Companies developing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) have raised more than $1.5 billion over the past year. Because technology companies are hunger for AI models and the power to train governments to commit to the industry.
For example, X-Energy raised $700 million this month, while Paris-based Newcleo raised $151 million last year.
Nuclear fusion still looks relatively far away, but SMR is today’s hot atomic properties. That’s why it’s important that SMR Startup Valar Atomics raised $19 million in a seed funding round to develop its first test reactor. The funding was led by Riot Ventures, with Alleycorp, initialized capital, first-day ventures and Steel Atlas.
Valar’s SMR technology is based on a helium-cooled, high-temperature gas reactor. These are built from the nuclei that correspond to the “Gigafactory” (where the batteries are built), except that Valer calls them “Gigasites.” By effectively creating SMR production lines, Valar wants to significantly reduce the costs associated with building nuclear reactors, a traditionally custom-built project.
Valar co-founder and CEO Isaiah Taylor told TechCrunch that the constraints on building reactors are less technical than the way they are deployed. He hopes Valar’s “GigaFactory” approach can be fixed by becoming “industrial” rather than “craftsmen.”
The company plans to build hundreds of SMRs, primarily off-grid sites, to power data centers and industrial factories. It has an initial contract with the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, which builds nuclear reactors in the country. Under the contract, Valar plans to operate a test-scale reactor and build two full-scale reactors before the first integrated reactor comes online.
“We’re going to make the first one, the second one, the third one. It’s going to evolve into a factory organically,” he said.
Valar’s underlying technology uses helium gas to reach temperatures up to 900°C. This is three times more than a traditional nuclear reactor. This also allows the valley to efficiently generate hydrogen and combine it with captured CO2 to create low-carbon synthetic fuels for vehicles and infrastructure.
“If you can get a hot nuclear reactor, you can produce hydrogen very cheaply and unleash all kinds of things. One of them is synthetic fuel. Taylor says It is stated in.
“We designed, designed and built a thermal test unit in about 10 months. That’s possible – after all, in 1943, the first reactor was built in eight months,” he added. I did.
Taylor, whose grandfather happened to be a nuclear physicist for the Manhattan Project, dropped out of high school at the age of 16, studied software systems and found a startup. The company’s technical efforts include Chief Nuclear Officer Mark Mitchell (former president of UltraSafnic Corporation (USNC), modular reactor company) and leader of the world’s first small modular reactor project for Pebble Bed Modular Reactor in South Africa. It’s leading. The startup team has several USNC people, including Willem Van Leuyen, head of mechanical engineering.
The company’s plans are ambitious, but it appears that there will be enough tailwinds for such a nuclear project. The US Inflation Reduction Act unlocks private investments in clean energy infrastructure, but China is investing $440 billion in new nuclear power plants. Furthermore, 14 of the world’s largest banks have tripled their support of nuclear energy by 2050.