TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:00:58] Thank you so much for joining me, Dominique Minière. Welcome to Titans of Nuclear. You are the Executive Vice President for International and Domestic New Nuclear Strategy. Did I get that correct?

Dominique Minière [00:01:11] Yes.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:01:11] All right, good enough... At OPG, Ontario Power. So excited to have you here. Our first question we always start off with guests is how they got into nuclear energy. I think that's going to be a very interesting story because you actually have quite a long career in nuclear starting out all the way back at the EDF. So where should we begin?

Dominique Minière [00:01:35] I started in nuclear, in fact at the EDF in 1982. So quite a long time ago, 40 years now, as a young engineers. And the speed of time is curious because things are going and going and going back. And when I started at the beginning of the '80s, the question of energy was probably one of the central questions in the world, because when you've got development, everything is linked with energy. So if you don't have energy, you cannot develop. And it was a period of the end of the '70s... you know, 1973 was the first petroleum crisis and the second one was in 1979. So there were a lot of ideas about how we can get more independent from oil and gas. And in fact, always the focus was really on independence. Really what has led, for exmaple, France to it's huge nuclear program was really how we can be, as much as possible, independent from oil crises in the future. That was the driving factor.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:02:42] So back in the late '70s, early '80s, how did you first come to understand what nuclear energy was and kind of the appreciation that you now have for it? Was it just another energy source?

Dominique Minière [00:02:56] In fact, it was really an energy source. Maybe I will make you smile, but at the moment before I joined EDF in 1982, I have studied in college and I had finished my college degree. At the beginning to do the college degree I had worked before in 1982 with EDF. And I was mostly working on solar activities, development of sort of activities. So, it's curious because it was another way to analyze the crisis, energy crisis. And after that I moved quite quickly to nuclear, because there was this huge program at EDF and I started as a young engineer.

Dominique Minière [00:03:35] I will let some off of my career, but I have gone through, I will say, headquarters, and I have gone to southwest France to start up new nuclear reactors, to become in charge of small sections regarding systems of maintenance of these nuclear power stations. A few years and a few months in fact in the north of France, and after that, four years from 1993 to 1997 in China. For four years I was sent by EDF to what was called at this period of time the CGN, which was the Chinese company in charge of Daya Bay, the first nuclear power station, international nuclear power station. And I have set up there as an advisor to maintenance organizations and development of people also. So I have good relationship with my Chinese colleagues through these years and I have moved back to France in 1997, firstly as a prog manager and then site VP of a large nuclear power plant in the north of France. I was appointed as site VP when I was 41, so quite young, and I have stayed there for three years through four units of 1,300 megawatts. So quite a huge power plant.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:04:53] So how many projects did you have a hand in throughout your career at EDF?

Dominique Minière [00:04:56] Several, I had this one, and after that I have moved to Paris to become the Deputy CNO, in fact. So it was quite challenging work because in fact I was in charge of the whole, as deputy CNO, the whole fleet for EDF for 58 nuclear reactors, both technical choices and maintenance choices, nuclear safety, radiation protection, environmental, large contracts, all the odd aspects of the fleet. So it was quite a challenging period of time. And for eight years I have done these jobs and I was doing quite well the EDF fleet. So that's why by the end of this period of time, it means by 2010 I was appointed as CNO of the fleet and I was able to launch what they call now in France the refurbishment of the fleet when it was going to 40 years of preparation, which is going quite well, as far as I know, for the time being. Still in place is an investment of €55 billion or something like that on the fleet, to be able to go beyond 40 years of operation and for 50 or 60 years of operations, so it was quite interesting as a challenge.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:06:15] Yeah. I mean, you mentioned quite a few challenges: regulations, safety, just overall fleet maintenance and life extensions. What have been for you personally, some of the biggest challenges and maybe lessons learned across all of these projects and starting out your career in the junior level of project development and then going all the way up to that CNO and SVP level and seeing kind of the whole fleet perspective.

Dominique Minière [00:06:46] You learn differences depending on where you are in your career. At the beginning, you learn a lot about technical, but also about how to manage and management. Progressively, you develop management skills. And when I was the PDC, I knew it was both management and a lot of technical fleet aspects which wasn't so obvious when you are only in charge of one nuclear power station. And then when I was appointed, when the new CEO of EDF arrived in 2015, he asked me to reorganize completely the department in charge of nuclear and I split everything into two departments, and he asked me to lead the existing fleet which was 32,000 people so quite a huge department.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:07:34] 32,000 people?

Dominique Minière [00:07:35] Yes, a huge department of EDF in charge of nuclear. More engineering, dismantling, deconstructions and also fuel. So it's quite, quite a large portfolio. At this period of time it was of course management, but it was mainly political, because when you go to such a kind of level, you learn how to deal with the government, government ideas that sometimes are a bit challenging for you, but you try to navigate and try to explain. You learn how to explain a lot, to try to convince a lot, and you are reporting to a lot of people. But normally, I mean, it's not abnormal you have to just be patient and to sometimes to be humble enough to re-explain again and explain again and to learn of surprises and how to try to deal with some people's ideas that are not completely aligned with yours. But as a matter of fact, when you are in this position, the best thing you have to do is to try to find solutions that could fit.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:08:43] Maybe before we kind of fully transition over to the work you're doing now in Canada, we could talk about the technology a bit more of the French fleet. And then we'll kind of get into how that changes with the current technologies you're looking at. So tell me about the overall, the French fleet and the technology choices in France, the fuel, etc..

Dominique Minière [00:09:07] What is interesting, the choices made by EDF was quite, I think, good at this period of time. It was based on the idea that standardizations will make you a lot tougher, will bring you a lot of things. And in fact, it has brought a lot of things to the French fleet, which is still quite competitive compared to other ones, because in fact you have three kind of reactors, PWR and series. So with a series effect, you are able to avoid spending a lot of money on the design because you have the same design, you have the same supply chain so you can make an economy of scale, same operations. So you have really a good a good series effect. That's a big advantage. A drawback of that is which was not so good is when you have a failure, which is, I would say more generic, in fact you could have this failure on several reactors and you have to be able to undo that. So you have to have more, I would say, aggressive maintenance in order to try to check if you have this kind of thing which will happen soon so preventive maintenance is more. So I mean, you have advantages and drawbacks, but advantages are more important than drawbacks.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:10:31] Great. So how did you come to find yourself now in Canada?

Dominique Minière [00:10:37] That's a good question. People ask me, "Why are you going to Canada?" As a matter of fact, when I arrived in 2018, 2019, it was a period of time when I worked a lot with the French government to explain that their target to go to 50% of nuclear, France is 75% of nuclear, to go to 50% of nuclear by 2025 was probably not the right way. I can understand that they would like to to diversify, but in the meantime, it was to go to 50% by 2025, which was crazy. I mean, because it was bringing France in the war regarding energy supply. So we have discussed a bit, and after discussions we have agreed that, okay, they can keep their target but to move it to 2035 would be more, I would say smarter.

Dominique Minière [00:11:32] So they agreed, and finally we have been able to move on this way. We have been able to create reorganizations and to be first chairman of that, and to sign a contract with the French government in order to develop new nuclear in the future. So I think I have done what I would like to do.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:11:59] Yeah, yeah. Now we know a big topic of this conference has been international cooperation.

Dominique Minière [00:12:06] I also, I have pushed after Fukushima, in the past, Fukushima coalition to renovate completely, so I have done what I would like to do. The main targets for EDF by these days and for the nuclear industry in France was to develop new nuclear with EPR. I was not completely involved. There was another department in charge of that. So regarding my own stakes, I was at the end of my own stakes and I saw that we need new nuclear, we need large reactors, but we need also small modular reactors. It's a real big conviction I have. So I could retire, and I have retired from EDF, I could enjoy my retirement, but in the meantime, when you have given so many years to the nuclear industry and to the future of the world, you think that you need to give back something. So that's why I looked in the Western world about where I could develop SMR knowing that on large reactors there were relative challenges around it delivering on time and budget. So I said we need at least another way to develop new nuclear. It's probably SMR and I said I could be a part of the answer; not completely the answer but part of the answer on how to develop SMR in the Western world. So it was not at EDF because EDF was mainly concentrated on the large reactors. In the U.S, it was more challenging because of the economy and things like that. And the country was moved by this day quite a lot on new nuclear, and SMR was in Canada with the SMR Roadmap. And OPG was a company which is regulated in which you could probably more easily develop such kind of SMRs. Sometimes, you know, life is curious.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:13:58] Yeah.

Dominique Minière [00:14:00] And at this moment they were looking for someone, the CEO was looking for someone for the fleet. We got in touch, and finally I said, "Okay, why not try to go to Canada and try to develop based on the Roadmap that has been already developed to build something more concrete." So I have gone to Canada to align the industry in Canada and to do also the selections of the technology. And now we are with a developer for an SMR BWRX-300 and I am also CEO of GFP, which is the company that we have built with USNC to develop the very small SMR for remote communities and mining.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:14:57] Well let's come back to Global First Power in a second. I'd love to talk a little bit about OPG's project with the GE BWRX-300. So you've been working with this project for the whole time you've been with OPG. We've heard a lot about this partnership at this conference here, but I'd love for you to kind of talk about it because technology selection has been a theme between both your work with OPG and with Global First Power, with the MMR. So tell me what that process has been like. Getting to know several different technologies, how you guys came to the decision to move forward with GE Design and where you're at now, because it's been only a few months since the last major announcement. So I think this is a good time to give everyone an update.

Dominique Minière [00:15:50] We can have a look at both. I mean, why USNC MMR? Probably because on MMR and very small SMR we were looking for a technology of sort of five megawatt electric and the range was a good range for the remote communities and for mining. USNC was developing that. We were looking for technology that was innovative, but I'm always careful, not too much innovative, because in this case, it's sometimes difficult to reach a scale.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:16:20] We stille have regulations, we still have a supply chain.

Dominique Minière [00:16:22] So technology developed by USNC is a high temperature gas reactor. There are already some high temperature gas reactors developed in the world. So it's not new. We know that it is working. From this point of view is traditional, but in the meantime, it's a bit different on some other aspects, some innovations which are quite important, the size and other ideas like that. But I saw that probably, we saw, I was not around, that technology developed by USNC was probably a good fit if we want to develop a MMR on one side. And we are doing the other technology for on-grid SMR. We are looking really for on-grid technologies that could be connected to the grid, be integrated before the end of the '20s with good safety levels, with a possibility to benefit Canadian industry. So there were a lot of parameters, and in fact all the technology we looked at, they were all good. I mean, globally they were all good, some of them, I don't speak of the ones for which we have a new PHG with one computer, but for the other ones, for example, the final ten ones we had to look, we had ten technologies, good technologies. But as a matter of fact, when you try to find a compromise between how to be there before the end of the '20s with certain innovation, but not too much because if you have too much innovation you will never succeed, and that could benefit from the Canadian industry and what are your industries that could benefit from function point of view and things like that. You put all the critera together, it's not metrics and you are not adding in numbers, but the end, the results appear quite, quite easily that we need probably to start with BWRX-300 technology because we think that it could fit globally with the parameters, we are having a look on. We will probably based on that, develope several of them, including Canada, including in Ontario, first for OPG, but also I think in other jurisdictions of Canada, probably in the U.S. also. We have now an agreement with TVA, maybe in Eastern Europe if they need something like that. And we have a lot of people in the U.S., in Eastern Europe which are interested by that. And I think when it goes to such a kind of thing, when you have a look, it's a bit like a demonstration that we can really develop this kind of SMR.

Dominique Minière [00:19:13] And when we commit on the schedule and on the budget, it means we will have a certain level of certainty, not before end of 2024 at the earliest estimate. At this moment we will commit on a timeline and on a project like we have done for refurbishment. And the most important is to deliver on time and on budget in order to get the confidence and the trust of the world community. The public, but also the financial community, because nobody in the financial community will invest in your nuclear program if you are underdelivering on time and on budget.

Dominique Minière [00:19:52] So it's really how we are getting this confidence to do the first one, to duplicate, and then probably when we are obviously demonstrating that we can develop SMR in this way, there will be other technology that will come. There will not be only one technology like for cars, because like when Ford has developed these Ford cars then you have only one model. I mean, progressively there will be other models, maybe not 1,000, but we can imagine that we'd have three, four, five in the future. It's just to open the way. I think we really see ourselves as opening the way for not just solutions for climate change but one part of the solutions, one part of the answer.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:20:36] Right, right. So building out the GE design at the Darlington station, which the whole team there has been working on this refurbishment for quite a while. You have kind of the workforce, the schedule, the commitment to schedule, the commitment to budget already at that site in terms of that management.

Dominique Minière [00:20:57] When you have a look, in fact, you have five reasons for which you don't succeed, usually, and we have difficulties with international nuclear reactors. First one is that you need really to select a technology, which is quite simple. If it is too complex, more complex technology is the most difficult is to deliver it. Second point, usually you need the supply chain, a very strong supply chain. And we have rebuilt the supply chain since the refurbishment. You need a good project team, and once again since the refurbishment we have been able to reset the good project teams. You need one of the topics that we have still to demonstrate, like the simplicity of the design. We have to demonstrate that we can develop completely the design, including the basic design, including the drawings, including everything before the start of construction.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:21:58] Right.

Dominique Minière [00:21:58] Because the first of a kind is very key. And it's not the case, for the time being, for large reactors. And five conditions, you need, I would say, a nuclear safety authority which is strong regarding nuclear safety but which is eager to developing with you this kind of technology. If they are not, if they don't mind, I mean, it's a catastrophe. But it's not the case with CNSC. CNSC is very strong on nuclear safety. It's very strong on nuclear safety. But in the meantime, they would like to see the success of SMR. So we're in very good condition.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:22:28] And so, Global First Power. Explain what Global First Power is. You mentioned CNSC.

Dominique Minière [00:22:36] So we have selected the technology which is a technology of a high temperature gas reactors developed by USNC, so the challenges you have with such kind of technology is that they are small one.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:22:50] Very small. You said five megawatts.

Dominique Minière [00:22:52] Five megawatts, ten megawatt thermal, five megawatt electrical. So it's a small one. So you have the cost competitiveness of that. You are not, I would say, challenging the on-grid cost of electricity because in not for on-grid. So you are competing with diesels, it goes to diesels. So cost of electricity is quite high, so you can compete with such small modular reactors. But in the meantime, we want to put a good condition to do that, and the best way is probably to partner much more and not to have a supplier-customer relationship, but to put everyone together in order to bring from USNC's technologies or other technologies on the range of developing small projects, to bring from OPG our competencies to deal with CNSC and to deal with nuclear safety and of future operation. And you put that together and you create a joint venture, you name it GFP, in order to be more efficient together and not in the, I would say, customer-supplier relationship. And this is typically the idea of GFP, how to put the competencies together in order to succeed.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:24:10] And so something I'm personally very curious about. So with the grid scale application in Darlington with the BDRX-300, the site is there, the crew is there. With the Global First Power Initiative, we're talking about remote communities where we're not looking at grid applications, but you mentioned mining and other types of remote power applications in Canada. So how does that work in terms of site licenses?

Dominique Minière [00:24:43] First, why we have we moved through to what we call remote communities and mining because, you know, we are OPG so our entire operation is mainly to utility, to develop electricity on-grid. It's because OPG is really... I like OPG like I liked EDF in the past because of social license. I mean, we are more than generating electricity. At OPG, we are using the work to supply power with purpose.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:25:23] You mentioned this earlier in what you brought you to nuclear in the first place.

Dominique Minière [00:25:27] Social license is very important. I think we are doing that. Of course we are. We are making money because in each business you need to make money in order to go in and to develop. But the purpose is not to make money, a huge amount of money to do money. It's much more than that. It's for the development of humanity and it's more than only money. So that's why I think when it goes to remote communities, even mining but for remote communities you have a lot of people living in the north of Canada who are relying on diesels which are polluting, for which you need to bring a lot of oil there, and transportation is a nightmare.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:26:10] It's also incredibly expensive.

Dominique Minière [00:26:12] Incredibly expensive. And people sometimes are living in conditions which are very difficult with houses which are cold, very cold, and they have difficulties to live. So if we can bring them a solution, of course they will decide because it's part of the license, it's up to them to decide if they think it or it. But if you are able to propose them a solution which is less polluting, which is working like a battery, a nuclear battery for 20 years, we preserve the battery, you have electricity and heat, and in this case, you are improving your standard of life, I think it's something we have to do. That's why we have moved to that, and we have first to do a commercial demonstration. That's what we are trying to at Chalk River.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:26:56] At the Chalk River site.

Dominique Minière [00:26:58] And after that, it will enable us development for the future. But we have to first demonstrate. Like for Darlington, I think you have seen that we have made steps, we have policy developed. I mean, we are not like in 2019, we have moved quite a lot. But in the meantime, we have to stay humble because we still have a lot to demonstrate, both on Chalk River and other development.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:27:24] That's absolutely amazing. It sounds like a capstone, if you will, to a really long career bringing this technology across France to China, now really kind of helping Canada pave the way for the future of nuclear. As parting words, when you think about the legacy that you have brought and the legacy that these organizations that you're working with today will bring to these communities that will benefit from clean power, what is that like?

Dominique Minière [00:27:57] I think first you have to to stay humble. I mean, you live for a certain period of time. So most important is not to let your name... so most important is to let what you have done. And what you have done is more important than to let your name, I think. So that's why I'm trying to support Canada and support developing this technology not only for Canada but also for other parts of the world. I think it's important. I think if I can explain to my grandchildren that, okay, I have done that and it's good for the future and I can interest them in that, I think that's the most important. Your name is not so important. I mean, the most important is what you have done.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer [00:28:40] What you're leaving behind, right? Well, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. I very much appreciate it. Thanks for coming on Titans.

Dominique Minière [00:28:50] Thank you.

Michael Crabb [00:00:59] Welcome to another episode of Titans of the Nuclear.

Ian Grant [00:01:02] Thank you very much, pleasure to be here.

Michael Crabb [00:01:04] We're thrilled to be joined by Ian Grant, independent consultant and long time nuclear expert. Great having you on.

Ian Grant [00:01:10] Thank you. I'm honored and delighted to be interviewed as a titan of nuclear. It'll be an experience for me.

Michael Crabb [00:01:15] Fantastic, fantastic. Well, before we get into some of the cool stuff you're working on now, tell us about you. Where are you from?

Ian Grant [00:01:22] Well, my accent betrays me as a native of Scotland. I currently live in Ottawa.

Michael Crabb [00:01:28] Okay.

Ian Grant [00:01:29] Maybe I should explain how I came from Scotland to Ottawa.

Michael Crabb [00:01:32] Yeah, you're growing up in Scotland and you said what, "I want to work in nuclear." Like, what?

Ian Grant [00:01:35] Well, as a young graduate, I studied at Glasgow University, engineering. I'm a mechanical engineer by background. And around the time I graduated was in the period of the first Arab oil embargo, the oil crisis, so-called, in the mid 1970s. I'm dating myself. I was a young student at that point. And, you know, it raised energy and energy supplies and consciousness of energy supply and insecurity in the Western world which had become used to cheap oil and cheap gasoline. It raised that as a question in my mind, and I felt this is something I'd like to enter and work in. Out of university, I joined a company that owns Babcock & Wilcox, a storied name with a big works near Glasgow, which was working at the time on both coal-fired facilities because that's what Britain was building, but also components, steam generators for the new advanced gas-cooled reactors that the UK was building, particularly Hartlepool. I had the opportunity to work on some of that really cool advanced technology at Babcock and it really got me started and interested in the potential of nuclear as an energy source that would benefit the world. My idealism, if you like, came to the fore early.

Michael Crabb [00:02:57] You were an early adopter.

Ian Grant [00:02:59] Just so. Yes.

Michael Crabb [00:03:00] So you're an early adopter, you're designing these plants...

Ian Grant [00:03:03] So there I am in Scotland, and I spent about five years at Babcock. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back to university to do a master's degree because I figured that I needed to know a little more about... in fact I was working still in mechanical materials. I went back to do a master's degree in materials at an institutional called Cranfield in the UK. And then from there I applied for a job in Canada. I looked up an advert in the Daily Telegraph and there was a really good one Sunday afternoon that said "Engineers wanted in Canada."

Michael Crabb [00:03:33] Okay. No, no, no. You don't just see an ad in the paper and fly across the pond.

Ian Grant [00:03:37] I'm telling you, this ad was this big. This was how jobs were advertised in those days.

Michael Crabb [00:03:43] But were you thinking of moving or did you want to come to North America, or you wanted something different in your role?

Ian Grant [00:03:48] No, I had actually interviewed with the UK Atomic Energy Authority and was working on a job offer, but I saw this small ad, I got my atlas out and I thought, "There it is." And I applied. I was single; I had the opportunity to go. I thought, if I don't like it, I can always come back again. And it turned out I got the interview in London with the guy, a New Zealander called Ed Price, who'd become my boss in Canada. He made me an offer. I went to join this company called Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., with no idea what I was getting into, but it turned out to be a great job. I'm still in touch with my former boss and former colleagues. But back in those days, this was before the Internet. It was before personal computers. It was before all this electronic stuff. And nuclear in Canada at the time, I felt was like the Google of today. It was the coolest thing going in technology.

Michael Crabb [00:04:40] So you knew that Canada had some real tailwinds for the industry. If you wanted to be in the industry, it was the place to go. So you saw this opportunity and were like, "Hey, I got to try it."

Ian Grant [00:04:51] Yes, exactly. And so AECL at the time, it still exists, I was listening to my colleague Fred Dermarkar speaking at this event as CEO of AECL. But at the time it was a fully configured, integrated R&D engineering project company. It was the designer of the CANDU reactor. It's a well-known reactor design which still supplies 60% of Ontario's electricity. And I got into the engineering organization to help design and build CANDUs in Ontario and abroad. And it was a really exciting time. As I said, I think it attracted the brightest minds in the country because it was one of the coolest things going on in technology. It had this aura about it. This is pre-Chernobyl and while nuclear still had that high tech aura. And I cemented my place in Canada. I met my wife in Canada and the rest, as they say in that regard, is history.

Michael Crabb [00:05:52] So then, yeah, you're in Canada, and you're still in Canada today, right?

Ian Grant [00:05:54] Well, I have a bit more of a story to that. After nine years at AECL, I moved to the Canadian regulator to carry on doing the same sort of work I'd been doing at AECL, but on the regulatory side, looking at what had become an important issue as regarding the maintenance and what's called, in technical terms, fitness for service of the CANDU pressure tubes, the fuel channels. There had been a couple of early failures of fuel channels which are of concern, and there was a lot of work done, a lot of innovative work done on understanding the causes of failure and developing inspection programs, maintenance programs to preclude failures. I got a little bit involved in that with AECL. When I moved to the regulatory body in Ottawa, I continued that work with a small group of technical specialists and worked for some period in that field.

Michael Crabb [00:06:52] And what was that transition like? Because it's, you know, similar subject matter, right? But a very different lens and I think probably a little bit of a different culture. And so talk to us about what...

Ian Grant [00:07:05] Yes, you're right about that. It is a real change in culture. I traded, I guess, or I worked on my technical expertise, but I moved from an organizations that was promoting, designing, and enthusiastic to the regulatory organization where, the regulator is not anti-nuclear or pro-nuclear, it's culture formally is to be independent and to assess the proposals made by the licensees. I think in a way it's a senior role. You sit in a way in judgment or evaluating the work of your peers. It's an important and serious role, and I grew to appreciate it. We built professional, respectful relationships with colleagues in Ontario, Ontario Power Generation and AECL and others, to help to fulfill our role. It was a job I enjoyed. I liked working for the CNSC. Eventually I moved; another important career step was moving out of the technical field into leadership roles, which is a big step in the career trajectory of many technical professionals. You give up the technical skills that give you some measure of authority, some respect, and move into leadership, which is different. And I benefited from excellent training offered by the CNSC. I was given opportunities. I took over the leadership of some of the technical divisions there.

Michael Crabb [00:08:31] So still at the regulator.

Ian Grant [00:08:32] Still at the regulator.

Michael Crabb [00:08:33] Just overseeing a broader team.

Ian Grant [00:08:35] That's right. And I eventually rose to the position of Director of Power Reactor Regulation, overseeing the licensing and safety assessment of the fleet of CANDU reactors in Canada.

Michael Crabb [00:08:50] What time was this transition taking place now over the years, approximately?

Ian Grant [00:08:52] I joined the CNSC in '89. It's seems like ancient history now. But by 2002 I was holding senior leadership roles in the CNSC in reactor safety assessment and licensing. That was a really busy job. As a matter of fact, I was speaking to the current incumbent just before I came here who's acquired some more gray hairs, still working on pressure tubes and other safety related issues to assess them, to verify the safety of the operating reactors in Canada. I think it's a worthy job. You deal with senior people in industry. It's a serious job. You're working on behalf of Canadians to ensure the safety and security of the facilities that are operating under supervision of the CNSC.

Michael Crabb [00:09:47] And so this is an issue, though, that's been, you know, 30, 40 years of management. I mean, can you tell us more about the... don't get too technical on me. I mean, our audience probably will know. But tell us more about this specific tube failure issue that you're working on. How did you measure it? How do you test it?

Ian Grant [00:10:06] Well, CANDUs are a unique design. It gives them unique advantages and some particular issues. The reactor core is contained in hundreds, 480 is the standard number in the 900 megawatt units, of long slender tubes which contain the fuel bundles and the hot high pressure coolant. That distinguishes the design from other conventional light-water reactors where the reactor core is contained within a heavy single pressure vessel, which is a massive steel forging. So CANDUs have got manufacturing advantages that don't require the large metal components that other reactors require. But the pressure tubes are subjected to intense heat and radiation in the reactor core. This changes the radiation; the heat changes the mental properties, the metal becomes harder, more brittle. It also corrodes slowly in the high temperature water. And these changes over time can lead to, if unchecked, potential failures of the tubes, wherein the limit, they might burst.

Michael Crabb [00:11:23] Are they pressurized?

Ian Grant [00:11:24] Yes. They carry the full pressure of the actual coolant. And so the industry has developed careful inspection techniques to examine the interior of the pressure tubes when the fuel is removed, to look for the presence of possible defects, to assess the level of corrosion that's taken place and the consequential uptake of hydrogen. And that's part of the fitness for service monitoring programs we've implemented and standardized across the fleet of CANDU reactors. And the fact that the reactors have run since my early days in AECL for 30 years without significant failure is a testament, I think, to the skill of the men and women who've worked in this field.

Michael Crabb [00:12:02] Can you just replace the tubes, or?

Ian Grant [00:12:06] In fact, that is what is happening at the operating stations now. Darlington, for example, I was speaking last night to people from Ontario Power Generation who've just completed a successful, what's called refurbishment of Unit Two at Darlington, where they tear down the reactor, remove the pressure tubes and the internal core components and replace them. It's an enormously complex project.

Michael Crabb [00:12:30] You said there were 400?

Ian Grant [00:12:31] 480 of these fuel channels, and they've done that. This has now been repeated enough in different units. They've now got this down to a fine art. They're being funded to do this. In fact, Ontario's not building many new big nuclear power plants. What it is doing is putting money into the refurbishment of these CANDU units, so that each unit, once it's been rebuilt, will run for another 30 or 35 years, ensuring the continuity of generation, low-carbon nuclear generation in the province.

Michael Crabb [00:13:01] It's incredible that we can extend the life of these, I mean, almost indefinitely, right?

Ian Grant [00:13:05] Yes, yes.

Michael Crabb [00:13:06] They become totally new units at some point.

Ian Grant [00:13:08] Yes, it's like Charlemagne's original war axe, two new heads and three new handles, but it's the same. And so these are important projects, economically important. They've been carried out with a great deal of skill and effort by the people in OPG and Bruce.

Michael Crabb [00:13:28] I can imagine. Okay, well, we got away from your story, specifically. So you're in leadership at the Canadian regulator, and then what?

Ian Grant [00:13:35] And then I took an unusual move. I accepted a position in Abu Dhabi. Through initial networking contacts, I came to learn of and was offered a position in the embryonic regulatory organization in Abu Dhabi to help to... My position was to help to set up a new regulatory organization and to oversee the licensing and construction of the what's called the Barakah facility, the nuclear facility that the United Arab Emirates had built at the site called Barakah.

Michael Crabb [00:14:12] And this wasn't a newspaper ad this time; this was a little bit more of a traditional job search.

Ian Grant [00:14:14] This wasn't a newspaper ad. Well, actually, it was word of mouth. I'd been interacting with another colleague through an international project we'd been working on, a Swedish gentleman, and we'd been talking about the project. And he said, "By the way, there's something else I'd like to mention to you." This was the something else. He'd already been appointed as the deputy head of the organization and he was looking for senior people to join him. So I joined what became the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation in Abu Dhabi as the Director of Nuclear Safety. And I think that was really, so far, the highlight of my career. It was a fascinating assignment, a really rewarding experience professionally and personally.

Michael Crabb [00:15:03] I can imagine. Where do you start? You're building a nuclear regulator from scratch? Where do you start?

Ian Grant [00:15:08] Well, at the beginning.

Michael Crabb [00:15:11] But where the heck is the beginning?

Ian Grant [00:15:15] Well, in the very beginning, you know, my badge number is #25, but there weren't 25 people in the organization when I got there. That was the number of people they'd made offers to. There's about a dozen people. And then in the beginning, we sat around the table and said, "What should we do next?" It was really that informal. But I would say that we were operating in an environment where there was really strong policy leadership from the government. The government of the UAE had already undertaken studies. All of the electricity generated in UAE up to that point was generated by natural gas. And the gas wasn't produced locally; it came from a pipeline from Qatar. And of course, money flows in the opposite direction. And whether the system is working, the objectives of the government, as I understand them, were to diversify the fuel supply and also to adopt a generation means that was environmentally sustainable and nuclear was seen as fulfilling these criteria. So the government already made the decision that it wanted to build a nuclear power plant, and it already decided that it was going to set up a regulatory body and an operating company, which was known as Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation. So the frame had been set, if you like, and our job was to make this happen.

Michael Crabb [00:16:30] And how important, when you're thinking about the complexities of a regulatory system with such a technical project, or really projects, right, you're trying to kind of create a process. Maybe compare and contrast that political support and sort of, "Hey, we want to do this and we just want to do it well," versus maybe other jurisdictions that are like, "Oh, you know, it sounds nice," or that has more of a kind of sine wave of support.

Ian Grant [00:17:00] Yes, yes. Well, I think that one of the success factors was in fact the clear policy support of the government. In fact, I just listened to, maybe you were in the room too, our colleague Ahab speaking, who talked about the need for leadership. He referred to President Eisenhower's speech and commented that actually political leaders tend not to commit to nuclear in a way that really provides that driving force in the way that the UAE did. So I think it is very important. I think when policy support is tentative, when many voices are raised and it's a debate, it's very hard for these projects to move forward. That governmental support is actually quite important.

Michael Crabb [00:17:43] Yeah. What have you seen more specifically that the UAE did, or other governments in your pretty broad experience that really drove that signal?

Ian Grant [00:17:53] Well, I think the era I joined Canada in had a similar policy. EACL was a state-owned corporation, a Canadian creature called a crown corporation. It is a state corporation which was managed on... It wasn't a civil service organization, it was managed on normal business lines, but the government was it's sole stakeholder. And its mandate was to implement nuclear energy in all its forms. And at the time, there was public support and really a huge program. When I got to Canada, they were building, if memory serves me right, something like 12 reactors at one time. Were we nuts?

Michael Crabb [00:18:35] We've seen that in the UK, right? They all kind of go in waves.

Ian Grant [00:18:39] Exactly. And I think that it's important in the present for leadership to merge because if you even halfway believe the numbers that we hear about the need for electrification of the economy and the enormous uplift required in generation capacity, we need to get back programs on that sort of scale and the industry needs to deliver projects reliably, on time, on budget, and I believe we can do it. But that is, I think what's crying out for. This tentative, "Let's build one," isn't by any means the sort of, I think, leadership that's needed. You see examples of that. There's a lot of excitement and leadership in Canada now with the SMR Action Plan. The government has taken actions that are much more supportive of nuclear development. But I think more is needed. And I think the UAE as a present day model shows the sort of leadership that's needed to implement a successful program.

Michael Crabb [00:19:38] Yeah. Yeah, incredible. I do get the sense, I'd be curious based on your history, comparing across these years, if this is true, but it certainly seems the last 6, 12, 18 months, there's been a remarkable shift in just broad public sentiment and industry excitement. And I feel like that's flown into the political sphere as well. It's maybe the only bipartisan supported issue in the United States, or one of the few. But I'm not sure people really know how to like voice and articulate that support. I've been frustrated personally that, you know, it just sort of shows up in like free money that gets doled around.

Ian Grant [00:20:20] Free money in what sense?

Michael Crabb [00:20:21] Well, grant money and funding. The governments love... You know, it's very splashy to play venture capitalist. It's a lot harder and much more boring to change some of the very particular things around project development and regulatory processes and revenue incentives. So what sort of conversations have you had lately around how we can create a proper incentive, sort of a demand-pull incentive instead of a supply-push?

Ian Grant [00:20:53] That's a big question, isn't it? I mean, I chaired a panel yesterday on public-private partnerships with a good set of panelists, including Maria Korsnick, the CEO of Nuclear Energy Institute. And one of the questions that came up from the audience I think was an interesting one, because while people are bullish with SMRs and saying, "This is the wave of the future," the question they asked is, "But policies just closed, last month... Another nuclear generating station shutdown because it's not making money. How do you reconcile that apparent contradiction? Nuclear nuclear plants are struggling to stay in business, and yet we're saying we're going to build lots more of them." And I think, Maria's answer, and I don't mean to quote her, but I'll put it in my words, I think it's true that the answer is the current market isn't conducive to... Nuclear projects aren't bankable. The prospects of an economic return on the project seem to be uncertain. It's hard to get private investment into nuclear projects, and I think that's got to somehow change.

Michael Crabb [00:22:00] How do you change that?

Ian Grant [00:22:03] Well, economists say carbon pricing. That's the rational answer, but it's a very, very unpopular one in this era of rising gas prices. If the market only pays you for electricity, that's all you get. You get the lowest cost generation electricity. If the market says you've got to pay for electricity and to reduce carbon, then nuclear and also renewables will then come to the fore through economic incentives. I think that sort of signaling in the market needs to be there in order for nuclear to attract private sector investment. But of course, governments can also do a lot in terms of... On the panel I talked on yesterday, public-private partnerships. We see innovative financing ideas coming from the UK, which seems to be making progress in this area with taking on some of the risk and taking that off the shoulders of investors and making it more possible for projects to move ahead in that way.

Ian Grant [00:23:06] Another area, maybe closer to my expertise and what I'm currently doing is regulation and licensing. I think it's also important to realize the idea of a global market where standard designs are sold in different countries, which I think is essential to the vision of propagating SMRs at low cost. It's going to be essential for regulators to cooperate and to ensure that, on the one hand, they deliver on their accountability to their government and to their public, which is to verify the safety of what's been built, without at the same time needlessly redoing assessment and review of what has already been done competently in other countries. I think that's one of the challenges facing the regulatory community that I'm certainly trying to help WNE, the World Nuclear Association address. And I know that other colleagues in the regulatory field are engaging on this topic.

Michael Crabb [00:24:04] Yeah, I'd love to pick your brain more on that exact kind of harmonization question because I think it actually dovetails with our policy support. Because I do fear that harmonization just means we'll take the strictest part of everything is just make it exponentially more challenging.

Ian Grant [00:24:27] That's right.

Michael Crabb [00:24:28] And I don't necessarily believe that that's really a rational or effective approach and is much more harmful to society., but, you know, personally. So, yeah, how do you avoid that sort of outcome or, you know, taking more of a sort of first principles approach to like...

Ian Grant [00:24:46] Yeah. Well, I think there are a couple of things that could be done, more than a couple. And more than a couple of things need to be done in order to avoid these very issues. One, I think, can be cooperation among regulators. And as an example of that, I'll go back to my UAE experience. The UAE built, you may know, a Korean reactor design after a bidding process. And very wisely, they specified in the bid specifications that the technology, whatever technology was offered, should include a reference plant that had been licensed and was operating in the country of origin. The Koreans fulfilled that requirement. And when they started work, not only were experienced Korean engineers seconded or brought to the UAE to help construct the reactor, they almost had wet concrete still in their boots because they'd come from the construction site.

Michael Crabb [00:25:38] Just did it the exact same way.

Ian Grant [00:25:40] They did it exactly the same way. They were not on a quest wondering where it was going to go. They had books of photocopies saying, "This is what it's to look like in three months time." But also, the regulatory bodies created agreements, cooperative agreements. And FANR, the federal authority that I was working for received a lot of support from the Korean regulator, so that in particular, they helped us understand the safety assessments that they had conducted on the plant in Korea. They walked us through the arguments they made. They helped us understand the standards they had reviewed against to the extent that we could say, "Okay, we understand this particular piece of review. We understand that the standards you're looking at are compatible with the standards we believe are required, and therefore, we're going to make a decision to accept this topic, this area of review, simply based on the fact that you've accepted it. We're not going to inquire any further." We focused our efforts on where there were differences. And there were differences between the Korean plant and the UAE plant brought about by things like siting, the extreme climate in the UAE, the water temperature differences and so on. But we focused on reviewing these which were new information and not on redoing what other regulators have competently done. And that is a model called the Reference Plant Approach or the Country of Origin Approach. I've given you a recent example, but it's also been amply demonstrated in the past. When the original plants were built in Belgium, for example, or France, when plants were imported from Westinghouse, a lot of the U.S. rules were also imported.

Michael Crabb [00:27:13] So apply that to an SMR or an AMR where there's a chicken and egg issue here, right? A little bit. There's may not be a reference plant for...

Ian Grant [00:27:21] But you need a first of a kind. I mean, I think one of the challenges with SMRs is that somebody has to build one and get it operating.

Michael Crabb [00:27:30] Right. The regulator can't regulate if they don't see it operating. How do we sort of bridge this?

Ian Grant [00:27:35] Well, I think the answer is get one operating. Somebody's got to be first of a kind. And you have, I think, the near term deployable SMRs, in my language. I carry no flag for particular models, but obviously you have the NuScale plant which has already received design certification with USNRC. That's a huge intangible resource, that design certification application and Safety Evaluation Report. General Electric's BWR is based on subject technology. Once we hear serious proposals to build these types... Ontario Power Generation's Darlington new nuclear project seems to have all the characters of a concrete project. They're going to build it. TVA has announced a similar project, and TVA and OPG are going to collaborate. Now, if the regulators can also get together, and CNSC and the USNRC have a cooperative agreement, we heard President Rumina Velshia discuss this in her talk, then I think there's scope for working out particularities of difference in the regulations that cause the economic difficulty of the vendors and realize efficiencies. Once you have these first two plants built, I think others around the world, we hear of Estonia, Poland, to name a couple who are interested in doing likewise, I think there's a potential they're getting support from the vendors, whoever they may be, and the regulators who've got the experience of these plants to help them develop the regulatory framework in an efficient way. So I think by working in that collaborative way, I think there's a prospect of removing differences that are causing difficulties for the vendors but which have got no significance for safety. I mean, I think clearly, if a reactor's safe enough to operate in the United States it ought to be safe enough to operate in Canada or Estonia. It doesn't make sense to say that our demanding requirements are... In the present day and age, that doesn't seem like the right approach.

Michael Crabb [00:29:47] There seem to me to be two challenges there, right? The first is... Your example in the UAE was very successful in part because you had the reference plan. But I think a major driver is that political support and that sort of dual mandate obligation by the regulator. Because if you're only going to weigh one side of the scale, it's almost impossible to ever do it. And so that for me, and harmonization... Like, you can collaborate all you want and use best practices, but if you're only measuring one side of the scale, how do you ever get there? So I think that's a really critical piece that I don't know how to rationalize in my head.

Ian Grant [00:30:29] I think there has to be a dialog between the industry and the regulator. If the regulators are left in the room to themselves, they can talk about harmonization and they can do fruitful work and collaborate in a very collegial way. But I think what the industry has is a sense of... I mean, harmonization for the regulators, it sounds like a really big issue.

Michael Crabb [00:30:52] I think it like feels like it's taking away... Really smart, hardworking people that, I think, many have been there for a decade. And so they have real ownership of their process. So saying, "Hey, we're going to use this part of it," I think is like, well, you know...

Ian Grant [00:31:08] I think it's a natural human reaction. I saw that in the UAE, reviewers who say, "What do you mean we're going to accept this because the Koreans accepted it. I want to review this."

Michael Crabb [00:31:17] This is my thing; I've got to know this.

Ian Grant [00:31:19] That's a very natural human reaction, I think. And also, I think it's important to recognize that each national regulator has an accountability to its government and to its public. It can't say, "We give a license to this because we had a license that was granted somewhere else." It has to do its due diligence. But I don't think that due diligence needs to take a graded approach. Apply a risk informed approach. It doesn't mean that you have to review every single calculation. You have to do enough for it to satisfy yourself that what's being offered is safe. The way I used to speak of the UAE experience was that we were not taking shortcuts and doing a substandard job, we were enhancing safety by working with experts who were already familiar with the technology.

Michael Crabb [00:32:04] That's better for everyone, right? To build on that work that's already been done.

Ian Grant [00:32:07] The alternative of us saying, "We're going to do it ourselves," it doesn't... So enhancing safety was the first, and we're enhancing the efficiency, we're helping the effectiveness of review. And regulators, I think, wil;l probably always say, "Our mandate is safety and security," but I think there's a responsibility to work with the project proponent not to be an unnecessary delay. I always said to my counterparts in the UAE and also in Canada, "We recognize your project schedule. We will work as efficiently as we can to meet your project schedule. We'll give you our estimates of how long we think a review is going to take. We will stay in contact with how it's going, but recognize that we are here ultimately not to promote the project, but ensure safety." I think within that ethical approach and professional approach, there's much that can be done by adopting a respectful professional relationship rather than an adversarial one.

Michael Crabb [00:33:09] Absolutely, absoltely. And there are great examples in other industries as well that deal with high requirements in safety and industrial complexity.

Ian Grant [00:33:18] That's right. The example of aviation is often talked about. I think the similarities are that nuclear designs, it costs so much to develop a nuclear reactor that I think ultimately what's going to be successful around the world are a small number of different designs that are marketed internationally. You see the same thing in commercial aircraft. It's very hard to tell if we arrived in an Airbus or a Boeing, because they all look the same.

Michael Crabb [00:33:44] Sure.

Ian Grant [00:33:47] More or less for the same reasons. It's enormously expensive to develop a commercial aircraft, they're optimized according to the set of rules, and they wind up with similar looking products.

Michael Crabb [00:33:58] What is expensive. I want to peel that back because I think people think about, "This is a really expensive hot rock." What is so expensive about a nuclear plant? Are you specifying between a nuclear design or a reactor design or the full power plant delivery itself?

Ian Grant [00:34:16] Well, let's break that down. I mean, the engineering of a nuclear power plant is a small fraction of the total cost of building a modern gigawatt scale nuclear power plant simply because of the massive amounts of material and labor that go into the physical construction. But if you peel that back, there are many innovative designs of SMRs out there. In the early stages of conceptual design, a design on paper with a flow sheet that on paper has got attractive features, it has nevertheless got to go through a process of maturation of the technology until it's ready for licensing. You need, for example, to submit to the regulator a coherent safety assessment. It's not sufficient simply to say our reactor is safe, you need to demonstrate it's safe. There needs to be a set of arguments and evidence provided to support those arguments. In the design of molten salt reactors, for example, they seem to have some excellent features that make them very attractive. It's necessary for the developers to step through that. And in addition to providing an analysis, there may be a need for experimental evidence to back up particular claims. You may need to do some lab work to support what's being offered in terms of a computer code analysis and validate codes. And that's expensive for developers, to get to the point where they've got the design that's mature enough for licensing and for commercialization.

Michael Crabb [00:35:45] So why not use existing designs?

Ian Grant [00:35:48] Well, I think that's what you're seeing and what I've referred to already as market-ready SMRs. They're based upon existing light-water reactor technology. They show evolutionary improvements with passive systems design. We heard the NuScale developers say that they've been approved for off-grid operation. You don't need electricity supplies in from the grid to maintain the safety of the plant is the claim they make. And that's been accepted, I understand, in design certification. So these are worthwhile gains, but the technology is still familiar. It's still based upon what regulators and designers around the world are seeing.

Michael Crabb [00:36:27] It seems to me that's really the commercial opportunity. Because you can't demonstrate, experimentally, the thing at scale that you want to build at scale. It's like a circular problem.

Ian Grant [00:36:39] It's like aviation. I mean, in aviation you build prototypes and test them. And I think that a lot can be done with computer software and sophisticated analysis codes. But some of this is going to require expendable and verification, and that's costly for developers to bring that up to market.

Michael Crabb [00:36:58] No, that's fascinating. Okay, well, we've gone all over the place. Just to wrap it up here, what have we not talked about that you wanted to make sure that we covered?

Ian Grant [00:37:10] Well, you know, I've been enthusiastic about what I've heard at this conference. This is a moment of renewed optimism for the nuclear industry that, to my mind, recalls the heady days of joining AECL and working in Britain on these cool projects. I really hope that the industry can deliver the first few plants. I think if they're built on time, on cost, and start to generate electricity, there's going to be an enormous acceptance of that as a model and you'll start to see it propagate. But I think it's very important to get over that hurdle of talking about it and actually building one, on time, on budget.

Michael Crabb [00:37:55] I couldn't agree more. So I couldn't agree more with that. We need to get steel in the ground because the scale of the the problem is enormous.

Ian Grant [00:38:04] That's right.

Michael Crabb [00:38:05] And how do you think about that fear? When I've talked to people, sometimes there is this fear like, "Oh, the first one has to be so perfect." It's almost a paralyzing nervousness.

Ian Grant [00:38:14] I agree. I absolutely, totally agree with that. And Ahab spoke very... He talked about how we've been regulated to a standard of perfection so that the least imperfection is cause for disengagement. And I think we've got to get over that. You know, in the early days, all sorts of mistakes were made. People say, "We built a plant in five years." Yes, but when you look at all of the work that has been to be done to fix it after that and to deal with unexpected occurrences... I don't want to say in the '60s and '70s, people were reckless, maybe they were less aware of the risk. But there has to be some practical bound on the standards, not perfection. The standard is do no harm. And we recognize that low levels of radiation don't cause significant harm to people. But somehow helping the public understand that countering negative voices who continue to exaggerate, I think is really part of the process.

Michael Crabb [00:39:10] Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's an exciting time. Looking forward to seeing stuff get built. Thanks so much for coming on.

Ian Grant [00:39:17] Thank you very much for the interview. You had great questions. I've enjoyed talking to you.

This transcript is pending

This transcript is pending

This transcript is pending

Disclaimer [00:01:02] When this episode was recorded, Barakah Unit 2 was not yet operational as was mentioned in the episode. It has since been declared commercially operational. Enjoy the show.

Bret Kugelmass [00:01:12] So we are here today on Titans of Nuclear with His Excellency Mohamed Al Hammadi, who is the CEO of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation. Welcome to our show.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:01:23] Thank you for having me.

Bret Kugelmass [00:01:25] Before we get into some of the amazing accomplishments that we've seen in your country, and I mean, for the nuclear world, this is the best, getting all these reactors up and running. Before we get to that, we'd love to just learn a little bit about you as an individual. Maybe you could tell us where you were born and how you got interested in the sector.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:01:45] I was born in Abu Dhabi, and I did my schooling at the University of Florida. I did my bachelor's in Electrical Engineering at the same school. I did also a Master's in Engineering Management. And from there I've worked in the utility sector for over 20 years now, mainly on projects of utility projects.

Bret Kugelmass [00:02:07] And if I may, why engineering out of all of the disciplines in the world.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:02:13] Specifically, electrical engineering. Actually, when I was a young kid, I broke my father's radio and I could not fix it. And that was the one of the reasons I got to study. I remember I did my own first rain detector in Abu Dhabi because it doesn't rain much here. It was a nice toy to play with with my nephews. I've taken that device all the way to the university level to an electronics lab to discover it, understand the math and science behind it. And from there, I've now enjoyed the engineering sector. When I was almost about to graduate I came for an internship back home and worked in the oil and gas sector over summertime. Then I discovered that I would do something other than the operation and maintenance of oil and gas facilities. I would rather go do something on projects, more on the engineering side. And that's when I did my Master's Degree in Engineering Management, which is half engineering, half management of technological projects. If you asked me if I expected to land and run a nuclear project, no.

Bret Kugelmass [00:03:19] Well, tell me about some of that early experience, that exposure to the utility sector. What were some of the early jobs that you had, some of the early challenges that you had to overcome?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:03:30] Yeah, actually, I was lucky. When I joined, the sector in Abu Dhabi was completely restructured. So that was 1998; I joined them in 1999 where the whole sector was restructured so there was clarity of roles on responsibility, on the generation, transmission, distribution. And that was the early part of it. So having a master's degree helped me understand the strategic reasons behind it and the economics and all that, so I was able to engage. But I was unsatisfied, actually. I wanted to be an engineer. So I went to the field. I used to do cable jointing, I used to work in commissioning of substations...

Bret Kugelmass [00:04:06] Okay, so real physical work, not just engineering, but like you're in the field actually doing the applied engineering.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:04:13] Yep, yep, yep. And I actually enjoyed that because to be able to understand the challenges of the operation and maintenance and the fields of the projects, it gives you an edge, it gives you an understanding. When you ask somebody to do a project, a contractor, or at least you can know the specifics on what they will do and what are the challenges, what's difficult, and what's easy to do. So you cannot move a big 50 ton crate around; theoretically I will do that if I didn't do the field experience. I did spend, by the way, almost a year plus in the field, testing, commissioning. I remember we used to do cable shutdowns in the middle of the night. Our shifts are from 12:00 in the evening until like 6:00 in the morning just to overcome the people that were there sleeping, so we don't have any disruption. And I enjoyed that. It was a nice experience.

Bret Kugelmass [00:05:05] Tell me about how engineering best practices are translated around the world. When it comes to the facilities that you're working on, are these... And I'm not saying the nuclear ones yet, I'm saying earlier in your career, are these still international projects where construction and engineering teams internationally come together, or is there a domestic industry that specializes in this as well?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:05:29] So on the higher side of voltage, which is the higher side of the grid, that's yes, we have international companies from Japan, Germany, the U.S. and other parts of the world who work on the engineering and also contractors who come and do the job, because these are very specialized jobs when it comes to higher voltage work. So I got that exposure; I really enjoyed the early parts of my career, as I said. I remember we did testing of the commissioning of power plants not far away from the Barakah, the nuclear power plant. I remember we did that commissioning, it took us six weeks. One of the young German engineers who was working from Germany came to Abu Dhabi to spend the time. It was good to learn from them, practical engineering. And also I was able to apply my theoretical knowledge from engineering. So it was a good much to learn and to grow. And I'm very privileged to have that opportunity. And now I don't call an engineer an engineer until they've been to the fields. They have to earn their scars on their back.

Bret Kugelmass [00:06:27] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so as time went on, how did your role evolve? What types of projects did you start getting involved in that led all the way up to Barakah?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:06:39] So initially I was given one of the remote projects, like in the middle of the desert, to go and do a connection between villages of overhead lines and cabling and substations and all that. I was involved in the design part of it, the scoping of it, the tendering of it, the construction of it, and the testing, commissioning, all the way to handover. So that gave me an exposure of being able to manage a project with a small team. Also international contractors, I worked with them in an a very complex, technical field. And being in the field, that was always like the build up of my career. Then I was shifted to being given more challenging, more difficult jobs.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:07:21] I remember once we had to build ten substations, distribution transmission substations across the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Ten of them in one go. And I remember that company, the contractor was Hyundai. And the Koreans came to the UAE and did a complex project, being involved to coordinate and manage and view engineering documents and all that. And it was a build up in my career. And then I was given actually the running of the departments of Water and Electricity, also projects. I was promoted to run that team. Also, I was younger at that time. I had 60 engineers reporting to me with the two departments, Water and Electricity. So I was responsible for roughly around 300 projects with a couple of billions to be spent to managed. So it became from project management, program management to portfolio management, so managing a portfolio of projects. And that was, you know, my master's degree kind of specialty, but I wanted to really apply that in my career.

Bret Kugelmass [00:08:27] How was that? When you first had to take on a portfolio with hundreds of projects, how did you have to change as an individual in terms of how you thought about resources or risks or how you even spend your own time and what you focus on?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:08:43] I got interested on the generation side and actually in the business development case. I joined a company called Mubadala, one of the big investment companies here in the UAE. And there I joined them to develop business cases to build nuclear power plants, gas plants and other energy sources. They got me a nice exposure in the private sector on the business development, the financial side. Then after that I got a job at the federal government to come and run a utility with generation, transmission, distribution, revenue collection of around 250,000 customers. And that was also a big challenge for me. But that was part of the learning in that process. And at that job, actually, that was in 2006, we were looking at the nuclear... Not just specifically nuclear, we were looking at the energy mix and what can we do to diversify the energy mix for the country and create like a diversified portfolio of energy running... generate electricity based on gas, on renewable. And we were looking at nuclear; is it possible, is it worth investing in? And now I'm in this chair. I've been running this job for almost 12 years and we have our power plant operation now, the first one.

Bret Kugelmass [00:10:03] Well, you skipped over a little part there.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:10:06] Yes, go ahead.

Bret Kugelmass [00:10:08] I'd love to hear if you can take me back to the time... You already answered the question I was going to ask, which is, how did you get exposed to nuclear? But can you now take me back to that moment where the country is actually considering and debating and maybe give me both sides of the argument? And how was it decided that nuclear would become an essential part of the power mix?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:10:29] So we were actually technology agnostic, so we didn't have any technology, specifically. These are the economics, these are the terms, you know, we need something to be clean in the mix, we need something that is economically viable and will provide secure and reliable sources of electricity for decades to come. And that's actually also, we launched the renewable in that time. The renewable kilowatt hour cost was around 40 cents around that time. Now it's 1.6 cents, which is much cheaper than it used to be. Oil prices were like a $100 dollars a barrel, so it was also on the higher side. And gas also; that was also an issue that we need to diversify and also increase. And the demand of electricity, by the way, at that time... I remember specifically because I used to run a federal government utility, which deals with those dynamics of energy prices and all that. We didn't have enough capacity and we needed to build more plants. We had actually double digit electricity demand. And as of today, electricity demand continues to grow.

Bret Kugelmass [00:11:41] Moving into the future as well, is there more projected growth?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:11:45] Actually, in the last decade we had double digits, but now we have a single digit, but still high compared to other countries like Europe, the U.S. and some places it's even minus when it comes to growth. Here we are still growing. Still the demand for electricity is growing. And actually, if you look even globally today, electricity demand by 2050 will increase by 50%. And that's something we'll talk about maybe in a bit. But going to that moment when we selected the nuclear, we actually did a white paper on it. Actually, it's available publicly online. It was published in April 2008, talking about, "This is the electricity demand we need, and this is the thinking. If we build nuclear power plants, we are committed to the high standards of nuclear safety, security and preparation." Those were all the fundamentals of our program. So how do we make electricity in a clean, safe and reliable manner? And nuclear did meet all the checklists for the economics of it, and we decided to build four units.

Bret Kugelmass [00:12:48] It's amazing. And this must have been... I mean, is this the largest infrastructure project in your region? I mean, it's got to be one of the biggest, right?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:12:56] In UAE history, yes. This is the biggest industrial project that the government has ever taken.

Bret Kugelmass [00:13:01] So that shows something about people's confidence in you, to have you run this. I mean, that's a pretty incredible honor.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:13:09] Yes. I've enjoyed the journey. And today we are 3,000 people strong, by the way, in the program. So I'm not alone. So we have a highly qualified nuclear women and men in the fields. And some of them are certified Senior Reactor Operators who are running the plant as we speak right now, making the power plant run safely at 100% power.

Bret Kugelmass [00:13:30] I mean, it's an incredible success story, once again, not just for your country, but I think for the entire nuclear industry. You guys have proven something, that nuclear can get its momentum back. But were there times along the way in these last 12 years where you thought maybe this project won't be able to finish? Was there any doubt at any point, maybe even due to forces outside of your control?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:13:52] No, we didn't have any doubts. I think the government support has been... From the early days of the project, there was a clear policy issued, 2008, as I mentioned, published, actually, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And we did follow it through in a very pragmatic, very systematic approach. And we had a lot of support from the international companies, countries. The U.S. also has been a partner in many, many parts of the business. Laws were issued immediately after the policy paper, paving the way for the nuclear program. There was a law establishing the regulator and also enticing that it's illegal to enrich or reprocess uranium in the UAE. So all the commitments were done. The government has signed agreements with countries like the U.S., France and other countries. The IAEA also has been very instrumental in supporting us and developing the program. I remember in the early days, I attended a couple of workshops at the IAEA and what they call the milestone document for developing the nuclear program. It has like 19 areas. We took that, we adopted a road map of the UAE. Going back to my background, running projects, we did translate that to 1,000 plus activities for the next 100 years. And we start with the project managers. It's taken that discipline for us to develop our program.

Bret Kugelmass [00:15:16] That's amazing. Actually, I have two questions. First is, I want to hear, from your perspective, what was the most difficult component of the whole project? Was it the government to government agreements? Was it the engineering? Was it the people management? What was the hardest part?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:15:36] Mega projects have multifaceted challenges, and you have to program manage them, portfolio, manage them and project manage them on a day to day basis. So these are at a very high level. So specifically was getting the talent and development of human capital talent, that was also challenging, and will continue for decades to come because you need highly qualified, highly disciplined people who can work on those facilities. And we realized this from our lessons learned from other countries who developed their programs and were very advanced. We went and we checked whomever reach the excellence level. We took it, we learned from them, and we took it and went up a notch from the standards here in the UAE. I remember we developed something very theoretical, like a pipeline people would be put in. They spend a couple of years, they graduate from bachelor's, they go to master's, and then they go to Ph.D. And some of them will go from bachelor's to, even ahead of bachelor, they will go to technical school and be qualified as operators and local operators. I remember we were sitting in a room in 2009 and 2010 imagining senior reactors graduating, that was my dream. And I know we have tens of them now graduating, being given a license by the regulator. And I'm very proud to say one of the young women, female engineers, she took Unit 2 critical, and she is a Certified Shift Manager at Barakah. As I'm speaking about this, there are butterflies in my stomach, with this achievement. If you ask me what is the ultimate achievement? This is the achievement, actually, than the steel and concrete.

Bret Kugelmass [00:17:07] Building the human pipeline.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:17:08] Yeah, yeah. I see them now with confidence and the nuclear safety culture and the rigor and threeway communication and the discipline that they have in them. It's amazing to see that happening.

Bret Kugelmass [00:17:21] Everyone's in awe, like everyone is in awe of seeing these units come online. I mean, I joined the nuclear industry just four or five years ago, and I remember hearing, "Oh, they might get finished soon, but we're not sure." You never know until you turn them on. And just to see them come online is just... I mean, everyone around the world is cheering for your success because it shows that it can be done. It can be done everywhere. Tell me more about the selection of the number of units, why you chose four units, and the technology and which country was to contribute which piece of the technology. How did you decide all that?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:18:02] Okay, if I may, before I start that, also, I would like to maybe segway again on the human capital. So, imagine the country doesn't have nuclear capabilities or know how and knowledge. To manage nuclear projects, it needs a disciplined rigor also. So I remember, the first was around early 2009, before even awarding the contract to the contractor. So I had my senior team. I hired a couple of nuclear experts from the U.S. and other countries, but I wanted the Emirati guys, my colleagues, myself included, at least understanding nuclear physics before we signed a contract in this industry. I do remember one of the best places to go is MIT. So we spoke to MIT and they organized a course for us to go and join them. And then we spent three weeks in Boston. It was in summer time; we enjoyed the weather. I thought Boston is always like, but it's too cold in wintertime. And we learned the nuclear physics, what's a k factor, how a chain reaction starts, how a reactor works at the early days so we were able to manage and lead with something, the technology that we understood. So we did spend that three weeks and it was really, really worth it. And even the guys who were hired later after that from the oil and gas and other industrial sectors, we made sure they at least spent three weeks understanding the equipment.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:19:22] But now we have guys with real degrees, bachelor's and master's degrees in real science. So maybe I'm the older generation in that workforce. Now back to your question, why did we select four units? We did the load demand management and what was the gap? The gap was around like five units plus to build with the double digit growth we had planned. We had a plan by 2020; we'll reach 40 gigawatts and now we are below that. But the four units today will suffice from a from a demand side, a point of view. Why four not two, by the way? That's a very important question. For a new country, a new nation to develop a nuclear program, you need at least four units to satisfy enough revenue and cash flow to support the industry, R&D, human capital development, also the regulator fees and all that. So if we built two it would be an anemic program; building four creates a very healthy program and also brings the kilowatt hour cost to a reasonable cost, and creates enough industry that can be sustainable. We've seen countries who had less than four, had two units, and their program is difficult to sustain and it's difficult to manage. So we are very proud that we made the right choice.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:20:40] And again, we always learn from other people, other countries. For example, what's the firewall between the regulator and the utility? And you need to have one. And then that has to be completely separable, and they can't compete and it has to be independent and fully empowered and authorized. This is the case in the UAE now. The regulator reports to the highest authority in the government with no commercial interests. So that gives them the empowerment. That is something the U.S. model has adopted and other countries do not do that. So we've taken that and implemented that in the UAE. There's a lot, a lot I could talk to you about on what we've learned from others and best practices that we've managed to implement. One of the advantages we have here in the UAE, we are used to bringing international companies and multiculturals to make them work on one single site, one single project.

Bret Kugelmass [00:21:29] Yes, I want to hear about that.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:21:31] And we have great success. We are able, we are trained to run with multiculturals. As a young kid, we had in our neighborhood people from India, from all over the world. So this is the DNA of the UAE. Our power plant, our company has 50 nationalities. Our country has over 200 nationalities in the UAE, living in peace and enjoying life and working to high standards and producing, you know, very effective people in the country. So on that aspect, we are able to adopt and adapt and excel, I would say, in many sectors. And also the leadership of the nation always prides the nation to be number one in whatever we do, and that's something we take to heart. And the industry actually takes to heart also, because the journey to excellence is an infinite journey, and we have to constantly keep improving and reinventing our procedure, people, processes, programs in a consistent and systematic manner.

Bret Kugelmass [00:22:37] And how did you choose the technology and the vendor?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:22:41] So what we did was also very pragmatic. We looked at who are the companies who have the performing power plants to the international standards. We looked to other countries who are able to meet the threshold, the cutoff line of having the technology, the expertise, the operation and it's also transferable to other country. And the bottom line, who delivered in the last five years or ten years of experience? And that was very, very important. Another also very important factor we had is we needed a sister plant too. Whomever built a power plant in the UAE has to build another in their home country, then build in the UAE. And this is a lesson learned also from projects that were happening around that time. And that was also a very wise decision we've made to replicate and be able to adapt to the UAE. The temperature is different than the UAE, and some other parameters...

Bret Kugelmass [00:23:37] The ultimate cooling, your final cooling loop is different is what you're saying.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:23:41] Definitely. You have to adapt. Also frequency is different from the country of origin, 50 Hz and 60 Hz, and these can be reengineered.

Bret Kugelmass [00:23:47] Does that trickle down throughout the entire plant? Does that mean every motor has to be on a different frequency throughout the whole plant, or is there somewhere that's an interface between the grid and the rest of the plant equipment?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:23:58] We did the whole adaption of the power plant, because you have component, equipment that you need from the market in the future. Not even beside the experience of a plant, you need some equipment that can be available and sourced regionally and locally. So what we did actually, I personally insisted and that was also accepted by my colleague engineers that even if a window is there, don't move it around, because if you move a window, you move a pipe, you move a cable, you move a wall, and it's a cascading effect. So with these things we said, "Okay, if it's there, don't change it. But if it's required because of the engineering requirements, because of temperature, weather, the basic engineering requirements, we have to adapt it." And we've done it in a way that we have, I would say, we have a beautiful plant, very soundly engineered at Barakah, and as of today, running, very, very nicely.

Bret Kugelmass [00:24:52] So the lesson that I'm learning from this is that when it comes to reducing project risk, when copying off of a sister plant or a reference plant, the more important thing to hold constant is the physical configuration rather than the heat and mass balance or your process variables. It's actually, you want to make sure that things are physically in the same place as they've already been built. Is that right?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:25:20] Yeah, yeah. Whatever has been designed today has been designed over the last 40 years, and they've been optimized in a way to make this power plant safe and reliable and to the highest standards. And these are Gen III Plus reactors and they are very safe. And that's why we have managed to be able to replicate those reactors here in the UAE. Again, adapting them to the UAE environment, definitely. So that impacts some of the cooling, intake or cooling pumps, condensers, these were upgraded and upscaled to meet the temperature here in the UAE.

Bret Kugelmass [00:25:54] Yes. Tell me about the region as a whole. What makes your country special in that you were able to have the foresight to conceive this project ten years ago and the discipline to hold through in such a steady and process driven manner, and then also the success to see it turn on. Is there something about the UAE that it was perfect for you to become the leader in nuclear technology in the region?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:26:23] So I talk specifically on the UAE side. So our leadership is very visionary here in the country and the discipline of getting things done in a systematic approach is part of the DNA of the country. And also, we had the big why, why we are building nuclear power plants. And that has been, and will continue to be, to make economical, safe, reliable electricity. Those were the basic principles for building it. And I said earlier, we were technology agnostic, and these principles will never change, and they will continue to be there. If you look today as the gas prices are fluctuating, if you look at other commodities are fluctuating, if you look at nuclear power plants and you run the economics over 60 years, actually they run steady enough and actually they also run against inflation. Sometimes the tariff over years even comes down because they are capital intensive. And when it comes to operation as payroll and some maintenance jobs and our fuel cost, it is very, very small compared to the bigger investment. And this is something also we've realized and learned from the U.S. plants and other plants. As long as you run them, maintain and properly run them, those assets will provide an abundance of safe, clean, reliable electricity.

Bret Kugelmass [00:27:47] What is the the kilowatt hour price that you guys were targeting and what did you hit now that you see the units come online?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:27:54] Based on the financial model we estimated, it was in 2008, 2009 and 2010, we are on. We are on budget, and that's something I'm very proud to say compared to other projects. Our nuclear program also was delivered relatively on time. That's something also we are very, very proud of. So we've hit our marks and I'm very happy to see that. And as you said, these power plants, these assets, once you switch them on, then you can realize the value for money. And we are meeting our ROI and are very happy to be in this and witnessing this reality.

Bret Kugelmass [00:28:30] Amazing. And are there plans to build more now that you've achieved the milestone of actual operation? Does that mean that you can start having a conversation about the next four units?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:28:42] If I can take you back ten years ago, we were on this challenge. We're looking at it this like, you know, it's a big job that we have personally, myself, my team, undertaken. Seeing today, we've accomplished it, so the future is brighter. And now we say, "And what's next?" And I will talk about that in a bit. But to your point, specifically, those units now meet our baseload demand and by 2025 we will achieve 25% electricity, once we have four reactors up and running. That will avoid emitting, by the way, 22 million tons of CO2 on an annual basis, by the way. And this is comparing it to 2014 car emissions, now cars emit less carbon, it will be around 3.2 million cars off the road. And we have around 3 million, roughly around 3 million cars in the UAE. So we are offsetting our transportation sector annually by those four reactors. It's amazing, it's amazing. And actually, just to put it also in perspective, for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, this is going to reduce our carbon emissions per kilowatt gram almost 50% by 2025.

Bret Kugelmass [00:29:54] And does the country already have electric vehicle transition plans in place, and will that increase the total demand of electricity in the country as well?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:30:04] If I can take... I have my own theory as a critical engineer, so I enjoy this. It's like, I have nothing to... I think about life and this is what I think about, so. So electrification is happening as I'm sure we are aware. The electricity demand is growing dramatically, globally. We have over around a billion people that don't have electricity today. They need electricity and they will definitely use electricity. If you talk about myself and yourself over the last ten years, our electrical consumption has increased. We have now, I think, a couple of the gadgets that you have now that you didn't have ten years ago. Multiples of them are supercomputers; they consume electricity. There is cloud computing happening; there is a lot of dependence now on the digital world that we are living in and that consumes a lot of electricity. There are a lot of industries also coming up that also need more electrical, specifically, not just combustion engines and just oil and gas. So there is demand, and there is increased electricity. And I do see the future as bright for the industry and there is a future of growth.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:31:11] One thing also, by the way, we did not think about. We thought, by the way, you will see in our white paper if we have the time to read it, it talks about the carbon credit down the road. We were actually talking about carbon taxes at that time, 2008. Today the carbon credit is there and green certificates are coming up. ESG is is coming and the private sector, actually, they have the tools in hand now to buy green electricity. And one of the companies that buys all our electricity, that signed our PPA, it put an auction a couple of months ago for our nuclear electricity and also renewable. And I was surprised there was a lot of demand for it. And I was called by steel factory friends. The CEO was calling saying, "How can I buy it?" I went, "I don't sell it. You have to go to the Emirates Water Electricity Company. There is an auction, you could go and buy it from there." And they did buy it. Oil and gas company came and bought roughly 90% of our electricity.

Bret Kugelmass [00:32:05] What are the PPA prices that they're buying it for?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:32:09] There's an auction per megawatt. If you buy that megawatt, you get the carbon, you get the green certificates. I don't have the price on me right now, but it has been done as an auction. It's like beyond a tariff that is paid. And they are buying it, those companies are buying it for opportunities. Now, if you've seen the EU now, put nuclear as part of the green taxonomy. Companies, as you know, they want to be part of the 2050 target of zero carbon and that's something that nuclear is one of the key enablers for that.

Bret Kugelmass [00:32:48] And I want to still talk about future growth a little bit more. Okay, so we know that electricity is increasing and now your neighbors can also see the success that you've had. Are people asking you to export electricity, maybe there to neighboring countries as well? Is that possible, that you could build extra plants even in your country and run wires throughout the region? Is that on the table?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:33:13] Yeah, for example today, specifically to your question, the four units today, it meets the UAE demand. However, the GCC grid, the Gulf Countries Grid is interconnected. It was connected almost eight years plus ago. And there's an exchange capacity between UAE and Saudi Arabia and the region, it's around 1,000 plus megawatts. So there is room for exchange of power. But the challenge we have is all of us need the electricity in summer and we barely need it for wintertime. But that opens the opportunity for export to Europe, and that's something that is, I know... Europe and also you have the daily time.

Bret Kugelmass [00:33:52] And do your plants do load following at all, or no?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:33:56] Currently we build the units for baseload and that's what we need them for, actually, because the UAE grid, we have gas and gas could switch on and off, which is very dynamic and nuclear is coming as the baseload. I wish we had hydro; it doesn't rain much here, but you know nuclear is giving us that baseload comparative to hydro plants.

Bret Kugelmass [00:34:17] I guess what I'm trying to explore... To me, it's so rare and so wonderful to see a country execute on time, on budget, with gigawatt scale facilities, because to me this is part of the vision for what the whole world needs to do. So I'm trying to imagine all of the justifications that you could have to say, "Let's do four more units. Then let's do 12 units." Because your expertise is the most valuable resource I think that we have on the planet right now in the nuclear sector. So I want to see the engine keep turning and turning and turning so it becomes easy for other people to do it around the world by watching exactly what you do and seeing just how much the prices can decline with more and more units. So I guess I'll put it back on you. What would justify building out more units right now?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:35:10] Mainly it's all subject to demand of electricity, and that's something which once it's kind of evaluated, and that's what we're going to be doing, and what are the economics moving forward. And as one of the producers of electricity myself, I want to build more, but that's something that will depend on the electricity demand and the growth and the country's demand. And by the way also, one thing we've done going back to the project management, program management, the site we built, the basic infrastructure, intake, discharge pipes under the ground, we designed them to take 3 to 4 more units at the same site as Barakah.

Bret Kugelmass [00:35:51] Amazing, at the same site. Amazing.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:35:52] Yeah, yeah. Because we did the math. If we do the earlier infrastructure, we spend like, let's say, $100 million. And for these basic infrastructures, we will save almost a billion doing it after commissioning Unit 1, because once you put the pipeline underground you can't go and dig under them, you have to go around the site. So we did this basic investment. I do also thank the leadership of the government and the board of directors also to allow such kind of investment.

Bret Kugelmass [00:36:23] It's going to be very smart in the future.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:36:26] Yep. I agree.

Bret Kugelmass [00:36:27] And that would also make it one of the biggest facilities in the world to produce electricity, anywhere for all types of electricity, if you added more units. It's already one of the biggest, right?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:36:37] The four units? No, there are bigger sites or similar sites.

Bret Kugelmass [00:36:40] But if you added three more, it might be the biggest, or no?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:36:42] Three? Maybe four. But looking at the current site we have right now and the current demand, I think four for the time being is good enough for us as a baseload. And as I said, these are great investments that will pay dividends for decades to come. For having now the first one operational, the second one has been tested. Now, we did all the PAT testing, by the way, for Unit 2, and great success. We were also very happy with the progress with Unit 2. One thing also we've learned, by the way, to your questions earlier, building four units gives you also that learning curve from Unit 1 to 3 to 4.

Bret Kugelmass [00:37:26] I'm sure it's only going to get easier from here on, yeah.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:37:28] Yeah. And also even from costs, our numbers, Unit 3 and 4 were built by 50% less people compared to Unit 1 and 2. And also the number and the quality of work...

Bret Kugelmass [00:37:40] Can I ask about that? Can we dig that out a little bit more? The 50% of people who were not needed anymore, what roles were those? Where was the access in the original projects that you were able to cut?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:37:52] So actually, mainly it's construction, construction labor. Before we had to have many people do the same job. Once you do it once or twice, it becomes easier for the people who trained do it more simply. But also, we've learned new methods. I think we got some... in the UAE, some cranes and some utilization of movement of material and some logistics, we've learned from other projects that we have implemented at Barakah. It saved us a lot of money. One of them, actually, movement of sand, movement of dirt to backfill the site. So we managed to take the sand from the sea, dredged, and utilized it back to certain areas of the site, because of experience where we do a lot of dredging in the region, that was applied. So there were a lot of tools and methodologies that we utilized from our industries to Barakah. And going back to lessons learned, it's typical once you learn from the first to the second to the third, you become much more qualified. Even with testing and commissioning, I'm seeing now that Unit 2, the team is hands on and they are much more knowledgeable compared to Unit 1, and that's something we are very proud of. The young managers who got involved in commissioning Unit 1, they are coming into Unit 2 more senior, much more hands, and much more engaged in learning. And that's something I'm very proud to see at Barakah.

Bret Kugelmass [00:39:16] That's awesome. Shifting gears for a second, what about new technologies, specifically SMRs? It's funny to ask you this because you just had success on the big reactors, which I think we need thousands of the big reactors around the world, but there seems to also be a case for the small reactors, maybe putting them direct next to industry applications as well. Have you looked at this at all, either out of personal or professional curiosity?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:39:43] Yes, yes, we are all involved and we are also following up with industry of what's happening. So one thing also, now we have the capabilities of assessing and looking at... we have the nuclear experts, we have nuclear capabilities in the country, and that gives us the edge now to be able to evaluate and vet designs of different sizes. So we are involved and we are looking at different technologies of reactors. Also, we are looking at the future of coupling it with hydrogen. There are a lot of opportunities and billions of dollars, that now opens doors for us. Ten years ago, I don't think we would evaluate it and would study it and theoretically we'd keep studying and evaluating. Now we have the practical know how and expertise. But what does it take to get it done and what does it take to be part of those success stories? I myself, I sit in a capacity advisory role to TerraPower, and I've been there over a couple of years now, and I'm also looking to... They've started the ground, kind of the bore drills in the west of the U.S. and they got the funding from the U.S. The first prototype will be built soon, hopefully, and that would be a good testimony that those small modular reactors can be built. And when I say small, I call them small, they are 250...

Bret Kugelmass [00:41:09] Yeah, those are big ones. What about much smaller ones? Have you looked at all of that? And also, what is the goal? Like from your organization, as you look at new technologies, is there a specific goal in mind? Is it for industrial application? Is it just for investment purposes? What is the goal?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:41:28] Again, I would say what I said earlier, we are technology agnostic, so we are not in love with any designs today. And there are multiple designs that are happening right now and are in the early stages of it. So we are reviewing, we are watching, we are looking at what is the commercial viability. And that's something which is very important for these. And also what could be replicated can produced in mass at higher volume of production because the more higher volume of production you do, the more that you could bring the cost down. And these now, the targets are all over the place when it comes to target of capital cost. There's a lot of great ideas and some of those reactors are fantastic ideas to be able to implement. And again, I personally have seen the TerraPower, I've visited even the labs to see that metal goes from liquid to solid, also at room temperature for metal. It's amazing. I'm really, really proud to be involved in such projects and we have young managers who are doing their Ph.D's and master's degrees. They're also being sprinkled over the world now, learning and studying and becoming experts in this field, so whenever is the right time, we will definitely seize the moment of being part of these new industries.

Bret Kugelmass [00:42:44] And so since you're technology agnostic, let's put aside the nuclear technology for a second. Are there characteristics of a power plant, besides just low cost of electricity, that if you were to say, "Here are your design criteria," to a nuclear development company, what would those characteristics be that you think fill a need around the world, just giving your global vision?

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:43:08] Number one would be it could be built and the materials available, when it comes to the current life run. And a lot of good special alloys are there. Second is definitely to be able be replicated in an ideal manner. I think also the export control or the safeguard is an important factor to have this for civilian purposes. So these would be my guidelines in terms of the cost of the kilowatt hour factor. These make it commercially viable.

Bret Kugelmass [00:43:46] Excellent. Well, as we wrap up here today, I'd love to just hear your vision for the future in general. Just take a global perspective and tell us what's important. Given all of your experience and everything that you've learned about the energy sector and the nuclear sector, give us your message to how people should just be thinking about energy in the future.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:44:09] First of all, as I mentioned earlier, electrification will continue to grow and that will generate a lot of opportunities for many sectors, nuclear is one of them. Secondly, here in the UAE, we have now the power plants, the first two and two more to come, and the operation. We are looking forward for companies to come here and set up shop in Abu Dhabi and to be part of this industry and operation and maintenance and improvement of sustainably running this power plant. So I invite all companies globally to come here to Abu Dhabi and join us. The nuclear industry is a small industry and we want to be part of that industry and would like companies to come and set up shop here in Abu Dhabi. And lastly, the vision for the future, we've now put out like a road map also like we did for the program ten years ago, we did one for R&D to specifically operate and maintain our power plants safely, securely and with high availability. And that team is working to enable us to do that, working with international labs, in the U.S. and other countries. And also looking at other factors, you know this cross-pollination with other sectors like agriculture, healthcare, aerospace. These are other industries also that I look forward to seeing grow here in the UAE. Opportunities in healthcare is abundant when it comes to radiation management and radiation health. So the future has to be 10X, maybe for us, and to grow this industry.

Bret Kugelmass [00:45:41] Mohamed Al Hammadi, thank you so much for joining us. This has been just amazing talking to you. I'll just wrap up again by saying what you guys have pulled off is incredible. It is an inspiration to the whole world and actually shows the world that there is a nuclear path towards global decarbonization. So thank you again.

Mohamed Al Hammadi [00:46:01] Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your time. And it was wonderful today, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

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