The U.S. government is pushing hard to fund the development of fourth-generation SMRs and microreactors. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) has allocated billions of dollars to startups, including $1.2 billion to X-Energy and $2 billion to TerraPower. Similarly, the Pentagon recently selected BWXT to deve... See more

Over the past few months, venture activity in nuclear has converged upon nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion has been garnering a significant amount of attention—perhaps at the neglect of its older sibling, nuclear fission. While the technology and progress of nuclear fusion is astonishing, we think the future of nuclear fission holds equal potential to... See more

High-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs): In HTGRs, gasses (typically helium) act as the coolant that is fed directly into the turbine to produce energy. Helium is an inert gas, so it generally won’t chemically react with any material, and exposing helium to neutron radiation won’t make it radioactive. Helium can therefore be heated to higher temperat... See more