Atomic Show #319 – Juliann Edwards, The Nuclear Company
The Nuclear Company exited a period of operating in “stealth mode” about a month ago. That exit was sufficiently well planned and executed that it is likely that Atomic Insights readers have already heard of the company.
The Nuclear Company was incorporated a year ago. Its founding team has been working diligently to build the relationships and agreements needed to accomplish their self-assigned task. The company has a goal to build an initial fleet of reactors with a capacity of 6 GWe. Those reactors will be built by a consistent team, financed using a structure whose outline will be disclosed in the coming months and using a design that has successfully completed an NRC design certification review AND has been built at least once somewhere in the world.
The company is also focused on sites that have already been through the early site permit process. Their project regulatory path is close to what was initially envisioned for an entity using the one-step Part 52 process. Choose a design that has been reviewed and approved, match it with a site that has been permitted and obtain a COL based on those two development steps.
The company also recognizes the acceleration opportunity associated with using existing COLs.
Juliann Edwards is the company’s chief development officer. She has extensive experience and contacts within the nuclear industry and currently serves as the US chairman for Women in Nuclear. I first met her when we were both working for B&W on the mPower reactor project more than a decade ago.
Juliann visited this show to tell us more about The Nuclear Company, focusing on its history, people, vision and accomplishments so far.
The vision and goals are aggressive and ambitious. But they don’t require any new scientific discoveries or technological inventions. That feature doesn’t guarantee success, but it makes it a little more achievable in a realistically chosen time frame. Sufficient resources – time, talent and treasure – must be invested, but the end result seems valuable enough to attract a starting critical mass.
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Now this sounds like a fantastic and pragmatic plan: “The company has a goal to build an initial fleet of reactors with a capacity of 6 GWe. Those reactors will be built by a consistent team, financed using a structure whose outline will be disclosed in the coming months and using a design that has successfully completed an NRC design certification review AND has been built at least once somewhere in the world.”
Sign me up.
@Michael
If The Nuclear Company makes the kind of progress they are planning, I am sure they would be interested in having people like you on their team.
To sign up for updates, I suggest you write to info@thenuclearcompany.com.
Hello Rod,
If you happen to remember a guy with the handle edwlt12@lerc.nasa.gov, that was me – I kinda said I’d help create a demo 2 kW (non-nuclear, ceramic) unit, which I obviously never did. My profuse apologies for that screw-up. I left the NASA contracting scene in 1996.
However, I do have an idea – any thoughts of using Lithium for fission power? From what I’ve read, Lithium’s about 92% Li7 and 8% Li6. When Li7 gets hit by a neutron it fissions (even if the fusion guys don’t like to call it that) into He4 + T + another neutron – and about 4.5 MeV of energy.
Ever heard of a *fission* reactor design using Li as fuel? Seems like it’d be inherently safe, since it will require a neutron source. And if that doesn’t pique your interest, check out the price of Tritium…
Come on; these people are all flash, and no substance! Like so many of the “new, advanced nuclear” companies out there, like Nano Nuclear, these are stock plays to make cash on Wall Street and from the govt.
Did you happen to do any due-diligence and look up the other people involved in this company, like Jonathan Webb, and the disaster that was AppHarvest? Wasted money, wasted potential, and destroyed lives. Why on Earth would anyone think that someone with a track record and rep like that is just the ticket to help nuclear out of the ditch it’s been in for decades?
There is no THERE there!