Laura Holgate on the Promise and Perils of Nuclear Innovation

Guest

Laura Holgate

CGEP Distinguished Visiting Fellow; President, LSHH International Advisors

Transcript

Laura Holgate:

In terms of US political commitment to the growth in nuclear energy, we’ve seen a remarkable bipartisan consensus on the Hill since the late 2000s that has persisted. That bipartisan support is precious. And it will be damaged by extra politicization of this issue.

Bill Loveless:

The Trump administration has prioritized nuclear energy expansion, aiming to increase US nuclear capacity fourfold by 2050. This nuclear energy resurgence in the US is a rare issue with bipartisan support, and tech companies have poured billions into sustaining nuclear power plants in building new reactors to supply AI data centers. But accelerating nuclear power could mean changing environmental and safety reviews. And small modular reactors and other innovations in nuclear energy are likely years from commercial readiness. So is there a way to reinvigorate nuclear energy in the US that’s safe and fast? What would that mean for the power sector and the communities that support plants today and future sites? Are there any signs that new technologies could address the perennial questions around nucleus safety? And what does all of this mean for national security and energy policy?

This is Columbia Energy Exchange, a weekly podcast from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. I’m Bill Loveless. Today on the show, Laura Holgate. Laura is the president of LSHH International Advisors and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. She is a two-time ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. She has held multiple positions in and out of government, including vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, special assistant to the president at the White House National Security Council and a senior official at the departments of Energy and Defense.

Laura and I talked about the state of nuclear innovation and how advanced and modular reactors could be funded and used. We looked at how the Trump administration is approaching nuclear energy development. She shared her concerns about changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and safety rules for new reactor designs at the Department of Energy, and we explored the state of nuclear arms security. Here’s our conversation, which we recorded just days before a major reorganization at the NRC and before the last US-Russia nuclear Arms control treaty expired.

Laura Holgate, welcome to Columbia Energy Exchange. Great

Laura Holgate (02:48):

Great to be with you, Bill.

Bill Loveless (02:49):

Well, I’m thankful to have you here at this time. There’s so much going on in this field of nuclear energy and nuclear security. And boy, your background, your career puts you in a position where you can tell us this story as well as anybody can. So I appreciate your taking the time. And speaking of this career of yours, how did this career path lead you to focus on nuclear security and energy policy?

Laura Holgate (03:14):

Nuclear weapons was really kind of the opening point for me as a child of the Cold War. The famous TV movie “The Day After” really inspired me that my general interest in international relations might be channeled into addressing one of the truly existential threats of our time. And it’s been my great privilege to have a chance to continue to work on that over 30-plus years—about half of it inside government, about half of it outside government. And you don’t go very far into nuclear weapons world and the non-proliferation world before you encounter the interconnection between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. And my approach to that has been that nuclear energy is going to happen and we need to be sure that we do it well, that includes safety, but it also includes security, whether that’s security of materials or security of facilities or security of fuel cycles or security considerations and how you export nuclear energy capabilities. It is a national security element and needs to be treated as such.

Bill Loveless (04:33):

I’ve heard you say that nuclear energy is national security, and I was going to ask you what you meant by that, but I think you just explained it.

Laura Holgate (04:42):

Yeah, I mean certainly it’s a major part of our infrastructure. We need to be sure that our domestic capability is secure, is well protected against cyber threats, against weather, against an adversary. And here we are in 2026, 4 years into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which included quite shockingly an invasion of two nuclear facilities in Ukraine and the theft of one of them. And so it was not something that we used to have to think about from a nuclear security point of view. And now that needs to be factored into how we operate, how we design, and where we send nuclear power.

Bill Loveless (05:33):

From your vantage point, what is the single biggest misconception the public or policy makers have about nuclear energy and nuclear deterrence?

Laura Holgate (05:44):

Well, I think even though I started out saying that my career has kind of combined those issues, I think misunderstanding the significant difference for the vast majority of nuclear power plants in the world, they do not have material that can be used easily to make a nuclear weapon. And the impact of what any accident that may happen at those is going to be very different from the impact of an actual use of a nuclear weapon. And so they may start as two sides of the same atom, but very quickly the two channels move apart. But there are phases of that life cycle where they can connect again. And so those are the places that we need to be attentive, but that’s mostly not the power plant itself, it’s the fuel cycle that sits before it, that sits after it, and other aspects of nuclear energy. And so people are not always careful about mixing up the character of the threats and opportunities that come from the peaceful side and the weapon side.

Bill Loveless (07:03):

And all it takes is an accident someplace and people may, they obviously have good reason to be concerned, but their concerns may not be entirely well-founded, right, because of these misunderstandings.

Laura Holgate (07:15):

Yeah, that can happen.

Bill Loveless (07:17):

We’re in a period again, it seems, of nuclear revival or at least a talk of a nuclear revival. But building large new nuclear plants and the next decade remains difficult due to cost construction timelines, supply and chain issues. Even industry experts think widespread deployment before the 2030s is unlikely without enormous subsidies. Just for example, many advanced reactive designs aren’t yet commercially proven. How do you see civilian nuclear power fitting into global energy efforts over the next 10, 20 years?

Laura Holgate (07:54):

Yeah, well, it’s clearly got to be part of the global energy mix going forward. The analysis of the International Energy Agency indicate that there is no way to meet carbon constraints and climate change goals without some component of the global energy mix being from nuclear energy, and a lot of that is already installed. About 10% of the global electricity comes from nuclear power plants in the United States. That’s 20%. And so it’s clear that nuclear energy is going to be a part, and as that global demand for electricity increases so to will the contribution of nuclear energy to that global demand need to follow that. And that’s one thing that differentiates this moment from previous hoped for or anticipated so-called nuclear renaissance, is this one is really demand led, whether it’s electrification of things that in the past have been built around fossil electric vehicles, a whole range of efforts to substitute for fossil fuels, but there’s also just massive growth and especially here in the United States where we see the data center demand signals that are just echoing throughout our utility infrastructure and in some cases, people’s energy bills at the consumer level.

(09:32):

And so you look to the broader global issue and you see that even in 2026, 600 million people in Africa are without electricity on the continent. Energy poverty is driving a whole range of negative behaviors including climate change as they use combustion type sources to fulfill their normal power needs for cooking and other small industry and so on. And so the achieving global development is also going to depend on being able to meet the energy needs. Again, not all of those needs in Africa are going to be fulfilled by nuclear energy, but it’s going to have to be part of it. And so meeting this growing demand driven by climate, driven by ai driven by development, that to me creates, I hope, a demand signal that is robust enough to really follow through on the kind of state-based investment, private investment innovation that we’re going to need to see.

Bill Loveless (10:46):

No, you’re so right and the demand is just increasing hotly a day goes by when we don’t read about concerns over the reliability of the grid going forward, the supplies will be needed for AI and data centers as well as other manufacturing and other needs as well as the cost of all of this power. We’re sitting here in a policy center here at Columbia University, and so we naturally talk about levers, policy levers. What policy levers would be most effective to accelerate safe deployment of advanced reactors in the United States and small modular reactors in the US and abroad for that matter?

Laura Holgate (11:32):

Well, to me, I think the most important thing is what’s come to be called kind of the shorthand of an order book. We have, as you mentioned, we have not had any of these advanced or small modular reactors yet commercially built, and many of them haven’t been built at all, even a first of a kind. And so it’s been challenging for utilities for investors or off-takers like the hyperscalers and the data center systems to know which reactor is going to work, and in the end, it’s going to be better for everybody if we have a small hand, a couple handfuls of reactors. Right now, there’s 80 or so advanced reactor designs globally that are being developed, and some have already started their way through the licensing process. Some are way are not even approaching the licensing phase. About 60 of those are here in the United States, which is a wonderful tribute to the innovation of our private sector industry system.

(12:39):

The downside of that private sector is that there’s nobody sitting in the Energy Department or anywhere else saying, these are the reactors we’re going to pursue and we’re not going to pursue these others. And so now we’ve got this plethora of designs at various stages of development, and it’s been very difficult to build that order book because it’s hard to say exactly which reactor is going to be successful in licensing, is going to have a real hope of achieving the serial production that is going to be necessary to achieve those hoped for lower costs. And so we’re kind of in this stage where we have to shake that stuff out. The other exciting thing though about these power plant, these small modular reactors, advanced reactors, is that they’re good for more different things. If you think about our standard gigawatt scale reactors that are the majority of what’s installed in the United States and globally, they’re optimized for producing electricity. What we’re finding in the decarbonization context, however, is that there are aspects of these smaller reactors that can be optimized for other things. I’ll even say that the gigawatt scale reactors are optimized for delivering electricity into a grid system, the small reactors.

Bill Loveless (14:00):

What would be these other things?

Laura Holgate (14:02):

So these small reactors can be optimized for delivering electricity to one thing, like a data center to give them 24 7 reliable, not grid connected power that they need for those data centers. Some of them can be optimized for producing process heat. All you’re doing is making electricity, you just need to boil water, and then you’re turning a turbine, and then it’s just like any other power plant. But there’s industries, steel industry, chemical industry desalination where what you really want is heat that’s higher than boiling water. And so there’s some of these new reactors that are optimized for that. Some of them are optimized or intended to be optimized for remote operations. And the classic example is an Alaskan fishing village that might currently be dependent upon private aircraft delivering propane tanks to have that facility that fishing village survive. So now you’ve got two types of fossil fuel being implicated there, the fuel for the airplane and then the propane that they bring, not to mention all the other costs associated with that kind of energy supply.

(15:18):

If you could put a small nuclear reactor there and provide 24 7 power to that remote facility, you’re not necessarily going to have the wherewithal for the full operating team, the people to operate that reactor. And so there’s designs that are focused on having a central operation center somewhere in the lower 48 states that has lots of technical people and the infrastructure to support a large workforce operating these things remotely. There’s some small reactors that can be optimized for marine propulsion. So replacing super polluting, very messy fuel oil that currently propels your Amazon order from wherever it started to your doorstep, replacing those with nuclear, which will have a significant, the shipping, maritime shipping industry is an amazing large contributor to carbon emissions.

Bill Loveless (16:30):

So there’s many, many, many exciting thoughts out there when it comes to nuclear design, right? But it’s one thing to design these technologies. It’s another thing to build them, right? I mean, you not only have the policy hurdles, the regulatory hurdles is financial hurdles as well. I mean, what are some of the financial tools that are needed to revitalize the US nuclear industry? Loan guarantees. There’s public private partnerships, various kinds of risk sharing

Laura Holgate (17:02):

It’s going to be all of the above. Again, depending on these niche, in some cases, niche operations, they might be different. Certainly the hyperscalers have plenty of money and they’re can just buy it. In some cases, they’re actually investing in the companies before there’s a single electron to be bought. So there’s a range of ways that they can stimulate and provide financial predictability. Personally, I’d like to see more of that given how much cash the hyperscalers have, they really could make a difference in providing and saying, okay, it’s not just that we’re going to buy your first two or three, we’ll buy your first a hundred. Because those first two or three, you’re not going to see the benefits of serial production or smaller pricing. You can probably see the benefits of a shorter construction period as compared with a gigawatt scale reactor, which can be a decade or more, but it still going to be the first few are still going to be expensive. And it’s like only over time do you see that decline in that cost curve once you get to serial production. And so if you’re a hyperscaler, I would think you want that serial production. You want to be able to get the benefits for that, the cheapness of that hundredth three reactor to balance out the expense of the first half dozen.

Bill Loveless (18:32):

But Laura, it seems hotly a day goes by when there isn’t a headline of one of these big deals. Just a few days ago, we saw Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram striking 20 year agreements to buy power from three Vistra nuclear plants in the Midwest and develop projects with two companies to build small modular reactors. There’s billions of dollars in commitments by these companies. I hear what you’re saying in terms of you’re looking for scale in terms of what they’re proposing to do, but what do you make of these deals when you see them?

Laura Holgate (19:08):

Well, a press release or an MOU is not a contract. It’s not a check.

(19:15):

So I think it’s totally logical that they would be promoting their plans to fulfill the power needs of these. But I’m from Kansas, not Missouri, but I’ll still say, show me the money. And I want to know. I would like to understand what the actual financial commitment is behind that. The other interesting thing that we have from an export potential point of view is a shift in the lending plans of international development banks initiated by the World Bank last summer where they made a change to their longstanding practice of not investing in nuclear energy. And now they’re prepared to do so. The Asian Development Bank followed suit. Many of the others are expected to do the same. We haven’t really seen that happen yet. And what the World Bank said they were going to do is focus on life extension of existing power plants, which makes sense because that’s very low risk and it can happen quickly.

(20:24):

But they also said they wanted to invest in small modular reactors. They haven’t yet seen any proposals, bankable proposals come in from potential clients, and of course this is in the developing world. This is not in the United States, but if you could bundle some international demand along with domestic demand that can help you build out that order book and having that World Bank resource alongside some changes being made to the tools that the US government uses to promote exports has a hope of putting the US on a slightly better foot as compared with their competitors internationally, which are state owned enterprises, Russia, China, Korea, even France. These are either state owned enterprises or significant investment from their governments and their governments put a lot of money into deal making. The US has traditionally not done that. So

(21:25):

We’ve done it somewhat, but never at the scale of these others. And so while there may be a global demand for US technology because they perceive that it’s better, then they perceive that our regulatory system is robust. There might be some challenges about that. Maybe we can get into that. But they can’t afford to fully self-finance a US power plant, and so they take better deals that are offered by these other countries. So having the development banks kind of be ready to be part of that funding capability begins to level the playing field for US technologies.

Bill Loveless (22:08):

That’s interesting. I mean, that’s a very important observation, I think, right? Because the US is often seen at a big disadvantage with China and Russia in terms of exporting and selling nuclear technology around the world. So let’s talk about what’s happening currently in Washington. The Trump administration has made nuclear energy expansion a clear priority. In May, 2025, President Trump signed multiple executive orders aimed at jump starting a so-called nuclear renaissance. These orders seek reforms at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, faster approvals for new reactors, expanded domestic nuclear fuel and reactor infrastructure and pursuit of advanced reactor technologies for national security and civilian use. The administration’s stated goal is to grow US nuclear energy capacity from about a hundred gigawatts today to around 400 gigawatts by 2050. It’s a fourfold increase. What do you make of this policy?

Laura Holgate (23:10):

Well, I think it’s a continuation of what’s been a remarkably bipartisan support for nuclear energy going back over the last 15 or so years. Prior to that, it had been much more partisan. And what you’ve seen, I think is a shift in the position of individuals and organizations and congressional members who care about the environment from being anti-nuclear to being pro-nuclear, or at least maybe from anti-nuclear to neutral, not in a blocking role. That’s not the case for everybody, but we’ve seen a remarkable bipartisan consensus on the hill since the late two thousands that has persisted. And so in one way, I think the statements and the ambition can be seen as a continuum. So these executive orders reflect one level of continuity in terms of US political commitment to the growth in nuclear energy at COP 28, the US joined a number of other countries with a pledge to triple nuclear energy. These executive orders actually build on that and move it up to quadrupling. So I think we need to be recognize and that continuity and to recognize that that bipartisan support is precious and it will be damaged by extra politicization of this issue. Unfortunately, some of the specifics of these orders actually put that expansion in jeopardy.

Bill Loveless (24:55):

What do you mean by that?

Laura Holgate (24:56):

I want to focus on the regulatory piece. As I mentioned earlier, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been seen domestically and globally for decades as just the top notch, A-1 regulator. Independent. Competent. Adequately funded. Expert. And that’s been reflected in our ability to influence how global standards are set through the International Atomic Energy Agency for safety for security. It’s been the backbone of relationships that we’ve had with other countries where our regulators are very connected and very directly involved, and that’s a superpower that we have and that we bring that trust globally by directing the NRC to weaken its regulations, to set immovable deadlines for making regulatory positions decisions by inserting the Office of Management and budget into that decision making process for licensing and regulatory updates by slashing the staff that superpower is at risk, and it reflects an out of date perception of the degree to which the NRC was a barrier to new nuclear production.

(26:39):

That may have been the case a few years ago, but legislation passed again by these bipartisan support over the last 15 years had already started the NRC on a very intentional and thoughtful path towards swifter, more efficient, more parallel processing efforts to be able to license these new reactors without sacrificing safety, security, technical viability. And these executive orders put that progress at risk by attacking those foundations. And so it’s something to keep an eye on. We’ll be seeing those new regulations rolled out over the next few months according to those deadlines. But the other thing that it does those executive orders do on a regulatory basis is it creates additional regulators in the system that have the potential to muddy the waters. So those executive orders empower the energy department and the Pentagon when reactors are being built on their facilities to even commercial reactors or reactors that may one day be commercial to develop their own regulations independent of the nuclear regulatory commission’s own work, although they say they’re working together.

(28:22):

But we had a story just this week that was broken by NPR that those new regulations for the energy department have been shared secretly with the companies that they might apply to but not made public, which is a baseline tenant of trustworthy regulations. And they have the potential to not only affect these new reactors that might be built, but to reflect the entire energy department complex that includes our weapons facilities with reductions in safety and security requirements.

Bill Loveless (29:04):

Yeah, I was just reading that story minutes before we began to talk a few minutes ago, and these were changes were made to accelerate development of a new generation of nuclear reactor designs. They occurred over the fall and winter at DOE, which is currently overseeing a program to build at least three new experimental commercial nuclear reactors by July 4th this year. Boy, that’s an ambitious target. Now of course, DOE in that NPR story came back and said the reduction of unnecessary regulations will increase innovation in the industry without jeopardizing safety. And department went on to say the early copies of the new rules were shared with companies as part of an iterative effort to develop a regulatory framework that would expedite our review process while maintaining safety and security standards and quote. But there’s some concerns raised in your mind over the way they’re going about doing that.

Laura Holgate (30:03):

Certainly. I mean, that NPR report said that there are 500 pages of rules on nuclear security that have been reduced to 25, and it’s just very hard to understand that that kind of reduction in providing specificity on how these reactors can comply and meet those goals of safe and secure for the public. If it leaves more up to the reactor companies, then it may actually take longer to get regulated if it’s not clear how you actually meet the expectations. So there’s a reason that it grew to 500 pages, and so…

Bill Loveless (30:52):

Pretty tight deadline here too.

Laura Holgate (30:53):

Exactly, exactly. So yeah, sharing it with the companies, they’re not going to get a suggestion to make it stronger. So this is why public comment is built into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and it’s essential part of what we call the social license of the willingness of the American population to support nuclear energy. We are at this wonderful moment where they do, and this kind of behavior puts that at risk.

Bill Loveless (31:20):

Looking again at the NRC over the past year, we’ve seen nuclear safety regulators fired and pushed out of their jobs by the administration. And the White House, as you know, it has asserted greater control over NRC greater perhaps than past administrations, both Republican and Democratic. Can you talk a bit more about the potential risks with having a nucleus safety regulator that is subject to political influencer or is perceived to be a political instrument?

Laura Holgate (31:50):

Yeah, it’s that perception that is as important as the reality. And so before any license is given, the mere fact that proposed regulations from the staff of the NRC to the commissioners now has to go through the White House before the commissioners see it, and the public doesn’t see what the staff proposed before it goes to the White House. It’s only after it comes out of the White House that they see what the draft rule might be, the new regulation, and then the commissioners act on that. And so that’s already, there may be no political thumb on the scale applied and that looped through the White House, but everything that we have seen could lead to a question about whether or not the political thumb has been applied. And so that’s even before the first thing happens. If you do get an instance where there’s a reactor that has, or a facility or something that there has been public debate about whether or not it meets certain standards, so the standards that would like to see, and there’s a decision made that seems at odds with a perception of the technical reality that will also cause doubt in that reactor and in the whole process.

(33:25):

And so this is why the US has been the leading voice for decades of an independent regulator because really where you get the public transparency and the political independence.

Bill Loveless (33:40):

I don’t know how well the current members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but will these commissioners be able to stand up to pressure from the White House?

Laura Holgate (33:49):

It remains to be seen. I will say I was very reassured by the two new appointments made. They’re both former NRC staff. They’re certainly experts. And they were asked during their confirmation hearings how they planned to handle that. They said they would preserve the independence of the commission’s decisions. So they’ve said everything you’d want them to say.

Bill Loveless (34:16):

Obviously you’ve raise concerns of the ways in which the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner operating right now in trying to promote a nuclear renaissance. But when you look at this, do you see certain aspects of their efforts, their policies, their actions that could pay off that you’re comfortable with?

Laura Holgate (34:36):

Well, certainly. I’ve been advocating for years that there should be more federal money behind this because of this national security connection. We want to get these reactors licensed, attractive, promoted overseas, exported, and generate what I call the hundred year hug that comes with a nuclear export. And that affects so many things when you have a chance to really influence something that is that major of a part of another country’s economy, technology, educational infrastructure, and so on. And when we sell a US reactor, we get a chance to influence that. We get a chance to influence the safety and security culture of operation again that our reactors are famous for. We get a chance to help influence their educational system to train not just the nuclear engineers, but the pipe fitters and the electricians and the security guards who will be operating in these facilities. We end up usually with a fuel license as well, a fuel supply license as well.

(35:45):

And that’s going to last for 30, 40, 50, 60, maybe even longer. And then the US has to get involved in the decommissioning phase, which helps us transfer our safety culture again, our knowledge of how to decommission reactors. And so that intangible connection that we build with other countries when we export a reactor, this again is part of why I say nuclear energy is national security. And so we have a national interest in building good, safe, affordable, attractive reactors, and we ought to be funding it in a way that recognizes that national security interest, whether it’s for secure power at home on a military base where we don’t have to depend on a grid and in times of crisis or of any type or whether it’s an export concept. So money, I appreciate the money that’s coming in even more than it was under the previous couple of administrations.

Bill Loveless (36:51):

Should the US change its approach to nuclear exports to compete with Russia and China?

Laura Holgate (36:55):

Oh, yes, for sure. And there’s been a lot of good intentions, some occasional progress. And so I don’t think anybody says, oh, we want to do badly at this, but it is a whole of government thing. And having sat at the White House and tried to help structure those decisions, it’s very, very difficult to organize all of the different bodies to do that. And so when Russia or China go to another country, it’s a one-stop shop. They come in, they have that interaction often they’ve already been in that country for 10 years. They’ve been funding with federal, their national funds, educational opportunities for the folks in that new country. They’ve been trading their regulators or just handing over copies of their regulatory playbook or even in some cases, offering to regulate on behalf of that country that would be importing it. I mean, that goes contrary to everything we know about what makes good safe reactors, but that’s what they’re offering. And there’s a single point of contact that can be handled in the US whether you go to the energy department or the State Department or the NRC or the vendor themselves or any of our export support possibilities, the Commerce department. I mean, I sat in Vienna with other ambassadors from countries that wanted to import our stuff, and they’re like, who do I call? I’m like, okay, well, here’s the phone book for the US government.

(38:37):

The US is simply not organized to do that. And all the kind of soft power stuff that you do before a country puts a request for proposal out, there’s no funding for that. And so the companies say, well, I’m not going to do that. But you’ll often see a [unclear]office, a Orano office, the Chinese nuclear office, their logos on the front of office buildings across from the energy ministry in a country that they want to relate to. And we have this team USA concept that has been implemented with more or less enthusiasm and efficiency over the past couple of decades. But we are not, don’t have that visibility. We don’t have that long-term concept about that really is appropriate to, again, this a hundred year, this century long relationship that is developed

Bill Loveless (39:42):

Makes it tough to compete. What reforms to international institutions like your old agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, would improve safeguards and the integrity of the supply chain?

Laura Holgate (39:54):

Well, let me be clear. I was the US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That’s not, so I have a lot of affection and knowledge about the agency, but it’s not mine.

(40:05):

It’s all of ours. And if we didn’t have it, we’d have to invent it because it is placed so many roles in helping countries both get ready to create a nuclear capability to operating it safely and securely, decommissioning it, but also to making sure that that boundary that we talked about at the beginning between energy and weapons, that that boundary is preserved in a legitimate and globally trustworthy way. And that’s where the concept of safeguards comes in. And the IAEA is uniquely established by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to play that role. And it’s a funny word. It’s not about safety and it’s not about guarding, but it’s about making sure that materials and facilities used for civilian nuclear power are not diverted to weapons for those countries that have committed not to acquire weapons. And so that is accomplished by a whole range of technologies and processes and behaviors that range from remote monitoring to physical reports, to cameras, to devices that safeguards inspectors bring to a facility and make tests to confirm that what they see on the ground matches what’s been reported, matches, what’s expected in terms of how that type of facility that would operate in a way that is a fully civilian approach.

(41:43):

And so the world depends on the agency to do this, and that’s an important component of its work and of the global trust in nuclear energy.

Bill Loveless (41:53):

I mean, is the, IAEA up to speed. Do you feel given all the changes that are taking place in terms of nuclear technology, nuclear safeguards, geopolitics, everything else?

Laura Holgate (42:06):

Well, yes, they’ve been preparing for this for a while and there’s a lot of documents, assistance programs, activities that they’ve been doing to be ready. The challenge is going to be with the budget if we have a significant increase in the number of facilities that they need to inspect, if we have a significant increase in the demand signal from countries for assistance programs, they are not going to be able to do that on a zero growth budget. The US and a lot of our best friends have a very strong policy opposing growth in budgets in the UN more generally. And the IAEA has been a tiny exception in the US policies of being ready to support 1%, 2%, but the budget for that agency is $400 million a year. The US provides about a quarter of that based on our standard UN funding. I mean, what a bargain, but you can’t given the whole range of things that they do.

(43:12):

And I’ve really only scratched the surface of what the agency contributes beyond nuclear energy. There’s a whole range of peaceful, peaceful nuclear technologies that are not about energy that are related to medicine and agriculture and water and so on, and they do work on that as well and supportive member states needs. And so there’s going to have to be a significant reckoning with the budget at the IAEA if we are going to have the same level of trust and they’re going to have the same ability of capacity to provide the safeguards, inspections that will be necessary for this anticipated growth in nuclear energy, not just growth in the US. It’s growth. It’ll be growth in countries that don’t have it. And so those are going to significantly increase those demands on the agency.

Bill Loveless (44:05):

Do you worry at all about US support for the IAEA? I mean, we’re at a time when the administration is pulling the United States out of many international agreements and organizations.

Laura Holgate (44:16):

We all looked very carefully at that list that came out a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, the International Atomic Energy Agency was not on it. The budgets for US, our share of that funding have been approved by submitted appropriately by the State Department approved by Congress. And in addition to those assessed dues, the US has traditionally given about another a hundred million dollars in so-called extra budgetary funds to be sure that the things we really care about get funded. And I’ve been told that that comes from a variety of different agencies depending on the project and their funding availability. I’ve been told that that number is expected to be about the same. How it’s distributed is probably going to be different, but that’s still a tiny amount. And so the real question is what’s it going to take for the US and the rest of its rest world to be ready to shift this concept of zero growth in the regular budget, because that’s going to be necessary.

Bill Loveless (45:34):

We’re at a worrisome time regarding nuclear security. A story in Reuters today tells us that the US and Russia could embark on an unrestrained nuclear arms race for the first time since the Cold War, unless they reach an 11th hour deal before the last remaining arms control treaty start expires in less than a week without it. The story goes on to say there would be no constraints on long range nuclear arsenals for the first time since Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed two historic agreements in 1972. What do we make of this?

Laura Holgate (46:12):

Well, this is a long, we’ve seen this deadline coming. This is not a surprise. It’s also not a surprise that the current policies of the US are generally not embracing of constraints on US power. And that’s exactly what arms control treaties do. The understanding has been now for decades over multiple presidents and multiple administrations that the benefits you get from that constraint in terms of verifiable constraint of your adversary are worth it. And there’s been some legitimate concerns raised about whether or not the adversary is actually abiding by those constraints. And there’s been legitimate critique that the bilateral arms control between US and Russia does not incorporate limits on China. Who has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal on the planet. So it’s not that we had everything we needed with this treaty, but to have it disappear without even an inkling of a system and an approach that might come in behind it that might address some of these aspects that reflect a changed world since the treaty was negotiated and signed is, in my view, extraordinarily worrying, extraordinarily concerning, and really, really puts the broader geopolitical balance at risk.

Bill Loveless (48:11):

Yeah, something to watch so closely in the days ahead.

Laura Holgate (48:16):

Absolutely.

Bill Loveless (48:16):

Well, before we go, I’d kind of like to put you on the spot and ask you for three concrete policy recommendations to US leaders today on nuclear security and energy. What would they be?

(48:30):

One is actually have a plan for how do we manage the growing nuclear arsenals and the growing capability of those arsenals that will protect US interests. We’ve got to have that because if that nuclear uncertainty expands to other aspects of the geopolitical uncertainty, it puts all of these pieces at risk. Secondly, a truly coordinated, organized, well-funded effort to activate the concept of team USA for nuclear exports, the resources, the technology, the political support, the long-term vision. We absolutely need that, and we need to restore, preserve, and not worsen the domestic and global support and trust in our nuclear regulatory infrastructure. That is, again, the baseline on nuclear energy that allows us to benefit from clean 24-7 electricity and heat and other outputs that will really drive economic growth while protecting climate challenges. And so those would be my three.

(49:55):

Well, Laura Holgate, thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with us today on Columbia Energy Exchange.

Laura Holgate (50:01):

Great to be with you, Bill really enjoyed our conversation.

Bill Loveless (50:09):

That’s it for this week’s episode of Columbia Energy Exchange. Thank you again, Laura Holgate, and thank you for listening. The show is brought to you by the Center on Global Energy Policy at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. The show is hosted by Jason Bordoff and me, Bill Loveless, Mary Catherine O’Connor produced the show. Greg Vilfranc engineered it. Additional support from Caroline Pitman and Kyu Lee. For more information about the show or the Center on Global Energy Policy, visit us [email protected] or follow us on social media @ColumbiaUEnergy. If you like this episode, leave us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also share it with a friend or colleague to help us reach more listeners. Either way, we appreciate your support. Thanks again for listening. See you next week.

But accelerating nuclear power could mean changing environmental and safety reviews. And small modular reactors and other innovations in nuclear energy are likely years from commercial readiness.

So is there a way to reinvigorate nuclear energy in the US that’s safe and fast? What would that mean for the power sector and the communities that support plants today, and future sites? Are there any signs that new technologies could address the perennial questions around nuclear safety? And what does all of this mean for national security and energy policy?

Today on the show, Bill Loveless speaks with Laura S. H. Holgate, Ambassador (ret.) about the state of nuclear energy innovation, safety, and governance.

Laura is the president of LSHH International Advisors and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy. She twice served as ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. She has held multiple positions in and out of government, including vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, special assistant to the president at the White House National Security Council, and a senior official at the departments of Energy and Defense.

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