Nuclear Investing Podcast

“...anyone with three traits is most exposed right now, and that’s long duration, cash burning, financing-dependent businesses.”
Brennan Moore, CFA and Andrew Meehan of Neutron Power Ventures break down the sell-off in nuclear stocks, which names have held up, and how the project-level SPV behind CoreWeave’s financing (“the box”) shows up in nuclear projects too.

Also in this episode

- Why this downturn could quickly filter the field of reactor developers into winners and losers

- Public vs private: where nuclear companies should raise right now, and where investors may find better value

- The pro rata rights dispute between Valar Atomics and early investor Day One Ventures, and why choosing aligned partners matters

- X-energy’s 960 MW joint development agreement with Amazon and AEP

- The Nuclear Company’s 6.6 GW AP1000 proposal in Kentucky, and EDF financing vs regulatory reform

- NRC renews the AP1000 design certification through 2066

- Kairos Power raises $643mm for Hermes 2

- Urenco’s enrichment expansion, and incumbents vs new entrants like General Matter

#NuclearEnergy #SMR #CleanTechInvesting #EnergyTransition #PublicMarkets #NuclearFinance

Episode 3 of our Texas Nuclear Summit series.

This one was a privilege. Rod Adams has been making the case for nuclear since before most of the industry was listening. Atomic Insights started as a paper newsletter mailed to subscribers who paid by check in the 1990s, and the Atomic Show podcast has now passed 20 years and more than 350 episodes. For a lot of us getting into this business, it was where you went to actually learn it.

Rod is a former Navy nuclear submarine officer and Managing Partner at Nucleation Capital, the venture capital fund he built with Valerie Gardner to democratize access to investing in nuclear. Nucleation invests across three climate-focused verticals: advanced nuclear, carbon reduction technologies, and grid enhancement.

We get into how Nucleation opens up nuclear venture investing through a rolling fund, what that actually means, how their quarterly commitments, syndicate and SPVs work, and what their future plans are. Rod walks through their diligence process, the technologies they've favored and stayed away from, what he looks for in a founder and team, and other lessons learned across his 25 investments so far. Portfolio names come up along the way, including his first investment in Core Power and more recent deals with Deployable Energy, Apollo Atomics and Copenhagen Atomics. Lots of valuable insights on this episode.

"We're building new nuclear by uprating our existing fleet."

Brennan Moore, CFA and Andrew Meehan of Neutron Power Ventures break down the week of the uprates: Amazon/Constellation, Google/Constellation, and Vistra's conditional loan from DOE's Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF), with a hyperscaler behind each one.

Also in this episode:

- Why uprates are the most efficient means of near-term nuclear deployment
- Korea's U.S. nuclear commitment (up to $120bn): six AP1000s and two APR1400s
- Why cost is nuclear's biggest hurdle in the West
- Why capital keeps flowing to early-stage advanced reactors in private markets
- BWRX-300 vs. first-of-a-kind advanced reactors on $/kW, plus TVA's Clinch River permit
- General Matter applies for an NRC license
- Community buy-in, Antares' NASA award, and momentum abroad

Episode 2 of our Texas Nuclear Summit series, recorded on location in Houston and hosted by the Texas Nuclear Alliance.
Brennan Moore sits down with Jordan Robison, P.E., Chief Executive Officer of Natura Resources. Natura is building the MSR-1, a molten salt demonstration reactor at Abilene Christian University, and designing the MSR-100 to deliver power, clean water from oil field produced water, and medical isotopes from a single reactor.
We get into Abilene's data center boom, how Natura approached NRC licensing, why liquid fuel and low pressure open up new use cases for nuclear, fuel strategy beyond HALEU, the State of Texas's $120mm appropriation for the demonstration project, and the private vs public capital question facing advanced nuclear companies.

Episode 1 of our Texas Nuclear Summit series, recorded on location in Houston and hosted by the Texas Nuclear Alliance.

In this episode of the Nuclear Investing Podcast, host Brennan Moore sits down with frequent guest Andrew Meehan to discuss key trends across nuclear technology, financing, and market strategy. They explore recent corporate developments—including Holtec's withdrawn IPO and the Bechtel–TerraPower split—and analyze why cost of capital, execution risk, and time horizons hinder gigawatt-scale deployments. Andrew recaps his visit to Texas A&M's RELLIS Campus and TRIGA research reactor, explaining the mechanics and high-value applications of targeted alpha therapy medical isotopes. They get into military and space applications for nuclear and the idea of the government as an ideal first customer. They also cover what's happening on the ground at the Texas Nuclear Summit and much more.

What if nuclear waste wasn't actually waste — but one of the most valuable untapped resources in the nuclear industry?

In this episode of the Nuclear Investing Podcast, Brennan Moore sits down with Ed McGinnis, President & CEO of Curio, to talk through the business and investment case for recycling used nuclear fuel.

The conversation covers Curio's business model, including revenue streams from recycled uranium, waste-volume reduction, radioisotopes such as krypton-85 and strontium-90, and precious metals including rhodium, palladium, and ruthenium.

Ed also shares Curio's commercialization strategy, its modular approach to scaling its proprietary process, NuCycle, how the company thinks about raising capital, and why he sees parallels between Curio's development strategy and SpaceX.

The nuclear industry is moving fast — but where are the real opportunities for investors?

In the August roundtable, Brennan Moore is joined by Andrew Meehan to cover the latest developments across nuclear energy. They break down new criticality milestones under DOE's Reactor Pilot Program and the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, plus the U.S. Army's Project Janus microreactor selections with Antares, BWXT, General Atomics, Radiant, and Westinghouse. On the fuel side, they cover new supply agreements from X-Energy/Centrus and Standard Nuclear/Antares and Urenco's enrichment capacity expansion. They also discuss Commonwealth Fusion Systems' latest $1 billion raise, Oklo's interconnection dispute with PJM over a previously undisclosed Virginia project, and why AP1000 economics are keeping major utilities on the sidelines for new large-scale builds.

Also check out the DOE fact sheet referenced in the show for all the major DOE and U.S. government initiatives helping advance nuclear energy:

https://www.energy.gov/articles/fact-sheet-golden-era-american-nuclear-energy-has-arrived

Lola Infante, Senior Programme Lead for Economics and Finance at the World Nuclear Association, joins the show to walk through WNA's new Roadmap to Mainstream Finance. The roadmap lays out three phases — Strategic Capital, Catalytic Capital, and Mainstream Finance — for how nuclear moves from government-backed financing today to a fully priced, liquid asset class. Lola and Brennan cover the $6 trillion capital need through 2050 (an overnight cost figure that excludes financing costs during construction), why China builds at roughly 20% of the cost and about half the time of Western projects, and how cost of capital and construction timelines compound to make or break project economics. They also preview the World Nuclear Symposium, taking place September 9–11 in London, where the full Investment Guide will be released.

Host Brennan Moore is joined by returning guests Mark Hinaman and Andrew Meehan for a roundtable on capital markets for nuclear investing. The conversation covers how the recent IPO class has traded since pricing, why private rounds have held up considerably better, the Westinghouse and Holtec filings, DOE's third round of HALEU allocations, the five finalist states for the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, and the summer's run of reactors reaching criticality — including Oklo's isotope reactor, which the group learns went critical during the recording.

A dynamic conversation unfolds between guest host Andrew Meehan and guest Ray Rothrock, a former nuclear engineer turned venture capitalist, as they reflect on the pivotal developments in nuclear and energy markets during the first half of 2026. They explore the surge of capital entering the sector, the rise of numerous reactor startups, and the evolving landscape of nuclear’s role alongside other energy technologies. Ray offers insightful perspectives on investment strategies, operational challenges, and the future regulatory environment shaping nuclear innovation.