Scott Nolan

And the answer was,

We have a stockpile, but someday that runs out, and it would be great if we could get production going.

And then we talked to the reactor companies, and not only did they not have a source of enrichment or a source of fuel at the enrichment levels that they needed, but they also pointed out, hey, it's also really expensive.

At the prices we're going to have to pay these other companies,

it's going to be more than half our cost.

And so we do want to get the cost really low, and we're going to do the factory builds.

But even if we got the cost of the reactor to zero, we can only have this unless the fuel cost comes down.

And so that was very similar to the space industry, 2000s, where, yes, the satellites had gotten a lot cheaper and smaller.

but the launch cost was still there.

And so if you really wanted to erode the total cost, you had to hit the launch cost next.

And so we're trying to do that with fuel.

So our whole mission was let's make, let's bring back domestic production of enrichment.

Let's do it, yes, at low enrichment levels, but also at the HALU levels, the 20% that all these reactors need.

And let's figure out how to do this much, much lower cost so that we can make nuclear

Better than every other form of energy.

It's already the safest base load the cleanest base load We're also gonna make it the cheapest and so that's the whole North Star is let's bring back domestic production Let's make nuclear so cheap and safe and reliable with You know fuel supply chain certainty throughout that it becomes the dominant form of energy So that's the goal.

That's how we got started Wow

The DOE stepped up and said, we are going to help catalyze this HALU production by being the market maker.

We're going to be the offtake partner.

So they created a $2.7 billion government program contract ceiling to purchase enriched uranium from providers.