Claims

There are two ways to learn about renewable energy problems: read Doomberg, listen to Jesse's podcast, or overbuild solar and wreck your economy; many countries are taking the third approach.

Liberland (micro-country on Serbia-Croatia border) represents ideal location to run renewable energy grid demonstration project, as it is currently undeveloped and could host a 10,000-person city powered solely by wind, solar, and batteries at estimated cost of 20 billion dollars.

Industrial R&D protocol calls for progression from lab to pilot to market development scale to small commercial plant before building large commercial plants; renewables deployment skips pilot stage and moves directly to trillion-dollar scale without proving viability.

Global support for nuclear energy has been unanimous and unexpected in scope, with traditionally anti-nuclear jurisdictions pivoting toward nuclear, China planning 150 gigawatts of new reactors in the next decade (more than was built globally in the last 35 years), and 31 countries at COP28 pledging to triple nuclear capacity by 2050.

Fukushima and the Megatons to Megawatts program (1993, converting Russian weapons-grade uranium) flooded the market with inventory, and Germany's Energiewende policy added further oversupply, keeping uranium prices between $16-$20 for a decade.

The UK government cannot implement an AI policy because the national grid cannot supply sufficient power; electricity prices spiked to £6,000 per megawatt hour in January, and the UK is utterly dependent on imports.

The US has downblended and is dowblending weapons-grade uranium to fuel the commercial nuclear energy industry, a sign of the desperation of the fuel supply situation.

The U.S. is one of very few large energy-consuming economies that lacks national energy reduction targets, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's 2022 International Energy Efficiency Scorecard.

There is a correlation between the popularity of Passive Houses and well-developed, comprehensively applied energy codes, as evidenced by countries with the most Passive House certifications (France: 439, U.K.: 206, Germany: 532) also ranking highest on the ACEEE's energy efficiency scorecard.

Building codes clearly make a difference in energy efficiency outcomes, as demonstrated by the correlation between strong codes and adoption of Passive House standards.

France invested in nuclear power in response to 1970s oil shocks and now operates one of the largest nuclear programs in the world, with nuclear power plants responsible for generating 68% of France's electricity in 2021.

The Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes commissioned an analysis before including energy efficiency requirements in the National Model Codes (adopted in 2011) and found that energy codes have the potential to affect up to 81% of energy use in houses and up to 68% of energy use in buildings, resulting in increased efficiency, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and lower long-term operational costs.