Radiant Nuclear raises $300M+, secures Equinix order for 20 reactors and Air Force contract

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and they're trusted by millions. Our next guest is Doug Burnau from Radiant. He's right across town over in Elsa Gundo. He's [music] one of the one of the original Elsa Gundo uh hard tech companies. Um I have been a huge fan of

Look at that bow trust.

Look at this building. We're looking for a building.

I didn't know that. I didn't know that terminology until this year. And now I only want to spend time if I'm not at home. I want to be in bow trust buildings. They're just they're iconic.

You can come on by. I think it's a double bow trust cuz they got the two. No way.

They got double bow trust.

There's a name for that. That might be a name for that.

Anyway, we're not here to talk about architecture. We're here to talk about nuclear reactors. So uh please kick us off with a uh get us up to speed on what's happened in the last year. How are you describing the shape of the business? Where's the progress? Uh what are you building and how do you frame it for everyone?

Thanks John. Uh great to be here. Uh we are actively building our first nuclear reactor which would be the first new design uh going critical at Idaho National Laboratory since 1977. So before any of us were born.

Uh so it's extremely exciting. Uh I think last time we had talked you know a year ago we were still working on the design. Now all components are ordered there are parts here there are technicians assembling it. Yep.

Uh we're on qualified supplier list and you know just this morning we

said you said the first.

That's right.

Is there some competition to really be the first? A lot of people want to say they're the first.

Absolutely. There's always competition and I welcome all the competition. Let's all build a huge amount of reactors. uh and all right make uh American nuclear energy uh reach as many people as it can.

So the design's still the same 1 megawatt roughly the size of a shipping container. Have you thought about uh who the buyer is? I know we've talked in the past about uh you throw it on a military base or you throw it on a an oil and gas exploration zone stranded area where where diesel might be really expensive. Are you still thinking about those types of customers or have the AI folks come calling?

Uh we're absolutely thinking about those types of customers, but really uh nuclear energy is for prosperity, driving prosperity. That means letting humans put power wherever they want to put it. Uh it just so happens if you make a compact reactor, you can put years of megawatt scale power wherever you want.

Um we have made progress with uh you know, we have a data center customer Equinex who has uh

put down an order for 20 units. Soing AI is definitely driving that.

Congratulations. That's a huge move.

That's a lot. I mean,

yeah.

And then more more progress with the military customer as well. You know, we have a contract now with the Air Force through Defense Innovation Unit uh for several units there uh as well.

UAV UAV.

So, it's it's really we're working on the same stuff. The you know, the design has not needed to change. We submitted a regulatory document over 500 pages to the Department of Energy. one shot it with. [laughter]

It's not a good not a good thing to do. You definitely can use AI to learn fast uh but not to do fast.

Yeah, that makes sense. Um so take us through the news today. Uh massive new funding round uh what exactly happened and and then I want to talk about uh some of the some of the uses of that funding.

Yep. Uh yeah, so we have raised over $300 million in new funding uh through Boosts uh and Draper Associates.

Massive.

Awesome. Uh yeah, I mean that's a huge that's a huge number. Um are is that because um you're expecting to order lots of parts at this point because you're actually fulfilling orders? Is this hiring more R&D scientists? Um how much of this goes into R&D? How much of this goes into opex, capex? Like how are you thinking about the uses of the funds?

Y all D no R.

Okay. All no R.

It's we're building. We're building right now. Um

that's right. But it does accelerate our ability to go and build and uh

uh get some more trained operators to run uh at IDO National Lab. We'll be running 24/7 uh with the reactor uph up and functioning. Uh but a lot of those funding will go towards actually our facility that we announced in Tennessee uh you know over 80 acre site where we're putting down new construction on uh Department of Energy land and that's fueling facility what will become the mass production of reactors uh coming out of that facility.

Yeah.

Wow. Um what uh so so the next uh INL uh milestone do you have a specific date locked in? Are you working against a particular timeline and has any of this shifted since there's been sort of a flurry of efforts uh to speed up the development of nuclear specifically? Um has has anything been able to be be pulled forward? I know that there's a lot of there's a lot of excitement around uh nuclear just over the past year. Uh has anything changed uh from your uh initial plan? Uh I think that things are accelerated across the board. So uh we got access to fuel in May.

Uh we know that's been transported now. It's at the fabricator. Fuel's being made for the reactor. That's very new. Probably the most important thing to know that will hit schedule.

Sure.

Um that but nothing's really changed in the you know in long run. You know we had a goal of going critical with a reactor full scale.

Uh one that's designed, built by and then operated by Radiant along with the National Lab. Uh and that'll happen before summer. Uh which is pretty exciting. So it's very very soon that's coming up. Uh your greater question, you know, there there's a a whole bunch of executive orders and there's a lot of uh impetus from uh the current administration to make things move and make them go quickly.

Uh and the national labs and the NRC are both uh looking at their processes and going, well, we've got new reactors coming and so let's plan for it.

Yeah. Uh and so there are new processes that have already been released

as part of that effort. So it is not uh an open call to action, but we're seeing a lot of real action.

That's great.

Uh switching topics, I wanted to uh we had the tragic news yesterday that uh the MIT professor uh passed. I know he uh was uh studying and and uh focusing on fusion. Can you talk about maybe the significance of of his work and and uh kind of the more industry reaction because a lot of people on on uh the timeline were just kind of reacting to that and and obviously it's incredibly tragic um and uh just cons you know concerned around um the work that that he was doing.

Yeah, I am actually not a fusion expert. So I think that the probably that story is best told by someone else.

Uh of course energy is critical. Uh and we're all building off of those marvels of the past and the technology that's developed even just the ideas.

Uh and those people who are willing to you know take their make their life and their life's work about something so important uh as you know clean um safe energy and access that energy for all of humanity. [snorts]

Yeah. What uh I applaud that

you uh one of your unique uh sort of like experiences been at SpaceX watching uh development of early rockets and then the the transition from making one that works to making uh you know dozens and eventually hundreds that work uh of these like you know massive machines. How are you thinking about setting the company up for success in the transition to the point where you're turnurning out dozens of reactors? Um are does it can you already feel that Radiant is a different company because you're thinking about scale down the road?

Yeah, that's absolutely the case. Um so uh uh pretty much everything with nuclear does not have a thing you can go and just carbon copy and say we're going to make uh somehow make reactors a thousand times smaller but yet follow like all the rules and use all the same suppliers who are used to making those types parts and things.

Um and I think at my core is that SpaceX kind of derived first principles approach. Um and you know it's ab absolutely the case if uh and we usually point folks to talk to national labs or other entities who are not us to talk about us

uh and go you know what's what's different about those guys and we really uh we feel strongly that you must really own every aspect of the design down to including the printed circuit boards and the software that goes on them.

Uh and that is not at all dissimilar to right that's a thing SpaceX also did. So it wasn't just hey make rocket engines only make that. There's also it's really required that you think through integration and go put everything you can get from the modern world into something so that you end up with something that's not outdated um or slowed down by lack of of integrating that new technology.

How big is the team at this point? And and are you going to need to set up a second facility at some point because it feels like you know SpaceX started in Elsagundo eventually sort of outgrew that and now has an entire city. Uh, is there going to be a uh like a a radiant base city somewhere in Texas or something at some point?

Yeah, so Tennessee is our factory site. Construction will start really soon on that. I think we will have a functioning building uh able to able to handle fueling reactors before the end of next year.

Yeah,

which is a wild timeline. Only supported by the NRC being able to move fast today, which is very exciting.

Um, but we already actually have two buildings in Elsagundo. We just got our second building last month.

Congrats. That's amazing.

So, we have ES1, ES2.

Yeah, very cool.

Uh chat, uh Gabe in the chat said the Koreans are making major moves in nuclear, he thinks. Are there any countries that are kind of like re rebooting their their nuclear energy efforts of America right now? That's interesting.

As uh or yeah, inspiration or people that have been inspired by your efforts and and other companies in the space. Yeah. So, nuclear spans this wide range of power levels. So, very true. Korea's uh they're building a whole fleet of reactors that are I think uh 1,400 even up to 1,600 megawws.

So, some of the biggest that there are

uh and they're able to do it on really short timelines, you know, 5 to six years to construct a giant facility like that.

Um which is grid power. Um but it's it's so different from what we're doing. Uh and I I don't know uh if it seems like America might be ahead and might be first in the area we're in which is these 1 megawatt right systems the real tiny import and portable stuff. Um but there are uh because the US is so innovative there are startups that are working on this as well and some established US nuclear companies. Um but there's handfuls of them. Uh though you know there are even more federal dollars being pointed at this problem. Mhm.

Uh so the the army actually have a really big program called Janice that's been announced that we're really excited about.

Yeah.

Uh so that could provide even uh faster motion to the tip of the spear, right? And and go make it so that nuclear can go in a box and can go anywhere you want, which isn't isn't the case. Yeah.

For those big reactors in other countries. H how much of what's happening in the admin is just a different level of energy, a different perception versus like there's oh that one law changed, that one rule changed. And because it felt like we we've talked about this in the past, um there wasn't necessarily just like one line in the legal code that was holding you back. it was more like this gloric system of you know like a large organization a lot of people trying to do their best but just not really pushing things forward. Uh so is it more of like a cultural shift or has there been particular um regulatory changes that have been helpful?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's always a it's kind of a combination of things but I would say that you know we have department of energy, we have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Uh these organizations have been around a very long time. There are people who have been there.

Oh, did we lose audio and video?

We lost both.

We lost both.

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You're back.

Oh, sorry about that. Re

Oh,

reanswering. Um,

so the um NRC right in the Department of Energy, there are people there who've been there for decades and it's it's not like there's a real cultural shift, but there's a there's a culture within them that just needed to be unleashed.

Sure. And so a lot of folks, it's the same people.

Yeah.

Um but they're just answering a different call.

Yeah.

Right. And they're they're excited by and they're they're deploying fuel. You know, there's a reinvestment in enrichment assets

in this country as well, which since 2013 there there had been nothing.

So I think we're we're just really out of a dry spell and

Yep.

That's fantastic. Well, uh a lot of belief. Thank you so much for coming on the show on such a busy day and congratulations on the massive series D. It's 1.8 billion valuation. You're officially a unicorn. Uh congratulations.

Unicorn mode. Congrats to the whole team. I'm sure you guys are not going to have very relaxed end of the year.

I can't imagine you resting on your laurels. That's what that's what we do over here.

We got uh we got [laughter] timelines timelines.

We'll handle the laurel resting.

That's right. The build plan includes weekends and holidays.

Okay, that's great. uh locked in. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Have a great uh have a great holiday season.

Cheers.

Cheers.

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