Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Chairs of Canadian uranium producer Chemico rose as much as
Speaker 1: twenty seven percent to a record high today. This after
Speaker 1: the US government signed a packed with westing House Electric,
Speaker 1: Chemi Coo, and Brookfield that will see at least eighty
Speaker 1: billion dollars of new nuclear reactors constructed in the US
Speaker 1: to accelerate nuclear power in AI deployment and breaking late yesterday,
Speaker 1: next to air Energy planning to restart a nuclear power
Speaker 1: plan in Iowa, primarily to supply Google data centers. We
Speaker 1: got Will Wade with us. He's Bloomberg News Energy reporter.
Speaker 1: He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio.
Speaker 1: Did the US make a mistake, Will in shutting down
Speaker 1: nuclear reactors over the last few years.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a tough question. When they made those decisions
Speaker 3: to shut down reactors, and I used to keep a
Speaker 3: spreadsheet on my desk, I call it dead Nukes file
Speaker 3: of the dozen or so reactors that were shut down
Speaker 3: in the past a little more in a decade. It
Speaker 3: was the right decision. Then they were expensive to operate.
Speaker 3: Nobody wanted to pay that much for power. But the
Speaker 3: world has really changed around us.
Speaker 1: And I think at Indian Point, close to New York City,
Speaker 1: that one was didn't it outlive It's like life cycle.
Speaker 1: It was sort of at the end of its life.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it was closed ahead of time.
Speaker 1: It was closed ahead of time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a big political campaign. There were people
Speaker 3: that were really worried about having a nuclear power plant
Speaker 3: so close to the biggest city in America. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a legitimate concern. But we closed that plant and
Speaker 3: immediately people started saying, wait, New York State carbon emissions
Speaker 3: are going to go up this year because we replaced
Speaker 3: all the nuclear with natural gas.
Speaker 2: Who would have thought.
Speaker 4: So it does feel like we mentioned the US signing
Speaker 4: an eighty billion dollar pack to boost nuclear power in
Speaker 4: that AI push, Google buying power from next era nuclear
Speaker 4: power plant being revived.
Speaker 2: So the spend is on, the deal are on?
Speaker 4: Is the build on though, to really build out maybe
Speaker 4: the nuclear capacity that's needed.
Speaker 2: Oh building nuclear, No, nobody's doing that, that's true.
Speaker 1: But the money's there, the commitments are there. The mothballing
Speaker 1: is being undone. Right, Okay, So here's what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: There is an enormous amount of interest in nuclear energy
Speaker 1: right now. I've been seeing it for eighteen twenty four months.
Speaker 1: This is because electricity demand is going to go through
Speaker 1: the roof. That's largely for data centers and AI It's
Speaker 1: not just that, it's for a lot of things, but
Speaker 1: that's the big part of it.
Speaker 3: We need new electricity, we need a lot of it.
Speaker 3: We did not see this coming. We were not building
Speaker 3: new nuclear plants. At the same time, we would love
Speaker 3: our electricity to be clean. So that really makes nuclear
Speaker 3: the best option because it's available around the clock, unlike
Speaker 3: wind and solar.
Speaker 1: Right how quickly can nuclear power plants be built outside
Speaker 1: of the United States? In China, Korea, Japan.
Speaker 2: Oh, China's really good at building them.
Speaker 3: They've they've been doing a NonStop they got I think
Speaker 3: they're soon going to surpass the US in terms of
Speaker 3: the number of reactors they've got going. So yeah, they're
Speaker 3: faster at it than us. The Koreas are really good
Speaker 3: at it. I was in Korea this year. Their nuclear
Speaker 3: industry is they've been going NonStop for fifty something years.
Speaker 3: Our industry pretty much ground to a holt around nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: Nine with through My Island.
Speaker 3: So we spent years doing nothing and we never really
Speaker 3: recovered from that.
Speaker 2: We're working on it.
Speaker 4: Well, we're going to keep Will Wade with us Blimber
Speaker 4: News Energy Report. Someone else who's working on it too
Speaker 4: to build out nuclear capacity is James Walker. He's CEO
Speaker 4: of Nano Nuclear Energy. It's a two point three billion
Speaker 4: dollar market cap nuclear energy company that is working on
Speaker 4: SMRs small modular reactors. Shares are up nearly ninety percent
Speaker 4: so far this year. Big chunk though, of the float
Speaker 4: is short. James joining us from Vancouver. James, come on
Speaker 4: in on this conversation. I mean, realistically, how long before
Speaker 4: we actually you actually get an SMR built and it's
Speaker 4: up and running.
Speaker 5: It's a good question because it gets asked, as you
Speaker 5: can imagine, more than any other question. And there's kind
Speaker 5: of two answers to it too, because to get a
Speaker 5: reactor built and constructed and licensed is one question, but
Speaker 5: the other question is how long is it going to
Speaker 5: take for the fuel supply chain to be built back
Speaker 5: adequately in the country to be able to mass manufacture
Speaker 5: the fuel, to allow the mass manufactur of reactors. So
Speaker 5: on one side, our company is already going ahead with
Speaker 5: the construction project two construction projects to build reactor systems,
Speaker 5: and we're talking to data centers and all of those
Speaker 5: sort of groups as well. But on the other side,
Speaker 5: like you know, we even our company, we need to
Speaker 5: get involved in that fuel supply chain and build it
Speaker 5: back because, as Will was saying just before this sort
Speaker 5: of after Three Mile Island, the investment into the country
Speaker 5: sort of broke down a lot. We need that investment
Speaker 5: to go back in into rebuilding that fuel supply chain,
Speaker 5: so companies like ours can mass manufacture the reactor systems.
Speaker 1: But James, on Carol's question about a timeline here, what
Speaker 1: would be a realistic timeline for completion of your first
Speaker 1: modular nuclear reactor.
Speaker 5: So we're doing a dual program right now, as it's
Speaker 5: already started on the site. So we'll have the geotechnical
Speaker 5: data to submit for a construction permit that'll go in
Speaker 5: early next year, and I'll see you will turn that
Speaker 5: around in twenty twenty six. So construction twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 5: twenty twenty eight, twenty twenty nine, and then fully licensed
Speaker 5: reactor operating commercial license twenty thirty is very reasonable timeline.
Speaker 5: So I would say early twenty thirties, then you're going
Speaker 5: to see the mass rollout of reactor systems, so dozens
Speaker 5: on an annual basis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that timeline fits with what I hear from a
Speaker 3: lot of companies early twenty thirties for a significant wave
Speaker 3: of new power plants. But I guess the issue is
Speaker 3: that we have all these people who want power yesterday.
Speaker 3: How do we meet their needs?
Speaker 5: Look, there's a it's a it's actually a very reasonable question.
Speaker 5: Like as a company, we you know, we want to
Speaker 5: be conservative and truthful with everybody because you know, we've
Speaker 5: got to earn long term trust here. There are good
Speaker 5: interim solutions, like I know companies have been exploring things
Speaker 5: like gas and and to be honest, if they can
Speaker 5: get hold of that in the interim, great, But even
Speaker 5: things like gas contracts, they're all tied up for seven
Speaker 5: eight years. Turbines around gas are tied up for seven
Speaker 5: eight years too, So it's it's there's no easy solution here.
Speaker 5: Even bringing in as you mentioned, like wind and solar
Speaker 5: or anything like that. These are it's amitten technologies which
Speaker 5: require huge battery storage technology to run alongside them. A
Speaker 5: lot of the time, it's just not feasible. They're also
Speaker 5: very locationally dependent, so you be limited on where you
Speaker 5: can even deploy these things. I mean, unfortunately, there's no
Speaker 5: there's no great solution, which is why when the show
Speaker 5: started they were talking about opening up these old power
Speaker 5: stations and recommissioning old nuclear power plants because those are
Speaker 5: the some of them are the interim solutions. It won't
Speaker 5: be enough power, but it'll be some.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those restart projects that fruit. Do you think there
Speaker 3: are other plants that we can restart or is it
Speaker 3: just the ones we've already seen? Are we exhausted that list?
Speaker 5: So it's a good question, Like there's a number have
Speaker 5: been shut down, and like it's it's arguable that you
Speaker 5: mentioned Indian Point as an example. I know it wasn't
Speaker 5: politically popular and maybe there was some of that related
Speaker 5: to the decisions around that kind of plant, that that
Speaker 5: could be an act, that could be a route, even
Speaker 5: the old three Mile Island plant. Since we bring that
Speaker 5: up as I think it's see the Microsoft or Constellation,
Speaker 5: we're involved in recommissioning that and trying to get that
Speaker 5: back up and running.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Constellation says that'll be ready by twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 5: There we go. So, like you know, I think, as
Speaker 5: you say, like there's going to be big projected powering
Speaker 5: demand increases in the country, they might not get solved
Speaker 5: for until we get those twenty thirties. And the problem
Speaker 5: there is that that could mean a stagnation in the
Speaker 5: tech industry. They'll find every means they can to get power.
Speaker 5: But like that big online colocation green technology that provides
Speaker 5: baseload power that can only really come from nuclear and
Speaker 5: a lot of these reactor systems. Despite any really outlandish
Speaker 5: claims about deploying near term, it's it's going to be
Speaker 5: early twenty thirties, twenty thirty and onwards.
Speaker 4: All right, So the demand story is compelling if the
Speaker 4: obstacles are just as a parent, those aren't my words,
Speaker 4: those are well waded words who reports on this sector,
Speaker 4: as you well know. I mean, help me out here though,
Speaker 4: because I'm just wondering. You know, if I'm looking at
Speaker 4: a stock that is up eighty percent year to date,
Speaker 4: you know, you guys don't have any revenues, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: like our investors, you know, this is what we do. Like,
Speaker 4: are they probably getting ahead of themselves. Thirty percent of
Speaker 4: your float is short, so investors are just kind of
Speaker 4: waiting for something negative to hit because they're negative the sentiment.
Speaker 4: I mean, realistically, you're talking at least five years right
Speaker 4: before you're showing significant revenue or earnings or anything along
Speaker 4: those lines.
Speaker 5: No, like our early using on people will come online
Speaker 5: a long time before that. I mean, because there's this
Speaker 5: massive build back. The opportunity at the moment in the
Speaker 5: nuclear space is huge. It can come through the fuel
Speaker 5: supply chain, or transportation or isotopes. Like, the nice part
Speaker 5: is that we're part of this build back effort. So
Speaker 5: and look, the stock market is always about an investment
Speaker 5: in the future. I mean, the nice part is that
Speaker 5: the demand is there in a way that's unprecedented. Like
Speaker 5: buying now really is an investment in the future, and
Speaker 5: a future that's inevitable. The tech industry is not going
Speaker 5: to just give up and pack up and go away.
Speaker 2: But what if what.
Speaker 4: If the what if the AI spend and build that
Speaker 4: is I know, everybody comes out and says no bubble
Speaker 4: or a lot of people do. What if there is though,
Speaker 4: an overspend? Where does that catch you guys? Potentially?
Speaker 5: I think the bubble has only been like discussed around AI.
Speaker 5: But like in terms of data centers, those are things
Speaker 5: that cannot be bubbles. That is, power that's needed for
Speaker 5: our whole tech industry, Like a data center cannot be
Speaker 5: a bubble. Like if you need increased power for computing power,
Speaker 5: it has to come from somewhere AI. Whether that's going
Speaker 5: to bear out the fruits of what's been promised, that
Speaker 5: remains to be seen. But currently it's just expanding. But
Speaker 5: it's it's it's kind of irrelevant to the long term
Speaker 5: power requirements because the electrification of the country, the reindustrialization
Speaker 5: of the country, that's all going ahead. And you mentioned
Speaker 5: stocks like and the short interest. Great, if people want
Speaker 5: to short us, that's better because we've we've gone higher
Speaker 5: and higher as a stock just because every time the
Speaker 5: shorts have been squeezed, the more shorts, the better for
Speaker 5: us because they always.
Speaker 1: Only only ten seconds left. But would you say that
Speaker 1: you are most further along than any other company, the
Speaker 1: most along than any other company.
Speaker 5: In terms of microreactors, yees. I believe we'll have the
Speaker 5: US constructed full scale commercial commercially license my corrector in
Speaker 5: the country.
Speaker 4: Well, you can put an SMR in my backyard because
Speaker 4: my monthly electrical bills are crazy.
Speaker 2: You're shutting off lights. You're glowing today, Yeah, I'm glowing.
Speaker 4: Will Wade of Bloomberg News and James Walker, CEO of
Speaker 4: Nano Nuclear Energy, Guys, thank you so much. Great discussion
Speaker 4: right here on Bloomberg