Portfolio company, Deep Isolation, launches its Full-Scale, At-Depth Demonstration Program to advance its deep borehole nuclear waste disposal technology and generate operational data to support regulatory confidence, following the completion Project UPWARDS announced in December last year.
Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Energy abundance, Energy transition, Fission, Future of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Radiation & LNT Rules, Scientific debate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, Venture capital support for nuclear, VIDEO
Regulatory reforms and fuel innovations are accelerating America’s nuclear revival — with Radiant, Aalo, and Deep Isolation in the mix...
Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Electrification, Energy transition, Future of Energy, History-making, NEWS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Portfolio Venture, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Venture capital support for nuclear
The Trump Administration and the European Commission unveiled a trade accord in which the EU pledged to invest $600 billion in U.S. goods, including nuclear technology and fuels, to strengthen transatlantic collaboration as the EU works to reduce its reliance on Russian gas and nuclear fuel.
Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Capital reallocation, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate policy, Electrification, Energy transition, Fission, Future of Energy, Global emissions, Great British Nuclear, International support for nuclear, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear waste, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, Transatlantic News
Copenhagen Atomics, the Danish developer of a thorium molten salt reactor that turns nuclear waste into fuel, was among 40 startups selected in the latest round of EIC Accelerator funding…
A Ladies Luncheon discussion of nuclear!
Los Angeles is still reeling from a series of horrific fires that devasted multiple communities, particularly Palisades and Eaton in early 2025. Recent reports found that these fires caused between $28 and $54 billion in property damange, along with what may be $9 billion in related economic losses in LA County alone. The fires have caused a loss of almost 50,000 job-years in the region, reducing area wages, business income, and federal, state and local tax revenue.
Lack of rain, hotter and drier conditions and high winds helped fuel the fires while combating the fires was hindered by the excess heat and widespread shortage of divertable water resources. These are conditions that have been exascerbated by global warming, which is caused by humanity's growing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. Gigatonnes of these heat-trapping waste CO2 emissions have amassed within the atmosphere causing the planet to get warmer. Scientists now believe that we've exceeded 1.5°Celsius average increase or 2.7°Fahrenheit and the heating is continuing to rise at an accelerating rate.
While Los Angeles is working to recover, rebuild and repair, the question of how to begin to reverse the damage we're continuing to do to the climate remains. We know with total certainty that we must stop burning fossil fuels. But demand for energy is not just growing around the world, demand is surging—particularly due to AI usage. This means not only do we need to focus on building only new clean energy plants but we also need to replace the 80% of global energy still using fossil fuels with equivalent sources of clean power as well.
We've been building wind and solar as fast as possible but these have never been able to keep up with even the historically lower level of energy growth. Additionally, the enormous costs of "firming" all that dilute and intermittent power (i.e. adding batteries, duplicative generation, and other fossil back up for when the sun and wind aren't cooperating) have increased California ratepayer costs. Meanwhile, we are still reliant on burning fossil fuels for some 60% of our power here in California and new fossil plants continue to get built that lock in continued emissions for decades more, which is extraordinarily bad for our future.
We clearly need better solutions. From our perspective, the only good news on the climate horizon is that energy experts, tech hyperscalers, government officials, industrial companies and investors are increasingly recognizing the importance of nuclear power for addressing our energy and climate needs. Nuclear (fission) power produces massive amounts of energy with zero emissions and runs reliably 24/7 (except for refuelings). It also cleans the air (as it emits zero toxins, unlike coal and gas), it provides good-paying jobs and has one of the smallest possible ecologic footprints. Best of all, there's a race on to develop next-generation nuclear power plants that better meet our 21st century energy needs. (Nuclear fusion may play a role in the future but commercialization of that technology is still much further off.)
Nuclear power—and especially newer, advanced designs—has seen bipartisan support in the Congress since the Obama Administration. Both Biden and Trump have increased funding for development of next-gen nuclear and signed multiples bills to accelerate new deployments for energy security, for climate change and for national security goals. Public support for nuclear power is currently at its highest level in decades. Yet, support by men exceeds that of women overall. Among women, surprisingly, those most concerned about climate change, primarily progressive Democrats, report the least support for nuclear power. This appears to be a function of less awareness and knowledge about the technology and a residual sense that nuclear is dangerous, even though it has been found to be among the safest and cleanest forms of energy ever developed. That does not appear to be common knowledge among women yet.
Valerie Gardner, Nucleation Capital's managing partner, is working to help set the record straight. She is co-hosting a luncheon gathering for an intimate gathering of women in Los Angeles to discuss nuclear power and share what she has learned over the past 15 years of research and investigation, to dispell myths that still infuse women's thinking about nuclear energy.
Official Event Description
Nuclear for Climate
Join a small group of women gathering at an LA restaurant to enjoy a hosted lunch and discussion exploring the proposition that nuclear power could be exactly what we need to meet the surging demand for energy and solve climate climate safely, sustainably and cost-effectively.
As data centers, cloud computing, vehicle electrification, crypto mining, manufacturing and more create unprecedented demand, energy buyers and the broader utility sector in general are facing a pivotal moment. Will we meet this demand with more cheap but often volatile fossil fuel power generation and continue to make our climate crisis worse? Or will we push forward and accelerate the commercialization of revolutionary advanced nuclear technologies that are clean, dense, low-impact, reliable and climate resilient—everything we need! What if next-generation nuclear is able to compete on every level with fossil fuels, including price? This could change our planet's trajectory for the better, reduce emissions, lessen the threat from climate change and help save our children's future.
Event Details:
Date: July 9th, 2025
Time: 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Location in LA: To be provided upon registration
Join us to explore ideas that will define the next generation of energy systems. Click here to request an invitation!
Looking forward to seeing everyone in L.A.!
Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Artificial Intelligence, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Electrification, Energy abundance, Energy transition, EVENTS, Fission, Fusion, Future of Energy, Government support, Investor activity, Macro Energy Systems, NEWS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nucleation communications, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Regulatory reform, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Women in Nuclear, Zero emission energy
Climate tipping effects may be kicking in
For those tracking the state of the climate, the report published by the BBC showing that tropical forests were being destroyed at the fastest recorded rate over the last year, was frightening, with the prospect of total forest dieback and "savannisation" of these areas is a growing risk.
Compounding the loss of old-growth tropical forests in 2024 (estimated to have covered an area as large as Ireland) and the release of their carbon stores, is the loss of the moisture and climate systems maintained by those forest ecosystems, which previously provided localized cooling effects, produced cloud cover and contributed to the atmospheric moisture necessary for rain. These had also helped to brighten the earth, thereby reflecting more of the sunlight that otherwise would cause heating. This moisture and water cycle activity gets destroyed along with the trees, plants and animal life. This climatic loss to broad areas may be having more of a negative feedback effective on the planet's overall warming than has previously been recognized.
Global Surface Temperature Change (published 2/3/25)
This news add yet more data to the alarming report published in February by Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Pushker Kharecha and a team of sixteen other climate scientists plainly titled "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed? In it, Dr. Hansen's team explains that global temperatures have leaped up more than a half degree (0.7°F or 0.4°C) over the last 2 years, with a total average temperature rise of +1.6°C relative to the temperature at the beginning of last century (the 1880-1920 average). This reflects a temperature rise over the +1.5°C (or 2.7°F) level that we set as our goal for maximum increase. As of the last year, we've already exceeded that level.
These increases have, according to Hansen, baffled Earth scientists, as the increase's magnitude was literally off the charts. There were multiple explanations presented as to what could have caused such a big increase. Declining aerosol pollution was seen as a key contributor, by reducing nuclei that aided cloud formation and thus reflection of sunlight, thereby effectively darkening earth and allowing more heat to be absorbed. These are very troubling and portentious changes that may, in fact, show that feedback effects are already accelerating the heating impacts of our CO2 emissions, such that they no longer follow a direct relationship.
Dr. Hansen's report received considerable criticism both because it departed scientifically from the mainstream's more conservative consensus of a lower rate of warming and climate "sensitivity," as determined by the IPCC, and because it called for "a complement to the IPCC approach" to "avoid handing young people a dire situation that is out of their control." In a response to some of that criticism, Drs. Hansen and Karecha decried the ad hoc opinions, ad hominem attacks and sense that the media has gravitated towards reporting the opinions of just a small handful of scientists, rather than covering the total community and range of analyses, including their own.
Dr. Anatassia Makarieva, an atmospheric physicist, responded to this debate with a substack post titled "On the scientific essense of Dr. James Hansen's recent appeal." In it she agreed with Drs. Hansen and Karecha that many scientists were understating the degree of climate forcing but also shared her sense that many of the climate models in use, including Dr. Hansen's, erroneously ignored the major role of the biosphere in the climate destabilization that we are now experiencing. Which may, she argued, partially explain why none of the models predicted the heat anomaly of the 2023 - 2024 time period. Dr. Makarieva writes:
Why is this [i.e. accurate climate models] so important? Unless external causes of this recent temperature anomaly are identified, we may be dealing with a self-reinforcing process — for example, of reduced cloud cover causing more warming, this warming causing even less clouds and so forth until something truly ugly happens to our planet. But, if so, such a process could be started by many factors and does not necessarily need CO2 to kick off. For example, deforestation-induced reduction of evapotranspiration in the Amazon is associated with extreme heat events. This alone could trigger the warming that could then self-amplify via cloud (or some other) feedbacks.
Whether or not we have permanent self-reinforcing amplification happening with the climate now is being debated, partially thanks to new voices like Dr. Makarieva's, entering the field. What is clear, however, is that the fewer clouds, aerosols, snow cover, sea ice and also more invisible sources of water vapor (such produced by tropical forests and other natural ecosystems) the darker the earth is and the more sunlight gets through and heats the ground, the oceans and the air. This heating further impacts existing vegetation, ice sheets, permafrost and bodies of water negatively, which then also contribute more CO2, more fires, and further darkening of earth's surface. Earth's climate has been in a state of equilibrium for eons. Given what is happening with the climate now, it appears that it is leaving that state of equilibrium.
According to some reports, the Earth has "dimmed" by 0.5% in the past 25 years. We've known this and scientists have been able to track decreases in sea ice at the poles, a major factor in global warming. We're now seeing the climate effects of reductions in aerosols (due to the shipping industry trying to clean up their act and emit less aerosols), and we're seeing reduced cloud cover. The bottom line is that even just looking at cloud feedbacks, the more the climate warms, the fewer the clouds. The fewer the clouds, the more the planet warms. This feedback loop is enough to take us into very dangerous territory. Which is yet another reason why we want to prevent the loss of tropical forests, not just because of the CO2 impacts but because of the cloud and water vapor impacts. This feedback loop could explain why the rate of heating of the planet has increased beyond what was expected, even by scientists like Zeke Hausfather and James Hansen.
Dr. Hansen continues to urge immediate action and has proposed that "a multitude of actions are required within less than a decade to reduce and even reverse Earth’s energy imbalance for the sake of minimizing the enormous ongoing geoengineering of the planet; specifically, we will need to cool the planet to avoid consequences for young people that all people would find unconscionable."
References:
BBC, Tropical forests destroyed at fastest recorded rate last year, by Mark Poynting and Esme Stallard, May 20, 2025.
Columbia University, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?, published in Taylor & Francis, February 3, 2025 by James E. Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato, George Tselioudis, Joseph Kelly, Susanne E. Bauer, Reto Ruedy, Eunbi Jeong, Qinjian Jin, Eric Rignot, Isabella Velicogna, Mark R. Schoeberl, Karina von Schuckmann, Joshua Amponsem, Junji Cao, Anton Keskinen, Jing Li, and Anni Pokela
Biotic Regulation and Biotic Pump Substack, "On the scientific essense of Dr. James Hansen's recent appeal." by Dr. Anatassia Makarieva, an atmospheric physicist, May 19, 2025.
Published by Valerie Gardner in Advanced Nuclear, Asset manager support, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate innovation fund, Climate mayhem, Construction costs, Energy abundance, Environmental support for nuclear, Extreme weather, Future of Energy, International support for nuclear, Investor activity, Land Use by Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear maritime propulsion, Nuclear R&D, Philanthropic support for nuclear, Politicians supporting nuclear, Pro-nuclear campaign, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, Venture capital support for nuclear, Zero emission energy
Nucleation announces its investment in Zeno Power’s $50 Million Series B with Fund I
Nucleation is delighted to announce our participation in Zeno Power’s $50 million Series B funding round, led by Hanaco Ventures with participation from Seraphim, Balerion Space Ventures, JAWS, Vanderbilt University, RiverPark Ventures, Stage 1 Ventures, 7i Capital, Beyond Earth Ventures, and other investors.
In an article released today, Axios has first reported on Zeno Power's close of this funding together with news of the company's appointment of Admiral John Richardson, USN (Ret.), former Chief of Naval Operations and Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, to its Board of Directors. This brings the total raised by Zeno to over $70 million, following the company's Series A, which was led by Tribe Capital.
Zeno Power is working to power strategic frontiers, which include the deep ocean, the Artic and space, regions where there are prospects for commerce, strategic influence and international competition for resources. The company builds nuclear batteries, essentially radioisotope power systems, which convert the heat from nuclear "waste" materials like Strontium-90 (Sr-90) into long-duration energy sources. The demand for such power systems—by groups seeking to operate on the moon, Mars, in the Artic and deep ocean—prove the high value of many of the highly radioactive materials found in nuclear waste. Over the last three years, Zeno has secured over $60M in contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA, built and demonstrated their first nuclear prototype at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and secured the nuclear fuel and facilities to build their first 10+ nuclear batteries.
The company's Series B funding is expected to unlock the team's plans to:
- Demonstrate full-scale nuclear batteries in 2026 to enable maritime and space deliveries in 2027
- Scale their manufacturing capabilities to meet growing demand from government and commercial customers
- Expand into seabed telecommunications, deep-sea mining for critical minerals, and commercial space markets
- Grow our team from 65 to 100+ team members across Seattle and Washington D.C.
To learn more about Zeno and their business of unlocking the value of nuclear waste, read Zeno Power CEO Tyler Bernstein's blog post, Powering the Frontier: Our $50M Series B Round, with more information about the raise and Zeno's plans for the coming years.
Also see: GeekWire, Zeno Power raises $50M in funding to fuel development of next-gen nuclear batteries, by Alan Boyle, May 14, 2025.
Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, Investor activity, NEWS, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Nuclear waste, Nucleation communications, Portfolio Venture, RTGs, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Venture capital support for nuclear, Zero emission energy
An important conversation hosted by Doon Insights
Doon Insights, an investment-focused group organized by Howard Chao, convened dozens of subject-matter experts as speakers (see the list below) across many disciplines in Santa Cruz, California to address trends and issues impacting demand for and supply of energy in the coming years and decades. Energy, which is what makes today's technologically-dependent society possible, is a very large and important topic and was a lot to cover. But in an ambitious, rapid-paced one-day conference titled "POWER SURGE: Solving for Unprecedented Energy Demand," dozens of people laid out the fundamentals and discussed the key questions around both what is driving demand and how will we meet that demand. Questions tackled included:
Demand Side
- Why projections for US power needs now greatly exceed what would have been predicted only a couple of year ago
- Why the exceptional needs of AI Data Centers and the electrification of diverse parts of the economy are driving energy demand
- What are the challenges of building, financing and operating new data centers?
- How much more power will these new facilities require? Where will they be located and what is the attitude of utilities, state and federal government towards supporting them?
- How will the rapidly changing AI competitive landscape affect these power projections? Does the advent of very cheap, highly efficient, smaller SLMs, open source models and Chinese competitors mean that investors have overestimated the need for huge data centers?
- How will the electrification of vehicles, buildings, industry and transactions (blockchain and cryptocurrencies) further accelerate and add significant incremental power demand?
- What are the primary challenges to meeting these power demands of these expanding use cases in the coming years and what will be the main challenges to implementation, including the need to expand the transmission capabilities of the grid?
- Will the new administration's renewed emphasis on fossil fuels result in a slowdown in electrification?
- What will be the impact of the tariffs on the buildout of all these projects?
- How will the new administration's energy policies impact all of these areas? Will we be able to unleash power generation sufficient to sustain the foreseeable economic growth while also continuing to reduce carbon emissions?
Supply Side
- What are the near and longer-term challenges and solutions to the surge in power demand?
- Will growing renewables and batteries be sufficient?
- Will fossil fuels experience a resurgence, with all that drilling?
- Will the sexiest and biggest solutions—nuclear fission and fusion—be coming on stream faster than most people believe?
- What are the short, medium and long-term prospects for these new technologies?
- Will the "privatization" of nuclear innovation and the prevalence of an industry being led by fast-moving private companies, pleasantly surprise us with their speed to market?
- What will be the near-term and longer-term mix of energy solutions?
- How will a patchwork of revamped legacy technologies, including fuel cells, wind, solar, distributed generation, energy storage, energy time-of-use shifting and other behind-the-meter solutions help in the short-term?
- How are advancements in small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which offer enhanced safety features, reduced construction times, and the flexibility to be deployed in diverse locations, going to contribute?
- Given that major technology companies like Google and Amazon are investing in SMRs to power their expansive data centers, how will this accelerate commercialization?
- Fusion energy—which is experiencing a wave of breakthroughs, with multiple companies and research initiatives racing to develop and commercialize multiple technologies, such as high-temperature superconductors, improved plasma confinement techniques, and novel neutron flux applications—is beginning to generate revenues but has yet to complete a power-generating reactor design. Will the new administration help accelerate progress towards practical fusion power with pilot plants within the decade or is this game-changing technology still decades away?
The Nuclear Option
Valerie Gardner, Nucleation's managing partner, moderated the day's fission panel, called "The Nuclear Option: Generation IV and Small Modular Reactors," which looked at the role of fission innovation and the coming wave of small, modular reactors (SMRs), that were poised to bring nuclear power into the 21st century. She and her panelists, Leah Crider from Westinghouse (seated on the left), representing the eVinci design, and Clayton Scott from NuScale Power (in the center), which has the first NRC-certified advanced fission design, discussed how and why next-generation nuclear will be the ideal clean energy solution that few think is possible.
While the Fission panel had a full 45 minutes (and probably went over-time) to cover a lot of ground, including reviewing nuclear's status as a major source of today's clean energy, the fact that nuclear is turning into a "technology" product that can be manufactured in factories and shipped to locations, and how a growing assortment of energy buyers like Google, Amazon and Dow Chemical see advanced nuclear as solving their energy needs better than other solutions, because the subject matter was so expansive, Valerie and her panel were able to cover many but definitely not all of the important points. Nevertheless, the fact that this conference's supply-side conversation included nuclear fission at all was a huge victory. This inclusion reflects the fact that nuclear energy is no longer seen as the taboo topic it was long deemed to be, at least up until the last couple of years. For too long, nuclear fission was excluded and no one considered it a vital part of the clean energy solution set. But times have changed and especially among investors looking to understand key long-term trends and be able to invest into them at an early stage.
According to Howard Chao, each panel of the conference, by design, was too short, leaving a lot of unfinished conversations. Nucleation Capital was honored to have been included in this discussion and we look forward to continuing to see interest in advanced nuclear broaden.
POWER SURGE: List of Speakers
Published by Valerie Gardner in Advanced Nuclear, Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Electrification, Energy abundance, Energy transition, EVENTS, Fission, Fusion, Future of Energy, Government support, Investor activity, Macro Energy Systems, NEWS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nucleation communications, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Regulatory reform, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Women in Nuclear
Announcing a Doon Insights Workshop
Doon Insights, hosted by Howard Chao, is convening dozens of experts to address trends and discuss issues impacting demand for and supply of energy in the coming years and decades. This one-day conference is being held on April 30th, 2025 in Santa Cruz, at the Boardwalk's Cocoanut Grove Resort. This is Doon Insights first energy-focused workshop, so the event will bring investors up to speed on the topic of energy and how we will meet that demand. It is not too late to register to attend. The conference is titled "POWER SURGE: Solving for Unprecedented Energy Demand."
Ray Rothrock, renowned venture capitalist and Nucleation Capital advisor, will give a keynote talk about the solutions to the demand surge in conversation with Howard Chao. Valerie Gardner, Nucleation Capital's managing partner, is moderating an afternoon panel on Long Term Supply Side Solutions from Nuclear Fission: Specifically Gen IV and Small Modular Reactors. Following that, Matt Trevithick of Leitmotif Ventures, will moderate a panel on Fusion. For the complete event overview and agenda, see thePOWER SURGE website.
Official Event Description
Doon Insights is pleased to announce our Power Surge Workshop: Solving for Unprecedented Energy Demand!
Our Power Surge Workshop will convene an exclusive gathering of industry leaders, investors, technologists, and innovators to explore one of the most pressing challenges of our time: meeting the surging demand for energy in a scalable and sustainable way.
As data centers, the electrification of everything, crypto mining, and other emerging energy-intensive applications create an unprecedented spike in demand, the energy sector is facing a pivotal moment. This perfect storm of demand must be addressed with both more conventional power generation, better power management and revolutionary new technologies.
Why Attend?
This Workshop is a must-attend event for energy innovators, investors, technologists, energy, manufacturing, mobility and other energy industry executives. Engage in in-depth discussions, network with industry leaders, and discover actionable insights into our energy future. And enjoy the beach and mountains of Santa Cruz!
Event Details:
Date:April 30, 2025 - 8 am
Location:The Boardwalk's Classic Cocoanut Grove Ballroom, 400 Beach Street, Santa Cruz, CA (Workshop); Bonny Doon, CA (Reception and Dinner)
Join us to explore the technologies, strategies, and collaborations that will define the next generation of energy systems. Secure your spot today!
Very much looking forward to seeing everyone in Santa Cruz!
Published by Valerie Gardner in Advanced Nuclear, Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Electrification, Energy abundance, Energy transition, EVENTS, Fission, Fusion, Future of Energy, Government support, Investor activity, Macro Energy Systems, NEWS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nucleation communications, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Regulatory reform, Solving climate, Solving nuclear waste, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Women in Nuclear
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