Fact Checking a Nuclear Startup’s Claims

Fact Checking a Nuclear Startup’s Claims

A nuclear energy startup, Nano Nuclear Energy, based in New York, NY, issued a press release in mid-May in which the firm’s CEO is quoted in a trade press report as saying that said “all the necessary approvals are nearly complete” for construction and operation of an $150M HALEU fuel fabrication plant to be built at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory (INL) at the Materials Fuels Complex (MFC). The MFC, which is located at the old Argonne West site, is located about 25 miles due west of Idaho Falls, ID. The company’s statement was reported May 17th by Utility Dive, a nuclear industry trade press news website.

A spokesman for the Nano Nuclear reiterated in a call with Neutron Bytes on 5/20/23 that the resulting HALEU nuclear fuel plant, once built, would be “jointly funded and operated with the INL [at the Materials Fuels Complex] and that uranium fuel produced by the plant would also be sold commercially as well as being used for R&D purposes at the INL.

This announcement, and one issued last April announcing a “strategic partnership” with the INL, caught my eye since it was the first time I’d heard about these efforts. Significantly, in neither case was there a companion press statement from the INL or fact sheet, on the lab’s web site. As it turns out there is a reason for the lack of a public press statement from the lab.

As far as “approvals being almost ready” are concerned, building a $150M HALEU fuel fabrication plant at the Idaho lab site would require a federal environmental impact statement (EIS) and regulatory review and licensing by the NRC. Both processes are lengthy, costly undertakings. An EIS for a project of this size can take one-to-two years at a minimum. An NRC license for a nuclear fuel plant is also a multi-year undertaking even with no hiccups along the way.

DOE is if anything an overachiever when it comes to issuing public statements about any EIS.  DOE has neither completed nor initiated an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a $150M HALEU fuel plant to be built at the MFC. Given the intense attention the issue of HALEU fuel supply has in the industry, an EIS for a plant to build one at the federal lab site would have generated intense interest. DOE would not fail to publicize such a project. Yet, DOE was unresponsive to a request for comment on Nano Nuclear’s claims about its fuel fabrication project at the INL. A search on the Internet did not turn up an notice about one.

Note to Readers: There are several HALEU fuel fabrication plants that are announced most recently by TerraPower and X-Energy both of which are funded under DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

A document content search at the NRC ADAMS library, which contains the agency’s publicly accessible regulatory documents, has nothing submitted by Nano Nuclear this calendar year. In short, none of these “approvals” claimed by Nano Nuclear are in place, “nearly complete,”  or even pending approval.

In response to my inquiry about the press statement, a spokesperson for the firm said in a  call to this blog that the “CEO’s statement was taken out of context” by Utility Dive and that the firm had refined the CEO’s statement to now say that “applications for approvals” were nearly complete.” That’s a big distinction with a huge difference. It means the firm’s paperwork is incomplete and has not been submitted to INL, DOE, or NRC.

The firm also said it had subsequently contacted Utility Dive, which published the firm’s original press statement, asking it to retract the company’s original statement and to publish the refinement in its place. The original press statement wording remains unchanged in the main text of the story on the Utility Dive web site as of 05/29/23.

However, at the end of the story, Utility Dive subsequently added this note on its website: “Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the expected start of design work for the fuel fabrication facility. [James Walker, Nano Nuclear’s Head of Nuclear Reactor Development] Walker said it can begin in the next few months.”

Earlier when asked about the absence of any corroborating statements from the INL in the original press report, the reporter for the Utility Dive story emailed this blog on 5/20/23 saying, “INL has not disputed my reporting.”

In short, Utility Dive did not fact check the company’s initial claims. Given the scope and significance, e.g., building a $150M HALEU fuel fabrication plant, an announcement of this type should have triggered a call by the trade press staff to INL’s Media Relations office to verify it.

It appears that INL’s Media Relations staff didn’t know about the trade press report until Neutron Bytes sent them an inquiry about it. This week the INL office of Media Relations, responding to my inquiry, issued this clarification via email on 5/24/23.

“Idaho National Laboratory has been working with NANO Nuclear to review its microreactor design. INL is aware NANO Nuclear is working on a site use application for their fuel fabrication facility.”

“However, there are currently no agreements in place to site a NANO Nuclear fuel fabrication facility at INL and the process should be viewed as preliminary at this point. For more details about their plans, please reach out to NANO Nuclear directly.”

NANO’s First Press Statement About Working with INL

Last April the firm issued a press release that said it had signed a “Strategic Partnership Project Agreement” with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is managed by Battelle Energy Alliance for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The scope noted in the INL Media Relations statement above about the review of the firm’s reactor design matches the April press statement text.

According to the Nano Nuclear press statement, ”INL will provide an expert design review panel of the NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. proprietary “ZEUS” portable and micro reactor design.”

Over a 6-month period, NANO said, “INL will review technical information from NANO on its reactor design, siting, fuel, and decommissioning strategy and will organize a Panel Review Workshop to discuss numerous areas of the design. This review panel will provide recommendations on the current design as well as outline a path forward for further design and collaboration between INL and the Company. Following the review, INL subject matter experts will provide written feedback regarding design options, questions, or areas to explore.”

However, Nano Nuclear would have been better served if it had included confirmation details from a spokesperson at the INL in its April press statement. Going forward, the firm might consider including that kind of content as a standard practice.

In the end what we have with the May press statement are incorrect claims about a $150M HALEU fuel plant  by a startup business which were made without any corroboration by the INL.

When reviewed with fact checking, these claims turn out to be much less than what the company stated in the original. The process of validating these claims was not helped by Utility Dive’s initial indifference to the lack of a supporting statement from the lab about the project. The site’s post publication correction addresses the problem.

Bottom line there is nothing to indicate that Nano Nuclear is anything more than a business startup that in its enthusiasm got in front of its own headlights in dealing with the nuclear trade press. That’s not an uncommon phenomenon among early stage entrepreneurs. For instance, Transatomic basked in the spotlight of news media attention as a new nuclear startup, for a time, until it was disclosed its technology wasn’t going to work as planned.

Hopefully, Nano Nuclear will be more diligent in the future about the facts it puts in its press releases. Nano Nuclear has a long way to go before it and its investors will know whether its nuclear reactor and/or the HALEU fuel fabrication plant will be commercial successes.

Why is this Type of Fact Checking Important in the Nuclear Energy Industry?

• The Legacy of Idaho’s Invisible Nuclear Reactor Lives On

The basis for the skepticism noted in this blog post is an experience reporting more than a decade ago on a penny stock fraud scheme (pump & dump) in Idaho that led to SEC and IRS criminal charges against the principals of a firm falsely claiming to be building a nuclear power plant there.

AEHI’s CEO failed to show up for a court appearance in May 2015 and has been a fugitive since then. AEHI’s VP pleaded guilty, went to jail, and was directed by the federal court to pay restitution to investors. The entire scam was nicknamed “Idaho’s invisible reactor.”

AEHI’s PR firm, based on Boise, had an unusual ability to frequently cite the committed or inferred involvement of multiple large nuclear firms in its project without there ever being a similar press statement from those cited in AEHI’s releases. Two reactor vendors and several EPC firms found themselves having to deny any involvement in the project.

Its not that people weren’t warned about what AEHI was up to. Interestingly, anti-nuclear groups were among those sounding the alarm early on. In fact, AEHI sued the Snake River Alliance (SRA) who’s 20-something leader at the time brazenly the company a scam without any paperwork to prove it. She later turned out to be right and was exonerated by the courts as having engaged in protected free speech.

In a September 2007 visit to Boise then NRC Chairman Dale Klein, when asked about the AEHI project, commented that the agency had not received an application for a license from the firm. Klein had previously coined in a speech in June 2007 what became known, without his blessing, as the “no bozos rule” for new nuclear plants saying that the industry has no room for amateurs.

“My subject is something that each of the five Commissioners believe in, and have said before—which is this: owning a commercial nuclear reactor is not a business for amateurs. If the nuclear power business is treated with less than the seriousness it deserves—and people begin to think that anyone can just jump on the nuclear bandwagon—it opens up the very real danger of making the “wave” of the nuclear resurgence look more like a “bubble.” And bubbles have a tendency to pop.”

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