty amazing.
[01:59:37] Nate Hagens: Some of us have beenthroughthe Holocaust, but I getyour point. I totally agree withyou. Afewfollowoncomments andclarifications. I'mnot so muchpredictingthe future as I'mlayingout the different scenarios that Isee andneither one is good. Business as usual headedto aMordor economy fueledby newproductivity increases continue to widenthe size of the strawthat drawsdownour finite natural capital andthe ecosystemsink capacity of the Earthwilleventually itself leadto asimplification.
Or if that doesn't manifest, we have the musical chair situationof our financialclaims not beingsupportedby the underlyingresource access. So it's more ofpaintingthe scenarios, but I will say if the result of this podcast is generally tune inandcheck out, I will have failed.
[02:00:40] Chris Keefer: No, andI'mcertainly not suggestingthat, but that is acommonreaction.
[02:00:44] Nate Hagens: I mean, it's not inmy control. It's incontrol of the viewer'sresponse. AndI guess I have aresponsibility, as do you, as ahostingof publicconversations, to steer towards the empoweringof people, but I'mjust aguy.
You're just aguy. We're just tryingto unpack withthe nuance, complexity, andcontext avery complicated, emergent evolvingsituation. Andit's not easy. So, Ireally recognize the potential for gettingmental stress fromhearingthese topics.Andso far, I still fall onthe decisionthat that is muchbetter thanthe alternative,whichis some sort of toxic positivity.
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Ohno, that's doomer stuff. Ignore that. We've always solvedproblems before andwe will again. Inorder to solve our problems we have to understandthe systemthat we're apart of, whichis your work andmine.
[02:01:56] Chris Keefer: Well, andNate, that's exactly where this questionof havingdiverse viewpoints is so important.
One personcan't take onthe burdenof like, hey, my message is abit worrisome.I'mgoingto make afewpeople anxious. Andyou're one voice inawilderness ofdifferent voices andyour voice is, it's beenvery influential andpowerful for me andI think many others that followthe podcast. But you don't needto take onall thatresponsibility.
There's anumber of other voices, andthank God, there is adiversity of opinion.Like the super abundance people drive me totally crazy. This is anexample ofsometimes whenwell articulated, I'mlike, oh, that's interesting. That makes methink about it abit differently. But I mean, just to kindof summarize the thesis, it'slisten, JulianSimons was right.
Paul Ehrlichwas wrong. They bet onabunchof commodities. They got cheaper,not more expensive, despite resource quality goingdown. It's all about humaningenuity. The more humans, the better, as longas there's afree market andkindof liberal democracy or whatever, right? Andhumans are the master resource.
Andit's interesting, andit does point to the importance of technology, but as I'vecome to see it, there are three sort of fundamental variables to howlongwe canride this roller coaster we've beenonandthere's kindof materials andwe knowthat we access the best first, ore grades are declining, we're inabit of trouble thereinterms of materials.
We're paperingover that withstill very abundant andrelatively cheapenergy andtechnological innovation. So the super abundance people are right, like thetechnology, the humaningenuity part's really important. They're delusional becausethey're ignoringthose other two factors.
They're sayingthey canjust be paperedover.
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[02:03:30] Nate Hagens: Andthe ecosystemthing, whichis abigpart that'smissing.
[02:03:34] Chris Keefer: Yes. Yes. I tendto, like Nate, like I'mdefinitely incamphuman. I'mdefinitely like onthe humanist side, like if I'minthe zoo withHarambeandthe kidfalls into the enclosure, I'msorry, I'mgoingto shoot the gorilla, right?Andpart of that comes out of beingafather. Like again, I'mjust anticipatingyourquestions. What's most important to you? I guess like my son, right? My fiance isright upthere, too. I don't knowif she's listening. Mom, et cetera. But like we aresocial creatures inthe social web.
I think there's atemptationamongst people that probably don't like beingcalledMalthusians, of, ahman, we're avirus. There's too many of us. Andof course thatalways sort of begins at the endof your moral community, of your social network,of your family, friends, whenyou get to sort of beingable to dehumanize peoplebecause you just don't have any social relations withthem.
But that's areally, for me, this is like the most dicult thingto disentangle becauseyes, I love the natural world, right? Andwe needto also just for the benefit ofhumanity, maintainbiodiversity andpollinators andinsect populations andstufflike that. But I'mnot sure what I'mwillingto sacrifice inorder to do that.
AndI don't pretendto have ananswer, but I think, again, part of me is like, I'mconfused. I haven't reachedaconclusion. Why shouldI be talkingabout this? Butthis is the discourse that we need. Andwe needthose delusional super abundancepeople. We needpeople that are saying, hey, there's firmlimits.
We needpeople to say, yeah, but we've overcome thembefore. I mean, people willsay, yeah, but that ends somewhere. Andmaybe that ends because of materialconstraints or energy constraints, right? Cause technology ain't goingto keepsoaringif we don't have these other two andI'mleavingwiththe middle finger, youknowwhat I'msaying?
[02:05:09] Nate Hagens: I'mgoingto take your previous answer onremovingTwitter as your magic wandanswer, whichleads me to the final question. If youwere to come back to this show, andI expect you will, what is one topic that maybewe touchedonor didn't evencover today that you wouldbe interestedintakingadeepdive onthat you think is relevant to humanandplanetary futures?
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[02:05:39] Chris Keefer: Again, like I'msomeone who's not siloed. I don't have, likemedicine might be kindof anareawhere I've got abit of deepdepthandknowledge because of all the years put into studyingit. Like I findit incredible.Sometimes my influence, specifically kindof politically, like we've hadreallyenormous success interms of the longshot campaigns we've runinCanadato saveanuclear plant calledPickering, for instance.
AndI'mlike, why are people listeningto me? I'madoctor, hobbyist, podcaster, andit's because I'mable, I think, to kindof weave compellingnarratives andtapinto aincredible network of experts, while not beinganexpert myself. So, sometimes I'malittle insecure. If I'mcomingonyour podcast andwe're goingto deepdivesomething, I got to confess to you, I'mnot anexpert onreally any one thing.
It's more sort of pullingtogether the informationthat I have into narratives. I dothink this questionof tryingto, like for you andfor your project, there's alot oftime spent in, well, imaginingafuture of what aGreat Simplificationlooks like. Ithink that needs more voices.
Again, I haven't listenedto every episode, right? But I think the people that yougenerally have onto kindof imagine that with, if I'mfrank interms of myjudgmental opinions, whichare under researched, I'll be fair, but tendto be folksfromthe kindof progressive environmental left, permaculture sort of crew.
AndI wouldlike to see, andmaybe couldcontribute as someone offeringabit of adifferent perspective that doesn't, it's not that I don't appreciate those voices. AndIthink it's important that there's people that study some of those concepts, butanyway, so I don't knowif that answers your question, but I don't knowthat I'dbeable to come onandtalk, deepdive atopic, but like everythingwe've touchedontoday has been
interesting. Andwe've scratchedthe surface, so there's more depth.
[02:07:21] Nate Hagens: Okay. So, we'll have to think of atitle for this episode, butthe title for the episode that you come back will be somethinglike anonprogressive lefty permaculture viewof The Great Simplification.
[02:07:35] Chris Keefer: Yeah, I don't, I'mnot inthe permaculture camp,unfortunately, so. See? Disgustedparty.
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[02:07:41] Nate Hagens: The disgustedparty. Dude, this has beengreat. I reallyappreciate your authenticity andthe fact that you're not siloedandthe fact thatyou're nonpolitical andthe fact that you deeply care about all these things. Do youhave any closingwords for the viewers andlisteners?
[02:08:00] Chris Keefer: No, I mean, Nate, again, your work sent me onabit of arollercoaster of my owninterms of, I was like, shouldI keepcallingmy podcastDecouple? Is decouplingevenpossible? For brandrecognitionI've definitely keptthe name. But, yeah, I've really enjoyed, andI'mnot just tryingto fluffyour egohere, I've really enjoyedyour contributions to this questionof the humanpredicament. It's shapedme quite deeply. So I don't know. I just, I want to expresssome gratitude. I wouldlove it if people from, interms of some shameless selfpromotion, I'dlove it if people who were interestedinthis conversationwantedtojumpover andcheck out the Decouple podcast.
Actually the very first episode, the audio is not the best, but it really sort of, it's atime capsule. It kindof elucidates my thinkingfrom2020. This ideaof decoupling,whichI think has holes init now. But yeah, I mean, let's just keeplearningtogether.Let's be tolerant. Let's really pursue free speechas acore, core value.
Andlet's fuddle throughthis andmake the best of it that we can.
[02:09:05] Nate Hagens: Thank you, Dr. Keefer. To be continued, my friend.
[02:09:08] Chris Keefer: Absolutely.
[02:09:12] Nate Hagens: If you enjoyedor learnedfromthis episode of The GreatSimplification, please followus onyour favorite podcast platformandvisitthegreatsimplification.comfor more informationonfuture releases.
This showis hostedby Nate Hagens, editedby No Troublemakers Media, andcuratedby Leslie Batt-Lutz andLizzy Sirianni.
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