Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio show produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mix Radio
Show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio Show. I'm
your guest host Jeff Pollocks, youse Strategy and Sustainability Officer
at the Port of Corpus Christia Authority, and today I'm
excited to welcome us my guest, Scott Edwards, the Vice
President of Regulatory Development at Core Power. Core Power, in
its own words, works to finance, construct and deliver maritime
nuclear energy solutions to create a better future, specifically by
(00:39):
way of floating nuclear power plants and nuclear propulsion in
the civil maritime fleet, and we'll dive into both of
those in detail as part of today's conversation. Scott has
over three decades of leadership experience in nuclear fuel, transportation
and regulatory development. In his role at Core Power, Scott
is shaping the regulatory landscape for floating maritime nuclear solutions.
Scott has a background in chemical and nuclear engineer as
(01:00):
well as an MBA. Scott is a Navy veteran and
served on the Transportation Safety Standards Committee at the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA during a three year assignment
to the World Nuclear Transport Institute in London. Scott is
also fresh off a trip to the IAEA General Conference
in Vienna. Scott, Welcome to the Energy Mix radio show.
(01:21):
Thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So normally we'd start this conversation by diving into your background,
and I'm eager to do that. But given that that
nuclear energy is a vague notion to many and is
a little a little peripheral to most of the energy
topics we typically cover on the show, let's start with
some definitions and a little more, a little bit about
core power scope. So if you can, can you just
(01:46):
give us a quick overview of nuclear fision technology and
particularly what differentiates small, modular and microreactors that are under
development today from the generation one and two reactors that
that many of our listeners might be familiar with.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
All right, sure, so, I mean I think most of
us have seen nuclear technology in movies. I mean, Oppenheimer
won the Academy Award a couple of years ago, and
so there's a lot of you know, conflation of people
with the nuclear with the you know, atomic weapons, which
of course that is not something that is the case
here with nuclear power right now most people might not
(02:23):
be awareness, but about twenty percent of electricity the United
States actually comes from nuclear power, and that's using some
older pressurized water reactor technology or PWRs as they're call
So these are large plants. I mean, there are a
number of them in Texas, and you know, there are
ninety four nuclear reactors in the United States right now operating,
and most of these are pretty large. They're somewhere between
(02:45):
six hundred megawatts and up to about one thousand, six
hundred megawatts or one point six gigawatts of power. So
these are the large base low power plants. So they
use uranium. Typically, they will use low enriched uranium, so
uranium if you mine it from the ground and you
refine it, it's about zero point seven percent uranium two
(03:08):
thirty five that's what typically fissions and produces electricity. So
you've heard a lot about nuclear and the news over
the last few months with the Iran nuclear program, that
sort of stuff that you're talking about highly enriched uranium
in order to do that, those are over ninety percent
uranium two thirty five, not something that is used anywhere
(03:31):
close to that in the common nuclear commercial nuclear industry.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So the.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Friendly nuclear power plant that you might have next door
to you runs it a little bit under five percent
enriched in uranium two thirty five. So some of the
newer technologies of small modular reactors and microreactors, which I'll
get to in a second, they run at about up
to twenty percent. No, that's you're using something that's called HALLU,
which is high assay low enriched uranium. So those those
(04:00):
are the percentages that you're using. And so these are
things that can be in no way associated with weapons
or anything like that. It's impossible to use them in
that sort of way. But the small modular reactors and
the microreactors, typically a small module reactor has a energy
(04:20):
production of somewhere between fifty and three hundred megawatts of
electric So that's typically what you define as a small
modular reactor or SMR, is what we'll probably be using
throughout the rest of the talk. Anything less than fifty
falls into the microreactor category. So most of the SMRs
(04:41):
and microreactors that people are looking at do tend to
use how lou because this up to twenty percent enriched material.
Not all of them by any stretch, but a lot
of them do. Because having the higher enrichment of uranium
does allow a more concentrated in the smaller reactor takes
up much less physical space, and so that's why they
(05:05):
are gaining in popularity. And there are a lot of
vendors looking at trying to bring SMRs and microreactors into
reality right now.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Okay, great, yeah, super helpful, and invariably we'll get it
more into just sort of basic fission technology. So anything
else that differentiates SMRs and microreactors in terms of pressure
or just general technology. And I know there are a
variety of technologies out there under development in that SMR space,
but just in terms of fundamentals that differentiate that the
newest generation of reactors from those those earlier reactors, the
(05:38):
larger reactors.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sure, sure, most of the larger reactors that are out
there use you know, regular water as a cool it,
so they're pressurized water reactors or the PWRs. So these
typically operated pretty high amounts of pressure. You know, above
a thousand psi is the pressure of the water within
their reactor system itself. The small modular reactors are looking
(06:02):
at a lot of other alternatives, so a lot of
them are using technologies such as liquid metal cooled, some
of them are using molten salt reactor technology. Some of
them are using what's called heat pipe. Some of them
are high temperature gas reactors, so they actually use gases
as the cool it. So the SMRs typically are not
(06:25):
using the water as a pol it. So that's the
prime difference in the SMRs from the more traditional reactors
that are out there right now.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And from a safety standpoint, there's some inherent safety benefit
in that am I right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
There is a benefit, and in the fact that if
you were to have a bad thing happened to the
reactor and you would release some of the fission products
from the reactor into the cool it, which could then
escape into the environment and get the general public exposed
to it. Having a over one thousand psi pressure behind
it would potentially, you know, spread that contamination a little
(07:05):
bit further than using something that has a liquid metal
type coolant on it, where if there is some sort
of a release from it. If the liquid coolant is
liquid when it's five hundred degrees fahrenheit, but now it's
leaked into the environment, it's pretty immediately going to freeze
as you would call it, I mean, even though it's
(07:26):
still going to be well over five hundred degrees, but
you know, it would then freeze being a solid form,
which would mean it would not spread around the environment.
So it is much more contained. So that is a
lot safer with it from that perspective. The other activity
or thing that is brought to it by the small
modular reactors are that they're using more modern technology and
(07:47):
they are set up in a way that they are
what they call passively safe, so that if there was
an adverse event that requires it to shut down, it
can shut down even without human intervention. So it is
what they call all you know, passively safe and no
operator intervention and involved with that. So that's something that
the newer technology brings. It doesn't necessarily exist in some
(08:10):
of the older technology.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Okay, yeah, great, thanks to perfect explanation. So in the
spirit of that technological discussion, CORE is working on both
floating nuclear power plants and propulsion in the civil maritime fleet.
So what technology specifically is CORE using in those respective
applications of the litany of technologies you just mentioned in
that SMR space.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, so right now, we're working with a couple of
different vendors. One is Terra Power in Washington State and
they are developing a couple of different reactor types. The
one that we are looking at from a maritime propulsion perspective,
so that would be used for powering nuclear powered ships,
is something called a molten salt reactor. The ticular version
(08:54):
there we are looking at with them as a multen
chloride fast reactor. So this is a technology where the
actual uranium itself is not your traditional fuel rod fuel assembly.
It's actually a uranium chloride that is in solution and
it actually is flowing through the reactor core itself, and
(09:14):
the core itself is in such a geometry that when
it's in the core is when the fission happens, that
heat is produced and then it will flow out of
the core and the geometry of it once it leaves
the core such that it is no longer reacting and
so it's not critical anymore, and then that hot fluid
that it's in will then go into a heat exchanger
where that heat is extracted to eventually turn as turban
(09:37):
and make the electricity. So that's a molden salt reactor
and that's what we think makes a lot of sense
to use in a propulsion type of scenario. The other
technology we're looking at is we're working with Westikhouse and
there eventuring microreactor. That particular reactor is a heat pipe
reactor where they do have a somewhat traditional fuel assembly
(10:01):
and except for the fact that they are using a
type of uranium fuel called triso fuel, and this is
an encapsulated type of uranium that is smaller than the
tip of your pencil. Is the uranium, and then it
is then has three layers around its ceramic layers and encapsulated.
And then those pellets or those excuse me, those small
(10:25):
spheres or then packed inside of a pellet is about
the size of the pencil eraser and that is what
is the fuel rods. And then it uses heat. The
heat is just transferred through a gas It basically flows
up and it's totally natural circulation. And then a natural
circulation is then goes in and turns a gas turbent
(10:47):
to produce the electricity. So those are the ones that
we are looking at right now. The fore power itself
is reactor agnostics, so we are looking at some other
technologies also, but those are the ones we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Okay, great with respect those two technologies that you just
described that you are evaluating for application in maritime. You know,
in contrast to the long history and we'll get into
your background in the Navy, But in contrast to the
long history of nuclear reactors in propulsion of naval vessels,
are there any fundamental differences? I mean, you know, what
I think I've heard you mentioned before is ambient pressure
(11:20):
versus pressurized systems in naval technology. Can you just talk
through that for us a little bit?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Okay, Well, so the you know, typical naval type reactor,
they actually use highly enriched uranium for the military applications.
So that is something that is a concern from a
non proliferation standpoint. So that is not something that will
ever be used in any sort of a commercial environment.
I mean, there's no way that that's going to pass
(11:47):
muster with any of the non proliferation people. So, but
that particular technology was selected by the Navy because it
does meet some of the military applications that it has,
so I mean very fast responsiveness, you know, very quick
to turn around. You can just picture being on a submarine.
You know, there are times where you immediately need to accelerate.
(12:10):
So you've got to have something that's very responsive. So
that's what led the Navy to select using the HU
and pressurized water reactors that they have for their ships.
That is not something that a commercial ship is going
to need to have. So you know, that technology is
unique to the military applications for it. Okay, so again
(12:33):
they use the pressurized water reactors. That's the technology that
they were using back the nineteen fifties when the Douclear
Navy was founded, and that has worked for them and
they are very satisfied with what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So okay, it's not going to change, all right.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, thanks to that distinction. Okay, we're going to take
a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk
more with Scott Edwards about his backgrounds and his entree
into the nuclear sciences. Here on the Energy Mix Radio show.
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock, and today we're talking
with Scott Edwards, VP of Regulatory Development at Core Power. Okay, Scott,
(13:12):
so let's take a step back. Tell us about your
background here. Your career in nuclear started in the navy.
How did that happen, how'd you end up in the
Navy and why nuclear? And then where have you spent
the intervening years, and of course I'm particularly interested in
your experience with the IAEA.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Okay, sure, well, I mean my story you started. I
was going to university at wunch to Virginia Tech, and
I'm a chemical engineer going to school there, and I
was working in the diying vault, and I needed some
money to help pay my way through school because my
parents were both in the educators in West Virginia, so
not enough money to pay me. And then my sister
(13:51):
is starting university a year or two after me. So
as a result working the dining hall, I get a
letter in the mail one day, Hey, you two can
earn over one thousand dollars a month just for going
to school.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You don't have to do.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
RTC, you just had to sign up to join the
Navy for a number of years after you graduate. And
so I considered that on my way to the dining
hall job and thought, Okay, that looks like it might
be a good alternative for me. So, I mean, it's
nothing more elegant than that it was. I signed up.
I joined the Nuclear Navy. I had to go through
(14:24):
the interview process. I am young enough that I did
not go through the infamous interview process with Admiral Rickover,
but I did go through the interview process with the
successor and then a few about a year and a
half later, right before I graduated, they asked if I
wanted to go to headquarters and work at Naval Reactors Headquarters,
and I said yes. They're like, sure, but you have
(14:46):
to go through the interview process again. So I got
to go through a second time. The admiral had change
to Admiral Bruce de Mars, who was the head of
Naval Reactors at the time and while I was there,
and so I ended up working for the Nuclear Navy
because of that, basically helped pay on my way through school
and my commitment ended up being four years after I graduated.
(15:06):
So I worked at headquarters, did a bunch of nuclear
engineering training while I was there, Because the Navy does
educate their sailors and all of the people that work
for them, because you know, their technology is unique and
you need to be you know, top notch people and
qualified on that. So after my time and the Nuclear
Navy ended, the Cold War had just ended, so I
(15:27):
was looking for alternatives. The Navy wasn't really the right
place at the time, so I ended up going into
the Department of Energy clean up complex. So basically, they
you know, made the nuclear weapons program from Manhattan Project
throughout the Cold War, and they left some environmental messes
behind as they did that. So I got heavily engaged
(15:47):
with the clean up activities there and I did that
for roughly twenty years, with some stints at the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. I worked at Fernauld in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I worked at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho. I also
worked at Yuckam Mountain for a couple of years at
that ill fated project for the nuclear waste repository. Eventually
(16:11):
I joined Commercial Nuclear and when I switched over to
the commercial nuclear side of things, the company I was
working for I was involved with transport of fresh reactor
fuel from a fuel fabrication facility in Richland, Washington, throughout
the world. With that job, I ended up working a
lot with International Transport and I got an opportunity to
(16:35):
go to work for the World Nuclear Transport Institute in
London for three years. So I went and started doing that,
and due to my nuclear background, I was assigned as
the World Nuclear Transport Institute's member on the IAEA International
Atomic Energy Agencies Transportation Safety Standards Committee or TRANSK as
they call it in Vienna. And that's the group that meets.
(16:57):
It's a multinational group. It's headed by IAEA. The chair
is actually an American from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
they basically issue all of the transport regulations that are
adopted worldwide for radioactive materials.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
So I was in the room as we were debating
what those regulations were, you know, whether it made sense
to keep them as they are, whether their opportunities to
improve them, whether there were areas where updates were required.
And so I did that and that you committee trans
is still meeting and they will be updating the transport
(17:34):
safety regulations probably the end of this year. A new
version of that's about to come out. But that's how
the International Atomic Energy Agency works, is all of their
nuclear safety standards and nuclear security standards are put together
by having these groups from different countries around the world
getting together and coming to a consensus on what those
(17:54):
regulations should be. So it was quite exciting and interesting
to be in the room as.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They were doing all that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, it's you.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Know, it's kind of weird to be sitting there with
people who are regulators from different countries. And I sat
in a couple of small working groups or were working
on the regulations and trying to issue some safety guidance documents.
And I'm sitting there with regulators from Germany and Japan,
and I'm here representing this non governmental organization. And they
(18:28):
look at me and say, hey, Scott, you know, what
do you think.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It should say.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I'm like, well, you're the regulators. I thought, yeah, but
you're the only one who's a native English speaker, and
these are going to beat English, so we want you
to like okay. So you know, it was actually.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Pretty exciting to be able to do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, no, I can imagine.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So I moved. So I moved back to the US.
I worked on a decommissioning plan for about a year,
but At some point I ran into mccallbo who is
the founder and CEO of core Poate, and I reached
out to him and said, hey, I would be interested
in what you're trying to do because you're trying to
build new nuclear in an area where it's not been
(19:10):
very much in the past, and I think this is
an exciting opportunity. The work I was doing with cleaning
up other people's messes and you know, providing fuel to
people was you know, good work and interesting work, but
I found it to be much more exciting to.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Be able to build something that's never been done before.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
No's' that's how corporate. That's a great story that it
was actually an intentional outreach on your part. I've been wondering.
We're out of time for this segment. We're going to
take a quick break and when we come back, we'll
talk more with Scott Edwards about the promise a generation
for our nuclear technology in the maritime space.
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Speaker 2 (21:22):
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock, and today we're talking
with Scott Edwards from Core Power. Okay, Scott, So we've
talked a bit about Core Power's niche, which seems to
be truly unique globally from my outside perspective at least,
and about you know, your background and what Brighty Core
(21:42):
talk to us about the promise of nuclear in the
maritime space. How do does SMR or microactor technology revolutionize
shipping and maritime and what would change in ports, what
would change on the high seas? I mean, what can
we expect if nuclear takes off in maritime?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, well thanks for the question. Basically, the shipping industry
right now is using heavy fuel oil. So basically, you know,
when you do the refining, it takes the the bottoms
out of all the refining where you're extracting the gasoline
and the diesel and everything that's left is what they
(22:24):
use to power the ships. So it's it's relatively yeah,
relatively dirty, and so as a result of that, there's
been a big push to find some cleaner technologies to
use for doing there. So basically, you know, bringing nuclear
into the maritime industry and to use it to power
(22:46):
ships does give a lot of UPco improvements over the
way things are being done right now. A lot of
ships right now are steaming much less than their rated
speeds because of concerns with fuel efficiency, with pollution, other
sorts of issues. If you have a nuclear powered ship,
you do not have to worry about that. You can
(23:08):
steam at full speed around the clock every day. You
also are able to do a much quicker turnaround when
you get to a fort so a lot of the
time that spend the port is spent bunkering yep and
refueling the ship. Well, if you have a nuclear powered
ship that has a eight to thirty year lifetime like
(23:29):
we're looking at right now, you do not have to
spend any time when you're at the port bunkering and refueling.
You just have to unload the cargo load on the
new cargo and go. You also have the side effect
of the fact that you've got an operating nuclear reactor
that's coming into your port. You can actually use that
(23:49):
to help power the operations at the port.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
One of the.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Items that I've we've learned about over the last couple
of years are, for example, cruise ship in Juneo, Alaska.
We hear right now that when a cruise ship comes
into Juneo, Alaska, the demand on the power grid from
that cruise ship is equivalent to the entire grid of Juno, Alaska. Wow.
(24:15):
So having a nuclear powered ship come in to Juno,
you could actually you know, reduce the power demands at
Juno for the couple of months a year that they've
got port ships coming in and requiring that power. So
there are a lot of benefits that you could have
from it, from electrification to an efficiency. And then that's
(24:37):
not even talking about the potential changes to the International
Maritimes Organization's rules about the greenhouse gas emissions, which you know,
we don't know exactly how that's going to turn out
when they meet in the month of October, but you know,
there are a lot of countries that are pushing to
eliminate those and nuclear power certainly they can fit that need.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, look, I'm so glad you've run up the last point.
I think it's a really interesting moment time to be
having this conversation weeks away from that that IMO meeting,
which could codify really aggressive standards for emissions of both
criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases in the maritime space. And
so what's interesting to me about what you said is
that nuclear obviously addresses the emissions piece, there's a zero
(25:25):
you know, zero emissions, but it also potentialarly confers all
of these other performance and operational advantages, Whereas when we
look at the other alternative fuels that are emerging in
the maritime space as part of that emissions reduction strategy,
there are still other They either come with the same
or a new set of operational challenges. In port, right,
(25:47):
you're still bunkering in some cases, you're handling fuels that
require different different handling technology, whereas nuclear is essentially eliminates
that dimension of maritime operation. And I think the point
you made about about being able to use vessels as power,
you know, as power sources effort, I mean ports as
(26:08):
industrial hubs are sort of forever limited in available low
carbon electrons or low emission electrons. I mean we can
attest to that firsthand here. So it's a really interesting
prospect and truly a game changer, not just and you know,
a pivot in the way we we power the space. Okay,
(26:31):
we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll talk more with Scott Edwards about what at least
feels from the outside like a bipartising groundswallth support for
a next generation nuclear technology.
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Speaker 2 (27:22):
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm Jeff Pollackin Today we're talking with Scott Edwards from
Core Power. So, Scott, if we look at what appears
to be bipartisan support for legislation at the national level
to accelerate the development and permitting of generation four nuclear technology,
coupled with what from again from the outside, seems like
major capital investment to revive long shuttered sort of legacy
(27:45):
and nuclear power pants. It feels seems like nuclear is
having a breakout moment of source. You've got your finger
on the pulse the regatory environment. You know, where are
we in that journey in that continuum? Are we over
some critical humpers? You know, are just on the cusp
of seeing nuclear reach its potential? And what kind of
milestones are ahead of us in that trajectory.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Well, I mean, I think we're on the cusp of something.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I mean, over the last couple of years, you've seen
a number of nuclear plants that were closed and are
now being reopened. You have the Palisades plant in Michigan
that's being reopened and you may start operating before the
next year is out. You've heard discussions about the three
Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania that is now being reopened. Also,
(28:29):
there have been discussions also in New York and at
some other facilities that have been closed and reopening those.
You've recently in the last two years, you've had the
Bobel plant in Georgia, which is a very large baseload plant.
There's two of them that those were reopened or excuse me,
opened in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four now.
But those are a little bit of a cautionary tale,
(28:51):
I'll have to say, because they were supposed to open
in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, and so they opened
about seven years late apiece, and they came in about
twenty billillion dollars over what their budget was. So that
is the concern that a lot of people have with
building terrestrial nuclear facilities like that, because pre inevitably in
(29:12):
the United States at least, they've come in way over
budget and overschedule when they do that.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So is is that unique to facilities of that size
or do you think that is just a universal truth
for nuclear at any scale when we're talking about terrestrial facilities.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
You know, I think it's a lot the jury is
still out on that a little bit. I think it
has to do with the US specifically, So for example,
in the United Arab Emirates, they just opened in the
last three or four years the Baraka Nuclear Facility, so
this is a Korean design facility. UAE was certainly not
a nuclear state before they opened these four nuclear reactors,
(29:51):
but these were opened pretty much on time and on budgets.
So there's something unique about the way that it's done
here in the u that makes it a little less
efficient and more expensive. Probably some of that's the environmental
regulations and doing the environmental impact statements. Not that that's
(30:11):
something we should do away with, but I think there
are ways that we can address this a little more
effectively going forward. The main issue though, is that every
time you're building a new nuclear plant, you are hiring
a workforce in to build a nuclear plant, and so
you have had yourself a major construction project. And about
(30:33):
eighty percent of the costs for building a terrestrial nuclear
facility are related to the civil engineering. So you're building
the structure, You've got all this concrete, all of this rebar,
you know, putting it all together, and then it's of
course got to be nuclear grade concrete and rebar, so
it makes it much more expensive. And that's where a
lot of the costs that come in. I think that's
(30:54):
what's led to an interest in the small module reactors
because that's something where it's not necessary a massive construction
project like this anymore. You can focus on just building
the reactor vessel, the piping system that's associated with that,
and not much else. So I think there's a lot
of opportunity to cut down on the bad track record
(31:15):
of you know, over cost, over schedule that's been going on.
And there is a bipartisan grounds ball as you mentioned.
Last year, the US Congress passed the Bipartisan Advance Act,
which has basically directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the
US to improve their efficiency with what they're trying to do.
And it's kind of given the NRC a dual mission.
(31:37):
Before they've been solely focused on being the regulator making
sure that everything, you know, all the eyes are dotted
and teas across, which of course you need to do.
But the Advance Act has also given a number of
advocacy roles to the NRC to have them go and
start looking at, you know, how can we use nuclear
to solve some of the problems that we are having
(31:58):
in the country. A lot of the problems are related
to a lack of electricity. I'm sure a lot of
people are familiar with data centers AI. I mean these
are very much demanding a lot of electricity, a lot
of baseload electricity, so there is a large push to
add extra megawatts to a grid to do this. The
(32:22):
other thing to mention regulatorily is within the last couple
of months, there have been four executive orders that have
come out that are related to the nuclear industry, and
a couple of those in particular are focused on modernizing
the nuclear regulatory commissions culture and regulatory processes. So they
are going through a number of steps right now to
(32:43):
examine their processes and see what they can do to
make things more efficient and more streamlined without sacrificing any
sort of safety or security expectations with what they're doing.
The executive orders have also pushed the federal government to
make the Idaho National Lab and other national labs within
(33:04):
the country be more of the research arms where you
can build some prototype and advanced reactors and test out
some new ways of doing things, and so that is
making it a very exciting time to be doing things
like these generation for reactors that are using different coolants
that have been used, or maybe different structures of uranium,
(33:24):
whether it's in a multile salt form or it's in
a triso pellet. So all of these are you know,
helping to make it a.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Very exciting and energized area to be working in right now.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
No pun intended, of course, yes, of course, So we're
we're in our funda minute, but actually there, I want
to pull one more thread here and then I'm going
to leave it to the folks on the other end
to take or leave the additional content before you to close.
So I you know, what I basically heard you say
is that the operative word when it comes to maybe
correcting the track record of being over you know, over
(33:58):
off schedule and over budget on historic interstrial projects, is
the modularity of current technology. Right, you design it in
permanent once and then you build it ten thousand times.
And then secondarily, you know, you're not only is there
an efficiency in the regulatory oversight and the permiting process,
but there's an efficiency in the balance of plant. Right
these things come containerized or in whatever form, and so
(34:20):
the you know, as opposed to eighty percent of your
project costs being balanced a plant you've reduced that by
an order magnitude. That's a really interesting moment in time.
And I think it's hard for folks to understand how
much efficiency can be gained that way because we just
haven't seen it deployed yet, which is what I think
so interesting about what you guys are trying to do
in maritime. And I guess you know the question in
(34:41):
this for you is, you know, this idea of nuclear
in maritime seems like it's enabled or really is only
possible because of that modularity, right right exactly?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, yeah, I mean absolutely.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I mean I grew up in the nuclear Navy. I
remember when I first went to U yard where we
were really nuclear submarines as electric boat in Groton, Connecticut.
When I went there in nineteen ninety one, there were
eight different submarines under construction. They were all phases of
construction while I was going through that facility. And so
obviously we're not building ships at that sort of a
(35:15):
pace anymore. But there are places around the world where
they are building ships at that sort of a pace
in you know, Korea, Japan, of course, China right now.
But these are people who are used to building big
things in a modular fashion. And so these are complex
pieces of equipment that they're building, these ships, and so
there certainly is an opportunity to do a similar thing.
(35:38):
A nuclear reactor is, you know, a complex piece of equipment,
but it's not anything that couldn't be done using the
same modular construction techniques that these shipyards are using around
the world right now. It's been done in the US before.
It's been a while, but it's certainly something that we
can you know, relearn and get back to the way
(35:59):
we were doing things in the past.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Okay, I'm going to take a quick break. When we
come back, we're going to finish up by exploring the
art of the possible with Scott Edwards here on the
Energy Mix Radio Show. Welcome back to the nationally syndicated
Energy Mix Radio show. I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock.
Today we're talking with Scott Edwards from Core Power. Okay, Scott, here,
in our last segment, let's get a little bit existential.
(36:23):
Is the dissemination of modern nuclear the only way that
we as a global society can accomplish the call it
the trilateral imperative of decarbonization. Mounting energy demand, especially to
support data centers in the AI space, and the need
to lift the world population to a basic level of
energy security. I mean, what is it the only technology
(36:44):
that can do that for us? And if that's the case,
you can paint a picture of what the world looks
like once we've realized nuclear's full potential.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, I mean, I mean nuclear is not going to
be the only energy producing technology and a diverse portfolio.
I mean a lot of it. That's going to depend on
where in the world you live. I mean there are
some people who live and say Norway or other places
like that that have a lot of hydro power, and
so you know they are you know, at advantaged where
they can be able to use that. But in a
(37:15):
lot of the world, yeah, nuclear is going to be
a primary source of electricity going forward to do those
three things that you mentioned lift everybody up to the
same you know, standard of living around the world. So
I absolutely am going to advocate for nuclear power to
do that sort of thing. I think it's gotten a
(37:37):
bit of a bum rap over the years. There been
a number of you know, incidents that have occurred that
have soured a lot of the public on nuclear I mean,
we didn't really talk too much about Chernobyl or Fukushima,
but those are both events that people think of when
they think of nuclear power and why they shouldn't have it.
And the newer technologies that we're talking about here, Theseeration
(38:00):
three plus or the Generation four technologies are designed in
such a way where they cannot have those sorts of
concerns because of their passive safety features due to the designs,
so you can't have runaway thermal reactions like had happened
at Chernobyl. So with the technology that we have now,
(38:21):
there is the ability to provide a future where you
do have efficients relatively inexpetantive power available to all to
make everybody have similar opportunities. I think that nuclear is
the best way to do that in all places. And
(38:43):
nuclear isn't just providing power for people. I mean, one
of the potential uses that we've been hearing from potential
clients for core power has been water desalination. There are
a lot of areas around the world that don't have
fresh water, but maybe they're on a nocean, and so
water desalination is something that is extremely energy intensive. So
(39:06):
being able to use nuclear power to do that is
certainly something that would benefit a lot of people around.
There are other opportunities for nuclear power where it's not
necessarily going to be you know, a nuclear powered ship.
He could be something where you're producing e fuels to
(39:27):
such as hydrogen to power other alternatives. So I think
there are a lot of opportunities for it, and I
don't think you're gonna end up a situation where you're
gonna have a microreactor on every street corner. I think
you would end up in a circumstance where there are
places where you're gonna have microreactors where it makes sense.
Maybe it's to provide process heat for a chemical plant
(39:51):
or some sort of in industrial application, or maybe it's
going to be you'll have a small modular reactor to
do something similar, or maybe there's a somewhat remote island
or some sort of a disaster relief scenario where you
need to have power brought in because the hurricane has
gone through. Yeah, those are opportunities for SMRs, but then
(40:12):
they'll still be the big, large base load reactors in
a lot of other scenarios. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I mean, look, I think what you've highlighted is something
that I find myself repeating on this show. Nearly every
time we have a conversation, which is that we are
unequivocally in the era of and right. And in that sense,
you know, the term energy addition, energy expansion, I mean,
they all apply, and no doubt that that you know,
(40:38):
that sort of trilateral imperative necessitates nuclear as part of
that stack of solutions. I think you highlighted something really interesting,
which is that most of us tend to think of
nuclear as you know, in in electric in terms of
electricity generation, but the ability to produce heat as a
(40:59):
catalyst and a necessary ingredient for other industrial process thereby
reducing the electricity consumption by those processes, so you know,
coupling it with other industrial processas, or the capacity to
provide electrons in places where your limiting factor is actually
the grid, you know, getting wires and connectivity is the
limiting factor. Maybe you know even places where you you know,
(41:21):
for example, are well suited to generate by way of
renewables or hydro other places, but the connectivity is your
limiting factor. The modularity of next generation nuclear solves that,
and I think that I think part of the opportunity
for us collectively is helping to expand the way that folks,
particularly in this country, think about the solutions that nuclear offers.
(41:45):
And that's why it's so exciting to hear you all
talk about the maritime space because it really challenges kind
of the conventional ways that we think about how to
solve longstanding problems. Yeah, fantastic. Well, look, any any closing
thoughts from you on any of that, or or or
the work you're doing in maritime Maybe it ain't anything
(42:06):
you want to leave the listeners with.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Basically, you know, I think nuclear and maritime nuclear has
a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of countries
around the world who are really starting to look at
doing this now, whether it's because any floating nuclear power plants,
because they're predominantly island nations and it's awfully difficult to
get the power. And if you think about if you're
(42:28):
an island nation and you've got a lot of diesel
and power grids, the amount of the supply chain that
you need to have going constantly to keep those sped
is significant. So there are a lot of opportunities for
nuclear in that sort of environment and during it in
maritime fashion, using a shipyard to build these where you
(42:51):
can get the economies of scale and the economies of numbers.
By doing this is something that we haven't yet done
in the nuclear industry. This is an opportunity I think
that we'll benefit all of us if we choose to
accept it and start proceeding with Mariti unduclear applications.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
We're all out of time for today's show. I'd like
to thank my guest Scott Edwards for being here today.
I'm Jeff Kollock and thank you for joining us on
the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
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that affect us all in the oil and gas industry.
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
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Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio show produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mix Radio
Show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio Show. I'm
your guest host Jeff Pollocks, youse Strategy and Sustainability Officer
at the Port of Corpus Christia Authority, and today I'm
excited to welcome us my guest, Scott Edwards, the Vice
President of Regulatory Development at Core Power. Core Power, in
its own words, works to finance, construct and deliver maritime
nuclear energy solutions to create a better future, specifically by
(00:39):
way of floating nuclear power plants and nuclear propulsion in
the civil maritime fleet, and we'll dive into both of
those in detail as part of today's conversation. Scott has
over three decades of leadership experience in nuclear fuel, transportation
and regulatory development. In his role at Core Power, Scott
is shaping the regulatory landscape for floating maritime nuclear solutions.
Scott has a background in chemical and nuclear engineer as
(01:00):
well as an MBA. Scott is a Navy veteran and
served on the Transportation Safety Standards Committee at the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA during a three year assignment
to the World Nuclear Transport Institute in London. Scott is
also fresh off a trip to the IAEA General Conference
in Vienna. Scott, Welcome to the Energy Mix radio show.
(01:21):
Thank you very much for being here.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate the invitation.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So normally we'd start this conversation by diving into your background,
and I'm eager to do that. But given that that
nuclear energy is a vague notion to many and is
a little a little peripheral to most of the energy
topics we typically cover on the show, let's start with
some definitions and a little more, a little bit about
core power scope. So if you can, can you just
(01:46):
give us a quick overview of nuclear fision technology and
particularly what differentiates small, modular and microreactors that are under
development today from the generation one and two reactors that
that many of our listeners might be familiar with.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
All right, sure, so, I mean I think most of
us have seen nuclear technology in movies. I mean, Oppenheimer
won the Academy Award a couple of years ago, and
so there's a lot of you know, conflation of people
with the nuclear with the you know, atomic weapons, which
of course that is not something that is the case
here with nuclear power right now most people might not
(02:23):
be awareness, but about twenty percent of electricity the United
States actually comes from nuclear power, and that's using some
older pressurized water reactor technology or PWRs as they're call
So these are large plants. I mean, there are a
number of them in Texas, and you know, there are
ninety four nuclear reactors in the United States right now operating,
and most of these are pretty large. They're somewhere between
(02:45):
six hundred megawatts and up to about one thousand, six
hundred megawatts or one point six gigawatts of power. So
these are the large base low power plants. So they
use uranium. Typically, they will use low enriched uranium, so
uranium if you mine it from the ground and you
refine it, it's about zero point seven percent uranium two
(03:08):
thirty five that's what typically fissions and produces electricity. So
you've heard a lot about nuclear and the news over
the last few months with the Iran nuclear program, that
sort of stuff that you're talking about highly enriched uranium
in order to do that, those are over ninety percent
uranium two thirty five, not something that is used anywhere
(03:31):
close to that in the common nuclear commercial nuclear industry.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So the.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Friendly nuclear power plant that you might have next door
to you runs it a little bit under five percent
enriched in uranium two thirty five. So some of the
newer technologies of small modular reactors and microreactors, which I'll
get to in a second, they run at about up
to twenty percent. No, that's you're using something that's called HALLU,
which is high assay low enriched uranium. So those those
(04:00):
are the percentages that you're using. And so these are
things that can be in no way associated with weapons
or anything like that. It's impossible to use them in
that sort of way. But the small modular reactors and
the microreactors, typically a small module reactor has a energy
(04:20):
production of somewhere between fifty and three hundred megawatts of
electric So that's typically what you define as a small
modular reactor or SMR, is what we'll probably be using
throughout the rest of the talk. Anything less than fifty
falls into the microreactor category. So most of the SMRs
(04:41):
and microreactors that people are looking at do tend to
use how lou because this up to twenty percent enriched material.
Not all of them by any stretch, but a lot
of them do. Because having the higher enrichment of uranium
does allow a more concentrated in the smaller reactor takes
up much less physical space, and so that's why they
(05:05):
are gaining in popularity. And there are a lot of
vendors looking at trying to bring SMRs and microreactors into
reality right now.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Okay, great, yeah, super helpful, and invariably we'll get it
more into just sort of basic fission technology. So anything
else that differentiates SMRs and microreactors in terms of pressure
or just general technology. And I know there are a
variety of technologies out there under development in that SMR space,
but just in terms of fundamentals that differentiate that the
newest generation of reactors from those those earlier reactors, the
(05:38):
larger reactors.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sure, sure, most of the larger reactors that are out
there use you know, regular water as a cool it,
so they're pressurized water reactors or the PWRs. So these
typically operated pretty high amounts of pressure. You know, above
a thousand psi is the pressure of the water within
their reactor system itself. The small modular reactors are looking
(06:02):
at a lot of other alternatives, so a lot of
them are using technologies such as liquid metal cooled, some
of them are using molten salt reactor technology. Some of
them are using what's called heat pipe. Some of them
are high temperature gas reactors, so they actually use gases
as the cool it. So the SMRs typically are not
(06:25):
using the water as a pol it. So that's the
prime difference in the SMRs from the more traditional reactors
that are out there right now.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And from a safety standpoint, there's some inherent safety benefit
in that am I right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
There is a benefit, and in the fact that if
you were to have a bad thing happened to the
reactor and you would release some of the fission products
from the reactor into the cool it, which could then
escape into the environment and get the general public exposed
to it. Having a over one thousand psi pressure behind
it would potentially, you know, spread that contamination a little
(07:05):
bit further than using something that has a liquid metal
type coolant on it, where if there is some sort
of a release from it. If the liquid coolant is
liquid when it's five hundred degrees fahrenheit, but now it's
leaked into the environment, it's pretty immediately going to freeze
as you would call it, I mean, even though it's
(07:26):
still going to be well over five hundred degrees, but
you know, it would then freeze being a solid form,
which would mean it would not spread around the environment.
So it is much more contained. So that is a
lot safer with it from that perspective. The other activity
or thing that is brought to it by the small
modular reactors are that they're using more modern technology and
(07:47):
they are set up in a way that they are
what they call passively safe, so that if there was
an adverse event that requires it to shut down, it
can shut down even without human intervention. So it is
what they call all you know, passively safe and no
operator intervention and involved with that. So that's something that
the newer technology brings. It doesn't necessarily exist in some
(08:10):
of the older technology.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Okay, yeah, great, thanks to perfect explanation. So in the
spirit of that technological discussion, CORE is working on both
floating nuclear power plants and propulsion in the civil maritime fleet.
So what technology specifically is CORE using in those respective
applications of the litany of technologies you just mentioned in
that SMR space.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, so right now, we're working with a couple of
different vendors. One is Terra Power in Washington State and
they are developing a couple of different reactor types. The
one that we are looking at from a maritime propulsion perspective,
so that would be used for powering nuclear powered ships,
is something called a molten salt reactor. The ticular version
(08:54):
there we are looking at with them as a multen
chloride fast reactor. So this is a technology where the
actual uranium itself is not your traditional fuel rod fuel assembly.
It's actually a uranium chloride that is in solution and
it actually is flowing through the reactor core itself, and
(09:14):
the core itself is in such a geometry that when
it's in the core is when the fission happens, that
heat is produced and then it will flow out of
the core and the geometry of it once it leaves
the core such that it is no longer reacting and
so it's not critical anymore, and then that hot fluid
that it's in will then go into a heat exchanger
where that heat is extracted to eventually turn as turban
(09:37):
and make the electricity. So that's a molden salt reactor
and that's what we think makes a lot of sense
to use in a propulsion type of scenario. The other
technology we're looking at is we're working with Westikhouse and
there eventuring microreactor. That particular reactor is a heat pipe
reactor where they do have a somewhat traditional fuel assembly
(10:01):
and except for the fact that they are using a
type of uranium fuel called triso fuel, and this is
an encapsulated type of uranium that is smaller than the
tip of your pencil. Is the uranium, and then it
is then has three layers around its ceramic layers and encapsulated.
And then those pellets or those excuse me, those small
(10:25):
spheres or then packed inside of a pellet is about
the size of the pencil eraser and that is what
is the fuel rods. And then it uses heat. The
heat is just transferred through a gas It basically flows
up and it's totally natural circulation. And then a natural
circulation is then goes in and turns a gas turbent
(10:47):
to produce the electricity. So those are the ones that
we are looking at right now. The fore power itself
is reactor agnostics, so we are looking at some other
technologies also, but those are the ones we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Okay, great with respect those two technologies that you just
described that you are evaluating for application in maritime. You know,
in contrast to the long history and we'll get into
your background in the Navy, But in contrast to the
long history of nuclear reactors in propulsion of naval vessels,
are there any fundamental differences? I mean, you know, what
I think I've heard you mentioned before is ambient pressure
(11:20):
versus pressurized systems in naval technology. Can you just talk
through that for us a little bit?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Okay, Well, so the you know, typical naval type reactor,
they actually use highly enriched uranium for the military applications.
So that is something that is a concern from a
non proliferation standpoint. So that is not something that will
ever be used in any sort of a commercial environment.
I mean, there's no way that that's going to pass
(11:47):
muster with any of the non proliferation people. So, but
that particular technology was selected by the Navy because it
does meet some of the military applications that it has,
so I mean very fast responsiveness, you know, very quick
to turn around. You can just picture being on a submarine.
You know, there are times where you immediately need to accelerate.
(12:10):
So you've got to have something that's very responsive. So
that's what led the Navy to select using the HU
and pressurized water reactors that they have for their ships.
That is not something that a commercial ship is going
to need to have. So you know, that technology is
unique to the military applications for it. Okay, so again
(12:33):
they use the pressurized water reactors. That's the technology that
they were using back the nineteen fifties when the Douclear
Navy was founded, and that has worked for them and
they are very satisfied with what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
So okay, it's not going to change, all right.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No, thanks to that distinction. Okay, we're going to take
a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk
more with Scott Edwards about his backgrounds and his entree
into the nuclear sciences. Here on the Energy Mix Radio show.
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock, and today we're talking
with Scott Edwards, VP of Regulatory Development at Core Power. Okay, Scott,
(13:12):
so let's take a step back. Tell us about your
background here. Your career in nuclear started in the navy.
How did that happen, how'd you end up in the
Navy and why nuclear? And then where have you spent
the intervening years, and of course I'm particularly interested in
your experience with the IAEA.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Okay, sure, well, I mean my story you started. I
was going to university at wunch to Virginia Tech, and
I'm a chemical engineer going to school there, and I
was working in the diying vault, and I needed some
money to help pay my way through school because my
parents were both in the educators in West Virginia, so
not enough money to pay me. And then my sister
(13:51):
is starting university a year or two after me. So
as a result working the dining hall, I get a
letter in the mail one day, Hey, you two can
earn over one thousand dollars a month just for going
to school.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
You don't have to do.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
RTC, you just had to sign up to join the
Navy for a number of years after you graduate. And
so I considered that on my way to the dining
hall job and thought, Okay, that looks like it might
be a good alternative for me. So, I mean, it's
nothing more elegant than that it was. I signed up.
I joined the Nuclear Navy. I had to go through
(14:24):
the interview process. I am young enough that I did
not go through the infamous interview process with Admiral Rickover,
but I did go through the interview process with the
successor and then a few about a year and a
half later, right before I graduated, they asked if I
wanted to go to headquarters and work at Naval Reactors Headquarters,
and I said yes. They're like, sure, but you have
(14:46):
to go through the interview process again. So I got
to go through a second time. The admiral had change
to Admiral Bruce de Mars, who was the head of
Naval Reactors at the time and while I was there,
and so I ended up working for the Nuclear Navy
because of that, basically helped pay on my way through school
and my commitment ended up being four years after I graduated.
(15:06):
So I worked at headquarters, did a bunch of nuclear
engineering training while I was there, Because the Navy does
educate their sailors and all of the people that work
for them, because you know, their technology is unique and
you need to be you know, top notch people and
qualified on that. So after my time and the Nuclear
Navy ended, the Cold War had just ended, so I
(15:27):
was looking for alternatives. The Navy wasn't really the right
place at the time, so I ended up going into
the Department of Energy clean up complex. So basically, they
you know, made the nuclear weapons program from Manhattan Project
throughout the Cold War, and they left some environmental messes
behind as they did that. So I got heavily engaged
(15:47):
with the clean up activities there and I did that
for roughly twenty years, with some stints at the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. I worked at Fernauld in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I worked at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho. I also
worked at Yuckam Mountain for a couple of years at
that ill fated project for the nuclear waste repository. Eventually
(16:11):
I joined Commercial Nuclear and when I switched over to
the commercial nuclear side of things, the company I was
working for I was involved with transport of fresh reactor
fuel from a fuel fabrication facility in Richland, Washington, throughout
the world. With that job, I ended up working a
lot with International Transport and I got an opportunity to
(16:35):
go to work for the World Nuclear Transport Institute in
London for three years. So I went and started doing that,
and due to my nuclear background, I was assigned as
the World Nuclear Transport Institute's member on the IAEA International
Atomic Energy Agencies Transportation Safety Standards Committee or TRANSK as
they call it in Vienna. And that's the group that meets.
(16:57):
It's a multinational group. It's headed by IAEA. The chair
is actually an American from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
they basically issue all of the transport regulations that are
adopted worldwide for radioactive materials.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
So I was in the room as we were debating
what those regulations were, you know, whether it made sense
to keep them as they are, whether their opportunities to
improve them, whether there were areas where updates were required.
And so I did that and that you committee trans
is still meeting and they will be updating the transport
(17:34):
safety regulations probably the end of this year. A new
version of that's about to come out. But that's how
the International Atomic Energy Agency works, is all of their
nuclear safety standards and nuclear security standards are put together
by having these groups from different countries around the world
getting together and coming to a consensus on what those
(17:54):
regulations should be. So it was quite exciting and interesting
to be in the room as.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
They were doing all that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, it's you.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
Know, it's kind of weird to be sitting there with
people who are regulators from different countries. And I sat
in a couple of small working groups or were working
on the regulations and trying to issue some safety guidance documents.
And I'm sitting there with regulators from Germany and Japan,
and I'm here representing this non governmental organization. And they
(18:28):
look at me and say, hey, Scott, you know, what
do you think.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It should say.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
I'm like, well, you're the regulators. I thought, yeah, but
you're the only one who's a native English speaker, and
these are going to beat English, so we want you
to like okay. So you know, it was actually.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Pretty exciting to be able to do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, no, I can imagine.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So I moved. So I moved back to the US.
I worked on a decommissioning plan for about a year,
but At some point I ran into mccallbo who is
the founder and CEO of core Poate, and I reached
out to him and said, hey, I would be interested
in what you're trying to do because you're trying to
build new nuclear in an area where it's not been
(19:10):
very much in the past, and I think this is
an exciting opportunity. The work I was doing with cleaning
up other people's messes and you know, providing fuel to
people was you know, good work and interesting work, but
I found it to be much more exciting to.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Be able to build something that's never been done before.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
No's' that's how corporate. That's a great story that it
was actually an intentional outreach on your part. I've been wondering.
We're out of time for this segment. We're going to
take a quick break and when we come back, we'll
talk more with Scott Edwards about the promise a generation
for our nuclear technology in the maritime space.
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Speaker 2 (21:22):
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock, and today we're talking
with Scott Edwards from Core Power. Okay, Scott, So we've
talked a bit about Core Power's niche, which seems to
be truly unique globally from my outside perspective at least,
and about you know, your background and what Brighty Core
(21:42):
talk to us about the promise of nuclear in the
maritime space. How do does SMR or microactor technology revolutionize
shipping and maritime and what would change in ports, what
would change on the high seas? I mean, what can
we expect if nuclear takes off in maritime?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, well thanks for the question. Basically, the shipping industry
right now is using heavy fuel oil. So basically, you know,
when you do the refining, it takes the the bottoms
out of all the refining where you're extracting the gasoline
and the diesel and everything that's left is what they
(22:24):
use to power the ships. So it's it's relatively yeah,
relatively dirty, and so as a result of that, there's
been a big push to find some cleaner technologies to
use for doing there. So basically, you know, bringing nuclear
into the maritime industry and to use it to power
(22:46):
ships does give a lot of UPco improvements over the
way things are being done right now. A lot of
ships right now are steaming much less than their rated
speeds because of concerns with fuel efficiency, with pollution, other
sorts of issues. If you have a nuclear powered ship,
you do not have to worry about that. You can
(23:08):
steam at full speed around the clock every day. You
also are able to do a much quicker turnaround when
you get to a fort so a lot of the
time that spend the port is spent bunkering yep and
refueling the ship. Well, if you have a nuclear powered
ship that has a eight to thirty year lifetime like
(23:29):
we're looking at right now, you do not have to
spend any time when you're at the port bunkering and refueling.
You just have to unload the cargo load on the
new cargo and go. You also have the side effect
of the fact that you've got an operating nuclear reactor
that's coming into your port. You can actually use that
(23:49):
to help power the operations at the port.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
One of the.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Items that I've we've learned about over the last couple
of years are, for example, cruise ship in Juneo, Alaska.
We hear right now that when a cruise ship comes
into Juneo, Alaska, the demand on the power grid from
that cruise ship is equivalent to the entire grid of Juno, Alaska. Wow.
(24:15):
So having a nuclear powered ship come in to Juno,
you could actually you know, reduce the power demands at
Juno for the couple of months a year that they've
got port ships coming in and requiring that power. So
there are a lot of benefits that you could have
from it, from electrification to an efficiency. And then that's
(24:37):
not even talking about the potential changes to the International
Maritimes Organization's rules about the greenhouse gas emissions, which you know,
we don't know exactly how that's going to turn out
when they meet in the month of October, but you know,
there are a lot of countries that are pushing to
eliminate those and nuclear power certainly they can fit that need.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, look, I'm so glad you've run up the last point.
I think it's a really interesting moment time to be
having this conversation weeks away from that that IMO meeting,
which could codify really aggressive standards for emissions of both
criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases in the maritime space. And
so what's interesting to me about what you said is
that nuclear obviously addresses the emissions piece, there's a zero
(25:25):
you know, zero emissions, but it also potentialarly confers all
of these other performance and operational advantages, Whereas when we
look at the other alternative fuels that are emerging in
the maritime space as part of that emissions reduction strategy,
there are still other They either come with the same
or a new set of operational challenges. In port, right,
(25:47):
you're still bunkering in some cases, you're handling fuels that
require different different handling technology, whereas nuclear is essentially eliminates
that dimension of maritime operation. And I think the point
you made about about being able to use vessels as power,
you know, as power sources effort, I mean ports as
(26:08):
industrial hubs are sort of forever limited in available low
carbon electrons or low emission electrons. I mean we can
attest to that firsthand here. So it's a really interesting
prospect and truly a game changer, not just and you know,
a pivot in the way we we power the space. Okay,
(26:31):
we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back,
we'll talk more with Scott Edwards about what at least
feels from the outside like a bipartising groundswallth support for
a next generation nuclear technology.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
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Speaker 2 (27:22):
Welcome back to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show.
I'm Jeff Pollackin Today we're talking with Scott Edwards from
Core Power. So, Scott, if we look at what appears
to be bipartisan support for legislation at the national level
to accelerate the development and permitting of generation four nuclear technology,
coupled with what from again from the outside, seems like
major capital investment to revive long shuttered sort of legacy
(27:45):
and nuclear power pants. It feels seems like nuclear is
having a breakout moment of source. You've got your finger
on the pulse the regatory environment. You know, where are
we in that journey in that continuum? Are we over
some critical humpers? You know, are just on the cusp
of seeing nuclear reach its potential? And what kind of
milestones are ahead of us in that trajectory.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Well, I mean, I think we're on the cusp of something.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
I mean, over the last couple of years, you've seen
a number of nuclear plants that were closed and are
now being reopened. You have the Palisades plant in Michigan
that's being reopened and you may start operating before the
next year is out. You've heard discussions about the three
Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania that is now being reopened. Also,
(28:29):
there have been discussions also in New York and at
some other facilities that have been closed and reopening those.
You've recently in the last two years, you've had the
Bobel plant in Georgia, which is a very large baseload plant.
There's two of them that those were reopened or excuse me,
opened in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four now.
But those are a little bit of a cautionary tale,
(28:51):
I'll have to say, because they were supposed to open
in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, and so they opened
about seven years late apiece, and they came in about
twenty billillion dollars over what their budget was. So that
is the concern that a lot of people have with
building terrestrial nuclear facilities like that, because pre inevitably in
(29:12):
the United States at least, they've come in way over
budget and overschedule when they do that.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
So is is that unique to facilities of that size
or do you think that is just a universal truth
for nuclear at any scale when we're talking about terrestrial facilities.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
You know, I think it's a lot the jury is
still out on that a little bit. I think it
has to do with the US specifically, So for example,
in the United Arab Emirates, they just opened in the
last three or four years the Baraka Nuclear Facility, so
this is a Korean design facility. UAE was certainly not
a nuclear state before they opened these four nuclear reactors,
(29:51):
but these were opened pretty much on time and on budgets.
So there's something unique about the way that it's done
here in the u that makes it a little less
efficient and more expensive. Probably some of that's the environmental
regulations and doing the environmental impact statements. Not that that's
(30:11):
something we should do away with, but I think there
are ways that we can address this a little more
effectively going forward. The main issue though, is that every
time you're building a new nuclear plant, you are hiring
a workforce in to build a nuclear plant, and so
you have had yourself a major construction project. And about
(30:33):
eighty percent of the costs for building a terrestrial nuclear
facility are related to the civil engineering. So you're building
the structure, You've got all this concrete, all of this rebar,
you know, putting it all together, and then it's of
course got to be nuclear grade concrete and rebar, so
it makes it much more expensive. And that's where a
lot of the costs that come in. I think that's
(30:54):
what's led to an interest in the small module reactors
because that's something where it's not necessary a massive construction
project like this anymore. You can focus on just building
the reactor vessel, the piping system that's associated with that,
and not much else. So I think there's a lot
of opportunity to cut down on the bad track record
(31:15):
of you know, over cost, over schedule that's been going on.
And there is a bipartisan grounds ball as you mentioned.
Last year, the US Congress passed the Bipartisan Advance Act,
which has basically directed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the
US to improve their efficiency with what they're trying to do.
And it's kind of given the NRC a dual mission.
(31:37):
Before they've been solely focused on being the regulator making
sure that everything, you know, all the eyes are dotted
and teas across, which of course you need to do.
But the Advance Act has also given a number of
advocacy roles to the NRC to have them go and
start looking at, you know, how can we use nuclear
to solve some of the problems that we are having
(31:58):
in the country. A lot of the problems are related
to a lack of electricity. I'm sure a lot of
people are familiar with data centers AI. I mean these
are very much demanding a lot of electricity, a lot
of baseload electricity, so there is a large push to
add extra megawatts to a grid to do this. The
(32:22):
other thing to mention regulatorily is within the last couple
of months, there have been four executive orders that have
come out that are related to the nuclear industry, and
a couple of those in particular are focused on modernizing
the nuclear regulatory commissions culture and regulatory processes. So they
are going through a number of steps right now to
(32:43):
examine their processes and see what they can do to
make things more efficient and more streamlined without sacrificing any
sort of safety or security expectations with what they're doing.
The executive orders have also pushed the federal government to
make the Idaho National Lab and other national labs within
(33:04):
the country be more of the research arms where you
can build some prototype and advanced reactors and test out
some new ways of doing things, and so that is
making it a very exciting time to be doing things
like these generation for reactors that are using different coolants
that have been used, or maybe different structures of uranium,
(33:24):
whether it's in a multile salt form or it's in
a triso pellet. So all of these are you know,
helping to make it a.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Very exciting and energized area to be working in right now.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
No pun intended, of course, yes, of course, So we're
we're in our funda minute, but actually there, I want
to pull one more thread here and then I'm going
to leave it to the folks on the other end
to take or leave the additional content before you to close.
So I you know, what I basically heard you say
is that the operative word when it comes to maybe
correcting the track record of being over you know, over
(33:58):
off schedule and over budget on historic interstrial projects, is
the modularity of current technology. Right, you design it in
permanent once and then you build it ten thousand times.
And then secondarily, you know, you're not only is there
an efficiency in the regulatory oversight and the permiting process,
but there's an efficiency in the balance of plant. Right
these things come containerized or in whatever form, and so
(34:20):
the you know, as opposed to eighty percent of your
project costs being balanced a plant you've reduced that by
an order magnitude. That's a really interesting moment in time.
And I think it's hard for folks to understand how
much efficiency can be gained that way because we just
haven't seen it deployed yet, which is what I think
so interesting about what you guys are trying to do
in maritime. And I guess you know the question in
(34:41):
this for you is, you know, this idea of nuclear
in maritime seems like it's enabled or really is only
possible because of that modularity, right right exactly?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Well, yeah, I mean absolutely.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I mean I grew up in the nuclear Navy. I
remember when I first went to U yard where we
were really nuclear submarines as electric boat in Groton, Connecticut.
When I went there in nineteen ninety one, there were
eight different submarines under construction. They were all phases of
construction while I was going through that facility. And so
obviously we're not building ships at that sort of a
(35:15):
pace anymore. But there are places around the world where
they are building ships at that sort of a pace
in you know, Korea, Japan, of course, China right now.
But these are people who are used to building big
things in a modular fashion. And so these are complex
pieces of equipment that they're building, these ships, and so
there certainly is an opportunity to do a similar thing.
(35:38):
A nuclear reactor is, you know, a complex piece of equipment,
but it's not anything that couldn't be done using the
same modular construction techniques that these shipyards are using around
the world right now. It's been done in the US before.
It's been a while, but it's certainly something that we
can you know, relearn and get back to the way
(35:59):
we were doing things in the past.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Okay, I'm going to take a quick break. When we
come back, we're going to finish up by exploring the
art of the possible with Scott Edwards here on the
Energy Mix Radio Show. Welcome back to the nationally syndicated
Energy Mix Radio show. I'm your guest host Jeff Pollock.
Today we're talking with Scott Edwards from Core Power. Okay, Scott, here,
in our last segment, let's get a little bit existential.
(36:23):
Is the dissemination of modern nuclear the only way that
we as a global society can accomplish the call it
the trilateral imperative of decarbonization. Mounting energy demand, especially to
support data centers in the AI space, and the need
to lift the world population to a basic level of
energy security. I mean, what is it the only technology
(36:44):
that can do that for us? And if that's the case,
you can paint a picture of what the world looks
like once we've realized nuclear's full potential.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, I mean, I mean nuclear is not going to
be the only energy producing technology and a diverse portfolio.
I mean a lot of it. That's going to depend on
where in the world you live. I mean there are
some people who live and say Norway or other places
like that that have a lot of hydro power, and
so you know they are you know, at advantaged where
they can be able to use that. But in a
(37:15):
lot of the world, yeah, nuclear is going to be
a primary source of electricity going forward to do those
three things that you mentioned lift everybody up to the
same you know, standard of living around the world. So
I absolutely am going to advocate for nuclear power to
do that sort of thing. I think it's gotten a
(37:37):
bit of a bum rap over the years. There been
a number of you know, incidents that have occurred that
have soured a lot of the public on nuclear I mean,
we didn't really talk too much about Chernobyl or Fukushima,
but those are both events that people think of when
they think of nuclear power and why they shouldn't have it.
And the newer technologies that we're talking about here, Theseeration
(38:00):
three plus or the Generation four technologies are designed in
such a way where they cannot have those sorts of
concerns because of their passive safety features due to the designs,
so you can't have runaway thermal reactions like had happened
at Chernobyl. So with the technology that we have now,
(38:21):
there is the ability to provide a future where you
do have efficients relatively inexpetantive power available to all to
make everybody have similar opportunities. I think that nuclear is
the best way to do that in all places. And
(38:43):
nuclear isn't just providing power for people. I mean, one
of the potential uses that we've been hearing from potential
clients for core power has been water desalination. There are
a lot of areas around the world that don't have
fresh water, but maybe they're on a nocean, and so
water desalination is something that is extremely energy intensive. So
(39:06):
being able to use nuclear power to do that is
certainly something that would benefit a lot of people around.
There are other opportunities for nuclear power where it's not
necessarily going to be you know, a nuclear powered ship.
He could be something where you're producing e fuels to
(39:27):
such as hydrogen to power other alternatives. So I think
there are a lot of opportunities for it, and I
don't think you're gonna end up a situation where you're
gonna have a microreactor on every street corner. I think
you would end up in a circumstance where there are
places where you're gonna have microreactors where it makes sense.
Maybe it's to provide process heat for a chemical plant
(39:51):
or some sort of in industrial application, or maybe it's
going to be you'll have a small modular reactor to
do something similar, or maybe there's a somewhat remote island
or some sort of a disaster relief scenario where you
need to have power brought in because the hurricane has
gone through. Yeah, those are opportunities for SMRs, but then
(40:12):
they'll still be the big, large base load reactors in
a lot of other scenarios. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I mean, look, I think what you've highlighted is something
that I find myself repeating on this show. Nearly every
time we have a conversation, which is that we are
unequivocally in the era of and right. And in that sense,
you know, the term energy addition, energy expansion, I mean,
they all apply, and no doubt that that you know,
(40:38):
that sort of trilateral imperative necessitates nuclear as part of
that stack of solutions. I think you highlighted something really interesting,
which is that most of us tend to think of
nuclear as you know, in in electric in terms of
electricity generation, but the ability to produce heat as a
(40:59):
catalyst and a necessary ingredient for other industrial process thereby
reducing the electricity consumption by those processes, so you know,
coupling it with other industrial processas, or the capacity to
provide electrons in places where your limiting factor is actually
the grid, you know, getting wires and connectivity is the
limiting factor. Maybe you know even places where you you know,
(41:21):
for example, are well suited to generate by way of
renewables or hydro other places, but the connectivity is your
limiting factor. The modularity of next generation nuclear solves that,
and I think that I think part of the opportunity
for us collectively is helping to expand the way that folks,
particularly in this country, think about the solutions that nuclear offers.
(41:45):
And that's why it's so exciting to hear you all
talk about the maritime space because it really challenges kind
of the conventional ways that we think about how to
solve longstanding problems. Yeah, fantastic. Well, look, any any closing
thoughts from you on any of that, or or or
the work you're doing in maritime Maybe it ain't anything
(42:06):
you want to leave the listeners with.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Basically, you know, I think nuclear and maritime nuclear has
a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of countries
around the world who are really starting to look at
doing this now, whether it's because any floating nuclear power plants,
because they're predominantly island nations and it's awfully difficult to
get the power. And if you think about if you're
(42:28):
an island nation and you've got a lot of diesel
and power grids, the amount of the supply chain that
you need to have going constantly to keep those sped
is significant. So there are a lot of opportunities for
nuclear in that sort of environment and during it in
maritime fashion, using a shipyard to build these where you
(42:51):
can get the economies of scale and the economies of numbers.
By doing this is something that we haven't yet done
in the nuclear industry. This is an opportunity I think
that we'll benefit all of us if we choose to
accept it and start proceeding with Mariti unduclear applications.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
We're all out of time for today's show. I'd like
to thank my guest Scott Edwards for being here today.
I'm Jeff Kollock and thank you for joining us on
the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
The Energy Mix Radio Show is where we explore topics
that affect us all in the oil and gas industry.
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
in this fast paced industry. You'll hear from industry experts,
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.