# China Builds Nuclear Power While the West Reinvents It

An episode of [Switched On](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469286286), 29 Jul 2026, 40 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/01a10738-3608-4dec-883c-ae3c00026b36/22258025-d485-4db9-9187-b4960069d936/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d114f63-833d-4b78-bbf5-ae3c00026b44

Nuclear power is gaining momentum around the globe, but the industry’s path has diverged. China and India are rapidly expanding conventional reactor fleets, while the US and Europe are betting on smaller and more advanced designs to overcome decades of cost overruns and delays. Rising AI electricity demand, energy security concerns and decarbonization goals have all renewed interest in nuclear energy. But turning that momentum into new projects will depend on whether the industry can build reactors faster, more cheaply and with greater confidence than it has in recent decades. On today’s show, Tom Rowlands-Rees is joined by joined by Stephanie Diaz, a senior associate from BloombergNEF’s technology and innovation team, and Chris Gadomski, BNEF’s head of nuclear research, to discuss their note “Nuclear Power Market Outlook 1H 2026: Approaches Diverge.” Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com Links to research notes from this episode: Nuclear Power Market Outlook 1H 2026: Approaches Diverge - https://www.bnef.com/insights/39881 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is Tom Rowland's Reese and you're listening to Switched
[0:02] Speaker 1: on the podcast brought to you by Bloomberg and EF.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Nuclear power is entering a new phase, but not everyone
[0:08] Speaker 1: is taking the same path. In China and India, react
[0:11] Speaker 1: to construction is accelerating, backed by ambitious government plans and
[0:14] Speaker 1: expanding domestic industries. In the US and Europe. Meanwhile, to
[0:18] Speaker 1: focus is less on how quickly to build nuclear and
[0:20] Speaker 1: more on which technologies can overcome decades of cost overruns, delays,
[0:24] Speaker 1: and investment uncertainty. That divergence is creating two very different
[0:28] Speaker 1: nuclear stories. China is rapidly expanding a fleet that could
[0:31] Speaker 1: overtake the US within this decade, while India is pursuing
[0:34] Speaker 1: one of the world's most ambitious long term nuclear buildouts.
[0:37] Speaker 1: At the same time, Western governments are betting that a
[0:39] Speaker 1: new generation of smaller and more advanced reactors can succeed
[0:42] Speaker 1: where conventional projects have struggled. The stakes are high. Rising
[0:46] Speaker 1: electricity demand from AI and data centers, alongside concerns over
[0:49] Speaker 1: energy security and decarbonization, have given nuclear renewed political and
[0:53] Speaker 1: commercial momentum, But turning that momentum into new projects will
[0:56] Speaker 1: depend on whether the industry can build reactors faster, more cheaply,
[0:59] Speaker 1: and with greater confidence than it has in recent decades.
[1:02] Speaker 1: On today's show, I'm joined by Stephanie Diaz, a senior
[1:05] Speaker 1: associate from BNFS Technology and Innovation Team, and Chris Kadomski,
[1:08] Speaker 1: Bloomberg NIF's head of Nuclear Research, and together we review
[1:11] Speaker 1: findings from the note Nuclear Power Market Outlook one h
[1:14] Speaker 1: twenty twenty six Approaches Diverge. BNAF. Clients can find this
[1:18] Speaker 1: and other nuclear research by heading to BNF go on
[1:21] Speaker 1: the Bloomberg terminal or BNF dot com. If you'd like
[1:24] Speaker 1: to learn more about how BNF approaches strategy research on
[1:26] Speaker 1: the energy transition, including developments in commodity markets, trends across
[1:30] Speaker 1: different sectors, and the cross cutting technology shaping the future,
[1:33] Speaker 1: you can find more information on BNF dot com. And
[1:35] Speaker 1: if you'd like to speak with a member of our
[1:37] Speaker 1: team about becoming a client, email US at sales do
[1:39] Speaker 1: BNF at Bloomberg dot net. But for now, let's explore
[1:42] Speaker 1: whether today's momentum can translate into tomorrow's reactors. Chris, welcome
[1:55] Speaker 1: to the podcast.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Oh thank you dam for pleasure to be here again.
[1:58] Speaker 1: And Stephanie, Welcome to the podcast.
[2:00] Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
[2:01] Speaker 1: So you guys collaborated on our latest nuclear market outlook,
[2:06] Speaker 1: and there was something that you know right in the
[2:09] Speaker 1: first paragraph. I think that the statement made that there's
[2:12] Speaker 1: a sort of two different worlds when it comes to
[2:16] Speaker 1: nuclear Can you can you elaborate a little bit more
[2:19] Speaker 1: on what you were referring to in this sort of
[2:21] Speaker 1: these two not even different worlds, it's like parallel realities.
[2:24] Speaker 2: Well, the first reality is that in the West we
[2:27] Speaker 2: have a tremendous difficulty in building a new nuclear construction
[2:32] Speaker 2: on time and on budget, and that has left the
[2:35] Speaker 2: governments to wring their hands wondering, you know, what is
[2:38] Speaker 2: the best most economical option to proceed with. This is
[2:42] Speaker 2: in contrast to what's going on in China, for example,
[2:45] Speaker 2: where they can build nuclear power plants for one fifth
[2:49] Speaker 2: cost and build them in five or six years as
[2:52] Speaker 2: opposed to over ten years in Western Europe and the
[2:55] Speaker 2: North America. We anticipate that changing, but for the time being,
[3:00] Speaker 2: there's a ringing of hands in the West and building
[3:03] Speaker 2: going on in the East.
[3:05] Speaker 1: I mean, how do you anticipate it changing? The East
[3:08] Speaker 1: is going to be come all like the west to
[3:09] Speaker 1: the west is going to become all like the East.
[3:11] Speaker 2: I think that the West needs to becoming more like
[3:14] Speaker 2: the East, and they're doing it by developing a strategy
[3:18] Speaker 2: of looking at both large reactors and advanced reactors and
[3:21] Speaker 2: small modular reactors, with the premise being that the small
[3:25] Speaker 2: modular reactors and advanced reactors may provide less balance sheet
[3:30] Speaker 2: risk to the utilities and off takers, and that they
[3:33] Speaker 2: can be built more quickly, hence less interest during construction,
[3:38] Speaker 2: which has been a very big burden. Interest during construction
[3:41] Speaker 2: is not so much of a problem in China because
[3:43] Speaker 2: they built in five to six years as supposed to
[3:46] Speaker 2: ten to twelve or more, and the cost of their
[3:48] Speaker 2: building is significantly less. So financing is not an issue,
[3:52] Speaker 2: not something that slows down development in China, but it
[3:55] Speaker 2: certainly is an obstacle that the governments and utilities love
[4:00] Speaker 2: takers are struggling within the West.
[4:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that a lot of this is about momentum.
[4:05] Speaker 3: So currently China, for example, has a lot of reactors
[4:08] Speaker 3: under construction, and we anticipate that they will continue to
[4:11] Speaker 3: build lots of reactors in By contrast, in the US,
[4:14] Speaker 3: we don't have a nuclear reactor that has poured first
[4:17] Speaker 3: nuclear concrete. Yet we have projects that have done some groundbreaking,
[4:20] Speaker 3: but we still haven't gotten that construction machine going. That's
[4:24] Speaker 3: going to be the big thing that needs to change
[4:25] Speaker 3: in the future, and that's we're already starting to see
[4:27] Speaker 3: the beginnings of that. With how projects here in the
[4:29] Speaker 3: US such as Terra Powers Project in Wyoming and X
[4:33] Speaker 3: Energy Project in Texas are approaching construction.
[4:36] Speaker 1: And those are not conventional nuclear projects, right are those advanced?
[4:41] Speaker 3: Those are advanced reactors, which for BNF's purposes, we categorize
[4:45] Speaker 3: reactors differently here at POENF, where we think of the
[4:47] Speaker 3: traditional conventional large reactors that we're all familiar with, we
[4:50] Speaker 3: think of SMRs as those same fundamental reactor technologies, but
[4:54] Speaker 3: just smaller in size. Instead of being on the scale
[4:56] Speaker 3: of a gigowatt, it's on the scale of more like
[4:58] Speaker 3: three hundred megawatts five hunred MiGs. And then advanced reactors
[5:01] Speaker 3: are reactors that use a fundamentally different reactor technology, something
[5:04] Speaker 3: like a high temperature gas reactor or a multen salt reactor.
[5:07] Speaker 3: So the X Energy Project, the Terror Power Project, those
[5:10] Speaker 3: are both advanced reactors, so they'd be first of a
[5:12] Speaker 3: kind projects.
[5:13] Speaker 1: So this is kind of quite indicative of, you know,
[5:16] Speaker 1: these two worlds we're talking about. It's not just in
[5:19] Speaker 1: terms of the cost of building nuclear and the speed
[5:21] Speaker 1: at which it can currently build built. But the West
[5:23] Speaker 1: is about to transition into a new suite of technologies
[5:27] Speaker 1: in the next decade. Is that a fair statement?
[5:29] Speaker 2: There seems to be a preference from utilities in the
[5:33] Speaker 2: North America and in Europe to go with a less
[5:37] Speaker 2: risky approach developing small moduial reactors. We see a Terrier
[5:42] Speaker 2: Power Generation building the three hundred mego like boiling water
[5:45] Speaker 2: reactor from General Electric Attache in the Europe. We see
[5:50] Speaker 2: Rolls Royce having success with its program in the UK
[5:54] Speaker 2: and also in the Czech Republic. Poland, on the other hand,
[5:58] Speaker 2: is looking at ap went down as large white sized
[6:01] Speaker 2: reactors and also three hundred megote reactors. The hyperscalers, on
[6:06] Speaker 2: the other hand, seem to be taking a more aggressive
[6:08] Speaker 2: approach and have a greater risk appetite in Google, for example,
[6:12] Speaker 2: is supporting developments with Chiros Energy, a fast react to
[6:18] Speaker 2: technology that's using a specialized new fuel Triso fuel, and
[6:23] Speaker 2: also it's investing in Commonwealth Fusion, which is developing a
[6:26] Speaker 2: fusion technology, and they seem to be prioritizing getting something
[6:31] Speaker 2: that is going to be more advanced, perhaps more risky,
[6:35] Speaker 2: whereas the utilities are more constrained by costs, with the
[6:38] Speaker 2: mandates to offer and deliver the least cost solutions in
[6:42] Speaker 2: the nuclear space.
[6:43] Speaker 1: So I just want to make sure I've understood correctly
[6:46] Speaker 1: the kind of the risk hierarchy here, And this is
[6:50] Speaker 1: speaking from the perspective of utilities in the West. What
[6:54] Speaker 1: we're saying is like the novel technologies are the most risky,
[6:58] Speaker 1: but then conventional large scale nuclear like AP one thousands
[7:02] Speaker 1: is still somewhat risky given the kind of the way
[7:05] Speaker 1: that construction costs have overrun in certain projects and timelines
[7:10] Speaker 1: have slipped. And so the low risk option, or the
[7:13] Speaker 1: relatively low risk option is the SMRs, the scale down
[7:17] Speaker 1: conventional technologies. Am I understanding that correctly?
[7:20] Speaker 2: We categorize five pathways to putting nuclear electrons onto the grid,
[7:25] Speaker 2: fusion being one of those five pathways. Each of the
[7:28] Speaker 2: approaches large SMR, advanced micro and fusion present different levels
[7:33] Speaker 2: of technical readiness, different costs uncertainties, different technol operation uncertainties,
[7:40] Speaker 2: time to market uncertainties, and so there is almost like
[7:44] Speaker 2: a rubix que of solutions that need to be solved
[7:48] Speaker 2: to decide which technology offers the hyperscalers the fastest, most
[7:53] Speaker 2: efficient approach to delivering electricity for their data centerees as
[7:57] Speaker 2: opposed to with the utilities are interested in having less
[8:00] Speaker 2: of a risk profiles, risk appetite rather and what they're
[8:03] Speaker 2: going to deploy.
[8:04] Speaker 1: So what is I mean? I just want to understand
[8:07] Speaker 1: the utilities are predominantly going for which kinds of technologies.
[8:10] Speaker 1: Then we see.
[8:12] Speaker 2: Large reactor technologies and we see the SMR technologies. We
[8:16] Speaker 2: have a first development with Centrica in the UK looking
[8:19] Speaker 2: at X energy technology which is a high temperature gas
[8:22] Speaker 2: reactor that for all intentional purposes has yet to be
[8:25] Speaker 2: built in Europe or in the US.
[8:28] Speaker 1: So okay, got it, And so the hyperscalers are the
[8:30] Speaker 1: ones really going more in for the kind of new,
[8:33] Speaker 1: first of kind technologies.
[8:34] Speaker 2: Amazon for example, has a very big interest in promoting
[8:39] Speaker 2: X energies high temperature gas reactor technology and supporting them
[8:43] Speaker 2: through capital equity investments and also off take agreements and
[8:47] Speaker 2: signing up to have several of the reactors power their
[8:49] Speaker 2: data centers.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Kind of wild when you think about it, that organizations
[8:54] Speaker 1: that care about getting that power as quickly as possible.
[8:58] Speaker 1: Like the conventional wisdom in any other sort of technological field,
[9:01] Speaker 1: you will go with what is tried and tested. But
[9:04] Speaker 1: what is tried and tested it's almost guaranteed to take
[9:06] Speaker 1: too long, and so being sort of almost forced by
[9:09] Speaker 1: that into let's use technologies that have never before been deployed,
[9:13] Speaker 1: and that is the faster route to getting things built.
[9:16] Speaker 1: It's a highly unusual paradigm, if I might use that
[9:20] Speaker 1: word how did we get here? We got here in
[9:23] Speaker 1: North America by the fact that it took Vogel fourteen
[9:27] Speaker 1: years to be licensed and constructed and was double the cost,
[9:31] Speaker 1: so ended up questing thirty four billion dollars. The fact
[9:34] Speaker 1: that there's no large reactors under construction in North America
[9:38] Speaker 1: at all suggests that utilities and hyperscales are also scared
[9:42] Speaker 1: about the cost overruns, the time to market, et cetera.
[9:46] Speaker 1: Whereas with the there were seemed to have a greater
[9:49] Speaker 1: appetite to build and take off take agreements from these
[9:53] Speaker 1: advanced reactors, which right now promise to be perhaps faster
[9:57] Speaker 1: to the market, more efficient, and of course remains a
[10:02] Speaker 1: greater uncertainty.
[10:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can see that for example with the
[10:05] Speaker 3: Tarot Power project, which took less time to license in
[10:08] Speaker 3: the end. And also they anticipate that they'll be able
[10:11] Speaker 3: to build their reactor in five to six years based
[10:14] Speaker 3: on their construction permit. That's the timeline that's included in there.
[10:17] Speaker 3: If they're able to meet that, that's significantly faster than
[10:19] Speaker 3: what we were able to achieve with the AP one
[10:21] Speaker 3: thousand here in the US.
[10:22] Speaker 1: So it's partly the conventional technologies have a very difficult
[10:26] Speaker 1: permitting route which inflates timelines.
[10:29] Speaker 3: Part of that actually reflects a recent shift in federal
[10:32] Speaker 3: in the US and federal support for nuclear so across
[10:37] Speaker 3: the board, the Trump administration has changed it so that
[10:40] Speaker 3: companies can expect a decision on applications that they submit
[10:43] Speaker 3: to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission the NRC within eighteen months.
[10:47] Speaker 3: So some of that is a reflection of also just
[10:50] Speaker 3: the administration wants to move faster on these projects and
[10:53] Speaker 3: get decisions made.
[10:55] Speaker 1: And why is it that it takes so much longer
[10:57] Speaker 1: to build a mature, proven technology, you know, when we
[11:01] Speaker 1: get into the construction phase compared to some of these
[11:04] Speaker 1: new technologies. Is it just because the newer technologies they
[11:07] Speaker 1: are they have like a smaller unit size versus you know,
[11:11] Speaker 1: conventional nuclear where it's kind of I know what the
[11:14] Speaker 1: smallest size conventional reactors like eight hundred mega. What's at
[11:17] Speaker 1: the smallest something like that? Is that? Why is that
[11:19] Speaker 1: you have no choice but to go big with the
[11:21] Speaker 1: conventional technology. I'm just trying to understand how we've arrived
[11:24] Speaker 1: at this place where in North America and Europe it
[11:26] Speaker 1: takes so long to build conventional nuclear because it wasn't
[11:29] Speaker 1: always the case.
[11:30] Speaker 2: Well, there's very few companies in the world that manufacture
[11:34] Speaker 2: large reactor pressure vessels located provincipally in Japan and in Korea,
[11:39] Speaker 2: so they are capable of having two or three a
[11:42] Speaker 2: year at max. So if you're building a whole bunch
[11:45] Speaker 2: of a fleet of these nuclear power plants, that becomes
[11:49] Speaker 2: a supply chain bottleneck. There's no capacity for building large
[11:53] Speaker 2: reactive pressure vessels in the US. If you shrink the
[11:56] Speaker 2: size the reactive pressure vessel, you expand the width of
[12:00] Speaker 2: and the breadth of the potential suppliers to build those
[12:03] Speaker 2: reactor pressure vessels. So that is one concern. Plus they're
[12:07] Speaker 2: much much bigger. We're talking about small module reactors. There
[12:10] Speaker 2: are three hundred megawatts. Rose Royce has a four hundred
[12:13] Speaker 2: and seventy megawatt. This is significantly smaller than the one
[12:17] Speaker 2: thousand megawatt AP one thousand and the one point six
[12:21] Speaker 2: gigawatt EPR that's being built and proposed in Europe.
[12:25] Speaker 3: And also quickly add that we haven't actually built these
[12:28] Speaker 3: SMRs or advanced reactors outside of China and Russia yet,
[12:32] Speaker 3: so we actually don't know how long they will take
[12:34] Speaker 3: to build. That is still an open question. We know
[12:36] Speaker 3: how long we hope they will take to build them.
[12:38] Speaker 1: So in a certain sense, these technologies are getting the
[12:41] Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt.
[12:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, and they are smaller and they should be faster
[12:45] Speaker 3: to build, but we won't know exactly how much faster
[12:48] Speaker 3: until we actually complete a project.
[12:50] Speaker 2: All kinds oft the building SMRs is that you can
[12:53] Speaker 2: move a greater proportion of the manufacturing process to factory manufacturing.
[12:58] Speaker 2: This suggests that you be able to manufacture components in
[13:02] Speaker 2: a factory what at the same time during the site
[13:04] Speaker 2: preparation in parallel, so that you should shorten the construction
[13:09] Speaker 2: time and all this and that's a very very big
[13:11] Speaker 2: factor with interest rates during constructions, a very big factor
[13:16] Speaker 2: has driven the cost of some of these large reactors significantly.
[13:19] Speaker 1: So despite these headwinds in your report, the US is
[13:23] Speaker 1: now significant support for nuclear and we are expecting a
[13:27] Speaker 1: sort of an uptick in nuclear capacity growth in the
[13:31] Speaker 1: US over the next decade. So what's driving that.
[13:34] Speaker 3: So there are a couple of different ways in which
[13:36] Speaker 3: capacities set to grow here in the US. So the
[13:39] Speaker 3: most near term one is nuclear restarts. We have three
[13:41] Speaker 3: different nuclear reactors that were retired and are now planning
[13:45] Speaker 3: to be restarted. Palisades are owned by Whole Tech, set
[13:48] Speaker 3: to come online later this year. Crane Clean Energy Center,
[13:50] Speaker 3: which used to be known as three Mile Island, owned
[13:53] Speaker 3: by Constellation. Microsoft is helping with bringing that one back online.
[13:56] Speaker 3: And then finally Dwyane Arnold, which is owned by next Era.
[14:00] Speaker 3: Google's helping bring that one back online. Altogether. That's two
[14:03] Speaker 3: point two gigawatts of nuclear that will be readded basically
[14:06] Speaker 3: to the US nuclear fleet. We also then see two
[14:09] Speaker 3: point three gigawatts work of upratings. That's really the idea
[14:13] Speaker 3: that you have a nuclear reactor already in place, can
[14:15] Speaker 3: we get more out of that nuclear reactor by upgrading
[14:18] Speaker 3: the systems around it and things like that. We saw
[14:21] Speaker 3: that there's somewhere around thirty different applications that the NRC
[14:25] Speaker 3: anticipates getting for upbraidings, and if all of those go through,
[14:28] Speaker 3: that would add some two point three giga wots by
[14:30] Speaker 3: twenty thirty six to the US fleet. Those are probably
[14:33] Speaker 3: the easiest and nearest term ones in terms of most visibility,
[14:37] Speaker 3: most assured. After that we get into new construction. As
[14:40] Speaker 3: we've mentioned, we don't have reactors currently under construction here
[14:43] Speaker 3: in the US, but we have one that are rapidly
[14:44] Speaker 3: approaching that notably terror Powers Project and x Energies Project.
[14:48] Speaker 3: And then we also have a goal from the Trump
[14:50] Speaker 3: administration to bring more reactors online. The Department of Energy
[14:54] Speaker 3: recently announced a loan commitment to help fund ten large
[14:58] Speaker 3: conventional reactors they want to have under construction. So there
[15:02] Speaker 3: is a mix in the new construction of both conventional
[15:04] Speaker 3: and SMRs and advanced reactors that can all come online
[15:08] Speaker 3: more pushing towards the twenty thirties.
[15:11] Speaker 2: I might add that there's a huge backlog or order
[15:14] Speaker 2: book or memorandus understanding probably between the hyperscalers and the
[15:20] Speaker 2: nuclear companies that are developing these advanced reactors. We don't
[15:24] Speaker 2: anticipate that all of them will certainly be built, but
[15:27] Speaker 2: do you have a tremendous demand for hyperscalers, for data centers,
[15:30] Speaker 2: and nuclear will play a role in that. It's a
[15:33] Speaker 2: question of how big a role, on how quick a
[15:35] Speaker 2: role The predominance by of electricity will come from natural
[15:39] Speaker 2: gas through twenty thirty, and then if the demand for
[15:42] Speaker 2: electricity continues to increase post twenty thirty, these advanced nuclear
[15:47] Speaker 2: reactor technologies should be able to contribute. If the demand
[15:51] Speaker 2: for electricity plateaus, then the demand for these new reactors
[15:56] Speaker 2: will become more uncertain.
[15:58] Speaker 1: So we have this kind of perfect storm in the US.
[16:01] Speaker 1: There's new technologies that are just about reaching maturity at
[16:04] Speaker 1: the same time that there is a new source of
[16:07] Speaker 1: demand growth, and a lot of that demand is sitting
[16:10] Speaker 1: in the hands of companies that have a lot of money,
[16:14] Speaker 1: and they care a lot about speed to deployment and
[16:17] Speaker 1: not so much about, you know, the first of a
[16:19] Speaker 1: kind costs. And then there's the government support that is
[16:23] Speaker 1: also driving this. So it's kind of like everything is
[16:26] Speaker 1: lining up nicely right now for nuclear in the us,
[16:29] Speaker 1: particularly new nuclear almost like a leg a nuke. We're
[16:32] Speaker 1: about to witness a new nuclear renaissance, and yet we
[16:36] Speaker 1: are a little still a bit more conservative than many
[16:38] Speaker 1: of the industry's announcements. Like why is that?
[16:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as Chris mentioned, there's a lot of announcements
[16:44] Speaker 3: out there. We have be nf of track somewhere around
[16:46] Speaker 3: fifty one gigawatts of announcements between data center developers and
[16:50] Speaker 3: nuclear companies, all hoping to power data centers with nuclear power. However,
[16:54] Speaker 3: you actually look at those projects, almost all of them
[16:56] Speaker 3: lack binding optic agreements. They don't have any announced finance yet,
[17:00] Speaker 3: there's not even any sort of formal application in front
[17:03] Speaker 3: of the NRC. So that's all to say that these
[17:06] Speaker 3: projects haven't yet made any meaningful steps towards deployment, and
[17:09] Speaker 3: so we have taken a much more conservative view on
[17:13] Speaker 3: all of those projects. We anticipate that our view could
[17:17] Speaker 3: have alve over time as we see more of them
[17:18] Speaker 3: take more substantial steps towards making these projects real. But
[17:21] Speaker 3: for now they're mostly just announcements and like I said,
[17:24] Speaker 3: like memorandums of understanding, letters of intent. But that's very
[17:27] Speaker 3: far from being a firm agreement to actually bring these
[17:29] Speaker 3: reactors online.
[17:30] Speaker 2: For advanced NEWCUD to be a contributor to data centers
[17:34] Speaker 2: and utilities in the future, they have to be cost
[17:36] Speaker 2: competitive for the developers of these new technologies. They're all
[17:41] Speaker 2: coming out with first of a kind costs which are
[17:43] Speaker 2: not going to be competitive. So the question remains how
[17:46] Speaker 2: quickly they'll be able to get from first of a
[17:48] Speaker 2: kind cost to end of a kind cost the ten
[17:51] Speaker 2: to twelve reactors. So that implies that each one of
[17:54] Speaker 2: these advanced reactor companies SMR companies need to develop a
[17:58] Speaker 2: pipeline or project. It's going to be very, very difficult
[18:02] Speaker 2: for all fifty or so of these advanced reactor companies
[18:06] Speaker 2: SMRs and large reactors to in fact develop such a
[18:09] Speaker 2: large pipeline. So we anticipate that there's going to be
[18:12] Speaker 2: a winnowing of the field that there may only be
[18:15] Speaker 2: two or three successful companies who are able to sort
[18:19] Speaker 2: of secure a pipeline of projects to successfully drive down
[18:23] Speaker 2: the price of their reactors from first of a kind
[18:25] Speaker 2: to end of a kind cost, which you will be
[18:27] Speaker 2: competitive with natural gas and renewables in the future.
[18:31] Speaker 1: And is this because I mean the kind of conventional
[18:34] Speaker 1: thinking about a lot of what the hyper scale is
[18:35] Speaker 1: are thinking is they actually don't care too much about costs.
[18:38] Speaker 1: They care about speed of deployment. But if that's what
[18:41] Speaker 1: they care about, then they have options such as on
[18:44] Speaker 1: site gas, which is the last podcast we just recorded.
[18:49] Speaker 1: Or you know, there's also solar plus storage which can
[18:52] Speaker 1: be deplayed very quickly, but doesn't give you twenty four
[18:54] Speaker 1: to seven power all the time. Is it that sort
[18:56] Speaker 1: of cost matters for nuclear because the speed question has
[18:59] Speaker 1: been answered by someone else, but that this is like
[19:03] Speaker 1: the next wave of technology where beyond speed, it actually
[19:07] Speaker 1: has to offer something cheaper than those alternatives. If not,
[19:10] Speaker 1: why would you not just stick with those alternatives.
[19:12] Speaker 2: There's been trumendous amount of innovation in the renewable energy space,
[19:16] Speaker 2: as well as in oil and gas space. Things have
[19:19] Speaker 2: become much more or have become historically much less expensive reself.
[19:24] Speaker 2: We are only now starting to see innovations in the
[19:26] Speaker 2: nuclear field starting to emerge into actual projects, and so
[19:31] Speaker 2: the learning curve has yet to be established where we
[19:33] Speaker 2: can quickly go down that curve. If you're building a
[19:37] Speaker 2: nuclear power plants that are hugely uncompetitive, is not going
[19:40] Speaker 2: to be a viable solution. The real key is for
[19:43] Speaker 2: these select few companies to develop a pipeline to get
[19:47] Speaker 2: down to the learning curve so they can provide a
[19:49] Speaker 2: competitive product which will establish themselves as long term contributors
[19:54] Speaker 2: to the industry.
[19:55] Speaker 3: If you're a hyperscaler and you're looking at nuclear, you're
[19:58] Speaker 3: not looking at nuclear for your twenty twenty seven power needs.
[20:01] Speaker 3: You're looking at nuclear for your twenty thirties mid twenty
[20:05] Speaker 3: thirty power needs, right, So you're taking a bit on
[20:08] Speaker 3: the future. And I think it speaks a lot to
[20:09] Speaker 3: the ambitions that these hyperscalers have. If they want to
[20:12] Speaker 3: co locate nuclear power plans with a data center, they're saying, hey,
[20:16] Speaker 3: I need three hundred megawats like right here next to this, right,
[20:19] Speaker 3: So there's a little bit of of a size match
[20:22] Speaker 3: that like solar plus storage doesn't provide for example. And
[20:25] Speaker 3: while we have seen companies, some of the big tech
[20:28] Speaker 3: companies soften or walking away from some of their sustainability commitments,
[20:32] Speaker 3: they haven't totally gone away, right. And that's the problem
[20:34] Speaker 3: with gas is that it doesn't help with a decarbonization.
[20:36] Speaker 3: Nuclear is carbon free power, So I think it's then
[20:40] Speaker 3: making sure that there is this additional option available to
[20:43] Speaker 3: them come the twenty thirties.
[20:44] Speaker 1: So maybe when I said, you know, we're on the
[20:46] Speaker 1: verge of a US nuclear renaissance, that's maybe a bit
[20:49] Speaker 1: over optimistic.
[20:50] Speaker 3: It's yeah, that was your words, not mine.
[20:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, that was definitely my words. It's more like, there
[20:54] Speaker 1: is an opportunity. The door is open, but can the
[20:58] Speaker 1: industry walk through.
[20:59] Speaker 3: The Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Oh, we're
[21:03] Speaker 3: seeing lots of pieces fall into place basically for growth
[21:06] Speaker 3: to actually happen. In the US. Our past ten years
[21:09] Speaker 3: have been basically no net growth between the few projects
[21:12] Speaker 3: that did come online, and then we saw a bunch
[21:14] Speaker 3: of projects get retired, some of which will now come
[21:16] Speaker 3: back online. But it's looking forward at the next ten years,
[21:19] Speaker 3: we're set to see actual growth happen, with capacities to
[21:23] Speaker 3: grow three times faster over the coming decade than it
[21:25] Speaker 3: did in the previous one.
[21:27] Speaker 2: In the US, we've seen a tremendous amount of recent
[21:30] Speaker 2: policy support policy push for nuclear power, as evidenced by
[21:35] Speaker 2: the four executive orders that was signed by the Trump
[21:37] Speaker 2: administration last May. What's really missing is market pull. We
[21:42] Speaker 2: need utilities to stand up and say hey, I'm ready
[21:45] Speaker 2: to go ahead and build a nuclear power plant and
[21:48] Speaker 2: commit to doing so, and that has been lacking. There's
[21:51] Speaker 2: no large reactors under construction in the United States. That's
[21:55] Speaker 2: a testament to the nervousness by the utility industry of
[21:58] Speaker 2: the cost over US there's no cost overrun insurance. And
[22:02] Speaker 2: with the situation in Vogel where it was twice as
[22:05] Speaker 2: expensive as had been anticipated, that makes another all the
[22:08] Speaker 2: other utilities nervous. They're very happy to not be first.
[22:12] Speaker 2: They're waiting for someone else to commit and go first.
[22:15] Speaker 2: And the same thing applies to the SMRs. Utilities are
[22:18] Speaker 2: typically very risk adverse, cost constrained, and so embark on
[22:22] Speaker 2: risky new technologies is something that has not really coalesced
[22:26] Speaker 2: into a robust construction of these advanced reactors. Western has
[22:31] Speaker 2: eighty one thousands, it's licensed, it's being sold overseas, attempted
[22:34] Speaker 2: to be sold overseas, but no US company or new
[22:38] Speaker 2: has committed to doing it. There's projects that are being discussed,
[22:42] Speaker 2: but they have not yet had final investment decision and
[22:45] Speaker 2: starting to move forward. Once that happens, you may start
[22:48] Speaker 2: to see a more momentum, as definitely suggested has happening
[22:52] Speaker 2: in China, and we are way behind as far as
[22:55] Speaker 2: building power plants, which is a very big concern if
[22:58] Speaker 2: AI is going to louse large as a demand for
[23:01] Speaker 2: electricity in the future.
[23:02] Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to get to China in just
[23:04] Speaker 1: a moment. But one last question about the US relations
[23:08] Speaker 1: to what you just said. You know, you mentioned as
[23:09] Speaker 1: a lack of demand pull, But isn't that what the
[23:12] Speaker 1: hyper scaleas are bringing. And it's just that it's a
[23:14] Speaker 1: demand pull for different set of technologies to the ones
[23:18] Speaker 1: we used to see.
[23:19] Speaker 2: Well, there are fifty one gigawats, as Stephanie said, of
[23:23] Speaker 2: memorands of understanding for these technologies, and they're moving forward,
[23:27] Speaker 2: you know, slowly, but the utilities have yet to sort
[23:30] Speaker 2: of articulate any big contracts for large AP one thousands
[23:35] Speaker 2: or SMRs. It's starting to evolve slowly. We're going to
[23:39] Speaker 2: see how much progress is being made in Canada with
[23:42] Speaker 2: General Electric Atachi three hundred Mego Lotte BWRX reactor, and
[23:46] Speaker 2: if that proceeds successfully, will follow in the TVA, and
[23:50] Speaker 2: will follow a Duke Energy and other places around the
[23:52] Speaker 2: country which have expressed him interested. Also, the Trump administration
[23:56] Speaker 2: has reached out to Japan to help fun under this
[24:00] Speaker 2: new construction, and it'sre's a lot of uncertainty how that's
[24:03] Speaker 2: going to play out, where these new reactors will be built.
[24:06] Speaker 2: Who's going on And we're living onmost day to day
[24:09] Speaker 2: waiting for an announcement from the Office of Energy Daminance
[24:12] Speaker 2: Finance in Washington to see to say here we are,
[24:15] Speaker 2: here's the cash necessary for these companies, the utilities to
[24:18] Speaker 2: commit to building these large reactors. The Trump administration would
[24:21] Speaker 2: like to have ten ap one thousand reactors under construction
[24:25] Speaker 2: by twenty thirty. We'll see how successful we are in
[24:28] Speaker 2: realizing that call.
[24:30] Speaker 1: I mean, but it seems to me from what I'm hearing. Obviously,
[24:34] Speaker 1: if you're selling a power generation technology, then ultimately utilities
[24:40] Speaker 1: are going to be a bigger market than hyperscalers, even
[24:43] Speaker 1: though hyper scalers do have huge power demand. But the
[24:46] Speaker 1: hyperscalers provide a market that does have that demand pull
[24:50] Speaker 1: right now for specific technology is that if they can
[24:53] Speaker 1: be successful in that market, then have an opportunity to
[24:56] Speaker 1: cross over into the utility market. And but it kind
[25:00] Speaker 1: of closed the door for conventional nuclear technologies, which hasn't
[25:04] Speaker 1: had that sort of stepping stone to get to the
[25:07] Speaker 1: utility market. It's not how things might play out here.
[25:11] Speaker 2: Very important thing is that there's a lot of diversity
[25:14] Speaker 2: in the approach that Google is not just picking one technology,
[25:17] Speaker 2: is picking several different technologies that is pursuing to support
[25:22] Speaker 2: it invests in Cairos, it's investing in Commonwealth Fusion, just
[25:25] Speaker 2: a fision and a fusion technology. And they have the
[25:28] Speaker 2: luxury of being able to do that, and they're spreading
[25:31] Speaker 2: their bets between different technologies. Remember, there's a tremendous number
[25:34] Speaker 2: of options. All of these option vendors, they need cash.
[25:38] Speaker 2: And one of the key criteria for success with these
[25:41] Speaker 2: companies is that they have a pipeline of projects and
[25:44] Speaker 2: also the capital resources of which to fulfill the orders
[25:47] Speaker 2: and proceed forward. And that's pretty uncertain right now.
[25:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think one thing that is different is
[25:53] Speaker 3: you have to remember that if you're a startup developing
[25:55] Speaker 3: an advanced reactor, you're probably trying to focus on one market,
[25:58] Speaker 3: one key market at a time, really focused on the US.
[26:01] Speaker 3: For example, if you're a Westinghouse and you have an
[26:03] Speaker 3: AP one thousand, you have an international market, and so
[26:06] Speaker 3: that means your customer base is fundamentally different because you
[26:09] Speaker 3: could have lots of interest, for example, in European countries,
[26:12] Speaker 3: which we do see for some of these large, large
[26:14] Speaker 3: reactors that we don't currently see from utilities in the
[26:17] Speaker 3: US at least, so they are competing with each other.
[26:20] Speaker 3: But the door doesn't completely close here in the US
[26:22] Speaker 3: because they could still build momentum in other markets and
[26:25] Speaker 3: then come back to the US.
[26:27] Speaker 1: So in a way, both conventional and newer technologies have
[26:30] Speaker 1: a pathway to build momentum.
[26:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say for the large reactors, their pathway goes
[26:35] Speaker 3: through the utilities, as for the advanced reactors, it goes
[26:39] Speaker 3: through the hyperscalers. How that mix plays out later, it's
[26:44] Speaker 3: still to be seen.
[26:46] Speaker 1: So on the topic of momentum, let's go around the
[26:49] Speaker 1: world to China, because there's no shortage of momentum around
[26:54] Speaker 1: nuclear In China, it's become the clear leader in nuclear construction.
[26:57] Speaker 1: You know what's the story.
[26:59] Speaker 2: There can build nuclear power plants for one fifth of
[27:02] Speaker 2: cost that we can in the West. And they can
[27:04] Speaker 2: do so because they can build six reactors on one site.
[27:08] Speaker 2: So the labor force goes from one reactor to the
[27:10] Speaker 2: second reactor, third, fourth, fifth, six each react becomes subsequently cheaper.
[27:14] Speaker 2: They have on short all of the manufacturing capability, so
[27:19] Speaker 2: ninety ninety five percent of the components are all made
[27:21] Speaker 2: in China. They have lower interest rates, lower labor costs,
[27:25] Speaker 2: and a huge demand for electricity, and probably a much
[27:29] Speaker 2: smoother and easier regulatory pathway to get nuclear projects built.
[27:33] Speaker 2: There's no place in the US where you could sort
[27:35] Speaker 2: of start building six nuclear power plants. They have many
[27:38] Speaker 2: sites over there where they're going to be able to
[27:40] Speaker 2: do that.
[27:41] Speaker 3: So nuclear actor construction in China's really taken off in
[27:43] Speaker 3: the past decade. We've seen a country that's building its
[27:47] Speaker 3: industry from scratch and been very successful in doing so.
[27:50] Speaker 3: They're realizing economies of scale as a result, which speaks
[27:53] Speaker 3: to how they're able to have costs are so much
[27:54] Speaker 3: lower than what we see here in the US. For example.
[27:57] Speaker 3: As a result, we forecast the China's nuclear fleet could
[28:01] Speaker 3: reach one hundred and two gigilwatt by twenty thirty, which
[28:03] Speaker 3: would potentially make them the world's largest nuclearity and surpass
[28:07] Speaker 3: the US by that point. Nuclear is positioned as an
[28:10] Speaker 3: energy security asset as well as a form of low
[28:13] Speaker 3: carbon power in China, and it's specifically called out in
[28:16] Speaker 3: their fifteenth five year Plans of the month that's covering
[28:18] Speaker 3: twenty twenty six auts to twenty thirty. The goal is
[28:20] Speaker 3: to have one hundred and ten go outs by twenty thirty,
[28:23] Speaker 3: So our forecast is just shy of that currently. Basically,
[28:27] Speaker 3: there is momentum, there is expertise, there is no how.
[28:30] Speaker 3: If they basically keep going as as they've currently been doing,
[28:34] Speaker 3: they do meet that target.
[28:36] Speaker 1: A question about this, So there's clear momentum for building
[28:40] Speaker 1: nuclear in China, and I presume it's Chinese companies. I
[28:43] Speaker 1: mean you mentioned the whole supply chains.
[28:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Chinese companies building Chinese reactors for the most part.
[28:49] Speaker 1: So then a question I have is how exportsible is this?
[28:53] Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned some of these economies of scale
[28:55] Speaker 1: are predicated on building locally in China, all in the
[28:59] Speaker 1: same place. Is there any evidence it's just I mean,
[29:02] Speaker 1: is there a market the Chinese companies and the Chinese
[29:05] Speaker 1: supply chain is building nuclear in other markets?
[29:08] Speaker 2: You know?
[29:09] Speaker 1: Are they turning into nuclear exports? As yet?
[29:12] Speaker 2: The only country to which they've exported nuclear power plants
[29:15] Speaker 2: too is Pakistan. They have a very very strong relationship
[29:18] Speaker 2: with Pakistan as a counterweight to India. For example, they've
[29:23] Speaker 2: tried to build nuclear power plants in the UK. They
[29:26] Speaker 2: were raised fighting some investments or so that turned around,
[29:29] Speaker 2: it didn't work out. They've also been trying to build
[29:32] Speaker 2: nuclear power plants in Argentina and that's a very very
[29:35] Speaker 2: controversial project that is on one day off the next,
[29:39] Speaker 2: depending on the changes in government. Argentina has historically suffered
[29:43] Speaker 2: from a very high inflation rate, so that makes it
[29:46] Speaker 2: very very difficult to try to understand, you know, what
[29:48] Speaker 2: type of financing can be provided in that type of
[29:51] Speaker 2: environment to succeed in building that certainly would be against
[29:55] Speaker 2: the Trump administration's you know, Western Hemmer's sphere of influence
[29:59] Speaker 2: for China to build the k power plants. So become
[30:01] Speaker 2: some politics mixed over here. But the big opportunity may
[30:05] Speaker 2: come in the Middle East, where if you were Saudi Arabia,
[30:08] Speaker 2: for example, and you're looking at building reactors and you
[30:10] Speaker 2: have a US option, which historically is you know, fifteen
[30:14] Speaker 2: thousand dollars to kill a what, or a Chinese option
[30:17] Speaker 2: which is twenty seven hundred dollars to kill what. You know,
[30:19] Speaker 2: price becomes a very important issue. But there is a
[30:22] Speaker 2: distinction between building in your local market and building in
[30:25] Speaker 2: an export market, and the prices seem to be much higher.
[30:28] Speaker 2: In the case of Russia. They can build reactors less
[30:31] Speaker 2: expensively in Russia than they can in other markets, just
[30:34] Speaker 2: the logistics are involved in doing all of that.
[30:38] Speaker 1: So this strong Chinese nuclear market doesn't necessarily translate into
[30:43] Speaker 1: a Chinese nuclear industry that is investing, because there's so
[30:46] Speaker 1: many other considerations and the cost gains are not necessarily
[30:50] Speaker 1: quite as clear.
[30:51] Speaker 2: What I will add one important cavea to that is
[30:55] Speaker 2: that we're expecting the Linlong one reactor, which is one
[30:59] Speaker 2: hundred mega wat SMR that's being developed in China and
[31:03] Speaker 2: should come online we anticipated last year coming online this year.
[31:07] Speaker 2: There's no need for a hundred megawatt reactor in China
[31:10] Speaker 2: because the demand for electicity is so great. They're introducing
[31:13] Speaker 2: one hundred megawe reactor to sort of introduce that to
[31:18] Speaker 2: markets in Africa and Southeast Asia or Southern Asia where
[31:22] Speaker 2: the grids are too small to accommodate a large reactor
[31:26] Speaker 2: but will eventually grow to be able to do so.
[31:29] Speaker 2: So they're offering a product now tailored to be an
[31:33] Speaker 2: entry level model for many, many countries in Africa and
[31:36] Speaker 2: South Asia.
[31:37] Speaker 1: And I'm presuming that disparity in like local costs versus
[31:41] Speaker 1: export costs is less for a smaller reactor because more
[31:44] Speaker 1: of what is being built can be built somewhere else
[31:48] Speaker 1: and then exported to wherever it's going to be installed.
[31:51] Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty good premise.
[31:53] Speaker 1: So then the other country in Asia that has been
[31:56] Speaker 1: showing big ambitions is India. Tell us a little bit
[31:58] Speaker 1: more about that.
[31:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, so India plans to significantly expand its nuclear we
[32:02] Speaker 3: It wants to get to one hundred gigawatts by twenty
[32:05] Speaker 3: forty seven. In our forecast, we expect that they'll get
[32:07] Speaker 3: to thirteen gigawatts by twenty thirty six, so they'll get
[32:10] Speaker 3: part of the way there, but it's quite significant ambitions
[32:13] Speaker 3: if they want to achieve that. We expect that a
[32:16] Speaker 3: lot of this is domestic in nature. So they have
[32:18] Speaker 3: their own reactor, the KEHWR seven hundred reactor. That's a
[32:24] Speaker 3: pressurized water reactor that they designed domestically and that they're
[32:28] Speaker 3: deploying at scale, and so they'll try to ramp that
[32:31] Speaker 3: up as well. And they are also growing their nuclear
[32:34] Speaker 3: capabilities outside of that by looking at a five hundred
[32:37] Speaker 3: megawat fast breeder reactor, so that would be an advanced
[32:40] Speaker 3: reactor which achieved its first criticality this earlier this year actually,
[32:44] Speaker 3: so they're in the testing and commissioning phase of that
[32:46] Speaker 3: project basically, but yeah, it's ambitions are quite big.
[32:49] Speaker 2: Also have a bit to India in March of this
[32:53] Speaker 2: year and going again soon for our BNF summit there.
[32:55] Speaker 2: There's a tremendous interest in building two hundred megawatt reactors
[32:59] Speaker 2: pressurized tavy water reactors over there as well. And also
[33:03] Speaker 2: they have liberalized the reglatory environment to a large extent
[33:06] Speaker 2: in India and they're trying to get many private actors
[33:09] Speaker 2: to play in the marketplace. Historically and PCIL Nuclear Power
[33:13] Speaker 2: Corporation of India Limited has been the main player over there.
[33:17] Speaker 2: They're opening that to many other companies who have built
[33:20] Speaker 2: thermal generation in the country try to accelerate that process. Historically,
[33:25] Speaker 2: India takes a long time to build nuclear power plants
[33:28] Speaker 2: that take about ten years for seven hundred may awad reactor,
[33:31] Speaker 2: so they need to sort of speed up that process
[33:33] Speaker 2: if they're going to sort of realize these ambitious goals.
[33:36] Speaker 2: And the Russians have a footprint in India. No other
[33:40] Speaker 2: Western country has established a footprint, despite many efforts from
[33:44] Speaker 2: the French by the US to offer technology over there.
[33:47] Speaker 2: The Indians won't look at an SMR in the country
[33:50] Speaker 2: unless it's operating in a home country somewhere else. So
[33:54] Speaker 2: for a US or Western European vendor, they need to
[33:57] Speaker 2: build and operate that reactor in country, then Indians will
[34:00] Speaker 2: consider that.
[34:01] Speaker 1: So the Indian government is basically saying they don't want
[34:04] Speaker 1: to be the guinea pig for new technologies exactly.
[34:06] Speaker 2: And also, the Indians have a huge engineering resource and
[34:11] Speaker 2: they will be able to apply the engineering resource to
[34:14] Speaker 2: significantly reduce the cost of these nuclear power plants. And
[34:18] Speaker 2: they're targeting a cost of less than two thousand dollars
[34:22] Speaker 2: a kilowatt cap x, which is less than what the
[34:25] Speaker 2: Chinese have done. And they have the talent with which
[34:28] Speaker 2: to do that. And whether or not they can accomplish
[34:30] Speaker 2: that is another goal. But they will not be buying
[34:33] Speaker 2: very expensive US or Western European or Chinese technology.
[34:37] Speaker 1: So India has very much entered the chat and whilst
[34:41] Speaker 1: it is not as established a market as say China,
[34:44] Speaker 1: India is serious and we should pay attention to what's
[34:47] Speaker 1: going on there.
[34:48] Speaker 2: It's a huge market, it's the largest country in the world,
[34:51] Speaker 2: a tremendous engineering resources, so it's something that they really
[34:55] Speaker 2: desperately need.
[34:56] Speaker 1: Fascinating, so we should keep an eye on India before
[34:59] Speaker 1: we finish, Let's just come back to the global picture.
[35:01] Speaker 1: We've spoken about these kind of two different worlds for India.
[35:04] Speaker 1: The other thing I'm kind of curious about is I
[35:07] Speaker 1: know that when we've talked about nuclear in the past,
[35:10] Speaker 1: and in one of your reports, we even use this
[35:12] Speaker 1: phrase nuclear's running in place. Globally, new nuclear capacity is
[35:16] Speaker 1: being added at about the same speed as other nuclear
[35:19] Speaker 1: capacity is being retired, And so you know, on a
[35:21] Speaker 1: net basis, there's not really been a huge amount of
[35:24] Speaker 1: growth in global nuclear capacity. But even though there's all
[35:27] Speaker 1: sorts of uncertainties and nuances everywhere we've looked, the kind
[35:31] Speaker 1: of the signals are positive towards more nuclear A lot
[35:34] Speaker 1: of these challenges that we've spoken about existed before, but
[35:38] Speaker 1: not all of these kind of green lights existed before.
[35:41] Speaker 1: So we now have a more optimistic view on nuclear
[35:44] Speaker 1: than we did. Are we transitioning away in our forecasts
[35:47] Speaker 1: from the era of running in place?
[35:50] Speaker 2: I believe that we are and will not realize the
[35:54] Speaker 2: super ambitious targets that the NGOs and governments have suggested
[35:59] Speaker 2: of tripling a opacity or the Trump administration quadrupling of
[36:03] Speaker 2: capacity by twenty fifty. But we'll see steady increase in
[36:06] Speaker 2: nuclear power for several different reasons. One, the situation in
[36:10] Speaker 2: Ukraine highlighted the importance of energy security. The situation that's
[36:15] Speaker 2: going on in the Straits of our moves right now
[36:17] Speaker 2: also emphasizes energy just security as a very important thing.
[36:22] Speaker 2: And the hot weather and smock that we've had recently
[36:25] Speaker 2: here in New York also emphasizes the need that we
[36:27] Speaker 2: can't forget about climate change. And I think it's a
[36:31] Speaker 2: coming realization that an asset that is operating can produce
[36:34] Speaker 2: a tremendous amount of carbon free technology should be tried
[36:38] Speaker 2: to operate for eighty years, and that's what we model.
[36:41] Speaker 2: Ninety percent of the assets in North America will do so,
[36:45] Speaker 2: and that's a technology trend that will happen the rest
[36:48] Speaker 2: of the world. And I think that there's a tremendous
[36:50] Speaker 2: need for carbon free power for security and climate concern.
[36:54] Speaker 3: Like you said, for the past decade, it's been we
[36:57] Speaker 3: add some nuclear, we remove some nuclear, and the net changes.
[37:00] Speaker 3: Basically we're in the same place. We forecast two hundred
[37:02] Speaker 3: and six gigawatts of additions by twenty thirty six, and
[37:05] Speaker 3: just to give a sense of how big that is,
[37:06] Speaker 3: that's roughly a little bit more than half of today's
[37:09] Speaker 3: installed fleet. Now, there are soill retirements coming in the future,
[37:12] Speaker 3: but they're slowing down, and so what this ends up
[37:14] Speaker 3: being is a forty four percent increase in installed nuclear
[37:17] Speaker 3: capacity by twenty thirty six. So actual growth that's happening now.
[37:21] Speaker 3: Like we said, that growth story looks different in different places.
[37:24] Speaker 3: A lot of that growth is because of China, but
[37:26] Speaker 3: even in the US, even in Europe, we do start
[37:29] Speaker 3: to see more construction activity happen. In the US, we
[37:32] Speaker 3: see very little retirements in the forecast, other than possibly
[37:35] Speaker 3: Diabolo Canyon if the California state legislature doesn't want to
[37:38] Speaker 3: keep it online. Europe sees retirements still coming in the
[37:43] Speaker 3: near term, but could see growth in the longer term
[37:45] Speaker 3: if it builds the momentum towards getting more reactors under
[37:49] Speaker 3: construction and learns to reduce its timelines. So we go
[37:52] Speaker 3: from running in place to maybe a light jog.
[37:57] Speaker 2: I think a very key aspect of that is that
[38:00] Speaker 2: the cost of building nuclear power has to be significantly reduced.
[38:04] Speaker 2: You can't continue building large reactors that are over budget
[38:08] Speaker 2: and take much longer than anticipated. So it's up to
[38:11] Speaker 2: the nuclear industry to respond to the challenge of building
[38:14] Speaker 2: these things on time and on budget. And if we
[38:16] Speaker 2: do that, then we will have a much more healthy
[38:19] Speaker 2: nuclear power industry than if we have another cost overruns
[38:23] Speaker 2: in a scenario we're seeing happen in the UK and
[38:26] Speaker 2: it passed in the US.
[38:28] Speaker 1: So there we have it. If there's anyone listening from
[38:31] Speaker 1: the nuclear industry, Chris has basically just said that the
[38:34] Speaker 1: ball is very much in your court now. So good
[38:38] Speaker 1: luck and Chris, thank you very much for joining today.
[38:41] Speaker 1: Thank you, Tom and Stephanie, thank you very much for
[38:43] Speaker 1: joining today.
[38:44] Speaker 3: Thanks for proling us. Today's episode of Switched On was
[38:55] Speaker 3: produced by cam Gray with production assistance from Kamala Showingloomberg
[39:00] Speaker 3: NEIF is a service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and
[39:03] Speaker 3: its affiliates.
[39:04] Speaker 1: This recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed
[39:06] Speaker 1: as investment advice, investment recommendations, or a recommendation as to
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