 Good afternoon and welcome to today's energy seminar. I'm very excited to introduce our speaker for today who is Dr. Rita Barenwall, who's the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy in the US Department of Energy. And prior to her current role, she was the Director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear Gain at the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the premier nuclear energy research institutions in the world. I have to do a shout out in introducing Dr. Barenwall. I was able to see a small workshop in which he participated through the Schultz-Stevensson Task Force at Hoover Institution a few years ago, thanks to David Federer and his team. And I was extremely impressed. So as a seminar runner, I said, boy, I wonder if we could get this person to talk as authoritatively as she does and as comprehensively and in as balanced a way as Dr. Barenwall was able to do on that occasion. So I'm very pleased to introduce Dr. Rita Barenwall and she will, apropos of what I just said, I give a very broad update on where we are with nuclear in the US, including what to do about the existing nuclear plans through what's next after that, including technical issues, business issues, international security and global competitive issues. So with that, without further ado, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Rita Barenwall to give us a update on where we are with nuclear in the US and the world. Dr. Barenwall. Great, thank you, John. Can you hear me okay? Yep. All right, very good. So good afternoon, good evening, and thank you to Stanford University for having me talk about the crucial role of nuclear, not just here in the United States, but around the world. I got into this business almost over the server 20 years ago, I started my career developing advanced field for the nuclear Navy for the United States. And what I had the fortune of was taking a van full of summer interns down to the Newport News shipyard, and we got to go on a field trip. And I didn't realize that that would be a turning point for me and pretty much secure my desire to stay in this industry for my entire career. As we were touring the shipyard, we saw the Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier being constructed and I was able to stand in the reactor compartment where the reactor would go and realize as I stared several stories up that the fuel that I was working on back in the lab in Pittsburgh was going to be used to power a behemoth of a ship like this around the world and defend our country for years on end, safely and securely. And so that's really that the energy density of nuclear energy and nuclear fuel is what's got me and kept me in the business. And if we flash forward to today, I have two teenage children and it's really important to me that they grow up in a world, an imperative world that is, since it was air is cleaner than the one that I grew up in. And so I know that nuclear energy could play a very, very vital part in that aspiration for me. And so that's why I stay in this business. And so I wanna give you a little bit about some background on the industry today and then where our office is prioritizing its efforts and where we see the industry going. So the United States operates the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world. Last year, those reactors generated over 809 billion kilowatt hours of electricity that's billion as would be as in Bravo. And that's double when double the production of the next two leading countries combined. Nearly 55% of our countries clean energy come from nuclear and nuclear is also responsible for 20% of electricity that's generated in this country. We have reactors that are operating at full power more than 93% of the time. That's also called capacity back. Our nuclear reactors also avoided more than 470 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year. And that's the equivalent of removing 100 million cars off of the road. And especially in this pandemic environment where health issues are a topic of daily concern. We must fully appreciate that nuclear reactors keep our air clean by removing thousands of tons of harmful air pollutants each year that can prove you to acid rain, smog, lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases. But nuclear is more than just a reliable clean source of power. There are more than a billion people living in the world today that are living in energy poverty and the majority of them don't have access to clean drinking water. And as energy demands continue to rise around the world countries are also faced challenging tasks of meeting these needs while lowering emissions at the same time. The thermal energy that's produced by nuclear reactors can also be used to drive manufacturing processes, heat communities and purify water. Newer reactor technologies that are currently under development will bring even more flexibility and access to this incredible power source more so than ever before. So at DOE, my office will focus our priorities around four major efforts. One is to sustain that existing fleet that I just mentioned. The next is to get advanced reactor technologies across the finish line and that's top priority of mine. The next one is to establish and maintain a critical fuel cycle infrastructure and that means making sure that we have addressed all of the fuel issues starting from cradle to grave. And then the fourth is to enhance our global competitiveness around the world. So despite us coming off of a record year in terms of operation and production with our reactors, currently is facing significant challenges due to over-regulation, complex market factors and historically low fuel costs. As a result, very unfortunately, 10 reactors have retired prematurely before their life has expired since 2013 and an additional five units are slated to retire by 2025. Losing these reactors would ultimately reduce America's large-scale supply of affordable and dependable clean power as well as to seek the expertise, knowledge and supply chain that goes along with the entire US nuclear industry. The impacts of California's decision to phase out its nuclear power plants prior to their operating licenses ending recently laid out in the news. Keeping it Sandy Norford plant online, which was shut down in 2013, might have prevented some of California's rolling blackouts that many of you might be experiencing today or over the past several months. California's decision to close Diablo Canyon, it's only operating nuclear plant could lead to future blackouts and arise in carbon emissions as they transition to other energy sources. Same goes for Illinois, where Exalong recently announced that they were closing their Dresden environment power plants totaling over 4.1 gigawatts of nuclear power. No state in our country should ever have limited supplies of electricity. And with nuclear power, the availability of clean power is never a problem. Help address the challenges that are facing our current fleet we're supporting the development of new technologies that could help extend the operation of our reactors to 80 years or longer. That means digitizing control rooms from an analog system. And yes, the control room for the most part are still generally analog to developing sensors for online monitoring to working with industry to develop new fuels that significantly increase net performance and reduce operating costs simultaneously. Regarding advanced fuels for the existing fleet, we're working with industry partners to supply batch reloads of accident-tolerant fuel by the mid-20 points. We're also working with a handful of US nuclear plants to demonstrate their ability to produce electricity and hydrogen. And this could open up new market opportunities for the nuclear energy sector. The production of hydrogen can be used regionally to deliver various products ranging from fertilizers and plastics to the development of new synthetic fuel or fuel cells for grid storage. DOE is also taking action to support the front-end of the fuel cycle. We know that our nuclear fuel production capabilities have taken a severe hit. In 2019, the US produced roughly 104,000 pounds in uranium. And that, unfortunately, is the lowest annual total in the 70 years of record keeping for this information. A handful of US uranium properties are now working at minimal levels to keep their facilities in working order. But unfortunately, many more are not operating at all, waiting for market signals to resume production. Our nation's only uranium conversion facility is also idle. And all of these front-end capabilities of the fuel cycle are at risk of shutting down permanently. In April, the administration's nuclear fuel working group released its report on policy options to restore American's leadership in nuclear energy and technology. Key recommendation in this strategy calls for DOE to establish a uranium reserve to help de-risk our nuclear fuel cycle. Even before the nuclear fuel working group strategy was released, $150 million was included in the president's fiscal year 21 budget request to stand up our uranium reserve. The new stockpile is expected to support the operation that leads to US for uranium mines and to re-establish active conversion capabilities. It'll ensure that there's a backup supply to uranium for nuclear power operators in case there's a market disruption. So we look forward to continuing our work with our congressional partners to remain hopeful that the reserve will be funded. We continue to writing ourselves to initiate this very important program. I also wanna highlight important activities in relation to the development of high-assay, low-enriched uranium, or HALU, that's going to be needed for many advanced reactive designs. The Department of Energy entered into a contract in May of last year with the subsidy area of Centres Energy that will lead to the demonstration of HALU production using new-ass origin technology no later than June of 2022. Many folks understand that the significance of bringing this capability to the market is at a time that's really exciting in new advanced reactive technologies that are being developed and demonstrated. The technology that's used for the demonstration could be a cornerstone for future commercial HALU production that would improve American energy security. No, but the successful introduction of advanced reactors in the development of a HALU infrastructure provides additional demand for domestic nuclear fuel cycle products and services. The nuclear fuel working group strategy also highlights the vital importance of the versatile test reactor known as VTR. The U.S. has identified the construction of the VTR as a cornerstone for reviving and expanding our nuclear sector and is one of the highest priorities for the Department of Energy. Once it's completed in 2026, the VTR will support the development of advanced reactor technology and the continued operation of the existing fleet for accelerated testing of new fuels and materials and development of advanced instruments and sensors. Last year in 2019, the DOE formally established a mission need for the VTR. Further support is shown through the President's fiscal year 21 budget request which asks for $295 million to support the design and construction of the facility. I'm very pleased that last month, the Department took the next step with the VTR and formally approved it to move to critical decision one. The nuclear fuel working group strategy also recommends a continued support for demonstration of U.S. advanced reactor technologies. I'm very excited about smaller, more flexible and scalable reactor design that can be built in factories. These innovations offer great promise to reduce capital on operating costs while also increasing revenue generation and more market options. Developing more versatile, smaller reactors from micro grid, remote locations, data centers or placement population centers will fundamentally change the way that nuclear energy is used. And I'm also very excited about our new advanced reactor demonstration program. This program focuses DOE and non-federal resources on actual construction of advanced demonstration reactors that are affordable to build and to operate. A few weeks ago, the department announced that two companies, Terrapower and X-Energy were selected to receive $160 million in initial funding to build two advanced nuclear reactors that can be operational within five to seven years. We're also very strongly supporting the National Reactor Innovation Center to enable these demonstrations in development of the versatile test reactor to ensure that we in the United States have the infrastructure that's necessary to support the long-term success of new advanced nuclear technologies. In the global marketplace, superior technology though, just isn't enough to compete with other countries that can provide comprehensive build, own and operate packages with attractive financing and field tech offerings. And that's where we in the United States really need to make more progress. We need to be able to compete with these comprehensive packages. A fully functioning XM bank or export import bank is certainly sure to help, as will the US Development Finance Corporation, DFC, finally being able to support nuclear energy projects and provide private financing. And these recent changes really will make a difference. And I wanna turn for a moment to the topic of recycling used fuel. So I've spent most of my career in nuclear fuel and it's really astounded me that we take this precious resource and we use it 5% and then we seem to call it waste. I consider it slightly used fuel. And knowing the difficulty that we have with storage and disposal of this slightly used fuel in our country, I feel that there have to be options for dealing with it. Last year I visited La Hague in France and was very impressed with their recycling operations there. The recycling 96% of used like water reactor fuel and putting the most positive ice shields into glass logs, significantly simplifying long-term storage issues. So if we were to adopt this approach in the United States, we know how to provide real class safeguards in securing this to such recycling process. We should be exploring options to enable and secure the efficient use of nuclear fuel in our advanced reactors in the future. Any national decision on the use of spent fuel should be the product of a robust policy debate, not only among the US government agencies whose interests are implicated but also academic and non-governmental sector, industry and other key stakeholders. Finally, the only way to move forward with this vision of nuclear energy is to address the management of new nuclear fuel. The administration believes that progress on managing the nation's spent fuel and high level wage is crucial and the standstill has gone on too long. Nearly 40 states currently holding nuclear waste but that the federal government was required to dispose of beginning over 20 years ago. But both politics, but politics have paralyzed Congress in taking any action to fix this problem. And so as a result, taxpayers are currently paying hundreds of millions of dollars annually for this lack of progress. And despite Congress's inability to act, this administration is committed to fulfilling the federal government obligations to properly managing and disposing of the nation's used nuclear fuel and high level waste. And the department will consider permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel at repository sites other than yet amount to the extent that's currently allowed by law and other congressional appropriations. The president's FY21 budget prioritizes the research, development and evaluation of alternative technologies and pathways for storage, transportation and disposal of the nation's nuclear waste with the focus on solutions that are deployable where there is a willingness to post. As part of an integrated waste management system, DOE is also considering the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel. Consolidated interim storage of such used nuclear fuel could be in either a government provided storage facility or privately owned storage facility. DOE recognizes the full implementation of an integrated waste management system, including a consolidated interim storage program will really require a change to existing law. And that this effort may need to be adjusted should new regulation, new legislation be enacted. I really applaud the members of Congress that have introduced legislative solutions to advance this policy issue. We very much look forward to working with them and all these parties at the political news with Congress. Finally, I'd like to focus on what we're doing to inspire and prepare the next generation to realize our vision for the future. STEM education is crucially important to ensure that we have the future generation of research and scientists further advancing their energy. We also want to engage with those who are crucial members of our STEM adjacent workforce. My office is a vested interest in building a talented, innovative, diverse workforce to support our mission in the nuclear energy space. The complexity of nuclear energy in a broad impact throughout its life cycle necessitates the needs to develop, expand and enhance educational opportunities in scholarships for K through 12 years related to STEM. We had scholarships and internships to help support students in the post-secondary stage and get a concerted effort with an engaged earliest stages of the workforce pipeline, the K through 12 students. We've partnered with the American Nuclear Society and Discovery Education by free online standard-based test K through 12 dot learning resources in nuclear energy for all students. The program is called Navigating Nuclear Energizing Our World. We work to design and develop the curriculum that not only introduces the fundamentals of nuclear science to these students but also engages in understanding the many applications of nuclear energy, something that has a direct and significant impact on their world. STEM education is especially important in our underrepresented population in STEM field including young women. And this is a focus of the US government large and a focus in my office. By encouraging all students to engage in STEM we can tap into increased multiple perspectives and diverse views to help us find innovative solutions for the interview challenge for today as well as tomorrow. And in conclusion, we are moving forward to ensure that the US regains its nuclear energy leadership building upon United States leadership and innovation and advanced technologies. This won't be easy and it will require a lot of work especially if we want to achieve the breadth of goals by 2030. I said it's an aggressive goal but the issue is that we talk to talk long enough and it's time to act now. I'm very excited about the future of nuclear energy and I'm looking forward to our conversation this evening and thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much Dr. Warren-Tholl. That was a fantastic short, very succinct but packed with both detailed information and things you said that normal people could understand. I think that's one of your great talents is to be able to understand technical things which probably a lot of people we know could do but also to be able to communicate them to normal folks like myself in this field. So we do have quite a few questions queued up. I'd like to combine them in a way just because you're probably used to this. So the whole first set you've already touched on in some ways but I'm gonna combine a few themes and that is how to get a public perception back on your, back on the side of nuclear energy more than it has been and that would include solution. How do you think about solutions to the long-term waste storage problem and the things that probably concern the public the most rightly or wrongly and that is the risk of accident or vulnerability of nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel cycle to terrorist acts? So that all falls under how can we overcome the issue of the public perception? Correct? Okay. Yeah, I'm doing it that way. I know there are technical problems but I'm guessing you're gonna say that there are technical problems that you're working on those but those look easier than the public perception problems. And frankly, I don't think there's a lot of technical problems. What we're doing in advanced reactor space is using technologies that were invented decades ago and applying all of the new advances that we've had in materials, in corrosion prevention, in robotics and sensors and diagnostics applying all of those advances to nuclear technologies that have been around for decades. The issue with our industry for many decades has been this assumption that we need to do our work, do it quietly and say on the news, right? If you don't make the headlines, that's a good thing. That had been the unspoken assumption for decades. And what we've seen over the past five to 10 years, especially with one of the proliferation of social media, no pun intended, is that we need to be talking about this and what the benefits are. And I don't mean in a scientific way. We can do that as well. But what resonates with folks is just tell us, and that's why we're doing the K-12 education as well, just at least mention nuclear energy for more than one sentence in a curriculum. Not if they don't even have textbooks anymore, but in a curriculum. And so it's about educating folks in that sense and then talking about why we are in this business, why I show up to work every day, what matters to me, just the way I did as I launched this, right? It was important to me that nuclear power is used in our aircraft carriers in some ways to defend our country. And it's important to me that I work in an industry that contributes to the healthy wellbeing of my family. That's what matters to me. What might resonate to others is that it creates a very high paying job. It might resonate with folks that millions of dollars of tax revenue come into a community that has operating through powerful, or that we get to do the devious research and development and play with the coolest toys. That might resonate with folks or the fact that it produces clean energy. That might resonate with folks. And so if we talk about it more, the way all the other energy forms are talking about themselves, that's going to start making a gem. The other thing is that we know that utilities and plants have marketing in PR department and they're working on it as well. But I think overall really there's been this stigma that had been associated with nuclear. I'm curious to hear from the students though, because my sense is that that stigma has not come up through the next generation or the next set of students. And so we need to take advantage of the fact that that stigma doesn't exist perhaps in this generation and run with that because being in this industry, we actually do get to save the world. And I know that sounds cliche, but that's what we get to do. And that's why I'm so thrilled when I get to talk to student audiences and see how much passion there is and how much enthusiasm there is for this industry despite what this kind of overarching negative perception might be. I think really at the grassroots level, it's not there. There's a lot more enthusiasm than we do folks first. Great, yeah, terrific. I'll come back to career advice, which as you guessed is on the student's mind and my mind as well. But I want to go through a couple more steps. One is I feel like I'm playing a game of what aboutism now? I'm sure you're used to that. More on the, I would call it economic lifecycle costs, lifecycle environmental impacts. I actually got my first energy job from John Holdred who did a wonderful book early in his career on lifecycle impacts and found some disturbing things way back when that I think probably people like you have totally fixed at this point. But on the economic side, there are several questions about what is the lifecycle cost and what do you predict it's gonna be? What kind of carbon tax would it take to quote unquote make nuclear competitive? I know you're probably gonna say this is partly related to public perception and how the regulation is done, but that's all part of your job as well. Although you're not the regulatory body, obviously you work very closely with people who do that job. Right, and there are many different organizations that are much better burst in these topics. So I'm gonna talk about what I am familiar with. So I don't get myself into trouble, but also I'm gonna caveat it to death because there are so many different reactive sizes and so many different customers that if you wanna talk about an LCOE, a levelized cost of electricity, so that's dollars per megawatt hour, you also have to understand who that customer is. So when in a prior role, when I was looking at trying to develop an advanced reactor technology and the price of natural gas was still very low, we put down the target queen sheet it and said, okay, can we develop a concept for $60 a megawatt hour or less is the target LCOE price tag? And if it can't be at 60 or less, let's not play this game because we will not be able to compete in a cost competitive manner. Now that was for kind of competing with existing nuclear power plants in the United States. Here's the thing though, that there are different markets in the United States as well as certainly across the world. So an island or an island or remote community in the United States is going to have a possibly a different price point than a major metropolitan area in the United States. A remote area that is trucking in very, very extensive gallons of diesel is looking for something that's going to be cheaper than that but that might be much higher than $60 a megawatt hour as an LCOE partner. So we need to be careful that when we talk about that we'll talk about apple to apple. And then the other piece is that we need to also outside of the United States balance that with countries are looking to lift their citizens out of energy poverty and get them a good quality of life. Something that they can certainly prosper in that lifestyle. And so we start to think about well, what costs is justified to bring an entire million and like talk about that billion number for citizens around the world to lift them to that standard of living. It starts to, once you go outside of the United States natural gas is not the cheapest energy source. And so nuclear has a different cost competitiveness once we're into what country you're in. And again, depends on what reactor product you're talking about. If it's a micro reactor, which is about 20 megawatts or less, that might have actually a very specific niche market. The Department of Defense is looking at that type of technology. There are a lot of new user with new micro reactor as well. And so it's a, it's a different price point for different customers, different reactor classes. So how's that for starting the question? Good. I'll come back to the kind of SMR issue in the US in a minute. But yeah, fascinating subject that you just started on which I'd like to get into a little bit more which I'd like to get your opinion on as the whole international issue. As you rightly point out, the perception of nuclear and the economics could place out quite differently in different parts of the world. So if you're in a, you know, subsistence level economy and you're probably willing to figure out how to get the regulations done more quickly and therefore provide a quick, cheap energy to millions of people. So in that you're in the US of course and probably have a big influence on international things but the question that often comes up is can the US without doing the requisite building of technical capabilities and women power can we really play in how the world deals with nuclear safety, trade, proliferation issues and so on. So how do you see the international security dimensions of nuclear and as you said it, the international competitiveness issue issues. How do you think about that set of issues which I think are gonna be increasingly dominant as the world moves ahead? And that's a really good question. And we're at a very crucial juncture right now in this industry at this point in time when you look at the worldwide competition and we have a very small window the United States does in which to continue to lead and exert our technology leadership because we have two very fierce competitors out there that are going to overtake us and they will do it brutally and it'll be hard for us to recover. And so you talked about, you essentially alluded to our reputation and our standards. And so there are many countries out there internationally appreciate that our technology is top notch. There are a few other countries out there that might have nearly as good technology and that might be good enough. But what we offer in addition to that top notch technology is a transparency and a trustworthiness and a promise for a hundred year relationship that our competitors cannot and will not offer. And those three intangible along with the best technology in the world are the reason that we continue to be the ones that countries want to compete. Now I talked about financing and the field payback that's two areas that we still need to work on. And those are the two reasons that countries are choosing perhaps not to come with us because we can't offer them in cost is important to them. But once too many countries start to go with our competitors that's what is at risk. Our standards that have been considered a gold standard our technology reputation, all of that will start to be put by the wayside and then proliferation and those concerns will take a front seat, will come to the front burner, so to speak. And that's part of the reason why we must continue to not only offer technology that's top notch and other options like you'll take that, but then we also provide workforce development, capacity building, so not only human resource development but also guidance with their infrastructure development for countries that either have never had you, or want to expand their existing footprint, for example, and then also collaboration with the respective regulatory bodies. So the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission here in the United States is considered a gold standard. And so to be able to share lessons, learn best practices with up and coming regulatory bodies is also very, very important to us from a national security standpoint. Sorry to jump around so much, but back to the micro grids and new tech, maybe small module reactors, there's several questions on what kind of oversight and monitoring do you believe is required to bring those technologies to fruition or I should say large scale market and public acceptance here in the US? So all of those reactors, if they're going to be deployed and produce electricity commercially here in the United States have to be, those designs have to be certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that's our regulatory body in the United States. And there, the NRC is an independent agency whose first and foremost priority is to ensure the public's safety and wellbeing. And so that's the lens to which they do all of their work. And so that gets to the beginning of your question about monitoring. So one, it has to be a license assigned by the NRC, but then in existing plants in our current food today, there are on-site resident inspectors from the NRC. So while I don't know if such a position would be necessary for the smaller, like the SMRs or certainly probably not the microreactors, there will be that type of oversight I would envision for these newer reactor types and classes. It's what's expected today. And you would have to prove substantially why those issues wouldn't be needed for other reactor design. And the NRC, by the way, is receptive and is willing to listen and adapt. It's regulations and criteria, but a lot of data and a lot of, I would say, experimental data as well as modeling and simulation data needs to support those kind of positions as you go into the NRC. Great. Now, back to economics, we still have a lot of questions by people who favor, say, renewable energy. And those are, why not just use renewable energy? Why not use natural gas as a grid stability, base load, power source? I'm sure you get these questions all the time. But I think on behalf of the audience, it would be good to hear your perspective on that. In many ways, you've answered this in bits and pieces, but have I asked that question on behalf of the audience directly? How would you respond? Sure. So let's talk about the clean energy umbrella. Under that umbrella, I consider nuclear. I consider wind. I consider solar and I consider hydro. The question that you just asked was why not couple renewable with natural gas, correct? So you just offset the benefits that you just got from whatever renewable source that you were operating, be it wind, solar or hydro. To me that, it doesn't make sense. Albeit natural gas currently does have a low price in the United States. But if you're trying to implement renewable sources, I trust that you're trying to minimize the carbon footprint, minimize carbon emissions, maybe need a state mandate or you're outside of the US national mandate. If you're not playing with the right pieces there, if that's the part of it. I'm not saying natural gas shouldn't be part of it. It can be, but nuclear would be much more beneficial if you're trying to meet clean energy part of it. Also, renewables take up a lot of, in the case of windmills, a lot of land. And solar, and I know you all know this, operate at peak during certain parts of the day. And so to be able to supplement those off hours with nuclear reliable base load generation energy source does make a lot of good sense to me. Great, then you almost touched on this, but again, to be more explicit, we got a couple of questions on timing. So given your own personal forecast for when the new more safer systems are available, do you worry there'll be a big gap between, reliance on existing power plants in the introduction of new ones? Actually, no, I think there will be substantial, there'll be enough time to have substantial overlap. We have plants, some are closing 20 years prematurely because of economic conditions. It has nothing to do with the performance or the technical features of the reactor. Those are just fine. It has to do, the reason some of these plants are closing prematurely are economic reasons. So there will be, assuming these continue to, we can simply continue super 80 or plus year lifetime, there will be plenty of time to overlap, to supplement. And we're talking just about the United States. We look outside of the United States, the market is very large. There are plenty of opportunities. By the way, there are dozens of developers just in the United States alone at Advanced Reaction Technology and retail audiences all the time. There's plenty of space for all of them to be playing in this arena because there's so much opportunity. Not only, I mean, in the United States, there's opportunity, but there's so much more globally and so much more need as well that there's plenty of customers to go around to see. Yeah, as we saw in the Hoover session and elsewhere out here in Silicon Valley, there actually is quite a big pickup of entrepreneurs on the nuclear side. Unfortunately, those so far haven't gotten as much publicity perhaps as some of the other fields. So I understand even at that level, it's kind of an issue. So I have another question from a couple of colleagues. I think it's on the international nuclear front and that is who are the competitors? I know there was quite a bit of consternation a while back that South Korea and other Asian companies had gotten big contracts in the Middle East, a rather sensitive geopolitical area. So who do you think the big competitors are now to US dominance in the international nuclear industry and issues, policy issues related, foreign policy issues, if you will, related to that? So our two biggest competitors that we view for this industry, again, representing the US are China and Russia. And so there are potentially geopolitical ties when offers are made from our competitors. And so that to us is disconcerting, if that's indeed true. And so for all the reasons that I mentioned, not on the top notch technology, but the 100 year relationship that we would embark on with countries, it would not be just transactional, the transparency that we have with not only the government itself, but the regulator, and then the fact that we will assist with their capacity building in terms of human resource training and growth, learning opportunities, and then also infrastructure assistance that they might be, I'm not saying they would, for either of those cases in terms of capacity building, but we offer those resources if needed to entities that would want it. Great, one big final question. You talked about this before, but just to get a little bit more up close and personal, I know you're gonna meet with some very inquisitive students in a little bit. So I'll tell it this way as a personal story. So when I was young, a kid, there was a board game called Careers, which still may exist, I'm not sure. And I was headed towards aeronautical engineering and asterodontics. And that was the number two highest value career. And you probably can guess with your background what the number one career was. And the major that my college roommate pursued was nuclear engineering. So what happened to that? And how can we get, you did probably intrigue some people because I do believe that these jobs in the nuclear space are pretty high paying jobs because you want really responsible people. So what advice can you give the middle age, but also a lot of the students that are listening out of our three or so hundred people on this webinar regarding that? So I would say that in our industry, we have such a wide variety of folks from different backgrounds and frankly, diverse experiences that if you, just because you haven't majored in nuclear science or nuclear engineering, that's fine. All of my degrees are in material science and engineering. And I work with folks that are physicists and mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, English majors, art history majors. So it takes a wide variety of experiences and perspectives to make it a successful organization in this industry. And so if your passions are around being creative in the science space, being part of a clean energy industry, yeah, the pay in these jobs is good, but it also, it's not just the four year, the master's or the PhD degree. We're talking also at a high school. There are vocations that are desperately needed in this industry where trades, and if you have that trade, you can pretty much write your own ticket, welders, other crafts folks. There are, the boom that we're seeing with construction of new plants down in Georgia, not the boom, but the construction that we're seeing down in Georgia, those craftspeople are a hot commodity, so to speak. And we're trying to plan, there are going to be new builds around the country. We're anticipating that those crews are actually gonna be the same ones that are gonna be building the next set of reactors. And oh my goodness, who's gonna come in after them? And so there are a lot more opportunities out there than there are humans at the moment to fill those slots. So we've got folks straight out of high school that can certainly land job, folks that might have included a two year degree like an 13th degree, that have plenty of opportunities in this industry. And then all the way through, all the bachelor's, master's and PhDs. That said, the path that I have taken was not one that I had ever envisioned for myself. So my advice to the students and others that care to us, it would be keep your eyes open, listen to folks that come to you with suggestions like this opportunity might be good for you, they might tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, look over here and maybe consider this opportunity. I have always been so pleasantly surprised at the handful of opportunities that I've had where folks have said, I want you to try this, I think you'd be good at it. Or I want you to do this because you aren't a nuclear engineer. And I want to understand what your perspective would be if you leave these 200 people in this organization because I think you would do it differently and that's what we need right now. So listen to those folks, they may not necessarily be a formal mentor by any means, but folks that you surround yourself with, that come and offer you a suggested opportunity, always at least consider it. Even if you don't think you're ready for it yet or you're not the right fit for it yet, listen to those other voices too. Thank you so much for that. I would say out of the many audiences for this seminar series, probably the highest priority one for those of us involved putting it on are the students, the youngsters coming up through the system. So thank you very much, Dr. Berenwald for such a thoughtful and inspirational seminar on a tough subject. And that is the future of nuclear in the U.S. and around the world. So I think it's time to move on to the next phase where you'll get to talk a little bit more up close and personal with a select group of very bright young students. So thank you once again for your wonderful seminar. We'll look for you down the road. Hopefully you'll get to come visit when we're allowed to travel again. We'd love to see you here wherever you might want to be coming from at that point. All right, I'm happy to visit. Great, thank you. Thank you. You're on.