 So, good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this session on building clean and resilient energy systems. My name is Hal Turton. I'm from the International Atomic Energy Agency, from the Department of Nuclear Energy. And I'm very much, very humbled to be welcoming our speakers today. We have a very interesting high level panel, including policymakers and senior scientific experts to talk about this important topic. Again, this is a, the reason for doing this, to have this discussion, is that we need not only to decarbonise and get clean energy systems, but we need energy systems that are resilient. Resilient across many of the, to many of the challenges that we're facing, particularly increasing climate risks, extreme weather events that have a range of impacts across different energy technologies and systems, but also resilient to other, other challenges that we're being confronted with to ensure secure, secure supplies that are critical for modern society. So, on that note, I'd like to invite our, our high level speaker to give opening remarks. The Minister for Climate and the Environment in Finland, Mr. Minister, you can end to the, to the floor. So, welcome. Oh, yeah. No, it was not open, but good. Thank you. Thanks, thanks a lot of the opportunity to attend this, this event as well. As I said, even if we are in a bit of a hurry and there is other negotiations where I must be soon running too, but I'm always available if there is a potential to help rational approach towards resilient carbon free energy system, which includes also rational attitude towards nuclear as one key element of that. And I would say that in Finland, we put maybe the resilience subject to three dimensions. First, how to solve the source dependence, meaning the sourcing of certain, from certain partner, then the weather dependence, especially when we are talking about wind and solar, but also seasonality, seasonality and weather dependence. And then, of course, third very important dimension is carbon neutrality, which Finland aims at becoming carbon neutral as a nation and country by 2035, which is one of the most ambitious national timetables and obviously just still a project which we must achieve, not something that we have done, but we are on a path towards that. Well, starting from a source dependence, if you know where Finland geographically lies, you might imagine that it's an important question for us, especially during these years. We used to source part of our energy from Russian sources. We had about 10 percent direct import of electricity to our electricity mix from Russia still like three years ago. And overall, about one third of the total primary energy mix was imported from Russia, mainly crude oil, which was refined in Finnish oil refinery, Neste oil, also some natural gas. We've had a direct pipeline connection to Russia, but this is all over now. And actually, we also imported significant amounts of logged wood for the forest industry, but also bioenergy, but that's also now of more than 20 million cubic meters were imported 20 years ago, and it's been diminishing and now off totally. Well, one might imagine that in such a situation, we would be in a hard trouble, but actually, fortunately, not Finnish energy mix has been traditionally planned in a way that even if we have, of course, used the opportunity to import also energy from Russia, but we are not too dependent on Russian energy in this aspect. It's been meaningful, but not very large part of our pie. And we've been doing policies over the four decades in a way that we want to have a multiple mix of different sources, own not weather related power plants, combined heat and power production, which is of course very important in a country where there is today minus five in south and minus twenty in north and so forth. And also, of course, cooperation between the Nordic countries where we have the North Pole common electricity exchange system so that we are pricing, we have a system price and then a area pricing depending on the transmission lines. And actually here, I also must stress the importance when we are talking about resilience and green transition as well, that the key enabler is strong transmission grid. It's not only about investments to the plants themselves, but it's actually the transmission grid. Nowadays, when I'm meeting foreign large-scale investors to hydrogen or methanol or whatsoever and aluminum or steel who are thinking about investing to Finland, their number one reason to invest to Finland is that, okay, you have a reliable path towards an abundant supply of clean energy and you have a proven track record of strong transmission grid. We have only one price zone. You don't have to go further than to Sweden. They have four price zones and the price of electricity is doubling in Stockholm to the northern part and so forth. So this is also very, very important and we need not to forget about that part. Well, of course, the source dependence you could solve also without nuclear. You could think about using coal power or source LNG from different locations from world markets, but then, of course, the climate goals that we are having are not an option to use this approach. And we've actually already eight years ago when, and I was actually key person to negotiate about that in our government, those days we decided to have a legal ban on usage of hard coal in Finnish energy system by 2029. And actually those days most energy companies were hesitating that this is much too radical and it will create huge costs and it will create huge overuse of biomass, but nowadays nobody's complaining. The strategies have been reformed so that actually heating systems are now becoming away from burning systems to large-scale heat pumps, excess heat usage, geothermal heating and large-scale hot water storages, which also partly the seasonality problem. Well, then, of course, one option would be to just use the current flow of the market and let the country be full of windmills and solar panels and probably some biomass, but there the basic challenge, which on the other hand is, of course, a positive phenomenon that currently we have very strong investment pipeline to wind production. We have more than doubled actually our wind capacity during past two years and it's self-evident that wind will be the largest source of electricity, especially in capacity-wise, but also probably in volumes in all Nordic countries during this decade already. And that's where the most of the growth of our electricity also comes. We are also aiming at doubling our total electricity production during next 10 to 15 years as part of our industrial strategy and that's of course a cornerstone to that. But what we are in our government program stressing that we try to refocus the investment pipeline a few steps towards also clean base load and flexible power and it means, of course, nuclear and certain hydro pumping stations and that kind of stuff. And this is to avoid too high weather dependence because we don't have a problem of whatsoever about scarcity or price in our electricity during those months from April to October, but the problem is now in December, January when it's actually you have very little light hours and no it's very cold and of course many times weather is might be windy but unfortunately quite often the coldest weeks are not windy and that's why that's why we have maybe a especially strong challenge with the weather dependence and seasonality as well. And when I'm talking with the electrolyzer investors, those who are sourcing or thinking about buying large-scale electrolyzers usually almost all of them think that they need 80 percent base load. They need clear secured price signals for the promised electricity and they can't do it if the system is only full of wind and solar without some balancing base load. And that's why actually I feel very strongly and in Finland vast majority including the Green Party actually thinks that we need more nuclear to be able to achieve the carbon neutrality by 2035. It's one of the most important parts of this project. And that's why we are actually changing the nuclear legislation so that in early 2026 we will be hopefully adopting new nuclear legislation which will be one of the most ambitious in globally to attract investment to Finland like linking of course safety but to modern like a trustworthy operational guidances which are not bureaucratic and especially when it comes to small modular reactors we want to be place for first generation investment there. And that is actually very interesting like usage cases also for example the capital region Helsinki region is publicly planning SMR based district heating production in Helsinki so that there will be a reactors who create heating which would of course again help the seasonality problem that all the heat pumps won't be with full steam working when it's minus 25 and we don't have a wind. So there's some basic peaks of our situation. It's maybe even surprising that we are now this year becoming annually self-sufficient in electricity even if we traditionally have been net importers from from especially Nordic system but also from Russia and at the same time as we cut all the all the Russian imports we have a much lower price forecasts for electricity for next months and also to the future than we had a year ago and the main reason is that we now have a lot of tree the largest nuclear reactor in Europe we have it on grid working of course also a few gigawatts more wind wind capacity than a year ago which helps but in our case we are a concrete showcase that that's more safe nuclear actually means faster path to close coal power plants and bad to what's cheaper electricity and also it seems that it's a path to attract industrial investors to hydrogen based economy and and to steel factories chemical factories because all what we are doing in industrial path from carbon from fossils to to climate neutral industry it actually always is based on huge amounts of electricity either directly or true hydrogen so this is this is definitely very important and I really hope that we can strengthen the tendency that we have more technology neutral approach between renewables and nuclear in in all these global forums as well in Europe as you know we have the constant debate about nuclear but I would say that also inside Europe the friends of nuclear group is wider than it has been in in past 30 years so hopefully we achieve some results in the next Commission's working program when it comes to neutrality if we are talking about definitions of green hydrogen or green e-fuels or so forth so thanks for the possibility and I must be running to next place but I hope you for fruitful discussions and always ready for cooperation thanks thank you very much Minister Mickenin and we really appreciate you're able to join us given your busy schedule your remarks of very much help set the scene and highlight some of the many of the aspects of resilient of it what what what it takes to be resilient and clean and some of the success stories in Finland before we turn to our panelist I would like to just very briefly introduce or invite Wei Huang the director from our division for planning information and knowledge management at the IAA to say a few short words please Wei thank you very much how and good morning everyone welcome to the Atom for net zero Atom for climate pavilion and we are already heard the very informative message from the Minister of Finland and talking about what new can what nuclear can really contribute and we also noticed that in the past week actually a lot of dynamic campaign on the nuclear happened in this in this cop now we are talking about the nuclear cop now everywhere so when we look at this one and we have to be sure that the nuclear when they are attribute has been what you recognize we should also make sure nuclear is prepared for them for this you know a role to play in the coming decade particularly this about the resilience issue we all talk about that because like other energy system nuclear also suffered the impact from that increasing the this external events incurred by the climate change so make sure the nuclear resilient robust enough it's also very important in addition that when we talk about the resilience sometime we also have to talk about that's the energy system resilient and the nuclear can really contribute to stabilize energy system together with other low carbon energy sources I think that make this event very very useful for people to understand what the nuclear's role can be look like in the future in the coming decades to ensure they can address mitigation and also adaptation issues as well so today we have a very knowledgeable panelist here with us from a different country and also international organizations let's listen to what they're going to share with their insight on this topic with us thank you very much for your coming so thank you direct away so now it's my honor to introduce our distinguished panel before and we'll kick off a lively discussion so our panelists include going from your left to right congressman Brandon Williams from the US House of Representatives in the US of course Ashad Mansour the president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute then we have Jun Arima senior senior policy fellow from the Economic and Policy Research Institute of ASEAN and East Asia and also we have professor Mark Howells the director of the Climate Compatible Growth program so I'm gonna kick this off by posing a few questions in turn to each of our panelists you should also feel free to elaborate beyond my question because I haven't thought of everything that to ask you so turning to you first congressman Williams in the US I'm gonna put you straight on the spot here this seems to be one of the few areas of strong bipartisan support is on nuclear energy so what I mean that that's already puts you in puts you in a very good position for capitalizing and unlocking some of the benefits of nuclear for clean and resilient systems but what barriers do you still see for the expansion of nuclear energy and what policies do you think would be most promising for encouraging development of nuclear as a key component for both clean clean energy system and a resilient energy system well as you know the United States is a committed enormous amount of money a trillion dollars to making an energy transition through what's called the IRA and the IIJA so it's it's very important that we get this right at this juncture I have thousands of hours supervising the operation of nuclear power plants and qualified on two separate power plants and so I look at it from a unique point of view you know a lot of it comes to the general population's acceptance of nuclear you know there's a certain amount of education that has to happen and I'm happy to be a part of that but I think people I think the fear of nuclear is declined significantly in the last 30 years and so I think there's a general population acceptance that's possible right now the barriers that I see is that we're making enormous investments in wind and solar right now to frankly to the exclusion of everything else and even though we've talked about all the above and a balanced approach we actually have grossly over investing in wind and solar right now and you know with this fixed amount of money that we have and I think we need to make significant investment in the commercialization of advanced nuclear gen three gen four type reactors so there's a public education component but really there is you know taking the this moment to make wise investment decisions and that's what I'm focused on so yeah this I mean this is this is obviously key the I mean that the improvement the increase in public support and for nuclear around the world is is quite notable and is I think we're seeing it also here at COP there's a much more openness to a discussion on that as you've identified and as the US is in the process of looking at ways to address some of those remaining barriers and driving investment and across many many parts of the nuclear from research through to through the implementation I want to deep dive a little bit more on this with you Mr. Mansour focusing maybe specifically on some of the emerging nuclear technologies to hear so in your opinion what do you think of that could be the role of SMR's and some some of the other advanced nuclear technologies as how they can contribute to the clean and resilient transition and and again looking at barriers what are some of the barriers you're seeing for those those sorts of technologies in in fulfilling their potential right thank you can you hear me you appreciate the opportunity to be here maybe take a broader perspective after almost eight days here and this cop will be known as the cop where the debate is over and there is no debate now whether it's renewables or a nuclear I think it's a clarity and conviction among almost all that nuclear will play a huge role and SMR will play a huge role but I'm going to focus on now looking from an industry point of view we got to stand and deliver so there's opportunities there what does stand and deliver means stand and deliver means we got 328 nuclear reactors operating in the world today most of them all of them are 20 years plus some of them 40 years licensing in US there are reactors that have got 80 year licensing so today's reactors we got to make sure that we continue to operate safely go through relicensing process 2040 6080 and that's one of the key stand and deliver the second is talk about SMR and why is SMR a unique tool in this clean energy transition so one the need for flexibility in this low carbon energy system wind and solar is going to happen it's going to happen at a level that we are not even estimating now so the need for flexibility hourly daily seasonal entry is going to increase and SMR provides a perfect opportunity for flexibility we also need flexibility of sometimes we need clean electricity when the sun is not shining when it's not blowing sometimes we need clean water sometimes we need steam sometimes we need hydrogen SMR provides that opportunity it's a multi energy output it's not just electricity so SMR kind of fits the basic needs that the industry has so what does stand and deliver means on SMR's so let's talk about like what a reactor we got to get advanced like water reactor SMR's operational by 2030 at least one two three we had some hiccups in the last month and that hiccup so that stand and deliver means let's get light water reactor SMR's Ontario power generation that have already you know they have already announced 2029 to 2030 we got to make that happen on time and on budget as much as we can now the opportunity for gen four that's the next gen SMR's that's where we also have to stand and deliver and then stand and deliver means we have the design we got to put together a full supply chain we've got to get commercially deployed 2030 sounds aggressive but 2030 2035 is the time when the gen four reactors needs to come in so I think the unique opportunity that this cop finally is coming to a that nuclear is going to happen is going to happen maybe 3x more than 2050 the pledges that have been signed how does the industry stand and deliver got a deliver and the reactors that we got today is going to deliver and building big ones that Bruce power in Canada EDF in France have already declared that they will build build SMR operational in under car in budge on budget on cost by 2030 and gen four reactors we should have them deployed the first of a kind second of a kind third of a kind definitely by 2035 so that's where I see kind of like where the industry can take the mantle that they have been given the debate is over and a great opportunity now for nuclear along with wind and solar and carbon capture and hydro to shape the future because we're gonna need all of those for sure so yeah it's it's now nuclear the nuclear sector has this opportunity to show it can you can walk the walk but I like how yeah you highlighted the role nuclear can play in in the grid as a whole in stabilizing and complimenting the other low carbon options to build in that extra resilience because there are going to be these additional challenges particularly climate change challenges climate extremes more extreme weather events so now I'd like to turn to you Professor Arima Japan is no stranger to extreme weather extreme climate events and other other challenges and so resilience I'm sure has been an aspect of energy system development over many decades but looking forward now in order to build a clean and resilient power system what do you see I mean yeah some I mean that there are some differences with Japan and some similarities between Japan and other other nuclear countries or other other countries that are all countries that are looking to decarbonize so where do you see areas where maybe Japan has lessons for other countries and vice versa where can Japan learn from and work with other countries to make the the clean and resilient energy transition happen okay thank you very much for your question and listening to an example by Finland and also US I felt very much envious as you know you know Japan has experienced a great East Japan earthquake and of Fukushima nuclear accident and since 2011 the so-called nuclear phobia has been very much rampant in Japan and there you know it is a very much logical argument that a nuclear should play a role for energy security and the current mitigation but that kind of logical argument was not prevailing for a long time since 2011 rather Germany was regarded as a model for Japan you know we should replace all the nuclear with new renewables that's completely crazy argument to my mind but that kind of argument was largely supported by mass media and some opportune parties so in Japan unfortunately there is not bipartisan support to nuclear still there are much politically divisive issues but the situation is gradually changing partly because of the energy market turbulence caused by Ukraine war and also you know energy system stability in particular power system stability is at risk because of the you know retirement of many based on thermal power generation plants and partly that is due to an increased number of intermittent renewables and because the low capacity potential ratio many thermal power plants were obliged to retire from the power systems and in the end that is you know destabilizing power systems so people are gradually beginning to recognize the importance of nuclear for stable power systems and for securing energy security and so climate change mitigation so that is affected in the recent announcement by the Japanese government about the green transformation strategy and together with the renewable a nuclear is regarded as clear clearly one pillar for contributing to energy security and the climate mitigation and we have to say start sipwise first we have to restart currently we stopped nuclear power reactors and up to now 12 PDRs have restarted and perhaps next year I hope to be W.R. we restart the operation but still there are 7-8 reactors which is waiting for the restarting they have already get green light from nuclear safety safety authority so accelerating restarting is the first point and the second is prolonging the lifetime of the existing nuclear power reactors because that's the most cost-efficient ways for securing stable and CO2 free power systems and recently the law was amended to allow some extension of the nuclear power lifetime in addition to in principle 40 years plus 20 years of operation time and remaining issue is the construction of the new advanced reactors and in this in this area we need to still do a lot of homework because under the liberalized XT market it is very very difficult to make such a huge investment so we need to prepare some sort of you know policy environment which enables private enterprises to consider huge scale of nuclear investment then the lessons Japan could learn from other countries first of all you know the nuclear safety regulation culture in particular in the US you have NRC nuclear regulatory commission but yeah but NRC is to my mind I think very much efficient in their operation of regulation they are not regulating nuclear for let them stay you know under no operation rather they are encouraging safe safe operation but that kind of how can I say the organizational culture was not inherited it unfortunately in Japan's nuclear safety authority because that was established under very strong anti- nuclear environment so it sounds as if it looks as if you know they are regulating nuclear for ensuring eternal stoppage of nuclear but that is not right attitude as a regulator so I need we would like to learn from more how can I say pragmatic regulatory approach by other countries for ensuring you know the safe operation of nuclear and also pay attention to how can I say efficiency and also cost effectiveness of the regulation and the biggest difference between Japan and other country is Japan is an you know island country and we do not have any good connection with other countries and our neighbors are not necessarily how can I say the countries are showing the same you know value and same philosophy and rule of law and so on so and also we do not have any domestic resources so logically speaking you know the we cannot do without nuclear so that's a logical conclusion and thanks to the thanks or wing to the recent energy market turbulence we are coming back to gradually the normal mode looking at nuclear as some you know the logical path for Japan we do not deny the role of renewable renewable is very much important but there are another difference between Japan and other country is Japan's land is very much you know narrow and we do not have we do not have such a flat land and our seas very much deep so not so much you know was traded for offshore wind we need to count on floating offshore wind that's far more expensive compared to a fixated offshore wind so therefore together with renewable we definitely need nuclear so I hope that the emerging momentum here in this cop might also spread to Japan so that we could make basis of nuclear option thank you for sharing though that that's a unique situation which Japan finds itself in and I will come back to you later with some other the points you mentioned and I want to turn to our fourth panelist to mark we've heard a lot from I guess the perspectives of more mature energy markets where maybe some of the more fundamental challenges from SDG 7 have been have been solved so energy access and affordability and general reliability have been established but you work a lot with international organizations and governments around the world looking at supporting the development of cleaner and cleaner and resilient energy systems in a lot of the global South in other countries so I'm interested here so what do you what do you see that that organizations like yourselves and international organizations are doing to create an enabling environment for clean and resilient energy systems more broadly in the in many of the countries that are facing other energy challenges and other have other development priorities at the moment now thank you very much indeed how just to introduce myself from an academic from Imperial College and Loughborough University I had a program called climate-compatible growth which includes Oxford Cambridge UCL the Open University several others and as Hal mentions we work with a number of international organizations just to take a if we had to zoom out a little bit and have a look at low and middle income countries we see that that is where the demand for electricity is going to be happening into the future for sure in the developed world there's a case for replacing old coal stock and fossil fuels and so we want to get to a cleaner system so that creates increased demand but in the developing world we see massive demands coming and if we think about the fact that much of the developed world is looking for materials and process goods critical materials and so on in order for it to affect its own energy transition that's going to come from Latin America Africa and a number of developing regions now if there are constraints on companies that are developing mines and so on and investors for their sort of scope three emissions to reduce the carbon intensity of those materials it's the case that the demand for clean energy in the global south is absolutely going to skyrocket so there's a there's a massive demand and I think I want to just have that as have that as the backdrop the next piece is that this whole space right now is incredibly political it's very nice being in this particular panel where there are a number of like-minded folk I'll go to another one just now and there'll be folk peddling a different a different narrative important narratives but a different narrative so what we've been doing is working with a number of international organizations to help create an enabling environment for countries to be able to chart out their own path transparently and I had the first thing that we've done is to work with a set of about 20 international organizations to set up what we're calling the round table principles for strategic energy planning this includes a number of the large organizations IAEA IAEA AFD large funders arena and so on and here we focus on five principles that we want the sort of international community to sign up to number one national ownership when plans are developed they need to be developed by national governments we're in a space right now with the lobbies being as strong as they are and the narratives being as strong as they are it's really difficult to chart out a logical transparent course and I'll come back to that in a second another piece is just transparency and inclusivity a lot of the analysis that takes place is not transparent a lot of the stuff takes place is sort of black box kind of closed systems analysis work charting out investment strategies we need to make sure that those are opened up a little bit and there's inclusivity in the way that those plans are developed I was particularly impressed by minister Mckadon's opening remarks I was talking about just the trade-offs that are there for sure Finland could go to batteries biomass and wind and solar and have a low-carbon electricity system but it wouldn't be low-cost and is is it the case that we've set up our planning systems in a way that we could understand that what these trade-offs really are another principle here is capacity it's absolutely essential that developing countries have their own capacity to develop this sort of analysis in part because they're going to come to many of yourselves here at some point and they're going to be negotiating with some of the big suppliers to understand what are the systems that are going to best fit in in in their processes and they have to be in a place where there's less symmetry analysis needs to be robust so we can look at lots of different options renewables with their intermittency creates a lot of problems that you know we know about often but it's that sort of gets glossed over in in a lot of analysis and the lobby material is out there and similarly with nuclear we have issues associated with the lead time of new nuclear power plants and costs and cost overruns how do we make sure that we have a robust analysis that takes that into account and when negotiations are being made that those are that risks are mitigated and finally a piece on transparency and accessibility so we have some 20 international organizations that have signed up to these including development banks and so on I would like to expand that I'd like to pick out two maybe one initiative and so on which we've had the privilege of working with the International Atomic Energy Agency on so the IAEA has produced a suite of world-class energy planning tools that's one of the few international organizations that's been playing this long game with its member states with respect to building capacity to do their own autonomous energy planning and what we've been doing is we've developed some open source transparent models that IAEA has open sourced some of their models and so on we've put this on to a large open university platform so there are there are some 15 courses that move through simple things like how to develop an energy balance through to how to develop super robust systems and so on all open source all transparent we have something like a hundred thousand downloads of these courses and we work with the IAEA for all the World Resources Institute IRENA and a number of others many of the the folk who are part of this roundtable initiative to develop regional schools so we we've trained in the region of 400 500 African energy analysts for example are split between technocrats and university academics and how to do this analysis and I think something that's really important it's just to create the right kind of absorptive capacity not just in the grids and so on that need to be developed because the demand is is huge just just just an aside I worked in a gold mine in South Africa for a short period of time that mine alone consumed the same amount of electricity as a small city and if we have a look at the resource base across Africa the potential for that sort of development just just it's not something that we've really been considering carefully so really important that it's the case that countries are in the space where they can develop their their own analysis chart out investment strategies look at how that translates into finance and then be able to to engage thanks Mark yeah that's really valuable to highlight the the importance of countries developing capacity being able to conduct their own analysis and identify which strategies suit their particular circumstances and their goals and also thank you for highlighting advertising some of the agency's long-term work in helping helping countries in that in that aspect I wanted to turn again to Congressman Williams maybe taking a step back if you if you think of all the conversations you've been holding around here here at COP and all the discussions you've heard are there any new ideas that you you will bring home with you as you consider the development of clean and resilient systems well yeah actually I enjoy listening to my panelists fellow panelists here more than I enjoy my own thoughts and so that's really been very consistent throughout the just two quick days here and what I what I find first of all this is the nuclear COP and that's very exciting for me because I I believe very much in a strong nuclear future I'm an advocate for going all in on nuclear power in the United States and its many forms which means sustaining the existing fleet advanced nuclear small you know small modular reactors micro reactors etc and I think that's essential you know for the energy mix in the United States and again I again I'm you know an outspoken critic that we are not making wise investment decisions in the United States right now but one of the things I've appreciated about COP 28 is it seems like reality is now being forced into the equation and as a nuclear engineer you can imagine that that helps me orient a lot more because when we're talking about ideology and we're talking about all of the other things that that have been part of this climate conversation which is important we have to get back to the laws of physics the laws of thermodynamics we have to acknowledge that thirty one trillion dollars of public debt the United States is is not healthy or sustainable and cannot grow and so we have to make really wise decisions so number one I would say reality is is I find a lot of comfort in that and then the second thing that I found really really interesting is that as we're making all of these very important you know energy type decisions that we don't forget the human element that just by these decisions we could be displacing people or jobs or economies that could have a very negative impact or at the same time we could be you know increasing the lives of you know the human element that the increasing people's quality of life we all know that energy abundance leads to economic development they go hand in hand it leads to much higher standards of living as you said you know the the emerging markets are have huge demand signals and we're gonna see that over time but there there are human elements to this and I have found that very refreshing as a very complex model of what what are the best investments that we can make so that may sound very fuzzy but you know I have been involved in billions of dollars of infrastructure financing and been involved in innovation for a long time as I mentioned my nuclear background we just want to get lost the human element of that so those are the two things both reality but also remembering the very human element I'm not trying to sound like a politician that's actually been very striking to me so one thing I would say the things happening in US over the last 12 months that the US is looking like emerging economies so let me give you an example in the last 20 years electricity demand in US has grown by 10% 20 years because it's been pretty flat just like developed economies because of IRA because of IIJ and because the AI Andre started last November when Chad GPT was released and the need for data centers we see doubling of electricity need in the next 20 years so just last week Southern company on the largest electric utility published what is called their long-term load forecast so they're seeing by 2040 the need for electricity in southern part of US will double when in the last 20 years it grew by 10% so that's a unique maybe a US characteristics now because of the recent legislations that have been passed and with that doubling of need in a developed country we have to figure out all of the options that we have on the table and we have to be self-critical of the of us that I think the debate is over there may be discussion going on somewhere when Finland Green Party says nuclear is needed when West Virginia and Kentucky cold countries change their legislation and now allows nuclear I think the debate is over so once again back again stand and deliver you know one of the thing on fuel that's the biggest standing in the liver the field that we need for the next generation nuclear is not the fuel we have so how are we going to get the Haley fuel chain supply ready and delivered the trisofuel when do we get the trisofuel ready and delivered and when do we change their regulatory requirements because when you have a trisofuel the safety requirements are totally different than what happened unfortunately in Fukushima so I think next five years is regulators industry manufacturing have to stand and deliver because if you don't then that debate will start again maybe in 2030 Congress is looking Congress is looking at the regulators and and that's going to be a big push that the tools are so much better today from you know physics base modeling that you can actually go in and have a much more confident or much more confidence in your design all the way down to laminar flow and you know what's actually happening you know and metallurgically you know over time in corrosion you can model those things and have a lot better margins of safety in your design that wasn't possible 50 years ago when the when a lot of these other designs were made so but the regulators need to get on board with that and need to modernize so I believe me I've met a current commissioner of the NRC and a former commissioner in the NRC and there's a lot of Republicans at least that are interested in you know getting a streamlined and more efficient here that you know the even NLC needs to be modernized then Japanese nuclear safety authority needs to be super modernized well I think the Europeans actually do a better job generally because they they're just more comfortable I think with it but the NRC comes out of the nuclear Navy which is my background it's the Rickover Navy and that's my history in my training so I understand the NRC but what I tell my fellow Republicans if I may I don't mean to digress here but what I tell my fellow Republicans and members of Congress is the NRC is not bad people trying to shut down nuclear and no offense but how many view other bureaucratic agencies in the US you need to think of them like NASA is you know NASA created a culture and environment where failure was never an option it's a good idea nuclear by the way but then you have SpaceX where you had you know this incredible innovation to lower the cost by 60% of putting you know a kilogram in a space in this extraordinary advancement I'm not suggesting we blow up a few nuclear reactors to find out but I am saying that making the regulator serve this innovation instead of trying to preserve like NASA frankly was guilty of the stymied innovation so when you have that mindset then you think hey these are smart people and good people trying to do the right thing we just need to give them a better framework to do it so that is part of you know what I'll take on in Congress sorry no thanks for those extra interventions Mark I want to jump back to you quickly and we've heard a bit from Mr. Mansour about that happy the challenges facing the US some of the emerging questions that the policymakers and analysts are dealing with from your perspective what what what is it that the country and analysts say technocrats in government academics universities can get started with particularly from the say the developing emerging economy perspective you know thanks thanks I think there are some very simple things that we can get going with but there's also a bigger piece that I think needs very active engagement with with the nuclear industry and and others you make the point Dr. Mansour about electricity demand in the states going up faster than might have been anticipated in the past I think that's the case everywhere we just have to have a look at the advent of electric cars and so on we just see massive electrification and if large low-cost base load power becomes available the systems just going to electrify really quickly bear in mind though that that electrification as it starts to take place again the materials for those cars even that the copper wiring for the transmission systems if we're going to set up these sorts of transmission systems has to come from somewhere and I think a sensible work around the sort of supply chains and other things would be particularly valuable for developing countries to understand what the value proposition is of what they have also it means that in the in the north we're going to be thinking about energy security a little bit differently we're going to be thinking about supply chain security and I think structuring things so that we can have open transparent markets really quickly would be extremely helpful in this in this particular space in our program we're busy working with some folk at Cambridge University to try and get a sort of semi granular view of demand for materials by country supplied by country so that we can understand what a country's net worth would be in this particular what what a country's value proposition would be with respect to the minerals that they have under the ground and the potential for processing so I think that's that's one piece but I think you know really critical to start just sort of open transparent modeling we have things like the tools that have been set up we have summer schools and other things that have been set up they've been set up in partnership so please you know just sign up to those principles and come along and help because I think that that would be important I also put out a challenge to the to the nuclear industry you know I used to work in the International Atomic Energy Agency now I don't so now I can be on the other side and ask the difficult questions normally it was the other the other way around but I think you know this is a fast-moving space the Chinese pebble bed modular nuclear reactor came online December the 6th you know there's going to be a race to get these SMRs out on time it'd be very good to understand you know what the what the cost and performance data of these different technologies are much like you know the the renewable lobby might and has been guilty of overselling that their product it'd be very important to try and get something where there's really clear transparent information with the unknowns and uncertainties from the from the nuclear industry just so that you know as countries develop their strategies and and and plans they can kind of do some more robust analysis than perhaps has typically been done in the past I really liked what Senator Williams said said they sort of say Republican point but I mean this point about this point about involving people and becoming open and transparent I think it's critical you know the big mistake the nuclear industry made I understand in the in the in the 60s and 70s was just to say look you know the physicists have said this is the the greatest thing we're gonna have energy that's too cheap to meter and we ran into problems and you know I think the general public perhaps there was a level of distrust that could be exploited when there were problems and so on so I think there will be mistakes into the future without a doubt no matter what energy systems we're looking into nothing's perfect but I think it would be extremely helpful if that if that space was opened up and transparent for folk from or who want to promote the the joint material that's been put together with a number of a number of agencies including the International Renewable Energy Agency you know please go to www.climacompatiblegrows.com and pick it up see I can promote myself. Thanks Mark on this on this topic of challenges I want to pose another question to Professor Arima about particularly Japan situation I think you touched on this on in your earlier remarks but perhaps to to pass this question do you think Japan is ready to start constructing new reactors and will Japan be able to reach its targets of 20 to 22 percent nuclear by 2030 yeah first of all to achieve 20 22 percent out of a total power generation target it all depends on how quickly they currently stopped nuclear power reactors can come back to operation so that is very much important to accelerate restarting but beyond that we need to consider you know how to do each as the carbon neutrality by 2050 and to my mind definitely we need a new construction of advanced reactors but as I said under the currently liberalized environment we need to prepare some policy framework for incentivizing new construction of the new reactors because otherwise you know the the power companies are becoming normal company ordinary company they are not guaranteed to recover their cost for investment so they need to compete in the liberalized electricity market so we need definitely some kind of policy policy framework like regulated asset base in the UK or something like that otherwise that is very difficult and also we need definitely have the strong political will by the government that we want to promote nuclear as some you know important option for energy security and climate mitigation so without such a clarity they say private industry will be very much hesitant to make a new investment and also how we need to maintain and strengthen the nuclear say industry and so workforce and human capital because because of the last 10 years you know the nuclear industry and also nuclear human capital human resource are waning unfortunately and so maintaining that how can I say expertise is absolutely necessary and in order to maintain that expertise or human capacity it is also definitely necessary to have some sort of certainty of the future of nuclear so something like an you know chicken egg situation so but I think you know the fortunately the situation is turning to more positive directions because of various reasons and as congressman Williams said you know the discop is regarded as nuclear cop so definitely we could bring back that message to Japan that the world is looking at nuclear as important and indispensable pillar for tackling climate change as well as energy security and also system stability so we need to prevail on that kind of message in in Japan so that Japan could have more kind of say conducive environment for nuclear construction yeah and I think that's the situation that many countries face you need the you need the policy you need the market you need the human capital yeah maybe you need additional risk-sharing within the market as well yeah so I think one very final short question I'd like to address to Mr. Mansour maybe there isn't time to answer this to give this this question justice and a little bit out of left field you mentioned chat GPT before and and more as a driver of demand or an example of new demands are emerging but what role do you what role do you see for AI in the clean energy transition itself from maybe on the supply source perspective or the management or the optimization of energy systems I'll take a whole one hour I think quick I think the world is going to get complex the energy system is going to get more complex we will have to be ready for significant amount of wind and solar which means we will be balancing that wind and solar not just with SMRs but with your air conditioner and EVs charging at a different time so all of a sudden you're managing a grid that has hundreds of millions of notes and points and what better than AI to manage that amount of decision-making so you're not doing it just with an operator that's a very good short answer you wanted to yeah please don't mind before I ran for Congress I was involved in modernizing the industrial control systems for the process industries which includes oil and gas and chemical and pulp and paper all the process industries and the goal was to increase the compute power down on the floor so it's sort of you know you're thinking about the whole system but down you know at the production level to increase the compute power by a thousand times not by a thousand percent but by a thousand fold so that you can run AI and ML models in real time in the process loop itself and you know maybe some of you know about you know what ladder logic or process automation logic looks like it's very simple today but when you can push down very sophisticated real-time analysis and decision-making and optimization in the system itself you can actually increase productivity and utilization and you can reduce overall emissions and there's there's a lot of efficiency that's going to come out of these industrial processes simply by having the compute power to to make real-time operational changes and that's very exciting I mean that's Exxon Mobile's leading this but all of the process industry companies worldwide are participating. Thank you I see that time has gotten gotten the better of us I know I think this discussion could go on for at least another hour or two but I realize everyone has other other commitments in these closing days at COP so again I'd like to very much thank all of our panelists for a great great discussion and so please join join me in expressing your thanks and wish you yeah enjoyable the rest of COP