Gener8

In Episode 27 of Gener8, Ken Luongo, President of the Partnership for Global Security, joined us for a conversation on the role of Uranium in global energy and nuclear security. On the heels of commitments of over $3B by the federal government to support the domestic Uranium supply chain, Ken shared his perspective on how Russian aggression in Ukraine combined with the already oversized role of Russia in the global Uranium supply chain caused many to pause and rethink. With recent funding and action by the federal government being the biggest resulting domestic response, we dove into where some of this money might be applied and whether it will be enough. China also entered our discussion on the role of nuclear energy in the global energy security picture before we turned to a recently published study on the proliferation risks of some potential advanced reactor uranium supply chains. The commodity picture around Uranium will remain a part of many nuclear discussions for years to come and understanding how security concerns can align with energy, reliability, and financing concerns will remain an important part of any such discussions.

In Episode 26 of Gener8, we were excited to discuss some of the recent progress and future plans of nuclear energy development company Kairos Power. Peter Hastings, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality, and Jeff Olson, Vice President of Business Affairs and Finance, joined us to share the Kairos Power story and why they’ve been able to achieve some notable recent successes. In December of 2023, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a Construction Permit for Kairos’ Hermes test reactor demonstration project and we wanted to understand how best to understand the impacts and challenges of such a novel engagement. In addition to trying to understand the regulatory picture for Kairos, Jeff and Peter shared insights into the company’s iterative prototyping plans, the history of Kairos, and what future success might look like for the company and their projects. While years of progress remains for Kairos, we were excited to learn about an organization that has been able to navigate challenges that are sometimes described as intractable and how they plan to address the obstacles of tomorrow.

(One Technical/Programming Note: FLiBe is a term that is used a few times in our discussion and Peter and Jeff were nice enough to clarify what it means for us at one point; however, that segment had to be cut due to audio quality issues. FLiBe is a mixture of Lithium and Beryllium Fluoride salts that has characteristics that make it attractive for future developers of molten salt reactors, such as Kairos Power.)

As we return to Gener8 episodes, we’re excited to bring you a conversation with Julie Kozeracki, newly appointed Director of Strategy at the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO). Julie, and the LPO broadly, are longtime associates and colleagues of Veriten and today’s episode of Gener8 follows up on a recent loan announcement as well as the dynamics between large nuclear energy, policy, and the growing conversation around smaller advance reactors. Typically, LPO activities are difficult for members of the office to talk about publicly, but the recent announcement of conditional approval of a $1.5B loan to restart the retired Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan created a great opportunity for Julie to join us and share her thoughts. It was clearly evident how thrilled Julie was to be able to talk about this unprecedented opportunity in the US and where the conversation may go from here, both around Palisades itself and around the conversation for large nuclear in the US. As we look to eagerly watch the progress at Palisades and how best these funds, as well as others controlled by the LPO, can change the conversation around our energy needs and trends, we’re excited to be able to chat with Julie and other knowledgeable experts at LPO. 

Uranium and the global Uranium supply chain are topics that have permeated many of our discussions. For this episode of Gener8, we decided to explore all things Uranium-related with Jonathan Hinze, President of UxC. UxC, as well as Jonathan, have been thinking about and engaging in the global Uranium market for more than 20 years and we were excited to pick his brain and hear his perspectives around this changing market.
 
Before discussing some of the global Uranium hotspots, like Kazakhstan and Africa, Jonathan set the scene for us on how the recent volatility in the Uranium market came to be introduced and where the market trends might be going from here. After also sharing more about how Jonathan got into the world of Uranium himself, Jonathan shared UxC’s thoughts around how the growth of new nuclear projects, both novel advanced technology and existing technology, could affect global demand and how to assess that. Before closing us out with thoughts about the future of the market, Jonathan offered insights around commitments and scale of commitment from global governments and what potential sustained support could look like.
 
After our conversation with Jonathan, we’re confident that Uranium will remain a huge part of the discussion on future nuclear technology for years to come, but we were also heartened by this conversation in that it seems like we’re finally trying to make strides in the right directions. We hope you enjoy the discussion as well.

For this episode of Gener8, we explored the perspectives and role of the US government around exporting nuclear technology with Dr. Kirsten Cutler, Senior Strategist for Nuclear Innovation, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Cutler sits at the crossroads of many of the conversations around deploying American nuclear technology abroad and she was kind enough to spend some time sharing her perspectives and explaining more about the government’s activities.

Kirsten first helped us understand the focus of some of the programs under her purview and how they interact and support each other. We then turned our discussion to the U.S. government’s pledges and activities at COP28 in relation to nuclear energy as well as some of the thinking around domestic deployments needing to serve as a precursor for exports or not. Kirsten shared a bit about how the war in Ukraine and Russian aggressive actions influence her, and the U.S. State Department’s activities in this space as well as what she sees as some of the major challenges and obstacles to deployment that are often brought up in her discussions with other nations. Before closing us out with some thoughts about the future, Kirsten was also nice enough to give us background on how a Radioisotope Geochemist by training ends up in her current role.
 
Exporting nuclear technology has long been lauded as a goal and aim of U.S. companies as well as the current and former Congresses and Administrations. We appreciate Kirsten spending time with us to help us better understand the gears at work here and we hope you find the conversation enlightening as well.

We are very excited to have  Elina Teplinsky, Partner and Global Energy Industry Leader at Pillsbury Law, join us for this episode of Gener8. Elina is an energy and legal expert and her experience base, along with Pillsbury Law's, covers a wide breadth of the energy topics that we typically cover. Elina’s particular area of focus tends to be around Nuclear Energy and Hydrogen as a part of today's and our future energy economy. Having recently returned from COP28 and having the value of retrospection brought on by a new year, Elina shared her thoughts on a variety of international and domestic topics related to her recent experiences and areas of practice.

Our conversation with Elina started with COP28 and what it takes to make these pledges reality, as well as how to gauge the real levels of enthusiasm around these ambitions. Before sharing more about her background and the Pillsbury Law activities in her practice area, Elina shared her perspectives on what obstacles create the most difficulty for broader development of nuclear energy. Elina then explained some of the intricacies around proposed rules for hydrogen production tax credits and how they interact with current nuclear and future assets. Discussing some of her clients’ perspectives, Elina shared some of the dichotomies between large and smaller nuclear energy assets in terms of making future project decisions as well as how her clients, future customers, and investors should think about some of the more turbulent news we’ve heard in the future nuclear space around potential lay-offs and project cancellations.

Elina brought a wealth of knowledge born from the practical work of todays and tomorrow’s nuclear technology and we hope that you can gain as much from the conversation as we did.

On the heels of a very eventful COP28 in Dubai in 2023, we sat down with Lee Beck, Senior Director for Europe and the Middle East at the  Clean Air Task Force, to discuss the global conversation on energy and how that impacts the dialogues and pledges coming from COP28. While a lot of Lee’s background has been focused on Carbon Capture, Lee’s current position allowed her to participate in many different discussions and venues at COP28 and she shares her insights with us with regards to nuclear energy, methane, and more.

Our conversation with Lee began with exploring what international conversations (outside of energy issues associated with Russian aggression) had the most impact and what other areas were perhaps overlooked heading into COP. With the global pledge announced by more than 20 nations to triple nuclear energy production by 2050, Lee shared her perspective on how nuclear energy achieved prominence at this COP that it does not usually ascend to and how ATF prepared for and supported this opportunity. We then discussed how to translate that and other pledges into action, understanding the commitments made at COP28 around methane emissions reduction, and how, or if, all of this is achievable. Lee shared more about her background before closing us out with an overview of the financing challenges to achieve these goals and what we should be thinking about as a follow-up to COP28 in general and in looking ahead to COP29.
 
We appreciate Lee's perspective and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!

Today’s episode of Gener8 aims to understand how numerous challenges affecting the future of nuclear energy fit together and whether one or another rises above the rest. Dr. Adam Stein, Director of Nuclear Energy Innovation at The Breakthrough Institute (BTI), joined us to share his thoughts and research around these challenges. 

To begin our conversation with Adam, we started with a topic that seems to be at the center of a lot of the work Adam and others have authored at BTI and that is the role of and the need for reform with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Adam shared some perspectives on just what the challenges at the NRC look like and how they affect current as well as future deployment plans. Our conversation on the NRC also examined how it compares to other challenges facing nuclear deployments, where and how we could or should see change at the NRC, as well as how to recognize that any such change is occurring. We then turned to what brought Adam into this space as well as BTI’s focus before having Adam share insights around recent work he has published with regards to the cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project. Our conversation with Adam closed out by looking at the coal-to-nuclear transition opportunity as well as Adam sharing some thoughts on the broad nuclear opportunity and takeaways from his recent trip to Japan to visit Fukushima Daiichi. 
  
We hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation as much as we did.

Finding ways to have comprehensive conversations about the large challenges in the industrial decarbonization space can be extremely challenging. Hence, why we were very excited to see the Department of Energy release a Commercial Pathways to Liftoff Report focused on this topic (report linked here) and dive in to their analyses.  Katheryn Scott, Engineer for Market Analysis, at the Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions played a major role in authoring the report and was kind enough to visit with us and the Gener8 family to discuss the report and broad industrial decarbonization. 

Katheryn set the stage by providing insights into the vast scale and hurdles of industrial decarbonization. Diving into the report's examination of eight key sectors (chemicals, refining, iron and steel, food and beverage, cement, paper and pulp, and glass), Katheryn shed light on how each sector compares to each other as well as the rationale behind their selection. We then turned to how industrials perceive the problems around industrial decarbonization and how that affects their thinking, planning, and goals, before learning about the Office of Technology Transitions and Katheryn’s role in authoring the report. The report’s methodology as well as final recommendations focused a lot on the affordability of such a transition and we discussed how that focus on cost drove almost the entire process and what recommendations that led to. Before concluding, we asked Katheryn about how low cost and high temperature heat could impact the overall challenges herein before Katheryn left us with some thoughts about where these analyses may be headed next. 

We appreciate Katheryn's perspective on this nuanced conversation about broad industrial decarbonization and hope that you find the conversation as thought-provoking and fascinating as we did.

In our ongoing pursuit to deepen our comprehension of the opportunities and challenges around industrial decarbonization, the latest episode of Gener8 delves into the energy and emissions challenges associated with the very fabric that makes up our world: cement. Dr. Cody Finke, CEO and Co-Founder of Brimstone, joined us to illuminate how his company is working to change the narrative surrounding decarbonized cement and concrete with a cost-effective and emissions-free process. As Cody highlights, considering approximately 5% of global emissions stem from cement and concrete production, addressing emissions in this sector could be almost as impactful as decarbonizing all global automobile emissions (accounting for ~7% of global emissions). 

To kick off our conversation, Cody provided background on the challenges concerning energy and emissions in cement and concrete before turning to how the Brimstone process can change those paradigms. Cody then shared what led him and Brimstone to where they are today, the Brimstone team, and where they see themselves in terms of collaborators and partners. Toward the end of the discussion, Cody offered insights into Brimstone's support structure and their short and long-term trajectory. We also examined how the existing cement industry pairs with Brimstone before Cody concluded our conversation by emphasizing how meaningful it could be to address emissions in industry by approaching it as Brimstone has. 
  
We learned a lot during our discussion on all things cement and its future and look forward to more deep dives into lesser-discussed energy and emissions issues.