TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Adam Lenarz [00:00:56] Welcome back to the Titans of Nuclear Podcast. Today, we have an exciting and very experienced guest, JP Van Hasselt. JP is the CEO of Pacific Andean Nuclear Power Services, or PAN Power for short. JP, welcome to the podcast.

JP Van Hasselt [00:01:16] Hi, Adam. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to convey our business model to your long list of viewers. Thank you.

Adam Lenarz [00:01:27] That's great. Typically, before we get into the specifics, we'd like to get to know a little bit about you. And so maybe if we go all the way back, sort of your foundations, where did you grow up and how did you grow up?

JP Van Hasselt [00:01:42] Yes, I think we have to make a kind of a journey back to the past century. That's when I was born. I was born and grew up in Lima, Peru. I studied law at the largest local university, then got a Master's of Law degree at George Washington University in the States. I was fortunate enough to hold an international position for the Procter & Gamble company. I was stationed initially in Cincinnati, but later in Caracas. At this stage and point in time of my life, I had regional responsibility and started traveling all over South America. In fact, I know almost all the countries except Uruguay and The Guianas. But I know extensively all of the region, which will probably enter later into our conversation, why maybe it makes sense to where we are in terms of nuclear energy.

Adam Lenarz [00:02:54] Any reason you stayed out of Uruguay, or?

JP Van Hasselt [00:02:59] Maybe I'll go there in the near future. I hope so. Another highlight of my life has been working in tech. I worked as legal director for a mobile company, a telecom. And this allowed me to gain a lot of insight of what technology is, where it was. And we've assembled a long list of co-workers. We stand together in this new venture, all of us very curious on what technology is. A lot of synergy, a lot of teamwork. And I think this is what is going to be the success to what we want PAN Power to be.

Adam Lenarz [00:03:50] That's great. Maybe zooming back to your undergrad and graduate degrees. I'm curious as to what brought you into the law side of things.

JP Van Hasselt [00:04:04] Well, that brings me some sweet and bitter memories. I think I've been very geared towards what injustice is. I've seen injustice very close in my surroundings. And I think I wanted to do something about it. Do something, probably to give my piece of advice on making a better world. I collaborate with the Peruvian government a lot. Actually, I'm a member of the Advisory Council of the Competition Authority in Peru. So, I do a lot of pro bono work whenever possible. So, I think I'm geared towards that. That's what made me become a lawyer, perhaps. And besides, I'm not that good at math.

Adam Lenarz [00:05:08] I think we share some of that in common. I started my career in Ethiopia with a general bent towards wanting to improve systems and do good for the world. So, it sounds like there's some commonality there.

Adam Lenarz [00:05:23] So outside of that, I mean, I think your background is super interesting. You obviously have your hand in a lot of pots. I heard... So PNG, so consumer goods, mining, construction, et cetera, back there. What led you to the next step and to enter the nuclear industry?

JP Van Hasselt [00:05:46] Actually, from our group of techies back from the telecom industry, we have our quasi-scientist wizard who's very curious on what's going on in the world. And he brought us to validate this idea on what the Northern Hemisphere was doing in terms of energy, the environmental concerns, and also what was going on in Europe because of the war with Russia and the evasive measures that were taking place by the European countries that were affected by the gas shortage. And the SMR came up as as one of the solutions that civilization is looking towards as a solution in this crisis.

JP Van Hasselt [00:06:44] So, our quasi-scientist brought this idea. We started studying about it. This was last year. We even went to validate this idea with local authorities in neighboring countries. Interesting enough, I visited the National Atomic Energy Institute of Peru. And they handle a risk assessment of where energy is going to be in the future. And climate warming is a true fact, and gas production also is going to come to a halt because of depletion of resources in the 20 or 25-year term.

JP Van Hasselt [00:07:37] This is something that probably... I mean, certainly is going on in the neighboring countries. I read the news yesterday also that Bolivia has depleted its gas resources. Colombia, on the other hand, has a 65% grid coming from hydroelectric resources. And climate change and global warming is taking a strong blow to the generation of energy through hydroelectrics. Probably in 20, 25 years we're going to have a crisis. And what I know is that currently, in dry seasons, these hydroelectric generators have to be powered by fossil fuels. So, imagine the contradiction on that. What's going on with the world? We think it's time to come up with a solution. And we are very positive that SMR technology is going to have a very strong hand in what we will see in the near future.

Adam Lenarz [00:08:54] Yeah. And maybe if you could... Based on all that research and your discussions with the national atomic agency, how did you get into to PAM Power specifically? What's the mission and how many employees do you have? What's the goal in the next two to three years?

JP Van Hasselt [00:09:17] Yes, we need to change public opinion. Throughout the Americas, three countries allowed atomic energy, but only used by the state. And we want to change first the public perception of what atomic energy is. And second, we want to allow the governments to issue laws which favor civilian use of atomic energy as long as it's in a safe configuration, which probably would be SMRs or even microreactors, which are technology we're seeing that is coming across. We have reviewed facts from the International Institute of Atomic Energy, and there are approximately 70 technologies which classify as SMR. We want to have a comprehensive law in place in each of our neighboring countries which will allow SMRs. And what we want is to source from Lima the demand that in the future there may be throughout the Americas.

JP Van Hasselt [00:10:40] We have taken one step already by obtaining a draft bill for exploitation of atomic energy by civilians here in Peru. We'll be filing it to Congress probably the first days of August. And we're going to replicate all of these steps country by country, which will require, of course, a lot of investment. And that is the way that we are going to handle it. Let's say, the legal and corporate affairs approach. Because we believe in the technology. We think that's what needs to be done throughout our countries.

JP Van Hasselt [00:11:24] South America, for example, hosts the largest rainforest, the Amazon, and we need to do something about it. And also, we are thinking that it cannot be that... We're within this blue sphere. What's the point of having the Northern Hemisphere producing exclusively an emissions free environment when the Southern Hemisphere is still suffering? The atmosphere moves around. We want to, all of us comply with zero emissions. So, our task is bringing this safe technology to the Southern Hemisphere, to South America, and allow a better environment for for all of us throughout the world.

Adam Lenarz [00:12:30] Yeah, I have some experience in Ethiopia, a lesser developed country, but similarly reliant on hydro and other forms of traditional energy. I'm interested from Peru and maybe Latin America's perspective, what are maybe the core differences that you see between sort of the Southern Hemisphere and the growing energy demand coming from that area of the world versus what we in the Northern Hemisphere have?

JP Van Hasselt [00:13:03] Well interestingly enough, I saw this documentary by Oliver Stone, Nuclear Now, which has really been an eye opener. It's really a wonderful instrument to spread the gospel on what nuclear will do to the world. It's been a really, really fantastic piece of art, this documentary. We believed in the technology, but after seeing this film we thought, "Wow. We're on the right track."

JP Van Hasselt [00:13:39] And I'm citing this documentary because I recall a scene where Oliver Stone is interviewing Ashley Finan, Ph.D. from the National Reactor Innovation Center. And she indicates that while in the Northern Hemisphere and the United States the demand will stay kind of stable because it's covered, the real opportunities will come from all over the world, i.e. Southern Hemisphere, where for example, we see that there is demand that needs to be satisfied. We see it in agriculture, we see it in mining. Many projects that are looking for energy, various forms of energy to go ahead with their project. But there's a demand that needs to be covered. And we want to be there to cover it and allow our region to grow.

Adam Lenarz [00:14:50] Yeah. Well, you mentioned this a little bit, but in South America, a large percentage of the power comes from hydroelectricity. I think that there's some other coal and natural gas. Maybe the flipside... Could you share about the landscape of consumption? I mean, it sounds like SMRs could be a good fit in particular for some of those off grid, if there are large mining consumers, et cetera, that are maybe not tied to a national grid. What does the landscape look like for power consumption?

JP Van Hasselt [00:15:38] Most South American countries are hugely large. Peru would fit in one-third of Western Europe, for example, covering Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and so on. So, the grid that you need to build is humongous. Is that a good adjective? It's huge, extensive. And we see that generators cannot power these extensions of land that much. Rather, with modular generators and technologies, we can offer these to villages, let's say, to the city halls, to huge mining concerns. Most of the South American countries are mining producers. There are the clients that could benefit from SMRs. And maybe they can spread this energy through what we call their area of influence and use this modular technology to spread the energy throughout their own areas of influence benefiting society as a whole. So probably, large cities can of course continue with their traditional grid, but the opportunity for SMRs, modular technology would be locating them at very far, far extensions of land where you're in the middle of nowhere.

Adam Lenarz [00:17:39] Yeah, I think that's such a great point. I think it's easy to get caught up in the Western world looking at how grids were built out in the early 1900s and seeing this big centralized system. But then, like you said, when you have to cross mass amounts of land and forget that land has mountains and rivers, the Amazon River running through it, it's an entirely different sheet. So, it certainly makes sense more from a microgrid perspective than otherwise.

JP Van Hasselt [00:18:13] We have, for example, just met with some key investors from Colombia. We're trying again to spread throughout the geographies, the territories, what we are doing. And they have become very interested in the technology and what we are doing. And two universities are going to host us in a Zoom meeting to let them know what we are doing and what this could do for their country. So, we're very happy that our business model is carrying on.

Adam Lenarz [00:18:56] That's great. Can you speak a little bit about more broadly how you see the different countries, personalities, politics of the countries in Latin America cooperating towards a common goal around nuclear development?

JP Van Hasselt [00:19:16] This probably is like a global issue. So, we perceive that there will be a lot of cooperation among the countries. This is not a military issue. I mean, this goes to the core of society, to the core of advancement of industry or of any economic activity in the country. I think that there is going to be, from a public perspective point of view, probably there will be a negative image initially, like collectively. Because I remember Fukushima. I remember Three Mile Island; Chernobyl. And we have to let people know that these accidents were a product of different issues. Fukushima came from a tsunami. Three Mile, it was a handling error, but it got magnified by the China Syndrome film. We read about that. And Chernobyl is, yes, actually a human error issue that happened 20 or so or more years ago.

JP Van Hasselt [00:20:46] We're letting everybody know that this technology, adequately handled, does not produce any leaks, does not produce any accidents. And I think we have to have a concerted effort and probably build a network of contacts within each major city in each of our neighboring countries to help us disseminate the worth among all of us and have a united front.

Adam Lenarz [00:21:22] Yeah, that speaks very well with me. You mentioned earlier that discussion and part of the mission of PAN Power is change of perceptions. You mentioned that some of what's happening in Ukraine, and for other geopolitical reasons, there is sort of this push in Peru and otherwise for energy security. Can you speak maybe to that to some extent? But also, in your effort to win over stakeholders to the nuclear production of energy, what have been the best arguments, the best bullet points to bring folks from maybe undecided over to pro or maybe from against over to to undecided?

JP Van Hasselt [00:22:23] Actually, I think that maybe now information travels so fast. People are seeing now what is going on. Not the magnification, but actually the high visibility that the Ukraine situation has right now throughout the world, and what it has meant in terms of the energy resources from Russia to Europe has people interested. What is going to be the alternative? And they are reading what Great Britain is doing, Canada, the United States, Germany and so on.

JP Van Hasselt [00:23:13] For example, from our corner of the world, we can believe... And I hope I don't get a visa revoked or something... That Germany has completely pulled out of atomic energy due to the Green Party probably for some other time. I think that juncture is completely harmful for them as a society. On the other hand, look at France. 72% of their grid comes from nuclear, which is fantastic. And we hope we bring our region towards the direction that France is taking, which is, I think, the safest in terms of environment and national security as well.

Adam Lenarz [00:24:11] And what are maybe some of the opponents who don't have too much experience with nuclear? Is there a broader push for renewable deployment or solar, wind, et cetera? What does the landscape look like for renewables in Latin America?

JP Van Hasselt [00:24:32] Well, the trend is kind of global. With solar and wind, it stays at around 12%. They have grown. I think they have done good lobbying internationally. Laws have come into place with incentives for them. And they are, in fact, growing. And we have no problem about that because we know that all of these technologies need to complement themselves. And we want to complement wherever renewables can not provide. Let's say, probably in night conditions, foggy conditions, and any other environment where we know those renewables can not deliver. We'll be there to provide, let's say, a backup. So, we have no problem in having those technologies around. I think there's a big market. There's an unsatisfied demand throughout South America.

Adam Lenarz [00:25:42] Yeah, I love it. All of the above approach, because certainly all forms of energy complement each other. Maybe zooming in a little bit on Peru, you mentioned earlier the start, at least, of a definition for regulatory process. And I would guess that your legal background can have particular oomph or power in setting up a regulatory regime. Can you talk a little bit more about how that process has gone and what hopes you have for the future of smoothing, whether it be the site licensing process or the permitting and approvals process. How does that look like in Peru?

JP Van Hasselt [00:26:30] Well, who knew, Adam, that my law career would pay off someday? Had I known that I would be working in nuclear issues now... I mean, unbelievable. But well, of course. When our quasi-scientist Pedro brought this idea to us, I immediately researched our regulatory framework and determined what needed to be done. I started studying on what needed to be done and made an action plan about it. We secured the consulting services of a US law firm that was expert on this matter. And we have jointly drafted our bill proposal.

JP Van Hasselt [00:27:34] So, initially we are going to seek the feedback of the engineering grid of professionals, engineering schools. There is nuclear energy being taught at some of the engineering schools in the country. And from there, we'll take it to Congress and see what will be the reaction in Congress. Because of course, there will be opposing forces. The conservative generators of energy will probably try to somehow neutralize whichever efforts. This is the source of democracy at work. So, we have no problem with it.

Adam Lenarz [00:28:34] And do you have any timelines that you're targeting in terms of how long the process should take?

JP Van Hasselt [00:28:43] Well, we think we're synchronized in what the industry will deliver. Three of us attended the SMR Reuters conference early this year in Atlanta, and we were really surprised. It was such a learning experience getting to know all these huge titans as well on what they are doing. We're just dwarves over here. We see that production will probably start in 2025, '26. The commercially available products will be there in the market. And I think we are kind of running in the same direction, maybe synchronizing what we expect will be a law for SMRs and having commercially built products here in the market. I think we're there on the same time frame.

Adam Lenarz [00:29:55] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think Argentina has some operating nuclear plants. Brazil has some as well. Have you guys been consulting with them in terms of licensing and the process development?

JP Van Hasselt [00:30:14] Yes, we have very good contact with the largest nuclear reactor company, INVAP. They're in Bariloche, Argentina. Excellent relations with them. And I think we're going to do something together. We have talked, and I think they're going to tailor-make something for our South American market. And we'll be very eager to help them penetrate the market with their product.

Adam Lenarz [00:30:47] That's great. And are they of a similar mind around sizing? Are they going after large gigawatt reactors, or are they also looking at the SMR route?

JP Van Hasselt [00:31:00] They're experts on their mega-gigawatt reactors. The famous CAREM they have, I think it's about to be completed soon. They have built reactors even here in Peru for national use and in some other countries. But the last time we spoke, they told us... And I think it's confidential... That they're developing something that is narrowly for our region.

Adam Lenarz [00:31:37] Well, that's great to hear. Maybe sort of rounding out the last 10, 15 minutes, shifting gears towards the future. We talked a little bit about this throughout the landscape side of the conversation, but what do you hope for? What are the big milestones that you'd like to see Peru or South America at large make in the next 5, 10 years?

JP Van Hasselt [00:32:08] We see ourselves working to change the grid, to bring atomic energy in the same way as it's used in Europe, in that same trend, and that it be accepted. One thing I picked up at this SMR conference is that, for example, for all of us here in South America, it may be very easy to import products, let's say, a portfolio of finished products, SMRs, maybe from Japan, from Canada, from France itself, maybe even from Great Britain. We've spoken with representatives from companies from all of these countries. But there is one issue, and probably I think this is what was the suggestion of having me here live to speak about it. It's about the US exports control. Which I totally understand, of course, but I would like to suggest that the industry as a whole needs to work because probably national security is in a balancing interest versus commercial interests of the private sector.

JP Van Hasselt [00:33:40] I think it'll be very difficult for us, and as much as we like the US technology... For example, NuScale, which has already obtained certification from the Atomic Energy Agency, that will be the easiest reactor to bring along with a US certification. No, National Atomic Energy probably would object to having a duly-certified nuclear reactor. But again, we have those US exports control that hinder the imports of products from your country. Because again, I understand there are national security concerns. But maybe, South America as a whole probably should be considered as friendly nations, as a friendly region towards the US. So, I think that the industry would need to work out some sort of a path for us to be able to obtain that technology.

JP Van Hasselt [00:35:04] An interesting thing is that I was reviewing what's going on around the world. I entered the US embassy web page in Romania, and SMRs are offered on the web page of the US embassy. Why can't the one South American country that's as friendly and has no adversary issues grasp whatever collaboration is going on there with the State Department, the Commerce Department, the Energy Department, and probably deploy those products here in the region? That would make US products probably very interesting, available, and desirable to all the nations around the region. So, that's something I wanted to make a point of.

JP Van Hasselt [00:36:02] Maybe if I can leave a message for all your viewers, it would be that as a whole, from the Northern Hemisphere, from the US yourselves, and as from here, we could jointly work on devising some sort of collaboration among nations so that there would be some sort of fast track for importing US products of this technology here into our region.

Adam Lenarz [00:36:33] Yeah, I think that's a really great point. And you see this in other areas in nuclear as well. There may have been a safety case designed around specific size or type of technology, and then when you try and scale that down to an SMR, it doesn't quite fit. So maybe, some of the protections that exist for highly-enriched uranium and the reactors that might process them, maybe they don't apply specifically to low-enriched uranium and particularly, SMRs that use low-enriched uranium. I think it's a great point and it's something that we hope for some progress and a pathway on as well.

JP Van Hasselt [00:37:21] I mean, it's been done in Romania. Maybe we need to find out what has happened there. I hope we can replicate the model.

Adam Lenarz [00:37:31] Are there any new technologies? You mentioned NuScale, but any anything on the horizon that you're particularly interested in outside of just the sizing of an SMR?

JP Van Hasselt [00:37:45] We're looking into microreactors. We're also very interested with a technology that VEST Energy is also going to offer. Commercially-wise, I think it'll be a hit in this region. So far, I think that's about it that we are looking for. But as we gathered when we went to the conference in Atlanta, they told us, "Listen, the technology in energy is going to change fast. So don't get hooked on anything, because tomorrow there might be an improvement." So, that's a lesson to be learned for us.

Adam Lenarz [00:38:35] Yeah, that makes sense. So, you already mentioned one of these, but I'm interested maybe your analysis of like the top three things. If you could control the government, multiple governments in Latin America or anywhere in the world really, because you already mentioned export controls... What are the three things that you would change that you think could accelerate the transition most?

JP Van Hasselt [00:39:12] Well, the experts control, some fast-tracked method. Lower tariffs, incentives on new technologies that are zero emissions and environmentally safe like SMRs. And I think a number of incentives for this technology to replace old energy producing generators. I think that's what I would think of.

Adam Lenarz [00:39:54] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

JP Van Hasselt [00:39:57] I mean, being around the Amazon, I think there should be some sort of regional authority that would somehow indicate, "Listen, we need to preserve the rainforest. Let's bring out some methods or some technology that will be only environmentally friendly, because we cannot afford to lose the Amazon rainforest." I think maybe some United Nations agency could take care of that.

Adam Lenarz [00:40:36] That's great. So in closing, any final message you want to leave for our listeners?

JP Van Hasselt [00:40:47] Well, we are here in our corner of the world, South America. We're in the same continent, believe it or not. But we're so far away in terms of culture and distance as well. But we are trying to have South America grow economically and in terms of living by bringing the first-world technology to our region. I think that allowing to have energy available to people that have the unsatisfied demand is what will help our markets and our economies grow. So, I really appreciate this time, Adam, that you have given us.

Adam Lenarz [00:41:41] Well, I really appreciate your time today and sharing your story and your wisdom for the path forward. Thanks for coming on today, and I look forward to connecting in the near future.

Charlie Cole [00:00:58] Hello, my name is Charlie Cole. Welcome back to another episode of Titans of Nuclear. Today, we're talking to Igor Pioro, a professor at Ontario Technical University. Igor, thanks for coming on today.

Igor Pioro [00:01:10] Yes, thank you very much. Good morning.

Charlie Cole [00:01:13] Good morning. So, I think before we dive into some of these slides and conversations of your time as a professor, I'd like to hear a little bit of just about you. Where did you grow up? Did you have an interest in science from an early age? Tell me about your upbringing.

Igor Pioro [00:01:31] Yes, thank you. First of all, I am Kiev, from Ukraine. I graduated from Kiev Polytechnic Institute; nowadays, it's National Technical University Igor Sikorsky. That's because he was our student who moved to the United States and started the company on the helicopters, yes? I graduated in 1979, and my specialty was thermal physics, however, our thermal physics already included nuclear power plants and nuclear power. It is basic education; I already got something about that.

Igor Pioro [00:02:12] I first started to work at the Institute of Engineering Thermal Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine from '79; half a year engineer. After that, I entered to the postgraduate courses. And in 1983 I possessed a Ph.D; in Ukraine that will be Candidate of Technical Sciences. From '86 to '92, I was the Scientific Secretary of this relatively large institute we had. In total, the complex was around maybe 3,600 employees. And I possessed another degree. It's like a Doctor of Doctor of Technical Sciences there.

Charlie Cole [00:02:56] Oh, my God.

Igor Pioro [00:02:57] Started to work during this... Yes, mainly related to boiling, critical heat flux and boiling. And due to this, I already published a couple of books related to that. In 1992, I was invited to join University of Waterloo for research there. I have spent at the Mechanical Engineering Department from '92 to 2000. And in 2000 I was invited to join the Chalk River laboratories. At that time, it belonged to Atomic Energy Canada Limited, the Canadian nuclear vendor. Canada, deuterium-uranium reactors. And I worked there from 2000 to 2006, and after that I have joined the newly established university and newly established faculty of Nuclear Science and Engineering. Within this university, from 2006... almost 17 years.

Igor Pioro [00:04:12] Within university, I started as an associate professor. I was Director of Graduate Studies for five years, a couple of times Associate Dean. But now, I'm a professor, mainly doing research and other things. Well, what I have done in my lifetime? I have published 13 books in total, 535 publications. Papers in journals, 300 papers at the conferences, 26 inventions, and around 15 major technical reports, including two from the International Atomic Energy Agency. I gave lectures all around the world at different universities. One of the most exciting was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, headquarters of the Westinghouse company, and many reputed universities in North America and Canadian universities also.

Igor Pioro [00:05:09] Because I strongly believe in nuclear; due to this, everyone working in nuclear should promote nuclear. Of course, we have very significant advantages, but also, we cannot say that we have no challenges, yes? This should be an open discussion, what we can do, how we can overcome these challenges and how we can move forward.

Igor Pioro [00:05:39] Possibly, the latest one that I would like to mention... We have published recently, this year, a relatively large handbook of generation for reactors or next generation reactors, our second edition. In total, it's around 1,300 pages. And in this handbook we have 64 experts from almost all nuclear power countries of the world. Due to this, I hope that readers and listeners possibly can find this to buy elsewhere, the official handbook of generation for nuclear reactors.

Charlie Cole [00:06:18] Wow. Wow, that's quite the career. A lot of work in a lot of different places. It's really exciting. What originally got you excited about nuclear energy and why did you want to join the field back in the '80s.

Igor Pioro [00:06:30] I think that may have been too early to say that I was really keen to be in nuclear. I would have liked to be an engineer. I went and studied thermal physics, but within thermal physics in fourth year or fifth year we studied nuclear power reactors, or better to say, nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, which is very well known from that site, like Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was monitored from Kiev. Actually, I had visited in 1979. It was a technical tour of the... I think it was Unit #1 of RBMK reactor...

Charlie Cole [00:07:21] At Chernobyl?

Igor Pioro [00:07:23] Yeah. I was absolutely astonished to see like a nuclear power plant of the future. Of course, no one could even think that something might happen, especially such terrible things. It was clean inside, video cameras and all. In '79, there was not too much you could see, right? We were allowed to stand right on top of the nuclear power reactor. Now of course, it's protected; you can work all day with full power in. It's approximately 1,000 megawatts electrical or, I think it's 300 megawatts thermal. As I said, it was very, very impressive.

Charlie Cole [00:08:11] Yeah, my God, wow. Were you in the Ukraine when Chernobyl melted down?

Igor Pioro [00:08:16] Yes. Then I came to Canada in 1992. Yes, it was... First of all, this happened on the 26th of April through the night. No, of course, government would like to cover up. And rumors on Monday appeared in our institute that guys who knew said, "Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Reactor #4 under fire." They said, "No, it is impossible. It cannot be. It's anchored in concrete, how could it be?" And after that, a crease appeared and everybody started to understand that this is something very, very unusual that happened. Eventually from three nuclear power plants near accidents. The first one was Three Mile Island. From my opinion, minor from all these three.

Charlie Cole [00:09:20] Right, right, right. Yeah, no significant...

Igor Pioro [00:09:24] Yeah, Fukushima, It's also quite substantial. But as I remember, two people have been killed by falling debris, but I think that...

Charlie Cole [00:09:34] None from radiation...

Igor Pioro [00:09:36] But Chernobyl, we don't know how many. Tens of thousands of people died eventually with... More than 100,000 people died because it was very, very difficult. And after two weeks, the panic more or less started because everybody understood that this is real, severe, strung out of all of the radioactive particles, yes? I remember because services were prohibited by KGB. They're not allowed to measure radiation levels. They measure by themselves, but do not disclose that. Illegal, I found a digital meter for that and went through the park near my building, and we roentgen per hour. And our regular level is only maybe around 15 to 20 microroentgens per hour. It was quite substantial in this particular place. But closer to the plant and... From the beginning, because I remember 55 or 56 firefighters and employees, they died through the very high level of radiation.

Charlie Cole [00:10:54] Right, right. Radiation poisoning right off the bat.

Igor Pioro [00:10:57] Yeah. It was a disaster. It's in my memory forever. And you cannot protect yourself.

Charlie Cole [00:11:05] Yeah. How do you feel like that experience shaped you and your career after Chernobyl? Do you think it sort of shifted your approach to safety or made you more invested in nuclear? How did it impact you, do you think?

Igor Pioro [00:11:20] Well, I trust, of course... Currently, I have already prepared some statistics of these things. What we have to understand is that the most dangerous thing in our regular life... It doesn't matter where we are, it's to drive a car. I know approximately 1.3 million people die every year in car accidents. In this case, no one's saying, "Guys, let's go back to horses," or, "Let's only walk." We reach a certain level of civilization, and with so many people, we cannot go back. We have to move forward. Of course, we have to do everything possible to decrease these things.

Igor Pioro [00:12:02] The risk officially, and based on all data actually... Nuclear energy is considered to be one of the safest. In spite of those three major accidents and more, of course, smaller ones. The worst one will be the coal industry where we're talking about full cycle, like building from coal, it will be number one by so many people dying every year. It continues. Because I believe in a bright future, and I believe that without nuclear, we cannot survive. We need electricity into every house. If you have no electricity, you cannot do air.

Charlie Cole [00:12:48] Right, right. So, here's another question. I know you mentioned you've worked on this Gen IV advanced reactor... You called it a booklet or a pamphlet, with the researchers from every country. I'm interested in your thoughts on... As you said, electricity is really important as this graphic in front of us can show us. And I don't know if everyone will be able to see it, but pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors make up an overwhelming majority of reactors. Where do you see in the future, in the decarbonization effort, advanced reactors having a point, having a play versus pressurized water and boiling water? What's the balance? Where do you think should be pursued? I mean, I guess the answer's both, but I'm interested in your perspective on the future of new builds in nuclear.

Igor Pioro [00:13:33] Yes. First of all, I would like to say that my view is based purely on statistics. It's not like I'm tampering with data or I would like to represent better one company compared to another one. No, this slide, which I can provide to you later... The case is... And this is more or less as a rule... If a severe accident happened with one type of reactor, usually no one would like to build such a reactor in the future. And this is clearly shown by what we have.

Igor Pioro [00:14:10] Currently, we have 141 nuclear powered reactors... I'm talking about nuclear power reactors connected to electrical grids. Of course, of these 141 it's not that all of them are currently in operation, it's like an optimistic approach. The major problem globally was Japan, because Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, they were in third place after the United States, more than 100 reactors. France, 58 reactors in 2011. And Japan has 54 reactors. After Fukushima, they dropped down to 33 reactors. Within the last 12 years from March of 2011, from 2 to 9 reactors were in operation. I could check... I think a couple of weeks ago, I think nine reactors in operation. However, as I know, all of the pressurized water reactors have been put into operation. And they have approximately 50/50 from this 33 amount.

Igor Pioro [00:15:17] If you look at the other data, of course the number one reactors will be pressurized water reactors. Currently, we have 309, which is significantly higher than what we had before the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, 268. And this site was the most built as of today; 38 definitely, and 36 possibly, which in total is 74 reactors. Number two, it will be boiling water reactors by number. However, before Fukushima it was 92. Right now, it's dropped to only 60. And only two small modular reactors, PWRX...

Charlie Cole [00:16:02] Right, right. The GE Hitachi.

Igor Pioro [00:16:05] And it looks like what I can see, eventually all new projects with boiling water reactors have been canceled all around the world.

Charlie Cole [00:16:15] Yeah. So from your perspective, what are the benefits of the boiling water versus the pressurized water? Why do you think that pressurized water has been the predominant design for the last...

Igor Pioro [00:16:25] Interesting, you say, like two different sides. From a technical point of view, if you have no steam generator or heat exchanger, you're not losing temperature. Yes, eventually it should be higher temperature which more or less controls the efficiency of the power plant. With boiling water reactors, actually the same as RBMK reactors, which exploded at Chernobyl, it was the pressure channel but they both... The reactor, they had drums separating saturated steam and steam going directly from containment building to power hull... And this appeared to not be a good idea from a safety point of view, that reactor coolant transported too far away from containment building. Especially for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, it was one of the significant problems there.

Igor Pioro [00:17:23] Due to the pressurized water reactors, they kept steam generators usually forward inside the steam containment building due to reactor coolant not going out of the containment building. If something's wrong, you still have reactor coolant, but in the reactor. It's considered to be an enhanced safety. Of course, I don't want to say that the boiling water reactors are safe, but with steam generator, you have slightly better or enhanced safety for this thing.

Igor Pioro [00:18:00] And what is interesting to build is that in spite of... From a thermodynamic point of view, that it will be an extra couple percent of thermal efficiency. Currently, pressurized water reactors... Better to say, plants with pressurized water reactors, because we're talking about efficiency of the plant, superseded the boiling water reactor plants. The maximum working... They have the steam at 7.2 megapascals and correspond to that situation temperature. The pressurized water reactors, they reached steam 7.8 megapascals, situated steam. Boiling water reactors, approximately 34% max gross. Current pressurized water reactors, they go at 36 and Generation III plants go up to 38%.

Charlie Cole [00:18:53] Wow.

Igor Pioro [00:18:56] Due to this, this advantage was considered to be from purely thermal, originally, was lost. That is why all countries, more or less, are building pressurized water reactors. And possible open to pressure heavy-water reactors, mainly CANDU reactors, Canada, deuterium-uranium or heavy-water cooled, heavy-water moderated reactors, pressure channel reactors. Now, it's only 48 left, but the decrease is not very significant; within the last 12 years, only 2. And new reactors are planned to be built, at least in India.

Charlie Cole [00:19:37] Oh, they're building CANDUs? Or, they're building heavy-water reactors in India? I didn't know that.

Igor Pioro [00:19:42] Heavy-water reactors, because they have been proud to develop their own heavy-water, pressurized water reactor. It's not CANDU. There are some small developments there, but on the positive side. The number IV type will be carbon dioxide cooled. Actually, what is interesting that plants with AGRs in UK, only their reactors left are the most efficient ones. Because they have reactor coolant carbon dioxide, 650 degrees, the second highest temperature in all nuclear power outlets in the world. They connected this reactor to subcritical pressure. Coal-fired power plants can cycle. Due to this, the coolant up to 42 to 43%. It's 4 or 5% higher than the most advanced pressurized water reactor plant, CANDU.

Igor Pioro [00:20:49] For more than 39 years, no developments in carbon dioxide cooled reactors because all of them will be shut down. And currently, UK will build two EPR, Evolutionary Power Reactors by Areva and currently through EDF, Électricité de France. Because unfortunately, these type of reactors, carbon dioxide cooled, they will disappear within, I don't know, maybe five, seven years.

Charlie Cole [00:21:19] Yeah, why is that?

Igor Pioro [00:21:23] Because for 40 years, no development. Due to this, less carbon dioxide is very low heat transfer coefficients. Due to this, helium is much better in this case. And for this, it usually depends on the thermal conductivity of the gas. Of course, the best will be hydrogen. Hydrogen cannot be used in the reactors. But by the average in use inside electrical generators to cool down thermals. But second to hydrogen will be helium. It's normal gas, still high thermal conductivity.

Igor Pioro [00:22:04] Due to this, it will be, actually, a prime generation for concepts that will be very high temperature reactors. And it is called gas-cooled reactors, GCRs, helium cooled. These reactors, there are only two. They are small modular reactors, 100 megawatts, approximately, each. They are connected also to an old style of subcritical pressure cycle from coal-fired power plants with superheated primary steam and secondary steam. Gives you around 42% but the temperature or heating is the highest in... And reactors are 750 degrees. They have quite good potential with time to improve.

Igor Pioro [00:22:45] And also, I would like to mention here that these are unique reactors; they have spherical fuel. It's not fuel pellets in bundles, it's completely different. And helium comes from the top going through, I think 400,000 spheres with fuel. Last year, March... Of course, it's very difficult to say how long it can go. I hold that as regular reactors for many years, but currently it's in China and China is looking how this new technology can be implemented. Because higher temperature of reactor coolant, more possibilities to use heat or to have higher thermal efficiencies for generation of electricity.

Igor Pioro [00:23:38] Number six will be official light-water, graphite moderated reactors or Russian RBMKs. RBMKs means reactor of large capacity, general type. Now, one exploded in Chernobyl, of course. After that, no one developed there. And still in Russia, they have large ones, 1,000 megawatts electrical and three small ones AGPs, it's the smallest reactor in the world, around 10-12 megawatts electrical. Also, I assume that within 5 to 10 years all of them will be shut down and never built again.

Igor Pioro [00:24:15] And the last one will be liquid metal fast breeder reactors, in particular fast reactors around Generation IV. It's a fast sodium reactor, in Russian, abbreviation 600 megawatts. BN-800, newer one, put under pressure in 2016. And in China, a small one, only 20 megawatts electrical, but China possibly within this year or next year will also close to the BN-600 reactor.

Igor Pioro [00:24:52] It's unique... because it's absolutely a unique reactor coolant, it's liquid metal. But it's very, very tricky because it's melting around 98 degrees. It's boiling around... degrees Celsius. And the efficiency of this plant's approximately 40%... And these reactors, they have triple. They have sodium circulating inside of the reactor, heat exchanger sodium to clean sodium in loop. They come out far away from the reactor because within water and sodium it will be hydrogen.

Charlie Cole [00:25:45] Right, you do not want water and sodium together.

Igor Pioro [00:25:49] Sodium... I have seen different sources, but what I have seen right in front of our eyes, it will be heated in air... Around 300 degrees, it will auto-ignite in air. It's very unusual that metal will auto-ignite and you will have some sort of a yellowish flame there. It is very tricky to operate. And I think that in many cases, in many other countries reactors ended with some fires. Not disasters, but eventually when it's leaking there will be fire. Possibly, it will be more or less like liquid metal.

Igor Pioro [00:26:29] Our future, in terms of where we can go to bring creation... nuclear, which is very difficult to believe, can move and be a renewable energy. Of course, it's not like today. I know that currently, Russians built a lead-cooled fast reactor, 600 megawatts electrical. Also, a small modular reactor, and they would like to put this reactor to be a breeder. With plutonium, plutonium after that will be used in MOX fuel and other things. It's really exciting because eventually, the sources of uranium is not infinite. It's substantial, but it depends on how many reactors will use them. This is what we have as of today in the industry.

Charlie Cole [00:27:28] Here's another question for you. I know that you've been teaching a lot of courses recently on small modular reactors. I think I understand a little bit why there's sort of a preference for PWRs, but moving forward, what do you see is the role of the small reactors versus the large ones? Do you think there's going to be some mixture of both? Why do you think the strategy of using all large reactors need to pivot to have SMRs? So yeah, where's the big versus small for you?

Igor Pioro [00:28:02] First of all, the match only started. With my master's degree students, we have calculated around 108 concepts. But I would like to say that the vast majority of concepts have not yet been designed or developed. From 108 concepts, we have only two types of reactors in operation. It will be the Russian KLT-40s, it's more or less propulsion reactors from icebreakers. Before that, from submarines because they are more or less modular reactors in any case. But they're still like a small nuclear power plant inside submarines or inside aircraft carriers or icebreakers. And they pick up two reactors from icebreakers, put on a barge. And this is very important, I think, based on my knowledge that many different experts say, "It's already done. Let's stay put." They spent a significant amount of time and a significant amount of funding to move, because it's not real civil engineering even as an icebreaker. It's still the type of the reactor. They added basic safety systems and so on, and it took much longer than was expected. Now, it's department was electrical each. They put it on a barge in December of 2019...

Igor Pioro [00:29:52] And I strongly believe that of course, small modular reactors definitely have their niche, but some experts say that small modular reactors will replace large ones. I really don't believe that. Still, a small modular reactor is still a reactor. You have to guard it. You have to service it. You have to care about it. You have to have certain conditions, yes? How to handle these things. If you will have hundreds of such reactors all around the country, no, it's also not so simple. Plus... is why you need small modular reactors.

Igor Pioro [00:30:40] Here, I would like to say... old from Chernobyl time. Before that, we said that peaceful atom in home. Then Chernobyl happened, and people started to say, "This is what we got. A peaceful atom in every home and you have to worry about it." Due to this, I believe that the niche can be on a ship. Yes, you bring, for example, to Africa, to Middle East and you put another ship, destination unit. You provide electricity and fresh water. It's a great idea. You will go like... it's a very small city and this very nice land because it provides hot water and electricity at the same time. Military bases, some miles where you need maybe 6-10 megawatts electrical to operate. This is a good idea. But to put near large cities where you have everywhere power lines connected, like in Europe for example, I really don't believe that it will be necessary.

Igor Pioro [00:31:49] I also believe, not to forget, based on Russian experience that they took slightly enriched uranium; they used 18.6% when in pressurized water reactors, the maximum is around 5. This is another specifics of this case. Just as I believe that it's greater here. As you can see here, we have the top 6 different types, it will be water cooled SMRs, land based. Water-cooled SMRs, marine based means on submarines and aircraft carriers. High temperature, gas-cooled reactor is helium cooled, 21 concepts. Lead cooled, sodium cooled, lead bismuth cooled, SMRs 36 concepts. Molten salt SMRs, 17, and other very small. SMRs around 4.

Igor Pioro [00:32:45] It's a lot of talks about that; it's a lot of news. But in reality, only... high temperature modules from China. They are in operation. The rest, very close, or they started to build but are not yet in operation. And of course, I still absolutely cannot believe they won't have it... will be designed and will be put into operation. So, not trivial things.

Igor Pioro [00:33:22] Based on history, you know that even very large nuclear reactors, they disappear from the surface, correct? Atomic energy, you cannot the limit the scale, being split it and sold to... CANDU energy, Chalk River Laboratories currently and can have nuclear laboratories in the hands of the government. Areva also, the correct nuclear part have been given, I think, to EDF, Électricité de France. Some other companies went through bankruptcies. Areva, actually, as I remember, 75,000 employees. It's a huge nuclear company. And they have failed to put into operation their first EPR, the largest nuclear power... In 2006, they put into operation more or less of this much.

Charlie Cole [00:34:22] Yeah, they just did it.

Igor Pioro [00:34:23] This is actually a problem for all nuclear power industry. They promise one date, and after that they usually have delays and delays. We have to fix it.

Charlie Cole [00:34:34] Obviously, reactors used to get built on time very frequently. What do you see as the reason why construction delays and cost overruns have really plagued the industry?

Igor Pioro [00:34:45] I think that it's very complicated, the designs in general. Because it's not only reactors, it's coal plant, it's power cycling. A lot of drawings, you have to be absolutely sure that one corresponds to another one. When you're dealing... you have to possibly introduce some changes into that, and eventually it's delay and delay. As I remember, CANDU reactors, I think in China, they have been built on time and second round, possibly even slightly ahead. It was quite... but not everywhere. And of course, this Finland... However, now it is in operation.

Charlie Cole [00:35:40] Yeah, I had a professor in undergrad who worked on Olkiluoto, I think, in 2008. And at the time that I was studying with him, he was fully convinced it was never going to come online. This was a couple of years ago. Obviously, it did come online, which is great.

Igor Pioro [00:35:55] Yes, finally. Actually, it was connected to grid one year ago, but there were some problems with pumps and other things and I think they reached the real output... Actually, it's the third largest reactor in the world. Two plants built before in China. And China now is country number one in terms putting money into nuclear.

Charlie Cole [00:36:24] Have you personally worked on either the design of the construction of any nuclear power plants or more from the research, academic side?

Igor Pioro [00:36:34] When I worked at Chalk River Laboratories, we have performed... Eventually, I'm more from the experimental part. At Chalk River Laboratories, we had a large thermal hydraulic loop, but instead of water we used a modulant fluid as... But we had a formal test and full scale bundle test. Twelve short bundles, 500 millimeters each, cooled with... We have developed scaling... And nearby at... It's another site at Toronto... Laboratories, very famous in the world, and they perform experiments in full scale bundle tests. It's like one fuel chain completely in water.

Igor Pioro [00:37:21] In this combination of two, with refrigerants you can go for higher heat fluxes without any problems, but of course you cannot design the reactor based on... You must do experiments in the actual reactor coolant. But you can do all experiments to see certain boundaries wider with water. This was where I had this experience, and this was a great experience. We analyzed data from laboratories in water, we compared what we have in refrigerant, and this is how we have moved also at Chalk River Laboratories. I have started experiments with supercritical carbon dioxide and modulant fluid instead of supercritical water. Also, it was a quite interesting approach.

Igor Pioro [00:38:10] I have participated in two coordinated research projects by the International Atomic Energy Agency on supercritical water reactors, and currently we started with the first year of the third one. One of six generation for control of supercritical water reactor, also a quite legitimate one and an interesting one, but possibly not the right choice for many researchers and designers. Primary will be very high temperature reactor with 1,000 degrees... Of course... fast reactor because it's proven in the industry, especially like Russia it's... already in operation. BN-600 and before it was BN-350. Due to this... we have to be very proper and justified. We cannot jump, "Let's try this, and let's try that." We cannot afford any an extra serious accidents. Otherwise the most reliable and the most powerful with minimum CO2 emissions source of energy will go. And it will be a complete disaster for the world, not even for a particular country.

Charlie Cole [00:39:33] Yeah, wow. I know one of your research areas in particular was supercritical water. Is that right? You've worked with supercritical water?

Igor Pioro [00:39:44] Yes.

Charlie Cole [00:39:45] What are the benefits of supercritical water? And do you think there will be supercritical reactors built? Is it an efficiency thing, or what do you see as the key battle?

Igor Pioro [00:39:57] In front of nuclear power, we have thermal power. We use a power cycles coming from the thermal power which... Thermal power started with subcritical pressures that reached around 17, I think maybe 18 megapascals. Usually it's around 17... 16, 17 megapascals of pressure. Superheated steam, maybe 535 degrees primary and... you reached around 43%. From the thermodynamic point of view, you have to go to higher temperatures and for water, it would be pressures. But closer to critical point, the critical... limit, the heat locks in the side reactor when... boiling... For this, it's not the case, but for a liquid, for water, it is eventually going to zero.

Igor Pioro [00:41:11] That is why subcritical pressure... coal-fired power plants, they're not operating higher than 17, 18 megapascals. Because critical point is 22.064 megapascals. And then over that... And eventually... we have advanced coal-fired power plants from 60s with thermal efficiencies up to 55%. It will be a from 23 megapascals to 38 megapascals. But the vast majority of them are range of 23, 26, 27 megapascals. The range of 25 megapascals, 625 degrees.

Igor Pioro [00:41:57] Thermal efficiency for thermal power plants was the major driving force starting from the beginning. Nuclear power plants stuck at more or less for military applications, but with time and eventually, who cares about efficiency? If you will get 30%, 32%, it will be really, really great. But because nuclear power has to compete with other sources of energy, hydro, wind, coal-fired power plants, gas-fired, combined cycle power plants which going up to 62.5%... This is the highest thermal efficiency. You cannot ignore that. The thermal efficiency for nuclear power plants is also the driving force, but you cannot compromise safety. The emphasis still... safety should be enhanced, not slightly dropping down.

Igor Pioro [00:42:58] We know from the thermal power industry, that if you would like to move pressurized water reactors, boiling water reactors to higher thermal efficiency as plants, we need to move from subcritical pressure in cycle to supercritical. And this is more or less the current supercritical water reactors. Also, we have to understand that supercritical reactor cycle for six years in the industry. We cannot expect anything unknown.

Charlie Cole [00:43:34] You're talking about supercritical water, right? Not supercritical CO2? And then, second question, supercritical... Is this for a pressurized water reactor, I assume? And so, is it just the primary loop that is supercritical, or is there supercritical water going into a turbine?

Igor Pioro [00:43:51] You have to have supercritical as reactor coolant, and...

Charlie Cole [00:43:59] And as a... That makes sense.

Igor Pioro [00:44:00] The direct cycle like we have in boiling water reactors, but more or less like... I'm sure with Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, no one will go with supercritical pressure direct cycle. It will be in steam.

Charlie Cole [00:44:17] Right, right. You need to be...

Igor Pioro [00:44:20] Because it's not steam. It's supercritical water. There is no difference between liquid and... But supercritical 25 megapascal reactor coolant water inside the reactor... Steam generator... And after that, supercritical pressure can cycle taken from industry. Eventually, we need to replace gas-fired or coal-fired things with nuclear energy. This is...

Igor Pioro [00:44:50] But many problem are in materials. It's not thermodynamics, it's not more or less heat transfer, these things can be fixed. But we know materials for supercritical pressure... Cycle there, but they have no neutron flux. And neutron flux, it's not enhancement... It's actually quite detrimental back on materials. Due to this, currently to the narrowest place to move to supercritical reactors. And of course, 25 megapascals, it's not fun.

Igor Pioro [00:45:27] I remember from some estimations if... And we're talking about pressure vessels, yes? In pressure vessels, if you have you 15.5, 16 megapascal pressure, you can't pressurize water reactors. The wall thickness can be up to 22 centimeters... If you move this same pressure vessel to supercritical pressures, estimations show that it should be 50 centimeters.

Charlie Cole [00:45:59] Oh, wow.

Igor Pioro [00:46:02] Even to manufacture that pressure vessel, it's also challenging.

Charlie Cole [00:46:06] Yeah, that's going to be...

Igor Pioro [00:46:08] I'm not saying that it's impossible but... First of all, you can say impossible, but you will manufacture and test and you will prove that it will operate. I know that some companies, I think in Japan, they said that they can do that, but still it should be proven in the industry. It's very important. This is... We're talking about supercritical water reactors as one of the...

Igor Pioro [00:46:34] Eventually, all Generation IV or next generation reactors, they should be more efficient, thermally efficient compared to current ones. Sodium cooled fast reactors, it will be around 40%. I'm sure that they will go above 550 degrees because they are afraid to get boiling inside the reactor and the boiling temperature of atmospheric pressure is 883 degrees. Possibly maybe 42, 43% can be liquid lead or molten lead. Reactors, of course, supercritical water reactors, it would possibly be exactly as if you have coal-fired power plants, 55%.

Igor Pioro [00:47:19] Helium, we definitely can go maybe 55, 60, something like that. Depends on the cycle. Of course, the original was helium turbine, but somehow they found that there is ingress of helium in the gas turbine bearings and now this... cycle is now going slow. And of course, just one turbine is not very high efficiency. This is should be considered also like a thermal power industry combined cycle. Some sort of turbine, maybe nitrogen gas in there, or 80% nitrogen, 20% helium. And after that, possible then can cycle at the lower values.

Charlie Cole [00:48:07] Awesome. Very interesting stuff. I think the supercritical world is really cool. Obviously, as you say, efficiency is really important, and it's important that nuclear keeps up with other energy sources.

Igor Pioro [00:48:18] Yes. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Phoebe Lind [00:00:58] Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Titans of Nuclear Podcast. I'm Phoebe Lind, and today we have Ted Nordhaus as our very special guest. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Breakthrough Institute. Ted, welcome to the podcast.

Ted Nordhaus [00:01:15] Thanks for having me.

Phoebe Lind [00:01:16] Of course. Just to dive right in, tell us a little bit about how you got started. We'll start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

Ted Nordhaus [00:01:25] Wow, that's a long time ago. I've been at this for a long time. I spent the first half of my career in the environmental movement, really in a lot of cases doing real grassroots work. Knocking on doors, running campaigns, that kind of thing. I spent some time as a pollster for environmental groups. And in the early 2000s with a number of other people, I helped launch a thing called the Apollo Project, which was in some ways really like Version 1.0 of the Green New Deal. It seems a little quaint now, but we were calling for $300 billion over 10 years to invest in a clean energy economy.

Ted Nordhaus [00:02:29] I wasn't a big nuclear guy; I didn't know that much about nuclear energy at the time. A lot of the focus on that was just wind and solar, bringing clean energy manufacturing jobs to America. And this was all right after 9/11, so there was a big focus on energy independence and getting off of oil because it was funding terrorists and things like that.

Ted Nordhaus [00:02:57] So I started that in the early 2000s. Like I said, I knew environmental politics really well, and it was this very different approach to dealing with climate change. Again, this was a long time ago, so we say things now that seem like really conventional wisdom, like, "Climate change is fundamentally a technology problem." But actually, the environmental community itself did not look at the problem that way at the time. It thought that climate change was just like a big air pollution problem, and we would solve it the same way that we had solved problems of smog and sort of more conventional environmental problems. Like, the EPA would write a regulation and tell everyone to sort of reduce their emissions and they would do it however they did it. Energy efficiency, some renewable energy, some pollution control on the end of the pipe, that kind of thing. So, that was really the mental model or paradigm for climate change when I started really engaging the issue in the way that we've been at for almost 20 years now.

Ted Nordhaus [00:04:24] The interesting thing was this was this big, exciting, new, innovative idea. It is now sort of the conventional wisdom in the environmental community. But at the time, it was kind of heretical. And so we had this coalition. We had some labor unions, we had some progressive groups that weren't really environmental groups. And we start taking this idea around to all the big environmental groups, and they're like, "Yeah, not interested. We've got our program here. Just going to do an international treaty, a cap-and-trade program for emissions, and we're going to solve the problem." They were very, very confident that they knew exactly what to do.

Ted Nordhaus [00:05:02] So we got really frustrated. In 2004, I wrote an essay with a guy who probably some of your listeners know who's gone on to do some very different things since then named Michael Shellenberger called "The Death of Environmentalism," which was like a pre-Twitter social media call out of the entire environmental movement for just abjectly failing on climate change. It was already clear even then that the environmental community's agenda on climate change was not succeeding. They'd made no progress; emissions had just been going up. They were still going up at the time in the US. They were rising very rapidly globally, especially as China was industrializing. And the environmental community insisted that they knew what they were doing and they had this all covered, but it was obvious even 20 years ago that this wasn't the case.

Ted Nordhaus [00:06:02] So we write this thing. It kind of went viral, one of the early internet things that went viral. Everybody wrote about it, talked about it. We self-published it on this little website that was The Breakthrough Institute before there really was an institute at all. It was kind of this internet, media sensation, even in the environmental groups. It's interesting because it came out right before the 2004 election. We had interviewed the leaders of all the big environmental groups, and they were all very confident that John Kerry was going to win the election and then we'd go do this cap-and-trade bill. I think everyone on the left including in the environmental community was really shocked when George W. Bush wins reelection. There was a sort of a brief window for introspection on the left and in the environmental community right as we had self-published this essay. And so, it just hit at exactly the right time for a bunch of people to go like, "What the hell are we doing here and isn't it working?"

Ted Nordhaus [00:07:25] And so, even in the big environmental groups, people were literally organizing reading groups to read this essay and talk about it. There was a big debate; all of that. So, that's sort of where the present iteration of Ted Nordhaus and really where the Breakthrough Institute starts. And we spent a bunch of years, really a decade after that going like, "Okay, so we know that this thing that the environmental community is not doing isn't working." We had this idea that a technology-centered, public investment focused approach would have been better, but we didn't really know what that really meant. And so, we spent a lot of years sort of both looking at the policy and what the problem was.

Ted Nordhaus [00:08:17] A few years later, we published the first white paper that we ever published called "Fast, Clean and Cheap," which really said, "Again, this is a technology problem. We need to cut this Gordian Knot." The idea is that by regulating fossil fuels, you would make them more expensive with a price on carbon or a carbon cap-and-trade program, and then that's how you would get the clean energy. We're like, "No, actually, we're living in this world..." You know, at the time it was almost 7 billion people, now it's 8 billion people. A lot of them are really poor. They need to consume way more energy. They can't actually afford fossil energy, in a lot of cases, at the price that it costs today. So, you really have to make clean energy cheap. You can't solve climate change by just making the dirty energy expensive. You know, everyone now says, "Make clean energy cheap." That's what we're all trying to do here. But we kind of invented the term. It was literally invented at The Breakthrough Institute, and I think that paper is the first place where those words were literally written.

Ted Nordhaus [00:09:36] We were looking at energy technology and we were like, "This is an energy technology challenge. The clean energy is too expensive to do all the things that everyone wants it to do to deal with climate change and lots of other problems." And we had this idea that you need public investment and you need government to accelerate that innovation challenge. Again, we were still pretty much focused on... I think we mentioned advanced nuclear and nuclear energy for maybe the first time in that "Fast, Clean, and Cheap" paper, but we're still mostly focused on renewable energy. And it's not until a few years later as we're diving deeper into the various sorts of pathways to get lots of cheap, clean energy that we started looking at nuclear energy pretty seriously.

Ted Nordhaus [00:10:24] We really started looking at nuclear for a couple of different reason. We're having these debates with the environmental movement, and so there's sort of two debates that we're in the middle of where we're pushing against what is the conventional wisdom. The first was there was this idea at the time that you could mostly solve climate change with energy efficiency. And if you went back, there were these big McKinsey studies. They had this McKinsey cost curve and it showed all of this below-cost energy efficiency that would allow you to very cheaply address climate change and deeply cut emissions. And we were really skeptical of that right from the start.

Ted Nordhaus [00:11:15] And then the second was this idea that... Again, it's like the whole discourse has shifted, but really the entire environmental movement was convinced that you would just put a price on carbon and then you would let markets solve the problem. It was very what people say today "neo-liberal," but even all the big lefty, liberal environmental groups were like... You know, you had Bill McKibben and Van Jones. The environmental left was like, "We'll put a price on carbon. A global price on carbon, the markets will solve it." And we were like, "No, we don't think it's going to work like that."

Ted Nordhaus [00:11:54] So, we were looking at what the track record was in terms of how modern economies that had actually been reasonably successful at reducing their emissions had done it. As anyone who's looked at this, you keep coming back to the same places again and again. There's France and Sweden; there's a handful of these places. And we got interested in them because we're looking at them and we're like, "Well, mostly they're not doing this with energy efficiency. They're actually doing it on the supply side by just basically replacing fossil fuel with clean. And they're not doing it with a regulatory or a pricing or a market-based scheme, they're doing it with just direct public investment in energy infrastructure." And so, we're like, "A-ha! We have our proof of concept here. We're right; the environmentalists are wrong."

Ted Nordhaus [00:12:54] And then you go through the list of all these places and of course there's this thing that we weren't really talking about that's at the center of all of them, which is that they all do it by basically doing state-led deployment of nuclear energy. So that's the moment where we're like, "Okay, we can't..." We always knew that nuclear was out there and people would always ask us about it. We were always like, "Well, I don't know. We're trying to move this whole environmental movement." Finally, we were like, "Okay, we can't keep pretending like the evidence for the places that really have pretty successfully and deeply cut their emissions, at least in the electrical sector, is not pretty centrally a story about nuclear energy."

Ted Nordhaus [00:13:36] So, we start talking about it. We put out some papers where we made nuclear part of the solution. And then in February of 2011, I went to Yale. It was maybe six or seven years after "The Death of Environmentalism." We'd been given an invitation to go to what's now called the Yale Environmental School, but it used to be called the Forestry School and give a talk. We'd gone there right after "The Death of Environmentalism" and had done this big thing. So we go there, and I write this speech. It's called "The Long Death of Environmentalism." It was sort of looking back even then, which wasn't that long ago at that point. It's like, "Here are the key things that we've learned and here are the key things going forward." We had these 10 or 12 theses for the new post-environmental politics. And for one of them, it was really the first time that we came out and really, really clearly and unambiguously said, "The environmental community needs to get serious about nuclear energy."

Ted Nordhaus [00:14:53] So we give that speech and it got noticed by a bunch of people that we were not just saying, "Yeah, there's a little bit of nuclear over here," but that, "This is one of the things that's really critical to the future." And then literally two or three weeks later, Fukushima happens. There were a lot of people who were like, "Haha, joke's on you. You said nuclear and now look, there's this terrible catastrophe." And I think the reaction for us, as with a lot of early nuclear advocates was actually, "Okay, this is sort of the test if you're serious about nuclear, if you're ready to defend it in the middle of a meltdown."

Ted Nordhaus [00:15:51] I think if you look at a bunch of the early folks, Stewart Brand, Mark Lynas, me and Breakthrough, we're all like, "No, actually... Yeah, this is an accident. This is a serious industrial accident, but it is literally not the end of the world." It's happening in the midst of this terrible natural disaster in which... You know, 20,000 people died in this disaster, and none of them died from the nuclear meltdown even though Fukushima is now synonymous with the meltdown and not a tsunami that swept across much of northern Japan, wiped out the entire region, and killed 20,000 people.

Ted Nordhaus [00:16:43] I think in some ways, the birth of the modern pro-nuclear movement actually is Fukushima, ironically, because again, it's this moment where you're like, "Okay, if we're serious about this we need to actually talk back to the catastrophizing, the knee-jerk, freak out catastrophizing that's happening." So we did that, and we did it probably more publicly than anyone else at that moment. And we opened a whole part of our website where we were actually really tracking the radiological doses and explaining to people what they meant. And at the same time being like, "The media and the environmental community are taking the wrong lessons from this."

Phoebe Lind [00:17:38] What lessons did you think that they were taking?

Ted Nordhaus [00:17:39] Well, their lessons were, "This proves we can't do nuclear. It's far too dangerous." And we're like, "No, it's actually not that dangerous. There's a massive overreaction going on here from the Japanese government, among others. And that's not to say that there's not something here that we need to deal with, but if you put this in the context of just the realities of energy production, globally, this is a relatively mild problem to have to deal with. If you're rational about it, you don't evacuate the entire population. It's a manageable problem and we should handle it the way..."

Ted Nordhaus [00:18:29] Like, I live a few miles from a set of major refineries here in the San Francisco Bay area. They have accidents and toxic pollution releases all of the time, and we don't evacuate the city of Richmond every time it happens or insist that we have to end refining of all petroleum products, which if you're serious about climate change, sooner or later you need to do. That's not the reaction to this thing, where from any rational public health perspective, you would go, "That's a much more serious accident than even Fukushima."

Ted Nordhaus [00:19:16] And then from there, we started really leaning into nuclear, doing a lot of analysis. Just running the numbers on the closure of the San Onofre plant, it's something where it's like you close it and everyone's like... The environmental groups, the Friends of the Earth, they're all like, "No, no, no, we're going to replace it all with renewable energy." And then of course, emissions go through the roof. And Germany's closing plants after Fukushima and the same thing has happened. And Japan shuts down and their emissions go through the roof. And we're documenting all of that. And at the same time, we're also talking about what the options are in terms of new nuclear technologies that maybe look somewhat different than the ones that everyone has been accustomed to over the last generation.

Ted Nordhaus [00:20:06] You get to the end of that a few years later with a set of the folks who were really early, very public sorts of non-industry pro-nuclear advocates. And we write and publish "The Eco-Modernist Manifesto," which really puts sort of all of that thinking around clean, cheap, abundant energy, understanding environmental problems as fundamentally technological problems, and understanding technology as the critical fulcrum that mediates the relationship between human well-being and material well-being and environmental protection of all sorts. And then nuclear energy being really at the center of that challenge and nuclear being a really critical energy technology that will be necessary to sustain large, modern human civilizations while dealing with climate change and other environmental challenges. So I'll stop there because that was a while. That was long.

Phoebe Lind [00:21:16] It's all right.

Ted Nordhaus [00:21:18] It's been a long journey.

Phoebe Lind [00:21:19] I mean, you've been a part of so many different aspects of the environmental movement. And it has changed a lot in the last 20 years, especially, as people have become more aware of climate change and the effect that it has on their lives. More people are talking about it. You have newer perspectives, new solutions. We talk about those for a while; we try to figure it out. We still have a lot of work to do to figure out which solutions will work in the future. But yeah, there are a couple of things I'd like to respond to in terms of your journey.

Phoebe Lind [00:21:49] First of all, it seems that writing has been a really key part of your career, of you building this brand. You said that you were in this new era of Ted. I mean, "The Death of Environmentalism" was one of the first times that I think you had articulated a lot of those ideas. Why do you think writing has had such a central part of your career and advancing these ideas?

Ted Nordhaus [00:22:17] I think that just inevitably, thoughts and ideas precede action, especially if you're trying to do something different or new. You've got to work it out conceptually and intellectually. There are labels of thought leadership or whatever, and it's easy to make fun of, but it's also really important.

Ted Nordhaus [00:22:52] I had spent a lot of years in the environmental movement in various roles. I sort of privately had just become increasingly very frustrated, very concerned, and being like, "What the hell are we doing and why is it that everyone believes this thing when I can just look at various aspects of it and go that doesn't really make sense?" So, the first step before you can have real politics or a real policy agenda or there's a whole grassroots, eco-modernist and pro-nuclear movement... You can't really have any of that before you have the ideas. The ideas always have to come first, again, especially if you're in politics trying to do something new and something different. And so, the writing is essential to that.

Ted Nordhaus [00:23:47] Like today at Breakthrough, we have a Washington office. We have a whole team. I think you guys did something with Adam Stein recently who leads our Nuclear Innovation Program. They are literally like at the NRC every day, sort of being independent, civil society, pro-nuclear advocates for sensible regulatory policy. There was no demand for that. We're a decade into renewed public policy to try to support new, advanced nuclear technologies, and there's a whole set of policies that haven't necessarily hit the headlines but that have been really important for that. And that all happens for a long time before there's really a lot to go to the NRC and advocate for. And for even all that policy to happen, we had to be out just making the case that we needed nuclear, that it was a critical climate technology.

Ted Nordhaus [00:25:00] We did our first big nuclear report in 2013, 2014. It was called "How to Make Nuclear Cheap." We had like 100 congressional staffers who came to this briefing we organized, because they were just like, "What is this nuclear thing? I thought nuclear was not something... And here's and environmental group that's saying we need new nuclear." And then, we'd literally go to the Department of Energy and we'd meet with the guy who runs DOE's Advanced Nuclear Office. It's like a one guy at the end of his career sitting in a room with like a $25 million budget, which is nothing. You know, it was sad. He's like, "Yeah, I spent my whole career here. It never worked out, and it'll never happen." If you talk to that guy, you would be like, "Advanced nuclear is never going to happen."

Ted Nordhaus [00:25:57] And we went and got a meeting with the head of the Obama White House's Council on Environmental Quality, and they're like, "What is advanced nuclear?" They'd literally never heard of it. Within a couple of years, they're sort of putting some real resources into advanced nuclear at DOE and in the Obama administration. That continues through the Trump administration; it's now kind of a major commitment of the Biden administration. But none of that can happen until someone is writes something and is like, "Hey, here's the case for advanced nuclear. Here's why we need it. Here's why we need to reconsider the role of nuclear given everything that we know today versus what people thought in 1978." So yeah, the writing and the thought leadership and the ideation, it's critical. And we continue to do that at Breakthrough. Not just me, but our team, because it's how you stay out. And it's not just about advocating for things you already believe in, but we try to always have a really sort of critical culture where we're always trying to stay out in front of where that discourse or debate is now. And that's how we keep ourselves from getting really sort of ossified and too set in our ways as well.

Phoebe Lind [00:27:28] I would say it's also certainly probably led to your ability to go viral, as you put it earlier. I mean, even with your very first publication. What was it like to be caught in that viral moment when "The Death of Environmentalism" took off?

Ted Nordhaus [00:27:44] Well, it was really crazy because there weren't viral moments then. So it was sort of like, "What the hell is happening?" But suddenly, people were emailing from all over the world. Again, this was before social media at all. It's was just sort of early blogging days, really. There was a lot happening on blogs and all the sort of big legacy... Like, The Atlantic, New Republic, places like that are all just launching digital platforms and publishing their content digitally. And you have sort of a set of the first bloggers associated with the set of these outlets who were writing about it.

Ted Nordhaus [00:28:32] You know, I was not a public figure at all until that essay. And suddenly, I'm getting invitations to come give speeches at universities and places like Yale and Princeton from all over the world. Yeah, it took a while to be like, "Oh, okay, this is different. This is not being an environmental organizer or a campaign consultant or a pollster. I'm doing something different now." It took a while to figure that out.

Phoebe Lind [00:29:05] What lessons did you take away from some of those earlier moments that you apply to your life as a public figure now? People pay attention to the things that you say because of some of those earlier moments.

Ted Nordhaus [00:29:19] [00:29:19]I think the biggest thing is if you're going to go say something, make an argument and be clear. There are a lot of people, especially when they write... People want to be experts, and the expert writes in a different way than a thought leader writes. And you can be an expert and a thought leader, but they're not the same thing. [37.0s]

Phoebe Lind [00:29:58] Would you consider yourself an expert, a thought leader, or both?

Ted Nordhaus [00:30:03] Definitely a thought leader. I'm not a Ph.D. energy systems modeler or nuclear engineer, and I don't claim to be. I'm a guy with a B.A. In history from UC Berkeley. And I don't want to dismiss expertise; it's really important and it's valuable, but there's also just a lot of stuff that gets obfuscated by expertise. One of the things I always tell my staff is like, "Before we get to the creating a really complicated model, let's do some descriptive statistics here." If you can't just put it in a pretty simple spreadsheet and look at it and be like, "There's a relationship here," or, "There's a noticeable trend here," you can go and you can go...

Ted Nordhaus [00:31:15] We used to see this, for instance, in all the arguments about how effective actually in the real world is putting a price on carbon, or how effective has climate policy been. You would go look at, for instance, the carbon intensity of energy before 1990 when everyone starts really paying attention to carbon because climate change is really coming into view or before '97 when the Kyoto Accord is done, kind of these different points. In a lot of cases, the carbon intensity of energy falls faster in the era prior the beginnings of climate policy than after. And you don't need a very complicated, integrated assessment model to see it. And people would go, "Well, no, but you haven't controlled for like the 17 different factors."

Ted Nordhaus [00:32:35] We'd have these debates with people, the cap-and-trade and carbon pricing people after the European Emissions Trading System went into place and everyone was like, "No, the Emissions Trading System, this is what we should be doing." And we're like, "Well, but except it doesn't seem to be having any impact on emissions." And they'd be like, "Well, that's because of all these other factors. But we have this very complicated model and we've totally controlled it and controlled for every factor that we can think of. And when we do that, we can find a statistically significant impact, as theory suggests, of the price on carbon on emissions." And it's like, "Well, even if that's true..." If the impact is so minimal that you just can't actually see it in the basic descriptive statistics... The carbon intensity of energy does control for economic growth rates and things like that. So if you can't see it in using these very basic metrics, whether or not it exists, it's just not very significant.

Ted Nordhaus [00:33:45] There's a corollary to this in the nuclear space. There are these debates about linear no-threshold, like what is the impact of really low-level, low-dose radiation exposures on human health? Is it bad and does it go all the way to zero? And there's cancer and bad things that go all the way there. Or is it the opposite? Is there hormesis and low levels are really good for you. But the truth is it's actually like an unfalsifiable argument because literally you're talking about... It cannot be resolved empirically because the impact, whether it's positive or negative, is so minimal that you can't actually observe it in even a very, very large exposed population. It's just too small of an effect to be able to sort of see it in a statistically significant way against the background cancer rate, what mortality rate metric you use.

Ted Nordhaus [00:34:50] And people are like, "Okay, well, so what do we do?" And I'm sort of like, "Well, I don't actually care." Like, if I can't see it... If the effect one way or another is so minimal that you literally can't observe it in the real world, this is not a serious public health concern. Hundreds of thousands of people just in the United States die every year just from exposure to conventional air pollutants. That's an effect that we can see, we can track. There's no debate about this. Why are we talking about low-dose radiation? It's just not significant enough for anyone to be concerned about at all much less for us to have an entire federal regulatory framework predicated on mitigating theoretical public health risk, which is actually what the NRC is mostly doing at this point.

Phoebe Lind [00:35:50] Do you find that in your advocacy for nuclear energy that's one of the major issues that people will push back on?

Ted Nordhaus [00:35:58] People don't push back on it, they just assume it. We're like, "No, actually, this is a problem. We need to stop doing this." Because in sort of innumerable ways, as you actually get into the nuclear regulatory and the obvious and not so way obvious ways in which it imposes very substantial costs on nuclear technology that no other technology bears, it's really because of this sort of radical conservatism in the regulatory environment around regulating entirely theoretical public health risk.

Ted Nordhaus [00:36:45] My point about expertise... On all these cases, a kind of expertise can get in the way. And I think part of what differentiates thought leadership is to cut through some of that. There are expert communities that for a bunch have a lot of perverse incentives on both sides of the issue to endlessly debate the linear no-threshold hypothesis and hormesis. It's literally a debate that is totally irrelevant to public health. And it obscures the real question which is, "Why do we care at these levels of theoretical risk?" So, thought leadership is doing something different. Thought leadership goes, "We shouldn't care about this, and here's why." And it's a very fact-based and empirically grounded argument. And in this case, the empirical is, "It's literally impossible to see an effect."

Phoebe Lind [00:37:54] Do you find that this pragmatism that you speak to has been a key part of your thought evolution regarding nuclear energy in particular? You had mentioned that this was a solution you saw when you were looking at how other countries abroad were reducing their emissions. But how has your perspective on nuclear energy shifted since then?

Ted Nordhaus [00:38:20] You kind of come to it from the pragmatic, but once you get your head around it, of course, it's completely consistent with our broader view of climate change, particularly. Here's a technology, it's a critical technology. It's a technology that the traditional mainstream environmental community has not just rejected, but as I said, essentially attempted to regulate and fear monger out of existence. And then as we dive more into understanding why nuclear has these unique characteristics, a lot of the ideas in "The Eco-Modernist Manifesto" come out of wrapping our heads around nuclear to start with. The value of density, shrinking the footprint...

Ted Nordhaus [00:39:20] If you look at the prototype mental model of nuclear as an environmental technology versus renewables, you go to the opening line of "The Eco-Modernist Manifesto" and it says there are sort of two environmental ideas that are actually totally inconsistent with one another. One is shrinking the human footprint, and the other is harmonizing the provision of human material well-being with nature and with natural energy flows. And so, renewable energy is this idea that you're going to gently capture the existing natural flows and human societies will sort of support themselves by capturing these natural energy flows.

Ted Nordhaus [00:40:16] And nuclear is really predicated on digging uranium out of the ground, refining it, splitting atoms to unleash this energy that is otherwise sort of not accessible. And because it's such a powerful source of energy and it's not dependent on these natural energy flows, you can meet human needs on this tiny footprint. Land use footprint, material footprint, all of those things. That's literally like the third sentence or something in "The Eco-Modernist Manifesto, and it's an insight that comes right from thinking about why nuclear is different than these other clean energy sources and has different characteristics and quite different possibilities for human societies if you fully utilize it.

Phoebe Lind [00:41:24] But to that point, I mean, if you actually consider what in reality it takes to capture solar and wind energy, it's still just as much of an intensive process because of the mining and manufacturing that goes into producing that technology as well.

Ted Nordhaus [00:41:41] Right. All of which get sort of airbrushed out of the picture of these nice little spinning windmills. I mean, you go and you look at the prototypical and you see it in the marketing propaganda or whatever. It's always like a hand drawing of a bucolic landscape of sort of suburban homes with solar panels on them and then beautiful, organic, small-scale farms with windmills spinning in them. And then, there's all this nature everywhere. There are mountains in the background and animals wandering around everywhere. The reality of it...

Ted Nordhaus [00:42:29] My family's originally from New Mexico. I live in California, we go to New Mexico every year and we drive out there. We go out through the Tehachapi Desert. And let me tell you, the reality of industrial scale renewable energy looks nothing like that. The scale of it on the landscape... I mean, coming back to California, you come in through the Mojave Desert into the Tehachapi Mountains, which is one of the windiest places in California. And it's just massive wind farms as far as the eye can see. And then, you come over and get into the Mojave and you go a little further. You come into these little valleys, and just literally the entire valley is a solar farm. To do this at the scale that anyone's talking about, there's going to have to be vastly more of that.

Ted Nordhaus [00:43:32] So, the prototype of this renewable energy future and the realities of it... And that's before we start talking, as you said, about the cobalt in Africa and the slave labor in China and on and on. And it's not that nuclear hasn't had some of those problems, but the scale of it is totally different when you try to do this just purely with the sun and the wind and just sort of harnessing these natural flows. It then actually implicates... I mean, if you look at the math on what a 100% global variable renewable energy system looks like, it's basically the size of global agriculture today in terms of its land use. Global agriculture is by far the largest, most significant human impact on the environment. And so it's like, "Let's double that to do it with renewables."

Ted Nordhaus [00:44:42] To be clear, some people in the nuclear advocacy space... We're not anti-renewables. We think there's a significant role for renewables to play. But when you go from, "It's one source of clean energy among a number of others," to, "We're going to do it all with variable renewable energy," the environmental consequences of that are just enormous. And we're only just now beginning to come to terms with that.

Phoebe Lind [00:45:13] Yeah. I mean, the main reason I bring that up is just because it is interesting with the public narrative around renewables versus something like nuclear energy, which has an even better possibility of reducing emissions and just increasing energy access. And granted, I do think that nuclear energy is getting... We've discussed the concept of a renaissance. It is definitely increasing in popularity in public polling, and that's very exciting to see. But how do we get nuclear energy to get the same kind of treatment that renewable energy does, where there's real optimism surrounding growing nuclear energy. And I think that's true among some groups, but it's definitely not widespread yet. So how do we bridge that gap to get environmentalists to understand this could be a really, really great way forward?

Ted Nordhaus [00:46:13] I mean, I think there's a part of the environmental community that honestly is just going to have to die. Back to "The Death of Environmentalism." And I say that literally. Like, there's a generation that is just never going to come around on nuclear in the environmental movement that came of age in the '60s, '70s.

Phoebe Lind [00:46:38] Granted, there were much scarier aspects.

Ted Nordhaus [00:46:38] I don't know if you saw this. Someone put up this picture, a side-by-side picture of the anti-Diablo group and the pro-Diablo group. Like, literally pictures of a bunch of the key people, and it's completely generational.

Phoebe Lind [00:46:57] I can empathize with the idea of growing up during the threat of nuclear war. I'm very lucky that was not something I grew up with.

Ted Nordhaus [00:47:03] Yeah, yeah. I mean, we talk about climate change as an existential crisis, but global nuclear holocaust is a whole different animal.

Phoebe Lind [00:47:14] So I have empathy there, but we do have a bridge to gap.

Ted Nordhaus [00:47:17] Yeah, yeah. And if you were doing duck and cover in the '50s in elementary school, that leaves an impression.

Phoebe Lind [00:47:25] 2023.

Ted Nordhaus [00:47:26] Yeah, yeah. It's like we're 70 years later and it's a different world. I mean, I think the biggest thing though is we've to put some steel in the ground. It's all fine and well to sort of talk about this great nuclear renaissance and all the benefits and how it's great and we need it and blah, blah, blah, but you've got to get it built and you've got to demonstrate that they're new nuclear technologies that at least have potential to scale. And it's one thing to build paper reactors and put that into a spreadsheet, and it's another thing to actually build a real reactor and have anyone look at it and go, "Let's do that again."

Ted Nordhaus [00:48:07] The industry has a history of overpromising and under-delivering. Part of that history is tied up with this insane regulatory framework that it's been saddled with, particularly since the creation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. My view is that we've got to have some success stories. We've got to get some new nuclear technology commercialized, and I don't think we're going to be successful doing that unless we fix the NRC. So that is the thing that we've been sort of laser-focused on the last couple of years. We got to this point where there's real technology, real companies that are trying to actually license new technology so they can go build it at the NRC, and it is going to be very difficult given the current regulatory framework that we have. So until we get that changed, I don't think that nuclear is going to be able to sort of deliver on the promise that a lot of us believe it needs to deliver on.

Phoebe Lind [00:49:13] So, your priority now is modernizing the NRC, so to speak. What methods are you trying to pursue in order to do that?

[00:49:25] Well, Congress directed the NRC to do this, and it has not gone well thus far. In 2019, Congress passed something called the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, directing the NRC to create a risk-informed, performance-based pathway for licensing advanced non-light-water reactors. And basically what the NRC staff did... This is kind of a sign of a pretty dysfunctional institution. In response to that mandate, they just sort of basically cut and pasted the existing frameworks for large light-water reactors and put them into their new proposed rule. And they sort of changed some language to make it ostensibly technology neutral. But it's basically the same old regulatory framework designed for large light-water reactors that the staff says, "This should be the framework for small, advanced, and non-light-water reactors as well.

Ted Nordhaus [00:50:43] So, we spent a lot of time in that process in public comment, engaging the NRC staff, organizing stakeholders to be like, "Don't do this. You need to actually start with a clean sheet of paper here." The staff was unwilling to do that. About eight or nine months ago when the first draft that was going to go to the five appointed commissioners went public, we went public and said, "This is going to be trouble, and anyone who's counting on a bold new future or brave new future for nuclear energy should not bet on that if this is the framework that the NRC is going to use to license advanced reactors."

Ted Nordhaus [00:51:45] That got a lot of attention. A bunch of people wrote about it after we put out our analysis and did our thought leadership, whatever you want to call it. The Washington Post editorialized and said, "This is a problem." It got the attention, importantly, of a number of key Democratic senators who've become pro nuclear. So, I think that the five commissioners, or really four right now, are really trying to figure out what to do with that. I think hopefully, they are going to send that draft rule back to the staff with very clear direction from the Commission that the staff needs to make very significant changes to this framework.

Ted Nordhaus [00:52:31] At the same time, they're sort of increasing the appetite in Congress to take further legislative statutory action to reform the NRC, including things like amending the NRC's mission to make clear... It's always been clear in the statute, but the NRC has ignored it that the NRC needs to consider the benefits of nuclear energy for public health, for climate change, particularly, and not just sort of try to eliminate all risk associated with low-level radiation release at the plant level, which is really the mission that the NRC... Despite the fact that there's no basis for it in the statute, the NRC insists that this is their mission. So, those two things are happening.

Ted Nordhaus [00:53:31] There's also a fight right now over the reappointment of Jeff Baran, who has been a commissioner. The Biden administration submitted him for reappointment. He went through the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee on a straight party line vote. But you know, Baran is sort of like the last real sort of Democratic obstructionist commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He was the last commissioner placed on the Commission by Harry Reid, who was the very powerful President of the Senate for many years and was from Nevada. And so it was basically like no new nuclear, no new anything to help the industry until there's a long-term waste solution that's not in Nevada. And so, this Yucca Mountain controversy literally for a generation dominated all Democratic thought and action related to the NRC.

Ted Nordhaus [00:54:48] You know, we still need a solution. It's not actually an urgent problem. The waste is totally safe. It's stored on site. It can be stored there for a very long time. I think we will figure out a solution. But the future of advanced nuclear energy should not be held hostage by the ghost of Yucca Mountain, and that's what Jeff Baran really is. That's why he's on the Commission; that's why he was put on the Commission. And you know, everything has radically changed since he was put on the Commission. The Biden administration is sort of full bore ahead, "We need nuclear." Democrats in Congress are appropriating huge amounts of money to demonstrate new reactors. And at the same time, none of that is going to happen if we don't fix the NRC. So, the Democrats need to put someone...

Ted Nordhaus [00:55:47] You know, they've made a couple of appointments. There are two other Democratic commissioners. I don't always agree with them, but they take nuclear as a critical climate technology seriously in a way that Jeff Baran does not. So, my message to all of your listeners would be to call your senator, Democrat or Republican, whatever they are, and urge them to vote against the confirmation of Jeff Baran. I think it's a kind of watershed moment, particularly for Democrats in the Senate about whether they're really serious about nuclear and a future for advanced nuclear. And if you are serious about that, sort of job one, the very first thing, is to stop putting guys like Jeff Baran on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Full stop.

Ted Nordhaus [00:56:41] Part 53 and the licensing of advanced reactor applications at the NRC, congressional action to take further action to fix the NRC, and the Baran confirmation, those are sort of really the cutting edge of the political battle to actually make a nuclear future possible right now.

Phoebe Lind [00:57:05] Thank you for delivering such a clear message. I feel like it's rare that we can really leave people with a strong action item. I always appreciate clear instructions.

Ted Nordhaus [00:57:15] Yes, yes. And you can find out much more about that and figure out how to reach out to your senator and that kind of thing at a website that we've launched with a number of the more grassroots pro-nuclear groups called Build Nuclear Now, www.buildnuclearnow.org. Mothers for Nuclear Energy, Generation Atomic... I'm sure a bunch of the folks that you've had on the show before are partners and part of that effort. And people should go to that website. Learn more both about the effort to fix the NRC and about the Baran confirmation, and let their representatives know that it's just unacceptable to put an obstructionist back on the NRC if you're serious about a future for nuclear energy.

Phoebe Lind [00:58:04] And we certainly are very serious about it. So with that, thank you so much for coming on the show and I hope you have a great one.

Ted Nordhaus [00:58:11] Yeah, great. Happy to do it. Enjoyed the conversation.

View Karl's referenced slideshow here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10sfl8oUa2taNpEap4Qojur3FwkB5ylNm/view?usp=sharing

Phoebe Lind [00:00:58] Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of your favorite nuclear energy podcast, Titans of Nuclear. My name is Phoebe Lind. I am here with our esteemed guest today, Karl Hausker. He is a Senior Fellow of the Climate Program at World Resources Institute, and we're thrilled to have him on today.

Phoebe Lind [00:01:15] We do want to note before we jump into our interview that Karl's interview today will reference slides that are linked in the show notes, so if listeners want to follow along, you may do that by clicking the link in the show notes. At times, Carl might mention specific graphs or specific charts that may provide additional insight into the research that we'll be discussing today, so we do recommend checking those out. If not, we'll make sure to describe whatever it is we're talking about along the way so you'll be able to keep up. Karl, welcome to the podcast.

Karl Hausker [00:01:46] Thanks so much, Phoebe.

Phoebe Lind [00:01:48] Would you mind kicking us off by providing a brief overview of who you are and what you do? What brings you to Titans of Nuclear?

Karl Hausker [00:01:55] Yes, absolutely. I've been working on climate change for 30-plus years from various positions on Capitol Hill with the Senate Energy Committee, working for EPA under President Clinton, and at consulting firms and research institutes like the World Resources Institute. So, I have quite a history and have followed the IPCC reports carefully over those years. That's the key topic we're going to talk about today. And I have a real passion for this issue because it really is the mother of all environmental problems, and we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Phoebe Lind [00:02:39] Yeah, absolutely. I can agree with that. So, today you are an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC as we call it. Would you mind providing a little bit of a background on what the IPCC is, what the reports are, and what inspired you to get into this work?

Karl Hausker [00:03:00] Yes, thanks. The IPCC is a UN body that serves the Framework Convention on Climate Change and conducts periodic assessments of the science, the impacts of climate change, and mitigation strategies to preserve a safe climate. It conducts assessment reports roughly every eight years or so, and this year it completed the sixth assessment report. It is a gargantuan, multi-year effort. It is largely done by volunteer scientists and other experts with a small central staff at the IPCC. It synthesizes and summarizes the body of work.

Karl Hausker [00:03:49] So, the IPCC actually doesn't conduct original research itself, but it conducts a massive literature survey and synthesis, again, over those three basic topics: science, impacts, and mitigation. And as you said, I was honored to serve as an expert reviewer on the Mitigation Report and on the Synthesis Report. And I could explain a little bit more the different pieces of an assessment report, if you like.

Phoebe Lind [00:04:23] Sure, we can get into that. I think for some context for our listeners as well, a lot of folks might have heard of the IPCC and these assessment reports, especially the sixth assessment report. It seems that they get more and more drastic every iteration that comes out, but that is the reality that we're dealing with. As a lot of folks might be aware, a very widely-adopted climate goal that we now have is to keep global average temperatures from rising from either 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius, because those are two very critical points at which irreparable damage occurs to Earth's natural and human systems. So just for context, people might have heard about it in the news and other reports. Again, this gargantuan report, as you put it.

Karl Hausker [00:05:14] Yeah, so each assessment report consists of three work group reports. As I said, science, impacts, and then mitigation strategies. And then at the very end of the process, there is a synthesis report that attempts to tie all three together. So each work group report is typically 2,000 to 3,000 pages long, and each of them contains a summary for policymakers. I'll use that acronym "SPM" frequently here, a "summary for policymakers."

Karl Hausker [00:05:51] You can think of an IPCC report, actually, as a three layer cake. 2,000 to 3,000 pages of credible, in-depth review, and then there's typically a technical summary written by the scientists and other experts for each, which is typically maybe 100 or so pages, and then an SPM summary for policymakers of 30 to 50 pages. And then a synthesis report; this last one, released in March of this year tries to pull it all together in about 80 to 100 pages.

Karl Hausker [00:06:28] You can imagine that writing a SPM or a synthesis report is extremely difficult to try to boil down the essence of all those. But these are really important because often they're the only document that a policymaker or a stakeholder or a journalist would read. So, it's important that they're they're accurate in terms of summarizing the findings.

Karl Hausker [00:06:52] The other thing that makes it particularly difficult is that an SPM and the synthesis report is actually finely edited, added, subtracted to by 192 nations who are part of the FCCC and the IPCC. So, there is some... Ultimately, they become political documents because of that, the government representatives sitting down and writing that.

Karl Hausker [00:07:27] So over the years, one can occasionally find a divergence of what an SPM says from the underlying report. And that happened, unfortunately, this time too. And this is why I'm offering you and other audiences a deep dive, because in my experience as an expert reviewer I found some significant divergences of the SPM from the underlying report on mitigation strategies.

Phoebe Lind [00:08:02] How many people do you think actually get to that full report, like the bottom layer of the tiered cake that you mentioned?

Karl Hausker [00:08:11] That is a very good question. I don't have a good feel for that other than to say it's probably a pretty small number. The expert reviewers such as myself and then probably a series of researchers will go into particular pieces of it to figure out what the IPCC said in detail about a certain topic.

Phoebe Lind [00:08:34] So, you're responsible for a very small section of that report? How much of the report were you an expert reviewer on?

Karl Hausker [00:08:43] Right. I zeroed in on the areas of sort of greatest interest and where I brought expertise, which is on energy systems in general, and particularly the electricity system. I also have a pretty good background in transportation. Other parts of the Mitigation Report that dealt with non-CO2 gases, I don't bring much expertise there or to land use and the sequestration of carbon in forests and soils. I sort of skimmed through those sections but didn't have a lot of comments, again, because I did not feel I had a lot of expertise there.

Phoebe Lind [00:09:25] And this research that you're presenting today, is this research that you also presented to the IPCC as a part of your expert review, or is this research a separate venture of yours?

Karl Hausker [00:09:37] It's a separate venture. In my role as reviewer, I submitted comments on two drafts of the documents, the Mitigation Report, and then the Synthesis Report as it went in then to file a government review. They sit down for two weeks, nations around a table, and then they finalize it. When I looked at the final versions compared to some of the earlier drafts and compared the SPM to the full report, I collected all these observations and reflections on these divergences. They particularly have an impact on how the role of nuclear generation is portrayed in the mitigation strategies, and hence, that has led me to various audiences like you and the Titans of Nuclear.

Phoebe Lind [00:10:29] Okay, so our understanding now... We have a very large report. It gets boiled down to a very small report, and then almost 200 countries with very different goals and very different agendas have to agree on what goes into that report.

Karl Hausker [00:10:43] Exactly.

Phoebe Lind [00:10:45] And that report is the one that policymakers all around the world who may or may not have had influence on that report, that's what they read and that's what directly affects the decisions that they make on climate action.

Karl Hausker [00:10:58] Right.

Phoebe Lind [00:10:58] What did the IPCC find regarding the emission pathways that we need to get to to limit climate change?

Karl Hausker [00:11:07] Let me make one more preface comment as I go into and answer your question to help listeners and readers. The IPCC examined somewhere over 500 studies and modeling exercises in the literature that could keep warming to 1.5 or 2.0 degrees. And within those 500 and some of the data I'm going to describe, they take sort of a statistical approach to the results of those 500 studies. They all have a forecast of what temperature a certain pathway for the global economy would achieve. They have certain levels of, say, solar deployment or carbon capture, certain levels of methane gas release, certain levels of nuclear deployment. And what I'll refer to is sometimes they will talk about a median value for one of those indicators, "What does this scenario look like?" And they often also give what's called the interquartile range of that indicator from a 25th percentile to a 75th percentile. And so, I'll be talking a little bit in those terms of median values for some of these scenarios, interquartile ranges.

Karl Hausker [00:12:28] So with that underway, we can jump into discussing what do these mitigation strategies look like that could keep us in the 1.5 or 2.0 degree range? And I'm going to refer to the first slide that you're going to post here, which is called "Emission Scenarios and Illustrative Mitigation Pathways." And this is from the SPM Figure 5A and 5B.

Karl Hausker [00:12:58] Some of you have probably seen the steep trajectories we need to get on for both the aggregate of all global greenhouse gases as well as CO2 in particular. The IPCC modeling in these 500 scenarios indicate that we will have to reduce our net global GHG emissions to approximately zero by mid to late in this century, typically by the 2070s, 2080s. And on the graph, you'll see this sort of band of purple and bluish striped envelope that contains all those 500 scenarios. And within them, the IPCC has called out what they call "illustrative mitigation pathways." You'll see like a solid line and a dotted line up charting a particular scenario for the decrease in those gases.

Karl Hausker [00:13:55] When you look at CO2 emissions, which is the right hand side of the graph I was just referring to, you'll see that the decrease we need in CO2 emissions is even steeper than overall greenhouse gases. And that's because, number one, the reductions of CO2 emissions tend to be easier than reducing a lot of the methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, and other trace industrial gases. But also, it's hard to take those non-CO2 gases all the way to zero. We really just don't know how to do it. But we know ways in which we can reduce our CO2 emissions all the way to zero or even go to a negative net CO2 emission pathway by taking CO2 out of the atmosphere by biological means: forests and increased storage and soils, and increasingly, developing technological ways to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, such as direct air capture and storage, bioenergy combustion with carbon capture, enhanced mineralization and other things under way.

Karl Hausker [00:15:12] So you'll see on the right hand side of that graph that by mid-century we need to take CO2 emissions all the way to zero and then begin to go into a net negative CO2 mode later in the century to offset the non-CO2 gases, because we can't take them to zero. We also need to go heavy negative if we overshoot a temperature goal and need to pull CO2 back out of the atmosphere. So, this is the first way in which the SPM depicts, "What do we need to do?" It's the total emissions of gases.

Karl Hausker [00:15:47] And then we can turn next to, "Well, how the heck do you get there? What needs to happen to get to a net zero CO2 emissions system or even negative?" And the SPM is very clear in describing qualitatively how we do this. Number one, we need to increase energy efficiency and conservation, take our energy needs down as low as possible. Then, we need to move to a pure zero-carbon electricity generation system across the globe. We need to produce huge amounts of zero-carbon electricity, and the good news is we actually have lots of ways to do that. We have solar, we have wind, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, and increasingly, we can burn fossil fuels with nearly 100% capture of the CO2 emissions. And I particularly encourage people to look into what's called the Allam cycle, which is very promising on that front.

Phoebe Lind [00:16:52] Is that actually used very often? Can you explain a little bit more about how that might have been implemented already? I think a lot of people are familiar with why solar, wind for zero emissions. How do you get fossil fuels to zero emissions?

Karl Hausker [00:17:13] Some of the early demonstrations of carbon capture on an industrial plant or electric power plant have shown ranges of capture from 60% to 80% to 90%, maybe up to 95%. And that's all good for really decreasing the emissions from those sources. There's a particular technology called the Allam cycle, which is in its first prototypes beginning to move to full commercial deployment. And what this does is instead of having an end-of-the-pipe capture of CO2 and separating it from the other exhaust elements, on the front end, it separates air into nitrogen and oxygen and then burns, say, natural gas in a pure stream of oxygen. So on the other end, you have a pure CO2 stream that you can immediately concentrate, compress, and pump underground. So, companies developing this can get close to 100% capture. Very promising, one of the many technologies we should be developing to make sure we have a broad portfolio to attack this problem.

Phoebe Lind [00:18:30] Okay, interesting. Yeah, I hadn't heard of that technology before. I can be a little bit skeptical of fossil fuel interests. I am very passionate about nuclear energy; I also think there's a place for renewables in a lot of these cases. But aside from implementing all of these carbon-reducing technologies, do you think reducing carbon dioxide and all of these other greenhouse gases on such a steep level is achievable? How do we even start going about that?

Karl Hausker [00:19:02] It is a daunting task, but we have many of the technologies already developed. We have a lot of things ready to move into commercial scale. We need to have some breakthroughs, I think, in things like long-duration electricity storage. We need to fully commercialize a number of the very promising nuclear designs that you're aware of. And we also need to, I think, have some breakthroughs in ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere cheaply. Right now, they're quite expensive on the technological side.

Karl Hausker [00:19:39] But let me go back to those six key tasks in getting to that net zero CO2 energy system. I mentioned efficiency and conservation, producing tons of zero carbon electricity. And then what we do with that is we electrify as many end uses across the economy as possible. We electrify our space heating and our water heating in our buildings. We electrify transportation to the greatest extent possible, which we're in the process of with EVs. And then in industry, we can produce a lot of the heat needs of industry with electricity, but not all of them.

Karl Hausker [00:20:20] And so, that takes us to the fourth task. Where we can't electrify an end use, there are many places where we can use a low-carbon or a zero-carbon fuel produced by electricity. We can produce hydrogen by electrolysis. And by mid-century, we'll probably be producing a lot of our hydrogen with electrolysis. We'll also need some sustainable biofuels in some quantities, again, for those end uses that we can't electrify. They might be aviation, heavy industry, some heavy-duty transportation.

Karl Hausker [00:20:55] The fifth strategy is then to minimize the use of those fossil fuels where can't electrify them, deploy some carbon capture wherever it's feasible. And then finally, the sixth step is to use carbon dioxide removal technologies and practices to counterbalance whatever remaining emissions exist in the system, either from CO2, from burning fossil fuels, or to counterbalance those non-CO2 gases I mentioned. So if we take all these six steps which we can envision... We have a lot of technologies already, in some we still need to develop things. Zero-carbon electricity becomes the main workhorse of the economy, replacing the combustion of fossil fuels. Now, supplementing, again, with some bioenergy, some carbon capture. So in the briefest way, that's what we need to do and that's what the SPM of the Mitigation Report tells us to do.

Karl Hausker [00:22:01] Here's where the SPM goes next on this, and this is so fascinating as I saw the final version. It gives us very detailed quantitative results on how fast coal and oil and gas need to decrease. For instance, to stay to 1.5 degrees, we would have to knock coal down about 95% by 2050. Oil by 60%, natural gas by 45%. And the SPM gives us all this detail about the interquartile ranges, it even tells us the 5th through 95th percentile ranges spelled out there. Actually, more data than you want in an SPM on the details of 1.5 and 2.0 degree scenarios. And that's all good, but from there I sort of expected it to say like, "Well, what fills the gap? What do we bring in as we're phasing down all the coal and oil and gas?"

Phoebe Lind [00:23:03] Speaking from my own personal interests here, that is a lot of push back. I think we need rapid climate action, and a lot of folks are really pushing for renewables, but the one problem that we have there is that there are certain cases where renewables will not fill all of those gaps. We love nuclear because it can provide that firm baseload power. But you're saying that the SPM doesn't provide any suggestions for how to fill that gap from reducing oil and carbon? What does it say instead?

Karl Hausker [00:23:33] Well, the funny thing about it is that it doesn't clearly tell you what fills the gap. Instead, where the SPM goes next is a slide that your listeners can look at called "Sectoral Contributions to a Net Zero GHG." And what you'll see when you look at this... It's Figure SPM 5F in the report. It breaks down the percentage contribution of buildings, industry, transport to reducing emissions from current levels all the way down to zero. And then it gives you also what the enhanced forestry techniques, land use techniques, with that wonderful acronym of "LULUCF," land use, land-use change, and forestry, and reduction of the non-CO2 gases. So you have a nice figure that says, "Okay, LULUCF and non-CO2 gases can contribute about 26% of getting all the way to zero, and buildings, industry, and transport can contribute about 74% of that needed GHG when you look at the median values of all these 500 scenarios." But you're left scratching your head saying, "That's the energy system. That's the energy system that feeds buildings and industry and transport. So, what's next?"

Karl Hausker [00:24:58] What the SPM does, it throws a few more numbers out, quantitative results on methane reductions, percentage reductions, industry, buildings, transportation, some practices, some cumulative gigatons of carbon dioxide removal needed, what demand-side options can do. But the SPM doesn't describe either in figures or in text what does the energy system look like in 2030? What does it look like in 2050? What happens to the total demand for primary energy? How successful are efficiency and conservation strategies? What are the energy supplies that replace coal and oil and gas? To do that, you actually have to leave the SPM. You have to go to the full report.

Karl Hausker [00:25:47] Fortunately, early in the full report there is the Technical Summary document that has a key table. And this is the next slide that you'll see in the posting. Table TS.2 of the Technical Summary gives all these really key global indicators on what needs to happen for 1.5 or 2.0 degree scenarios. It tells you for 2030 and 2050. And a lot of these numbers were pulled right into the SPM, but not the numbers on what sources replace oil and gas and coal. So, this very detailed table...

Karl Hausker [00:26:24] My next slide zooms in and viewers will see how it has how primary energy from coal decreases, how primary energy from oil decreases. And there's your 95% number, your 60% number, your 45% number for gas. And how it's slower in the 2.0 degrees scenarios, faster in the 1.5 degrees scenarios, faster for carbon-intense fuel like coal, somewhat slower for the least carbon-intensive fuel, natural gas. So, that's where these numbers came from. Great.

Karl Hausker [00:26:56] But finally, when you scroll down on the next slide I have labeled, "Which Energy Sources Increase," finally here we get an idea. And starting at the bottom of these couple rows of tables, we see that renewables, what they call the non-biomass renewables, solar, wind, and hydro, they have to grow tremendously by 2050: over 700% beyond current levels to hit 1.5. And then, the next series of rows for 2050 is modern biomass. The dedicated crops and modern technologies to squeeze gaseous and liquid fuels out of biomass has to increase nearly 300% by 2050.

Karl Hausker [00:27:41] And then finally, and of interest to your viewers, I'm sure, is the role of nuclear in these mitigation scenarios. By 2050, these mitigation scenarios indicate that in a median value, nuclear has to nearly double: an increase of 90% over current levels with a large interquartile range from 15% all the way to nearly 300%. Again, big ranges on the whole that nuclear may need to fill as coal, oil, and gas are decreased. It also shows a 40% rise by 2030 on a median value basis. So this is finally getting us to understand what kind of changes in the energy system are needed that then feed that energy into buildings and transport and industry and elsewhere.

Phoebe Lind [00:28:33] Just to emphasize just how dramatic of a change this would be, I think a lot of folks are aware we need a lot more renewables, we need more nuclear. Energy efficiency can only get us so far in reducing our energy demand, but there are still people all around the world in developing countries who need more energy in order to advance. That said, this is requiring a 725% increase in renewables to keep global warming from increasing 1.5 degrees Celsius. That's a massive change.

Karl Hausker [00:29:10] That is a massive change. The scale-up, whether it's renewables or biomass or nuclear; they're all challenging. They will all have certain technical obstacles. We'll see how the economics play out. And also, there may be political obstacles to any of these, which again is why I think it's so important to have a portfolio ready because we cannot predict how this is going to play out. We can't choose, "Oh, I like this scenario, so we will do that scenario." I think that's a completely misguided way to think about this.

Phoebe Lind [00:29:44] Do you have any idea as to how these specific percentages came about? Why is it nuclear, 200%, so that renewables only have to increase 500%, for instance. Are those adjustable at all, those specific percentages?

Karl Hausker [00:30:00] Yeah, individual scenarios will carry a range. And I'll actually use that question you just asked to turn to the electricity generation mix. We just established electricity is absolutely key. And the tables I just described talk about primary energy in exajoules across both electricity and other forms of energy. But now, pertinent to your question... How you do an electricity generation mix that keeps the lights on, is reliable and affordable and zero-carbon, that is absolutely critical. And yet, the SPM has no depiction of the electricity generation mix of the future. What you have to do is go way into Chapter 6, into Figure 6.30 to finally find a depiction of what these 500 scenarios look like in terms of the electricity generation mix.

Karl Hausker [00:31:00] And so, your viewers and listeners will see a slide on this that shows the role of solar and wind measured together, how much electricity we get from that. How much from CCS applied to fossil systems, as well as bioenergy. And finally, how much do we get from nuclear? This key figure in Chapter 6 shows solar and wind, sort of the variable renewable sources, as currently at about a little less than 10% of global generation, and it shows on a median value it growing to 40%, 50%, perhaps 60% by 2050, staying in a range of about 55% to 70% in that interquartile range. And this is kind of a mainstream conclusion that the good news is the price of solar and wind has dropped a lot. Many people expect it could become a mainstay of the power system, but it needs to be complemented by clean, firm sources.

Karl Hausker [00:32:03] So, the other two parts of this figure show CCS in the middle almost at 0% of the current generation mix, but growing to be maybe 5% or 10% of total generation by 2050, gradually building, but with huge ranges, maybe from 5% to 25%. And then finally, the right hand side of this figure shows the role of nuclear generation. It's currently already supplying 10% of the world's total electricity on a firm, zero-carbon basis. And the 500 scenarios show it either hovering at about 10% into the future or growing maybe to as much as 20% or more. And it's kind of interesting...

Phoebe Lind [00:32:51] Just to comment on some of these graphs as we're looking at them... Some of them appear that their ranges even drop it down to below 5%.

Karl Hausker [00:32:59] Yes, some people run models, and depending on what they assume about either political constraints on nuclear or cost assumptions or how much they assume renewables will continue to drop and maybe battery storage comes in, you can have a scenario where as a percentage, nuclear may drop. However, what's really important to think about is... Going back to the six tasks for a zero-carbon system, electricity production has to soar. And for a 1.5 degree world or 2.0 world, we need to at least double total electricity generation by 2050. Some scenarios have it going even higher, maybe tripling. So even if nuclear generation were to keep a 10% share on percentage basis, it has to double by 2050 to maintain that role.

Karl Hausker [00:33:58] So when you look at Figures 6.30 as a whole, what you see is sort of support for a mainstream conclusion. Solar and wind can grow a lot, but they need to be complemented by nuclear and CCS as clean, firm sources that keep the lights on both a daily basis and a seasonal basis when the solar and wind production goes down or cover for what my favorite word in this field is: the dunkelflaute. The Germans, of course, they invent long nouns for everything. And every winter, there is a period of very low solar and wind output that can last seven, ten, fourteen or more days when Germany has to turn to something else during the dunkelflaute. So this is a reason why it's very hard to envision a 100% renewable system driven by solar and wind. You do need to complement it with clean, firm. And that's another major theme that doesn't appear in the SPM, but does appear in Chapter 6 here.

Phoebe Lind [00:35:14] So, do you have any idea what Germany will be doing now that they just took a bunch of nuclear offline? But they're still going to have the dunkelflaute.

Karl Hausker [00:35:26] Yeah, right now they turn on their coal and their gas plants when the dunkelflaute comes. Increasingly, they will say, "Okay, we're going to have green hydrogen in the future to back this up. We'll have more transmission ties to other areas, et cetera." But it's a daunting task.

Phoebe Lind [00:35:44] Yet in 2023, we still don't have all of those sources to fulfill that yet.

Karl Hausker [00:35:49] Yeah.

Phoebe Lind [00:35:51] If only there was nuclear. Who would've thought?

Karl Hausker [00:35:58] Let me come to a final point about the SPM that I find really troubling. What I've described so far is, as you've heard, is how the SPM doesn't really specify much about what replaces coal and oil and gas. It talks about sectoral changes. I've documented through these two figures that nuclear continues to play a key role in nearly all of the mitigation scenarios. But what happened is in the final editing of the SPM by the governments around a table is they kind of erased nearly every reference to nuclear. So what you'll find if you read the full report and the technical summary and deep in Chapter 3 and Chapter 6 is that nuclear appears on a short list of three or four low or no-carbon technologies. And I'll post a slide here that zeroes right in on this that says nearly all electricity will come from sources like nuclear, biomass, non-biomass renewables, and fossil fuels with CCS. Those are like the four sources that continually appear through the full report.

Karl Hausker [00:37:13] But when you get to the SPM and you look for the parallel language, it says almost all electricity is supplied from non-zero, from zero low-carbon sources such as renewables or fossil fuels with CCS. So suddenly, when the list of four gets down to two, they pull it out. Nuclear makes a little cameo appearance in a long laundry list of options in Figure SPM 7, which I'm also happy to post. And there's one other... If you do a word search for it, it appears one other time. It's sort of a negative reference where the SPM says that nuclear has a high upfront cost, and that's why it's not deploying or growing very fast.

Phoebe Lind [00:37:56] So in the summary document, the word nuclear only appears twice? Wow.

Karl Hausker [00:38:03] Twice, yeah. So given the substantial role nuclear plays in the mitigation scenarios, why is it barely mentioned? And you can even go back to the 2018 Special 1.5 Degrees Report. The SPM mentions nuclear explicitly and says it plays a role. You can go back to the last assessment report, the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014, and in the SPM you will see explicit mention that nuclear is one of these low-carbon, zero-carbon technologies that plays a role.

Karl Hausker [00:38:33] So in contrast, what happened here? The best I can discern from talks with people involved and also some journalistic coverage of those negotiations is that some countries objected to nuclear being talked about explicitly in the SPM. And I find that unfortunate. And I find it kind of disturbing because that omission, in my view, distorts the message of the full Work Group III Report.

Phoebe Lind [00:39:05] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's intriguing as well just because from a young person's perspective, I feel like nuclear energy has gotten more popular in recent years as people realize how critical it is to decarbonize and the fact that we're going to need a lot of different technologies at play. And just not only that nuclear plays a role, but that it will need to play a critical role in order to provide this gap in energy as we reduce our emissions from reducing our use of oil and gas. So, you said it's a couple of countries. What other kinds of factors might influence the decision to keep nuclear out of this most recent SPM when it was included just a few years ago?

Karl Hausker [00:39:51] I don't know for a fact. I can only speculate because it's not spelled it out. But I think the intense opposition of a handful of countries to nuclear power carried the day in these back-and-forth negotiations and sort of the flavor and the spin that governments wanted to put on the SPM.

Karl Hausker [00:40:14] I also want to react to what you just said about increasing support for nuclear power in recent years. I think that's a very good, accurate observation. I have observed in the US among environmental groups in general, several have moved toward being less opposed and even positively supportive of nuclear power. As they see the slow progress toward reducing and slowing the growth of emissions, they are sort of reexamining how important nuclear is to solve this problem. And I think we also saw a significant impact from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where a number of countries realized that they need to pay more attention to energy security as well as climate change. And those two together have spurred a number of countries to begin making plans for further expansion of nuclear in the wake of that invasion.

Karl Hausker [00:41:23] The final thing I might note is that when you look at the long-term strategies that countries submit to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, you will find that a lot of countries do have maintenance and expansion of nuclear power in their long-term strategies out to 2050. And you look at the number of G7 countries that do that, the biggest economies in the world... You look at the G20 countries, the 20 biggest economies of the world that are responsible for the lion's share of emissions, you will see nuclear in their plans. And so, this is also a very important sign that this is where governments and the private sector are heading. And I think it's putting one's head in the sand to say that, "No, no, there's no role for nuclear in solving climate change."

Phoebe Lind [00:42:19] Well, it doesn't say that there's no role, it just omits it from this report, right? But it's not necessarily antagonistic.

Karl Hausker [00:42:26] Right. To put a fine point on it, yes. What happens in the SPM of Work Group III is an omission, not saying nuclear is not part of the solution. That omission in my mind carries a risk of policymakers, stakeholders, journalists not understanding that it is part of the mix. And that also just prompted me to remember the final footnote on this. I've been talking about the SPM of Work Group III on Mitigation. I also mentioned at the outset that there is a synthesis report that came out, again in March 2023, that tries to tie together and summarize the science, the impacts, and the mitigation strategies. And I'm sad to report that the Synthesis Report carried the same omissions as the Work Group III SPM. You will find virtually no reference to nuclear in the Synthesis Report either.

Phoebe Lind [00:43:30] That's fascinating to just think about, especially because it's supposed to reflect the science. It should be objective. Does that go through the same procedure that the SPM does where all member nations need to agree on that one?

Karl Hausker [00:43:44] Yes, the nations have to edit and sign off on the final Synthesis Report.

Phoebe Lind [00:43:51] So, what other checks and balances exist here that might try to correct that problem? It still seems shocking to me that maybe only a small handful of countries would object to nuclear, but they couldn't be... There's nobody else in that group who are saying, "No, no, no, this is absolutely necessary to include." Is there anybody there who does exist and then they just failed at their job this time?

Karl Hausker [00:44:20] I don't have a clear window into what happened. Again, I have secondhand accounts, but each government has probably a sort of priority list of things that they want to stay in, that must stay in or it must come out given their views on this. And there were not enough countries championing the inclusion of nuclear as it had been in previous IPCC reports, hence it fell out. This dynamic plays out even in things like the science and impacts and how... Like, when scientists try to write the history of GHG emissions... Well, particularly developing countries will want an emphasis on how the industrialized countries are more responsible for the historic emissions. So that's a flavor of what otherwise would be scientific language.

Phoebe Lind [00:45:25] At this point, it's almost more like it's just a result of who has the best negotiation tactics at these conversations rather than what science says we actually need in order to solve climate change.

Karl Hausker [00:45:38] I think it comes out as a strange mixture of those. But I want to emphasize also that the full report and the Technical Summary particularly, which I would direct a lot of people to... It's only 100 pages; it's not 2,000 pages. That is not influenced by political forces, and the authors, the scientists, and the other experts do a fantastic job on synthesizing the body of knowledge, the body of literature out there. And I really think they did a fantastic job on that. It's just when we come to trying to summarize it with government representatives bargaining around the table, we start to lose important information, important findings.

Phoebe Lind [00:46:26] It's sad to say, but it makes sense because a lot of times you see this case also when you're translating scientific reports to like what you're seeing in the news as well. You lose a lot of the nuance; you might have a story that's a little more sensationalized, and that's how it's communicated to the general public or to policymakers in this instance.

Phoebe Lind [00:46:48] So in a few words, what do you think we can do to solve this problem of misinformation, almost? People aren't getting all the info they need from the SPM. So, pointing people to the Technical Report, that's one way. And that's kind of your campaign now, yes?

Karl Hausker [00:47:08] That's a role I'm taking on to try to make sure people understand what is missing from the SPM. And what we can do is... The slides that you're going to post that I've shared with a variety of organizations and stakeholders and briefing governments where able... It provides easy windows into the Technical Summary, into Chapter 3, into Chapter 6, to find what is the role of CCS, what is the role of nuclear? What happens to primary energy demand?

Karl Hausker [00:47:46] I'll put one more spin that I didn't cover on this. Some of the scenarios have primary energy demand dropping so fast by 2030, that it just strains credibility. We want all these demand-side strategies to succeed, but again, if you sort of start to put your eggs in that basket of massive decreases just seven years from now, it's probably not going to play out; you better have a backup plan. And I think it's also incumbent on people, as there will be more IPCC reports... They're already starting to plan the seventh assessment. I think people should ask for more transparency, more clarity from governments to say... Like, if you object to something, maybe that can be noted in an SPM, but to pull stuff completely out that's an important finding, that borders on distortion.

Phoebe Lind [00:49:00] I'm thinking about what that might look where it's more transparent. Can you imagine in a future version of this report where there's like a little asterisk at the bottom saying, "This particular energy source was not included because this country and this country did not want it to be included." Like, that would absolutely transform that process.

Karl Hausker [00:49:20] Let me give an example that could be perhaps modeled somewhat by the IPCC. There was recently a G7 communique, a communique from the G7 nations on a variety of topics, but including climate and energy, and it had a section on nuclear. And one of the first sentences of that section of the communique sort of said, "For those nations who are going to deploy nuclear..." then it had a number of consensus points. Not among the full G7, but among those that are deploying nuclear. And so, I think you could say something parallel in IPCC reports.

Karl Hausker [00:50:07] When you come to the SPM, if there are some topics that governments want to distance themselves from, there's language that you could adopt. It goes throughout. The mitigation strategies aggregate a whole bunch of data and indicators across the globe, but regions and countries are going to be different. Some countries don't have hydro, so they're not deploying hydro. Some countries will not have access to rich sources of bioenergy. Some will choose not to deploy nuclear. It's not like an IPCC report is saying, "Each country must do this." We know that the energy mix is going to vary by country, but let's not bury findings that are important from a global perspective because one country doesn't like that energy source.

Phoebe Lind [00:51:08] It's interesting to think about, yeah. Thank you so much for providing this insight. It's definitely... I don't think a lot of people actually understand the thought process and the decision making that goes into these reports and how this information is synthesized and how that's communicated to people. Do you have any final thoughts on this issue? What do you want people to walk away with having this information now?

Karl Hausker [00:51:33] I guess I would sum up or sort of reiterate my portfolio point on how we need lots of options because we're not sure how far we can go with any particular option. There are some activists in the climate community who care deeply about climate change, as I do, who see the risks of nuclear power as too great, so we shouldn't use it and we should phase it out as quickly as possible. Some also believe we should not deploy carbon capture either as a way to reduce emissions or deploy carbon capture to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. They make arguments about moral hazard, "If we do that, it will just be an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels." On that latter argument, I don't think human beings will be stupid enough to just keep burning fossil fuels if we commercialize carbon capture. The moral hazard argument, I don't believe should stop us from developing that tool in the toolbox.

Karl Hausker [00:52:41] A lot of people who care deeply about climate change understand that we are going to need all the tools in the toolbox and that we need to deploy what's already commercial very quickly and bring other technologies forward. And we can't just choose a single pathway. We need to see how the technologies develop, how the economics develop, and then ultimately, how political opposition or embracing technologies moves things forward.

Karl Hausker [00:53:13] I can spin a scenario of... If there's another major nuclear accident somewhere in the world, is that going to set us back on deploying nuclear? We're seeing a lot of opposition in the US on the East Coast to offshore wind. I think that's misplaced. I think we should develop it, personally. But citizens are lining up in many places to try to block that.

Karl Hausker [00:53:40] How much can we achieve through changes in diet and conservation? There's a lot in the IPCC report about how we can... If many people shifted to a plant-based diet, agricultural emissions would go way down and people would be healthier. One can say that strategy could succeed. But how many eggs can we put in that basket? How many major diet changes will take place over the next 30 years? All these are unknowns. Therefore, I think there's a strong argument to make for developing the full portfolio of options. We just have so much to do in such a short period of time that I don't think we can throw any tool out of the toolbox right now.

Phoebe Lind [00:54:27] If anything, we need to be inclusive rather than exclusive of any possible solution. That said, we've got to move fast, for sure. We've got seven years until 2030 already. We're only a few decades away from 2050 as well. But this has been very insightful. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and shedding a little bit of light on this. It was wonderful to have you.

Karl Hausker [00:54:52] Thank you so much, Phoebe, for this opportunity. And thanks for everything you and your colleagues do.

Phoebe Lind [00:54:59] Of course. And as a reminder to our listeners, those slides. For more information on those charts, those graphs, those will be available in the show notes. Please check those out and we'll see you on the next podcast.

The second installation of the SMR Dashboard: http://www.oecd-nea.org/smr-dashboard-ii

Olivia Columbus [00:00:58] We are here today with Emma Wong, who is the Technology and Innovation Advisor at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. Emma, welcome to Titans.

Emma Wong [00:01:07] All right. Thank you, Olivia.

Olivia Columbus [00:01:09] It's really great to have you here today. I'm excited to learn all about what you're doing with the OECD. But before we do that, let's learn a little bit about you. Where did you grow up and what did you study that sort of brought you to nuclear?

Emma Wong [00:01:20] Oh, that's a long story. I hope you have a lot of time for this. So, I grew up in Michigan, actually. The Mitten State, right? Like, out in the Midwest.

Olivia Columbus [00:01:29] Where in Michigan?

Emma Wong [00:01:30] Near Detroit.

Olivia Columbus [00:01:34] Oh, are you from Michigan? My family's from Michigan. They're from all over the state, but the western side, so.

Emma Wong [00:01:38] Oh, well, you know, I won't hold that against you right now, but like, on the eastern side. My family is basically... I'm a child of the Big Three. If you know, that means my father worked at General Motors. So, the Big Three is the big three auto companies, right? When you come from that, you're supposed to go into the auto industry, but obviously, I am not in the auto industry right now.

Emma Wong [00:02:04] Growing up, my dad was an engineer, and I was good at math and science, so everyone's like, "Oh, math and science. You should go into the sciences." And I really liked chemistry. Chemistry plus engineer in my life means chemical engineer. And I had no idea what they did, I was like, "It sounds like a good thing to do." But I also liked doing research. I really was like into learning, always continually learning. I got to the University of Michigan, so alma mater, and I was like, "I'm going to get my chemical engineering degree. I think it's great."

Emma Wong [00:02:42] But then I looked around and they have... In your intro, your first year as a freshman, they want you to actually see all the different majors there are. So, I actually was looking around and I saw that there's like this thing called nuclear radiological sciences, and I was very interested in that. And I was very close to double majoring in chemical engineering and nuclear engineering. But I didn't because my parents were like, "You need a career when you're done. You're going to be a chemical engineer." I'm like, "Okay, fine." But being an independent, strong-willed woman, I was like, "Well, okay, but that means I'm going to have to just learn about what this nuclear thing is on my own."

Emma Wong [00:03:25] So, what I did was I worked in a radiochemistry lab as an undergrad. I did a project in radiochemistry learning about uranium-239 and the separation of it to look at the gamma ray spectrum and what did that look like. So, that was my first exposure into, really, nuclear science and what it could mean. I actually got one of my first papers published in that, so it was really exciting. I actually got to work at the Phoenix Memorial Lab. I got to do separation science. I got to actually devise my separation of these isotopes and then actually take spectra of it and then do the analysis myself. So, I did all of these different things and I was super fascinated by this.

Emma Wong [00:04:14] And then after that, one of my other undergrad projects I worked was in tissue engineering. I was dead set that I was going to be work in the medical field. I was going to save the world; I was going to create synthetic tissues. And so again, I was working with the Phoenix Memorial Lab; they had our test reactor there. And I was actually doing scission of different polymeric chains to try to figure out what the optimal was in order to grow like bone tissue. So I was like, "Oh, nuclear can do so much besides just this nuclear power thing we think about. There are so many other possibilities."

Emma Wong [00:04:48] I was for sure that I was going into nuclear science, into medicine. I was completely sure this is what I wanted to do, right? And then in the back of my mind were my parents, like, "You need to find a job. Is nuclear really thing?" You know, okay. Fine. So, I went to grad school thinking I was going to go into biomedical science. And in going there, I figured out a lot of things that were more practical in my life. And I was like, "No, I want to really focus on materials research, and I want to focus more on maybe something more near term that's really tangible to society." And biomedical science is that way, but when I entered it, a lot of things that I was looking at looked a little bit further afield than I was thinking about, originally.

Emma Wong [00:05:39] So, nuclear is in the back of my mind, but I was like, "Okay, materials. Do other things. There's like energy... Blah, blah, blah, right?" And so, interestingly enough, then I worked at the Army Research Lab in Aberdeen, Maryland, under the ORISE program. It's a governmental program to bring in postgraduates to see if you like these areas. And I was actually working on composite batteries, solid-state composite batteries. I was looking at systems analysis to see what types of materials would be the best, what kind of chemistries would be the best, and then doing a lot of material and functional testing of these batteries. And so, as you know today, energy storage is a big thing. Well, the Army was thinking about this long time ago. Like, "How do we get the best energy for the space and have it to be also a multi-functional aspect to it?"

Emma Wong [00:06:34] So, I was already thinking about, "Okay, I'll go into energy or some sort of energy capture there." And then eventually, I kind of grew out of my research phase and I was like, "I want to try to do something more impactful." When you think about research, there are those technology readiness levels. You go from like one to seven or one to ten, depending. Well, where I was sitting at in the Army Research Lab, I was definitely at a technology readiness level of like two. That means, you're going to be working on this for 20 years before you see it being implemented anywhere. That's on a good day. I mean, it could be five or ten, but the reality was, I was probably going to be sitting and doing the same experiment over and over again, and I wanted near-term, immediate impact, meaning within a few years.

Emma Wong [00:07:30] I then went job hunting again and I was like, "What do I want to do with my life? I've had all these interesting experiences." It was either... I'm from Michigan, right? I'm either going back to the car industry to work on fuel cells or I'm going to try this new thing in nuclear and actually try it out, tell my parents I'm going to try this out as a career option and see if I like it. If not, I'll come back to Michigan and live and work in the auto industry.

Emma Wong [00:08:01] And so, I kind of got what I wanted and I got to try it by going to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They're like, "Yeah, that sounds good. Sounds like a good career path." My parents did not know much about it, so they were like, "That seems safe." I was like, "Okay, that's great. You think it's safe? I'm going to try this. I'm going to learn as much as I can, learn as much as possible." I started off as a technical reviewer. I was a chemical engineer. So, if you ever heard about a chemical engineer, you're very adaptable. You can learn a lot of different systems. A nuclear power plant is just like any other power plant. It just uses nuclear fuel to make the energy. So I was like, "Oh, yeah. I can do this. Not a problem. I'll just learn this really quickly so I can then apply this new way of thinking, and then I'll learn the regulation part."

Emma Wong [00:08:55] What I didn't realize is that I really fell in love with it. I was like, "Regulation? There's a set of rules or a set of parameters you need to think about, then you can start thinking about how do you risk inform this? How do you make it risk-based?" And so, I kept progressing through my career. I was learning so much. I actually got to visit, audit, and inspect nuclear power plants. So, I got on the ground, did some hands-on. I didn't get to repair anything, but I got to actually ask a lot of questions, got to explore around, got a full experience.

Emma Wong [00:09:29] And from there, I was like, "I want to do more in this industry." I was like, "I'm regulating it. I'm making sure the public health and safety is first and foremost. Now that I've been able to review so much and get under the hood, so to speak, of these plants themselves..." As a regulator, you get to see and ask questions about anything. I was a firm believer that, yes, nuclear power needs to be there. It needs someone to actually be able to do those evaluations, to push it forward, to be innovative.

Emma Wong [00:10:06] However, when I first started that, I think it was in 2007, that was in the height of the nuclear, so-called, renaissance back then. So, I lived through the height of the renaissance. And then I went through and I know there was kind of like this lull, as we all know. It was like, "Oh, no, what's happening? The renaissance doesn't look real." And so at that point, I was like, "Okay, this is interesting." I'm working on operating reactors. I worked on relicensing. I did the initial licenses to 40 years of operation and relicensing now was from 40 to 60 years. And then I started on looking at subsequent license renewal, that was going out to 80 years. But I was like, "Okay, that's interesting and all, but I need a challenge. What's the next thing?"

Emma Wong [00:10:56] And you won't think this is interesting, but I found it interesting... The back end of the fuel cycle. Where does everything go after you're finished, right? So I was like, "Well, I'm going to learn about this." So, I went over to the back end side, dry storage and transportation. It's basically the long-term storage of spent fuel. Like, "What do you do with this after it's done?" And so, I learned a lot about the regulation, how it's stored, how it's transported. And it was absolutely fascinating. For me, it was like starting to complete that full picture. Like, "I've operated this now." You're going into decommissioning, you're going into where does this go? So I was like, "I'm learning so much." I also participated in trying to revamp the regulatory and licensing processes in that area. I got to participate in rulemakings, how do you update guidance? I actually got to update rules as well, which is... How many times can you say you've updated a rule? I was like, "Oh, this is fascinating. I never knew how any of this worked."

Emma Wong [00:12:11] And then after that, I was just like... I'm going through it. Believe me, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I have very fond memories. I thought it was great. And then, I needed that next challenge. As you can tell, I'm always looking for the next challenge. And so, I then moved on to the Electric Power Research Institute. I'm also getting back to my research roots, right? I've been a regulator for quite a while. I'm going back to my research roots. And they hired me into doing long-term operations, which means going from 60 to 80 years of operation. Now, I had already worked very much on going from 40 to 60 years of operation. Now, we're going to go to 80 years of operation. I'm like, "Okay, I can think about this. I know how to do this."

Olivia Columbus [00:13:07] Can you quickly explain for those who maybe aren't quite as familiar, what EPRI's role in the broader nuclear space is, exactly?

Emma Wong [00:13:15] Sure, of course. So, EPRI is a nonprofit organization. It's a research organization. Completely independent. And what they do is... Basically, all of the utilities in the United States are members of EPRI, and most of the nuclear power plants, their utilities are also members around the world. So, it's a global organization, very much international. They participate in a lot of international discussions, writing international technical bases, and things like that. So, there's a long story on how EPRI was created, but it was basically a need for research to be done for maintenance considerations, long-term longevity situations, and anything else, at that point.

Emma Wong [00:14:13] The premise of all of this is... If you think about it... If you are an organization, say you're one utility. You need to do research to say, "Okay, all of my materials in my plant will have this life and I need to do this remediation," or something like that, right? Your dollar, or however many dollars you have, will only go so far in how much research you can do. But say all of the power plants or all the utilities get together and pool all of their money together, how much more research could you get done with that money to further all of the research for the whole industry? That was the premise of EPRI and that's why it got started. Basically, what happened was there was a blackout in New York City, of course, in the summertime. And if you're in New York City in the summer, it is hot and humid. And they want to know why their electricity is not on.

Olivia Columbus [00:15:18] Yeah, I remember that blackout. It was not great.

Emma Wong [00:15:22] So, what do you say? Like, why are the power plants not running? So, it's all about reliability. It's all about consistency. And so to do that, you need research and you need preventative measures to do that. And so basically, EPRI was formed to help give that research and technical bases to do that.

Olivia Columbus [00:15:43] Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not just nuclear, it's all different types of power plants that EPRI focuses on?

Emma Wong [00:15:48] Correct. So, EPRI started with nuclear, and then spread out to all power generation systems, even including transmission and distribution. We even have an area looking at the environment, looking at equity, environmental justice. We have a whole technology innovations area. It's very dynamic. It's very exciting because you are there. You can actually participate in anything to do with energy and electricity, and there is an expert there to answer any question you almost have.

Olivia Columbus [00:16:23] Awesome. Well, that's really cool. Well, keep going with your with your career because I didn't mean to cut you off on that.

Emma Wong [00:16:28] Oh, no, no. Feel free to... If you haven't noticed, I can keep talking forever. All on my own.

Olivia Columbus [00:16:32] No, go ahead.

Emma Wong [00:16:35] So, I got to EPRI. They had me working on long-term operations, which meant 60 to 80 years of operations in the United States. Today, if you look in the news, you see things... "It's been licensed already." "Now, we're only looking at the environmental part of that licensing, and soon, hopefully, they will work through that and do those evaluations." But when I started at EPRI, that long-term operations project had already been going on for many, many years. And it was getting to like that last hurdle. You see the finish line there. It's so close, but they needed someone to help push it over that line.

Emma Wong [00:17:16] And there were still some issues... And I don't even want to call them issues. They were just technical knowledge gaps that needed to be filled for the regulator to say, "Yes, I have confidence we have enough knowledge that, yes, you can operate up to 80 years of operation. And if something were to happen between whatever you are now to that 80 years, there's enough time. We would have seen it before any safety problem would have actually occurred." So, that's all about aging management. And so, I was brought in to try to assist with that.

Emma Wong [00:17:53] And I really got into like, "Yes. These power plants, I don't see a reason why they can't operate until 80 years." If in the evaluation that each plant has to do, individually, shows that they can't, then of course they're going to either remediate whatever it is or replace that part. They're going to put in more rigorous maintenance or inspection plans. Or, if it doesn't make economic sense, they can just retire and decommission the plant. It is the evaluation they need to do, each one needs to do, to see if they can get to 80 years of operation.

Emma Wong [00:18:34] What EPRI did and what I was able to assist EPRI with was to get together that technical basis, the technical information. We actually have three sets of what we call tools documents. There's electrical, mechanical, and civil structural "tools," tools in quotations, because they're just documents to help do that evaluation. Because if you can imagine a plant of anything, not even just nuclear, any plant, it's giant. If you're going to do an evaluation if it's going to operate for a long time, how are you going to determine this without some sort of guidance? So, that's kind of what EPRI did. They put together these tools documents to help anyone around the world do this evaluation.

Emma Wong [00:19:17] And I thought that was great. It's like near-term, immediate impact. I'm having an impact on power generation and, hopefully, energy security around the world. I'm now at a global institution. I was just in the United States, US NRC. Now, I'm at a global institution, so I'm having an impact, globally. I'm having conversations with the Japanese, with Europeans, all over. I'm taking part at IAEA events. I'm having a big impact, which is kind of where I wanted to see my career go, having a larger and larger impact to basically create energy as a... I actually do believe that energy should be something that everyone has access to, like water. In order to do that, you need to make sure it's reliable and sustainable and then make it available. You're going to see my career kind of moving in that direction.

Emma Wong [00:20:21] That is one of my biggest accomplishments, I think, is to push that over the line. And actually, having the courage at times to stand up and be like, "This guidance that EPRI is writing right now, I think it's not clear enough." I walked into it with fresh eyes saying, "As a regulator, I probably would have asked a few other questions. Maybe we might want to just address them in the documents now. It's an open document. There's no reason not to try to add a little bit more, to have a little bit more technical robustness at this point." And to that vein, I also challenged a lot of the EPRI staff. I'm like, "How can we make this so anyone can use it and they don't need a Ph.D.?" And in some areas, I was like, "I should be able to understand this document. If I can't, that means maybe we need to retool it so it's accessible to more people and they can use it, especially around the world, because some things are just very technically dense." And so, in challenging that, I found a lot of value in that myself because then I'm adding value even though it's not my technical specialty.

Emma Wong [00:21:35] Additionally, another revelation I had and one of the other impacts I had was I looked at these documents and I'm like, "Okay, we're going out to 80 years. What's special about the year 80?" There's nothing special about the year 80. It like saying, "At 80, for some reason, everything turns gray and falls apart." There's no such thing. And when you're looking at the age or something aging, it always depends on what materials are you using and what environment are you putting in it, right? And so therefore, everything is very site specific.

Emma Wong [00:22:16] So therefore, the age has no bearing on anything. So I'm like, "Okay. All of these documents that say that the technical basis is going to be guaranteed 80 years. I mean, let's not write a year in here anymore. Let's just say that the critical parameter is X, and once you hit this, you need to do further evaluation. Why don't we be more scientific and less..." Because they say, what is it? 50 is the new 40, 40 is the new 30. I'm like, "Okay, nuclear power plants. 80 is the new 60."

Olivia Columbus [00:22:55] Right. Why are we holding everyone to this 80 when it actually is completely insignificant? Absolutely.

Emma Wong [00:23:01] Absolutely. That's why I'm like, "Well, you can say nuclear power plants might be able to operate to 100, but why should I even say 100?" It's just whenever it's no longer feasible and economical to operate is when it should retire.

Olivia Columbus [00:23:17] Absolutely, yeah. No, that makes sense. Okay, cool. Well, how did you transition from your role at EPRI to what you're doing now with the OECD?

Emma Wong [00:23:27] At EPRI, the last job I did was I was actually the lead in nuclear innovation. So, I was very much into innovation. I was trying to get everyone to be more innovative, trying to change innovation culture. I participated and helped create some of the Global Forum for Nuclear Innovation that happened in 2022 in London. And it really opened my eyes to what the international stage really was, to how much impact you can have with just a voice and just trying to change things.

Emma Wong [00:24:06] So with that, I was always thinking about how could I have more impact, internationally? At EPRI, I was already doing it on a technical basis, but I was like, "Well, is there any way I could have more of an impact?" And an opportunity came up to be on loan to the Nuclear Energy Agency here in Paris. I'm in Paris. I thought about it and was like, "Well, this is a great opportunity. It is kind of a disruption in my life." And I thought, "Well, I'm kind of a disruptive type of person. I want to drive things forward. I want to be different and I want to create change." So, how better than to create change and to try to instill change in myself and do something radically different than anyone would expect me to do than move to Paris, France, and work at the Nuclear Energy Agency?

Emma Wong [00:25:08] And it wasn't just the location. It was really this new aspect of the Nuclear Energy Agency. A lot of what they can focus on is more international policy, looking at things at even a bigger picture than I had ever seen them. It was a new way of thinking, changing how I saw things. I have, now, this opportunity to look at it through a lens of that there are emerging nuclear nations that need advice. There are current powerhouses that have lots and lots of nuclear. They've got a great voice. And like, how do we learn from them? We have nations that are kind of in the middle. What do we want to do next? Maybe we're retiring them. Maybe we shouldn't retire them. Maybe we want new nuclear. Maybe we want...

Emma Wong [00:25:58] There are so many questions going around, and it's an easy way... And the NEA actually has this great convening power of bringing people together for coordination and collaboration to have these discussions. Like, "If we want to go into small modular reactors, what could that look like? What do we need to study? What are the open questions? What are the gaps that maybe need to be focused on?"

Olivia Columbus [00:26:25] Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, especially in Europe, I think there's such a shift towards prioritizing nuclear, all the way from sort of the EU level to the individual country level. Especially in Eastern Europe, we're seeing such a need for it right now that it's such an interesting and important time to be working on these topics.

Emma Wong [00:26:45] I completely agree with you. I got here kind of with the US lens on, I'm going to say. Even though I was working internationally, I definitely had a very heavy US lens. I've only been at the NEA for six months now working as the Technology and Innovation Advisor. And just being here and working and looking at all these different things, I have a very different perspective and appreciation on how people look at things from many different aspects. I think it's already made me a very different... I don't want to say evaluator, but my analysis of how I look at things is very much different.

Olivia Columbus [00:27:29] Absolutely. And I think that's why international collaboration, especially at the regulatory level, is so important because those differences in how we evaluate things and how we look at different conditions or factors based on what's going on in a certain country or sort of how different individuals or different regulators evaluate different topics, they're so important because it's going to allow us to think about things in a way we might not of otherwise considered them.

Emma Wong [00:28:00] Yeah, I agree.

Olivia Columbus [00:28:02] Awesome. Okay, well, let's talk a little bit about the SMR Dashboard. This is a really incredible resource. I was just looking through it last week and there's so much information. So, I would just first love to hear a little bit about what the SMR Dashboard is and how it was originally conceived or what the need was that it was trying to fulfill.

Emma Wong [00:28:24] I don't have the full story on how it was conceived. I've only been here for six months. It's definitely been more than a six month effort, right? I think at the NEA... Diane Cameron, who is the head of my division, she really drove this one forward. What it really does, at the heart of it, is kind of show you, visually... Because a lot of people are visual people, which is very important to communicate and is where they are... And tell parts of the story. So, it's not just that we're saying, "Okay, this is where you are in your progress meter," but it also gives the context behind it.

Emma Wong [00:29:27] The SMR Dashboard, though, is a compilation of all the publicly available information out there that we could find. And I say that because we evaluated SMRs from around the world. And I am not an expert in Russian and Czech and Polish. And we had to use translator tools. We had to use our experts, other experts here at the NEA to help us find information. So, it's the publicly available information that we could find because there may be some more out there. So, that's really the basis behind it.

Emma Wong [00:30:05] We use that publicly available information to look at and track progress of these SMRs towards deployment. The NEA, before I got here, they actually launched in October the SMR Strategy, the NEA's SMR Strategy. If you take a look at that, it actually outlines six enabling conditions for deployment. And so, these six enabling conditions are the criteria that we developed and put together to do this evaluation and analysis.

Emma Wong [00:30:41] We start with licensing. So, licensing kind of looks at where are you in the stage of licensing? Are you in pre-discussions? Have you submitted anything or have you already gotten some parts of it approved? In different countries, their licensing schemes are very different. So for instance, the US, Canada, and UK, they're very different. And so, if you look at the criteria out there... If you're from one of the countries, say Canada, I think one of those criteria, they'll never actually ever hit that criteria. They'll just go to the next one. And we're like, "Well, that's okay, because we're trying to measure. It's not all completely linear. It's just where you are in the progress in your journey of licensing." And so, if you go from one part and you skip one, it doesn't mean you did it. It means this is where you are today, type of thing.

Emma Wong [00:31:38] And it took my full team, which is probably about 10 members on the team right now a lot of discussion with the member states, with other vendors, within ourselves, to come up with that criteria that's in the document. It's the one... Like, that matrix. And I will say, even as we were doing the evaluations, we were still refining that criteria to make sure it fit with the SMRs that we're evaluating. Now, 21 SMRs were evaluated, so it was quite an undertaking. So, the first one was licensing. The second one we looked at was siting. So, how far are you along with siting an SMR? Because you can do all the work you want, but until you're thinking about actually putting it somewhere, like a site, are you really progressing on your journey to deployment?

Olivia Columbus [00:32:37] And in certain countries, those two things are interconnected, right? Like, having a site unlocks licensing opportunities. So, they all work together, in some ways.

Emma Wong [00:32:47] Oh, yes. I will say a lot of these criteria are interconnected. Which makes it quite interesting, because it's like, "Can you do one without the other?" And a lot of interesting insights did come out from doing an evaluation, globally. Because if you just did it in North America, you would think, "Okay, this is the stepwise how you have to do it," but it's only really applicable in that part of the world. If you were to do it only in Asia...

Olivia Columbus [00:33:24] Right. And how did you guys look at or was there any consideration of evaluation of first time regulators versus regulators that have sort of a history of licensing nuclear power plants?

Emma Wong [00:33:41] Unfortunately for this first 21, there were no real first-time regulators in the mix. Now, we're in our second phase of the project where we're looking at an additional 30 plus reactors. And there will be in this batch some first time regulators. So, I will have an answer for you when we're finished with this batch. There's going to be more refinement, I think, to our criteria. There's going to be more internal discussion, which we're actually starting in about a week to see, "Okay, what do we do with this other situation?" And I'm going to tell you, I have a list now of things I have to start considering, because now it's not completely straightforward. There are more emerging nations coming into the mix. There are different financing schemes. For one of them, defense is the one funding it. So, how do you count that? And then, there are mobile reactors. So, how do you do siting for something that's supposedly mobile?

Olivia Columbus [00:34:50] Absolutely, absolutely. And to jump ahead a little bit, but not to jump ahead too much, how are you guys thinking about fuel constraints and some of these new issues we've been seeing with how the fuel supply chain is getting disrupted with issues with Russia and things like that?

Emma Wong [00:35:07] Oh, that's a great question. That is definitely a concern. And we have great members at the NEA and other areas who are thinking a lot about that and having those discussions on where is that fuel supply chain going to come from? As well as looking at what other ways are there to look at the problem. A lot of the discussion that needs to happen is on supply chain. Supply chain of the fuel is going to be one of those hurdles that will need to be overcome. And it's going to take a lot of governments and private industry and utilities to come together and have that really honest conversation on like, what are we going to do? What are we willing to commit to if we want to... Say, in the United States, you're kind of already seeing this. They're starting to commit to, "Okay, we're going to build some of these enrichment plants here in the United States."

Olivia Columbus [00:36:05] Yeah, exactly. In the United States, government, Department of Energy really got behind Centrus. That was publicly announced recently. I know they're working really hard on it. But it's also... I think one of the biggest challenges is some of these things just take time. Enrichment is not a fast process. It literally needs that time. So, it's definitely something that I think is going to impact some of these timelines pretty significantly.

Emma Wong [00:36:31] I think so, but an interesting thing is we can't see into the future and what's actually going to happen, globally. But for instance, to have a new supply chain of highly-enriched fuel in a country, you kind of almost need commitments that there's going to be a buyer and a real demand for this fuel to actually spin it up. It's a centrifuge, right? But to spin this up, you need to know that someone's going to buy your fuel.

Olivia Columbus [00:37:03] No, that's completely right. Yeah. And that's definitely something that needs be thought about as we're making some of these long-term decisions.

Emma Wong [00:37:16] And it's definitely on the NEA's radar to have these conversations. Supply chain is one of those really big areas that needs to be focused on, especially in fuel.

Olivia Columbus [00:37:26] Yeah, absolutely. One of the areas in the Dashboard that I really found most interesting because I think this is a topic that is so important is the heat. You guys did ranges and sizes of temperatures for heat applications. Specifically, looking at how SMRs can be used for industrial decarbonization. I think this is such an interesting topic. How did you guys sort of decide that this was something you guys were going to focus on?

Emma Wong [00:37:56] I'm glad you asked this question, because really what we did is we went to the member states. So, the NEA has... Countries are the member states. And so, they actually got together and we asked them, "What are these industrial use cases? What do we want to be looking at?" And they actually came up with 11 of them, and this happened to be one of them that they ranked very highly. So, we actually went out and had a discussion with the NEA members on what are the things that are most important for decarbonization, and this is where they came out.

Emma Wong [00:38:31] This is the product, I guess you could say, from having these international discussions at a high level on what are the priorities and then going after it. And actually then, doing the analysis and pointing it out to people that these are the priorities of a lot of smart people getting together. And then, let's have that focus and move forward with that.

Olivia Columbus [00:38:54] Yeah. I mean, this is so fascinating, and I think, such a valuable resource. Industrial decarbonization is just not something we think about enough. And I mean, nuclear has this unique aspect of being a way to create zero-carbon heat. And whether it's district heating or these applications, I think it's just such an amazing aspect that maybe from a communications perspective, we're not championing that enough as one of nuclear's most unique aspects.

Olivia Columbus [00:39:30] Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is I think it's really interesting the way you guys broke up the reactor configurations, land-based, multi-module, marine, and mobile. How did you guys sort of come up with those four categories? Especially when you think about land-based versus multi-module... I mean, everyone calls themselves an SMR. But how did you guys define what is actually multi-module versus land-based?

Emma Wong [00:39:56] Okay, so you can be land-based and multi-module. So, you can actually fit multiple of the filters. Just because you're land-based doesn't mean you can't be multi-module. And so, it's basically the information that comes from the vendors. Obviously, land-based, that's an easy one; you're on land. And there are some of the reactors in the Dashboard itself that are marine-based. They're being in water, right? And they're actually already being built and they're going to be sitting on a ship and then hooked up to the grid, which is super interesting.

Emma Wong [00:40:36] But the multi-module is interesting because you would think, "Well, a lot of these could be multi-module," right? But it's really what the vendors tell us, if they intend it to be multi-module or not. So, that's the modular part of it. I will say that a lot of people use "SMR," and I'm going to put it in quotations, very loosely. We have kind of just been on the definition of being more inclusive with that. Personally, I have been seeing more governments just using SMR to mean anything that's a little bit below mid-range, like so under 300 megawatts electric. Anything under that, I'm like, "Okay, that's probably just small." And then, we just all use the SMR to go with it.

Olivia Columbus [00:41:27] Super interesting. In terms of this resource, it's a fascinating document. Is there any discussion about turning it into some sort of interactive, actual like dashboard online as a resource to sort of learn more about these different designs?

Emma Wong [00:41:46] Yes. So the first priority, though, is that there are 80 plus SMRs being designed, and there's more and more every day. So, our priority for the NEA right now is to just do that first baseline evaluation. And then, we definitely want to move into putting it online. I can't say what that timeline would look like. That may depend on resources and personnel. The NEA actually has only about 120 people who work here. And so if you think about it, we are doing a lot for how many staff who are here. So, getting the analysis done is priority one, and then we really do want to put it online, interactive. Maybe have interactive maps, interactive like you can do interactive filters on it. I have grand visions for what this could look like, even maybe a mobile app one day. But as of today, it's going to be a paper version until we can actually fully do the baseline analysis.

Olivia Columbus [00:42:54] Yeah, well, it's a really amazing resource. I encourage everyone who's listening to go check it out because there's so much information and the way you guys are analyzing it is just really incredible, especially if you're a visual person. I know I really appreciated all the visuals in there.

Olivia Columbus [00:43:13] So for you broadly, clearly you're very passionate about nuclear and the role it plays in enabling human prosperity. What is your vision for nuclear's future?

Emma Wong [00:43:26] I think nuclear's future is very bright. I think that with the new technologies we have out there, there is almost infinite possibility. They're even talking about space exploration, putting a reactor on the moon. So, I think there's a universal need for a nuclear to exist. I think if you ask me, the existing fleet is going to lead the way. It's going to bridge that gap until we can deploy that full suite of whatever the new reactor fleet is going to look like. So, it's going to keep bridging it along until it's ready to go. The deployment of the new nuclear fleet, I think, is a lot closer than we think.

Emma Wong [00:44:16] However, what the Dashboard does indicate is that there are probably some barriers that we, collectively, as a global community, could work together to maybe try to either figure out how to get past them. Like supply chain of fuel, how are we going to get past that? Supply chain, in general. Workforce of the future. How are we going to train the new workforce? If we have 500 new nuclear plants, who's going to SAP them? Who's going to regulate? There are so many questions that this little Dashboard brings up. And if you think about it, I think there's a lot of working analysis that needs to go into it. But I think this Dashboard shows that it's completely feasible. And if we get together as a community, we work together, coordinate, collaborate as a global community, we have a bright future for everyone to have sustainable energy, accessible energy for everyone, and therefore, hopefully, global prosperity as well.

Olivia Columbus [00:45:25] Well, that sounds like a pretty amazing future. Emma, thank you so much for joining us on Titans of Nuclear.

Emma Wong [00:45:31] All right. Thank you.

This transcript is pending

Adam Smith [00:00:59] This is the Titans of Nuclear Podcast. Today, we have a very special episode with Mike Rencheck, the President and CEO of Bruce Power. Mike, how are you doing today?

Mike Rencheck [00:01:08] Oh, great, Adam. It's good to be here and thanks for having me on the show today.

Adam Smith [00:01:12] Welcome to the show. We're glad to have you. I guess just to get started off, can you give our listeners some background about yourself and how you came to the nuclear industry?

Mike Rencheck [00:01:23] Yeah, through a summer job in 1982. It seems like a long time ago now. It sounds like a long time ago, but it seems like yesterday, I should say.

Adam Smith [00:01:33] Time flies.

Mike Rencheck [00:01:34] Yeah, it really does. You know, I started off as a summer intern at Beaver Valley Power Station when it was still under construction. So, Shippingport was in its last year of operation. Beaver Valley Unit 1 was operating and Beaver Valley Unit 2 was under construction. And through that summer job, I had the opportunity to really get a view on what nuclear power looked like. And some family events. And really, in Pittsburgh in 1982, all the steel mills pretty much went out of business, so I ended up coming back home and going to work for Duquesne Light Company at the time at Beaver Valley.

Adam Smith [00:02:12] And what were you doing at Beaver Valley, specifically?

Mike Rencheck [00:02:16] So when I first joined, I was in the onsite construction group as a summer student, then I went into the design engineering organization. I did a lot of different jobs there over the years. One of my most interesting was the startup of Beaver Valley Unit 2, and I played a key role in that early, really young in my career. It was a lot of fun doing that, and I really caught the bug after that on starting up plants, building plants, and fixing plants. So it was quite the learning experience, and I really used that throughout my career.

Adam Smith [00:02:51] Yeah. Sounds like you have quite a depth of experience within the energy, and more specifically, the nuclear industry at this point. Have there been any, I guess, outstanding projects for you that you really are proud of?

Mike Rencheck [00:03:06] Yeah, I would go back to 1987 when we put Beaver Valley Unit 2 online, which was really exciting. At that point, Duquesne Light was a small company, and Beaver Valley 2 had to get online really by January of 1988 or the company would have gone into bankruptcy just due to the construction program. But we did it, and we got online by the November timeframe and everything worked out well. You learn so much when you go out and do things like that. But I tell you, it's one of those things that I've carried forward.

Mike Rencheck [00:03:41] I've done a lot of great things with a lot of great people in the industry, restarting plants. And then here at Bruce Power, we're renewing the life of the plants all the way up to 2064. It's quite the endeavor we're undertaking. We've got six plants in refurbishment as well as we're putting new innovations into the facility like isotope production systems, and we're operating the plants at the same time, so it really is quite a lot of fun. And really, I'll tell you, it's moving us forward. It's moving the industry forward.

Adam Smith [00:04:18] Yeah. It sounds like you've been able to take that original experience that you had at Beaver Valley and really apply some of those lessons and that knowledge to the operations of Bruce Power. Can you give us a little bit more insight around specifically how you've been able to translate that into Bruce Power's phenomenal track record?

Mike Rencheck [00:04:39] Yeah, it comes around blending both the knowledge of operations and the knowledge of doing large projects and construction. And those two skillsets are distinct. Being a pure operator, sometimes you really don't know what to expect in construction, and likewise, being in construction all time, how do you operate a plant? I think bringing that perspective into a facility that's been running like Bruce Power has been and now through the renewal process of the assets, it really helps to be able to balance those things.

Adam Smith [00:05:12] So you really have, I guess, both sides of the spectrum of being able to not only build it, but operate it. You get to see both sides of that.

Mike Rencheck [00:05:21] Yeah. Throughout my career I've done a number of different things, both in the operations side as well as the construction side. When I was at American Electric Power, as an example, we did the refurbishment of the Cook Plant and then I went off into the corporate headquarters where I led their projects engineering division, which is basically construction. And we were building environmental controls on their fleet. We were building new gas plants, upgrading different plants, building wind plants and the like.

Mike Rencheck [00:05:52] And then, with my experience at Areva... So, Areva Group out of Paris. We had new plants under construction. We had offshore wind plants under construction and different types of project activity. So, using that background and my operations training over the years... I was the Chief Nuclear Officer at American Electric Power for a while. And being able to blend those things here at Bruce Power really has made a difference in terms of understanding and improving on our operations, but also the construction program.

Adam Smith [00:06:26] Wow. So you've seen not just construction, but operations of plants all over the world, even outside of Canada. I'm sure all of those Areva plants, or most of them were in Europe, right?

Mike Rencheck [00:06:40] Yeah, in Europe and in South America, China around the world. Areva, at the time, was a global nuclear powerhouse. We were building plants and servicing plants just about on every continent.

Adam Smith [00:06:55] Wow. So you have quite the breadth and depth of experience here then. Can you give me and the listeners a little bit more background on Bruce A and B and go into some more of the recent news around the refurbishments that you've gone through in getting Bruce A back up to power?

Mike Rencheck [00:07:16] Yeah, sure. This is a really good story here at Bruce Power. The Bruce A units were shut down in the 1990s as they were approaching their end of life. So, Bruce B remained in operation. Bruce B was scheduled to shut down at 2018. So along the way, Bruce Power was formed and through that, the units 3 and 4 at Bruce A were restarted. That was in 2003 and 2004. And then around 2012, 2013, the Bruce A units 1 and 2 were refurbished and brought back into service.

Mike Rencheck [00:07:55] That's quite unique because when the Bruce A units were fully returned to service, it enabled the phase out of coal here in Ontario. And you might ask, "Well, what does that mean?" That means if you were suffering from asthma and living in the city of Toronto, in 2005 you would have had a peak of about 53 smog days. So when Bruce Power brought its units back into service in 2013 and coal was phased out, today, we have zero smog days.

Adam Smith [00:08:29] That's amazing.

Mike Rencheck [00:08:30] It cleared the air, as they say, about nuclear energy and what it can do here in Ontario. And since that time in 2016, now we have what we call our Life Extension Program agreed to by the province that will allow us to refurbish then units 3 through 8 so they can operate all the way out to 2064 and beyond, and with that, secure clean energy long-term here in Ontario.

Adam Smith [00:09:02] Absolutely. You love to see those long-term operational permits. If you don't mind me asking, what specifically determines the life of a nuclear power plant. Like, what exactly is it that needs refurbished after 40 years or 30 years for that operational life permit?

Mike Rencheck [00:09:22] There are different technologies available. So in Canada, we operate the CANDU technology, which is a heavy-water reactor. So in our reactors we have 480 fuel channels. And that fuel channel aging, it really gets around materials and material embrittlement due to irradiation over the years. So in our design, we're able to replace those fuel channels and effectively renew the reactor. And that's what we're in process of doing right now. And in fact, we are just finishing Unit 6. We finished changing out all the fuel channels, loaded fuel into the units, and now we're in the process of refilling, effectively, the primary heat transport system to get ready to bring it back into service by October of this year. We'll have the first one done and it is on time and on budget, and also dispels the myth that nuclear can't be done on time and on budget.

Mike Rencheck [00:10:20] Now, our partners and our friends at Ontario Power Generation have done two of their refurbishments at their Darlington unit. They've also done it on time and on budget. So nuclear can be done, it can be done well, it can be done effectively, but it takes pre-planning, preparation, and a strong strategy for execution, and really, collaboration among the supplier community, the utilities, and the labor unions that are involved. And with that partnership and with that collaboration, we can continue working.

Mike Rencheck [00:10:52] We did all this through the pandemic as well. At any point during the pandemic, we had upwards of 10,000 to 12,000 unique people coming in and out of site each week. We didn't have a single outbreak on site of COVID, and we were able to keep working the entire time. So, it's that collaboration and partnership and really a strong attention to detail and execution, and you can get it done.

Adam Smith [00:11:17] That's an amazing accomplishment all around. From not having any COVID breakouts with thousands of employees to coming online, being on track, on budget, and on schedule, that's just a very rare occurrence in the nuclear industry. So, congratulations to not only you and your team, but to the Canadian nuclear industry, because it sounds like you guys have established processes across your nuclear plants that allow these quick and on budget deployments. It's very impressive. I'm jealous as an American.

Mike Rencheck [00:11:55] It's a great collaboration when you have those partnerships and you work well with each other. And that's the nice thing about the nuclear industry. We share things. We share construction techniques, we share how we go about buying things, the engineering. If OPG has an issue, we help out. If we have an issue, OPG helps out. It's been quite the synergistic support. And we built on the work that was previously done by New Brunswick Power, by Argentina, by the Koreans in terms of what they looked at with their reactor designs, and the Romanians. And it's those lessons learned that we used to put into our construction programs that really helped us excel at this.

Adam Smith [00:12:37] Isn't there a CANDU owners group? It's specifically all of the countries and all of the owners of CANDU reactors across the world. That's the formal organization that shares this information, correct?

Mike Rencheck [00:12:53] Yes, we have a CANDU owners group with participation from around the world. And it should also be known that Canada is able to make all of the parts ourselves here. We have a supply chain that can build the CANDU reactors from the ground up. And with that, we've been able to work through all the supply chain difficulties that others have had and seen. We haven't had that. So, our parts have kept coming and coming on time to help us with our refurbishment. It's really been an outstanding effort by the industry as a whole.

Adam Smith [00:13:28] Did you have to set up any special partnerships for that supply chain or was that just existing, just given Canada's existing legacy in nuclear industry?

Mike Rencheck [00:13:41] At the time when we were starting, we put a lot of thinking into how to help the supply chain get ready for our refurbishments here. So we're refurbishing six reactors and Ontario Power Generation is refurbishing four reactors, and we're both doing them in the same timeframe.

Mike Rencheck [00:13:57] So years ago, when Jeff Lyash was the CEO at Ontario Power Generation, Jeff and I put together a strategy of working with the suppliers and issuing long-term contracts for the parts. So for example, we gave BWXT a 10-year contract to build 32 steam generators, like 38 heat exchangers. And with that scale, BWXT was able to reinvest in their factory and modernize their factories for production. So as a consequence, we've been able to move forward and make parts through the pandemic, but in an orderly way and in a good way such that new people could be hired, trained, the factories could be modernized, and now we're set up for production over the next decade.

Mike Rencheck [00:14:48] But we did that throughout the supply chain for all those critical components needed to rebuild our CANDU reactors, and it's worked out quite well. And we still have a ways to go. We'll be finishing our first one with seven more to go, and OPG has two done with two more to go. So, so far, so good.

Adam Smith [00:15:10] It sounds like you have not only the construction and the operational knowledge to run all of these reactors, but you have the supply chain to make sure it gets built on time and on budget. Have you looked at expanding Bruce Power beyond the eight reactors that you currently have?

Mike Rencheck [00:15:26] Well, that's a great question. Here in Ontario, the Independent Electric System Operator has issued a document called The Pathways to Decarbonization. And in that, it says we will need something like 66,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2050 to decarbonize fully and also to be able to handle all the growth that will come from electric vehicles and in other industrial processes electrifying. In that document, it looks at different technologies. It looks at planning, roughly, around 18,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity here in the province.

Mike Rencheck [00:16:10] So with that, one of the things that we look at Bruce Power is how do you get started with that? Really it starts around the permitting process, just being able to build the assets on land. So with that, we've looked earnestly over the last year of how we would approach permitting and what that would look like and who would need to participate. Would different groups like to participate?

Mike Rencheck [00:16:39] We've done some outreach with the local Saugeen Ojibway Nation here, one of our communities, as well as Métis of Ontario and Historic Saugeen Métis here locally. We've done some outreach with the province and also at the federal level with the CNSC in our Impact Assessment Group that will look at the environmental impact assessment to see what would be possible, what do timelines look like, especially for a facility like Bruce Power, where we've been operating the world's largest nuclear reactor here at site for the last 30, 40 years. Do you think there would be things that would really help shape that permitting process and shrink down the timeline?

Mike Rencheck [00:17:25] And since we're going through environmental assessments regularly... Here in Canada, we've relicensed every 5 to 10 years, so these are regular updates with regular reviews. But we think that permitting process really starts the ball rolling for new nuclear, and to be able to have a permit with the ability to build a new facility really opens the doors to examining technologies further.

Adam Smith [00:17:51] Have you looked at other technologies outside of the CANDU reactor?

Mike Rencheck [00:17:57] Bruce Power participates in a number of advisory committees. Obviously, we eight CANDU reactors; we're very familiar with the CANDU technology. We're participating in oversight groups and really staying plugged into a number of SMRs and even fusion technologies. But those are under development; they still have some work to be done. And as we're watching those and looking at those technologies, we keep assessments and keep current. That's why we think our best step forward here in the near term is to make sure that we can get a site permitted to be able to expand on. Whether we do it here at Bruce Power, elsewhere, or whether we choose not to do it, will remain to be seen as policy in Ontario gets shaped around that Pathways to Decarbonization document.

Adam Smith [00:18:47] Well I'm rooting for you. I'd love to see another 15 to 20 reactors up there at Bruce Power.

Mike Rencheck [00:18:52] Yeah. I don't think the site's big enough for that, but I will tell you when you look at that document that the Independent Electric System Operator put out, it certainly shows the need for baseload energy. And I think when you look around the world, especially now in the States, energy is really in short supply, not so much incremental capacity. And it's that baseload energy that really provides electric systems with their reliability and resiliency.

Mike Rencheck [00:19:22] And you look at some of the events that have happened recently, you look at Texas and ERCOT. The weather got cold, 180 people died from that. You see that in California when it gets warm. These are real concerns that are taking shape as the grids are applying more intermittent resources. So I think this notion of having baseload, reliable, 24/7, 365 power that people can count on really needs to be factored into how ISOs and RTOs are looking forward in resiliency and reliability.

Adam Smith [00:20:01] I completely agree. The term baseload is pretty much as the name suggests. It is the base of your grid and you cannot build it around an intermittent source or generation. Doesn't matter how much you put on it, you've just got to have 24/7 power to make up the bulk of it, and then you can build out from there.

Mike Rencheck [00:20:21] Yeah. And we need to be able to accommodate the intermittency. Like here at Bruce Power, we have a dynamic response. We can swing roughly 3,000 megawatts in five or ten minutes. So, we're very adaptable at helping manage the intermittent resources on the grid. And at the same time, when we need to we run baseload flat out. So, that enables the reliability and resiliency to be added to the grid. And I think when you talk about technology, it's a lot of these newer technologies that people are looking at now to be able to fit into the grid of the future.

Adam Smith [00:20:59] And not to distract from this topic, but I do want make sure we cover some of the other business lines for Bruce Power, and more specifically, around your medical isotope business, because I think that is absolutely fascinating. Can you talk about the isotope production systems that you have at Bruce Power?

Mike Rencheck [00:21:21] Yeah, sure. Let me tell you a little bit about Bruce Power as we get started in it. Bruce Power supplies 30% of the energy for Ontario at about 30% less than the average cost. So, we're a low-cost producer here in Ontario. We also make lifesaving medical isotopes. One of the isotopes we make is cobalt-60. We make enough cobalt-60 to sterilize about 40% of the once-used medical devices around the world. So what does that mean? That means if you go to the doctor's or the dentist's office anywhere in the world and they take something out of a plastic bag that says "sterile," there's a 40% chance it was sterilized by an isotope that we make here at Bruce Power.

Mike Rencheck [00:22:05] We also make a high specific activity cobalt-60 which is used to treat brain tumors and breast cancers. And then last year, we installed a very innovative system. It's called an isotope production system. Big fancy name, right? But what it is... We can make isotopes now in the power reactor running online, on time, all the time. And what I mean by that is the first isotope we chose to make is lutetium-177, which is a prostate cancer treatment. And it's also being used for advanced cancer research in a therapeutic procedure called theranostics, where Dr. Rebecca Wong is advancing a cancer treatment where she can do diagnosis and treatment at the same time using lutetium-177, and the results are really phenomenal. When she shows you pictures of a body full of cancer and then she shows you pictures with the cancer pretty much being remediated, it just sends chills up your spine.

Mike Rencheck [00:23:18] What this system does is it makes isotopes all the time so we can put targets in and then every week or so, produce a batch of isotopes that can be turned into medicine. So, it's at a whole other scale now. And that's the vision of making medical isotopes with power reactors. If we can make it in our reactor, we can make it at a scale now which makes it available for many. And the bottleneck now no longer becomes the production of the isotope where it has historically been with cancer treatments, it's really on the next stage now, how can you make the medicines faster? So we have been able to change that perspective for cancer treatments.

Mike Rencheck [00:24:29] I was talking to one doctor recently. He goes, "What do you mean by that?" And what I told him, I said, "Well, it's kind of like comparing a bucket of water to Lake Huron. And he goes, "Oh, I get what you mean now; there's no more waiting." I said, "Yeah, there's no more waiting. If we can make it, now cancer patients can get the medicines. As long as the medicine production facilities are there, they don't have to wait for their treatments anymore."

Adam Smith [00:24:55] That's amazing. So, here we have a power supply that is completely carbon-free and quite literally cures cancer. It's just amazing that this is not more widespread as of right now.

Mike Rencheck [00:25:09] Our next isotope will be a liver cancer treatment, and then we're looking for the next six to nine isotopes to make after that. We're beginning the expansion on our plants so we have one isotope system on one reactor. We can put an isotope reduction system on all eight reactors, and then we can also put multiple systems on a reactor. So, the scalability is there. The reliability and redundancy is there because you can put it on multiple reactors that are always running, and then you get the volume out of it. So it really solves a lot of the issues that have been involved with isotope production historically as they were coming from research reactors that run intermittently or cyclotrons that also would be running intermittently in much smaller batches.

Adam Smith [00:26:03] Do you have to change how you run the reactors to produce these isotopes, or is it like a completely plug-and-play type of solution where you don't have to change your business and this is just a completely new business line for you guys?

Mike Rencheck [00:26:18] No, you don't have to change at all how you're running the reactor. That's what we look at when we look at the isotopes, the cross-section to look at neutron absorption. Yeah, no issues on the reactor front; it runs as normal. It really doesn't even know that the isotope is inside being made, and then we bring it out while we're online. So, really no operational changes whatsoever to the operation of the reactor for power.

Adam Smith [00:26:47] That's so cool. You mentioned that you have... I believe that you said six to nine other isotopes that you're looking at making. Can you give us a hint as to what those might be, or is that a "to be determined?"

Mike Rencheck [00:27:03] Our partner in this is a group called Isogen, which is basically Framatome and Kinectrics. I don't think they would like me sharing that information on a podcast.

Adam Smith [00:27:13] That's fair.

Mike Rencheck [00:27:15] But it's exciting times for us. We're working on the expansion and we're working on the next treatment. We do have the liver cancer treatment announced and we'll be working on others here shortly.

Adam Smith [00:27:28] Can you go a little bit more into the liver cancer treatment? I think I read something where it was like microscopic glass balls that are irradiated. Can you talk about that a little bit more?

Mike Rencheck [00:27:39] It's yttrium-90. It's just another material we put in and add neutrons into it. We make the isotope and then Boston Scientific, the company we have a memorandum of understanding with, they take that isotope and then they turn it into a liver cancer treatment after that. So for us, it's just making the isotope.

Adam Smith [00:28:04] Got it. This might be a better question for the medical researcher side, but I figure you might know something about it. Are there treatments other than specific cancer treatments that these isotopes can be used for? I mean, sterilization, obviously.

Mike Rencheck [00:28:24] Yeah, sterilization. You can also look at how to eliminate viruses through mosquitoes by neutering the mosquitoes with radiation. You can use it for treatment for crops. Again, for killing microbes and things like that. Really functional items that we need in society to make sure we are all healthy and we have fresh food to eat and are free of disease. So, there are a lot of applications along those lines with isotopes.

Mike Rencheck [00:28:57] And in fact, here in Canada, we've formed something called the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council that now has its own wings and well over 80 members. It really includes all of the medical community, the isotope production community, researchers. It's led by one of the folks who works here at Bruce Power. His name is James Scongack; he's the chair right now. But this organization really is broadening how isotopes are looked at for different types of treatments.

Mike Rencheck [00:29:29] You know, one of the limitations for cancer treatments over the years was where they might have seen an isotope that was promising, but you couldn't find a place that could make it. And if they found a place that could make it, they might not be able to make it in large enough quantities to warrant the amount of research costs that would be put into the treatment, so they simply didn't do it. Well, when you look at what we're able to do now... If we can make it, we can make it at scale. Suddenly, these things become possible now. So in that sense, it's really unlocking the medical community to follow their best practices and really take a look at treatments more broadly now.

Adam Smith [00:30:13] Don't a lot of the isotopes have quite a short half lives so it makes transport of those isotopes, at least in quantity, pretty challenging?

Mike Rencheck [00:30:26] Yeah, it comes down to logistics. For lutetium-177, we take it from here, we ship it to Germany, they turn it around and put it into a medicine and into a patient within seven days. So yes, the logistics are very important. Clearly, some isotopes are shorter-lived, and that's what you have to look at when you're considering if you can make it. And if you can make it, how close does it have to be to the medicine production and then to the patient? So, these all factor into selection of the isotopes and how we view making them here at Bruce Power.

Adam Smith [00:31:05] Wow. It really sounds like you guys are pioneering the future of medicine up there. Do you have any visions or any sorts of forecasts on the future of nuclear energy, not just within Canada, but within the world?

Mike Rencheck [00:31:23] That's a great question again. I think if you go back over the past few years, you see an awakening of clean energy needs. And I think really, when the Russians invaded Ukraine and suddenly Europeans got cut off from natural gas, I think you've seen energy security move much higher than it has been previously. And when you say energy security, you're really talking about baseload nuclear power combined with intermittent renewable resources and battery storage to really help shape the energy industrial complex for society. It's really an energy source that can be counted on 24/7, 365. And I think that perspective really has changed the view on nuclear energy more broadly across the world, really within the last year.

Mike Rencheck [00:32:23] You can go back to 2016 when we started our Life Extension Program. It was here in Ontario, it was a view towards clean energy. Many people don't know this, but Ontario has a deeply decarbonized electric grid. We do it with 60% nuclear, about 25% hydro, about 8% wind, a fractional percentage of solar. That's all backed up by natural gas, and we have some biomass. So, we're about 93% emissions free. Most places around the world believe that deep decarbonization is below 50 grams equivalent of CO2 per kilowatt hour. Here in Ontario, we're at about 35 grams. When you think about that... I can compare it to some. Like, Germany's around 300 to 400 grams of CO2.

Adam Smith [00:33:21] Oh, wow.

Mike Rencheck [00:33:23] California's about 150 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour. They tend to want to be the groups or areas that are talked about for clean energy, but in reality it's the Nordic countries, Ontario, Quebec. We have among the cleanest grids in the world. And here in Ontario, we do it predominantly with nuclear. And you'll see a similar footprint in France and in Nordic countries when it comes to nuclear energy and clean energy.

Mike Rencheck [00:33:52] And here in Ontario, our average electric price for a deeply decarbonized electric grid is about $0.135 cents. And you look at California, it's about $0.30. Germany's $0.30 on any given day, maybe more. And they've got billions and billions and billions of dollars yet to invest to get to the point where Ontario is from a decarbonization perspective. So, doing it affordably. When you say the word affordably, you're going to put nuclear into that discussion and into that equation.

Adam Smith [00:34:29] Well, Germany is certainly not helping themselves on this front by shutting down three of their power plants. So even from a price perspective, they're just moving backwards at this point.

Mike Rencheck [00:34:39] Yeah, they put a new coal plant online in 2020 to help buffer their needs for electricity. So when you look at climate change, you've got to question the policy there. Is it heading in the right direction? Are they doing the right things? But every country will make their own decisions, and there may be a plan there for the long term that's just not obvious to folks. But in essence, every region of the world will likely have to approach it from their own way with their own resources. This is where carbon capture sequestration may come into play. You might see heavy renewables, lots of storage, hydro being accommodated, and nuclear. I think when you go around the world like that and you look at different regions, it's not a one size fits all solution. It's a very difficult and multifaceted issue.

Adam Smith [00:35:35] Are there any technologies out there or climate change focus... That could be clean energy, it could be carbon capture, anything along those lines that you're particularly interested in or fascinated by?

Mike Rencheck [00:35:48] Yeah, we're looking at nuclear. We're expanding our existing assets, clearly. We're taking our assets... We were a 6,300 megawatt plant in 2016. We're now at 6,550 megawatts. And then through our Project 2030, which aligns with our Life Extension Program... Our Life Extension Program finishes up around 2033. It's roughly a $15 billion investment over that timeframe. We'll be north of 7,000 megawatts. So effectively, we'll have added another reactor here at the site just through our Life Extension Program and our power upgrades. We think that's a very cost-effective solution.

Mike Rencheck [00:36:32] Then as we look forward at creating clean energy credits here through the expansion of nuclear, we'll be able to help other industries to decarbonize. We've done some work with battery storage here at site. We have a 10 megawatt battery that we've installed and we're looking at how to control it and the reliability of it. And we'll further look at other clean energy technologies.

Mike Rencheck [00:36:59] We have an interest a lot in the agricultural community because we're in farm country here. So, we've done a lot of work with different organizations now to look at how we can use crops to sequester carbon and how the accounting for that would actually work and how that could be certified. As we work toward those ends, there are lots of properties that aren't suitable for growing food crops. But if we could use it for other things like CO2 capture, it might also open up a source of revenue for farmers and also help rural communities be able to engage in some of the economic prosperity that the cities now enjoy. So, we're working heavily on that and we see that having a good potential into the future.

Adam Smith [00:37:59] Sounds like you've got your hands full up there at Bruce Power. You guys are doing everything from carbon sequestration to isotope production to just general clean energy production. You must be a busy man.

Mike Rencheck [00:38:12] With lots of interesting things to do in the industry. Day to day we focus on operation to make sure we do it well to a standard of excellence, and we're obviously focused on our Life Extension Program to make sure we renew our assets. But these existing assets that are anchoring society's electric needs, they really are counted on, and we take that job very seriously.

Adam Smith [00:38:37] Do you have any messages that you would like to share with our listeners on nuclear energy?

Mike Rencheck [00:38:44] I think innovation and the future really are in your hands. There are lots of things we can do. We've been innovating through the last years. Bruce Power was the very first company to issue a green bond for nuclear energy. We started working on it in 2017 to get ready to do it. Everyone kept saying, "No, you can't do this; it's nuclear." But by innovating and really working with investors and rating agencies, we've been able to issue the first green bond. I think we did it in 2020, 2021 now. That was for $500 million. And then just this year, we issued a second green bond for $600 million which are funding our Life Extension Program. Others now have done it. OPG has done one. I think EDF has done one, and I know there are some companies in the US now looking at green bonding.

Mike Rencheck [00:39:39] We've been able to apply artificial intelligence in our plants. Roughly 30% of our work orders now are being pre-planned by artificial intelligence. We've put a containment filtered vending system on, which is way modern technology compared to the old filters. And it really reduces any potential emission during an event nearly to the site boundary. And we're working on another application to get the iodine. If we get that, it'll limit it to the site boundary. So there are really no more issues with offsite releases if you have a severe event. And this modern technology isn't like the old filter events. It's much different, much more compact and really advanced. It's also a Framatome technology.

Mike Rencheck [00:40:31] Really, when you look at the industry, with today's computing power and the engineering resources that we have available, the innovation that can go into these plans to automate, to use more technology, to overcome problems that were faced in the 1960s and 1970s when many of these plants were originally designed like adaptive manufacturing and on and on and on, it really paints a good future for nuclear energy in terms of being safer, more reliable, easier to manufacture, and easier to build. And I think that's the focus now. This next generation, we have to show that we can not just come up with the technology, but we can actually build it. And I think those who can build the newer technologies on time and on budget from day one, they're going to have an order book that's going to more than overwhelm their company. And I look forward to that day.

Adam Smith [00:41:31] You and me both. It sounds like you have some really cutting edge stuff going on up there at Bruce Power. Before we wrap up, is there anything that you want our listeners to know about Bruce Power or any upcoming announcements that we should keep an eye out for?

Mike Rencheck [00:41:45] We're continuing to work on our Life Extension Program and bringing those units back into service. We're looking, really, at an expansion of our isotope production systems. And we'll keep working with both provincial and federal regulators to look at how we might go about permitting the site with our partners through our communities, Saugeen Ojibway Nation. If that's determined to be something we want to do, then we'll proceed down that path. So maybe some point in the future, we'll be looking at how we can go to fully permit our site here for an expansion beyond the power upgrades. Beyond the power upgrades.

Adam Smith [00:42:29] I look forward to seeing that announcement. Mike, thank you for coming on the Titans of Nuclear Podcast. We appreciate it.

Mike Rencheck [00:42:36] Thanks, Adam. Great to be here and thanks for having me.