CORDEL workshop 2024: Work Together Now!

Serious players from all over the world gathered in Busan Korea where they were given a challenge: utilize the golden opportunity the industry have been given or face irrelevance.

“This is our final window of opportunity. If we don’t deliver, we will lose the interest of the decisionmakers.”

This was the message of Dr. Same Bilbao y Leon, the Director General of the World Nuclear Association. She was speaking to the attendants of the 2024 CORDEL workshops, filled with supply chain players who will have to deliver on the challenge of building the world’s next batch of eagerly anticipated and sorely needed new reactors.

The theme of this workshop is international cooperation. “No one company can deliver on the huge need alone. Focus on the best interests of the industry and the market will exist for all of us…all the players.”

In the few short years I’ve paid attention to the nuclear industry it’s gone from marginalized to capturing the commitment of stakeholders at the highest levels. But these policy champions will go away if the industry can’t deliver at scale and on time.

What does delivering look like? Dr. Bilbao y Leon breaks it down working from the Tripling pledge from COP 28: the world currently have 400 GW scale reactors and we need to go to 1200GW (mix of big and SMR equivalent). Some older reactors will be shut down so let’s call it 1000 new reactors in 25 years to deliver on the 2050 tripling pledge. This growth will not be linear but works out to 40 a year big or 100 SMRs!

“10 a year is about our current speed, said Sama, “we are looking at multiplying by 4 our current capabilities.” “There are opportunities for everyone in this room.”

Later on I was speaking with a fellow attendee coming down the elevator. “Yes, we have to work together. Or we will fail separately.”

The fact that the workshop is taking place in Busan, Korea is significant. Korea is building itself up as the Free-world’s champion nuclear exporter and all eyes are on whether they can capitalize on their recent eye-catching success in delivering the United Arab Emirate’s (UAE) Barakah Nuclear Power Plant. However, speaking on the sidelines with knowledgeable participants, it will also be facing a tremendous challenge for its attempts to reach into the motherlode of demand for new reactors in the world right now — the European market.

“You have this pipe, and for the Koreans they follow the American regulatory system closely. It is ASME certified. But you cannot take this pipe into Europe and use it without getting the European certification.”

That the result will be higher costs is not denied by those with ties to KHNP/Kepco, speaking off-the-record with me at the conference. Yes. Their costs will indeed be higher. So how are they able to bid so low in the Czech bid and others? The answer is the Koreans are not thinking like a company, they are thinking like a state. They are keen to develop keystone projects into major market and they are willing to compress their margins to sweeten that deal. Time will tell if this turns out to be a good idea, but I hope the Koreans at least get a chance to try in one of the European builds.

In the European market the Koreans are trying to battle EDF, another state-apparatus that can plan long-term. But outside of Europe, their rival is China. Whether it’s the UAE’s next four plants or Saudi Arabia’s new builds, Korea will be battling China, who knows well how to compress margins to gain market share, as the world’s automakers are finding out to their pain.

The world of nuclear pricing is opaque in the extreme. That’s a problem Philippine’s Congressman Mark Cojuangco. “As an advocate for nuclear going on 17 years, it is is extremely difficult to stand on the stage and defend nuclear when I cannot even give a price for the plant I am advocating.”

“Korea is the export king, but are the prices still higher than China? To give you some example. I don’t know how accurate. But the CAP1000 which is the Chinese [version] of AP1000 would cost [the Chinese] $2.9 billion USD. The AP1000 in Vogtle in the USA is over $15 billion USD. If that is the price, an AP1000 will not happen in the Philippines. But a $3 billion USD reactor like in China can potentially happen,” said Cojuangco, “we need the west to match China in price.”

“The AP1000 module factory in China is already largely amortized. How will the west be able to match the cost of building nuclear power plants?” Asked Cojuangco, before proposing a possible way forward: investing in a module factory in Subit Bay in the Philippines in the old Hanjin ship yard. It can be the site for “a joint effort to mass produce modules for large reactors.”

As always with such information-dense conferences, I can only bring a short snapshot of the avalanche of information available. The mood of the participants were upbeat, but also keenly aware that the nuclear industry is a lumbering beast that can be slow to wake up and get moving.