It’s almost winter, also known as “cringe at your heating bill” season up north.
The next time you get a cringeworthy $500+ energy bill, imagine this instead.
Amount due: $5.
Fantasy? Nah. It’s the future being built by a new wave of nuclear entrepreneurs. Their success will mean cheap abundant energy for everyone. Let’s go!
Nuclear is the cleanest, safest, densest energy source known to man. I won’t rehash the no-brainer case for nuclear here. Fellow Rational Optimist Society founding member David Galland did that comprehensively in a recent Deep Dive, which I’ll link to at the end of this issue.
All you really need to know is this: Nuclear has four qualities that make it superior to all other energy sources:
Clean: Nuclear produces no pollution and no carbon emissions whatsoever. Those big grey nuclear “smokestacks” emit only water vapor, like your shower.
Safe: Not a single person was killed, or even hurt, in the worst nuclear meltdown in US history, Three Mile Island.
Reliable: 72 American nuclear-powered submarines have been cruising through oceans for some 60 years without incident. They can go decades without refueling.
Cheap: Once it’s built, running a nuclear power plant is cheap.
Nuclear energy should make everyone happy, from environmentalists to capitalists to families on tight budgets.
So why aren't we living in a nuclear-powered paradise?
Enter the villains of our story
America was building nuclear reactors by the dozen until the early 70s. But in 1974, a bureaucratic creature named the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was hatched. Guess how many new reactor designs it has greenlit since taking control of nuclear 50 years ago?
Zero!
The NRC didn’t exactly ban new nuclear plants, but it may as well have. It takes roughly seven years to review the application for a new reactor. Nuclear companies must pay the NRC $300/hour for the privilege of that review. Talk about perverse incentives.
Imagine how long it takes to fill out these forms, which are millions of pages. No wonder Microsoft is building an AI that can fill out nuclear approval forms in 90% less time.
As a result of stifling regulation, it now takes 14 years to build a plant we used to build in four. And building a plant costs five times as much as it used to.
I’m telling you all this not to rant, but to set the stage. Innovation in nuclear has gone backwards. To reverse that, entrepreneurs must find clever ways to get around regulatory brick walls. Thankfully, innovation is finding a way.
Clunky, billion-dollar nuclear plants are so last century. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are the future. Small enough to fit in your garage, but powerful enough to fuel whole cities.
We know SMRs can work because they’ve reliably powered Navy submarines for decades. Crews sleep just feet away from the reactor, and there’s never been a serious safety incident.
Entrepreneurs have found a cheat code to accelerate the development of SMRs. By building for the US military, instead of civilians, they’ve realized they can skip the NRC’s regulatory queue.
Nuclear startup Antares is building “micro” reactors as small as diesel generators for the US military.
Radiant Nuclear’s reactors will be so small and safe you’ll be able to drive them around on the back of a truck. Here’s what “V1”—Kaleidos—will look like.

Source: radiantnuclear.com
The only reason we don’t have SMRs already is because the NRC essentially made it illegal to test new designs. A new military loophole changes that. The Department of Energy is building a special facility in Idaho where nuclear companies can test their designs. Radiant plans to test Kaleidos there when it opens in 2026.
Bill Gates’ nuclear startup recently broke ground on America’s first “mini reactor” in Wyoming. TerraPower’s reactors are like the IKEA furniture of the atomic world. The parts can be mass produced in a factory and then assembled on site, slashing construction time, costs, and regulatory delays.
This is a game changer. The reactor design can be approved once, then mass produced in a factory.
Austin-based Aalo Atomics is building portable reactors small enough to fit inside an NYC apartment. Its mini plants will be made of lego-like parts—made in a factory and then easily assembled on site. Aalo’s goal: Be able to get a new reactor firing in just 60 days!
Then there’s Oklo, the publicly traded nuclear innovator backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Its Aurora micro-reactor can run on nuclear waste.
Innovation in Nuclear is BACK!
At the same time, regulations are finally easing. Congress recently passed the first piece of pro-nuclear regulation in my lifetime. The ADVANCE Act tasks the NRC with creating a “timely” pathway for licensing SMRs.
And the Department of Energy announced $900 million in funding to support SMR development. Fewer restrictions, less delays, more innovation. You love to see it.
Big tech is responsible for the regulatory thaw: It needs nuclear to power its massive artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions.
Microsoft bought the rights to all the electricity to be produced by Three Mile Island when it reopens. Amazon recently bought a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania. Within five years, I predict big tech companies will start buying up utility providers.
Big tech is politically connected, deep-pocketed, and highly motivated to accelerate nuclear. They will break the log jam.
It’ll be a few years before tiny reactors are powering whole cities. It’s worth the wait. A world powered by clean, safe, cheap energy is a world I want to live in. Low-cost energy makes everything cheaper and will bring some much-needed relief to American families.
Cheap energy also opens up new tech possibilities. Flying cars are the poster child for “crazy” innovations we didn’t get because we turned our backs on cheap energy. Rational Optimist honoree Peter Thiel says: "We wanted flying cars, but all we got was 140 characters." (He’s referring to Twitter.)
Could we see flying cars that run on nuclear batteries?
How about transforming salty oceans into reservoirs of fresh drinking water? Desalinization already works. But it’s often uneconomical due to, you guessed it, energy costs. Once we solve that, we can end global water crises forever.
And cheap energy would revitalize “Made in USA” by making it affordable to produce stuff in America.
Cherry on top: Nuclear solves climate change. Remember, nuclear is the undisputed king of green energy.

Source: NREL
In case of climate emergency, build nuclear energy.
After WWII the smartest people in the world were working in nuclear. It was the AI of its day. Let’s help make atomic energy cool again.
New breakthrough: disease-sniffing AI
Imagine if your iPhone could sniff out a potential stroke?
Scientists have been trying to digitize smell for decades. Startup Osmo created an AI-powered “Odor Map” that acts like a decoder ring for smells.
It identifies molecules linked by similar scent characteristics. Osmo can predict how new, even non-existent molecules might smell, based solely on their structure. And do so more accurately than a human nose!
Many diseases have distinct smells. Diabetes can make breath smell sweet or fruity. Picture blowing into your iPhone like a breathalyzer for an instant health check.
For years I’ve been predicting our smartphones will become a “doctor in your pocket.” Its camera will be able to scan your retina every morning to give you early warning of health problems. Osmo has taken another huge step toward making our smartphones a master disease detector.
This, my fellow Rational Optimist, will save many lives through early diagnoses.
Disrupting the 100-year-old diamond monopoly
Imagine holding two sparkling diamonds. One is a real gem. The other was created in a high-tech lab. You can’t tell them apart.
Diamonds take up to 3 billion years to form deep in the Earth’s crust. Using special microwaves, scientists can now whip up identical gems in three hours.
These aren’t cheap knockoffs that’ll turn your finger green. They’re physically and chemically identical to “real” diamonds. In fact, they’re often purer than their natural cousins. Even expert gemologists can’t tell them apart without special magnifying tools.
The big difference? Lab grown diamonds are 70% cheaper.

And prices continue to plunge. It’s no wonder more than half of all diamonds sold in America are now lab grown.

De Beers, which has dominated the global diamond market since the late 1800s, has been forced to slash prices by over 40% to compete.
There’s more to cheap diamonds than meets the eye. Most diamonds don't end up on fingers. They’re put to work as drill tips to bore through earth.
And as our friends at Works in Progress showed, if diamonds get really inexpensive and abundant, they could be used to create the ultimate computer chip.
We get what we deserve
Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital is one of our favourite venture capitalists. In his latest investor letter, he writes “Cultures get what they celebrate… one barometer of values is what children wish to be when they grow up.”
We don’t celebrate entrepreneurship and innovation like we used to. Just look at how the corporate media treats Elon Musk. His companies are revolutionizing space travel and curing blindness and paralysis. Yet the only thing the media celebrates are his failures.
Demonizing innovation guarantees we get less of it. That means fewer lifesaving drugs, more kids born into poverty, and less opportunities for us all.
It doesn’t have to be that way—help us build the Rational Optimist Society, and let the celebrations of success spread far and wide.
Onward and upward!
PS: I didn’t even touch on nuclear fusion in this issue, which is very promising, but at least 10 years out. I’ll write about that in the future.
If you’re interested in learning more about nuclear and how it stacks up versus other energy sources, read this Rational Optimist Society Deep Dive.
Follow us on X:
Writer: Stephen McBride: https://x.com/DisruptionHedge
Editor: Dan Steinhart: https://x.com/dan_steinhart
Rational Optimist Society: https://x.com/RationalOptSoc
Companies mentioned:
Antares – private
Radiant Nuclear – private
TerraPower – private
Aalo Atomics – private
Oklo – public (OKLO)
Osmo – private