The Atomic Show

Abandoned uranium mine waste has been a big deal for decades, but almost no one had an inkling about what we should do to solve the problem. The scale of the challenge is huge, with various estimates ranging between 1 and 8 billion tons of uranium mining waste rock spread over more than 10,000 sites, nearly all of which are in western states and Native American sovereign nations. The Navajo Nation is the jurisdiction with the biggest burden – a substantial portion of the waste is on Navajo lands and spread over 500 or more sites. Some have dismissed or minimized the problem by pointing to the relatively low material concentrations and the low radiation doses emitted. But low concentrations multiplied by tens of millions of tons and thousands of sites calculates to distressingly large numbers. It’s also important to remember that the contaminating minerals of concern are heavy metals that might be lightly radioactive, but they also have a level of chemical toxicity that also causes negative health impacts on humans and animals. Though billions of dollars have been allocated for cleaning up the waste piles, there hasn’t been much progress because the available solution set has been limited to on-site burial in engineered landfills or moving the material “somewhere else.” The landfill option doesn’t remove the potential threat to groundwater and the barriers are designed to last about 100 years. The vast majority of the contaminating minerals will still be there after the designed barriers have deteriorated. There has been little or no success in finding suitable or agreeable places to take the waste and even if there were, the mass of material means that most of the available clean up funds would be consumed in transportation. Not surprisingly, there has not been a shortage of large established contracting companies willing to be paid tens of millions of dollars to study the issue and move some dirt around. Enter John Lee and Greyson Buckingham, a pair of innovative entrepreneurs. They recognized the scale of the problem and the importance of effective solutions. They developed a patented technology called High Pressure Slurry Ablation that separates the contaminating minerals – mostly uranium and radium 226 – from sand and rock and concentrates those minerals into about 20% of the mass of the input stream. The clean fraction can meet stringent NRC unrestricted release criteria while the fraction containing the minerals will have a high enough concentration to turn a pile of contaminated material into valuable ore. John Lee, with deep experience and education in mining and materials processing, developed the initial idea for HPSA. Greyson Buckingham added his legal training, business acumen and political experience. They formed a company called Disa Technologies in 2018 and patiently began the process of refining their ideas into useful and reliable machinery. Additionally, they entered into a plodding process of obtaining permission to deploy their problem-solving technology in an environmentally beneficial and cost effective manner. Starting with a state regulatory engagement in 2018, Disa Technologies was recently – September 30, 2025 – awarded a service provider’s license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That license comes with a significant, but reasonably achievable condition to demonstrate HPSA on a commercial scale before entering into wide deployment of multiple units. Though it took about half a decade of staff engagement and Commission decision-making to determine the proper licensing framework, the NRC was able to review Disa’s service provider license application in six months (March–September 2025). During the regulatory engagement process, Disa Technologies developed strong alliances with political representatives from affected states, with leaders among the Native American nations and with communities that have been seeking solutions to the waste issue for decades. They also produced solid scientific evidence of the efficacy of their inventions and demonstrated it to the satisfaction of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The saga is fascinating. For Atomic Show #339, I spoke with Greyson Buckingham about his company, its technology, the importance of cleaning up abandoned uranium mine (AUM) waste, the utility of HPSA in processing other critical mineral ores, the sometimes frustrating interactions with the NRC during period from 2020-2024 and the refreshingly competent and mission-oriented NRC that has been evolving during the past year. Neither I nor Nucleation Capital, the sponsor of the Atomic Show and Atomic Insights, have any financial interest in Disa as of January 5, 2025, the date that this post and the associated audio recording are released.

Oklo is rapidly becoming a household name, at least among households with members who pay attention to energy industry developments and/or the headliners in the financial press. Oklo is in the process of designing and permitting a family of small modular reactors that it plans to own and operate to produce electricity, heat and isotopes that it will sell to its end customers under long term power purchase agreements (PPA). The specific type of SMR that Oklo has chosen as the one with the best chance to economically meet its needs as a power and heat producer – over the long haul – is a liquid sodium cooled, fast neutron reactor designed to closely match the features and performance of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). That impressively successful demonstration reactor, which produced about 20 MWe, ran reliably for 30 years (1964-1994). Oklo has stated that it intends to produce 15, 50 and 75 MWe versions of the system in order to best meet the needs of the customers it is aiming to serve. An integral part of the Oklo vision is to recycle used nuclear fuel, the material that is often referred to as spent nuclear fuel or even “nuclear waste.” The fact that the material still contains about 90-95% of its initial potential energy is finally becoming common knowledge. Oklo believes that fast spectrum reactors are the technology that is best suited for converting used fuel materials into useful energy, and it also believes that affordably recycling fuel is essential to meeting its long term economic projections. Architectural rendering of an Oklo Powerhouse – Used with permission from Oklo Part of Oklo’s business model is focusing on community acceptance for its powerhouses. They are designed to be aesthetically pleasing to the point where Oklo powerhouse images are often used to illustrate articles about advanced nuclear energy that focus on other companies. The company has talked about designing the stations to be community gathering places and also talked about beneficially using waste heat for purposes like heating swimming pools or district heating systems. For Atomic Show #338, I spoke with Craig Bealmear, Oklo’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Craig described his 30-year background in the energy industry, mostly working in finance and accounting for BP. He spent most of his career in their marketing arm selling gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to large customers, but also ran several commercial enterprises within the company. We discussed Oklo’s experience as one of three publicly traded pure plays in advanced nuclear energy during a period when excitement about nuclear energy hit an inflection point and dramatically increased demand for a commodity in very short supply. (Note: The supply of publicly traded pure plays in nuclear has recently doubled, creating a situation that is testing the strength of the demand for those companies.) We spoke about the company’s vision, its business model and the way that its business model drove the selection of liquid metal fast spectrum reactors. Oklo’s founders – Jake and Caroline DeWitt – were attracted to their ability to operate at near atmospheric pressure while achieving high enough temperatures to create steam at the conditions used by modern Rankine Cycle steam plants. They believed that characteristic, along with the impressive results of EBR-II passive safety tests, will allow them to reduce the portion of their systems that are classified as safety-related. Sodium has been proven to be chemically compatible with stainless steel over a long period of high temperature operation, a characteristic with cost reduction potential. Of course, we also had to talk about the design and operating provisions needed to mitigate and minimize the impact of sodium’s well known chemical reactions with water and moist air. That characteristic requires almost as much attention to keeping the primary coolant system leak tight and reliably separated from the clean steam site of the plant as has always been invested in pressurized water reactors. Low pressures make fabrication of the primary coolant pressure boundary for sodium cooled reactors a little less challenging than it is for very high pressure water. Early in its development, Oklo invested a substantial amount of time recovering data from the EBR-II and the Fast Flux Test Facility. Craig and I talked about the value that quality testing and design data and how Oklo’s investment in organizing, understanding and using that data gives it a valuable head start compared to others who also have access to the government’s results. During its decade+ period of operation, Oklo has developed strong relations with the Department of Energy and its national labs. It has recently announced several partnerships with others that are interested in fuel recycling, uranium enrichment and fast spectrum/liquid metal cooled reactors. It is interested in the potential for supplying – or buying – materials and components when it is mutually beneficial. As the CFO, Craig is working to mitigate some of the concerns he has with the “asset-intensive” nature of Oklo’s build, own and operate business model. We talked about several paths that Oklo might pursue to reduce the capital requirements. Though Oklo has been interacting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 2016, it is planning to take advantage of a recently reinvigorated capability for the Department of Energy to authorize the construction, operation and testing of pilot reactors. We spoke about DOE authorization as an interim step that can speed the process while enabling a later relicensing by the NRC for commercial operation. Oklo’s long term plan is to use repeated COLs under Part 52 with reactors manufactured under a manufacturing license. We also talked about Atomic Alchemy and how the acquisition of that company fits Oklo’s future plans. Counting Atomic Alchemy’s VIPER reactor, Oklo has three reactors in the DOE’s recently announced Reactor Pilot Program. The other two are Aurora-INL and Pluto. Aurora-INL is a 15 MWe version of Oklo’s powerhouse design while VIPER is a reactor that is optimized to produce high-demand isotopes. Very little information has been released about Pluto, but the project name offers a hint about one of its major design characteristics. The company is actively pursuing all three reactor projects, but they intend to push hardest on one of the three to achieve critical operations by July 4, 2026. Kiewit is serving as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the Aurora-INL project. One of the final topics we discussed was the company’s employee base. Oklo employs more than 200 people and has 45 openings listed on its job board. Either Jake or Caroline interviews every potential hire before they are added to the team. We ran out of time before we could discuss topics like the manufacturing facility plans, the current progress of recycling efforts or the politics involved in moving the US away from the 50-year old de facto policy of avoiding fuel recycling. Disclosure: My wife and I have a small position in Oklo. As Nov 19, 2025, It represents less than 1% of our net worth.

NexGen Energy is a uranium mining company that is nearing the end of a long transition from a successful exploration entity to a uranium producing company. The company is in the final stages of hearings and approvals needed from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to allow it to begin constructing the mine infrastructure for its Rook 1 project. In a term that might be familiar to petroleum energy geologists, Rook 1 is a supergiant resource. Aside: In the petroleum business, a supergiant field is one that contains at least 5 billion barrels of oil. There are more than 250 million pounds of uranium in the measured and indicated mineral resources in the Rook 1 project. Google’s Gemini says that one million pounds of natural uranium contains 31 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). It follows that 250 million pounds contains more than 7.5 billion BOE. End Aside. The ore in the Arrow deposit part of Rook 1 has an exceedingly rare uranium concentration that is as high as 69% uranium oxide. On average, the deposit measures out at well over 3%. Leigh Curyer, NexGen’s founder and CEO, visited the Atomic Show to talk about his company’s successful and continuing exploration program. We talked about the growing need for uranium fuel as the nuclear energy market expands, the tightness in the current supply chain and the impacts of a new production source that is planning to supply between 22% and 25% of the current annual uranium supply. Curyer spoke about NexGen’s investments in planning and engineering a mine that balances the needs for profitable extraction, minimum environmental impacts and maximum community benefits. He described the company’s strategy of remediating impacts as the mining continues so that there is less to do once the mine closes. If you are interested in uranium mining or if you are concerned about the sustainability of nuclear energy in terms of ensuring an adequate fuel supply, you will find this to be a fascinating conversation.

Dr. Hash Hashemian has been an inspiring leader in the nuclear industry for half a century. He was recently inaugurated as the President of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) after serving for a year as the Vice President/President Elect. His company, AMS Corporation, provides key services and products to nearly every nuclear power plant in the United States and a growing portion of those located outside of the United States. He founded AMS with a partner in 1977 and became the sole owner in 1986. Even though it is a relatively small company with an average head count of 100 people, AMS maintains a strong research and development organization. AMS employees, including Dr. Hashemian, have published hundreds of papers in academic journals and produced a significant body of original research. Hash is a nuclear energy industry expert with an enormous breadth and depth of experience. On this episode of the Atomic Show, we skimmed over a sampling of his knowledge of the industry. We talked about his visions and plans for the next year as the President of ANS, his view of the future of nuclear energy and our slightly differing views of the role that the government should play in getting a nuclear power plant building effort off of the ground. We discussed Dr. Hashemian’s successful, inspiring effort to obtain not one, not two, but three PhD’s over a 10 year period while running a business and raising a family. Besides his incredible work ethic, he shared another tactic – he devoted the hours of 9:00 pm to 2:00 am to study each day during that decade. Dr. Hashemian is a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee. His business is headquartered in Knoxville, not far from Oak Ridge. He is an active member of the East Tennessee nuclear industry, which currently includes 156 companies. We talked about Tennessee’s leadership within the industry, the investments that the state is making in maintaining its leadership and the special advantages of having Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 and legacy defense-related nuclear sites that are being cleaned and leveled. These sites provide large tracts of land that are available to nuclear-focused companies at attractive prices. Colleges and universities in East Tennessee, including the University of Tennessee, Tennessee Tech and Roane State Community College are academic assets that are training engineers and technicians in fields relevant to the nuclear industry. Dr. Hashemian reminded us that states like Texas and Virginia are also racing to be nuclear industry leaders. We took advantage of Dr. Hashemian’s special knowledge of nuclear power plant instrumentation and control systems to discuss the reasons why the U.S. nuclear power plant fleet almost exclusively still uses analog protection and alarm systems. We talked about some of the changing I & C needs for advanced reactors and the usefulness of a wide variety of sizes and configurations for nuclear energy facilities. Dr. Hashemian is a believer in an “all of the nuclear plant sizes above” catalog. Dr. Hashemian also shared his nuclear energy origin story. Like several other prominent nuclear industry leaders, he grew up in Iran during the period when it was still ruled by the Shah of Iran. Throughout almost all of the 1970s, the Shah was pursuing a plan to build 20 large nuclear power plants to provide electricity to his rapidly modernizing country. That plan was openly aimed at reducing Iran’s domestic oil and gas consumption so that more of those valuable products could be exported into the world market. Aside: As Atomic Insights has said many times, nuclear fission heat can replace other sources of thermal energy including oil, gas and coal. That gives those whose wealth and power is sourced from combustion fuels a powerful incentive to shape public and political attitudes about their most capable competitive technology. End Aside. The Shah’s government supported thousands of students – including Hash Hashemian – in programs to study nuclear science and engineering and other related fields in some of the best universities in the world. The expectation was that those student would return to Iran and help develop the Shah’s expansive nuclear power program. After the Shah was overthrown, some of the students returned to Iran, but many – like Dr. Hashemian – chose to remain in the United States and build their lives and careers here. Those enterprising, hard-working immigrants – first generation Americans – continue to play an important role in nuclear energy development. The second generation is also contributing their skills, work ethic and intellect. You’ll enjoy this show. We’re sure of it. Now a word from our sponsor. As you’ll hear during the show, there is an intensifying interest in building new nuclear power plants in the U.S. and around the world. Customers are clamoring for power sources that are clean, abundant, reliable and affordable. Only nuclear energy has the potential to meet those criteria without regard to prevailing weather or geography. The challenging, but addressable criteria is “affordable”. Some customers have needs that are so immediate, they are willing to pay a premium and even invest in product development. Nucleation Capital, the sponsor of this show, is also investing in emerging companies – aka entrepreneurial ventures – that are developing technologies, processes and supporting systems designed to lower cost and reduce schedules. Nucleation Capital Fund I is structured to allow accredited investors – people with either $1 M of investable assets or $200 K in annual income – to become limited partners (LPs) and invest a portion of their portfolio in advanced nuclear energy ventures. The general partners in the fund invest alongside the LPs, giving them a strong vested interest in picking winners from a growing list of exciting customers. If you’re interested in joining the journey, seizing the opportunity for strong returns and helping nuclear energy to develop, please visit the Nucleation Capital web site or contact us directly.

Blue Wave AI Labs has been creating and supplying artificial intelligence tools – mainly in the form of machine learning – to operating nuclear power plants since 2016. Their initial set of tools focused on improving boiling water reactor core reload designs. The company was formed to address the chosen problem because it was a time consuming – aka expensive – data-driven task with a large number of variables, each with a significant amount of uncertainty that was mitigated by inserting large margins. Though operating with those large margins provided safety and operational reliability, the extra margins led to increased costs/reduced revenues in the form of higher than necessary enrichments, shorter refueling cycles and/or operating at a lower than rated power. Jonathan Nistor is Blue Wave AI’s chief operating officer and one of its early employees. During his visit to the Atomic Show he provided a lot of deep technical details about addressing the challenges of designing BWR core reloads and also provided some insights into new directions that AI (artificial intelligence, not to be confused with Atomic Insights) can take to improve the operating efficiency of nuclear power plants. We also talked extensively about the potential for AI to address difficult and time consuming documentation and review tasks that require reliable access to cited reference material, a comprehensive understanding of plant license basis and the requirements associated with license applications for both changes to operating reactors and initial license applications for new, advanced reactors. We talked about the way that suppliers like Blue Wave AI meet the requirements for cyber security and how they protect their clients’s data for both security and proprietary reasons. We also discussed the current state of acceptance for AI tools from the point of view of nuclear licensees and the regulators that oversee the industry. This episode is a bit more technical than usual, so it should appeal to the hardcore geeks in the audience. But it’s also accessible to anyone who wants to gain some understanding of the challenges facing the operating fleet and the assistance that the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence can provide. It’s important to point out that the nuclear industry is interested in AI tools that help humans do their job better, not in tools that result in machines driven by codes to make decisions that humans should be making. Enjoy the show.

Standard Nuclear emerged from the start-up stealth mode in early June 2025 with the announcement of successfully raising $42 million from a group of venture capitalist led by  Decisive Point with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Washington Harbour Partners, Welara, Fundomo and Crucible Capital. Though Standard Nuclear is young enough to have a single page web site, it owns and operates the largest TRISO – tristructural isotopic – fuel production facility in the world outside of China. That facility was purchased during the Chapter 11 reorganization of Ultra Safe Nuclear (USNC), a formerly sprawling advanced nuclear company that outran its financing. Along with the facility, its equipment, land and operating procedures, Standard Nuclear acquired a fully functioning, dedicated team of TRISO nuclear fuel specialists. As described in a June 11, 2025 article in the Wall Street Journal, the fuel manufacturing team at Standard Nuclear was so committed to the vision of becoming a globally important fuel supplier to the advanced nuclear sector that many of them worked for months without pay to keep their facility operational and sale-ready during the USNC bankruptcy proceedings. Dr. Kurt Terrani, CEO of Standard Nuclear, is our guest for Atomic Show #333. We discuss his personal trajectory in becoming one of the world’s leading technical experts on TRISO fuel production and then becoming the corporate leader of one of the world’s leading TRISO fuel manufacturing companies. TRISO particles with hand to show scale Kurt told us how the Standard Nuclear team began working together at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) program (funded by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.) The fuel development segment of that program both preceded and superseded the larger AGR program. In a rare example of long term, consistent planning supported by reasonably consistent funding, the TRISO fuel development and testing program was sustained through completion for nearly 20 years (2002-2021). One output of the program was NREG-2246 – Fuel Qualification for Advanced Reactors – that provides license applicants that use TRISO in their design a standard path to analyze the fuel form to prove it meets radioactive retention barrier requirements for their particular design under projected operating and accident conditions. We talked about the paradigm-shifting nature of building nuclear power systems where the radioactive material is retained in the fuel material at all anticipated reactor temperatures during normal operation or accident conditions. When license applicants earn NRC approval using NUREG-2246, their reactors are viewed as achieving functional containment that greatly lessens the boundary and safety system requirements for their complete nuclear heat source system. With expensive fuel and reduced capital investment, nuclear cost accounts might shift to be something closer to those more commonly associated with natural gas fired turbines (either Rankine steam cycles or Brayton gas cycles). For TRISO reactors, nuclear becomes a fuel-dominated business. Nuclear energy designers recognize this shift and have been developing power systems that can economically respond to load changes to reduce fuel consumption during low demand/low price periods. Terrani provides insights on TRISO fuel construction and on the processes required to produce the fuel to meet the stringent requirements. He describes the modular nature of the fabrication line and the methods used to maximize productive capacity for each line and the way that enterprise capacity is expanded to meet customer demand. We talk about the coating improvement paths and TRISO’s ability to use a variety of enrichments and fissile materials in the coated particles. We discuss how the nearly infinite variations can introduce market and engineering challenges. Terrani uses the analogy of automobiles and gasoline to illustrate his vision of many different brands of TRISO-based reactors using a limited menu of interchangeable fuel particles. Standard Nuclear”s name calls back to the time when John D. Rockefeller recognized that oil products would find larger markets if they were standardized so that equipment manufacturers could focus on their equipment with the confidence that there was a reliable supply of fuel with predictable characteristics. That doesn’t mean that Standard Nuclear intends to produce only one kind of fuel, but it does mean that the company is working with as many developers as possible to create standards and prevent a high cost situation where every reactor line needs its own unique fuel. With standardization, TRISO fuels become a commodity whose costs steadily decline as billions to trillions of particles are produced. If you are interested in the current state of TRISO manufacturing development and in the story of a dedicated team with a vision, you will enjoy this show.

Copenhagen Atomics is an ambitious Danish company with a bold, potentially world-changing vision. They’re driven by a goal of manufacturing one reactor per day from a high quality, certified factory. If they achieve that goal, they would be adding an additional 37 GW/year of heat to the global energy supply. They want to help make affordable, reliable, clean and abundant energy available to everyone on the planet. Thomas Jam Pedersen is a co-founder and the CEO of Copenhagen Atomics. He recently visited the Atomic Show to describe his company, its history, its vision and its technology. He provided a wealth of information during a lengthy conversation and also shared a brief about the company, its facilities, its potential markets and the physical fabrication and testing units. The company was founded by a group of four Danish engineers and businessmen with a complimentary set of valuable skills and experience. They were each “bitten by the thorium bug” through individual research starting in the late 2000s. They came to the decision to start a company about ten years ago through a series of meetings at Copenhagen bars and restaurants. Copenhagen Atomics is developing a molten salt reactor that uses a kickstarter actinide fuel (U-233, U-235 or Pu-239) along with a thorium blanket and heavy water moderator to produce 100 MW of heat. The nuclear heat source system – including pumps, tanks, pipes, valves and the proprietary “onion core” reactor – fits into a standard shipping container. After 5 years of operation, the molten salt contains almost as much fissile material as it did when it was initially loaded into the fuel. In the future, the fissile material inventory at the end of 5 years will be equal to, or slightly greater than it was at the beginning. The Waste Burner reactor will eventually become a thermal spectrum breeder reactor that adds to the world’s fissile material inventory. The container and its included systems would be fully manufactured and tested at the factory, but it would be shipped to its destination with no loaded fuel using conventional shipping methods. The destination facility could use heat for a conventional steam power plant or it could use the heat for an application like manufacturing fertilizer or desalinating water. In the current business model, the receiving facility would be erected by a customer that had contracted to purchase heat coming from the pre-fabricated reactor furnished by Copenhagen Atomics. The power plant design and construction would include a series of shielded “cocoons”, each with two meter thick walls and enough internal space for the container and a number of tanks and connections. Each reactor would be inserted into a cocoon, loaded with fuel from tanks in the cocoon and connected to the receiving heat system using welded connections. The welding would be done by an automated system that is already under development and testing at Copenhagen Atomics’s 9,000 m² fabrication and testing facility in Copenhagen. (See photos in the company presentation.) The containers and their included mechanical systems are fabricated out of conventional stainless steel and designed to be affordably replaced every five years. At the end of this operating life, they would be defueled and replaced with the fuel salt put into the new reactor. The old reactor would be stacked into a pre-existing storage facility at the power plant where it would remain for several decades to allow radioactive isotopes to decay. After the containers have sufficiently cooled – from a radioactivity perspective – they could be recycled into materials for new reactors or compacted for storage at low level waste facilities. Though Denmark does not allow the government to invest in nuclear power facilities, it has a respected regulator with many decades worth of experience in regulating radioactive materials and nuclear research facilities that include reactors. But Copenhagen Atomics’s current development path includes construction of an initial fissioning test reactor at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. That facility is currently planned to be completed in 2028, but that date can vary depending on a number of factors, including the time required to arrange appropriate financing. Copenhagen Atomics is a company founded by practical engineers that know that real products require a vast amount of physical testing. They build parts – including tanks, pipes, valves, sensors and pumps – and assemble them into both partial and complete systems that allow them to test materials and performance at operating conditions. They started with non radioactive salts and are progressing to tests and demonstrations using non-fissile actinides and then to the actual fuel materials that will be used in commercial facilities. So far, the company has accumulated 100,000 hours of actual system testing. They have developed refined test loops that are good enough to have been sold to other researchers working on molten salts. They have developed large scale salt production systems and gradually increased their production rates. If all continues to progress, Copenhagen Atomics expects that its first commercial reactor unit will be operating in about 5 years. But Thomas Jam is a practical and patient man who realizes that there are lot of obstacles left to overcome. Disclosure – Nucleation Capital is an investor in Copenhagen Atomics. We believe that the company’s vision is important, visionary and potentially valuable. We appreciate the iterative approach to design and manufacture; it is vital for teams designing something new to build, test, redesign and rebuilt as often as needed to produce refined products. We think you will appreciate the opportunity to learn more about Copenhagen Atomics in a discussion that delves into some deeply technical issues.

The University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne (UIUC) is planning to build a uniquely capable micro reactor project on its campus. For decades, the university hosted a traditional research reactor that supported important research projects and provided operating experience. But, like the majority of university research reactors, it did not produce any useful heat or electricity. Kronos MMR has a different focus. In its FAQ on the project, UIUC describes the purpose of the project as follows: [The project will] shape the future of nuclear research, move [our] campus to a cleaner energy future, create unique educational opportunities for our students, and develop a skilled workforce ready to address the urgent need for carbon-free energy technologies across our country and beyond. Caleb Brooks is an associate professor in the Grainger College of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Kronos MMR Project Lead. He visited the Atomic Show to describe the project, its goals and the impact that it is and will have on the campus and nearby communities. The Kronos MMR is a full scale, but power-derated, version of Nano Nuclear Energy’s high temperature gas cooled reactor. In commercial use, the reactor will be able to produce 45 MW of thermal power (~15 MWe). As a campus-based research reactor, Kronos MMR will be limited to operating at 10 MW thermal, a little less than 25% of what the reactor core will be able to handle. That limit is based on the current power cap placed on reactors licensed by the NRC using the class 104(c) process. The lower power will, logically enough, mean that the reactor core can run 4.5 times as long before needing to be refueled. If it is operated at the somewhat lower capacity factor expected in an academic environment compared to a commercial environment, the time between refuelings will be extended even further. Dr. Brooks explained how the research reactor classification was chosen to help the Kronos project move faster than it would otherwise move under a class 103 commercial license process. The University began its official engagement with the NRC in May 2021. Though we did not get into details about the business partner situation during the discussion, some readers might recall that the UIUC micro reactor program began as a partnership with the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation. That entity ran into financial difficulties and declared bankruptcy in 2024, after it had done a substantial amount of engineering and design work for its 45 MWth high temperature gas cooled reactor that it called MMR®. Nano Nuclear Energy purchased the designs and other intellectual property associated with USNC’s MMR, including the projects that the company had begun. Nuclear News published an article in April 2025 titled UIUC and NANO Nuclear reboot plans for a FOAK research reactor that provides more details about the transition and the plans to move the project towards completion. During our conversation, Caleb indicated that the transition had gone reasonable well, but that the uncertainty during the period leading up to and immediately following USNC’s collapse had added about 18 months to the initially envisioned project schedule. One of the primary topics of our conversation was the effort that the University has undertaken to build public support for the project. Given the campus location, this will be a pioneering effort showing how small and micro reactor projects can be accepted and located very close to customers, including residential communities. You will enjoy this show. I promise.

The Nuclear Company (TNC) describes itself as “a fleet-scale American nuclear deployment company.” TNC is a young, visionary company driven by what business author Jim Collins describes as a BHAG – “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” – in his best-selling book titled Built To Last. TNC’s intermediate goal is to deploy 6 large nuclear reactors in the U.S. while developing a complete platform that enables repeated projects using a design once, build many approach. For a company that was just formed in 2023, that qualifies as an enormously audacious goal. One of the examples Collins used for a BHAG was Boeing’s 1952 decision to build the 707 as one of the world’s first commercial jet aircraft. But at the time, Boeing was an established, profitable company whose head count had reached over 50,000 employees during WWII and that was still producing several different bombers for the Air Force, including the large, jet powered B52. TNC’s leap seems to be substantially larger than the one that Boeing successfully made. But, with the right people forming the right teams and gathering the resources available, TNC’s goal might be possible. The Atomic Show first covered this intriguing company in August of 2024, about a month after the company exited a formative, quiet year, when Juliann Edwards, TNC’s Chief Development Officer, appeared as a guest on Atomic Show #319. TNC summarizes its strategy as follows: The Nuclear Company’s approach can be articulated through our four-pronged strategy: Fleet-Scale Deployment: We are building at fleet scale, not project scale, enabling us to capture significant efficiency gains and cost savings, and enabling the reshoring of American industry.  Broad Industry Coalition: Fleet scale requires a broad coalition of industry partners for successful project planning and execution. We build that coalition to scale. Comprehensive Program Management: We synergy-capture program management applicable across existing and new deployments. Public-Private Partnerships: We leverage federal, state, and local government engagement and support along with industry to re-establish a US commercial nuclear leadership position.  For this episode of the Atomic Show, I spoke with Joe Klecha, TNC’s Chief Nuclear Officer (CNO), to learn more about how the company plans to achieve its initial BHAG while establishing the foundation for future growth. Joe has a deep well of practical knowledge accumulated during a lengthy career as an on-site, walk-around manager. He told me how the most important job of management is to enable skilled subordinates to perform with as little friction as possible. (I’m paraphrasing here.). For a site-level, project manager that translates into ensuring that crafts people arrive on prepared work front with all of the necessary tools and documentation. A key focus for The Nuclear Company is to avoid paper processing. Most listeners will be amazed to hear Joe talk about the wagon loads of paper that accompanied much of the work done at Vogtle 3 & 4. We talked about the value of well crafted contracts that properly share risk among contributing entities while also establishing a system of progress payments and milestones that give all participants a shared goal. Joe told me about the exceptional team TNC is building and the way it is rapidly gathering interested and committed partners. Joe displayed his broad reach of technical knowledge during our conversation, providing a point of view that is rarely found in audio commentary by people whose expertise is mostly based on academic research, computer aide design or computational model simulations. We talked about concrete, steel, rebar, interfaces, managing multiple work fronts, the importance of addressing worker density, ways to improve workforce productivity, evaluating sites, finding and incentivizing capable suppliers, and building contractor teams. I’m still in the willing to be, but not yet convinced camp regarding TNC’s chances for success. Given where we are today, the chances are better than they were two years ago when the company founders were developing their BHAG. But they still have a very long road to travel and the competition is already heating up. Avoiding ending on a down note, my conversation with Joe Klecha left me more enthusiastic than I was before about their progress and their opportunities. Please listen to this show. It will provide a unique point of view regarding the lessons America has learned so far about building new nuclear plants in the 21st century.

The Honorable Dr. Kathryn Huff is an associate professor in the nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the director of the Advanced Reactor Fuels laboratory and currently specializes in nuclear reactor core neutronics and multi-physics modeling. She served as the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy from May of 2022 through May of 2024. We talked about her tenure at the Department of Energy and the somewhat jarring transition from being a university professor with frequent contact with undergraduate students to running a bureaucratic agency inside the Washington beltway. We chatted about the Byzantine and somewhat plodding nature of the federal budgetary process and the reasons why the process was designed to insert a certain amount of deliberative reviews and second checks before making decisions, especially when they carried large monetary implications. We paid a little extra attention to the process of implementing the Congressional appropriation of $2.72 B for the Domestic Low Enriched Uranium Supply Chain. We discussed some of the more enjoyable aspects of her position, including the opportunities to teach both decision makers and staff members about the utility of nuclear energy and some of the reasons why it is such a fascinating and important scientific, technological and economic topic. We spoke about her visits to national labs, universities and international centers of nuclear energy research and development. She mentioned that the opportunity to host students and other groups of young people was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of her job. She appreciated the opportunity to share some of her excitement about nuclear energy. We also talked about several recent Executive Orders with the potential for significant impact on energy in general and nuclear energy more specifically. One of the Executive Orders that we discussed does not include the word “energy” in its title or anywhere in its text, but it holds the potential to make an impact on the future of nuclear energy development. Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies addresses the independence of certain agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, within the Executive Branch of the federal government. The NRC’s independence has often been described as a major component of its effectiveness as a regulatory body. Dr. Huff joined with two colleagues to publish a commentary in Scientific American about the possible implications of reducing the NRC’s independence. On the Atomic Show, she offered her perspective and provided some concerns worth thinking about. I hope you enjoy this episode. Please participate in the comment discussion, but be aware that comments will be closed sometime after they’ve been open for two weeks.

Aalo Atomics is a two year old micro reactor company founded by Matt Loszak, a serial entrepreneur, and Yasir Arafat, a skilled nuclear engineer who previously lead the DOE’s MARVEL advanced micro-reactor demonstration project. Note: At Nucleation Capital, we were impressed enough with the company and the team to add it to our growing portfolio of advanced nuclear energy companies. Matt Loszak, Aalo’s CEO, visited the Atomic Show to discuss his company’s current plans, its evolved power plant design, its progress towards becoming a reactor manufacturing company and the process by which it selected its initial target customer base and devised a product aimed directly at serving their needs. The initial Aalo plan was to scale up and commercialize the MARVEL reactor concept, taking advantage of its rapid progress and projected early operation. A variety of circumstances have combined to delay the MARVEL project by at least 1-2 years. With that delay, the idea of using MARVEL data as part of the licensing basis for Aalo became less viable. As a result of additional market and supply chain influences, Aalo has made significant changes to the original, MARVEL-based design. Aalo’s has designed a sodium cooled thermal reactor with both a primary and a secondary sodium loop. The reactor fuel is uranium dioxide with enrichment of 5-10%, putting it into the category of LEU+. The fuel form will be as close to available commercial reactor fuel as possible. The secondary sodium loop will include a double tube heat steam generator that will produce steam at approximately 500℃. The optimized power plant design for Aalo’s initial customer base of large data centers is called the Aalo Pod. It will include 5 reactor steam generating systems each capable of supplying about 25 MWth. The output of all five steam supply systems will be combined to supply a single 50 MWe steam turbine. Activity inside Aalo’s Austin, TX factory (Mar 2025) The steam turbine selected for the system will be one that has a reasonably flat operating curve over a range of steam flows so that it can efficiently supply electricity even if one or more of the reactors is shutdown for maintenance/refueling. The company has focused on designing its system to be readily manufactured and efficiently assembled. Aalo moved into a 40,000 ft² industrial building in Austin, Texas in August of 2024 and it is now outfitting that building to be a pilot line manufacturing facility for its initial units. The company has scheduled a grand opening ceremony for the factory in early April 2025. Moving fast is a core part of its commercialization roadmap. Aalo has purchased a plot of land in or near Austin and plans to build a non-nuclear heated prototype facility where it can perform a number of sodium and heat transfer tests. It has obtained permission to follow a DOE authorization path to obtain permission to build and operate its nuclear prototype reactor on a site at the Idaho National Laboratory near the facilities that once were home to the Experimental Breeder Reactor II and are now the DOE’s DOME (Demonstration of Microreactors Experiments) test site. It is one of four reactor vendors (along with Terrestrial Energy, Natura and Kairos) selected to build a small and micro reactor hub on the Rellis Campus of Texas A&M. Eventually, the site owners envision that the total power generating capacity at the site will be approximately 1 GWe from a significant number of nuclear power plants. You can learn more details about Aalo Atomics and Matt Loszak by listening to the show. As always, comments are welcome, though the comment window will close in about 2 weeks. (A site that has been on the web as long as Atomic Insights attracts a lot of spam attempts.)

Deep Isolation is one of Nucleation Capital’s more impactful portfolio companies because its technology can enable greater success for most of the rest of the companies – and for the entire nuclear energy sector. The company has been developing, testing and refining its systematic approach to nuclear waste disposal for a decade. Despite the fact that it is addressing one of the few remaining items that limits the acceptance of nuclear energy and its ability to rapidly expand to supply the clean firm power that our industrial society needs to thrive, few people have heard of the company. Even fewer include its technology in the discussions surrounding the inevitable question in nuclear energy discussions “What do we do with the waste?” Deep Isolation is founded on a brilliant technical inspiration by Dr. Richard Muller. Recognized the commercial potential of the invention Muller teamed up with his daughter, Elizabeth Muller to transform the idea into a venture . They realized that deep geologic disposal is a nearly universally accepted – among scientific and technical experts – method to permanently dispose of high level radioactive materials. Muller recognized that one significant challenge was the difficulty of siting and building conventional mined repositories. These repositories would need to meet completely different criteria that those that governed traditional materials and fuels mines, making reuse of existing mines difficult, if not impossible. Specially created mines producing no commercially valuable materials would be extraordinarily expensive to develop. The cost of creating mined repositories stimulated most nations to plan for one or very few repositories, adding to the political cost and the transportation cost associated with siting and operating the repository. Muller’s brilliant solution to these challenges was to take advantage of the fact that tens of thousands of very deep holes were being drilled every year by the established oil and gas industry. Not only were those holes being bored several thousand feet deep – well below all existing aquifers, but also the drillers had invented and refined techniques for gradually bending the holes into a horizontal direction. These horizontal borings – often called “laterals” – are used in the hydrocarbon extraction business to gain access to far more extensive volumes of fuel-containing rock. For purposes of radioactive waste disposal, the laterals provide a large volume into which containers of high level waste – in a variety of forms – can be placed and isolated for millions of years. As a result of drilling tens of thousands of wells in a highly competitive business, the drilling industry has become very skilled at creating high-quality, cost-effective tools and efficiently employing them. The resulting technology ecosystem can be efficiently used in a modular, distributed fashion, enabling multiple, strategically sited repositories. That allows waste to be permanently stored near where it was generated. This concept will lower transportation costs while addressing several legitimate political objections. Rod Baltzer, the CEO of Deep Isolation, visited the Atomic Show for episode #327. We discussed the above in even greater detail. I believe you will find the show to be valuable and informative. Please use the comment section to ask questions or engage in discussion. Comments will close in 2 weeks.

Jigar Shah has had a lengthy career as an energy industry entrepreneur and strategic thinker. He founded Sun Edison and helped to create a new model for deploying solar power systems. He was part of the Carbon War Room and then founded Generate Capital to provide loans to proven technologies that had not yet achieved commercial scale. He was a member of the Energy Gang during its formative years as a podcast with a formidable listener base. Following his success in the commercial sector, Jigar was appointed to be the Director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office (LPO). He started at LPO in March of 2021, soon after the start of the Biden Administration, and served until January of 2025. During those years, the loan granting capacity of the LPO grew from $40 B to $400 B, primarily as a result of provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act. During our conversation, we focused on the efforts that the LPO made to improve the nuclear industry’s capability to develop and complete large, complex projects involving both public and private financing. We discussed how America seemed to have lost its ability to build big things and what could be done to regain that ability. We talked about the DOE liftoff reports and other efforts to guide the nuclear industry towards a more sustainable and successful development model. We discussed the various sizes of reactors being developed and the ways that a variety of sizes can open new markets and also provide vital practice in building successful nuclear projects. You’ll want to listen to the whole show if you are curious about Jigar’s next endeavors. An early reveal is that he has returned to podcasting at Open Circuit, joining Katherine Hamilton and Stephen Lacey, his former colleagues on The Energy Gang.

After many years as an independent journalist with an antinuclear bent, Marco Visscher began questioning his long-held beliefs. He realized that the accepted alternatives to fossil fuel were not actually reducing fossil fuel use so much as they were limiting the rate at which it was increasing. He began acknowledging that nuclear energy was a large source of CO2-free power that was worth a deeper look than he had been giving it. As he moved past the information sources that had provided his animosity towards nuclear, he found out that there was a deeper, more interesting story to tell about the power source and its history. He decided there was a book in what he was learning. That book, initially published in Dutch in 2022, is called The Power of Nuclear; The Rise, Fall and Return of Our Mightiest Energy Source. In late 2024, the book was published in English. As longtime readers might imagine, my favorite part of that subtile is the “Return” part. Aside: Encouraging and participating in the return of nuclear energy growth is the focus of my professional life, both at Atomic Insights and in my role as a managing partner at Nucleation Capital. End Aside. In some ways, the arc of Visscher’s book reminds me of the narrative arc of Oliver Stone’s Nuclear Now. It starts with the history of radiation and the development of the atomic bomb and ends in the modern era with the recognition that nuclear energy offers a clean and capable new energy source that might gradually displace fossil fuels and their dominance in our society. During our discussion we talked about nuclear energy opposition, the role of nuclear fear, the inability of the nuclear industry to effectively communicate its positive story, other energy alternatives and the potential to achieve the tripling of nuclear capacity that has been envisioned by a growing group of countries led by the U.S. the UK, France, South Korea and Japan.. Aside: After reviewing the show, I realized that I should apologize to both listeners and to Mr. Visscher. I spent way too much time talking about the involvement of the Rockefeller Foundation in creating the basis for the “no safe dose” of radiation model and its effect on public fears. It’s an interesting part of nuclear energy’s history, but there are many other important stories worth telling. End Aside.

Jay Hakes, an accomplished author and historian, visited the Atomic Show to talk about his recently published book, Presidents and the Planet: Climate Change Science and Politics from Eisenhower to Bush. Sometimes referred to as “the untold story of climate change,” Hake’s book is an enlightening jaunt through a history discovered during long days in archives and Presidential libraries. Though some of the most vocal proponents of climate change action tell a history story about a public and political understanding that begins sometime during the 1980s, with the actions of people like James Hansen, the truth that Hakes discovered was that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter and their staffs knew there was a growing body of science indicating that increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 was a significant problem. Hakes and I talk about the period when scientists were actively trying to determine if the atmosphere was warming or cooling and the long term confusion, some of it purposeful, that has resulted from a debate that was generally resolved by the end of the 1970s. We spoke about the odd period during the Carter Administration when there was both significant concern about the risks of atmospheric CO2 and an active program to increase coal consumption while slowing nuclear energy development to a crawl. Interestingly, Carter gave the power generation industry a chance to defend nuclear power before he produced his energy plan, but there is no evidence that the industry even mentioned nuclear’s lack of air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Hakes’s research showed that much of the early science and political communications about climate change originated from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). His research also showed that the AEC involvement led to a lengthy period when groups that classified themselves as part of the Environmental Movement took little or no interest in effectively addressing climate change. They believed it was something that only nuclear cheerleaders cared about. Sadly, we now face a bit of an opposite problem. Some vocal nuclear proponents have come to the conclusion that climate change can’t be much of a problem since so many of its activists remain adamantly opposed to using nuclear energy as a powerful tool in the effort to limit the impact of climate change. Like many nuclear energy supporters, I believe we lost a lot of time and added a much larger quantity of CO2 to the atmosphere than we would have if we had continued deploying nuclear power systems. The solution to that lost time, however, is to press forward.

Julie Kozeracki was the lead author for a U.S. Department of Energy strategy document titled Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear published in September 2024. The document was the result of a multi-agency, multi-lab effort to update a previously issued report. During our conversation, Kozeracki described how the report was informed by changes in the market, by a study of experiences from other countries and other industries, and by a growing recognition of the importance of design completion in enabling cost and schedule adherence. We talked about the utility of an expanding catalog of nuclear fission power systems that can meet the needs of a more diverse customer base and also the relatively new trend of increasing electricity demand led most prominently by data center expansion but also by electrification efforts for heating, transportation and industrial uses. As others have noted, this edition of the advanced nuclear liftoff report makes a clear and compelling case for including large modern light water reactors – including, but not limited to the AP1000 – in the definition of “advanced nuclear”. But clear and compelling does not equal exclusive; the report also makes a good case for the fact that the market has room for a variety of reactor sizes and capabilities to meet the wide range of power demands of a diverse universe of customers. Note for readers: We are breaking a long tradition at Atomic Insights. Bot activity has convinced us to disable comments.

Westinghouse’s eVinci is a 15 MWth, 5 MWe micro reactor. Westinghouse often refers to it as a nuclear battery. Unlike conventional nuclear power plants, eVinci uses no water and doesn’t produce steam. The eVinci is not “just another way to boil water.” There are no pumps in the system that moves heat out of the reactor. Instead, the system uses ~24′ long heat pipes to transfer fission heat to a heat exchanger. That device serves the same function as a combustor (burner) in a fossil fuel heated Brayton cycle gas turbine. Atmospheric air is compressed and sent through the heat exchanger where it gets hotter and more energetic. That hot, compressed gas gets expanded through a turbine, causing it to rotate. The rotating turbine is connected to a generator that produces electricity with an efficiency of about 33%. An eVinci will use an open air Brayton cycle gas turbine like those that are in a wide range of commercial applications. Gas turbines are not only well-understood devices, but they have a diverse supply chain and an experienced workforce with tens of thousands of builders, operators and maintainers. They are often manufactured by the thousands. In another departure from the conventional way of doing things, eVinci uses rotating control drums instead of insertable control rods to adjust core reactivity and operating temperature. Shutdown rods are used during transport and to provide a secondary means of shutdown. The fuel is TRISO coated particle fuel with high assay, low enriched uranium in the particles. The reactor operates in the thermal neutron spectrum with graphite as the moderator. The core isn’t in a pressurized fluid. With its simple controls, small size and passive safety case, the eVinci is designed to be able to operate autonomously. Each core will last eight years or more. Leah Crider, Westinghouse’s Vice President of Commercial Operations to the eVinci micro reactor, visited the Atomic Show to provide a system overview and to answer questions about the reactor, its history, its future, its applications and its potential impact on the energy market. I think you’ll learn something from this show. Please participate in the comments and let us know what you think, especially if you have questions that were not addressed during the show.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit on September 16, 2024 to Abilene Christian University (ACU) to build a molten salt research reactor. This marked the first university research reactor approval in 30 years. It is the first liquid fuel reactor ever approved for construction by the NRC and only the second advanced reactor approved since the NRC was created in 1974. Aside: The first advanced reactor construction permit was issued to Kairos for its Hermes in December 2023. End Aside Natura Resources is the technology supplier for the important new facility. Andrew Harmon, Natura Resources Vice President of Operations and Business Development visited the Atomic Show to fill in some of the backstory about the project origins, the decision to pursue a research reactor as a step towards their ultimate goal of supplying a large number of factory-produced 100 MWe molten salt reactors, some of the major successes and challenges along the way and the level of community support that the project has attracted. Developing a major new technology in a heavily regulated industry takes more time and resources than many might imagine. In this case, it involved a consortium that includes four major university partners, an enthusiastic group of local donors, a driven energy entrepreneur with a career spent moving expeditiously and safely, a supportive Department of Energy and a growing team of innovative engineers and developers. It also required significant cooperation and engagement with the NRC. I’ll stop there and let Andrew fill in the details. I think you will enjoy this show. Please participate in the comment section. Respectful discussion and debate are welcome.

Urenco is one of the few companies in the world that enriches uranium. It’s one of an even smaller group of enrichers that aren’t owned by the Russian, Chinese or Iranian governments. It plays a key role in the western world’s nuclear fuel cycle. That role became even more important after February, 2022. With the increasingly firm prospects of a long term increase in demand for its foundational product of low enriched uranium (LEU) and a looming demand for new enrichment products like LEU+ (low enriched uranium that has greater than 5% and less than 10% U-235 content) and HALEU (high assay, low enriched uranium with U-236 concentration of 10-20%) Urenco has embarked on a program to expand its capacity. Like most other nuclear industry participants, Urenco is a conservative company that carefully considers its investments before adding capacity that might not be needed. The nature of its production technology – incredibly sophisticated centrifuges that can spin continuously for decades if not excessively cycled – encourages even more caution in the direction of ensuring that there is demand before investing many millions into new production capacity. Magnus Mori, Urenco’s head of marketing and technical sales, visited the Atomic Show to provide greater insights and details about Urenco’s history and unusual ownership structure, the factors that influence its investment decisions and the prospects that the company sees for future demand for its products. He explained the material flows into an out of an enrichment facility, including the actual compound that are handled at various stages of the process. We spoke about the UK government’s support for new production capacity and its decision to invest in a new enrichment plant to produce HALEU. We even spoke about new businesses that use centrifuges to produce valuable medical, research and industrial materials that are not part of the nuclear energy fuel cycle. I think you’ll enjoy this show. You might even learn some new details about the nuclear fuel cycle. Please participate in the comments.