Isaiah Taylor - Trump Orders Nuclear Expert to Activate 3 Reactors by July 2026 | SRS #219

[Music]. Isaiah Taylor, welcome to the show. >> Thank you so so much for having me. It's. it's an honor to be here in this uh. incredibly inspiring room. Lots of. momentos in here that are sick. So yeah, I'm excited to talk. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm uh. so I guess in the past 6 months we we. have uh really dove into the tech space. and um so we got connected through our. mutual friend Augustus Doro and uh the. rain maker and uh when he was here he.

was telling me all about what you were. doing and that you guys were best. friends and. >> and uh I've been really interested in. the power grid for a couple of years. now. Uh it seems very weak and uh. >> there's a lot of work to do. Yeah. And I. think who was I think it was Scott Nolan. that told me with the with the data. centers and AI and everything that by. 2030 AI will be using the exact the. equivalent of the energy that we all use. today in 10 years. So all of our energy.

grid will be sucked up by 2030. >> I think it's either all the energy grid. will be sucked up by 2030 or we'll fall. behind, >> right? We'll fall behind on on AI which. I think is unacceptable. Right? So this. this is a red-hot screaming problem that. that has to be solved. It's a national. security issue. So I think if you're. working in energy, you're working on. something really important. >> So you're building basic is it mini. nuclear reactors. >> That's right. So small modular reactors. the technical term there's sort of three. categories. U micro reactors are 0 to 20.

megawatt. SMR small modular reactors are. 20 to about 300. And then above 300. you're just sort of the classic gigawatt. scale um large reactors. So, we're kind. of in the lower range of SMRs. Um, our. first commercial unit will be around 25. megawatts electric. >> What does that what does that mean for. for somebody like me? That means. nothing. >> So, that's Yeah, it's a good question. So, a 25 megawatt electric uh unit will. power a small town. >> So, if you want to do, you know, if you. want to power a big town, you put.

several of them next to each other. >> And this is a common strategy for. nuclear. Pretty much every nuclear site. doesn't have just one uh nuclear unit on. it, has several. >> Okay? But we sort of take that to the. logical conclusion and we say we don't. just build normally it's like four right. so you have a site you put like four. units on it we want to have a site and. put hundreds of units on it eventually. to start off with if you want to make a. gigawatt you know put 40 down right so. 40 units next to each other at 25. megawatt electric name plate is a. gigawatt of power now you're powering.

like a big city right or you're powering. several towns several cities significant. portion of the grid and when we look at. AI demand We're looking at demand for. data centers as large as a gigawatt, which has never happened before. This is. like a brand new idea. Wow. Of doing a. data center that large. Um it's we're. super excited about it. >> Wow. What is a small town? What? Give me. a population size. >> Yeah. So, I think you know that's. probably going to a 25 megatt electric. unit is going to be a town of uh. probably like 15,000 people. >> Okay. Yeah. >> And one could power that entire.

>> That's amazing. you know, just at. breakfast this morning. I mean, just. I love stories like this. You know, we. we weren't going to talk about your life. story. We were just going to go nuclear, but I just man, just kudos to you. 26. years old, dropped out of high school at. 16, >> came from nothing, building sounds like. you had a great family that you're very. close with, but not not a. >> I guess what I'm getting at is you. didn't have a big trust fund or anything. like that to get started. you did it on.

your own and and and you are a hell of. an innovator and. >> I just I didn't do it on my own, but I I. certainly didn't do it with a trust. fund. Um you know, my parents are. extremely supportive in. um just always being there for me. Uh. you know, I talked to my dad, you know, basically every week on the phone. We. talked for a couple hours and he's. always he's always just believed that um. I have what's necessary to to fix large. problems. Um I'm not sure where he got. that idea, but he has always believed. that. Um and so I'm extremely grateful.

to him. And then I've been helped by. many other people, right? You know, our. investors at Valor couldn't do it. without them. My team members of Valor. couldn't do without them. You know, previous companies that have started and. employees there. So, you know, it it's. uh I'm standing on many many shoulders. at this point. Um not so much. financially, but but from other people. But yeah, we I grew up, you know, very. poor. We grew up on food stamps most of. growing up um in various you know rough. places around the country. And it was. really just that my parents were um you.

know my dad was was uh doing his best to. provide for his family with the hand he. had been dealt and was extremely focused. on us on his kids. Um I like to say that. my dad will will will prove to have been. one of the greatest investors in. history. >> Wow. Not because he invested money into. a stock, but because he invested in his. children. And I do hope that Valor. Atomics will be one of the most valuable. country, one of the most valuable. companies of all time. And uh my dad. invested in me to be able to do that uh.

in terms of educating us and uh giving. us work ethic, especially giving us. opportunities to get our hands dirty. >> Well, it sounds like you're well on your. way. So hope congratulations. Thank you. But um everybody starts off with an. introduction here. So here we go. Isaiah Taylor, visionary behind Valor. Atomics, an Elsagundo based startup on a. mission to reinvent atomic energy and. fuel the future of mankind. A. 26-year-old self-taught innovator who. dropped out of high school at age 16 to.

start a business and write software for. the world's largest hedge hedge fund. a. fierce advocate for a nuclear. renaissance, challenging outdated. regulations and pushing for innovation. to power AI industry and beyond. Have a. radical plan for mass- prodducing small. modular nuclear reactors to create. carbon neutral jet fuel and gasoline. that is cheaper than drilling for oil. In just one year, Valor Atomics has. built a 100,000 lb prototype reactor.

The first step on their journey to. making civilization beautiful again with. abundant energy. A Midwesterner with. Christian roots, your great-grandfather. worked on the Manhattan project, giving. you a personal connection to the atomic. age. Wow. >> You can talk about Westminster, too. Westminster Confession of Faith, if. that's what we're getting at, is is also. great. But, uh, no, Midwesterner, that's. right. Yeah. But um but uh so a couple. things to get through. Uh one,

I have a Patreon account. It's a. community. It's a subscription account. And uh they've been here with me since. the beginning. And so one of the things. I do is I offer them each and every. guest that comes on. They get to ask uh. a question. All right. And so this is. from Ian Lane. Coming from a non-traditional path in a. legacy tied to the Manhattan project, how do you reconcile the historic weight. of nuclear innovation with your vision. of making it scalable, clean, and. decentralized? And what's the biggest m.

misconception people still have about. nuclear energy today? >> So, I think the first half of the. question, and thank you for the. question, Ian, right? >> Um, and thank you for supporting Sean. That's awesome. Um so I think the first. half of the question is like how do you. go from a heavy centralized industry to. smaller uh more mass manufactured. lighter uh type type of industry and. then uh what was the second half of the. question there. >> and what's the biggest misconception.

people still have about nuclear energy. today? >> Yeah so the first half is like how do. you go from this really big thing to. this small thing. Um, I would point out. that this is something that's happened. before in other industries and the way. that you do it is you start small and. you move very very quickly and learn as. fast as you can with talented people. So. I think SpaceX is the great example. here. So uh the space industry before. SpaceX was really concentrated around. these very large rockets that were very.

expensive to build, took a long time to. build, did not launch very frequently. And when uh SpaceX set out to create. what they've created now, they started. much smaller, right? They created the. Falcon 1. Falcon 1 was a tiny rocket. It. was really too small to make any sense. or be economical, but it taught them how. to build rockets from scratch, right? And it gave them a test platform to test. their u construction methods and their. engineering and their motors and these. sorts of things. Um and then they got. into the Falcon 9 and now they're. building Starship. So I think that we're.

going to follow a very similar track. here where over time I I believe our. reactors will slowly get larger, but the. first thing to do is you have to make. sort of a minimum viable thing that your. team can build and can build quickly and. learn lessons, right? It's all about. learning. You we we really are having to. reinvent nuclear. We can't just take the. designs that we had in the 1960s. Those. designs don't work anymore for a few. reasons. It's not that they. technologically don't work. It's that. they economically don't work. So we. don't have the tool chains and the labor.

to do massive engineering projects and. massive construction projects anymore. This is something we were really really. good at in you know the ' 50s and60s. Uh. as a country as a civilization we were. great at building large civil. infrastructure. >> and over time we sort of got worse at. that. We can talk about why but the fact. is we got worse at that and we got. better at manufacturing. Right? So if. you're going to bring nuclear back. today, I believe that the form factor of. your reactor should be reflective of. that change where you're going toward.

more of smaller manufactured things. rather than these like really big civil. works projects. So the short answer is. like you start small and you move. quickly and you learn fast with smart. people. Uh and that's exactly what we're. doing. >> Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. One more. thing. Everybody gets a gift. Nothing crazy. Vigilance League gummy. bears legal in all 50 states. Not that. you have to worry about that living in. LA. >> I was going to say legal in all 50. states. That makes it sound like it. maybe shouldn't have been legal, but uh.

are these like CBD or something like. that? >> No, man. They're just It's just gummy. bears. Regular gummy bears made in the. USA. >> Let's go. All right. I'm looking forward. to that. >> Some of the best junk food around. >> My my kids are going to enjoy that as. well. Um I have a gift for you. >> I have I have two gifts for you. So, I. have two hats which both say uh make. nuclear grade again. And this one still. has a sticker on it. So, take the. sticker off. Uh make nuclear great. again. We have uh a black one and a. white one. >> Nice. >> And both of them are for you. Uh we're.

past uh Memorial Day and the the. president has started wearing his white. Make America Great Again hat. So, I made. a white Make Nuclear Great Again hat as. well. But both of these are for you. >> Thank you. >> There you go. >> We're going to have to sign this white. one. >> Let's do it. Yeah. So, >> that's awesome. I was going to say great. hat. >> Thank you. Thank you. Well, now it's. yours. >> Thank you. >> But um yeah, you know, like I said at. breakfast, you were kind of talking. about, you know, how you met your wife. and how you grew up and so I want to. cover that stuff cuz I just, you know,

you met your. >> not to get ahead of myself here, but you. met your wife in first grade. I think. that that that's awesome, man. >> So, let's start with your life story. Where'd you grow up? >> So, I grew up around the Midwest. I was. born in uh normal Illinois and my life. is has been very normal since then. So. that that tracks um and uh moved around. the Midwest, moved to Colorado when I. was I believe around six. Um and that's. when I when I met Sophie. So Sophie and.

my wife, we met in first grade. We were. in school together. I don't know that we. said many words to each other in in. first grade. She was very shy. Uh but I. thought she was cute. Um and so we got. to, you know, know each other the next. few years. went to church together and. um we were really just sort of a common. denominator in each other's lives. Both. of us moved all over the country many. times for various reasons. Uh but we we. kept running into each other um you know. at at various places and reunions and. these sorts of things. And I just had a. huge crush on her you know since. forever. So um but she is uh she is.

amazing. She's I mean it's like. ridiculous to even like try to put words. to that. Um but I've always I've always. known I wanted to marry her. Uh and I. did. So. >> that's amazing. That's amazing. And you. said, did you say you moved 14 times. before you were 16? >> Yeah. >> That's a lot of moving around. >> Yeah, we did a lot of moving around. Yeah. >> Why did you move around so much? >> You know, it was it was essentially um. my dad working very very hard to find. whatever work he could to provide for. us. Um essentially every move was um you.

know, a a way to a way to keep providing. for the family. Um so it gave me a. really interesting perspective on the. United States. have a lot of seen a lot. of different parts of the United States. in the Midwest and the American West and. uh really fell deeply in love with this. country and its people. Um and so that's. really motivated uh a lot of my life. >> And you guys were on food stamps. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We grew up, you know, quite poor and um you know, grew up in. in neighborhoods where, you know, our. car was stolen. We'd come home from. church and there's people getting.

arrested on our front lawn and um and. surprisingly, you know, you'd think that. that would cause my parents to like, you. know, try to keep us insulated and uh. like inside, but but actually like we. explored all around, you know, you know, friends with all the all the neighbors, that sort of thing. Um and watching very. very different lifestyles from ours. You. know, I was like friends with the guy. who stole our car. Um, and you know, and and I think like the fact that we. were friends gave him some access to be. able to steal the car and like, you. know, we forgave him and we got the car.

back and whatever. But, um, yeah, like. it was a it was a very dynamic childhood. that exposed me to probably a lot of. risk and learned how to take proper. amounts of risk and how to not get. myself into dangerous situations, how to. um, get myself out of dangerous. situations, that sort of thing. So, it. gave me a very unique u perspective. It. also taught me to work extraordinarily. hard. Um my dad has worked uh. unbelievably hard every single day of. his life that I've ever known him. Um.

and uh I've always just deeply admired. that. >> What does he do? >> So, he's done a bunch of different. things. Um really just whatever he could. could find to do. Um and he, you know, he worked in marketing for a while. He. worked in uh software consulting and uh. just slowly worked his way up up the. chain. So now he's a, you know, successful uh consultant in uh in. software and, you know, doing well for. themselves up in up in Idaho. But I'm. counting counting the days until I can. uh you know, buy him a very very nice uh.

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service. That's patriotmobile.com/srs. or call 972 patatriot and make the. switch today. You dropped out of high school at age. 16. >> Yes. >> Why did you drop out of high school at. age 16? >> So, there were two reasons. Um, I always. knew that I wanted to start this. company. Uh, well, I won't say always. I. I've known since middle school that I. wanted to start this company. I I've.

always been obsessed with nuclear. And. um, you know, I was obsessed with. nuclear because of my great-grandfather. who was a nuclear physicist on the. Manhattan project. And uh, I was very. close to my great-grandmother who only. died a few years ago. Actually, she she. died when she was 100. Um, and I was. very close to her. And I kind of grew up. talking to her about the Manhattan. Project and uh, the history of nuclear. So, I was always obsessed with that and. I've known since I was about 5 years old. that all I really want to do with my. life is make thousands of machines. Um, but I didn't really know like which.

machines I should make. I just knew I. needed to make thousands of machines. It's just something that I've always. wanted to do. Um, but I thought nuclear. was like sort of covered. Like I thought. people generally had it in hand. Uh. because I would read these books about. the history of nuclear and there's. hundreds of different designs of. reactors and they're all super. sophisticated, super genius designs and. there's a million smart people in the. field. And so I I kind of had the. mentality that like they've got it under. control. They don't need me, right? And. so that was my mentality. It was more of. a hobby. But when I got to middle.

school, I I started looking for who is. the Elon of nuclear, right? What's the. Tesla or the SpaceX or the Ford or the. Apple of nuclear? like who who has. really um taken this thing and created a. trillion dollar company around it? >> Mhm. >> And the answer to that question is no. one. >> in middle school. You're doing this. research in middle school. >> That's right. I mean I was I was. obsessed with Elon uh way back in the. early days before Tesla actually back. when they were launching Falcon 1 for. the first time. Um and I was sort of. like who's doing this you know in uh in.

nuclear and again the answer was like. nobody. And that really surprised me. And I started reading uh I'd always read. about the physics and I you know read. every physics textbook I could find that. sort of thing. But when I got to this I. was like well what does the business. landscape look like? Like who's figured. out how to make money from this and uh. found that nobody had like nobody had. been able to build a huge business that. was extremely successful and was scaling. all over the world to build nuclear. power. Um that kind of stopped me in my.

tracks and I was like wait why has. nobody cracked this? And um that. launched sort of a multi-year research. project of like how would you fix. nuclear? There must be something wrong. here. What's going on? Um and you know. by the time I was like 15 or so I I had. basically figured it out in my head like. I think I know what's wrong and and so I. wanted to start a company but again grew. up very poor. Um I didn't know that. venture capital was a thing. >> I didn't know that existed. And um all I.

knew was that in order to start SpaceX, Elon had sold Zip 2, which is a company. that he started, and then PayPal. And. that had given him enough money to then. go start SpaceX. And he put a lot of. money into that. And so I figured that's. probably what I needed to do. And I knew. there were already many, many smart. people in the field with PhDs in nuclear. engineering and nuclear physics who are. smarter than I was ever going to be. And. so when I was thinking about how do I go. about fixing nuclear energy and starting. this company, I realized that the the. biggest problem for me to tackle was not.

going to school, going to college, it. was gaining wealth and gaining business. experience. And so um naive, you know, my my naive said, well then college is a. waste of time. Um and so I I dropped out. of school to to start a business. I was. 16. By that point, um, I had already. taught myself software engineering. So, by the time I was a 16-year-old, I was. already making six figures in my parents. basement, uh, writing writing software. Um, you know, just read books. I I found.

a book on C on my dad's shelf. Uh, my. dad's not a software engineer, but, um, he's just a curious guy. So, you know, he had a book on on C. I picked it up. I. read it. Um, wrote some programs. Um, and yeah, by the time I was 16, I was I. was making really good money uh doing. that uh for various people just on a. contract basis. So, you know, I thought, well, I've got a little bit of money. here. I can go start a business. Um, I. can sell that one. I could start another. one. I could sell that one. And then. I'll get to starting Valor. So, that was. my plan. Um, what did your parents think.

about you dropping out of school at age. 16? >> Um, they were surprised. I don't know. that maybe they weren't that surprised. they were like a little bit hesitant, but I don't know. I think, you know, my. dad's like philosophy of life for us um. was like by the time you're 14, like. you're generally an adult and you know. what you're going to do and you know you. can do what you want. So, um I mean he. like explicitly told me that. >> Were you an were you in some type of an. accelerated educational program or just. >> We were in a bunch of different schools.

all over the place. My mom is a very. very intelligent woman. Um she just. finished her uh college degree a couple. years ago. Actually, she dropped out of. college uh to have my sister and then. me. Um but she's just naturally very. very smart. Um and I talked with her. about math and physics and that kind of. stuff all the time and she did a great. job of of uh teaching us. Um and so you. know and I I had the opportunity to go. to a a great u public school in Colorado. as well that had some really fantastic.

teachers in it. uh one particular uh. physics teacher, Mr. Helen, if you're. watching this, uh was very inspiring to. me and taught uh kind of a core of guys. in that class physics and really kind of. took us under his wing to do that. Um. and so yeah, you know, I felt like I had. understood the fundamentals well enough. and again there's already so many smart. people in nuclear who are like the. smartest people in the world and are. going to be always going to be smarter. than I am. And the problem is like not. the technical side, not the physics, but. nobody's figured out how to from a.

business scaling manufacturing. perspective, take this as a company and. scale it all over the world. And that's. what I was obsessed with and that's what. I was focused on. So, it just made the. most sense for me to drop out, start my. own business, get experience, try to get. some money. Um, and that's essentially. what I did. It didn't work out nearly as. well as Zip 2 and PayPal. Um, but it. worked out like well enough and I I. learned a ton. Uh and then I also. learned that like venture capital exists. and then you can you can go raise money. Uh so that was a eye openener. Uh you.

know I figured that out when I was you. know like early early 20s and I realized. okay maybe I don't actually need to. spend the next decade of my life trying. to start companies that I don't care. about in order to get to the one that I. do care about. Um and so I was able to. to start this. >> So how how so did you use VC? >> Yes. So we're a VC backed company. um an. amazing set of investors who I'm. extremely grateful to um in both San. Francisco and Los Angeles. I started the. company. I filed it on July 4th, 2023. So, we're coming up on the 2-year.

anniversary of filing the company. >> Uh but for the first six 6 to 8 months, I was really just raising money. It was. essentially me, my friend Elijah, and I. had written this. >> um like 200page memo on how to fix. nuclear energy. And it was essentially. just me running around like handing that. to people and like saying like, "Hey, can I have a couple million dollars to. go do this?" Um, and I finally found. somebody who said yes. So, >> no [ __ ]. >> Yeah. >> What sold him? What do you think sold. them? >> I mean, I think so I'll tell you, you. know who it was. Steve Marcus is the. founder of Riot Ventures, which is a.

great deep tech fund in LA. And the. thing that's super unique about Steve. is, you know, first of all, he's MIT. trained. Second of all, he started a. bunch of his own companies before he got. into venture, which means that he just. thinks for himself, right? And the. problem in venture today that nobody's. really figured out how to solve is that. it's full of people who don't think for. themselves. And I would say that if you. read my memo, um, you would see that. there are the ingredients in there that. are going to be a trillion dollar. company. Um, and if you have the. confidence in your own intellect to be.

able to read that and break down the. assumptions, you can find that, right? But if you're looking at it from more of. a signaling perspective or you know what. are other people going to think about. this, you might not get there. So it. really took a very unique person who. understands the world on his own terms. uh to write that check. >> How many people did you have to pitch to. before you? >> Um I pitched 80 different VC. >> 80 different VC firms. >> Yeah. And I got 80 nos. >> Yeah. >> What do you mean that What do you mean. that a lot of the VCs don't people.

involved don't think for themselves? um. they just straightforwardly don't uh VCs. do not do not trust their own um. intellect to understand a concept in. front of them. what they're trying to. understand generally um this again it's. a it's a split right there's a couple. VCs who are incredibly smart people who. think for themselves who trust their own. minds to understand concepts uh but. that's like a very small portion pretty. much all of the rest of them are trying.

to figure out like is this company going. to get funded in the next round or two. which really has very little to do with. the concept in front of them. >> and more to do with like what network is. this person from who does he No. And I. was from zero network and knew nobody. I. was like literally living in a town of. 20,000 people in North Idaho um with. with like a crazy idea. So uh that like. that was just not something that they. were they were used to. They were not. looking at me and the idea. They were. looking at like where am I from? What. networks am I am I going to get future.

capital down the road? Um which I think. is a really bad way to underwrite. companies. Like that's not how you. should invest. you should invest based. on who the person is, what their concept. is, how how well do they understand the. world, and do you agree with how they. see the world. Uh, but that's a rare. person. >> Interesting. Interesting. And so when. when you're in middle school thinking. about starting a nuclear reactor. company? >> Yeah. >> I mean, what what what were some of the. deficiencies that you I mean, why. nuclear? Were you just were you into.

power? I mean, did you did you research. how weak the power grid is and how. >> So, obviously, like my family history on. the Manhattan project gave me a. predisposition to be interested in. nuclear. >> Mhm. >> But I would like to think that I was. extremely objective and wanted to find. genuinely like the cheapest way to to. make power. That's that's really what I. cared about. And I was willing for that. to not be nuclear. In fact, for a while, I would say it was actually a little bit. anti-uclear, maybe a little bit as like. a a personal like anger um that you.

know, this thing that I had been. obsessed with for a long time wasn't. happening, right? It was it was really. confusing to me. So, nuclear today makes. about 6% of world energy, right? So, the. or electricity about 6% of the global. electric uh electric grid comes from. nuclear reactors, which is really small. um way too small. And the fact that. that's true and that you can look at all. the most recent nuclear projects and. they're overcheduled and overbudget and. like not worth it made me think for a.

while like okay maybe I missed. something. Maybe nuclear is not as good. as I thought. And so when I was um when. I was 14 or 15 I kind of went through. this like journey and this process of. like all right well I'm going to back. all the way up and try to think about. like what is the best form of energy? What is going to be cheapest over the. next hundred years? because I recognize. that energy is going to matter over the. next hundred years way more than it's. ever mattered in the past. >> As an economy, we are trending toward um. advanced manufacturing and AI. And what.

does that mean? Well, essentially it. means that what we think of as like. producing things today is a mix of. inputs from labor to raw materials to a. little bit of energy. But advanced. manufacturing and robotics and AI. basically turn everything into an energy. function. So like you've got a you know. we've got a cool water bottle right here. with the Shan Ryan Show branding on it. Today like if you're going to purchase. this bottle um there's a a mix of like.

costs that go into this and some of them. are labor costs and some of them are raw. material costs and there's a bit of. energy cost in that. But if the factory. is completely automated, then there's no. labor cost. And if the materials are. also automated, right, like there's. autonomous mining equipment that gets. the aluminum, right? And then it's run. through an electrolyer to get, you know, to electrolyze the box site and then. it's run through an automated factory. Well, what's the cost? It's just energy, right? So, like eventually this thing is. just going to cost energy. Um, and so I.

realized like that's that's where we're. heading. And what that means is we need. a ton of power and like civilizationally. like nationally we need a ton of power. if we're going to compete. So I knew. that this was incredibly important. Um. and uh and so I backed up and I said. like what is the best form of energy? And I looked into uh every form of. energy generation. I looked into solar. I looked into wind. I looked into. geothermal uh oil and gas uh fusion. Basically every everything that we have. on the table today. And I I came back to.

nuclear. I realized nuclear really is. the best, but we've been doing it wrong. We've been building it all wrong. Um, and so that's kind of what I focused on. >> We're going to go into a little bit of. conspiracy land. >> Okay, that sounds great. >> If you Let's talk about Nicola Tesla. You looked into that stuff. I mean, somebody that's. >> Are you talking about Z is this 0 point. energy or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, >> okay. So, I I don't know a ton about. zero point. I've looked into it a tiny. bit. I Nola Tesla is a very inspiring. figure to me for sure, and I think we. need a lot more people like him. Um, I.

will say my default frame is. energy is abundant in the universe. So, would I be surprised to find a cheat. code where you can find just enormous. amounts of energy? I would not be. surprised by that at all. Like I I think. that there's this mindset that there are. no cheat codes and that you have to. like, you know, you have to suffer for. for any outcome. And there's a human. sense in which that's true. But in the. physical world, I think like it's a lot. more abundant than people assume. I.

think nuclear is a cheat code compared. to energy generation in the past. Nuclear fision is a cheat code. Like. it's free energy. It's just abundant. free energy everywhere. So the concept. of something like 0 point existing. wouldn't surprise me. Um that said, I'm. really focused on technology, not. science, >> right? Right. So, we're we're a. technology company, not a science. company, which means we're using. engineering to take known scientific. principles to make energy cheap. throughout the world. So, my my basic.

thought on that is like if somebody. cracks zero point, uh they'll they'll. beat me. Um but I don't think they will. I don't think they will. >> You don't think they will? >> Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's just a. fascinating subject to me. >> Yeah. >> They've been to it a couple times, but I. I never really got anywhere. Yeah. >> So, well, what are some of the what are. some of the challenges? I mean, we we. were talking at breakfast and and. I mean it's to to build a nuclear. facility. I think you said it takes 20. years worth of paperwork. Yeah. 20 years.

of all kinds of nonsense. Um sometimes. worse, right? And uh that's mostly. characteristic of nuclear in a very. specific scenario which is in the west. in the last 30 years. If you look. outside of those two parameters, you'll. find much much better performance. Right? So if you look outside the west, China, you'll find much rap, you know, much more rapid building of nuclear. power. And if you look outside the last. 30 years, you'll also find much more. rapid building of nuclear power. But.

we're in this weird eddy of last 30. years in the west, we forgot how to. build nuclear reactors properly. Um, and. this was really what I figured out when. I was I was 15. And I I kind of figured. out a couple things that I identified as. here's how you would go about fixing. nuclear. So the first one is I realized. that the reactors just need to be. smaller. U this sounds, you know, super. uh basic but but I think it's true. We're really good at building small. things and we're really bad at building. big things.

>> Mhm. >> So especially now, right? In the 50s and. 60s, we were building huge civil. infrastructure projects and we were. super good at that. And we had massive. pools of labor that were really good at. that, right? People who could lay rebar. really well, people who could do mass um. concrete laying, uh who could build very. large structures, who were super good at. large scale welding. And those skills. and um pieces of labor sort of atrophied. over the last 50 years. Uh which is. unfortunate, but but it's true. Uh and.

then the other thing is like tooling. So. we don't have the capacity for like. extremely large scale forging anymore, right? We're just not good at forging. extremely large objects uh as well as we. were. So I looked at both of these. things and and saw that like okay, if. you're going to reboot nuclear today, you need to be inside the labor and tool. chain that exists, which means smaller. objects, right? We're really good at. making objects about the size of a bus. If you try to make an object larger than. an approximately a bus in at least the.

western supply chains, u you're going to. have a really hard time, right? The. tools just don't exist. You're going to. have to be making custom tools. You're. going to have to be using pools of labor. which cost a lot of money and like there. just aren't enough people trained. So. that was kind of my first conclusion is. like it's probably going to be a a. bus-sized object and then if that's not. making enough power then you just make. more of them, right? And that's very in. line with manufacturing. You want to you. want to make the same thing over and. over. That's how you get deep. efficiencies. The second thing that I realized was. that uh the reason that hasn't happened.

yet is essentially because the. regulatory environment has become too. restricted for one specific thing and. that is testing. So the regulatory. framework for testing became very. ownorous and uh pretty much impossible. And so people have had these ideas. before. People have thought about like. well maybe we should try to make. reactors smaller. And there's been a lot. of people who have tried that, but they. kind of ran into the brick wall of nuc. nuclear regulation and were not able to. get those, uh, prototypes off the.

ground. And so, um, taking these two. conclusions, um, my formulation for like. how do you fix nuclear energy when I was. 15 is we're going to make smaller. reactors. We're gonna find a regulatory framework. where we can rapidly move through. prototypes, which means we're going to. find a very unconventional regulatory. path to do testing. And then finally, once you have a nuclear site, we're. going to build tons of reactors on that. site. Right? So you don't just build. one, you don't just build four, you.

build 100 or 200 or a thousand all in. the same place. And the reason for this. is that the most complicated part of. nuclear is not actually the physical. reactor itself. Reactors are medium. complicated. Like I would argue that a. nuclear reactor is less complicated than. a diesel engine, for example. It's. significantly less complicated than a. diesel engine. >> Oh [ __ ]. >> it is. Yeah. They're mechanically simple. machines. Um the thing that's. complicated about them is the permission. to do them on a certain patch of land, right? Right? So, you pick a piece of.

land and the process to go from it's an. empty patch to the reactor sitting there. through permitting, through. environmental work, through community. buyin, through construction, security. There's a lot of factors that go into. getting nuclear to happen somewhere. Once you've done that, you've done the. hard part. And so, the natural. conclusion is you should double down on. that, right? So, you already have a. nuclear site. Why not keep building. reactors there and keep doing that like. way more than anyone thinks is possible? So this is really sort of the core DNA. of Valor and these are conclusions that.

I had when I was 15 and I've really been. working on that for the last 10 years. >> Wow. And we haven't built any meaningful. nuclear facilities in about 40 years. Correct. >> So we built two. >> We built two. >> So two units turned on in Georgia. Uh. Vogga one sorry Vogle 3 and Vogga 4. U. So these were sort of additions to an. existing plant and those turned on in I. think 2019. and 2020 I believe is when those turned. on. So we have two now. That project was.

a disaster. Um it was 8 years over. timeline and about 15 billion over. budget. So it's a it's a travesty. really. Um it it was power should be. cheap, right? The whole point of nuclear. is that it's cheap. um that should be. the point of nuclear at least. So I I. would say that that was a failure. Um um. Hinckley Point C in the UK is another. example of this. Many years over budget, billions and billions of dollars over. budget. Um and so our only recent.

examples of building nuclear in the west. are are essentially failures. >> Wow. What what what is uh I mean we like. I mentioned we had talked a lot about. bureaucrats and bureaucracy and how it. gets in the way. So can you what are. some of the reasons that nuclear has. been pushed to the side and stalled and. and why are why have we why have we not. been innovating? Yeah. >> You know. >> in the nuclear sector. >> So it's all downstream of public. perception, right? We can talk about the.

regulators locking things down too much. uh which is absolutely true especially. when it comes to testing. But the reason. they did that is essentially responding. to public sentiment. So what drove. public sentiment away from nuclear? Well, I think it was a combination of. like people naturally fear new things. Um the atomic bombs and then you know. the nuclear bomb sort of being. associated with nuclear and then I think. some really specific intentional. propaganda. Uh I you know I believe that.

uh rivals of the United States have. continuously funded environmental groups. to spread a narrative about nuclear and. even to sue nuclear projects. Who who. stemmed where did that stem from? >> So I think there's a couple sources um. Russia is known to be a source of this. >> No [ __ ]. >> Um this is public record now um that. Russia it most recently like in the last. 5 years in Europe uh funded far-left. environmental groups to uh advocate for.

shutting down nuclear power in Europe so. that Europe would become more dependent. on Russian natural gas. >> Wow. >> This is just public record. >> I did not know that. >> Yeah. So I mean they they fell head over. heels for the SCOP um that nuclear was. unsafe, that it was not clean, right? This is sort of the this is the biggest. scandal of environmental policy, environmental advocacy uh in the last 50. years is that the the environmental um. you know the environmental groups in.

theory have good goals, right? You want. the earth to be clean. You don't want to. pollute it. you want our kids to be able. to live in beautiful places with nature. Um, and so on the surface, it's very. easy to get people to to get on board. with that mission. But nuclear energy is. so obviously the best possible solution. to clean power. It's it's just pure. physics. It emits no carbon. It emits no. particullet. The only thing that you you. have to deal with after running a. nuclear reactor is incredibly incredibly.

small uh safe pellets that you encase. into concrete casks and they have no. infect no effect on the environment at. all. Right? So there's basically no. impact to the environment and they. provide clean power, you know. So like. this is a very very obvious thing that. environmental groups should love. Mhm. >> But they were co-opted u they were. co-opted by external money that wanted. the nuclear industry to fail and wants. the United States to fail and wanted. Europe to fail or become more dependent.

on other sources um from our rivals. Uh. and so I think that you know and a lot. of people just bought into that. A lot. of people you know there's there's. always good people in any bad thing and. the good people just believed the the. narrative. They believed that nuclear. was unsafe and they believed that um you. know nuclear waste was a huge problem. Uh neither of those things are true. Nuclear waste is not a huge problem and. nuclear reactors are the safest form of. power generation on Earth. Full stop. And so are you are you saying that.

Russia. funded US. >> That's correct. >> NOS's to basically you know. >> absolutely. >> [ __ ] on the nuclear. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. The uh. >> just like they did in Europe. Yes, the. the Sierra Club. If uh if any members of. Congress want to start some. investigations, uh I would start by. looking at the Sierra Club and uh the. the advocacy that they did against. nuclear um especially around. environmental law. They figured out how. to essentially shut down nuclear by.

suing over safety regulations and. environmental policy um to prevent. nuclear projects from happening and. obviously, you know, mass um sort of. social advocacy against nuclear. Um, and. I believe that they they had significant. foreign funding um to push those. narratives. >> Wow. What are some of the government. players that get in the way? I have DoD, DOE, NRC. >> Yeah. So, this is an interesting one, right? Like, let's let's talk about why. regulations exist and what the what the.

good case for regulation is, right? So, nuclear has the potential to cause harm. to humans in the environment if it's. done wrong. and we need to do a lot of. it, right? So, the natural conclusion to. that is you need a regulator. A. regulator is going to protect the public. and protect the environment from things. going wrong in nuclear energy. This is. the same for any mass industry, right? If you have a chemical plant, you have. regulators which make sure that those. chemicals aren't going to leak into the. river, right? If you have uh even a coal. station, right, or a natural gas.

station, you're going to have regulators. which make sure that it doesn't blow up. and it doesn't, you know, kill people. So, this is a a good thing that we have. as as part of society. Now, what uh one. thing I think people miss about. regulations is that regulations really. regulators in particular really only. know how to regulate things that exist. They don't know how to regulate things. that don't exist yet. And what that. means is that you have to always have an. open space for innovation. Right? We're. an innovative country. We're a country.

that has that sources a lot of our power. power in the political sense from. technology. We are a a technological. society that wields power throughout the. world through our technological. supremacy. And if you if you want that. to maintain if that if you want that to. stay true, um you need innovation, you. need to continue allowing entrepreneurs. to push what technology is forward every. year. And the way that you do that is. you allow them to innovate and you allow. them to test. So the mistake that.

regulators sometimes make in various. industries is that they try to apply the. same regulatory framework to existing. technology. Uh they try to take that and. then apply it to innovation. That. doesn't work, right? Cuz innovation is. new, right? Innovation is about. technology that doesn't exist yet. And. you can only regulate things that exist. Like you're putting down guard rails. around a thing that exists. >> So some industries have figured out how. to do this really well. So I would say. aviation is a good example. Um aviation.

has a robust test framework where if you. have an idea for an airplane, you can go. take it out into the desert, you can. build your plane and you can fly it and. you can even crash it, right? You try. not to crash it, but like there's a. regulatory framework that allows you to. test. And what that means is that in. aerospace you get to very very quickly. move through these different prototypes. And aviation is now this incredibly safe. thing, right? It's safer than driving, right? flying on a commercial jet is. safer than driving your car. And the. only reason that's possible is because.

the regulators have created this space. where innovators can just like test. stuff. So that's what's been missing in. nuclear primarily. You can talk about. all sorts of other problems with the NRC. and we talk about all talking about. linear no threshold some of the bad. policies that have you know taken the. the sort of existing industry and. corrupted it and made it expensive. But. I would say even more fundamental than. that is that you have to test. If we're. going to be dominant in nuclear, you. have to allow innovators, entrepreneurs, technologists to create a small reactor,

turn it on, and test it out. If you. can't do that, you don't have an. industry, or at least you won't have an. industry in a decade or two. >> Who is the NRC? >> So, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is. a uh commission created by Congress in. the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. uh it's. sort of gone through a couple iterations. in various acts of Congress since then, but it it has five commissioners and uh. it's responsible for regulating nuclear. Um and I would say it's not done a good. job of that. Uh and the evidence for the.

fact that it has not done a good job of. that is since 1979. we uh the NRC has approved four. construction permits. Four. One, two, three. >> Since when? >> Since 1979. >> Jeez. In the meantime, China has built. dozens of reactors and is currently. building 30, right? So, there are 30. nuclear reactors under construction in. China today. >> Wow. >> And u that's a brand new thing for. China, right? China's like just gotten. into this. Uh but since 1979, the NRC.

has granted four construction permits. That's a that's a dead regulator, right? That that is a regulator which needs. rapid overhaul, fundamental overhaul. Um. and the the Trump administration is. working on that. So, I'm very grateful. about that. >> What is I mean, it sounds like the Trump. administration's. been very easy to work with for. innovators like yourself. And so, what. what are they doing that's different? >> Absolutely. Listen, I think this Trump. administration is going to usher in the.

nuclear golden age. I am unbelievably. excited about it. This administration is. very unique. I have never seen such a. density of talented, motivated people. working in government before. Um, if you. talk to the people who are in the White. House who are in the agencies today, they are not the people that you would. normally see, you know, working in. government, um, in many, many cases, they are people who are taking sometimes. 10x pay cuts, right? They're making 10%. of what they were making in the private. sector, but they're doing it out of a.

spirit of national service, right? They. believe that this is an existential. threat to the country um to fix these. issues to be able to make power again. And so you have people making genuine. life sacrifices to to work in government. and to fix it. And I I mean you have to. give president, you know, President. Trump credit for that in bringing this. unbelievably talented motiv motivated. group of people together to do that. It. this is all it's all action, right? If. you go into any of the agencies today, you would have seen in the last, you.

know, 20 years really, you would have. seen a lot of policies and a lot of. papers and a lot of thoughts and very. little action. And today it's all action. everywhere. >> Wow. Are you in contact with Chris. Wright, Secretary of Energy? So Chris is. like probably the best example of this. and it's like, you know, easy for me to. say because I'm a nuclear and the DOE is. leading the charge on this. But from. Chris all the way down through his. staff, you have the most motivated. people I've ever seen picking up the. baton from the president, there's these.

executive orders that went out 3 weeks. ago and they basically gave the mandate. to the Department of Energy that we need. to turn on nuclear reactors immediately. Um, and in fact, they set a date. So by. July 4th, 2026, the president has. ordered that the DOE allow three. advanced reactors to turn on on American. soil um outside the national lab system. So this is unbelievably exciting. It's. what the nuclear industry has been. waiting for for decades. Um this is what. we need. This is that test framework.

that we have to have in order to to beat. China. And again, like the reason this. is happening is that the administration. recognizes that we must beat China on. AI, on manufacturing. we have to reshore. uh the ability to to build things in the. real world. And so I would say everybody. in the administration is absolutely. focused and dialed on how do we allow. American entrepreneurs to move forward. and to do what we do best, which is. innovate and build the best technology. in the world. >> Perfect. Well, Isaiah, let's take a.

quick break. When we come back, I want. to talk about how bad our power grid is. >> Sounds good. Ever get the feeling you're being. watched online? You probably are by data. brokers. These companies could be. tracking what you do, where you live, what you buy, and even who you're. related to. Then they could turn around. and sell that info to scammers or anyone. willing to pay even though you never. gave them permission. That's why I'm so. glad I found Aura. Ora does all the.

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month, $1 per month trial period and. start selling today at shopify.com/srs. Go to shopify.comsrs. shopify.com/srs. >> All right, Isaiah, we're back from the. break. I wanted to talk about some of. the vulnerabilities in our power grid. system and and um I think you would be. the perfect guy to talk to about that. So, you know, I've I've dove into this. quite a few times with different with.

different guests. Uh the first one was. actually a guy that made a documentary. about how vulnerable our grid is. And I. mean, he's talking about how much of our. grid is manufactured in China from solar. panels to transformers to. vulnerabilities and power stations and. how they're not guarded. I mean, I mean, you everybody sees drive by on the side. of the road and it's got a chain link. fence and maybe if you're lucky, some. barb wire up top. And he talks about, you know, how somebody could could get. in there and just shoot those up and. basically disable them. how it would.

take years to get a new transformer. because they're so they're so large and. that that it would it would and they. come most of them come from China. Yep. >> It would take I mean they would have to. take overpasses out to get them in. place. >> Talks about Trojan horses and malware. and the grid system and absolutely and. so anyways. >> without without covering all of it I I. want to talk to you about you know what. what kind of vulnerabilities do we face? >> Yeah. Well, first off, I would just. point out that the grid is old.

>> I think fundamentally the grid's it's an. old piece of infrastructure and it's. part of this whole decay problem that. we've had in the United States where. we've stopped building physical world. technology. And we've also stopped. building physical world technology that. has anything to do with like civil. infrastructure. And part of this is a. legal problem. It's because our. environmental laws became extremely. overbearing and made it hard to do. anything. Um, and it's also because we. stopped manufacturing here, right? So, we should make transformers in the. United States. We should make a lot of.

transformers here. There are a few. companies working on this, right? Maddox. Industrial Transformers, a great. American company that's working on. making domestic uh transformers. Super. super awesome. Uh, I hope that they can. scale fast enough to what we need to do. over the next few years. But the other. thing I'd point out is I think. technology over time becomes more. decentralized. This is a this is a. common thing that happens as. technologies mature is that you figure. out how to do them in different ways. One of the big issues with our grid is. how centralized it is which creates. vulnerabilities across a large spectrum.

>> Will you will you get a little more into. what do you mean by a centralized grid? >> Yeah. So the grid is so interconnected. with itself and so inter interdependent. on itself that if you hit one piece of. grid in one state, you might be taking. out a piece of infrastructure in other. states. A grid is a very uh balanced. tricky thing, right? You're you're. trying to keep perfect uh perfect. synchronism between many many many. moving parts. It's physical machinery. It's uh the load side. It's.

transformers. All of these are highly. sensitive pieces of equipment which are. syncing up around this 60 Hz, right? So. 60 times per second switching the. polarity of an electrical field and many. very complicated pieces of equipment. plugging into that. And the larger you. make that system I would argue the more. fragile you make the system right. because a failure in one area can cause. a failure in the entire thing. And. there's lots of protections and. safeguards that we try to add to to make. sure that doesn't happen. But there's a. fundamental principle here which is that.

a centralized system is a vulnerable. system. Right? If you can take out one. piece of it, the rest of it goes down. We saw this in Spain, right, the uh a. couple months ago. And so I think the. other than the very obvious things to. do, right, which is secure our. infrastructure, apply cyber security, you know, companies like Galvanic. working on that um and trying to. manufacture things here and making sure. that we actually are building new grid. infrastructure. I also think that we. move toward a concept called micro. grids. So micro grids are exactly what.

they sound like. They are smaller grids. and rather than trying to have a. perfectly in sync extremely large. system, you have more smaller systems so. that no matter what, if you take down, you know, this piece of infrastructure, you've taken down like one town, right? Or maybe two, but you're not you haven't. taken down an entire state. >> So, this kind of goes back to what we. were talking about at the beginning. where one of your reactors could power. >> a small town. Yeah. So, so you so each. town would have their own reactor and.

that would be a decentralized grid. >> That would be decentralized. I think. that it's probably not one town to one. reactor. It's probably a cluster of. towns to a cluster of reactors. >> But I think that we're certainly moving. closer to that and less how it is today, which is like groups of states, right, that are are sharing grids uh with each. other and then sharing vulnerabilities. with each other, especially as I think. loads become a lot more spiky, right? Right. So what is a spiky load? Well, it. means like you have a data center which.

is consuming a ton of power, right? Previously data centers were like 50. megawatts max. That was like the biggest. data center and then it became a couple. hundred megawatts. And now we're looking. at gigawatt scale uh data centers. We're. going to start to see micro grids evolve. from huge power demand sources which is. good because trying to add a massive. load to the grid is going to exhaust not. just the resources but you know trying. to follow the demand for that load. becomes increasingly tenuous uh and the. consequences are are just larger. So,

you know, I think again if we want to. fix this problem, like there's really. simple things to do. Fix the. environmental policy to make it possible. to build grid infrastructure, right? So, we're talking about NEPA, we're talking. about state level reforms, build things. in the United States, again, transformers and other power electronics. and build smaller grids, right? And and. I would also argue it should be somewhat. generationled, right? You find a good. place to generate energy. It's a good. place to put 10 nuclear reactors, 100. nuclear reactors down, build a micro.

grid around that for data centers, for. manufacturing, and then start to share. that energy, start to expand that grid. out a little bit. But, uh, I think that. the the old style of massively. centralized systems is is probably going. away a little bit and that's a good. thing. Another reason that I think that. we went this sort of like centralized. direction was that our power generating. units used to be much larger. So you. you'd have gigawatt scale power. generation which needed a very large um.

base to hook into right so you had a. gigawatt scale reactor reactors. traditionally were not load following. now they are but they traditionally were. not load following and so you have to. plug into a really really broad base of. demand and now that reactors are load. following and that the reactors that we. make are going to be smaller you. actually can you know just put a couple. of these reactors onto a single grid or. even 10 and you're only at 250 megawatt. So smaller, more decentralized, much. much less vulnerable to centralized. attack. >> So if we're talking about decentralized.

power grids, does that mean that we. would have to. >> reinvent the entire grid to to make it. decentralized? Because if everything's. centralized, right? >> We're going to have to we're going to. have to reinvent the like let's let's. not kid ourselves. Um over the next 30. years, we're going to have to reinvent. the entire grid no matter what, right? Even if we decided that we're going to. continue with centralization in order to. triple our grid capacity, you're going. to build a lot of infrastructure, right? So I I think this is a this is not an. option uh to not reinvent the grid. The. grid will be reinvented and it's either.

going to be reinvented with more bigger. centralized infrastructure or it's going. to be reinvented around dynamic smaller. decentralized infrastructure. And I. think that second one is the right way. to go. >> It definitely sounds like it's the right. way to go. I mean now redoing our entire. grid, I mean that is a. That is a huge project, but it seems. like it seems like nobody has. >> it's it almost seems like everybody's. scared to touch it. The only the only. the only place that I've seen.

upgrade their infrastructure, >> and this is just from from from a. visibility standpoint is, you know, I. have I have family in Florida. I'm from. Florida. Hurricanes wipe the grid out. You go back down there and you see what. they build and they it's not wooden. telephone poles that look like they're. going to fall over. They're these. they're these huge metal. >> maybe steel. I don't know what the hell. they are, but they're definitely metal. um. >> power lines. Is that what it would look. like or or what is what's going to carry. the load on a decentralized grid? >> Yeah, absolutely. New power line.

infrastructure. Um again I think one of. the reasons that people are afraid of. this issue is is that we haven't. properly brought private industry and. capitalism into that solution set. >> right um America is incredibly good at. using its technologists to solve thorny. problems and we use the profit incentive. to do that right people like me people. like my employees who see an opportunity. to solve an enormous problem and make an. enormous amount of money in the process. Right? This is how we as Americans.

figure out how to solve the hardest. problems on Earth. And the the way that. you can muck up that process is by. introducing laws and legislations that. make it impossible to fix the problem. with the profit incentive through. private companies. And the way that. we've done that is through again. environmental policy, through some of. the centralized federal regulatory. programs around the grid. um when you. try to to manage all of this at the top, you become very bad at governing, right? The the the higher you try to govern a.

thing, the worse you become at governing. it. >> Mhm. >> Now, there's a two small version as. well. So, there's some there's some. middle point here, but the middle point. is much further toward uh. decentralization than it is towards. centralization today. Um there's a. there's actually a concept here um that. I'm sure you're aware of called. anti-fragility. >> I'm not aware of that. So this is a nim. taleb concept and there are systems. which uh benefit from chaos and there. are systems which are uh punished by.

chaos or degrade from from chaos. So uh. this is generally called like fragile, robust and antifragile. Right? A fragile. system uh a glass is a good example of. this. A a glass is a fragile thing. If. you knock it with a hammer it could. shatter. Um, a steel cup would be an. example of a robust thing, right? If you. knock it with a hammer, uh, you know, it's probably fine. But then there's. this third category of thing which is. called antifragile. And what that means.

is like the more you knock it with the. hammer, the better it gets. And I would. argue that what you just mentioned in. Florida is a good example of this where. the fact that they have hurricanes which. knock out the grid infrastructure. actually means that they have a better. grid, right? because the the chaos of. that situation has allowed them to. figure out how to evolve and to to get. better. And if you look at human. systems, the best human systems are. antifragile. And capitalism is an. anti-fragile system, right? Private. companies using the profit incentive to. fix problems on a smaller scale, on a.

decentralized scale is extremely anti. fragile. If you add chaos into that, people actually learn and get better and. grow um rather than becoming more. fragile. So when you're thinking about. governance, I think this is just a. general property of of regulation is. like you need to figure out how to make. that system antifragile, which means. allowing for variance, you have to allow. for different people and different. companies to do things different ways. Um, and that's exactly what micro grids. are, right? Utah has a different idea of. what a micro grid is than Texas, for.

example. And those different ideas will. look slightly different in the world and. they'll have different outcomes. And. then we can compare and contrast and we. could say, "Oh, they did that really. well here. Let's copy that over there. Oh, Florida figured out how to make this. resilient. Let's copy it in California.". Right? Um whereas if you try to keep. everything highly centralized at the. top, you don't go through that learning. process and you become increasingly. fragile over time. So I think that today. that's exactly where our where our grid. is. It's very fragile. >> Mhm. And it's fragile because it's.

centralized because it does not admit of. variance because it's done the exact. same way everywhere because it's. federally reg federally regulated by. environmental policy. You know furk. would be an example uh other regulations. that touch that for power electronics. Um and so if we want to fix this problem. you need to use capitalism to fix it. That's what we're really good at as. Americans. And to do that you have to. decentralize. You have to let different. companies you know try different. strategies and fix the problem. Why do. you think, this may be a little off. topic from from what we're talking. about, but I always wonder, you know,

why are we not putting the power lines. underground? That that seems to be where. they would be the least fragile. >> So, and the technical reason for this is. um resistance. So, you're going to lose. power. Uh power does not travel through. uh the cable. It travels through the. electrical field around the cable. >> Okay? >> And so, if a power line is underground, you uh have resistance with the ground. the the electrical field, the. electromagnetic field is actually. traveling through the dirt and you're. picking up all sorts of resistance along.

that. So, burying cables. Um, now maybe. we're making enough energy that we don't. care about that and we just decide to. bury it. But another way to think about. this is like keep it above ground. because it's cheaper that way and. because you lose less energy and then. have it more decentralized, right? Which. means like one cable set going down. doesn't destroy the whole grid. That's. that's an alternative way to do it. And. then you don't really have to worry. about the fact that they're above ground. or that one transformer got blown up or. you know these sorts of things. If it's. broken up into smaller risk areas and.

it's diversified then you just don't. have to worry about these problems that. much and and the system solves itself. >> So if the electrical current is actually. on the. exterior of the power line is what it. sounds like. >> Yes. >> Question for you. Could you put the. lines in a pipe? >> Yep. >> Like a like a covert or something? >> Yeah. Another way you can do this is. with um insulation, that sort of thing. Again, anything underground is is more. expensive, right? You're you're digging, you know, you've got ground work, you. you're thinking about ground stability,

these sorts of things. And these are. problems we figured out. So, the short. answer to your question is like yes, you. certainly could bury the lines and that. would solve some of the vulnerability. problem. And my argument to that would. be like let's try that. Let's try that. in a micro grid and let's try another. grid over here that has above ground. infrastructure and we're going to learn. a lot of lessons and maybe we'll find. out that the buried infrastructure had a. different vulnerability than the above. ground did. >> But if this one goes down, this one. didn't. And we learn and evolve through. time. And that's really how technology.

works. All of technology is something. that learns and evolves through time. It's not static. I this is this is one. thing that people miss about technology. is that it's constantly changing. and. the danger of regulation. And I think. one of the tasks that the next, you. know, 10 to 15 years of American law and. policy is going to have to figure out is. to figure out how to allow technology to. evolve in that way and how to try to. decentralize a lot of the the policy. that we've put in place. Um because. frankly, we're getting outbuilt.

>> We're getting outbuilt all over the. world. Um China is building not just. nuclear reactors better than us, but now. they're building cars better than us. Right. We didn't expect that to happen. Mhm. >> Um, and in all these cases, I would say. that we're not properly allowing. entrepreneurs to to build the right. technology and we're centralizing it too. much. >> Well, you know, I guess China too, I. just had this uh gentleman, Steve Quas. on, I don't know if you've heard, he's. got a company called Space Build and uh. he was talking about how China's mining. helium 3 off the back side of the moon.

>> Okay. Y. >> and do you know anything about helium 3? >> I do. Yeah. You know, I think um. this is one of these things. China China. is not just out building us with. technology. They're doing some really. interesting things in science as well. Um I don't particularly think that. helium 3 is the right um scientific. solution. I I think that our energy. technology is better than helium 3, but. it's a good example of like China is. outbuilding us. They're outbuilding us. in the physical world. Um and we we're. sleepy. Frankly, the American technology.

industry has become sleepy in pretty. much everything except software, right? In software, we still have an edge. Um, and we've led in AI in many cases and. we've certainly led in software. products. Um, but now we're starting to. bump up against physical limits in. software, right? Because we need data. centers and we don't have them. We need. power for data centers and we don't have. it. So even where we have been excelling. which is software we're starting to hit. the limits of the fact that we just. haven't been building enough. Um so in.

in every area we have to fix this with. the way that Americans do things which. is private companies motivated by profit. solving a huge problem. Um and the way. that we do that is through. decentralization through deregulation. through through allowing Americans to go. build. when you're talking about a. decentralized grid and testing and all. these things. I mean, I don't I mean, knowing not much, you know, I would. think that you can't take a a small town. of 15,000 people and say, "Hey, we're.

you guys are going to be our test case.". >> Maybe you could. Yeah. >> But. and it if so, is that what you would do. to test the micro grid or would you. would you do something like, "Hey, we're. going to power this data center. We're. going to power this shopping complex or. you know." No, that's exactly right. Yeah. No, I think it's it's going to be. piloted in data centers. It already is. being piloted in some data centers. And. that's where I I think the natural. evolution here is that you're going to. have these what I call industrial power. campuses. At Valor, we call these.

gigasites. A gigite is essentially a. place where we build many nuclear. reactors, we power data centers, we. power aluminum electrolysis, we power. advanced manufacturing, we create. chemical fuels. So there's a great. amount of power and that power begins to. be sold outside of that, you know, very. small industrial grid. Well, large. power, small footprint industrial grid. and we begin to serve communities. outside of that. So I think it's going. to be a natural evolution. Um, and there. needs to be regulatory change for that. to happen. Um, only a few states have. like sort of figured this out and gotten.

ahead of the ball and and drafted and. passed legislation to make this legal. Uh, Utah is is one of them. That's where. our first nuclear project is in the. United States. Um but there there. >> what do you power in there? >> So uh we I went on Bloomberg a couple. weeks ago with the governor of Utah. Um. and we announced together that we have. uh the San Rafale Energy Research Center. in Emory County, Utah, where we're going. to be turning on our first test reactor. So super exciting. Um the goal is July. 4th next year. Um incredibly incredibly.

important important moment for the. United States if we can hit that hit. that date. Extremely excited about it. um we'll build more reactors there as. well and I do think we'll power data. centers there and beyond the data. centers again there will be electrolysis. there will be manufacturing and and. we'll see where it goes after that you. know our our thought here is that we. need to begin building power for the. most critical things and if we allow. ourselves to deregulate and decentralize. the problem will sort of fix itself. right because people need power and.

there's these new generation sources. coming online in their own grids and you. can start just to hook hook it up right. one one small project at a time which. again you can use the profit motive for. that. You'll have companies who are in. the business of you know hooking up this. line to that line and separating this. grid from that grid and you know. beginning to do that in a in a natural. fashion uh which is what we're really. good at. >> What are some of the red pills that. nobody the nuclear red pills that. nobody's talking about? >> Yeah, nuclear is really. counterintuitive. People do not.

understand um the magnitude of nuclear. So before I talk about nuclear, let's. let's talk about coal for a second. So. coal is really cool. I I like coal a. lot. Um if you're holding a chunk of. coal in your hand, you're holding a. pretty extraordinary thing, right? You're holding a chunk of energy and and. that's super exciting. So you know, if. you're digging and you find a chunk of. coal, what have you found? Well, holding. it in your hand, the chunk of coal that. fits about the size of your hand has so. much energy in it. It has enough energy.

to propel you your body about 5 and a. half miles into the sky. >> Right? If you expended all that energy. on pushing you up off the surface of the. planet, you would go about 5 1/2 miles. into the sky. >> Um, if you put that into a car, right, which is a big heavy thing, you know, it. can take all your your family and your. groceries and everything, you can go. about 10 miles down the road with, you. know, that that chunk of coal. So, it's. an extraordinary extraordinary thing. um. and it served us very well as humanity.

to be able to do that. Now, one very. very counterintuitive fact about nuclear. is that uh nuclear fuel is spread all. throughout the earth, right? There's a. couple of caches and deposits uh of. uranium and thorium that are more. concentrated, but nuclear in general is. just like spread throughout the earth. So um about 10 parts per million of. every just rock outside has a you know. 10 parts per million is nuclear. material. Uh there's trace nuclear.

material and basically every rock that. you pick up outside. Here's a crazy fact. for you. So we talked about this chunk. of coal that fits in your hand and and. how much energy it has in it. If you go. outside this studio right now and you. find a rock that's the same size and you. ask how much energy is in that nuclear. energy. Uh, the answer is about a. hundred times more energy than the chunk. of coal. Are you serious? Every single. rock that you pick up outside of the. studio is as if you're holding a 100x.

chunk of coal in terms of energy. If you. take those trace amounts of uranium and. thorium and you were to fully fision. those in a fast reactor, um, you would. get 100 times more energy, which is, to. take our original example, enough to. propel you about 30 km. your body off of. off of the earth. So about a third of. the way to space. Uh every single rock. that you find out in the garden on the. side of the road. >> Wow. >> So nuclear is it is the future, right?

You can look at that and say, okay, when. we discovered nuclear energy, we. essentially discovered that the entire. planet is as valuable as a coal mine, right? Which is very valuable and very. energetic. Uh so I think people uh. underestimate radically how much nuclear. fuel there is. It's under our feet at. all times. We could be using it. We. should be using it. You had mentioned being able to convert. I I don't know the terminology. You.

mentioned being able to convert nuclear. into into burning clean gas or something. like that. Can you elaborate on that? >> Yes. So, this is really really exciting. We talked a little bit before um I I. think before we started the cameras here. about what does the future of energy. look like? Do we use all nuclear? Do we. continue using oil and gas? Um a very. contrarian thing that I believe is that. I think that humanity continues to use.

hydrocarbons, right? So, we're talking. about diesel, jet fuel, gasoline, um for. a long time. And in fact, I think that. hydrocarbons are are sort of the perfect. fuel. Um, it's hard to imagine a better. fuel than a hydrocarbon. It's very. dense. It could be a liquid. It's. non-toxic. It has elements you already. find in the atmosphere. It's one half of. an oxidation reaction, which means the. oxygen's already there, so you only have. to carry half of it, right? Um, normally. with with a with chemical energy, you. need to carry two buckets around, right? And then you mix the buckets and you get.

heat. Well, hydrocarbons, you only carry. one bucket because the other half the. bucket's in the air. It's oxygen. So, it's sort of the perfect fuel that you. that you could imagine. Um, but where. does it come from? Right? So, right now. it comes from underground, which is. fine. It served humanity very, very. well. We've propelled ourselves to the. civilization that we are today. essentially through drilling oil and. burning it. And that's awesome. Um, but. I think we can do even better. The way. that we do even better is that we are. eventually going to get uh hydrocarbons.

from the air. What do I mean by that? Well, the air already has all the. ingredients for a hydrocarbon. It has. carbon and hydrogen, right? So the. carbon is in CO2 which is everywhere in. the atmosphere. The hydrogen is from. water which is also everywhere in the. atmosphere. And all you need to do is. energize CO2 and water. So it's sort of. think about this like reversing. combustion, right? So when you have. combustion, you start with a hydrocarbon. and you mix it with oxygen and you get. energy out of that and you get CO2 and.

water, right? So that's combustion in a. normal engine. We kind of do the. opposite. We start with those combustion. ingredients, the CO2 in the water. We. put energy back into them and we get a. hydrocarbon. So I believe that that. process will be driven by nuclear. And. what that means is we're essentially. using hydrocarbons as a distribution. mechanism for very cheap nuclear power. So if you have a a bunch of nuclear. reactors all on a campus, again we call. this a gigasite, you're producing huge. amounts of power. And we can certainly.

push electrons in a wire and produce. electricity. But we can distribute all. of that valuable energy in another way. which is to build hydrocarbons and then. ship the hydrocarbon. Right? So this is. like us producing energy forming it into. a hydrocarbon and then shipping that. energy in the form of a hydrocarbon. And. I do believe that as nuclear becomes. cheaper and cheaper that the price of. that hydrocarbon is going to become. significantly cheaper than oil. It'll. become cheaper than than drilling oil.

and refining it and distributing it. >> Interesting. You know, I I am kind of. surprised to hear you say that we we. still have a a place for fossil fuels. >> Absolutely. >> You know, I mean, we we see, you know, obviously Tesla, you know, they're doing. the they I saw I think it was last week. they started the robo taxis in Austin. You know, a lot of the cars are going to. batteries. talked to Dino Mafukas, the. CEO of Seronic, and he's talking about. how they're powering their small boats. and batteries. Some of the bigger ones.

are doing diesel, but I mean, why do why. wouldn't you want to put a uh a small. modular nuclear reactor in something. like like a naval vessel or or a car and. and and get rid of all this [ __ ]. >> Yeah. So, I I think the short answer is. like EVs are going to continue to be a. massive thing. I have a Tesla Model 3. I. love it. It's amazing. I never have to. fill it up. Um I also have a gas car as. well and that's useful for other use. cases. I think the answer is we're going.

to do a lot more of both. We'll have a. lot more battery powered things and. we'll have a lot more hydrocarbons. And. the reason is there's something very. irreplaceable about a hydrocarbon. And. those things are energy density, right? So energy density meaning how much. energy do you get per weight and per. volume. So if you have a container, right? you have like a box that you're. putting your either a battery in or. you're putting a fuel tank in. Um, hydrocarbons are about 40 times better. than batteries, right? So, you in the.

same amount of space, you can carry 40. times uh sorry, the same amount of. weight, 40 times the energy. That's. pretty irreplaceable for things like. aircraft, for example, right? A uh an. F-35 Lightning is never going to be. powered by lithium ion. It's just not. right. you have to get the the power. density of a hydrocarbon to run that. thing. Um there's a class of ships, right, which will always need something. with the energy density of a. hydrocarbon. You just can't fit all. those batteries and they're going to be. too heavy uh to run, you know, a.

longrange ship. Short-range ships for. sure, smaller ships for sure. And then. absolutely there will be some nuclear. vessels as well. But there's just this. really broad set of use cases where you. need energy density and hydrocarbons. just have such incredible irreplaceable. energy density. Uh the other thing is. there. >> and nuclear wouldn't fill that. >> So for cars for example I don't think. so. I don't think that we'll have. nuclear cars or let me say it another. way. I think we will have nuclear cars. but it will be nuclearated diesel that.

then goes into a car. Gotcha. >> Or nuclear generated electricity that. powers a car. Um, nuclear reactors don't. like being small. There's sort of a. minimum size that you want to build a. nuclear reactor and trying to get it. smaller than that is a very very. difficult engineering challenge. Um, it's a safety challenge, it's a weight. challenge, it's an exotic materials. challenge. So, there's sort of a a good. form factor for a nuclear reactor. And. then, you know what it does is make. really cheap energy and you can transfer. that energy to other forms. You can turn.

it into electrons, power a battery, you. can turn it into jet fuel, power a jet. Uh, but a a hydrocarbon is such a. beautiful thing. It's it's a liquid, right? I think we take it we take. hydrocarbons for granted. The fact that. hydrocarbons are a liquid is this insane. unlock. Like think think about the fact. that you can like pour energy into a. container. That's irreplaceable, right? If you need to go and take fuel to. somebody in a remote location, you're. not taking a battery, right? you're. taking a canister of fuel unless you're.

prepared to to carry 40 more containers. for the same amount of energy. >> Um, and so yeah, there's there's all of. these uh places where hydrocarbons are. civilizational level technology which we. should not replace quickly. Um, one more. example of this is actually. distribution. This is very. counterintuitive. So, uh, I like to. point out to people, we talk about the. energy grid, the electrical grid. Um and. we think of the electrical grid as the. way that we move energy around the. world. But the electrical grid is.

actually a very very small fraction of. how we move energy around the world. It's very tiny. How we actually move. energy around the world is by shipping. hydrocarbons. Um the numbers here is. about 8%. 8% of energy movement is. electric. Uh 92% of energy movement is. hydrocarbon. So just an example um we. talked about you know different scales. of power gigawatts and megawatts um the. largest electrical site on planet earth.

is the three gorgeous dam in China right. so it's the largest concrete structure. ever created by humans massive massive. hydroelectric dam in China it has a. nominal name plate generation of about. 22 gawatt in practicality makes about 17. gawatt huge huge energy facility Um, and. it it distributes these through massive. electrical cables that snake all. throughout China. Um, we have a pipeline. coming down from Canada called the. Keystone pipeline. The Keystone pipeline.

is a pipe about this wide. It's standard. steel, right? About that thick. Um, and. you can calculate how much energy does. that thing push. And you can, this is. going to be a chemical energy figure, not electrical, but it's basically the. same thing. It's just energy. Um the. Keystone pipeline moves about 50 gawatt. of continuous power. So about two three. gorgeous dams. We can call a six. gorgeous dam if you want. Uh 2 to three. times the three gorgeous dam worth of. power in a pipeline that's this big.

>> Wow. So hydrocarbons are are. civilizational level technology. They. they are required to move energy between. nations to power high energy density. formats um to get to Mars. Right? If we. want to go to Mars, we're doing that. with hydrocarbons, right? Starship is. powered by methane, right? Which is a. hydrocarbon. So there's there's all. these use cases which I think are very. underappreciated and we'll continue to. use hydrocarbons for a very long time. You know, earlier also we we had we had. talked about how Russia is influencing. NOS's and and lobbying firms and stuff.

about, you know, to to create a. narrative against nuclear. And so I'm. curious, I mean, when it comes to. energy, I mean, it's ob it's obviously a. very profitable business. And so when. you are a threat to oil and gas. >> Yeah. >> Um. green energy still I mean do you do you. feel like you have narratives against. you that are put on through them? I mean. I read something.

I don't know maybe about 6 months ago. that said that you remember the big. power outage in Texas when they had that. winter storm. Was that last year or two. years ago? >> Two years ago. Yeah. Something like. that. Um, you know, I had we had all. heard, you know, oh, it's because, you. know, the solar panels were freezing and. the the wind turbines were freezing. What I actually read was that the. pipelines. >> Yep. from gas were freezing. And the gas. industry was was really on top of it and. and had created this narrative and. pushed it out that it was oh the the the.

wind turbines had froze and the solar. panels had snow and [ __ ] on them and. they couldn't they couldn't produce and. so so it was a if it was true which I. don't know if it is then that's maybe. you know was that true? >> Yeah. No, that's that's absolutely. right. The the freeze in Texas was very. related to to gas. Yeah, absolutely. there's temperature profiles where where. gas doesn't work as well, especially if. you don't build it for that. And this. was a very uncharacteristic event for. Texas and it hadn't really been been. built for that. Yeah. >> So, it is true. So, I mean, so right.

there I mean that oil and gas was on on. their game and pushed a narrative which. which. was an. >> Yeah. >> It was a false false narrative that that. was that was. >> you know that that that blamed. >> Yep. Yep. at wind and solar people. >> So, is that happening to you? Are they. is oil and gas is is wind and solar are. they are they pushing narratives out. about nuclear to hinder your business?

>> I think that industries will always sort. of jockey against each other and PR. firms will always try to find ways to. shift blame. Um I do think that in the. 80s there's good evidence that the oil. and gas industry um you know funded some. of the narratives against nuclear. Um, I. put this in sort of like I don't call it. fair game. It's not something that I. would do, but it's something you should. expect in business. In business, you. should expect counter narratives. Um, but you know what's more interesting to. me today is like how much of the physics.

is inevitable because at the end of the. day, you can only lie to people for so. long. >> And I do think that people have been. lied to about nuclear. And one of the. reasons that I'm so excited to be. building now is that we're building in. the information age. Right. So the fact. that you discovered that narrative right. about what was happening in air is a. product of the fact that we live in an. age of the internet right so these. narratives only last for so long uh in. an age when information travels at the. speed of light and we all have X and we. all have podcasts that we listen to and.

these sorts of things so I think that uh. nuclear has been under this narrative. burden coming from rivals and maybe oil. and gas a little bit maybe renewables. and you know just various people who. didn't want nuclear to happen But the. the jig is up, right? You know, I think. everybody's starting to recognize that. nuclear is the cheapest and the safest. and the cleanest form of power on Earth. That it is going to power our future. And also that the demand for energy is. so enormous that I think it's kind of. pushed away a lot of the competition uh.

feeling between the generation sources. Like listen guys, we need to triple the. grid, right? Like there's no boxing each. other out. If you can get NAC gas on. faster than I can get nuclear on, power. to you, right? Um, we're all going as. fast as we can and we're still not going. to be able to catch up to the actual. demand for generation. So, I think. there's a little bit more camaraderie. than there was maybe 20, 30 years ago. >> You know, also when it comes to the the. safety of nuclear, I mean, we had talked. I talked about this with Scott Nolan as.

well, but you know, he was talking about. you take the the the seeds or whatever. you call them and you put them in the. concrete. you had just mentioned that, you know, something that didn't come to. my mind uh when I was interviewing Scott. is, you know, what what are some things. that could happen? What if I mean, China's obviously our biggest adversary. at this point? >> And so, what would happen, you know, when you put those seeds or those. pellets pellets in in into concrete and. bury them when they're when they're. obsolete? >> Yep.

>> I mean, what would happen if China were. to bomb Yeah. >> Whatever facility holds those those. inert pellets. >> Yeah. So, this is one of the things that. they look at when they design these. casks. They look at various kinetic. events. They looked at look at impact. events uh and analyze that exact. question. What would happen? And the. short answer is that the amount of. energy that you would need to actually. cause a dispersal event um it's like. it's way more worth it to bomb something.

else, right? the the outcome of that. it's like yes you could you could put. such a strong kinetic there that. theoretically if you kept bombing it you. could get through the concrete and you. can get through the containment and then. you can get through um the the tricop. particle uh ceramic itself and now. you've got some uh fizzol product. dispersal and you can map how that. dispersal works and in theory you could. imagine some people getting cancer and. you know probably not that many right. unless it's like stored in the center of. New York City which is unlikely.

But once you do all that math, you. realize, well, with that level of. ordinance, it was there are a lot more. interesting targets to hit, right? Um, the outcome that you're going to get. from that is like not at all worth the. amount of ordinance that you need to do. something like that. Um, not trying to. give people ideas, but like that's just. not a a very highly leveraged use of uh. a terrorist event, right? Um the other. thing is of course we have lots of. safeguards and protections around uh the.

nuclear fuel right not just fences but. like armed security and these sorts of. things. Um so yeah I mean I think like. the the nuclear waste concern has been. highly overplayed. U people have played. it up to a degree that's that's just not. commensurate with the facts um because. it's kind of the easiest target for. nuclear, right? It sounds scary like oh. there's nuclear waste and people don't. know what that means but the fact is uh. nuclear waste is the safest form of.

waste of any power generation. >> No kidding. >> It's the safest. So if you even if you. look at you know I I always hesitate to. compare nuclear to oil and gas because I. have a great deal of affection for oil. and gas. I think that oil and gas has. powered the modern world. We would not. be anywhere close to where we are as a. civilization without oil and gas. But it. has downsides, right? be farther if we. had we gone with nuclear earlier. >> Absolutely. Absolutely would be farther. if we had gone with nuclear earlier. But. still, I am I have an enormous amount of. gratitude for the oil and gas industry.

for powering humanity to this point. Um. but we did that with trade-offs and. those trade-offs are known, right? Uh. you are at a much much higher risk of. cancer living near a coal plant than. living near a nuclear plant. That's just. fact. That's just scientific empirical. fact. Um the reason for that is that uh. coal ash and um you know the types of. stuff that you're digging up from. underground when you burn it gets into. the surrounding environment and can. cause cancer. Right? And as a. civilization we have to make these. trade-offs. We have to say we need.

power, right? Power is existential. If. people don't have power, they die during. the winter uh or they die in heat stroke. during the summer. And so you don't get. to choose between uh zero deaths and. zero deaths. you're choosing between. civilizational existence um or die out. and some level of death that is going to. happen, right? And in coal there's a. number in gas there's a number in solar. there's a number and actually nuclear. has the lowest number. Nuclear has the. fewest deaths per generated power of any.

form of energy generation. So it it is. simply the safest. >> What would happen if China were to hit. your reactors? So our reactors in. particular um we get a lot of benefit. out of two things. One is the fact that. our reactors are very low power density. So what does that mean? It just means. per unit volume of our reactors there's. not as much fizzile material inside of. them. So we have a lot of benefit out of. the box in just that our our you know as. a target it's a low low density target.

right you don't you don't get a lot of. bang for your buck. Uh the other thing. is that trico itself is an extremely. extremely powerful ceramic right. So you. are uh it's interesting the uh the. strength of a sphere scales inversely. with its size. So what that means is the. smaller the sphere the stronger it is. proportionally. And so you take that to. the limit and this is a technology that. American scientists invented. Um the. reason they did this is that you can you. can wrap these very very small beads of. uranium about this uh you know the tip.

of a ballpoint pen in these extremely. strong ceramics and proportionally that. ceramic coating around the uranium. pellet uh is actually stronger than a. containment dome. Right? So if you look. at a traditional nuclear reactor today. you have these big concrete containment. domes and those domes are built to. answer the question you asked like what. if you dropped a bomb? What if you. crashed a plane? these sorts of things. And so they have these highly. engineered, strong concrete domes to try. to prevent that. Um, but we actually. build the dome into the fuel with trico.

So the fuel itself contains all of these. tiny domes around them. And those domes. are actually are stronger than a massive. engineered concrete dome. So in some. sort of kinetic event um you are much. less likely to have those uh ceramic. spheres uh bursting essentially than uh. you know than what would happen if you. crashed one into an existing nuclear. dome. >> Interesting. Interesting. Thanks for. explaining that. Let's talk about some. of the some of the eo ethos of Valor.

>> Yes, Valor is a very unique place. Um. it's very unique in nuclear. Uh we. really fundamentally believe that in. order to build nuclear reactors you need. to build nuclear reactors. Um this. sounds facitious but it's not. Um it it. sounds exactly like what it sounds like. There's a philosophy that came from the. 50s and 60s which says that you kind of. do a long design period for nuclear. reactors and then you do a long. licensing period for nuclear reactors.

and at the end of that you have a design. and a license and then you hope that. somebody comes and buys your design. that's stamped by a regulator and you do. a construction project and build it. Um. the problem with that is that like we've. stopped building reactors and so that. that system only works if it's something. you're doing constantly, right? It's. something that works in steady state, but if you ever stop, you've lost all of. the skills to do that, right? You've. for, you know, the people who were. there, uh, you know, have retired or. died. Um, the people who could have done.

those exact pieces of construction have. retired or died. We don't have the. tooling anymore. So, you actually have. to build nuclear to build nuclear. And. for us, it means starting very small. So, we start with a very small, very. simple, very safe reactor that we can. build very quickly. and we get. experience in the hardware. Um, and we. started that u really on day zero of. hiring the first engineer in the company. and we designed uh what's called a. thermal prototype. So that's what's. sitting in Los Angeles today. Um it's a. a thermal prototype is essentially you.

build a nuclear reactor but you don't. put uranium in it yet. You put uh. electrical resistors and you can get. those electrical resistors up to the. same temperature as a nuclear reaction. So you get to essentially simulate uh. what if this were a real nuclear reactor. with electrical heat. Um, and so that's. essentially what we've done. We did it. in one year. Uh, it's the fastest that a. thermal prototype has ever been. developed. Um, it's also the most. sophisticated thermal prototype ever. developed. It genuinely is a nuclear. reactor. We built a nuclear reactor in. one year without putting uranium in it.

Um, and now the next step for the. company is to go do it again, but. actually put uranium in it and actually. turn it on. And this is going to give us. a lot of experience, right? We're. actually going to have to split the. atom. Um, which is something that not. many people can claim. Uh, and then. we'll do it again and we'll do it again. And that's how this is going to. progress. It's going to progress through. real hardware, through real prototypes, through actually splitting atoms. And. you can always get more sophisticated. later, but you start very simple, very, very safe, and you get real experience. as fast as you can.

>> How far off are you from splitting an. atom? >> So, the goal today, you know, as set by. the president, is July 4th, 2026. So, we're going to try to hit that date. Um, I'm confident that we're going to hit. it. >> How do you split an atom? So nuclear fision um is not as. complicated as it sounds. Like I said, it's significantly simpler than a diesel. engine. Um so here's how it works. You. have nuclear material, which in most. cases is uranium 235. So the 235 isotope. of of uranium has fewer neutrons than.

the normal naturally occurring uh. occurring isotope, which means it's. unstable. And that instability means. that when you hit it with a neutron, it. will split into fragments. And that. explosion into fragments at the microsc. you know at the atomic level produces an. enormous amount of heat. Uh the the. energy of those fragments is is uh is. heat essentially. Um now how do you how. do you do this right? How do you make. sure that those neutrons hit those. atoms? Essentially what you do is that. you assemble uranium into a certain.

pattern with what's called a a. moderator. So a moderator um scatters. neutrons uh geometrically. So there's. sort of a a configuration of moderator, which in our case is graphite. We use. pure graphite. It's essentially. crystalline carbon and uh uranium. And. if you configure it the right way, you. can model it where if a uranium atom. splits, it releases a neutron and that. neutron will hit the graphite and it'll. scatter around and then it'll eventually.

hit another uh uranium atom and that. uranium atom will split release two more. neutrons and those will scatter around. and then they'll hopefully those two. will hit uh uranium. Those will cause. two more splits and so you have four. neutrons and then 8 and then 16 32 64. 128 256 512. That's an exponential. growth function, right? So, you have an. exponential growth of neutrons that are. essentially more and more neutrons. scattering around inside of this. graphite core. And and the graphite is. responsible for making sure they scatter. back in to hit more uranium. Um, and.

eventually you have heat production, right? That that neutron uh production. rate goes up and up and the heat goes up. and up and so now you have a hot core. and you can use that heat, right? So. what you do then is you take uh a fluid. and you pass it through the core and the. fluid gets hot and so you have hot fluid. coming out of the reactor and you can. use that hot fluid for useful things. You can spin a turbine with it. You can. create hydrogen with it. Uh you know you. can heat a home if you really wanted to, right? There's lots of ways you can use. that heat. And so you cool that as you.

run it through something useful and then. it comes back into the reactor and gets. heated up again. So you have essentially. a heat loop and you're heating it up. with uranium that's undergoing fision in. a nuclear core. Um actually mechanically. pretty simple, right? Kind of a stable. core of fluid looping through it. That's. basically it. >> Another rabbit hole here. Are you. familiar with CERN? >> Yes. >> What's going on over there? Lots of. conspiracies about this. Sounds sounds. similar to me. >> Uh yeah, CERN is doing particle.

acceleration. Um, and you know, I don't. know too much about uh what they're. doing. I've I've heard some of the fun. conspiracies. Um, I I will say I'm I'm. probably less susceptible myself to like. scientific conspiracy. Um, I think that. people feel um conspiratorial about. scientific topics because it's generally. driven by the government and the. government has done some sketchy things, right? the government's done some weird. stuff and so they see, you know, the the.

lab coats and the government money. hidden underground and they're like, there's some weird stuff going on there. >> Um, I tend to think that there is weird. stuff going on in the government that. does need to be rooted out, but it's. probably less on that sort of like edge. science and it's probably more medical. things and, you know, things having to. do with like censorship and social media. and and those types of of topics um. rather than than the scientific to be. honest. like American scientists um. are very smart but they're they're.

really slow at this point. You know, I I. would be more impressed with uh well, you know, CERN's not American, but. Western scientists, let's say that um I. would be more impressed if if western. scientists at this point were being, you. know, uh maniacally competent. Like that. would be a deviation from what I think. is actually happening, which is we're. all kind of like wasting time. Uh I. think most of the scientific app. apparatus today is like wasting time. We're kind of pushing paper around. Um. instead of doing really really unique. edge research um and that's because of.

how how it's funded and how the. universities are today which is you know. they they don't like taking risk. They. they don't like pushing boundaries. Um. you have to say the right things. So uh. I think it's pretty unlikely that we. even have the competence to be doing. anything too nefarious. Um yeah that's. good to hear. Isaiah, let's take another. quick break. When we come back, I want. to talk about the size of your reactors, who's interested in them, and a lot of. that kind of stuff. >> Awesome.

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Bonapetit. Let's eat with Hexclad's. revolutionary cookware. All right, Isaiah, we're back from the. break. We're getting ready to talk. about, you know, the size of these. things that you're building. I want to. know how fast you can build them. And. so, >> you know, I've read uh we talked about. earlier 100,000 lb. Yes. Reactor. What. is a 100,000 lb? How big is it? >> So, it's a actually pretty easy to. visualize. It's the size of a shipping. container still on its head. >> So, 20ft iso cube and uh it's basically.

the the whole reactor vessel kind of. sitting inside that frame. You can kind. of think about this like a a big water. bottle, right? a shipping cont shipping. container sized water bottle and it's. full of nuclear grade graphite and uh. and we'll put you know uranium in that. eventually. So just a big old heavy. water bottle. Um one of the really. unique things about our design is how. simple it is. Uh we tried to keep this. as simple as we possibly can. Complexity. means cost. It means time. It also means. less safety, right? So you want to keep.

things simple, very understandable, easy. to manufacture, easy to build. Um, we'll. make that a little bit bigger over time. So, it'll go at least 1.7 times larger. and that'll be a little bit more. powerful. But to start off with, we have. essentially one big vessel inside of a. of a container. And we have other. containers on the side as well which do. other things. So, that's like the main. nuclear vessel and then we have a power. conversion uh skid next to it that. actually spins a turbine and has the. helium flowing through it and that sort.

of thing. So, uh we we keep it really. simple and we try to keep it. manufacturable. That's really the thing. that we focused on safety and. manufacturability. We want to build. these really really fast. >> How big are you going to go? >> So this is a good question and I think I. am purposefully. trying to make sure I don't think I know. the answer to it. Yeah, I have ideas but. >> part of the the whole point of. technologies like you have to discover. things by doing them and by getting. closer to them. >> So I have lots of thoughts on like how. how big you should build the eventual.

reactors that power the entire world. I. think that we know that the next reactor. we build, the 1.7x scale up of the. current one that we have in Los Angeles, is the right size to hit an amazing. price to be able to make the cheapest. power in the world and to build them. really fast. So, like that's good. enough, right? And and we'll start to. scale with that. Over time, I think it's. likely that we'll get bigger and better, but every time you get bigger, you have. to the safety gets harder, right? So. like you have to pay a lot more. attention to what happens in an.

emergency scenario. How do you get the. energy out of the core? Um and it gets. harder to build. You have to have more. advanced tools. It's harder to. transport, right? The logistics, you. know, get more difficult. And so we we. think this size is like a really great. way to hit the ground running, put. gigawatts of power down onto the grid, power data centers, beat China on AI in. the very immediate term. And then over. time, this is similar to to SpaceX, right? where they start with the Falcon. 1, which is a small rocket, and then. Falcon 9, and now Starship is this huge.

rocket. You want to get bigger over time. because you're going to figure out those. tool sets which allow you to do that um. you know, a little bit at a time. >> So, it sounds like, and we kind of. discussed, I mean, you want a model. that's easy to manufacture and get out. the door, >> just print these things out, stand up. >> How fast can you make it? So it's a good. question and the reason that we built. this thermal prototype was to prove that. we can make it really fast. So this is. truly extraordinary what the team has.

done in the last year. We have one of. the most talented nuclear teams on. planet earth. They have deep deep. experience in nuclear. You know the the. founding engineering team at Valor had. over 90 years of experience with this. exact type of nuclear reactor which is a. high temperature gas reactor. So. unbelievably experienced team and they. have moved very fast. So we spent about. uh 6 months in engineering of the. reactor. So this was all on paper, right? Design, CAD, analysis, this sort. of thing. And then we spent 4 months. fabricating it, assembling it, and.

commissioning it. So 4 months. Yes. >> 4 months. >> Yes. >> How fast do you think that will get? >> I would like to see us pumping out this. model of reactor essentially every 2 and. 1/2 weeks. Um, and the reason for that. two 2 and 1/2 week constraint is it's. about as fast as you can get some of the. welding procedures. So, you're welding a. nuclear pressure vessel, the heads, you. know, the the body, the flanges, all. these different things. And there's some. like serialized uh timelines in the. welding procedures and heat treating and.

these sorts of things that are hard to. compress below 2 and 1/2 weeks. And so, what we do instead is we parallelize at. that point, right? So, we make multiple. vessels at once. So on a particular site. we could be going even faster than you. know three and a half weeks but sort of. the the time from like one unit start to. one unit end uh will will probably. stabilize around 3 weeks. >> Do you think you'll stay in Elsagundo? >> So South Bay LA Elsa Gundo or or as we. affectionately call it the Gundo um is. an amazing place to have a highly.

innovative company to have access to the. best engineers in the world. Um truly. the the best engineers, the most. talented fabricators, machinists live in. South Bay, Los Angeles and and that's. why we're there. I think over time, you. know, the the business will operate in. many many different places around the. world. We'll have nuclear reactors. operating in many countries, in many. states, uh thousands of reactors all. around the world. So, um I'm not sure. exactly where the center of gravity will. go. Um, but as long as there are very. smart people in South Bay that, you.

know, are working for us and that we. need access to, you know, makes sense. for us to be there. >> How many is there is there kind of a. limit of I mean, we had talked about. making a chain of these nuclear reactors. and putting them all together to to. create more power for for a bigger grid. size or whatever you want to call it. >> How what is the if you thought about. what would be the most amount of these. that you would connect together for a. single. >> Yeah. decentralized grid. >> I mean, I would put it in the thousands. I would say I would say we could have.

thousands of reactors chained together. on a single site. Um, if you look at. that total power rating, you're you're. looking at like 50 to 100 gawatt. >> Um, which would be by far the largest. electrical generation station on Earth, but it would actually be similar to some. of the larger oil refineries that we. have today. So, I think that's that's. sort of the limit because if you build. uh much larger uh power stations than. that, you're vulnerable to attack and. that sort of thing. You don't want to. have all that um technology centralized.

So, it's more of like a how big is that. station compared to all of your other. stations um and compared to all the. other generation. Again, you don't want. too much centralization because that. makes you vulnerable. So, I think that. we will get into thousands. that puts us. into the same class as like the largest. oil refineries in the world in terms of. continuous uh energy output. Um but if. we're also, you know, if we have 15. different sites that are in the. thousands, then, you know, maybe you go. even higher. Um there's really not a. fundamental limit there. It's really.

just how much demand for power is there. >> Interesting. Interesting. And you're. doing something in space as well, correct? >> Not yet. Not yet. uh what do you want to. do there? >> But I believe that so first of all space. is space and nuclear go well together. for a couple reasons. Um one is solar. panels if you're at the the level of. planet earth work great because you have. a lot of sunlight and you don't have any. shadow and you know you can get a lot of. power. As you move away from earth, move.

away from the sun, uh solar irradiance. becomes weaker and weaker, right? So if. you want to push a um you know a vessel. out to the edges of the solar system or. out to you know some of the further. planets you need nuclear you have to. have nuclear. The sun's not going to. power you that far. So nuclear for. inspace transit is is very interesting. We don't think about inspace transit. quite as much yet. Uh maybe we'll we. will someday there's a lot of smart. people working on that. What I'm more. interested in is making power on Mars. So uh you know we want to go to Mars. Um.

I think a lot of people in my generation. are very excited about Mars. We talked a. little bit about this before um with the. frontier, right? Americans are always. looking for a frontier and I think a lot. of people in my generation see Mars as. as that frontier and it's very exciting. Um but one of the first things that Mars. needs is power. You need a lot of power. and it's not just for the local. generation. It's not just to make. electricity to turn on the lights and. you know operate the AC you know on a. Mars base. It's also to get fuel to come. back to Earth. Right? So when the first.

starships land, uh these are methyloxs. uh starships, right? So that means they. have liquid methane and liquid oxygen. burning in the in the Raptor engines. And uh like we talked about before, methane is a hydrocarbon, right? So what. we're talking about is liquid. hydrocarbons powering the rocket to get. to Mars. Now, these uh rockets are. supposed to be reusable, right? So. they're supposed to be able to land on. Mars and then come back and get more. cargo, and they're supposed to be able. to go back and forth. Well, where do you. get the methane from on Mars?

We don't have methane infrastructure. there. We don't have fracking and. natural gas and like all the things that. we have on Earth that get us methane on. Earth. So what you can do is the same. thing that we'll do here on Earth, which. is we'll generate hydrocarbons from. nuclear. And in some ways, the challenge. is actually easier on Mars. So uh for. instance, the the atmosphere is. basically CO2. So we we don't have to. worry about difficult carbon capture. systems. You're basically just pulling. in the atmosphere to get your carbon. And then the hydrogen is going to come. from ice. So there's lots of ice mixed.

in um the the soil uh on Mars. And so we. can actually process water out of the. soil. We can run that water and that CO2. through the same systems that we use on. Earth to generate hydrocarbons. And we. can do it on Mars. Uh this is super. exciting. Um and also very. counterintuitive. We talked a little bit. before about how amazing uh file. material is in this rock that has so. much power in it. An interesting thought. experiment is to think about let's say. you have a starship that takes off from.

Earth and gets to Mars and then it needs. to make its own fuel to get back. The. question is how much uranium do you need. to take with you on that Starship to get. back, you know, from the surface of Mars. to Earth, right? So, you're taking off, you've got a bunch of fuel and then you. have a chunk of uranium uh to power our. nuclear reactors to make the fuel to get. you back. How much uranium do you have. to take? You know, a starship is a huge. huge thing. It's the largest flying. object. It's basically like a flying. skyscraper, right? So, you would imagine. you're going to need a lot of uranium. Um, the answer is actually a cube about.

this big. You need a cube of of uranium. about this large to generate all of the. fuel to get that starship back to the. surface of Earth again. >> Wow. >> So, it's an unbelievably energetic and. powerful format for space exploration. and for terraforming on Mars. >> Where are you going to when you do these. fields of. chained reactors? Are they going to be. above ground, below ground? What's that. going to look like? >> They'll be above ground. They'll be very. simple. U you know, we've already got. one unit sitting in LA that we've been.

testing. We've taken it up to pressure, up to heat, and uh been testing all the. mechanical components. And essentially, they'll they'll just look like bunch of. those next to each other out in the. desert. Um you know, we're starting in. Utah. We've got our first reactor. turning on there in the next year, which. is super exciting. >> Is it going to be one? >> Just one. And then we'll build another. one. And we'll build another one. And. we'll just keep doing that. Right. Off. to the races. >> Awesome. Awesome. Who are some of the. who are some of your customers? Who. who's really interested in this? >> So, I think data centers are like the. really obvious screaming need today,

right? We have to beat China on AI. Uh. the the Trump administration has made it. clear that this is a national security. priority for them that we have to beat. China on AI. So, powering data centers. is sort of like the really urgent. concern. Beyond that, I'm really excited. about advanced manufacturing and. reshoring manufacturing to the United. States. If you think about some of the. reasons that we exported manufacturing. to other countries, one of the big. reasons was labor cost, right? So, it's. cheaper to get foreign labor to operate. these factories. I think that was a.

mistake, by the way. We shouldn't have. done that. We should have found ways to. make the manufacturing process cheaper. and to do more with less. But this is a. decision that we made. When we bring it. back, it's going to be more automated. It's going to be more advanced, and it's. going to use more power. Right? when you. replace u sort of hand labor with. machines, you're essentially replacing. it with energy and we need a lot of. energy to do that. Uh and so I'm really. excited about how we we start to expand. these power campuses to make more power. and have a factory next door and power. the factory to have metals electrolysis.

next door, right? So to make magnesium. and aluminum through electrolysis. So. you know I think these these campuses. sort of expand into uh industrials. Uh. we can absolutely make power for the. grid. we can make power for like. communities around us. And then the. really really big goal where Valor. becomes, I would argue, the most. valuable company on Earth is when we. begin to make liquid fuels. We begin to. make hydrogen, we bond it with CO2, and. we can sell diesel, jet fuel, gasoline. on the market at a better price uh than.

the oil oil and gas industry can. And. that makes our uh demand for our product. practically infinite. Right? The nice. thing about hydrocarbons is that they're. a liquid commodity, right? and and. there's $4 trillion of demand for them. all around the world and we can make a. lot of those. >> What about I mean I just feel like. there's so many other sectors that would. be interested in this other than data. centers. I mean DoD, Department of. Defense being one. I mean you know me. being a SEAL. >> working for the contracting for CIA. I. mean.

>> overseas power especially in the Middle. East in poor countries is hard to come. by and more fragile than what we have. here. >> Absolutely. And so I mean I I could see. I mean you're talking about one of those. nuclear reactors powering a small city. I mean we're talking about FOBS you know. Ford operating bases overseas very. remote. I mean is there any DoD interest. in. >> absolutely. >> in forward deploying these things into. forward operating bases and even even a. major air base like Bram. I mean, it.

just seems like, >> you know, >> so this is this is really one of the. most critical capabilities that we could. give the American military in the next. 10 years is the ability to generate. their own power on bases and to generate. their own fuel. Right? We want to make. JP5. Most of the military runs on JP5. from generators to APCs to uh tanks to. aircraft run on JP5. And so we want to. be able to make those on a remote site. You remove a lot of the complex. logistics of trying to source that fuel. from many different places. you remove a. lot of the casualties as well. Many of.

the casualties that come in, you know, for deployed locations come from trying. to move fuel around and people driving. trucks and these sorts of things. So, if. we can make the fuel on site, u that's. incredibly important. U this was one of. the executive orders that came out uh. about a month ago was for the the. military to set up their own capability. to deploy these reactors like mine, like. others uh on military bases. So, we're. extremely excited about that. I do think. that again this is one of the most. critical capabilities that we could give. the United States military is to make.

their own power and to make their own. fuel and be energy independent wherever. they need to go in the world. >> Anybody else? Anybody else interested? >> Other other customers. >> Y. >> you know I I think energy is this. interesting thing where everybody needs. energy, >> right? So the the customer base is is. somewhat infinite. Uh it's an $8. trillion market. Um and what we focus on. is where can we deliver high impact. immediately uh which is AI manufacturing. and defense. And then as we begin to.

make more and more power we're really. just making energy cheaper which is. going to b benefit everybody. Right? If. you want power in your house I think in. the next 10 to 15 years the power is. going to be cheaper because Valor. Atomics is making very cheap reactors. and we're powering them and uh those. prices are going to come down. So, I. mean, the goal of Valor generally. throughout time is to continuously push. the price of energy further and further. down. And I I genuinely believe there's. no lower limit to that. Energy can be as. cheap as we want it to be. And you.

continue to march down that that path. every year of figuring out how to make. it cheaper and cheaper. Um, and that is. going to be very exciting. >> How much is one of these reactors? What's the first one going to go for? >> So, uh, I'll tell you what the market. pricing is for reactors, and then I'll. tell you that we're going to beat that. by a lot. U the market pricing is is. $5,000 to $7,000 a kilowatt. So if you. have if you want a gigawatt of energy, you're talking about5 to7 billion uh to. to purchase that gigawatt. U we will. significantly beat that price. Um so our.

goal is to be cheaper than everybody. else. I think we'll be more than more. than cheaper than everybody else and uh. just to continuously do that year after. year. >> How long will these reactors last? uh we. plan for if we plan around 20 years and. and I say plan around because you design. a reactor for a certain time period and. you say after that you you can. decommission it or you can re-evaluate. you can inspect it and you say does this. have another 10 years in it and you. decide yes or no you can maybe. recommission it for another 10 years or.

you just decommission it at that point. So we do our engineering around 20. years. Um now a lot of the reactors that. we have today were originally designed. for 20 to 30 years in some cases 40 and. they've ended up running for 60 70 and. some have been licensed to keep going. even further than that. So nuclear is a. very long-term technology. Part of this. is the fact that u there's not that many. moving parts actually. U they're they're. pretty solid. They're pretty stable. Uh. especially our architecture that we use. uh uses helium. Uh helium is inert. So.

we don't have a lot of like chemical. reactions and corrosions in the core. Uh. that sort of thing. So I I think they'll. last a long time, but but we plan around. 20 years. >> Are you working with Scott Nolan at all? >> So Scott's working on uranium. enrichment, >> which is extremely important. We need to. be able to enrich uh more uranium. Uh. we've built our reactors around. lowenriched uranium. So he's working on. solving the uh halo problem. So halo is. high, lowenriched uranium. It's. essentially uranium enriched from 5% to. 20% anywhere in that range. We use below.

5%. And the reason we do that is it. exists today, right? Scott's solving a. problem of we just don't have Halo, right? Russia makes it. We're not buying. it from Russia. Uh we have some. stockpiles which we're trying to figure. out how to, you know, make available for. test quantities. But uh if you need. these sort of like advanced types of. reactors, you need Halo. We kept it. simple, right? We just said, let's use. what's off the shelf. Off the shelf is. low energy uranium. It currently powers. 20% of the American energy grid and and. there's lots of it. So, uh, we start.

there. We can use Halo over time as it. becomes available, but we like to keep. it simple to begin with. >> Do you ever see yourself kind of scaling. down to maybe a mini like a very small. reactor. you see this movement of people that. want to live off grid? >> Yep. >> And, you know, and be in control of. their own energy. And so, what I'm. curious about is, you know, somebody. that somebody that's running a farm or. that wants to be self-sufficient on. energy, not connected to the grid. I. mean, is there a world where there's a. scaled down version that's not a.

shipping container? It's maybe the size. of a. >> I I have no idea. A shoe box that can. power your individual home. >> So, a shoe box is about as small as you. can get a critical sphere in theory, >> which means any machinery you add is. going to be larger than that. So, there's sort of a minimum size of a. nuclear reactor just based on pure. physics. And the physics here uh is. essentially the mean free path of a. neutron. Meaning uh as a neutron. travels, what is it going to hit and can. it be reflected back and cause more.

fision? Um and that size is is actually. like pretty large. So our reactor that. we have in in LA, it's sort of one. vessel in a shipping container. That's. about as small as you can make a reactor. moderated by graphite. >> Okay? >> And graphite's really nice. It's a cheap. material. It's abundant. It's easy to. get. Um, if you want to go smaller than. that, you have to start getting into. different moderators and that can get. really expensive. So, for instance, burillium is a moderator that people. have used for like outer space where you. need a really really small reactor that.

fits on a satellite. Um, the issue with. burillium is a it's extremely toxic. B. um it's uh it's extremely expensive. It's essentially emeralds. Um burillium. is essentially putting emeralds in your. nuclear reactor. Um and so yeah, we we. think like nuclear is a technology that. works really well at the ship a. container plus size. Gotcha. >> You can scale out. Um again, it's like. bus-sized infrastructure. Um and you can. do many of them. You can make tons of.

power and the power is really cheap. >> When you get to small use cases, you're. probably looking at, you know, using. diesel, using solar, um you know, using. things that fit in a in a smaller. container. But yeah, nuclear reactors, they don't like being small. And then. you have these safety concerns and you. have radiation, that sort of thing. It's. it's nice to keep them in their own. little uh park. >> Oh, good. Oh, good. You know, back to. Sorry, I have a lot of questions popping. in my head right now. So, back to DoD. I. mean, and I know you want to talk about. a shift in nuclear policy. Yes. >> But, you know,

>> how is there a timeline on when DoD will. start to utilize these reactors? I mean, I talked to guys like you quite a bit uh. within the last 6 months um just amazing. innovators and and what you guys are. doing and time and time and time and. time and time again, no matter who I'm. talking to, whether it's Palmer or Dino. or you or or your friend Augustus, I. mean, it's always policy that gets in. the [ __ ] way of innovation and it.

it's it's I mean, it's killing us. I. mean, you just said China's built 30. nuclear reactors. >> and. >> and what are we doing? >> What are we doing? You know, we're. bitching about. >> nonsense. Yes. >> And and so I mean, is is there is there. an actual timeline on when DoD is going. to implement this or is this just in. discussions? >> So, I would say in DoD, it's in. discussions. Um DoD has a project called. Ple. Uh Project Ple is this shipping.

shipping container size reactor. They. wanted to turn a test model of this on. uh in the dome next year and that's a. test model and hopefully it'll evolve to. something that can start deploying on. bases. I would say the problem is no. longer in the policy side. It's now in. the engineering side. Uh but that's only. because of the executive orders that. President Trump signed a month ago. I I. think that genuinely was opening the. gate, right? The the gates are now down. We now have the ability to build. We can. build at speed and it's essentially an.

engineering problem from here. So, I I. believe that the the DoD will buy the. units that work, right? And so, we're. going to make the units that work and. we're going to be able to show them. working and uh and they'll be able to. purchase them. But, it's hard for. governments to purchase things that. don't exist. Um, you know, that's that's. always like this chicken and egg problem. where the DoD wants something to to. exist in theory, but they're not really. technologists. And so, there's like this. interplay between private corporations. that have an idea of a product and the. DoD that has capabilities that they. need. Uh, and the way that we crack that.

chicken and egg is that we build a. reactor that we know works and that they. can purchase. And so we're going to be. doing that as as fast as we can. That. that unit that turns on next year is. that first proof point. So I do hope. that we can put uh assets on military. bases in the next couple of years. >> What do what would you say your biggest. hang-up is specifically? uh hang up. meaning blocker in our path or yeah. >> the blocker I mean this is an amazing. thing to say and I'm very grateful that. that this is now something I can say uh. is now engineering the the path before. us is set by our ability to build the.

reactor as fast as we can to build trico. to put all of these ingredients together. to test the systems to make sure they're. safe to manufacture them um this was not. true up until about a month ago uh which. is very very exciting um you know. >> but you have one built. >> You have one built. >> Yes. >> And so. >> what's stopping us? >> What's the hang up? It sounds doesn't. sound like an engineering problem. >> Yeah. So the question is what's stopping. us from just going and putting uranium. in the unit that we have today? >> Mhm. >> So uh we need fuel. That's sort of the.

next engineering challenge is that we. need to put uh tricofuel into that. reactor. Uh one of the things that Scott. talked about on on his episode is that. we've really underinvested in nuclear. fuel. Um and this is not enriched. uranium that we're talking about now. It's wrapping that uranium into the. trico particle. So this is something. that we invented in the United States. So you'll hear this over and over, right? A technology we invented here and. we kind of let it sit on the shelf in. other countries, you know, scaled it. out. So unfortunately, China has the.

largest trico uh production capability. in the world today, of course. Um and. it's being set up domestically as well. So that's sort of the long lead today is. is getting fuel uh to turn that reactor. on. Um but I I'm excited. But I think. that we'll we'll get it on in the next. year. >> Perfect. Perfect. Any anything else with. policy shift that you want to chat. about? >> Yeah, it's really interesting if you. think about where nuclear policy was in. the United States from its inception. Nuclear policy started as essentially.

what I would call protectionism, right? We wanted to protect what we had. And. what we had was a essentially a total. monopoly on nuclear energy and nuclear. technology. We're the only ones who knew. how to do it. Uh Germany was trying to. figure it out. Britain caught up pretty. fast. The USSR caught up pretty fast. But in the very earliest days, this was. a total American monopoly. >> and our first policies around nuclear. were built to protect that monopoly and. to keep this as sort of like a close. closely guarded government secret that. doesn't get, you know, anywhere else in. the world. But as things happened in.

technology, other people did figure it. out, right? USSR figured it out. They. became very good at building reactors. China figured it out. They're now. getting very good at building reactors. and reactors are getting built all over. the world. So the new directive from the. Trump administration is about dominance. And I'd say this is a shift from. protectionism to dominance. The new. nuclear policy in the United States is. that we need to be the best in the. world. We need to be the gold standard. of nuclear again. We need to that means. we need to build fast. We need to build.

safe and we need to build reactors that. are cost competitive. They need to be. cheaper than whatever China can put in. the ground. And in order to do that, you. really need to have a an administration. that is fully aligned on making that. happen. And that's what I'm so excited. about. There's really never been a. better time in the last 40 years uh to. build in nuclear energy. And it would. not have happened without the the. leadership of the president. Um he. really did put his foot down and say, "We are going to be energy dominant. we. are going to sign these orders which. empower the DOE to finally start testing.

reactors again which changed the NRC to. allow us to actually go build them and. um it's also the people around him as. well you know I've noticed that there's. just this massive shift from analysis to. action right from paper to getting stuff. done u you know I was I was hearing you. know the other day that the the shift in. the feeling of attit you know the the. shift in attitude is from u you know. what 50 papers did you sign this to what. 50 things did you get done this week,

right? What happened in the physical. world? And that is very exciting to me. >> Yeah, me too. Me too. >> We're getting into we want to talk about. the the actual cost of how much cheaper. is nuclear. >> Yeah. So, this is something I think few. people understand. A lot of people when. they hear about nuclear energy, what. they're thinking about is it's stable, it's clean, you know, you can it lasts. for a long time. There's these. attributes of nuclear that they're. thinking about. And very seldom are you.

hearing it's just going to be so much. cheaper. Um, and this is really a. product of how poorly we've been. building nuclear in the West for the. last 30 years is that it became very. expensive. And you know opponents of. nuclear will say nuclear is you know. $150 to $200 a megawatt hour whereas. other forms of generation are less than. 100 and so nuclear looks like the. expensive option. I would appeal to the. past. I would say what was nuclear. energy before we kind of mucked it up.

right before we overregulated before 3M. Island before we kind of tripped over. our own our own feet. What was nuclear. doing? And what's fascinating is that if. you go and look at the original costs of. nuclear from the 1970s, it was and. remains the cheapest energy that. humanity has ever experienced. And. that's adjusting for inflation, right? So if you take what did nuclear energy. cost in the early 1970s and adjust those. numbers to today, it was around $ 35 to. $40 a megawatt hour, which is cheaper. than the cheapest energy on Earth today.

So, we've actually gotten more expensive. in in every way since the early 1970s. And again, we're not talking about. nominal 1970s dollars. This is inflation. adjusted. Uh, which proves to me from a. physics perspective and an engineering. perspective that nuclear can obviously. be the cheapest source of energy cuz we. did it before. We've already proved it. And so, we just have to get back there. Now, what's also interesting is that. even in the early 1970s, that was only. what, 20 years since we even invented. nuclear, right? it was 20 years since we.

turned on the first reactors. Um, and so. that technology was like pretty new and. it was already the cheapest energy on. Earth. So where would we be if we had. continued to march down that line? Where. would we be if we had continued to let. innovators innovate and make these. things cheaper as as technology does. over time? Um, and that's what I'm. really excited about with Valor. So the. first goal is we're going to get back to. energy being, you know, nuclear energy. being the cheapest and then we're going. to go further. It's going to get cheaper. and cheaper and that's going to be. really exciting.

I mean, I think I've read that 90% of. the cost is lawyers and all this. bureaucracy type [ __ ]. >> Yeah. So, >> true. >> Absolutely. I mean, this is one of these. things where you when people talk about. cost, they're really only able to look. at historical examples and they look at. how projects have gone and they total up. the costs and they say, "Well, this is. how much it costs." But as. technologists, you have to take a step. back and look at things more. fundamentally and you have to ask, "How. much should things cost and why?" Um, and there's a way of looking at this,

uh, that I love. It's something I. believe Elon invented. Um, it's called. the Idiot Index. Have you heard of this? >> No. >> So, the idiot index is a really fun way. to look at technology. Um, essentially. what you do is you look at the finished. cost of a good, right? So, how much does. a thing cost on the shelf and then you. look at the cost of the materials that. it's built out of and you divide the the. finished cost number by the material. cost number and you get a a factor, right? So, for an example, an iPhone. costs, let's say, $1,000 and it's.

probably like 200 bucks of of material, right? So, divide that and you get a. factor of four. So, that'd be an idiot. index of four. And that's pretty. characteristic for like mature projects, u mature products is they generally have. idiot indexes anywhere from like 2 to 7. Um, you know, a car is is probably one. of the lower ones. If you buy a car for. 30k, the material cost in that was. somewhere around like 10 to 15k. So it. has an idiot index of like two. So. mature technologies end up having an.

idiot index from from 2 to 7. The reason. it's called an idiot index is because if. the number is really high, you're an. idiot, right? If if the number is super. super high, it means that you're doing. something wrong. And the goal of. technology is to continue pushing that. number lower and lower. Um again, you. know, with with space as an example, as. far as I can tell, when Elon started. SpaceX, space in general had an idiot. index of about 70, right? So 70 is an. extraordinarily high number. What that. tells you is the rocket that's standing. there was 70 times more than the.

materials it's made out of in terms of. cost. So you're doing something wrong. there, right? It shouldn't cost that. much. Um nuclear is about 140. >> 140. >> 140. So nuclear is is about two times. worse than space was before SpaceX. and. it's you know 10 times to 12 times more. than it should be for a mature. commercial you know piece of industrial. equipment right so that tells us that we. have an enormous amount of doing things.

wrong in the system that we need to. solve for so then the question is well. how do you do things right and the only. way to do things right is to start from. first principles you have to look at the. design and you have to say how do we. make this cheap how do we manufacture it. easily how do we keep it safe and that. safety has to do with the cost right. because if you have a very safe reactor. you spend a lot less time and energy on. engineering safety, right? A very. simple, very safe reactor uh is easier. to make safe than a reactor that's like. less safe by design and then you end up. adding a bunch of safety uh band-aids on.

it. Let's put it that way. So, just. start with something that's much safer, much simpler. And then the other way. that you drive uh a lower IDA index is. by doing the same thing over and over. Repetition is really the fundamental way. that you drive an India index lower. This is again why we make the reactors. very small and why we have this model of. making many of them on a site. Um I call. this you do well what you do often, right? So whatever you do over and over. again, you're going to do better and. better. And so you want to get into this.

pattern where you're making the same. reactor with the same tools with the. same people and they get better at it. And that's what's going to allow us to. pull all of that cost out of the system. and we'll get to cheap reactors which. are more like industrial pieces of. equipment, right? maybe an index of 10, hopefully get it down to seven, maybe. even five. >> Let's move into China versus the US with. the AI race. And you before we get into. that, I want to ask you about uh you. know, espionage, >> you know, and I talked to Augustus about.

this. I I'd brought up that, you know, when I when I worked overseas, China. would set up brothel. >> Wow. >> All over the Middle East. >> I could see that. Yeah. >> And uh pretty much anywhere the US was. at. and they would set them up and you'd. get the state department guys and all. all these people going in there that. are, you know, working for NOS's, US A, State Department, you know, insert. government agency that's. >> operating at some capacity overseas. >> and people go in there, fall in love.

with the, you know, Chinese. spy/prostitute. Next thing you know, they're giving up. information. I told Augustus that at. lunch after after our interview and I I. asked, you know, he he goes, "Man, that. sounds exactly like. uh Silicon Valley and Elsagundo. >> It sounds like San Francisco for sure. >> You see these guys, they're nerds. They. come up, they build something, they get. rich, >> and then they have a super attractive. Russian wife or Chinese girlfriend or.

whatever. and that wife/girlfriend is. selling secrets back to, you know, where. they wherever they came from. I mean, how are you. are you concerned about that? And if you. are, how are you, you know, how are you. taking that that type of a threat. seriously? >> Yeah. So, first off, I am definitely. concerned about that. I'm especially. concerned about that in places where we. do have the technological edge today, right? So, I think AI is like a really. obvious example where of course China is.

doing that. like they would be foolish. not to to do that and we would be. foolish to assume that they aren't. >> So that is absolutely happening. There. have been known cases of that happening. So you have to be very careful about it. The other thing that I'd say today. though is that to be honest, we're so. far behind in nuclear that China doesn't. care to steal anything from us. Right? They're they're so far ahead of us. They. they've built they've built advanced. reactors. We've never built an an. advanced reactor on American soil. >> We've never split an atom in an advanced. reactor on American soil. and and China. has in three now I believe. Um and so.

this is going to be a concern and we're. thinking about how to address this. threat over the next few years as we. begin to pull ahead of China. But to be. honest, where it stands today, they're. they're just ahead of us. They don't. care to steal, you know, they they view. what what we're building as as, you. know, toys essentially right now that. that they're past. Um which is a very. sad place to be. And and that's why we. have this urgency of the moment. I would. say we have a window to catch up. And. the reason we have a window to catch up. is because American entrepreneurs are.

the most innovative people on Earth. We. genuinely are. We're incredible at. building innovative technology using. first principles thinking and incredible. engineers and building something that's. never existed before. Pretty much. everything that China is doing on. nuclear is stuff they copied from us, but it's stuff they copied from us back. in the '60s and 70s and 80s. And then. they've sort of brought to a new point. of maturity uh through experience since. then. And we're still back there, right? We're still trying to just get this. stuff working. Mhm. >> So, um it it will be a concern as we. pull ahead. Um but today, like you know,

man, we we got to start splitting atoms. before they even care. >> How how far behind do you think we are? >> I think today we are probably four or. five years behind. Um if Valor is doing. it, if other companies are doing it, we're decades behind. Um I think Valor. is the only company that's moving even. close to fast enough to to get anywhere. close to China. Um, and and that is. something I think about a lot and we're. going to go as fast as we possibly can. >> And five years, do you see let's let's. say let's say the administr let's just.

say, you know, after Trump's. term here, you know, goes back to. >> the Democrats. I mean, are are Democrats. on board with this at all? >> Absolutely they are. You know, I think. that nuclear. >> this is a bipartisan issue that. everybody's taken seriously. nuclear. became bipartisan during the Biden. administration. Now, I will say, you. know, I think obviously there will be. another Democratic presidency uh at some. point and u my appeal would be that you.

should take a look at what the president. did and um put the partisanship aside. and keep fueling that fire because it is. so important. It is such a national. security issue that we have power, that. we power our civilization, that we. reshore, that we win on AI. you know, this should not be a a partisan issue. This should be completely bipartisan. And it was beginning to be. I think, you. know, the Biden administration, more. than other Democratic uh administrations. before him, um were pushing nuclear.

They, you know, started to make a couple. of movements. The one flaw I think in in. this for Democrats is that they tend to. be very protective of bureaucracies, right? they they tend to be protective. of the sort of like class of people who. are generally Democrats uh who sit in. government positions and have government. jobs and do the paperwork. And um I. think that you know obviously. Republicans are a little different from. that. They don't have those same uh. classes of people. They don't have the. same loyalties toward bureaucracies and. bureaucratic systems. And so the Trump.

administration has been able to very. very quickly change the tone uh. overnight which is amazing. Um, and so. my my appeal to be whoever the next. Democratic administration is, whether. that's in four years or 12 years or. whenever it is, that I would appeal to. you to set that aside and understand. that we need to build and this is a. national security issue. >> and that there are lots and lots of ways. that we can use those people um to build. even more, >> right? There's a certain amount of. bureaucrats in government who who today.

I would say are are sort of uh governing. an empire of dirt, right? They're. they're governing a whole lot of. nothing, right? And we have to peel that. bureaucracy back to start building. again. >> But as we start building more and more. and more, you're going to need to add. people back in because the industry is. going to grow and it's going to get. bigger and it's going to make more. power. And there will be lots of. opportunities for for bureaucrats to do. the good work that they do in making. things safe and and checking things out. and those sorts of things. But you have. to let the. >> I've never heard anybody say let the. bureaucrats do the good things that they.

do ever in my life. >> Well, I let me uh let me counter this. for you for a little bit. So, one of the. things that's very unique um about. American culture is that we have had. very functional bureaucracies before. Uh. bureaucracies can do things. They they. have a huge failure mode which we all. know now, right? which is that they get. slow and they don't do anything and they. stop progress and they take 10 years to. do a single piece of paperwork. But you. can sort of think about some of the.

great engineering projects of the last. hundred years as bureaucratic projects. to some extent. So the Apollo landings. right landing on the moon um had. bureaucrats right there was a lot of. paperwork involved in that. You had a. lot of people checking designs, checking. document flow, ensuring security, um. ensuring you know all of the things that. go into checking the boxes to make sure. that nobody died on the moon, right? And. we had a successful outcome to that. mission. There was an army of people. involved in that effort. Um and you.

would call many of those people. bureaucrats, lots of engineers, too. And. I would say the ratio was a lot better, right? The ratio of bureaucrats to. engineers was a lot better. But you. really do need um what I would say is. people who dedicate their life to making. the the machinery of government turn. Um. and uh and so you do need that, but you. need to not let them run the ship, right? Engineers need to run the ship. Um and uh and I would say. administrations need to run the ship. You need to have an executive who's. running the ship. And those people, you.

know, need to to help the president run. the ship in the right direction and not. become a thing that is purposeful in and. of themselves, like the bureaucracy for. the bureaucracy. That's where that's. where it gets really bad. >> You know, my my fear is I mean, you. know, the country is very divided right. now. It has been for. 8 12 years, you know, maybe longer. >> Yeah. >> Probably since 911. You know, it's just. it's gotten worse and worse and worse. And you see you see, you know, Democrats. come in and they undo everything that.

the Republicans did. And you see the. Republicans come in and they undo. everything that the Democrats did just. just because the the country's become so. tribal. >> Yeah. >> And so, you know, my question to you is, you know, a lot of people aren't going to be happy. with how things are going. >> Yep. >> In this administration, wouldn't be. surprised if it flips. Wouldn't be. surprised if that party undo does. everything. you know, the cycle just. keeps continuing, right? >> And so what my my question to you is, are you building relationships with I.

mean, I know right now we have, you. know, we have a a Republican heavy. house, we have a Republican heavy. Senate, we obviously, you know, president's Republican, >> you know, so if that switch, it might. switch, you know, in a year and a half, midterms, you know, are you building. relationships with Democrat politicians? >> Yep. Yeah. And I think the the place. where this mostly happens is at the. state level, right? So state level and. somewhat in in Senate and House. Um but. I think that today Republicans are.

leading the charge on energy dominance. >> And um I would appeal to Democrats that. when it's their turn again that they. should pick that up and do even better, >> right? like that's that's going to be. the the charge and I think that's how. they'll win because energy really is. something that's good for the American. people and it's good for for American. interests and people want to vote for. that. They want to vote for cheaper. prices, for stable power, for security, for manufacturing, for jobs. All of. these things are downstream of energy.

Um and again, I think the the right um. the right sentiment was there uh. especially in the last Democratic. administration. before that, you know, I. think previous Democratic. administrations were a little bit. anti-uclear. Uh the Biden. administration, I would I would say was. like pro- nuclear but not willing to. rock the boat. >> Um now the boat has been rocked, right? Trump Trump just rocked the boat and. we're charging forward. >> And so I think that's a great tea up for. a Democratic administration to push that. ball even further and take that win. So.

that would be that would be my appeal. >> I think that's great. What what I'm asking is, you know, are. you developing the relationships that. you need for when there is a turnover. because there will be a turnover, >> you know, and so are you having. discussions with, >> you know, Governor Nome in your state. about about this and. >> Yeah. I would say not so much in. California, but in other in other. Democratic states, yes, California, unfortunately, has a moratorium on. nuclear. >> um and it's uh you know, may or may not.

be um repealed. That would be awesome. Um, but yeah, I think like there's some. there's some shift that's going to have. to happen and whoever is willing to run. forward in that shift. Nevada is a good. good example. Uh, Washington State is a. good example of places where that shift. could take place. U, Illinois is having. a a moment where they're trying to. figure out if they're going to be pro-. nuclear or not. Um, and so the short. answer is yes, but Republicans have the. ball today and they are they're running. really fast with it. So, whoever has the. ball next and is willing to run with it.

as fast, um, I'm going to be very. excited to work with. >> Well, I hope you I hope you build those. relationships. >> Thank you. >> You're going to need them. >> Absolutely. >> But, uh, Isaiah, >> kudos to you, man. >> Like, amazing what you're doing. 26. years old, dropped out at high school at. 16. I mean, and now you're you're. building nuclear reactors. I mean, that. is just. really cool, man. and very in and with. your backstory, you know, growing up, nothing came easy on food stamps to who.

you are today. I mean, that that's. that's inspiration for an entire. generation of people. >> Well, thank you so much for having me. on. This has been a really great time. >> My pleasure. Congratulations. I hope to. see you again. [Music]. No matter where you're watching Shawn. Ryan Show from, if you get anything out. of this, please like, comment,

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