A Nuclear Comeback: Are New Reactors the Answer?
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They recognize we have the senate need energy. We're not going backwards in our energy consumption. So if we're going na have new energy generation, has we clean energy?

Deliveries of fuel are clear vulnerability. Central gas obviously can hold an entire nation hostage.

The typical construction time mine is really like six to fifteen years on the big reactors right now.

Maybe nuclear energy, not say for that, we actually origin .

realized the radiation exposure from living next to a coal plant, higher the radiation exposure from moving next to nuclear power point to reduce the radiation exiting.

for me, really far into the scale, the porter micro actors, we haven't really achieve that yet. And you could actually produce these in factory because they're, you can do mass .

production ten or .

fifteen years from the idea that we can't just immediately turn on a reliable and during power source for a community to be unavoidable.

IT will be a solve problem. What might surprise some people to learn is that nuclear energy accounts for percent of the electricity in the united states. But what I think will surprise very few people.

It's a learn that this carbon free energy source has quite the story history over the last few decades, resulting in new reactors slowing almost entirely to a halt. However, the past few years have been what some people might call a comex story. In twenty twenty three, VISA, a america's first newly built reactor, come online in over three decades.

But we're also seeing startups built entirely new type of reactors, public discourse fts and even the U. S. Government itself recently announcing its intent to triple nuclear power production by twenty and fifty. So in today's episode, originally recorded in the heart of washington, you see that in january, asic sense is american dynamism summit. We talk about this truly unique moment in time for nuclear energy is expensive.

E general partner David Davis joins forces with double hour CEO of micro reactor company radiant, and doctor Cathy, assistant secretary of the office of nuclear energy, as they collectively discuss nuclear energies role in our countries future. Because, remember, energy is vital to many of the industries that we talk about here. Energy powers the data centres that run our clouds, the elector cars that rive on our streets, and of course, is fuel for the factories that build our future.

So if anything, feel certain is that we're going to need more energy, not less. So tune here as this group of policymakers, founders and founders, discuss why increasing our nuclear capacity should be a national priority. And what I will take to reverse this multi decade trend, oh, and if you like to get an inside look into a six sense, is american dynastic summer.

You can watch several of the stage talks from the event mattering policymakers like congressman n. Jake ocken class or senator tog guang plus of founders and founders building toward american diamond. You can find all of the above at basic scenes that are com flash A D summit.

All right, let's get started. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any asic senci fund. Please note that asic sense e and his syphilis tes may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast for more details, including a link to arn investments, please see a sixteen ca com slack disclose sures.

Nuclear has quite the story's history and in the last fifty years in particular, progress is really slow. And i'd love to get your take doctor half on the key factors that you really attribute to that.

Yeah I think critically, the expense of different kinds of energy technology typically determine what utilities are gonna select. And there was a serious period of time where, for example, natural gas was an extremely cheap option to build quickly with low capital investment. And that, I think, is the primary driver for a lot of reduction in the builds for nuclear. And then as you lose that muscle, IT becomes more more expensive to get IT back, right, much like if you stop working out.

yeah. And I think there's a lot of public opinion around nuclear. Some people attribute that to again, that slowdown over the last few decades. Dog, is there anything you'd add there? And maybe other misconceptions that you think .

the public calls? I think over the past fifty years, a lot has happened solar. And when technology really came about and was deployed, kind of in the middle of this nuclear story we're telling, and these forms of low cost energy, but that are not resilient, forms energy.

And by the time we deployed them significantly to the grave, we started to look for a source of power that you can scale, you can throw up down on demand. At the same time, scientists started to care about climate. And then I think the public really has come around to really care about climate and not just to care about to want to do something about IT.

And so I think nuclear has this really cool new role to fill instead of natural gas, which I agree with, doctor, half the low cost IT definitely causes to adopt that to fill that need rather than nuclear. But I think nuclear can leap. Frog.

yeah. And I think we are seeing renewed interest, which is exciting, especially over the last few years. David, what's your take on that? Is there a really strong why now? And is IT just climate? Or is there another series of factors I play?

I think that we have this sensation about thirst for energy, and we have so many things that power the way we live in, the way we want to live in, the way we want to work, that require electricity. We need all forms of energy to be increased, I think, somewhere Better than others. Some have a longer feature, I think, ahead of them than others.

So for me, nuclear is this base load energy. You don't need the wind to be blowing, you don't need the sun to be out. And IT can be delivered in a lot of form factors. And so to me, that makes IT very exciting and really worthy investment and rebuild in the muscle.

To use the analogy the doctor have made earlier, to really rebuild the muscle, how do we build nuclear power plants, and what kind of plants do we want to build and to power what kind of load and what kind of circumstances? And so I think that climate, a huge part of IT recognized. We have the sensational for energy.

We're not going backwards in our energy consumption. That ship has sailed. So we're going to have new energy generation, has to be clean energy. And I think that there's also been renewed interest in people getting reeducated to what are the rest and opportunities with nuclear energy. And I think that would come from a lot of different places, whether from government or from industry or from academia, that maybe nuclear energies is not safer than we actually originally realized. And that really worth the time spent there to see if that a viable way to generate the kind energy that we need in the future.

Yeah, I mean, it's been a long time, right? We're not in the same place as many decades ago. There are new reactor designs, which we will definitely get to.

But doctor half, I wants to talk about your house testimony that you did recently, and you refer to a current approach to nuclear as, quote, a national security vulnerability. And you reinforce that the office of nuclear energy is doing a few things. So first, keeping the existing fleet of reactors Operating in online, the playing new advanced reactor technologies, sustaining and securing the nuclear fuel cycle and expanding nuclear energy CoOperation. And something i'd love to get you to touch on is really that role of nuclear in america's global standing and security. Thanks for that.

And I think that why now question is to this in the testimony, the particular component of our approach that I think is an active vulnerability is the fuel cycle security. But an additional piece is that energy security and energy resilience that nuclear energy can provide to support those more variable sources to be on, no matter what day is what time IT is to not require refueling. Consistent deliveries of fuel.

We've seen in, for example, and battled russia, ukraine invasion. We've seen that deliveries of fuel are clear vulnerability. Natural gas obviously can hold an entire nation hostage. Deliveries of those sorts of fuel, since they can be interrupted, really undermine the security of otherwise accessible and deployable sources, right? And if you can not dispatch the power, then it's not useful to your resilience.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, even existing conventional plants, they only need to be revealed once over, over eighteen months, maybe two years, right? And so they can run alone as an island for quite a while. And this really underpins what we can see as an energy security and energy resilience that, Frankly, in today's geopolitical universe, represents our access to sovereign as nations, our continued Operation as independent states. The us. Has a number of other features that make IT a secure nation, but there are a lot of other countries that really can be threatened by another nation that would use energy as a weapon.

yeah. And we have many technologies building towards these new reactors and improving that fuel cycle. But can you speaks specifically to the government's role in that? What is the government's role in securing that field cycle and that global CoOperation while also ensuring that we're getting these new reactors built in the U. S. A?

IT takes a lot of pieces, right? With tax credits from the inflation reduction act and grant funding from the bypass, an infrastructure law, we're able to do things like encourage subsequent license for news to be economic for existing nuclear power. Or in the case of that, by person infrastructure al law dollars advances demonstration programs.

But the office of nuclear energy's focus has historically been on R N D programs, the kind of R N D that take start of like gradient and support technological advancements. And through small grants, we've try to expand our support of as many companies as possible. And there are lots of them more than we could possibly support IT actually. And I think a feature of many decades of working through the national laboratories, which we manage and Operate from the department of energy and ensuring that we have a basis and strong technological capability to support the kinds of scientific expiations that we need to propel those technologies forward.

Let's talk about some of those new technologies dug. Let thread over to you. Can you actually just break down the different generations of reactors where we've come, right? As I said before, I spent several decades where we now in that technology.

I ask dr. Hu B2Correct me on any thing I g et her e. I'm actually not exported of the history of new pear.

Every kind of reactor there is really expert in what i'm doing, which is portable high temperature gas reactor. But the generations roughly, he he uses gene one, two, three and four terms je one early. The reactors we have first to figured out they're kind of print rich.

They're usually like a graphite moderated reactor. And the generation two reactors were very different because we started to do in richmond with these big gas infusion in recent plant. And in that time period, the us.

Was relieved at the front of everything. I think we had over four hundred during minds Operating in the us. And really, we were the great developers and exporters of our technology to the rest of the world.

And the genre really are meant to be an advanced form of those gene reactors that can make use of, and they're like accidents, talent fuels or ability to recycle fuel. They're kind of these advanced teachers. And in jen, four is really meant to represent these things that are much farther way. There are kind of future that, like they perfectly produce hydrogen, let's say, and make a .

hydrant economy possible, I say, is, you know, a lot of the convention onal reactors that are Operating today in the two, three space, but there's genre plus that people sometimes will introduce this language. And what does that really mean? And who knows, it's like something in between genre and john, for we're incorporating modularity and the construction, but is still a light water reactor, for example.

And so we see a lot of different definitions. But I think my what kind of interesting, I think so you like big reactors, right? Yeah, give a lot there a million people or a million homes to, say more than million people this kind of the right scale.

And that we've got smr. And the purpose of smr is really to take that big reaction and build IT really fast OK. The typical construction timeline is really like six to fifteen years on the big reactors right now, depending who makes some, even for the exact same reactor like an ap one thousand built.

The us. Is very slow, built in asia is very fast. But you can make the reactor smaller and you can make faster the idea behind us to mars to make something that maybe for about not a million homes and maybe about two hundred and fifty thousand homes, right, a quarter of the size.

But will the bill are really quickly? And if we could achieve that, that would be a great economic success. But the spectrum is getting longer and longer.

And one of the interesting things, something out of people are looking smaller and smaller and looking at micro reactors and this kind of two categories of microbial tors, portable and non portable. And if you do a fully portable micro actor, this is around the scale of a thousand homes. So it's a thousand times smaller than the reactor, all the way the together and the spectrum.

And you microwaves, which are not hordle, which are ten or twenty times later, maybe ten or twenty, like something like that. The really exciting thing for me is that then really far into the scale of port of mic reactors, we haven't really achieved that yet. And you could actually produce these in factory because they're borders. You can do mass production and then ship them around and very quickly deploy them in all these little areas where you have equivalent of a thousand homes, which could also be like a workplace that has twenty five hundred people in mind, a military base to hospital in some key kind of remote region. So I like this scale Better than thinking about advance ones.

more about like .

them in different area. May be talk.

The use case, right? So when we're talking about, let's say, a military base, what is the current state, right? If for not using these mro reactors, what is being used today? And what's the trade off there if we can actually get to that future .

reactor current state? The luxury base is that they have back up generators. Any site has critical infrastructure. Those back of generations will have diesel storage tanks. It'll be forty thousand to to one hundred sixty thousand gallons of disease on those sites.

And they only use IT in a backup scenario, so requires they put batteries all over the installation. And if there is an outage, they're typically going to run out of that diesel, especially if there's you something like the colonial pipeline ransom attack where we lost and ability to move fuel in a huge multi state area. And they were on a fuel before their time frame, which is used fourteen day resilience time frame so they can get a problem. And the looking for solutions. And they're actually very interested in both categories of migrate actor because those around the scale of the base, all of the larger ones in A M, R or a giga class, we actually be too large.

David, lets bring you into this conversation. Obviously, we've invested in radio, and I want to get your sense of where you see capital being deployed in this new ecosystem as new reactors are coming online. What's the opportunity here? And where do you see again, some of those private dollars .

actually being deployed to yeah both g and doctors have touched upon some really important points that relate to why having modeler or just numerous points of energy generation spread across our grid and possibly mongst our allies is really important concepts because I think we touch turn up. But for people that are not spending other time, energy may not be obvious.

Why energy, defense or national security and sovereign are really, really interrelated. I'll just give one example taken island country like taiwan that does not have its own energy independence. You could imagine a blockade of a country like taiwan where coal, oil or other fuel sources that are Normally swiss to deliver fuel to the island are prevented from reaching their reports. At that point, a country like taiwan may only have a week or two or three weeks of fuel on the island.

And rather than having some kind of a connected or war on taiwan, a blocked e would just be equally potentially as devastating, you can imagine, in hospitals running out of their generator supply, military bases not able to turn the lights on, runways have no runway lites, something into cage from their, and just all the infrastructure eventually just quickly starts to fall apart. And so that same example actually applies the us. We do have lots of geographic things that protect us as a country.

We have two major oceans on both sides. We have lots of resources. We obviously have our own fuel supplies, but our grade is very brittle. There's multiple ways to make the grid more resilient. But one way, just adding capacity and distributed fashions so that when there are powerline issues or fuel transfer issues, you're not totally reliant on these major sources of power or for fuel to power and higher parts of our country. And so that's just critically important that we increase the resiliency of our grid by adding redundancies in loss of power generation.

And if we are able to do that by creating these more modular reactors, even if they are not mobile, but modular reactors, one of the issues with nuclear historically is that, that cost a lot of money to build, not just time, but a lot of money. One of the reasons to cost lot of money, we don't actually make that much of IT. And if we made more of IT and we sort of develop that muscle, the idea would be we can make more reactors more cheaply, right? And by doing that, we can place them in strategic places across the country, make sure they are close to our key air force bases, military bases, in places where we need really reliable, enduring energy.

So that's why it's so important for national offence and for security and why our allies care about IT as well. No country wants to be totally at the mercy for energy of other country is. And so that's important.

So there's anything wrong there. okay. I think i've got that right.

So I heard deploy .

more or yes.

we didn't talk about data centers, but we're going through an AI revolution right now, and it's going to bring lots of cool apps to our phones, our devices and our new vision goggles or whatever, all kinds of new devices we have, have yet. Our cars are becoming electrics, and we ve got to charge those things up. And so all those things need power.

And so we just need way more resilient enc and way more capacity on the grid. And again, that's going to come from lots of ways. But nuclear is a really, really good way. That's why I think this is this much more powerful energy .

as we get these new reactor designs coming into this ecosystem. Is there a new players there a reason why now private dollars are interested.

I think the national lab system, which is really a unique and special thing about america, other countries have things that they try to replicate, the national lab system, but there's nothing quite as robust. And the national lab system has many roles, and doctors have can speak to this Better than I can.

And SHE helps oversee the national lab system in her current role, but not only do they provide research, but they are actually part of the supply a fuel for nuclear power plants. They provide grants and funding for private industry to work on nuclear reactor designs. There's a competition element that the national lab system in the doe Fosters.

And so that has been all wonderful, but I think that we have noticed that there's an opportunity to be an accelerant to what's happening in the national life system, which is closely tied academia to say, he look, maybe there's a commercial opportunity day and actually, maybe it's possible when we think about all these data centers that people want to build and we think about the fact a lot of utilities are private, even if they're regulated, their private company is, is maybe we could say, hey, look, maybe there's an opportunity to really jump start a different kind of power industry. And that's a bet that we're well to make. We think that there's tail winds from a regulator's standpoint.

We think there's tailwinds from an economic story of building reactors. There's a talent tail in. So doug worked at space sex when SpaceX first started. There was only one company that really viably put things in the space that was NASA.

And now we have spacewalks doing IT so often that I was a non event now when they launched satellite into space and rockets in the space. And we think the same thing to be true with nuclear and IT doesn't seem like the kind of market where only one company can win as documentation. There's all kinds of different approaches and nuclear for different use cases, and that's pretty exciting.

And I think that since our investment in radio, what i've discovered is that there's a huge amount of what I call downstream capital. So other investors who have larger poles of capital that may be not as is tolerant as we are in recent horror, but who wanted to project financing or who want to fund vide sale capital projects, they're very interested. And then companies like microsoft tips, spend up nuclear energy teams to figure out how do they precure energy that comes from a nuclear power plant.

And so that to me, just says it's unclear exactly what the road not going to look like. I think matteo colleagues will know Better than idea, but there's just a lot of omentum enthusiasm that we know as possible. There's no scientific risk.

That's another important thing is we invested in all kinds of things. There's no scientific risk with nuclear energy or minimal. We know how IT works.

The science is understand ah we've been for a while, we can come up with Better designs and Better programs and we need new kinds of fuels, but we know how works. It's not science fiction. This is very real.

You have science reality. yes. That's why excited about IT and that's why I think there's a lot more capital and interested in now and the people recognize its a predicate for everything else we want to do.

Yeah I mean, you times there is the economics and even you talk about space and that whole industry being rethought due to the economics fundamentally shifting. So can we talk about that in the role of regulation in impacting some of these projects? Think a lot of people cite vocal as a project where the economics were far out of proportion, at least relative to the original project plan.

And a lot of people think that's an example of where people aren't willing to invest in nuclear. Doctor huf, can you just speak to maybe how regulation plays a role in enabling some of these projects and whether any of that is changing? Or maybe whether vocal is an outlier? How do you think about that?

Google, in a very real sense, is a first of a kind build. As we already mentioned, the ap one thousands can be built fast and different environments. But those different environments aren't different just because of regulation.

They're also different because the workers capacity available. So you look at a chinese build of an a thousand and compared to vogue, and they had real differences in the sort of workforce of availability. And I think that's one of the longer polls in a tent.

Not to divert from your question about regulation, but I do think the nuclear regulation commission doesn't incredibly a good job keeping nuclear reactors Operating safely. They have any credibility safety record here in the united states. And then I see, makes sure that that's true.

IT makes IT easy for me to say. And power safe. It's going to continue to be safer in the U.

S. U. S. Nuclear technology is some of the safe system world, and people should import IT rather than some different technology.

And we know how to do IT well. IT can increase timelines. IT can increase cost. But I think even more critical is going to be workforce and supply chain issues that can delay the deployment of mega projects.

So regardless of whether you're a nuclear reactor you're building or whether you're looking at building a bridge or a highway system or a rail line, these mega projects in the billions of dollars take years. They should sometimes take significantly more time than they should. And each day in a project like that is another day on which you are holding billions of dollars of capital and not making profit.

And the cost of capital then starts to plan to the total cost of the project and for the time when on which you can deploy a reactor. Depends on, yes, regulation, but also workforce of availability and supply chain issues and simple project management that adding up all of these things the U. S.

Has on this muscle, being able to do this sufficiently in these big mega projects, whether it's an airport or a nuclear actor. And by executing football, we have succeeded at getting there with some reactors. I mean, the vocal uniform turn on when a few months vocal unit three has turned on and is providing clean power of the people, in short, chah.

And in the course of doing so, IT has ensured the availability of some supply chains are on nuclear. IT has trained thousands of workers that otherwise excEllent skilled crafts workers, and are now nuclear trained skilled grasps workers, electricians and William makers, welders and everyone else, all of the building trades. And etta, when they had peaks of staff on side, around eight thousand people, is a huge number of people on side building a enter union crafts workers from forty eight states.

And so that is the thing that I would point to as something that I would worry about in the longer term around the profitability of reactors is we've now shown that A P one thousand can be built. If you were to replicate that particular reactor, you should see some learnings, right? Because now you've got a bunch workers you can draw, you've got supply chains you could draw.

But so too can all the other reactor companies that are planning to build new technologies. They'll share some of the supply chain, they'll share some of the workers. And if we don't do IT tomorrow, a lot of those workers will go and build interments. They have other things to do. This is a really tight environment to have enough skill set for the kinds of builds we need to do across the energy space.

not just clear so that you would point to that work force. We could accelerate this. I mean, all becomes to play here, but it's not much the regulation, but ensuring that we have that workforce, is there anything we can do to improve that outlook?

Yeah, I think of focus on trade schools instead of merely universities. I say this as a former and future university professor, IT is absolutely important that trade schools and community colleges and union training programs all be stood up at the capacity we need for nuclear bills when turban build out outs, solar panel build out, the kinds of transmission build outs ts, we're going to need. And regulation certainly can get faster. But I would focus, instead of flowering the standards towards sort of flowering the barriers and accelerating the process.

Doug, obviously, you're building in this space. How do you think about those relationships, whether it's with regulators or with the large workforces that are needed in some of these cases? How do you think of those relationships becoming productive?

So I think a doctor half f was talking about, I want to connect a little further. So every big plant was built like that is amazing, is awesome. And all that workforce that we trained.

And I think that can apply across the entire spectrum of the different reactor sizes that any successful project should be cross pounding at other projects and is not just from regular ory sense, but from just gain that experience, that learning by doing and getting the cost to be lower. So i'm excited to be part of that. Wait down at tiny and spectrum where where our reactors are one thousand hand smaller, but the regular or environment does need to change.

And I think we are already working on IT. There are a bunch of energy y modernization efforts coming by direction through congress within work on developing things like tensor perfect three. And that will be an ongoing and continuing effort. But I think for that to really succeed, we need reactors to get built, to get fuel, to demonstrate, and the doe to a large guar already fully supporting that just for the audience.

Can you break down what some of those changes are?

Well, I think some of the changes are really just broad spectrum. We don't have reactors that are this small that can be built in a factory. Just going to talk about possible like a reactors only for us to succeed at doing that.

Our timeline is not changed. Once we started the company in twenty twenty, we want to do a fuel demonstration in twenty twenty six. We're going to go through deal, we authorization, licensing this path that exists s at the national labs to go faster than Normal to do a test reactor at the test facility where you've got off.

The national labs support the expertise, the post radiation experiment labs. We're going to deal with our first unit, our second unit that needs to go through c licensing. And so if got to staff up in our our little forty five percent company, these parallel passes to support going along bull sets of regulations.

And I think the two could be actually woven together in a really practical manner. And I know that people have thought about this for a while. We just haven't achieved IT.

So so one of the things we could do, but we never decided a factory to mass produce reactors. What's funny about that is the regulations actually exist. If you go look at like the original codes, tensity of our fifty has that thing called them manufacturing license sin there and unused?

How many manufacturing .

licenses are there used?

This is really a factory there.

A good idea .

that this is the only way. economics.

absolutely. So we've been looking at that code, learning about IT, figure out what our questions are talking with the c actually, our kyo s MC reactor is now officially in preapplication, only very recently where on the energy as website, they are planning for us in their budget so we can get that sorted out on time. So we setting a reaction very quickly.

We wanted to deploy a unit in two thousand twenty eight, but I think get enough to unpack around regulations. We're going to build our unit with as much support as we can gather. We're not going to change our timely, and we started to feel real support from doe.

I want to say thanks for the support we have. IT will work without a national laboratory brain is committed to in ready in twenty twenty six, to go into the the dome. There's an old experiment breeder reactor dome that was converted. Now do these micro reactor demonstration experiments. A lot of work and effort and funds are gone to build that structure, and we're still on target and ready to go use IT as soon as it's available.

It's so exciting actually, this feed study that radio is doing, they're in the first set of three companies that are going to tell us exactly what they would do inside this former containment structure that housed one of the coolest reactors we ve ever built out there in in ho, that reactors over. And now there's room for new reactors to try things out in a safe sandbox.

yeah. And I know what early stages, but this picture of an assembly line of reactors is one that a few years ago might have sounded outlandish, but now there are builders creating this. Where will we be? Like, let's say, in a decade, if this does come online, can you just paint a picture dog of where these reactors could be deployed and how maybe broadly they might be deployed and the use cases for them?

Yeah, so we'll start the ten years in twenty twenty six. So ideally, we feel and demonstrate full power in the dome. And then by two thousand and eight, we have one commercial unit just a few years later do that. We're really running to regulate efforts in parallel and three units in two thousand and nine, eight units in twenty thirty, scaling on out until we're at twenty thirty six.

We should be making fifty units a year A R after a week coming off a line and the actor we're developing its a heavy unit, but I can fit in A C seventeen aircraft or on a truck and you can move IT around, get IT whatever needs to go in the world. The ultimate use cases, really replacing some diesel generators and then a reactor last for five years, approximately the on the field and then is shut down. And we bring IT back to that factory to review IT.

So it's not only a new reactor construction factory, but a line producing a bunch of new cores and a refusing facility. Alcoa ted, on the same twenty five equals so plot of land. And so what we would do is have a population about a thousand of these out in the world because we are planning for a twenty year licensing time frame.

So we ve got fifty a year and about twenty years they last. And so this kind of a thousand of them, and that we can go and put in the thousand most important places that there are. So these are like north slope in alasia, these really remote communities. Now the ocean freezes up for them and have to store huge amount diso and they can get new over the winter. So you you got a plane ahead and have enough.

And even when they can get new, the Price variability yeah is incredibly unjust.

Give us a sense of that like how much order .

of manual and you can't plan ahead for your family's budget if you have to be planning ahead for diesel power? That changes on the data daytime frame .

on the market, especially in the gear and IT just done on .

me as all of you were saying that you might imagine that people in the public might think so. I don't want a reactor in my backyard, but at the same time, and in this scenario, you could imagine that this Alice king town would beg for that, right? We don't want .

this variants like, please give me a not for any safety related reason, but I think they want one e and I think that if you're in a natural disaster and you're hoping that fales will come in and they might come in and provide you some tents and shelters, but it's very hard to provide power in a real serious natural disaster, whether it's wild fires, whether it's hurricanes and the two things you need immediately after disaster. Clean water.

You need power. And you can't do clean water from a generator. IT takes way too much fuel, but you can't do clean water from a reactor.

You can hold up a reactor to some people, clean water very easily, and provide people with the water they need to survive and with energy. That, to me, the fact that you can bring that in wheel ler is just supremely powerful. And there's nothing like that today that exists in the world. And the number of lives that I can change is tremendous. So separate from all the defense, ted, national security related things, this is an one more example of many of where having the ability to quickly truck in or fly and reliable and during power is to me, you ask, ten years where we're going to be, kind of fifteen years from now, the idea that we can to immediately turn on reliable and during power source for a community, this could be image IT will be .

a solve problem. Not only me, as a mass produce reata, you can truck in, but you can truck out. So this use in female for a temporary use is perfectly what the collider s my director, is designed to do.

Reactors don't Carry themselves away, and everything that was radioactive can be fully removed just on a Normal truck. And you leave a Green field the day you leave. That's never been seen for nuclear. I want to share that point.

Yeah the brilliant application .

and people see the united rental trucks around that. Like when you go to a concert, there's like the big united rentals thing, big generator it's like makes on the noise yeah like we just have united to reactors. No.

that's actually what we ran. When we did the hyperbole project at basic, I was charged all the electrical work for. We rented a big diesel gencer and that ran this futuristic tube that we popped down to human and ran vehicles of the three and fitty miles hour.

And but I could be every reaction talk about the asking town is one more thing that really motivates me about what we're doing. In a lot of places, they use these little generators only for prime power. The health implications of that are dramatic, right? A little gen set Operation of the course will produce C O two.

But more critically, more importantly, it's producing cars engins fumes that people are breathing in that area. They're breathing cars engins. And if you look at what happens in a town over twenty years span, if you pick a diesel genset instead of a reactor, there's something like twelve death that are going to occur premature from the use of pizzle Normal natural measures is at a rate ending people's lives premature red.

So that's one of the things that really motivated to me. And on the regulatory side, I think we've ta think about that case, and we've gotta make IT possible at some point in the future for the decision makers in the town. This fired a little town to be able to pick the nuclear reactor, the clean technology that's going to save lives and to have a equal bar for regulations so that they can pick IT.

Because one of the berries right now will be the regulations for nuclear, very chAllenging. Decide these little reactors and it's because they don't exist if we have plan for yet. But it's what I think what do you start working on now so that ten years from now in the future is that you will.

And when we think about these community is just so we can attack this question head on, doctor, have, can you just speak to waste, right, that something that comes up a lot from these reactors, old reactors? Do we have a way currently today to safely store nuclear waste?

Yes, this is a technically solved problem right now. All the pencil is stored safely where IT is. It's a solid. It's not a glowing Green deal. It's so remic.

It's more like a team, right? Yeah, now defense waste is a distinct thing with the commercial nuclear fuel in this country has never because any radiation harm to humans. IT is sort safely in either pools or in dry storage. IT is, however, at seventy locations across the country in places where the department of energy promised to take IT off of their hands, they didn't intend to store there for the long term.

And while IT is safe for the long term, as a currently stands, IT is the department of energy's transition order to take IT consolidate into one or more consolidated in orm storage sites to reduce the number of communities that live near those facilities that they didn't agree to in the long term. And so we're working through a consent based process to identify locations that would be a animal to. This is really exciting process that worked really successfully in file to cite a whole final repository and is working in canada there.

Down to two sites are for their final repository, which is much more complicated than an enorme storage facility. So it's our responsibility to do. We're doing IT.

There's no technical question about is, is possible to safely store and that we do IT every day. We've continue to do IT. We transport spent fuel safely across the united states successfully. No problem. I will say just to expand a little bit to going back to this sort of what is the future looked like ten, twenty, thirty years from now, right in addition of mr.

Reactors saving the world, that that sort of edge of accessibility to power at the edge of viability of other options, right where these al generators might sit at the edge of that small size skill, we also see real opportunities to directly replace one for one. Coal facilities right on a big fossil facilities across the country represent real opportunity for those hundred, two hundred, three hundred and units even bigger. And they should be a real boon to the communities in them because interestingly, the radiation exposure from living next to a cal plan is higher radiation exposure from living extra nuclear power planet.

We can reduce the rain. There's no emissions from nuclear power missions from innovated fossils actually can really include a lot of any. We're in this place where I think it's really important that community is especially communities around retire and retired coal sites can have Better health outcomes.

Just like what doug was saying about migrate anta and disease. The same can be said about small modular reactors and larger skal fossil plants. And that motivates me too. And we think about the two hundred and three hundred thousand premature deaths every year caused by pollution, unnecessary pollution, most of which is from power generation. We can say those people.

yes, we addressed at every scale turns out that burning, trace radioactive materials and releasing them and these other energy forms is much less safe than nuclear waste, which is kept in containers and ship and move safely, has caused no access.

Absolutely what may be to come full circle. Doctor huf, in your recent testimony, you mention that recently I cop twenty eight. The U.

S. And twenty four other counties signed an agreement to triple nuclear power by twenty and fifty. That's very exciting, but that also sounds quite lofty.

And so what do you really think needs to be in place? We touched on some of these things, whether its regulation, the workforce, acta, public opinion, a lot of these are shifting in terms of tights as well, I should say. So what's your take on how we actually achieved that goal and reverse this multiple trend?

Yeah, let me be clear. These twenty four countries sign together to say we recognized that we need to get to tripling nuclear power. Wouldn't say we knew that would be possible.

I think the agreement here is that we recognized that there is a gap that has to be filled by clean from power, and that gap is gigantic. And a huge fraction of that gigantic gap must be fill bit great power. We're never gonna get zero.

And so disagreement is that the governmental, penal and climate changed. The I I E sider of all done a bunch of studies. We are individual countries have done studies about what it's going to take to get to next year.

And it's gonna take tripling nuclear power. How do we get there? We you're going to have to build new nuclear power at a rate unparalleled. Now not so crazy to similar from the rates of bigots we added in the seventies and eighties actually .

been done before.

It's been almost done to for if we don't start tomorrow building reactors, then the rake goes up. So importantly, if we don't build any new reactors next year, then we're going to have to build slightly more every year between now and twenty and fifty. So the slower we are at start up, the harder it's gonna be to build out a chain appropriate for building the number of reactor y have to build.

If you wait until the last minute to do on your home work, you have to write a whole essay in one hour. But if you spend the way ahead of time, then you only have to write a few or it's a day that's the situation we're in. We have a little time. We have to start tomorrow. We can away til last minute.

I think there's a couple points you brought up that I think about a lot why you mention the supply chain for nuclear energy. We need to be the source of fuel right now. AmErica is a source of nuclear fuel, but there are other countries that make a lot of nuclear fuel.

And I think about american animism practices, investing in companies and support the national interest. One of the things that I think is in the national interest is to be the premier source for nuclear fuel for not just the us, but also our, our. And that's something we can do.

And we certainly could do much like, I think, storings spent nuclear fuel or recycling nuclear. A few, some people have this. There's atmospherics around IT like P, R, atmospheric. And people, I go, I don't know, I want that they ignore about all these other things have in their backyard.

And they they go, that sounds bad because I saw commercial ones, I saw the sympson exactly, and they don't want to fish with three eyes, but not a real thing. And so I think we have an opportunity really invest in the supply change for nuclear resources is a nuclear fuel. And I think you be really cool to see something kind of like the chips act for nuclear first.

I think we'd be a very bipartisan thing in this country. I also think it's something where we could really encourage investment abroad. There are a lot of countries that would love to have more nuclear energy, as doctor have said, and I think we have an obligation to be a leader there.

There are things called one, two, three agreements that that I believe the state department overseas today that sort of regulates the amount of nuclear information and nuclear sort of business. And we can train to act with certain countries, but is still an honors agreement. And there's different standards to that agreement.

And there could be a real national priority put on elevating those standards of making them more accessible or disseminated more widely and especially for the source of nuclear fuel for this country and still gives us the levers of control that we want to enable countries to have more nuclear power, but in a way that we think is safe and reliable and represents the interest of our country. So that's only I would love to see more of I do you think there's some regulatory improvement that, that is gaining momentum here, and we want to see more of I also think there can be a much larger international focus on make amErica exports all kinds of technology. We export defense products.

We explore all kinds of things, and there is no reason why we couldn't be exporting more nuclear reactors. And we do like A P one thousand, what we can be doing much more. And that's me as exciting an exciting opportunity.

At least when you think about the commercial aspects, that is not just the us. That has the sensation able need for energy but is a global opportunity. absolutely.

If we don't do IT, I think that other countries well, I guess that's the flip side of IT is right now, for instance, there's a country that that very much would like nuclear reactors for energy in the U. S. Are not allowed to sell into that country. And currently the only other country biding on the reactor is china. Um and I just think would be Better if we can bid in the country also absolutely dug .

anything you'd out there in terms of, you could say, a wish list you're building in the space. And there are so many different factors that come together, what do you hope to see, whether it's the supply chain, the workforces.

the regulation? I'm thinking we talked very long term. I'm thinking much more short term about my wish list because I A very tight schedule Operating the domes just two years away, twenty three months.

I need to make sure I get access to fuel. Something David mentioned is really chAllenging. And outta has been helping talk about this regularly and I appreciated.

But it's still a chAllenge for us. I think a real mi reactor demonstration program from the federal side would probably the single biggest thing we can do to accelerate our efforts to commercialization. And I think that would help cross pond every other project that we have going on.

Dr, have. I'm going to close with you anything else you'd like to share with the folks in the room. But also we have so many people listening, who may have varying degrees of education on nuclear, the state of IT in our country. What would you like to leave people with about the year's had?

Yeah, I think there is an incredibly amount of money to be made. There are lives to be saved. There is democracy to preserve, sovereignty to deploy abroad.

And we have unquestionably some of the best technology in the world. It's american design. It's an american venture.

We are the first nation ever sustain efficient chain reaction on purpose. We have the largest nuclear fleet in the world. We are poised to lead this as we transition into a cleaner energy system. But we have to see private industry step up and say, I will be the first design a contract to build the next or whatever.

And I want to see as many contracts on the books as possible in the next couple of years or else we are gna have a much bigger supply chain chAllenge in the next twenty years. Then we have today every few months that are delayed between now and the water books that we mean to show that deployment and the harder it's gonna be to build out as much as we need to get net zero, we have to get to zero falls. Stop not only who we promise the world, we're leading the world. And I intend to still be around in two thousand, thousand and fifty. And i'd like to be .

able .

breathe here, here.

here, here.

That's a great place to end off and think, doctor, I think for her effort due and really pushing forward, I would say, renewed and reenergize attitude towards nuclear policy.

No innovators like gradient and others that are really leading the way and give us some good work to work with what I mean.

I think that's why we brought all three of you, and right, we have all sides of the equation. We under the builders and the policymakers all in the room because that's all required for the future.

Now if you have made IT this far, don't forget that you can get an inside look into A C ccs american dynamism summer at a six 点 com flash A D summit。 There you can catch several of the exclusive stage talks featuring policymakers is like deputy sector of defense captain fix or government west, more of maryland plus for founders from companies like Andrew in coin base and founders like mark vin, all building toward american dynamic. Again, you can find all of the above at a exceed 点 com flash A D summit， and one could a link in the show notes.