• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Podcast
  • Archives
  • Links

Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Atomic Show #277 – Simon Wakter, pro-nuclear engineer in an ambivalent country

May 30, 2020 By Rod Adams 1 Comment

Simon Wakter is a strongly pro-nuclear engineer in a country that passed a referendum officially phasing out nuclear energy since several years before he was born. He has to round up to be called a thirty-something.

Simon works in the nuclear energy branch of AFRY, a well-established 17,000 employee, all-of-the-above. engineering company that recently adopted a new brand name.

During this show we talked about his research and professional work investigating new markets for smaller nuclear power systems, his interest in risk management and analysis, his participation as an active member of the young generations group of the European Nuclear Society, and his work as the editor of a newsletter that covers nuclear energy from a Nordic perspective.

We talked about the complicated political history of nuclear energy developments in Sweden, delved into the sources of antinuclear activities, and chatted about recent improvements in nuclear energy acceptability as a powerful tool to address climate change and energy poverty.

Simon is young man who appreciates the importance of abundant clean energy in helping humans to develop their full potential. He is enthusiastic about technological advances that are revisiting some aging and possibly obsolete assumptions about the limitations of nuclear energy’s contributions.

I enjoyed this conversation and hope you do as well.

Please provide your comments and suggestions.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/AtomicShowFiles/atomic_20200529_277.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:23 — 57.8MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Filed Under: Advanced Atomic Technologies, Atomic history, Atomic politics, Podcast, Small Nuclear Power Plants, Smaller reactors

Avatar

About Rod Adams

Rod Adams is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience, now serving as a Managing Partner at Nucleation Capital, an emerging climate-focused fund. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial discussion and analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology and policies for several decades. He is the founder of Atomic Insights and host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast.

Please click here to subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarEino says

    June 2, 2020 at 6:13 PM

    Thanks for another one Rod. It’s good that you get perspectives from different parts of the world.

    It will be very interesting to see if they actually can begin to “repower” existing coal plants in Eastern Europe. I see this like taking an old car and dropping another engine into it. If they can do it, maybe others can too.

    As far as your conversation about convincing people to change from fossil fuels to nuclear, you had a great point about how large the industry is and how many people it employs. I believe you’ve used this quote in the past.

    “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

    Sounds like Sweden is not as anti-nuke as it used to be. The Times a They Are a Changin’.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You have to agree to the comment policy.



Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

Primary Sidebar

Search Atomic Insights

Follow Atomic Insights

The Atomic Show

Atomic Insights

Recent Posts

Atomic Show #291 – Kalev Kallemets, Fermi Energia

Preliminary lessons available to be learned from Feb 2021 extended cold spell

South Texas Project Unit 1 tripped at 0537 on Feb 15, 2021

Atomic Show #290 – Myrto Tripathi, Voices of Nuclear

Change is in the wind: Commencing a new phase as a Venture Capitalist

  • Home
  • About Atomic Insights
  • Atomic Show
  • Contact
  • Links

Search Atomic Insights

Archives

Copyright © 2021 · Atomic Insights

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy