Beautiful Nuclear

Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) plans to invest RM20 billion worth of capital expenditure annually over the next 28 years to support the country’s net-zero agenda.

In the news round-up for November, the focus was on the role nuclear played at COP27. World Nuclear Association's Jonathan Cobb and Henry Preston report on the conference and from some of the expert sessions staged at the IAEA #Atoms4Climate pavilion, including a session featuring Terra Praxis Co-Founder, Kirsty Gogan.

In this episode of The Stand, Eamon Dunphy, host, presenter and editor is joined by Kirsty Gogan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Terra Praxis from COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to talk about the climate challenges ahead for global populations.

On November 7, 2022, Terra Praxis made available for the first time its new EVALUATE application at COP27. This app enables coal plant owners and investors around the world to evaluate hundreds of coal plants for fast, low-cost, and repeatable conversion to emissions-free power generation sources.

In 2022, at COP27, Terra Praxis hosted and participated in more than a dozen events, made a series of high profile announcements alongside global climate leaders, and launched new products and partnerships.

We know that climate change is an energy problem. Now we have 28 years to replace fossil fuels and double our overall energy supply. As you reflect on our first  2021 Annual Review, we hope you will be as energized as we are by our success in mobilizing a broad coalition of public and private sector leaders and building momentum for innovative climate solutions (for coal plant conversion, flexible co-generation, clean hydrogen, and synthetic fuels production). Our programs could accelerate the reduction of global carbon emissions by repurposing trillions of dollars of existing infrastructure to supply clean, affordable, and reliable energy to billions of people.

The solution to the world’s energy problem could be simple — even elegant. So much so that we could look back and wonder why it took us so long to finally realize it. According to the world’s foremost experts on advanced nuclear technology and policy, the choice is up to us.

‍

“We are encouraged by the EU parliament’s recognition of nuclear as a necessary solution to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. This will enable investment in the lowest cost decarbonization - which is long term operation of existing nuclear plants - as well as grow investment in new advanced nuclear technologies, which have the potential to dramatically accelerate decarbonization across power, heat, industry and transport, while protecting our planet, and growing human prosperity.” Kirsty Gogan, Terra Praxis Co-Founder.

The IAEA held the 2nd IAEA Workshop on Fusion Enterprises from 11 to 12 July 2022. This workshop discussed the commercialization paths for fusion by bringing together the pioneering actors in private enterprises. Professionals from relevant fields to provided their views on the market demands for fusion, and whether the private sector could deliver what the market is demanding. Kirsty Gogan, Co-Founder of Terra Praxis, was invited as an expert speaker to talk about "Fusion in the Future Energy Market".

The priority for preventing irreversible climate change is decarbonization, not the creation of energy systems which are 100% dependent on renewables, according to a new report from LucidCatalyst. It says expanding the use of nuclear energy could enable faster progress towards a sustainable and prosperous future for all. Terra Praxis contributed to the dissemination of the report and presented it at international fora such as the Nordic Nuclear Forum where the report was launched.

Kirsty Gogan participated on the third session of the Nordic Nuclear Forum, where she presented our latest report 'Beautiful Nuclear' authored by LucidCatalyst and endorsed by Terra Praxis, among several other organizations. The topics discussed were financing, wellbeing of society and, can competitiveness be improved by Supply Chain Optimization? The session was hosted by TVO. Speakers included: Christoper Eckerberg, Vice President Nuclear Decommissioning at Vattenfall; Jarmo Tanhua, CEO of Teollisuuden Voima Oy and Vakisasai Ramany, Senior VP, International Nuclear Development at EDF.

The authors of this article, experts in nuclear engineering, set the record straight and explain the risks of nuclear power plants in war zones, which is surprisingly small. "Nuclear reactors cannot 'explode' like a nuclear weapon, because of their fundamental differences in materials and designs." Furthermore, "nuclear power plants must, by law, be able to withstand a broad range of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, and floods, as well as terrorist attacks. Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have multiple layers of protection." It is important to note that while "Civilian infrastructure isn’t built to withstand military assault. Nuclear power plants, however, are exceptionally hardened facilities, as we have seen. By comparison, other power plants, dams, ports, chemical plants, the food supply chain, long-span bridges, the electric grid, oil and gas pipelines, and the internet, just to mention a few, are much softer targets. An attack on these targets could inflict considerably greater suffering and disruption to the civilian population and the environment." Note that two of this article's authors are advisors to Terra Praxis: Jacopo Buongiorno (MIT, Director of Nuclear Engineering) and Andrew Whittaker (U Buffalo-expert in nuclear seismic isolation).

Microsoft has joined the Terra Praxis-led team working on Repowering Coal. Microsoft is helping create Azure tools to enable automated analysis of the US (and ultimately global) coal power generation fleet for retrofit. Microsoft will build the analytics tools with Terra Praxis and help undertake strategic partnerships with #REPOWER consortium stakeholders. At the Microsoft booth during #CERAWeek, Terra Praxis will offer demonstrations of the Azure tools showcasing the opportunity for retrofitting coal power plants. If you're in Houston, please visit us at the Microsoft Agora House, in the George R. Brown Convention Center March 8-9.

Watch this presentation by Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll of Terra Praxis to the Effective Altruism community about why they founded Terra Praxis—to come up with Climate 2.0 strategies that address the actual risks to the energy transition—cost, speed, scale, space, and political support—these are the obstacles that are standing in the way of achieving the progress on decarbonization the world needs and expects. These risks include public opposition and legal constraints to the future development of renewable energy. For instance, two-thirds of the counties in the U.S. state of Iowa have added restrictions or prohibitions to future wind development; this is true for many states across the US. Based on analysis Terra Praxis and its partner LucidCatalyst performed with McKinsey, it is clear that there is very little potential for onshore wind development left in Germany. However, climate modelers do not take this into consideration and continue to model large additions to wind resources, allowing policy makers to believe we are on the right track when in fact the reality is very different. Along similar lines, Terra Praxis is leading a project to repower the world's 2TW of coal plants, which make up the single largest source of global carbon emissions.

The World Nuclear Exhibition 2021 took place in Paris (Nov 30 – Dec 2) with a series of in-person panel sessions. On December 1st, Westinghouse sponsored a session with Kirsty Gogan of Terra Praxis moderating a panel that included Patrick Fragman, President and CEO, Westinghouse; Petro Kotin, Acting President of SE NNEGC “Energoatom”; and Sama Bilbao y Leon, Director General of the World Nuclear Association.