Welcome to the Chronos Fusion Energy podcast.
I'm Priyanka Ford, the founder of Chronos Fusion
Energy, and I'm thrilled to have you with us
for today's episode. We're diving into the world
of nuclear technology with a guest whose extensive
career has made him a leading figure in the industry.
Joining me is Martin Owens, our chief strategy
officer and board advisor at Chronos Fusion Energy.
Martin has 35 years of experience in nuclear
energy, from reactor development to project management,
and he brings a unique perspective to the table.
Martin's journey into nuclear energy has been
anything but conventional. After earning his
bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from
Old Dominion University in 1984, He was on the
path to becoming a test pilot before his career
took a turn into nuclear operations. His first
role in the industry was the BWXT Nuclear Operations
Group, where he helped develop reactors for the
U .S. Navy. This pivotal experience laid the
groundwork for a successful career in advanced
nuclear technologies. In addition to his work
at Cronos Fusion Energy, Martin holds a key position
at Los Alamos National Laboratory as Senior Director
of the Capital Project Execution Organization.
His role at Los Alamos involves overseeing complex
projects and ensuring the successful execution
of capital initiatives. This dual responsibility
reflects his deep expertise and commitment to
pushing the boundaries of nuclear technologies.
Martin's career includes notable roles at Arriva
and GE Hitachi. At Arriva, he managed nuclear
reactor and fuel development programs, earning
a promotion to project director. At GE Hitachi,
he served as EPC director. leading large -scale
nuclear projects. His academic background is
complemented by an MBA in global management from
Ashford University, giving him a strategic outlook
on the industry's challenges and opportunities.
Today, Martin plays a crucial role at Kronos
Fusion Energy, guiding our strategic direction
as we work towards commercializing fusion energy.
and achieving energy independence. In this episode,
we'll explore Martin's career path, his insights
into nuclear technology, and his views on the
future of fusion energy. We'll discuss his work
at Los Alamos, the challenges of nuclear regulation,
and the innovative approach we're taking at Krimos
Fusion Energy. Martin is the person I go to with
the heart to solve. Almost impossible problems
and he always finds a way to make things happen
Here's Martin Owens Okay, thanks for doing this
Martin Yeah, we usually start these off by asking
like what got you into your field of specialty
and for you It's it's nuclear energy nuclear
operations What drew you into it? Well, you know,
to be honest, it was kind of happenstance for
me. I wasn't quite sure what kind of career I
was going to go into. Originally, I was really
headed to be a pilot and wanted to be a best
pilot. And sort of I almost went in that direction.
And I got into the Air Force and a lot of different
other kinds of things. I kind of just all of
a sudden sort of changed my mind and I sort of
started wondering what I was gonna do. And so
I had just gotten out of school. And so I was
like, had one thing that came up and that was
I needed to pay some bills, okay? So I had to
get a job. And so I just happened to get a job.
I got a couple offers and took a job. in Lynchburg,
Virginia, with a company at that time was called
Babcock and Wilcox at the Naval Nuclear Fuel
Division. And I really never intended to get
into nuclear. I mean, I thought about maybe going
into nuclear, maybe that seemed kind of attractive
to me. So I ended up sort of like in a role in
nuclear, I didn't really expect to stay. I thought
this would be a good first job. But as I got
into it, I realized that this was really amazing
technology and we were very, we were at the cusp
of doing a lot of development and was a very
dynamic program. And so that really appealed
to me. And, you know, I just really got into
the business of building nuclear power plants.
That's how I ended up my start. The Navy has
always been ahead of the game when it comes to
nuclear energy. Why is that? Is that unlikely
or is that just how it would have always been?
Well, I think many things in this world get driven
by the Defense Department. especially new technology
tends to the applications of it you know tend
to come out in you know it's the same thing in
aircraft right so you have the Wright brothers
who are but they were bicycle mechanics right
but pretty soon people started thinking about
well gee can we use this um for the military
and uh so you had world war one and and they
started using aircraft and that's what i think
drove that industry. Same thing with nuclear,
you know, nuclear really started out in experimental
land and of course everybody knows about Oppenheimer
and atomic weapons and the technology got developed
quite a bit there, but then there was this application
of could we use this for power? Could we harness
this? And really that all started with the nuclear
Navy and Admiral Rickover who had a vision of
how it could be applied to submarines. And he
convinced a number of people including getting
the funding to develop it for power. And that
really sort of cast the die. if you will, of
the direction of nuclear power very early on,
very rapid development of it. Wow. Yeah, nuclear
energy has an absolutely fascinating history.
Our DOE labs have done so much, especially Los
Alamos. So you were at ARIVA for a long time.
What was ARIVA about? And how did, I'm just curious,
how did Fusion go from lab to commercial? Was
it the same as what Fusion is trying to do in
that there are a couple of private companies
or? I'm curious. Yeah, so the companies that
were heavily involved in developing nuclear power
for the Navy was General Electric and Westinghouse.
And so, and because they were power companies,
right? They had developed, they were already
into power, you know, in developing electricity.
So that's how they got involved. And, you know,
really Eisenhower, President Eisenhower had the
Atoms for Peace initiative. He was sort of a
visionary, I think, in that he wanted to really
spread that nuclear energy across the globe.
But these companies like General Electric, they
were the first ones to commercialize nuclear
power. I believe the first plant that produced
electricity was in California. So it was a General
Electric plant. So that came out of their experience
in the nuclear Navy because they they had developed
that nose atomic power power lab or capital up
in Schenectady New York there they were behind
designing the reactors for the navy and then
they sort of just spawned that out to convert
the commercial world and so that's how that the
commercial world got going we've been difficult
actually to if they didn't have that whole investment
from the government to really, you know, develop
the technology and then they could apply it to
the commercial world. Yeah. So at this point,
because GE is older than Fission Energy. Is that
a true statement? Yeah, so GE was an established
company. Right. Right. You got to think Edison,
right? So, you know, the roots of General Electric
are back to Tom Edison and Westinghouse is like,
you know, George Westinghouse. So they developed
a lot of the electric motors, right? We talk
about things like alternating current motors
and all these kinds of things. And so, yes. And
so those companies, really were relied upon to
have the expertise and engineering background,
but also the manufacturing base to be able to
do those types of things. Yeah, that's a hard
one to scale up. You can save a decent decade
if you work with an established company for that.
Yeah, that makes sense. How is Old Dominion University?
Where is that, by the way? So that's in Norfolk,
Virginia. And yeah, so I ended up at Old Dominion.
The interesting thing about Old Dominion is that
it's in very close proximity to Langley. And
so there's a number of professors there involved
in that. in NASA and doing a lot of that kind
of work. So you get the benefit of that. Today,
it's a very large university there. When I went,
it was still kind of large, but it was more of
a university that had a lot of people that commuted
to it. So I was one of the few I think actually
lived on campus. But yeah, I enjoyed my time
there. I got some interesting professors. Nice.
So mechanical, you did mechanical engineering
there, and that's before you got, you knew you
weren't even going to get into fission. That's
right. So, you know, at the time I was thinking
about going to the Air Force, I thought that
mechanical engineering would be a really good
background for that. If you were to be getting
into things like being a test pilot or things
like that, you need to understand the engineering
of that. And mechanical engineering has always
been thought of as sort of the broad -based engineering
discipline that you can apply to a lot of different
areas. So you can... you don't get too pigeonholed.
You can apply that to a number of different industries.
Right, so that's interesting. You did for fission,
when engineering was the biggest challenge for
fission, you worked on that and now for fusion,
we're very much thinking that when people say,
what is your biggest challenge? I say engineering.
It's an engineering challenge. So yeah, it's
applicable. How do you think about the timing
of that? Like I would just like to somehow draw
that parallel between vision and fusion when
it comes to like the physics be like just being
in this in the precipice of this birth of this
new commercial technology that's been developed
in the lab for decades and decades and then.
Well, yeah, you know, I think that's that's in
all really cutting edge sort of applications
of technology. The real trick is how do you actually
make something that works? So in the lab you
can prove out you know, the physics of things
and you can prove out, you know, formulas and
how you explain things, but how you actually
translate that into something that can work.
So on the vision side of things, the nuclear
Navy, a tremendous amount of money and technology
and science behind that, but to actually develop,
let's say, like materials. that will work for
years under all kinds of really difficult conditions,
whether it's heat pressure, being bombarded by
fission, neutrons. and how do you actually make
something that can actually work is very, very
difficult. I mean, it's one thing to where you
can get close to it. You can say, yeah, a little
bit more development here. We can actually, it'll
work. But then to actually meet all the requirements
and deliver something, that's a specialty unto
itself. And so that was the leap of say, Rickover,
you know, with the Nautilus. of actually, you
know, being able to broadcast underway under
nuclear power. And the same thing as infusion.
It's no different in that. I think the physics
are understood, but it's now how do we develop
the materials that will withstand that? How do
we have the control systems? That's going to
be actually the hardest thing to accomplish.
So there's very close parallels of those kinds
of those things, but you know in today's world
We are we have so much more at hand Okay, so
you know we have so many more exotic materials.
We have so many more computer programs that can
They can calculate things way faster than they
did in the 50s with slide rules and very okay
kind of you know slow processing types of applications.
So we should be faster. We should be better.
And that's what I'm believing. Yeah, I agree
with you. I think in terms of time scale, it's...
I think building a fusion energy generator in
about 12 years in like starting in 12 years We
could be building one every like four years to
five years would be the build time span if not
shorter but what is that with fission like how
many how many years does it take to build it
and Then get the regulatory, you know licensing
so to speak we should really In vision, you know,
the technology exists and the engineering has
been really accomplished all the basics. It really
becomes more of a regulatory challenge. And really,
it's really a little bit unfair because nuclear
power has proven itself over decades to be safe.
and the rigor that technology has produced safety
systems and backup safety systems that control
that is there. But the regulatory framework these
days is very difficult. I think it's maybe getting
a little better because I think there are people
realizing in those regulatory bodies that they're
really stifling the advancement of nuclear power.
And if you look across the world, other countries
are going much faster, right? You go to China,
they've got many plants under construction there,
and have developed plants. We in the United States
have only two plants to show for that in recent
history, and that's at Vogel there in Georgia,
which are under Westinghouse. That took well
over a decade, $30 billion. And many of those
years were just trying to get the license to
build it. Whereas years ago, that wasn't the
case. But if you look at fission compared to
fusion, the case for the safety basis for fusion.
is much more straightforward than vision, because
you can vision, you can have a extended reaction,
let's say that you've done controllable, you
have to control, you can control it. You have
to have many backup systems to make sure that
you don't have a situation where you have a meltdown,
which we all, that's a common term that people
understand. But infusion, you don't have that.
Fusion, as you know, you have to maintain the
fusion itself. You have to put energy in to sustain
a fusion reaction. As soon as you let off the
gas, it stops immediately. So that is a much
totally different way of licensing something.
And so really infusion, it's going to be more
like accelerators or any source of radiation
that you have to shield. And so as long as you
can demonstrate that you have shielding in place
while the fusion reaction is going on, that's
gonna be the main driver, which is order of magnitude
lower in... in complexity and also in being able
to demonstrate that. Right. I think we had some
good news for fusion. I want to say like mid
last year, maybe it was a year and a half ago
that the Nuclear Energy Commission out here in
the US would regulate fusion very differently.
But then I recently found out that in California,
Even though you know, there's like they're very
profusion. We are very profusion we also have
Regulations for new for neutrons and and how
neutrons are produced and the safety regulations
for it. It's a high threshold to pass so We were
having a lot of conversations between a neutronic
energy being even more friendlier on a regulatory
for a regulatory environment in the future than
even a neutron. This is kind of like a big what
-if question with a lot of variables, but I'd
love to know what you think about it. A lot of
countries out there are going to look at how
the US is regulating fusion, and they're going
to probably come up with their own laws and ways
to do it. What would be a good way? There are
bodies created by ITER, and there's the Fusion
Energy Association, and there are smart people
working on this. So this is not anything that's
on your plate or my plate. But just based on
your expertise, what is the best -case scenario?
International fusion. On the fission side, the
regulatory bodies do meet. And they have had
a lot of words, I would say, about how they were
going to use one country's regulations in another
country's. But that's never, as far as I know,
actually come to fruition. People have sort of
said the US is the gold standard. I think that's
probably US saying that. Probably. I have a bio
-cell admit. Actually, I don't think it's going
to be such a high bar at all. I think if you
look at things that are already exported products
that are technology that produce some kind of
radiation that are used in other countries. and
are shielded. I think you could probably find
some examples there that already are in place.
I'm really optimistic that the regulatory piece
is going to be a small part of the fusion development.
it's going to be the engineering piece is the
challenge. So. Right. Yeah. I just I think about
that. I just think about like the neutrons or
if Tritium were to be used in kind of global
expansion. So if we were going to build like
10 generators that we want to put somewhere out
there in the desert somewhere. that can power
a railway or something like that, we wouldn't
want it to have tritium in it that's up and running,
or like a lithium -breeding wall that breeds
more and more tritium in the system, because
now you've actually put something weaponizable,
even though it's fusion. So I think that... I
think that there needs to be that distinction
made in the regulatory system at some point in
the future. I hope people are kind of paying
attention to that. Yes, I think that's a really
good point. Tritium is a something that's highly
controlled by governments because of its use
in the weapons programs. But it also though Tritium
exists in like commercial nuclear fission power
as part of something they have to deal with.
And if you don't, tritium is very, very difficult
to contain because it's such a small atom, right?
So what you end up with is there are places where
tritium has gotten into the ground. And although
it has a relatively shorter half life. It's still
something you don't want, of course, in your
water. And so there are plants in the US that
have been shut down because of their concerns
about tritium. And so not having to deal with
large quantities of tritium is certainly a huge
advantage. It's also not only from a regulatory
standpoint, but from a technical standpoint of
having to have all the controls in place engineered
and the cost of all of that as well and complications.
Yep, exactly. The ancillary systems that you
need to build just because you're using tritium
is almost, is good motivation to do the extra
engineering and go the a -neutronic route. Because
even with the fusion, it's not just your generator.
If you're using tritium, you need to have some
sort of a tritium processing unit attached to
your fusion energy generator. And that's like
ancillary systems are necessary for both fusion
and fission. It's just that I think there are
a few of the fusion ones are almost easier to
build than the... Yeah, anyway. Mm -hmm. It's
always good to keep it simple, right? The KISS
principle. And so if we can minimize that, and
I understand like an eater, if you look at that,
their plant has an enormous amount of it devoted
to having to handle in tritium, you know? It's
not just a Tiny little sidebar, right? It's something
that they have got a lot of investment in and
of course a new tronic reducing the number of
neutrons is is huge right because Neutrons can
go a long ways unless you have a lot of shielding,
but it's also very It's it's it's also bombarding
your materials that you have and so you have
to engineer those materials that much more and
you're going to have to think about the life
span of those things. Same thing in, you know,
you have to develop those materials for longevity.
So not having as many neutrons to deal with is
going to make that a little bit simpler task
and make us make something more robust that can
last longer without having to have Lots of frequent
maintenance. Right, it brings the cost of it
down overall. And just for the record, I've always
been pro -nuclear energy. Since I was a child,
I've been told good things. And I worked at Edison
International, and they owned the San Onofre
nuclear power plant where I live in Southern
California and I think it got shut down a few
years ago after after Fukushima and there you
know there was some political blowback or something
and they all got shut down but I think we had
a few others I think there was like El Diablo
or something nuclear power plant that got shut
down too but So I've always been pro -nuclear
because in the larger scheme of things it's been
a safe way to generate enormous amounts of energy.
And I have friends who have founded companies
in California where they use fusion processes
to create neutrons because neutrons have their
own place in society. and they do different things.
You know this. You're in Los Alamos. Yeah, especially
with the applications. But it doesn't have a
great place when it comes to large scale fusion
energy commercialization. You don't want to have
it. That's kind of just for the record. Right.
Yeah. Well, either one. Yeah, and I'm obviously
my my career was spent largely in vision and
so I'm a fan of nuclear power it's not just because
I was in it but probably because I was so close
to what I realized the the advantages and That
you have basically power density Alright, so
you you if you look at the amount of uranium
that you need compared to say like coal to produce
that amount of energy, you'll be looking at,
you know, tons of rail cars, right? Compared
to, of coal, compared to a tiny little vial of
uranium. So you have this incredible power density.
So you minimize so many things because of that,
including waste. And, you know, you've probably
seen the press about all the coal ash that has
leaked into rivers and destroyed all kinds of
ecosystems. And so they have incredible large
volumes of that. So if you look at nuclear power,
it's just so much more compact. And same thing
with fusion. We're talking about amazing amounts
of energy just in a small area. We're not talking
about taking up millions, thousands of acres
of land for things like solar panels. so forth
so that's the that's the real advantage one of
them anyway yeah um we were talking about um
recently i think with carl we were talking about
um q factor and how q factor is calculated and
uh like the bare bones way of looking at it is
input versus output but You could just look at
the plasma Q factor or your fusion energy Q factor
for your entire system. So it depends on the
variables you use in that equation. You can calculate
it many different ways. But the honest way to
do it would be to do the entire system, so to
speak, to look at. what goes into powering every
single bit of the system and the output that
comes out of it. And based on even the most honest
of calculations for Q factor, pound for pound,
fusion gives you almost 4x the amount of power
that fission would give, just based on the amount
of deuterium and tritium you would use or something.
We need amazing engineers, Martin. That's what
we need. We need engineers. Everything that I
just said can only be solved by engineering.
And as I said earlier, we have the advantage
today of not just mechanical engineers, but we're
talking about computer scientists too, who can
really leverage things like AI and move us even
more forward. I've always been amazed at when
I worked in the neighbor actor program and how
well they were able to design way back in the
60s with what the tools that they had back then
actually they put, but the thing was they could
only do so many iterations as they optimize the
design because those calculations would take
a long time. So they couldn't just say, you know,
well, we'll just keep iterating until we reach
a. an even better situation. They could maybe
only run the reactor to end, you know, three,
four times or something like this way back in
the day. But today, you know, with the computer
models that you have, you don't have to spend
so much time doing actual, you know, physical
testing, but also you can run, you know, you
can run scenario after scenario and you can optimize
things to where You know, if you look at where
nuclear powers come in the Navy, you know, years
ago used to be, you know, a reactor, I don't
know, might have a year or two, three kind of
life and you have to go replace it. You know,
and today in the nuclear Navy, you talk about
life of the ship reactors so that they just,
you weld them shut for 30 plus years and you're
looking at, you know, that kind of an advancement,
right? That's come a long ways. Usually, we have
a huge head start because of where all the tools
and technology that we have at our disposal.
Yeah. So the time scales overall would be faster.
The development, the lab to commercial time scales,
all of that. A lot of computing can be thrown
at it. Yeah, I was even I was talking to somebody
about prototyping recently and we talked about
using computing for prototyping and and Just
how much more can be accomplished now? It's really
it's remarkable really and with and and I think
everything that we see now Remarkable as it may
be with the advent of AI and the development
of like self modeling and all of that We are
We're almost at a place where I dream of putting
in a use case scenario into our simulation and
have the AI use everything we've built to give
us a perfect design for whatever use case scenario
we've asked it to do. And we feel like if we
can really build the AI and the machine learning
in the best ways, we can have a perfect buildable
design within a week or two. of engaging with
a company. So I'm kind of excited about that
because I feel like that gives us so much of
a head start. And I'm excited to see what we
can do in the next two years and what other companies
are going to do with AI and Fusion Energy. It's
a great time to be in AI or Fusion. Yeah, I agree.
When you look at what are the most valuable things
that companies have these days, like as far as
the technology of anything that you're developing,
it really comes back to what they have, the simulations
that they have and the models that they've built.
They hold that pretty close to their vest as
far as being intellectual property, because they
can use those now to design the next thing and
it's not so much you know in old days you had
to sort of build parts and pieces go test them
in the lab and then um and then iterate from
there now the probably the most important thing
is understanding that data is that you can put
into these models right so um you still have
to have some data to put in the models and uh
that but once you have that now you're you're
able to have all kinds of different permutations
and get to a better starting place before you
actually start building a product. And that's
where things start to get expensive when you're
actually building things. You don't want to build
something and then find out it doesn't work and
then have to go back, redesign it, and so forth.
You and I have talked a lot about how we also
understand liquid fuel production and all of
that, and how everything that we see around us
is made out of some kind of petroleum. So I'm
kind of excited for... For working with that
industry because it's it's not going anywhere
and it doesn't And all we can do is like make
it a little bit cleaner and and maybe Remove
50 % off what people feel is problematic about
that industry What do you what do you what do
you think about that? Is that something you want
to talk about? Sure, you know You know, I used
to work on advanced reactors, fitting reactors,
specifically gas -cooled reactors, and with triso
fuel. And I started in that industry back in
the 90s, developing triso fuel. And the goal
there is to be able to... when it's much more
intrinsically safer because you have this fuel,
which is actually the containment and for fission
gases, but it's a ceramic type fuel. So you can
run it at much, much higher temperatures. And
so you're not looking at melting, you know, metals
and so forth, you know, like a situation with
water cool reactors. And so The output of that
is, though, is that you can reach very high temperatures,
you know, way over 800 C, and you go up to 1100
or 1200 C, even hotter, and then you start to
run into some material issues. But the positive
there, which is very similar to what we're talking
about in fusion, is that when you start being
able to have that kind of heat, that usable heat,
industries all over the map need that kind of
level of heat. And what they're getting it from
mostly today is through like natural gas, okay,
and burning those kinds of fuels in order to
be able to process these things. But the petroleum
industry itself, in order to refine the products
that they, you know, the crude oil that they
are drilling, they have to use about around a
third of that that fuel in order to process their
fuel. And so all the products that we have around
us, really the average person, I don't understand
that their entire world around them is built
from petroleum products. All the plastics and,
you know, the cars, your lipstick, your computer
screens and keyboards, all these things are petroleum
products is your carpet. everything. You know,
you could look around your apartment, your house,
your room, your car, wherever you are, and you'll
be hard pressed to not have something within
arm's reach that isn't based on petroleum products.
So if we can harness the energy from fusion,
just the usable heat without even thinking about
electricity, We can make all of those products
much more efficiently, but also, you're not throwing
away one third of the fuel that the feedstock.
So, you know, it's very attractive. No, that
specific one was a big selling point. I spoke
about this at COP 28, and I know you gave me
some talking points, and we discussed this before
I went out there. But when I told people about
that specific thing, that was a big intrigue.
Not only would it be cleaner, but there would
be a big savings. a huge driver for that um,
you know one day I believe that petroleum will
be actually Be more valuable for the product
side of it the petrochemical, you know side of
it versus the just the fuel side of it um, you
know, is it as As uh, you know, we all it's all
conjecture of how much how much petroleum is
available for the future. We all know it's more
difficult to harvest than in the past because
we've fused up the, you know, of course we've
gone to the easiest sources first and now we
have to go to other places more remote to try
and get that. So it just makes sense to try and
preserve that product as well as all the other
industries that need usable heat. you know, the
concrete industry, the cement industry uses a
lot of heat. There's a number of different industries
that are buying right now natural gas in order
to power those kinds of things. So it's a very
exciting, the applications are just abound if
you can reach those kinds of high heat, which
not everybody can and actually, Fusion energy
is going to surpass almost anything right because
you're talking about plasma, right? Incredible
temperatures, so I think it's gonna be the first
Most usable application of fusion power and then
before we even start to think about electricity
Yeah, I was reading an article in the Washington
General Washington Washington Journal this morning
and it said that we would need about 20 to 25
percent increase in energy to just power AI over
the next decade, like a significant uptick, like
a significant input into the grid. Google has
or building a number of these data centers around
the country. And there's a number of them around
Washington DC area because of all the data there
and so forth. When I was at GE, I was... involved
in the small modular reactor program and those
reactors developed about 300 megawatts of electricity.
What is really interesting to me was learning
that some of these data centers need 100 megawatts.
So it's almost like, you know, they need one
third of a small modular reactor to power them.
So they're incredibly hungry for power. And as
we know, data is just expanding even more, right?
It's going to be intense. So the need for efficient
ways to produce and to provide that power is
no end in sight. Yeah. Modular generators are
making, it's like a big... buzzword in the in
the in the fission industry now it seems like
so I know that fission has also like vastly improved
and there's a big there are lots of investments
going into fission and and so there are plans
to build all these new types of fission reactors
how does does fusion still confusion still compete
with those up upgraded fission reactors. How
do you feel about that? You know, I worked on
neighbor reactors for about just over 20 years
and I really was not in tune with the commercial
world when I was doing that because that was
all classified. We were behind razor wire. I
was focused on that. I went through three generations
of reactors while I was there, I was really fortunate
that when I first started there, what really
got me hooked was we were working on the Seawolf
prototype, which in my estimation today is like
the, it's the baddest ass, small mod reactor
on the plant. And then I went on to work on the
Virginia class, first Virginia class, and then
what's now the Gerald Ford. carrier, which is
the new carrier. And so after all that, I sort
of popped out and said, I'm going to try commercial.
It's got to be a lot easier. Right. And I go
into the commercial world and I find out they
haven't built a new vision reactor in the U .S.
and since around 1980. Okay. And so the whole
industry has just been absolutely stagnant. And
so as I got into that, I mean, I worked on getting
a large reactor licensed here in the US and to
be built like three or four different locations
in the US. First one was me at Calvert Cliffs,
Maryland. And we worked on that for six years
just to try and get the licensing, right? We
spent almost a half a billion dollars just on
that. And it was nothing really totally new.
had four different safety trainings and so forth.
So what has happened is we've put even more money
into all of these different systems. And so these
things start to become even more expensive. And
what you find is many of the utilities are not
large enough to even afford one of these reactors.
It meets their, it's beyond their capex. And
so if you look at Vogel, they spent $30 billion,
I believe anyway, on those, on two 1100 megawatt
reactors. So you have utilities that are very,
they're not, their appetite to spend lots of
capital money is not very high. many of them
are traded on the stock market, and so they're
concerned about if they decide they're gonna
invest in something like this, their stock price
may go down because the track record has not
been very good, right? It's like, it takes many,
many years over budget. And so the appetite there
is, so that's where a really small -modge reactor
started. Becoming the buzzword as you said because
well instead of maybe 10 12 15 billion dollars,
maybe it's one or two billion dollars And maybe
we could afford that So really the drive on small
modular was more of a commercial affordability
Than anything else there's been a lot of talk
about Well, we'll drive the cost down because
we'll be able to build these in factories and
we'll be able to sort of replicate these and
so forth. However, nobody today has cracked that
nut. There's been a lot of talk about it, but
you have to have a sizable number of orders to
get off the ground to do that and build your
supply chain. The Navy has done that. But if
you look at the commercial world, there's a lot
of talk about it. But unfortunately, I don't
see, even when I was at GE, we had, GE's had
the wherewithal as far as the fuel manufacturing,
which is huge. And so they have a real chance
at it, I would say. They still need a lot of
orders in order to make that a reality. And each
of those would still run into the same regulatory
stuff or somehow do any of these make it easier
to meet those regulatory standards we spoke about
before? Well, every site is going to have to
be licensed. So you have your site licensing
and then you have the reactor itself that's licensed,
the technology. Hopefully, you only have to get
the technology license once. But if you go into
another country like UK or, you know, you name
it, right, you're going to have to go through
their regulatory body and get their their license,
which is expensive. One thing people don't realize
and I didn't realize until I got into it was
that the companies themselves have to pay for
the review. So when you submit a review to the
NRC, at the time, this is a little while back,
but I believe it was around $275 an hour, you
paid for a reviewer that largely were subcontractors.
And so they would, there's really no incentive
for them to stop asking questions. They can dream
up more questions. And so, it went on and on
and on and you're paying for it. So you can imagine
how frustrating that is to companies that they
don't have endless money and they're trying to
get something licensed that as the time is going
on, they're not making things and they're not
getting any bills paid. So it's this huge outlay.
And that's why you saw a number of companies
going bankrupt, a number of companies like Westinghouse.
So I think if you look at that sort of ecosystem,
you can see how fusion has a much more attractive
opportunity because you're not You're not going
to be going through that kind of regulatory process
And you can get to market much sooner it's more
predictable Engineering is more predictable than
than than the regulatory environment And you
always have to worry that they're not worried
but the concern is right somebody's got to buy
this product somebody has to have the money and
is willing to invest in this. And the utilities,
as I described, are very reluctant to outlay
that kind of money. Right. I find myself thinking
in terms of, if I were to build a hundred generators,
what are the, you know, What are the things that
I'm going to need to contend with if I was going
to build a thousand generators? Is that scalable?
And what are the things I would need to contend
with? And this is over the course of the next
two decades or three decades, of course. But
like if I were to build something at that scale,
I would not want it to have anything in it that
is highly weaponizable or I wouldn't want it
to have anything that has, you know, something
that has a half life of a thousand years or 10
,000 years. Is that still the case with the modular
reactor? Then I take those two things would still.
Yeah, you know, as you go through those regulatory
meetings and so forth, you're always going to
get that question. What are you going to do with
the waste? You know, the waste is really not
as a it can be blown up. I shouldn't say that.
I didn't mean it that way. But it can be characterized
as a huge problem. All of the used fuel, the
spent fuel right now in the U .S. is being stored
at the sites. So there is no geologic repository
in place right now. Yucca Mountain was attempted
and it probably will never. not come back. So
what you what you have is these concrete casks
on site that has the fuel stored in it. I believe
it's very safe. Okay, that it's being stored
there. But you always have to the legacy of what
are you going to do with us now? The US invented
all the technology to recycle that fuel by Jimmy
Carter. put a moratorium on that, um, cause he
was concerned about diversion of plutonium and
other things for that. You, when you separate
those few, those, those fuels in that process
for recycling, which is really amazing. Cause
you, you actually recover about 97 % of all that
we use it. Um, but you could divert, you know,
um, uh, some materials, uh, for, you know, uh,
weapon. type applications. So that was the concern.
But the infusion, we're not going to have those
kinds of issues. We may have some materials that
might have gotten irradiated, but they're not
themselves producing these long -lived radionuclides
with half -lives of thousands and thousands of
years that you're going to have to deal with
for eternity. And so And also the fuel itself
is in a much different form in procuring it.
So the level of effort to go into actually manufacture
fission fuel, you've got to mine uranium, you
have to go and refine that. Then you have to,
there's lots of processing that's involved there.
And then, you know, so incredible investment
and controls just in producing the fuel and getting
into a usable form. Yeah. I suppose that that's
one challenge that we still share with the fission
world is with fusion, the availability of helium
-3. and the availability of tritium or deuterium.
It all exists, but again, we need the, I think
even that, we've obviously talked about, we know
of companies working on getting the helium, but
again, huge engineering problem. So since it
all kind of comes down to engineering, we need
engineers. We need engineers, Martin, not just
for us, but for all of the other things that
connect to all of this. So how do we get more
people to be engineers? What is the advice for
the younger generation here that are choosing
what they would do? Yeah, I think there is a...
I think there will always be people who are curious
and want to understand our universe, want to
understand how things work. And that's sort of
the basis of engineering, right? It's kind of
that curiosity. And once you have that, you'd
like to go into a field, I think that... is kind
of going to break through into things. One thing
I learned kind of early on though is there's
some people who like to know what they're going
to do every day and it's been worked out and
they just sort of have to follow a process. And
that's perfectly fine. I mean, what I've learned
was I'm glad there are people like that because
I'm not like that. But we need people like that.
But there are other engineers and other curious
people that want to discover things and are willing
to sort of step out where everything isn't figured
out yet. You know, you mentioned helium three.
How are we going to get helium three? We could
maybe harvest it from the moon. Well, that sounds
pretty exciting, right? So it's not not easy,
but you know what I've learned is anything that's
been satisfying in my life hasn't been easy.
It's taken a lot of work and it's taken a lot
of collaboration and a lot of fun working with
people and discovering things. So infusion, we
know it works. We absolutely know it works. It's
been done in laboratories. You can look at the
sun, okay? We're getting energy from every day,
okay? So it works. It's just, how do we now engineer
this? to harness it. And so you can almost be
in almost any field and be involved in this.
From material science, which I think is fantastic,
because materials are always going to be the
key, to computer science, to mechanical, to plasma
physics, to instrumentation, to civil engineering,
to space. mining all these things we're talking
about are going to be needed to come together
to make this a reality. Yeah, I'm excited about
it. When I spoke with this company about going
to the moon and getting helium -3, they told
us about all of the other things that they would
be getting from the moon. And one of those things
was a super fertilizer, apparently. I don't know
what this is. But it's a fertilizer.