 So, welcome everyone. Good afternoon. Before we get started, I'll invite Dr. Liu to come and perhaps make some opening remarks, please. Thank you very much. Distinguished panelists, ladies and gentlemen, it's my great pleasure to join you here at IEA Atom for Climate Pavilion at COP28. Nuclear power is a part of solution to help countries to achieve their natural emission target for the climate change. And it proposes non-greenhouse gas and provided the sustainability to the energy grid. Last week, on the margin of COP28, IEA Director General Grossi released a statement endorsed by dozens of countries in support of nuclear power's role in transmitting the energy system away from fossil fuel. The statement was made with strong political and industry support, including support for the tripling nuclear capacity by 2050. Financing the expansion of the nuclear sector will require additional financial capabilities both from government and private sectors. Here, at COP28, IEA helped and held a side event on the tracking investment to develop nuclear power facilities. One of the key takeaway from this event was the multi-lateral development bank need to begin to play a role in financing nuclear, especially in developing countries. Today we will learn about the proposal from the multi-development bank focused on supporting nuclear energy that could play a crucial role in helping countries to develop nuclear technology, pursue nuclear power, and address key development priorities. A multi-lateral finance institutions called the Facilitated Technology Transfer in countries that may not have technical expertise or resource to develop nuclear power on their own, and it could also support the transfer of knowledge, skills, and the nuclear technologies from more experienced countries to those seeking to develop their nuclear capabilities. So I think this panel discussion is very important. During my meeting with the World Bank, with the Regional Development Bank, they tell us they focus on public health sectors, they focus on agricultural sectors, but away from nuclear power. But from now on, I heard Lea consider, especially when our SMR development, they will maybe consider how to support nuclear power plants, especially for SMR in some developing countries. I think that's a good sign. So through our common efforts from nuclear industry, from financial people, from low-farm, I think we can convey our message and we can discuss with them. IA, of course, as an international organization, we will, as a partner with the financial institution, with developing countries' government agencies, we will use international standards, international expertise to help financial people to ensure the installation and development of the nuclear power, especially for small modular reactors, will be safe and economic available for, you know, the application and for, you know, our biting against climate change. So I think, you know, the IA involvement and all our panelists here, we can work together to make our brand financial perspective for the nuclear, especially for small modular reactors, especially for some developing countries. That's very important. So I wish to hear all your views today. And I thank you very much. Dr. Lude, Deputy Director General of IA, thank you so much for your kind words and very encouraging. So my name is Carlos Leipner. I'm the Director of Global Nuclear Energy Strategy for Clean Air Task Force, which is an environmental organization focusing on the carbon, the carbonizing the energy system globally. And it's my pleasure to be moderating this event, focusing, as Dr. Lude mentioned, on financing nuclear projects and financing nuclear energy in order to scale up by mid-century. So it's a, I'm really delighted for what we have in store today. I will be very brief so we can get into the discussion. But first, a little bit of introductions to our panelists. We have Linda Teplinsky, who's a partner at Pillsbury and heads the energy sector. We have Yves Despaciel, Director General from Nuclear Europe. Ana Birchal, who's a special envoy for Nuclear Electrica Romania. And we have, very delighted to have Robert Spagli, sorry for botching your last name, but Deputy Director for Power and Nuclear at the Ministry of Energy from Ghana. So really excited about that. Just to set the context and to build upon what Dr. Lude was mentioning, the world really faces a triplet of challenges today and basically the need to supply energy at scale that's safe, that's affordable, and that is clean. And we have other considerations that maybe as recent as five years ago, we weren't challenged by, for instance, land use constraints, social and economic aspects and systems grid point of view that how you integrate the different sources of energy. All these things have now come to play and nuclear actually has a very special role to play into that. Global investments into low carbon energy transition in 2022 reached $1.2 trillion and a very small fraction close to nothing being impacted or being extended to nuclear projects. And there are projections that we need to have actually tripled that amount by 2030 in order for us to reach the net zero goals by mid-century. So it's quite a challenge for us. We know that the nuclear industry today is a little bit stagnant. We see a lot of growth in the East, but the West is still very timid in its growth aspirations. And we see a lot of reasons for that, right? Mainly because of recent projects, cost of runs, schedule delays, supply chain issues, and all of that impacts financing of these nuclear projects. So in risk mitigation. So these are considerations that a nuclear community or the finance community take into consideration. They have impacted the way that traditional international financing institutions consider nuclear projects and their position today that don't really favor nuclear projects financing. Obviously, we see and are encouraged by the national export credit agencies that support nuclear in the U.S. You have the XM Bank, we have JBIC, Korea at XM and others, but there are gaps. And I think this all creates a context that's very complex as we try to scale up just earlier on this cop. We witness a historic signature of 22 countries, now 24, I believe, that have signed to tripling the nuclear capacity by mid-century. And that will take a lot of investments. So all this sets up a very interesting context for us to debate today and discuss today. And without further ado, I'll pass it on to Elina to continue the discussion. Thank you, Elina. Thank you so much, Carlos. And thank you to the IA and Director Liu for the opportunity to be here to discuss this very important issue. So Carlos teed it up quite nicely. We have the pledge, a very exciting pledge, right, to want something that potentially was not unprecedented just a few years ago to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050. What does that mean in practice? That means that for the next 30 years, next 20, 26 years, to be precise, we will need to add 30 gigawatts of nuclear to the grid every single year. How much is that going to cost, right? Often we talk about nuclear, we talk about all of the typical issues, licensing, regulatory, technology, development, innovation, but nothing happens without money, right? The best intentions are nothing without funding. This will cost just to use a very rough number, about $4 trillion. That is assuming that projects are built the same way that they were built here in the UAE, you know, $5 billion a gigawatt. That's $4 trillion. And Carlos mentioned today's investment in energy transition as a whole is $1.2 trillion. So it is a very big task, not one that we cannot meet, but we have gaps today on why it is difficult to meet it. Today, about five gigawatts is being added to the grid of nuclear every single year. Most of that is coming from the nuclear buildup in China, which has been amazing. That's China's domestic nuclear program. There have been a few export projects, primarily almost 100% financed by Russia, very little in the West. And that's still only five gigawatts a year. So what are the gaps that we currently have? Carlos mentioned, you know, the obvious thing that industry needs to do, build on time and on budget, right? You have to have successful projects. But even where projects are well-structured and successful today, most projects are financed by governments. And governments alone through taxpayer funds can only finance that much, right? Even in countries that have full support for the nuclear industry, such as China, for example. We don't have any sizable private finance for nuclear projects today. There's a lot of excitement about investing into companies. Those investments are pretty small. One of the issues, we don't have any project finance for nuclear because nuclear is different. The timelines, even for the best projects, are still beyond the timelines that are acceptable to financiers for the term of return. And also, they have these regulatory specifics, such as the fact that a lender seeks to have stepping rights to project in case it goes wrong, right? A lender wants to be able to come in a project and take it over if something goes wrong. Can't do that in nuclear because of licensing issues, right? The license goes to a single entity. Can't just switch it out. Export credit agencies have been instrumental in financing nuclear exports. And we have great support, like Carlos mentioned, USXM, JPEG, KXM, COFIS in France. But they have limitations. For example, under the OECD understanding, you can only finance at most 80% of a project. And the local content, even in countries that are sort of in the low end of a spectrum as far as income, is only 55%. And for countries that are on the higher end, that's 45%. So that means let's take a project that is $10 billion, let's say. That's about $3.5 billion, the country needs to come up with. That is a significant amount of money for many countries, even ones that are at the higher end of the spectrum. The equity is still missing. So mentioned the debt, but in countries like the US, where you have the DOE loan guarantee office that has funds available to fund these projects, you still need to have private companies come in and put equity. We currently don't really have that. There are not many companies that can afford that type of funds. Director Liu mentioned World Bank and regional banks. Today, these institutions, for the most part, do not finance nuclear. And none of them, even ones like the European Investment Bank, that have a pro-nuclear policy, finance nuclear new build. So they really don't play a large role. And I've been working on, many people have to try to change the policy of those banks, right? That is necessary. It is not right that nuclear power is excluded in the same policy as terrorism, for example. We need to change that. But even if the policy changed tomorrow, these banks are primarily developing banks. So they will only finance nuclear in the developing world, which is very important and needs to be done. But all of these projects that we have in Europe, in the North America, in higher income countries, those also need financing. We have challenges financing them there. Plus, the World Bank finances many types of technologies. The World Bank will not be able to dedicate itself to getting to this four trillion. That's one of the issues. And in general, the financial community has little experience with nuclear historically, so it's very hard to get them into, to change their mind about something they know very little about. So what is the solution? I don't want to say, shouldn't say the solution. It's a solution, right? We need to have lots of solutions, but a solution to unlock the financing challenges. So a group has been working together for about two years and meeting with stakeholders around the world with governments, private sector, NGOs, financial sector players, rating agencies, and has come up with a solution that's been quite vetted, well vetted, which is an international bank for nuclear infrastructure. This is a bank that would finance nuclear, not just reactors, but also supply chain, also fuel, decommissioning projects, to the extent needed, backend projects. Everything that's needed, everything that's needed to get to that net zero nuclear goal. One of the issues with the World Bank today is that even though there are a lot of countries that are members of the World Bank that want to finance nuclear, you have countries that are anti-nuclear that are preventing that policy change from happening. So this bank would have pro-nuclear countries as members or countries that want to support nuclear or develop nuclear in the future. The idea is not that the bank would finance every dollar of these projects, but multinational development banks and international financial institutions have been able to create this catalyst effect, this multiplier effect that for every dollar the World Bank puts in, you get $100 from private markets, from public markets, from sovereign wealth funds. So it's not about financing 100%, but it's about creating market confidence in order to bring in the private players. And that's what we really need, we need global financial markets to finance nuclear. And the idea is that you don't replace anything that currently exists. So you have ECAs, you have state-owned utilities, you have private players that may want to invest in nuclear. It's about bridging those gaps that currently exist. So this concept, as I mentioned, two years of outreach and consultation showcased at various conferences, you know, various fora, lots of input, lots of support, really, for the concept, letters of endorsement from industry across the board, very positive comments from governments. So what's the next step of actually making that happen? We see the very next step is a joint declaration to establish Ibni, either freestanding or including the Ibni concept into the joint declaration that already exists, or ones that will be proposed in the future, for example in Brussels in March. And then after that, countries would sign a treaty to actually establish the organization. And the great thing is that we're not current create anything different as far as how these organizations are established. There are already many MDBs and IFIs today. We know how the governance work. We know how the structure works. So it's replicating that existing blueprint, but it is channeling it towards meeting these net zero nuclear goals. So with that, thank you so much and look forward to participating on the panel. Very good. Thank you, Alina, for that and for setting again the context for the discussion that we have. And if I may go back here. Okay, let's let's open out the discussion and get some more perspectives and perhaps starting with you. As has been already referenced, early this week, over 22 countries signed the pledge of tripling the nuclear capacity by 2050. What do you see as the next step for these countries to focus on in order to to mobilize the trillions of dollars that Alina just mentioned? I think, thank you. It was a very a lighting presentation you made. So I think it's really set the scene very, very properly, I believe. Because at the end of the day, what needs to be done is to create confidence. We need to create confidence between the financial community on one side, governments on the other and the industry. I would say it's a trial that should be available to be as to to happen. And that basically you cannot get one without the other. You need to get them to get the lender to get the banks on board. You need they need first to understand what the banker is. And for them, usually it's a very, very bizarre animal, I must say, something they don't really understand. They see some risk based on particularly on the last experience, it was mentioned before, cost, cost overruns, delays, are not things which banks are not are very yeah, they don't give much of confidence for them. Something we absolutely industry needs to work on to work on in order to change this perspective. The government will be essential because they will be the one creating the conducive framework that needs to be there to get those investments, get those projects out of the ground. And I would say, at the early stage, I believe the support of government should be there. Maybe a messy one even in some cases. And the more hopefully we go, we move forward and get confidence that yes, we can deliver projects on time. Yes, there are some there is some reason for cost decrease. For for cellular for cellular effects. I believe we get the banks in such a case, because they will see that yes, there is a way forward. It's not only project that basically the cost is multiplied by three and the last likes twice or three times the initial plan. So I think it's at the global level, that's what I would say. And maybe one word on the particular case of Europe. So the the so-called nuclear alliance of countries, they set for themselves a target, which is a target of 150 gigawatt, so it's not really tripling because it's it's a we're coming from 100 today. So it's an increase by 50%. I I frankly believe that we should go higher. We should have a better higher figure. But I think this idea was to also come start with some figures which are perceived as realistic by the European stakeholders. So let's be realistic. Let's start with 150 and we'll see later. But what it means, it's actually, if we start with by 2030, because the project that we decided today cannot anyway be there before that time horizon, we are we have to increase from two gigawatts up to eight gigawatt a year in the 40s, because 150 means 120 gigawatt of new installed capacity. Why that? Because among the 100 today, even if we have reactors, which are prolonged beyond 60 years, are estimated, it will be that only 30% of what of the existing fleet will still be there at that time. So this gives some perspective. It's somehow in order to compare to the few numbers you were giving, but eight and eight gigawatt a year is for Europe is a significant figure. In the 40s, it's what we should have. And we have to get prepared to be there. And maybe I stopped here. No, thanks. Thanks for that additional input and context. And maybe looking at specific countries, moving on to Anna. Nucleotrica is Romania's nuclear generator producer contributing to energy security and the carbonization for Romania. And it, you know, with its two nuclear reactors, it contributes 20% share, I believe, right, of the electricity. Could you speak to, you know, Nucleotrica's plans and use of nuclear energy as a major strategic pillar of independence and how financing may fit into that? And thank you for inviting us to be part of this amazing panel. It is an honor and a pleasure. And thank you for each and all of you for taking time today to come and be with us. Before answering to your question, if I may echo and compliment what Elina and Eve were saying in you, I will add the public support as well. And we will not get in order to get the confidence we will need to have the public support. And we will continue to get the public support through the great work that you guys are doing. Yesterday, I mean, you know, the Clean Air Task Force prepared those two reports that they've been launched during this COP. Nuclear Europe is done an amazing work, continuous amazing work, including battling on the taxonomy. We've been together there on battling and so on. So for Selena, you prepare a very good purpose and we keep battling on. So, you know, all those efforts are getting us where we are today, where nuclear is regaining the stage. Eve, you mentioned a bizarre animal. I used to say that nuclear, I'm happy to see that nuclear is not more the baobao in the room, in the corner that nobody was trying to talk to or wanted to talk to. So that's not the case of today's COP, this period. And hopefully, we will continue to build on. And that's why the financing is very important. And maybe we discuss a little bit later on on that. But coming back to Romania, you rightly said, I am proud to share that Romania's civil nuclear program can be a very successful example of other countries, not just for a new build, but for an existent one or expanding their capacities. So we have since 1968, we have two units now operated at the highest level for more than 27 years of highest level of experience and expertise and safety. And we are and actually in terms I was looking to the data, the two reactors, the two can do reactors or a Chernobyl are some of the most performant reactors in the world following the high capacity factor out of more than 440 reactors in operation worldwide. That says a lot about our experience and our expertise that we've been investing over 27 years now. And we are very happy to share that. And it's not just in terms of the human resources of the capacity or of the supply in a good supply chain, but it's about a very good regulator. It's a very experienced regulator because you will need that. So coming back to what we have to Romania, we have those two reactors operating one is now going through the refurbishment. That means we will be adding 30 more years of life. We are building two more units in terms of the traditional nuclear power plant. And obviously, we are at the forefront of deploying the SMRs because we believe that the SMRs can complement the traditional build as well. So with that, practically, we will be more than 40% capacity of producing Romanian electricity. And that means practically we will contributing to the energy independence of Romania. But likewise, being an exporter of energy security in our region, because as we've been talking all the time for Romania and for our countries in Central Eastern Europe, energy is a matter of security as well. And we always saw it that way. And that's why practically, I'm very proud to say that in Central Eastern Europe, Romania is the only country that since the very beginning, we went with the North American technology with the Kanto technology. But I will stop here. Obviously, we have a lot of lot of expertise and a lot of experience that we are very ready to to share with anybody. Just knock on our door and we can even share with you. And I have here with me Ludmila. She is amazing when you know, she can give you several examples how we managed to continue to have at least 80% of the public support for the nuclear in Romania. But you know, even if we have that support, and we are very grateful, we are not getting complacent. So we are now reaching including to the 10 years old kids showing them the benefit of the nuclear. And you know what, in other plant that we have now, we have a second generation of the workforce. So that's a testament of where nuclear and where you are part of the community where community is embracing you. Right now. Thank you for sharing that a lot of things good things happening in Romania a lot of attention there and maybe shifting a little bit towards the continent of Africa and Robert Ghana has taken a leadership role in the in that conversation in the continent and focusing on nuclear power. I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more on the importance of nuclear for Ghana and the continent in general. Okay, thank you very much. I'll say Ghana started a nuclear program in the early 1960s. Before then we built the large hydro dam, which provided affordable electricity. So during the 1960s, we were very industrialized. But I mean, fast forward, demand has gone capacity. So we had to go into thermal fossil fuel thermal plants. Power became expensive. And then industries started disappearing. But then the first presence of Ghana, who facilitated the construction of the large hydro in Ghana. The next project was to build the nuclear. So we established the Ghana atomic energy Commission, which was the next base loose power to sustain the industrialization drive. But then for political reasons, it didn't happen. And then we rejuvenated our nuclear program in the 2016. I mean, just the same time when UAE was also, I mean, in the nuclear program. And then we did a step by step approach from the government's body. And then we support from the International Atomic Energy Agency. We established the Nuclear Regulatory Authority. And then we also have established the owner operator. So we have the three arms of, I'll say, institutions that will drive our nuclear program. So for now, we have completed phase one, per the IEA milestones. What we are doing now is that we've identified two sites where cabinet government has given approval for us to acquire those sites and do vendor studies, which will be vendor specific. And then the regulatory authority is also doing collaboration with other regulators all over the world. So that will be very strong to regulate our nuclear energy sector. The owner operator issued a request for information in 2021. And then we had about 15 vendor companies and countries, I mean, wanting to be the first company or country to plant our first nuclear power plants. And that's very interesting, because they realized that the Ghana have, I mean, the human resource to be able to go through the process of the planning. And in my old adage, in my Ghanaian adage, we say, if you climb a good tree, you'll be pushed, you'll be supported. So as the IEA realized the step by step approach that Ghana is going, we get all the support from the International Atomic Energy Agency. We've done our RFI, we've narrowed it down. Now we selected a few vendors that we are engaging one on one to finalize and then the timeline was that hopefully by the end of this year, we should pinpoint a particular vendor. So it could happen or it could happen in the first quarter of next year. But we foresee that by early 2026, we should be able to connect the four first concrete. So because based on our road map by early 2030, we should be able to connect a nuclear into our grid. And I came here with some of the documents of our energy transition, which shows that Ghana's nuclear program is not even tripling. In fact, it's, I don't, for the lack of better word, kind of going to be the new base load for Ghana and based on energy transition, nuclear is looking at almost 40% of our energy mix because we've exhausted all our large hydros and so and our gas resource is also finite. And we don't want to rely on importation of LNG because it affects energy security. So and we also want to be an electricity hub to be able to supply electricity to the landlocked countries. And the way we are positioned, we are centralizing the West African region. So we see Ghana as an opportunity for vendor companies or countries to take advantage of the energy poverty to address the energy poverty in West Africa and based on our political stability, the human resource and the history of our nuclear program. The vendors should see it as a very win-win situation. So I've made those documents available when we leave. Anybody can pick it up and see the roadmap for Ghana nuclear. So for Ghana nuclear is not, I'll say an option. It is a must. It is the way. I mean, without it, if we don't it now, we'll come back 10 years later and still come back to rates. And this is also one of the base load which will increase our renewable energy targets because as much as we say we are doing 10% renewable energy penetration of install capacity, we need a base load to support it. So without that clean base load, then the thinking of going solar and wind, I mean, will not be sustainable for industrialization drive. No, terrific. Lots going on in Ghana. And thanks for taking the leadership. I like the analogy of climbing a good tree. I think that's what nuclear is trying to do. And I think this three acts aspiration, we need to have that good support, right? This is terrific. Going back to Elena here, you mentioned evening as a catalyst, right, to achieve that zero nuclear objectives. Can you talk a little bit more about evening and the tools and how that may support? Absolutely. So we envision evening to have two different types of funds. And this is based on existing multilaterals, the ADB, for example, has this one will be the main fund, which will be the Ordinary Operations Fund. And that will be focused on projects, you're taking existing projects that already look bankable and kind of pushing them across the finish line. So filling in the gaps, for example, I mentioned the equity gap. So evening will have funding to provide equity for the projects that don't have it and need it. Also, as far as debt, even though we have debt from ECAs today, from very personal experience and actually negotiating with ECAs on packages to lend to nuclear projects, there's always a phase where you spend two to three years almost trying to convince the ECA that nuclear is safe, that it is secure, and that it can be built. And that is because ECAs typically don't have large nuclear portfolios. So they may have a technical expert in the room, but they're still essentially learning about nuclear every single time. Whereas Ibn as a nuclear focused IFI will skip that process, he will already know everything there is to know about the technology licensing risks, all of the, you know, special nuclear sauce, and it will only focus on the following. Is this project bankable? Is this project structured well? It'll also be able to come in early stage because right now when you have a project, there's no banker to talk to other than, you know, consultant, right, you can't go to a financial institution and say, can you give me advice on how to make this project bankable? So what happens is that contract assigns, project is structured, and then people look for financing and then it's too late, then the project is not bankable. So Ibn will be able to come in at very early stage to help drive projects towards that success. And also we're talking about gaps with SMR projects in particular, right, apart from just a few small projects, essentially demonstration projects, we don't have any SMRs operational. And in the United States, we have the DOE loan guarantee office that's ready to give away lots of money. But there are not that many takers because all of the electric utilities are sort of sitting in the sidelines are saying, yes, we want nuclear, we want 300 gigawatts, you know, eventually of SMRs, but we don't want to be the first, because we're looking at what happened with Vogel and Summer, and we do not want to be in that position, since these projects have not been demonstrated. So one of the things I've been discussed is risk insurance for these early stage projects, to be able to overcome that chicken and egg issue that we keep having in this industry, and Ibn will be able to provide that. And then the special operations fund will be more of a kind of a grant fund where you see technologies that are really key to unlocking that nuclear potential, whether it's advanced reactors, or even technologies in the supply chain, INC systems, fuel technologies, whatever it is, Ibn will actually be able to give out grants to those technologies, you know, without kind of expecting the rate of return that you expect in the ordinary operations fund. Fantastic. It seems like it would fill in a lot of the gaps that we see today. And I know Anna had mentioned earlier about the political support and public support, right, but maybe focusing more on the political support and made a question for you. We've seen quite a change, not only in the US, but in Europe, across Europe of favorable support politically towards Europe. In many member states that perhaps in the past had different positions. So very exciting to see that. I wonder what do you see as some of the progress that has been made in that front and perhaps some of the gaps from a financing standpoint that still remains in Europe and maybe what is the eutectonomy or maybe other aspects maybe you can elaborate a little bit. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think we, to sum it up, I think we're halfway between no nuclear and let's go for nuclear. So and going too little between terms of more detail, we see, I would say the change starts from, I would say it's really is already a bottom up logic we see here in many countries. So the change comes first from the citizens themselves and generally even the younger citizens. So it's very interesting to see that established political politicians in general are much more cautious even anti-nuclear in general than we see the younger generation. So it gives hope and I think it's an excellent development. That being said, as a consequence, it doesn't really translate yet in policies. We have had some success, you mentioned taxonomy, but unfortunately today beyond taxonomy, most of the EU funds are not eligible for nuclear and I think this was reminded by Nina. In some cases, in the EU, you look at the next number five, nuclear is quoted among sex trade, terrorist initiative, drug, like with the sectors that should be banned for nuclear. So it shows where we are starting, where we're coming from and I can say on that, we're still there. There is still a long journey to change this and we'd have to fight against some anti-nuclear countries which we will do all they can to prevent those funds to become eligible to nuclear. So I think we have to keep this in mind. That being said, we saw some good progress on the market reform, electricity market reform now provides CFD for nuclear as well. So I believe it's a very good achievement. The net zero industrial act, which is about under discussion we saw yesterday that they're in agreement within the council to include nuclear as a strategic, strategic sector to address, to address climate change and be, yeah, provide, contribute to net zero. So I think also it's interesting, it's a very interesting development. We say on the high nuclear hydrogen or low carbon hydrogen, unfortunately, we're going nearly nowhere to be honest. It's a lot of, it's a very small caveats that sort of introduce a notion that nuclear hydrogen can also be produced by something else than renewables to put it, but it's a very Byzantine way to actually consider nuclear as eligible to produce low carbon hydrogen. So there are very good progress, but there are still a lot of things to be done, and we really expect the next commission to tackle properly the gaps you were mentioning because, yeah, we need much, much stronger support. I believe if we want to achieve the eight gigawatt a year that was machining in the late 30s, 40s. That's, yeah, a lot of challenges still ahead for Europe. And looking at maybe that region of Central Eastern Europe, Romania in particular, a lot of, as you mentioned before, a lot of growth aspirations, particularly with small modular reactors, advanced reactors. And I wonder if you could talk to a little bit about, specifically on financing this growth, what are some of the support you need or the challenges that you see there that Romania will need to to deploy in your nuclear? Thank you so much for this very important question. Obviously, as you said earlier, and during this period at COP and, you know, all the time we've been talking about the nuclear projects and the financing is very important to have the government support, to have that political commitment on a medium to long-term basis, because all the nuclear projects they are strategically planning and they go beyond one election cycle. And we are very lucky in Romania that we have full support from the government, from the presidency, and from the parliament, and as I said, from the public as well. We just passed the legislation that is supporting our plan on the nuclear, that includes, as I mentioned, the new build of two reactors, the refurbishment of one reactor called Unit 1, and plus the deployment of the SMRs. So having that full commitment support from the, and this law was passed at the cabinet level in the government, but it was approved in the parliament as well, and it was signed off by the president as well. So you have all the political support that you needed, and with that comes the financial commitment, meaning that all the, you know, behind those projects is the financial commitment from, from, from the Romanian state. And that makes life easier when you go to other financial institutions. If I was mentioning the developments of the EU level, where Romania, nuclear electrica, so Romania is through nuclear electrica as well, along with other state players, you know, from the Ministry of Energy and from the presidency and so forth, so forth. We've been up there battling not just for the taxonomy, but from the net industrial act, the critical mineral act, and all the, all the discussions and battles that we are, you know, winning and continue to fight for, to, to be won. In our case, in particular, we are very happy and grateful that the USXCM, the DFC, the USTDA, and the Canadians, the Koreans, they all pledge letters of interest to support our deployment on the, on the nuclear program, so the two new build of the reactors plus the SMRs. But when it comes to the financing, so that's in our case, we, we, practically, we have, as you can say, and I'm not talking here with subjectivity, it's just the reality. We have a good strategy in place and we are implementing it and we took all the necessary measures to, to close all the gaps, including in terms of the finance, but the lesson learned is that practically to have the discussions with more, you know, with the World Bank and other stakeholders, but I think one important aspect, probably we might need to shift the discussion from the levelized cost of the electricity to levelize the voided cost of electricity. So I think in other words, as we've been saying, including yesterday, not to see the nuclear as being cost, spending, but actually an investment. So if we shift that from the levelized cost of electricity to levelized, avoided of cost of electricity, in other words, how much is going to cost you if you really don't have the nuclear, you know, when you do the math, you realize that actually it might look expensive at the beginning, but in the end of the day, it's actually one of the most affordable and cheaper sources of energy, not just in terms of the energy, but always all the other benefits, because I would like to, to praise the IEA. I went to the office less than a week ago in Vienna and I was incredibly impressed and even to me it was new news, how many benefits you can have from nuclear, because we've been looking just on the electricity and we've been looking on the hydrogen, we've been looking at the health, but I didn't realize on the water, for example, that actually practically nuclear could determine the age of the water and that it shows that you could actually really help the countries that are having severe shortage of water and that's about livelihood, that's about, you know, human rights, basic human rights, same with the agriculture and so on, so forth, I guess in order to tackle the financing, maybe we should need to speak up more about the overall benefits the nuclear is providing and I think, yeah, we need to continue to educate the financial institutions to really start investing and financing those. Thanks Anna for making us think the other way around, right, I mean this is a different way of looking at this challenge, which is we all need to be doing that, and Robert as we look at Ghana and the challenges it all has from building and deploying a nuclear fleet, right, from from scratch, the natural thing is to focus on the nuclear plant itself, but there are many other investments that one needs, right, in terms of the upfront site assessment characterization, as you mentioned, the capacitation of human resources and training, the licensing, could you speak to the what kind of major funding and support that you see overall in the constraints that you see in financing in Ghana? Okay, thank you very much, I'll say our government has really, I mean supported the nuclear program very, very well, I mean last year in July the president announced, I was issued a white paper on the full support of nuclear, I mean inviting vendors and then launching, adoring the FIS 1 documents, this year he was at the IEA General Assembly to give his support to our quest to go nuclear. So for some time now, up to this stage, our nuclear program has been fully funded by the government of Ghana, all the works must be done by human resources and also with support from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IEA, mostly when we are stuck somewhere, we seek for assistance, they provide us with experts, but in FIS 2, you cannot do that anymore, you need consultants, you need hard cash, you need a serious commitment to do a lot of studies, especially on the identified sites. So this is where we are now looking to partner with the vendor to make sure that whatever is we are doing is vendor specific, we don't do it and vendor comes in and becomes an additional cost, I mean to us. So the financing has become a bit difficult because currently some African countries are under the IMF program, including Ghana and so we have to be very prudent with our expenditure and we have a nuclear program on our national agenda which has a huge upfront cost, so it's a bit tricky now and this is when we will need a lot of funding of financial advice from consultants in the nuclear space to be able to advise us on how to navigate in these difficult waters, else we will deepen our energy poverty in the face of trying to address our financial situation, we will end up worse because our industries will collapse, we will lose the market, the export market for electricity exports and those are the challenges. So addressing this financial part of where we have reached of the face to which is very critical is also very, very, very critical for us to move forward and I agree with my colleague here from Romania that vendors should look at it in the other angle, that nuclear doesn't only supply power, it also leads to industrial growth, alleviate poverty and we are able to meet the SDGs, I mean by 2030, if you're able to aggressively promote our nuclear projects. A lot needs to happen, a lot of work ahead for phase two for sure, maybe going back to Alina here, Alina you're in, based on your long experience with Pillsbury, you've seen a lot of things happen here and when we look at financing of nuclear projects, it's not a one-size-fits-all right, there are many different characteristics, I wonder if you could speak a little bit about the challenges of attracting financing for projects worldwide and how evening can perhaps support that? Yeah, absolutely, I've seen so many projects that have done most things right, but have always just assumed that the money will come eventually, right, there's a vendor that has a good technology, many cases of proven technology, they go into market that needs nuclear, that has good government support policy, but there's no funding available, right, the money just doesn't come because we do not have global financial markets supporting nuclear, so a lot of times is the vendor coming to, let's say, the host country government and asking them to provide some investment, which until recently we're starting to see that now a little bit, for example, the UK government, you know, kind of is the unprecedented thing, right, that they said they're actually going to invest into a size well, but that took more than a decade of discussions about the UK government needs to invest something and it's still fairly minimal compared to the size of the project, right, and other governments simply don't have the funding to do this, you know, as Robert mentioned, countries, you know, in Africa, it's simply not in a financial condition to do this, so you see a lot of time sort of being wasted, a lot of money being wasted because, you know, it costs sometimes two billion dollars just to get the project to a stage where you can talk to financiers and then when there's no money available, the project unfortunately dies, right, and we don't have time to waste, you know, we need to get, you know, 3x net zero, that's that's the baseline, right, we need to get much higher than that, so that's really, you know, one of the big reasons for this kind of very transformative solution with Ebni, right, is to have something to have the money and the tools available at the very start for those projects that needed to be able to move them forward in a smart way, and to not spend years developing something that may or may not, you know, find money in the market, and I think one thing I didn't address in my initial presentation, which we, the question that we get a lot is, you know, okay, this is this is great, the concept is wonderful, but really going to stand up a brand new IFI, I mean, that sounds, you know, very difficult, but if you look at the history of how other MDBs and IFIs have been stood up, it has, in fact, when you had the political support, it's been done in about two years, less than that in some cases, and I think right now we're really at a pinnacle of support for nuclear, you know, globally, of course, there are some outliers, you know, in the U.S., you know, in Washington, D.C., and Congress cannot agree on anything, but they agree on nuclear, it's bipartisan, many countries are the same, pushing forward with nuclear, but if we don't make that happen in the next couple of years, I think that support could wane because we won't be actually, you know, putting these projects online, so, you know, the political support is there, of course, we need to instrumentalize it and create, you know, the evening treaty, make it happen, but I really think just from my very personal experience working on projects that could have been successful, that were not because the money wasn't there, you know, I think it could really unlock a lot of financing for those sets of projects. Excellent, excellent, so we've come to the end of our hour here, I think this is an incredible topic too, we could have continued for quite a while, but so we're excited, obviously, to all that's happening with the pledges and the growth of nuclear, one of the key challenges being the financing stream is one that I think we talked today and there's a lot of work ahead here that each one of us will continue to work on, so with that I would like to thank the IEA and the Deputy Director Liu for for sharing the space for this conversation and please help me thank the panelists for being here today, thank you.