now there's just silence
and they think they want more nukes
foreign
yes okay good thanks okay
sorry about that the uh fun of
having your new space so before we get
with our uh speaker I thought we'd let
um everyone on the authority here in the
room uh uh introduce themselves uh so
that way uh Simon knows who's here so
yeah all right Jeff Fox University
Virginia
it's not the volume's not very good
okay can everybody speak up so
community colleges Bill Brisco to George
Washington University
Tom deponzi with framatone
Scott Coppell bwxt
instiller between economic development
a little better opportunity
Brian Wallace from Beauty Department
okay so
um thanks everybody for joining us I'm
going to go ahead and introduce
um Simon Glenn who's here on behalf of
uh
potential energy let's talk a little bit
about some of the research
um they've been they've been conducting
which is really interesting on on some
of the message you've been following
around uh nuclear energy so Simon has
spent 25 years as a management
consulting partner uh leading a great
many Global Research efforts senior
partner at lippicots a brand and
Innovation specialist the police the
climate sustainability platform for
Oliver Wyman a global consulting firm
board member of replanet a science-led
environmental movement and founder of
zero ideas a research and education
non-profit and challenging business
thinking on the climate
Simon helped incubate potential energy
back in 2007 and he has worked with the
team ever since public ring the most
advanced research and marketing
techniques from the private sector to
build support for clean energy he has a
degree in physics from the University of
Cambridge and welcome here today uh a
little bit more information
most recent research Simon all yours
thank you thank you for that uh set up
so yes there's lots of different things
in there but here representing potential
energy uh which is a um set up by a
former colleague of mine John Marshall
um who was with me at Lippincott and uh
it's its focus is really to take the
sort of some of the disciplines that we
have in brand and marketing in the in
the private sector and apply them to
um to the to the public sector and in
particular to influencing how people
think about climate change and clean
energy
um more more broadly uh and what I'm
sharing today and thank you for for
having us to do that is a research study
that we did uh we say globally it wasn't
really globally but it was eight
countries which is is
um better than better than one
um I know it's a minority of the world
um on attitudes to nuclear and in
particular attitudes to new nuclear
um Advanced nuclear in whatever language
you want to use
to try and understand what the what the
sort of barriers were to that what the
perceptions were to that what the
guidance is on on how to uh how to talk
about that
um to the question in the and the thing
what I will do is just share a uh share
a screen uh one second
um
is that is that sharing well yes it
looks like it is
um so there's a there's a there's a QR
code in the top right I don't know if
you're close enough or at least for
people on WebEx to um to take it from
the QR code there's a URL that's on the
final page that I'll show as well in
terms of a link to the uh uh to the film
report uh it's a report
um we called the world once new nuclear
because that is essentially the uh the
finding it was a very positive finding
in terms of where perceptions are
there's as we all know a lot of noise
about nuclear but what this research is
really finding uh is that that noise
comes from a relatively concentrated
relatively specific and small section of
the population and actually from a kind
of silent majority point of view the
support for nuclear is really
surprisingly strong so I'll I'll take
you through the findings about that
um so what it's based on uh we did quite
a thorough uh Quant exercise of all
together a bit over 13 000 people
globally uh with a particular focus on
the us so we had all together 7 000
people in the US uh and although we
didn't really design it this way that
scale meant that we had more than 200
people in Virginia and so we've been
able to uh give you some Virginia
specific results obviously we can't do a
lot of sort of slicing and dicing within
that 200 because it's too small but but
200 is enough to be a useful guide to
see how Virginia kind of calibrates with
some of the other uh data that we're
saying uh so we did this in eight
countries across three continents as
well as the us we had five European
countries and Japan and South Korea
um and it's a quantitative study of of
um
nationally representative population uh
and including you'll see towards the end
uh in some of what we show we did it so
that we could actually do a a randomized
control trial in other words why why the
sample size was so big was we could show
different narratives to different people
and see how that affected their their
views and make some of that comparison
to understand not just asking people a
response to a narrative that that
deducing it in terms of how their views
about nuclear that they tell us are
different depending on who saw what
narrative at the start of the survey
um it's done by a bunch of independent
ngos it's not industry funded or any of
those things that people ask about
um uh potential energy equally a path
Third Way all US based and replan it
from over here which case you can't tell
I'm I'm based in London
um so that's that's what we are beating
all of this stuff on
jumping in to what we learned
um so you're going to see a lot of
results first of all I present lots of
data I hope it's in you know
intelligible and digestible
um but there are there is a report to go
through afterwards if not but I'll try
and sort of focus on bringing out the
key stories
um uh the sort of key test question we
used with the was this statement uh
whether or not people agree that I
support the use of the latest nuclear
energy Technologies to generate an
electricity alongside other energy
sources so we're asking about nuclear
energy we're phrasing it in a slightly
Technology Way uh we're asking it in the
context of electricity and we're
acknowledging that this is a a multiple
thing this isn't nuclear as opposed to
Alternatives it's within the mix of
other energy sources uh when we ask it
that way you can see there the the range
from I strongly agree to that statement
in the dark blue on the left to I
strongly disagree in black on the on the
right I think the strike talking points
are in every question the sorry in every
country the agree outweighs the disagree
the two Blues outgrade outweigh the gray
and black by some by some multiple
um even in Germany and Japan which are
the least supportive of the eight
countries that we tested it's still a
substantial majority
um that are uh that are supportive
um and Virginia slightly above the U.S
average overall not very different in
terms of the sample size not very
different in support but actually and
you'll see on another slide in a minute
significantly
um low
um low rejection low low strong
disagreement with that statement in uh
in Virginia but so typically across the
world on average something like a five
to one ratio of agree to disagree on
that statement
um we also asked a modification slightly
differently to make it about a local
context I'd be happy for my local for my
local electricity company to use
Advanced nuclear uh and in that context
again the overall numbers were very
similar and again when you look at
Virginia it particularly stands out the
really really small strong disagree
sliver again I don't know how well you
can see the data in the in the big room
that you're in but that's a 25 strongly
agree and only four percent strongly
disagree
um in Virginia which is
um agree is very similar picture to us
overall but the dis strongly disagree is
is four percent rather than eight
percent for the US overall so very very
small disagreeing Tale in Virginia
again bearing in mind that's a 200
sample size so that's like eight people
in that black box so there may be some
um some fluctuation but directionally I
think it's it's robust
um we also asked the question different
way
um less nuanced so this question that
the question you saw before came at the
beginning of the questionnaire this
question came at the end of the
questionnaire where we had been through
all sorts of nuclear issues in about a
20-minute uh uh a questionnaire we'd
raised issues about nuclear waste we'd
we'd raised issues about nuclear
meltdowns we put everything out on the
table for them uh so we weren't hiding
anything and at the end of a 20-minute
survey when they sort of exposed to all
of that both the benefits and some of
those issues we then asked the question
in a different way that had no fuzzy
faces to go in the middle it was a yes
no should Advance nuclear be an
important part of the solution to our
energy challenges and when we force
people off the fence in that yes or no
and we've already taken them through all
of those uh issues then at least
two-thirds of people in every country
including Japan including Germany and 82
in Virginia said yes when when forced in
that sort of come up of the fenceway
another interesting thing we asked in
this survey whether people
um the question and small print you
almost certainly can't see in the room
at the bottom that says are you a member
or supporter of any environmental
organizations such as Greenpeace WWF
nature conservancy and when we cut the
data by how people ask that question
we've found that again in all countries
um members if we just look at people who
say they are a member or supporter of an
environmental organization there is
still net support for nuclear among all
of those environmental supporters
that's not a question about what their
organizations support but if you look at
their members and supporters they are
net supporters of nuclear energy in the
way we're asking this question
and then if you take that to the U.S
specifically this wasn't true in all
countries wasn't true in some of the
European countries but it is true in the
US that not only do supporters outweigh
uh rejecters or opponents I should say
um in the environmental uh members but
actually environment members of
environmental organizations in the US
are more supportive of nuclear uh than
people who are not members or supporters
of those organizations so those two blue
bars
um adding to 65 for members and uh
whatever that is um 62 uh for
non-members 61 for non-members
um are significantly more supportive now
you'll also notice on the right of that
chart you could you could give you a
headline the other way
um if I was so minded that says that
environmental mentalists also reject
nuclear more than uh
non-environmentalists that night that
black Nine percent is bigger than the
seven uh tens bigger than nine it's true
but they do it by less so over rule the
the bigger effect is still that uh and
that basically just says people who
remember environmentalists know what
they think more than people who aren't
so that yellow don't really know how to
think in the middle is much smaller for
environmentalists so that's part of the
effect but it's not a symmetrical effect
the the
um uh the growth is bigger in the in the
um support than in the rejection
in the opposition
I can go back on any of these that I
know there's a lot to digest in some of
these uh we also looked at gender I
think it's quite well known that
um support for nuclear skus male and
that's indeed what we found you can see
on the left in particular
um much higher levels of support of
agreeing with this same old statement
um among male and female but what's
interesting about that is that the big
difference is not in the disagree the
big difference is in the yellow bit in
the middle again so the that gender
difference in support really reflects
much greater react uh neutrality among
women rather than rejection among women
the actual rejection is not much bigger
it's a little bit bigger but it's not
much bigger the big difference among
women is the neutrality rather than the
rejection
um also interesting to see in Virginia
again being a bit cautious of the sample
size that the the gender skew is not as
big as it seems to be in the US overall
I got 10 of these I think just to give
you an idea so I'm I'm halfway through
sharing these and then we can dig into
I've seen questions appearing in the
thing faster than I can read them so we
can go back into those in a minute
um also looking at age demographics uh
so we looked at this in a different way
this is actually this is about strong
rejection so the sort of the serious
opposition the size of that black bar in
the in the uh charts that we've just
been looking at how does the size of
that black bar in each country differ by
age group and I think what's interesting
about this is that even in the countries
with significant levels of nuclear
rejection which is to say Germany and
Japan the blue and yellow lines at the
top
um the only real step up oh sorry the
only real high level in in um rejection
comes among the older age groups so even
in Germany and Japan when you look in
the 18 to 34s you know there is no
country where that black bar is more
than eight percent of the um of the
population
and Virginia
um uh sitting in the middle
again with no um no big age difference
across across Virginia or or indeed um
in the US they're both pretty flat
you get the same effect by the way as I
was talking about with gender that that
is you get older you know what you think
more on this topic and so you can sort
of um if you're not carefully you can
you can make this
um you know tell the story both ways
around but the the net effect of this is
when you look at that strong rejection
it's really not a very big effect in
most countries
um a lot to suggest if you wanted to
read the words on this but the general
pattern is not very difficult to read
which is that nuclear support really
transcends politics in most countries so
what you've got here is supporters of uh
different political parties in each
country and what percentage of each
party's supporters
um uh agree with that statement that
you've seen in most of the other slides
about supporting Advanced nuclear and
the dark blue bars are where there's a
majority support among among sorry
majority support for nuclear among
supporters of each of the party and the
light blue is where it doesn't hit that
50 Mark so in most cases they are the
sort of relatively small relatively left
or green party
um in Sweden and in Germany
um the the sort of two substantial
parties in there uh are the social
Democrats in Germany and the CDP in
Japan which are kind of mainstream
parties that don't hit the 50 Mark uh in
those two countries but actually in most
of the other countries including
um you know most of the European
countries you can see even the
supporters of the green parties are uh
net positive for nuclear and in the US
you can see how evenly its support is
across Republican Democrat and
independent
and just dealing into the US again
here's that picture that was on the top
left of the previous chart
um but reproduced with Virginia next to
it compared to the US Nat rep it's it's
pretty similar in Virginia
having said that that support is
um really non-non partisan and even
across parties which is which is true
and true across countries and pretty
interesting actually the motivation for
what that support is is not quite as as
even and uniform uh as those previous
charts might expect so if you in this
one we've asked people This Is Us data
U.S national rep so not just Virginia
but all of us
um we've asked people at the bottom
along the x-axis to identify where they
are on a spectrum from very liberal to
very conservative and we've also we've
shown them a bunch of narratives about
what and why they might support Advanced
nuclear and we've given them an option
to say choose which of these is the
reason why you might support it and they
have the option of choosing the black
one at the top which is I wouldn't
support it I wouldn't choose any of
those but you might support Advanced
nuclear for reasons of energy
Independence I'm reading from the bottom
or about American innovation or about
stopping climate change or about to
preserve our country's precious land
precious land rather than letting it all
go under under southern wind
um to sustain our quality of life and be
a sort of uh narrative around
opportunity and a sort of
forward-looking Technology story to to
allow us to continue to prosper and do
everything we want uh it might be about
keeping jobs and money in our
communities we gave them all of those
options and you can see the proportion
that chose each of those options for
each of the different political groups
and I think what I find interesting on
this is the is the asymmetry in
particular of the yellow one which is
not that surprising in the US
um that the climate change you know is a
much stronger argument on the left than
it is on the on the on on the right no
great surprise there uh but what's
interesting is that the American
innovation and making our own energy
independently there's a little bit of
skew to sort of balance that out overall
but they are actually
um arguments that work across both so
there are there are some arguments that
work more politically aligned and some
that are uh that are more evenly across
it's the it's the asymmetry of this that
the fact that climate change skews one
way but the other arguments don't skew
nearly as much the other way
um so very small yellow on the on the
right of the chart but quite substantial
blue on the left
and therefore when we put that together
um you know we look at
um this is this is a result of the what
we did as one of these randomized
control trials so we gave people a short
narrative where they only saw one of
them right at the beginning before they
saw anything else they saw one narrative
it might have been a narrative about
energy Independence or one about clean
Innovation or one about climate goals
and so on
um each person only saw one and some
people saw none uh and then we looked at
what's the difference in support
depending on what narrative you you saw
so if you saw none to begin with your
narrative support started at where it
says control group at the bottom at 52.7
but there were substantial lifts
um in levels of support for some of
these narratives
um there was some support for all of
them but in particular the clean
Innovation and energy Independence
narratives are the ones that gave
um
a substantial uplift in how people think
about nuclear
so that was sort of 10 highlights from
this we've got uh lots more we did a
whole sort of segmentation for looking
at how different parts of the market
um see it if you'd like to think of it
as a market using using that sort of
brand and marketing discipline that we
bring to it
um we looked at reaction to different
types of names and whether the nuclear
name is is is you know tainted or not
tainted to which the answer is no it's
not tainted
um there was there was no no need to
worry about the nuclear name uh so lots
more in the uh in the report but that's
a um uh that's a summary
um if you can I I don't have a sort of
Handy just be able to read out a URL
that that's easy to do so maybe it needs
to be shared electronically afterwards
if you're if you're somewhere where you
could see the screen there's a QR code
for the uh report
um the URL underneath it is probably if
you can't see the QR code you probably
can't see the URL either but um maybe
somebody when we I can I can put it in
the chat in a bit or something like that
but um uh anyway we we have it there
there's a film written report available
Simon thank you so much for that
um I think
I mean having seen various parts of this
presentation but not the Virginia
specific piece um that was very very
interesting and really helpful and we
will
um for folks uh on the on the WebEx and
then also um Authority we'll make sure
we can get the link to the report around
to the to the whole group
um we have a little bit of time so I
would
um like to open it up and before we open
it up questions I do want to just
provide for especially for everyone
um on the WebEx then there is a a formal
uh time period at the end of the meeting
that is set up and we will allow for
public comment but the content during
the meeting this is really the time
reserved for dialogue between
um our speakers and and the authority
members
um so I know there's some some questions
in the chat or some some comments of you
know kind of there ones from the from
the authority we can
so doesn't have the dialogue assignment
otherwise we'll make sure we address any
questions or comments from the public uh
during that formal very good that yeah
so I think
um I saw Glenn had a question
um
it's was there any right are there any
other from chat uh but Glenn if you want
to ask if you want to ask your question
of Simon and any other majority members
if you want if you have questions on the
WebEx or in the room
sure not I appreciate it um just on two
quick questions one was uh if M was only
220 what's the margin of error for
Virginia's numbers on that study
uh so we'd have to look at look at that
for I mean 220 is small 220 as I said
that the introduction is not what we
were
um
designing the study for when we went in
to do it it was a sort of oh that's
convenient because we did 13 000 we
basically designed it so that we'd have
700 people per cell for the randomized
control trial that was the sort of what
was driving our numbers and then it was
a fortuitous thing that says oh we
should be able to give you some
directionally interesting answers
because we've got you know a useful
sample in Virginia so I um without you
you kind of need to look at that
question by question because it's messy
in terms of how big the differences were
I think what we're really showing with
uh in particular I think 220 when we're
giving you an answer of how something is
for the whole of Virginia is is is not
bad for the um uh is is Meaningful is
useful for the sort of results that
we're presenting when you start
splitting that up into groups when you
do the age one that says oh let's look
at those three different age groups and
how do they compare so that each one is
a best a third of 220 and you're doing
differences between them then you're
then you're kind of scraping at the
limits of what you should probably do
and the last question um I know you had
a question on there that said that
should look your locality or utilize
nuclear technology
and I'm wondering if did you ask a
question more specific of are would it
be okay or or how do you feel or do you
would you support a nuclear reactor in
your county or city because I'm
wondering you know a city using nuclear
technology uh just means I'm bringing in
electron from a nuclear plant that could
be you know cities away do you think we
can correlate that to whether they
support a nuclear reactor in their city
or is that do you think that needs to be
a separate question uh it's what we were
trying to imply
um we were trying not to use the react
to word because some of what we were
trying to do was explore you know all we
kind of making life more difficult for
ourselves when we use when we use scary
words indeed these nuclear is Gary Wood
and we discovered it wasn't because
we've we tested Alternatives and nuclear
tested well
um but it that's the reason why we use
peculiar technology rather than saying
reactor because reactors is one of those
words do you want you know radioactivity
down your street is a sort of loaded
question
and so that's why we were trying to say
would you be okay if your local
electricity company you know you use so
we we weren't trying we were trying to
imply the localness of of bringing it
there we were trying to describe a
reactor in the neighborhood but without
using the reactor wood and and that's
why we also tested different naming when
we did test different naming by the way
nuclear tested absolutely fine small
modular reactor tested worst of all the
names that we tested so
um and that's probably not really about
being small and modular it's probably
the other bit thank you
stop
stop Simon thank
you two questions
on top of your briefings began and you
touched on the subject of Advanced
versus I'll say existing
so I'm curious
when you dug into that or you asked a
specific question like how many Feel
Again
new versus existing some just that some
way and then how that might correlate
foreign tax credits and those kinds of
things
um Sunset Provisions what counts what
doesn't count
those sort of economic incentives
or statement that matter might be able
to offer so very fast question or
questions similar to the final question
I'm throwing at you I was advice it's
not being file
s
um we did it the way that we did it
because the the sort of thought was is
is the Advent of a new generation of
nuclear technologies an opportunity to
kind of position the industry
differently to treat it as a sort of big
product launch moment is this like sort
of the difference between between
traditional cell phones and an iPhone
and a sort of opportunity to reposition
it
um and that was that was some of the
thinking around it so that's why we used
language like the latest nuclear
technologies we didn't get into
you know here's the difference between
an old nuclear and new and new nuclear
we didn't sort of Define what an SMR was
we didn't distinguish between SMR and
AMR and all those things that we now get
questioned about and and that was sort
of deliberate because that's not really
something that the public I think gets
its head around
um but we but we were sort of trying to
say if you thought of nuclear in the
context of something that was
current and new technology and
Innovative and and and you know looking
forward as opposed to any image that you
might or might not have of nuclear which
I now offend you all about of of sort of
you know
um gray 1960s dials and control rooms
then then you know does that help change
how we think about it so we weren't
really trying to test a sort of defined
generation we were just trying to sort
of position nuclear in that context of
something that has new generations
um new Solutions and and new new
technologies that are being innovated
now rather than rather than however else
people might think about it but we were
also trying there's a balance because
there's that opportunity but we were
exactly not trying to
um sort of draw a line between that
generation and sort of one's good and
one's not good or anything like that
that's the answer to your question but I
think that's because the answer is
slightly fuzzy it's fair you're study is
what it is
where you were coming from
um second question really was on timing
and you can set this up again because I
noticed in a couple of slides work and
the international comparing countries
Poland it's like 10 92 in the next
country was 82 inches foreign
people's
views considering bullet and brushed gas
and bringing everything going on really
just curable February
um again
so like a 10 point difference there were
a few other slides too did
a slightly
say more positive outlook than the next
purists
country
um
so
so that the easy answer is when the
timing was which was the the back end of
last year's crew and and spilling over
into the beginning of this year so
definitely you know within the uh within
the Ukraine well within the Ukraine war
period and not not right at the
beginning of it I mean it's it's
interesting because you see both effects
coming out of the news flow one is
obviously particularly in Poland the
sort of
um the vulnerability and need a need for
um uh clean energy but actually in
Poland Poland's mostly a transition from
coal not a position not a transition
from gas
um and so you know you might expect that
to be influencing it more in in Germany
that's most exposed to the sort of
Russian gas problem
um a lot of the transition going on in
Poland is a is a cool to nuclear
transition and they have their own call
so actually in terms of energy security
they're they're happy with coal um
there's all the other issues with coal
but it's not really an energy security
issue so much in Poland
um so I don't know that that would be
driving it quite so much and then of
course you also get headlines in the
newspapers all about whether the
Russians are about to blow up Ukrainian
nuclear power stations so they've been
in it's sort of added to the to the
negative publicity about nuclear as well
because of of sort of military risks to
the to the power stations that happens
in the press in in Europe I don't know
how much it is there so um I I again I
can only speculate because I don't have
a light for like comparison we didn't we
didn't do a similar survey before the
Ukraine war
um but those are some of the reasons for
thinking that it's not
um I mean I'm I'm sure it affects it it
may go on affecting it though so it may
be just sort of this is this is the
um this is the new way so I don't really
have a benchmark from beforehand to
compare it with but that that is the
timing and I think the uh it's it's not
obvious that that would drive a sort of
big skew in Poland
thank you
uh did you actually specify
the views the other options
when solar water fossil fuel
um no so we we talked about whether or
not you supported the use of nuclear
um alongside I can't remember how we put
it but alongside other energy sources in
the in the in the statement but we
didn't
um we we didn't want to get into a sort
of do you prefer nuclear to the or sort
of there was quite a lot of guidance
from
um interviews we did with the industry
so it wasn't to a question in the in the
chat it wasn't sponsored by the industry
uh but we did talk to people from the
industry and from academics and from
other places first just to try and make
sure that we could get our our
narratives and language
um as as relevant as possible and
Salient as possible and and build on
whatever had already been been learned
uh and in that there was quite a lot of
you know wariness about being seen to
position nuclear against Renewables
because it's not positioned against
Renewables it's complementing Renewables
and so that was how we all how we um
asked the question
um that's why we had alongside other
energy sources in the question
the other questions
over there
I'm sorry I can't hear very well on the
WebEx
the numbers for sure
oh for Japan uh so Japan I could just
share with you again one second
um so Japan in this measure
um which also has that that question
that we were just talking about at the
top um support the use of the latest
nuclear energy Technologies to generate
electricity alongside other energy
sources
um Japan so it's
um just over uh sorry it's just under 50
support on this measure
um it's the only one that's on that
doesn't hit the 50 support but that's
because it's also the one with the
biggest neutral yellow bar so even
though the support level on this the two
blue bars put together don't quite hit
50 the support is substantially bigger
than the opposition that's that 1.6 to 1
ratio on the right
that's on that question and then uh the
other one that I think is interesting
for Japan is this one where we did the
come off the fence question you've seen
everything about nuclear you've seen the
pluses you've seen the minuses and then
we ask you the black and white question
without without anywhere to go in that
yellow bit uh that says do you believe
that advanced nuclear should be an
important part of the solution to our
energy challenges and their 65 of Japan
less than anywhere else but still 65
percent two-thirds of people uh say yes
when they have to say yes or no
thank you
thank you yes
okay first of all I just want to say
thank you because I think
um folks that compile these kinds of
data sets off to get hammered with lots
of follow-up questions but um I just I
just appreciate you all doing this
um
and on the global scale and second I
guess the
how how do you see us best utilizing
this information and what ways and then
if there was a follow-up study where we
dug in more specifically to
um Virginia and and gathered a larger
sample size based on what you learned
um what might you want to dig into more
that's a good question I'm not sure I
fully know what your shoes are but
um so I I think that
um one of the thoughts that we had
behind doing this uh study was you know
is nuclear
badly misunderstood
um uh should we you know are we are we
sort of missing an opportunity depending
on who we are to to talk about it
differently as I've said before is
nuclear Bad Name etc etc I think
overwhelmingly what we found in this
study is
um that actually it's not about
repositioning it or calling it something
else or what have you um I I think there
were some findings that we found around
particularly the sort of new nuclear SMR
story where as I said small a modular
reactor was the sort of least good word
um where we also tested various
iconography and the
um the image of cooling towers is the
least good image of any of the
iconography that we used so when
everybody talks about smrs and keeps
showing pictures of cooling towers
you're not doing yourselves any favor
nobody knows what that stuff coming out
of the top of cooling terrorism it looks
worse than it is
um and in general I would say that a lot
of the the sort of style of
communication is quite
um like technology oriented and
um uh
not surprisingly a lot of the a lot of
the SMR companies are tech companies and
see themselves as tech companies and
that's sort of what they are for
attracting talent and all the rest of it
but actually in terms of some of the
imagery and language and things that we
tested and narratives that we tested
um anything that makes it a bit more
down to earth a bit more human a bit
more just straightforward and neighborly
rather than this sort of exotic Tech uh
image is is much more helpful in getting
it
um uh in getting a positive reception to
it so I think that was one of the um uh
insights we found that's not about your
question about guiding research but it
is about
um what uh what to take from it
um
uh what else I was gonna say
um
I uh then then we also found
we were guided when we wrote These
narratives of sort of
um oh don't don't talk about safety
nobody talks about safety Airlines don't
talk about safety safe things don't talk
about safety
um and so we didn't put safety or waste
in any of those narratives but then we
did find in some of the questions that
we asked about uh nuclear that they
actually came out quite interesting and
discriminating and so then we thought
well that's that's interesting we're not
really testing something that we wanted
to test so we wrote an additional
narrative
um uh we'd already done the US by this
stage but we put it in for the other
countries we wrote in additional
narratives that we put in at the end of
the survey that said let me just tell
you something about safety and waste and
it had stats about
um about safety and the the stats that
you'll know about you know uh deaths per
terawatt hour and so on of nuclear being
much lower than other um energy sources
and just how small and contained the
nuclear fuel is and how it's solid and
and um
uh you know how a life's worth of energy
fits in a can of soda and some of those
sort of Statistics we put that in a
narrative and we said a you know how do
you respond to that narrative where
people had a question of
um you know did you already know that
um is that new is it surprising or you
know do you still not believe it even
though we've told you and you know there
is there is a core group of rejectors
and and opponents that are quite
consistent and we if you look into the
film report we kind of analyze
um who they are where they come from and
how they sit but they're quite they're
about 15 of the population across our
eight countries there are there are not
zero but there are they're a minority in
in all countries
um and that's the same group that said
you can tell me all of that but I still
don't believe you but they are and and
and and they won't believe you and they
don't and they didn't respond to any of
our narratives and they had no uplift in
their randomized control tile and so on
uh and there is a group that is very
resilient like that but for most people
even among the nuclear supporters most
people said that oh I didn't know that
um and most people were in the I didn't
know that but that's kind of interesting
bucket so there are some things there
and I'm not saying I would sort of lead
and campaign around safety but I would
not be shy about it in the way that the
industry is shy about it I think if
you're shy about it and sort of shy
about the nuclear name and shy about
everything there's a sort of indication
of a concern and I think actually the
biggest thing that I took from this is
is the sort of confidence to be able to
talk about some of these things because
you're talking you're not talking to
that small group you're talking to the
to the majority of the population and
for the majority of the population
they're actually quite open-minded you
saw the size of those yellow bars that
were in the middle on several of these
charts they're quite open-minded they're
not empty and they are actually
receptive to even some of those sort of
gritty messages around safety and waste
and things like that
thank you that's really helpful
Simon um thank you so much for for
joining us this was this is really
helpful and really interesting work with
uh um link out to the to the full report
to the to the through
um very much appreciate
um you taking some time and um
so thank you again
thanks again thanks again for having us
bye
okay so um next up we've got um will
Payne from the energy Delta labs just
for an update on the activity time in
Southwest what else to turn over to you
Mr chairman uh good morning everybody
um the uh just a few updates a lot of
things have been happening uh since I
guess since this body met last
um and with a bunch of folks who are in
the room or on Zoom today and great to
see uh new director of Department energy
Glenn Davis
um so uh the department of Energy's
deputy director will clear and I've
joined uh Bristol Virginia Utilities
president Don Bowman producing tva's uh
Watts Bar power plant a couple weeks ago
should we spent time with the new
nuclear VP it's impressive operation
there impressive people and it's really
interesting hearing more about the TVA
in Oak Ridge you know partnership
um next uh the Southwest Virginia energy
research and development Authority uh
recently had presentations from Dominion
Energy and Appalachian Power regarding
balancing the supply of reliable and and
clean energy to the utilities customers
um the Delta lab is working closely with
Mike Hatfield I know Mike Hadfield
County Administrator for Wise County is
is on a video today we've been working
you know with wise in particular on a
number of utility scale clean energy
projects and also examining needed
transmission upgrades to get clean power
on the grid long-term
um recently the Luna wisco planning
district Commission in linuisco it
stands for Lee Norton
wise and Scott
the PDC released its SMR site
feasibility study and that's feasibility
not identification studying working with
the northern Virginia based firm the
study looked at a you know a number of
possible locations obviously preliminary
very preliminary and just you know using
general
site attributes as a as a one of the
steps here in bringing awareness
uh to you know
um this this opportunity uh that are
that's within the footprint for linuisco
uh our team the Delta life team has been
in discussion uh along with with a lot
of people a lot of people on this call
and administration on the potential for
a Consortium here with the US cda's tech
hubs program and so I think there's a
lot more to come on that later
um and I I think the last last one is
really excited about next week uh we'll
be in Boston uh mit's uh three-day
course entitled uh nuclear energy in a
low-carbon future uh with a number of
folks around the country uh the next
April Wade we're joining us wise
counties Mike Hatfield will be joining
us
um and April can correct me but I I hope
it's not tested again it's going to be
it's going to be pretty intense uh we're
looking forward to it uh lots of
different topics from the global state
of nuclear energy power plant Basics
Advanced reactors and advanced fuels uh
nuclear and hydro the intersection of
nuclear and hydrogen nuclear safety
Fusion Energy radiation Health Science
and we get to visit in mit's test
reactor so that completes my update Mr
chairman
thanks will and
um while there may not be a test at the
end of your course I know um this
Authority will expect you in April and
uh Mike to give us a full briefing uh as
new experts in nuclear energy technology
of course
oh but thank you are there are there any
questions
um so next I'll turn it over to April
for uh
so um
have our eia number we're still working
stuff hopefully
and then
I would see freedom
so that's all
organization
I'm sorry
um and some funding for the Hub you know
we've had money and governance budget
um adults
as
um
thank you
you need to start young okay
um
and luckily um
um HP 894 working on Summit in the fall
um
as part of that
so that is it
um and then as will mentioned
great questions for April or any
clarifications on the phones
I think there's one thing um we are
Republicans sourced him working on
Economic Development Administration
chapter
um
how much are
um
okay thank you um so I I put on the
agenda that annual report
um this is more just uh so this is on
everybody's radar um this soon reminded
everyone extended October
end of October so
um I think what the process plan here
um will be is
um Ryan along with the the staff at
Virginia energy will uh start drafting
this year's report
um we will circulate it to the authority
in advance of our next
um meeting for
um review and comments so that when I
think we'll try that uh Target a kind of
late October date for uh
so that can come together provide any
comments um hopefully provide any
comments back to Ryan before that
meeting
um and then get kind of a final review
with any comments and then
on approval so let's send that to you
then
simply in the governor's office
and
with that being said we will do that
meeting in person we'll need to have a
forum so
um people to be able to be able to leave
it in person forum some people uh get
some dates out for uh
hold uh it's against the base of FedEx
meeting but that'll be the kind of the
plan if you have any uh you know one of
the things I was looking at before this
meeting was you know our previous annual
reports and have it on my list to talk
right about uh you know looking at how
do we kind of make sure we're not just
updating what we've already had the
opportunities kind of refreshing
I don't know so if you have ideas or
things um
looking at specifically on that please
please send those over
um to find
um
stand around the last version like
sooner than later yeah but I'm doing
work let's send it out because I need to
help spark I used to be yeah great idea
yeah along with um we'll send the link
for the
presentation from Simon and then also uh
yeah
um so then uh just
Logistics
um we've got the meeting minutes in your
packet these were sent out beforehand
and if there's any uh we'll take a
couple minutes out just to look over
those if you've got any changes or
comments um
take a couple of minutes and
having things
um Chris Brooks here I have a question
if I may uh what efforts have been made
to engage with the local communities and
gather their feedback on the potential
construction of the slmrs in our region
uh Chris that's a that's a good question
um we can address that in a number of
comments
a follow-up question are any meetings
going to be scheduled
in the regions in which these proposed
reactors are to be built
that's not something that's in the stove
of the Authority we have our meetings
quarterly here usually in Richmond area
okay
um any any changes or edits to the to
the Venice
have a motion to approve so
all in favor
aye
opposed
um so
there are any updates from members
the only thing for those of you who
haven't seen any except this around
parametone and cxpc
relaunched uh nuclear Training Academy
college so this is something that we've
seen
2000 yeah
so this is a this is a program
where students at CPCC will actually be
getting a Randy and
so we actually think I already have the
first class that are training to go out
for their first adjectives this fall
uh Central Virginia Finland
yeah just uh
yesterday we announced um
I'll keep Martin his lead partner for
the country called Draco
with DARPA we go in the reactor
exciting other applications
facilities
Topic in terms of you know the United
States those visiting MIT we make their
fuel so that fuel is paid too so
not understand
just a little plug since it came up
anything else
so one thing along with the
um annual report I would ask everyone I
know we include this every time but if
you've been
take a look both at the uh the asset
list both for your own organization's
accuracy and there's anything else I
know Scott and I have discussed this if
you see other things that look even if
they're not for your organization that
you want a flag and say hey we need to
go back and check and make sure this is
still up to date
um that would be helpful I think just
all of our working in the Commonwealth
and understand a lot of what's going on
here there's anything especially for
organizations that aren't represented
here that this needs to be
in terms of General nuclear news I think
we've been we've been providing most of
that to the group there's a ton going on
all the time including congress's
considering
defense authorization act right now
which has a lot of uh stuff around fuel
security and and programs for so I mean
if you have a specific questions
room we can always answer them but
um
continue to send that send that
information out
with that there are other other
questions and comments from authorities
before we open it up
okay so um for those of you who are
joining our meeting for the maybe the
first time let me just go over the
process here so this is again this is
our time for for public comment
um I would ask if you have or would like
to make public comments
um please raise your hand so we can call
on everybody individually uh if you
don't have anybody in the room
um but
Erica are you still on the phone
on the WebEx
okay yes
Erica do you wanna do you have um
comments we'll let you go first
you'd be Erica you made the idea if
you're trying to talk
we can we can come back is there anyone
else uh that wants to raise their hand
on that
on the WebEx that has comments
Tasha please go ahead two minutes
hi thank you it's Tasha uh Tasha Yvonne
from Wise County I had a question I
chair the Virginia Council of
environmental justice and I do know that
her the clean economy act that we are
identified as a key stakeholder
um so I was wondering
um I don't remember any engagement on uh
Virginia organizing's behalf to come
present this information to us so I was
wondering if there was anything in the
future of anybody in this group who was
going to come to us to do that
which information are you asking about
specific
uh so for the clean energy economy act
we are a key State key stakeholder
identified as a group that has to be
consulted when it comes to any energy
development uh specifically in Southwest
Virginia and we have not heard of these
plans or anything really until recently
so I was just wondering if there was any
um plans to communicate with our group
or to communicate with the communities
of Southwest Virginia
I think
one of us would be on the plan
specifically that you're talking about
but I'm sure we can we can connect you
with the right people to look at that
so if you want to follow up with with
Brian's
um here that's something to look at it
okay will do thank you
Erica we're working on making sure your
feet we can hear you just one second
it says she's a muted Naval top I just I
don't know Erica you want to try again
it says on our screen that you're not on
you
should be able to hear a joke
all right we'll go to
um Christopher Brooks
uh yes um
again hi I'm from Southwestern Virginia
and my question is how how is the
construction of smrs in our communities
going to
increase the quality of life in this
week
um how many people are going to be
employed what are those jobs going to
pay
um how's that going to break down
demographically also how is this going
to affect taxes in our region how's this
going to affect the cost of living in
our region and what are the risks in uh
instructing these sites so close to
residential and school areas that may
not have been addressed by the studies
cited by the industry so far and asking
that question I would like to refer to
the citation and chat to the Stanford
University and University of British
Columbia studies that actually included
that small nuclear reactors will
complicate the problem of nuclear waste
disposal and will provide um we'll
present challenges in mitigating the
risk to the communities
uh just friend those are those are good
questions I think is a specific project
or technology is identified a lot of
that
um information and something that would
be generated and available but right now
without a specific project I'm actually
those give the full answer and that
that's not really a distortion about
this Authority right more of an advisory
role that uh
for the Commonwealth government but not
in a specific
um
we appreciate the engagement and happy
to continue to either connect you with
the right people or or have for the
second
hello
America there you are we can hear you
wow finally I don't know what happened
with that but yeah I was completely
muted
so you can hear me now
we can hear you now you're all set
okay
um well a couple of things
um
I guess this new way of letting
everybody in the public know that
there's a meeting is now just going to
be on this uh Town Square am I right
because I didn't see it I couldn't find
it anywhere else
so is that the only place it's going to
be posted
I will accept responsibility if I did
not send you an email as my phone
okay well yeah I think the public can't
really like be involved if they don't
really know where to find the
information
um but besides that I mean obviously I
have I I'm sure others were like me we
could not hear April pretty much at all
so and that's the
the business side of of the Virginia
nuclear energy uh Think Tank and so
y'all need to get a little bit better
with audio I mean I don't usually do
audio I'm usually there
about been having car trouble so uh
that's neither here or there so if y'all
could please get better so that when we
do participate on the phone that we can
actually hear what's being said uh
luckily
um because Simon called in from London
he I could hear him very well
um I think the big just in today's world
of influencers
um it's always a matter of how we
present the information to the public on
the kind of answer we want to get from
them
and I thought it was very telling that
we don't want to use the quote-unquote
scary word which is reactor
or show the image of cooling powers that
it's not good and actually small modular
reactors was not
either something that really wanted to
be mentioned so of course it's kind of
like trickery because telling people you
know nuclear energy Technologies and
Renewables blah blah blah you know I
mean you're going to get a different
reaction and then if you were actually
to say hey our plan actually is to set
up these small modular reactors at all
defunct coal burning plants and use
their grid that's already there and
we're going to charge y'all exorbitant
prices for the energy produced and we're
going to now put everybody on the Dole
for the risks that are going to be
implied and yes the Ukraine reactor
there are a lot of us that are paying
attention and we hope the world doesn't
have to pay attention because we end up
with another catastrophic disaster there
so what can go wrong could go wrong and
at some point will go wrong
so more modular reactors
are not the answer to uh climate change
because of the cost
because of everything else involved and
plus these are not
really out there yet a lot of them still
just on paper I think the other biggest
problem we have is you want to talk
about energy dependence or Independence
should I say
um I guess we're going to have to ramp
up all the uranium mining again I
already saw that they're ramping up I
guess for processing in Wyoming
um is this really clean energy when
we're going to ramp up all these
Productions of uranium Mining and
processing and then end up with more
plutonium and other byproducts and more
nuclear waste I mean it's very
disturbing because the way it's being
presented to the public it's not on it
it's not real and in the words of uh
scientists
and um
someone that I respect a lot in Canada
in Canada
um Gordon Edward and I'll paraphrase
because this is also true
that
you know besides this uh technology not
being able to compete
that there is a fundamental problem with
nuclear it doesn't matter the size the
design the coolant or the type of fuel
all is based on splitting atoms and they
don't disappear
yet get broken down into hundreds of
pieces
that are now millions of times more
radioactive than the fuel they started
with
the fact is every nuclear reactor no
matter this eye is not just a machine to
generate electricity or heat but is also
a warehouse of radioactive poisons
and in today's world
cyber problems there was one at one of
the mass major Labs not a couple of
months ago
anything can happen last thing we need
is a DOT around our country or the world
these little warehouses of poisons
it's just not smart and to make matters
worse
we don't have the ability to look at
making our own fuel because of our
Russian ties to fuel are being are cut
off and same thing with the rest of the
world so we're going to have new uranium
Mining and whatnot or other fuels
this is not clean energy
and it's very expensive
so public private partnership
you know the public needs to be informed
correctly with the whole full truth not
like half truth or partial emissions or
whatever y'all are doing the reality is
we already have lots of nuclear waste
sitting around it every nuclear power
plant already and it's sitting in the
pools that are overfilled
and they're dragging their feet the
industry drags its feet the utilities on
unloading these into Haas where
supposedly it's a little bit safer
these are not going to be able to just
pop them down into a hole in the ground
and just forget about it
this is a lot more complicated so we
don't have the solution for what we have
already it makes absolutely positively
no sense to make more of it and that's
not to even consider that the nuclear
canisters we have right now we don't
even know if uh how long they'll last
so all this gibberish talking about new
nuclear small nuclear which is not small
either by the way you want to make
people think in their minds at something
small but it's not
so you know this industry this
Consortium this Authority should really
be looking at
securing the waste that we have now and
the canisters not making more of it and
that's all I have to say thank you
thank you
the other
things not seeing any uh thank you
everybody for for joining us
um keep an eye out for uh hold for the
October meetings materials the the last
year's annual reported
presentation from today but uh
appreciate it first time have a good one
travels see you next time
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