On May 15, 2013, I had the opportunity to attend a session at the Nuclear Energy Assembly titled Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: Supplying the Nuclear Energy Industry in the 21st Century.
The panel discussion was moderated by John Hamre, President and CEO of Center for Strategic and International Studies. Participants included E. James Ferland, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Babcock & Wilcox Company; Caroline A. Reda, President and Chief Executive Officer, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy; Michael W. Rencheck, President and Chief Executive Officer, AREVA Inc. and Daniel L. Roderick, President and Chief Executive Officer, Westinghouse Electric Company.
They discussed a number of challenges and opportunities including small modular reactors, competition with natural gas, market distortions caused by targeted subsidies, financial benefits to US of the Export-Import Bank, innovation, competing against government-owned corporations, and the obsolete nature of the prohibition against foreign ownership of US based nuclear power plants. (That last one was in response to a question from the floor. Some of you might recognize the source of the question. 🙂 )
Since it is difficult for many nuclear professionals to take the time away from their normal duties to attend meetings like the NEA, I thought it would be worthwhile to share this informative discussion with you.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:14 — 29.1MB)
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I found it interesting that no one mentioned advertising. Just a constant emphasis on innovation. As if innovation will cause people to trust Nuclear more. I would love to see Nuclear innovation on Discovery Channel. Or Nuclear innovation on Super Bowl commercials. It does no good to innovate – if no one knows about the innovation.
I found the statement by the former NRC commissionar that we need to keep politics out of the NRC sort of strange after the last commissionar’s reign of abuse.