Mass Producing Nuclear Reactors At American Shipyards?

Dear Reader,

The small modular reactor revolution that’s been sweeping the country took another step forward earlier this week, as nuclear startup Blue Energy secured $45M in a series A funding round, co-led by Engine Ventures and At One Ventures, to start producing SMRs in existing American shipyards to lower overhead.

Blue Energy, which has made it its mission to drop nuclear plant production costs from $13k/ kilowatt of production to $5k, and production time from 10 years to 2 years, plans to do for the nuclear power industry what mass production did for the auto industry more than 100 years ago.

Being able to turn out small modular reactors at scale for delivery to clients across the continent is the dream, and existing shipyard infrastructure has been identified as the ideal setting where that dream can be made a reality.

Mass Producing Nuclear Reactors? That’s The Next Step

Michael Kearney, General Partner at Engine Ventures and a Blue Energy board member, explained the problem with traditional nuclear power.

“The key challenge to expanding nuclear capacity over the last two decades has been one of cost, driven by on-site construction overhead and the long pre-revenue build times. By integrating with established reactor vendors, and existing centralized manufacturing techniques, the Blue Energy development platform unlocks low-cost economics that can rapidly scale to serve the growing demand for clean, firm power.”

Jake Jurewicz, CEO of Blue Energy, further explained how his firm hopes to change the decades-old system.

“Blue Energy is addressing the biggest obstacles to wide adoption of nuclear power: cost and build time. Using the traditional approach, it takes thousands of workers several years to construct nuclear power plants on site. We’ve designed a modular plant that can be fully prefabricated centrally in shipyards and transported to its operating location. By moving nuclear power to preexisting assembly lines, Blue Energy is radically reducing build time and cost, making nuclear power cost competitive with fossil fuels and renewables.”

Nuclear Power Will Have The Richest Clients In History

If you’ve been following this story for any amount of time, you’ve probably noticed that almost on a weekly basis, companies are going to new lengths to create cost-savings in the field of nuclear power generation.

The reason for this near desperation, is a skyrocketing demand from a very specific source.

Artificial Intelligence, the biggest and hottest new thing in tech probably since the arrival of the mass-accessible internet in the early 1990s, has a secret that few investors consider when making their bets.

It’s the most power-hungry new industry to emerge, perhaps ever.

By the end of this decade, which is now just a bit over 5 years away (crazy to think about, I know), American data centers — those giant facilities that store our core computing power —will account for 10% of our national power demand.

That’s as much energy as the nation of France uses every year, all just to feed millions upon millions of CPUs and hard drives.

Our energy grid, overloaded, overworked, and obsolete as it is, simply cannot handle all that new demand, which is the reason why every major tech brand engaged in AI development — which accounts for about $20 trillion in market capitalization —is now looking for alternative, dedicated sources of power.

Nuclear, Not Processing Power, Will Decide Who Wins The AI Wars

And it’s far more cut-throat than retail investors imagine.

Earlier this month, Microsoft (MSFT) announced an agreement with Constellation Energy to become the sole client of the soon-to-be reactivated reactor at the infamous Three Mile Island power plant in Central PA.

Bill Gates is also looking to build his own small modular reactors to further supplement his company’s energy needs, with ground breaking on the first one in Wyoming this past summer.

So while AI continues to grab headlines, the work needed to make it all possible is being done behind the scenes at a breakneck pace.

Nuclear power, especially derived from this new generation of mass-produceable small modular reactors, was a standout candidate because unlike every other carbon neutral power source, it’s theoretically possible to create a great deal of production capacity using relatively little space.

The smallest of these reactors will be compact enough to fit in your standard cargo container.

There’s just one problem.

The U.S., despite operating the world’s biggest nuclear reactor fleet, produces almost no nuclear fuel to speak of.

Our Biggest Strategic Weakness

Our supply is so deficient that we are buying Russian uranium as late as Q1 of this year — more than 2 years into our support of Ukraine on the battlefiels of central Europe.

How’s that for conflict of interest?

Biden put those sales to an end this past spring, but he allowed one American company a waiver from this rule. Just one.

Based in Bethesda Maryland, this energy company is the first American company in more than 70 years to launch new uranium refining operations.

Today, it stands at the tip of the spear in getting the U.S. back to nuclear power independence.

And not a moment too soon, as the tech sector continues to push for more production on an increasingly shorter timeline.

Can This Be The Most Overlooked Stock On The NYSE?

This company is publicly traded, and is valued at just under a billion market capitalization.

But don’t let that fool you, as the high-grade uranium its producing is absolutely essential to companies like Blue Energy, and by extension, every major tech brand out there.

Or put more plainly: Without it, there is no AI revolution.

Want to learn more about it? There’s no time to waste because while this company may be overlooked by retail investors now, it won’t remain that way for long.

Check out this presentation I put together for my premium subscribers.

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