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Securing nuclear energy systems on all fronts with Audrey Crowe
101 Plays12 days ago
Are we sleepwalking into a security crisis that makes ransomware look quaint?
Nuclear security expert Audrey Crowe joins the show to talk about the convergence of grey zone warfare, critical infrastructure, and nuclear security. This isn't your parents’ Cold War nuclear threat, this is about adversaries who've figured out they don't need missiles when they can manipulate our infrastructure through cyber operations, disinformation, and coercion that lives in the murky space below armed conflict.
While our adversaries operate in the grey zone with zero institutional friction, democratic nations tie themselves in bureaucratic knots. We demand attribution, legal frameworks, and perfect evidence before we can even acknowledge a threat. It's like showing up to a knife fight with a permission slip.
Audrey walks us through how Stuxnet changed everything, why the nuclear sector spans energy, transportation, healthcare, and government regulation, and why she's on a mission to get nuclear industry stakeholders share more information with one another.
We also get into the elephant in the room: Big Tech's sudden hunger for nuclear power to feed AI data centers. When profit-driven actors start controlling nuclear infrastructure, will safety remain sacred? Or will we sacrifice long-term security for short-term computational power?
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Transcript
Mission to Encourage Open Security Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
I am on a mission ah to get the and nuclear industry stakeholders to have more open discussions about their the security challenges that they're facing.
00:00:13
Speaker
But ultimately, what we need to do as an industry, in this case here with the nuclear sector, is we need to start talking. We need to start um working together.
00:00:28
Speaker
And this has been happening on the economic side. So you'll see there's a a fair amount of of nuclear organizations that are focused on you know developing new technology, developing the industry. But from a security perspective,
00:00:44
Speaker
I have yet to see an organization like that. So why are we talking about the economic aspect, but we're not talking about the security aspect? Because at the end of the day, the economic aspect only happens it's secure.
00:00:57
Speaker
if it's secure
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction of Audrey Crowe
00:01:07
Speaker
back. It's Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks. This is the tech podcast about humans. I'm George Kay. I'm George And today we are talking with Audrey Crowe, who is a nuclear and operational technology security expert out of Canada.
00:01:25
Speaker
What to say about this conversation. i mean, it's the first time we've talked about nuclear energy, which is amazing. I'm glad we could get her on, but also to gain her expertise for the audience's sake in understanding this part about critical infrastructure. I think most people think nuclear energy kind of feels like throwback stuff, but it's very much back in the zeitgeist because AI companies need more juice for their data centers.
00:01:49
Speaker
But have we thought through the security concerns? And that's where Audrey comes in. Yeah. You know, like full disclosure, like I i went to to university with Audrey at the military college. So, um, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to lie to you. I kind of went back to that mindset back because it's where we were We were soldiers together and went to school together and we'd bust each other's balls constantly.
Praise for Audrey's Security Impact
00:02:09
Speaker
So whatever you hear from a teasing standpoint, like it's all love. This is is someone i hang out with, have drinks with on a regular basis.
00:02:17
Speaker
I just think her job is really cool. I think that she's dealing with a problem statement that impacts our our entire North American population because ah Literally everyone. Don't, don't, don't look at the news, right? Like, I mean, if at an operational level, we still have an integrated power generation system. We still have an integrated oil and gas system, like a pipeline where we are actually extracting oil and and we're still refining it in the U.S. And we have a system where supply chains still depend on one another. And, you know, she's living at the tip of the spear of that. And I think what's exciting, you know, for our show is, is getting people who are real world operators,
00:02:54
Speaker
who are actually doing the thing and who are trying to save lives, who are trying to make a difference. And, you know, yeah that's that's why I like i love the girl to death because she is just, she's living the thing that a lot of people, you know, I'd say like, you know a Monday or Tuesday morning quarterback where they they sit around and they talk a lot of shit, yeah but they're not living it. They're not actually trying to make a change. they're not trying to make a difference.
00:03:16
Speaker
And what i what I really appreciate about her is that she's taking a super complex field as as ah as a tiny French woman from Quebec and actually you know trying to make change in a world where the people who've been in that game, like you know you joke around, the 15 or 30 people who've been leading that game have been there for three or four decades.
00:03:36
Speaker
And they need to listen to new ideas. They need to understand what the evolving evolving modern integrated cyber physical threat surface is.
Vulnerabilities in Interconnected Systems
00:03:44
Speaker
And you know i enjoy the fact that we get to kind of talk about this because I don't think, George, don't think you and i really, really talk about the physical security aspect of things. Yeah.
00:03:54
Speaker
But everything's everything's integrated. Like you need your phone, you need connectivity for everything. Everyone's plugging in OT systems that weren't designed to be interconnected to the internet. And that's creating a massive exponential growth in the attack threat surface.
00:04:08
Speaker
So it's cool that I think we got to actually talk about this. and And I hope people start thinking about the problem bit differently because you know when you turn on your light, when you walk into a room, There's a lot of things that happened there. And if anything that's... To keep that light on. To keep that light on.
00:04:23
Speaker
This is the problem statement. And I think we tried to begin to scratch the surface on that this morning. Yes. Let's turn it over to Audrey.
00:04:41
Speaker
Audrey Crowe, welcome to the show. Thanks, Georges. It's ah's a pleasure to be here today. My friend, how did you end up in Ottawa in this horrible, horrible cold? you anywhere else in this beautiful country or in America.
Audrey's Journey in National Security
00:04:58
Speaker
How did you end up doing this thing, working in the government, working in and and power safety? All right, so how I got here? Well, I joined the military right out of high school and I went to RMC. After RMC, I realized that that the forces were not necessarily for me, so but I was still interested in national security and critical infrastructure in general. So...
00:05:22
Speaker
the things that keep our society going, essentially. And then I was lucky enough to find a a position at the Canadian Nuclear Labs. After going back to school and and leaving the military,
00:05:37
Speaker
And then since then, I've developed this this um passion for, well, I mean, the nuclear sector in itself is is fascinating because it spans across various critical infrastructure sectors. So you have your energy and utilities. You have your transportation because, you know, you have to transport nuclear materials. Health healthcare care. And then it also involves a government organization. portion with the regulation. And then that that's what brought me essentially from from the more national security portion into the critical infrastructure portion where we're looking at at how everything integrates, interacts, and how um essentially it supports our society.
00:06:21
Speaker
I appreciate that. I appreciate that broader lens because I think things like nuclear energy seem very abstract to the average civilian, right? It's just this thing that some people do debate.
00:06:35
Speaker
I don't really care as long as when I flip the switch, the lights come on. I also think the literal words critical infrastructure didn't enter the common parlance until after the colonial pipeline attack. So this is like a thing that came from industry into now, you know, you hear at least here in the U.S., you hear congressional hearings about it. This just the words didn't didn't match. and I think now people are getting a sense.
00:06:59
Speaker
It's funny, George, because you say that, but I was telling her about this. like I would say it really came into... So you're talking about mainstream attention, colonial pipeline. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Massive breach and that hit mainstream attention.
00:07:11
Speaker
I would say for operators, like I remember existing in the weird, wonderful world of Sagan full-time at the same time Audrey was doing her thing because we both got spat out of our college together at the same time. i remember when Stuxnet happened and that shit blew my fucking mind, bro. I was like, wait.
00:07:28
Speaker
They took the human's operation to fucking compromise. A USB drive to destroy nuclear centrifuges. Yes, they got an Iranian scientist to turn on Iran and plug that motherfucker in. yeah They actually blew up a fucking power plant.
00:07:44
Speaker
And that was like, oh, this is like, this could actually be like really dangerous and cyber could fuck us all. What's so interesting about this Stuxnet case as well as the integration of physical and cyber, right? So we often think of cyber cyber events or as just cyber, but we need to start thinking about it horizontally, how the human, the physical aspect and the cyber aspect interact together to cause chaos. And you're right, George, i think the U.S. has a much better understanding of critical infrastructure than we do here in Canada.
00:08:17
Speaker
We are starting to talk about
Role of Critical Infrastructure in Society
00:08:19
Speaker
it more. For us, I think the pandemic, has helped a bit in that we started talking about essential services. a And that right there, that's your critical infrastructure.
00:08:31
Speaker
That's what keeps your light on, your heat on, your internet going. It's ah your financial, your transportation, your healthcare care systems. What keeps food on the table, water in on a tab in the tap, and your manufacturing capabilities associated to it, but also your government and your public safety system.
00:08:50
Speaker
So that's wide-ranging. Nice. Well, so... so Here's a thing, right? Like we, uh, we all came up together in full context to our audience. Uh, Audrey's an old friend of mine. went to university together back when I was young. I didn't have a beard and, uh, I was in a lot better shape back then. don't about you, man. I was fucking. You were also younger. Come on, give yourself some grace. I was a psychopath, man. I was like, I was fresh out of, uh, uh, combat art school, got thrown into the SIGA and like, oh yeah, you're going to go college now because you have like an 85 average. And I was like, oh cool and then like we're all trying to fit in this thing and then suddenly like we go from being like what are we to do with our lives like you actually had an important job you actually had like a thing that like mattered to people after we finished at the college we all kind of like fucked off and disappeared for like like at least five or seven years didn't run into you until I moved back to Ottawa and
00:09:48
Speaker
So
North America's Power Grid Vulnerabilities
00:09:49
Speaker
what happened from like, you know, this thing where we finally escaped that goddamn peninsula and actually had real adult jobs, to to where you are now where doing something that I would consider extremely, extremely important and it's it's niche unfortunately because people don't understand just how often power generation systems are attacked and and they don't really understand like minus, do you remember the great blackout of 2002? Remember that when the entire Eastern Seaboard went out?
00:10:17
Speaker
Just over a transformer that went down I believe in New York State. right And so you don't realize the interconnectivity of the entire power grid, particularly between Canada and the US s and the North American and connected perimeter. You know, as Trois-Rivières generates power and it distributes down to the Eastern seaboard, as you get power generation in in Northwest territories and in in Alberta through the oil sands and that that gets distributed down. I don't think people really understand the nature of the risk and just how much it touches all their lives. so So how did you go from pretty much just being wasted with morons like me at fucking stages to like now you're going to save people's lives and try to protect our ability to actually have an economy as a country because if we have no power, we have no economy, we have no connectivity, we have no communication, we have no governmental control.
00:11:08
Speaker
And that's pretty serious stuff, no? It is. it is. And thank you for exposing my ah past life.
00:11:19
Speaker
ah How I got here is a series of happy accidents. I think of myself as a late bloomer. Frankly, I haven't actively gotten into this
00:11:32
Speaker
and security focused field until probably 2017.
00:11:41
Speaker
And so one thing leading to the other, and I mean, I got an entry-level job at a nuclear research laboratory and worked my way up and found new interests or interests that were already there, just unexploited.
00:12:01
Speaker
Then went back to school and again, happy accidents, meeting the right people at the right time who, you know, facilitate your way and and generate new interests. But did you you begin, I guess, with like a genuine curiosity, right? Because ah you got into this, like got into cyber in 2016.
00:12:20
Speaker
And I remember when like I left the SIGINT world, which is a ah very, very defined kind of game and's in and of itself. And trying learn cyber, I was like, okay, well, I understand this thing.
00:12:31
Speaker
And there are certain things that carry over to this thing. But what the fuck is Python? Except for... So like how did you kind of create that culture? Now it seems like you've been doing this thing the whole, your whole adult life, you know, but you had to adapt to it. Right.
00:12:48
Speaker
and And adapting to stuff as an adult is is not very easy. I know a lot of people who, you know, they might've had like a nice time in one career for five or six years and then they try to do something else and they just can't seem to, you know,
00:13:01
Speaker
accept and adapt and overcome. So, I mean, like, how did you, like, get the the the itch to actually do this security thing? Because, dude, it's a thankless job. It's a zero to hero job. It's so thankless.
00:13:14
Speaker
Why would you do this? It's so terrible for your ego. Why would do this job? Because it matters. Because it's important and because someone has to do it.
Comparison of Nuclear and Defense Sectors
00:13:24
Speaker
So, might as it well be me. is, I mean, there is i mean Defense is also thankless job. m So there's a lot of ah similarities between defense and the nuclear sector.
00:13:42
Speaker
And often enough, you'll see ex-military people join the nuclear sector. It's high security, high risk, and your actions have consequences.
00:13:53
Speaker
So you have to be able to see, okay, so what I'm doing here today, is it going to come and bite me in the bottom two weeks from now?
00:14:04
Speaker
You have to be able to foresee that. So for the benefit of our listeners who are now sort of catching up to the importance of these interconnected systems, what is top of mind for you when it comes to securing these systems? I know you mentioned, you know, trying to break the silo between cyber and physical.
00:14:23
Speaker
What else? Like if you if you're talking to our listeners, like what would you have them understand about? Like what does Audrey care about most when thinking about these systems? ah From a security perspective, George?
Human Element in Security Risks
00:14:37
Speaker
Sure. Or yeah yes, could be operational. could be like whatever is. I think we're we're now firmly latched onto security, right? Because we need to make sure the systems work. The one thing that matters the most is the humans behind those systems.
00:14:52
Speaker
And it is the one common denominator across all domains, across the physical domain, IT t domain, OT domain. It's the human either operates it, administers it, or maintains it, or introduces a USB key in it.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yes. So a lot of critical infrastructure sector operators are... I don't know how to say it nicely. They're older. They're older companies. model and So you have legacy culture of, okay, no, this is a physical security thing or this is a cybersecurity thing, but we need to start thinking, again, horizontally. And the one common denominator is the human. So if we start addressing the human, the insider risk, then you're addressing both your physical and your cybersecurity concerns.
00:15:48
Speaker
Oh, can we pull on that thread a little bit more? Absolutely. Tease that apart. What do you want to hear? i want to I think insider risk has a connotation of malicious insiders, which certainly there are But I want you to sort of yeah extrapolate it kind of explode it out a little for Of course.
00:16:10
Speaker
I think we think of insider risk in terms of malicious act because they're the most ah sensational cases. You know, they're the ones that you're going to hear about on the news. You're not going to hear about George who click on the phishing link on the news.
00:16:29
Speaker
But that's 75% of the cases. 75% of the insider threat cases are inadvertent. They're human error. They're... Just you and me making a mistake. And we need to get our heads out of that that mindset that insider threat equals malicious. And unfortunately, the solution to inadvertent sort of insider threat is not it's not as black and white as other things. It is entirely behavioral. We need even awareness training.
00:17:03
Speaker
We need people to understand what's coming for us, why they're coming for us. And then from there, I think we can build a better awareness of the threats, but also of the risks associated with our systems.
00:17:17
Speaker
and then And then you have the malicious insiders, which are very interesting to study, but minority of the cases. But so so here's the thing, man. So it's like you're doing this thing now and, you know, being in Canada, we have a very unique use case where we have um a significantly smaller, a fractional population compared to our American allies.
Cultural Challenges in Infrastructure
00:17:38
Speaker
But we have a much larger geography and the system that we have is is um a little bit more complex this integration because as technologically advanced as Canada can be in some fields, particularly when it comes to to critical infra,
00:17:53
Speaker
We also seem to still be living in the eighty s and 90s in certain And I think what's difficult sometimes is you have some people who've been in the field, you know, bless them for their experience and their decades. They've been there for a very long time.
00:18:09
Speaker
And they're of the age that they're like basically just collecting like counting down the clock to collect their pensions they can retire. And, you know, you want to go basically conquer the world. and I know you still have that energy, but it takes a lot of patience to deal with an organization I don't know how to like, don't want to get into the whole like GBA plus or DEI kind of thing of it, but it's like, it's a bunch of old white dudes that have not had to put themselves intellectually a very long time. mean, say the quiet part loud. It's what we do. Thank you. It's what we do here. So how did you, how did you, my young francophone friend fit into this Anglo old man world and actually established leadership? Because that's cool.
00:18:55
Speaker
Thanks. You know what? I never thought much about this. I just do the things I do and I'm persistent and I push the needle. But I have to say along the way, I have had...
00:19:09
Speaker
allies that have been just cornerstones. I mean, you want to talk about ah old white Anglo dudes? An old white Anglo dude is the reason why I'm in nuclear in the first place.
00:19:23
Speaker
I tried to get into this organization, Canadian Nuclear Labs, for three years before I got in. And the reason I got in is because some contractor from the U.S.,
00:19:37
Speaker
came into my workplace one day, ah just said, hey, listen, at the time it was ah it was in the service sector. And he goes, you're very helpful. You're very service-oriented. I need help with ah these projects. Are you in? And the first thing I thought was, you're a fraud.
00:19:56
Speaker
This is too good to be true. I've been trying to get in there for three years. That is one of the only... um um don don't Don't worry. worry Don't feel bad.
00:20:08
Speaker
That's how I got into cyber. Hey, just a quick word to say thank you for listening and to ask a favor. If you're digging the new direction of the show, which is looking more at human flourishing and the impact of technology more broadly, share it with friends. It really helps the show.
00:20:25
Speaker
We're really trying to grow something here organically. We don't do paid We don't paid We don't do a lot of sponsorships, so we'd appreciate getting the word out and getting it to people who care about the questions that we're tackling, how to keep tech human, and how to make technology work for us instead of the other way around.
00:20:47
Speaker
Thanks so much for your time and attention. And now back to the interview. I'm wholly unqualified to be in this career. had a buddy who served with who was another street actor that I trained like literally like six years before. i beasted the shit out of this dude fucking screaming at him up and down the hill. You know the hill I'm talking about. Screaming at him up and down the hill.
00:21:10
Speaker
And, you know, then we became best friends and then he got a cool job because he's like a lot smarter than me. Like, to me, I love you, bro. But like, yeah like I was like, dude, i I'm out of the regs. I need a job, man. This whole business thing isn't working out.
00:21:25
Speaker
And he got me in. And, you know, like people are like, how do you get in? How do you get in I'm not to lie to you. You make friends. yeah I know it's like not the answer people like, but you make friends. That's how you get in.
00:21:36
Speaker
i was just happy to get in, really. But... Yeah, it it really highlighted how important relationships are. And building those relationships with, well, in this case, with this person who, you know, offered me a job as a contractor at first, which eventually led to full-time employment at the labs. But then it this translates to having a relationship with government entities that are interested in the work you do.
00:22:03
Speaker
And building that interest and building that relationship. And, you know, if that means driving two hours to go see them in person and to have a transparent discussion, then that's what it is.
00:22:14
Speaker
You do what it takes to drive the change. And maybe that's why what we're doing is gaining an interest. I do appreciate that mission focus. It's not lost on me that a lot of folks in security and in cyber, i mean, that's what is the intrinsic motivation, you know, to get up and and do the work.
00:22:36
Speaker
yeah So I want to turn our attention now to, we talked about insider threat. We talked about inside the walls and the and the culture and the thinking. I really appreciate you bringing up the culture because it cannot be discounted, right? We're kind of in this generational moment and people bring different modes of thinking. But now let's turn our attention to, for lack of a better term, external threats.
00:22:57
Speaker
what is ah What is top of mind for you there?
State-sponsored Cyber Threats
00:23:02
Speaker
State-sponsored actors and cybercriminal organizations. They're highly motivated. Money is a hell of driver, ah but so is so is in influence. lights And cyber is the number one weapon to get that done.
00:23:26
Speaker
Can you say a little bit more about that? Yes, so you'll have diverse means to exert control. So from a state perspective, to exert control over another state. You can use your military, which is very expensive and highly frowned upon.
00:23:43
Speaker
Or you can use more covert means like cyber operations. And those are a lot less expensive than it is to put soldiers and airplanes and tanks on the ground.
00:23:55
Speaker
And not only that, so because it is less expensive, you have more states. It's more accessible to states that otherwise wouldn't have expanded the capital to try to get to you.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yes, and I think it's also, to a non-technical audience, taken for granted that cyberspace is borderless. And you had mentioned cyber criminal groups, you mentioned state actors. I think the news headlines are very easy to convince a lay audience that attribution is easy, right? Like this is China, this is Russia, here's Iran doing this.
00:24:37
Speaker
And if anyone takes anything away from this episode is to understand that sometimes independent cyber criminal groups are acting at the behest of or they're a proxy of, right? It's all kind of like irregular forces in a space that you can't see the insignia on the uniform. You know, there are not borders. And so think- Often they don't have insignias. They are civilians targeting civilians.
00:25:04
Speaker
But i mean, in terms of of combatants though, right? Because here's here's where it gets difficult. Yeah. Like, unfortunately, when when when you're a cyber criminal, particularly if you're one that's getting a contract from a state actor. So for context, for everyone to understand, this is this has always been a beef I've had but ever since I got into the cyber world. Like I'm a CTI guy, right? By by base.
00:25:26
Speaker
You look at certain actors like like Russia and what Russia did that gave them a an actual, you know, strategically driven tactical advantage in the cyber theater of operations is that they take their cyber crime groups and there's this unwritten agreement where if you do not attack the Russian Federation itself,
00:25:43
Speaker
The Russian Federation will contract you to do its dirty work for you you have to think of it like a letter of Mark for pirates, the way it was back in the day when, you know, the British government used to say, hey, you want to go rape and pillage and conquer?
00:25:56
Speaker
Do you want to do it and attack the Spanish and just don't mess with our boats? It's just channeling that criminal energy. It's it's the same thing. I always remember when i I was looking at this back when I went from my SIGINT to cyber career and I thought to myself, like wait a minute, because because back in the day, Russia used to be a lot more effective in their operations.
00:26:16
Speaker
And like, I would think like, there's no way we can win this game because they have weaponized and contracted their criminals the same way that we deal with KPMG or Deloitte or any of the big four, any of the contractors, it's like a headshot.
00:26:33
Speaker
And what the military does, the GRU, which is a Russia's military and defense unit or the FSB will literally attach themselves to a cyber crime group and then weaponize their capabilities to attack nation state level targets.
00:26:45
Speaker
And that is a level of flexibility. and aniability so It's a ah legal flexibility where you're no longer a criminal because now you're doing our work for us. Oh, and by the way, here's a bunch of money. Keep doing it.
00:26:59
Speaker
Right. We, in our SOPs, in our rigid procedures, in our rule of law and morality, cannot do the things that they can do from a creativity and flexibility standpoint. And I don't think a lot of people outside of the the deep cyber operations world or cyber defense world really understand that that little nuance is a massive tactical advantage for our adversaries.
00:27:25
Speaker
Wildly asymmetrical. Correct. yeah So how do you, how do you then like, you realize this problem. i'm sure you had that eureka moment too. You're just like, oh, oh fuck. We have, we have handicapped ourselves in this game and that's why we keep losing. Right.
00:27:40
Speaker
So how do you then take that message to start trying to solution it? Because you have also like driven some big, big picture ideas ah that are just starting to gain some momentum and how we actually scale and try to solve and defend against this.
Need for Collaboration and Open Dialogue
00:27:53
Speaker
So, so like take me or take us from like, when you realize like, oh shit, this is a problem. Oh, we are literally sitting in molasses. We're not doing fuck all. and How do we actually solve this?
00:28:05
Speaker
Well, and i think it brought on to taking the matters into our own hands. So if we're not going to address this at a national level level or a state level, then what can industries themselves do to protect against it?
00:28:23
Speaker
And so it's bringing all those stakeholders together and start solutioning um on how we can we can improve our our security posture together um as opposed to individually and bridge the gaps from, let's say, from an and intelligence and information perspective as an industry as opposed to waiting from the the national higher powers to to give us what we need or to even, you know, generate the capabilities to.
00:29:01
Speaker
but But then like operationally, what does that mean? I am on a mission ah to get the and nuclear industry stakeholders to have more open discussions about their the security challenges that they're facing.
00:29:19
Speaker
while still operating within the borders of the legislation and the nuclear regulation. So there's there's some careful stepping around that needs to happen.
00:29:31
Speaker
But ultimately, what we need to do as an industry, in this case here with the nuclear sector, is we need to start talking. We need to start um working together.
00:29:45
Speaker
And this has been happening on the economic side. So you'll see there's a a fair amount of of nuclear organizations that are focused on, you know, developing new technology, developing the industry. But from a security perspective, I have yet to see an organization like that. So why are we talking about the economic aspect, but we're not talking about the security aspect? Because at the end of the day, the economic aspect only happens it's secure.
00:30:14
Speaker
if it's secure So the idea i here is to bring to bring the the nuclear stakeholders together, start talking about our challenges, solve our challenges together, and also pool our resources.
00:30:29
Speaker
It doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to be optimized.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. that sort of turning it Sort of turning a corner here into the closing stages. So we have covered the current state, the suboptimal state, what we would like to see from critical infra and nuclear security standpoint.
00:30:59
Speaker
It is not lost on me that there is now renewed interest after many years in nuclear energy, right? So we sort of went into kind of a I guess, a cold feet moment after the 2011 earthquake damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. Again, to listeners, a plant that was destroyed We think of that as a 2011 disaster, but the plant design is very old, right? Leftover from, I believe, the 70s.
00:31:33
Speaker
But we now have a lot of AI companies that are very hungry for power. Either they are buying into turning on old power plants, like Three Mile Island, and refurbishing them, whatever.
00:31:49
Speaker
We now also have news of Meta trying to buy into the small modular reactor designs, right, to, again, power huge data centers.
00:32:02
Speaker
I have a lot of feelings as to the monopolistic control of, you know, a social media company controlling nuclear power, but that notwithstanding, My question to you, Audrey, is with this renewed interest in nuclear power as a cleaner energy source in different reactor designs than we are used to, I guess, what are you looking at for the longer term?
AI Energy Demands and Nuclear Security Concerns
00:32:27
Speaker
Because I know you're trying to deal with the present problem, but do you have thoughts about like, how would we then optimize security for these these different designs? Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
So these are absolutely things that that are being researched at the moment and possibly part of the reason why the progress on these new designs are a bit slower. Now, there's also other factors that I won't get into, but the security, and again, integrated security, physical, cyber, of ah new new no reactor designs is something that's being actively working.
00:33:06
Speaker
You did touch on big tech and nuclear, and and that is a concern of mine. So nuclear security, nuclear energy is unbiased. It's sacred.
00:33:22
Speaker
And I am slightly worried that we will lose our and integrity if we are influenced power-hungry um actors.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they just want a battery that doesn't die. Right. But like for a civilian population, like this is a different consideration. Right. It's a it's not just a data center power source.
00:33:54
Speaker
Right. and That's like my chief concern as well. Yeah. absolutely. Absolutely. Nuclear can support all of this, but nuclear needs to remain safe and secure.
00:34:07
Speaker
And that's, I mean, across the globe, nuclear safety comes first. Always. Yeah. So will, will those power hungry and...
00:34:22
Speaker
you know, literal electrical power, but also if you mentioned ah influential power hungry actors understand that, respect that, or will they put profit ahead of safety?
00:34:37
Speaker
That is the question that we will leave our audience with. Thank you, Audrey, so much for the time, for coming on early, for giving George an excuse to wake up and for sharing for sharing your experience and expertise. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me right, friends. See you around soon, man.
00:34:57
Speaker
See you soon.
00:35:01
Speaker
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00:35:15
Speaker
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00:35:29
Speaker
Here we go. Oh, somebody's got a timer. I had to wake up. I'm sorry, bro. I was up like five minutes ago. Shut up. I was fucking programming. Shut up. I know. i know what you're doing. All right.
00:35:43
Speaker
Okay, here we go.