TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Nuclear Energy in Argentina (3:03-12:20)
Facundo Deluchi introduces Argentina’s nuclear program and its impact worldwide through technology export

Q: Tell me about yourself and the nuclear program in Argentina.
A: Facundo Deluchi is the former National Director of Nuclear Policies of the Government of Argentina. He continues to work at the Argentine National Atomic Energy Commission, but also serves as the Vice Chair at the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC). This year marks the 60th anniversary of Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission and the country’s nuclear history as a whole. Facundo started out as an intern at the National Atomic Energy Commission, working in the international area. He went on to become the head of the Bilateral Relations department and later, the head of the International Relations department and the manager of Institutional Affairs. Facundo entered into the National Atomic Energy Commission in 2005, a time in which there was a relaunch of the country’s national nuclear program. He started out with a strong involvement at the international level and was then appointed as the National Director for Nuclear Policies. This led Facundo to get involved with IFNEC. Argentina has gone through different stages in its nuclear energy development, related to the development of science and technology in developing economies. One of the most important projects was the completion of the Atucha 2 nuclear power plant, the life expansion of the pressurized heavy-water reactor. An important public-owned Argentine company, INVAP, successfully won the construction of the OPAL reactor in Australia, the PALLAS reactor in the Netherlands, and is currently building the CAREM reactor in Argentina. INVAP is also working in Brazil on construction of their multipurpose research reactor. One of the better ways to devote resources to your development goals is to invest in intellectual development associated with science and technology, especially in nuclear-specific areas which include energy, medicine, and others. This also opens opportunities internationally through successfully exporting technology abroad. This approach also allows for innovation, for example, the production of low-enriched uranium (LEU) targets for Moly-99. Argentina developed this technology due to safeguards, safety and security considerations. Argentina’s technology has been successfully exported to multiple countries. The country recently launched the SAOCOM 1B satellite, a spinoff of the nuclear technology development produced by INVAP.

Nuclear Technology Export in a Developing Energy Market (12:20-22:22)
The role of INVAP in Argentina’s nuclear program and throughout the international market

Q: What is INVAP?
A: INVAP is Argentina’s public-owned company devoted to technology development. The National Atomic Energy Commission is the “mother” of all the existing nuclear organizations and companies in Argentina. INVAP formed in the 1970’s as a spinoff of the National Atomic Energy Commission. Argentina’s utility, NA-SA, operates the nuclear power plants and several other countries are dedicated to the nuclear fuel cycle. One of the key issues in the nuclear industry as a whole is related to the transition ability between the birth of nuclear energy development, which has some component of sensitivity and secrecy, and the relation between the customer and the supplier. In order to develop a special partnership with its clients, Argentina worked on the transfer of technology and understanding the needs of the developing economies that are looking for projects to show industrial and scientific development. The idea was for Argentina to create a horizontal partnership with these other countries while also being able to understand the economic impacts and go beyond, with intellectual development and human resources training. INVAP was not just hired based on price, but on its ability to offer something else related to the technology. This led INVAP to win contracts in Australia and the Netherlands. Several restrictions and obstacles are related to access to financing for projects, a conversation that is happening worldwide. Climate change and sustainable development goals are issues faced worldwide. Nuclear power can be a powerful tool to address these issues, but worldwide discussions around financing are a limiting factor. The transition is not complete between the beginning of nuclear history to the development of the energy market worldwide.

Energy Needs in Developing Countries (22:22-28:53)
Why the specific needs of developing countries must be considered in energy infrastructure development

Q: What impact do international nuclear projects have on the economy?
A: An innovative approach is needed to make nuclear energy attractive to financing and more flexible to work with other energy sources. In order to perform an attractive project for nuclear, it needs to be accomplished with a safety structure that is not interesting at all to nuclear profit. Safety needs must be adapted to business needs. At the same time, the international perception about what a nuclear project is needs to be changed to a powerful tool to address some of the most challenging worldwide issues. Some agendas agree on climate change issues and the need to develop sustainable development goals, but on the other side are not willing to give access to the solutions that nuclear can provide. Another part of the story is the interconnected war that has caused civil unrest. The potential market and the main target countries are not part of that war. The bridge must be built to link the needs of the developing world and what the developed countries can provide. The nuclear industry community as a whole is not discussing this and may not be connected with the needs of the world. Nuclear Innovation for a Clean Energy Future is discussing the role of nuclear in a future of clean energy systems, but is also using the same language that the energy industry is using worldwide. Nuclear projects need economic and safety certainty and sustainability.

IFNEC’s Role in Connecting Nuclear Stakeholders (28:53-38:13)
How the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation brings different nuclear stakeholders together to strengthen the worldwide industry

Q: Bringing up nuclear safety doesn’t make people feel more safe. Why don’t people assume construction and operation is done safely if infrastructure is built well?
A: When Facundo Deluchi talks to local communities that have operating nuclear power plants, there is no fear about the nuclear facility. They rely on the safety of the facility. These facilities also provide a lot of benefits to the community that they otherwise wouldn’t have. The industry needs to include, with safety and security discussions, the promotion and sustainability of the project. This transition is still underway. The International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) is a very attractive platform because it is very flexible and allows for very high level authorities to sit together with senior representatives with the industry to have frank discussions. This platform provides an opportunity to freely address what the group has identified as the main challenges. One working group is focused on strengthening the link between the customers and the suppliers to strengthen the supply chain and find innovative approaches to financing. IFNEC is planning on holding upcoming discussions in Poland on finance for small modular reactors (SMR) and in Kenya on development of nuclear projects in developing countries. Plans for the future also include providing a platform for smaller companies, such as metallurgical, logistics, and construction companies to develop business in nuclear worldwide. There are many indicators of an optimistic nuclear future worldwide, not only in the main international organizations, but also looking at how new projects are being started worldwide. Facundo likes to see the innovative approach the industry is performing through new players. More diverse players, with key support from the state, provide innovative approaches to flexible solutions to the worldwide need for nuclear options. The industry is moving towards a lower cost, more flexible solutions, and adapting to a worldwide market.

From the Football Field to Electrical Engineering (1:54-17:05)
How Nick Smith’s early professional career on the football field led him to the energy industry in an unconventional way

Q: Tell me about yourself and how you got started in the nuclear industry.
A: Nick Smith started out as an economics major at San Diego State where he played college football. He ended up getting signed as a free agent to the New York Jets. During the first drill on the first day of Rookie Mini Camp, Nick pulled his hamstring. The injury led to his release from the team and Nick had hopes to play arena football to get back into the game. The Jets called him back for an opportunity to try for a linebacker position. After a grueling tryout in the New York summer, Nick got the position and played in games against the Falcons, Giants, and Vikings. He eventually got cut from the team and in 2008, Nick sustained another injury playing arena football, leading him to seek out other work. He started out working as a bouncer at a night club, but decided that wasn’t sustainable and returned to school to study electrical engineering at the University of Alabama - Birmingham. Nick has always been interested in technology, science, and physics and recognized that he wouldn’t get a deeper understanding of the field without an engineering or math/science degree. During his second undergraduate study, Nick got picked up as an intern at Southern Company, leading him to hire on full-time as a specialist in the company’s research and development group. This led Nick to get involved in the Power Quality group which focuses on maintaining voltage stability and grid reliability. Southern Company services many large industrial facilities that require this level of customer service. It was in this role that Nick became interested in how society can meet carbon goals with renewables, which everyone assumes is the answer, and realized that the grid could not be dependent on these variable energy sources.

Nuclear’s Role in Grid Stability (17:05-24:52)
Nick reflects on his personal discovery of nuclear power and how it led to a major career shift to advanced nuclear R&D

Q: Were you already seeing grid instability issues in an area that doesn’t have many renewable sources yet?
A: Nick Smith got interested in grid reliability and started researching all the possible options to meet carbon goals. He read Vaclav Smil’s “Energy at the Crossroads” and found old Thorium Remix videos. Nick learned that there is more than one way to make a nuclear reactor, assuming all along there was only one solution and suddenly excited about all the options. Nick took a new job in the Wholesale Energy portion of Southern Company designing financial software. He built models of the units in the system which input weather data to correlate with market prices for energy. During this time, Nick enrolled at North Carolina State to pursue his Master’s of nuclear engineering online. He realized he was passionate about nuclear and wanted to know everything he could about how it works, what could be done differently, and what’s been tried. Most people he had conversations about nuclear with were somewhat dismissive, referencing Vogtle and the lack of attention and investment in nuclear. At the time, Southern Company didn’t have an advanced nuclear R&D division, instead focusing on fossil fuels, water usage, electric vehicles, and transmission and distribution. Nick’s colleague, Nick Irvin, established a new group focused on nuclear and Nick Smith was the first hire. They went on a roadshow to meet everyone in nuclear they could and learn as much as they could about different technologies. After meeting the folks from Terrapower, they teamed up to work on a proposal for a molten chloride fast reactor. The Department of Energy (DOE) ultimately selected this design for the proposal. This was Nick’s first big project in nuclear. Since the technology was leading edge, there was no background data and any information needed had to be measured to build the first model. The first experiment was supposed to run for 1,000 hours, but failed after only 11 hours due to corrosion. Another iteration of the experiment incorporated a sealed loop to keep out oxygen, which was ultimately a successful experiment.

National Reactor Innovation Center Projects (24:52-35:33)
An overview of the current projects underway at the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) to enable advanced reactor demonstrations

Q: Why can’t we test reactor components to failure?
A: Components can be tested to fail safely. Failure doesn’t have to mean someone got injured or the environment got messed up. Barriers and filters can be put in place to prevent impacts of testing. In October 2019, Nick Smith started working at the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) alongside Ashley Finan, the director. This center is a brand new idea and new program authorized by the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017. The Act states the Department of Energy (DOE) shall have a program to enable testing and demonstration of advanced reactor concepts that are funded by private industry. When Nick and Ashley arrived in Idaho, the program was not well defined yet. They had to establish the program as needed to get to demonstrations and rapid prototyping. The private sector doesn’t always understand what the problem is to get demonstrations, they just know it is too expensive. NRIC conducted surveys with developers to talk about what they were planning and what would be useful. Nick is currently in contact with 35 different advanced reactor developers. Of those, 20 of them have engaged with NRIC in some capacity, whether to develop proposals or build a reactor. Instead of designing for a decade and building a multimillion dollar project at once, this provides a way to stair step into scale. A 500 kW plant could be built instead of building a 1 GW plant first. To build a 500 kW plant, highly enriched uranium or plutonium is used to make the core smaller. This shrinks everything down and the plant becomes cheaper. There is an existing facility called the Zero Power Physics Reactor (ZPPR) that historically had Safeguards Category I Special Nuclear Material. The facility is active, but it’s not set up to be a reactor test bed. NRIC has recently been working on the preconceptual design of the modifications to turn the ZPPR Cell into an easily accessed reactor test bed to facilitate a different demonstration each year. NRIC is also working with the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) dome at Idaho National Laboratory’s Materials & Fuels Complex (MFC). The dome was scheduled to be demolished, but the MFC leadership stepped in to protect the blast plate protected structure. Both facilities will have closed loop cooling systems and air conditioning in the cell. The ZPPR Cell already has radiation monitoring, fire suppression, and criticality monitors. The EBR-II dome does not have those features so they will be installed as part of the modifications. Backup diesel generation for power and a safety grade battery backup for instrumentation and controls will also be added.

ZPPR and EBR-II Modifications (35:33-47:19)
The role of the Zero Power Physics Reactor (ZPPR) and the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) dome in the future of advanced nuclear

Q: How do you get the 20+ advanced reactor developers access to use the facilities?
A: The Zero Power Physics Reactor (ZPPR) is a 500 kW maximum facility and the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) is a 10 MW maximum facility. If the developer’s plan doesn’t align with the limitations of one of those facilities, it will not be a fit for them. For the companies Nick Smith is talking to, the developers are designing the reactor, just the nuclear core and the control reactors. When the reactor skid arrives on-site, it must be able to flange up to the existing cooling system in place at the facility. They can use whatever coolant they want, but heat exchangers will be used to transfer to the permanent cooling infrastructure. Configuration management processes are currently being set up for the developers. If everything goes right, 2023 is a credible date to have a test bed ready to go. With all the designs, a few key people are architecting it in their mind, which ends up being the limiting factor or point of diminished returns in accelerating preparations. The general requirements for the test beds were established up front and a concept of operations was written to provide a narrative about the steps required to get a demonstration going at the test bed. NRIC just released an expression of interest for engineering services to do the preliminary design phase to go from 1% design to 60% design. The final design phase will take it to a set of construction drawings that can be put out into a Request for Proposal for modification construction to be complete. The ZPPR cell has a cable catenary roof with suspended sand and gravel above the cell. The original design planned the cables to break in the event of an explosion, which would cause the sand and gravel to fall on top of the reactor. NRIC is now facing the challenge of removing 2,000 tons of raw material suspended above the reactor to make the modifications. The EBR-11 dome has a 8-½’ wide hatch, but the primary customers interested in this facility are microreactors that will be mounted in a connex box, so the hatch would have to be closer to 14’ wide. These challenges are both engineering and construction related. Physical demonstrations must be completed to make progress. The Department of Energy (DOE) has supported the idea of giving the nuclear industry all the tools to be successful instead of trying to do it all in a lab.

Fracture Mechanics in Nuclear (1:19-13:45)
John Jackson shares his experience growing up living off-the-grid and how he got involved in mechanical engineering and fracture mechanics

Q: Tell me about your childhood.
A: John Jackson’s parents made a choice to live off-the-grid before he was born, living on a self-sustaining dairy farm in North Central Washington. He grew up with no telephone, no electricity, and only manually-pumped well water. John attended public school and was gradually eased into modern society. Growing up in this environment instilled John’s practical nature from a problem-solving standpoint. It also allowed John to understand the value of something that functioned well and the limited amount of resources available. From the time he got into math and science in high school, John realized he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. He attended Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA to study mechanical engineering technology, a practically-focused curriculum with hands-on work like welding and operations design. The summer after graduation, John went to the then-called Idaho National Engineering Laboratory as a summer intern. This was his first exposure to advanced engineering with a purpose and led him to graduate school at the University of Washington where he received his Master’s and PhD in mechanical engineering. Both studies were focused on fracture mechanics working with the aviation industry. Stress corrosion cracking is one of the primary issues facing the existing nuclear fleet. Linear elastic fracture mechanics looks at the stress state of the crack tip at which point the material will fail. Plasticity and non-linear fracture mechanics looks at how a crack grows in a stable manner and characterizes that growth. Following his PhD, John went to the Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) to do a post-doctoral research assignment focused on fracture mechanics in waste containers. He later joined ExxonMobil in Houston to take his fracture mechanics knowledge into the fracking industry to develop a model for mitigation of mud loss, the lubricant used in a drill string.

The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (13:45-24:23)
How John reconnected with the Idaho National Lab and got involved with the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear

Q: How did you come back to the nuclear industry?
A: John Jackson enjoyed his experience with ExxonMobil, but wanted to move back to the Pacific Northwest. In 2006, he looked for an opportunity to work with the national security directorate at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). John’s focus was on homeland security and quickly got consumed by the advanced test reactor then-called National Scientific User Facility, now known as the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF). This allowed John to continue practicing in the fracture mechanics space, but also realize the abilities to solve problems within the national laboratory complex. The National Labs are taxpayer-funded resources that should be a resource for the nation. This is a tool in the nation’s toolbox for the public good. The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) program provides a way to introduce the resource into mission space to help people use the National Lab tools to solve problems. GAIN looks for every opportunity to share resources and make it easier for the client. The original intent was to be a Private Public Partnership. Global warming is a problem of epic proportions. When working on critical and incredibly complex issues, the lab must be able to cut their teeth. Scientists and engineers are driven to create and solve problems. Laboratory Directive Research & Development is a great way for the laboratory to think about how to support industry. John led this division over the past couple years. This experience was a great way to integrate industry thinking into the way the lab develops lab scientists and engineers and help the lab address the Department of Energy (DOE) mission. The program is supporting industry, but also allows the lab to develop and continue to monitor and develop their own wellbeing.

GAIN Voucher Program (24:23-34:13)
How the GAIN vouchers connect nuclear technology developers and the resources available at the National Labs

Q: What is a voucher from the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) and how do people use them?
A: The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) voucher is a competitively awarded sum of money to have one of the National Laboratories do something on your behalf. While there are funds associated with the voucher, there are relationship-builders and are about establishing an enduring technical relationship between an advanced nuclear technology developer and an advanced laboratory resource. It gives the National Lab personnel a snapshot into the way developers think and go about their business from a commercial perspective and gives the developer access to incredible unique capabilities and people burning to solve problems. Some self-encapsulated problems are solved through a voucher and may alter the course of research and development to allow commercialization to happen. Voucher awards may range from approximately $50,000 to upwards of $650,000. GAIN tends not to stray above $500,000 too often and attempts to stay within a one year scope of work. GAIN wants these projects to be rapid to address a problem for somebody and is not focused on sustained R&D. Oklo, the developer of the Aurora concept, was one of the flagship awardees in the GAIN program. Oklo has been granted a site permit to demonstrate on the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site. They have leveraged the voucher program incredibly well, touching it only at points in which they needed to overcome an obstacle in their path. One of the early vouchers awarded to Oklo had GAIN accessing some legacy data and understanding some complexity associated with a technical issue related to fabrication. GAIN is constantly looking for opportunities to make the process more efficient and remove burden from the industry participant. It feeds into contracting modernization efforts that GAIN is also getting into. Vouchers are used as an opportunity to see problems that need to be solved. To be completely useful to industry, GAIN may find a different path to solve a problem for a developer that could solve a problem for other nuclear developers as well. This allows GAIN to do the work within the complex with GAIN funding to solve a problem without worrying about contracting. DOE programs are not a catch-all and have a budget they have to adhere to, so GAIN programs sometimes fill in the gaps.

A Common Nuclear Vision (34:13-45:35)
Why the nuclear industry must unite to work towards demonstrations of new nuclear technology to fight climate change globally

Q: Since the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) has a tighter communication channel with developers and industry, does the Department of Energy look for information on program direction?
A: Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) has started talking to the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) a lot, which wants to engage more in the advanced nuclear space. NNSA focuses on non-proliferation, export control, and safeguard security. The GAIN initiative has been emulated in Japan and the United Kingdom. One common trait on the GAIN team is empathy, the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand their problems. Camaraderie and having a trustworthy team leads towards emulating success and striving towards a common good. John Jackson firmly believes a microreactor will be demonstrated within the next five years, if not more than one. A lot of great minds and truly dedicated people are working on this technology. John also believes a larger concept will be demonstrated within the next six or seven years. That first demonstration will generate a lot of momentum. The practical nature of solving a problem, putting your hands on it and doing it, is the surest way to generate momentum. People at the National Laboratory complex are starting to point in the same direction, and if that happens and they start to work cohesively as a team, losing the individualistic tendencies, a microreactor demonstration could happen in three years. However, individualism is human nature. John has a sense of ownership in the world as a living being on the planet. He feels responsible for solving these problems. He believes that nuclear energy is part of the solution - if not the solution.

Material Selection for Steam Generators (1:22-11:28)
Christine King reflects on her time at EPRI where she focused on solving inherited material problems related to the use of Alloy 600 in steam generators

Q: How did you get involved in energy and the nuclear industry?
A: Christine King started her career in nuclear working on nuclear sites for Framatome. She traveled throughout North America and specialized in steam generators. After spending so much time cleaning steam generators, Christine eventually wanted to understand why they were being cleaned and got into the nuances of stress corrosion cracking of Alloy 600 materials. This led Christine and her husband to California where they both started new jobs at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Christine was the Alloy 600 project manager for reactor vessel heads in the early 2000’s when there were problems with leaking. The original problem was matching how stainless steel swells at the same temperature. When two materials are welded together, the materials need to expand at the same rate to avoid a disconnect or overstress. Alloy 600 was chosen because it is a high nickel alloy, but after a certain period of time, it may develop faster crack growth rates. This first showed up in the steam generators in the 1980’s, leading to mid-cycle outages to determine which tube was leaking. These materials were chosen during the design phase of these generators in the 1950’s, making this choice into an inherited issue. Alloy 690, a derivative of Alloy 600, is used in new steam generators today but was in development in the late 1960’s because there was already lab evidence that there may be cracking issues with Alloy 600. When choosing materials, there are many trade offs including manufacturing and long term maintenance. Some materials are also more difficult to weld which may result in inclusions and challenges that must be tracked and included in future inspections. Eventually, Christine ran the entire Material Reliability program at EPRI focused on the pressurized water reactors. In the next phase, she wanted to take a more proactive view of materials by looking at the unknowns of particular materials to determine if the knowledge gap would cause a consequence or issue. The operation of the plant must be considered by looking at the plant response to a material failure. Research was prioritized by pairing knowledge gaps with possible consequences in the field. Christine then sidestepped into an operations role as Operations Manager for the nuclear division. This division is where EPRI research meets contracts, human resources, and quality assurance. She worked through issues with utilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other clients.

Finding Purpose in the Nuclear Sector (11:28-22:35)
Christine shares her personal journey to find purpose and how it impacted her career path in the nuclear sector

Q: What is the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)?
A: Christine King spent 13 years in many different roles at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). EPRI is all about collaborative research. The purpose is to bring like-minded people, such as utilities, together to solve bigger problems that they might not have the resources to solve themselves. EPRI looks down the road to focus and understand the possible future issues before the utilities get there. After 13 months at EPRI, Christine King took 6 months off of work after a heart attack due to a spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD). She was faced with not knowing whether she would work full time again, but made her consider what she wanted to work for. Christine’s satisfaction comes from helping. One aspect she wanted to focus on was strategic planning for teams by helping teams organize and explain their research so others can join in the journey. It’s about understanding the research from someone else’s point of view. Ultimately, Christine wanted to get closer to the utilities at a time in which natural gas started to come into the scene and the existing nuclear fleet was struggling. At this point, she went to lead the nuclear division at Structural Integrity, a medium-sized consulting company that focuses on failures found during outages. Christine wanted an opportunity to step into a leadership role and lead a division. In leadership, vulnerability is key and helps people be comfortable coming forward. During her time at Structural Integrity, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) delivered the nuclear promise, so she worked hard to listen to the initiative and look at how things done in the past could be done differently to achieve the same result. This led to some non-destructive examination (NDE) technology development related to encoded weld examination via robots. Her team could take information from a flaw found in a weld inspection, put the crack into a finite element model, and progressing it to calculate how long it would take to reach failure on that component. This led to decision-making about whether it needed to be fixed immediately or if the plant could go back online with the crack. Christine’s work also included working with clients to update fatigue management programs before going into the license renewal process for another 20 years of life.

The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (22:35-34:54)
The role of GAIN in the nuclear sector and the many ways it supports developers, investors, end users, and government programs

Q: How did you get selected to become the Director for the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear?
A: Christine King got approached by a recruiter for a position as Director for the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) while working with an emerging venture capital firm at a consulting company. The market window for new nuclear is here. Christine is very passionate about what will happen in the nuclear sector in the next 5-10 years. She came to GAIN to increase the trust and confidence in the sector with the goal of securing the end users and the partners and investors needed for deployment. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Labs do not have a good reputation for getting things done on time. This cannot be the story for the next 5-10 years. Advanced nuclear plants must differentiate themselves from what people know of nuclear today. People know large light water reactors with huge cooling towers and miles of fencing. Some of these new reactors are quite small and new reactors will do more than produce electricity. The flexibility of advanced nuclear plants allows the design to meet theneeds of the energy system at that time. This is the key to the hard-to-decarbonize sector. Most industrial processes that are energy intensive are reliant on fossil fuels and are the perfect customers for advanced nuclear. GAIN is most well known for the voucher program, but also does internal work around releasing legacy documents and information. Data from the demonstration reactors that were built in the 1950’s is essential for the innovators and developers today. This data had previously been kept from being released to the public, so GAIN reviews the document, understands whether it is safe to release, and gets it into the hands of the developers today so they can use it in their modeling. The biggest thing that GAIN does is listen. This listening shows up in workshops where GAIN meets with the technology working groups, typically around a reactor technology, to find out what their needs are. Those needs and priorities change as they are building their businesses, so GAIN tries to stay in tune with that, communicate them to the DOE so the DOE can allocate funds to address those needs. Last year, the National Reactor Innovation Center was established to work with the National Labs, but solely focused on demonstrations. Vouchers are executed when an innovator requests access to a facility or people at a National Lab to help solve a particular problem. GAIN issues a work order within the National Lab system to execute on that scope of work. Applications for vouchers come in quarterly and GAIN has maintained a steady volume of applications. So far, GAIN has assigned $22 million towards 51 vouchers for 41 companies. Twenty-five of these vouchers have been completed in the four years since the start of the program. The voucher application becomes a conversation starter and GAIN can connect companies, labs, and other partners to help make progress, even if a voucher is not awarded.

The Nuclear Ecosystem (34:54-48:57)
A look at how new technology demonstrations and regulation reform will lead to the new nuclear market

Q: What type of work do people want done at the National Labs?
A: Some projects the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) support often include modeling, experimental measurements, peer review calculation checks. These voucher applications might also be related to help with licensing or looking at new shielding technology for future fuel storage and operations. GAIN serves the whole nuclear ecosystem. On the communication front, GAIN has been focusing on sharing what the National Labs have to offer and what the different Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy programs are about. Christine King is leading GAIN to shift its focus to communicating about nuclear to audiences outside the nuclear sector. The nuclear industry has insulated itself for so long, which has prevented nuclear from being integrated into clean energy. It is about learning how to speak to an end user and the public about used fuel, waste, and accidents. GAIN has developed two-page summaries of each new reactor type to make it easier to share information with end users such as what the footprint of the plant will be and the operating conditions. The nuclear industry needs to communicate without acronym, without apology, and with excitement. Instead of forcing nuclear on people, Christine wants to present the facts and let people consider nuclear and come to their own conclusion. Wind, solar, and nuclear are the best partners. Nuclear sometimes gets overcomplicated, but the regulation was hard-wired to the initial design. For the regulator to even consider something new, the technology must be unraveled. For example, some of the licensing language around fuel provides specific criteria associated with zirconium materials instead of talking about the desired performance attributes of nuclear fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has made progress in this space to make this process technology inclusive and risk based. Changing government language takes many, many hours and involvement from many stakeholders. The NRC has developed a roadmap for attacking this problem and GAIN makes sure the industry is aware of the process and can make their voice heard in the moment. GAIN looks ahead to issues that will be addressed and identifying data that may be needed and putting it together in a format that can be used. In the next 5-10 years, there will be demonstrations of a variety of different nuclear energy systems and the most important thing that nuclear can do is change its reputation. The nuclear industry needs to deliver on time and on budget. In parallel to the demonstrations, deployment - and the whole ecosystem that supports deployment - need to be considered. Regulation reform has to finish to be ready for deployment and GAIN needs to do everything it can to help the NRC. Nuclear must become part of the vernacular of clean energy by addressing public acceptance, showing what the product looks like, and understanding the cost associated with designing and operating it. This will lead to the building of hundreds of reactors 20 to 30 years from now.

Creating A Safety-Conscious Work Environment (0:00-16:50)
David Amerine reflects on how his time in the Navy led to a broad career in the nuclear sector and shares the keys to building a safety-conscious work environment

Q: How did you get into the nuclear field and what were the first steps in your career?
A: When David Amerine graduated high school, he already had a strong interest in math and science as a result of the studies and teachers he had. He attended the United States Naval Academy where, in addition to the normal engineering degree, he also received math and nuclear physics degrees. It was natural for David to go into the U.S. submarine service, which are now all driven by nuclear power. During his seven years in the service, David got married and his two daughters were born. David left the Navy but stayed in the nuclear field, spending half of his career in the commercial nuclear power plant sector and the other half in the Department of Energy nuclear complex, which is primarily associated with the development of nuclear weapons materials and clean-up of contaminated sites as a result of the Manhattan Project. David led the construction, completion, and start-up of the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), the largest vitrification plant in the world whose mission is to immobilize highly radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project into glass which is then poured into stainless steel canisters, sealed, and hung in concrete vaults. Eight different times, David was brought in to help address management and operational issues at projects and plants. He was brought in as President of Nuclear Fuel Services, the sole provider for the Navy’s nuclear submarine and aircraft carriers, to resolve operational difficulties that caused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to retract its license. The basic science for making tritium or handling nuclear waste or putting nuclear fuel in a commercial reactor is essentially the same. The management of people is the same in these situations. At the Millstone Nuclear Station, David instituted a safety-conscious work environment, an atmosphere in which any employee - no matter the rank - feels comfortable bringing up any issue, concern, or questions without retaliation and with a timely response from management. Trust is very important in all areas of the nuclear sector. The top plants in regards to capacity factor are those that are also the safest, showing that safety is good business. In many situations David entered in his career, the trust level was very low. The most important way to build trust is for leaders to be visible and accessible so employees have confidence talking to management. This also requires strong active listening skills. Safety must be the first priority, followed by quality, schedule, and cost. There are four ways to establish conductive operations: personal accountability, procedure compliance, technical inquisitiveness, and a willingness to stop in the face of uncertainty. Personal accountability is taking pride in one’s work. Procedure compliance combined with training brings the greatest chance for success. If there is a question about what the procedure requires, an employee should stop to get clarification. Technical inquisitiveness challenges employees to understand how what they’re doing may affect other workers or facilitate others in being successful.

Responsibilities of A Leader (16:50-31:25)
Lessons learned from years spent resolving management and operational issues at various nuclear facilities and how David led his teams through challenging obstacles

Q: Do you recall any times in which you had to improvise to get out of a challenging situation?
A: Some of David Amerine’s most telling lessons, whether in management, operations, or engineering, are from mistakes. Perfection is the number one enemy of progress. Understand the situation as best as possible and then make a decision to move forward. This participative management requires the leader to sincerely solicit input from the team and genuinely consider it, but ultimately that leader makes a decision to move forward. Success is shared throughout the team and failures are used as an opportunity to identify what went wrong and make improvements. Each of the eight facilities that David was brought in to address outstanding issues had its own fingerprint. These experiences led David to write the book “Push It to Move It” in order to share his experiences with others. Each facility had its own different challenges and usually multiple different factors leading to extremus. Millstone Nuclear Station in Connecticut has three different reactor designs built across three decades. These plants physically touch each other, yet there are three distinct cultures because they started up at different times. At this time, Millstone was part of Northeast Utilities nuclear fleet. The utility knew that Connecticut was headed towards deregulation, meaning they needed to be more competitive than if they were regulated. The management team was very focused on the bottom line and didn’t have time for ‘extraneous issues’ to improve the bottom line. This led to employees who brought up issues being mistreated by the employer. As a result, the management made it on the cover of Time magazine and a shutdown costing three years and $3 billion dollars. Some large nuclear projects, such as in the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Complex, have budgets that are always under review, which can lead the project to have a moving goal line focused on accomplishments in a fiscal year. There are many books on management and project management, but David’s book focuses on the creation and nurturing of a safety-conscious work environment, vital to complex projects, especially the nuclear industry. As soon as David retired, he began working as a consultant until his wife was diagnosed with ALS. David was the primary caregiver for his wife during her last four years and stepped away from consulting. A little time later, he received a call from the Tennessee Valley Authority, an important utility with multiple operating nuclear plants, to request help dealing with similar worker mistreatment issues that David had dealt with at Millstone. This industry or culture is sometimes deemed to learn the same lessons over. The book “Push It to Move It” is about project management and people management, important ingredients to have a successful nuclear plant or a successful nuclear project.

Communication About Nuclear Energy (31:25-43:36)
David highlights some of the ways the nuclear industry has communicated well to share lessons learned, but makes a call to action for better public education on nuclear power

Q: How can the nuclear industry share near misses to improve lessons learned?
A: Three Mile Island led to the U.S. industry to create a self-monitoring entity called the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). Internationally, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) is modeled after INPO. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is modeled after the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which has now devolved into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. These lessons are being shared. A problem somewhere is a problem everywhere. A lot of people in the United States do not understand nuclear power or nuclear energy and at first there was a tendency to connect it with a nuclear bomb. Both in the U.S. and internationally, the industry shares lessons learned after incidents as quickly and concisely as possible. Chernobyl was not abiding by the IAEA requirements or the suggestions of WANO. The Russians have invited people in to help make their nuclear endeavor safer that it was prior to Chernobyl. The generation of reliable electricity is a function of the standard of living worldwide. Nuclear power is by far the most reliable source of electricity based on capacity factor. While nuclear can consistently produce a capacity factor of 90-95 percent, coal is around 55%, and natural gas is somewhere between 35-40%. In the United States, there has never been one civilian harmed by nuclear power. None of the other sources of electricity can say that. In the U.S., the utilities do a good job to get their employees to be ambassadors of nuclear. However, the utilities and government have done a very poor job of educating the public. When David Amerine speaks at high schools, he asks where they think electricity comes from to power their schools and homes. Invariably, the answer is wind and solar. However, in Ohio, where David is from, wind and solar provide less than one percent of the electricity used. Wind and solar have a place in a mixed portfolio, but not for a broadbase, reliable source of electricity. These electricity sources have done a much better job of promoting themselves, which is what David is looking to do for nuclear. The next generation of reactors are going to be intrinsically safe in their design and much cheaper to build, without the redundant safety equipment and containment required in other designs.

Promises of the Next Nuclear Generation (43:36-59:50)
How new nuclear technologies and small modular reactors will upend the nuclear industry and provide a path towards nuclear as a broadbase, reliable electricity source

Q: Many large nuclear plants are still under construction. How can we save these projects to give a chance to the nuclear industry?
A: The utilities and governments need to partner to educate the public on the safety and cost savings of the new reactor designs. The wave of the future will be small modular reactors (SMR) that can be assembled in the factory and then disassembled and delivered to the construction site. A reasonable case could be made that these designs would not need as robust containment. David Amerine is particularly in favor of the liquid fluoride thorium reactor design. It has features that apply to some of the other liquid reactors, but there is an effort towards getting a licensing path because the licensing process has been developed for light water reactors. The design consumes most of the fission products that are developed and the cost of enrichment and fabrication are avoided. The liquid fluoride thorium reactor and other molten salt type reactors can be accommodated very easily to an SMR approach. These SMR’s can be expanded according to the demand without going through the relicensing of a new reactor. Safety will be much less expensive and the reactor construction time will be much quicker. The nuclear industry is not much more than 60 years old in producing electricity, making it a relatively new technology. Those lessons learned need to be applied for the benefit of everyone. The ongoing nuclear construction projects need the best project management possible. Design to build, build to test, and test to operate. Testers and operators need to be involved in the design phase, much earlier than that would normally be involved, to verify the design has good constructability, the start-up and periodic tests can be performed, and the plant can be easily operated and maintained. There are still people around who have gone through the initial phase of bringing reactors online. Corporate memory needs to be captured. When David was in charge of the Savannah River site, which had 26,000 employees at one point and covers 300 square miles, a problem arose that was resolved by an engineer that had been present during construction. He had a feeling for a part of the plant that was no longer accessible by humans and was able to discern the problem and how it should be handled. David personally thanked this individual and realized that, if this individual had already retired, the problem would have been much more difficult to solve. David led an effort to go around to this generation and get a stream of conscious dump of their experiences over the years to avoid losing the corporate memory before it walked out the door. He is getting involved in conversations concerning wind and solar power versus nuclear. David supports a mixed energy portfolio, but wind and solar cannot provide a reliable, broadbase electricity source and makes grid management very difficult as the source of electricity ebbs and flows through the day. He is involved in a state-level debate related to keeping nuclear power in Ohio and hopefully building more reactors in the States.

Ghana’s Energy Diversification (0:00-11:39)
Theo Nii Okai recaps his career with the Volta River Authority and describes how Ghana began its path energy diversification

Q: How did you first get into nuclear and did you always have a positive view of nuclear?
A: Theo Nii Okai served as the Director of Environment and Sustainable Development for the Volta River Authority, a utility in Ghana, for five years. During this assignment, he was asked to head a new organization set up to drive the new nuclear agenda for Ghana. Theo moved to Nuclear Power Ghana and started working with a team of engineers and scientists. He hadn’t planned on working in the nuclear sector and had some suspicions about nuclear. However, very quickly he began to appreciate the fact that nuclear power is the way to combat climate change and provide a reliable base load. When the government decided they needed to look at nuclear as a part of the energy mix, the energy ministry asked the two major utilities - Volta River Authority and Bui Power Authority - to work with the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and form a new organization to drive the nuclear agenda for Ghana. This organization became Nuclear Power Ghana. When the Volta River Authority was formed in 1961, the task was to develop the hydroelectric power in the Volta Lake. In doing the dam, it created the largest manmade lake in the world. Ghana had a lot of surplus energy at the time, even after serving its prime customer Valco, an aluminum smelting company. Ghana didn’t have the challenge that other African countries have with a very shaky energy system; instead, they were able to build their electrical infrastructure from scratch on the backbone of the hydroelectric dam. Over time, more hydro facilities were added. As demand grew, Ghana decided to diversify due to experience with drought on the average of 7-10 years. Diversification has included liquid fuel like crude oil and gas, but also solar power, with wind power in development. Ghana has fallen behind in terms of investments in the power sector due to economic growth. The pace of investment did not match the growth. This has helped lead the country to nuclear, which can provide a strong baseload. Theo has been involved with the Volta River Authority since the late 1980’s, responsible at different times for protection, control, and SCADA. The SCADA system allowed for remote control and monitoring of the electrical utility, minimizing outages across the country. This culture helped build a resilient system for Ghana. Around the mid to late 1990’s, Theo shifted to information technology and ran the IT department for the company for 10 years. He later moved on to the environmental side of the business, responsible for ensuring the business does not have a negative impact on the environment. Theo retired this past June after concluding his career in energy focused on the nuclear sector.

Role of Nuclear Power Ghana (11:39-26:24)
How nuclear power will serve Ghana’s commitment to climate change and support regional economic development

Q: What are the main drivers pushing Ghana’s energy policy decisions?
A: The key driver pushing Ghana’s energy policy decisions is the pursuit of a diversified energy mix to provide security in energy supply for the country. After Ghana signed on to a number of conventions, including climate change, it also became apparent that a lot more progress could be made towards climate change commitments by pushing the nuclear agenda. The industrial base of the country keeps growing, so there may not be the luxury of depending on smaller energy systems. Nuclear provides the answer to big baseload required by this development. Theo Nii Okai had a team of very dedicated engineers and scientists that he considers the most important factor in successfully completing Phase 1 of the 3-phase milestone approach from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Theo was able to learn about nuclear quickly because he had a competent team assembled for the project. Nuclear Power Ghana had a lot of support from the IAEA and they were able to go through the various elements of the infrastructure issues, allowing the process to go smoothly. Early on, Theo’s first reservations about nuclear power were safety and security. People outside the nuclear community look at incidents like Fukushima and Chernobyl, which drives a lot of thinking about nuclear technology. If a technology is potentially hazardous, but has very good attributes and gains in terms of human development, the question is how to engage with the technology. Theo realized the perceptions he had were fueled by events, so he started questioning how to let people know what is going on in the nuclear industry to get them away from the negative perceptions. Theo now considers himself an evangelist of nuclear power. Nuclear Power Ghana wanted to engage with stakeholders, including the public, to avoid perceptions based on ignorance or limited information and look toward the benefits of the technology. If you don’t create the environment where people can’t get their questions answered, people will seek answers from others that don’t have them. The key is openness and allowing people to engage. A lot of people didn’t even know that Ghana had a research reactor at Ghana Atomic Energy Commission for years. There is a growing group of people that see the technology has very good uses for the country. In some research areas, nuclear radiation is helping with agriculture and radiation has also been at the forefront of chemo health. As the engagement continues, people see that nuclear is something the country can take advantage of, especially because the country has seen times of rationing power. Nuclear is a very reliable power supply.

Current State of Ghana’s Nuclear Development (26:24-36:51)
Ghana’s progress through the IAEA milestones and what it means for the Sub-Saharan region of West Africa

Q: What are the three milestones for Nuclear Power Ghana and what are the next steps in terms of development?
A: As an organization, Nuclear Power Ghana worked through the template as provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The development is in three phases, each of which culminates in a milestone. The Pre-Feasibility culminates in a Program Comprehensive Report, which goes to the government and details what needs to be done going forward. This report looks at every aspect including safety, security, engagement of stakeholders, the technology to be deployed, and so on. The government can now be informed to make a knowledgeable decision and move to the next phase. When Theo Nii Okai retired in June, the Program Comprehensive Report was done and was in the hands of the government. The Ghana Nuclear Power Programme is led by the Deputy Minister of Energy. The Nuclear Regulatory Authority is also now functional in Ghana, established in 2016. The last organization established is Nuclear Power Ghana. The second phase would involve looking at the various countries’ supply of nuclear technology to determine which is suitable for Ghana and result in the selection of a vendor. Phase Three includes the beginning and conclusion of construction. Currently, studies and measurements are being taken at different sites to determine a location. Hopefully, construction of Ghana’s first nuclear power plant will be complete in the next decade. Ghana’s technology studies have looked at all the nuclear technologies, from large pressurized water reactors down to small modular reactors (SMR). No decision has been made yet, but potential sizes of the plant and potential technologies have been matched with potential sites. The potential for Ghana to become a nuclear energy hub is very good. West Africa is already building the West African Power Pool (WAPP) which will cover the entire West Africa Sub-Saharan region. If Ghana builds this infrastructure, it will benefit the entire Sub-Saharan region because power can flow from Ghana to the other West African countries. Ghana can become the role model and provide a template for other African countries to succeed in nuclear power.

Global Impact of Climate Change (36:51-44:36)
How Africa is combating climate change for the good of the planet

Q: What are the key agendas that Ghana needs to focus on to walk through the nuclear timeline and be successful at the end?
A: Theo Nii Okai wants to spend time engaging people on nuclear’s impact on climate change. It is the only technology that is zero carbon. A lot of people promote activities to eliminate climate change, but they don’t know nuclear has a key role to play in that. Once people appreciate the role of nuclear against climate change, people begin to take a second look at their negative perception. Climate change affects Africa as well. Climates don’t know borders and affects everybody. Everyone needs to work together as a human race to do things that are good for the environment. Even though the COVID-19 has been a very negative thing, it has allowed the Earth to heal because humans are no longer flying across the oceans. The ozone layer is rebuilding. Change should not become a barrier to human development, but we must work together. Boundaries drawn and borders are artificial. A problem in a neighboring country is a shared problem, so humans need to work together. Theo is excited about small modular reactors (SMR) and interested to see where the technology will go. Africa’s grid sizes are not large enough to run these very large 1,400 MW nuclear power plants. If one large reactor were to go down, the entire grid would go down. If a 300-600 MW SMR went down, the entire grid could stay online via other SMR’s. At the end of the process, Theo hopes to see the technology that works for Africa.

Introduction to the Union of Concerned Scientists (0:18-11:14)
Ed Lyman reflects on the path that led him from physics to energy policy and how the Union of Concerned Scientists got started

Q: When did you first hear about nuclear energy?
A: Ed Lyman is the Director of Nuclear Power Safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is a physicist by training and has always been engaged in political and public affairs, interested in science policy, energy, the environment. Ed went to graduate school for physics at Cornell University. The department was known for faculty and students interested in applying technical knowledge to public policy issues and the political ramifications of scientific work. At the time, the Reagan administration had the “Star Wars program” - the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - which focused on space-based lasers used for ballistic missile defense. This brought the prospect of a tremendous amount of government funding going into various fields of physics, and also brought the question of if it was responsible for a scientist to take funding for a project that may lead to instability or an increased threat of nuclear war. A group of physics graduate students started a petition drive for physicists who would commit to not taking SDI money, attracting thousands of signatories across the nation. Cornell was at the center of this attitude focused on science with concerns about the implications of technical work on world peace. A group of physicists left academic physics to pursue technical policy analysis and advocacy. The leader and initiator of the petition, Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, was Ed’s supervisor at the Union of Concerned Scientists for many years. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) started in 1969 as an effort led largely by MIT faculty and graduate students who were of the same ilk, concerned about the possible misuse of science at the height of the Vietnam War and the peace movement. One of the first public policy issues they took on as an organization was nuclear safety, in line with the push from the Atomic Energy Commission to build and license new reactors. The safety regulations had not caught up with the ambitions at the time, so it has historically been a core issue of UCS, but the group now pursues a wide variety of science and public policy issues. After leaving Cornell, Ed went to Princeton University where a group of physicists and academics were focused on science and security. One of his first projects was related to the surplus of nuclear weapons material - both highly enriched uranium and plutonium - that were accumulating in the US and Russia with no plan for how to deal with them. Highly enriched uranium can be reversed through dilution with natural uranium to bring concentrations well below 20%, reducing the threat. There is no way to dilute or denature plutonium that would make it unusable for nuclear weapons. The study focused on how to dispose of this plutonium by converting it into a form in which it would be less easy to divert or steal the material. Ed Lyman left Princeton after several years, leaving to join the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, DC whose focus was on fissile materials and nuclear proliferation. He worked there until 2003, when he joined the UCS.

Current Challenges Faced by the Nuclear Industry (11:14-27:49)
Ed discusses the cause and effect of the Fukushima accident and the long-term impacts on the industry

Q: What are the big challenges within the nuclear industry that UCS can solve or bring awareness to?
A: The nuclear industry is at a crossroads, with potential benefits of expanding nuclear power as a low carbon power source that come with safety, security, proliferation, waste, and cost issues that have to be addressed. When the Fukushima Daiichi accident happened in 2011, Japan was basing its long-term energy strategy on the progressive use of nuclear power, reprocessing of spent fuel, and recycling of plutonium. After Fukushima, the industry collapsed and all the reactors were shut down for years. They are being restarted gradually, but the whole fleet will not return and young people in Japan are losing interest in nuclear power. The way to avoid another Fukushima in the industry is by not assuming you know things you don’t really know and understanding and planning for the uncertainties. This takes money and time, two things the industry thinks it doesn’t have right now. Ed Lyman worries the financial and political pressure the nuclear is under - to show it can succeed, thrive, and play a role in climate change - may be leading to cutting corners in design, licensing, and oversight of nuclear power. Radiation is fairly well characterized carcinogen, given the large amount of data from intentional and accidental exposures over decades. Any ionizing radiation particle can ionize atoms in cells and DNA can be disrupted. Alpha particles are slow-moving heavy charged particles that cannot penetrate skin very deeply. If they are taken internally, they can do considerable damage to tissue. Genetic damage leads to cellular malfunctions in growth, which can propagate. The effects of acute radiation exposure are well known, as in the aftermath of Hiroshima or Chernobyl. The stohcastic effects of radiation are random, so a particle of ionizing radiation can randomly strike a cell causing damage. The risk of that lesion becoming a cancer depends on a lot of different factors. The data has established that there is a roughly linear relationship between ionizing radiation exposure and cancer risk on average in a population. Radiation exposure guidelines must be established based on facts and evidence, and then a public policy can be established to determine if it matters or not.

Role of the Nuclear Regulatory Bodies (27:49-41:01)
A look at the responsibilities of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the commercial nuclear power sector

Q: Why is the FDA allowed to make cost-benefit tradeoffs and the NRC is not?
A: It is the legal mandate of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to make sure there are no undo risks from commercial nuclear operations. The NRC hasn’t shut down a plant on safety grounds for decades. Under the law, the NRC does have a cost benefit requirement if they go above adequate protections. The Backfit rule states that, if the NRC wants to impose a stricter regulation that imposes a higher standard than the current baseline of protection, it must be a substantial safety enhancement and meet a cost benefit test. This rule has been used to block a range of additional safety enhancements, many of which were proposed after Fukushima. The NRC has a standard to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection. Fukushima happened and there were populations around the plant that were not evacuated properly, evacuated too late, or moved into areas where the radiation was actually higher. Probably 1,000 or more cancer deaths will occur from Fukushima. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (SCEAR) provided crude estimates of the population dose. If people are exposed to ionizing radiation, there will be an effect. An epidemiological study can be done to show there is a statistically significant excess and one must estimate, from the likely exposures, whether that can be seen. There is a relationship between radiation exposure, dose, and consequence. The accepted view is that there is a basis for using the linear no-threshold hypothesis because a single ionizing radiation exposure can lead to cancer, but it is a low risk. Ionizing radiation is part of the natural environment, but there are also toxic chemicals in the environment and it is not acceptable not to regulate toxic chemicals.

The Study of Radiation Exposure (41:01-54:25)
Ed identifies some of the challenges of tracking radiation exposure and different tools available to critically analyze the data

Q: Why does a nuclear plant cost $10 billion dollars for a gigawatt plant instead of $1 billion to build a coal plant?
A: The AP-1000 reactors under construction at the Voegtle site in Georgia were designed to reduce the capital cost of nuclear power by reducing or eliminating some of the safety systems in the current generation of nuclear power plants. This has not saved any money. There are a number of problems with the construction of the plant due to not meeting the committed specifications. Codes and standards are integrated into the regulation because they are part of the critical aspects of civil engineering. Because there are known radiation exposures from the Fukushima accident, there will be cancer fatalities. A lot of the individual doses are not known because the exposure to evacuees in the populations has not been well characterized. There were people outside Fukushima who saw dose rates on the order of many millirem an hour over the course of weeks. Some children got doses to the thyroid that were in the realm where they should have gotten potassium iodide prophylaxis, but they didn’t. The vast consensus on radiation protection experts, such as the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), believe there is a sound technical basis for the linear non-threshold hypothesis below that threshold. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) believes in scientific integrity and focuses on facts and evidence and understands the uncertainties. If someone were to get 1,000 millirem dose from exposure at an accident like Fukushima, in a few days, it will be greatly over their background exposure in a few days.

Nuclear’s Role in Fighting Climate Change (0:27-9:00)
Diane Cameron shares her initial thoughts about nuclear energy and why she changed her mind, committing her career to the technology

Q: How did you get into the nuclear sector to begin with?
A: Diane Cameron is Director of the Nuclear Energy Division of the Government of Canada. She has worked on climate change for the past 20 years from different angles, including the private sector and government. Diane’s driving force is to do her part to make the world a better place and address climate change. At some point, she found herself as a graduate student at MIT where she worked for the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment under Dr. Ernie Moniz, who later became Secretary of Energy under the Obama administration. In that time, Dr. Moniz utilized his graduate students to do the analysis and policy work that would inform his ideas about the future of energy and American energy policy. Diane was not part of the nuclear team, instead working on supply chain issues and network-level modeling. At the time, she was a nuclear skeptic, partly shaped by Fukushima, which happened while she was in graduate school. Diane eventually adopted the same view debated in that context, which is that it will take all non-emitting solutions to address the existential threat of climate change, but also that each option has its own costs, benefits, and risks. Within the carbon budget and time available, there is no credible pathway to our net-zero emissions without significant build-out of safe and secure nuclear. It took Diane several years to consider the evidence from the credible, international models showing the amount of carbon displaced by existing global installed nuclear capacity is needed to displace carbon. There were psychological effects from Fukushima, which caused real fear for people. The radiological effects have been able to be managed and responded to in a responsible and appropriate way, but the psychological effects have not been insignificant. Many lessons learned have driven the wave of innovation towards passive safety and inherent walk-away safety features. Canada feels an enormous sense of opportunity and optimism about nuclear innovation which will help non-emitting technologies get rolled out to be a step change in terms of public confidence.

Canada’s Nuclear Action Plan (9:00-19:30)
A review of Canada’s nuclear roadmap and how Diane helped it evolved into an action plan with a timeline

Q: When you joined the Nuclear Energy Division, was there a roadmap and how is this new generation of technology going to be introduced into the commercial sector?
A: Diane Cameron became the Director of the Nuclear Energy Division of the Government of Canada in 2014. At this time, a Government of Canada agenda that prioritized restructuring Atomic Energy of Canada and labs to introduce private sector presence through a government owned-contract operated contracts was coming to an end. CANDU Energy, Inc. was divested from the government into the private sector. This process aimed to get Canada’s domestic house in order to harness globalized supply chains and private sector competitive spirit, rethinking the role of the government and the role of the private sector. Part of Diane’s mandate was to rebuild the nuclear policy team and rebuild a vision for Canada to re engage on nuclear policy nationally and determine what the future of nuclear in Canada looked like. She grew the team from two, in 2014, to 24 in 2020. In that time, Canada’s leadership, vision, and influence has been reestablished, including initiatives around small modular reactors (SMR). Diane served as chair of Canada’s SMR roadmap. The provincial and territorial governments, power utilities, industry, labs, regulator, academia, civil society, and indigenous engagement were engaged to determine if there were markets, customers, and framework for different SMR technologies. This process instilled a sense of passion and optimism in Canada and ramped up the supply chain for SMR technology. Earlier this year, the Minister of Natural Resources announced Canada will be reconvening to turn the SMR roadmap into an action plan to reiterate the vision and the path forward. This action plan will include a statement of vision, explaining what Canada wants to achieve, and a statement of principles, explaining how Canada will achieve that vision. One of those principles is focused on indigenous engagement and meaningful indignous partnership and benefit sharing. Without community buy-in and indegenous partnership, there is no energy project that will be successful in Canada. Each partner will include submissions in the action plan. The federal government submission will respond to all the recommendations from the roadmap and identify new actions based on how the landscape has evolved since the roadmap. One evolution since the roadmap, by natural market forces, is a new framework for SMR’s in Canada. On Stream One, Ontario Power Generation and SaskPower are leading the charge on streamlining near-term grid-scale SMR’s. This stream of work is driven by a legislative mandate to fully phase out traditional coal by 2030. Saskatchewan is going to deploy wind and solar to a maximum, but there will still be a gap, which can be filled with either natural gas or SMR’s. Ontario is an experienced nuclear operator with a licensed site at Darlington and can be a partner for the West which does not have a nuclear power generating jurisdiction. Ontario is investing in the refurbishment of their power fleet which has ramped up the supply chain. This supply chain can then pivot to SMR’s by 2030.

Gaining Community Buy-in for Nuclear Projects (19:30-28:55)
Why Canada values its relationships with communities and stakeholders and how it impacts decision-making across the nuclear sector

Q: What level of supply chain overlap is there between the refurbishment of CANDU style reactors and small modular reactors (SMR)?
A: Regardless of which small modular technology (SMR) technology is built, there is a level of precision and regulatory compliance required in the nuclear sector. This culture and discipline is entirely transferable between the supply chain for refurbishment of CANDU reactors and SMR’s, but will still require some retooling in manufacturing. Canada is very proud that the regulator is flexible to innovation and is a responsible risk-based regulator instead of taking a prescriptive approach. Stream Two is Canada’s advanced Gen IV play, which New Brunswick Power is championing for Canada. Canada has a strong interest on the back end of the fuel cycle and technologies that can close the fuel cycle, both burners and potentially breeders. The interaction between the technology value proposition, as it relates to recycling and reducing spent fuel stockpiles, and what that means for public confidence. The public’s number one concern is the waste, followed by safety and security. Stream Three is focused on off-grid microreactors. Canada has an enormous, vast geographical landscape and all of Canada’s off-grid mining is nearly 100 percent reliant on diesel. Diesel is costly, has dirty emissions, and logistically complicated, so the mining sector is very excited about strong alternatives. The advantage is in combined heat and power. In heavy industries that need high quality steam or high temperature process heat, it is very inefficient to achieve these temperatures with electricity. This provides a real market for off-grid, co-gen microreactors in Canada. The first market is mining, and the second potentially being the hundreds of remote communities throughout Canada that are reliant on diesel and looking for alternatives. Some communities want to consider SMR’s in their options.

Goals for New Operational Nuclear Power (28:55-41:21)
Diane highlights some of Canada’s timelines for establishing new nuclear power technologies on and off the grid

Q: When is the soonest Canada could have a brand new reactor built and operating somewhere in the country?
A: On Stream One, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is driving towards having the reactor built and power on the grid by 2028, followed shortly thereafter by Saskatchewan having one or more reactors online by 2030. There is a down selection of technology that is taking place and a group of utilities, coordinated by OPG, is shortlisting six or seven technologies. RIght now that shortlist is being down selected to the top two or three technologies and the selection will be made within 12-18 months. Canadians are very practical and there is a good amount of due diligence to be done to select the project by 2022 and get electrons on the grid by 2028 for a first-of-a-kind, grid-scale reactor. The first one will take more time to get licensed by the regulator, but Canada is committed to reducing the regulatory timeline going forward. No other countries are coming in faster while maintaining the standards of public engagement, transparency, safety, and security. The process of community engagement and building public buy-in cannot be rushed. Even with the perfect technology, the project will not succeed without public buy-in. Canada’s deep geological repository (DGR) is being advanced through Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is funded by the waste owners in Canada. Before an organization can turn a reactor on and begin generating waste in Canada, they must first put money into a trust to pay for the long-term storage and waste management and disposal costs. Canada has a lot of great geographical and geological locations that would be great for repositories. The process for choosing the DGR site started out with a call inviting communities to volunteer to be the site for Canada’s deep geological repository. Over 22 communities volunteered to be considered for the DGR. Over the last 10 years, a thoughtful, deliberate process was executed and the list has been narrowed down to two sites. The process started with people first, followed by technology. Stream Two has more of an innovation play, so the timeline might be a little longer, but Stream Three will move more quickly in Canada. The demonstrator reactors, the microreactors, are between 5-15 MW electric in size and have simple designs. There are some leading technologies becoming front runners. Canada might pursue two microreactor demonstrators at the labs, or there might be mining companies willing to entertain and drive first-of-a-kind deployment on their site. Diane Cameron is confident that Canada can have two microreactor demonstrators by 2025. The single greatest threat facing the planet is climate change. There is a moral obligation to come up with solutions to leave the world in a more sustainable state. All the credible models show that nuclear innovation and nuclear capacity is needed to reduce the risks of failure and the costs of addressing climate change.