0:00

The fuel cost of a nuclear plant

0:02

is about a quarter , 25%

0:04

of which natural uranium

0:07

tends to be less than half . Those are

0:09

very conservative in the sense that

0:11

those are big numbers . I would say in many cases

0:13

that I've seen , the natural uranium

0:15

cost of fuel in a nuclear plant

0:17

is going to be something like 3%

0:20

, 4% or 5% of the total production

0:22

cost at the nuclear plant and in terms of the sales price of the nuclear it's going to be extremely small 1%

0:24

or 5% of the total production cost at the nuclear plant and in terms of the sales price of the nuclear it's going to be

0:26

extremely small 1% or 2%

0:29

of the price of the sold nuclear

0:31

power , depending on which country we're talking about and

0:33

the nuclear system in question .

0:46

I know there's a hardcore uranium

0:49

and nuclear audience that I

0:51

hope sees this , reposts it and

0:57

likes it and , of course , checks out Lead Lag Live for the edited conversation after we are live here

0:59

. My name is Michael Guyatt , publisher of the Lead Lag

1:01

Report . Joining me for the rough hour is Mr Mark Nelson

1:03

, who I've had on Spaces before . First time he and I

1:05

are doing this face-to-face , at least through

1:07

a platform like this . Mark , for those

1:09

who are not familiar with you , introduce yourself

1:11

. Who are you , what's your background , what have you done throughout your career

1:14

and how long did it take for you to grow

1:16

that stash ?

1:16

Great set of questions ask them

1:20

. I'm based here in Chicago . I

1:23

own and manage a small consultancy

1:25

, radiant Energy Group . If

1:32

I have to describe our work , I would say we're a boutique consulting group that works on energy

1:34

transition issues . Most of us are engineers , but we have experience in

1:36

a wide array of industries and on

1:39

a lot of subjects . Because I speak most

1:41

publicly about nuclear energy , because I've worked on

1:43

nuclear energy for most of my career . Most

1:45

of our clients end up coming to us for nuclear

1:47

energy related issues and we help

1:49

solve them On a sort of personal project

1:51

level , which definitely interacts with our work . I

1:54

try to save nuclear plants from being closed

1:56

around the world and try to get

1:59

nuclear plants added around the world

2:01

. I see this as being important

2:03

. Whether you care about climate change or

2:05

prosperity or , fortunately , as more

2:07

and more people do both at the same time think

2:10

nuclear is great for that , and I think that , unlike

2:12

other energy sources that have either

2:14

a lot of success and are moving really well

2:16

, we have a lot of issues in nuclear energy . To

2:18

get it up to speed , one of which

2:21

is public acceptance . Many of the issues

2:23

are actually within the industry structure . We're

2:25

not currently set up well to add a

2:27

bunch of nuclear power now that a bunch

2:29

of the public is asking for it . In terms of

2:31

my mustache , you know what ? I

2:33

started it as a joke back

2:35

in grad school . I was at Cambridge University

2:38

and I was just feeling the spirit of , like

2:40

the RAF pilots and I don't know . I'm

2:42

from Oklahoma , from an oil family

2:44

, so I'm thinking sort of there will be blood

2:47

Daniel Day-Lewis character in there , just

2:49

feeling it a little bit . So I started

2:51

growing a beard and it was really ugly , it was really

2:53

weird , it was patchy , it was like reddish

2:56

, like when the light came through you could see glinting

2:58

red hairs . So I guess I don't know Scottish

3:00

background or something . I was going on a training

3:03

trip with all the lads , like all the track guys

3:05

were going to Tenerife and off

3:07

the coast of Africa to do some hardcore

3:09

training and other activities and

3:11

I decided it'd be funny if I got rid of everything

3:14

here and just had this wispy little stash . And

3:16

I'll tell you , michael , I got so

3:18

much abuse for it that

3:20

I was like hell with all you guys . I'm

3:22

keeping it , I'm doubling down , I'm tripling down

3:24

on the mustache and I just kept it . And

3:27

by the time I became known in

3:29

the public for talking about nuclear

3:31

. It was so much a part of my brand that I can't quite

3:34

get rid of it yet you went nuclear on the

3:36

haters .

3:36

Okay , so hold on . So this whole point about saving plans

3:38

from being closed what does that actually mean in practice

3:41

? What are some of the things that you're actually doing ? How do

3:43

you save a plant from being closed ?

3:45

So I don't lobby . So what people

3:47

think it might mean is that there's somebody

3:49

who's like a skilled political operator , knows

3:51

all the different legislators in a democracy

3:53

or all the different minions in a dictatorship

3:55

or whatever , and that you pay them money and they

3:57

go execute on what you want done . I'm not

4:00

that . What I do is that , because

4:02

I'm well known for talking about nuclear , people come

4:04

to me in the direct messages by

4:06

email . They reach out and they say , hey , my

4:08

nuclear plant's closing . I'm really worried about it . What

4:10

can I do ? And I said if you're serious

4:13

, there are things you can start doing today

4:15

. First , you're going to need allies , and to

4:17

have allies , you're going to need a way to bring people

4:19

in . To bring people in , you're going to need to use

4:21

a communications platform . Is that a Facebook

4:23

group ? Is that a WhatsApp group ? Is that going to be

4:26

a Discord ? Whatever it

4:28

is , you need a way that , when you find at least

4:30

one or two other people in your country or

4:32

your state or your region who want to save a nuclear plant

4:34

, how do you onboard them and stay

4:36

in touch ? Next , you're going to need to collect

4:39

the facts . Why is your nuclear plant closing

4:41

? Does it have to close . Is

4:44

your nuclear plant closing ? Does it have to close ? Is it actually old ? Is it actually worn up

4:46

? How much does it cost to operate ? How much does it cost to have it as part

4:48

of the energy system ? Is it true that you

4:50

don't need it because you're getting another energy source ? Get

4:53

all the facts in one place , write

4:55

it up as a team and edit

4:57

it as a team . That will form a core

4:59

group of volunteers who know what they're talking

5:01

about and are credible when talking to

5:04

reporters . One

5:09

of the most crucial things about saving nuclear plants is you're often going

5:11

against the wishes of the nuclear industry locally . The global nuclear industry

5:13

may want your nuclear plants to stay in operation

5:16

it's part of the club but locally

5:18

your utilities may be getting a ton

5:20

of money from the government to shut down the nuclear

5:22

plant , even if it crashes the grid . They've been

5:24

assured we're going to screw you and kill

5:27

your nuclear plant , so you better play ball with us . So

5:29

management at these nuclear plants are often

5:31

conflicted because they know that their country needs

5:33

the nuclear plant , but they know that they have to

5:35

do what they're being told by their chairman and by

5:37

their board , and that's a group that's going to

5:39

be responding to many other needs other than keeping

5:42

the society's energy going . So once

5:44

you have a sort of an FAQ or an

5:46

understanding of what is going on with

5:48

your nuclear plant , why it's important , then

5:50

you need to get that in front of reporters

5:52

and you need to have some kind

5:55

of public event where you get the word

5:57

out and you start gathering a public movement

5:59

. Once you have a public movement , you start

6:01

developing as leaders . These early

6:03

advocates start developing as leaders . Many

6:06

years down the line you're trusted as

6:08

experts who put your own ass on the line

6:10

before it was cool , before it was popular

6:12

and before anyone gave you permission . So

6:14

that's what we do . It's

6:16

not exactly a profit-making enterprise

6:18

, let me tell you that , because again , you're going up against

6:20

the local nuclear industry . One of the

6:22

funniest things I experienced when people call

6:25

me a lobbyist , when , specifically

6:27

, the problem is that the lobbyists get paid by

6:29

the nuclear industry to not object to the closures

6:31

, like to work on getting the biggest payoff

6:34

for shutting down the nuclear plant , not for keeping

6:36

it . Now I will say that from the

6:38

crisis years when I was doing this as part of an

6:40

environmental nonprofit , it was the main work

6:42

of Michael Schellenberger and my crew

6:44

over at Environmental Progress . Well , that

6:46

was the early years . A bunch of the countries

6:49

that we think of as leaders in nuclear power , like

6:51

France or South Korea , were not

6:53

leaders . There was a reputation

6:55

from a long time ago and France

6:57

and South Korea were both trying to destroy their entire

6:59

nuclear systems as recently

7:01

as 2020 . And people forget that because

7:04

we just know of them as the great leaders in nuclear

7:06

right . But we had to work

7:08

on movements in those countries . People

7:10

stood up locally and said we will fight

7:12

these closures . People stood up and

7:14

said we will go against what our industry

7:17

says . Now it's very difficult to do that , so

7:19

organizing help and strategic advice

7:21

from abroad has been useful there . But

7:24

in the end , saving nuclear plants is

7:26

about people who care enough to act

7:28

locally and therefore are subject

7:30

to the pressures and the

7:32

attacks locally . I

7:35

get to float around and be just an international

7:37

I'm just Mark , you know . But people who

7:39

put skin in the game , I'll do whatever

7:41

I can with strategic advice helping write

7:43

up that set of facts , helping find

7:45

information , helping get it to the right

7:47

people to support your move .

7:56

Is there a sense of sort of how much prices change for electricity post shutdown

7:58

versus before shutdown ? What are we looking at as far as the actual impact .

7:59

So it's a very complicated system . One of the

8:01

trickiest things I do is that I try

8:03

to find answers to these that are

8:05

not confirmable , but they're

8:08

as close as we can get as an understanding

8:10

without going into extremely expensive

8:12

modeling . That itself has

8:14

a bunch of contentious inputs and outputs

8:16

and you're struggling . Let me say this electricity

8:19

is very complicated . It is not like any

8:21

other system engineered

8:23

or financially . It's just not like

8:25

other things . A lot of trouble

8:28

we get into in electricity is people coming

8:30

from outside electricity thinking , oh , I

8:32

understand economics , so I'm going to be able to understand

8:34

the electricity market . No , it doesn't work like

8:36

that . There's an irreducible complexity

8:38

to the engineering and management of the

8:40

grid . We just layer a bunch of misunderstandings

8:42

on top of it . So you're coming and asking

8:45

me what sounds like a simple question how

8:47

much do electricity prices change when you

8:49

turn off nuclear ? That is such a

8:51

difficult thing it's been one of the most difficult

8:53

challenges in all the countries we've operated

8:56

to try to make a prediction . Let me just

8:58

give you an example of where I can sort

9:00

of find a pathway to an answer . Okay

9:02

, can

9:07

sort of find a pathway to an answer . Okay , in Germany , the cost of operating

9:09

the German nuclear plants long term was something like 20 to 30 euros per

9:11

megawatt hour . That doesn't mean that's what the utilities wanted

9:13

to sell the nuclear electricity for . They would

9:15

have wanted as high a price as they can get , but

9:17

the cost of generating that nuclear

9:19

electricity was 20 to 30 euros per

9:21

megawatt hour . That's dealing with the waste

9:23

, that's hiring new workers , that's doing upgrades

9:26

, safety checks , buying the fuel . It's everything

9:28

right 20 to 30 euros a megawatt hour

9:30

. The only baseload

9:32

or controllable always-on electricity

9:35

that compares to that in Germany

9:37

is lignite coal . Lignite

9:39

coal is coming out of these giant

9:41

pits and it costs very

9:43

roughly 20 , 25 , 30

9:46

years a megawatt hour to produce that coal

9:48

. What that means

9:50

is that coal costed

9:52

about the same as nuclear . Now in

9:55

electricity it matters where you are . Just

9:57

because you can make cheap electricity up

10:01

in the north doesn't mean you can get it to a factory

10:04

in the south . So in general the

10:06

lignite mines and the nuclear

10:08

plants were positioned well

10:10

. The lignite mines have to be where the lignite is , but industry

10:13

grew up close to the regions that had

10:15

a lot of lignite power and

10:17

they also later grew up

10:19

or were supported by nuclear plants that were positioned

10:22

well to feed power into

10:24

the grid . So there is issues just

10:26

assuming it's interchangeable , because it's not . But

10:28

here's the key thing Europe has been passing

10:31

carbon taxes . When you put a carbon

10:33

tax at prevailing rates on that

10:35

lignite electricity , the price , the cost

10:37

to the producer , you can say the

10:39

cost to society of the lignite

10:42

at 20 to 30 euros a megawatt hour plus

10:44

the carbon taxes , puts it up near

10:46

80 , 90 , 100 euros per megawatt

10:48

versus the cost

10:50

of nuclear down at 20 to 30 . What

10:53

this means is that's the wholesale electricity

10:55

cost for bulk electricity . So if you're

10:57

a large factory trying

10:59

to decide whether to stay in Germany or leave

11:01

Germany and you are facing

11:04

down needing to get a one

11:06

or two year electricity contract

11:08

and the cheapest cost

11:10

of generating electricity from any

11:12

unit not even the profit for the utility

11:14

, but the cheapest cost of generating power

11:16

is 100 euros versus the 20

11:19

to 30 for nuclear

11:21

. It means you just cannot get

11:23

cheap industrial electricity in Germany

11:26

unless it is specifically subsidized

11:28

by the government . Now there's already some subsidies

11:30

in Germany . They take a bunch of money

11:32

off your bill if you're a large electricity consumer

11:35

, to protect you from the cost

11:37

of the transmission upgrades

11:39

that are required to switch over to renewable

11:41

sources located in the wrong locations

11:43

for the factories . But what we think we've

11:46

seen is the shutdown of the final 5%

11:49

, 6% , 7% , 8% of nuclear seems

11:51

to be bumping up wholesale

11:53

electricity prices in

11:56

Germany by . This

11:58

is very approximate . I'm worried about

12:00

being crucified , but I wanted to give you an answer . 20

12:03

to 30% . What that means is you

12:05

cannot get industrial electricity in Germany

12:08

at the cost that you can get it in France

12:10

, and France has some of the most expensive nuclear

12:12

power on planet Earth . They mismanage their

12:14

nuclear system in every way they can find to do

12:16

it to give an advantage to the non-nuclear

12:19

parts of the grid . I don't know , it's just a weird thing

12:21

because a lot of French bureaucrats are anti-nuclear

12:23

and a lot of Brussels politics was

12:25

anti-nuclear French people going and

12:27

hanging out with anti-nuclear European Commission

12:30

people and being anti-nuclear together . So they've

12:32

done everything they can to make nuclear expensive

12:34

in France . It's still significantly

12:36

cheaper to get an industrial electricity

12:38

contract in France , especially a long-term

12:41

one that relies on long-term predictable

12:43

prices from the nuclear system . Very

12:45

difficult to get long-term contracts or

12:48

cheaper contracts in Germany , and it's a result

12:50

of losing the final

12:52

nuclear plants . What's interesting and what gives

12:54

us some evidence here ? Michael , I know this answer is a

12:56

bit long , but this is stuff that I

12:58

just haven't talked about in other places and I think people

13:00

might find interesting . The nuclear operators

13:03

secretly offered to the government to

13:05

sell their electricity over the long term

13:07

like 15 years at 60 euros per megawatt hour

13:09

, maybe adjusted for inflation , I don't know the details

13:11

. But

13:18

this secret offer of 60 euros per megawatt hour was rejected by the German government

13:21

and the German government then went and said that if we can't find a way to get

13:23

tax subsidies onto people's electricity bills to make industrial electricity

13:25

at 60 euros , we're going to lose all our industry

13:27

. That gives you an idea of this cost , and this is

13:29

not the same thing as the final cost . This is the wholesale

13:32

cost . This is the price to produce giant

13:35

batches of electricity and just dump it on the grid . It's

13:37

not the cost to deliver it or to

13:39

maintain the grid or to do any of that

13:41

energy transition stuff . So

13:43

very approximately you can bet

13:45

that a European country that loses nuclear

13:48

but doesn't have backup is going to have

13:50

a wholesale price jump that could be

13:52

anywhere from 20% to 30% . My

13:54

good friend and colleague , bjorn Peters , over

13:56

in Germany , says that he studied this

13:58

specific issue of electricity

14:00

prices in Germany of losing the

14:02

last six units , and if he can comment

14:05

on the chat , I'd love to hear the headline number

14:07

what his analysis was . The difference

14:09

was for industrial wholesale prices . Hopefully

14:12

that's getting some answer

14:14

in what is an incredibly complicated

14:17

question . That was a little too simple to ask for you

14:19

.

14:19

No , no , no . I love that . I'm glad you went into that

14:21

deep . What parts of

14:23

the world are most friendly towards

14:25

nuclear and least friendly towards nuclear

14:28

? I mean , I think China right Probably most

14:30

friendly , just because they're popping up reactors everywhere

14:32

seemingly .

14:33

Careful . China is extremely good

14:35

at building nuclear , which makes

14:37

up for what seems to be a conservative

14:39

and nuclear suspicious stance by the government

14:43

. This is not what you probably expected to hear . I

14:45

would say Russia is most nuclear friendly . They

14:47

are the cowboy nuclear country . They're willing

14:50

to attack and take nuclear plants in war

14:52

as prizes . They are willing to

14:54

run nuclear plants within a few

14:56

tens of kilometers of the front line

14:58

of nuclear Like we're talking a situation

15:01

where Russia is . They are very

15:03

comfortable in a nuclear world . They're comfortable talking

15:06

about nuclear , threatening with nuclear , offering

15:08

nuclear to everybody . Russia builds a good nuclear

15:10

plant . Russia has done something unusual . When

15:12

they're selling a nuclear plant to Turkey , they've hired

15:15

one of the best architects

15:17

available to design the appearance and

15:19

the lighting quality of the

15:21

nuclear plant so it looks beautiful . Russia

15:23

had the best nuclear marketing . Russia

15:25

was most open to novel approaches

15:28

to communication . Russia signed

15:30

the most nuclear deals . Russia

15:32

is the most nuclear friendly place on Earth . Now , depending

15:35

on how you interpret the question , it's arguably not friendly

15:37

to nuclear to capture nuclear plant in a war . I

15:39

don't think if Rose Adam had a choice they would have enjoyed

15:42

being drug along on that adventure

15:44

, but they are stuck in it . Part of Russia's

15:46

ability to do a lot of nuclear is

15:48

that their leader believes in it and supports

15:50

Rose Adam or makes Rose

15:53

Adam do a lot of stuff . It's hard to

15:55

separate that from the craziness of capturing

15:57

a nuclear planet if the same leader goes to war

15:59

. So Russia's most friendly to nuclear

16:01

. Now , as a reaction to Russia

16:03

, perhaps or maybe just because

16:06

it works , the former Soviet

16:08

influenced world , the countries

16:10

bordering Russia and two or three countries

16:12

in that's Eastern Europe and Northeastern

16:15

Europe , extremely friendly to

16:17

nuclear . So Finland nuclear is life

16:19

and death for Finland . They have and

16:21

the polling data that I've done I

16:23

haven't pulled all the small nuclear

16:25

friendly countries , but Finland has extremely

16:28

high internal polling that they've done

16:30

about acceptance to nuclear . We're talking 92

16:32

, 93% of Finns are

16:34

at least nuclear positive in some way , with

16:37

a bunch of those being very much pro-nuclear

16:39

. So Finland is hugely pro-nuclear

16:42

and they're right on the border . Sweden was far

16:44

enough away that they got caught up into the anti-nuclear

16:46

frenzy and they started trying to destroy their

16:48

nuclear plants . They have experienced

16:51

extreme cost rises with energy

16:53

and they've learned their lesson and now a pro-nuclear

16:55

government's been elected and they're doing as much as

16:57

they can to save existing nuclear plants life

17:00

, extend , operate and add new nuclear

17:02

plants . They really regret having lost

17:04

the nuclear reactors that got shut down

17:06

under the previous , less serious

17:09

government . So then , if you trace down

17:11

from Finland and Sweden , you're going to hit

17:13

a big string of pro-nuclear

17:16

countries that actually have nuclear reactors . Ukraine

17:18

. Nuclear is life or death . They will defend

17:21

their nuclear plants as they're getting shot at

17:23

with missiles and stuff hitting the

17:25

. It's not clear that Russia is directly

17:28

attacking the nuclear units themselves . So

17:30

there seems to be some kind of balancing

17:32

act to be played there . But the Russians

17:34

are attacking the grid in ways that are going to threaten

17:36

the operation of the nuclear plants in Ukraine . At

17:39

the moment Ukraine is something like 70

17:41

, 75 , 80% nuclear power

17:43

, which is at the edge of healthy . It's

17:45

more that they've lost a bunch of demand because of the war

17:47

and gotten a bunch of their power plants destroyed . But in

17:49

a life or death scenario , ukraine is

17:51

going more towards nuclear rather than further

17:54

away . Czech Republic for

17:56

nuclear , hungary radically pro-nuclear

17:58

, bulgaria's turning back towards nuclear

18:00

. They shut down some units as they joined

18:03

the EU and now , as they got part

18:05

of the European economic area , they

18:07

had anti-nuclear politicians

18:10

sort of obey European

18:12

strictures to move away from the old

18:14

Soviet nuclear plants . Shouldn't have done it , but they did

18:16

. Slovakia , radically pro-nuclear

18:19

, slovenia , pro-nuclear , and

18:21

all of these plants , all of these countries with nuclear

18:23

plants and wanting to add more Eastern Europe

18:25

it's almost a reaction in the Russia-Europe

18:28

split , all the way down , very

18:30

pro-nuclear . Now Turkey , a pivotal

18:32

country in the future of the world , has become

18:35

extremely pro-nuclear and has added

18:37

a Russian nuclear plant that's being constructed . They're

18:39

looking to see who's going to get the next deal

18:41

. Is it going to be Russia again , or are they going to hedge

18:43

their bets and get a Western nuclear plant or a Chinese

18:46

nuclear plant ? That's

18:54

happening . China is building the most nuclear but is nuclear hesitant

18:56

at the highest levels . As far as I can tell . The way you can see it is that

18:58

China has not allowed any nuclear plant to be built off the coastline and although

19:00

a couple hundred million Chinese citizens

19:02

live pretty close to the coast , you are limited

19:05

in your ability to add nuclear to your economy

19:07

. If your country stretches as far

19:10

across as China does a few thousand

19:12

kilometers and yet you don't allow nuclear plants

19:14

away from the coast . That's going to

19:16

limit their otherwise outstanding

19:19

ability to add nuclear plants . Let's

19:21

see . South America is still struggling

19:23

to figure out their position there . Argentina

19:25

and Brazil are the two countries with nuclear programs

19:27

. Brazil is one of the most anti-nuclear

19:29

countries in the world and they don't know what to think

19:31

about it , and they're hosting COP30

19:34

next . It's an issue to work on Africa's

19:36

turning pro-nuclear . A bunch of countries in Africa

19:38

really like nuclear for development . African

19:41

leaders have to thread a narrow line between

19:43

appearing to be positive members of the

19:45

global community and getting development and investment

19:48

and all this other stuff . But a lot of the development

19:50

investment has been tied towards crippling

19:52

their own economies by not having fossil fuels

19:54

. I'm not saying you can only develop

19:56

with fossil fuels . Very difficult to see

19:58

how you don't develop with fossil fuels . The country's

20:01

claiming that Africa can develop without fossil

20:03

fuels , themselves developed with fossil fuels

20:05

. One of the narrow ways through is

20:07

as international organizations

20:09

become nuclear curious or even nuclear positive

20:12

. African leaders are finding that pitching

20:14

nuclear wins on both sides . It's like

20:16

the clean energy thing but also the

20:18

serious about development to their

20:20

own population . So Southeast

20:23

Asia is slowly getting more and more

20:25

pro-nuclear . That's good . Australia is anti-nuclear

20:27

but we're working on it and in a lot of these cases

20:29

I'm painting with a broad brush . We're seeing

20:32

like casting seeds over

20:34

a garden plot . We're seeing pro-nuclear

20:36

sentiment rise in a lot of places . It's just

20:38

a long way to go between that and

20:40

a working nuclear plant .

21:16

I want to get to some of the audience who's watching

21:18

this live as we're chatting . So price

21:21

sensitivity of demand for fuel in

21:23

natural gas versus price sensitivity

21:25

of demand for fuel in nuclear

21:27

. If a US utility were to wind down a reactor

21:29

and build a natty gas electrostation

21:32

, how would that impact natty gas prices ? By

21:34

the way , the word natty every time I hear that word

21:36

, I'm going back to being a

21:38

natural bodybuilder because that's like

21:41

yeah .

21:41

So if you went to college in rural

21:43

America , that's natty light . So natural

21:45

light , one of the worst beers available for

21:48

students breaking age limits . But yeah , natty

21:50

Gas , all right . So here's the big way

21:52

to think of natural gas . This is rule

21:54

of thumb stuff . This is just like you're thinking about

21:56

it in your head and trying to stick in new information

21:58

. What is your baseline assumption ? Your

22:00

baseline assumption is that the

22:03

fuel cost of a nuclear plant

22:05

is about a quarter , 25%

22:07

, of which natural uranium

22:09

tends to be less than half . Those are very

22:11

conservative in the sense that those are

22:14

big numbers . I would say in many cases that I've

22:16

seen , the natural uranium cost

22:18

of fuel in a nuclear plant is

22:20

going to be something like 3%

22:22

, 4% or 5% of the total production

22:24

cost of the nuclear plant and in terms of the sales

22:27

price of the nuclear , it's going to be extremely

22:30

small 1% or 2% of the price

22:32

of the sold nuclear power , depending on which country

22:35

we're talking about and the nuclear

22:37

system in question . For

22:43

natural gas , we're going to assume that the sales cost of the electricity is

22:45

often dominated by the natural gas price , the reason

22:47

why , if natural gas gets expensive

22:49

and electricity demand isn't

22:51

high , you turn down or turn off the natural

22:53

gas plant . So there's a kind of a natural balance

22:56

there . When we're looking at levelized

22:58

cost of electricity or the total cost for the

23:00

whole power plant system

23:02

natural gas or nuclear for the life

23:04

of the system , we tend to say

23:06

sort of rules of thumb two-thirds

23:08

of the total lifetime cost of investing

23:11

in building and operating and decommissioning a

23:13

natural gas plant is going to be the natural

23:16

gas sales , like just the natural

23:18

gas product brought into the plant and burned

23:20

. We say about two-thirds of the levelized

23:23

cost of electricity from a natural gas

23:25

power plant choice , if you're comparing options

23:27

is going to be from the natural gas . Of

23:29

the levelized cost of electricity . The cost of building

23:32

a nuclear plant operating God

23:34

forbid , decommissioning shouldn't

23:36

need to do the uranium cost of that is

23:38

going to be again a few percentage points

23:40

. What does this mean ? It

23:42

means that when utilities

23:44

often who are disincentivized

23:47

by their regulators from trying

23:49

to gamble and trying to make more profit by taking

23:51

on risk , a lot of times they pass

23:53

on the risk of natural gas

23:56

price rises to the consumer and

23:58

that way they say it's not our fault , you said we could do

24:00

it , we're just going to pass it along , make our

24:02

10% on capital invested and call it a day

24:05

. The question is really kind of complicated and it

24:07

depends on the region . There are regions , like

24:09

in New York , where they turned off a nuclear

24:11

plant but they haven't expanded gas pipeline

24:13

capacity , meaning it squeezes

24:16

everything . They're limited on what

24:18

they can get through a pipeline of

24:20

a given diameter pressure delivery

24:22

schedule . They're limited even if

24:24

they switched to natural gas . For their

24:26

natural gas plants they may have to

24:28

operate consistently at a much higher

24:30

price than expected . If you're just looking

24:32

at sales price of natural gas in another

24:34

region . Here's what I would say we

24:36

don't know when natural

24:38

gas is going to get expensive and cheap . If you

24:41

know that , go get rich right

24:43

. America beat all

24:45

rational predictions of what would happen

24:47

with natural gas supply in our country . I come from

24:49

a background where my family's involved

24:51

and saw the up and downs of that

24:53

. The basic truth is we don't

24:55

know , with these quick to jump

24:58

, quick to decline production curves on natural

25:00

gas wells , what is the long-term outlook

25:02

for natural gas in the US If

25:04

we keep managing to innovate

25:06

and drill new wells and get more gas

25:08

out of existing wells and we are able

25:11

to keep that supply of natural gas

25:13

increasing , then you could increase

25:15

consumption with a new natural gas plant

25:17

or shutting down a nuclear and replacing

25:19

it . You could sort of , in a

25:21

broad sense , keep it's not going

25:23

to necessarily impact . What I don't

25:25

like and if I can get to my response to the question

25:28

, I don't like the idea that you

25:30

leverage something as crucial

25:32

as electricity , that's important for running everything

25:34

else , that you have that tightly leveraged

25:36

to such a volatile commodity price

25:39

as natural gas , when you can instead

25:41

have it connected to a super slow

25:43

changing , or let's just say

25:45

uranium . It's not that it changes slow and may

25:47

all you uranium investors do great , god

25:50

be with you . But if the uranium

25:52

price goes up it doesn't significantly impact

25:55

the production price , the production cost

25:57

of nuclear electricity . So I think that that's

25:59

a lot more consumer safe , a lot more friendly

26:01

to the people and nations where electricity

26:04

matters as a cost and not just for

26:06

rich homeowners where it doesn't really matter . You can just

26:08

use as much or as little as you want , it doesn't

26:10

really matter for your budget . I think that

26:12

controlling those costs by transferring

26:15

nuclear capacity or natural gas

26:17

capacity eventually to nuclear

26:20

is very important . That's

26:22

beyond any climate imperatives . That's just . It's

26:24

safer to have electricity

26:26

coming from commodities

26:28

that change the final production

26:31

price much more slowly than natural gas .

26:33

Let's get another question from YouTube and

26:35

this sounds like it's very detailed , so

26:38

I wanted you to kind of explain it like we're five-year-olds

26:40

, mark . I heard that a couple of months ago the BN-800

26:43

was loaded with MOX fuel with minor

26:45

actinides , I'm assuming I'm pronouncing

26:47

it right . Another argument in the nuclear waste debate

26:49

. What is the nuclear waste debate ?

26:50

to begin with , Okay , first of all , bn-800

26:52

is the B-street neutron fast neutron

26:55

reactor . So fast reactor , 800

26:57

megawatt , which is a continuation of the

26:59

longest continuously running

27:01

and successful advanced nuclear

27:04

program in the world . I would argue that's the Russian

27:06

former Soviet but

27:13

now Russian nuclear program in the world . I would argue that's the Russian former Soviet but now Russian nuclear program to make a fast reactor , which means that you intentionally

27:15

let your neutrons go super , super fast and they smash into the atoms and they do a different

27:18

set of reactions , of different probabilities than

27:20

in most reactors we have today . It

27:22

does not mean they run at a hotter temperature

27:24

, it just means you're using a different

27:27

physics . You're

27:34

using a different operation regime on the inside of the reactor . What it means is you can split apart

27:36

and get energy out of substances that you might not be able to in a

27:38

normal reactor . You can get more energy

27:40

smashing neutrons into

27:42

the natural uranium-238

27:45

that's normally difficult to get energy out of in our normal reactors . You have

27:47

to enrich the uranium-238 that's normally difficult to get energy out of in our normal reactors . You have

27:49

to enrich the uranium-238

27:51

to have more uranium-235 that's more

27:53

unstable and wants to split easier . In a fast

27:56

reactor it's like smashing the atoms

27:58

harder so you can split more of your

28:00

fuel In the long run . The idea behind

28:02

fast reactors is that you would convert

28:04

way more of the Earth's precious

28:07

uranium , and eventually thorium , into

28:09

energy compared to what you can do

28:11

in a thermal reactor

28:13

, the traditional reactors we mostly use . So

28:16

other features come along with this , with

28:18

the fact that liquid metal

28:20

, liquid metal sodium , is

28:22

used to cool off the reactors , which has

28:24

different advantages and disadvantages

28:27

, but you can't really use liquid sodium

28:29

well in our

28:31

traditional reactors . Okay , so that's the

28:33

Russian program and they're working on it . The argument

28:36

about nuclear waste is that we are making

28:38

incredibly toxic , dangerous

28:40

substances that last for a very long period

28:42

and you can't trust people , you can't trust institutions

28:45

, can't trust society . Eventually it

28:47

will leak out and poison everybody . That's

28:49

the emotional side of the argument

28:52

. I suppose we're making bad things

28:54

that are uniquely bad and then

28:56

they're going to be uniquely hard to handle and

28:58

we are going to lose control of them

29:00

in a thousand years , 10,000 years and they're

29:02

going to leak out and hurt the ability

29:05

of the planet to host life . That's the argument

29:07

. In truth , there's

29:14

almost no waste . It doesn't leak , it's contained and it's extremely easy to store and monitor over

29:16

arbitrary time periods . I'm willing to say that industry won't , because I think they're

29:18

cowards on this subject . But nuclear

29:21

waste is not a physical

29:23

problem . It is one of the strongest remaining

29:26

spiritual or cultural problems

29:28

. But we shouldn't be responding

29:30

to spiritual or cultural

29:32

issues through engineering like

29:39

Yucca Mountain , where you spend $100 billion to ship all the

29:41

nuclear waste out to people who don't want it and put it down deep in a hole . Not acceptable

29:43

to me . To me , what this is is that the communities

29:45

that are getting rich on nuclear energy , they

29:48

don't have a problem with nuclear waste . And

29:50

the people who first signed up to the nuclear

29:52

plants or had the nuclear plants put in their village

29:54

or their district may have thought well , you

29:57

better get that waste out of here because we hate it . Well

29:59

, now the villages , the

30:01

districts are filled up with people who work at the

30:03

nuclear plant , sometimes multiple generations . They

30:06

themselves are turning into the nuclear advocates who

30:08

are saying nuclear waste isn't an issue . So

30:10

my solution is very simple you need

30:12

to make the nuclear waste publicly

30:15

accessible . I have a new baby at home . I'm

30:17

able to join you on this call courtesy of

30:19

my dear mother who's taking care of the child's

30:21

day . I think that if working

30:24

dads like me can visit nuclear plants and show

30:26

people that you can go into the nuclear waste , we're

30:28

going to break down those fear barriers . Do

30:30

I appreciate the Russians developing

30:32

a nuclear system where they can take parts

30:35

of the nuclear waste , put it in the fuel

30:37

, put it in the reactor and actually get

30:39

energy out of it ? Yeah , I think that's unbelievably

30:42

cool and I think the future of humanity's

30:45

energy supply is in that direction

30:47

. But

30:50

it's misleading to say we have to do that or we don't solve the nuclear waste . Let me

30:52

say one more idea that I've been developing , michael

30:54

, and I think that this is an answer to the question

30:56

too If there's a place that recycles

30:59

nuclear waste , like Russia or France , that

31:01

serves as an argument that we can control

31:03

nuclear waste without having to actually

31:05

build an expensive $10 billion reprocessing

31:08

center ourselves . If there are places like

31:10

Finland where they built the holes in the ground

31:12

that's their version of Yucca Mountain . They

31:14

built the hole in the ground . They're ready to take

31:16

in nuclear waste . That shows we

31:18

can , which should remove the urgency

31:21

to demand it , in other words , people who say

31:23

there's no solution for nuclear waste . Once

31:25

you have some solutions , you solve the issue

31:27

of people saying there's no solutions and waste . Once you have some solutions , you solve the issue of people saying there's no solutions

31:30

, and if they don't agree , then in that case

31:32

they just wanted to stop nuclear energy in the first

31:34

place . Rounding up my answer to this

31:36

question the strategy used in the

31:38

1970s and 80s by

31:40

anti-nuclear groups to destroy nuclear

31:42

power was called clog the toilet

31:45

. The idea was this you pass laws

31:47

requiring a legal , engineered

31:50

solution to nuclear waste before

31:53

you allow more nuclear plants or the continued

31:55

operation of the current ones . Then you

31:57

put all your resources into blocking and

31:59

stopping any implementation of waste solution

32:01

. That way it's like a pincher move . It's like

32:04

you're ambushing from both directions

32:06

. The whole point is that you hate nuclear energy and

32:08

want it gone , because either you hate energy or

32:10

you think that it's somehow going to make nuclear war , or

32:12

you're just a foreign agent . One of those three right

32:14

. So you want to stop nuclear energy . So

32:17

you put into place reasonable sounding laws that

32:19

say nuclear waste is just so bad

32:21

, no one knows how to do it . Let's make a law that

32:23

says you have to figure it out , nuclear industry . And

32:25

then on the other end you say , hey , nuclear industry

32:27

, we're going to block anything you do to make a

32:29

nuclear waste location , so

32:31

that closes nuclear plants

32:34

in some cases . One place where this

32:36

is being particularly effective , with world

32:38

shaking implications , is Taiwan

32:40

. Taiwan's grid rides on the brink

32:43

. Every summer they barely have enough power and the

32:45

tiniest little mistake can lead to blackouts across

32:47

the island . All right , they're closing

32:49

their nuclear plants because of an ideological obsession

32:52

among the parties that have been winning elections

32:54

lately , right . So they're closing

32:56

these nuclear plants . They're threatening the grid . One

32:59

of the problems that's closing the nuclear plants they're threatening the grid . One of the problems that's closing the nuclear

33:01

plants is that local leaders have put in

33:03

laws that you are not allowed

33:05

to store nuclear waste outside of the spent

33:07

fuel pool . That's a swimming pool of water that

33:09

carefully protects the nuclear

33:12

waste radiation . It

33:14

can't go very far . Water blocks it until

33:16

the nuclear waste is cool enough to put enough

33:18

of them in a canister that you could only need

33:20

a few canisters next to your nuclear plants . Well

33:23

, what they do is they block the moving of the waste

33:25

and then the nuclear waste

33:27

pond fills up and then it shuts off

33:29

the reactor . So that's a way of controlling

33:32

, through local anti-waste

33:34

politics , the operation of

33:36

nuclear in a way that could lead to a collapse

33:38

of Taiwan's grid and changing the world

33:40

geopolitical situation , if we can put it like

33:43

that . So this nuclear waste thing does matter

33:45

. It is an issue . It's not a physical

33:47

or engineering issue , it's a spiritual and marketing

33:49

issue . The BN-800 is fascinating

33:52

for reasons beyond . So the fast neutron

33:54

reactor program is fascinating for

33:56

reasons beyond just the waste , and

33:58

we aren't guaranteed to need to build

34:01

one to respond to waste issues . If they've

34:03

done it , it doesn't mean we don't build fast reactors

34:05

. It means we should build them based on wanting

34:07

to explore the energy implications , rather

34:10

than using it as an excuse to continue

34:13

this untruth that there's a problem

34:15

with nuclear waste that only machinery can solve

34:17

.

34:17

So , as you were talking , I went to chat GPT

34:20

and asked how do you solve nuclear waste ? And

34:22

that gets into a discussion

34:24

around AI and nuclear

34:26

. Is it possible to be bullish

34:28

on AI and not be bullish on

34:31

nuclear ? It seems like this is the only way to actually

34:33

power these massive servers

34:35

.

34:36

I think we should unpack this . I've seen a

34:38

radical change in big tech

34:40

and its approach to nuclear in the

34:42

last 18 months . This is the biggest

34:44

thing happening in nuclear . This is the number

34:47

one issue . It's this In order

34:49

to lead on AI , you need

34:51

the maximum amount of computing . To make

34:53

the maximum amount of computing , you need to with a limited

34:55

number of staff and with limited

34:57

time and focus , and the need to make multi-billion

35:00

dollar investment decisions in physical infrastructure

35:03

. You have to decide where you put

35:05

your massive supercomputers . Where is it going

35:07

to be ? You need the cheapest cost

35:09

of compute which comes from the most number

35:11

of the most efficient chips all

35:14

stacked up in the same place , computing

35:16

as much as possible in one location , and

35:18

a big data center . That are

35:20

just . They're 10Xing every couple

35:23

of years . That's the data center , the

35:25

AI computer craze at

35:27

the moment . In order to make a single

35:29

building that uses now a

35:31

million people's worth or 5 million people's

35:33

worth of electricity

35:36

to push forward in AI , it

35:38

means you can't just say , oh

35:40

, the grid will handle it , I'll just put a million

35:42

, I'll ask for the same

35:44

as , like a metropolitan area , I'll just

35:46

ask for that from the grid . The grid is

35:48

a physical system that must physically deliver

35:51

you massive amounts of power . So

35:53

what you do is you , instead of saying

35:55

I'm going to be out in nature by a giant wind farm

35:57

, no , because you'd need gigawatts

36:00

of power streaming back to the wind farm whenever

36:02

the wind turned off . Or you need to build a massive

36:04

natural gas or a backup

36:07

generator structure out by the wind

36:09

farm in order to . Or you might say , no , there's a wind

36:11

farm on the other side of the country . Well , you can't

36:13

be at both of them unless you're splitting your

36:15

. So it's centralized

36:18

computing that's requiring the most

36:20

powerful centralized power

36:22

. Tiny little anecdote when I was an environmentalist

36:25

out in Berkeley , california , trying to save nuclear energy

36:27

, we would have very strange characters come

36:29

into Environmental Progress Office and

36:31

either say we love what you're doing for

36:34

nuclear energy , or they said we hate you . You guys

36:36

are the devil . We had a guy come in once

36:38

and he's like tell me about this nuclear energy . And

36:40

I'm like trying to explain his little crust punk

36:42

, you know , like white guy with dreads

36:44

and all . Anyway , eventually slams the

36:46

door in my face saying nuclear centralized

36:49

. We anarchists can never support it . All

36:51

right , there you have it . Nuclear

36:53

is centralized . Well , guess what . Nothing

36:56

is as centralized as the grid

36:58

. If you're talking giant amounts of power , the

37:00

whole point is to centralize power

37:02

generation , power transmission and

37:04

power usage so you can efficiently

37:07

use a lot of power . Ai

37:09

is the biggest centralized point source

37:12

demand of electricity

37:14

we've had come along in a long time . A

37:16

lot of the original electricity infrastructure

37:19

was pushed forward by the original

37:21

ultra users , call them the

37:23

OG hyperscalers . Like aluminum

37:25

foundries , aluminum got put

37:27

next to one of the

37:29

biggest power plants ever built at the time back in the

37:31

1800s at Niagara Falls

37:33

. Then , once Niagara Falls had enough capacity

37:36

, it wasn't just local industry , they had the

37:38

line , the transmission line come down and

37:40

power New York City . Same thing happened

37:42

in California . You had power

37:45

up here worth building an

37:47

infrastructure to when you had big enough demand

37:49

. Ai is doing that again . It's like

37:52

seeing a groove in a wooden table taking

37:54

a big old knife and going back down through that groove

37:56

over and over . Centralized

37:58

demand like AI is tripling

38:01

down on centralized power like nuclear

38:03

. But there's a danger here for a lot of

38:05

our cities that are run by people who don't

38:07

know about or don't like nuclear power but

38:09

have been benefiting from centralized nuclear

38:11

power to power their cities for decades . I'm

38:13

thinking of Chicago . I'm located in Chicago . We're

38:15

almost 100% nuclear power here in Chicago

38:17

, but the city doesn't really understand or know about

38:19

it . It just knows that somehow things are cheap

38:21

and it's fine . It just doesn't think about it . Every other problem

38:24

comes up , just not power . Well , michael

38:27

, we've got 11 gigawatts of nuclear plants serving

38:29

Northern Illinois . We have five

38:32

gigawatts of AI compute

38:34

being talked about by , announced

38:36

and in the process of permitting for in

38:38

our areas . If five gigawatts

38:40

comes out and takes a giant chunk

38:43

five gigawatt chunk out of 11 gigawatts

38:45

of nuclear power in Northern Illinois , chicago's

38:48

, I don't know what's going to happen to us . You

38:50

can't just magically make new

38:52

power plants . It means that Chicago will

38:54

desperately going and trying to buy up the

38:56

remaining operation hours

39:27

of the coal and the gas and we're going to have

39:29

to sand up diesel generators . We

39:31

are going to be at the bad end of a

39:33

whip with the handle , starting

39:35

from AI data centers setting

39:38

up shop next to existing

39:40

nuclear plants . The only way

39:42

out that I see other than tripling

39:45

down on a giant expansion of natural gas

39:47

and just hoping that the pipelines and

39:49

the gas fields all keep up , the only

39:51

way out of it that I see is building large

39:54

new nuclear with proven technology

39:56

to hold us over as we work

39:59

to see whether we can scale up smaller reactors

40:01

.

40:01

Yeah , and the smaller reactors have been getting more and more

40:03

attention , right , the small modular reactors

40:06

which I think we've talked about in spaces before Any

40:08

kind of more interesting leasing developments there

40:10

that are accelerating things .

40:12

Well , before I get to there , I'm noticing we

40:15

have a question from one of our listeners saying

40:17

is it possible , is it responsible , to piggyback

40:19

on the AI hype just because irresponsible

40:22

, not responsible ? I've talked to hyperscalers

40:24

who say if we could buy 20 gigawatts

40:26

today , we'd do it . 20 gigawatts that would represent

40:28

20% of the American nuclear

40:31

fleet that they would buy in one spot

40:33

if they could just wave a wand and take it all

40:35

and they can pay prices beyond almost

40:37

any other industrial consumer , and then

40:40

the public just would have

40:42

to pay it or just have to be left

40:44

in the lurch . I don't know what would happen . So

40:46

the demand is immense . They are going

40:48

to demand that power no matter what . So

40:50

, whether it's responsible to piggyback

40:52

or not , Zuck never

40:55

had to worry about electricity before . He

40:57

had an entire legal team and consultants

41:00

and all these kiddies that come out of the

41:02

elite climate law programs at all the universities

41:05

saying let's just claim to consumers that

41:07

we're 100% renewable . We'll buy certificates

41:09

saying that your data

41:11

load in Southern California at nighttime

41:13

is coming from a Minnesota wind farm

41:16

. It'll be amazing . They'll totally buy it

41:18

and they did buy it . The public bought

41:20

it . Apple claims

41:23

to be 100% renewable power

41:25

since 2013 . They're full of shit

41:27

. It's totally false . But it

41:29

worked for the reporters and therefore

41:31

it worked for the consumers to the extent that the consumers

41:34

cared . What's happening to Apple , what's

41:36

happening to Zok , what's happening to Microsoft ? What's happening

41:38

to them all now is they cannot physically

41:40

get the power they need anymore . They

41:44

cannot get it . Lying to the consumer only

41:47

helps you with PR . It

41:50

does not get you electrons . So

41:53

whether AI should

41:55

be piggybacked on or whatever , the truth

41:57

is that people who need immense amount

41:59

of energy have the means to pay for

42:01

it and are suddenly learning that they

42:03

cannot really get it for the costs

42:05

that have been claimed for alternatives are

42:08

flooding into nuclear . They still

42:10

do not . They don't want to go to their board and

42:12

their shareholders and say , hey , Facebook

42:15

is a social networking , computing

42:17

AI and now we're going to be a power plant developer

42:19

. That would be a mission

42:22

drift in the extreme . I don't think they're

42:24

going to do that , unless there's an absolute

42:26

extreme emergency . So we need a middle ground

42:28

between the nuclear industry , which has not

42:30

been able to put together these deals . Maybe

42:32

it's not their fault , Maybe there just hasn't been demand

42:34

. We've got to be able to put them together with utilities

42:37

who move very cautiously and slowly

42:39

, and the end energy users , like

42:41

the hyperscalers and if you call

42:43

that piggybacking , fine , In

42:46

my world . We're just trying to meet

42:48

energy demand using the tool that

42:50

even the energy users themselves , like Zach

42:52

, know has to be a major

42:55

player in it the nuclear plants .

42:57

So let's go back to the small module reactor now point

42:59

, because I think that's been the big game changer

43:01

right as far as adoption .

43:04

It's been an extraordinary

43:06

way to get people interested

43:08

in nuclear and I think

43:10

that the amount of talent that's coming in

43:12

that's going to make a shot at starting

43:14

a nuclear design company and a reactor builder

43:16

. I truly honestly disagree

43:19

with some of the worst pessimists within the nuclear

43:21

industry . I think that someone's going to make

43:23

this work . The issue that we're

43:25

struggling with is you know I spent what

43:28

? 10 minutes talking about uranium

43:30

economics in the start of your show . The

43:32

smaller your reactor , the worse , the

43:35

less true that is . You start to escalate

43:37

the cost of the fuel to where you're getting uncomfortably

43:40

close to how much it costs to get fuel

43:42

for a natural gas plant , and it makes me sweat a little

43:44

. Where a lot of the enthusiasm towards

43:46

nuclear is . Thinking that we get this cheap

43:49

small amount of fuel drives an enormous

43:51

amount of energy . The smaller your reactor

43:53

, the more difficult that is . The more you have to spend

43:56

on the fuel , the processing , the

43:58

enrichment , the exotic

44:01

fuel shape if that's what the argument is for

44:03

making a safe small reactor , that you're making a

44:05

unusual new fuel

44:07

material that works really well . Until

44:09

you scale up that system and confirm

44:11

that it can be cheap , it's going to be extremely

44:13

expensive to fuel the small

44:15

nuclear reactors . That's not a reason not to

44:18

pursue it . Let me give an example and

44:20

, by the way , I will full disclosure . I

44:22

am an investor and advisor to at least one

44:24

of these small reactor companies because

44:26

I believe in the sector and I really

44:28

believe in the founders that put this team together

44:30

. So I'm like something will come

44:32

out . My bet is on these guys

44:35

. I get accused of hating on the SMRs

44:37

but also being too positive about them

44:39

at the same time . Not saying that proves that

44:41

I'm on the right path . But I'm not putting

44:43

all my eggs into the traditional or the

44:46

novel nuclear baskets . I

44:48

think that we need an approach towards

44:50

everything . So on the small reactors

44:52

, the idea is a small reactor

44:54

means well-heeled customers can say

44:56

I want it as a product . Just give me that

44:58

thing , get it to site , plug it in

45:00

, I'll pay top dollar . I just got to have the

45:02

power and I don't want to do it with diesel generators

45:05

. Who's the traditional folks that

45:07

say that the military First

45:14

of all ? Diesel generators on a submarine doesn't really go . You don't really have the

45:16

same submarine force if it's not powered by nuclear . We've had the small modular reactors

45:18

in submarines for a long time Now

45:20

we've had a very large , outstanding

45:23

, cheap labor force of

45:25

incredible young men and women working

45:27

for very low hourly pay under

45:29

a military command . Can we make the

45:31

model work outside of that system ? Maybe we

45:34

also have centralized , giant

45:36

, expensive batch orders for

45:38

these naval reactors . We also

45:40

have extremely high enrichment levels , so

45:42

a lot of the spicy stuff , the

45:44

active ingredient in the reactor

45:46

core . So are we going to allow that on

45:48

land ? Are we going to permit that ? I don't know . It's a complicated

45:51

problem and also the submarine reactors

45:53

are required to do a lot of things that we probably

45:55

wouldn't need the on-land reactors to , in terms

45:57

of like operate for 15 years and

45:59

be able to go full power on year 15

46:02

if you got to escape a pursuing ship

46:04

or chase somebody out . That's a very difficult

46:06

technical problem and we pay a lot and

46:09

lavish attention and effort on these naval

46:11

reactors in order to execute that . Per unit

46:13

of energy generated they're not a great deal . So

46:15

it's not going to solve our economics on

46:18

land per se to just say let's have

46:20

the Navy do on land energy

46:22

like we do offshore energy Traditionally

46:25

, when countries made a submarine

46:27

reactor and wanted to use that

46:29

as the start of their expertise to bring it on land

46:31

. The first thing they did was scale it up

46:33

as much as possible . At the moment , the chinese

46:36

are leaders in so many areas . They

46:38

claim that just making a small

46:40

version of their large reactors is not

46:43

financially sustainable . So it means that

46:45

there's likely going to be advanced

46:47

features or key breakthroughs

46:49

that they can't do or haven't done , that

46:51

our entrepreneurial founders

46:54

are able to get through . It's just a tricky problem

46:56

environmentalists , young engineers like me to find our

46:58

way into the nuclear sector . Without that

47:09

infusion of talent , without that enthusiasm

47:12

, I don't see any kind of nuclear

47:14

renaissance , even if it's going to come from

47:16

the traditional reactors .

47:18

Mark , for this one . I want to track more of your thoughts , more of your work

47:20

. I mean , obviously you're incredibly knowledgeable , as anybody

47:22

watching this can tell , and we haven't even gotten

47:24

to the big developments . But we're coming up short

47:27

on time here . But where can people find more of your

47:29

stuff ?

47:29

You can find me on Twitter , mainly at EnergyBants

47:32

, e-n-e-r-g-y-b-a-n-t-s

47:35

, and I guess you

47:37

can also keep track of some of the companies

47:40

I'm working with and the initiatives I'm working on

47:42

. So I'm working with World Nuclear

47:44

Association on the Net Zero Nuclear Program

47:46

and

47:49

that's trying to unlock the things preventing us from just having a

47:51

nuclear renaissance , and a lot of that

47:53

is coming from inside the industry . It's not look

47:55

as the old environmentalists die off

47:57

or convert to nuclear . We have new

47:59

people coming up that are very interested . In

48:02

the USA there's an incredible

48:04

demand for nuclear . We've got to be able to deliver

48:06

it . So , following that

48:08

line , I'm working with a company called the

48:10

Nuclear Company . The Nuclear Company intends

48:12

to be a developer of large-scale

48:14

nuclear projects standardized across

48:17

the United States . Design Once , build

48:19

Many is going to be the tagline

48:21

effectively . So follow the Nuclear

48:23

Company for more updates there . I'm

48:25

heavily involved in an effort called Stand Up

48:27

for Nuclear . That helps promote people

48:29

saving their nuclear plants and

48:31

getting more nuclear added . If a

48:34

country or a state wants that , stand

48:36

Up for Nuclear is very near and dear to my heart

48:38

. Please take a look and see if that's of

48:40

interest to you . And then finally , yeah

48:42

, when there's a crisis , come to Twitter , I'll

48:44

be gathering up the best information I can

48:46

handle and giving it my own quick

48:48

judgment as a nuclear engineer and then getting

48:51

it out to the public , and if I get it wrong I

48:53

take it on the chin . But I'm sort of trying

48:55

to balance caution to get

48:57

the details right , while also being ready

48:59

for a crisis where people are scared or worried

49:01

about what it means that a nuclear plant is

49:03

having an accident or under attack .

49:05

Everybody . Please make sure you follow Mr Mark Nelson

49:07

. Great conversation , Very educational , certainly

49:10

from my perspective . Please , folks , make sure

49:12

you share this good word around Lead Leg

49:14

Live and I'll see you , hopefully tomorrow for

49:16

more of these episodes . Thank

49:18

you , Mark , Appreciate it . Thanks for having me , Michael Cheers

49:21

everybody . Thank you .