This week, we talk about the rise of the global battery industry: its history, key players, raw material struggles, and how China came to dominate it. To do so, I’m joined by Henry Sanderson, author of "Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green." We trace the story of electrification from Volta’s early experiments to the supply chains that now shape global power. Sanderson brings decades of reporting to a narrative that reveals China’s industrial strategy, the entrepreneurs behind battery giants, and the troubling realities of mining cobalt, nickel, and lithium. Together, we examine how technology, geopolitics, massive wealth, and environmental trade-offs define the future of clean energy.
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The Export Expert
This week, we talk about Russian nuclear exports. Michael Seely, host of AtomicBlender, joins me to discuss the rise of Rosatom: Russia’s nuclear energy behemoth that now builds nearly half of the world’s new reactors. We trace its formation after the Soviet collapse, its grip on the nuclear fuel market, and its unmatched “turnkey” model for newcomer nations. Rosatom’s nuclear exports are more than just a commercial endeavour—they can reshape global influence for decades.Michael's videos on Canada, Russia, and Ukraine.
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#289 - Breaking the Ice
This week, we travel to the edge of the map with Aleksandr Surtcev, an engineer who has crewed Russian nuclear icebreakers along the Northern Sea Route. We explore how Russia’s Arctic fleet keeps this strategic corridor open, why floating nuclear plants are powering remote communities and mines, and what life looks like in a place where polar bears trail ships for fish and resupply markets pop up on the ice. Beneath the stories lies a deeper discussion of geopolitics, engineering, and the hard logistics of operating in one of the most unforgiving regions on Earth.
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The State of the Atom (2025)
This week, Mark Nelson joins us to deliver his second annual “State of the Atom” address. The nuclear power landscape has transformed in the last two years. Russia continues its nuclear export dominance while the West at last awakens from its stupor, driven by an unexpected force: artificial intelligence's insatiable appetite for baseload power. From Amazon's billion-dollar Susquehanna deal to Three Mile Island's resurrection, Big Tech is discovering what nuclear advocates have long known: that when you need reliable electricity around the clock, few other generation sources compare. Nelson maps the new nuclear battlefield where Chinese reactors scale up to 1,700 megawatts, European phase-outs crumble, and Western teams scramble to assemble the talent and capital needed to compete.Read more on Substack.
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Sun, Silicon, and Xinjiang
This week, we talk solar power—a long overdue topic on Decouple. In the past, guests have often been critical of the value of renewables on grids without extensive storage, and of the quality of jobs that politicians often claim when justifying renewables programs. Today, however, we drop preconceptions and get to the nuts and bolts. My guest is Seaver Wang, director of the Climate and Energy Research Program at The Breakthrough Institute. Despite is imperfections, the solar power has a remarkable story, from its technological origins, to its dramatic cost reductions in the last decade, to the sheer scale of new capacity being added in places like China. We cover these topics and more in this episode: the Solar Masterclass.Watch now on YouTube.We talk aboutHistorical roots and evolution of solar technologyImpact of the German Energiewende and feed-in tariffsChina's rise to dominance in solar manufacturingEnergy-intensive production processes of polysiliconControversy over Uyghur forced labor in XinjiangSolar’s lifecycle emissions and environmental impactsDramatic cost reductions and economies of scaleLimitations and misconceptions in distributed solarFuture integration with battery storageRole of geopolitical and ethical issues in solar supply chains
There are technologies that decouple human well-being from its ecological impacts. There are politics that enable these technologies. Join me as I interview world experts to uncover hope in this time of planetary crisis.
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