Person
1 episodes · 24 quoted claims
Julia DeWahl joined SpaceX as Starlink moved from research and development into go-to-market, to lead that team and its business operations.
“I joined as Starlink was coming out of R &D and into go-to-market. That's why I was joining, to lead that team and the business operations there.”
After early Starlink customers described painful setup, SpaceX formed a cross-functional team to build mounting options sold alongside the Starlink dish.
“it led to basically this cross-functional SWAT team that was dedicated to mounting options to be sold alongside the dish.”
Antares's micro-reactors are below one megawatt, in the hundreds of kilowatts, enough for hundreds of houses.
“we're even sub one megawatt. We're kind of in the hundreds of kilowatt scale. You can think of that as like hundreds of houses worth of electricity.”
Antares plans a criticality test next year and a first demonstration unit by the end of 2027.
“next year, our criticality test is kind of the first milestone. By end of 2027, we want to have our first demonstration unit demonstrated.”
DeWahl said that about half of US casualties in Afghanistan were attributed to fuel and supply logistics.
“it was 50 % of the, I think the Afghanistan casualties were from just logistics.”
The US put a small nuclear reactor into space in the 1960s, and it worked for a few months.
“We actually put one reactor into space in the 1960s to test that out. Did it work? Yeah, for a bit. I mean, a few months.”
DeWahl said US support for nuclear power rose about 17 points in five to ten years, to over 60 percent.
“The like percentage point change we've seen in the last five to ten years is almost 20 points. I mean, it's like 17 points or something. So it's 60 plus percent of people support nuclear.”
California's Diablo Canyon power plant was scheduled for shutdown, but Governor Gavin Newsom agreed to keep it running.
“Diablo Canyon power plant here in California, which was slated to be shut down this year.”
DeWahl said Biden-era legislation changed the NRC's mandate so that it no longer focuses only on safety.
“they changed the mandate of the NRC. And they said, you are no longer focused just on safety because what's the safest number of nuclear reactors to license? Zero.”
The NRC regulates civilian power only, so Antares's military reactors can initially avoid NRC licensing.
“The NRC really only license, sorry, regulates civilian electricity, so civilian power. So we actually don't need to even go there yet.”
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act introduced production tax credits for nuclear power.
“There's now production tax credits for nuclear, which has a lot of ripple effects.”
DeWahl said France deliberately moved to about 70 percent nuclear electricity in the 1970s because it lacked domestic fossil fuels.
“France made a very, very deliberate decision to actually go to 70%, if not more at the time in the 70s, because I had no carbon resources, right?”
DeWahl said only about 1 percent of uranium used in US nuclear fuel was recently mined domestically.
“it's been like 1 % of nuclear fuel used in the U .S. was actually domestically mined.”
DeWahl said the US still buys almost half of its uranium from Russia and former Soviet states.
“we're still buying like almost 50 % of our uranium from Russia and kind of ex-Soviet states.”
General Matter, associated with Scott Nolan of Founders Fund, is entering uranium enrichment.
“General Matter, which is Scott Nolan's company out of Founders Fund. So he's getting into the enrichment space.”
DeWahl met her co-founder Jordan after posting a piece on Twitter, and he had the vision of military micro-reactors.
“That's actually how I met Jordan, who's my co-founder. And he's the one who actually had the vision for micro-reactors for the military.”
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program used fixed, milestone-based contracts rather than cost-plus contracts, per DeWahl.
“Commercial orbital transport system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like the innovation basically to say, like, let's try something that's not cost plus.”
The Army's Janus program plans to fund three to five companies to build prototype reactors at a base, then pick a winner.
“we're going to fund up to kind of three to five companies to build their first prototype alongside us, kind of at a base.”
The US government announced a plan to spend $80 billion on nuclear development with Westinghouse as partner.
“the U .S. government now wants to spend $80 billion on nuclear development alongside Westinghouse.”
Brookfield Asset Management is partnering with a local utility to finish the unfinished VC Summer plant in South Carolina.
“Brookfield Asset Management and they um they've actually just gotten in the game as well in the last couple weeks”
DeWahl said Antares sources its nuclear-grade graphite from a Japanese company because it is not processed in the US.
“The graphite that I brought here is actually from a Japanese company. right no one's even processing that stuff in the u .s”
Google partnered with a utility to restart Duane Arnold, an Iowa nuclear plant shut down about five years earlier.
“Google partnered with, I think, NextEra, or the Iowa-based utility to bring on Dwayne Arnold, which was shut down about five years ago.”
Three Mile Island is being brought back online through a partnership between Microsoft and Constellation, per DeWahl.
“Three Mile Island, the site of the infamous accident. Oh, almost accident. Well, it was an accident, but it was not really a big deal.”
DeWahl said US electricity demand grew under 1 percent yearly for over 20 years and is now estimated at 5 percent annually.
“it was less than 1 % year-over-year growth for 20-plus years. And now it's like people are, like, estimating 5 % annual growth next year.”