No Risk, All Reward
Decouple20 Mai 2025

No Risk, All Reward

This week, we look beyond the physical infrastructure supporting our lives to the owners taking over that infrastructure: asset managers. Brett Christophers, an author, professor, and economic geographer at Uppsala University in Sweden, joins me to explore the troubling transformation of infrastructure ownership in today's economy. From housing to energy to water, massive asset management firms like Blackstone and Brookfield have positioned themselves more and more between citizens and essential services, extracting wealth while taking minimal risk. Christophers explains how this shift from public to private control has reshaped our relationship with everyday infrastructure, particularly as we attempt to transform our energy supplies. He argues that the profit-driven approach of these financial giants is at odds with the public good, creating a system where even as things like renewable technology get cheaper, their deployment slows due to insufficient returns for investors.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(331)

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

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

The Canada-US trade war is escalating, threatening to unravel decades of economic integration between two of the world's closest allies. Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Jesse Hoops to examin...

25 Sep 1h 14min

Megaprojects: Some Assembly Required w/ Ian MacGregor

Megaprojects: Some Assembly Required w/ Ian MacGregor

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

3 Sep 54min

The State of Fusion Energy w/ Gerrit Bruhaug

The State of Fusion Energy w/ Gerrit Bruhaug

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

13 Aug 1h 24min

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

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

Iran’s nuclear program is now more than seven decades old, stretching from the Shah’s ambitious Atoms for Peace-era plans to the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of enrichment, missile capability and nuclea...

6 Aug 1h 25min

Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

For almost the whole of human history, wood was the main act. It was the fuel that cooked food and smelted iron, the material that framed every house and hull, and the first bulk commodity ever moved ...

31 Jul 1h 10min

Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joins Decouple to examine the history of Iran’s nuclear program and the negotiations that produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. As the agre...

23 Jul 43min

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

Why are nuclear power plants so difficult to finance, and who ultimately pays when megaprojects run late or over budget? Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Michael Seely, The Atomic Blender, fo...

16 Jul 1h 29min

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

In this reactor deep dive, Chris Keefer is joined by Navid Badie, Chief Nuclear Engineer at Candu Energy Inc, to explain the inner workings of the distinctive CANDU reactor. They trace how Canada’s de...

24 Jun 1h 9min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
romkapsel
tingenes-tilstand
jss
liberal-halvtime
forskningno
sinnsyn
rekommandert
villmarksliv
rss-paradigmepodden
fjellsportpodden
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
grunnstoffene
nordnorsk-historie
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
tidlose-historier
psykopoden
rss-rekommandert
rss-inn-til-kjernen-med-sunniva-rose
smart-forklart