Chatting to theWatt
I sat on a panel for a podcast called theWatt to discuss carbon trading and a handful of other topics. The panel members this week were Robb from the blog Entropy Production and John from the blog This Week In Nuclear. The panel is chaired by Ben from theWatt.
We talked about the recent price fluctuations in the price of European carbon credits.
The panel then went on to hear John reveal all manner of very interesting things, not so directly related to carbon credits but still interesting; like that they can dilute weapons grade uranium from decommissioned nuclear weapons and make it the lower grade fuel needed to power a modern nuclear reactor.
The conversation shifted then to the pricing of energy and the exaggerated role that natural gas plays. It seems that coal and nuclear power are slow to react to changes in demand. On the other hand gas can go from shutdown to full power in matter of minutes. Thus price of gas determines what you will pay for power. And gas is a rising expense.
We also discussed the fact that between Canada and Australia they have about 50% of the world’s uranium.
The podcast continues with some nifty science lessons. — DS
ps: Technically it was extremely simple too. Ben from theWatt called the panelists with skype and recorded it all to mp3 at his end, along with his own voice. The only part that is still a bit off is you can’t hear your own voice through your headphones, so speaking is like speaking wearing headphones. But I am sure there is a way to fix that.
Technorati Tags: Australia, Canada, carbon credits, CO2, emissions, EU, Europe, Kyoto Protocol, podcast, theWatt, USA
