A Tech Insider's Look at Nuclear With Faraz Ahmad
This is Fissionary, a show exploring how nuclear powers your world. I'm Mary Carpenter. And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in. Hey everyone, welcome back to Fissionary. If you've been following
the energy space, you know that big tech is making some serious moves in clean energy. And today we're diving into one of the most interesting areas, of course, nuclear energy. Yeah, big names like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are investing in nuclear as part of their broader energy strategies.
And today we're talking about the role nuclear plays in powering the future of tech. I mean, the energy demand that we're seeing Jordan is so big, but it makes sense, AI is everywhere. It really is. I've had several conversations now with my kids about like, no, you cannot use ChatGPT to write your school essays. Oh, yeah.
That's probably a big thing, right, at school? It is. I mean, it's not yet because they're still younger. I feel like this is a bigger conversation in like high school and college where you're talking about some really like heavy lifting multi-page papers. But I've used ChatGPT a couple times for, you know, queries. And I actually just
knowing the backend energy use, like I feel kind of guilty every time I use it. I know. I never really thought about it until recently when, I mean, the interest in nuclear started happening.
But I mean I've been using Alexa for years. I talked to her every day. She tells me the weather every single day, so I know what to wear. I mean it's just, it's constant how present AI is in our lives. Yeah, and I realize now that there are a ton of trends going around that use AI, social media trends. So you've got the, you know, put a picture of your pet into ChatGPT and ask it to turn it into a human, which I did for my cat. And the results, honestly, were probably pretty accurate to this trend going around now where everybody's turning themselves into action figures.
Yeah, we need Fissionary hosts action figures. I think we need to do it. Little Mary and Jordan Fissionary hosts action figures.
Some of them are so good. I love seeing those. Some of them were so bad though.
It makes me nervous to use AI. I'm like, what are they going to actually think about me? Yeah, there seems to still be a hit or miss with some of it, depending on what you ask it to do. So today we're talking to Faraz Ahmad, recently just left Amazon, so they have such an interesting insight into all of this. Before you start listening to the interview, we would love for y'all to think just how much AI influences and is a part of your day and keep that in mind as you're listening to the episode.
Today, we're joined by Faraz Ahmad, who has previously worked with Amazon's global clean energy team, where he led the charge on their net-zero electricity strategy. Faraz brings deep experience from NextEra Energy, General Electric, and even nuclear engineering early in his career. We'll explore how big tech is securing sustainable power at scale and what the strategy means for the future of nuclear. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and your background and what led you to Amazon? Yeah, absolutely. Happy to, Mary.
So my career has really been focused on the intersection of three things. It's around corporate strategy, energy and innovation and commercialization of technology. So my background's been in electrical engineering, that's why I studied at university, and so I've been involved from designing chips for the beginning of my career right through to the power sector and beyond. One of my first roles was actually working at the British Nuclear Fuels where they have a reprocessing plant in a community in northern England, and since then I worked in oil and gas, I did engineering roles as well in the subcontinent industry, and then I did a series of advisory roles with the Boston Consulting Group, advising the UK government on offshore wind and offshore renewables.
That really led me down this whole focus on energy, and I spent seven and a half years with GE on various rules all around the world, both in emerging markets as well as developed markets in energy intensive industries including power generation and oil and gas. So that gave me a real insight into the global requirements for energy in different countries around the world including Africa, Asia, Europe, North America. And in 2018, when I was in the US, I joined NextEra Energy, who are one of the world's largest publicly listed renewable developers, who develop clean energy infrastructure, including EV infrastructure, hydrogen, etc. I was with NextEra for three and a half years leading their strategy M&A business development for their retail division. That's the division that interfaces with end customers or residential, commercial, industrial. And in 2022, I joined Amazon as part of their energy team to lead this wide initiative of how they can get to net-zero, which is a climate goal that they have to be net-zero by 2040.
But the mission is essentially the same throughout, which is not just the decarbonization aspect, but how do you get reliable, affordable, and decarbanized electricity for Amazon's needs and also then for the grid at large. So you have this incredible background in energy that is really diverse. You've touched many different pieces of it. And you also grew up in a region where nuclear was a major employer.
How has that all influenced your views on the role of nuclear specifically in the future of clean energy? Growing up where I did in Northern England, it was the main employer in the region, so everyone I knew had some connection to that nuclear power plant. So I think in that regard, I won't be atypical in that general understanding there was a major part of local infrastructure and that is providing much needed power for the country. I think one aspect that has maybe not been understood more broadly is nuclear essentially is not new. We've actually done this
for quite a while, but we went into this essentially a little bit of a long-term lag or pause. It really went through very much of a dormant period where a lot essentially talent retired out of the sector, and that I think has generally affected industry now where you know 20-30 years later now we're trying to now essentially build a new fleet with those needs, and realizing that actually some of the attributes that nuclear has like you mentioned around clean weren't really valued back then when climate change was not really in the of the consciousness and now realizing those attributes of, you know, reliable long-term base load power which also has that zero emission electricity is actually extremely valuable for the challenges that we're facing today. So let's talk a little bit more about that.
What's driving this surge in energy demand from your perspective, and why is big tech so focused on securing power now? Yeah, so I think first of all, it's important to just put a geographical frame around this, and that global energy demand is increasing more generally. There's still 800 million people in the world who have absolutely zero access to electricity, at least another billion people in a world who are access to the grid and electricity, but they have intermittent access with brownouts or blackouts, etc. And so we've got fundamental drivers in terms of you cannot be prosperous without energy. And so there's still a large part of the world who needs to essentially raise their living standards and have energy, so that's the first point. And with that, that means more air conditioning demand, more industrial demand, more commercial demand, and all of the things that we need. So that's kind of one of the
fundamental driver. But also with higher temperatures going forward, we're going to need to have more air-conditioning, and that's also one of the big drivers as well for global energy demand. Coming back to the US specifically, in the US, we are seeing essentially this uptick in demand from essentially cloud computing AI data centers. Right now, the International Energy Agency is forecasting that electricity demand for data centers is going to double globally by 2030.
And right now, around 2024 period, the US was 45 percent of the electricity consumption for data center. So the US is right in the center of this. And what's causing this now is that as we now have this turn this capability in compute, cloud compute and AI. And this is not a new thing.
I would just add is that what's changed now recently is just the speed and scale of this adoption. And that means that fundamentally we need a digital infrastructure that can support that adoption. And that digital infrastructure, like many types of infrastructure, is fundamentally dependent on that reliable and affordable power that's needed. And so that's kind of what's driving specific energy demand here.
But in the US specifically now, what we're having is we've got much more local leads, because these data centers are very large, in some cases, as large, the power demand is large as a city, but they're at a very particular point. Whereas, in other use cases, it may be more distributed. So that's what fundamentally is that the tech companies, and not just tech companies but all corporates and industrial companies need power for their operations.
But with the data centers and their specific large loads is creating this specific needs for electricity increased demand. So let's talk about AI, data centers, EVs. How do these technologies change the game for energy consumption compared to even a decade ago? Yeah, so I think fundamentally, they just weren't as mature. And as I mentioned, because now the digital infrastructure cloud computing AI descent is getting into this gigawatts or hundreds of megawatts type of stage now.
What's different now compared to a decade ago is that the digital structure is actually the primary driver of the grid here in the US, because we're seeing this growth in the next five years and beyond. And so that's a fundamental change, whereas previously it was a contributor, but not a primary driver. So we have a fundamentally large loads now being connected and with electric vehicles now as well I think the cost point has come now to such a degree that there's a greater degree of adoption, and that also means that there is increased demand there. I'll be at a fleet level or individually at a passenger level as well. The difference there with electric vehicles, you have more control of the timing.
So you can charge your electric vehicles at a particular time, which, for example, towards the end of the day, on the evening hours. And so there's a little bit more control there of those energy consumption patterns, whereas cloud computing, data centers, AI, has to be more of a baseload type of profile. Can you contextualize a little bit for our listeners, like the scale of energy consumption for AI? Like I just read something recently that was talking about how much energy is used just when you thank ChatGPT, for example, for providing you answers. And I feel like that's not something people are like really fully understanding.
Yeah, there's been various reports showing that if you compare to a typical Google search and a LLM query, a large language model ChatGPT, it's like an order of magnitude higher. By using these kind of large-angle models in AI. So that is very, very significant as well. And then in terms of, you know, when you're talking in the gigawatts type of digital infrastructure, I mean, that is going to be as much as a large city.
So in Texas, for example, where I live, we're looking at projections where the current capacity is about 30 gigawatths and talking about essentially doubling that to 60 gigawattes by the end of the decade. I mean that's just tremendous growth. And really it's a paradigm shift because the last 20 to 30 years we've had essentially very, very moderate consumption growth, maybe say two percent or so, be something in that range.
And now we're entering an era with fundamentally higher growth needs. It's far different than the era that we've had before. And that means the infrastructure needs, it means the way we operate, the way utilities need to manage this is like in a very different era to what they've been used to in the past. So why nuclear? We've seen Amazon, Google, Microsoft not only investing in nuclear, hiring incredibly talented people like you, and also signing onto a pledge of triple nuclear energy by 2050. Why are they making this commitment now and why nuclear in particular? I go back to the mission as described of reliable, affordable and decarbonized power.
And essentially, nuclear has some very attractive value proposition, right? I just want to say that it's a potential, because we need to get to the execution part of it. But essentially, it's very energy-dense, so it requires much less land compared to those particular renewables. It has that zero emission electricity attribute, as I mentioned. So it's producing the carbon dioxide emissions that typically sort of with combustion. And because of that, energy can provide that base load power, so it's not weather-dependent, although you do need fuel like uranium to complete that. That's very attractive when you're trying to get major infrastructure projects done.
And so that's, I think, what's caused the renewed interest because the pace at which we're able to add capacity, particularly with the grid constraints that we're facing throughout the country, has been a bottleneck. And nuclear with that large generation that is reliable at a high capacity factor, say at 90 percent or above, is one potential solution that could really change that. I think the other aspect is, you know, one of the things that I think about here is that we need scalability and nuclear, again, if it could be executed and reaches potential, is one of those solutions that theoretically can move the needle and that you can deploy it relatively agnostic of where the geography is. So unlike other technology, maybe depending on geology or particular wind patterns or anything else, that is something that's very attractive in that it's that scalability used in a wide range of geographies and geology.
How do you compare or weigh the challenges nuclear faces compared with those faced by renewables? What's the most pressing things that need to happen to overcome them to accelerate deployment? Yeah, so I think fundamentally there's two major key issues compared to renewables. And by that, I want to be clear, I'm very bullish on renewables. I think wind, solar and batteries will constitute a very large portion. You know, in Texas, for example, it's more than 90 percent of the current grid capacity to be connected.
But one of the success of renewables has been around, particularly it's financing. It's easy to raise project finance and there's a whole industry on tax like being able to create a project finance. And then the execution is very well understood and the industry is built around that.
With nuclear, I think those two things kind of interlock where because there's concerns around the project execution, and nuclear has had such a bad record in delivering projects on schedule on budget that that therefore makes it extremely difficult to attract financing. And if you look at you mentioned with as specifically Amazon has been the world's largest renewable buyer for five years in a row. Microsoft and Google are also very notable in their renewable purchases, but the off-taker in order to buy power is the position for these companies to essentially be.
But that's not enough because that doesn't incentivize enough project finance to actually build these projects. And so what Amazon has done is essentially, you know, contribute capital to support Energy Northwest to ensure that this can actually support Energy Northwest to get these projects off the ground, either in terms of contractual support or other support to enable that. And that is a key bottleneck for the whole industry, because that source of capital to enable the projects what's really missing in the industry. We need to have new sources, new investors who are willing to say, hey, we can take this early stage development, and begin to scope out the project in terms of its site characterizations, seismic understanding, etc, to actually get it to through the NRC process.
And that's what makes nuclear so difficult compared to renewables is that difficulty in obtaining financing, and then the perceived construction risk as well. One of my roles at GE, my strategy role, one of the things we looked at is different energy technologies. And one of things that you generally see is that as you get to the scale of deployment, you get down the cost levelized cost of energy. And you see this with wind, solar, LNG. But with nuclear, we've actually had the opposite.
Impact, which is in fact costs have risen over time. And one of the reasons for that is this non-standardization. So Julie Kozeracki, the Department of Energy, has mentioned this, where we've got 94 nuclear reactors in the US with over 50 unique designs.
So nuclear is a very peculiar industry in that it hasn't really followed the cost curve that you'd expect as you would with other energy technologies that you normally expect with scale. What do you see the tech companies doing Amazon, just as an example, like you're obviously well aware of the investment challenges, what is being done to overcome that? Or how is that being approached by the companies that want to deploy and invest in nuclear? I think fundamentally what we need, Jordan, is we need some more success and proof points to bring confidence that the industry can execute on budget, on schedule, and that will then bring more investors to say, here, we are willing to actually put risk capital in this, particularly in the early stage, like kind of separating the project lifecycle as the early-stage capital develop the site, and going through the NSE application and construction. There's construction risk itself, but there's also the development risk upfront as well. And I think by having more proof points that this can be done and there is a reasonable rate of return here, that would go a long way to bring more capital into this.
You know, the Canadians have shown that they have done a successful refurbishment program on their fleet. Again, those proof points are important to show that this could be done because right now, without the confidence, either the cost of capital becomes so large or the risk share essentially becomes unworkable at that point. So we need to have, I think, really a much better execution. And I put that on the industry as well, is that the industry needs to become much more commercial to think about how we can provide it, as it was with any other source of power, whether that's geothermal, renewable storage, carbon capture. Essentially nuclear is not fitting in a isolated landscape, right? It's having to essentially compete against all other options. So kind of flipping that question, how do you see nuclear and how did your colleagues at a, place like Amazon, see nuclear complimenting sources, other clean sources on the grid? Yeah, so there's a report of the liftoff report on nuclear from the Department of Energy has a really interesting chart, which actually shows what it is kind of the cost of a fully decarbonized grid with renewables, and then what is with essentially some form of role with base load power.
So base load meaning that it's just a constant profile. And what was really important to note there is that the DOE was saying that you'd get to a 30 percent lower cost with that base load role there. So with that in mind, and that's very significant, right? So you get to decarbonization at a lower cost. Therefore, what are the base load options available? So carbon capture, geothermal, nuclear, etc. And so back to my point around nuclear and how do you get the scale and how to ensure that it's not so dependent on some of the particular geographies and sites.
That was one of the reasons why nuclear was perceived as attractive because it has that potential scalability. It can provide that base load power, it has a zero-emission electricity attribute. And so if it can't achieve its promise, then that's an attractive value both for the grid and for everyone overall. Because by having a reliable, affordable decarbonized grid, that benefits society at large.
I want to go back to something you mentioned a little while ago. You mentioned the Amazon and Energy Northwest announcement. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that announcement, what it is? And, you know, it's exciting. So I'd love for you to talk about that a little. Yeah, so this is a public announcement. This is public information.
So Amazon essentially entered the agreement with Energy Northwest to support the new build of an X-energy reactor. X-energy is a nuclear reactor OEM, so they designed the reactors. And Energy Northwest is the utility in that region. And they're essentially going to embark on a construction of essentially a nuclear power plant using four of those reactors to begin with, and with potential to scale from there to essentially generate that zero emission electricity in Washington state. And that's exciting because, you know, for the last 50 years or so, or certainly a very, very long time, the only recent major nuclear build in the US has been Project Vogtle, as I mentioned, Unit 3 and Unit 4, which wasn't, and I'm going to the types of reactors, it wasn't AP1000 reactor, but you know there were a lot of lessons learned there because that project did particularly well. It was severely over budget by billions of dollars and many years late.
And so now this is an attempt now to use a different type of reactor design. And so with that, it's kind of trying to get to get back to a smaller, more repeatable, standardized modular type of repetition where we can actually get down this cost curve. So this is going to be important project. But I do want to say is the X-energy deployment in Washington state with Energy Northwest is not actually going to be the first deployment.
The first deployment is actually with Dow in Texas, the Seadrift project, where Dow, and I want to really applaud them and their team, are actually you're going to be deploying an X-energy reactor to essentially produce power and heat, actually primarily heat for the industrial needs, steam for the industry processes. And that's going to the first deployment of the X-energy reactor within the Washington State project being the second one after that. So again, really exciting and trying to get build to this point around, build off that momentum to get around this point on scale. Because what we need to do is to get a different approach.
Because if you want different outcomes, you need different inputs. And so we need to get to this fleet scale approach of getting standardization so that we can get down this cost curve. And I think with these deployments and our Seadrift, and then hopefully within Washington with Energy Northwest, we can begin to get around this trajectory around getting repeatable deployment. You know, you mentioned, and you're highlighting it when you're talking about the Texas and Washington projects and you mentioned Vogtle, this idea that there's a lot of different technology out there, which makes it different than other energy sectors.
And you mentioned the cost of Vogtle. But between units 3 and unit 4, there was as much as a 30 to 40 percent cost savings between when the third reactor was built and the fourth one. So that demonstrated that, you know, the repeating of the building of the technology does bring down the cost curve. Do you think that that helps make that point from an investment perspective or like, how, how do you think that's viewed? It's viewed very positive. I think, you know, it could be also argued is that with Project Vogtle, whether it was running over schedule or whether the project was just fundamentally underestimated at the beginning, right? So a lot of that reduction that you're citing is just a reduced number of engineering hours. You know, and you know there's a lot of project management practices that I learned from my prior career in oil and gas, where you want to ensure that, for example, you don't start construction until the design is complete, right? Those are kind of some of those basic concepts, but because this is one of the first nuclear projects done in such a long time, there are a lot of lessons learned there from Project Vogtle.
Now, going forward, what we need to do is to have a proven reactor now, the AP1000 reactor is running, but we need a supply chain essentially mobilized and then built for building this kind of continual fleet-wide approach so that they are maintaining and advertising that equipment over the long term. We also need a labor force as well, so what we don't want is to keep building these one-offs. We want to get a labor-force that is then essentially moving from project to project, getting those benefits of experience and coming down that experience curve to reduce costs and timelines. So I know Amazon's involvement with X-energy really centered around Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund. Can you tell us a little bit about that program and how that's supporting nuclear and other clean energy sources? I'm no longer an employee with Amazon, but Amazon has a climate pledge fund of about $2 billion or so. And their mission is
essentially to invest in startup companies related to climate to accelerate the development for the benefit of Amazon in its goals to be a net-zero by 2040. And its wide environmental goals. And so a great example of that was, for example, with Rivian, where Amazon was one of the first companies in the world to realize that by electrifying, you get a lower cost, lower emission solution. And looking at that business plan, we could see that long-term horizon with that volume, we could actually accelerate by, essentially, Amazon being the initial off-taker or buyer of those vehicles.
And normally, it was essentially a buyer of these vehicles. And now Amazon has got a goal to be 100,000 Rivian vehicles for its last one delivery fleet by 2030. But also essentially co-developing that vehicle as well. So by taking that investment stake out, really strategic equity stake to ensure really close alignment between Rivian and Amazon itself. And so with that as an example, a lot of these companies are trying to do is to help Amazon essentially solve its needs as it were. And X-energy is an example of that where Amazon.
Along with other investors essentially took a strategic equity stake in X-energy because it realized that essentially by capitalizing it, it could help to develop this technology for Amazon's future power needs. There was a Gallup poll that came out recently showing that more than 60% of Americans support nuclear now. That's near a record high.
And I'm curious how you think tech companies' investments in nuclear change public perception of the industry, or do they? I don't have any data to support this, but my perspective is that it really brings it into the mainstream, underlines those essentially that clean energy attributes, and also makes me realize is that for a lot of the public may not realize this, the majority of the clean electricity on the grid today is actually coming from nuclear rather than renewables. So the single biggest thing that we need to do, both from a reliability cost and decoupling perspective is to extend the life of the existing fleet, right? That is an absolute imperative that will allow us to buy more time as we build more clean energy sources, more generation full stop, we don't want to be losing generation as well. So I think people are realizing that nuclear has a particularly unique value proposition in terms of its energy density, its ability to connect to the grid, because the grid is, it's not just the generation source itself, you also have to build the grid to support that.
You know, five years ago, would you have predicted that these partnerships between not only Amazon, but the other big tech companies with nuclear developers, you know, these new technologies, did, do you see that coming or is this a surprise for you? I think, look, the world is moving so fast, no one could have predicted how things change. Although I do want to just emphasize that both Amazon and Microsoft, Google, as a lot of large tech companies, can do a huge amount of criticism for their actions when having worked in the company, you know, they have extremely ambitious climate goals. In fact, I would argue more ambitious than any other corporate sector, and yet they often get the more scrutiny. So they are really,
not only are they really trying and hiring some of the best talent in the industry to solve these problems that have never been solved before, but they're also really putting real money behind it as well. It's very easy just to you know talk the talk but they actually are doing what they're saying they're committed to right although they said on the renewable side so also now on supporting new nuclear bills as well. So i do i do want to make the point in that these companies are really committed to it they've they've made public announcements which is no small deal, but they are also extremely pragmatic. And so if a particular solution can't meet all their needs and they will explore all potential solutions on the table whether that's nuclear whether it's geothermal carbon capture i think there's not going to be a silver bullet and there's going to be a realization that the trajectory is going to have to change and and the approach is also going to change. So I do want to underline that there hasn't a lot of criticism but they are they are essentially really I don't see many of the companies and sectors putting such a strong commitment both in terms of man hours and resources financial and otherwise behind supporting and changing the industry and back to the point I made at the beginning with digital infrastructure in the becoming the primary driver of the grid, they are really taking this extremely seriously. That's a great point, and I think that we've covered investment and financing from a couple different angles in this conversation and the challenges around them.
What do you see as the biggest policy or regulatory hurdles that could slow down big text, nuclear ambitions? I would say there are two particular areas that we have to get right from a policy perspective. We have to make sure that we get the reactor licensing done as smoothly and quickly as possible in a transparent way. So just to go back for your listenership, there are different types of reactors. These reactors have to be approved by the NRC, New Scale has got part of that design certification done, but there's also X-energy, AP1000 has been built, and the market is going to choose which reactor is essentially going to be selected and deployed. But we have to get those reactors through that process as smoothly and transparently as possible. And then we also have to have the right sites.
So right now, I think we're seeing a tendency to go towards existing sites because that simplifies the process, there's already existing communities, existing infrastructure, but in the medium long term we're going to need to develop new sites that have not had a past record of nuclear build, right, so as opposed to you know sites that haven't been considered and so from a policy perspective we need to make sure that is as transparent and streamlined as possible. Do you think this interest from big tech will create momentum for other industries to adopt nuclear or do you think the strategy is unique for companies with this gigantic need for energy? Well, actually, I would say in the example of you know, X-energy, it was actually the other way around. And back to my point, it was actually Dow, the industrial to let the way and then Amazon obviously, you know took an investment into X-energy and are following up on that with this project in Washington state. But you know I do think the needs are quite different in that he essentially that electricity production is so critical for the computer tech industries.
But as you get down this cost curve with this deployment at scale, there should be a benefit so that other industries can benefit either from electricity or also from the heat as well. And so they could essentially back to this point of getting scale with the deployment for the industrial process. And heat and deployment for electricity, and each of those drives this cumulative scale down that cost curve.
That would be a great scenario to avoid this cost escalation that we've seen in the past. So if you had a crystal ball and you were looking ahead, do you think energy demand will continue to grow in tech? I think energy demand overall globally will will rise. Yes, in technology, but also just more generally across the world with air conditioning, electrification of fleets, electrification buildings, you know, going to heat pumps, etc.
So energy demand is no doubt going to increase going forward. In terms for the nuclear energy sector, specifically, as I said, it really has to deliver commercially, no one gets a blank check. And these projects are all conditioned on meeting their performance objectives on cost, schedule, risk, etc. And if they don't achieve what they promise to do, then none of these parties are obligated to continue going forward. All these projects have an off-ramp, as, by the way, any large projects. So I've developed projects in the power and oil and gas sectors and you have very rigorous governance and protocols to make sure that the projects are being managed appropriately from a risk commercial and operational perspective.
So nothing is guaranteed. It's now really up to the sector to deliver. The promise has been understood. Obviously, there's now movement forward to actually put capital resources behind this. But now it's really, I think, delivery will create the proof points that will then create further momentum for financing and further execution. What is your, or do you have like a greatest hope for the best outcome of this investment from the tech companies in clean energy? Like, is there like a, here's what I'd love to see in, in 20 years from now happening.
What I'd love to see is that this was the start of delivering projects in a wholesale different way than we've done in the past that gets those success factors of doing on schedule, on budget with all of the long term implications of community engagement, waste management in mind. And then we get to a positive reinforcement cycle where this brings more confidence, brings more financing. And kind of my thought right now is this is probably one of the best times in my lifetime to be involved in the whole infrastructure sector because we need people in every aspect from electricians to communicators to finance people to engineers.
Everyone can play a role here in this fold-up. I think it's so interesting that these big tech companies are hiring energy experts like you. Do you see that trend continuing at Amazon as well as the other big tech companies? I do, and I think because energy is such a core part of their operations as consumption increases and energy is a core power for any company operations, but essentially because the rate of growth and new investment is limited by the energy, that's kind of why it's so strategically important. And so you could say in an ideal world, if the energy was plentiful and affordable, reliable, decarbonized, there wouldn't be a need to have these in-house energy teams, but essentially because there's a need to actually shape this strategy, engage with external parties. I love that you highlighted, one, clean energy teams in tech companies, because I think that's something a little bit different than what people think of when they're thinking about who tech companies employ, and also just the sheer number of different types of jobs that are available across the energy sector. We touched on it a little earlier, but this idea that we need a workforce to support and maintain, not only the current fleet, but whatever's coming on the horizon.
And I always love to like plug that for our listeners, that there is a place for you in energy, because it's not just engineers that are needed. There's a lot of different types of jobs, including trade positions and communicators, like you mentioned, that can really help make all of this happen. So thank you for highlighting that. Absolutely.
And it's not just, it's all types of staff, right, as you know, electricians, trades people, legal people to oversee contracts, financing, right as well. All these different types of staff and skill sets are needed to develop and deliver these projects. We are doing something in essentially we've not done in generations, and so we now need to go all in and ensure that we are being able to deliver on something that we collectively we really need as a society overall and one of my favorite is a book by Professor Flyvbjerg at Oxford, and he has this book called, you know, How to Get Things Done, and this is one of those big things is that we need to be able to you know build nuclear power to build me to expand the grid we need build renewables. We need to do all of these things at a bigger, faster, reliable, safe way to ensure that we are going to meet the needs of our future society. I love that you brought that up because that is our last question that we're ending with this season is what have you read lately that's worth passing on? So great recommendation there.
Is there anything else you're reading or want to recommend? I would just actually go back to that book by Professor Flyvbjerg because it had a lot of lessons that seemed quite common sense. Actually, in large projects, it's so important to get those fundamentals right. So, for example, it talks about the importance of upfront planning, and all the data shows that the more projects are planned in detail, the higher likelihood of success. The importance of doing digital simulations, of trying different iterations of how it could be planned and assembled and manufactured. It's so importance to
actually avoid the costly iterations out in the field, and the digital tools are a key way to help enable that, as well as also just in more simple things like document and version controls. So digitization, I think, is a key enabler for project execution as well. As well as, also, the last part I'll just mention in the book as well talks about just the whole workforce and alignment across different companies as well. So integrated project delivery, so how do you make sure that all of these different people entities are aligned commercially, financially to the same outcome of delivering projects on schedule, on budget, because otherwise these contracts and other things can create friction and issues at various points in the supply, and that's not helpful as well. That's great. Added to my list.
Yeah, I love a relevant book rec. It feels very relevant to this moment. It does, and it's not just in the energy sector, but if you look at everything from transport and water infrastructure and everything else, right? Amazing. Thank you so much for
taking the time to talk to us. This has been a really great conversation. Yeah, there's so much going on, and it's the perfect time to have you on, so we really appreciate it. Thank you so much and appreciate having the opportunity. What a thoughtful conversation from Faraz.
So much to think about. I feel like this conversation around nuclear and the tech companies really just came almost out of nowhere last year and suddenly it was in the news almost every day. And it feels like the tip of the iceberg. Like the conversation started last year but I think that this conversation is gonna evolve when we're talking about the future of the grid. Obviously, people who work in the sector know that the demand is just gonna continue growing. And so I think we're gonna be talking about this for a really long time and seeing different ways that nuclear can fit in to help with data demand.
Yeah, this is going to be a big thing for a long time, and it's really going to have a huge impact on the future of our energy grid. And what happens right now is so important to make sure that we're able to keep up. I want to say thank you so much to Faraz for joining us, and thank you all for listening. Can't wait to see how this progresses. Make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to stay updated on all things visionary. We'll see you soon.
2025-05-26 06:40
