Gener8 Veriten

As we return to Gener8 episodes, we’re excited to bring you a conversation with Julie Kozeracki, newly appointed Director of Strategy at the Department of Energy Loan Programs Office (LPO). Julie, and the LPO broadly, are longtime associates and colleagues of Veriten and today’s episode of Gener8 follows up on a recent loan announcement as well as the dynamics between large nuclear energy, policy, and the growing conversation around smaller advance reactors. Typically, LPO activities are difficult for members of the office to talk about publicly, but the recent announcement of conditional approval of a $1.5B loan to restart the retired Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan created a great opportunity for Julie to join us and share her thoughts. It was clearly evident how thrilled Julie was to be able to talk about this unprecedented opportunity in the US and where the conversation may go from here, both around Palisades itself and around the conversation for large nuclear in the US. As we look to eagerly watch the progress at Palisades and how best these funds, as well as others controlled by the LPO, can change the conversation around our energy needs and trends, we’re excited to be able to chat with Julie and other knowledgeable experts at LPO. 

Uranium and the global Uranium supply chain are topics that have permeated many of our discussions. For this episode of Gener8, we decided to explore all things Uranium-related with Jonathan Hinze, President of UxC. UxC, as well as Jonathan, have been thinking about and engaging in the global Uranium market for more than 20 years and we were excited to pick his brain and hear his perspectives around this changing market.
 
Before discussing some of the global Uranium hotspots, like Kazakhstan and Africa, Jonathan set the scene for us on how the recent volatility in the Uranium market came to be introduced and where the market trends might be going from here. After also sharing more about how Jonathan got into the world of Uranium himself, Jonathan shared UxC’s thoughts around how the growth of new nuclear projects, both novel advanced technology and existing technology, could affect global demand and how to assess that. Before closing us out with thoughts about the future of the market, Jonathan offered insights around commitments and scale of commitment from global governments and what potential sustained support could look like.
 
After our conversation with Jonathan, we’re confident that Uranium will remain a huge part of the discussion on future nuclear technology for years to come, but we were also heartened by this conversation in that it seems like we’re finally trying to make strides in the right directions. We hope you enjoy the discussion as well.

For this episode of Gener8, we explored the perspectives and role of the US government around exporting nuclear technology with Dr. Kirsten Cutler, Senior Strategist for Nuclear Innovation, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Cutler sits at the crossroads of many of the conversations around deploying American nuclear technology abroad and she was kind enough to spend some time sharing her perspectives and explaining more about the government’s activities.

Kirsten first helped us understand the focus of some of the programs under her purview and how they interact and support each other. We then turned our discussion to the U.S. government’s pledges and activities at COP28 in relation to nuclear energy as well as some of the thinking around domestic deployments needing to serve as a precursor for exports or not. Kirsten shared a bit about how the war in Ukraine and Russian aggressive actions influence her, and the U.S. State Department’s activities in this space as well as what she sees as some of the major challenges and obstacles to deployment that are often brought up in her discussions with other nations. Before closing us out with some thoughts about the future, Kirsten was also nice enough to give us background on how a Radioisotope Geochemist by training ends up in her current role.
 
Exporting nuclear technology has long been lauded as a goal and aim of U.S. companies as well as the current and former Congresses and Administrations. We appreciate Kirsten spending time with us to help us better understand the gears at work here and we hope you find the conversation enlightening as well.

We are very excited to have  Elina Teplinsky, Partner and Global Energy Industry Leader at Pillsbury Law, join us for this episode of Gener8. Elina is an energy and legal expert and her experience base, along with Pillsbury Law's, covers a wide breadth of the energy topics that we typically cover. Elina’s particular area of focus tends to be around Nuclear Energy and Hydrogen as a part of today's and our future energy economy. Having recently returned from COP28 and having the value of retrospection brought on by a new year, Elina shared her thoughts on a variety of international and domestic topics related to her recent experiences and areas of practice.

Our conversation with Elina started with COP28 and what it takes to make these pledges reality, as well as how to gauge the real levels of enthusiasm around these ambitions. Before sharing more about her background and the Pillsbury Law activities in her practice area, Elina shared her perspectives on what obstacles create the most difficulty for broader development of nuclear energy. Elina then explained some of the intricacies around proposed rules for hydrogen production tax credits and how they interact with current nuclear and future assets. Discussing some of her clients’ perspectives, Elina shared some of the dichotomies between large and smaller nuclear energy assets in terms of making future project decisions as well as how her clients, future customers, and investors should think about some of the more turbulent news we’ve heard in the future nuclear space around potential lay-offs and project cancellations.

Elina brought a wealth of knowledge born from the practical work of todays and tomorrow’s nuclear technology and we hope that you can gain as much from the conversation as we did.

On the heels of a very eventful COP28 in Dubai in 2023, we sat down with Lee Beck, Senior Director for Europe and the Middle East at the  Clean Air Task Force, to discuss the global conversation on energy and how that impacts the dialogues and pledges coming from COP28. While a lot of Lee’s background has been focused on Carbon Capture, Lee’s current position allowed her to participate in many different discussions and venues at COP28 and she shares her insights with us with regards to nuclear energy, methane, and more.

Our conversation with Lee began with exploring what international conversations (outside of energy issues associated with Russian aggression) had the most impact and what other areas were perhaps overlooked heading into COP. With the global pledge announced by more than 20 nations to triple nuclear energy production by 2050, Lee shared her perspective on how nuclear energy achieved prominence at this COP that it does not usually ascend to and how ATF prepared for and supported this opportunity. We then discussed how to translate that and other pledges into action, understanding the commitments made at COP28 around methane emissions reduction, and how, or if, all of this is achievable. Lee shared more about her background before closing us out with an overview of the financing challenges to achieve these goals and what we should be thinking about as a follow-up to COP28 in general and in looking ahead to COP29.
 
We appreciate Lee's perspective and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!

Today’s episode of Gener8 aims to understand how numerous challenges affecting the future of nuclear energy fit together and whether one or another rises above the rest. Dr. Adam Stein, Director of Nuclear Energy Innovation at The Breakthrough Institute (BTI), joined us to share his thoughts and research around these challenges. 

To begin our conversation with Adam, we started with a topic that seems to be at the center of a lot of the work Adam and others have authored at BTI and that is the role of and the need for reform with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Adam shared some perspectives on just what the challenges at the NRC look like and how they affect current as well as future deployment plans. Our conversation on the NRC also examined how it compares to other challenges facing nuclear deployments, where and how we could or should see change at the NRC, as well as how to recognize that any such change is occurring. We then turned to what brought Adam into this space as well as BTI’s focus before having Adam share insights around recent work he has published with regards to the cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project. Our conversation with Adam closed out by looking at the coal-to-nuclear transition opportunity as well as Adam sharing some thoughts on the broad nuclear opportunity and takeaways from his recent trip to Japan to visit Fukushima Daiichi. 
  
We hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation as much as we did.