Have you heard of the word nuclearization?
In this episode of AFRI NUC podcast, we bring you Emilia Yanise, the external relations
manager at the European Nuclear Society.
This into the end, you might find a reason to get nuclearized.
First of all, I want to thank you for accepting the invitation to speak in this AFRI NUC podcast.
Yes, thank you very much for the invitation.
It is also very interesting to talk to you because I don't have so many contacts with
the AFRI people.
It's a really great opportunity to speak to you today.
My name is Emilia Yanise.
Thank you very much for the invitation.
I'm originally from Poland, but I live now in Belgium.
I work here as an external relations manager of the European Nuclear Society.
I work in the nuclear field for over 10 years.
My background is general with communications touch and psychology.
But for the 10 years, I feel that I'm nuclearized and I attended also many courses, visited
many nuclear power plants, so I think I know a bit about the nuclear energy.
One of my main subjects, my main task at the European Nuclear Society is to take care
of their relations with our members.
We have 12,000 members in 21 European countries.
Plus, we have 28 corporate members and big companies who belong also to our European
Nuclear Society network.
Thank you.
That's such an enriching introduction.
It's more than what I actually expected.
Anyway, it's quite interesting to know that you were not originally in the nuclear field,
but you've been nuclearized.
That's the most silent point you made.
So I don't know.
Can you tell us about how you became, you had the background in communications and social
science and you just came into the nuclear field from that area.
So can you explain a bit about the nuclearization?
On my daily job, I mostly do a PR and communications job.
So probably my employer would not request very much having in-depth knowledge on nuclear.
Despite this, I think it is really important what you are talking about and what you're
doing.
You really know the subject and I was always curious to learn more about the technology
that I'm representing.
Therefore I attended the Nuclear Energy Management School of the IEA.
It's a school open for all nationalities.
It's free of cost.
So I very much encourage all of the listeners to attend the school.
They are every year additions what the International Atomic Energy Agency is organizing in different
parts of the world.
And they bring together students and young professionals especially and teach them about
leadership skills, how to manage different nuclear projects, what is the new build, what
is the commissioning and so on.
So it's really interesting.
Another course what I did was on the waste and the commissioning organized by the European
Commission Joint Research Center in Italy.
And these two courses gave me also not only the knowledge but also a great opportunity
of having contact with really young professionals from all over the world.
So that is very important.
It's quite interesting to know how much you've dealt with the young people and I hope that
those young people listening to us now can see how interesting it is to be in the nuclear
field.
An interesting aspect about your career is very important and I think our hearers and
listeners would like to know more about how you've been able because when you were introducing
yourself you said you worked with more than 28 companies in the nuclear field in Europe
and that appears to be a very huge task.
So have you been able to like relate with these people because I know you are working
as the external relations manager.
So how are you able to manage this large group of people from different fields with different
interests like that makes me wonder like you must be a superwoman.
Yeah, I think the important is to know these people and there are also the rotation sometimes
that different managers of different companies is sometimes very high.
So it's important to keep contact regular contacts with them and we have different have different
tools to do it.
One of them is our newsletter that we create together with our members.
So we have four times per year we call for input to our newsletter.
So in this way I learn about their businesses, about their projects, about their recent success
stories.
Additionally to this we do every year kind of tour de robe.
So really like every year we contact one by one different managers of the 28 companies
plus we visit different and organize different conferences where these representatives of
different companies are coming.
So we have really good network and opportunity to talk to them.
And another way of keeping contact with them and learn what their needs are are the webinars.
So we not only because of the pandemic situation but also before we organize regularly every
month a webinar on nuclear technology, different subjects with them.
So this is how we learn their projects and how we also promote their interest towards
our network.
Cool, cool, cool.
So it's quite interesting to know how you have navigated your job and able to deal
with the different companies that collaborate with you, do some level of correspondence
with your organization.
But I wonder somehow the nuclear community or the nuclear environment, I don't know
the rights were to put but the new atmosphere generally in Europe seem not to be very encouraging.
So what's your view about this and what are the people doing about it and what is European
nuclear society doing about this?
Are you going to allow it to die like that?
Yeah, I think it's changing now.
So indeed there was very bad press for nuclear just after Fukushima and it lasts for about
six years.
But now I see the change in the mindset of the European Commission for example, which
is a body giving the indications, the policy indications for the entire Europe.
And I see also the change in perception of different countries that they see.
When the European Commission sets some climate goals for example, and then they are now aware
and they are admitting that without nuclear we are not able to reach net zero emission
by 2050.
Therefore, the shift is changing, I mean they are just field the shift and also now with
our for example nuclear for climate campaign, we see there are more and more alliances,
I mean more and more people coming in to the discussion and those who were in the past
may be against nuclear.
They start to think that this is now the solution for the moment and also for the future.
So the conversation is different, it's easier and it's not so frustrating anymore to talk
to different representatives and policy makers.
I feel it and we see this also in different conversations.
Well you already delved into the question I was going to ask you because the UN goes
normally change as the time goes on, like every year or every period of their goal setting
comes and goes and then they change things, they keep shifting the goals.
The current one is about the climate and this is the front burner among the committee of
nations.
The nuclear energy is a major contributor to the carbonization but the international
organization is here to recognize or give it the rightful place as it is giving other
energy sources like the renewables.
So I want to kind of get your view, I know you are in support of nuclear renewables but
how do you think this can better be organized for the international organization to actually
recognize this viable combination of these two energy resources?
Yeah I think there are different actors involved in this discussion.
So of course we as CNS, we are not loving organization, we are scientific community.
So I think our role in this discussion is really to prove based scientific facts and
figures and this is our role and this is what we do together with our high scientific council.
We have a group of kind of think tank providing different position papers scientific based.
So I think this is our role to play in this discussion and sometimes even if there are
the discussions becoming emotional because some of the countries are not really willing
to discuss anything, you cannot discuss very much with the facts and scientific based facts.
The four we call always in our communications to check the figures, to let them look at
the facts, scientific based facts and this is our tool, this is our power and I think
this is the best approach from our perspective.
Therefore we, for example, we together with the high scientific council, we presented
a paper on how to reach the EU goals and the global goals, climate goals with nuclear and
we see nuclear as a key partner for renewables.
This two technologies are complementary and they can fantastically function together.
Another element in this in this in this duet is also hydrogen technology which is coming
into the discussion.
So we see really that nuclear is the best also solution to produce the hydrogen technology
and these three elements I think can do already a big work.
I don't know if you had a chance to see the recent strategy for 2050.
They also talk about nuclear.
The share of nuclear by 2050 will be not as big as it's now but we see that this is seen
still as an important element in the revolution in energy transition and so on.
Thank you.
We are happy.
Yes.
I get the point you are trying to make about trying to convince the international community
about the validity of nuclear and how it's actually should be included and how the picture
is not really good for the nuclear community from the international atomic energy agency
and there is a common trend that has been observed.
The nuclear community kind of always try to fit in to the mainstream or the more generally
acceptable energy generation or energy sources and it's been the trend for a very long time
and other industries that in the society they are more catastrophic than nuclear that actually
claim more lives when there is accident.
They are not begging to be included.
They are not begging to be relevant just like the aviation industry.
People die almost.
There are plane crashes that claim lives almost every now and then.
Most recently we had a plane crash but still people use the plane.
But people are yet to come to realize or recognize the importance.
Then I begin to think that we need to do more than the science.
We need to show more than the science behind nuclear.
It needs to come to the social aspect and that's where your background comes into play, the
communication for that people can actually accept nuclear as what they need and not what
is an option.
So I wonder if this is something that can be worked on because from Africa we don't have
much nuclear power plant and we don't have so much options of other energy that gives
a lot of base load to power the industries.
So I think it behoves on us as I am also talking to you.
I believe at some point the Europeans had some need to convince the people.
They talked to the people about the nuclear power plant.
So I want to believe that we need a new medium of communication, a new way of communicating
the importance for the advantages of nuclear technology so that people can be more willing
to accept it instead of being convinced to accept it.
So this brings me to the next question to you because nuclear is like a special field
and it's like people need to get more knowledge about it.
So I want to ask you like what are the things that helped you to learn the ropes and became
more comfortable with nuclear because I see that you are more in support of nuclear technology.
What made you more comfortable with the idea of nuclear energy being clean or acceptable
to you?
I think it is very difficult to discuss with the people who have big fears of nuclear and
of course we should communicate more but as you said also that we also need to have knowledge
and sometimes the basic knowledge already allows them to start to think like, aha,
you know like this there is some click, okay this is not so danger, not 20,000 people didn't
die and Fukushima due to...
What kind of material or what kind of knowledge medium do you think or source do you think
one can use to bring this to people?
Yeah, I think this is what I was super happy to see also so many African societies supporting
the campaign what we launched 2014, this Nuclear for Climate campaign.
I think this is a great tool of communications tool which gives you the power of telling
the story about nuclear as a partner for new goals which gives you the tool to have like
nice logos, nice frames of the social media, we have a lot of graphics that are very clear
and explain very well what does it mean, the nuclear waste, what is the output of the electricity
in compared to the coal for example, how much coal you have to burn to get the same amount
of electricity than from nuclear, you know so there are the great communications tools
indeed coming from under the Nuclear for Climate hub and if we will be able to spread
this using simple Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media tool which you personally
and any of the listeners use I think this will be like spread over the world and this
is something that we try to create because you know there are of course very scientific
reports that nobody will read or that the people are not really necessarily looking
for, the best way to put the facts, scientific based facts of course and a very simple nicely
presented nice graph, like communications and then to use it and spread it and I don't
know how many of you are using Facebook and maybe this is a…
I remember people are using of course it's a malevolent technology that anybody can use
and I think this is something that gives you the power of saying and also like starting
the conversation with your neighbors, with your friends and this is what I experience
very often when I start to say like hi I'm working for the Europe for the nuclear field
and it's like oh okay we don't want to talk to you, yeah what is your problem and then
you start in the conversation and you start to learn okay they don't know this and this
and this you are explaining them and then they start to like oh okay but you know they
have also face behind this you know they maybe they are fear, they have fear of ways but
they know you so they trust you and then they know that your knowledge will allow to, I
mean that you are enough capable to talk about it so I think it's really like giving the
human face and really talking about that we are, I mean this is also what we feel here
generating which we feel that we are nuclear heroes, I mean the climate heroes you know
that we are really giving people power and we also make the world less emission so this
is, yeah of course nobody goes to preach that he wants to be a pilot or he wants to work
in Facebook or Google because they already see how useful and how important these companies
are and it will be no brainer to try to convince somebody that these companies will pay you
well or we help you build a good career or help you get a better life and that brings
me to the question of what do you have as an advice for those who want to kind of build
a career in the nuclear field like they want to see hope you know when you want to do something
you want to be sure that you have a hope and a future in it either as a satisfying career
or something that will help you build a life on it so I don't know if it is something that
you would like to talk about because you already work in the nuclear environment so like what's
kind of yeah what kind of advice you will have for those who want to build a career or
all decided about nuclear.
Thank you very much for this question I deal very much actually with this question because
we organize a CNS and I would like to also invite all of you to our webinars.
Was that CNS?
No, ENS European European Society.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
So we organize every month a webinar with HR manager who gives young professionals hints
on how to you know develop the career, how to what are the next steps in the career based
on your CV and so on so we just recently organized one with Finovoima with a Finnish company
and before with Techno or the Spanish one so the next one we will have so I have few
advices one is to decide I mean it depends of course of your study but if you would like
to study and if you like go for the nuclear sector definitely the study will help so nuclear
engineering and or mechanical engineering and so on.
You can be easily nuclearized in the framework of different trainings for different companies
but of course the technical background is very important for different positions then
network, network, network so network meaning young generation network I think this is always
great opportunity to meet with the big bosses of the companies if you are a member of a
network so African young generation network is one of them you have 9 million generation
so there are really like networks who are bringing people together young professionals
working already or who are considering working the nuclear field and I think this is this
is the power to be there and of course depending of how active this network is then then you
can really make a difference and make connections.
Another thing is LinkedIn I think LinkedIn allows you also to create your professional
profile and connect with other people so don't be afraid even if you don't know this person
just try to connect write a short message why you want to connect there are different also
career platforms on LinkedIn for example where you can be part of it and and check the jobs
opportunities one of them we are running this is ENS career platform for young professionals
where we put the jobs opportunities provided by our corporate members we organized this career
webinars you have also INS youth forum international career youth forum so this is a
organization which organized every second year a big conference with also representatives of
companies so of course depends of the of your support of the money and so on but already online
activism is allows you to find the network find the right yeah and present themselves so I think
this is network it's important and as I mentioned this IEA school it's gives you also a great
opportunity to meet with others to create really like connections and and learn new stuff and maybe
also it gives you also guideline in which direction you would like to develop.
Thank you so much like it's been very very enriching to listen to you and get your advice
get your introduction and your ideas about nuclear and different combinations with renewables and to
also have people to have the impetus and enthusiasm to support nuclear technology you've talked about
how you've liars with companies and how you have been able to nuclearize yourself that's a very
important point getting nuclearized and that's very important to those who are listening to us
that don't have a background of engineering or nuclear energy or nuclear engineering or science
that it doesn't stop you from getting into the nuclear community you can get nuclearized by
attending conferences linking up with people who are already having the background or getting jobs
in those companies or just connecting and networking with people and yeah yeah yeah yeah so uh I want
to hear from you do you have any final words or parting words that you want to tell those that
are listening to this podcast or to the afri-new or the african community or the world in general
I think your background doesn't impact you and you have a chance to do whatever you want if you
really want to do it and my motto is carpe diem so carpe diem take every chance every day what it
brings to to develop and to discover new things and sometimes you will don't know you don't know
how it will be useful in your future are you are you in the french or the flemish part of belgium
and now i'm in the flemish one interesting so okay so you can speak some flemish i was in gent
um sometime sometime ago and yeah yeah yeah and i also went to brissel by train so it was quite an
interesting time in belgium at that time when were you i was in gent uh the when when uh that was in
2018 actually okay okay before the pandemic of course i was in niger yeah i was only in uh
south africa and uh and tunisia so this too like you know like two apart very much apart yeah there's
an opportunity you can come to gana you know the african young generation i mean nuclear the the
yearly summit is coming up in gana in october yeah it's a very nice opportunity for anyone listening
to us and you as well to to attend yeah okay thank you very much for the invitation it was very much
thank you for the invitation and it was nice yeah thank you so much have a good day have a good day
bye bye