 It is a tremendous honor for me to welcome as our Rick keynote speaker, Mr. Rafael Mariano Grossi. Mr. Grossi has led the International Atomic Energy Agency as Director General since December of 2019 and, just a few days ago, in recognition of his leadership in conducting the agency with a visionary and courageous approach in challenging times, during his first term, the IAEA Board of Governors unanimously reappointed him for a second four-year term. Congratulations. Mr. Grossi is a diplomat with over 35 years of experiences in the fields of non-proliferation and disarmament, having also served as Ambassador of Argentina to Austria and the Argentine representative to the IAEA and other Vienna-based international organizations. Since the first days of the war in Ukraine, Mr. Grossi has worked tirelessly to focus IAEA's efforts to support Ukraine with ensuring nuclear safety and security of its nuclear facilities and radioactive materials, and he has provided regular updates on these efforts to the international community. He is a strong advocate for assisting IAEA member states to be prepared for new and advanced reactors. He consistently highlights peaceful uses of nuclear technology to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For example, his Raise of Hope initiative strives to bring critical cancer treatments to underserved areas. Mr. Grossi is an international gender champion and supports development of the next generation of youth in nuclear fields. Please join me in welcoming IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. Thank you very much Chris and good morning to all. It's great to be here. This conference is of course one of the reference points for the international regulatory community. So I felt it was especially this year important that I would be here with you listening to you and thanks Chris for this comprehensive overview of what you are doing, the way in which you are leading the NRC. I heard and I listened with enormous interest and I commend you for that and I also have to say as he mentioned in passing just a few days ago the IAEA conference on effective regulatory systems took place in the UAE and you were presiding there that conference honoring us with your leadership there. In the way we do things in the IAEA as a real community with us as the institution and you are member states playing a parallel role and together with us in this effort. So thank you. Thank you very much and congratulations on that leadership. The American regulatory community must be very proud of having you at the helm. I think these are it is obvious these are incredibly challenging times. So I want to focus in my thoughts, my remarks today on a few things. So you have an idea of how I'm seeing them how we from the IAEA are looking at them from a global perspective as an institution that has 176 member states. So we are meeting at a time of great promise for the nuclear sector across all continents policy makers and the public are turning to nuclear energy to mitigate climate change ensure energy security and deliver a just reliable affordable and timely transition to a world of net zero carbon emissions. If ever there was a time to show up and step up as international organizations, regulators, policy makers and industry that time for me is now. As I said I will talk about two ways the IAEA is doing just that. First of course you will not come as a surprise that I will give you an update about our work in Ukraine. Our Ukrainian friends are here you recognize them we're working with them for them supporting them every step of the way. For the first time war is threatening the sites of a major nuclear power program. Secondly I will talk about the IAEA's efforts towards this future that the title of your conference is referring to and here I will focus on something some of you are already working on and we will hear more about that in the course of the panel sessions I suppose and I'm talking about our nuclear harmonization and standardization initiative NESI which is more than an initiative is a way to respond to the moment to this particular time and to the opportunities that are opening in front of us. Over the past year I have led six missions to Ukraine. We have crossed front lines and checkpoints and see firsthand the physical damage the war has caused at nuclear sites and the enormously challenging circumstances under which Ukrainian operators and regulators work. Very early in the war we realized that the expert safety and security language every one of us here is so deeply familiar with was not good enough to describe exactly what was at stake to politicians and public now keenly aware of the dangers in Ukraine. War made it necessary to speak with laser precision about what really mattered. It was crucial to lay a foundation from which we could build clarity and trust enlist support and enact changes to reduce the threat of a nuclear accident. This is how the seven pillars of nuclear safety and security came to be. Physical integrity of facilities reactors fuel ponds radioactive waste storage must be maintained safety and security systems and equipment must be fully functional at all times operating stuff must be able to fulfill their safety and security duties and have the capacity to make decisions free of and due pressure secure off-site power supply must be available from the greed for all nuclear sites logistical supply chains and transportation to and from the sites mass function uninterrupted effective on-site and off-site radiation monitoring systems and emergency preparedness and response measures must be present reliable communications with the regulator and others must be maintained seven fundamental safety pillars everyone everyone of these concepts exist in our safety standards so we haven't invented anything new but all our communications regarding Ukraine and indeed our own analysis have been based on these pillars after a year even at this very fractured time they have been accepted and not a single world had to be changed I think when we look back hopefully sooner rather than later we will find this an important lessons lesson of what an international credible and trusted community like the IEA writ large with member states can do at a time of crisis when clarity and speed are of the essence the pillars themselves may have been accepted but they have been violated over the past year every one of these seven pillars of nuclear safety and security has been compromised we have observed holes blown into buildings and into pipelines at nuclear power plants daily off-site supply outages caused by shelling and Ukrainian operators working under an imaginable stress at one point 23rd and 24th November Thanksgiving here in the United States every every single one of Ukraine nuclear power plants lost off-site power all at once can you imagine can you imagine being an operator or regulator in such circumstances nothing is business as usual at the IEA our incident and emergency center has been operating continuously our safeguards teams have created clarity and diffuse tensions by offering science uncertainty amid the rhetoric of war and the IEA has international teams of safety and security experts stationed at every Ukrainian nuclear power plant at the personal request of President Volodymyr Zelensky to me they are there to assist to observe and to report with the overall aim being to reduce the chance of an accident today as it has been for the past months the most serious situation is at Saporizhya as Chris was reminding us the plant on the front lines of war our teams report increased military operations that put the plant at risk and the IEA has been calling for the urgent implementation of a nuclear safety and security protection at the site this is a conclusion we drew in September and I will not stop my diplomatic efforts and my public appeals until it happens such zone is in everyone's interest but getting anything agreed when the two principal parties are at war with each other is not a straightforward endeavor nothing worthwhile is easy as a diplomat and the director general of the IEA it is my job not to shy away from hard things it is my job to build platforms on which people can solve problems and grasp opportunities that really matter that brings me to a look at the future the IEA nuclear harmonization and standardization initiative and what it matters and why it matters its participants thank God may not be meeting in a world-time bunker but ladies and gentlemen the stakes are high every year wildfires are laying waste to communities across the world from California to Australia floods are devastating lives from Pakistan to Germany the world needs nuclear energy and it knows it policy makers from South Korea to Brazil and from France to here in the United States are looking again at nuclear and in many countries public opinion polls are shrinking in its favor it is quite simple we will not reach net zero without nuclear whether you ask the IEA experts or those of the international energy agency or those of the intergovernmental panel on climate change investment in nuclear power and in advance and small modular reactors will need to grow by multiples if countries around the world are to meet their economic and environmental goals and investing is indeed coming governments including of course here in the United States are laying the groundwork private investment is growing so the momentum seems to be here the need is here but will the new a big part of the answer is here in this room the industry has done it once before spurred by the oil shocks of the 1970s which brought us many of the nuclear power plants we rely on today but this time is different the nuclear sector is not only growing it's also changing it's becoming much more global an industry whose robust and effective regulatory requirements were developed when nuclear was largely a national endeavor are going to need to adapt even though we have international agreements like the IEA safety standards and security guidelines the way they are interpreted and applied can vary across the world bring into this reality the small modular reactors that can be built in a factory a thousand miles from where they will operate and the benefit of harmonizing regulatory environments and standardizing industrial approaches becomes clear harmonization of the regulatory processes reduces uncertainty and helps to lower the cost of building and deploying SMR's harmonization of requirements facilitates international trade of SMR's and components as developers design and manufacture reactors that comply with a more uniform set of global standards rather than having to deal with multiple sometimes even conflicting sets of requirements in different countries harmonization ensures SMR's across the world meet the highest safety and security standards reducing the risk of accidents and the consequences of malicious acts whether those reactors are deployed in the Netherlands or in Nigeria this is particularly important given that they may be deployed in remote and vulnerable areas harmonized regulations help newcomer countries and those countries with less experience that the United States fewer resources and a smaller pool of the necessary talent it allows them more easily to collaborate with others and implement the higher standards of safety and security harmonized regulations and requirements could also help streamline research and development efforts across different countries promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing and avoiding unnecessary duplication of efforts in this hyper connected world consistent and sensible regulations developed with a consistent and honest engagement of all stakeholders could help foster also public trust and acceptance of new nuclear including SMR's for their deployment and when it comes to the design of SMR's working towards global standardization of approaches by developing generic user requirements for example could increase trade and create economies of scale for manufacturing construction and operation by homing on successful designs operators and regulators become more familiar with the technology leading to a greater understanding of potential risks and vulnerabilities several harmonization and standardization initiatives already exist and this has been mentioned to me several times the regulatory agencies of the United States Canada you were mentioning that and Romania is somewhere over there and the UK are working together as are some other European countries industry groups like the World Nuclear Association and international organizations like the Nuclear Energy Agency built there also have had working groups and extraordinary useful efforts looking at these issues these are necessary these are all very welcome and we need them with us but we need this at a global scale here is why Nessie is different and why it is going to work at pace and with impact it is the first truly global global effort with wide international backing facilitated by the IEA Nessie brings together key stakeholders including regulators and industry together we have to talk to each other not to preach to each other and it is happening at the right time when the need and the momentum are here ladies and gentlemen safety is at the heart of what the IEA does whether it's building a safety culture across the globe making sure the lessons of Chernobyl and Fukushima are learned and implemented or applying its milestones approach to assist newcomer countries in developing the regulatory and safety infrastructure needed for a safe and secure nuclear power program but Nessie is not our initiative it is yours the goals of Nessie are not my goals they are the goals of the regulators and industry representative working in their separate tracks each track is asking what do we need to do what do we need the others to do they are each defining their scope of work and identifying outputs the regulatory track is focused on reducing barriers to information sharing increasing collaboration between regulators when reviewing a reactor design and determining how regulators can best leverage other reviews how far we can go in this regard it's for us to agree and decide the industry track is working towards developing more standardized industrial approaches for SMR manufacturing construction and operations that can reduce license licensing timelines costs and ultimately the time to actually deploy SMR's both tracks are running in parallel and the IEA is facilitating coordination and communication between them keeping everyone working together towards producing specific usable results by the end of next year ladies and gentlemen the IEA I like to say never stops not even for a single minute we are determined to assist our member states when it comes to the use of nuclear technology in a safe manner for many of them SMR's and other new nuclear designs have the enormous potential to make a real difference in reducing energy poverty fueling their economy giving them the capacity and how important is this these days to have autonomous positions to face the energy security crisis in the best possible way for many countries and communities across the world power outages are a stark constant sad reality although the number of people without access to electricity has halved in the past 20 years seven hundred and seventy seven hundred and seventy million people live without it when I traveled to Africa to Asia to Latin America the Caribbean achieving this fundamental necessity is a top national priority for many leaders I meet and they ask about nuclear they ask what nuclear or if nuclear can be there for them it is possible but some of the questions I have just laid out are important and we need to solve them ladies gentlemen I will not sugarcoat it you were saying rose tinted glasses we don't need those we don't want those this is going to be hard it is going to be hard to set aside what we believe are entitled rights and principles it is going to be hard to continue working at war time it is going to be hard to do all these things bearing in mind that as a basis of this a thriving private sector has to also be bringing the economic gains that we all need in the free world but all of these requires you requires us because we are the place where this trust where our societies can give us this indispensable trust I like the title Chris of your conference because it talks about the process of navigation your remarks were wisely sparkled with wise thoughts of Einstein and others I also remember one from classic times where the Romans used to say that there are no good wins for those who do not know where they want to go we know where we want to go it's up to us let's do it thank you very much thank you for those remarks thank you very much really I really appreciate that enormously let's start with Nessie yeah for a minute and I appreciate very much the the distinction that you made I think I want to make sure I have this right the way in which Nessie can kind of lift all boats yeah right but also recognizing that there are potentially separate right that we can go a lot of places with the naval analogies here right we're all in the same boat with regard to climate change but with regard to our individual regulatory schemes too the word that gets thrown around a lot is kind of sovereignty and the need to maintain that and so on and so forth right and yet also there are opportunities I and I want to recognize that our friend Ramsey Jamal from Canada often says a neutron is a neutron is a neutron right there are certain basic principles of engineering and physics that apply across the world so talk about how maybe you can talk for a minute about kind of how more developed countries potentially are are interacting with Nessie and the potential then for others who are either coming up or considering nuclear or exploring that as a possibility to to improve their societies yeah indeed I think this is an issue of what we could define as flexible geometries here within an overarching concept it is it is clear that you have different degrees of maturity institutional maturity regulatory experience and it is obvious as well that you may have like you were describing and I've seen this also in in some existing European partnerships which are developing France with other Eastern European countries all of that all of that is possible and is compatible and it helps a global initiative initiative like like Nessie the what we feel here is that we what we need to do is to bring all these efforts together in in a compatible way it doesn't mean that you're going to be blurring national competencies where they cannot be blurred it doesn't mean any of that what it means is that we are going to be growing levels of convergence up to the high highest point possible and we are going to be coexisting as well with other initiatives to put it in simple English those who can run faster can do it and it is not a problem having systems that are in a different level of compatibility if you look at the safety standards and I think in the in the nuclear regulatory experience you have that and we've created a working system where you have standards which are a common denominator that allow us to work as all in a I would say coherent way and it is obvious that you in the United States or other countries may have other standards sometimes more stringent sometimes different which coexists what we should set aside is this idea that it is all or nothing at all since you cannot have a Nessie that is observed by all to the letter then we can't we can't have anything and that is fundamentally wrong and I think it doesn't that's justice to the fine and noble nuclear regulatory tradition of having these flexible geometries which I think has been one of the most remarkable features of nuclear regulation over the year so the challenge here is to move to advance to have ambition and to push a little bit why not the limits of what we can accept when leveraging other countries regulatory experiences and I'm sure that here between the United States and Canada there are partnerships that are so close that can allow for that to happen in Europe it may also be the case and the effect the example set by you will be tremendously positive for developing countries and for exceeding countries yeah thank you so it makes sense that a lot of the conversation this morning given the word the regulatory information conference is on regulators but the other half of the equation is on the industry and on and how this idea kind of came out of I think for you out of the group of Vienna yes so talk for a minute about the importance of that well that is exactly this is what I meant when I said well we should not preach to each other we should not be looking at what the others need to do we should have a very clear view on what we need to do and and in reality I was inspired to go to to met to Nessie and to try to move this forward ironically out of conversations with industry and with CEOs that were complaining they were complaining maybe about you guys I don't know probably I don't know why I say this but just cross my mind but but now we now we started the process we have the working groups and some of the homework for them is also emerging quite clearly what are the areas where they need to be a bit more bold a bit more open and of course here we have to understand that they have a different culture which is nurtured by the principle of earn earning money and and competition healthy competition of course so I think we are seeing we are recognizing what their efforts should be and the good thing is that in the logic of Nessie we have this interface so that nothing is excluded and we can have this cross fertilization if you want which is another way to say that we can spy on each other no problem it's authorized and we can work together and see what the the regulator debate is doing and how they see seeing from the perspective of an industrialist or a CEO what what they are saying what they are complaining about what the limitations are and the industrial family so to speak as well to see how is the the regulatory family working towards this yeah good yeah thank you so one of the things I wanted to ask you about this morning was you know obviously the your efforts in Ukraine have received a lot of well-deserved attention yeah and of course Nessie is is something that as regulators were out there talking about but there are also these other big key pieces of the work of the agency yes particularly around non-proliferation yes and and around the the safety and security of material sources and and working with non-weapon states so can you just talk a little bit about you know the efforts that the IAEA is making on these things and maybe how they touch these other parts you mentioned your safeguards inspectors in Ukraine new reactor designs will have security and safeguard implications potentially etc well I think it's a time of great transformation I believe when when when people talk about renaissance not renaissance I think we are not into that we are into an industry that is there that is growing that is adapting to a new set of circumstances all of the world and this brings also the the need to adapt and to adjust to adapt and to adjust that to an industry that is going to be presenting new products that will require a different approach also from the safeguards perspective and from the regulatory as we were saying as well because SMR is just one of course we are zeroing in on something which is very visible and where money is flowing so projects are coming to maturity but there are a number a number of those and we need to make sure because of the globality of the effort and my responsibility we want to make sure that we lift countries to the level that is required there are many many important very important projects ongoing in in countries that are not there yet in terms of their institutional maturity and workforce and here I recognize also your bilateral efforts with some countries that you are assisting from the IEA side I can tell you that the demand is huge the demand is simply huge countries need it they need it now they want it now and the answer can never be we don't have time we can never be that please so this is why I ask countries and especially the the nuclear countries in this world the 32 plus the 50 plus that are at the core of this to support us because if we tell those looking at nuclear that we don't have time for them that we don't have the resources to assist them come later come next month the opportunity will be lost and it will be lost I think for a very long time so this is why we are devoting so much so many resources into into training into capacity building into peer reviewing into all these these missions that are dispersed all over the world but of course we are challenged and we in a good way I would say by by Ukraine and what happens there and we are devoting of course lots of resources and time and energy as and as it should be to this but it is obvious that an agency that has such a small budget has enormous difficulties and this is why countries like the United States are trying to support us through extra budgetary contributions so that we can do what we need to do but when you look at the mission we have the responsibility we have when you look at our workforce and the means that we have to do it I think it there's a big discrepancy of course we need to be realistic and not dream about things that are impossible to achieve in terms of a growing capacity for the agency but simply to say that all the support we get is indispensable and we are motivated and ready to to take up the task thank you I think the the the prospect of expanded nuclear energy is really important but I think you and I both share a passion for supporting developing countries in the use peaceful uses yes radioactive materials yes you've had the rays of hope initiative the new tech plastics initiative I was a great I really enjoyed it the conference in Abu Dhabi with Steve Burns hopefully highlighting some of that again the capacity building you know the effort to build and and support technically competent independent regulators but just for our audience here talk for a minute about all of you know these other things that are really they're supporting sustainable development goals they're important for human health and and economics etc you know that thanks for for asking this because sometimes it's it's an issue that is especially in in in in places of nuclear excellence like this are a little bit forgotten and the reality is that from my 176 member states the vast majority is in not for the non-proliferation of course they respected they need something else they need help and the good thing about us nuclear is that we are about concrete things one of the things that that as head of an internationalization happens to me is that sometimes to my great frustration I participate in fora and in places where there is so much blah blah so much when it comes to development goals when it comes to gender when it comes to you know human health we in the nuclear and it includes us all we are about very concrete things when we talk about human health well where is it that we excel nuclear medicine radio therapy race of hope and we are providing radio therapy services in many places that did not have a single can you imagine a single simple cobalt 60 radio therapy unit in countries all right 75% of Africans don't have any access to any any at all you have a cancer you die very simple so this is this is what nuclear brings people talk about ocean maritime problems well we have isotopic hydrology problems and you know next week there is one of these big conferences the UN ocean conferences and we go there not with a speech we go there to set up the global the global network of water laboratories in the world so we are the guys who are looking into the problem that you have in your waters in sediment or in fish we are giving policymakers the tools to solve the problems and the same goes to plastics where we can through irradiation technologies we can solve the problems and so on so I believe that one of the things and this is this has been one of my I would say inspiring and more I would say pressing forces driving me in my first term of office is to use this formidable tool the IEA is that is a tool to its potential and I think there's there's a lot there's a lot we can do there with five million us five million us dollars I can build a radiotherapy center in a country in a small African country and make the mortality rate drop by 50% how about that how about that and this is possible this is really possible and this this was not being done this was not being done a few months ago president Biden had this vision of the Africa summit here in Washington and committed 55 billion only on health issues it's much more when you look at the package and I need five billion to go to the Central African Republic zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero of what the United States is already giving so I think we must do this we must take this seriously and and and we must realize that we are privileged that we in nuclear have this ability to improve the conditions of so many around the world yeah yeah well and I think from the United States one of the things that I've appreciated about the way you approach this is you called it flexible geometries earlier and we're maybe alternate geometries where you can go into these countries and with with five million dollars and and and do a lot of good and and sometimes the United States can too from various mechanisms not you know not always the NRC we're focused more on the regulatory capacity building but we can work with the countries who have influence in some of these places right we can support Argentina Morocco you know other places that are leaders in their in their regions where they're the ones who are doing the most work and could use some support from us so that it's not a it's not always a you know big country swooping in to do X Y or Z but we can help the multilateral organizations we can create these formal and informal frameworks that I think are so important to making progress on these issues and I'm so grateful for that you know it's so hardwarming to see how consistently the United States is the number one extra budgetary contributor and we have the ambassador here thank you ambassador again for for that but you know what we need much more so keep doing that but do it do it more and and there are in the room regulators from from industrialized nations and with a tiny bit we can do so much and the nuclear guys as I was saying are the guys of the concrete solutions fast each taxpayers dollar that come to the IEA goes immediately to a lab somewhere we are not creating positions or offices or special representatives what we are doing is science technology for for this so thank you for that thank you well Rafael thank you so much for spending your time with us this morning thank you very much a great pleasure to have you here at the Rick I wish you all the best for your time here in Washington and and look forward to seeing you soon thank you to everyone who submitted questions on the app I hope we covered a lot of those things yes in terms of the answers about industry and about the NRC and other things that we can be doing it's it's a great pleasure thank you very much thank you very much