059 Florencia Renteria, PhD in Nuclear Science and Technology

Florencia Renteria (00:00)
So of course every HTGR has its own characteristics but they have some similarities in the system. What I can really tell you that Chinese have been advancing in the development and deployment of the HTGR in Xinhua University. They have two reactor units for this. Externally in the United States they have been accelerating some specific steps in the technology. But the fuel technology integration is quite similar.

But South Africans are putting a lot of effort because that technology originated a couple of years back in South Africa, they were running a huge project to develop the HGTR reactor, but unfortunately,

This technology was not able to deploy in the South African region, so this project has to migrate through Xenergy and other start -up companies in the US. But I hope that the extension of the HGTR technology in South Africa revives again and many other reactor units will be built in the future.

Mark Hinaman (02:12)
Welcome back to another episode of the Fire2Fission podcast. My name is Mark Hinaman and today I’m joined by Florencia Renteria PhD in Nuclear Science and Technology. Florencia, I’m stoked to chat with you. Thanks for doing this with me.

Florencia Renteria (02:25)
Hey Mark, thanks for the kind invitation to participate in the Fire2Fission podcast and I’m very delighted to be part of this today.

Mark Hinaman (02:34)
Yeah, Florencia reached out to me on LinkedIn. And I was just perusing through your background. And was like, I got to learn about this person. Let’s let’s get around the podcast. So I’m excited to hear about your background and all the work that you’ve done. You’ve been pretty active in I guess in the industry, do you want to kind of just walk me through? Let’s start with your education. I guess what would you study? You know, your PhD? Like, what? Yeah, what’d you study?

Florencia Renteria (03:03)
Yeah, well definitely I have several experiences in studying. I try to learn and to continue preparing because this is a long journey. Though we reached a certain stage in the educational career, we always need to keep updating ourselves. So I have a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in Mexico. I graduated in 2016.

at Instituto Tecnologico de la Laguna. I’m from the north of Mexico, from Torreón City. And after that, I continued my master’s degree in nuclear power plant engineering in South Korea. That was from 2017 to 2019 at KEPCO International Nuclear Graduate School. It’s well known as KINGS. It’s like a kind of private educational center, well recognized in the nuclear industry.

And I completed recently my PhD in nuclear science and technology in China at Harvard Engineering University in the specialty of advanced reactor physics. I was working in the developers team of high fidelity neutron transport code. I did some research about supercomputing and the utility infrastructure for the nuclear industry. And I like to keep myself active. I think it’s a good way also to engage in the community.

Mark Hinaman (04:23)
Yeah, no, that’s really impressive. mean, it was the studying in Korea and China in English.

Florencia Renteria (04:31)
Yeah, both were in English, both were affiliated to the IE Technical Cooperation Fellowship programs. Normally the agency provides a series of trainings for different member states where the countries have the opportunity to nominate their personnel or candidates that they profile according to the needs of the country or even beyond. And this is how I got to get more about the…

training programs in South Korea and China. I was nominated by the Mexican government in both occasions and it was a great opportunity because you know like you get exposed to the international environment with fellows from different countries. The program mainly was in English but you also need to learn the culture from different countries, mean someone from the African region, Middle East, European region and so on.

And it helps you to understand, think, a holistic perspective, the point of view from the global landscape.

Mark Hinaman (05:29)
Yeah, awesome. Why did you pick Korea and then China?

Florencia Renteria (05:33)
Well, both countries were selected by the agency. The agency normally signs a cooperation of an MOU or cooperation of agreement with a specific country and they look for the training center in that case. They appointed South Korea in that particular case and China as well. And as you see, most of the innovation trends or maybe the active zones in the nuclear industry are the Asia and the Pacific region.

So it’s also a good experience to get the exposition to the industry there and also bring different immersive practices to the Western culture as well.

Mark Hinaman (06:13)
I’m curious about China and your experience there. They’re doing some really awesome stuff. just was at a conference in Prague and a lot of the presenters and technical content was presented from Chinese and Japanese and Koreans, but a lot from China. but Harbin University or the school that you went to, yeah, was well represented there.

Tell me about it. What was it like? mean, do you feel like the I imagine you’re proud of your school and where you got your PhD, but do you think that the quality of the school and research like I was really impressed with it? I don’t know. Tell me a little bit about the school.

Florencia Renteria (06:59)
Well, I can tell you that, of course, the university has its own repetition, but also the students, they provide their knowledge and skills to reach also part of the umbrella of education within the program. I can tell you that sometimes it’s challenging to cope with a certain culture because coming from the Western culture, though it’s Asian region, every country thinks in a different perspective.

And when you find out the opportunity, if they give you the chance to innovate or to provide different perspectives, it’s very enrichable in that aspect of the research level. Sometimes, of course, you face a lot of communication challenges, cultural part, and not only in the technical aspect, but it helps you to negotiate, let’s say, in those terms, like what do you need to do?

what they need you to do as well and just try to come up with this balance point to leverage the capabilities. The university is very large in several applications of technology, of course. It’s one of the well -recognized campus in the Asian region. And I can say that it was very helpful, the experience there, to know the culture as well, to know the technique of how they teach, how they learn.

and how they transfer the knowledge from generation to generation. But of course, every university also they have their strengths and also their weakness points. So integrating the culture is one of the aspects it should work more because when you have the perspectives of different students around the world, you will face a lot of challenges when you want to do a project like team project. Everyone has his own opinions and

merging the, I don’t know, five or six people’s opinion is challenging. But I can tell you that Chinese are accelerating a lot, the human development capability and also other countries are not being behind. mean, you see Japan, you also see Korea. I mean, many of these experts are also migrating to other European countries or even America in the American region. And I think we will see more of this culture integration in the future.

Mark Hinaman (09:16)
Yeah. You’ve been involved with a lot of different projects and roles and I think you’ve got like 36 experience pieces on your LinkedIn. It’s a lot, right? And like, it’s just been going to school. Like, tell me about how you get involved in so many different things and how do you juggle all of

Florencia Renteria (09:37)
Well, I can tell you sometimes some opportunities came without asking, you know, like they see you that you’re capable of doing things and

I’ve been doing several things in parallel, can tell you, sometimes it’s not easy, but it’s a way also of constructing and engaging to different communities. Just for instance, when I was in, well, I’m now serving as scientific advisor to the WING Global Young Generation Community through the WINGI, Women in Nuclear Innovation Group of Expertise of WING Global. And this role is very helpful because

We are trying also to build different connections and relations and training relationship programs with the young generation because it’s about accelerating the human development capability. And I’m very happy to develop this role because we’ve been implementing several things in the community that I’m very proud of it. And I hope that we continue enlarging the capabilities like.

roadmap development, career roadmap development activities. We recently finished one of the webinar series promoting different activities for the MRD Sklodowska Career Fellowship applicants who are aspirants for this year at the IE fellowship program. And I’ve been also involved in some technical program conferences, which I’m very proud of it because it means that

they require expertise. And it’s also an opportunity to pull other people, mean, also to empower others at certain level of roles because it’s going to be helpful, know, once you start with someone, that people will do the domino effect and it will pull some others to the same pool of opportunities too.

Mark Hinaman (11:19)
I love that attitude. That’s awesome. Yeah, it compounds and builds, doesn’t it? Tell me about Women in Nuclear. What is this organization and what’s the Innovation Working Group?

Florencia Renteria (11:25)
Yes.

So the Innovation Working Group, it was created in 2021 in September through an initiative of WING Global under the World Nuclear Association partnership with the Director General, Zemma Bilbao -Ileon. She is our godmother of the group. And the group mainly focuses in creating group of multidisciplinary experts within the members of WING Global. And the initiative,

Initial mission is to promote innovation in nuclear as a key driver for sustainable and in our future for women and have a key role in the development of initiative and inclusive solutions. So we normally enlarge the capabilities, for example, of training, I don’t know, like how to expand nuclear power programs or how to integrate different technologies like nuclear fission and so on. So we, I can tell you that we are a very flexible group of women in the industry.

and we like to cooperate along the way. I mean, we have members from the USA, we have people now from Canada, European region, our main leader, I’m acting as a co -leader, but our main leader now in the group, she’s from China. So we are like a very diverse group and we just like to combine the thoughts together and make it happen. Last, I think, sorry, no, in June, had the Global Forum for Nuclear Innovation in Miami.

where we had the opportunity to participate some of the group members. And it was a great experience. This event was co -organized with EPRI, the IEA, some of the partners of the NEA and so on. So this event was magnificent because we were able to merge thoughts and transform ambitions into actions and at least find a common path for keep developing the industry.

Mark Hinaman (13:21)
That’s super cool. How did you get involved with IAEA?

Florencia Renteria (13:30)
Well, as I mentioned to you through the Technical Cooperation Fellowship programs, it’s been a great experience because sometimes, of course, you’re in your country, you have your own views, but sometimes we don’t think too much about living in our country and experience a different culture. And the training has been very useful as well to understand.

the perspectives of different countries. And it was through the government when they find different candidates, they nominate them through the agency. And of course, when you complete the training or if you want to get admitted to these two universities or schools I mentioned to you, you always have to comply the process for admission. And luckily I was admitted, then I was granted with a fellowship program because that is one of the conditions to receive the fellowship program.

And this year I terminated a short consultancy contract within the agency’s umbrellas project. And I think it’s very helpful because now you’re able to compile the ideas that you work for a couple of years outside your landscape and then maybe you can provide some feedback to the decision makers. And it helps at least to recognize several technological and integration capabilities that we need to accelerate for the future.

Mark Hinaman (14:45)
What kind of projects were you working on for that contract?

Florencia Renteria (14:49)
In the contract I was working in the nuclear fuel cycle and material section and I was working in the organization of one of the conferences of the IEA. They provided a isospin fuel management conference. They organized it every four years and it was this time in a short consultancy contract but I also tried to provide recommendations to the technical cooperation department.

not to limit myself, but at least to extend the opportunities and different capabilities. And of course, it depends on the environment that they allow you to work as well.

Mark Hinaman (15:27)
Yeah. Can you talk about Mozzuoli?

Florencia Renteria (15:32)
Moswelli came when I was in China. It was an opportunity given by the CEO, Dr. Trevor Dudley. I arrived in China when it was September 2019. No one predicted the COVID -19. No one ever thought about it. And I had to.

Mark Hinaman (15:48)
What a time to be arriving in China. Man, I hadn’t put that together yet. What an experience.

Florencia Renteria (15:53)
I think –

I think no one predicted that and I never thought myself to be probably in isolation for half a year, I can tell you, the university campus. And I think there was a, I had plenty of time to do several activities online and so on. And this is how I got to know, I got to know Dr. Trevor Dudley through LinkedIn profiles and other activities as well. And he offered me the opportunity to join as a technical advisor

providing different recommendations or opportunities. And this is how I learned that the hybrid work or the remote work helps because I never thought myself, I was in China and then I was joined to some sessions with the South African team at the same time and then you are experiencing different environment, the culture and how to share different experiences. And I really value that opportunity very much because

Not only it gives you how to connect experience from China, but also what is going to happen in the next years, for example, in the African region. So I still keep the connection with the Muswili team and I feel very proud of the activities that they are developing in South Africa and even in the African region because their operations are growing there.

Mark Hinaman (17:16)
for folks that are unfamiliar, what is Mozzuoli and what are they working on?

Florencia Renteria (17:21)
So Masweli is a nuclear engineering company. They are focusing on deploying the pebble -bath reactor technology. It’s a homemade technology as well, and it’s going to be produced in the same country and exported to different other countries like, I don’t know, like Malawi. They are negotiating with other African regions as well, Mozambique, to comply the decarbonization goal in the African region.

And the Muswili team offers different sorts of packages or tools for the nuclear industry as well. And it’s one of the private companies that is helping the nuclear sector to grow in the African region.

Mark Hinaman (18:02)
Tell me about the Pebblebed reactor, this high -temperature reactor. Yeah, I guess you’re working and providing some consulting services about it, but high -temperature gas reactor?

Florencia Renteria (18:15)
Yeah, well, my duty now works, it works more in the human development capability. I provided before some inputs for the technical part and the design, but currently I provide more inputs in terms of courses, training, programs, or maybe how to develop different human resources and strategies for them. It depends on the needs of what is, what is the request from them, but it helps at least to integrate the technical part.

with the future direction of the development or if they have, I don’t know, certain projects of R &D like hydrogen production and so on. So it varies a lot, not only in the reactor technology aspects.

Mark Hinaman (18:56)
Florence, yeah, you’ve been on like a lot of youth panels and, chair of like technical program, for the international youth nuclear Congress. what, what was that like?

Florencia Renteria (19:09)
So for the IYNC community, I had the chance to participate before in two congresses in 2018 and 2022 in Kuriyama. It was a very useful experience, you know, because it connects you with young people that they have the same interests or the same perspectives as you, and it helps you to build the community stronger and stronger. During the last IYNC, I couldn’t attend, I mean, on site because, you know, sometimes

financial problem, budget and so on. But I was able to go through the online version. It was very helpful and I want to thank also the team because they make it to happen and other people or participants were able to join. Something that I can tell you from my experience from the last IYNC, I had the chance to submit a panel proposal.

a workshop and also present my research contributions when I was doing my PhD. And it really helps you to connect with senior people from the industry and also merge your thoughts or ideas because sometimes we have plenty of ideas but we don’t know how to ground, for example, for a panel or a workshop or what is needed for the industry or how can I organize my thoughts to make it happen.

And this was very useful, you I will encourage the young community to attend to the next IYNC 2020 Foreign UAE and Abu Dhabi. It’s going to happen this year. Specifically, also to connect with the young community and other people from the industry, like senior people. lot of the speakers will attend there. And it will be a very immersive and engaging time during the conference.

Mark Hinaman (20:51)
What kind of things will we talk about at the conference?

Florencia Renteria (20:54)
This year, focus, I think the theme of the conference was innovation as well, because without innovation, many things cannot happen. You need to integrate tools, need to integrate technology, and specifically several challenges that you see nowadays like climate change. You also need to have in mind, I don’t know, several security threats, AI and so on, how to apply all these tools, and specifically to create a conscious culture

about integrating properly the tools for the daily life.

Mark Hinaman (21:28)
awesome.

So, want to shift back to Mexico and talk a little bit about your home country. But what’s nuclear like in Mexico? There is a nuclear power plant there, right? I’m not misremembering that.

Florencia Renteria (21:40)
Yes, we have a nuclear power plant. The name is Laguna Verde. We have two BWR reactors. It was built by Hitachi back in the years. It went already through the second extending lifetime cycle of the power plants. In total, we produced around 140 electric megawatts, sorry, 1 ,400 electric megawatts. Each unit contributes around 750

electric megawatts to the grid and also the country is looking into expanding the nuclear fleet to a third unit on the same site in Laguna Verde in Veracruz. And we hope in the next couple of years we cannot only expand to one more unit, you know, even more. And I think the country is also looking into several solutions like seawater desalination because

Part of the states of the north of Mexico, they’ve been affected by the shortage of water consumption by the population. And if you don’t look in the perspective of the seawater desalination, most of the industry activities, the medical sector will be paralyzed. So it’s an imminent solution that is needed for the future, not only for the short term, but also for the long term sustainability of the country.

And of course, mean, every sector in every country works differently, but the nuclear industry in Mexico, have a well -experienced and equipped professionals in universities as well. They are upgrading their curriculum program and also motivating people to join to the graduate school, to expand to different internship programs as well. And we hope to see a large boom in the next years in the nuclear industry in Mexico.

Mark Hinaman (23:31)
That’s awesome. I hope you do it. Let’s go build it. Let’s build another plant in Mexico. I guess same site as the current one, but if they were to build another one, is there an area of the country that they might focus on first?

Florencia Renteria (23:39)
I’m not deaf.

Well, I think they want to build large reactors. It depends on the reactor technology they want to select.

They’ve been evaluating several choices. mean, you see different vendors from China, Korea, Russia, American vendors as well. But it depends on the needs of the country. And I think the country is open to expand the technology integration. mean, no one is married to specific technology, but it depends on the needs of the country and what are the long -term cooperation that the vendors offer to the country as well.

Mark Hinaman (24:25)
Got it. Yeah, tell me about the nuclear community in Mexico. You you’ve served as the committee member for the annual conference on the Mexican Nuclear Society. How big is this community, number of professionals or schools? Like, I just know very little about it, right? I know a lot about American Nuclear Society, ANS, right?

And a lot of the organizations in America, but I don’t know many in Mexico.

Florencia Renteria (24:57)
Well, the Mexican Nuclear Society, of course, the number of members is not the same as American Nuclear Society. Of course, ANS is larger than MNS, but the community is small but standing and is very strong in terms of cooperating and connecting through other members around, I mean, in the community and outside the community.

They’ve been engaging also with American Nuclear Society through the Latin American section of the American Nuclear Society in the past. They attend also to other activities from the global and Mexican, sorry, nuclear societies around the world. mean, it depends very largely of the activities, but the annual Congress actually this year is gonna be organized this year in Mexico in October. It’s a joint event with a

Win Global annual conference, the Winner Call chapter, and the Mexican Nuclear Society is going to be a large conference this year. We are expecting several visitors from different countries. And normally when each year is organized in Congress, the Mexican Nuclear Society is also trying to arrange sessions with international experts as well to provide different perspectives of the community.

And something that I can tell you that the community also works on is engaging students from different educational institutions of the country. So they have a specific program for students to participate in the annual congress. And you see like when you attend to the congresses, you see that the students, they provide a high quality level of research and you get impressed by many of the research topics that they.

So I can tell you that it can be a small community, but it is very outstanding in that aspect.

Mark Hinaman (26:43)
you

Where is that conference going to be?

Florencia Renteria (26:51)
In Mexico City. It’s going to be in Mexico City. If I’m not mistaken, it’s in the last week of October. And they are going to organize some technical visits as well to Laguna Verde, to the power plant, and also to the research centers or facilities in Mexico. It will be a great opportunity to know more about the sector.

Mark Hinaman (26:54)
Okay.

Tell me about your studies a little bit. What kind of research and work did you do both in Korea and for your PhD?

Florencia Renteria (27:21)
So during my master’s degree time in South Korea, I participated in the design of one of the nuclear reactors that is still under development. The name is iPower.

Mark Hinaman (27:33)
So the Florencia China has a high temperature gas reactor, right? What is this? mean, it’s similar to like X energies design and what Maswelli is working on. Yeah. Do you know much about it? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Florencia Renteria (27:46)
Yes, So of course every HTGR has its own characteristics but they have some similarities in the system. What I can really tell you that Chinese have been advancing in the development and deployment of the HTGR in Xinhua University. They have two reactor units for this. Externally in the United States they have been accelerating some specific steps in the technology. But the fuel technology integration is quite similar.

In Mosweli, of course, you know that some information is confidential, but it helps to understand probably the technology development. But South Africans are putting a lot of effort because that technology originated also in some regions of the, I mean, back, a couple of years back in South Africa, they were running a huge project to develop the HGTR reactor, but unfortunately,

This technology was not able to deploy in the South African region, so this project has to migrate through Xenergy and other start -up companies in the US. But I hope that the extension of the HGTR technology in South Africa revives again and many other reactor units will be built in the future.

Mark Hinaman (29:07)
Yeah, I’m a big fan of the technology. I really like the positive characteristics of it or that some of the characteristics, right, like doesn’t need water, you’ve got high, super high temperature. The exhaust streams as the power cycle still has useful heat that you can use for other industrial processes. Like there’s just a lot of cool things about it. So

Florencia Renteria (29:19)
Yes.

Definitely. It really helps.

Mark Hinaman (29:33)
Talk to us about Women in Nuclear. mean, I know you mentioned it a little bit, but what is the Women in Nuclear organization and do you see more women entering the field in the future?

Florencia Renteria (29:45)
Definitely. know, Women in Nuclear has been an organization that has been in the industry for about 32 years. They’ve been enlarging and promoting more women in the nuclear industry to join several leadership positions as well, engaging the community in terms of the mentoring and knowledge transfer experience. Indeed, we will have more women joining the community, but we also need men, the expertise of both genders.

and providing these adversity community strategies because at the end of the day you need the ability and the capability of people and their talents. It’s not a matter of gender, it’s a matter of looking at people’s capability in the future to comply the roles and everyone who is purely engaged in the industry and they want to transition into different stages you know because we need this continuous evolution in the nuclear industry.

Mark Hinaman (30:39)
Absolutely. What’s the most impactful step that we can take to build more nuclear and how can people help?

Florencia Renteria (30:46)
Well, I think we need to look at different perspectives from time to time. A lot of the impactful steps and how can people help is, first we need to accelerate the training program and the capabilities of people in the nuclear industry because when you have this high skill force complying the needs of the industry, we need them.

of course, once you train them, you send them to a graduate program, you need to allocate them in the place that you need them, because this is a systematic chain of expanding people’s capabilities. And specifically to promote these active roles in the community, advocating for nuclear industry, promoting nuclear education outside the community, and then to find out which partners we need for the coming years and even for the coming years.

how to develop these holistic strategies and to support the technology integration and innovation specifically for R &D investments, collaborative innovation hubs, and then you see like in the Kenya region they are doing a lot of energy hubs distribution. So we may need that to replicate those models in other regions of the world because I mean, it’s specifically for the, if we wanna develop more small modular reactors, advanced fuel cycles or waste management technology.

We need them in that part of the umbrella and to foster the culture of continuous learning innovation, you know, because without innovation, without technology, many things cannot happen. And of course, to engage in this cross -sector collaboration in the public and private partnerships and the interdisciplinary partnerships, because we cannot do this alone. And we need more partners to integrate several services.

Mark Hinaman (32:31)
That’s, I couldn’t agree more. Absolutely. Yeah, we gotta, we need all the help we can get. So, Florence, yeah, leave us with your most positive vision of the future. What’s, what’s the world gonna be like in 10 and 20 years and how are we gonna help get it through?

Florencia Renteria (32:55)
I think the future is ambitious because it’s bright and in a world where nuclear technology powers not just our homes but also our industries, our economies, supercomputing technologies and our efforts to combat climate change. And we will have to this legacy of sustainability, innovation and global cooperation. By working together, we have to ensure that the nuclear energy is a cornerstone

cleaner, safer and more prosperous world for all. I think some people have been demystifying or giving a bad reputation to the retiring lady, but it’s been for a long years in the past and in the present and it will continue in the future and we need to the right stage to the main actor and to provide visibility that is going to bring us for the best in the future.

Thank you.

No, it’s right, it’s right. think the artist is difficult to pronounce in Spanish. So it’s fine, don’t worry.

Mark Hinaman (33:54)
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s… thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. been fun to chat with you.

Florencia Renteria (34:00)
Thanks to you for the kind invitation and I’m very happy to participate and thanks for reaching out to me and for connecting. I never expected to participate in this program. Thanks a lot.

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