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Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

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How Hot is Cold Fusion?

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Matt Trevithick of DCVC moderates a panel with Dr. David Nagel, Prof. Robert Duncan and Dr. Thomas Schenkel

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 I wasn’t initially convinced that cold fusion was the best use of four days, the appeal of sharing my perspective on investing in next-gen nuclear as well as having the opportunity to talk wtih attendees about the work Rod and I are doing building advanced nuclear portfolios for investors with Nucleation Capital, our non-traditional venture fund, was more than I could resist.

To our delight, ICCF24 was a surprisingly fun, well-organized and interesting event, hosted by the Anthropocene Institute. Four full days of expert sessions were capped with a hosted outdoor banquet with comic food-prep performance, gifts and dinner prepared by television celebrity Chef Martin Yan; the inspiring award of a lifetime-achievement gold medal; musical and multimedia entertainment with original rap performances about cold fusion derived from conference sessions by science impresario Baba Brinkman and much more. For those curious about where things stand with what is no longer being called “cold fusion,” I am pleased to share the following report.

First, some background

The concept of cold fusion was announced 1/3 century ago by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.1 Their sensational revelation? The release of excess heat in a lab setting explainable only as a type of nuclear event occurring in the presence of certain metals and gases. Their claims engendered tremendous scientific interest and initial fanfare but lack of replicability or an acceptable theory to explain the effect undermined confidence and the concept quickly went from hotly debated to thoroughly debunked.

The onerous stigma of discredited science has since followed work on cold fusion yet a number of scientists had become intrigued and  begun to explore the phenomenon. Researchers began to meet up periodically to discuss their work and results, forming the ICCF (International Conference on Cold Fusion) in 1990. Despite a serious lack of funding, many independent researchers and labs persisted in testing materials and produced yet more suggestive data using different combinations of metals, configurations, temperatures and pressure conditions.

Fast forward

In 2015, with the threat of climate change helping to convince Google to leave no energy stone unturned, a group of scientists, academics and technologists secured Google funding for a multi-year investigation into cold fusion. After three years and an investigation that tested dozens of approaches, the team published their findings in the journal Nature, acknowledging their failure to observe any transformative excess heat yet also an inability to either confirm or disprove cold fusion from their efforts. They found that better test techniques and measurement calorimetry would be helpful to go further and encouraged others to keep exploring. They concluded:

“A reasonable criticism of our effort may be ‘Why pursue cold fusion when it has not been proven to exist?’. One response is that evaluating cold fusion led our programme to study materials and phenomena that we otherwise might not have considered. We set out looking for cold fusion, and instead benefited contemporary research topics in unexpected ways.

A more direct response to this question, and the underlying motivation of our effort, is that our society is in urgent need of a clean energy breakthrough. Finding breakthroughs requires risk taking, and we contend that revisiting cold fusion is a risk worth taking.

We hope our journey will inspire others to produce and contribute data in this intriguing parameter space. This is not an all-or-nothing endeavour. Even if we do not find a transformative energy source, this exploration of matter far from equilibrium is likely to have a substantial impact on future energy technologies. It is our perspective that the search for a reference experiment for cold fusion remains a worthy pursuit because the quest to understand and control unusual states of matter is both interesting and important.“

(Click this image to go to a free copy of this report of the Google-funded study.)

Back to the present

The ICCF held its 24th session in northern California last week, following a three year hiatus. Those representing current ongoing research projects largely sported grey, white or no hair. The community engaged in lively debates on a whole range of issues, including what to call this type of energy. With “cold fusion” being tainted, “LENR” (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) and “Solid-State Fusion Energy” were broadly used interchangeably, even as certain organizers urged caution about selecting any name before the underlying physics were actually fully understood.

Continued poor repeatability underpinned by the lack of a supportive predictive atomic theory that explained the heat generation effect was acknowledged. Nevertheless, there was definite progress being made in a range of areas, not least of which was a far broader appreciation of the complexity of the dynamics underlying the atomic transmutations, particularly with respect to the numbers of affected and active bodies. Unlike fusion and fission, which are nuclear events that happen as a result of direct interactions of two distinct bodies (such as between deuterium and tritium for fusion, and between uranium and a neutron in fission), research had shown that LENR involved complex mult-body interactions, which could occur with a variety of metals such as nickel, steel, or palladium in the presence of deuterium or tritium but which may also include quarks, photons, protons, neutrons or pomerons. To further complicate the matter, it is clear that those dynamics were impacted by conditions such as temperature and pressure affecting the energy of the bonds within the metallic lattices.

While the exact set of phenomena that unfold to release energy remains unclear, what was not debated at all was whether the potential to release heat was real. It clearly is, despite the extended difficulty scientists have had pinning down theory and practice. This issue seems entirely settled. Decades of work by hundreds of researchers reporting on their experiments and experiences of heat release “anomalies” have begun to provide a far more nuanced picture of the dynamics and the parametric guideposts that will eventually enable those studying them to narrow in on the controlling aspects.

According to Dr. Florian Metzler of MIT, the revelation of data points around these phenomena closely mirrors the progression of reporting around anomalies for other deeply complex physical effects, such as the work that preceded the development of the transistor, the solid state amplifier or that which is continuing on superconductors. At some point, the data generated will provide sufficient guidance to enable patterns to emerge that may result in a profound shift in our understandings as well as tranformative technologies, just as Bell Labs did, despite widespread skepticism, to finally figure out how to make reliable transistors, which innovation revolutionized electronics.

In the meantime, there are researchers pursuing the bigger picture on the theoretical side, and making strides towards creating a true “proof of principle” design, starting with known mechanisms which include a better understanding of how host lattice metals absorb energy, get excited and emit an alpha particle. Increasingly, those seeking to deploy LENR systems will move from uncontrolled behaviors to deliberately engineered systems that produce useful amounts of energy. Once that happens, LENR may well emerge as a readily deployable type of consumer-facing nuclear, where a wide range of low-cost materials could be combined at nearly any size or configuration to generate electrons or heat for use in homes, schools, stores, boats, planes and other places where both electricity and heat are used but in smaller amounts.

Two Big Announcements

$10 Million from ARPA-e. Though there were no technological breakthroughs announced, there were some very exciting funding announcements. During his presentation, ARPA-e fusion program director, Scott Hsu, announced a new $10 million funding solicitation round that will select a number of LENR project teams to fund. This funding decision came out of ARPA-e’s Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Workshop, held in October of 2021, which solicited input from experts on the best approach for breaking the stalemate that has long existed between lack of funding and lack of results in cold fusion. In anticipation, most likely, of the urgency with which any breakthrough will need to be commercialized, this program requires that applicants form into full business teams that bring a variety and balance of skills, blending technical with marketing and finance.

Eyeing a $100M XPrize.  Although organizers were not ready to announce the competition or the specific requirements, work has begun to raise the capital necessary to offer a $100 million XPrize to the first team to produce a replicable, accepted, on-demand LENR system.  Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPrize, addressed the assembled group and revealed info about the behind-the-scenes efforts, decisions and negotiations that must be completed in order for the XPrize organization to officially offer the prize and start the competition. The news and prospect of there being a very large XPrize that might be offered was very well received. It was also clear that, much like with other XPrizes, news of a prize being in the works can shake loose investment capital for promising ventures sooner rather than later.

LENR Lessons and Learning

According to the Anthropocene Institute, there may be 150 or more initiatives or ventures currently working on LENR research or development. ICCF24 organizers opted not to host a huge expo but instead invited the community to submit posters or abstracts for the conference. One had to become a sponsor in order to secure space to showcase one’s efforts at the event. As a result, only a few LENR ventures displayed LENR demos and, of those on display, only one actually demonstrated an effect. Nevertheless, there were a few ventures in attendance claiming to have working systems that generate excess energy and endeavoring to raise venture funding to get to the next stage.

For those of us interested in the investment opportunities, ICCF24 provided ample opportunities for mingling with and meeting those gathered at ICCF24. People were happy to share their opinions on the state-of-the-art and these conversations provided a gauge on community sentiments. Not surprisingly, many were wary of existing energy production claims. Such caution is prudent for anyone prone to giving credence to any claim until repeatable energy production is demonstrated without question. This has yet to be achieved. But, to complicate matters, lack of demonstrable evidence doesn’t fully refute claims either. There are, in fact, few good means of measuring small amounts of incremental heat produced in a system that is already hot or has another source of energy adding power. There are tabulation methods that have been proposed but lack of suitable measurement equipment or agreed upon verification methods is yet another challenge for the successful emergence of this technology. Thus, the race to the finish line for understanding and controlling these reactions continues both on the theoretical side as well as on the practical application side with no clear winner or timeline in sight, making early-stage investment decisions little more than a bet on a team and a dream.

Whichever group manages to overcome these obstacles and develop a securely working system—whether or not they have figured out the underlying theoretic basis—would, however, have a significant strategic and financial advantage. Not only would they find capital resources, they would have a clear lead in getting a viable product to market in what would clearly be a huge market. Sadly, given cold fusion’s still lingering stigma, LENR developers face extra jeopardy in any overstatements that could reverberate to set back the entire field. For now, this makes fundraising a particular challenge for all developers, even among those investors quite aware that LENR may one day compete in the vast energy market.

Given the potential value of this technology, it is no wonder that dozens of cash-strapped researchers and venture teams have soldiered on for decades. Now that ARPA-e has chosen to continue the work initiated by Google to identify a proof-of-concept design, there is new-found scientific integrity and rebranding to be done. There is also a greater awareness that what set cold fusion back and derailed early efforts was not scientific fraud but rather its far more complex sub-atomic transmutations, its multibody interactions combined with environmental factors such as temperature, pressure and light that varied by selection of component materials. These complexities still need to be sorted out but could potentially provide many viable options for sourcing and construction of systems and thus help to reduce manufacturing costs.

Not surprising then, was the participation at ICCF24 of several of the most respected and active venture funders in the nuclear space, including Matt Trevithick, who recently left Google and joined the venture fund, DCVC; Carly Anderson from Prime Movers Lab; Kota Fuchigami from Mitsubishi; and Shally Shanker of Aiim Partners. How and where these firms choose to invest in LENR will not be known for some time. Still, if nothing else, this conference established that informed investors do recognize that LENR exists and they are watching its progress. If the work progresses as anticipated by the community, LENR will eventually become a ubiquitous source of safe, low-cost, readily-manufacturable, clean, popular and broadly applicable commercial nuclear energy that provides abundant energy. For those still pondering “how hot is cold fusion?,” there is discernable warming, so it may be time to start paying attention.

Valerie Gardner, Nucleation Capital managing partner, and Grant Mills, Nucleation’s summer associate, tabling at ICCF24

[NOTE:  Nucleation Capital is the only venture fund focused on investing in the advanced nuclear ventures which enables both large institutional funders and accredited individual angel investors to participate at the level that works for them. For ICCF24, Nucleation trialed a special promotional rate that remains available to Atomic Insights readers through August. If you’d like to learn more about why investing in venture capital can improve your overall portfolio performance, click here.]

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Footnotes
1. “Bridging the Gaps: An Athhology on Nuclear Cold Fusion,” compiled and edited by Randolph R. Davis, published by WestBow Press, 2021.

Nucleating our carbon-managed future

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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 by the heat of planetary warming, costly extreme weather and the recognition that more catastrophic shifts are underway—compelling nations, provinces, states, cities and even remote villages to re-think their use of energy to reduce emissions.

This Earth Day, the level of concern and the degree of activity being directed towards slowing the additions of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere has never been greater.  This would be encouraging except that decades of study, thousands of scientific reports and billions invested has yielded little progress. Prior to the economic slow-down caused by Covid-19, even the rate of growth of emissions had not been meaningfully reduced. Now, with economies starting to recover, global emissions are rising again, when what is needed is for these emissions to be dramatically declining.

We only have nine years left to achieve the goal of a 50% decrease in the level of global emissions by 2030, as set out by the IPCC back in 2018 as what is needed to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C (which though the aspirational goal, will still mean the loss of 90% of all coral reefs). Whether or not you agree that this is the right goal for us to achieve, we’ve still failed to make even remotely appropriate progress. This despite a growing parade of nations, states, and entities announcing emissions reduction goals. What’s the basis for this failure? 

Lack of agreement on effective solutions. The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that became widespread has not worked. Instead, the RPS let us take our eye off the goal of emissions reductions to focus on increasing the penetration of renewables. Solar and wind, as intermittent energy sources, require backup generation for the majority of their nameplate capacity. Somehow, use of natural gas was back-doored, allowing gas generation to expand like a weed beneath the thin veneer of renewables, despite its huge emissions and ecologic footprint. What little emissions decline we got, was due to the offsetting decline in the emissions from even dirtier coal plants retired by increasingly cheap gas.

The world, to do better, needs an effective solution—not a politically popular one. Fortunately, legislatures in a few states are beginning to replace the RPS with the Clean Energy Standard (CES). These policies call for requiring set amounts of emissions reductions by certain dates—not prioritizing a particular technology solution. This is very promising for achieving real reductions and provides an opportunity for nuclear power to be utilized. Indeed, many utilities already knew they could not achieve ambitious reduction goals without nuclear, and now some utilities are even beginning to admit publicly that they will need nuclear in order to deliver on their emission reduction commitments.

Unfortunately, over the last decade, nuclear power, the only true source of carbon-free firm generation that is independent of weather or geography, has suffered declines. Nuclear energy has been excluded from the RPS standards passed in 30 states, hobbling the profitability of established businesses. Furthermore, nuclear’s wealth of grid reliability benefits, including long-term fuel availiability and storage, extreme weather resilience and transmission line voltage regulation, have all been devalued through a complex set of market functions within the deregulated energy markets, aimed apparently at serving the political goals of those in charge.

How so? Take the case of New York State.  In upstate New York where Republican voters dominate, Governor Cuomo passed Zero-Emissions Credit (ZEC) climate legislation to protect the region’s three nuclear power plants, which were quite popular with the voters there. The legislation reflects the evironmental value of the nuclear plants’ reduced carbon emissions and pays the plants “zero emission credits” in a fashion that protects the nuclear generation from the vagarities of low gas prices. 

Yet, Governor Cuomo, shrewdly excluded Indian Point, in downstate New York, where his political support consists largely of Democrats with well-conditioned antipathy for nuclear. Coincidentally, it also happened to be where natural gas lobbyists were desperately seeking to increase their market share and managed to get Cuomo to approve permits to build three new gas plants. In depriving Indian Point of the benefit of the Zero-Emission Credits, Cuomo was able to force this nuclear power plant to close—despite the passage of New York’s CES.  

The irony is that upstate Republicans, with much less articulated concern about climate, have almost 90% clean energy powering their grid, thanks to Canadian hydro and three nuclear power plants that Cuomo worked hard to preserve. Downstate Democrats, ostensibly more motivated to see Cuomo address climate, will see 94% dirty energy in a few weeks, once Indian Point’s last reactor closes on April 30th, eliminating all but a trickle of hydro, since there is scarse open space for wind or solar and lots of NIMBY. (See NYISO’s Power Trends Report, p. 29 for these charts.) Cuomo, in a masterful stroke, did good for the gas industry, pleased the Riverkeepers worried about fish fry, and will still earn political popularity points despite eliminating the single largest source of clean energy for Manhattan, adding to the region’s already poor air quality, and completing its dependence on fracked gas.

The situation in California, with the forced closures of its two nuclear power plants—San Onofre in 2012 and Diablo Canyon in 2024 and 2025—being the result of direct action by a politically-shrewd Governor—is frighteningly similar in how it impacts state emissions for the worse. Which is why there is a growing chorus of voices appealing to President Biden to protect the nation’s nuclear fleet—which provides 55% of all of the U.S.’s clean energy—from being the political football that it is wherever environmentalists and/or fossil fuel lobbyists have sway. 

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to President Biden earlier this week specifically requesting action to protect America’s nuclear power, stating that “preventing the closure of existing nuclear power plants is critical to achieving emissions reduction goals while ensuring a reliable grid.” 

Similarly, the Climate Coalition, a non-profit group working to build a coalition of both nuclear and renewables supporters focused on emissions reductions, launched a campaign called Protect Nuclear Now which issued an appeal to Jennifer Granholm, the new Secretary of Energy, urging the use by President Biden of his emergency declaration power to prevent the premature closure of at-risk nuclear power plants. Biden could intervene to save Indian Point, the most imminently at-risk plant, and preserve these high-value clean energy assets, giving Congress time to resolve the problems of discriminatory state energy policies, lack of carbon pricing, and political patronage which together prevent nuclear from being properly valued and put at risk so competitors can benefit at the cost of rate payers.

President Biden hasn’t responded to these appeals but he has shown that he is guided by science and seeks real solutions. Biden’s bold support of innovations in advanced nuclear reactors has already been widely hailed by climate scientists and energy experts. After all, the pressurized water reactor may be one of the few 1970s-era technologies that is still in active use today but there is a growing cadre of entrepreneurs and engineers who have been working hard to bring nuclear energy into the 21st century—making it safer, more efficient, more scalable, more flexible and better suited for tomorrow’s distributed clean energy grids. American firms can be the ones that offer the right energy solutions to the world, rather than the Russians or Chinese. Biden has expressed strong support for pursuing advanced nuclear innovation and development and he’s brought on a Climate Task Force that appreciates the importance of this technology for meeting US emissions as well as economic development goals.

This is a really good thing. As we celebrate Earth Day in the midst of a global climate crisis, there are growing signs that nuclear’s time is finally coming. Congress has already laid the foundation, quietly passing the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Capabilities Act (NEICA) and the Nuclear Energy Innovation & Modernization Act (NEIMA) two pieces of legislation vital to modernizing nuclear power in the 21st century. The Energy Act of 2020 provides further support for US investments in advanced nuclear technologies. Clearly, the president and the Congress understand what too many environmentalists and investors do not: that deploying advanced nuclear will be critical to our ability to transition fully away from fossil fuels within the remaining carbon budge, while preserving grid reliability.

Seeing advanced nuclear roll out in a time frame that can make a difference for climate is a goal near and dear to Rod and me. We’ve been working since 2018 to develop an investment vehicle that can invest in ventures developing advanced nuclear reactors, grid optimization and deep decarbonization technologies. Climate change may be the most serious environmental threat ever faced by humanity but it is also one of the biggest, foreseeable economic opportunities.  If we must transition away from fossil fuels, investing in the best alternative sources of clean generation just makes good sense.

With a few key milestones behind us—namely the certification of the NuScale modular design by the NRC and the submission of the first non-light water design for combined license by Oklo—those who follow trends can see that nuclear’s prospects are gaining traction. We are excited to place some early investments, follow the progress and participate in the exciting growth of this nascent sector.

Why exciting? Because of the scale of the transition that is needed. If we just supplant the fossil fuel generation that is used around the world, we would be shifting some 70% of total grid generation to clean sources. That’s a huge market in itself but that’s not all we need to do. Decarbonizing the electric grid is just the first step. We also need to decarbonize transportation, industry. agriculture and the built environment. This will involve either high temperature steam—which advanced nuclear can produce—or the electrification of nearly all the energy devices used, which further shifts energy demand from oil, coal, diesel, propane and natural gas over to electric grids—estimated to double or triple the amount of grid power needed today.

Now combine that growth with current electrification trends in developing nations and the increasing applications of online services, such as video conferencing (think how much Zooming you’ve done this year), online shopping, telemedicine, online banking, Netflix, videogames, online education and even cryptocurriencies, whose energy consumption just surpassed that of Argentina. With exploding data centers—whose energy use is 24x7x365—and multiples for estimated grid expansion, one can really begin to see how much more load global grids will have to bear in becoming the primary power source in the 21st century. These projections simply don’t jive with any realistic vision for an all-renewables solution. Nuclear has to be part of the solution to meet the timeframes and keep costs within reasonable bounds, all while maintaining reliable service.

But wait, there’s more. We have yet to come to terms with the energy demand of decarbonization. If we want to restore our climate, we need to reduce the amount of free carbon by capturing, processing or sequestering CO2 out of the atmosphere (CCUS). Experts estimate that we need an industry about the size of the fossil fuel industry devoted entirely to reversing the direction of CO2. This industry further requires yet another massive increment of clean energy to power its activities. It is a huge undertaking—and possibly one best taken on by the fossil fuel industry itself—because without this, all of our efforts to transition to clean energy will only stop things from getting worse. It will not prevent the baked-in heating of our atmosphere, which scientists predict will continue to cause forced global warming for decades to come, straining ecologic systems well past dangerous tipping points.

Can solar and wind power keep up? At present, despite seeing their costs decline due to Chinese mass production, solar and wind installations are not even keeping up with global energy growth, if you don’t count the gas back-up. It is hard to imagine that they could ever succeed in replacing a large capacity coal or gas power plants entirely by themselves. But paired with advanced nuclear, versions of which can be built on existing coal or gas sites in lieu of retiring furnaces and we can more quickly build resilient, 100% clean energy grids, with excess capacity on super hot days, and clean up polluted American skies in the process. Clearly, if we are to replace all fossil fuel power and double or triple the size of our grids to fully decarbonize and draw down carbon, all types of clean energy—solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, wave and even future technologies—such as fusion—will be needed. The faster these players all learn to work together, the more efficient and cost-effective our global transition will be.

It can be disheartening to hear renewable advocates arguing that nuclear power is not needed, because it is not “dispatchable” and will result in excess power when renewables are generating. When taken in light of the array of ventures developing CCUS solutions, all of which need reliable sources of clean energy, this argument makes no sense. In fact, we need an entire industry’s worth of decarbonization tech to get busy, so if and when the grid doesn’t require power from nuclear, advanced plants operators will be able to route their power to revenue-generating climate services such as hydrogen or synthetic fuel production, water desalination or other industrial heat applications. Utilities are already beginning to test these applications and explore the prospect of alternative revenue streams for non-grid directed clean energy.

Clearly, solving climate will cause enormous shifts in how we generate and use energy. There will be major winners and losers as new clean technologies are deployed and old technologies are wound down.  Energy is so central to our modern-day existence and the elimination of emission is so critical to our long-term survival, it is no wonder these are extraordinarily controversial and contentious issues. The only certainty is that this transition must happen. No one can predict the future but those who know and appreciate the power of nuclear technology have an opportunity to invest in the innovations happening today, ahead of those who haven’t done their homework.

Back about a decade ago, I went through the exercise—as a partner in an investment management firm—of trying to figure out where our clean energy would come from. As easy as it was to know what stocks to divest, it was equally as challenging to figure out what could possibly replace fossil fuels.  So I took a hard look at our overall energy sector to see where our clean energy came from. The answer surprised me: about 65%  of our clean energy was nuclear power. That was a pretty compelling clue to the future.

I’ve now spent much of the last decade exploring nuclear energy and the nuclear industry as an investor. My willingness to do so appears to be where my investment process diverged from that of many other investors. Others bought the hype about solar and wind: I preferred to look realistically at the data. But delving into the nuclear industry has been both a fascinating and a dismaying process. There is a strong, passionate and articulate pronuclear community and extraordinarily competent teams running our power plants but, after decades of facing virulent opposition, what exists of the industry is weakened, cowed and entirely reluctant to stand up for itself.

This has contributed to traditional nuclear’s bumpy ride. Despite generating about 20% of U.S. electricity and 55% of clean energy, nuclear remains subect to ongoing campaigns to vilify it.  One must look beyond the propaganda coming from both fossil and renewable competitors and seek out the data. We’ve seen what nuclear has achieved in the past: but we don’t know where it is going. Still, extrapolating from available technology and manufacturing learning curves, if advanced nuclear can benefit from mass production, digitization, AI, robotics, advanced materials and other well-understood 20th century technologies, from an energy density and material-efficiency basis, it is hard to see any other energy technology performing better than nuclear fission for human society over the long term. Fortunately, this next generation of nuclear ventures is showing that they recognize their critical role in the climate fight but also their obligations to the broader community, for social justice and fair governance.

In 2018, when I finally reached out to Rod about my interest in investing in advanced nuclear, we agreed that it seemed like the right time. It has taken us a few years to figure out how best to structure our fund but, in the interim, concerns about climate change and support for including nuclear have only grown stronger. Thanks to the recent introduction of the AngelList Rolling Fund, Rod and I now have our answer: Nucleation Capital, a “rolling” venture fund that uses technology to enable individual investors to participate on a subscription basis at lower, more affordable capital levels. We plan to invest broadly, to participate in the overall growth of the sector, and also go deep with those particular ventures that are crushing their milestones. If this interests you and you’d like to learn more, please let us know through the interest form on our website and we will be happy to follow up with you.

With a new, science-respecting president in the White House and with growing global support for effective climate action, evidence is emerging that we are witnessing the nucleation of a new carbon-managed economy. Under Biden, America has its best and possibly last chance to coordinate a global response to the climate crisis. Advanced nuclear entrepreneurs also have an opportunity to show the world how the next generation of nuclear power can not only end our reliance on fossil energy but also begin to restore our climate without causing massive ecosystem impacts. Against this backdrop, investing in these technological innovations and providing some of the capital that is needed to get them to commercialization, even with all of the uncertainty and risks that these ventures certainly face, seems like not just the right thing to do but a darn good investment in the future as well.

Change is in the wind: Commencing a new phase as a Venture Capitalist

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Atomic energy is a tool that is capable of helping address some of humanity’s most wicked challenges. Clean, abundant, reliable and affordable power makes everything we do a little easier and is becoming increasing urgent in the era of climate change. Unfortunately, atomic energy is a long way from reaching its potential or even achieving […]

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