WEBVTT - The Growing Chorus Singing Nuclear Power’s Praises 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:14.800 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to Meren Talk's Money, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.279 the podcast in which people who know the markets explain 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.079 the markets. I'm Meren zum zet Web. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:19.280 Now. 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.360 This week we are focusing on a topic that you know, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.239 John and I are both very interested in nuclear paramount 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.040 role it will pay or should pay in our future 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.800 energy systems. We talk about this a lot on this show. 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.640 As we push ourselves towards a world where we hope 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.159 to see better economic growth, better productivity, and as the 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.920 use of energy intensive technology such as AI increase, our 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.080 need for a better, more efficient, more secure energy supply 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.320 is only growing. So when we think about more energy, 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.360 we really do have to think very carefully about where 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.080 it is going to come from. According to report from 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.880 the World Nuclear Association, electricity demand is now increasing about 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.040 twice as fast as overall energy use and is going 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.720 to increase by good fifty percent, probably possibly between now 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:07.080 and twenty forty. So almost all reports on future energy 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.200 supply from all major organizations suggest that we do have 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.480 to think about an increasing role for nuclear energy. So 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.319 here to help us unpack that. Unpack what the world 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.360 looks like now, what it will look like or should 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.880 look like and what that means for your portfolio. We 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.880 have two brilliant guests. We have Jake Durrowitz, co founder 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.240 and CEO of Blue Energy. Blue Energy is commercializing an 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.280 innovative modular reactor agnostic power plant architecture to house the 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.039 next generation of nuclear reactors, and that we definitely have 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.720 to unpack that bit. And we have Nick Lawson, who 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.080 we have spoken to before, is CEO and co founder 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.520 of ocean Wall, which has three businesses corporate advisory, investment 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:49.520 and research. Nick has twenty five years of experience in 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.760 finance and is particularly interested in niche alternative investment opportunities. 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:56.880 And one of the things he is most interested right 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.280 now and here and I talk about a reasonable amount 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.240 is UCLAR energy. Nick, Jake, welcome, thank you for joining 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:03.720 us today. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.680 Thank you lovely to be marrying and hijake you and Nick? 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.400 Right, Nick and Jake, Noick's other already which is extremely useful. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:12.839 Right. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:14.919 What we want to do is we want to set 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.519 the scene here. So Nick, let me ask you, can 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.960 you lay out for us as simply as possible the 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:25.840 case for nuclear energy in our changing energy world? And 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.080 I suppose the key thing to start with here is 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.440 just to say that abundant energy is the key to 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.440 pretty much everything. We talk a lot here about how 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.560 all economic activity is energy transformed. So the more abundant 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.760 we can make the energy that we survive on, and 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.200 the cheaper we can make it, the better. So how 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.000 can we make the case for nuclear in that context? 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:50.639 I think the point you made at the start merit 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.600 of the technological needs. I mean, the demand now on 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:59.560 a single request through an AI chat consumes two point 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.720 nine what hours? Now that's ten times more than a 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.800 Google search. Now, we as a country ten years ago 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.600 would have about fourteen percent of our power come from nuclear. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.240 It's now about a little bit less than that. But 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.440 the reason there is a need for it is is 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.000 that stable and continuous energy source. And that's crucial. And 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.160 although I'm a big fan of wind and solar, the 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.400 intermittency is the issue. Now. The thing with nuclear is 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.000 there's no greenhouse gas emissions, so compared to fossil fuels, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.360 it's a big plus there for combating climate change. But 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.640 I'd say in this very fragile world with so much 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:41.680 geopolitical risk, nuclear power offers domestically controlled energy. I mean 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.240 we're on big net importer now, particularly from Norway and 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.400 France of energy and this allows us that element of 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.400 national energy security. Also the safety issue. I know people 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.680 often conflate nuclear energy with nuclear weapons, and obviously the 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.960 memories of things like Chernobyl and through Mind Island for 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.920 Kushima still exists. But it is incredibly incredibly safe, efficient, 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.680 viable form of power and also at the same time 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.400 for the UK it drives technological innovation. I mean, we 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.600 have a company in Rolls Royce and other SMR developers 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:21.640 really really pushing forward to advance nuclear technologies which will 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.200 be good in terms of jobs, innovation and within their 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.960 overall UK supply chain. So I think for the UK's 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.680 long term sustainability, nuclear is the only answer. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.599 All right, let's just unpack a little bit around the 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.480 use of renewable and low carbon energy sources. You say 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.479 that you're not against wind and SOL look great. But 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.560 the advantage that nuclear has over that, as I understand it, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.719 is that a it's not intermittent, and B it can 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.040 be a nuclear plants, but whether they be big or small, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.480 can be constructed where energy is required. So one of 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.320 the big problems with SOLO, which is mainly in the 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.400 south west of the UK. I'm just looking the UK 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.200 at the moment, and wind, which is mainly in the 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.960 very north of the UK is it not only as intermittent, 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.320 but it's far away from the areas where electricity demand 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:15.760 is the highest. And our grid is designed originally to 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.280 receive energy from a few large power plants relatively close 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:24.039 to where energy is required. Right, So renewables come with 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.839 two problems, distance and intermittency. I can see Jake wanting 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.840 to interrupt their Jake, Oh. 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.080 I add to that, I like wind and solar for 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.919 a lot of use cases, but in addition to the 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.560 reality that you have to build them where the wind is, 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:43.680 where the sun shines, and it's intermitute, it's not producing 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.160 twenty four seven through sixty five, which you need for 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.359 a modern economy. It's also low density, which means it 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.120 just consumes a lot of land. You need a lot 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.240 of acreage to put down a lot of solar panels, 0:05:54.240 --> 0:06:00.520 a lot of winterbines, particularly in an increasingly advancing, modernizing 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.680 economy where we're inventing new ways to consume power like 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.120 large language models, data centers, but also as we deal 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:12.400 with climate resiliency, and increasing installation of air conditioning, in 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.080 electrification of space eating electrification of industrial loads. We need 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.240 a lot of power in a growing economy, and we 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.880 have been very thoughtful about our use of land. You 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:23.120 need a lot of land to put down a lot 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.560 of win turbines and solar panels. You also need a 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.479 lot of land to connect all the transmission and battery 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.200 is required to harden that intermitted generation. So just it. 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.800 It kind of balloons some of the infrastructure costs and 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.120 balloons some of the space requirements to the entirely reliant 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:41.119 upon wind and soilar. 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.120 Yeah, and it is one of the big conversations in 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.080 the UK at the moment is that cost of infrastructure 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.920 and the problems of building new pylons in particular, and 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:55.160 new substations and the you know, I'm speaking to anecdotal 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.200 bit to friends the other day who suddenly find that, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.080 having brought a nice house in the country, they're about 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.960 to be surrounded by ions, which was a surprise because 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.440 until recently that is not something that most people would 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:06.960 have considered to be a major risk when they buy 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.360 an isolated farmhouse, for example, I. 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.600 Don't mind pylons. I always think of the ted Hughes 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.560 poem iron Man. When I see them now, I actually 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:14.080 quite like them. 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.280 I'll let them know that, I'll let them know that's 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.120 an available buyer for their house. 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.480 Well, I went, I shot a shot the other day 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.880 at someone's estate. And apparently to bury a pylon cost 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:26.360 just shy of a million pounds. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:28.920 Well it's not just burying them. The cost is later 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:30.400 to you know, if they need fixing, you've got to 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:32.360 dig them up. So it's an awful lot more efficient 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.480 to have them above ground, even if it is uglier. 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.680 And obviously some people believe it leads to health concerns. 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:41.040 We are getting sidetracked. We're getting side tracked. So what 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.280 nuclear does. It solves for all these problems. It solves 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.840 for the intermittency, and it solves for the distance. It 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.760 solves in large part, not completely, for the infrastructure problem 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:52.880 and the need to build out a grid in a 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.440 very expensive way. So it solves for those problems. But 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.200 many would say that it comes with its own problems. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:00.240 There is, as you said, Nick, a lot of ern 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.160 about safety, although I think we do know if we 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.400 look at the numbers, that it's one of the safest 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.320 ways of generating electricity. In terms of actual death right. 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.360 That forth absolutely absolutely right. The big issue back in 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.880 the nineteen fifties when you had Haitiam and Hartley Pool 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.560 and the big reactors getting built was the nimb issue. 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.160 People really didn't want them. And now if you go 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.200 back to the sites of with the old British Energy 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.920 Fleet is even side. Well the benefit has been huge. 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.920 I mean you've got the movement of brilliant people to 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.959 the area. But again it becomes a legacy thing. Now 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.040 what we have is these sites with the permissioning on 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.800 them where we can add these small modular reactors. The 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.920 issue in the UK is we have seven bodies that 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.600 effectively are responsible for making a decision on Britain's nuclear policy. 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.000 It's nuts now. I gave evidence to the Energy Select 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:53.760 Committee last year around the decarbonization of power wack paper 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.079 and you know they listen and they hear, but very 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.440 little action. I feel very worried and luke. When we 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.360 were at this dinner recently, the representatives to the National 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.240 Grid spoke and said there's no point us thinking about 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.560 having an AI strategy when we can't supply domestic households. Now, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:12.800 there was a power surge in January of this year 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.120 where power hit six thousand pounds of megawatt hour and 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.200 we are reliant on Norway for the import of power. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.800 We have the lack of whether it's government guidance, but 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.079 we just do not have the infrastructure to supply our 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.160 domestic needs, let alone those of a data center. And 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:35.600 Microsoft's Stargate Data center, which is a five gigawa data 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.240 center that takes down the power of five New York boroughs, 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.160 five New York boroughs twenty four to seven for one 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.760 five gigawatts Stargate center, and that's going to be that's 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.280 going to be around eight percent of their total data 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.880 center nees. So you need to have this ci of capacity. 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.760 And you're seeing now deals like Microsoft buying through Mile 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.240 Island that's eight hundred and nineteen megawatts, you know, buying 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.360 these states of themself. So you're going to have this 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.600 issue that's going to take place where who do you prioritize. 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.400 It will become an issue of moral turpitude if you're 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.160 not supplying your households but you are allowing Microsoft to 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:14.200 run a joint data stem. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.160 Well, it's interest, I mean, there was I don't know 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:17.760 if you saw a little while back, there were some 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.079 mutterings in the EU about banning or limiting AI and 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.319 limiting the building and use of data centers specifically because 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.320 of the energy use. It's dangerous stoughf to talk about 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:28.840 in the UK because next thing you know, a Middle 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.679 vand will be out there banning data centers. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.680 That's one of the things that kind of frustrates me, 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:35.760 is like since the nineteen seventies in the oil embargo, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.400 there's been this big movement movement of energy efficiency. And 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.440 energy efficiency has been great for increasing the productivity of 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.920 certain technologies like refrigerators in your helm, but it's gotten 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.560 a little too far in the minds. I think of 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.880 certain politicians where they think, oh, we should just energy 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.160 efficiency our way out of this climate challenge, out of 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.520 this energy consumption challenge. People start to conplaine the idea 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.600 of oh, consuming more energy is bad, and that's just 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.000 a fly way of thinking. There's many countries around the 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:07.400 world that are just now installing air conditioning, refrigeration for food, 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.800 putting in hospitals, putting in modern infrastructure based standard of 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.319 building requirements that are going to increase their energy intensity 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.600 per capita from developing nation levels just to European levels, 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.160 which are still which are of the energy conception per 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:23.760 capital of the United States. For Canada, who are we 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.880 to say that they shouldn't consume energy? And let's look 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.160 at ourselves. The UK needs to continue to grow its economy. 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.439 Europe needs to continue to grow it's economy. It can't 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.040 afford to fall behind on key technologies like AI, It 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:41.320 can't afford to not electrify, transportation, industry, chemical synthesis, all 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.479 the new capabilities that are coming out from our universities 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.880 and labs. Are we going to say that we should 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.480 not invest in that infrastructure. Are we going to start 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.640 turning off people's hot showers. No, we have the technology, 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.040 We have the capability to build an energy supply infrastructure 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.800 that is both a zero carbon and affordable, liable enough 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.839 to meet the expectations that we've grown accustomed to over 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.479 the last one hundred years. So I get very frustrated 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.400 when I hear this rhetoric of oh, we should cut 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.240 things off because they consume too much energy. The water 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.960 desalination consumes a lot of energy. Should we not have 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:15.600 clean water? 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.920 Yeah, so we should affect it. We should celebrate increasing 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.280 energy use because with increasing energy use, comes economic growth 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.120 and improve lifestyles. So we should celebrate it and find 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.360 a way to make it work. Right, absolutely, Jake, Let's 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:30.839 talk about what you do. When I described it in 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.920 the introduction completely incomprehensible, accurate, but incomprehensible. So will you 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.680 explain to us what your product is, how it works. 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:38.360 Yeah? 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.760 Shall I'll describe in very simple terms. What we're doing 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.800 is designing a modular plant architecture that is compatible with 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.600 multiple nuclear actor vendors that allows us to basically cut 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.840 the costs and cut the deployment time roughly in hats. 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.240 And the way that we're doing that is that we're 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.280 designing the plant so it can be entirely prefabricated in 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.480 offshore oil and gas fab yards, offshore wind fabyards and 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.240 shipyards from around the North of Britain, North and Europe, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.920 and other facilities around the world. The advantages for the 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.880 same reason a prefabricated home can be built on a 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.719 more predictable cost schedule and at lower price and on 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.360 a faster schedule than a stick built home on site. 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.720 We're just taking advantage of the big factories that already 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.760 exist that have done this for large energy infrastructure before, 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.040 particularly for north sea oil and offshore wind. A little 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.320 known fact about nuclear power. If you look at Hinckley 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.120 Point C or Flamanville, oklode O, Vogel, or any other 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.880 major nuclear plant that's been built in the last forty 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:44.120 to fifty years in the West, about only about seven 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.400 percent of the cost of that plant is the actual 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.360 nuclear actor. Ninety three percent of the cost of building 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.319 a nuclear plant is the accrude interest on debt because 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.400 it takes so long to build it, usually about ten 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.839 to fifteen years. Hence the construction overhead. It's the cost 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.160 of training and relooking about ten thousand skilled workers to 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.440 a place like Inkley Point and hosting them and their families, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.920 retaining them, mobilizing large thousand ton cranes, putting in performance bonds, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.600 how contingency, the litigation that happens between trades. It's all 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.080 that overhead. And it's the same overhead that occurs when 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.240 you try and build a big international airport or other 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.240 big SIBL infrastructure projects. So if we're trying to make 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.960 nuclear look less like building a big international airport and 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.280 more like buying an airbus a three forty, we can 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.680 do that using the existing supply chain from off for 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.600 wind and offshore oil and gas, using the existing labor 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.720 force that is already skilled and trained to do heavy 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:45.840 steel fabrication. So we've designed the plant to minimize the 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:49.600 amount of what's called kind of nuclear QA nuclear grade 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.440 work so that we can have most of it done 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:53.960 by the labor that's already trained. There's a big labor 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.840 challenge for building nuclear and for building a lot of 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.920 large infrastructure around the West. So part of the exercise 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.480 here is thinking about how the best leverage the supply 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.040 chain and the labor resources we do have so that 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.600 we can go faster. It's critical that we think about 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.160 how to move quickly onto playing new nuclear. If we 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.480 were to starting clean Point C you know today, we 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.880 wouldn't and we built it the same way, we wouldn't 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.560 be seeing the power come online until maybe twenty forty, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.320 and that is just too far for most companies to 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.720 make investment decisions. The Microsoft's Googles Amazons in the world 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:32.960 who are thinking about where the put Ai data centers, 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.320 they're making shorter time scale decisions. They need power sooner. 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:41.680 Governments every need to make decisions sooner. So the way 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.520 that we're designing this plant is specifically to attract project 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.400 finance so that commercial banks can get back into the 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:53.000 business of investing in nuclear power infrastructure instead of relying 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.560 on government substitutes, which has been the process to date 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.640 and tends to be very slow. 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.320 Okay, so you can make one of these things in 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.560 Aberdeen and ship it out to wherever it needs to go. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.120 Yep, that's the idea. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.520 How much space does it require? How much power does 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:11.320 it provide? 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.040 So the reactors we're working with can range in size 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:20.480 from approximately seven to seven megalots to three hundred megalots 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:26.680 per reactor. Per unit, each unit takes up approximately two 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.320 to three acres when you take into account the full system, 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.440 the steam plant, the balance of plant, switch yard. So 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.840 it's a very space efficient, very power dense way to 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.680 produce power. We are designing it so that it can 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:47.520 tuck into places along the coast, rivers, lakes, canals, or 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.840 go further offshore, out of sight, out of mind, over 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.160 the horizon line. Most of our design is below the 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.960 water line, so you don't have a large two hundred 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.480 meters mast sticking above the horizon line taking up your 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.440 whole shed. If you own some property on the coastline 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.840 and you're like looking at them to see we're designing 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:07.120 it to blend into the environment. 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.640 Okay, just to remind everybodycuse we're not talking to an 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.760 expert audience here. The reason that all these plants are 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:14.560 on the water is because the water is used for cooling, 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.880 so they're automatically on a lake on the sea, et cetera. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.440 Well, yeah, particularly in the UK, you know, the UK's 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.840 and islands, so a lot of the tower plants are 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.240 along the coast. We like to have water for cooling 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.200 the condenser, so yeah, it's used for cooling. 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:26.920 Okay. 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.040 And price wise, that Hankley is costing as what thirty 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.639 four billion or something after being ten years late and 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.400 seven thousand changes, etc. That's the kind of price point 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.040 we'd really really like to avoid all of us everywhere, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:38.440 isn't it. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.720 Yeah, I think thirty four billion and growing. We don't 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.200 know what the final number is until it's all said 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.120 and done. It's just not a sustainable number for any 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.840 sort of financing for anybody to kind of buy an ass. 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.240 It's even challenging for the government to do it. You're 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.119 getting basically a negotiation between the UK government and the 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:57.800 French government to try to figure out how to get 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.880 that thing financed. We're doing is designing a plant where 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.240 you can build a unit for on the order of 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.119 about half a billion so far less than a billion dollars, 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:11.320 which enables private sources of capital to come in and 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:12.080 tryance it. 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.840 Okay, well, this sounds absolutely fantastic. When can we have them? 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:19.200 It went outside every small town in the UK immediately, 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:20.719 when's the first one going up? 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:25.640 And where we're targeting a commercial operation for our first 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.399 unit of twenty thirty one, it's specifically chosen a site 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.840 where it can have a more accelerated path to permitting. 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.679 I would say permitting and regulation that Nick brought up 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:39.560 earlier is probably the main source of friction for moving faster. 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.359 If we had a more stream aligned permitting process for 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.840 nuclear not just in the UK but other parts of 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.280 the world, we can deploy it much more quickly using 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:54.399 this supply chain method that we're pursuable energy. So twenty 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.800 thirty one, we're in discussions about possibly pulling that's forward 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.120 a couple of years with with an AI data center 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.520 partner who has a lot of appetite for power and 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.560 then once the first one's online, everybody wants to be 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.719 in line for the second, so it's very quickly, very 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:11.920 quick to ask that. 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.320 Okay, so it is It really is the AI providers 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.480 who are transformation all in the space, isn't it. They're 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.119 the ones who are going to provide the finance to 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.600 get this kicked off. And once the first couple are up, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.760 every other industry and every government is going to go, wow, 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.800 why didn't we do this before? I'll have one of 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.720 those two, and then Nick, we run into a problem, 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.600 don't we, because everyone's going to want the same bit 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:33.679 of uranium. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.520 Correct, And that's the premise of our thesis for the 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.840 last five years. What Jake was saying about the timeline, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.400 I mean it's the same for Bill Gates and samill 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.240 On with their SMR designs. But a lot of this 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.040 is permissioning, as Jake says, I mean, Russia already has 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.439 a floating swarm water to reactor academic loominofs which provides 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.760 energy for remote locations. The Chinese also have them as well. 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.760 The issue now is the size of the not just 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.680 the swarmwer directors, but to have these sort of one 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.639 plus gigawatt reactors, and all these require fuel. That fuel 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.679 is uranium. Uranium is the only the only inputs to 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.240 a nuclear fuel rod. And I often give analogies to 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.840 people that it's a little bit like a glass of water. 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.119 What price would you pay for a glass of water? Now, well, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.520 probably a pound? What price would you pay in a 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.720 week if you haven't had any well edit all your wealth, 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.080 then you'll probably kill me and everyone around you to 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:34.320 achieve it. And that inelasticity that exists within uranium means 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.760 that if a power plant doesn't have uranium, they have 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.240 to shutter, and that shuttering can take years to restart. 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.639 But also it costs an excess of a million dollars 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.440 a day. But the most important issue is, and particularly 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.719 in areas like the US, we're one in four households 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:56.000 on the Western seaboard take power from nuclear is societal unrest. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.000 If you turn off the nuclear power station, it doesn't 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.000 take much in the US get people on the streets 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.280 with guns anyway. But you know, we saw in two 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.879 thousand and six the price of uranium spike seven times 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.199 in six months. And that was the time when you 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.359