TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Jadwiga Najder
Andrzej Strupczewski is with us, I'm very happy that you could join us in the Titans of Nuclear podcast.

Andrzej Strupczewski
I am happy to be here with you to and have a chance to speak to the listeners about nuclear power and maybe about nuclear power in Poland, too.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, exactly, I am very happy that we were able to invite a very renowned Polish professor. You are in fact the first Polish person that is living on everyday basis in Poland that we are able to host, so I am very, very happy that we can have you here. And could you start maybe from telling us how did you decide to become a nuclear scientist in the first place?

Andrzej Strupczewski
Well, at the time when I was starting my studies at Politechnika Warszawska, nuclear power was something absolutely new. I was in the group of the first five people who started to study nuclear engineering. Actually, it was a competition to be in this small group. And I was lucky enough to be among them. So, I finished my studies in 1959 and started my work in 1960 at the Institute of Atomic Research. At the time, we were making the design of the Maria reactor, which at the time was thought to be necessary, because what we had was Ewa reactor provided by Russia and it was a reactor of low power, just two megawatts, which was very precious for us for studies of physics and some production of radioisotopes, but evidently, its power was not sufficient. Actually, I had the chance to be in the group of people, who were led by very, very good engineers, who started to increase the power of Ewa reactor and they brought this power up to eight megawatts, after which I took over and made the some experiments in the core of Ewa reactor, starting with possible accidents in this reactor, so as to be sure that the reactor is quite safe. Actually, the worst accident that could happen in such a reactor - it was a pool reactor - was the loss of flow of coolant. We started by first of all checking the temperature distribution in normal state and finding what is the safety boundary into boiling on the surface of the fuel elements. It was done with an instrumented fuel element, three are pure elements, which are pure in real core the reactor and then we started status with loss of flow, including temperatures in power levels which were much higher than the actual power level allowed for Ewa. Ewa, as I said, worked at eight megawatts. We went to 9, 10, 11, and 12 megawatts and we started the case of losing one, two, or three pumps in the primary circuit. And we proved that after losing all three pumps suddenly, the reactor remains safe and could manage without any problems, without boiling on the surface of the fuel elements. We had raised the power of the reactor - actually, it was not raised to 12, it was safe to 10 - but it was clear that there is a safety margin, and when later on it was necessary to reduce the flow of coolant, we did it without reducing the power, so Ewa operated at 10 megawatts. After this I took over the startup procedures for the Maria reactor. For Maria, I made this full set of shielding calculations and then I was the leader of the Safety Analysis Report, which was done in time and then I became the head of start-up of Maria. It started operation in '74, reached full power in '75, and since then, it has been operating very well. It is among five of the most, let's say, powerful and available for various purposes reactors in the world.

Jadwiga Najder
Yeah, exactly. Maria reactor is quite versatile, right? What is it actually used for? What is it exactly used for in all the activities of a research reactor possible?

Andrzej Strupczewski
Well, you mean the Maria reactor?

Jadwiga Najder
Yes.

Andrzej Strupczewski
Mario reactor is used, first of all, for the production of radioisotopes. Among them, well, it provides radioisotopes for the whole of Poland and for some other countries to export them. And also it is used for physics experiments. We have horizontal channels for physics, and it was meant as a multi-purpose reactor, which would be used also for studies of materials and elements of future nuclear power plants. We made two series of experiments. One was the experiments with a new coolant, which was proposed by Russia, at the time. It was before 1980. We made step loops and rigs in the reactor and actually the program was very successful not in the sense that we prove that everything is fine. No, contrarily. We proved that everything is wrong, because this kind of coolant which was there would coagulate in the reactor and make an elastic mass which would completely block the flow. It could not be used under conditions of radiation and high fluxes, high thermal fluxes. And so the choice of this specific coolant was rejected and all experiments in these reactions were stopped. So, it was a success for the reactor, for other reactors, for people who made the experiments. Actually, they were quite difficult. But of course, for the program, it was a blow and they had to give up this kind of coolant. The other program was aimed at studying the behavior of fuel elements in PWRs in the case of maximum accidents, which could happen in PWR, and this maximum accident - I don't know if you're aware of this - is something very specific. Since we fear that we can lose coolant in the core, we think that the maximum accident is when there is a guillotine break in the primary cooling system in such a way that two sides of the piping are completely separated and from each side, the coolant flows out at full speed at full pressure of 170 atmospheres, for example, so with enormous strength, it flows out and their core is left open without coolant. We had to make studies for this experiment, and everything was difficult to work in view of the necessary Safety Analysis. Of course, we didn't want to have a real accident with which coolant split with fuel, melt down and spilled in the whole reactor. So we had to make special precautions, but these precautions were taken. The fuel was provided by Russia. The instrumentation of very high class was provided by Finland. They were in this undertaking, and everything was ready. And when everything was ready, at that moment, Poland decided to stop the nuclear power program. After that, we went to Russia and proposed them that if they pay enough, we can run the series of experiments at their expense. And they were quite positive about it. The Finns also said, Yes, we shall. It was a question if they pay in rubles, in dollars, or in diamonds, or whatever. We got to some agreements and when we were coming by train back from Russia, from Moscow, there was information that Soviet Union ceased to exist. Now it is Russia, and any agreements are of no value. And so it was the end of our program of studying maximum accidents in PWRs.

But for me, actually, it was fortunate because the agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, there was a competition for two positions in the special section, which dealt with safety of reactors, and there were 2000 candidates. I was lucky to be one of the two chosen. I went there and stayed there for five years or so. After that, I was an expert of the Agency, and also an expert of the European Commission, and went on many, many missions to various countries to check the safety of reactors. On the whole, I visited - I counted it yesterday, in my memory - thirty-three countries and made some 40 missions to reactors for analysis and so on. The most, let's say, effective analyses were done for Mochovce in Slovak Republic. Actually, Mochovce Unit One and Two had the same design as Zarnowiec in Poland, Zarnowiec, which unfortunately had been built up to some point and then the construction was stopped because of political decisions. So Mochovce was similar, and International Atomic Energy Agency appointed me the head of the group of experts who would go to Mochovce and check the status of the safety of the plant. The way sub-groups are constituted is something which we should know, I think. First of all, the leader makes a Safety Analysis upon the data which he has. I did it, some 200 pages or so. Then I invited 10 experts from various countries - France, USA, UK, and so on - they came to here. Now, we worked together for one week to specify what we wanted to learn, then we went to Mochovce and worked for three weeks at Mochovce, from eight o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock in the evening - with breaks for meals, of course -and with the participation of some 20 experts from the Slovak side. After this three weeks, we had the report on the safety of Mochovce, in which we had some 30 or 35 issues specified in which Mochovce should do something. So I sent this report to Mochovce. After one month, they sent it back saying yes, they agree, and they did, they agreed. And they said that, since the experts of the agency chosen from all countries decided that something should be improved, the Slovaks said, Okay, we shall improve it. And they made improvements, and Mochovce One and Two went into operation in 1999, after the second mission, which I also had the honor to preside and to organize. In 1999, we checked that all points were fulfilled, or could be fulfilled within half a year, because they are not so important, and they really did it. You'll see the agency treats, approaches such questions of safety checking in a very serious way. And it is really a lot of work, which is first of all done by experts chosen by the agency, but also reviewed and agreed on by the hosts, in this case, Slovaks. But I had such missions to Ukraine, to Hungary, to Czech Republic, and so on, so on, many, many of them. And in each case, the studies were very, very careful. In some countries, we didn't make missions to check safety of nuclear power plants, for example to China, where we had a seminar of one week teaching Chinese people how to deal with emergency situations, namely how to introduce new kinds of instructions for the operator. Here, I think it would be good to know that in previous practice of nuclear power, the operator operated or worked in the in the contract room. And if he saw that some indication is off the scale or wrong scale, he would have to decide what was the reason for this. Is it a valve which is not working? Or is it a pipe which is broken? Or is it something else? And he would guess, right or wrong, and act accordingly.

However, after TMI, Three Mile Island accident in the US, American industry decided that this is not the right way to approach problems, how to approach the problems of accidents. I remember Mr. Frederick, who actually was the head operator during TMI accident, telling us in a big room in a symposium in Italy, Look, I like to give engineers problems, and they have to devise the way of solution. They usually take the problem, they love it, they love this word, they take the problem with them home, and after a week or two, they come back and say it is this and this accident, you should act such and such. But actually, in the nuclear power plant, you don't have two weeks, you have you seconds, you have red lights which go on. You have people asking you and you have the responsibility of running this 1,000 megawatt unit which should provide electricity. So you are acting under great stress. Within a very short time, you must make decisions. Americans decided that they must make a different way of dealing with it. They devised, and they implemented, in the '90s, in the late '90s, the system known as symptom-oriented procedures, that is to see the temperature's going up, you will open the book on the operating temperature up in point one, and here, look what you should do. And they tell you, Do this and this with the pump number three, You do it with pump number three and if you look for the result. If the result is okay, wonderful. If it is not okay, look at the instruction again. And so you don't guess what is the reason. You have the book of instructions based on symptoms, symptoms which are visible in the control room. This system was gradually introduced outside USA. I was heading this work in Bulgaria, in Kozloduy Units Three and Four, and later on I went to China with a team of experts, two experts. One was from Norway and an expert on electronics, and the other on human behavior from France. We were giving them one week lectures about dealing with EPR accidents and accidents at nuclear power plants. Apparently, the work was well done, because I have not heard about any EPR accidents in China. Maybe they learned something. Anyway, they were very, very diligent students, I must say, and they wanted to learn. This work which I was doing made it possible to learn a lot about nuclear power plants.

I was in Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia, for example, working as an expert for the European Commission. I was checking whether the improvements which should be done were really implemented. Actually - again, this is an interesting aspect of international cooperation, namely - we, that is nuclear community in the West were worried that another Chernobyl can happen or another accident can happen. And so European Union provided very significant help, financial help, to Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, which were classified as CIS countries, Commonwealth of Independent States, they said. But simply former Russian. This forced them together, went to some amount of money. And for this money, European Union financed improvements, one, two or three improvements in each nuclear power plant. I went there after several years of this program, empowered by European Union to track what is the result, to propose improvements, and to check if we should pay on or not. Generally, they were implementing all the things quite well and we had very good cooperation with the Russians, Ukrainians. In Ukraine, I asked one of the Ukrainians directly in Russian - because my Russian was fluent the time I asked him - why do you buy valves such as these, which are indicated by European Union? And his answer was, Because I have never in my life seen a valve as good as that which was provided by the Union. Okay, so they were, actually, now - let's see it in the proper light - European Union was not a good uncle which gives money to the right to the left.

Actually, what we were doing in European Union - in the commission, I mean - it was a program called TACIS, Technical Assistance to CIS. In this program, TACIS was providing one improvement. For example, one excellent pump, or one excellent set of valves - not one valve, but one set of valves. And then we said that Russia or Ukraine should buy other pumps or other set of valves of the same class and install it. It was a good business. It was good business. European Union did not lose much, but on the whole, transferred about $1 billion to Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia. It was not only money. In each nuclear power plant, there was an expert which was very competent in this type of reactor and he would advise people on spot, what to do, what to buy, and how to improve the operation. For example, when I was in Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant - they were RBMK reactors with graphite - the resident there was a UK expert who had many, many years long of experience with graphite reactors in UK. When I was in Ukrainian reactors, with water, pressurized water, there were French experts from French pressurized water reactors, and so on, so on. Some of these experts were very good, learned Russian fluently, and had excellent relationships with Russians, including eating together lunches and things like that. Some of them were different and not speaking Russian, used translators, lived not inside the nuclear power plant, but outside and had to ask on the writing, ask permission to enter the plant and so on. And then the cooperation went much worse. But generally, the cooperation was very successful and it was at the time when Russia was really poor, and was in bad economic conditions. Nowadays, I'm not aware how it goes, but I think that the conditions are decidedly different. Anyway, so it was continued until 2006 or 2007, I believe, that I worked in this capacity.

Jadwiga Najder
Just a question here. As for these two programs - the European Commission one and IAEA - for both of them, what would happen if the countries stopped complying? For example, you delivered the Safety Analysis and they would not implement the changes. Are there any binding consequences, especially from the side of IAEA?

Andrzej Strupczewski
Well, all countries which belong to the International Atomic Energy Agency - and it is 130 countries, I believe - not all of them have nuclear power. Many of them have just nuclear reactors or use radioisotopes. All these countries want to submit safety reports and to follow the indications of the agency. The classical example is the position of Slovak Republic, which received our reports and said, Yes, since the agency said that we should change it, we shall change it. It's reasonable, it's for our good. What if a country refused? Well, the responsibility for safety in each and every case remains with that country, and the agency cannot dictate or send police or send army, though press on the contract, if they must do something. However, we have meetings every four years or so and in these meetings, every country which has nuclear power plant submits a large report of compliance and top improvements with the rules they made within the period of the last four years. It includes analysis of safety of the reactor, of the radioisotope production, utilization, and so on. Each country wants to reach consensus and approval of the others, of peers. We have such reports, which are available to all members, and they really show the actual status of the situation in our country. I think that there is a lot of goodwill, and nobody really wants to violate the rules.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, I guess everybody is aware that the problem in one of the power plants is actually the problem for all the industry globally, we can say. I can imagine that everybody tries to comply.

Andrzej Strupczewski
I must add, there are some countries which do not belong to the Agency, have not submitted their facilities to control of the Agency, for example, Israel. And well, it's their job in their country and their responsibility and decision. But of course, they don't get any support from the Agency and everybody knows that they do not follow the rules. Are there is thousands of these? Do they have nuclear weapons? Don't they have-nobody knows? And as far as I'm concerned, I shall not speak about it, because I think that nobody knows, really.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, yes, I understand. And let's maybe switch the topic, just a tiny little bit. I'm wondering about the plant safety, as you were saying so much about the compliance of the of the power plants. And I understand that in the last decades of the 20th century, it was very important to develop the safety as there were different accidents that were showing the holes in the safety case of the power plants. Right now, in the 21st century, there is a little bit of this feeling that we are reaching the asymptotic moment, that more and more effort is put into the safety with less and less effect. Do you agree with that?

Andrzej Strupczewski
Well, yeah, of course. Well, let's say, first of all, I mean, simply because, when you reach near perfection, the last 1% is much more difficult to achieve than the previous 20 or 30%. But let us start a moment with the safety of the reactors of the second generation. I mean, the second generation was built assuming that we shall deal with all accidents which can be initiated by human error, one human error, or by a single failure of any piece of equipment, such as pump, valve, and so on. Or it can be so that we have the worst set of conditions, then we have a failure of one mechanical element or electrical element, and then we have one human error, but that's all. And under such conditions, the plant should be safe in the sense, not that it can run indefinitely on and on, but that it should not be a danger to the surrounding population around the plant. And it seemed that it is not, because the accidents which would happen and be worse than that - for example, one pump failing and one valve failing and then two human errors and so on - would occur very, very rarely. The decision was that accidents which happened once per 10,000 years of operation of a given reactor should be dealt with and we should be safe. The accident in TMI in US in 1978 showed that, really, the plant remained safe. Also, there was an error of equipment. Equipment was wrongly designed so that it was showing to the operator the status which was desired by the operator. The operator who wanted the valve to be closed and pushed the button and assumed that, since the button was pushed, it said the valve is closed. Actually, it wasn't. But the apparatus was not showing the true state of affairs and operators showed that the valve is closed and took a wrong decision resulting in complete core destruction. But the number of barriers and other safety systems was enough to keep this molten core inside the reactor pressure vessel and inside containment and practically nothing went out of containment. The amounts of iodine was so small that people for several months after the accident said it could not be destroyed because the amount of iodine is so small, it was 130 million I believe part of iodine which was out. Really, the precautions were sufficient. However, with time, we learned to deal better with all accidents and the previous assumption that we deal with this maximum accident into Generation II reactors gave way to a new assumption, no matter what was the reason, we want to keep all safety precautions. We want to train operators. We want to be safe, yes, okay and we pay for it. Okay.

But assume that, in spite of all that, the core of the reactor melts down, then we assume that we provide stop safety measures in the reactor and decry that people around it will be safe. These are Generation III reactors. The most classical example is the reactor EPR, European Pressurized Water Reactor, actually designed together with French and German engineers, but nowadays still sold only by France by EDF. This reactor was submitted to Finland, France, to China, and to UK. In the design which was submitted to the UK, it was assumed that the core is completely molten. Everything which was in the core - iodine, strontium, whatever - whatever is radioactive is released from this core. After that, there was the analysis made what will happen around the nuclear power plant. It went out that, within the radius of 500 meters, there will be significant releases and levels of radioactivity, but not killing anybody. And outside 500 meters, people can quietly stay, sleep, eat, live, not evacuate, anything, and be completely safe. So the radius of danger is 500 meters for the case of complete meltdown of the core of the reactor, which of course we do not allow. We do not allow meltdown of the core. We make many, many things to prevent it. The Generation III reactors are very strongly protected. And this is partly the effect of our technology, which we have improved so much that now we can assure it. And partly, well, let's be frank, the effect over attacks of terrorists on Twin Towers, after which we learned that every reactor can be attacked from the air by the largest possible airplane full of tanks of fuel. Well, not actually attacked by atomic bombs. If there is no atomic war, no nuclear power plant can stand the explosion of atomic weapon.

Jadwiga Najder
That's not that the biggest problem in this moment, I guess.

Andrzej Strupczewski
But if we speak about more or less normal times, including terrorist acts, nuclear power plant is safe. Fukushima was a great surprise for all of us, because Japanese were considered to be the most technically advanced people. And they were of course, yes, but actually, the reactors were designed in 1960s. They were the first reactors of the second generation that were built. And the Japanese have a special national feature that they are very proud people. They are right to be proud, they are really clever and they know a lot, but their national pride made that they do not want to look to others and their experiences. And when the International Atomic Energy Agency sent missions, which gave a suggestion that things could be improved and should be improved, or when the European, German, and French allied commission said that all nuclear power plants should have passive hydrogen recombiners installed - passive so that, in the case of an accident, when there is no electricity, they still recombine hydrogen and leave water steam simply outside, so there is no danger - when they learned about it, the Japanese said, Oh, well, maybe it's for Europe, but we are proud, we are strong, we are technically very much advanced. We don't care. They did not improve and implement all of these improvements. And so actually, when the proper day came in 2011, they had reactors which were at 50 years old. One of them was very close to being shut down. The others were younger, but were in a unmodified state. And what we must say, the reason of the accident was not exactly a nuclear error. It was the error of nuclear people, yes, but in this sense that they took the evaluations of hydrologists as correct. The hydrologists of Japan said that the maximum tsunami wave would be some five or six meters. And so, Fukushima nuclear power plant was provided with a safety wall which was seven meters high.

However, the tsunami was not five or six, it was, I believe, 13 meters high. Anyway, high enough to go over the wall and within one second, to put out of order all electricity sources in the plant. Normally, nuclear power plant gets power from two independent electric systems in the country. These systems were there in Fukushima, too, but before the tsunami, there was a very strong earthquake and all overhead lines of electricity power were completely destroyed. There was no outside power, none at all. There were no roads, no bridges, no way of access nothing. Still, the nuclear power plant was happily working, shutting down everything in order, and getting reactors to cool down because they had their own on-site emergency, electrical power. However, when the tsunami came and flooded the whole thing, this electric power was lost and not lost gradually, but lost abruptly during one second. The human toll was very small. During the earthquake, one man fell from the crane, and that was all. And the tsunami, I believe, also drowned one or two people. But nuclear radiation did not kill anybody. Still, the power plant, the plant was left without electric power, completely, in complete darkness. And so gradually, day after day, they were losing possibilities of fighting and saving the plant. Actually, it would be very simple to provide safety for the plant. It would be enough to make all compartments, to seal the doors and windows of all compartments where there were the sources of electrical power, these are solid. But it was not done, because they were assured that the tsunami would be below the safety wall. Actually, it was higher than that.

This we made, in Europe and in US, a large action, which was called stress tests. I had the honor to provide stress test verification for two units in Kozloduy. I was invited there, because previously I was the leader of missions. And so I went there. My Bulgarian is not very good, but good enough to be able to read. Anyway, we were writing the report in English, part of it in Russian. I stayed there and let the mission and safety review of Kozloduy. The interesting thing is that Kozloduy went through all this verification very well. Actually, what was the premise of this stress test? Well, it was said that we must assume the highest danger, which was decided, it was considered during the design of the plant. Then at the one degree more to see whether the plant can stand this maximum plus one, this danger. So in the case of offset, usually the plants turned out to be good, but some small improvements were necessary. For example, in Ukraine when I was on a mission later on checking whether they made the correct improvements after a stress test action, the question, the classical question was, What will you do if you lose electric power? Well, the answer was, We have our own on-site sources. Oh, yes, but if your sources are lost, your do something, because, for example, all these engines are lost. Well, then you must have some other source of power. Oh, yes, we have, we do. We have mobile diesel sources, diesel engines. We can drive the truck with diesel engines and get the power. Oh, yeah, but can you connect? Can you connect them, have your connections? Yes, we have connections. Do you check connections? Yes, we do. We check them. How often? Once a year. Do you have people trained for this? Yes, we have people. Do they train again? Yes. And so on, so on. And finally the question, Okay, great, and how many mobile diesel sources do you have? One. Well, that's not enough, you must have two. So you see, even if a plant is very good, you can find something which you can improve. In the case of Ukraine Khmelnitski, it was just a second truck with diesel. Okay. For Kozloduy, some other small things and so on. Generally, when I look at the results of the stress testing, I mean that the average expenditure per nuclear power plant was about $100 million to make it, not only safe for the conditions for which it was designed, but safe for all conditions which could be imagined beyond design. I will say that the plants of the third generation are really checked very carefully. And they are safe, they are safe, Safety checking in UK, for example, for EPR - actually, there were four designs submitted to UK, but I will speak just about EPR - it was four years work. Each year there was one stage to be covered. The British people said they do not have enough expertise within technical, let's say, within the nuclear commission, so they involve people from other organizations. They made this study during four years, and after four years came the results, yes, EPR is safe. I think we really should believe these experts.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, I totally believe them. These are none of my doubts. However, I guess for general public and no matter how hard the industry tries, no matter how much research and science is published proving that nuclear is safe, still people really have doubts. Most of all, as for the radiation that is possible going out of the plant, that is possible related to spent nuclear fuel. This is something that it is very deeply ingrained in people's prejudices, I think. Do you think that any advancement in understanding of small doses, any advancement in being able to prove or disprove the influence the impact of small doses, such as the doses around the nuclear power plant, would be able to influence general public to trust more in the safety of the plants?

Andrzej Strupczewski
Okay. I'm a member of the non-governmental organization called SARI: Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information. People in this study are only invited by invitation of members - there are not too many of them, I don't know the number, maybe 100 or so -and we aim to give true, accurate information about the effects of radiation on human health. The important thing is that this radiation in the amounts, which are around the nuclear power plant, or can arise in case of operation are not harmful to people. I think our time is near to be ended. I will be very happy to speak about it, because, well, you can take my word for it, that really, our organisms can cope with radiation in such amounts as they are in the environment, but my word is not enough. Well, I can only say, in support of my words, that I was drinking water from my nuclear power plants slavisa. So, and it is on film so you can see. I not only say so, but I believe so. Actually, the trick is that the water which I was drinking was from the third circuit leaving the nuclear power plant and there was no radioactivity, because they could be any radioactivity and I will be happy to explain why. But anyway, it was the water going out of the nuclear power plant and people would be afraid of this. As far as I know, nobody tried to do this. So, I will be very happy to speak with you.

But just to give a very brief information, I will say that the cells which constitute our organisms, they are cells which were created about a billion or two billions years ago, a very, very long time ago. And this long time ago, radiation was much stronger than it is today. Why? Well, because even atom sent some radiation outside, it does not send the same radiation the second time. It was radioactive, it is not now radioactive. After 1 billion years, many, many atoms which were sending radiation, now do not send this radiation. We live now in conditions of radiation which are much lower, four to five times lower, than they were on Earth when our organism, or the cells of our organisms, were first created. These cells had to be resistant to radiation, had to have defense mechanisms against radiation, and they had them. Otherwise they will not survive. Today, we feel very well in conditions of radiation, which is around us. In fact, if there was no radiation, we would not survive. There were experiments made with organisms which were kept without radiation. They were a very difficult conditions, because radiation is practically everywhere, but it was achieved. And it was observed that they were disappearing, dying, and after a while, there was much, much less of them than initially. And after that, a small source of radiation was introduced into their surroundings and look, they came up again, strong, and they revived. Well, for other practical information, I can tell you that if we live in conditions of four to five times higher than the average radiation on the Earth, we shall be perfectly fine. Nothing will happen. And if we have another possibility to speak about it, or to show some slides, I will be happy to show you the results of a study. Population have chosen people of groups, of population, of patients in hospitals, of doctors, of people which have locational or professional contact with radiation, and so on and so on. In many subgroups in which the studies were made, many people wanted to make a doctor's degree or professor's degree to find something wrong with radiation, and they never found it. Okay. That's for the moment. And if you want to speak about it, I'll be happy and I believe that if we understand that radiation is not harmful, then we shall not be afraid of nuclear plant.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, very important words. I have one last question as we are finishing here. What would you like to see changing or developing in the coming years or decades? You can choose whatever is the most important for you?

Andrzej Strupczewski
What I would like to change in what?

Jadwiga Najder
In the nuclear industry or in the nuclear science in the coming ten years or decades.

Andrzej Strupczewski
I believe that the thing which we should be able to change is the approach to the effects of small doses of radiation. Really, we pay a lot of money and we take on unnecessary actions like evacuation of people because of fear. Marie Skłodowska Curie said that radiation is not something to be afraid of, it is something to be understood. And John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, The worst thing is fear itself. So, let us not fear radiation. Then our plants will be much simpler, much, much cheaper, and we shall not suffer unnecessary conditions and results of fear of people who decide or people who have to live in their vicinity. Really, something should be changed. I have written about it. Other people have written about it. We have many thousands, tens of thousands of publications showing that radiation is not harmful, but there are strong reasons - political reasons - for keeping the hypothesis that every even smallest dose of radiation can harm. Keeping it as a rule. It is simple. Yes, it is. Easy to use, but it is not true. And it is harmful to all of us.

Jadwiga Najder
Okay, with these strong words, let me thank you for the conversation. Thank you very much, and all the best in the future.

Andrzej Strupczewski
Thank you very much, and I'm very happy that I had the chance to speak with you.

Jadwiga Najder
Thank you.

"Bret Kugelmass  
We're here today on Titans of Nuclear with Michel Berthelemy who is an old friend from many years ago when we actually got to meet people in person. And actually, you know what, before we even get going, we were talking about the topic of small modular reactors and the financing of economics even back then. You had a great impression on me, which has carried through for hundreds of episodes since. So, it's a real pleasure to have you on the show today.

Michel Berthélemy  
Well, thank you very much, Bret, I'm very happy to be here today. Good to see you again.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yes, absolutely. Okay. So, before we get into the topic at hand, SMR financing and economics and the future of its technology, we'd love to learn about you. Tell me - where'd you grow up and how did you get into the energy sector?

Michel Berthélemy  
Okay, thanks. Well, as you can guess, I'm French. I grew up in the Paris suburb and then went to study economics at university. My father was an economist, so that was a very natural track for me.

Bret Kugelmass  
What did your dad focus on?

Michel Berthélemy  
He focused on development economics, initially for quite a general track, and then I wanted to do energy and climate change economics. So essentially, I started with some interest in climate change and then, you know what happened next is that I somehow ended up by mistake, or by chance, in a nuclear state.

Bret Kugelmass  
I don't think it's so much by chance. I think it has to do with physics and the actual reality of studying climate and seeing where it takes you. And yes, nuclear tends to be the endpoint.

Michel Berthélemy  
It's all about chance, because you might know by now that there are very few economies that really take a hard look at us at nuclear. So, I guess I was lucky enough that I was offered to do a PhD on the economics of nuclear power. I guess this is where the chance element can come into play.

Bret Kugelmass  
And then tell me about that PhD specifically. Were there specific data sets you were looking through? Is the PhD in France the same as a PhD in the US? Do you have a dissertation? Do you have to write papers? How does it all work?

Michel Berthélemy  
It's a bit different. First, the good thing is that it's shorter. We usually have to do it within three years, and otherwise, they kick us out nowadays. But at the same time, it's a bit more challenging. In the US, you will usually have some coursework and then gradually move into your dissertation and in France, we have to jump right into it. One of the challenges, when you look at nuclear power economics - and I'm sure we'll come back to that later - is, sometimes the data are not always very good, especially when you get historical data. And if you try to track back the cost of nuclear power plants in the 60s and 70s, it starts quickly to become a bit challenging and you end up looking at apples and oranges. Those are sort of the things we looked at.

Bret Kugelmass  
Let's double click on that for a second, that apples and oranges. Is it so different because there were different physical implementations that were required? Or is it just different because of things around money? And how people borrowed money and how people spent money at the time? What are the key differences?

Michel Berthélemy  
No, you're seeing that all very generic to the economy, the fact that you had an economy that went through quite a change during this period which started at high inflation in 70s and 80s, comparing $1 in 1960 to 1990. That's a bit tricky, especially for a very specific industry.

Bret Kugelmass  
You're saying it's not as simple as just adjusting for inflation and that there's actually more to it?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yeah, just bit more to it. And then, of course, the other challenge is that the scope of contracts evolve, and some types of contracts are a bit messy and so all of that means that knowing exactly what was the cost of what can be can be changed. Well, we eventually get there.

Bret Kugelmass  
So, you're sorting through some of this data, you're getting your PhD in it. Was there a certain thesis that was cementing in your mind at this time about what the industry looked like and some of the challenges that faced? And, what you were thinking back then, has it changed to what you work on today?

Michel Berthélemy  
No, I think one of the things I've gone through my PhD, and I have a lot of friends that are in academia and have great respect for people in academia, but for topics such as nuclear, at some point, you really need to understand really what industry is. If you're… or looking at it from far away, it's very easy to do things that look good on paper, but you're, in fact, quite far away from reality. And I guess, with this drive, that's what led me to going into a career that was proceeding with this industry and labs worker. Without going through all of my resume, I worked with a French Atomic Energy Commission for a few years and then now with the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency.

Bret Kugelmass  
The French scientific research institute that you're referring to, that's the CEA. Is that right?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yes.

Bret Kugelmass  
And what do they do? Tell me a little bit about what they do? And why hire an economist?

Michel Berthélemy  
That's a good question. In fact, I think, if I compare them to the National Labs, you have some, of course, I am some very good colleagues, some good friends in National Labs, because historically, the French CEA was a bit different, because it had a broader scope to supporting French government in energy planning. That meant that, quite naturally, they quickly put a team of economists that has carried on for a couple of decades now. And that's essentially why we were working. One of the things also specific to CEA - and that the name doesn't relate - is the fact that it works together, nowadays, on both nuclear and other low carbon technologies, so a strong focus on photovoltaic, on batteries, on hydrogen. What was also interesting and exciting was working and looking at integration of different technologies. I guess what was the challenge of such a position is that, you end up as an economist in the world of engineers and you don't speak the same language. You don't see things from the same perspective. And so, quite quickly, the job is, as much as being good as an economist and being good as delivering your work, so that the people that make decisions, who tend to come from engineering background, can relate to it, and it can be useful in terms of orienting R&D decisions in nuclear or zero carbon.

Bret Kugelmass  
Can you give me a specific example, maybe where you might have an insight as an economist that the engineers would not have had, because they look at things totally differently, and then you try to communicate that to them and there's some learning that has to happen?

Michel Berthélemy  
Sure. There's one more generic example, it wasn't specific to CEA. I have colleagues that do cost engineering. They have a spreadsheet and look at the cost and you have the cost of the different components. You essentially end up trying to understand what is the cost of building a nuclear power plant. An economist, what is very important for me is that cost is one thing, prices and costs can differ. And to understand really what the cost of something is, you need to understand what are the incentives, what are the different international, industrial, organizational settings, and really, you really need to have this lens of these economy principles to understand what, at the end, is going to be the economics and the value of given technologies. And not just to the cost engineering, which you need to do, but it won't be enough to really understand the economics of business.

Bret Kugelmass  
Something you just said there really struck me: price is not the same as cost. And I feel like this is a debate that I have with renewables journalists, where they look at a PPA and they seem to say, Well, solar is cheaper on this PPA that I'm looking at here, that's the price. Therefore, that's the only thing that we like. Let's drop all other low carbon technologies. Clearly, there's one contract that shows it's cheaper. And let's just drop everything else, because we've already found our winning low cost, clean energy source. But that's really frustrating, because obviously, that's not how it works. Did you come across that at CEA, when you were looking across the spectrum of technologies? And did you guys ever form a comprehensive paradigm?

Michel Berthélemy  
I come across it on the on the day to day basis, I would almost say. We are trying to get the message across, but we find that this is something, in particular for a number of policymakers, that you keep constantly reminding them of, because otherwise, there is indeed this short term view where something might look very attractive on an individual basis, but if you take a system view, you end up realizing that things are very different. You probably have heard us saying before, from the work we've done over the years, that we need to not only think in terms of the… because that often can come across as very attractive in this PPA, as you mentioned, but we think about the system cost and things can be very different than a technology that might not appear as very competitive on a practical basis, where in a system with different technologies may have different constraints, a physical constraint that, as economists, we're aware of things can be different.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah. And when you were working at CEA, are there any tools that you have at your disposal to help in the modeling? What does it look like in terms of tools and technologies that you can use to input data and make calculations? Are there any behind the scenes platforms that you guys can input this data into?

Michel Berthélemy  
Not really, I mean, this is nothing that can break them in-

Bret Kugelmass  
-just spreadsheets, mostly, then probably.

Michel Berthélemy  
Yeah, at the end of the day we talk about expanded spreadsheets. And sometimes having simple models, and the same in nuclear engineering, also has a lot of value. And of course, we need to back it up with a more comprehensive model. This is a long way you can go with some simple spreadsheets.

Bret Kugelmass  
And then so, what prompted the change from CEA to the OECD NEA? What led to that shift in your career?

Michel Berthélemy  
Oh, it was quite a natural transition for me. In part, because some activity at CEA had already been building relationship engagement with the work of NEA, and always had a drive for going more into the policy space, which is very much where NEA sits, providing evidence to member countries. And I think, though, by large in a way, we're very much in a one of the key places that we have that has the global view on this complex issue facing the future of nuclear. I think it's very much true for economics, but it's also true for my colleagues in different fields…

Bret Kugelmass  
The people there - had you just met them at conferences, or had you collaborated on papers with them? How do you - I guess, just to help people understand how people move around within the nuclear sector, can you give us a sense of what that-

Michel Berthélemy  
Sure, basically, I went from one side to the table to the other one. We have a number of expert group, we have working parties, and I was graduating I was involved with them, which essentially because I was interested in work.

Bret Kugelmass  
So these are all people you had worked with and collaborated with before and now are just working on the other side as you say. What specific topics did you have the opportunity to delve deeper into after you transitioned?

Michel Berthélemy  
Well, another topic that's interesting, which is exciting about NEA, we really are a broad view on the economics of nuclear power. We branch from the financing issues, to the cost of large, small reactors, thinking in terms of the future of the nuclear fuel cycle. And, again, I, in particular about my division, we deal with nuclear technology development and economics. So, part of the exciting thing as a job is that you continue doing economics, … and that remain firmly grounded with the reality of the nuclear sector.

Bret Kugelmass  
And how do you do that? How do you ground yourself with the reality of the nuclear sector? Is it just by taking meetings with people in industry? Or do you get access to their cost data somehow? How do you maintain that strong relationship to reality?

Michel Berthélemy  
I mean, of course in a way, …  where we had the cost of things and we have one factory project report we do with the IAEA, where every five years, we ask other countries, but of course, of different technologies. But it's very much a bit like, what we're doing today, it's building relationships with the industry in the sector… So, it's also part of that.

Bret Kugelmass  
Tell me about the different aspects that you focus on. You touched a little bit about them just a second ago, but I'd love to go deeper. I'd love to actually look at, what are some of the financing challenges associated with nuclear? And how does that change as you go smaller?

Michel Berthélemy  
Sure. One of the big reports we published last year as I arrived at NEA was on opportunity for cost reduction for nuclear. It's a big topic in the in the industry, but strangely enough, it's something we are not focused on at NEA for about 20 years. The last report was about the same data was 20 years ago. So, it was long overdue for us to take a deep dive to this issue. It was a very interesting exercise, but it's tad complex, because the more you look at the new cross sector, the more things can become complex quickly. And really, what we did there was try to take a step back and try to build on some of the key drivers into a few key priorities. A key finding from that piece of work is that really there were a lot of things that happened with first-of-a-kind reactors that were very specific to the context, where this project was built. And as much as some of the project has been changes, the good news is that we have actually quite well identified, listened, and that critical case that, if we implement them - and by the way, for both large and small, and we can come back to that later - there is a clear pathway for significant cost reduction for nuclear. For NEA members, that's really, I think one of the key policy issues was policymakers out there, they see the cost of the …  project, and they were getting very worried. There was this huge issue about risk perception for nuclear today, which, often more than cost, is really what is sort of slowing down decisions for the new economy.

Bret Kugelmass  
You're saying, is it the perception of nuclear across many dimensions or the perception of nuclear cost is the problem?

Michel Berthélemy  
The nuclear cost.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yes. Okay. So, the perception of nuclear cost is actually more damaging than the nuclear costs in some respect, in terms of governments offering their support, and I don't even mean financial support, just like endorsing new nuclear development. Is that right?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yes. Yes.

Bret Kugelmass  
That sounds about right. Okay, so I can just fully understand. Your organization, what you do, is you collect this information, both on what's happened historically, what's happening now across the world, offer some suggestions. This information goes to countries, countries themselves, and then the country - and these are the OECD countries-

Michel Berthélemy  
The NEA countries, the members are somewhat different.

Bret Kugelmass  
Okay, so yeah, there's a little bit of, you can be part of the NEA, but not part of the OECD or something.

Michel Berthélemy  
The other way around.

Bret Kugelmass  
Okay, so this information goes to people in the Ministry of Energy or Ministry of Industry or something like that, and then they can inform their decisions. But does any of this information make its way back to industry itself in order to help them figure out what to build and how to build? Or are we assuming they've got that covered from the commercial side and now it's just a matter of making countries, the governments, more open to the advances that industry is bringing forward?

Michel Berthélemy  
That's a very good point. At the NEA, our member countries, or countries that defense. And so, this is all that we serve, first and foremost. But at the same time, I think we all understand that, to do our job well, we need to speak to industry, and they are quite a bit of our work that, indeed, in the policy space, we need to share the results with these folks in industry. So, this clearly, when we do our roadshow with a report, we tend to stop at the different board and that would include engagement with industry, with civil society. And also - and I guess this is the one which was a bit more challenging - sort of breaking a bit of the nuclear circle and trying to bring some of these facts outside the usual suspects.

Bret Kugelmass  
And who needs to hear these outside of the nuclear circle? Is it mostly like financiers? Like people who do project financing for heavy industry or heavy energy projects? Or are there other stakeholders?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yes, yes, some of it is the finance community. There is an energy analyst world and the policy words, which are not in energy policy that are not in charge of nuclear. And sometimes also, within government, you might have an Office of Nuclear Energy, and then you're gonna have all the parts of your big machine, for which it's also useful to engage with them, because it will be part of the decision-making process and usually, this is what we also try.

Bret Kugelmass  
Do you end up capturing a unique perspective on which member countries are taking nuclear more seriously or are more interested, just by the frequency of their communication, or how many people download your reports? Do you have a sense of where nuclear seems more promising across the world?

Michel Berthélemy  
No, I think that's what is also quite interesting with this job is that you have an observation, position and security, how can I say, as a sort of outpost, to sense this movement, this policy shift, also trying to capture a bit some of the weak signals that carry those away some changes in policy direction for some of our countries. And, in fact, I think since joining the NEA a couple of years ago, there are a few things where we start seeing a shift, the number of countries that were sort of delaying decisions for nuclear new builds that are now bringing it back into the preset agenda. Partly because the fight against climate change will become more and more important. And we also see a shift in technology. So, clearly won't surprise you if I say that discussion about small modular reactors are getting more and more momentum within our member countries and, of course, important to keep a close eye.

Bret Kugelmass  
Okay, so that's another question I have for you. Let's say a member country asks you, Hey, should we go SMR? Or should we go traditional reactor? I understand - we can walk through some of the advantages, and especially your report - some very clear advantages of SMRs. But what's the next part of that conversation? When they ask, Hey, we're thinking about bringing nuclear into our energy infrastructure for climate reasons, for energy security reasons. We have this big technology decision to go with. Do we go with the big reactors or do we go SMRs? When they ask you, Okay, you have all this information on SMRs, but how real is it? What do you respond to them?

Michel Berthélemy  
It's a tricky one. I think what we would say is that - we are not like everybody else - we acknowledge the fact that SMRs have seen an earlier stage of development. There are a bit further back in the innovation pipeline. But what we can see is there is a trend and there are concrete projects, and service investment are being made in these technologies. One thing we can say also is that a number of SMR vendors are also approaching the licensing and deployment strategy in a way which is making sure that some of the lessons are being done from the less successful project I was mentioning before. I know that things, at the end of the day, everyone has to make their own call and judgment, but I think bringing a summary of this key facts then, hopefully, helps policymakers make a decision.

Bret Kugelmass  
And what's the timeline that we're looking at? Are there any member countries that say, We want nuclear technology, but we want it now. The other energy technologies are saying we can deliver 2-gigawatt scale wind farm within three years if we want. Nuclear keeps telling us we have to spend two years siting, then two years financing, then two years procurement, then five years construction. What about that time factor? Is anyone promising, Hey, if you ""Country A"" ordered it and were serious about it, we could deliver it in the next three years.

Michel Berthélemy  
Well, that doesn't happen very often. And what I can say is I think we all, most of us are familiar with the IAEA Milestones Approach for developing nuclear infrastructure projects. And if anyone is coming to me with a plan to build a nuclear power plant in two years, I would just suggest that they make sure that they are understood in order of the Milestones and of what was planned. And I think, also the point is understanding that when you build nuclear, you need to think about it like an infrastructure project and something that is going to bring decade-long benefits for your country and you have to approach it with that view, and I think, also those that are serious about nuclear, eventually, what am I doing?

Bret Kugelmass  
So, that's for newcomer countries. What's to stop an existing nuclear country, let's say Romania or something, from just saying, Hey, listen, we know nuclear, we've got this, we've had nuclear for a while, we know how to run it. I think they even have heavy water, so they get that. They get a lot of interest, they understand it. What's to stop them from saying, Hey, show us how we can do this in three years, just like any other heavy industrial facility. Do you think it's possible for an existing nuclear country?

Michel Berthélemy  
Probably not. The question is, how can you speed things up a little bit? Because in particular, look at how much nuclear will be required for us to be on track with our climate objectives. But one of the key things that we see is that we're going to ramp up nuclear. Clearly, thinking about timelines, which allow us to deploy nuclear faster is not something we will go against, but at the same time, as I just said, at the end of the day, you need to go back to IAEA Milestones Approach and, even for a country that has existing nuclear, licensing takes time. Preparatory work for sites takes time and there's no real shortcut. Often, if you try to take shortcuts, you end up having much more delays later, down the road.

Bret Kugelmass  
Out of the key economic drivers that you guys identified for small modular reactors - I'm going to list off a few - I was hoping that you could maybe tell me which one you think is the most important. Or let's say that your models are more most sensitive to, let's say. So, design simplification, standardization, modularization, and factory-based construction - out of those three, which do you think is the most important?

Michel Berthélemy  
One is parts of making the report is that they are all interlinked, starting by not answering your question-

Bret Kugelmass  
-classic economist.

Michel Berthélemy  
It makes the point that you need to look at this holistically. And part of the partnership with SMRs is combining these different drivers that together can have a significant impact. Now, having said that, I'll try to answer your question a bit more specifically. I mean, design simplification is one that can really go a long way, because probably this is where all the ripple effects on the all the drivers starts. So, we are having an integrated design, smaller, different safety case. This is one that allows to fully unlock the benefits of this as well.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, I tend to think you're right. We have an expression in engineering called ""keep it simple, stupid"" and I bring that up non-stop. I mean, having actually- I think anyone who has actually built things in the past, it's one thing to do things on paper. When you actually build things at the end of the day, your overarching driver in terms of how much things will cost, how long it will take, it's just simplification.

Michel Berthélemy  
This is a marginal statement point, keep it simple and don't change it. One of the things you see that's an issue about engineering and changes to a structure. And this is something that could happen to SMRs very much, so as to be aware of it.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, good luck telling any engineer that ever. You need like a whip and chains to prevent engineers from making changes to their design up until the last minute. Other value props of the SMRs I'd like to touch upon when it comes to the financing, time to market, systems cost benefits. Could you maybe just share some some thoughts there, as well?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yes. Time to market, I think is an interesting one, which we rarely discuss. But you were talking to me earlier about countries that may be eager. They want nuclear, but they want it in five years, not in 15 years. And I think, eventually, once you have it pass the demonstration stage, SMR some extent for country that have some nuclear structure is one technology that could accelerate this time to market and for investors that have to make decisions, that really can change. Just the fact that we'll look at nuclear precisely, or otherwise…

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, that's something I found too, when talking to, we have this other podcast where we talk mostly - called the Energy Impact - where we talk mostly to just project finance people in general, and this is outside, it's in the energy sector, but outside of nuclear, just to try to get a more well-rounded perspective. And that's something that I think is important about what you just said, that them even being willing to have the conversation depends on a certain expectation about when this project is going to be. And then there are other things that depend on having some clarity around the financing. So, it becomes this feedback cycle where you have to have a real project you're talking about, and a realistic times timescale to start putting the pieces together that enable the project to be built. That seems to me like another, there's a catch-22 of the nuclear industry that they found themselves caught in with these 10-year development horizons. It's one thing to make the model work out on paper where you can actually pay for it for 10 years, but then there's that human element of like, who's going to seriously start working on something that's 10 years out?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. You have countries that still have long-term planning and are able to make the decisions, but there are a lot of parts of the electricity markets that just operate in a very different way these days, and that's important. You have to bring a product that meets what the market needs and wants, and clearly the target market is one of the key features that has really changed the way some utilities consider a new category.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, especially if we're talking about selling direct to industry. Have you looked at that at all about how that changes, how it works both ways? How SMRs change the conversation about nuclear selling to industry, and also about how selling to industry changes the considerations of SMRs?

Michel Berthélemy  
Are you asking about nuclear heat?

Bret Kugelmass  
It could be heat, or energy direct to industry.

Michel Berthélemy  
Oh direct, right. I think that the point about nuclear heat - let's start with nuclear and industrial heat application. I'm an economist, but I guess being stuck with nuclear for so long, you end up being interested in the history of the industry. You probably know as much as me, if not better, is that you know, the conversation about industrial heat from nuclear power plant has been going on for quite a few decades. So, this is nothing new. But at the same time, we need to come to terms with that has not always been professional. I think some of the hopes, a few decades away, did not materialize. Now, is this going to change significantly with SMRs? I think it could, in some parts of the world. There are a number of countries who are starting to have much more serious conversations about this. In particular, some industries for which you operate, guys would be in a capacity manager to see 100 megawatt, and you know that you have carbon pricing coming around the corner, and you're gonna make decisions in the next 5, 10 years, but eventually shifting to low carbon technology, and then with SMRs, that can start this conversation. At the same time, I think one thing we need to be careful about, and I will try to go SMR and Akiko is it's a very different business to be in the business of selling heat, and particularly if you're boss, the business of selling heat and electricity, and really finding the right contractual framework to organize that with parties that have different expectations, different needs. Often, it has been quite a complex issue. And so, it's not only the technology is an only the sort of short-term demand need, but is also finding contractual arrangement that can make it an interesting, attractive proposition for these industrial uses.

Bret Kugelmass  
Within the OECD countries, is there a large amount of diversity in thought about how they think about nuclear and how they want to establish nuclear moving forward? Or are the OECD countries generally on the same page? Here are the IAEA guidelines. Here's how we think about safety. Here's how we think about the potential of different reactor types. Or are there some that are like, No, the US is doing it all wrong, and we're doing it better. Or others that are like, No, Argentina is doing it all wrong, and we're doing it better. Are the OECD countries mostly aligned in terms of like thinking and process on nuclear?

Michel Berthélemy  
Here, my answer will be is that, since one year to get any member countries membership being slightly different. This is a rich convergence. And that's one of the key reasons why we're here is to build consensus and political endurance across the country. Now, having said that, anyone around will know that there are very different perspectives on nuclear. Some of my members never had nuclear, some had nuclear in the past and are fading out. So, we know we really have a big diversity regarding the use of nuclear, but the important thing is that doesn't stop us from doing the work we do and, at the end of the day, what we bring forward is evidence and it's independence, where we hope that it is viable for all member countries. Whether they have or don't have nuclear.

Bret Kugelmass  
Okay, that was part one of a part two of a two-part question. You ready? So, now I want to hear, you're saying, okay, the NEA helps reach consensus for these countries. What about the other countries that aren't part of the OECD? I'm assuming Russia and China are not part of the OECD.

Michel Berthélemy  
Russia actually is one of the countries, which is an exemption and why I was making this point. Russia has been a member country since 2015, or 2016.

Bret Kugelmass  
Okay. All right. So, Russia is part of the crew. What about China? China stands apart, I'm sure, right?

Michel Berthélemy  
Yes, I think it's fair to say.

Bret Kugelmass  
And I guess what I'm asking about them, is there anything that they're doing differently that we can learn from them? Or that they can learn from us in terms of their approach? I mean, I know they're building a lot. That's one thing that's interesting. Another thing is they've got a big diversity of reactors. They've even got small modular reactors, kind of, like on ships and experimental stuff. How do we look at China and think about maybe we should be doing more aggressively or a little bit better? Is it a race? How do you think about the China show?

Michel Berthélemy  
I'm going to say, which will not be in the video, it's a bit sensitive, for NEA to discuss China, in part because as you pointed towards, there are some sensitivities with some of our members. Now, going back to answer your questions, if you give me a couple of seconds to think about a diplomatic answer. What can I say about China?

Bret Kugelmass  
And we can skip it if it's too sensitive. We're not looking to get anyone in trouble here.

Michel Berthélemy  
Yeah, just skip it.

Bret Kugelmass  
That's fine. I want to talk about licensing in general. And see how licensing may impact the costs of plants. One thing that I've found that is very frustrating for me, kind of looking at this whole thing on the outside and getting to talk with vendors and getting to talk with current regulators, former regulators, everyone's like - even though it maybe doesn't get brought up that much - everyone's pretty frustrated with the licensing and the regulations. As I see it, the vendors are frustrated that it costs too much and takes too long. Even the regulators are frustrated that they can't perform faster and cheaper. I mean, how many times do we hear transformation? They know they want to change, it's hard to blame them, but they know they want to change. There must be some structural issues there that are hard to get past. It seems that it drives up cost and uncertainty which might scare away financiers as well. And then, okay, so sorry, I'll get to a point I promise. SMRs. A lot of regulators say that they've got this rated risk approach, where it has, how I interpret that, similar to aviation, whereas if it's like literally a smaller aircraft, or there are less people on board, they literally have a different set of requirements, than the big 747s, if you're just a two-person Cessna, and you've got your own plane, there are two different risk envelopes. Two different ways to regulate. While the nuclear industry says that they've got rated risk, quote, unquote, it seems that, at the end of the day, no matter what it's still costs you like $500 million to get a license. What's going on there, and how do we change that?

Michel Berthélemy  
Okay, this conversation in North America regarding the licensing process, and the cost associated with that, maybe it's not present in all the NEA members. But for what concerns North America, clearly we see that this law of, we often refer to them as startup, they're not quite startups anymore. It is one moving closer, closer to licensing and it's clear that the licensing costs can be a big, big hurdle that can stop the effort to move towards licensing. Having said that, we very much respect the independence of your authority. I don't think it's necessary for NEA to take a position on that. What I can say however, is - again, going back to the report I was telling you about some time ago - when we look at safety, there is indeed this belief that the plant being more safe means the plants are going to be more expensive. And I think at some point we really need to break this ID and find really great mods that have to find winning solutions, where they are more safe and also cheaper. And also, to some extent that, as much as it's for the industry that has to do at the cost, at some point, the sector authority is aware of the implication on the decision of cost, and is willing to work or collaborate, I should say, with industry to find where the solution can be found to reduce costs. And in fact, in this very report, we had an interesting case study that is not always, well normally was about a project that hasn't been successful for construction, but were quite successful in this field that was with our project in the UK with supporting reactors. And they really had this extensive process that lasted maybe 12, 18 months, where they collaborated with ONR and they managed to identify quite significant cost reductions by going to engage. And one of the key findings from that is, maybe up to 10 rules, but at the end of the day, having leadership from both sides of the table to say, Let's do that, and let's collaborate on this, we respect the central authority's independent. But we don't want to be driving your cost at the same time and identifying the winning solution. We see it can be done, and so my hope is that we will learn and that moving forward, we can get it correct.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, so you're saying we have to learn from our mistakes, you're saying essentially.

Michel Berthélemy  
What I'm saying is, we can learn from projects that face difficulties, but also good lessons learned from project that haven't and have been built. And this is a project that hasn't been successful on that form, but it was very successful in terms of reinventing or defining new ways to offer industry and regulators to work.

Bret Kugelmass  
I'm gonna switch gears for a second. Does the NEA take any of the information and data that we've collected about how important nuclear energy is for climate and find a way to get that into the broader, like the IPCC studies, for instance. Is there any work done to make sure that when these extremely broadly read reports model the contributions of nuclear that they've got their best information in there?

Michel Berthélemy  
Well, if, like me, you read bits of the IPCC report, but not 1,000 pages, you will find that typically some of our reports find a way into the IPCC as a source of independent evidence for this field that supports natural, that is the case. At the same time, and I think, this probably another conversation that would be interesting to have is the fact that identifying what is the potential for nuclear towards climate objectives is a very complex field, where a lot of it is not going to be what's coming out of the model, but it's also going to be what goes into the mind of the modeler. What are his or her beliefs towards nuclear? And so, there are a lot of factors that come into play that can really drive some of these scenarios towards decarbonisation. And I think one of the things, it's fair to say, is the rule of the modeling was very cautious to make sure that sometimes make sure that you don't have too optimistic views about nuclear, whereas when it comes to other technology, they're quite happy to take a moonshot and say, Thank you, it's going to grow exponentially.

Bret Kugelmass  
Yeah, what's up with that? It drives me crazy how, whenever I see nuclear's contributions in any of these reports, it's like the most grounded, pessimistic cautious conservative data that I've ever seen. And I see it, I see all the data. And then when it's the renewables, it's the most optimistic, and they'll even be like, oh, we're assuming some fantasy technology will be developed that, helps storage or something. How is this possible?

Michel Berthélemy  
I think the other day, we come across a report and I think you need that something that is ""yet to be invented technology"" and they are happy not to have nuclear and to have yet-to-be-invented technologies. And then the problem is, obviously, when the thing comes out, it ends up being distorting all of the ways. And that means, this is really one of the issues, because then the policymakers of course, look at this body of work. That very much influences views you can have on nuclear power and other technologies, so I think, for us, that we clearly see it as a key agenda item. I think this is one where NEA has a contribution to make.

Bret Kugelmass  
I'm glad that that's where you guys can help out, because it just drives me crazy. It's hard to have an argument with even like very intelligent people that maybe you don't have an hour, two hours of their time to explain some of the shortcomings. Going back to our early conversation: systems costs. If I don't have two hours to explain the systems cost, and someone just shows me the headline, they don't even show me the real paper. They just show me a journalist who wrote something about the paper, and they don't even read that article, they just show me the headline of that article. And then it's like, well, how do you counteract that message, when they're like, Oh, we'll be fine, clearly renewables just have it underway. I don't know, I'm just always frustrated by that.

Michel Berthélemy  
One of the things is that, nuclear is a very serious industry, but by nature the nuclear industry is conservative, I would say. But when it comes to informing policymakers in terms of decisions they have to make when it comes to climate change, we clearly see the gap between a view that is conservative with respect to nuclear, but sometimes it's very optimistic, not to say more about new technologies, including yet-to-be-invented technologies. Sometimes you can find it offensive, because the model of bioenergy or whatever you want, and you don't really know what's behind it, and that's always a big mistake.

Bret Kugelmass  
As we wrap up here today, maybe you can just kind of leave us with, if you were to look forward 15 years from now, and everyone read your papers and took them to heart and implemented them across government policy, across industry, what does the world look like?

Michel Berthélemy  
Well, I think it would be a world where public perception towards nuclear will change a lot? We are clearly not there yet, but we are in a situation where it's very hard to have rational discussion about nuclear. So, I think first and foremost, it will be a world where we'll be able to have rational discussion about nuclear and it will be a word where, probably, it's this issue of system costs and other considerations. When I finally found the ways to policymakers, and you want to have to explain it to them, every time you have, you have to expand, there's a complexity of these issues. It would probably be a world where it goes beyond nuclear. It's a world where we put much more focus on infrastructure, on resilience, sustainability, I may say. Really, I think, a positive scenario or likely scenario is probably one that you really need to relate to, to a society that is much more resilient, positive, inclusive, and by the way, these are keys, policy focus areas for OECD. It goes way beyond NEA and it's very much part of the global picture.

Bret Kugelmass  
Michel, thank you so much for joining us on Titans of Nuclear.

Michel Berthélemy  
Thank you. And I hope to see you again too."

Jadwiga Najder
Hello, everybody. Today, it's the Titans of Nuclear show. I'm very happy to have three brilliant people with me who are working on a nuclear campaign and are based in the UK, but actually working on the tasks that will benefit all the nuclear community globally. We have Arun Khuttan, the Engineer of Magnox Limited with us. Also, Sophie Zienkiewicz, the Business Insight Advisor at the National Nuclear Laboratory, and Neil Calder, Senior Consultant at Hydrock. Hello.

Arun Khuttan
Hello.

Sophie Zienkiewicz
Hi.

Jadwiga Najder
Today, we are not going to talk about your professional career, but about the things that you are doing in your free time. More precisely, I'm talking about the Net Zero Needs Nuclear campaign that is preparing the nuclear community for the COP conference, and I guess also the COP conference to receive the nuclear community. This topic is very important for me, as well, as I had the chance to participate in two conferences of COP myself and do some advocacy work there. So, question number one would be to state the basics, what is COP? And is there anything special about the COP26 that is going to happen this year?

Arun Khuttan
Yeah, absolutely. I can cover a little bit of the intro of COP and some of the history. There is a lot of history to COP, everything from World Environment Day in the 70s all the way through to the early 90s when these COPs were initially set up. It's set up by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC - nice big acronym to get us started. They've brought together so many countries to make agreements and to agree a way forward on climate change. It really is something quite spectacular and we're coming up to the 26th COP, which is quite unbelievable when you say that we we've recognized the issues around climate change for at least 26 years. We know that COP25 happened a couple of years ago now in Madrid and that was originally moved from Chile. A lot of last minute things going, on a lot of talks going on, but unfortunately, it didn't quite deliver on what we wanted from a climate perspective, nationally determined contributions, NDCs, they're called, and a lot of government agreements, unfortunately. So, that puts even more pressure onto this next COP being hosted in Glasgow this year in November, and a real opportunity to make positive change and get talks going in a positive direction. And it's five years on since it's going to be the fifth COP after COP21 out in Paris, where we know that the really landmark agreements took place, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is the kind of next big phase and milestone where we can assess how we're doing. And unfortunately, nuclear hasn't always had a big role at COP. For example, I think maybe 20 to 30 representatives from the nuclear arena attend out of 30,000 people, 30,000 people attending and this tiny little fraction are talking about nuclear. So, we're really keen to get that nuclear voice up and hopefully we can talk to you more about how we're planning to do that. That's hopefully a little intro and we can get into the meat of it.

Jadwiga Najder
Thanks a lot for this answer, Arun. So, what is actually the Net Zero Needs Nuclear campaign? Who is behind this campaign, first of all?

Neil Calder
I can pick up on that. This is something that we, as a team, the COP26 delivery team representing the Nuclear Institute YGN. So, we started this back in February of this year, 2021 and really, we thought it was vital to generate momentum ahead of COP26. We got together and we set out some objectives for this Net Zero Needs Nuclear campaign where we really wanted to get the discussion going, basically, to raise awareness and gather support, raise awareness of the critical role of nuclear will play in net zero. And fundamentally, what we wanted to do is to really make an impact and influence, not just individuals, but the policymakers, international decision makers. So, we launched this campaign and we found it upon two main components. First of all, we thought we had to provide an actual justification for what we're saying about Net Zero Needs Nuclear, so we set out to develop a position paper, which basically breaks down, scientifically, why net zero needs nuclear. And also, this acts as something tangible that we can present to policymakers, and with our fundamental ask, both at the event, at COP26 and also in the build up during this campaign. We had the position paper, which we actually - I should say, we developed that alongside Nuclear for Climate, who, if you're not aware already, is a grassroots initiative which represents over 150 organizations and have done position papers in the past for previous COPs, as I'm sure you're aware - and so, was in collaboration with their nuclear player. And then another hand of the- you've got the position paper on one side, and we thought it was critical also to have what we call a call to action, or a petition. That was just a way of really gathering momentum and being able to call to action to people, mobilize the masses and be able to show an actual tangible number of people that are supporting our cause and our campaign. That way, we could really generate some more impact when we're going to these policymakers at COP26 and beyond. Those are the two main components. I guess I should probably touch on, they're both centered around a key ask that we have. I can read that out. The ask at the center of the position paper, and the petitioners: We're calling on all negotiators and policymakers who are involved with COP26 to take a scientific and technology-neutral approach to energy policy and financing that can promote sustainable collaboration between nuclear and renewables. Really, what we're getting at there, fundamentally, is we want nuclear to be recognized as a sustainable energy source, and relatively calling for the framework that allows all clean energy technologies to collaborate and give equal footing to these technologies, and really kind of drive forward that high level policy and finance that can allow that to happen and the false science and not kind of ideological way of thinking. That's really fundamentally what our campaign is centered around, but we've got a lot of other supporting activities, which we can go on to explain as well.

Jadwiga Najder
It's very interesting, what you're saying about the position paper. And I agree with this totally, that the problem with nuclear at COP is that we never asked for special privileges. We just want that this source of energy is treated equally as it deserves, while this never took place, but by now. And I can say from my perspective, as a former participant of COP, people are just surprised to see us there. They do not see any relation between us and the objectives of COP.

Neil Calder
Yeah, I think that's critical to not just the campaign, but everything we do in any industry is just to raise that awareness and get people talking. The public, and obviously the people that have the ability to make the international decisions, the national decisions, but just the public to be aware that nuclear is a clean energy technology. It's just step one.

Arun Khuttan
And just to jump in, if that's okay, really quickly. I think that kind of neutrality approach is so important. And a lot of people will be very pro renewables or pro a specific energy type, but we're just trying to level that playing field. People will say that they have an inclusive approach, but we really want to put that into practice and see that in action, because they'll say they'll have an inclusive approach, but then not mention nuclear. So, we want to start help to try and translate that.

Jadwiga Najder
Great. One other question here, the campaign is targeted mostly for the general public, mostly for the industry, or for everybody who was able to reach us?

Neil Calder
Basically, when we set up over the campaign, it was targeted that everyone really, to try and gather that general awareness. One thing we're key to include in the messages, it is not our campaign, this is not a campaign that - yeah, we are driving it - but we want people to take it on board themselves and make it their own. And it's all based around the hashtag #netzeroneedsnuclear. It's just getting that collective message, really. Within the industry, obviously, we're going to get more immediate traction, but we want it to go wider than that. We want the general public to pick up and really get that momentum going.

Jadwiga Najder
Cool. And from what I know, also, you took as one of the objectives to reach outside of our nuclear bubble and get in contact with other groups, other organizations that are planning to come to COP and have some response from them, possibly a collaboration. What was their response? How did they react to this kind of opportunity that you propose to them?

Neil Calder
We've set out basically, like you say, we've got a kind of strategy of how we're contacting NGOs and civil societies, because one thing I think a lot of people aren't aware, is that at COP, at least maybe within our industry, COP's not just about energy production. That's actually a relatively small piece of the pie when you're looking at everything. You've got representation from across all industries, and not even just industries, you've got indigenous peoples, you've got gender groups and that we've got parallels with a lot of these groups as well. It's contacting these wider groups and making that first, initial contact and gauging the discussion. We're a relatively early stage in that respect, with contacting these wider groups. We focused initially on looking at these NGOs and civil societies that are either pro-nuclear, or are sustainable energy based. We made initial contact with them, including a lot of other clean energy technologies, various renewables groups and other clean energy technology groups. And we've had quite a mixed response. I think the key is, obviously, you need to kind of tailor your messaging and and how you communicate and what you're communicating, depending on the group, obviously. It's been an interesting process. But we have had quite a fair level of engagement with some wider industry groups, which we can go on to explain with some collaborative events in the build up. But with regards to collaborating at COP26, there's obviously been this sort of uncertainty over the past several months and beyond, given the corporate situation that Hong Kong was going to look. So, it was quite difficult to gauge who's going to be going to the event and who's gonna be able to travel, but it's definitely something that we've planned a strategy for. Once we get the green light of how it's going to look, and who's going to be there, then we're going to really push to communicate with these wider groups.

Sophie Zienkiewicz
We've been doing a lot, actually, in terms of considering the people that we want to reach out to, because we know that there are so many enthusiastic groups, organizations, individuals, and actually, it's the volunteer base that is really driving this campaign for us. They have been absolutely incredible. We've reached out to different people, obviously, the YGN network, the Young Generation series of volunteers. We've also got the Friends of Nuclear Energy that we're doing a lot of partnership work with, but then people that Neil was mentioning outside of the sector, the Young Energy Professionals, the YEP group, that we're doing a couple of webinars with. The response to that sort of thing has just been really overwhelming, actually. And it's quite humbling to work on a campaign where people say, Actually, yeah, I really do want to be a part of that. It's really quite exciting, because it drives you forward. And I think, for me, the biggest learning over the past couple of months, since we started in September 2020, has just been the amount of people that say yes and they go, Actually, I'm prepared to listen. I've personally been really quite humbled and surprised about that, and that volunteer base is what really drives us.

Jadwiga Najder
From what I see, I see here three young professionals. Probably you are like around 30, like me. It makes me think, does the age play a big role in this? Did you decide to only accept the young people because of something? Or is there any other reason why these are young professionals who are driving this campaign of awareness about COP?

Sophie Zienkiewicz
Yeah, good question. In terms of the delivery team, there are nine of us and we do tend to fall into that younger age range category. We're an international team, as well, I think that's important to highlight. We were talking about at the beginning, this is very much a global campaign. But specifically, I think the strength of this has been that sort of injection of energy and passion, enthusiasm, because we actually feel quite liberated by what we're able to do with this. I think, traditionally, the Secretary has been quite nervous about talking out and speaking out and actually taking a stand on some things. We've kind of come along, and as this group have actually said, Well, no, we don't think that's right. We do want to have opinions. And we do think that our collaborative approach has really kind of step changed how people view us. We've had some really great responses. I think part of that, as well - maybe the others would agree - is that we've taken so much pride in having an opinion and making a stand for it. That's something that's quite different and hasn't necessarily happened in the past. Although, we are collectively a younger group of people, and that does set us apart, and it kind of opens a couple of doors, which has always been quite handy to us, I don't think it's exclusive, because we want this- our biggest message is collaboration. So, although it's helpful, I think that's the key message that we want to take away. We want to work with anyone and everyone, really.

Jadwiga Najder
Yes, I imagine that more experienced professionals and people who are working for a longer time for this kind of campaigns or projects are probably still pretty supportive. And even though they don't do the hands on work as you do, they can still share their experience. Is that right?

Sophie Zienkiewicz
Oh, that's so true. Yes, oh completely. We've had so many great conversations with so many different kind of sponsors. The information that we've learned in experience is, just over the past couple of months, the people that we've been able to chat to you has just been absolutely inspiring. I think that's another key message that we're keen to really push for, is that there is such a wealth of knowledge in the sector. If we are able to act outside of the normal sphere of nuclear influence and project people's messages that they might not feel comfortable doing, that they might not be able to, then that's what we really, I think that's our USP in a way that we're able to do that in a slightly different way to normal. The experience of the sector is unparalleled, and incredibly inspiring, and to funnel those messages through a slightly different lens, it's really powerful.

Jadwiga Najder
Great. From what I see, this campaign sounds like a lot of work. I am really impressed by how many different tasks you're doing, how many different groups you're reaching out to, and how many people you actually represent. This is the whole nuclear community. I'm wondering, your colleagues are focused on their professional job, only they are thinking about making career, getting promoted, and so on. What is your motivation of getting involved in such an absorbing project? There must be some reason to it.

Arun Khuttan
Yeah, it's a really good question, like where does that motivation come from to do this? And it is all voluntary on top of our day jobs. I mean, for me, personally, my parents are from India and I've seen the energy poverty that they grew up in when I've gone back and visited. I've, I've kind of experienced almost, not quite firsthand, but I've definitely seen I've been up front being in these villages that my parents grew up in and over there like years of my childhood when I would visit I could see them going from like having no sanitation, very poor services, no electricity, and all this growth in the space of a few years that went from almost nothing to having fridges and motorbikes and fans. In an incredibly hot country, that drastically improves your quality of life. I think we really take for granted how much of an effect that has, not just on your quality of life, but your chances of survival and mortality. We sometimes talk about climate change as this huge thing, but global development and clean global development is so important. That's one thing that has driven me a lot. From my early uni days, I was walking around with a wind turbine t-shirt and thinking that I'd be spending my years designing wind turbines and maximizing their output. But I learned about nuclear energy and I was like, we need to be doing this. Why aren't we throwing everything at this, because this solves the abundance problem and the carbon problem? You get that global development and really, you can start to see some of the impacts it has in developing countries. I sometimes think I'm not spending enough time on this, because the impacts and the outputs are so potentially huge, that I find anybody who's not spending time on this crazy now, because once you really get into it, and you learn about it, you're like, why is everybody not focused on this and doing everything they can to make it happen?

Sophie Zienkiewicz
Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's the best part about this group and the reason why we gel so much, and why we're trying to reach out and enthuse so many more people is that we're all fundamentally environmentalist first. We all believe, to our core, that saving the planet, or being a part of saving the planet, because no one person is going to do it. The point is that we need to do it together. But being a part of that and being this environmentalist first, and understanding that nuclear energy is one of the solutions to that is what drives us forward. That kind of fundamental form of environmentalism, sustainability, eco consciousness is what binds us all together as a group I think that's probably why I got involved, but the reasons, apart from those, as to why I stay is the people that are involved in this and the interactions that we've had. Like Arun was saying, everyone we talk to kind of goes, Oh, my goodness, you guys actually really believe this, don't you? And I think they're always surprised because they think, Oh, that is their day job, it's just an extension. But actually, when you talk to us, and we talk to other people, you really get that sense of enthusiasm. It's something greater than ourselves and we're working to this higher mission. It sounds a bit, maybe it sounds a bit preachy, but I think we all really, really believe that. So, to be able to engage with people and bring them on our journey, to whatever degree, that's incredibly powerful. I think that's probably the reason why I stay.

Jadwiga Najder
That's great.

Arun Khuttan
I think there's an extra bit there around, we're all kind of relatively young, we're part of the young generation at work. We've seen over the last few years, these groups coming out like Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, and there is a large youth movement from there that are stating the problems that we need to take action. Unfortunately, I think that they've almost stalled and they're stuck on this take action and change society, but we really want to push the conversation to the next step. How do we begin to create change and what do we do exactly? And trying to make progress like solution driven progress. I think, as a youth group, we can we can really bring that to the table, we are passionate about what we want to do, but also, we've studied and are working in this industry, this incredible industry that that provides a lot of these solutions, and we just need to get that message out there.

Jadwiga Najder
Yeah, that's very important. When you're talking about the Fridays for Future and all these recent events, I think the problem is that, even though people believe in nuclear energy and understanding that this is the future, they don't see their representation in there. I mean, me personally, I tried to represent nuclear once in such a march and I got kicked out. Really, with police and stuff, but I already have my community around me. It does not make me doubt in what I believe. But I imagine that, for many people, they really need to have this community around them to kind of be able to believe together in the solution. You're creating this and I think the more we are pushing on having this representation of young people who are having these ideas and sharing them together, this will actually help our colleagues, people who somehow secretly also understand our beliefs, to be a little bit encouraged to get engaged as well.

Sophie Zienkiewicz
I love that, and I completely, completely agree with you. I'm really new to the sector, maybe two, three years, so quite fresh. I think the biggest observation that I would probably make is around the fact that you've got so many enthusiastic people within it. But for some reason, we haven't flipped the mirror, and we haven't gone, Okay, we're ready for you world, come at us, we'll show you what we've got. I think that's really missing. I really recommend watching a talk, I imagine it's on YouTube, a YGN speaking competition talk given by Alan Simpson. It's all about humanizing nuclear, and involving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs, and how we can, or how we need to be - it's not even a can, it's how we need to be - showing up for the world. We need to be standing for something greater, and actually contributing and working together, reaching outside of our sector pushing ourselves, because, again, just an observation, but it is quite - and then maybe this is not necessarily a controversial statement - but it is quite insular. We do all talk to each other, a lot more than we do talk to the outside world. And that's not everyone, and it's changing. But I think that's a real asset of this campaign, is that we are uniting around COP. There's a greater message that everyone can get behind, and we're taking steps to get involved and sharing a lot of social media elements on our website, the Net Zero Needs Nuclear website. We're really asking people to go out and own that campaign for themselves and for their organizations and their industries. I think one of our biggest dreams would be to have a renewables organization with their own social media frames and their hashtags and just showing us that they want us to be there, I think, because we want to be there, we just need to convince others.

Jadwiga Najder
Yeah, because in the end, we should have the same objective, not follow our interests. So, there is COP. COP is aiming at solving the problem of climate change, or at least mitigating it as much as possible. However, many groups are focusing on pushing their interests through, instead of really discussing the solution that is the most optimal. So, I totally agree with you that this kind of thing could be really, really amazing for the future. And about the owning of the campaign by each and every one of us, I really, really loved this idea of the posts that you can post on LinkedIn with the frame that you prepared, and being able to write the quotes from the position paper or just something that you believe in, and that is related to nuclear and climate. This really has such an amazing outreach. I could see many people who are not related to nuclear that are my friends or I used to go to school with, they really got back on it and they commented, they liked the post. I'm not sure if it changed their mind, but at least they can see that there is a discussion that this thing is somewhere on the table, and it's important. Maybe 1% of these people will really reach out to your website or read about nuclear a bit more. So, that that was a really, really great element of the campaign. Maybe this is a good moment, as we are coming to the end of the interview, to talk a bit about the ways of engaging of each and every one of us in this campaign. How can we show our nuclear pride?

Neil Calder
Yeah, I can pick up on that. It's funny that you say that, because I just, exactly what you said, just seeing people that are discussing it. They don't necessarily need to 100% agree with the message, but it goes back to one of our objectives, which is just to get the discussion going and just have awareness. You don't necessarily need to buy into every single message, but just having that visibility. In terms of getting involved - Sophie's already touched on it, and we've been talking about it there - and the social media side of things, but everything, if you want to find all the details, we've got our website, which is www.netzeroneedsnuclear.com and there we've got a "Get Involved" section that basically doesn't just list what you can do, but it has links to all the various ways that we've set up of interacting with the campaign. On the social media side of things, you've got these frames, like you say, which are tailored for the different social media platforms. Then we've got ideas of video posts that you can do, examples of people that have given these kind of video snippets of why they think net zero needs nuclear. Similarly, with the photo posts, and beyond the profile frames. And then another really cool thing we've got, as well, is we set up a template for drafting letters to petitions. So, whether you're based in the UK, or you're International, we've got a link which basically brings up a template, then you just fill in your specific details, and it fires off a letter to your local politician or to your international representative. That's key as well, just getting that message out to those politicians and those decision makers. I'm sure there's perhaps a few other ways of getting involved, perhaps I said it on there. But as I said, we just want everyone to get the discussion going and build on the momentum.

Arun Khuttan
Just to add the social media thing, actually, a few of the other team members will remind me frequently that early on, I was like, forget about the social media, we don't really need that. But I've been a complete convert, it has had such a big impact. I definitely didn't appreciate how effective it can be. For example - we've got a few examples on the website - but when people post on LinkedIn and Twitter, the way their algorithms work, if, for example, somebody likes it, their entire network will see that they've liked it. Everybody has people in their network that aren't in nuclear, so your entire network will show up on their feed. They see this picture. It's scientifically proven that posts with a picture and colors will get more engagement. And that's what we saw, really, and they actually do really well. A lot of them are getting huge amounts of likes, thousands of impressions. And even exactly what Neil said, If they don't, they're not going to come over to the side immediately, but it gets them thinking about it. And we're not trying to do this overnight, this is a long conversation that will take some time and it just gets them thinking about it really.

Sophie Zienkiewicz
Yeah, completely. Just to echo those points, that idea of just getting involved, and just collaborate, just reach out. Talk to people, talk to your family, your friends, your boss, your colleagues, anyone. We just need to start the conversation, or at least continue the conversation. Just on that, I really want to thank every single volunteer, or every single person that's come to a meeting, that has responded to our hassling emails, anything. Because it's the people that are owning this campaign that are absolutely incredible. And it's them that motivates us and keeps it going.

Neil Calder
Yeah, definitely. And I think one last thing to say as well is that, obviously, we've focused this all around COP26. We're a COP26 delivery team and on this call we're talking about COP26, but I think we've got bigger visions as well, where we're going to carry on this campaign and spur new campaigns off the back of this that follow on from COP26 and build on, hopefully, what's going to be a productive COP26, so that our message can get even stronger. We don't see the end goal being COP26. We see this pushing on and really, really impacting towards our net zero deadlines.

Jadwiga Najder
Great. So, Neil, maybe one last question to you. If 100% of your campaign objectives managed to be fulfilled, where will we see Net Zero Needs Nuclear? Where will we hear about you? What will you achieve with this campaign?

Neil Calder
Oh, I guess that's kind of how high you set the bar. But one thing actually, obviously, when we first started the meeting as a group, we set actual targets on things, quantitative targets and more high level targets. One thing we talked about was getting in media, because as much as social media is a massive influence, it gives you kind of credibility when you're in the media. Also, we feel like getting some of those real key influential people speaking about our campaign, or their campaigns, sorry. That a big step change we feel, as well, if we can get people like Bill Gates retweeting our campaign and getting on board on our campaign. And I honestly think the sky's the limit.

Sophie Zienkiewicz
That'd be an ace, that'd be so cool. I think the other angle of that is the education piece. I think it'd be awesome if we could get nuclear properly represented on the agenda on the curriculum for all age ranges of schools, school children, because I think empowering people at that age is where we can really make some future difference.

Jadwiga Najder
Right. So, we're waiting for Bill Gates to share our cause and for kids to have the project topics about nuclear. I really wish you all the best guys and I really hope that all the objectives that you set are going to be fulfilled and people are going to hear about Net Zero Needs Nuclear all over the place in social media, in the private discussions, and finally, hopefully in TV and radio as well. Thanks a lot.

Bret Kugelmass
We are here today on Titans of Nuclear with George Verberg, thank you so much for joining us.

George Verberg
It'll be a pleasure, I hope.

Bret Kugelmass
You're the former Vice Chairman of the Board of Urenco and also lead probably the most prominent pro-nuclear energy group in the Netherlands right now. But before we get to current events, I'd love to just learn a little bit about your past and where you grew up and how you got started into the sector.

George Verberg
Well, I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. And then I moved, of course, my parents moved, and I went with them to the Netherlands. I studied-

Bret Kugelmass
Were your parents, diplomats, or engineers? How did they get out there?

George Verberg
No, no, my father was a tobacco planter. So, we moved to the Netherlands and after high school I went to Erasmus University Rotterdam where I studied macroeconomics. Thereafter, I got a fellowship from a foundation to spend one year for specific task research, doing research in at MIT, at Berkeley, both at the President's offices of those two well-known universities. Thereafter, I went to the Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Netherlands for three years. And in '74, I moved to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, to be one of the three civil servants who had to write and prepare the white paper, which, at that time, Minister of Economic Affairs would love us, who later became a longtime Prime Minister of the Netherlands as a result of the first oil crisis in 1973, 1974.

Bret Kugelmass
And before we continue, was it an interest in economics or an interesting government that was driving your career decisions?

George Verberg
It was both, because my economics knowledge assisted me in designing policy advisors for the ministers which I had served. And that was a very fun combination for me. Therefore, I have spent about 17 years in government.

Bret Kugelmass
Is there a specific type of economic model that you've followed or that believe is the best path to lead government? Do you fall into a specific camp? Or has that changed over the course of your career as you've taken in new information and seeing how the world works?

George Verberg
Well, my career has developed always in a, at least for me, in a surprising way. When I started my study of economics, I thought I will become a real economist, even with a PhD, but I never succeeded in that because I never tried. But my economics was, let's say, influenced by the works of let's say, Robert Solow and other great economists at that time, working in MIT and other places.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes. Okay. Please continue with your journey.

George Verberg
Well, in Economic Affairs, Ministery of Economic Affairs, I was very busy with assisting and writing the white paper on energy policy. It was the first energy policy white paper in decades. It was a very interesting thing to do because, as you might imagine, it had to do with all kinds of energy sources, which you could imagine whether it was coal, or oil, or gas, or even at that time we started with wind, and nuclear. They all came together in mix, which was considered to be important for the energy mix of the Netherlands.

Bret Kugelmass
And this theory about having diverse energy sources, it makes sense to me at the front, but aren't some energy sources better than others? I mean, is every energy source really equal? Do you really always want to mix? Or do you want to, at some point, move towards a select two or three energy sources?

George Verberg
Well, in practice, it was focused upon three energy sources for a long time in the Netherlands: gas, coal, or oil, and nuclear, but not nuclear never developed very much after the first one of about 500 megawatts in Borssele.

Bret Kugelmass
And why is that? Why just one plant and that was it?

George Verberg
Well, it was because nuclear, when the minister proposed to Parliament to expand nuclear power plants with 3,000 megawatts, which was quite considerable at the time. We are talking about 1974. Shortly after, it became clear that there were some serious doubts whether that was the best way forward, in particular, in let's say, the more or less left of the center of political arena.

Bret Kugelmass
What was their specific criticism?

George Verberg
Well, again, we are talking about the years 1970s. So, you had the issues of nuclear waste, radioactive waste. You had the issue of non-proliferation at that time. There was not yet IAEA with the responsibilities as they have. Now, there was one was not sort of whether the nuclear reactors which would have been built in the 70s would have been as safe as you would like to have. And all these kinds, that mix of thoughts and second thoughts about nuclear was coming together, and has led us to a delay of executing this policy decision of 3,000 megawatts. First, the issue was to try to solve all the issues which were tabled by the opponents of nuclear power. And so we did. We put a lot of attention to the issue mentioned and tabled. But I have to be honest, that part of the opponent have never been convinced, or were willing to be convinced, or whatever it might have been. That's their judgment to decide how they want to have it cleared.

Bret Kugelmass
I'm wondering if, reflecting on that, I mean, I came into this industry just a few years ago. But one thing that I've seen in studying the history of this industry is the more that nuclear advocates tried to convince people that don't want nuclear - let's say the waste or whatever the issue is - the more we try, they never change their mind. But we keep agreeing to things that just make it more expensive and more difficult to build the nuclear and then they've got a new argument, which is it's too expensive and it takes too long. Have you found that throughout your career as well?

George Verberg
Well, partly Yes. But you also could see the sunny side of it. That is that the nowadays generation of nuclear power plants to be built is really safe to explore it. And that's, to a certain extent, of course, a result of the research which was done after all the doubts were tabled by the opponents. And again, there are many opponents of nuclear who will never be convinced by the progress which we have made in the nuclear domain. So be it. But nevertheless, in nowadays world with the climate crisis ahead of us and closing in on a time schedule, which is really, really ambitious, in order to prevent a lot of damage, then you can come into a situation where you evaluate the remaining risks of nuclear, which are almost not feasible. But always you can argue that it is still there, because it's manmade, against the remaining case, of everything we do in order to stop the coming climate crisis. And if you have the guts to be rational, then I'm pretty sure that many opponents will say, well, we do not like it. And if we could have afforded, the better, but if need be, then we need also use the nuclear power plants in our energy mix, in order to stop the warming of the earth.

Bret Kugelmass
That's a very optimistic outlook, sometimes. I am too, but sometimes I feel that people who don't like nuclear don't even care about climate either. Otherwise, they'd already find themselves nuclear advocates. But we can come back to that later to the 3000 megawatts were tabled. And then what happened? I know at some point, you became the director general at the Directorate for energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Yes, that position.

George Verberg
Yes, that was in 1981. And in 1980, we have had a very broad discussion in society with 1000s of participants in the discussions, spent some 40 $50 million at a time, which was quite a chunk of money in order to organize that broad discussion. And the conclusion of that board discussion was that it was not the first, the first thing to do to build new nuclear in the Netherlands, of course, you have to realize that we have in the Netherlands, a huge gas abundance at that, in that era. Therefore, it was easy to walk away from something difficult and to use natural gas because that was fairly easy to use, it was safe to use it was giving the government a lot of money due to the government take off the natural gas production. And it was geopolitical, fairly safe because it was our own gas. Yes. And not gas from someone else.

Bret Kugelmass
I always say that if it weren't for climate change gas is a great energy source. You can if you're a high technology society, you can dig deep enough you'll find gas,

George Verberg
I agree. Yeah, but that has turned sour in the Netherlands due to the earthquakes in the soil above the Groningen reservoir. And okay. And after this board's discussion in society and after the advice, which was not, not a no to nuclear, but not now, I one of my first task as Director General of energy was to, to design and formulate with my staff, what kind of point of view will the government take on the outcome of this broad societal discussion? And that government point of view was that we should build between two and four nuclear reactors of 1,000 megawatts each, that's that we are talking about something like 1985. And so we went out to inform the public about this point of view of the government, we went out with our staff and experts from the geological service of the, of the state, and so on and so forth. To explain what would be the consequences of building nuclear power plants in the Netherlands, we focused initially on about seven locations where it could be built. At first sight, when we went into it in more depth, it came out at three locations would be the best with a lot of cooling water nearby, a lot of industrial area space. And that has been more or less sealed. In the space planning projects we also went out with the electricity sector, and industry to find which nuclear power plants would be most interesting for the Netherlands. So we were in Sweden, which at that time, as a company building nuclear power plants. We went to Germany, we went to France, and we went to Canada, which had a complete different types can do the activity with which was nevertheless very interesting concept. And in Canada, they showed us that they indeed, were working pretty well, they are still working pretty well. So that was, that was good to know. Before the final decision, would have taken place in the parliament in the second Chamber of Parliament about the location, whatever was still to be decided, even the date of the vote in parliament was already set in 86 and mentioning the name that you already can imagine what happened about three or four days before the vote in Parliament would have taken place. channelview happened that time. And that was Yeah. That was of course, an event, which was so important that disasters for our plants at that time that we had to put it in the in the in the fridge in order to wait for for a time where we have completely studied at why, at where could it happen again? And so on and so forth, which

Bret Kugelmass
So, you know, I go around the world collecting different perspectives on the reaction to this event. I am wondering how long did it take for at least the nuclear community, the scientific community in your region to say a lot of what happened was a function of it being an RBMK. And in with the graphite tips and all of these different things that are very unique to this reactor? I'm assuming you weren't considering RBMK designs, you were considering water based designs. How long did it take at least for your local scientific community to decide this doesn't have does shouldn't impact our our plans to move forward and convincing the public is another thing but how long did it take internally to say yes, we want to keep doing this?

George Verberg
I'm not aware I do not know how long it would have taken them. I would guess some two, three years a lot has been cleared by the conferences of the IAEA in order to find out what happened and to learn from what happened. But I cannot tack certain year on the on the nuclear society was evaluating the events and drawing its conclusions. But apart from that, what it was much more important that the society was not at all ready to to think again, about expanding nuclear. So we have to wait and see what would happen.

Bret Kugelmass
And wondering how come? And this is maybe a question nobody can answer, but I'll ask it anyway. How come the nuclear industry itself doesn't go through like a giant marketing campaign at this moment to explain that not all nuclear power plants are the same, just like if there was a giant chemical explosion Bhopal, for instance, you know, the chemical industry says, Listen, this isn't the same everywhere, we're not going to stop building chemical plants, or when a hydro dam collapses, they say it's not the same, we're not going to stop building hydro dams. How come the nuclear industry didn't come out in force, you know, it's 10% of the world's energy, that's a lot of money in the industry, how come they didn't come out in force and say, it's not the same, we're not going to stop building nuclear plants.

George Verberg
And I think that that would have not made sense, at least not in the Netherlands, or, let's say Western Europe, apart from France, but also necessary, because they were already convinced that nuclear is a very valuable part of the energy mix. But the anti nuclear groups were very capable of having their own marketing activities. And with well, fueling fear for something which you cannot see cannot taste cannot smell. It is it is a job very difficult to counter here, we also have seen after Chernobyl, that some of the anti nuclear groups, were talking in terms of hundreds or 1000s of deaths, a lot of people have a lot of women have been have decided to get an abortion. Due to all this, this unclear situation which was really used by the opponents to fuel the the uneasy feeling, to say the least, about nuclear. So I think it was wise not to spend a lot of money into pro nuclear branding campaign, because in my opinion, that would not have helped. Which is, as we saw it in the Netherlands, no money was spent on it. And one of my last advisors, as Director General of energy to the minister of economic affairs was to make it officially known that the plans for nuclear expansion were put in the fridge.

Bret Kugelmass
And how did that make you feel at the time?

George Verberg
Well, you have less say, amounts of frustration, and thereafter, you try to make the best of what is needed. I am not, at least I believe I am not a person who can be frustrated for long, because there's so much to do. So many exciting, other challenges. That the way forward is best to do without frustration. Yeah,

Bret Kugelmass
Yeah, that's a that's a pretty good stoic attitude. Um, moving on, then in your career, you ended up joining the Urenco. What precipitated that?

George Verberg
Well, I was that was only in 2000, see 2004 that I joined the board of Urenco, which is one tier board, construction and like many companies that's based in the UK, the headquarters of Urenco, but my main job was to be part of the board of Gasunie. So that was quite a change because for the first time since long, I only had to do with one type of energy source that is natural gas. And I had no responsibilities whatsoever for coal, oil or nuclear or wind. But nevertheless, also that was on the exciting, exciting time.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes, yes. So tell me, you know, that was a that was a long time ago, how have things changed over these last 20 years? In the nuclear domain, of course, in the nuclear domain, but just, you know, we still want to know in your perspective of energy and how you've seen society shift, just hear your thoughts. Okay.

George Verberg
At the start of my career, again, economic affairs with energy, and later on, certainly with gas, really, I had the same idea, like you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, that natural gas is a wonderful source of energy. However, later, and I think that I turned my, my views on the issue of carbon dioxide around 2001-2002. So for many view, climate change is much too late but nevertheless...

Bret Kugelmass
That's early for a lot of poepl. A lot of people take a lot longer than

George Verberg
I know, also, many who think I was pretty late. So in 2002, I was ready, dissipated to become a president of the NGO International Gas Union, which is the worldwide natural gas and gas NGO, and I would become president of the NGO for 2003-2006. And in those years of preparing the 2003 start, I had work, which was a lot of, of give me a lot of inspiration and fun with our Japanese colleagues at the time, who were the presidents of 2000 to 2003, we already started to speak about natural gas as the fuel for the intermission for the transition period, towards the carbon dioxide free world. And in the Dutch triennium, we have spent a lot of attention to this issue of transition, natural gas as a transition fuel. So that was completely different, talking about natural gas as we did in let's say, the 80s and the 90s of the last century. And that has been at least a my thinking deal develops further and further. So when CCS or carbon capture and storage methods were tabled. I also thought well, it's perhaps expensive, too difficult to do, but we cannot exclude that possibility to to abate carbon dioxide emissions further. And since, I think around say four years, since, the Minister of Economic Affairs has decided to close in coal and natural gas production, and to end all the natural gas production of coal that I have made another term that I think that natural gas really should and before 2050, we can make good use of natural gas in as a transition fuel, either as a biofuel or as a possibility to make hydrogen which is necessary to change the production processes of a lot of heavy industry, chemical industry steel industries. But thereafter, we should not use natural gas anymore. That also has a geopolitical idea behind it because if we don't have our natural gas ourselves, then we become so dependent from sources where we have to natural where we have to import natural gas from the,

Bret Kugelmass
Like Russia

George Verberg
For instance to mention, important supplier

Bret Kugelmass
Sorry, I had to say jit ust in case our audience wasn't picking up

George Verberg
I can understand. But you're right. Yes, yes, that's not my first choice nowadays to have imports from.

Bret Kugelmass
So you've come to this conclusion that although natural gas is a great transition, and I agree as well, and a great fuel other than climate emissions, it's a shame. And maybe even someday, they'll be able to do something where it doesn't emit, and they can capture, but we'll see about that. My fingers crossed. Yeah. But in the meantime, this leaves nuclear, if you need to power an energetic society, and and you want dispatchable power, you want baseload power, and you want it to be clean, and you wanted to have the smallest waste footprint and the smallest environmental footprint of any other source? Nuclear. Right. Yeah. so and so. But then you begin joining advocacy efforts in the space as well. Tell me about that.

George Verberg
Well due to the events and the developments in the last decade, I surely realized that there was a lot of talk, and rightly so in my opinion, about building windmills on sea somewhat less about windmills on land, because we are quite a highly populated densely populated country, solar panels on roofs, solar panels and models, in order to create a lot of energy sources without carbon dioxide emissions. And then I thought, we in the Netherlands, have a relatively high energy intensive industry due to our natural gas history, where it was easy to, to locate huge energy intensive industries, like Dow Chemicals in the Netherlands DSM and that are many others. If you want to keep your industry with all the labor places, which go around with that, all the supply of companies, for whatever things, you might an energy intensive industry might net off, then we should be think, again, whether we should stay out of the nuclear development. And when I had myself reach the point that I thought and think that that is not very wise to do to stay out of the nuclear, if you realize what can get a huge task is ahead of us in order to reach Paris in 2050 and time that we had that I found a couple of my business friends and told them how I thought about this issue. And I have a course pleased that quite a few of them told me Well, you are right, let's do something about it. And let's try to to make the politicians and the authorities aware that there is still another source of carbon dioxide free energy source which is nuclear. So, let's try to make nuclear part of the discussion again with small group and still a small group of around 10 people, we started last year our endeavor to bring nuclear to the fore. And well at least we see that also our endeavor has added a little bit to the awareness of nuclear as one of the important possibilities to change your present carbon dioxide or gauge energy mix towards carbon dioxide zero or net zero energy mix. So thereafter, we we also ask well known Dutch people who have have been former ministers or important business people, not too many just enough to have a solid body of people who are wise and know a lot and know how to weight the different issues which are at stake, if you are talking about an energy mix with nuclear or without nuclear, and these people around 15 were willing to assist us in a in a very useful way that they gave the advice, which enables us to stay out of making poor moves, which would be counterproductive.

Bret Kugelmass
And what would like like trying to go against renewables? Is that one of those examples where that seems like it might be counterproductive?

George Verberg
Well, it's funny you're thinking, that's that that's the first thing you'll think about, because for the very, very start, also, by myself, there was one very important decision taken, that we would not be against the renewables like wind and solar and what you have more heat or whatever. Because the task, past 2015 is too big to take out any option, which we, we can use make use of like wind, like solar panels. So that was never at stake. But it could be that perhaps we would have started with arguing that we should start with 20 nuclear power plants. But that's not the best way forward in the Netherlands. Let's first see how it develops. And we see so far that the development is going rather well. A lot of people are understanding that the nuclear world also has developed for the better is better designed nuclear power plants, very good and solid, interim solution for nuclear waste, which giving us all the time needed to prepare for the final decision for the final repository, place of nuclear and the way and when. So, that made it possible that we have noted quite important change in the, in the opinion of public society, face of a nuclear. And nowadays, I think that if you had just a vote in Parliament, on will we expand to clear or not? I'm not talking about with how much but just the principle, or the first question that you will get majority in favor of expanding our nuclear power, part and energy mix

Bret Kugelmass
And what is the vote in Parliament meant to secure? Is it to put money into the development? Or is it to create land that's allocated for nuclear? And one more question on that, why is it even necessary? Is it possible that an independent power producer could come in and just build a nuclear plant like anyone builds any electric infrastructure and then sell to private industry or sell to the grid?

George Verberg
And I think that the latter proposition which you just mentioned, is in principle possible because there is no law like in Germany, which forbid the build and exploitation of nuclear power plants. However, first of all, there are three designated locations at a time. So you need to get space in one of these three locations a second for an important investment, like nuclear power plant, I think that the investor would like to see that is bought acceptance, let's say a license to operate the business. And because otherwise you do not invest a lot of money in your endeavor in a country, which is hostile to nuclear power plants, because that is just taking a risk, which is not your business risk, that could be a risk of a madman. And that's not what the investor is. So, it is important that the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the other ministries who are involved and Parliament give at least the notice that they accept nuclear as one of the important or sources in our way, on our way to Paris, 2050.

Bret Kugelmass
And then just a fine point on something he said, in order to get a little bit of confidence that the government will support this for the investors, does it actually require Parliament? Or can it just be the ministry itself and taking meetings with the government and the government saying, yes, if you want to pay for this, on your own, we approve.

George Verberg
Again, in principle, there is no law against it. And therefore, I expect that every investor who wants to build nuclear power plant in the Netherlands, whether it is EPR, or whether they should as Mr. That this investor will go to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. And then the Minister of Economic Affairs will look up in the government agreement about the coming four years, whether in this government agreement, it is stated that nuclear is acceptable or not. If it's not, then he will say to the investor, at least, that's my reading of it. Well, there is no law, which forbid, to build. But you'll be aware, I realize that we are not happy with your investment. So it's your decision. But then at least you know, how we look at it.

Bret Kugelmass
Yes. If any investor if the government were to say we're not happy with it, I get it. Yes. But I guess what I'm wondering, is there a middle ground where you don't need some you don't need an overwhelming support throughout parliament. But there also isn't a negative signal either.

George Verberg
We do not need an overwhelming support, besides the fact the question what is overwhelming? What's the definition of that? You need a majority in government and a majority in parliament in order to be be convinced that you will get your license to operate from society.

Bret Kugelmass
And not to belabor the point. But can't Parliament's majorities change? I mean, isn't this possible that you get the approval from Parliament now, but a savvy investor thinking this is a couple billion dollar investment, it's going to take several years, maybe half a decade till it's actually online, thinks that there's a possibility that in those next five years, Parliament may change their minds?

George Verberg
We are and I'm quite happy with that. It's a very democratic country. So majorities can switch over time. I can change over time, depending on your point of view, for the better or for the worse, that's up to the democratic outcome of the voting process.

Bret Kugelmass
Democratic outcomes voting process really decide electric infrastructure.

George Verberg
Yes, it is part and parcel of our society. And that's it's not part and parcel of just the business society, it is for all of us important that we at least accept that the of the largest operate is being given also to the nuclear sector. And there is a good chance in my opinion, that this largest operate will be there when it is needed. Why do I say when it is needed, as long as no... has come to the floor to say we have a threat and we have learned that some change has been noticed in the Netherlands, in favor of nuclear and now we would like to consider the seriously the possibilities of investments in the Netherlands, then you need from the Minister of Economic Affairs. One way or another way, your statement that you are free to go or that you're welcome.

Bret Kugelmass
Very good. And then there's one thing I want to mention there was a comedian, a Dutch comedian that brought up nuclear maybe a year or two ago. Do you remember? Yes, yes, sure. How did that happen? It's so odd to me, that comedian out of nowhere would start advocating for nuclear. Do you know the story?

George Verberg
Yes, Mr. Lubach, he is a very interesting comedian, because he quite often takes an item, which is one way or no other way, frozen in societies thoughts. And there are quite a few of these items, which he think is a little bit crazy or dumb. Not to think about it for a second time. So he has also picked once I believe in it, it was one or two years ago, the issue of nuclear. And he made a big item of that a lot of laugh, went around in that society. But at the same time, many people woke up and said, Hey, gosh, we have a thought about nuclear. Let's do that again. And let's take it serious. And after we've taken a serious and perhaps we come to the conclusion that nuclear should be part of our energy mix on our way towards 2050 Paris. It is amazing and a lot of anti nuclear people and NGOs they were furious, because with this light hearted way of approaching this frozen nuclear issue. Suddenly, they saw that people were started starting thinking again about nuclear, instead of just working the way these anti nuclear opponents had made ready for them to work.

Bret Kugelmass
It's amazing. I wish that that model could be replicated around the world whenever he did he did it just right.

George Verberg
Yeah, but I'm afraid that Mr. Lubach will not travel around the world for the for this to do.

Bret Kugelmass
Sure, yes. And so tell me what's next? What are the next milestones that we're looking for? To see a real, you know, development effort for nuclear in your country?

George Verberg
Well, the I don't know what that will be first in time. But let's say a very important issue is what kind of coalition between different political parties will be established in the coming weeks months for new government and the Netherlands could be about a fast but I'm afraid that this time it will be one of the longer taking forming of government coalitions. But that's important, because as I've tried to explain earlier, in this government coalition paper, it's not stated that nuclear is also welcome as part of the energy mix, one way another way word, then of course, we cannot advise would be investors that they are licensed to operate is ready available for them. Second, the Minister of Economic Affairs has asked the KPMG group accountancy group to find out sort out what kind of issues play in the electricity market and the energy market which are important for the development of nuclear power, the Netherlands, are the setbacks are other items which are in favor of nuclear, I cannot think at this point of time about anything a favor, because it's very much not set that way because there was no nuclear at the horizon. So KPMG has to sort out what hurdles are there in the market, what opportunities are there in the market? What changes could be envisage in the market in order to create a level playing field between the main sources of energy in climate util, energy mix, show you that you have to think, again, of course, about wind, solar nuclear, as the main pillars of such an energy mix. And that's report, which we expected, let's say at the end of June this year. And that's, of course, a very important feat for thought for both investors as well as for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the other ministries, which are involved as cert item, which is important that also they will be looked into the willingness of the local societies, province provinces, to mention an important layer of government in the Netherlands, whether they accept or to not accept nuclear power plants in their profits. So for instance, I have the feeling the idea that the Province of Zeeland were Borssele already house for decades, as in 73, or something like that, that they know, nuclear, that they know that nuclear is an easy neighbor, in your your surroundings. So I expect that the province of Zeeland will be in favor of expanding nuclear nuclear power in its province. But there could be other provinces, which also would like to see nuclear power plants and their province and the chances for that, I think, have grown thanks to the development of the nuclear sector towards the smrs. Because small modular reactors, it's quite a difference, whether you're talking about 1600 megawatt EPR of EDF or whether you're talking about, let's say, a C 100 megawatt SMR, or General Electric Hitachi, just to mention one of the several smrs, which are approaching at the point in time where they can really launched on the market. So that's a huge difference, both from a technical point of view, also, from the point of view, whether it is easy to integrate these nuclear power plants in the existing electricity grid system in the Netherlands. And from the point of view, whether the surrounding civil society is willing to accept it. If you're, if you're not used to a nuclear, then I would guess that an SMR is easier to adjust yourself to, let's say, an APR of 1500 megawatts. So this, this car items are very, very important the coalition agreement, the marketing outcome of KPMG, and the acceptance survey for nuclear in the different parts of the Netherlands.

Bret Kugelmass
Excellent. George, as we wrap up here today, do you just want to leave us with a final thought on your why this is important?

George Verberg
Well, it is important because if you take the total energy requirements and hydrogen requirements for the industry, in particular, in order to reach Paris, 2050 in time, that you need such a huge energy source, that I can think that I think that wind, sun and nuclear together and when necessary, also with CCS, as long as you need some natural gas as a position that that makes is necessary, is capable. And it's also wise from a geopolitical point of view.

Bret Kugelmass
George, thank you so much for taking the time today. Really appreciate your insight and look forward to talking to you

George Verberg
Thank you Bret I hope that I have interested the audience. Thank you.