Author: Valerie Gardner

Valerie Gardner is founder and a co-managing partner of Nucleation Capital together with Rod Adams. Nucleation Capital, based in Menlo Park, is the first venture fund to focus on investing in next-generation nuclear power and deep decarbonization innovation. Nucleation utilizes a technology-leveraged fund structure that makes participation in the fund accessible and affordable for most accredited investors. Ms. Gardner is also a co-founder and principal of Tiemann Investment Advisors, LLC, a Menlo Park-based registered investment advisor (RIA) founded in 2002 that provides institutional-caliber portfolio management, now with over $300 million in assets under management.
  • Parnassus Versus Green Century: A Contrast in Styles

    Cross-posted from Nucleation Capital June, July and August of 2023 were the three hottest months the Earth has ever seen by such a large margin, it left climate scientists agog. Climate disasters are abounding apace, with the U.S. hit by 23 large-scale disasters, a record-breaking year already. In Pakistan, extreme rainfall and flooding affected 33…

  • Enough with “renewables!”

    The American Nuclear Society posted an article entitled How a nuclear victory at COP27 started with a teen and a text reporting on the wonderful story of Ia Aanstoot. This is the 17-year old Swedish highschool student who effectively saved the day for nuclear at COP27 by alerting a WhatsApp chat group with the right…

  • How Hot is Cold Fusion?

    The 24th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF24) was held at the lovely and spacious Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA over four days in late July. As a venture investor looking at evaluating and investing in a wide range of advanced nuclear ventures, I was invited to participate and/or sponsor the event. While…

  • A Path from Coal to Nuclear is Being Blazed in Wyoming

    Many of those who care about finding solutions to the physical distress that our climate is experiencing, as reported on this week in a landmark 1,300 page report by the IPCC‘s Sixth Assessment Working Group 1 (Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis), are not looking at Wyoming. But based upon the announcement made in…

  • Nucleating our carbon-managed future

    If you’ve studied chemistry, you’ll know that the nucleation point describes the start of a change in physical state, such as from a solid to a liquid, or liquid to gas. Water starting to crystallize into ice nucleates where the first H2O molecules reorganize as a solid. We’re seeing a similar transformation of human society—forced…