The Exchanges

Q But before we get directly into cost, I think we're going to talk a lot about the global context here, because I know there's a big difference between what's going on here in the U.S. and what's going on in lots of other countries. So let's start with the global context. Where in the world is there a lot of nuclear development activity today, and where is there relatively little?

A Yeah, so I think, you know, from a U.S. context or U.S. audience, nuclear can feel pretty stagnant, because we haven't built We've barely built any nuclear in the last 30 years. Um, but globally, you know, there's huge growth in deployment of nuclear. So nuclear is mainly being built where there is rapid growth in demand for electricity, uh, because nuclear is a very large-scale technology. So East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia primarily, places like China, India, South Korea. But there are also, like, over 30 countries that are looking to develop their first nuclear power plants. We call them these, like, Uh, nuclear newcomers or nuclear aspirin countries. This is a lot of lower income, middle income countries that are still industrializing. Uh, so it's a lot of places in, you know, across Asia, but also Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, South America. So there's a lot of places that are interested in nuclear. And some of the, the countries that have joined recently that have started or have nuclear under construction, United Arab Emirates has brought online. Um, they're about to Bring their fourth reactor online, but this is their first nuclear power plant. Each reactor is huge, so it's 5.6 gigawatts of power, and it'll be 20%.

AI assessment note: “East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia primarily, places like China, India, South Korea.”

Q certainly, like, in the money, but not like, not as cheap as what you're describing, not the cheapest thing besides hydro. So, that implies that historically, this is the other context, there's a global context, and there's a historical context. That implies that the historical cost of nuclear, or the cost of historically developed reactors, I guess I should say, is even cheaper than the future moonshot. Is that right?

A Yeah. Um, it is true that the reactors that the US built in the early days, in the sixties, were much cheaper than the ones today. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But also, you know, it's similar to what South Korea is building nuclear for today. So it's not like the standards are different. It's a lot about how the industry is structured. And so really what, you know, what makes nuclear cheap and where nuclear is cheapest, whether you're looking at history or where it's cheap currently, it's where, you Countries and utilities are building a lot of reactors in series of a standardized design. And the, not just you're learning with the technology, but the industry is learning, the workers are learning, the regulator is learning, and you have those sorts of economies of multiples. Um, and that's really what nuclear has lacked in the US, um, Europe, most places that aren't building a lot of it today.

AI assessment note: “it is true that the reactors that the US built in the early days”

Q Would that be, what's the largest nuclear project in the world?

A Um, I believe it's in South Korea, and it's eight reactors, so Yeah, they can get pretty big. The largest power plants in the world are all nuclear power plants. The largest power plant in the US is a nuclear power plant, and they can, you know, generate huge amounts of electricity, but I think what's, what's crazy about the UAE project is that this is 20% of their electricity, um, when the project's complete, and it took, you know, a decade to get it up and running. Other countries that have their first projects under construction, Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, there's a lot of interest in Eastern Europe, we can come back to that, like Romania and Poland. Um, but we're also seeing, you know, places that already have a lot of experience with nuclear are looking to expand or build new projects in light of recent energy crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shutoff of Russian gas. So places like Sweden, um, the UK, even Belgium, um, which had a planned phase out of nuclear power, putting their phase out on hold for 10 years. Um, so a lot of places are rethinking nuclear, even in, you know, Wealthy countries that already were reconsidering nuclear, looking to end nuclear in favor of renewables are now rethinking that. So there's a lot in flux right now.

AI assessment note: “I believe it's in South Korea, and it's eight reactors”

Q haven't really talked about, you mentioned that it's on the list of places it's building a bunch of nuclear, but we haven't talked about it in the context of cost, um, but I think you hear about a lot is China. Do we have any sense, first of all, how much nuclear is China actually building, and second of all, what do we know about the cost of that nuclear?

A Yeah, so China's, has the most nuclear under construction of any country. It has about, ah, I think, 22 reactors under construction right now. When those are Complete. Actually, just when a few more come online, they will surpass France as having the largest fleet of nuclear, so the second largest in the world after the U.S. And, you know, they're building a ton of nuclear. There are some estimates from the International Energy Agency on costs in China, but we really don't know. You know, it's, um, state-owned utilities, state-owned developers, but we do know how long it takes them to build projects because, um, When you start construction and when you end construction, that's reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency, um, which is kind of like an international regulator, not entirely. So we know the construction duration of projects in China, and they are following a trend that looks like South Korea in terms of how long it takes, and time is a pretty good proxy of cost, um, as you can imagine. So from our estimates, it We can say China's probably building at about 2500 dollars per kilowatt, so not quite as cheap as South Korea, but, you know, nowhere near the U.S., and again, that's probably because they're building a lot of the same design. China's also had a much larger focus on indigenizing technology, so they started by importing nuclear designs from France, from…

AI assessment note: “China's probably building at about 2500 dollars per kilowatt”

Q This may be impossible, but can you in, in layperson's terms, explain the difference between physical processes that deliver safety versus engineered systems that deliver safety?

A I have a good example that is tested on my mom who has explained it to her bowling team. So there's, there's many different aspects of passive safety, but here's one that I think people, most people can grasp. So, um, if the reactor gets too hot, you need to cool it. And so the way that's done in a lot of traditional water-cooled reactors is with pumps. And you need to have these really robust Pumps that won't break down, and then you need to have redundant pumps in case they do break down, so you might have four pumps when you only need one, um, and they have to be able to operate at really high temperatures and with radioactivity and things like that, um, so these really over-engineered pumps. Now, with a lot of the advanced reactors, they rely on convective cooling to move that heat around, so that is, like, what happens in your tea kettle or your soup pot. Where hot stuff rises, and then when it cools down, it drops down, and so this convective cycle moves the heat through, um, and they do that through engineering and through the types of coolants they're using, so they don't have to have all those heavily over-engineered pumps to move their coolant around.

AI assessment note: “with a lot of the advanced reactors, they rely on convective cooling”

Q So 2200 dollars a kilowatt. So that's a good benchmark for us to start talking about. So that's the low end. What's the high end?

A Yeah, and I was just looking at the, you know, it's, it can be hard to get these costs in this number for these large projects that took decades to build, um, but the Vogel project, which just finished in the U.S., is, is probably at the high end. I think the project that just came online in Finland is probably up at this level as well. It's about 8000 dollars per kilowatt, so four times more. Yeah, so it's a big range, and the U.S., you know, in terms of thinking about, like, a moonshot, like, what sort of goal would you have for the cost of nuclear? Under 2000 dollars per kilowatt is really the goal that people think to make nuclear cost competitive. Um, with natural gas, it would need to be under 2000 dollars per kilowatt.

AI assessment note: “It's about 8000 dollars per kilowatt, so four times more.”

Q that, like figure out what actually does comprise the, what's the pie that makes up that X dollars per kilowatt, ultimately. I mean, you just alluded to it somewhat, but can you kind of walk through what are the major categories of cost, and Maybe, I don't know, take whatever representative example you want, and sort of how, how large are they proportionate to each other in a typical development?

A Yeah. Um, so I'll start with, with the cost of electricity, and then I'll, I'll break down the capital cost. But cost of electricity, the cost is almost entirely in the capital cost. So it's similar to, more similar to wind, solar, hydroelectric, and doesn't really look like a fossil fuel plant. So even though it's a, you know, thermal generator, the fuel is a very small proportion of the cost. So unlike the A wind farm or a solar plant , the capital cost is really large because we've typically been building huge plants. So that's really important. If we want to bring down the cost of nuclear, you have to bring down the capital cost. Now, what actually goes into that cost? So I actually pulled up this report, um, from 2012, which is one of the only breakdowns that you can find. Um, and so this is for a AP 1000 estimate. Um, in the U.S. And about- Describe what AP-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E So for a plant like that, about half of the costs come from the power plant outside of the reactor. So what's, like, the yard, the cooling infrastructure is huge, um, and installation. So a lot of that groundwork. Um, so nothing to do with nuclear, um, but there are a lot of regulations on that concrete and steel. The actual, like, nuclear Component was called the nuclear island, so it's like the reactor, the pressure, containment structure. That's only like, 12…

AI assessment note: “nuclear island, so it's like the reactor... That's only like, 12% of the total cost”

Q ourselves now is a resumption in growth in electricity load, um, which, which, as you said, has been a hallmark of the countries that have really shown the ability to scale nuclear. So we may get that back, but yeah, what, what do we make of the new scale thing? And more broadly, like how long, if it happens, how long is it going to take us to get Momentum.

A Yeah, and on top of, you know, starting to see growth in electricity demand, whether it's from electrifying industry, or transportation, or making hydrogen, there's also a lot of states pushing for more aggressive decarbonization policies, so we're, we're starting to see more, you know, serious ambition around clean energy, um, and so I think that's all positive for nuclear. With new scale, It's really disappointing, for sure, but I, I don't think it's any sort of death knell, and the reason is there is just this vibrant, thriving, advanced nuclear industry. There's lots of other designs. New Scale was, you know, it had a lot of government support over the last decade, but it was a, it was a very different kind of project. It was water-cooled. It looked more like a traditional nuclear power plant. It was also, the plant was going to be quite large. It was closer, you know, it was modular units, but built, being built in a 12 pack, so looked more like 700 megawatts. So that's a very big, you know, power plant that you have to construct. So the, the other reactors going forward, um, none of them are water cooled. They're all very different technologies, and so, you know, I'm pretty optimistic. I think a lot of these There's, you know, maybe six or seven that are seriously working with the regulator to get license for their first projects, and I think we'll probably see ground sta…

AI assessment note: “With new scale, It's really disappointing, for sure, but I, I don't think it's any sort of death knell”