The Future of Nuclear Energy is Now

Speaker A: Welcome to Plugged In Exploring Energy, a podcast miniseries with Constellation where we explore the evolving landscape of energy solutions. In each episode we bring industry leaders and experts to discuss the latest innovations, challenges and opportunities in the energy sector. Welcome back to Plugged In. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Brian Smith, Director Nuclear Reactor Development from the Idaho National Laboratory. Brian, thanks for joining us.

Speaker B: Thanks Chuck. It's uh, great being here with you.

Speaker A: Let's jump right in and uh, maybe start with your background and the work you do at INL if you would please Brian, so you can share with our listening audience today.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I think of myself as a career federal employee. My move over to Idaho National Laboratory only occurred about a year ago. It was January of 25 when I moved to the laboratory. I retired from the Department of Energy, but I got my start in government as uh, an active duty officer in the Navy. While in uniform I was assigned to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion program in Washington D.C. and uh, it was the Navy that taught me how to spell nuclear. Uh, there's really no one else in the world frankly that does nuclear as well as the US Nuclear Navy. All of our submarines and aircraft carriers are powered by nuclear reactors. So I kind of came of age in the defense nuclear side of the business, became a civilian, a uh, federal civilian in that program. When I transitioned off of active duty, joined the leadership team in the civilian capacity with naval reactors, moved over to the National Nuclear Security Administration also as part of the leadership team over there I went over to the House Appropriations Committee where I was the Department of Energy's appropriator on all of their nuclear programs, both defense and non defense, went back to the Department of Energy. In my last role there I was acting as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for nuclear reactors. And then like I said just In January of 25, earlier this year, retired from my federal government roles and uh, moved over to the the Department of Energy owned Idaho National Laboratory. So it's been a fun ride and the move over to the laboratory was really a short leap. The strategy remains the same. The excitement around nuclear means it's kind of all hands on deck to accelerate the deployments of advanced nuclear technologies. And whether in my federal jersey or now in my contractor jersey, but working at a national laboratory, it's exciting times and I've really had a fun ride.

Speaker A: Brian, thanks so much for sharing your background. Very impressive and thank you for your service. And then also congrats on the recent Navy win over army over last weekend, which was a great game to watch. As we talked about earlier it is, it's good football. So I Ando works at the intersection of energy innovation and national security. And you've been in the middle of this just as you described with your diverse background across many facets of this area. So what do you see as the most urgent challenge the US is facing in building resilient low carbon energy solutions?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know what a great question and geez, we could probably plan ourselves on that topic for a week long seminar. There's, I'll go back to that word I used, excitement. I mean there's certainly there is a lot of opportunity out there and there is what I think is a very unique opportunity for advanced nuclear technologies. There's a need for more power on the grid in the US I think that's not a secret to anybody. A big part of those load growth projections as we look out in the future over the next three, five, ten years. You know, it's that, that hockey stick look that load growth represents and nuclear is very well suited and in fact I think there's a case to be made that nuclear is best suited to meet those low growth projections. But as we look at advanced nuclear technologies and uh, you know, for that you start talking about small modular reactors or SMRs and microreactors. Advanced nuclear technologies that present unique and very different use cases from large scale reactors, those gigawatt sized reactors that are critically important to today's grid in this country. I mean there's 94 operating reactors. They put almost 20% of the power on the US electric grid. So there's an important role that nuclear plays today. Heck, with those 94 reactors there's ongoing work to do what we call upgrade reactors. That's where you can actually get m more power out of an operating reactor. Those efforts, uh, supported by underpinning research programs at Idaho National Laboratory and elsewhere through the laboratory system. I mean those programs are supporting putting gigawatts more power on the grid from that operating fleet. So that's good news and that's exciting. That is ongoing work. But then the accelerating the deployment of, of uh, small modular reactors and microreactors with all of these other use cases. We could talk more about those siting opportunities. You know, maybe siting a small modular reactor in a place where you can't build a large scale reactor. That's a great opportunity for uh, maybe it's not even power on the grid. Maybe that's power in a remote environment. I spend time in Alaska, you know, talking to communities in Alaska, certainly the governor in Alaska, the legislature very interested in SMRs and microreactors and what that presents for them in remote areas. So there's just a lot of conversation with a lot of different industries that have power and frankly heat needs for industries that use heat. That means there's a lot of conversations to be had around the country and around the world with our uh, friends, like minded partners on how they can leverage advanced nuclear and how they can do that as quickly as possible.

Speaker A: And then, you know, you've shared your, I would describe it as very unique and broad background across many facets of this. How is INL enabling the commercialization process for these solutions for deployment to customers? If you could share your insights on that.

Speaker B: Yeah, again, uh, another great question and the commercialization piece is really critical to discuss here. When I travel around the world and I talk about the wonderful things that Idaho National Laboratory is doing to help accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies, bear in mind Idaho National Lab. It's one of 17 U.S. national Laboratories. That national laboratory system is very unique in the world and the corpus of work undertaken by the national laboratories really is critical for virtually every facet of research and development, cutting edge research and development done in this country. Idaho National Lab happens to be the lead lab for nuclear energy. A uh, research development demonstration. And so this decade at INL we'll be partnering, we are partnering with private industry, nuclear uh, reactor developers that are piloting their first reactors, building and turning on those first reactors at the laboratory. We've got unique test bed facilities, we've got unique laboratory capabilities to help de risk technology programs. When we partner with those, those private reactor developers we bring just like the rest of the national labs, but in this case with nuclear technologies, we bring this, these unique capabilities and over 6,000 of the world's most talented scientists and engineers to de risk those programs. And then we provide the physical infrastructure and land for these developers to build, build their first reactors. That's important. Those ongoing activities, those are happening this decade will start turning on advanced reactors at INL next year in 2026. So that's good and that's an important step in commercialization. Now turning on a pilot reactor at inl, is that commercialization? Well no it's not. But you have to turn on the first one before you turn on the next hundred. Right. And so by partnering with private industry, providing the facilities, the technical reachback capability to these private developers and letting them build, facilitating their first deployment at the laboratory, we can play an important role in helping those private developers. Then take that demonstrated capability, that demonstrated Technology, they can then engage with the investor community, line up the rest of the business, uh, stakeholders to go deploy those technologies at scale to commercialize. Right. So while turning on a reactor at INL isn't commercialization, you have to do that first one to achieve the scalability.

Speaker A: So as you talked about some of the applications in terms of location, whether it may be limited or remote for SMRs and some of the examples you used, can you share how you see things evolving over time in terms of how the SMRs will develop over time in terms of the broader market, particularly as you look out, you know, call it five to ten years into the future?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure, it's funny, especially as I sat on the defense nuclear side of the business for so many years. Let me go back 10 plus years as small modular reactors, they're all the rage now. It's what folks want to talk about. But the idea is not new. Uh, certainly the idea of frankly taking a page out of the nuclear Navy's playbook, building smaller reactors primarily, in effect, the nuclear Navy, we build our reactors in Lynchburg, Virginia, they're factory built, they're shipped out to the shipyard and put into the submarine as part of the ship built program. So the idea is not new. But today when we talk about the, the evolving use cases, it is a little bit different than what has been talked about. Say 10 plus years ago. Small modular reactors tended to be thought of as something grid facing primarily. But their smaller size and their factory fabrication meant that there was cost, predictability kind of inherent in the program. You could do so much in a factory, then deploy these things, mostly assembled, fabricated and assembled, deploy them on site. That narrows the cone of uncertainty around the cost and schedule to deploy. That's good. And if you're doing that at say 300 megawatts at a time, well, heck, maybe then you're deploying three of those in uh, a grid facing configuration. You're achieving that, getting to that gigawatt scale, that thousand megawatt scale that is comparable to the large scale reactors today. But instead of embarking on a very large complex construction project for that single large scale reactor, you're deploying say 300 megawatts at a time in a very cost and schedule predictable manner. Okay, so that is a very traditional use case for SMRs and frankly I think it's an exquisite use case. Uh, there's a lot to that. But where we are today in the conversations I have with folks, let's talk about, you know, those data center developers. Again, data center developers are Looking for powered land. Their constraint used to be fiber. They were going to where the fiber was and they were figuring out the energy piece kind of as a second tier of their considerations. But it was all about going where fiber is. Northern Virginia has been the place to build data centers because it's the hub, it's one of the hubs for the Internet. But today it's less about fiber in part because there has been so much fiber build out over the last 20 years and now it's all about power. And so in the conversations I have with data center developers they say, hey Brian, I got the fiber piece figured out and I want to build in Dallas or I want to build in Columbus, Ohio, I want to build in Phoenix. What I need is power and I need power now. And uh, in some cases they're saying hey look, I don't even know that I want to be grid connected. I want an SMR right outside my data center and, and I want that very reliable, resilient power from the smr. I'm happy to have those conversations that we at INL again we've got, you know, research programs on how you, you don't just plug a data center into a nuclear reactor and turn it on and call it good. You know, power management matters, no matter your energy source, managing the load transients apparent to AI, those are complex challenges and we're solving those at the lab. But it is interesting that today those applications of siting scenarios are on people's mind where they're not necessarily thinking of ah, a grid facing asset, but they're saying hey, if I can bring my own power and even if I'm grid islanded, that doesn't concern me. And those configurations, I mean, geez, they're all over the map. It's fun to talk about it. Some folks say hey, I'm always going to be grid connected, I want that backup but I want my nuclear reactor to be my primary. Or they say hey look, I'm going to build a natural gas gas plant. I wanted an SMR so I can achieve full redundancy. I'll probably have a ring of diesel generators around the data center too because I simply can't go down. I've got to have full uptime. So lots of conversations to be had. I'm agnostic on what makes sense. Your listeners have probably heard me identify one of those deployment scenarios and said ah, uh, that's never going to happen. Fair enough. But hey look, if someone wants to have the conversation and engage with the laboratory on how we can further tailor those research programs to those industry desires. We're all about it.

Speaker A: So we talked about this high growth, a lot of it through data center, other large loads as you shared. And then you've talked about how INL provides these pilots to kind of prove out the technology, touched on SMRs. What's kind of the next step that INL and you are involved with beyond the piloting to expand the deployment of these technologies, whether it's SMR or others, to make them um, more available and commercialized to the scale that we need to meet the demands of these large loads that are upon us.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know that gets back to that very good topic of commercializing. Let's uh, step back for a moment and think about the role of the national apps. Again as I've said, I'm a big fan of the national labs and the important role that they play in production providing underpinning research and development in this country. Traditionally the national labs haven't been called on to think about the way to commercialize those technologies. There have been times where that's been uh, a little bit more a thing than other times. But traditionally the laboratories kind of have a great role to play. And think of the valley of death we often talk about. The universities in this country do wonderful job at developing blue sky ideas and doing research and kind of the left end of the spectrum of going from concept to commercial ability. The labs then can come in in the middle, kind of pick up some of that blue sky research and carry it through the valley of death and sort of hand off more developed technologies to the commercial sector, private industry so that they can go deploy and commercialize. I always thought of it as okay, so the labs can refine technologies and put them on the doorstep so that the uh, private industry can pick them up and commercialize with nuclear technologies. I think we're looking past that in the laboratory system certainly at I know to assist the Department of Energy. Again being a DOE owned lab. This is tightly coordinated from the administration and our congressional stakeholders all the way through the laboratory to figure out how we can work more deliberately with industry. We the laboratory. I mean I'll take myself as an example, having this conversation, getting out to your listeners and talking about the things that the laboratory is doing. This helps spread the message to developers that we are out there partnering, actively partnering with industry and not just nuclear developers. There's an ongoing program led by the Department of Energy to site data centers, AI data centers on federal lands, including Idaho National Laboratory, co located with energy producing technologies including nuclear and geothermal. That kind of targeted, uh, thoughtful, deliberate engagement with industry, partnership with industry. I would tell you that goes a step beyond what we, the lab have historically done. I think traditionally we would have assisted in demonstrating some of these advanced technologies, then let the free market in this country kind of do what it does. That's traditionally how new technologies get commercialized in this country. But I think with nuclear and there's some other parts of the energy ecosystem where I think we're actively working on this, geothermal comes to mind. But that more targeted, deliberate engagement with industry to get in the middle of the discussions, serving as a matchmaker of sorts, being in the room and at the table with a hyperscaler and a nuclear developer and helping them understand each other's language, each other's equities. Throw the utility in the mix, throw the regulators in the mix, ferc, the nrc. There's a lot of different equities and stakeholders that need to come together to de risk these technologies and to make them palatable to a free market enterprise. The laboratories can serve as kind of a lubricant in that process. And we're actively doing that again in full partnership and coordination with our owners at the Department of Energy.

Speaker A: Very impressive. So we've talked about some of the technologies, like the nearer term around up rates at existing nuclear facilities, the development, deployment of new technologies around smr, as an example you mentioned, also geothermal is another technology, and then how the DOE and the INL are also collaborating with industry and partnerships to enable it, both in terms of putting various teams and organizations together and then providing federal land. How about, um, uh, some of the other areas of this around energy securitization, cybersecurity and the overall grid modernization approach. How does all that fit into a lot of the commercialization activities that you're involved with? Could you share your insights around that as well? Because that's obviously a big part of this in terms of how we manage the security around the new infrastructure that needs to be built.

Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt about it. I know I keep coming across as, uh, a cheerleader of sorts for the national laboratory system, but it's fair here. I mean, in as far as, for example, Idaho National Laboratory is the lead lab for nuclear energy research development, demonstration. As I've mentioned, that's not the only thing that the laboratory does. We have a substantial ongoing engagement across the federal government, even beyond the Department of Energy, to include the uh, for example, the Department of Homeland Security, which has a role to play, uh, obviously in grid Security, cybersecurity, those cybersecurity equities that play into ensuring a safe, reliable grid across this country. With I mentioned 6,000 of the world's brightest scientists and engineers, perhaps no surprise that we'd have a lot of folks engaged in those energy issues. So while we have a Nuclear Science and Technology Directorate, which is where I happen to work at Idaho National Laboratory, we do have an entire directorate devoted to those homeland security issues. Grid security, cybersecurity, frankly, classified programs that do some amazing things. I was a little more tightly coordinated with those things when I sat in the House of Representatives on the appropriation staff with oversight of those programs. So that remains important as transmission build out continues to occur in this country, as grid upgrades of actual infrastructure and component upgrades occur in this country, as we consider sourcing for those components to manage the build out of the grid. Those issues, we have to not only maintain our oversight and awareness of, um, the technologies, where those technologies are being sourced, how they're being developed, what countries are partnering to develop those technologies, we not only have to maintain that awareness, I think frankly we need to lean in a bit more on that. And I will tell you that is a sentiment shared by our congressional stakeholders. Kind of the hyper awareness of how we're partnering in this country, how industry is partnering this country, uh, with international partners, the awareness from congressional stakeholders through the administration and the relevant departments to include, uh, Energy, Homeland Security and others, all the way then to the National Laboratory network where I and L can partner with other national laboratories and bring that full suite of capabilities to bear to make sure that we've got a safe grid as we continue building it out. That is an ongoing effort. Those are things that your listeners can. With a quick Google search, you can find out all the exciting things going on across the laboratory system to really bolster that research.

Speaker A: Yeah, very interesting. So thanks so much for sharing your insights and as we wrap up here, just a couple comments and I wanted to solicit input from you and other areas we may have missed or not covered today. But appreciate your leadership, both in terms of INL and you personally, around how you're piloting these technologies, collaborating across the various industry and other partners to enable further collaboration, both in terms of the technology side, but uh, also in terms of the land development that you cited and then how we maintain the security as this part of the data economy continues to grow. So any other areas that we haven't touched on that you'd like to share with your listeners?

Speaker B: I think one thing, maybe I'd just like to sort of foot stomp. Um, we did touch on it but I get asked a lot of, you know, I speak to a lot of groups around the world and I get asked a lot of times, hey Brian, you know all the things you say about nuclear exciting but, but when's nuclear going to be real? Was it still, you know, 10 or 15, 20 years off? And I say wait a minute, what do you mean when's nuclear going to be real? It's 20% of what's on the grid today, 94 operating reactors. So I do think sometimes people lose sight of the fact that that nuclear and those two reactors m most recently deployed down in Georgia at the Vogel plant, Vogel 3 and 4 as we call them, those are advanced reactors. I mean that AP1000 Westinghouse in advanced reactors. So advanced nuclear is real and there's an opportunity for large scale grid facing reactors. Over cost and behind schedule is something that we can get at by building and building. Now I think the administration is leaning in on that. I think there's going to be a lot more to come on that just in the coming months. So I'd encourage your listeners to kind of stay abreast of what's going on. New build, large scale nuclear construction. There are other countries around this world that are doing that well and they're doing it well and driving down the cost curve and narrowing the cone of uncertainty because they're building these complex projects over and over and you simply get better at doing it. So I just want to foot stomp that piece and I think all of that then provides a really nice jumping off point to those use cases, unique use cases for small modular and microreactors to be deployed for high heat industries, desalination, hydrogen production in places around the world. Not necessarily traditional grid facing energy producing assets which they can be as well. So it's exciting times again. We're doing so much this decade. It's all hands on deck to make sure the 2030s are set up for just uh, a lot more activity in this area.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. So just to wrap up again, Brian, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate you sharing your insights. The leadership pioneel and you are providing and it was interesting to learn about the technology deployment and development into the future. But I think your last point, I took very detailed notes from our discussion today. I wrote down nuclear now. Let's not forget about nuclear now as part of what's keeping this grid modernized and safe, reliable and carbon free. So thank you again for joining us. I know we got a lot out of it in terms of our listeners and very much appreciate you being with us today.

Speaker B: Thank you Chuck. I appreciate the collaboration and getting the message out. Thanks for what you do.

Speaker C: This is Deborah Channel from Smart Energy Decisions. We're really thrilled to have Constellation as part of Smart Energy Voices. I want to thank Chuck Hanna and the team from Constellation for making this mini series possible. And as always, thank you to our listeners for being part of the Smart Energy Decisions community. If you enjoyed the episode, you can subscribe subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and don't forget to tell your colleagues and peers about it too. To learn about how you can become part of our online and in person content, visit our website@smartenergydecisions.com we're always excited to share these presentations from leaders of the energy transition. We do that in this podcast on our website and at our events and it's all in the interest of helping you make those smart energy decisions.