TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Jadwiga Najder
Thomas Branche, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Assystem, welcome to Titans of Nuclear.

Thomas Branche
Thank you.

Jadwiga Najder
And we like to start our interviews with a little bit of context. How did it happen that you ended up being in nuclear?

Thomas Branche
In fact, when I was a student, I was an engineer. I was mostly specialized in mathematics and I didn't really know what to do. And in fact, through the first internships I did as a student, the second one, I happened to do it in Total, at Total. And now I have the feeling that dealing with energy - meaning energy issues, security of supply, finance, finance, environmental subjects, geopolitics - was interesting and was unique to me. Then I said, Okay, let's work in energy. I happened to start my career as a public servant working for the French Ministry for Energy. First of all, I started working on the energy mix, so I was the guy preparing a report about what the energy mix in terms of power should look like 10 or 15 years ahead. And then working there in the French Ministry for Energy, my second step was to be involved in the public debate on energy and infrastructure projects in France as the representative of the French government in France. Then I became the Head of Nuclear in the Ministry for Energy, which was not planned, but it happened like that. And it was thrilling because it was the key subject, I mean, for the future in energy.

Jadwiga Najder
In France it's three quarters of energy.

Thomas Branche
Absolutely. And with a strong rule of the French states, for instance, transition. The job was fantastic. The subject was definitely of interest. And then from one job to another I happened to spend most of my time working in nuclear.

Jadwiga Najder
Okay, so as you said, you started as a public servant, but right now you're the industrial guy in not a public company. The first question: what is the added value of having a career that way, starting as a public servant then going to the industry?

Thomas Branche
Just on the personal aspect, I mean, both sides are very interesting, because energy is neither 100% public nor 100% private. It is political, for very good reasons, so they are very thrilling services to tackle as a public servant. And then when you on the other side of the table, it is good to understand what is at stake, how the politicians- and see what they have to taken into account because they are facing a huge responsibility. I mean, it could be the other way also. Could be starting in the private sector and then going to the public sector.

Jadwiga Najder
This is the more common version of a public career, public private, right?

Thomas Branche
In France, we are a bit special on that. I mean, we have some specific… , also some engineers who have stopped working for the French State and then will have the opportunity to spend all their career there or to join some private companies. So it happens like that most of the time. Your friends are the ones who want to work on both sides of the table.

Jadwiga Najder
Okay, great. So you have quite several years already in Assystem as different positions in the executive side. Could you tell us more about this? What was your career in the company?

Thomas Branche
Sure. We celebrate my 10 years within Assystem in 2022. I joined in 2012 and I was the head of the nuclear activities in France, so all the engineering activities we got for the French facilities. So I did this and that's how I learned. In fact, my job was in Assystem because before that there was good excellence. And then I traveled. We moved to Dubai. I was the head of the Middle East activities for Assystem, so it was pretty new. And it was not only nuclear. It was mainly not nuclear, actually. Part of the activities were nuclear, but the strategy of a system is to enter into countries which start up activities or which are considering launching nuclear programs, which is the case- which was the case with Saudi Arabia. So we entered to Saudi Arabia a long time before they were launching a nuclear program so we are developing engineering activities there. As such, I've been in that in case there will be a nuclear program, fortunately, for us, which happened. And then I started spending three, four years on countless activities. I was in charge of what we called the energy transition infrastructure activities, which was basically the non-nuclear business and which, for Assystem, was, in fact, how do we use the knowledge that we are gaining in nuclear so as to leverage it in other sectors, because nuclear is a very interesting sector. It is incorporating standards with company norms. And so when you are used to working in nuclear, you can sell the kind of infrastructures, long term infrastructure, like transportation infrastructures, like pool infrastructures, like water defense infrastructures, for example, where you can use part of the knowledge you have.

Jadwiga Najder
But is it- does it mean that you want to- because there's energy transition and infrastructure together. So you're going towards a decarbonizing infrastructure, making it more sustainable?

Thomas Branche
Absolutely. The cornerstone of Assystem is the energy transition. What does it mean energy transition for Assystem? It is as much decarbonized electricity as possible and as much decarbonized hydrogen as possible. Decarbonized electricity, the main subject is nuclear. We are absolutely convinced that we need a lot of new nuclear for the long run, so we are- it's been 55 years. We are solving the nuclear industry and we can keep on for decades and decades, if not centuries, to support nuclear. And at the same time… also total decarbonize the energy programs, like renewable programs, like the development of the grid, which is also supporting the development of nuclear and decarbonized hydrogen. Because I mean, decarbonized hydrogen will be needed, at least in industry, so as to replace all the uses and decarbonized will require a lot of decarbonized electricity, meaning a lot of nuclear.

Jadwiga Najder
Exactly, it sounds to be a very vast portfolio that you have in Assystem. It sounds to me so comprehensive that it will go all the way to how to make those different sources of energy or storage work together.

Thomas Branche
Yes, this is what we are working on actually. Let's take an example out of France. We can discuss about France later. But for example, we want to interact with an external source to sell them the potential startup of the nuclear program. And we had discussions and we are the first mission regarding nuclear. And at the same time, to support the nuclear program, they were looking at the development and upgrading of those who agreed. So we became in charge of the upgrading of the grid in Uzbekistan. Then, doing that, we became in charge of supporting the development of power plants, renewable power plants. We are working - starting to work also I mean - discussing strongly on the nuclear program in Uzbekistan, because all of this goes together. We are definitely trying to drive and we also our job is also to leak nuclear electricity education, because both sides need each other.

Jadwiga Najder
This is so interesting, because even though you did not plan to do certain activities, I can imagine by proving your professionalism in one sector and by proving that you are able to have certain creativity - for example, okay, I will maybe not be able to advance, but let me see what I can do in a different site. This adaptability, I think, is the key of not only Assystem, but many, many companies that are working in here. We need to do such a different- such a vast array of services that it is impossible to only focus on the type of services-

Thomas Branche
It's totally true, because I mean within the nuclear industry, we've been convinced for a long time that our activities are beneficial to the general economy or the general sustainable development. But now, what we've see and what is changing, especially with the climate change, is that it is clear that all the scenarios take with them the strong development of electricity, because the carbon fuels, we have to stop using the carbon fuels. And there are not several options. It's electricity, some hydrogen, but didn't produce through electricity. So in fact, it is electricity and electricity it is decarbonized electricity. So nuclear, it will not be a bit faster for universities will not be 100% of nuclear to the most. What will be the levers exactly depends on the countries. We will see, but both will be massively different. If they are not developed, we will fight politically.

Jadwiga Najder
We have no choice.

Thomas Branche
It's a shock. So having said that, nuclear, I mean, you can serve the developments of so many countries facing totally different issues. If you look at the Western countries and these countries' industry, there's- most of them, not all of them, but most of them are already have a strong nuclear. There are other countries who are starting who are going to nuclear and they have to be completely different. And you have other ones where the electricity demand is already going up and up and up and up. And their subject is how do I make sure that when my people are wanting electricity, they have it. And nuclear has showed up to that and was very logical, but then surely with smaller size reactors, given the needs of some regions, depending on the grid. So you can after that, in nuclear, also has to adapt to the fact that it should become one of the ways to produce hydrogen. And it is a change, because the nuclear, some of them will need to be adapted in some years right from now so as to use the heat coming out of the nuclear, so as to collect heat in the steam so as to connect directly to some hydrogen plants, which we need some modifications. So yes, we have to be adaptive and we have to be joined in a changing world. And I mean, some years ago, there were very few countries - some in Asia and some in Middle East - who are saying we have to push nuclear. Now we see a complete change, so now everybody's asking, Why can't you do more? But it's okay. I mean, we have to be faster.

Jadwiga Najder
Maybe answer the question, what if a country is not interested in nuclear, just wanting to use renewables? With all your experience, with all your- the analyses you made during this 10 years in Assystem and also in this position, do you see any light in the tunnel? Or no? Not to point any fingers to Germany...

Thomas Branche
I mean, the question is always this one. It is, at this stage, impossible to prove that the scenario based 100% on renewables will work. The conditions of success are identified. There are a lot. Today, we cannot say there is a green light in front of each of them. We are talking about the storage to deal with the intermittency of these energy sources. This certainly is coming depending on the country, but Germany, which is the same for France, where do we do that? Because it takes a lot of space. It's not the same when you have strong, but in Europe, we don't have enough space. We have space in the sea. Okay, but on the ground, we have very strong limitations and geo positions are growing and growing. So I'm not saying that we should not develop renewables, but there are limitations. Today, it is more than a risky bet to say that the strategy will be to pursue the renewables. And I'm not speaking about the financial, even from the financial, but-

Jadwiga Najder
I am also talking more about technical.

Thomas Branche
-it's a big risk also, but even just so as to have the electricity, wow, it's a massive risk. But no one can prove that it's not gonna work, but it should be the other way. I mean, when you're talking about supplying electricity and energy to a country, you should be sure it's going to work. So if you want to be sure, you cannot if you want to decarbonize your electricity meter. If you say in 20 years and 30 years away from now I use no gas, no fuel, no coal, you have to go to nuclear. I mean, this is facts. Unless you do that, all the people in your country are going to stop traveling, are going to take all of their decisions to limit the use of energy they are doing. Just not really what is happening right now, because humanity is about how do we use energy? And how do we make more, what is so interesting in life. So there are countries who have taken choices, not to use nuclear. On the short term, they might - for some of them - reduce their CO2 emissions, because they have a lot of coal or replacing coal by gas. Okay. But no way, no way they can meet their CO2 goals by 2050 without nuclear. But we will see.

Jadwiga Najder
So we know already that in order to decarbonize successfully, we need a share of nuclear. But it seems to me that wanting to extend the nuclear output and working in the nuclear industry always is somehow linked to this problem of communication, public information that is available, education. What is the role of Assystem and in Europe in general, what is the role of private companies in facilitating this?

Thomas Branche
This is one of the most important questions. In fact, all the information is available, but because they are available, they are industry. So it means that it's the question- your question is about the companies. It's about me, you, and everybody. What do we do when we speak with other people? Because when companies are speaking, it is always suspect. I mean, okay, companies speak so as to make more money. I mean, there is a suspicion there.

Jadwiga Najder
It has become a challenge to-

Thomas Branche
I mean, I'm not against companies making profits. On this matter, it is about science, about education, and about understanding the challenges. Let's take an example of a discussion I had this week with a journalist who was asking me, Do you think that decarbonized hydrogen will be competitive? My answer was, I don't think it is the right question.

Jadwiga Najder
We need it.

Thomas Branche
We need decarbonized hydrogen. We have no change.

Jadwiga Najder
So everything will be more expensive than it is now.

Thomas Branche
The question is decarbonized hydrogen competitive with hydrogen produced through fossil fuels and contributing to the CO2 emissions, right? Maybe yes, but it's not sure. But anyway, we will stop hydrogen produced by fossil fuels. It will be stopped. When exactly, we don't know, but it will stop. And we will need to decarbonize hydrogen and yes, it will be competitive, meaning even if the price increases a bit and the economy will survive. We have to do it. We have to do it in the most competitive way. But it's this way that the people need to understand like are there risks to nuclear. Yes, they are. But the question is, Okay, we have the certainty of the risk of climate change and the impacts that are massive and that are just difficult to imagine, even if we have the elements. I mean, it's almost inconceivable. And when you- the question is, what do you prefer? Because, yes, there are some drawbacks to nuclear, but this is beyond our control. When you look at the contribution of nuclear since its inception, I mean, if you compare it to other industries, the fatalities, the pollution is one of the lowest of industries worldwide. These are facts, not an opinion. These are facts. And for sure, I mean as in any industry, there will be some difficulties. We don't know that. There will be some. Year after year the difficulties, the impacts are smaller, but it will never be zero and never be able to say zero, absolute zero. But if don't go to nuclear, we are certain of terminal catastrophes. Then if you discuss this way-

Jadwiga Najder
Condition zero. Conditions zero is we resign from producing CO2. Let's see what we can do.

Thomas Branche
Exactly. I mean, okay, if where- exactly where it makes sense. I mean, someone right now is saying, I'm not in favor of nuclear. If this person says I'm not into reducing the CO2 emissions, okay. I mean, I understand the logics, but I don't share the position. But I understand. If someone says, I'm an activist fighting climate change and I'm against nuclear, I'm a bit lost honestly. I see that guy or the lady should say, Okay, let's use nuclear. let's work on the pain points and stuff. Sure, but we need it, we desperately need it.

Jadwiga Najder
And now your position is changing very soon. It will be rather on the engineering side. Tell us some examples of what does Assystem do? Not only- because I know you mostly from the services point of view. I am a consultant myself to work as an engineer in consultancy. I know many consultants from Assystem. But I'm sure there are also some projects that are yours, that you create yourself.

Thomas Branche
In fact, we are a services company. Sorry to say that, but we have two big pillars, one which is engineering - which is basically about project management and performing all the studies, either from the very upfront of the projects or in the end of the project - and also construction management, so making the projects concrete. Could you see the first part of the contribution of a system and we work on old type of nuclear projects, whether these are new proto projects in reactors all around the world. A few in France, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. We also work on R&D facilities. We are the EPC contractors for EDF, for example.

Jadwiga Najder
EPC?

Thomas Branche
EPC: engineering, procurement and construction management. We work also on a lot of cycle projects, where we need to do nuclear fuels or related to the disposal of the waste, just in a nutshell. And at the same time, we offer digital services. Maybe this is my answer to your question, because these are projects. An initiative that we have launched, we have been convinced for many years that the evolution of engineering was to use the digital tools to better deliver the projects. So we have developed a lot of skills, so as to better deliver engineering. And once we have said that, now that we are really doing it for years and years, we are able also to offer digital services without engineering services. So let's say a company - and this is based on initiatives of a system, we have invested a lot - and now if a consumer or customer is saying, Okay, I want to change the way I perform my projects, I want to use digital solutions. So this customer is looking at the market, what are the solutions delivered by software developers and these kind of companies. But this company might be a bit close like, Hey, what should I select? How should I integrate it into my IT systems? How does it work with my operations? How we might use it? This is where we've gone like, You could do that, we can show that. We can integrate it for you. We can train your guys. So you see the evolution that we have. And this was a decision made by Assystem. It was not originally requested by our customers. Now it's becoming a request, but we launched it two years ago.

Jadwiga Najder
Any companies?

Thomas Branche
Yes, currently with EDF. EDF has taken the decision to implement the PLM solution, so project lifecycle management solution. They have chosen to work with… But these two companies are not completely used to working with each other, even if they've been knowing each other for a long time. And so they need a sub party who is able to connect those solutions or systems so as to make sure that everything is working the best way and this is where we bring our talent.

Jadwiga Najder
The digitalization is a big topic right now, not only in terms of delivering services, but also to change all the way of working, of the works done in work culture. And how does Assystem adjust to this digitalization of the workstyle internally?

Thomas Branche
That's a common subject. Now, first of all, we have four pillars in digital. One pillar is the systems engineering, so how do we in nuclear projects, how do we move from a culture of development based on the disciplines to a culture based on the requirements of two subjects. And how do we make sure that from the very beginning until the end, we make sure that the requirements are always met and that this is developed at the different levels that we are able to prove it to the safety authorities. And for that, we need systems engineering and we need digital. We need to detail softwares. We need platforms, we need to work on this and to have this speaking with each other. So we have- we are using it on all projects. So now when we develop a project, we use systems engineering. We have invested in specially trained engineers. We will not pretend that we have completed the fastest transition, but we have made huge improvements. So this is the first step. The second step for us is data science. Data science we are, in fact, we are using digital so as to save time and so as to, in fact, identify the difficulties in the project. Let's say two examples in nuclear, one when you're facing a nuclear project or a maintenance project. In fact, the key question is, Where do I start? Where do I have nuclear contamination? What is- how has such equipment been used? That's really not on the paper, because the papers, they are always a bit rushed. So we have to be sure, to be as accurate as possible. Because if we have all the data, then the engineering is not easy, but we can manage. If you don't know where you start from, it's really complicated. So we use data science for that. We also use data science in the delivery of the projects, because when we come from the engineering, we identify clashes, thanks to data science and thanks to systems engineering between two parts of the project that are being developed that, in fact, have interfaces. And digitalization helps us a lot. Same subject for construction. What's one of the issues and when you have construction manager or when you have a commissioning engineers is they need to check that it is performed as it should be. And what does it mean as it should be? So meaning they need to have all the requirements with them. And if there were some evolutions done the day before, they need to have them. Thanks to digital, you can have them, because if you're gonna do that as a digital-

Jadwiga Najder
Then everybody has it.

Thomas Branche
Yeah, it's like, it's almost like- and so we are developing solutions for that. And now our engineers worked out for me construction management and commissioning activities, they are using digital for that. So this is the way I mean, for the real world we are changing. And apart from that, we are also using digital for trainings, for meetings, for the customer relationship management. It's not really genuine, but it's really a lot of value, but it's never simple.

Jadwiga Najder
It will never finish.

Thomas Branche
I don't think so.

Jadwiga Najder
We are in this transition. You used the word to manage energy transition. Right now I can imagine-

Thomas Branche
This is because nuclear is in a position.

Jadwiga Najder
It cannot be different. So since you're in this transition period between the positions right now and your work in the process of energy transition and the infrastructure as a Senior Vice President right now in engineering, can you tell us what is your agenda for the future? You don't need to disclose any secrets. Just really what do you wish to change? Or what do you wish to continue in your company with the power?

Thomas Branche
I wish to continue what we have been doing, because we have been into developing nuclear and also enhanced transition to the topic of energy transition and nuclear. So, there is no change from this point of view. What we try to do is to keep on building on what has been built for 55 years now. We have become over the last years a real international engineering company, so we are working not in each of the countries of the world, but now in another country. So this is the next step. I mean, I think we will see massive investments in… in the coming years and decades. The main task is let's be not only as a system, let's be successful in the efficiency of this decarbonized developers, which means that the question for us is what is the contribution of this? And so it is what we are working on is the teams. How can we better serve the projects? And how can we make them faster, cheaper? This is our job.

Jadwiga Najder
Optimization.

Thomas Branche
Optimization. I mean, we are not the ones deciding the project. It's not our job. But it's our responsibility to contribute to the government to improve performance being let's prove to the safety of society that it is fine. Let's deliver faster on site. I mean we have to make sure that the components are available, the parts are available, and so on and so on. There are different ways for us to do that. Using digital as we discussed so as to prove a lot of systems to speed up the processes or the procedures. How does a system take more risk responsibility than before? How are we clearly identified on some nuclear plants where we say, Okay, we are responsible for this part and we will do it you can rely on us. We will do it, we will deliver. And your trusted partners focus on this part of the plants. So these are subjects we are we are working on together. And, of course, speeding up planning capabilities, because, in general, we need more and more people. The needs are growing, so we need to be better. We also need to be much bigger. We are now 70,500 roughly now. How do we become 10,000, then more? And as fast as possible, because the project nuclear industry, not only the nuclear industry, are looking for breaks. So we have to have as much brains and efficient brains as possible, working not only as individuals, but as teams as a group. The key stuff is in this for the ones who are seeing this video and would like to participate, this will be it.

Jadwiga Najder
Great. We are here at the World Nuclear Exhibition where all the companies that matter and that could participate - unfortunately, COVID certainly - and our presence, and I can imagine that this is a huge playground for us to look for new partnerships and still keep the relationships on. What would you like to see in the nuclear industry in the future? And how does this vision of what you see here with so many exhibitors and so many different companies fit your vision for the future? And what should be maybe changed? Not only in the industry, but also in the environment that it works in?

Thomas Branche
That's a very good question… These kind of opportunities are fantastic. Everybody's happy, everybody's there. We're working with each other. I mean, of course, the business discussions we had that they were impressive and very predictive. What we need, maybe, is to keep on working on our image outside, so as to have more and more people willing to join us. The needs of the projects out there, there will be more and more. So now we need people who are willing to serve this industry, be proud of serving it and willing to join this fight, because nothing will ever be finished. But I mean, we see opinions are evolving in a positive way from our point of view. But I think that's the key subject as industry. And then I mean, we have to do evolution of the business relationship so as to be more performant all together. But I think that as an industry altogether, let's have as many people as possible joining this industry. And at the same time, let's have us convince the politicians that they have to provide us long term vision. And then we grow the vision when other people join.

Jadwiga Najder
Thanks very much. Thanks for an amazing conversation. And I wish you all the best of luck for this remaining hours of World Nuclear Exhibition.

Thomas Branche
Thank you very much.

Olivia Columbus
We are here today with Kamen Kraev who is the Editor, Chief Writer-

Kamen Kraev
One of the Editors and Secretary General.

Olivia Columbus
Secretary General of NucNet, one of the world's leading nuclear publications. Welcome to the podcast.

Kamen Kraev
Well, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I see that probably many people have said important things in this podcast before me, but I think I will give some of my insights to the industry as well.

Olivia Columbus
We're very excited to get all those insights. But before we sort of dive into the industry, let's get a little bit about you. Can you tell us how you got into journalism, what sort of predated that experience, and how you got to nuclear?

Kamen Kraev
Well, it was really, it was not a designed career path that I set upon by thinking of where I should be going in my career development. This just kind of happened by chance, in a way. My education background is in business administration and then, actually, European politics. I have a degree from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and I never thought I would end up in energy and less even in nuclear energy. It's just that, you know, I applied for this disposition as a junior first. It was now seven years ago, maybe a bit less than that.

Olivia Columbus
Before that though, how'd you get into journalism?

Kamen Kraev
I ended up being a journalist exactly when I entered NucNet. Before that, I was not really a journalist. I was just doing financial transfers for a couple of years. And then well, in a way, I did a bit of blogging in between changing jobs. I've always had a really, I would say strong interest in politics rather than energy so much, but the relationship between energy and politics, of course, has always been there. I always get this comment and I would say my intent, and I just started to - as a blogger will do nowadays or a few years ago - I just said, Okay, I know a few things I might want to speak about, maybe about my home region of Eastern Europe at the beginning. And I did a bit of blogging. This actually helped me to move into the NucNet position, because I was able to go and say, Guys, listen, I can write. I mean, I was- all my studies were in English. I did a couple of- a lot of papers in English, so I said, Okay, I think I have the sufficient capability to do this sort of job and I just landed in nuclear. And I never thought it's going to be really permanent. But now I look back at it, it's already quite some years have passed. And to be honest, I think if I didn't like it, I would have left. But yet I am still here. You say journalism, but for us, it's very specific, because in general journalistic mindset nowadays, it's probably a bit different than what we do, because we really focus on the mythology in the industry, on all these developments that the general public would probably not find interesting. So I am not always 100% sure how to refer to myself, when people say what I do, and I say journalist, but at the same time, we do a lot of communication in between industry stakeholders. And it's not really the journalists that you imagine are running with the microphone and speaking to people about various topics, really specific to us, you know?

Olivia Columbus
Yeah, so one thing at least I know when I sort of came to nuclear - because I also come from a non-nuclear, non-technical background - was that I felt like I really needed to get myself up to speed on a lot of these terms and concepts that maybe I didn't understand. What was that experience like for you, just trying to familiarize yourself with an industry you had not previously worked in?

Kamen Kraev
Well, to be honest, I never, for example, I never really had an issue with nuclear power. So for me nuclear power, there was always something that- I mean, in my own home country, I didn't mention it, but I come from Bulgaria - I lived a lot of years overseas already - but nuclear power was always there. And since I remember myself and since I was growing up as a teenager or as an adult later, it was always there. It was never something we questioned. It was never something I was opposed to and that's why I found this to be just a job as any other or just I thought in beginning it could be an entry point to energy in general, because I thought, okay, maybe there's more work to do with gas or some other more and more- I want to say, well, I will not say prominent industries, but probably easier to chew on for most people. But yet I find nuclear to be quite interesting and it's like a niche market for us. It's something that is in a way unique, because not many people do that. And not many people know stuff about it. And not many people have the compendium of knowledge about it, because we, over the years, collect a lot of knowledge about different aspect aspects of the industry that we help connect the dots in the end. So yeah, I mean, that's it, my motivation.

Olivia Columbus
Can you kind of walk us back a little bit and talk about how NucNet was founded? Sort of what the inspiration was and what the growth has been like over the years,

Kamen Kraev
Yeah, that's a good topic. Okay, well, NucNet was founded back in 1991 or 1990. So yeah, it's 30 years. But you know of course, you have to imagine that the world looked different back then and think- that's of course way before my time. But I know from-there are some colleagues with us that are still with us from those years. So actually, I listened to their background stories and whatever I say now are things that have been told to me by people who are with us still. The idea was at the beginning for the nuclear industry to have some sort of independent communication agency or organization which could separate the facts from mythology around nuclear power, because this was the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, of course. And then a lot of the European industry stakeholders at the time, they sat down and said, Okay, we have all this media noise and we need somebody to get out there and clean it up now and say, Okay, this is true, this is not. There was more engineering expertise at the time and things of course evolved. They were sending faxes back then. Now of course we're doing the work online and newsletters and all sorts of stuff. We don't have a print edition. I think they never had the print edition. But the idea was exactly to make sure that the anti-nuclear sentiment doesn't creep into journalism, creating some sort of paradigm of negativity about nuclear power. And of course things changed over the years, because we were first in Switzerland and then moved to Belgium. Then, of course, many times they change the other system stuff. And ultimately, we reached the point where NucNet at the moment is a typical, I would say, trade press agency where we follow the industry and the industry follows us in a way. I think most of our readership is among the nuclear stakeholders, not so much probably the general public. Yet we managed to find our way and still be around after so many years. We had the model when there were mostly large nuclear stakeholders that were technically providing our readership. But over the last couple of years already, under my helm, I see that we are moving into a direction where we also started to see individuals coming in the picture as filling in the readership. And then there are people who are probably a little bit already outside the nuclear industry. And it's really nascent, so I'm not gonna say that this is the game changer for us - we are still widely read by the industry - but I can see that the website, for example, is really visited probably by a wider public, while the newsletter still remains to be very specifically niche. But we had to adapt to the environment. We had to be fully online. We have to go, of course, on social media at one point. And we did everything that general, online media trends requires, so I think we are in a good position today. As you said, it's been one of the couple of leading organizations in the sector. If you have any more questions, of course.

Olivia Columbus
Yeah. Lots of questions kind of about all your processes. But one thing that kind of comes top of mind is especially, I think you probably have a really unique view of how the industry has evolved over the past seven years or so. And there has been so much movement, especially with these new SMR technologies constantly emerging. How do you keep your finger on the pulse of who the new and up and coming vendors or players in the space are and how that that has been changing? And how just sort of the nuclear industry has evolved so much so recently?

Kamen Kraev
I've seen things changing, because when we first- when I first entered the sector in the job, I think there was less social media work, for sure. There were less communicators involved in this and I saw this really expanding. There were a lot of industrial events and discussions about communication and how to do it and what to do better and how to use modern tools. I still think that, at that point, there was some sort of timidity, I think is the word. There was some sort of- because of the trauma of the past from the nuclear industry was probably afraid to speak about, to speak up in general, to speak up and find its place in the energy paradigm in the world. And, of course, Fukushima in 2011 didn't help either. They were a little bit- I think communication departments were always a bit shy to speak and to reach out to the general public. But I saw that changing and I still, I see now that the industry has become more confident to take its position. Companies are communicating clearly about the importance of nuclear which is- I think it's good. They found out that innovation is a buzzword they want to speak about. And they found out that they want to show the public that nuclear is not just stuck in the past and the new projects that are coming our way, as any other industry has also evolved and it is evolving. The reactors we will have today or in 10 years are not the same that we used to have back in the 70s. So more to the point, I will say that from our perspective as NucNet, as editors and people who are doing this daily, I can tell you that exactly the innovation topic and the SMR topic is something that people really like. The views of these stories and then when these stories go on social media, you have a few times more engagement or impressions or all sorts of positive stats than what you get on average. So we know that there is some sentiment around SMRs for sure, about innovation, about new build projects in general. If it's about new build, people also like to read- I guess they like to see that nuclear is going somewhere, that it's not stuck. Of course, when there are failures, also we report on that. We don't hide this. We have to- if there is an honest communication about something that has gone okay or has gone not okay, we have to say it, because that's our policy at NucNet. But I can see that the audience is hungry for progress. That's something that was not there five, six years ago. That's my impression. Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a partial view.

Olivia Columbus
I think- I mean, at least in our sort of independent tracking of nuclear journalism, I've definitely noticed a major uptick in the last nine months or so of major global publications writing more and more about nuclear. I think the Wall Street Journal writes about nuclear pretty regularly now. We see it in Bloomberg quite a bit. And that's been pretty amazing. I think, we thought maybe some of that was spurred by Bill Gates really becoming a little bit more publicly supportive of nuclear and so that got it on people's minds and then people got more into it. But do you see that as a trend? And are there other things that you think are informing that?

Kamen Kraev
That's a good point I should have mentioned, perhaps. But yeah, I also- we also had the impression that since the summer, for example, maybe a little bit earlier to say nine months, nine to six months, we are definitely getting overwhelmed by the amount of developments that we have to report on. We never used to have a huge backlog of stories and now we do. So we reached the level where we have to decide what is going to go out, because we didn't want to- we never really want to spam people. But I think we need to change a little bit the policy as well, because we have to make choices between good developments. You have to say, This one is gonna be published tomorrow and this one is gonna be published today, but they're all good. When you imagine for us, it's not like one story a week. It's like daily and daily and daily, so we need to follow all that. And we need to be able to handle that. And then we were wondering in the team, What's going on? We were wondering whether this is exactly because some major figures were speaking about nuclear or maybe was it because of the energy price crisis in Europe…

Olivia Columbus
Or COP.

Kamen Kraev
Or COP that came and maybe the build up to COP and everybody wanted to communicate or they had deadlines for certain projects to come before that. Or maybe, I hope, it's going to be a trend that will remain with us. And also in the European scene, you see that the leading countries like France finally took a position in defense of nuclear power, which probably gave a boost to some to speak up, maybe. Maybe it's the fact that the European Union has been really discussing this green financing taxonomy for some time. And the decision- the time to make a decision has come and it's also pumping, heating up the discussion. I think it's too early to say whether this is going to be with us as a trend for the next year, but I have noticed that things have expanded.

Olivia Columbus
That's so great that you have so much, so much content to write about.

Kamen Kraev
One thing is, it's not- the worst is not to have? Yeah, so we are happy, we are happy Shouldn't be complaining of our work.

Olivia Columbus
Do you find that, from looking at it - just the communications challenges around nuclear - do you find that maybe the way issues are communicated or perceived differs based on geographic region or the populations that you're communicating to? Do you find that some regions maybe are more accepting of nuclear, but critical of the cost? And maybe some are more worried about safety?

Kamen Kraev
Sure, of course. I think it's one of the challenges for the industry advocates - and I mean advocates in an NGO sense and also in the government and maybe industrial sense as well - because different regions in the world and the different countries in those regions have different specificities on the ground. It's very difficult for a united communication message. Of course, there are several tiers and levels of communication. You can agree on the general message about the climate. But if you go down to the ground, you will see that the concerns of countries are different. Views on nuclear are- you don't have to go far to see what's going on in Europe, with Germany. And most of Eastern European countries in Central Europe - that's how it should be referred to now - want to stick to nuclear power, want to build more nuclear power. You can see differences in public opinion. I can tell you that, in my own country for example, nuclear was always an element of even sort of a national pride in a way that you have this sort of technology that is reserved to an elite club. And you can see that some of the developing countries in the world have the same attitude toward nuclear power today. They want to join this elite club of countries that harness this energy to produce electricity, while others have their doubts about it. Others have moved on and they have other visions on how this should develop. But this all requires different communication. That's why it's difficult to have one message. And sometimes also politically, there are difficulties to reach an agreement as well. Because you mentioned that the politicians have constituents and those constituents have expectations. Remote regions have different needs than the regions in the core of Europe or the United States or Canada. So, yeah, it's not an easy job. And I think it's- I still think it's a job for communications professionals. And this is not always maybe understood correctly. It cannot be done, it can't be done- don't just do half of it. You have to- if you want to do it, you have to do it fully and have a strategy about it. Because others do it, other industries. Other energy industries do that. And if you want to- we all say this, we are partners, but we are not always. There's competition within energy, too. So you want to play that game? You have to really put up the resources.

Olivia Columbus
Yeah, exactly. You really need to staff up at the same level as the other energy sources, right. And if you look at something like oil and gas, there is so much power behind the PR and the marketing, the branding in that industry, that it just- I mean, that really- they really push their own narrative. They create their own narrative. And it seems like the nuclear industry maybe lets other people create their narrative and just apologizes for it when they really shouldn't be.

Kamen Kraev
Well, yeah, as I said, there was some sort of uncertainty of whether they should really go so much at it and communicate about the place nuclear should be taking, because they were always afraid that they will be criticized about the past failures or the cost of upfront cost, because this is something that scares people. They go from cost capital, CapEx at the beginning that's high, but then, of course, it gets cheaper. After 30 years, technically it's only profitable. It operates for so many years. People don't think about it. Politicians probably have short term- you know how politics operates, in terms.

Olivia Columbus
I think also, I mean, that sort of misunderstanding, a lot of people maybe have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role nuclear plays as an energy source. And as a journalist, that can really hurt you, because it can sort of impact the way you're able to report on that. And that's something, if you fundamentally don't understand it- and maybe as more people start to look into these topics, and start to be able to read sources that, from a very sort of non-biased background, or are able to report on what's actually happening, other journalists will be able to inform themselves and say, Maybe I misunderstood this and maybe I should be approaching this from a more objective view.

Kamen Kraev
Well, one of the things- I don't want to speak for journalists in general - but I think we have a bit of an issue with modern journalism and that's time constraint, or maybe the amount of volume that people are faced with. I would say that also many publications who have remained- I'm not saying we're perfect, we're just very specific. First, it's just a small volume that is channeled in a very constrained environment, so we don't really stray out. But you can see that the general journalism, when they touch upon energy topics, especially nuclear energy, there is really lack of understanding, as you say. And it's not to blame the journalists, because it took me years to also get into this. And it's a complex thing. And you can see that. And we are - I myself, when I am still doing editorial work - I have issues to explain complex nuclear stuff in simple terms. And then sometimes you have to really- I mean, we try to- we're probably blessed because we know that the people who read us actually know a bit of the background or a lot of the background so you don't have to explain every single thing. But if you're writing about nuclear and you have to explain it to the general public, where do you- how do you decide what is important and what to leave out if you did talk about projects in their past? And it's- if you go out and say everything, then it's just-

Olivia Columbus
You can't write an essay. Exactly.

Kamen Kraev
So it's tough. And sadly, I think there is a lot of this type of hashtag mentality that people have and they want to pick up something that they can hashtag and they can throw it- you know, put some buzzwords in it and throw it out. And they also probably know what the audience expects and they just tailor the content to the audience. And if you know that you're read by anti-nuclear people, then maybe you want to put a bad light on nuclear. I mean, first of all, I don't believe in completely unbiased journalism in general. That's- I say that, that's my opinion. I don't think we are completely unbiased either being in the sector. And I myself, I don't have a problem with nuclear power. If it has- as I said, if there are problems, we will report them, but I still wish good to the industry, you see. So I'm not either. I'm biased, I would say, but the problem is, when you see that some journalists don't do the background check and they actually write stuff which is not true. And I'm not going into controversial topics about how many people died from Chernobyl, how many were impacted, and so on. Even more and more simple recent developments about projects, saying that something is more expensive compared to another thing, making a statement, but you don't explain, for example, that in the case of nuclear power, you have facilities that will be operated for 80 years, while in the case of wind, you have facilities that will be operated for 25 years now. So when you see that, you will see an important piece of information that people cannot- you're not the one to give a statement and say that's better, that is not right. But you have to say that this costs that much. This costs that much. This is going to be operated that much, and this is going to be operated that much. And then when people read that and get this information, they can judge and say, Okay, so maybe it's not such a good idea to do this, or Maybe, okay, after all we have to think about it. You have to strive to give the full picture as good as you can. Because if you omit, it's not a lie, but it's still skewing the picture. You need to be able to have all the information to make an informed judgment. And if the choice is against nuclear, fair enough. If the choice is pro-nuclear, fair enough. But you need to give people the info and not select it.

Olivia Columbus
Right, exactly, making the decision based on good journalism practices and not, you know, I feel this way about this issue. That very much makes sense. Do you think that maybe the answer somewhat lies in kinda what we were talking about before and in the sort of way as a society we learn about nuclear relative to other energy sources. And maybe if communications professionals were sort of taking on this challenge of trying to create more accurate conversations about energy in general and different sources of energy, maybe that could sort of permeate its way into journalism and other conversations around these issues.

Kamen Kraev
I hope so. You know, to be honest, in my experience, when I go to - I've been to press briefings about nuclear specifically, called by industry or other stakeholders - you still see that there are just a few of us from the trade press, my colleagues from other organizations that are sitting there, and a few general journalists. So I still think that there is a lack of general interest. And I think most journalists will not come to an event which is branded as nuclear, sadly. And I still think that should not be discouraging people and they should still talk about it and talk about it. Because nowadays, you need to establish your presence, digitally and everywhere. So you need to be present. The industry needs to go out and speak, maybe to all venues at all venues possible and make sure that when there are people from other industries, nuclear is also there. And maybe the idea is to get people used to the fact that nuclear is around. But you know, you have to imagine that it's difficult to find negative images, so once or twice stigmatized. You have to mount an enormous effort to technically take down that stigma and then move forward. There is a generational thing as well, because you see people back in the 90s after Chernobyl and there were people who were mounted on the- you know, they went on the path of this environmentalism. Environmentalism also developed over the decades, but people young, back then, made the removal of nuclear power an important life goal. And now they're in their later years and they are already maybe politicians and they have to spit back on what they're working. They say, Okay, now actually, nuclear power is good. It's not going to work. And so the stigma still lives with these- with a lot of these people who are back then yank. And they still carry these messages and very few of them have changed. They might have also reproduced this stigma to people who, theoretically, were, like most of them, born after Chernobyl. Or maybe they were very young when Fukushima happened. Maybe they were not even conscious when Fukushima happened, so now teenagers today. And this thing is somehow perpetually recreated. And I still don't completely see how good we have gone out of this. I still think that it's better to speak about it as much as we can and fight for the soul of people still. It's not going to be quick. It's not going to be quick, for sure.

Olivia Columbus
No, that makes total sense. As we're wrapping up here - we're here at the World Nuclear Exhibition today - how has your experience been? What have you been doing here? And what are you looking forward to?

Kamen Kraev
Well, I normally start by just walking out and mapping everybody who's here to see people. I have a friend who's also presented. I will have a couple of interviews. I had a couple of interesting meetings with people I normally contact beforehand. And such venues are interesting for us in the sense that we're also looking to expand as an organization, to expand our readership base. So if the industry reads us, here is the industry, so we see, okay, who potentially can be using our services in a way as well. There is a commercial element to this as well. But I always take the opportunity to have one or two interviews, at least, on the sidelines, or do some reporting from the keynote speeches and so on. We create some content for NucNet. But I think it's the third time I have come and I like this venue, because you have everything in one place. And you see guys I could meet. I will probably never otherwise meet you in person like this or it will take more organization to do so, you know? So I welcome this. And I think next time, which I think should be 2023, so it's two years from now, I think we will probably get our own booth, because I think it's good to establish this presence. As for nuclear in general, the more such events, the more talk about nuclear, the better it is. So I think it's, it's good we are here.

Olivia Columbus
Well, we will look forward to seeing you in 2023 at the next WNE. Thank you so much for joining us today on Titans of Nuclear. It's been a pleasure.

Kamen Kraev
It's been a pleasure as well. And thanks very much for your attention. Hope to see you soon. If you want to speak to me, you know how to find me.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Today, we're here with Madeleine Archer, who is the Sustainability Lead at Sellafield Limited in the United Kingdom. Madeline, it's so great to have you here.

Madeleine Archer
Good. I can't wait to talk to you.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah. Well, welcome to Titans. We're at the WNE, World Nuclear Exhibition, conference here in Paris, France. And you're at the UK pavilion representing Cumbria in addition to Sellafield, the Northwest nuclear arc. But we're here to talk about you and get to know your career and your work at Sellafield. I'd love to kind of start with how you got into nuclear or even energy to begin with.

Madeleine Archer
Yep. So I went to university in Aston, which is in Birmingham. There I did chemical engineering and applied chemistry. As part of my degrees, they did like sandwich placements, so a year in industry and-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
I was also a chemical engineering major, so I know exactly.

Madeleine Archer
So we did a year in industry and Sellafield is one of the companies that advertise quite widely across the UK for doing that program. And they have quite an extensive training program as part of apprenticeships, a year in industry, and then graduate trainees. So I joined Sellafield as part of my degree on an industrial placement year and then went back to university for two years to finish my Master's degree. But as part of my industrial placement, they offered me a full-time position for once I'd graduated.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And so when you started in chemical engineering, were you thinking about energy? Were you thinking about nuclear? Or you just liked chemistry and math?

Madeleine Archer
At school, I was good at chemistry and math, so it was kind of a natural fit for me. And my dad also was kind of a chemist. So he kind of encouraged me down that pathway. And, yeah, it just- Sellafield was something that was advertised to us and I think it's a place that not many people know an awful lot about. But as soon as I started researching it and understanding what we did, it was kind of- it was a bit of a draw to me. I kind of got into it and then as I was learning more and more, it was definitely something that I wanted to pursue. I think doing the year in industry was really helpful, because it's like a year long interview for them. But it was also a chance for me to say, Is this what I want to do and does it interest me?

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So let's introduce Sellafield through the way you were introduced to the organization.

Madeleine Archer
I was introduced as a design engineer, so working with different facilities on-site: fixing pumps, designing new pipes, all other kind of very classic chemical engineering topics. But as soon as I got in the door, you got to see a lot more of the business. And what Sellafield does is, fundamentally, waste management and decommissioning. Through history, we've had very various different roles. We've done lots of different things. From the kind of early 1950s, we supported the war effort, so when people were trying to develop atomic weapons. We were a key part of that for the UK. Then we kind of moved into the more reprocessing side of things to commercial reprocessing and commercial power. We have the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
That's right.

Madeleine Archer
So we've got this rich history of doing lots and lots of different things. And then the bulk of our history is this reprocessing. We've taken fuel from all over the world on behalf of the UK Government and reprocessed that fuel ready to turn into waste for ultimate storage. And now one- we had two large reprocessing facilities and one of them is closed down now.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
At Sellafield?

Madeleine Archer
Yep, so both on-site.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Is the reprocessing in the UK for the old AGR fleet?

Madeleine Archer
We did Magnox and then AGR, so we had two reprocessing facilities: one for Magnox, one for AGR.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Is one of those the one that was shut down?

Madeleine Archer
AGR is now closed down, but we're still running Magnox, which is one of the oldest- well, it must be the oldest, I think it must be the oldest reprocessing facility still running in the world. But even that's coming to the end of its life now and the UK fleet of Magnox reactors are end of life, kind of final defueling. So when we get through that fuel, or at a point where it doesn't make sense anymore to do that, we'll shut that one down as well. And then we will be kind of entirely a waste management decommissioning kind of business. That being said, we also have huge construction work. So part of the challenge that we have is we have lots of waste leftover from that kind of history of Sellafield that we now need to deal with. For a number of years, some of our facilities were just kind of left with no investment in them or anything like that, so there are quite significant challenges from historic storage and things like that and we need to build the facilities to deal with all that waste. So there are huge construction projects going on. And we've kind of got a pretty good history of construction with building the reprocessing facility, which was, I think, at the time, as big a construction project as the Channel Tunnel. Huge, huge buildings. So moving forward, we're kind of project managing the big construction projects, but also dealing with these nuclear legacy facilities that we have in the UK, from the kind of- the mission we had at the time, which was to support the war effort and develop atomic weapons, when they maybe weren't thinking about the future of how do we get rid of this waste in the future? How do we deal with it? What are we going to do to store it safely? That's the kind of big challenge at the moment.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
That's a really exciting kind of challenge for you to join as a young engineer, just kind of see the entire future of a company, but kind of the future of an industry and of a country's solution to a pretty big challenge. So after you started out and did your kind of apprenticeship and you got to know the sector, where did you first- at the company, where do you first land and kind of move up from there?

Madeleine Archer
I completed my graduate training all pretty much in design engineering, so I focused on that to begin with, but I'm kind of an "every day’s got to be exciting" kind of girl. So design engineering of projects that are going to take 10 years, 15 years wasn't really for me, so I decided to take a step closer to the facilities basically. We have 220 plus nuclear facilities on the site-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Wow.

Madeleine Archer
-all in about two square miles, so there's plenty of opportunity to kind of get yourself in there and really get in close to the facility. I decided to become what we call a System Engineer, so that was supporting the operations of the facility, reliability, supporting with breakdowns, looking at the future maintenance plans of the facilities and things like that. So I did that in our thermal oxide, or AGR, reprocessing facility. And that was a really fantastic opportunity to be really close. I did some time on shifts with our operators kind of learning how to do it on the control desk, which was really cool. And again, kind of decided it wasn't quite close enough. Literally, I was like- I was in the control room and I was like, This is fun, this is what I want to do. But also, I looked across at the legacy facilities and the huge challenges that we're facing and I really like every day being different. And with those legacy facilities, because we don't know, necessarily - there's no fantastic records of what they did in 1956, or things like that. And you know, if there are records, they're not to the standard that we would expect them today.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
You can't put it in a VR model.

Madeleine Archer
Well, we can talk about that in a bit, but we have done some fantastic stuff now, but not the information we had back then. I thought that was a really interesting area of the business to get into, so I became a Deputy Operations Manager in one of our seriously old legacy facilities: the first generation Magnox storage pond. So this is kind of a huge- basically like a swimming pool where- and it's full of skips of spent Magnox and other kinds of fuel, some of the kind of experimental parts of it, medical isotopes that have been stored in there, all sorts of different things.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And what kind of timeframe of things being stored in this pool-

Madeleine Archer
Probably late 50s, early 60s kind of time period, all the way through probably to late 80s was stored in there. And then there was a big chunk of time where we didn't really do anything with it. And then, in the late 90s, early noughties, we kind of started getting into it in earnest and said, This is really important, we need to move forward with this and make it safe. At the time, we had four what we call high hazard facilities. And there was a big kind of press thing at the time that they were the most hazardous facilities in Europe and we really needed to crack on. So the UK Government gave us that instruction and said, You need to do this as fast as you possibly can. So that was then the challenge for these four facilities: to get them empty, take the water out, and then start to decommission them as fast as we possibly can to reduce that hazard to the local community. I was Deputy Operations Manager in what we call a sludge packaging plant. At the bottom of the pond, the coating on the fuel and various- it's outdoor, so you kind of get leaves and seagulls and all sorts of things and it kind of forms a sludge layer at the bottom of the pond, which is then radioactive, so it would be intermediate level waste. We designed ROVs and swimmers to go and get the sludge, but we needed to put it somewhere. So I was operations- I managed the operations in the sludge packaging facility. We kind of worked closely retrieving the sludge and then passing it through into a lovely safe kind of modern containment facility. I did that for a number of years and then moved into the Operations Manager position.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah, well, actually just back to the sludge plant. I just think it's so fascinating. What was that like describing to your friends?

Madeleine Archer
I'm now known amongst my close friends as Queen of the Sludge, which is an absolutely fantastic title. It's really stuck with me. So it's a number of years ago now, but it's really stuck.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
But you had to give that up.

Madeleine Archer
Give that up and progress. Moving on up. So I moved into our infrastructure capability. Sellafield is a bit like a small town.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah. I've seen maps of it. It's huge.

Madeleine Archer
12,000 people on any given day. It has its own sewage treatment works. It has its own railway system and canteens. All of that kind of that you would expect. It's got its own medical facility. All of that kind of that you would expect of a small town. And part of the infrastructure capability is to look after the flasks that we use in the UK to transport material, both internally and externally. I became Operations Manager for our flask maintenance facilities.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
When you say a flask, can you describe that? I think that's a different terminology than we use.

Madeleine Archer
Okay, so the kind of outer layer of containment that you would see when we transport nuclear fuel or nuclear waste-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
New nuclear fuel or used?

Madeleine Archer
Either and so we have a huge range of different containers. And that's part of the challenge of maintaining them is that they're all different. So each commercial company- so EDF will have a different one to Magnox, and the Italians will have a different one to the Finnish. They all have their own. Most people would have seen- if you've ever seen nuclear transport on trains or on wagons or on big boats, for example, they're kind of white - they're usually white, sometimes yellow - big, huge containers. And the most famous video of one is that a train crashes into one and it just bounces and just rolls off nicely. The trains destroyed, but the flask is beautifully preserved. So I looked after the maintenance for those flasks. Repainting them, making sure all the bolts and the seals and everything was secure, so that I'm meeting the transport regulations, both internally and internationally. Because as I mentioned before, we reprocess fuel on behalf of international customers. So the waste that's produced from that reprocessing is returned to the international customer or a proportion of the waste, because it's not practical to return every pair of gloves we've used. We kind of do a high level waste container and that equates to the amount of radioactive material that we've reprocessed for them and send them those highly active containers. So yeah, they're in kind of very thick steel flasks is what we call them. And they can be transported anywhere, so they would go on boats off to Japan or Italy, and then around the UK we bring in fuel in similar flasks.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Fascinating. I'm actually- so nuclear transport is an incredibly, highly regulated industry. I'm kind of curious what that is like on a nuclear licensed site. I imagine it's still obviously very highly regulated, but probably not as restrictive right as once it's out of the facility.

Madeleine Archer
We did we had different requirements for flasks that we used to transport things internally versus externally. And the difficulty that we have is often sometimes you need to leave the site with it, even if it's- so the same package can do multiple jobs, so you effectively have a very similar standard for maintaining the flasks anyway, even if they're going off- or on-site. We do have smaller packages that we can use for internal moves for different things that aren't fuel, because we can reduce the shielding layers and all of that kind of stuff. So it varies, but also a kind of really high safety standard, because we have our staff driving around our site. It's really not that different to the external world. I know a lot of sites don't have personal cars and all that kind of stuff, but we do. Our workforce drives on and they go over the level crossings with the fuel on the same train line. It does need to be to that really high standard, whichever really.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
You mentioned train lines. I'm kind of painting this picture in my mind about the size. As you mentioned, a small city where they have all these different transportation networks. I imagine also have really probably highly technical data management systems as well, right? Because it's not just- it's everything that you're tracking. It's the containers. It's what's in the containers. It's the gloves that were used to touch the containers. That's really fascinating.

Madeleine Archer
The site's grown up in a kind of very evolutionary way. So everything isn't integrated, but within parts of it, you have these kind of comprehensive management systems. We have the package management system, which tells you exactly where are packages on any given day, what's been in it, what's in it now, but also what's been in it through its entire history, what maintenance it's ever had done on it, and whether or not it's approved to go off-site, what content it can hold, and all of that kind of stuff, all just kind of stored in a centralized system. And then if you think about, we have 220 nuclear facilities, so you have different systems for all sorts of different things. Yeah, huge amount of data management and a real big challenge to kind of bring it together. Because the current aspiration, I guess, globally is to bring all that data together, so that you can analyze it and so you can use it in a more productive way and all the separate systems don't really lend themselves to that. So that's one of the challenges that we're working through at Sellafield at the moment is how we bring all of that data together, but make it useful and make it easy to access for us so that we can use it to the best effect.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right, right. Fascinating. Okay, so this is when you were Operations Manager focusing on flask-

Madeleine Archer
Infrastructure and flasks. And then I did one more Operations Manager job after that. I moved back into our legacy facilities and I went to the power fuel storage pond, which is the oldest pond. We have two kind of main, old outdoor ponds. So I worked on one and then I moved to the other. Now, the other one has quite a different challenge, because it mainly focused on taking fuel from the pile fuel chimneys at Sellafield Ltd, which were originally part of the Windscale site. Those who are a bit older might remember the Windscale fire, which was the UK's biggest nuclear disaster where the reactor at Windscale set on fire. We were saved from mass contamination of the local area by a filter gallery that was installed. The story is told that it was installed a bit on a whim, because one of the team members, Cockroft said, Oh, I think you should put this on. And so they put it on and it ended up saving the day. So they're called Cockroft's Folly, the Filter Gallery. It's a bit of an anecdotal thing. But yeah, so they kind of saved the day. But the reactors ran for a number of years, mainly to support the development of atomic weapons. And they had a direct- it's a really interesting layout on the site. So you've got two kind of huge chimneys with reactors underneath. And then directly in the middle you have the power fuel storage pond. And there are underwater channels that go into each- from each reactor into the pond in the middle so they could directly transfer the fuel without ever having to handle it outside, which is, at the time what they needed to do, because they didn't have MSMs to do remote handling and all of that kind of stuff. So that's how they did it. And then it's full of skips of that - or it was a number of years ago - full of skips of that kind of fuel. Now, when I went into the power fuel storage pond, they were much further along their journey for decommissioning than some of the other facilities, so it was very task by task. There weren't large amounts of fuel to remove anymore. They had done all of that. So there are lots of kind of interesting one-offs to do. But also one of the big challenges was looking at how we start lowering the water level, how we start taking it apart, and how we bring it to ground level, because eventually that's what it has to be. And one of the most interesting things that I was involved with during that time was divers, nuclear divers. Never been done at the Sellafield site. We have a dive team who work on the sea lines that take our effluent out to sea, but never on the nuclear licensed site. So we were looking at using divers to go and do final cleanup of the base layer of the pond, because you can use kind of- the analogy is a Hoover to pick up all the sludge. But there are bits that it just won't pick up.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And there are areas of metal or like heavier objects?

Madeleine Archer
Well, yeah or you know, tiny things that you can't really see, but are highly radioactive. Things like that that you wouldn't know to go and look for unless you were close, because you can't- you can't identify small objects on the bottom of the pond through water, because you can't do it radioactively. And you can't do it visually, because it's very cloudy and the water shields any radiation really. So the interesting part of that was kind of building a full-scale trial facility for the divers. So we haven't finalized them going in yet or any of that kind of stuff, but being part of that process of the idea of putting divers into that highly hazardous environment was a really interesting thing to be part of.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
This is really fascinating to think about decommissioning kind of on this task basis. So the task is pick up the itty bits at the bottom of the pond. And then it's like okay, how are we going to do that? Well, we don't have an appropriate technology, so we're going to use humans. Okay, so we're gonna have to train divers, hire divers-

Madeleine Archer
We're going to have to put steps in.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
-make it accessible, build a training pond, and then have a whole plan laid out for when this is going to happen. And that's just one piece of one task in the whole decommissioning of this entire facility. That's fascinating. And so I'm actually- what is that process kind of like? It was just, you identify a task, then create plans, then you said, Now, you haven't even done the dives yet. How long do these tasks typically play out?

Madeleine Archer
It really does vary depending on kind of the hazard level, the nuclear safety case involved in doing what you're going to do. I think the challenge with divers has been no one's ever done this before. But also COVID happened. The contractor that we had in place at the time was American, so there were kind of issues with how we were going to travel and all that kind of stuff. There have been a few delays. But I think, mainly, the challenge is around demonstrating that something completely new and never been done before can be made safe. There's an awful lot of kind of safety assessment, building a safety case to do it, radiological testing. One of the things that we did was we did extreme dose monitoring, so finger. How much dose your finger is going to get. How much dose your eyes are going to get. How much dose different parts of your body while you're doing these activities and a lot of that has to be done by modeling and surveying the areas and things like that. There are a lot of kind of practical things that you need to do, but actually the practical stuff for diving anyway. Divers go into the ponds underneath reactors. That's been done before, so that the practicalities of diving in that environment are kind of understood. But it's the context of Sellafield where you can't- in our ponds, you can't see this far in front of your face. So how do you keep them safe? How do you make sure that there's that backup on backup on backup so that, if something happens, you can get these people out and get them safe as quickly as possible? So it is a really big challenge building that case, really, to say, Yeah, we're good to go.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And so you talking about building the safety case. You're speaking about working with the ONR, the regulatory body in the United Kingdom. Are there regulators that you kind of constantly are assigned to you assigned to this task, but you're working with on a daily basis?

Madeleine Archer
So the regulators are generally assigned to a facility, but with things like divers, that's kind of our main focus in that facility. There are other operations going on, but the main focus would be something like divers. So yeah, we get very regular interaction with them and we have kind of named individuals that are allocated to- at least for the smaller facilities, they might look after one or two. But yeah, the big jobs you kind of get your one named person who's constantly-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And they become- this person will become the world expert in the first time. Creating jobs and careers all over the place. Exactly. Okay. So this is kind of where you're at currently? Or you were focused- this hasn't yet fully come to completion, but-

Madeleine Archer
I've moved on. Yeah. So I moved on quite quickly, because when COVID happened, I also am part of emergency management and crisis response at the site. When COVID came on the horizon, there was a kind of discussion that said, Well, Madeline's going to need to be on COVID response if COVID happens. Because at the time, this was what, January 2020? And it was all like, I don't know, we don't know. But we kind of set up a little taskforce to say, What would happen if this becomes a global pandemic and we have to respond to this? And I was part of that task force. There was kind of a discussion that happened at the time that said we need a full-time operations manager. You can't go off and just do COVID and forget about the power fuel storage pond, so we're going to have to come to some sort of agreement. And the agreement was that I moved into a role, a more functional role in enterprise strategy, but spent the majority of my first six months in that job responding to COVID and making the arrangements to keep the site safe during that time when we couldn't get people in and there were all of the restrictions. We have many, many places where people need to work very closely together-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And in person, right, a lot of this work is-

Madeleine Archer
Yeah, we can't just- so one of the key things about Sellafield is we can't switch off the lights and send everybody home. We just can't do that. There are loads of facilities on the site that need 24/7 to keep them safe. So we had a huge challenge there, because there was kind of the fear element of it - people not wanting to come into work, not wanting to come into contact with other people - but also putting the arrangements in place that meant we could keep people at a safe distance from each other and try and reduce any possible transmission in the workplace and all of those elements of it.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
It's a really fascinating, I think, position to find yourself in. To be in an industry where safety is just key to every- it's every other word, because the potential danger is very real, but at the same time to then have to kind of find yourself an environment where the people you're trying to protect from radioactive substances can themselves cause harm to the people. It must be a really kind of fascinating-

Madeleine Archer
A very new way to think about things. As you said, a highly regulated, highly safety conscious industry, but not biologically. We weren't expecting Joe Bloggs to bring it in and be the problem, essentially. It was a really different way of looking at things. We had to get very up to speed and technically understanding very, very quickly. We had experts we could call on from the UK government and public health, but we had to learn all of this stuff really quickly, as did every other business. But it was quite unique for us in the way that we can't stop.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
But it probably- anyways, I imagine it might have been easier in this sector. Right? Again, the safety culture is there, but you have scientists talking to scientists, that was very rational.

Madeleine Archer
Yeah, there was an understanding that we would get it, but also the kind of idea that we have to be there was very challenging when the government says, Everybody stay at home and don't leave the house. The idea that we're going, No, actually you have to leave the house, because you have to come to work, was a strange one, because everybody saw the health services and those kind of people going to work. But we did have that kind of weird, psychological thing of do we actually have to be there? So we did a lot of challenging of who do we really need? Who would we need if it was even worse? And identifying those people who we need to rely on.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So I imagine you came up with kind of classification systems of actually defining the word essential.

Madeleine Archer
Yes, essential has different- you can be essential one and essential two. So yeah, and we did do quite a significant shutdown of the site. Production did really kind of stop in that first phase, maintaining the safety. We chose to stop production so that we could maintain the safety. Because when you start losing people to go and self-isolate or because they've got COVID, it becomes a challenge in terms of making sure you've got enough people to come in. So we did all sorts of things around groupings of shifts. We would create a little bubble of shifts and then we would reduce the shift numbers on one shift so that you've got people sat at home, so that if any of those were taken out or they got to self-isolate, that you could bring them- the other set in and-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Have the same expertise.

Madeleine Archer
So a lot of work on resilience during that time.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Great. So you mentioned the word resilience, and I'm curious where the word sustainability comes into your title.

Madeleine Archer
So, after COVID, I kind of in earnest got into enterprise strategy. The enterprise strategy is what sets the direction from the business. It's the words that come from our board and our executive and years of experience that say this is where we need to be as a business over the next five years. We do a five-year strategy cycle. And as part of the enterprise strategy that we wrote last year - we were doing a new one last year - there was a discussion around sustainability. And we wanted sustainability to be up there as one of the things that we are expected to do every day. So we changed-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Define sustainability for me, because it's a big word. Everyone has a definition for it.

Madeleine Archer
Sustainability is doing the right thing now for future generations.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Perfect.

Madeleine Archer
That's the way we talk about it. So we decided that sustainability needed to be there. One of our objectives is safe, secure site stewardship. And last year we changed that to safe, secure, sustainable site stewardship. Now, at Sellafield sustainability is an odd concept, because what we do is inherently sustainable, because we are cleaning up the mess previous generations left to make a better future for the rest of the UK. So that's what we do. A clean and safe environment for future generations. The question is how we do it sustainable and that's where my job kind of comes in. We have a social impact department and an environmental department and there's not necessarily that much linkage between the two. So my job is around coordinating all of that across the business to demonstrate our sustainability credentials, if you will, and say, We are doing this stuff, we have been doing this stuff for years, but what we need to do is focus it in the right places and make sure that we know what we're doing. Because with 12,000 people, you've got people doing all sorts of different things, but you need to know from a sustainability perspective where the gaps are.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
This comes back to that data management point. But I also think it's very- it's kind of that five-year plan, right? Evaluating what everyone's doing and then thinking about how we can shift everything to meet this vision.

Madeleine Archer
One of the things that I've done is set up the kind of forums for people to come together and share ideas, share what they're doing, and get information. Set up the governance so that if we've got decisions that need to come through and be made, then we get those to the right place. Set up a little bit of funding, so that if people have got kind of standalone sustainability ideas to improve the business, then we can look at funding that against the very big challenge of, we don't make any profit. Our funding is allocated every year from government and we have a really big job to do. And what we need to do is not- we don't need to step out of our lane. What we need to do is keep swimming along in our lane, but doing it in the best way we possibly can, so that we have the least impact on future generations, the least impact on the environment. Now, we're never going to have - in the next 30, 50 years - no impact on the environment, because we're dealing with stuff that happened years ago and we have to keep doing that. The most sustainable thing we can do is deliver our purpose, make it clean and safe as quickly as we possibly can. Because inherently, if it's not safe, it's not sustainable.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Well, that's brilliant. And I think that's a really perfect place to end this conversation on. And I am looking forward to seeing what you do next at Sellafield in your career, which I'm sure it'll be something just as exciting and just as grand. Thank you so much.

Madeleine Archer
Thank you very much.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
It's been wonderful to meet you.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Well, today, we are here with Rory O'Sullivan, the North American CEO of Moltex Energy. Welcome to Titans of Nuclear, Rory.

Rory O'Sullivan
Good morning. It's great to be here.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Good to be here. So we're at the WNE conference in Paris, France. You are from Ireland originally and you're now in Canada working with Moltex in the North American region. And we originally interviewed about two years ago, three years ago in 2018, a co-founder and the UK CEO, Ian Scott, but it's great to be back and to hear an update about what all you guys have been up to in the past three years.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, I think you guys have been doing a lot in the last two years as well since then. You've had a lot of different people on, so it's great to be here.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Let's start back at your beginning and tell the Rory O'Sullivan story, if you will. How did you first enter the energy space, enter the nuclear space? What got you interested in this to begin with?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, sure. So I graduated mechanical engineering. I was a mechanical engineer from Trinity College, Dublin, and INSA Lyon in France. I actually graduated anti-nuclear. Most Irish people are anti-nuclear there, because of the waste, because of the cost, and because of safety - the usual reasons. I was on the fence, but I ended up anti-nuclear, so I thought I'd go and work on a wind farm. And there was a lot of wind in Ireland.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So you say when you graduated, but you did go to school in France as well, where nuclear is incredibly popular.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, it's true. But nuclear wasn't really part of the curriculum when I was there. I was there for a year and a half and we didn't cover nuclear. In Ireland, we did some and so I did fall on the anti-nuclear fence.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
All right, all right.

Rory O'Sullivan
But there was a big wind industry in Ireland at the time, so I went and worked on a wind farm down the West Coast. I was, This is going to be the future. And then after about six months down there, I realized wind is not going to solve the planet's problems. They were just destroying the countryside, huge, big trucks like wrecking the land.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
This is mostly onshore wind?

Rory O'Sullivan
It was onshore wind when onshore wind was just starting out. It was very expensive. And since that was what, 20 years ago or something, and now I can't believe it has gotten so much cheaper. It really has gotten much cheaper, but it's still using huge land usage, taking up beautiful countryside. So after the six months there, I realized, yeah, this is not going to solve the planet's problems. So I was very dismayed by energy and went and got a job in London, England.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Okay, doing...?

Rory O'Sullivan
Construction, project management. So I started out as an engineer on-site, mechanical engineer. Kind of worked my way up. In the end, I was running about a 60 million pound mixed commercial residential unit, running about 350 people on-site. Really exciting day to day, loved the job, but the bigger picture just wasn't very interesting. It's just construction. I'm still always interested in energy. It was around 2014 when I heard about the concept of molten salt reactors.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So molten salt reactors and this different type of nuclear technology that promises to be safer and has all these additional environmental benefits. That kind of helped sway you back, first of all, into the energy space where the things that were dismaying you were the environmental impacts the cost and then kind of ultimately just not being too enthralled by energy in general.

Rory O'Sullivan
Exactly. And molten salt reactors, even back then there was like maybe one. The Chinese had a startup that was great. But they have the potential to deal with the waste, the potential to be low cost, and the potential to have a radical improvement in things.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And how did you first hear about molten salt? Was it by reading papers or hearing a lecture?

Rory O'Sullivan
I attended a lecture that was organized by an 84-year old Jasper Tomlinson. He set it up through the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London. And I went along, just got an email, this lecture in nuclear innovation. Okay, let's go have a listen. And I knew that day that I was like, this is the future.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Wow.

Rory O'Sullivan
And nobody in the industry had heard about Molten Salt Reactors then. I mean, literally, ask anybody in energy. They didn't know they were.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And this is a technology that was developed- or not developed, but conceived of and written about decades ago at the beginning of the nuclear power sector, 50 years ago or so in the laboratory setting, but has never really been thought of as a potential commercial, viable energy source.

Rory O'Sullivan
Exactly. There was the prototype in the 60s. There was some work in the 70s. But really then it was put on the shelf and it wasn't until people like Kirk Sorensen with Flibe Energy, David LeBlanc of Terrestrial Energy, who started to go back and look at this. And Ian Scott, the founder of Moltex, was one of those at the same time. So I hadn't met any of them, Moltex, or any of them at the time. But I was fascinated. So myself, and Jasper, the 85 year old, we got together and said we want to do something about this. What we did was we got a government - UK Government - grant, 75,000 pounds or something, and we got- he put up some money and Frazer-Nash Consultancy put up some money. And we did an evaluation of molten salt reactors to be able to build a prototype in the UK. And that was looking at the various kind of concepts and ideas that are around at the time.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So this is just kind of an academic study, but with the intent to see if it will be viable from an economic perspective, from a supply chain perspective, or what all were you evaluating?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, that's it. I mean, really, the objective was, could a molten salt technology be developed in the near term for large scale commercial rollout? Was it feasible, essentially. And so we got up this pool of experts around to look at all the different options. It was pretty quick that we saw the Moltex design that was really just Ian Scott in his basement - fancy big house in the countryside rather than basement, but still - had come up with the idea. But he had the basics and the main patents and the technology there. And I got into this by I took a year off work. I studied maybe at night for two years before this and then got this pool of experts together to do this evaluation with that. We set up a company Energy Process Developments and the report is still- I think it's still out there online. It was used a lot at the time: Molten Salt (MSR) Feasibility Study. It's an interesting read, I think. But anyway, quite quickly into that study, we found that the Moltex design was way ahead of the rest in terms of likelihood for near term development. And that's because of the unique patents and the ability to put fuel in tubes. So we were looking at collaborating with Ian, the founder and the team that I had set up there, looking at collaborating doing different projects. Then really, it made sense to actually just merge with Moltex. And that's what happened. The team that we had set up ended up just merging with Moltex.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
What was your role then when you merged into the Moltex company with Ian?

Rory O'Sullivan
Well, it wasn't really a company then. It was Ian. It was Ian and he had already come across the partner, John Durham, who put up the first million pounds. So it was really at that point we started to look and expand and recruit people. That's when it became a company and I was leading operations, really. Might be the role there for the first few years before I moved to Canada as Chief Operating Officer. But it was very small at the time. We were looking for where's the best country to deploy the technology?

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right. Right. And so when you were looking across the technological landscape, obviously - or the country landscape - obviously there's the demand, right? In the UK, you're probably part of why the government was so eager to sponsor these studies and to be involved in this process to date. There's a lot of energy need and decarbonisation need and the current fleet is retiring. SMRs and AMRs and different types of technologies need to be on the horizon, so there's a great need to sponsor that type of work. And of course, you're now in Canada. What were you looking at? Regulatory? Supply chain? Economics? Energy demand?

Rory O'Sullivan
We were looking at a regulator that was able to license innovative designs. We were looking for customers that wanted new nuclear power and needed clean energy and generally a good ecosystem. And we thought the UK had a lot of that. What was interesting is really the UK was focused then on big nuclear and there was no customer available, which you wouldn't really notice when you first look at the UK, because it's a very big industry, but actually, EDF is the French government and they're the only utility operate nuclear operator in the country. Canada has a very- well, not special situation, but a very, very good environment in this regard, because there are several utility customers that don't have a technology bias. So as soon as we went over to Canada to look and speak to them, it was a very different discussion, because they need low carbon solutions, economic development, all the same things, but they didn't have any biases. They were just looking for the best solution. And so we had great traction immediately in Canada, because I think we've got a great solution.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Where are we in time now?

Rory O'Sullivan
This is probably 2016. I spent time in Malaysia. I spent time in Indonesia. I was back and forth to China five times in a couple of years. Then we were in India a couple of times. We looked at obviously the USA. We looked everywhere for the best.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Canada had kind of the right options.

Rory O'Sullivan
Canada kind of really had the right mix. It has a good regulatory environment. It has customers, of course. There's a need for new clean energy solutions. And it has an established nuclear industry that was open to innovation.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And a regulator that's open to innovation.

Rory O'Sullivan
A regulatory framework that is ready for innovation.

Rory O'Sullivan
Right. Okay, so you establish operations in Canada. You become the North American CEO.

Rory O'Sullivan
We are doing the Vendor Design Review, which is the Canadian regulatory process for vendors from the UK. We started from the UK, started submissions, like first submission in December 2017. And then it was around February 2018 that New Brunswick Power- we came across New Brunswick Power and they were doing their technology evaluation. And there wasn't really any utilities at this point that were seriously looking at SMRs. They were the first. And they were looking at 90 different technologies and they selected us and ARC as the top two technologies to work with. They were also looking for partners to move to New Brunswick and set up a presence here. We were looking at options to move to Canada, so it was just really good timing. It was a really good fit. So that's when I moved over to New Brunswick - it was July, maybe July, August 2018 - to start up the Canadian operations properly.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Excellent. And so I guess at this at this time you are establishing your team, growing the company, and at what point are you ready to enter into the regulatory process? Or is that- that's actually, just entered into the regulatory process.

Rory O'Sullivan
We had just started that. We were kind of starting it slowly. And we were building the team at the same time… in Canada and the UK were helping us through that process, helping us build the team. It was around mid-2018 when we had our investment from IDOM. IDOM, a major European engineering firm, they were looking at different technologies and they decided to invest in us, so that really helped build our team, because they were able to send us as many engineers that we liked to be able to scale up fast.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Great. What was that period like? When you establish operations and you're ready to- your design is final enough that they're no more changes you made, it's ready to be submitted to the regulator. You don't have a supply chain. You have to build up staff. You have to build up your safety case. You have to perform all different types of analyses. You have to build a fuel supply chain, as well. What has that process been like?

Rory O'Sullivan
It's exciting. There have been a lot of ups and downs. Some of the learning with the regulatory process- you know, looking back you'd always do things differently, of course - but it was a really big challenge, we had people from all over the world working on the project and translating how you do a nuclear design. And how you do nuclear safety was really very challenging, because we were trying to do it in the Canadian language - the way Canadian regulators and any industry are familiar with - but a lot of our expertise were from Spain, from the UK, from the USA, from France, Asia. And that that was a real struggle. So we were trying to develop our own procedures and our own safety processes. But bringing with such a diverse background, it was very tedious to get that off the ground.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And you would think that having kind of all those different perspectives would actually be really smart in the long run, right? So you build your first few plants in Canada, license them with the Canadian regulator, but then hopefully you kind of thought about all these other different perspectives and ways of thinking about safety that allow your technology to then be either a new license given or exported to other countries under a different regulatory paradigm.

Rory O'Sullivan
So I think now, looking back, it's great. It's absolutely not done, it's a long way to go. But we have gotten to a really good place today because we've had that really diverse input. But the need to have it aligned with the specific regulator you're going to is very, very important. Of course, you can take innovative approaches to any regulator, but it's a challenge, because you've really got to go and spend a long time going through why this process is different to the way regulators have seen it before. So yeah, at the moment we've got our main fundamental procedures done and an amount of the system is mostly done, but there's a long way to go. There are a lot of details we've still got to go. And it's a big focus of ours at the moment as we prepare for Phase Two, the vendor design review.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
What was Phase One? You were just submitting a basic design, making sure there are no huge red flags? You kind of check high level boxes and okay, this looks all right. There's nothing we're too scared of. We can move on. Or what does that entail?

Rory O'Sullivan
It's really- it's actually more of an assessment of the vendor than the design in Phase One. And you wouldn't really read that from the paperwork, but that's the intent is the regulator wants to know that you are a competent designer that can design a safe reactor. The submissions are partly how you do the design - it's how you do the design, and your companies to do it - and what the actual design looks like. Because sensibly, they understand the design is going to evolve as you progress the detail, so they're really more interested in are we going to control the changes and safely manage this design process as we get through the various phases of design and construction? Because even when you get a design built, it's going to evolve on the ground over time.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right. Right. So it's really just checking for organizational competency.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah. I wouldn't say I've just checked with that. That's a major- it's probably the biggest part of it.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
May half of your evaluation?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, half or more, and then they're- the Phase Two, what you get is a sentencing. You have no fundamental barriers to licensing. The Phase One is you're on track to get into Phase Two and to give the detail. So I think of another way of saying it is, Phase One is, this is how you're going to give the details to demonstrate that. You're giving the methodologies and the high level principles and often the claims. And then in Phase Two you give the details of all the analyses and the justification behind everything.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So you guys are a startup, which means funding and time is really important, right? So how- talk to me about the timeline of the regulatory process and how you see that kind of working with your company and whether- how you will be successful through this. How long was the first phase of the regulatory process? And then how much longer do you expect the rest of the review to be? And kind of from that startup mentality, I expect you're pushing for things to be as streamlined and efficient as possible, so that you aren't spending a billion dollars in regulatory queue.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, and some of that attitude is not compatible with operators. So we have a bit of a- utilities are very conservative. And thankfully we're working with New Brunswick Power and Ontario Power Generation who are very innovative and open, but they're still big utilities that are very risk averse. So there's sometimes some alignment that needs to happen there. But the Phase One took, I think, about two years. I don't remember the exact timeframe. Now, we're preparing for Phase Two and the overall timeline is to be finished with that around the end of 2024. And so our whole development, that's the Phase Two of the development period, as well. And that's what our agreements with NB Power are, clear milestones through that period. Then we have Phase Three, which is really the detailed design phase where we and our partners will be doing the detailed design. NB Power will be leading the licensing activities at that point, so we'll be providing the design information to them. They will be making the submissions.

Rory O'Sullivan
Right, because as the operator, they also have a very important role that the regulator needs to have kind of that same assurance of competency-

Rory O'Sullivan
Oh, yeah.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
-for this design. Can this- obviously competent operator, because they do have their assets, but they haven't ever operated this specific type of coolant or molten salt, let alone this design. I think in the UK that's called the intelligent customer, correct?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yep. And Canada is adopting similar language, actually. But they're the licensee. They're the one with responsibility and they will be design authority of the plant. At a certain point, like typically commissioning, we will pass over the ownership of the design to the operator. And that's one of the things that the regulators are looking for, that they then have that competency to really understand and own the design as they manage it over the years. They're already a very competent operator that's well respected at CNSC, so the first hurdle is already overcome.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Fantastic. I guess I'm kind of curious to think more about some of the challenges that you're going to be doing over the next few years while you're going through regulatory process. So you said through the next four years will be the licensing process for the next phase. Are you doing any things in parallel with licensing so that as soon as you get your license, you can start construction, start assembly if you're doing factories. Talk about the other things that are happening in parallel with regulatory.

Rory O'Sullivan
Well, just clarify on the- in Canada, the vendor design review really gives confidence to investors and utilities to be able to do their licensing process. It's actually an optional process, which is different to the USA and other countries where the design will be certified. But irrelevant, it's pre-licensing, is really the word. But as we're doing that process, yeah there's a million other things going on. The biggest challenge for us is we have decided to take on the challenge of recycling spent fuel. Back in the early days, we decided that one of the biggest challenges to nuclear power is nuclear waste. And it's always gonna be the Achilles heel of nuclear power. So we decided - a startup doing a new nuclear reactors is a challenge - that we wanted to go all the way. While we're doing it, let's go all the way and build a recycling plant as well. Half or more of our effort now is going into that technology. So we've really got two mega projects. And we're set up in that way that we've got two mega projects going on. That recycling plant, WATSS - Waste to Stable Salts - needs to be on first, because that has to be operating for two to two and a half years producing the fuel for the reactor.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And does that require its own licensing process?

Rory O'Sullivan
Oh, yes. Absolutely.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Okay. And so where are you in that process? You have to design- it's just like what we just talked about. You design the facility, finalize all those plans, and then kind of go through this whole process once again.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, because it's totally new - Canada has never had a reprocessing facility, most countries haven't - there's no vendor design review equivalent. So we have a process called the Four Step Process with the CNSC. And at the moment we're in pre discussions with them about how it will be licensed with NB Power. We're also working with them and with the IAEA on safeguards and incorporating safeguards at the earliest stage to make sure it's in line with best practices. But through the period now, we're doing our experiments with uranium, simulated fission products on that, to really demonstrate that it will absolutely work as expected and convert the spent fuel. Around the similar timeframe, we'll be developing a pilot plant for that to demonstrate a larger scale with real spent fuel.

Rory O'Sullivan
Who is the supplier of spent fuel? Are you getting it from New Brunswick Power or just anyone in Canada?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, the model internationally is that we'd have one of our recycling plants adjacent to where there's already spent fuel, typically.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
On or adjacent to the site.

Rory O'Sullivan
So in Canada, we're in New Brunswick and the spent fuel there, so we'll be putting the WATSS plant and the reactor on the same site. We don't need to move spent fuel around, which is a huge advantage. And we'll still have some waste at the end that has to move, but generally we won't be moving it. When hopefully we go and build plants in Ontario as well, it's still open whether we do one or two centralized facilities or one per reactor site. It's still up in the air. In the US, you'd probably do it regionally, perhaps one WATSS plant or operator for several reactors. In the UK, everything has typically gone through Sellafield and there are good rail networks, so we'd want one WATSS plant for the whole country.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
I see. So are you working with other international reprocessing experts on - so you were here in France - to kind of either learn from the regulatory process or a lot of these kind of complex challenges like transportation, safeguards and security and all these different things that go along with this type of endeavor.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yes, the expertise is very hard to find. There are really- very few people have been working on this in the last 10 or 20 years, so it's been a real challenge to get the right expertise on board. So we've mostly got that. Obviously, we have people in-house that we've got on board. Some great skills and expertise that we're very proud of. But we then have worked with specialist companies. Like there's one company in the UK, DBD, that has done a lot of work on specialist reprocessing facilities around the world. We've leveraged them quite heavily. Some specialists in France, some in Japan, and we'll continue to use their expertise more and more in the future. One of the things that we are doing now and we'll be doing in the future is policy work in this space. Because although, in Canada as an example, there's no specific policy saying you can't reprocess. It is an option available and it's obviously quite controversial. So we have been and will continue to do outreach to the public and governments to, you know, ensure this is what the public wants.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
I'm actually curious about the cost of this whole part of your company. When you're talking about reprocessing, I think the way the models that are currently in operation are government funded. But you're essentially creating a supply chain for your own plants or for your operator. What are the economics like for reprocessing, including that in the whole overall vision for Moltex?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, well, let me- there are two parts to the cost. Of course, there's the reactor cost and the WATSS cost. So let me start with the reactor costs. We made some pretty bold claims when we first started this in 2016 roughly. We had an independent cost estimate by Atkins in the UK which came out around 2000 pounds per kilowatt.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Oh, wow.

Rory O'Sullivan
And 35 pounds a megawatt hour. In the US that was around $2,700 USD and forty-five cents per kilowatt hour. The rate units there? Four and a half cents a kilowatt hour. And now we've recently updated those cost estimates. And we are obviously delighted and very proud that they have come in line with those original cost estimates, just around 3,000 US dollars per kilowatt capital cost and similar OpEx costs. This is all about cost at the end of the day. And so having those low capital cost is what's going to enable the large scale rollout of nuclear power, because countries aren't- you can do a lot of talk about climate change and getting low carbon pollution, but at the end of the day, if it's going to increase bills, it's not going to happen. So that's on the reactor side. And on the WATSS side, there's a lot more uncertainty around the cost estimate, because it's so new. But we seem to have very big margins. Even if we just look at the cost of the WATSS plant and operation of the WATSS plant comparing to the need to buy fresh uranium fuel, it looks like our fuel conversion recycling facility will be cheaper than buying regular uranium.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
And have you guys- when you're looking at the economics for the WATSS side, how are you thinking about- and I'm not as familiar with Canada's system, but obviously, in the United States we have a pool of money, if you will, for spent fuel that the government provides, or that the utilities provide the government that could be tapped into. How does that work, that kind of- the utility and government funding that might be able to go to you, because you are solving the problem that all of this funding is-

Rory O'Sullivan
You hit the nail on the head there. There's a very big liability in every country that has nuclear waste. And in most countries, it's similar. The operator pays a fee per megawatt hour that goes into a fund for future disposal. Canada's estimated liability at the moment is around $25 billion. The US is around $45 billion. The UK I think is around 20, 25 billion. I don't recall the exact number. What we are doing is assessing the various waste rates. And in Canada, we're working with the nuclear waste manager organization to really understand what the most appropriate waste route is for our various waste streams. Because all we do is-

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
By waste route, do you mean intermediate, high level-

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, exactly, the technical route of how we're going to dispose of that, because we're taking the large volumes of high level waste, separating that into various streams of taking- say the CANDU bundle is 22 kilos of high level waste. Well, we take out all of the long lived transuranic, so everything heavier than uranium on the periodic table. And that's less than 1% of it. And we turn that into chloride form and that's what we can put into our reactor. When it comes out of our reactor, about roughly half of that long live transuranic 300,000 year radioactive waste no longer exists. It is destroyed. It has been converted to clean energy. Literally matter into energy. E equals MC squared. It then creates shorter lived waste fission products, but they're much easier to deal with. And then so the output of our reactor, we can then recycle it and put it back in again. So that process goes around. But that was really just 1% of the originals.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
The other 99% of the original bundle is still there.

Rory O'Sullivan
You have roughly another 1% - or actually it's about half a percent - of fission products. They are the radioactive elements, the byproducts of nuclear fission that are very radioactive for a shorter period. So after sort of 200 or 300 years, they've decayed back to zero, basically - to almost zero - and they can often be used to repurpose. So we've now kind of got those two separated out. One goes into a reactor. The destroyed fission products can either be used as a heat source, stored at surface, and then recycled in 200 or 300 years, or disposed of underground. We have various options. But then the roughly 99% is essentially low activity uranium, close to what was originally started. The uranium that came from the ground. So that's the big kind of saving here is we're taking that large amount of high level waste and getting the big volume back down to regular low radioactivity uranium. If we can dispose of that now in an intermediate level waste repository or a much safer form - it depends on the country - you can have very significant social, environmental, and economic savings. Well, that's amazing. We think so. But- the but, of course, is there are a lot of details to this. So all of our R&D and our work at the moment is validating exactly the amount of separations, the contamination level of each of those streams, and what waste repository they can actually go into. So we're working with them. That's what we're doing. That's what our R&D is leading towards, to verify all of our claims on this, which is all going in the right track. And we're working with Canada's nuclear waste manager organization to verify the different routes and what would happen.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
You guys had an ARPA-E grant several years ago on the US side. Are you working with CNL? Or do you have your own in-house laboratories? Do you have your own in-house research staff at this point to work on this?

Rory O'Sullivan
Yep, we have our own labs with uranium licenses. So we're doing some of the work. Typically, we do the smaller work ourselves so that we can understand the details. We have some corrosion experiments, some heat transfer experiments, and some of the WATSS recycling experiments with just uranium and then other non-radioactive fission products or elements that represent the other transuranics. Yeah, typically we do those experiments really to scope out the details, make sure nothing goes wrong. And then we can give the big labs very specific, narrow, experimental descriptions, so that they don't have to do all that discovery, because typically their rates are rather high. They cost a bit more. So we do the exploratory work, make sure we've really got it precise, and then give it to the big labs.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right, but it's also really great. I mean, not only kind of creating a body of knowledge, it's beyond kind of even the private sector, but that really serves a greater good in terms of public funded research. But also kind of getting that reputational credibility from National Laboratories, from other outside stakeholders, I'm sure it's very important as well.

Rory O'Sullivan
The ARPA-E example you mentioned is a little different, because that was- the ARPA-E typically funds more innovative ideas and topics. So that enabled us to leverage some of the US capabilities a little more than we would usually have been able to. The first grant was $2.2 million, plus various extensions over a couple of years. And the core of the project was looking at radically innovative construction techniques to accelerate the construction process.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
So getting back to the plant, then, obviously you have the main innovation really is in the fuel and the reactor. But there's, of course, the whole balance of plant that has your steam cycles and your cooling and all of these different things. Talk to me a little bit about the rest of the plant. Is it kind of just like a standard nuclear power plant or standard thermal plant? Or are there other innovations in that side as well?

Rory O'Sullivan
There are and there aren't. We have sort of three technologies. So we talked about WATSS as a recycling plant, the SSR-W - the Stable Salt Reactor Wasteburner - is the reactor, and then we have grid reserve. Grid reserve is the energy storage which is exactly a copy and paste from the commercial concentrated solar power plants. They are mirrors in a circle that reflects the sun off a molten salt in a tower and they put that molten salt into large tanks that can store it as thermal energy so that they can get constant electricity. We do the reverse. We have high temperature, clean energy from a nuclear power plant. So we store that heat as molten salt in these big large tanks and then we can have whatever size turbine we want to use the stored heat in those big tanks and from the reactor together, so that overall you've got a peaking plant, rather than nuclear base. Most of the SMRs, they talk about variable plants and what they mean is they can actually ramp down. So if they have a 300-megawatt reactor, they can ramp down to 100 and back up to 300. We've designed the reactor so that it runs at full capacity all the time, but stores the heat when you don't need- you know, when all wind and solar is going at full speed, so you're storing the heat in these tanks. And if we have a 300-megawatt reactor, the example we give is we can store the heat in the tanks for say 16 hours and then you could have a 900-megawatt turbine running for eight hours a day to follow demand.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Okay, so is all of this then focused on electricity use? Or can you also use that heat for other applications?

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
How high temperature? What's the max?

Rory O'Sullivan
It really doesn't matter. We've designed our- what we designed is the standard reactor, standard recycling plant - WATSS - with a minimum size of grid reserve, like an hour of storage, which is required for our safety case. The customer can have any size storage and any size turbine they want. So it was totally site specific, whatever they need. So if it's an industrial plant, they just use that heat directly for whatever their industrial need is. If it's a big customer like OPG or NB Power, they will likely want big flexible turbines. So in New Brunswick, we're talking about turbines that are a little bigger than 300 to give that flexibility. But what's also very advantageous is, because of our high temperature, we can have regular thermal turbines.

Rory O'Sullivan
The output's around 550 after we've gone through- the reactor at the temperature is higher, but because of the limiting temperature of these molten salts in the storage, the temperature that gets back into the turbines is around 550, 560, which is perfect for thermal power plants. That's exactly the same temperature as coal, superheated steam. So we've been talking to the turbine manufacturers and they're giving us quotes which are exactly the same turbines as used in the coal industry. So for replacing coal plants, it's absolutely straightforward. We can use any coal plant or CCGT. Coal plants, steam turbine, biomass, it's all the same. And the cost difference is huge. In the original cost estimates, we had for a 1,000-megawatt plant in the original design, it was- the difference in the turbine cost was 1 billion pounds for a 1,000-megawatt nuclear turbine compared to a non-nuclear. And they were cost from the same supplier.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right. Right. And that's just because of different qualifications?

Rory O'Sullivan
Different qualifications. And well, typical nuclear is a lower- in light water reactors is around 300-degree Centigrade output temperatures, so your turbines are double diameter, roughly, and they're way lower efficiency.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yes, yes, yes. Because you're using the same ones that are used for coal plants.

Rory O'Sullivan
They're making them one a week. They're rolling them off the factory and they just make them cheaper.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
That's fantastic.

Rory O'Sullivan
That makes a big difference in the bottom line.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Right. Well, I mean, sometimes speaking about- first of all, actually, I'm really surprised, but it's a really great use of the technology. And when you think about the decarbonisation, kind of taking this full circle back to wind turbines, even in Canada where we have variable renewable use, this is a perfect kind of solution to marry that future energy mix where we're going to need the different types of capacity and decarbonizing an industry.

Rory O'Sullivan
That's what we really tried to do. We tried to design it so that we're actually enabling more renewables, because without this flexible solution, renewables can only get to about 30, 35% on the grid. But if you have this nuclear peaking plant, you can have 60 maybe even 70% renewables with this nuclear peaking plant and you have a very reliable, stable grid. That's the kind of aim is to enable that.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Rory. This has been a really, really fascinating conversation.

Rory O'Sullivan
It's been great fun. Thank you.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah. I've really enjoyed learning so much about it. Thank you so much for stopping by.

Rory O'Sullivan
Yeah, thanks for having me and enjoy the rest of the conference.

Olivia Columbus
We're here today with Sylvie Bermann, the President of the World Nuclear Exhibition. Sylvie, welcome to Titans of Nuclear.

Sylvie Bermann
Thank you.

Olivia Columbus
So we're going to talk about the exhibition and this wonderful event, everything that entails in just a moment. But first, tell us a little bit about yourself, sort of what is your background? And how did you end up at a nuclear exhibition?

Sylvie Bermann
Well, you know, I'm a diplomat and I was ambassador to China, to the UK, and also to Russia. Of course, they are nuclear countries and we have a close partnership with all these countries. I was there in China when there was Taishan and with the participation of - not participation, but the intervention of EDF - but not only EDF, but that was interesting. There were also 100 small and medium countries and people you can see in the WNE and so it helped them, even in France, to find new partnerships. So I think it's important. It's, of course, an industry of excellence in France. And I was proud of this industry. When I was in the UK, it was during the negotiations for Hinkley Point, so I was there during the signature and that was an important event. And also- well, in Russia, we have a cooperation and I was lucky enough to visit the first SMR in the world, in fact, which is Akademik Lomonosov in Murmansk, so that was very interesting. So I'm interested by nuclear. I think also it's, of course, energetic independence, but it's also geopolitical independence for countries.

Olivia Columbus
What initially interested you about the Foreign Service and working in that global space?

Sylvie Bermann
It's what you mentioned precisely, it's global space. And I wanted to know something else. I was first interested by Asia, by China and Japan, and so I started to learn these languages. And then I went to China as a young student. Well, it's more than 40 years ago now. Of course, China was a very different country. And then when I decided I studied also history and political sciences and when I decided to learn Chinese and Japanese, I looked at the booklets of the Institute of Oriental languages and it was written that it was possible with that to be a diplomat. And so I thought, Yes, that's a good thing. And so that's the reason why I decided to join the Foreign Service. And I think it's a fantastic job, because, well, I knew some languages and have discovered some new worlds also.

Olivia Columbus
That's incredible. It's such an honor to have you here with us today. So what exactly is the World Nuclear Exhibition?

Sylvie Bermann
It's the biggest nuclear exhibition in the world and so it reflects the this very important industry… So it's an ambition to have bigger and bigger WNE. And this one, despite the sanitary crisis is bigger than last one in a certain way. There are a lot of people coming, more than 600 exponents. I don't know if it's the right word or not. And also, 18,000 visitors and only because of the new virus, Omicron, some people from South Africa couldn't come and also, unfortunately some people from the UK, because of the new quarantine rule when they come back. But apart from that, we have 35% of foreign people. And we have a lot of the new issues some. Some panels, workshops for youth, and everything. I mean, hydrogen, waste management, and SMRs. So there are lots of events going on here.

Olivia Columbus
Yeah, it really is such an impressive feat, especially in the wake of a global pandemic that you guys were able to put this on and so successfully, and so safely. The panels have been so great. Actually, I'm really lucky. My colleague is moderating the hydrogen panel right now and she was so honored to be invited. So GIFEN is the organization that puts on this event. Can you tell us a little bit about who they are and the role that they play in WNE?

Sylvie Bermann
Yeah, absolutely. In fact, well, it's all the industrials that are working in the nuclear field, but not only big companies, of course SMEs as well, and also some companies with only maybe 20% of their activities in nuclear. But it's really something which is strong and could be very influential. Before it wasn't all like this and it was not as big as it is now. But they decided to create WNE with the idea of having, of course, the opportunity to sign contracts, but also to have some discussions about innovation and everything. And so they organized this round, this sector of effectivity. So they own the WNE and you saw they have a pavilion here and they're very active. It is growing.

Olivia Columbus
It's really amazing. And it's really incredible how you're able to incorporate large companies - EDF, Framatome, Westinghouse - and these smaller startups. We're looking right out here on this- this is called the Start-Up Planet where startups can be featured. And we were speaking to some folks earlier today who said that's where they got their start and now they're an SMR developer and they have a full-size booth. And that growth and their ability to come back year after year is just so incredible and wonderful to be able to see that progression.

Sylvie Bermann
Yeah, absolutely. And that's very important for them, this opportunity for startups. And also what is interesting is that some students will come tomorrow, I understand. It's more than 100 students and shows that it's an industry for the future, because there have been new announcements concerning the creation of new power plants, new EPRs, of course, and also all these research and developments about the SMRs. And that's of countries, people who are enthusiastic about it. Young people are really dedicated to that, so I think it's really a good sign.

Olivia Columbus
It's fantastic. And in thinking about the future, you guys are hosting a panel tomorrow on small modular reactors and advanced reactors, which seems really exciting and really is future facing.

Sylvie Bermann
Yes, it's really exciting. And while the Americans wanted to come here, because of those SMRs and other countries are interested. I think with big power plants, there was maybe sometimes some reluctance or for some countries it was not necessary. But with this new opportunity, there's a great interest and including for developing countries and I think that's really good opportunities.

Olivia Columbus
It's amazing how global of an event this is. We've seen booths from the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Argentina, China, Russia, Germany, the United States. It's amazing how many people come from all over the world to really participate in these conversations. What kind of conversations are typically being had at these booths? You mentioned business deals. I imagine there are a lot of introductions being made. And especially having been so long since we could all be face to face, it seems like this is such a great time for people to begin those conversations again.

Sylvie Bermann
Yeah, absolutely. It's a great time for them. Again, it's a lot of opportunities, but also all those discussions and panels are interesting for everyone. Well, there's been an evolution on this perception of nuclear issues. People start to realize that the most pressing issue is to address climate change and it is absolutely impossible without nuclear energy. It has been said by all these specialized organizations, IAEA, and also we had the Director General Rafael Grossi, and then afterwards, Fatih Birol. We had for the first time, EU commissioner for Energy, a video from EU commissioner for Internal Market, and they were all positive about it. And of course, our Minister of Economy. And well, the President has already announced that there would be a new program without telling yet how many plants, but it's obvious now. And I think it reflects this evolution of public opinion. Doesn't mean that everybody is in favor of nuclear energy, but they start to realize that without this energy, which is a really low carbon tool, it would be impossible to have a decarbonated economy. So I think that's the reason why. And it was said also during COP26. And it's not- well, we don't have to oppose the renewable and nuclear energy. Of course, it's complimentary. But it's not intermittent like renewables. It's an advantage of this energy.

Olivia Columbus
And how wonderful to have the event in a country where there's so much nuclear energy and the whole event is almost able to be powered by clean nuclear energy. That's just so great. Last night, you guys presented a number of awards. And I know you presented an award to another former Titan, Kirsty Gogan, the first WNE Fellow Award. What is that award? Tell us a little bit about that.

Sylvie Bermann
It's a new initiative and I think that's very important. And the idea is not only to give an award to nuclear engineers, but also to a personality who was not necessarily in favor of nuclear energy before, but she discovered the advantage. And she now, well, Kirsty Gogan, of course she's promoting nuclear energy. And that's the idea: to give an award to someone who is not-

Olivia Columbus
An advocate.

Sylvie Bermann
Yes, an advocate. And I think it was a beautiful ceremony.

Olivia Columbus
That's wonderful. And you gave a number of awards out to companies as well, right? For different achievements they've gained?

Sylvie Bermann
Absolutely, in research and development. And that was for big companies, but also for SMEs. It encourages them to continue, so that is quite good.

Olivia Columbus
It's wonderful. It's so wonderful that you're able to recognize both in that ceremony and really give that recognition. Tell us a little bit about- I mean, obviously, this is such a huge event and you did have to postpone a year. Tell us a little bit about the pandemic, what you guys have done to sort of address those concerns, and how you were able to shift parts of the event to live stream even so that folks who maybe weren't able to attend in person could still watch.

Sylvie Bermann
Absolutely, of course. It was very important to have a very safe event. We took a lot of decisions and people, as you see, they're all wearing masks. They are supposed to do a PCR or antigenic test, have sanitary passes for those who are from the European Union. And also because we knew that some wouldn't be able to come, so that's the reason why it's kind of a hybrid events. I think it's better when people are here in person and they like to talk to each other and to interact, but there is this possibility for those who couldn't come.

Olivia Columbus
It's so wonderful. And I know even some of our team who wanted to watch the panel that our team member was moderating, they were so grateful to be able to have that opportunity. And for folks, exactly, who especially with this new variant weren't able to attend, I'm sure they really appreciated that ability to log in and to watch. Looking ahead, where do you see the conference going? How do you see it continuing to grow, especially as nuclear continues to grow within the public sphere and public conversation around climate change?

Sylvie Bermann
Yes, absolutely. It is organized every two years, so we are planning to organize one next year. I will announce tomorrow at the closing ceremony the exact dates. As so, we hope to have even more companies. I saw in the afternoon a foreign company who said that it is the first time, but they want to come back next year and have a bigger voice. So that's very encouraging that and that's good news. I'm sure others will come back as well, because they saw that it is very positive for them.

Olivia Columbus
It is just such a such a wonderful event. Well, to kind of wrap up here, looking ahead, where do you see the future of nuclear energy in France, globally, and just kind of in general?

Sylvie Bermann
I think in France, of course, it will remain a key energy and with a new program, as I said, which is also very important to keep the expertise. But we are cooperating with other countries and I think in other countries also, there could be new decisions. You know that there are some projects in India and in Czech Republic and Poland and the new EPR in in Finland will start sometimes next year. So I think it is very important and the interest shown by the public also for nuclear shows that it will continue. And of course, it's key for a decarbonated economy, alongside of course with renewables, but it can't be replaced by renewable and so it's still the long-term energy.

Olivia Columbus
Sylvie Bermann, thank you so much for joining us.

Sylvie Bermann
Thank you.

This transcript is pending

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
We're here today with Andy Prendergast who is the National Secretary of the UK's GMB union. Welcome to Titans of Nuclear, Andy.

Andy Prendergast
Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Thank you. So we're going to get into the GMB and the union's ongoing activities to drive progress on new nuclear build in the UK in just a bit. There's a lot to get into there. But actually I'd like to start with your kind of personal background. I'm curious how you got into this line of work and how you kind of came to nuclear energy to begin with?

Andy Prendergast
Well, I mean, technically I sort of left university many years ago as a history graduate and sat on the dole for a while. The dole is the British form of welfare, for those who don't know in America, and eventually got a job in a bank call center and became a union rep. There's not a huge amount of jobs for argumentative socialists and being a union rep was one of them. And for a long time I sort of worked in the banking industry, then moved to the GMB. And the GMB is a general union, although we have a large membership in power. And I started getting involved with nuclear many years ago when I started looking after members in Aldermaston and Harwell, which are some of the nuclear research sites in the country. And I've always found nuclear within a fascinating industry. It really is the cutting edge of technology. It's quite a divisive industry as we know, but I think a lot of it is based on, frankly, a misunderstanding of what nuclear is.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Did you get exposed to nuclear just by physically being near it? Is that how you learned about nuclear energy to begin with?

Andy Prendergast
Yeah, very much so. I mean, one of the things working for a general union like the GMB is you become an expert on many things that you never thought you would do. I mean, I used to look after a prawn processing plant, so I learned an awful lot about how prawns react to stress caused by tsunamis in Southeast Asia. There's always been that need to sort of pick up information as you go, and that, for me, was very much like the nuclear. So although there's always been an interest in it, it was very much through dealing with members on the ground, looking at what their problems were. And that started to give you a better picture of the real importance of nuclear to our industries and to our society, where nuclear is actually a critical part of British infrastructure. And I think one of the interesting things being on the left, nuclear does have quite, as it is, it's quite a divisive industry. But what I was finding, the more I got involved in, it was actually a lot of what we were hearing about it was fundamentally untrue. And this is an area that's safe, it's highly productive. It's a brilliant source of unionized, well paid jobs. And we as a union have worked very well with nuclear employers over the age to make sure that this is a cutting edge industry. And it's one that's good for our economy.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Absolutely, the communication issues around the sector are really heartbreaking, just given how incorrect they truly are. So when your union I guess was- first, maybe kind of just to understand the numbers a bit, how much of a nuclear sector - actual nuclear jobs, people who are- either working construction sites or employed at power plants or maybe even further down the supply chain - which percentage of the nuclear sector is part of the GMB? Or are there specific unions that you work with more closely in partnership as well that are purely kind of in the nuclear space?

Andy Prendergast
Well, in Britain it's largely free unions in nuclear. There's GMB, Unite, which is another large general union, and Prospect, which is a general union, but it's a general union that's very much aimed at white collar and scientists. What we tend to find is there's an approach. We have around 40% membership of the entire sector. Unionization rates in nuclear in Britain are some of the highest in the country. It's rare to find anyone on a nuclear site who isn't a member of one of the three unions and I'm pleased to say we, certainly, are the largest.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Absolutely, that's wonderful. I guess that would mean that you probably- the folks that are part of your union, they are the ones who understand what the correct messaging really is and drive the appreciation for nuclear within the union, but also kind of more broadly within their communities. I'm curious, kind of going back to when you first joined the union - you were coming over from looking at prawns and now thinking more specifically about nuclear on a day to day basis- - what was that journey like for you to kind of learn that there's kind of a double- there are two narratives out there. And it's really critical to get that correct narrative, just understanding all the economic implications, the job implications, but also decarbonisation and climate implications of having a clean energy supply.

Andy Prendergast
It was quite a journey. And I'll be honest with you, quite a quick journey. I took over as National Secretary around six months ago and, I'll be honest, it's been a bit of a baptism of fire. Although I've had sort of a- been dealing with the nuclear industry for the last 15 years, it was really looking at it on a higher level. And when I say at higher level, it's really understanding the vital importance to the entire economy. And particularly, with energy there's a huge amount of debate at the moment about green transition and just transition and how do we get to net zero. And it was really understanding that, without nuclear, there is no voyage to net zero that doesn't involve, frankly, people living in mud huts. And I think that's one of the key things for us, is that you start to see how it feeds into every part of industry. Being a general union, we have hundreds of thousands of members who work in heavy industry. They work in factories and they need sustainable energy sources that are going to power industry. And when we look at that for a long period, it's been very much dependent on fossil fuels. And actually, we see nuclear as being the solution to how do we actually drive this with sustainable energy? We do see a lot of money going into green technologies. As someone who obviously doesn't want the planet to burn up, I think it's very important that that investment continues. But it's understanding, actually, the limitations of these. We have a prime minister who's talking about Britain becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind power. The problem with that is - and as we found over the summer - sometimes the wind doesn't blow. When you have those times, where do we get our power? And that's where nuclear has really come into it. It's a sustainable fuel. It's a safe fuel. And actually, the costs involved- I mean, although, when we look at it, Hinkley Point, which is one of the big nuclear developments in Britain, has a price tag of 20 billion, which is massive. But at the same point, when you look at that over the lifetime of the project, actually, the cost is comparable to offshore wind. And if we need these sustainable things, we're going to drive our society forward and actually have a net zero policy, which is not only deliverable, but it's democratically deliverable. And I think that's sometimes what people miss about the move to net zero. We can do lots of things today. But actually, it's going to have to go through democracy and people want their standard of living protected. And actually, nuclear offers a way forward in doing that.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. You've touched on a couple of things there that I'd like to dig into a little bit. And we'll put a pin in kind of the large projects versus the newer projects coming online, SMRs and smaller reactors, and I'd love to kind of get your perspective and labor's kind of perspective on that kind of shift in technology. But the other thing that I certainly heard in what you were just saying is this sense of urgency I think that the union has certainly picked up on. And just looking at articles that have mentioned not only GMB, but some of the other unions you mentioned, over the past few years, this pace of recognition of that urgency has really started to pick up. So have your activities to really put pressure on politicians to come up with solutions that can actually get us to having new nuclear build sooner and so we can not just meet policy goals, but meet economic goals and democratic goals. I wonder if you can kind of touch on what that ramp up in in activity has looked like. And really, what are the biggest obstacles that the unions feel like there's room to push on and improvements to be made to really drive forward progress on new nuclear build?

Andy Prendergast
In terms of ramping it up, I mean, in Britain we have quite an interesting position whereby we have a number of nuclear power plants and all bar one are due to go offline within the next 10 years. And unfortunately, one of the problems we find in a democracy, frankly, is that the electoral cycle doesn't always help long term projects. And as we know, nuclear power is one that you need long term investment in. You need cross-party agreement to get that investment. And I think there has been a bit of a habit of governments of both sides to see this as a divisive issue which can be kicked down the road. And that, for us, is now really starting to come home to roost. If you look at it, we have two big developments at Hinkley Point, which is currently going on, and Sizewell C, which is in development processes. The problem is, even with those two new power plants coming on, we'll only be delivering around two thirds of the amount of energy we're currently delivering from nuclear. And of course, if you're looking at electricity, by 2050, the electricity use is expected to double. We're seeing more electric cars. We're seeing more electric heating. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's possibly for another podcast at the moment. But there is this question, how are we going to meet those goals? And I think the-

Andy Prendergast
The old AGR fleet and increase our capacity for all the decarbonisation and electrification that policy is driving us towards.

Andy Prendergast
Yeah, so we really have been identifying for the last decade that we're not having politicians making these difficult decisions. And that's something we've really been trying to push through ourselves, because they can't be put off indefinitely. And we're pleased to see that there is progress being made. But I think in Britain, we had a real difficulty with, partially by privatization, if I'm going to be honest, where the nuclear industry was effectively privatized many years ago. And what that meant is that actually in our ability to build plants and have the skills, we've actually had a break. And the break in something like basics can be disastrous. We've looked at Hinkley Point, for example. We're talking 20 billion, as I mentioned. The estimates now to replicate that would actually drop to 16 billion. If you replicate it again, it gets cheaper. By having the supply chains in place, by maintaining those skills, it gives us the long term future we need. And that's why, we as trade unions, we have been having very difficult arguments, both in the labor movement and on the British left. And it's quite interesting where the British left sits with nuclear. If you look at nuclear power and nuclear weapons in Britain, came out of the Clement Attlee government immediately after the Second World War. Now, it was the most left wing government we've ever had by a significant margin. A lot of the policies building national health care service, for example, a free to use, free to access service accessible to everyone in the country, that came from this government. And actually, there's Aneurin Bevan, the creator of the National Health Service, was actually one of the loudest voices for nuclear in this country. Our first nuclear power plant, Calderhall, which is now effectively Sellafield, the ground was broken by... who was the head of the TUC, which is our trade union umbrella body. But somewhere along the line, we went from being very pro-nuclear to quite anti. And it's interesting when you look at where that comes from. Some of it was the National Union of Mineworkers, who saw nuclear as being a threat to their members. Some of it, if I'm going to be honest, comes from, there were times when I think the British left were unduly influenced by the goings on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And that did cause quite a few difficulties. And I think what we've been trying to do is reclaim nuclear for the left. If you look at nuclear power plants, what's interesting is they used to be solid labour voters. And what's really frightening now in Britain is that it would, in England particularly, every single nuclear power plant is now in a conservative-held seat. And that was something that was inconceivable even a generation ago. And what we've been saying to Labour is, nuclear provides unionized, well-paid jobs. It supports communities and often supports communities in areas where, you take the nuclear out, and there is literally nothing left. And these communities need to have the Labour Party on-site. They need to see that there is that left alternative. And ultimately, as I said before, we're talking about something that's reliable, it's cheap, that actually can really deliver. And we're fully behind that as a union, not just for our members' jobs who are employed directly, but for those in a supply chain. And those other industries that rely on it.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Actually, I'd like to talk a little bit more about the nuclear supply chain in the UK, because as you mentioned, the existing fleet is kind of slated to be decommissioned by, I believe all existing or online plants from the old fleet by 2030. We only have the two plants coming online and planned to be. So that has huge implications for an incredibly robust supply chain, everything from engineering and EPC firms, but down to organizations like Sheffield Forgemasters who make specialty pressure vessels. And this is a really kind of- and then of course, we also have investment by government, right, with Nuclear AMRC, who we've also had on Titans and looking at the next generation of technologies for nuclear energy. But I'm curious kind of what your members and what the supply chain is thinking about in terms of nuclear going forward and how we can ensure that there isn't a gap between Hinkley and the next generation. That we're able to sustain that supply chain and keep, not just all those jobs, but all that expertise in the UK in the same places they've always been.

Andy Prendergast
Well, for us, that's been a real sort of driver in terms of what we're trying to do, because I mean, nuclear directly in Britain employs about 17,000 people, but there's an additional 61,000 in the supply chain. And that's before you're getting into all of the added jobs, particularly in where there are nuclear sites - the pubs, the cafes, the restaurants, the hotels - all of which basically rely on the nuclear industry to exist. And one of the problems we found is, we do actually have some sites in the country which are currently losing jobs. Springfield is an engineering firm up North. They're currently making redundancies, because there is that gap. And ultimately, we need government to fill it. We're trying to sell nuclear as a long term viable option for people and communities. And for that, and then when people are asking people to be retrained, when we're asking people to invest in their skills, they need to see it as a long term job. And the worry is, is that when those are those gaps in the supply chain, it does mean we lose the skills, we lose the workers. And it's one of the things we found with Hinkley Point, that we've effectively had to retrain an entire workforce who we used to have. And that has added exponentially to the costs. And I think one of the things we're looking at. And whether you get into the rights and wrongs of Brexit - which is probably something for another podcast, which I won't get into - it's fair to say Britain is looking for kind of a place in the world at the moment. We see nuclear as being part of that. You mentioned beforehand about some of the small-medium reactors. We've got the go ahead to build one of those in Darby. This is essentially a technology that we see as something we can own, we can export, we can build that expertise. And one of the issues with nuclear, without getting into sort of a long geopolitical debate, one of the concerns in the countries are actually where are we getting expertise from? And what are the costs of that expertise? Not just in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, but actually what impact has it got on national security. And we believe the way around that is actually to develop our own. It doesn't mean we don't use foreign technologies. It doesn't mean we don't try and use the best of all worlds. And I think the nuclear industry has been an industry that has been superb at sharing best practice and expertise. But considering Britain had the first ever civil nuclear power plant, we want to re-own this industry. We want to get to a point where we're seen as the world leaders we were in the 1950s. And quite frankly, it's a tragedy how that entire industry has been allowed to run fallow in the long term. It's something we want to get back. And frankly, I think with the small-medium reactors, there is a real opportunity to do that. These can be powering high, heavy investment, heavy industry right across the world in a way that's safe and dependable. And if we can get ahead of that, then we see this as a big export industry which can really create thousands, if not tens of thousands of jobs, and good union jobs as well.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah, absolutely. In the UK - and maybe we can touch upon some of the advances in SMRs going through the deployment pipeline, which I think are still a few years out - but there's still a lot of work in the development project phase that's being done for several different types of plants. Of course, there's Rolls Royce, which, as you mentioned, is that kind of homegrown industry, and I believe there are several other players that are being considered by government and that's all really exciting. One of the things that I've often heard pushback from communities - and I would say, not necessarily labor, but maybe people are thinking about nuclear as an economic opportunity, but it's not directly there to necessarily benefit them - around SMRs is, because of their smaller size, their smaller construction footprint, people often don't understand that it's just a shift in the types of jobs, right? When you think about a big build project, like Hinkley Point C, the majority of the jobs that are created by that project, because it is so large are those that are formed during that construction period, six to 10 years, thousands of people on-site. Whereas, with SMRs, roughly - let's say a tenth of the size, just to give an example - you have a smaller footprint, you have more things being produced in the factory setting. But that doesn't mean that there are less jobs just because they aren't in the field, right? There are jobs that are spread around to existing suppliers and integrators and you have good paying jobs like welding, and the type of job that you maybe want to go to every day near your hometown, as opposed to going to a construction site only for a few year period. I'm curious kind of how you all have seen that narrative be communicated, because it is a different model. And it's a different- it's a mind shift in how people typically think about old nuclear, big nuclear, and this new model that is smaller, but has a completely different delivery model.

Andy Prendergast
-geographically dispersed in a number of small areas. What you find in the likes of Sellafield, which is in the constituency of Copeland, you have massive amounts - I can't tell you a percentage - but a huge amount of the economy is either directly employed in nuclear or indirectly employed by nuclear. The good thing about that is it's absolutely vital to those communities and those communities really see the difference. I think the problem with that, though, is that it doesn't mean that nuclear is always the most attractive proposition to people. Because unless you want to go and live in some out of the way place where the majority of them are at the moment, nuclear is not necessarily a job for you, even if you have that interest in science. Unfortunately, the geography doesn't always work with you. And I think what SMRs do is that they potentially make this far more attractive. If there are a lot more of SMRs, then you don't have to go as far for a job. You can see that being a far longer term option for you. I think the other thing that's really interesting with SMRs that we've had over the last couple of months, actually, is Britain has been caught in a bit of a gas crisis. Unfortunately, our sort of short term government really ran down gas storage over the last 20 years. And what that meant is, in Europe, we've had a situation where gas prices have gone up 250% in a matter of weeks. And that's really feeding through into heavy industry. There are a lot of questions at the moment about whether government support is necessary to keep some of our heavy industry plants going for the simple reason that the costs currently make production prohibitive. There's a second problem with gas, which is a huge amount of gas in Europe is dependent on Russia. And obviously, at the moment, Russia and the Putin, there's a number of sort of geopolitical issues in getting that. And so I think more and more people are seeing that nuclear is potentially the solution to this. And when you tie in the SMRs, and also when you look at a lot of the new reactor designs that are coming through the next generation, where you're looking at variable power sources - as you know, at the moment, nuclear is very much you turn it on and it produces X amount of megawatts, you turn it off and it stops - with the next generation designs, when there is that variability, it means that when the wind doesn't blow, you can ramp up nuclear production. And ultimately, you can turn it down when the sun shines and the solar power starts working. I think what we're starting to see is a lot being seen by a lot of people as a more attractive proposition. The downside of that, if I'm going to be honest, is that because they're small nuclear reactors, some people hear nuclear, and let's be honest, it does have a bad rap based largely on one significant issue in Russia. And it's trying to get through some of that myth busting. Actually, when you look at the the safety of the industry, it's second to none. And one of the things we're particularly proud of in my union is we actually had a dispute in the 1980s that led to the acceptable radiation levels in the UK being roughly half of what they are in the rest of the world. And that was led by union members actually fighting for the better terms to make sure this was as safe as possible. We take pride in this industry. And it's almost trying to beat the curve in terms of the arguments. The problem, and we have to be honest, is to some people, nuclear will always bring visions of disaster and the rest of it, which simply are not reflective of the reality. there is going to need to be a long term approach on this. We need to slowly change hearts and minds. And that also is another big issue we have in the country, which is currently the storage issue, because we're waiting for the government, effectively, to come up with a planning policy statement on basically creating a nuclear store for the waste. Now, luckily, a lot of these new generation designs actually see a lot of waste being repurposed and able to effectively power stations of the future, which would be absolutely brilliant. But in the meantime, there is a problem in getting communities to accept that they are going to be the place where this store is going to happen. But ultimately, that's true. That's always been the case with every form of technology. And we just need the government to take the bull by the horns on that one.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
What is the current focus of GMB and other unions who are pushing for more progress on nuclear, by government or maybe on their own? Is it around these types of longer term issues or more on the near term hurdles to existing project development or encouraging new project development?

Andy Prendergast
Well, one of the things … taking over responsibility for energy is nuclear works on a long term basis. Our first and most immediate priority is simply to get a lot more new builds agreed. Obviously, we're talking about Sizewell B, we're talking about Wylfa in Wales. But we're looking to get these actually agreed, to get the boots on the ground, get the shovel, start digging. And one of the points we're making on that is - and you mentioned Hinkley Point - Hinkley Point is the largest construction site in Europe. It creates thousands of jobs, is creating thousands of skills. We want those people in Hinkley Point to see the future, to actually think that once the role finishes at Hinkley Point, they can go to Sizewell B and go to Wylfa. For us, the key thing about it is actually get that investment, get that agreement on building new sites. Once we have the agreement on the new site, then obviously it's about making sure that the supply chain stays viable and that ultimately we're getting new orders in. That then turns into the investment in the small SMRs and really just trying to rebuild an industry which should never have been let go in the first place. That being said, we have a keen interest in the safety aspect, both for our members who work there and the communities they serve. There's an obvious issue in waste, which I think every country has nuclear has. It's not something that's been completely sold at the moment, if we're going to be honest. But I think when you're looking at the new generation reactors, it provides a way forward. And it's also, for us, I think trying to really sell this to a very active green lobby. In the very active green lobby, the heart is often in the right place, but there sometimes is that lack of genuine understanding on some of the issues. And I think what we're trying to say to people is there cannot be net zero without nuclear. It's as simple as that. And if we're serious about stopping climate change, it's going to mean that there's going to need to be some shift in position for them to accept that nuclear is part of that mix, certainly for the next century. And if actually some of the technology works the way we want it to, there's no reason why it can't go on forever.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Obviously, the United Kingdom is hosting COP26 this year, which is a really big event for climate change. And as the country that's hosting, there's a great opportunity really to showcase that the UK is taking a leading role in decarbonisation, not only at home, but looking towards creating industries and solutions that can be repeated and scaled globally. I'm curious if the labor movement is having a big role at COP and if nuclear is part of that conversation as well.

Andy Prendergast
The labor movement, I mean it's fair to say we have a conservative government who aren't our best friends and really never have been. That being said, it's one of the interesting things I've found that having taken the current position is the way to which a lot of conservative politicians reach out to us, because they actually see the sort of the cross approach with trade unions, with employers, with the government is actually helping to drive that forward. I mean, in terms of COP, we're more kind of the adjutants at the gates as opposed to the people around the table. And it does fall into a lot of other kind of labor disputes we have going on. There are a lot of issues with shortages in the country with inflation and pay issues and all the rest. But we are very clear that nuclear is part of the solution in COP26. We did an awful lot of work over the last few months to make sure that the position of the Labour Party, the position of the trade union, Congress have both come out and strongly endorsed nuclear. And we're trying to work both with politicians, labor, and the conservatives. And actually, in Scotland, you have a very strong Scottish National Party who effectively run Scotland in all intents and purposes and we're trying to get them on side. I'll be honest, Scottish National Party are probably the most reluctant of that and there's a lot of work to do. I don't think they understand the importance of nuclear to the country, but they have this slightly unique position of being able to basically take credit for everything good and then put the blame on anything that happens to England, or the British government, I should say. So there's still a lot of work to be done. But we are unashamedly cheerleaders of nuclear, and not just running these jobs, but because of the importance to both the green agenda and the long term economic prosperity in the country.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
I mean, nuclear energy really is one of those, oddly - I mean, maybe it should be expected or should be obvious, but given both the US and the UK's kind of political environments that are highly polarized - nuclear just seems to be one of those issues- or topics that can just span all parties. Here in the States, if you're an environmentalist of a younger generation, you're 100% pro nuclear. If you're on the right and you're really concerned about national security or jobs or those types of things, you're also pro-nuclear. It's a really, I would say kind of unifying topic. And in that sense, it's a really kind of wonder. It's a great thing, right? Energy and these types of foundational technologies to society should be valued across society. And it's a really wonderful thing to see people who have differences in their politics are able to come together and recognize the value of this technology that not only can provide jobs and not only can sustain our economic development, economic growth, but is clean and safe, and is economically a really great investment for our future. And let alone, from a geopolitical stance, as well, I think that's a really wonderful perspective that you guys are taking and it's giving you kind of an in, I would say, to the dialogues that might be more complex to get into just because it's such a unifying topic.

Andy Prendergast
Well, I'll be honest with you, I think it's one of those things that's unifying to a point, but we have to recognize that there is still a clear problem. And I think your analysis is true, largely, but it misses one point. And it's like, we have people from the green movement, we have arch capitalists, sort of radical communists on the side with nuclear. But at the same point, I think in every grouping, you'll actually find the opposite response. From us, it's more an issue about understanding than it is about- some arguments that I think both in Britain and in the US, you can almost tell from someone's party affiliation what their views are on everything. In America, for example, if you're anti- if you're pro tax cuts, you tend to be bizarrely anti abortion and any number of things which logically don't follow. But the way the party system works means you're almost siloed into it. I think the interesting thing with nuclear is nuclear is one of those debates that actually goes beyond that. What you'll find is that those people who've actually taken the time to study the topic, those people are actually taking the time to read the research, to take the effort, to try and understand that, yes, we need to get to net zero, but how do we get it? All of those people come to the conclusion that nuclear, whether it's seen as being - when I say short term, I mean short term in terms of nuclear - whether this is essential for the next century to get us to that carbon zero position, or whether it's a long term position. I think there is that understanding. The problem - and I think this goes back historically - whether it's as a result of populism, whether it's a result of ignorance, whether it's a result of just a knee jerk position, and in some cases there are some very clever people who are against nuclear who simply look at the research and come to a different conclusion than we do, but it's one of those that transcends parties. In Britain, you'll get people on all parties who are pro nuclear. You'll get people in all parties who will be anti nuclear. And what we try to do is to basically educate. Fundamentally, the position for us is we don't want this falling into a lot of those other divisive things. It will be a disaster for the industry if it was something that simply worked on party lines, because fundamentally, the last thing you want to do is half build a nuclear power station for a change a government to simply mean you have this massive building site that's never going to get finished. There is an education process. It can be difficult with some people. Getting anyone to changed their mind in the modern days, whether it's about a vaccine or anything else, can be exceptionally difficult. But I think what we have to do is just keep pointing out the facts. And if anything, what we've seen in Britain, the energy crisis we're going through, these are really hammering home, the need for nuclear to be at the front of the debate and to be a key cornerstone of the way forward.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Fantastic. What I think I was really smart is the role that labor, that the unions really play here is that it's the people that kind of have come to understand energy - first of all, energy - and then nuclear energy by themselves, on their own, doing their own research, or even being part of the industry, part of the sector, or just living near different types of energy technologies. I grew up near a coal plant growing up and I knew coal was bad because of being in that environment. You hear all the time, folks that love nuclear the most are those that live next to some sort of nuclear facility, be it a nuclear power plant - maybe because of the jobs, or the fact they have clean air - or maybe a national laboratory - they got to go see a tour as a child, maybe they got to go to Springfield's and tour their fuel fab facility, and now they just think it's the coolest thing, even they don't work in it - or maybe nuclear technology saved their lives at a hospital through radiation treatment. And it's people who've had those either firsthand experiences where they've come to understand what this is on their own that are the biggest champions for nuclear. And I think that unions and labor really kind of embody that, more than most fields. I think that's really great. I'm kind of curious, to kind of elevate the conversation a little bit - and I'll ask you about your kind of positive vision for the future to wrap up - but I'd like to spend a second just hearing about some of the challenges that you see labor and nuclear really needing to overcome in the United Kingdom in the next few years to see the progress that we need, given that 2030 is just around the corner?

Andy Prendergast
Well, I mean, I think that in terms of the big challenges, as I said, one of the big ones is we need the government planning policy statement to be made sooner rather than later. And sometimes they've got to just bite the bullet and actually decide where we're gonna put that. I think in terms of SMRs and the rest of it, in the short, immediate term, it's trying to get that point about the investment. It's trying to actually get the cross-party consensus on doing it. We're making really good strides on that. There's obviously then the question about where do we develop the sites? How do we develop them? And, unfortunately, what you'll always find with any form of energy - whether it's a wind farm, whether it's a nuclear power plant, or coal power plant - people do not always want it next to them. That's the simple fact of life. And one of the interesting things recently as I went to the Peak District, which is a particularly picturesque part of the country, and part of it is this valley with this fantastic viaduct that goes through - this brick viaduct - and what was interesting is I believe the poet Wordsworth described it as a monstrosity when it was made. And now this is something that people will walk miles to go and see. Occasionally, there's almost the view that people's views change over time and what was once something ugly can now become something quite beautiful. And I think, when you're looking at nuclear, the first point is actually just to try as much as possible, to detoxify the brand, and actually, to a degree, to make sure we're having the conversations around the necessity of it. And that's what I think, when it comes back to that education process. If we're going to get to net zero, how would we get there? And the big issue - the two groups who are sort of staunchly anti nuclear or how the elements are staunchly anti nuclear - the one group we called the NIMBYs. I don't know if you have it in America, but NIMBY is short for "not in my backyard." So these are the people who will happily use all the energy that they need, but still simply view that it should be somewhere else. The second with the green lobby is actually to have this debate around what is deliverable in a democracy, what is viable as a way forward. And I think sometimes, when we're talking about the whole situation, particularly with renewables, renewables are looked at as a panacea, which there's a potential for them to become a panacea, but we're nowhere near it now. And what people don't seem to understand is a lot of the decisions. As in the UK, we've seen it with the wind stopped blowing for the entire summer, we had massive power problem. Similarly, solar power in Britain is a great idea in theory, but we'd need a lot more-probably works a lot better in California than it does in Britain. It's a bigger country, but it's a far bigger country, but we don't have that much sunshine at the best size. So it's trying to sort of have this argument. And what we're finding is, when people are genuinely engaging with, we're taking them with us. There are some people who will not get past that knee jerk reaction. But in that regard, nuclear is no different than vaccines or anything else. And I think, from what I've seen of both Britain and American society - and it's probably true for the world - is there's almost like a difference now between those people who are willing to engage in debate and those people who simply enter debates with no intention of changing their mind and will simply sort of search out the facts that effectively reinforce that position. And I think that's what we're saying to people with nuclear. If the issue is they have concerns, what are their concerns? If you look at safety, we can show it's safe. If you look at it being viable, we can show it's viable. And these are the points that we just need to make. It's an opportunity for job creation. And not just job creation, good job creation. The average wage in a nuclear industry is 75% above the national average. If you go to places like Copeland, particularly, there's a high standard of living there. And that's purely as a result of nuclear power plants. And frankly, we'd like to get to a point where actually communities are fighting for nuclear power plants, because they see the long term benefit. And that's the benefit, for us as a trade union, is a benefit for working people. And they're the ones who, fundamentally, they do all the work, they make the difference. That's what our entire movement is about is normal working people. And we think it offers them the opportunities, it offers them the skills, and it offers them a really great career where they're going to be doing something essential for the country, and ultimately essential for the entire planet if we're looking at the net zero.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
I think that was perfectly said and probably a really great place to wrap up on. Andy, unless you have any final kind of words of wisdom.

Andy Prendergast
No, I think I'll leave that one, Michelle. It's been a real pleasure coming on. As I said, we're always really happy to work with the nuclear industry and we believe that this is a way forward and a great place for good jobs. Good union jobs as well. And that's very important. So I really thank you for your time.

Michelle Brechtelsbauer
Yeah. Thank you so much.