TITANS OF NUCLEAR

Ralph Develops and Interest in Fusion Energy
Q: Tell me about the Public Service Enterprise Group and how you got there?
A: Ralph Izzo is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Public Service
Enterprise Group (PSEG), one of the ten largest utilities in the United States. PSEG
provides regulated service to states along the NJ turnpike and provides merchant power
across the US ranging from Hawaii to Maryland.  Ralph went to Columbia for
Mechanical Engineering and later became interested in the intersection between
mechanical engineering and energy. Growing up during the 1973 Oil Embargo made
energy a fascination for Ralph, as he recalls waiting in gas lines for an hour or two. For
him this was a recognition for things to change. Ralph eventually became interested in
fusion energy research because fusion energy was viewed to be the path to steer away
from petroleum and fossil based fuels. He was able to do so as Columbia University had
a small fusion reactor with unique operating conditions that had high potential for
commercial development. Once he finished his degree at Columbia he went to
Princeton.

Fission versus Fusion (3:15)
Q: What was the appeal of fission over fusion?
A: The nuclides that come out of fission have a longer half life than those that come out
of fusion. The byproduct of commercial fusion was deuterium and tritium and when you
smash them together you have helium so you don’t have a waste problem. But fission
wasn’t seen as dirty, it was viewed as a terrific technology with a role to play. However,
there were unfulfilled promises in fission such as the "too cheap to meter" promise.
Additionally, only recently have the fleet been operating at above 95% capacity, when
they were promised to be efficient earlier on. These promises, of low cost and efficiency,
changed after shale gas revolution. Nuclear is low cost, but in the absence of a price on
carbon, nuclear looks expensive as compared to fossil fuel.

Ralph Izzo's Early Career (6:07)
Q: What did your early career look like?
A: Ralph Izzo's PhD work focused on resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). MHD
combines the principles of fluid mechanics and Maxwell's equations; Ralph attempted to
model the dynamics of a plasma (ionized gas) using fluid mechanics. Afterwards, Ralph
worked in the Department of Defense Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 1981-
1986. Around this time, President Ronald Reagan announced the initiative,
Strategic Defense Initiative.Then he went to work For NJ Senator Bill Bradley because
the lab was consistently debating the funding and president Reagan had announced his
star wars initiative. People like Sydney Drell from Stanford started to give their input and
this is when he realized how important public policy was to securing funding for fusion

labs. It was an eye opening experience because so many people have different
perspectives on what a good public policy approach to scientific debates, you had to
understand the socio-political dynamics associated with the science and technology.
Whether or not the Strategic Defense Initiative was a good idea became a sociopolitical,
rather than scientific, debate and this really changed Ralph's perspective.
After working for Senator Bill Bradley, Ralph went back to the lab for about 6 months
before he realized that the timelines for research and development projects were longer
than he wanted. He then worked with Senator Tom Keane as a science policy advisor
and got involved in environment and energy issues. Three months into the job, he
worked on the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station. The construction of the Hope
Creek Nuclear Generating Station was managed by PSEG and completed in 1986,
grossly over budget at $4.9 billion (as compared to the projected $500 million). During
this time, there were high interest rates, Three Mile Island occurred, and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission was reviewing and changing standards. Ralph helped worked
on the solution the Public Facilities Board would use in response to this over budget
project. The Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station eventually did go into service, and
has been operating for 30 years. It was producing relatively low cost electricity up until
the shale gas revolution occurred.

Costs of Nuclear & the Valuation of Carbon (12:46)
Q: How does the cost of nuclear power, in the long term, compare to other sources?
A: Typical national averages for nuclear power is $28/Mwh. Comparatively, today’s most
efficient natural gas plant runs at a heat rate of 6,500-7,000 BTU/Kwh which, depending
on the price of natural gas, could be anywhere from $13/Mwh to $28/Mwh. But there
hasn’t been a price put on carbon. Natural gas emits half a ton of carbon per Mwh. The
National Academy of Sciences says the social impacts of carbon are worth about
$40/ton. If natural gas is producing half a ton of carbon per Mwh, then natural gas
should be burned at a cost of $33/Mwh to $41/Mwh. Natural gas is more expensive than
nuclear, but without the carbon price being valued, it looks less expensive.
Secretary Perry has mentioned we need on site fuel capability. In this arena, nuclear is
comparable to coal, with both storing the fuel on site. During the periods of extreme cold
in places across the United States, delivering the natural gas through pipelines is
limited. If you can’t get natural gas to the plant, you could burn oil in a natural gas plant.
But at some point, you’ll need to drive in supply trucks to do so. Because of this issue
with getting natural gas or oil to the plant, you’ll need a source of power (such as coal or
nuclear) where the fuel is on site for these extreme cold weather events. So based on
these factors, PSEG isn’t anti-natural gas (they have natural gas plants) but they value
the fuel diversity and low carbon impact of nuclear.

PSEG’s Stance on Climate Change (16:14)
Q: Climate change is a big issue for PSEG right?
A: It is. The two most important things are to (1) keep the existing nuclear fleet running
and (2) energy efficiency. The existing nuclear fleet is responsible for 60% of the carbon
free energy today. But, right now, nuclear is losing to natural gas because of the
perceived cost. Energy efficiency can reduce carbon at a negative marginal cost, to the
extent that theres low hanging fruit (incandescent vs LED lighting, old AV systems
versus higher efficiency units), you can install technology to lower customers bills that
will also help them use less energy. Solar and off shore wind are important, but we’re
too focused on them when we should be focused on nuclear power and energy
efficiency because of the price point.
We compare the busbar cost of electricity from nuclear, gas, and coal plants versus
wind or solar. However, the first three (nuclear, gas, coal) are dispatchable, meaning
you can control when they operate. This is different than wind and solar, because we
can’t control the fully supply for wind and solar. To compare them we would need battery
storage for wind and solar. But this battery storage would have a carbon footprint as
well. Renewables sound great because the fuel source is free but the capitol needed is
very high and the capacity factor is critical because of that. Ralph wants to see a future
where people use less energy than they use today because the hardware they use is
more efficient and the supply is cleaner. This goal can be realized by preserving the
existing nuclear fleet, looking into advanced nuclear technologies, having a renewable
energy supply, and using clean electricity to electrify the transportation sector. The fours
things Ralph thinks should be done include energy efficiency, a clean energy supply,
electrifying the economy, and investing in the grid.
Communicating Energy Goals to the Public (20:55)
Q: How do we communicate these goals to the public?
A: There are already changes in the way people are speaking; there’s increased talk of
rapid decarbonization and the importance of preserve the existing nuclear fleet. Holding
global warming to 1.5 degrees c is a probably a lost cause but it would be a disaster if
we got up to 2, 3 or 4 degrees celsius. To prevent this, it’s important to take an “all of the
above” approach to add less carbon to the atmosphere.
The Edison Electric Institute has an international meeting every summer, where utilities
come together to discuss these issues. However, the United States will always be the
biggest contributor, on an emissions per capita basis, of carbon emissions. Nuclear is
important for reducing our carbon emissions in the United States, and for maintaining
our competitive advantage in nuclear technologies to Russia and China.

Exploring New Technologies (25:09)
Q: On the rise to the top of PSEG, did you work on any new technologies?

A:Ralph started out as the Director of Research and Development at PSEG in their battery
energy storage technology center. They performed information technology research on how to
better control the grid and flexibly redirect power flows by changing the impedances of the
network. The industry has always had an interest in research and development through (1) the
Electric Power Research Institute and (2) with the equipment manufacturers (such as General
Electric, Siemens and ABB) in guiding their product development efforts.

Private Innovation & PSEG (26:38)
Q: How would energy entrepreneurs get in touch with big utilities like PSEG for
collaboration?
A: Energy entrepreneurs can provide creative solutions on additive processes that
PSEG doesn’t focus on such as lubricants, diagnostic tools, coatings to improve life
expectancy of blades, and information sciences (monitoring diagnostics and sensors).
Entrepreneurs can especially bring new insight on data analytics, which is something
the industry hasn’t necessarily focused on. So entrepreneurs can help provide
innovative ways for the industry to focus on correlation (versus causation) by looking at
the data we collect in the value chain and using it for predictive and preventive
maintenance and predicting energy consumption. The nuclear industry is still in its
infancy in analyzing these data. Right now, most of the industry is putting its moonshots
around advanced fuel cycles and nuclear and allowing the market pull associated with
policy subsidies to bend the cost curve on wind and solar.
A new area that could be worth exploring is biology. What if there are biological
processes that are much more efficient at converting natural resources into an energy
supply? It’s important to explore new ideas but the issue will always be of energy
intensity, even if you compare biologic to atomic processes the atomic processes will be
more energy dense.
Why Solve Climate Change (31:37)
Q: Why should we solve climate change?
A: Ralph finds the calamities that we’re setting up for future generations saddening, he
wants to use his educational background to take action on climate change so that we
can be the second greatest generation and not the greedy generation.

William Ostendorff’s Start in the Naval Academy (Pt.1)

Brett Kugelmass: Tell me where it all began.

Bill Ostendorff: After graduating from the Naval Academy, Bill was a Rickover Air Submarine Nuclear Officer. He came into this role back in the 70s during the Cold War. Bill’s career includes 16 years of sea duty in the 26 years he was in the Navy, including the time he served on a ballistic missile submarine and five attack submarines. He found it exciting to have the privilege of working with a lot of great sailors and folks during these times.

Bret Kugelmass: Tell me a little bit about what it means to be a Navy nuke?

Bill Ostendorff: At the beginning you learn the engineering fundamentals on how to safely operate and maintain a reactor plant. You also train the sailors that operate and maintain it how to carry out casually procedures and emergency procedures so that you can keep the submarine at sea doing its job. Whether it be on a ballistic missile submarine patrol, it's part of our nuclear deterrent mission, or conducting carrier battle group operations or independent surveillance reconnaissance operations as an attack submarine so the propulsion plan is there to provide the enduring forward deployed capability and women now that are serving there or trying to make that happen everyday safely

Bret: What are the differences between operations on the submarine versus at a nuclear power plant?

Bill Ostendorff: The basics of reactor safety and design are very similar but the operating mode is quite different. The operating mode for a commercial nuclear power plant will be more static; after they finished an outage in three weeks they'll start back up and be a hundred percent power for perhaps a year or a year and a half. A submarine is a dynamic environment where you're changing the power, you're going from a head one-third belt to a head flank bail. So you’re rapidly maneuvering based on your operations and you're operating in the sea environment, which could be under the Arctic ice, the mid-atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean, or even close enough to another country's coast (for conducting intelligence operations). The environment of operations is radically different from the two.

Video 2

Q: Who's in charge for the nuclear portion of the submarine?

A: It's different between the United States Navy, the Royal Navy and the French Navy. In the United States Navy, the commanding officer of the submarine has complete responsibility for everything including the reactor plant navigation weapon systems and so forth. In the Royal Navy and the French Navy, they have dedicated engineering officers who are strictly responsible for the reactor plant. were there French and British commanding officers to not have responsibility for the nuclear side The United States is all one element of about 15 - 16 officers on the submarine. In the United States Navy, all but the supply officers are trained in nuclear power so all of them are expected to play a role in the operation and maintenance of the plant. Bill had the privilege to command the USS Norfolk of Los Angeles class attack submarine for three years to other 700,000 miles during that time period. He used his prior experience as a weapons officer and as an engineer on different submarines to deal with problems as they came up.

Q: and what kind of problems would come up you don't have to say anything about it enemy is a it's a secretive but are there like technical issues that come it could be simple things such as a small steam leak on a high-pressure drain trap that comes up it's not infrequent it's not a reactor safety issue would you have to deal that could be things such as the smell of a possibly burning insulation that might indicate the potential hot spot in an electrical switchboard you need to de-energize a switchboard and conduct an inspection I mean I can only imagine because like being in a submarine environment it's almost like being in a space ship right because like you're cut off from the rest of the world and the rest of the world is right outside of a metal wall

A: is hostile to you though is the first question that comes up to mind like oh my god do we have to surface if there's any problem and so the first thing you need to decide well there's times when you might need to have contingency plan to certainly take the ship to periscope depth to allow you to called benlate bring fresh air into the ship and if you had a fire to get rid of the smoke in the ship by running a very high-powered fan call it called a blower there are other circumstances where it might be appropriate to surface if you had a significant flooding casualty for instance so in the back of your mind you're always thinking about how to process the information you have about what's happening and if there's a casualty what kind of actions to take to ensure a ship's survivability

Video 3
Q: It seems like these submarines are the epitome of human design and engineering?

A: Oh absolutely. If you think about it from a more simplistic level, than from an engineering perspective, the submarine is just a great applied physics platform. You're using Archimedes principle when talking about submerging the ship. You're talking about sonar systems that are processing sound waves to analyze where other submarines are and you have the nuclear physics involved with operating the reactor plant. It's just a tremendous physics engineering complex instrument. Each submarine is designed differently. Back when Bill entered the Navy in the 1970s, the submarines had a Westinghouse design also a General Electric design plant. Now, Westinghouse is no longer producing that technology for submarine systems so it's just General Electric technology. However, the operating features and the design characteristics have a lot of commonality between the different submarines.

Q: Why don't they put every high school student in a submarine at some point during high school? Wouldn't that just make engineers out of everybody?

A: Well I think certainly this makes starting things to show off Most of the American public is not familiar with or exposed to the technology issues. When Bill was a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) commissioner, he visited a nuclear power plant in Switzerland. By swiss practice every middle school student in Switzerland visits a commercial nuclear power plant to become exposed to technology, to learn more about it and to have more than just an emotional reaction to it so they can understand a little bit about what's involved. This rigorous design safety and so forth amazing and what would it take to get something like that instituted today

There are a number of utilities who on their own, not as a direct result of any government action, have very innovative visitor centers and encourage school tours and people from the community to come in and see what's going on.

Video 4
Q: So what came after your 26 year career in the Navy?

A: Bill retired from the Navy as a Captain and then went to work on Capitol Hill with the House Armed Services Committee.

Q: And how do you get that job, I assume that the hill and the military a lot of common connections?

A: Bill didn't have any connections on the hill at all, so it took him almost a year to land the job. He was interested in with House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and became the lead staff person for his call the strategic forces subcommittee The portfolio was about fifty five billion dollars worth of Defense budget at that time (2003 to early 2007) and included all of the atomic energy defense activities that the part of energy Sall nuclear weapons nuclear non-proliferation nuclear waste clean up the naval reactors program also included missile defense agency all strategic and tactical missile defense capabilities and a number of strategic delivery capabilities Air Force submarines and then furthermore some of the intelligence programs
Bill had to prioritize this portfolio and his military background was very comfortable to clear weapons nuclear reactors on this submarine side was a big help. Bill hired a couple of great people to work with him on the space programs in this portfolio as he didn’t have much of a background in space. So he leaned heavily on his two employees for their expertise and analytical capabilities.

Video 5

Q: What are the types of questions that come across your plate, are they general or specific?

A: In the nuclear weapons arena there were discussions about whether to develop a safer, more reliable nuclear warhead and there was a program called the Reliable Replacement Warhead program (RRW) that was being discussed and debated around the 2005 to 2007 time period. Bill worked with others to Rick draft legislation establishing what the criteria of those programs would be in consultation with the Department of Defense and members of Congress and their staffs.

The missile defense portfolio. After 9/11 there were a lot of investments and different technologies for missile defense whether it be ground-based or space-based missile defense or boost phase terminal phase different logos to describe the type of missile defense capability. we were looking at the viability for an oversight perspective or these programs worth continued investment so one of the programs that we established some pretty strict milestones on from the Congressional standpoint was the airborne laser with the thought that if this airborne laser program does not meet performance milestones we should not continue to throw defense dollars at it and the long-run outcome of that was that program was terminated

Q: yeah so how did you how did you look at it how did you decide or how's the decision made it where did these milestones age

A: yeah before it's an awesome meeting you know sometimes you're talking a new technology that's never been developed much less ever implemented and so we had actually had great cooperation with Department defense with the operational test and evaluation part of the department defense with the three-star general in charge of missile defense agency with US Strategic Command to look at here's the capability that we think we need but it the system needs to be able to perform produce results consistent with this design objectives if it doesn't mean those design objectives and if after you know a good faith effort over X number of years to develop this capability if you can't do it then the program should not be continued and the idea is then you free up resources maybe yes yeah and the money spend that was not wasted you know I think there's learnings that occur anytime you try to develop new technology and there's some very good lessons learned

Q: well I think I had a buddy who is going on to do amazing things in the robotics world who part of his PhD thesis was funded as part of this program you're working on chemical lasers
A: I guess well this is this was a chemical oh yeah okay so I think there's a lot of iodine based chemical laser there's a lot of good of the facts that come out of at least funding a lot of research and the fact that the program did not was terminated I don't see it as a failure I see it as a worthwhile investment national security things were learned and then appropriate decisions made to terminate further funding after it looked like the performance criteria could not be met yeah and then it can open up things for like Iron Dome promising a joint project with the Israeli government for missile defense which is a successor yes yes there's a lot of spin-offs a lot of bleeding over from one technological area to another that makes the other program better even if the first program perhaps are not achieve success

Video 6

Q: do you remember any kind of your time working with Congress it's something that maybe was just like a real challenge to either get your mind around or dead the Congress people's mind around something you remember kind of struggling to solve

A: well I'll use the example of the reliable replace of warhead program that was became a little bit politically charged and I think well-intentioned people in both sides of the aisle I was working the Republican staff at the time there is a debate about is this going to be considered this r:w program this considered a new nuclear weapon capability whereas most people in the department defensed a part of energy myself with some background of nuclear weapons thought this is not a new warhead capability it's a more reliable a more safe more secure weapon in the ven of a terrorist attack that we ought to have it did not provide a new nuclear weapons capability so to speak now that was a tough debate over many many many months yeah yeah I bet there were some political ramifications that whenever you say something like new nuclear I can imagine people are worried about how that might come off and the semantics make a difference and I think you know well-intentioned people my experience on both sides the aisle was these are members of Congress who are all well-intentioned very serious but national security well-intentioned well-informed people might come to different decisions yeah I respect that

Q: so how did you was it straight from Congress to the NRC

A: well no I went I was asked because I was doing a lot of the oversight work of the National Nuclear Security Administration in NSA which is the semi-autonomous part of the depart of energy that runs nuclear weapons complex I had a lot of contact and interface with the part of energy officials I was asked by the head of NSA in the fall of 2006 ambassador Linton Brooks who was administrated NSA to come down and be his deputy his number two person and so he forwarded my nomination over to the president george w bush white house and went through that process and was confirmed service principal deputy administrator basically the XO number two person chief operating officer I'm really and so what's under the what's totally under the shirts a is exports also so we were involved in basically the part of energy side of the nuclear weapons stockpile so had eight different sites around the country the nuclear weapons laboratories of Los Alamos Lawrence Livermore in California Sandia other sites the pantech site in Texas the y-12 national security site in Tennessee Savannah River Site in South Carolina the Kansas City plant in Kansas City and Nevada Test Site which is now known as a Nevada National Security site so all those eight sites were under the overall even though they're operated individually by management and operating in Manoa contractors they're under the overall management of the depart of energy through NSA and so anything with nuclear weapons nuclear non-proliferation programs with the Russian Federation with other countries worldwide the naval reactors organization was part of our administration so there's pretty broad ranging piece with like nuclear weapons my obliteration there were actors

Q: and then what you listed a lot of sites there what are they all doing is it mostly maintenance is it or is it with computer monitors

A: that's a great question so it yes all the above so some of the sites are directly involved and was called life extension programs that is conducting material upgrades for existing nuclear weapons called le Pease life extension programs because when some these weapons were designed back in the 60s 70s and early 80s and trying to take advantage more updated electronics materials you know 50 40 years ago and had a whatever they call the computer chip back then has that chip and swapped out with them all that's that's exactly part of the life extension program process Sandia National Laboratory which is kind of the Center for Excellence and Albert for electronics and non-nuclear physics package the non warhead materials has a lead for those types of efforts there's also dances of material science over the years trying to take advantage of less potentially dangerous materials beryllium silicon or examples of materials that early on in the history of the nuclear weapons program could cause some environmental hazards for workers so trying to back away from the use of those materials so that effort to maintain the existing stockpile with some life extension programs is ongoing at many of these sites other sites involved in basic science research and development a lot of computer simulations some of the high-speed computers fastest computers in the world reside at some of these sites Los Alamos Sandia launched so the reason you need computer simulations is because we're not allowed to do underground testing exactly what's a big deal for yeah so long history there the first effort to stop testimon eine teen 63 limited test ban treaty which prohibited above-ground testing which had been occurring in the 40s 50s until 1963 that was followed by an effort with the comprehensive test-ban treaty to outlaw all nuclear weapons testing now the United States has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty but we have observed a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing in this country since I believe 1991 or 1992 and in the absence of testing to see if the actual bomb would go off modeling and simulation is used to use predictive tools to see with all this work as planned yeah that's the purpose for the simulation programs

Video 7

Q: in command you get to look over all of these different organizations

A: I mean it's the first order of business just go visit them all and then there's a bit of them and I was in charge of the budget process to develop the annual budget goes to OMB into Congress I also served as a chief technical authorities so any nuclear weapons safety technical issue that required a decision by a federal person I was that final say on nuclear safety issues

Q: and when you say nuclear safety for weapons what does it actually mean because isn't the point of a nuclear weapon to not be safe

A: well now that we want to make sure that they're safe and 100% safe when until and unless called upon to be used yeah and so the safety aspect also included the operations at our sites if there's a safety issue or safety concern with handling of nuclear waste or with experiments called subcritical testing about a site and I was involved in looking at how to ensure we can continue this operation safely

Q: you've obviously collected this incredible technical background and then also this ability to kind of see the big picture was it the combination of those two things that led to your appointment at the interstate

A: I think so I had been blessed to have a great technical foundation in the rickover Navy they continued my entire time the Navy and I've done hundreds of reactor startups have operated hundreds of thousands of miles at sea under nuclear power and of operators nuclear weapons so I had had that grounding as many other people in navy had as well so I think that was a key part of it then the NSA Hill experience I understood how Congress worked I understood how to deal with some potentially volatile issues and I think those are factors that were considered yeah and so what actually happens so I was at you know asked to go put my name they had to be a commission of Nuclear Regulatory Commission was confirmed in early 2010 to serve the remaining term of former chairman Dale Kline so he had 15 months left in his term when he left the agency and then I was confirmed subsequently for a five-year term after that suspend I guess six years and three months of the NRC

while there's a busy time yeah yeah what was happening during those yeah so that right when I got there this was still during the what some people would call the nuclear Renaissance oh I'm sorry listen so I know that you you Bret you've talked a lot of folks about that topic it's a term I don't really use but that was used by others I want your purse yeah so

in April 2010 first of April and I was sworn in as a commissioner the NRC staff was reviewing license applications for 26 reactors 26 the Me's and the new reactor office which have been stood up a few years previously by mail client as chairman to handle this influx of applications from loon licenses had hundreds of people and then I think I'm going to sound overly simplistic but the shale natural gas phenomenon was the key factor in making the economics of commercial nuclear power not stand up in this country compared to gas generation plants

Q: can we just pause I'm not sure because I want to emphasize yeah you say economicS. yes it's the economics it's not safety because I can't tell you how many people I talk to you something even within the nuclear industry who are like oh people just don't want nuclear any more I'm like no they were about to build about 30 yes economics it

A: you know from I I've had lots of conversations you spent a lot of time looking these issues and I visited a lot of plants around the country and talked a lot of people and I you know here in 2019 a more convinced than ever that the sole reason for where the nuclear is today United States is strictly economics thank it is not a concern on safety it's not a concern on the technology it's the dollars

Q: yeah you know alright so I'm gonna put a pin in that because later I'm gonna make you I'm going to challenge you to solve the economics issues before we do that let's talk a little bit more about some of the other things that were happening here

A: sure so the other thing in the first month that I was there I'll go back a second when I was official at NSA I go to a weekly meeting with the Secretary of Energy that time was secretary Sam bodman now is there other senior leaders in the organization and I'll never forget in June of 2008 when mr. Ward Sproat came into our meeting and announced that later that day he as the head of the office of civilian radioactive waste would be submitting the formal license application to the NRC for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository I thought it all began so and and we were excited to see that the nuclear waste Policy Act of 2009 teen 82 had very clear processes and procedures for site selection in their sauce 1000 2008 less than two years from then I show up with NRC as a commissioner and one of the first issues before us is this the part of energy request withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application from the NRC I voted against the depart of energy I felt like the law was very clear and it's not that I was a sellout for nuclear nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain but I was a selling them follow the law if you don't like the law go amend it and so I consistently spoke out in favor of continuing to review the license application because the law mandated that politics played a role in that and over the next several years Yucca Mountain consumed quite a bit of our time fast forward to January around January 2015 very proud of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff the technical staff evaluated that the safety criteria approved and in place and the code of federal regulations for geologic repository were projected to be met to comply with all safety security and environmental standards for out to 1 million years

Video 8

Q: I come away with two things from meeting a lot of nuclear folks one is how they are what I consider held to such an unfair higher standard than every other industry which kind of burdens the growth of nuclear industry altogether but to how they always seem to rise to the challenge - which is unbelievable I mean the best song I think the best scientists in the world are working to solve nuclear problems because how do you make anything last for a million years that's a great that is a crazy crazy task like I mean think you know practically you know I almost kind of wish you maybe when the politics were handling the original criteria they should have put it a thousand years or something because who knows what you manatees jerk like a thousand years from now I mean even thousands kind of a crazy number but to set it at a million and then to have the nuclear people live up to that these are superheroes

A: and I I agree with you and and nowise know I sang with a hundred percent certainty that everything can be definitively projected for a million years but using the best modeling simulation projection tools available they did yeah and so it's I think it's very unfortunate that the country needs a geologic repository these plants though they safely and securely store fuel on site now those plants never designed for that role to handle it in the intermediate storage facilities on the sides and I'm hopeful that sometime in the future hopefully the near future will have a change of scenery here the change of message that will facilitate moving forward with geologic repository and do we have to have a geologic repository right now as far as I've heard these dry cask storage that are above site I mean these things cost at least a hundred years as yes

Q: why not yeah why not just put it all on military base somewhere for the next 100 years put a million dollars in the bank let it that accrue interest and then 100 years from now that million dollars is going to fund whatever solution 100 years people from now technology you have which is gonna even be even crazier I mean what's wrong with it just staying above ground in some dry casks on a military base

A: well I mentioned that I was involved in voting with other Commissioner colleagues on precisely this concept called the waste confidence rule in the waste conference rule was a commission decision as to whether or not fuel could continue to be stored safely on-site in the dry cast storage and there were expectations and criteria put in place to have ongoing monitoring surveillance of material characteristics of the dry cask surveillance to ensure that things were still the Integrity's cask and the spent fuel inside was all appropriate and so they can stay on site it's safe and secure today the way it is your proposed model could work most people suggested we all just go ahead and move forward the repository and disposition of via that method method which has been the geologic repository has been the mode conceptually at least that all of the countries have embraced I just wish that we could take like a more practical approach especially since now this geological processor is proving to be a political hot that I wish we could think it's that bad don't say what's the practical option that I have that's a very fair point to make yes okay so that was one so you know that was going on about a year into my time at the NRC March 11th of 2011 the reactor action of Fukushima occurred

Q: well you were there through it all pretty much every big event

A: that heavily involved a lot of the work with other commissioner colleagues on the looking at what are the lessons learned that we should take away for this country we quickly made a determination that we thought that nuclear power plants the United States were safe and did not need to be shut down at the same time we wanted to learn lessons and where appropriate and corporate new regulatory requirements if they were needed in order to learn from these lessons and I think we did that in a fairly disciplined appropriate manner I think I'd the time I left the NRC in June of 2016 I can either 25 or 26 separate boats and Fukushima Liberatore actions as a commissioner their process was different in Japan compared to United States their process required each individual plant to obtain permission who's called the local Prefecture which is the equivalent of our state governmental unit so there is a non national government process that had to be exercised and implemented to allow a restart to be considered that'd be crazy that'd be like each state in the u.s. having a different NRC or something isn't that the point of a federal government to take the role of certain things like this under under US law under the 1954 Atomic Energy Act and the governing bases for the NRC and its predecessor Atomic Energy Commission federal law preempts state regulation of nuclear issues that's not necessarily the system that is in place in Japan so the local prefectures have had a voice I think there's a loss of confidence after Fukushima and the existing regulatory agency at that time Nisa myself and other commissioners worked with the Japanese government on how to reform Nisa into today's it's called NRA nuclear Regulation Authority and many of the commissioners had a role in trying to coach a mentor that body to get to a better place I think they're in a better place today albeit has been slow

Video 9
Q: advised beyond your beyond a role as commissioner I had in these last few years have you been advising other organizations and groups in countries as well yeah in a small capacity

A: I serve on the advisory council for input the Institute for nuclear power operations that was established after the Three Mile Island accident 1979 to provide an industry-led safety organization United States so their CEO Bob Willard asked me when I left the NRC to join that devisor II Council so I'm doing that I'm currently serving on a National Academy of Sciences committee dealing with plutonium disposition pursuant to an agreement with the Russian Federation to get rid of weapons-grade plutonium and to use I was called a dilute indisposed method for disposal this plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico were involved in that so those are examples of things I am it's mixing a chemical formula with existing plutonium and changing the chemical and physical structure of this plutonium to ensure it's not usable in a future nuclear weapon cool now the details all of that are classified as you can imagine but we've been a our Committee issued an interim report end of November last year final report will come out in a few months and I think there's many more to follow in that area

Video 10
Q: giving your level of experience security must be an issue that people ask you for advice can we talk about that how sure how especially specifically how nuclear energy plays a role in national security

A: yeah and this is a big topic and we can go down several different pathways here I did spend quite a bit of time during my time as an NRC commissioner looking at physical cyber security as well as insider threat issues and I had a little bit of a background with my time in the nuclear Navy both of the reactor and weapons side to do that I'm actually getting it this morning before I came in here I was working and get asked to give a talk at George Washington University here we captured next on nuclear security to a group of graduate students so I'm working on that right now I think the security of US nuclear power plants is extraordinarily robust I think the guard forces are highly trained are robustly tested and evaluated cyber security the other element there is very complex it's a technically complex topic I think the NRC has appropriate rules in place and these things don't happen overnight but I think the industry has done a good job of implementing their cybersecurity rules the other component security is what's called insider threat or fitness for duty I think we've learned a lot around the world about how one bad actor can come in not nothing to do the nuclear context but the Washington Navy Yard shooting about six or seven years ago where the employee comes into the workplace and kills never you know his colleagues we learn from that so that I think those are things looking at how do you assess the human factor is this also part of the security and 'she's those just those three examples physical cybersecurity insider threat there's other things other topics and security but I think the u.s. security posture for our commercial industry and we stew wit the NRC we meet every six months the Department Homeland Security and the intelligence community to reevaluate and assess current events to ensure that we had our finger in the pulse where the key issues were and so okay so that's on plant security side what about the broader issue of security like the world that we live in you know having a greater you know nuclear US nuclear presence around the world you know energy perspective absolutely and I've given a number of speeches in this topic last a couple of years I've testified before Congress I quite frankly Brett him worried that as the US commercial industry continues to be in somewhat of a state of decline that our ability as a country to influence nuclear security worldwide will be lessened one goes about beginnings of the u.s. nuclear power program and at Muroc over at the USS Nautilus the first submarine went to sea in 1954 55 time period law this technology started in our country and we played a major role worldwide in shaping proper standards and criteria for nuclear safety and security yet as I mentioned earlier when we started NRC nine years ago we had 26 license applications and new reactors now the only believed on the license application are cease reviewing is that for new skills small modular reactor so that decline in the future prospects for building reactors United States is a concern to me I think it can be reversed but that decline come companies a lessened voice of the international table where we see Russia and China in particular being somewhat aggressive and marketing their technology for export other countries I'm worried about this area yeah it's like if we want to have a voice at the table we have to be regarded as an expert like and unless we're doing stuff we need to be a player if we're not participating in building new reactors and operating our existing plants if the slope of the total number of plants United States is negative projected to the future then there's less of a reason for other countries to engage us and like and I think the other thing is and correct me if I'm wrong but you know like countries have their own sovereignty right we can't just show up and march into places and demand to see stuff but if we have a relationship with them if we have our infrastructure there if we're investing in those countries then they're more likely to you know open the kimono absolutely you know and and that way we can we can spot potential problems before they exist but if we're not there and we don't have that relationship what we can't use our expertise to make the world a safer place absolutely I wholeheartedly agree to comment I think United States has been proactively involved with the International Atomic Energy Agency has been partly involved the Nuclear Energy Agency over in Paris my former good friend Bill Magwood or Foreman or State Commissioner for attack yeah exactly the great guy good friend but the bottom line is if US companies are not involved and designing and building plants overseas not necessarily as a sole entity but maybe in partnership with another country then we'll have less of a stake less of a chance to hopefully influence proper safety and security practices worldwide I'm not criticizing other countries by this comment I'm just saying I think we have a lot to offer we are still today the largest nuclear power plant operator in the world [Music] you [Music]

Video 11 clearly economics is a huge issue we're not going to be building them if they're not cheap enough so how do we fix this economic session yeah there's two and so these are controversial issues please you know I'm a believer in climate change and minimizing our carbon emissions roughly in many states you know an example I was at a Federal Energy and regulatory commission FERC Commission hearing but four years ago NRC commissioners and FERC commissioners would meet but every other year so and have a hearing and when the last meeting I attended before I left the NRC topic came up of the closing of Energy's pilgrim plant in Cape Cod Massachusetts and the closure that one plant it's a single operator single operating unit the closure that one plant was going to result in a 50% the loss of 50 percent of the carbon free generating capacity in the state and that carbon free emissions capability is not valued in the marketplace today in the first job to decide what's valued me suggest that secretary Perry who I command for his steps and trying to work on this from a grid security grid reliability standpoint has forwarded communications to FERC on this topic not necessarily carbon but on the grid reliability grid is just another one of the amazing things nuclear energy does yeah exactly two years worth of fuel right there you need shipments coming in if anything were to happen it's still right there so I think the market valuation could be affected by federal legislation can and should be looked at by FERC there ruggah toward capacity for energy markets I also think that I've said there's some number of speeches and told Congress and several occasions that this goes back limit our investment discussion on missile defense agency R&D; I think that it's worthwhile for the federal government to invest the federal dollars in procuring small modular reactors and I'm saying that without saying that any single vendor ought to win that but that absent federal investment to go by let's say 10 SM ours to bring down the first of a kind risk to provide the opportunity for economies of scale because you have a book of orders of 10 or more reactors I think that kind of a federal step is appropriate and warranted if we want to see the option in the future 100 years now 200 years from now being able to rely upon nuclear energy and the theory there is that if the if the government acts as a customer base a guaranteed customer base and the ball can get rolling and you can develop a supply chain and you can have some examples of real sites built out and and then private investors can then look through the economics of what happened and develop confidence and then private capital takes over from there exactly because if all you do is build one new reactor that's probably not a sufficient data point for the private investment community to say hey we've all these risk you've been taken care of but if you have 10 of those that are built with federal support to draw down the risk profile because of you've had the learnings from these 10 units being built it makes it much more likely for private money to come in it drives the overall cost down on a per unit basis because you're having the economies of scale of more of a mass production rather than one of a kind production needs to be convinced to make this a reality then like okay the government is a big purchaser of electricity all right buildings need to be heated and lit up and everything like it could could could department heads of various government agencies make the decision and just saying we are gonna issue a purchase order for well reactor nuclear energy and I applaud again the part of energy for being proactive the part of energy Idaho National Laboratory have been working with new scale for such a power purchase agreement associate with new scales proposal for this amps Utah associative in this poll power system project Congress has been supportive in some of their piece of legislation that have supported federal backed Power Purchase Agreements for advanced reactor design I think more needs to be done why can't the Department of Energy itself who knows nuclear energy nobody there needs to be convinced about what nuclear energy is or isn't or at least at the top they shouldn't be able to they should know what it is at this point why can't I think about seventeen National Labs or something why can't eat one issue a purchase order for a small modular reactor to supply that National Labs electricity starting in the year 2025 percent I think theoretically Brett that could be done obviously it requires support of office management budget aka the White House requires bipartisan congressional support ok so that's my question yeah it requires it requires Congress to because because that money would be you know if it's going to be done by the National Laboratories that goes through the House and Senate energy and water appropriations committees they have to appropriate the money for that so you need you need congressional buy-in and do they did that happen I guess for what how are they purchase electricity right now do congress sign off on you get to be connected to the grid or you get to build the solar plan on-site or you get to build a wastewater treatment facility or whatever they build right now the Congress actually sign off on those things I can't speak to the exact details of that I don't know but I can tell you that for federal dollars to be spent yeah for building a reactor plant whether it be a small modular reactor or some other type of advanced reactor that does require congressional approval and in our system of government pluralism plays out you have perhaps some other energy sectors that might not be as favorable to this as the nuclear industry might be they've had their fun it's our child so so yeah you have there's a balancing piece but I think Congress I've been impressed at Congress I think it's paying attention to this I was an event just last week in the Capitol Hill where Senator Whitehouse senator Crapo in a bipartisan fashion spoke on this topic at a high level I think there's some good leaders in Congress on this it takes those some degree of urgency and some commitment make happen well with climate change we certainly have our gence e coming right up and you know I think when a security perspective to having a robust industry that's a pretty urgent thing to weaken and I don't think that you know I mean I'm making a number up here so don't hope you know that I have no inside knowledge or detailed knowledge of what one small reactor might cost let's just say it's thirty three or four billion dollars I'm making that number up times ten if you invest in that over twenty year period that's not a large percentage of our federal defense dollars or energy dollars and so I think that from my perspective that's a worthwhile investment for Congress and a federal government to consider I'm a believer from the energy security standpoint in all the above I want to have gas when solar other renewables I think we need to have all this capability going forward and we sit back and pause I'm going back to mountain my 40 plus years in submarine nuclear weapons NRC experience one cannot underestimate the importance of the human capital factor if this country wants to have nuclear be a viable source for energy with other sources 100 or 200 years from now we need to be very careful what we do today we need to be very careful about ensuring that we are investing at some level because if the nuclear industry in this country shuts down for a generation we should be naive for us to think we could regenerate that capability 50 years from now and hence if we want to make sure we keep all these options on the table for energy sources 100 years now we need to invest today and nuclear the last enough your wisdom is very much appreciated thank you come and talk to me today thanks Brian joy the discussion [Music] you [Music]

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Background in Business and Physics
Are you the only scientist in Congress?

Bill Foster, a Congressman from the 11th District in Illinois, was, for many years, the only PhD scientist in Congress. Foster started out his undergraduate studies at the age of 16 at the University of Wisconsin majoring in physics. When he was 18, Foster worked with his brother to invent a system using the newly invented microprocessor to control stage lighting. His brother’s expertise in technical theater, coupled with Foster’s experience working with computer chips, brought the product together and they identified a need in the market. They originally marketed their product through pre-established main players in theatrical lighting. The company Foster helped start now manufactures about 70% of all the theatrical lighting in the U.S. After serving as president of the company for a decade, Bill Foster returned to school to pursue a PhD in physics. His PhD thesis was on the search for proton decay.

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Discovery Made During the Search for Proton Decay
How could the Office of Science at the Department of Energy afford your research on proton decay?

Bill Foster’s program had letters from Nobel Laureates supporting the importance of his research on proton decay, which was funded by the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. Foster learned that, in fact, the proton did not decay. He did, however, make the discovery that 167,000 years ago a star blew up in the greater Magellanic cloud, bringing a flash of light and a burst of neutrinos that was visible in Earth's underground detector in 1987. After finishing his graduate degree, Foster spent most of his career at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) outside of Chicago. For the first ten years at Fermilab, Foster designed and analyzed data from experiments, such as smashing protons and antiprotons together. The discovery of the top quark was achieved during this experiment.

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Field Theory
How do quarks make up an atom?

The field theory is an operator function of space-time, an infinite dimensional matrix at every point in space-time. Particle physics sees great advances and qualitative new discoveries when more powerful accelerators are created. This pattern also exists with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which was able to detect the Higgs particle. Nuclear energy is the most recent direct commercial application of subatomic physics. There are many spinoff technologies, such as superconducting cable used by MRI’s, which was a product of an attempt to discover the top quark. Foster’s first ten years at Fermilab was spent designing experiments and analyzing data, followed by ten years of designing and building the actual particle accelerators. Bill Foster invented the last of the antiproton recycler ring built at Fermilab and led the team that built the magnets for it.

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Physics in Congress
How did you turn from physics to a political career?

Bill Foster’s father was also a scientist who gave up his career to become a civil rights lawyer and wrote much of the enforcement language behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After putting his technical skills to use for the Navy during World War II and seeing the damage his work was doing, Foster’s father returned home. Foster's father saw civil rights as the great moral challenge of his generation. In the back of Foster’s mind was a feeling that he ought to spend part of his life trying to make the world a better place. Almost every issue discussed in Congress has a technological component. Foster's scientific expertise has been a valuable asset many times while serving in Congress. In 2008, right when the economy was collapsing, Foster first took office and understood the technical and mathematical aspects of structured financial products. Another example is the Iran Nuclear Deal, which had extensive technical mandates for reactor core specifications that would limit the functionality of Iran’s heavy water reactor for production of large amounts of weapons grade plutonium. A one year breakout time was part of the Deal, which allowed Foster to brainstorm different pathways to creating bomb materials and verify whether the one year breakout was a valid limitation.

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Office of Technology Assessment
Is Congress fundamentally set up to be handling extremely technically challenging topics?

Bill Foster sees the defunding of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) as a recent tragedy that happened when Newt Gingrich and Republicans took over Congress in an effort to downsize Government. OTA was a group of very highly trained scientists, mostly academic, with direct connections to true subject matter experts that can provide highly qualified, technical advice to Congress. Foster participated in a long crusade to restore OTA's funding and recently achieved this through the Appropriations Committee budget proposal out of the U.S. House, which is now awaiting Senate approval. This would be a historic reversal of the office defunding.

Climate Change Solutions
What’s your take on climate change?

Bill Foster sees two major problems facing climate change: decarbonizating the U.S. and decarbonizating the rest of the developing world. The U.S. has enough money, looking at household net worth, to decarbonize the economy. The cost to decarbonize in the U.S. is significantly less than the household net worth. If technical solutions are used that are too expensive to be adapted in India or Africa, then only 5% of the problem will have been solved. Research for developing low cost techniques of decarbonizing an energy intensive economy should be prioritized. Carbon dioxide extraction techniques do exist, but are expensive, and geoengineering is also in consideration. These technologies work decently well in simulation, but could have unintended side effects. One possibility to remove existing carbon from the atmosphere is aggressively developing bioengineered plants that are much more effective at sinking carbon. Emissions have to be reduced, which could be avoidable with things like efficiency and nuclear energy.

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Economics of Decarbonization
Why can’t we first invent technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere and eventually use it to solve new emissions?

The McKinsey curve looks at technologies in which carbon emissions can be reduced or eliminated and identifies limits that exist for each technology. Each technology has a total amount of carbon that can be averted and a total cost. The curve shows which technology avoids the most carbon per dollar and identifies which technologies should be pursued. Nuclear is more complicated and has failure modes that can’t happen at other power plants; it costs money to ensure those events are unlikely to happen at a level that is socially acceptable. Some advanced nuclear techniques are walkaway safe and are attractive economically since they don’t need the same level of safety systems. However, people are nervous about things they cannot see, since they cannot conceptualize its level of danger. Due to a lack of detailed understanding, the public demands a higher level of safety.

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Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy
What do we do to get ourselves out of this [advanced nuclear] situation?

Bill Foster is trying to push aggressively in Congress to get a handful of advanced nuclear systems prototyped. Foster is enthusiastic about the accelerator-driven systems in which a target gets hit by a particle beam creating a cascade of neutrons, and liberating the energy that would come from a nuclear reactor, but itself is not a reactor. These designs have a natural off-switch which can be multiplied by other safety systems. This technology is not only intrinsically safe, but also has the ability to burn the waste very deeply to decrease the amount of nuclear waste that is left over. To get a bill passed to enable this kind of technology, there are two relevant Congressional Committees: one committee, the appropriators, splits up the pie, and the other committee, authorizes the spending. This system is in place to have multiple sets of eyes, just as the Senate and House work together.

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Strategy for Passing Laws in Congress
What does it take to round up the support to get funding for a project?

An individualized strategy is needed for each project to be considered, to serve allies and opponents in order to get committal. A large number of projects may be ready to move the ball forward at any given time, waiting for the political stars to line up. The Stock Act was a ban on insider trading by members of Congress, since the members get market moving information on a confidential basis as part of their hearing. In the past, this inside information had been used to make money on the stock market and it had never been illegal for this to happen. During the depths of the financial crisis, “60 Minutes” did a story on insider trading and began talking to members of Congress, leading to a law against insider trading. Foster’s father talked about a similar struggle with the Civil Rights Act and how great things can happen when the political stars line up.

Bret Kugelmass: What was your path to your current role as Director General of of Mexico’s National Commission on Nuclear Safety and Safeguards?

Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Juan Eibenschutz Hartman studied mechanical and electrical engineering at university, following up with a nuclear engineering post-graduate degree. This program at the National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology, in Saclay, France, got him hooked on nuclear energy. Hartman returned to Mexico in 1960 and joined CFE, a large state-owned electric company, in 1962. In the previous administration, the constitution was modified to allow utilities other than CFE to sell power, with the hope of creating an electricity market, but current administration has returned to a state-owned market.

5:47 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: An acquaintance of Hartman’s performed preliminary studies for more nuclear power plants at the Northern border of Mexico. During that administration, the Northern part of the country imported electricity from the U.S. and it was thought that Mexico should produce their own electricity. Hartman spent two years in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in what was then called the Division of Nuclear Power and Reactors. This division focused on safeguards and physical security at nuclear reactors. The basic function of the IAEA is to implement the safeguards program, but the origin of the IAEA was the Atoms for Peace program from U.S. President Eisenhower. The agency aimed to prevent proliferation and give technical assistance to developing countries. Hartman was part of a mission in 1963 to South Korea aimed at studying the energy situation and looking at the possibilities of implementing nuclear power. The economic situation at the time was very low, but it has since turned around to be very successful, which many attribute to energy abundance.

11:59 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The only resource South Korea had was coal, and it was not very good quality. There is some hydro energy, but no oil or gas. The recommendation to the country was that they would not be able to grow without nuclear power. Since Juan Eibenschutz Hartman spoke French, he became good friends with the Deputy Director General for Technical Operation, who was a Frenchman being groomed for the keeper of the first French Atomic Energy Commission. This connection led to Hartman’s mission in South Korea. Hartman was also responsible for looking into direct energy conversion, from source to user, achieved through the use of ionized gases. In the process of pursuing new fusion technologies, new materials were developed that could be used in practical applications.

17:44 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: A special unit focused on operations research was formed and the first nuclear power plant in the U.S. was decided on economic grounds. Mexico decided to look into the technology more carefully. With the prices found during research, it appeared that nuclear energy would be competitive with fuel oil, the main source of power plants.

19:02 Bret Kugelmass: Why was the default assumption that nuclear would be cheaper than oil based power? What were the limiting factors in the industry that made it almost not competitive?
19:21 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The energy density of nuclear is so enormous, it is easy to make it economically competitive. The main problem with nuclear was that the development of the first nuclear power plants, in the U.S. and other countries, was work carried out by scientists who evolved from the weapons program, such as nuclear submarines. For this application, economics were not a factor in development; for example, the cables are made of silver, which is the best conductor, but is expensive. At the beginning, people who designed nuclear power plants were fairly confident with nuclear power plants, but did not take into consideration the capital sin of nuclear: the bomb. Originally, the nuclear bomb was known to the world in 1945 and the conventional thought was that people would forget. When talking with the general public about nuclear, the first thing they picture is the mushroom cloud created by the bomb. Hartman saw the nuclear industry grow up to be psychologically complex, as the industry is more afraid of an accident than the general public, regardless of the fact that if an accident happens, the consequences are low.

26:21 Bret Kugelmass: Is iodine the fission product that we have to worry about in terms of being a hazard to human health?

26:29 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The reactors are designed to trap the fission products, in gaseous, liquid, and solid forms. Multiple barriers are in place, including fuel pellets, zirconium tubes, reactor, the building around the reactor, and in some places, a building that will withstand the crash of a large airplane and allow the reactor to maintain its integrity. At Fukushima, the direct vent, also known as the filter vent. If something bad happened, it is better to let the pressure escape the building, instead of letting the building explode.

27:52 Bret Kugelmass: Why, from the defense theory, is an airtight structure good to restrict the flow of radionuclides?

28:18 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Many people said that it is good to have it airtight, provided there was not a failure. The containment building is very big and is designed for relatively low air pressure in an airtight state. Increasing the pressure beyond its limits could blow it up, so a relief valve is needed in airtight systems. Boiling water reactors have a condenser inside the reactor; if the steam from the main system blows, it blows into water and it is condensed, so the pressure in the containment does not grow too much. In spite of that, it has now been ruled that containment building must now have a safety valve, mostly as a result of Fukushima. For a while, nuclear energy was well liked, but there were some mishaps with public relations. One example is a situation in which a family was approached by representatives from the nuclear industry to notify them of new nuclear construction in the area. The representatives explained how safe the nuclear technology was and that nothing would go wrong, but the couple remembered that, when a refinery was built nearby, nobody came from the refinery to convince them of its safe operation. The couple began to distrust the people from nuclear; the public was suspicious why nuclear was making special trips to tell people how it was safe, instead of just building the plant, leading to an overall perception of mistrust. Nuclear scientists were selling nuclear power as too cheap to meter and too safe to worry about.

33:42 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: If you want to project confidence, you have to act with confidence. The reaction to Three Mile Island was an absolute shame. The person responsible for the safety of reactors invented the hydrogen bubble, but was not an engineer. This idea that there could be a hydrogen bubble, which could combine with oxygen and blown fission products would be distributed across the state. At Three Mile Island, nobody in the general public received a higher dose of radiation than normal. Normally, nuclear power plant vendors all would have the same speech based on the economics and the characteristics of nuclear. The density of the fission reaction is so big that all the irradiated material could fit in a standard household room. The nuclear industry transmitted a sense of insecurity. After Chernobyl, in spite of the fact that Chernobyl was not a nuclear power plant, the conversation started shifting towards safety because they think people will have to be reassured.

41:09 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The result of the preliminary studies in Mexico brought interesting insights. In 1968, a specialist in decision analysis from Stanford came to Mexico to present a guest lecture at CFE. Hartman thought his operations research group, which included a few nuclear people, could absorb more of these decisions analysis techniques and mathematical tools. Hartman’s group wanted to get this expert, Ron Howard, to open a project for their operations group through the non-profit, but expensive, Stanford Research Institute. Through this project, a system was developed for optimizing the expansion of the power system. Different alternatives are evaluated by combining different factors, such as probabilities of plants being available and probabilities of transmission systems working properly. This model was used to test the feasibility of nuclear in Mexico. Ron Howard wrote the program and was used by many consultants in the electrical power planning business. After approval for the plan from CFE, the proposal went to the President, who approved, but passed the decision on to the next administration.

48:20 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Normally, big utilities have a competent engineering system and contractors that run the show. Hartman and his group convinced CFE that their project should be run this way. The operations group used the Stanford program for the bid evaluation, including bids for nuclear supply system, generators, and fuel. The program combined the bid to evaluate the different combinations, such as a Mitsubishi reactor with a Toshiba turbine. This would use the expenditures for one combination as income for the other determine which combination got the highest factor. The combination that won was the G.E., for combustion engineering, and Mitsubishi, for the turbines. When the administration changed, the supplier had been selected, but it was discovered there were bribery issues. The new President authorized the project, but required a re-evaluation. The results were exactly the same, but the bids were 3% lower. The first letter of intent was signed in 1973 and the first completed unit was in 2005. A new director for CFE came in and thought the design should have been all different. The plant was the wrong type, it was located in Vera Cruz, a center of wealth, on a fault, and a series of other concerns. The project became stop-and-go with lots of changes, including the engineering firm, and the price continued to climb.

57:22 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The whole supporting system for the cooling pipes had to be redone, changing the scope of the entire plant. Regulators did not want to modify the design because it had been approved and licensed.

1:00:10 Bret Kugelmass: How come every regulator has the same problem?

1:00:19 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Hartman sees an issue with technology and philosophy of regression, not necessarily the regulators. The Nuclear Energy Agency of OECD has two groups: the committee on the safety of nuclear installations, and the committee of the safety of regulated activities. These committees work together on physical projects to examine different phenomenon. There is a tendency to have a certain non-uniformity, or homogeneity on regression, but this is changing due to small modular reactors. The new plan is to open the door for new designs and support small reactors. Hartman’s last IAEA meeting in 1964 was about small reactors; Hartman presented a paper suggesting that the agency act as a broker for small reactors to put together the demand for many companies for the same type of reactor.

1:05:00 Bret Kugelmass: In the last 50 years, what has prevented the idea of small reactors from surfacing and being implemented commercially?

1:05:10 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The problem with nuclear is that, on one hand, the first mass application was the nuclear bomb, and the attitude of the nuclear industry regarding fear. Aside from the fact the weapons of mass destruction can be released, the way that climate change is being approached is amazing to Hartman. The interruptible energy sources are not enough to meet demand when needed. The only source that can really substitute fossil fuels is nuclear, which can become an infinite source. Uranium as a component of the Earth continually circulates, and is relatively low as a function of the cost to deliver power from a nuclear plant.

1:08:22 Bret Kugelmass: Safety barriers are based on the consequence of an accident being high. Why can’t somebody demonstrate that the consequence of an accident is not high in order to get relief from the safety paradigm that drives cost?

1:08:45 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: When the AEC in Brussels decided what to do with irradiated fuel, they came up with a solution. Radioactive material is very easy to detect and only requires a simple device. Plastic, metals, and chemicals are all materials that have a long term disposal effect, but radioactive material is treated differently. Public perception is still generally fearful of radiation and nuclear technology. Radiation is a natural phenomenon and should be taken into consideration by the nuclear community. Hartman sees Fort Knox as the best solution for nuclear waste.

1:14:02 Bret Kugelmass: Why isn’t dilution the best solution for nuclear waste?

1:14:15 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Dilution is very complicated as a solution for nuclear waste due to the amount of water that would be needed to dilute. The canisters used were not that resistant and the fission products were escaping. There is no need for purposeful dilution, because we can keep the radioactive materials safe and let them decay.

1:15:38 Bret Kugelmass: Has anyone tried to reshape the culture of the nuclear community, or are there countries where the engineers talk and feel differently?

1:16:00 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: Both Finland and South Korea have successful nuclear programs. China has an objective view on nuclear culture. The original concept in Russia is that maintenance is not required; plants are built to produce copper, and when it is useless, a new plant is built.

1:18:20 Bret Kugelmass: Do you see a bright future looking forward for the nuclear community?

1:18:38 Juan Eibenschutz Hartman: The future of nuclear depends on the manifestations of climate change. Hartman challenges the APEC idea of limiting carbon content in the atmosphere. A future with nuclear is unavoidable. There is no viable society without nuclear, unless a new form of energy is discovered, such as fusion. If we keep putting carbon into the atmosphere, it is going to collapse and change the world we live in. It is important to avoid putting debris into the atmosphere. We must stop being frightened, start being more objective, and put the nuclear community to work.

Q1 - Entrance into the Energy Sector

Naomi Senehi: Are you from DC originally?

Bob Ichord: Bob Ichord is from the New York area, but his family comes from Missouri. Ichord worked in the energy sector during his graduate program at a time leading up to the oil embargo. Originally, Ichord became interested in the energy sector due to the international aspect, but was also influenced by his father, a lawyer in the oil and chemical industries. Both oil and natural gas are still significant to the U.S. and world economies. When Ichord joined the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) in 1976, the programs in research, development, and commercialization of renewable energy were just beginning. In 1977, the Federal Energy Administration and ERDA joined together to create the Department of Energy. Ichord attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University with a focus on International Development and also had a fellowship at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, which involved a full year of research on energy issues in Southeast Asia. Bob Ichord spent most of his career managing energy projects across the globe and received an opportunity to be a deputy security for the new energy bureau in 2011.

Q2 - USAID Brings Energy to Global Communities

Naomi Senehi: What work did you do at USAID?

Bob Ichord: USAID is the U.S. prime development assistance agency with a focus on both economic and social development. Energy, both electric power and oil, was very important to the efforts of trying to develop viable economics in the countries of focus. Some countries were experiencing rapid growth and urbanization, creating large demands for electricity, and access to power was an issue, so rural electrification was also a significant focus. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ichord transitioned from Southeast Asia to the Eastern European region and focused on transforming centrally-planned, former communist countries into market-oriented democracies. Due to the pollution and extensive use of coal in the region, environmental issues were also a focus in this area. Some U.S. utilities and regulators partnered with local utilities, through USAID, to provide a channel for international education about energy efficiency. Many of these countries had old Russian-designed nuclear reactors and G7 worked to close many of these early generation, high risk reactors. These reactors had no containment, poor instrumentation, control systems, and piping and did not meet regulations in the U.S. or in Europe.

Q3 - Nuclear Reform Following Chernobyl

Naomi Senehi: Did you do any work on Chernobyl?

Bob Ichord: Bob Ichord was the State Department Coordinator for Nuclear Safety during the process of dealing with Chernobyl, working alongside the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The G7 Chernobyl agreement in 1996 with Ukraine provided for closure of remaining 3 reactors and led to establishment of a multilateral fund at the EBRD that provided funding for a safe containment structure over the destroyed reactor #4. The US made major contributions to the fund whose ultimate cost was somewhere around $2 billion. Part of the process and agreement related to broader reforms and efforts to promote the safety of the nuclear reactors that continued to operate. The Chernobyl event became very personal to Bob Ichord as he visited the impacted community and met the people who lived there. Overall, most of the reactors operated pretty well. Canada provided some CANDU heavy water reactors to Romania to build a large nuclear complex; two have been built, with two more being discussed with China. China has made a major commitment as part of an overall program to shift its energy mix to renewables, gas, and nuclear from being so heavily dependent on coal. Right now, Russia has the most foreign nuclear presence in exporting and building reactors outside of Russia, especially in Eastern Europe but also the Middle East and South Asia.

Q4 - International Market for Nuclear Energy

Naomi Senehi: What is the U.S. relationship in terms of exporting nuclear to other countries compared to Russia?

Bob Ichord: U.S. based Westinghouse recently completed four AP-1000 reactor builds in China which were connected to the grid in 2018. India has the third largest electricity system in the world, after the U.S. and China, and is growing rapidly. India wants to reduce coal use and diversify their energy mix, and they are currently very dependent on imported oil and gas. India has a rapidly growing electricity demand and millions of people who do not have access to electricity. However, local opposition to nuclear power has slowed down some of the projects, oftentimes due to concerns about land or water. China is building a lot of reactors domestically and from different sources, developed their own indigenous reactor design, based on existing technology, and are trying to market it in places such as Pakistan and Argentina. China has been involved in financing a plant with the Europeans in the United Kingdom, whose concerns focus on dependence on imports, but especially climate.

Q5 - International Nuclear Competition

Naomi Senehi: Why does each country want to develop their own nuclear as competition with other countries?

Bob Ichord: Both Russia and China are a big challenge to Western nuclear vendors, such as the U.S., Canada, Japan, and South Korea. South Korea has collaborated with U.S. suppliers to build nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. has also worked closely with Japan in the nuclear sector. Many countries around the world have tremendous energy demand, but their systems are relatively small and these traditional reactors are too large and not the best technical choice for these areas. Nuclear energy is critical to both national security and global interests, in terms of having a no-carbon option to complement renewables and natural gas. Many of these countries have shifting load patterns with more urbanization and peak load, requiring systems that have adequate load following capabilities. Before deploying advanced reactors, the regulators need to approve designs and there must be a clear path with regards to how the modular manufacturing and the construction techniques will be needed. Since the first units will be more expensive than those that follow, the government can provide help to create an initial market. The proposed Nuclear Energy Leadership Act provides for longer-term government power purchase agreements and support of demonstration projects for advanced reactors and collaboration between private sector and DOE national laboratories. Utilities aren’t willing to jump into nuclear right now unless there are significant advantages, due to the large up front risks and initial investments.

Q6 - Atlantic Council Task Force Report on Nuclear

Naomi Senehi: Tell me about your task force report.

Bob Ichord: The Atlantic Council Task Force Report on U.S. Nuclear Leadership grew out of substantial growing interest from Congress and the Trump Administration. Leaders in industry, non-governmental institutions involved in nuclear, as well as environmental clean energy groups were involved in the task force. Four substantive workshops - on the existing fleet, global markets, innovation, and fuel cycle issues - were hosted with the group and subject matter experts. Most people agreed that stronger action was needed to keep capacities of the existing fleet system. Approximately 5,000 MW of nuclear power has been shut down in recent years, with 11 GW of plants to be shut down by 2025. Natural gas is at its lowest price yet and extensive support programs have allowed renewable energy to develop. These are both factors that may need market restructuring so that the full benefits of nuclear’s reliability, carbon-free energy, and high capacity factors can be better valued in terms of the markets.

Q7 - Nuclear Risk and Investment

Naomi Senehi: Nuclear has a huge risk as added cost in initial investment which isn’t added to natural gas or renewable development. Is there anything to account for that?

Bob Ichord: Nuclear plants are being licensed for 60 years or more. Reactors have a high upfront capital cost, but have reliable 24/7 operation for 60 plus years. An effort is needed to replace some of renewable energy capacity in the future which requires additional capital investment, since they will not last 60 years. Most of the initiatives and credits for nuclear energy are coming from the state level, who have concerns about emissions as well as communities affected by closing plants. An efficient regulatory process is needed to license advanced reactors and the capacity to handle new designs. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, passed in 2018, had additional funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to increase their staff capacities and expertise to handle this influx. Congress had upped the funding for Department of Energy (DOE) for the nuclear programs research, including advanced reactors. A versatile test reactor has been promoted as needed for the U.S. to compete with Russian and Chinese nuclear development. The nuclear industry has some financing problems including with the US Export-Import Bank limited operational capacity since 2015. Both Russia and China have been creating frameworks with other countries as a market development process in preparation for exporting of nuclear technology.

Q8 - Small Modular Reactors in the Global Nuclear Scene

Naomi Senehi: With the inherent fear of nuclear that people have, why don’t other countries look towards the U.S. for nuclear support rather than China and Russia, since the NRC is valued highly?

Bob Ichord: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is seen as superior globally in terms of regulatory capacities and has been instrumental in developing the international regulatory framework. There are implications of how Chinese and Russian dominance of reactor builds in the rest of the world affect U.S. power and influence in international organizations related to the standards. New generations of technologies have different characteristics and a focus on developing safety and security. There will be a recognition of how critical it is for the U.S. to maintain its capacity in nuclear energy, especially as it relates to national security. Both China and South Korea are working on small modular reactors (SMR’s), so the U.S. needs to sustain and increase its effort in technology development to demonstrate the viability of these units in the U.S. and have credibility in the international scene. A domestic example of small modular reactors must be in place before the U.S. can export the technology. The Department of Defense (DOD) has a program looking at microreactor applications and installations. Progress needs to be made towards commercialization, with commercial demonstrations by the mid-2020 period and international demonstrations by 2030.

Q9 - Innovation and Commercialization of SMR’s

Naomi Senehi: What do you hope for the future of nuclear?

Bob Ichord: The geopolitical side of nuclear, as well as the issue of climate change, will drive nuclear in the future. Non-OECD countries (non-members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) are projected to account for 90% of future electricity growth. With more urbanization, more electricity is needed. Some countries are moving towards renewables and gas. Breakthroughs in the development of small modular reactors (SMR’s) could be applicable in many different countries, as 70 countries or so have a grid between 1-10 GW, compared to the 30+ countries that have 30 GW grids. If commercially viable SMR’s are available by 2030, there is potential for substantial growth, but the financial, risk, and public acceptance issues must be resolved. The risk of the U.S. not taking an aggressive positions on the issues of innovation and commercialization of these units is very high, because the opportunities are enormous and we will face difficulties if the world is dominated by state-owned companies from China and Russia. Units need to be demonstrated in the U.S. before they are exported. Since climate change affects everyone, a large scale, low carbon, economic energy option is needed to fight global warming and reduce pollution. U.S. funding capacities are significantly less than Chinese funding. From 2000-2018, China financed about $200 billion of energy international, with the support of government financing, state companies, and policy banks. The U.S. needs to get companies willing to take the risk and be willing to deal with the nuclear market in order to develop understanding about what is needed to compete internationally.

At this time we are still producing show notes for this episode. Please check back again at a future date.

Naomi Senehi: Is it correct that you are the former CEO of Chalk River Labs?

1:32 Bob Walker: Bob Walker was first the CEO of the parent Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and subsequently, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. The main site for Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is at Chalk River. Bob Walker, a born and raised Canadian, spent most of his professional career in Ontario. When the AECL was restructured in 2015, Bob Walker retired, but does continue some governance work with universities and private sector. He has also worked with university think tanks and to write in the space of small modular reactors (SMR’s). SMR’s can be game changers for Canada and the world, but will require the nuclear industry to change in fundamental ways.

4:24 Bob Walker: In the mid-1970’s, Bob Walker was studying radiation effects in materials as part of his engineering graduate studies at McMaster University in Ontario. He looked at the effects of neutron damage from fusion reactions on the first wall of a containment vessel for a fusion reactor, and gravitated to studying the effects of ionizing radiation on semiconducting materials. In the 70’s, a new method was created to build very small semiconductor devices using ion implantation. This implantation process damages the crystalline structure of the semiconductor and Walker focused on learning about that damage. After graduation, Bob Walker moved into the defense science world, working as a defense scientist in one of Canada’s maritime defense laboratories, where he eventually transitioned into management and executive roles.

7:00 Bob Walker: Bob Walker started his career created SONAR systems for Canada’s Navy and Air Force. In the 1990’s, Walker managed one of the nine defense labs and moved back into the corporate office in Ottawa for the defense research and development organization, eventually becoming the CEO. Walker also served as the Chief Scientist for the Department of National Defense and for the Canadian Forces. While preparing for retirement, Walker was approached about joining the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) as the Senior Vice President.

8:00 -

8:04 Bob Walker: The Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is a crown corporation in Canada, which is a public sector business that operates with a private sector business model in a public policy area. AECL was created after World War II in 1952 and is the home of the Canada reactor technology and operates a number of laboratories, the biggest being Chalk River. The government decided it was time to restructure the AECL and approached Bob Walker, who had a science background and knowledge of government machinery, to serve as an executive responsible for running the labs. Walker led the Chalk River Lab for five years.

10:11 -

10:20 Bob Walker: About a decade ago, the nuclear power industry in Canada was facing some headwinds. AECL, the big player in nuclear technology development, was in the business of selling Canada reactors around the world and had periods of time that were not commercially successful. At the same time, the Chalk River Labs, whose assets and liabilities were owned by the government and home to the National Research Universal Reactor (NRU) research reactor, was in an unscheduled shutdown for 15 months while repairs were made to the NRU containment vessel. This reactor was also a major producer of medical isotopes for the global market, bringing significant price increases in healthcare around the world. The government decided it was time to take half of AECL and sell the CANDU reactor division into the private sector, to SNC Lavalin. When the sale was completed in 2011, Walker became the CEO of the residual AECL, which was now predominately the nuclear laboratories. In 2013, the government decided to move the nuclear laboratories into a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) model, similar to how U.S. labs are managed. In 2013, a GOCO was created for the operation of the laboratories and packaged into a company called Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). Canada’s nuclear industry is in a better place than a decade ago, with the restructuring of AECL, new investments by federal government in CNL, and refurbishment of the CANDU fleet underway.

16:36 -

16:48 Bob Walker: Ontario has CANDU reactors at three nuclear facilities, two of which are being refurbished. The four reactors at Darlington is owned by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and the eight reactors at the Bruce Power site have or are going under refurbishment, with funding from both public and private sectors. Due to this work, Ontario is getting an extension of clean technology for another 30 years at a very competitive price.

18:25 -

18:51 Bob Walker: AECL’s role has always been in the design, development, and construct of the reactors, but is not focused on operation, however it does support the operators. In Canada, nuclear power currently provides 15% of the electricity supply, and in the province of Ontario, nuclear provides 60%. New Brunswick also has a CANDU reactor, which pulls approximately 30% of its electricity from nuclear power.

20:22 -

20:30 Bob Walker: Canada reactors, either CANDU reactors or reactors built based on the CANDU design, exist in Romania, Argentina, China, South Korea, India, and Pakistan. About 10% of the global fleet of nuclear power reactors are CANDU reactors that originated in the research and development completed at the Chalk River Labs.
21:14 -

21:22 Bob Walker: In the 1950’s, Canada decided to pursue civil nuclear power, but not nuclear weapons. As a consequence, Canada avoided the use of enrichment technologies, instead developing reactor designs that used CANDU, approximately 6%, of uranium. In order to use unenriched uranium, neutrons need to be slowed down, which is accomplished through the use of heavy water. Heavy water uses the deuterium ion of hydrogen instead of the regular hydrogen and has a higher cross-section for higher interaction. The CANDU reactor is a pressurized heavy water reactor and has a number of fuel channels in the calandria. Fuel bundles of CANDU are put inside the fuel channels, allowing the reactor can be fueled at power online. China is particularly interested in CANDU reactors because it can process multiple types of fuel, opening the possibility to utilize used fuel from their light water reactors.

25:52 -

26:35 Bob Walker: Canada, specifically Chalk River Labs, pioneered the methods for producing radioactive medical isotopes and distributing them globally. Technetium-99 is a decay product from molybdenum; moly-99 is a fission byproduct of the fission of uranium. The half life of these materials are very short, approximately six days for moly-99, requiring a carefully timed system. Supply is determined by the physics of the decay chain and there is essentially no storage. A number of reactors produce these isotopes, which are then sent to a purifying facility and shipped to hospitals, which had radiopharmacies where moly-99 decays. This larger research reactor ultimately became expensive to maintain, and It was found that the operating cost was not being recovered through the sale of isotopes around the world.

33:15 -

33:40 Bob Walker: By the time the National Research Universal Reactor (NRU) was being shut down, the capacity to produce moly-99 was about double the actual demand, providing a safe overhead for if any of the reactors were offline for repairs. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Bruce Power both stepped up to produce medical isotopes. OPG’s Darlington reactor is now producing moly-99. Bruce Power is producing another medical isotope, cobalt-60, that used to come out of NRU. It is used to sterilize medical equipment, used in approximately 80% of all sterilization.

36:42 Bob Walker: Since CANDU reactors are fueled online, fuel bundles can be put into reactors tailored to contain targets for producing medical isotopes. Nuclear is the heart of the health of many people around the world. Approximately one billion patients have been treated with isotopes coming out of the National Research Universal Reactor (NRU) over the years.

38:48 -

39:24 Bob Walker: Walker hears concerns about the safety, management, and transportation about nuclear waste. Radioactive medical isotopes are transported around the world every day, with minimal concerns about incidents or accidents.

40:34 Bob Walker: There is a technical and engineering solution for nuclear waste, but concerns tend to be more social or related to policy. In all countries with nuclear power, the ultimate solution for nuclear waste is to remove the radioactive waste from the biosphere and placing it in the geosphere. This allows materials to decay safely away from living things. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) was formed in the late 1990’s mandated to decide on a location for Canada’s deep geological repository for used fuel. The site must have the right geologic formation for the storage and there must be a willing host community. In Canada, fuel goes through the reactor once and is them moved into local storage on-site. Later, it will be transported to the repository. If electricity had not been produced with nuclear power in the past, it would have been produced with other methods that would have increased carbon in the atmosphere.

48:10 Bob Walker: Once can look as waste as a liability into the future, or as the end of a life cycle that has saved lives. There is a possibility that, as technology matures, the CANDU used fuel could be reprocessed. It is currently not economic to reuse that fuel. Some small modular reactor (SMR) designs are specifically targeted to use used CANDU fuel.

50:41 Bob Walker: After leaving AECL, Walker has engaged in writing and exploring the paradigm shifts as small modular reactors (SMR’s) take hold in the nuclear industry. Since the reactors are much smaller, they can be simpler, in terms of designs, and have lower unit costs. This has a number of implications in the accessibility of nuclear power to markets, especially smaller grids. The technology in the heart of the reactor embodies advanced technologies, often called Generation IV technologies, where are inherently safer, use less fuel, can be operated remotely, and have flexible loading scenarios. The modularity of the units allows factory production which could lead to shorter times and lower cost to construct. SMR’s introduce the potential for new markets, such as rural communities that are inaccessible to grids and currently use diesel generation. SMR’s could also provide an on-grid application, by replacing coal-fired or natural gas plants at a 1:1 ratio. These applications could normalize nuclear power by increasing the number of reactors around the world and bringing it closer to home for many people. There are approximately 400 operating nuclear reactors today. After SMR’s are deployed, there could be 10,000 nuclear reactors by 2050, bringing the fleet concept of nuclear reactors. This would also mean the development, construction, operation, and decommissioning of units may be happening all at once, contradicting the existing model for nuclear reactors.

1:01:50 Bob Walker: The industry needs to give communities voice as to how this shift to SMR’s should happen. New nuclear is about new technologies, but also about allowing nuclear to solve problems that matter to our communities, since energy problem is a problem along with climate change. There are a number of people who aren’t convinced nuclear power is the way to go. Analyzing the risks and benefits of nuclear energy bring an opportunity to make nuclear power a big part of the energy solution the world needs to have going forward. Canada has a unique combination of capability and markets the country offers.