Olivia Columbus [00:00:58] We are here today with Cyrille Molina, who is the founder and president of OAKRIDGE SAS. Cyrille, welcome to the podcast. 

Cyrille Molina [00:01:05] Thank you. 

Olivia Columbus [00:01:07] Before we jump into OAKRIDGE and everything that you do there, let's talk a little bit about you. Where are you from? Where did you study and how did you get into nuclear? 

Cyrille Molina [00:01:19] I'm from France. I graduated nuclear engineering in the '80s because I wanted to work in nuclear. Even at that time it was not so obvious because there was almost no future at that time for the nuclear sector. It was very still. For instance, in France, we had just finished installing all the units and there was no more new build program. But still as a physicist, I really wanted to enter that sector by passion. 

Cyrille Molina [00:01:53] And after that, I worked some years at the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, which is a TSO to the French regulator, as a Assessor of Safety of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Plants in France. And then, I incepted OAKRIDGE in 2002, so that's more than 20 years now. 

Olivia Columbus [00:02:20] Interesting. Is that CEA, is that the nuclear regulator that you were working with? 

Cyrille Molina [00:02:25] In France, that regulator's name is ASN. And its TSO, Technical Support Organization is IRSN. So, I began there. 

Olivia Columbus [00:02:36] Interesting. So when you were there, you worked on the fuel cycle; is that correct? 

Cyrille Molina [00:02:39] Yep. 

Olivia Columbus [00:02:41] And is there anything from that experience that led you specifically to creating OAKRIDGE? What was the impetus for launching your company? 

Cyrille Molina [00:02:52] Well, one impetus is the company I was in, working for the IRSN, was acquired by a bigger company and the mood was not the same in the big company of the small company I was in. And so, I decided to quit and to found my own company to work by myself as a self-employed person. But then when I started OAKRIDGE, a few months after that some former clients asked me to do more, and so I needed to hire my first employees to face all the work we had to do. 

Cyrille Molina [00:03:35] And just one year after the inception of OAKRIDGE, there was a big announcement, a decision by Finland to start a nuclear project, Olkiluoto in Finland. So, that gave me a push in the business. And we've managed OAKRIDGE to enter the very first panel involved in the engineering of this new build project. And since 2004, we have continuously worked on the EBR new build project; in France, in Finland, in China, and also in the UK. 

Olivia Columbus [00:04:19] Interesting. So just to sum up, what exactly does OAKRIDGE do? Where do you focus? 

Cyrille Molina [00:04:25] We are a 100% nuclear consulting company. We do engineering for the install phase and for the new build projects. We intervene at the different phases of the project, like conceptual design, basic design, through design and commissioning. And then when plants operate, we help them to improve their maintenance and safety by giving advice, doing international benchmarking. For instance, helping them to get the best practices in terms of nuclear safety. 

Cyrille Molina [00:05:05] I must add that nuclear safety is our core business and we are very strong at that. Whether it's deterministic safety or probabilistic safety, we have experience and we like to provide this to our clients. 

Olivia Columbus [00:05:25] And how large is your team now? 

Cyrille Molina [00:05:26] The team is almost 60 engineers. 

Olivia Columbus [00:05:29] Wow. That's very exciting. 

Cyrille Molina [00:05:31] And we work in some countries... So in Europe, in France mainly, but also with South Korea and South Africa. 

Olivia Columbus [00:05:41] Very interesting. So just out of curiosity, because I think often times when we hear about your company, people get very confused because there's also a National Lab in the US with the same name. Is there any connection there, or is it just a coincidence? 

Cyrille Molina [00:05:53] No, it has no connection. In fact, Oak Ridge in the US is in two words; Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is famous for Oak Ridge National Lab. And my company's name is OAKRIDGE, just one word. The fact is, at the time I founded the company, I was looking for a name with my wife. We had a dictionary and turning the pages I saw "Oak Ridge," the Oak Ridge site. And I said, "Oh, this name is excellent, because for the ones who know the history of nuclear, they know that was one of the secret sites of the Manhattan Project. And so, that's a good sound. Let's stick the two words together, register the name in France, and that's it." 

Olivia Columbus [00:06:47] And now you've become so well-known that people confuse the two. Well, I'm glad we clarified that; we now have it on official record. So, you said you guys work on EBR projects. Are there other types of designs that you guys really specialize in or do you sort of work across? 

Cyrille Molina [00:07:06] Yeah, we have a lot of experience with EBR, and more widely with the PWR reactors. But also, we have skilled people in other technologies such as BWR. We now currently are involved in a new project which is a molten salt reactor. We signed yesterday an MoU with Thorizon. 

Olivia Columbus [00:07:31] Oh, congratulations. 

Cyrille Molina [00:07:33] A company from the Netherlands. And they have a concept which is very clever with a molten salt reactor, with some cartridge composing these molten salt reactors. And we'll work with them, of course, in the part which is our main concern which is nuclear safety. 

Olivia Columbus [00:07:53] Got it. Interesting. We had Sander de Groot from Thorizon on yesterday, so if folks haven't listened to that episode yet, they should go over and listen to that one as a Part Two. But that's really exciting. So just out of curiosity, is the French fleet primarily PWRs? 

Cyrille Molina [00:08:10] Yeah, the French fleet is PWRs. 

Olivia Columbus [00:08:12] Just PWRs. Okay, interesting. Interesting. 

Cyrille Molina [00:08:14] We have 56 reactors operating currently. 

Olivia Columbus [00:08:19] Fifty-six, wow. That's crazy. That's so many; that's very exciting. You mentioned that you guys work... Obviously, you did the project in Finland, in Korea, in South Africa. Is it that you work there, or you have engineers there? 

Cyrille Molina [00:08:35] No, we work with them. Sometimes we will send people to the countries. We had people, for instance, in China for two-and-a-half years during the commissioning of the Taishan Plant. In the past, we had people in South Africa near Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant. Currently, we work a lot for Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant in probability safety and accident simulation. 

Cyrille Molina [00:09:04] One thing I would like to add... You may have noticed that the very first company in France to get the ISO 19443 standard, which is the standard dedicated to nuclear safety, was OAKRIDGE in 2020. 

Olivia Columbus [00:09:15] Interesting. That's very interesting. So, you guys do a lot of work on the big builds. You've got an MoU with an SMR company. Are there other SMR directions that you're interested in working on further?

Cyrille Molina [00:09:31] Yeah, sure. We have also begun talks with Canadian companies. And also, we have signed yesterday an MoU with a Polish company. So, we want to join our forces to participate with the numerous projects in nuclear in Poland. Among them, there are big units, but also SMR projects. 

Olivia Columbus [00:09:57] Absolutely, I think the Polish program is so interesting. There's such a desire to build nuclear there both big and small. And so, I think they're a great example of a country that's really moving towards increasing their share of nuclear. Having just a research reactor right now, but obviously a strong regulatory body and I'm excited to see what happens there. 

Olivia Columbus [00:10:20] In addition to that, we're excited to see nuclear being featured COP next week in the United Arab Emirates. It's so exciting to have the conference in a country that has been so successful with their nuclear program. I think the Barakah Program is something that we should really all be looking to as a way to successfully develop big nuclear projects. 

Cyrille Molina [00:10:44] Yeah, and actually they achieved this after beginning from scratch. In 2009, when it was decided and signed with the current team, there was nothing there. Now it works; it operates. So, it demonstrates that it's possible just to implement a big project with numerous units in a non-nuclear country. 

Olivia Columbus [00:11:17] Right. They took a proven design. They built that exact design. Actually, one of my favorite podcast episodes is when we had His Excellency Mohamed Al Hammadi on and he walked us through, really, the process and how they did it. It was so interesting to hear about how they really took the Korean design, very proven, and really stuck to it. And that was, I think, a huge part of the efficiency in building those new reactors. 

Olivia Columbus [00:11:46] I know they said yesterday that the last one, I think, is going online at the beginning of next year. And then, 25% of the UAE's power will be nuclear, which is such a fascinating jump to go from 0% to 25% so quickly. So, very exciting to see nuclear heavily featured at the COP events. 

Olivia Columbus [00:12:06] So to close us out, in the next 10, 20 years, 30 years even, what do you hope the status of nuclear is globally? And as we head into such a critical time in climate energy security, how do you hope nuclear is used as a tool to help solve those challenges? 

Cyrille Molina [00:12:24] I hope that more and more countries and more and more economic players, such as big industries, will adopt nuclear and remove the coal and fossil fuels like gas. We have good assets to get there from this. We have a young generation, which is very invested now, advocating nuclear and trying to gather more forces around them. So, that's a good point. 

Cyrille Molina [00:13:00] And we have also reorganized the industry here in France to be ready for that big change. In fact, for instance, we say that we need in the next decade to hire 100,000 more people in France. And at the European scale that represents 500,000 people more in Newcastle. 

Cyrille Molina [00:13:23] So, for the next decades, I see that Europe is the place that nuclear will expand more. But other countries in Africa and in South America and in Asia will also enter. And newcomers, they will adopt nuclear because now the game is more open. Thanks to the SMRs, you can access a smaller amount of power and you can also find the money to do that project. So, that's really a game changer, the SMRs. 

Olivia Columbus [00:14:06] Absolutely. Well, Cyrille Molina, thank you so much for joining us here on Titans of Nuclear. 

Cyrille Molina [00:14:09] Thank you so much for Titans of Nuclear and congrats for what you do. 

Olivia Columbus [00:14:13] Thank you, thank you.