The company building America’s uranium supply from scratch

Scott Nolan, Co-Founder and CEO of General Matter, joins John for a pint to discuss the engineering, economics, and geopolitics behind uranium enrichment. Scott breaks down why advanced reactors can't scale without High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU), why the US outsourced its fuel supply following the Cold War, and how General Matter is building a domestic facility in Paducah, Kentucky, to replace Russian imports. He also shares lessons as an early employee at SpaceX, and why 1970s interest rates stalled nuclear. Full transcript on Substack: https://cheekypint.substack.com/p/the-company-building-americas-uranium Subscribe to Cheeky Pint Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2IHbGJJMpiFoz5YrvRfTFw?si=67be3e9b73f54b64 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cheeky-pint/id1821055332 Substack: https://substack.com/@cheekypint Key moments 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:41 America’s missing nuclear fuel 00:05:27 Why small reactors need stronger fuel 00:11:42 Can nuclear power the AI buildout? 00:15:25 Why nuclear became so expensive 00:22:24 The startups reinventing nuclear 00:25:31 General Matter’s race to 2030 00:29:44 Stripe Press’ new books 00:30:22 The SpaceX playbook applied to nuclear 00:35:18 Uranium enrichment, explained 00:45:53 How small startups beat stagnant incumbents