1
00:00:10,039 --> 00:00:13,720
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

2
00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:16,160
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

3
00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:19,560
Speaker 1: Tracy, you know, we recently did that episode down in

4
00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:23,079
Speaker 1: Austin with a Jigger Shaw of the Department of Energy,

5
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:26,920
Speaker 1: and he said a bunch of interesting things about nuclear.

6
00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:28,680
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about a lot of stuff related

7
00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 1: to electrification, decarbonization, but I think both of us found

8
00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:34,760
Speaker 1: like the nuclear comments to be particularly interesting.

9
00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:37,920
Speaker 2: Well absolutely so, there were a couple things to pull

10
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:40,960
Speaker 2: out there. On the one hand, he sounded positive in

11
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,120
Speaker 2: the sense that maybe nuclear is getting more traction than

12
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:48,559
Speaker 2: it has previously. You have these new types of was.

13
00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:51,240
Speaker 1: It smaller modular reactor at.

14
00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:55,080
Speaker 2: Which he described as neither small nor modular, So I

15
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:58,640
Speaker 2: have questions about that, and you know, a sort of

16
00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:04,399
Speaker 2: ground swell potentially of support for cleaner energy technology in

17
00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:07,959
Speaker 2: which nuclear, you know, theoretically could fall. But on the

18
00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:13,280
Speaker 2: other hand, he also described these long running structural roadblocks

19
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 2: to nuclear, at least in the US, So this idea

20
00:01:16,319 --> 00:01:20,480
Speaker 2: that there isn't really a nuclear industry. There are utilities

21
00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,440
Speaker 2: that my own nuclear plants, but no one's really pushing

22
00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:28,240
Speaker 2: for it. And then also if you're a utility CEO,

23
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,040
Speaker 2: You're probably not going to be that incentivized to build

24
00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:35,880
Speaker 2: a massive nuclear plant because historically it's been a massive

25
00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:39,120
Speaker 2: risk and responsible for a number of bankruptcies in the sector.

26
00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:41,360
Speaker 1: Right, And so I think this was really like the

27
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:43,600
Speaker 1: key thing to me too. It's like, why did the

28
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:46,679
Speaker 1: US stop building nuclear And in my mind, and I

29
00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:48,880
Speaker 1: think probably in the minds of a lot of at

30
00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:52,080
Speaker 1: least the rhetoric of a lot of advocates of nuclear power,

31
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:55,120
Speaker 1: it is a clean, carbon free source of energy that

32
00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: has a bad reputation and environmentalists stymy it because of

33
00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:00,000
Speaker 1: you know, outdoates.

34
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:02,240
Speaker 2: Are you going to say the three eyed fish in

35
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:03,360
Speaker 2: the Persons again.

36
00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:05,920
Speaker 1: Three eyed fish on the Simpsons. His view is like, actually,

37
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,200
Speaker 1: that's not the story that as you say that, you know,

38
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:13,160
Speaker 1: because of historical cost over runs, there's real financial risk

39
00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:16,000
Speaker 1: in financing these and that part of the reason these

40
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,200
Speaker 1: cost overruns happen is that there's really no domestic nuclear

41
00:02:19,240 --> 00:02:22,080
Speaker 1: construction industry or nuclear industry, and so no one is

42
00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 1: good at building plants, and that's why you have these

43
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,800
Speaker 1: cost overruns. And then ultimately these are the stumbling blocks,

44
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,040
Speaker 1: the impediments towards like this nuclear renaissance that many people

45
00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:31,880
Speaker 1: would like to see.

46
00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:36,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of this like muscle memory effect. For

47
00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,400
Speaker 2: some reason, it reminds me of like the lumber industry

48
00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,680
Speaker 2: post two thousand and seven two thousand and eight, where

49
00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:44,880
Speaker 2: no one wanted to have over capacity anymore, so they

50
00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:48,040
Speaker 2: just became incredibly lean, and then when we did need

51
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:52,520
Speaker 2: more lumber in twenty twenty, we didn't have enough capacity.

52
00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:55,200
Speaker 2: So if it kind of feels like that, like it

53
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,080
Speaker 2: feels like everyone's been so scarred by the experience in

54
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:02,720
Speaker 2: the seven the eighties and nineties that it's hard to

55
00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:06,000
Speaker 2: kind of get people within the industry excited about it again.

56
00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so we wanted to follow up and actually like

57
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,480
Speaker 1: explore some of these themes. So I'm very excited we

58
00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:13,920
Speaker 1: have the perfect guest to do. So we are going

59
00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:16,840
Speaker 1: to be speaking with Mark Nelson. He is a founder

60
00:03:16,880 --> 00:03:20,239
Speaker 1: and managing director at Radiant Energy Group, which is does

61
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:24,399
Speaker 1: energy analytics. He is an advocate, I believe, for nuclear

62
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:26,120
Speaker 1: and he is going to talk us through as he

63
00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:29,560
Speaker 1: sees some of these issues that Jigger raised. So Mark,

64
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:31,399
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on oud. Lots good

65
00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,000
Speaker 1: to be here at Tracy. You are an advocate for

66
00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:36,080
Speaker 1: nuclear energy. I said, I believe, but you.

67
00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:37,280
Speaker 3: Know, yes, definitely.

68
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:39,760
Speaker 1: What is radiant energy group? What do you do? Why

69
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:41,160
Speaker 1: should we listen to you? Why are you here?

70
00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't start out as a as a consultant.

71
00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:49,960
Speaker 3: I started out as an energy analytics expert. I'm working

72
00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:53,280
Speaker 3: for a nonprofit out in California that was attempting to

73
00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:55,800
Speaker 3: figure out why nuclear plants were closing around the world

74
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,600
Speaker 3: and how to stop it. So I was working with

75
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:02,200
Speaker 3: Michael Schallenberger at environment Progress where there had been a

76
00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:07,400
Speaker 3: sudden growth in environmentalists turning towards nuclear in the Bay

77
00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:12,360
Speaker 3: Area of California, practically where they first turned against nuclear

78
00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:15,840
Speaker 3: energy back in the sixties. And the thinking was, on

79
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:20,200
Speaker 3: one hand, if you developed an academic basis and a

80
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:24,800
Speaker 3: scientific basis for understanding nuclear energy properly, people and other

81
00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,560
Speaker 3: environmentalists would come around. On the other hand, there was

82
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:29,720
Speaker 3: a crisis. There was a fire in the house, which

83
00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:34,039
Speaker 3: was nuclear reactors were being closed around the world. We're

84
00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,240
Speaker 3: not talking about nuclear reactors that people were proposing and

85
00:04:37,279 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 3: needing to find financing for. These were nuclear reactors where

86
00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 3: the hard part was already done. They were constructed, they

87
00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:48,040
Speaker 3: were making super cheap, reliable, carbon free electricity, and they

88
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:51,160
Speaker 3: were being shut down all over the world. So at

89
00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:53,880
Speaker 3: environmental progress we needed to figure out how to stop that,

90
00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:57,400
Speaker 3: and the first step was figuring out what was going on,

91
00:04:57,600 --> 00:04:59,800
Speaker 3: and so I came in as a nuclear engineer to

92
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 3: do that.

93
00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:02,800
Speaker 2: I'll take the bait, what was going on? Why were

94
00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:05,719
Speaker 2: all these reactors shutting down? Because I imagine on the

95
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:08,760
Speaker 2: one hand, maybe you had environmental pushback, but on the

96
00:05:08,800 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 2: other hand, we have heard a lot of stuff about

97
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:14,279
Speaker 2: how difficult some of these are to finance to maintain

98
00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:15,080
Speaker 2: things like that.

99
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:17,760
Speaker 3: The broadest possible thing I could say is there was

100
00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:21,320
Speaker 3: not enough appreciation for nuclear reactors if we needed to

101
00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:23,560
Speaker 3: break it up. Though, some places in the world, like

102
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,360
Speaker 3: the United States, had extremely cheap natural gas and had

103
00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:32,920
Speaker 3: installed governing systems for electricity that used extremely temporary, cheap

104
00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,760
Speaker 3: fossil fuels as an excuse to shut down nuclear reactors

105
00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:40,240
Speaker 3: that could last for another thirty forty to fifty sixty years.

106
00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:43,520
Speaker 3: And that's really stupid. Those electricity markets are some of

107
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:46,880
Speaker 3: the worst things we've ever done to our infrastructure, but

108
00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:49,280
Speaker 3: they were in place and they were leading to a

109
00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:50,320
Speaker 3: wave of retirements.

110
00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:54,880
Speaker 2: Do you mean that the competition from even cheaper electricity

111
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:58,400
Speaker 2: was like that electricity from fossil fuels was even easier

112
00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,200
Speaker 2: and cheaper compared to nuclear, and so the preference was

113
00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:02,400
Speaker 2: for that at the time.

114
00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:06,160
Speaker 3: It's simply wrong to say that it was cheaper electricity.

115
00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:11,400
Speaker 3: It was one aspect of the total electricity system that

116
00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:15,320
Speaker 3: was cheaper on the margin at that moment at those times,

117
00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:19,120
Speaker 3: and sometimes wasn't even cheaper. You just had a natural

118
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,000
Speaker 3: gas folks that were willing to take a temporary loss

119
00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:24,240
Speaker 3: to drive nuclear plants out of business.

120
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 2: Oh so like a market share fight.

121
00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:29,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Basically there was a market share fight. There

122
00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:32,640
Speaker 3: wasn't as much growth for electricity demand. There was extremely

123
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:35,800
Speaker 3: cheap natural gas, making losses for the natural gas producers

124
00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:40,520
Speaker 3: and needing to find more markets, and people arranged ways

125
00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:45,000
Speaker 3: to build new natural gas plants so close to nuclear

126
00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:49,400
Speaker 3: plants or near enough in location on the grid to

127
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:51,800
Speaker 3: drive them out of business. And then that's not like

128
00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 3: the cost savings would be passed on consumers. No, no, no, no,

129
00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:58,080
Speaker 3: you drive the nuclear plant out and then you get the.

130
00:06:58,440 --> 00:06:59,680
Speaker 2: New race prices.

131
00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:02,800
Speaker 3: Well, well you can't really raise the prices go up

132
00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:06,559
Speaker 3: once the nuclear's gone, right, But then the nuclear's gone.

133
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 3: And as we've discussed in the intro, it's hard to build.

134
00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:12,560
Speaker 3: So you had a one way ratcheting effect.

135
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:14,720
Speaker 1: I want to jump in very quickly to the hard

136
00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:17,680
Speaker 1: to build, but just this dynamic because the fall up.

137
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:18,960
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, just like you said,

138
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:23,320
Speaker 1: like electricity markets have just been this damaging phenomenon. And

139
00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:26,040
Speaker 1: I think generally like people like think like markets are

140
00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:29,640
Speaker 1: good things, and markets produce abundance and et cetera. What

141
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:33,840
Speaker 1: is it about electricity that, in your view, either markets

142
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,920
Speaker 1: or at least markets as they're currently structured, have this

143
00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:38,040
Speaker 1: pernicious effect.

144
00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,680
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, electricity is not a commodity. And

145
00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:45,360
Speaker 3: the analogy that the economists use to think about electricity

146
00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:48,520
Speaker 3: and setting up these markets was that electricity is a commodity,

147
00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 3: as commodity like properties that are close enough that you

148
00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:53,680
Speaker 3: can sort of squint and say it's, you know, a

149
00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:56,960
Speaker 3: standardized unit one megawat hour, one kill a watt hour.

150
00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:00,320
Speaker 3: And so they came up with a system to break

151
00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,200
Speaker 3: apart the carrying of electricity with the building of power plants.

152
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:08,840
Speaker 3: And they said, there's all these different parts of making electricity,

153
00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:12,160
Speaker 3: and if we divide it up disaggregate it. We can

154
00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,760
Speaker 3: come up with competition and maybe start with the power plants,

155
00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 3: but then we can move to other aspects like competition

156
00:08:18,880 --> 00:08:22,080
Speaker 3: and bundling up electricity contracts to sell to consumers with

157
00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:25,320
Speaker 3: different packaging. And it just turns out that, to cut

158
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:27,280
Speaker 3: a very long story short, that could be its own

159
00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:30,960
Speaker 3: series of episodes. Yeah, it doesn't really work, and it

160
00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:35,840
Speaker 3: leads to either enormous risk taking that ends with massive

161
00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:39,680
Speaker 3: market failure like we saw briefly in Texas and we're

162
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:43,120
Speaker 3: seeing in other places that have instituted markets or the

163
00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:47,559
Speaker 3: market manager. The market system ends up taking on both

164
00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:50,480
Speaker 3: the attributes and many of the criticisms of the old

165
00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,080
Speaker 3: utility system that it was supposed to break up.

166
00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:55,720
Speaker 2: I can tell this is already going to be one

167
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:58,719
Speaker 2: of those episodes that leads to like five other episodes.

168
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,600
Speaker 2: But just it's going back to something you said. I

169
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:06,199
Speaker 2: think you mentioned nuclear is hard to build, and Jiggershaw

170
00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:10,679
Speaker 2: might very politely disagree with you, because in our conversation

171
00:09:10,800 --> 00:09:12,720
Speaker 2: with him, he was talking about how there is this

172
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,040
Speaker 2: perception that like, oh, it's so difficult to build these things,

173
00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:21,360
Speaker 2: but actually his point was we've built them before, you know,

174
00:09:21,559 --> 00:09:24,439
Speaker 2: we've done it. A lot of our technology has been

175
00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:27,520
Speaker 2: exported to other places in the world where they're building them.

176
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,120
Speaker 2: Is it that hard to build a nuclear plant?

177
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,679
Speaker 3: Yes, So I visit construction sides and nuclear plants around

178
00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:36,400
Speaker 3: the world. I mean, I this is this is something

179
00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 3: that I thought was going to be the main problem.

180
00:09:38,679 --> 00:09:40,920
Speaker 3: We just don't know how to build nuclear plants, and

181
00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:43,360
Speaker 3: sure enough, it is quite hard. Here's what I'd say

182
00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:47,760
Speaker 3: about nuclear plants. They're premium energy, and they take your

183
00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,560
Speaker 3: best people to build, and they take your best effort,

184
00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:53,680
Speaker 3: and they need to be done right because they are

185
00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:57,280
Speaker 3: that difficult. I mean, I've been to nuclear side. So,

186
00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:00,560
Speaker 3: for example, the biggest construction site in Europe is a

187
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:06,920
Speaker 3: massive two reactor nuclear plant on the west coast of

188
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:11,719
Speaker 3: southern England, and that site you cannot possibly go there

189
00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:15,400
Speaker 3: and think nuclear is easy. Now, some of the best

190
00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:19,839
Speaker 3: people in the country, the best contractors, the best engineers,

191
00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:23,040
Speaker 3: the best managers are over there and they're going to

192
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,280
Speaker 3: be working for a decade on that massive nuclear plant,

193
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:29,280
Speaker 3: and then it's going to provide the best electricity service

194
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,160
Speaker 3: in the country. Like it's going to be extraordinary. Okay,

195
00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:35,199
Speaker 3: but it is really hard to build. The argument maybe

196
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:39,800
Speaker 3: he was making was what compared to the immense factories

197
00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,360
Speaker 3: that go into the supply chain for solar and wind,

198
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,040
Speaker 3: it's not that hard. But actually what we're seeing is, say,

199
00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:50,280
Speaker 3: offshore wind is extremely hard to So is this a

200
00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:53,560
Speaker 3: comparison question or is this a contrast.

201
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:55,080
Speaker 1: It's funny you say that we got to do an

202
00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:57,800
Speaker 1: offshore wind episode at some point too, because every article

203
00:10:57,840 --> 00:11:01,240
Speaker 1: I read just looks like that industry on many levels

204
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:05,040
Speaker 1: is a total mess. But setting that aside, I wonder

205
00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,359
Speaker 1: if maybe like the question of like hard or difficult

206
00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:11,959
Speaker 1: to your point, you know, like a semiconductor fab is

207
00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:15,040
Speaker 1: clearly like a complicated, difficult thing. There are not many

208
00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 1: entities around the world that can build like, you know,

209
00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:23,560
Speaker 1: a seven animeter or five animeter semiconductor manufacturing facility. But

210
00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:26,040
Speaker 1: some people are good at it, and some people become

211
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,040
Speaker 1: practiced at it, And so I guess the question is, like,

212
00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:31,800
Speaker 1: how much of the constraint in the US or in

213
00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:34,679
Speaker 1: places where you would like to see nuclear expand an

214
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,800
Speaker 1: inherent difficulty or maybe like just out of.

215
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:42,320
Speaker 3: Practice, out of practice, is it we can build nuclear again?

216
00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:45,680
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we didn't a bunch I could fifty

217
00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:46,680
Speaker 1: years ago, right.

218
00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 3: The cost estimates that we're seeing for offshore wind Joe

219
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:53,360
Speaker 3: are about the same as the extreme blowout over budget

220
00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:56,840
Speaker 3: catastrophe that is Vocal in Georgia. So think about this.

221
00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:00,120
Speaker 3: The wind that's supposedly we're gonna build and it's going

222
00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:02,320
Speaker 3: to go well, and it's going to be on time

223
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:05,719
Speaker 3: and on budget. If that happens, it will be at

224
00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:10,080
Speaker 3: a cost per delivered megawatt hour that is about the

225
00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:13,080
Speaker 3: same as Vogel in Georgia, depending on what you assume

226
00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:17,120
Speaker 3: with interest rates and assuming they build the wind on time.

227
00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,200
Speaker 3: But Vogel wasn't supposed to be that expensive, and it

228
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:24,720
Speaker 3: provides an electricity, a constant electricity supply that makes the

229
00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:29,319
Speaker 3: rest of the electricity system work even better, which is

230
00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,560
Speaker 3: not quite the case for the offshore wind. So the

231
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:34,920
Speaker 3: offshore wind, even being expensive, even after you pay for it,

232
00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,280
Speaker 3: is going to be part of a more expensive electricity

233
00:12:38,360 --> 00:12:42,800
Speaker 3: service overall. So I guess the question I ask is

234
00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:45,880
Speaker 3: Vogel was very hard to do, It continues to be

235
00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:49,719
Speaker 3: difficult to finish, It will be extremely valuable, It will

236
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:52,440
Speaker 3: be valuable for one hundred years or more. Was it

237
00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:54,679
Speaker 3: Should we not do it again? Because it was hard?

238
00:12:54,920 --> 00:12:58,400
Speaker 3: I think we have to admit that nuclear is hard,

239
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,880
Speaker 3: but unlike many hard things, this is.

240
00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:15,280
Speaker 4: What I'm doing.

241
00:13:20,160 --> 00:13:22,840
Speaker 2: I take the point that it's hard, And you know,

242
00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:25,199
Speaker 2: the knowledge gap was sort of what I was getting

243
00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:27,360
Speaker 2: at when I said that we have a history of

244
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:30,080
Speaker 2: doing this, so like the knowledge is clearly there, but

245
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:35,000
Speaker 2: talk to us, like, exactly what the impediments actually are? Like,

246
00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:39,480
Speaker 2: what is it about building It sounds funny when I

247
00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:43,559
Speaker 2: say it building a massive nuclear power plant with dangerous

248
00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:46,760
Speaker 2: radioactive material. What's so difficult about that? Why can't we

249
00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:48,920
Speaker 2: all just do it in our backyards? No, I'm being

250
00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:52,640
Speaker 2: facetious now, but like, what are the actual impediments to

251
00:13:52,840 --> 00:13:55,400
Speaker 2: building these things? And why does there seem to be

252
00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:58,160
Speaker 2: h you mentioned vocal, why does there seem to be

253
00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,880
Speaker 2: so many cost overruns in these projects as well?

254
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:03,040
Speaker 3: In the sixties, seventies and eighties. It's kind of an

255
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 3: astonishing that we if you look at the interest rate

256
00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:09,360
Speaker 3: charts back in the day, like most of us nuclear

257
00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:13,720
Speaker 3: plants were built and completed at interest rates from five

258
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:18,880
Speaker 3: to ten percent and above. So that's quite kind of astonishing.

259
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:21,480
Speaker 3: And they were and they happened during a time when

260
00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:25,640
Speaker 3: the environmental movement was getting immense elite support all over,

261
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:30,680
Speaker 3: and that popular media turned against nuclear energy also, so

262
00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:33,520
Speaker 3: in a way, I you know, it's quind of astonishing,

263
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 3: and we did that.

264
00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:38,120
Speaker 2: But so they overcame those hurdles in the nineteen seventies.

265
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:40,560
Speaker 3: Yes, and they had to overcome the hurdles of the

266
00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:44,960
Speaker 3: earliest plants that were built quickly and cheaply did not

267
00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:47,920
Speaker 3: apparently make money for the builders. That's a problem if

268
00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:49,520
Speaker 3: you're going to keep building. In other words, it had

269
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:53,280
Speaker 3: the call it the offshore wind problem, where the projects

270
00:14:53,280 --> 00:14:57,000
Speaker 3: seemed to be excellent from a sort of technological perspective

271
00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:01,040
Speaker 3: or from an administrator's eye view, but the people building

272
00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:04,440
Speaker 3: them are burning through capital and not making profit in

273
00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,800
Speaker 3: order to make these cheap things. That's not sustainable, right.

274
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,920
Speaker 2: This is kind of the CEO point where like a

275
00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:15,560
Speaker 2: bunch of CEOs have surveyed previous nuclear projects, seen that

276
00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:20,600
Speaker 2: they've been massive financial drains on finances, I guess, and

277
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 2: then thought maybe not but tracy.

278
00:15:23,320 --> 00:15:26,720
Speaker 3: That brings us to possibly the central paradox of this

279
00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:31,000
Speaker 3: episode of odd lots, which is, there is nothing more

280
00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:36,720
Speaker 3: valuable in the energy world than existing already built nuclear

281
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:41,040
Speaker 3: plant of traditional design. So as an example, of one

282
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:44,440
Speaker 3: that I heard recently. Let's take Tennessee Valley Authority had

283
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:46,960
Speaker 3: one of the all time messes on their hands with

284
00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 3: finished nuclear plants when their Brown's Ferry plant had it

285
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:53,120
Speaker 3: one of the most famous fires that we have to

286
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,120
Speaker 3: learn about in not just nuclear engineering school, but all

287
00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:59,240
Speaker 3: engineers or mini engineers I know learn about the Browns

288
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:02,760
Speaker 3: Faery fire as an example of all sorts of things

289
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:07,480
Speaker 3: not to do. So this is three large reactors that

290
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:12,200
Speaker 3: are finally working well after decades of tinkering, and together

291
00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:18,280
Speaker 3: they make about let's say five million people's five to

292
00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:21,880
Speaker 3: six million people's worth of electricity at fifteen dollars a

293
00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:24,800
Speaker 3: megawat hour, and they're going to be able to stay

294
00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:28,760
Speaker 3: down near fifteen to twenty dollars a magawat hour costs.

295
00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:32,120
Speaker 3: That's the cost to TVA of generating electricity of the

296
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:35,440
Speaker 3: course of a year, divided by the amount of power,

297
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:38,080
Speaker 3: right fifteen dollars a magwat hour, and they're going to

298
00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,160
Speaker 3: be able to do that decade after decade after decade.

299
00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:44,240
Speaker 3: At this point, it's not clear what would actually cause

300
00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 3: these reactors to shut down, and so you have this

301
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,520
Speaker 3: situation where can you survive as a CEO proposing building

302
00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 3: what after built is incomparable in what it can do

303
00:16:58,720 --> 00:17:01,800
Speaker 3: for society and any kind of carbon constrained environment, or

304
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:05,720
Speaker 3: to heck, with the carbon constraints, nothing beats this power

305
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:11,160
Speaker 3: plant even without carbon having a prize. I mean, the cheapest,

306
00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:15,399
Speaker 3: most advanced, lowest cost coal plants on planet Earth would

307
00:17:15,440 --> 00:17:18,160
Speaker 3: struggle to get near that cost.

308
00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,480
Speaker 1: One of the things that I like talking about, one

309
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I think we've had good conversations

310
00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:26,000
Speaker 1: with Gigger in the past is he understands the role

311
00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:31,480
Speaker 1: of finance and that yeah, finance and incentives, and that

312
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:33,720
Speaker 1: just like we could talk about construction, we could talk about,

313
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:36,520
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen dollars megawat hours for decade after a

314
00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:39,119
Speaker 1: decade after decade, but that you know, we need to

315
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:41,720
Speaker 1: solve the financing problem. And as he sees it, a

316
00:17:41,760 --> 00:17:45,520
Speaker 1: big issue is with new construction is that nuclear projects

317
00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:48,720
Speaker 1: have been a major contributor to utility bankruptcies. Is that true?

318
00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:49,440
Speaker 1: I mean, is that all?

319
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:49,840
Speaker 2: Do you?

320
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:50,240
Speaker 4: Yeah?

321
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:51,680
Speaker 3: Of course I think he's right there.

322
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:54,359
Speaker 1: So it sounds like then, you know, like the follow

323
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:56,800
Speaker 1: on from that is that if we want this sort

324
00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:02,480
Speaker 1: of decade after decade after decade of stable urginally inexpensive electricity,

325
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,640
Speaker 1: that somehow the public balance sheet needs to be involved,

326
00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:08,240
Speaker 1: or that we at least don't have these sort of

327
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 1: like undermining markets where the cheaper natural gas you know,

328
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:16,600
Speaker 1: plants can like situate near you and like price you

329
00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:19,760
Speaker 1: out of business. How do you see the financing constraint

330
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:21,120
Speaker 1: playing out, Well.

331
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:24,159
Speaker 3: Let me dance overseas for just a second. You can

332
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:26,719
Speaker 3: say that we have an interesting comparison in countries that

333
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:30,679
Speaker 3: either like China, are building a bunch of nuclear at

334
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:34,240
Speaker 3: a low cost, or like France, have decided they need

335
00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:37,280
Speaker 3: to but are doing it very expensively and are having

336
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:40,840
Speaker 3: a ton of struggles doing almost anything in nuclear. But

337
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 3: in both cases it's considered vital to state interest that

338
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:52,080
Speaker 3: nuclear be strong and effective. Now, that wasn't that way

339
00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:55,400
Speaker 3: in France only a few years ago. France was had

340
00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 3: an anti nuclear ruling elite for a number of years,

341
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:00,520
Speaker 3: and that's part of the immense trouble that they got

342
00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 3: into during the energy crisis when they should have been

343
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 3: bailing out Europe. Instead they had to be bailed out

344
00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:10,040
Speaker 3: by Germany, sometimes because of their own problems making nuclear.

345
00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:13,520
Speaker 3: But they've decided it as a vital state importance. One

346
00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:15,760
Speaker 3: of the first decisions they had to take was to

347
00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:19,720
Speaker 3: repeal anti nuclear laws, and then they had to decide

348
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:22,040
Speaker 3: to say renationalize.

349
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:24,080
Speaker 1: EDF was sort.

350
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:27,080
Speaker 3: Of basically owned by the nation, but they needed to

351
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 3: take on the rest of the responsibility and just understand,

352
00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:35,960
Speaker 3: as many countries do, nuclear is so important. It's a

353
00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:39,960
Speaker 3: vital state interest and it must be done right. And

354
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:44,760
Speaker 3: at some point it starts uniting the various political interests

355
00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 3: in a country and just starts moving forward. We're big

356
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:52,480
Speaker 3: and strong, We're America. Do we have to do nuclear well?

357
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:56,679
Speaker 3: I think that maybe even brings us into this cultural moment,

358
00:19:56,760 --> 00:20:01,359
Speaker 3: which is if people of great talent, great energy, and

359
00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:07,200
Speaker 3: great financial backing want nuclear more badly than they weren't

360
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:12,719
Speaker 3: anything else, is that going to be something that, in

361
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:16,639
Speaker 3: my opinion, unveils the path. I think the answer is yes,

362
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,920
Speaker 3: there is a cultural moment. There's a genuine cultural moment

363
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:26,199
Speaker 3: where almost anybody I meet wants to have a conversation

364
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 3: about nuclear with me. Whereas before I had very poor

365
00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:32,199
Speaker 3: taste in conversation, it would be me forcing it on

366
00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 3: other people. Nowadays, nowadays, since I work and talking about

367
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 3: nuclear and thinking about nuclear and writing about nuclear and

368
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:43,439
Speaker 3: advising about nuclear. I am totally fine to talk about

369
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:46,879
Speaker 3: every other subject when I meet people, but they want

370
00:20:46,920 --> 00:20:48,200
Speaker 3: to talk about nuclear.

371
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:52,119
Speaker 2: I like this the idea of you just like walking

372
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 2: down the street going have you heard about molten salt reacting?

373
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:55,760
Speaker 1: Have you heard the good news?

374
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:00,359
Speaker 3: But that moment event of evangelism, that's that's why I

375
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:04,240
Speaker 3: got into nuclear. A gentleman out in Calgary who just

376
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 3: was a big fan of molten salt reactors and thorium

377
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 3: made a video channel. I was trying to figure out

378
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 3: what to study in grad school. I wanted to do

379
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 3: an engineering grad degree. I started an aerospace and mechanical

380
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:18,120
Speaker 3: engineering and it was you know, space flight and big

381
00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 3: machines and stuff like that. And I just saw a

382
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 3: few minutes of a video at exactly the right time

383
00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 3: in my life, and everything just clicked. It hadn't clicked

384
00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,000
Speaker 3: when I'd worked at Los Alamos as an engineering intern.

385
00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:34,080
Speaker 3: It hadn't clicked when I'd been to either the Chernobyl

386
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 3: Memorial Museum in Kiev or the Hiroshima Peace Museum in Japan.

387
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,200
Speaker 3: I hadn't been scared of nuclear. It had just been

388
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:43,639
Speaker 3: I hadn't connected it to the future of the world.

389
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 3: Let's put it that way. I'd had many opportunities to

390
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 3: be involved with nuclear that I just missed or not

391
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:53,359
Speaker 3: noticed along the way. And when I saw a have

392
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 3: you heard the good news video like the guy shouting

393
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 3: in the street, I saw that. Within a few minutes,

394
00:21:58,040 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 3: I knew I was going to be involved in new

395
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,600
Speaker 3: engineering or nuclear energy in some way for the rest

396
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 3: of my life.

397
00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 2: Well, since we're talking about things that might be changing,

398
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 2: I take the point from a cultural and political perspective,

399
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:13,439
Speaker 2: but can you talk also about the technology side? And

400
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 2: we already mentioned the small modular reactors, which Jickershaw says

401
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:20,439
Speaker 2: are neither small nor modular. So I would love to

402
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,159
Speaker 2: know exactly what they are and how they work, and

403
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 2: whether or not they do in fact provide a possible

404
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:31,080
Speaker 2: solution to some of the obstacles we've been describing, For instance,

405
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:35,199
Speaker 2: the idea that CEOs of utility companies, having watched a

406
00:22:35,240 --> 00:22:38,440
Speaker 2: bunch of bankruptcies, a bunch of cost overruns on these

407
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 2: huge nuclear projects, maybe they don't want to do something massive,

408
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 2: but maybe SMRs, these smaller reactors are a sort of

409
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 2: middle ground.

410
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 3: Is it okay to make haters on this?

411
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 4: Yeah?

412
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 1: Please?

413
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it controversial.

414
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 1: Okay, let your haters be your waiters at the table

415
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:57,920
Speaker 1: of success, is what our mayor says.

416
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 3: So yes, go, well let's start. Let's start it this way.

417
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 3: I hate the word advanced. I detest the Gen four

418
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 3: versus Gen three. It's complete bullshit. Sorry, I don't know

419
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 3: if I can say that on odd blots.

420
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 2: Wit advanced nuclear reactor? Is that what you mean?

421
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 4: Yeah?

422
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 3: I mean like people use that to mean anything going forward,

423
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 3: not stuff going backwards. What's advanced? It means we haven't

424
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 3: done it. I mean, so the number of people I

425
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 3: meet that know what the state is of things that

426
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 3: we call advanced in this country that are actually deployed

427
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,639
Speaker 3: and working in other countries. People have so little knowledge. So,

428
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 3: for example, the Russians have several different lines of advanced

429
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 3: programs already in production. They know how much they cost

430
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 3: compared to the quote traditional reactors. They also play the

431
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,119
Speaker 3: Gen three game because they're selling in to some of

432
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 3: the same countries that the West would like to sell to.

433
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 3: And they can build the traditional reactors quite well, reasonably

434
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 3: on time, reasonably on budget, and they provide the financing.

435
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 3: It's amazing, right they can do that, But they also

436
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 3: can do the so called advanced and at least the

437
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 3: advanced lines that they have. That's not what their customers

438
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 3: around the world are asking for. Turkey didn't ask for advanced,

439
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 3: Egypt didn't want advanced.

440
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 2: People just want the basic, like well functioning numbers.

441
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:18,679
Speaker 3: When they see the numbers tracy from a company that

442
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 3: can do it all, it just makes sense to do

443
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 3: the ones that if we hadn't invented, we would call

444
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 3: it advanced today. Right, our reactors are extraordinary performers. How

445
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 3: you wouldn't be able to know in advance that these

446
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 3: things are going to last eighty years or one hundred years,

447
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 3: but they turn out to last eighty to one hundred years.

448
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 3: The utilities that built these nuclear plants in the US

449
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 3: were hoping to get seventy five percent uptime. They're getting

450
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 3: ninety five percent uptime out of their nuclear That's part

451
00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 3: of our paradox. The performance is out of this world

452
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 3: for existing nuclear it's outlandish, but can we get there again?

453
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 3: So the Russians have a sodium fast reactor program. Their

454
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 3: sodium fast reactors are decent. Rumors from the Russians just

455
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 3: chat on the Internet says that it's about twenty percent

456
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 3: more per kill a whatat hour to produce electricity from

457
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 3: their traditional ones. What's the advantage? Oh well, I mean

458
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 3: they're still tinkering. They're going to try a few versions

459
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 3: going forward over the next few decades if they don't

460
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 3: have other issues. But it's it's okay, it's not bad.

461
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 3: And by the way, guys, none of this means we

462
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 3: won't have genuine engineering breakthroughs or development success with other

463
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 3: types of reactors. But let me just summarize in this joke.

464
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 3: What do you guys call a Gen four reactor? We're

465
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 3: building the first.

466
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 2: Version of Gen one? Yeah, there, we know you're still

467
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:45,640
Speaker 2: punchline Tracy.

468
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to ask you get back to like

469
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: a Vogel some of the questions around the point of like,

470
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: we don't have a construction industry. But just real quickly,

471
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: to sort of add on to Tracy's question, setting aside advance,

472
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: setting aside Gen four, setting aside Gen three? What is it?

473
00:25:59,760 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 4: Lee?

474
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: It's like the sort of dictionary definition of a small

475
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: modular reactor. What's the idea here?

476
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,359
Speaker 3: Well, so there's fighting over how big small is? So

477
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 3: I I love jiggers line. I mean I've used that

478
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 3: for years. This small could mean I don't know what

479
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,239
Speaker 3: he listens to or doesn't listen to. I think that

480
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 3: it's not It's not that hard to come up with it.

481
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 3: There's a template for that joke with the Holy Roman Empire, right,

482
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 3: and so you you can.

483
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: They also that they also that same joke about m MT.

484
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: It's neither modern nor monty. It's all. It's all or

485
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: or a theory or whatever something like that or theory.

486
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 3: Okay, So the normal definition is small means anything smaller

487
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 3: than say three hundred, five hundred, six hundred, there's a battle.

488
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 3: It's typically whatever size your reactor is, you're in. Whatever

489
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 3: the good term is. Whatever your reactor is, that your propars,

490
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 3: especially if you've never built it before. That's what makes

491
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 3: it advanced and small or modular or whatever. Just to

492
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 3: give you an example here in the nineties in Japan,

493
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 3: one of these big reactors called an ABWR Advanced boiling

494
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 3: water reactor. There's the A for advanced, right, So we've

495
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 3: been using advanced for almost my entire life. The Japanese

496
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 3: built one of these reactors with ge in three years,

497
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 3: from first concrete all the way to first reactions in

498
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 3: the core four years to get it to full commercialization.

499
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 3: And this was a one thousand, three hundred megawak reactor,

500
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 3: so enough for say a million people in an energy

501
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 3: hungry rich country, right, And they built it in forty

502
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 3: eight months from first concrete to commercial operation. And I

503
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 3: asked one of the engineers who'd been a young man

504
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 3: working on that project. I met him. He's working on

505
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 3: new reactors for GE and I said, how do you

506
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 3: guys do this? And he said, well, it was modular.

507
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 3: And said that's nice. Then why do you change the

508
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 3: design afterwards? And he said, to simplify it. They haven't

509
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 3: built another reactor since. Do you see where I'm trying

510
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:11,920
Speaker 3: to get at. I think that we got this advanced

511
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 3: language and this gin for thinking because you had a

512
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 3: bunch of well meaning nerds who didn't want to face

513
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 3: down the true roots of social anxiety about nuclear which

514
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 3: don't really have to do with the advanced or the generation.

515
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 3: And actually, in my opinion and my experience over talking

516
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 3: to thousands of people at every level of society all

517
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 3: over planet Earth for years now, it doesn't really have

518
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 3: anything to do with the reactor at all. So you

519
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 3: can't fix it with the reactor. If I find somebody

520
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 3: on this to you just says, oh, I didn't like nuclear,

521
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 3: but now I kind of like these advanced new designs.

522
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 3: Or have you heard of molten salt thorium designs? Or

523
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 3: have you heard Bill Gates is making an advanced new reactor.

524
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 2: I like that.

525
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 3: I almost invariably find they either actually always liked nuclear

526
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: or they're totally fine with the non advanced reactors now.

527
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 3: And it's not that it's not the rebranding or the

528
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 3: claimed new technology that may not exist yet, that's not

529
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 3: it. It's that they either had a fundamental issue with nuclear

530
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 3: and that got resolved, or they had no issue with

531
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 3: nuclear all along and just want to sound like they're

532
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 3: progressive and modern about it.

533
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: I feel like there's a market opportunity maybe for Elon

534
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 2: Musk or someone like that that's just like the boring basics,

535
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 2: a reliable, cheap reactor company.

536
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 3: You have at least one of the nuclear startups that's

537
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 3: specifically trying to go in exactly that direction, work with

538
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 3: engineering and marketing. Last energy. Brett Koogle mass, a software

539
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 3: engineer sold a software company, asked advisors, what can I

540
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 3: do to solve climate change? They said, young man go nuclear,

541
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 3: and so he started this sort of think tank in

542
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 3: DC to try to understand why people didn't like nuclear

543
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 3: and why the nuclear industry wasn't building. His direction was

544
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: to come out with a zero frills, stripped down, small

545
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 3: or even micro in some people's estimation, simple version of

546
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 3: exactly what we're building today for our submarines or for

547
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,959
Speaker 3: the big reactors. It's the same standard type. I've been

548
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 3: trying to avoid these technical words, but since I already

549
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 3: talked about the Advanced boiler water reactor a PWR pressurized

550
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: water reactor, one of the early types that was developed

551
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 3: and was so successful in its implementation, partly because of

552
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 3: the strength and genius of the program director, Admiral Hyman

553
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 3: rick Over back in the late forties and fifties, but

554
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 3: also just because it works really well. As in engineering technology,

555
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 3: it's like the seven thirty seven gotten to its shape,

556
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 3: its configuration with predecessor aircrafts as in wing certain size

557
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 3: two engines slung below the third chord of the wing,

558
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 3: and it just kind of hit that shape. That shape

559
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 3: just kind of works really well, and we keep getting

560
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 3: seven thirty sevens over and over and over. Well, well,

561
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 3: that's kind of what it seems we got to with

562
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 3: PWR in a time of extreme experimentation where reactors around

563
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: the world were going to every possible configuration, including a

564
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 3: lot of the ones called advanced today. We made commercial

565
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 3: versions of these back in the day, and it's just

566
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 3: this type hit critical engineering and technological mass and just

567
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 3: became standards and for people to claim that a thing

568
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 3: that hasn't really done well yet is going to dethrone

569
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 3: the king. I love the idea that we would have

570
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 3: multiple technologies we're working on. The Russians do it, the

571
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 3: Chinese do it, India's doing it, A bunch of countries

572
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 3: are doing it. But there's a reason the winner was

573
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 3: the winner. It works extraordinarily about.

574
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: As Tracy mentioned, you know, there's tons of follow on

575
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 1: episodes that all of this conversation is uh is inspiring

576
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: in my head. But you know, I want before we

577
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: wrap up, I want to go to sort of the

578
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: other key point, which is this idea that like there's

579
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: there's not a nuclear industry in the US, or maybe

580
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: the way that it sort of makes sense to me

581
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: is like if you were utility and you wanted to

582
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: like add nuclear, who do you call? Is like who

583
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 1: do you like, this.

584
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 2: Makes the decision to actually start a new project.

585
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, who makes the decision? And like who made Vogel?

586
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: Like who do you call? Like talk about that?

587
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 3: Okay, I keep feeling like I'm sidestepping by jumping outside

588
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 3: of the US to look for overseas examples.

589
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 2: Now that's really how contrast it works.

590
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 3: So one of the most interesting projects recently was the

591
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 3: UAE setting up its nuclear program. Because they it was

592
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 3: Dula Rasa. They had a small number of people that

593
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,479
Speaker 3: had this vision of doing nuclear in their country. People

594
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 3: now say, oh, of course, they just bought it. They

595
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 3: just had a bunch of money and just took it. Well,

596
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 3: hold up, they got a really good price and they

597
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,719
Speaker 3: executed the project really well. And big utilities, you know,

598
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 3: with money somehow didn't do that in the US. So

599
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 3: what is it the UAE did. They got an entire

600
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 3: generation of people, a lot from the US who had

601
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 3: built nuclear programs, not just reactors, but entire programs. Before

602
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 3: I met a gentleman who lives was from Chicago who,

603
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 3: as a young man my age makes me feel like

604
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 3: a dumb baby in comparison at my age early thirties.

605
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 3: He was helping direct nuclear construction for Commad, the utility.

606
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 3: Comad built five large nuclear plants circling Chicago. Okay, and

607
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 3: they built him in well between about a fifteen year period.

608
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: Okay, no, but when when are we sorry.

609
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 3: From late sixties to I guess early eighties Okay, right,

610
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 3: I mean Jigger actually mentioned one of these five plants

611
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 3: on his episode. I believe it was Byron Nuclear Plant, right.

612
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that he grew up next to.

613
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 3: I think yes. So what UAI did is they hired

614
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 3: people who had been daily overseeing construction sites for the

615
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,319
Speaker 3: buying utility, and they said, come teach us how to

616
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 3: do nuclear. We want to learn from you and then

617
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 3: build nuclear ourselves. And then they worked with a country

618
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 3: that definitely has a nuclear industry, the Koreans, who had

619
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 3: an American design practically like American English manual for the reactor,

620
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 3: almost exactly the same as what they purchased from American

621
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 3: nuclear companies back in the eighties to build out their

622
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 3: fleet of standardized American designed, maybe Korean upgraded reactors. And

623
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 3: so you can find they're not dead yet. You can

624
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 3: find the people who actually executed these construction programs in

625
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 3: the set, and they would serve as extremely good advisors

626
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 3: once you can recruit the young people motivated almost with

627
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 3: a religious fervor to work in nuclear because they want

628
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 3: to build nuclear.

629
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 2: Wait, can I just ask so some of the examples

630
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 2: of countries that seem to be doing this relatively well,

631
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 2: you know, China, the UAE, Russia, even Korea to some extent,

632
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 2: they have a history of like a very outsized role

633
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 2: of government financing in this type of construction. So like,

634
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 2: are they actually good analogies for the US where we

635
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 2: still seem to be, you know, Jigger and his four

636
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars worth of loans at the DOE, notwithstanding

637
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 2: where we still seem to be hesitant about publicly financing

638
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 2: this type of project.

639
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 3: So I feel that there's a bunch of idiological directions

640
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 3: people are pulled into when they come to nuclear in

641
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 3: terms of how to execute it. What I'm excited about

642
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 3: is people from every possible ideological stripe, except for say

643
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:11,359
Speaker 3: Doomer degrowths, almost everyone else is coming to nuclear and

644
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 3: seeing it in their own way. What's going to be

645
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 3: the path for us to actually execute it? Look, I

646
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 3: think people keep commenting on the excellent Doe Liftoff report,

647
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 3: there's a reason why because it's actually really good and

648
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 3: some of the ideas in that report do have a

649
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 3: big role for government, and a number of the things

650
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 3: in that report are actually happening. For example, it does

651
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 3: seem likely that say, for example, one of our big

652
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 3: traditional large designs is going to be purchased and installed

653
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 3: in other countries. That should hopefully keep the supply chain

654
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 3: alive and keep the credibility of that design alive. In

655
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 3: some way, we have most of the ingredients we need

656
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,280
Speaker 3: for reignition. I think we're going to have a large

657
00:36:56,320 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 3: traditional design be the winner. I think that that design

658
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 3: is going to be the winner. After going, for example,

659
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 3: at Vogel A one thousand, let's say eight one thousand,

660
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 3: a big design, right, I think that that has shown

661
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 3: that once it actually gets built, it's extraordinary. China is

662
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,720
Speaker 3: returning to using that design. When they could pick anything

663
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 3: in the world to use their excellence in construction on,

664
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 3: they keep electing to build that design in their own country.

665
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,759
Speaker 3: They don't owe us anything, they don't have to do it.

666
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 3: They're choosing it because of its excellence. Once you know

667
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 3: how to build it, and we will get some critical

668
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 3: mass of government help of private initiative of talent coming

669
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 3: in from all directions, of belief at the top of

670
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 3: utilities that doing a big capital project right is still

671
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 3: the way these big utilities outside of these electricity market

672
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 3: regions increase their asset base, the continued outstanding performance of

673
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 3: existing nuclear and finally a thing that could be its

674
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 3: own three, four or five episode series, the lack of

675
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:03,720
Speaker 3: alternatives as the deep problems with anything but nuclear start

676
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 3: to reveal themselves at nation.

677
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: Scale, one small question and I just want to sort

678
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: of go back to the who builds it? Say like, okay,

679
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: it comes to there's the finance and so at least

680
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: solve the finance component. A thousand people who listen to

681
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: odd laws because of you. They're like, all right, I

682
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: want to like devote my life to nuclear, get over

683
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:25,240
Speaker 1: all these issues, etcetera. Utility chiefs sort of like outside

684
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: of the market areas like yeah, we want this. I

685
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: still want to get just clear, like who builds it?

686
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: Like is it? Are they the big engineering.

687
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 3: Can I can give you some names. For example, Sergeant

688
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 3: in Lundy is one of the elite. So that's because

689
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 3: they have an office in Chicago and I've gone in

690
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 3: to see them and they built the nuclear plants that

691
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 3: power my home in Chicago. Right, So, Sergeant in Lundy

692
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 3: is an example of a firm that will take a

693
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 3: nuclear plant designed from say one of the nuclear designers.

694
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: So they could take the eight one thousand.

695
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 3: Power plants, and then they can oversee construcuction firms on

696
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 3: site and make sure it's built to the specification that

697
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 3: they're specialist engineers and architects design, like the building that

698
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 3: goes around the shiny metal bits. Yeah, say so, that's

699
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 3: an example of a firm involved in this. Bechtel is

700
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 3: an example of a firm that's extremely famous. Is the

701
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 3: one you probably should have called in the beginning, but

702
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 3: they were too expensive, so you call them in the

703
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 3: end after the bankruptcies. Right. So Bechtel is going to

704
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 3: emerge from Bogel in a pretty strong position to say

705
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 3: we know how to build AP one thousands. For example.

706
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 3: They may say we can build anything. You can come

707
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 3: to us with anything, but if you put together a

708
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 3: winning design a short list of people who can demonstrate

709
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 3: that they know how to build it, there's an active

710
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 3: supply chain. I think people are going to find that

711
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 3: the shrinking down to get to SMR it may be

712
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 3: that once you've actually done the detailed costing of these SMRs,

713
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 3: it will find that the shrinking down was not worth

714
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 3: the loss and power in terms of the saved project effort.

715
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 3: Does that make sense now?

716
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 4: Yeah?

717
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there are going to be some goods

718
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 3: around the world that will just have to pay the

719
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 3: premium for these small reactors. But China has been able

720
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 3: to build three hundred megawa or one hundred megawat reactors

721
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:21,799
Speaker 3: for a long time. They're trying again at making a

722
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 3: one hundred megawat design that they're calling an SMR, but

723
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 3: they're not. They don't seem to be planning many of

724
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 3: these when they could again build anything. When China, who

725
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 3: can build anything, chooses to build, they seem to be

726
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 3: building the EIGHTP one thousand. I think we have to

727
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 3: look at that and say there might be a reason

728
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:39,399
Speaker 3: for it.

729
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 2: So I have just one more question, sort of summing

730
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 2: all of this up. You know, I came into the

731
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 2: conversation thinking, like, yes, yes, attitudes towards nuclear are changing,

732
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 2: and I kind of thought a big portion of that

733
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 2: was on the technology side. So all these cool new things,

734
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 2: maybe some stuff around the edges with like governments support

735
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 2: the Doe loans program and things like that. Maybe it

736
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 2: makes financing these things slightly more easier. But technology seem

737
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: to be the big factor to me. But you seem

738
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 2: to be suggesting that actually we've had the most efficient

739
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 2: technology for some time. It's just been ignored, but now

740
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 2: people are sort of reverting back to it and looking

741
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 2: at it with fresh eyes.

742
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:26,439
Speaker 3: I'll admit I am working on a book on this,

743
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 3: But as far as I can tell, at some point

744
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 3: humans were going to discover how to split the atom,

745
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 3: at the point that we were modern enough to be human,

746
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 3: at some point we were going to split the atom.

747
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 3: And as far as we can tell so far, that's

748
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,359
Speaker 3: about as advanced as energy may get quite some time.

749
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 3: Even fusion is just a small difference. It's kind of

750
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:49,919
Speaker 3: the same levels of energy, the same amount of fuel.

751
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 3: It's pretty much the same, just immensely difficult, right, So

752
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 3: at some point we're going to discover the ultimate energy.

753
00:41:56,160 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 3: It happened to come in living memory. It gets led

754
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 3: to an arms race that forever ended the idea that

755
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 3: there was such a thing as absolute safety for anyone

756
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 3: on Earth. So we had a long, multi decade shared

757
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 3: vision of the apocalypse that now with the passage of

758
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 3: that generation and the one after it, it's the vision

759
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 3: of the apocalypse is breaking down. Some people don't think

760
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 3: the world's going to really end. Some people think it's

761
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 3: going to end in ten years from climate change. Like

762
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 3: the vision of how we die spreads from bioterror to

763
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 3: climate changed, it shares a crowded arena now this nuclear

764
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 3: holocaust as that fear declines and we become nuclear natives,

765
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 3: true nuclear natives as a specie for the first generation

766
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 3: or two now making decisions now involved in finance is

767
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 3: the first native nuclear generation. Where we've always lived under

768
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 3: the shadow of ICBMs. It wasn't something we had to

769
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 3: adjust to. It was the constant of our lives, and

770
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 3: that honestly, the danger wasn't reduced at the end of

771
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 3: the Cold War. I think that's now becoming more obvious,

772
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 3: but it's not leading to a resurgence in nuclear fear.

773
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:12,760
Speaker 3: That was the fear that animated anti nuclear energy, anti

774
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 3: nuclear waste. There's no real engineering argument for why nuclear

775
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 3: energy is dangerous or nuclear waste is dangerous. That's that

776
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 3: has always been nonsense. Chernobyl was operated as a power

777
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 3: plant for fourteen years after one of the reactors blew up.

778
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 3: It was only shut down so they could use the

779
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 3: money given to them by the Germans to start up

780
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 3: another reactor. I mean it's a nature preserve and yeah, okay.

781
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 3: My point is that's the worst reactor disaster ever and

782
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 3: it was. It's a it's a crowded to her to

783
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 3: a site when the nation isn't at war. This is

784
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 3: insane that this awful tragedy should become that. My point

785
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 3: here is, though nuclear energy is coming back because there's

786
00:43:55,160 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 3: a secular decline in nuclear apocalypse fears, and as that

787
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 3: gathers momentum and people find ways to express it through

788
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 3: oh nerding out about the technology or getting excited about

789
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 3: the carbon benefits or whatever, it's because we're finally emerging

790
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 3: as the first native nuclear nuclear global society.

791
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: That's why Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy so great to

792
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:20,360
Speaker 1: have you on odline.

793
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 3: Thanks, I'll give you back.

794
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: Tracy. That was so inspiring. I hope there's like a

795
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: thousand people who listen to that episode and are like Mark,

796
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: and maybe you know that now they go out evangelizing.

797
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 2: And you've been converted.

798
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: Well that was so stirring, wasn't it.

799
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 2: I kind of want I want a T shirt that

800
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 2: says molten salt reactors are so hot right now?

801
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 3: Yeah?

802
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: Does that exist?

803
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 2: No, but I'm gonna I'm gonna make one. Yeah it doesn't.

804
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 2: I did think the point about the idea that we're

805
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 2: kind of the first generation has grown up with nuclear

806
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: and it's sort of normalized, and maybe some of the

807
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 2: fears of the Cold War, you know, nuclear missile attacks

808
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: and stuff, are fading into the background. I thought that

809
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 2: was interesting. But the thing I would add on to

810
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 2: it is it feels like anything becomes possible, especially in America,

811
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 2: once it's couched in geostrategic or geopolitical interest. And so

812
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 2: I remember this kind of came up with Jick Orshaw

813
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 2: as well, where he was talking about, well, you don't

814
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 2: want Russian nuclear technology to proliferate in all these other

815
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 2: countries and they become reliant on Russians for their cheap

816
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 2: energy supply. We want to export US technology so we

817
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 2: can have lots of you know, friends and allies. It

818
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 2: feels like that's also an important component of this.

819
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I thought it was really funny and interesting. This

820
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: idea that like advanced is kind of a red herring. Yeah,

821
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: read really great deal. A liftoff report is called the

822
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 1: Pathway to Advanced Nuclear Commercial lift Off. But to Mark's

823
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: point that like if you look at, you know, a

824
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: country like China, which you know, seems pretty clearly they

825
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: have construction and manufacturing and assembly prowess in all things

826
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: these days, the fact that like, all right, here's a

827
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: country that like is continuing to expand and install more

828
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: nuclear and they're just going with this sort of like

829
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: the old traditional like the seven thirty seven version of

830
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: a plant is really striking, and so maybe it's really

831
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 1: like these it's more about the cultural things and financing,

832
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: et cetera, rather than like some magic bullet to come

833
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: up with a new way of designing them.

834
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 2: Right, the basic boring nuclear plant for the win. Although

835
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 2: I do still have questions about the importance of technology

836
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 2: and alleviate in alleviating some of those old school concerns

837
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 2: around things like waste disposal, decommissioning power plants, we didn't

838
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:55,320
Speaker 2: really get into that. Yeah, I guess we're going to

839
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 2: have to do like four other episodes on each of

840
00:46:57,719 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 2: these topics.

841
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:02,800
Speaker 1: And the the the Real Story of Chernobyl. Yeah, we

842
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: should probably do that one too. Find the historian.

843
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 2: Oh dear, okay, yes, shall we leave it there?

844
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there.

845
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

846
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 2: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway and.

847
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.

848
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: Follow our guest Mark Nelson, he's at Energy Bamps. Follow

849
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman and Dashel Bennett

850
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: at Dashbot. And thank you to our producer Moses Ondam.

851
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: For more odd Lots content, go to bloomberg dot com

852
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 1: slash odd Lots, where we have transcripts, a blog, and

853
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,720
Speaker 1: a newsletter. And if you want to chat with fellow

854
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: odd Lots listeners twenty four to seven, go to discord

855
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: dot gg slash odd Lots. We have an energy room

856
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 1: in there, so I'm sure people will be talking about

857
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: this episode. Maybe we'll get Mark in there to do

858
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: a Q and A or follow up if he's down

859
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: to it. Really fun place to hang out, go check

860
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: it out.

861
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be fun. And if you enjoy odd Lots,

862
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: if you want us to do a episode on the

863
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 2: revisionist history of Chernobyl, then please leave us a positive

864
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 2: review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening,