00:00:00 · Scott Nolan, John Collison
[00:00:00] S0: The US did a first generation technology to win World War II to stay dominant in the Cold War. We were over 90% of supply globally. It was nicknamed megatons to megawatts, so we imported Russian warheads, blended them down, ran our reactors on it. Congress passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. That ban goes into effect 01/01/2028. And so our first mission is produce HALEU before the end of the decade for all [00:00:25] S1: these reactors. Scott Nolan is General Matter, an advanced uranium enrichment company. His ultimate goal is to slash energy costs so dramatically that entirely new capabilities become cheap and routine. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. So, General Matter. What are you guys trying to do? [00:00:44] S0: We are enriching uranium. You know, when we started, not many people were talking about uranium, not many people were talking about nuclear energy. This was mid twenty twenty three, And I'd been doing investing at Founders Fund for ten years and investing in some of the reactor companies. I asked them, What's the hardest thing you have to do? And I was like, Licensing, obviously. And they said, No, it wasn't licensing, it's actually getting the fuel. We have to get all of our fuel from Russia. It's very hard to import. And so I said, Well, you know, why don't The U. S. Companies that make all the fuel for the existing fleet of reactors 94 reactors on the grid, 20% of U. S. Power Why don't they make the fuel that you need? And they said, what US companies?
00:00:44 · Scott Nolan, John Collison
[00:00:44] S0: We are enriching uranium. You know, when we started, not many people were talking about uranium, not many people were talking about nuclear energy. This was mid twenty twenty three, And I'd been doing investing at Founders Fund for ten years and investing in some of the reactor companies. I asked them, What's the hardest thing you have to do? And I was like, Licensing, obviously. And they said, No, it wasn't licensing, it's actually getting the fuel. We have to get all of our fuel from Russia. It's very hard to import. And so I said, Well, you know, why don't The U. S. Companies that make all the fuel for the existing fleet of reactors 94 reactors on the grid, 20% of U. S. Power Why don't they make the fuel that you need? And they said, what US companies? [00:01:25] S1: Okay. So this is both new nuclear companies like startups and existing nuclear plants in The US. Both require enriched uranium and both have to source it from Russian companies? Russian or European. Okay. Yeah, but non US companies.
00:01:25 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:01:25] S1: Okay. So this is both new nuclear companies like startups and existing nuclear plants in The US. Both require enriched uranium and both have to source it from Russian companies? Russian or European. Okay. Yeah, but non US companies. [00:01:39] S0: Non US. Yeah. If you're... So let me... Let's run through the big picture on where fuel So comes reactors like any engine or anything producing power does consume something, it consumes nuclear fuel. The nuclear fuel is made with five steps. First, you get uranium out of the ground, you then turn it into a gas, you then separate the gas to enrich it, meaning get more density of U-two 35, the fissile material. You then turn it back into a solid, and then you make your fuel pellets. So five steps. All reactors in The U. S. Run on this stack for making nuclear fuel. The more modern reactors, SMRs, advanced reactors, those will use fuel that's enriched to a higher level. Call it 20%, just under 20%. Most of the reactors in the grid today they go at three to 5%. And so the big difference that that unlocks is if you're going low enriched three to 5% you generally want a much bigger reactor vessel, a core. If you're going up to 19%, 19.75, 20%, it unlocks a much smaller core that lets you do a factory built reactor. So a lot of what you're hearing about with advanced reactors is a combination of safety, enhanced passive safety that doesn't exist in the existing fleet, and then a form factor that could be built in a factory modularly that lets you bring the cost down.
00:01:39 · Scott Nolan, John Collison
[00:01:39] S0: Non US. Yeah. If you're... So let me... Let's run through the big picture on where fuel So comes reactors like any engine or anything producing power does consume something, it consumes nuclear fuel. The nuclear fuel is made with five steps. First, you get uranium out of the ground, you then turn it into a gas, you then separate the gas to enrich it, meaning get more density of U-two 35, the fissile material. You then turn it back into a solid, and then you make your fuel pellets. So five steps. All reactors in The U. S. Run on this stack for making nuclear fuel. The more modern reactors, SMRs, advanced reactors, those will use fuel that's enriched to a higher level. Call it 20%, just under 20%. Most of the reactors in the grid today they go at three to 5%. And so the big difference that that unlocks is if you're going low enriched three to 5% you generally want a much bigger reactor vessel, a core. If you're going up to 19%, 19.75, 20%, it unlocks a much smaller core that lets you do a factory built reactor. So a lot of what you're hearing about with advanced reactors is a combination of safety, enhanced passive safety that doesn't exist in the existing fleet, and then a form factor that could be built in a factory modularly that lets you bring the cost down. [00:03:05] S1: As you know, when people talk about small modular reactors, the modularity is that you can mass produce it in a factory rather than needing to build it custom on a site, and you have a bunch of shipping containers that you hook up.
00:03:05 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:03:05] S1: As you know, when people talk about small modular reactors, the modularity is that you can mass produce it in a factory rather than needing to build it custom on a site, and you have a bunch of shipping containers that you hook up. [00:03:14] S0: Exactly. More or less. Trying to minimize the construction aspect of the project. [00:03:18] S1: Yes. Okay. But both... So where do you... Diablo Canyon, where do they get their enriched uranium? From existing suppliers, that's [00:03:27] S0: a combination of Russia and Europe. So in The US we get about a quarter from Russia still imported, that's gonna keep going until 2028. And then the rest from European providers, that's France, and then a European consortium called Urenco. [00:03:42] S1: Does The US mine uranium? We do, small quantities. So the problem you're trying to address is that uranium is mined in The US or Canada. It is then shipped across an ocean to be enriched and then ultimately shipped back as fuel? [00:03:56] S0: More or less. Yeah. Yeah. So most of US supply will come from Kazakhstan and Canada. And then where it's turned into a gas varies. [00:04:04] S1: Got it. And I presume if you talk to a nuclear startup that wants to get 19% enriched uranium, they... I mean, they agree with you on the kind of the geopolitics of this. It's... You know, it'd be valuable to onshore this stuff, but they probably have more acute problems that you're solving beyond just, it would be good to re onshore the supply chain.
00:04:04 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:04:04] S1: Got it. And I presume if you talk to a nuclear startup that wants to get 19% enriched uranium, they... I mean, they agree with you on the kind of the geopolitics of this. It's... You know, it'd be valuable to onshore this stuff, but they probably have more acute problems that you're solving beyond just, it would be good to re onshore the supply chain. [00:04:24] S0: Right. For them, it's mostly about availability. So as they think about their very first deployments and then scaling up in the early 2030s to tens of deployments it's all about where are we going to get the enriched uranium, the 19.75% enriched uranium also called HALEU, High Assay Low Enriched Uranium. So that's all about availability. That was the first problem that I heard of and that was the question of okay only Russia makes this today commercially. How are we going to import it? In mid-twenty twenty four Congress passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. That ban goes into effect 01/01/2028. Right now they're still importing under a waiver but 01/01/2028 that ends and so all these companies are wondering who's going to produce HALEU. And so our first mission as a provider is produce HALEU before the end of the decade for all these reactors. Part two is bringing the cost down. So that'll be the other big lever that we work on. [00:05:26] S1: How is this regulated? Can you give us the map of enriched uranium? Where does weapons grade uranium start to happen? And, yeah, who do you have to work with as regulator for all this?