NANO DEEP DIVE | SPECIAL REPORT


example. “The idea here is that it needs to be as spread as wide commercially as possible and to move all of these different types of fuel. All the modified baskets will just go into a cask system, which we’ll also own the IP for,” Walker says, adding: “Then we have an entire transportation technology system.” Again, Walker envisages a large market for nuclear


transportation services, saying: “Say you’ve got an enrichment company and they produce HALEU. How do they move the enriched UF6 to the deconversion facility? How do they move it from deconversion to fuel fabrication? How do they move it from fuel fabrication facility to the customer where they fuel the reactor, or to the deployment site where they refuel? All of those different elements are things the transportation business will cater to.” He adds: “A lot of people are talking about transporting fuelled reactors and then taking them away again and refuelling them when they’re needed but it’s not that the business wouldn’t be able to function if people just fuelled their reactor at their manufacturing facility and moved it to the deployment site. There would still need to be transportation throughout that entire network and so we’re looking to try and place the company in those areas to provide that service.” De-risking this fuel transportation technology business


has also involved recruiting the former president of global operations from UPS. As Walker explains: “The challenge here is that while we’re fairly developed with the technology, the actual business of running a logistics company is something I’m very happy to admit that I know nothing about. Once you start talking to them, you realise how very complicated a business like that is and so bringing in people who are more expert is, I think, essential.” Transportation issues have also influenced the design of


the as-supplied NANO reactors in another nod to reducing commercial risks. In this example the NANO reactors will be transported separately from the fuel. Walker explains why: “The reason why we didn’t go ourselves for a fuelled reactor is because currently, unless regulations change, it’s not permitted - you can’t take a critically configured reactor by road. The regulations don’t allow for it unless there’s a major change. That’s big gamble so it’s probably more sensible to work around the current regulations and not hope that they just change in your favour.”


Next steps to commercialisation Walker acknowledges that there is still work to do to secure a licensed design. He says: “Typically, companies that are in this phase will do two years of physical testing and demonstration work, and might modify the design slightly given real-world feedback. Once that’s done, we’ll go into the licensing process at that point. When we clear that, it’ll be about 2030. Alongside that licensing process, we’ll be building out our manufacturing facilities and it looks likely we’ll be building those in Tennessee. We’ve identified land packages for that manufacturing operation, as well as where we would site the fuel fabrication facility and the transportation business.” Whatever the ultimate fate of its microreactor designs though NANO’s ambitious approach to develop a vertically integrated nuclear start-up company is novel, a point Walker emphasises: “NANO diversified fairly quickly and that’s where we really began to differ from everybody else.” He also points to the financing arrangements for NANO as another point of differentiation between it and other


nuclear start-ups in the small reactor space. “The other thing we realised is if we structure the company properly, if we go to become public early and come out very small, we can grow with the public and avoid the problems where companies list and their valuation is very high, and then if it drops down it makes very difficult to raise further money. By structuring it in this way, this gives us financing routes for the future, so we can keep funding increasing, because the costs are going to increase linearly as we go along. This gives us a mechanism to keep that funding going. That separates us because a lot of these projects can be very dependent on government money and grants, and it’s not a good tactic for long-term development, just because you don’t know when they’re coming, you don’t know if you’re going to win, and if you don’t win those things, you’re stuck.” Another key difference is that the NANO business model is energy as a service rather than reactor supply. Nonetheless, it’s likely that the initial customers will come from industry and so will focus on process heat rather than electricity. Both designs will have the option to include the turbine and switch between thermal and electric output. ZEUS operates at high temperatures and around 5 MWth


and 1.5 MWe so is well suited to production processes or heat for industry. Whereas ODIN operates at a much lower temperatures which allows for less salt degradation, thermal stress and allows more off the shelf components. ODIN is around 4 MWth and just about 1 MWe. Walker says: “The intention originally was that we would


pursue both because it would de-risk eventual success but they ended up really catering to almost different areas and being quite complimentary. You can see industrial operations where you could deploy both to meet different requirements and so we’re still currently pursuing them both and, barring any major technological interventions, we’ll keep doing that up to a point and maybe we will just take both of them all the way up to licensing. He notes that the ODIN design may go to licensing a bit


earlier because it uses off-the-shelf components but ZEUS is expected to follow on quickly after that. Both designs are on roughly the same time frame, with a goal for commercial launch in around 2030. “It might be that ZUES comes online maybe a year later but it wouldn’t be a significant difference because they started at approximately the same time and the licensing period is fairly standard. The NRC estimates that licensing for a micro-reactor design is about a 40-month process and it is possible that they could modify regulations or introduce a process that is more ideally suited to a micro-reactor design. However, for the NRC to introduce such an amendment may take years. It’s always safer to err on the side of what’s currently permissible over what could be,” says Walker. Looking ahead, Walker believes it is likely the two


reactors will be deployed differently with applications like remote industry, space or for high heat using ZEUS while for island communities, or military bases where you need consistent power, the ODIN reactor makes more sense. As Walker concludes: “The ODIN reactor might be the more widely commercially developed and deployed product with ZUES being more targeted at more specific areas that it’s just a bit more ideally suited for.” Whether either, both or none of the NANO reactor designs emerge as commercial prospects doesn’t really seem to matter though, Walker is confident that in any eventuality the company will be a success. ■


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