Opinion certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

DeWahl: NRC regulatory headwinds are overestimated today

Julia DeWahl · Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military · Nov 25, 2025 · at 16:44

Julia DeWahl, co-founder of micro-reactor startup Antares, discusses whether online criticism of Nuclear Regulatory Commission bureaucracy is still accurate.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I think it's an overestimated headwind, certainly today. I think if you go back five years ago, 10 years ago, for sure, I mean, they hadn't licensed anything in decades.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Julia DeWahl

Insight
DeWahl: Nuclear power must target premium buyers like the military and hyperscalers
“And so we believe, I believe that, you know, premium power is where you need to go with nuclear, and there's sort of like two, there's two places for that. One is what we're doing with Antares, which is go to the military, help them with mission critical need …”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 6:44 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Assertion Supported
DeWahl: 100% 24/7 solar and battery storage costs rival nuclear
“Actually to get true hundred percent, 24 seven coverage, the battery or the excess build out is massive. It is really expensive. It's on, it's like basically on par with nuclear costs.”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 22:19 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Disclosure
DeWahl: Antares is not using DARPA because micro-reactors lack fundamental technical novelty
“We are not working with DARPA mostly because it's actually not as technically risky as you might even think, like even. ... Like we actually, in a funny way, like it's not even really a tech problem. ... You know, I mean, it's hard to build these things, but i…”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 30:15 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Opinion
DeWahl: Three Mile Island accident was completely overblown
“Well, it was an accident, but it was not really a big deal. Like, this much radiation came out, it was like this amount of a chest x-ray. Yes, completely overblown.”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 44:19 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Assertion Not checkable as stated
DeWahl: Path for US nuclear reactor builds is clearer than ever
“There's just, like, so much happening where they're opening up federal land they're removing, starting to remove some of those, like, NEPA-type regulations that really just hold everything up so there is a clearer path now than there really ever has been for r…”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 8:23 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Assertion Supported
DeWahl: NRC rules now mandate licensing decisions within 18 months
“Right now, there's they've changed it to, you have 18 months to get your answer from the NRC. License or no license, like, do, do you pass or not?”
Julia DeWahl Nov 25, 2025 ▶ 17:48 Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, about 28 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.