Atomic revival: A new age for nuclear?

This week, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change released a report declaring, “a new nuclear age is beginning,” arguing that nuclear power is critical in meeting global climate goals. But how is this renaissance different from earlier proclamations of an atomic revival?

In this episode, Richard talks with report co-author Tone Langengen about the case for a nuclear revival and the hurdles still in its way. Joining the discussion is nuclear expert Paul Dorfman, who questions whether nuclear can truly compete with renewables.

They cover the potential of small modular reactors (SMRs), the challenges of cost overruns, and whether nuclear and renewables can work together to create a resilient, low-carbon grid.

Host: Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel
Guests: Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change. Co-author of this report “A New Nuclear Age”; Dr Paul Dorfman - Visiting Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit of the University of Sussex; Chris Eales – France Editor, Montel

Editor: Bled Maliqi

Transcript

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Montel Weekly podcast where we bring you the latest news issues and changes happening in the energy sector. This week has seen the release of a focus on the future of nuclear power by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change."A new nuclear age is beginning" they say, and that we can no longer afford to ignore the potential of this powerful technology. It also says "the world cannot let unfounded public concern stand in the way of progress". We'll hear from a co-author of this report, which also states analysis by the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggests that rapid expansion of nuclear power is needed to meet global climate goals. We'll look at the implications of that and hear too about the historical and current opposition that's been to nuclear power. Public opinion on nuclear seems particularly tied to historical events and regional politics. Scotland offers a fascinating case study. Here's a short clip from Dr. Ewan Gibbs, who has seen a lecturer in political and international studies at the University of Glasgow. He's a historian who focuses on energy industry and protest. We asked him how Scotland's anti-nuclear history has shaped current public opinion.

Dr Ewan Gibbs - University of Glasgow: 1:24

I also think in terms of public opinion, that it's probably the case that the cure doesn't have the same negative associations and the same strength that did in the past because. The focus has been on carbon emissions in recent decades. Although it is worth noting that in Scotland, for instance the Davol administration adopted an anti-nuclear stance initially under a labor led government in 2006. And has continued to, you know, SNP led governments have continued to maintain that policy of using planning power to oppose future development. So I, I think it's fair to say that the proposal to be born cure isn't without controversy.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 2:05

Alongside me throughout this episode is Montel's France, editor Chris Eales. A warm welcome to you, Chris.

Chris Eales – France Editor, Montel: 2:11

Thank you, Richard. Hello everyone.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 2:13

What did you make of the reports that was, that was launched by the Tony Blair Institute this week.

Chris Eales – France Editor, Montel: 2:18

Well, the Tony Blair Institute issued a report that's saying essentially that of nuclear power. The rollout of nuclear power has been held back by a inaccurate narrative against nuclear power since the Chernobyl disaster, and that as a result of that car, global carbon emissions have grown more than they would've done. They would be 6% lower than today. According to this report. The report says that there's been a sharp slowdown in the number of nuclear actors open since the 1980s. And that I. Basically, nuclear hasn't reached its potential because of this what they call a, the perception's fault the public's false perception of the risk that nuclear power poses. They're asking us to move past the false alarm and ideology that they say slowed the down progress.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 3:11

And how else, nuclear's been in the news quite promptly in the last couple of months. What, in what ways, Chris, could you maybe tell us a little bit about that?

Chris Eales – France Editor, Montel: 3:18

One of the, one of the interesting things that happened was of course, the big tech involvement in SMRs signing signing deals, or at least saying they're going to sign deals. We've got Amazon, Microsoft, and Google signing agreements for SMR units in the US. This all happened in the autumn, that's obviously quite interesting. And this is based on the idea that there will be a surge in demand power demand because of the use of ai. And the need for power to cool down data centers. So that's been very important. At the same time, we've had other countries in Europe, such as Italy, joining the nuclear bandwagon and talking about a revival of nuclear in that country which is by no means certain at all. And these are obviously are just plans. And and we have an EU alliance push a nuclear alliance in EU pushing very, very ambitious plans to roll out nuclear power by 2050. So at the same time there's a very clear rift in Europe. Between the largest economy, Germany and France. France is very pro-nuclear and has obviously big plans to extend its to build new reactors by 2050. Germany is going the other way or has has agreed to, to obviously to decommission its reactors. So there's a rift and that's showing up in various. It's an, obviously, it's a long ongoing rift that's been showing up in various discussions within Europe recently, particularly over the clean industry deal. They're trying to get through with demands by France for nuclear to be, held seen in an equal light as renewables, for example and in, in a campaign to obviously to get more funding from nuclear and from other sources, European Bank, et cetera. So those are some of the issues that are happening. There's a clear push for nuclear a rev, a revival in the context of the war in Ukraine which has given, an opportunity for proponents of nuclear to push their very ambitious plans.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 5:20

Thank you very much, Chris. I'd like to go on to our guests now. And joining me also is is Tone Langengen, who is the senior policy advisor climate and energy policy at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. And she's the co-author of the reports I've mentioned in the intro and that you've also alluded too Chris. Now a warm welcome to you Tone.

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 5:38

Thank you very much. Great spear.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 5:40

Your report suggests that global carbon emissions would be 6% lower than today, as Chris mentioned in his scene setter. And if it were not for the inaccurate narrative against nuclear power, since the Chernobyl disaster that has created unfounded public concern, as I also mentioned an intro. But how significant is that concern globally? In 2024 Tone?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 6:01

Yeah, so I think if we take one step back, nuclear power came on the scene in kind of 1950s and it was seen as one of the kind of great inventions of our time and the kind of solution to feed an increasingly energy hungry world with power. And the kind of initial years of the fifties, sixties, seventies, so a kind of rapid rise in the take up of technology which kind of led to further innovations and the kind of new opportunities within the nuclear industry. But then there have been these kind of, significant accident disasters that's happened along the way, which has been fueling a kind of public perception. And there were already concerns about nuclear before things like three Mile Island in the US and then no British Noble in 1986. But these type of accidents have kind of created in the public's minds these kind of catastrophic perceptions of what and how safe nuclear power actually is. And a lot of this is driven by some of the kind of media reporting at the time which I think is in many ways very understandable because Chernobyl, for instance, was a absolutely terrible accident. If we're actually looking at the evidence, that's come to light since then. So assessments done by kind of reputable international organizations like WHO. We can see that the, a lot of the analysis around the kind of radiation exposure the kind of the death tolls, et cetera, have been were probably exaggerated at the time. Yet that perception has still lingered in a lot of people's minds, and I think has been utilized by certain movements as a kind of reason to go against nuclear. And also I think that there are justified concerns and trade offs with any NG technology, and I think that applies to literally any energy technology. There are risks and concerns that can be mitigated and dealt with and that are mitigated and dealt with. And then there are the kind of concerns that are not fact-based and ideological that leaders and political leaders now need to be able to move past to really harness the power of nuclear going forward.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 8:22

Ab absolutely. But if I can add to that, I think, Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, was so horrified by what she saw at Fukushima. She scrapped, decommissioned or announced an end to nuclear power in the country with the immediate closure of eight nuclear actors. And that was before any kind of the deaths were announced or the, the scale of the accident was fully known.

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 8:44

Absolutely, and I think this is I think this is what we've seen, right? We've seen these kind of like peaks and Ros. Three Mile Island happened and the kind of before that actually the US was on a similar path to France in terms of the amount of nuclear power. They were adding to their grid and the kind of proportion of nuclear on their on their grid. And then after Three Mile Island, we're seeing this kind of slowly kind of, falling road rate because people are concerned even though three Mile Island. Didn't lead to any deaths. It didn't lead to any kind of significant radiation exposure in the area above what is healthy doses. And the same with Noble had certain effects, which meant that countries like Italy, and as you say, it also started the process in Germany in a number of other countries, especially around Europe, where they turned their back on the technology as a whole rather than waiting and taking that kind of fact-based assessment. And I think the German example is a really stark one actually, because we're seeing now what this means for the kind of German energy system and their kind of energy cost and competitiveness. That decision to close those reactors down is having very lingering effect, even though I think there is, there's no evidence to suggest that it has made Germany a much safer or better place because those reactors in Germany are, were safe and could be still operating today.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 10:08

There's certainly, you know, concerns or criticism from several market participants as well as politicians that maybe closing down nuclear and coal at the same time was not gonna be such a good idea, especially to guarantee German industry or the industrial heartland of Germany. But you've predicted a new nuclear age in the years ahead, Tone and then Tony Blair Institute. But this is driven by a surge in demand, or can you talk us through why you believe that there's a new nuclear age coming? We've heard it before and it's certainly in the two thousands and, but what makes you so optimistic now?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 10:40

Yeah. And I think part of the reason why we want to put this paper out actually is to avoid or, and to try to make sure that we push for the fact that this isn't like a blip. And then leaders choose to stop doing it. But I think there's three main reasons. So one is the kind of climate change agenda. I think, big, the big organizations like the IPCC, the IEA, all talk about how essential nuclear is going to be to deliver on our climate goals. And we saw a cop last year, the number of countries that were committing to tripling renewables as though tripling nuclear as a part of that agenda. I think the kind of, the climate angle is a really important one. And I think in particular thinking about when countries are adding more and more renewables onto their grids, I think there is an increasing realization that it is necessary to have that kind of base load power there as well to lower the cost and provide that kind of grid stability that is needed going forward. And so that's one of the reasons. I think the other really big reason, which Chris mentioned to begin with is the kind of digitalization and ai revolution that we're seeing at the moment. There is no doubt that AI is incredibly and NJ hungry. We're already seeing kind of huge amount of energy requirements. For instance only a few years ago, almost all data centers use less than 10 mega megawatts of power, and today they can use a hundred megawatts of power or more. And even though we're seeing kind of chips becoming more and more efficient, the kind of growing demand for AI is outpacing that. So there's this huge interest in, in nuclear from these companies. And because these companies essentially need that power to be baseload and stable they are really only looking to nuclear at moment. So we've been seeing these kind of big announcements from Amazon from, from Google and even yesterday we saw meta announcing the fact that they're looking for one to four gigawatts of nuclear in the us. And I think that will be a real kind of driver getting that scale and that order book. In terms of nuclear power projects going. And I also think that an increasing number of countries are going to see it as a kind of competitive advantage for them to have that nuclear power to be able to lead in the AI era. I think a good example of this actually is Japan, who obviously closed down their reactors after Fukushima. And we're now seeing them restarting and really doubling down on that restart process in particular to be able to kind of power the their AI ambitions.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 13:22

Absolutely Tone, some of the critics of your report may point to the fact that a lot of the donors of the Tony Blair Institute are big tech. What would you say to that?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 13:31

I don't, I think that probably just means that, we speak to a number of tech companies and we understand the needs of the tech industry. So I think we're quite, got a finger on the pulse, so to speak, on what some of these drivers are and why this is such an important area. And. I think so we, earlier this week we actually published two reports. One was looking at this kind of counter fractional scenario. The other one was looking at how the UK could like harness the opportunity of SMRs in the energy transition now. And I think one of the big things that we're seeing with these hyperscalers, at the moment is that they are they're they're not just, they're not just wanting all this power, but they're actually willing to put the money and invest in them, which is leading to, the fact that we can go from just having one project to having maybe 10 projects in terms of order books, which is making these, technology is much more feasible and able to get across that kind of value of that first of a kind hurdle and into something that's actually feasible and that works for and that can benefit all of us.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:37

Absolutely. And I think it's clear that big tech probably has the funds at its disposal, probably more so than a lot of utilities in European or in Europe or across the globe. But Chris, a lot of the current. Reactors that have been planned have faced either a lot of cost overruns and delays. What's been the case in France, for example?

Chris Eales – France Editor, Montel: 14:58

Yeah, the, not just in France, the history of France's attempts to build a new reactor FLA bill has been a total disaster. That's pretty well known and I don't think there's any doubt about that. Cost, massive costs, cost overruns a timetable. They never. Could keep to, could have kept to various reports including a government report, slating the whole build, the lack of management in terms of timetables design as well. Starting too quickly without a proper design. And then taking far longer than they thought they would do in terms of engineering hours and a lack of oversight from the states. That so it's a really very poor picture. A very poor place that France is trying, attempting to, is now talking about a nuclear renaissance, but it's coming from a very bad place. So that that's. Obviously very difficult. I would also say just on the SMRs that you mentioned that that let's be clear that no, there no desires for SMRs have been approved yet. And of course the plans the plans that the tech companies are the deals they've signed are really very early days and mass. Challenges, this is all in on paper as are the plans in France to build reactors? It's on paper.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 16:09

But Tone you mentioned a lot of the reasons you ran in your report, you mentioned a lot of reasons for these delays and cost overruns, and is this down to overt, stringent regulators you mentioned or that maybe environmental and safety concerns? Do you feel that they've been overplayed?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 16:24

So I think there's three different elements to the costs story. One I think is a question on the nuclear industry, and I think the nuclear industry needs to know that they need to be able to step up as well to the challenge if they're gonna, if there's gonna be a nuclear renaissance. So just to be really clear on that. Secondly, I think exactly the point that we are making in this report, which is that we have a not shown significant commitment enough to nuclear. This means that we chosen to commission one or two reactors rather than a whole fleet, which is, for instance, what they do in South Korea who see significantly lower costs of building reactors. I think is one of the reasons for why this cost overrun happens. So we're not getting the learning rates, we're not getting the kind of standardized designs in place, which can, which means that things get faster and cheaper, frankly. And then yes, on the regulation as well, I think we have a system. The systems differ in different countries, of course, but there is tendency to want very bespoke models. You end up creating, changing different designs that doesn't necessarily need to be changed on safety grounds. But for, to be overly on the safe side, to deal with some of these kind of over hyped, I would say safety concerns. And also on the environmental side, and this is a wider problem than just nuclear, but we've developed a planning system in the UK specifically, but in many countries as well, where things. It takes so much time. You got the kind of delays that's built in at every step. So for instance, you need two years of reports on badgers and bats in March before you can even get your kind of environmental permit in place. And all these kind of delays and uncertainties and the lengthy consultations add significant costs to the project.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 18:23

Absolutely. These are issues also permitting issues faced by many energy infrastructure projects, but I'm, I'd like to bring in Paul Dorfman now who's, he's visiting fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, and he also founded the Nuclear Consulting Group. A warm welcome to you, Paul.

Dr Paul Dorfman - Associate Fellow,Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex: 18:39

Thank you very much. Just to adjust a few points, the report looks like something that's put together by a set of people who don't necessarily have relevant academic or expert experience in the key issues that it it reports to address. Especially questions about radiation risk and to cut to the chase in terms of radiation risk from accidents I recall after both of us speaking at UK Parliament a few years ago, I had supper with Natan who was president, prime Minister of Japan at the time of Fukushima, and I was astonished when he turned to me through an interpreter and said that if the wind was in the wrong direction, he would've lost Tokyo. There are all kinds of issues that one can discuss about radiation risk. But let's turn to the issue more perhaps more important, which is the question about climate and climate impact. Now, I'm unsure if it's actually true, what this report talks about in terms of IPCC, the in inter the key issue the key organization about climate change. Now, IPCC AR six. A report 2023 states quite clearly that currently renewables are 10 times better, 10 times more efficient at CO2 mitigation in terms of mitigating the climate gases that we have than nuclear. Now let's also turn to. The other kinds of, the kinds of discussion that, that our colleagues have talked about now in terms of, again, in terms of climate, the International Energy Agency, which also the report alludes to states quite clearly that renewables will do be lifting. For the energy transition, which to a certain extent leaves nuclear as a kind of, some sort of backup basically to the renewables. E evolution. The problem with that, of course, is that nuclear is probably the last thing that you want to back up. The variability. Of renewables because it doesn't load follow very well. In other words, it doesn't power up and power down very well. Of course it can do for safety reasons, but in doing so, what it does, it makes the economics, the fiscal problems of of nuclear hugely huge, more problematic. And of course, as we know the problems the economic problems with nuclear are very great. Just turning Hinkley Point C, the projected capital cost of Hinkley Point C is six times the original projected cost.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:17

Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Tone, would you like to comment on how well nuclear fits with renewables?'cause obviously the world, Europe in particular will roll out a massive amount of renewables over the coming years that'll be in place before potentially new reactors in the countries that we've mentioned. How does that fit, fit in with nuclear new reactors?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 21:38

My, so my view on this, and this is this report is definitely not meant to be a kind of anti renewables piece. I think that renewables are great and I think they're gonna be probably the most important part of this transition. So I think we're fully aligned on that. I do think, however, that what we're seeing is that to create a kind of balanced energy system for the future that is low cost, stable, strong with the technologies that we have available to us. Nuclear offers a really good counterbalance for a renewable space system. So for instance, I know that department of energy in the US have done some research looking at the California grid where they found that the system costs, with a system with renewables and nuclear is. 37% lower than one with renewables and store storage only. And I think that's, that cost point is really important because if we're gonna bring people along on the transition, bring industry along on the transition and make the transition, something that's goes along with economic growth, it is essential to be able to deliver those low cost energy systems. So I don't think it's neither or question, and I think actually this is the kind of also the wider point that we're trying to make in this piece. A lot of groups have a lot of problems with a lot of the technologies that we need for net. There are a lot of the things that we need to do for net there. People are against transmission lines in their areas. People are against carbon capture and storage. And all of these type of what I think are often quite ideological opposition is going to slow down transition and it's not gonna make it happen and are ultimately going to be a much greater risk to humanity and our societies than action.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 23:28

I think this is this is as, as I said earlier, I think this is also generally true for a lot of in infrastructure build. But Paul, before you, you come back on that point, I also, we talked a little bit about SMRs. Do you think they could make nuclear more competitive with renewables or already all renewables already much cheaper?

Dr Paul Dorfman - Associate Fellow,Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex: 23:46

Nuclear's share of global electricity production has almost halved from 96, 19 96 to 2023 to costs. It. It sounds astonishing, but nuclear adds only as much electricity in a year as renewables add every few days. For example, and this is true and I'm happy to reference this, China is now installing wind and solar capacity equivalent to five new reactors weekly. That's an astonishing statistic, and I'm very happy to back that up. Now in terms of SMRs, there are no functioning SMRs. Now, if they were to work well, kind of great, but what have we seen so far? We've seen new scales, the American best Hope collapse amid sort of financial distress. We've seen EDFS, SMR effort collapse at the same time. And perhaps what's more concerning. Is discretion of climate and nuclear. Now we know that all nuclear, including SMRs, need to be situated by the coastal, by large bodies of water or by the rivers and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The head of nuclear regulation in the US says that 55 of US nuclear sites have already experienced flooding acid beyond their design base. And the US Army War College reports that nuclear power facilities are at high risk of temporary or permanent closure due to climate threats. So the problem is this nuclear has to be by the coast or by rivers, or by, and that includes SMRs. Now we hope. Sea level rise will be step changed. We don't know, but we hope. What is really important and concerning about all of this is a storm search. We're basically under, under increasing atmospheric conditions, which coalesce with high tide, the sea, basically mo moves up and moves in land. So there are some very key issues here. So Nuclear has this idea, and SMRs have this idea that they will save us from climate the truth, unfortunately. Both for the reactors and also for the spent fuel ponds is very different. And if one looks at iMac, the UK institution mechanical engineers. Some time ago, they're reporting that a uk coastal nuclear will will be at significant risk.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 26:19

Tone, how should the nuclear industry address these, the vulnerabilities that that Paul has highlighted here? What should be done? A lot of as Paul said, that a lot by coastal either coastal locations are also on rivers, which are also seeing an increase in temperatures every summer. So how can how can the nuclear sector. Cope with this or deal with those kind of issues.

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 26:40

So first of all, just to say I it's great to hear that we're totally aligned on the fact that we need to take adaptation seriously, and we need to do that now. I think to a certain degree first of all we are really lucky at the moment because we. Much better kind of capabilities in terms of ai, digital twins, et cetera, that can like, help us model what the, these potential climate impacts might be and how we can then create the kind of right safety systems, do the right sighting to avoid those impacts. And one of the things that we argue for in, in our report is better use of these type of tools to do back to strategic, exciting and planning, which I think can be essential in terms of making this work. So absolutely that's really important to be able to future proof these the sighting of the nuclear power stations. The other thing is there is very rapid innovation happening within the nuclear industry at the moment. So one thing is the kind of generation three plus kind of water based SMRs, but we're also seeing advanced modular reactors, generation four reactors being developed, which use different cooling solutions, which can then also be placed in different areas of the country. And of course, these are technologies in developments at the moment. We've obviously. These, they're not new concepts. Some of them have been tried before. But I am, I'm really optimistic and really excited about the kind of potential opportunities for harnessing some of those innovations. And the great thing about those new models as well is that they are designed to work much better at load following. They can provide really high grade heat, which can help decarbonize industrial processes. So there's a whole range of kind of future opportunities and I think we would be foolish not to pursue and look at how these kind of innovations could help decarbonize our economies. Cheaper and more effectively.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 28:33

I'm very conscious of the clock here Paul and Tone and I'd like to if Paul, if you can respond and Tone a last word from you, and then, I'm sorry, we're gonna have to call it a day there but Paul, over to you.

Dr Paul Dorfman - Associate Fellow,Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex: 28:44

Okay. The key issues, climate basically and do we have time? According to a UK government global data, it takes up to. Or is it up to 17 years to put down just one nuclear power plant in terms of global data? Monkey point C planning started 2008. That was after Tony Blair's 2005. Nuclear is back with a vengeance. Updated estimated construction time about 13 years, so planning to operation about to about 23 years at six times the original projected cost. EDF. Famously predicted UK would be cooking Christmas turkeys with power from Hinkley Point C by 2017. The problem, the key problem with nuclear is this, okay, apart from climate, apart from the economics, apart from the radiation risk and the security risk that we all understand after what's been going on in Ukraine. We don't have time for nuclear. It's just much too late for climate or energy crisis.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 29:48

Thank you Paul and Tone. Why is nuclear the answer?

Tone Langengen - Senior Policy Advisor, Climate & Energy Policy at the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change: 29:50

First of all, I just want to very quickly respond to that because I actually think that encapsulates a lot of what we're saying in the report. There's often a kind of chicken and egg type of argument around nuclear, which is basically saying nuclear is really slow and expensive, so we shouldn't do it. I think that part of the reason why slow and expensive is a policy choice, right? We have made some choices that are making it more expensive by not committing to possibly large fleets by not making the planning system and the regulatory system permissive and we're with the kind of actual risks and rewards, the technology we are imposing these timelines. And in some ways that's the same thing with renewables, right? The kind of the stat that was often pulled out lot in the UK has been that it takes 12 years to build an offshore wind farm. And we're not resigning ourselves to that. We don't think that's okay in the kind of timescales that we need to address climate change. And I think the same goes with. Because we can build a lot of reactors in the time between now and 2050 offsetting loads of emissions. As I say, if we had continued the kind of commitment to nuclear that we saw in the kind of seventies and sixties and early eighties as well global emissions could be global energy related emissions could be 6% lower today. I don't buy the premise that fall is putting out. I think that we need all of these technologies to make net zero happen. And I think that in the world as it's now where energy is such a strategic resource. Countries are going to turn to nuclear, and we should do it in the right way to make it as cheap and quick and efficient as possible.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 31:32

Thank you. I realize it's quite a polarized debate, so there's a very sort of strong pro and very strong anti feeling. But thank you very much for clarifying your positions and being guests on the Montel Weekly podcast. It's been a fascinating discussion and thank you listeners for tuning in. But first of all, thank you Tone, Paul and Chris.