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Speaker 1: A new reportant to what we need to do energy

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Speaker 1: wise when it comes to things like AI. We want

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Speaker 1: it is claim to become a data hub.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: To do this, we need to look at small scale

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Speaker 1: You're ready, small scale nuclear reactors. Thomas Scrimship, researcher at

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Speaker 1: the Maximum Institutes with us, Thomas Morning, Morning, Mike. Do

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Speaker 1: we want to become an AI and data center country?

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Speaker 1: It doesn't everybody? And if we do, aren't we behind

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Speaker 1: the race already?

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Speaker 2: Well, we certainly have a wonderful opportunity here to be

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Speaker 2: thinking about how we can expand this industry. Now, we

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Speaker 2: already have some of these data centers here in New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: both smaller local providers but also Amazon and Microsoft are

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Speaker 2: investing reasonably heavily in New Zealand. It's expected to count

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Speaker 2: for about ten billion dollars of GDP over the next

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Speaker 2: fifteen years. So there are things already happening. And I

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Speaker 2: guess the advantage we have is that we have a

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Speaker 2: relatively cool climate, and we have renewable energy, which some

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Speaker 2: investors will think is a feature, and then reasonably good

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Speaker 2: privacy laws. So we are an attractive opportunity here. But

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Speaker 2: we need to make the right steps keep growing it in.

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Speaker 1: The scale up required power wise, is nuclear the only way.

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Speaker 2: Well, nuclear is not the only way. The secret with

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Speaker 2: energy production is to pursue all options. The government has

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Speaker 2: just announced in the last few months a sixty million

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Speaker 2: dollar investment and researching super critical geothermal. So that's like

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Speaker 2: conventional geo thermal energy, but you go deeper and find

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Speaker 2: more power. So that's another pushing out the boat a

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Speaker 2: bit to see some emerging technologies, but conventional things like

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Speaker 2: hydro and geothermal are great as well. So we want

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Speaker 2: all sorts of energy.

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Speaker 1: Are they? Because that's why I asked the question. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we can't even produce enough power to keep the lights

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Speaker 1: on on a cold winter's morning for goodness sake. From

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Speaker 1: everything I'm reading with AI and data, it needs to

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Speaker 1: be exponentially growing. And that's what more more dams, more propellers,

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Speaker 1: more panels.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely we small nuclear reactors are an excellent sort

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Speaker 2: of energy that we should be exploring. The International Energy

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Speaker 2: Agencies report earlier this year was titled a New Era

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Speaker 2: for Nuclear Energy. The world is heavily heavily investing in

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Speaker 2: nuclear power. Over thirty countries have signed a pledge to

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Speaker 2: triple nuclear power production by twenty fifty. The world is

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Speaker 2: returning to nuclear power because it is clean, because it

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Speaker 2: is reliable, is always there for you. The nuclear power

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Speaker 2: is something we should be looking at.

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Speaker 1: That is correct, And you offer logic to me this morning,

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Speaker 1: and yet there will be many in New Zealand are

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Speaker 1: going absolutely not. How do you get over that hurdle?

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Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I want to point out is

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Speaker 2: that New Zealand's opposition to nuclear power is quite recent

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies, so not that long ago. In

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Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies we had a Royal Commission on Nuclear

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Speaker 2: Power and a release report in nineteen seventy eight that

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Speaker 2: was expecting a significant nuclear power program in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: by the early twenty first century. It's only since the

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighties we became a country that reacted against nuclear

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Speaker 2: power because of its associations with weapons testing in the Pacific.

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Speaker 2: But nuclear energy is not the same thing as a

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Speaker 2: nuclear bomb, and New Zealand hasn't always been opposed to

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Speaker 2: nuclear energy. Once upon a time we were expecting to

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Speaker 2: get nuclear power, and we can talk people back into that.

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Speaker 1: Almost too much logic for us to handle on a Monday, Thomas,

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Speaker 1: well done, Thomas Scrims, you're out of the Maximum Institute.

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Speaker 1: This morning.

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