052 Craig Ranson, EVP of Installed Base America at Framatome

[00:00:00] Craig Ranson: I mean, it’s being real with ourselves on where the problems are. Okay. So the problems that the early movers have is they’ve got some uncertainty relative to the regulatory process and what could come up through that. And I get all that. I’m not criticizing the regulatory process. It’s just is what it is right now, but it’s real. It’s a known item to create some ambiguity in the time scale and the cost. Okay, that’s big and it’s important for us to internalize.

So if that’s true and we all believe it is, I think, then how can we backstop the early movers a bit? How can we create some window there to keep any one of the early movers from getting crushed by it? And I think that’s what’s being discussed right now. It’s being discussed within the industry.

And I think it’s going to come up hopefully within some of the state and federal agencies and government bodies. I don’t think this can be solved. Just on the non-governmental side, I think there’s a role that we can all play and the industry can play to also support and backstop it.

But the early movers are gonna need more support than that.

[00:02:10] Mark Hinaman: Okay. Welcome to another episode of the Fire2Fission podcast, where we talk about energy dense fuels and how they can better human lives. My name is Mark Hinaman. And today I’m joined by Craig Ranson, Executive Vice President, Installed Base America at Framatome. Craig, how are you doing this morning?

[00:02:25] Craig Ranson: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:28] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. So Craig, let’s dive right in. I want to touch on your background before kind of working on Framatome or talking about Framatome. Been there a long time since before Framatome was known as Framatome. So why don’t you give us a history and talk about how you got started there.

[00:02:44] Craig Ranson: Yeah. I’m a graduate of Virginia tech in electrical engineering, and I had a real passion when I first came out of the university to design controls and robotics with a real focus on robotic delivery , and operation of robotics remotely. And I was blessed with the opportunity to be able to do that at, well, at the time it was B& W Nuclear Services to become Framatome a few years later.

And you know, I jumped right in. I was designing robots and robot controls. And the cool thing about Framatome was you don’t get compartmentalized. You get to design the system, and then you get to use the system in the field and take it with the team to the field to see it operate. And that kind of led me into a some real learning experiences along the way, because you think you’ve got this thing figured out, you think you’ve got a good system, a robust robotic delivery platform.

In this case, we were designing reactor vessel examination, robotic system to do ultrasonic examinations of reactor vessels, and specifically the welds that make up the reactor vessels. And we had been working on this project for about three years and, we were ready. We thought we had tested this thing.

It was coming together. It was an impressive looking robot. And I remember taking the robot on its maiden deployment to a nuclear power plant and we had it out in the yard at the plant and all the employees at the plant were coming there and taking photos of it with us. We were like celebrities and then we had a rude awakening. We actually took the system into the harsh enviornment that it has to go into, borated water 20 ft underwater, you kno about five hours in, it starts to take on water and part of the robotic system actually flooded a bit.

We got through the job. We did the job we were committed to do. It did take longer than we were supposed to. And I did learn an awful lot about how to make a system more robust than we did at the time.

[00:04:48] Mark Hinaman: I love that story. That’s a, that’s classic. That’s classic engineering. You’re like, this is going to be great.

It’s going to be flawless. And then you show up

[00:04:54] Craig Ranson: I was humbled very early in my career.

[00:04:58] Mark Hinaman: So how long did you work on that? Like three years?

[00:05:00] Craig Ranson: It was about a three year project before, yeah, before, before trying it out. It was called Ursula and don’t ask me what it stood for. I can’t even remember.

[00:05:11] Mark Hinaman: That’s fascinating.

Three years for like a five hour job.

[00:05:14] Craig Ranson: It took us five hours to ruin the job. It took about 10 days to complete the job.

[00:05:20] Mark Hinaman: Okay. Gotcha.

Well, hopefully they took the robot back and iterated and improved it. Right?

[00:05:25] Craig Ranson: We’ve come a long way since then. We now perform them routinely for about four days.

Yeah.

[00:05:31] Mark Hinaman: There you go. Yeah, we call this learning, right? That’s exactly right. Okay. So is, sorry if I missed it. Was that at Areva? Or?

[00:05:39] Craig Ranson: It was when I was working at all the different Framatome names companies. Yeah.

[00:05:43] Mark Hinaman: Okay. Formerly Framatome names. Okay. So, what does Framatome do?

Give us kind of a big overview of the company, size of the company, primary business lines.

[00:05:51] Craig Ranson: We do all things nuclear, man. We’re all in for nuclear. We believe in it. And what he can do for the planet our economy for energy independence. We perform and provide engineering products, services, fuel I&C solutions all to the nuclear fleet both the existing fleet that’s been in operation for some time, but also in support of advanced reactors and SMR reactors as well.

I’m sure we’ll talk about that.

[00:06:20] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. So supporting installed base, or that’s in your title, I guess, segment between advanced nuclear and kind of the installed larger facilities.

[00:06:31] Craig Ranson: That was the original thought that this organization that I’m responsible for would focus on the existing reactors and existing fleet.

However, we’ve now taken on the responsibility of supporting both. So as the advanced reactor SMR fleet is growing, and that market is frankly really started to grow. We’ve taken on the support that as well. So our installed based business, so the best way to think of it is through what it’s not.

It’s everything but fuel and I&C.

[00:07:01] Mark Hinaman: Okay.

And I&C instrumentation and

[00:07:06] Craig Ranson: instrumentation and control.

[00:07:07] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. Okay. Craig, I mean, you’ve been there a long time. How have you seen the industry change over the past five, 10 years?

[00:07:16] Craig Ranson: Yeah, it’s a great question because it’s really continued to improve over the years, the performance of the nuclear fleet.

I think it’s one of the things we ought to be the most proud of. This kind of industry is calm in terms of its efficiency, it’s a capacity factor. The cost to produce electricity, I mean, it’s really improved over the last 20, 25 years and, everybody’s been a part of it.

Suppliers, the utility operators the industry institutes like INPO, NRC, everybody’s played a role in ensuring that this fleet driven towards excellence. And I’ll tell you, they’ve been on a good track.

[00:07:57] Mark Hinaman: So all things nuclear, I mean, that’s a pretty large catalog of products.

For folks that may not be able to conceptualize it or have experience. But can you just give a couple examples? I mean, you got this robot that’s doing inspections.

[00:08:10] Craig Ranson: So I’ll give you a, we do things from cyber security for nuclear to isotope production for nuclear. And we’re pretty proud of that.

Oh. We service the existing reactor fleet. We help provide technology bricks to the advanced reactor and SMR fleet. We provide fuel. We provide I&C instrument control solutions. So it’s a lot. We replace large components in nuclear power plants. These plants have been operating for a while and some of these big components eventually need to be replaced, like steam generators or pressurizer or.

reactor vessel closure heads. And we’re pretty good at that. And we do the big stuff and the small stuff when it comes to nuclear.

[00:08:53] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. Hey, I think you post about that on LinkedIn recently or how you guys had a pressurizer repair.

[00:08:59] Craig Ranson: We did. Yeah. That’s pretty cool.

Can we talk about that? I can. Yeah.. We have a very talented and strong component repair and replacement organization as part of our team and they are pretty good at quickly being able to mobilize a solution, whether it be difficult or not, to be able to address, let’s say a component failure or something that needs repairing inside a nuclear power plant and we’re basically the go to folks when people have that kind of problem.

But in this case, as you can tell , it was so critical when we get there quickly that we mobilized 55 people on a chartered 737. It got there as fast as possible, efficiently as possible to get that plant safely by online.

[00:09:45] Mark Hinaman: That’s incredible. How big is the organization? How many people work at Framatome?

[00:09:52] Craig Ranson: We’ve got over 2000 in North America for the install based business that I’m responsible for. It’s a little over 1000. And we’re growing substantially every year here now. So to to ramp up it, to meet the demand. We decided to jump in.

We decided to say, look, we can sit on the sidelines and wait to see it happen, see if this is really going to happen or not. Or we can take a bet and just jump in and say, you know what, if we’re going to be early movers with their, we’re going to help these early movers and be on the forefront of this.

We’ve got to move now. And so we’ve , started to make investments a year or two ago. And we’ve got a hiring plan and hiring trajectory is quite remarkable. We’re looking to bring in over 450 people over the next few years.

[00:10:35] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. And not like in a couple months or in a year it’s happening now.

I mean, I was using your guys’s website before this and you got a ton of jobs listed.

[00:10:44] Craig Ranson: We do. And we’re, we’ve got a whole nother ton of jobs ready in the wing. As soon as we get these started to be filled. So, and the good news is, Mark, the interest in nuclear is tremendous right now, we had folks at a lot of these career fairs, at the different universities that we go and attend. Virginia Tech and NC State, Penn State.

The general large area of schools that we pull from and it was night and day different in terms of how much we were getting the attention of the student body. There were other, companies that were jealous of the Framatomes because there’s just a big interest in nuclear right now.

I’m telling you, it was the most attendance we’ve had in recent years with regards to folks wanting to know about how to get in the nuclear industry and showing interest in jobs. And it’s promising.

[00:11:38] Mark Hinaman: That’s really exciting. It’s, I feel like the trend over the past decade has been a move away from hardware and away from hard physical solutions.

And as the climate change movement has progressed, there’s been kind of a shift in that. Are you seeing some better talent being engaged in the industry, not just perhaps numbers, but quality of applicants and quality of people that want to come in?

[00:12:04] Craig Ranson: Well, it’s been a while since the industry has injected itself with a bunch of new talent.

Okay. Yeah. So just bringing new talent is remarkable in itself because there are new set of eyes. They bring new technologies with them. They bring new tools that they learned at the universities into these old programs that were slow moving. And now it’s kind of shaken everything up a bit.

So let me give you just a simple example. One of the things that we do is we help defuel the reactor. We take the reactor apart, defuel the reactor and then, once everything’s done, we refuel the reactor with the new fuel to go back in. Okay? To do those activities, there were these long handled tools that were developed about 35, 40 years ago.

And they were, frankly, cumbersome, complicated, and they broke down a lot, okay? Everybody lived with them. Okay. For the last 30 some years, everybody lives on. Well, guess what? We hired a few early career engineers and deployed them on a couple of jobs to give them some experience in the field and what it’s like to be working at a nuclear power plant.

We put them on these crews and they came back and said, Hey, why are we using these funky old tools, man? And we didn’t have a good answer. We said, well, hey, here’s a few couple of grand of R and D. Why don’t you see what you come up with. They developed over a period of six months, a whole new set of tools.

The whole fleet almost has bought as replaced their toolkit with these new tools. Now we’re going international with it just because they just asked a question, you know.

[00:13:42] Mark Hinaman: I’ve seen that time and again in my career I think that’s a benefit of kind of rotating people throughout organizations and giving people a chance to try different things and learn and see different things like it’s a fresh set of eyes is so useful.

[00:13:56] Craig Ranson: Absolutely.

[00:13:59] Mark Hinaman: So Craig what companies might be considered competitors? If somebody is trying to get a feel for the organization who in the space might do some of the same things that you do.

[00:14:09] Craig Ranson: I think maybe Westinghouse comes to mind. I mean, they’re a big, well known competitor and they have a strong organization as well.

Competition has really helped to bring this industry to the next level, to be honest. So it drives all of us to innovate, to constantly improve and keep our costs down and look for better ways to service these plants and to keep these plants running.

The other thing I think I’d say about this, the concept of competition, certainly the competition is strong. Okay. And it’s vicious as it should be in a capitalistic market. But I will say, given the market conditions in it and the situation that’s blossoming, if you will, and in this industry right now, there’s a lot of times you find that you’re competing in one segment and you’re partnering in another segment.

To the betterment of the company. And we’re seeing that more and more today than we have in the past. But when you compete hard. And when you’re partnering, you truly partner.

[00:15:14] Mark Hinaman: I’ve seen that a lot. Specifically with people that may not have a capital budget to solve all the problems themselves.

And having a consortium or collaboration to work towards a solution can be really useful in industry. It’s a fine line to walk. Cause like you said, you got to figure out when to collaborate and when to compete.

[00:15:34] Craig Ranson: I think , for us it’s easier because you can separate segments of the market, and one whole.

segment of the market you could truly be in a competitive state, but over here, maybe an advanced reactor space, you can do something different.

[00:15:50] Mark Hinaman: What all segments exist? I’m cruising through your website and you’ve got advanced nuclear, you talked about it design and engineering component, manufacturing.

Let’s see a cybersecurity,

[00:16:01] Craig Ranson: Services. We do a lot of services at plants. We do a lot of inspections. I’m talking about robotic inspections of the primary components of the plant that take a lot of robotics. And that’s kind of where I grew up from. I mentioned it earlier in the podcast.

But we also do a lot of component repair and replacement. And we do a lot of engineering, special engineering services. We may do a specific analysis to help with a new component going in, or let’s say an updated reactor coolant pump design or a seal solution. There’s always these opportunities to support uprates and increase the capacity of the plant to service it’s base, it’s rate base better.

[00:16:41] Mark Hinaman: I’m curious on that, I like that idea and I. I know that the industry has been optimizing the solution for a long time, especially over the course of your career like, but we’re pretty close to like being optimized at existing plants, right? I mean the 90 plus percent capacity factors. I see a being like, no, we can get better

We can always do

[00:17:03] Craig Ranson: better. I still think we got room to improve. I’m excited about it still, primarily because, there’s two reasons. Mark one technology continues to advance. Let’s think about it. Machine learning and AI is just now being applied in nuclear. What can that take us to?

It’s already being used now in the very beginning stages for predictive analyses. Okay. Let’s say predicting when baffle-to-former bolts may degrade and fail over time or predicting when a steam generator outside the reactor too may have wear conditions that would need to be serviced or replaced.

That’s just one example, but the other piece that’s feeding into it is, we went for a long time without having an end game on how long we were going to run the plants. I mean, it was getting uncertain there for about 10 to 15 years, and so when you’re an accountant or you’re trying to run your company at a utility, how much do you invest in a plant?

You know, how much does a, can you sell your business case if you don’t know what the, your payback period is? Well, guess what? With the IRA, that’s changed the game. Now we have a payback period. Now we know how long the these plants are going to intend to operate. Now you can create sound business cases for them.

And that means you can invest in the plants to do the upgrades, to do improvements, to improve the capacity factor even farther. I’ll use an example in terms of technology space that is just quite remarkable. A lot of plants still had alloy 600 weld metal in their welds and it’s known to be a reliability problem if it’s not mitigated, it eventually will have problems over time because of the caustic nature of the materials it’s in contact with.

And so we developed just recently a solution called cavitation peening. and what it does, it creates vapor bubbles at a high pressure that hits the surface. When you deliver it, it looks like you’re just putting like a pressure washer on the surface of the weld metal. It’s what it looks like.

But in reality, it’s such high energy vapor bubbles that it actually dimples the surface of the weld. You can literally feel it and see it. And when it does, it takes the tensile stress away on the surface and puts the surface into compression. Well, that eliminates the possibility for any type of degradation or cracking.

And so we’re just now applying that to the fleet. That’s a new technology and that’s going to greatly improve the reliability. These plants still have alloy 600 weld metal in some other locations. Now, can we get better? Yeah, I think we get better. We’re doing it right now.

[00:19:45] Mark Hinaman: That’s a phenomenal example.

I love that it’s just nerdy enough that the mechanical,

[00:19:51] Craig Ranson: I’m sorry for the nerdiness, but I am an engineer. I warned you.

[00:19:55] Mark Hinaman: It’s great. That’s the problem on podcasts like this. You get two engineers talking and I worry sometimes that people haven’t seen these things, right? That you got to kind of paint a picture, but I think you did a good job.

Like you’ve got this physical weld and then you’re. Blasting it with bubbles exploding and it’s changing the shape of the metal and then that changes the physical lattice, the characteristics of the metal and how it performs and behaves.

[00:20:19] Craig Ranson: It’s counterintuitive.

Just think bubbles are going to dimple one of the hardest metals known to man.

[00:20:27] Mark Hinaman: How did you guys figure out that solution would work? I’m just thinking about your process and his organization. You talk about this R& D.

[00:20:35] Craig Ranson: Yeah, I’m sorry. It was a classic example of looking at what’s been done outside of nuclear and saying, you know what, that could be applied inside nuclear.

We can modify it, make it better, dial it in. Obviously, we got to have all the special processes qualified and all that stuff. We do that. But the fundamental concept is let’s figure out what’s going on in the world. Take the best of it and let’s take it to nuclear and make it even better. And that’s what we’re doing.

Another example of that is, these power plants have buried piping everywhere in them. Underneath tanks, underneath buildings, underneath roads. There’s all kind of piping used to move, liquids around the plant. Water or other types of liquids. And these plants are now getting in their 40s, you know, 30s, 40s, 50 years old, right?

And so there’s an issue with needing to service these piping to make the plants more reliable. Yeah. Well, we found a solution outside of nuclear that’s being used to actually spray on a new pipe from the ID. Now imagine that you actually create a new pipe from the ID without having to dig anything up with a little robot.

All you need, the old pipe for, Mark, is a form. So now we’ve got a safety and a non safety solution for replacing all the piping without being intrusive or costing a lot of money to the utility. That’s how we’re continuing to make these plants better.

[00:22:05] Mark Hinaman: I love it. Is it just create like an internal coating or does it expand?

[00:22:09] Craig Ranson: It actually creates a thickness of a pipe. So it’s structural. In other words, so from an engineering perspective you size the thickness that you need to maintain the structural integrity of the new pipe. Cause the old pipes not even needed after you get it on

[00:22:24] Mark Hinaman: And achieves a comparable ANSI pressure rating.

That’s correct. Yeah. That’s awesome. Okay. Well, Craig , that was some of the tidbits and nerdy details that I want to get out of you. So thanks for entertaining me. Let’s zoom out a little bit to kind of the broader energy industry. What are some of the biggest hurdles that you see the U S facing in order to build more nuclear here?

[00:22:49] Craig Ranson: Yeah. Thank you. It’s a great question. I mean, number one is. We need to support the early movers to get across the line and get moving. Okay Everybody is waiting and watching There’s a whole industry ready to move But it takes two or three early movers to get this thing going and That is the most pressing item today The infrastructure is building up behind it people like Framatome or companies like Framatome are taking the leap of faith and investing, that the S. M. R. And AR providers are taking the leap of faith and investing. But we need two or three early movers to be bold and do this. And we need both government, federal and state and industry support to back up. That’s the key thing right now, right behind it. Is those things that we talked about making sure you’re moving now to hire the people and to bring in those early careers in particular, that is going to be the future for the industry is early careers.

You’re not going to bring a bunch of mid careers from some other industry into nuclear and solve a problem that the competition is too strong for you. You need to build your own. That’s secondary. That’s really right behind the early mover problem. Right alongside that is making the needed investment for facilities and technology to support it.

Yeah. To me those are the most important things.

[00:24:22] Mark Hinaman: So how do you think we do that? Cause I’ve talked to utility executives that everyone wants to be. Second, or maybe not even second, they want to be fifth or 10th to be to the game to go and build a new plant.

How do we get people comfortable to make some of these big investments?

[00:24:39] Craig Ranson: Well, I think in the end it’s black and white, really. I mean, it’s being real with ourselves on where the problems are. The problems that the early movers have is they’ve got enough. They’ve got some uncertainty relative to.

The regulatory process and what could come up through that. And I get all that. I’m not criticizing the regulatory process. It’s just is what it is right now, but it’s real. And it’s a known item to create some ambiguity in the time scale and the cost. Okay, that’s big and it’s important for us to internalize.

So if that’s true and we all believe it is, I think, then how can we backstop the early movers a bit How can we create some window there to keep any one of the early movers from getting crushed by it? And I think that’s what’s being discussed right now. It’s being discussed within the industry.

And I think it’s going to come up hopefully within some of the state and federal agencies and government bodies. Yeah. Because I don’t think this can be solved. Just on the non-governmental side I think there’s a role that we can all play and the industry can play to also support and backstop it.

But the early movers are gonna need more support than that.

[00:25:51] Mark Hinaman: So financial support from government,

[00:25:54] Craig Ranson: yeah, some guarantees around cost sharing above a certain value to a limit. Of course, we don’t want to leave things uncapped but to support primarily financially, especially around the risk side of it, where it can cost a lot on the first, first two or three.

Yeah. So we get the bumps in the road worked out, if you will.

[00:26:15] Mark Hinaman: It feels like this is an opportunity for, just like we were talking about earlier, the collaboration piece where you can have a consortium of folks or maybe even a fleet order, right? Where not everyone’s going to be first

but if you want to be fifth, then you got to put in 20 percent of the cost now to have a deposit, if you will, that then eventually you’ll get the fifth plan and have some learnings, but you’re right in front of it.

[00:26:41] Craig Ranson: You’re exactly right. That’s how the commercial fleet can support as well.

Yeah. And we’re seeing some of that. I think there’s some consortiums being discussed and formed. Where you have two or three utilities saying, you know what, we’re going to pick a design and we’re going to co go at this together to share the risk together and that’ll help, but I still don’t think that alone will get us there.

Gotcha. But once the two or three go through, it’s going to be a fun ride.

[00:27:13] Mark Hinaman: Yeah, well, there’s just so much upside in the industry, right? I mean, I’m excited about it. So you mentioned not bringing people from other industries. I want to push back on this idea a little bit. I talked to people from solar, from oil and gas, from other sectors of the energy industry.

And every time I talk to them, everyone loves nuclear. They’re all stoked about it.

[00:27:35] Craig Ranson: That would be a pleasant turn of events. I agree there’s an interest in nuclear. I just don’t want the industry to think that we can solve the large scale hiring that’s needed solely from grabbing mid careers, if you will, from other industry, because frankly it’s a more competitive environment.

I mean, so does everybody else want a lot of these mid careers and we’re bringing some in from outside of. It’s happening. You’re right. But I’m not yet seeing it on a scale that’s going to solve the problem alone. Yeah.

[00:28:13] Mark Hinaman: Okay. So you have a lot of posts on LinkedIn periodically advocating for the industry.

How can we do this to help? I mean, you mentioned kind of the regulator problem and I think that’s only going to get solved if it’s an act of Congress, which means that we got to have conversations like this and get people aware and advocate for the industry. Do you think it’s helpful for the industry?

And if so, how can it be more helpful or how can we get utility executives to do the same?

[00:28:37] Craig Ranson: Well, I do think it’s helpful. I think we need to toot our own horn a bit. There’s a lot of great work that’s just happening quietly behind the scenes. It needs to be visible a little bit more.

And that’s part of why I make some of the posts that I make is I see some of this great work and. Innovation and technology being applied and people coming together and rallying behind the calls and I want to share that and I’d love to see more of my colleagues in the industry do it.

Some are really strong communicators out there that are sharing similar types of message, but some are awful quiet. And you know what, Mark I’m going to add that to my list of things to talk to them about When I meet with a lot of them in just my course of doing business, and I would add that to the list I’d like to get between the ears as well.

[00:29:28] Mark Hinaman: How does the utility executive think about this idea of they have a portfolio of technologies to choose from and they can’t necessarily pick a winner or a favorite, even if they might recognize some of the benefits of nuclear? I mean, is it just talking factually about it? And that helped me.

Think about that because I’ve seen that a lot with utility executives are like, well, yeah, nuclear is a part of our portfolio, but we can’t, cheer it on and pick it as a favorite child. We’ve got to love all of our Children equally.

[00:29:57] Craig Ranson: Well, I don’t know that I disagree with the concept. I think, , is in particular with clean energy sources, nuclear being one of them.

I think there is a bit of a harmony that can play out in the future state. I think nuclear needs to have a more prominent role and that’s happening. I think a lot of it also comes down to the financials and we need to recognize those financials. There’s no free lunch here.

We’ll all got to earn our keep and nuclear is no different, but you know what I’m game for that challenge, right? I mean, I think we get a whole room

[00:30:30] Mark Hinaman: as a service and technology provider. People that build stuff have a growth mindset that is phenomenal. I just absolutely love it because it’s a sense of ownership in the world that you can transform the world around you and actually modify how expensive things are, how effectively things get done.

And yeah, that’s exactly what you guys do for your business, right?

[00:30:51] Craig Ranson: Yeah. I can tell you that it’s definitely our mindset. We see the potential and we go for the potential

[00:30:58] Mark Hinaman: Craig. You talked a little bit about advanced nuclear. I’ve got this question here. Micro reactors, SMRs. Large modular reactors

[00:31:04] Craig Ranson: or all the above. All the above. Love it. I think each one has a role to play.

Each of the main suppliers have a role to play. Mark, we had a choice to make a few years ago. Do we in the U. S. Do we develop our own technology and be a prime? Let’s say another OEM in the mix. We had the full capability to do that in North America. We could have. We decided instead to be a technology provider for all of them.

To be an accelerant, if you will. To help them all be successful as much, as best we can. We didn’t pick winners and losers. Let’s let the market pick that. If there’s going to be winners and losers, let’s let the market do it. And we’ll be right there with them. Yeah,

[00:31:52] Mark Hinaman: it’s a different business model. Yeah.

Yeah.

As the advanced reactor space grows I think that’s really intelligent that you guys chose that approach because then you can service all of them. You’re not directly competing and you can perhaps share learnings from one to another.

[00:32:11] Craig Ranson: Agreed.

[00:32:13] Mark Hinaman: Not to pick winners or losers, but is there a certain technology that you’re more excited about or something that with advanced reactors that gets you Jazzed up.

And you’re like, Oh man, I want to see a molten salt reactor built. I

[00:32:24] Craig Ranson: find each one of them really exciting in their own way. I really do. I mean, I’m not,

[00:32:28] Mark Hinaman: I like that diplomatic answer. There you go.

[00:32:32] Craig Ranson: I’m not really trying to sidestep the question. I really do think each one brings a very unique set of solutions to the table with a specific offering.

I like the portfolio that people have to choose from. I think each one plays a role. I was actually at a dinner with an industry executive. And I posed that question to the executive and he goes, really I think they all have a good role to play. And this has come from somebody that’s got to pick somebody at some point.

[00:32:57] Mark Hinaman: Oh, that’s great. That’s exciting for America and the world, in my opinion. I we talked a little bit about how the nuclear fleet has changed and capacity factors have increased. The technology’s getting better there’s improvements that are being made every day. You talked a little bit about how Framatome’s engaged in that.

With the new reactors coming online there, there’s only more opportunity to do that, right? It’s new technology. Oh, yeah. Framatome’s gonna be involved in that.

[00:33:26] Craig Ranson: Well, what I’m seeing now, Mark, is there’s learning going back and forth between the technology being developed for the new reactors and the old reactors and vice versa.

So now we’re seeing concepts being formulated and tested and brought to fruition for the SMR AR market that also has some retro application back to the existing fleet. So there’s this whole new learning that’s going on now, that just wasn’t there before.

[00:33:57] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. That was really interesting to me when I first started researching, getting into the space, I was like, well, how many different types of reactors do we use in the U S surely it’s at least a dozen and it was two, right?

Light water reactors and but are pressurized and boiling water reactors and I think with the expansion of different types and how we’re going to see some of these come to market will be really exciting.

[00:34:17] Craig Ranson: Well if you think about it in terms of even let’s say other Capabilities like isotope production.

Okay, so these reactors are more conducive to supporting isotope production than others. For example, we’re producing large quantities. I mean, a large portion of the world demand for lutetium 177. It fights prostate cancer. And that’s being produced in a CANDU reactor, which is very conducive of being able to generate isotopes at scale 7/24/365 and you don’t have to wait for a refueling outage to do that in a CANDU reactor.

[00:35:00] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. That’s great. So, Craig, what motivates you at this point in your career?

[00:35:07] Craig Ranson: Well, I tell you I’ve really grown to appreciate what nuclear can do for the planet, for the people for our economy, for energy independence it just has a number of really good attributes that, frankly I really want to see be taken to the next level.

I’m excited in this back half of my career to be able to be a part of it now and see this renewal of focus on nuclear being a part of the clean energy portfolio and I’d like to see that through I’ve got, a handful more years left in me and I think it’s going to be an exciting run.

[00:35:41] Mark Hinaman: Yeah. So what do you think is the most impactful step that most people can take to help us build more nuclear? We talked a little bit about supporting early movers in the industry, but what about listeners, people that aren’t potentially directly involved in the industry, but are advocates?

[00:35:59] Craig Ranson: I still think first and foremost write your congressman. Advocate for support for the early movers it’s game changing, not just for this industry, but for frankly, for our whole economy. It’s a big deal. What else can we do day to day? I’d encourage folks to engage in stem in the early high school level, the middle school level and really promoting stem type programs and initiatives give people visible to what can be done in this space because we’re going to need some really talented engineers, technician, welders electricians to make this all happen. And that’s something we all can do.

[00:36:39] Mark Hinaman: That’s great. I love that piece of advice. I give my niece a STEM kit almost for every one of her birthdays. I support that methodology.

[00:36:47] Craig Ranson: That’s great. In small ways, we all can do a little bit of that. It’s impactful.

[00:36:52] Mark Hinaman: Where can people find more information about you or Framatome and anything else that you’d like to promote for the organization?

[00:36:58] Craig Ranson: Yeah, Framatome. com. It’s pretty simple. We’ve got a great webpage up there and I encourage folks to go take a look at us. I will make a shameless plug for this recruiting that we’re doing. I told you earlier that we’re gonna hire at least 450, talented individuals and we’re hiring today we’ll be hiring tomorrow.

We’re all in on this and we’re making investments in our facilities and our people. It’s just a fun journey we’re on and if you’re interested in nuclear and having a career where you get to spend a little bit of time designing and developing solutions, but also spending time at a power plant.

Really getting your hands on it, come to Framatome, that’s how I started my career.

[00:37:37] Mark Hinaman: It’s not shameless plug, it’s a big benefit of doing the podcast, right? That’s great. It’s always great when you can be like, hey, we got jobs, you want a job? Okay, so Craig last question, leave us with your most positive vision of the future.

What’s the world going to look like in 10 to 20 years?

[00:37:52] Craig Ranson: If I look out in the future, I really see this nuclear industry providing more than just electricity to the grid, right? It’s changing the clean energy economy that we have producing hydrogen that’s supporting clean energy downstream solutions that it’s standing up and supporting. Large manufacturing and chemical plants through a clean energy solution of delivering, let’s say, high temperature steam, to these locations. It’s producing electricity, obviously, not just for the grid but for cars and trucks and all things that use electricity.

And a clean energy way. And it’s doing it 724, 365. Is it the only clean energy solution? Absolutely not. We’re blessed to have other ones too. And we need all of them working together to meet the growth demands that we’re seeing in this market. But I see that as what this looks like 10, 15 years.

[00:38:49] Mark Hinaman: That’s great. That’s a great place to leave it. Craig Ranson.

[00:38:52] Craig Ranson: Thanks so much. Thank you, Mark.

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