0:05

You're seeing a lot of support from nuclear now.

0:08

I think the momentum behind nuclear

0:10

is growing more and more with climate

0:12

change. We're in a very good

0:14

path moving forward to build

0:16

out a lot more nuclear to to provide

0:19

that zero carbon emitting

0:21

energy, you know, twenty 473

0:23

sixty five. Hello there. How

0:25

are you all doing? Did you have a good weekend?

0:28

I did. Wonderful weekend. Quite

0:30

a chill one. We didn't have any football, so

0:33

well, I don't say say, I didn't go watch any.

0:35

I did go watch again, but I did also chill out.

0:37

My team didn't play as hard. I was little bit more relaxed

0:39

hanging up with the family. I hope you got some time in

0:41

your family too. Anyway, welcome to the

0:44

What Bitcoin did podcast, which is brought to you by Gemini,

0:46

the only place I'm using for buying Bitcoin.

0:48

I'm your host, Peter from entered the day on

0:50

the show, I've got Everett Redland. So in

0:52

my last show with Anthony Gerrit, the truth about

0:54

nuclear, I don't wanna say it changed

0:57

my perspective on nuclear, but has definitely

0:59

evolved up in going down this energy

1:01

rabbit hole. Ever since I really interviewed

1:03

Alex Epstein, trying to understand how the

1:05

energy set to work, how grits work, how

1:07

energy generation works. You know, I've learned

1:10

a lot about it. And I would say with these

1:12

two conversations, the one with Eeva and the one

1:14

with Anthony Jarrod, I've definitely

1:16

had my thinking evolve. So it's very cool. I do wanna

1:18

get somebody on to talk about fusion at some point as well.

1:21

Danny is working hard to finding that person.

1:23

But this was a perfect follow-up to learn

1:25

about these small modular reactors and other things

1:27

happening in nuclear. Also,

1:29

just a side note, I've mentioned previously,

1:31

we've refreshed and re launched our Patreon where

1:34

there's a whole bunch of exclusive content on there.

1:36

You got shows early, shows of that ads, you

1:38

can contribute on the Discord conservative to the shows

1:40

we're making. We will be out

1:42

in New York soon and recording exclusive content

1:44

there only available to Patreon. So if you wanna

1:46

go and check that out, that is Patreon dot

1:49

com forward slash what Bitcoin did.

1:51

How's it that if you wanna reach out to

1:53

me? My email address is hello, what Bitcoin did.

1:55

Dot com. Good

1:58

morning, Everett. How are you? Doing well. How are

2:01

you? I'm good. Thank you. So

2:04

We make a Bitcoin show. And one

2:06

of the hottest topics over the last couple of years

2:09

has been discussing energy. The

2:11

energy mix, how

2:13

bitcoiners can work with energy

2:16

companies, with energy grids. And

2:18

because of that, we've kind of ended up going

2:20

down the energy rabbit hole and learning a lot

2:22

about it. We've made shows about solar

2:26

power. We made a show yesterday about nuclear.

2:28

And so despite the fact that you were not like a

2:30

hard and bit pointer, you're a really great

2:33

guest for our audience because nuclear is such

2:35

a hot

2:35

topic. So as the audience

2:37

won't know you, do you mind introducing yourself? Sure.

2:39

That's a bit about your background and what you're doing now.

2:41

Sure thing. So

2:44

Everett Remman, I'm a nuclear engineer by

2:46

training. I

2:48

work currently for company called Oaklo.

2:50

We're developing a small liquid metal

2:52

cooled fast reactor. So

2:54

micro reactor, prior to

2:56

Oakland, and I started with Oakland in September

2:59

of twenty twenty two, prior to that, I was with the

3:01

Nuclear Energy Institute. The trade association

3:03

for the commercial nuclear power industry here in

3:05

the US, was with them for

3:07

sixteen years and

3:09

focused on advanced reactors. So been

3:11

interfacing with the advanced reactor community in

3:14

the United States for quite some time.

3:16

And then prior to any.

3:19

I was with the company Holtec International working

3:22

on back end of the fuel cycle, dry

3:24

cask storage systems for commercial nuclear

3:26

plants. So and in

3:29

my spare time, I do a lot of

3:31

scuba diving. In fact, teach scuba diving as

3:33

well --

3:33

Oh, wow. -- with a shop up in DC called

3:35

Blue Planet Scuba. I have never

3:37

scooped off. Oh, you should give it a try.

3:40

Oh, man. So I've

3:42

snorkeled. No. I've

3:44

never one of those things I've never done

3:47

I

3:47

I always felt it I always felt it seems a

3:49

little bit claustrophobic. So, you

3:52

know, I have found that very few

3:54

people actually have that issue

3:56

com. But what you can do, if you

3:58

find yourself at a resort sometime, you

4:00

can do what we call a resort course, discover

4:03

scuba diving. So you'd go out with an instructor.

4:06

They would take you down and you'd

4:08

be with them the whole time

4:10

and you get to try it

4:11

out, you won't go too deep. And just get

4:13

the experience. And if you like it, you go on

4:15

and get trained. I think it's the whole mask

4:18

and tank that just kind

4:20

of freaks out. Oh, I say that. One of

4:22

the things I have done is I've tried over the years

4:24

to train myself to hold my breath longer.

4:27

So my McCormack three minutes, five seconds.

4:29

Okay. So you could do a lot of the free diving.

4:31

We've got some friends who do free

4:33

diving. I personally don't have

4:35

any great interest in that. I'll take the arrow

4:37

with me. I had a little go with that in Turkey,

4:39

so I was trying to get what are these the shells

4:41

at the bottom covered by the call? Like, monks? Is

4:44

it? Yeah. Monks. Yeah. But

4:46

you get to a certain pressure and you feel like like you

4:48

get that like knee in your head and you feel like everyone's

4:50

closing in.

4:50

Well, you obviously have to

4:52

equalize as you go down. Right. So just like

4:55

in the plane, when you go

4:56

up, you get a pressure change as an engine start coming

4:58

down in the airplane. You have to clear your ears. So you

5:00

have to do the same thing when you scuba dive or

5:02

snorkel. Yeah. When you hold in your breath, so

5:05

you don't have much time to equalize. That's true.

5:08

And also when you're swimming about, you can't

5:10

do three minutes, five seconds. Three minutes five seconds

5:12

was still in a swimming

5:14

pool with my kids tapping me on the

5:16

shoulder every fifteen

5:17

seconds.

5:17

That's impressive. Yeah. Just a weird

5:19

thing I do. I don't know why I do it. I'm a weirdo. Anyway,

5:22

listen, welcome to the show. So how

5:24

did you get into

5:25

nuclear? Why nuclearism? Because it's an interestingism.

5:28

So for me, when I went to college, it

5:30

ended up being a great combination between mechanical

5:32

engineering and physics. Okay. And I've

5:35

had an interest in nuclear prior to that, but I

5:37

didn't necessarily think that's what I'd major in.

5:39

But turned out, I love it

5:41

quite a bit. And I tended to focus on

5:43

what's called reactor physics, so core

5:45

design sort of stuff. I'm not

5:47

not a thermal hydraulics person. What

5:50

does that mean? So thermal hydraulics is

5:52

the fluid flow heat and

5:54

mass transfer sort of things. I

5:56

focus on when I was doing

5:58

the work, anyways, focused on core

6:01

design, fuel assemblies, how they configured

6:04

and how the neutrons and stuff move

6:06

around and get the reaction

6:08

going. And I guess

6:09

with a nuclear reactor, there's lots

6:11

of different specialisms that go

6:13

in. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could

6:15

imagine you know, the thing that surprised

6:17

me yesterday when we discussed

6:20

nuclear with Anthony

6:23

Jarrod. Jarrod. When

6:26

he told me he worked on the

6:28

reactor on one of the aircraft

6:31

carriers. Mhmm. I was like, how many people work on

6:33

that? And I was human. He was gonna say that twenty thirty. Was

6:35

it four hundred? Yeah. Four two hundred reached

6:37

reactor, I think he said. Yeah. Oh,

6:38

that's impressive. I did not know that. Yeah. That

6:40

that kind blew my mind. But

6:43

yeah. So we we've have we've had to go down

6:45

this rabbit hole learning a lot more about nuclear.

6:48

Not even just for the podcast in fairness,

6:51

I live in the UK. He probably solved my

6:53

accent. We have a real energy crisis

6:55

at the moment. People can't afford to

6:57

heat their homes. Energy bills

6:59

have gone up. 345 hundred

7:02

percent out. And we

7:04

are reliant on other countries for our energy.

7:07

A range of different ways we're important. I think we're gonna

7:10

part nuclear power from France. think we're

7:12

importing liquid gas.

7:14

I think there's a range things we're doing, but

7:16

we aren't sovereign, self sovereign

7:18

with our own nuclear energy and our own energy

7:21

because we haven't invested in the infrastructure.

7:23

And so we've been trying to understand

7:26

why have the green lobby

7:28

has been so successful in

7:30

campaigning against nuclear

7:32

energy? And The interview yesterday

7:34

was great. I learned a few things. I learned, yeah, I didn't

7:37

know this. I didn't know nobody died at Fukushima.

7:40

We were told that there was no statistical

7:43

increase in cancers and Fukushima, no

7:46

dada three mile island, and forty six

7:48

deaths were attributed to Chernobyl. And

7:51

And so in terms of actual

7:53

deaths related, I know the risk is different,

7:56

but deaths related to nuclear energy. It's

7:58

basically one mine collapse.

8:01

And that's a crude way of putting there. But

8:03

in lots of different energy, parts of the energy

8:05

sector, lots of other people have died in multiple

8:08

ways. So it feels like nuclear's

8:10

being cast as this big

8:13

scary way of producing

8:15

energy, but actually it's safety

8:17

story is fairly good outside of

8:19

Chernobyl. Absolutely.

8:21

Yes. What do you think that's been? Well,

8:24

it's one of the issues I

8:26

think is just radiation is

8:28

something you don't see. Right? You can't

8:30

tell around I mean, the reality though is

8:32

radiation's everywhere. There's

8:34

naturally a crane radiation as you

8:36

get in an airplane and you fly cross

8:38

country or cross the Atlantic. You're

8:41

getting more radiation because you're physically

8:43

closer to the sun. Yeah. Or eaten

8:45

in the banana. We found it yesterday. Exactly. We

8:47

called it a radiation bar now. Yep. Yep. Nope.

8:49

That's true as well. And then certain

8:53

buildings that are made out of granite and things like

8:55

that will have a little bit more natural radiation because

8:57

of just what's in the rock. And

9:00

then you live in places that

9:02

are higher up, higher elevations, you get more

9:04

radiation to, because again, you're closer to the sun.

9:06

But at the end of the day, you can't

9:08

see it, you can't feel it. So I think

9:10

that's part of it. And

9:13

what radiation can do is

9:16

ultimately lead to some cancer.

9:19

And cancer is scary for everyone. Another

9:22

thing that came out yesterday was

9:24

the discussion around

9:25

Chernobyl. And I I can imagine for

9:27

people like yourself working in a modern nuclear

9:29

industry, modern design, that any

9:31

comparison to that is hugely

9:32

frustrating. It's probably like comparing

9:34

a model t to a Tesla? Even

9:37

worse. Yeah. There's a few things. The

9:41

design of the plant was not able

9:43

to withstand the accident that occurred.

9:46

So that's a fundamental issue. You

9:49

know, the plants that we operate in United States

9:51

have containment buildings around them. They're designed

9:53

to withstand the worst case accidents.

9:56

The newer plants like the one my company

9:58

is working on, Oaklows working on are

10:01

much smaller, have more inherent safety features

10:03

in them. And so, you know,

10:05

they're more robust to begin with. But

10:07

the other thing about Chernobyl, which is exceptionally

10:10

frustrating why the comparison is

10:12

a bad one, is they basically

10:14

took the operating manual and threw

10:16

it out the window. You know, so they

10:18

got themselves into a position that

10:21

was that the plant could not

10:23

withstand and they should it

10:25

shouldn't have been done. Yeah. That

10:27

came up with well, with Three Mile Island in

10:29

that they didn't follow correct

10:31

procedures. I think with three mile island,

10:34

they ran into some challenges

10:36

after the accident initiated, but

10:39

not not the same situation

10:41

as Chernobyl. It's not it's not a fair comparison

10:43

between the two. Right. Okay. But it was

10:45

still human error, would you say?

10:47

The human error contributed

10:50

to it, and then there was

10:53

human factors. So how

10:55

do you deal with all of information coming

10:57

in? How are the control

11:00

system setup? How many alarms

11:02

are going off? Where is the information

11:05

being presented where the panel. So there's

11:07

a huge effort that goes into

11:10

if you think about it, think about an airplane and

11:12

a cockpit. How do you lay

11:14

out that information so

11:17

that it's easiest for the pilot to

11:19

access what they need, when

11:21

they need it? Okay. And so

11:23

these are things that we've learned in the nuclear industry

11:26

over the years as well. And especially

11:28

three mile island, I help with some

11:30

of that human factors

11:32

in terms of how the information is presented

11:35

to

11:35

you. And then lastly on few consumers,

11:37

what we learned was actually it

11:39

was the position of the diesel generators

11:42

were too low, and that's what

11:44

flooded, which caused So,

11:46

yeah, for issue there. So few Focashima was

11:50

the earthquake came along. The plant shut

11:52

down just like normal. Yep. No problem.

11:54

Everything shut down. Diesel generators

11:57

kicked in. Everything was great. And

11:59

then the tsunami came in and basically

12:02

wiped out everything.

12:05

Yeah. All of the electrical equipment at the

12:07

same time just took

12:09

it all

12:09

out. Yeah. It was it's really interesting

12:11

thing to go through and most of what we focused

12:14

on yesterday was the safety side

12:16

of things. I think today with you, we

12:18

want to focus little more on innovation to capture what's

12:20

happening, what's coming. But a good

12:22

starting point is kind of to understand where

12:25

we're at. I

12:27

know that was it France, we there's about

12:30

sixty react. I think fifty six fifty six reactors.

12:32

We know in the UK, I think it's about three. And then

12:34

what's the size of the fleet here in the US? Ninety

12:36

two. Ninety two. I like the fact they call it a

12:38

fleet. We've heard a lot about

12:41

the difficulty in trying to get new

12:43

nuclear plants commissioned,

12:46

and also built. It takes a long

12:48

time. What impact has that

12:50

had in terms of the current

12:52

fleet? Is it aging

12:54

to the point that some of these need decommissioning.

12:56

What was the current state? Is it the flag? So

12:59

reactors in the United States were originally licensed

13:01

for forty years. And then

13:03

all of them almost all of them have been

13:05

extended to sixty years. And

13:08

some of them, and more and more

13:10

will be extended out to eighty years.

13:13

So we're gonna operate the fleet here for

13:15

the most part out to eighty years.

13:18

And then what we've seen

13:20

over time is there was some

13:22

shutdowns, premature shutdowns, we call

13:24

them, for economic reasons. So

13:26

in certain areas, dealing with

13:29

wind and solar, and transmission

13:31

constraints created some economic challenges

13:33

for them. That dynamics shifted

13:35

a bit now and what

13:37

we're seeing here in the United States is the fleet

13:40

is going strong. We

13:42

operate twenty fourseven, three sixty

13:44

five and

13:46

we operate for eighteen to twenty

13:48

four months before we shut down for refueling.

13:50

And many of the plants will operate what we

13:53

call breaker to breaker. So from

13:55

the time they start up, to the time they

13:57

shut down, they're pretty much running at full

13:59

power or close to full power.

14:02

So what's about refueling? So refueling,

14:04

when we shut down a reactor, we take

14:07

out about a third of the core right now for the

14:09

existing fleet and then

14:11

put that in a spent fuel pool, so basically

14:14

large pool of water. Sits there for a while,

14:16

few years and then we move it into a dry cask

14:18

storage system.

14:20

Yeah, Jared and Jared brought up

14:22

yesterday that in the smaller newer

14:24

reactors of these these generation four.

14:27

Mhmm. That is possibility that

14:29

you can take these fuel rods from

14:31

the

14:32

old kind of agent fleet, and they can still

14:34

be used in the newer design. Yeah. So

14:37

let me talk about what we're doing at Okla first.

14:39

Yeah. Tell me. So Our machine,

14:41

as I said, is a liquid metal fast reactor.

14:43

So it's designed to

14:47

stay operational for a couple decades.

14:49

Without refueling. So for one, extending

14:51

out that time between when you need to refuel.

14:54

Just how long does a refueling process

14:56

take? So for the fleet,

14:58

they can get it done. I'd

15:00

say on average about thirty days. Okay.

15:03

Why bring in a lot of people in

15:06

to supplement the workforce they

15:08

lay out everything they need to do and

15:10

they go with it.

15:11

What happens during that thirty days in

15:13

terms of is there no power coming from? That's

15:16

correct. Okay. So you have to plan

15:18

additional elsewhere power --

15:20

Yeah. -- for the grid. Yeah. And they do most

15:22

of the here in the

15:24

United States, most of the refueling occur

15:26

in the spring or the fall. So you don't need

15:28

the air conditioners and you don't need the heaters. Correct?

15:31

Yeah. Yeah. You tend not to do it in middle

15:33

of summertime. Okay. Sorry. I thought that

15:35

you care about it. Yeah. So for us, you

15:37

were just talking about reusing of, you

15:39

know, commercial fuel. So one of the things we

15:42

are planning to do is recycling. So

15:44

we're planning to take some of that spent fuel

15:46

coming out of the existing fleet and

15:49

then recycle it and use it as

15:51

feedstock fuel for our reactors.

15:54

And then eventually, we'll also recycle the

15:56

fuel coming out of our reactors. So

15:58

we have that capability with

16:00

a It's,

16:02

as I said, we have a fast reactor so that

16:04

has the capability to

16:07

reuse that fuel in an efficient way.

16:09

Does that change the volume of

16:11

the nuclear waste or just the makeup of

16:13

it? A little bit of both. So

16:16

it changes the makeup of it in the sense

16:18

of what you end up disposing of now are

16:20

just what we call fission products. So

16:22

right now when spent fuel comes out of

16:24

a reactor it has in it

16:27

uranium, plutonium, actinides,

16:29

which are higher level elements that has

16:32

the fission products. When

16:34

we do the recycling, we're going to keep

16:36

the major actinides and the

16:39

transuranics together, along

16:42

with uranium and the plutonium, and so what will

16:44

be left as fission products. So it does

16:46

change the makeup of it a bit, and

16:49

it does reduce

16:51

the amount of waste. Right. Okay.

16:54

So going back to the current

16:56

fleet -- Mhmm. -- a lot was made of

16:58

in California that think is Gavin

17:00

Newsom wanted to shut down like their

17:02

last reactor, the upper end of the year,

17:04

and they haven't? That's correct. So

17:06

was the reason to

17:08

close it down, not so much that it was aging or was

17:11

that more of a political reason? And

17:13

you would say this what you say this reactor is absolutely

17:15

fine, Karen, for another twenty years. Yeah.

17:17

In fact, it it is for sure.

17:19

They're planning to keep it operational for at least another

17:22

five years beyond the lifetime. I

17:24

would hope that that would go for further

17:26

than that. But yes, that plan is

17:28

perfectly capable continuing to operate.

17:30

And that's a political political

17:33

reasons over there that

17:36

kind of California's it's

17:39

an internal issue. You

17:40

must bang your head against the wall though. Think

17:42

what are you doing?

17:45

It's, yeah, it's frustrating, but

17:47

sometimes looking at how decisions are made.

17:50

But

17:50

that's true very well. Do

17:52

these older reactors, is there any

17:54

issue with recruitment of

17:56

staffs like human resource? Or is there plenty

17:58

of people wanting to come in the industry? So

18:01

that's a good question too. We,

18:04

the industry as a whole, does a lot of work

18:06

in terms of training workforce. And

18:08

we interface with local

18:10

colleges, community colleges, things like

18:13

that. To help make sure that we have programs

18:15

in place to train the people we need.

18:17

Now as we go forward and we build out

18:19

more and more reactors in the United States, which I

18:22

certainly hope we will do, and

18:24

expect that we will do workforce is

18:26

gonna be an issue. We're gonna need to

18:28

get more people trained up to operate

18:30

the reactors. Construction workforce

18:33

is a big deal. I mean, the amount of infrastructure

18:36

that we are all going to need to build out is just going

18:38

to be enormous. So we

18:41

think there could be, for example,

18:43

in the United States, upwards of a hundred and

18:45

sixty gigawatts of new nuclear built

18:47

between now and twenty fifty. That's

18:50

an enormous amount of number

18:52

of machines. What does that compare to the current

18:54

fleet? So current fleet is about ninety

18:57

gigawatts. What's that about a hundred and fifty

18:59

percent, a hundred and sixty percent increase? Uh-huh. Yeah.

19:02

Wow. Okay. And

19:04

in terms of the skills, what you said to say

19:06

for construction, but are those specialist

19:08

construction

19:09

skills? Some yes, some no,

19:11

you know. It depends. And so what

19:13

we're seeing with some of the newer reactor designs

19:15

like ours, We're moving into smaller

19:17

machines that are going to be easier to build,

19:20

easier to construct and not be

19:23

these mega projects. So

19:25

down in Georgia, we're building, completing,

19:27

I should say, two reactors, Vogtle

19:29

three and four. They're a Westinghouse

19:32

AP1000 plants fabulous

19:34

plants. So currently AP1000s are currently

19:36

operating in China. What

19:39

southern company should be bringing online these

19:41

two plants this year? Down there.

19:44

But they are mega projects, huge

19:46

projects, huge construction projects.

19:49

And that's a challenge in the United States.

19:51

So what you're seeing with small modular reactors,

19:53

all advanced advanced reactor companies are looking

19:56

at smaller machines that it'll be easier

19:58

to

19:58

construct, move as much

20:00

of that fabrications we can back into

20:02

a factory setting, and then just

20:04

ship stuff to the site and install

20:06

it. Well, will it almost

20:08

be the case that multiple

20:12

locations can have almost identical reactors?

20:15

They should. Yes. They should.

20:16

Yeah. In fact, the Vogtle three and four, so you're gonna

20:19

see down there in Georgia. At the Vogtle

20:21

plant, they have currently two reactors operating then

20:23

three or four of one hundred percent

20:24

identical. Wow. Okay. So

20:27

when you I mean, you

20:29

you said earlier that you worked for the

20:31

the trade association -- I did. -- previously.

20:33

Yes. Yeah. The green lobbyists have

20:35

been very effective at scaring people

20:38

off of nuclear energy. I mean,

20:41

especially in Europe. I mean, Germany

20:43

tried to shut

20:44

down, I think, their last three reactors, they've had to keep

20:46

them going.

20:48

Where do you think the nuclear

20:50

industry itself has failed encountering

20:53

their arguments because

20:55

from everyone I've spoken to, Actually,

20:58

the green mobius should probably be

21:00

pronuclear because nuclear is

21:03

the best opportunity we have to decarbonize.

21:06

You're seeing a lot right now over

21:08

the last few years, you know, not few

21:10

anymore, last five to ten years, a

21:12

big shift. With climate change

21:15

and carbon reduction being the key info

21:17

key challenge

21:21

You're seeing a lot of support for nuclear now,

21:23

especially in the United States with a number

21:25

of the other organizations out there.

21:27

So I think

21:29

the momentum behind nuclear is growing more

21:31

and more with climate change.

21:34

So I think we're in a very good path

21:37

moving forward to build out a lot more

21:39

nuclear to to provide that

21:41

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24:02

So

24:02

you feel like there is like changing time.

24:04

Always changed. The tide has changed.

24:06

I mean, we're seeing a lot of activity

24:09

going on in the United States. We've seen

24:11

with Congress here. Bipartisan

24:14

bills passed, huge support

24:17

from the government in well, just

24:19

in the last two years, there was a bipartisan

24:22

the infrastructure act -- Yeah. -- infrastructure

24:25

bill and then the inflation reduction act that was

24:27

just passed last year. So the inflation --

24:29

infrastructure bill was previous year. Both

24:32

of those provide a huge support for nuclear

24:34

as well as other renewable sources,

24:37

production tax credits and things like that.

24:39

And here in the United States, we have

24:41

a program. The Department of Energy

24:43

has a program called the Advanced Factor demonstration

24:46

program, which was funded

24:48

by Congress, and you're seeing

24:51

two reactors that are gonna be demonstrated

24:53

by two thousand and thirty, one in Wyoming,

24:55

one in Washington State, by

24:58

companies' terra power in Wyoming

25:00

and X Energy in Washington State. Then

25:03

you see private entities like ours, Oakland,

25:05

developing a reactor. We plan to have ours

25:07

operational at Idaho National Laboratory

25:10

in twenty twenty six. And then

25:13

there's number of other companies developing

25:15

reactors that are gonna be operational here in the

25:18

US before two thousand and thirty. And these

25:20

are new designs. Okay.

25:22

We're gonna get into that. The was

25:25

it hundred and sixty gigawatt you said that was gonna

25:27

come on? That's what an estimate is. So

25:29

we the nuclear industry,

25:32

MEI went out and talked to its member companies

25:35

and got an estimate of about ninety gigawatts

25:37

of new nuclear. That could be deployed

25:39

between now and twenty fifty. There's been

25:41

some other estimates as high as hundred and

25:43

three hundred gigawatts of new nuclear.

25:45

And so hundred and six year. So it's kind of a

25:47

round number. But, you know, these are estimates.

25:50

Yeah. They're not very accurate. Yeah.

25:52

But the point is, you're

25:54

seeing a lot of interest in building out

25:56

new nuclear

25:58

in addition to the fleet, which ultimately will

26:00

have to be replaced. Yeah. And just to give

26:02

the listeners some perspective and understanding

26:04

myself as well, a hundred and sixty

26:07

gigawatt. When you say that

26:08

number, Is that a daily amount, an

26:10

annual amount? Oh, so when I

26:12

say gigawatts, that's the amount of power being produced

26:15

instantly. So it's the

26:17

amount of power that's coming out of the

26:19

plant. At a constant Right. Right.

26:21

Yeah. Okay. And so to give us an

26:23

idea perspective, What is the

26:25

kind of the amount about that

26:27

American

26:28

needs? Kind of amount

26:30

of energy it needs to be produced? Okay.

26:33

So I said that right

26:35

now, the fleet in the United States produces

26:37

about ninety gigawatts of power.

26:39

Yep. We currently supply

26:42

about nineteen percent to twenty percent of the

26:44

electricity in the U. S. So

26:46

of the U. S. Electricity consumption,

26:49

nineteen to twenty percent of that's nuclear so

26:51

you can kind of do the math that's about

26:53

four fifty

26:54

Yeah. -- or

26:54

something like that probably. Interesting. There

26:58

has been a big decline in

27:00

investment in nuclear over the last couple

27:03

of decades, maybe not just now, but there had been a period

27:05

of decline. In

27:07

terms of regulation, how

27:11

much did that call? How much did that

27:13

contribute to the kind of decline in

27:15

investment? And is regulation

27:18

changing to help with

27:20

new directors coming online? Because and

27:22

and and again, more of

27:24

a broader question. Is the regulation

27:27

now still too

27:28

tight? Well, I'm not going to say it's too tight. It's

27:31

you need strong regulations to,

27:33

you know, we have a very robust regulatory system

27:36

in United States, a very safe operating

27:38

fleet in the United States. And that's

27:40

a joint effort between the regulator and the

27:42

industry. Okay. Now where the challenge

27:45

comes in is becoming efficient in

27:48

doing the regulatory procedures, licensing

27:50

new reactors efficiently, giving

27:53

credit where credit is due for new designs

27:56

that are more inherently safe than

27:58

the existing fleet. The

28:00

investment right now in new nuclear

28:02

is enormous. It's hard

28:04

for me to comment about previous

28:07

investment. But right now, the investment

28:09

going on in new nuclear is just enormous.

28:12

And the regulator is

28:15

trying to get prepared there's more work to be

28:17

done there, to become more efficient there.

28:20

And to me, I'm convinced

28:22

that each of the designs out there,

28:24

ours and the others will be able to

28:26

be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

28:28

in the U. S. And in fact,

28:31

there's an application in front of

28:33

in RC right now that they're

28:35

going to finish up in about twenty four months.

28:38

So it's for a test reactor, not a commercial

28:40

reactor. So I'm convinced the NRC

28:42

can do it. Now where the challenge comes in

28:45

down the road is talking about

28:47

that hundred and sixty gigawatts

28:49

or so you know, you're looking at

28:51

three hundred more. Three hundred

28:53

reactors are more that need to be built and that's

28:55

just for electricity. How

28:58

does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

29:00

get efficient to be able to do

29:02

that many machines? How

29:04

does the Regulatory System throughout

29:06

the world be able to

29:08

become efficient enough to license

29:11

the number of machines that we need

29:13

to do to actually combat

29:15

climate change.

29:16

Yeah. So what are the parts of the

29:18

regulatory system that perhaps

29:20

slowed things down? Is it finding

29:22

locations? Is it the What

29:25

what would slow thing? You say it has to kind of like

29:27

you're almost saying it has to modernize. Yeah.

29:30

Yeah. So right now,

29:32

reviews take twenty four to thirty six

29:34

months depending on the

29:38

type of design that's out there. And

29:41

that's a review of the design of

29:43

the reactor. Correct.

29:44

If if that is approved, would it

29:46

still a nuke location has to be

29:48

reviewed again even if it's Well, so this

29:50

is part of what needs to be looked at is

29:53

can we do things more efficiently? Yeah. Environmental

29:55

issues are obviously AAA valid

29:57

concern everywhere. Yeah. You need to look

29:59

at the appropriate environmental things, but can

30:01

you streamline that effort, especially as

30:03

you get down to smaller machines. Can

30:06

you streamline the environmental reviews?

30:08

Can you streamline the

30:10

safety reviews for subsequent machines.

30:13

So, you know, you license the first one,

30:15

then you do the second one, third, one, fourth,

30:17

one, fifth, one, tenth, one, how can

30:20

we take advantage of what we've already

30:22

done in a very efficient

30:24

way?

30:24

Yeah. Because two to three years for

30:27

the license is a long time.

30:28

It is. It would seem ludicrous if if

30:30

you're creating the IKEA of nuclear reactors

30:33

to actually go through that

30:34

again. What do you know how long it takes months that

30:36

they find a location? So

30:39

we tend to run so let me come out this

30:41

way. If we look at

30:43

the advanced factor demonstration program, that

30:46

DOE is putting in this is a very efficient program.

30:49

So the

30:52

two companies were chosen in twenty twenty.

30:54

They plan to be operational in twenty twenty seven,

30:56

twenty twenty eight, or by twenty thirty.

30:59

So you tend to look at about a decade

31:01

from the time you say go with

31:04

us and have a site

31:06

to the time you have a reactor up and running.

31:08

And that's going to be reduced quite a bit. I

31:10

mean, we're hoping we

31:13

believe our reactor again.

31:15

And we're designing, by the way, I should have said

31:17

this earlier. We're designing machines

31:19

that are up to fifteen megawatt electric

31:22

whereas the Vogtle plants are like eleven

31:24

hundred megawatt electric. So we're

31:26

designing small

31:27

machines. We believe we can build

31:29

those in about a year. Okay.

31:31

So just when

31:34

you say when you got go on the site, but

31:37

but I'm I kinda wanna understand the entire

31:40

time scale. So say a

31:42

city is considering a

31:44

new new reactor and and they have to find

31:46

a

31:46

site. So it's almost just from the point of going, okay,

31:48

we want to react to is that is it then

31:51

fifteen years or is it twelve years?

31:53

No. It's So you're gonna have

31:56

to you say you wanna react. Okay.

31:58

Then you have to find a site. That's

32:00

probably not gonna take too long to do. Because

32:02

you'll have you'll know what the

32:05

infrastructure is you'll look at things

32:07

like transmission, distribution, stuff

32:09

like that, how you're going to connect it up to the grid.

32:12

So you find your site, then you'll have to prepare

32:14

the license application that goes into NRC.

32:16

So you pick up the company that already

32:18

has a design, you still have to prepare license

32:21

application to go into the NRC. That's

32:23

probably a year, a year and a half. Then

32:25

from there, you go on and put

32:28

it in front of NRC. You're looking two to three

32:30

years now. Hopefully, two years

32:32

or less to get that done. Then

32:34

you start construction depending on the

32:36

plant design something like ours. You're looking

32:38

at about a year. Others, you could be looking

32:40

two to four years. So you can see

32:43

how that time from

32:43

Yeah. I see it goes out. Yeah.

32:48

It would I guess that would be AAA different

32:50

constraint on you if they streamlined everything

32:53

and they could. Move

32:55

to the point where they give you the nod and reactor

32:57

can be up in a year. If you

33:00

suddenly got an order yourself or, like, ten

33:02

to fifteen of them. How do you, as a

33:04

company, resource

33:05

up? There would there would be constraints on

33:07

the company themselves. Well, of but

33:09

it's not like you're gonna have this instantaneously. You're

33:11

gonna see it coming. So we're we're engaged

33:14

with multiple potential customers out

33:16

there. And looking at what their needs are

33:19

and understanding it. So but

33:21

to your point, we all have to

33:24

scale up as necessary

33:26

to be able to deliver the

33:27

machines. And that's gonna be that's a challenge for

33:29

the industry as a whole. But we do know

33:31

when there is a need, governments can scale

33:34

when they suddenly require a

33:36

vaccine or they suddenly require masks

33:39

or they suddenly require the aviation

33:41

industry to shut down, like, we

33:43

have seen governments react very quickly

33:46

to a pressing need. Now if

33:48

the government believes there is pressing need,

33:50

to decarbonize the atmosphere, then

33:54

I think the incentive there is to

33:55

happen. The incentive, that would

33:57

help there's a huge incentive

33:59

right now for private companies to move

34:01

forward. And private companies, I think,

34:04

can scale up faster than the government can.

34:06

Cool. And, you know,

34:08

companies like ours are doing that. What you're

34:10

also seeing and this is where it gets kind of

34:13

interesting is for a second. So

34:15

we've been talking about electricity generation.

34:17

So nuclear can do more than just electricity.

34:20

Okay? So you're looking at chemical

34:22

industries, oil industries that

34:24

need a lot of processed heat. So

34:27

right now, they create process heat, process

34:29

heat to basically steam. High temperature

34:31

steam. They do that by

34:33

burning fossil fuels, natural gas, for example.

34:36

Well, they need to decarbonize, so

34:38

they're gonna have to move to something else. And

34:42

to do that, to create process steam,

34:44

process heat, you're not gonna be able to really

34:47

use wind or solar. So nuclear's a great

34:49

opportunity there. Last year,

34:51

Dow Chemical made an announcement

34:53

that it's teaming up with X Energy to

34:56

do a X Energy reactor.

34:58

To do process heat for them. And

35:01

so they're looking at solving their

35:05

carbon emissions challenges. With

35:07

nuclear. And you're seeing it on other industries

35:10

as well.

35:11

There's one question I've been asked about nuclear

35:14

before. Kinda comes to mind right now when you

35:16

talk about the the reactors

35:18

producing steam. Does this mean the reactors

35:20

have a high demand for water

35:22

or is the steam

35:23

recycled? So

35:25

right now, the way electricity is done,

35:28

you have water that flows

35:30

through with the existing fleet. You

35:32

have water that flows through the reactor, it gets heated

35:35

up, it goes through a steam generator. It

35:37

creates steam. So you have water, cold

35:39

water that comes into the steam generator, it gets

35:41

heated up by the water from the reactor, turns

35:43

the steam, goes to the turbine, rotates

35:46

the turbine, you get electricity, then

35:48

that water is cooled back down, that

35:50

steam's cooled back down into water.

35:52

So those two loops, if you

35:54

will, are closed. We

35:57

do use a body of water, a lake,

35:59

river, or cooling towers, for example,

36:02

to do that condensing. Back

36:04

condense that steam back to water.

36:07

Some of the newer designs can

36:10

use what we call air use

36:14

air, forced air to do that

36:16

condensation. So the water usage

36:18

can be actually quite minimal. Okay.

36:20

Is

36:20

that why they're often by the sea? Yes.

36:23

That's a lot of cases because you have

36:25

to have some sort of way to condense that

36:27

steam back around the water. So they

36:29

need to be near a body of water or how a cooling

36:32

tower, which of course still needs to have water

36:34

associated with it. Yeah. But as I said,

36:36

we're looking at new scale, for example,

36:39

is gonna build a reactor out of Idaho National

36:41

Laboratory and that's gonna

36:43

use air to condense

36:45

the steam back to water. And

36:47

so they'll and out west here in the US,

36:50

water consumption is a huge issue.

36:52

Yes. I mean, it's it's a big issue for

36:54

every place in the world, but for us, it's a

36:57

major problem. Was because the

37:00

size of the country, the amount of people live in land,

37:02

the amount of people live quite a distance from

37:05

water resources. Right. And we've

37:07

seen, you know, the Colorado River is running

37:09

very, very low. So we've

37:11

got some huge challenges Okay.

37:15

Let's learn a little bit more about these

37:18

fast reactors that you've talked about. In terms

37:20

of land

37:21

space, because you say they're, you know, they're

37:23

much smaller. In

37:25

terms

37:25

of land space, how much do they need and

37:27

what is that in comparison to a traditional reactor?

37:30

Well, so depends on the size of reactor. So

37:33

our reactor, which I said, is up to about fifteen

37:36

megawatt electric. We're looking at less than

37:38

a half an acre to build the plant on,

37:40

so not much. The Vogtle

37:42

three and four plants, which are eleven hundred gigawatt

37:44

electric. I don't know how many acres they

37:46

need, but it's not a great deal, certainly

37:49

not compared to say the amount

37:51

of land you would need for comparable wind

37:54

or solar. Of course. Yeah. Is

37:56

there restrictions about how close you

37:58

can be to homes and

38:00

That all comes into the environmental considerations.

38:03

So there's no firm restrictions on

38:05

how close you can be. So research

38:07

reactors at universities are

38:10

sitting in cities. In many

38:12

cases.

38:13

They didn't even they hadn't even thought about

38:14

research reaction. Oh, yeah. They are they're there.

38:17

But I guess, I mean, guess if it's safe for

38:19

people to work at these, Mhmm. Is there

38:21

any increased risk to somebody working? No.

38:24

Zero? No.

38:26

Yeah. So if you don't work there, you can live there. I

38:28

mean, some people won't want to live there one.

38:30

Yeah, because they they've been most

38:32

of the records in the United States have tend

38:34

to be built in less

38:37

populated areas. But

38:39

that's not gonna be the case necessarily

38:41

moving forward.

38:41

Okay. So

38:42

in terms your design, it goes up to

38:44

fifteen We're up to fifteen megawatt electric.

38:47

Do you have a single design that has a range

38:49

of output can do or is it multiple

38:51

designs? So right now, we're focusing

38:54

on kind of a single design

38:55

but, you know, you're looking at what the customer

38:58

wants. We're looking at what

38:59

the market needs. What does fifteen

39:01

megawatts mean? Like, how many people can that provide

39:03

powerful? Well, so the average home in

39:05

the United States uses about

39:08

one point two kilowatts. So

39:11

fifteen, you know, fifteen megawatts,

39:13

I'd have to do the math because I'm not so

39:15

what? Fifteen megawatts,

39:17

fifteen thousand divided by one point

39:20

two. So somewhere in the neighborhood of

39:22

ten to fifteen thousand homes.

39:24

Okay. So you

39:26

need multiple in average city?

39:29

Yeah. So we're not necessarily

39:32

our our reactor is not necessarily gonna

39:34

be used to power a large

39:36

city. Our reactor is

39:38

gonna be used by different customers that

39:41

need something. So let's take Bitcoin

39:43

as good example. You

39:46

have and I'm gonna refer to them generically

39:48

as data centers because it's computationally

39:50

intensive. So you have a certain

39:53

amount of power that you need there.

39:55

Reactors like ours could potentially supply

39:57

all of that power that you need.

40:01

Data centers need varying

40:03

amounts of power. And so depending on

40:05

the company and what they're desires are and

40:07

what their needs are. The reactor

40:10

like ours could fit that. Also smaller

40:12

locations where

40:14

you may remote

40:16

locations, for example, where you bring in diesel

40:19

fuel that use small power,

40:22

less power could be

40:24

powered by us.

40:26

Military bases are another good example.

40:28

Okay. So your customers aren't really

40:31

it seems like your service in more the private

40:33

sector. And you would suit

40:35

maybe Google could be a customer. Absolutely.

40:38

Something like that. So we're so

40:41

you have the large utilities like

40:44

southern company that's building the two vocal plants.

40:46

So they provide power to, you

40:48

know, everyone as a whole. You're seeing

40:50

a lot of companies now that want to

40:53

look at securing their own power. And

40:56

so not be relying upon the

40:58

grid. You're seeing the Department

41:00

of Defense thinking about that for air military

41:02

bases as well. So not being relying

41:05

upon the grid, being self sustaining, and

41:08

companies like ours with our fifteen megawatt

41:10

reactor could provide that

41:11

power. And guess someone like Tesla who have

41:13

moved to Texas. We yeah. That was

41:15

a big issue in Texas.

41:17

A year ago was it? No. A

41:19

couple of years ago. A couple of years ago, you're talking

41:21

about the winter storm.

41:22

Yeah. So guess that we said, well, we could

41:24

de risk this for us. Mhmm. Is

41:28

it cost effective for them as well? So

41:33

our machine is going to be able to be cost

41:35

effective relative to what's currently provided.

41:37

So we also are approaching this from a

41:39

unique perspective of a build own

41:41

rate model. So we're gonna build the reactors,

41:44

operate them, and then sell power.

41:46

That's a little bit different than the other companies.

41:48

But at the end of the day, all of the companies,

41:50

nuclear companies are developing machines that

41:52

will be cost

41:53

effective. So say if it was a Tesla,

41:55

they wouldn't buy the reactor for me. They

41:57

would buy the power

41:58

output from the reactor for In our

42:00

case, in another case, they

42:02

would probably buy could

42:05

buy the power directly from somebody

42:07

else, and they have another

42:09

person that operates a reactor.

42:12

Can you talk about how much one of these

42:14

cost to construct? No,

42:16

not really. It's hard

42:18

for me to answer that question at the moment.

42:21

Like I've got zero. I don't know if we

42:23

talk about a hundred million really intended in.

42:25

So for something like small

42:30

reactors, micro

42:32

reactors as they're called, you know, less than

42:34

fifty megawatt electric, you're

42:37

gonna be looking in the hundreds of

42:39

millions. We should get one

42:40

then. Something like something

42:43

like the Vogtle plants

42:45

are in the billions. These are

42:47

private nuclear reactors for private

42:49

businesses. Does anything like this exists

42:51

now or is everything just large scale reactors

42:53

provided the grid? Right now in

42:55

the United States is large scale reactors

42:57

providing the grid. You have

43:00

a lot of research reactors, small reactors

43:02

that are operating at universities and

43:04

that laboratories. We do, of

43:06

course, the military, the Navy has

43:08

micro reactors that are powering its

43:11

ships, aircraft carriers, and submarines.

43:13

Yeah. It's fascinating. It's it's a whole

43:15

new business model. Mhmm. It is.

43:18

Well, and and you're seeing this because

43:20

of you know, the climate conversation,

43:23

the climate change, the urgency associated

43:25

with that is driving companies

43:28

to look at new solutions. They need to

43:30

decarbonize their operations. The

43:33

oil sector needs to decarbonize its

43:35

operations. There's still gonna be a need for oil

43:37

going forward. No doubt about

43:39

that, but they need to decarbonize

43:41

the manner in which they extract that oil

43:43

out of the ground and they process it. And so

43:46

nuclear can do that too. Yeah. I mean, we

43:48

still need oil for planes. But if we can get

43:50

to a point where we're not burning oil

43:51

for, you're still gonna need it for things

43:54

like plastics and stuff like Yeah.

43:56

But

43:56

think it's getting away from burning

43:59

oil to power the grid. Mhmm. That

44:01

kind

44:01

of thing

44:01

seems very wasteful. Well, and there's not

44:03

oil mean, to be honest,

44:06

oil's not used a great deal for power in the grid,

44:08

certainly not in the

44:09

US. I mean, that's coal, natural

44:11

gas, wind, salt, or hydro,

44:13

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46:49

dot I0I guess if we get

46:51

I get away from coal as well, natural

46:53

gas. Coal is dropping. Natural

46:56

gas is so right now in the U.

46:58

S. Twenty percent of the electricity is

47:00

nuclear. About twenty percent of its

47:02

renewables, and that's a combination of

47:06

this is the UK. I don't there may be something like this

47:08

for the US, but I don't know. Yeah, there is.

47:10

So you're looking let

47:12

me see here. Eighteen

47:14

percent is other sources. So

47:16

you're thirteen percent nuclear forty

47:18

seven percent renewables. So in the US, we're

47:22

twenty percent renewables, twenty percent

47:24

nuclear, and then the remainder is

47:26

split between coal and natural

47:28

gas. We've got a lot of transfers there as

47:30

well, though. So, I guess, probably, this different France is nuclear,

47:32

you'd imagine. Yeah. Yeah. And

47:34

for us, we don't we do import. So,

47:37

States like New York will import from

47:39

Canada, but for the most

47:41

part, we generate what we have. I

47:43

mean, thirteen percent nuclear. What

47:48

would the definition of the renewable

47:50

be? No waste?

47:53

I

47:53

mean, I don't know what that would be, and especially

47:55

not in in their context. I don't know what they mean.

47:58

Well, so renewables

48:00

have a tendency to mean wind solar,

48:03

hydroelectric or maybe even biomass.

48:06

It's unfortunate. Nuclear is

48:08

carbon free just like those

48:10

other energy sources are. Yeah. We should

48:13

all be treated the same. And what we're seeing

48:15

in the United States now is finally, you're

48:17

seeing legislation like the Inflation

48:19

Reduction Act that treat all of them the same.

48:21

So looking at production tax credits that

48:24

cover clean energy sources, not

48:26

renewables. See, some would argue

48:28

it's not clean because of the nuclear waves

48:30

which we'll get to, but This is actually a good

48:32

way to put in context to gigawatt hours because

48:35

the current amount in the UK is forty gig.

48:37

So it's like five times power of the UK

48:39

demand right now will be coming online in nuclear.

48:41

Is that right?

48:44

No. times. Four times. So you're

48:46

so your demand is thirty gigawatt, forty gigawatts.

48:49

And I said right now in the U. S. We're

48:51

generating about ninety gigawatts with nuclear.

48:53

Right. So we're generating considerably

48:55

more than what your country needs as a

48:57

whole. Yeah. But but I think

49:01

I think chance like this are misleading. I

49:03

think chance like this are not helping us because

49:05

the term renewable I

49:08

mean, don't know how if you could argue

49:10

that nuclear is renewable, but maybe you could

49:12

certainly argue renewables green. You can

49:14

definitely argue zero carbon. And I think

49:16

that would be better. Fossil fuel or

49:19

carbon, zero carbon. What

49:21

would what would biomass because it's that low carbon?

49:24

Or is that just I really don't

49:25

know. Well, I think they I'm

49:27

not an expert on it, but I think the idea

49:29

is you

49:31

have material biomass

49:34

material that had captured carbon

49:37

And then when you burn it, you're releasing

49:39

carbon. So you're neutral. Right.

49:41

Carbon neutral.

49:42

Yeah. So you probably just wanna have carbon,

49:46

zero carbon. No. I did. I don't know. It just

49:48

it needs to be less a this is a motive.

49:51

It's fossil fuels is a is a motive because

49:54

they've been demonized.

49:57

Renewables is a motive because

49:59

it's like it's it's for

50:02

environmentalists. And

50:05

other sources is just like is confused. Whereas

50:08

if this was a practical, like

50:10

a practical chart based on the

50:12

goals of deep carbonizing

50:15

the world, then you would just want to say,

50:18

you just want to separate them from carbon. Carbon

50:21

negative well, yeah, carbon to

50:24

zero carbon. Right? Yeah. Agree.

50:26

Yeah. And and within that, you could

50:28

do different designations because you're seeing right now

50:31

also moving away from coal to natural gas

50:33

is that's a carbon reduction.

50:36

So natural gas tends to be less carbon

50:38

emitting than coal does.

50:39

Yeah. It's just somebody just needs to do better

50:42

job with this. You know, he'd be good at that. That

50:44

Alex Epstein guy. He'd

50:46

be pretty good at that. And those transfers, you

50:48

kinda wanna know, but wonder how much that

50:50

transfer has gone

50:51

out. Is this is there any time scale to this? Can

50:53

you see this is live? don't know.

50:55

Oh, here

50:55

you go. Passweek. Well, let's do pressure here.

50:57

I'll pass the note in. So I wanna

50:59

see transfers over the

51:01

past year.

51:03

So

51:03

we've actually given power to France over last year.

51:06

Yeah. Nice interesting. Yeah.

51:08

Transfer okay. So go to that transfers

51:10

chart. What's the what's the red line on that?

51:12

France.

51:13

Yeah. Look at that. And then so maybe that's

51:15

when the nuclear

51:16

fleet was being repaired. Yeah.

51:18

They did have a number of shutdowns. I think

51:20

that's for maintenance. But

51:21

so we've send them power to France and then look at that

51:23

red light. Shoot that shoot up right at the

51:25

end of the year, Denny. But that's probably when I guess then

51:27

nuclear came back online. It's I would imagine it's

51:30

the cheapest place to get transfers from Pearson

51:32

closed. Yes. But it's also at the end of the

51:34

year where we -- everything changed.

51:36

That's what? November twenty twenty two where

51:38

where's that lowest

51:40

dip? November twenty two? Yep.

51:42

End of November. From November twenty two

51:44

to where's the peak?

51:47

End of the year? Yeah.

51:48

I mean, I don't think that's a coincidence. I don't think

51:50

that's I think that's that requirement that we somebody

51:53

had.

51:54

Interesting. So

51:57

can you tell me a little bit about

51:59

and this is more for my own fascination.

52:03

How a reactor works? How does it

52:05

do its job? Sure. So

52:07

you have reactors use

52:10

uranium. And uranium

52:12

when you when you dig it out of the ground,

52:14

it has primarily two we call isotopes,

52:17

two versions of uranium. One called uranium

52:19

two thirty five, one called uranium two thirty eight.

52:22

Uranium two thirty five is point

52:24

seven percent of the

52:26

uranium when you dig it out of the ground. So

52:28

we need to enrich that, increase

52:30

the amount of u two thirty five. So

52:32

for a reactor like ours, we need to take it up

52:34

to about twenty percent u two

52:36

thirty five. The remainder being

52:39

u two thirty eight. In simple terms.

52:41

The fleet currently takes it up to about

52:43

five percent and then the remainder's

52:46

u two thirty eight. K? How do you do that?

52:48

How do you enrich it? So when

52:50

you dig it out of the ground, I'll start from scratch. When

52:52

you dig it out of the ground, it ends

52:55

up in a form called yellow cake. You may have

52:57

heard that sound. Yeah. And that's because

52:59

it basically looks like yellow powder. Then

53:02

you ship that off to what we call a conversion

53:04

facility where you take it and you convert

53:07

it into a gas called uranium hexafluoride,

53:10

then you take that gas and you send

53:12

it to an enrichment facility. Which

53:15

typically uses centrifuges. So

53:18

a salad spinner like you would have at home

53:21

to, you know, get the water out. Basically,

53:23

that's what it centrifuges. You run the gas

53:25

in, it spins it really fast, and

53:28

then the heavier atoms like

53:30

the u two thirty eight, and the difference is

53:32

minimal between two thirty eight and two thirty

53:34

five, three neutrons, but it'll

53:36

move to the outside a little bit and you can

53:38

separate out and then you can enrich

53:40

up the u two thirty

53:42

five. So basically,

53:44

a giant salad spinner, if you will, centrifuge.

53:46

And and is the uranium dangers when it's mined?

53:48

No. No. No.

53:51

Not from a not from a radiation perspective.

53:53

No. Not at all. No. How do they

53:55

figure this out? See that yellow stuff

53:57

in the ground. If we spin it in the center

53:59

fuse. We can use it to make nuclear energy.

54:02

It's yeah. It's impressive. And

54:06

so then we take it after this. And Rich, we

54:08

take it to a fuel fabrication facility and we

54:10

create fuel assemblies. So fuel assemblies

54:12

are basically we'll

54:14

have fuel pellets, so we'll have

54:17

little pellets of uranium

54:19

dioxide in tubes

54:22

of metal, zirconoid tubes. You

54:24

take a bunch of those tubes and they're at the end of

54:26

the day about the size of a pencil, a little bit bigger

54:28

than a pencil. You put a bunch of those tubes

54:30

together in what we call an assembly, so

54:33

a square assembly with a bunch of tubes

54:35

in them, and then put those on the

54:37

reactor. Now in the reactor, what

54:39

happens is you have

54:41

neutrons that will hit the uranium

54:44

two thirty five atom and

54:46

then split it, fission it. So

54:48

the uranium two thirty five atom will split into

54:50

two pieces, two or three two pieces

54:53

and you'll get off of it two or

54:55

three neutrons that come out. And

54:57

then what you need is one of those neutrons

54:59

to go on and split another

55:02

uranium two thirty five atom to create

55:04

that chain reaction. And

55:06

that's called that's the fission

55:08

process. And so when

55:10

that happens, then as

55:13

it fission's, it creates a lot of heat.

55:15

The heat is what heats up the water.

55:18

So the uranium dioxide pellets

55:20

in the tubes get

55:22

hot that heat is transferred over

55:25

to the water, the coolant. Which then goes

55:27

over to the steam generator. If

55:29

you could see, is anything visually

55:31

happening? No. You cannot see the reaction

55:33

occurring.

55:34

And so those fuel rods go down into

55:36

the water. Mhmm. And but

55:38

all the reactions are happening like above heat

55:40

and So your active fuel

55:42

zone, so a fuel assembly for a commercial

55:45

light water reactor is about

55:48

fourteen feet long. Twelve

55:50

feet of that is what we call the active fuel

55:52

zone. And in a

55:54

reactor, so you'll put those fuel

55:56

assemblies in water, So

56:00

let me you have the fuel assemblies

56:02

that go into the water -- Yeah. -- into the reactor.

56:05

And then within that twelve foot active fuel

56:07

zone is where the reaction occurs. Okay.

56:10

So but but the the simple

56:12

science of this is you're heating

56:14

up rods. And that

56:16

heats up a coolant, that heats up a coolant,

56:19

and that creates steam. And how's

56:21

the turbine? Yep. It doesn't sound like a complicated

56:24

bit of kit, but when I you look at a nuclear

56:26

reactor. It's huge. What what's everything that's going

56:28

into that then? Well, you have a lot of safety systems

56:30

and things like that. Is that what it is? And in

56:32

the case of the water cooled

56:34

reactors, they're under very high pressure

56:37

because we have two versions of reactors in

56:39

the United States. We call pressurized water

56:42

reactors or boiling water reactors. In

56:44

both cases, they are very

56:47

high pressure. In the case of the pressurized water

56:49

reactor, the water in the core

56:52

never boils. So it just remains

56:54

solid, but it's very hot. It's

56:56

like if you had a pressure cooker on your stove

56:59

or to one pot or something

57:01

where you keep everything under pressure and the water

57:03

doesn't boil inside. It's the same concept

57:05

except much higher pressure. In

57:08

a boiling water reactor, we let the water

57:10

boil a bit and produce the steam

57:12

in the top portion of the reactor. However,

57:14

it's still under high pressure. Now

57:17

for some of the new designs like the one we're

57:19

working on liquid metal, we're operating

57:21

at basically atmospheric pressure. I

57:23

don't need to keep things

57:26

at high pressure. I'm operating at atmospheric

57:28

pressure. As a result, I

57:31

don't need large pressure

57:33

retaining systems.

57:35

It when when I was looking into

57:38

aircrafts, I I believe that's

57:40

like most aircrafts have now, like, seven redundancy

57:43

systems in place to ensure that

57:45

whatever happens that plane can keep

57:46

flying, is that similar with the nuclear to

57:48

a number of redundancy system. I

57:50

don't know the exact number, but there are definitely

57:52

redundancies systems throughout.

57:54

What what are the main safety features

57:56

of nuclear? What are the things that you have to prepare

57:59

for? Well, you have to prepare for

58:02

loss of like loss

58:05

of heat sink, so where you're not able

58:07

to reject the heat. So

58:09

you have to be able to deal with that. And

58:13

that's probably your primary issue.

58:15

You have to deal with natural disasters. Hurricanes

58:18

floods, tornadoes and

58:20

stuff like that. But the the heatsink

58:22

that was the issue that happened

58:24

at Chernobyl. Fukashima. Fukashima.

58:27

Yeah. And so when they lost the when they

58:29

tsunami came and wiped out everything, they had

58:32

no more active cooling on the

58:33

react.

58:33

Ice cooling. And so the overheat creates

58:36

the pressure that can cause the blow off

58:38

event. The overheat resulted

58:40

in water boiling in the reactor. And

58:42

steam production. So for machines

58:45

like ours and some of the other advanced reactors,

58:47

you're never going to get in that situation. Because

58:51

there can go indefinitely without

58:54

operator

58:54

intervention. Excellent. In

58:57

terms of waste, That's another

59:00

concern that people bring

59:01

up. This

59:02

was one that I was confused about yesterday with Anthony.

59:04

I he said, was it for

59:07

a year that the the

59:08

campaign? Was it a year or year ago? In your

59:10

lifetime, you said the mountain nuclear waste one person

59:12

produces would fit in a kind of Coke

59:15

or

59:15

whatever. Mhmm. Yeah. But I I

59:17

was like, okay. But the current population of

59:19

the US is three hundred whatever, twenty

59:21

million. That's three hundred and twenty million cance

59:23

of COVID every year, new people are being born. So,

59:26

you know, when you start to talk in hundreds of millions,

59:28

like one hundred thousand a lot, that feels like

59:30

a lot of waste. All of the

59:32

waste that's been generated spent fuel,

59:34

should say, that's been generated in

59:37

the United States, could sit on

59:39

a American football field. At

59:41

about probably less than ten yards

59:44

deep. I really It's not it's

59:46

not at the end of the day that

59:48

much material. Okay. Because

59:51

it is so energy dense

59:53

in terms of the amount of power that you get

59:55

out of it relative to the

59:57

amount of, say, coal or natural gas that's

1:00:00

got to be burned. And I don't know

1:00:02

those statistics off the top of my head, but if

1:00:04

you go to NII's website, NII

1:00:06

dot org, you can find comparisons

1:00:09

between how much

1:00:11

power comes out of one pellet of

1:00:13

uranium versus how many barrels

1:00:15

of oil versus --

1:00:17

Right. --

1:00:17

things like that.

1:00:18

Yeah. He did say the weights from coal

1:00:21

is a lot higher. You

1:00:23

have

1:00:24

you have a lot of waste that comes out.

1:00:26

Yes. And you

1:00:29

mentioned earlier that you worked on casket.

1:00:32

I worked on dry cast storage systems,

1:00:34

so basically the containers that

1:00:36

we put the used we

1:00:38

actually call it used fuel instead of spent fuel because

1:00:41

we're gonna be able to reusing it.

1:00:44

The containers that we put the used fuel in

1:00:46

to sit on-site after they come out of the spent

1:00:48

fuel port.

1:00:49

So that's the kind of thing that

1:00:51

would become part of dealing

1:00:53

with waste ongoing.

1:00:55

Yeah. So basically on the back end of the fuel

1:00:57

cycle, right now, you operate

1:00:59

the reactor when you shut down

1:01:01

and you go into a refueling. You

1:01:03

pull fuel assemblies out, the ones

1:01:05

that you're gonna discharge, you pull them out,

1:01:07

you put them into a spent fuel pool. They sit

1:01:10

there for maybe five years, then

1:01:12

they come out of the spent fuel pool and they go

1:01:14

into a dry cask storage system. So what

1:01:16

is a dry cask storage system? It

1:01:19

is basically a see

1:01:21

if you can find one, honey. Yeah.

1:01:23

Actually, you can pull one up pretty easily there.

1:01:27

It's basically a steel cylinder. Inside

1:01:30

of it, there's going to be

1:01:32

a, what we call, a basket. That's actually

1:01:34

the same as what's in the spent fuel pool. So think of

1:01:36

an egg crate where you have a structure

1:01:38

and you put the eggs in, this is

1:01:41

gonna be a metal structure and you're gonna put the

1:01:43

fuel assemblies in it. Yep. Those

1:01:45

are some good images of quite a few different

1:01:47

kinds. The

1:01:49

canister goes then inside of what

1:01:51

we call an over pack. So

1:01:54

the over pack can be steel concrete

1:01:56

or mix of steel and concrete. Concrete

1:01:58

is cheap and easy and a great radiation

1:02:01

shield. And then it just sits

1:02:03

there. It's passively safe.

1:02:05

There are no active systems in

1:02:07

it. There are no moving parts in this.

1:02:10

There will be some airflow So

1:02:13

entry points for air to come and say at the bottom,

1:02:15

go pass the container to remove heat and

1:02:17

come out the top, but it just sits

1:02:19

there. Okay. And and and it's his

1:02:22

goal is to just block radiation. Correct.

1:02:25

And let the fuel sit there until

1:02:27

such time as a repository,

1:02:29

deep geological repository, areas open,

1:02:31

and you'll move that fuel to the deep geological

1:02:34

repository and ultimately dispose

1:02:36

of it. Today's those sites already exist.

1:02:38

So in the United States, no. We

1:02:40

don't have one. Who do you send it

1:02:42

to? Well, right now, it stays at the site.

1:02:45

Okay. So ultimately, the federal government

1:02:47

in the United States Ultimately, the federal government's

1:02:49

gonna take it and dispose of it.

1:02:52

Or companies like ours are going

1:02:54

to take some of that fuel and then recycle it.

1:02:56

And then that waste would ultimately

1:02:58

go to a deep geological repository. But

1:03:02

company countries Finland, for example,

1:03:04

is and Sweden both are making

1:03:07

great progress on deep geological repositories

1:03:09

right

1:03:09

now. And so can you explain what that

1:03:11

is a deep geological repository? I mean,

1:03:13

I can I can tell it is from the description

1:03:15

button? What what is the work that's going into this?

1:03:18

So a deep geologic repository is

1:03:20

basically tunnels in the

1:03:22

earth at certain depths where

1:03:24

you will store the material you

1:03:26

want to store. And then you

1:03:29

put it in there and then you close it off

1:03:32

and you leave it.

1:03:33

This was all discussed in the fifth risk.

1:03:35

Was it? Yeah. So I read this book on the fifth

1:03:37

risk, which I brought up on the show budget

1:03:39

vibes. But this was one of the

1:03:41

jobs that the the federal government

1:03:43

does and that you would want them to

1:03:45

do. It's it

1:03:48

is ultimately the federal

1:03:50

government certainly is a good com

1:03:53

good organization to do it. We do have there's

1:03:55

a private company called deep isolation, which

1:03:57

is actually looking at deep geologic

1:03:59

deep geologic disposal using

1:04:02

borehole technology. So

1:04:04

there's some private entities looking into this as

1:04:06

well. What about in the seabed? That

1:04:09

has certainly been looked at in the past.

1:04:11

That brings in a whole lot of other political

1:04:14

considerations. Yeah. I just can't

1:04:16

see a scenario where it would ever

1:04:18

happen even if it

1:04:19

was proven to be a hundred percent safe. I think

1:04:21

I think people would have too much fear

1:04:24

about it. Well, I safety

1:04:26

is not the concern there. It's gonna be

1:04:28

more of the political

1:04:30

challenges. And I don't begin to understand,

1:04:32

you know, territorial waters

1:04:34

internationally. Waters and all that

1:04:35

stuff. Yeah. Can you tell

1:04:37

me anything about fusion? Because

1:04:40

you will probably know more than I do, but I've been following

1:04:42

it with great interest that I saw the recent

1:04:44

advancement where they said

1:04:47

that

1:04:47

they'd, for the first time, got more power

1:04:49

out than they put in. Yeah. So that's the Lawrence

1:04:51

Livermore facility -- Yeah. -- which uses

1:04:54

lasers to hit a a small

1:04:57

pellet, if you will. And they

1:04:59

got a little bit more power

1:05:01

out of the fusion reaction than

1:05:04

the amount of If I get this correct, the

1:05:06

amount of energy that the lasers

1:05:08

imparted upon it. Now

1:05:10

you still needed a whole lot more power to generate

1:05:12

the whole facility, operate the facilities. Yeah.

1:05:15

So at the end of the day, you didn't

1:05:17

generate, I don't think, more power than

1:05:19

what was truly gone into it.

1:05:21

But more power came out of the fusion

1:05:24

than the lasers imparted upon The

1:05:27

fusion industry is fascinating. Yeah.

1:05:30

But the big issue with fusion is we don't know if

1:05:32

it ultimately will work. What is

1:05:34

what are the what are the barriers

1:05:36

that I think that must stop it working? Is it

1:05:38

the the amount of plasma holding

1:05:41

so we get that heat? Well, so you're having

1:05:43

to in in

1:05:45

simple terms for a second, recreate

1:05:48

the conditions of the sun. Okay? Because

1:05:50

the sun is a giant fusion machine.

1:05:52

Yep. And so

1:05:55

you need to create that condition. You

1:05:57

could do it a couple different ways. You

1:06:00

you have to get that immense amount of

1:06:02

heat. Which will permit

1:06:05

your typically deuterium and tritium

1:06:07

atoms to fuse together,

1:06:10

and then they'll release energy. Also release

1:06:12

a number of neutrons when they do that. But

1:06:14

they'll release the energy that way. But you have

1:06:16

to get that immense heat

1:06:19

Now one of the things that's enabled fusion

1:06:22

right now, it's been a great

1:06:24

advancement for fusion over the last, say,

1:06:26

decade or more has been the advancements

1:06:29

in laser technology and

1:06:31

advancements in superconducting

1:06:35

magnets and things like that. So

1:06:37

you need to have magnetic fields,

1:06:39

for example. In some cases, not all. Magnetic

1:06:42

fields to control the reaction

1:06:45

and and heat it up. I'm not a fusion expert,

1:06:48

but but that's but the the amount

1:06:50

of the number of companies doing fusion is

1:06:52

enormous. Well, compared to me, you're fusion

1:06:54

expert. Well, but

1:06:57

do you think they'll do it? I think

1:07:00

we'll know a lot more within the next ten

1:07:02

years. I think within this

1:07:03

decade, we'll have some very good

1:07:05

ideas whether it's gonna be viable or not. There's

1:07:07

massive amount of investment going on. There is. And

1:07:09

there's a lot of companies. The UK has

1:07:11

at least one or two companies doing it.

1:07:14

Canada does, U. S. Has a number

1:07:16

of companies doing it together.

1:07:19

Do you have any friends and friends with love to talk to

1:07:21

them? I do, actually. can

1:07:23

we might tap you up from there -- Yeah. -- touch in contact

1:07:25

with some. And then there's an entire

1:07:27

association. So I mentioned the Nuclear Energy Institute,

1:07:29

which I worked at trade association for the commercial

1:07:31

nuclear power industry. There's also the fusion

1:07:34

industry association in the US. If

1:07:36

fusion is successful, there's

1:07:38

a chance that that over

1:07:41

a long enough time frame ends their vision

1:07:43

industry because it's lower risk. Right?

1:07:46

So it produces there

1:07:49

is some waste that comes out but not the same.

1:07:51

What kind of wood? Well, at the end of the day,

1:07:53

I'd mention, when you have fusion, typically,

1:07:57

not all the time, not

1:07:59

everybody is designed, but most of the designs

1:08:01

will have use

1:08:03

deuterium and palladium. And as a result, you get neutrons

1:08:06

out. Neutrons will activate material.

1:08:08

So you'll get some radioactive material

1:08:10

from the structures around it. But you

1:08:12

don't get the

1:08:15

byproducts that you do from Vision.

1:08:17

Because at Vision, we're splitting the atom

1:08:20

creating what we call vision products that

1:08:22

are radioactive. Infusion, you're just

1:08:24

combining two things. So it is

1:08:26

less waste. But

1:08:28

as I said, at the end of the day, we have to prove

1:08:30

it works. Yep. And then commercialize

1:08:33

it. Exactly. You have to make a machine

1:08:35

that is commercially viable. So

1:08:38

it's one thing to prove it like

1:08:40

they did at Livermore and get a little bit more energy

1:08:42

out than they put in. It's a

1:08:44

whole different ball game that then take it

1:08:46

and commercialize it. Fifty

1:08:48

years? I like I said,

1:08:50

I think we'll know a lot more within the within this

1:08:52

decade. Alright. Well, listen. It's

1:08:54

been super fascinating. I really just wanna

1:08:57

end on asking what's coming

1:08:59

in the future. Is there new innovation coming

1:09:01

in nuclear that we haven't talked about? Things

1:09:03

we should be looking out

1:09:04

for? So yeah. So there's

1:09:08

so let me just hit on a few of things that are occurring

1:09:10

in the United States for second here. So

1:09:12

you got, like my company, designed

1:09:15

the fifteen megawatt liquid metal fast reactor.

1:09:17

We're gonna deploy at Idaho National Laboratory.

1:09:20

You've got the Department of Defense working

1:09:22

on a project called Project Palay, which

1:09:24

would be a mobile reactor, much smaller

1:09:27

in the less than megawatt range.

1:09:30

Also to be built at Idaho National

1:09:32

Laboratory. And then we

1:09:34

have the couple larger projects

1:09:37

like a Terra Power Next Energy Terra

1:09:39

powers, a liquid metal fast reactor, much

1:09:41

larger, though, about three hundred and forty five

1:09:43

megawatt electric. What's neat about

1:09:45

them is they're gonna attach to a

1:09:47

salt thermal storage system. So they're

1:09:50

gonna be able to peak out

1:09:52

at about five hundred megawatt electric

1:09:54

say when the solar goes

1:09:56

offline. When solar's online,

1:09:58

they put less than three hundred and forty five megawatt

1:10:01

electric on the grid and use the rest to

1:10:03

heat up thermal storage. Then you've got

1:10:05

a company X Energy designed in a

1:10:07

pebble bed high temperature gas reactor.

1:10:10

So you've got pebbles instead

1:10:12

of the fuel rods I talked about. And

1:10:15

then we have a company chairos

1:10:18

doing salt. So

1:10:20

they're using molten salt instead of liquid

1:10:22

metal or water or gas for the

1:10:24

coolant. And they're gonna build a

1:10:26

test reactor down in Oak Ridge. We're

1:10:29

likely to be the first, planning to be the

1:10:31

first commercial machine up and running in twenty

1:10:33

six, but the amount of activity

1:10:36

is huge. And then there's GE GE

1:10:38

Hitachi doing their small

1:10:41

modular reactor, boiling water reactor,

1:10:43

planning to build up in Canada by two thousand and

1:10:45

thirty. And then new scale with their

1:10:47

Lightwater reactor, SMR, planning

1:10:50

to build an Idaho National Laboratory. And

1:10:52

I think I've covered just about everything. But

1:10:54

it's a lot of activity between now

1:10:56

and two thousand and thirty. The one thing I would like

1:10:59

to just leave with is the

1:11:01

amount of innovation in this sector is enormous

1:11:04

and the amount of interest and growth

1:11:06

is enormous. In the

1:11:08

United States, you've seen it bipartisan

1:11:12

support from the government level. You're seeing

1:11:14

government support in countries like Canada.

1:11:16

The UK is focusing heavily

1:11:18

on it now too. And you're seeing

1:11:21

a lot of these developmental small modular reactors.

1:11:23

And the small modular reactors really

1:11:25

offer that opportunity for flexibility in

1:11:29

size deployment as well as

1:11:32

easier to build, cheaper

1:11:34

to build. And the fact that you're building

1:11:36

something that's smaller in terms of power

1:11:39

production means less capital cost to begin

1:11:41

with. And then moving

1:11:43

some of that construction factory reduces

1:11:45

costs further. But

1:11:47

the other thing is, and I touched on this a little

1:11:49

bit before, is we're gonna see

1:11:51

a huge interest in energy

1:11:54

sectors outside of just electricity.

1:11:57

So desalination process

1:11:59

heat, hydrogen production, hydrogen

1:12:03

for, say, fuel cell vehicles, instead

1:12:06

of electricity hydrogen for decarbonizing,

1:12:09

say, the steel industry. Nuclear

1:12:12

can do a lot of this. And it's going

1:12:14

to. Fascinating. Okay. If people

1:12:16

wanna find out more, where would you like

1:12:18

to send them to? You can take a

1:12:20

look at the Nuclear Energy Institute's

1:12:22

website, NEI dot org. It's a good

1:12:24

place to start in the United States.

1:12:27

And then from there, you can get connected

1:12:29

with other companies like ours Oglow, oglow

1:12:31

dot com and other

1:12:33

entities. This was absolutely fascinating,

1:12:36

Everett. Thank you so much. My pleasure.

1:12:41

Okay. What did you make of that? Do you enjoy

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