 and William Kennedy of Bloomberg News. They'll be covering all the issues that Director General Grossi and the IEA is currently facing in the world. So please have a seat and welcome them. William, I turn it over to you. Thank you very much, Jeff. Well, it's my great pleasure to be here at the opening morning of the Atomsburg Millennium. And it's my great pleasure to be able to have a chat with your Director General, Mr. Mathael Grossi. Thank you for joining me today and giving me the opportunity. Thank you very much. Great pleasure. Obviously, the main theme here is the interplay between nuclear and climate change and the energy transition. Let's start there. On the surface, nuclear should be the magic bullet. It's baseload, it's low carbon, but it's not quite happening. In many countries, we're closing more plants and we're opening. China is an exception. But in other places, we're not seeing the nuclear in a sense that you might expect. Why do you think that's happening? Well, yes. Well, thank you very much. I think there is a combination of factors. Some are technology driven, some are financially driven, some are societally or politically driven. And I think it's a combination of those. What we think is that what's important is the sector. And when I talk about the nuclear sector, I include in this concept every participant. The industry that has always been there, of course, national authorities, the regulators. Perhaps the one that was a bit less visible was the IAEA, paradoxically, in the past, taking a more, if not neutral, distant approach to it. So what we see happening is that nuclear is facing the need to catch up with a different configuration of factors. The last nuclear boom in the 70s was taking place against the backdrop of a different economic situation with a lot of state-pushed investment and other circumstances that are no longer there. Then the sector had to undergo challenges like Chernobyl in the 1980s, almost in the 1990s, and in the mid-2000s Fukushima, which were affecting and we should not deny it. We at the IAEA like to talk about these things, discuss them openly, promote a scientific debate about those. But we're affecting a number of political decisions that were taking in a number of places. This has been moving and I think that what we see today is a configuration of factors like never before. But still, and I think your initial question applies. You were saying we are not seeing it as we could be seeing it today. Are we going to see it in the future? Well, I think this will not fall off its own weight. There is no fatality in economy. There is no fatality in the sense of something that is inevitable in the energy sector. So there are a number of facilitations that can be exercised. This is what we are trying to do. We have been looking at what has been happening. For example, we see there is this deficit in terms of industry harmonisation and standardisation and regulatory harmonisation. So when we see this, we decided to talk to everybody and to look at it and see what can be done. Are we going to be able to agree on a number of common principles and guidelines? I really hope so. It's not automatic. Then the political debate. And I think here on the political debate, the convergence of the climate change, I mean what this whole thing here in Charm is all about and the energy crisis are combining. But mind you, when we talk about COPs and we talk about the climate debate, this has been happening for some time and still the voice of nuclear was not being heard. So we are trying to modify that. What we do here together is an expression of that. We want to be open to a discussion where we look at the weak points, at the strong points, and most of all at the possibilities which are huge. Let me say that we do not see nuclear as a magic wand that is going to be solving the whole range of issues and problems that we have. But we also recognize that without it, everything else will be extremely complicated. So it's an approach which is open, which tries to, with lucidity, recognize what the problems are and in as much as we can address them. The problem that we have is that if I commission a nuclear power plant today, it's probably going to take more than 15 years before it produces. So how do we shorten that length of time? Because it's 2022, we're urgently trying to meet targets at 2030, 2050. A nuclear power plant in 2037 is a help but help today. Can there be anything that you can do to speed that time up? Yes, this has frequently been mentioned as one of the main problems. I think here we will also need to fine tune a little bit the message when we look at the real times and when you have an average. Of course you may have cases of overruns, tremendously long times, and others that are not so. So when you look at the curve and when you look at the average, you will see it more towards seven years than 15. You had cases with 15 which were related to a number of managerial and licensing issues that we have seen. But that should not invalidate, in my opinion, the case for nuclear, in the past, and going back to the 1970s example, has been able to be on the market on significantly shorter time spans. So that can happen. But again, you were saying what can be done? Well, I was slightly or laterally addressing some of that when I was talking about these issues of harmonization and standardization. I think there is a need, there is a real need to look at the regulatory approaches in a different way. The business model is changing. We are moving towards a much more globalized effort than in the past, let alone not to talk about modularity and new nuclear with small and modular reactors. So we firmly believe that the timing issue is one that is by no means insurmountable. We believe that there are already now, we are seeing now projects that are moving at a much faster scale. We saw the case of the UAE, for example, which achieved the double feet of being a newcomer and becoming a newcomer that was able to, in the space of seven years or so, have these nuclear power plants operating, are going to be putting the nuclear factor at 25% of the electricity produced in that country. So it is by no means impossible. And one more thing related to that, which your question may encapsulate. We often hear that some people say when we talk about climate and the climate change problem that nuclear is too slow, how can you say that nuclear is going to be part of the solution if we need a number x number of years to have a nuclear reactor? Well, first of all, as I said, we can be on the market much, much faster. And secondly, the problem we have is a problem that is being seen as something that needs to be solved in spaces of time that go to 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070. So how is it that when you are offering a product that is going to bring your emissions dramatically down in six or seven years, people would say that this is useless. So frankly speaking, I think there is still a lot of politics behind this. But still, the issue here is to provide the answers and I think it is up to the sector, it is up to the nuclear community to be at the top of its game as well. One country that has succeeded in building a lot of reactors very fast is China. I've been able to build 150 reactors. From your perspective, thinking about how to regulate the reactors, how to keep them safe, how to manage the fuel cycle, what can the industry learn from it? Well, I think in this case the Chinese model is different in terms of the capitalism model that you have applied in China which facilitates to a great extent the financial challenge that you may see in other parts of the world. So this is one thing, but at the same time there is a very dynamic industrial sector that has, I must say, that has been working in the safety area with a lot of dynamism. Sometimes people, I say this, it's interesting that you bring up this issue because some people say, well, that is this safety, etc. And we are working very, very well with them. And they chose to work very closely with the IEA. I think rightly understanding that given other considerations that might be brought when you talk about China is that it was in their interest to work very, very closely with the IEA and follow very closely the recommendations and the guidance that the agency is there to prove. As Director-General, I have promoted, I must also say, a very intense through different platforms dialogue with industry where we, and I can tell you where we sit together, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Americans, Koreans, French, Germans, all, all who thinks, all who are Emiratis, who are very actively pushing the sector so we can have frank open discussions of the problems that the sector is facing and the challenges it is facing. One deficit may be also that the sector may have had in the past is this lack of platforms for an open dialogue and facing the problems which does not affect the competition or industrial commercial property rights and things like that. But there is a huge amount of space for convergence and for common approaches at the same time, I believe. A lot of people are talking about the potential of small modular reactors as a climate solution, as a scalable solution that we can repeat in different countries around the world. I have a few questions about that, but let me start with do you view SMRs as an important part of the nuclear industry's future and the climate change solution? Well, it is. It is. At the same time, we have to put things in the right perspective. For some people, including those who may have had a skeptical approach to nuclear, may say, well, okay, these old nuclear we don't like, but these small reactors, maybe they are nicer, maybe they are safer, maybe we can tolerate them. Well, I'm sorry, but it sounds nice, but it's not the right approach. What we have to see is the options we have, the technology we have, the viability of each and every segment of nuclear. So, first of all, you have the global fleet. The global fleet is big. And rightly so. There is nothing wrong about that. You have countries that are geared and are based on fleets that are this type of big reactors. And here you are looking at fleet replacement, like the United States. For example, some new bill, but basically that to a greater extent that in Canada as well or in France, in the United Kingdom. So in these countries, you will see more of these reactors or you will see them extending their lives, which is another important topic that I believe very relevant in terms of climate change. But so this is one part and nuclear innovation is also looking at that because those reactors are also evolving. So big can be good as well. This is very important. And then you have the modularity and the small reactors. Small reactors are of course immensely promising from a variety of perspectives. The one here more in my office is the one from developing countries because they feel they see a possibility there. When you talk about nuclear for many economies, this looks as the impossible thing that you look from outside, knowing that you are never going to be able to sustain it in your economy. But when you are looking, when you are seeing the kind of products that are being developed and the possibilities that are there, well they all of a sudden become something which might be realistic. We see this and for us the IEA is I would say a big part of our work because we have to help these countries catch up in terms of capacities, in terms of the regulatory abilities and talent and structures that they need to have to be very honest. Then there is also the issue of the SMRs in big economies which is also a different kind of model but which will follow more I would say orthodox or normal processes in terms of the economic financial challenges that they may have. And finally the SMR is also an area where we will see who at the end delivers in the best tradition of scientific advancement and competition. The IEA of course being the global nuclear institution we have all of them cataloged and somebody was saying here earlier today it's around 80, are we going to see 80 different SMRs? No, maybe we will see eight if at all. But there is the issue, who is really into it, who is putting the resources behind it? We have very interesting situations in the United States with pre-licensing levels. We also see it in the UK with Rolls-Royce, we also see it in France where after some time where they were more skeptical about that now with New World they are moving very, very fast. I was visiting and could touch and see and get into an SMR in Argentina where the Karen is quite impressive to see and it's there. So the SMR is going to deliver. I think we need to at the same time I'm telling the SMR entrepreneurs you have to deliver, we have to hit the market within the next three or four years because the opportunity is clearly there. Of course if we do deploy SMRs that means many more reactors in many new countries and part of your job is to keep on top of keeping them safe, radiating the fuel. It presents huge challenges doesn't it potentially? Well, very good point. The other day you know in the IEA we're always having conferences about so many things and we had a big one on safeguards. You know the safeguards are the inspections that we do all over the planet and some were saying well are you going to be able to cope with the challenge of having all of a sudden you know dozens of new reactors out there. The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Our inspectorate is ready to do that at the same time when it comes to modularity these reactors have features about them that make them very easy to approach with the right safeguards approaches and one very interesting thing is that unlike in the past we are working with designers at the level of design based safeguards which is a long and complicated label to say that we inspectors come to them and we work together to make it possible for our inspectors to check faster because you know the operator sometimes you know is a bit annoyed by the inspection work and we have to make it easy for them not you know interrupting their job. So I would say modularity is not a challenge in that regard. Let me come back to the point you made about aging reactors. Like me a lot of those reactors built in the 1970s were approaching their 50th year. That's half a century. If we keep them going you're going to have reactors 60, 70 years old. Is that safe? Do you understand that people might worry about having a piece of kit that's that aged? The unsung hero of the fight against global warming is long-term operation. Long-term operation is basically having with half or even less the initial investment basically a new reactor that is going to be there and you say 70, I say 100. You know it's going to be closer now we see reactors that are closer to 80 years perfectly safe having undergone very far out refurbishing operations. So one important thing and we see basically this is something we see a lot in Europe these days even for countries that having embraced phase out they are feeling crunch and they see that the idea of a quick phase out was putting them in a very fragile and vulnerable situation. So we see countries like Belgium even Germany you know moving and pushing the lines towards the future. And here is where again the rigor of the IEA must be there because what we do is we work with national regulators through very intensive peer reviews to make sure that long-term operation basically is giving you a new nuclear reactor not simply an old one which is more or less you know muddling through and trying to continue to give you the energy that you need. Does that mean you feel that as we battle climate change that people who shut the actors are making a mistake? Well in my personal opinion yes I think still this is a matter that requires a technical scientifically sound discussion. I think from the vantage point of the nuclear sector we must also recognize political realities because in politics 2 plus 2 is not 4 and sometimes from a scientific or technical point of view it is very difficult to put your head around that and accept that people are taking decisions that do not seem too square. But it so happens and the challenge for us is to prove and to show that keeping nuclear in the equation is going to give you the energy is going to give you the solution to your climate problem is going to give you jobs is going to give you opportunities going to give you things that are very important for political people to get the votes they need. So we need to face these problems and I try to do that without prejudice. Looking at what are the reasons or what were the reasons? The perceptions that brought people to certain decisions that may seem incomprehensible but these countries that took these decisions are countries that have very intelligent people. So there was a reason behind them. But here we have an opportunity. The curve is moving in a certain direction and we have to help them come to the approaches that we believe are more sustainable. Why do people still get rid of nuclear? Why have you and the industry not won the argument on safety and what can you do to make progress? Well I think it's a combination. I like to be self-critical and I think we all need to do that. And I think that for far too long nuclear was not as open to debate. I can talk for the IEA but I think my industry friends may agree with me that we need to be out there not to talk amongst each other is very nice. We are friends with each other so it's very nice to agree with each other. But what we need to do is to go out. For example, something I do is I talk to parliaments. I talk to MPs, to parliamentarians that have a different view, a different take. Perhaps everything they got about nuclear was all negative. All they remember about nuclear was the Simpsons and they see it as a scary, even comical thing. And so it's really up to us to do a lot of work. At the same time I think regulators and national authorities have a big responsibility. As you know nuclear has a very important thing about it in most of countries where national hearings, debates are required to bring big projects to fruition. So you have to have an open discussion with society. I don't see that happening in many other energy sectors by the way. So this is something that we can be very proud of and we need to promote. The bad perception if you consider that as something that exists did not come from the blue skies. It was the result of people saying things, of people repeating things and the absence of a critical debate. So it can be reversed. It will be reversed. So I'm looking at this nice pie chart in your pavilion that says nuclear is producing 10% of the world's electricity. I think many people really agree with the beat climate change. We need to shrink that coal and increase the nuclear. When we're meeting at COP 37 in 10 years time, what will that nuclear number be? It will be much, much higher. I don't know if it will be the more than double that we need, because we need more than double, but it will be much higher. So when we discuss that time, we'll see. Excellent. Let's move on to some of the other things that you're looking at at the moment. Seriously, your year has been very dominated by the terrible events in Ukraine. You've had to make several visits to Zvapovitsia plant and what's going on there. Perhaps start by telling me what you've seen there and how dangerous a situation you feel that it is. In Ukraine, I mean. Of course, it also has to do with the viability of this, because if, God forbid, we had an accident, a nuclear accident there, then even if, as I often say, the problem is not nuclear, the problem is the war, it will be a very, very difficult challenge for the nuclear sector to address. So this as an opener, just to indicate how difficult it is at work. I think the situation in Ukraine is still extremely difficult, extremely difficult. When it comes to nuclear, I mean, this is a profoundly nuclear, civilian nuclear country with 50% of its energy before the war coming from nuclear. It's a country that depends on nuclear energy for its viability, for its economical viability. And that happens to have one of its nuclear power plants, the biggest one, the biggest one in Europe, the biggest one in Ukraine, the one producing 20% of that 50% occupied and in the hands of a foreign country. So this says it all. At the same time, we and I, as Director General of the IEA, must keep my eyes on the ball and see that my responsibility in this case is to ensure the safety and the security of a big installation which happens to be sitting on a war frontline, not in the vicinity, not nearby, not so far away, right in the frontline. I've been there, saw that. The background music of my visit to Saporizhia were mortars and wizards. Boom, boom, boom. And you are touring a nuclear power plant. So how bizarre is that, all right? So that is the reality that we are facing. The good thing or the at least positive building block is that because I need to talk with both, I need to talk with the owner, I need to talk with the occupying country that has the effective control of the place. They both recognize that the plant must be protected. First, second, they both recognize that the IEA is the institution that can, could facilitate this. So it's not the protection zone I have been advocating, but it's a beginning. Because this war, unfortunately, is not going to end tomorrow as we would all like and pray. It should and it would. So I am in the midst of a very difficult negotiation with both sides. You know, when it comes to protecting a nuclear site which is so big with six nuclear reactors, a few square miles or kilometers of facilities, associated facilities, the fuel storage areas, the labs, the admin buildings, all of that compound together. You have to be looking at radiuses. You have to be looking at admitted activities or the presence of certain security forces or not. And this is at the moment what is keeping us in this very, very difficult negotiation. At the same time, I believe, sorry, I should also mention that I have a permanent IAEA mission at the plant. So there is a permanent detachment of IAEA experts there every day. I went there and I left a gift there. And they are there, courageously informing, assisting their Ukrainian counterparts and providing us all with the information that we so desperately need. You guys in Bloomberg, before our presence there, every day you had a different story. Of course, Country A would be saying we are being shelled by them and Country B saying it's not true, everything is fantastic, we are having a picnic outside. So this was true every day. Since the IAEA, as we call it, the IAEA support and assistant mission, security safety assistant mission to Zaporizhia was installed. This has stopped and we have a clear idea of what is happening, what is happening with the outages, what is happening. So that has a tremendous value and also perhaps a deterrent value because our guys are there and they can confirm what is happening. And building from there, we are moving hopefully into the security zone which I hope to be able to achieve in the near future. There has been a lot of talk around the Ukraine war about dirty bombs and I don't want to get into the ins and outs of those accusations but keeping the supply of nuclear material in Ukraine safe and out of the hands of bad actors must be a key concern of yours. How bad are the risks? It is a big thing and actually you mentioned the issue of the dirty bombs and here you saw how useful it is to have an institution like the IAEA because these assertions were made as part of a narrative leading to the use of nuclear weapons. So we are not talking about some fictional scenarios here. We are talking about people saying, well, if there is dirty bombs, these can be considered nuclear material in a way in nuclear weapons so we could perhaps retaliate with nuclear weapons. So we were all of a sudden considering this as a realistic possibility. So what we did was immediately and within a matter of days the IEA had put together an inspection team toward three facilities one research and development facility near Kyiv, a mine and a missile production installation facility and we were able to confirm that there were no indications of deviation or any other misuse of nuclear material. So that was tremendously important, perhaps not in the context of our conversation today with them but in the context of world peace if you want. So this is one aspect and the second aspect is the proliferation aspect. And here there are two things. One is the good news, the other is the problem. The good news is that by keeping our inspection activity at Rivnek, South Ukraine, we keep all the nuclear material under control. We prevent any indication that there might be a proliferation, that there might be a review of the non-nuclear weapons state status of Ukraine which has been mentioned as well. The problem we have is of course Saporizhia. There we have been able to keep our inspection activity so far but this is going to be a challenge in the next few months if we cannot get some agreement with both sides. And we are working on it. Sorry, an agreement to what? Maintain access? To keep inspecting? What is the agreement that you're looking for? The fact is that the problem that you have is that this is a, in theory, it's a non-nuclear weapon reactor which is being under the control of a nuclear weapon state. And as you know, the inspection regime for one and the other is different. So what do I do in front of that situation? Should I throw my hands up and say the IEA is leaving? I don't think so, but it's not going to be easy. But the Russians don't want to inspect it on the basis of being controlled by a nuclear... We are working on that. All right, well we'll leave Ukraine there. The other issue that has dominated, of course, your near three years as Director-General is Iran and the nuclear talks there, I have two questions about that. Is Iran complying with its obligations at the moment? And second, what is the outlook do you think on a deal? Iran is complying with its obligations so far, but there is a problem in one sense. The program, the civilian nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran is growing enormously. And this growth of the program, which includes 60% enrichment, which includes a number of centrifuge production facilities, which includes work research and development on uranium metal, which includes all these areas, which are enormously complex, was, in a certain sense, predicated upon a level of inspection intrusiveness and intensity related to the JCPOA and to the additional inspecting abilities and oversight for my inspectors that JCPOA used to give us. So when you have that program minus all of these capacities, you do have a challenge. The JCPOA is not dead. It's struggling. The negotiations are ongoing, albeit at a painfully slow pace. We are not part of the negotiation. We are the guarantors, so we are accompanying the negotiation. We are trying to help as much as we can, so we hope that they are going to the parties in this negotiation. They are going to be able to find a space of agreement, and we are going to be able to help. If that fails, we will have to sit down with our Iranian counterparts and see what kind of approach we take in the face of their realities, their capabilities, and my obligation to check two things, that their declarations are correct, but also, and equally important, that they are complete. Thank you very much. So before we finish, I just wondered if there's anyone here who had any questions to the general. Just there. Should we get your microphone? Thank you very much for all your questions. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Eva Jan, and thank you very much for this very interesting conversation. I just have a follow-up question on the dirty bomb claim, because dirty bombs can also use radioactive material that is not nuclear material, so not uranium, plutonium, or thorium, and I'm wondering how the IAEA can control that, because that would mean, could be any Cobalt-60 source from an industrial facility or whatever. Indeed. Well, this is a very important question, because you have huge amounts of nuclear materials in any country, and for all the good reasons, like you are saying Cobalt-60, I mean in hospitals, in many places, and these sources are mostly outside the inspection safeguards system from the IAEA. Still, there are certain things where the IAEA is helping and can help. First of all, we at the IAEA have the full inventories of sources all over the world. We work very closely with regulators, and actually when it comes to Ukraine, we are working with a Ukrainian regulator to have the national inventory, which involves close to 6,000 sources across the country under control, perhaps it's too big a word, because we don't inspect, but know where they are, and countries also have a core conduct that they need to respect, which is also established under the aegis of the IAEA on what needs to be done in terms of caring for those sources. Coupled with that, looking at this problem from the nuclear security perspective, we do have what we call the database of events related to nuclear material, where countries voluntarily come to us and they report occurrences. For example, if Ukraine came to discover that sources have been stolen or are missing, we can help when they inform us of that. Granted, it is a much higher challenge. It would be physically impossible, let alone the IAEA for anybody to be checking sources. Imagine in the United States millions of sources. It would be physically impossible to do that, but there are ways, as I was saying, through the addition, of added layers of soft-claw and number of measures that we have at our disposal to have some degree of control about them. Questions for Mr. Glossy? Okay, well, in turn, Claude? Thank you very much.