 Welcome back everyone. Great to have you all with us, still quite a few people in the room and hopefully also online following us here as we finish off session one of this year's scientific forum. And as you know we're talking about innovations in the nuclear sector and including innovations that especially can help boost nuclear share in the clean energy mix. We have three more presentations now on advances that enhance the continuity, the resilience, the flexibility and the security of existing power plants. And we begin with our first speaker, Dario del Mastro. He is engineering manager at CARM, which is the first nuclear power plant fully designed and built in Argentina. And his topic, his title is long-term operation of the current fleet and development of new SMR capacity. So we'll hear from him in a video and then go to questions later. Good afternoon. My name is Dario del Mastro. Today I will present long-term operation of the current nuclear fleet and SMR deployment, the Argentinian case. Argentina has three nuclear power plants in operation. As such a two nuclear power plant has started commercial operation on May 26th, 2016. The plant successfully reached criticality on January 4th, 2019. The cost of the project was more than 2,000 used million dollars. A major milestone of the project were replacements of 380 fuel channels, replacements of 760 feeders, replacements of all forced generators. Every component of the nuclear horizon replaced was fully manufactured in the country. Atucha-1 nuclear power plant reached its end of life in 2018. The objective is to extend its life 24 full power years. The long-term operation of Atucha-1 nuclear power plant has two stages. In the first stage, the target is to maintain the present licensing base. The second stage aims to raise as far as possible the safety level online in model regulations and the state of arms. In 2018, the regulatory body approved the beginning of the first stage for five full power years. In March 2020, the documentation related to the second stage was presented to the regulatory board. IEA has conducted two present review missions of the Atucha-1 life extension project. Argentina is developing an SMR. The project is called the current project. The current project consists of the development, design, and construction of SMRs based on integrated pressurized water reactors. This project allows Argentina to sustain activities in the nuclear power plant designer and construction area, assuring the availability of updated technology in the mid-term. The design basis is supported by the cumulative experience of working reserve reactor design, construction, and operation, and pressurized heavy water reactors, nuclear power plant operation, maintenance, and improvement, as well as the finalization of Atucha-2 and the development of one's design solution. Aim to export nuclear power plants in a competitive market by giving experience with research reactors. Argentina has exported several research reactors to different targets. The current is the future. In the primary cooling system, primary cooling by natural circulation, self-pressurized, safety system relying on passive features. This means that it can have 36 hours of grace period. The grace period can be extended by simple systems supported by autonomous systems that provide core and containment cooling and reactor pressure balances and spend fuel pool refilling. We can compare current with the classic PWR. In the classic PWR, we have the pressure vessel with the core. We have the steam generators, the pressurizers, the connecting lines, the pumps, and the control line mechanism. In current, all these components are inside in single pressure vessel. The core, the steam generator, the control line mechanism are inside the reactor pressure vessel, one reactor pressure vessel. We don't have pumps because we use natural circulation in the primaries. One important point in the development of the SMR current is the prototype. The aims of the prototype are to provide the same basis for commercial current nuclear power plants to facilitate the licensing process of the commercial current nuclear power plant to generate development activities within the Energy Commission in Argentina, its associated companies, and the private industry in Argentina. This means supplier development to facilitate export of nuclear power plants in a competitive market like previous experience with research projects. Current prototype is under construction. Here we can see some pictures about the construction status. In the left side, we can see a picture of the site, where we can see the building and the containment and the construction. In the right side, we see a picture of part of the pressure vessel that is being constructed in Argentina. This is the first time AMS means some pressure vessel is being constructed in Argentina. In conclusion, the long-term operation of the current fleet provides energy in a safe and reliable way for several million people. It diversifies the energy metric contributing to self-sufficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, current lowers outlay of capital, adds flexibility to be adapted to site requirements, facilitates installation in a remote location, and balances electricity. As flexibility to complement renewable energy sources and allows export to other countries. Thank you for your attention. And a bit later, we will come back to Q&A's, including to that speaker and to our following speakers. Breakthroughs in science and engineering can help keep existing nuclear power plants operating longer. Something which has been mentioned in several of our presentations so far today as a means, among others, of ensuring recovery of capital costs. We hear now about what some of those breakthroughs are from A.K. Balasubramanian. He's director at the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited and is responsible for design, technology development, health, and environment safety functions. We see him on video. Ladies and gentlemen, greetings of the day. Developing tools and technologies required for keeping the operating fleet operating longer and safer is very vital. I'm going to share in my presentation the Indian experience on this topic. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited under the Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India, operates a fleet of 22 reactors consisting of 18 pressurized water reactors which is based on indigenous technology, two boiling water reactors, and two pressurized water reactors. There are also six NPPs under construction and 14 NPPs already sanctioned. I must mention here that there is a robust safety review mechanism existing in the country. Now, if you look at the age of the operating fleet, it varies between less than 10 years to more than 50 years. Let me briefly tell you two important milestones achieved by the Indian operating fleet. The first one, one of the pressurized water reactors at Kaiga Generating Station operated continuously for 962 days, thus creating a world record on this. Also, the earliest reactors in the country, namely the BWRs at Tarapur Atomic Power Station, completed 50 years of operation. My talk essentially covers deployment of technology for more effective and efficient in-service inspection and refurbishment in order to ensure safe and long operation of NPPs. Let me introduce the concept of pressurized water reactors. These are pressure tube type reactors with short-length fuel bundles of natural uranium. Therefore, there is a requirement of on-power refueling, which is done using what are known as fueling machines. Heavy water is a moderator and coolant. Now, these pressure tubes while in operation undergo degradation due to irradiation within the reactor. Therefore, in-service inspection is required on a regular basis to assess the various changes that take place in terms of geometry or the material properties, and then analysis to confirm fitness for review. A large number of tools have been developed indigenously for this purpose. Now, based on this inspection and analysis, the pressure tubes, the entire pressure tubes from the reactor may be required to be replaced with new ones. This is termed as NMAS channel replacement EMCCR. Along with this, the corresponding pipelines are also replaced, which is again known as NMAS feeder replacement. This is a very comprehensive technology which requires a lot of precision because we are talking about core components. This technology has been mastered and successfully deployed in many of our earlier reactors. In this context, let me mention the various laser applications developed. Now, laser applications are developed considering the access limitations precision required for cutting of reactor components or welding or repair, et cetera. Now, let me move on to the boiling water reactors. It is very vital, very important to ensure the health of the reactor pressure vessel. A dedicated, indigenously developed tool named as Barvis has been developed in the country and deployed successfully for many campaigns. Based on the results, detailed analysis is carried out to demonstrate the healthiness of the reactor pressure vessel. Another example of refurbishment of units is brought out in this slide. This is with respect to the moderator flow within the calentria that is the reactor vessel. Because of a failure in moderator inlet lines, refurbishment was called for and extensive analysis and development of technology resulted in the entire flow path being reinstalled, reinstated. Thereby, the units were brought back to full power operation. In conclusion, let me say that the country has a continuing nuclear power program with a mix of old, medium-aged and new NPPs, thereby providing rich operating experience. Development of tools and technology for effective and efficient in-service inspection and refurbishment of reactor in core components has been done successfully. It is also pertinent to mention here that ALARA is always the guiding principle and this provides opportunity, ample opportunity to innovate in terms of time and dose management. Thanks for your attention, ladies and gentlemen. And we will shortly have the opportunity also to pose questions to that speaker. One of the biggest challenges associated with modern energy systems is not only fluctuating supply from variable renewables, that's been mentioned several times, but also fluctuations in demand. And as our next speaker explains, nuclear power can serve as a crucial system stabilizer also in respect to demand, as was evident during the recent COVID lockdown when energy demand plunged dramatically. We see now the video presentation of Cedric Lewandowski. He is Group Senior Executive Vice President Nuclear and Thermal at EDF Electricité de France. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, in October last year, I had the great honor to make a presentation in Vienna at the International Conference on Climate Change and the role of nuclear power. One year after, I still have the same firm convictions. Nuclear energy has a major role to play in the world energy scene today and tomorrow. The COVID crisis has highlighted the crucial need for resilient electricity systems. Nuclear power is key to make this resilience real, namely, first, in the short run, ensure continuity and stability of power supply. Second, longer term, maintain global temperatures well below two degrees to avoid adding a climate crisis to a sanitary crisis. And three, create jobs and develop domestic industries to revive our economies. The COVID pandemic has emphasized the crucial contribution of nuclear power to maintain the lights on in time of crisis. First, nuclear has showed a strong resilience in terms of plant availability. Global nuclear generation has been remarkably stable during the crisis. Plant availability has been ensured at all times. In France, this has been possible thanks to pandemic plans designed after the H1N1 crisis of 2009. Continuous improvements of such plans will have to be done, notably by enlarging the scope to the supply chain. Reactor's maintenance has been pursued with new working procedures factoring in the need for social distancing. Medium plants, shutdowns have rapidly been reoptimized to integrate these new procedures demand evolution while maximizing the level of firm capacity during peak load. Second, nuclear flexibility has shown its value. During the lockdown, French electricity consumption went down by about 15%. Generation was ensured by hydro and nuclear plants with more or less fatal renewables. The flexibility of EDF nuclear feed has been precious and extensively used. The number of flowed variations of reactors has increased by 50%, reaching the level we plan to live by 2025 or 2030 with more renewables. This episode confirms our studies showing that French nuclear reactors can sustain the changes forecasted in the next decades and secure a reliable super low-carbon electricity mix. Third, nuclear is a key asset to face more weather-dependent electricity system and extreme weather events. Nuclear in France made possible to keep the lights on with zero-carbon electricity even during periods of very low renewables generation. Beyond the COVID crisis, nuclear has demonstrated its resilience to extreme cold when heat and electricity demand are high, renewables generation is low, and gas for power is scarce. Extreme heat events pose different challenges for nuclear, notably the cooling of riverside reactors. In France, in the next decades, this should remain a water quality issue, namely a question of downstream water temperature rather than a question of physical scarcity of water. As experienced during the 2003 HETWAVE, integrated management of upstream hydrodams and nuclear plants is a powerful tool to maintain water temperature below regulatory thresholds. Longer term, other solutions exist from regulatory evolution, specific water sharing rules during contingency to air cooling in combination with a smart electricity mix that leverages on the complementarity of nuclear and renewables. Lastly, I would like to stress how important the experience sharing between nuclear operators has been during the COVID crisis. Since its inception, nuclear power is collaborative. Operators know the immense value of information exchanges and the WANO and IAEA platforms have played an essential role to enhance nuclear resilience during this challenging period. Longer term, nuclear is essential to a climate resilient world. There is daunting evidence now that there will be no success in fighting climate change without nuclear. Renewables will have a key role to play. They will not be enough. The pace of investments in renewables should be two to three times more important than today. Low energy density of renewables constraints their real potential with growing acceptability challenges and tests the limits of grid development. Nuclear is an unrivaled booster of decarbonization. One gigawatt of new nuclear can eliminate two to four times more emissions than any other existing technology. Six million tons a year when it replaces coal. Three million tons a year when it replaces gas. To utilize nuclear's thermal heat and electricity will also be key to produce clean hydrogen. In reality, we have no other option than to leverage the complementarity of energy efficiency, renewable sources and nuclear power. Lastly, nuclear is an essential pillar of resilient economies. Nuclear power is a major driver of economic growth. First, it is a powerful driver of innovation that pulls a major R&D ecosystem from fundamental physics to new materials and additive manufacturing, instrumentation, robotics and digital technologies. In addition, with rapidly developing SMR projects, we are riding a new wave of innovation. Second, nuclear is a strong provider of sustainable jobs. In France, the nuclear industry means 220,000 jobs or 7% of industrial jobs in the country. These are high-skill and well-paid jobs. More than three-quarters of them are for managers, supervisors or specialized technicians. Third, nuclear enhances competitiveness. By keeping low carbon electricity prices affordable, nuclear power makes business more competitive and boosts consumer purchasing power. This is true with existing power plants. Extending the operation of existing nuclear is the cheapest means of generating zero carbon electricity. This is true for new nuclear with series effects, standardization, top-quality industrial ecosystem and, most importantly, long-term contracts and lower capital costs, thanks to a smart risk allocation between stakeholders and the state. Nuclear is also a key source of energy sovereignty. It reduces energy imports in many countries. Nuclear-cuts-Francis gas imports by 60 giga cubic meters a year, more than 1.4 times its current consumption. It avoids around 10 billion euros per year of energy imports and delivers a net export balance of 2 billion euros. More fundamentally, in countries developing nuclear, it is an engine to the development of a domestic high-end industrial ecosystem. Nuclear has played an essential role in emergency plants. It has a critical role to play in recovery plants and our energy future. Thank you for your attention. Let's stay with the system stabilizing effects of nuclear power used in conjunction with renewables for our last presentation in session one. It focuses on the mechanisms of that nexus between renewables and nuclear power. Addressing how smart grids and AI, has also been mentioned several times already today, can integrate renewables and nuclear sources to get the most out of both. Our speaker is Mr. Che Yong Lim. He is the Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, ladies and gentlemen from all around the world. It's my honor to share the idea about the role of nuclear power in newly emerging electricity system called smart grid. Let me start with showing the layout of conventional power grid. In the conventional power grid, electricity is generated mostly from large-scale power plants such as coal, gas, oil, and nuclear. And then it flows in one way from generation to consumption through transmission and distribution lines. In this case, balancing electricity demand and supply is quite straightforward. Once demand changes, peak load power units, like gas power plants, which can easily change its power level, adapt the supply, and nuclear power plants generate electricity at maximum capacity most of the time. However, as a significant amount of renewable power plants and energy storage devices join the grid, balancing the grid becomes extremely complex. First, new grid elements connected to the consumer domain such as photovoltaics, electric vehicles, and energy storage systems induces bi-directional power flow and increases grid complexity. Second, in order to cope with the changing grid environment, convergence with the communication networks was achieved. Now the grid generates not only electricity, but also energy big data, and it becomes smart. I would say it is kind of paradigm shift. That's what we call smart grid. Smart grid is characterized by bi-directional flow of electricity and information. Through these changes, new concepts and applications are possible in the smart grid. Smart grid drives various business opportunities as shown in this slide. And it changes the electricity market structures as well. Where is the nuclear industry's position in the changing electricity ecosystems? A major trend of smart grid can be summarized as decentralization and intelligence. But nuclear industry still restrains its role as a chip-stable large-scale base load power source in conventional grid. I think that smart grid is big challenge to the nuclear industry, but at the same time, great chances for reforming and reborn the industry. I strongly believe that with advanced technologies, nuclear power can play diverse roles within the expanded boundary of smart grid. To secure its competitive edge in the smart grid system, nuclear power should address two important issues. That is flexible operation and scalable installation. In conventional grid, nuclear plants operate at full capacity as a base load generator. But under increasing market penetration of renewable power, the flexible operation becomes important to cope with intermittent renewable generation. To play an important role in the decentralized power grid, a smaller capacity nuclear power plant is needed. In conjunction with smart grid, small modular reactor or SMR could be a good solution because it is able to provide flexibility and scalability. However, we should not achieve flexibility and scalability at the cost of safety and economics. To ensure safety during flexible operation, optimized and automated reactor control is required. SMR has the advantage to materialize those control mechanisms and also to realize the inherent safety concept. In general, nuclear power plant construction operation follows economics of scale. So, it is not so easy to make SMR more economical than large nuclear power plant. Innovative concepts such as factory-made autonomous operation will be a solution for improving economics of SMR. To realize those concepts, nuclear industry should adopt newly emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analysis, Internet of Things, three-dimensional printing technologies, and so on. In line with this vision, Korea is conducting research and development for enhancing the competitiveness of nuclear power plant. We are working on an SMR called SMART and we developed a digital twin of nuclear plant, intelligent monitoring and diagnosis systems, operation automation technologies, etc. With that, I am sure the role of nuclear power in the changing electricity market will be enlarged. Thank you for your attention. We now have an opportunity to pose questions to three of those four speakers. Mr. Levandrowski from Electricité de France unfortunately couldn't join us for the Q&A, but we welcome your questions to any of the other speakers we have just heard. Is there someone in the room who would like to get us started with a question? Okay, please. And again, if you would tell us who you are and where you're from, that'd be great. First of all, thank you very much. My name is Amir Manzoor from Palmer Mission of Pakistan. My question is to Cedric from EDF. I'm sorry, he's not with us. He's the one who cannot join us. Cedric Levandrowski is not with us. Do you have a question for one of the others? Yes, unfortunately couldn't join for the Q&A. So that was okay. Then thank you. Sorry. Anyone else in the room have a question for one of the others? Go ahead, please. Hi, thank you. I'm Ingrid Kirsten from the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation. I just wanted to ask the gentleman from the Korean Atomic Energy Institute if he could just talk a bit more about this power plant that they're developing. He said it was called the SMART, if I heard correctly. Is it an SMR or if he could just tell us a bit more about that. Thanks. Okay. Thank you for your question. SMART is a SMR. We already developed for 10 years and it's a 100 megawatt electricity power and it is so-called integrated types. So it's quite different from conventional big-size nuclear power plant. So it has quite advanced safety features and we already get the design certificate from Korean regulators. It means we are ready to sell in the market. Thank you for your question. Thank you. Other questions here in the room for one of these three speakers? Go ahead, please. Rene Burkart, Switzerland. You mentioned SMART being developed since a long time and you say you want to go to the market. I think you're talking to the Saudi Arabians on SMART. Do you also build one in South Korea which would increase your the possibility to sell abroad? Unfortunately, Korea with the electricity demand is rather saturated. So I don't believe we have a chance to build SMART inland. But as you already mentioned, we have a cooperation with the Kingdom of South Saudi Arabia. So we jointly designed the SMART to build the first unit of SMART in Saudi Arabia. This project is going on. Thank you. Thank you very much. Other questions here in the room? Go ahead, please. Sorry, me again for Korea. You said that it's not easy to make an SMART more economical than a large nuclear power build. Could you talk to me about that? Because I specifically thought it would be financially more viable to do SMARTs easier to finance or not easier to finance but in terms of the hours, the people hours, the training hours, the amount of people that you need to work on an SMR to develop it and then to work on it, it will be cheaper and easier than a traditional nuclear power build. Well, when we talk about the economics of nuclear power plant, there are so many different aspects. As we mentioned, there should be some investment aspect. Of course, SMR requires a small amount of money to put in when you build a new one. So in that case, SMR has advantages to the bigger power plant. But what I'm saying is not so easy to compete with a bigger nuclear power plant means well, in terms of levelized generation cost of whole time period, where economy of scale is quite clear. So we should develop SMR to compensate those disadvantages of economy of scales. So we introduce new ideas how we can improve the economics of SMR. For example, we simplify the safety systems, introducing passive and inherent safety features, and we also introduce the innovative manufacturing systems. So our target is to fabricate most of the part in the factories and just installed in the site. So in that way, you can improve the SMR economics. But right now, I think the economics of SMR is not reached to the level of the big size nuclear power plant. Thank you. Thank you. Let me go now. So, okay, please. One way from agency, nuclear energy department. I just follow what has been mentioned by the panelists. And regarding this topic, we agency observing the great interest among the member states on the economic issues related to the SMR. So in order to collect more information from member states, we launched a new coordinated research program focusing on SMR economics. So we receive quite a number of proposals from all member states. So we reflect great interest on this topic. So we're working on that. Thank you very much for that comment. Let me perhaps ask Jeff what is coming in from our online audience. Thank you, Melinda. We have a couple of questions starting with Argentina. The question is, when do you expect the Kerem prototype construction to be completed? Are you looking at any export markets in particular, such as in the developing world? And do you see a market niche for your success vis-à-vis the major nuclear vendors? Mr. de Mastro, your camera seems to be off. Can you put it back on? Okay. Mr. de Mastro, are you still with us? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Great. Can you see me? There we go. We see you. We hear you. Please go ahead. Okay. Thank you for the question. We expect to get the prototype critical in 2023 after longer preliminary tests from the reactor using, for instance, an internal heat source, the external heat source. We have a broad experience exporting research reactors. Argentina has developed that market for research reactors, and we are planning to follow the trend with, so we believe that we will have a reasonable market in developing countries. We are also thinking in Argentina, and we expect to get some success with the success of the research reactor in the process. Okay. Unfortunately, we have a bit of dropout, but your answer was largely understandable. Jeff, do you have other questions from the online audience? Yeah. We have one more for the panelists from India. The question is about long-term operation. Does India have any limits on the length of long-term operation, lifetime operation? And what is your view of the 80-years lifetime operation that we've seen in the United States? Do you feel this requires significant innovations? Yeah. Thank you for the question. Right now, we have the design life of about 40 years operation, and the system we follow is a safety review at a frequency of 10 years. Right now, this is the method we are following for continued operation. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to try to pose a question to Mr. Dimastro. Perhaps we have a better connection now. You are, of course, a frontrunner in the SMR development, so I wonder if you can say something to us about the degree to which you can gauge public acceptance of greater use of this technology. Could you hear me? Yes, so far. There are some delays. Okay. In Argentina, the experience we have had is that we have had no problem explaining the people this new technology. In the Argentinian case, fortunately, we have a long tradition with nuclear, and people is quite proud of nuclear and has trust in the local industry. So, it was not difficult for us to explain our proposal. We get very good access there, but the local people. Thanks very much. And I'll also put a question if I may to Mr. Balasubramanian, which relates to the technical challenges. What you see as the main technical challenges associated with extending the lifespan of current reactors? Yes. Thank you. I will talk in the context of pressurized review order reactors, where the major challenge is the life limitation posed by the coolant channels, that is the pressure tubes. All other systems and components generally have a longer life. However, the replacement of these pressure tubes is a technology that has been now mastered. And we are able to do that in a shorter span of time and within the man drum budget. Nevertheless, it is important to continue to improve the fineness of this technology so that we reduce the downtime during this replacement event. Thank you. Thank you very much. And also a question if I may to Che Yong Lim, and it relates to the flexibility and scalability of nuclear power in regions or countries where smart grids aren't common yet. You made a very interesting strong case for using smart grids, AI and so on, in conjunction with or to integrate renewables and nuclear. But what about countries that aren't yet moving forward rapidly on smart grid? Well, in case of the conventional market or big one mega grid market, of course, traditional role of nuclear power plant still remains significant. However, even in that market, flexibility will be a kind of necessary condition for the power plant, including nuclear power, because more and more new technologies which influence the stability of power grid will be introduced near future. So we cannot avoid this situation in the future. And in terms of scalability, I think scalability will be crucial for the penetrating nuclear power plant into small grid markets. So I think in the nuclear industry, you should focus on these flexibility and scalability issues. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me just ask whether there's any one last question in the room or online. Yes, please, Jeff. There's one more bit similar on SMR economics, but maybe it can be answered from a different angle. The question is, what should be done to make SMRs more economically viable? If they aren't economically superior to large reactors, how can they be designed, how can they be viewed as the design of the future, and how long will it take to make them economically viable? Okay. Perhaps shall we ask you to take that one again, Taehyung Lim? Yes. This is my personal opinion. I believe maybe in 10 or 20 years, I think SMR will compete with the nuclear power plant. Well, for that purpose, we should introduce so-called innovative approaches. We should introduce innovative designs, I already mentioned, for the simplification of these design features. And we should introduce innovative fabrication technologies. I already mentioned in my slide is a three-dimensional printing fabrication systems and so on. And we also focused on how we can make the business model for the SMR, because those financing is very crucial to improve the economics of SMR. So once we achieve those things, I think maybe in 10 years, SMR will compete with the big nuclear power plant, I think. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thanks to all three of you for being with us for this dialogue. We will now give you a very warm round of applause, which you will receive virtually.