Microreactors: A Mirage of American Nuclear Innovation?
Decouple25 Nov 2025

Microreactors: A Mirage of American Nuclear Innovation?

In this episode, Chris Keefer speaks with Hadron Energy founder Samuel Gibson, the twenty four year old entrepreneur pursuing a ten megawatt integral pressurized water microreactor through a one point two billion dollar business combination with GigCapital7. Gibson outlines why he believes light water is the fastest licensing path, how he assembled a veteran nuclear team, and why Hadron shifted from a one megawatt concept to a ten megawatt design built around LEU plus fuel, modular plant layouts, and air cooled decay heat removal. Keefer presses on the harder questions: whether factory fabrication can overcome the fixed civil works and regulatory burdens that have crippled previous SMR efforts like NuScale and mPower, what off the shelf really means in a hollowed out US supply chain, and how long refueling cycles, fuel qualification, and decommissioning challenges scale at microreactor size. The conversation becomes a broader test case for whether startup optimism can meaningfully confront the industrial, economic, and physics grounded constraints that define real world nuclear deployment.

Listen to Decouple on:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6PNr3ml8nEQotWWavE9kQz

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decouple/id1516526694?uo=4

• Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1516526694/decouple

• Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/ehbfrn44

• RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/23775178/podcast/rss

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(331)

The Canada-US Trade War: A Bridge Too Far? w/ Jesse Huebsch

The Canada-US Trade War: A Bridge Too Far? w/ Jesse Huebsch

The Canada-US trade war is escalating, threatening to unravel decades of economic integration between two of the world's closest allies. Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Jesse Hoops to examin...

25 Sep 1h 14min

Megaprojects: Some Assembly Required w/ Ian MacGregor

Megaprojects: Some Assembly Required w/ Ian MacGregor

Canada is once again attempting to build nuclear megaprojects after a long pause, making the experience of people who have actually delivered recent large industrial projects increasingly valuable. Ia...

3 Sep 54min

The State of Fusion Energy w/ Gerrit Bruhaug

The State of Fusion Energy w/ Gerrit Bruhaug

Fusion has spent nearly a century as the energy source of the future. In this episode, I’m joined by fusion scientist Gerrit Bruhaug to ask what has actually been achieved, what remains unsolved, and ...

13 Aug 1h 24min

Sunk Costs & Diminishing Returns of Iran's Nuclear Program w/ Farzan Sabet

Sunk Costs & Diminishing Returns of Iran's Nuclear Program w/ Farzan Sabet

Iran’s nuclear program is now more than seven decades old, stretching from the Shah’s ambitious Atoms for Peace-era plans to the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of enrichment, missile capability and nuclea...

6 Aug 1h 25min

Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

Biomass Masterclass w/ Mark Nelson

For almost the whole of human history, wood was the main act. It was the fuel that cooked food and smelted iron, the material that framed every house and hull, and the first bulk commodity ever moved ...

31 Jul 1h 10min

Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

Ernie Moniz: Reflections on the JCPOA

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz joins Decouple to examine the history of Iran’s nuclear program and the negotiations that produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. As the agre...

23 Jul 43min

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

Fission Impossible? Financing New Nuclear w/ Michael Seely

Why are nuclear power plants so difficult to finance, and who ultimately pays when megaprojects run late or over budget? Chris Keefer is joined by returning guest Michael Seely, The Atomic Blender, fo...

16 Jul 1h 29min

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

CANDU: The Truly Modular Reactor w/ Navid Badie

In this reactor deep dive, Chris Keefer is joined by Navid Badie, Chief Nuclear Engineer at Candu Energy Inc, to explain the inner workings of the distinctive CANDU reactor. They trace how Canada’s de...

24 Jun 1h 9min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
romkapsel
tingenes-tilstand
jss
liberal-halvtime
forskningno
sinnsyn
rekommandert
villmarksliv
rss-paradigmepodden
fjellsportpodden
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
grunnstoffene
nordnorsk-historie
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
tidlose-historier
psykopoden
rss-rekommandert
rss-inn-til-kjernen-med-sunniva-rose
smart-forklart