NEI Nuclear Notes

Say “nuclear reactor” and what leaps to mind is a giant machine, powerful enough to run an entire city, with thousands of moving parts. But UPower Technologies has a different concept: a nuclear power plant that is mostly built in a factory, and arrives on site in two standard shipping containers. After set-up, it runs a cluster of buildings or a village. The reactor is more like a nuclear battery, with no moving parts. UPower is one of several new reactor concepts that will be the topic of discussion in the next few days. Third Way , a centrist think tank, holds an Advanced Nuclear Summit and Showcase  on Wednesday. Third Way recently issued a report on the future of nuclear power, in partnership with three Department of Energy laboratories: Idaho, Argonne and Oak Ridge. In November, the White House held a summit on nuclear energy . Behind the events is the conviction that with technological progress, nuclear power, like microchips or composite materials or a lot of othe...

More from the world of venture capital : Less than a couple hours ago, we were highlighted in a TechCrunch article disclosing that UPower is a Y Combinator company.  This article is currently trending at story number 1 in HackerNews . Almost all of that is way too millenial for me, but it does raise the question: what is UPower? and Y Combinator , for that matter? Let’s start with the second part first: When Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham passed the keys of his uber-successful seed accelerator program to Sam Altman in February, he did so with an eye on the future. Graham’s interest was largely in internet startups, but Altman seems to have a taste for nuclear energy and biotech: “I’ve always loved it when we can fund companies that, if we don’t fund them, they won’t exist,” Altman said in an interview with Re/code on Tuesday. “No one is funding energy, and I think it’s a good business and really important for the world. “Really important for the w...