You Might Also Like: Fissionary

Robert Rudich (0:03)

Poland doesn't have that fleet. Coal is running out, natural gas has security and capacity complications. They need nuclear energy basically yesterday.

Jordan Houghton (0:15)

This is Fissionary, a show exploring how nuclear powers your world.

Robert Rudich (0:20)

I'm Mary Carpenter.

Jordan Houghton (0:21)

And I'm Jordan Houghton. Let's jump in.

Welcome back to Fissionary. This season, we've been traveling around the world to see how different countries are approaching nuclear energy. And today's stop is in Europe. Poland has traditionally relied on coal as its main energy source, but that's changing. Right now, Poland is building its very first commercial nuclear power plant, which is expected to start operating in the first half of the 2030s. It's a massive shift for a country that's never had nuclear before. And perfect timing. This episode is dropping right before National Pirogy Day on October 8th. So hopefully you can celebrate with some good food and also celebrate Poland's nuclear future.

Joining us today is Robert Rudich. Robert spent years in the US military and the Department of Defense before being sent to Poland in 2020 as a Department of Energy attache to help establish the country's civil nuclear program. He now serves as Chief Business Development Officer at SGE. Rob, welcome to Fissionary. Thanks so much for being here.

Robert Rudich (1:46)

Thank you so much for having me. Fantastic to be here. Always excited about talking about our favorite subject, building new nuclear.

Jordan Houghton (1:53)

So Rob, you work for SGE. We're going to talk about the projects that you all are working on. Tell us a little bit about the company.

Robert Rudich (2:02)

So SGE is a regional developer for Small Modular Reactor, or as we sometimes call, Standard Modular Reactor Project. We are not only a developer, but we're an investor in the technology itself. SGE, along with TVA in Tennessee and OPG in Canada, came together with GE and Hitachi to invest in the standard design of the BWX300. And now our role is to work with GE to build that reactor on a commercial basis across Europe. We do that based on a fleet methodology of building nth of a kind using a proven technology and a disruptive business model. And this really lets us bend the cost curve in terms of how to build this reactor at fleet scale. So in our home country of Poland, where we're building 26 units with our partner, Orlan, and then establishing similar projects across the region, in Lithuania, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, where we're developing relationships with local partners. We've recently just launched a 14 unit, 4.2 gigawatt program in the UK.

And we're looking forward to establishing similar programs in a number of other countries in the very near future.

Jordan Houghton (3:15)

So how did you first get involved in nuclear?

Robert Rudich (3:20)

So this is a great question because it was an absolute and total accident. I kind of had a series of jobs that led to this. So as you mentioned, I was in the military for a long time. And then eventually came over to NNSA, National Nuclear Security Administration, working on nuclear and radiological security programs. So physical security, cyber security, policy security for radiological sites, radiological storage sites, research reactors, things like that.

And the overlap was the military background, but more than anything, it was doing a lot of work with foreign partners in the military, helping them develop capacity for security programs, training them, things of that nature that brought me into NNSA.

From there, I ended up being the Department of Energy attache to Poland. And that's kind of always an interesting position, because when you do that, you represent the whole department. So we have people coming into the attache program from all over, and I came from the radiological security background, but ended up going to Poland and working a lot on their civil nuclear sector. It is a really, really cool job. It exists at multiple US embassies around the world. We have, last I checked, 22 attaches. So Department of Energy is a huge entity between lab sites and plants, lab contractors, federal employees, et cetera, 50, 60,000 people, and we have 22 people that work as diplomats in embassies around the world. And you do two things in that role. Number one thing is you are the Secretary of Energy's representative to that country and to that mission. You represent the secretary in the department, and then at the same time, you are the US ambassador's energy advisor for that country.

Jordan Houghton (5:15)

Love that. That's great background. One of 22

That's a pretty good feather in your cap. So when you landed in Poland in 2020, what was the starting point there? What was the landscape in Poland for nuclear?