Bringing the eVinci Micro Reactor to Saskatchewan
27 November 2023 marked the culmination of three years’ creative and ultimately successful endeavour by Portolan Global Inc. to bring the Westinghouse eVinci Micro Reactor to its first commercial customer anywhere in the world. It was the day on which the eVinci nuclear battery came to Canada. Perhaps surprising to many, the announcement came from the province of Saskatchewan – and the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC).
Government of Saskatchewan Funds Microreactor Research | News and Media | Government of Saskatchewan First Canadian eVinci™ Microreactor Targeted for Saskatchewan (westinghousenuclear.com)
This is a huge step forward for micro nuclear reactors and SMRs worldwide. And I can testify from first-hand experience in occupying a ringside seat throughout the three years, it came to fruition thanks to the perseverance, faith, creativity and initiative of a handful of people – led by Eddie Saab, President, Westinghouse Canada.
As President, Portolan Global Inc., I am proud to have played a central consultancy role, providing advice to Eddie and to the larger Westinghouse company on Government Relations and Strategy for the Canadian market in nuclear new build.
How did it happen? Let me take you back three years ago whe it all started.
The first time I saw the design of this little machine, I was star struck by it. Back then, it was stuck away in a corner of the Westinghouse HQ just outside of Pittsburgh. I remember being fascinated listening to the small team of eVinci engineers, headed by Jurie van Wijk.
It seemed almost too good to be true. From the outside – elegant, compact, small size (fits on as large flatbed truck), transportable, with heat exchanger integrated into the unit. Sits on a concrete slab (not digging into the ground or permafrost), arrives at site fuelled and ready-to-go. Ready to churn out eight years of clean electricity and heat daily at 5 MWe (13 MWth).
And all this on a total footprint of 2/3rds of a hockey rink! Something that most Canadians can easily visualize!
But it was the “internals” that completely swayed me. The eVinci uses heat-pipe technology developed first at Los Alamos National Laboratory and used by NASA on its spacecraft. Jurie and others at Westinghouse scaled up the technology, adding to it along the way. The upshot is a micro-sized nuclear reactor that functions similar to any common battery – you pull energy out when you need it; otherwise it stays in and at the ready.
More importantly, the fit for Canadian needs is absolutely compelling. The eVinci contains no liquids so it can’t leak into the water table, the soil or atmosphere. It uses an ultrasafe and proliferation-proof uranium fuel called Triso. Moreover, the eVinci can’t melt down; it’s internal chemistry is such that the reaction cancels if temperatures climb beyond the safety point.
For Canadian communities – just think: no legacy residual contamination or health hazards. The eVinci and its fuel are removed in their entirety once the community or mine or industrial user is done. Nothing left on site.
After admiring the machine’s attributes, my imagination took over.
We could construct an eVinci in Canada to be the first of a kind (FOAK). We could demonstrate how the machine works, how it can support mining operations or be integral to a renewable micro-grid or become the life-saving source of reliable clean power to remote communities – or power data centres wherever in Canada, help large electricity users crush their carbon emissions, reinforce weak grid lines so that more people in rural areas have the electricity they need for modern life and economic progress.
We could demonstrate all these attributes and applications right here in Canada – and invite the rest of the world to come and see it. Here at home, Indigenous leaders could see the eVinci up close and be confident of its safe, simple, reliable functioning.
Over the past three years, what has struck me is the growing interest and excitement in the eVinci Micro Reactor from almost all quarters - utilities, northern communities, mining companies, universities, as well as federal and provincial governments, political leaders and bureaucracies.
The path from concept to the actual Saskatchewan announcement, however, was arduous and relied on personal relationships and stubborn refusal of a few not to give up. We who were trying to push forward the eVinci in Canada soon found that no potential customer, no matter how enthused over eVinci, was willing to go first. They wanted to wait and see it land somewhere before queuing up.
Nobody willing to take the initiative to host the first eVinci Micro Reactor – except one.
Just over three years ago, after I had stepped down as President & CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) and formed my own consultancy company (Portolan Global Inc.), I found myself in conversation with my former boss at the Privy Council Office (PCO) in the Canadian government. Dale Eisler had returned to Saskatchewan after retirement from the government and was now connected with the University of Regina’s President’s Office.
Dale told me the Vice-President (Science & Research), Kathy MacNutt, was keen on establishing the University as a hub for nuclear energy research and engineering, in anticipation of SaskPower's interest in acquiring grid-scale SMRs to replace fossil fuels for electricity generation – sometime in the early 2030s.
This, I thought, was a job for Portolan Global Inc. So, I leapt in. Thanks to Dale's intervention, I connected with Kathy. Together we discussed her vision, and I designed the outlines of how the University of Regina could become Western Canada’s hub for power reactor research & engineering – and, importantly, for operational capacity-building in Saskatchewan. I talked to her about eVinci, SMRs and large nuclear. But she was especially intrigued by eVinci and suggested I talk to Mike Crabtree at the Saskatchewan Research Council, since the SRC had operated a Canadian-build “Slowpoke” research reactor until recently.
Turned out that Mike Crabtree was the exception we’d been looking for. His enthusiasm for the eVinci was immediate. He saw right away how an eVinci could support SRC's mandate - to prove out technologies for industrial and commercial purposes. And he was bound and determined to get one for SRC.
Thus began the three-year journey leading up to the 27 November announcement. It was filled with discussion, planning, convincing, despair, setbacks, progress – we went through it all. Lots of work with politicians and government leaders, lots of federal-provincial considerations.
Meanwhile, technical design and engineering work on eVinci has been moving ahead in Westinghouse – both in the US and Canada. Components of the first demonstration machine are already being manufactured and tested at Westinghouse facilities in Burlington and Peterborough, Ontario.
Hats off especially to Mike Crabtree at SRC. He is the driving force on the customer side – essential in making vision a reality – the original “first mover”, bringing the eVinci to Saskatchewan.
And special kudos to my Westinghouse Canada friends (Eddie Saab, Michael Valore, Agata Leszkiewicz) who powered it through from the company side. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7134932859814903808?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7134932859814903808%29
There’s more to the story that I’ve described here.
For example, the equally arduous pathway to getting a Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) award of $27 million from the federal ministry of Innovation, Science & Economic Development (ISED). Some thought we would never be successful in securing this award – which is a cost-sharing program to advance the R & D leading to commercialization of a clean technology such as the eVinci Micro Reactor. We managed it anyway.
I am proud that, through Portolan Global Inc., I could play a leading consulting role in getting the SIF award to help progress the eVinci in Canada – and then to help steer the eVinci through the hoops and over the barriers along the way to the first finish line: a customer (with provincial backing) for the first commercial eVinci Micro Reactor in Canada.
This is just the first chapter in the Canadian eVinci story. There will be more to come…..for sure.
]]>[Official banner of the Amended Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials (A/CPPNM) - reproduced courtesy of the IAEA]
In two weeks’ time, UN member states will gather in Vienna to review the only international legal instrument dealing with the security and protection of civil nuclear power plants and radiological devices. It’s called the Amended Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials – or A/CPPNM/A. (28 March–1 April 2022)
It couldn’t come at a better – or a worse – time, depending on how you see the importance and relevance of this convention, whose objective is to commit states to ensure their civil nuclear materials and operations are defended against sabotage, criminal malfeasance, or terrorist attack.
It is the worst time – because such criminal attack is taking place right now by Russian military forces in Ukraine. And the fact that Russia is a party to the A/CPPNM, as is Ukraine, shows the weakness of this instrument in preventing its targeting of nuclear sites and threatening deliberate release of radioactive materials on the Ukrainian population.
It is the best time – because it’s a near-term opportunity for the international community to express collectively its outrage at Russia’s deliberate assault on Ukraine’s nuclear power installations and its blatant disregard for legally binding obligations prohibiting such behaviour.
Beyond expressing outrage at an indifferent Russia, what else can the Review Conference do to shore up the security of nuclear installations and operations in countries that use nuclear technology for power and for medical treatments?
I’m afraid there’s not much if you are expecting the A/CPPNM Review Conference to put an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine or its threats to destroy Ukraine’s nuclear reactors. Treaties can’t stop a state’s determination to break taboos and legal commitments. It’s up to other states to do that.
However, security-related conventions, treaties and commitments do a couple of things which the world cannot simply let drop or consign to irrelevance. Whether they be arms control agreements, politically binding documents, international rules and regulations to govern states’ conduct with respect to weapons technologies or curbs on large-scale military manoeuvres – these combine to produce expected behaviours that, if complied with by states, increase security collectively as well as nationally.
In short – they build confidence that threats to national and international security are managed and mitigated.
In times of stress – such as today – it is vital to keep intact the building blocks of such confidence, especially when someone is taking a hammer to the house. It is in our national and collective interest to retrench and rebuild the strength, resilience and effectiveness of our international security instruments.
Among such building blocks is the ensemble of norms, obligations and actions to protect the security of nuclear installations, as codified in the A/CPPNM. We therefore must use the Review Conference to strengthen the convention’s implementation and effectiveness. Put another way: are there mechanisms we can use to help assure each state party to the convention that others are complying with its provisions?
This brings us to peer reviews and international assurances.
A peer review mechanism uses impartial, technically expert teams to visit, review, provide feedback and report on a country’s A/CPPNM implementation. (The IAEA offers peer reviews in the form of International Physical Protection Advisory Services (IPPAS).) Such visits are designed as non-confrontational: they are not judgmental or accusatory. Rather, in a collaborative spirit, they help identify gaps or areas for improvement in a country’s procedures, policies, laws, regulations governing nuclear security.
By helping a country enhance its nuclear security capabilities, the peer review mechanism contributes to assuring others that the A/CPPNM is being effectively implemented. This, in turn, builds confidence and security. A virtuous circle.
We should therefore focus at the Review Conference on enhancing the peer review mechanism and providing capacity-building assistance for those countries needing a hand in improving their nuclear security capabilities. The involvement and support of industry in particular would be welcome, given its role in the implementation of security for power sites as well as for the distribution and use of radiological devices (e.g., medical, industrial).
Over the past years I have been involved in efforts to develop the industry-international governance nexus in strengthening nuclear security, safety, non-proliferation – as a member of the board of the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) in Vienna and as a participant in the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative’s “Global Dialogue on Nuclear Security”. Where possible, I seek to utilize my experience as the former Canadian Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (and chair of its Board of Governors) and as the former President & CEO of the industry-based Canadian Nuclear Association.
Today, it is the industry-international governance nexus that has a particular importance in building nuclear security compliance and confidence-building. [See my previous blogs: The IAEA’s Newly Created “Group of Vienna” and International Diplomacy & the Nuclear Industry: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle.] It is here that the concept of peer reviews finds its best place for further development. And it is here that we can help raise the standard for “effective CPPNM/A implementation” and thereby create greater security for all.
For an NTI Global Dialogue meeting held in the run-up to the A/CPPNM Review Conference, I was asked to prepare and present a paper on “Peer Reviews and International Assurances”.
The paper is posted here.
I hope you have time for a read of the paper. If you don't have time, here are the slides I used in presenting the key points.
]]>
Critical Minerals: A 360-degree perspective beats speculation
What happens if you don’t see clearly the connections between things and fail to connect the dots to reality?
If you’re a mapmaker, the result can be unintended errors of leading unsuspecting mariners into danger and possible death. If you don’t know what lies out there, should you just leave the map blank – or draw something in on speculation alone?
If you’re a climate and energy policymaker, you create supply chaos and dashed expectations, having touted an outcome without taking into account geo-political and international reality. At best, it’s laughable naiveté; at worst, it’s conning your fellow citizens through false advertising.
Take this 1754 map by a German geographer, Gerhard Müller, working at the Russian Imperial Academy in the mid-1700s. The London mapmaker Robert Sayer translated and published it in 1775 as The Russian Discoveries of the Map Published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg (see above).
Müller wanted to set the record straight about the new discoveries made by Russian explorations in the Northeast Asian region – and across the Sea of Kamchatka, the Straits of Anian (Bering Strait), and Alaska and the Aleutian Islands (as they were later identified).
Müller used information from the Bering voyages and other accounts by Russian mariners – information that was sketchy at best, particularly regarding the Northwest coast of America, its shape, size and geographic orientation.
He was certain that Bering (who died on the return leg of his journey) had reached the coast of America. And he knew from the expedition reports that there were islands in-between, one of which might be “Alaschka”. So how to draw this cartographically?
What Müller came up with in his influential 1754 map of the region was a large turtle-headed peninsula connected to the North American continent. It’s hard to see how any of this relates to our modern view of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and their location.
For two decades or so thereafter – until the third voyage of Captain James Cook in the late 1770s – the turtle-headed depiction remained in vogue and copied by other cartographers. One can only imagine the frustration of any sailor or navigator trying to find their way through the North Pacific on the basis of maps such as this. (Cook had a copy of the Müller map with him as he surveyed the “real” coast.)
Yet Müller had a redeeming side to his speculation. He drew the shape with dotted lines, a device used by cartographers of the period to show that they weren’t sure at all about what they were putting on the map. He later warned against placing too much trust in the accuracy of his map: “My work herein has been no more than to connect together, according to probability, by points, the coast that had been seen in various places.”
Honest about it, at least. But that didn’t stop people from taking his map as an accurate reflection of reality. Much to their later chagrin.
The trouble was that Müller speculated on the basis of what little information was available -- and people took it for reality.
Could the same thing happen today in our climate and energy policies? Could we essentially be speculating about a desired policy outcome, while lacking the imagination to see its weaknesses and impracticability? Or an alternative?
There’s been an example recently of a “seizing of imagination”. Although this pertains to Canada's critical minerals and metals policy, there is a fundamental interconnection between industry, climate, and energy. And a lesson to be learned.
Driven by influential renewable advocates, the Canadian government has been consumed of late by “critical minerals” – especially those needed in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
Enabling growth in EV use in Canada has become a leading ingredient in the government’s climate change and industry policies. Having EVs means fewer carbon emissions, therefore it's good for the climate. Mining the minerals and producing the batteries for EVs means “climate leadership” (virtuous) plus countless (because nobody knows) green jobs.
However, they forgot one thing. As Brendan Marshall points out in his splendid CGAI policy brief, Canada has all the predominant EV battery minerals. However: “Possessing battery minerals and metals does not equate to having value-added battery-grade materials.” Building Supply Chain Resiliency of Critical Minerals - Canadian Global Affairs Institute (cgai.ca)
So who does? Well, China, which owns roughly 70% of global battery-grade material manufacturing capacity, therefore “making Canada (and much of the rest of the world) reliant on that country for these materials”.
There’s an analogy here with solar panels. Many people are keen on solar panels (myself included). However, one has to ask: where are the components obtained? Who benefits economically from the solar panel market? Where is the value-added produced? Certainly not here in Canada.
Lobbyists appear to have sold the government on the vision of Canada leading the world in EV manufacture because we have deposits of the requisite minerals and metals. But that is speculation, not fact. As Marshall points out, Canada faces a considerable supply chain risk with EV battery minerals and components.
In short: the vision does not accord with the reality of EV battery production. A little geo-political and mineral processing imagination would have seen this risk in advance.
It's not all doom and gloom, however. Marshall notes that large percentages of Canadian nickel and cobalt (which make up 60-80% of the material in current EV battery designs) are mined at diesel-reliant off-grid mines.
But here’s the rub. Canadian climate change policy is directed against diesel-fuelled energy production. However, Canada’s advantage in having EV-battery minerals is jeopardized if mining operations are using diesel.
Given that most of new critical mineral deposits are located in off-grid regions, there is a contradiction – the minerals needed by EVs to reduce fossil fuel use are produced by mines using fossil fuels.
Unless, of course, there would be an alternative. To find it, imagination must replace speculation.
Imagine a small nuclear battery powering off-grid mining operations. Wouldn’t this source of emissions-free power help produce cleanly the critical minerals needed by our climate policy? Wouldn’t an energy policy supporting such small reactors align very nicely with the government’s industry and climate goals?
As Marshall says: “One of the greatest climate actions Canada can take in support of Paris Accord objectives is to maximize domestic production of low-carbon metals and materials needed to meet projected clean technology demand.”
All true. Especially if the domestic production is powered with clean heat and electricity, no matter where such operations may be located.
Nuclear technology can help here. But only if one’s feet are planted on reality and imagination replaces speculation.
If not, our critical minerals policies will stay turtle-headed.
]]>Less fantasy, more imagination please
When we think of clean electricity, most of us have an image in our minds of hydro poles and transmissions lines. We see in our mind’s eye large steel skeletons, like alien space robots, carrying cables through forests and farmlands, over hills and across valleys – bringing energy to towns and cities.
Some of us see networks of high voltage towers, like some vast nerve network, bringing charged electrons to our doors.
Or you can view the electricity generation, transmission and distribution system like fast-flowing rivers, communication arteries along which electrons flow – as mariners and explorers do when seeking to reach distant destinations.
Much as depicted on old maps, for example. Such as the 1597 map (shown above) by Cornelis Van Wytfliet, Nova Francia Et Canada. This was the first printed map to use CANADA in its title and the first to focus on the St. Lawrence River region. It pre-dates the voyages of Samuel de Champlain.
As you can see, there’s lots of imagination shown here. Wytfliet is bridging the unknown with the partially known. His cartographic style is partly Ptolemaic (Ptolemy had no idea there was an American continent), partly Mercator (whose seminal 1569 world map incorporated the travels of Jacques Cartier and other early French explorers), and partly, well, his own fantasy of what might or could be there.
Of particular interest are the many large rivers branching off from the St. Lawrence – the relatively huge and complex Saguenay River; another fat river (Ottawa River?) partially obscured just west of the settlement of Hochelega (Montréal) just beside “Nova Francia”; and a Newfoundland (Terra de Bacallaos – land of cod) fractured into smaller islands.
In short, a mariner’s – or in modern terms, a communicator’s – projection of what the world may be like, allowing for transmission of people, boats, information, even energy along a navigable route.
Analogous, I would suggest, how we might view electricity flows today. Similar to Van Wytfliet, we need to use imagination to see in our minds what a carbon-free or low-emission electricity system would look like.
In fact, there’s no shortage of imagination out there these days on what a decarbonized Canada would look like – let alone how we would build the clean energy system to make it work. Many environmental advocates are imagining fully renewable energy grids with seemingly only a passing connection with engineering reality.
Maybe, like Wytfliet, we have to marry our aspirations with reality. If we intend to use clean electricity technologies to reach our decarbonized climate goals, we’d better have more reality than fantasy to guide us.
Here we use imagination in energy policy NOT to drive more fantasy but to discover what parts of reality our preferred ideas and aspirations may be missing. We need to imagine – and find, if possible – the evaluation basis, the benchmark, that will give credibility to our clean technology maps.
How might this be done? A simple but cogent formula is offered by Blake Shaffer and Jason Dion in Policy Options (January 14, 2022) Building on Canada’s electrical advantage (irpp.org)
First, you start with a carbon price that will rise – as the Canadian government has pledged – to $170 tonne by 2030. Then, you add the 2035 net-zero target for the electricity sector set by the government.
To meet such ambitious goals, the authors propose a clean electricity performance standard.
This would “set a limit on the emissions intensity of all newly constructed generation facilities. The level would be set lower than that of unabated natural gas (to rule out construction of new gas capacity) but leave room for near-zero technology, such as carbon capture or certain forms of hydrogen.”
Good imagination so far – but not as open-minded and ranging as we would like to see. For they neglected to include or cite clean/low-emission nuclear power generation.
The authors continue: “Second, the clean electricity standard could rachet down such that by 2035 all new and existing facilities would need to be net-zero.”
Further, we would also need to have “non-emitting sources of dispatchable, or ‘on-demand’ generation and other types of flexibility that can help to manage the variability of renewables…”
Wouldn’t advanced nuclear power generation, using SMR technologies, fulfil the role of managing the variability of renewables?
Establishing performance standards with respect to the emission intensity of power plants is indeed key. However, the authors have overlooked another key element: the density of the low-emission power being generated and the capacity factor (ability to generate low-emission electricity reliably day-to-day, hour-to-hour).
This is the performance Achilles heel of many renewable generating sources (excluding perhaps hydro). Installed capacity of such sources may be theoretically X Megawatts electric. But their actual hour-to-hour generation (i.e., performance) is sporadic, mentioned only in passing as “variability of renewables”.
However, if you want the significant and increasing amounts of low-emission electricity to displace gas-fired generation, capacity factors and power density become crucial.
Still, there’s some good imagination in their approach. Yes, set an increasing price on carbon through legislation, so that everyone sees the increases coming. Yes, set performance stands for the emission intensity of power plants.
But, if you want to really drive carbon-emissions reductions (and use market initiatives to lead the way), then let’s expand our imagination. Include nuclear energy among the required low-carbon generating sources. See it as a means of plugging the gap created by the variability of renewables. Put nuclear and renewables together in a hybrid or smart grid, instead.
Above all, use imagination to get past seeing electricity generation as a contest between fossil fuels and renewables.
We would then see the rivers of low-carbon electricity flowing more realistically, based on performance standards, taking us to our net-zero destination.
Message to climate and energy policymakers: less fantasy, more imagination. Please.
]]>
“Do No Significant Harm” – and nuclear energy doesn’t
In 1708 a letter from a mysterious Admiral de Fonte appeared in an English periodical. In it, he describes his “discovery” in 1640 of the Northwest Passage via the northwest coast of America. At first this account was largely ignored. But in the 1740s and 1750s it gained attention as proof that a navigable passage from Pacific to Atlantic existed.
Mapmakers didn’t know what to do. Some rejected the story out of hand as a fabrication. Others, however, thought there could be a grain or two of truth to it – and began to “translate” the Admiral’s journey and discoveries into their maps of the Pacific Northwest.
Among the mapmakers who entirely bought the de Fonte story was J.N. De Lisle, a Frenchman who returned to France after twenty years at the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was accused of purloining information from the First and Second Kamchatka Expeditions of Vitus Bering, which had reached the west coast of America from Russia.
In 1750, he startled the French scientific establishment by presenting a map to the Royal Academy that integrated the Russian cartographical data with his own interpretation of the de Fonte “discoveries”.
The resulting cartography (originally published in 1752) is shown above in Robert Vaugondy's Carte Generale des Découvertes de l’Admiral de Fonte (1774). It launched a controversy that raged for decades, with geographers and mapmakers in France and far beyond weighing in on one side or the other. Many scoffed. Nonetheless, the de Fonte fabrication took hold among mapmakers, even reputable ones.
As sailors and merchants and Royal Navy explorers increasingly probed the Pacific west coast, their maps often showed de Fonte’s tracks, adorned with other long-held speculations about the region – such as the “Mer de L’Ouest” (shown on the map where Oregon should be).
Very little was known at that time about the Pacific coast north of Spanish California. Any concept of Alaska or the Aleutian Islands is absent. Mountains like the Rockies don’t exist. Northeast Asia, Siberia and Kamchatka are equally peculiar in many places, though informed at least by the Bering expedition’s real discoveries.
The French cartographer, Robert Vaugondy, faithfully reproduced De Lisle’s original 1752 map. De Lisle's cartography is supplemented by an insert (top left) from another de Fonte adherent, Theodore Swaine Drage, showing his concept of the west coast between 50˚- 65˚ latitudes. (Swaine Drage was convinced of the “great probability” of a Northwest passage and served on British voyages trying to find the passage – unsuccessfully – via Hudson’s Bay!)
This De Lisle cartography shows what happens when the imagination yields to obsession. Imagination should work interactively (dialectically) with practical experience. You imagine a possibility; then proceed to seek it, test, record, and evaluate empirically.
But when fixation sets in – and belief preferences (ideology) take over – no alternatives are considered, no fresh ways of thinking, no new data received. Let’s not forget that the Admiral de Fonte fable compromised the independent thinking, and indeed the very reputations, of some of the leading cartographers of the 18th century – as the concept, the features, the place names all infected mariner’s maps and their expectations of what they’d find in exploring the Pacific Northwest of America.
How on earth (so to speak) does this get us to imagination and energy policy?
Let’s look first for fixations with respect to nuclear energy, for sometimes it seems that Admiral de Fonte is alive and well among this technology’s detractors.
The fixation is with the risk of radiological harm coming from the civil or commercial use of this technology. Of course, radiological sources can pose risk to human health and the environment if unregulated and unmitigated. Such sources can only promote human health through medical isotopes, cancer treatment, and great quantities of reliable emissions-free energy.
In the European Union, a fight is going on between those who wish to ban nuclear energy entirely and those who want to obtain its many benefits. One of the conflict points is whether nuclear energy is “sustainable” from the point of view of human health and environmental protection.
What is sustainable? How is it measured or calculated? Put in other words: when it comes to nuclear energy production, how do we evaluate radiological risk to humans and the environment?
The commonly agreed yardstick for evaluating energy production risk (not just for radioactive sources) is Do No Significant Harm (DNSH).
Why is this important? DNSH is used – by the European Commission, for example – as a key criterion in deciding whether an energy technology is sustainable (or “green”) and therefore eligible for sustainable financing and investment.
Several EU countries want to exclude nuclear energy based on the DNSH criterion. But let’s look at this by using imagination, based on actual performance and practices.
The best – and most incisive – argument against excluding nuclear technology on the DNSH criterion is by Lucid Catalyst. Assessment of the Sustainability of Nuclear Power | LucidCatalyst
All commercial nuclear activities in the EU are already regulated to Do No Significant Harm standards. That includes the complete nuclear energy lifecycle from uranium mining to waste storage. Nuclear energy production is thus enveloped in robust environmental and safety legislation and regulations, which are further supported through international reporting, guidelines and inspections.
On the basis of this performance evidence, Lucid Catalyst concludes: “The best available evidence shows clearly that under current treaties, guidelines, regulations and legislation, the nuclear energy lifecycle does not and will not cause significant harm to [non-climate-related] sustainability objectives.”
A modicum of imagination allow us to see the strength of this argument and look past fixations on radiological energy generation as inherently harmful and evil.
If, as Lucid Catalyst points out, “All commercial nuclear activities in the EU are already regulated to a ‘Do No Harm’ standard through the Laws, Regulations and Procedures of the EU and the Member States.” -- then how can one say that civil nuclear power does “significant harm”?
Of all the different sources of energy generation – fossil fuel and renewable – nuclear is in fact the one most thoroughly regulated and prevented from “doing significant harm” to citizens.
On the DNSH criterion alone, nuclear energy has the best track record of all because of its governance of potentially harmful effects. Wish that other sources could emulate that.
Lucid Catalyst concludes with a simple plea: “The evaluation of all forms of low-carbon electricity generation should be made on equal grounds.”
Surely the same reasoning applies in Canada with its strong regulations and laws governing civil nuclear energy?
Or will our climate and energy policymakers continue to follow Admiral de Fonte?
]]>
Sustainability and Nuclear Energy
In the Introduction to this blog series Looking for Imagination in Energy Policy, I used the example of early mapmakers obtaining information – some fact, some fiction – to find new ways of seeing and depicting the world.
Through imagination, mapmakers created narratives of what “lies out there”—sometimes as pure speculation, other times as navigation guides to explorers and mariners.
What they imagined was not risk-free for explorers and sailors, who encountered hazards, shoals and straits where the map said there wasn’t any; or found only open sea where land was supposed to be.
Here’s a great example (see map above).
This is the infamous “Zeno Map”, Septentrionalium Partium Nova Tabula, created by a certain Nicolo Zeno of Venice and published in 1561.
The map purports to illustrate the regions visited in the 1360s by ancestors of his, a pair of brothers (also named Zeno). The story of their adventures is somewhat complicated and some regard it as a 16th-century hoax.
What interests us here is what happens when the imagination takes root; and when the imagination ossifies to mislead and confuse.
First, there’s a large island in the mid-North Atlantic that you’ve never seen before – the legendary “Friesland”. It is sitting pretty much squarely on the 60˚North latitude. What appears to be Greenland is a huge east-west slab that connects to the Scandinavian continent. Moreover, there are strange places with names like “Estotiland” and “Drogeo”.
Unfortunately for mariners and explorers, the esteemed mapmakers Gerhard Mercator and Abraham Ortelius took the Zeno map as authentic and incorporated its geography, islands and names into their influential maps of 1569 and 1570, respectively.
When Martin Frobisher set off on the first of his three voyages (1576) to discover a passage to Cathay and all its riches, he took with him the Mercator and Ortelius “sayling cardes” (maps) as navigational guides (and possibly the Zeno map or a derivative as well).
In those early sea-faring days, most experienced sailors could locate their latitude reasonably well. Longitude, however, was impossible to calculate (and would remain so under Harrison’s clocks in the mid-18th century). So what Frobisher did was emulate Columbus – they sailed west along a predictable latitude for the simple reason that they knew where it was and could find their way home again.
When Frobisher eventually reached landfall on the south-eastern coast of Baffin’s Bay – he thought he’d landed on the island of Friesland. Looking at the Zeno map, you can see that Greenland is about 6˚ North of the 60th parallel (plus about 20˚ too far to the west).
As a result, mapmakers, relying on accounts and logs of Frobisher’s voyages, accepted that he’d landed on Friesland. For many years thereafter, “Frobisher’s Bay” stayed in Friesland, confusing sailors, explorers and merchant adventurers alike.
Frobisher’s strong belief that he’d visited Friesland “caused great historical turmoil in the cartography of this north-west region”, as one writer put it. This phantom island bedeviled accurate depiction of the location of Frobisher’s Bay (in today’s Nunavut). More confusion set in when the English explorer John Davis, sailing to the region a decade later, put it on the southern tip of Greenland!
What does this example tell us? That a spurious confabulation, such as Zeno’s map, needs evidence before it is taken as gospel. That insistence on a single line of thinking – straight across latitude 60˚without looking left or right – on the basis of such speculative “platts” and “cardes” leads to errors. Finally, that taking as authoritative the adoption of unsupported conjecture by “big names” (Mercator, Ortelius) only perpetrates the error. The mind becomes closed and unimaginative as a result.
In an analogous way, I suggest we need more open-minded imagination in how we connect climate policy with energy policy.
In short: a narrative of the pathways to a net-zero emissions future, in which climate goals and practical solutions for reaching them intertwine. As a result, a new, more realistic policy map showing effective solutions.
Let’s start by freeing the term sustainability from Zeno-like orthodoxies that condemn us to travel along the same line of latitude towards a phantom Friesland.
I advocate that sustainability of an energy source should be evaluated on whether (a) it reduces GHG emissions substantially; (b) it does so while generating significant quantities of clean energy (heat + electricity); and (c) it does no significant harm to people and the environment.
Given the urgency to reduce carbon emissions – to do as much as we can and as fast as we can – all technologies that meet the criteria of sustainability listed above are welcome.
That is why I was pleased to see the recent Impact Paper published by the Conference Board of Canada – Beyond Exclusions: Sustainable Finance for Nuclear Energy. Because we need new thinking and imagination with respect to “sustainable finance”.
Such new thinking would position nuclear energy not simply as a risk to be contained, but instead as having risks that are well mitigated by regulatory and corporate governance. The focus of sustainability then shifts to the contribution of nuclear energy production to the broader context: namely, the social and economic goal of reduced carbon emissions.
This approach to sustainability provides “more nuanced, context-dependent evaluations of ESG performance” for nuclear sector companies. From a finance perspective, it gives a more complete or “holistic” picture of a company’s credit worthiness.
And why is this important?
Because these companies are contributing to a country’s “distinct national transition priorities” – or, in Canada’s case, to a “net-zero transition”. Therefore, say the Conference Board analysts, “Governments that include nuclear energy as part of their net-zero transition should include the technology in their green bond frameworks.”
With the net-zero transition contribution and with risk mitigated through government regulation and corporate governance, the ESG (environmental, social, governance) profile of such companies becomes worthy of sustainable financing (via debt instruments like green bonds).
With greater capital access and investment, the nuclear industry sector can help our countries achieve their net-zero transition targets – through effective performance, embodying ESG good practices.
In fact, the recent over-subscribed issuance of green bond financing by Bruce Power proves that this is no longer something to be imagined. It’s here now.
Financial market analysts are starting to realize that sustainable finance and nuclear energy production fit well together.
All it takes is imagination. As Mark Carney says, there’s fifty shades of green.
]]>
This blog is to introduce a 4-Part Series I am uploading shortly called Looking for Imagination in Energy Policy.
Imagination is sorely lacking in climate and energy policy conversations these days. Despite growing numbers of environmental and clean energy "experts" telling us the way forward to net-zero, many are trapped in narrow perspectives. If there's one common fault, it's not having the capacity (or desire) to expand imaginative horizons.
For those who've read "John's Musings" on the Portolan Global website, you'll know I like to illustrate my views on energy policy with reference to old printed maps and mapmaking.
This 4-part blog series is no exception. In each blog I introduce fresh new thinking by other analysts on current climate and energy policy issues. I use maps to frame the discussion -- especially where I believe imagination is lacking or, in losing its foothold in reality, becomes mere fantasy and speculation.
In old maps we see imagination permeating each page. From today's perspective we also see things that look far-fetched. But look more closely. The mapmaker also offers you a chance to see things anew -- perhaps a navigable route to a much-desired (policy) destination.
Let's look at an example of what I mean.– Gerhard Mercator’s 1595 map of the Polar region, Septentionalium Terrarum Descriptio. (shown above)
Mercator depicted the North Pole as a large rock surrounded by four islands, an image he drew from an anonymous 14th century work, “Inventio Fortunatae”. As Mercator describes it in a letter to the Oxford polymath John Dee:
“In the midst of the four countries is a While-pool…into which there empty these four Indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes around and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel…It is 4 degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles, and it is all of magnetic stone.”
Interesting description. And completely imagined.
For those weighed down with the fear of risk, venturing anywhere near such “indrawing seas” would be fatal. You would be sucked down into the centre of the earth, as the water pours northwards to the Pole and down into Stygian darkness. The risk is too great for anyone, however intrepid, to go near.
Yet new imaginings, new connections and possibilities can spring from the same Mercator concept. Looking more closely at the map, you’ll see there’s a distinct and apparently navigable sea passage between the huge Arctic/Polar rock islands and what looks like the American and the Scandinavian-Russian continents.
To the fertile minds of Elizabethan geographers and adventurers – like John Dee and Martin Frobisher – this meant that one could sail from England to the riches of Cathay via a Northern Passage. They connected the dots – and produced schemes and plans to reach distant places through routes hardly imagined by anyone, let alone encountered.
That concept – a Northwest Passage to Cathay – took hold in people’s imagination, where it stayed for centuries thereafter, even to this day.
What’s all this got to do with Energy Policy?
Well, we too have a story in the form of a policy narrative. It’s about climate change and how we can reverse its impacts by reducing carbon emissions. Like all good stories, it describes a desired goal, a destination towards which we need to journey – namely, a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
Imagination plays a strong role here. We visualize our society functioning on carbon-free energy. Many emphasize (or assume) our energy sources will be exclusively renewable in nature. The metaphor is green. Everything green must be renewable; everything renewable must be green.
Such narrow assumptions pose a risk to the imagination, however. The risk is that imagination becomes hampered, locked down by excessive zeal. Nothing apart from the single solution can be imagined. Let’s not look for possible wider connections.
If we are to travel successfully to net-zero emissions, energy policy needs feasible and achievable solutions. But more than that. Policy needs imagination. It needs to see connections that may lead us through the transition.
Let’s go back to old maps for a moment, starting with the mapmaker – the person who listens to eye-witness accounts from explorers returning from the outer reaches of the known world. Before committing the tale to a two-dimensional piece of paper, he imagines what the explorer saw.
But not all is purely in the mind. The explorer has taken measurements, logged information about places and conditions, and conjectured what might lie just beyond one’s line of sight. This, too, the mapmaker seeks to capture and convey in the map’s narrative.
We return to energy policy. People want policy to be aspirational. They also want it to be practical, with real outcomes.
The truth is, we have to combine the two. Compelling narratives are needed to inspire the public to imagine a different, brighter future. But equally (or more so), fact-based, engineered solutions are needed to make the desired goal a reality.
When you read the explorers’ and sailors’ accounts of their vain search for an open, navigable Northwest passage, you see the hard reality they encountered and the risks they took. Somehow, they managed to make factual recordings of tides, conditions, sea depth, flora, locating their positions by stars and instruments. In such practical means lay their only hope of reaching the destination.
Many Canadians share the destination of a net-zero carbon emissions future. They can imagine it. They support it. But saying you want a green future is just brandishing a metaphor.
That’s why I believe we need to integrate imagination with practical, engineered, science-based solutions. I would like to see Canada’s energy and climate change policies combine the two and be liberated from exaggerated characterizations of risk.
I believe we can find successful policies by connecting the dots with greater imagination, supported by engineering and realism.
Can I give you examples of what I’m talking about? Yes, I can.
In the 4-part series to follow, we will look at four recent articles that stimulate the imagination. They all have to do with climate policy’s net-zero interaction with energy production. And (spoiler alert) they all have implications for nuclear energy in Canada.
]]>They say every successful initiative has many parents claiming it as theirs. For this one, I can proudly say: I’m the father. Let me explain.
In my blog of 16 August 2020, “International Diplomacy and the Nuclear Industry: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle”, I spoke about the need for greater interaction and understanding between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) secretariat and CEOs of leading companies and utilities producing civil nuclear power. I had in mind a "Director General's Roundtable with Nuclear Industry" as the means to do so.
I was therefore delighted to learn that, at the IAEA’s most recent General Conference (20-24 September), Director General Rafael Grossi met with CEOs from 13 top nuclear energy companies and state enterprises in the inaugural meeting of the Group of Vienna. [See IAEA press release]
Origin of the Group of Vienna: my role
Where did the idea behind the Group of Vienna originate? Who was the parent? In truth, it was Portolan Global and its President. Let me tell you the background and how it happened.
At a meeting with Director General Grossi on 11 Feb 2020, we noted the increasing support among IAEA member states for including industry in selected areas of the Agency’s work. [See, for example, the Ministers’ Statement at the 2020 International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS). But no one had yet found a formula for making this a practical reality – and, importantly, acceptable to the IAEA’s membership.
The challenge was to map out a pathway for the Director General to conduct effective engagement with industry while keeping within his powers and remit. Following our meeting, I undertook to develop a “non-paper” for DG Grossi on what such an initiative and pathway would look like.
In the concept paper I sent to DG Grossi and his staff on 5 May 2020, I proposed the Director General’s Roundtable Dialogue with Nuclear Industry with the following objectives:
However, to make this Roundtable work, there were essentially 3 challenges to address.
Challenge 1: How to be Successful?
To be successful, the DG’s engagement with industry should be in the form of a “roundtable dialogue”. The meetings should be kept informal but informative, focusing on how industry can support the DG’s mandate. Furthermore, the DG’s roundtable dialogue could also be a source of ideas for greater, more effective interaction and understanding between industry and the Agency secretariat on operational and regulatory matters.
Challenge 2: Who would attend?
I had been a founding member of an earlier attempt to create a sustainable and effective means of engagement between industry and the IAEA – the Nuclear Industry Steering Group on Security (NISGS). NISGS did not succeed at the time (2016-2018) due to a lack of support from the previous Director General and from high-level industry representatives (CEO and Vice-President). The climate action and sustainability agendas had not yet galvanized the global nuclear industry to adopt the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or seek greater engagement with relevant international organizations such as the IAEA.
As to who would attend the DG’s Roundtable, I suggested consulting selected international industry organizations (e.g., WNTI, WNA, WINS, WANO) and national industry associations (e.g., NEI, NIAUK, JAIF, CNA, KAIF, CNEA, etc.) to identify industry representatives at executive or board level. Ideally these would have OPEX or operator experience or from companies designing and developing advanced nuclear technology.
Challenge 3: What would be the agenda and format?
From an industry perspective, the Roundtable Agenda could include:
From the DG perspective, the Roundtable Agenda could also include:
Industry engagement with IAEA: other areas to explore
I also proposed other initiatives that the DG could take to enhance industry engagement with the IAEA. Here is the gist of some of the steps I included in my concept paper:
The actual parent is seldom recognized – but that’s okay too
The concept paper on the Director General’s Roundtable with Nuclear Industry was received, adopted and partially adapted by the staff in DG Grossi’s office in May 2020. By then, the impact of the covid-19 virus was increasingly being felt around the world and in-person meetings and conferences were either postponed or moved virtually into the cloud. The IAEA was no exception. The Group of Vienna therefore languished until now, as pared down national delegations began to emerge from their capitals and head to Vienna this September for the General Conference.
Et voilà. The Group of Vienna was born on 22 September 2020.
Concluding thought
I am proud to be the parent and originator of this ground-breaking initiative. This is where Portolan Global’s ideas, connections and experience in diplomacy, international security, and the nuclear industry can be of help.
And I am pleased not only that the Group of Vienna has been launched, but that it will also meet regularly in future and doubtless expand in industry membership and relevance.
One small step for great understanding and cooperation in international safety and security, in an increasingly unruly and divided world.
]]>
Recently the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) published a "Policy Perspectives" paper I wrote, as part of its Canada and energy security series. Below is a summary. You can read the full paper on the CGAI.
https://www.cgai.ca/energy_security_and_canadian_foreign_policy_a_role_for_nuclear_energy
Summary
Canada’s civil nuclear energy capabilities can have a role to play in supporting and furthering Canada’s security and foreign policy interests. But absent a strategic perspective, this advantage and its potential are overlooked. Is there a means to connect this clean energy source to our interests and influence in global affairs?
Over the past decade, both Conservative and Liberal governments – for different reasons – have missed opportunities or failed to capitalize on the credibility and influence this technology provides to us internationally – especially in building relationships and shaping norms and standards of relevance to national security and advancing commercial success.
Here and there one sees sporadic recognition of Canada’s civil nuclear capabilities – from uranium mining to high-performance CANDU reactors to medical isotope production to research and development of ultrasafe next generation technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs). But these are like pieces of a puzzle that remain unassembled, without consolidation into an effective tool of foreign policy.
While there are recent signs that the government is recognizing the nuclear sector as a player in the ambitious effort to decarbonize the Canadian economy and reach the goal of net-zero-emissions by 2050, the role of nuclear in climate change policy has not been strategically connected to broader foreign policy and national security interests. Putting the pieces together is a strategic task; it starts with recognition of the interplay of energy, climate, geopolitics, and commercial competition.
The article argues that such recognition – and ultimately policy formulation – requires a strategic, whole-of-government approach to the foreign policy potential of Canada’s civil nuclear sector. It offers suggestions on where to start in this regard; and further provides recommendations aimed at elevating our perspective on nuclear energy to a more strategic level.
These suggestions and recommendations may assist in preparing us for the inevitably bumpy ride wherever clean energy and climate change objectives meet geopolitics. By strategically integrating civil nuclear capabilities with our international interests, we can better strengthen Canada’s security, influence, and economic opportunity in an increasingly turbulent world.
]]>In a previous blog, I mused about the importance of assessing the foreign and domestic policy implications of energy technology from a strategic perspective. Let’s now focus on Canada’s nuclear technology – and see how it fits with the post-pandemic world.
Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan identified five lasting implications of COVID-19 that they said should be part of our post-pandemic strategic planning: mountains of debt; global de-coupling in trade and investment; capacity of the national health-care system; disruption of the nature of work and the workplace; and geopolitics (rise in nationalism/decline in multilateralism). (Globe & Mail, 2 April)
What are the implications of global de-coupling and geopolitics with respect to nuclear energy and technology? How should we conduct our post-pandemic strategic planning vis-à-vis this sector?
David Frum made an interesting point. Consider globalization as not one thing but as many things – some valuable, some less so. Each of those things comes attended by costs; each, therefore, needs a strategy to manage and contain its costs.
The strategy should not be retreat from the benefits of international trade and investment. Autarky and withdrawal into economic nationalism are not the answer. Instead, the strategy has to be “smarter”. It should seek mutually beneficial sectoral arrangements where the flows of goods and services are protected by a strong governance regime.
Is there such a sector that illustrates this “smarter strategy”, where interactions between countries are subject to strong governance?
I would say yes – namely, Canada’s international relationships governing cooperation in the civil nuclear technology sector and the export of such technology, products and services.
All countries with which Canada cooperates, trades, supplies, performs research across the nuclear sector must have a bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (NCA). Here is a sampling of the conditions imposed by a typical NCA. They include:
Currently we have 30 NCAs in place with 48 countries (the NCA with Euratom covers several European Union countries). You can find more about NCAs on the Global Affairs Canada website, including the Canada Treaty Information database.
NCA agreements must be in place for the export of Canadian CANDU technology and products to continue; for Canadian uranium to be exported; or for Canadian medical isotopes and Cobalt-60 to go abroad.
Cooperation and trade in Canada’s nuclear export sector is thus well-governed. It should stand the test of potential fragmentation of markets in a “de-globalizing” world and keep appropriate standards intact.
Looking to the future, in order to export Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) that are successfully developed and licensed in Canada to countries needing clean energy, those receiving countries will need an NCA with Canada before an export licence can be granted.
Today there is growing awareness of the economic vulnerabilities that globalization creates for some countries. This leads strategic planners to consider the implications, positive and negative, of de-coupling and economic nationalism.
However, it’s not an either/or question of pursuing freer trade or retreating behind tariff walls. We don’t have to put everything into a completely unfettered arena or back away entirely. Instead, we can seek bilateral or multilateral trade and cooperation arrangements based on strong rules governing the activities therein – including effective compliance.
The nuclear industry in Canada offers an example. The movement of goods, services and technology abroad – whether between commercial companies or between research labs and universities – is strictly managed.
I would argue that having such governance will be the key to new markets for Canadian nuclear technology – in SMRs and advanced CANDU reactors, in cancer-treating and food safety nuclear isotopes, in the export of Canadian uranium, the source of clean energy.
If you’re a post-pandemic strategic planner, you might give this some thought.
]]>
What strikes me time and again in looking at old maps, atlases, portolans and sea charts is the imagination permeating each the page. Represented in two dimensions is a snapshot of what someone thinks the world looks like. It seems conceptual, frozen in time.
However, narrative is not frozen in time; it has a before and an after. Wouldn’t be much of a story if it just stood in one place. Instead, it flows from a past (imaginings) to a future (by definition, imagined). Narrative cannot therefore be freed of imagination.
In discussing policy issues, many people these days speak of “the narrative” being an important constituent of the policy’s credibility and definitely as part of its public communication.
In energy policy, today’s narrative is all about climate change and how we can reverse its impacts by reducing carbon emissions. The policy narrative, like all good moral stories, has an end it, a desired goal – a “zero emissions economy” by 2050.
Imagination plays a strong role here. We visualize our society functioning on carbon-free energy. Many emphasize (or assume) that these sources are exclusively renewable in nature. The metaphor is green. Everything green must be renewable; everything renewable must be green.
Let’s go back to old maps to see where this lead us.
We start with the mapmaker – the person who listens to what the explorer has witnessed on the outer reaches of the known world (and the beginning of imagined worlds lying beyond). Before setting the tale down on a two-dimensional piece of paper, he imagines what the explorer saw.
But not all is subjective, purely in the mind. The explorer has taken measurements, logged information, conjectured, on the basis of empirical observation, what lies just beyond his line of sight. These data also permeate and inform the narrative.
Fast forward to energy policy and communication in today’s world. There are those who want government policy to be “evidence-based”, not simply aspirational. Yet we shouldn’t completely exclude one from the other. In developing and implementing energy and climate change policies, we have to combine the two.
Yes, compelling narratives are needed to inspire the public to imagine a different, brighter future. And yes, solid, fact-based, engineered solutions are needed to provide the means of making the desired goal a reality.
The early European explorers of Canada believed there was a navigable, open northwest passage through which one could sail from Atlantic to Pacific – and thence to Asia.
However, when you read the explorers’ and sailors’ accounts of their vain searches, you see the hard reality they encountered. Ice floes crushed them, moving with the tides. Horrible conditions, ill-dressed and prepared for long winters with ships completely frozen and little food or warmth. Scurvy, despair and starvation struck them down.
But, somehow, they also made many observations and factual recordings of tides, conditions, sea depth, flora, locating their positions by stars and instruments. Science and engineering were the only means to reach the noble, hoped-for outcomes.
In energy and climate change policy we set the noble, imagined outcomes. But how do we engineer them?
Many Canadians share the goal of a carbon-constrained future.They can imagine it; they understand and support it. But the narrative is sometimes thin on the “how do we get there”. Repeating you want a green future is simply brandishing a metaphor.
That is why I believe we need to integrate imagination with practical, engineered, science-based solutions. I would like to see Canada’s energy and climate change policies shift more strongly into the reality realm.
If we are to reach the goal of zero emissions by 2050, then realism suggests using where possible technologies that are proven capable of significantly reducing emissions in remarkably short times (as in France, Sweden, Ontario).
That technology is nuclear power. It is not the only clean energy technology we need; but it is indispensable if we are seriously intent on achieving the goal.
Our policies mapping the way forward need imagination, yes. But imagination alone won’t let us find, let alone successfully and quickly traverse, the passage to zero emissions. There’s still reality to take into account.
]]>[Fabricia Piñeiro is Director, CANDU Business Development, Westinghouse Electric Canada, and a member of the International Youth Nuclear Congress (IYNC).]
START
Statement by Fabricia Piñeiro for the IAEA Scientific Forum on Nuclear Power and the Clean Energy Transition, Vienna, 23 September 2020
It is my deep honour to join you today as we close this year’s Scientific Forum on Nuclear Power and the Clean Energy Transition.
Today, I will discuss the power that young generations have to more effectively communicate the benefits of nuclear energy in the fight against climate change, by leveraging diversity, social media and a general sense of purpose.
It is not a coincidence that Millennials and Generation Z are also called “Generation Green”. They are socially conscious consumers, more inclined to recycle, and seriously concerned about the environment.
Not only are we a powerful group from a consumption perspective, shaping markets with our continuously growing spending power; we also have the ability to influence others at a mass level. This is thanks to the enormous public platform that we have collectively mastered: the internet and social media. But why does that matter? Well, because change relies on people coming together in movements that are large and robust enough to successfully challenge the status quo.
When it comes to the nuclear industry, many of the young professionals, like me, who joined the workforce in the last 15 years have joined because of the industry’s remarkable scientific and technological advancements. But not just that. Many of us have joined AND remained within the industry because we know that our work has a direct positive impact on the world. This sense of pride and purpose is what keeps us going. It is contagious and inspiring. It is what organizations like the International Youth Nuclear Congress (IYNC) aim to nurture, so that more young people are committed to making it a better, and stronger, industry. And everyone here today plays a vital role in achieving this goal through engaging with, mentoring and providing opportunities for the younger generation to continue to be effective in furthering this conversation.
Given the far-reaching power of social media, it is not a surprise that public relations and communications have become one of the most important pillars of any company’s or even industry’s success. Talking to ourselves, dismissing public concerns, being defensive about open criticism – this is simply no longer viable.
Although vital, communication professionals are not the only ones capable of effectively conveying the benefits of our industry. In fact, the scientists and engineers who work on these nuclear projects and have an undeniable sense of pride for what they do can have a much larger impact and a much stronger voice through their regular day-to-day interactions.
Out of these scientists and engineers, it is often young people – and, more specifically, women and minorities – who can have the biggest impact to offer. Why? Simply because they are more relatable to the public. Younger generations have an inherent questioning attitude. So, when a young person endorses something, a sense of implicit trust is created.
Diversity is fundamental to effectively communicating and interacting with the public. It creates an inclusive environment where creativity and innovation flourish and perspectives are broadened. Not-for-profit organizations such as IYNC and Women in Nuclear have a tremendous role to play in fostering this diversity and creating unbiased links between the public and industry. Organizations like the IAEA are also doing their part through powerful campaigns – such as the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Program, which recognizes the importance of including women in STEM and the paramount role that diversity plays to drive global scientific and technological innovation.
So, what CAN we do? We can’t speak in platitudes without raising eyebrows, and we can’t quote scientific risk measures in the order of 10^-17. That gives ZERO comfort to the public.
Rather than using mutually exclusive language, or polarizing rhetoric, we should focus on how we can make all clean energy technologies, work TOGETHER.
We need to be valiant and say: we don’t have a perfect solution, but we have a safe one, and we are working on enhancing it further. The messaging should evolve to an all-encompassing view of how nuclear can be integrated with other sources of energy, like renewables. Forging partnerships with groups outside of our industry and at an international level is imperative. Initiatives like the flexible applications of small modular reactors that the CEM NICE Future program is leading is a perfect example of this.
I firmly believe that nuclear is key to a sustainable future and to preserve our environment. So here is my call for action.
To the young generations: know that our voice is strong. We care and we are impacted by climate change the most. Don’t be afraid to challenge, to question, to innovate. Listen to what others in and outside the industry have to say; encourage collaboration. You are our strongest link to the public. Use that link to strengthen our collective voice.
After all, we are all in this together.
END
]]>
Perhaps you are like me. At Christmas I always find a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of considerable complexity awaiting me. The next three days or so are spent in obsession until the final piece goes in. I think we’d agree – nothing is more disconcerting than a piece that’s gone missing.
Somewhat analogous to that missing-piece feeling is the absence of the nuclear industry’s utility and technology leaders from the international diplomatic arena. This is especially true where states get together to set guidelines, rules and regulations that impinge directly on the industry’s operations.
Which takes me to diplomacy - and the missing pieces of the international nuclear governance puzzle.
Take the three major areas of internationally and domestically imposed constraints on the use of civil nuclear technology – safeguards (against proliferation), safety, and security (protection against theft, sabotage, terrorism). All are vitally important for our public safety and national security. Treaties, conventions, national laws exist in all three areas.
The missing piece of the nuclear governance puzzle? The absence of senior representatives of the civil nuclear industry – CEOS, Chief Nuclear Operators, Chief Nuclear Engineers – i.e. those with responsibility ultimately for safety and security.
It remains a mystery to me why those with hands-on operational experience are not systematically invited to join standard-setting and rule-making deliberations in international forums such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, the UN Conference on Disarmament (to cite a few examples).
Without such expertise at the table, how can the diplomats find the balance between imposing rigid constraints on facility operators, on the one hand, and providing flexibility in accordance with specific site risks and threats?
What about including the technology developers working on Advanced Reactors (AR) and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? These are coming down the track and will bring new and different considerations re safeguards, safety and security. Shouldn’t they be at the table, before the non-specialist diplomatic representatives introduce rules and regulations that effectively strangle ARs and SMRs at birth?
Moreover, it’s in the interest of governments and industry alike. Governments want (for the most part) to provide the benefits of nuclear power to their citizens and communities – safely and securely. Companies and utilities want to do the same, but have to keep viable financially and operationally. Both would benefit from a steady input of industry’s knowledge and best practices. That’s how you find the balance.
So what to do?
First, start with identifying ways and means to engage industry leaders and representatives more systematically and effectively with international forums such as the IAEA.
Second, provide such forums with input from: (a) sectors of the nuclear industry responsible for implementation of regulations, policies and activities relating to safeguards, safety and security, and (b) technology developers working on designs and fuels for advanced research, power and isotope-producing reactors.
Third, be creative. For example, I have recommended that IAEA Director General establish a Director General’s Roundtable Dialogue with Nuclear Industry as a source of input from industry on strengthening nuclear safety and security.
Fourth, invite those with executive authority in charge of design-basis nuclear security or in implementing nuclear security regulations in operating plants; include those responsible for transportation of radiological devices and medical isotopes.
There are more topics where industry has a leading role and responsibility in implementing. These too could be part of the dialogue and engagement in intergovernmental bodies and diplomatic forums.
For example: improving gender balance and diversity across the global nuclear industry. Or deepening industry cooperation in implementing safeguards and export controls. Or supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the “peaceful uses of nuclear energy”, in particular by building capacity in developing countries.
I have a number of puzzle pieces for enhancing industry engagement in deliberative and rule-setting diplomatic forums. They are, in my view, missing pieces in the larger puzzle of international civil nuclear governance.
You have to work a bit to make them fit. But once they’re in – the assembled picture becomes a fine sight indeed. More effective safeguards; greater safety; enhanced security. And with the input and engagement of industry, now more strongly connected together in a whole, .
I’ll tell you more about these missing pieces in a future edition of John’s Musings. Until then, please be patient – as all good puzzlers are.
]]>
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT bans the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons and commits the five original nuclear weapons states (NWS) to engage in effective and verifiable nuclear disarmament (Article VI).
Every five years, the parties to the NPT gather to “review” the treaty’s performance, identify any weaknesses, find ways to strengthen it, and shore up political support for its continuation.
By far and away, the Article VI disarmament issue captures the greatest attention among NPT parties, NGO experts and members of the public. The disarmament proponents base this on the NPT “grand bargain”. If the five NWS are permitted to possess nuclear weapons, then other NPT parties (the have-nots) must see real disarmament take place. That was the deal. Without progress on Article VI, the treaty risks unravelling and potential collapse.
The role of nuclear industry – as the source of much civil nuclear technology and material – is confined to preventing horizontal proliferation, which it does by complying with export controls laws and regulation.
But that’s not the only deal underpinning the NPT. There’s another – and that’s where the nuclear industry has an important “enabling” role to play.
[What follows is drawn from the presentation I gave at "Thematic Seminar on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy" organized by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) in Vienna last November in the run-up to the 2020 NPT Review Conference.]
In the original purpose of the NPT, another “grand bargain” between the haves and the have-nots is found in Article IV.
Paragraph 1 says nothing in the treaty will affect the “inalienable right” of all parties “to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”.
Paragraph 2 says all parties “undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technologic information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”
In addition, parties “shall also cooperate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes…with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.”
What do we draw from this?
First, developing countries have the right, should they so decide, to enjoy the benefits coming from the peaceful use of nuclear energy, such as:
Second, industry is a key player in producing these benefits – as technology designers, builders, manufacturers, suppliers, operators. Industry can therefore be an essential enabler of Article IV peaceful uses and thus uphold the NPT’s “grand bargain”.
Third, an avenue to pursue in strengthening the NPT would be to examine how and where the nuclear industry can support the peaceful uses envisioned in the treaty – especially “with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world”.
What would such enabling components and actions include? I can think of two main areas.
On this 50th anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, let’s look afresh at Article IV – the promise to facilitate the use of nuclear energy for peaceful, beneficial purposes.
Can we re-imagine and effectively enable peaceful uses – “without discrimination and with due consideration to developing areas” (as the treaty says)? I believe we can – if we seriously enlist the support of the nuclear industry to find ways and means to assist capacity-building and other forms of technical cooperation. Will it strengthen the treaty? I strongly believe the answer is again – yes.
]]>
I'm still reeling from the news of Frank Saunder’s sudden passing on July 4. The news didn’t reach me until a couple of days later, and I’ve spent much of the time since thinking about Frank and how much he meant to me and so many others.
Although Frank Saunders was well known throughout the nuclear industry in Canada, few realized the sheer breadth of his experience and knowledge. His way of approaching most topics, even the complex engineering ones, in a straightforward, almost folksy, manner never really revealed how much practical OPEX was stored in his head.
Frank spent many years at Bruce Power, one of the largest nuclear power plant sites (8 CANDU reactors) in the world. Just before stepping down as Vice-President of Nuclear Oversight and Regulatory Affairs, he showed the versatility and passion he had for Canada’s nuclear industry and its future by first, helping to create and fund in 2018 the Industrial Chair at MIRARCO Mining Innovation at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. Its mandate is to explore sustainable clean energy solutions in Ontario’s north – and to explore the use of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to remote mining operations.
To say that Frank was passionate about the application of SMRs to mining in Canada and abroad would be quite an understatement. He was a leader in this regard, an early voice for applying small, safe and transportable nuclear energy sources to remote mining sites and industrial processes. And, as always, he advised practical, near-term solutions wherever possible. Let the imagination run, but, as Frank would have it, you still need a business case, revenue stream, new licensing regulations, and an operator who knew how to run reactors, including SMRs.
The second area where Frank saw farther ahead than most was in the creation of the Nuclear Innovation Institute (NII) in Port Elgin, Ontario. The NII, in its initial conception, was a “hand’s on brain trust”. You may think that’s contradictory, mixing the practical solutions-finders-to-problems arising in the day-to-day operations of a nuclear power fleet with the blue-sky imaginings of what-might-be-achieved if nuclear technology was paired with advances in other disciplines of science and engineering. But that’s what he wanted. And, as far as I can see, that’s what’s indeed happening at the NII, now entrusted to a full-time CEO and staff.
Last year, another side of Frank’s prowess in the field and his impact came to light (for me). Frank kindly invited me to an event being held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, just across the Ottawa River. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) was holding its annual gala and awards ceremony. Now most Canadians, and I include myself, are singularly under-informed about the CSA and the role it plays “behind the scenes” in our daily lives, making products from the mundane and everyday to the more exotic and complex (i.e. nuclear power operations) usable and safe. In the nuclear industry, CSA is a prominent developer and upholder of standards with which compliance is essential and mandatory.
I knew Frank was very knowledgeable about the CSA and in fact about nearly everything and anything to do with regulations, guidelines, standards, licensing affecting nuclear power operations. But I didn’t know that he was stepping out on the stage for the last – and most prestigious – of the CSA’s awards. Frank was the 2019 winner of the John Jenkins Award, which is bestowed in recognition of “distinguished services in the development, advancement, and application of voluntary standards”.
This very special recognition of Frank’s achievements kind of surprised me, as I sat listening to the tribute read out on stage. But then it didn’t. After knowing him over the past 5 years during my time as President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, I should have guessed I’d only just scratched the surface.
I've been recalling in my mind the countless conversations Frank and I had during this time – ranging from his days as Director of Nuclear Operations running the research reactor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario back to highly entertaining accounts of his squaddie days in the Canadian Army at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick, where he “blew up things real good” and to early days growing up and working on the family farm. And let’s not forget his work in nuclear plant safety operations in conjunction with the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators (INPO) in the United States.
Nearly every time he came to Ottawa, he'd stroll over from the Sheraton Hotel (where he was obviously much liked by the staff) to my office at CNA, plunk himself down, and off we'd go on another "tour d'horizon". And every time, I learned something new, something valuable, something astute - whether about nuclear engineering, people, life in general. To say I enjoyed and treasured these many conversations cannot convey how important they were for me. There was always some nugget of insight, experience, advice that I knew I could hold onto and use – thanks to these moments.
Frank was exceedingly generous in the time and thought he gave to others. Just to give one example – in the area of nuclear security. In 2016-2017 I was involved in research projects undertaken by the Washington DC-based Stimson Center’s Nuclear Security Program. We were looking at how the management and accountability for security at a nuclear power plant could be integrated more deeply in corporate governance. The Stimson Center held a by-invitation workshop to develop this further, as part of their “Re-energizing Nuclear Security” report. I asked Frank if he would come with me and give a presentation. He readily agreed – and instantly became a highly regarded source of expertise for the Stimson researchers. Again, his experience of how one actually runs operations, including security, at a plant was tremendously valuable. It gave additional credibility to the project’s final report.
Frank’s interest in nuclear security did not end there. He was adamant in insisting that, unless a considerably reduced emergency planning zone (EPZ) for SMRs was authorized by the regulator, such technologies would never be deployed in practice. Indeed, at the time of his death, Frank played a strong and leading role in the Candu Owners Group (COG) SMR Security Task Team. Again, he was at the forefront, seeking a practical solution that would never derogate from public safety and security, but would be feasible from a business perspective. Without finding that sweet spot, the industry risked being regulated out of its future – as he often pointed out.
At CNA, Frank’s advice was very welcome and always helpful. It was a stroke of luck for the organization that he was the Chair during the recent transition between my tenure and the arrival of my successor. This ensured a smooth, successful passing of the baton, to the benefit of all CNA members and stakeholders. And few can forget his masterful performances at Bruce licensing hearings as he replied to questions and statements from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and from the public, including those whose opposition to nuclear power was palpable. He made the workings of the plant and its reactors appear logical, reasonable, practical – such was strength of his clearly stated explanations and views.
I really loved hearing him speak in public audiences. He was the voice of reason and reasonableness that I believe many people respond to well. Not over-the-top claims or attacks, just quiet, methodical laying out the pros and cons. Hope somewhere, somehow, there's an archive of some of his finest moments, a true expert in the field, a mentor of and for the nuclear industry as a whole.
There's more one can say in memory of Frank. Pages and pages more if we kept going. But then he’d tell me to just stop it, it’s too much. Well, sorry, Frank, if I’ve gone on too long. I just had to say what I thought of you and how I’ll miss you.
]]>So here’s my part in the downfall of the Warsaw Pact.
]]>Let me apologize at the outset for this double-sized edition of John's Musings. I got carried away down memory lane. I hope you will forgive the length and enjoy an anecdote or two from the Cold War days.
On May 21, 2020, President Trump decided to withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Treaty. This prompted a personal recollection on my own involvement in the origins of “Open Skies” - and how I wound up leading a "trial Open Skies overflight" of Soviet military bases in Hungary during the last days of the Cold War.
I was going to call this Musing “Open Skies: From Concept to International Treaty”. But Spike Milligan’s book about his time in the British Army during World War II came to mind. Largely a humorous tale of things gone wrong, interlaced with comic situations, he modestly titled his book: “Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall”.
So here’s my part in the downfall of the Warsaw Pact.
In 1989-1990, I was deeply involved in preparing the way for that meeting. I was the Open Skies policy lead in the Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade (DFAIT). Not many know Canada’s instrumental role in getting the concept off the ground.
First, the Open Skies concept. The idea was to allow NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to fly at short notice over each other’s territory to examine whether preparations might be underway for military action. Its purpose was transparency and confidence-building. Flights were to be conducted in unarmed aircraft and equipped with sensors only.
Cracking open the carapace of the Soviet Union via short-notice overflights by NATO was a major transparency step in those days. You have to remember this was a time when the two military blocs still had hundreds of thousands of heavily armed troops across Europe, including the European part of the USSR. It was – and is – designed to prevent miscalculation and misunderstandings about military intentions in regions that have seen their unfortunate share of major conflicts and wars in the past.
I was in the Arms Control & Disarmament Division of DFAIT. The Director, Ralph Lysyshyn, slouching characteristically with hands thrust deep in his pockets, was saying we (Canada) had to do something innovative to help thaw the Cold War. What could we do? Ralph and Director General John Noble latched onto the old Open Skies idea first mooted back in 1955 by US President Dwight Eisenhower.
To give the old proposal new life, Ralph had to be inventive. He came up with three things.
First, he and Noble shuttled back and forth to Washington DC to plant the idea with the State Department arms control specialists and transfer it into American hands. If it didn’t come from the United States, the Soviets would not play. Sure enough, the proposal made its way up the chain to the White House, and President George H. Bush launched it publicly in a speech in Texas in May 1989.
Second, Ralph decided that we needed to organize the first-ever NATO-Warsaw Pact conference in Ottawa to agree to start negotiations on an Open Skies agreement between the two blocs. In a moment of inspiration – more like desperation – he decided that I should do this. “You’re kidding, right?” I said after regaining consciousness. “In Ottawa? How, where, with what?” Hearing little sympathy, I set about organizing a venue, inter-departmental support, hotel accommodation, and sundry arrangements for the arrival of 23 Foreign Ministers and their entourages. In addition I was responsible on the Canadian side for supporting the fleshing out of the Open Skies proposal, as it was rather thin on detail at that time. We still had to get it through NATO arms control committees, get military sign-off, and turn it into a solid, effective security-producing instrument.
I remember calling around Ottawa hotels over Christmas 1989 to block book 150 rooms for early February. I could hear silence at the end of the phone, unbelieving, or simply no response. Quack caller obviously. But as I got the inter-departmental meetings underway with defence, CSIS, PCO and other agencies, word started to seep out that something big was coming. Next thing, I had a floral arrangement of yellow call-back messages on my desk – please call so-and-so at the Westin, the Sheridan, the Marriott.
The third thing was the best. Ralph decided I should lead a “trial” overflight of a Warsaw Pact country before the NATO-Warsaw Pact conference. This would produce useful information on how to conduct a flight and simulate the procedures needed to make it work. Great, I thought. How am I to do that?
We huddled at Ralph’s home with Tibor Toth, a Hungarian foreign ministry official with an expansive personality, strong NATO leanings, and fed up with the Soviet Union and the whole Warsaw Pact. Tibor offered Hungary as the trial host. Together we devised the outlines of the trial overflight from a diplomatic perspective.
Next, we contacted National Defence, where the logistics were sorted out. Of particular interest to Canadian intelligence officials was the flight pattern we would use, as the plan was to criss-cross Hungarian territory in a propeller-driven Canadian C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Our draft flight plan included flying over several Soviet military bases in Hungary. Would the Hungarians accept this? Yes, said Tibor. But we asked, would the Soviets accept it (seeing as the bases were defended by surface-to-air missile batteries)? Tibor promised he would talk with the Russians and get their approval – or at least their acquiescence.
As 1990 began, I flew to the Canadian airbase at Lahr, Germany. From there we travelled on 4 January aboard the Hercules aircraft designated for the overflight. We touched down at Hungary’s Ferihegy Airport, taxiing over to the military base where I met Tibor and Márton Krasznai from the Hungarian foreign ministry.
Most importantly, we met the Chief of the Hungarian Air Force. I asked him: did the Soviets know that a NATO airplane would be flying over their military bases? Would we be intercepted (or worse)? “No worry”, he said. “We have good relations with them. They know.” Plus, he added, the Hungarians had an agreement with the Russians not to conduct any military flights from their airbases during the weekend, due to the noise levels. “And”, he added brightly, “Today is Saturday.”
Trusting in this assurance, off went the Canadian team on the morning of 6 January with Tibor and Márton aboard, flying as low as 1500 metres from one border of Hungary to another, including over the Soviet airbases, where we could clearly see the SAM missiles pointing upwards. We stood in the belly of the Hercules, peering down from small windows. Márton noted the dock was missing from his lakeside cabin on Lake Balaton. We discussed that and made other small talk. Anything to ward off the apprehension that we were sitting ducks, lumbering around the country for 3 hours in a slow-moving, hard to miss, transport plane.
As soon as we landed, I was interviewed on Hungarian TV while still sitting in the hold of the plane before disembarking. Later at a reception at the Hungarian foreign ministry, we watched the newscast. People thought I looked very pale during the interview. For some reason I was described in the English sub-title as the Canadian foreign minister. This I duly reported to Ottawa.
In all, quite an experience. Not a shot fired. Clearly the Warsaw Pact was trembling after Barrett and team showed up. Its downfall was imminent.
And it soon came to pass. Remember, we still had the NATO and Warsaw Pact foreign ministers arriving in Ottawa in mid-February. By now the key departments of the Canadian bureaucracy were in full organizational swing. The historic meeting took place in the old Ottawa train station (known then as the Government Conference Centre) on 11-13 February. Plenary meetings were spread over two days, to be followed by negotiating teams staying behind to engage in drafting a treaty.
Just before the main plenary meeting, I dropped by the Conference Centre to check if all the administrative preparations were in place and ready. I stopped to chat with someone I knew in the Open Skies Conference Secretariat. Normally soft-spoken and shy, she was evidently flustered. I asked what was wrong. She was irritated at the behaviour of two German diplomats who had charged into her office, demanded she type something for them right away, then rushed out without even a thank you.
I asked whether she'd kept a copy of the text (it was early days of Wang word processors). She had. I then suggested she print it for me. It was an advance copy of the 2+4 agreement in principle on the future of Germany that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and US Secretary of State James Baker had cooked up, with the agreement (or resignation) of the British and French – the four Occupying Powers at the end of WWII. Of course, it would require support (or acquiescence) of West Germany and East Germany.
We heard there’d been meetings going on that morning amongst them. A 2+4 agreement would be proof positive the old post-war divisions in Europe were coming to an end. The Warsaw Pact was still alive, barely, but disintegrating before our eyes. Barbed wire fences between Hungary and Austria were cut in late 1989, with thousands of Hungarians and East Germans pouring through. Germany would be unified in October 1990. The USSR itself would collapse in December 1991.
But here, at this moment, I had the text in my hand, well before the announcement. I scampered up to the Canadian Foreign Minister Joe Clark’s office in the Conference Centre and handed it over. We had it before the rest of the world – at least for a few hours. Maybe a small gesture. But in diplomacy and negotiations, getting a step ahead is sometimes nearly as important as winning the battle.
At least that’s how it felt then. And if you go to the old train station where the Canadian Senate now has its quarters during the refurbishment of Parliament’s Centre Block, you’ll see a historic plaque commemorating it was there, on 13 February 1990, that the 2+4 agreement on Germany’s future (the “Ottawa Accord”) was struck. The Warsaw Pact was now coming to an end.
But the plaque doesn’t mention my part in its downfall. Now you know it.
]]>
I explained in the first of John’s Musings where the term “portolan” comes from, but didn’t mention the logo and its origins.
If you do a search online for “portolan charts”, chances are you’ll come across several libraries and map dealers with original portolan maps dating back as far as the 14th century. My favourite (and I’m not alone) is the Atlas Catalan of 1375 by Abraham Cresques, which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. In particular, look at the beautifully portrayed wind rose, showing the sixteen important winds and their provenance.
The wind rose, which often looks like later depictions of a compass and its points, and the rhumb lines radiating from it showing wind directions, are often as attractive to the viewer as the other features of the portolan chart. Take a close-up look at some of the wind roses on other portolans. At a time when they represented the most accurate guide to harbours and coastlines a sea-faring pilot could have, some of them were also splendid artistic endeavours.
The Portolan Global logo is a stylized depiction of an early portolan wind rose – as I’m sure you’ve already realized. The cherubic “wind heads” on the website’s opening page are wonderfully fanciful artistic embellishments that you see on later woodcut and early printed maps of the late 15th and 16th centuries.
Let’s talk for a moment about maps and mapmaking – not only as an artistic endeavour and a voyage sometimes into the wildest realms of imagination, especially in describing parts of the world then unknown. But maps and mapmaking also as a social endeavour, an early form of artisanal division of labour transitioning to early business practice.
Think of how these antique printed maps came into being and the sequence of activities needed to bring them to life.
A voyager or traveller of the day see things, records them somehow (ship’s logs, diaries, drawings and so forth). Stories are heard upon their return, stories pass on, tales emerge of places unknown, heroic journeys of exploration.
These epic accounts, often heavily sprinkled with imagination and speculation, comes to the attention of a cartographer, sitting at a desk, enclosed by four walls. His job is to transfer this new, exciting information onto a sheet of paper. In rendering the world from three to two-dimensions, he seeks to depict a world “out there” so it can be viewed while being literally held in one’s hand.
He considers proportions, projections, scale, compass bearings, latitude (longitude came much later). What will be the mathematical equations he will use to transfer spatial relations onto the page?
Sometimes he gives over to his imagination and invents things or dreams of what might be. New habitations, cities with names even, improvised islands – well, who is going to contradict him if no one else has been there?
He now takes his work to the wood cut producer, an artisan who carefully removes bits of wood away from a block, using the intaglio technique, to ready the drawing for printing. As wood cuts give way to copper plates, the engraver emerges, utilizing a sharp-edged instrument (burin) to carve lines from the drawing into the soft metal. Other artisans will use different techniques involving etching and acids to transpose the drawing onto a printing surface.
The engraver also has latitude in his work – not just the north-south scale on the map, but also in its artistic portrayal. He creates borders, illustrates imagined local scenes, flora and fauna in the map’s margins. He embellishes the human as well as the cartographic aspects, complete with an elaborate cartouche dedicating the work to a royal or high-born patron.
And a patron is indeed needed to authorize the publication. We’re now entering the world of politics. Not everyone is allowed to make maps. They could be conveying dangerous information to foes, whether political or commercial. Too accurate a map can give away trading advantage.
Finally, a publisher – and a printer. Both needing business acumen, as they are the entrepreneurs of mapmaking. The publisher selects paper, style, materials, audience and, above all, obtains the licence to publish from the patron. He is the mid-wife to the map.
The printer executes through the printing guilds and techniques of the time. Each map, each page is printed singly, a page at a time. If the publisher binds them together – as was increasingly done starting in the early 1550s, we have the atlas.
Next time you look at an old map – just google “antique map dealers” – think of what you see on different levels: stories of exploration and unbelievable courage; factual information bumping up against artistic imagination; speculation tempered by newly invented instruments of measurement; artisanal skills and techniques in printing; entrepreneurial publishers seeking wider audiences for their increasingly large and elaborate atlases.
A human endeavour still fascinating in the telling.
1375 Atlas Catalan by Abraham Cresques
]]>Internationally and at home there is growing concern over climate change and the environmental damage it produces. Decarbonizing the economy and reducing GHG emissions are a priority – and a global challenge. Meanwhile, international security is buffeted by big power rivalries and trade wars. Undeclared nuclear programs and wilful displays of warhead and missile testing in some regions have not been resolved. The world does not lack for challenges.
Do we need to respond to these energy, environmental, and international security challenges? Of course, it’s in our national interest to do so. Internationally, it’s for our foreign policy to articulate and pursue that interest.
So what capabilities – technology, innovation, expertise, experience – do we have to tackle the challenges? (To be effective, we need tools and assets.) More to the point: how do we bring national interest and capabilities together in an effective foreign policy? This requires a strategic (or global) perspective.
Canada’s civil nuclear capabilities range from uranium mining to reactor design and clean electricity generation; from producing isotopes for public health and medical treatment to the safe and secure handling of radiological materials and used fuel. The list goes on. In short, we have amassed a formidable expertise across the entire span of nuclear technology.
So much for capabilities. Listing them is not the same as recognizing their potential in tackling the challenges we face – or fashioning policies accordingly. Taking foreign policy to illustrate, let’s briefly see what a strategic assessment says.
First, if a country is to be successful in pursuing its national interest, its foreign policy must have influence internationally. To have influence, the foreign policy must rest on perceived and recognized credibility. National interest objectives and capabilities must be calibrated in light of the diplomatic environment (i.e. the power and interests of other states) if an effective implementation plan is to be put into play.
Canadian nuclear technology, research and regulatory standards give Canada a world standing in issues affecting climate change, global security and non-proliferation. They give us the basis on which to forge geopolitical relations to meet Canadian foreign policy goals. They give us credibility and influence on matters that affect our national interest – whether it be Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea, nuclear safety after Fukushima, or keeping watch to ensure nuclear technology stays devoted to peace purposes.
How do I know? I saw it as a diplomat and an Ambassador representing Canada abroad. When we spoke on nuclear matters in international forums, other countries listened. Why? Because of the Canadian capabilities and reputation that I noted earlier.
That is why I advocate supporting and integrating Canada’s civil nuclear capabilities into a broader strategic approach to our foreign policy. As a matter of national interest.
In discussions on nuclear security with IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi; Ewelina Hilger, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the DG; Alexandre Bilodeau, Nuclear Counsellor, Canadian Embassy, Vienna - 11 Feb 2020
]]>“Global” too has a double meaning. It refers to the diplomatic and international policy experience we offer. For the past 30 years, I have been engaged in foreign and security policy – from leading the first Open Skies overflight of a Warsaw Pact country (Hungary) by a NATO aircraft (a Canadian CF-130 Hercules). I was part of the successful Canadian diplomacy of the late 1980s to build confidence and security between East and West, helping through carefully prepared and effective initiatives. From my LSE doctorate in International Relations through policy planning at NATO and chairing the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency as Canada’s Ambassador, my outlook has professionally always been global.
But a global perspective is also an intellectual disposition, a propensity to look at things strategically, whether they be at the level of national interest and balance of power – or in a commercial or market environment. Finding opportunities which have lain unseen, imagining paths overlooked by others, realistically assessing interests in a competitive world – these require holistic thinking. They require a strategic approach, a “global” insight. We examine the vista from the crow’s nest, swivelling 360 degrees to gain the perspective needed to plot the course ahead.
Well, these may be evocative images, but how do they actually work? How would we bring a strategic approach to a crowded policy arena in assessing national or corporate interests? What happens, for example, when clean energy, climate change, technology, and security jostle together? What does a “global” view offer us?
That’s the subject of John’s Musings next.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi and me - 11 Feb 2020
]]>I guess I should tell you why I have this fascination with old sailing charts and maps from a bygone time. And why it has anything to do with the services provided by our company.
The simple answer is that it’s born out of reading the accounts of explorers and seeing their adventures laid out on criss-crossed lines, with cherubs blowing wind directions and strange sea monsters ready to attack the pitifully small sailing ships.
The words themselves were powerful enough. But the attempt to show where they were and how they got there was even more striking. Why? Because it was visual. I could see it for myself.
For before me was a map. Filled with things real and things imagined. Wind roses showed the direction of wind, so you use these to plot your course.
But exactly where you were and what lay beyond it was founded on what you could see by day from a tiny vessel afloat on an immense ocean and what you could determine by night and the celestial guiding stars.
What the mapmaker put on the maps of an earlier age of discovery and exploration was often – shall we say – open to interpretation. Interiors of landmasses were dotted with non-existent cities and habitations – complete with place names! Pure speculation.
Yet looking at these flights of imagination – along with the extraordinary tales of hardship, courage and unbelievable stamina by those who survived to describe what they saw – produced the fascination that I have to this day.
Well, that’s the map side of things. So how does this relate to Portolan Global the company?
I believe the map enthusiasm is really a metaphor. I have an equal fascination, developed and deepened over the years, with public policy and how to reconcile various interests and aspirations in the search for a shared outcome, a common good.
As always, the challenge is how to get there. What is the destination? Where are the guiding lights? From which direction blow the winds of influence? More existentially, how do we avoid foundering on shoals in tempest-tossed seas?
Like a mapmaker, you situate your analysis in the realities and circumstances of where things are. And like the ancient mapmaker, the true artisan, you creatively identify a pathway or course that offers best hope and lowest risk in reaching the desired destination.
Analysis and policy recommendations are logically intertwined. They appeal to governments and policymakers because they have cogency; they are enveloped in rationality and consequence. A will lead to B and then to C (goal).
But they are also conceptual, interpretive and cultural, which means they need a narrative to take them forward and make them compelling. Logic and narrative communicate the interests and policy aims, translating them from concept into (successful) action.
The mapmaker’s artistry and embellishments, as well as the factual information and practical guidance the maps offer, stay imprisoned unless these “recommendations” are acted upon. They need a narrative to translate them into action, into solutions.
Portolan Global is the mapmaker’s knowledge and art come to life in a world of government relations, industry needs, national security, international political and economic risk, and sustaining the planet against climate change.
I’ve long been fascinated by bringing interests together, identifying a common good, finding policy solutions grounded in reality, and proposing creative pathways to guide the way. Such pathways must be navigable, they must sail on smoothly past perilous ice floes, turbulent tides and opposing winds. They must be communicable and understandable to stakeholders, policymakers and the general public.
Above all, they must have a narrative, binding imagination together with hard analysis and experience. And they must point to action required to reach the destination.
This is what a map does.
It’s why the company is called “Portolan.” In the next musing, I’ll talk about what the “Global” means.
]]>