The insider’s playbook for new nuclear projects

As the nuclear renaissance comes into focus in the U. S., the sector’s true bottleneck might not be advanced reactors, but its lack of heavy-lifting project developers. These are the companies who secure and permit sites, navigate the interconnection queue, line up offtakers, and assemble a team of both savvy EPCs and experienced plant operators. In this episode of Catalyst, Shayle Kann sits down with David Faherty, co-founder of Elementl Power, to walk through the soup-to-nuts playbook for delivering new nuclear projects in the United States. David explains everything from how his team approaches greenfield site screening, why early-stage development capital remains the hardest money to raise, and how portfolio-level structuring could unlock nuclear's elusive learning curve. Shayle and David also discuss: - What makes a viable nuclear site, from seismic and geotechnical screenings to community engagement and interconnection dynamics - Why 20- to 25-year investment-grade offtakes from hyperscalers are critical for debt financing - Why Elementl opts for GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR over Gen IV startup reactor concepts - Lessons learned from Vogtle — from the design phase and regulatory alignment to workforce retention - How standardizing the nuclear island can help developers cut costs Note: EIP is an investor in Elementl, where Shayle sits on the board. - Catalyst: The global geopolitics of nuclear fuel - Catalyst: A blueprint for scalable fusion power - Catalyst: Building a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain - Catalyst: The path to market for new nuclear reactors - Open Circuit: Is commercial fusion finally near? - Latitude Media: DOE Is dedicating $17.5 billion in loans to the nuclear supply chain Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by GridBeyond. GridBeyond is the world’s leading technology platform for managing distributed and flexible energy resources. Learn more by visiting GridBeyond.com. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the strategic communications and marketing partner behind the biggest names in energy, climate, and infrastructure. For three decades, Antenna has helped breakout companies amplify their stories, build reputation, differentiate from the competition, define new categories and accelerate growth. Learn more at antennagroup.com. Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. Peak season puts every grid to the test — and the utilities that pass are the ones that built flexible capacity before they needed it. EnergyHub works with more than 230 utilities to coordinate over 2.6 million DERs and more than 3.6 gigawatts of dispatchable flexibility through a single platform designed to perform when it counts most. See what that looks like at EnergyHub.com.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Latitude Media, covering the new frontiers of the energy transition.

• 0:07Shayle Kann?

  I'm Shayle Khan. I lead early-stage investments at Energy Impact Partners. Welcome to Catalyst. So I have long believed that a nuclear renaissance is coming in the US at some point. And along the way, over the years, I've looked at lots of advanced reactor companies, and many of them are genuinely exciting. But some time ago, we at EIP came to realize that there's a gap in this market that we think actually might be the bigger bottleneck than just a new reactor. A better reactor, even a significantly better one, doesn't itself create a project. And this is really a project challenge. Somebody still has to find a site that could actually host the project, get that site permitted with community support, sign a customer for decades of power offtake who is creditworthy,

• 0:51Shayle Kann?

  get through the interconnection queue and the NRC, assemble a series of vendors, an EPC, and an operator, figure out capital formation and risk sharing for potentially billions of dollars in various stages. It's challenging. It's also not unique to nuclear. In every other type of power generation, natural gas, wind, solar, storage, geothermal, you name it, that somebody exists. It's the developer. In nuclear, mostly, though, it doesn't. Utilities don't want the early-stage risk themselves. Hyperscalers just want the power. Reactor OEMs are often being forced into developing their own projects, where really, they should be focused on building their products.

• 1:32Shayle Kann?

  So our view ended up being that the magic in nuclear right now is not necessarily in the reactor itself. It's in the complicated process of project development and capital formation. The often unglamorous work of turning a reactor design into something that a pension fund can own. And that process, I think, is very poorly understood. So let's see if we could solve that. My guest today is David Farady. He's the co-founder of Elemental Power. David and his co-founders actually ran reactors in the Navy. And then he spent his civilian career in MG Finance, and now is entirely focused on bringing forth the nuclear renaissance in the US. Full disclosure, I am not unbiased here. We at EIP are investors in Elemental, and I'm on the board. You'll hopefully see why momentarily.

• 2:17Shayle Kann?

  Before we get started, though, we are going to wrap up 2026, as we have in some other years, with an Ask Me Anything episode. Thank you for all the questions you've sent in the past. Come up with some new ones. Send any questions you've got by December 8th to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. We'll answer as many of them as we can. And for now, David Farady is coming up next.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the communications and marketing partner behind the most influential companies in energy, climate, and infrastructure. For three decades, Antenna has helped ambitious companies stand out, build market leadership, and become category-defining brands. From breakthrough startups to global industry leaders, their team brings expertise, relationships, and track record to accelerate your momentum. Learn more at antenna group.com.

• 3:13Speaker 02

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• 3:45Speaker 00

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• 4:19Shayle Kann?

  David, welcome.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Thanks, Shayle. Excited to be here. It's great to finally be able to sit down and talk with you and share some of the things we're seeing in the space and look forward to this conversation.

• 4:29Shayle Kann?

  Yeah, sit down and talk with me in front of a mic as opposed to the 10 times a week that we talk away from the mic. I'm excited for this because I think people don't fully understand like what it's actually going to take to go from nothing to fully operating new nuclear project in the United States, which you and I agree will happen and should happen. So I want to walk through it in detail. Here's, I think, what we should cover. We should talk about the site, the site selection. We should talk about customers, who's buying the power. We should talk about the reactor selection. We should talk about capital formation. We should talk about construction and construction risk. And then I think we should talk about like, how do you go from one project to a bunch of projects,

• 5:13Shayle Kann?

  which is really what we agree needs to happen. So that's my list. Let's do it in that order. So let's start with a site. If you're looking for a greenfield nuclear project in the US, like, give me the criteria list of what makes a good site, what makes a bad site.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, it's a good list of topics, Shayle. When we think about sites, a lot of this is kind of interwoven. So it might bounce around a little bit. But yeah, the big picture, there's kind of two ways to go about it. You can kind of spec build and hope that folks come and take your power because you found like technically the perfect site. Or you can try to figure out where the customers might need the demand. And importantly, for these first couple of projects are willing to pay a bit more of a premium for technology that still has, you know, some learnings before you get to end of a kind. And so our approach has always been customer-centric. Where does the customer need the power?

• 6:11Speaker 03

  And so that's sort of the first overlay. And then you get into the technical factors. And we certainly have learned a lot over the years. You know, Ryan, Dan, and I first went out to try to go buy a retiring coal site that was, you know, on a river, had lots of, you know, existing transmission distribution. But as we started doing diligence on the site, found that there were issues around buildable acreage, the floodplain, and then coal ash remediate, coal ash that was on the site that causes, you know, certain liabilities that you have to figure out and kind of solve.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  And then we went and we partnered with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help kind of our screening process. And they've got a really great tool, OR Sage, that has, you know, takes technical data, GIS databases that the labs have collected, and helps you screen through technical factors for a site. So what are the big things, big categories? We break it down into exclusion criteria, stuff that immediately kills a site and we're not going to touch it. And that could be anything from seismic or importantly, a community that doesn't want you to be building in their location. And then there's also avoidance criteria, which, you know, take more of a, it requires more of a deep dive

• 7:33Speaker 03

  to assess the impact to the overall project costs and scope. And so that can be, you know, differences, certain challenges around soil composition or bedrock, logistical attributes of the site, whether proximity to transmission and distribution. And then there are also, you know, customer-centric screens that we apply as well. And so it's a pretty, you know, initially was a pretty heavy lift for us to go find sites that were going to fit all those criteria.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  And, you know, we spent, you know, kind of months going through this process and now have, you know, developed a tool internally that we're using that can help us take what was once a six-month process with multiple subject matter experts and can almost do the screening live by drawing a circle on a map to say, hey, find the right sites for us from, you know, a geotechnical standpoint, soil composition, seismic, and then also these economic factors that drive project economics. And so certainly a bit of an art. And then there's also what's transactable? You could find the perfect site and, you know, it doesn't, people don't want to sell,

• 8:49Speaker 03

  you know, or the utility knows it's a crown jewel and doesn't want to let go of it today. And so it's a, it's a, you know, combination of different disciplines to come to a good commercial decision.

• 9:04Shayle Kann?

  Yeah, there are a million factors. You listed a bunch. I guess I want to drill down particularly on a couple of them, one being the community side and then one being interconnection. So on the community side, I mean, you said as an exclusion criterion, you know, community that doesn't want you there. But like, what's been your approach to community engagement? When do you engage the community? How? Obviously, this is a big question for new nuclear.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So it's a sort of phased approach, like many of the things that we do. So there's great public resources. One of our advisors, Todd Allen, out of University of Michigan, has done a ton of work getting polling data to help provide some clarity on how community might accept a new nuclear project. And then, you know, once we get alignment from a customer to start looking in a certain region, and we find sites that we think will work, then we start engaging at a very high level with local officials to get a sense of their read on whether the community would be as supportive. You know, as an example, for our project in Ohio, this started, this engagement started well in advance

• 10:11Speaker 03

  of us actually making an announcement at the local level, all the way up through the State House. And to like, collect feedback and engage, you know, potential receptivity. You know, this, this site in Ohio in particular had been cited for coal plants in the past. So we knew that the community and the community was supportive of that project. So we knew that there was, um, there was openness to it and a real desire to, you know, experience some of the uplift, uh, economic uplift from a project like this that represents hundreds of long-term jobs and, and something that could be, you know, transformational. You know, on the interconnection side, that, that, that's really important as well. And certainly in PJM, it's, it's a difficult market.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  But, uh, you know, understanding that the right of way from the site to the, to the project location and the risk associated with that is, is a key decision and, and ultimately deciding to move forward with, with site, site control.

• 11:11Shayle Kann?

  Interconnection is one where like, I mean, community seems like every, anybody who, you know, you'd ask like, what are the key factors in determining whether a new nuclear project should go in site X, like they're going to list community. Interconnection is one that's interesting in that, you know, the complaints of other forms of power generation, solar and wind and natural gas and whatever is like, oh, the interconnection queues are so long. I can't get connected in time. The, the blessing and the curse of new nuclear is it's going to take a little while to come online. And so a three-year, five-year interconnection time period is probably okay. And so it's interesting that despite that fact, interconnection actually is a really key and, and surprisingly challenging

• 11:53Shayle Kann?

  component of development. And we've seen that with other nuclear projects that have actually died on the interconnection vine. So why, why is it still tricky?

• 12:04Speaker 03

  It's, it's tricky and requires, um, you know, technical knowledge of, of the, the particular point of interconnection. You know, in, in our case, we worked with some outside advisors to, to do preliminary studies. So we had a pretty good sense of, you know, what sort of upgrades would be required for that particular site and our, our load, um, or sorry, our generation capacity.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  You know, I, I think it's, it's, uh, it is, it is a difficult process. And you, you have to stay on top of, of sort of the PJM interface and, and, uh, the modules that they have where they give updates on, on your, your interconnection request and, and, uh, you know, any feedback that, that, that folks have from, from the RTO on, on, um, you know, supplemental information that, that you need. You know, one, one thing that's, that's part of our philosophy is just, is, is trying to be as simple and straightforward with, with our projects. And, you know, what, what does that practically mean? You know, trying to limit the, um, the, the complexity of what the project that we're putting together.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  There, there are folks who think that it, it makes sense to stack, uh, multiple generating sources at the same kind of point of interconnection. And I, I think there are, there are reasons to do it that can be pretty compelling, but, given the complexity of what we're trying to do with a new nuclear project, stacking that complexity is not something that we're, we're comfortable doing at, at this stage in the game, perhaps later, once we get some more reps, uh, under our belt. And not just us, but, but the regulators and, and everyone else, all the other stakeholders that are involved in this. Try to make things simple for that, as simple as they can be for, for what is a, a very complex, uh, and large project.

• 13:48Shayle Kann?

  Yeah. Okay. So, so that's the site. I mean, as you pointed out, maybe we should have done these in reverse order. But let's, let's talk about the customer. This is one of the key differences in what makes it possible to build new nuclear in the U.S. today versus where we were five years ago, right? The, the customer profile has changed. The customer willingness to lean in has changed. So give me your view on who the customer is for the first, you know, bunch of new nuclear we're going to see in the U.S.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So that, that's, it's a good question. And, um, you know, our, our view is for, for our model, when we look at, you know, analogous energy infrastructure, such as, such as LNG, you had, um, you know, off-takers who had high creditworthiness and were able to put, um, some, some skin in the game early on, in addition to providing, um, a solid off-take contract, which ultimately made those, you know, those projects financeable. And, and so, um, you know, we think the, the, the customers, uh, that, that we're targeting are, are folks who have a higher willingness to pay. They, they, they need the power. They need it today, but,

• 14:57Speaker 03

  but they're also capable of looking ahead into the future to say, you know, if we don't start solving for the 2030s today, it, we're, we're going to continue to have this problem. Uh, what, what do the customers want? An, an easy button to the, to the extent that, that, that you can, you can create it.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Most, most folks, uh, buying large quantities of power just want to sign power purchase agreements and then, then hope their electrons come back three, uh, five, seven years later. Obviously sooner is better and, and would not, would like to be able to step away and be able to trust the team to manage everything that comes with, uh, a, a nuclear project. And so that, that's what we're trying, trying to build. And in terms of, of, you know, regions of, uh, demands or, or where new nuclear generation makes sense, there, there are parts of the country where, um, you know, Texas, for instance, doesn't have a capacity market. It has plentiful, uh, gas, wind and solar resources. Generally it's easier to build generation.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  So that's, that's not been a core, core market focus for us. And, um, I'd say, you know, west of the Mississippi, you, you have many of those, those same attributes. Whereas east of the Mississippi, it, it, it can be more difficult to build solar and, and wind. And, and that certain parts of the country don't have the pipeline capacity for natural gas in the way that you would, you would hope if you're going to substantially build out more, more natural gas generation. So that, that's how we think about the world today. Our, our, our view is constantly evolving as we listen to the customers and other stakeholders and communities, but, you know, that, that, that, that's, that drove us kind of to, to our first project location in, in, uh, the Northeast and Midwest too.

• 16:43Shayle Kann?

  Yeah. And just to put a finer point on it, I mean, categorically, you've got utilities as customers just to buy the, or the grid, I guess, it could be wholesale.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:52Shayle Kann?

  Um, and, and that's interesting, but in terms of the, the degree of need and willingness to pay, it's hyperscalers or, or, I mean, I guess the hyperscalers frontier labs, it's AI complex, right?

• 17:05Speaker 03

  It, it is, but critically to get the, the project financed together, you're going to need a creditworthy off-take for, um, um, you know, as long a duration as you, as you possibly can. And, and that's, you know, 20 to 25 years is, is what you're going to need in order to get, you know, a, a debt from, from EDF or the formerly the Loan Program Office. Or, or even, you know, hopefully private debt markets, uh, become open to these, these opportunities as well. And so having, you know, selling, uh, you know, you might be long electrons and, and, and think that power prices are going up and want to capture some of that value, but to, to get, uh, to get a project through, um, uh, to final investment decision and under construction today, you're going to need,

• 17:50Speaker 03

  you know, a, a long duration off-take contract with a, um, investment counterparty.

• 17:56Shayle Kann?

  This is jumping ahead, but it's, uh, it's of a kind in my mind of like the way that you guys have approached it. And, and I think a misconception a lot of people have, which is, you know, you think of this like small upstart developer as you are trying to build this big infrastructure project. I think what you're doing is assembling a coalition of large creditworthy partners and experienced partners for various components of it. So off-take is one of them, creditworthy off-take. Jumping ahead beyond where we're, we're going to go come back to how you construct the project and all so on. But I mean, another part of that, that I think people often don't appreciate is the operator. Like at the end of the day, operating a nuclear project is its own

• 18:39Shayle Kann?

  skillset. And I think I've appreciated that you guys haven't, um, haven't claimed to be able to build that muscle on the first project necessarily.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  We're blessed in this country with many great operators. It's, it's something the, the, the nuclear utilities do very well, uh, including, you know, investors and, and energy impact partners, right? Like great, great operators of plants. There is a decision that, that we make as a developer, whether we want to take this business model to be an independent power producer. That's, that's not where we sit today. Um, we'd rather partner with, with utilities who have that, that muscle, that experience, have training programs set up, um, and, and have the, um, you know, the reputation with the regulator as, as well, um, to, to do well, uh, to help us stand up those programs. And that there, there are a couple of different things in operation that are worth noting.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Uh, one, when it comes to financing the project, you, you know, to get that, uh, to get that financing, you're going to have to be able to credibly claim a, a capacity factor above a certain mark, because that, that, that, you know, defines your stream of cash flows. And so there are two components to that. One is, is definitely the operator. Um, and, and certain operators have a higher capacity factor in their fleets than, than others. And then the, the other piece is, is, um, you know, the, the, the technology, uh, as, as well. And, and, you know, not to jump ahead.

• 20:04Shayle Kann?

  Yeah. Good segue. That's the next, uh, that's the next thing to talk about. Well, let me, let me ask you about it. Actually, I mean, you're, I think we're going to get to the same place anyway. But, um, okay. So on the technology, right? So this is where I, I live in VC world, as you know, and this is where the vast majority of the eyeballs have been in VC world is like, what reactor vendor and what reactor technology is going to win? And there's this whole landscape. There are incumbents. There's, they're the Westing houses of the world with the AP 1000 and so on. There. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there's a series A startup building a, a new SMR or a micro reactor or whatever. How do you think about your, your job is not to develop that technology. Your job is to pick who you're buying from.

• 20:49Shayle Kann?

  So to jump to an initial conclusion, uh, you guys have already announced on that first project that we've been referencing in Ohio. That's going to be a, a G Hitachi BWRX 300, which you can explain more about what that is. Um, so that's a selection that you've made, but, but walk me through the, the selection criteria.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  The founders, all of us operated, uh, light water reactors. It's my, my submarine up there. USS Memphis pressurized water reactor, uh, hum like a top. But, uh, you know, the, our, our view is, is that, you know, nuclear doesn't have a, a technology problem as much as it has a, a, a business model, capital formation and risk allocation problem. That being said, there's a lot of really exciting stuff happening for the, with the gen four technologies. And we remain very open to, um, you know, developments there, but we don't, we don't view our, um, role to, is, is, is not to de-risk the technology. That, that's, that's kind of outside what, what our investors expect from us and where our, our capabilities sit.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  So we have a, a screening criteria that, that we use to assess, uh, design maturity. Um, and then technical risks associated with, with reactor vendors at different stages. Um, site select, or site selection also drives technology selection as well. There, there are, um, you know, advantages and disadvantages to, to the large reactors. Um, you, you're probably going to get to an overall lower, uh, um, yeah, low LCOE with, with the AP 1000s than, than, um, the, the SMRs. Um, but it, it's also, um, there aren't as many places where you, where you can put the large reactors and still meet the, the technical criteria and screen.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Um, and most of those sites are going to be at existing, um, existing new nuclear locations. Um, you know, with, with the SMR, uh, with our selection of BWRX 300, you know, it's a 10th generation of, of a technology that, that works extremely well. Uh, a boiling water reactor versus a pressurized water reactor has fewer components. Um, the, the, this, the X stands for 10th generation. It's passive, passively safe. Um, and, uh, you know, they've removed GE, um, Vernova Hitachi has removed a lot of, uh, uh, incremental systems in, in previous, uh, in, in previous iterations in this technology. Um, and, and, you know, it's, it's under construction right now.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  It, it up in Darlington with, with, uh, OPG and, and, uh, the team with Acon and Quid is, uh, doing a great job with a, a first of kind, a first of kind project there. So that, that makes it easy for us, much easier for us to, to step in and, and select that tech, that technology. You know, you, you also have to look at the supply chain behind the OEM as well. And, and where's, where's the fuel going to come from? And, and, you know, today, Shayle, we could go down to Wilmington and, and, and touch the, the, the, the fuel rods that are being fabricated. Well, I don't know if we could, could touch it, but we could see them.

• 23:51Shayle Kann?

  Probably not the best idea.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Well, if we got certified, we could touch it.

• 23:54Shayle Kann?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Um, and, uh, and so you, you know where the fuel's coming from. You know what the enrichment requirement is and, and, and that part of the supply chain is there. There still needs to be additional investment for new builds. Same thing with AP 1000. You go to Columbia and, and, and touch the, the, uh, fuel fabrication facilities there. Um, so that for, for the other advanced reactor vendors, that, that's a, that's in addition to designing and licensing a reactor, which costs about a billion dollars, you have to potentially stand up significant portions of the supply chain, uh, in, in order to meet demand. And that's, that's just incremental risk to, to a project that, you know, we, again, we don't view it as our job to, to, to sort of retire that right now.

• 24:38Speaker 00

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• 26:49Shayle Kann?

  It's a, it's a good segue into the next topic, actually, which is like, but the way that, the way that I understand you guys to be thinking about it is many of the decisions that you are making are framed around, how do we make this an actually financeable project? How can we, how can we raise private institutional capital for this project? And what are the decisions we need to make that will make that true? And reactor vendor selection, for all the reasons that you've just described, is like a core component of that. It's not the, it's not the entirety of it, but it's a big part of it.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  No, it, it absolutely is. And it's, and it's, you know, financeable to institutional capital, but, but then, then also there are the insurers that have to come in as well. And, and for some of the gen four folks, there, there's work that needs to be done to educate the insurance community on, on what sort of products and what sort of pricing is necessary. And you got to get the insurance to get the debt and in order to get, and, and to get the equity, you need to have the debt piece as well. And, and so there, there's, um, you know, uh, a lot of interplay between this, a lot of education that has to take place. Whereas again, a, a PWR, a, a, a, a pressurized water reactor, a boiling water reactor, these are known quantities in the insurance markets and, uh, uh, and the vendors are, are.

• 28:03Shayle Kann?

  Okay. So then, so let's talk about capital formation then. This is, you know, if, if you're asking somebody on the street, or maybe not quite somebody on the street, but, you know, somebody off the street who knows a little bit about the sector, about like, what are the reasons it's hard to build new nuclear? I think community acceptance would have been one. Um, permitting would have been another, which I think that one, that one is, is, looks better than it has in a long time. The third is going to be capital formation, um, and figuring out risk allocation and capital formation. So walk me through your thinking there.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  There has been a, a, a ton of money, uh, that's come from the venture community to fund new, new reactor technologies. And I think across the board in any, any climate tech, there's a lot, there, there tends to be lots of funding available for, for sort of the widget, uh, whether, whether it's in hydrogen or batteries. Uh, but, but at the, at the project level, um, you know, you, you're dealing with a situation where, um, you know, the investor at the project doesn't, doesn't have the opportunity for a hundred X payout like, like venture, uh, investors do. And so that, that means there's a much more conservative approach to capital allocation, particularly early on in a project when, um, you know, the risk, the risk is, is the greatest. And so.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  You know, we, we, we think about capital allocation as, as tying it to, to milestones that retire risk at the project and are, are bringing in capital that, that's comfortable with, with the risk profile at these early stages and then trying to prepare the project for the next tranche of capital that, that, that'll be cheaper to retire, you know, bigger milestones as, as we move forward. And, and you know, what, what the investment community wants to see is, is alignment, alignment with the off taker, alignment at, at this stage with, you know, the, the other key stakeholders in the supply chain, the OEMs

• 29:57Speaker 03

  and, and the EPCs, the developer and, you know, potentially, you know, utilities as well. It, it's a tough, you know, the, the, the, the cost of capital for development is, is something akin to, to venture, you know, 25, 30% IRR returns, three or five ex MOEX to bring a project from inception to final investment decision. And then you experience a step up in the value of the asset. If you're able to, to, to reach final investment decision, get the project debt, the project equity, you know, the tax equity lined up, then you can, you know, rather than, you know, this, this high 25 plus percent

• 30:41Speaker 03

  IRR, you're, you're looking at, you know, unlevered returns for, for the equity around 11%, the 20% levered returns to, to, to fund the, the construction equity. And then once you get to commercial operation, you have for, again, light water reactor technology, you're looking at a cost of capital of, of around 10%. And you could look at constellations, weighted average cost of capital. And, and it, it, you know, they could be a natural owner for an asset along with, with a bunch of other utilities. And, and, and so that, that, you know, we, we almost work backwards, right? It's what will this asset be worth once it's operational with a 92% capacity factor? We have, have an idea what the overnight

• 31:24Speaker 03

  capital costs are going to be. And, and then we, we know what the off take contract is going to be like. And so we know this asset will be worth a certain amount of money. How much, you know, how much return is the, the equity sponsor for construction going to require? And then, and then that, that tells you what a developer could earn on a project if, if it brings something to, to financial investment decision. But, you know, you've seen our recent, our recent press release with DSIP, a, a Korean financial institution with deep relationships with Korean strategics, along with Samsung C and T, that represents key members of the, the, the nuclear supply chain. Our, our, our friends in Korea have done a great job.

• 32:06Shayle Kann?

  Sorry, can you describe what that announcement, obviously I know, but describe what that announcement was?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. So, so that's, that's a, announcing a, a preliminary agreement, a term sheet for a development capital facility that's going to fund a portfolio of, of projects. And, and it's providing the investors preferred returns. We're, we're hoping to announce other participants in this facility over the next, you know, one to two quarters. And, and, and that, that facility will go fund the, the bulk of the development activities for three grid scale projects.

• 32:45Shayle Kann?

  So it's like solving for that first, as you said, there's stage, there's kind of stage gates. And this first one, the DevX pre-FID has been one of the, they're all big challenges, but it's been one of the biggest challenges historically. So this is sort of a, yeah, it's a, it's a unique facility that sort of puts all the puzzle pieces together to get through that first stage gate.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  You know, it's, yeah, it's a first, a first of kind facility, pretty exciting to put together. And I think some of, some of the interesting attributes and, and why it, it should appeal to investors. Again, there's, there's going to be the, a, a series of, of requirements for a project to qualify for this facility. And that, that's going to be, you know, the things investors want to see at financial investment decisions. So the off take piece, you know, a, a, an operator, and, and then technology that, that, that, you know, technologies that, that work for the investors. But, you know, importantly here, it'll provide portfolio level exposure during development. So, so that the dollars

• 33:48Speaker 03

  coming in, these investors will get, you know, their dollars back based on portfolio performance. And, and so if there are projects that, you know, you spend money on and then something happens where we have to hit pause or, or, you know, remove a, you know, kill a project, they'll still have an opportunity to earn a return on, on subsequent projects in the pipeline. And so that, that, that's, you know, sometimes to solve a big problem, you just have to make it bigger. And, and, and this is our, this is our solution to that. And, you know, that unlocks for us, you know, a, a couple of different levers with customers saying, hey, we, we have, you know, a credible pipeline of projects. We

• 34:30Speaker 03

  have funding here for, for this, for the supply chain importantly. It's, you know, multiple at bats to participate in some of the first, first of kind or earlier, the earlier projects and then be able to move across a portfolio. We think that's, that's really important. For the operators, it's, you know, an, an opportunity to, to operate a fleet of reactors, which is more appealing than, you know, just, just one, one of a kind projects. And then, you know, from a financing perspective, once you get to, to financial investment decision, you, you get, you get an opportunity to kind of standardize

• 35:11Speaker 03

  that, that process as, as well. And, and so we're very excited about it. I think the, lots of, of, of excitement in bounds on, on the wake of the announcement. And, and we're hoping to be able to share more in, in the, in the near term as we move forward.

• 35:29Shayle Kann?

  Okay. So let's say you've secured the site, you've signed up the off take, you've picked the reactor, you've, you've picked the EPC, you've raised the capital, you've got the money, now you've got to build the thing. What are the, what, what do you think are the key lessons that we should learn about how to build new nuclear from, you know, Vogel and from VC Summer and other recent examples? And also abroad as well? Like, what are the ways to do this right and to make sure that the cost overruns that we've seen on some projects historically don't repeat?

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, great, great question and very top of mind for us and, and key to the, the kind of business model here. First, complete the design. You know, I think if Vogel taught us anything, it was don't, don't go out into the field and break ground and start pouring concrete until you, you've completed the design. And, and so we're here as, you know, the owner of the project to enforce that sort of discipline and rigor between the delivery team, the, the OEM and, and, and the EPC. And importantly, getting the constructor involved very early on in the project to, to help with constructability reviews, to think about the manning requirements, to start training the workforce so you're

• 36:45Speaker 03

  ready to execute when you hit financial investment decision. But also importantly, getting the licensing experts involved during the design process as well. And, and working with the constructor to make sure that the specifications in your license application aren't overly prescriptive. You, you had, you had, you know, incidents with Vogel where the rebar had a very specific spacing associated with it, which was, you know, infeasible to meet out on the field because of, it was hot in the day and, and the rebar expanded and then contracted at night. And so things were always moving around within a, you know, technically an acceptable tolerance, but not acceptable based on the license application. And, and there were just really unfortunate decisions that were made as a result of that

• 37:29Speaker 03

  lack of coordination across licensing, the constructor and, and the OEM. And so that, that early engagement is key. Getting to a class two cost estimate, that requires a completed design. And, and that, that, what that means is going out to your supply chain to, to get quotes for key components, quotes that you can, you can underwrite to. And, and that, that's really important as well. Now you've got to spend money on it. You know, you, you have to, you know, vendors, it's, it's a pretty heavy lift to get a fabricator to come back and give you a quote. And, and they, they need to be compensated for it. So that, that all has to be factored into your development budget. And sometimes it's,

• 38:11Speaker 03

  you know, folks aren't, haven't been incentivized to do that level of work before breaking ground in the project. And then you, you, you kind of, you suffer the consequences. On, on the operator piece, you know, training your operators for the plant starts very early on in the project. You can't wait till you break ground. You have to start setting up training facilities, recruiting. There, there's a, a, a, a body throughput kind of equation in terms of how many, how quickly you can train people to operate the plants. And, and you have to, you have to start early and, you know, Baraka experienced some delays for the initial plants because they hadn't, hadn't started the training process as early

• 38:54Speaker 03

  enough as they needed to. And, and so that, that's a key piece. And, and then there's the operators, but there's also training the workforce. And, and so key to our strategy is working with our, our EPC partner and, and the community all the way up to the state level to ensure that we're coordinating with trade schools and, and colleges to, to help bring folks into the industry, into the project early on. And then, you know, longer term in ensuring that you're, you're pricing this all in to the, to the off take and the financing is ensuring that you're not just compensating technicians.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  To show up to work on the first day, but to you, you, you, you're capitalized well enough to recruit, train and retain talent throughout the duration of the project. One of the other lessons learned from Vogtle was, you know, they, they trained five to six technicians for every one out in the field and they, they just had a real attrition problem. That, that caused a lot of, a lot of issues and you lose the, you lose the skillset and spend more money. So ensuring that you have your, your labor, a, and another key component, and this is reflected in our project in Ohio is, is, you know, working with the trade organizations as well. And, and they can be very helpful in getting the workforce stood up and, and prepared to go out in the field. And again, this is to go back to the portfolio and making

• 40:21Speaker 03

  the problem bigger. This becomes more attractive to, to partners when you, you can, you can point to a pipeline of projects and, and the opportunity to really make a career out of this, participating in, in, in what's coming in, in the nuclear.

• 40:36Shayle Kann?

  Okay. Good segue to the last question, which is basically, okay, you, you do all that, you build the thing, it works. Really the dream here for everybody in this industry is not to build one of them. That was, you know, that's what we did with Vogtle. The, the dream here is to build a whole bunch of them, not just because we need more power, but because we all agree that the way to, to drive down costs in the long term is going to be repeating. I think people don't really think through the next level of detail on that though. What does it mean to do it over and over again? Is it just the same reactor, you know, over and over again? And who captures those learnings? If it is, is there something else that needs to be standardized across the project? Should it just be one mega project? Like, how do you think about this learning?

• 41:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So we, we, lots, lots of different directions here. But, you know, when we think about, you know, the fleet orders, standardization is key. And, and, you know, again, we think it's important to bring the constructor to the table early to think about not just standardization of, of the nuclear island, which is approximately one-third of, of most, most projects, but also the balance of plant and, and further the balance of site and the extent to which we can make every project location similar. We'll be able to reap, you know, those, those benefits from, from, from a fleet order. That, that, you know, that, that can be a difficult thing to do if, if you're selling projects to, to

• 42:05Speaker 03

  individually utilities where the chief nuclear officer of one utility might have a very different view on certain valve types that he's had problems with before versus another. And so this is where we're uniquely positioned as an integrator across multiple projects to enforce that standardization. Again, not just in the nuclear island, but across the balance of plant and the balance of site. You know, when we think about lessons learned, there's, there's lessons learned across the fleet, but the, the most benefit's going to occur at the project location. If you're able to go from one to two to five, as, as we intend to do in, in, in Ohio, you know, we have very reasonable expectations of, of

• 42:46Speaker 03

  pretty demonstrable kind of steps down the, the cost curve there as the local workforce and the, and the local supply chain get familiar with, with the technology. We also think it's key to embed folks early in projects who might transfer those skills to, to, to the next project. So having folks who are willing to transfer from one job site to the other. So sort of a long-term manning program as well. You know, the standardization for long lead material procurement is also, you know, something that's very important. And you've seen the great work that the Department of Energy and, and EDF, Julie Kozaraki and,

• 43:30Speaker 03

  and the Advanced Nuclear Supply Chain Loans. And that represents a model that we think is replicable, once other technologies have a sufficiently large order of credible projects.

• 43:42Shayle Kann?

  That one is for the AP 1000, just to be clear.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  That's, that's, that's for the AP 1000. Yeah. And it's, and it's a great, it's a great model. And, and what that does is reduce the equity required during the development phase of a project, quite substantially. And it makes everything easier to finance. So I think a lot of kudos to the thought, to the team and, and the thought that's gone in, into that. And, but, but again, you need a, you need a standardized technology and you need, you need to retire, I think, the, the technology risk as well in, in order to, to make that financeable. So lenders will look at those assets as something that's fungible across projects. And so if there's a, again, a credible pipeline of projects,

• 44:30Speaker 03

  then you're unlocking another, you know, tranche of, of less expensive capital. And that's, that's just really important to, to be, to be successful here.

• 44:38Shayle Kann?

  All right. I think we've done it. I think we've gone soup to nuts on new nuclear in the U.S. David, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  Thanks, Sheil. No, really appreciate the time.

• 44:50Shayle Kann?

  David Farid is the co-founder of Elemental Power. This show is a production of Latitude Media. You can head over to latitudemedia.com for links to today's topics. This episode is produced by Max Savage Levenson. Mixing and theme song by Sean Marquand. Anne Bailey edits the video version of the show. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. All of our episodes are on YouTube. Subscribe to Latitude Media for episodes of this show and Open Circuit. You can find the audio version of the show anywhere you get your podcasts. I'm Sheil Khan and this is Catalyst.