Betting on Nuclear

How did Deployable Energy move from concept to criticality so quickly?

First, partnering with the Department of Energy and NRIC accelerated the timeline exponentially. If Guinness World Records captured this sort of thing, turning a reactor on in roughly 150 days would definitely be a world record.

We also had a phenomenal design. Everybody in the nuclear space had been looking at rare materials. Our design started the same way, but we realized it wasn't going to scale. We switched to more accessible materials that can provide the same safety factors as the other advanced reactors. We also learned from innovations in other industries, like oil and gas, that made it possible to use the existing supply chain and move very quickly.

Also, the people in this company have an easy, open and respectful culture and way of communicating. I knew from working at NRIC previously that these were qualities that would make a company able to successfully work with the national laboratories.

Many people picture a huge plant when they think of nuclear reactors. How do you describe what you're doing?

People have been conditioned to think of nuclear as a capital-intensive project that takes many years and billions of dollars. We're breaking that mold. This is a capital-efficient product that comes off a factory line just like an automotive vehicle, and with far fewer components.

It's a lot smaller than most people expect, able to fit in the bed of a pickup truck. It's a 1 MW plug-and-play nuclear power system designed to fit inside a standard 20-foot shipping container. And because they're modular, reactor units can be arrayed to power an individual plant operation or be part of a multi-gigawatt fleet that powers a large data center. And heavy site work isn't required.

What's next for the Unity project?

We're doing a robust testing campaign and our goal is to be in commercial production in 2028, at gigawatt scale in 2030, and at 10,000 units a year by the mid-2030s. From contract signing to delivery will be six months, which is unheard of in the nuclear space.

Tell us about the guidance you found at McCombs that led you to choose Deployable Energy over an industry role.

I want to extend a special thank you to management professor Luis Martins , whose one-on-one mentorship was instrumental in helping me think through and ultimately select this path. The way he framed the problem and the data he provided helped me make the decision to join a startup very easily. His guidance came at a pivotal moment in my career transition, and I don't think I would have landed here without his insight and encouragement.

UT gave me the confidence, network and perspective to make a leap into building something entirely new. I'm deeply grateful for the instruction, mentorship and support from so many on the Forty Acres.

You brought in a team of McCombs MBA students to work on commercialization efforts. What did that entail?

The reactor is a first-of-its-kind system, and they did a great job building a pricing strategy for different types of applications and tax environments in three states where we have projects. It was a privilege to help give current students hands-on exposure to what building an energy company from the ground up actually looks like.

There's something to be said about the UT tagline, "What starts here changes the world." We're doing that incrementally with these microreactors, and I really couldn't have done it without understanding all the fundamentals UT provided.