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Are there any countries that have maybe you think have indicated interest to get in this

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technology? Maybe insider information? Well, I don't know if it's if I have anything

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insider. I think everything can be that's that's a nice thing about this map is if you want to

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verify any of it, you can. Welcome to today's episode of the Afrinuq podcast. Today I'm joined

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with Jake Kinza and a spot in the energy for Groot Hub from United States Washington DC.

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So today he's going to be telling us about advanced nuclear map. So Jake, I got a reference to get in

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touch with you from Dr. Todd and when I was having the conversation with him, he felt it very important

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for us to discuss about your work in the organization and thank God that you are here with us. So

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please, can you tell us a bit about you and what you do in energy for Groot Hub?

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Yeah, of course. And thank you for having me on. I'm very happy to be here. So my name is Jake

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Kinza. I'm a policy analyst for Nuclear Power at the Energy for Growth Hub and I do work with Todd

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Moss. So my work is fairly wide ranging at the Energy for Growth Hub, but one of my

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bigger projects is besides nuclear power in general is the advanced nuclear markets map

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where we try to sort of understand the market, the potential market size for advanced nuclear

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technology. Okay, so I was wondering what was like the line of thoughts like,

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I know Energy for Growth Hub tries to adapt policies to developing countries and while some

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other organization in the States try to make policies for its own country. So you guys try to

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adapt it to how it can be applicable to the developed world. Am I right? Yeah. So I was

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wondering what was your line of thoughts in trying to develop this advanced nuclear map?

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You never had anything like the normal nuclear like, okay, I know the categories of nuclear is

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Gen 3, Gen 3 plus Gen 4. And I want to think that advanced nuclear means maybe between Gen 3 and

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Gen 4 or Gen 3 plus to Gen 4 and stuff like that. Maybe the SMRs falls into this category. I'm sure

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if we go into the details of the links to the advanced nuclear map, we can get details about

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the the nuclear technology captured in this map. So can you tell us what was the line of thoughts

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on trying to draw up this map in the first place? Because you know, when people want to draw a map,

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if I want to go back to history, people try to maybe there was a dispute or maybe there was a

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misunderstanding just to delineate and make a very clear distinction. People come up with maps. So

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what was the case for this advanced nuclear map, please?

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Great. Yeah, that's a good question. So not a dispute, but I think there is sort of a prevalent

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misunderstanding, I will say, that nuclear power is only for rich countries. So when you think of

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nuclear power, you think, you know, France, the United States, China built a lot of nuclear power.

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But historically, that's actually not the case. And my colleague, Jessica Levere,

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wrote a blog post and has done a lot of work on this, that nuclear power is actually prevalent

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in all countries across the world. So even at the time when they were first building the nuclear

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power plants, Pakistan, India, etc. Bangladesh today would be another example of a non high-income

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country building nuclear power plants. So what we really wanted to try to do is kind of show that

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actually nuclear power isn't just for wealthy developed countries. It's also for there's a

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great amount of interest all around the world, including Africa, South America, of course,

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and East Asia and South Asia, especially. And secondarily, we really wanted to show beyond

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this interest that there was a great need in these areas. So one of the stats that came out of this

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project is that we projected electric growth and electricity demand until through 2030 and 2050.

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And we found that about 90% of all demand growth is going to be outside of high income areas.

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So, you know, places like, you know, Germany, France, the UK really actually aren't nearly as

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important as Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I was trying to see how you came

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up with those little metrics that contributed. You were trying to talk about the energy demand

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come 2030. And this rightly, Thales, was it the UN goal you had in mind to make this 2030 or 2050?

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Was it the picture you had in mind to make this projection? Why would you want to use the demand

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gap for 2030 or 2050 and not 2020? I mean, like, there might be 2025 or something like that or

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something else. Right. So when we were making the map, it was 2020. So there was something

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that was just quite easy about having one decade and three decades. Of course, 2050 is quite an

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important date because that is the year that most countries around the world, I believe,

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are targeting as net zero. And that's really one of the important things when it comes to nuclear

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power is that it is one of the many available truly clean energy solutions that has little to

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zero, little to no emissions. So there was a there was a good sort of parallel there with kind of

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trying to line up everything with 2050 and understanding kind of, you know, the scale of

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the challenge in a lot of these countries, which is quite large. Okay. So coming to the map,

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there are two indicators that you highlighted. There's the energy electricity demand gap in

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2050 and the nuclear readiness score. So why are these, why was it just these two indicators? Like,

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what are the relevance of these two metrics in this map? Yeah. So the question that we were

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trying to answer is what is the potential market size for advanced nuclear technologies around

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the world? And to understand the size of a market, we have it's sort of a twofold issue. One is how

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big is the possible demand? So all of the potential electricity needs that will need to be met by 2050.

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And we found that there was really quite large. So between now and 2050, it will approximately

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double around the world. In many places, it will grow much faster than that, especially in many

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African nations. The second part of the problem, though, is, you know, who is actually going to

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be prepared to adopt this technology? It doesn't really matter how big your needs are if you aren't

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ready for it. So the second part was we took, we made a checklist. This is a very difficult

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problem to try to figure out, you know, how ready a country is for nuclear power. But

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we made a 10 point checklist that we graded pretty much every country around the world. That's over

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a million people on and it had, you know, sort of readiness indicators like does a country have a

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regulatory body? Do they have a policy authority in charge of nuclear power? Do they have research

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reactors already? Many countries already have those, which research reactors are very small

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reactors used mainly for medical or agricultural or just research purposes. And then we also looked

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at, you know, what are the interests do these countries have in nuclear power? So do countries

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have agreements with supplier countries like Russia, China, Korea, even the United States,

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whether those are, you know, soft, just technical assistance or hard, which is an actual agreement

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to build a reactor or to supply a reactor. And so when we combine these things, we got a pretty

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good sense of where we thought countries were on the scale and we made it a four point scale,

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which is they're ready by 2030. So essentially, they're ready now if they want to be. So this is

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every country that has a nuclear reactor or is currently constructing one or has an active tender

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to build one. And then there is the potentially ready by 2030 group. So that's the light green on

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the map. I think of these countries that have taken very substantive concrete steps towards

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building a reactor. So they have agreements with supplier countries, they have policies stating

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that they want nuclear power. So in Africa, these are countries like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,

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the Sudan. And then last, the last two groups are just potentially ready by 2050, which are

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countries that have taken some very basic steps to get there. And unlikely to be ready by 2050.

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So these are countries that are essentially have made no progress or have shown zero interest.

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Okay, so when you combine these two things, you get sort of a sense of how big is the market in a

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given country and how ready is it for nuclear power? Yeah. Okay, so I'm kind of in between two

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kind of I'm battling between two ideologies right now, because I'm a little bit constrained to think

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that the US that developed this map, energy for growth, have been in US, although doing it for

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the developing countries, hopefully to lift the technology from US to other countries or claims.

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But most of these countries you listed, having agreements with non US, I mean, not with US

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countries like Russia, China and stuffs like that. So I'm a little bit concerned, like, do you think

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that the aim of this map is going to be achieved for the purpose it was designed, or you are just

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making it a very liberal publication that will be available to any person that or country that want

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to use it to advance their maybe, maybe goals or mission as a country. So because I'm sorry to say

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more maybe I'm a little bit ignorant, if not the UAE, which adopted the technology from Korea,

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which is a little bit like a conduit from US, I don't see any other country,

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apart China, where they were trying to build the AP1000 and right beside it, the Chinese people were

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also implementing their technology using their own method of reverse engineering, if I may say.

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So I wonder like, what's your hope that this map will achieve beyond just selling the US technologies

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to advanced countries and also maybe to African countries if they come to take it, but very few

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of African countries as I know, have signed agreement with US state, but they have some maybe

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agreements in terms of maybe research or technology transfer and stuffs like that. So can you a little

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bit enlighten me on what you as a US guy or the country stands to gain from this, if it

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becomes a success, will it actually kind of feedback or funnel back to you in reality? I wouldn't

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know if I'm getting this right. Right, right. No, that's a great question. So I think the thing

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to understand is that these countries, if they decide that nuclear power is going to be part of

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the teacher energy mix and is important to their development goals, which several have,

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they will get this technology somehow. Russia is very year to export nuclear power plants.

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They're very active in it. And the thing that Russia is able to do is when they sell a nuclear

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power plant, they don't just sell the power plant, they also bring the financing a lot of times.

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It can come with other security deals. And that's something that frankly the US is not currently

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able to compete with or at least wasn't when we were looking at the map. So part of this is to

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just show worldwide, there's a lot of demand here and there's a huge development need that

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could hopefully be met. The second thing is it was intended a little bit also for people in

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the United States to see this is a real market that you are sort of missing out on right now.

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So up until last year, for example, the US Development Finance Corporation had a prohibition

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on finding any projects to do with nuclear power. So that was actually one of the ideas we had when

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creating the map is being able to show people that this is a really relevant policy field that we

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need to be proactive in. One thing that, and by the way, the prohibition did get lifted last year

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in July. So hopefully there will be some activity there. So the one thing that I think the US can

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really offer is we have a very active advanced nuclear industry coming up with a lot of really

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promising new technologies. So things like new scale, Oclow, etc. that have sort of smaller

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reactors. So like 60 megawatt scale are just much more appropriate for an emerging market

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context in a place like Ghana or Nigeria. So I think it's something where the US has really

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receded in this field over the past couple of decades. And if these technologies live up to

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their promise, I would love to see that turn around. But it's up to us whether that happens or

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not. Okay, so in this map, you have like seven filters that you are judged to be what you rightly

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used to make people see the metrics that are important as the case may be. So there's this

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filter about the water stress in 2040. And what was it pointing to? What's the aim that water

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stress aims to achieve? Like why do you have to include it among the filters? Why is it important

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for nuclear advanced nuclear? Yeah, that's actually so that we had the idea. So this is the first

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iteration of the mapping the global market for advanced nuclear. And we are doing a second

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iteration with third way that I believe that they will release in late 2021 that digs in a

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little bit deeper on these issues. So water stress is thinking about primarily the desalination

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energy needs, but also climate change impacts broadly. So desalination is something that has

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already begun in a lot of countries. South Africa, I believe a year or so ago, had to set up a number

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of temporary desalination plants to meet water energy needs. And I think that's one of the

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things that we need to do. And the thing about desalination is, one, it's going to be needed

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more in the future. Populations are going to grow. Water supplies are going to become more

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stressed, especially in places like Southeast Asia and the Middle East. And the second thing is

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it is highly energy intensive. And that's just pretty much the physics of it. So you need a

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large consistent energy source in order to efficiently run a desalination plant, which, in

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a nuclear power plant, is actually really perfect for something like that. The second part of this,

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though, is just broadly adapting to the impacts of climate change requires a lot of energy. So

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producing enough concrete and steel for dams and other adaptation needs requires a ton of energy

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and gauging what areas of the world are going to be impacted most, I think, can help visualize

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where we'll have the greatest needs. Okay, so thank you for that insight. I was kind of wondering

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the nuclear security aspect seems to be a very great metrics that you included and also part of

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the filters that you have there. Like the Nuclear Trade Initiative do have index that they release,

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I think, every year to show how countries are compliant to nuclear security measures. So I

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wonder, why did you have to include it as one of these filters or one of the parameters you needed

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to make this map like what we should consider in this map? Yeah, so the reason we introduced this,

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so just to be clear, the NTI index actually doesn't factor into our readiness checklist,

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but we did include it on the map itself as a filter, because one of the sort of greatest

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criticisms of the idea of exporting nuclear power and one of the reasons that the United States has

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kind of gotten out of the business over the past couple of decades is proliferation risk,

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both proliferation risk as well as just the risk of nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands.

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So we included this as a kind of way to say, okay, so if you want to look at these two

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metrics from NTI and just remove every country that scores low, what does it look like then?

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Or if you want to look only at countries that score highly on supporting global efforts,

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for instance, what does it look like then? What's the market like? And we found that

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in most cases, it's actually quite still robust. So Indonesia scored very highly,

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have a lot of needs and have a demonstrated interest in nuclear power, for example. So this

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was kind of our attempt to preempt some criticism of the entire idea of exporting nuclear power.

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Cool. Okay, so the global market for nuclear power is going to rise, obviously,

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following both the demand and also increasing population and everything that ties to that.

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So you are more optimistic about the advanced nuclear than the traditional, maybe large,

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maybe 1,000 or bigger already established technologies. But don't you have some concern that

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since these technologies are not yet proven, I mean, like it's not been tested anywhere, although

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you have labs in the US where you get to test them. But these countries where you want to sell

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them to, especially in Africa, don't you have concerns they might have, maybe

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fears that these things have not been tested and maybe may not be more predisposed to get

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in this technology? Is there anything that is in place to alleviate such fears if there are?

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Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a great point. Ghana is not going to build a nuclear reactor

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that wasn't first built in the United States. I just don't think that that's going to happen.

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I'm using Ghana as an example, but no country is going to want to be, for lack of a better word,

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a guinea pig, right? Which is why I think the test demonstrations in the United States

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are so critical. So I believe Natrium just announced one. I believe Oklo and Newscale are also building

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reactors in the United States first, a new scale I think in Idaho. And I think that's critical.

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I mean, you have to demonstrate that this technology functions safely before you have any help with

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exporting it. And that's something that I think the United States should support companies in

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doing. And I think we do actually support for the most part. But yeah, that's absolutely a good

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point. And to your broader point about the traditional large light water reactors that are

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gigawatt or two or three or four in scale are already proven technologies. But for a lot of

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emerging market contexts, it kind of just doesn't really make sense. So if you take the reactor that

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Egypt is building with Russia's help, it's 4.8 gigawatts. It will cost $30 billion. And it's

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probably a perfectly fine project. But if you try to move that and do it in a context like Nigeria,

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Nigeria's installed capacity is something like 12 gigawatts. So integrating a 5 gigawatt reactor

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is just prohibitively difficult, just from like an infrastructure perspective, from a demand

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perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it just would be so transmissions and the distribution network,

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we have to be overhauled. And yeah, I get your point. Right. And of course, you don't just have

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demand pop out of nowhere instantly. So it will take even longer to pay it back. And financing

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that $30 billion project is just going to be more difficult in some countries. And that's just how

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it is. So if you have a project that's like a small modular reactor, that's 60 megawatts or 120

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megawatts, it can be financed for on the order of millions rather than billions. It's just a much

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easier project at that point. That's cool. So are there any countries that maybe you think

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have indicated interest to get in this technology, maybe insider information?

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Well, I don't know if I have anything insider. I think everything can be, that's a nice thing

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about this map is if you want to verify any of it, you can. You can go out and find the information.

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It's all very publicly available. But yeah, in Africa, there's quite a bit of interest, I think.

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So there's two countries that we rate as green, South Africa, which of course already has commercial

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nuclear. Egypt, which I just mentioned, is building, it's currently constructing a reactor,

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although it has now been delayed from 2026 to 2028 into 2030. But I believe that's mainly

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due to political concerns with Russia. But we rate a number of other countries that's very

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interested. So I believe Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, especially Kenya,

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Nigeria, Ghana, they all include nuclear power in their projections for their future energy

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mix in the 2030s. And it's appeared to have every intention to build nuclear reactors. Now,

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I think none of them are in a particular rush, but they're engaging with IAEA, they're engaging

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with supplier countries. And I think it's not at all unbelievable that in 2035, one of these

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countries could have built a advanced nuclear power plant. Of course, outside Africa, there is

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Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, I find are very interesting. Indonesia specifically

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has very interesting energy needs, just due to its sort of island nation context that SMRs could

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be particularly useful for, and they seem to recognize that as well. And the last thing

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I think people should watch for is coal replacement. So nuclear power for a lot of reasons is a really

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ideal replacement for coal power. And two of the countries that I think are most interesting,

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because it's good, firm power, it's clean. And in a lot of cases, you could even just plug it

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directly into the grid where you have the coal power plants. And South Africa is very big on coal.

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Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, South Africa is I think 86% coal or something like that. I mean,

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very, very high. And they're having a lot of trouble with their new coal plants as well. So

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places like Poland and South Africa that are relatively developed economies could absolutely

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handle nuclear power plants and have a huge decarbonization need. Even if they don't have

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huge new energy needs, they have big needs for decarbonization. And I think you could see a

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lot of coal replacement there. So I believe those are places to watch as well.

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It's cool. So thank you so much for this explanation, because some people might be looking

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for how to get really these two kind of indicators that you have highlighted. Some people might want

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to wonder like, okay, so what's the readiness of this country? What's the energy demand and

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stuff like that? But when you come to a country like Nigeria, where I am, we consider a lot of

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things and it's not that there are no solutions available, but some pressing unique challenges

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tends to make those solutions unreachable or something kind of a high-rich kind of task.

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So I wonder like, do you have any way of making some country specific adaptations so that some

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really varied kind of factors can be kind of tinkered on to see how you can make it a little

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bit more contextual, contextually important to some specific like a place like Nigeria, for example.

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It's not that we've not had good plans or stuff like that, but you find some political changes

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and some maybe things coming up to scuttle those really nice plans. So I wonder like, do you have

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any way of like mitigating because if companies that want to build these plans comes to the

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country, they need to be sure that they have the enabling environment to get the reward from their

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investment. So is there any way that you kind of open the gates, making it a bit open source to

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tink around this value so that some contextual points can be filtered into it to actually give

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the rightful this thing and also extending it to other countries or maybe climbs where they may

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have different opinions about maybe policy implementation or things that affect policy

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implementation. I think it's somehow important to include this into this metric. So I wonder,

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is there any room for that or it's something that is open for future kind of improvement or

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stuff like that? Yeah, so the short answer is we didn't really do anything like that for this

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exercise. We cover, I believe, 148 countries. So doing a kind of country by country judgment call

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is not really in the cards for an exercise like that. But I mean, it is a good point. The thing,

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I try to stay optimistic and hopeful. So my sort of thinking is, okay, is Nigeria maybe not ready

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for nuclear right this second? Maybe not. It could political things happen that changes the

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situation? Absolutely. But I mean, we're talking about 2030 and 2050 even here, a lot changes in

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three decades. So it's more of, you know, it's not so much what's the, you know, what is going to

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happen as what could happen, right? And Nigeria is making the right steps, you know, so every

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country is going to have its own political political issues and specific circumstances that's going

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to make it easier or harder. And of course, the one thing to know about this map is, for any given

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country, we're not going to be exactly right. But we think as a broad picture, it's a pretty

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reasonable representation of what the future could look like. That's great. I sincerely

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appreciate your explanation. And I just want to wind down the beat towards the conclusion of this

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discussion. You've really explained a lot about this map. And I'm really very pleasantly impressed

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about what details you've considered to come up with this really expository map on the market for

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advanced nuclear. So but there is one point I just want to like ask you, like, what if

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the stuff that you consider, like, what are the like, the fallback, do I say, I don't know,

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what are the fallback mechanisms you have, should those things that we are considered to develop in

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this map, do not hold any longer? Take, for example, now, the new drive by the UN or organizations

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associated with it to including renewables and stuff like that. And they are really sounding

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very low key on when it comes to nuclear. So I wonder, like, do you have any way of like,

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convincing or buying, buying kind of buying them into the idea of including nuclear, or you just

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want to show them, and then they will convince themselves if it is appropriate or not? Yeah.

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So I think one thing to the answer is that I'm, we're hoping to just show that there is actually

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real interest in real demand for this technology. But, you know, the approach that we take and are

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the energy for growth hub takes and also I personally take is we're very technology neutral.

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We don't really, like, ideology try to drive us towards a favorite technology. I mean, the thing

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is this whole map is predicated on advanced nuclear technologies living up to their promise of being a

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certain price and a certain functionality. And if they don't, then they don't. And that's how it is.

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But if they do, and everyone should hope that they do, because it could be, you know,

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very key in the fight against climate change and also very key in the development of countries,

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then this is what we're looking at. So we're not saying anything like, oh, we should focus more

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nuclear and less on solar or anything like that. We should focus on everything to the greatest of

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our ability. So, you know, if nuclear power, advanced nuclear doesn't live up to its promise,

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that's just how it is. But we're just trying to point out, you know, don't close any doors or

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write anything off, because there really is a real need and a real demand here for this.

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All right. So just the second to the last point, you know, you've raised the point about finance

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to bring in new nuclear builds. And that really kind of fails in terms of the established

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large light water reactors. We have not really kind of deployed this new advanced nuclear builds,

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like you listed or enumerated, but they have been tested in Idaho and other labs or sites in the US.

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I don't know, because even the light water or larger reactors, they never envisaged the great

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cost overruns they were they are currently experiencing. I don't know if there is, if it

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is right to ask in the first place, if they consider the likelihood of cost overruns, because

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if you come tell me that, okay, hey, give me 100 million, and then I give you an advanced reactor

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in your backyard. And then when you have given you the 100 million, you go, I'm sorry, we did not

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consider this. Oh, we did not envisage this. Oh, I'm sorry. It is now 250 million, you know.

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So and it doesn't sound any different from the already established light water reactors that

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brings us with this kind of story. I wonder if there's anything that maybe I'm not sure if you

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are amassing the right person, but there's anything you have put in place to kind of

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forestall this kind of occurrence in the future. I wouldn't know if there is anything like that.

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Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a really good question, a really common sort of objection

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when it comes to nuclear power. The issue, and I touched on a little bit earlier, the issue with

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nuclear power today, whether it's the plant in Georgia or that has experienced overruns or any

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of the numerous other large light water plants that have become delayed or extensive overruns,

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is that it's not really a nuclear technology thing. It's that building large infrastructure

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projects is very difficult. It's very expensive. They almost always go over budget. They almost

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always go over time. So the solution is make them smaller. It's a lot harder for, you know,

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a 60 megawatt plant to go over budget versus a 5 gigawatt plant. And the other thing is,

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if companies are able to begin what they hope to do, which is manufacture these things in

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sort of a factory setting, it's not going to be a matter of, okay, we're going to experience cost

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overruns trying to build this brand new thing out in the desert in Egypt. It's more of, you know,

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okay, we already, these just come off the factory line already built. There's just much less risk

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there, right? So hopefully that solves that problem. I mean, it might turn out that they end

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up being very expensive to do that way, and it just doesn't work. But hopefully, ideally, that

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finance aspect will be solved with these new tech. Okay, that's really great. I sincerely like super

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appreciate the great time we've had to make this conversation. I wonder if you have any very salient

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points you want people to actually maybe have off their sleeves while looking at this map,

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I'm going to put the link to the map in the episode notes. So is there any particular place you want

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people to be fixated on or to actually keep a watch on so that they will actually use it as maybe

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a fulcrum to navigate the advanced nuclear space as the map elucidates? Yeah, yeah. So keep an eye on

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the map itself. Hopefully we will get to do an update for it as well. But really, what I think

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people should walk away with here is that, you know, a couple points, the there is a huge amount

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of energy that will be demanded over the next 30 years, double the amount that we currently build,

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which is something like adding five United States worth of power. Number two is there's a lot of

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countries that are very interested in this. So I think something like 20 or more that do not

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currently have a nuclear power plant that either that are ready and could be markets very soon.

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So, you know, just keep an eye on Africa, South Asia, East Asia. That's where you're going to

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see these markets. This is where you're going to see the demand and the desire for this technology.

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Thank you so much, Jake Kinca for this insightful expose on the advanced nuclear

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market map. And I hope that our listeners will be able to glean the red gem subsumed or captured

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in this wonderful tool that energy for growth hub has given to the world in partnership with

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Third Way. So I sincerely appreciate the time. And I hope that we can have some time to talk

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again in the future. Yeah, of course. Thank you very much for having me on. Appreciate that. Thank you.