Haymaker Friday Edition
Haymaker Friday Edition
Still going Nuclear
MicroNuclear
The only truly inherently safe reactor is a liquid-core reactor, like the molten salt reactor that was created at Oak Ridge (Tennessee) in the 1960s.” -Richard Martin, author of the excellent book, Super Fuel, on next generation reactors and thorium as the potential ideal energy source for them
“It’s time for nuclear, and we’re going to do it very big.” -Donald John Trump | Real Estate Developer, Game Show Host, Two-Time President of the United States, Nuclear Optimist
Still Going Nuclear
Long-time readers may recall my discussion of a microreactor company, of the nuke variety, in which I’ve been an investor for several years. While these pages have given a copious amount of airtime to the atomic energy renaissance in general, as well as uranium in particular, we haven’t updated you on the progress with this stealthy start-up.
The company in question is MicroNuclear, LLC (MN), headquartered in Tennessee with its manufacturing and deployment subsidiary, Idaho Energy, Inc., based in the Boise, Idaho, area. Since WWII, that state has been a hotbed of atomic research and development. The University of Idaho is an acclaimed institution in the field and one of MN’s co-founders, Rich Christensen, enjoyed a prestigious career there. (He’s worth Googling for those of you who become intrigued by the following overview.)
Another co-founder is Richard McPherson*, with decades of experience starting in Admiral Hyman G. Rickover’s, nuclear propulsion program, followed by representing the United States at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster (ironically, in Ukraine). Richard has almost 60 years of experience in all facets of nuclear energy. Another co-founder has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with decades of manufacturing, operations, and scientific research experience. His background also includes many years of design engineering with companies like GE Power.
*Richard was kind enough to review the working draft of this piece to ensure all technical details were perfectly accurate. Our thanks to him for taking the time.
MN has made meaningful and, in some ways, extraordinary progress since 2022 when I first invested. They have also entered into a cooperative research and development agreement with one of the national laboratories operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Among MN’s most valuable assets is a commitment, described below, from one of the limited number of nuclear equipment manufacturing companies with a Nuclear Quality Assurance (NQA) certification. (It operates in Idaho, as well). According to Perplexity, this is extremely hard to attain, affirming what I have been repeatedly told by MN senior management:
The ASME NQA-1 certification is a quality assurance standard specifically for organizations supplying items or services that provide a safety function for nuclear facilities. Certification is granted after a rigorous audit process by ASME and is recognized throughout the nuclear industry as a mark of compliance with nuclear quality standards.
(ASME: American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
Now here’s the mic-drop part: this company expects to be ready to deploy test-and-demonstration reactors by August 2026, with the ultimate objective of producing soon thereafter 10-megawatt Molten Salt Nuclear Batteries (MsNBs) microreactors, contingent on expected rampant market demand, based on MN’s highly proprietary design. Of course, regulatory approval remains an enormous hurdle, but it should be “bigly” streamlined due to President Trump’s executive orders issued on May 23, 2025, encouraging the development of nuclear energy in the United States. This highly reputable firm’s confidence in its production capabilities is promising in the extreme. It stands ready to produce hundreds of MN’s micro-reactors pending regulatory approval and the receipt of orders from qualified buyers. (The latter should be almost a slam-dunk should the former occur.)
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It would take one to three 10 megawatt (MW) reactors to provide enough power to satisfy the needs of a mid-size U.S. military base. (In my view, these should be their main priority for now, but the market for safe, affordable, carbon-free, and locally generated electricity is almost limitless). The cost to lease microreactors from MN would be roughly equivalent to what these bases are spending now for power from their local utilities or, possibly, significantly less. Crucially, it would be safe from cyber-attacks, solar flares, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) and the increasingly frequent grid failures (which are almost certain to become even more common). This is the type of offer the Department of Defense should have a very hard time refusing.
You may have seen that contained within President Trump’s executive orders mentioned above was a directive that at least one military base should have a microreactor installed by 2028. (A 10 MW reactor produces only about 1% of the electricity output of a large-scale light-water reactor, such as one of California’s Diablo Canyon plants.) There are around 450 military bases in the U.S. MN’s supplier believes it can come close to supplying all of these with two reactors at each base by the end of this decade. This is resoundingly bullish news for the nascent microreactor industry and for the safety of America’s military installations in this increasingly perilous world. Of course, this would require an Apollo program-like commitment to expeditious regulatory review, as well as a moonshot-like effort around the daunting installation effort.
However, these reactors are only about the size of a 20’ equivalent (TEU) shipping container. They are also walk-away safe as they are based on the proven safety profile of the Molten Salt Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The pilot Molten-Salt Reactor (MSR) was a resounding success during its lifecycle from 1965 to 1970 under the inspired guidance of Oak Ridge’s then-director, Alvin Weinberg. Dr. Weinberg was a true hero of the original U.S. civilian atomic energy program, as this newsletter has previously noted.
Unfortunately, Weinberg was outmaneuvered politically; as a result, pressurized light-water reactors carried the day. This was in large part because they were well-suited to the U.S. Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, now almost 70 years old.
Dr. Weinberg warned that there was the potential for rare but serious accidents with light-water reactors. As we all know, subsequent events bore out his concerns, though this is not to denigrate America’s nuclear power industry. It has accumulated an exemplary track record of safe operation. However, that has come at great cost in terms of safety protocols, including often what many experts believe are excessive redundancies and a plethora of exceedingly expensive protection measures.
By contrast, MSRs are much smaller and simpler. If they lose power, they simply shut down; thus, there is no risk of an uncontrolled meltdown. They also can run on uranium made from thorium, which is much more plentiful than uranium (though uranium is still needed in reduced quantities). During the Molten-Salt Nuclear Reactor Experiments in the 1960-1970 era, one MSR validated the thorium to uranium process (U233 vs the usual U235, the “spicy stuff” used in most reactors). Eventually, they are likely to be able to burn spent nuclear fuel and also function as breeder reactors to create their own fuel supply.
There are numerous companies racing to bring MSRs into the power production ecosystem. In my mind, there will be several that “break the code.” It’s my belief MicroNuclear will be one of them and, quite possibly, the first. While I’ve been an investor for several years, I have told almost everyone who has wanted to invest after hearing the MN story — which, frankly, has been almost all of them — that it was too early. In my view, it still is… but the day is fast approaching when I hope that will no longer be the case.
MN has been able to achieve all of this without incurring debt and by expending a remarkably modest amount of capital. In my opinion, it has the potential to exceed the valuation of its publicly traded competitors NuScale Energy and OKLO, both of which are around a $10 billion market cap. Of course, I could be totally misguided in my optimism. Yet, actually, I think it could be worth close to $50 billion five years from now… if they are able to achieve their stretch goal of 800 installed microreactors by 2030.
In my 46-year investing career, I’ve never come across a company with this type of upside. People who know my history would say: “What about your whiff for the ages on Amazon?” It’s a valid point but when Amazon was first formed, its addressable market was very modest. However, Jeff Bezos proved to be one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs in American history as he moved it light-years beyond merely selling books on the internet. (My infamous line back in 1994 was, “Can’t Barnes & Noble do that?”)
Imagine what Bezos would be able to do at the helm of a company with the type of elegant reactor design MicroNuclear has created? Bill Gates and Sam Altman are already in the race. Another wild call by yours truly is that it won’t be long before Mr. Bezos is, as well.
David “The Haymaker” Hay
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