I've been with the nuclear industry now for three and a half years, but my history of over two decades in electricity has been in the renewables space, specifically as a developer of solar projects, sitting on boards with utilities, helping to guide renewables, as Canada's representative to the International Energy Agency for solar, and as the head of the Solar Industries Association for seven and a half years, where I worked with my colleagues to merge the wind and solar associations. I'm a big proponent of intermittent renewables, wind and solar.
I have to say that when I started in solar over 20 years ago, we were at 36% non-emitting electricity on the world's grids. Despite the billions of dollars of investment in wind and solar, despite the enormous rollout and the cost declines in wind and solar, we're still at 36% non-emitting on the world's electricity grids. Now, wind and solar have helped to keep us on a level playing field despite population growth around the world, but what's clear is that nuclear needs a clean partner that can produce that 24-7 baseload power. If our choices are coal-fired electricity and gas-fired electricity, and if that's the reason we're not making progress on reducing the amount of fossil fuels on the world's grids, it's because we need to bring in more nuclear to act as that partner for renewables. I can tell you that the small modular reactors are very responsive, very flexible and able to help support wind and solar. The deployment of more nuclear across Canada could help expand wind and solar.