You've dealt with nuclear energy for years now.
So give us your sense of the role of nuclear energy potentially in getting to
net zero. I think nuclear play a huge role, at
least in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
Renewables are not yet based energy. Their peak shaving and we're a 24/7
society, as is the rest of the world. The world is 24/7 and nuclear is the
only form of base power that releases no regulated pollutants or greenhouse
gases, wireless producing power. And we have an incredible safety record
here in this country on nuclear and actually with few obviously very huge
exceptions being Chernobyl and what happened in Fukushima Daiichi.
Overall, worldwide, it's been it's been safe and getting safer all the time.
I mean, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considered the gold
standard on regulatory oversight of nuclear reactors.
I don't think, given cost and time, that we're going to see any more large
reactors built in this country. Certainly they are being built in China.
They're being built around the world. And we can certainly play a part in
developing the parts for those reactors. But I see the future for nuclear right
now being in the small modular reactors. Well, let's get to that and what we're
first told. Give us a sense of the scope of it
already. One of the things I have learned is
nuclear is actually one of the few things that really don't have emissions
that can be taken to scale. I think something like 20 percent of
energy in United States are generated by 70 percent in France.
Right. Then, you know, you saw an example of
what happens when you take nuclear off line.
When California took the San Onofre nuclear reactor off line, their
emissions went up and the cost of their energy went up.
Now, I mean, it was totally counter to everything that they were hoping to
achieve in my mind. And so what I found over time is that
even if you have an opportunity to talk to people and answer their very real
questions. I mean, it's it's normal to have
questions about the safety and you should ask them.
But the answers are really good and they're based on our history.
You can prove that, in fact, these things work.
And once you do that with people, they get much more comfortable with the idea
of nuclear or it's just that for so long it's been used as, frankly, a
fundraiser. And a lot of times for the environmental
groups. And we need to get the public to
understand, particularly with the new small modular reactors that are built in
a contained facility, they can be placed on site.
They're much safer technology. They're a much safer way to produce the
nuclear energy. So overall, there are really, I believe,
have the potential to make a huge difference, particularly if you think
about the rural parts of America where you're not on the grid or you're not
close to the grid. You can take a small modular reactor and
provide power for an entire town, for an entire business.
So they have a lot of potential there. So let's pursue that question of safety,
because that is a lot of people's minds, without a doubt.
And as you've mentioned, we've had some horrific instances.
Is the issue of safety that people don't realize that actually the track road is
quite good for nuclear? Or is it technological developments such
as as you're referring to, a small module reactors?
No, I think it's because people just don't know.
They don't understand. I mean, I get a lot of questions.
I used to in the past about, well, what about the spent rods?
And first of all, I tell them from all that, when the time we had a hundred and
two nuclear reactors in this country and you took all those spent rods and you
put them in one place, you'd fill up one football field to the height of the
goalpost. They might have gotten slightly above
that. Now, was this was data from several
years ago. But the point being, it's not this
massive thing, this size of the state of Vermont that people kind of have in
their minds. And the other thing is that what's in
those spent rods is 90 eighty seven to 90 percent fissionable material, meaning
unused energy. And in France and Japan, they've figured
out how to reprocess that and to get the energy out of those rods, rendering that
what you have is that, quote unquote, bad stuff, two down to 15 percent, let's
say. And it can't be used in a nuclear
weapon. So it's much easier to store, much less
to store. You have a lot of unused power just
sitting there and these spent rods. And we should be using that technology
as well. And people have to understand, when you
explain it to them, you can't take one of these rods from a nuclear reactor and
put it in a missile. It's not the same technology.
It won't work that way. And the other thing that we explain to
them, because one of the most immediate issues that we had in this country was
Three Mile Island. And when that went down, the operators
in the utility itself, in the reactor itself, were never exposed to high
levels of radiation. And they've been tracked ever since.
And there were no releases into the community and even those who were right
there in the reactor. Had no adverse reaction to what
happened, and in fact, it was because they overrode the system really that she
had the partial meltdown, Fukushima Daiichi.
That wasn't because of the earthquake, it was because of the tsunami.
And that was because they had their backup power, their generator located
physically in the reactor building. After 9/11, our Nuclear Regulatory
Commission said to our nuclear industry, you've got to move those out.
They cannot be co-located with the reactor itself.
So we need that kind of thing can't happen here anymore.
Just this week, we saw an announcement of a deal to acquire Westinghouse
Electric, basically on the premise that, in fact, we're going to have more
nuclear energy. Do you anticipate that the United
States. Well, I certainly hope we do.
But it was, what, not even 10 years ago, I guess there were two four proposed
reactors, two in Georgia and two in South Carolina.
And we were very hopeful that those were going to come in on budget and on time.
And they both ran over and the utilities decided in each case that it just wasn't
worth going forward. So it is a question of cost and
regulatory hurdles. But you want to have those regulations
in place because that's what protects the community and make sure things are
safe and streamline how you approach them so that you make them go through
all the hoops they have to for safety, but to put it to the front of the line
to get this power online. The big problem we have, though, when
you talk about all of this is the grid itself is old.
It needs to be revamped. It can't handle a lot of new power
coming in. And that's one of the big challenges
that seems to get so overlooked a lot when we're talking about these issues.
Again, you go back to small modular reactors, which can actually function on
their own. What about the grid?
Are we investing in the grid? We have the bipartisan infrastructure
bill. We also have the so-called Inflation
Reduction Act, which had money in there as well.
Is there money in there for the grid? Is it enough?
There is money in there for the grid, whether it's enough or not.
I doubt it. Hopefully the money that's there will be
spent in a way that ensures that nothing is wasted.
Because we need every penny of it. Certainly every penny that's in there is
needed to get the grid updated to where it needs to be in order to accept the
new power, whether it's from nuclear or renewables.
I mean, they're going to depend on that as well.