“5 Minutes With” is a fun talk show that showcases individuals and companies in the community and is focused on leadership and giving back. It’s titled “5 Minutes With” because we spend about 5 minutes with the guests uncovering some fun facts about them, their companies, and their community engagement. Today our hosts, Morgan Yonge and Miranda Gahn, spoke with Scott Searles of The Nuclear Company
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Transcript:
Speaker 1
Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes With, where we spend five minutes with people who are making an impact. I’m Morgan Yonge, and as always, I have my wonderful co-host Miranda Gahn with Lex Aero. How are you?
Speaker 2
I’m good. Thank you. How about you?
Speaker 1
So good. Thank you so much for. Who do we have today? As our guest.
Speaker 2
Today we have Scott Searles. He is the vice president of financial planning and analysis with The Nuclear Company. Good morning. Scott.
Speaker 3
Good morning. How are you guys doing today?
Speaker 2
We’re good. Thank you. So tell us a little bit about the nuclear company and what you do for them.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So the mutual company is a series A startup, and it’s really, trying to solve the problem of restarting due to our, in the US in the last 20 years, we’ve only had, really one plant or two nuclear. Our units, built in the US. And if you compare that to like 1960 to 1980, where we built over 100 people like not know, but 20% of the US energy production in the US is nuclear.
Speaker 3
But that percentage is going down as we do not deploy new nuclear. When you compare that to other large emerging economies such as China, China’s Building 28 currently and have well over 50 planned in the future. So we were really, we had a competitive advantage and we were the world leaders in nuclear. And, that’s kind of a pause for a little bit.
Speaker 3
And so we’re excited to, reemerge as the, we call the nuclear frontier and start, building nuclear power plants in the US.
Speaker 2
Oh, wow. That’s a fantastic goal. You know, especially considering the fact that AI is really taking off. And as I understand it, AI takes a lot of power to operate. So great timing. Is that something that you guys have considered when you talk about your nuclear goals?
Speaker 3
Absolutely. The energy demand in the US in industrial businesses really led by AI, but other things such as, you know, electrification of vehicles and other things, we expect industrial, electricity demand to double by 2030. And with at the same time, you know, we are shutting off a lot of energy production in the US. And so we feel that nuclear, is a great baseload power, source.
Speaker 3
Its yield is higher than any other source out there. Just to put it in perspective, solar is somewhere in the 20%, from an energy efficiency yield of, producing electricity. And, nuclear is 93.8%. So it’s very high density, highly reliable, safe energy source, when it’s up and running, produces no carbon emissions. So we’re really excited about both the demand side and then really what we’re trying to help is increase the supply side.
Speaker 3
On the AI front, it’s really interesting because you have companies like Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductors, you know, generally thought of as really the bottleneck in a system. And really hardware is a is a bottleneck, but it’s not as much of a bottleneck as actual electricity is for the AI boom to happen. So we’re really excited about the future.
Speaker 1
It is very exciting indeed. So with the electricity that is required, I know that has been a big, a big haul, being able to power so much with the nuclear processes these days. Has that been an issue that you’ve dealt with at all?
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, you know, in the past, one of the reasons, that nuclear had kind of took a hiatus in the US is the regulatory environment. We’re starting to see bipartisan support, for nuclear, the recent energy bill passed 97 three in the Senate, which is almost unbelievable in this political environment. So we’re really excited about some of the executive orders that President Trump has passed to streamline nuclear.
Speaker 3
The bipartisan support in Congress that we have received. And we’re really excited about, some of the opportunities, you know, partnering with other nations to, to develop nuclear, some of the countries that we’ve we’ve had discussions where Japan and Korea are really, exciting opportunities for us to partner with our supply chain as well as, deploying nuclear in the US.
Speaker 2
Wow. So, you know, another question for you, as I’m thinking about this goal, it’s it’s a lofty goal. Help me understand. And if this is an appropriate question for you, like from start to finish, do you expect that you’ll be opening nuclear plants within the year, or is the timeline a little bit longer and then. Yeah, so go ahead and ask.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So it’s a great question. And maybe I should lay out a little bit about you know, the nuclear industry. It’s it’s interesting. Nuclear power is very unique. We talked about some of the yield differences that into our powerhouse, but also in the cost structure. So over 80% of the cost of a nuclear power plant is building and maintaining the plant.
Speaker 3
Less than 10% is actually the fuel. You compare that to, like a natural gas plant, which at 60 to 80% is fuel driven. So the it’s it’s once you get the plant up and running, it’s very economical to, to, to use nuclear. In fact, no nuclear plant has never has not had a profit, after it’s up and running.
Speaker 3
The real challenge is building them. Right. And so these are multi-year mega projects. But we’re doing we’re seeing a lot of, some technology advancements. So our company is, is actually a technology agnostic. We are looking at nuclear in all its forms. And we’re starting to see smaller reactors. The kind of, very attractive to certain customers because you can build them one faster.
Speaker 3
You can build them cheaper, which is also nice. You can build them in a safe, way. But then you can build, like one unit. You can have a site with multiple units on it. You build one unit and you get it online, and then you build. But these projects are multi-year. We’re talking seven, eight and sometimes nine year projects to completely finish.
Speaker 3
Well.
Speaker 1
It’s amazing. And it’s such a big endeavor that is so exciting for our future. So thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 3
We appreciate you coming on the show for us. Pleasure to be here and I’d love to come back any time.
Speaker 2
All right. Great.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode of five minutes with. If you want more information, head on over to Daily News network.com and we have it right there. We’ll see you in the next episode of Five Minutes With.
