FAQ

• Why not renewables?

  • Renewables (wind and Solar) are intermittent- they work 10-50% of the time, while demand is 24-7. 

  • This means they either have fossil fuel back up plants or country scale energy storage systems. This is very very expensive and has not been done- we are missing 4 orders of magnitude in storage capabilities.

  • countries that have already achieved 0 emissions in electricity production are using Hydro electricity and / or nuclear power. 

  • Renewable intensive grid is expensive for consumers as the backup fossil fuel plants work at lower utilization and additional transmission lines are required to bring the energy to the demand locations. This is why developing countries needing to expand the electricity capacity always go to fossil fuels power plants, despite solar energy being the "cheapest form of energy ever".
     

• Didn’t nuclear energy fail in the West? What is different now?

  • NPP projects turned out to be extremely expensive and risky, thus not economically viable

  • Coupled with bad public opinion→ harsh regulatory environment.

  • What's Different: premise of advanced ,safe,  economically viable solution, factory built reactor installation (vs. build reactor on site)
     

• SMR is not a mature technology

  • True, but we must start now to meet an NPP in 10y.

  • Some technologies are more mature than others
     

• What about nuclear waste? 

  • So far, not a single person has been hurt not has any 6 sites allocated in the world.

  • Small volume, solutions exist, but NIMBY

  • Target: Owned by NPP vendor 
     

• Isn't Nuclear energy really dangerous? ​

  • You can get more radiation from living next to a coal plant than by living next to a nuclear power plant.​

  • Even if we take into account Nuclear accidents, Nuclear energy is as safe as wind and solar energy!

  • Nuclear energy has prevented over 80,000 pollution related deaths world wide by 2013.

Why Israel ? why the middle east?

• But Israel has so much natural gas 

  • Gas is second only to Coal in CO2 emissions

  • The gas will be gone in 25/50 years ;  UK, Dutch examples

  • We need to diversify energy sources
     

• But Israel is such a small CO2 polluter, why should we be first?

  • Israel Government has officially declared going to 85% reduction in 2050, Prime minister Bennet declared in Glasgow 2021 to go to 100% emissions in 2050.

  • Israel is very behind in its plan to get get to 30% reduction in 2030.

  • We are already very very late to Advanced Nuclear: SMR projects are underway in several countries

  • Developed countries will be moving faster and faster towards net zero, IL needs to be part of the OECD and world.

  • Carbon tax on imports  are coming in a few years
     

• How expensive would this be for my country

  • TBD, should be cost competitive with fossil fuels, and privately financed. 

  • Gov should sponsor by providing guaranties to first investors to reduce risk and thus reduce cost of capital.
     

• What happens when the missiles start falling?

  • No nuclear explosion !

  • Radioactive pollution risk should be addressed and minimized before project is approved. 

  • SMR’s have a great benefit of being small→ less harm