This transcript was created using transcription software.
10:00:04:19 - 10:00:09:19
Kassandra
Hey, and welcome to The Dip, the podcast that's bringing you money stories across borders. I'm Kassandra.
10:00:09:23 - 10:00:26:20
Kai
And I'm Kai. And in a bit we're going to talk about small modular reactors, the latest buzzword in the nuclear energy stratosphere. But are they actually ready to roll out of the factory, or are they more a bit of a hot air situation?
10:00:26:22 - 10:00:32:10
Kassandra
But we're starting today with a topic that almost feels a bit science fiction.
10:00:32:12 - 10:00:45:09
Kai
Yes. Is it worth going to the moon? I always have to think about Despicable Me and the minions who are trying to steal the moon. About the moon? Any cultural reference that you have?
10:00:45:09 - 10:01:01:05
Kassandra
I have to confess, I haven't seen any of the Despicable Me or Minions movies, so I'm very like, not of the culture. And I know I'm going to sound incredibly pretentious, but there's this Emily Saint Mendel book called Sea of Tranquility that's a has a couple of different timelines, and one part of it takes place in the moon.
10:01:01:07 - 10:01:15:14
Kassandra
And she's drew this like picture of colonies on the moon being, like, really bright because they're lit by, like, moonlight all the time. And that's what really sticks out for me. But the other one, if I'm if I'm going to not sink down to like, calm down.
10:01:15:15 - 10:01:17:06
Kai
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
10:01:17:08 - 10:01:32:03
Kassandra
There was this movie, it was a remake of The Time Machine with Guy Pearce like 20 years ago. And in it, when he goes to the future, at one point, he looks up and the moon is in pieces because they had been mining it. And then it's in, like, a bunch of, like, it's basically really messed up.
10:01:32:05 - 10:01:40:00
Kassandra
So, they made mistakes in the future. So yeah, those are like the two kind of moon pop culture touch points that I have.
10:01:40:01 - 10:02:00:03
Kai
Okay, space mining is a really good thing that we're going to get into today. Obviously all of this is quite expensive. If we only look at the Apollo missions, it's set back the US taxpayer like 300, 350 billion USD. The Artemus mission right now is standing at 93 billion, and it's not going to get any cheaper.
10:02:00:05 - 10:02:13:04
Kassandra
That's right. And to talk about this more, we're joined by Phillip metzger. Not only is he a physicist, but he also spent 30 years at NASA. And today he's working developing technology for space mining at the University of Central Florida.
10:02:13:04 - 10:02:23:14
Kai
Phil, you were at NASA when two moon missions basically got sacked. What? What changed now? Like, why why are we going back now?
10:02:23:16 - 10:02:47:16
Phil
Yeah. So, it was a big shock to us when the constellation program was canceled. We thought we were going back to the moon and then on to Mars. But the, It's always been a political fight in the US because of budget. And, so when the presidential administration changes, they changed their priorities. And for a while they wanted us to focus on asteroids.
10:02:47:18 - 10:03:05:23
Phil
In fact, we used to have a joke that one political party, the moon, and the other political party was asteroids, and then the libertarians were Mars. But, it's not so much a line that way anymore. I think there's a convergence now that we're we're going to focus on the moon first, but also prepare for Mars.
10:03:06:00 - 10:03:17:02
Kassandra
You know, I hear this kind of like space race buzz around this particular trip to the moon, but what exactly is the advantage of getting there first?
10:03:17:04 - 10:04:05:05
Phil
Yeah. So it really does make a big difference. The the world is looking at at the competence of countries like the United States and China and Russia. And so in making decisions about the future of all these different countries, their leaders have to decide, are they going to align more with Western countries, or are they going to align more with China or Russia and the competence that's displayed by all of these countries, by Russia and China and the US and Europe demonstrates that we're either worthy of long term alliance for developing technology and developing infrastructure or or maybe the adversaries are more worthy of it.
10:04:05:07 - 10:04:25:07
Phil
And so, it leads to deals, building, Navy shipyards in South America or Africa so that you can get submarine bases in the Atlantic and, it makes a real difference how you project your country's technological competence.
10:04:25:09 - 10:04:39:22
Kai
So the moon is also quite big, like, roughly the size of Africa. If we do a size comparison, aren't there, you know, enough lucrative landing spots for China and the US on on the moon?
10:04:39:24 - 10:05:00:08
Phil
That's a great question. And, in a sense, yes. There's there's no shortage of space on the moon. But I want to point out two things that will constrain that. The first problem is that the moon is an airless body. It doesn't have a thick atmosphere like the Earth. And so when you land, you have to use rocket engines.
10:05:00:09 - 10:05:28:06
Phil
You can't use parachutes, you can't use wings. And when you land with a rocket blast on lunar soil and dust, it gets accelerated to the speed of the rocket exhaust, which exceeds lunar escape velocity. And so that ejecta then blows outward and there's nothing to slow it down. There's no air to stop it. And so here on the earth, our intuition is that blast effects are localized.
10:05:28:08 - 10:06:00:07
Phil
But on the moon, they're not. They're global. And so that means that the effect of landing in one location is going to extend over tens and hundreds of kilometers. So that does put a constraint on sharing the space on the moon. The second challenge is that the moon has a very unique, thermal and daylight environment because it's tidally locked to the Earth, and therefore one lunar day is equal to 29.5 Earth days.
10:06:00:09 - 10:06:22:12
Phil
And so half of that is night. And so you've got to develop technologies that can survive super cold night with no solar power. And, however, there are a few unique locations on the moon near the poles. We call them the peaks of Eternal Light. That's kind of a silly name, but, because that's.
10:06:22:14 - 10:06:25:00
Kai
Yeah, it is, it is, it is.
10:06:25:02 - 10:06:53:12
Phil
It's giving the image of, you know, you've climbed up to this mountain and there's a guru sitting there waiting and so but the thing is, they have, long day and short night, and so you can get daylight on these peaks for, for 20 out of the 29 days of the lunar cycle. And, these peaks happen to be right next to the locations where there's ice, because down in those craters next to them, there's no sunlight, ever.
10:06:53:14 - 10:07:14:13
Phil
And that's where the ice collected. And so my opinion that is the most valuable real estate in the entire solar system is out of Earth's gravity. Well, it's, so that you can use resources in space at low cost. It also is outside of Earth's environment. So the industrial things we do don't impact the environment of our planet.
10:07:14:15 - 10:07:35:18
Phil
But it's also got great energy, and it's at the one place where we can get rocket fuel, which is from the ice on the moon. So I think that's the most valuable real estate. I think it's going to be contentious. And we need to develop, systems of working internationally to, to be fair and just about how we work on the moon.
10:07:35:20 - 10:07:54:04
Kassandra
So location, location, location. But we're going to come back to that in a second. This potential that you've just done a great job of describing, but in terms of the right now, if we are thinking about this as a race to the moon, maybe you have a bias because you were with NASA for so long, but who do you think is winning right now?
10:07:54:06 - 10:08:19:12
Phil
That's an interesting question. So I'm not going to give a one or the other side as the winner, but I'll tell you what the event both sides have. So China has the advantage of being very steady in their objectives. They don't have the same political process that we do in the West, where you have a constant change of of parties at the very core of a government's philosophy.
10:08:19:14 - 10:08:42:09
Phil
And so they they're able to set a goal and stick with it decade after decade. And they've leveraged that to be very successful in their space efforts. They have had a schedule that they've published. They've told the world, this is what we're going to do. And they always meet their schedule, they always deliver, and they're always successful. Every time.
10:08:42:15 - 10:09:19:07
Phil
It's because they're just working steadily, incrementally, making progress. In the US, because of the contentiousness of the political process, we're constantly being shifted left, right, left, right. And also, it's it really depends on public opinion because that drives the electorate represented, gives focus. And and so unless we can convince the public that space is crucial to the future strategically and economically and the environment, then it's difficult to get a priority to get some budget carved out for NASA.
10:09:19:09 - 10:09:46:05
Phil
However, what the West has as its strength is innovation and and invention. We've been ahead of China. We're still ahead of China in terms of new aerospace innovations and, that advantages has allowed us to do these sprints where we can catch up again and, and hopefully surpass. So, I think the race to get humans on the moon or back on the moon is tight.
10:09:46:05 - 10:09:53:05
Phil
I don't know if China is going to get there first. I don't know if the US is going to get there first. But we're going to find out within a few years.
10:09:53:07 - 10:10:10:09
Kai
Yeah. So leaving China and the US aside for a minute. So if we think about we've flown to the moon, we had a rocket, we landed, we already built some infrastructure there. Everything is going great. What do we make money from now? That way. Now that we're on the moon.
10:10:10:11 - 10:10:32:07
Phil
Yeah. So that's a crucial question, because what we've learned over the years is that it takes a lot of money to do spaceflight, and there's only so much money that the public is willing to put into it. Because of that, we've really not been able to to go to Mars. We talk about it, we talk big. But there's never been an adequate budget to do Mars missions.
10:10:32:12 - 10:11:01:22
Phil
And so we've realized in order to do more in space, we need to have commercial opportunities. So that companies can develop the technologies and support those technologies with a variety of customers, instead of demanding the taxpayer support and maintain all the infrastructure and all the capabilities. Now, because of that, we've been looking for decades to find those commercial opportunities, and unfortunately, they are hard to find.
10:11:01:24 - 10:11:23:15
Phil
It takes a lot of investment up front and make deep abilities in space, and there aren't a lot of intermediate steppingstones where you can do a profitable business until you get to the full thing, you know? And so it's billions and billions of dollars investment before you can start to get real commercial activities. But we have identified some and there are companies working on them.
10:11:23:15 - 10:11:59:14
Phil
They include mining helium for for several uses back here on the Earth, not just for fusion. There's also, mining water on the moon, which we can turn into rocket fuel, and we can use that to boost communications satellites, which then serve customers on the Earth, providing less expensive data services, navigation, communications, global environment monitoring and and then so those are the two big ones, the, the, the new one that has shaken up the industry is the idea of putting data centers in space.
10:11:59:16 - 10:12:21:15
Phil
And that's because, yeah, and I'm a believer in it. I mean, I believed in it before it became popular. I was running models on the economics of it. And so I was convinced five years ago that that this is where we're going. And, all of a sudden the world is everybody's saying, yeah, ten years from now, we should be able to do data centers in space nine.
10:12:21:18 - 10:12:26:02
Phil
I think that's exactly right. I'm predicting about ten years.
10:12:26:04 - 10:12:40:06
Kai
So if we are sticking with the mining and the excavation part of it, how do I have to imagine it on the moon is there's going to be, you know, like digging for coal here on Earth or like, how is that how is that going to look like.
10:12:40:08 - 10:13:11:20
Phil
Yeah. So it won't be like digging for these deep underground mines on the earth. And that's because on the Earth, you're tunneling into solid rock, and that rock can support a tunnel. You know, you can have a you could have a ceiling that doesn't collapse on you, but the moon doesn't have bedrock. It's, the moon has been pummeled by meteorites and asteroids and comets for billions of years, and all the bedrock got broken up to a depth of 40m or more.
10:13:11:22 - 10:13:41:07
Phil
And even when you go down to below the soil, below the regolith, as we call it, the, the rock that is there is fractured. It's it's not solid, competent material. And so you can't put a tunnel in it as easily as you can on the earth. So you could eventually. But it's going to take a lot of infrastructure to be able to shore up those tunnels to support underground mining.
10:13:41:09 - 10:14:00:11
Phil
And it's going to take a lot of investment to get that much infrastructure on the moon. So what we're looking at doing is simply scraping the surface. You're on the Earth, we would call it excavating. So you scoop up the soil, you take it to a processor and dump it in, and then you do chemical extraction to get out.
10:14:00:11 - 10:14:05:00
Phil
There are different resources from those minerals on the soil.
10:14:05:02 - 10:14:28:18
Kassandra
Phil, I want to ask about how realistic all this is, because, you know, ten years ago we went through all this hype around asteroids worth like, you know, one followed by so many zeros. But then fast forward to last year and that first asteroid mining mission failed. So how realistic do you see this to be? And what might be a timeline that people can keep in their minds?
10:14:28:20 - 10:14:53:22
Phil
Yeah. So it's kind of funny about, how all those zeros on the value of asteroids keeps being recirculated in the news, and I get, I get notification, I have Google checking for whenever my name pops up on the internet. And, I get notifications about once a month about how Philip metzger says there's this asteroid worth $15 quintillion.
10:14:53:24 - 10:15:14:12
Phil
And it's it's ridiculous. You know, I was being facetious when I said that. Okay. But, because there's there's no real value in an asteroid way out beyond Mars. You can't bring it back profitably and use it. So. So, it was a joke, but it ended up being picked up in the industry. So. But,
10:15:14:14 - 10:15:18:23
Kassandra
Don't play with our hearts spell. What's the what's the real fun this time?
10:15:19:00 - 10:15:44:22
Phil
You know, but, but there is tremendous value in the asteroids, you know, there's there's far more material available for industry and space than there is on the Earth. And that's because the asteroids have been broken up into small pieces. And so the majority of their mass is near the surface. Whereas here on the Earth, the majority of the materials are deep in the core where we can't get to them.
10:15:44:24 - 10:16:08:05
Phil
So there is tremendous value in the, in the asteroids, platinum, other rare metals. And, you can also get water from them and you can get carbon to make rocket fuel. So, and you can also get just the stony material to use this radiation shielding around electronics. We can make structural metals. It doesn't have to be rare metals.
10:16:08:07 - 10:16:30:21
Phil
So you can do a lot in space. But in general we've learned that it's not economic to bring that material back to the earth to try to sell in Earth's markets. And that's because, the we only mined the most lucrative deposits here on the Earth. But there are vast amounts of deposits that are a little bit less lucrative that we don't mind.
10:16:30:23 - 10:16:55:14
Phil
And in order for asteroids to be profitable, it has to outcompete all of the things on the Earth that are just less than profitable today. And it's it's never going to get there. So but here's here's the thing. If you launch an ounce of water into space, the cost of launching it makes that ounce of water worth more than an ounce of gold.
10:16:55:16 - 10:17:11:18
Phil
And so there's value to having things in space if you have a use for them in space. The question is, what can we use from asteroids to serve customers on the Earth without bringing the material back? I see you've got a question, Kai.
10:17:11:24 - 10:17:27:04
Kai
Yeah, one thing that you mentioned, like a couple of times is water. And that way you can use it for rocket fuel. Why is that lucrative? You know, to have rocket fuel stationed, on the moon, for example.
10:17:27:06 - 10:17:54:19
Phil
Yeah. Good question. I spent a year studying that, the economics of it, and published a paper a couple of years ago, which I think was, completely thorough in addressing that issue. I think there's no question that it will be profitable to make rocket fuel from the moon, but it's not going to be profitable right away because that investment year, it's going to take some years of investment and operating at a loss.
10:17:54:21 - 10:18:21:23
Phil
But it will become profitable. And that's because launching the rocket fuel off the Earth gives it the value of gold because of the launch cost. However, well, let me put it this way. When you launch something off of the Earth to an orbit where it can boost a communication satellite, you 98% of the mass of the rocket gets burned up as fuel.
10:18:22:00 - 10:18:52:00
Phil
The other 2% is payload. However, when you launch it from the moon, it's only 50, 50, 60% of the mass gets burned up because the gravity is so much lower and so 50% gets delivered as payload. That's a factor of 25 better than launching from the Earth. So if you can create industry on the moon, that is not 25 times more expensive than operating on the Earth, then you've got a business case.
10:18:52:02 - 10:19:11:16
Phil
And robotics have become so advanced and the AI software to run the robotics is improving so quickly that it's not going to be that much longer until you can have an industry on the moon that is is only like two times more expensive than the Earth. Only three times, not 25 times. And so there's going to be huge margins.
10:19:11:16 - 10:19:40:00
Phil
It'll be vastly more affordable to get rocket fuel from the moon than it will be to launch it off the Earth. Now people say, hey, we're lowering the launch costs, so the cost of rocket fuel is not going to always be the cost of gold. It's going to come down. Yes, that's true, but the cost of launching the robots to the moon also comes down with launch costs and the cost of operating on the moon actually comes down faster because there are secondary effects from lower launch costs.
10:19:40:02 - 10:20:03:10
Phil
You can have lower reliability equipment if you can replace it cheaply. You you also have well, in the reliability curve is non-linear. It's exponential because of that. The cost of operating on the moon goes down much faster than the cost of launch goes down. So there's other factors, but that's the general idea.
10:20:03:12 - 10:20:30:24
Kassandra
So let let's kind of bring this back to your average American or anyone you know who might be watching us around the world right now. Why spend so much money in the case of Americans, US tax dollars on SpaceX? What what advantage is there for? You know, my parents in Connecticut, from the space program, I know that there are some technologies, for example, in the past that are used today that started in space travel.
10:20:30:24 - 10:20:40:18
Kassandra
Right. So is there a tangible link that people can look forward to, even if they themselves never get to, I don't know, honeymoon on the moon or something?
10:20:40:20 - 10:21:04:09
Phil
Yeah, absolutely. There are already benefits surrounding us every day from the space exploration program, that money that we're putting into space, some of it is operational expense paying for the salaries of the people that are doing the launch operations. But a lot of that expense is developing the technologies that are required, and those technologies have benefits for people throughout the world.
10:21:04:11 - 10:21:35:10
Phil
Like, for example, right now we're having this interview using these little miniaturized camera, on my laptop computer. And that camera was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It's it's called CMOs. It's a type of computer chip that can detect light for very low power, very small mass, very small size. And that is what makes it possible to have cameras in your phone and have cameras in all the other applications, that we have in our world.
10:21:35:16 - 10:22:02:15
Phil
So that's one out of thousands and thousands of examples. We could talk about the the foam that's used in your bed and in your pillow that was invented. It's called memory foam. And it was invented to have better cushions for astronaut seats and for aircraft and seating. It was developed by the, by NASA. There's also a heart pumps.
10:22:02:15 - 10:22:32:02
Phil
So people that have heart defects can have their blood circulated by these little tiny devices that were developed and perfected by NASA. Fluids flow. Also, recirculating water in space is a requirement because you don't have ready access to water. And so they recycle their urine. The astronauts have a joke that today's, today's bathroom break is tomorrow's coffee.
10:22:32:04 - 10:22:36:09
Phil
And that's because they literally do they literally do recycle the water.
10:22:36:12 - 10:22:39:06
Kassandra
And it's more valuable than gold, as you told us.
10:22:39:08 - 10:22:40:14
Kai
Because it's open space.
10:22:40:16 - 10:23:03:24
Phil
Exactly, exactly. You know, you wouldn't throw away gold. So so that drove the need to develop these recirculation technologies for purifying water. Now there are so many things we could invent. There's no limit to technology. It's an upper. There's no upper bound. But the reason we're not developing and inventing more is because of the economics of it.
10:23:04:01 - 10:23:31:22
Phil
There has to be a business case, and most of these technologies are a leap too far for investors. However, when you go to space, the the rigor of space travel is so hard that they're forced to invent these new things. And so companies that support the space programs are inventing things. And then spinning them into other applications so that the consumer world gets the benefit without having to pay the investment cost.
10:23:31:24 - 10:23:38:22
Phil
And so that's why we have so many spinoff benefits. I could go on talking about other other direct benefits like.
10:23:38:24 - 10:23:48:00
Kai
Oh, definitely, I'll definitely remember the foam one. So a nice cushion that I got from NASA. Thanks for that. Yeah.
10:23:48:02 - 10:24:13:05
Phil
Yeah. So, but we have direct benefits, like monitoring the Earth's environment. We have GPS satellites. You know, NASA invented improvements in in the signal processing for GPS. They were only accurate 10 to 15m accuracy when they were first available. Now they're accurate within centimeters. So if you can't remember where you left your phone, you can use your spouse's phone and use the Find My app.
10:24:13:05 - 10:24:30:14
Phil
And it'll actually show you what part of the house it's in so you can find the phone. It's that accurate now because of space program, technology investment. And then in the future, data centers, I think, is going to be crucial for our world to move industry off the planet.
10:24:30:16 - 10:24:35:16
Kassandra
Are you curious, globally minded, interested in the perspectives from right here in the German capital?
10:24:35:19 - 10:24:46:00
Kai
If so, check out our sister podcast, Berlin Briefing. They give you insider knowledge on how the biggest economy in Europe is tackling geopolitics.
10:24:46:02 - 10:24:50:11
Berlin Briefing
When headlines get louder, we go deeper.
10:24:50:13 - 10:24:51:13
Kai
Say hello to Berlin.
10:24:51:13 - 10:24:52:01
Phil
Briefing.
10:24:52:01 - 10:25:03:13
Berlin Briefing
Your guide to Germany's impacts on the world between East and West autocrats and democrats. Germany's whole system is under stress. Politics power takes.
10:25:03:18 - 10:25:05:14
Per
Pressure from all sides.
10:25:05:17 - 10:25:09:13
Berlin Briefing
And the world around Germany is getting more dangerous.
10:25:09:15 - 10:25:14:24
Kai
Is democracy glitching? Too much noise, too little clarity?
10:25:15:01 - 10:25:20:02
Berlin Briefing
We decode what it means for you from Berlin to right where you are.
10:25:20:04 - 10:25:26:20
Kai
It's all in Berlin. Briefing on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
10:25:26:22 - 10:25:39:16
Kai
Depending on when you're listening to this, there either is a ceasefire between Iran and the US or there might not be. As we're recording this right now, it looks like the start of a two week ceasefire that's happening right now.
10:25:39:16 - 10:25:49:00
Kassandra
That's right. This US and Israeli war with Iran has cost hundreds of lives. And it's also having an impact on people around the globe.
10:25:49:02 - 10:26:09:03
Kai
One major way, of course, is the cost of energy. I fueled up my car last week for $8 a gallon, which is insane. And of course, this is starting big energy conversations around the globe and enter a new buzz word in the nuclear energy sphere small modular reactors.
10:26:09:03 - 10:26:32:01
Kassandra
Yeah. So we're going to talk more about nuclear energy and whether new technical advances can actually make this expensive but reliable. An energy source that does have a bit of a bad reputation. Let's be honest, weather can make it all feasible. I'm joined by power hooks. Elias. He's a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the author of Energy and Geopolitics.
10:26:32:07 - 10:26:37:00
Kassandra
Also on the line. We've got Rebecca, too. Who's to brow? She's the author of Atomic Dreams.
10:26:37:02 - 10:26:56:00
Kai
Rebecca nuclear is back with a hot new name. You might say, small modular reactors, at least small modular reactors. Really? What the name says, they are, like, just more tiny than the classic ones. We know.
10:26:56:02 - 10:27:26:16
Rebecca
Yeah. The idea is that it would be easier to produce them, in kind of a factory setting and then, that, that would lower costs because of, because there would be and the efficiencies of that kind of mass production, and that they would be much smaller than your typical very large light water reactors. I would defer to Pear to talk more about the technical questions for sure.
10:27:26:18 - 10:27:43:18
Rebecca
But yeah, the idea is that, I can just add a little more that, yeah, that it would be more almost like a distributed any energy source along the lines of wind and solar rather than these massive power plants, that we associate with nuclear and fossil fuels.
10:27:43:20 - 10:28:02:24
Kassandra
Pair, I'm not asking this of you because you're in Sweden, but are we trying to, like, turn the making of nuclear reactors into, like, an Ikea standardized, production line or what's happening here with these small modular reactors?
10:28:03:01 - 10:28:22:23
Per
One of the ideas I asked to, to make them into a kind of standardized, product. Definitely. But the I under we are definite on the exciting, development phase, globally. But it still remains to be seen. I mean, what what, what will happen? How well will they work? And, how many will actually be built?
10:28:22:23 - 10:28:42:22
Per
And what, what, what costs, so, the amount of visions, that many dreams, hopes, promises, around this, ExoMars. But, the proof is still, Oh. Well, it's a it needs to be seen.
10:28:42:24 - 10:29:00:21
Kassandra
Let's talk a little bit about that, because there are safety challenges about this. And here in the European Union, there is some skepticism about how quickly it SMR could get up and running, because from what I understand, there are dreams, like you said, but nothing really in the works here in the EU. Give us a bit of a reality check.
10:29:00:21 - 10:29:07:00
Kassandra
Where are smears? Let's start maybe in the EU right now.
10:29:07:02 - 10:29:30:07
Per
In the EU, I think, Poland, Romania are probably the most, advanced, countries in terms of how far they have got, so far. None of, them are actually building, reactor outs, but but they are they are, pretty advanced. I did not, and, regulatory face on, so on.
10:29:30:07 - 10:29:54:17
Per
And in preparation for, for excellent. And, investments and, I think I'll say my own country, Sweden. There are some plans. Yes. But, these time, these things, they take time. The US, talking about, well, getting the first SARS, up and running, into early 2030s, by 2035.
10:29:54:18 - 10:30:22:16
Per
And that would be right now that we have the Iranian crisis. There are, hopes again, that, the processes would be, accelerated. Right. Especially on the, regulatory side, the kind of licensing and so on, so that, maybe things can, well, be up and running faster, I don't know, but, on the other hand, I mean, if we look back at, the history of, nuclear, construction, though it's not that, encouraging right now.
10:30:22:18 - 10:30:43:00
Per
We, no doubt many projects are usually delayed. My my, my years from my decades in some cases. Right. And now we have to, remember, not, we are talking about the technology that is still in, in the innovation phase, so to say, these things are a first of a kind right now. They have never been, deployed before.
10:30:43:00 - 10:30:55:15
Per
So we are, pretty likely to see, a number of, surprises, pleasant and unpleasant ones. Coming up on, so it remains to be seen, right?
10:30:55:17 - 10:31:18:11
Kai
Yeah. As with all new technologies. Right. Once you start building it, you realize, oh, we're missing something here. But of course, all the people who say, hey, this is the new big thing. Say, hey, we can easily scale this into bigger, proportions. Do you think that's realistic? Or at this stage, as you said, all remains to be seen.
10:31:18:13 - 10:31:42:05
Per
Well, I think, there are, something like 100 or so, different, smart designs, around and, obviously not, all of this, will become a success. I, maybe a handful of them, can be reached, kind of commercial phase or, but, we don't know exactly which ones. Right. So, well, we'll see.
10:31:42:07 - 10:32:04:23
Kai
We'll, we'll definitely we'll that's that's that's for sure. Rebecca. And like, wind and solar energy forms that are super cheap, super easily available, develop technology, all that, you know, you combine them with battery storage and you also get baseload power. And they like the better option in this scenario.
10:32:05:00 - 10:32:46:06
Rebecca
Some people would certainly say so. But I think the main argument in favor of nuclear is that it provides steady power 24 over seven. And of course, wind and solar don't unless they have battery backup. But and you're correct, batteries are plummeting and prices and they're, it's it's much easier to install them quickly. At the same time, when you look at the whole system cost, there are arguments that having that what's called baseload or dispatchable power from something like nuclear plants, can lower the overall system costs.
10:32:46:08 - 10:33:13:11
Rebecca
The higher the renewables penetration, the, the more you need to kind of build overbuild and just make sure that you always have some reliable source of energy. So some people say that the ideal solution would be to have nuclear complementing renewables, because they have such sort of different strengths and weaknesses.
10:33:13:13 - 10:33:32:19
Kassandra
Rebecca, let's stay with price for just a second. How do the prices compare for small nuclear reactor reactors? I think using small nuclear reactors, which would be seen, it's really throwing me for a loop. And also I don't want to hear in the comments about the and nuclear. I feel like I have that George Bush moment stuck in my head where he kind of mispronounced, yeah, you're good.
10:33:33:00 - 10:33:55:13
Kassandra
I'm doing my best. Everyone okay, but small modular reactors. How did these prices compare to what we might think of as traditional ones? What what's the cost that we're looking at right now, or is that the wrong way to be thinking about it? Should we be thinking about, in terms of climate change, a bit of an all hands on deck situation?
10:33:55:15 - 10:34:24:15
Rebecca
Yeah. Well, so for, the large traditional reactors, the upfront costs are huge. Of course, the capital expenditures, that does vary somewhat by country. And the argument from nuclear advocates is that part of the reason nuclear has been so expensive is that it's overregulated, and it's it's burdened by, regulations as a result of safety concerns that are aren't always justified.
10:34:24:17 - 10:34:50:10
Rebecca
But and another argument is because in the US at least, we've every reactor has a somewhat different design. That also makes it more expensive. And in countries like South Korea and I think France, they've had an approach that is very different where they just, choose a design and stick with it and builds it over and over.
10:34:50:10 - 10:35:15:08
Rebecca
And obviously that, is a way to bring down costs. So there's that aspect. But the, the hope with small modular reactors is, that because of their smaller size and because of these efficiencies that we would hope to gain, in this sort of standardization and almost like factory production, that that could bring down costs.
10:35:15:08 - 10:35:23:18
Rebecca
But I think, as pare was saying, it sort of remains to be seen since they're really still in the experimental phase.
10:35:23:20 - 10:35:42:19
Kai
We have seen, at least in Russia or China, the most basically the most progress on this new technology is this factory setting coming to fruition there, or also not so much.
10:35:42:21 - 10:36:25:02
Per
So far I don't see any signs of, kind of mass production of, smaller actors in the, either in China or Russia. But, it's an interesting, thing to think about, if perhaps, China, especially in the future, might be able to, to repeat its, success that it has had, in the field of, solar panels and wind turbines, electrical variations on, in the field of, small modular, reactors that, perhaps China could become the country that could be the first to actually mass produce this, this, these, reactors were, but, that we, we would be in a
10:36:25:02 - 10:36:48:22
Per
very interesting situation, for example, in Europe. I mean, if we, would have access to a, let's say, cheap, mass produced Chinese, reactors, which would compete against, domestic, designs or western, rest of designs that would be more expensive. So it could be an interesting, geopolitical struggle, around the competitiveness of, different, models.
10:36:48:24 - 10:37:12:20
Kassandra
Well, we've seen how some of the Chinese tech versus European tech has played out here within the EU with electric vehicles, solar panels. I don't want to say this is a story as old as time, but we've seen that Europe has not always won this race. But let's come back to the geopolitics in just a second. Rebecca, Canada is supposed to build the first smart within the G7.
10:37:12:22 - 10:37:23:18
Kassandra
This despite. So I guess despite some of this hubbub and buzz around SMEs, it does really seem like there's still a long way to go.
10:37:23:20 - 10:37:53:10
Rebecca
Yeah, I think, yeah, we there are a couple online in in Russia and China, I believe, but but yeah. And it has been slow. I mean, I started reporting on nuclear power in 2019, and people were predicting that by 2025, the first small modular reactors would be online and, and functioning in the US. And now that deadline has gotten pushed again a couple of times.
10:37:53:10 - 10:38:14:22
Rebecca
So, so I think that's certainly, you know, worth paying attention to. But maybe once the first, the first ones are built and are producing electricity, then, you know, we'll rapidly see a build out because there will have been a steep learning curve. So, yeah, we just don't know yet.
10:38:14:24 - 10:38:43:09
Kai
I mean, the stuff that I always wonder about when I hear about nuclear is obviously also the safety concern and the waste concern. Do, Rebecca, small modular reactors have a better way of approaching this? Are they, like, lose? Are they using, the nuclear fuel rods longer? Is the ways better manageable? How are they approaching this topic?
10:38:43:11 - 10:39:21:10
Rebecca
I think all of the, smarts that are, being designed, most, if not all of them have what are called passive safety features. So the inherent design of the reactor should make, you know, like a meltdown. Impossible. In terms of waste there, I think there are different sort of takes on, whether the waste will be any different or, you know, in terms of quantity, that some of them are using different kinds of fuel.
10:39:21:12 - 10:39:57:15
Rebecca
So I think essentially, though, it would still be producing highly radioactive waste. So, I don't think there is a significant difference there. We can talk about the different ways that, you know, the different opinions on how big a problem new spent fuel actually is because some would argue, you know, it's contained and monitored and it's not really posing that big a problem when you compare it to, say, pollution from fossil fuels, which is, you know, causing millions of deaths around the world and contributing to climate change.
10:39:57:15 - 10:40:09:01
Rebecca
So, there's a whole debate about that. But, but I don't know if Perry wants to chime in. The technical aspects of the waste.
10:40:09:03 - 10:40:32:02
Per
Perhaps one, can add that, one of the reasons why small modular reactors were proposed in the first place was, a recognition of the, substantial safety concerns with, with large reactors on this, large, traditional reactor. All of it's been acknowledged to be difficult to control. And, prone to, unexpected, safety problems.
10:40:32:04 - 10:41:00:09
Per
So obviously so as small Mars very much, proposed in, in response or in reaction to, to this, to this problem and generally speaking, of smaller modular, smaller actors are, safer. One could say, simply because they don't contain as much, nuclear fuel as far as the large ones. And under the, passive safety systems, there, that that could make a big difference.
10:41:00:11 - 10:41:11:18
Per
But again, I mean, we don't really know yet how these, reactors are going to work in actual practice. We need to have them up and running before we can really tell. How safe are they?
10:41:11:20 - 10:41:36:05
Kassandra
I want to get back to the geopolitics of it all, because that's one reason, you know, in the newsroom that we were having this conversation around nuclear energy and small modular reactors is because Europe's been dealing with now. It feels like two waves of energy crunches. There was, full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that cut off a lot of fossil fuels, to Europe, especially Germany.
10:41:36:07 - 10:41:57:06
Kassandra
And then this closure of the Strait of Hormuz has really been, a knock on effect from the US and Israeli war with Iran. So pair, let's lay this out a little bit, maybe with a bit of a broader question then, then we can get into this. Where do you see the future of nuclear energy and smart going when we're talking about geopolitics?
10:41:57:06 - 10:42:06:09
Kassandra
Is this going to be like we were alluding to earlier, maybe some countries having, stranglehold on the technology, so to say?
10:42:06:11 - 10:42:31:04
Per
The problem, in relation to the Iraq is there's not so much, the oil trade. Right? But it's more linked to problems with natural gas. At, it seems like a first for Europe to always get trapped into natural gas, dilemmas right now. A few years ago, it was, Russian crisis with, full scale invasion of Ukraine, which led to, total, face off on pipeline gas from, from Russia.
10:42:31:04 - 10:43:01:19
Per
And then we switched to, to, to energy. Right. But now it's, precisely LNG, which is, the new problem. Much of the Katari LNG, export infrastructure has been, destroyed, essentially. And it will take years to, to rebuild. It's probably, more generally there also feeling that, the LNG trade is not that safe, after all, not as safe as we, as we believe, just just a few months ago, essentially.
10:43:01:21 - 10:43:39:18
Per
And, nuclear, investment, in Europe especially, is very much framed precisely as an alternative to imported, LNG. So, so we and and we, we're, I mean, the, European actors, at different level say, mission, that, natural gas, power plants can be, shut down essentially, as soon as possible and being replaced, partly by renewables, but partly was a bye bye, by nuclear, nuclear, nuclear power plants.
10:43:39:20 - 10:44:11:16
Per
But, I perhaps we should just to, to, put this into context. We're not in other way. Think talking about, making a total switch to, to an all new or an actual system that's, that is not on the island. On the table. I, I it's more, a question. Okay. What is going to complement, the, renewable electricity production, which is clearly going to dominate, European electricity production.
10:44:11:16 - 10:44:24:16
Per
The future is it, is still, going to be natural gas, or is it going to be nuclear power or an anything else? Right. So so we, that's that's the underlying, basic, situation, I think in.
10:44:24:18 - 10:44:59:15
Kassandra
The in terms of the geopolitics, I just, I can't but that Mars I'm wondering, you know, is this ultimate freedom or not? You know, like could having, for example, an SMR in every little village here in Germany free us up from potentially these, constraints that pipelines put on German industry? Or are there potentially unforeseen consequences, for example, that one country is making all of the parts in this kind of, Ikea version of, nuclear reactor, assembly line?
10:44:59:17 - 10:45:37:02
Per
A few different than, one is precisely what you mentioned. Restart. Europe, once again will be now traveling to import the Pampers and this time not so much import dependent or fuel. Right. But more other kind of technological, import, dependance that we're not able to produce our own, parts of, of nuclear reactors or our own, a nuclear fuel that we may not be able to, to, to, internalize, so let's say have a target internally in Europe, the nuclear fuel cycle, with its different stages and enrichment, conversion.
10:45:37:04 - 10:46:01:22
Per
Perhaps reprocessing or nuclear fuel and, so on. Right. So that's, that's one that's one dimension. Another dimension, has to do with, the question of centralized, electricity systems versus more decentralized, systems. It's interesting to look at the difference between, large and small reactors. Right? Large nuclear reactor.
10:46:01:22 - 10:46:48:03
Per
Sorry. To some extent, I could argue a nightmare, from the military point of view, But because if you have, like France, for example, out to six very large nuclear reactors in one single location, that would be, attractive, attack point for, for, for, in a, in a war. Right. This is what we have seen in, and, and, in Ukraine, for example, with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the more, safer solution from this perspective would be to have, many small reactors distribute distributed, a widely I mean, one and I see basically perhaps a smaller actor
10:46:48:03 - 10:47:08:04
Per
in, and, and and other larger cities or something like this. But that of course, brings, the safety concerns, that also brings, the economic concerns is actually, profitable to build the just a single small reactor. In this kind of distributed, decentralized fashion.
10:47:08:06 - 10:47:09:13
Rebecca
10:47:09:15 - 10:47:36:00
Kai
I think what's important to remember in this dependency debate is also that, you know, we need to be conscious about whether uranium is coming from that's also just coming from a couple of countries. So just having the small modular reactors won't solve the dependency issue entirely. But, Rebecca, I want to bring this to you so if you envision like, you know, power mix in 15, 20 years, what kind of role do you envision?
10:47:36:00 - 10:47:41:09
Kai
Small modular reactors to, to play their in the mix?
10:47:41:11 - 10:48:09:14
Rebecca
I think, my ideal mix would probably be a lot of wind and solar. That would be backed up by batteries. And we do see really great, technological developments happening all the time. As of now, the, the batteries, the lithium ion batteries that are most commonly used, they only provide storage for a few hours. So that's a real limitation.
10:48:09:17 - 10:48:38:06
Rebecca
But, there are some, some longer duration batteries that are expected to come online soon. And, there are also advances in geothermal that, might allow us to tap geothermal more broadly. As of now, it's only available in certain areas. So there are a lot of exciting developments. And I think we should be open to all of them, all of these, relatively clean energy sources.
10:48:38:08 - 10:49:11:06
Rebecca
And I do think nuclear also can play a role. Because it does provide that, that foreign power. And I, I would probably in my ideal world, it would be, you know, a relatively small percentage. It does have risks and costs, that, that are pretty significant. So, but I also think that, it has some really serious advantages, so we can't just discount it.
10:49:11:08 - 10:49:42:01
Rebecca
And in terms of small modular reactors versus the larger, more traditional kinds, I'm not really sure. I'm kind of agnostic on that. And I think there's also been some renewed interest in building more of, of the larger reactors, at least in the US. So I think, you know, I'm sure there will be some experimentation with both and we'll kind of see how it plays out.
10:49:42:03 - 10:49:46:00
Kassandra
That's it for this edition of The Dip. If you like what you've heard so far, don't forget to subscribe.
10:49:46:02 - 10:49:58:19
Kai
And of course, if you have any comments or suggestions or even ideas, you can leave a comment wherever you are listening to this podcast, or if you're a bit old school, you can send us an email to The Dip at D.W. dot com.
10:49:58:19 - 10:50:05:05
Kassandra
But we're going to be back. Don't worry. Same time, same place until then. This has been the death.