Heather Exner-Pirot’s Post

Check out this thoughtful and nuanced read in the The Globe and Mail about the process for siting a repository for used nuclear fuel in Canada 💡 👇 "No process is perfect; but it would be hard to find one better suited to achieve free, prior and informed consent. Credit where credit is due. The way that the nuclear sector is stewarding its waste in Canada is its strength, not its weakness. This should be acknowledged and promoted as we think about what our future energy systems should look like." ~Heather Exner-Pirot of Macdonald-Laurier Institute Link to the article below.

California's energy policy is at a critical juncture, marred by a concerning lack of awareness among politicians regarding the benefits of clean nuclear energy. As we confront pressing challenges, it's imperative to explore all viable avenues for clean energy. Neglecting the potential of nuclear power not only stalls progress but also undermines our ability to ensure reliable energy for all Californians. Let's advocate for informed decision-making and push for policies that embrace the role of clean nuclear energy in securing a brighter, more sustainable future. #CleanNuclearEnergy #EnergyPolicy #SustainableFuture"

Four things caused new nuclear projects to stall in the United States in the early 1980s: declining demand for energy, double-digit interest rates, cheap natural gas and poor public perception. Things have changed dramatically with public perception. A Pew Research Center survey from May indicated that 56 percent of Americans said they favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity. “Public perception is now at an all-time high, and has been stable for the last few years,” INL Director John Wagner said. “In my career, I’ve never seen such strong positive public perception.” That leaves the issue of money. Nuclear plants are expensive and take a long time to build. https://lnkd.in/gEFZ-Sbw

This is big news for the carbon free world and nuclear industry particular! As the 21st century continues to see Cloud, AI and Data Analytics shape the future, the rise in Data Centers to enable these services will require a huge STABLE power draw. The support by Microsoft for use of nuclear energy to provide this energy is a strong signal to industry that big players in the Data Center world can help add life to the Nuclear renaissance. This action has, in my opinion, 2 major effects. 1) Increasing the demand for nuclear energy and by extension, increasing the capital put into the field to speed up development of new reactor designs, systems, processes etc. While this news is about starting up an old reactor, the increased demand for use nuclear as a baseload for these data centers could see more demand in areas with data Centers without reactors. Conversely, these areas that would be open to considering nuclear reactors will either look at current offerings of Gen III+ reactors or help enable development of new SMRs and Gen IV systems. 2) As a externality of the above, more experience in licensing these reactors will occur. This is extremely helpful for an industry which has seen a slow down of licensing since the 1990s on average and has led to a loss of talent and experience in licensing. This in turn has the unfortunate knock-on effect of adding to licensing costs to an already high CAPEX project. As more experience in licensing is achieved, it will lower the amount of time regulators need to ‘relearn’ the processes and also provide other countries interesting in building their own nuclear industries with an updated reference point for development. This is not to say every country is equal in this state. It clearly is not (an example is France who clearly has a lot of relevant and updated experience with nuclear licensing and processes) but the increased interest in this area will allow even more nuclear capable countries to add their updated knowledge and experience to the global pool and provide everyone with an updated database of these best practices. Overall this is an exciting time for the industry. The increase in interest and demand for nuclear energy can benefit everyone (albeit ensuring safety is kept forefront of the considerations) and I’m excited to be part of this industry!

🚨Breaking: The nuclear renaissance continues! 8090 Industries portfolio company Oklo Inc has received greenlight from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct site investigations for the planned reactor at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls. Best captured by Oklo Inc CEO Jacob DeWitte: “This sets the stage for doing all the initial site ... prep work, and what I would call initial construction activities. What we’re seeing is hyperscalers taking the approach of trying to secure large capacity from existing plants to the greatest extent that they can, which makes sense, because some of that can be the nearest-term power delivery. But the nuclear “industry has radically fallen short of its ability to keep up with the market interest. The challenge has just been the industry’s offerings in terms of product, the business model and ability to execute have just been horrible.” “All of that is elements around which disruption has needed to take place to sort of change the paradigm,” he said. “And that’s where we really have taken a different angle.” He expects Oklo to break ground at the Idaho site in 2026, with plans to have the reactor up and running by the following year. Kerem Ozmen Charles Oppenheimer Wes Mendenhall Filip Vurdelja Haluk Sabanci Dincer Grant Brown Ishan Meswani Garuth A. Andrew Irwin Shilpa Patel

There are lots of reason it’s more expensive than ever to build Nuclear. Conparatively the cost of materials and labor are more expensive than they were in the mid 20th century. Mandates to use more expensive US made materials, while good for our struggling local industries, add to the price tag significantly compared to private projects using imported materials like steel. Another challenge is permitting. Timelines to permit any major government projects regularly average 6.5 years, and Nuclear has often faced legal and political challenges to deployment over the last 4 decades. And there are always questions about efficiency and grift with public projects. Any accusation is hard to prove and generally only comes to light years after, and while the Government may try to claw back directly related dollars to anything discovered, it’s harder to calculate additional expenses that were caused in a ripple effect around the main issue. We need many things to change if we will ever deploy nuclear in a sufficient enough manner to meet baseload needs (especially at peak hours or during extreme weather events) for our country as we work to shift further away from fossil fuels.

The energy sector sends clear message to new UK government: nuclear is key. A recent survey conducted by GlobalData Plc, demonstrated the energy sectors desire for the new UK Government to push for nuclear. The survey, circulated to members of the sector ahead of the UK general election held on 4 July, gauged their take on the implications of a new government for the country’s power sector, including expected and desired outcomes. Take a look at the full report here and understand the sentiment across the energy sector when it comes to the future of nuclear. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eAmF5YZQ

The Coalition’s attacks on the CSIRO’s integrity and independence have been appalling to watch, and this interview with former CSIRO director Glenn Platt is on point: “It’s lazy just to say that you must have been politicised because the answer isn’t what you like.” The Coalition asked the CSIRO to factor in information from nuclear advocates—which the CSIRO did, only for the data to reveal, once again, that nuclear would be far more expensive than solar and wind. A debate based on facts is welcome, and important in our democracy. Baseless, politically motivated attacks such as what we have seen this week are unacceptable. Until the Coalition can stump up credible data to back its claims, we’ll continue to listen to the scientific consensus that nuclear doesn’t belong in Australia; and that renewables, backed by storage, can deliver clean, safe and affordable electricity for all Australians. https://lnkd.in/gawdU6wW

US nuclear plants would not be ready to operate again as soon as desired. It will be tough to swiftly meet soaring power demand from the data centers behind artificial intelligence with new or resurrected nuclear reactors, as companies will face high regulatory hurdles, potential fuel supply obstacles, and sometimes stiff local and environmental opposition. A plan by Microsoft to use the restart of a Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to help power its expanding data centers reflects the tech industry's hopes nuclear energy can be a quick and climate-friendly answer to its massive electricity needs. Microsoft and Constellation Energy announced a deal to restart a unit at the plant in Pennsylvania on Friday, in what would be the first-ever restart for a data center. At the announcement, Constellation’s CEO Joe Dominguez called nuclear power the only energy source available that is both climate-friendly and reliable enough to support Big Tech’s needs, implying weather-dependent wind and solar energy may not be up to the task. The Three Mile Island plant made global headlines in 1979 with a partial meltdown at its Unit 2 reactor, the worst nuclear incident in US history. The reopening plan covers the Unit 1 reactor at the Pennsylvania plant, which operated safely for decades before being closed five years ago. The $1.6-billion plan would restart Unit 1 by 2028 to offset Microsoft's data-center power consumption in the region. The announcement follows a similar agreement in March in which Amazon purchased a nuclear-powered datacenter from Talen Energy and other nuclear contracts for data centers are in the works, power industry sources say. The needs these deals aim to fill are huge. U.S. data center power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generation capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assumed natural gas, wind and solar would fill the gap.

I have been a staunch supporter of moving the industry forward toward a reduced carbon footprint using a diversified resource portfolio rather than putting all our eggs in one resource basket. To do that, the industry needs to include nuclear power whether it be large plants or distributed SMRs across the system. I take exception to the Environment America Executive statement talking about toxic meltdowns, wrecked landscapes and contaminated drinking water. Other than the TMI event in the 70s, where’s the documentation to back this statement up? The industry that started building nuclear plants in the 1950s is now once again in the environmentalists’ sights using scare tactics to try and prevent advancing zero carbon nuclear resources. I especially find the wrecked landscape comment perplexing. Look at the footprint of a 1400 MW nuclear reactor versus the equivalent acreage required to install an equal amount of wind or solar applications not to mention the transmission needed. Wrecked landscape, seriously? Sadly, many of the nuclear plants that have gone offline have been completely decommissioned and therefore are done. There are few that were mothballed and have half a chance of restarting if the economics can be made to work. It is also interesting to note that retired coal sites offer a huge potential for additional nuclear development. These sites have significant transmission investment in place and have access to cooling which are critical components to develop new nuclear. Also, these sites have existing heavy rail services that were used to bring in coal which can now be used to bring in various nuclear components that cannot be transported via roadways. All in all, it is not a bad initiative on the part of the government. #nuclear #resource #generation #zerocarbon