Advancing Nuclear Innovation with INL’s Dr. John Wagner

Energy

Jun 10

Dr. John Wagner is the President of Battelle Energy Alliance and Director of the Idaho National Laboratory or INL.

INL is one of 17 national labs in the United States and leads the nation in work on advanced nuclear research. INL boasts a rich legacy in the narrative of nuclear energy, marked by its pivotal role in producing the inaugural usable electricity from nuclear sources on its premises. Dozens of reactors have been built at INL during its decades of operation.

Dr. Wagner has been with INL since 2016 and has been director of the lab since 2020. Prior to that, he was the division director at the Reactor and Nuclear Services division at Oak Ridge National Lab. He has a PhD in nuclear engineering from Penn State University and has spent his career working to advance nuclear energy innovation.

In our conversation, we cover the history of INL, its key priorities, current projects under development, and Dr. Wagner’s vision for our nuclear future.

Recorded May 15, 2024 (Published June 3, 2024)

In this episode, we cover:

[2:00] DOE National Labs Overview
[5:24] Introduction to Idaho National Laboratory
[12:14] Current projects & reactors at INL, including Advanced Test Reactor (ATR)
[14:10] INL's upcoming projects: MARVEL, PELE
[15:39] How INL supports private firms in nuclear tech development
[18:40] End-to-end reactor devolment cycle, e.g., MARVEL
[26:57] How entrepreneurs can collaborate with INL
[31:17] Collaboration with NRC, support for regulatory development and training
[33:07] INL's involvement in fusion research
[34:19] John's focus on nuclear fission, U.S. rebuilding
[36:05] Future reactor mix: large-scale, modular, advanced

Cody Simms (00:00):
Today on My Climate Journey, our guest is Dr. John Wagner, director of the Idaho National Laboratory, or INL. INL is one of 17 national labs in the United States and leads the nation in work on advanced nuclear research. INL has a long history in the story of nuclear energy with the first usable electricity produced by nuclear energy having been generated on site. Dozens of reactors have been built at INL during its decades of operation. Dr. Wagner has been with INL since 2016 and has been director of the lab since 2020. Prior to that, he was the division director at the Reactor and Nuclear Services division at Oak Ridge National Lab. He has a PhD in nuclear engineering from Penn State University and has spent his career working to advance nuclear energy innovation. In our conversation, we cover the history of INL, its key priorities, current projects under development, and his vision for our nuclear future. But before we start, I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu (01:12):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (01:13):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (01:20):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (01:25):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help. Dr. John Wagner, welcome to the show.
John Wagner (01:40):
Thank you Cody. Thanks for having me.
Cody Simms (01:42):
I've been so looking forward to this conversation. I think you're the first national lab director to have joined our humble little podcast here. Excited to learn from you all about Idaho National Lab. So maybe let's start there. What is Idaho National Lab?
John Wagner (02:00):
Happy to be the first one. What a great selection you made.
(02:04):
Idaho National Laboratory. So lemme give you a little broader context and then go in, pan in a little bit. So there's 17 Department of Energy National Laboratories. I've actually had experience working at three of them, so I had a pretty good opportunity and then I work with a lot of different ones. So they come in sort of three flavors. It can be kind of confusing to people, so lemme just try to help. First of all, the National Laboratory Complex dates back to the Manhattan Project. Now, not all the labs trace their origin that far back, but that really is what established the National Laboratory Complex in the first place.
Cody Simms (02:36):
So for those of us who saw Oppenheimer and you saw people looking at these big swaths of land out in the country thinking we should build something here. That was the process for getting these things started.
John Wagner (02:46):
Right. And Los Alamos National Laboratory was obviously featured prominently, Oakridge National... Actually, I should be careful because I'll leave somebody out and that's not good.
Cody Simms (02:55):
No problem.
John Wagner (02:55):
But Oakridge National Laboratory, the Hanford site, I mean there's so much rich history there. We could talk about that for more than an hour, but today there's 17 of them. As I started to say, they come in sort of three categories. So you've got 10 Office of Science Laboratories, so that's like Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and so on. They come actually even in two categories, single focus like Princeton Plasma Physics, and then multipurpose like Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratory are Multipurpose Labs. They do a lot of different things. And then you've got the weapons labs, the nuclear weapons labs featured prominently. We also call those the National Nuclear Security Administration or NNSA Laboratories, that's Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. And then you've got the Applied Energy Laboratories and we're one of those. So Idaho National Laboratory with a strong focus on nuclear energy, the National Energy Technology Laboratory with a strong focus on fossil energy and carbon management in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, obviously renewable energy focused. And then if you did the math, there's one missing and that is Savannah River National Laboratory and they have an Office of Environmental Management focus. So cleanup focus, unless you interrupt me, I'll just jump into Idaho National Laboratory and what we do.
Cody Simms (04:13):
One quick question just on the context there: are all of the labs today through the DOE or do some of them report in through other government agencies?
John Wagner (04:22):
All of those 17 laboratories that I mentioned report in through the Department of Energy. Actually, another aspect that is not really always understood well is I'm not a federal employee. 16 out of the 17, and we won't explain why, of the laboratories, they're all government owned. 16 of them are contractor operated. So the Idaho National Laboratory site, the 890 square miles, all of our facilities and so forth, I don't own those. The Department of Energy owns those and they hire us to manage it.
Cody Simms (04:51):
And you're with a group, I think believe called Batelle Energy Alliance. Am I following that correctly?
John Wagner (04:56):
That's right. So it's a collection of entities, Batelle, of course, BWXT, Amentum, and several universities come together. And EPRI, sorry, to form Batelle Energy Alliance.
Cody Simms (05:08):
So you are part of and an employee of Batelle Energy Alliance and you operate the Idaho National Labs. Am I following correctly?
John Wagner (05:14):
Correct. My title is the president of the Batelle Energy Alliance.
Cody Simms (05:18):
Alright, so tell us more about the Idaho National Lab Facility and your work there.
John Wagner (05:24):
Absolutely. It's my favorite subject. Let me start by saying, this year, 2024, we're celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Idaho National Laboratory. Now that can be a little confusing to people because it's actually had many different names over those 75 years. Our origin traces back to 1949 when the Atomic Energy Commission established what was called the National Reactor Testing Station. So back then as a nation, we had developed more than one nuclear weapon, but we had not harnessed atomic energy for power. That was the whole purpose is sort of a proving ground, if you will, for nuclear power. And so the first nuclear power, nuclear electricity was generated on our site at the experimental breeder reactor one, which by the way is now a museum that people can come see. 52 different reactors were designed, built and operated by many partners by the way on the site back in those days to demonstrate multiple technologies. A lot of times when we talk about advanced nuclear technologies, the base technologies have pretty much all been demonstrated. Now we're doing a lot of research and innovation on how to make them more, better performance, more effective for different applications, cheaper, things like that.
Cody Simms (06:38):
I saw a statistic that said 300 commercial nuclear reactors around the world can trace the roots to INL.
John Wagner (06:45):
I would argue that every nuclear reactor around the world can trace some origin to the work that was done at Idaho National Laboratory in that time. A simple example besides technologies and all those things that can be more wonky if you will, is (of course I was not there at that time, I'm not that old), but we took reactors to failure on purpose. To understand where is the limits, what are those limits and what are the consequences if you exceed them? And so literally all reactors around the world when they look at accident consequence analysis and so forth, they rely on data that was generated back in those and many other things. But I think that's a simple example.
Cody Simms (07:23):
And how much of the focus at INL is nuclear today relative to other technologies and problems that you're working to solve?
John Wagner (07:32):
I'm at Idaho National Laboratory because I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm super passionate about nuclear energy. That's why I'm here. But we do a lot more than that and the best way for me, I think to make that point is through our vision statement. So that's "to change the world's energy future." So energy, primarily nuclear energy, and I'll get to just how much that is, but then also how does nuclear integrate with intermittent sources, so renewable, hydro, wind, et cetera. How do we do all that integration for not just electricity? Yes, we're trying to electrify everything right now, but we have other significant energy intensive applications like a variety of industrial applications that require process heat, hydrogen production, desalination, et cetera. So how do we integrate all of that to serve those heavy energy needs? Then the second part of our vision statement is "to secure our nation's critical infrastructure."
(08:27):
What is critical infrastructure? It's things like our grid infrastructure. It's things like water treatment and water distribution facilities, oil and gas pipelines, et cetera. A lot of that grid infrastructure was put in place with control systems, things that actually make physical actions happen before we really understood the cybersecurity implications or vulnerabilities in that infrastructure. So by the way, I'm sure the car that you drive, Cody has control systems in it that are physically doing things, and so if somebody can hack into that and change what they're doing different than what you want them to do, that can be a potential problem. And so the other big part of the laboratory is on that securing our critical infrastructure, mostly focused on cybersecurity. Again, not cybersecurity like on your laptop, cybersecurity for operational technologies, but also physical security and in addition to physical security for human threats, you may have seen the news where I call 'em knuckleheads actually literally shot at transformers and so forth.
(09:28):
So physical attacks on our infrastructure, we're seeing an increase of severe weather events. So also hardening our infrastructure to those kinds of situations in terms of how much is nuclear and how much is other things high level look at that is when we look at our funding, about 50% of our total funding is directly nuclear energy. About 35% of our funding is direct national security application, so Department of Homeland Security, national Nuclear Security Administration, DOE offices focused on security, and then the remainder about 15 ish percent is still very much energy and security, but a little bit harder to categorize. That's like work from private companies, work from the office of Science, fundamental science work, things like that.
Cody Simms (10:13):
Boy, on the topic of Grid Cybersecurity, that is an episode that I definitely want to do on this show. We haven't really tackled that yet, so I'm going to hit you offline for a few recommendations for guests in that area. Sounds like you probably have a few.
John Wagner (10:27):
Absolutely. Before I became lab director and I understood better the cybersecurity threats on our infrastructure and even broader than that, probably you and I both grew up a little bit where you think about the worst case scenario from a national security as a nuclear weapon. Of course that is always a concern and that hasn't gone away, but I worry frankly much more about cyber attacks on our critical infrastructure than I worry about a nuclear weapon detonation in the United States.
Cody Simms (10:53):
I can only imagine, especially when you were talking about infrastructure that in many cases isn't three years old, it's 30 years old or 40 or 50 years old. There certainly are likely to be software vulnerabilities in there that we are hopefully as a country and as a government looking to do everything we can to upgrade and improve.
John Wagner (11:11):
You're right, that's a whole podcast or a series of podcasts all on themselves.
Cody Simms (11:16):
You had mentioned the funding percentages. Just for all of our understanding, where does the funding generally come from for Idaho National Labs?
John Wagner (11:24):
So the vast majority almost all comes from federal agencies As a Department of Energy laboratory, the majority of pretty much all the Department of Energy laboratories come from the Department of Energy. Within the Department of Energy, like any big organization, there's a lot of different parts of it. So for us, the Office of Nuclear Energy owns our laboratory and is the primary funding source for our laboratory. I mentioned about 50% Department of Homeland Security is probably another federal agency people have at least heard of, and that's a sizable amount of our funding. Primarily it's Department of Energy and then within Department of Energy, people don't realize sometimes that the National Nuclear Security Administration is a part of the Department of Energy, department of Homeland Security, department of Defense. I haven't actually mentioned them. We do a lot of work for the Department of Defense as well.
Cody Simms (12:14):
Okay. Let's turn the rest of our attention for today to the topic of nuclear, which is your deep area of expertise. I'm going to ask two questions in one to start us off, which is how many reactors or currently under development, exploration, whatnot at INL and two, what percentage of the overall effort that you all do is focused specifically on reactors relative to other parts of the nuclear value chain? I guess like creating fuel and storing fuel as an example,
John Wagner (12:48):
I mentioned there were 52 reactors that were operated on the site over the years. Four currently are operating, and that's really important for us. That is a linchpin of our research capabilities. So the advanced test reactor, the largest volume, highest thermal power test reactor in the world, literally the backbone of the navy's nuclear fuels and materials testing as well as civilian nuclear energy related fuels and materials testing. We also do isotope production there as well for space missions and some medical work. There's a transient test reactor, there's a neutron radiography reactor, and then there's a critical facility that supports the advanced test reactor. So that's what we have today, but we have not demonstrated a new nuclear reactor on our site in, I hate to even say this, but 50 years. So one of the things that myself and many at the laboratory are very focused on is changing that reestablishing our ability to routinely test reactors, use those reactors for a variety of purposes.
(13:49):
We work with private companies, but be a part of getting the nation back to where we are routinely building reactors for power and other applications. A big focus for us in the last several years has been breaking that glass, if you will, to being from where we've been for the last five decades to where we need to be for the nation. So you'll hear me or others talk about projects like MARVEL, a micro reactor that is sort of first in line for us, and the two main reasons for that is one, to learn how to do it again so that we can help private companies and others by working through all that. And then two is to provide a test platform for this class of reactors. You're probably hearing a lot about now, and I know they've showed up in your previous cast are micro reacts.
(14:36):
So understanding how those will be used, understanding how we can actually drive down the cost and improve the operational performance of such systems. The next one is the Department of Defense Project PELE. So the Department of Defense is interested in a mobile nuclear power plant to replace their diesel generators and reliance on logistics for diesel fuel. This is really an interesting concept. I mean it's more than a concept. Now we anticipate starting up that reactor on our site in 2026, so think about a standard Conex container if you're familiar with what that looks like, and within that, a nuclear reactor and a couple other containers around it for power conversion and support. So that's next on our list. After that, we're working with Southern Company and Terra Power on something called a molten chloride reactor experiment. For those nerdy people like me, this will be the first vast spectrum molten salt reactor in the world, so a big deal, I shouldn't say reactor.
(15:35):
It's a critical experiment to get data to develop that technology. Further then we're working with companies like Oklo on their micro reactor demonstration. A fun area to talk about if we have time is how we are recycling spent nuclear fuel in support of Oklo's first fuel core for their demonstration on our site. Coming back to your question, a large portion of our work is focused on reestablishing the capabilities for reactor demonstrations to support ultimate commercial deployment. We don't do commercial deployment. That's what the private sector does, and that's where we work together to enable that. Now having said that, as you pointed out in your question, that's not all we do. We do a whole lot of work across the entire nuclear science and technology portfolio developing new nuclear fuels, like TRISO fuels. That looks like there's a lot of partnerships, but working with partners to fabricate those TRISO particles to radiate them in our reactors like the advanced test reactor to understand, then look at them carefully afterwards to understand how they performed and provide data that ultimately is used by reactor companies with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish the safety basis for using those fuels and not just TRISO, I use TRISO as an example.
(16:55):
We work on spent nuclear fuel storage, transportation recycling. We work on developing advanced computational codes for modeling and simulation of nuclear systems. We work on regulatory aspects in terms of how to regulate reactors. We work on human performance and modernization of the existing fleet. We currently have 94 reactors operating. They account for almost 50% of our non-carbon emitting electricity, so as much as all the other ones combined and we want to keep them operating.
Cody Simms (17:28):
By we you mean United States, not INL. Just to clarify,
John Wagner (17:31):
Not us, the United States. Sorry. Thank you for that. I often think about it as from a national perspective.
Cody Simms (17:37):
Thanks for that context.
Yin Lu (17:39):
Hey everyone. I'm Yin, a partner at MCJ Collective here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally each week we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change. Some awesome initiatives have come out. The community, a number of founding teams have met, several nonprofits have been established, and a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women in climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops and more. Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcj collective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (18:40):
Let's dive in on the advanced reactor side. Since you said that's the bulk of the reactor work and the nuclear work is the bulk of in L'S work, let's focus on the area where you're spending a huge chunk of your time today. You mentioned MARVEL, the MARVEL reactor being first in the queue, for example. Walk us through what the process looks like from, Hey, we have some scientists who have an idea about a new reactor design to getting MARVEL to where it is today and to then understanding what the role of, for example, NRC needs to look like in working with you all while you're still in research mode relative to what a reactor might look like, should it ultimately be commercialized.
John Wagner (19:25):
There's a lot there.
Cody Simms (19:27):
The end-to-end project development cycle, I guess is what I'm trying to at least get my head around.
John Wagner (19:31):
I'm sorry to tell you this, but each one is a little different, but there are some commonalities and so maybe I'll just draw those out at different times. So MARVEL, again, a big part of talking to the Department of Energy's office of Nuclear Energy, who that is the sponsor for that project on that, first you start any of these projects with what's the value proposition? What is it you're trying to accomplish, how much is it going to cost, how long is it going to take? Why should anybody invest? Because even the federal government invest, people may not think about it that way, but they do. The discussions there were a lot around, we need to learn how to do this again, we've got a transition. There's a famous Rickover memo about academic reactors and real reactors and the differences, and that's sort of been modernized in terms of paper reactors.
(20:18):
I actually have a computational background, and so we can model and simulate and convince ourselves that a reactor design is the best thing ever, but when you go to actually make them real, you learn a lot and you evolve and you make adjustments. We felt like it was really important for the nation to move from that designing reactors on computers to making them physically real. That was a part of the discussion around MARVEL. MARVEL was not about necessarily a new technology generation. It was more about learning how to do that again and then using that platform. A lot of the origin was thinking about the Snap 10 reactor when we were designing MARVEL, but a lot of it was about then having that available to do research and development. So for example, if we are going to see significant deployment of micro reacts around the world, the whole model is going to have to be different than current reactors.
(21:14):
We're going to have to not have five operators for each of these little reactors. We're going to need to get to a model where we're remotely operating them, ideally autonomously operating them. We are not going to get approval from a nuclear regulatory commission for such a thing unless we have data, data in a controlled environment that convinces people that we can do those things safely and works through it. The nuclear industry has traditionally been very focused on data. If you want the NRC to approve it, show them data that convinces them that it'll be safe, that's maybe enough on the value proposition. Then you work with the department on, okay, how are we going to get support for it? They work with appropriators on getting appropriated dollars for it. This reactor will not be a nuclear regulatory commission license reactor. This reactor will be on our site and the Department of Energy has the authority, the safety authority for operations.
Cody Simms (22:07):
You can turn it on as a full reactor in and of your own volition as long as you have essentially DOE approval to do it. It doesn't need to go through a full commercial regulatory process with the NRC.
John Wagner (22:20):
So I want to be a little bit careful about how you characterize that because the Department of Energy is just as concerned about safety as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is. So it's not short-changing safety or anything like that. I don't want anybody to come away with that idea. It's just a different process, and the Department of Energy, again has the ability to self-regulate. I don't have the ability to just turn it on whenever I say it's okay, I have to get the Department of Energy to approve that we can operate the reactor. But yes, it does go through the Department of Energy. Our first three reactor projects that we're working on, MARVEL, PELE, and MCRE are all going to be DOE authorized, and then after that you'll see reactors like Oklo, Oklo is pursuing a nuclear regulatory commission license.
Cody Simms (23:05):
Then if an entrepreneur wanted to commercialize the technology of MARVEL PELE, or I forgot the third one you mentioned
John Wagner (23:14):
MCRE, the molten chloride reactor experiment,
Cody Simms (23:16):
Then they would work to ultimately take that project through an NRC approval in order to deploy it out in the world outside of the zone of INL. If that project already had its own DOE site use approval inside in NL, is that right?
John Wagner (23:34):
That's right. It depends on where companies are in their kind of maturity and thinking and also what their business strategy is. So for example, somebody like an Aalo could say, okay, and some of those folks were involved in MARVEL take advantage of the data coming out of MARVEL to make the case for their reactor licensing. Any reactor company could come to our site and say, we want to do a DOE authorized reactor to get experience if it's not for commercial purposes or actually pursue a nuclear regulatory commission license on our site. It really depends on what they think they need and what their long-term strategy is. The molt chloride reactor experiment's an interesting example because that's not about a reactor demonstration. That's about getting data at a small scale on flowing molten salt, criticality of that system, corrosion and things like that, material interactions, and then they will do a next stage that'll be larger and probably a next stage that will then be more like what they deploy commercially. So it's all about progressing up that technology readiness level to achieve commercial deployment.
Cody Simms (24:43):
So I'm hearing that there's both inside out innovation and outside innovation where you can take technology that was essentially developed at INL and then have an entrepreneur come and look to commercialize it and continue to work with INL on what that commercialization pathway might look like using parts of your facility, et cetera. And then there's a separate model where an outside technology might come from a university lab or whatnot with a set of entrepreneurs behind it and they want to come in and actually leverage some of the facilities you have to operate again within the confines of DOE site use approval.
John Wagner (25:22):
Lemme put a point on that a little bit. I mentioned Oklo already, so I'll mention a couple others. So we are developing test beds for micro react demonstrations. I mentioned MCRE already, so I won't talk more about that. We've got another test bed called DOME, and the whole idea of that is so these private companies will have some place to come demonstrate their system, collect the data that they need for licensing with the nuclear regulatory commission, which is ultimately what they'll all need, and then move the system out. And so literally the idea is that like say Westinghouse would come in, demonstrate their reactor, get some operational data, move out maybe then Radiant would come in, do the same thing, and so we're working with Westinghouse, Radiant, and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation in terms of their abilities to come in and use our test bed to get the data that they need.
Cody Simms (26:13):
What does the test bed look like?
John Wagner (26:14):
Well, you should come see it. First of all,
Cody Simms (26:16):
I would love that,
John Wagner (26:17):
But it's actually the old containment dome from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. I mentioned Experimental Breeder Reactor I at the beginning. The second one was a much larger reactor, by the way. In that reactor, we demonstrated closing the fuel cycle, so recycling the fuel back in and making new fuel,
Cody Simms (26:37):
Hence the name breeder.
John Wagner (26:39):
Yep, exactly. That reactor was shut down in the early nineties, but the containment dome was not taken down, and so we've repurposed that dome as a nice structure to be doing these reactor demonstrations in, so it looks like a big metal silver dome.
Cody Simms (26:57):
And what's the process for an outside company, entrepreneur, whatnot, to get approval to work inside INL?
John Wagner (27:07):
There's a number of different ways you can come into working with us depending on what you're interested in doing. Several years ago, the Department of Energy created something called GAIN the gateway for accelerated innovation and nuclear, and so let's just say you're a private company and you've got an idea and you just need some access to lab people, and it's not specific to INL either by the way, you want to work on maybe developing a chemistry method, a new salt, a new modeling simulation capability or what have you. You can come in and GAIN will be like your front door to figuring out, okay, you should come to Idaho National Laboratory, you should go to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and work with so-and-so help navigate through the laboratory system. If you're looking for a reactor demonstration project, you would come in, GAIN would still direct you wherever you need to go.
(27:51):
By the way, not to make this complicated. In fact, the idea is to make it not complicated, but if you know I hear about this test bed, actually I want to use it, you can go straight to the National Reactor Innovation Center and start talking about that and start talking about what would it take, what do they need to bring, what do they need to know? What is it that they want to accomplish and so on. A number of the companies that we're working with have already been awarded funding from the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. So through that process that kind of married us all up right at the beginning in the proposal process, but others can come in at any time,
Cody Simms (28:28):
And that's again, the outside in pathway from an inside out pathway for technology that's been developed inside INL and then, hey, maybe it has a path to be commercialized and there's an entrepreneur who wants to come in and take that, or a big company wants to come in and take that and commercialize it. How do you all make the determination on whether the IP that's being developed at INL is US government IP versus okay to be commercialized, and what does the process look like there?
John Wagner (28:59):
All the labs have a process for that. It starts with an invention disclosure. Should it be patented? Should it not be patented? Should it be patented in ways with exclusive rights to the government or should it be patented in a way that's open? We also get into these questions when people are publishing journal articles. Hey, is this something that should be protected, should not be protected? We have staff that are experts in that area that help our research staff decide. Everybody has some knowledge, but those staff can help with, 'Hey, actually this is a good connectivity for TerraPower. They're interested in this kind of instrument, or they're interested in this kind of thing to help make those connections'. Nuclear actually really is a pretty small community, to be honest. There's lot of connectivity within it, but we have experts that understand all those kinds of licensing and patenting kind of things, and then we have a very strong connection with the private sector companies through GAIN, through those tech transfer people and so forth.
(29:54):
The Department of Energy also has some really great programs to help our researchers understand better the value proposition of technology development, energy Icorp, for example, and other programs, technology commercialization, funding to help pair researchers with private companies to develop that technology further. So there's a number of opportunities for doing just that. The last thing I'll say on this is as a national laboratory, and I am speaking as a lab director, I'm not that interested in protecting technologies. I'm interested in the advancement of the technologies and them being employed. You can develop all the technologies in the world. They can be the greatest technologies, but if nobody ever actually uses them, then in my opinion, they're irrelevant. So that's where we have the impact is getting them out into the commercial world. So working with private companies who will get them out to where they'll have an impact.
Cody Simms (30:50):
On that note, obviously the big barrier for any technology to make it out into commercial viability from a nuclear perspective is getting through NRC approvals. What role do you all play in helping the NRC understand these new technologies and how is their process potentially evolving to understand them as well?
John Wagner (31:17):
So there's a lot in there and we're doing a lot of different things. So historically, actually, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides funding to the laboratory. We support them directly. We support them directly in terms of regulatory development, in terms of PRA analysis of existing plants, a lot of different technical areas. Because we have so many technical people, we will provide technical support to things that they're interested in. We don't drive that research they do. We might drive it from a technical standpoint, but we're technical assistance, if you will, to them. We work with the NRC on identifying areas for improvement and where could we do things better. In fact, we at the lab put out a report a year ago in terms of our suggestions for regulatory reforms, particularly those with a statutory change that would require some legislation. The NRC has to abide by the laws that dictate not just their mission, but how they conduct themselves.
(32:10):
So some of it they can't do differently. They have to do certain ways, but we also work closely with them on things like training. You sort of mentioned a lot of what I'm saying is not just Idaho National Laboratory. Several laboratories help them understand and even do training courses around things like molten salt reactors, high temperature gas reactors, et cetera. Then last but not least, the Department of Energy has signed various memorandums of agreement with the NRC so that they can shadow these reactor development projects. They can be close to watching as PELE moves towards operation. They're understanding what that's like since they don't have a direct regulatory involvement. So there's a lot of collaboration on these new reactor projects.
Cody Simms (32:56):
I'm going to ask two more questions. I know we're coming up on time. I could keep going with you for probably a few hours, but we'll do what we can here. Is Fusion a technology that you all are spending time on at all?
John Wagner (33:07):
It's, it's a technology that we've actually played a role in for actually decades. I don't talk as much about it. It's not a huge part of our portfolio, but we've been leading the Nuclear Fusion safety program for decades. Why is that? It's primarily related to our experience with neutron radiation, with tritium tritium management and our research facilities that do that. Now, in the grand scheme of the nuclear enterprise, it's a small part of the overall system, but because of our experience with public-private partnerships, which I've sort of been referring to, irradiated materials, examinations and all these things, we are actually having conversations with other labs and private companies about how we can support that, how we can add value to that part of the system as well. So I do anticipate us doing more and more work in the near term and in the coming years in fusion.
Cody Simms (34:00):
Alright, last question for you. What role do you think nuclear technologies, broadly, whether that's vision, whether that's fusion, have in our energy mix 25, 30 years from now, and what magic wand would you like to wave to help ensure that that future can be realized?
John Wagner (34:19):
At least nuclear fission is what I'm focused on over the next say between here and 2050 has got to play a huge role. I love the way our country and other countries have leaned in and said we need to triple nuclear by 2050. The Department of Energy and others are looking at how do we get from here to there? And it's a big lift other than Vogtle, Unit 3 and 4, we haven't built new commercial power plants in this country in quite a long time. Kudos, by the way, to Southern Company for Vogtle Units 3 and 4. Congrats to them. I actually am looking at, by the way, if we're going to triple nuclear by 2050, we have 94 reactors operating today and we're going to need another 200 between 180 and 200 by 2050. That's not far away, actually. So that's a big deal and a big challenge that's facing us all.
(35:07):
If I could wave a magic wand, there'd probably be a lot, but I'm going to just do one thing and that is we have to start building again. Right now, there is no order for a new nuclear power reactor in this country and we've got to fix that. So we've got to get people off the sidelines. I know a lot of utilities are thinking about it. A lot of data center developers and other energy end users are saying they want clean firm nuclear power, but hesitations around uncertainty, cost and schedule, which we did play out in the building of Vogtle. Units 3 and 4 have them on the sidelines currently. So we have to work with policymakers, financial people who understand how to manage those kinds of things. To just get started, I very much look forward to policy or other changes that we can just get to where people are, come off the sidelines and start building 'em again because we certainly can't get to where I'd like to be if we don't get started.
Cody Simms (36:05):
What do you think that mix looks like in terms of large scale light-water reactors relative to smaller advanced reactors, both from a reactor deployment perspective as well as from a megawatt hour perspective?
John Wagner (36:17):
So that's not a simple or short answer, but lemme just say it really has been evolving. If we were talking two or three years ago, Cody, I would've said we won't build any more gigawatts scale reactors in the United States. Other countries where they have strong energy demand growth will, but we won't. We'll build small modular reactors and micro reactors. Just in the last few years with the emergence of these hyperscale data center power needs with other industrial applications, semiconductor manufacturing being onshoring, our electricity demand growth is staggering to a number of utility executives that I talk about. So we haven't experienced that in the last couple of decades, and so now I actually believe we will build more gigawatt scale light-water reactors in the United States in the near term. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they're the first ones that we do next from a commercial standpoint, more Vogtle Unit 3 and 4 type reactors.
(37:16):
While that's going on, I see us building more light-water reactor SMRs like Westinghouse AP 300, Holtec has a 300 megawatt design because people understand light-water reactors. NRC understands them. Not that that's prohibitive to other technologies, but it's helpful. The fuel supply chain is there. The broader supply chain for light-water reactor technologies is there. So I see a lot of that being built out over the course of the next decade and probably two or three, I believe you'll see tremendous number of advanced reactor technologies being built. Things like the TerraPower Natrium, X-energy's high-temperature gas reactor. I don't mean to pick companies, I'm sorry if I'm not saying all the companies. And then long-term, I'm very bullish on microreactors. Microreactors built in a factory completely, and then just simply delivered and plugged in an installation model more like wind and solar, for example. But we've got some work to do to get that cost effective. I actually see kind of a transition of different technologies, and just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying I see any of them fading away. They're all going to have to demonstrate their value to what their customers want, and we'll see how that plays out.
Cody Simms (38:29):
Dr. Wagner, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
John Wagner (38:32):
Thanks for having me. And yes, it would be fun to talk, but our time is limited. Again, thank you for having me.
Jason Jacobs (38:38):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms (38:42):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem solving capacity.
Jason Jacobs (38:51):
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Yin Lu (39:04):
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Cody Simms (39:14):
Thanks, and see you next episode.