006 Taylor Stevenson, Partner at Envoy Public Labs

006 Taylor Stevenson, Partner at Envoy Public Labs

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Tay Stevenson: [00:00:00] I'm optimistic because of the passion. I see.

Not even passion is the wrong word. It's curiosity. That's what I'm really picking up on is that the more people look at nuclear and start to get familiar with it, they get just curious.

Intro: Just because the facts are A, if the narrative is B and everyone believes the narrative, then B is what matters. But it's our job in our industry to speak up proudly Soberly. And to engage people in this dialogue, those two and a half billion people that are on energy poverty, they need us. America cannot meet this threat alone.

If there is a single country, of course, the world cannot meet it without America that is willing to, we're gonna need you the next generation to finish the job. Nuclear regulations, we need scientists to design new fuels, focus on net public benefits. We need engineers to invent new technologies for over absurd levels of radiation production entrepreneurs to sell those technologies.

And we'll march towards this. We need workers to. [00:01:00] With High Tech Zero Prosperity Football, diplomats, businessmen, and women and Peace Corps volunteers to help developing nations skip the development transition sources of, in other words, we need you.

Mark Hinaman: okay.

Tay Stevenson: All right, here we go.

Mark Hinaman: Welcome to another episode of Fire to Fission Podcast. We've got uh, Tay Stevenson from Envoy Public Labs. So Tay thanks for coming on. I really appreciate you spending the time, taking the time to share with us.

I wanna dig into kind of the work that you guys are doing right now. Yeah. Publicly and hear all about it. But before we do that, I want to chat about kinda your background and how you got into new nuclear.

Tay Stevenson: Yeah. So my background, I started really into campaign politics. My first job out of college was as a state senate candidate in Minnesota.

I had gone back my senior winter of college in one my hometown Senate [00:02:00] seats endorsement. So I was running a full general campaign right out of graduation and that tripped into another campaign. We lost both of those pretty close relatively I think the last campaign in 2012 we lost by about eight points.

And then the next Democratic candidate who ran lost by 30 points in that district, . Okay. A lot of that was just. Really strong ground campaign. We did a lot of grassroots a lot of door knocking that was hallmark and had a lot of just, very young volunteers. And a lot of community volunteers.

We had little seniors for Stevens Brigade who would come in during the day and call other seniors who were of course, at home during the day and they'd talk. Yeah. So that's where I got picked up a lot of and picked up at home.

A lot of the grassroots techniques that you just get from grassroots organizing and campaign politics, and then stuck in my hometown for a few years, trying to figure out what to do, and that's where I had some good opportunities. Didn't get paid very much, but I was working in the non-profit space and [00:03:00] so had a lot of leadership resources thrown at me.

And so I was able to go through a number of good programs, learn how to build a non-profit which I don't know how I've missed it. It's a lot harder to do than building a business , like you literally have to. , all of the things that you have to do to build a business, but you can't, you don't make any money, , you don't have a product to sell.

It's just, we're gonna, we're gonna do good work and we're just gonna hope money comes to fill that mission. And of course, having, you use some Facebook or any type of social media and you're building your brand and there's just a lot of bleed for what you're trying to get done.

And that's what tripped tripped me into generation to Yeah. So I grew up in Minnesota and friend of a friend a guy by the name of Eric Meyer gave me

Mark Hinaman: very well known in the nuclear history. Very well. He's done a lot with that organization.

Tay Stevenson: Also phenomenal singer for the, yeah.

The word's not out on that already. Definitely check that out. But yeah, Eric was just frankly in a group of friends that was thinking random [00:04:00] orbit. And it was shocking how we didn't meet for four years. Like everyone just when there were stories, you guys were in the same area.

Same state. Minnesota's a big state. But he was, I think he was up in Duluth. And and I was brained in Twin Cities and there's like a two hour e later triangle between all of those things. Yeah. And so it just, the nights I was hanging out with that group of folks, for whatever reason, Eric wasn't there, and vice versa, until kind of one fateful night.

We, we got together and I woke up the next morning on his couch. And as one does in their, and they're in their, 20, they're in their twenties and have a man bun, that's that'll happen. And but that was when I was introduced to the concept of full service, friendship, and and that kind of spar sprouted a conversation on, climate change and de climate decarbonization.

I had always been a proponent of nuclear, and I stood out the DFL party. I didn't part of it is foreshadows everything was like, I didn't get what the opposition was. It was just like,

Mark Hinaman: it's clean carbon free power. I, their, I just, I didn't wast even like the mis

Tay Stevenson: oppositions, like I divorced like the trenoble aspect of that's just, [00:05:00] it is what it is.

That's common stuff might happen. These again, when you're dealing with a system like you had in Soviet Russia, many things will happen like that. But, here in America, like we prove, proven. In our, the hallmark three mile an hour, it's just a system.

The situation where the sit the safety system eventually worked and things. Nobody got hurt and. It's a big commercial disaster, but it is what it is. That's -

Mark Hinaman: So you and Eric? Yeah. Anyway, back. Back, yeah. ,

Tay Stevenson: let's get back on track. So I basically took into nuclear on this whim of Eric's outdo stuff with environmental progress and I'm, I, I was doing Yeah.

Sean, yep. Yep. Michaels Schauberger's group. And then I'm doing bring choice voting advocacy in the state and kind of building a model of how to do grassroots canvasing forget, like long form issues based around like critical issues and. I we built it knowing that we could really you, it was giant issue, right?

And that's where kind of the brainchild generation trauma comes into play. And we go to Ohio and do our door best to, [00:06:00] help out folks, to save Davis bestie and Perry. And that got me sort into was, and we all recognized as a fairly small bubble of nuclear, right? And was able to talk about messaging and that's where I got our fir we got our first opportunities with epl.

Really?

Mark Hinaman: What was generation naic and, Yeah. How did it start? Why did it start? What was the goal mission?

Tay Stevenson: Yeah. So I think, and this is important, cuz it's an inflection point of my, I thought is, again, Eric was the one who knew stuff about nuclear.

Like I just knew, I knew how to run a nonprofit and I knew how to do a grass do grassroots organizing and own message, right? And I just was a fan of the technology generally. And so the way I view it is with Gen A, we were really focused on the general public and looking at trying to solve the general public's perception problems around nuclear as like the key to getting nuclear saving current fleet, and then obviously trying to put some new reactors on ground.

And just advocating and, yeah, and again, with the general public as like the sort of the tipping point, of the ful crumb [00:07:00] of where you needed to invest those resources. What I started to get a sense of fairly early on was that the industry itself was the interesting organizing challenge.

As a, as somebody who is, again, coming up with grassroots, with a grassroots mindset. It was odd to me that we were coming up with what was really sticky messaging there's a story that I won't tell, but basically going in, we figured that we could get a 40% conversion, right? Outdoors. And what that means, and industry parlance is that when we would make contact, talk knock on the door, and these were completely untargeted. It's just you're going down the street. We'd get somebody to come to the door 40% of the time on our iPads. We figured we could get someone to sign their name and say, I supported new nuclear and here's why. We ended up being 60%. That's very good. And it wasn't getting them, it was literally, again, we weren't raw nuclear. You just said here you have two plants that are coming down. We had a little iPad with visuals and everything and said, [00:08:00] It's 90% of your clean energy in the state, which is, environmental issue.

It's I, we had, I can't remember the job figure anymore, but it was sum several thousands of jobs, right? However, your jobs, economics, and then you had the, we had a different, it was like 60% of the mentor school district areas was their tax base, was that? And it was like something like 80% Wow.

For Davis capacity. That's, so we had those numbers. So you had basically, I choose your own adventure of do you care about this because of the environment? Do you care about this because of the jobs or do you care about this because of like the community and the tax base? And then we just followed where people were at.

And that's, I think when you we figured out that you approach it from. Folks value base and tie nuclear to how that fits in. People realize that, oh yeah, I'm actually pretty well in support and everybody, and it shouldn't come. My, one of my favorite nuclear facts is that, that if you look at one, one demographics [00:09:00] number one predictor for whether you use our support, nuclear power is your proximity you're looking at. Has nothing to do with any traditional, Yeah. Old, young, you're, rice, sex, anything like that. It is literally how close do you live as a plant. Yeah. It's more likely that you're gonna support you clear just because you're familiar with it. And so we, we have these messaging points and we're for reasons in hindsight that really pass understanding.

I have no idea why early on. Anyone put us on a stage. Anyone asks us to be on a panel. Anyone asks us to get us. I have no idea why you guys were well spoken. Sure. We'll go with that. But no we did get those opportunities and we, again, we're just a, we, we said what we saw.

I certainly did. And I, I of had this notion that I always pictured it as like a cavalry come over the hill here, take this message and go here and you can attack at this point and look. And there's no cavalry coming over the hill. And there's a mentor I had who's instrumental in, in kind of what we did with Generation [00:10:00] Atomic.

He's still, I literally talked to him two weeks ago on an issue that we're working on right now for va. But he was talking to me through it and I just, I was saying, Hey, why is it that, why is the California now coming over the hill? And he said which is, we've talked about, I've literally told this story five times already today, , we've been talking to legislators, but basically this idea that if you think of the industry, right?

The nuclear industry, you think of, you have a very clear mental picture, coal miner with the hat, you, the real cars, the big Yeah. Coal here,

Mark Hinaman: like smoke stack. Yeah. Emission.

Tay Stevenson: Yeah. You know what that industry is like? You might not like it, but you at least have an immediate mental picture.

And one of those speeches I said, here's the face that nuclear simpsons face up. Because that's kind of it. But really, and that kind of betrays, like most people think of the cooling towers, right? The utilities that are nuclear owner operators, and that's the industry.

And this mentored mine goes right. But if you think about it, those utilities are me, are [00:11:00] member, are the nuclear industry and roughly the same way that you as an owner operator of a Volkswagen GTI are a member, of the automobile industry. Yep. It's am I'm not on the same team as VW when we're like lobbying the government for our interests.

And that once you get that, once you see that dissociation, yeah. You start to see and then you start to look at who's really advocating for policy at, at both the federal and the state local level. It's folks who have a clean interest in a particularly advanced reactor technology.

There's supply chain there's a robust industry. There's some really good people in it, but it's not. Massively capitalized. We're not talking about, other than, you could maybe point out Westinghouse and ge. Yeah. And those are, in terms of just like hard money. But those are also not just nuclear companies.

They have other business lines and other interests. And that's where I think the challenge ultimately stem from for nuclear is that you don't have this coalesced lobby, right? You don't have oil [00:12:00] gas. You don't have po you don't have that clear mental picture. And

Mark Hinaman: it's an opportunity that Generation Atomic was helping to fill. And

Tay Stevenson: I think Generation Atomic, that first year while I was there, we were we were operating under the assumption. And it's ultimately been proven false that the utilities had like a social notion, like there was like a social capital. and keeping those plants open for carbon free.

And now granted, that's looking like a pretty good bet now, right? But this was 2016, so we were, yeah, we were a little ahead of the curve on that. Yeah. And that's where hopefully there is a little bit more of a sea change is that folks do start to see, for whether it's for the economic reasons or for the, the environmental reasons or you little column A, little column B and other reasons.

On top of that, the workforce that they start seeing that utilities start putting money behind saving these assets. Some of them are, and there have been some robust campaigns, but again, we've also seen some of them have just been [00:13:00] shut down without much of a fight.

Mark Hinaman: Yeah. It's Bizarre.

I had the same opinion that I think you guys had, which was Oh, of course utilities wanna keep nuclear power plant on this open. Open because it's clean energy. It's green energy. Yeah. And it's a good PR move for them. But the economics and a lot of market dynamics, just like you said Yep.

With the car analogy they own the car. They don't really care if, which car they use trying to move field. Yep. Or bus or whatever. Yep. To carry the metaphor through.

Tay Stevenson: I think, yeah, I think that's you're latching on that, if you think of it that way. There utilities are really more of a, it's, there are people movers in that, in the transportation space.

And if it's cars, if it's railed, if it's Yeah. Hyper, they'll do the cheapest best other business. Yeah. Whatever, whatever keeps folks satisfied and keeps them moving from point A, from to point B in that same way, you, I think, and not in any judgment, there's a, it's a really hard job and they're doing, actually, they're doing a phenomenal job doing it.

Keep, you gotta keep the lights. If you understand the physics of the grid, which no one does [00:14:00] like that is fair thing when it, that is an amazing feat. And give the utility do, but also, holding accountable for Yeah. No punt really intent here. The power that they have and the importance they have and the communities publics Yeah.

All by way of saying, and this is what, if you switch over to where EPL is really focused, a lot of its work now, as we're a private company, we're consultants. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman: So epl, that's your current organization? I'm with Public Labs, yeah. So you're, you were with generation to for about a year.

About a year. Helped. Helped getting off the ground. Yep. I mean they've since blossomed them, like this. Yeah. Advocacy great. Great organization. Lots of volunteers, nonprofit.

Tay Stevenson: And that's credit to Eric and the crew. Yeah. Like carrying on. , the heart of Gen A, which was trying to train advocates to better talk about nuclear.

And I think that's, I think they do a great job. Yeah. I would, I'm a little biased, but I think that, I think they're some of the best at there. Again, part of it is that they, they have, there's a human humanity Yeah. Behind, like this actual faces and people, and that's what the, what's important, it's [00:15:00] about the relationships.

And that's the, if you wanna look at the line to epl and the, we have a very different approach to organizing. We do advocacy, particularly when we're talking about our federal work. But,

Mark Hinaman: yeah, so what, what happened? What, you're with a group and that you decided that there might be a different opportunity and Yep.

Give you a chance to go on and launch something else.

Tay Stevenson: And that was a really tough decision. That was a hard look.

Mark Hinaman: So how'd you make it was what? The fact that I didn't do anything.

Tay Stevenson: So it, it was pretty clear to me again. I couldn't get away from the fact that I wanted to organize the industry.

That's, I wanted to be a part of doing something and I didn't know what that meant. I had no, and I still don't think I could give you a working definition of that other than it feels like we're starting to align more as an interest and act in concert, right? There's more a sense of we're on this together.

And that's been building for about two years now. It feels kind that from,

Mark Hinaman: as somebody who came from the outside, that I agree with that.

Tay Stevenson: And I'm, [00:16:00] in no way claiming that's that, me and Chase at the head. It's, I think that there's a whole group of people, I always call them the emper, no clothes club, right?

Folks who just truly see it, that the emper no close, right? The utilities aren't. The industry right there. There is an important nuclear advocacy component and those are shoes to film, right? Yeah. And there's a whole bunch of people I'm not gonna just name drop here, yeah.

It's all people that like, frankly I owe a lot of, all of these opportunities too. They're the ones who I think have helped guide that, that establishment of a newer culture within new. And I think that's really important and we're starting to set metrics for what we're aim for.

Mark Hinaman: And I think, so Envoy Public Labs.

What's your guys's mission statement or goals, or,

Tay Stevenson: that's a great story. So we're sitting there in Texas, and so it's myself, Sam, and one of the, and the other original founder, John Landers. And we're all, we all made a decision. We're leaving Gen A and we're gonna go start our own thing.

Eric, we were gonna sort it down. Eric was gonna take [00:17:00] it and go in a different direction. . And so we made that, creative decision to break up the band, right? Sure. And we all Sam, John and I all do our own thing, and my thing was to try to figure out what E p L was.

So I focused mostly on what I thought were the important I, I literally the most pretentious way possible sat on the beach in South Australia and wrote down journal.

Mark Hinaman: It's a great place to bring.

Tay Stevenson: Yeah. The journal spent all like six days, six days journaling, but, had an epiphany that never didn't commit the journaling exercise on.

But no, I, it kind looked at, very bluntly like I needed to get healthy. Like I was probably 50 pounds heavier than I am now. So that's a lot of extra

Mark Hinaman: you're pick gut. I am big,

Tay Stevenson: I needed to. Bigger guy and a lot like. I, there was like 14 months where I didn't buy a round trip flight.

I was just like, wait ticket to one way ticket, no idea where I was going. And so a lot of what I initially focused on, I was like, okay, what I've been feeling strong and like making good decisions in the last, four or five [00:18:00] years, what have been, what have I been doing? And then from there I looked at, okay, what are the interesting things, right?

I have a degree in philosophy, right? I'm like, what are the kind of the first principles that I think are really interesting that I would start diving in on? And that's where there's just the serendipity of. You just can't make this shit up.

It's spent my last airline miles had a buddy who was gonna be going to France, said, Hey, if water my plants, you didn't crash in my apartment. So I had a place in DC that I would've had to spent $2,000 I didn't have. And that was, yeah. And I didn't have the money for an airline ticket,

Mark Hinaman: but it's hilarious airline that What do he wanted you to do?

This water is plants. Yeah, it is. I know who you're talking about. Name, but

Tay Stevenson: I you got beer, its super helpful, but Yeah. Point being like, I just emailed everyone I knew. And there were a bunch of people who emailed back and so is

Mark Hinaman: for an organization you had

Tay Stevenson: a chance to go to DC what I had was a question.

Okay. Which was, and these are folks who again, had been watching what we were doing in Gen A and saw what [00:19:00] we were doing was a little bit different. and two names I will definitely Name Drop is one was Jeff Harper. Right. And Jeff's, you know, incredibly smart guy. Um, And, you know, just has always been a friend in terms of, you know, helping kind of guide me along.

And every, we sat there, I mean we, we got dinner and it was one of those things where the dinner lastic for five hours. He, he is a Harvard business school graduate. He's throwing out, every idea he can think of. And one of the, I mean, the, the idea that I caught that night that I knew was gonna stick was, know, he is you should, do like government funded market research and you could probably help the industry by really dialing in these states and helping us figure out what the holistic market is, which.

Now sounds like a really good idea. It's like definitely start that business. But this is 2018. You're like government funded.

Mark Hinaman: Who, where are the dollars? Yeah, there's, there

Tay Stevenson: is, there was not a ton of interest in level

Mark Hinaman: bipartisan infrastructure law. There's no one like product act.

Tay Stevenson: So the other person I stumble into again, the story for [00:20:00] a different time, the most bizarre nuclear event I ever have and ever will go to.

But Rita Baral at the time I was director, of GAIN. And I told her about this conversation I'd had with Jeff and she just said, give it to me and, okay, this said about, two, three months later. And the reason why is, and this is a story we tell everybody that asked us about gain.

that was the moment Gain had established the voucher program. Yeah. And that was doing a really good job and had like really good industry bonding. And

Mark Hinaman: I suspect a lot of people watching this are saying, know what gain is, but that's the gateway

Tay Stevenson: accelerated innovation in nuclear. Yeah.

And so that's, DOE initiative, it's housed by now, the important pieces. It's housed il but it's it reaches out to all the national labs. So you're really bringing the best competencies of all those labs into kind of a one stop shop and start program, which, still continues, in my opinion, biased, thriving, and really helping out, filling these food, filling these gaps and moving commercialization for advanced actors along.

We just started to get the very blunt sense [00:21:00] that all of these technical breakthroughs. Not, not that they won't matter, but there's another part on the critical path, which was the communities who had to adopt the technology itself. Yes. The customer, but the customer is part of a community that needs to make this decision.

Yeah. These are large,

Mark Hinaman: heavily regulated

Tay Stevenson: industrial facilities. Even community has to bring in Yes.

If

Mark Hinaman: no one's educating the community, then yeah, all the technology developers is can which you that they will come. But

Tay Stevenson: that's not always true. Why? It's hardly ever true. It's why, called Dream about that.

Yeah. Which is a great movie. , great movie. I love Kevin Costner. But definitely watch that movie you, yeah. It's several times like, but point being, it's not maybe the best way to it's maybe not the best general be for an industry. I don't think that's too far.

Mark Hinaman: So Envoy Public Labs, you had a idea that, or so you're meeting with

Tay Stevenson: RNA and so the idea was, We might need to be doing a similar type of thing for communities.

[00:22:00] Because even before the, if you build it, they will come. There's this notion of, the first step in a project is always you have to conceive of it. And once you conceive of it, start to plan for it and to jump ahead. We started doing, this sort of pilot inquiry based off of commentary that Dana had got at a forum basically saying, Hey, there's a panel of folks who thought of as first movers and literally said, we have no idea how to plan for this for rock pilot.

We're completely allow, and that's a direct point from like one of those participants. We're island, we're completely along. We have no idea how to plan for this. So we're just modelling ahead. Sure enough, again, truly jumping ahead. We're in Minnesota, look, starting to talk to some of the utilities and we're asking them, how are you planning for Advanced Reactor?

They're like, then they're like, what? What do you mean 10? That what's an advanced reactor? . They, we ask 'em like, you know, can, you know, can you name uh, you know, like a vendor of like an smr. Like an smr. They're like an nice department during they, like, I, I'd say maybe about, you know, it picked up [00:23:00] towards, you know, the last, after about a year, but you know, a lot of new core new star.

Yeah.

Mark Hinaman: People have ignorant about the industry and the key players.

Tay Stevenson: It was just, very, there was basically no awareness of, and you go into a US NIC or an NEI or any of these conferences and you'd think again, this is 2018, you'd think that this is an industry that is ready to first there we go.

And then we're sitting out and we start talking to folks who. In the conference, these people are prime customers. They are, they're just, they're key market number. They're ready to go and ready to buy this technology. The numbers work. They had done the deal, and we're talking to these customers.

They've never heard of any of these vendors. Any of this technology had a mul, a molten salt, sie. What a fast react or what you talk about. Big education gap. Huge information gap.

Mark Hinaman: Huge from the perceived from the vendors or what they're, at least what they're projecting, right? And then what actual the [00:24:00] communities and the stakeholders that will actually be building and have the technology systems in their communities.

Tay Stevenson: And that's, and then, you're right on it, mark. That's it. It wasn't just that folks know it's, it was. No one knew that no one was actually feeling this. Yeah, they all, it was this assumption that either it's getting out ether, right? This is all just transferring via most or someone else.

It's who's on first? Someone else was doing that. Yeah. Oh, surely there's a group out there. Oh yeah. Those people, someone's definitely talking to those people and it was a really game that stood up and said no, they're not. And someone needs to and why not us? Because, it's, it's the national apps. What, what's needed right now, Frank, again my blunt opinion isn't a ton of advocacy. I think there's some lobbying work that could be done that, I think industry should pick up. Which again, we're we, circling back on our early part of the conversation, but.

Right now, folks just we've traversed the bridge folks. The word of word has gotten out on [00:25:00] advanced track. Folks know what they are now. They can name developers. They know that Bill Gates is doing a thing and why noting they're starting it's getting into the cultural milu, but it they're starting to ask second order questions.

Number one, this makes me really excited. It's what can we do with this? Can you know, is hydrogen a thing we can do with nuclear? Is decarbonizing industry? Can, is chemicals a thing we can do with nuclear? And it's, and I say it very intentionally that way.

Yeah. Because it's very early on. There's very limited vocabulary. They're not sitting here saying, how do we integrate, mold cell technology with solar, u utilizing, thermal storage printer. They're not. They're not. And that's even again, this philosophy guy just run with engineers.

Yeah. They're not to where the, like the industry was speaks. in terms of conversation for possibilities

Mark Hinaman: and help, help characterize. They,

Tay Stevenson: They are. That's a great question. , they are about 15 people in each state. And this time there's, there was two things that we heard when we were following up.

We, so we pilot in Minnesota, we're tracking through time, we go to [00:26:00] Arizona to like basically prove,

Mark Hinaman: so like literally 15 human beings that could be key decision makers. Pretty, and

Tay Stevenson: That's a, that's tongue and cheap, it's, but like progressivist. But it's also you hear this phrase thrown around all the time, or in organizing circles is s stp, same 10 people.

You go into any community, right? Same 10 people. The same 10 people are the ones who are putting on the, the charity gala, the ones who, are the ones who organize the new walkway at the park. It's the same 10 people who are some, and in great communities, those are dynamic. People are bringing in broader ideas and bringing in, those 10 people are leveraging a thousand people.

Mark Hinaman: The community that you're focused on is the state. Can we get state principal apply, state legislators, governor on board and people to that clearly can advocate to.

Tay Stevenson: The point to where I was going with this, Arizona is where we hear two different stories where it's like they both say essentially the same thing.

We have one, one guy, just the old man of Arizona energy politics and just knew [00:27:00] the history back from before Arizona was a state basically. He just goes, there's 2000 lawyers in Arizona and I talked to 20 of them . And then, in another meeting, different guy, guy who'd been basically involved in any energy deal that had happened in Arizona since I was, in the late eighties.

He basically said, look, you want, you wanna put a new nuke in Arizona, there's gonna have to be about 15 people whose heads are not, their near on the table and that table isn't a real table. But they're there, but they, and they they all need to be nodding their head or at least not shaking their head No.

And that's what really and again, that what sort of coalesce is that this isn't just a, this isn't a nuclear problem, this is just an organizing problem. And nuclear just happens to be, the thing we gotta organize around and it's finding those 15 people and they're not obvious.

There's one guy in, in Washington state, when we were looking at this for game, there were two people that we focused on as like key folks. And one of 'em was, basically just a external affairs guy. [00:28:00] And another guy was an analyst at at an NGO that you could, I could have given you a dart, throw out the mast head on that thing.

He had never. You know what wasn't the ceo, right? Wasn't the, executive VP of analytics. It was just the guy who was in every room and was smart and people were listening and had the relationships. Interesting. And that's, and once we started to see,

Mark Hinaman: so it's not, obviously the key decision maker might be you're influencing somebody, that person,

Tay Stevenson: typically speaking, the energy chair in, house and or the Senate in each state's gonna have at least a vote on energy products that are projects that are going on.

There's, the p there's folks in regulatory, there's standard just the way that state structure. But even that you, another classic climate. I've repeated many times, if energy's policy in one state, energy policy in one state, right? If you're gonna pass a renewable portfolio standard in Minnesota, the first state we looked at this soon.

That's a legislative issue that, frankly, Minnesota's looking at right now. Arizona [00:29:00] is a policy docket that the Arizona Corporation Commission or the acc right? Not the one on the Atlantic coast, but they're to a person known as the fourth branch of governments in Arizona.

They handle all energy policy, decision making, totally different ways to do government, but at the same time, they still, are gonna have to if they're making a decision about nuclear, whether it's folks who are lobbying or advocating in the legislature of Minnesota or commenting on the policymaking document in Arizona, still it's the same 10 people and it's a nuclear, it's batteries, it's biomass it's everything.

Mark Hinaman: Okay. So you figured out this hole in the system that would could be filled through, I'll say back. Research Sure. That public Lands,

Tay Stevenson: labs

Mark Hinaman: Yeah. Yeah. Has worked to fill, so now you're moving throughout the country and speaking to key stakeholders and finding the right people in the each state to yeah.

Tay Stevenson: I'll say

Mark Hinaman: educate and Sure. Inform about new nuclear opportunities. Yeah. Yeah. And then be a resource for [00:30:00] them.

Tay Stevenson: I think that's like sum that. Yeah. That's summed up really well. I mean it, what we're doing and it's, I would even say we're only partially filling. That's where again, we can't do a gain or any federal party can't do this down there.

And I think. What we heard, particularly today it's been pretty clear for the last several years. Is that for people? We're in Denver.

Mark Hinaman: Yeah. We're in Denver. We're in Colorado.

Tay Stevenson: So yeah. I'm in the middle of a four week just state to state road trip here. Yeah. Dr.

Arizona. Yeah, Arizona. We're in Denver now, so Pennsylvania and Virginia headed. Bless my in Colorado. Yes. And it is a great state. I pretty cold, right? Yeah, we brought that with us for five.

Mark Hinaman: I dunno if it'll be cold when we release this podcast, but it's freezing right now, so

Tay Stevenson: I feel like we can only hope it's not, but no, we were talking to some state legislators today and just generally calling what Game does, I always joke like I try to make a point at every meeting now that I just say, we're from the government, we're here to help because , it's, you ha there is.

And it's in a lot of ways well learned, not just with nuclear, this notion of federal [00:31:00] government overreach. And what, what has done a really good job in is I think setting a model for how nuclear, not just with the government, but like, I, I think that, you know, gain has kind of tipped how folks look at advocating is a, there's an honesty to it.

Like a true transparency to it, which I think is obviously a good thing. But there, there's a humility to it, right? Where you look at where gain is working and operating. It's where the communities or the states are, in a lot of cases, both are working ahead and they know where they're going, right?

They know what their values are and they know what the problem is. And it's multi-variable calculus. It's a hard energy economic community transition in a lot of these communities and a lot of particularly coal communities and.

Mark Hinaman: Depending at the state level. Yeah. They're trying to develop a plan to transit transition.

Yeah.

Tay Stevenson: Transition zero. Yeah.

Mark Hinaman: Still address all that needs. This

Tay Stevenson: is all swirling. These are all convers and conversations that are happening. Again, from the governor's office down to the county commissioner down to [00:32:00] the city council and the local chamber. And boy is it useful to have a nuclear phone affront, where like you can, there it the, there's no politics involved.

These are, there's no D'S or ours. These are, there's PhDs. That's I'm not gonna play.

That's not, that is literally the first time I ever say that. So we'll see if, we'll see if ,

but like that, there really is just this notion of good, helpful people. People are good at math, who are willing to help you with this math problem.

Yeah. And Christine is, Christine King, the director again, I think has done a really good job. Fabulous individuals. Truly again, great leader. Somebody who I, look, I've. I'll say this, like the big thing that's, I think other than losing some weight in things, the thing that Christine and a few others, but Christine in particular has shown me is I can totally be myself Yeah.

And still be hon and still be a good leader. I can be flawed, right? I can not always have the right words or say the right thing. And still give a messenger across that. If it's honest and it's open where people, [00:33:00] can participate in, folks are willing to just can't accept who you are.

And I think that that's, again, we come at this work from the ground up without mentality, right? Is that, you know, we're, we're, we are here to help, but we have an, an idea of what that role is. And that role is kind of in the hip pocket, right? Where you're, you're going, you know, you're going ahead and we're kind of helping, you know, Shape the conversation and possibilities.

Cuz a lot of times if you don't know, you don't know. So like a question of have you thought of this? Maybe you can help open up and if this isn't the right way, we can do the math on, and so to the point, Christine has done a great job of being very clear that yeah, sure. If like we do the, we, if we help do the math, on the economics and the jobs and everything and the decarbonization goals and it all boils out that, sure, nuclear makes a ton of sense here.

Great. Then gains done's job. But if that math pencils out and nuclear hasn't, doesn't, isn't the math then [00:34:00] great gains done. Its John. Yeah. Like we've helped the community, public state make a smart decision, particularly around advanced reactors, which aren't exactly the e the easiest topic.

I've spent five years on 'em and I'm a pretty smart dude and I still don't fully have my arms wrapped around the concept. Like it's gonna take. a lot of people with a lot of difference. You know, I always say it's not how smart you are, it's how you're smart and there's gonna have to be a lot of different how you're smarts, you know, looking at this problem from a lot of different angles and being willing to trust and communicate with each other to execute this type of transition.

Mark Hinaman: Sure. Gotcha. That's awesome. Can we use Colorado or maybe another state as an archetype, for example, to talk about a few

Tay Stevenson: specifics? I think Colorado's what you guys are trying to accomplish,

I think Colorado's a great example and become a great example and I don't want It's relevant.

You're here. Yeah. I don't want and certainly I don't want to betray confidence or talk outta school here, but in very broad brush folks, what I'm seeing happening in Colorado which is similar to what we've [00:35:00] seen in the last year and a half in Kentucky and in Montana.

The quick clip notes on Montana is, I think it's a pretty cool moment when a community, like literally the community of coal strip. Says, Hey, we're looking at how we're gonna deal with this coal plant and what our future is over the next 20 years. And they say coal strip is that town.

It's literally a town. It's called coal. It's called coal strip. It doesn't have an name, but you, it's, you wouldn't anticipate.

Mark Hinaman: And I assume there's coal, air, coal plant.

Tay Stevenson: So there's cold air and pole plant, and there's a golf course and there is a community center. And there is about 2000 people there who are very proud of their town.

And I get that. Like I'm from Brainerd, Minnesota. I'm very proud of my town, and that's, they're proud of their town and what they've built there. They know they have, they know they have. Really difficult challenges, but yeah, they're making it work, meaning the world wants to close their plants and they say that and they're, and mean, that, that's gonna be a big problem, for folks who've established a way of life in that area and for for the national apps to [00:36:00] have a rule where they're literally asked to come out and be in an auditorium and for 150 people to come out in an auditorium and say and sit there and take notes and have questions and listen.

That's really cool

Mark Hinaman: because it affects their future and their livelihood. How, yeah. And again, they're interested in the opportunity for nuclear to come into their community and

Tay Stevenson: they're interested. They're, they're skeptical. They're looking right. They're looking at it.

But again, just this, the opportunity to be able to just honestly exchange, here's the best minute that we can do right now. Yeah. Jason Hanson, who wrote the, was the lead economist on the cold nuclear wrote the for do oe. He was there. Like talked about growing up in I believe you know, it was, I think rural Wyoming, Montana, no.

Yeah. I was one of the two sorry Jason if, for forgetting, but grew up in an area very similar to this and started with that. Said I became an economist because, basically my grandpa said, if you can do math right, you know you're gonna be able to help people make decisions.

To be able to say that in that community, have a been invited in. [00:37:00] Really cool. And that's what I think he's building here in Colorado. Like you look at what done in, in Northwest Colorado Craig was, you know like those communities around Craig's

Mark Hinaman: people not familiar with Colorado.

Yeah.

There's two coal plants that are in Northwest stations. The town or one's located and Haydens the town or the other one's located in there, the schedule will be closed and what, 2027 to 2030, right?

Tay Stevenson: Yeah. Which again, not to focus on those communities specifically. That's a timeline that's facing a lot of people.

not just, not just around the country, other people here in Colorado too. Yeah. And

Mark Hinaman: and anything that those coal plants are connected to. Exactly. People don't realize that, that power needs to be replaced from somewhere.

Tay Stevenson: And that's, and to that point, that's where, I'm, we're all talking about, Craig and Hayden because those communities asking to come out and talk about, nuclear, advanced drags just start crashing the surface again.

I love the matter for, skipping the water across, skipping the stone across the top of the water. Just seeing where the ripples are at. And so we were able to come out at the end of the, and at the end of the summer and the more came out [00:38:00] again and spoke with the Colorado Energy Office and some of the Senate leadership.

And again, just having a conversation, what is nuclear? What are these advanced factors and what are the initial looks at. How they might be applied in the economy. And that's where we're at. Like it is literally step one and if there are other coal communities that are out there, or frankly just communities that think that this technology might be a fit for whatever reason, maybe they've got a chemical plant or maybe they want to have a chemical plant, right?

Yeah. That they want it to have be, cuz chemicals are useful for things, right? And there's good paying jobs at those. Maybe they wanna diversify their economy. That's something that they're interested in figuring out where's the energy need there. That's where I think again, gain has developed itself as trusted partner in the communities and the states in facilitating connections to subject matter, ex experts who can help with that.

right? So it's the communities who themselves deciding where do we want to go gain is supporting. And that's where we've started to work with Pacific Northwest National Lab and the [00:39:00] Waste Program because anytime you get a nuclear in, into a nuclear conversation inherently is a nuclear waste conversation.

And so being able to then draw on that technical expertise out of waste, not to talk about policy, not to say, okay, we're, do we need to reopen Yucca Mountain or do we need to do this, that, or the other thing? It's let's, that's let's pin that for a second. Let's start with, nuclear waste is not green glowing goo

The 55 gallon drum. Let's

Mark Hinaman: just, let's our pictures. Yeah, let's chemicals

Tay Stevenson: let's just start there. Let's start there for the next slide. I know say three, four months. And once we've got everybody in the country on board with that, Then we can start talking about, some other more complicated topics on waste.

But that's, I think again starting that dialogue and we're seeing more and more states and communities who won't start that dialogue, but they don't necessarily have. That inherent vocabulary. Gotcha. And that's what the need is. It's not an advocacy problem.

It's an information problem, and you need to have sort of a trust for relationship to start sharing those resources.

Mark Hinaman: That makes sense. Yeah. So you guys time here in [00:40:00] Colorado, you're here in Denver today. Yeah. Do you, can you share your agenda or kind of what your schedule is and who you're trying to engage with?

Tay Stevenson: I don't I think we shouldn't . That's fine. It will be, the, that's one of the things is we definitely,

Mark Hinaman: you talk about let's ask the question a different way. The same 10 people, right? Maybe not in Colorado, but, archetypes of who they might be and how they're valuable.

Tay Stevenson: That can definitely, so all we can take it from that angle is, what we're working with are broadly speaking. You have environmental interests, you have local economic development. You have folks in policy, right? So whether that's. County commissioners state legislators folks in the executive branch, regulatory, those are the types of, those are that, those kind of, that's I would say generally speaking your background of the stakeholders that we're trying to reach out and chat with.

Sure. And in particular, like what we're looking for are the folks who are champion championing. They want to have the nuclear conversation.

Yeah. And that's where if we can backfill [00:41:00] on good technical resources, that conversation can move at the speed of trust that they can generate. And that's happy to trump. I like phrase. Yeah, it's a good one though that it's out there, and folks I think are picking up on that, that this is only going to.

I can hand you a nuclear book, it's not gonna matter unless you actually have that trust build up to, have that conversation. So that's where you can see, and there's a, I'm not picking these out of a hat. Like these are the folks who, if there's a, you know, a nuclear docket and in the regulatory space, these are the folks who are commenting on regulatory docket.

If there's policy in the state house, they're the ones who are going up and they're testifying or they're knocking on doors.. And talking to the state reps and state senators, they're the ones who are planning the projects in the local communities. Whether it's nuclear, which it's not, it's, usually like a solar project or a car fair, right?

Like they're the ones who are organizing these conversations. And that's interesting to us, right? Because if we [00:42:00] can be in deep, if we can participate, and I emphasize the word participate, that's not just a passive thing. We're not. , they're sort of dumping, you know, as there as officials from the government, you know, reading a statement saying, here here is your, let us preach at you.

Yeah. Let us, let us enlighten you with the word of nuclear and leave you with this gift basket. It's You're rolling up your sleeves and you're sitting down at the coffee, you're going to the diner. I literally, when we were in Coles strip, we were trying to figure out a venue for gain.

We're literally trying to find a venue to do like the second day meet and greet thing. And I just said to the guy, we will set up tables in a parking lot if we have to. Yep. Doesn't matter. I don't care. Yeah. If, if we need to bring the donut.

From Bozeman . We'll do that. We'll do, because the baker's off that day. It is what it is. But and that, and I think again, that speaks to the mentality that we're coming with is we're not out standing on pretense and we're here to do work. Like we're here to help out.

You tell us, it's Darren McGuire. Help us help you. You're the lead. Yeah. But [00:43:00] we're there to your, we're there on your hip the entire way through.

Mark Hinaman: Yeah. No I think it's awesome. I think the mission of the group and the way that you put it together and of the work that you're doing is super, super valuable.

Are we, you said, if communities decide to build nuclear, replaced coal with nuclear, then gain stone has done their job. And if not, then they've also done their job too. But curious on Tay's perspectives, maybe not anyone else's. Sure. But yeah. Are we gonna transition some coal plantsto nuclear plants?

Tay Stevenson: I sure hope so. . Again I'd like to see a lot of folks like, folks in coal strip. I very seriously I tell people my, my, my mom I graduated from Brainard High School in 2006. My mom graduated from Brader High School in 1978. She grew up on Mill Avenue in my grandpa worked at the mill, and that mill closed in 1995.

Yeah. I, it's all the community transformed. Sure. Oh yeah. And it's, it's always been a little bit of a resort town, but now it. It is a resort town. There's not a, there's not a paper mill there, there's not the state hospital. There's not the rail yard. The rail yard was down before before it was.

Mark Hinaman: I, I empathize. The place I'm from is a [00:44:00] small oilfield town, northwest Colorado. And the oil field started in the thirties and there was a lot of industry there in the eighties, and you could tell a lot of capital investment then. But, we're about the same age and I watched it deteriorate as I grew up.

Yeah. So seeing especially rural communities fall off like that. It can be really sad.

Tay Stevenson: And again, like it's no joke. These communities, we were talking to the guy, again, I'm not gonna, call him out or anything, but he was saying, he was talking about how, the community invested in, in, a sidewalk project and, in a government center.

And, they had taken some novel approaches on getting those projects and they really pulled the community together and know, they had to, overcome certain adversity. . And again, those in and of themselves, like those are functional, practical things that are happening in lots of things every day.

But it just, the pride of, yeah, this is something that we're doing. That is something that I don't think folks totally realize when they were talking about the parent, positionally, a lot of the time we're talking about this in rural communities and when we talk about just transition, right?

The underlying promise there is that, we [00:45:00] stuck these things out there, in the middle of nowhere and asked people to live out there and run 'em, so that, yeah, that these plants, any large fossil generating, right? And now there is a large policy decision being made driven largely by urban population centers. You look at, that's Colorado, that's Washington state. It's Minnesota with the Twin Cities and the outstate that I'm not the first person to PO point out the rural urban divide politics, but it's having an impact on the energy and it's, and it's a social thing.

It's a cultural issue because climate change very much in that, in the last, in the five years that we've been doing this has hit that tipping point of, it is now a cultural issue. This isn't just, a bunch of environmentalists and people who, you know, like vegan food and can do math saying the world's gonna end.

Like it's something that people deeply care about for a lot of different reasons, that cross political boundaries and in a lot of ways are deeply personal. And [00:46:00] so when you have that dynamic at play and look, we're at right now, What is these rural communities kind of feeling like they're underrepresented and they have to have a voice.

And they should have a voice in how they're going to make, what's ultimately a generational and mul, maybe even multi-generational investment. Investment in turn. Yeah. It's a big boat that they're trying to turn. So a, I think it's an appropriate use of federal government resources to support that where appropriate.

Sure. I, on the private side of things and, we've had an opportunity to work a little bit with, some private companies. Again, it's a lot of the same model, but we have. Less fixtures because of, the, what we're playing. And that's where I think what I'll say about that just generally is just those brief opportunities in which we've really appreciated.

And I think we've been able to do some really good work in some of the communities that we've worked in and the relationships in. I think it just speaks to the need for more of [00:47:00] that from the nuclear industry. And again I'll, I think we have a different definition of that at, at this point in the conversation of what do I actually mean by that?

I will, I think the utilities are gonna have to, are, I think every, a lot of folks are looking at the utilities to pick that up. Whether they will or won't and at what time. We're kind trying to bridge the gap, but that's where I think, private industry and a lot of these companies who are trying to deploy this technology have an opportunity right now, the communities, it's hard to hear them because they don't necessarily know how to answer the question.

It's not cuz they're dumb. It's cuz it's because no one's ever sat down and talked to 'em about, they don't know the boards. It's like someone who's, at a Super Bowl party and has never been told anything about football and they're not talking because they don't know.

All they know is like, how to say, how about the Cowboys? It's just like that analogy. Yeah. Know. It's like that's which, that's a lot of what we see in waste and I think that's where last, what about the waste, because they have no idea how to, how to even have this conversation.

So that to me is where we have to listen a little bit more intently and listen almost for the [00:48:00] silence and say, okay. I could tell you what are they not asking? Yeah. What are they not asking? Asking? And it might be just as simple as reaching out and saying, Hey, would this be useful? You know? And which is again, to bring it back kind. I know. The underlying it's, it's what we've built with gain. It's what we're building with waste is just this notion of it's okay to reach out and offer help. Yeah. So that's great.

Mark Hinaman: So you wanna build more plants? I wanna build more plants. You guys are educating key stakeholders all throughout the country.

Uh, advocating for it, being the phone a friend nuclear guys um, leave us on an optimistic note. Do, do you feel like the sentiments changing? People are excited about these prospects? They're enjoying getting educated. And where, where do you see this going?

Tay Stevenson: I'm optimistic because of the passion. I see.

Not even passion is the wrong word. It's curiosity. That's what I'm really picking up on is that the more people look at nuclear and start to get familiar with it, they get just [00:49:00] curious. I've told the story before, but I, there's, I was on the ground just the, you know, without, any particulars that are on the ground.

We were talking, we were at, we in a situation where we had this, parent with a kid and the kids probably about 20 years old and, they're, like their waste and we had a little chunk of a mockup of tri some fuel. It was like piece of graphite. Yeah.

And, I'm standing next to this, this brilliant en engineer. And he goes, if you want hold, nuclear fuel very well. He just goes the. I don't know if I, I don't know if I wanna do that. And, and the parent know, sees the teaching moment, right?

He says, oh no, it's okay. He hold it, and so he drops this little chunk of a cross section little hexagon of graphite with like those little parks, whoever TRISO. But point being to just describe the look on her face of I'm holding nuclear stuff, like I'm holding nuclear.

Yeah. And that's a start, that's transformative, right? And then just, then all of a sudden the [00:50:00] questions just start to pop out, right? It's what can we do with this? How hot does it get, what's, what do you do with the heat? Can we do this?

Can we do that, on there. . When you start to have those conversations for possibilities, and then people start to pick up again, some of the lingo, the vocabulary, you start to get into the difference between high temperature reactors, right? And maybe that's an interest because you're, looking at, figuring out how you decarbonize hardly decarbonize industrial sectors and you're, it's starting to look at 900, a thousand degree outlet temperatures right now that starts to make sense.

Or maybe you are really concerned about the fuel cycle and so you start to develop an interest in faster factors. Now all of a sudden, things about plutonium, you think you never knew, right? That's where I think we need to continue to push the conversation. So wherever you're at, right?

If you're in the federal government, you clearly have an important role to do, right? Maybe the most important role because, Particularly if you have any type of social sense, you're a trusted person who can [00:51:00] go out and have these conversations with some level of authority.

Which that, that bears a lot of responsibility. You have to be careful with that, but it's some, not something you should be fearful of. It's something that is a privilege that folks are asking for fo for you, for your. Now if you're an advocate, right? If you're just, if you can go out and you can be an advocate for the technology, that's where you can start taking on the policy battles, right? In ways that the federal government just, you know, or any government entity. And a lot of nonprofits are academic institutions. A lot of them want to stay back from that water edge. They rely on, I very much probably would include myself in this camp.

I'm relying on people who are advocates to carry forward the message to, say, to basically say to the policymakers, okay, so now you heard all of that. How does that, what does that make you think? Let's run this to ground. Let's figure out a way that this makes sense for our community, our state, right?

And that's where, I'm not gonna get [00:52:00] into the whole, lobby. Lobbyists, particularly at the state level, when you have the limited resources, a lot of times, lobbyists that are working at the state level typically are people who are working on it because they're passionate. They're, they're not getting paid. They're not, not, they're not hurting at all. That's, let's not, we're not gonna, I'm not gonna cry poverty for our lot, my, any friends who are in a lobbying profession or people you know out there.

But at the same time, like a lot of times they're the key resource, know, they're one of the 16 people typically. Yeah. Because they have the relationships and they have the knowledge base, and typically they're not advocating for one client. They've got 16 clients. So they have so many conflicts of interest or non conflicts of interest that they almost have to just be in a neutral mode anyway.

Because they in, in. I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but what I do say seriously, is, folks who are lobbying at the state level, they live in those states and so they have an interest in seeing good policy maybe. And so everyone's got a role, and I think the information piece is a lion share.

Blobbing [00:53:00] piece is pretty small, but I think is important. And it has to be handled by the right people. And I think it should be led by what is now, I think, a coalescing industry. And for folks who, I would imagine are the audience for this podcast, who maybe would put themselves more in an advocate role.

You're the important bridge, right? That's the key. And my advice on all of that is stay humble and stay on, on, on just the facts. Because the second you lose trust with someone, the second, people think that you're advocating for something that's about you. And not about them.

That's when they not only tune you out, they tune out everything you're saying. And fortunately for nuclear, what I find is we've got a lot of really good people who, they are very compassionate, empathetic, and we have the facts on our side. So if you're looking for your optimistic note to, and when you have those two ingredients and they're pointed at the right thing, I think a lot of really good things can happen.

Mark Hinaman: Couldn't end it on the better spot than time. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks. Thank [00:54:00] you.

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