By: Tori Trevino
NANO Nuclear Energy is a company focused on creating clean energy globally. It started off as a micro-reactor company, made to build small nuclear systems for remote locations, including island communities, disaster relief, and military bases.
James Walker is the CEO of NANO, who collaborated with the founder about five years ago. He said that the idea of NANO began with the potential of being part of a trillion dollar industry.
“There were few competitors in that space,” Walker said. “And I do believe we’re actually in the lead now in that race, as the company progressed, we realized that there were certain bottlenecks in the industry with producing reactors, because the US nuclear fuel supply chains had atrophied to a great degree.”
Thus, NANO became a part of the fuel supply chain — creating fuel facilities, growing its consultancy business, and exploring transportation business that move nuclear material.
According to Walker, the United States’ attitude toward nuclear energy is the best it has ever been. Illinois, however, seems like a different story.
“Illinois was interesting, particularly because there was some pushback on nuclear, and they did put a limit on the amount of power that a reactor could generate,” Walker said. “And I think they did that deliberately to ensure that there would be no new civil nuclear power plants, and anything that came in would be a small motion reactor or a micro reactor.”
Walker said that this was simply a safety precaution for the state. In fact, he went on to say that Illinois is being supportive of nuclear advancements in the state.
“Our company, it should be the first micro-reactor company to put in for a permit to construct, and that’ll be built at the University of Illinois [at Urbana-Champaign],” Walker said. “So even though it might, from an outside perspective, look like Illinois was trying to prohibit nuclear power within the state, they need certain allowances to allow for smaller reactors, more advanced systems to be built within the state, and it’s principally also because they do want to be a competitor.”
Texas has shown struggle as they sued the federal regulation for the state to have more say in what reactors can be implemented. In this case, Illinois stands out.
“At some levels, some states look much more supportive,” Walker said. “At the level of Illinois, there looks to be a caution, but with a very pragmatic eye on how nuclear could support the domestic issue within the state, which is just as supportive.”
NANO is currently in talks of building an office with a large number of engineers in the coming year, and the location greatly depends on how each state is approaching nuclear energy.
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