Climate Changes Everything

Swords into plowshares into bigger swords and bigger plowshares ... destruction and production, war and peace, and scale and control are the intense frenemies of the nuclear energy story. And that history now informs the world's response to (and the nuclear role in) growing global power demand, demands for energy security, and our response to climate change. Let's dive in, eyes wide wide wide open!

Nuclear power was going to be the future ... until it really really really wasn't. And now, just might be again. Join us for another episode of Climate Changes Everything as we explore the amazing origins of nuclear power, the tension between productive uses like electricity and destructive uses like nuclear weapons, and tee-up the essential questions: is nuclear a good thing? Where are the opportunities for innovation, entrepeneurship, and advocacy around nuclear power in today's world.

A ten million ton, concrete Swiss Army knife? Yes, indeed. For all their monolithic permanence, dams and hydroelectricity are the Swiss Army knives of infrastructure and the power grid, respectively. With plenty of compromises, caveats, and questions but also opportunities for innovation, entrepeneurship, and advocacy. Eyes wide wide wide open? Let's dive in!

The seeming simplicity of a hydroelectric dam belies significant (and often surprising) complexity and compromise around climate, environment, human welfare, local and geopolitics and even the rotation of the Earth itself!  Lots to consider and no easy answers, but that's why we're here for this next episode of Climate Changes Everything.  I hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, we dive back into the world of electricity generation to begin our examination of hydroelectric power: from the emergence of water on Earth about four billion years ago to torrents of innovation both three thousand years and 150 years ago to today's behemoth dams around the world.  Come on in -- the water's fine! 

It's graduation season here in the US but the usual pomp and circumstance is matched by the stark realities of a climate-changing world.  Today's graduates face unprecedented challenges in the world they inherit but, I argue, unprecedented opportunity too.  How can this generation survive and thrive in this brave new world -- and save the world for all of us at the same time?  

The liquid form of ancient solar energy, oil, is seemingly embedded in everyone and everything everywhere in the world.  And it plays a surprisingly complex role in the power system, both as a legacy fuel and as a backstop for reliability, resilience, and even renewable integration.  Curious?  Eyes wide wide wide open?  Join us for this episode of Climate Changes Everything.