Making sense of nuclear’s resurgence
The past month proved to be a dramatic one for America’s long-stagnant nuclear sector. First, on June 10, TerraPower – the company co-founded by Bill Gates – broke ground on the Western Hemisphere’s first advanced nuclear facility, in Wyoming. A week later, the Senate passed the ADVANCE Act on a vote of 88-2. (The House already passed the bill by similar margins in February.) If signed into law, ADVANCE will streamline permitting and funding policies for future nuclear projects. In today’s episode, the hosts are joined by Boundary Stone co-founder Jeff Navin – who also serves as TerraPower’s Director of External Affairs – to explore the momentum behind nuclear’s resurgence. Later in the show, Jeff takes us behind the scenes of TerraPower’s Natrium project to highlight its challenges, and its promise. The episode kicks off with a discussion of both the recent Presidential debate and the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the wide-reaching Chevron doctrine, which gave federal agencies like the EPA the room to implement ambiguous laws as they saw fit. In Chevron’s absence, those decisions will be left to Congress and the judiciary. Subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter to get weekly updates on tech, markets, policy, and deals across clean energy and climate tech. And listen to Climate One, a weekly podcast hosted by journalists Greg Dalton and Ariana Brocious featuring discussions with climate advocacy experts on various aspects impacting climate change, from AI to inflation. You can find Climate One on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.